#( thread ‣ barrel. ) | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

stellamarielu · 2 months ago

Text

rusty

jack abbot x female reader

summary: after a dry spell in his sex life, jack would’ve never imagined the next women he’d have naked in his bed would be his favorite first year resident.

content: nsfw, 18+, mdni, resident!reader, touch starved!jack, established relationship, a little bit of fluff smushed in there, but mostly smut, jack being nervous to have sex for the first time in years, but then ofc something in him snaps and he gets a little freaky with it, jack uses the nickname kid for the reader (1) time, also uses the nickname sweetheart, fingering, handjob (if you blink you’ll miss it), p in v sex, dirty talk, condom use and the crowd boos (sorry had to keep it realistic! if i’m having sex with someone for the first time and they’re not wrapping it….questionable)

word count: 4.5k

author’s note: wanted to write something about big tough jack abbot being a little nervy to see you naked but i also wanted to write something about him having an inappropriate relationship with his resident…. so alas this was born. enjoy!

“I haven’t done this in a while.”

The words stumble from Jack’s lips in an exasperated sigh. They nearly get lost between kisses, the confession hidden amidst the steamy exchange as your bodies barrel through his front door.

Reaching up to thread your fingers through the curls at the nape of his neck, your forearms rest on his shoulders to steady yourself as he maneuvers you into his bedroom.

You don’t reply to his admission, just smile into the kiss as your hands trail down his torso finding the hem of his shirt. Your fingertips carefully tracing his skin underneath the material.

He wanted to tell you it had been years since he’d been with a woman like this— wanted to apologize in advance for being a bit rusty, but the light touch of your hands exploring the skin just above the waistband of his pants, had him losing his previous train of thought.

He couldn’t think about how long it’d been since he’d brought a woman back to his place, couldn’t even think about how insanely wrong it was to be kissing you in his bedroom.

With that being said, he should be proud of himself for holding out this long.

It had been months of having you on his shift.

Week after week of watching you prance around the ER with that cute little smile on your face, following every last one of his orders. Always meeting his sarcastic remarks with witty comments of your own, the two of you working effortlessly together like there was some sort of magnetic field between you that pulled him to every case you worked on.

It was so innocent at first, shared inside jokes and granola bars in the breakroom. Him giving you a hard time for your absurd coffee intake through the night, making comments about how the quad shot of espresso you walked in with was going to send you into cardiac arrest.

But then, there was the time he put his hand on your lower back to squeeze behind you at the triage desk. The second his touch met the polyester of your scrubs, applying just enough pressure to seep through the thin fabric, your head turned in his direction.

You didn’t mean to look at him, but you couldn’t help it. His fingers stayed splayed out on your back for one second too long, and your eyes shot to his, the electric current running through your body impossible to ignore.

A sudden tension emerged in the small space between you, his stare raking down your body to where his hand sat just above your waist, taking his time trailing them back up with a knowing smirk on his lips.

The moment was fleeting but it played out in slow motion before his hand was gone and he was breezing past you into the trauma bay.

After that it became a game of cat and mouse, both of you sensing a pull of desire toward the other but almost too afraid to do anything about it.

For Jack, it was because you were his intern, just a first-year resident looking to him for guidance and education. His apprentice. It felt wrong to look at you in any other way. He wouldn’t be able to sleep at night if he took advantage of the obvious power imbalance at play in the situation.

Not to mention he was off his game.

He had no problem coming across abundantly confident at work, but as far as dating went, Jack hadn’t waded into those waters for years. There was a part of him that gave up on his love life. Maybe that’s why he threw himself into work, to avoid the loneliness that found him in his lack of companionship.

You could sense his apprehension.

The way he would subtly flirt with you and then walk away from the conversation like nothing happened. He was trying to avoid the guilt of getting too familiar, but it left you confused about his intentions.

It wasn’t until one morning that you decided to rip off the band aid entirely, asking him to join you for breakfast after your shift.

It was a simple invitation, one that could’ve been strictly friendly, but the way he smiled when you asked, looking around to see if anyone else heard, told you it was the start of something else entirely.

And it was.

The two of you went to breakfast, talking for hours in a corner booth, over a stack of pancakes and a few slices of bacon.

It was the first time you saw each other outside of the hospital.

Everyone else in that restaurant could recognize the two of you for what you were; happy. Finding joy in each other’s presence through constant laughs and affectionate smiles. But Jack couldn’t see it that way— couldn’t shake the conflicting feelings of guilt.

It wasn’t until you reached over him to dip your bacon in a pool of syrup on his plate that he finally relaxed. He soaked it in, sitting with you like that, because when the nagging thoughts of how inappropriate it all was began to cloud his mind, the gentle touch of your hand brushing his thigh chased them away. Your fingertips curled just above his knee as you continued telling him a story, the hold making him forget why he was even worried about saying yes to your invitation in the first place.

That was the first time he crossed a boundary with you. Allowing himself to get lost in your voice, hidden away in some diner down the street from the hospital. But it didn’t stop there.

The next time was when he walked you home after work, only three days after your shared breakfast date.

He knew he shouldn’t have done it, but you parted ways outside the sliding hospital doors and he watched as you walked down the street, all by yourself.

For a split second he could imagine what his frame would look like walking next to you, and so he followed, catching up to your stride with satisfaction running through his veins at your surprised smile to see him standing at your shoulder. You lived in an apartment building a block away, he knew because you mentioned it one time, and even though his leg was killing him after such a brutal shift, he walked next to you all the way to the front door of your complex.

Your bodies lingered on the sidewalk, palpable tension bouncing between them through prolonged goodbyes.

That was the first time your gaze fell to his lips.

The curiously hopeful look in your eyes made his mouth go completely dry, because Surely you weren’t going to kiss him in broad daylight… right? The world spun around him while your eyes stayed fixed on the straight line of his mouth, until they fluttered back up, meeting his line of sight and smiling brightly.

“Goodnight Jack.” Your hand met his bicep, squeezing lightly as you turned to walk into the building with a small wave.

Goodnight, even though it was nearly eight in the morning.

It was something you said to everyone after each shift, bidding your coworkers a good stretch of sleep, knowing you all shared a fucked-up sleep schedule due to working the night shift.

Jack found the greeting endearing. Smiling wide every time he heard the sing-song chime of your voice wishing everyone a restful day before leaving work in the morning.

His days were hardly restful though, he never got much sleep when he went home, because you were always on his mind.

After that day in front of your apartment building, he went out of his way to walk you home nearly every morning, if only for a few extra minutes of hearing your voice, and a small hope that you would look at his lips like that again.

When you finally did kiss him, it was well worth the wait.

It happened on the roof.

An especially hard night landed you outside for some fresh air, overlooking the city as you tried your best to clear your mind.

Jack came up to check on you.

Avoiding him entirely, your apathetic stare stayed plastered on the lights of the city. He stood next to you in silence for a while before placing a gentle hand of reassurance on your cheek, bringing your gaze to his and searching your eyes to make sure you were okay.

It was emotionally charged, the way you crashed your lips into his.

He held your face delicately in his hands, using his jaw to dive into the kiss, hungry and sloppy and undeniably passionate.

More than anything he wanted to explore every inch of you— to let his hands travel your entire body, but instead his palms stayed strictly on your face, careful not to push things too far.

In fact, weeks of suppression followed while Jack tried to respect the unknown undercurrents of your relationship.

A few more kisses were shared, even some heated make out sessions and heavy petting in the on-call room at work, but nothing more.

He’d be lying if he said his trepidation wasn’t slightly due to the rather lengthy sexual hiatus taking place in his life. But he could only deny his urges for so long, and this morning after breakfast, instead of walking you back to your apartment, he invited you over to his place for the first time.

An unspoken agreement hung in the air the whole way home, one laced with heavy sexual tension.

That’s what landed you here— barely two feet past the threshold of his bedroom door with your hands dangerously close to the waistband of his pants, and Jack couldn’t dare to think straight.

The only thoughts he could muster revolved around how much he fucking liked you. This other worldly figure standing before him, toying with the ties on his pants, fingertips brushing his abdomen and fuck- he was on another planet. Your touch was sending a vaguely familiar heat rushing through his body and he wanted more— needed it.

Something about the situation sent him on a power trip. His cock pushing against the lose restraint of his scrubs at the sudden realization that he finally had you right where he wanted you after all this time. Months of getting to know each other and countless dates ending in polite kisses and lingering goodbyes— all of it leading to this moment with his fingertips curling into your waist.

But there was still a little sliver of him that felt nervous, slightly unsure of venturing into unknown territory with you.

He was still trying to convince himself that you were genuinely interested in him, because when he looked at you he saw this beautiful woman, all radiant and self-assured, on the arm of some guy nearly twice her age who rarely smiled and always had a grumpy wise-ass remark on his tongue.

His hands went rigid at the thought, the doubts taking him out of the moment for a few seconds, and you could sense the uneasiness in his touch.

Pulling away from the kiss, you watched his expression, his lips parted to make way for fast shallow breaths as he stared back at you, his eyes hooded with desire but swimming with hesitation.

“We don’t have to do anything Jack.” Your words were sincere as you continued looking for any sign of regret in the hazel of his eyes.

“No, I want this.” His brows furrowed as the winded confession fell from his lips. His hands grasped at your hips, holding firm while his thumbs rubbed into your sides.

“You sure?” Voice changing slightly, you moved into a more playful state, fingers coming to the tie on his pants as you kept your eyes trained on his face.

“We could just talk.”

A playful whisper slid between your lips as you undid the drawstring between your fingertips.

“Or maybe watch a movie.”

Then, your hand slid into the waistband of his underwear, only a few inches, just enough to make his breath hitch.

He tried to cover his surprise at your touch, now dangerously close to the base of his cock. Mustering enough self-control to speak, his words come out calm and collected despite the dizzying effect of your hand down his pants.

“You’re funny, kid. You know that?”

Kid.

A nickname he'd been calling you since the day you were assigned to his shift.

You were just an intern; young, hungry, and passionate. Had he known you’d end up with your hands halfway down his pants in the middle of his bedroom, he might've opted for a different title of endearment.

“Seriously Jack, we can take things slow-“

A low chuckle interrupts your attempt to comfort him, trying to give him a chance to back out.

He guides you back to sit on the edge of his bed, smirking and shaking his head from side to side.

“Stop talking.” The words are rushed. A deep rasp from his lips as he leans in to kiss you, pushing your body until your back meets his mattress.

