Rosie

"Being back here makes me hot in the face Hot blood in my pulsing veins Heavy memories weighing on my brain Hot and heavy in the basement of your parents' place You used to be so sweet Now you're a firecracker on a crowded street Couldn't look away even if I wanted Try to walk away but I come back to the start." - Hot & Heavy, Lucy Dacus

⋆.ঌ˚˖ ࣪chapter summary

ch1: back to the old house

But they’ve been chatting for too long. He hasn’t approached anyone else - just beelined for her the second he spotted her. And he’s got that goddamn smirk on his face. You know it so well. You had seen him use it on so many girls over the years and it always puts a sick feeling in your stomach because you know what it means and how it ends. He’s never used it on you. He never even needed to - you are his without it.

She’s a bit more out-there than Dean’s usual type, but it had been so long since you had seen him try to pick someone up, you can hardly tell the difference between what is or is not his type anymore. And there aren’t many girls in this bar anyway. Besides you, who Dean has clearly decided that he’s not in the mood for tonight.

You fight the bile working its way up your stomach and look away. The daylight outside is murky and grey, rapidly dwindling into nightfall. You figure there’s about an hour or two before you can leave without it causing a scene. You’re just going to have to stick it out until then.

You try to busy yourself with watching the pool game in your corner of the bar, observing the smooth, level motions of the men clipping the cue balls into the corner pockets, listening to the clicking sound of the balls crashing against each other. There are a few people gathered around to watch, passing green bills between hands. One of the men - the one who seems to be doing most of the winning - is young and not bad looking. He looks over to you with smile very close to the one Dean is currently sporting when he makes twelve of the fifteen balls on the table, eyebrows raised.

You consider going up and talking to him briefly, just for something to do. Just to make an effort to seem okay. Then you think better of it and take a sip of your beer instead, fighting a wince at the taste.

Dean is still talking to the woman. She’s laughing now and it’s high and girlish. She’s slapping his chest, which means he probably gave her some risqué compliment that she’s pretending not to like. His grin widens when she does this, leaning closer. He knows he’s got her now, you think, and avert your gaze with a heavy feeling in your chest. You’d rather not witness this next part.

“Get you a drink?”

You blink, looking over to your right. It’s the pool player. His face is flushed from the exertion of the game, chalk caked on his face from applying it to the cue tip. He has a dark complexion with bright, alert eyes. He is even more handsome up close, with the light on his face.

“I got one,” you say, picking up your beer and tilting it up at him. He smile widens.

“One you actually like.”

You shrug, vaguely aware he’s probably trying to jostle you into a quickie in the bathroom stall or something but not really caring. The beer is shit.

He doesn’t ask you what you want, just makes his way up to the barman with casual swagger. He clearly knows the barman because he’s served quickly, exchanging a bill for two beers.

When he hands it over to you, you note that this one has clearly been refrigerated where your last one hadn’t. And it does actually taste better. You probably got whatever shit they usually serve non-locals. 

“Never seen you here before,” he says, not really looking at you. He’s looking at Dean who is still busy making eyes at the woman at the bar.

“Just passing through.”

“Where you headed?”

“Road trip. I’m with my two friends.”

He points the neck of his beer over in Dean’s direction. “That one of them?”

“Yeah.”

He nods thoughtfully and looks over to you now, still smiling handsomely. You’re not sure what to make of him. He reminds you of a hustler in one of those old movies you used to watch as a kid; suave, confident, charming. Not charming like Dean is, but still adequately so.

“Where’s the other one?”

Sam is working late at a library nearby. “Fuck knows.”

He throws his head back in a laugh at that. You wonder briefly if it’s exaggerated to get into your good graces but it makes you smile regardless.

“You came to visit at a weird time, y’know,” he says, relaxed grin fading just a little. “Got some weird shit going on.”

“Oh yeah?”

He nods gravely and waits for you to ask. You do. “What kinda weird shit?”

“Bunch of murders. Real nasty ones.”

You raise your eyebrows, letting your face fall into what you know to be your most startled, aghast expression. He still appears solemn, but you can tell by the way he turns fully towards you that he’s pleased he got some sort of reaction out of you at last.

“Do they know who did it?”

He shakes his head. “Not yet. They’re all dying the same way, slit throats in bed. Started happening so suddenly, they think it’s someone from out of town. Figure they must be sneaking in windows or something.” When he says this, his eyes move back to Dean inadvertently for just a split-second but you catch it. You grin.

“Well you don’t have to worry about Dean over there,” you say. “We just got here today. I can vouch for him.”

He seems embarrassed by this, smiling across at you sheepishly. “Wasn’t trying to insinuate anything.”

You can’t help a laugh and it’s almost enough to forget about what Dean is doing. There is still a weight that feels like an anchor in your stomach, but you’ll think about it later. When you have five minutes alone in the shower, that’s when you’ll think it over and torture yourself with it until it loses some of its power over you. You’ll replay the memory over and over until the emotion is strangled out of it. For now, it’s enough for you to laugh with a handsome stranger and try to pretend that you still have some sort of dignity or self-sufficiency even though you know both were squandered the first day you set your sights on Dean. 

And you do laugh. He makes you laugh. You don’t even know his name and he doesn’t ask yours, but he’s funny and decent enough to talk to and doesn’t try to herd you over to the bathroom stall even after a good long while of talking.

“Buy you another?” 

You’re almost surprised to see your beer is gone. You hadn’t even fully realised you had been drinking it.

“Isn’t this my round?” You have no intention of buying him a beer, but you’re curious to see what he says. You’re playing with him a bit and you don’t feel great about it, but he seems like he can handle himself. You wonder if this is how Dean thinks about you.

Thankfully, he just holds up a big leather wallet to you, stuffed with chalk-stained dollar bills. He shakes it a little bit. “Made out good tonight. I can afford it.”

You’re about to make up some excuse, because you can see through the windows that the sky has gone from silvery to black and you feel you can safely make a break for it without causing any sort of scene - the motel is only across the road. But Dean is looming over you before you can get a word out.

You crane your neck, his green eyes meeting yours. His face seems to have no expression while he looks between you and your new friend. Nobody says anything for a while.

“We’re going,” he says, voice flat. 

You look back to the bar and can no longer see the blonde in the leopard print. There’s a burning in your chest and your throat at the idea that Dean most likely made a trip to the bathroom stall himself. She’s probably cleaning up in there at this moment, which is why Dean is trying to make a quick getaway.

A part of you would like to be petty and refuse to leave, but you can’t say you’re any more eager to see the blonde with her hair askew and deep satisfaction written into the lines of her face. Instead you turn back to the man and offer him an apologetic smile. He seems put out but not annoyed.

“You come back here tomorrow,” he says, smiling while you grab your coat. “That drink is yours.”

You don’t answer him. Dean grabs your hand as you walk out but you pull it away, pretending that you want to zip up your jacket. He gives you a weird look, but doesn't try to take it again.

You didn’t drive to the bar since it’s less than a five minute walk away from your motel, but you’re starting to really wish you did. Silence doesn’t feel as sharp when you’re in the car and the soft hum of the engine or the radio can drown out any awkwardness. You’re used to long stretches of silence in the car - it’s where you spend most of your time. 

There’s nothing to distract from the silence while you walk except the soft scratch of Dean’s boots on the gravel. You see him looking at you sideways every now and again but he’s trying to be sly about it so you’re giving no indication that you notice him. 

You do your best to show him that nothing is wrong, looking around you as if to pretend that you’re distracted and that’s why you’re not talking. You’ve always been the better pretender of the two of you, but you know you’re not quite playing this off right.

“Hear anything from Sam?” you say eventually, only because it is starting to feel like you’re about to explode or crumble apart in the silence. 

“Yeah,” Dean says. There’s a scratch in his voice that he coughs out. “He’s gonna be there another while. Says he’s onto somethin’.”

Neither of you acknowledge that Sam is probably just doing this to give you both the space to have sex before he gets back. He does this often enough, because the alternative is much worse. 

“It’s still open at this time?” you ask instead. 

He huffs a laugh. “Don’t think so.”

“Oh.”

The idea of Sam alone in a locked library with only a flashlight sends something uncomfortable through your stomach but you swallow it. If you say anything to Dean, he will just tell you that you always get like this - that you worry too much. And you don’t want to hear that from him right now. You’re not sure you want to hear anything from him right now.

You feel very tired all of a sudden. The seconds and minutes pass obliquely and you feel almost nothing - no sort of passion, no desire, not even any pain - by the time you’re back in the corner of your motel room. It’s like this night never even existed. 

The wooden chair groans when you flop down into it. Dean looks at you hesitantly, one foot inside the bathroom and the other outside, as if he can’t decide whether to ask you to join him in the shower. Ultimately he decides against it. He shuts the door after him very quietly.

The feelings flood back to you, scratching at your brain like rats in walls once that door closes. You listen to the shower in a sort of hypnosis, playing back the image of Dean with that woman in the bar until you can no longer stand it. You had thought that maybe it would get less painful each time, but it doesn’t happen. It’s like watching a movie again and again. You always notice something you didn’t pick up on the first time. One time, it’s the way he leans in to speak close to her ear. Another time, it’s a slow wink. You’re not even sure how much of this really happened and how much you have made up in your head just to hurt yourself.

Dean ties his towel around his waist in the very specific way that makes you go crazy. You feel his eyes on you but he messes around with some clothes, pretending that he’s not waiting to see if you have a reaction. You slip into the bathroom behind him, saying nothing. When you get into the shower, you don’t even begin to wash with soap . You just stand still under the warm streams. 

You can’t say that you’re not a bit disgusted with him. Sure - you had always known that this was a possibility. It’s Dean. But you had thought he might at least have a conversation with you before doing something like that. Had the decency to break things off.

The worst part about this whole thing is probably admitting to yourself that there isn’t really anything to break off - at least not from his perspective. You had never had any sort of conversation about ‘exclusivity’ or ‘feelings’ or ‘what does this mean?’. And it’s not like that wasn’t something you were aware of but- fuck.

You had always suspected that it was nothing to him, but you couldn’t tell how much of it was grounded in reality and how much of it was your insecurity talking. 

Because Dean doesn't act like it’s nothing. You guys fuck dirty, but then he’ll lean over to kiss you even when he has you bent over, like he can’t think of anything worse than having his lips separated from yours for more than a minute. You sleep together and eat breakfast together and he has told you about all the worst parts of himself. He puts his chin on your shoulder and wraps his hands around your waist and gives Sam the middle finger when he rolls his eyes. Then he presses multiples small kisses to your cheek and around your face just to piss him off more. Your poor, mangled heart can’t be blamed for turning this into something it’s not.

No - the blame falls mostly on Dean for leading you astray. For making you so irrevocably happy that it has destroyed you.

You say ‘mostly’ only because you should know better. You know Dean inside out. All of his hard parts and soft parts and the things he won’t say, even to you. And you know that he’s touch starved and needy and desperate for someone to hold him and understand him, even if he would never say it to a soul. But you also know about his commitment issues. You know all about them. So you must have known, even just in the back of your mind, that Dean was using this thing between the two of you as an outlet for his emotional and sexual desires, without wanting any of the commitment.

You’re not sure if you even blame him. You are convenient and you love him - that much is obvious to anyone with eyes. Who better to meet those emotional needs? It might not have been very fair to you, but you think you will eventually come around in a way. He clearly needed you, and you gave him what he needed. Eventually you might even learn to be happy that you were able to give that to him for a time. But not right now.

Right now, you’re staggering into lunacy. Your body feels brittle and scorched from the water but you still take a few moments to get yourself together before you can force yourself to get out and dry yourself.

When you walk out of the bathroom in your pyjamas, steam billowing behind your back, Dean is passed out on one of the two motel beds, eyes closed and breathing heavy. The lights are off but you can see him in the broken, neon lights spilling through a broken slat in the blinds.

When Dean is asleep, he has this small wrinkle etched deep into his brow - like he’s working out some problem. It gives him a perpetually perplexed sleeping face. He’s not aware of it, though. Right now, his face is smoothed out. No wrinkle in sight. 

You hesitate for just a moment, balancing from one foot to another, before walking over to Sam’s bed and getting under the covers.

You think you hear a soft sigh from the other bed - barely there.

You wake up with Sam’s large body crammed against yours. He’s snoring softly while you blink the sleep from your eyes. You try to heave his uncomfortably warm body off yours without waking him up. 

Dean isn’t in his bed and you try not to wonder whether he slipped out in the middle of the night when you didn’t put out - maybe he went out to meet that blonde woman again.

Whatever. Not your problem anymore.

The thought barely scratches the surface of your brain when Dean walks in, mud and gasoline caked all over his clothes. He is flushed from exertion and little specks of dirt are caught in his hair. So - not back from a one night stand. He quirks an eyebrow at your current predicament, easy grin splitting over his face. 

“You need some help gettin’ out from under Goliath?”

His teasing irritates you a bit, but you know it’s just because it’s early, you haven’t fully woken up yet and your limbs are aching from sharing a single bed with Sam. You nod reluctantly and he saunters over, slapping Sam over the head. 

Sam cries out, grumbling in confusion before turning over.

“I was trying not to wake him up,” you say sternly.

“I didn’t,” he protests. “Look at him.”

Sam is indeed passed out on his side, gone to the world. He’s already drooling a bit onto the pillow.  You’re fighting a smile while you get up, but Dean blocks your vision before you can start for the shower. 

“Y’know, he’s out cold,” he says, eyebrows raised. All of the stunted awkwardness of last night is gone. A hand reaches out for you and you let it fall against your waist without moving. You can only partially blame it on the force of habit. He smells like bitter brown earth and his eyes are bright with the exercise.

“I can see that.”

“Probably wouldn’t even notice if I joined you in there.”

You’re battling shock. The grin you were wearing while watching Sam is frozen on your face. He can’t be serious. He’s propositioning you? After last night? 

Last night had been the worst case scenario you had pondered while going back and forth on whether sleeping with Dean would be a good idea when you first started doing whatever the hell you had been doing. Dean realising he couldn’t be with just one girl - or maybe just couldn't be with you - and ending things. 

What you hadn’t realised at the time is that something worse than the worst case scenario existed. Something much, much worse.

The real worst case scenario is that Dean realises he can’t be with just one girl and disrespects you enough to keep you around to fulfil his needs when it’s convenient, knowing fine well what you feel for him. And it had just come true.

You feel very sick all of a sudden, but not with nausea. You have been stabbed with a steel blade knife before - it feels quite like that. As if your insides are about to all come pouring out. You keep them in, try not to let them spill out in front of Dean.

“Don’t think so,” you say, feeling your smile waver. “You know Sam hates when we do that with him around.”

Dean frowns, that quizzical little line in between his brows forming again. It makes him look sleepy. “Never stopped you before. We can be quiet. Don’t even need to do nothin’.”

“You look like you need your own shower,” you say, gesturing vaguely to the dirt and oily stains on his clothes. “I’ll be quick.”

You step past him before he has time to react. 

The whole time you’re in the shower, you can almost hear him thinking about you. Himself and Sam exchange a few low words that you can’t make out over the steady stream of the shower, but you can tell he’s talking slower. 

He clearly has no idea what’s wrong with you or why you’re acting different. He doesn’t even know that him hooking up with someone else is a problem for you. Part of you almost feels bad for him, but that’s a dangerous line of thought. The second you start feeling bad for Dean is when you give in to him, because you’re no stronger than any other woman he shoots those pretty, pleading eyes at. And it’s usually fine because he never usually asks for something you’re not just as eager to give. But this time is different. He might not know it, but he’s asking you to sign yourself away this time. And that’s not something you can do. Not if you want to keep your friendship with Dean and your sanity intact.

Sam staggers into the bathroom when you come out in your towel and Dean pretends to busy himself with Sam’s notes while you dress yourself. That uneasy silence from last night is itching at you again, growing between you every second.

“Where were you this morning?” you ask eventually. Dean looks over to you and blinks. You have your jeans on, but have not yet put your top on. His gaze flicks over to your bra for just a second before looking away again.

“Went down to the boneyard at the other side of town before the sun came up.”

You figure Sam and Dean must have had some conversation you were not party to, because this is the first you are hearing about a cemetery. You frown but don’t comment on it.

“What now?”

“We gotta go across state. To another churchyard.”

“Why? You didn’t burn the bones already?”

He bites the side of his cheek, looking sideways at you with a sheepishness written all over his face. “I burned someone’s bones, yeah.”

Your mouth drops open and a startled laugh falls out before you can stop it. Dean grins guiltily. “You burned the wrong bones? You, like, dug up a grave and burned the wrong bones?”

“Not my fault, sweetheart. Blame Sammy,” he says, leaning back with his eyes closed, crossing his dirty boots over each other and propping them onto Sam’s bed. He will get an earful from Sam for that later.

“He gave you the details of some randomer’s grave?”

“Not some randomer. It was our guy alright, but our guy apparently isn’t the one whacking people. It’s his wife. And she’s buried across state.”

You’re fully dressed now and Dean is looking at you again out of the corner of his eyes, like he’s not sure if he’s really supposed to. You take a seat on his bed, facing him where he sits on Sam’s. “How did you work that one out so fast?”

He shoots you his best relaxed grin and you groan. You call it his stormcloud smile, because it always precedes something terrible. He reaches down to yank the collar of his t-shirt past his collarbones and you see a gory red line, thick with congealed blood. It’s not fatal but it looks damn painful. “Crazy bitch tried to gank me.”

“What the fu- Dean, why are you only just mentioning this right now? Jesus Christ. Get Sam out of the shower. We need to wash that.”

He laughs, reaching out a lethargic hand to grasp your own. He strokes a thumb up and down the little veins on your wrist gently and you feel it in your stomach. He closes his eyes with a happy sigh once more. “You worry too much.”

You look down at his hand once, feel his calloused thumb on your skin. You let yourself be weak for only a couple of seconds. Then you gently tug your hand away from his and go over to shout at Sam through the bathroom door.

You wind up taking Dean to the hospital for a tetanus shot despite his protests. The injury itself doesn’t look like any deeper than the million others you had patched up, but it is dirty with specks of rusted metal caught beneath the thin, splintering skin. 

He gives up complaining by the time you manage to elbow him into the car. He nuzzles up on you in the waiting room. You feel a sharp tug of affection and then you feel nothing at all. You become as rigid as a plank while you try not to let yourself sink into him. Eventually he stops trying and you sit in silence that is not uncomfortable but not entirely companionable while you wait.

The wait is long enough that you are forced to delay your trip across state to the next day. Dean almost passes out in the passenger seat on the way back to the motel. The setting sun reflects off his face. It becomes a deep orangey red.

“Why are you so sleepy?” you say, attention split between him and the road. You pause for a beat. “You have sepsis or something?”

His laugh is tired. “What’d I tell you about all that worrying, sweetheart?”

“Dean, you’re literally passing out on a ten minute drive. It’s not even six o’clock.”

“Spending the night bodysnatching really takes it outta you.”

You frown. “You stayed up all night?”

“Sure. Waited for Sammy to get back, gave each other the 411, and went on my merry way.”

You’re not sure what information Dean might have had to exchange with Sam - having been in the bar that whole night with you. You don’t ask.

“Why? Why not wait?” you ask instead.

“Couldn’t sleep anyway,” he murmurs back, turning around slightly in his seat to signal that the conversation is over.

Dean didn't sleep again last night. 

He doesn’t tell you as much, but his eyes were open every time you awoke from a broken sleep with Sam almost knocking you off the bed with a gangly limb or sticking an elbow into your side. He blinks hard the entire drive across state, shaking his head every now and again like he’s trying to stop himself from nodding off. 

You sit quietly in the back seat and don’t complain that he is playing some Blue Öyster Cult song too loud. You see him looking at you every now and again from the rear view mirror and pretend you don’t. You catch a glimpse of yourself in the rear view mirror too. You just look like a small, jittery floating head.

Dean refuses to let you help with the digging despite the fact that his eyes are droopy and exhausted, but the bone burning is anticlimactic. You had been expecting some spanner in the works because you can’t remember the last time there wasn’t a spanner in the works on a job - but the ghost has only been terrorising the town she killed her husband in, not the one where she was born and buried. You will have to wait until you get back before you know whether it worked.

“We getting a place here?” you ask, yawning as the three of you make your way back to the car. Night had fallen by the time they started digging. It must be close enough to midnight by now.

“Nah,” Dean says, tossing the keys to Sam who catches them swiftly. “If it didn't work we gotta find out soon. Sammy, you drive through the night. I’m gonna sleep in the backseat.”

Your stomach lurches. Dean, who used to just sleep in the passenger seat, had taken to sleeping in the backseat with you when you two started your thing. He sometimes just says he needs a nap because he wants to cuddle and is too embarrassed to say so in front of Sam.

You look at Dean for just a moment. He’s looking back at you with a soft, weary expression.

“I’ll join you in the front,” you say, looking over at Sam. Sam raises his eyebrows. “I’ll do enough talking to keep us both awake.”

Sam says nothing, just twirls the keys around with his fingers and gets into the front seat. You can’t look at Dean when you get into the passenger seat.

You don’t talk to Sam like you promised. Your body feels hot and there’s a thick, mushy ache at the base of your brain. You can’t seem to talk yourself out of the violent guilty feeling that comes from catching glimpses of Dean in the rear view mirror. He looks very young like this; with his eyes wide and hurt and muddled. Eventually you watch the expression melt away as Dean slips into what seems to be a deep sleep, the perpetually perplexed line forming between his brows. You have the strange thought that this time his sleep is genuinely perplexed - that he’s trying to work out what’s going on with you.

“So,” Sam starts, checking the mirror to confirm that Dean is out for the count. “Wanna tell me what’s going on?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Your voice is dull. You’re almost just saying it to say it - you know there’s no real point in pretending.

“We’re not doing this,” he says. “You guys need to work this out because my sleep has been terrible.”

“Your sleep? I’m the one getting squashed every night. Are you aware that you’re a behemoth?”

Sam abruptly laughs. “Yes, I’m aware. Which is why I need the bed to myself. You and Dean fold up on each other like you’re just one person anyway.” 

Your chest aches at that. You put your chin in your hand, looking out the window even though it’s too dark to see anything.

“Did he fuck up?” Sam asks eventually.

No - not really. It’s you that fucked up, if you have to think about it. But you can’t say that. You just shrug.

Sam sighs. “He doesn’t know what he did. You gotta talk to him.”

“I know,” you say.

“No you don’t. You’re just trying to get me off your back.”

“I have you on my back enough overnight. Give me a break.”

He laughs again. Dean stirs and sighs in the backseat. 

Dean has always thought that he is the relationship equivalent to a Big Mac and fries. The idea of him is more appealing than the experience, and the payoff is always terrible. He’s never known anyone to not feel regret once they’re through with him. 

But it seems to him most of the time that you don’t see him that way. Yeah, you must know at some level that he’s not the relationship equivalent of a filet steak with a side of… caviar (Dean hasn't been to many fancy restaurants). But sometimes, when you’re lying asleep in his arms in the early morning and he watches you in the dotted glow spilling through the shitty motel curtains that don’t block shit, he thinks you might both have been cut from the same cloth. Like every other attempt he had made at happiness hadn’t worked out just because it wasn’t with you. 

You are the only right fit. And he knows nothing lasts, but he thought that maybe this might.

You read a lot of horror books. It drives him fucking nuts. He complains about it all the time and tries to mask the fact that it’s just because he wants your attention. 

“Don’t you see enough of that shit already? What you want more nightmares for?” he asks you and you smile and joke that you’re doing research - as if Stephen King or any of those other dumbfucks know the first thing about real demons. Hell, those books are like chick-flicks compared to some of the shit you’ve seen together.

But once he gets over the initial sting of losing your attention, he will watch you. He sometimes sits there for some amount of time that is most definitely too long, just watching your eyes move left to right on the page, your lips just barely twitching as if you’re stopping yourself from mouthing the words.

It makes him imagine the two of you, side-by-side in your own bed rather than a rickety motel bed. The two of you don’t really have ‘your own bed’ - you’re on the road too much - but that doesn’t matter. It’s his daydream and he says it doesn’t need to be burdened by reality. 

You’ll read your horror books and Dean will catch up on all the books he never read at school so he’ll read the Lord or the Flies or To Kill a Mockingbird, but only until 10 o’clock sharp, because he needs to be up early to drop the kids to school in the morning and he wants to love on you before sleeping. 

He won’t admit that he’s only reading those books so he can talk to the kids about what they’re learning in school and you’ll never say it either but you’ll both know. 

He does this until you give him a strange look and call him a creep. Then he goes back to bothering you; tries to get your attention by pressing soft kisses to your neck or trailing his finger up your thigh lightly, just the way you like. 

He refuses to do any of the fancy bullshit when he showers alone because he’s a man and he doesn’t need to exfoliate, or whatever the fuck. But also because, if he did, then you wouldn’t join him for showers anymore, and he wouldn’t get to feel you slide that stupid scratchy glove over his skin or drag some thick goop through his hair and put a ridiculous pink polka-dot shower cap over his head because he needs to ‘let it soak in’. 

He pretends it bothers him, just like he pretends it bothers him when you stand between his thighs and massage serums and moisturisers gently into his skin like you’re giving him a facial. You both know it’s a charade when he grumbles about how it’s a waste of time but you put up with his boorishness because you know he can’t accept nice things any other way. You both play your parts perfectly. You’re always happy to pretend you’re making Dean do this and it makes his chest almost ache with both affection and the knowledge that he could live a million years and never truly be able to deserve you; to deserve this. 

In reality, you both know he likes feeling your hands on his skin with that innocent, loving sort of care. Touching him just because. Because “you’re going to look like a leather purse in five years if you don’t moisturise, Dean”. Because you want him to feel good and relaxed when he gets back to some shitty motel feeling like the life has been sucked out of him. Dean has never been touched just because before. He’s been touched for carnality and for injury but not just because. Never just because.

