NOTES : bucky has gotten clingier and clingier over the weeks, kissing, clinging and staking his claim. hes confident until he realises he doesnt know how to please a woman.
WARNINGS : fluff, abused dog bucky, kissing, morally grey behaviour, puppy behaviour, guard dog, bucky barnes is whipped already, slow burn, emotional dependence, parasiticesque relationship, hand holding, soft touches, grinding, unsure bucky, teaching, dry humping, female oral over clothes, whining, 'tell me how to please you,' jealousy, neck kissing, hearding dog literal, no verbal consent, physical consent.
CONFIDENTIAL MATERIAL ── 18+ ONLY.
a herding dog didn't ask.
it didn't request that you go a certain direction or suggest that you might want to consider the alternative route. it simply appeared at your heel and applied gentle, persistent, completely unapologetic pressure until you were going where it had decided you were going, and it looked at you the whole time with those dark patient eyes like it couldn't imagine why you'd want to be anywhere else.
you understood this by the end of the first week.
it had started small, the way everything with him started small. you'd been heading to the commissary on the wrong floor, the one that had the better coffee but was two floors down and involved passing through a section of the building that was louder and more populated, and he'd appeared at your side in the corridor and his shoulder had turned you, gently, fractionally, in a slightly different direction. not a push. barely even a nudge. just the weight of him angled against your trajectory and the steady expectation that you would adjust to it, and you'd adjusted to it without really deciding to, and ended up at the commissary on your floor instead. you'd only realised what had happened when you were already there.
he did it again the next day with the elevator. you'd pressed the button for three floors below yours to pick up a report from one of the other teams and he'd appeared beside you in the time it took the elevator to arrive, looked at the lit button, and looked at you. the elevator opened. he'd pressed your floor number before you'd stepped fully inside. you'd said i need to go to three and he'd said i'll get it and you'd stood in the elevator going back to your floor while he'd gone to three, and he'd appeared at your office door twenty minutes later with the report and set it on your desk and gone back to his position in the doorway.
"you didn't have to do that," you said.
"i know," he said.
it kept happening.
you'd wander toward the kitchen too late, past the hour that he'd apparently decided was the correct hour for you to eat, and he'd be there, materialising at your shoulder with the particular energy of something that had been tracking your location and had an opinion about your choices. he'd nudge you back toward the table with a hand at your elbow, steering without grabbing, the lightest possible pressure in the exact direction he wanted you to go. if you stopped walking he'd stop with you and then the shoulder would turn again, the same barely-there weight of him redirecting you like a ship with a very large and very patient tug, and you'd find yourself going the right direction without having made the decision.
he'd decided what the right direction was in most situations, apparently. the commissary on your floor not three. the elevator to your level not the stairs when you were tired. bed before midnight, which he enforced by appearing in whatever room you were in and standing in the doorway and looking at you until you put the tablet down, and if you didn't put the tablet down he'd come and sit beside you and the proximity of him made the tablet feel increasingly beside the point until you put it down yourself.
"you're herding me," you said to him one evening, when he'd steered you away from the briefing room where a meeting was running two hours over and back toward your floor with nothing but the angle of his body in the corridor.
he looked at you.
"you are," you said. "you're literally herding me. like a sheep."
he considered this with the seriousness he brought to most things. "you don't go where you're supposed to go," he said.
"where i'm supposed to—" you stopped. "i go where i need to go."
"you go where the work is," he said. "not where you're supposed to be."
you looked at him. "those are sometimes the same place."
"not at ten at night," he said, and his chin tilted toward your floor in the direction he wanted you to go, patient and absolute.
you went, because you always went, because he was very good at this and you were increasingly terrible at arguing with him about it.
the nudging got more physical as the weeks went on, because of course it did.
it started with the shoulder, that barely-there redirection, and graduated to the hand at your elbow and then the hand at your waist, the same calm steering energy, the same complete confidence in the direction. he'd be behind you and the hand would settle at your waist and apply the faintest pressure and you'd shift course the way you always shifted course, automatically, the way you'd learned to move with him and not against him because moving against him was a theoretical option and moving with him was the actual option. he'd steer you through a crowded common room with his hand at your waist and his body blocking the approach from the left, keeping you moving through the space the way he wanted you to move through it, and you'd arrive at wherever you were going and he'd step back and cross his arms and look satisfied, and you'd say i could've done that myself and he'd say i know.
he had opinions about where you sat.
not unreasonable opinions. always the seat with the wall behind it, always the sight line to the door, always the position that he'd already assessed as the correct one before you'd arrived and would silently direct you toward with the shoulder or the hand until you were in it. you'd stopped arguing about this one early because the reasoning was sound and because his hand at your back steering you to the right chair was difficult to maintain strong feelings against.
the herding extended to other people.
if someone got too close to you in a corridor he'd close the gap between you and them with his own body, smoothly and without drama, just placing himself in the space in a way that made the space unavailable. if a conversation ran long and he'd decided it had run long enough he'd appear at your shoulder and the person you were talking to would invariably look at him and lose their conversational thread, and you'd conclude the debrief and he'd walk you away with his shoulder turning you in the right direction. he wasn't aggressive about it. he didn't glare or posture or do anything that could be pointed to and named. he simply existed between you and whatever he'd decided wasn't necessary, calm and large and absolute.
sam had commented on it once.
"does he know he's doing that?" sam had asked, watching bucky materialise in the corridor between you and a colleague who had been talking for a while.
"i think he knows exactly what he's doing," you'd said.
"and you're okay with it?"
you'd thought about it honestly. "he hasn't steered me wrong yet," you said.
sam had made the complicated face and gone back to his lunch.
what changed in the third week was the quality of the proximity.
the herding had always been functional, purposeful, the energy of something with a job and a clear idea of what the job required. what changed was that it became something else alongside the functional, something that didn't have a job except to be close to you. he'd stand behind you at the kitchen counter not to steer you anywhere but just to stand there, his hands at your waist and his chin finding the top of your head, and you'd let the morning happen around you and he'd stay until the coffee was ready and then step back. he'd sit beside you in the evenings with his knee against yours not because you were going somewhere or needed redirecting but because that was where he'd decided to be. he'd push your hair back from your face slowly, not because you were heading in the wrong direction but because he wanted to, and then let his hand stay at your jaw for a moment longer than the hair required.
it was still herding, technically. just herding toward him instead of away from something else.
one afternoon you'd been heading to your desk and he'd nudged you — the shoulder, the faintest pressure — toward the couch instead, and you'd gone because you always went, and he'd settled beside you and put his arm around your shoulders with the same calm certainty he put his arm around your shoulders when he wanted you to put your head on his shoulder, and you'd put your head on his shoulder and the afternoon had happened around you and neither of you had gone anywhere for two hours.
you'd looked up at him at some point and said "this is what you wanted."
"yeah," he said.
"you herded me onto the couch," you said.
"you were going to sit at your desk for four more hours," he said.
"i had work—"
"the report could wait," he said. "you needed to sit down."
you'd looked at the ceiling. "you can't just decide when i need to sit down."
"i can see when you need to sit down," he said. "so i can."
you'd thought about arguing with that and decided you didn't have the energy, which was possibly his point, and you'd put your head back on his shoulder and the afternoon had continued.
the kisses built the same way the herding built, incrementally and without a formal announcement, each one a small extension of something already established.
his lips at your temple after he'd pushed your hair back. the press of his mouth to the top of your head when he stood behind your chair with his hands on your shoulders. one evening at the kitchen counter, standing behind you with his hands at your waist and his chin on your head while you cooked, and then his mouth at the side of your neck, warm and slow, staying a moment before he straightened. you kept chopping and breathed carefully and said nothing and he kept his hands at your waist and said nothing and the kitchen smelled like garlic and the city went dark outside the window.
a saturday morning at the window with your tea, him coming to stand beside you with his shoulder against yours, and he pressed his mouth below your ear and his hand came to your waist at the same moment and the touch lasted longer than the others, several slow seconds of his lips warm against your skin, and then he straightened and said morning and you said morning back and neither of you moved from the window for a long time.
the herding became the touching became the kisses, all of it the same thing, all of it him deciding where you were supposed to be and moving you toward it with the same patient certainty, except that where you were supposed to be had shifted from your floor and your chair and the right seat in the commissary to somewhere much closer than any of those.
on sunday evening you were on the couch with your tablet and he came and sat beside you and took the tablet out of your hands and set it on the table and pushed your hair back from your face and let his hand stay at your jaw with his thumb at your cheekbone, and the room was quiet and the city was dark outside and you sat there and looked at him.
"bucky," you said, quietly.
"yeah," he said. rough and low. right there.
his thumb moved against your cheek. then he pulled his hand back and stood up and looked at you with something decided in his face.
"go to your room," he said.
you looked at him for a moment. "are you herding me to my room."
"yeah," he said, like this was obvious.
"bucky—"
"go," he said, patient and absolute, the same way he said everything when he'd made a decision.
and you went, because you always went, because he was very good at this and you had stopped pretending you weren't completely aware of where the herding had been heading this whole time, and you walked to the door and looked back over your shoulder and he was watching you with those dark eyes and hadn't moved, and the corner of his mouth was there, and you turned and walked out and you were smiling before you'd made three steps.
you pressed the elevator button.
the doors opened and you stepped in and then he was through them before they closed, stepping in beside you, and the doors shut and it was a very small space and he was a very large person and you looked at the numbers above the door. you felt him turn toward you. he took one step and his hand came up to your jaw and he kissed you, not the way he'd pressed his mouth to your temple or your neck, not careful and brief and still finding its way. he kissed you like he'd decided to, like the deciding had happened a long time ago and this was just the part that came after, and it was warm and sure and unhurried, and you kissed him back before you'd thought about it, which was becoming a theme.
the elevator stopped. your floor. the doors opened.
you pulled back and looked at him for one second and then you laughed, the genuine surprised kind, and slipped out into the corridor and ran. not frightened. the run of someone who knew exactly what was behind them and had decided to make it interesting, and the corridor was dim and yours and your room was at the end of it and your heart was doing something unreasonable and you were still laughing.
his footsteps started behind you.
even. steady. unhurried. the same pace they always were, and that was so much worse than hurried because the urgency wasn't needed, because he already knew where you were going, and he'd been herding you there for weeks.
you made it to your door.
your hand was on the handle.
his hand closed over yours, the flesh hand, warm and certain, and he reached past you and opened the door himself and held it, and you looked up at him, close, and his eyes were dark and the jaw was set and the corner of his mouth was something fuller now, something that had arrived completely.
"hi," you said, a little breathless.
"hi," he said. quiet. going nowhere.
you went inside.
so did he.
the door to your room clicked shut softly behind you, the quiet enveloping the space like a shared secret. bucky stepped in slowly, his eyes immediately seeking yours—dark, uncertain, flickering with anxious hesitation. your breath caught in your throat, mirroring the uneven rise and fall of his chest. his flesh hand twitched at his side, while the metal one remained still, its plates silent. the tension hummed between you, drawing you closer in tentative steps, like hesitant magnets.
he stopped mere inches away, his gaze locked steadily on yours, searching silently for any sign to retreat. you reached out tentatively, your fingers brushing the collar of his shirt lightly. his eyes widened just a fraction, his throat bobbing with a visible swallow. a small nod from you seemed to ease him, and his flesh fingers lifted slowly to trace your jaw—his warm palm cupping your cheek gently, his thumb stroking the bone with hesitation. your breaths synchronized, shallow and anxious.
your eyes held through it all, his pupils dilating as his lips brushed yours feather-light—testing, with a faint tremble at the corners of his mouth. a quiet whimper escaped you, your body leaning in instinctively, and he sighed shakily into the contact, pressing firmer but still so careful. his tongue darted out to wet your bottom lip slowly before sliding in lazily, exploring your taste with wide-eyed wonder, even as his eyelids fluttered.
his metal hand rose uncertainly, hovering at your waist until your fingers wrapped around his wrist softly, guiding the cool plates to settle there—pulling you closer inch by inch. a gasp punched from him, his cock stirring thickly in his pants, pressing lightly against your belly over the layers of fabric. his eyes darted down briefly, then back up to yours with anxiety, checking for permission. you nodded slowly, your hand sliding up to cup his jaw, your thumb mirroring his stroke on your cheekbone.
the kisses deepened unhurriedly, tongues gliding wet and tender—savoring every slide, breaths mingling hot and intimate. his free hand clenched into a fist before you took it, placing his palm over your breast slowly. the fabric barrier warmed under his hesitant knead, your nipple peaking tightly at the touch. your soft moan vibrated into his mouth, your hips twitching forward instinctively. he froze for a brief moment, his eyes snapping open wide to meet yours, an anxious flicker there until your reassuring gaze held firm, urging him onward.
you tugged the hem of his shirt up deliberately, peeling the fabric off his scarred and muscled torso—exposing the jagged seam where flesh knit to metal, pink ridges stark against his skin. his breath hitched sharply, his body tensing with uncertainty as your fingers traced the edges feather-light, your eyes locked on his through every pass. your lips followed, pressing open-mouthed kisses slowly along the scars—your tongue flicking the ridges gently, tasting the faint salt of his skin.
a shiver rolled hard through him, a low whine escaping his throat. his eyes squeezed shut then forced open to meet yours—vulnerable, an anxious plea shimmering in their depths. his metal fingers tightened fractionally at your waist, his flesh hand fisting the edge of the sheet nearby as you sucked soft marks into blooming red on his shoulder, your teeth grazing the lightest touch. his cock throbbed insistently now, his hips shifting restlessly, seeking friction over his pants.
your hand found his, guiding his flesh palm down to cup your ass slowly—pulling him flush against you, your pussy nestling against his bulge through the denim. mutual gasps traded in the kiss, eyes fluttering but holding hazy contact. he rocked experimentally in shallow motions, his cock dragging long over your folds—your wetness seeping into your panties quickly, soaking the barriers. an anxious tremble ran through his thighs, mirroring yours, breaths panting softly against parted lips.
lips parted slick and swollen, tongues thrusting lazily like a promise of deeper intimacy—marking mouths with gentle nips, sucking the swells until they turned pink and tender. you arched slowly, grinding back with tenderness, your clit catching the ridge of his shaft deliciously—a soft moan from you drawing his eyes darker. his hand squeezed your ass hesitantly until you pressed your fingers over his, encouraging a firmer grip. his cock pulsed hotly, pre-cum leaking steadily, his hips circling in an unhurried rhythm as he learned.
eyes locked with intense intimacy through the haze, his widening each time your pussy clenched slickly against him—uncertain but eager, his breath ragged. you slid your hand up, threading through strands of his hair with a gentle pull—tilting his head to deepen the kiss sweeter, tongues swirling thoroughly. he whined muffled into it, following your lead perfectly, his metal hand gliding up your back in a cool trail that soothed the anxious heat building so slowly.
you tumbled toward the bed together, him hovering over you on braced forearms—his weight careful not to crush, eyes searching yours anxiously for the next step. your legs parted invitingly, guiding his hips to settle between them slowly—his cock slotting perfectly along your pussy lips over the clothes, the forward drag drawing twin shudders. gazes held unwavering, breaths syncing as he ground languidly, the tip nudging your clit with precision.
his flesh hand wandered uncertainly up your side until you captured it, placing it over your breast again—his thumb circling your nipple slowly through the shirt, pinching feather-light at your nod. your back arched softly, your pussy fluttering wetly against his grind, a moan spilling free. his eyes fluttered half-shut in pleasure but snapped back to yours quickly—checking, always checking, that unsure glint softening under your pleased haze.
kisses trailed to necks now, his lips sucking marks of deep purple slowly—first under his jaw, his pulse thundering against your tongue, then blooming hot trails on yours. teeth grazed collarbones tenderly, marking skin red without a harsh bite. hips rolled in synced laziness, the dry fuck building a sweet tension coil—his cock throbbing relentlessly over your clit, your slick drenching the crotch lines mutually.
an anxious pause came as he lifted his head, eyes locking deep into yours— a silent question in their depths, his body trembling above you. you smiled softly, your hand in his hair tugging gently downward—guiding his mouth to your chest, shoving your shirt up to bunch it. his lips latched onto your nipple over the bra hesitantly, his tongue flicking slow circles— a wet spot darkening the lace as his suck pulled gently. your thighs quivered, grinding firmer instinctively but reined back to sweetness.
moans traded low and intimate, his muffled against your breast—vibrating through the fabric straight to your core. his cock jerked hard with each pass over your folds, pre-cum mixing into the slick mess. your fingers moved his metal hand to your inner thigh, spreading your leg wider—its plates gripping firm but careful, thumb stroking the denim soothingly. eyes met again through the veil of pleasure, his anxious wideness at your escaping whine, his hips stuttering briefly until your gaze reassured him.
he switched breasts slowly, lavishing the same tender sucks—teeth scraping the lace in the lightest graze, drawing gasps that made his cock twitch wildly. his body shook faintly above you, unsure eagerness shining in his eyes as you rocked up steadily, your clit grinding his shaft unhurriedly. your hand yanked his hair softly to arch your neck—he marked your throat with purple blooms, his lips lingering in long sucks.
you pushed his shoulders down gently, eyes holding his with hungry but hesitant intensity as he knelt on the floor—his nose nuzzling your pussy over the panties first, inhaling deeply with a shaky breath. his gaze flicked up anxiously to yours, waiting for your nod before his tongue dragged flat and slow over the cotton—tracing your slit deliberately, soaking it further. a loud moan escaped you, your hips lifting slightly—fingers threading through his hair with an encouraging light tug.
he licked broader and more tenderly, his lips sealing over your folds to suck softly through the barrier—his nose bumping your clit with sweet pressure. eyes locked upward constantly, watching every twitch of your face for guidance, his pupils blown wide with the pleasure of your taste filtering through the fabric. his metal hand gripped your thigh steady, flesh pressing your mound in slow circles—learning the pressure that made your pussy clench visibly, dampening further.
now circling your clit with focus, his tongue flicked lazily then lapped flat—suction pulling in gentle drags for delicious friction. thighs trembled mutually, his cock humping the air desperately over his pants, the bulge dark and wet. your whine escalated softly, hand pulling his hair firmer—his eyes fluttered but held yours, the anxious drive pushing bolder into sweet laps until the coil wound tight and lazy within you.
you tugged him up slowly, straddling his lap seamlessly—your pussy aligning perfectly with his bulge, the sodden fabrics sliding easily. mouths crashed together tenderly, tongues in sloppy sweet thrusts—marking lips, necks, and shoulders afresh, your teeth sinking into the scar seam again with slow sucks. hips rolled in synced languid motions, his cock gliding over your folds relentlessly, throbbing against your clit.
hands roamed as guided—yours placing his flesh to knead your breast, rolling the nipple; metal splaying over your ass to pull tighter into the rolls. eyes locked in hazy intensity through every grind, breaths panting shared—his widening at each pulse of your pussy, yours at the hot throb of his cock leaking steadily. anxious trembles chased away by the slow build, moans traded low in wet kisses.**n tension simmered into a sweet burn, grinding in deep circles—your clit grinding the peak of his shaft, folds hugging its ridge. release washed over you first in soft waves, your pussy pulsing to soak your panties in a flood, thighs clamping his hips as a cry muffled against his lips. eyes held through it, his darkening in awe as your body arched beautifully beneath him.
he followed moments later, his cock jerking ropes of thick cum into his boxers—grinding through his shattered whine, body convulsing as his arms crushed you close, trembling hard. gazes locked in vulnerable peak, breaths heaving in sync—sweat slicking skin, marks blooming mutually on necks, chests, and scars.
you collapsed tangled together, his shirtless chest heaving beneath you—scars red from your tender kisses. he nuzzled into your hair softly, lips peppering your forehead and jaw hesitantly—eyes searching yours with lingering anxiety, flesh fingers carding through strands in gentle query. you kissed a scar lingeringly and slowly, hand guiding his to your cheek—thumb stroking in mirror, gaze holding to reassure deeply.
bodies stayed melded close, pants damp and cooling slowly—heartbeats thudding together, breaths evening out in the quiet room. his metal arm wrapped around you in secure cool weight, flesh palm warm at your low back—both lingering in unsure bliss, eyes drifting shut in synced peace, the anxiety finally easing away into profound intimacy.
