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mini-ranger-recs · 4 months ago

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This City Doesn’t Forget (part one · the wedding)

you weren’t supposed to see him again. not like this. not in this dress, not in this city, not with his last name still catching in your throat. but pittsburgh remembers what you tried to bury

pairing : jack abbot x f!reader

content/warnings: alcohol, mentions of past infidelity (not by reader or Jack), emotional repression, unresolved sexual tension, proximity, flashbacks (not as explicit), lying by omission, angst, guilt, wedding setting, Pittsburgh.

word count : 2,674

a/n : no smut in this part—just aching tension, bad decisions almost made, and the beginning of everything unraveling. If you guys like this perhaps I will write part two sooner than later. 18+ ONLY, not beta read.

You hadn’t planned on coming back to Pittsburgh.

Not really.

Not to stay, anyway.

You’d told yourself it was a city you’d passed through—something borrowed when you were eighteen. Temporary, in that way so many things feel permanent until they’re not. You left with no grand finale. No promises. No reason to return. Just a couple of half-used notebooks, a box of textbooks you never sold, and a past you’d done your best to forget.

But then came Match Day.

And the envelope said,

Allegheny General. Emergency Medicine. Pittsburgh.

Your fingers had clenched the paper just a little too tightly. Someone beside you had screamed. Someone else had cried. And you— You just stared.

Because it didn’t feel like fate. It felt like a dare.

You’d worked for it. You knew this program was good. You applied like it was a long shot, a name you could cross off the list without consequence.

And now, you were a PGY-1 with three weeks to relearn how to breathe in a city you swore you’d never see again.

So you moved back early.

You told people it was to settle in. To be prepared. Responsible. Practical. You needed time to unpack, sign the forms, memorize your badge number, figure out the best spot to get coffee before a night shift.

But that wasn’t really it.

The wedding was this weekend.

And if you were going to return, you might as well rip off the bandage.

You told yourself it would be fine. Just another obligation. You’d show up, smile when it was expected, drink something sparkling from a glass too thin, find your table, and disappear before the second round of speeches.

In and out. Unnoticed.

That was the plan.

But plans don’t account for ghosts. They don’t make room for versions of yourself you thought you outgrew—versions that still remember the way someone used to look at you like they weren’t supposed to.

The version that heard his name mentioned—of course he’d be there, of course he’d be involved—and forgot how to breathe.

You thought she was gone.

But she showed up anyway.

Because some things don’t stay buried. Especially not what happened with Jack.

People know pieces. Just enough to make them look twice when you walk into a room.

They know his brother cheated on you. That you ended things. But no one knows what happened after.

They don’t know it was Jack who showed up that night—quiet, steady. That he found you on the porch, sat beside you without a word, handed you a beer and stayed there, saying nothing until the tears stopped burning your throat.

They don’t know how it shifted.

How grief softened into something slower, heavier. How silence turned into stolen glances, how those glances started to hold.

How one night he leaned in—close enough to kiss you, close enough not to—and you let him. You wanted to.

And that should’ve been it.

But it wasn’t.

It happened again. And again. And then again after that.

It wasn’t love. It wasn’t anything you had words for. It was too raw for that. Too hot. Too consuming. It was his hands under your shirt before you could ask him to stop. His mouth on your neck. Your body arching into his like it had been waiting for this—for him—long before either of you were willing to admit it.

He’d show up late, knock quietly, stand in the doorway like he didn’t want to come in.

And you’d let him in anyway.

Sometimes you wouldn’t even speak. Just hands and breath and hunger. His voice rough in your ear. Yours gasping into his shoulder. You were always on borrowed time, always telling yourselves this doesn’t mean anything.

But you kept coming back.

And then, one morning—he didn’t.

No knock. No warning. Just a note slid under your door, folded once. His handwriting, familiar and clipped.

This can’t happen again.

He left for another deployment that week.

You haven’t seen him since.

No one knows the truth. But they know enough.

Enough to feel the shift in the air when his name brushes too close to yours. Enough to catch the tension in your silence. Enough to know something happened between you.

And that whatever it was—it didn’t end clean.

Now, years later, you’re back in proximity with the same family. The same name lingers behind you—woven into laughter, casual conversation, the soft clink of champagne flutes.

And your body still remembers what it felt like to come undone in his hands.

You try to shake the thought. Bury it.

Because now you’re here. At your ex's wedding. Moving through it like it’s just another event on your calendar.

You arrive early—not dramatically, just early enough to avoid the spectacle of walking in late. Early enough to slip through the edges while the music is still soft and no one’s had enough to get loud.

The venue is every Pinterest bride’s dream: string lights, linen runners, eucalyptus draped over archways and tucked into centerpieces like someone spent hours pretending it was effortless.

You keep your expression even. Your heels steady. Your breath controlled.

And then the faces start to register.

A few from college. Some from the family. Familiar enough to sting. One of his cousins waves you over, smiling too warmly, like she’s rewritten history into something forgivable.

You smile back. Offer polite answers. Tell her you moved back for work. Let them fill in the rest.

No one says his name.

Not yet.

But it lingers. In glances, in pauses, in the way people talk about him and wait—just a beat too long—for your reaction.

You keep moving. Find your table. Table Nine.

Close enough to the dance floor to be inconvenient. Far enough from the family tables to make a point.

Your name is written in cursive, tucked beside a sprig of dried lavender. The seat beside yours is still empty.

You don’t even bother to check who it’s for. You’re not planning to stay long enough for it to matter.

You take a slow sip of champagne and pretend it doesn’t taste like memory.

But then—without warning—you’re back there.

Eighteen years old. Barefoot on a back porch in the thick of late July. A cold beer sweating in your hand, your legs stretched across your boyfriend’s lap. Laughter in your throat, someone’s playlist crackling through a speaker tucked behind a lawn chair.

And across the yard—leaning against the railing, one shoulder dipped into the shadows—was him.

Jack Abbot.

The older brother.

You hadn’t meant to notice him. Not like that.

But the moment your eyes caught on his—just for a second, just long enough—you felt it.

Something you weren’t supposed to feel. Something sharp and low and completely out of place.

It didn’t matter that you were wrapped up in someone else’s arms. That you were smiling like everything was fine. That his brother had just tucked a strand of hair behind your ear.

Your attention still drifted.

To Jack.

He was quiet, unreadable, beer in hand, watching the yard with that steady gaze of his. Not staring. Not even looking directly at you.

But somehow, it felt like he saw everything.

You told yourself it was nothing. Just curiosity. Just a moment.

But your skin said otherwise.

You could feel him—without him ever touching you. The tension in your shoulders. The awareness crawling across your collarbone. The heat that rose to your face when his eyes met yours for just a beat too long.

You looked away first.

And you told yourself it didn’t mean anything.

But it stayed with you. Tucked in the back of your mind. Not a fantasy. Not even a thought. Just a question. A flicker.

A what if.

You never said it aloud. Never let yourself imagine it all the way through.

Because it would’ve been wrong.

He was your boyfriend’s brother. And you were still pretending to believe that mattered.

But your body knew it. Even then.

Even before everything fell apart.

And now—now you’re standing in a black dress, back in a city you swore you were done with, and every nerve in your body remembers what it felt like the first time you looked at Jack Abbot and wanted.

What you don’t know is that he saw you the moment you stepped out of the car—and he hasn’t stopped looking since.

He hadn’t meant to. He wasn’t looking for you. Just stepped out front to grab a bottle or a box or something else forgettable from his truck.

Then he looked up.

And everything stopped.

You didn’t notice him. Not then. You were focused on the tent ahead, face neutral, shoulders back, like you were walking into a battlefield and refusing to flinch.

But Jack did notice.

He saw the curve of your neck, the glint of something gold at your collarbone. The way your dress clung like it had been chosen for someone you swore you weren’t thinking about.

He saw you—and for a second, he didn’t move.

Didn’t breathe.

Then, slowly, he stepped back behind the truck, dragging in a breath like he needed to remember what year it was.

He didn’t mean to stare.

But he did.

Because he remembered, too.

And yet, you don’t see him at all—not when you walk inside, not during the greetings, not while you make your quiet rounds with a smile you’ve rehearsed too many times.

He’s nowhere. And then—he is.

You’re halfway through your second glass when you hear him.

That voice. Low. Unhurried. Still laced with the kind of weight that makes people listen. Like he doesn’t waste words unless they matter. Like honesty was hardwired into his bloodstream.

He's older. Broader. Calmer in that unsettling way men get when they've learned to live with their damage. There’s a curl to his hair now, grayer at the edges. His stance is the same—shoulders squared, jaw set, eyes scanning everything and nothing.

He’s talking to the officiant. Laughing at something you can’t hear. That same laugh that used to gut you on nights you shouldn’t have cared.

You should look away.

But then he glances over—and this time, it’s deliberate.

His eyes catch yours.

And for one long, breathless moment, neither of you move.

No nod. No smile. No acknowledgment at all.

Just something weightless and sharp, flickering between you like a match never quite struck.

He looks away first.

And your lungs finally expand.

But the ache in your stomach—the one that’s been dormant for years—It returns.

Low. Persistent.

Familiar.

It’s the same ache that started the first time you looked at him and didn’t look away.

The one that never really left.

Not entirely.

You don’t remember excusing yourself.

Just the slow pressure building in your ribs—the kind that makes your necklace feel too tight, your dress too fitted, your very skin too obvious. One toast too many. One laugh from the wrong person. One glimpse of him across the tent and your balance tipped.

So you left.

Out past the bar. Past the music and string lights and curated perfection. Past someone’s grandmother crying over the first dance.

Out to the edge of the venue, where the manicured lawn gives way to stone steps and low hedges and a garden no one’s bothering to look at this late in the evening.

You wait for your pulse to even out. It doesn't.

You tell yourself you just needed air. That you’re not hiding.

But the second you hear footsteps behind you, slow and deliberate, you know—

You weren’t fooling anyone. Especially not him.

Jack doesn’t say anything right away.

You feel him before you hear him. The heat of him. The way the space folds in tighter, heavier, just from his presence.

“You still have a habit of disappearing.”

You stare ahead, voice even. “You still have a habit of following me.”

A pause.

Then: “Only when I’m not ready for you to go.”

You inhale.

Slow. Measured. Dangerous.

When you finally turn to face him, he’s closer than he should be. Hands in his pockets. Tie gone. Shirt open at the collar like he’s trying not to look like a man unraveling.

But he is.

You know it.

“You came back,” he says.

You lift your chin. “So did you.”

“Not the same.”

“No,” you agree. “Not the same.”

He studies you like he doesn’t want to miss anything. The curve of your jaw. The way your lipstick’s fading at the corners. The way you’re still holding yourself like someone waiting for the next impact.

“You didn’t tell anyone,” he says.

You arch a brow. “Tell them what?”

“That you’re back.”

“I’m here for work.”

He smiles, humorless. “That’s all?”

“That’s all you need to know.”

You watch the flicker cross his face. Just a flash of something—hurt, maybe. Or knowing.

“You’re not going to make this easy, are you?”

You shake your head, voice quieter now. “When have I ever?”

Jack exhales. Looks down for a second like he’s choosing his next words carefully.

Then he steps forward.

Just enough that you can smell him—clean, warm, a hint of whatever soap he’s always used that lingers even after he's gone.

“You ever think about that summer?” he asks.

You don’t answer.

But your silence is enough.

He sees it.

“All that time we spent pretending we didn’t want it,” he says, voice low. “And all the ways we failed.”

“You left,” you say.

“I had to.”

“You didn’t have to leave like that.”

“I know.”

The air is thick now. Too thick.

You shift your weight, but your feet don’t move.

And then—

He leans in. Not to kiss you. Not even to touch.

Just to be there.

“I think about it every time I come home,” he murmurs. “Every time I walk past your street. Every time I go into work.”

Something stirs behind your ribs.

His eyes flick to your mouth. Just once.

You see it.

And it wrecks you. It shouldn’t feel like anything. He’s not off-limits anymore. Not technically.

But your body still responds like it’s a secret.

“You shouldn’t be out here,” you say.

He lifts a brow. “You are.”

“I needed air.”

He watches you. “Funny. Thought you needed distance.”

You cross your arms. “And yet here you are.”

“I wasn’t planning to be.”

“Neither was I.”

That sits between you for a moment, heavy and unfinished.

You reach for your phone without thinking, just something to do with your hands.

It buzzes the second you unlock it.

“Welcome to Allegheny General. Your orientation begins Monday at 6:00 AM.”

You flinch.

Jack sees it. Of course he does.

“What?” he asks.

You hesitate. Then shrug, trying to pass it off.

“Work stuff.”

“What kind of work?”

You shoot him a look. “Since when do you care?”

“I’m just—surprised. You never said what you were doing back in Pittsburgh.”

You pause. The words come slow.

“I matched. Emergency medicine. It’s… a residency.”

His expression doesn’t change. Not exactly.

But something settles behind his eyes. Something heavy. Knowing.

“Jesus Christ,” he mutters. “You really don't know.”

“Don't know what?”

“I work there,” he says.

The world tilts.

“What—”

“Attending. ER.”

You go still.

Dead still.

And he sees it hit you.

The blood draining from your face. The calculation behind your eyes. The memory of every line you just crossed tonight.

You start to speak. You don’t.

He doesn’t smile. Doesn’t move.

He just looks at you.

Soft. Dangerous.

And then he leans in—not touching, not even brushing—but close enough for you to feel the heat of him against your skin.

“See you Monday, rookie.”

#holy shit this is so good #the tension!!!!!#fic rec #the pitt

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mini-ranger-recs · 8 months ago

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Ubi Amor Ibi Fides (Where there's love, there's faith) // Lucius Verus x f!reader

summary: When he saw you that day, surrounded by a gaggle of children who begged you to tell them a story, he had no idea that the Fates had their own epic tale in mind of everlasting devotion. OR, contrasting vignettes of the past and the present through the eyes of Hanno and his wife.

word count: 13.2k

warnings: SPOILERS FOR THE MOVIE!! 18+, war, blood, death, allusions to rape and what happens to female prisoners of war, allusion to desecration of a corpse, historical inaccuracy (if Ridley Scott can do it, so can I!), smut, Lucius being Down Bad for this wife, mythology and religion (with inaccuracies), discussion of suicide, suicide attempt, grief, throwing up, Roman culture???, period-typical misogyny but like, make it feminist

“Tell me a story.”

Exhaustion clouded his voice and you turned away from your weaving to find him leaning against the roughshod mudbrick door frame. It was days like today that you cursed his stubborn nature. While he had been willing to let you help in breaking in the ground for the coming harvest, your husband sent you inside by midday when the sun was at its highest. Now, you were rested and chilled by the wind that eased its way through the small house, and he was completely depleted.

“Come.” You beckoned him with an outstretched hand. “Rest beside me and then I will tell you.”

He didn’t argue, for once, and took your hand in his. You drew him down to sit beside you, his head settling in your lap. Your fingers curled into the soft, downy hair at his temples and he relaxed with a sigh. While you wished you could continue stroking his hair, the weaving in front of you wouldn’t be completed without two hands. As you went back to your work, you began to speak.

“There were once two lovers by the name of Pyramus and Thisbe…” He huffed out a quiet laugh. You smiled at him, delighted that it made him relax even further. Most of your stories were the ones he had told you about from his childhood and you weren’t really in the right mind to come up with a fresh story.

“The parents of our two lovers refused to let them marry, but their love reigned strong through the thin crack in the stone wall that divided their property.” As you spoke, you embellished the story with extraneous details and dramatic gasps, eliciting quiet chuckles from your husband. He looked weary these days and not just from the labor in the fields. The Romans were creeping closer, and it would only be a matter of time before they came to your city. You woke up last night to a cold bed and found him standing at the doorway, staring out towards the sea. He knew what was coming. You both did.

“The gods looked favorably upon their sacrifice and changed the tree to its dark appearance to signify the devotion between them.” You ended the tale and stopped your weaving for a moment to gently trace your fingers along the edge of his features. You loved the sharp crest of his nose, the curve of his lips, and the bright blue of his eyes. His lashes were so long that they left shadows across his cheeks when he shut his eyes.

“I understand why he did it,” he said softly.

“Hmm?” Your hand stroked over his curls once more as you thought through everything you needed to get done tomorrow. You paused, however, when you felt his face turn to see you better and his lips brushed against your palm.

“I understand why Pyramus ended his life.” His calloused palm covered your own and he turned your hand over, his fingers sliding along yours and intertwining. “One can only imagine the pain he must have felt.”

A painful squeeze built in your throat and you felt an awful burning sensation behind your eyes. He sat up and gently cupped your face in one of his large hands, drawing your gaze up to meet his.

“Hanno,” you breathed. He smiled softly and leaned in to capture your lips in a sweet kiss. He was never one for words, always more inclined to act. Breaking apart, you pressed your forehead against his and breathed in the masculine scent of him tinged with soil, sweat, and something purely him.

“When death claims us, we go as one,” he vowed. “I cannot exist in this world without you.”

“As the gods see fit,” you assured him. “I will follow you wherever you lead.”

You wished this was a story.

It had been an easy day in the fields. You were sprinkling seeds in the ditches that Hanno dug earlier. The chickens clucked at you from their pen, begging for a bit more food as if they hadn’t been fed a hearty amount of grain earlier. After you planted these, Hanno would place the earth back over it while you worked on your herb garden.

You were capable of doing the hard, manual labor. Growing up, you would always help your parents through the entire process of planting, but Hanno was insistent on keeping his precious wife away from the heavy work. Rather, he encouraged your herb collecting and training with some of the city healers. You were grateful for him, truly. Most men would sequester their wives in their homes and work them to their deaths from labor, both of earth and child.

But Hanno was different.

He taught you to read, speak, and write in Latin. He would easily switch between Numidian, Phoenician, and Latin until you could respond perfectly. When he took breaks from tilling, plowing, and managing the harder tasks with the animals, he sat next to you at your garden and asked about the different plants. He was never cruel, never struck you or screamed at you the way you had heard other wives whisper to one another. In fact, Hanno was exceedingly kind to you and to anyone he didn’t view as a threat.

Which is why you thought this was a nightmare at first.

The horns of war sounded and you stood up straight to watch as the beacons erupted with fire at the top of the wall. Fear seized your heart and you stood frozen, transfixed, by the flames that licked the sky. Smoke curled off the top of them and the smell burned at your nose. You might have stood there all day if it hadn’t been for Hanno rushing out of the small house to your side.

“Come,” your husband instructed you. “We must get ready.”

He grasped your arm gently and it snapped you out of your reverie. Swallowing down your panic, you followed him into the house and to the small trunk he had made to hold your armor. The two of you silently donned your gear and were nearly finished when Jugurtha came to your door.

“My lord,” you greeted him with a slight bow. The chieftain’s face betrayed nothing, but you could see the worry in his eyes. Hanno and Jugurtha would be in the heat of the battle, directly in the path of the oncoming Roman fury. Would the gods listen if you sent them a prayer now? It felt as though they had decided to abandon you.

“The healers are gathering at Taklit’s house.” Jugurtha looked at the two of you, a hidden regret in his gaze. “We will come retrieve you once we have claimed victory.”

“Yes, my lord.” Your voice had softened as you realized how quickly this was all happening.

“I will join you soon,” Hanno replied. Jugurtha nodded and left, his imposing figure leaving an empty space in the doorway and in your heart. Needing a distraction, you turned and focused your attention on securing Hanno’s armor. As your trembling fingers finished tightening his armor, his hand enfolded around yours and he drew your fingers up to his lips. Hanno placed a delicate kiss on the tips of each finger. You searched his face to memorize every last detail, from the crinkles beside his eyes to the slight curve of his lip. Only the gods knew how this battle would end and the anxiety felt like it was going to swallow you alive.

“We go as one,” he reminded you. “I will not lose you.”

“Nor I, you.” His lips ghosted over yours and you leaned up, capturing him in a searing kiss. You poured every ounce of your devotion, fear, and worry into the kiss and he took it all onto his broad shoulders, shielding you from this world. His hand fisted in your hair and he pulled you impossibly closer so he could sink the weight of his devotion into every fiber of your being.

The gods had granted you this man as your husband. Perhaps they had not abandoned you yet.

“Be brave, my Hanno,” you whispered once you broke apart. He pressed his brow to yours and you breathed him in. “Be strong and be brave. And come back to me.”

The warm metal of his betrothal ring pressed into the skin of your cheek as he cradled your face between his hands. He kissed your forehead, his lips warm against your clammy skin. You savored the ring, this physical reminder of his tie to you, and touched the one that rested on your hand as a reminder of your tie to him.

“I will see you soon, my love.”

How bittersweet endings are, you thought to yourself as the walls of the city were seized by Romans. Men and women fell left and right from the parapets and you knew there was no help you could give them once their bodies hit the ground. Instead, you watched in horror as Roman soldiers grew closer and closer to where you were stationed and awaiting the wounded. You could see Hanno at the top of the wall fighting for his very life and your heart beat wildly in your chest at the sight of so many men around him falling in battle. Would he be next?

A cry of pain nearby alerted you to someone needing help. One of your people had been caught within the crosshairs of an archer and you rushed out of the house to grab them and drag them to safety. The child, only a mere babe, shrieked in agony as you dove to cover his little body when another arrow went sailing over your head. Even over the din of war, you heard Hanno scream your name.

A Roman soldier grabbed you by your hair and yanked you up off the ground, forcing your back to bend sharply and a shout to emerge from your lips. He drew his sword, placing it to your throat with the intention of drawing your blood, your life, out of you with one swift pull. Despite knowing it wouldn’t help, you shouted your status in Latin.

“Healer! I’m a healer!” Perhaps he would be merciful. Perhaps he would let you go. Your eyes sought out the top of the wall and you saw Hanno desperately fighting to get to you, but he was too far away. The blade knicked the soft skin of your throat.

Two things happened simultaneously. One, a general pointed at you from the crowd and yelled at his man to stop. Two, Hanno was shoved off the wall and into the sea, right where huge rocks clashed with the waves.

A scream escaped you. A wail. War makes widows, your mother had said. And here you were, one of them.

The soldier removed his blade and forced you up to your feet, shoving you back in the direction of the house. You scrambled to scoop up the child in your arms. If you could not save your love, maybe you could at least save a mother from grief.

The child died in your arms by the time you stepped into the healer house.

Numidia fell. Rome claimed victory and dominion over the land. Hanno was dead.

You busied yourself with tending to the wounded in hopes that you wouldn’t think about the fact that you were now under Rome’s control, a widow, and possibly homeless. What would happen next? Would they let you retrieve his body? Or would they throw him into a pile and burn it all along with the city itself?

A shadow fell over you as you tended to one of your own. You looked up to find the general gazing down at you. All at once, you were filled with hot rage and the deepest sorrow. You stood quickly, your hand reaching for a stray knife on the ground but he merely raised a brow. Right. What skill do you have against a Roman general?

“You’re a healer,” he said, not as a question. “And you speak Latin. How?”

“How do I heal or how do I speak Latin?” you spat. He remained stoic and you narrowed your eyes in suspicion. You would never reveal Hanno’s secrets. Not even under the threat of death.

“My husband is-” You stopped yourself and swallowed hard. “Was a merchant. He taught me so I could help him sell.”

“But you are a healer.”

You shrugged. “We do what we must.”

He studied you carefully and then nodded at one of his soldiers. A sudden bolt of terror struck you. Was this your future? To be a general’s plaything? A concubine? Some kind of bed warmer until he got back to Rome and disposed of you into the nearest brothel?

No. You were the wife of Hanno, a kind man and a good soldier.

“If you expect me to lay with you, I ask that you let me slit my wrists first so that I can die knowing I never let you take more from me than you already have,” you hissed. The soldier went to unsheathe his sword, but the general raised a hand to stop him. He took in your figure and the way you trembled with rage and grief.

“I need a healer,” he explained. “For my men. I will not touch you, for I am a married man, and you are a widow.”

He turned to the soldier once again. “Place her in chains and then put her in my room. Do not lay a finger on her, nor let anyone else.”

What choice did you have? If you defied them, you would be dead. If you went with them, you would have a chance to avenge Hanno before you died. Either way, you would join your husband in the afterlife. Going meant you had a chance to drag another life with you on the journey.

You dropped the blade and let the soldier lead you to the ships, not daring to look at the mass of bodies being piled up on the sand. Tears blurred your vision as you were hauled onto the ship. The keening wails of mourners raised above the fractured walls and you watched as smoke started to envelope the city. Just this morning, you had been thinking about spring planting and now you were a Roman slave.

What fresh hell was this?

The soldier clamped the heavy irons onto your wrists, connecting them together, and then attached two to your feet as well, forcing you into a shuffle as he then moved further below deck to a room. He tossed a thin blanket onto the wooden floor and pointed at it. You needed no words to explain that it would be your new bed.

When the door shut behind him, you fell to your knees over the chamber pot and promptly threw up everything in your stomach. An agonized sob tore from your lungs and you grit your teeth to silence the wail that threatened to emerge. You beat your fists on the hard, unforgiving wooden floor and wept silent tears, rocking back and forth in time to the crests and waves of the wailing mourners outside. Your people were subjugated. Your home was destroyed.

Your Hanno was dead.

Oh Thisbe, you thought as hot tears coursed down your cheeks. I understand. I understand. I understand. If I cannot shoulder this burden, then let the gods strike me down so that I may join him in peace.

“Tell us a story!”

The voices of children bubbled up over the crowd and Hanno looked up from sharpening his sword to find a woman surrounded. The kids eagerly mobbed her, their little heads bobbing up and down as they pleaded for her to tell them a tale. A basket balanced precariously on her head, but she seemed as though there was no worry about it falling.

But the thing that Hanno noticed the most was that she was completely and utterly beautiful.

“Who is that?” Jugurtha smiled at the young soldier’s question. He saw the way the woman captured his gaze. He knew that look in his eyes.

Jugurtha said your name quietly and explained how your family used to live on the outskirts of the city so they could accommodate a larger farm, but recent skirmishes in the area had wounded your father and drew you behind the walls of the city. Hanno had met your father before and made a mental note to visit the man and see how he was healing. Perhaps he would bring some fresh fruits from the merchants.

Jugurtha must have caught onto his train of thought because he called you over. The gaggle of children followed closely behind and you laughed, a sound that Hanno delighted in hearing.

“Are you interested in a story too, my lord?” You said in greeting. Jugurtha grinned and gestured for you to sit.

“You’ve been hard at work. Take a moment to rest and tell the children a story.”

With careful hands, you reached up and lowered the basket to the ground. Hanno could see it was full of various types of plants and fabrics. He had a million questions swirling around in his head. What did you do to pass the time? Where were you staying? Did you like it here? He stayed silent, however, as you slowly lowered yourself onto the ground. Your dress pooled around your legs and the coins on your shawl clinked against each other. What would you look like bare? He banished the thought as soon as it appeared.

“Come.” You beckoned the children to sit around you and gathered one of the youngest into your lap. The child reached up and played with the ends of your veil and you smiled down at her before beginning your story.

“Long ago, there was a queen of Numidia by the name of Kahina. When invaders came to Numidia to conquer us, she stood strong and fought them off with all of her might. Kahina was brave and smart, using both her strength and her mind to push the invaders back.” You launched into a tale filled with drama, some comedy, and even a bit of romance that had the kids shouting and cheering with glee. Hanno even stopped cleaning his weapons to sit and listen. He was enraptured by the way you kept the kids engaged as you weave your tale. The child in your lap started to drift off and you didn’t even hesitate before drawing her closer into your arms and cradling her.

“Queen Kahina is a reminder to all of us,” you declared. “That each of us has the power to stand up for ourselves, to do what’s right, and to be proud of who we are.” You gazed out onto the sea of little heads bobbing their agreement and then looked up to lock gazes with Hanno. For a brief moment, it felt like everything in the world went still. He scarcely knew he was breathing until Jugurtha nudged him. You tore your gaze away and offered a brilliant smile to the children. Clapping your hands together, you shooed them back towards the gathering of homes.

“Your mothers are probably wondering where you’ve gone off to. Now, go home and do some chores to help her out.”

“Oh, but we want another story!” One boy cried out. You huffed out a laugh and shook your head, your veils moving like buttery silk across your skin.

“Only if you finish your chores for the day. I will ask your mother and you know I will. Now, off with you!”

The children dashed off, leaving you with the sleeping babe in your arms. You slowly started to rise, intent on not waking her, when Hanno spoke.

“Here, let me carry your basket.” He stood and took the wicker basket from the ground so you wouldn’t have to worry about carrying both child and items. You regarded him warily at first and Jugurtha had to hide his smile behind his hands.

Truth be told, you were one of the most desired women in the city. You were also one of the least trusting. Your mother desperately tried to set you up with suitor after suitor, but none met your standards. Your father laughed off your mother’s attempts and said that the gods would lead the right man to you. You were older than most women to be unmarried, but you remained steadfast in your belief that the right man would come someday.

And perhaps today was that day.

Jugurtha offered you a short nod to express his approval of Hanno and your suspicious expression melted somewhat. You turned and started to walk towards the village. When you realized that the handsome man with blue eyes wasn’t following, you glanced back at him.

“Are you coming or not?”

Hanno scrambled to catch up and quickly joined your steps, a smile cresting on his face as he asked you about how you were settling into the city.

Hanno cried when his mother sent him away. He sobbed when he fled his hiding place, cried on the boat crossing, and sniffled away into his sleep the first few days of living in Numidia. But he had never wept like he did when they tossed him into the hold of the ship with a Roman brand on his shoulder and a ring that felt infinitely heavy on his finger.

The last thing he saw before plunging into the sea was the blade sliding across your neck. Stuck between the two worlds of consciousness, he saw flickers of a wheatfield stretched before him and, for a moment, saw the outline of your body amongst the stalks. He reached out, his hand passing through where you stood, and then you disappeared from his grasp.

Coming to, he rushed from the sea and towards the city, but two Romans stopped him. He needed to find your body. He needed to see that you were buried properly. He was never as devoted to the gods as you were. You kept idols on the hearth and prayed regularly, but he only found himself turning to the gods at a time like this. But, right now, he found himself praying to Viduus, Libitina, and Proserpina.

Let her soul cross, Mercury. Bring her to the Fields of Elysium. Please. Tell her I will meet her on the other side.

He was forced to kneel next to Jugurtha, stripped of his armor and weapons, and watched as they loaded body after body into a pit. Jugurtha’s gaze never left the growing pile, even as he asked the question that Hanno dreaded.

“She’s gone,” he said, his throat raw from screaming your name across the battlefield. Did it hurt? He wondered. Was it instant? Did you feel pain? His sweet wife who dedicated her life to healing and helping died in such a brutal manner. His hands curled into fists as rage filled his veins. You were supposed to die at an old age, tucked in his arms and surrounded by your children. That’s what he planned that day so long ago when he walked you home, basket in his arms and a babe in yours. You dropped the child off with her mother and he refused to let you take your basket back, instead carrying it to your small house where he checked in on your father, met your mother, and charmed your whole family.

He craned his neck to see the dead lying a few feet away in hopes of catching a glimpse of any sign of you but there were too many dead. Too many lost. He saw the man he had bought silk from two days earlier. The midwife in the village. So many of the soldiers he had helped train.

Hanno glanced beside him and saw a fellow healer who was weeping openly. He leaned closer and asked if she knew anything about what happened to you.

“They took her,” she wailed. “They took her.”

Any grief that remained calcified into pure, hot rage. They took your body? For what sick purpose? To desecrate your corpse? To taint you with their hatred and their delusions of power, even when you were already dead? He started to rise, intent on seeking out your corpse and draping himself over it so that he would still be holding you when they killed him. Jugurtha stopped him with a shaking hand around his wrist.

“I’m sorry,” the leader lamented. “But not like this. This is not how you will die.”

Hanno’s eyes fixed on the man standing in front of the soldiers, in front of the keening mothers and children, in front of the men he had defeated and stripped of their armor to expose their humiliation. Hanno remembered the way he pointed directly at you, encouraging the soldier to keep the bloodshed continuing, and knew what Jugurtha meant.

He was going to kill him, and then he would reunite with you in the afterlife.

“Tell me a story,” Lulit encouraged as the two of you picked herbs from outside the city. The two of you rode out early this morning to gather herbs not grown in the village gardens. Lulit was with child and Jugurtha insisted on a guard coming with you and you glanced over at the man asleep at the base of the tree that the horses were tied to.