He lets you pretend that it bothers you too, when he starts making jokes about how it’s your time for a facial. But he sees the corners of your mouth creak upwards even as you roll your eyes and tell him he’s gross.

But he can see why it would be too much for you. He has to give it to you; you put up a good fight. You really did. But a person can only eat a Big Mac for so long before they get sick - or whatever the fuck the saying is. You have handled it beautifully in the time you had. Better than anyone else he had ever given the chance.

There was a sort of gravitational pull, when he first met you. He had tried so hard to fight against it but it took him kicking and screaming. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t stop himself from getting close to you. Even the knowledge that he ruins every good thing he touches had not been enough to keep himself from being drawn to you like a magnet.

This, right now, feels the same. Like there is some sort of gravitational pull, but this time it’s working against him. He can’t seem to stop you from slipping through his fingers. He would get down on his knees and beg for an explanation if he were a less proud, less stubborn man. Or maybe he’s just scared of how you’d answer. But as it stands, he thinks maybe he will just have to accept that you’re being pulled out of his life the same way you were pulled in. He just wishes it was less gradual. You crashed into his life like a wave, and you’re being pulled out like a current - slow and steady and devastating. And he doesn’t know why. But he has a few guesses. 

Because Dean is the first person to admit he’s a fuck-up when it comes to you. Like when he watches you stand between Sammy’s outspread thighs and your hands work his face with that same gentleness that you use to put those weird moisturisers on Dean, even though you’re just disinfecting a wound or bandaging him up. Sometimes, at his worst and most ugly, his stomach splits with an aggressive mash-up of possessiveness and anxiety and plain, simple fear. It doesn’t matter that Sam’s hands are planted firmly by his side rather than on your hips or that there are far more clothes involved in these scenarios than in any between yourself and Dean. That violent beast still makes an appearance. Dean will kick up a fuss like a kid, complain that you’re running out of time, even when he damn well knows you have nothing to do. He’ll accuse Sam of being dramatic and accuse you of being overbearing. But he always apologises after. Never explains, because you know it all already. Just apologises.

He had the same feeling when he came back from getting information from that woman at the bar. And Dean is no prude but he was sick from the start because all he could do was wonder how this woman is so fucking okay. Obviously he intended to coax the information out of her with his best fuck-me-eyes, but he still couldn’t understand how she was able to flirt and giggle less than a week after her husband’s neck was slit in bed.

Because if that was you - Dean wouldn’t make it through the week at all. He understands how hypocritical that is, because of all his talk to Sam about ‘getting back out there’ and ‘she’d want you to be happy’ after Jess, but it’s true. He wouldn’t make it and he wouldn’t want to.

But then he got distracted by you. And the widow fucked off, haughty and insulted by his wandering attention, but he didn’t care because there was some pool hustler sitting there and trying to buy you a drink and that old beast came back out, even when he tried his best to contain it.

He’s not sure whether that pool player showed you just a glimpse of something better or if hiss jealousy scared you off for good. Maybe it’s best that he doesn’t know why you’re pulling away. Because he is acutely aware of the fact that he would spend the rest of his life trying to fix it, even if it is unfixable. 

Even if you were done with Dean just because he is Dean, he would spend all his waking hours trying to figure out how to be less Dean-like. 

So it’s best not to know.

You move on to the next town without much fuss once Sam identifies a new case. At one point, Dean asks with crude sarcasm whether you want to say goodbye to the pool hustler from the bar. You take a few seconds to try to remember who he is talking about and don’t answer. The question is cruel and confusing.

He stops trying to show you any sort of physical affection beyond an arm around the shoulder which should relieve you but doesn’t. You’re not sure what you had been hoping - for him to beg and apologise, maybe - but it doesn’t happen. And you can recognise that it’s probably a good thing, too. If he had dropped to his knees and apologised and begged for forgiveness, you know you would give in. You wouldn’t have a choice. He has you trapped on a leash that is long but incredibly taut.

But, having forgiven him, you’re not sure it’s something you could ever fully work through. You would always know that he chose someone over you, if even for a little while. It would make you question everything. You’re not sure you could ever be with him without expecting him to leave.

So you move on - or you try to. You sink down the hurt with the hopes of becoming immune to it. You try not to think too much or feel too much. You let Sam and Dean do most of the work themselves, jumping in only when asked for. When there’s a TV in your motel, you go to the nearest thrift store and pick up some old VHS with Richard Gere or Meryl Streep in it until you slip into a mild sort of twilight zone. Other times, you read.

Most of the time, you’re just exhausted. Even Sam’s annoyingly large frame knocking against you in beds that are far too small for two people can’t stop you from sleeping well into the day.

Almost three weeks on from pool and beers and leopard print women, you check into a new motel. The ceilings are low with wall-to-wall carpet that feels a bit sticky under your feet, but the bed linen looks clean and unstained. You collapse on one of the beds, looking at the ceiling and vaguely wondering whether Sam is going to have to crane his neck to stand inside.

But when you look at Sam, he’s seated on the other bed. And he’s taking off his clothes, cramming his items into the bedside locker. He meets your gaze and raises his eyebrows, as if daring you to say something, and you understand emphatically that you’ll be sharing a bed with Dean.

The two of them flock around you, changing clothes - you think Sam showers - but you don’t move your eyes from the ceiling. Your gaze on it is like a lighthouse beam while they move around in your peripheral. You can’t wait for them to leave so you can disappear into your echo chamber. You’ll fight with Dean in your mind, tell him how you feel and how deeply he’s hurt you before slipping into a corpse-like trance and not thinking much about anything for the rest of the night. But all that will have to wait until they go.

“Coming for a drink?” Sam asks plaintively. He sounds like he’s talking to a kid.

“Not feeling it tonight,” you say, as if you had joined them at all in the last three weeks. Every time you consider it, leopard print flashes in your mind and you dig your heels in. “You guys go ahead, though.”

“Sweetheart, come out for one drink. It’s just across the road.” There’s a thin edge of irritation in Dean’s voice, despite the pet-name.

“I’m not feeling it,” you repeat, finally looking away from the ceiling and over at them. You feel the ice water in your voice and so do they.

Sam backs away to the door, mumbling something about ‘I’m just gonna-’ and leaves you in the room alone with Dean. You assume he is heading over to the bar.

“That’s a loada crap,” Dean bites, hardly noticing Sam’s departure. “You’ve not been feelin’ it for the last month. Come and get a soda if you want. Don’t just sit here and mope.”

You stare at him. You try to be angry at his casual cruelty - the way he’s acknowledging what he’s done to you and essentially telling you to get over it - but it’s hollow. You’re mostly just at a loss. You are resigned to the fact that ‘the conversation’ is about to happen and it’s probably overdue. But there isn’t a word in this world about this particular subject that you’d like to share with him - you have nothing to share that doesn’t make you look weak and wretched. You suppose he knows it all anyway.

“I don’t know how,” is what you land on, finally.

Dean hesitates, icy stare melting. A beat passes and he lies down beside you on the bed, grabbing your hand in his own. You feel his touch deep in your stomach.

You are both staring at the ceiling for some length of time and it feels very much like how you were before any of this started - before you complicated anything. You can’t decide whether the feeling it gives you is good or bad. After some time he says, “You have nothin’ to worry about, sweetheart. I can handle it.”

Your mind goes around in circles, trying to make sense of his meaning but coming up short. You try to apply his words to everything that had happened between three weeks ago and now, but nothing fits right.

“What does that mean?” you ask softly.

“It means you don’t have to feel… guilty, or whatever. I’m not gonna pretend it doesn’t kill me ‘cause it does. But it kills me more to see you walking around like a fuckin’ zombie. And you don’t gotta worry about me. I’m a big boy. I can take care of myself.”

You blink, struck into silence. That nagging feeling that you should be angry resurfaces - because Dean thinks you should feel guilty? - but it’s once again empty and defeated.

“You still there?” Dean probes gently.

“I’m here,” you say. “I don’t feel guilty. I don’t know why I should feel guilty.”

You’re still not looking at each other - both of you staring straight ahead. But you can hear the hurt in Dean’s voice. “Then what’s all the moping for? I thought-”

There is another stretch of silence.

“My feelings are hurt,” you say. He has won and you’ve come clean. It feels terrible. Your stomach is tight and sore. “I knew it was a possibility but I thought you would at least tell me before you… y’know.”

Dean leans up now on one arm, crouching over you. You feel his eyes on your face but don’t look at them.

“Before I what? I don’t know. You’re gonna have to help me out here, angel. I’m in the dark. Been in the dark for weeks.”

You don’t see how that’s possible - how he could have missed such direct cause and effect. And Dean is a liar when he needs to be, but he’s not lying about this. You know.

“The woman, Dean.”

“What woman?”

“There’s been more than one?”

You don’t bother trying to hide the twisted and hurt look on your face - it is coming out in your voice, anyway. Your insides feel like minced meat.

“There’s been none, if I’m picking up what you’re putting down.”

Finally - finally - you look over at him. You expect to see a sad, wry look on his face, or maybe just guilt. But Dean is smiling.

“Then I don’t think you’re picking up what I’m putting down,” you say firmly. “I’m talking about the woman from the bar. In the leopard print. Blonde.”

Dean is still smiling but he looks perplexed. He shakes his head.

“Jesus, Dean. In that town with the crazy ghost wife. In that bar with the pool player.”

You’re horrified that he can’t recall. You hope this doesn’t mean it was a regular occurrence throughout the time that you had been sleeping together.

“The fuckin’-” Dean laughs, full-bodied and blithe. “The fuckin’ widow?”

“How the fuck would I know if she was a widow?” you snap. You’re ready to sit up, but he pushes down on your shoulder, like he’s suddenly enjoying this. It’s not how you saw the conversation going.

“That was the woman Sammy showed us. Remember? Her husband’s neck was slit the week before. The first case.”

You turn your face away from him again, indignation melting away from your face while you stare straight ahead at the cracks above you. You’re playing it all back in your head; the lean-in, the whisper in the ear - or had you invented them? You can’t remember now. But you remember his face when he spoke to her - the smoky grin. That much you hadn’t imagined.

“What the hell are you-” you start.

“I didn’t touch that lady. I was on a stakeout.”

You frown. There’s a dull ache behind your eyes and Dean is still grinning.

“You don’t give me that smile. The one you gave her. You never do.”

“What smile?”

You do a poor imitation of it, lip poking up at the corner. It feels grotesque even on your own face, like you’re masquerading a good attitude when this is the expression from all of your worst memories of Dean picking up random girls in bars while you were secretly pining for him. He laughs and the mock smile drops from your face immediately. You move to leave again, but he grabs your arm.

“I’m sorry, sweetheart. I’m sorry. I just- I didn’t even know I did that until now. But you’re right, I don’t give you that look.”

Your heart plummets. You can’t even look at him when you give him a curt nod, trying to yank your arm out of his grip. Tears are dangerously close.

“You know why?” he continues. You wish he would stop fucking smiling. You shake your head.

“‘Cause it’s phoney as hell. There are certain things a man will do to get information or to pick up someone for a night. Cheap tricks. I never wanted you for a night. I want you for all my nights. Days too.”

“Oh.”

There’s an apology in your tone but Dean doesn’t acknowledge it. He just mimics your ‘Oh’ and laughs again like some sort of joy junkie, flopping back on the bed. You go back to staring at the ceiling again and lapse into silence. His chest is gently heaving.

“Thought I lost you for good,” he says gently, once the initial gaiety fades. “I can’t believe you thought I would-”

You breathe shakily while shame and sheepishness swirl in your stomach. You’re glad that you’re not looking at him right now - you can only see the cracking, yellowness of the ceiling. Dean sighs, continuing.

“Sweetheart, there’s nobody else for me. I guess this is my fault for not making that more clear. I would never do that to you for as long as I live. You’re mine, aren’t you?”

You nod at the blistering yellow plaster, a prickling behind your eyes. “Yeah,” you say. Your voice is wobbly. “Yeah, Dean, I’m yours. I’m yours. God, I’m so so sorry-”

“Slow down, angel-”

“I just got the wrong end of the stick because you were talking to her and you were making that face and we never really spoke about, y’know, exclusivity so I just assumed, but I should’ve just-”

“Sweetheart.”

You stop. When you look over at Dean, he’s looking at you too.

“It’s okay. We’re okay. I’m just- fuck. I’m so… I love you.”

You do cry then, one short, abrupt sob tearing through your body. “I love you too.”

He reaches out and puts one hand behind your back, pulling you into him and pressing a small kiss to your neck. You can almost feel him deflate, his body coming home to you. His hands quiver and press tight, rubbing up and down your back. You wonder, in that moment, how you ever could have thought that Dean would give himself to someone else. He was made for you.

He leans away from your neck then, mouth meeting yours, pressing against your shallow, shuddering breath and nothing matters.

Dean texts Sam to let him know he’ll need to get his own room for the night. He shows you the reply.

SAM: Gross. SAM: Glad you guys worked it out.

You’re mildly embarrassed, but that only makes Dean laugh. He has been on a high since you talked. He is very flippant about the whole thing - not taking it at all personal that you shut him out based on an assumption. He says he is just relieved that you have come back to him.

You poke at him - almost prodding him to be mad at you. You sure would be, if the roles were reversed. But he just rolls his eyes and jostles you into the shower. He doesn’t tell you that he’s missed the way you wash his skin and his hair, but you know.

For once - just for this one time - neither of you play your parts. He doesn’t grumble about your body wash or facial cleanser or exfoliating glove and you don’t pretend you’re forcing it on him. He just closes his eyes with a dopey smile, hands never leaving your waist unless it’s to brush a hand through your hair or squeeze your ass. You don’t admonish him for that either just for this one time. He’s hard as a rock the whole time - he always is - but he doesn’t try anything in earnest. 

Not until you leave the shower and curl up against him in your duck-egg coloured bathrobe. Your skin is warm from your shower and from Dean’s flesh pressed against your own. His eager hands fly around your body, gripping your thighs and palming your boobs while he presses his desperate lips against yours. He speaks against your lips rather than pulling away.

“Fuck, angel. You have no idea…” he murmurs. “Never thought I’d be allowed touch you like this again.”

The way he’s kissing you is slow and dirty, probably a bit too much spit passing between lips but you’re too hazy to care. The hand that had been caressing your breasts over your bathrobe now goes to the V-shaped neckline of your bathrobe. He draws it down with a fist, loosening the tie around your waist with his other hand.

He stops kissing you only to glance down at you, now fully exposed to him. Dean is hardly faring better - he is in only his underwear, but it is practically transparent with how firmly his cock is straining against the fabric. He looks at you for a bit too long, his throat working.

“Can’t believe you kept all this from me, sweetheart. For weeks. Fuckin’ messed up.” He leans down to take a nipple into his mouth and you gasp, back arching up. Your hands go to his wide shoulders instinctively, encouraging his movements. “Was having wet fuckin’ dreams. Kept forgetting you weren’t-”. He stops himself, mouth moving to the other nipple, tongue moving expertly against the thin skin. He’s trying not to kill the mood.

“Dean-” you sigh. Even his hand on your waist feels like something rattling through your bones.

“Yeah, baby? You miss me too?” He looks sly, peering up at you while kissing down your stomach. His lips are hot against your skin.

It is almost criminal how pretty he is. You’ve always thought it - how could you not? Every girl who has ever caught sight of him even once thinks he’s pretty, but not every girl has seen him like this - bleary-eyed, menacing and lovelorn - holding your eyes while he licks and sucks his way to your thighs. You know Dean is experienced, but you would very much like to think that maybe you are the only one to ever see that look on his face.

He nips gently at your thigh, dangerously close to where you need him. You jump a bit and instinctively try to clamp your legs together, even with his head in the way.

“Asked you a question, sweetheart,” he says, nipping at the other thigh.

You had been too busy looking at his pretty green eyes and stupidly handsome face. You try to think back about what he asked you.

“Missed you, Dean. Couldn’t do anything without you,” you say.

“Yeah?” You can’t see Dean’s mouth but you feel his cheeks round against your thigh while he kisses there, thumb brushing just alongside your hip. You’re wiggling around unintentionally, desperate for some kind of friction. “She missed me too, huh?”

He brushes his thumb against your clit. Featherlight. Barely enough to feel.

But oh, you feel it. You gasp out, clutching his hair just to tether yourself to something. His breath is warm against your core.

“Yes! She missed you. She missed you so much.”

Dean raises his eyebrows from below. You refuse to refer to any part of your body in the third person until he has you well and truly gone - teetering off the edge of sanity. He bites your ass cheek playfully, making you jump. 

“Fuck, yeah. Bet she did,” he grunts, eyes on your face which is tight with sweet agony. “Never gonna go cold on me again, are you?”

You shake your head wildly. You might whisper ‘Never’ a few times, or maybe it’s just ringing through your head. His head props up out of your thighs for just a moment with a radiant smile. 

“Good girl,” he says, and you can hardly process what those words do to you before he’s diving down again, mouth working against your pussy, one finger pressing its gentle way inside.

You can’t help it - you cry out. It feels like an electric current. It had been so long.

But your mind is still working overtime and you still can’t get rid of the seed of guilt suspended low in your stomach. This feeling - the feeling of him sliding his tongue against your clit while he nudges his finger in slow but hard - is far more than you deserve.

“I think you should- fuck, ah- I think you should let me take care of you instead.”

He doesn’t move his mouth from you. He just continues to lick and suck, sending stars straight from the sky and into your eyes. But he looks up at you quizzically, as if to check whether you’re serious.

“You’re- shit- fuck,” you gasp, unable to concentrate. You might be slurring a bit. “I’m the one who should be making it up to you. I want to do something for you.”

That’s when Dean removes himself, propping up to look at you with a tricky, dark smile. His mouth is slick and shiny which sends heat to your face. “You’re fuckin’ adorable. You think this is for you?” he asks, tongue poking out to lick at his lips. Your eyes follow it. “Quit worrying so damn much and be good to me. Let me take what I need. You got a lot of making up to do.”

If his words were not enough to tear a moan from you, then the way his mouth meets your cunt again - desperate and sloppy but proficient - would have done the job. “Are you real?” you ask. Dean laughs against you. It doesn’t do much to help your problem.

The problem being that you’re about to come. Embarrassingly fast and - from what you can already tell - embarrassingly loud. You might usually make an effort to stifle your moans, but you know exactly what Dean wants and that is to hear you. You owe him that. He’s lapping at your cunt with vigour, taking breaks every now and again only to speak to you.

“So fuckin’ sweet,” he groans. “Jesus, sweetheart. You got any idea what you do to me?”

You’d probably make some lame joke about how he’s the one doing things to you right now if your brain was still in the vicinity. You can only whine in response and hope it’s sufficient.

“You’re so cute when you’re about to give it to me,” he says, fingers pumping and curling. “Y’go so dumb and needy.”

When his mouth meets your clit again, you fly off the edge. Your cunt clenches around his fingers and you shake and whimper while Dean tells you what a good girl you are and admires how well you’re doing for him. You feel him smiling against you.

You never really come down from that high - you’re horny again, instantaneously. His fingers are barely out of you when you pull him up from his position and begin tearing frantically at his underwear and the bathrobe that is now just hanging loose from your shoulders.

He smiles, even while his eyes darken. “Another one? Already?” “Gimme a break,” you say. “I haven’t gotten off in three weeks.” You can hear the high whine in your voice, but it doesn’t immediately register as an issue. Maybe you’ll be embarrassed about it tomorrow. His cock is standing proud up against his stomach. You perch yourself on his lap while he sits up against the headboard, bare crotches just inches apart.

“Three weeks? Shit,” he laughs. “I’ve been jackin’ it in the shower every other day. No wonder you were all pouty.”

“Shut up,” you whisper, pressing a short, messy kiss to his mouth and raising your hips up so you’re rubbing against the underside of his cock. You’re soaking him. His cock twitches against you and sends a small thrill up your spine, but you don’t give much away.

Dean grunts, face pained. His grip on your hips tighten until his knuckles are stretched white. You’re clenching against nothing, body protesting at having his cock - which you had been thinking about for three weeks straight - so close but not inside. You push it away and grind down against him, because he looks so pretty and needy like this, glistening eyes turned upward to look at you. 

You look down because you know he will follow your gaze. You slowly lift your hips upward, dragging your heat against him until you reach the head. You stay there for a moment, just letting the tip graze your opening before sinking down slightly, just barely letting it notch inside, your body humming with energy. He releases a choked breath and you’re not sure if it’s a reaction to the sight or the sensation.

Whole body demanding otherwise, you lift yourself off. Dean makes a tortured, protesting noise, squeezing your hips while you move down on him again.

You do it again, let him graze your opening, let it notch inside you the slightest bit. But this time, when you try to pull away, Dean uses his leverage on your hips to nudge the first few inches of his cock all the way in. A noise catches in your throat at the unexpected intrusion at the same time that Dean groans. Your stomach lurches.

“Fuck me, sweetheart. You get tighter on me?” he asks, voice strained. His eyes are stuck on where you’re taking him. You sink down a bit further, ignoring the initial burning stretch of the breach until you are taking him all the way. The stretch is overwhelming. It always is. His face twists and he gasps.

“Think you’re just needy,” you whisper, grinding down laxly. You’re teasing him, but you can feel your body becoming more pliant by the second, slowly releasing control to him. His hands guide your hips.

“Damn right I’m fuckin’ needy,” he grunts. “You got any idea what it was like goin’ without this tight little hole to fuck for three weeks?”

Stars are exploding behind your eyes at the stretch of him. He could fuck you a million times, but you’ll never get over how perfectly he fits inside you - how the tip of his dick hits a spot that makes you go dumb and satiated in a way you had never been with anyone before him.

“Gonna need an answer, angel,” he says and he knows he’s being cruel. He smiles at you in that way of his - one side of his mouth curving slightly.

“I don’t know,” you moan, hating him and loving him.

He’s fucking you in earnest now - thrusting up from below, hands grinding you down on him. You are trusting him with your body the way you always do and Dean rewards you for your sweet submission to him like he always does. With mind-numbing pleasure.

“You don’t know?” He presses a soft kiss to your collarbone in direct opposition to the harsh way he’s pushing into you. A rough thumb is brushing on your clit and you clamp down on him, feeling your wetness spill around him and drip past his balls and onto the sheets. “Don’t know that I was in hell for three weeks? That I was so horny my balls hurt? That I was waking up with dirty dreams and fistin’ my cock in the shower while you were in bed with my fuckin’ brother?”

Your mind is whirring, trying to keep up with the information you’re being offered while his hips meet your wetness with a dizzying rhythm. You feel a little stupid.

“I didn’t know. Dean, fuck- I’m sorry.” You think you might be crying tears of pleasure. You can feel them on your cheeks.

“Sh sh sh,” Dean cooes, not all that kindly. “S’okay, sweetheart. Pretty pussy came back to me eventually, didn’t she? Missed getting stuffed with me. And you’re never gonna keep her from me again, are you?”

“No. Never again,” you whisper, eyes rolling back.

He stops thrusting quite suddenly, slowly sliding out of you. You feel his absence immensely, stomach clenching in protest. “That’s my girl,” he says patronisingly, with a sloppy, lazy grin. 

He has you under him then, before you can really think about it. Your left cheek is pressed firmly into the pillow, the weight of it forcing your mouth open slightly. Your back is arched, ass presented to Dean who is knelt behind you. He gives your ass a single, loving pat and then he’s sliding in again, groaning as if it was the first time.

It feels deeper like this. Maybe it should be painful how far he’s pressing into you but you’re always so wet when it’s Dean and right now you’re wetter than you have been in your life. You moan so obscenely that you are momentarily embarrassed, but every noise you make urges one from Dean, and that’s a trade you’ll take any day. 

“Jesus-” he chokes out “Hot - wet - tight fuckin’ cunt. Gonna fill this pussy every day from now on, angel. Fuck you dumb. Never gonna let you think those silly little thoughts ever again. This pretty hole is the only one I’ll ever need.”

His hips meeting your ass is creating a brutal, rhythmic song. The sound of it alone would be enough to get you there, but Dean’s words have you gushing.

“I missed you,” he confesses, breathless. “Missed you so much. How you feel around me- fuck, angel. You feel so good.”

You’re almost glad that Dean can’t seen your face like this. The dumb, fucked-out expression you’re sure you’re sporting. You clench down so hard, you almost see stars.

“I missed you too,” you babble. “Missed having you inside me. You fill me up so good. Dean, I’m gonna come.”

He twitches inside you once and then he’s leaning forward, grabbing your face roughly with his hands and squeezing your cheeks with his fingers. His chest is pressed up against your back and you are twisting back, but he doesn’t stop thrusting into you.

He kisses you, deep and dirty. There’s too much spit and your tongues keep missing each other because the angle makes it difficult, but the torridness of it sends you over the edge, gasping and whining loudly into his mouth. When you pull away, a string of spit still connects you. Your eyelids flutter open and you look into his pretty green eyes. Dean comes.

“That’s it, baby, there you go,” he gasps, shaking. “Fuck. I love you so much.”

You’re still coming as Dean spills into you. You can do nothing but meet each other’s eyes while he pumps you full. A veil of starlight is painted behind your eyelids.

You’re sticky and slippery with sweat, your wetness and Dean’s cum by the time his thrusts begin to shallow out. Your exhausted body slumps against the bed, satisfied to stay there for the night, except Dean pulls out gently and eventually coaxes you to get up and do stuff like pee, brush your teeth. You do it all in a trance.

When you both settle back down, you leave a kiss on his clavicle, lips against skin. He smiles and strokes down your spine. His hand is in your hair, just holding you against him. Your upper thighs are still sticky and your leg that is pressed against Dean’s confirms that his are too. You can feel the slow, strong tinkling of his heart against the skin of his chest. You have a theory that he still doesn’t quite believe that this won’t be taken from him again tomorrow, but you’ll wait for tomorrow to prove him wrong.