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
✓ Live Streaming✓ Interactive Chat✓ Private Shows✓ HD Quality✓ Free Actions
Free to watch • No registration required • HD streaming
NOTES: you used to love your boyfriend, but after a few years he got mean and critical so you called for a break. he comes back after a few days and is acting different..
CONFIDENTIAL MATERIAL ── 18+ ONLY.
he's in your doorway, bag in hand, and you haven't seen him in four days. four days since you told him you needed space. four days since the door closed and you let yourself feel something close to relief.
he doesn't say anything. just looks at you with those eyes—dark, still, the same ones you fell in love with back when he used to watch you like you were the most interesting thing in any room.
he's watching you like that again now.
"may i enter your dwelling?" he asks.
his voice sounds careful. like he's selecting the words from a list.
you step back. let him in.
"i have been thinking," he starts.
here it comes, you think. the explanation. the defense. the way he'll reframe every cutting comment as honesty, every dismissal as exhaustion, every cold silence as you misreading him.
you've rehearsed your responses. you're ready.
"i think i have been doing it wrong," he says.
you look at him.
"the—" he pauses. something moves across his face. a hesitation you don't recognize. "the way i have been treating you. i have been reviewing the data. running comprehensive retrospective analysis. and i can see now that my behavior was—"
"reviewing the data," you repeat.
"thinking about it," he corrects, very quickly. "just. thinking. like humans do."
you stare at him.
"okay," you say slowly.
"i was critical," he says. "i found things to correct when it was not.. when the corrections were not requested. i understand now that this caused you significant emotional damage."
you've known him for years. he doesn't talk like that. he talks like someone who's never wrong about anything, who phrases observations as facts and facts as verdicts.
"are you okay?" you ask.
he blinks. one second too long. "i am functioning within normal parameters. what i mean is—" he stops. resets. "yes. i am okay."
"who did you talk to?" you ask. "while i was—while we were on the break."
"my male companions," he says.
you go very still.
"your-" you repeat. "your what?!"
"my companions. who are male. my—" he seems to be searching for something. casting around behind his eyes. "my bros."
the word comes out like he's never said it before in his life. like he learned it an hour ago and isn't sure where the emphasis goes.
"right," you say.
"they were very informative. they explained the dynamics of human pair bonding at length. we had an extremely productive discussion about your emotional needs and how i had failed to meet them adequately. one of them had a small beast on his lap the entire time and it stared at me without blinking and i found it—" he pauses. "i found it charming," he finishes, in the tone of someone who found it deeply threatening.
you open your mouth.
you close it.
"a beast," you say.
"a small. domestic. beast." he holds his hands apart approximately cat-width. "with orange fur. it made a continuous low-frequency sound from its chest cavity."
"a cat. it was a cat."
"yes," he agrees, with great relief. "yes. the cat. i knew that."
"what changed in four days?"
his expression does something enormous. theatrical. his jaw tightens, his eyes go distant, and he turns his head slightly toward the window like he's about to deliver news of a war.
"i could not bear it," he says, very gravely. "the separation from you was an agony i had not anticipated and could not calculate my way out of. i consulted my male companions. i sat with their beast. i stared into its eyes for a long time and it stared back and something shifted in me." he looks at you. "i do not want to lose you. so i went and i figured out how not to. i will do better. i am committed to doing better. this is my vow."
this is my vow.
you are going to need a moment.
"you're vowing?"
"i am." he reaches across the cushion and takes your hand, and his grip is warm and steady and so achingly familiar that your chest does something you weren't prepared for. "you are important to me. more important than i communicated. that was an error and i intend to correct it."
his thumb moves across your knuckles. once. deliberate.
later, you tell yourself. ask later.
you turn your hand over and hold his back.
"okay," you say. "vow accepted."
something moves through his face. relief, you think. or whatever the equivalent is, wherever he's actually from.
"excellent!" he grins, and closes his eyes as he starts to pepper kisses across your knuckles, and for just a second he looks so genuinely, overwhelmingly grateful that you decide, for now, not to ask anything else at all.
every wednesday was date night, one of you would plan date night and then the other would do the week after. you'd been planning date nights for two years, aswell as paying for them whenever he decided to show up.
"i found us a place," he announces, and shows you his phone. it's a steakhouse with 4.7 stars and a review that says great for special occasions!! that he has highlighted somehow.
he pulls your chair out when you arrive. stands there holding it with both hands like he's been rehearsing. you sit down.
the candle on the table gets forty seconds of his complete and total attention before you click your fingers and bring him back.
he orders what you order, you have to remind him he's allergic to mushrooms.
walking home he holds your hand and it's nice, it's really nice, until you notice he's slowly rotating your wrist to look at your fingers from different angles and has been doing it for half a block. "what are you doing..?"
"nothing," his response is so quick it almost gives you whiplash.
outside your building you stop and turn and he's already doing the face—jaw set, eyes very serious, like he's about to announce something grave and historic. you smile up at him and you lean in.
he takes a very large step backwards.
"what are you doing," he says, in a completely different tone than any he's used all evening. alert. wary. his eyes have gone very wide.
"i'm going to kiss you."
"you are going to—" he looks at your mouth. back at your eyes. "you are going to press your face against my face?"
"yes."
"aggressively."
"no. not aggressively."
he doesn't look convinced. he looks like a man running rapid calculations about exit routes. "my male companions did not mention this part.." he says.
"it's a kiss. it's romantic."
"you are coming toward me with your mouth."
"that's what kissing is."
long pause. he looks at your mouth again with the focused expression he gave the candle before his energy shifts and he lifts his chin, squares his shoulders, and closes his eyes with the energy of someone preparing to take a hit.
you press up onto your toes and kiss him, soft and quick.
silence.
he opens one eye. then the other.
"that's all it is." your voice is soft, almost warm as you flutter your lashes at him.
he touches his mouth with two fingers. looks at you and then looks at his fingers as if expecting blood, "that was not an attack," he says slowly.
"i told you it wasn't."
"it was—" he pauses. the enormous face happens again, but softer this time, around the edges. "it was acceptable," he nods. "you may do it again."
"how generous."
"yes," he agrees, completely sincerely. "i thought so."
you grin before peppering his face with glossy kisses.
you're sitting on the counter the way he hated, ankles crossed, watching him make tea.
he's very serious about the tea. he always is. he found the process on his third day in your apartment and decided it was important, something about the ritual of it, and now he makes it every morning with the gravity of a man performing surgery.
kettle, mug, the specific shelf where you keep the bags.
he's memorized which one you like without ever asking.
you're watching his back when it happens. the kettle's not quite hot enough, you can tell by the way he tilts his head at it, and then he points two fingers at it, almost casually, the way you'd reach over to turn a dial, and there's a soft sound like the air tightening and the kettle starts to steam.
he pours. stirs. turns around and holds your mug out to you.
you take it say thank you and he nods.
you wrap both hands around the mug and look at him; really look at him, the careful way he's standing, the way he's always slightly more still than a person should be, the way he blinks like he learned to, and you think about a year ago when everything was sharp edges and cold silences and you'd started to forget why you stayed.
"what?" he asks, because you're smiling into your mug.
"nothing, love."
he looks at you for a moment longer before he smiles and turns back to make his own tea, and when the kettle cools again between cups he does it again and is completely unbothered. like he's forgotten to hide it, or decided not to bother.
you think maybe it's the second one.
you take a sip of your tea. it's exactly right, the way it always is when he makes it, and he's standing in your kitchen being an alien, being yours, and you think you love him more than you ever did before.
which is really something, considering he headbutted you on your first date.
NOTES : andrew watches his pretty girlfriend with lena and decides they need a child, now!
WARNINGS : established relationship, bimbo! reader, female oral, breeding kink, praise kink, protected sex, reader takes the condom off, prone bone, light choking, andrew has custody of lena!
CONFIDENTIAL MATERIAL ── 18+ ONLY.
the afternoon sun filters through the half-drawn blinds of pope's beachside bungalow, casting warm stripes across the living room floor. lena, his little niece with all seven years under her belt with those big curious eyes and tangled dark hair from her mom's side, perches on your hip like a koala, laughing as you bounce her gently. you're in that sundress he loves—the one with the thin straps and floral print that hugs your curves just right, the hem swishing against your thighs with every movement. your hair falls in soft waves, and you coo at her, making silly faces that have her hands clapping against your cheeks.
pope leans against the doorframe, arms crossed over his broad chest, watching the two of you with that intense stare of his. his eyes—dark, hungry—fix on you, tracing the way the dress clings to your body as you shift lena's weight. seeing you like this, so effortlessly domestic, playing the part of the perfect, pretty thing in his world, it hits him like a rogue wave. that primal urge surges up, hot and insistent: the need to claim you, to fill you until your belly swells with his seed, his baby. fuck, you're addictive, every giggle and sway pulling him deeper under.
lena's reciting some made-up story about pirates and treasures, her voice high and animated, hands gesturing wildly., but pope pushes off the frame, closing the distance in a few strides. 'hey, kiddo,' he murmurs to her, scooping her off your hip with one arm, planting a quick kiss on her forehead. 'go play in your room for a bit, yeah? uncle andrew needs to talk to... this one.' his voice drops on the last words, rough with promise, and lena nods, scampering off.
he turns to you immediately, hands finding your waist, pulling you flush against him. his mouth crashes onto yours, not gentle—deep, devouring, tongue sweeping in to taste you like he's starved. you melt into it, hands sliding up his damp chest, feeling the hard planes of muscle under your palms. he breaks the kiss just enough to mutter against your lips, 'gonna breed you, baby. fill that pretty cunt till it's overflowin', till you're round with my kid. can't stop thinkin' about it—watchin' you with her like that... fuck, you're mine.' the words tumble out, nonsense laced with raw need, his breath hot on your skin as his hands roam, one sliding down to cup your ass through the sundress, squeezing possessively.
you gasp into his mouth, arousal pooling low in your belly, and he kisses you again, harder, teeth nipping your lower lip. his addiction shows in every touch—the way his fingers dig in just enough to mark, then soothe with a stroke; the press of his growing erection against your thigh. 'so fuckin' perfect,' he growls between kisses, trailing his mouth to your jaw, your neck, sucking lightly there. 'gonna pump you full, make you swell up big for me. yeah? my pretty girl, carryin' my baby.' more muttering, feverish whispers as he backs you toward the couch, hands pushing the straps of your dress down your shoulders, exposing your breasts to the cool air.
he drops to his knees without warning, bunching the skirt of your sundress up around your waist, eyes locked on the sight of your bare cunt—already slick, glistening for him. 'look at you, drippin' already,' he rasps, voice thick with hunger. his hands grip your thighs, spreading them wide as he dives in, tongue flat and broad against your folds. he eats you out like it's the finest meal he's ever had—slow, deliberate laps that build to fervent sucks on your clit, his mouth sealed over you, devouring every drop. the wet sounds fill the room, his tongue plunging inside, curling to hit that spot that makes your knees buckle. you thread your fingers through his hair, moaning, hips bucking against his face, but he holds you steady, groaning into your cunt like he's the one getting pleasured.
'andie—oh god,' you whimper, the intensity making your toes curl. he doesn't let up, humming vibrations against you, lips and tongue working relentlessly until you're trembling, close to the edge. when you finally shatter, crying out, he laps it all up, not wasting a bit, his chin slick as he pulls back, eyes wild and satisfied.
you reach for him instinctively, hand sliding down to palm his cock through his jeans, but he catches your wrist, knocking it away gently but firmly. 'nah, baby. not tonight. need to be inside you—now.' his voice is a low command, no room for argument, as he stands, stripping off his jeans and grabbing a condom from the drawer in the coffee table. he rolls it on quickly, but his eyes never leave yours, dark with that obsessive want.
he guides you down onto the couch, flipping you onto your stomach with ease, your sundress hiked up, ass in the air. you feel the heat of him behind you as he positions himself in prone bone, sliding his cock along your slick entrance, teasing before pushing in slow, inch by thick inch. the stretch burns so good, your walls clenching around him, and he groans, bottoming out with a slap of skin. 'fuck, so tight—gonna breed this cunt, fill it till you're leakin' me for days.' more nonsense spills from him, muttered against your ear as he starts thrusting, deep and controlled, his forearm sliding around your neck from behind—not choking, just holding, possessive, keeping you close as he drives into you.
the pace builds, his hips snapping harder, the couch creaking under you, wet squelches echoing with every plunge. his free hand grips your hip, pulling you back onto him, and he peppers kisses along your shoulder, your neck, between grunts. 'addicted to you, pretty thing. gonna knock you up—swell you with my cum, my baby. yeah, take it all.' his words are fevered, breaths ragged, the breeding talk weaving through the haze of pleasure as he fucks you relentlessly, chasing that high.
you're moaning, body arching, the pressure of his arm around your neck heightening everything, making you feel owned, cherished in his rough way. he slows just enough to ask, voice strained, 'can i fill you up, baby? take this off—wanna cum inside, breed you proper.' his hand pauses on your hip, waiting, eyes boring into yours when you twist to look back.
your heart races, desire overriding everything. you reach back, fingers trembling as you roll the condom off his throbbing cock, tossing it aside. 'yes—fill me up, andrew. breed me.' the words are breathy, needy, and it's all he needs.
he surges forward again, bare now, skin on skin, thrusting deeper, faster. 'fuck yes—gonna pump you full.' his forearm tightens slightly around your neck, holding you in place as he chases release, muttering more about swelling you, making you his forever. when he comes, it's with a guttural groan, cock pulsing as he floods your cunt, hot spurts filling you until it leaks out around him, messy and perfect. he doesn't pull out right away, grinding slow to push it deeper, ensuring every drop stays inside.
finally, he collapses over you, kissing your damp skin softly, arm loosening to wrap around your waist instead. 'my girl,' he whispers, nuzzling your neck, the addiction clear in the way he holds you close, like he can't get enough.
NOTES : you book a cottage for the christmas weekend, then you get to said cottage and there is a man sat on your couch. you've been double booked and the letting agency is useless! and if it couldnt get any worse, you are snowed in.
WARNINGS : reader-insert, (no y/n) forced proximity, age gap, reader has no stranger danger awareness, snowed in, 'enemies' to lovers, reader and shane are childish and petty, locking out in the snow, 'saving water,' domestic bliss, 'wife and baby' used, oral, creampie, unprotected sex, degrading, overstimulation, kitchen sex, choking, biting, marking, overstimulation, be warned.
CONFIDENTIAL MATERIAL ── 18+ ONLY.
11.5K WORD COUNT
the drive up took longer than it should have. you'd printed the directions because your phone signal cut out somewhere around the second hour, and you'd been following them with one hand on the wheel and your chin nearly touching the windshield, squinting through the snow like that would help. your car, which your roommate calls a death trap and your mother calls a disaster waiting to happen, had made a noise somewhere outside keswick that you'd decided not to think about.
the heater worked if you hit the dashboard in exactly the right spot, which you'd figured out around birmingham, and the back seat was so full of bags you couldn't see out the rear window. three sweaters. five sweaters. honestly you'd lost count at some point while you were packing and just kept folding things in. a book you'd been meaning to read since february. a second book in case you finished the first one, which you wouldn't, but still. enough tea bags to last a small village through january.
snow had started coming down properly somewhere past penrith, fat and slow, settling on the windshield faster than the wipers could deal with it. you'd turned the radio off because the signal kept cutting in and out and the static was making you anxious. just you and the road and the dark coming in from both sides and the sat nav lady who had given up entirely somewhere around the last junction and was now pretending the road didn't exist.
you found it anyway.
the track was unmarked, exactly like the booking confirmation had said it would be, and you almost missed it twice before your headlights caught the wooden post at the turning. gravel under the tyres. trees closing in on both sides. and then the trees opened up and there it was.
the cottage sat back from the track with a light burning above the door and smoke coming from the chimney, pale stone walls and a low roof with snow sitting thick on it, and you put the car in park and just looked at it for a second through the windshield.
five days. just you and this and the silence.
you turned the engine off. the quiet that came in was enormous.
you sat there for a moment longer than you needed to, watching your breath fog up in front of you now that the heater had stopped. it was already getting cold in the car. the kind of cold that doesn't ask permission, just moves in. you sighed, a long slow one that misted in the air in front of you, and rubbed your hands up and down your arms. your coat was in the back somewhere under the bags. you'd been wearing it for the first hour and then it had gotten too warm and you'd shoved it back there and now you were going to have to deal with the consequences of that decision.
you got out.
the cold hit you properly the second your feet touched the gravel. you sucked in a breath and your lungs complained about it. the snow was still coming down, soft and indifferent, landing in your hair and on your shoulders while you stood there like an idiot with the car door open.
you hauled your bag out from the back seat, then the second one, then wrestled the tote with the food in it out from the footwell where it had wedged itself at some point past carlisle. you got everything onto your shoulders and your hands and stood there slightly lopsided, already regretting every item you'd packed, and then you kicked the door shut with your heel and turned toward the cottage.
the path was short but the gravel was uneven under the snow and you couldn't tell where one ended and the other began. you went carefully. the light above the door was warm and orange and the smoke from the chimney was going straight up into the dark sky, no wind to push it anywhere. it smelled like woodsmoke and pine and cold air and something about the combination of it made your chest do something embarrassing.
you shifted the tote higher on your arm, got to the door, and tried the handle.
it opened.
warm air came out to meet you, and the smell of something burning low in the grate, and you stepped inside and pushed the door shut behind you with your shoulder and stood in the little hallway letting your eyes adjust.
and then you looked up.
there was a man in the living room.
you screamed.
not a little surprised noise. a full one, from somewhere deep, the kind that emptied your lungs completely and sent the tote bag swinging off your arm and hitting the floor and the contents of it rolling in three different directions. a tin of soup made it almost to the fireplace.
the man didn't scream. he didn't even flinch. he just turned, slow and unbothered, like he'd heard you coming and had already decided how he felt about it. he was standing by the window with his arms crossed over his chest and he was tall, properly tall, the kind of tall that made the low ceiling of the cottage feel lower. dark jacket, dark henley underneath it, jaw that hadn't seen a razor in a few days. his hair was a sort of dirty blond shot through with grey at the temples and his eyes were light and sharp and fixed on you with an expression that suggested you were, at best, a mild inconvenience he hadn't budgeted for. not scared. not guilty. just waiting for you to finish.
you looked at him and he looked at you and you became suddenly and acutely aware that you had been in a car for four hours and your hair had done something in the cold and you were wearing a sweater with a small hole near the collar that you'd been meaning to fix since october.