“I don’t think you realize how long I’ve thought about this.” It was apparent that Jack was hungry— starving even— to see more of you. His hands working quickly to get your pants down your legs and onto his bedroom floor.

“And what do you think about Jack?” He’d never heard that tone in your voice before, low and sultry while you leaned up on your elbows to look at him through your lashes.

“Jesus- I’ve thought about having you on my bed like this,” There was nothing subtle about the way his eyes scraped over your as he paused between words. Eyes drifting to your lower half, legs parted slightly, a pair of black panties acting as the only barrier between his eyes and your naked body. “all spread out for me like this.”

At his words, your legs open further, sending a muffled growl straight to Jack’s closed mouth as he lets his hand fall on your inner thigh. Trailing upwards, his fingertips come in contact with the hem of your underwear.

“Can’t tell you how many times I’ve thought about pulling you into the on-call room after our shift.” He’s leaning above you, eyes glued to your clothed core, fingers toying with the thin material of your panties at the inside of your thighs.

“How badly I’ve wanted to fuck you on one of those shitty beds, or maybe even against the wall…”

“But you deserve better. To be treated right, on a real bed.” Suddenly the smooth linen of his comforter feels much warmer beneath you, your hands splaying over the pillowy fabric at your palms.

Jack watches the way your shoulders relax, and your head falls an inch to the side at his words, your body melting into the moment of shared desire.

“Want to take my time with you. Make you feel good. Watch you fall apart.” He leans in to kiss you, right as one of his fingertip’s dip below the fabric of your panties to run along your slit. You gasp into the kiss, and he takes the opportunity to pull away.

“To hear the little noises you make for me.” His lips are only inches from yours as his breathless whisper fills the space between them. His hand fully pushes your panties to the side, his touch light as a feather, and lingering at your core.

“Bet you sound so pretty when you cum.”

Your mouth falls open and you’re not sure what triggered it, his words, or the way he pushes a single finger into you. The movement is slow and precise as he watches your eyes flutter in pleasure.

For someone who’s sex life was currently non-existent, Jack didn’t miss a beat when it came to the rhythm of your gratification. The moan dripping from your tongue coming right on cue as he slips another finger in with the first, stroking with purpose and dedication as his name comes floating from your lips.

“Jack.”

The word was foggy and desperate as his touch subdued you, his fingers curling at the sweet call of his name, hooking at just the right spot.

“Fuck that’s it.” A whine of pleasure rippled through you at the pressure of his fingers against your walls. With one stroke after another, the building tension in your abdomen threatened to overflow.

Jack’s stare falls on his fingers as they work you open.

He can hardly handle how responsive you are to his touch; your hips bucking into his palm, little pleas falling from your lips— It’s enough to make him cum right there in his damn pants.

“God- you sound gorgeous.” The compliment is almost primal, his voice nearing a growl as he looks down at your body writhing on the simple motion of his fingers inside you, a slave to his touch.

He lets himself get lost in the noises flowing from your mouth, allowing each moan to act as a signal, showing him exactly where and how you want him.

“Even better than I could’ve imagined.” He finishes his thought and brings his stare back to yours, the fucked-out expression in your eyes telling him just how close you are.

His words send you reeling, acting as a catalyst for the strain pulling in your abdomen.

He can feel your body preparing to tumble over the edge, walls clenching around his fingers, and thighs flexing.

“There you go sweetheart.”

Sweetheart. That’s new.

It surprises you both the second it leaves his lips. But the surprise of it barely registers, instead the word is unleashing a flutter in your chest and a warmth between your legs. You’re obsessed with the way it sounds in the rasp of Jack’s voice. In fact, you like it so much your body trembles and whimpers fill the air as you come undone on his fingers.

His eyes watch as his movements slow, digits coated in your slick and pushing into you continuously even after your body finishes shuddering.

It’s almost sadistic the small smirk he’s wearing as his eyes stay fixated on his fingers sliding in and out of your body.

He was starved. Starved of touch— the warmth of another’s body. The way you pulled him in with each thrust of his fingers made him want to stay there all night, making you cum over and over again to feed his craving of your body at his mercy.

If it weren’t for your delicate hands gripping at his forearm, forcing him back to reality, he would’ve kept going, would’ve seen just how much more you could take.

“Jack.” Your voice breaks him from his trance, hand wrapping around his arm and pulling him back to hover parallel over your body.

An unsolicited grunt erupts from deep in his throat as your hands, once again, slide into his underwear. Only this time, they fall far enough to envelop his cock in your soft touch.

His hand comes down forcefully next to your head, palm flat against the mattress to hold himself steady as pleasure washes over him.

You’ve only pumped over his length once and he’s already squeezing his eyes shut in focus, trying not to spill into your hand.

“Sweetheart.”

In retrospect, he probably shouldn’t have used that nickname again. Not right now, when he was seconds away from having an embarrassingly quick orgasm.

Your grip tightened slightly at the word, hand working a little faster, and paying extra close attention to his overly sensitive tip. He has to put a hand over yours to conceal your efforts.

“I’m not gonna last long if you keep that up.” His brows raise at your smug expression, your hand still stroking him despite his attempt to stop you.

“I’m serious.” A breathless snarl meets your ear as his head falls lower, nearly resting in the crook of your neck.

You hum in response, one hand continuing its work between his legs, the other pushing at the pants still around his hips.

He was quick to oblige your unspoken request, bringing his own hand down to rid himself of his pants and underwear. His hands are then at your hips yanking your panties down your legs.

In a heated frenzy both of you took a few seconds to take off any remaining clothes. Sitting up to swiftly pull off shirts, and while you’re reaching to take off your bra, Jack stretches to his bedside table, fishing out a condom from its box that’s been sitting untouched in his drawer for far too long.

Then, you’re back to square one, his body hovering over yours, and his lips kissing down your neck.

Your hand finds him again, palm encircling his member as he freezes under your touch.

“You sure you wanna do this?” His voice is lost in the skin of your chest, his lips melting against your collarbone.

“You’re asking me? I thought you were the one who needed convincing.” The giggle in your voice has Jack nipping playfully at your skin, his hand confidently fitting between your legs.

“What can I say, you’ve persuaded me.” A teasing tone slips through his lust clouded whisper, fingers collecting the slick at your core with a groan on his tongue.

You grab the condom out of his hand, tearing it open and rolling it onto him with ease, the feeling causing him to lean further into your touch.

This was one of the reasons Jack was so drawn to you.

You held such discreet authority. Always taking charge with a charming smile and a sweet command in your voice.

He couldn’t have imagined the same power he witnessed at work would roll over into the bedroom. Your captivating ability to take quiet control was suddenly so obvious in the way you were guiding his now protected length to line up with your entrance, body shimmying down the bed to coerce him into you.

When the head of his cock finally pushes into you, you both let out noises of relief.

The placated gasp from your lips, and the profound groan on his, proves that you’d both been longing for this exact moment for weeks.

He takes his time. Learning the hug of your body. Savoring every inch of pure bliss, as he fills you at a painstaking pace. Your hands shoot to his back, fingertips digging into the broad expanse of his shoulder blades, just enough to encourage his movement until he enters you completely, pushed in to the hilt.

His eyes stay on yours, watching the way your lids almost close while you adjust to him, your mouth parted slightly at the stretch.

Then he’s pulling out and thrusting back in, moaning at the way you feel wrapped around him.

Your head tilts back into his comforter at the sweet friction of his strokes, and the sight beneath him has another moan bubbling up Jack’s throat.

It was exactly how he’d dreamt this moment— your back on his bed, with your head thrown back in pleasure. Getting to watch your body respond to him his perch above you, your naked figure far more beautiful than anything he could’ve imagined. It was all so perfect. You were perfect.

He picked up the pace of his thrusts, not too fast, but perfectly timed with the squeeze of your fingers on his back. He knew he must be hitting something right in the way you were gripping his shoulders and crying out for him. Crying out for him. Your voice was strained and winded as his name fell from your lips in a chant.

His self-control must’ve been at an all-time high, because he closed his eyes for a moment, gaining his bearings and talking himself down from cumming at the sounds of your whines.

He collects whatever composure is left in his body and brings a hand down between the two of you, fingertips finding that sensitive spot just above where his cock is driving into you.

He rubs steady circles into your clit, and judging by the way his name jumps from you an octave higher than before, he knows he’ll get to watch you cum again.

He makes it his goal. Setting his thrusts at a fixed pace, as his fingers deliberately stroke your bundle of nerves. He focuses completely on your pleasure to distract himself from the pulsing pressure running through his veins.

He needs to see you let go for him one more time before he can finish. An easy task given the way your back is arching off his bed, sending your hips further into him.

“I’m gonna-“ The words are hardly coherent as they slip between your gasps and moans— wanting to tell him you’re close but unable to string more than two words together.

“Come on sweetheart.” His words were directed straight to your core, eyes back down and watching between your bodies as he slides into you. His mind growing hazy at the sight of you taking his cock so well.

His encouragement was all you needed to let go. Your release washing over you in waves of bliss.

Jack’s eyes make the journey back to your face, watching in awe at your expression as it takes on a state of utter relief, your head falling even deeper into the blanket underneath you.

That image is what finally makes him succumb to the persistent chase of his release.

He’s groaning and panting, one of his hands coming to grip your hips, the other balancing himself on the mattress, pressed flat on the space next to your face.

He’s grunting profanities as he spills through his orgasm, allowing his elbow to bend so he can rest his forehead against yours. Both of you breathing heavy, eyes meeting in a moment of vulnerability and understanding as you bring a hand up to lace through his hair. Almost petting his grey curls, you lazily smile through the puffs of breath on your lips.

He doesn’t think he’ll ever get over seeing you like this, an angel laid out on his bedspread— just for him. Giving you both a moment to recover, he stays like that for a minute. He’s leaning into you, listening to your soft breaths even out, and he can feel himself getting hard again. His dick is still throbbing, not even fully soft and he’s already ready for another round.

His cock getting hard again, that fast after sex, was something he hadn’t experienced in over a decade.

These days Jack needed plenty of time between orgasms to even think about getting another erection, but in this moment, still buried in you and hearing the tiny gasps of breath coming from your heaving chest, he wanted more. He could feel his addiction to you growing stronger, reminding him of the forbidden nature of your budding relationship.

“What are we getting ourselves into.” Speaking his thoughts aloud, his voice fills the room, a grin lingering in his lips.