You paused for a moment to consider which tale you should tell. Recently, the only stories that came to mind were romances. Your face burned at the thought, but you knew why they were the only things that floated to your memory. A certain blue-eyed man had consumed every waking thought of yours and it was driving you mad.

He was a consummate gentleman and always found ways to visit your family. He started helping your father get his new trading business up and running in the city. He brought your mother fresh wheat to bake bread. He carved toys from wood and willow reeds for your siblings.

Hanno was the man of your dreams. He was exceedingly kind, handsome, and funny. He was sincere and wasn’t putting on some kind of face to impress you. He was just truly nice to everyone he met. You saw him once helping one of the elders bundle their wheat harvest and carry it into their house. Jugurtha had already come by and assured your parents of Hanno’s good nature.

He had started to teach you Latin and how to read and write Phoenician and Numidian. He told you stories from other empires and listened intently when you told him tales your grandmother had told you. The gods had indeed brought the right man, the perfect man.

“Psyche was one of three daughters of a king and a queen of a far away land. She was renowned for her beauty and praised among the land as the second coming of the goddess of beauty. Her admirers would bring offerings and gifts to her, angering the goddess, who decided that Psyche must be punished.”

A thorn caught on your finger and you let out a hiss of pain as you brought your finger to your lips, sucking the blood away. You began to continue your work and your story when a horn trumpeted across the sky.

The sounds of war.

Your heart leapt into your throat and you immediately looked to Lulit. Her face had drained of color and she traded a worried glance with you. In the time you had lived here, the horns had never sounded.

“We need to move.” Despite being asleep moments earlier, Hanno was already leading the horses to the two of you.

“Who is it?” You knew better than to stall, especially when he wore such a serious expression. He helped you climb onto the back of your horse and paused for only a moment, one of his warm palms resting on your skirt-covered thigh.

“A small war party, by the looks of it. Nothing the defense can’t handle. But we need to get out of the way before they attack. There’s a forest just a few paces away, but we need to get moving.” He ensured that you and Lulit were secured before he climbed onto his own horse. Dust grew in the east and you felt your worry build with it. Hanno tugged at the reins of your horse, urging you to follow. You urged your horse into a gallop and kept close to him, but you still looked over your shoulder to gauge how close the marauders were.

“Hanno.” Your voice carried a warning and he looked back to see a rider closing in on them. He let out an expletive and pointed to the trees that were nearing with every step.

“Go! I’ll find you.” He slowed his horse and fell in line with you, his bright eyes meeting yours. “I swear to you.”

You swallowed against your rising panic and he sent you a reassuring smile before he turned his horse around and rode off in the direction of your pursuer. You looked back to watch as he drew his sword with expert ease.

Focus, you chastised yourself. You need to focus.

Lulit silently followed you as you led the way to the forest. Once the trees began to cloud your vision, you looked back and saw nothing but dirt and sky. He would be okay. He had to be.

Dismounting, you grabbed the reins of your horse and led her further into the forest until you came to a clearing with a good underbrush. You tied the horses and instructed Lulit to dig out some of the underbrush so she could lay down and rest while you brushed out the horses.

“Are we in danger?” she asked. Were you? You had no clue. But you set your shoulders and covered her with the blanket she kept on her saddle.

“Hanno would never let anything happen to us,” you told her. You settled down onto the soft grass next to her. “Let me continue my story. While Psyche’s sisters married, she found herself still unmarried and that worried her father who consulted a seer. The seer predicted an awful outcome for the beautiful daughter, one of a brutish husband in the form of a dragon who came to claim her and whom the gods feared. But truthfully, the goddess of beauty had been so enraged by the people’s devotion to Psyche that she sent her son to enchant her with a hideous creature, but instead found himself falling in love with her.”

Lulit curled up onto her side, cradling her growing belly with her hands as she listened raptly to your story. You spoke of the trials the lovers endured in their pursuit of one another, but as you began to wrap up the story, you found that she had drifted off to sleep.

A branch cracked nearby and you flinched. There was a small knife in your saddlebags that you used for foraging and silently, you crept over to your horse and retrieved it. The leaves rustled and you spun to face whatever beast dared to come close. You held your knife aloft and pointed it in the direction of where the noise was coming from. Oh, you were not brave. You were a farmer’s daughter and a healer. The most you knew with a knife was how to butcher an animal.

“You need to adjust your thumb to the other side,” Hanno said in greeting as he stepped through the forest and into the clearing. “It will give you better control.”

With a ragged sigh of relief, your shoulders fell from their tensed position and you dropped the knife onto the grass below. He stooped to catch it and studied the small blade with a hint of a smile. Droplets of blood stained his face and you carefully examined him for any sign of injuries.

“I am unharmed, my little warrior,” he teased. He rose and handed you the knife once more. “And I will make sure to teach you how to use that.”

“Are you sure you’re alright?” He could easily be lying. Father always brushed off your mother’s worries so as to not incite her own anxieties. Hanno raised his arms from his sides and slowly turned so you could see that he was indeed unharmed. His sword hung from its scabbard and you could see that blood still lingered on its surface.

“Are we safe?”

His eyes darkened and he stepped closer, his hands hovering over your waist. He searched your face for something, you weren’t sure, but dipped his head into a nod. “Aye. I would never let anything happen to you. To you or Lulit.”

“Then rest, soldier. Let me clean your sword.”

He looked as if he wanted to argue, but determination furrowed your brows and Hanno reluctantly unstrapped his sword from his side and handed it to you. This was a task you had witnessed your mother perform before when your father took on anyone trying to attack the farm. Blood was not a foreign thing to you, even if Hanno appeared to want to protect you from it.

You took a rag from your saddle pack and sat down by a tree. Hanno joined you, his back against the bark and his eyes studying the treeline for any disturbance. Slowly and methodically, you ran the rag over his blade and ensured that every last drop of blood and gore was cleaned from it. He searched your face for any sign of fear. Fear of what? Of him? A man who so willingly charged into danger to protect you engendered no fear from you.

“There,” you declared. “Good as new.”

He gratefully accepted the blade from you and placed it back in his scabbard. The sun was starting to set and the glow between the trees created a halo of light around you. He reached up and tucked a stray strand of hair out of your face before curling his knuckles against your jaw and stroking his thumb over your cheek. You let your eyes flutter shut and leaned into his palm, savoring the rough drag of his calloused fingers against your soft skin.

You loved him. Oh, the thought made your heart race and you surged forward. He caught your waist in his calloused hands and let his lips meet yours in a breathless kiss. Hanno groaned against your touch and you pulled away, thinking he was hurt with some injury you hadn’t seen, but he merely cupped your face and pulled you back in so he could nip at your lips and soothe the slight sting with his tongue. You whimpered at his touch and kissed him once again, moving your hands down to trace along the hard lines of his chest. Your hand moved lower and Hanno quickly pulled away from you, one of his hands catching yours and tangling your fingers with his.

“Not yet,” he panted against your cheek. “Not yet.”

Dawn was breaking when you awoke. Your head rested on a blanket that you recognized as Hanno’s while your own draped over you, protecting you from the bitterly cold nights of Numidia. Your soldier sat wide awake and alert beside you and you could tell, from the fatigue weighing down his eyes, that he hadn’t slept a wink through the night. A silent sentry, guarding you and Lulit from any unseen danger.

The blanket fell from your shoulder as you began to sit up and he instinctively reached over to drag it back up your shoulder, bathing you in warmth from both the outside and surging through your insides at his tenderness.

You woke Lulit and the three of you rode back to the city, barely making it in time before a search party headed by Lulit’s husband went out. He wept when he saw his wife and swept her into his arms. Two men offered to take your horses to the stables to care for them and you graciously accepted. Hanno refused to leave your side until he deposited you at your doorstep.

It was still early but you knew your parents would be awake, both from their anxiety and their history as farmers. Your mother let out a shriek when she saw you approach and ran from the doorway to hug you. Hanno squeezed your hand once and made to step away, but you kept your fingers tightly entwined with his.

“I believe you have something to ask of my father,” you explained. His brows raised in surprise and you offered him a shy smile. As your mother ran back to the house to exclaim of your return, you raised your clasped hands so you could press a kiss to his dirt-stained skin.

“Are you sure?” His hesitation had nothing to do with you, but rather in his belief that he was not good enough for you. You laughed and started to drag him in the direction of the house.

“You foolish man.” A boyish grin lit up his face and he followed you inside.

“What happens to me once we reach Rome?”

General Acacius looked up from the letter he was writing and turned to face you. The floor barely made a comfortable place to lay your head, but he had at least given you blankets and removed the chains from your legs. They only went back on when you were on the deck, thanks in part to your failed attempt to jump overboard and sink into the sea.

“My wife will find a place for you in her house,” he explained. You scoffed and picked at the dried blood under your fingernails. You spent your days stitching up and tending to the wounds of Roman soldiers and spent your nights curled up on the floor of this room, dreaming of bright blue eyes and a crooked smile.

“Why? Couldn’t you just drop me off at the nearest brothel and let them rip me apart?” His compassion, minimal at best but still present, confused you. To him, you were barbarian scum. A conquered people. Prisoner of war, spoils, an artifact of his military prowess. He winced at your accusation, knowing that it was true for many military campaigns that the women were subjugated into the slave trade and forced into prostitution. The general refused to meet your eyes and you savored what little bit of power you held over him.

You could picture it now. You would demure yourself and behave in his wife’s house until you found a chance to slit her throat and leave him with the same raw, empty feeling that consumed you.

“You have skills that would be useful,” he muttered. “Your husban-”

“Don’t you dare speak of him,” you hissed. “My husband was a good and kind man. You do not deserve to speak of him.”

“He taught you well,” he continued on. “Lucilla could use someone with your skill set.”

The name made you pause and you tilted your head to the side, brows furrowing as you mentally ran through your memories. “Lucilla, daughter of Aurelius?”

He regarded you with suspicion. “Aye. How do you know of her?”

“Everyone knows of Marcus Aurelius,” you retorted. “I’d be a fool not to.”

A sudden knock on the door drew his attention away from you and he rose to answer it. General Acacius left the room to sort out some sort of issue and left you alone with your thoughts. You drew your knees up to your chest and rested your cheek against your folded arms. If you shut your eyes, you could see his face. If you thought hard enough, you could feel him in your dreams. The rough stubble of his beard. The high plains of his cheekbones. The crooked smile he gave you when he made you laugh.

Lucilla, daughter of Aurelius, you ran the words over and over in your head. Aurelius. Aurelius.

You could only hope that Hanno would forgive you if you delayed your joining with him in the afterlife for a little bit longer.

He slept fitfully on the ship and in the cages. He dreams of your eyes, your laugh, your smile, and wakes with your name on his lips in a strangled cry that he buries into his bicep and lets only a few tears leak out onto his battered skin.

He has nightmares most nights and the lack of sleep fuels his rage. Dark circles take hold under his eyes and weariness leaves red rims around his blue pupils, making him appear as the wild barbarian they purport him to be. His muscles ache and scream and bruises litter his torso. He bites a monkey back and savors the burning anger that courses through his veins. The crowds cheer and shout and applaud his fury, but he pays them no mind. All he focuses on is going back to his cell and dreaming of you once more.

Killing men has never been an issue for him. He was raised a fighter, even in Numidia where he helped Jugurtha lead their forces. He fought in skirmishes and battles. When he met you, it brought another reason to keep the fight going. He refused to let a single person pass into the gates of the city when you were seeking protection inside. He had failed you, and every new scar on his body was merely penance.

Ravi chastises him for the way that he seeks out injury, but the man doesn’t refuse to help him. In an opium-fueled haze, Hanno tells him quietly that his wife was a healer. She was exceedingly kind and gentle. Too gentle for him. He was scared he would break her with his brutish nature, but she was also enduringly strong. A stray tear slips down his cheek and he tosses the opium aside in favor of feeling the pain and knowing that it pales in comparison to the ache in his chest. His grief builds and compounds into this sickening version of him that he cannot recognize. The blood of other men stains his skin, no matter how hard he scrubs in the baths. Even when the iron-thick substance is gone, he can still see it.

Macrinus brought the finest courtesans by his cell, but he refused them everytime. Once, the girl shared a similar hair color as you and he invited her into his cell, but merely let her rest on his cot while he sat at his desk and sketched what he could remember of your face on thin papyrus.

When he looked into the stands and saw your murderer seated with his mother, his rage calcified into his heart. With every kill, he pictured your pale face crying out for him. With every breath, he reminded himself of his failure to protect you. His mother had the audacity to reason with him.

“Do you have a family?” Lucilla asked.

He says your name with the reverence afforded to the gods and then hisses out that you were dead and taken from him by her husband. How dare she try to call her son home when she shares a bed with that monster? Ferality consumed him and his thirst for revenge. He meant what he said to Macrinus. Only Acacius’ head will quench this fire in his blood. For a sickening moment, he wants his mother to feel the way he does.

There are times when the night is darkest that his mind descends into the throes of the deepest depression and he wonders about how you would feel if you saw him like this. There is one nightmare that plays over and over again in his mind. He is in the Colosseum and the crowd is cheering in their bloodlust. The gates open and he steps out to face his next opponent, only to find you standing in the sand with your hands outstretched towards him. In this dream, he can’t stop himself from raising his blade an-

He woke up screaming.

Hanno doesn’t trust Macrinus within an inch of his life, but he trusts that he’ll bring him Acacius and that…that will be enough.

“Can I tell you a story?” Hanno whispered into your hair.

The wedding was an all-day event. You looked resplendent with flowers woven in your hair and layers of colorful fabric adorning your body. It felt as though the whole city came out to celebrate your union and the dancing, food, and music flowed for hours. Jugurtha clapped his hands on Hanno’s shoulders and congratulated him. A knowing glint flashed in the older man’s eyes and Hanno was eternally grateful for the man’s meddling.

Your father had tears in his eyes when he took your hand from his and placed it into Hanno’s, but they were tears of joy. When discussing the marriage negotiations and dowry, your father declared that there was no one greater for his daughter. In his vows, Hanno promised to protect and provide for you until his very last breath, one that he would take with you in his arms at an old age, with your children around you.

As the night grew longer, the crowds began to thin out. Parents took sleeping children home and the elders slipped away so they could rise early and start their daily chores. The fires began to burn low and Hanno looked over to you, only to have his breath catch in his throat at the realization.

His wife. His wife. Your lovely face was now his to wake up to every morning and your sweet laughter was his to elicit. Izim was telling some tall tale about his adventures as a sentry, but Hanno didn’t hear a single word. He ignored the hoots and hollers of his fellow soldiers and friends as he left their group and strode towards you.

The women around you tittered and giggled as he approached and it drew your attention away from whatever Seble was telling you. You barely had time to react when he suddenly scooped you into his arms. Hanno easily cradled you to him, your long veils swirling around the two of you, and he made his way towards the new house he had built with the help of your father and a few friends. The party cheered and you hid your laughter into the crook of his neck.

Hanno stopped in the doorway and set you gently onto your feet so you could examine your new home. Someone, your mother, you presumed, had already set some lanterns alight in the house and a clay jar of flowers sat on the small wooden table in the center of the room. It was a small house with the bed on one side and a small kitchen on the other. You traced your hand along the furniture that you knew he constructed himself. Your dowry chest laid at the foot of the bed already and a loom was on the wall. Your husband had done all of this.

The word made your throat squeeze with a level of affection you had never experienced before. He watched you carefully from the doorway, but you could see tension in the line of his shoulders and how his hands fidgeted until he clasped them behind his back. The flames from the lanterns made his eyes glow and heightened the smooth planes of his face. You reached up and unclasped your veils, letting them pool at your feet before you took a step forward.

He met you halfway, his hands going to settle on your waist as you nestled into his strong arms. Your hands came up to rest on the rough fabric of his tunic and you could feel his heart beat wildly under the tips of your fingers.

“My husband,” you breathed to the heavens. You wanted the gods to know that this man was yours. He had placed an iron ring on your finger and you savored the weight of it, the press of it against your skin. Hanno’s lips lifted in the barest hint of a grin, but his eyes took on almost burning intensity.

With nimble fingers, you released the clasps of his tunic yet kept your gaze locked on his as the fabric pooled to the ground. Hanno’s breaths grew ragged as you settled your hands back onto the chiseled muscle of his chest. For a moment, nothing happened. You just stared at one another as the air electrified with palpable energy. You had no idea where this boldness emerged from, but you slid your hand down his bicep, along his arm, and then to his wrist where you clasped it and raised his hand to rest on your breast. He swallowed so hard you could see his throat bob and just the simple evidence of his arousal made your skin burn.

“My wife,” he said hoarsely and untied your dress.

Hanno sucked in a shuddering breath as the fabric fell away from your body and joined his on the floor. He stroked his hands over your quivering flesh and stepped forward so that his body pressed against the length of yours. You felt him harden against your thigh as he leaned down to capture your lips in his. The two of you had kissed plenty of times, from small chaste pecks to that heated moment in the forest, but this felt entirely new and you welcomed it. He nibbled at your lips and explored your mouth with the desperation of a dying man searching for water. You moaned your approval which encouraged him and he let one of his hands drift down to cup your breast.

Hanno’s touch made your skin light on fire with every simple brush. How were you supposed to act when the man strutted around shirtless most of the time and built your house? Some of the older women in the city gossiped about their husbands. They told you about how it hurt, about the way he took without giving, and how they hated it.

From the delicate way Hanno touched you and the tender press of his lips against your pulse point, you knew that this would be different. He bent down and hauled you up against him, your legs wrapping around his waist for security, but you knew he would never drop you. You slid your arms around his neck, pulling your chest flush with his and he let his head fall back with a sinful groan, exposing the column of his throat. Eagerly, you licked a stripe up against his sweat-tinged skin and savored the taste of salt, musk, and man.

“By the gods, you will be the end of me, my little wife.” His teeth enclosed around the hinge of your jaw and you let your head fall to the side with a little sigh. Hanno nipped at the skin of your neck and you jolted against him, causing his throbbing cock to brush against you. Hanno squeezed his eyes shut at the sensation that wracked his body and you turned your head so he was facing you. Running your thumb along his jaw, you pulled your husband into another kiss and then pulled his bottom lip between your teeth. He sucked in a sharp breath and his hold tightened on you, sending a zing of pain mixed with pleasure down your spine.

“Take me to bed, husband,” you panted against his mouth. “Claim me as yours.”

Furs and silk lined the bed and softened your fall. You marveled at the way he prepared everything for you, even bringing over the blankets you wove for your marriage chest and setting them on the bed. He planted himself over you, his chest rising and falling with every heavy breath he took and you stole a glance down his broad chest to the heavy manhood that stood proud between his thighs. Your body pulsed with want even as your mind protested the idea of taking his length. He sensed your apprehension and leaned down to place a gentle kiss against your temple, your brow, both eyelids, and then your lips once more.

“I cannot promise it to be painless,” he said. “But I will do everything in my power to make sure you find bliss too.”

One of his hands snaked down to your most intimate place and your eyes widened with shock as he brushed the pad of his finger along the seam of your cunt. Your legs spread further apart instinctively and he kissed you in thanks for your invitation. A gasp escaped you as one of his fingers slid past your entrance and he kissed away your shock, even as you felt the rough and calloused pad of his finger slide up and press against some part of you that had you seeing stars. A little whimper from you had him pausing and he immediately pulled his hand away, eliciting a low whine from his wife. Hanno couldn’t stop his cocky smile that spread across his face before he touched that part of you again. His finger drew a circle over your flesh and your hips canted up, a mewl spilling past your lips and your breath catching. He stole a kiss, then another as he sent electricity up your spine and shocks scattered through your bones.

“You are magnificent,” he murmured just as he slipped another finger into your aching cunt. For a moment, you felt a hint of discomfort and bit your lip to refrain from making a sound. Hanno frowned and pulled your lip out from between your teeth. Some small part of you whispered ugly words and lies into your mind in an attempt to push his affection away. He only wanted you because other men did. You were merely a token to conquer. He needed a wife before he could get a concubine.

“Let me hear those pretty sounds.” He kissed the corner of your lips and you turned your head to see him properly once more. His eyes burned with a hunger you had seen before like in the forest or when he saw you carry one of the village babes on your hip. Hanno cheek pressed against your own and he whispered into your ear as he sank one finger into you and then two. He told you how proud he was of you, how good you were for him, how precious you were, as he pulled little cries of pleasure from you. You tightened around his fingers and he leaned back and watched your face as your body twitched and seized with the electric shocks of pleasure. A proud smile captured his face and he craned his head down to kiss you again and again and again. You climbed higher, higher, higher but then he abruptly pulled his hand from you, leaving you empty and aching.

“I know, I know,” he groaned in that deep timbre bass that wracked through your body. Hanno rubbed a gentle circle into your outer thigh and shifted himself until he was kneeling between your spread legs. He grasped his cock in one hand and pressed his other hand to your hip, holding you in place under his heavy gaze. You squirmed as his eyes raked down your naked body and the little thoughts began to creep in once more, but he silenced them with one word.

“Divine.” Hanno leaned down and laid the flat of his tongue along your cunt. Your back arched off the bed with a choked out gasp and for a moment, you thought you died and entered the afterlife. He chuckled against your inner thigh and pressed a kiss to your pussy before sitting back on his heels. He stroked his thick length twice before moving closer to you. He nestled his face against your hair and inhaled the sweet scent of rose petals. His cheek rested on your temple, and he shocked you with his question.

“Can I tell you a story?”

You choked back a laugh and kissed the shell of his ear. “I suppose.” While you were the typical storyteller, you would always accept whatever he gave you.

“There was a king of the island of Ithaca by the name of Ulysses*. He was sent to fight in the Trojan War and on the way home, was blown off course. The journey home took over ten years and was filled with countless obstacles and dangers.” You gasped as the blunt head of his cock slid past your entrance and Hanno inhaled deeply. “Odysseus had a wife, the queen of Ithaca, named Penelope. A hundred suitors from the various lands and tribes came in an attempt to woo her and take her hand in marriage. Everyone thought Odysseus to be dead.”

He rocked his hips and his thick length began to split you open and your lips parted in a silent moan. Any air that was in your lungs seemed to evaporate as he filled you fully. Hanno swallowed your shaky whimper with a sweet kiss. You clawed for purchase against his chest, your limbs liquifying when he pulled out. Hanno caught your hand in his and flipped your hand over so he could pepper kisses along the inside of your wrist.

“Penelope was a devoted wife and ever faithful. She never doubted that Odysseus was alive and would come back to her. She lied to the suitors and told them that she would marry them when she finished weaving a funeral shroud. But she undid her work each night.” This time, his intrusion didn’t have the burn like the last thrust. Instead, his cock dragged against your walls in such a way that had your eyes rolling back into your head.

Hanno groaned as he started a steady thrust of his hips. He moved your hands above your head and entangled his fingers with yours, squeezing them in assurance as he fucked you. The pleasure burned so hot in your stomach and consumed your entire being. Everytime he thrust in, it felt like he was carving you out and branding you with his claim and oh, how you wanted this. He built this house for you and your future and even though he put a roof over your head, you saw stars with every touch against your skin.

“Ha-Hann…” You whined as he hit a certain spot that made your head spin. “Hanno.”

He frowned and slowed his thrusts and he touched your cheek, his thumb rubbing away the tear that you didn’t realize slipped down. “Does it hurt?”

You yanked him closer until his nose was touching yours. Your legs wrapped around his hips and he bottomed out in surprise.

“Don’t you dare stop.” He grinned that reckless, crooked smile of his and swept your lips into a bruising kiss as he fucked every last thought out of your head. His name became a prayer that you chanted to the skies as he took you higher and higher until that coil that wrapped in your stomach snapped. You clenched around his cock and your body seized up as your orgasm washed over you. Hanno let out a guttural, animalistic groan and he spilled his seed into you, flooding you with warmth.

Silence enveloped the two of you, only the heavy exhales from exertion permeating the bubble that surrounded you. Hanno’s body relaxed and he caught himself before he put all of his weight on you. Rolling to the side, his arm came up to curl around your front, and he pulled you to his chest. Nose to nose, you met his gaze and let your breath mingle with his.

“Penelope didn’t falter in her devotion,” you said hoarsely. “Did she?”

His hand drifted up and down the raised gooseflesh on your arm and he reached over to draw one of the furs over you. “Aye, she didn’t.”

You tossed the edge of the fur over him and kissed him once again. “I will always remain steadfast.”

His lips met your temple and he tucked your head under his chin. “And I shall always come for you. No matter what it takes.”

Acacius lead you into the villa, the shackles and a new plate around your neck indicating your designation as slave. Lucilla immediately greeted him with an embrace and you looked away, your heart shattering at the sight. Quiet words were exchanged between the two before Acacius paused and stepped back to display you.

“She is from Numidia,” he explained. “She has skills in healing and I felt she would be a good addition to the household.”

Lucilla approached you and took in your sorry state. You felt bile rise in your throat as you bowed your head to the woman, but she stopped you with a raised hand.

“What is your name?” she asked you in Phoenician. You paused before answering her in your second tongue. That’s when you saw her eyes and realized, with a jolt, that she was indeed the woman you had heard of.

“Leta,” Lucilla called for another slave. “Come. Show her to the baths and give her a fresh chiton. Acacius, unchain her.”

He obeyed his wife’s command, but the slate remained. Perhaps you would wear it for the rest of your, hopefully short, life. Leta, an older woman, silently beckoned you to follow her deeper into the villa where a few slave women were gathered together over a pool of warm water.

“Who is this?” one of them asked in Latin.

“A Barbarian whore for the general, I presume,” Leta replied. “He brought her from Numidia. Thing hasn’t had a bath in her whole life.”

You remained silent, hands clasped before you, even as Leta pointed towards the bath. “You. Wash.” You pretended not to understand and she huffed out an annoyed breath and marched off, leaving you to strip out of your ruined and bloody dress from home and step into the water. You didn’t want to wash the gore off of your skin. Not when it was your last reminder of home. Of him.

Taking a moment to look around, you tried to picture what it was like living here in all its splendor. Leta returned and tossed a dress for you onto the edge of the tile and you stared at it blankly. She turned her back to you and started to gossip with the other girls. Your hands scrubbed at your skin, but your ears picked up all that they were saying. Gladiator games, senators, the emperors, it was all banal and boring.

But you found it all invaluable.

When night fell, you slipped out from the tiny cot you had been given in the slave quarters and silently made your way through the halls. Mosaics lined the walls and depicted everything from myths to actual battles. You stopped at the bust of Marcus Aurelius and stared at it for a moment. Shaking your head, you moved on to the hall that everyone had pointedly walked past and Leta explained was off-limits. Or as she said, “no touch”, because she thought that your supposed inability to speak Latin was also an indication of your idiocy.

You pushed open the doors and entered the chambers. Dust covered every inch of the place, as if no one had been in here for years. You carefully made your way over a broken tile and into the bedchamber where the sheets were still unmade and a book lay open on the desk. Turning slowly, you took in the whole of the room with an unsteady inhale.

“The gates of hell are open night and day,” you whispered under your breath. The words were etched onto the top of the wall. “Smooth the descent, and easy is the way: But to return, and view the cheerful skies, In this the task and mighty labor lies.” As you spoke, you could almost feel the presence of him at your back, his rough and low voice breathing the words into your ear.

You fled from the room, unable to bear it.

You almost made it back across the atrium when Lucilla emerged from seemingly out of nowhere. The two of you paused and you quickly lowered your head in deference.

“I hope you weren’t trying to escape,” she said gently. “Acacius told me that you were recently made a widow.”

The wince on your face was visible even in the moonlight and she stepped forward, her hands clasping over yours in comfort. She spoke her next words in Latin. “I am sorry. These meaningless deaths are foolish emperors playing war without considering the human cost of it.” The older woman patted your hand and made to leave, but your voice stopped her.

“Your slaves do not respect you,” you spoke in Latin. “Leta spreads vicious rumors about you and she said she has ties with some of the senators. Your allies are playing you and your plan is shaky at best.”

She whirled around to face you and you jutted your chin out in defiance, your eyes flashing with something dangerous. “In Numidia, my husband was the soldier, Domina. But I was the politician.”

Macrinus delivered on his promise. Acacius faced off with four soldiers in the Colosseum before Hanno was given a taste of vengeance and oh, did he savor it. Acacius ordered your death. Now, Hanno had the chance to ensure you were honored properly.

But Acacius stood across from him, sword on the ground, and accepted his death with a stoicism that Hanno only dreamed of possessing. The crowd roared and swelled with indignation after Hanno demanded to know their morals, but he was ushered away before he joined his father in dying in this ring.

He was granted the chance to see his mother one last time before her execution for treason and his slaughter in the arena. Lucilla told him of his father and he remembered meeting Maximus and how kind he was, even in the jaws of death. When his mother meets him for the last time, his only thought is how much Lucilla would like you.

She gave him two gifts in parting.

One, his grandfather’s ring.

Two, a lock of hair. And not just any…

Lucilla smiled sadly. “Acacius took her from Numidia to be a healer and didn’t realize she was your wife. She is safe, Lucius, and under the care of my household. I’m afraid I put it together too late, and she isn’t aware that you are here.”

For a moment, the rage subsided and he heard only a shrill ringing in his ears, as though he took a heavy blow to the head. Lucius turned the hair over in his hand and raised it to his nose, smelling a faint hint of rose petals.

I shall always come for you. No matter what it takes.

His mother was taken back to his cell and he took a moment to curl his palm around this fragment of you and press it to his chest to guard it from the world.

And then he called for Ravi.

Your hands remained steady when you slit Leta’s throat. You did so quietly, in the darkness of an alleyway. Blood never fazed you before, and the taking of a life was no different now. As far as you were concerned, this woman was one of the reasons why your Hanno was dead. Was it a rational thought? Perhaps not. But rationality would come another day.

The Colosseum roared with fury and you tried not to flinch at the deafening sound as you slipped in through the gates below, into the pens with the animals and gladiators. Chaos reigned above and below the world’s largest stadium so it was easy to blend in with others. The cloak you stole from Leta made you appear to be a fellow slave working amongst the masses. It never failed to amaze you how they called you a barbarian when they fought men to the death for their entertainment.

Your fingers skated over the smooth wood that curved over your spine and you felt a little better knowing that it was on you. The games were already underway with a few prisoners being devoured by Barbary lions as the crowd screamed for their blood to spill. You slipped around a few courtesans that lingered in the hall and passed the raised dais where three maidens were chained. Pushing on, you found a small corridor that was unoccupied and slipped in between the stones to hide from any roaming eyes.

The noise increased and you knew what was coming. Lucilla would be executed and Macrinus was to blame. The lanista was the mastermind of all of this, and you knew firsthand what war could do to people. You refused to let Lucilla die and, as much as you hated the Romans for what they took from you, the innocent children in the streets would die.

After this, you promised yourself, you would join Hanno.

Footsteps rushed past your hiding spot and when it quieted down in the hallway, you took that as a chance to peek out and see if you had an opening. You slipped out into the hall and darted towards one of the gates that was partly open. A bloodbath was the only word to describe what was happening in the Colosseum. You blanched at the sight of Lucilla tied to the dais, but it seemed as though the gladiators had it well in hand.

Removing the bow from your back, you notched an arrow onto the string and inhaled deeply. Macrinus was not hard to stop, thanks to his place behind Emperor Caracalla, but you didn’t have a clear shot. The crowd was turning on the Praetors and more soldiers entered the Colosseum on horseback. One Praetor nearly took the head off of a gladiator and you turned your bow in that direction.

Breathe in, aim, fire as you breathe out, Jugurtha had instructed. Keep your arm steady, your aim true, and your mind clear. There is no time to panic, just shoot.

The arrow sailed through the air and straight through the Praetor’s shoulder, knocking him off his horse and to the ground. You drew another arrow and started to aim towards Macrinus once more, but this time he was standing up. Caracalla was slumped over dead in front of him and Macrinus had his own bow in his hand.

Numidians were excellent horsemen and archers. Before you ever met Hanno, before you even bled for the first time, you were trained in the art of horsemanship and archery. Indeed your husband vowed his protection, but you were not one to go down without a fight. He taught you how to manipulate a knife, where to aim on the body, but Hanno never came close to your familiarity with a bow.

Your next arrow arched through the air and collided with Macrinus’ shot. The wood splintered midair and you loaded a third, but the lanista fled the stands before you could take another shot. It gave a gladiator the chance to free Lucilla and pass her to another gladiator, a hulking beast of a man. The gladiator gave chase to Macrinus and you focused your attention on your subject at hand.