"who the fuck are you," you managed, when you had enough breath back to form words.
he looked at you the way you imagined he looked at everything. like he was deciding whether it warranted a response at all.
"who the fuck are you," he said back. flat. even. returned it like something he had no use for.
"i asked first."
"this is my cottage."
"this is my cottage," you said. "i booked it. december 20th through the 25th, i have the confirmation email, i have the key code, i have—" you gestured at your bags on the floor, "—five days worth of stuff."
"then you need to take your five days worth of stuff," he said, turning back to the window like the conversation was already finished, "and go."
"i'm not going anywhere. someone has double booked this place and we need to—"
"you need to," he said. "i'm not doing anything. i've been here since yesterday, place is mine, and you've had a long drive so i'll give you a minute but then you need to get back in whatever that is at the end of the track and go."
"that," you said tightly, "is my car."
"barely," he said, and looked at it through the window, and his expression suggested he agreed with every concern your mother had ever had about it.
"i can't go," you said.
"sure you can. door's right there."
"look at the track."
he didn't move.
"please," you said, because you weren't too proud, "just look at it."
a pause. then he turned and looked past you out the window and the silence that followed had a different quality to it entirely. the track had filled in almost completely, the snow coming down so thick and fast it had swallowed the tyre marks you'd made not ten minutes ago. your car sat at the end of it like a small sad island.
"it'll clear," he said, but there was slightly less of him behind it.
"it's getting worse," you said. "and my car is not built for that even on a good day, which this isn't. i cannot leave. i physically cannot leave right now."
he looked at the track for a long moment. then he looked at you. then he looked at the ceiling like he was asking it something and it hadn't come back with a satisfying answer.
"fantastic," he said.
"i know."
"this is exactly what i came here for."
"i'm sorry," you said, which you were, genuinely, partly.
"you brought four bags."
"three bags and a tote."
"the tote is a bag."
"the tote is a tote."
he looked at the tote on the floor, its contents still scattered across the hallway, and then he looked at you with the expression of a man who had not been consulted and was going to be thinking about that for some time.
"i'm going to get wood," he said, pulling his jacket on. "when i get back we're sorting this out."
"i'll make tea," you said.
he stopped.
"i don't want tea," he said.
"i'll make tea," you said again, and started filling the kettle.
“black.” he huffed and then he left.
you listened to the door close and stood in the kitchen for a moment and breathed, and then you walked to the front door and turned the lock. the click it made was extremely satisfying. you went back to the kettle.
it took him less than ten minutes. you heard the crunch of boots on gravel and then the door handle, and then nothing, and then three knocks, flat and unhurried, the kind that didn't bother to be polite about it.
you said nothing.
"door's locked."
you pulled your sleeves down over your hands and looked out the window above the sink at the dark.
another knock. harder.
"i can hear you in there."
you had not made a single sound.
a pause. long enough that you started to wonder, and then it came, something that was almost a laugh except all the warmth had been stripped out of it, just the shape of one, pushed through his nose.
"you're gonna open this door, little missy."
not a question. not even close.
you pressed your lips together very hard.
"the agency opens at nine," you called back, very pleasantly. "we can sort this whole thing out in the morning."
"open the door or i sleep in your car," he said. "see how it handles the cold."
"i'm making tea," you said. "do you want tea? i have biscuits."
a pause.
"you're a witch of a woman," he said, but the locked-out edge had gone out of it slightly. "open the goddamn door."
you got up, smoothed down your sweater, walked to the door with what you felt was tremendous dignity, and slid the lock back. you opened it four inches and looked up at him through the gap. he was standing on the step with an armful of logs, pink across his nose and cheeks, snow in his hair, and an expression that was doing a lot of work to stay even.
you smiled at him.
he did not smile back.
"thank you for the wood," you said, and opened the door the rest of the way and went back to the kettle, and you were extremely proud of yourself the entire way there.
he came in without saying anything, which you were learning was his preferred mode of communication. he stacked the logs by the fire with more force than was strictly necessary, setting each one down like he was doing it to have something to do with his hands that wasn't directed at you, and you made the tea and carried both mugs into the living room and set his on the coffee table.
he looked at it.
he looked at you.
it was very milky. you had put a significant amount of milk in it and the evidence was plainly visible and neither of you said anything about it for a long moment.
"i said black," he said.
"did you?" you said. "i was sure you said white."
"i said black."
"i can make another one."
he picked it up and drank it without breaking eye contact and set it back down and turned back to the fire, and the subject was apparently closed, and you took your tea to the armchair and tucked your feet up under you and felt deeply and thoroughly pleased with yourself.
"biscuit?" you said, and held the packet out across the gap.
he looked at the packet. he looked at you. he took one and said nothing and ate it in two bites and looked at the fire.
you ate yours in three bites because you were normal.
the silence stretched out. outside the snow kept coming and the fire cracked and shifted and you tried your phone out of habit and got nothing and put it back in your pocket.
"so," you said.
"don't," he said.
"i was just going to say—"
"i know what you were going to say."
"you don't know what i was going to say."
he looked at you sideways, the assessing look, like he was running a quiet calculation behind his eyes that you weren't going to be made party to.
"you were going to try and sort out some kind of arrangement," he said. "divide the cottage up. make rules. put tape down the middle of something."
you opened your mouth. closed it.
"i was not going to suggest tape," you said, with as much dignity as you had left.
he drank his milky tea with a grim expression and leaned forward with his elbows on his knees. "bedroom's mine," he said.
"the sofa is very comfortable."
he looked at you sideways. "you've been on it for three minutes."
"it's a good sofa."
"i get the kitchen in the mornings," he said, cutting across whatever you'd been about to say. "you can have it after i'm done."
"when are you done."
"when i'm done."
"that's not—"
"bathroom's shared," he said, like you hadn't spoken. "don't touch my stuff. i won't touch yours." he picked his tea back up. "agency opens at nine. you call at nine."
"i was going to call at nine anyway."
"call at eight fifty nine."
"it opens at nine, it won't—"
"call at eight fifty nine and wait," he said, and that was apparently that, because he looked back at the fire and the conversation was over by his estimation, and you sat in the armchair with your tea and your biscuits and looked at the side of his face and said nothing.
the fire popped and sent a little shower of sparks up the chimney. outside the snow was still coming down. the track would be completely gone by morning.
it occurred to you, sitting there, that you had screamed at this man, argued with him, locked him out of his own cottage, made his tea wrong on purpose, and negotiated sleeping arrangements with him, and you did not know his name and he did not know yours and that felt like important information to be missing.
"i'm—" you said, and gave him your name.
he looked at you. something in his face shifted very slightly, the way a door shifts when someone tests it without opening it.
"shane," he said. just that. like it was all the biography you were going to get.
you nodded.
he looked back at the fire.
"i'm not leaving in the morning," he said, after a while. not aggressive. just factual, the way he seemed to do most things.
"neither am i," you said, in exactly the same tone.
something that was almost a smile crossed his face, brief and unwilling, and he reached over and put another log on the fire without being asked and then stood, stretched in a way that took up a considerable amount of the room, and headed for the stairs without ceremony.
"night," he said, to somewhere in your general direction.
you watched him go.
the cottage settled into quiet after that. you read the same paragraph four times and gave up and just looked at the fire instead, which was more honest. upstairs you could hear him moving around, the occasional thud of boots on floorboards, a drawer, and then nothing.
you were asleep on the sofa by ten, which you hadn't intended, and you woke up at some point in the early hours with the fire burned low and a blanket over you that you were fairly certain had not been there when you fell asleep.
you looked at it for a moment.
then you pulled it up and went back to sleep and didn't think about it, because thinking about it would lead somewhere you weren't ready to go on the first night.
in the morning the war began.
you came downstairs at seven because you'd slept on a sofa and your back had opinions about it and lying there listening to them wasn't doing anyone any good. shane was already in the kitchen. he had made coffee, there was a mug on the counter that was clearly his, nothing that was clearly yours, and he was leaning against the counter drinking it and cleaning a small handgun with the attention of a man who wanted you to register that he had a small handgun. he looked up when you came in and said nothing.
you said nothing.
you went to the kettle.
"sleep well?" he said, in the tone of someone who did not care how you slept and was asking purely to be unpleasant about it.
"brilliantly," you said.
"sofa comfortable?"
"very."
"you were face down in the cushions when i came through at six."
"i was reading."
"at six in the morning. face down."
"i'm an early riser."
he made a sound that was not quite a laugh and went back to the gun, and you made your tea and took it to the sofa and sat down.
"that's my chair," you said, when he moved to the armchair.
"you're on the sofa."
"i was getting up."
"you sat down."
"i was in the process of deciding."
he crossed one ankle over his knee, picked the gun back up, and did not move, and the look he gave you over the top of it suggested that this particular conversation was finished and he had won it.
you sat on the sofa. it was a very good sofa. you didn't need the armchair. you were fine.
at nine you called the letting agency.
you were on hold for twenty two minutes. you knew this because shane counted from the kitchen, out loud, every five minutes, in a tone of quiet satisfaction. at twenty minutes you told him to be quiet. he counted the next five on his fingers, held up from the doorway where you could see them.
the woman on the phone was very sorry. system error. extremely unusual. she would look into it and call you back.
she did not call you back.
by eleven you were both staring at your phones, or rather you stared at yours and he watched you stare at yours while his battered flip phone sat on his chest like it had never done anything wrong in its life.
by twelve the log pile had been rearranged in a way that was clearly deliberate and impossible to articulate a complaint about. you moved the throw pillow from the sofa to the armchair. he moved it back without comment. you put it on top of the log pile.
he looked at it sitting there for a long moment.
"why," he said.
"decorative," you said.
"it's a log pile."
"it needed something."
he picked it up and dropped it back on the sofa. you put it back on the logs. he stared at you. you looked out the window with great serenity.
"you're doing this on purpose," he said.
"i don't know what you mean."
"you're an odd woman."
"thank you."
he moved it to the armchair. you moved it to the kitchen counter. he moved it to the bathroom, which was an escalation, and you retaliated by placing it on top of his boots by the door. he looked at his boots for a moment with the expression of a man taking stock, and then moved the pillow to on top of your bag. you put it on the doorstep.
he opened the door, picked it up, brought it back inside, placed it in the precise centre of the sofa, and sat next to it with his arms crossed and looked at you.
you sat on the other side of it.
you both looked at the fire.
"this is your fault," he said.
"this is absolutely your fault," you said
the letting agency did not call.
by two in the afternoon a kind of grim routine had established itself. you made lunch because you had yesterday and apparently that was who you were now, the person who made lunch, and you made enough for two without acknowledging that you were doing it and left his on the counter and took yours to the sofa. he ate standing up the way he always did, like sitting down at a table was a philosophical position he wasn't willing to take, and he didn't say anything about the lunch but he ate all of it, which was the same thing.
the afternoon went the way afternoons go when you're snowed in with someone you're pretending to ignore. you read. or you held your book and moved your eyes across it, which is adjacent to reading. shane did things at the kitchen table involving his map and his pencil and an expression of deep concentration that you suspected was at least forty percent performance. the thermostat became a point of contention around three, when you got up and moved it two degrees warmer and came back to find he'd turned it back down before you'd even sat down again.
you turned it up.
he turned it down.
you turned it up and added one for good measure and went back to the sofa and dared him with your eyes.
he looked at you for a long moment and then looked back at his map and left it, which you decided to count as a victory.
he found the corkscrew before you did and put it somewhere you couldn't locate it, which you discovered at five when you went looking for it. you stood in the kitchen opening drawers and he watched from the doorway and said nothing with a tremendous amount of satisfaction.
"where's the corkscrew," you said.
"don't know."
"shane."
"never seen it."
you opened the wine with a knife and considerable determination and took it to the sofa and did not look at him, and if he made a sound behind you that might have been the very beginning of a laugh you didn't give him the satisfaction of turning around.
he made dinner again. the same way he'd done it the night before, without discussion, without asking what you wanted, just started cooking at some point and put a plate in front of you when it was ready. it was good. it was extremely good. you said nothing about how good it was and ate every bit of it, and across the table he ate his own and didn't look at you and the candle burned down another inch.
after dinner you washed up. he dried. this also happened without discussion, which was starting to feel like its own kind of language, and then you were back in the living room with the fire going and your wine open and the snow outside the windows turning the dark blue and then black, and it was, objectively, exactly the kind of evening you'd driven four hours in a snowstorm for.
you were on the armchair. you'd claimed it early and held it. shane was on the sofa with his phone and his expression like a closed door and his long legs stretched out toward the fire, and the cottage was warm and quiet and the only sounds were the fire and the occasional turn of your page and outside the world was buried under snow and completely still.
it was around nine when you heard it.
a scratching at the front door. low and soft and irregular, stopping and starting.
you looked up from your book.
shane hadn't moved.
it came again. scratch. pause. scratch scratch.
"did you hear that," you said.
"yes," he said, without looking up from his phone.
"what is it."
"don't know."
"well what do you think it is."
he looked up then, slowly, with the expression of a man who had been asked to invest energy he hadn't budgeted for. "could be anything," he said. "bear. big dog. something worse."
"there are no bears in the lake district."
"you don't know that."
"i do know that, it's quite well documented."
"wolves have been reintroduced in parts of—"
"they have not," you said. "they genuinely have not."
he shrugged, which was the most aggravating response available to him, and looked back at his phone.
the scratching came again. softer this time. almost tentative.
you put your book down and crossed the room to the front door and opened it.
the cold came in immediately and the dark came with it and you stood in the doorway and looked out at the front yard and the snow and there, sitting on the path not four feet away, was a fox. small and very rust coloured and completely unbothered by any of it, sitting in the snow with its tail wrapped neatly around its feet, looking up at you with bright amber eyes like you were the one who had appeared without warning.
"oh," you said softly. "hello."
the fox looked at you.
you took one small step out onto the doorstep to get a better look at it, because it was perfect, because it was christmas and there was a fox in the snow and for one moment everything was exactly as lovely as you'd needed it to be when you'd packed your seventeen sweaters and pointed your terrible car north.
the door swung shut behind you.
the lock clicked.
you froze.
from inside the cottage came a sound you had not heard from shane maguire before. a real laugh, short and low, surprised out of him, there and gone almost before it landed, like it had escaped before he'd had the chance to decide against it.
you turned around.
through the little window beside the door you could see him. he had sat forward on the sofa, elbows on his knees, and he was grinning. not the almost-grin. not the corner of the mouth thing he deployed when you'd done something he found irritating and funny in equal measure. a real one, unguarded and sudden, doing something entirely unfair to his face, and he looked at you through the glass and raised his mug in a small unhurried toast.
you stared at him.
the fox, evidently satisfied that whatever this was had nothing to do with it, stood up, shook the snow delicately off its tail, and trotted off into the dark without a backwards glance.
you watched it go.
then you turned back to the door.
"shane," you said, very calmly.
the grin hadn't moved.
"open the door."
he looked at his mug.
"shane i am in my socks."
he looked up at that, looked at your feet on the wet doorstep, and had the absolute nerve to wince slightly, just a fraction, in a way that acknowledged this was perhaps marginally too far while also making it clear he had no immediate plans to do anything about it.
"you should have worn shoes," he said, through the door.
"you locked the door."
"you walked out in socks."
"because you locked the door."
"in december."
"shane."
"in the snow."
"open the door right now," you said, "or so help me i will sleep in my car and when they find me frozen to the seat in the morning it will be entirely your fault and i will haunt you specifically."
a pause. a long one. he looked at you and you looked at him through the glass and his expression was doing several things at once, none of which he appeared to be entirely in control of.
the lock clicked.
you came back inside on feet that were already soaking and stood in the hallway and looked at him, and he'd already leaned back into the sofa by the time you got through the door, phone back up, face entirely neutral, like none of it had happened and he had no memory of any grin.
"that was genuinely unhinged behaviour," you said.
"you went out in socks," he said.
"you locked the door."
"you weren't watching where you were going."
"you locked the door on purpose."
"reflex," he said.
"it was not a reflex."
"quick hands."
"shane."
"yeah."
"i hate you."