He can’t help but smile as he imagines what the future holds for your relationship, his forehead still pressed gently against yours.

my masterlist

#jack abbot #the pitt #jack abbot x reader #jack abbot smut #jack abbot fanfiction #the pitt fanfiction #jack abbot x you #dr abbot #dr abbot smut #dr abbot x reader

3K notes · View notes

ourmanjack · 1 year ago

Text

he hears his name before he registers there's something just behind him. out of instinct, he lifts his arm to look under it - commonplace, when you so often handle small children who are so much smaller than you. but there's isn't someone so small behind him. yet the feeling still feels right, somehow. ❝ ah - hello. indeed, that's me. ❞ his smile is small, a little surprised, even. an endearing look on him. no one can get the jump on him quite like this young ghoul has. ❝ jack the pumpkin king, at your service. ❞ and he fully turns, then, a small flourish to his movement, a formal and a bit grandiose of an introduction. ❝ you're... one of oogie's boys, i take it ? ❞ there is no damper to his kind spirit, even when talking of his formidable counterpart, or speaking to his underlings. ❝ normally you lot don't travel alone. ❞ his voice does touch on confusion, only for a moment. there's three of them, that he knows of, and usually, they're led by a girl.

@grote5que's barrel / bennet roberts, from x : ❛ oh god, you’re jack, aren’t you ? ❜

#WOULDN'T YOU LIKE TO SEE SOMETHING STRANGE ? * closed threads.#WOULDN'T YOU LIKE TO SEE SOMETHING STRANGE ? * feat. grote5que #* thank you so much for this omg!!#* i am honestly So So excited to write with you and barrel omg #* if anything needs to be changed around just let me know!

1 note · View note

sctellites · 1 year ago

Text

location: some pool somewhere

closed starter for: @drcamland (barrel)

"why are you being such a massive baby right now?" jupiter called out, a devilish grin on her face as she sunk further into the pool. it belonged to a family that was out of town on vacation, and after only a few seconds of convincing, she and barrel had found themselves on the property, stripped mostly naked in anticipation of a quick dip.

"b, c'mon...if you're worried about it being cold, just jump in. the shock wears off after a few minutes anyway. just put your big boy pants on --- or take them off, rather --- and get in this goddamn water."

#jupiter moreau: threads #jupiter x barrel

1 note · View note

ceilidho · 9 days ago

Text

fig. 4. blood in eyes (wipe it off for me) | Simon 'Ghost' Riley x Reader

MASTERLIST · AO3

There’s someone in the building that messes with his head in a way that it shouldn’t be messed with.

or: the forced mating omegaverse au

tags: Size Difference, Size Kink, Omegaverse, Explicit Sexual Content, AFAB Reader, Stalking, Kidnapping, Heavy Noncon/Dubcon Elements

Too late for it to be of any use to him, Simon learns patience.

Patience in accepting things for what they are instead of resisting fate’s chokehold; in walking with the current instead of swimming against it.

It doesn’t come easy. He remembers being a milktooth child, quiet and sullen before puberty swallowed him up and spat him back out; his demeanour just off-putting enough to keep him from ever making close friends. Father a constant and dreaded figure in his life, a malignant growth ever close to metastasizing. Flesh like a bruised peach, busted lip telling a story that no one seemed capable of acknowledging or reading.

There was no such thing as patience back in those days. Just a constant rushing forward, grappling at the threads of adulthood like they might become a rope strong enough to pull him out. When they didn’t, he learned to tie them himself to strengthen the length of rope—learned every knot in the book, in fact, bowling, clove hitch, carrick bend, hangman’s—anything of use.

That was a long time ago though.

These days, he is something different. Something old-boned and asperous. Every morning, he again becomes a man like a poor choice of words. Darkness greets him when Simon opens his eyes, the sky outside of his window already pitch black, the sun long sunk beneath the horizon.

It’s not happenstance—it’s routine.

As spring inches into summer and the days grow longer, he gets a glimpse of the sun that he’s been avoiding all this time. It bleeds into his dinners with Gaz slowly but surely, the evening sky going ochre and then blood red in the twilight hours. He can’t say that he’s missed over the long winter months. There was a kind of relief in becoming nocturnal. Now, he has to face the day again.

The vestiges of all past incidents collide here somewhat mercilessly.

His life since leaving the service has been essentially meaningless, a direct continuation from the life he led before retiring. No aspirations or short-term ambitions. Staring down the barrel of his fourth decade and wondering whether he’ll make it. Whether it’s even worth it to try when the shit keeps piling up and the years keep slipping away and it’s getting harder rather than getting easier with time.

(too many people he’s seen die; too much that he himself has endured)

The shrink he’s forced to see (read: blackmailed into seeing) says things like PTSD and complicated grief. Simon scowls at the mention. He’s not disputing the nature of those things so much as their relation to him. What does it say about him besides that he was born? That he went through something terrible and now it’s over?

Some things are harder for him to deny. Sciatica and nerve pain; the low, constant buzzing of tinnitus in both ears. Muscle tension and migraines that come so suddenly that they nearly incapacitate him when they hit. Insomnia. Sleeping pills do the trick most of the time, but it takes a harrowing amount of effort to get any sleep without them.

He gets a job as a night security guard-cum-parking lot attendant of a big office building downtown and that simplifies things a bit. Gives him a steady paycheck and a reason to get up every day. It’s also a sterile, quiet environment for the most part—he waits in his booth as the workers come down one-by-one and slouch into their cars, squeezing past each other on the way out.

It’s not much, but it’s a living. More than that, it gives him a reason to get up in the morning, as mundane a job as it is.

But—

there’s someone in the building that messes with his head in a way that it shouldn’t be messed with.

In the three months that Simon has worked in the building, he hasn’t gone more than a day without smelling that telltale scent of fresh, ripe omega. The same one too, all the time. Fresh and clean, like peppermint; it makes him suck his teeth as if to get the sugar off when it wafts under his nose.

The first time he smells your scent, when the elevator doors open up and you step out into the carpark, it takes everything in him not to go after you. Head disconnected from his body, on a swivel; spine ramrod straight, steel-plated. Following your bouncy gait with his eyes as you traipse across the lot to your car sitting pretty in the corner of the carpark like that wouldn’t be the perfect place to accost you, all the security cameras pointed away.

He very nearly quits. Nearly rips off the badge hanging from the clip fixed to his belt loop and leaves the parking lot unattended.

The only reason he doesn’t is because, well—

Simon’s used to torture.

Pain is an inflexible, living thing that he has long since invited into his body to take up residence. It lives and breathes with him, synchronous movements in his chest. It flutters under the surface like a swimmer just barely keeping from breaching the water.

And breach it does. Over and over and over again.

So he doesn’t quit. Sticks it out instead. Ignores the internal recalibration happening inside of him because when has that ever mattered?

He knows who you are, after all.

Busy bee that you are, you often work until late at night, driving home only when it’s dark out and there’s hardly anyone else on the road. It makes him antsy to think of you out there after dark, your only company on the road the long-haul truckers and drunk drivers.

You’ve only ever spoken to him once—one time when you forgot your employee pass upstairs in your office and asked him so sweetly to let you back onto the elevator. Standing outside of his booth with your hands clasped together and your eyebrows delicately furrowed and his jaw growing heavier and heavier and—

Only a single, flimsy pane of plexiglas between the two of you. He could shatter it without much effort. Stuff you into the trunk of your car and use your keys to drive himself home. You eye him almost dubiously, like you can hear the thoughts writhing around in his head like snakes in a pit, and for a second your foot angles outward like you might even back away from the booth altogether.

Simon holds himself back though. Only just.

It’s not as rare these days for an omega to work such a high pressure job, but it’s certainly not common; you’re probably one of the few in the whole building. Certainly the only to have ever caught his attention.

He knows what it means too. Your scent. What it means that, after four decades of relative anosmia, someone suddenly comes along smelling like everything good in the world. The knowledge sits heavy in his stomach.

It wasn’t supposed to be in the cards for him. A mate. It was supposed to be enough for him to have this half life. He has a history all cramped up in his chest, too much to burden anyone else with. Even his team—men that have bled and killed and nearly died with him—only know what could amount to an approximation.

He was supposed to be fine with this arrangement, grateful that the universe has deigned to give him anything at all.

So why then—

(why can he not get you out of his head?)

Simon thinks about it all the time, your scent still lingering in the carpark even hours after you’ve clocked in. Makes him think about sitting on his couch in his dingy flat, nursing a beer while you keep his cock warm in your mouth, dragging his thumb lazily over your scarred gland, a match on in the background. His perfect little family.

For weeks now he’s been on edge, pissed off because you keep flaunting your scent right under his nose like he’s supposed to be some bastion of self-control, somehow keeping himself from sinking his teeth into the delicate skin of your neck. It’s indecent. Unfair.

This is the point in his earlier years when his alpha would have twisted around in the back of his head and whispered something sinister into his ear, but those days are long gone. His alpha is not a distinct thing that he can feel or sense in any tangible way; it’s indistinguishable from him, no difference between its wants and his. Everything is just amplified, his hunger doubled. Refracted.

Lots of things have built him into the man that inhabits his body today. Torture and torment and trauma. Reckoning with his own mortality one too many times; coming close enough to naming it. The man who is buried alive is not the same man who digs himself out.

That, more than anything, is why he keeps his distance despite knowing what you are to him.

From across the lot, on your way out for the day, you glance up and happen to meet his eyes. You smile politely and nod his way.

The grey walls surrounding the booth press into him from all sides, squeezing around him until he can hear the blood pounding in his ears.

Every Friday night, Price and him have a standing date at the local pub where they order drinks and make minimal conversation. Just the way Simon likes it.

It’s always crowded and always thundering with noise, old timers smoking out front where cigarette butts are strewn all over the sidewalk. The men at the bar roar and clamour as they stare at the television screen hanging behind the bartender, banging their fists on the bartop and making the whole room shake whenever their team scores.

It’s rowdy as all hell and it feels like being home.

Simon knows that their weekly drink is just a way for Price to make sure that he hasn’t offed himself yet. He’s not a bad man, for all his faults. His dictatorial qualities are offset by his caring disposition, the temperament of a man willing to keep tabs on his soldiers well after they’ve left the service.

It’s excessive, but it doesn’t go unnoticed.

“You got plans for the weekend?” Price asks like he always does a few minutes into their first drink.

Simon shrugs and takes a drink. “Got a few.”

His unwillingness to part with a sliver of personal information for even his closest companion must wear on the nerves, but he’s been going strong for thirty-something years. It speaks to his character and the longevity of their relationship that Price doesn’t seem to mind, content with whatever Simon deigns to let slip.