There had to have been a reason the gods kept you alive and took Hanno. Clearly, it was to protect your husband’s mother.

“Are you ever going to tell me what you’re hiding from me?”

His hand stilled from where it had been absentmindedly stroking your thigh. Hanno came home from the field and immediately drew you into his lap, inhaling your sweet smell and letting his hands roam all over your body. You savored his touch, but marriage had sharpened your mind regarding his mannerisms. Something was bothering him.

Hanno sighed and he nuzzled his nose against your shoulder. You let him have this moment, but you would weasel the truth out of him, someway or another.

“Is it another woman? A concubine?” you asked, your voice hushed and wounded. He laid a kiss against your skin and shook his head.

“Rome is moving closer,” he finally said. You turned so you could see his face and cupped his chin, drawing his head up to meet your gaze. He blinked up at you with those sky blue eyes of his and nestled into your palm until he could lay a gentle kiss there.

“My name, my real name,” he whispered, “is Lucius Verus Aurelius and I am the prince of Rome.”

The first thing he did after ascending his rightful place as Emperor of Rome was go to his mother’s villa.

Lucilla was fine, a small gash on her bicep and shaken up, but fine. He tried to be a good son, but she could tell his focus was on anywhere but her. Lucilla directed him to the gardens and that is where he found you.

The Roman dress was different from what he was used to seeing, but you still covered your head with a veil when praying to your gods. Head tilted towards the heavens, hands outstretched, you made a beautiful image of devotion.

Your feet inched closer to the edge of the cliff.

“Forgive me, my love, for being so weak that I could not do this sooner,” you said. Tears coursed down your cheeks and stained the fabric of your chiton with damp tracks. You muttered a mixture of prayer and apology and he strained to hear it.

“Give me the strength to commit this final act, oh gods, grant me this. I have protected his mother and granted her the life he was not spared. Please, oh Hanno, let me see you in the afterlife. I am tired, so tired of only seeing you in my dreams.”

“Step back from the edge, my heart.” His voice came out in a tremble.

“Hanno,” you whispered. “Forgive me for being so weak. Forgive me for failing you. I’m sorry.”

“You’ve been nothing but strong.” A ferocity claims his words. “Step back from the edge.”

“We made a promise,” you pleaded. “We go as one. Let me join you, please.”

You raise one foot over the rocky cliff and he lashed out before he could think. He grabbed your wrist and pulled you back so hard that the both of you tumbled to the ground. Quickly, Lucius kneeled by your side to search for any injury.

“Open your eyes,” he ordered. This was the afterlife. It must be. You obeyed his command to find those bright blue eyes that haunted your dreams.

“Am I finally dead?”

“Not for a long, long time.”

No, this wasn’t the afterlife. Blood caked his skin and scars littered his bare arms. He had been muscular before but now he appeared to be only thick, corded muscle. Your hands came up to rest on his neck and you examined his face. The same freckles. Same lines by his eyes. Same long eyelashes.

Trailing your hands down along his arms, you skirted around the obvious injuries he had until your fingers brushed something new, something entirely foreign to you that resided on his shoulder.

A brand.

And with that, the dam within you shattered. The wails of a widow finally escaped your chest and you let out an agonized scream as you curled in on yourself. Hanno gathered you into his arms and buried his face into the crook of your neck. Hot tears slid down his cheeks and onto your skin. Your hands scrambled to find purchase on the armor that still adorned his body and you eventually settled on cradling the back of his head with one hand and grasping his forearm with the other.

“I am so sorry,” he wept. “If I had known you were alive, I would have come for you sooner.” He wrenched the slave plate from your neck and kissed the places where the chain had rubbed your skin raw.

All the agony of grief and rage and terror from the last month spilled out of him in broken, gasping sobs. His precious wife was alive and in his arms. Numidia had fallen, but now he had the chance to protect her with all the power and might of Rome. He could now have armies at his beck and call, coffers of coins brought to him, and enemies assassinated but the true power laid in his arms.

His little wife was right. He was the soldier, the muscle, the physical strength. But the reason he fought and killed, the reason he kept going even when every part of his body screamed to give up, was because of her. As far as he was concerned, she had the power to raze cities and command armies. All she had to do was ask him.

“Is this real?” you breathed once your sobs and trembling ceased. He pulled you into his lap and almost began crying once again at the feel of your supple body against his.

“It’s real,” he assured you before he bent down and kissed you. Despite the blood that coated his skin, you savored the taste of him. You never thought you would get this again. Maybe the gods did bless you.

He kept you pressed against his side as you made your way back into the villa. One of the slaves nearly dropped her tray at the sight before her and ran to grab Lucilla. The stately woman swept into the courtyard and met you both there.

“Lucius,” she exclaimed. “I take it that this is your wife.”

“Yes.” His gaze never strayed from your face. “This is her.”

You instinctively went to bow to Lucilla but she stopped you with a gentle hand on your arm.

“You are not my slave any longer,” she assured you. “Not only did you save my life, but you are now my daughter and also Augusta.”

Hanno, Lucius, you reminded yourself, stood in all his resplendent glory, covered in dirt and blood with his gladius hanging from his sheath. How different the two of you were now, yet still fit like the gods made you for each other. Your small house was gone. Your home was subjugated. Your family and friends in the afterlife. But Lucius was still here and still breathing. That made it all worth it.

He might be the Emperor of Rome now and you, the Empress, but he was still your charming soldier, your devoted husband. This, you decided, would make an excellent story someday.

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mini-ranger-recs · 2 years ago

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Why am I crying?? This is the first time I’ve come across this series and it’s so good!!!!

CH10. Cheque, Please! | The Menu [2.2K] Eddie Munson x shy fem!reader: a line cook au.

ONE YEAR LATER

The diner was packed.

Tables were full, the large room a buzz of chatter and music, the speakers playing an old sixties bop. It was a familiar sight, one that happened more often than not since Jim sold the diner. The new owner ripped the place apart, down to its old bones before he put his life savings into it.

New floors, new tables and chairs, artwork on the walls that were signed by Argyle, a photo of the whole staff taken and framed by Jonathan, Jim Hopper at the forefront, a wide smile on his face on the last day before his retirement. The bulbs in the neon sign outside had been replaced so it no longer flickered, the green and blue glow of it now announcing the diner’s new name, proud and bright for everyone to see.

Eddie’s Slice Of Chicago.

“Door! Behind!” You yelled out as you entered the kitchen empty plates piled high in your arms and Jonathan took them from you with practised ease.

Steve was on the grill, still hesitant and not as fast as Argyle, but he was flipping burgers quicker than he had last week. His chef whites were brand new, his name badge shiny and his front of house position taken over by Nancy. Everyone was in new uniforms, freshly pressed and a sage green, aprons still without stains and a pocketful of pens that didn’t run out of ink too quickly. Robin was taking orders, laughing with a family from out of town, letting their toddler grab at her finger as she promised them to return soon with their pizzas and shakes. Dustin was helping Max run a large order to a table of backpackers, a border collie under the table at their feet, getting its ears scratched by the new start, Mike.

There was a sign on the staff notice board, up beside the employee of the month, a piece of ripped paper with the words “SIXTY FOUR DAYS SINCE THE LAST FREEZER BREAKDOWN.” The rest of the space was filled with staff photos, polaroids and prints of the group at a fourth of July picnic, a barbecue at Jim’s in the summer, huddled around the kitchens countertops in the winter, drinking from mugs filled with Argyle’s homemade horchata, the frame that held Billy’s scrawled termination letter, an old napkin that held a small conversation in pen.

It felt more like home than ever. Even when Eddie wasn’t there.

Everyone answered to you in his absence, unofficially in charge when the boss wasn’t here. It had taken some getting used to, hell, you’d even tried to pawn off the responsibility to Nancy, or Steve, anyone who’d been at the grill longer than you had. But Nancy was part time, back at college during the week, taking Robin on dates in the evenings and Steve was too busy being trained as a new prep chef to worry about invoices and deliveries.

So you stepped into the role cautiously, softening to the idea when Eddie kissed you something fierce and told you that there wasn’t anyone else he trusted to do the job. His acceptance letter had come the month after taking over the diner. A thick, white envelope that lay heavy on your doormat because he’d finally moved in, sharing your small apartment with you like he did everything else.

Clothes. Jewellery. Books. Records. Food. Kisses.

Vincennes University offered Eddie the chance to do what he hadn’t been able to before. Refining his craft, learning new skills, working in a state of the art kitchen with equipment he’d come home and gush to you about. The diner was doing well enough that tuition wasn’t a worry anymore and suddenly, the long commute into Indianapolis for classes four days a week seemed worth it. Eddie was passing with flying colours, receiving accolades and opportunities at every given moment and when he came home, exhausted but happy, he came home to you.

Bone tired, he’d slip into the apartment, socked feet padding gently over the floorboards, Tupperware full of something delicious to be stacked in the fridge. He’d find you curled up somewhere, a black cat called Basil in the nook of your bent legs. He’d kiss you sweet, he’d kiss you soft, warming you up to a simmer until you forgot how much you’d missed him that day.

It was all worth it.

“Table eighteen wants extra hash browns and booth six needs two pepperoni’s and the Hawkins special, chefs,” you called to Steve as you slapped the orders onto the bar.

“Got it,” Steve and Argyle called back, one a little more nervously than the other but it was okay, ‘cause Eddie was home soon.

Eddie was home soon.

He’d called from a pay phone outside of the school, voice buzzing with excitement, with pride, and yours mirrored his back. He’d be on the train soon, he’d meet you at the apartment, if you could get away early. So you handed your keys to Nancy and she grinned, knowing there was a cause for celebration waiting at home for you. You drove Eddie’s van back along the road, coming into town on the familiar stretch, passing Wayne’s, the trailer park you both visited every Sunday for dinner.

The apartment door was unlocked, dimly lit in the early fall gloom, already smelling like garlic and tomatoes, like fresh bread and the scent of Eddie cologne that lingered on his jacket that hung in the hallway. Eddie’s records were in the shelves by your books, his guitar hanging from a hook in the tiny office room, his shoes on the bench by the door. He’d transformed your kitchen when he’d moved in, a decision that had been all too easy to make. There were pots and pans hanging from the rack, shiny, sharp knives that he was scared of you using without him there, jars and tubs of ingredients stacked high in the fridge and the pantry. There were fresh herbs in planters on the window sill. The radio always played.

The kitchen always felt like the heart of the home.

That’s where you found Eddie, sweater sleeves rolled up and grinning at you from the stove top, a large spoon in hand as he mixed in some fresh rosemary to the pot of sauce. He greeted you with a glass of wine, the cheap stuff that you liked best, catching you in a kiss before you could bring the cup to your lips.

He kissed you soft, kissed you sweet, humming when you laughed into his mouth, his free hand slipping inside of your shirt to ghost his fingers over your ribs.

“Hi,” you whispered. You’d never tire of this. This warmth, this kind of greeting, this feeling of coming home. “Good day?”

Eddie nodded, stealing another kiss, catching the corner of your mouth. He gazed at you, eyes shining with excitement and you could practically feel the buzz in his bones for what he was about to say.

“I got it.”

You blinked, once, before your smile turned into a grin and it stretched wide. You barely had the common sense to place your wine on the countertop before you launched yourself at the boy, your arms wound round his neck as your crushed your face into his curls. Eddie whooped, a joyful thing as he lifted you off your feet and grinned against your throat.

“You got it,” you whispered back to him, everything in you frilled with awe and pride.

“I got it,” he repeated again. His voice sounded thick.

The internship with Chef Emmelie was something that everyone in Eddie’s class was vying for. Eddie had spent an insane amount of time on his application, using you as his own personal taste tester in both work and home. New recipes were concocted, old dishes were reworked and it had all paid off. Eddie had been hand picked to work alongside one of the country’s greats, assisting in setting up a new restaurant, a fine dining establishment that promised to deliver nothing but the best cuisine to the masses. Eddie would help create the menu, and hopefully, maybe, eventually, take over as head chef.

It was another level of surreal.

“I knew you would,” you mumbled into his neck, pulling back only to crush Eddie’s cheeks in the palms of your hands and give him a kiss that ducked his breath away. His lips tasted salty, but perhaps that was your own tears you could taste. Eddie just held onto you tighter, his stew mix bubbling away without any attention. “Where is it? Have they told you where you’re setting up?”

You’d held Eddie’s hand as he clutched his application letter and promised him that no matter where they sent him, you’d follow. The only thing that tied you to Hawkins, was the boy and Basil was easy enough to smuggle into a cat carrier, once you could catch him. Wayne had squashed any hesitancy from Eddie immediately, waving him off and saying that there would be private jets for each of you once he hit the big time as the new celebrity chef. And of course, there was the diner.

Eddie laughed then, a breathy, disbelieving thing and he finally shuffled to settle you onto the small dining table that sat in the corner of the kitchen. He nudged his way in between your legs, sniffling when Basil appeared to wind around his own ankles and the only sounds were the purring of the cat and the simmering of dinner. You held your breath, brows raised, expectant.

London? Dubai? Paris? Los Angeles?

“They wanna set up in Chicago.”

—————

Going back to the city you left was a lot less daunting with Eddie by your side.

Wayne moved out of the trailer park and into your apartment, something that made leaving a little easier for Eddie. He still owned the diner, and promised to stop by at least a few times a month if scheduling around the new restaurant would allow. He’d found a new manager, a woman from town called Joyce who loved to bake and knew enough about taxes and accounting that she didn’t fuck up order and invoices. She loved the place like Eddie did, promised she’d do it proud.

(She met Jim on Sunday in summer and after she served him her famous cherry cheesecake, one date in the park had turned into three, into five and now they were inseparable. They spent most of their time walking around town, visiting farmers and Jim enjoyed his retirement by helping Joyce create new desserts for the diner.)

Eddie’s internship came with an apartment in the suburbs, a small townhouse that was far enough from the hustle of the city that you felt more at home than before. It was less bright, less loud and Basil had a garden to roam in, a bench beside a vegetable patch he could bathe in the sun from.

It had a pantry and old oak floors, a huge window that looked out onto the street that was lined with cherry trees, and a nook in the living room that you liked to read in. You found a job, pretty easily, a vintage bookstore on the edge of town that smelled like coffee and cinnamon, old pages and older stories. It was owned by an old man who let his dog sleep under the front desk, who brought in pastries for breakfast and made you sweet tea in the summer.

The restaurant opened in the spring. Hit headlines the following day, praising the special on the menu made by newcomer chef, Edward Munson. By the summer, the heat was climbing and so was Eddie’s popularity. He was running the restaurant, got to create a new menu every six weeks and the waitlist was booked out until Christmas. He told you he loved you every time you paid him a visit, on your lunch break, a whisper between a kiss hello and goodbye in the kitchen, coy whistles from his staff that he burned pink at.

And when you both drove back to Hawkins for long weekends and holiday stays, you crammed yourselves and Basil into your old apartment with Wayne, packed his freezer full of food and tried to convince him to take in one (maybe two) of the strays from the trailer park to keep him company.

You spent the Fourth of July with the diner crew, in the backyard of Jim and Joyce’s new home, sharing Polaroids and newspaper clippings of the restaurant, of your new home, Eddie’s menu. Steve was in awe but nothing could beat the look of pride on your boyfriend’s face when Steve told him he’d mastered a French omelette. Argyle was running the kitchen, Nancy had been promoted to assistant manager, part time or not, and Robin had helped Jonathan in running a Sunday morning coffee club, where Hawkins residents got to taste test new bean flavours over a pastry breakfast and some town gossip.

Eddie didn’t scowl much, not anymore.

And when you next bumped into Chrissy, you waved at her from under the tuck of Eddie’s arm, diamond ring glinting on your left hand in the sun. She didn’t have much to say to you, not after that.

#fandom: stranger things #character: eddie munson #rating: g

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mini-ranger-recs · 2 years ago

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i just love sanji so much

back of house.

Pairing: OPLA!Vinsmoke Sanji x Fem!Reader Word Count: 1,113 words Warnings: Mild swearing

If it weren’t for his principles regarding women, you’re fairly certain Sanji would’ve throttled and strung you up to dry by now.

“I … I’m impressed, sweetheart,” he says with a bright smile, though under the swinging lights of the kitchen it seems more out of pain than pleasure. “You managed to burn water.”

Your cheeks flame as you peer into the blackened pot with him, all traces of the water you’d been tasked with boiling completely gone. Vanished. You have no idea how or why.

“I’m sorry, Sanji.”

“No need to apologize. Everybody makes mistakes –”

“Sanji!” you hear Zeff before you see him round the corner. “Why the hell do I smell something burning in my kitchen?”

“None of your business, old man,” Sanji snaps immediately, murmuring a quiet excuse me, dear to you before taking the pot by the handle and heading to the sink. He twists the faucet open and running water roars like thunder in your ears as he thrusts the pot underneath. “I have it under control.”

“Under control, eh?" Zeff says. He suddenly turns his squinted gaze upon you, and you shrivel. “This your doing, missy?”

“I –”

“Leave her alone,” Sanji interrupts. “I didn’t give clear enough instructions. It was my fault.”

“Oh, there’s no doubt about that.” Eyeing your guilty and defeated figure next to the stove, Zeff shakes his head with a sigh and points you to the door. “[Y/n], go out and wait tables for the rest of your shift.”

Immediately, you make a move to remove your apron. “Oka –”

Sanji makes a noise of dissent and turns the faucet off. “Wait tables? She can still chop the vegetables and help me plate.”

“You’ll do that yourself. Front of house needs the extra person, anyway.”

“I’m her mentor.”

“And I’m the damn boss.”

The rest of the staff roll their eyes and carry on while the two men argue in the middle of the kitchen. You swallow and take your apron off, balling it up in your hands. This isn’t the first time they’ve butted heads over your incompetence, and watching them now cuts at your last shred of dignity.

Clearing your throat, you grimace when Sanji’s head whips around to look at you.

“Zeff’s right,” you tell him. “Dinner rush is coming up soon and I’ll just be in the way, anyway.”

Zeff grunts with satisfaction.

The expression on Sanji’s face reminds you of a kicked puppy. “But …” he begins to protest.

“Oi, you heard what she said. Get back to work! We have customers waiting!”

Sanji blusters about before heading back to his station, casting you one final, forlorn look as he does so. You imagine that your own face looks just the same when you turn to leave.

—

You take orders and serve customers for the remainder of the day, as promised, and help with cleanup after closing time. And then, long after the sun’s dipped below the horizon, Sanji joins you on the upper deck with a steaming bowl of seafood fried rice.

“For the madam,” he says with a smile, offering you the bowl.

You accept it silently and take a bite as he sits down next to you. It’s perfect like it always is – savory and warm on your tongue, happy and gentle in your stomach. You’ve never known a home quite like Sanji’s cooking.

His eyes remain fixed on you as you eat all of the rice, scraping the bowl for every last grain and setting it down beside you once you’re finished.

“Thank you.”

“It’s nothing. I figured it would cheer you up.”

“It did.”

It did, and yet, your lips tremble and your throat closes up. You clench your hands into fists in your lap.

Sanji’s hand immediately presses your shoulder as you sniffle. “Are you alright?” he questions worriedly.

(His attentiveness strikes you like a hot iron sometimes, even now.)

“Why haven’t you given up on me yet?” you whisper.

His brow furrows. As if it’s obvious, he answers, “You want to be a cook. A lady’s wish is my command.” Sanji pauses. “And I can’t call myself the greatest cook in the East Blue if I can’t teach others to be great cooks as well.”

“I think you’d be the greatest regardless.”

You glance at him through watery eyes in time to see his face flush a deep red. He looks away hastily, chuckling with feigned modesty. “I’m flattered that you think so highly of me.”

Your shoulders lift in a shrug as you look back down at your hands. You reach up to blot away your tears.

How could you not think the world of Sanji? Or the world of anyone at the Baratie, for that matter? When you were kicked off the merchant ship you’d stowed away on two years ago, you had been sure that you’d be banned from setting foot in such a fine-looking restaurant. Years of scorn and slammed doors had not given you the chance to think otherwise.

But Sanji spotted you on the docks, called you madam like you really were one, cooked you a meal in the kitchen and talked to you. Zeff gave you a job and a bed of your own. The staff gave you a family.

“We’ll try again tomorrow. I’ll figure out something that’ll make everything click for you, and you’ll be a proper cook in no time.” Sanji leans forward, resting his elbows on his knees, and winks up at you. “I promise.”

As always, your heart skips a beat.

“Okay.”

Maybe, you realize suddenly, you don’t necessarily want to be a cook so much as you want to love the way Sanji does.

“That’s my girl.” Standing up, Sanji takes your empty bowl in one hand and offers the other for you to take. “Now, shall I walk the madam to her room, or does she wish to stay out on the deck for a while?”

You allow yourself to grin, considering. “The madam wishes to stay out here and …” you hesitate but then decide to soldier on, “and possibly chat with a dear friend for a few more minutes?”

Your pulse pounds in your ears.

Sanji’s eyes widen a bit. Then he blinks, and then he smiles, drawing his hand back and quickly sitting down next to you once more.

“A lady’s wish is my command,” he says.

He takes out a cigarette, making a quip about Patty while he lights it, and your combined laughter rings out across the Baratie. It’s perfect like it always is – savory and warm on your tongue, happy and gentle in your stomach.

Indeed, this is home.

#fandom: one piece #character: sanji #rating: g

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mini-ranger-recs · 2 years ago

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I just wanted horny I didn’t think it would hurt

new rules

summary: "Don’t pick up the phone, he’s only calling because he’s drunk and alone. Don’t let him in, you’ll have to kick him out again. Don’t be his friend, you know he’s going to wake up in your bed in the morning. If you’re under him, you’re sure as hell not getting over him." rating: explicit (18+ mdni) pairing: bradley 'rooster' bradshaw x f!reader word count: 8.5k (this got away from me sorry y'all) warnings: angst (lack of communication!), idiots pining, PiV (unprotected), oral (f receiving), hangman x phoenix (blink and u will miss it), no use of y/n. notes: thank you to @waklman for letting me bounce ideas off you! im very nervous abt this one, i feel like its dif from my other stuff so pls pls let me know what u think! my other works are here

Friends with benefits is maybe an inaccurate way to describe what’s going on between you and Bradley. Friends? Sure, since he asked you if you were using that bench at the beach and then he’d introduced himself. With benefits? You’re not sure if they really could be classified that way.

Bradley’s almost always a perfect gentleman.

He doesn’t ignore you in the daylight, but the two of you never talk about the way he finds himself in your bed most nights rather than not, drunk or sober.

It had started one night when you’d turned down an invitation to go to the Hard Deck, instead choosing to do a night of self care. You’d spent too long doing your eyebrows and managed to get a sheet mask to fully cover your face for once. You lost count of how much time you spent in the shower as an indulgence, and threw on the comfiest clothing you owned. Then, you sat yourself down in front of your TV to numb your mind with some perfectly trashy reality television.

Around 11:30, your phone had rang. Picking it up and squinting at the brightness, you saw Bradley’s face grinning back at you, the picture from one of your many beach days since you’d met.

Despite your best instincts you’d picked up. What if he was stranded? What if something had happened? You’d steeled yourself for the worst.

Instead, Bradley had just opened with a simple, “Hey.”

“Bradley? Is everything okay?” You could hear the noise of the Hard Deck in the background, but it had been yelling and there weren’t any sirens.

“Yeah,” His sigh had come over extra loud through the speakers, “Just uh, was just thinking about you.”

“Okay,” What the hell? You remember mouthing the words to yourself as someone on screen had thrown a drink in someone else’s face. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

He hadn’t responded to your question, instead he’d just said, “Are you at your apartment?”

“Yeah, I’m here. Bradley is everything–”

“I’ll see you soon.” And with that, he’d hung up with a definitive click.

You’d stared at the dimming screen of your phone for probably almost five minutes. Surely he couldn’t have been that drunk–god, was he planning on driving? Calling him during that was probably a bad idea.

Great, leave it to Bradley to stress you the fuck out on a Friday evening when you’d been aiming for peace. You’d tried to refocus on your show, but you weren’t even paying attention to the words.

No more than five minutes later, there had been a knock at your door. You’d stood slowly, not sure that this was actually happening.

You’d opened the door to a Bradley with flushed cheeks and a glint in his eye, leaning against the railing outside your apartment. It was only after a moment of silence that you realized you were wearing an old Navy shirt of his, loaned to you at the beach a few weeks ago. You could feel the way his eyes started at your legs and dragged up your frame, taking everything in.

“Bradley?”

He’d pushed off the railing and backed you into your apartment, letting the door swing shut behind the two of you. You’d backed into the living room til your back hit a wall, your heart in your throat. You couldn’t look away from him, not with the way he’d been crowding into your space, leaning into you.

“Hi, sweetheart.” His voice was a tone he’d never used on you before, and you remember the way your heart had hammered in your chest.

He’d been so warm and so close, setting all of your nerve endings on fire. It wasn’t that you hadn’t realized that Bradley was attractive–the man’s whole job was to stay in shape and be clean cut. He was beautiful. But you’d kept that to yourself, afraid of crossing that line, afraid that you’d ruin something that was turning out to be one of the strongest friendships you’d had in years.

You still feel that fear, despite all the lines that have been crossed since that moment.

The way he’d kissed you had wiped every thought from your head. His hands had slid up your thighs to grip at your waist under his shirt hanging loosely on you. His mouth had moved smoothly against yours, making you sigh and wrap your arms around his shoulders.

By the time the two of you had made your way into your bedroom, he’d lost every piece of clothing but his briefs and his dog tags. They’d dug into your sternum as you’d pressed yourself against him, the cool metal warming quickly between the two of you.

The way your blood had been rushing in your ears from adrenaline had drowned out the way he’d murmured to himself as he’d kissed down your body. He never did pull his shirt off you. He’d simply maintained his grip on your hips, lifting your thighs over his shoulders as he’d pulled your panties down and licked desperately into you.

Your hands had gone to his hair out of reflex. He had been rocking you steadily and you think you’ll always remember how you felt when you’d realized it was because he was grinding his hips against the bedframe, so turned on from getting his mouth on you.

He’d eaten you out like a man starved, his nose bumping into your clit as his tongue fucked you. It had been messy and loud but you hadn’t cared about the neighbors or your dignity, not with the way his fingers had finally curled into you.

“Bradley,” You’d gasped when you finally came, back arching and fingers tightening in his hair to the point where your knuckles ached.

He’d held you through it, had let you rock your hips against his face and not complained at all. In fact, he’d seemed delighted by the way you’d let yourself just feel, pleasure wracking your body and consuming your mind in a haze.

Kissing his way up your body, he’d slid his hands under the shirt and groped you gently. You remember the way your mind had stayed cloudy and you’d floated, tethered only to the real world by the way his thumbs flicked gently at your nipples.

“I’m here, I’m here,” He’d panted into your mouth as you whined when he’d sat back slightly to kick off his briefs and hitch your thighs over his waist, “I’ve got you.”

The first time Bradley had ever slid his cock into you, you knew you’d never be the same, that you’d never be able to go back. Not when he’d kept himself hovering over you just barely, propped up on his elbow, with his lips still brushing yours and his dog tags catching in the sheen of sweat along your sternum. Not when he rocked into you inch by inch, making the world around you blur into nothingness.

You’d let yourself fall apart under him, let yourself sink into the mattress and just take whatever he was willing to give you. He’d fucked you deeper and more gently than anyone before–to this day, you’re not even sure you can classify it as ‘fucking’, that always felt too vulgar for the way he’d brushed his lips over your cheekbones and murmured sweet nothings.

But saying Bradley had, and still does, made love to you means trying to find something from nothing, means discerning some sort of level of connection he’s never made clear. You’re not trying to break your own heart more than you already are.

In spite of that, you can’t forget the way he’d held you like you were precious, like you were everything to him. He’d cum inside you with a guttural moan, a punched out gasp at the way you’d clenched around him. It had made you realize that was all you’d ever wanted, Bradley warm around you and inside you, him making you feel complete in a way you hadn’t known you weren’t whole before.

He’d been a perfect gentleman when you’d both come down, easing out of you so he could clean up. He’d massaged your thighs and hips where you were sure you would’ve been aching the next morning if he hadn’t, had apologized under his breath at the fingerprints now dotying your hips. He’d thumbed at the collar of the Navy shirt where it had stayed on your frame the entire time, looking pensive but never saying anything.

You’d woken up alone the next morning, a sticky note on the bedside table reading–Had to run for work. Thanks for having me over. A messy heart and a hastily scrawled Bradley closing off the message.

And so it went. So it goes.

During the day, you and Bradley are the paragon of good friendship–he’ll send you memes when he gets access to his phone in between flights and lessons, you’ll pick him up after work to go to the beach. The two of you don’t talk about it–because what is there to talk about?

No words are ever exchanged about the way that Bradley clears out a drawer for you at his place, you just find a few of the things you’d left at his place in there one day. You never give back his Navy shirt, not when you find yourself wearing it more often than not. Nothing is said about how you start picking up his favorite flavors of ice cream and his preferred brand of coffee creamer, you just make a habit of throwing them into your cart when you go to the store.

And everything is fine. It really is. You disregard the side glances from Phoenix and Bob as they see you leave with Bradley on Friday and Saturday nights, you ignore the way Hangman wiggles his eyebrows at you when Bradley insists on paying for your drinks. Just friends, is all. Just friends.

They can make their assumptions, whisper while you’re out of ear shot, but they don’t see the quiet, comfortable domesticity that you and Bradley engage in when the two of you are alone. You go back to his after beach afternoons since it’s closer to your favorite spot, and the two of you will shower (separately) and make dinner together. Sometimes you’ll sleep over if you’re working remote the next day, sometimes you’ll go home.

On weekends, Bradley picks you up in the morning, trunk holding a cooler full of drinks and snacks, and you two will go to the beach again or go on a hike. Sometimes Phoenix or Bob or the whole crew will come along, sometimes they won’t.

Just friends. And it’s fine.

Until everything isn’t fine.

Bradley and you have been at this for a few months now, and you can feel yourself cracking. You’re reaching out to kiss him when you do wake up together, before your brain is awake enough to stop you, reminding you that that’s not what you two do. On an outing to a boardwalk teeming with life and populated by those games you can win stuffed animals at, you resist the urge to press him against the railing of the pier and lick the taste of your shared gelato cone out of his mouth.

When the dam finally breaks, it begins like any other night. You have a margarita and a half in you, some concoction that Phoenix insisted you try that’s actually good. Bradley’s already done a rendition of My Way at Penny’s request, but for now the jukebox is blaring some 80s hit Hangman picked out.

You can feel yourself swaying to the beat, just letting the warmth of the moment sink in as you’re surrounded by your friends, the people you love.

“Hi,” Bradley breathes into your ear as he sidles up next to you, his arms coming to settle around your waist. You can feel his warmth through the flimsy fabric of the dress you’ve got on.

“Hi Brad,” He hates it when people call him that–lets you get away with it though. “What’cha doin’?”

“Waitin’ for you.” He leans his entire body weight against you, making you slump against the table you’re standing next to.

“Ah! Bradley, stop it.” You try to stand, but the way he’s laughing makes it hard to shake yourself from his grip, “What do you mean you’re waiting for me? I’m waiting for you.”

The grin he shoots you is electric, and for a moment you think he’s going to kiss you, right here in the middle of the Hard Deck, with all your friends around and in Penny and Mav’s line of sight. That thought makes your heart skip a beat.

“Come home with me?” He whispers, just barely letting his voice rise above the background noise, and when you don’t respond immediately, “Or let me take you home?”

That’s all it takes, really, for you to agree. The way he’s so willing, so malleable, for you. You’re leading him out by the hand without responding to his questions, making your way to the Bronco that’s parked in the back corner of the lot.

Bradley keeps the foolish grin on his face the entire time he drives back to your apartment. The warmth radiating from him doesn’t abate when he licks into your mouth once the two of you are inside. One of his palms rests against your heart, the other working its way up your thigh and inside your panties that are already damp.

“You’re so good to me,” He murmurs, dipping his fingers below your waistband and brushing through your curls, feeling just how slick you are.

All you can do is whine as he picks you up and makes his way to your bedroom. For once, he doesn’t trip or stub his toe on anything, and it somehow heightens the intensity. Normally, you and Bradley seek comedic relief of some sort, something to cut the tension and keep it from making your chest tighten in a way that feels like a warning. This time, you aren’t granted any such reprieve.