“Might need another shower,” he slurs, even as you both float away to sleep.

a/n: they are both so dumb... they pmo even though i was the one writing them lmao

🏷 everything taglist: @buckysbbydoll @donuelle @angelryex @kombuchaaaaa @dollfaceglow @vip-hs

🏷 dean taglist: @soullessambs @leyra-giovanni

at the age of ten you’ve dropped that ideology the moment you saw a doctor rush in from the er and into the back of an ambulance in a speed unlike any you’ve seen—and you decided you wanted to be like him, too. 

you’ve stuck to that answer until you were about sixteen, then you decided you wanted to become a photographer who has her own studio at an apartment in brooklyn—and for the most part that’s what you truly planned on pursuing, but practicality had other plans.

your knuckles were beginning to sting after forcing it open as you typed away on your computer, hunched over the keyboard like a shrimp. you’ve already drank god knows how many red bulls but you were nowhere near done with heaps of paperwork and presentations you have to catch up on.

this isn’t where you imagined yourself to be. you were in a big city, sure—and you’ve got a somewhat high paying job—but this isn’t the version of your lifelong dream you wanted to spend the rest of your career in. this isn’t the situation you’d want little you to see whenever the ghost of her decides to come visit you in your dreams tonight. 

your parents have always given you the freedom to be whoever you wanted to be, whatever career choice appealed to you the most—whether it be a mortician or a snake milker, your parents were always behind you on every decision you made.

but practicality over passion loomed above your head like a stormy cloud that won’t leave, and now you’re stuck finishing numbers your co-worker should’ve done weeks ago—though it seems like you’re the only one responsible around here—and you’ve got a bunch of other deadlines to chase after, like a fish chasing for the bait stuck in a never ending sea. at least fishes are free to swim around as they please and not get stuck in a suffocating cubicle.

letting out another heavy sigh, your fingers wrapped around the cool surface of the canned beverage shoved in the corner of your desk before taking a hefty gulp. if you were going to suffer and wallow in your decisions, the least you could do was to keep yourself energized. as your fingers hovered over the daunting keys that stared back at you in what you like to imagine the same tired expression as yours, you heard someone call your name from somewhere behind you. 

“hey! we’re gonna be heading out for dinner, you wanna tag along?” trisha, the first person you’ve ever talked to since joining the company and, admittedly, your only friend around these parts, was already halfway through the glass exit of the office, blazer in one arm and another co-worker holding tightly against the other, when she invited you to join her. she looked at you expectantly, a kind smile playing on her lips. 

she had always made an effort to keep you included in things—no matter how big or small—she made sure to invite you or tag you along with whatever she’s got going, as long as the both of you were free. you could tell it was one of the only things left that’s keeping her tethered down to earth, lest she goes insane. and honestly, you weren’t far off from that too.

a part of you desperately wanted to clock out earlier than you usually do and not stay overtime to let yourself indulge in a little treat and eat out somewhere good—maybe chinese takeout or thai— and give yourself the rest you desperately need. but, you didn’t really feel like getting into any form of conversation right now, you needed to finish this spreadsheet. 

you mirrored back a warm smile of your own, “sorry, i’ve got a lot to catch up on. maybe tomorrow?"

“aww, alright. don’t work yourself too hard!” she waved, before peeking her head out from the exit one last time, “or do, go get that bag, girl.”

with an exasperated sigh and your head in your hands, just as quick as she momentarily pulled you out of work, you were face to face with the daunting, glowing screen of your monitor. 

your eyes felt heavier the second you lifted them up to read the numerics and alphabets on the screen, that dreadful weight heavying the already awful pressure resting on your shoulders. the job you currently have was thoroughly, and utterly draining out the life out of you—and you’re sure no amount of ibuprofen can pull you out of this one.

in a fit of pent up rage finally surfacing up and out onto the tips of your fingers, you tried to drink your woes away with another sip of the caffeinated drink beside you. instead, the can slipped from the pads of your palm and spilled onto the desk, dripping its contents down on the drawers and the floor below. 

cursing lowly to yourself, you pushed the wheels of your office chair backwards—the tires screeching softly against the waxed floor. you plucked a piece or two from the tissue box on your desk to start drying up the mess you made, and just when you were about to begin wiping the floor clean, the drawer on the bottom slipped open, revealing the contents that hid within it.

amidst the dozens of haphazardly arranged random colored folders and extra stapler bullets, was the letter your grandfather gave you a few years back, sat comfortably in silence.

visions of your memories of him rekindled in your head, back to when you visited him on weekends in that sweet quaint town he used to live in, and the last words he said to you on his deathbed as he handed you the letter you were currently ogling at like it was something otherworldly.

“open this envelope whenever you feel the weight of the world dragging you down.”

you pursed your lips, hands reaching down still smelling of red bull, and the tight air around the office started to wrap around the space of your cubicle specifically.

suddenly the buzzing of the air conditioner was too loud, the clacking of keyboards from your co-workers who decided to stay behind just like you were louder than you remember, and the light still radiating in front of you glared anticipatingly.

the contents of the letter was a mystery to you, hell, you surprised even yourself for holding off on opening it for this long. you didn’t find any need to be curious about what’s inside for a long time, since the world used to spin around under your feet before atlas suddenly decided to transfer its weight to you.

in a sudden change of events, the letter now rested in your grasp like it would be the answer to all of your problems. and a part of you silently prayed that it would—prayed that the almighty stars up above will finally give you something that could bring flavor to your stale world and make you feel alive again. you’ve been feeling tired and empty, even without acknowledging it yourself—and you already knew you have been for a long, long time. 

the envelope’s flap crackled as you flipped it wide with shaky hands, and the first sight of your late grandfather’s handwriting brought you a wave of nostalgia. like the paper in your hands was the most valuable thing ever, you lifted it out from its sleeve carefully, hesitance coursing through you.

another piece of paper fell onto your lap as you held the letter, your deadlines and spreadsheets long forgotten. it was the deed to your grandfather’s piece of land and the title to his farmhouse in the country. you couldn’t stop the startled gasp that left you, because sure, you expected a message from your grandfather, but you surely didn’t expect for him to include the deed to his property. 

“oh my god.” slowly, your eyes continued to widen, both in shock and overflowing gratitude, before tears began welling up in the corners of your eyes—threatening to spill and roll down your cheeks. your heart clenching at the thought of your grandfather caring for you this much definitely reduced you to a sobbing mess right here in your office cubicle.

the sound of your computer’s motherboard whirred in the background as you read the message written like a founding fathers', eyes sharper than ever and mouth going impossibly dry.

my dearest granddaughter,

when we least expect it, life sets us a challenge to test our courage and willingness to change. i want you to remember to never let life become a burden to you, it is not a problem you immediately ned to have an answer to, it is meant to be enjoyed and celebrated. never give up, you are a strong-minded girl, just like your mother.

i’ve enclosed in this letter the deed to my place, my pride and joy: the family farm. it’s located in pinefall valley on the southern coast. it’s the perfect place to start a new life. whenever you are ready, the place will be there waiting for you with open arms.

this was my most precious gift of all, your grandmother insisted i leave it in your hands instead of letting it rot away in the hands of others, and now it’s yours. i know you’ll honor the family name, my girl. best of luck. 

love, grandpa

being the cautious person that you were, you weren’t sure if this was the right choice to be made. you’ve spent a good chunk of your life nursing the dream of finally living in a big city—and now here you were, complaining about it just seconds ago like it was a ball and chain attached to your ankle, pulling you further and further down the pit you’ve willingly jumped into. 

with an unsteady exhale, you pressed your eyes closed and basked in the office air one last time—unwilling to give yourself the time to dwell on your decision—because you knew the second you start rethinking, you’re bound to start reconsidering things and before you know it you’ll be back at square one. 

you breathed in through your nose and shut your eyes to clear your head—this is it. you needed this. you need a fresh, clean start. and if you’re gonna find that in the middle of buttfuck nowhere, then so be it.

on a rainy early sunday morning, you left brooklyn with a hole right in the middle of your chest. as much as this city brought you most of your problems and made you impossibly homesick on some days, it was still the dream, and dreams are a hard thing to forget—especially when they come true. 

you weren’t only forfeiting an apartment and a job in exchange of living a new life—you were leaving behind everything you’ve worked so hard for for the past years leading up to now. it’s definitely a lot to be dropping, even with a hefty resignation payout. and you didn’t even have the chance to bid trisha a proper farewell—you hoped she could forgive you.

the bus was empty when you stepped inside. aside from the hooded guy situated at the far end of the vehicle, it was only you and the conductor exchanging glances and smiles before you decided on which corner you were going to sit and spend your next five hours on.

you guessed it wasn’t anyone’s interest to visit a small town that’s probably not even on the map, its name reeked of old-fashion—rugged around the edges. given how there wasn’t anyone lining up to visit the place, the place has probably been forgotten by time. hadn't it been for the fact that your grandparents lived there, you would’ve never managed to find the small town of stonefield even if you were with the greatest pioneer in the world.

as you expected, the sights on the way were nothing short of breathtaking. it felt refreshing to finally see the world outside of the four walls you’ve gotten so used to seeing—from the trees to the dozens of lakes you’ve passed by and admired from behind the bus’ windows—your life was beginning to breathe back in color, number by number.

it was beginning to feel very much like a hallmark movie. you—a career-focused woman from the city moves to a quaint small town, but you’re yet to meet a charming local who would swift you off your feet.

despite the feeling of anxiety ebbing at your chest—you could feel excitement slowly bubble up in the bottom of your chest, this could either be the worst or best decision of your life, and you’re beginning to feel confident that it’s going to be the latter.

you arrived at pinefall valley at around three in the afternoon—the wind gently blew against your warm cheeks as you clutched the handle of your suitcase nervously. you picked up your phone to look at the map you pre-downloaded before getting on the bus because despite being nervous about ditching your city life for a much calmer provincial one, you were also very nervous about getting lost and eventually ending up on television.

creepily enough, you didn’t pass by anyone on your way to your grandfather’s farm—you don’t remember this place having a large population anyway, but it was still unnerving to see the lack of people at this time of day. shrugging off the unsettling feeling from your shoulders, you pocketed your phone the moment the rocky and gravel filled roads began to fee familiar to you. as the old worn-down keys jingled inside the knob and the door swung open—you breathed in the air only the countryside could offer.

on the front porch sat boxes that contained some of your stuff that probably arrived the day before by the moving company, and you let the sight before you sink in as you stepped foot on the property. it was left the same way as you remembered—with a few unfamiliar things here and there, of course. there were a few baby photos of you hung up on the wall, a hopefully working sink and kitchen counter, a refrigerator, a television, a furnace, and a cozy bedroom that housed a queen-sized bed. 

“this is gonna be a lot of work.” you murmured to yourself, already mentally taking note of all the things that could use some rework. 

the place wasn’t the biggest one out there, but it was home. it still sang of a life that was once alive and breathing—and you were determined to bring it back to its former glory.

the first week in a new town didn’t bring you anything eventful. you haven’t gotten around meeting the townsfolk and all the wonders stonefield has to offer, and you’ve mostly cooped up working on your farm.

your days were primarily filled with you clearing out the enormous plot of land that could probably house four other homes just like the one you were currently living in. how rich exactly are your grandparents? there was an abandoned greenhouse to the left of your home. it needs a lot of renovation and a ton of money, but you figured if harvesting crops was your main source of income, it would probably be a good thing to invest on while you still have the funds to do so. 

clearing out rocks and grass patches was never something you’ve ever considered doing in your entire career, everything felt new to you. however, strangely enough, you couldn’t find it in you to stop. it brought comfort to you in ways your previous office job couldn’t offer, it didn’t matter if it left you boneless on your bed at the end of the day.

while cleaning, you’ve also discovered a cave filled with fruit bats along with a shortcut that you aren’t too sure where it leads to yet somewhere between the road to the greenhouse and your home. the place wasn’t just big, it was full of mysteries, too. hopefully the bats won’t be too much trouble, though.

the rooster from the neighboring barn has long since cawed into the ripe morning air, signalling that the sun has risen and it’s time for another day filled with cleaning up the land. but after a particularly rough day yesterday, you wanted to stay in bed for another hour or two, you’re now your own boss—a little sleeping in wouldn’t set you back too much. 

but as you rolled over to the other side of the bed, blankets comfortably wrapped around you like it too didn’t want to let you go—three loud consecutive knocks pounded on your door. 

knock! knock! knock!

with a tired groan, you rubbed your eyes and slipped on your slippers to make your way towards the door. who could possibly want to visit you at this hour? but a better question is; why would there be someone knocking at your door? you never left the farm even once, and you haven’t introduced yourself to anyone, is this how tight-knit communities are?

you hastily swung the door open, your messy hair and untidy appearance the last thing on your mind.

standing in front of you, was an elderly man, maybe late fifties or early sixties, and his head was slightly balding. he wore a kind smile on his lips and held a basket in his hands, and upon seeing you, his mouth stretched into an even wider grin.

“g’mornin’! i didn’t disturb you or anythin’, did i?”

you scrambled your still sleepy brain for a response, “n-no! not at all sir. i was just about to get ready for the day!” 

“i see,” with a chuckle, the man nodded in understanding. “let me introduce myself. i’m the mayor of stonefield; everyone here calls me arthur. word's gotten ‘round a new face has made its way to town and is now living in the abandoned farmhouse. i had to come see it for m’self!” 

you tipped your head up in understanding, “if that's the case then yes, that’s me! i’ve never gotten the time to roam around town just yet—so i don’t really know anyone right now.” you sheepishly explained, hands twiddling the side of your pajamas, “the farm’s been taking up most of my time since moving in.”

it's true. you've been cooped up in the property for the vast majority of your first week in stonefield, the closest you've gotten to leaving the place was walking near the edge of the fence that bordered between your farm and the outside to take out the trash—and even then, you've only managed to see a few people pass by.

he let out another hearty laugh before continuing, “oh well, it’s nice to have someone finally take care of this place, the previous owner who lived here was a good friend o’mine.”

“you were friends with my grandfather?”

mayor arthur’s eyes seemed to widen at that, he looked like he was about to drop the basket in his hands. “you’re norman’s granddaughter? oh how fast you’ve grown! last time i saw you, you were no taller than my hips! if i knew it was you who was moving in, i would’ve arranged for a proper welcome.”

you laughed, chest warming at the sight of seeing your grandfather’s friend still alive and kicking. you couldn’t remember who he is—you were very small when you met mayor arthur, after all—yet it was still comforting to see a face that once appreciated your grandfather the same way you did. 

“anywho, i jus’ wanted to give you this small welcoming gift. it’s a few packets of tomato seeds and a scented candle. s’not much, but i’m sure it’ll remove the smell of dust in the air.” 

“thank you! i appreciate it, i promise i’ll be sure to check the town out as soon as i could.” you kindly smiled, taking the basket from his hands.

“alright, i’ll leave you to it, then. have a good day!”

the wooden floorboards of the porch rattled underneath his leather boots with each step he took further down the stairs—allowing you to breathe out a sigh of relief. you figured you should get ready to begin another day of cleaning, and getting a gift from the mayor certainly was an unexpected way to start your morning.

back in the city, you usually woke up at around five in the morning to let yourself get ready for about an hour, after which you’ll find yourself something to eat from your painfully bland pantry—however if you are in a hurry you grab whatever’s the first thing you see on the streets on the way to your office—before getting ready a second time, by fixing your hair and makeup.

you leave your apartment at seven and arrive at the office at quarter till eight—a full thirty minutes early before your shift starts. for the entirety of the morning, all you can hear are the distinct clicking sounds of keys and whirring of printing machines—and maybe you’ll catch wind of the occasional gossip from your co-workers, but that’s a post-meeting exclusive rather than a daily occurrence.

after lunchtime activities are no different, except for the fact that you’re working on reports and proofreading haphazardly-made documents. you stress on about missing meeting notes until evening, and by then you’re too tired to eat anything decent, so you grab chinese takeout on the way back home.

now, all your eyes can see until the far distance are rocks, trees, shrubs, and more trees. it’s certainly a culture shock to be going from seeing computer screens on a daily basis to staring at rocks for more than an hour or two, but you like to think it’s a good change.

you’re in love with the idea of planting your own produce and eating the fruitions of your labor, and maybe you could share them with your future-friends-slash-neighbors, and you could all share and appreciate the fruits and vegetables you’re going to work so hard on tending to.

wiping the sweat rolling down your glistening forehead, you shoved the gardening shears you found inside the shed beside the farmhouse down to the ground to let your freehand dangle freely. you’ve managed to clear up enough space to plant the seeds mayor arthur gifted you this morning—it was already around ten in the morning and the next thing on your agenda is visiting the town as promised.

right after ridding yourself of your gardening clothes, you padded into town feeling slightly nervous about the environment you’re about to walk into. you’re no stranger to people’s judgments, and usually, they don’t bother you at all—but given the circumstances and how you’re fresh out of a job from the city—you’re slightly restless about what everyone in town would about a girl who had it all and traded it for the south coast life.

the general goods store was bigger than you thought, there were racks of produce in one corner, a handful of gardening supplies in the other, and a bunch of necessities and snacks were in the other surrounding shelves. you made a beeline for the seedling packets sitting right next to the leafy greens and started looking for squash and corn seeds, since they were vegetables in season right now as per the seasonal produce guide by snap-ed you’ve graciously educated yourself on beforehand.

“good morning.”

a sultry voice suddenly pulled you out of your reading on the back of the packets, causing you to let out an involuntary squeak in surprise. because you’ve been so engrossed—you didn’t notice the man in a turtle neck standing by the vegetable rack. he greeted you with a warm smile and a hand still holding a cabbage.

“sorry, didn’t mean to scare you.” he carefully apologized, “i wasn’t sure how to approach you, but it’s nice to see the face everyone’s been talking about.”

nervously, your eyes drifted down to your feet before going back to his face. “wh-what do you mean?”

“it’s not everyday someone moves into town. so word about a city girl moving in spread fast.” the man turned to fully face you, face still holding that warm smile.

only then did you notice just how much he was towering over you—he looked like he was well over six feet. his auburn hair was combed over professionally, and his biceps were still visible even under all that fabric. he wore an endearing grin to match his pretty cerulean irises that put the blue skies above to shame, he was handsome. hallmark movie it is, then.

“i’m bucky, i work at the local clinic right next to this store.”

“o-oh! i do remember passing by a clinic, it’s a pleasure to meet you!” you replied, biting back the nervous laughter you would’ve let out and possibly embarrass yourself with. you gave him a small but kind smile back along with your name, now fidgeting the packaging of the seeds in between your fingers.

“how are you finding the town so far?”

"it's—it's nice... i haven't gotten around seeing the whole place, i mean i'm in the middle of doing that right now. but so far everything's really lovely and cozy. i really like it."

"so you haven't gotten a tour?" bucky's face almost looked pleased upon hearing those words come from you, before his lips dropped into a tiny frown. "i'd love to show you around, but you know—duty calls. i've got a home visit this afternoon with the elderly couple down the road, mrs. donovan. a lovely lady with an even charming husband." he punctuated his words in a tone you could only describe as teasing, and you couldn't keep the laughter that bubbled up from your chest.

bucky, looking very pleased with himself, leaned onto the vegetable rack with confidence. watching you with eyes that were nothing short of mesmerized.

suddenly, an equally burly and muscular man appeared from around one of the shelves, presumably the owner of the store. his hair glimmered blonde from the light that came in from the store's windows, giving his head an almost ethereal crown of locks.

"buck! quit loitering by my brussel sprouts and get your ass—oh my! it's the new girl!" he cut himself off from scolding bucky, voice sounding like an overworked parent who doesn’t have any time to deal with his teenager’s bullshit right now.

"sorry, i thought he was doing something else.” the blonde apologized, turning his head to squint at bucky accusingly. “is my friend over here giving you a hard time shopping? don't worry, i'll kick him out for you."

the brunette clicked his tongue, "steve, is this how you treat the town doctor?"

steve, or at least that’s what bucky called him, elbowed him right in his side, causing the doctor to recoil in faux pain.

"wow, a new face 's in town and you're already giving her a bad first impression. i was just trying to tell her about all the very lovely people we have ‘ere, y’see she's not that familiar with the area."

steve rolled his eyes, ignoring his best friend's teasing to continue looking at you. almost as if he was trying to memories every feature on your face. "oh, and you'd just love it if you could show her around, won’t you?"

"actually, while i would love to do just that, i've got an appointment with esther. which you would know if you even tried to listen to our conversation. and for the record, i wasn't loitering. i was about to buy these cabbages."

“sure you were.”

bucky lightly shoved steve’s shoulders, keeping the atmosphere light with his oh-so charming personality. “get back behind the counter, rogers. you shouldn't butt into other people's very private and very personal discussions, you know.”

steve gave him a flat look before retreating back to where he once stood, muttering a small whatever with annoyance evident on his face. as you watched him retreat to his post, bucky looked back at you with the same grin he’s been giving you since you first uttered a word to him.

“i’ll be the first to head out, city girl. i lost track of time and i’ve got abouuut—five minutes to walk to mrs. donovan’s house before our appointment starts.” he exclaimed, all most disappointedly. “it was nice talking to you.”

city girl. for no apparent reason, you felt your stomach do somersaults at the nickname. you’ve just met the guy and somehow he’s already making you feel things that causes your cheeks to redden. in embarrassment or endearment—you’ve yet to see.

tentatively, you pulled the hem of your shirt down to try and rid yourself of the feeling of butterflies in your stomach, the sound of his voice echoing in your head and etching itself onto the ridges of your brain. “what about your cabbages?”

“i just said that so he’d get off my back, but i’ll buy one of these soon.”

your laughter echoed inside the store one last time as his lips stretched into another smile, your cheeks were beginning to ache with how much you’ve been enjoying yourself in his company, no matter how short lived it was.

“it was nice talking to you too, bucky. i’ll see you around.”

“definitely.”

with a smile, your eyes followed his frame as he began to widen the distance between the two of you snd ounded a shelf to make his way towards the door. he gave you one last glance before his hands pushed the doors to the store open, and you watched his back disappear as the distance between you two grew. and just like that, the store went back to its quiet state from a few minutes ago.

you walked up to the register with a small skip in your step this time, one hand holding the seed packets and some fertilizers in the other.

“find everything you need?” steve asked, his hands busy with handling all the stuff you bought. “i hope my friend back there wasn’t too much trouble.”

“yup! and no, not at all. he’s actually very nice.”

“that’s what they all say, wait until you see him when there’s one slice of pizza left.” he joked, pulling out a paper bag from underneath the counter. “a rabid animal, that one.”

“you guys are close?”

“we live in a small town, everyone here’s close with each other.” he teased, “but i get what you mean. we’ve been friends since diapers, bucky’s basically a brother to me. that’ll be 19.99.”

steve watched you reached into your pocket to pull out your wallet, hands flat on the counter and a curious glint in his eyes. he wondered what could’ve possibly caused a city girl like you to move down to a town as hidden as stonefield—but he figured he should hold off on the questions for now.

“oh! i never got to properly introduce myself. my name’s steve rogers. but steve’s just fine. i’m the owner of this establishment.”

you gave him your name in return as you handed the exact amount, hands holding the paper bag in your arms like you were cradling a baby, “it’s nice to meet you, steve. i think i’ll be seeing you often.” you joked, head slightly nodding towards the array of fertilizers and gardening tools.

steve laughed and nodded politely as you turned around to walk toward the exit of the place. you realized the tension you felt since the first moment you took a step into the store was long gone, now replaced with a feeling of relief and comfort. you were surprised with how quickly you were growing accustomed to the new environment, but it’s no surprise since everyone has been nothing but kind to you.

you craned your head to look behind you before pushing the doors wide, grinning politely. “thank you for the fertilizers!”

steve lifted his sturdy hand into the air to wave you off, “come back soon!”

the fresh stonefield air wafted against your face the second you stepped out into the open. you figured you could take a quick stroll around town and take a peak at the beach downtown since you could vaguely make out memories of you fishing there with your grandfather when you were young.

the streets were no longer empty when you started walking along the cemented path, children were now playing amongst themselves in the playground that was situation in the middle of the town. and there were a few people sitting atop benches talking amongst themselves. the trees were quietly dancing along with the breeze—and you could distinctly make out the sound of waves crashing against the shoreline the further you walked into town.

eventually, the smell of saltwater invaded your senses as you stumbled across a beach with pristine white sand. the sun blared, heating everything in its wake as its rays of sunlight illuminated every space under its watchful vision—your skin welcomed the warmth the big star in the sky ever so graciously gave it, making the harbor sitting by the ocean towards your left the only thing that could offer you shade.

your feet collided against the grains of sand resting beneath the soles of your sandals, warming the calluses and skins in between. you don’t remember the last time you’ve been to the beach on your own accord—you’ve never had the chance to.

it somehow felt weird to be in somewhere so mundane and presumptive yet foreign at the same time. you’ll have to come back here on a different day to properly bask in the beautiful waters this town has been keeping hidden from the world—free of the horrors and corruption you hope it would never experience.

upon closer inspection, the harbor turned out to be a fish shop. you were craving some fresh fish, since your palette has been nothing but leftover stock of food from your previous grocery shopping back in the city—it was only natural you’d want something else for a dish.

the bell sang in the air the second you opened the door; the deck's decrepit timber material squeaked with each step you took. the shack felt like it was derelict and had deteriorated from all the years it had watched gone by; the place could probably be a family heir loom at this point—yet simultaneously it looked as sturdy as ever.

you meticulously trudged inside the shop with the paper bag still in hand, gazing at all the paintings of the ocean hung up on the wall, along with the replicas of certain fish decorated across it as well.

there wasn't anyone manning the counter when you arrived, and upon your arrival, someone was yet to appear behind it. you lightly tapped on the bell that sat right beside the register and the cup of fishhooks, hoping to find someone to talk to and happily buy fish from.

apart from the sounds of waves kissing the sand like a ritual it has known since the beginning of time and the squawking of seagulls from somewhere around the dock—you could almost hear a pin drop with how quiet things are.

you were about to turn around and come back some other time before a girl clad in jeans and a shirt emerged from the back door, dusting off the fabric of her top with hasty fingers.