“Got a few myself,” Price reveals, happy to part with his privacy for the sake of conversation. “Taking the missus up to Shropshire for a little honeymoon.”

“Just as well. She doing alright?”

Price shrugs. “Hasn’t taken apart the kitchen this week.”

That’s the extent of their conversation. The rest devolves into gentle ribbing about the match up on the telly (Manchester United vs. West Ham—ending in such a spectacular defeat for Man United that Simon nearly gets into it with a guy on the other end of the bar crowing too loud) before parting ways at the end of the night, Price going one way and Simon the other.

The streets are empty on his walk to the tube, the roads slick with puddle water from the earlier rainfall and the alleys illuminated by the red dots of cigarette butts, their custodians puffing away dutifully, their bodies ensconced in the shadows. A driver leans on their horn when he cuts across the street without checking for any oncoming traffic, and though the sound makes his upper lip curl, he ignores it.

Sometimes, he hopes that someone will take him out to pasture like an old warhorse. Do it while he’s not looking. Let him catch one final sunset before putting him down.

It would save everyone else a lot of grief.

The only reason he doesn’t do it himself is because he couldn’t do that to Johnny. Can’t even stomach the thought of what it would do to him; can’t even trick himself into thinking that it wouldn’t bulldoze a hole right through his boy’s life.

If someone else were to kill him, Johnny would at least have the possibility of closure. Maybe he ought to just pay someone to do it someday. Simon discards that thought as soon as it flits through his head though—there’s not a chance that Johnny wouldn’t scour the Earth to find the man that killed him.

Simon’s as sure of that as he is of anything because he’d do the same for him.

Though he has two hundred thousand in an offshore account and thirty grand stuffed into his mattress, Simon takes the tube and walks every day on principle alone. His truck stays parked on the street unless he needs to move it to the other side for street sweeper to pass by.

This train is for—

Next stop is—when leaving the train, please remember to take all of your belongings with you.

Cool in the early morning hours. When Simon gets off the train at his stop, the breeze slips into every open crevice of his jacket, crawling up his sleeves and down his collar.

It’s early enough that the only people at the station with him are the early commuters, everyone going in the opposite direction from him, on their way downtown instead of on their way home. The sun peeking over the horizon is spoiled by a grey, dismal sky, saturating everything in a pallid, dreary light.

There’s a bus that takes him nearly all the way home, though he has to walk the last ten minutes. He sits at the back with his hood drawn over his head, dead eyeing anyone stupid enough to glance his way too many times. When he gets off at his stop, it hurtles away from the curb as if it couldn’t get away fast enough.

His flat is the kind that not even squatters would deign to claim. Borderline squalid. Borderline hazardous to human habitation. The mold spores and asbestos is probably digging him an early grave, everything short of an infestation. On his better days, Simon contemplates tidying up the place before a wave of apathy and scorn bludgeons him over the head. Why bother when he has no one to bring round?

“Ye could try cleanin’ it up fer me,” Johnny gripes on one of the rare occasions when he spends the night. It doesn’t happen often, but it’s too late and Johnny’s a bit too squiffy from the pub to get home on his own.

He walks barefoot into the kitchen where Simon is rustling up something to eat (mac and cheese that he’ll eat straight from the pot when it’s ready), towel-drying his hair and swaying on his feet from sheer exhaustion. Nearly stumbles right into the wall before catching himself.

“What’s the problem?” Simon asks, drawling the question.

“There’s a ring o’ grime aroond the tub. Did ye hose off a dog in there?”

He shrugs. “You wanna clean it so bad, you can do it. There’s Pine-Sol under the sink.”

“Ah honestly think we’re gonna need a power washer fer it. The fuckin’ state of this place, Simon…”

“Get in the fuckin’ bed and quit runnin’ your mouth before I decide you’d sleep better on the porch.”

Johnny makes a face and waddles off, murmuring epithets under his breath before launching himself stomach first onto Simon’s bed and snoring before he’s even hit the mattress, his shins half hanging off the end. It can’t be comfortable, but they’ve certainly slept in worse places.

Simon will readjust him when he joins his boy later, but for now he focuses on taking the pot off the hob and fetching a fork from the cutlery drawer, scooping up a generous first bite. Flares his nostrils when he notices old food still flaked on the fork that he just pulled from the drawer.

Maybe the mutt has a point.

The thing is—

He’d like to say something to you. He’d like for things to go his way for a change.

But his appetite for violence won’t allow good things to come to him naturally. Always a struggle for survival, conditions worsening until there’s nowhere else to go but up (scrambling up the side of a self-dug hole). He hears it coming like an air raid siren off in the distance. Self-sabotage at its finest.

He feels little shame for the state of his existence, but it’s hard not to feel some sense of perceived inferiority. His military accolades aside (of which he can’t speak to, given that most were awarded post mortem for obvious reasons), Simon’s working class roots are indivisible from him as a person. When he looks at you, he sees someone who wouldn’t even touch the dirt he was sown and germinated in.

What could he offer a woman? What could he offer anyone at all?

His body carries the weight of his life in scar tissue, torn cartilage, and bones that have been welded back into place too many times to count. Theseus’ ship of a man. Simon is aware, distantly, of the things that make him appealing to women, but they’re stacked against the things that make him thoroughly undesirable. His body draws the eyes that his face repels, muscles less enticing when they get a proper look at his ugly mug. Good enough for a fuck but not more than that.

For a long time now, living has been an exercise in humility. Wanting but never receiving. Senseless violence that never seems to stop, always someone around to perpetuate it.

Often that person is him.

On Monday, Simon watches you walk to your car in slacks that cling to your legs, the fabric tightening across your ass when you lower yourself into your car.

On Tuesday, on a whim or possibly because of brain damage, he calls a professional cleaning service to give him a quote for a detailed deep cleaning.

The owner charges him double the usual amount, which nearly pisses him off enough to cancel the service altogether, but he lets it go when Johnny begs him to let him pay half (after calling him six times in a row after Simon made the mistake of texting him about it).

It doesn’t change the overall state of the place, but Simon does feel a flicker of pleasant surprise when he comes home to a house that doesn’t smell faintly of mildew. Walls a shade lighter, like years worth of soot has been scrapped off of them. Even the grates on the stove have been scrubbed and cleaned, the inside of the oven also free of grit and grease for once in probably a decade.

He christens the clean up with a smoke in the bathroom with the window propped open, the early morning noises keeping him company. Ashes his cigarette on the window ledge for once instead of the bathroom floor, the sound of the traffic in the distance keeping him company.

“Ah cannae wait tae see it,” Johnny enthuses over the phone when Simon finally picks up after three missed calls in a row. “When ah’m back in the city, ah’m comin’ over ASAP.”

Simon’s lips twitch into a slight smirk. “Dunno about that. Might change the locks too.”

Sometimes he says shit just to rile Johnny up. Just to hear the sound of him squawking on the other end of the phone, feathers ruffled. He gets a kick out of taking all that frenetic energy and compressing it, making himself the focal point of Johnny’s restlessness, the recipient of his undivided attention.

He’s always been selfish with his toys.

His body is red hot when he finally lays down in bed, cock thickening up and pulsing between his legs. All he can think of is getting you into his bed and pounding you until you come a few times around his knot, until the base of his shaft is a mess of cream and cum, and his chest is scratched up and bloody from your nails.

The sheets under him are rumpled and hot with his sweat when he takes his cock in hand, tugging himself off until he spills all over his hand and up his chest. Simon stares up at the fan rotating above his head as the cum cools on his stomach, cool air wafting down on him, allowing himself, if only for a moment, to imagine what it would be like to actually have you.

He doesn’t think he’s going to do it.

His whims are hard to predict though. Quicksilver and fluid; volatile and inconsistent. Worse though are his morals, which fluctuate with his mood like the tides with the moon, pulled back only to rush forward at a moment’s notice.

Despite the way his chest sometimes burns with the need to follow you home after your shift and force his way in while you’re out for the day, Simon doesn’t let his urges cloud his judgment. Master of self-discipline; jack of all other trades.

It’s part of what made him such an indispensable operative: his ability to suppress all instincts and wants in service to a higher purpose.

He’s got rope in a drawer in the booth though. That’s where it gets tricky. Myriad uses for it and none of them good. God must have a bad sense of humour.

Then one day, you come in a bit too close to your heat.

Even before you come stumbling out of the elevator, swaying on your feet and barely able to keep yourself upright, your scent is pungent in the garage. When Simon opens the door from the back office to the lot, he stills, every cell in his body briefly freezing. He can’t pinpoint it to any one car in the lot at first, but his instincts and nose point him to yours.

You must’ve mistimed your heat and thought you had more time before it would hit. It’s the only reason you’d show up to your office on the cusp of it, to a building packed with alphas all foaming at the mouth to knot a heat-addled omega. There’s nothing they’d like more than to get their hands on you in this state.

It’s a mistake you won’t make again.

He oscillates between anger and hunger, pissed at you for showing up to the office at such a delicate time while his teeth ache something fierce in his mouth. Alpha nature rearing its ugly head again. If you were his, it wouldn’t even be a question—you’d have been home days ago, sequestered away in his place and readying the nest for your heat.

The elevator dings when it opens, alerting him and drawing his eyes over. Such a small sound for such a momentous occasion.

Even from a distance, you look a right mess. Eyes heavy lidded and bloodshot. Sweat beading at your hairline. Lips swollen from excessive chewing or blood flow. It doesn’t matter to him. You look good a little messed up anyway, like someone took you apart and forgot to put you back together again. Makes Simon wish it was him that did it.

Then the full, unadulterated scent of your heat slams into him tenfold and every coherent thought comes screeching to a halt.

Every wistful thought of taking it slow or approaching you first evaporates in a heartbeat. In an instant, he becomes an animal. Eyes tracking your every move. Breath lengthening and deepening to keep you from hearing him coming.

He doesn’t think he’s going to do it until the booth door opens.

Simon shuts the door soundlessly behind him, laser focused on the sway of your ass as you pop open the backseat door to toss your bag and belongings in. He moves towards you quickly, covering the distance between the two of you in just a few long strides, practiced at the initial advance.

This is what he was built for after all—hunting and capturing. Moving silently through the shadows, stalking his target through the thick and waiting for them to move into just the right position.