He undresses you slowly and deliberately, letting his fingertips drag lightly up your sides and over your shoulders. He shrugs his Hawaiian shirt off easily, and lets you yank his wife beater over his head without complaint.

Then, the two of you are just staring at each other, both panting lightly. You’re propped up on your elbows, staring up at him only in your panties. Bradley’s got one hand about to pop the button of his jeans, but he’s frozen. You feel like you can’t move but also like something might be changing.

You don’t want it to change, you don’t want to lose Bradley in more ways than one. If this is what he’s willing to give you, you don’t want this to change.

He nearly falls over when his foot gets stuck in his jeans, and even that doesn’t break the tension. Once he’s climbing over you, enveloping you, kissing up your stomach and neck, you forget all about decorum and keeping up appearances.

The whine that echoes around the room is pathetic and high pitched, but it’s the only way you think to communicate to Bradley how bad you need him in that moment. His hips are rocking gently against yours and you want the layers gone, you need to feel him.

“I know, sweetheart, I know,” And his hands are around your hips, dragging your underwear off you unceremoniously.

Although he makes a good attempt at going down on you, you don’t let him. You dig your fingers into his shoulder and yank at his hair to keep his face level with yours and kiss him desperately.

“I want to eat you out, please?” The depth of his voice sends a shiver through you.

Normally he wouldn’t even have to ask, but you don’t want that right now. You just want to feel him inside you.

“Need you in me, please,” You take a heaving breath before the pleading spills out of you, “Pleasepleasepleaseplease–”

He shushes you as you scrunch your face up, not knowing how else to convey your desires in that moment, “Okay. I’ve got you, it’s okay.”

You almost wail in protest when his fingers slide into you. You can’t figure out why you feel like you’re burning up from the inside out, why you feel so fucking needy.

“Sweetheart you gotta let me prep you somehow, just–”

You feel like the embarrassment might kill you when you keen at the feeling of his fingers inside you. The way you’re trying to be good, you really are, because he does have a point. Plus, you have to be fair to Bradley, this isn’t just about you.

So you hold still, let him work his fingers in and out of you as you pant and clutch at his shoulders like a lifeline. His mouth presses against yours, works its way over your cheeks and down your throat. He sucks a mark gently into your collarbone, and you ignore the way your brain reminds you about having to cover that up for work.

He doesn’t shut up the entire time, just keeps telling you how good you’re doing for him, how good you feel, how he’s been thinking about this all night. The world seems to go right-side up again when he pushes into you.

You whimper at the way he rocks his hips ever so gently before pulling out. He kisses you again and again, only letting his lips leave yours so he can kiss your forehead or cheeks. The motion of his hips is a steady tempo, he keeps time with your breaths that turn into moans when you start feeling that telltale coil in your stomach.

He runs his tongue along your teeth and you’re done for. You clench down on him and dig your nails into his skin, bucking your hips up as your orgasm washes over you like a tidal wave.

Bradley fucks you through it like every other time, yes, but this time there’s something about the way he stutters out a moan and his hips match the faltering rhythm as he finishes right after you. The shallow rocking of his hips continues and you try to ignore the prickling of tears at the corners of your eyes.

Something tells you that this time, you shouldn’t have let Bradley take you home. When he pulls his face back from yours and he rolls the two of you onto your sides without pulling out, he’s got this look on his face that screams unspoken words. He cups your face and strokes your cheekbone with his thumb without saying anything.

The two of you are quiet as he cleans you up, as you dress yourself in another one of his shirts.

When you wake up the next morning, Bradley isn’t there. It doesn’t shock you necessarily, sometimes he stays, sometimes he has to leave to be on time for work.

What does send a terrible feeling trickling down your throat and into your stomach is the post-it, all four square inches covered in sloppy hearts. Bradley had signed his name in the bottom left corner, characteristic chicken scratch labeling it as him even if the name wasn’t enough.

This has to end.

Don’t pick up the phone, he’s only calling because he’s drunk and alone.

You last about three rings before you cave in, waiting for the sound of his voice to echo around the apartment. You’re holding your breath.

“I knocked.” Is all he says before you’re on your feet, making your way to the door.

There he is, and although you know he isn’t really drunk, you know he’s got a beer or two in him from the way he doesn’t try to hide how he looks at you. You hate the way you’re weak for him.

You’ve been caving to him more than once a week since that first night, since Bradley had knocked your world off kilter. Though you’re in bed together almost every night, whether at his place or yours, you don’t have sex nearly every time. Part of you thinks that might make it worse. It really had been fine at first, but the first morning you’d cried at the sight of that sticky note covered in hearts, you’d known you had to try and put an end to this.

“We’ve got to stop meeting like this,” He tries, a crooked grin splitting his face as he walks toward you, but you know he doesn’t mean his words at all.

“Bradshaw, have you been drinking?” You want to not want this, want to not want the way his gaze pins you down, the way the length of his body against yours just feel so right.

Let him being drunk and you being sober be the excuse, you beg silently. You can’t manage to force out that maybe he should go home, sleep this off in his own bed. You can’t find it in yourself to tell him to leave, to reject his advances. Watching as if outside your own body, he shuts the door behind him and walks up to you.

Your chest aches with unconfessed feelings when he takes your face in his hands and lets his forehead rest against yours. His lips are soft and warm against yours, his mustache tickling you lightly when it brushes against your face. The whine you let out matches his soft groan, and the two of you stand there making out for a few minutes, almost as if you’re both content to just drink each other in without further motives.

“I’ve got you sweetheart, I’ve got you,” And he’s picking you up.

You yelp at the way you’re suddenly lifted from the ground and you bury your face in his neck. You hate heights, your feet off the ground anything more than a few inches sends you spiraling in short order. But it’s Bradley who’s holding you, and some part of you knows he’d never let you fall, never let you crash into the ground.

The way you two fall into your bed is too natural, it makes your stomach churn. His fingers find their place on your hips, around your thighs. It’s all too easy. You wish it would be a bit more awkward, that the chemistry could be imagined or false–instead you’re confronted by the way your bodies flow with one another’s all too easily.

Again, somehow, you’re in nothing but his Navy shirt.

Maybe I should give it back, the thought flits through your mind and you feel guilty immediately. Bradley always seems to take a special sort of pleasure from fucking you in his shirt, and you selfishly want to keep that bargaining chip, to have something that tethers him to you. If he won’t come back to press you into your sheets, then maybe he’ll come back one last time to get his shirt when this inevitably unravels.

“Sweetheart,” He groans softly when his fingers reach the way you’re embarrassingly wet between your legs.

It takes everything in you not to jerk back from his touch–you still don’t know how to confront the way you’re so responsive to his touch. His mere presence.

“I missed you.”

It slips out before you can stop yourself, your lips part and you breathe the words before you can do anything about it. He chooses that exact moment to dip a fingertip into your fluttering, but empty, hole, and you arch your back and moan. Instead of responding, he kisses you hungrily, all pretense gone.

This isn’t something entirely tender, not anymore. He’s searching for something, a certain reaction, with the way he adds and then curls his fingers inside of you. He finds it when you jerk underneath him at the way he pets at that spot inside you you can never seem to reach on your own.

He mumbles against your lips, “There you go,” As you squirm under him, the press of his fingers inside you relentless.

He works his fingers in and out of you, not taking anything in return. It’s all you can do to hold on to him and whine pitifully. Every sensation feels amplified, feels electric because it’s him.

The two of you settle into a familiar rhythm for as long as it takes for Bradley to make you cum the first time. You’re rocking against him through the aftershocks and you can feel the way he’s hard against you through his clothes.

He’s still dressed. The realization sends a bolt of shame through you, but it doesn’t linger long.

He’s shoving his jeans down his legs, not bothering with wiping his hand clean and you shiver at the thought that he’ll have to put them on again, you streaked across them. He makes quick work of his boxers too, and it occurs to you that he must’ve lost his shirt somewhere along the way when he presses his bare chest against your still clothed one.

“Bradley, Bradley,” You chant, “Take off my shirt.”

It’s the most demanding you’ve probably ever been with him, but he laughs at you anyways. There’s a glint in his eye as he sits up, his hard cock bobbing between his thighs. The sight of his naked form between your spread legs makes you swallow hard and your mouth water.

“I like you in my shirt.” There’s something unsaid there, something about claims and ownership that isn’t truly possession, but a reminder of who belongs to whom regardless.

You pull it off your head in protest, and grab his wrist to drag him back down to you. You let yourself indulge in trailing a hand down the firm planes of his body down to where he’s smearing precum against your thigh. He’s heavy and pulsing in your hand and a light hiss rushes through his clenched teeth when you grip him tightly and twist with your wrist.

“Fuck, fuck, not gonna last if you–” Bradley cuts himself off with a groan as you swipe your thumb over his head.

It’s your turn to laugh, “You just got here.”

“Well, have you ever had sex with yourself? It’s tough out here–give a guy a break.”

The both of you dissolve into giggles at that, as you try to imagine how you would look sprawled under yourself. You can’t picture it, but the image of Bradley under or over you makes you think you might understand.

He lines his hips up with yours once you’re both done making fools of yourself at the thought of you having sex with yourself (it reminds you of a drunk hypothetical you’d spent thirty minutes on with Hangman once–would you have sex with a clone of yourself?).

The first push of him inside you cuts through the lighthearted mood immediately. It always shocks you how perfectly he fits inside you despite his size, how incredibly full you feel when his hips meet yours. The gentle friction of the neat curls at the base of his cock against your clit always provides a stimulation that makes your brain go fuzzy.

The snap of his hips against yours is more intense this time, a sort of rhythm that makes you briefly think about the way the headboard might start knocking against the wall. But all thoughts, really, fly out of your head when Bradley brings a hand up to your nipples, the steady stroke of his fingers over the swell of your breasts as practiced and knowing as everything else he’s doing to you.

All you can do is run your hands down his back, scratch your nails against his skin ever so often when he brushes against something so sweet and perfect inside you. You clench around him just to see the reaction it’ll get, and you’re rewarded with a broken groan.

“You’re not fighting fair,” He gasps, and he hitches one of your thighs up so he can press more insistently into you.

You have a clever comeback somewhere in you–something about how you weren’t aware that the two of you were fighting, but it’s swallowed as he presses his lips into yours again. He seems absolutely intent on showing you exactly how you make him feel because the sensations of pleasure become overwhelming.

“Fuck sweetheart, you feel perfect, god you’re so wet for me,” He’s rambling mindlessly, but you let it happen, clinging to any expression of emotion, any sliver of dedication in his tone that you can hold on to til the next time you find yourself in this position.

You know he’s close when his grip on your thigh tightens forcefully and the strokes go from long and deep to slightly shorter and stunted. He’s grunting and gasping, but it’s all the best thing you’ve ever heard.

“Come for me Bradley, I want to feel you,” And at that, he follows your orders, listens to you for once in his life.

Everything is hazy as he keeps himself hovering over you and continues to rock his hips. You start to try and tell him he can pull out before his fingers find your clit and he dives back in to kiss you passionately.

Bradley is a perfectionist at heart, an overachiever. You suppose it isn’t entirely ridiculous that that extends to his performance in the bedroom–he’s insistent you finish every time, and always more than him. Feeling the way he’s still warm and heavy inside you, his lips firm against yours, brings you over the edge more quickly than you’d like to admit.

Still, you heave a shuddering gasp and let the pleasure wash over you. It’s overwhelming and all consuming, but he’s there through all of it til you feel yourself come back into your own body.

You think he might be writing something on your skin, the way his finger loops and dips softly over your hip bone as he kisses you gently. He’s softening inside you and you can feel the mess the two of you made under your hips, except he isn’t moving, not yet at least, to rectify that situation.

For once, you don’t push him to go clean up or scold him for another set of ruined sheets, you just let yourself bask in the moment as you imagine a world where the two of you will talk about this in the morning. You think of a timeline where this is where you end up because it’s where you’re meant to be, not because it’s something you’re choosing despite how it hurts you every time. You think of a place where Bradley is yours and you are his, wholly and completely.

Don’t let him in, you’ll have to kick him out again.

“Didn’t you have a date tonight?” You breathe into his mouth.

Bradley just hums in response, brushing his lips over yours, down your jawline and your throat. His breath comes in warm puffs over your collarbones before he pulls back.

Hands pinned above your head, you squirm under his gaze. There’s something so intense about the way he’s looking at you, but you can’t bring yourself to squeeze your eyes shut to avoid it. Both of you lost your clothes somewhere on your way to the bedroom, and you’re thinking about how to persuade him to be the one to pick it all up when this is inevitably over.

He smells like expensive cologne, and he’s got some product in his hair that made it difficult for you to brush your hands through it earlier. Plus, Phoenix had been dropping unsubtle hints earlier in the week (Hangman had affectionately called her out, a little sigh following— “You’re being such a shit stirrer.”)

“Bradley,” You try again, this time with a slight whine.

Did he seriously ditch some girl that’s probably been waiting on their date all week for this?

He responds by whispering your name back to you, the same tone undercutting the way he says it, “That doesn’t matter, I’m here now.”

The urge to keep complaining rises in you but he preempts your worries by licking into your mouth when you open it.

He presses you into the mattress, weighing you down as he kisses you languidly, as if he’s trying to taste every part of you, as if he’s trying to memorize the sounds that escape you when he does. The warmth of his body makes your mind fog, and for the time being, everything else but this goes quiet.

Distantly, you know that in the morning, he’ll have to leave. At the very least, he’ll have to go back to his to grab his stuff for the beach, a change of clothes. It isn’t kicking him out, but watching him leave again and again has started to build this pit at the bottom of your stomach.

It would be different, you think, if the two of you were together. Because then, him leaving wouldn’t mean much where there would be an implicit promise and understanding that he was going to come back. Every time he closed the door behind him, you swallowed the fear that that would be your final memory of him.

You’re selfish though. And you want to focus on the feeling of his touch instead of thinking about how you may never get to have this again.

He makes it easy. Bradley pulls his shirt off and his dog tags make a gentle clinking sound as they hit each other and then finally come to rest on his chest. He looks like a god, backlit by the setting sun coming through your windows.

This is how you want to remember him. Smiling down at you as he dives back in to kiss you breathless, twitching when you skim your fingertips up his sides because he’s ticklish.

He makes short work of your shirt and sleep shorts, then his jeans are discarded. He stops briefly when his fingers reach the waistband of your underwear, a silent question that you answer by lifting your hips and letting him pull them off you.

Every time he’s between your legs, he has this reverent look on his face, and it makes your chest twist at the fact that this time is no different. He holds your thighs open gently but firmly, and he presses his face into your pussy. Then, his tongue is darting out and licking up your core, flat and wide.

You’d asked him once, if he likes going down on you. With a gleam in his eye, Bradley had said it was second only to being inside of you. You think of that as he eats you out enthusiastically, as you bury your hands in his hair and pull.

He slides his tongue in and out of you, curls it around your clit and sucks in a way that makes your back arch and your thighs clenched around his head. Then, he’s slipping a finger inside and fucking you slowly with it. It makes you shiver as you realize how close you are.

“Sweetheart, fuck, you taste incredible,” He murmurs, more to himself than anything else, pulling back briefly to make eye contact and you feel the way your breath quickens at the intensity of his gaze.

It only takes a few more minutes of him licking into you, tonguing at your clit, and adding another finger before you feel that familiar swooping in your stomach, before you’re choking out his name. Your back arches so much it aches, but it’s all you can do as the pleasure is all consuming. Bradley works you through it like every other time, holding you and letting you take what you need from him.

Then, he’s on you in an instant, kissing you furiously and sliding his hardness up and down you, covering himself in your slick. It’s filthy and sloppy but neither of you seem to mind. He lets himself rut against you til you’re hooking your legs around him and digging one of your heels into his back.

“Alright, alright,” He’s trying to sound nonchalant, but you know he’s more affected than his light tone lets on.

The first push into you is always the most intense, but you suck in a deep breath that you force out through your teeth.

“I know, I know,” He croons, pressing little kisses all over your face as you adjust to him.

Bradley inches into you slowly, inch by inch. The initial stretch subsides til it’s replaced by the sweetest feeling of fullness, the way you can feel all of him.

If there’s one thing the Navy’s good for, it’s the sheer strength Bradley possesses and has to maintain. You feel it in the way he fucks you, his back muscles rippling as you hold on for dear life. You feel it in the way his hips press into yours, shunting you slightly up the mattress.

For a while, the only sounds in the room are his hips meeting yours and the slick between the two of you. Momentarily, he pulls away from kissing you to look down to where he’s disappearing inside of you, that ring of you collecting at the base of his cock. His groan is guttural and broken.

“Fuck, Bradley, it feels so good.”

He leans down again to kiss you sloppily, and the simple action of him burying a hand in your hair and twisting his wrist makes your heart skip a beat. He always knows exactly what you need when you need it.

“C’mon, come for me, sweetheart, let me feel you.”

And because you’ve never been able to deny him anything, there you are, hurtling over the edge again. He’s everywhere around you, inside you, and his tongue in your mouth is the last thing you need to feel that wave crest inside of you. Bradley’s moan is deep as he feels you bare down on him and he follows you shortly after.

The moments after, when the glow is still settling and your mind is still hazy, are your favorite. Your mind is too foggy to focus on the fact that you know he’ll be leaving, but present enough to feel the way he doesn’t stop pressing kisses to your lips. You’re cognizant of how he cleans you up tenderly and presses his fingers into the skin of your thighs and hips just to watch it dimple.

In those precious few minutes, that’s all that exists to you.

Don’t be his friend, you know he’s going to wake up in your bed in the morning. If you’re under him, you’re sure as hell not getting over him.

You’re trying to ignore him, you really are. You start going to the beach an hour earlier than you usually do, hoping that he’s maintaining his schedule. Every tall brunette jogging across the sand sends your heart into overdrive.

You still see Bradley when you go to the Hard Deck for a drink, but you keep a respectable distance between the two of you. If Phoenix mentions a round of pool, you jump at the chance, while asking Bob and Payback if they’d like to be the opposing team. You ignore the way your heart jumps into your throat when you can feel his eyes on you.

Every note of Great Big Balls of Fire feels like a stab in the chest, and you hold back tears of frustration when you see some girl wrap her arms around his neck and rock along with him as he belts out the lyrics. You’re a fool.

You’ve been ignoring his calls about Saturday morning beach runs and the memes he sends during the day go unanswered except for the little reactions iPhones let you send. You suppose it’s only fair that he gets to ignore you a little bit too.

Your little charade doesn’t last long, not truly in the grand scheme of things. Bradley doesn’t put up with you skirting his advances for long–he knows what he wants and he’ll be relentless til he gets it. And right now, he’s trying to corner you.

And you’re weak for him. You should’ve known from the start that you wouldn’t be able to resist him. You can’t even now, even when you’re only getting him in pieces.

It’s not exactly your bravest moment to be hiding slightly behind Phoenix so he can’t see you (if you can’t see him, he can’t see you, right?) while she stares at you with an endlessly amused expression in her eyes. She doesn’t move to expose you, though.

“What’cha doin’?” Her tone is light, but you can tell she means business.

The two of you are friends yes, but she’s known Bradley for a million times longer. There’s some girl-girl solidarity, but if you were in her shoes, you might have a few bones to pick about potentially throwing Bradley to the wolves on this one. You wonder for a moment if he’s been talking to her about all this, but again, is there even anything to talk about?

“Just uh, trying to see where Hangman’s at?” You sound like you’re asking her a question, and she quirks an eyebrow.

She stretches the syllables of her next word out, letting it hang in the air, “Right. Even I don’t look at Hangman with that sort of intensity.”

That’s not entirely true, but you don’t really feel like getting into a competition with Phoenix of all people, over who’s looking at whom how.

“Sweetheart? Can we talk?”

You’d let Phoenix distract you for just a split second, and there he is, in all his glory. Bradley is beautiful, yes, but he looks tired. His sunny’s are hanging haphazardly from a floral button down that looks like it’s maybe seen better days, and he’s got dark circles marring the perfect tone of his tanned skin.

This time, Phoenix just side-steps you and lets Bradley into your space.

His presence is just as affecting there, in the middle of the Hard Deck, as it was the first time you saw him on the beach. Even with how tired he looks, he’s still glowing just slightly in the evening sun.

“Hi, Bradley,” You breathe, not daring to speak louder, as if that would make the moment real.

You can feel Phoenix’s eyes on you, the way that Bob and Payback are starting to let their attention drift to from the game of pool. This, you don’t want anyone else to be witness to. This is something between just the two of you. You don’t really need the whole world to witness your imminent heartbreak.

“I don’t want to do this here, is my place okay?” He looks so nervous, as if you’re going to push him away. It’s funny really, what you know is about to happen, and yet he still looks like this is about to break him entirely.

Nodding, you let him lead you out of the bar. It feels like deja vu, how however many weeks ago you were tracing these exact steps but making your way towards a very different fate.

The two of you are silent in the Bronco, and Bradley doesn’t bother turning the radio up to belt along to the 80s classic on the radio. Everything feels like you’re underwater, like the world is out of focus. You think you might start crying, but you try and swallow it down, be an adult.

Pulling into the driveway, it’s silent in the car when he turns the engine off. Neither of you go to get out, but you know you can’t sit here forever. This had to happen at some point, had to come to a close. That doesn’t make getting out of the car and waiting for Bradley to unlock the door any easier, though.

You toe off your shoes and let him get you a glass of water. Then, you’re standing on opposite sides of his kitchen, the pristine shine of the countertops and appliances making him feel a thousand miles away. You two are usually tumbling in, mouths locked together, or walking in with groceries, prepared to spend a comfortable evening cooking and watching a movie. This is everything coming apart at the seams.

“Bradley,” You start, not really knowing where you’re going, but just wanting to break the silence.

He looks distraught and your stomach drops with guilt.

This is your fault.

He says your name once as he settles back against a countertop, and it hangs in the air between the two of you, til he starts speaking again, “I’ve been trying to figure out where I went wrong, what lines I crossed, and I guess at some point I realized it was all of them. I shouldn't have pushed you, I shouldn’t have–”

“I thought that that was all I could have of you, so I was selfish and I took it.” You say, the words tumbling out of you before you can stop yourself from interrupting him, but still unable to tear your eyes away from him, “But I was hurting you. I still am, and god, Bradley, I’ll make it up to you somehow, I’m so sorry.”

It’s almost funny, really, the way you’ll look back on this moment a year from now and laugh at the way the two of you are talking past each other, unwilling to acknowledge that your deepest desires could be attainable. But for now, all you can feel is the guilt in your veins, your heartbeat pounding your chest.

“What?” He’d looked at the floor for a moment, but when you finish speaking he’s looking at you intently. “What did you say?”

Taking a deep breath, you steel yourself and start from the beginning, “I thought that you coming to me, like that, was the only way I could have you. And, and maybe it was me taking advantage because you were sometimes not super sober, but I would never–”

“I was always sober. Every time. I would never do that to you. What do you mean that was the only way you thought you could have me?” Bradley’s standing fully now, not leaning.

“I thought you drank before, to, y’know, make it tolerable.” You regret the words as soon as you say them, “Sorry, that’s–you’re not that kind of person.”

He smiles ruefully, “I’m still focused on the part about that being the only way you could have me.”

Here it is.

“I love you, Bradley. And not just as a friend, but more. But I didn’t want to push that on you, and so I thought–”

“You love me?”

A beat.

“Yes.”

Then, he’s laughing in that hysterical way when people are so overcome, the only way it’ll escape them is if they double over in giggles. But he’s trying to compose himself as quickly as he started.

“I tried to tell you so many times how I felt, I left you all those post-it notes, god, I thought you were seeing them and just didn’t feel the same.”

“I-I don’t understand.”

“The hearts. That’s how I,” He heaves a shuddering breath, his voice thick with unshed tears, “That’s how I told my parents I loved them before I could really write. I was saying it to you every time I left.”

“You love me?” You’re crying now, and he squeezes his eyes shut til tears run down his cheeks too.

His laugh is bitter but you know that’s not directed at you, “Was the sticky note covered in hearts not clear enough?”

You feel the way your cheeks warm and your stomach churns as you try and defend yourself, “You were thanking me for letting you sleep over?”

At that, he laughs, genuine this time, breaking the sadness that has been building in the air. Finally, he makes his way across the room to you and crowds into your space, wrapping you in his arms and pressing his forehead to yours. His eyes are closed.

“Sweetheart.” It’s a warning, a plea, and a prayer all in one. “I meant every heart, every I love you, from the very first one I left.”

“I kept them all. In my bedside table.”

Then his lips are on yours. The kiss is salty, reminding you of all the emotion that’s been building for the past few months, every moment you didn’t confess, every moment you assumed the worst, it’s all there. But you don’t want to dwell on that now, now that you’ve heard him say something plucked from your wildest dreams.

“Say it again,” You whisper when his lips leave yours ever so briefly as the two of you are stumbling to the bedroom.

And he does. As he’s undressing you, he says it. He mumbles it against your lips and into your mouth.

He says it against your bare skin as he presses you into his bed, the sheets smelling like him before he puts on cologne. It’s muffled momentarily by the way he takes one of your nipples into his mouth, but you feel the way his jaw works anyways as you cup his face. You let your legs fall open around him and feel the way he slides his fingers into you.

When he’s pressing into you, he’s saying it. I love you, I love you, I love you.

In those moments between start and finish, when the world falls away and all you know is the warmth of his body against yours, the slight slick of sweat on your skin, that’s when you think you realize that he means it. The motion of his hips is deep and insistent, as if to try and leave a permanent reminder that he was there.

You’re crying, you realize. And he’s kissing the tears away like it’s the most natural thing in the world, pressing his forehead to yours as his lips keep forming the words. At some point, you’ve started saying them back to him too, choking them out despite everything so that you know that he knows that you love him.

When you finish, it feels like a supernova exploding inside of you. It starts in the center of your body and pushes its way to your fingertips til you’re gasping for air and he fucks you through it. Bradley cums moments later, filling you with his warmth in a way that’s both familiar and still thrilling.

He rolls gently off you, and you hiss as he slips out. That’ll be a mess to clean up.

But he’s looking at you, brushing your sweaty hair from your face, and his eyes are shining so brightly that it feels like looking at the sun. You want to look away, but you think that losing your vision in return for staring at the way his eyes crinkle in genuine happiness is well worth the price.

I love you, he mouths. And you believe him.

You whisper it back.

tagging: @sebsxphia @roosterbruiser @bradshawburner @gretagerwigsmuse @sometimesanalice @joaquinwhorres @roosterbruiser @roosterforme @bradshawsbitch @seresinsweetie @notroosterbradshaw @genius2050 @peachystenbrough @rhettabbotts @theharddeck @wkndwlff - tagging ppl either by request or whom i feel like are horny for bradley soooo pls let me know if you'd like to be added/removed

#fandom: top gun maverick #character: rooster #rating: e

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mini-ranger-recs · 2 years ago

Text

“grief worked in silly circles”

“a pity you had not asked for”

“Loneliness was the path of salvation”

“A Roy was a Roy and a Roy never foundered until it was too late.”

𝐔𝐧𝐠𝐥𝐮𝐞𝐝 [𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐤𝐬 𝐭𝐨 𝐲𝐨𝐮]

summary: grief puts those in its grasp in precarious positions: those of loyalty, and those of spite and those with love, well, they flounder amongst the hurt. [WC: 1.8k]

pairing: stewy hosseini x fem!roy!reader

warnings: angst, exes to lovers (potentially!), language, vignette on grief and love lost.

quick links: masterlist [a/n: possibly part I of a small vignette series of stewy and fem!roy reader. thoughts, comments, and reblogs are greatly appreciated!)

Entombed in marble, the note reverberated throughout the church in poetry.

The scaffolding of grief had been built. Sitting in rows for as far as the eye could see, a family rested scorched amidst the sorrow.

You felt like a stranger in the room.

The suddenness of pain revels in the commonality it inflicts. A sweeping, precipitous moment of immense breadth swallowing the weak for what they are: people.

And the people inside that room—ornately defined by cultures and individuals who gave so much to a city where one human can overtake and limit their worth— were flooded by an insurmountable loss that could only be explained by the static of a draining phone and the choppy voice of your sister’s estranged husband.

Those two words, simple, rolling off his tongue with difficulty and a wish that the call would drop and everything would go back to the way it was before he walked away.

“He’s gone.”

The tone in his voice had remained buried in the darkest parts of your mind. You felt as though you could hear it clearly as the small conversations of visitation began to settle and you couldn’t bear to look at the center of the alter.

The sudden ringing in your ears suffused every sense you were able to muster in that moment.

But your ears rung. Manicured hands began to shake and tempted you to stand and run away because grief worked in silly circles. The disbelief that something could occur so quickly, the naivety of realizing that the world was suddenly different than the one that existed before, and the pain of faltering to the idea that even if he was Satan, he was still your father and grief felt indebted to it.

It was lonely, grief.

Even while hundreds of people spoke of their condolences, loneliness of death weaved itself into your bones and pulled you underneath the surface where bubbles of hope had long ceased. Everyone from Gerri to Colin to Frank to Karl, each face with the same look staring into your eyes with a pity you asked not for but knew belonged in your heart all the same meant little when the world felt tipped on its axis.

And for the cruelty of the man, it was difficult to understand.

Kendall was holding his life together by a thin and shallow thread and remained so as the priest wallowed on about the supposed amazing man Logan Roy was.

But even with an estranged family, Kendall was never as lonely as he appeared to be. He wasn’t like you. You, left alone to fiddle with your hands as Shiv sat without Tom and Roman sat beside Conner and Willa. The paper between your fingers became crinkled—the only partner you had in a moment like this.

And how you wished it wasn’t the case. You wished you weren’t some lonely pretender who sat sorrowful at a wretched man’s funeral but there you were... strangely obliterated by the idea that life can turn in an instant and the Aeneas of an institution can vanish without so much as a goodbye.

It felt comical and tragic at the same time—the poets of civilizations past would be aching to tell a story such as that.

And Kendall had reiterated such on that fateful day on the yacht because those who would write biographies were watching. Those who would ultimately shake their heads and scoff at the compounding confusion of losing a belligerent soul and making it appear as though a Saint had passed.

Whatever was to be done in the moments following the death of the patriarch, history would be watching. As much as you hated the idea of history looming over the raincloud high above you, he was right. The institution built by Logan Roy did not need to be littered with the historical fact of the middle, forgotten child losing their sanity at his funeral due to loneliness that had, in truth, nothing to do with Logan dying but the unity death brought with it.

However, you could argue, Logan was the crux of that loneliness. He had fostered it, just as well as your mother had when she left the four of you to fend for yourself against the vultures. Now Conner, Kendall, Roman, and Shiv all bask in that same attitude as if was normal to be a carbon copy of the most antithetical person to ever exist.

You hated that being in the room; sharing the same last name, and sitting beside them meant you were likely no different.

And that is why you could never have what the world granted everyone else: happiness.

Loneliness was the path of salvation for those with the last name of Roy. Happiness, or love, whichever one truly came from the actions that preceded it had become foreign for decades of the power hungry struggle of men and women before you.

It radiated throughout the room like Godzilla’s goddamn rays when the priest had ushered his final prayers and you couldn’t even put your hands together and bow. Beside Kendall, Shiv had extended her palm to rest on top of his as they prayed like the good servants of God they were, and you wished someone had sat beside you and done the same even for split second. Conner had Willa, Shiv still had Tom in the small capacity that she did, and Roman was so beside himself with romance that even he couldn’t admit that he needed someone too.

How you ached for a hand to grace yours; how you yearned for someone to place an enduring kiss on your temple and say that they loved you even if you couldn’t believe the truth behind it.

So the loneliness of that vacancy simmers.

The cynical heart hears the organs begin to play and your siblings rose from their seats as it was time to pretend that you enjoyed the service and you wanted the sympathy of others as they shook your hand and gave you hugs outside of the church. But you didn’t want those hugs. You didn’t want those hands.

You wanted one hug. You wanted one pair of hands. You wanted one sympathetic moment and one sympathetic kiss and pretend, for one simple moment, that nothing had changed.

Dad wasn’t dead. Waystar wasn’t floundering in a shallow grave and the maggots of sheep herding to its demise wasn’t going to come next. Sorrow didn’t exist. You weren’t alone—hadn’t been alone.

Across the aisle, donning a black overcoat and three-piece-suit, the simple moment waited. There was little that could have been done feeling maimed by actions unseen but it had been five months of radio silence between you both. One car ride home and the whole thing imploded like a fucking rocket ship.