"hi! sorry for the wait, haul just came in. you're in luck—today's fish is fresh from the sea!"

the lady seemed like she was about to tell you more about today's catch but upon closing in against the counter, after getting a good look at your face—her eyebrows furrowed in thought and her eyes narrowed as if she was trying to recognize you.

she hummed, the sound causing you to straighten your back. "i haven't seen that face before, you must be the new girl everyone's been fussing about."

they really weren't exaggerating when they say this place doesn't get that many visitors.

“i’ve been getting that a lot.” you awkwardly laughed, fixating your view on one of the framed sardines sitting idly beside the fishing rods.

“it’s such a pleasure to meet you! welcome to town! my name’s sarah wilson, i would shake your hand right now but i figured you wouldn’t be too fond of the smell afterwards.” sarah chuckled, continuing her endeavors of cleaning her shirt that seemed to have a speck of some sort on it. “so, what can i do for you today, miss?”

you pointed towards the crate of groupers towards her right, a wave of saltine wind gushing through the open windows of the fish shop clashed against your cheeks as you spoke. "can i get three pounds of those?"

"certainly! let me go wrap it up for you."

you left the store with the smell of fish still smothered on the tip of your nose, yet somehow it mixed in just right with the briny wind of the beach.

because you were new in town, sarah gave you a discount for the bag of groupers you bought. without even knowing your name, she's already found her way through your heart with a price too good to be true for three pounds of fish. and with a lighter heart than when you first came into town, you strode away from the dock grinning to yourself—excited for your future visits to the wilson fish shop.

you're fitting in just right with the community. you realized after a few months that you’ve spent less time counting the days until you lose the feeling of missing the city and more time tending to your crops like they were your mission in life—and they might as well be.

after what months of pondering about your direction in life, you were at a place where you believed you are truly happy with yourself. your sense of belonging was finally becoming, piece by piece.

it was another fresh start of the month, and by now your face has already been memorized by the locals with how often you've been leaving your farm compared to when you first got here. you are, after all, their new source of farm-to-table fresh vegetables.

your routine consisted of waking up before the sun rises to clean up the leftover debris by the green house, to watering and tending the crops, to clearing out some more area of the farm. you finish at around twelve pm, and by then you go and visit the town to talk and interact with all the lovely townsfolk.

you've gone from acquaintances to close friends with sarah who runs the fish shop with her brother, sam—who happens to own the saloon—and wanda who owns the ranch down the block from your farm. you've also met natasha, who you've come to find out is the local carpenter and owns a home hardware store just behind your farm.

steve's also grown accustomed to your face after seeing you almost weed out all of his fertilizers within a month, and you've grown quite a bond with the store manager over rising produce demand.

much to your dismay, however, you've run into bucky less times compared to them. only seeing him whenever both your schedules permit you two to do so—but you figured it comes with the job of being the town doctor and the town’s self proclaimed greatest farmer.

but still, on the occasional event you run into him down the street on the way to the store or the library, you always made sure to give him a warm smile and wave at him to which he waves back at you in return.

bucky, on the other hand, has interacted with you exactly fifteen times in the past months, including checkups. he’s been counting every moment—and not in the creepy way—he ran into you and you’ll flash him that pretty smile of yours he’s always somehow itching to see.

normally, bucky’s got his cool always in check—his nerves calm and his hands steady. but lately, like a boy with his first crush, he has to chew his lip every time you spoke to him to stop himself from stuttering out a reply back.

he could physically feel his cheeks warm up and the tip of his nose go red at each time you compliment his clothes for the day. whenever his stethoscope draws close to your chest to hear the thumping of your heart, his own organs roars loud in his ears and he ends up hearing his own rhythmic beating in the process.

he’s found himself walking into steve’s store more times than he needs to in hopes of catching a glimpse of you around the vegetable section. and maybe he’s been going down to wanda’s ranch to “check out the cows” because suddenly he’s very invested in whatever the chickens and barn animals are up to, and maybe he’s caught himself borrowing books at the library despite having the exact same copies of it back at the clinic just to gamble on the idea of you being there at the same time as him.

underneath the collected facade he’s put on is a man whose cheeks turn pink at the thought of you.

if only his schedule would allow it, he’d visit you on your farm and bother you with whatever’s on his mind at the moment. but for now, all he could do was wallow in his feelings at the saloon—his hand clutching an almost half empty mug of coffee—and the person lucky enough to be the audience of bucky’s misery was none other than sam.

“you gotta face this head on man." sam pushed, wiping a glass. "how about you try visiting her farm. y’know, bring her some of those dishes you've been making for us. the fastest way to a woman’s heart is through her stomach, barnes.”

bucky took a sip of his coffee with a sour expression, eyes glued somewhere between the barrels of rum behind the bartender in front of him.

“i don’t know, what if she finds it weird?”

sam scoffed, “now where did all that charm you’ve been boasting about back at steve’s go?”

“i just—i want to do this right... she gets along with everybody pretty well, and i want her to be the same with me.”

“steve told me you two get along just fine.”

bucky chuckled lowly, his arms folding onto the table with. “i go all red in the face with just a quick glance from her. it’s like my body’s reacting before i could even think about what to say.”

his thumb circled the rim of his mug as he pursed his lips, his eyes carefully traced the ripples of the brown liquid inside the ceramic before continuing. “y’think i got a shot at taking her to the flower dance next month?”

sam, too focused on mixing up the cocktail order from another client, only lifted his eyes to gaze behind bucky, head not moving an inch “yeah i do. but why don’t you go ask her yourself?” he smirked.

bucky felt his feet run cold the second he heard footsteps approaching the bar counter, heart racing at speeds he's absolutely sure cannot be healthy. he looked at sam one more time who mouthed go get 'er, tiger before focusing on the drink in his hands like it wasn't almost empty and you weren't approaching the bar counter.

he straightened his slumping shoulders the second your fingers landed on the surface, face now plastered with a lazy grin. "well if it isn't my favorite city girl."

you raised an eyebrow, "you know any other city girls?"

"no, jus' you. but you're still my favorite."

you laughed as you slid into the stool beside his, "it’s nice seeing you here!" you cheerfully greeted, instantly lighting up the room with your presence—or at least in bucky’s mind that’s exactly what you did. in the corner of his eye, he can see sam's smirk grow into a playful grin before hurriedly turning around to tend to another customer. "do you come here often?"

“gotta let loose somehow.” he replied, bouncing his left foot up and down to try and quell the sudden spike of adrenaline his heart’s been pumping out the second he laid eyes on you. sam’s never gonna let him hear the end of this—so he’s giving his all to put on the charming front he’s carefully curated.

“tell me about it. as much as i love my grandfather’s farm, it’s really a pain in the ass to maintain.”

“i’ve been told the place has been looking better than ever.” bucky replied smoothly. in all actuality, no one told him that. he’s noticed it himself each time he purposefully passed by your farm on one of his morning jogs. steve teased him for suddenly taking a different route from his normal one, but the doctor kept on insisting he’s always been going down that path.

he’s even caught you working away at the farm—your back facing him, knees flush to the ground and your cheeks stained with dirt. hands pulling apart the weeds on the ground with vigor as sweat dripped down to your clothes.

bucky thanked that the sun was nowhere near out when he witnessed the sight before him, the lack of light obscured his face from being seen. he felt a deep admiration for how hardworking you were. and by the end of the jog, his brain was already replaying the image of you over and over again.

“really?” you lit up instantly, “it’s good to know that i’ve at least got some amount of progress after breaking my back for months.”

you gave sam an order of sliders and a side of mozarella sticks before continuing your conversation. after declining an offer for a drink, you turned your focus back at bucky, who was giving you a look that spent your nerves in a frenzy.

“if you don’t mind me asking, what brought you here to little ol’ stonefield?”

you shrugged your shoulders with a smile, “wasn’t a big fan of the life i was living back at the city. i tried convincing myself that living in new york with a nine-to-five job was the dream i’ve always wanted.”

bucky sat in silence, attentively listening to you talk about the life you used to live back then.

“and then i—rummaged through my office drawer one day and i found a letter from my grandfather. it had the deed to the farm and i just…booked it and ran all the way here.“

“you look a lot happier than you did the first time you moved here.”

“really?” you teased, arm coming up to rest your chin on the palm of your hand. “did my medical records tell you that?”

bucky matched the smug look on your face with one of his own, almost as if you were challenging him to a contest of sorts.

“would you actually believe me if i said yes?”

“no way.” you laughed, hand slowly approaching the plate of sliders sam placed in front of you in between your conversation with bucky. “i’m curious, by the way, where did you study medicine? is there a college nearby?”

“i studied at columbia.”

“what!” the words came out louder than intended, your hands racing upwards to cover your mouth in mild embarrassment. “what!” you repeated, a lot quieter this time. “i used to live in new york! why’d you choose to work here instead of—you know—there?”

bucky hummed in thought, resting his forearms on the furniture in front of him. "this town is near and dear to my heart. i can roam the entire world for the rest of my life, but i'll always find myself coming back here. you can take a man out of stonefield but not stonefield out the man." he remarked, "so, i figured i'd just practice medicine here."

you took a bite out of your slider, "i can see why you feel that way, this place is great. the last time i felt this happy and free was back in freshman year.”

the atmosphere surrounding the two of you began to shift as subtly leaned in closer—you would’ve missed it if you blinked—but it was there. as if he was subconsciously gravitating towards you like it was the most natural thing that occurred to him.

“you must’ve had a lot of fun back then, city girl.” bucky’s head tutted towards one of the barrels of rum sitting behind sam, playful grin still lingering on his face. “you drink?”

it was a dangerous game to be participating in—you knew you get a bit much when you go drinking, and it especially doesn’t help the fact that you’ve got a not-so little crush on the man comfortably next to you. but you’ll allow yourself to let loose just this once—you’re now getting the chance to spend time with the man you’ve seen the least since moving despite wanting the opposite. and to top it off, who are you to pass on the opportunity of drinking with a man as pretty as him?

“i haven’t found the time to drink lately.” you murmured somewhat bashfully, taking another bite out of your slider.

“‘s that so?” bucky took a hold of the glass sam placed in front of him with that lazy charming smirk. dauntingly, he moved his weight from one arm to the other, almost inclining back on a non-existent wall behind him—looking all suave and laid-back—an almost convincing ploy to cover how his heart was drumming like crazy right now. “let me change that.”

you hesitantly pursed your lips in deep thought, a small hum vibrating through your throat. saturday nights are meant to be enjoyed, you reasoned. letting out a huff, you nodded your head in agreement with a grin. veggie deliveries will have to wait ‘til monday, then.

the walk to the wanda’s ranch was one of the short periods of time where you truly got to think. while yes, you like to daydream while rummaging through the soils of your garden to keep your brain busy was what you usually do—long walks were something you appreciated on a different level. as the leaves of the trees shuffled and your feet crunched against the gravel, you’d stare at the sky and think about whatever’s been bugging you, no matter how long ago or recent it was.

as you rounded a corner that brought you closer to your destination, sam’s words ricocheted in the back of your mind. while visiting sarah to buy your week’s worth of fish this morning–and to deliver some leeks and green beans she ordered–her brother offhandedly mentioned something about the freshness of your vegetables going great with bucky’s cooking. 

“bucky can cook?”

“yeah. he’s like our personal nutritionist. always insisting on preparing us healthy meals whenever he gets the chance to. and ever since you started supplying steve with those vegetables of yours, it’s like he never wants to stop anymore.” 

“huh.”

it checks out, you suppose. he takes care of people’s health for a living, it only makes sense he enjoys creating delicious and nutritious food for the people he cares for. hearing sam say those words did send a small jolt of pride in the pit of your chest, and you did spend all morning while watering the crops thinking about it like a hopeless romantic.

you couldn’t stop the giddy smile from forming, face contorted in excitement and your cheeks slightly duster pink. the only ones to witness your look of love sickness on you were the mushrooms and carrots sleeping deep underground—who were by now probably sick of hearing you fuss about the man working at the clinic.

come to think of it, you’ve also been running into him more often at the store. you were now steve’s new supplier of produce (you lived far closer than any of his previous ones, and they were of better quality too) and on occasions you buy fertilizers—which was very frequent, you’ve always, without fail, ran into bucky. and you’d stay at the general store longer than you had anticipated, but gladly so. 

you’ve even gone out of your way to give him some vegetables yourself, more so as an excuse to his face, after sharing that eventful night with him at the bar. since then, you’ve increasingly grown closer to the town doctor to the point that appointments were one of the things you looked forward to the most. 

you remember him visiting you at the farm one quiet afternoon the day after—to your surprise, he went out of his way to check on you. you were busying yourself as always clearing out the land, when out of nowhere a tall man with broad shoulders showed up with food in his hands. 

“shouldn’t you be resting?” 

your heart practically leaped out of your chest as the voice coming from behind you boomed, making you drop your shovel in surprise.

“christ, you scared the shit out of me. aren’t doctors supposed to treat heart attacks and not induce them?” you held a gloved hand against your thundering chest. 

bucky let out a laugh as he closed the distance between the two of you. he dressed like he just clocked out of work—his long sleeves were rolled up until his elbows and his necktie was hanging loosely against the buttons on the fabric. his right hand was pocketed while the other held a plastic bag.

“sorry, thought you could hear my footsteps.” he watched you dust yourself off the ground, eyes squinted. 

bucky, overcome with concern—and slightly overwhelmed with the desperation to see you again–decided to visit you the morning after your abrupt drinking session with him at the saloon.

he only drank a decent amount, being not too fond of drinking too much, and while you did drink as much as him, maybe even a bit less, your steps were wobbly and uneven while your voice slurred the moment your feet clashed against the floorboards of the saloon, and bucky graciously took you back home with his hand warming your back and your drunken ramblings in his ear.

it was a miracle, really, that you managed to keep your feelings for the guy closed and tucked away into one of the corners of your heart–effectively saving you from the embarrassment you’re bound to face the day after not just from bucky, but probably from sam too.

“whatcha got there?” you asked, tilting your head to the side to get a better glance at the contents of the paper bag he was carrying around in curiosity.  

he lifted it up to grant you a better look, whatever was inside was contained in a brown box–so you still had zero clue about what’s inside.

“food. i thought you would’ve taken the day off so i brought you something to eat.” his head steered towards the direction of where you were previously crouched at, hat over your head and your fingers through the ground. “but i guess not even alcohol can keep a girl away from her farm.”

“damn right. these carrots are my babies.” you glanced towards your front porch, fingers already pulling off the leather material encasing them. “would you like to go inside? we can share whatever you brought.” 

“what about your babies?”

“i was about done, anyway.” you shrugged, already heading towards the farmhouse. “come on, it’s hot out here.”

needless to say—your growing adoration for him sowed deeper that day.

your knuckles clattered against the oak surface of wanda’s ranch, the basket of potatoes sat bolstered in their sack against your chest, your gloved hands holding the material with extra care. 

not long after, the door jarred open to reveal your friend wanda—who was in similar clothing as you.

“good morning, city girl.” she teased, lips curling into a grin, “i see you’ve brought my potatoes! i can’t wait to try out this new recipe i saw on tv. thanks babe.” 

she expressed her gratitude and took the sack from you, “do you have anyone in mind to be your partner for the flower dance?” wanda queried, leaning against the door frame and her voice teasing and her eyes had mischief written all over it.

you gave her a pointed look—you know that she knew who you want to go to the event with, you’ve been mouthing off his name behind closed doors for weeks now. rolling your eyes, you crossed your arms and stood tall. “i dunno. i might not even go.”

“we all know you’ll be there, girl.”

“we don’t know that.”

now it was her turn to roll her eyes. you both knew you’ll be there despite your incessant attempts of saying otherwise.

shaking her head, she held the handle to the door and looked at you apologetically, “i’d love to stay longer and chat, but i gotta get back to work, the cows won’t milk themselves.”

chuckling, you nodded in understanding and bid farewell—wanda waved you off before promptly going back to milking the cows with how loud they were howling inside the barn. 

on your way back home, you heard a pair of elderly ladies sitting on the bench chattering about. now, it was absolutely none of your business to be eavesdropping whatever they were talking about. but with how loud they were talking about said business, you can’t possibly put all the blame on yourself.

you slightly tilted your head forward towards their direction—your steps decelerated as much as you can without looking like a weirdo.

“i saw bucky looking at flowers this morning, who do you think it’s for?” one elderly woman exclaimed, crossing her legs and her hand flailed in the air. 

the other responded, “the flower dance is just around the corner, isn’t it? maybe he’ll finally ask natasha out!”

your heart sank. six feet under—maybe twice more than that. just as fast as your heart dropped down like it was held dozens of meters up in the sky, you were hit with the whirlwind of emotions that came along with it.

your feet slowed into a halt, hidden somewhere behind a tree near the old pair, but still far enough for you to go unnoticed. you already heard a lot more than you should’ve—unfortunately—might as well listen to what else they have to say and most likely crush your hopes from shattered to fine powder.

“i’ve always loved them together! they make such a cute couple!”

the lady with her legs crossed shook her head, a scowl evident on her face. “i wonder what took him this long! it was pretty obvious from the get go it was gonna be her, he could’ve asked her out ages ago!”

you left the second you the other old woman retaliated something in return, mumbling about timing and busy lives, not caring about whatever else they have to say. or rather, you couldn’t bear to hear what more they have to say, your heart was already heavy as it is.

the rest of the walk back home was a blur, and you no longer had the energy to install the water sprinklers you got from steve earlier this week–they’ll just have to wait until tomorrow. for now, you’re going to drown your misery with sitcoms and ice cream.

you didn’t feel foolish at all for liking a man like bucky, but a part of you did feel silly for feeling so defeated and disheartened just from hearing gossip. you began recounting each of your interactions with bucky that included natasha–and your mind came up with the definitive answer that the flowers were meant for her. they’ve known each other longer than you have, they’ve got a bunch of things in common, they’re basically meant for each other.  

plopping down onto the comfortable sheets atop your bed, you let out a blood-curdling muffled scream into the mattress, heart still lodged into the streets where you heard the world-destroying news from their throats. 

you were now armed with a new goal—get over your witless crush on bucky before the flower dance so you wouldn’t have to try and survive the pain of seeing him dance with another girl.

bucky didn’t know what to do. to be frank, he was completely losing it on steve’s couch. steve was sitting on a chair adjacent to the settee bucky was crying his heart out on (not really, but steve definitely sees it that way), and it seemed like steve was going to be the psychiatrist for bucky today.

“i used to talk to her about seven times a week. now it’s gone down to one, even zero! i feel like i made that one scenario up in my head to cope, so i think i didn’t see her all week.” bucky complained, gaze glued onto the ceiling light of steve’s living room.

it’s all that’s been on bucky’s mind recently. he checks on patients’ vitals a tad longer than usual with how his head is at a different place—he hasn’t been able to walk on the streets peacefully with the amount of times he thought he saw your face that day, only for him to turn around and see that it wasn’t you. 

and on the rare instance that it was you—you’d immediately duck your head and speedwalk out of whatever establishment the both of you were in. he chalked the first occurrence on bad luck, as well as the second time. but by the third—he was fully convinced that you were ignoring him.

he’s already racked his head on all sides trying to figure out what he had done for you to avoid him like he’s the plague, but bucky always circled to the conclusion that he had done nothing wrong, leaving him perplexed.

“you’ve been counting?” the blonde’s eyebrows raised in concern, slightly taken aback by what he heard. 

“subconsciously,” bucky defended, “i cherish every moment i get to see her. it’s practically part of my routine. but now, i didn’t see her once—not on the streets, your store, by the dock, it’s like she’s completely disappeared.” 

“and the problem is…?”

bucky’s blue sorry eyes shifted onto steve, “i’m supposed to ask her out to the flower dance, stevie. i already asked esther to save me some peonies.” his dragged his hands down his face, covering the flesh with his rigid fingers. 

his friend sat with his nose stuck between the pages of an art magazine, mindlessly flipping through each entry as he listened to the town doctor lavish in his feelings. “what stupid thing did you do this time, buck?”

“nothing!” he shot up from the couch, looking borderline unhinged. “i-i don’t think i did anything…i just—” bucky groaned, planting himself back onto the soft cushions. 

there were too many words in his chest and not enough courage to let them out. too many parts of him that had quietly started to expect you. with eyes full of longing and a few too many limbs craving for your presence, the words that ached to run free died on bucky’s tongue. he felt powerless—utterly crushed, even. but he couldn’t do anything but wait for you to come around again. because doctors don’t show up to checkups unless asked for. 

“i miss her.”

the days breezed by, and as fast as spring rolled around, the day of the flower dance came. you entered the secluded venue with your arm linked around sarah’s—eyes unintentionally scanning the area to look for the auburn haired man—to avoid him, of course. 

although it was your first flower dance, you knew this wouldn’t be your last. the place, though hidden in greenery, was absolutely breathtaking. the trees hid just enough of the sky and the sun’s light peeked through them like spotlights. the cool air kissed weaved through your hair as you stepped inside, all while waving at a few townsfolk. 

you were wearing an all-white dress with flowers decorated onto your hair. the dress belonged to wanda—she was kind enough to lend you the garment for the time being since it was your first time attending the annual event and you had no available white dress, you didn’t really have to prepare since you were already wearing the stress of moving in and fixing the farm.

wanda already went ahead of you, eager to go to the festival early with vision. you still had no idea who you wanted to ask to dance with—so you decided to head towards the food table for the mean time.

there were an array of dishes on display—from barbecue to dozens of seafood dishes—you set your sights, along with your stomach, on enjoying the free food the town had to offer.

as your hand carried an empty paper plate, a large warm hand cupped your shoulder. you jumped in your skin while your heart fell through your ass at the thought of whose face you’d be seeing when you turn around—it made you want to not turn around. 

before you could further debate on looking back, the voice the hand belonged to cut through your thoughts.

“lovely seeing you here.”

thank god. it was steve, you’ve never felt so refreshed when that wave of relief washed over you. 

“that’s a very beautiful dress! looks good on you.”

giggling, you turned your full attention to him. “thanks, steve.” 

he was dressed nicely—clothed in all white and a ranunculus placed in his breast pocket. he didn’t look half bad.

“who’s your partner for the dance?” you questioned, subtly trying to look around to see if you could catch a glimpse of bucky—because if steve was here, he’s bound to be in the same place as well. 

steve shrugged, coming forward to stand beside you and serve himself a cup of fruit punch. “i don’t plan on dancing.”

“what!” you shrieked, before covering your mouth and lowering your voice to a more respectable tone. “you aren’t serious. you’re wearing such a nice suit, you can’t let it go to waste!”

“no one’s asked me to dance with them yet, so i guess…i don’t really plan on participating in the dance. i’m okay with watching.”

no one’s asked him to dance?! a man that fine cannot be wasted and cast aside as a bystander!

with a look of seriousness suddenly replacing the smile on your face, an expression that steve could only slightly describe as terrifying, “dance with me, then.” you offered.

steve, shocked at what he was hearing, couldn’t help the confused sound he le out. “what? but didn’t he ask you to be—“

“who asked me to be their what?”

“nevermind.” steve shook his head, maybe bucky didn’t go through with his plan of asking you out, since here you are—standing alone and loitering around the food table. besides, you’re a close friend of his—and the festival was about begin, it wouldn’t hurt to dance with you when you asked him to. 

and he figured bucky needed a little push to grow his confidence.

 “alright, i’ll dance with you.”

steve craned his head in all directions in search of his best friend, bucky insisted he went on ahead to the festival but he is nowhere to be seen.

“alright, everyone!” mayor arthur’s voice boomed through the speakers, “to all of those ready and plan on participating in the dance, please step towards the middle with your partner!” he instructed, clearly excited to get things going.

“that’s our cue!” you cheered, grabbing steve by the hand and pulling him to where the others are gathered.

you stood in front of each other beside wanda and vision, who gave you a teasing look to which you tried waving off. 

“i see you’ve already found your partner.” 

“wanda! shhh, i’m only doing this for fun!” you scolded, voice barely above a whisper. 

wanda laughed incredulously, “i wasn’t saying anything!” 

you rolled your eyes and focused your attention back to steve, a nervous look now on your face. “okay, so i know i asked you to this dance, but i have no idea how to dance.”

steve laughed at that, genuine and sincere. “it’s alright, just follow my lead.” 

and as the music began and rang through the forest—bucky could feel his chest tighten and his fist tremble with how hard he was clutching it. 

okay, maybe he didn’t really have the right to feel this way. he wasn’t able to ask you out since he didn’t see you the entire week before the flower dance—yet it still sent a pang of sadness and worst of all jealousy through his heart at the sight of you dancing with steve. 

you looked like you were having a lot of fun. despite stepping on steve’s and your own foot more times than a normal person was capable of—you were laughing to your heart’s content. and bucky wasn’t fond of the thought that it should be him making you this happy. 

all he could do was watch at a distance and fix his tie to hide the look of hurt spread across his face.

“steve i am so so sorry!” you laughed, stepping over his foot again. “i genuinely have no idea what i’m doing.” 

the blonde holding your hands breathed out a hearty laughter, amused at your antics. “at least you’re having fun, that makes up for looking like an idiot.”