Right when you reach your car and open the backseat door—

Throwing your work bag onto the floor, none the wiser that there’s a man at your back moving closer and closer, eyes locked on the jut of your shoulder blades and the arch of your back and—

You don’t put up much of a fight when he forces you into the car and splays you over the backseat, likely too confused and disoriented to vocalize your surprise. He’s stronger than you anyway. When the fight finally snaps into you, it’s too late—you’re splayed across the backseat at an awkward angle and pinned in place by his hand, only a little force needed to keep you down.

The little dress you’re wearing gets rucked up around your waist and your panties pulled to the side. He unfastens his jeans with one hand and pulls his cock out before wrenching you towards him with one hand on your waist, the friction lifting your dress up the rest of the way until he can nearly see the full line of your back.

“What—”

You only catch on when his fingers graze your pussy lips and your whole body shudders violently. A thumb splits the seam of your lips, stroking you from slit to asshole, spreading your slick over both holes.

“Relax,” Simon grumbles when you start to fuss, things slipping out of your mouth like no, wait, stop, who are you?—a bunch of silly prattle. “I’ve got ya, pet.”

“Get off—” you hiss, spitting like an angry cat with its fur all bunched up, and he’d laugh if he wasn’t pushing his thumb into your wet little hole and watching it seize up around the digit. The rest of your tirade comes out in a choked gasp, indignant horror rendering you mute.

You try to push yourself up onto your elbows and he shoves you back down, making the breath rush out of you. A steady drip of slick wets the seat under you, making the dark fabric glisten, but Simon doesn’t spend too much time focusing on that.

“You’re not gonna fight after wagging this around,” he growls.

“I haven’t, I haven’t, I haven’t.”

Liar. He’ll make an honest girl out of you yet.

He pulls his fingers away from your cunt long enough to fist his cock and lift from where it droops between his legs. His cock throbs in his hand as he notches it against your opening, grits his teeth too when the heat of your cunt burns the tip of his cock.

“Fuck,” Simon grits out, then edges forward again.

Hot as a fucking branding iron. He pulls you back instead of thrusting forward, impaling you on his length like a toy in his hands. In, in, in until suddenly he can’t anymore, at the limits of what your body will allow.

“C’mon, bird, deep breath in,” Simon murmurs when you hiss, hoping you’ll listen.

As clenched up as you are, it’s almost impossible to fuck you properly. He can barely cram in a few inches before finding you too tight to push the rest of the way in. It’s enough to make do though. Enough to draw his hips back and thrust in again, fucking you with just the first few inches of his cock, your toes curling and flexing with every thrust.

“You’re—you’re inside me?” you gasp.

The laugh comes from his chest unbidden, disbelief plucking it out of him. “Yeah, pet. I am.”

Your groan is torn from your throat. “Oh god.”

He nearly spirals watching your cunt stretch around the width of his cock. Fits him like a fucking glove, and though it’s been awhile, Simon doesn’t remember it ever feeling like this. Intense. A thick blanket of heat weighing down on him, the inside of your car humid, the combination of your and his breath making the windows fog up, the car itself shaking with every thrust.

It registers at the periphery of his consciousness that he didn’t even bother to put on a condom. There might be one buried at the back of his wallet or in a drawer somewhere back home, but even if Simon were to look down and see one on the floorboard of the car, it wouldn’t sway him one iota. He knows he’s clean, and whether you are or not doesn’t matter because—

He wants it this way with a fervor that borders on irrational.

His hips drive forward in quick, short strokes, barely sinking in halfway before pulling back out, thoughts of shucking you open like an oyster and leaving a pearl behind stirring at the back of his mind. His wants are as ugly as everything about him.

Simon doesn’t think about whether it’s a bad idea or not. Impulsive as always, he lets the thing that has become him over countless years guide his hand, staring as it wraps around the front of your throat and lifts you up, your hands scrambling under you for purchase.

Lean down. His mouth is salivating. What he wants isn’t right but—

God, he wants it.

His wants outpace his self-control for once though. The devil on his shoulder (in his soul, in his blood, that which was curled up with him since birth, a remnant of the father, a seed waiting to germinate in bloodsoaked soil) guides his head down into the crook of your neck where your mating gland sits, your blood pumping frantically right beneath it.

Your throat pulses when his canine nicks your gland and when you swallow, he can feel it against his teeth.

So easy, like slicing through butter—

(whatwhatwhatwhatwhatwhat—oh my God, no)

Your voice in his ear, fluttering like a hummingbird.

And then, blood—a taste so familiar that he doesn’t even notice it at first. Only when it washes down his throat does Simon realize what he’s done.

He comes back to himself with his teeth buried in your shoulder, blood in his mouth and a buzzing sound in his head. Cock still only half-sheathed in your pussy, squeezing around him like a vice, your voice a dull roar in his ear.

A phantom presence undulates in the back of his mind, the first presence apart from himself in well over fifteen years. It twists and turns like a fish out of water, flopping around on its belly. It’s never been here before. It’s never been out of itself before and it’s terrified. It’s scared of what that means.

The flesh squelches when he pulls his teeth out, your ensuing gasp wet and watery like the blood dripping from his mouth onto your back. Little droplets colouring your dress red where they land.

“Fuck,” he murmurs to himself, staring down at the bite mark on your shoulder.

His imagined future suddenly switches course, a whole new world being terraformed before his eyes. Everything different even while everything stays the same.

At the base of his cock, his knot plumps up, filling with blood. When his cock glides back in, it presses fruitlessly against your opening, too big to slip in. You whimper when you feel it nudging at your entrance.

He has a really big knot, even soft; too big for you to take comfortably, if at all. Hard though, it’s another beast altogether.

Simon doesn’t need all that though. Not now, at least. Plans are already forming piecemeal in his head, colliding against each other as he huffs through short, shallow thrusts, mindlessly seeking his release. The sound of your squelching pussy echoes through the underground lot, unmistakable to anyone else that might still be milling around at this time of night.

What’s done is done. There’s no reason to bank regrets to cash in some day in the future because the future is already here. It’s here happening right in front of him and Simon has never looked back before.

Your pleasure flickers in the back of his head, like picking up a radio frequency previously undetected. Suddenly there. It’s almost his too; settles into the base of his spine along with his own need to come. Thin like a will-o-wisp.

What he wouldn’t give to sink to the root, feel that wet grip all around him, squeezing his shaft extra tight.

You keen and beg him through gasped breaths when Simon tries to force a hand under your belly to play with your clit. “Wait, wait, wait—too much—”

It’s tempting to just ignore you and keep rubbing your swollen clit, but he huffs and backs off instead, massaging his hands up the sides of your waist again. “Alright, alright.”

His thumbs press into the divots of your back almost punishingly hard, sure to leave a bruise there. Squeezes your waist extra hard when he nears his end, his vision tunneling on the sight of his cock splitting you in half, soaked with your combined juices.

He catches your eye when you twist your head to look over your shoulder at him and that’s what sets him off. That desperate, helpless look in your glazed over eyes. Desire so vivid that for a second he can almost trick himself into thinking that this is what you want—

Thick ropes of cum paint the inside of your pussy. His knot butts against your entrance with every offbeat thrust, the base of it frothy white with cum, yours and his mixing together. It’s almost painful to have nothing wrapped around it, but it’s a pain he’s grown used to, never having knotted anything better than his own hand.

This should be enough for him, most of the fat length of his cock snug in your pussy and his knot wet with your juices. He shouldn’t want more than this. It should be enough for him to slide his hand over your belly and feel the slightest bulge.

His gums itch when he licks his lips.

It’s not enough though.

When Simon pulls out, you shudder one last time, a string of stuttered curses slipping from your mouth. Foul-mouthed little thing.

“Holy shit,” you wheeze. “What the fuck?”

Just that nearly makes his lips twitch.

He drags you back out of the car just enough so that your feet touch the floor, giving him enough room to right your underwear and readjust your dress. Dazed and confused, you sway on your feet before he catches you by the waist, his dick still out and spent against his thigh.

“You need a breather before we leave?” Simon asks.

You don’t seem to absorb his words right away, too lost in your own head. The wound on your shoulder is still raw and livid. There’s gauze in the first aid kit in the booth that might help, but that requires more cooperation from you than he thinks you’ll be willing to give once you find your bearings.

“Leave?” you repeat.

He nods, smoothing your dress down. “Can’t be ‘ere too long. Already too close to your ‘eat.”

That brings you crashing back down to reality, the comedown so hard that Simon has to hold you upright when your knees buckle.

“My heat,” you repeat, confused at first before it dawns on you.

“S’right, bird. Did ya forget?”

Obviously not, but he gets his laughs out of the little things.

You flinch when your hand comes up to touch your shoulder. “Oh my God. Oh my God, what did you do?”

Your panic draws over him like a cloak. He can feel it somehow viscerally real but distinct from his own emotions. If he were a weaker man, it might trigger his own panic, but he hasn’t been that kind of man in a long, long time. Too much has happened since he was that boy—Roba, Mexico, Makarov, the Channel Tunnel. He’s lived a hundred lives in that time.

So when your bloodstained hand moves to his chest and you start to struggle again, Simon knows how to handle it.

The cherry blossoms have been in bloom for quite some time now. Petals freckle the road bordering the park on the drive home, but they vanish in a flurry as he travels farther away from the city centre, creeping into the outskirts of London.

Moonlight like a runlet of white satin moths light the way home. It reminds him a lot of his childhood home. Spongy, mossy bogs where white moths feed on sallow and poplar, and the water barely announces its presence. Old remnants of cocoons spun into the reeds. A bosky landscape that, as a child, Simon spent hours trudging through to escape the turmoil of his home life, coming home in the evenings barefoot with his wet sneakers held in both hands.

The memory fades when he takes a necessary turn leading him home and passes a squad car with its lights off going the other way. He’s careful not to make eye contact, taking another unnecessary turn in order to get out of their visual field.

He’s aware of the predicament he’s in with you tied up in the backseat of your own car.

Lucky for Simon though, it’s Friday. Meaning that unless you had plans scheduled for the weekend, no one will expect to see your face until Monday, giving him plenty of time to figure out what to do with you. And given that you’re on the brink of your heat—your scent absolutely saturating the inside of the car, too strong for him to risk cracking open a window—he likely has even longer than that.

In the backseat of the car, you squirm around and howl through duct taped lips. Another reason for him to keep the windows up.

He cranks up the volume on the radio to drown out the sound of your whines. Bit of a pity, since it’s not like Simon has a problem with them. There are still cars around though, and for a little thing you’ve sure got a set of lungs on you. He’d be almost impressed if it weren’t inconvenient.