The congregation stood in solemn stature as the row of family filed out first. Kendall, followed by his small brood, then you.

You took one last look at the coffin that held the once formidable Logan Roy.

Flowers resting on the top, the flag of Scotland draped over it.

For a man so powerful, the weakness of death was hard to ignore. Wilting away in a box for the rest of eternity while the world continued to spin without him. And yet, there in that room and within your own heart and mind, Logan Roy was twisting a footprint of pain deeper than it had before.

Dad died without anyone truly loving him.

You did not want to die like your dad.

Stewy Hosseini was a lifeline. He was a chameleon of couture culture and finessed fashion but within the idealized image of an investor, there was a man who cared for the people who couldn’t say the word ‘love’ or ask for help when they needed it.

Stewy Hosseini was a good man wrapped up in a world that had people one step from going over the ledge but always looked for a solution to solve it. He was a good friend of Kendall even if the stubborn prick never noticed it when it mattered. He was a charming bastard who did lines in public restrooms and put his feet on conference tables during important meetings.

He was the only one to say what he meant without ever getting burned by it but left you shriveling to ash in the corner.

Stewy Hosseini was that solitary hope.

As you looked away from your father's casket, you were frightened by the realization that what was once an outlet for relief had become something to depend on. That five months of absent feelings created a void of indescribable pain that found an outlet in your father’s demise.

You weren’t lonely, no. You were filled with a love that shouldn’t exist with someone who shouldn’t have looked at you the way he did and the yearning for comfort only exacerbated the want.

Maybe he should have taken the deal on Paxos. Maybe he should have said yes, that the package that was tied with a perfect little string matched the black little box that sat in the drawer beside the bed but he didn't.

As you turned toward the aisle to follow the precession, you couldn’t even get your eyes to cast forward because he was right there. Across the way and a row down beside Sandy in his wheelchair and Sandi in her Hillary Clinton pantsuit.

You clutched the program tightly in your hand. Lip trembling, you watched your feet take you away and there was a second in time where you were alone before another hand inched its way into your palm and around your hand.

Some people would never know the absence of love.

They would be grown into it with a kind mother and good family that loved her because they were an innocent child who was not afraid of being the hand that met a lonesome one in the middle of a grand church.

Shiv’s hand crept into yours as the memories of Ewan’s harshness, Kendall’s stoniness, and her fierceness waddled to the background.

Her eyes met yours and for a minute of the day, you felt seen.

And down the aisle, Stewy wished it was his hand comforting your own.

One where he could trace a finger over yours and feel the ring that was supposed to sit there. He could hear the Phantom in that cathedral now:

'You've been asking me for three fuckin' years son so yeah, I'll even throw in my goddamn blessing if that makes you so fucking happy.'

Maybe he should have said yes and everything would be different.

But a Roy would always swallow their pride in moments of need and Stewy Hosseini would always chase the money. There were moments before: a bliss, a fight, a phone call. And then there were moments after: a funeral, a short escape, and a board meeting. But the seconds that lingered in between those events were always shroud in the belief in the former:

A Roy was a Roy, and a Roy never floundered until it was too late.

comments, thoughts, and reblogs are always appreciated. thank you for taking the time to read my lil 'ol fic.

Tagged: @mini-ranger @prettybirdi

#fandom: succession #character: stewy #rating: g

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mini-ranger-recs · 2 years ago

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I want a friend like Sam he’s so sweet!

Also I love how you’ve written Jamie - still a little prickly but not an asshole

DISTRACTIONS I | LONDON CALLING

pairing: jamie tartt x f!reader (ted lasso)

rating: T (language)

word count: 4,772

summary: you arrive in richmond anxious about starting your new life, but quickly feel at home among this new cast of characters. one of them is of particular interest to you for some reason.

A/N: thank you to everyone who read the prologue, sent messages, and left nice comments in the reblogs and tags!! would love to continue to hear your thoughts. 💕

distractions masterlist | previous chapter

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mini-ranger-recs · 2 years ago

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I’m so excited to read this!!!! I love Jamie so I cannot overstate how much I’m already enjoying this fic

DISTRACTIONS PROLOGUE | THE EXIT

pairing: jamie tartt x f!reader (ted lasso)

rating: T (language)

word count: 4,806

summary: after breaking up with your long time boyfriend, you realize how much of your life was tied to his. if only you knew someone with a cool job and even cooler boss across the pond who could help you out.

A/N: hello! here is the first official part of my jamie tartt series. although i should warn you that jamie is not in this part :( this was mainly to cover the back story in order to get the reader to london. but i promise he will be in the next part. please please please let me know what you think! would love any comments and feedback <3

distractions masterlist (coming soon)

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#fandom: ted lasso #character: jamie tartt #rating: g

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mini-ranger-recs · 2 years ago

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Look at this handsome mf

I can’t wait to read more!!

Sweet Nothing (Ch. One)

PAIRING stewy hosseini/f!roy!reader

SUMMARY the first time kendall introduces you to his best friend you're crying your heart out over being forced to work at waystar. maybe losing your dreams of independence won't be so bad if you can accomplish your new dream of sleeping with your brother's best friend.

WARNINGS mentions of crying, eventual (later chapter) smut, logan's abusive behavior

REQUESTED yes/no

WORD COUNT 4.7k words

NOTES this is by far the shortest chapter in the series, so... do what you will with that. anyway i've been planning and writing this series for a little under a month now and i'm really really excited for you guys to read it! it starts while kendall and stewy are in college so everyone's a baby in this chapter. also i have a 100 song playlist for this fic so if you're interested in that lmk! @jonsncws you asked to be tagged on the right day! :)

Everything was crumbling around you and it felt like the only thing you could do was lay down and accept it. There had never been a normal moment in your life, how could anything be normal when your father was Logan Roy? But that didn’t mean every waking moment of your existence was anguish. At least, for a time, you could safely say that you had a dream and a goal for the future. How could someone’s life be completely and utterly ruined at the ripe age of eighteen years old? It felt like an unnecessarily cruel time to pull the rug out from under you.

Gerri was such an inspiration to you, she worked hard to be where she was at Waystar. But what inspired you was that she was a lawyer, because the only idea of success that you had ever known was what you saw from your father. Of course, you weren’t stupid. Lawyers made good money, but to you they just seemed like the janitors that came in and cleaned up the messes whenever your father called. Gerri showed you differently, she gave you something that you wanted to look forward to. So, about a week ago, you expressed your interest in applying for colleges under the guise of becoming a lawyer. Logan took it… well, it seemed like he didn’t take it any way at first.

He scoffed, walked away, didn’t say much. He gave very little input on what you were saying. Though it wasn’t his approval, it didn’t seem like a dirty denial either. Last night you showed him an application you wanted to put in, that’s when everything went wrong. He berated you over dinner, insinuated that he believed Connor was already a fuck up who wasn’t involved in the company, that he couldn’t have another child like that. For the first time since Kendall went to college, you were left to deal with your father’s wrath without your older brother by your side.

Today you were in anguish. Laying in your bedroom, wondering what the point of doing anything at all was. There was nothing you could do that would appease yourself and your father at the same time. It wasn’t just the risk that he might cut you out of his inheritance if he was truly unimpressed by you, but the fact that you genuinely believed that he might just never speak to you again. But you didn’t want to go to business school, you didn’t want to join Waystar and do the same thing that your older brother was doing, the same thing he was prepping your younger brother to do. It felt wrong, it didn’t feel like you, and the one person that always talked you through these things wasn’t home for winter break yet.

“Sis? You in there?” Or maybe he was.

“Ken? You can come in.” You were sniffling, your bed covered in used tissues and your blinds half closed. They would have been completely closed, but it was a gray and gloomy afternoon - it felt like proper mood lighting. As Kendall walked in, you couldn’t be bothered to look directly at him. You were a sight for sore eyes. Your voice was a little scratchy, your cheeks stained with tears, your body still covered in your pajamas and your hair almost distractingly unkempt.

“Jesus, did dad die without telling me?” He asked, sitting beside you. You glanced over at him, a small smile on your lips as you pulled him into a hug.

“My life is over.” He patted your back, letting you hug him for a moment before pulling away. You glanced toward your doorway as you heard it closing, your eyes caught on the man who was clearly trying to be quiet and not disturb your conversation. “Kendall… you can’t bring male models in my room while I look like I just found out my husband isn’t returning home from war.”

“That’s Stewy, not a male model.” Stewy smiled at your comment, Kendall shaking his head as you looked him up and down. He was dressed nicer than some of the other college students that Kendall brought around here, and as he stepped closer to you, it was clear that he smelled nicer too. “Stewy, say hi to my sister.”

Stewy held his hand out, your name leaving his lips like you had told him what it was to begin with. “Do you mind if I sit?” He motioned to the side of your bed not occupied by Kendall, his eyes roaming around the electric pink and green floral comforter on top of your bed. “Groovy.”

“Just give me a second,” You bundled up the tissues on the bed, tossing them into the bin beside it. Besides for a few Advil’s that you dropped when you frantically searched for something to alleviate your crying-induced headache, your bed was clean. “It took me like three weeks to convince dad this comforter wasn’t going to ruin the design of the house.”

“I mean… it matches your room.” He responded, his eyes locked on all of the different posters in your room. Everything about the room just screamed teen girl, you highly doubted that the people who degraded your family ever imagined that the older Roy girl was going to sleep with the members of the Backstreet Boys watching you sleep from a framed and signed poster that hung in the corner of your room.

“That it does, one of the pros of being filthy fucking rich is that I can have whatever I want. The big con of it all is that dad hates all this shit.” You responded, but turned your attention to Kendall who placed a hand on your shoulder. Your eyes caught his, glancing down at his faint freckles that seemed to be growing harder to notice with age.

He glanced between you and Stewy, before keeping his eyes locked on you. “I’m glad you’re feeling better, but you need to tell me what happened. Roman said something about school?”

Oh, right. For just a moment it felt like you’d forgotten about that, it felt bitter to remember just why you needed to pick up tissues off of your bed before the most attractive man you’d ever met sat down on it beside you. But it didn’t just feel bitter, it almost caused a bitter taste to form on your tongue as you attempted to explain what happened. “Dad refuses to let me go to law school, he says I’ll be an even bigger disappointment than Connor. His words, you know I love Con.”

“Well that’s just what he says. What do you say?”

“I say, if I can’t go to law school I’m going to live a life of misery doing something I don’t want.” You responded, glancing around the room. “I’m going to turn this into a goth den. Dracula all over this pink bitch.”

“Do you want my advice on it?” He asked, his hand placed over yours. Kendall didn’t show affection as often as Roman did, but he showed it when he could. He knew that touch seemed to calm you down, so he never hesitated to hold your hand when you were scared or upset. Your fingers wrapped around his hand, nodding in response to his question. “I think you should do what makes you happy, fuck what dad says.”

Stewy kept his mouth shut, but you could tell that he had the same thoughts going on behind his brain as you did from his pursed lips and slightly scrunched facial expression. “Kendall, would you even take that advice? I mean, it’s good advice for someone who isn’t us.”

“Well… what do you think, Stewy?” Kendall asked, looking past you to glance at his friend. He didn’t bother arguing with you, there was no point. You were right, and he knew that well enough. Stewy looked complentative, his legs crossed over each other as he turned to look at you, grabbing some of the gum you had on your nightstand without bothering to ask. You didn’t mind, but it did intrigue you just as much to understand why he would randomly take a piece of gum as it did to understand why he was so unspeakably attractive to you.

“Is the problem the career choice, or the company?” Stewy had the cadence of someone who knew about your family trauma, considering that he was close with Kendall, you presumed that he knew more than you were giving him credit for. “I don’t know you that well, but if you just don’t want to work with your dad, there’s other options.”

He was right, more right than either of you really knew at the time. A big part of why you wanted to become a lawyer was because you wanted to rise in the ranks like Gerri did, but you wanted the independence she had. She chose to be in Waystar, but you wanted the option to not be. “It just feels like I’m being groomed into becoming a pants-suit wearing business woman, like I have no choice.”

“Then make the choice for yourself.” When he said it, it seemed different than what Kendall said. Despite the similar meanings, Kendall knew just as well as you did that breaking free from your father was impossible. He didn’t truly mean what he said, though he almost wished that he did. Stewy’s words were similar, but he seemed to have a different meaning to them, like he truly believed you could form your own path. But he knew from his conversations with Kendall how difficult that would be for you. “But business isn’t that bad, there’s a lot of legal stuff in it.”

Kendall squeezed your hand, causing you to turn back to look at him. “What’s going to depress you more? Dad hating you, or not being a lawyer?”

There was something to be said about that question. At the time, it felt very insightful to you. But it spoke greatly to the trauma surrounding your family, to the desperate and insatiable need that each child had to impress Logan Roy. He was giving you the choice, asking which one would be your preference, but the way he said it, his tone of voice, he knew the answer that he would’ve given. And he knew that answer was the exact same one that was going to come out of your mouth.

“I love my family. I guess… I guess being in business might not be so bad.” You said, leaning back against your bed. You grabbed a flower shaped pillow from beside Stewy, holding it against your chest with one arm as you let go of your brother’s hand. “Besides, if there’s more people who look like Stewy there I’m all in.”

“Thank you.” There was faux-sincerity in Stewy’s voice as he spoke to you, his eyes locked on yours again. He had some of the most beautiful eyes you had ever seen, you could get lost in them forever even while he was giving you one of the most sarcastic expressions you had seen in a long time.

“No. Thank you for blessing me with your beautiful, stunning face.” You were joking, he knew you were joking, even as you reached over to pat his hand like you were thanking him for selling you some sort of valuable product. He nodded, fighting back a smile as Kendall rolled his eyes behind you.

“Unbelievable, I run up here because I think you’re going to jump off of the roof and now you’re flirting with my friend.” Kendall commented, causing you to snicker as you looked back over at him. He didn’t seem truly mad, not even truly irritated, but he did look like he was getting ready to walk out of your bedroom.

“Well, Kenny,” You stated, placing a hand on his cheek as he dodged your touch. “You shouldn’t bring your hot friends in my bedroom, this is where people get freaky.”

“Honey, nobody is getting freaky with Justin Timberlake watching them.” Kendall retorted, standing up and waiting for Stewy to do the same. “Come see me if you need anything.”

As the two of them watched the door, you couldn’t stop yourself from staring at Stewy. You’d heard him mentioned before, you knew that he was a good friend of Kendall’s, but you’d never gotten to meet him before. You knew that Roman had, Logan had as well, but you never knew just what he was like. Something about his presence had disarmed you, made you stop wailing into your pillow like Logan had told you that you only had ten more days to live. He seemed different to the other people that you met, the people that Logan brought around and made you shake hands with like you weren’t hiding behind him or Kendall half of the time.

Though, it was a real shame that Kendall had mentioned that nobody was getting freaky in your room. You’d rather the hottest guy you had the pleasure of meeting in your bedroom not be made aware of your virginity, but, it’s not like he had any reason to believe that was anything other than a joke.

As you grabbed your diary from your nightstand, frilly gel pen in hand, you wrote the sentence, ‘Someday, I’m going to fuck Stewy… wait. What’s his last name? Doesn’t matter. I’m going to fuck Stewy’.

It didn’t take you more than a few minutes to decide that it would be best if you got dressed. You had yet to eat, and you knew that it wouldn’t be too long before dinner was served for the entire family. As you stepped into your shower, you realized how difficult it was to be alone during this. Everything felt like it was going to be okay when Kendall and Stewy were in your room, talking to you and helping you come to terms with everything.

Being alone felt like that isolation that you were trying to avoid by agreeing to do what your father had asked of you was coming to fruition anyway. Of course, you knew that wasn’t the case. Roman was off doing whatever it was that he liked to do, he hardly made himself present when he didn’t have to be, mainly because he was a teenage boy and that was what they did. Shiv was usually attached at the hip to her father, and it wasn’t like you had a whole lot of fun hanging out with your twelve year old sister, the conversations were exceptionally riveting since she was still so young.

The feeling of the soap and water cascading over your skin didn’t give you the same reprieve as it typically did. There was no feeling that you were washing away the day, though you did feel like you were washing away the snot and tears from earlier in the day. It felt like nothing you did was going to stop what was coming, that no shower was going to ease the tension in your muscles and in your mind, knowing fully well that you were succumbing to a future that you didn’t truly want.

As you stepped out of the shower you grabbed your journal off of your stand again, checking the page you had dedicated to phone numbers. As you wrapped yourself up in a bathrobe, towel wrapped in your hair and fuzzy socks adorning your feet, you began to turn the dial on the phone to each number. With your phone pressed to your ear, you laid down and listened to it ring.

“Hello?”

“Hey, Con? It’s me.” He seemed surprised to hear you, considering that nobody really ever called him unless he was needed at the house.

“Does dad need me for something?” It was a natural instinct for him, a natural instinct for all of you, really. If someone said something to him, he automatically believed that it had something to do with Logan. Of course, it did have something to do with Logan, but it wasn’t because Logan actually wanted something to do with him. All of you were guilty of it, of assuming at one point or another that a regular conversation had been initiated by your father. Connor, though, was always the one who assumed it the most.

“No, no. I just need to talk to someone.”

“Oh, well, what happened?” He sounded awkward on the phone, you highly doubted anyone ever came to him for life advice. You highly doubted that anyone even came to him to vent about things. But he had gotten out of his responsibilities to Logan, unlike Kendall who was just about to honor them. If anyone could talk to you about this, you figured reaching out to Connor for something of a third party would be most beneficial.

“Dad is forcing me to go to business school so I can join Waystar, but I want to go to law school.” You weren’t sure how to broach the rest of the subject, but it would probably be best to be honest with him. “He told me that he already has a kid not involved, that I’d be a fuck up if I did it, and he already has a fuck up.”

“Do you mean me?”

“His words, you know I love you.”

Connor was silent, you wondered what he looked like on the other line of the phone. If he was upset, if he wasn’t even surprised. It wasn’t often that you spoke to him on the phone, there was never really any good reason to call Connor. But maybe you should speak to him on the phone more often, maybe it’s not fair to either of you that the connection that was once so strong had become severed and weak over time.

“If I’m being honest, I think you should go to business school.” He started, his words mirroring the ones that had been going on in your brain since you spoke to Kendall and Stewy. “I lost a lot of my relationship with you guys, I don’t want that to happen to you.”

Of course, none of the feedback you received from your siblings would be truly genuine, they all had a bias in it because they all craved the same love and approval from Logan that you did. The only unbiased opinion that you had gotten came from Stewy, and you weren’t even sure if he was unbiased or not. But it felt like Connor’s words were just the realization of your fear, of the reason why you were more willing to go to business school. Both of your older brothers were telling you that you would lose your relationship with dad if you didn’t do what he asked you, whether they were paranoid or not didn’t matter, because you were choosing to believe them.

“Thank you, Connor.” You responded, your finger toying with the cord attached to the phone. “I’ll, um, I’ll call you.”

“Okay. Oh, I love you too, by the way. I can’t remember if I said it back.” It made you feel bad to know that he felt so detached from the family, but it wasn’t like you really had anything to do with that. It was Logan’s choice, all of you just kind of went along with it.

As you wished him a goodbye and a good evening, you stood up to get dressed and do your hair. Your entire room was that of a quintessential teen girl, like you looked at your father while watching a teen movie and said ‘I want that one’. Because… that’s what you did. The entire room didn’t match your wardrobe, which was very subdued. Truthfully, you’d always wished that you could have worn fun things, but that wasn’t something that matched the aesthetic of the Roy family, so while you could copy the rooms and decor you saw on the television, your clothing needed to match a certain aesthetic.

After you were dressed you knew that you were going to need to leave your room, you couldn’t just sit around in there forever. Especially because you knew that dinner was going to be in the next few minutes, and you were going to have to seal your fate with your schooling decision the moment you saw your father at the dinner table. He’d been so angry the night before, you were just relieved that Kendall was going to be there this time.

Just as your hand touched the doorknob, a light knock sounded against the door. “Dad wanted me to tell you dinner’s ready.” Kendall, just the person you were thinking about. You stepped out of the room, looking between him and Stewy. Stewy had a bag with him now, something he didn’t have when he had come into your room earlier.

“Is he not staying for dinner?” You questioned, your eyes wandering over Stewy’s face again. Despite knowing he was friends with your brother, you just couldn’t seem to get a read on him. What he was like, what he did that made Kendall want to be friends with him. You wanted to understand more about him, but if he was just going to go home now that opportunity was going to be lost. “You know there’s an extra seat at the table, right?”

Connor’s seat was empty, you all knew to expect that when you went down for dinner. “I know that, dad said no.” Kendall seemed a bit disappointed, but you sighed and nodded.

“Ken’s walking me out, do you wanna come?” You and Kendall were both surprised by Stewy’s offer, but you assumed that he was just being polite. There was no real reason for you to walk down with them, but there was no reason not to either. Of course, you only wanted to because you were desperately attracted to the man, but that didn’t change the fact that it would be rude to say no.

“Yeah, sounds like fun.” You walked down with both of them, standing beside Kendall despite wishing that you could be a little closer to the attractive man leaving your house. It felt strange. You’d had crushes on people before, but never anyone that your brother was friends with. It felt like a bad idea, you knew that Kendall got involved in some strange circles of people and that he was definitely doing drugs while he was at school, but you still found yourself attracted to this man and wishing that you could learn more about him.

Walking through the entryway, it felt like you could feel Logan’s eyes on all three of you. He hadn’t seen you all day, nobody but Kendall and Stewy had. It felt like you were walking into a bar, knowing you weren’t supposed to be there. But you were going to make your dad happy when you told him about your decision, you knew that.

With your eyes straight forward, you ignored his eyes as you walked into the cool night hair with Kendall and Stewy. It felt like you should say something to Stewy, like there needed to be a reason why you came out here with him besides just enjoying looking at him.

“Hey, um, I just wanted to say thank you for… you know, helping me out?” You said, your eyes locked on Stewy’s as you held your hand out to shake it. He didn’t seem to be in the mood for a hand shake, bringing you into a hug. It wasn’t an incredibly personal hug, and he gave you the signature back slap that dudes give each other, but it was enough to make your heart race a little as you wrapped an arm around him.

“Just be careful.” He was quiet, you doubted that Kendall could even hear him. What did he mean by that? Was he talking about school? Was he talking about your dad? Getting involved in the industry? You had absolutely no idea what he meant, but you couldn’t help but wonder if he was trying to convey all three. You pulled back from him and let Kendall say his goodbyes, your eyes locked on Stewy as he got into the car.

He sent you both waves, Kendall walking to the door with you as you kept your eyes on the floor. “That was sweet.” He commented, laughing as you turned to glare at him. “I’m fucking with you, you guys can be friends I don’t care.”

“Mm, can I fuck him though?”

“Absolutely not.” Kendall pretended to gag, dodging you as you tried to smack him before you were both face to face with a very stern looking Logan Roy. He had moved to the head of the table, where he always sat, both of your smiles dropping as you sat down at the dinner table.

“I just want to clear the air now,” You said, placing your towel over your lap as you turned to look at your father. “I’m going to be attending business school, you were right.”

His lips contorted into a smile, it looked so genuine that you were glad you made this decision. All any of you really wanted to do was make your father happy. “That’s good. I think we may have a spot opening up in Waystar for you soon.”

Soon? You still had years of college left before you had even considered working at Waystar. But you only smiled brightly, happy that you had turned things around. “I can’t wait, daddy. Thank you for this.”

The feeling of Kendall patting you on the back, congratulating you for your accomplishment, fell flat. You wanted to be happy about this, wanted nothing more than to be excited that you were finally doing something that you knew was going to make your father proud. You should have been overjoyed by the news that you were going to be offered a job at Waystar, but it felt like you were giving up on a short-lived dream.

Dinner was silent, unless someone was arguing about something dinner was typically silent. The only people who ever really made noise at the dinner table were typically either Roman being himself or you and Kendall deciding that you wanted to mess around and ruin everyone else’s evening. Tonight wasn’t one of those nights, Kendall could tell rather clearly that you weren’t in the mood to do something like that, especially after having just returned to the good graces of Logan Roy a few moments prior.

That night, everything almost felt like a fever dream. The smile of your father was something difficult to obtain, you felt proud of yourself for receiving it. You felt proud that you were going to be doing something that you knew your other siblings wished to do as well. But it was almost as though that pride was just a mask that you needed to put on to pretend that everything was going to be okay, to bottle up your emotions and succumb to the fate that you knew you were going to be forced into. But what was the fun in thinking about something like that?

Instead, you chose to focus on the man who had been sitting on the end of your bed in a navy-blue turtleneck. You’d heard a lot about Stewy over the years, about how he was a good friend, about the stupid things that he was encouraging Kendall to do when the two of them were at parties. But seeing him in person felt… different.

Maybe you were going to be forced to work at Waystar, and maybe that portion of your life was going to be miserable. But as you laid your head down onto your pillow, you couldn’t help but wonder if the universe had offered you an olive branch with Stewy. So what if you had to let go of your goals and dreams of being a lawyer? You had a new goal.

Consequences be damned, one way or another, you were going to fuck Stewy… shit. You still needed to find out what his last name was.

#fandom: succession #character: stewy hosseini #rating: g #so far

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mini-ranger-recs · 2 years ago

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Obsessed screaming, crying, throwing up

Also rooster for the beginning of this chapter:

𝐕𝐨𝐮𝐥𝐞𝐳-𝐕𝐨𝐮𝐬 ☿ 𝟗

☿ 𝐁𝐫𝐚𝐝𝐥𝐞�� "𝐑𝐨𝐨𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫" 𝐁𝐫𝐚𝐝𝐬𝐡𝐚𝐰 𝐱 𝐘𝐨𝐮 (𝐏𝐨𝐫𝐧 𝐍𝐚𝐦𝐞: 𝐂𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐫𝐲 𝐀𝐫𝐬𝐚𝐧) ☿ 𝐬𝐮𝐦𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐲: Rooster has a realization. ☿ 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐝𝐬: 5.7k ☿ 𝐕𝐨𝐮𝐥𝐞𝐳-𝐕𝐨𝐮𝐬 𝐨𝐧 𝐒𝐩𝐨𝐭𝐢𝐟𝐲 ☿ 𝐦𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐕𝐨𝐮𝐥𝐞𝐳-𝐕𝐨𝐮𝐬 ☿ 𝐫𝐨𝐨𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐛𝐫𝐮𝐢𝐬𝐞𝐫'𝐬 𝐦𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭 ☿ 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐲 𝐢𝐬 𝐡𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐥𝐲 𝐞𝐱𝐩𝐥𝐢𝐜𝐢𝐭. 𝐦𝐢𝐧𝐨𝐫𝐬 𝐚𝐛𝐬𝐨𝐥𝐮𝐭𝐞𝐥𝐲 𝐝𝐨 𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐭--𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐲 𝐢𝐬 𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐢𝐜𝐭𝐥𝐲 𝟏𝟖+. 𝐬𝐨𝐦𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐦𝐞𝐬 𝐦𝐚𝐲 𝐛𝐞 𝐮𝐩𝐬𝐞𝐭𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐩𝐥𝐞𝐚𝐬𝐞 𝐭𝐚𝐤𝐞 𝐜𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫𝐬𝐞𝐥𝐟 𝐛𝐞𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐞 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐢𝐧𝐠. 𝐫𝐞𝐟𝐞𝐫 𝐭𝐨 𝐦𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐬𝐩𝐞𝐜𝐢𝐟𝐢𝐜 𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬. 𝐩𝐥𝐞𝐚𝐬𝐞 𝐦𝐞𝐬𝐬𝐚𝐠𝐞 𝐦𝐞 𝐢𝐟 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐡𝐚𝐯𝐞 𝐚𝐧𝐲 𝐪𝐮𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬. 𝐫𝐞𝐦𝐞𝐦𝐛𝐞𝐫 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐢𝐬 𝐚 𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐲 𝐚𝐛𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐚 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐠 𝐰𝐨𝐦𝐚𝐧 𝐝𝐨𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐩𝐨𝐫𝐧 𝐢𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝟕𝟎𝐬--𝐚 𝐯𝐢𝐨𝐥𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐞𝐫𝐚. ☿ 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐭𝐚𝐥𝐤𝐬 𝐚𝐛𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐂𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐫𝐲'𝐬 𝐛𝐨𝐝𝐲 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐞𝐟𝐟𝐞𝐜𝐭 𝐡𝐞𝐫 𝐝𝐫𝐮𝐠 𝐮𝐬𝐞 𝐡𝐚𝐬 𝐨𝐧 𝐢𝐭--𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐢𝐧 𝐡𝐞𝐚𝐯𝐲 𝐝𝐞𝐭𝐚𝐢𝐥. 𝐩𝐥𝐞𝐚𝐬𝐞 𝐭𝐚𝐤𝐞 𝐜𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫𝐬𝐞𝐥𝐟 𝐰𝐡𝐞𝐧 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐢𝐧𝐠.

𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐍𝐢𝐧𝐞 𝐋𝐨𝐬 𝐀𝐧𝐠𝐞𝐥𝐞𝐬, 𝐂𝐀 𝐀𝐩𝐫𝐢𝐥 𝟏𝟕𝐭𝐡, 𝟏𝟗𝟕𝟗

There’s a lot of things you do that Rooster doesn’t call attention to.

You never make your bed. It’s always a mess of linens and comforter, pillows thrown this way and that, and your throw blanket heaped on the floor. He sometimes peers into your room and swears that he can see your exact movements throughout the night, like the bed is a language only he is fluent in. It doesn’t bother him that you don’t make your bed--he just finds it odd. He had a couple friends who grew up on farms back in Virginia; he remembers their parents running a rigid, militant house. He wonders if it wasn’t the same for you. Or if it was exactly the same for you and this is the first place you’ve never had to make your bed--so you just don’t.

For someone who grew up on a chicken farm, you eat a lot of chicken. Rooster always thought that if he saw the inside of something--if he saw their blood and their guts and all that ugly inside of them--he wouldn’t want to put it in his mouth ever again. Chicken is your usual choice at whatever restaurant you go to, unless they have good steak. And before, when you weren’t taking bumps--when you were hungry still, when you were still eating three meals a day-- sometimes all you would eat in a day is chicken. Boiled chicken and eggs for breakfast, pan-seared chicken for lunch, cornflake-crusted chicken for dinner.

Naked is just your natural state. You’re not shameful about it, you don’t get coy, and you don’t really care who sees you. Oftentimes, you prance around the house fully nude, even if you’re just making a pot of coffee or heading outside for a swim. And because you’re always naked, he can see that your belly is beginning to cave inwards--like it’s retreating behind your ribs. You don’t hide behind anything. You are a force of nature, baring all with little regard for consequences. You once answered the door fully in the nude to greet the pizza delivery driver, who wordlessly stared at you the entire time and lingered on the front porch for longer than necessary.

When you get recognized on the street, when someone is brave enough to approach you and tell you what they recognize you from, you’re sweet. You aren’t shy, you aren’t humble--but you’re kind. You smile very politely, you sign whatever they want you to sign, you bat your lashes at them, you kiss their cheeks. Even if the men outnumber you, which they often do, you never are afraid. Rooster’s glad he’s there with you whenever groups approach you--but he knows that even when he isn’t there, you’re unafraid. No, you’re bold and unabashed. Men don’t frighten you--they excite you. Rooster knows that.

But then, there are other things that he does call attention to. Like he can’t help but call attention to because it’s like someone breathing down his neck.

Like you taking bumps often now. You don’t rely on Jake anymore for his supply--you have your own. You wear a fat, gold ring on your middle finger now. It’s solid gold and features a red ruby in the shape of a heart--but it opens up, the ruby attached to hinges, and stores your stash inside. It’s something you designed and bought yourself with one of your Goldman Homevideos paychecks, something you happily showed off to Jake and Bradley. Jake kissed it, of course. And now he kisses it almost every time he sees you. Rooster pretended to like it, smiling rigidly. You have the ability to see right through him--and he knows that. So, whenever you recognized his distaste in the ring, you sulked and buried your face in his neck and kissed on him until he was putty in your hands again. That’s just the effect you have on him.

Right now, dressed in that terrible cheerleader outfit (which covers almost nothing), you’re rubbing a bump along your gums. You’re looking at yourself in the mirror, all dolled up, dripping sex. You’ve been practicing your lines for the past hour, diligently going over the script, and now you’re rewarding yourself.