“rude. but i’ll let it slide, rogers.” 

his fingers gently guided your body to twirl around his, your dress flowing along with the air and the flowers made your smile glowing brighter with each step. 

the crowd cheered as the song subsided, and your feet were starting to go numb with how much it has collided into steve’s that noon. 

you excused yourself from steve with a giggle—claiming that you need to use the restroom and to take a breather—your heart beating relentlessly with joy from having so much fun. you made a beeline towards the small area quite a few steps away from the venue, but before you could make it any further away, a hand clasped your arm—making you stop and let out a small screech.

thinking it was steve, you quickly turned around to tell him off for scaring you the second time. 

“steve can you please stop ambushing me from behind—“

no. it wasn’t steve. no, it wasn’t wanda or sarah either. to your absolute terror and surprise, it was bucky.

“oh.” was all you could say, your throat suddenly running dry at the sight of the man in front of you.

maybe it was the side of you that was so deprived of him talking—but boy, did he look good. 

his hair was combed over, and he wore a suit similar to steve’s—but it looked so much better on bucky. his steel blue irises stared into yours, and he was angelic—with the rays of the sun shining against his back—it almost looked like he had a halo. 

he had a defeated look on his face, like he was desperate to see you. the second you turned around, the grip on his hand tightened as he murmured your name, the tone of his voice dangerously low.

“where’ve you been…?” he chuntered, grip persistent. “i haven’t seen you in two weeks.”

“i was just—busy with the farm.” you broke eye contact to look at your feet, unable to bear the look on his face because you know your resolve would crack if you stared a second longer. “can you- um…i—” 

“you can at least give me a better answer than that. i know you’ve been ignoring me.” 

you’ve been caught redhanded. and being the stubborn person you are, you held your gaze on the ground—heart starting to ache at the confrontation happening. in all honesty, you didn’t know what to tell him. you couldn’t give him the true, foolish reason as to why you’ve been circumventing away from him to an unreasonable degree.

“b-but it’s true, i have been busy.” you didn’t know if you were trying to convince bucky or yourself with how meek you were speaking, like the mere thought of raising your voice would cause your throat to close up and the dam that kept your feelings at bay to burst open.

bucky pursed his lips, his hold on you loosening but still intact, like he was deathly afraid you would disappear the second he’d let you go. “look at me when you say that.” he pressed, voice dripping with desperation.

“do you know how—how crushing it was for you to suddenly just… stop talking to me all of a sudden?” 

head still lowered down like a dejected puppy, all you could do was shift your weight from one foot to the other. 

“i—i thought i was doing things right, and then you just- just treated me like we’re strangers again, like it all meant nothing. i spent so many nights thinking and thinking about what i did wrong.” 

bucky stepped closer, the tip of his shoes almost touching yours, you could practically feel the warmth radiating from him. hesitantly, you built up the courage to look into his eyes—a decision you’ve come to regret after seeing the face of absolute devastation and sadness in them—like the act of you avoiding him was physically painful.

“and then i saw you dancing with steve, what’s up with that?” 

“wh-what do you care? the people i dance with are none of your business.”

in complete contrast to the conversation, bucky’s lips were hovering against yours. you didn’t make any effort to stop it because truthfully, you couldn’t find it in you to do so. you couldn’t lie to yourself that you didn’t like the feeling of his chest flush against yours. all your hard work of trying to forget about him dissipated into thin air the second his hands curled on your waist.

you don’t know who leaned in first, but it took you a second to realize his lips were already molding into yours, accompanied by a rough calloused hand grazing your cheek. his tongue pushing past your lips—feverish and wet and sloppy—and you could feel the jealousy practically oozing on it as it danced with yours—the intrusion causing you to let out a soft gasp bucky gladly swallowed. 

your hands grasped his neck to deepen the kiss, your own desperation growing clearer. you couldn’t think straight about how good it felt to finally feel his lips on yours—like it was something you didn’t admit you’ve been needing for a long, long time. 

bucky broke off the kiss to admire you—how pink your lips have gotten, swollen from all the kissing and your eyes—pupils blown, half-lidded and full of devotion. “tell me you want this.” 

you swallowed a breath caught in your throat, hips bucking against nothing in desperation as your cunt pulsed with pure need. “i-i wan’ you bucky— fuck please-“

you reached for the zipper of his slacks, eager and needy and wanting more.

he flipped you to face the bark of the tree, heavy hands coming to still your jittery hips desperately trying to relieve the ache in your cunt. he lifted your dress high enough to reveal the wet spot on the fabric of your pantie, and ran two fingers over it—causing you to yelp in response.

“please—bucky- i need you so bad—“

you heard the rattling of a belt clinging loose, and the thick head of his cock pressing against the entrance of your warmth, sliding it against your folds but not quite pushing in just to tease you. 

you groaned in frustration, hands scraping on the rough surface of the tree, “bucky— please put it in—“ you whined pathetically, wiggling your hips to try and entice him to end your suffering. 

“so impatient, city girl.” bucky murmured condescendingly, palm coming to run across your lower back before settling on your side, “alright, since you asked so nicely.”

bucky began to shove the tip of his cock to intrude into you, deliciously slow—he wanted to savor the feeling of being in your warm, welcoming walls before he completely ruins you for anyone else.

“fuck!” you whined, hands bracing against the tree while your hips pushed back to grind against his. “bucky—oh my god-”

“you’re so fucking tight.” bucky hissed, already falling apart just from being inside of you.

slowly, he began to pull out inch by inch, before pushing back inside all in one swift thrust. bucky had to quickly clamp a hand on your mouth to stop the loud wanton moan from echoing into the forest. 

“gotta be quiet, baby.” he leaned over closer to you, sheathing himself to the hilt inside of you—breath fanning over your ear and his hips burrowing impossibly deeper into your leaking pussy—your back bowing in the process.

wet, pornographic slapping filled the space in between the air and the bushes. his cock, thick and pulsing, began to drill into you repeatedly and you could feel your eyes go bleary and your knees give up at the sudden speed he decided to pick up at. if it weren’t for his large hand muffling the obscene sounds you were letting out—not squeezing or gripping, just strong enough to keep your sounds to himself—you would’ve been caught by anyone unlucky enough to be in these parts of the woods.

the leaves shook with each drag of his cock—sending a jolt of electricity up your spine as the knot in your belly slowly building up. he felt like he was splitting you open—your hands were scrambling behind him to find purchase as he continued to plow into your cunt, juices messily dripping down your legs. 

before you could ask for more, his thumb began to rub tight circles over your clit—swollen and throbbing—causing your hips to jerk back against him. he trailed hot, open-mouthed kisses along the curve of your neck before sucking on that particular sensitive part of your skin, leaving red and purple marks in its wake.

“feel good, sweetheart? y’think steve can make you feel this good?” he moaned, still sucking on your neck like he couldn’t get enough of you, “keep quiet, doll.”

you changed his name like a prayer behind the skin of his fingers, biting your lip harsh enough to draw blood, the pleasure sowing itself deep into your abdomen and running up from your toes and through your entire body almost too much to handle—the coil in your stomach threatening to snap. you can feel how soaked you are, your slick was practically drenching your abandoned underwear bunched up around your ankles. 

his hands were harsh against your skin, clenching hard enough to leave bruises in its wake—you’re sure to look like you got beaten in an alley but only in specific places after this.

bucky could feel you getting close with how tight you’ve been clamping on his thick cock, pushing him closer and closer to sweet release, he rocked his hips with much more fervor and intensity—and you screamed at the change of pace—he pulled you back onto him as if to say you can’t run away from it.

his sweat stricken forehead pressed into your temple, “mine.” thrusting particularly harder into you, he bit down on the space between your neck and shoulder—a loud wanton moan ripped through your throat before you could stop it, fingers desperately clutching on the large hands that enveloped your waist.

you felt yourself cum before you even realize it, gushing and coating your already damp thighs in your juices leaving your body shaking while he painted your walls white with a groan of his own—his cum slowly began to trickle down your plush, now limp and numb thighs.

bucky slowly began to pull out all the while rubbing slow, comforting circles on your bruised hips and soaked thighs. 

suddenly it struck you—now hit with the clarity of post-orgasm, you quickly clambered to collect your bearings, leaving bucky with a confused expression and struggling to catch up with you as he hurriedly tucked his cock back in his pants.

“woah woah, are you sure you can walk right now—?”

you sputtered, “i-im— this was a mistake i shouldn’t’ve-“

he flashed you a look of disbelief, “a mistake? we just—“

“what if natasha noticed we’re both missing. i don’t want to cause any drama—“

bucky held up a hand to stop your rambling, brows furrowed and his head in a doozy. “wait, natasha? what does she have to do with all of this?”

“um,” you felt like a small child being asked by her parents to explain something they probably wouldn’t understand, all you needed to do was to twiddle your thumbs and you’d get the part. “aren’t you-? isn’t she your—you know…don’t you like her?”

“what?”

“i overheard some old people talk about you buying her flowers and the flower dance was coming soon so i thought—i thought—“

before you could continue mumbling about even further, bucky cut you off with a loud, obnoxious laughter that left him clutching his stomach in pain. 

“wh-what’s so funny—“

“is that why you’ve been ignoring me? you thought those flowers were for her?”

“i mean, aren’t they-“

“they were meant for you, city girl.” he shook his head with exasperatedly, “i was planning on asking you out to the flower dance, but you went ahead and ignored me for days on end. i ended up not going through with the plan when i saw you dancing with steve.”

“oh.” 

“yeah ‘oh.’ i thought i made it pretty clear i liked you.”

“they were talking about how you were taking too long and that probably meant you’ve already liked her for a long time! so i just thought you were being—you know—nice.” 

annoyingly enough, he let out another laugh. now suddenly feeling stupid, you stretched your arms forward to try and hide your face into the crook of his neck.

you were about to roll your eyes and complain about missing the food when all of a sudden bucky rushed to press his hand over your mouth once more.

“wait. shhh, someone’s there.” 

the words shut you up instantly, simmering your breathing down to barely audible to try and listen for whatever bucky heard that caused him to hush you up.

“hello?” someone called out from behind the trees, “is someone there?”

bucky held a finger against his lips and gripped your hips tighter, and you had to stop yourself from letting a giggle bubble up from your chest. 

as the footsteps began to fade out, you and bucky both simultaneously let out a shared laugh at the thought of almost getting caught by some poor townsfolk.

bucky leaned against the tree trunk he was previously railing you on, “we should um—probably get back.”

you nodded in agreement, “yeah i’m starving-“

“and you’re dancing with me this time.”

summary:

ticket one You're the picture-perfect popular pretty girl—all style, smiles, and social status. Bucky is the typical campus dirtbag—loud music, attitude, and bad decisions. You can't stand him, and he fucking hates your guts. That is, until one house party changes everything. When Bucky catches you headbanging to classic rock instead of pop, instead of hating your guts, he ended up being inside your guts. You’re desperate to keep your arrangement quiet for the sake of your reputation, but Bucky is growing tired of being your dirty little secret.

ticket two Once your situationship with “dirtbag Barnes” becomes more public, everyone around you only seems to widen the gap—filling both your heads with the wrong ideas until communication completely falls apart. And if things weren’t messy before… well, sugar, you’re both going down swinging.

you like the way we kiss in the dark? [prequel] You're not afraid of all the attention. You're not afraid of running wild. But why are you so afraid of falling in love with the campus' dirtbag, Bucky Barnes?

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You retracted your hands the instant the embers made burning contact with your fingertips. You swore quietly to yourself, pulling your hand to your chest and squeezing your eyes shut.

You had been burned countless times in this house. Burned while tending the fireplace, burned while cooking, and pricked by splinters from the worn wooden broom. Your life was a cycle of being on your hands and knees, scrubbing every inch of the floor until it was spotless for your step-monsters.

While you nursed your finger to ease the burning pain, your stepmother’s voice, Beatrice, rang from the room just over. She was shouting at the top of her lungs about another party invitation.

“An invitation sent from the palace!” she announced, waving the paper around. “Girls, come here!”

You stayed where you were. You knew better than to approach; when she said “girls,” she meant everyone in the house but you.

The sharp, obnoxious clack of your stepsisters’ heels echoed from the top of the staircase down to the marble floor of the foyer. Their voices were already rising obnoxiously, high enough, you thought, to shatter every piece of glassware in the house. 

“An invitation from the palace?” one of your stepsisters, Agnes, squealed. “Prince Jamie is hosting a ball?”

Your other stepsister, Margaret, gasped so sharply she nearly choked on her own breath. 

“Has the time finally come? Is Prince Jamie finally looking to wed?” Her eyes were wide with excitement as she looked between your stepmother and Agnes. “Is it true, Mother?”

You tilted your head, catching a glimpse of them huddled in a tight circle. Beatrice’s red lips tilted into a wide grin. “It is true, ladies. Your moment has finally arrived. The Prince is looking for a bride—”

“I want to read it!” Margaret exclaimed, lunging for the parchment that Beatrice held just out of reach.

“No, I want to read it! I’m the eldest, it’s only fair!” Agnes argued, reaching over her sister.

“Now, settle down, ladies,” Beatrice cooed, pulling the paper back to her chest and holding it primly. “Why exclude your sister from the fun?”

Beatrice’s gaze drifted past the living room archway, where the fireplace glowed and the furniture sat in pristine order. The warmth she had held for her own daughters vanished the moment her eyes landed on you.

“Stop sucking on your finger like a common infant and come here,” she commanded, her voice suddenly sharp and cold. “Read the letter to us.” She added, waving the parchment at you.

You stiffened, slowly lowering your hand. You had seen this coming. Every time an invitation arrived, you were forced to read it outloud. It wasn’t that they couldn't read; it was about rubbing salt into the wound. 

These letters always went into agonizing detail about beauty, grace, and royal splendor—things meant to make any girl’s heart soar, and things you were never meant to have.

You were bound to this house, their maid for as long as they allowed you to live.

“Your father taught you well before he passed, didn’t he?” Beatrice asked, her eyes narrowed. It wasn't a sincere question; it was a reminder of what you had lost. “Read it clearly. I want to hear every single detail of the King’s requirements.”

You stood quickly, your legs wobbly from kneeling on the hard floor for so long. Wiping your hands on your soot-stained apron, you crossed the room. As you reached for the parchment, the coarse paper grazed your injury and agitated the burn on your fingertips, making you flinch slightly.

“Well?” Agnes prodded, leaning in so close you could smell her cloying floral perfume. “Don’t just stare at it!” 

You cleared your throat, your voice sounding small and raspy against the high-ceiling room.

“By Royal Decree of His Majesty,” you began, trying to focus on the elegant calligraphy instead of the throbbing pain in your finger. “To the noble families and citizens of the kingdom, you are cordially invited to a Grand Masquerade Ball at the Palace, to be held on the final Saturday of the Harvest Moon.” 

Margaret let out a squeal, but a look from Beatrice silenced her immediately. 

“The festivities shall begin at sundown,” you continued, “It is the King’s wish that every eligible young woman in the province attend, for on this night, Prince Jamie shall choose the one who will stand by his side as the future Princess of Brooklynne.” 

The room went deathly silent for a heartbeat before the sisters erupted. They squealed and hollered, clutching each other's hands and jumping in circles. But your eyes remained fixed on the final line, written in a large, aggressive script at the bottom. 

You read it under your breath, quietly to yourself.

“… attendance is mandatory for all households…” 

Agnes and Margaret were too busy celebrating to heed your words. “That means the entire province! Mother, we’ll have to stand out. We’ll need the finest silk and the most intricate masks!”

Beatrice ignored her daughters, her gaze fixed solely on you. She reached out and snatched the letter back, her sharp nails grazing your burned skin. You hissed a breath through your teeth, clutching your hand to your chest.

“Mandatory for noble households,” Beatrice corrected cruelly. “I’m sure the palace wouldn’t want the ballroom floor stained by the soot of a kitchen maid.”

“Mother, may we please go dress shopping now?” Margaret begged, clutching her mother’s arm and bouncing impatiently. “We must get the finest gowns before anyone else does! We have to absolutely stand out.” She turned to Agnes, her eyes gleaming. “Isn’t that right, sister?”

Agnes nodded quickly, her hair whipping. “Absolutely! We can’t risk looking like commoners. We need to be the center of attention the moment we step into that ballroom!”

“Very well,” Beatrice sighed. “We shall leave today. There is no time to waste if we are to secure the best seamstress in Brooklynne.” 

The sisters shrieked happily, already rushing towards the door to grab their cloaks. But before Beatrice followed them, she paused. She turned back to look at you, her gaze cold and belittling, as if you were nothing more than a speck of dirt on her rug.

Her eyes grazed over the room, landing on a stray speck of ash near the baseboards. 

“While we are gone, I expect the house to be spotless by the time we get home,” she demanded. “That means the floors waxed, the silver polished, and the laundry pressed. If I find so much as a single ember out of place in that fireplace when I return, you will find yourself sleeping in the stable tonight.”

When the doors finally slammed shut, leaving you alone in the silence of the massive house, that is exactly what you did. 

While your step-family was out hunting for the finest silks, you spent the day bent over a scrub brush. You deep-cleaned their bedrooms, waxed the floors until your knees were bruised and aching, and scoured the silverware until it shined like a mirror.

As you swept the house from top to bottom, your mind kept wandering back to that final sentence in the invitation.

Attendance is mandatory for all households.

You had read countless invitations in your life, yet none of them had ever included those specific words—much less a direct command from the King himself. If the decree was absolute, what would happen if you, a member of this household, failed to attend?

Beatrice had married your father before he passed, and despite her cruelty, the law saw you as family. You were a member of the household, not a servant. You weren’t just a maid; you were a daughter of the house. 

And if the King demanded every eligible woman be there… perhaps Beatrice’s ‘rules’ were no match for the King’s law?

No. 

It was silly to indulge in such foolishness. 

Beatrice would never let you leave this house unless you were hanging laundry, tending the gardens, hauling bags after their shopping sprees, or feeding the chickens.

But after spending the day scouring the house until it was immaculate, and considering the King’s explicit command, surely… she would let you attend. Even if it were just for one night. Right? You had been a good girl. You had done everything they asked of you.

With hesitant footsteps, you retreated to your basement chambers and dug deep into the shadows of your closet. Pushing past the clothes stained with soot and grime, you reached into the very back and pulled out a neatly wrapped box.

The moment you lifted the lid, the familiar aroma of dried lavender drifted up to meet you. 

Nestled neatly inside was your mother’s gown, a dress she had tucked away and passed on to you for a momentous occasion that had yet to arrive.

You pulled it out, the fabric shimmering even in the dim light of the basement. It was beautiful and uniquely your mother’s. You remembered how your father had lavished her with the finest gowns when you were young, and you had always dreamed of finding someone who loved you enough to do the same.

Stripping away your rags, you stepped into the dress.

You expected it to be too loose or too tight, but as you pulled up the bodice and fumbled with the fastenings, you gasped. It fit almost perfectly like a glove, though you struggled to lace the back properly by yourself. Still, the silk hugged your waist and flowed over your hips as if the gown had been designed for your body alone.

Standing before the small, cracked mirror, you didn’t see a housemaid. 

You saw a girl who rightfully belonged in this house—or even a palace, if only you knew how to do your hair.

You smiled softly at your reflection, your cheeks warming at the sight. For once in your life, you finally felt beautiful. And if the King insisted that every member of the household attend, then you were going. 

You were actually going to the ball. 

Suddenly, the front door swung open. Beatrice, Agnes, and Margaret burst inside, their heels clicking against the floor. Their obnoxious laughter echoed all the way down to the basement where you stood. 

“Where is she?” Beatrice barked impatiently, already expecting you to greet them at the door—likely to bring their bags to their room. 

You scrambled up the basement stairs, the long silk hem bunching in your hands as you moved. You rounded the corner into the foyer, nearly bumping into the wall, just as Beatrice was peeling off her leather gloves. Agnes and Margaret were already surrounded by a sea of colorful shopping bags, tossing aside the tissue paper like spoiled children.

“I’m here!” you called out, catching your breath. 

The three of them froze. 

The rustling of their shopping bags ceased instantly at the sight of you. Beatrice turned slowly, her eyes traveling from your face down to the shimmering hem of your mother’s gown, her expression cold and unreadable. 

“What,” Beatrice hissed, her voice unsettlingly low, “are you wearing?”

You looked down at yourself. “It was my mother’s,” you said softly, stepping into the light of the chandelier. “I’ve finished every chore you set for me. The house is spotless. And since the King’s invitation said attendance is mandatory for every member of the household…” you stood as tall as you could, despite the way your hands trembled, “I’ve decided I’m coming with you.”

The house went silent as they stared back at you, wide-eyed.

For a moment, you half-expected them to agree—to accept your declaration and welcome you with open arms. But the moment the sisters erupted into laughter, you realized just how naive you had been.

“You? In that relic?” Agnes laughed. “You look like a ghost that’s been trapped in an attic for twenty years!” 

Margaret scrunched up her nose. “And that smell—it smells like rotten fruit. Do you honestly think the Prince would want to dance with someone who reeks like that?”

“You’re right, sister. It’s unbearable,” Agnes agreed, nodding.

You bit your lip. You would think that for girls who lathered themselves in expensive floral perfumes, they’d at least recognize the scent of dried lavender.

“Now, settle down, girls,” Beatrice intervened. “There is no need to insult your sister when she’s spent all this time trying to make herself look... pretty.”

She began to walk towards you, the slow clicking of her heels sounding like a death knell against the marble. A taunting smile played on her thin lips as she circled you. 

“Turn around,” she commanded. “Let me get a good look at the bodice.”

You obeyed, your heart beating faster as you felt her cold presence behind you. 

Because you had scrambled to get ready in such a rush, the delicate lace in the back was a tangled mess of knots and uneven loops. You had tried your best to tie the bodice alone, but it was clear you had failed.

“Poor thing,” Beatrice cooed, her breath cold against the nape of your neck. “You can’t even get the dress on right. You look quite pathetic, actually.” She looked over her shoulder at her daughters, her eyes glinting. “Girls, be saints and help your poor sister, would you?”

Agnes and Margaret shared a look, their lips curling into identical, malicious smirks. “Okay, Mother,” they sang in unison.

They stepped forward, and your naivety got the best of you once again. You actually thought they might reach for the laces to tighten them. But as their hands clamped onto your shoulders, you realized for the second time just how wrong you were—and how low they were willing to stoop to make your life miserable.

A sickening tear echoed through the foyer as Agnes’s fist tightened around your silk sleeve, yanking until the seam burst.

“This lace is far too old!” Margaret hissed. She grabbed the delicate ruffle at your neckline, tearing it away with a sharp, violent tug. “It’s doing you no favors!”

“Stop! Please!” you cried, spinning around to protect the last piece of your mother you had left, but they were like a pack of wolves, their hands biting at you to shred the silk.

Both sisters refused to stop until the shimmering silk was reduced to hanging ribbons. They pulled and yanked frantically, their faces flushed with the thrill of destroying the only beautiful thing you owned. The delicate lace your mother had saved for years was now scattered across the marble floor like dead leaves.

Only when there was nothing left to tear did the sisters finally grow bored. They stepped back, wearing smug grins as you collapsed onto your knees.

You didn’t bother trying to get back up, because you knew they’d only kick you back down. 

You just stayed there on the cold floor, fingers trembling as you clutched the tattered scraps of the skirt to your chest, trying to shield the small bits of fabric that still smelled of lavender. The tears finally broke, blurring your vision as you sobbed into the ruins of your only treasure.

Beatrice stood over you, adjusting her pristine shawl. She looked down at your heaving shoulders with cold, clinical detachment. She wouldn’t even give you the pleasure looking a bit guilty; there was only the grim pleasure of a lesson well taught.

“I hope this will make you think twice before asking to attend the ball,” she said. “Or any ball, for that matter. We did you a favor by taking you in after your father passed. Do not mistake a few yards of silk for a change in your station.”

She turned to her daughters, her voice light as if she hadn't just destroyed a young girl’s heart. 

“Come, girls. Let’s go try on your new accessories.”

As the three of them began trekking up the stairs, their laughter echoing in the foyer, Beatrice looked back down at you one last time. 

“And don’t forget to clean up this mess.”

It was the day before the Grand Masquerade Ball, and Bucky found himself strolling through a narrow cobblestone alley, far from the gilded gates and suffocating comfort of the palace. He didn’t look like a King today. He had traded his heavy ceremonial robes for simple cotton clothes and a cloak to shield his face. 

Through a small window, he watched as an elderly woman— his late mother’s dearest friend—threaded a needle with trembling hands.

As he pushed the front door open, a bell jingled overhead. The seamstress didn’t even need to look up to know it was him.

“You shouldn’t be here, Bucky,” Martha sighed, pushing up her circular glasses. “The Royal Guard will have a collective heart attack if they find you’ve slipped away from your duties again.”

“They worry too much,” Bucky replied, his voice a low, tired rasp as he lowered his cloak.

He leaned forward, resting an elbow on her worktable. 

“The palace is suffocating, Martha. Everyone there is wearing a mask long before the ball even begins. I needed to see someone who would give me a breath of fresh air.”

“Ah, Bucky. Always the charmer,” Martha chuckled. “You and Rogers haven’t changed one bit. I bet Prince Jamie is starting to grow up just as you have.”

“My son,” Bucky groaned, dragging a tired hand over his face. He looked every bit the weary father and not the formidable King of Brooklynne. 

“He is moving far too fast to find a wife,” he complained. “My father always pushed me to wed as soon as I could—it was all about the line of succession and political alliances. Jamie should be lucky I’m giving him some slack, but instead, he’s rushing headfirst into it as if he owes the kingdom a debt.”

Martha smiled softly, her needle never stopping through the fine silk. “He’s just trying to make you proud, Bucky. He sees the way you carry the responsibilities of this kingdom alone, and he thinks having a Princess by his side is how he proves he’s ready to help you.”