Densely populated boroughs give way to sparser and sparser neighbourhoods. Neatly manicured trees swapped for dense, overgrown bushes and trees, branches leaning over street lights and half-obscuring stop signs. He navigates the streets by muscle memory alone, not paying attention to the street signs or addresses.

Simon lives in a see-nothing-say-nothing neighbourhood. No one on either side of his house, both vacant for longer than he’s resided here. He knows even this place won’t escape gentrification one day, but for now prices are low and privacy is absolute. None of his neighbours want to know his business any more than he wants to know theirs.

There’s no one else on the street when he parks in front of his house. Not unusual, but he welcomes the privacy nevertheless.

The scent of your heat comes billowing out of the car when Simon opens the backseat door. Thick, rich, and musky.

His hackles go up instantly, territorial instincts lifting from the silt of his being. The street is deserted, but that doesn’t stop the influx of paranoia and suspicion. Anyone could be lurking around any corner. His paranoia comes from a place of truth, but it’s displaced from its original context—this is his home, not foreign territory.

Still, he’d be happier with you inside as quickly as possible. Too many open windows and alphas that might be stupid enough to challenge him, mate bond or not.

He lifts you into his arms from the backseat and tosses you over his shoulder, lips twitching when your breath comes out in a whoosh. The car beeps behind him when he locks it with the keys he snatched from your work bag and it’s a quick walk into his house, his chest only settling when the door is shut and locked behind him.

In the house, he deposits you on the couch and kneels in front of you, the breadth of his body splitting your knees when he situates himself between them. Hard not to take liberties with you considering what you are to him now. It doesn’t even occur to him until your brow furrows and you try to pull your knees into your chest, forcing him to plant both hands on your upper thighs to pull them back down.

“You gonna be good if I take it off?” Simon asks, referring to the tape on your mouth.

You nod vigorously, so eager to get the tape off that you’ll agree to just about anything, even if you have no intention of keeping your word. He can feel that duplicitous instinct at the back of his mind.

He wonders if you’ve begun to feel him in your head yet.

The tape pulls your skin up with it as Simon peels it out, a few hairs coming with it. You grimace and wince through the pain, eyes flitting around the living room, scanning every inch and looking for any way out. Look all you want. It won’t matter in a couple of hours.

The first thing you do is scream at the top of your lungs for help, erupting into a coughing fit when your vocal chords are pushed to their limits.

“Heeeeeeeeeelllllppppppp!” you screech, hoping that someone in one of the adjacent houses will hear your scream and come to your aid. “Someone help me pleaaaaseeeee!”

It’s disappointing but not surprising. Still, though his upper lip curls at the sudden burst of noise, he doesn’t so much as flinch, still as stone in front of you as you scream your head off.

When you pause to take a breath, panting from the effort, he raises an eyebrow, unimpressed. “You done?”

Flummoxed by his nonchalance, you almost don’t know how to respond, stunned into silence for a moment. Then you start up again, louder than the first time, shrieking like a trapped bird looking for help.

Despite the relative privacy that this neighbourhood affords him, Simon doesn’t feel like pushing his luck. His hand snaps out viper-quick to cover your mouth, trapping the rest of your screams in his palm and making your eyes bulge with shock.

“Quit screaming or I put the tape back on,” he says, blunt as ever. No sympathy for the fact that he kidnapped you and brought you to a second location. Of course you’d be scared; of course you’d be panicked.

It’s not that Simon doesn’t understand your reaction, he just doesn’t want to deal with it. His reservoirs of patience have been all used up in holding himself back these past few weeks.

He waits until you nod before pulling his hand away.

For a minute, all you can do is stare at him, eyes tracing over his face and lingering on all the ugly bits. The scar from his cleft lip, the burns around his temple pulling back his hairline, the crooked lump of his nose (put back in place one too many times), the slope of his brow over his eyes, almost Neanderthalic.

“Who are you?” Though it’s not the first thing you’ve ever said to him, it’s the first time you’ve ever spoken directly to him, face to face, no screen in between you to dampen your scent.

Your voice rushes over him like a wave, taking him under when it curls over the other side and kisses the water. Fills his lungs with salt water. Even hoarse from screaming, it’s still the loveliest sound he’s ever heard.

“We’ve met,” he says curtly. Annoyed that you haven’t felt the same fixation with him. You look terrified to disagree with him though he can see it in your eyes. “I work in the building.”

Recognition flickers across your face. “…You’re the parking attendant. You helped me get back into the building that one time.”

So he hasn’t completely escaped your attention.

Simon grunts instead of answering.

You glance around the room again. “…Where am I?”

“My house,” he answers.

His ease in answering your questions must throw you for a loop. You hadn’t expected him to be so forthcoming, but what would he gain in lying to you?

The gravity of the situation isn’t lost on you though. On your own, miles from home, fucked and mated by a man who must have been watching you for weeks, if not months. Simon doubts you remember how long he’s worked in the parking lot.

Worse yet, you’re on the brink of your heat, maybe a few hours away from it breaking. It’s a wonder you left your house at all today. You would’ve been smarter just to call out, stay holed up in your flat until it hit and you slipped comfortably into your heat.

But you made your bed. Now you have to lie in it.

“You’ve ruined everything…” you whimper, trembling fingers feeling around the bite mark on your shoulder.

That pisses him off. Stings his pride. As if he were such a piece of shit that you couldn’t fathom being tied to him.

“Had a boyfriend or something?” he grunts dismissively.

Whatever you had before doesn’t phase him. Boyfriend, girlfriend, husband. None of it matters with that mark on your shoulder, the thing tying you indelibly to him. Still, he asks knowing that it’ll piss him off if you answer in the affirmative, though he can’t smell anyone else’s scent on you.

Your upper lip curls at the question. “No.”

“Good.”

“I just didn’t want to be—” You can hardly bring yourself to say it. You pause, biting your lip. “I don’t—I don’t even know who you are.”

“Name’s Simon.”

You look at him like asking for his name never even occurred to you. Less than impressed.

“Do you even know what you did?” you ask, tone slipping from disbelief to disdain.

The cheap shot at his intelligence barely gets on his nerves though. He’s used to people using words when they look at him and realize that physical violence won’t get them anywhere.

“Nah, bird,” Simon drawls, looking at you through half-lidded eyes. “What’d I do?”

You balk at that, clearly assuming that he wouldn’t call your bluff, that he’d have some excuse for biting you and tying you to him.

The amusement in his eyes must be obvious though because you scowl when you catch it. “So you messed up our lives on purpose?”

“Wasn’t planning on it. You’re the one that showed up to work right before a heat.”

The humiliation is plain on your face. “I had—I had a deadline. I didn’t think anyone would even notice.”

He shrugs. “I noticed.”

An understatement if there ever was one. It’s been months since he’s had a thought that didn’t somehow circle back to you.

You scowl. “It’s not the twentieth century anymore. Omegas don’t have to be housebound for the month of their heat.”

All Simon can do is stare at you. There’s a sweat building at your hairline and he can see the pulse in your neck, your impending heat evident in the way you hold yourself—so close to the cusp that a gust of wind would send you right over. It wouldn’t take much.

It could be as easy as grabbing himself through his pants and watching your eyes glaze over. He doesn’t have to be pretty to turn you on. He knows now from first hand experience that you’ll get wet for a big dick.

“Lot of omegas go to work without being slags about it.”

Shock ripples across your face, followed closely by a rage that makes his balls tighten. “You’re a piece of shit.”

Piece of shit is putting it lightly. He’s the bird picking the flesh off the carcass with the sun-bleached bones.

“Make your nest,” Simon grunts instead, leaving you to your own devices.

“I’m not making my nest here. I have one at home.” You sound outraged at the very thought of making a nest in his house.

“Don’t got much of a choice, bird. It’s here or nowhere because you ain’t leavin’.”

It’s not a joke or a threat either. This far from home, you won’t make it back before your heat breaks, and Simon sees the moment that realization washes over you, your fate set in stone.

You don’t much appreciate being made to use the meagre belongings in his house for your nest. It’s a bit of a shame. He should’ve taken you back to your place instead where you likely already had a nest that you’d spent the last week labouring over, but he couldn’t trust you not to get your neighbor's attention.

There’s not much in the way of materials for you to use either. Old coats of his and musty blankets stored in the chest at the foot of his bed. You don’t even touch the mattress. He watches you sniff a sweater of his and grimace, tossing it into another corner of the room far away from your makeshift nest.

He hovers nearby while you build your nest even though he can feel your annoyance as real as if it were his own. That’s not his problem though. You have your instincts to follow and he has his.

He inspects the meagre items in his fridge and pantry while you fuss around in the other room—hardly enough to see just him through the weekend, never mind an omega about to go into heat—and scowls, pissed at the thought of being found lacking as an alpha. If he’d been smarter, he would’ve seen this coming a mile away, but instead he let himself believe that he could keep his greed under lock and key and failed to prepare for the inevitable.

In the other room, you whimper, your scent suddenly gone sour.

He pauses. Lifts his head and sniffs the air.

“Nothing to do with you, pet,” Simon says, raising his voice loud enough to carry to the other room.

You don’t say anything in response to his words, but the tension lifts from his shoulders when your scent goes back to normal.

The weight of responsibility sits heavy on his shoulders. He’s learning in real time that taking sharp corners means skirting sharp edges. That an abrupt change can’t just happen seamlessly.

Choices have consequences.

Even scared and on edge, your presence fills the house with a kind of levity that Simon hasn’t enjoyed in decades, if ever, omega sweet scent clouding the air. It’s disorienting. Like barreling down a dark tunnel without knowing what could possibly be on the other side.

Simon’s blood pressure spikes when your scent changes, a new peppery note that makes him salivate.

You don’t come crawling to him though and that ticks him off. Already fucked and mated you and you still won’t cooperate; still giving him a hard time despite the work he’s put in. He stalks through the house and finds you huddled under a blanket in your nest, shivering and sweating, gaze desperate when you turn to find him haunting the doorway.

He tilts his head to one side to get a better look at you. “What’re ya doing on your own in there, bird?”

You pull the blanket tighter around you, the whole thing wrapped around your head and body and only exposing a sliver of your face.

“H-hot,” you mumble. “Leave me alone.”

“Gotta take the blanket off if you’re ‘ot, love.”

He feels like he’s approaching a skittish animal, one that might lope off into the woods at any moment. Only there’s nowhere for you to run. There’s nowhere for you to go, and even if you could figure out a way to duck around him, you wouldn’t have the energy for a chase, weighed down by the exhaustion and mindlessness of heat.