"mhm," he said, and that was the end of it apparently, and you went and stood in front of the fire with your back to him until your feet thawed out, and the cottage was warm and the fire was good and somewhere out in the dark the fox was going about its evening entirely unbothered, and you were standing in your wet socks being absolutely furious, and the worst part, the genuinely most annoying part, was that somewhere underneath the fury something wanted to laugh.
you didn't let it.
but it was there.
you woke up on the third morning to a different kind of quiet.
not the usual quiet, the one that settled over the cottage at night when shane had gone upstairs and taken all his difficult energy with him. this was heavier. the kind of quiet that had weight to it, that pressed against the windows and sat on the roof and changed the quality of the light coming through the curtains from pale grey to almost nothing.
you lay on the sofa and looked at the ceiling and knew before you'd moved that something was different.
you got up.
the window above the sink was half covered. not frosted, not misted, but filled, packed white from the bottom up, snow pressed against the glass like it was leaning on it, like it had decided the window was a surface it could use. you could see maybe a foot of dark sky at the top. the rest was white.
you stood and looked at it for a moment.
then you went to the front door and tried it.
it opened two inches and stopped. a wall of snow, solid and dense, packed tight against the frame from the outside. you pushed. it didn't move. you put your shoulder into it and shoved and the door shifted another half inch and a trickle of snow came over the threshold and onto the floor and that was all.
you stood back.
"shane," you said.
nothing from upstairs.
"shane."
a long pause, and then the creak of floorboards, and then his feet on the stairs, and he appeared in the hallway in a dark thermal and his jeans, hair unflattened from sleep, looking at you with the expression of a man who had been awake for some time and was waiting to find out what you were going to do with yours.
you pointed at the door.
he looked at the two inch gap and the wall of snow behind it and the trickle on the floor and said nothing for a moment.
then he crossed to the window by the front door and looked out through the narrow strip of glass still visible at the top, the part the snow hadn't reached yet. you came and stood beside him and looked out too.
the porch was gone. or rather it was still there, underneath, but you couldn't see any of it. the snow had come up over the railing overnight and kept going and was now sitting level with the window ledge and still building, the flakes coming down outside thick and unhurried and completely indifferent to the fact that you were watching them.
your car was a shape. just a shape, a soft white mound at the end of where the track used to be, indistinguishable from the rest of the landscape except that the landscape didn't usually have wing mirrors.
"right," shane said.
"right," you said.
you both stood there looking at it.
"how long does this last," you said.
"storm like this?" he looked at the sky through the top of the window, what little of it was visible, doing the calculation of a man who had spent enough time in bad weather to read it. "another day. maybe two."
"two days."
"maybe."
"we can't open the door."
"no."
"we're actually snowed in. properly."
"yes."
you turned and looked at the cottage. the small living room, the kitchen just off it, the bathroom down the short hallway, the stairs up to the one bedroom that was his and the sofa that was yours. the log pile by the fire. the kitchen cupboards with their limited and now finite contents. the kettle. your books. his map.
"how are we on wood," you said.
he looked at the log pile. "two days if we're careful."
"food?"
"depends what you brought."
"i brought enough for five days."
"for one person."
"yes."
he nodded slowly, doing the arithmetic, and didn't say anything about it, which was almost generous by his standards.
"gas on the hob?" you said.
"half a tank. maybe more."
"okay," you said. "okay."
you went to the kitchen and filled the kettle and switched it on because there was nothing else immediate to be done and tea was at least something to do with your hands. outside the snow pressed against the bottom of the kitchen window and you watched it while you waited for the kettle to boil, watched it sit there patient and enormous and entirely unbothered by any of this.
shane came and leaned in the kitchen doorway.
"stop looking at it like it's going to do something different," he said.
"i'm processing," you said.
"process faster. it's just snow."
"we can't open the door, shane."
"i know."
"the windows are half covered."
"i know."
"my car is completely buried."
"i know," he said, for the third time, with slightly more patience than you'd expected from him, which somehow made it worse. he crossed his arms and looked at the ceiling briefly and then back at you. "it's not going to get in. the cottage is solid, the roof is fine, we have wood and we have food and we have heat. we're not in any danger."
"i know that," you said, which was mostly true.
"you're doing a face," he said.
"i'm not doing a face."
"you are. you've been doing it since you opened the door."
"it's just my face," you said. "it does this."
he looked at you for a moment and something shifted in his expression, very slightly, in a way you didn't quite have the vocabulary for yet, and then the kettle finished and you turned away from him and made the tea.
you made his black.
he didn't say anything about it.
you both took your mugs to the living room and you sat on your end of the sofa and he sat on his and outside the snow kept coming down past the windows, past the half that was still visible, and the fire was going and the cottage was warm and the world outside had reduced itself to white and more white and the two of you in this small warm room with nowhere to go and nothing to do but wait it out.
you pulled your knees up to your chest and wrapped both hands around your mug and looked at the fire.
"you could have been nicer to me," you said, "from the beginning. given the circumstances."
a pause.
"could have," he said.
"but you weren't."
"no."
"any particular reason."
he drank his tea. looked at the fire. the log shifted and settled and sent a thread of sparks up the chimney.
"you locked me out," he said.
"you were going to make me leave in a snowstorm."
"you made my tea wrong."
"you called me little missy."
"you put a pillow on my log pile."
"it needed something," you said, for the second time, with complete sincerity, and something crossed his face that he turned away before you could identify it, and the snow pressed against the windows and the fire burned and outside the world was completely silent under all that white.
the snow didn't stop.
you knew this because you checked the window every hour with the dedication of someone who had been told not to and couldn't help it anyway, and every hour it was the same, the white pressing a little higher, the visible strip of sky a little narrower, the world outside a little more thoroughly erased.
shane stopped commenting on the window checking after the third time. this was either personal growth or he'd found it too easy to be worth continuing, you couldn't tell which.
the cottage had developed its own weather system by the second afternoon. a careful, loaded kind of atmosphere that had nothing to do with the storm outside and everything to do with the two of you moving around each other in four rooms with nowhere else to go. you'd established, without saying so, that the sofa was yours in the mornings and his in the evenings. the armchair was contested territory. the kitchen existed in a state of armed neutrality.
you were reading, actually reading this time, when he came in from checking the back of the cottage, all cold air and snow on his shoulders, and stopped in the middle of the room and looked at you.
"what," you said, without looking up.
"nothing," he said.
"you're staring."
"i'm standing in my living room."
"it's our living room."
"debatable," he said, and went to the kitchen, and you heard him put the kettle on, and a minute later a mug appeared on the table beside you.
you looked at it.
black tea. made right.
you looked at the kitchen doorway but he was already gone, back to the table and his map, and you picked the mug up and said nothing and drank it and the fire cracked and outside the snow kept falling.
it was a small thing. it was nothing. you read the same paragraph four times.
the evening was easier than the ones before it, which you hadn't expected. something had shifted in the barometric pressure of the cottage, not a lot, not enough to name, but enough that when he sat on his end of the sofa and you sat on yours the silence between you was a different kind than it had been. less fortified. still watchful but less armed about it.
you were sharing the blanket. this had happened without discussion, the way most things between you happened, some time around nine when you'd pulled it off the back of the sofa and he'd taken the other end without comment and now it sat across both your laps like a demilitarised zone and neither of you mentioned it.
"your feet are cold," he said, without looking up from his phone.
"i know."
"you're putting them near me."
"i'm not."
"you are. i can feel them from here."
"i'm fully on my side."
"your side is very close to my side."
"then your side is too big," you said, and pulled the blanket more firmly around yourself, and he made a sound that was almost a laugh and said nothing.
you woke up the next morning to find the last strip of visible sky through the front window gone. the snow had reached the top of the glass overnight and now the window was just white, a solid opaque rectangle, and the cottage had a muffled underwater quality to the light, dim and close and strange.
you stood in front of it for a long moment.
"it'll melt," shane said, from the kitchen, without you asking.
"i know," you said.
"you're doing the face."
"i'm not doing a face."
"you're doing it right now. i can see the back of your head doing it."
"that's not possible."
"i'm very perceptive," he said, which was so outrageously delivered without a trace of irony that you turned around just to look at him and he was leaning in the kitchen doorway with his coffee and an expression of complete neutrality.
you went and had a shower because it was something to do and the bathroom was warm and the hot water was one of the cottage's better qualities. you stood under it for longer than was probably reasonable and let the heat work on your shoulders and tried not to think about the snow against the windows or the track or your car or the fact that you were now on day three of being trapped in four rooms with a man who was mean to you in a way that was starting to feel dangerously like a language you were learning.
you were rinsing your hair when the bathroom door opened.
you screamed.
a proper one, full volume, the kind that bounced off the tiles and came back at you.
"what are you—" you yanked the shower curtain across so hard the rings scraped the rail, "shane what the fuck—"
"saving water," he said, completely calm, from somewhere on the other side of the curtain.
"get out."
"it's a shared resource. we don't know how long we're here."
"get OUT—"
"i'm not looking," he said, and you could hear it in his voice, the laugh he wasn't letting out, sitting right there behind his teeth, "i'm being environmentally responsible."
"i will actually kill you," you said, "i will end your life in this bathroom, get out right now—"
"you've been in here forty minutes."
"i was relaxing—"
"in my shower."
"it's our shower—"
"so i'm sharing it," he said, with tremendous reasonableness, and that was when the laugh escaped, low and genuine, and it bounced off the tiles the same way your scream had and you stood behind the curtain with your heart going at twice its normal speed and your face doing something you were very glad he couldn't see.
"get out," you said, very quietly, very precisely.
a pause.
"there's no hot water left anyway," he said.
"shane."
"i'll make breakfast."
"get out of the bathroom."
"eggs alright?"
"oh my god," you said, to the curtain, to the tiles, to nobody. "get out."
you heard him go. you heard him laughing on the other side of the door, quiet and unhurried, all the way down the hallway.
you stood under the cooling water and pressed both hands over your face and stayed there until it ran cold.
he had eggs on the table when you came downstairs, hair damp and expression extremely composed, and he looked up when you came in and looked back down at his plate and said nothing, and the corner of his mouth was doing the thing and you sat down and picked up your fork and said nothing either.
you ate your eggs.
they were good eggs.
"thank you," you said, which cost you something.
"water conservation is important," he said, without looking up.
you pointed your fork at him.
he looked at it. then at you. then back at his plate, and the corner of his mouth went further, and you put your fork down and picked up your tea and looked out the window, which was still completely white, and the cottage held you both in its small warm radius and outside the snow was finally, very slowly, starting to stop.
you didn't notice for a while.
it was shane who said it, quietly, from the sofa, where he'd moved after breakfast with his phone and his coffee.
"it's stopping," he said.
you looked up.
through the top of the side window, the narrow strip that was still clear, the sky had changed. lighter. not bright, not blue, but lighter, the heavy pressing white of the storm giving way to something thinner. and the flakes coming down were smaller now. fewer.
you both watched through the gap in silence.
"how long before the track clears," you said.
he was quiet for a moment. "few days. if it doesn't come back."
"few days," you repeated.
"yeah."
you sat with that. the fire cracked. somewhere outside a branch dropped its load of snow and you heard it land, heavy and soft.
a few more days.
you looked at him. he was looking at the window, the line of his jaw and the grey at his temples and the particular stillness he had that you'd stopped finding aggravating somewhere around yesterday and had started finding something else entirely, which was its own kind of problem.
he looked over.
you looked back at your book.
"you were looking at me," he said.
"i was looking at the window."
"i'm not the window."
"i'm aware."
"you were looking at me."
"i was looking in a general direction," you said, with great dignity. "you happened to be in it."
he made the sound. the one that wasn't quite a laugh. and then he looked back at the window and said nothing and you looked back at your book and said nothing and the snow outside had almost entirely stopped and the light was that particular pale grey that comes after a storm, clean and very still.
the fire needed another log around four. you were closer to it but he got up anyway, the way he'd started doing, and crouched down and put two on without being asked and stayed crouched for a moment looking at it, forearms on his knees, and the fire lit the side of his face and you watched him from behind your book and were extremely glad he was looking at the fire.
he sat back down.
not quite in the same place.
not significantly closer. not enough to say anything about. just slightly less far away than he'd been before, the sofa cushion between you a little less pronounced, the blanket a little more shared than divided.
you read your page. you actually read it this time.
it got dark at four thirty the way it did in december, sudden and complete, and the cottage lamps made everything amber and close, and outside the snow had stopped entirely now and the world was silent under all that white, no wind, no movement, just the enormous quiet of a landscape that had been put to bed.
your feet were cold.
they were always cold. you'd mentioned this to no one because mentioning it felt like the kind of vulnerability that would be used against you. but the sofa was cold underneath and your socks were the thin ones because you'd packed for festive and cosy, not for survival, and your feet were genuinely, persistently cold.
you shifted. pulled your knees up. put them back down. shifted again.
"what are you doing," shane said, without looking up.
"nothing."
"you've moved four times in ten minutes."
"i'm comfortable."
"you're clearly not."
"i'm fine."
he looked at you then, sideways, the slow look, taking in your tucked up knees and the way you'd pulled the blanket up and your expression of complete false serenity, and something moved across his face.
"feet cold?" he said.
"no," you said.
he looked at you for another moment and then looked back at his phone.
you lasted approximately three more minutes.
then, with the energy of someone doing something entirely reasonable that required no comment, you shifted sideways on the sofa, and lifted the hem of his shirt, and put both feet flat against the warm skin of his abdomen.
he made a sound like he'd been hit.
"what the—" he looked down, then at you, then down again, "—your feet are freezing—"
"i know," you said pleasantly, and opened your book.
"get your—" he started, and then stopped, and you felt the moment he decided something, felt it in the shift of his weight, and then his hand came down and wrapped around your ankle, not moving you, not removing you, just holding, his thumb against the bone, and he looked back at his phone with the expression of a man who had made a calculation and arrived somewhere he hadn't planned.
you said nothing.
he said nothing.
his hand was very warm. his skin was very warm through your socks and the fire was going and the lamp was on and outside was silent and white and you read your page and turned it and read the next one and actually took in most of it.
"you're like a radiator," you said, after a while.
"you're like a cold fish." he said.
"that's not a saying."
"it is now."
his thumb moved, slightly, against your ankle. just a small shift, absent and unconscious, and you were fairly certain he didn't know he'd done it, and you were very certain you weren't going to say anything about it.
"your feet are warming up," he said, about ten minutes later.
"yes," you said.
"so you can move them now."
"i'm comfortable," you said.
a pause.
"right," he said, rolling his eyes, but his hand didn't move.
you turned another page and the fire settled into its low steady burn and somewhere outside a branch released its snow and the soft impact of it reached you through the walls and shane maguire sat beside you with his hand around your ankle and his phone in his other hand and his face doing nothing in particular, and the cottage was very warm and very quiet, and you were snowed in for a few more days yet, and you had two books and enough tea bags for a small village, and honestly, objectively, you could think of worse situations to be in.
you weren't going to tell him that.
you made dinner because the alternative was watching him cook again and feeling unreasonably domestic about it, which had been a problem last night and the night before and you were taking preventative action.
it wasn't complicated. pasta, because the cupboards were what they were, with the last of the good tomatoes and some herbs you'd found at the back of the shelf and a quantity of garlic that you felt was appropriate and shane would probably have an opinion about. you stood at the hob and stirred and the kitchen was warm and smelled good and outside the snow sat still and silent and enormous and you felt, despite everything, despite the sofa and the tracking agency and the three days of low grade hostilities, something close to content.
shane was at the kitchen table with his map. he'd been there for an hour. you'd stopped asking about the map. it existed, it occupied him, that was enough.
you grated cheese. you tasted the sauce. you adjusted. you were aware of him watching you from the table the way he sometimes did when he thought you weren't paying attention, or possibly when he knew you were and didn't care either way.
"nearly ready," you said.
"i know. i can smell it."
"is that a complaint."
"it's an observation."
you put the plates on the table and sat down and he folded the map away and picked up his fork and you both ate and the candle between you burned and the kitchen was warm and outside was dark and white and completely still.
it was a good dinner. you knew it was a good dinner. you waited.
he ate about half of it before he said anything.
"you made the bread this morning," he said.
"i had time."
"you fixed the latch on the back window."
"it was annoying me."
"you've been cooking every night."
"we've been taking turns—"
"last night you made dinner and then told me i could wash up, which isn't taking turns, that's delegating." he pointed at the candle with his fork. "you even lit this."
"it was on the shelf."
"we've been here four days and you never lit it before."
"i was in a different mood," you said.
he leaned back in his chair and looked at you across the table with the candle between you and his arms crossed and the expression on his face was doing something you didn't entirely trust.
"what," you said.
"nothing," he said.
"shane."
"i'm just thinking," he said, "that all we're missing is a couple of kids and a big dumb dog and you'd be near enough my wife."
the kitchen went very quiet.
you picked up the tea towel from where it was sitting on the counter beside you and hit him with it. a proper swing, across the arm, and he made a satisfying sound of surprise and caught it before you could do it again and was grinning, actually grinning, the full one, the rare devastating one, and you turned back to your plate and picked up your fork and ate a large mouthful of pasta and stared at the middle distance with the focused energy of a woman who was absolutely not blushing.
you were absolutely blushing.
the tips of your ears were hot. you could feel it. you ate another mouthful and looked at the candle and not at him and the silence in the kitchen had a completely different quality to the one it had arrived with.
"near enough," he said again, quieter, almost to himself, picking his fork back up.
"eat your dinner," you said.
"yes dear," he said.
you picked the tea towel back up.
he held both hands up, fork in one of them, and the grin had settled into something smaller and more permanent, something that sat in the lines of his face like it was planning to stay, and you put the tea towel back down and ate your pasta and did not look at him and the candle burned between you and outside the snow was starting, very softly, to melt.
you washed up because apparently you were the kind of person who did things now, who kept their hands busy so their face had time to sort itself out.
the kitchen was quiet. shane had moved back to the living room after dinner, or you'd assumed he had, you hadn't looked, you'd just stood up and taken the plates to the sink and turned the tap on and looked at the window above it, which was still half covered in snow, the top half showing a dark sky with stars coming through now that the storm had passed.
stars. that was something.
you washed the plates and thought about nothing in particular and your face did what it needed to do and the hot water was good and outside was silent and still.
you didn't hear him come in.
you didn't hear anything, which was entirely typical of him, and the first thing you knew about it was two hands settling on your waist. not grabbing. not startling. just settling, easy and warm, like they'd considered the matter and decided this was where they were going. and then his nose, tucked under your ear, the faint scratch of his jaw against your neck, and he was very close and very warm and smelled like woodsmoke and something underneath that was just him.
you didn't move.
you weren't sure you could.