Bucky scoffed. “The kid has no idea that the wrong partner is only going to be a burden. Half the women coming tomorrow wouldn’t know a plow from a pincushion. They want the crown, not the duty.”

He rubbed the tense lines between his brows, already agitated by the thought. 

“I made sure to state in the decree that attendance is mandatory for all households. I’m hoping to find someone who hasn’t spent her whole life rehearsing to wed my son. But I fear Lady Beatrice and her ilk have already decided the outcome. They’ve been flooding the palace with letters.”

Martha opened her mouth to speak, your father’s name on the tip of her tongue, but she was interrupted by the soft chime of the door.

You stepped inside, your silhouette framed by the sun poking through the open windows and doors. You looked utterly spent, your shoulders tense as your arm tiredly held up a heavy wicker basket filled with various produce. 

“I’m so sorry I’m late, Martha,” you said, breathless. “The mistress had extra chores for me today. I’m here for the gowns for Lady Beatrice and her daughters.”

Bucky quickly turned away, his shoulders stiffening at the dreadful and familiar name. He forced his fingers busy, brushing through the fabric swatches pinned to the wall to keep himself discreet. 

“It’s no problem at all, dear,” Martha smiled warmly. “They’re in the back. Let me get them wrapped up for you.”

She gave Bucky a small wary glance before turning away, pulling the heavy curtains aside to retreat into the back of the shop.

With Martha gone, an awkward silence took over the shop, aside for the bustle of the street outside. Your eyes subtly drifted towards the only man in the store. 

It wasn’t often you saw a man at a seamstress shop. He was a bit older, perhaps he was a butler picking up clothes for a household, or a father stopping by to commission a dress for his daughter?

Bucky’s gaze caught yours as he peeked from the corner of his eye, and you immediately looked away, your face flushing with embarrassment. 

Not wanting to be caught staring again at the stranger, you began to roam the small space, your fingers hovering just over the vibrant dresses on display.

You admired them quietly, your eyes lingering on a soft, almost sky blue fabric that reminded you of your mother’s dress—the one you had lost only nights before. A small, wistful sigh escaped your lips. 

To anyone else, these were just clothes. But to you, they represented a world you were no longer allowed to inhabit.

Bucky watched you, his heart tugging with sympathy at the way you looked at the dress. He cleared his throat, the sound feeling loud in the cramped room.

“Are you picking up a dress for yourself?” he asked carefully, his gaze still fixed on the fabrics in front of him. “For the ball tomorrow night, I presume?”

You jumped slightly, nearly knocking over a mannequin as you whipped around to face him. 

“Oh—no, sir. I’m just picking up the dresses for my step-sisters,” you said, forcing an awkward smile. “They’ll be the ones attending the ball. Not I.”

Bucky raised a brow, turning his body slightly to look at you. “But the decree said attendance is mandatory for all households,” he explained. “Does that not apply to you?”

You let out a small, breathless laugh that held no joy. 

“The Royal Barnes family is a busy lot, sir. I doubt the King or the Prince will notice if one woman from one house is missing. Besides, he likely meant the families... not the help.”

Bucky lifted his head slightly, amused. He paused, waiting to see if you would recognize the face on the coins in your pocket, or the man from the portraits in the village square. But your expression didn’t change; you simply looked tired.

“The help?” he repeated, his brow furrowing as he leaned back against the table. “But you said they were your stepsisters, did you not? That makes you family, regardless of the chores they set for you.”

You adjusted the heavy wicker basket to your other hip, raising a brow. You didn’t know who this man was, but his insistence on “family” was a luxury you couldn’t afford—and his assumptions about you only made him come across as hopelessly ignorant.

“I’m not sure how things are handled in your home, sir,” you said, a bit sassier than you’d like. “But not every household in Brooklynne can afford a fleet of servants. Sometimes, it is up to one of us to make sure the fires are lit and the floors are scrubbed. And that person just happens to be me.”

Bucky blinked, genuinely taken back. 

Usually, people spoke to him in hushed, respectful tones or with forced flattery. He wasn’t used to being corrected, let alone by a girl with a smudge of charcoal on her nose and rags for clothes. A low, rich laugh resonated in his chest—a sound that felt far too sophisticated for a simple stranger in a cramped tailor shop.

“Fair point,” he conceded, his lips curving into a genuine smile. “I suppose I deserved that. It was a foolish question. I apologize.”

As he tilted his head back to let out a soft chuckle, you caught a glimpse of his strikingly handsome features.

There was something hauntingly familiar about him—but with his slightly messy hair, tired eyes, and simple clothes, you couldn't quite place where you had seen him before. All you knew was that he was undeniably attractive, and that was more than enough to make your heart skip a beat.

You relaxed your shoulders and smiled back at him. 

“Kind of,” you teased, which only made his smile grow wider. “But you’re forgiven.”

The shop fell quiet again. You expected him to return back to his fabrics or even leave the store, but he remained rooted to the spot, his gaze still on you. 

Feeling a bit self-conscious under his stare, you turned back to the display, trying to keep your hands busy. You ran your fingers down the skirt of the sky blue gown, tracing the fine embroidery.

“That’s a beautiful dress,” Bucky said suddenly. “You should try it on.”

You glanced at him, brows raised in surprise. You couldn’t tell if he was poking fun at you or if he was being serious. You let out a short, airy laugh, shaking your head.

“You’re very funny, sir,” you chuckled respectfully, taking a step away from the mannequin and back to the counter, setting your basket down. “I don’t think a girl like me would do a gown like that any justice. Besides, I have a schedule to keep.”

You expected him to join in on the joke, but when your eyes found his again, his expression was completely serious. His eyes were blue, quiet, and intense, and it only making the tense air in the shop thicken.

Just then, the heavy curtains parted and Martha finally stepped out, balancing the three voluminous garment bags for your sisters. Before you could even reach for them, Bucky spoke up, his voice suddenly carrying an authority that hadn’t been there before.

“Martha,” Bucky said, gesturing toward the sky blue gown you had been admiring. “She would like to try this dress on.”

You blinked, stunned. “I’m sorry?”

“Oh. Let me correct myself,” Bucky cleared his throat. “I want her to try this dress on.” 

Martha paused, looking between Bucky’s stern expression and your panicked one. Then, a slow smile spread across her weathered features. She set the garment bags down on the counter and began to round the desk.

“Is that so?” Martha hummed, her eyes twinkling as she looked at you. “Well, who am I to argue with a gentleman’s request? Especially one with such good taste.” 

“Martha, please,” you whispered, catching her arm as your face heated up. “The mistress will be expecting me. I have to get back!”

“The mistress can wait ten minutes for her vanity,” Martha countered, already reaching for the dress and lifting it from the display. She turned to you, her expression softening almost motherly-like. “Let’s see you in the light for once, dear. No more rags and dull dresses that are too big for you. Just for one moment.”

“Martha, I couldn’t possibly—”

Before you could even finish the sentence, she seized your wrist. The elderly woman’s grip was surprisingly strong as she began dragging you towards the changing rooms in the back. She even hoisted the heavy silk gown over one arm as if it weighed nothing at all.

You found yourself stumbling along behind her, barely able to steady your footing as she steered you away from the shop floor and towards the back of the shop to the changing rooms. 

As you were being hauled away, you managed to look back over your shoulder, shooting a sharp glare at the stranger who had started this whole ordeal.

Bucky didn’t look even remotely guilty. He leaned back against the wall, crossing his ankles and folding his arms over his chest. As Martha dragged you toward the back, he simply let out a soft snicker, his eyes filled with mischief as he gave you a small, teasing wave until you disappeared behind the heavy velvet curtains.

Once inside, Martha wasted no time. She stripped you of your potato sack of a dress and began guiding you into the silk. 

“Stop wiggling, child,” she commanded softly. “You’ll look so beautiful in this, darling. I assure you.”

“That’s not my worry,” you muttered, your shoulders stiff. “The dress is gorgeous, and I know I’ll fall in love with it the second it’s on. It just hurts knowing I have no money to buy it—and no occasion to wear it to. This is all pointless, Martha.”

Martha didn’t answer; she simply helped your arms through the puffy, delicate sleeves. 

She didn’t even need to finish tying the laces for you to get the full picture—the gown was absolutely breathtaking. You shuddered as she laced the back carefully, the bodice molding to your frame as if the dress was woven specifically for your body.

That heart clenching realization, that you had neither the coin nor the freedom to ever truly own this, only returned tenfold.

“Seriously,” you sighed, a sad, bittersweet smile tugging at the corners of your lips as you looked at your reflection. “What was that man thinking?”

Martha chuckled softly as she tucked a loose strand of hair behind your ear. She leaned in close, studying your eyes through the mirror’s reflection.

“I think,” Martha whispered, “that man was thinking that a beautiful dress is just fabric until it’s worn by the most beautiful girl in the kingdom.”

The compliment made your heart flutter, though you quickly tried to brush it off with a roll of your eyes. “He’s a stranger, Martha. He’s probably just bored and looking for a way to pass the time while his own clothes are being mended.”

Martha just smiled, shaking her head as she bent down to adjust the hem of the gown. As you stared at yourself in the mirror, your mind wandered back to the familiarity of the man in the other room. You recognized him—surely—though you couldn’t quite pin down where from, and the mystery was eating at you.

“Speaking of that man… how do you know him?” you asked suddenly.

Martha lifted her head to give you a knowing, secretive smile, and your face immediately flushed. You realized how hopeless you had sounded asking that. 

“I-I mean,” you stammered, “I’ve just never seen him walking the streets before, is all. I was curious.”

Martha gave the hem of the dress one last fluff and stood up with a small groan.

“How I know him?” Martha repeated, letting out a soft hum as if trying to buy herself time to come up with an explanation. “Oh, he’s an old family friend. A very long standing connection, you could say. He’s a good man—extraordinarily hardworking. A father, too. He carries the burdens of his entire household on those broad shoulders of his.”

A father?

Your shoulders deflated just a little, the magic of the blue silk losing a bit of its luster. Of course he was a father. A man that handsome, that observant, and that commanding was bound to have a wife and a brood of children waiting for him in some cozy cottage. It explained the tired eyes and tense shoulders you had noticed earlier.

You looked down at the faint burn marks on your hands, suddenly feeling foolish for the way your heart had been racing. 

“Oh. Well... his children and wife are lucky to have such a dedicated provider.”

Martha noticed the sudden change in your posture immediately. A small, reassuring smile spread across her face as she leaned in closer.

“He is quite dedicated. Though, he’s doing it all on his own these days. He’s a widower, you see. Quite single. And I imagine he’s been very lonely in that very big, and very empty house of his.”

Your head snapped towards her, breaking eye contact with the reflection to look at her face-on. Your cheeks burned hot in a matter of seconds.

“Martha!” you hissed, embarrassed by how easily she had read you.

There was a soft knock against a wall, and you went silent the instant you realized Bucky was standing just outside the curtains.

“Martha, I’ll be leaving soon,” his voice came in, closer than you expected. “But I’d like to see that dress on the maiden before I—”

Before you even had time to react, Martha reached for the velvet and swept it aside swiftly. She stepped out of the way, leaving you completely exposed to Bucky’s view. 

You immediately straightened your spine, your heart beating faster in your chest as you were barely mentally prepared to face yourself in the mirror, let alone reveal yourself to him.

Bucky felt like the air had been physically knocked out of his lungs once he saw you. He didn’t move an inch, nor even blink. And for a long moment, he didn’t even breathe. 

He was the King of Brooklynne—a man who gave speeches to thousands and commanded armies—yet, staring at you, his words failed him. You stood there with a faint smudge of charcoal on your nose and messy strands of hair framing your face, and he was defenseless. 

He had seen a thousand women in fine gowns, but he had never truly seen a fine woman in a gown.

Your hands came up to bunch the shimmering blue fabric of the skirt, lifting it just an inch off the floorboards. You looked everywhere but at him—the spools of thread, Martha’s shoes—before finally forcing your eyes back to his.

“Well?” you whispered, the word barely catching in your throat. “Is it as you expected, sir?”

Bucky finally blinked, snapping out of his trance. He cleared his throat and rubbed the back of his neck, his face flushing a deep, sudden red.

“It’s, uh...” he started, his voice cracking slightly before he forced it deeper. “It’s very... blue.”

You tilted your head, a little confused. You had gone through the effort of putting this dress on at his demand, and all he had was to point out the color? 

“Blue?” you frowned.

“Yes. Blue,” he repeated, nodding far too many times. He seemed to realize how pathetic that sounded and tried again, gesturing vaguely with his hands.

“And it’s... it fits. The parts of the dress,” he motioned toward the bodice, “they fit your... body well. I mean—you look... not like a maid at all. Which is... good. Very good.”

You and Martha just blinked at him.

Bucky looked as though he wanted the ground to swallow him whole right up until a soft giggle bubbled up in your chest, escaping before you could stop it.

The sight of this large, commanding man, who looked so tired and overworked, being reduced to a stammering mess over the color of a dress was almost ridiculous. Yet, seeing him like this only made you fonder. 

“I’m glad you approve of the color, sir,” you teased with a bright smile. “I can only imagine the insults you’d say if the dress had been green.”

Bucky’s ears turned an even more embarrassing shade of crimson. He looked at Martha, who was shamelessly enjoying his suffering with a snicker, and then back at you. He looked completely out of his depth, his usual stoic composure deserted him entirely.

“Right. Yes. Well,” he muttered, taking a step back until he nearly hit the wall. “I must get going. I have... uh, matters to attend to.”

He turned to Martha, his voice suddenly regaining that same authority he had used when he insisted you try the gown on. “Martha, wrap this up for her. Make sure it’s packed carefully.”

“I’m sorry—what?” your eyes went wide, and you let out a disbelieving laugh. “Sir, you can’t possibly—”

The words—the protests that you couldn’t afford it, that your stepmother would never allow it—were immediately cut off the moment Bucky stepped closer. He caught your hand in his and brought it to his lips, pressing a soft kiss against your knuckles. Your breath shuddered in your chest. It had been a long time since a gentleman had greeted you with such grace, not since your father had passed.

“I…” you tried to break the tense silence, but your voice failed you as Bucky’s face pulled away from your hand and something else caught his attention.

Carefully, he turned your palm upward, his thumb tracing the old burn marks that tainted your skin with a gentle touch that made your heart beat even faster. 

With his head still bowed, his eyes slowly drifted up to meet yours. You felt goosebumps trail over your skin as he stared at you so intently. He parted his lips as if to speak, but he hesitated, and no words came out. 

What happened? 

How’d you get these burn marks? 

You figured he’d ask, but he didn’t. 

Instead, his grip tightened ever so slightly, a silent acknowledgment of a pain he seemed to recognize all too well. He finally broke his gaze, turning his head to Martha without letting go of your hand just yet.

“On my dime, Martha,” he stated. His tone was final, leaving no room for argument. “Everything. The gown, the alterations, the shoes. All of it.”

“Sir, please, I can’t accept—”

Bucky stepped back, his eyes searching yours one last time. This time, there was no more stuttering, no more awkward talk about the color of the fabric. There was only the confidence of a man who was used to being obeyed.

“I’ll see you at the ball tomorrow night,” he said. It wasn’t an invitation; it was a vow.

Before you could find the words to tell him you couldn’t even go, he turned on his heel. He moved quickly, pulling his cloak over his head as he pushed through the shop door and into the busy street. 

The bell rang out, leaving you standing in the center of the shop in a gown worth more than your life, blinking as you watched him disappear around the corner through the shop windows.

Martha let out a long, theatrical sigh behind you. “Well,” she spoke, her voice gleeful. “What a charming man, isn’t he?”

She walked over, her boots thumping softly on the hardwood as she began to inspect the stitching of your bodice one last time.

“I take it he’s rather fond of you,” she teased, her voice a little playful. “A man doesn’t pay for royal silk and French lace on a whim, dear.”

“Enough with your foolishness, Martha,” you shook your head, trying to keep calm despite your frantic heart beating. 

You looked down at your hands—at the skin he had just graced with his lips and the scars he had traced with such tenderness you’ve never felt before. 

“He’s only doing it because he pities me. He saw a girl in rags and felt a momentary lapse of charity.”

You smoothed the silk over your hips, the fabric cool and.. almost mocking beneath your scarred fingers. “Besides... a man like that? A man with that kind of presence, that kind of look? He belongs in the stories you tell children. A woman like me can only dream of someone like him.”

Martha stopped her work and stood tall, placing her hands on your shoulders. She looked at you through the mirror, her eyes bright with wisdom that felt older than the shop itself.

“A dream is a wish your heart makes, my girl,” she whispered, her voice warm and melodic. “And if you wish hard enough, the universe has a funny way of making sure your heart gets exactly what it wants.”

You looked at your reflection, feeling like a stranger in blue silk, and let out a tired sigh. 

“I’ve been dreaming for a long time now, Martha.” You forced yourself to look away from the mirror. “They don’t come true.”

It was the night of the ball, and the house was unnervingly silent only after the whirlwind of your sisters’ screaming and your stepmother’s frantic demands had finally vanished behind the rattle of a carriage.

They were currently dancing on polished marble floors, while you were on your knees, the scent of lye and old wood filling your lungs. When you had arrived home from the shop yesterday, it was a miracle you managed to sneak the dress into your closet without Beatrice and her gremlins noticing. They had been so preoccupied with their own vanity that they mistook your large garment bag for a pile of clean, pressed laundry.

With the dress hidden away and quietly taunting you in its small corner of the house, the memory of the man’s voice kept echoing in your mind, drowning out the scraping of your scrubbing brush.

“I’ll see you at the ball tomorrow night.”

You thought about his hands—how large they were compared to yours, yet how carefully he had handled you. 

He hadn’t looked at your burns with disgust. 

He had looked at them with pain and deep sympathy. 

It was a look you didn’t get often—not from your family, and certainly not from strangers.

You tried to imagine him in that crowded ballroom; a widowed father standing awkwardly by the refreshments, looking out of place in a room full of preened lords. You imagined him fumbling over his words while trying to flatter the high born ladies, just as he had fumbled with you. 

You couldn’t help but let out a soft snicker at the thought.

You looked down at your current state—dull dress, a darkly stained apron, hair tied back with a piece of frayed twine. 

The beautiful gown was sitting just a few feet away, a masterpiece bought on his coin, haunting you. 

If you went, you risked everything. 

If you stayed, you would spend the rest of your life wondering if he had actually waited for you near the entrance, looking for a girl who never showed up. You would spend the rest of your life wondering if you would ever see him again.

As the clock on the mantle ticked, it was like something clicked inside of you as well. 

You dropped the brush into the bucket with a splash. You knew you couldn’t stay. Even if it was only for an hour—even if you had to run back before the clock struck twelve and return to this life of ash and dirt—you had to know why a man like that looked at you as if you were something special.

You scrambled to the basement, your breath hitching as you hauled the dress from its hiding place.

You removed your dress with urgency, but the second you stepped into the blue silk, realization hit you hard. 

You didn’t know why you had expected the gown to fit as perfectly as it had in the shop. And without help, the luxury felt like a mockery. 

This wasn’t a fairy tale—it was a logistical nightmare. You couldn’t reach the laces in the back, and the more you tugged, the more the bodice sat lopsided and gaping against your skin. You tried to pin your hair up, but the strands were limp and dull, escaping the pins and falling into your eyes.

“No, no, no!” you whispered, hot tears of frustration pricking your eyes. 

You looked like exactly what you were. A servant girl playing dress-up.

Grabbing a heavy, hooded travel cloak, you threw it over your half fastened gown, cinching the hood tight to hide your disastrous hair and face. You burst out the back door and ran. You ran until your lungs burned and your feet ached, through the dark alleys and over the cobblestones until you reached Martha’s shop.

The ‘open’ sign was being flipped just as you reached the glass. Martha was reaching for the lamp, her coat already draped over her shoulders as she was preparing to leave. 

“Martha!” you cried in a panic, slamming your palm against the door. “Martha, please!”

The older woman froze, her eyes widening as she recognized you through the glass. She fumbled with the locks and pulled you inside, the bells on the door jangling frantically.

“Child, what in heaven’s name—”

You threw back your cloak, revealing the tangled laces and the disheveled dress underneath. “I can’t do it! I… I can’t get the laces right. My hair is a mess, and I look like a fool. Please, Martha. You said the heart gets what it wants, but my hands can’t even help make it happen!”

“Hush now,” Martha reassured. “We have no time for tears. Stand on the pedestal. Feet apart, shoulders back.”

The minute you stood on the pedestal, her hands wasted no time as her fingers flew over the laces, tightening the bodice until it sat perfectly against your waist. She did you hair into a neat, sophisticated style that was a far difference from how it was before. Then, with a damp cloth, she wiped away the tears from your cheeks and applied subtle touches of makeup that highlighted your best features, making your eyes shimmer in the warm overhead light.

She knelt before you, taking your tired, aching feet and slipping them into heels so clear and pristine that it looks like it could be made out of glass. 

Finally, Martha reached into a velvet-lined drawer and pulled out a pair of pristine, elbow-length white gloves. She took your hands gently, smoothing the cool fabric over your fingers and up your arms. She paused for a moment as she tucked the silk over your palms, ensuring the scars were completely hidden from view.

“There,” she breathed, patting your hands. “Can’t have these burn marks showing off at the royal palace now, can we?”

You stared at your reflection, breathless. The girl in the mirror didn’t look like she had spent the morning scrubbing a hearth or weeping in a basement. 

She looked like she belonged in a palace.

“Martha, I… thank you—”

“Oh! Before I forget…” Martha took a step back and hurried to the rear of the shop, rummaging through a hidden chest. You waited until she finally stepped back out holding a mask.

She had several masks displayed throughout the store, but you had never seen this one. It was ethereal, made with such delicate detail that it looked like it was made to go hand-in-hand with your dress.

Martha held the mask up to the light, its delicate silver filigree shimmering like frost against the dim shop interior.

“It’s a masquerade ball, isn’t it?” Martha asked knowingly, stepping forward to carefully tie the silk ribbons behind your head. 

When the knot was secure, she stepped back to look at you, her eyes softening. “My darling,” she sighed wistfully. “You look beautiful.” 

A lump formed in your throat, and you parted your lips to speak, ready to drown her in a sea of gratitude. But before a single word could escape, the clock above the dresser ticked—a sharp, metallic strike that made Martha’s head snapped toward the sound instantly.

“The late-arrival carriages are passing through the square right now,” she informed you, already ushering you toward the door with a sudden burst of energy. “If you miss them, you’ll be walking three miles in glass slippers, and I didn’t spend my after hours getting you dressed up just for you to ruin the hem in the mud.”

“Martha, I truly don’t know how to—”

“Don’t thank me, sweetheart,” Martha interrupted, her voice softening as she gave your gloved hand a final, affectionate squeeze.

She looked at you not as a seamstress looking at a client, but with the pride of someone watching a long held wish finally take flight. 

“Just go. Enjoy yourself—that’s the best way you can thank me,” she smiled with a wink. “And don’t you dare come back until you’ve danced at least once.”

Bucky stood on the dais, his back straight and his expression stern, though his mind was miles away from the gilded splendor of the ballroom.

He felt more restless than he usually did at these gala affairs. With one hand tightened around a wine glass, his eyes tracked his son, Prince Jamie, who was doing his best to look interested while cornered by a pair of sisters in the center of the dance floor.

Jamie was a good kid, and it usually wasn’t difficult for the average woman to capture his attention, yet Bucky could see the way his son’s jaw clenched as the two women flitted their fans and chirped in high, piercing voices.

Agnes and Margaret. Bucky remembered them from previous balls and the overwhelming mountain of letters they had mailed to the palace—all of which hadn’t bothered reading.

He knew it was his duty, not only as the King but as Jamie’s father, to see his son settled with a rightful match—especially one that offered political advantages. But tonight, his focus was fractured. His eyes began to wander, scanning the sea of masks and trying to look past the peacock feathers and velvet. Every time a flash of sky-blue caught his eye, his heart thudded in anticipation, only to sink when he realized the shade was wrong or the stature wasn’t quite right.

As the night wore on, Bucky’s impatience grew thinner and thinner.

“I’ll see you at the ball tomorrow night.”

Had he not been clear enough?

Now, he felt like a fool.

Why would you come? He had seen your hands—hands that clearly told the story of the life you lived and the hardships you endured. He knew the barriers that stood between a girl like you and a palace gate.

And beyond that, there was the gap in your years.

You were younger.

Much younger.

Bucky swallowed hard, before bringing the cup to his lips. He drained his glass in multiple long gulps. The wine was cold, yet it did nothing to douse the heat building in his skin.

He was a King, a widower who had long ago accepted that his heart—and his body—had gone cold. He was old, or… at least he felt it in the marrow of his bones. He had assumed the days of blood rushing desire were behind him.

But tonight, his body was making a liar out of him.

His mind kept looping back to the age gap. He shouldn’t be feeling this restless, yearning ache for a girl who was likely half his age. It was improper, and it was dangerous.

But as he watched the dancers, he wasn’t thinking about trade levies or Jamie’s future. He was thinking about the way your small hand had disappeared inside his. He was thinking about the way he caught a glimpse of you through the velvet curtain in the changing room, his eyes lingering on your bare shoulders and the curve down your lower back as you got fitted into the gown.

He shifted, the heavy fabric of his royal trousers suddenly feeling restrictive.

A self-deprecating laugh rumbled in his chest. He was a king, a father—and here he was, standing on a dais with a goddamn hard on because of a girl who smelled like smoke and looked like a dream.

“King Barnes?”

Bucky turned to the attendant.

“Sir Rogers and Sir Wilson are in the back gardens, Your Majesty,” he stammered, bowing low. “They sent word that they are... well, they’re waiting for a smoke with you. They said the night air might do you some good.”

Bucky let out a slow, heavy breath. His friends knew him all too well—they had probably caught the way he was gripping his glass and the way he was staring at the door like a starving man.