Rooster is sitting on the little sofa in your dressing room, watching you carefully rub the coke along your pink gums as you blink those long lashes at your reflection. He’s uncomfortable right now--this football uniform smells like dust and it’s too tight around his crotch, which he knows is the point.

You clear your throat, catching Rooster’s eyes in the mirror. He looks very serious, his brown eyes swimming with concern, his lips a flat line, his arms crossed over the silly jersey he has on.

“Giving me the hairy eyeball, huh?” You ask softly, perching a brow at him. “Is that any way to treat the broad you’re about to go to pound town with?”

He doesn’t smile--and he doesn’t look away from you.

“I wish you wouldn’t do that,” he tells you honestly, nodding towards your ring as you close it and slide it off your finger, dropping it in the little purse you brought with you today. “Really, Cherry. I don’t dig you getting high before filming, baby.”

This isn’t the first time he’s told you this. It’s the first time he’s told you this in this room, sure. It doesn’t feel more or less honest in here, where the scent of sweat and sex is thick in the air, even if the cleaning ladies try to cover it with bleach and air freshener. You cast in the harsh white light of this stuffy room instead of the low, orange glow of the living room or the afternoon sunshine as you lounge by the shimmering pool.

“Oh, what’s the harm?” You ask, spinning around to grin at him. “I’m only having a little fun, daddy! Blow’s the bomb, don’t you know?”

Rooster shakes his head softly. He does know about blow--and he knows that it’s all fun and games for you right now, but that it won’t always be.

Honestly, he wants to tell you this. He wants to rub your nose in his mistakes and have you cry and tell him you wanna be better. And he doesn’t know how he got here--when he became so much older than everyone, when he started feeling like he wanted to change the way you were living.

He remembers being twenty-one, when all the glitz was enough to make him feel high. He remembers that he felt like he knew everything. He remembers that no one could tell him anything. If they tried, Rooster would be done with them. He would’ve branded them a buzzkill and left them in the dust.

He doesn't want you to leave him in the dust.

So, as you grin at him expectantly, a little bit of white powder dotting the top of your lip, he decides to drop it.

“C’mere,” he says to you, nodding to his lap.

And you comply with vigor, pleased as a plum that he’s not lecturing you. You plop yourself right down on his lap, carefully minding your big hair and carefully done makeup--which is always a tad too heavy for your liking.

Rooster lets himself grow comfortable with you straddling him: your thighs bracketing his, your arms wrapped loosely around his neck, your waist beneath his palms, your fingers toying with the hair at the nape of his neck. He inhales your scent, all that Cherry, and then reaches up and carefully wipes the coke off your lip.

“Thanks a million,” you whisper to him, beaming.

He nods, brows furrowed slightly. It surprises him when you catch his thumb with your lips, sucking the little bit of blow off his finger. But it doesn’t surprise him when you gently kiss the pad of his thumb.

“You’re a sweetheart today,” he tells you like you aren’t a sweetheart everyday. “What’s the occasion?”

You grin.

“Just have good vibes today,” you tell him honestly. You toy with the gold chain around his throat, the one he never takes off, and bite your lip softly. “I was thinking…I wanted to go to the disco tonight.”

Rooster stiffens.

“I think I catch your drift,” Rooster says softly, frowning. “I don’t go to to the disco, baby.”

You pout--it’s a ridiculously childlike thing. He laughs, pinching your bottom lip, and you don’t stop yourself from whining and bouncing softly on his lap.

“C’mon,” you whine. You hold his cheeks in both your hands, stroking his sideburns carefully. “Take me out dancing.”

He shakes his head, not breaking his eyes from yours. Your pupils are blown now.

“Negative,” he tells you. “Not happening.”

“But if you don’t take me dancing, then who will?” You ask.

Perhaps you don’t even mean to manipulate him--but that is what you’re doing. You both know the answer to that question. If he doesn’t take you, then Jake will. And as close as Rooster and Jake are, they both seem to get a bit chuffed when one has you and the other doesn’t. You’re not blind--you know it, you see it, you feel it. Usually, you’d feel bad about this kind of thing. You really love them both. But you’re high right now. And you want Rooster to take you dancing.

Rooster’s throat is tight.

“You’re killing me,” he tells you gently.

He watches your face when he says that. The way your pupils are unchanging as they stare into his, the way your smile widens by a millimeter, the way heat blooms across your chest.

You’re pleased.

“Oh, get real,” you tell him, shaking your head. “You love it when I hurt you.”

It’s an unnecessary amount of cruelty--one that you don’t even register when you’re this high up in the clouds, when wispy tendrils of pink and purple are clouding your brain.

His brows knit--just for a moment. But you don’t catch it, not when someone knocks on the door.

“Ready on set!”

“Let’s fuck!” You exclaim, kissing Rooster long and hard on the lips before scrambling to your feet.

As Rooster follows you out of the room, a pep in your step, he sees you before you came to California, before Dennis found you, before you moved into his life. He can see you, clear as day, wearing a prairie dress that’s faded from the sun. Your hair matted with sweat, hay strewn about your messy locks. Standing in a dank barn, grabbing a chicken by its feet, laying it down against a stump. Swinging the ax with an unanticipated amount of strength, one that can only be developed from precarious farmwork. He can see the blood, that hot and red stuff, spurting on your face and all across your throat. And he can see how calm you are, your face an endless flat sea--serene, rippling.

You’ve killed before--legally, on a farm, just chickens. But you know what it’s like to end something’s life. You’ve been the last thing glassy eyes have seen, the blade of your ax shimmering in the sunlight as heat pours down on your pigtails.

Rooster doesn’t feel any differently about you, even after seeing you as ruthless and unbending as you were in Nebraska. Maybe that should scare him--that he feels the exact same way.

As he follows you down the hallways, your grin lighting up the set and everyone around it, he thinks that maybe he loves you. He’s known for a while that he loves you--the same way he loves Jake and Nat and Bob. But this feeling he has now, the one sitting so heavy in his gut, it’s different.

He’s in love with you.

He understands it then--how you are able to eat chicken still after seeing all that ugly inside of them. He gets it. He sees all that ugly inside of you, all that filth. And he still wants you on his tongue. He could have you for three meals a day, even after what he’s seen, and still order you at every restaurant.

The difference is that he could never swing the ax, could never bring it down on you. And he thinks, with everything in his body and bones, that you could bring the ax down on him.

And he’s still hideously, wretchedly in love with you.

“Hey, kid,” he calls, holding the back of your neck, which suddenly feels very delicate in his hands. You grin at him, wrapping your arms around his waist. “Bell Bottoms or Supernova tonight?”

☿

You’ve been at Supernova for hours now.

Supernova is much bigger than Bell Bottoms, less exclusive. It’s a big, big building with red and pink lights and a ceiling full of mirrorballs. There’s tall, sleep tables and velvet booths. The dance floor takes up most of the joint, stretching far and wide and lit with technicolor. There’s a bar, of course, where Rooster’s been sitting all night watching you.

It isn’t hard to find you, even as big as the joint is. You’re wearing a spectacular dress: gold chain-link with thin straps and an open back, the neckline drooping and nearly dipping to the meet of your ribs, the hem just barely touching your mid-thigh. Your eyelids are painted gold and your cheeks are artificially red, as are your lips, and the light catches your dress perfectly. And even if you weren’t wearing something that shines, Rooster would know where you were simply because it’s where everyone else is. The men are ogling at you, sinking elbows into their friends ribs just for a chance to dance with you. He’s watching carefully, making sure that no one is getting too close, too comfortable.

“Dance with me,” you’ll beg him when you come to the bar to catch your breath. He’s always ready and waiting, pressing a Harvey Wallbanger into your palms that he ordered half an hour ago. “C’mon! Boogie down, daddy!”

And then he smiles, shaking his head.

His days of disco are over.

“Sorry, baby,” he keeps telling you. “I’ll just sit on my perch.”

And, of course, you’ll grumble and whine. But then you finish your drink and sink back into the crowd, moving with them as steadily and seamlessly as scissors gliding on tissue paper.

Between the bumps you’ve steadily been taking all night, which you stopped keeping track of after four, you feel like you’re on top of the world. You love the disco--all the smells, all the sights, all the people, all the funk, all the dancing.

It might be where you’re happiest.

Men have been flocking to you all night, telling you which films they’ve seen you in. You’ve autographed more skin than you ever thought possible, which tickles you. It only feels natural for you to be doing this. You weren’t flabbergasted the first time you were asked to sign something. It was the same way you felt about being in California: this is what you’re meant to be doing. People should be asking for your autograph.

“Got any new films coming out?” A man asks you, lips pressed against your ear.

Your back is to his front, your arms raised in the air, as you grind against each other to Boogie Nights by Heatwave.

“Tons!” You answer with a grin, eyes fallen shut.

You don’t know what this man’s name is, but you’ve been dancing with him for a few songs now. He’s alright, not the best dancer, but the kind of man who probably doesn’t get attention from women as pretty as you very often. So he touches your body like it’s a piece of art, something he’ll never get to touch again up-close.

You don’t mind it when his hands wander across your breasts, the metal cold against his palms, your nipples pert beneath your dress. You don’t mind it when he kisses the back of your neck, his mustache tickling your hot skin. You don’t mind it that he’s hard as he grinds against you, that he’s holding your hips against him like you’re trying to run away. You don’t mind it that he keeps grazing your cunt, that he’s testing his limits.

You aren’t even sure what your limits are.

“I think you’re really very,” he says to you, feverishly kissing your throat.

“I know it,” you call back to him, head thrown back in ecstasy. “I’m the best!”

Rooster’s watching it all unfold.

You don’t seem bothered by this chump that’s touching your entire body like it’s his hotblooded, American birthright. He watches for a long time, watching his knuckles drag along your cunt, watches his eyes crease in frustration and pleasure as he rubs his erection against the curve of your ass.

His chest is burning like he’s swallowed handfuls of sand, little grains of hatred slicing his lungs. He can’t stand it almost--watching this man touching you. He’s never felt this way before--he shouldn’t feel this way. And that’s why he stays seated at the bar, nursing another Tom Collins, his knuckles whitening.

He only stands up when he sees the man’s fingers disappear beneath your dress. It’s a steady line this chump’s been toeing and he’s finally grown brave enough to touch your cunt. Maybe it isn’t your line, but it’s Rooster’s.

He doesn’t even feel like he’s in his body as he throws cash--far too much cash--on the bar and stomps across the dance floor. He doesn’t mind shouldering people to get to you, doesn’t mind people spilling their drinks on him. He doesn’t mind interrupting the whole disco to get to where you’re standing.

You’re surprised when Rooster is suddenly right in front of you, wrapping his fingers around your wrist and yanking you towards him and against his chest. You’re too high to really care what’s going on around you--and you don’t even realize that the man had his hand up the skirt of your dress until it isn’t anymore.

In the haze of the disco, you look up at Rooster. Your ears are ringing. The music is too loud. The lights are too bright, too pink. Your chest is hot, your mascara feels too heavy on your lashes, your lips feel numb.

The man stares at Rooster with his mouth ajar, his eyes wide.

And Rooster leans forward, that strange anger only you’ve been able to invoke in him sitting hot on his tongue like a bed of coals, and jams his finger into the man’s chest.

“You ever fucking touch her again, I’ll kill you,” Rooster sneers. He’s being loud--louder than he should be--but he wants the man to hear him. “You catch my drift, brother?”

The man blinks at Rooster, face twisted in dismay.

“What, you her pimp?” The man is genuinely asking him. “She’s public property! C’mon, man! Gimme a turn!”

That breaks something inside of Rooster. That anger that’s been steadily festering, the one that was carefully stoked by this idiot’s wandering hands and invasion of space and the loud music and your lack of attention, boils over. Rooster’s fairly certain there’s steam pooling out of his ears.

So, Rooster does something he hasn’t done since his early, early years. First, he suddenly holds you by the armpits and lifts you--easily, seamlessly--before setting you beside him and out of the danger zone. Then he unbuttons his cuffs, not removing his eyes from the man standing in front of him, the one who’s smirking at Rooster as if to say oh, you’re really gonna hit me?

You’re looking up at Rooster, your veins throbbing. Everything is in slow motion, even your hearing. The song seems slow, so very slow, and you can feel every second of time that passes.

Rooster twists his father’s Naval ring on his pinkie--which he only wears when he’s going out on the town--and balls his right hand in a tight fist.

“Say it again,” Rooster demands, narrowing his eyes at the man. He straightens his shoulders, sets his jaw. “I’ve gotta hear it one more time. Just to be sure.”

The man, who is both drunk and stupid, grins.

“She’s public property,” the man tells Rooster, poking his chest between every word.

Something flashes across Rooster’s face--something that is almost a smile.

“Thanks a million,” he says to the man before promptly rearing his fist back and slamming it forward, right against the man’s nose.

He’d forgotten how bizarre it feels to punch someone, how it breaks the delicate skin between his knuckles, how bones feel when they crunch, how immediate the bleeding is. But it all comes rushing back to him like muscle memory. And as he watches the man crumble to the floor, the crowd hardly noticing the altercation and dancing over him anyway, Rooster’s chest feels lighter than it has all night.

Your eyes are glazed over when Rooster looks at you.

Again, he straightens his father’s ring. Then he smooths his hand over your hair and ducks down to look into your eyes.

“You gravy, baby?” He asks seriously.

You swallow hard.

“Take me home,” you tell him. Your expression is unreadable. “Now.”

He practically carries you out of Supernova, flexing his fist, which is already rapidly becoming sore. It’s cooled off outside and both of you gulp the fresh air when you step into the desolate, dark parking lot. Rooster’s car is parked in the very back of the lot, bracketed by a shrub and a VW.

He’s worried as the two of you walk, his hand gripping yours, your nails digging into his palm. He keeps looking back at you and you don’t look at him, your face flaxen and unmoving. Your lipstick is smeared and your pupils aren’t as blown anymore, but you don’t reach for your ruby ring.

He’s achingly close to feeling guilty. He’s achingly close to telling you that he’s sorry.

And finally, when you’re in front of his car, he turns on his heel to tell you that he’s sorry. That he didn’t mean to get so angry. That he only wants to protect you. That it won’t ever happen again.

But that’s the precise moment your desire for him outweighs your patience. You wanted to wait until you got home, maybe have him take you in the foyer. You can’t wait, though--not after watching what he just did. You need him more than you’ve ever needed anyone before, an ache between your legs so deep and so strong that you think you could catch fire by rubbing your legs together.

“Look, I--!”

Rooster chokes on his words when you suddenly pull his hand and guide it between your legs, when you push his fingers against your cunt. He can feel it--how slick you are, how wet you’ve grown from the short walk from the club to the car.

He swallows hard.

You're looking deeply into his eyes, everything around you gone but him.

For a long moment, you two just stand there--his fingers against your lips, your face straight and your eyes searing as they pour into his, his lips parted, his chest tight.

“It’s you,” you tell him, really meaning it, not just high. “Just you.”

Only he can make you that wet, that fast.

You’re very serious right now, serious about all of this. You were too high to decide if that man was allowed to touch you. And even though Rooster doesn’t like the disco, he took you. And even though he doesn’t dance, he kept an eye on you and a cold drink in your hand. And even though he’s usually so collected, so cool, he broke some chump’s nose tonight for insulting you. And you’re fairly certain that he was just about to apologize to you for that.

He doesn’t move his eyes away from yours, not even for a moment. But he wraps his other arm around you, careful of not getting his blood on your dress, and pulls you closer to him as he rests his back against his car.

Without breaking his gaze from yours, he hooks his hands around your panties and tugs one time. They rip, the lace things, and he lets them fall onto the asphalt without a second glance.

And then he starts moving his fingers.

He knows you like the build-up of it all. You like it when he lets his fingers drift across your opening, your clit, gathering all the anticipation there. You like it when he just barely presses his fingers inside of you, just enough to feel that first stretch, before he rubs your clit in slow and monotonous circles.

You’re already breathing heavy, his fingers urging that pleasure that only he seems to understand. He nurtures your pleasure, makes sure you’re with him every single moment, that you’re moving with him.

“This what you need?” He asks, voice low and rocky.

You nod, lashes fluttering--but you don’t dare take your eyes off his. His brown eyes, those sweet whiskey-colored things, are darker than you’ve ever seen them before. He wants you--bad. You can feel how hard he’s growing, pressed up against your hip.

“Yes,” you whisper to him, locking your knees when they begin to feel weak.

It doesn’t matter that you’ve already had him today. Because when he’s fucking you with football tights at his ankles and you’re biting down on the handle of your pom-pom and Dennis is telling Rooster to pull your ponytail, it isn’t real. The sex is, sure--it’s really his cock and it’s really your cunt and you really feel pleasure. But it isn’t you and it isn’t him.

This, this right now, is different.

“It makes you this wet when I break some youngblood’s nose, huh?” He asks you, still moving his fingers slowly along your wetness. He’s watching the breaths catch behind your teeth as you begin to succumb to the overwhelming gratification of it all. “Shit, I was gonna say sorry. Thought you hated me.”

He isn’t teasing you. He’s being real, honest. You know that.

“Couldn’t,” you tell him.

This feels vulnerable. Not because you’re outside in a parking lot, not because your panties are on the concrete, not because you’re worried that someone called the cops. No, this feels vulnerable because of how intimate it is. You’ve never felt more desperate for him, never felt as protected by anyone ever in your life.

This is different than before. This is more than you’ve ever done. It’s him, still in his silk shirt and trousers, his knuckles busted up. It’s you, trying to breathe steadily as an orgasm begins to bubble in your belly, trembling in your platforms.

You’re at his mercy, really.

If he told you to fall onto your knees and lick the gravel from the bottom of his shoe, you would. You’d do anything he asked.

But he doesn’t want you to lick the gravel off the bottom of his shoe. He doesn’t want you on your knees in this parking lot. He doesn’t want you to do anything but stand here, in front of him, and cum.

“How close are you?” Rooster asks. It’s hard to ignore his cock straining against his pants now, hard to ignore how badly he needs you. You’re whimpering, head lolling to the side. He can see that you’re trying hard to keep your eyes open and on him--and he loves that you’re trying. “Eyes up here, baby.”

Like a call to action, your neck straightens. He continues his movements on your clit, moving in faster and tighter circles as your legs quiver.

“Close,” you whisper. “So, so close.”

Heat pools in your belly, wetness drips down Rooster’s wrist. Fuck, he wishes he could taste you right now. He wishes he could swallow you whole. He wishes he could bathe in your arousal--really, he does. That’s how badly he desires you.

“You’re gonna cum for me,” he tells you, his voice tender but serious. “And then I’m gonna lay that passenger seat down and fuck you real good, okay?”

You can only nod, squeaking out your breaths as an orgasm licks your heels.

“Yeah,” you whimper.

And it only takes his lips pressing against yours--finally, finally, finally--for that orgasm to suddenly seize you, tripping you up, sending you tumbling to the asphalt. It washes over you and you’re groaning against his lips, quivering, shaking, eyes squeezed shut. He holds you up, arm firmly wrapped around you.

True to his word, he moves seamlessly after.

He lays the passenger seat down, helps you lay back, closes the door behind him, pulls his trousers down just enough, holds onto the delicate meat of your thigh, and sinks into you with ease.

He’s watching your every move as his cock fills you, his eyes dark and his lips parted in ecstasy. You’re warm and wet--tight, but so wanting of him. You’re laid out, expensive dress pooled at your hips, and looking up at him like you’re drunk on the scent of his skin. And you are--you really are.

All you want--all you need, all you have--is him.

It’s a very quiet fuck. Neither of you say much of anything. It’s a tight squeeze in the car, especially with him on top of you, but you want it bad enough to make it work. He’s pressing into that silky spot inside of you, the one that sends you over the edge quicker than you care to admit, and his eyes aren’t leaving yours.

“You’re perfect for me,” Rooster tells you. He’s not just talking about the way your cunt fits around his cock. “Always so fucking perfect for me, Cherry-baby.”

You nos, tears gathering on your lashline. This is all you want. You want to be full all the time--full of him.

“Tell me I’m good,” you whimper, holding firmly to his shoulders as he rocks himself inside of you. “Please, Roo.”

He lets himself fall to his elbows, lets his face fall against yours, his forehead pressed to your temple.

“You’re so good, baby,” he tells you. “Always been so good for me.”

He means it, too.

You know that.

☿

When you open the front door, your shoes in Rooster’s hands, you’re unsurprised to see Jake sitting on the sofa with a bong settled on his lap. He gives you a grin and a low wolf-whistle as you walk into the foyer, mascara smeared.

“Howdy, cowboy,” you greet, voice soft.

Rooster closes the front door behind him, nodding at Jake and following you to the kitchen.

“What it is, brother Rooster? Sister Cherry?” Jake asks, leaning over as you guide Rooster to the sink. Barely, he can see that something dark red stains Rooster’s knuckles. “Uh-oh. Who’d you rough up?”

Neither you or Rooster answers Jake. Your ears are still ringing from being fucked in the car, from riding home with Rooster’s cum spilling down your thighs and onto the upholstery.

While he’s waiting for an answer, Jake takes a long hit from the bong and then settles it on the table before letting his chest rest against the back of the couch as he watches you start the tap.

“What am I, chopped liver over here?” Jake asks, grinning. “C’mon, gimme the skinny!”

Rooster sighs.

“Some chump was giving Cherry a hard time,” Rooster answers.

Jake is amused by this, his grin growing.

“Oh, you put him in his place, brother Rooster?” Jake calls, clapping his hands together. His laugh echoes off the tiles. “Well, goddamn! Haven’t seen Rooster in action since the start of the decade!”

Rooster rolls his eyes.

He’s not upset about Jake being here--he’s just tired. And he doesn’t feel like sharing you tonight, doesn’t feel like competing for your attention.

But even right now, all your attention is on him. You’re carefully taking his Naval ring off, slipping it onto your thumb for safekeeping. You’re checking the tap, making sure it’s the right temperature, before you guide his knuckles beneath it. He doesn’t hiss the way he wants to when the water hits his skin--he stays still for you, lets you gently scrub the dried blood off his knuckles.

He’s watching it all with a softness in his chest, a tenderness beating as thick as blood all through his veins.

“Hey, Jake?” You call without looking up. “Mind grabbing me a bandage? And some vaseline?”

Jake has a quip ready, but he can see that you and Rooster are entirely submerged in your own little world. So, he just silently nods and starts for the medicine cabinet in Rooster’s bedroom.

Rooster wraps his free arm around your waist, holds you close to him. He buries his nose in your hair, inhales until his lungs are full of you. And you dutifully continue blotting the blood, assessing the damage.

“Are you okay?” He asks.

He somehow hasn’t asked you yet.

“Always,” you answer.

“I shouldn’t have let him get as far as he did,” he tells you. He winces when you press into his wound, but kisses your head when you quickly apologize. “Shouldn’t have just watched for so long.”

“Doesn’t matter,” you tell him because it doesn’t. “I’ve had worse.”

It feels like a punch to the gut. But then you’re lying your head against his chest and he feels instantaneously okay again.

“I said I’d take care of you,” Rooster whispers.

You nod. It was on New Years--you remember it.

“You do,” you tell him.

His lungs are still burning from what happened inside Supernova. He hurt someone, busted their nose up real good and fine, for you. For you. And he doesn’t feel bad about it, even--he feels, almost, good. He feels like it snapped some cord that Rooster had wound too tightly, like a crucial muscle he can never pinpoint is finally relaxed.

And then he thinks about what he must’ve looked like to you--angry, red-cheeked, smiling, wielding such strength. He knows it turned you on. But he wonders if, somewhere deep inside you, you saw that ugly in him. How do you feel about it? Do you still want him the way he wants you?

“You gonna keep letting me?” It’s all he can muster to ask you.

“You’re not getting rid of me,” you answer softly. “Don’t try.”

It’s enough for now. He kisses your temple.

☿ 𝐚/𝐧: this took a turn!! wasn't expecting to write like any of this at all but here we are!! love this for them!!

☿ 𝐧𝐞𝐱𝐭 𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫

☿ 𝐥𝐢𝐛𝐫𝐚𝐫𝐲 𝐛𝐥𝐨𝐠

☿ 𝐩𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐭 𝐛𝐨𝐚𝐫𝐝 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐕𝐨𝐮𝐥𝐞𝐳-𝐕𝐨𝐮𝐬

#fandom: top gun maverick #character: rooster #rating: e

252 notes · View notes

mini-ranger-recs · 2 years ago

Text

I'm so excited for this one

complicated

pairing: joel miller x fem!reader

description: y/n invites herself on joel and tess’s next smuggling mission, only to realise that she may be in way over her head.

warnings: age gap (reader is in her 20s, joel is 56), swearing, reader is kinda angsty in this one, violence, mentions of assault

words: 4.6K

date posted: 06/03/23

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Ellie was an interesting little beast, that much Y/n had figured out fairly quickly. The young girl had quite the mouth on her, and she seemed to really enjoy pissing Joel off–which put her even more in Y/n’s good books.

She was genuinely surprised that she had been included in this mission, even if they had not initially brought her on for the job. Instead, she had stumbled into Joel’s apartment late in the evening to find her lover out cold on the couch while some young girl flipped through the song book that they usually kept nearby the radio. The young girl had looked equally as startled to see her as Y/n had been, and the older girl’s first instinct to wake Joel was quickly burnt out when she came to the conclusion that she could definitely get more information out of Ellie if she was able to talk to her without Tess or Joel intervening.

Joel had appeared to have been caught off guard when he woke up to find Y/n and Ellie laughing amongst themselves, quickly becoming defensive when Y/n asked him when they were going to come find her if she hadn’t shown up, knowing fully well that she already knew that they hadn’t planned on bringing her along. Tess had been just as defensive about it, but nothing would have been able to keep Y/n in the QZ while they went on this mission, and it would be much faster to have just brought her along than to argue about it.

The dynamic between the three adults had been a bit unsteady since the night prior, when Joel had basically blacked out in rage and beat a FEDRA guard to death, as well as the group discovery that Ellie was, in fact, infected. As soon as they had evaded the oncoming authorities, Joel had made quick work of lining up a clear shot to Ellie’s head, only stopped when Y/n took a protective step in front of her and made it clear that he would need to kill her first. Tess had agreed with Y/n, which had both adults freeze from their standoff, waving it off by stating that they would never get their reward if they handed over Ellie’s corpse to the Fireflies.

Y/n was on edge for the remainder of the night, watchful eyes flickering between Ellie as she slept soundly on a patch of moss in some building on the edge of the city, and Joel, who held his gun with his finger ready on the trigger. She had shrugged him off when he’d come over to her, hand falling on her thigh as he encouraged her to go to sleep, and he could tell that he was in trouble with her for more reasons than one.

Y/n was aware that he’d finally stood up for her in some way to Tess; how, she was unsure of, but she had walked in on an argument between the two of them, and based on the fact that it had ended when she walked in, she knew that it had to have had something to do with her and Joel’s relationship–if it could even be called that. She was ecstatic that he had finally stepped up and made it clear to her that she actually meant something to him, and she certainly showed how happy it had made her later that night. Only then, things got much worse.

Joel and Tess had begun actively cutting her out of jobs. Joel tried to assure her that they were things that he didn’t want her dealing with, things that he was taking care of so she didn’t need to. Meanwhile, Tess had switched her method of attack, now preferring very passive aggressive comments, ones that Joel may not necessarily pick up on and that would make sure that any conflict that he was made aware of would always come up on Y/n’s end rather than her own.

Then, there was his continued reluctance to have any form of relationship with her in the public eye. In private, Joel was the kind of guy who liked her close, he wanted her at his side, and he talked to her as any man might speak to his romantic partner. In the morning, he would lead her to the door of his apartment with a hand on her lower back, he would kiss her gently on the lips, and then remove any sort of physical contact the moment that they left the privacy of the apartment.

The final straw was his adamant attitude towards killing Ellie, and even more so how appalled he had been when she had stepped in front of his gun–how he’d been angry with her for refusing to allow him to kill a child.

To be completely fair, he was not exactly angry with her for not wanting to kill her, he was more so angry with her for being angry with him. He was angry with her for watching him in the very same way that he was watching Ellie–like he was a bomb ready to go off, like she couldn’t trust him.

“There’s no logical reason to keep this kid alive, I don’t know why you aren’t seeing that.” He did his best to keep his voice quiet, despite the fact that both Tess and Ellie had already nodded off, “Maybe the bite is old, but sooner or later, she’s gonna be chomping at the bit to tear all three of us apart.”

“I know you don’t necessarily like Marlene, Joel, but she’s not stupid. She wouldn’t have been making this trip for no reason.” Y/n sighed, taking Joel’s hand into her own and running her fingers over his bloody knuckles, “Does that hurt?”

“Like her?” He scoffed, ignoring her question, “Are you forgetting the part where she convinced my brother to join in on her little fever dream and got us into this mess to begin with?”

“Exactly,” Y/n rolled her eyes at him, “Even if you’re right, you need that truck and this is the only way that you’re getting one in the near future. Doesn’t matter what we think, we hand this kid over to the Fireflies and you get on your way to find Tommy.”

He only grunted in response, shifting his eyes back to the teenager as she silently wrapped his hand in a strip of gauze from the small first aid kit that she’d brought along. No more words were shared over the remaining hours of darkness, both too proud to break the silent treatment first.

For once, Y/n was thankful for Joel’s loyalty to Tess, considering that the vote was now two-to-one, in favour of not killing the fourteen-year-old that was placed in their care (though Y/n was sure that she really didn’t have a vote in the situation to begin with). The small group quickly made their way out into the open city, after Joel, Y/n, and Tess all watched in envy as Ellie scarfed down a chicken sandwich, of course.

Ellie was truly testing the personal restraints of both Joel and Tess, taunting them with sarcastic remarks at every opportunity, even within the first few moments of her consciousness, scowling as Joel cocked his gun at her and letting out an exasperated, do I look infected? Y/n had quickly become her favourite of the three, solely based on the fact that she actually laughed at her jokes; the fact that she had threatened to take a bullet for her only made Ellie like Y/n more and Joel like Ellie less. To be fair, Y/n was actually closer in age to Ellie than she was to Joel and Tess, and they’d both grown up in the QZ, giving them some very similar experiences to talk about.

The path through Boston to the Capitol building was a meticulous one. While the city would have been fairly easy to navigate twenty years prior, old buildings had fallen and certain streets had become so overgrown that it was physically impossible to move through them. The walk was long, but more enjoyable than the last time that Y/n had been in the city due to the non-stop rambling of the fourteen-year-old girl walking alongside her.

“Where the fuck are they already?” Ellie whined, glancing around rapidly in hopes of catching a distant sighting of some infected.

Y/n shrugged, “They don’t usually stay in one particular area, but you’ll know it when they’re getting close.”

“I didn’t know last time.”

Tess glanced over her shoulder, “How did you get bit?”

“You know that old mall in the QZ?”

“The one that’s sealed off and boarded up and no one’s supposed to go in…ever? That one?”

Ellie rolled her eyes at the condescending tone, “Whatever. I snuck in. Wanted to see what it was like, I didn’t think there would be anything in there, and then one just came at me out of nowhere. Thought I got away, but…”

“You went in there alone?” Y/n raised an eyebrow.

Ellie hesitated before shrugging her shoulders, “Yeah.”

Tess halted, turning to face the pair behind her, “How old are you?”

“Fourteen.”

Y/n glanced over her shoulder, catching sight of Joel as he came up behind her. They had both continued to give each other the silent treatment, though every once in a while one would catch the other looking, or one of them would move to help the other. Pride was quite literally the last thing that either of them had in this world, and neither of them were going to give up so easily.

“Wow,” Tess sighed, “Well, you’ve got some balls on you, sister.”

“Really,” Y/n added, nudging her with her elbow, “Fuck, I’m too chicken shit to even go outside after curfew.”

Ellie fought the smirk that threatened to crawl onto her face, clearly happy to have impressed both women, “Thanks.”

Ellie and Tess took the lead, and Y/n could already tell what was coming as Joel’s footsteps grew louder.

“You shouldn’t get attached to her,” He grunted, “We’re not making friends, this is a job.”

She scoffed, “There’s a pretty big difference between getting attached and being a decent human being.”

He shook his head, “I just don’t want you getting your hopes up over this. I mean, this whole thing is fucking crazy–how many times have we heard about some cure over the last few years?”

“Getting my hopes up,” She repeated breathily, “Sorry for having a conversation with the first person who has actually wanted me around in the last twenty-four hours.”