"you need help?" he said, very quietly, and his voice was different at this proximity, lower, the rough edges of it closer, and it did something quite serious to your ability to think in complete sentences.
the plate in your hands was already clean. you'd been washing it for some time.
"i'm nearly done," you said. your voice came out mostly normal. this felt like an achievement.
"mhm," he said, and didn't move.
his thumbs moved slightly against your waist, the same absent unconscious thing his thumb had done against your ankle earlier, like his hands did things without consulting him, and the tap was still running and the water was warm and his nose was still tucked under your ear and you were looking at the half-covered window and the stars in the top half of it and breathing very carefully.
"the plates are done," he said.
"i know."
"you've been washing that one for a while."
"it was dirty."
"it wasn't," he said.
you put the plate on the rack. you picked up a glass. you were very focused on the glass.
his hands didn't move. his nose didn't move. you felt him breathe, slow and even, felt it against your neck, and the kitchen was very warm and very small and the candle was still going on the table behind you and outside the stars were out for the first time in four days.
"shane," you said.
"yeah," he said, quiet against your ear.
you didn't say anything else.
you didn't have anything else to say, was the thing. you'd started his name and arrived at the end of it and found that whatever was supposed to come after it hadn't shown up, and the glass was clean and the rack was full and the tap was still running and his hands were still on your waist.
you reached out and turned the tap off.
the kitchen went very quiet without it.
his hands were still there. his jaw was still against your neck. and in the quiet you could hear the fire in the other room and the settling of the cottage and somewhere outside the first small sounds of snow starting to slide from the roof, loosened by the rise in temperature, the world beginning its slow return.
"nearly done," you said again, quietly.
"mm." his voice was low, rough from disuse. he didn't move away. instead his palms slid forward, pulling you back against him until your ass met the front of his jeans. you felt him already half hard there, pressing into you through the denim.
"shane," you tried again, but it came out thinner than you meant.
he hummed against your skin, then his mouth opened and he dragged his teeth lightly over the side of your neck. not enough to mark, just enough to make you shiver. his hands moved lower, gripping your hips now, thumbs pressing into the soft spots above your ass.
"been standing here like this for days," he muttered. "you in my way every time i turn around. acting like my wife, like you don’t know what you do to me."
one hand left your hip and slid down the front of your thigh, then back up under the hem of your skirt. his fingers found the edge of your panties and stayed there, tracing the line where fabric met skin.
"tell me to stop," he said, voice mean and amused at once. his fingers dipped lower, pressing the cotton against your cunt, feeling the damp spot already forming. "go on. say it."
you didn't. your fingers tightened on the edge of the sink instead.
shane laughed softly, the sound vibrating against your back. he pressed harder with his fingers, rubbing slow circles over your clit through the fabric until your hips twitched forward into his hand.
"that's what i thought," he said. "my wife gets wet just from me standing behind her. pathetic."
he hooked his fingers into the waistband and yanked your panties down in one rough motion, letting them drop to your ankles. the cool air hit your bare skin and you sucked in a breath. his hand returned immediately, two fingers sliding through your folds, spreading the wetness he found there.
"fuck, look at that," he murmured, almost to himself. he pushed one finger inside you without warning, then another, working them in deep and curling them against that spot that made your knees weak. his other hand stayed on your hip, holding you steady while he fucked you with his fingers, slow and deliberate, like he had all the time in the world.
"been thinking about this," he said against your ear. "how tight you'd feel. how you'd try not to make noise and fail anyway."
his thumb found your clit and rubbed in time with the thrust of his fingers. you bit your lip but a sound still escaped, half gasp and half moan. he grinned against your neck, teeth scraping again.
"there it is," he said. "don't hold back now. no one else is here to hear my wife getting finger fucked in the kitchen."
he added a third finger, stretching you open, the pace picking up just enough to make your thighs shake. his cock was fully hard now, pressed against your ass, and he rocked his hips forward in a slow grind like he couldn't help himself.
"gonna come like this?" he asked, voice teasing, mean. "on my fingers like a desperate little thing? or you want more?"
he didn't wait for an answer. he pulled his fingers out and brought them to your mouth, pressing them against your lips until you opened and tasted yourself on his skin. once you'd licked them clean he dropped his hand back down, this time freeing his cock from his jeans. you felt the hot length of it against your ass, then he was lining up, the head nudging at your entrance.
"say it," he said, voice low and rough. "tell your husband what you want."
you pushed back against him instead, and he laughed again, dark and satisfied.
"good girl," he murmured, and pushed inside you in one slow thrust, filling you completely. his hands gripped your hips hard enough to bruise as he started to move, fucking you against the sink with deep, steady strokes that made the dishes rattle in the rack.
"fuck, that's it," he groaned. "take it. my wife was made for this, wasn't she?"
he reached around with one hand to rub your clit again, matching the rhythm of his thrusts. the kitchen filled with the sound of skin meeting skin and your ragged breathing.
he pulled out slow, leaving you empty and clenching around nothing. his hands stayed on your hips, firm, turning you to face him before he lifted you onto the counter in one smooth motion. the edge of the sink pressed cold against the backs of your thighs. your legs came up on instinct, heels hooking behind him, digging into the muscle of his ass as he stepped in close.
shane leaned in and kissed you hard, mouth open, teeth catching your bottom lip. he bit down just enough to make you gasp, then moved to your jaw, your throat, biting again where your pulse jumped under the skin.
"scream if you want," he said against your neck. "no one out there to hear it baby, just the snow and the trees and me."
his hands slid under your thighs, spreading you wider on the counter. he lined up again and pushed back inside in one deep thrust, burying himself to the hilt. your heels pressed harder into his ass, pulling him closer as he started to fuck you with steady, heavy strokes that rocked your whole body.
your fingers dug into his shoulders. the counter creaked under you with every thrust. your nails dragged down his back as he kept driving into you, each thrust punching a soft sound from your throat. shane's teeth found the curve of your shoulder and bit down harder this time, leaving heat behind. his hands gripped your ass, pulling you to the very edge of the counter so he could sink deeper.
"fuck, you feel good," he muttered against your skin. "tight little cunt squeezing me like it knows who it belongs to."
he pulled back just enough to look at you, eyes dark, mouth curved in that mean little smile. one hand left your ass and slid up to your throat, thumb resting over your pulse while he fucked you in steady, heavy strokes that made the cabinets rattle.
your heels dug harder into his ass, urging him closer. the wet slap of skin on skin filled the kitchen. snow slid off the roof outside in heavy thuds, but all you could focus on was the way his cock stretched you open and the bite of his fingers on your throat.
shane leaned in and kissed you again, biting your lower lip before he pulled back. "come on, wife. use your words. or do you want me to keep fucking you dumb until you can't think at all?"
he pulled back just enough to watch your face, that mean grin spreading as his hand stayed wrapped around your throat. "look at you," he muttered, voice rough. "taking every inch like a good little wife. you gonna come again on my cock?"
you tried to answer but the next thrust knocked the words out of you. your legs locked tighter around his waist, heels digging into his ass to pull him even deeper. shane laughed low and mean, hips snapping forward in a brutal rhythm that made your whole body jolt.
"fuck, that's it," he groaned. "squeeze me just like that. gonna fill this cunt up. gonna pump you so full you feel it leaking out for hours."
his thumb found your clit again, rubbing tight circles while he fucked you rough and deep. the pressure built fast, your walls fluttering around him until you came hard, cunt pulsing and gripping his cock. shane cursed, pace turning sloppy as he chased his own release.
“where do you want it baby, hm? i- inside? yeah?”
you couldn’t make a word beside a frantic nod as you clung desperately onto his shoulders, legs shaking around his waist.
"fuck you’re perfect– shit, here it comes," he growled, burying himself to the hilt. his cock twitched deep inside you and then he was coming, thick hot spurts flooding your cunt. he kept grinding through it, pushing every drop as deep as he could while you shook around him.
shane didn't pull out. instead he started moving again, slow and deliberate, fucking his cum back into you. each thrust made wet sounds as it pushed the mess deeper, some of it already leaking out around his cock and dripping down your ass onto the counter.
he watched your face the whole time, that grin widening when he saw the flush of embarrassment creeping up your neck. "aw, look at that," he teased, voice low and amused. "my wife getting all shy now that she's got a cunt full of cum. feel it? every time i push in it just squelches right back out."
you tried to look away but he caught your chin, forcing your eyes back to his while he kept fucking the load deeper with steady strokes. "don't hide from me now. you wanted this. wanted your husband to breed this pussy and make it all messy."
his cock stayed hard inside you, sliding through the cum with every thrust, pushing more of it out to trickle down your thighs. shane's grin never faded, eyes locked on yours as he kept going, making sure you felt every bit of it. his thumb stayed on your clit, rubbing slow circles until your walls fluttered again around his cock. he groaned, hips stuttering as he ground in deep one last time before finally pulling out.
cum spilled out of you immediately, thick and hot, running down your thighs. shane watched it for a second, that grin softening just a little before he scooped you off the counter. your legs were shaky but he held you steady, carrying you into the living room without a word.
he set you down on the sofa and disappeared for a minute, coming back with a warm cloth from the kitchen. he cleaned you up gentle, wiping between your legs with careful strokes while the fire crackled nearby. once he was done he pulled a blanket over both of you, settling in behind so your back pressed to his chest. his arm wrapped around your waist, holding you close as the snow kept falling outside.
"you good?" he asked quietly, lips brushing your ear. his hand rubbed slow circles on your stomach, grounding and warm.
you hummed in response as your eyes closed and your head rested against his shoulder, head tucked beneath his chin as he brushed his lips against the side of your head. "christmas came early.."
the last thing you heard was a satisfied little chuckle as he brushed his nose against your temple.
NOTES : kent gets a brand new neighbour who happens to share a wall with him, he proceeds to harass her for months. unknowingly.
WARNINGS : fluff, golden retriever clark, black cat neighbour, neighbours, second person pov, female reader, lois playing cupid, clark fosters dogs.
CONFIDENTIAL MATERIAL ── 18+ ONLY.
the first thing you learn about your neighbour is that he sets his alarm for 6:04.
not six. not six-fifteen. 6:04, which is not a time that exists for reasonable people, and the wall between 4B and 4C is apparently made of something between drywall and a polite request, so you hear it. you lie there in the dark and count the seconds until it stops. forty-three. you know because by the third morning you're already counting.
the super had told you the unit next door was quiet. "real quiet guy," he'd said, nodding with the confidence of someone who has never lived next to him. you'd signed the lease. you'd carried your boxes up three flights. you'd felt good about your choices.
that was a month ago.
the dogs start on a tuesday.
you don't know there are dogs at first. you know there is a sound, which arrives at 7 a.m. and is not quite a bark and not quite a yodel but occupies a frequency somewhere between the two that your skull receives directly, bypassing your ears entirely. you sit up in bed. you stare at the wall. the sound continues, enthusiastic and totally unconcerned with you.
it stops after ten minutes. you lie back down. twenty minutes later it starts again, different pitch, which means there are two of them, and you put your pillow over your face and make a noise into it that you will not repeat in polite company.
you learn, over the following week, that the dogs are temporary. you can tell because they rotate with different barks, different sizes implied by different footfalls, different levels of urgency. your neighbour is, for reasons you cannot fathom, cycling through metropolis's entire foster dog population one animal at a time, each one apparently determined to make its presence known through fourteen inches of shared wall.
the current one, based on sound alone, is large, enthusiastic and deeply committed to its own opinions.
on thursday morning it hits something. you don't know what. you know there is a thud, substantial and resonant, and then a skittering of claws on hardwood, and then a crash that rattles the picture frame above your bed.
you get up. you find your shoe. you throw it at the wall.
from the other side, a brief silence. then, muffled and apologetic, a voice: "sorry, sorry, she just—" and then more skittering, and then the low, patient sound of someone negotiating with an animal that has no interest in negotiating.
you retrieve your shoe. you put it back on. you go to work.
the muffins appear that evening.
a paper bag, sitting outside your door when you get home, folded over at the top with your apartment number written on it in handwriting that is careful in the way handwriting is careful when someone is trying to make a good impression. you stand in the hallway and look at it for a moment.
inside are four muffins; blueberry, still faintly warm, which means he either baked them today or he has access to some kind of temporal magic, and a small folded note that says sorry about this morning — 4B with what appears to be a small, earnest drawing of a dog looking guilty.
you eat one of the muffins standing over the kitchen counter.
it's a very good muffin, which somehow makes you more irritated.
the thing about clark kent (you learn his name from the mailboxes in the lobby, eventually,) is that he apologizes the way some people breathe. reflexively. completely. like the apology is already forming before the offense has finished happening.
the second set of muffins arrives after the 6:04 alarm wakes you on a saturday.
the third arrives after a particularly vocal foster, some kind of terrier mix with feelings, spends forty minutes expressing them at ten in the morning on a sunday while you are trying to read.
you throw your other shoe that time. both of them, one after the other, solid thwacks against the drywall, and the barking stops almost immediately, which means he was right there, right on the other side, presumably attempting some kind of intervention. that afternoon you find a tupperware container outside your door. lemon cake, covered neatly, with a note that says she's very sorry. i'm very sorry. we're both very sorry and a second small drawing, this one of what you think is meant to be a terrier with its ears flat.
you stand in your doorway and look at the cake for a long moment.
you take it inside.
the apologies escalate.
you're not sure when they stop being muffins and start being meals, only that at some point you come home to find a container of soup outside your door with a note explaining that he'd heard you come home late and assumed you hadn't eaten, and that it was butternut squash, and that there was bread in the bag underneath, and that he was sorry about the night before, there had been a large dog, briefly, he was aware, he was so sorry.
you stand there with the soup in your hands.
it is, you will discover, an extraordinarily good soup.
you eat it at your counter with the bread and try to think of a reason to be properly angry about it and find that the soup keeps getting in the way.
the knocking starts because of the shelf.
you're hanging it yourself, simple thing, two brackets, a piece of wood, and you hit the wall by accident trying to find a stud, and from next door comes an immediate knock in return, two beats, before a muffled:
“do you need help with something?" comes through the drywall, and you stop with your hand in the air for a second.
a pause. "i have a stud finder."
"i don't need—"
"i can hear you missing them."
you look at the wall. you look at your hammer. you look at the bracket, which is, in fairness, slightly crooked.
"i'm not opening the door," you say.
another pause. "okay."
you finish hanging the shelf. it's a little crooked. you look at it for a long moment.
you don't open the door. but the next time something needs hanging you knock on the wall first, two sharp raps, and you hear him get up and cross the apartment, and you stand on opposite sides of the drywall and he talks you through where the studs actually are, and the shelf comes out level, and you don't say thank you out loud but you knock twice before you move away and he knocks twice back.
it becomes a system. you're not sure when. three knocks: too loud. two: acknowledged. one: something neither of you has defined.
it clearly means something.
you learn his schedule. tuesdays and thursdays he leaves late and comes back later, and on those nights his footsteps when he returns are heavier than usual, the deliberate tread of someone tired in a way that goes deeper than the body. sometimes he leaves in a hurry in the middle of the night, you hear his door, fast, no preamble, and comes back an hour later, or two, and on those nights you lie there in the dark listening for his return without fully deciding to.
he has a voice that carries through walls more than it should. not loud, just present, a low register that the drywall doesn't know what to do with, and you've learned the shape of his phone calls without the words, the rhythm of him working late, talking through something, the occasional silence that means he's thinking. once, late, you hear him laugh, quiet and a little tired, and you stare at the ceiling for ten minutes afterward for no reason you're prepared to examine.
the foster dogs come and go. a shepherd mix. something small and extremely opinionated. a hound that howls at 7 a.m. in a tone that suggests genuine personal tragedy. you throw your shoe at the wall for the hound, twice, and that afternoon there is a plate of cookies outside your door—chocolate chip, still warm, with a note that just says i know and a drawing of a hound looking theatrical.
you start looking forward to the notes.
you don't tell anyone that.
lois lane shows up on a saturday.
you don't know her name yet when she appears in the hallway outside 4B, but you know the type immediately: small, fast-eyed, the particular energy of someone who is always the most informed person in any room and has made peace with the responsibility that comes with that. she looks at you the way people look at you when they already know exactly who you are.
"you're 4C," she says.
"last time i checked."
"good." she nods, crisp. "i work with him. clark. i've been watching him walk into a filing cabinet three times a week for a month and i've traced it back to you, so."
you look at her. "to me?"
"he told me about the knocking," she says. "in the way where he tried not to tell me but i asked four questions and he folded completely, which is a very clark thing to do." she pauses. "he fixed the radiator on the second floor because he felt guilty about his alarm waking mrs. paulsen. he brought the super's wife soup when she had her knee done. last week he found a wallet in the lobby and spent forty minutes tracking down the owner." another pause, shorter. "he's also got the situational awareness of a golden retriever when he's distracted, and right now he is very distracted."
you are quiet for a moment. "why are you telling me this."
"because he won't." she reaches into her bag and produces a business card, crosses out a number on the front, writes something on the back. "he's spent a month apologizing to you through baked goods because he doesn't know what else to do with the fact that he can hear you on the other side of the wall and he keeps— " she makes a gesture, small and expressive, that seems to mean you know exactly what i mean. "he's a good person," she says, simpler. "genuinely. which is rarer than it should be."
she holds out the card.
you take it. you look at it. his number, in her handwriting, on the back.
"if you're not interested," lois says, already picking up her bag, "throw it out and i'll tell him you moved. i'll make it convincing."
she says this like she's done it before, for other people, as a service.
she leaves. you stand alone in the hallway, card in hand, looking at the door to 4B.
from somewhere inside: a thud. a skitter of claws. a voice, low and patient, saying "— buddy, that's not — okay, we talked about the counter —" and then something that sounds like a large dog being gently redirected, and then quiet.
you look at the card.
you look at the wall.
you knock on his door. actual wood, actual knuckles, the thing you've been not doing for a month because it was easier to throw shoes and accept soup and pretend the whole arrangement wasn't building toward something. three knocks, firm. and you wait, listening to the familiar weight of his footsteps cross the apartment, and you think that you know this person — the shape of his days, the heft of his tired nights, the way he draws guilty dogs on apology notes and makes soup for people he's never spoken to — and he doesn't know your name.
the door opens.
clark kent is, in person, an architectural event. tall, dark-haired, broad in the shoulders in a way his slightly-too-ordinary jacket does its best to argue against. he has the face of someone put together with a great deal of care and given glasses that don't quite commit to the overall project. he looks at you. then at the card, which you're still holding.
his expression does something complicated and very transparent.