“Tell them I’ll be there shortly,” Bucky rasped, a little frustrated.

He took one last look at the grand staircase for good measure, several people walking in with fancy gowns and suits—yet none of them were you.

“She isn’t coming”, he told himself. “She has more sense than you do, James.”

He stepped off the platform, his boots clicking sharply against the polished marble as he turned his back on the ballroom. Several guests attempted to intercept him, their mouths opening to offer empty flatteries, but he gave them nothing more than a dismissive nod as he pushed past.

He needed that smoke. He needed Steve and Sam to humble him—to laugh at him for being an old fool pining after a girl who likely saw him as nothing more than a kindly stranger who had bought her an expensive dress.

He made his way through the arched side exit, the orchestra fading into the background as he stepped into the cool, floral scented air of the royal gardens. He spotted them near the center—two broad and tall silhouettes casting long shadows over the stone water fountain.

“About time,” Sam called out, sensing Bucky’s approach without even turning around. “We thought we were going to have to come up there and drag you off that throne ourselves.”

“Find your lucky girl yet, Buck?” Steve asked, finally turning to face his old friend. He held out a cherry-wood smoking pipe, the embers already glowing.

He gave Steve a sharp, side-eye look that would intimidate most people, but it just made Steve laugh.

“No,” Bucky grunted roughly, his voice dropping into a low gravel. “I haven’t found the ‘lucky girl.’” He took a slow, deep inhale from the pipe, letting a thick gust of smoke roll from his lips into the cool night air. “I just need Jamie to hurry up and pick a girl out of the crowd so we can get this ball over with.”

“The boy turns eighteen and the first thing he does is look for a woman to settle his crown,” Sam barked a laugh, leaning back against the stone fountain. “He’s a player—just like his father was at that age.”

Bucky rolled his eyes, the embers in his pipe glowing bright as he took another breath. “I was not. I wasn’t that restless—”

“You’re right,” Steve laughed. “You were worse. You just had the benefit of not being a King yet.”

While the three men shared a rare moment of peace, obscured by the shadows and the scent of pipe tobacco, the last carriage of the night finally pulled up to the palace gates.

It was silent and unassuming, no one would’ve cared for whoever was inside, yet it held the only person Bucky had truly been waiting for.

You stepped out of the carriage and approached the looming marble staircase. The palace was huge, making your heart beating anxiously in your chest like a trapped bird. You almost wanted to retreat back into the carriage and hurl all over your pristine heels, but you just sucked in a deep breath and kept pushing forward.

You gathered the shimmering hem of your sky blue gown, lifting the silk to keep from tripping on staircase.

The moment you crossed the entrance, the cavernous ballroom seemed to expand, the soaring ceilings and gold leafed pillars making the space feel even more bigger than it had from the outside. You stood at the very precipice of the grand staircase, your gloved hand tightening on the silk of your skirts.

As you stood there, the frantic gossip and the laughter of the debutantes slowly died into a collective whisper. One pair of eyes landed on you, then two, then several, until the entire sea of masks was turned upward, captivated by the girl in sky blue.

At the center of the dance floor, Prince Jamie froze.

You were beautiful.

Your gown looked rich, the fabric shimmering with the kind of quality that suggested a woman of high standing and ancient lineage.

You looked exactly like the kind of woman his father would expect him to marry—and exactly like the woman Jamie had been waiting for all night.

He had been trapped between Agnes and Margaret, half-listening to their desperate chirping, but the moment you appeared, it was like a new sense of determination flooded through him. He didn’t wait for a polite opening; he didn’t even offer the sisters a parting nod—a dismissive streak he had clearly inherited from his father.

“Excuse me,” Jamie murmured, his voice clipped as he stepped back, cutting them off mid-sentence.

The further you descended, the more the air suffocated you with the scent of expensive cologne and heavy perfume. Before your foot could even touch the ballroom floor, the path was blocked.

A flock of men swarmed the base of the staircase like vultures circling a prize. They were a blur of colorful sashes and different colored masks, their voices rising over the orchestra as they tried to catch your attention.

“A dance, my lady? I am the Earl of Hydra—”

“Pray, allow me the honor of the first waltz!”

“Ignore them, fair vision, look this way—”

You clutched the railings. You felt like an imposter, a trapped bird in borrowed feathers, as the crowd pressed in and closed off your exits.

You scanned the room frantically through the narrow slits of your mask, searching for a single familiar face—the kind man from the shop who had bought you this dress and insisted you come. But all you saw was a sea of strangers draped in silk and greed.

“Gentlemen,” a sharp, authoritative voice interrupted. “I believe you are crowding the lady.”

Your ears immediately perked at the sound of the voice. It was familiar, a resonance of the man from the shop—yet it wasn't quite the same as it was more youthful.

The men stiffened and turned, their expressions falling behind their masks as they realized the Prince of Brooklynne had arrived. They dipped their heads in respectful bows, scrambling to step aside to clear a path for him.

Jamie stepped into the center of the circle, the only man in the entire party not wearing a mask.

Your heart skipped a beat as you looked at him. There was something hauntingly familiar about his face—the same jaw, the same carved chin, and those stern cold blue eyes. But he lacked the weary, aged shadows beneath them.

“I believe the vultures have had enough of your time,” Jamie extended his gloved hand with a charming smile. “I am Prince Jamie. And while the tradition of this ball is for me to find a match, I find myself suddenly uninterested in anyone else in this room. May I have the honor of this dance?”

Every noble, every servant, and every debutante held their breath.

But you already felt as though you were suffocating.

You looked down at his hand, then out at the sea of faces. “A dance… with me?”

As you spoke, your eyes drifted to the edge of the ballroom.

There, standing near a marble pillar, were Agnes and Margaret. Their faces were twisted into masks of pure, venomous hatred, their glares so sharp they felt like they could pierce right through your silver mask and uncover the truth themselves.

Behind them, your stepmother stood like a looming shadow, her eyes narrowed like she could kill you alone with her glare.

The candles, the orchestra getting louder, the different wafting smells of perfume and cologne, hundreds of eyes watching your every breath—it all became too much.

You weren’t a princess.

You were an interloper in a silver mask who didn’t even know how to dance.

One wrong move, one misplaced step, and the dream of finding the man from the shop would be crushed like a bug beneath a royal boot.

“I… I cannot,” you whispered.

Jamie’s brow furrowed in genuine shock, his hand still suspended in the air. “My lady?”

“I am sorry, Your Highness. I need air,” you gasped out, barely audible.

Without waiting for the Prince’s word, you immediately turned on your heel and bolted to the first exit that wasn’t already blocked by people. Behind you, the silence of the room snapped into already gossiping whispers.

Jamie stood frozen, his pride wounded. He watched the shimmer of your skirt disappear into the darkness of the garden, but before he could take a step to follow you, the lady vultures were already making their move.

“Your Highness, she was clearly unwell!” a woman cried as she fluttered her fan. “Perhaps a dance with someone more... stable would clear your mind?”

You hurried deep into the greenery, the hem of your gown whispering against the gravel until you reached a thicket of towering hedges and blooming jasmine. As you leaned against a cold stone pillar to catch your breath, you heard deep, masculine laughter drifting through the leaves from a distance.

Your heart leaped. You knew that laugh.

It was the same sound of the man you had met in the shop.

Quietly, you crept through the shadows, peering through the dense leaves of a large plant.

Three men were standing by a stone fountain, the glowing cherries of their pipes lighting the darkness. Two were tall and broad, but it was the man with his back to you who caught your attention. When he turned to laugh at something the blonde man said, the moonlight hit his face, and your heart nearly melted.

It was him.

The man you had risked everything to see just once more.

Who also happened to be the King of Brooklynne.

He looked far different than he had in the shop; his hair was slicked back neatly and he was draped in heavy royal regalia that shimmered under the moon. But the face was the same one you had memorized. You took a small, hesitant step forward, your hand reaching out to part the branches, ready to call to him—to tell him that you were here, that you had come for him.

But as the conversation continued, the words that left their lips made you freeze.

“You’re brooding over nothing, Buck,” Steve said with a smirk. “You’re the King. You could bed any woman you’d want in that room, or ten of them. You’re rich enough to cover the tracks and powerful enough that no one would dare whisper a word.”

Sam barked a laugh, blowing a cloud of smoke into the air. “He’s right. One snap of your fingers and you’ve got a new ‘favorite’ for the week. Why settle for pining?”

You waited for Bucky to rebuke them. You waited for the ‘good man’ and ‘hardworking father’ to say he wasn’t looking for that.

Instead, a slow, dark grin spread across his face—a look of cold, royal entitlement you hadn’t seen at all in the shop.

“It would certainly break the boredom of this godforsaken castle,” Bucky—no, the King—replied. “There’s a certain thrill in taking what you want, isn’t there? The perks of the crown are the only thing keeping me sane these days.”

Steve let out a low whistle, pointing his pipe toward Bucky. “Ah. There he is. I was worried for a moment that fatherhood made you soft, but I see the old wolf is still in there.”

Bucky chuckled, a sound that lacked any of the warmth you had felt in the small tailor shop.

“Soft? Hardly,” Bucky scoffed so exaggerated, it seemed forced. “I’ve spent half my life fighting for this kingdom. If I decide to take a girl as a ‘prize’ for a night or two to pass the time, I think I’ve earned that much. Besides,” he added, a little lower, “most of the women in there would consider it the greatest honor of their lives to be used by their King, regardless of how quickly I forget their names the next morning.”

You felt like you were going to collapse.

The man you had met—the one who stuttered over his words trying to compliment you and kissed your hand with such gentleness—felt like a ghost. This man in front of you was a stranger, a cold-hearted ruler who likely saw you as a nameless ‘prize’ to be discarded at the shop.

Was that why he wanted to buy you this dress?

Was that why he insisted you come tonight?

The realization made your head hurt. You knew it was too good to be true. You felt the bile rise in your throat, and you instinctively moved to flee.

You took a frantic step backwards, but in your haste, you didn’t see the heavy iron watering can sitting at the base of the hedge. Your heel caught the edge of it with a loud, metallic clang that echoed through the quiet garden.

The laughter died, and Sam perked his head up.

“Who’s there?”

Bucky straightened up slowly, his gaze narrowing to the exact spot to the greenery you were hiding behind. The orange glow of his pipe illuminated the sharp, dangerous lines of his face.

There was no point in hiding. They already knew you were there. You forced your legs to move, stepping out from behind the heavy jasmine vines.

“I apologize,” you said, your voice brittle and trembling. “I… I must have gotten lost. Excuse me, Your Majesty.”

You bowed your head, refusing to meet his eyes, and hiked up the heavy silk of your skirts—the very fabric he had paid for, which now felt like a brand of humiliation against your skin. You turned to retreat towards the palace, desperate to vanish into the overwhelming crowd—so long as you get away from him.

Bucky stood frozen, the pipe nearly slipping from his fingers. The moonlight caught the shimmer of that familiar sky blue fabric, and the realization punched the air out of his lungs.

It was you.

You were the girl he had been waiting for all night, the one who had occupied his every thought since the moment he laid eyes on you in the shop. Even behind the silver mask, you were the most beautiful woman he had seen this evening. He saw the way your shoulders shook and the way you wouldn’t even glance at him, and a sickening dread made his heart cold.

You had heard it all.

Every arrogant, cold-hearted word he had spat out just to impress his friends.

Steve, completely oblivious to the internal collapse Bucky was experiencing, let out a dry chuckle and nudged Bucky’s shoulder.

“See? What’d I say, Buck? You’re the King. You’re powerful enough to cover the tracks of any little wanderer. She won’t say a word.”

Bucky didn’t laugh this time. He couldn’t even look at Steve. His face dropped from a mask of royal arrogance to one of unadulterated panic as he realized he had just destroyed the only real thing he felt in years.

“Excuse me, gentlemen,” Bucky rasped, his voice tight.

He broke into a stride, his heavy boots thundering against the gravel as he chased after you before you could reach the safety of the ballroom.

“Wait!” he called out, his voice no longer commanding, but a desperate plea. “Please—wait!”

You didn’t look back. The blood rushing in your ears drowned out his voice. As you passed the archway back into the ballroom, the sudden blast of orchestral music and chatter filled your ears immediately.

Behind you, Bucky skidded to a halt right before the doors. He watched as you re-entered the lion’s den, and for a split second, he nearly followed you in like a madman. But then he saw dozens of eyes—the eyes of his court and his people—turning toward the doors.

As much as he wanted to chase after you, he was the King.

He couldn’t chase a woman through his own ballroom without causing a massive scene.

“Dammit,” Bucky gritted his teeth, forcing himself to stand straight and compose his features.

His eyes never left yours. He forced himself to remain calm, but the minute he saw a familiar figure weave through the crowd toward you, he felt his face burn with a sudden, hot anger.

His own son approached you before the other lords could, his youthful face lighting up in visible relief.

Bucky stood near the entrance, paralyzed. He couldn’t believe it. He felt betrayed by his own flesh and blood as he watched Jamie close the distance between you.

“I fear the night air had stolen you away forever,” Jamie said softly, bowing low before you.

Jamie—who you know now was Bucky’s son—seemed far kinder than the version of the man you had just overheard in the dark. The resemblance was striking and understandable now, but the warmth in Jamie’s voice made your heart ache for what you thought you had found in the shop.

“Please,” Jamie continued. “One dance? Titles aside, I’m the most competent when it comes to dancing in this room,” he joked, flashing a charming smile that highlighted his blue eyes.

You hesitated, the silver mask hiding your weary expression as you fought to keep your composure. You looked over your shoulder, and you could feel the King’s gaze glaring daggers down your back, almost making you second guess.

But as the nasty words he had exclaimed in the yard just a few seconds ago echoed in your mind, your heartache turned into a cold, sharp resolve.

You decided right then to spite him.

To him, you were just a ‘prize,’ but you wouldn’t be his.

Following Martha’s wish for you to have at least one good dance of this night, you turned your back on the King. With a steady breath to settle your racing heart, you finally placed your hand in the Prince’s.

Jamie’s gloved fingers curled yours gently as a triumphant smile spread across his young face. As he led you to the center of the gilded floor, you didn’t dare to look back—especially because you didn’t need to. You could feel Bucky’s eyes following you. It was heavy, but you were determined to ignore it as you used his son as your shield.

“I don’t know how to dance,” you admitted softly to the Prince.

“Don’t know how to dance?” Jamie blinked at you, slightly taken aback, before letting out a disbelieving chuckle. “A Lady who doesn’t know how to dance?”

You expected him to mock you, but instead, he gave you an encouraging smile and adjusted his stance, placing a steady hand on your waist and lifting your other to proper height.

“Then it’s a good thing you’re with me,” he reassured kindly. “Just follow my lead and keep your eyes on mine.”

As the violins grew louder, Jamie moved gracefully, his hand firm on your waist as he began the first slow rotation of the waltz. You stumbled almost immediately, your heel landing right on top of his polished leather boot.

“I—I’m so sorry,” you gasped, your face flushing in embarrassment beneath the silver mask.

“Don’t be. My boots have survived worse than a lady’s dance. Besides,” he leaned in, voice playful, “it gives me a reason to hold you a little tighter so you don’t fall.”

You couldn’t help but chuckle at how romantically corny he was. His words were smooth and charming—a miracle, considering he was the heir to the man you had just witnessed in the garden. As you finally caught the rhythm, a small, genuine smile spread across your lips. After the disaster in the garden, you had expected your night to be ruined, but this dance was almost enough to make up for it.

Then suddenly, the crowd near the edge of the floor parted like a wound opening up.

Bucky didn’t wait for the song to end. He marched onto the floor, his heavy royal mantle trailing behind him like a dark cloud. His presence alone was so suffocatingly dominant that the couples dancing around you slowed to a halt, watching him cautiously.

Bucky stepped directly into your path, forcing Jamie to stop mid-turn.

“Son,” Bucky greeted coldly. Then his eyes turned to you, cold and sharp. “My Lady.”

He extended a hand towards you—not as an invitation, but a demand. “The music is just beginning to peak. Shall I take over?”

Jamie’s brow furrowed, his hand tightening slightly on your waist. “Father? We are in the middle of a waltz. It’s highly irregular to cut in on the first dance.”

Bucky looked back at his son, his jaw clenched hard. The ‘good man’ from the shop deserted him entirely, he was acting like a man who knew exactly how to use his power to get what he wanted.

“Tradition is a suggestion, Jamie,” Bucky said, stepping closer until he crowded your space. “But a command from your King is not. Step aside.”

Jamie swallowed hard, and you felt yourself go stiff between the two most powerful men in the kingdom.

“I suppose I cannot argue with the King,” Jamie murmured, a little defiant sass seeping through his polite tone.

Reluctantly, he took your hand one last time and bowed his head low, his eyes never leaving yours as he pressed a slow, lingering kiss to the back of your gloved hand. It was the same hand Bucky had kissed at the shop just yesterday—and a gesture Bucky knew all too well.

It was the kind of goodbye a man gives a woman he fully intends to find again.

Bucky’s brow twitched violently. It took everything in his power to keep from snarling while the entire court watched. The sight of his own son’s lips touching your glove—the very silk he had held in his hands and bought with his own coin—was almost more than his composure could bear.

“That will be all, Jamie,” Bucky snapped.

Jamie ignored his father as he took a step back from you, eyes still never leaving yours. “My Lady,” he bid goodbye with a final, pained smile, before turning to disappear into the sea of masks.

The space Jamie left was immediately filled by Bucky’s suffocating presence. He didn’t wait for your permission as he stepped into the gap, his large hand slid firmly onto your waist—exactly where his son’s had been—except he pulled you so tight against his chest that the surrounding guests began to murmur.

He didn’t just want to dance.

He wanted to reclaim what he felt was his.

As Bucky slowly began moving you along to the music, your eyes trailed over his shoulder, where Jamie retreated into the crowd.

Bucky sensed it. His grip on your waist tightened, his body tensing as he realized your mind was still with his son.

“You look at me when I’m holding you,” he commanded, low and possessive. “Not him.”

You stayed quiet as you looked up at him through the slits of your mask. His gaze on you was almost cold and authoritative—the kind of look most people would be scared to meet, let alone break. But you looked down anyway, your eyes finding his chest as you forced yourself to follow his lead.

Bucky’s grip on you didn’t waver, but his voice softened just slightly.

“You look beautiful in this gown,” he murmured, his eyes still on your face despite you not looking at him.

You said nothing, and he continued on anyway.

“In the shop… you looked beautiful,” he admitted, his thumb gently grazing the back of your bodice, subtly playing with the laces. “But now you’re even more stunning. Absolutely breathtaking.”

He waited for a blush or a shy smile like the one you had given him just yesterday. Instead, he was met with a wall of silence. You kept your chin tucked, your eyes anchored firmly to the silver crest on his chest, as if you were constantly reminding yourself of his rank.

Bucky let out a deep sigh. He tilted his head down, trying to force his way into your line of sight, an act of vulnerability a King would never normally show.

“About what I said in the garden…” he started, guilty. “I was… my friends, they—”

“I heard nothing, Your Majesty.” You interrupted.

Bucky’s jaw clenched. He knew that as the King, he held the power to silence anyone in the entire kingdom of Brooklynne… yet, the one person he was desperate to hear from was treating him like a brick wall.

“I was playing a part,” he whispered with a desperation he’d never shown a soul in this palace. “Sir Rogers and Sir Wilson... they’ve known me since I was a boy. They expect a cold-hearted King. I said those things because—”

He choked on the words, his pride warring with his heart.

“Because I didn’t want them to know how much a girl from a tailor shop had actually shaken me.” He looked around warily, his eyes darting to the side to ensure the surrounding couples were caught up in their own movements and not eavesdropping on the King’s unraveling.

“Please, Your Majesty,” you said, and you couldn’t help but let out a sharp laugh that passed for a scoff. “I’m sure a maid you happened to come across in a dusty tailor shop is hardly a ‘prize’, as you call it.”

“You aren’t a prize,” he rasped, his hand tightening almost painfully around yours. “I shouldn’t have said it. I was a fool, trying to play the part of the man they think I am.”

“Oh, don’t be so modest, Your Majesty,” you countered sarcastically. You tilted your head, catching his pained gaze with a cold, mocking look of your own.

“I’m sure there are many other, more eligible, ‘prized’ women in this room who would consider it the greatest honor of their lives to be used and then forgotten by their King.”

The final note of the waltz hung in the air before fading into the polite applause of the court. You didn’t wait for the silence to settle or for Bucky to utter another word. You retracted your hand and gathered your skirts to drop into a shallow, perfectly stiff curtsy.

“Thank you for the dance, Your Majesty,” you said, though your voice held no warmth and even less appreciation.

You turned on your heel and began to weave through the crowd. You had gotten exactly what Martha wanted—one good memory, or at least a story to tell. You had danced with a Prince, and you had danced with a King.

That should be more than enough.

But as you neared the exit, all you felt was a deep, aching stupidity. You had risked everything and snuck out in a dress that felt like a lie, all for a man who had treated your heart like a parlor trick for his friends.

You were over the music, over the masks, and most of all, you were over him.

The grand staircase you had entered from was now a wall of people. Nobles stood in clusters, laughing and sipping wine, completely blocking your path to the main doors.

Panic flared in your chest. You couldn’t stand to be in this room for another second.

Searching for a way out, you spotted a narrow side corridor draped in heavy velvet curtains. It was dim and seemingly abandoned. You slipped through the fabric, your silk skirts rustling against the stone floor as you hurried away from the noise.

The air here was cooler, smelling of old paper and beeswax. You didn’t hear the click of boots on the marble behind you. You didn’t see the shadow that detached itself from the ballroom doorway, moving with a predatory grace of a hunter.

You only focused on the door at the end of the hall, desperate for the night air and escape.

Just as your hand reached for the brass handle, a heavy weight hit the door beside your head, pinning it shut. A gloved hand clamped hard around your wrist, jerking you backwards until you hit a broad chest.

“Did your King say you were dismissed?” Bucky growled, his voice a low, dangerous vibration against your ear.

“Y-your Majesty—?”

With a swift, forceful movement, he kicked open the door to a private study, hauled you inside, and slammed it shut. The click of the lock turning felt like the final snap of a mousetrap. Bucky leaned his back against the heavy oak door, his chest heaving as he watched you through the dim light.

“You’re not going anywhere.”

“Please move,” you snapped, no longer caring about pleasantries or protocol.

You tried to shove past him, but it was like trying to move a mountain. He didn’t budge, simply adjusting his weight to block the handle.

“I am not letting you walk out of here thinking those things.”

“Oh, so now the King is concerned with my thoughts?” you let out a harsh, mocking laugh and spun away, pacing the small room like a caged animal.

You tried for the window, but he was there in three long strides, his arm extending to block your path before you could even touch the latch.

“Stop trying to run away.”

You turned on him, your eyes blazing behind your mask.

“Was this just another one of your cruel royal games, Your Majesty? You buy a poor maid a gown, make her beautiful for a night, and then...” you choked on the words, your gloved hands balling into fists at your sides. “And then what? You get to boast to your friends about how easily you can sweep any woman off her feet? How lucky a commoner should feel to be bedded by the King?”

“It wasn’t a game,” Bucky rasped, reaching out to catch your shoulders, but you slapped his hand away.

“Your Majesty, if I were you, I’d quit wasting my time with a common peasant,” you spat, “and go find someone in the ballroom more suitable to bed—”

“I said those things because I was terrified!” he finally roared, the sound echoing off the wood paneled walls.

His chest heaved in frustration. He ran a hand through his hair, tugging at the strands until they fell messily over his forehead, obscuring the cold gaze of a King.

“I am the King. I am supposed to be calculated. I am supposed to be cold,” he confessed, his voice growing agitated. “And then I met you. Suddenly, I’m stumbling over a simple compliment. I’m staring at the doors, waiting for you to arrive, hoping—praying—that you’d actually show up.”

Bucky took a heavy step forward, the floorboards creaking under his shoes.

“You’ve been on my mind from the moment I laid eyes on you at the shop,” he murmured, humming so low that it made your skin prickle. “Every hour since then… until now.”

His hand reached out, slow and careful as he hooked his fingers under the edge of your silver mask, lifting it gently. As the silk and lace came away, he set it down on the mahogany table without ever breaking eye contact.

“I wanted you to try this dress on because I knew it would look beautiful on you,” he whispered, his eyes dark, hungry, and appreciating as they traveled from your face down to the curve of your throat.

Bucky let his hand trail down to your sleeve, his knuckles grazing the tender skin of your inner arm. The contact was light, yet possessive. His gaze followed the path of his hand, appreciating you from head to toe, admiring the way the silk hugged your body.

“And now,” he stepped even closer, his shadow completely swallowing you as he leaned down until his lips were inches from yours. “The only thing I can think of is how you would look with this dress off.”

Bucky pulled his gloves off, tossing them aside as his hands slid from your arm to your face. His large, warm palms cupped your jaw.

His thumb traced the line of your lower lip, tugging it down just enough to reveal the plump, wet flesh beneath. He leaned in until the tips of your noses brushed, his lips hovering a mere breath away from yours.

“Did you have fun dancing with my son?” he murmured, his voice a low vibration.

“Forgive me, Your Majesty,” your brows furrowed in confusion. “But I don’t see how this has anything to do—”

“Enough,” he interrupted. He gave your jaw a light, commanding squeeze. “You know this has to do with everything.”

You swallowed hard, nodding instinctively before you could even find your voice.

“Did you like the way he held you?” he pressed, his breath ghosting over your lips as he tilted your head back further, exposing the vulnerable line of your throat to his hungry gaze.

“Did you enjoy the way he looked at you? Because I hated every second of it. I hated that his hands were where mine should have been. I hated that you smiled for him when all you’ve given me tonight is the cold shoulder.”