Joel paused, “You know that’s not–”

“I love that you just always assume that I magically know things that aren’t fucking obvious, Joel,” Y/n shook her head, using every ounce of restraint to keep herself from raising her voice, “Tell me, what exactly was the plan? I obviously wasn’t welcome on this mission, so you were just gonna disappear without so much as telling me?”

“There was no plan, we’d just gotten her from Marlene when you showed up,” Joel answered, “Promised us supplies to look for Tommy if we took her.”

“So, if I hadn’t shown up when I did, you and Tess would have left the QZ, and then taken off to where–fucking Wyoming? Jesus Christ, Joel, did you ever even think to consider where that would leave me?”

She took his silence as a fairly blatant answer, chuckling to herself as she sped up, putting several feet of distance between them before he took note of the tears that had welled up in her eyes; the last thing that she wanted was for him to actually see how much it had affected her.

Ellie glanced over at her as she caught back up, eyes squinting at her, then flickering back to Joel, “Are you okay?”

Y/n nodded, forcing a small smile onto her lips as she continued on, not another word leaving her lips for the rest of the walk.

The hotel was a very pretty sight; various types of vegetation had taken over the lobby while several different types of animals took advantage of the protection of the swampy area. Y/n wanted to enjoy the sight, but the smell was so pungent and revolting that she simply couldn’t. Had the water been mostly rainwater, it may have been alright, but considering that most of the water had come from a burst pipe in the ceiling, the area was left smelling of mildew and the remains of whatever waste might have been left from twenty years ago. The only part of having to go to the hotel that she may have enjoyed was the fact that the stairwell was but an inconvenience to her, while Tess was always completely out of whack once they had reached the top. It was the one thing that she could hold over her, and she would be damned if she wasn’t going to enjoy it.

Y/n had never been so disappointed with Tess’s absence before, leaving her alone with Joel, who watched her with a hawk-like gaze, and Ellie, who was most certainly not ignorant to the tension hanging in the air around them and had begun to nervously fidget with her switchblade.

Turning his gaze away from Y/n for a beat, he broke the silence as he watched Ellie begin to flip the blade in the air, “Nice knife. Where’d you learn to do that?”

Ellie scarcely spared him a glance, “The circus.”

Y/n tried her best to cover the wheeze of laughter that escaped her as a cough, though she was certain that it had been entirely fruitless.

Ellie sighed, flipping her blade closed, “Where are you both from?”

Y/n shrugged, “Not far from here.”

Joel hesitated before sighing his answer, “Texas.”

“What about Tess?”

“Detroit, it’s in Michigan.”

“I go to school, I know where Detroit is,” Ellie narrowed her eyes at him, glancing towards Y/n before asking her next question, “So you and her, are you two like a–”

“Pass,” Joel met Y/n’s eyes, almost as if he were offering the answer to her instead. He was beginning to get the idea that, if Ellie was asking the same questions that Y/n had, maybe she hadn’t been in the wrong for asking him for affirmation.

“And you two?”

“Pass,” Y/n cut in, her voice firm and cold. Joel winced at her words, returning to his goal of getting her to meet his gaze once more.

“Okay…” Ellie trailed off, “How’d you end up in Boston?”

“Pass,” Joel answered again, “No more questions about me.”

Ellie dropped her head with a deep sigh before firing her next question, “How long do infected live?”

Joel mocked her, “Oh, I thought you went to school.”

“It’s a really shitty one.”

Joel nodded, “Some last about a month or two, but there’s others that have been walking around here for twenty years.”

“You ever kill one?”

Y/n could tell that Joel was quickly growing tired of these questions–the young girl had more energy and attitude than anyone that the middle-aged man had been forced to deal with in the past five years at the very least. Y/n was probably next in line, but even she didn’t hold a torch to Ellie.

Y/n dropped her gaze to the floor beneath her as she sat criss-cross against the wall. Her fingers traced the patterns in the wood, careful to not give herself any splinters as she picked at the old wood. In all honesty, if she were to die in a freak accident, an infection via splinter certainly beats being ripped apart by cordyceps.

Joel jumped to his feet as groaning came from the room behind them, gun cocked and ready to shoot as Tess called out to him, “Put the fucking gun down, Joel.”

The straight path was blocked by dozens of infected, all thrashing violently against the pavement in a hypnotic rhythm. Y/n hadn’t seen anything like that before–hell, the only times that she left the QZ was to visit Bill and Frank, and the infected seemed to be quite scarce on that route. With no other option, Joel led the group to the museum, which stood as their only chance of reaching the Capitol building.

Y/n had never actually dealt with many infected before, which was something that she had quite often forgotten about. Even before she had lived in the QZ, she was far too young to have fought any off, and the few times that she’d gotten to leave the QZ, the journey was more often than not quite uneventful. She never truly understood how little she actually knew about these things until she had overheard Ellie’s pestering about them; anything that she knew would have come from either her brother, who wouldn’t have known much himself, or from Joel and Tess, who weren’t too keen on recounting their runs when they arrived back.

From the little that she had actually dragged out of the man, Y/n had developed an understanding that clickers were some of the most horrifying creatures out there, though not even that understanding was enough to prepare her for the bone-chilling sound as one turned into the room, blindly staggering around in search of something to tear apart. She held her breath as bile threatened to bubble up her throat as she pressed her back up to the glass case, closing her eyes as it staggered out in front of her. She raised her hand up to cover her mouth and clamped her eyes shut, her spare hand cradling the small gun that Joel had given her to her chest.

Her flashlight had been abandoned, having dropped and rolled across the floor during the chaos that had ensued once the clickers had finally recognized their presence, leaving her entirely in the dark and alone. Thankfully, she had not heard anyone being ripped limb from limb just yet, so at least she wasn’t entirely alone–she just had no idea where any of them may have been hiding.

The clicker circled back, stumbling eerily close to her as it passed, fortunately just far enough that it could not detect her as she slumped into the glass case. She let out a small breath of relief, waiting a few beats after the clicking sounded far enough away to take a few cautious steps out, scanning the room frantically for any signs of life. Y/n extended her palms out in front of her, carefully feeling for any obstacles that may have appeared in her path, making her way out into the hallway and into the largest room at the very end.

Y/n sighed in relief as she caught sight of Joel creeping across the very same room, making his way over to where Ellie had curled into a ball on the floor. Her lips parted, initial instinct to yell out to him dying on her lips as the same gut-clenching clicking reappeared, only this time coming from directly behind her.

The young woman scampered in the opposite direction of Joel and Ellie, wandering further into the gallery as quietly as she possibly could, cringing as she glanced back and recognized the clicker’s shadowy figure following blindly behind her in the darkness. In a fearful panic, her steps grew quicker, then came to a screeching halt when she felt the weight of a large ceramic vase against the toe of her boot. Her hand flew out in front of her, grasping through the darkness in a last-resort to prevent it from falling, proving fruitless as the deafening shatter reached her ears.

A choked sob escaped her lips as she froze, turning to glance over her shoulder as the clicker released a guttural shriek before bounding in her direction. Y/n yelped, body frozen in fright as its rotten body slammed into hers, crashing through a glass display and driving her into the hard stone flooring as it snapped its teeth, desperate to tear the flesh away from her bones.

Her vision was fuzzy, a warm sensation flooding over her face from the impact of her head hitting the floor as she struggled to hold its face away from her with one hand, the other scrambling to find her gun, having lost it amongst the glass covering the floor. A fearful cry left her lips, fingers grasping a large shard of glass and driving it into the base of the clicker’s neck–not enough to kill it, but enough to allow her enough time to crawl away from it. Her hands finally met with the cold metal of her gun, raising it and firing several shots blindly as the creature came down on her once more, dropping limply against her own figure.

Y/n glanced up, finding the familiar figure of Joel, rushing towards her as he slung his rifle over his shoulder, shoving the dead corpse away from her and dragging her back to her feet. She gasped at the speed of his movements, dizziness settling in as she slumped into his chest, thankful that he was allowing her the moment to recover.

The moment was short lived, as the second clicker emerged from the hall, attracted by the noise caused during Y/n’s scuffle, rushing at the pair with an animalistic rage. Joel pushed her behind him, reaching for his rifle when Tess appeared, a hoarse yell leaving her throat as she jammed an axe into the side of its head, distracting it just long enough for Joel to fire two final shots. Y/n gasped in relief as it slumped to the floor in a bloody heap of fungus, cringing at the sight.

Joel turned back to her, hand coming up to cradle her jaw as he shone his flashlight on her face, “Did it get you?”

She gulped, “No, I don’t think so.”

“Definitely a concussion,” He grunted, a frown appearing on his face as his gaze flickered up to the crimson liquid that had begun to seep down from her hairline, “Damn it.”

“I’m fine–I will be fine,” Y/n grumbled under her breath as he prodded at the wound, smacking his hand away defiantly, turning to find the youngest of the group looking bewilderedly down at the two corpses, “Ellie, are you okay?”

The girl snapped out of her trance, wide eyes focusing on Y/n as she checked over her for any obvious wounds, “Well, I didn’t shit my pants, so…”

The older of the two grasped her arm, noting the dark stain against the red fabric of her sweater and dragged it up, hissing when she found the recognizable shape of a bite mark in her flesh.

“You gotta be fucking kidding me,” Ellie grunted, pulling her arm away to inspect it herself with a grimace, “I mean, I guess if it was gonna happen to one of us…”

“Tess,” Joel’s voice drew her gaze over to the oldest of the three women, “You okay?”

Tess rested her hands on her knees, bent over as she gasped to catch her breath, “Yeah, just a sprained ankle.” She hissed as she put more weight onto her ankle, pushing herself up to stand straight, “Whatever, let’s just get the fuck out of here.”

The sunlight caused the throbbing in the base of Y/n’s skull to intensify worse than she could have imagined, her hand carefully reaching back to cradle her own head with one hand while she pressed the sleeve of her jacket to the wound on her forehead, thankful that the blood had already begun to dry on her flesh.

Joel was at her side, forcing her to sit against the shingles of the roof as he took over, inspecting the cut carefully.

Her eyes squinted up at him, vision still a bit hazy and senses slightly off. Her heart pounded against her ribcage as the adrenaline that had rushed through her veins began to wear off, allowing a dull ache to begin to spread through her entire body. She’d dealt with a lot in her relatively short lifespan so far–hell, she’d been beaten half to death before, but nothing had quite inspired so much fear in her as she had felt while lying helplessly beneath the clicker.

“How do you feel?”

She shrugged, “Dizzy.”

“How dizzy?”

“Fucking dizzy. I’ll be fine in a little bit,” She sighed, leaning into his touch, “I have some pills in my pack, grab them for me?”

He obliged, rummaging through the bag before offering a handful of small white tablets, watching as she carefully swallowed two, “You’re sure you’re okay?”

She smiled softly at him as she reached a hand up to stroke his cheek, probably the kindest and most affectionate motion she’d offered him all day, “I’m sure. I’ve lived through a lot worse, remember?”

The crease between his brows deepened as he recalled the first memory he had of her, laying limply on his couch as he and Tess took turns nursing her back to health. He nodded slowly, turning his face in her grasp to press a small, almost nonexistent kiss to her palm before standing to his full height and helping her to her feet.

“I’ll-uh,” She glanced across to where Ellie had wandered to the neighbouring rooftop, “I’ll go keep an eye on her, you help Tess with her ankle?”

He nodded again, watching as she cautiously and nervously crossed over to the other side and letting out a sigh of relief once she set foot on the cement.

“You doing okay?” Y/n took a seat on an old crate next to Ellie, eyes cast out over the cityscape.

“Shaken up. I’ve never seen anything like that before.”

Y/n let out a breath, “Me neither.”

Ellie turned to her, “Really? I thought you guys were like, super cool, action hero smugglers or something.”

“Action hero smugglers?” Y/n repeated, chuckling under her breath, “I’m sorry, I have no idea where you would have gotten that idea. Besides, I can count the number of times I’ve left the QZ on one hand, and none of those times has been anything like this. Joel and Tess do most of the runs, I just do little things here and there to help them out.”

Ellie’s surprised expression faded into one of complete seriousness, “Can I ask you a question? Like a real one?”

Y/n shrugged, “Shoot.”

The younger girl squirmed slightly, discomfort clear on her face as she considered exactly how to word her question without offending her too much, which was considerably out of character for her, “Why are you with them?”

Y/n furrowed her brow, “What do you mean?”

“Tess and Joel,” She nodded her head backwards to motion to the other two, who were still on the rooftop of the museum, “I mean, no offence, but they kinda treat you like shit.”

Y/n exhaled through her nose, shifting her gaze down to her fingers as she began to pick at the skin around her nail beds, “Ellie that’s–it’s complicated.”

Ellie pursed her lips, “Sorry, I just–if you and Joel are…I just think you could do better.”

Y/n frowned, gnawing on her bottom lip as she floundered for a response. She glanced back over her shoulder once more, eyes falling on Joel as he crossed over the wobbly ladder-turned-bridge. She sniffed, wiping her nose on the sleeve of her jacket before finally muttering her response.

#character:joel miller #fandom:the last of us #rating:g

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mini-ranger-recs · 2 years ago

Note

This might single-handedly launch me back into an OBX phase I love JJ so much

And one more if you’re up to it!

First argument with JJ Maybank and “You’re being mean.”

Maybe it’s something to do with his dad, like JJ just doesn’t want you involved with that but you obviously care about him so it starts an argument where the prompt comes in

OH YES WITH THE JJ REQUEST I LOVE YOU

"I just want to help!" I shout after JJ as he pushes his bedroom door shut, almost shutting it directly in my face. I scoff, pushing the door open with a shocked look as I shut the door behind me, watching JJ with a concerned expression.

"You're nagging, babe. I love you, you know I do but I'm not up for this." He holds his hands up in surrender, the dark black eye forming around his eye only growing by the minute and so does the pit in my stomach.

"Up for what? Talking and sharing, bullshit, JJ-"

"Y/n, please. Just leave me alone." He snaps and my lips part in shock, not used to him speaking to me like this. He's never this frustrated to the point where he takes it out on me, always going to shoot his gun or punch a tree or something stupid. It's never me who he takes it out on.

"Wow." I whisper, feeling my hands shake at my sides.

"What now?" He scoffs, eyes rolling as he plops down on the side of his bed with a sarcastic smile. He shakes his head and fists his hair between his fingers, pulling lightly.

"Stop-"

"I told you I didn't want to talk about it okay? Let it the fuck go." There's a hint of annoyance to his already pissed off tone and I feel like a child who's slowly shrinking in on themselves, my arms reaching up to fold around me as tears fill my eyes. "Why are you crying?" He asks, completely oblivious to his tone and how he's making me feel.

"You're being mean." I whimper, sucking in a gasped whimper as his brows relax, face dropping in a look of sudden realization. "I'm the only one you've got, Maybank. Push me away, fine. Fuck." I spin around on my heel, rushing towards the door as tears stream freely down my cheeks but before I can escape, his fingers are wrapping around my wrists.

"Wait, Y/n." He whispers, spinning me in his gasp as his hands reach up to cup my cheeks, trapping me and my gaze. "I'm sorry, shit." His thumbs brush away my tears and I sniffle pathetically, watching his once cold gaze turn to sadness and disappointment but only in himself.

"You don't have to be like this- all closed up and cold." I mutter against his shirt, wrapping my arms around his neck to soothe myself. "I just wanna help." Sobs wrack my back as he rubs the back of my head, pressing simple kisses to the top of my head as his heart rate calms.

"You do help, I'm sorry." His voice is heavy with regret and he steps away from me, hands slipping down my arms to take my hands in his. "Can we talk about it in the morning? Right now I just want to go to sleep, with you next to me, and relax as much as I can." He explains and I nod, a soft smile slipping across my lips, just happy that he chose to communicate and calm down a bit. "Tomorrow we'll open that can of worms."

"Okay." I whisper, allowing him to lead me over to the bed. "You still love me?" I ask with a small pout but he's quick to kiss it away, smiling against my lips as he pulls me down onto the bed beside him.

"I love you more than anything." He whispers, arms resting behind his head.

"More than weed?" I ask with a sneaky grin and he winks at me with a simple shake of his head.

"Oh now you've gone too far."

-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o- Taglist: @bubblebuttwade @rafelover2405 @leslienjazzy @sorceresss @grxnde-dwt @alex–awesome–22 @bunnietoof @niyamar1e @serialghost @plantlungs @geniusohn @akaliltimmytim @lilaalouuxx @xshariex @elliotsbeigeguitar @elle4404 @lelieja @srhxpci @joselyn001 @taysirene @spinkspanther @thedivineuphoria @peter-maximoffs @tsukishimawhore @poohkie90 @szlaco @distantsighs @nstyles4299 @wolflover384 @givemefoodandlovesstuff @vane28282 @yeswhatever33 @amirrahfranson @vvaalleennttiinna @f-mu @yaspillz @jeyramarie @skylievin@abbybarnes17 @jointherebellion215 @visiondaddy @steezysimfinds @its-ya-gay-boi-luigi @crunchytoenailsyum@glizzymcguirex @beth123lg @melovesmut @rafecameronswhore @ariianelle @write-from-the heart @vampviolets@haylee-e @honee-chai-tea @lokiandbuckywife

@officiallyunofficialperson@heyaitsklaudia@rosepetalsparks @bluetreecloud20 @scenesofobx @double-shot-of-tequila @1dluver13xx @colbysbrocks @iamasimpingh0e @loveshineslikethesky @id-3-kbro @diorsitgirl @errorfound101-allideasburnedout @neverwillknowme18 @ellyskey @taylors-folk @loversjoy @myaloveee @thyris-is @lagataprrr @aaaaslaaaan @witxhy-lexx @minjix @luvroseee @tee-swizzle @savageneversaw @admiringlove @hysteriahall @piceous21 @starlightandfairies @igotmajordaddyissues @drewstarkey-wife1 @manyfandomsfanvergent @revesephemeres @bungunz

#fandom:outer banks #character: jj #rating: g

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mini-ranger-recs · 3 years ago

Text

where you go (i will go) — part xvi

Summary: With assistance from Destiny, your war with Desire finally comes to an end.

Words: 10.0k+

AN: It's all come down to this. I hope you all enjoy. x

masterlist

. . .

“All I really know is that you’re where I wanna go,

The part of me that’s you will never die;

So when I’m all choked up, but I can’t find the words,

Every time we say goodbye baby it hurts;

When the sun goes down, and the band won’t play,

I’ll always remember us this way.”

Always Remember Us This Way, Noelle Johnson

. . .

part xvi

The seven Endless. Destiny. Death. Dream. Destruction. Despair. Desire. Delirium.

Of the seven anthropometric beings, Destiny was the most mysterious to you. Funny, considering your paths had been irrevocably intertwined for millenia. He was responsible for your creation, the ultimate source of your daily duties. And yet, you’d never spoken with him, let alone seen him, in all of your divine existence.

You suppose it’s only fitting, then, that you should finally meet.

When you open your eyes, the Garden of Forking Ways greets you. You’ve heard myths of its serene beauty, but nothing could have prepared you to witness its splendor in person. The expansive garden you find yourself in is low and flat compared to the green hills and snow-dipped mountains that climb upward and outward far in the distance. A pale mist settles in the nooks and crannies of the elevated landscape, partially enshrouding the remnants of monuments, citadels, and temples that dapple the mountainsides. The sky is a peaceful robin’s egg blue.

And then, there are the walkways. Paths made of yellow sandstone curl and twist and cut across the garden, branching off into walkways that lead in multiple directions. If you squint hard enough, you can see them curl up and over the hillsides, only to disappear into the mist settling over the mountains.

“It is said that decisions made in Destiny’s garden determine future paths, ward,” the Crone had advised as she rested a wrinkled hand upon your forehead, preparing to send you here. “Choose wisely.”

You spin in a slow circle, observing all of the possible forks and branches you can take. No path looks particularly different than another.

And so, you just start walking.

The air is cool and crisp as you wind down the paths that curl over the grass. It’s at the edge of the garden that you reach your first fork in the path. One sandstone walkway snakes toward a set of crumbling ruins to your right, while the other curls around a towering stone temple to your left.

How am I supposed to decide? you wonder, glancing back and forth between the two options before you. Did your choices here really matter as much as the Fates had said? Or was it all just tall tales and mythology?

With a deep breath, you close your eyes in contemplation. There’s a peace that comes from removing the sight of the options in front of you. It allows you to think clearly, to look inward rather than outward.

Standing at the fork in the path, you draw in deep lungfuls of the crisp air. The only sound that meets your ears is the soft whisper of your breathing.

There. A tiny shift, almost imperceptible, twinges within your chest. It beckons you to the left, toward the towering stone temple.

When you open your eyes, you take the path to the left with confidence.

As you walk along the outside of the temple, you alternate between glancing down the sloping hills to your right and into the open corridors of the temple to your left. Each time, you wonder if you might spot Destiny. But each time you find yourself alone, a solitary figure wandering amongst the Endless’s Garden of Forking Ways.

It’s not the end of the world, you suppose. It gives you time to think of what’s to come. Time to ponder how you’re going to plead your case to the Endless.

The day you’d died and been reborn, the Fates had declared that your fate was written in the book of Destiny of the Endless. Millenia spent walking as an immortal had taught you its true name: The Book of Souls. It was the book that your daily assignments were based on. A tome bound in leather made from a beast that had never been born. The book within which all things existed, the book that contained the fate of all things past, present, and future.

The fates of all eros, philia, philautia, erotoropia, storge, pragma, and agape bonds were in that book. The fates of all of Desire’s bonds were in that book.

The universe required balance between love and desire. Shifts and changes tipped the scales in either direction at any given moment. Balancing these scales was an ongoing challenge, and would be until the end of time. But only as long as you were working blind, like you were now. You were working with limited information, fulfilling the steps in years-long prophecies on a day-to-day basis. Meanwhile, Desire did as they pleased, placing attachments without any regard for the scales at large.

And that was the heart at the center of your theory. What if changing the process by which you worked could turn the tide? What if you could see the future of love and desire on the grandest scale, all at once? You could find the balance between the two. You could determine the events that needed to occur to ensure this balance was fulfilled. You could foster and protect and insure your attachments in advance, so that nothing could prevail against them.

Maybe you could even protect your own.

Do you really think you can succeed? the accursed voice of doubt whispers in the back of your mind. Your power had grown exponentially over the past several months. Each bond you fostered felt more concrete than ever before. You were capable of breaking Desire’s bonds now, too, though it came at a cost.

You weren’t sure what the cost of a feat like this would be, or if you could even pull it off. But you had to believe that you could. To protect the love bonds of humanity for the remainder of time. To finally escape from Desire’s grasp, to make you an equal in their eyes. To protect Dream.

When you round the corner of the stone temple, you come to a halt.

You’ve walked onto another flat, expansive garden off the side of the temple. Lining the side of this garden, however, is a row of towering statues carved from pale stone. All but one stand facing the temple. As enormous as they are, their features are easily recognizable to you from afar: Destiny, Death, Dream, Destruction, Despair, Desire, and Delirium.

All paths lead back to him.

Your feet carry you toward the effigies in a trance. You’d once heard that, if you stood watch in Destiny’s garden long enough, you’d notice the statues’ almost imperceptible movements. They weren’t just sculptures, after all. They were manifestations, meant to mirror the condition of their living counterparts.

When you come to a stop directly in front of Dream’s sculpture, you find his head downturned, his carved stone eyes gazing directly at you.

“Oh, Dream.”

Your palm comes to rest against the cool stone of the effigy’s shoe gently, as if to comfort him. If you were to make things right–if you were to free humanity, Dream, and yourself from Desire’s meddling–this needed to work. You needed Destiny’s assistance.

Dream had once told you that his elder brother made no mistakes. You wonder if Destiny of the Endless will deem your plan as just or foolish. You wonder if he expects you here now.

��Greetings, Agape, Goddess of Love.”

You spin so haphazardly that your soul is nearly flung from your body. “Son of a—so you all like to do that, do you?”

Destiny of the Endless towers before you, his head slightly bowed, the upper half of his features cloaked in shadow. “I have been awaiting your arrival,” he says, his voice low and measured.

Well, that answers that question.

Standing before the being who foretold your creation, one of the eldest beings in the universe, you observe his features for the first time. Destiny easily towers over you by at least a foot. His slim form is cloaked in beige robes, his bare feet resting lightly atop the path you both stand upon. The hood of his cloak is drawn low over his face, concealing his eyes from you. His shoulders, though broad, are slightly hunched from eons spent crouched over the Book of Souls. The hefty tome itself is tucked under his arm. The chain that permanently links it to his wrist glints in the sunlight.

To stand in his presence is both awe-inspiring and disconcerting. He was one of the most powerful and ancient beings in existence, after all. Your entire life–past, present, and future–was contained in the book held under his arm, the subject of his musing on any given day. If you thought Dream’s presence was otherworldly, then Destiny’s aura is transcendent, almost alien.

In spite of the obvious dominion he holds over you, Destiny does not appear haughty. Though no smile graces his wrinkled face, his expression–what you can see of it, anyway–appears calm, reposed. Something in the back of your mind tells you he is appeased by your arrival, the fulfilling of a prophecy he’s likely known about since his first breath.

With a deep, calming breath, you offer him a small smile. A gesture of good will. “Well, if you’ve been expecting me, then I suppose you also know why I’m here.”

Destiny’s thumb trails along the spine of the Book of Souls, back and forth. “Your arrival and intentions are within the scheme of things, all of which are known to me,” he says. He speaks with a perfect and polite intonation, almost as if reading from a script. You wonder how many times he’s read of this encounter, if he’s ever rehearsed these lines. “Regardless, I invite you to state your intentions for visiting me, as has been foretold.”

There is a twitch at the corner of your mouth, the beginnings of a smile. There’s something about Destiny that stands out to you. This regality, this formality, this neutrality–it reminds you of Dream, particularly when you first met him. You can’t help but smile in full at the realization.

“I’d like to look in your book, if it is the universe’s will,” you say, sounding far more confident than you expected to.

There is a long pause as Destiny considers you. Only the soft whisper of the breeze and the friction of his thumb against the leather book spine intrude upon the silence. “And what is it you wish to find?” he asks, even though he already knows.

It feels like the two of you are fulfilling roles in a play. You off-handedly wonder if it’s a comedy or tragedy. “I’m sure you’re aware that, since my creation, I’ve been at odds with your younger sibling, Desire. I’ve often struggled to maintain balance between the scales we share. Admittedly, I used to think that love should prevail over desire in all circumstances. But now, I see things differently. My abilities have grown in recent months. I hope to use my new power to establish balance between love and desire. Not just now, but forever.” You work your jaw, mulling over how to word your request. “Right now, I fulfill attachments on a day-to-day basis. I can see the needs of the present, but not the futures that my people are moving toward. If I can learn the fates of humanity’s attachments from your Book of Souls, I believe I can preset and guard the final outcomes of my attachments. In particular, eros, philia, and agape.”

Destiny’s head tilts ever so slightly. “I see the assurance of your function in this plan. But what of my sibling’s?”

“Eros, philia, and agape have always been close to my heart. Romantic love, soul ties, and selfless love–they're three of the most powerful forms of love in existence. Their fulfillment must be assured. Desire will be free to influence mortals in their philautia, erotoropia, pragma, and storge attachments. It will be a trade. A balance.” A heavy pause. You nibble at the inside of your cheek anxiously. “I hope.”

“You fulfill your role well,” Destiny muses. He inclines his chin slightly, as if to get a better look at you. As his hood lifts, you catch a glimpse of his eyes for the first time. Clouded with a milky white film, they appraise you as if they are perfectly clear. “I must confess, it was unexpected to see the Book of Souls prophesy the transformation of a human into a deity. I did not doubt its words, but it was surprising, nonetheless.”

Destiny’s words hang in the air, settling over you quietly. Under the subject of his sightless gaze, you suddenly do not feel like a deity, or a goddess, or a diplomat pleading the case of her function. You feel like yourself, like someone with endless questions, finally coming face-to-face with the one who holds all the answers. A mortal standing in the presence of omnipotence.

“Why let it all play out this way? Pitting a goddess against an Endless?” You gesture to the statue of Desire that stands towers above you several paces away. Their likeness carved in stone is almost as unsettling as it is in life. “The power imbalance is too great. Even now, this plan of mine is just a theory. I don’t know for certain that it’s going to work.” You pause, working your jaw, mulling over how much to say, how big of a risk to take. “It’s unfair,” you finally dare to accuse.

For a moment, Destiny is still as the stone effigy of him that oversees the garden. When he does finally move, it is to draw the Book of Souls out from under his arm. His palm sweeps over the bronze leather cover with reverence. “I do not dictate the Book of Souls; it dictates me. I do not choose what is to happen; I am the Keeper that ensures all happens as it should.” Destiny’s eyes drift from the tome in his hands to you. In spite of his blindness, there’s something about his gaze that makes you feel as if he sees straight through to your soul. When he speaks again, his tone is low, matter-of-fact, absolute. “All has unfolded as it was meant to, and all is as it should be. There is a reason for all things, but not all are meant to know the reason.”

Your mouth opens on instinct as a protest leaps to your tongue. However, you catch yourself, pressing your lips together quickly. You were speaking with Destiny of the Endless, keeper of the past, present, and future of the universe. You were already asking for far too big of a favor, for far more than you had ever heard of Destiny bestowing upon another being. Best not to press your luck with protests.

“There is one piece of information you withhold from me,” Destiny says. “There is one being for whom you wish to protect all attachments. Is there not?”

Your heart flutters in your chest. He’s found you out, your mind chides anxiously, frazzled with nerves. But, then again, could you really be all that surprised? He was Destiny of the Endless. Knowing everything was his function.

It’s pointless to lie. And so, you don’t. “Yes,” you breathe past the vice that grips your throat. “Love is about being selfless. I’ve tried to be selfless all my life. Just once…I want to do something selfish. I need to protect him.”

A quiet hum rumbles in Destiny’s chest. You’re not sure if it’s one of amusement, consideration, or displeasure. When he speaks again, there is no anger in his voice. You hope it is one of the former options. “Your desire to protect him regardless of the cost is a mortal quality. The preservation of your mortal qualities into your divine existence was long foretold. They have made you a more effective deity to your people.” A brief pause. A sweep of his hand over the Book of Souls. “They were essential to your connection with him, as well.”

Destiny inclines his head to look above you, past you. When you follow his milky white gaze, you find yourself staring at the statue of Dream. It still looks at you.

Understanding settles into your heart, soft, soothing, and supple. You turn from Destiny then, resting your palm against the smooth stone cloak clothing Dream’s effigy. Where was he now, at this very moment? Was he thinking of you, as you were thinking of him? Did he miss you like you missed him, with a physical force both sweet and painful? Could he feel it through the bond you shared?

“Was I always meant to love him?” you ask, your voice scarcely more than a whisper. Under the gaze of Dream’s sculpture, you feel soothed, at peace. You suspect you could remain here forever, never looking away. “From the moment I was born mortal, was it always meant to be this way?”

“You will soon learn.”

Hope sparks in your heart at Destiny’s words, bright and jarring. Still, you trail your fingers down the cloak of Dream’s statue slowly, fondly, before you turn to him. “You’re going to let me read your book, then,” you say, a hint of a question in your statement.

Destiny’s clouded gaze holds yours as he extends the Book of Souls to you. The links in the chain binding him to the tome ring as he does so. “All is as it should be,” he says simply.

Your eyes don’t stray from his as you take the volume from him with gentle hands. In spite of its size, it’s not as heavy as you would have expected, especially for carrying the entire record of the known and unknown universe. Though the book now rests in your hands, Destiny’s chain extends between you, still binding him to it. A reminder that you are only borrowing his function. A reminder of the significance of this gift he’s giving you.

No matter what it takes, you won’t let it go to waste.

Your eyes fall closed as you inhale deeply. As the pages of the Book of Souls flutter open under your touch, the sweet scent of ink and paper greets your nose. When you flatten your hand atop the open page before you, it’s with conviction.

Show me.

With an exhale, the world around you disappears.

. . .

When the Book of Souls pulls you in, it’s as if you’ve been plunged into lukewarm water. Though the world you float in is neither hot nor cold, it’s no less jarring. When you try to draw in a breath, your lungs refuse. When you open your eyes, you find nothing but solid, suffocating darkness. Your palm won’t lift from the page it rests on.

For a brief, terrifying moment, panic surges through you. You’ve felt like this before—trapped in darkness, unable to move, robbed of air. It’s almost too much, too quickly.