"lois," he says.
"lois," you confirm.
he looks at the card. at you. at the card again. behind him, something large and enthusiastic is attempting to fit itself between his legs to look at you, and he reaches down without looking to hold it back, automatic, the gesture of someone used to managing chaos at multiple levels simultaneously.
"i was going to knock," he says. "i kept — i was going to."
"you brought me soup."
"that's not the same as knocking."
"no," you agree. "it's not."
he looks at you for a moment with an expression you don't have a name for yet, open and a little helpless, the expression of someone who is much easier to read than he probably knows. then he steps back from the door. the apartment behind him is warm, lit amber, a foster dog the size of a small horse now nosing its way past his knees to investigate you. his alarm clock is visible on the far side of the room, sitting on the table against the shared wall. six inches from your head every morning for four weeks.
you look at it.
"6:04," you say.
the back of his neck goes pink. "i can explain that."
you look at him. at the dog, who has decided you're acceptable and is pressing its enormous head against your hand. at the kitchen, where there is currently something on the stove, something that smells like it's been going for a while, something that would absolutely end up outside your door in a container tomorrow morning if you turned around and went home.
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
✓ Live Streaming✓ Interactive Chat✓ Private Shows✓ HD Quality✓ Free Actions
Free to watch • No registration required • HD streaming
the container is still warm. that's what gets him every time — that she sends it warm, which means she times it, which means Robby told her what time his break was and she built it into her evening without complaint. and then she made two.
jack turns the container over in his hands in the break room. his name is written on the lid in her handwriting — not dr. abbot, not even jack. jackie, in blue pen, with a small heart next to it because apparently that is a thing she does and he has never once addressed it; he should address it, he opens the container and thinks better of it.
robby is leaning in the doorway with his own, watching him with the particular expression he gets — not quite a smile, not quite an accusation, something that lives in the exact overlap of both. "she put extra rice in yours," robby says, conversationally.
jack doesn't look up. "okay."
"she never puts extra rice in mine."
"talk to your wife."
"i'm talking to you."
robby takes a slow bite, eyes steady across the room.
"she asked about you, by the way. said you seemed tired last time you came for dinner. wanted to know if you were sleeping." a pause. "are you sleeping, jack?"
jack sets down his fork before he misses her cooking in his mouth, and picks it back up. "fine." he says.
"mm." robby looks at his container. looks back. "she's making that soup you like on sunday. the one with the — you know the one."
"brother." his voice is a heavy sigh, shaking his head, opening his mouth once again before he's cut off.
"she'll want you to come." he says it simply, no edge on it, which is somehow worse than if there were. "you know how she gets when you don't show up. worried."
jack is quiet for a long moment, staring at his container, a small blue heart. "i'll be there," he says, because he always is, because he cannot seem to make himself not be, and robby nods like this is exactly what he expected.
"good," he says.
jack finishes his food, says nothing else, because he doesn't need to. it's the best thing he's ever eaten.
the break room lingers in jack's mind all shift, the warmth of the container seeping into his palms like a promise he shouldn't hold onto. by sunday evening, he's at their door again, the scent of that soup—rich with herbs and slow-simmered beef—wafting out as robby opened the door with a casual nod, clapping jack on the shoulder. 'right on time. she’s been fussing over this all day.'
jack stepped inside, his eyes immediately seeking you out in the kitchen. you were there, apron cinched around your waist, stirring the pot with focused grace. when you turned and saw him, a shy smile bloomed on your face, your cheeks flushing pink. 'jack,' you said softly, wiping your hands on a towel before approaching. you pulled him into a hug, your body soft and warm against his, lingering just a moment before stepping back, eyes darting down from him. jack caught the faint scent of vanilla on your skin, and it stirred something deep in him, his cock giving a subtle twitch in his jeans.
dinner passed in a haze of easy conversation, the three of them around the table laughing over small things—work gripes, a funny story from robby's shift and his residents making a mess. jack couldn't help stealing glances at you, the way your hair fell over one shoulder, the gentle curve of your neck. you caught him once, your gaze meeting his briefly before you looked away, biting your lip with a bashful smile that made his pulse quicken. robby's foot nudged his own under the table, a silent acknowledgment, but robby kept things light, praising your cooking with a warm grin.
'this is incredible, darling. you always know how to make a guy feel taken care of.' you blush again, murmuring a quiet 'thank you' and passing the bread to jack, your fingers brushing his in a way that felt accidental but sent heat racing up his arm.
as plates emptied, the air grew thicker, laced with unspoken tension that had been simmering for weeks—months, maybe. jack felt it in the way your eyes flicked to him when you thought he wasn't looking, in robby's knowing smirks. when you rose to clear the dishes, robby caught jack's wrist lightly. 'hang back for a drink,' he said, voice low and inviting.
jack nodded, swallowing against the dryness in his throat. you returned with whiskey glasses, settling on the couch between them, your thigh pressing tentatively against jack's. the contact was electric, and he could feel the slight tremble in your as conversation meandered to the week's stresses, your fingers tracing absent patterns on your own knee at first, then hesitantly drifting to his.
'you've looked so worn out lately,' you said to him, your voice soft and concerned, leaning in just enough that your breath warmed his cheek. you glanced at robby for approval before adding, 'is there... anything we can do to help?'
jack's voice came out rougher than he intended. 'just being around you both—that's more than enough.' but his eyes betrayed him, lingering on your lips, and you ducked your head, cheeks burning.
robby chuckled, his hand sliding up your arm to tilt your chin toward him. 'hear that, sweetheart? jack's got it bad for you.'
he kissed your then, slow and deep, his tongue exploring your mouth with a possessiveness that made jack's blood heat. you melted into it, a soft whimper escaping, but when robby pulled back, your eyes were wide and glassy, flicking nervously to jack.
'that's my girl,' robby murmured, praising the way you responded, but then his tone dipped, an edge creeping in. 'always so eager, aren't you? even when another man's watching.' you squirmed, pressing your thighs together, but didn't pull away. instead, you reached for jack's hand, intertwining their fingers shyly.
'robby, please,' you whispered, voice trembling with a mix of embarrassment and need. 'jack's been so good... coming over, letting me take care of him.'
jack's chest tightened at your words, the vulnerability in them pulling at him. 'you do take care of me,' he said, squeezing your hand. 'better than anyone.' Robby watched his best friend with his wife, a smirk playing on his lips as he nodded toward you.
"go on, then. show your some of that appreciation. but remember, you're mine—you're just borrowing.'
he wasn't sure who robby was talking to with that claim.
jack leaned in slowly, giving your time to pull back if you wanted, but you didn't. your lips met his tentatively at first, soft and yielding, your tongue shyly brushing his. he deepened the kiss gently, tasting the whiskey and your innocent sweetness, and you sighed into his mouth, your free hand resting lightly on his chest. when they parted, you were breathing faster, eyes downcast.
'that felt... nice,' you admitted in a small voice, glancing at robby for reassurance.
'nice?' robby teased, his hand cupping your breast through your blouse, thumb circling your nipple until it hardened. 'look at you, getting all worked up for jack. my shy little wife, craving another cock already.' the degradation was light, laced with affection, but it made your flush deeper, a soft whine escaping as you shifted closer to jack.
'robby...'
jack's arousal throbbed, but he kept his touch gentle, sliding his hand to your waist. 'you're beautiful like this,' he praised, voice low. 'so responsive. let me make you feel good.' you nodded, biting your lip, and he kissed your again, slower this time, coaxing your open.
robby watched, his own hand stroking over his cock, squeezing to relieve the pressure. 'that's it, kiss all sweetly. you like it when you're treated like an innocent little slut.'
emboldened, jack's fingers trailed up your thigh, under your skirt, finding the damp heat between your legs. you gasped against his lips, thighs parting slightly in invitation, but your shyness held your back, making your movements hesitant. 'jack... is this okay?' you murmured, eyes searching his.
He nodded, far too enthusiastically and almost giving himself whiplash as he rubs slow circles over your panties. 'more than okay. you're soaked, sweetheart. all for us?'
you nodded, hiding your face in his neck. 'yes... but I'm nervous. what if—'
robby cut in from behind, his hands working your blouse open button by button, exposing your bra. 'what if you like it too much? that's what you're thinking, isn't it? my good girl, panting for jack's touch.' he unhooked your bra, letting your breasts spill free, and palmed them gently. 'so pretty. jack, show her how perfect she is.'
jack's mouth watered, and he lowered his head, taking one nipple between his lips, sucking softly. you arched with a quiet moan, fingers threading into his hair. 'oh... that feels amazing,' you breathed, your voice shy but pleased. 'you're so gentle with me.' He layered attention on her tits, tongue flicking, teeth grazing lightly, drawing out your responses until you were trembling beneath his teeth.
'robby, please... touch me more,' you pleaded softly, still avoiding direct eye contact with jack, your submissiveness making the moment stretch with delicious tension.
robby obliged, slipping his hand between your legs alongside jack's, pushing your panties aside to slide a finger into your slick cunt. 'fuck, you're dripping,' he said, pumping slowly. 'all because jack's here, huh? can't help wanting him inside you.'
you whimpered, rocking into his touch. 'i... i do. but only if you say it's alright.'
robby kissed down your neck, praising your obedience. 'it is, baby. you're doing so well, letting him see how needy you get.'
jack added another finger beside Robby's, stretching your gently, and you cried out softly, your walls clenching. 'jack... oh god, your fingers are so thick. it feels so good.'
the praise flowed easier from him now, building the intimacy. 'you're taking us so beautifully,' jack murmured, curling his fingers to hit that spot inside your. you shuddered, your shyness fading into quiet pleas. 'don't stop... please, I need more.'
robby withdrew his hand, nodding to Jack. 'pants off. let her feel what she's doing to you.'
jack stood briefly, shoving his jeans down, his cock springing free, hard and leaking. your eyes widened, a shy hand reaching out to stroke him tentatively. 'it's... so big,' you whispered, glancing at robby. 'can I?'
he couldn't help but groan at your soft whispers, asking your husband if it was okay to touch him. robby had trained you so well.
robby stripped too, his own erection bobbing as he settled back. 'stroke him, sweetheart. show him how much you want it, even if you're blushing like a virgin.' you wrapped your hand around Jack, pumping slowly, your touch feather-light at first, then firmer as he groaned.
'like this?' you asked, your voice small and looking for praise.
'perfect,' Jack praised, guiding your to straddle his lap. you hesitated, skirt hiked up, panties still on. 'i... i'm ready, but go slow?'
he nodded, tugging the fabric aside and easing your down onto his cock, inch by inch. you gasped, head falling to his shoulder. 'so full... jack, you're stretching me just right.'
if jack was a more confident man, he would've asked how much better his cock felt then robby's. he didn't dare at the moment.
he held your hips, letting your set the pace, slow rocks that built the heat gradually. 'you feel incredible,' he said, kissing your forehead. 'tight and warm, made for this.'
robby watched, stroking himself. 'ride him nice and easy, baby. let him see how shy you get when you're full of another man's dick.' the words made your clench, a soft moan escaping as you moved a little faster.
'talk to me,' you whispered, peeking up at jack through your lashes. 'tell me what you like.'
'i like how you squeeze me,' jack replied, thumbs rubbing your hips. 'how you look when you're trying to be brave.' you smiled shyly, leaning in for a kiss as your rhythm steadied.
robby moved closer, offering his cock to your mouth. 'will you suck me while you fuck him, baby? prove you're still mine.'
you took him in, tongue swirling the tip before sucking deeper, your movements careful and devoted. 'mmm,' you hummed around him, the vibration drawing a hiss from robby.
'my good wife, taking care of both of us. jack, you feel that? bet her cunt is fluttering.'
jack thrust up gently, matching your pace. 'yeah... she's close. cum for me, sweetheart—let go.'
you pulled off robby with a gasp, crying out as your orgasm hit, walls pulsing around jack. he followed soon after, spilling deep inside your with a low groan. 'take it all—you're so good.'
robby pulled you off of jack's cock, making a whine escape both your lips, positioning you on his lap. 'my turn now. full of his cum and still begging for more, aren't you?' you nodded, sinking onto him with a whimper, full of jack's cum and not yet coming down from your orgasm.
'yes... fill me up please, i want you both in me!' jack couldnt help his groan as he watched you both, robby thrusting up steadily, hands gentle on your waist.
'you're perfect like this, sharing yourself for us baby."
jack kissed you as robby moved, tongues tangling softly until you shattered again, robby cumming with a praise-laden grunt. 'that's my wife—so sweet, so slutty for us.'
he watched as you collapsed together, moving to lay besides them so he was as close as he could be, not wanting to push his luck anymore, shy smiles all around.
'that was... everything,' you murmured, moving off of robby's cock to nestle between the two men, your husband on one side, his best friend on the other. jack watched as you curled into him, robby's arms around your waist from behind; he held your close, noise buried in your hair, focusing on the vanilla more than the mix of sweat and sex that filled up your married bed.
'couldn't agree more.' robby grinned into your neck. 'round two later?'
you blushed, a smile lifting your lips against his chest. 'maybe... if you both keep talking sweet.
NOTES : the winter soldier naps (apparently,) and when you wake him up abruptly, he grabs your wrist and says he's sorry. or, you hold his hand and he decides its the best thing since sliced bread.
WARNINGS : slow burn, emotional dependence, parasiticesque relationship, coffee as a love language, hand holding, bucky injures reader, bandage, bruise, tony's expensive biscuits, soft touches, lady and the tramp, soft ideas of ws being a second personality, couch cuddling.
CONFIDENTIAL MATERIAL ── 18+ ONLY.
the couch didn't come up again.
neither of you mentioned it, not the tablet or the notes or the blanket that had been pulled over you at some point in the night by hands you hadn't been awake to see. it went where everything else between you went, into the part of things that had no language yet, sitting alongside the jackets arranged on the desk and the kitchen at four in the morning and the way he'd watched you drink your coffee before he tried his own. you left it there and he left it there and that was enough.
what changed in the days after was the distance.
not the following. that had been constant since shuri's assessment, the steady presence of him behind your left shoulder through corridors and the commissary and the briefing rooms you still attended because the work existed whether or not your life had gotten complicated. the following didn't change. what changed was the quality of it. in the first days it had been close and watchful, always slightly forward-angled, always fractionally between you and whatever was ahead. now it had eased. he walked further back sometimes, not far, never far enough that you stopped being aware of him, but enough that there was actual corridor between you when you turned around rather than the immediate wall of him. it had started to feel less like being guarded and more like being accompanied. those were different things and the difference mattered.
shuri sent framework updates every other day in her clipped shorthand. appetite normalising. less reactive to proximity of other personnel. and then, on the third day: he sat in the communal area for forty-seven minutes this morning. this is new.
you hadn't been there for the forty-seven minutes. sam came to your office door in the late morning with the expression of someone who had witnessed something they couldn't file and had decided you were the only person to tell. he leaned in the frame and said "okay, so i went to the communal room because the game was on, and he was just there. on the couch. just sitting there watching the door. so i sat on the other end and he looked at me for a while, you know how he does, and then he looked at the door again. so i turned the game on." sam paused. "and he just stayed. we sat there for forty-seven minutes. he watched the door and i watched the game and it was fine." he stopped. "it was actually fine. i genuinely don't know what to do with that."
"neither do i," you said.
sam looked at you over his coffee for a moment. "shuri thinks it's progress," he said. "that he's learning to be in a space without it being a whole thing."
"i know," you said.
sam left and you sat at your desk and looked at the wall for a while, thinking about forty-seven minutes and a man you'd known as a series of careful distances sitting on a couch watching a door, and the specific quality of sam saying it was actually fine in the tone of someone reporting a small miracle.
you'd started sleeping better, which surprised you.
by every reasonable measure the opposite should have been true. new responsibilities, no timeline, the ongoing uncertainty of a situation that didn't come with instructions. but the sleep was better in the simple undeniable way of something that was just true, and when you lay in the dark and worked out why, you found the answer quickly and then decided not to look at it directly.
you slept.
on the morning this happened you woke up slowly and in stages, surfacing through actual rest rather than the shallow half-sleep you'd been managing for weeks. the room was grey with early light and the city was starting its day outside and you lay there for a while and let it happen around you, more rested than you'd been in longer than you wanted to count.
then you noticed the corridor. the quality of the silence outside your door had a weight to it that empty corridor silence never had. you'd been learning this particular texture for weeks and you knew it the same way you knew the ventilation cycling and the specific sound of the elevator on your floor. you got up, found your socks in the dark, went to the door and opened it slowly just to see that bucky was on the floor, like a cat.
his back had been against the door and had shifted forward when it opened, and he was completely asleep, the deep committed kind that left no room for anything else. legs stretched out and crossed at the ankle, arms folded over his chest with the metal arm on top, chin dropped so his dark hair had fallen over most of his face and moved very slightly with each slow breath. the corridor's overnight light caught the metal arm in flat dull silver. he was very still and very large and completely committed to being asleep on your floor like this was simply where he was.
you lowered yourself down beside him slowly and crouched close. close had a different meaning now than it had in the beginning. you looked at him, just a person asleep on a floor, the jaw set even now, the scar pale at his temple, several days of dark growth across his jaw, and you thought about the room on the sixth floor and the first day and six feet of careful distance and how much had passed between then and this.
you reached out, your hand coming up slowly, giving it time, and you put your palm against his cheek. he was warm the way he always seemed to be, and the stubble was rough under your palm, and you stayed there a moment with your hand against his face and the corridor quiet around you.
but then he woke up. one moment asleep and the next completely not, and the metal hand came up before he'd finished the transition, the plates already moving, and it closed around your wrist. it closed the way it had been built to close. the plates locked with a sharp mechanical sound and the grip was full and certain and there was nothing in it that registered what it was holding, just bone and skin and the fragility of a person built entirely differently to him.
you shrieked. not a word, not anything controlled, just the full involuntary sound of someone whose nervous system had received information it was not prepared for, sharp and genuine and loud in the quiet of the corridor, and you pulled back on instinct before you'd finished making the sound and the grip didn't give at all, not even slightly, and that was when the real understanding arrived, the cold fast knowledge of exactly what was holding you and exactly how much of yourself you did not have available right now.
the plates had locked with a sharp mechanical sound, the specific sound you'd heard before in that building what felt like a lifetime ago, and the pressure across your wrist was immediate and total and deeply real. not a graze, not a close call. the metal had no give in it, no flex, and the grip had closed around your wrist with the full certainty of something built to hold things that didn't want to be held, and for a few seconds you just breathed and went still and waited, your heart going hard in your chest, the pain already radiating up your forearm in the specific way of something that was going to be a serious bruise.
you looked at his hand around your wrist, then you looked at his face.
he was looking at your wrist. he was fully awake, completely awake and he was looking at his own hand and the comprehension was moving through him in real time and you watched it happen, watched the understanding arrive and spread through his face, and something broke the surface that wasn't the soldier and wasn't anything you'd catalogued before. his brow pulled in hard and deep, a furrow so pronounced it changed his whole face, and he was looking at your wrist and the metal fingers locked around it and the expression on his face had no operational category in anything you'd ever seen from him. it was just the face of a person looking at what their hand had done, knowing with complete clarity what it was.
the plates separated one by one, each one deliberate and slow, and the arm came back to him.
you looked at your wrist, turning it over to see that the marks were already there. the plate-edges pressed into the skin in a pattern that was unmistakably a hand, unmistakably his hand, the geometry of the metal fingers printed across your wrist in red-purple that was already dark and was going to get considerably darker. you rotated your wrist carefully, running the internal check with the detached focus you'd learned for exactly these moments. nothing structural. nothing shifting inside the joint. but the bruising was going to be significant, the specific thorough damage of metal with no give, nowhere for the pressure to go, and your wrist was throbbing already with the particular deep ache of tissue that had been compressed against bone.
you breathed out a sigh and then you looked at him.
he hadn't moved. he was exactly where the releasing had left him and he was looking at your wrist and what was on his face stopped you completely. anguish was the only word for it. raw and total and without any architecture of management built around it, just the thing itself, his brow pulled in and his jaw hard and his eyes dark and fixed on your wrist and the bruise forming across it. he looked like someone who could not look away from what they had done. like looking away wasn't available to him. like he was holding himself inside the seeing of it because something in him had decided that was what was required.
you stared at him for a long moment. you'd been startled and you'd shrieked and your wrist hurt properly, the kind of hurt that was going to be with you for a week, and you looked at his face and you felt the breath go out of you in a long slow sigh that had nothing to do with any of that. because you knew. you'd known from the first second after the grip released, really. he'd been asleep. you'd put your hand on his face while he slept and the reflex that had closed around your wrist was older than everything they'd spent weeks trying to bring him back from, built so deep into him there was nothing between it and the world, no gap for a decision to fit into. you knew that and you looked at the anguish on his face and it felt like blaming a dog for biting you once you put your hand in his mouth.