His gaze dropped from your eyes to your shoulders. His hands left your jaw, tracing a slow, burning path down the sensitive skin of your throat until his fingers hooked into the delicate elastic of your puffy sleeves.

With a slow tug, he slipped them off your shoulders. The silk bunched at your elbows, leaving your shoulders bare and vulnerable under the warm glow of the candlelight.

“Tell me you’ve been thinking of me too, my dear,” he rasped, almost pleaful.

He stepped even closer, his body pressing nearly pressing against yours, pinning you between the heavy desk and his own body. One of his hands slid around your lower back, pulling you upward until your chest brushed against his.

“That’s why you came here tonight,” he whispered, his breath hot against your lips. “You wanted to find me. You wanted to show off the dress I bought you... isn’t that right?”

You looked up at him, your breath hitching as the heat from his body seemed to seep through the silk of your bodice. Being this close to him—without the mask, without the safety of the ballroom crowd—was overwhelming.

“I…” you sucked in a breath, “I came because I wanted to see the kind man I met at the shop yesterday. Not a heartless King.”

“How can you call me heartless,” he frowned, almost taunting, “when my heart only beats for you, my dear? It hasn’t known a moment of peace since I walked into that shop.”

Bucky’s hands began to wander more boldly. One hand stayed firm at your lower back, while the other slid up from your waist, his thumb grazing the undersides of your breasts through the thin silk of your gown. You let out a soft, broken whimper, your knees feeling weak as the friction of his thumb sent jolts of heat through your entire body.

“You’re so reactive, sweetheart. So innocent in the way you look at me,” he murmured, his hips tight against yours until you could feel the hard, undeniable bulge that pressed against his pants. “It makes me wonder.”

His thumb returning to your chin to tilt your face up, forcing you to meet his burning stare.

“Tell your King the truth,” he warned. “Has anyone ever laid a hand on you? Has a man ever touched you so… intimately in your life?”

You swallowed hard, the lump in your throat feeling like a stone as you struggled to find your voice.

“I’ve never been touched, Your Majesty,” you admitted softly. You lowered your gaze, unable to maintain the intensity of his stare. “Still pure.”

Bucky’s grip on your waist tightened, his fingers digging slightly into the silk of your dress as if he were already marking his territory.

“Like a flower,” he breathed, his voice sounding both awestruck and dangerous.

He leaned down, his nose dragging slowly along the curve of your jawline until he reached the sensitive skin just below your ear. He inhaled deeply, taking in your scent as if it were the only thing keeping him alive.

“A perfect, white lily,” he murmured against you, lips grazing your skin.

“And to think,” he rasped, his hand sliding up from your back to tangle in the hair at the nape of your neck, tilting your head back to force you to look at him. “That I am the first man to see you like this. The first to hold you so… closely like this.”

His gaze dropped to your mouth, his thumb dragging across your bottom lip again, more forcefully this time.

“It makes me want to keep you locked away in this room,” he confessed. “So that no other man, not even my own son, ever gets the chance to breathe the same air as you again.”

Before you could take another breath, Bucky leaned down and captured your lips with a hunger that was long overdue. For a King usually so poised, the kiss was a collision—hot, messy, and desperate.

Caught off guard, you met him with everything you had, but your movements were frantic and uncoordinated. Your hands clutched at his shoulders, fingers digging into the expensive fabric of his coat as you tried to keep up with his relentless pace, your kisses coming out sloppy and breathless.

Bucky let out a low, vibrating chuckle against your lips and gently pulled back. He didn’t go far, as his forehead was still resting against yours.

“So young and inexperienced,” he grinned, his thumb swiping a stray drop saliva from the corner of your mouth. He didn't sound disappointed; he sounded enthralled.

“But it’s okay, sweetheart. I’ll take care of you. I always take care of my people.”

Your body felt so hot, the dress suddenly felt suffocating. The way he said my people made it clear—you weren’t just any person anymore; you were his.

He took a slow step back, creating a sliver of space that felt freezing after exchanging body heat. His hands went to his waist, his fingers eager as he unbuckled his heavy leather belt. The entire time, his eyes were glued to you—his jaw slightly hung as he was breathing heavy in anticipation for whats to come.

He tossed the belt onto the nearby chair, his expression darkening.

“Now,” he rasped. “I want you to step out of that gown. Slowly. Let me see what I missed out on by being stuck on the other side of that dressing room.”

You reached slowly for the fastenings at your side, but you didn’t pull them just yet. You tilted your head, playing into the innocent maiden he thought you were.

“And tell me,” you whispered, voice low and sultry, “is this a request... or an order from my King?”

Bucky’s eyes flickered darkly with amusement. He liked the bite in your tone; he liked that even now, even after the cold shoulders and witty responses, there was still a part of you that wanted him. His hand moving down to firmly palm the heavy length of himself through his pants, his knuckles teasing his own fabric as he began to stroke himself with a slow pressure.

“Everything I say from this moment on,” he groaned, his gaze dropping to the curve of your chest, “is an official order from your King. And I suggest you obey it with haste.”

You swallowed hard, holding his burning stare as you reached for the hidden laces. With a soft tug, the structure of the bodice gave way. Despite his command, you moved slowly, letting the heavy, expensive silk slide down your body inch by agonizing inch.

The gown pooled around your ankles in a cloud of white and silver, leaving you standing before him in nothing but your thin, sheer chemise and stockings.

Bucky could see everything just shy under the white sheer slip. He let out a groan, hand moving faster now as his thumb traced the ridge of his length through his pants as his eyes raked over every newly exposed inch of you.

“All of it, my dear,” he commanded gently. “But keep the stockings on.”

Your fingers trembled against your thighs as you reached for the hem. Slowly, you gathered the sheer fabric and pulled it up over your head, the cloth grazing your skin one last time before you tossed it onto the growing pile of discarded clothes.

You stood there, flushed and completely exposed, save for the white lace topped stockings that clung to your legs.

“Like this, Your Majesty?” you whispered, small and breathless.

Bucky couldn’t wait another second. He let out another low groan, stepping into your space quickly as his hands made desperate contact with your waist. He tilted his head down and slammed his lips against yours once more, sliding his tongue that tasted of wine and pure need against your own.

You muffled and moaned against his lips, head spinning with equal desire. When he finally pulled away, his eyes were dark and blown out with lust. He reached down and grabbed your hand, his large palm covering yours as he guided it towards the center of his heat.

He pressed your palm firmly over the hard, throbbing length of him, trapping your hand against the rough fabric of his pants. With a shudder, he began to move your hand in a slow, rhythmic motion, palming himself using your smaller hand as a buffer.

“Yes,” he gasped, letting out a sharp hiss of pleasure as his head fell back. “Just like that. Feel what you’ve done to me. Feel how much your King wants you.”

Every twitch and pulse of him that you felt underneath your palm only made your heart beat faster.

“You…” you breathed, your eyes wide as you looked from his face down to where your hands were joined. “You’re… big.”

Tentatively, you gave him a small and light squeeze against his trousers, making him gasp.

It was true that as King, he could have had any woman in the kingdom at his beck and call, but the truth was much bleaker; he had been starved of a genuine touch for years. Despite his body’s natural withdrawals, he hadn’t bothered to seek out a woman just to ease his pleasure.

He didn’t want a body; he wanted a soul.

He wanted you.

Bucky’s hands were under your arms immediately. Using little strength, he hoisted you up, making you let out a sharp, startled squeal. He turned and pressed you onto the massive mahogany desk in the center of the room. He swept aside a stack of royal documents and a heavy inkwell with one forceful arm, the items clattering to the floor haphazardly.

You let out a sharp gasp as he laid you flat, the cool wood a shock against your bare back. Your legs dangled over the edge, and your hair spilled messily across the dark surface.

Bucky didn’t spare you a second to adjust. He stepped between your thighs, looming over you, his eyes dark with a hunger that needed to be sated.

His hands left your body and reached to zip down his pants, finally freeing himself.

Your breath hitched, a sharp gasp escaping your lips as you saw him fully for the first time. The sight of him—thick, pulsing, and bobbing with his need for you—made your head spin.

“Your Majesty…” you stammered, your eyes wide as you instinctively tried to press further back into the wood of the desk. “I never… I don’t know how— I’ve never done this.”

Bucky kept his eyes glued on you. His hand wrapped around his length, stroking himself agonizingly slow as he took you in. His gaze drifted down to where your thighs were parted, landing on the glistening, bare slit.

“It’s okay, my dear. Just relax,” he reassured deeply. He leaned over you, his free hand reaching down to find your wet folds. “I told you, didn’t I? A King takes care of his people…”

He began to rub the tip against your entrance, the slick friction making you cry out softly. At the same time, his thumb found your clit, circling it with an experienced pressure that sent tingling waves through your lower belly.

“I’ll take care of you,” he whispered against your lips, his forehead resting against yours as he watched your eyes flutter shut. “I’ll take goood care of you. Just let me in, sweetheart.”

Bucky retracted his thumb, his hand finding your waist to hold you tight while his other hand guided himself against your entrance, testing you with a slow push past your walls.

The sensation was already overwhelming—a relentless invasion of just the head of him that felt like it was already claiming every part of you. You were so incredibly tight, your body unaccustomed to such a feeling, and you let out a sharp, choked cry, your back arching off the cool mahogany of the desk.

“Your Majesty... it's... too big,” you gasped, your voice breaking as he pushed in further, forcing your body to accommodate him. “You’re stretching me already—! Please—”

Bucky gritted through clenched teeth, his body trembling.

It was taking everything in him not to lose his restraint and slam into you, breaking you open right then and there.

“I know it hurts,” he groaned, his voice vibrating deep in his chest. “But don’t worry... we’ll make it fit. Just breathe for me, my dear. Just breathe.”

You mewled, your hands frantically finding his broad shoulders for support, your fingers clutching his royal jacket. There was something deeply arousing about the contrast—the King, fully dressed in his regalia from head-to-toe, looking down at you while you were reduced to nothing but a pair of flimsy lace stockings and your own skin as he deflowered you.

He was much older, and the social chasm between you was so deep you could drown in it—a King and a commoner, a master and a maid.

But that’s what made this feel even dirtier, even better.

The fact that he was staining his royal reputation just to claim your innocence on the very desk where he signed his laws.

Bucky rocked his hips even deeper, feeling your walls clench and flutter, trying to accommodate him. You whimpered, fingers digging into his shoulders as a dark, prideful smirk tugged at the corners of his lips.

He leaned down, his lips brushing against the shell of your ear so his hot breath could coat your skin.

“You’re losing your virginity to a King, my dear,” he murmured, sheer arrogance in his voice. “Isn’t that such an honor?”

Bracing his weight on his forearms, he groaned lonely and gave you one final thrust.

“Oh my god—!” you whined.

He sheathed himself fully inside you, his heavy cock pressing against your womb. You let out a long, broken moan that could shake the high ceilings of the study, your toes curling in your stockings as the world seemed to tilt around you.

The stretch was absolute. It was unfamiliar. It was a heavy, throbbing fullness that made your head fall back against the wood of the desk.

Bucky froze, buried to the hilt, his eyes squeezed shut as his cock savored the tight, clenching heat of your innocence. His chest heaved against your breasts, the medals on his jacket feeling cold against your hot chest.

“You’re a maid…” he murmured, his thumb tracing your lower lip possessively as he watched your chest heave. “So you know how to take care of a home. You understand the responsibilities of keeping a house and a family afloat.”

You blinked up at him, your vision slightly blurred. Your brows furrowed slightly in confusion, your body still shaking as his heavy, thick length kept you completely plugged.

As you looked at him, his eyes told you everything. It wasn’t just lust, but the deep, yearning of a man who had everything except the one thing he actually wanted. The one thing he actually needed.

“Y-your Majesty?”

“I’m a King who has spent too long without a Queen to steady him,” he gritted out. His gaze drifted over your flushed face and the way your hair was fanned out across the table, a beautiful mess on his orderly desk.

“A man who needs someone soft to come home to,” he rasped, his hand sliding from your lip to cup your jaw, his thumb pressing firmly into your cheek. “Someone who understands the value of service... and the sacred duty of taking care of her husband.”

You swallowed hard, heart beating anxiously fast. “… Husband?”

Bucky rocked his hips forward in a painfully slow, agonizingly deep roll. He was buried to the very root, the girth of him making you wince and whimper. He pumped out deep thrusts, his breathing growing heavier as he fucked you slow against the desk.

“My son’s been lonely in this castle, you know?” he grunted, the suggestion sending a shiver down your spine. “The halls are too quiet. Maybe you can give him a sister… or a brother to protect.”

As those dark, possessive thoughts took over him, the slow rolls of his hips turned urgent and frantic. He reached down and caught your leg, his large hand firm behind your knee as he hiked it high over his broad shoulder. The new angle allowed him to sink to his very limit, his heavy cock bottoming out against your cervix so deeply it made your head toss back, your fingers scrambling desperately to grip the edge of the desk for balance.

Your entire body shook the moment he pressed his face against your inner thigh. The roughness of his salt and pepper beard tickled your sensitive skin as he trailed wet, worshipful kisses along your leg.

“That’d be so wonderful, my dear,” he rumbled against your skin. “Seeing you bred with royalty… carrying the Barnes bloodline.”

Every word was punctuated by a heavy, wet thrust of his hips as he drove into you.

Your mind was spinning with these depraved ideas. You couldn’t form a single coherent sentence as your body was being ruined by the King of Brooklynne.

“I can see it already,” he panted, his eyes snapping back to yours, dark and unfocused with desire. “You, heavy with my child, walking through these gardens… knowing that you’re the most precious thing in this entire kingdom. That you belong to me, and me alone.”

Bucky’s hand tightened on your thigh, his fingers digging into your skin as he used his thumb to circle your clit in a fast, circular motion. He was thrusting deeper and harder now, his rough movements making the heavy desk creak and groan beneath you.

The sound of his moans mingling with your breathless mewls, and the echoes of his scandalous promises still ringing in your head, finally broke the last of you.

Your vision blurred as your body reached its limit, your sensitive, well-fucked walls fluttering and clenching tightly around his shaft, already milking him.

“Your Majesty… I—” you gasped, turning your head away as embarrassment and shame washed through you. “I… it’s too overwhelming. I’m going to—”

“No,” he grunted roughly in disapproval.

He moved forward, his weight pinning you more firmly as he hiked your leg even higher, folding you back until you felt completely open to him. He reached out with his free hand, his fingers catching your chin and forcing your face back toward his.

“Don’t you dare hide from me,” he commanded, practically snarling. “Look at me. Look at your King while you take this. I want to see you come apart for me.”

As you completely lost control of your own, you let out a shattered, high-pitched cry. And in return, he let out a low, gravelly chuckle that was more a growl of satisfaction than a laugh. “Christ. You’re wet, my dear.”

Bucky watched as your face flushed with warmth and your eyes rolled back. Your body arched so sharply off the table that your spine barely touched the wood, your entire being coming undone all over him.

You were so incredibly tight, your walls fluttering and pulsing in a desperate grip that milked him, demanding his own release.

The feeling was the final blow to his crumbling restraint. Bucky’s smirk vanished, replaced a grimace of pained ecstasy as he reached his limit.

“Yesss,” he hissed through gritted teeth, his hands moving eagerly at your thighs. “That’s it. I’m close, sweetheart. You’re going to take every drop, do you hear me? I expect—hah—nothing less from my girl.”

With a final, deep thrust that made the desk groan one last time, he buried his cock completely inside and stayed there.

“God—take it,” he rasped, his voice breaking. “I’m going to pump you full.”

His body went rigid, his head snapping back as a roar of ecstacy tore straight from his throat. You felt the hot, heavy pulses of him filling you—the throbbing of his release pumping deep inside your womb. You let out a breathless gasp, feeling him claim you from the inside out, marking you with the Barnes bloodline just as he had promised.

Bucky remained draped over you for a long moment, his forehead resting against yours as you both fought to bring air back into your lungs. The study that once smelt like wood, paper, and ink was now heavy with the smell of sex and sweat.

Slowly, he shifted his weight to his forearms, looking down at you with a gaze that had softened from hunger into gentleness. His thumb reached out, gently caressing your warm cheek, tracing the line of your jaw before moving up to brush sweat dampened strands of hair away from your eyes.

“Beautiful,” he graveled with appreciation. “Absolutely beautiful.”

Slowly and carefully, he finally pulled out.

You let out a small, shaky exhale at the sudden absence of him. He stood between your thighs for a moment, his eyes lingering on the sight of you absolutely ruined on his desk before he turned to compose himself, zipping his trousers back up that seemed to signal the return of the King.

You mentally prepared yourself for a curt dismissal, expecting him to revert to the cold, distant man you had encountered in the garden.

But instead, he reached for your discarded dress, lifting the fine fabric from the floor gently.

He stepped close, sliding his large hands under your arms to help you sit up on the edge of the desk. The scene felt like a distorted, intimate mirror of the dressing room at the shop yesterday; only now, there was no Martha, no sooted clothes, and no rush.

Bucky dressed you slowly, as if he were handling a piece of priceless porcelain. He guided your arms through the puffy sleeves, his fingers grazing your skin with feather light touches that made you shiver for entirely different reasons.

When he turned you around to begin the long row of tiny buttons down your back, he leaned in, his lips ghosting over your shoulder before pressing a series of soft, delicate kisses against your skin.

“My God,” he said quietly, turning you around slowly as his hands rested firmly on your waist. “Stunning.”

His eyes bored into yours deeply, soft and vulnerable. “I want you here. I want you in this palace, by my side. I think... I think I’ve fallen for you, my love.”

Your eyes softened, your breath hitching in your chest.

A King falling for you was the very thing a little girl’s dreams were made of. After the way he had just made love to you—marking you with vows and promises to keep you safe—there was nothing you wanted more than to say yes.

But just as your lips parted to speak, a sharp, rhythmic knock echoed through the heavy oak doors.

“Your Majesty?” a muffled voice called from the hallway. “The delegates are requesting your presence. The midnight toast is approaching.”

You gasped, your heart leaping into your throat as you instinctively tried to pull away, looking for a place to hide. But Bucky didn’t flinch. He kept his grip on your waist, his expression remarkably calm.

“Relax,” he soothed, sensing your panic. “They know better than to enter without my word. They are my people. They are loyal to me, not the gossip of the court.”

He leaned down, pressing a warm kiss to the top of your head. “Stay here. Compose yourself. I’ll be right back to come get you, I promise.”

With one last possessive squeeze of your hand, he straightened his jacket, his face masking back to royal indifference, and retreated into the hallway.

You sat on the edge of the desk, the silence of the study feeling unnervingly tense now that his warmth was gone. You waited and waited, replaying the way he had looked at you—not as a maid, but as his future.

As the seconds ticked by, the grandeur of the room began to feel like a cage. When the ornate grandfather clock in the corner began its slow, sonorous chime for midnight, you were suddenly hit with restless anxiety.

You couldn’t just sit here and wait any longer.

Trembling, you picked up your mask from the desk and slid it back over your face, the silk cold against your flushed, warm skin. You stepped out of the study, your footsteps ghosting over the marble floors as you followed the distant, echoing sound of orchestral music and hundreds voices.

You peeked your head past the curtains to look at the ballroom, where Bucky had disappeared to, and it was like the King was a sun at the center of a glittering solar system.

Bucky was surrounded—generals in stiff uniforms, foreign princesses in diamonds that were nearly blinding, and advisors whispering in his ear. He looked untouchable. He looked like a man who commanded armies and decided the fates of nations.

You looked down at your hands—hands that spent every day red and raw from lye and scrubbing—and then back at the women dancing below in silks that cost a year of your life.

It wasn’t just a distance of wealth.

It was an impossibility of worlds.

He belonged to history.

You belonged in a basement.

As you stood there, watching him at a distance, a soft cough sounded just behind your shoulder. You jumped, spinning around to find one of the high ranking attendants—the one who had knocked on the study door earlier—watching you with a face as unreadable as stone.

“Miss,” he said, low and professional. “The toast ceremony is beginning. Would you care to join?”

You hesitated, your gaze flickering one last time to the ballroom floor. You looked for Bucky, but he was almost entirely obscured now, buried under a sea of medals, silk sashes, and the rich laughter of noblewomen.

The attendant followed your gaze, then looked back at you. His expression changed subtly, like hollow kindness in his eyes—the kind of look one gave to a guest who had overstayed their welcome.

“Or,” he added, a little quieter, “shall I fetch you a carriage in discretion? The side gate is clear this time of night.”

Discretion?

You looked over your shoulder at the attendant, your eyes widening as the realization of his offer sank below the depths of your already fragile heart.

He offered you a quiet exit as if he had done this a dozen times before for a dozen other girls who had been found in that study, breathless and glowing with the false hope of a King’s favor.

To him, you weren’t the future Queen Bucky had just promised you would be.

You were a mess to be tidied up before the morning sun hit the marble. You were a secret that needed to be swept away.

You realized then that while Bucky might have meant those words while his pulse was racing against yours, the world outside that study had no room for a maid with red, raw hands and a borrowed dress. You were just another body to fill his bed, another face to distract him from the crushing responsibilities of the crown until the next pretty thing caught his eye.

How could you have been so foolish?

“A carriage,” you whispered, your voice sounding small and fragile in the vast, echoing hallway. “Please. In discretion.”

“Of course, Miss. Follow me.”

Down in the ballroom, Bucky stood at the very center of the dais, raising his glass.

“To my son, Jamie,” he announced, voice forcefully bright with a smile that was sore. “May you find a woman who doesn’t just wear a crown, but one who truly understands the importance of a family.”

He held his glass steady, but his eyes kept flicking to the velvet curtains that hid the hallway to his study.

“May you find someone who knows the grace of a Princess, yet possesses the heart to steady you as a Prince when the world grows too loud. Look for the soul who has the strength to turn a cold, stone castle into a home, and a man into a husband.”

A roar of cheers erupted from the crowd, the guests raising their glasses in unison.

The moment the toast was finished, he didn’t linger for the pleasantries. He turned on his heel, his heart already racing back to the quiet sanctuary of his study where you were—or should’ve—been waiting for him.

He was stopped three times. First, by a General demanding orders for the spring campaign; Bucky dismissed him with a curt, icy nod. Then, by a Duchess who tried to lace her arm through his; he stepped away so sharply it was an insult to the poor woman. Finally, by his own prime minister, whom he practically pushed aside.

“Not now,” Bucky growled, his long strides eating up the hallway.

He had only one thing in mind—and that was to get to you.

Bucky reached the heavy oak doors of his study, his breath hitching in anticipation. He had a vision of you still flushed and waiting, perhaps curled up in his chair trying on his royal cloak.

A soft smile already formed on his lips by the time he pushed open the doors.

“I’m sorry for keeping you waiting, my dear. I’m—”

The word died in his throat and his smile faded.

The room was silent.

The fire in the hearth had burned down to glowing embers, casting long, lonely shadows across the desk where you once laid. Papers were still scattered about, and the scent of you still lingered in the air like a taunt, but the space between the chairs was empty.

Bucky’s heart didn’t just sink. It felt as though it had been physically torn from his chest.

He rushed to the window, searching the dark courtyard, but he saw nothing.

“No,” he whispered, his voice cracking. “No, no, no!”

He spun away from the window, his movements jagged and violent. “Goddamnit!” He roared.

His boot connected with a cluster of ink bottles that already fell on the floor during your lovemaking, shattering and staining the expensive rug in deep, mocking blacks. He didn’t care. He began to pace like a feral caged animal, stomping over the very papers he had been working on earlier, his heavy footfalls ground the royal decrees into the floorboards.

He shoved his hand through his hair, pulling at the strands until his scalp stung.

“How?” he hissed to the empty room, his chest heaving. “How could she just go?”

He thought of the way you had looked at him on that desk just a moment ago—the vulnerability, the way you had clenched around him as if you never wanted to let go.

Did you not believe a word he said?

The thought was like poison. No. You couldn’t have not believe him. He remembered the look of shame that had crossed your face when you tried to turn away from him. He remembered the way you had trembled when he called you his girl.

Did you still think he was that kind of man?

Did you still think that he was that cold-hearted rake you overheard in the garden? That it was all just a game to him?

Bucky’s gaze fell to the floor, his eyes catching a white shape near the leg of the desk. He reached down, his fingers trembling as he retrieved the familiar glove.

He brought it to his face, inhaling deeply. His eyes fluttered shut as your scent—that intoxicating mix of rosewater, soap, and the warmth of your skin— filled his senses.

It was the glove for your right hand. The very glove that hid the burn marks on your palm, the marks he had kissed with such gentleness at the shop just yesterday. The marks that proved you were a woman of hard work and sacrifice, everything he admired and everything he wanted to protect.

By the time he opened his eyes, the vulnerability and sadness had been completely replaced by a cold resolve. His fingers curled tightly around the delicate glove, crushing it against his palm as if he were already reclaiming the skin it once covered.

He was going to find you.

He would tear the city apart stone by stone, he would burn down every basement and scour every shop until he found you. He didn’t care for your hesitation or your social standing.

Bucky had marked you as his on that desk.

And the King was going to do whatever it took to bring his property home.

Bucky pushed out of the study, his heavy royal cloak back on and billowing behind him. He didn’t get far before he spotted the same attendant from earlier. The man stopped, bowing low, but Bucky didn’t offer him the grace of a greeting. He stepped directly into the man’s personal space, his towering frame looming over him.

He held the glove up between them, snarling.

“Find her,” Bucky seethed. "I don’t care who you have to threaten or what doors you have to break down. Find what is mine and bring her back to me. Now."

19.6K WORDS I AM SO SORRY SHE'S SO LONG but if you've gotten this far, thank you so much for taking the time to read my work and i hope you enjoyed it 😭♥️

again, i've made a playlist for this fic that i listened to nonstop while writing. if you'd like to listen, here's the link!