A few steps until he’s close enough and Simon drops to his knees, reaching out to cup the ankle sticking out of your blanket cocoon. You flinch when his hands touch your skin, colder than your scorching, sweaty flesh.

The little fuss you put up as he pulls the blanket off you doesn’t deter him in the slightest. He’s single minded in his goal of getting you naked, tossing the blanket off the mattress even when you whine and lean over the mattress to retrieve it, and going for the straps of your dress in his haste to pull you back to him.

It doesn’t do much. The dress gets trapped around at your biceps instead of coming down, too tight around the chest and arms to come off that way. Simon realizes his mistake when you start scowling and bitching—a bunch of lip that goes in one ear and out the other because he doesn’t have the patience to deal with it.

“Fuck, you’re burning up, pet,” Simon mutters instead of responding to your grumbling.

There is real concern there, though it’s buried under an avalanche of desire so thick that it nearly suffocates him. He’s even been with an omega in heat before. Never been close enough to an omega to be given that right.

And now, by his own hand, he has one to call his own. His to take care of and see through their heat.

You bat his hand away when it gets too close to your stomach. “You’re cold.”

Simon scowls, irked. “‘Course I am—you’re runnin’ a fever, bird.”

“Don’t wanna be touched,” you gripe.

When he tries to crawl his hand up your shirt for a second time, you smack him again and his temper finally snaps.

“That does it,” he snarls and snatches you by the waist.

Wrestling you to the ground is a kind of tauromachy, only he’s the one huffing through his nose like a bull when he splays you out on your back and then turns you over, forcing your arms over your head and pinning your wrists together with one hand.

“Get—off of me—”

Pinned to the ground on your belly, you flail wildly and scream his ear off while he yanks up your dress again and works your knickers down your legs, nearly getting a foot to the face for his trouble.

“Should be thanking me for getting your ass off the street,” Simon spits out, increasingly annoyed by the way you won’t just let him between your thighs all nice and sweet. “Not even making you do any of the work.”

He’s so magnanimous that he doesn’t even bring up the fact that you’ve been his from the start. So forgiving despite the fact that you should’ve recognized his scent at the very start of it all and approached him before giving him no choice but to go down this road.

His arm is a bar across the small of your back that lays heavy as he plants his face between your thighs and eats you from behind, the bridge of his nose wedged against your perineum and wet with slick. He could cover the whole thing with his mouth if he wanted to.

For as many birds as he’s fucked in his past, this isn’t something he usually does. Gets little out of it, like kissing in that way. For some reason though, he wants it with you; wants it with an ache that makes his stomach cramp, shoulders pulled up to his ears and traps all bunched up around his neck.

He moves on from your pussy, worming his tongue into your clenched up asshole.

“No, don’t do that!” you gasp, reaching behind you as if you grab his hair and yank him away, only for your fingernails to scratch at his scorn scalp in vain.

You make the mistake of trying to push his head away and Simon snarls, the sound so low and guttural that you freeze when you hear it, the vibrations against your skin making your toes curl.

“Move your hand,” he growls.

You grab the blanket underneath you instead, curling your hands into fists and doing anything to avoid reaching back and pushing his face away again.

Much better. He likes how embarrassed and ashamed you get when he runs his tongue over your tight little hole, not used to having someone touch you there. It makes him feel powerful, dominant over you. Like taking your walls down brick by brick and then building you back up with him on the inside.

Though you don’t try to push him away anymore, you’re still a bit too petulant for his tastes. When you whine about it too much, he yanks your hips up and smacks your pussy with the meat of his hand to get you to shut up, your whole body flinching with the impact.

“Ow!” you yelp, a high, reedy sound that splits him down the center.

“You’re givin’ me a hard fuckin’ time, pet,” Simon grumbles. “Stay still.”

“You’re a—fucking asshole!” you holler.

Many people have called him worse, and none of them had his tongue on their asshole. He supposes he can give you a little leeway there.

It quivers under his tongue when he flicks it over the wrinkled skin again, clenching up tight as if to pull away from him. Shy little thing.

The taste of your skin is as good as your scent—a little saltier, but decadent. He laves his tongue over it again and again, eating your ass out until your pussy leaks like a loose spigot, the scent of it so enticing that he nearly gives in and swipes his tongue over your swollen lips.

That’s not what you need though.

Still a little gaped from taking his cock earlier, you take two fingers with ease, stretching beautifully around the widest part of his knuckle. It’s up there with the seven wonders of the world; Simon would choose this over Rome any day.

“You’re gonna take my knot this time, alright?” he murmurs into the underside of your ass, sinking his teeth in when you garble something contradictory at first. “Say yes, bird.”

“Fuck—” you choke out, recanting your previous words, wound up like a clockwork motor. “Yes. Yes, yes, yes, yes—”

He skips straight to four fingers when your hips start to wriggle, amused by the way your thighs tense and your breath goes ragged, sweat dripping down your back. Your hips wiggle and his fingers sink in deeper until he’s practically cupping your pussy in his palm.

“Little bit more—c’mon, birdie, almost there,” Simon coaxes, fingers plunging in and out of the pretty quince between your legs, speeding up when he notices your thighs begin to shake.

You gush all over his fingers when you come, your upper body slumping over, settling deeper into lordosis. Fingers slick with cum when he pulls them out, the fluid webbing between his fingers when he pulls them apart to look at the mess you made.

He finally gives you his cock after he’s gotten you so wet and pliant that he could fist you if he was so inclined. His cock throbs at the thought; that’s a thought for a later day though, when he can afford to take his time with you.

This time when Simon settles behind you, he doesn’t wait for you to relax before pressing all the way in, trusting his own instincts over your frantic pleading. It’s a smooth glide in, wet channel stretching around his shaft with the memory of his size from earlier, easier this time even though you still swear through clenched teeth and shake when he nearly bottoms out.

“Shit…there we go,” he grits out through clenched teeth, forehead veins straining.

In all his life, he’s never had the same pussy twice. Never cared enough about someone to go back for seconds. And now he has one that’ll last him the rest of his life.

It’s rougher this time than in the backseat of your car. Messy and brutal. He fucks you fast and deep, nearly bottoming out with every thrust, panting like he’s been running with the bulls in Pamplona, blond tufts of hair on his chest matted with sweat. Your little grunted pants only spur him on.

He regrets not getting his mouth on your cunt before feeding you his cock. It’s so wet that it squelches every time his hips shuttle forward, slick leaking down the sides of his cock and pooling under you in a wet puddle on the mattress. His fault for not putting down a towel.

When he glances down, he sees your back hole still shiny with his spit and, in a moment of inspiration, wedges a thumb into it to keep it nice and spread. Better to just train you now while your body is so receptive, given that he intends on fucking every hole of yours before the week’s over.

“Coulda just asked for a fuck instead of doin’ all this,” Simon grunts through each thrust. “Wouldn’t’ve turned ya down.”

“I didn’t—I didn’t—”

He snaps his hips forward. “Yeah, you did. Filthy fuckin’ bird.” The sound of laboured breaths and wet, squelching pussy fills the room. “Been wantin’ this, ‘aven’t ya? Wantin’ me? That why you came waggin’ this wet cunt around?”

He’s desperate enough to trick his mind into believing that. The faintest flickering chance that it wasn’t just him sitting behind a booth and pining for what he couldn’t have. That maybe you’d been hoping and waiting for him to come to you instead, all coy and shy about it.

“No, no, I swear,” you gasp, turning your head to the side and looking up at him with your big, watery eyes.

“Yeah, ya did, birdie.”

He has to squeeze a finger in beside his cock to help stretch you enough to take his knot, and it’s a miracle that he eventually works it in. It takes some effort; time. Your back is slick with sweat, tense as a steel pole when he finally works it in, walls febrile and thin around the swollen mass of his knot, a single continuous wail ripping from your throat.

“Big, innit?” he asks rhetorically when he’s got you on the end of it and struggling to form words through soundless gasps for air.

The way you gulp in your breath says it all. Eyes probably wide and bulging if only he had a mirror to watch your expressions in. He’ll have to remember that for later.

It’s still good like this though. Draped over you, the pudge of his lower belly pressed against the small of your back, one hand on the mattress beside you and one clutching your hip to hold you in place.

When he drops his hand between your thighs to jiggle your clit, your inner walls squeeze around his knot and his brain nearly leaks out of his ears. His cockhead nudges against the firm, spongy opening of your cervix, and you mewl like all kittenlike and sweet.

“Gonna come, pet?” Simon rasps.

“I think I’m—think I’m gonna pass out,” you admit, practically slurring your words and Simon barely keeps from collapsing on top of you and fucking your brains out, smothering you under his weight until your words become reality.

It wouldn’t be enough to make him stop; would probably egg him on more than anything to have a soft, pliant body under him taking his cock without trying to squirm away. His knot throbs at the thought and he lets himself slip into the daydream, imagining you prone and unmoving under him.

One day he’ll have you like that. Middle of the night, moonlight streaming in through the window in silver ribbons, your legs akimbo on the bed and his body between them, monstrously large over your slumbering form. An ugly brute with no business plunging his big, filthy cock into such a pretty, perfect fairy doll.

He leans down, pressing a kiss into the back of your head, almost tender for what he’s doing to your pussy. “S’alright if you have to; I’ll take care of ya.”

A few more strums of his fingers over your slippery wet clit and you go tight and taut, coming almost violently, head lolling forward with the force of it, practically burying the crown of your head into the pillow. Maybe you do pass out for a minute or two.

Just the thought of that sends him freefalling over the edge, emptying his balls into the warm clench of your cunt, swollen knot throbbing with each spurt. His knot barely keeps it all plugged in, so much cum flooding your womb from weeks of pent up lust.

Indescribable pleasure crawls up his spine and winds around to the front through his ribcage. Too good for him to waste his time thinking about what he’ll do if his knot does what it’s meant to do and it takes. His cock pulses again at the thought, another wave of pleasure rushing through him. Jesus fuck.

He’s hunched over you for a while before it starts to slough off, thighs tensed on either side of yours. Balls drawn up tight and then slowly relaxing. Finally aware of the sweat pouring down his back and dripping from his chest. Muscles relaxing one after another. There’s an ache in his low back that likely won’t come out until he’s stretched it out, but it’s worth the pain to feel the way your back presses into him with every laboured inhale as you catch your breath.

Simon shushes you when you whine something about being full. “You can take it; you’re alright.”