"bucky," you said.
he looked up.
his eyes found yours and the anguish didn't go anywhere, just became the thing looking at you, and you held his gaze and you smiled at him. the real one, the genuine one. "it's okay," you said. "you were asleep. i put my hand on your face and you were asleep and you didn't know it was me." you turned your wrist over slowly, showing him both sides. "it's bruised. i'm not going to pretend it isn't. but i'm okay. nothing's broken. it was an accident."
he looked at your wrist, then he looked at your face and then he looked back at the bruise forming across your wrist with the expression of someone who had received information and filed it somewhere marked not good enough.
"don't," you said. he looked at you. "it was an accident and i'm okay."
he opened his mouth. closed it. then he moved, and the moving was the most deliberate thing you had ever seen from him, slower than slow, his right hand coming up with the palm toward you in the open unhurried approach that gave you every possible moment to see it coming, his eyes fixed on your face the whole time and not on the wrist. asking. clearly and silently asking, with his eyes on yours, for the same reason he'd been asking with his eyes for weeks, because the words hadn't always been there and the eyes had been the only available instrument.
you looked at his hand coming toward yours and held your wrist out. his fingers closed around it and you had to close your eyes for a second, not from pain. from the sheer contrast of it, from the specific and total difference between what this was and what the other thing had been sixty seconds ago. his fingers closed around your wrist so lightly you could have pulled free without effort, the pads of his fingers resting underneath, his thumb settling just above the bruise on the skin above it, barely touching, barely there, the grip of someone handling something they had already broken once and were terrified of breaking again. he turned your wrist in the corridor light and he looked at the bruise from every angle, slow and thorough, his face doing the thing it did when he needed to understand the full extent of something he had caused.
he looked at it for a long time.
then he looked up at you and said:
"i'm sorry."
and you stared at him.
you just stared at him because the words came out rough with disuse and low with something so much heavier than anything disuse could account for, and they sat in the corridor between you with a weight that was nothing like the two words themselves, and you were still holding his gaze and your wrist was throbbing and you stared at him and thought you are speaking to me and then thought no, he spoke before, twice, and then thought this is different and you knew it was different, you could hear the difference in the way it came out, the way it wasn't just sound filling a gap but something that had been waiting and had finally come through.
he was looking at you and waiting. his fingers still barely holding your wrist. his face still holding the anguish that hadn't gone anywhere.
you realised you hadn't said anything.
"i know you are," you said. your voice came out softer than you'd intended. "i know. it's okay. it's going to bruise for a while and look worse before it looks better but nothing's broken and i'm fine. i promise."
he looked at the bruise. he looked at his metal hand at his side, the plates still and quiet, and his face went somewhere private and closed and very old. it only lasted a few seconds but you saw it.
"hey." he looked up. you raised your wrist between you, eye level. "still me. still fine. same answer every time you ask."
something settled in him. not all of it, not even most of it, but enough, the particular easing of someone who has taken in the information even if they haven't finished with it. and then, slowly, palm up and eyes on your face, he reached his right hand toward yours.
you put your hand in his.
and you felt it again, that contrast, the thing that made you look down at your joined hands for a moment just to see it, to look at the flesh hand wrapped around yours with a care that was almost excessive, the thumb resting along the back of your hand, not gripping, just present. just holding, the way you'd hold something you were afraid to grip. you thought about the metal hand and what it had done sixty seconds ago and you thought about this, the flesh hand and what it was doing now, and the gap between the two things was enormous and careful and entirely deliberate.
he was gentle with you.
that was the thing. he was being so careful, so deliberately and consciously gentle, like gentleness was something he was actively doing rather than something that happened, like he was aware of every degree of pressure in his own hand and had decided on each one individually. you looked at his fingers around yours and you thought about how much he was capable of and how little of it was being brought to bear right now, and you thought about all the weeks in the room and the corridor and the kitchen and you thought about this specific morning and this specific hand and you felt, in a way you hadn't quite felt before, the full and particular weight of what it meant that he was trying.
you stood in the corridor in the dim overnight light with his hand around yours and your bruised wrist and the morning a long way off yet, and you looked at him.
he looked back. his eyes dark and the furrow still there, lighter than it had been, and the anguish sitting below the surface of his face like something he was carrying rather than showing, and he was holding your hand like it was the most careful thing he'd ever done.
you took a breath.
"okay," you said, quietly. "come on then."
he stood up and brought you with him, gentle and unhurried, before he started walking toward medical with a very clear goal.
he walked behind, not beside you, not in the usual position at your left shoulder. behind you, close, so that you were aware of him at your back the whole way down the corridor. not oppressive, not crowding you. just there, the specific presence of him, and every time you slowed your pace or your feet started to drift toward a different direction his hand found your waist. not grabbing, not steering roughly. just a hand on your waist, light and brief, redirecting you back toward medical with the patient certainty of someone who had decided where you were going and was not negotiating about it.
you tried it twice. the first time was almost automatic, your feet starting toward the elevator out of some instinct to just go back to bed, and the hand appeared at your waist before you'd finished the step and you were back on course. the second time you did it on purpose, just to see, and the hand was there again immediately, just as light, just as certain, and you looked back at him over your shoulder.
he looked at you with dark eyes and raised his chin very slightly toward the medical bay.
"alright," you said. "alright, i'm going."
the hand stayed at your waist until you were through the medical bay door.
where shuri already was. you didn't know how she knew. you'd stopped trying to work out how shuri knew things because the answer was always that shuri simply knew things, it was a feature of her, and she was standing at one of the stations with a tablet in her hand and she looked at your wrist when you came in and then looked at bucky and said "sit" without any preamble at all.
you sat on the edge of the nearest bed.
bucky positioned himself to the left of the door, arms at his sides, watching.
shuri set her tablet down and took your wrist in both hands and looked at the bruise with the focused clinical attention she brought to everything, turning it carefully, pressing two fingers along the inside of the wrist and watching your face. "does that hurt?" she said.
"it's sore," you said. "not sharp."
"nothing structural," she said, more to herself than to you. "deep tissue bruising, significant. it'll be purple by this afternoon." she reached for the cold pack and the wrap without looking away from your wrist. "you'll want to keep it elevated when you can and don't use it for anything that requires a strong grip for the next few days."
"okay," you said.
she started wrapping, efficient and sure, and she said without looking up: "i need to talk to you about him."
you glanced at bucky. he was watching shuri's hands on your wrist with the focused unblinking attention of someone supervising something that had better go correctly.
"he can't hear you?" you said, quietly.
"he can hear me," shuri said, at normal volume, not remotely concerned about this. "i'm going to say it anyway." she secured a layer of the wrap and said: "he's not dangerous. i want to be clear about that first."
"i know," you nodded along, you and shuri seemed to be the only ones not wary of he famed winter soldier.
"but he's also not predictable," she said. "not in the way a person who has full access to themselves is predictable. he's running on something old and something old doesn't always have the context that something current would have." she looked up at you. "so you need to be careful. not afraid. careful. there's a difference there too."
"i know," you said again.
she held your gaze for a moment, the specific shuri look that was making sure you actually knew and hadn't just said it. then she looked back at the wrist. "he's been coming back in pieces," she said. "it's slow. you probably see it more than anyone else does because you're with him more than anyone else is. but it's happening." she smoothed the end of the wrap and taped it. "whatever you're doing, keep doing it."
you looked at your wrapped wrist. "i'm mostly just making him coffee," you said.
"i know," she said, and the corner of her mouth moved slightly. "keep doing that too."
she let go of your wrist and stepped back and looked at bucky, who was still watching from his position by the door with the arms at his sides and the attentive eyes. "it's done," she said to him, in the same normal voice, and she held up your wrist so he could see the clean bandage from where he was standing. "she's fine."
bucky looked at the bandage. he looked at your face. he looked at the bandage again.
"she's fine," shuri said again, with the patience of someone who understood that some things needed saying more than once.
something in him settled, fractionally. you recognised the settling by now, the specific easing that meant he'd received information he could work with.
you slid off the bed and looked at shuri. "thank you," you said.
"don't thank me," she said, already picking up her tablet again. "just be careful."
bucky fell into step behind you as you left, close and warm at your back, and his hand found your waist briefly in the corridor, not redirecting this time, just there, and then it was gone and he was walking with you toward the elevator and the morning was properly starting around you.
the kitchen light came on low and warm when you walked in.
you went to the coffee machine the way you always did and bucky came with you because that was how this worked now, and you stood at the counter and reached for the drawer with your bandaged hand and he made a short low sound and reached past you and opened it, his body close behind yours, and you looked at the drawer and then at him over your shoulder.
"thank you," you said.
he looked at the drawer, patient and expectant.
you got the grounds one-handed and he was there for all of it, shifting when you needed a different angle, reaching when the carafe was awkward, adjusting the whole geometry of the kitchen around the one-handed operation without making anything of it. you got the machine running and stood waiting for it and his hand came around yours again, the flesh hand, careful and warm, the same as before.
he looked at your wrist. he looked at your face. he looked at your wrist.
"still fine," you said, to the machine.
he made a small sound of acknowledgment.
the machine finished. you poured two mugs and did his the same way you'd done it the first time, matching the colour to yours, the same pale warm shade, and you held it out. he took it in the metal hand because the flesh hand was yours and he had made his position on that clear, and he looked at the mug and then at your joined hands and then at the mug again, working through the geometry, and you looked at the metal arm holding a coffee mug and said nothing about it at all.
"do you want anything in it?" you said. you looked at him sideways. "milk. sugar."
he was quiet, you waited, it was a cute dance you two had started over the days. you'd gotten good at waiting for him, at the gap between him and words that was always worth the time. he looked at your hands, then at the machine, then at you, and his mouth opened and the words came out rough and careful with a small crack in them on the last word:
"i liked how you made it last time."
you looked at him.
he looked back with dark eyes and the set jaw and the faint furrow still between his brows, and there was a full sentence there, a last time in it that meant he'd kept it, that the four in the morning and both hands around the mug and the matching the colour had gone somewhere in him and stayed.
"okay," you said, and you smiled, the small private quick one. "milk it is."
you poured it one-handed and handed him the mug and he took it in the metal hand because the flesh hand was still yours, and he looked down at the mug the way he'd looked at it the first time, and then raised it the same way you raised yours, the same angle and tilt, the muscle memory of a thing learned by watching.
you both sipped on your coffee’s in complete and utter silence. you stood there for a while, just the two of you and the quiet and the city coming in grey at the windows, and you were aware of his hand around yours and the specific weight of the morning, everything that had happened in the last few hours sitting in the kitchen with you, and you thought about shuri's voice saying he's been coming back in pieces, and you thought about the way he'd said i'm sorry in the corridor, rough and careful, like the words had been waiting.
you thought you might try.
"can i ask you something?" you said.
he looked at you.
"what do you think of james?" you said. "as a name. for yourself."
he looked at you for a moment. something moved behind his eyes, some consideration running its course, and then he looked back at his coffee.
"not james," you said, reading it. "okay. what about bucky? does that one feel more right?"
he was quiet, the considering kind of quiet, and after a moment he looked at you sideways, briefly, and away. you took that as close enough to a yes.
"alright," you said. "bucky." you drank your coffee. "i've been reading about you," you said. it was true — shuri had given you access to the parts of the files that weren't redacted, and you'd gone through them carefully, the way you went through everything you thought might matter. "before all of it. before the war."
you paused. "you had a sister," you said.
he went still. not the operational stillness. something different, something that went inward rather than outward, like a word had dropped into deep water and you were both waiting to see how far it went.
"rebecca," you said. "she was younger than you."
the mug in the metal hand didn't move. he was looking at the counter and his jaw was set and his face was doing the closed private thing it did when something was happening inside it that wasn't going to be available on the outside for a while.
"you don't have to say anything," you said. "i'm not pushing. i just thought it might be worth saying out loud. that she existed. that you had her." you looked at your coffee. "shuri says the pieces come back. i thought maybe some of them just need someone to put them in front of you."
the quiet went on. then, very quietly, rough and careful and low: "becca."
you looked at him.
his jaw was tight and his eyes were on the counter and he'd said it the way you said something you hadn't said in a very long time, like finding a word you'd believed was gone and not being entirely certain what to do with finding it. just the one word. just the name, her name, the version of it he'd used, and then silence.
you didn't say anything. you let it be what it was. after a while you said: "what's your favourite colour?"
he looked at you with a dumbfounded expression.
"i'm serious," you said. "does anything come to mind?"
he thought about it. you watched him actually think about it, reaching for something rather than processing something, which was different and recognisable. he looked at the window, the grey morning light coming in, and then he looked at your coffee mug.
"blue," he said. one word, careful, like testing the weight of it. then a slight frown at his own answer, like it had surprised him.
"blue," you said. "that's something."
he looked at the mug. then he looked at the pantry, which you were beginning to recognise as a particular kind of look, and he let go of your hand. you turned to watch him cross to the pantry cupboard and open it. he stood in front of it and looked at the shelves with the focused attention he brought to everything, and then he reached up to the very top shelf and came back with a tin.
dark green with gold lettering; expensive. tony had received it three months ago as some kind of corporate gift, put it in the communal pantry because ‘he didn't eat biscuits,’ and everyone had been silently not opening it ever since out of some collective unspoken agreement that it was too nice to be the thing you just ate on a tuesday.
bucky set it on the counter and looked at it. then he looked at you.
"that's tony's," you said.
bucky looked at the tin, head tilted to the side like he could understand better at an angle.
"i mean technically he put it in the communal pantry," you said. "so technically it's communal. but."
bucky opened the tin with the flesh hand, the metal hand holding it steady, and the smell of very good shortbread filled the kitchen immediately, the buttery expensive smell of something made by people who took biscuits seriously. he looked into the tin. he looked at you and then he reached in and took out one biscuit, a round shortbread with crystallised sugar on top, and he held it out, to you.
not the tin, one biscuit held between two finger, patient and straightforward.
you looked at the biscuit and then his expectant expression.
"are you feeding me a biscuit," you said.
he looked at the biscuit, his expression said yes, clearly, what else would this be?
you pressed your lips together very hard to contain your amusement at this man, at who you imagined james barnes was, and who this twisted winter soldier had become, and you took the biscuit. it was genuinely extraordinary. you hadn't expected it to matter but it did, the kind of shortbread that dissolved rather than broke, rich and slightly salted and exactly what was needed after a bruised wrist and a corridor floor and a medical bay and shuri's careful voice saying be careful, not afraid. you ate the biscuit and looked at him and said: "do you remember steve? before the war. what he was like."
he reached into the tin and got another one and held it out to you and said: "small."
you took the biscuit. "small," you repeated.
"real small," he said. something in the word had texture to it, something old. "always starting things he couldn't finish."
"and bucky finished them for him," you said.
"yeah." he looked at the tin. "yeah, he did."
you ate your biscuit. he held another one out. you took it.
"do those memories feel like yours?" you said. "when they come. do they feel like something that happened to you, or like something you were told?"
he thought about it, actually thought, not just processed. "like looking through glass that's not clean," he said, after a moment. "i know it's true. i know it happened. but." he paused. "mostly it's far away."
"mostly," you said.
"sometimes it's right there," he said. "and then it goes."
you nodded. he held out another biscuit. you took it, ate it, and said: "do you know what happened? in the building, when the debris hit. do you remember that?"
he was quiet for a moment. "yes."
"what do you remember about after?"
"waking up," he said. "and things were different. like something had moved." he paused. the metal arm made a small sound, a plate shifting and settling. "and then the jet. and then your floor." he looked at your wrist. his jaw went tight. "and then this."
"that part wasn't your fault," you said.
he looked at your wrist and said nothing, which meant he was not going to agree with you about that right now and you were both aware of it.