But then, a familiar feeling surfaces. A stirring in your chest, a hum that calls from your heart like the sweetest song. A sensation you haven’t felt in weeks. That you haven’t felt since you last saw Dream.

The answer is here.

Show me, you speak into the darkness, sweeping your palm over the book’s ancient pages. Show me what I need to see.

Fulfilling your function has always been a visual endeavor. Fostering attachments, placing premonitions in dreams—it all required the ability to picture events in your mind, to imagine the future transpiring as you saw fit.

But this—this is different. This isn’t visual—this is a feeling. Standing at the center of the universe, you feel attachments unfurl around you. Expanding outward, they curl and curve and twist like the Garden of Forking Ways. Glowing brightly amidst the darkness, the threads of white, red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and purple spring outward like tree roots. When they reach their destination, a glowing outline of the mortal they belong to springs to life. Suddenly, you’re no longer alone, as millions upon millions of souls are revealed in the darkness. The threads continue to unspool, gaining speed, connecting mortals in an intricate web of divine design, expanding onward and onward and onward—

And suddenly, stillness breaks the rush of momentum. A soft gasp escapes you as you watch seven radiant threads unfurl from your own chest. Philia. Eros. Philautia. Erotoropia. Storge. Pragma. Agape.

They stretch outward, seven lights that outshine the darkness. When they find their home, a familiar silhouette burns to life. Tall and slender, with a wild mop of hair. When his radiant silhouette is complete, he turns toward you.

And you smile.

. . .

Retracting your hand from the Book of Souls feels like coming up for air. You heave in great gulps of it as your eyes fly open and the book falls shut between your hands. In a daze, you look around, gathering your bearings. When your eyes rest on Destiny, you find him watching you expectantly.

“Wow. You do that all day, every day?” you ask, still trying to catch your breath.

“I suspect my experience looking into the Book of Souls is different than yours, but yes,” Destiny says, his voice matter-of-fact. “To do so is my function, and my function is my purpose.

Yep, he’s definitely Dream’s brother.

You hand the Book of Souls back to him with care. As it leaves your hands, you feel lighter and heavier all at once. The knowledge you’ve gleaned from it burns at the forefront of your mind. Now that it’s back in Destiny’s possession, a realization settles over you. “You know how this is all going to end,” you say quietly.

Destiny returns the Book of Souls to its rightful place under his arm. His thumb sweeps over its leather spine with something like fondness. “I do,” he says.

“And I don’t suppose you’d be willing to give me a head’s up about anything?”

There is an understanding in the silence between you.

“I’ll try my best to do right by your book. And both of your siblings. I assure you,” you say, offering the Endless a firm nod. Then, you lift your chin, preparing to make one last request. “Before I leave, I do need your help with one last thing.”

“I know.”

. . .

The coffee shop buzzes with quiet chatter as you step through the front door. In another time–in what seems now like another life entirely–you would have been eager to approach the counter and find a unique item on the menu to try. The local special, something you couldn’t get anywhere else.

But today, your mind is not on coffee. You are focused on how the hum of conversation and the movement of patrons through the small shop will make it easy for you to slip away unnoticed. Your conversation with Destiny from mere hours ago plays on a loop in your mind.

“The scales of love and desire lie within the pane where the Realm of Attachment and the Threshold meet. The sharing of your scales allows both you and Desire to traverse one another’s realms. Desire crosses this boundary each time they venture into yours.”

“But how do I find the pane? I’ve never seen the place where our realms meet.”

“How do you normally travel to your realm?”

When your fingers graze the shoulder of a mother sharing a muffin with her young son, your touch is featherlight, unnoticeable. The Realm of Attachment beckons you, urging you to step into this coffee shop on another plane of existence. When you reach out and through her, however, you don’t simply seek the alternate reality of this shop. Instead, you have a specific destination in mind.

Take me to the place where the Realm of Attachment and the Threshold meet.

A warm breeze ghosts across your cheeks, dancing through your hair. When you open your eyes, the sight that greets you steals the breath from your lungs.

The world you’ve stepped into has been split in two. The half on which you stand is a kaleidoscope of colors, an intricate web of red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, and white threads that braid and twist and intertwine. The tapestry they weave is radiant, prismatic, as intricate and delicate as the fibers of a human iris.

As the threads stretch out before you, however, they begin to bleed like watercolors. Where the threads blur and dissipate, clouds form in their place. Far in the distance, a humanoid citadel rises up from within them. Hands outstretched toward the sky, an enormous heart lies exposed in the center of its chest. Even from this distance, you can see the pulse of each heartbeat. You can even make out the familiar features on the citadel’s face.

“So, this is how you’ve been visiting me all this time,” you whisper into the open air. As your feet carry you forward, toward the place where your worlds melt into one another, your hand rises of its own accord. When you extend your palm forward, you feel it rest on a flat surface that is invisible to the eye, but cool to the touch. Like a window between worlds.

When Destiny had referenced a pane, it seems he’d meant it literally.

“Fancy meeting you here, darling.”

At the familiar sing-song of Desire’s voice, you immediately pull your palm from the invisible pane. Turning to your right, you watch as the Endless walks toward you, feet ghosting over the clouds with feline grace. That was the thing about windows, you supposed–they worked both ways.

Throughout your divine existence, you’ve had many encounters with Desire. Often, they incited feelings of panic, terror, anger, or annoyance. But today, it is an eerie sense of calm that settles over you as the Endless approaches. You wonder if they can sense it.

“Correct me if I’m mistaken, but it appears that you and my dear brother Dream have had a falling out,” Desire coos, drifting from cloud to cloud like a phantom clothed in black. When they come to a stop across from you, they place their hands on their narrow hips, golden eyes wide and flashing. “You just can’t play along, can you?”

You draw in a long breath through your nose, exhaling slowly through parted lips. Encouraging yourself to remember what your purpose is, the reason you’ve traveled here. One hand slips into your coat pocket, allowing your fingers to dance across the soft cloth of Dream’s sand pouch. Your memento. Your good luck charm.

In spite of Desire’s taunting, the calm remains.

You suspect your lack of response comes as a surprise, because Desire quirks one eyebrow at you. Slowly, they begin to pace back and forth on the other side of the invisible pane, eying you like a lamb led to slaughter. “No, I suppose you can’t. You’ve always had a little rebel in you, right from the beginning. Normally, I’d find that endearing.” Desire pauses to tilt their head at you. Their tongue flashes over their bone-white teeth. “Please, though–do share, darling. How did it feel to rip my brother’s heart from his chest? To hold it in your hand and squeeze? I’m dying to know.”

Your hand closes around the pouch of sand in your pocket, a subtle movement that maintains your composure. “That’s enough, Desire,” you warn, your voice firm and even.

The Endless’s eyes flash at your retort. Their delicate features contort with agitation. When they speak, their voice is sharp with malice. “Be honest, little goddess. Look at yourself–exhausted, battered, broken, and alone. Was it really worth it? Dying for your dear first love, all those years ago? Just to end up here?”

A thousand memories flash through your mind at Desire’s words, a highlight reel of your entire divine life. A re-living of all the things you would have missed if your life had ended that night by that fire with those hands around your neck. Long conversations with Death at funerals and battlegrounds. The pure elation of fostering billions upon billions of attachments, including Matt and Ava’s. Laughing over cups of hot tea and mugs of cold beer with Hob. Sharing cream cheese and morning cuddles with Theo, basking in the selfless love you shared. Quiet mornings spent reading and organizing the library with Lucienne. Dirty jokes, walks through Fiddler’s Green, and drops of coffee shared with Matthew.

Seeing Dream for the first time, a single run of black ink against a vibrant wall of stained glass. The thinly-veiled awe in his eyes when you’d shown him your world, when he’d locked eyes with you at the wedding in the forest. Marveling at a sky full of stars when he swept you under his cloak. Quiet hums of intrigue as you fed him ideas for new dreams and nightmares. Teal and lavender stardust swirling in his eyes under a midnight sky as you combined your functions to create something new.

The feeling of Dream’s warm palm against your tentative fingers. The silken sense of safety you felt as you sat together on the Dreaming’s beach after a night plagued with memories. Tossing him seashells on the honey-gold beach he’d created for you. The surety that had blazed in his eyes when he’d vowed to protect you. The soft vulnerability in his eyes when he’d admitted that he remembered you.

The sweet cashmere press of his lips against yours. Opening up into each other’s arms on the honey-gold beach under a starlit sky. A vow lovingly whispered into your ear. And the pain that had come after, when the greatest act of love you could give was protecting him by stepping away. It was a love worth giving anything for–worth giving everything for.

It’s time.

You smile. “Yes. Yes, it was.”

And with that, you lift your hand to touch the invisible pane between you.

When your palm rests against its cool surface, you exhale slowly, reaching out, reaching through. Just like you’ve done countless times before. Under your influence, the once-invisible pane shimmers like stars.

Desire’s face falls in an instant. “What are you doing?” they ask, taking a jolting step toward you.

You breathe in and out slowly, maintaining your composure. You can feel the destination that lies not on the other side of the pane, but within the pane. The scales of love and desire call out to you like a song you’ve always known. “I’m ending this,” you say, your voice calm and sure. “I’m balancing our scales once and for all.”

Desire’s eyebrows raise, then furrow. “Impossible,” the Endless spits angrily. “That’s out of your league, darling. You don’t have the strength.”

The small smile that had lifted your lips moments ago evolves into a full-fledged grin. “I guess we’ll see, won’t we?”

Closing your eyes, you begin to reach out, searching for the realm that calls out to you beyond the pane. The sound of Desire drawing nearer makes you pause. You fight the urge to open your eyes, to display any hint of indecision. “No matter what you do, Love, you still won’t escape me. As long as you love my darling brother, I can control him. And you.”

A pressure builds in your chest, bubbling forth until you can’t contain it any longer. Laughter. Tension radiates from Desire at the sound, prickling against your skin. “You see, that’s the funny thing. You can’t. Because if you do, I’ll throw your scales off-balance.” You can feel the Endless drawing nearer, almost close enough to touch. “You shouldn’t have made me leave Dream. Because it gave me so much time to think. So much time to grow stronger. I’m done playing nice, Desire. Dream doesn’t fear you. And now, neither do I.”

Just as you feel the tips of Desire’s fingers swipe across your forearm, you reach out, reach through.

For a moment, you’re falling, falling, falling. The world tips and spins like an aerotrim as you slip into the plane between worlds.

And then, solid ground beneath your feet.

When you first try to open your eyes, the sheer brightness of your surroundings forces you to close them again. It takes several moments for your pupils to adjust to the brilliant white you’re enveloped in. When they do, you find yourself standing in a near-featureless world. There is no ground, no sky, no walls–only a vibrant, endless white that extends in all directions, as far as you can see.

The only occupant of this void besides yourself is the balance scale that towers before you. It’s enormous–easily three times your height. With its gleaming gold construction and intricate engravings, it looks like it was pulled straight from antiquity. The links of chain that support the scale’s pans clink softly as they tip back and forth, constantly in motion.

Above one pan hovers a familiar heart cut from black glass, glowing from within with crimson light. Desire’s sigil. Above the other pan hovers a heart cut from clear crystal. Prisms glisten off its surface, catching and scattering in the white light. Though you’ve never seen it before, you know in your bones that it’s your own.

You watch as the scales tip back and forth almost imperceptibly, responding to the fulfillment and expiration of attachments in real time. In spite of their constant movement, it’s Desire’s pan that hangs lower, outweighing your own. They carry the favor–for now.

Breathless, you gaze at the scales in awe, your lips parted, your jaw slack. The scales of love and desire had been a presence in your life for millennia. And yet, they’d always seemed far off, more of a myth than a reality. To see them in person is stunning, awe-inspiring.

And, above all else, it’s exhilarating. Standing in the scales’ presence is unlike anything you’ve ever felt before. Your power, normally a sweet hum beneath the surface of your skin, is loud, insistent, demanding. It bellows through your veins like a choir, rattling your bones with seismic force. Your fists clench tightly at your sides as the sheer magnitude of it floods your senses. It’s almost too much. But it’s not—it’s exactly enough.

For the first time in your entire immortal life, you truly feel divine.

It’s time to show Desire what you can really do.

You cross the space between yourself and the scales with surety. When your hand rests against the golden support between the two pans, the air is ripped from your lungs with supernatural force. Molten warmth pours through you from your soul to your fingertips, a liquid light that illuminates every nook and crevice, filling you up, up, up. It leaves room for nothing else.

“Show me,” you command with a voice that is both your own and a stranger’s.

In an instant, the once-white world around you is cut through by billions of threads. Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, white, and black. They cross and twine and interlace across every inch of this world, from the heavens above to the expanse beneath your feet.

Your heart sings in their presence, every nerve in your body thrumming like a tuning fork. In spite of the intricate design of the tapestry that surrounds you, you can see who each thread belongs to, and exactly where each one leads. The knowledge that the Book of Souls gifted you burns like a brand upon your mind.

Somewhere out there, seven threads call to you. One in each color of the rainbow. The ones that you and Dream are destined to share.

With a shuddering breath, you pull from within, coaxing the future you saw in Destiny’s book to the forefront. All at once, a billion images flash through your mind. A billion meetings, a billion acts of selflessness, a billion touches, a billion ‘I love you’s.’

Eros, philia, and agape. All of them, for the remainder of time. The seven attachments you’re meant to share with Dream. All waiting to happen. All waiting on your word.

“In this way, it shall be.”

And the world around you rejoices.

Every eros, philia, and agape attachment surrounding you illuminates at once, bathing you in red, white, and gold. Though they’re hidden from your view, you feel your own attachments call out to you, singing songs of gratitude, their voices sweet with joy.

A wave of vertigo washes through you, nearly robbing you of your balance. You grip the pillar supporting the scales with white knuckles, breathless. Before you, the scales creak and groan. Desire’s pan rises slowly as favor tips from their side toward your own, inching closer to balance.

Then, suddenly, it stops. Your eyes dart to the pointer at the top of the support, the piece that indicates whether the scales have reached balance. It remains tilted ever so slightly to the right. Ever so slightly in Desire’s favor.

It’s not enough.

Panic surges through you in a fury, making you hot and dizzy. No, no, this couldn’t be. You hadn’t come this far, hadn’t sacrificed this much, only to fail. You couldn’t fail. You had to succeed for them. For Dream.

Your eyes scan the tapestry of attachments that surround you, desperate for answers. You can sense the threads of desire that are interwoven alongside a multitude of the eros, philia, and agape attachments you’ve just ensured. In spite of your fortification, you know their presence is still a risk, a threat.

There’s only one way to be certain that they’ll never be corrupted by desire, a voice whispers in the back of your mind, it’s tone low and grave.

That wasn’t part of the plan, another retorts, it’s tone urgent, insistent.

Your breath hitches as they bicker. Blood pounds in your ears, the palm of your hand slick with sweat against the golden support of the scale. Unlike the voice of doubt that often whispered in the back of your mind, both of these voices were earnest. They both spoke the truth.

But there was only one way forward. Only one way to put an end to this.

You hesitate for only a moment before flattening your palm against the cool surface of the scale. You hesitate for only a moment before you raise your opposite hand into the air. You hesitate for only a moment before you picture yourself grabbing the threads of desire strung alongside your eros, philia, and agape attachments, and make a fist.

You think of all of them. You think of Dream.

And then, you rip them all apart.

A thousand black threads dissolve from the sky instantaneously. The pan that holds the prism heart shifts downward, falling level beside Desire’s. The scale’s pointer reaches resolution with a resounding ring.

And your body is cleaved in two by a pain unlike anything you’ve ever known.

A brilliant light floods your vision, swallowing the attachments, the scales, everything in sight. In an instant, you’re ripped backwards, as if pulled along by a string. Agony roars through your veins, blistering your nerves like fire, biting at your skin like ice.

When you’re flung back into the Realm of Attachment, it’s on your hands and knees. Your body trembles as you hack and wheeze. You draw your forehead to your knees, curling into yourself, trying to shrink away from the pain. It offers no relief. This isn’t a pain you can shrink away from. This is a pain that comes from within.

Your lungs burn as if lit with kerosene. Your body feels as if it's been drug from a moving vehicle. Blood oozes from your lips in long, sticky ropes. Your eyes throb with exhaustion. When you close them, a familiar darkness swells up to drag you under.

You’ve been here before.

“What have you done?” The roar that reaches your ears is guttural, inhuman. With a moan, you raise your head to look for the source. Several paces away, on the opposite side of the invisible pane that divides your worlds, you find Desire hunched over. Their fingers clutch desperately at their chest, as if in pain.

When their eyes meet yours, there is a fury in them unlike anything you’ve ever seen. Teeth bared like an animal, they straighten, crossing the invisible pane into the Realm of Attachment as if it was nothing. Something instinctive and primal surges through you at their approach, at the sight of their hand reaching toward you. “What the hell have you done, you insolent–”

Adrenaline floods your veins like a drug. In a blink, you’re on your feet. You grip Desire’s forearm with a force that could bruise. “Do not touch me,” you growl through bloodstained teeth.

Desire’s face falls slack at your command, their skin pale as milk. There is something in the pinch of their brows, in the twitch of their eye, in the tightness of their lips, that you thought you’d never see in them. Fear.

Pain pulses at the edges of your awareness, the darkness crowding close behind. They’re present, but distant. Only adrenaline and sheer will keep them at bay. Just a little longer.

Your palm presses against Desire’s chest with trembling fingers. Power thrums through your veins like a heartbeat. You wonder if the Endless can feel it, too. “This is over,” you say, your voice a gurgle in your throat. You swallow down the bitter taste of copper. “Leave. And don’t come back.”

Desire’s golden eyes widen. In an instant, the Endless is ripped from your grip, jerked back into their realm as if attached to their own invisible string. In a blur, they disappear from sight, pulled into the clouds. There is a bright shimmer of silver as the pane that once stood invisible materializes, solidifying into a wall that blocks the Threshold from sight.

You are alone. The world is completely, utterly silent.

You’ve done it.

As the adrenaline wanes from your system, a new sensation rises to take its place. Something so sweet and warm, it’s almost painful. Joy.

A soft laugh of disbelief bubbles up from your throat. It’s cut short by a sharp, piercing pain in your gut, a knife that digs and twists.

You move to take a step, to turn and walk away from the wall that now divides your realm from Desire’s. But it doesn’t come. Instead, you fold like paper, crumpling to the ground. When you try to stand with a groan, your body refuses. Instead, you sink lower.

Your breathing is quick and shallow as you lean back, resting your head against the ground. It feels good to relieve the pressure of gravity from your battered body. Too good. When you close your eyes with a sigh, a numbness creeps into the tips of your extremities. It’s…familiar.

Yes, you’ve been here before. Don’t you remember?

When you’d awoken all those millenia ago to hands around your neck, you’d walked into a future you couldn’t turn back from. You’d had a penchant for doing that all your life. When you’d met Dream. When you’d committed to fighting Desire, whatever the cost. When you’d opened the Dream Lord’s book. When you’d given yourself to him on that honey-gold beach by the sea.

And now, it seems you've done it again.

Woozy and disoriented, you almost swear you feel a rush of hot air by your cheek, accompanied by the familiar sound of Desire’s voice in your ear. “Was it worth it?”

When you open your eyes, you’re alone. The silver wall remains in place, a reminder of what you’ve accomplished.

But it was worth it, wasn’t it? You had accomplished the task you’d set forth to complete. Your function was fulfilled; the eros, philia, and agape attachments that mortals would share for the remainder of time had been fostered, fulfilled, and protected. Any thread of desire that could hope to overthrow them had been destroyed. And you had made your trade, allowing Desire the opportunity to interact with philautia, erotoropia, storge, and pragma attachments, if they so chose. Love and desire co-existing together. A balance.

It was a shame you wouldn’t get to see it for yourself.

And then, of course, there was Dream. The Book of Souls had shown that your life had been fulfilled according to its plan. You were always meant to love him. Always meant to end up here. Your destiny was to share all seven forms of attachment with him. Even if only for a brief time, it was enough. That true, all-encompassing, soul-deep kind of love was one so few got to enjoy. You’d never imagined that such a blessing would be yours.

“Yes,” you whisper into the empty air. “Yes, it was worth it.”

You needed to tell him. You needed to let him know, before it was too late.

Your hand reaches into your pocket with trembling fingers. They slip and fumble as they try to undo the cloth tie on the Dream Lord’s pouch of sand. When you bring a handful of grains to your lips, your tongue feels heavy, your mouth bitter with copper.

“I don’t know if you work the opposite way, but bring me Dream. Please,” you croak. Your lungs wheeze as you send the grains scattering through the air.

The world is still and silent. Though you wait on pins and needles, nothing happens. When the exhaustion behind your eyes becomes too great, you close them.

And that’s when you feel it–a breeze across your cheek, dancing through your hair. A gentle warmth unfurls itself within your chest, sweet as honey, supple as silk. Distantly, you remember crafting Fawn with the Dream Lord on your second visit to his realm. The dream that was meant to make mortals feel weightless and free. If she could have visited your own resting hours, you imagine her presence would have felt like this.

And when you open your eyes, he’s there. Dream of the Endless stands just a few feet away, the back of his long, dripping cloak facing you. Though you can’t see his face, you can sense his surprise. There is a tension in his shoulders as he cranes his neck, looking back and forth, taking in the sight of the silver wall and the rainbow-woven world he’s found himself in.

Then, he turns to you. As he does, he catches sight of the six radiant threads that link you. Red, romantic eros; the white soul-tie of philia; the calming blue of self-love, philautia; the flirty purple of erotoropia; the firey orange of companionship, pragma; and golden, selfless agape. As his eyes follow the trail that connects his heart to yours, the glow of your attachments catch in his pale blue gaze like the aurora borealis. When they rest on you, the outside world melts away, as it always has. Shock, awe, and relief rear in those eyes in equal measure. When the corner of his rosebud lips upturns ever so slightly into the ghost of a smile, it feels like coming home.

It hits you, then, like a freight train, like a ton of bricks. Just how desperately you’ve missed him. Just how raggedly, haphazardly incomplete you’ve been without him. And just how little time you have left.

That’s when he sees them–the bloodstains on your chin. The Dream Lord’s face drains of what little color it has.

“Hey, Dream,” you croak, strumming your attachments with quivering fingers. They glow and sing under your touch, infusing your chest with a warmth that serves as a momentary distraction from the pain in your core, the numbness in your toes. You strum them again. “Surprise.”

The Dream Lord is on you in an instant. Crouching beside you, his hands make a frenzied sweep over your body, searching for wounds. Of course, he’ll find none on the surface. A fresh wave of pain courses through you, sending your eyes rolling into the back of your head. With a grunt, you pull them downward, focusing on him, only him. When your vision clears of stars, he’s looking at you.

“What are these?” he asks, grazing his fingers along the attachments that bind you. When the bonds hum under his touch, his lips part ever so slightly in awe. You can still remember his first visit to your realm, when he’d tried to touch the elderly couple’s philia attachment. The confusion on his face when his hand had passed through it had been amusing, endearing. This was different, though. These attachments were his. They were yours. Together.

In spite of the pain, you smile. The red of your teeth is reflected in his pale eyes. “There may be a couple of things I haven’t told you,” you whisper. The action pulls another round of coughs from you. Blood drips down your chin like saliva.

Dream catches it swiftly, wiping the trail away with the gentle press of his thumb. There is a frenzy in his eyes that you’ve never seen before as he assesses problems and grapples for solutions in real time. You wonder if he’s finding any answers. His voice is tight and forced when he asks, “What has happened?”

The numbness creeps higher, edging into your knees, your elbows. You blink hard, trying to focus, but it’s becoming more and more challenging. The world beyond Dream swims, individual threads blurring together like watercolors. “I did it, Dream. I balanced the scales that Desire and I share forever. I saved them.” Your mind tumbles and spins, thoughts set adrift on a fresh wave of pain. You scramble to gather them. “I saved you.”

You wonder if he thinks you’re delirious from blood loss. A thousand questions wage war in his eyes. “How?” he finally asks.

You offer him a half-hearted grin. “Let’s just say you and your brother are a lot alike.”

Dream’s dark brows draw together, carving wrinkles into his forehead. You imagine yourself spending eternity tracing each one with gentle fingers. Yes–that would be a welcome afterlife. That would make you happy.

“Destiny?” His voice sounds tight, hurt. His blue eyes flash with something sharp and aching. Betrayal. He thinks his brother betrayed him. You shake your head, opening your mouth to tell him otherwise, to explain that this was your plan. Your voice cracks, broken by a fresh spell of coughs that makes the very marrow of your bones throb. When you moan in pain, Dream’s arms slip around you, drawing you close to his chest. You curl into him eagerly. “We must take you to the Dreaming,” he says, his voice insistent, urgent. “You must be healed.”

The earnest determination in the steel of his eyes, in the set of his jaw, makes your heart brim with a painful sort of joy. The numbness creeps forth, stealing the pain from your arms and legs, leaving a blissful nothing in its wake. You release a shuddering breath–part relieved, part terrified. Your eyes prickle and blur. When you blink to clear them, you taste salt. “I don’t think that’s my future, Dream. I…I don’t think I’m gonna get to keep that vow after all.”

Dream’s grip on your body tightens. In that moment, a new sensation grips you. Not pain, not numbness, but panic. Sorrow. When you meet his gaze, his rosebud lips are tight, his eyes glistening and wet. That’s when you realize that it’s him that you’re feeling. You’re feeling his emotions, through the bonds you share.

“No,” he says, his voice firm. He speaks with the authority of a being accustomed to the world bending to his will. “I will not allow it. There must be a way.”

The concoction of fear and desperation in his chest crushes your own, robbing the breath from your lungs. You’d transcend realms and multiverses to wipe the worry from his brow, sacrifice every molecule of your being to ease the tightness in his chest. You don’t have much to give now. But you’ll give him all you can.

It takes every ounce of your waning will to lift your hand to his cheek without crying out. When your palm finds the softness of his cheek, your fingers trace the sharp lines of his nose and jaw with adoration. He leans into your touch with reverence. The shared tightness in your chests eases ever so slightly. You breathe a little more deeply than before.

“Please, Dream. I don’t want to spend this time left on a quest for a cure that doesn’t exist. I just want you.” Your thumb finds the plush swell of his bottom lip, tracing it fondly. When you make your request, your voice is soft and tired. “Take me to the stars, Dream Lord?”

For a long moment, Dream watches you in silence. His eyes flicker back and forth between your own, searching for answers, searching for a way out. You can see the exact moment his determination breaks, the exact moment his eyes dim when he finds none. As his eyelashes flutter closed, as he presses his cheek into the palm of your hand, the first tear falls. It trails down his nose, plipping softly onto your cheek, mingling with your own. And, in that moment, you know he won’t deny your request.

In a slow, practiced movement, the Dream Lord grasps the hem of his cloak, whisking it over the two of you in a flourish. You watch in quiet awe as a blanket of stars unrolls itself around you, encasing you both in the gentle caress of the cosmos. Constellations twinkle brightly overhead. The Milky Way arches over your bodies in a dappled stream of black, purple, and pinprick stars. It reminds you of the nights you spent with Dream on that honey-gold beach, the night he painted you a story in the sky, the night you made your vows to one another. You smile.

You’re not sure what it is about lying amongst the cosmos. Perhaps it’s the peace they instill in you, or the memories you’ve made beneath them, or how being amongst them feels like coming home. But when the numbness overtakes you, dissolving the pain into nothing, it’s not alarming, or frightening. It feels like being embraced by an old friend. Vaguely, you wonder if Death will greet you as you move into whatever lies beyond this. Did she come for gods and goddesses, or only mortals?

Dream must feel the moment the pain dissipates from your body. His hand leaves his cloak in a rush, shifting to cradle your face, instead. Without the pain to ground you, reality is a harder concept to keep a hold of. All at once, the stars above you begin to twist and spin. You blink, hard, but their dance continues. “Thank you. Looking at them…is so calming to me.” Your gaze shifts to the stars in Dream’s eyes, straining to focus. “I told you that once, didn’t I? Do you remember that?”

A thick swallow works down the column of Dream’s throat. “I do,” he rasps, his voice quiet and raw.

Your lips lift in a lazy, contented smile. No longer inhibited by pain, you lift one hand to card your fingers through his wild hair. “I’ve always loved the stars,” you tell him. Your voice sounds far away, sluggish, like it’s been reduced to half speed. “Even…even when I was a mortal. I think.”

Dream exhales quietly, a rush of air that chills the tears drying on your cheeks. His hair is feathers between your fingers. Soft as silk. You want to nestle your nose in it, to press your cheek to it. It would be such a soft place to lay. Such a soft place to go to sleep.

“Look at me, Love.”

And you are. Of course, you’re looking at him–you can’t stop looking at him. Because he’s everywhere. Because he’s everything. Dark, disheveled hair; pale skin; blue eyes; soft lips. You want to kiss him and kiss him until he stops talking. You want to smooth the worry from his pinched brow, to light up his eyes with laughter.

I’ve still never heard him laugh, the realization drifts in from somewhere beyond the stars, settling over you in a daze. Your chest aches at the thought, so much more painful than any wound.

Suddenly, his thumb is brushing your cheek, the other squeezing your shoulder. He’s trying to be gentle, you can tell. You must have dozed off. His voice seems far away now, as if he’s talking through water. You squint your eyes, trying to read his lips. He’s urging you to move, you realize. ‘Moving will keep you alert,’ he’s telling you. But why would you ever want to move from this spot when you can see him so perfectly clearly? You drink him in like a flower in a drought, a drifter in a famine. Memorizing every slope and curve and line as if for the last time, desperately hopeful that you’ll get to take them with you. His voice is a lifeline, but you can feel your grip slipping.

Darkness pulls at the edges of your vision. You can feel the sweet things it promises–rest, rejuvenation, peace. Your hand slips from Dream’s hair to his cheek, holding his gaze to yours. You have to tell him. You have to tell him, before you go.

“I have to tell you something,” you say, your voice scarcely more than a whisper.

The pain in Dream’s eyes is raw and earnest. You can feel it, through the numbness, through your bonds. It settles in the nooks of your heart like the notes of a sad love song, beautiful and devastating, all at once. When you first met him, you had wondered if you’d ever coax him to shed his armor, to be vulnerable with you. Oh, how little you’d known back then.

“Do not.” His plea is quiet, his voice gravelly and broken. “I beg of you.”

Maker, he’s a fool. You know he wants to know. He needs to know.

“I read the Book of Souls, Dream. And it’s all been for you. Every decision, every moment–it all led me to you.” You turn your head slightly, pressing a soft kiss to the palm that cradles your cheek. “I was always meant to be yours. You’re what I was running to, even when I didn’t know it. You are what I was running for. You are my dream, Dream.”

For a brief moment, the torment in Dream’s eyes softens. When his eyes fall to the threads of attachment between you, each one glows brighter under his gaze. He swallows, hard, in understanding.

His body folds over your own slowly, carefully. As if he can shield you from whatever intends to come and claim you. His feather-soft hair tickles your forehead and cheeks as he leans in. His shallow breath is warm and sweet across your skin. When he presses his lips to yours, it feels like a vow, a prayer, a promise. Salt and copper mingle between your lips. When he exhales, you breathe in. You hold his breath in your lungs, a piece of him to harbor close to your heart, to take with you when you go.

“Maybe you’ll be there,” you whisper against his lips. “Maybe I’ll get to dream of you, in whatever lies after this.”

The tip of Dream’s nose trails along your own, then across your cheek. When he finds the tender hollow under your ear, that sacred place that only he knows, he presses his lips into it delicately, adoringly. You close your eyes with a soft, contented sigh.

“There is nowhere you can go that I will not find you,” he breathes against your skin. His voice is raw, but sure. “I will find you.”

Your laugh is weak and breathless, but happy, nonetheless. It feels good to laugh without the pain. The numbness feels good.

“So stubborn,” you chide softly, nestling deeper into his arms. His skin is warm through the thin fabric of his shirt. You press your cheek against it with a sigh. Until there’s no place where you end and I begin. “If anyone could find me, Dream Lord, it would be you.”

His heartbeat is a lullaby in your ear. It coaxes you into a soul-deep sort of contentment, a peace unlike anything you’ve ever experienced. You could stay here with him, in this moment, in this feeling, forever. Is this what falling asleep feels like? “I…”

Th-thump, th-thump, th-thump, th-thump, th–

. . .

#character:dream #fandom:the sandman #rating:g

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