"he feels bad," he said.
you looked back at him. "who does."
"bucky." he said the name the same way he'd said becca, like something retrieved from a long way down. "about — me taking over. about being gone." his jaw was set and his eyes were on the counter and he said it carefully, each word placed. "it's his. this is all his. and he's — underneath. waiting."
you were quiet for a moment.
"you're all the same person," you said. "everything that happened, everything they built, bucky’s underneath all of it. that's not separate things. that's one person with a lot of things done to him." you paused. "when he comes back, if you're worried about it, i’ll talk to him, might give you both some relief."
you ignored the slight sick feeling that arised at him being gone, at the man you’d gotten close with would retreat back into bucky’s mind at some point and never come back again.
the kitchen was very quiet.
you were standing in the communal kitchen at an unreasonable hour of the morning eating tony stark's expensive biscuits while being fed them one at a time by a man built like a siege weapon who was also holding your hand hostage,and you were getting sad at the idea of the killing machine who’d been kind to you disappearing and the specific full absurdity of it rose through your chest and came out as a laugh.
not a polite laugh. a real one, surprised, coming up from somewhere low.
bucky looked at you.
you laughed harder. you laughed with your hand over your mouth and your eyes watering, and bucky stood at the counter and watched you with the expression of someone who wasn't sure what had happened but was watching it very closely. the furrow was lighter than it had been all morning and his head tilted slightly and something was happening around his mouth that hadn't arrived yet but was close.
"i'm sorry," you said, not sorry at all. "it's just." you looked at the biscuit and at him and at your joined hands and at the whole situation. "you're feeding me a biscuit."
he looked at the tin.
"like you specifically went and got tony's biscuits and are now feeding them to me individually."
he reached in and got another one and held it out.
you laughed again, the same laugh, and took it, and ate it, and he watched you eat it and then looked into the tin with the focused considering expression of someone taking this seriously, and selected another one and held it out.
"bucky," you said, still laughing. "i can feed myself."
he looked at you with the level dark eyes and the patient expression of someone who was aware of that and had decided it was not the point, and held out the biscuit.
you took it. you couldn't not take it. you stood there with tears of laughing at the corners of your eyes eating tony's shortbread one piece at a time, and it was, without any competition, one of the funnier things that had happened to you in recent memory. the absurdity of it sat perfectly alongside everything else, all the weight of the past weeks, and didn't cancel it out but existed next to it, and that was its own kind of relief.
bucky got another biscuit.
"i'm going to have to tell tony about the tin," you said.
a small thing happened around his mouth. not a smile, not yet, but the territory was close.
"he's going to be unreasonable," you said. "he put them in the communal pantry which makes them communal, but he's still going to be unreasonable."
bucky held out the biscuit.
you took it. you looked at him eating nothing, just standing there feeding you, and you said "are you not having one?" and he looked in the tin and selected one and ate it in a single go, completely straightforward, and you laughed again, softer this time.
"good?" you said.
he considered this seriously. then he reached in for another one for himself.
"that's what i thought," you said.
you put your mug down and held your hand out, the unwrapped one, and he looked at it and set the tin on the counter and put his hand in yours. his fingers closed around yours the same way, careful and deliberate, and you picked your mug back up and stood at the counter with your coffee and his hand and the tin of tony's significantly depleted biscuits between you.
"we should probably put those back before tony sees," you said.
he looked at the tin.
"after," you said. "but would you want to watch a film tonight?" you said. "something easy."
he looked at you. then he gave the smallest, most minimal nod you had ever seen on a person.
"okay," you said. "tonight then."
you finished your coffee. he finished his, and his hand came back around yours when the mug was empty, finding it again the way it always found it now, without looking, without making anything of it, just there. the tin of biscuits sat open on the counter between you and the city came in grey at the windows and the morning happened around you, quiet and ordinary and enough.
natasha had set up the projector before either of you arrived.
you found this out when you walked into the common room that evening and the big screen was already down and the room was empty in a way that felt curated, the particular emptiness of a space that had been arranged rather than arrived at naturally. there was a blanket on the coffee table that had not been there that morning. it was folded in the specific neat way that natasha folded things when she was doing something she intended to appear casual about. you looked at it for a moment and then you looked at the couch.
where bucky sat.
not at one end or the other. somewhere in the middle, which you'd learned was his preferred placement in every room, never with his back entirely exposed, never too close to an exit to look deliberate about it, and he sat with the metal arm resting on his knee and his eyes moving between the dark screen and the door and you, the three points of a triangle he'd been running since you walked in. you sat beside him, and scrolled through what was available.
you weren't really reading the titles. you were aware of him beside you the way you were always aware of him, the warmth and the specific gravity of a person that large in a space, the way the couch distributed his weight differently to yours, the quiet occasional sound of the metal arm's plates when he shifted. you scrolled and you thought about the kitchen and becca and blue and small, real small, and you thought about the tin of biscuits that was currently sitting on the counter because neither of you had put it back, and eventually you landed on lady and the tramp because it was there and it was easy and sometimes easy was the right call.
you pressed play.
the opening music came on and the screen filled with colour and bucky looked at it with the direct, serious attention he brought to everything, and you settled back against the cushions and let the film start.
four minutes in, his hand came up and found your shoulder.
not carefully, not tentatively. just found it, the hand landing on your shoulder with the calm certainty of someone who had decided where it was going before it left his side, and then the pressure started, gentle and steady and completely without hurry, and you were being moved, just steadily sideways and down, the angle of your body changing by degrees, your shoulder going toward his and your head going toward his shoulder, and the pressure didn't stop until your head was resting against him and his arm had settled around you and then it stopped and stayed. just like before
you looked straight ahead at the screen.
"was that you deciding we were doing this?" you said.
he said nothing.
"right," you said. "okay."
then, with his arm still around you and the film still going on the screen, he reached for the blanket with his free hand and shook it out and settled it over you. he did it one-handed and he did it thoroughly, which was how he did everything — tucking the edge in along your side first, then smoothing the top of it across your lap with the flat of his hand, then checking the edge at your feet, then adjusting the side again slightly, all of it slow and considered and with the focused attention of someone for whom the difference between done and done correctly was not a distinction they were willing to blur. when he was satisfied with it he looked at you, a brief checking look, confirming.
"thank you," you said.
he looked back at the screen.
the projector threw warm soft light across the room and the rest of the tower was its evening self outside the windows and the blanket was exactly as comfortable as it looked and his shoulder was solid under your head and it was, genuinely and without any argument available against it, exactly what the day needed to end on. you'd been fighting the comfortable for about a minute and a half before you gave up and just let it be comfortable.
you watched lady and the tramp.
he watched it and he watched you, the quiet checking that had become so constant you'd stopped registering it as checking and started registering its absence instead, the faint wrongness when a minute went by without it. his thumb moved sometimes against your shoulder, a slow small arc through the blanket, back and forth, and you weren't sure he knew he was doing it. the room was dim and warm and the film played on and you'd mostly forgotten about the day by the time lady was looking up at the big house with the lights in the windows.
the spaghetti scene came on.
bucky went still. not the uncomfortable stillness, not the operational kind. the attending kind, the quality of stillness he had when something had his full and genuine interest, and you felt him go still more than you saw it, the change in how he was sitting, the weight of his attention shifting entirely to the screen. you watched it with him, the candlelit table and the shared plate and the two dogs and the meatball rolling down the strand of spaghetti until they were nose to nose.
then he straightened up slightly, untangled his arm from around your shoulders, and stood up.
you looked up at him. "where are you going?"
he looked at the kitchen doorway. then he walked through it.
you turned back to the screen and listened to him in the pantry. the cupboard, the specific high shelf, the quiet of him moving around in there, and then his footsteps back, and then the couch taking his weight again.
you looked at what he was carrying.
the tin. tony's tin, dark green and gold, considerably lighter than it had been this morning. you looked at it and then looked at him.
"bucky," you said.
he opened the tin. he looked into it with the serious focused consideration of someone taking a task seriously. he reached in and took out a round shortbread with crystallised sugar on the top, and he held it between two fingers and looked at it, and then he looked at you, and then, without ceremony, he put it in his mouth.
not all of it. half of it. the other half sticking out from between his teeth, and he turned toward you with the biscuit and his dark eyes and the expression of a man who had watched a cartoon, identified the relevant information, and was now implementing it with total and absolute seriousness.
you stared at him.
he waited. the half-biscuit was still between his teeth. his face was entirely, completely straight. after a moment he raised one eyebrow.
you laughed.
not a small laugh. the full kind, the one that came up from somewhere low without permission, and you bent forward over your knees under the blanket and laughed with your hand over your mouth and your eyes watering, and he waited with the biscuit and the eyebrow and the total, unhurried patience of someone who had done the maths and was confident in the result. when you came up for air he hadn't moved. the biscuit was still there. the eyebrow was still up.
"you watched the spaghetti scene," you said, when you could, "and that was your takeaway."
the eyebrow stayed up.
you leaned in and bit the other end of the biscuit.
it snapped cleanly and you pulled back with your half and he ate his half and the film was still going on the screen behind you and you were sitting there on the couch with tears at the corners of your eyes and crumbs on the blanket and shortbread dissolving on your tongue, and something at the corner of his mouth was very nearly there.
"that doesn't count," you said. "for the record. completely different category to the spaghetti scene."
he reached into the tin.
"absolutely not," you said.
he put the next one in his mouth.
"bucky."
you leaned in and bit it anyway. you'd made your peace with having no self-control about this. the biscuit snapped, you ate your half, he ate his, and you shook your head at him and he looked nearly, very nearly pleased about something, and then his arm came back around your shoulders and found its position like it had never left and he guided your head back to his shoulder with the gentle steady pressure of a decision already made, and you went, because you had no argument against it and didn't particularly want one.
his thumb started moving again against your shoulder. the slow arc, back and forth through the blanket. the film played on.
after a while his hand moved from your shoulder.
not away. down, the hand travelling from your shoulder to your upper arm, and it stayed there, warm and still, and then after another while it moved again, the same slow deliberateness, coming to rest at your waist over the blanket. not gripping, just there. the weight of his hand at your waist and the warmth of his arm and you looked at the screen and tracked it all with the attention you always paid to him and said nothing.
then he shifted.
the weight of him redistributing, his arm adjusting, the metal hand moving from his knee to the cushion beside you with a quiet sound of settling plates, and you felt the incremental nature of it, the degree-by-degree quality of what he was doing, each small movement given room to be seen and responded to before the next one. his face was close above yours, tilted down, dark eyes and the serious unhurried expression he had for everything he'd decided to do, watching your face at each degree.
you lay back against the cushions.
he came over you slowly, carefully, with the extraordinary deliberate gentleness that had been running through the entire day, through every touch and every held-out biscuit and every slow arc of his thumb, and he kept most of his weight on the braced arm beside your head, and he was very large and very warm and very close, his face above yours and the metal arm quiet at the edge of your vision and the flesh hand near your waist and the blanket still tucked around you from when he'd done it forty minutes ago.
his eyes were on yours. the whole thing, from the first inch of shifting weight to here, had been watched, and you'd been watched the whole way through, and the watching was asking and the asking was patient and genuine and had none of the winter soldier in it, none of the flat operational quality. just him. just this.
"hi," you said.
the corner of his mouth lifted. small and crooked and there for just a second before it was gone, and it was the first time you'd seen it fully arrive and fully commit to being there, not the almost and the territory adjacent to it, the actual thing, and you held it in the part of your mind where you kept things that mattered and did not make a big deal of it. he lowered his head and pressed his nose into your hair. slowly, the same way he'd done everything today after the corridor, and he stayed there, his face in your hair, and breathed, and the film played on behind you and the city was dark and indifferent outside the windows and the projector light was warm and soft and the tin of tony's biscuits was open on the table and neither of you said anything at all.
you thought about pieces coming back.
you thought about ‘small, real small'. you thought about the kitchen and the voice cracking on ‘last time’ and the hand that hadn't let go of yours for most of the day.
Shane with a controversially young girlfriend but anytime someone mentions it she’s defending him and telling everyone how good he takes care of her. Not even realizing it sounds like she means in bed.
INTAKE FORM ── SHANE / SIMPLE GIRLFRIEND .
WARNINGS : fluff, no smut, everyone finds it funny but her, shane maguire is a dirty old man.
CONFIDENTIAL MATERIAL ── 18+ ONLY.
naya is the first casualty.
you're helping her restock the first aid cabine; you're not sure why, it just seemed like the right thing to do. and you're telling her about the weekend because she asked, which you will remind her of later.
"he had me out there for hours," you say, handing her a roll of bandage. "like genuinely, naya, hours. my legs were shaking."
naya's hand pauses.
"he just kept going," you continue. "i kept thinking okay, surely, surely we're done. and then he'd look at me and just—" you shake your head. "back at it."
"back at it," naya says.
"at some point i said shane i need a break and he handed me a granola bar and waited like four minutes and then looked at me like well?" you laugh. "four minutes. that's not a break, that's a taunt."
naya is holding the bandage roll very tightly.
"and the thing is i never actually want to stop," you say. "like while it's happening i'm fully present, i'm so into it. it's only the next morning that i think maybe i should have some limits."
"some limits," naya says.
"he thinks that's hilarious by the way. my limits. he finds them very funny."
naya puts the bandage roll down on the shelf and stares at it.
"the trail," she says. "you're talking about the trail."
you frown. "obviously? you're so weird," you tell her, and hand her the gauze.
you tell shane that evening and he laughs so hard he has to put his coffee down.
not a short laugh either. a real one, the kind that takes over his whole face, which you don't see often enough that you've stopped finding it startling.
"it's not funny," you say.
"sweetheart," he says.
"she genuinely thought—"
"i know what she thought."
"about us—"
"yeah."
"while i was talking about the trail—"
"the trail," shane says, still grinning, and picks his coffee back up.
you point at him. "you think this is funny."
"i think it's very funny."
"it's not."
"it really is." he looks at you over the rim of his mug, warm and entertained in a way that he mostly saves for you, when no one else is watching. "you gonna do it again?"
"obviously not."
you do it again the next day, to kyle, completely by accident.
in your defense, kyle asks.
he says how was your weekend in the tone of a man who does not actually want an answer but has been raised to ask, and you say good, really good, exhausting and then unfortunately you keep talking.
"shane's relentless," you say. "like i have never met anyone with that kind of endurance. it should be illegal, honestly, the things he can do with—"
"i'm good," kyle says.
"—his sense of direction. i had no idea where we were half the time. i was completely turned around."
kyle is staring at a fixed point on the horizon.
"and he just knew. every time. exactly where to go, exactly what to do." you nod. "it's the ranger thing, i think. or the army thing. either way."
"the army thing," kyle says.
"he's so precise," you say earnestly. "like nothing is by accident with him. every decision is completely intentional."
kyle closes his eyes for a very brief moment.
"he told me that's how he's always been," you continue. "that he doesn't like to do anything halfway." you pause. "actually his exact words were i don't quit until the job's done."
kyle makes a sound that is not a word.
"which honestly explains a lot," you say.
"does it."
"about why i'm always so tired."
kyle turns and walks away at a normal pace that somehow reads as fleeing.
you watch him go.
so weird, you think.
you tell shane about kyle over dinner and shane has to get up from the table.
he stands at the kitchen counter for a moment with his shoulders shaking and you say shane and he holds up one finger, asking for a moment, which you give him because you're generous.
"he just walked away," you say.
"yeah," shane manages.
"mid-conversation."
"i'm aware."
"i was being nice."
"you were sweetheart," he agrees, turning back around, and he's got the grin fully under control now but his eyes are doing the thing they do, bright and a little helpless, that you have decided is your favourite thing on his face. "you were being very nice."
"what is wrong with everyone here."
"nothing," he says. "they're perfectly normal."
"they're all so strange."
"sweetheart," he says, coming back to sit down, and the way he says it has something in it that makes you narrow your eyes.
"what."
"nothing."
"shane."
"eat your dinner."
it's carol at the general store who finally breaks you.
you go in for coffee and she asks how things are going and you say great, really great, shane took me out all weekend and she gets a look on her face that has become, you're realizing, a specific look. one you've seen before. on naya. on kyle. on the two rangers who were with kyle last thursday when you mentioned that shane always makes sure you finish before he—
before he packs up, you'd said, and they'd both suddenly needed to check on something.
you stand in carol's general store and you look at her face and something, slowly, begins to dawn.
"carol," you say.
"yes honey."
"do people think that i'm — that when i talk about shane, that i mean—"
carol says nothing. she is a wise woman.
you think about naya and the bandage roll. you think about kyle walking away. you think about what you said to the two rangers about packing up.
"oh my god," you say.
"there she is," carol says.
you drive back to the cabin with your jaw tight and your face hot and when you walk in shane is at the table cleaning a rifle with the particular focused quiet that usually you find very attractive and right now you find extremely irritating.
"did you know!" your voice is a high, flustered screech. you think you hear a bird fly away at the noise.
he looks up.
"everyone thinks—" you gesture broadly "—when i talk about the trails—"
the corner of his mouth moves.
"shane."
"sweetheart—"
"did you know this whole time."
he sets the rifle down. he gives this the consideration it deserves, which takes about two seconds. "yeah," he says. "pretty much from the start."
"and you didn't tell me."
"you were having such a good time."
you stare at him. "i was mortifying myself."
"you were adorable."
"i told kyle you don't quit until the job's done."
shane bites the inside of his cheek very hard. "i know. he texted me."
"he texted you?!"
"to say thank you, i think. or to warn me. hard to tell with kyle." he stands up, still doing the cheek thing, still fighting it, and crosses to where you're standing with your arms crossed and your face doing something complicated. he puts his hands on your waist. "hey."
"don't hey me."
"you're so cute when you're embarrassed."
"i'm not embarrassed, i'm furious, there's a difference."
"there really isn't," he says, and ducks down to press his mouth against your temple, your cheek, the corner of your jaw, slow and easy and deeply unfair, and you feel the laugh he's been holding in finally escape against your skin, quiet and warm, and he says into your hair: "for what it's worth, they're not wrong."
you go very still.
"about me," he adds, unhelpfully, "not quitting until the job's done."
"shane maguire."
"yeah?"
your face is extremely hot.
"you're the worst."
"mm." he presses a kiss to your cheek. still smiling, you can feel it. "how are your knees, by the way. from the trail."