“It hurts,” you whine, a touch dramatic for his tastes.

“Supposed to hurt, bird.”

Got no choice, is what he wants to say. It’s always going to hurt with him.

He keeps one hand on your belly to ensure you stay pressed up against him when he rolls onto his side, wary of you trying to pull yourself off his cock and hurting yourself in the process. The skin at your entrance is stretched taut around his knot, and though he’s never been a particularly gentle fuck, the idea of something ripping where you’re most delicate sets his teeth on edge.

Your forehead is still hot to the touch when Simon checks. And it will be for a while, your heat coming and going like the sun hidden briefly behind clouds before reappearing again. He’ll have to savour these moments of tranquility when they come.

The moment of stillness is broken when you open your mouth to say, “You know, you could’ve just…talked to me.”

He’s not used to being scolded. It’s been a long time since anyone had that kind of authority over him or reason to talk to him that way, longer still since he’s taken anyone’s words to heart.

“Talkin’ to you now, ain’t I?” Simon asks rhetorically. You huff and he can feel the movement of your back against his chest and it tickles something in him that’s still somehow alive, even after all these years. Even after everything.

“Not the same thing,” you mumble, cheek pressed against the pillow under your head.

‘Course it’s not the same thing, he wants to say, but compromise is essential for survival. You can’t tell a rock not to be a rock. Or a junkyard dog not to bite.

“Tell you what,” he rasps. He drags the hand moulded to your belly up your chest until it’s nestled between your breasts, cupping a tit. Not meaning anything particularly sexual by it. There’ll be a time for that later when your heat crests again and your eyes go filmy, any chance at a coherent conversation swept away. “When we’re done ‘ere…we can ‘ave a go at it. Pretend I asked you out first. Make a game out of it.”

He can feel your incertitude in the stillness of your body. “…What would be the point of that?”

Simon very nearly chuckles. Very nearly says that you alone are the purpose in anything. That everything else in his life has been an aimless meandering for some kind of meaning, all of which has been in vain. All of which has left him scarred and bloody and beaten and battered, and now, for the first time in his life, someone has come along and shown him how pointless all of what came before was.

But that seems like too many words for now.

“No point, bird. Jus’ to make you feel better about it.”

A fine layer of dust on the windowsill reminds Simon that he needs to call the cleaners again.

It’s been at least a day since he brought you home, maybe longer. The sky outside is lighter now than when he brought you in, creamy with light filtered through the clouds, the sun somewhere in pieces behind them.

His heart has always sat deep in the valley where the cold sinks. Sangfroid. Cold-blooded. He’s been called many things in his life, but never deserving. Maybe he still isn’t deserving of anything good. All he knows is how to take and how to spoil.

Today though, his heart isn’t as heavy as it’s always been, and a faint voice breathes softly at the back of his head.

You haven’t been asleep for more than a half hour when Simon goes into the living room to make a call.

Price answers on the second ring. “Lieutenant?”

He sighs. “Can’t keep calling me that.”

“Force of habit.” Simon isn’t thick. Price uses language like he’s casting bait; like if he says the magic word enough times, Simon will give up this bid for freedom and come crawling back with his tail tucked between his legs, ready to sign away his life again. He knows that Price would love to have him back under his command. “What’s the matter? You never call this late.”

“Gonna need a raincheck on our drink tomorrow.” His eyes shift to the bedroom door, darkness spilling from the crack where he left it open. “Something came up.”

There’s silence on the other end of the line and then a rough chuckle. “Oh, did it?”

His skin around his eyes crinkles as he stares into the darkness just beyond the bedroom door. If he quiets his breathing, he can almost hear the faint, soft sounds of your snores from the other room.

“Yeah. It did.”

#ceil writing #cod x reader #ghost/reader #simon riley x reader #ghost x reader #ghost x you #simon ghost riley x reader #simon ghost riley x you

2K notes · View notes

historyofguns · 1 year ago

Link

The article titled "New Year, New Gun: KelTec Sub2000 Gen3" by Richard Johnson discusses the newly released third generation of KelTec's Sub2000 folding carbine, announced on January 1, 2024. The KelTec Sub2000 Gen3 includes several upgrades such as enhanced foldability that accommodates optics, a lighter action for easier bolt operation, an improved aluminum trigger with a lighter pull weight of about 5 pounds, and a redesigned operating handle. The gun, which maintains its reputation for reliability and practicality, particularly for roles like survival or self-defense, will initially be available in 9mm and compatible with Glock 19 and 17 magazines. The MSRP is set at $499, reflecting reasonable pricing amidst current economic conditions.

#KelTec SUB2000 Gen3 #carbine #folding rifle #9mm #.40 S&W #modular #M-LOK #Picatinny rail #enhanced sights #threaded barrel #Kel-Tec #firearm.

0 notes

inkmimicry · 3 months ago

Text

But we have to go back. They'll be worried!

You were never meant to be there in the first place.

He hasn't heard those names uttered by someone else in so long. When --- when did he last say it? There was never any Toulouse. Only Humsin.

Two years, is that all? Is time itself askew? He was just shy of thirty before pain numbed. Don't you see - He's mourned this already. Felt the guilt, imagined the worry, but to see the exhaustion on the young dragons' face... I only ever saw you from the perspective of a child. Big, brave, undaunted.

How humbling. Humsin smooths back the point of his head; sand moving like tussled hair. Nonchalance can only come from the two-thousand years.

"A quest to save two children. I shouldn't have expected anything less."

I always knew you'd come.

He knows what he ought to do, send them back without their answers. Lie.

It's too late for that. He taps his lip in thought.

"I can't recall...but perhaps we know someone who might," he then the side of his head, conspirator. "After all, you'd need another schneemann to find one."

He sits up, points to the horizon -

"Launch!"

There's a snap, and a blur as the contraption heaves - and there he goes! in a zip of gold and red. Kayo has pulled the lever and is waving merrily.

(In Greenland, a certain grey dragon pauses to look at the clouds, where a small dot is soaring across the sky towards Eisland.)

The vultures fix their gaze upon the dragon.

"Brave enough to storm our palace. Wonder if you're brave enough for the other one."

other's opinions matter little when the matter at hand is so dire , although t.abaluga sure FEELS like he's going mad . they didn't even have an absolute that the kids were here . or alive . just a hope . & that hope was starting to become the cruelest of wardens .

“ two years . ” he drones . “ they went missing two years ago . a sandkind & scheekind . ”

two years . two whole birthdays . when children go missing for that long , you may as well bury their memory in that hollowed part of your aching soul that was left in their absence .

but they could not . they couldn't bring themselves to do such an unforgivable thing . they'd turn their whole realm inside-out & even ask the stars " have you seen them ? have you seen our toulouse & isvic ? " before even mentioning giving up . rather be slaves to a malignant hope that poisoned their bodies , choking their inner fires & turning their tears bitter .

t.abaluga doesn't even care , anymore- if this is fuel for the mad king to use his heart against him . he's used to that .

“ please-- have you seen toulouse & isvic ? ”

#// ever think you've healed from something and then something comes barreling in to remind you that oops no you didn't actually #//humsin: keeping it together by a THREAD #drachliebe #🇧🇷🇮🇳🇬 🇲🇪 🇦 🇩🇷🇪🇦🇲 --- T O U L O U S E

28 notes · View notes

attackcopterblog · 10 months ago

Text

TRUE PRECISION INTRODUCES THE TRUE DUTY BARREL SERIES

True Precision has debuted their latest in Sig P365 pattern barrels with the release of the TRUE Duty Barrel series. True Precision states “Introducing the TRUE Duty Barrel for Sig Sauer P365—a new standard in precision engineering. Specifically designed for the 3.1″ P365, P365 SAS, and P365X (3.1″) 9mm models, this barrel is proudly engineered in America with the same exacting tolerances as…

#p365 #sig suaer #true precision #true precision true duty p365 threaded barrel

0 notes

fawniswriting · 2 months ago

Text

After I Was Too Late

This fic can be read as a stand-alone or as a sequel to Before I Could Say It.

The above image does not indicate the reader's physical appearance.

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Reader

Synopsis: The three times Bucky saved your life, and the one time you save each other.

Word Count: 10.1k (I got carried away)

Warning(s): gn!reader (pls advise me if there's any gender-specific detail in the fic), canon typical violence, angst, fluff, near death experience(s), hurt/comfort, alcohol consumption, physical injuries, it's a kinder ending this time I promise 🥺❤️ (lmk if I missed anything!!)

Author's Note: PT 2 IS FINALLY HERE Y'ALL!! I'm so sorryy for the delay, my work has been out of control lately (I legit had to go home at 9.30 PM last week 😭🙏🏼). But I've finally finished this piece, and I hope you guys like it!! I'm tagging everyone who left a comment/reblog-comment on the first part but if you prefer to keep the ending to the fic as it was, then you can just skip reading this. And if any of you want to be removed from the taglist, please just let me know!! As always, don't forget to comment, like, and reblog 💖

Bucky Barnes Masterlist

If someone were to ask you about the beginning, your mind would immediately go straight to that day.

Six years ago, your thread of fate wove into his, placing the two of you on polar ends in the middle of a highway shoot-out that revealed the face beneath the infamous Winter Soldier's mask. You recognized him from the sketches littered across Steve Roger's desk: Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes—Bucky, as Steve had called him. A shadow of the past, long presumed gone to the clutches of war and time.

Yet, there he was.

Alive and breathing.

And he was trying to kill you.

After the events in D.C., you helped the Captain search for the man who had risen from the dead. You saw Bucky's apartment in Bucharest—a depressing little hole in the wall that was barely suitable for a human being to live in. It nicked at your chest, wrestled with a docile side of your heart that you hadn't entertained since they had dubbed you one of earth's mightiest heroes. And when you finally stood in front of the man—not the Soldat, not the merciless assassin who had sliced a dagger to your side two years prior—your chest tapered at the quiet war waging behind his eyes.

“I wasn't in Vienna,” Bucky told Steve. His eyes flickered briefly towards you as he said it, willing, perhaps, for at least one person in that room to put their trust in him; the man standing vulnerably in that apartment, not the weapon he was forced to become.

“I don't do that anymore,” he added.

You believed him.

Steve did, too.

The next few hours were a whirlwind of chasing and being chased. After Zemo broke the Winter Soldier out of the facility in Berlin, you took Steve and Sam to an abandoned site you once neutralized where the three of you could keep Bucky safe from the authorities. You watched from the sideline as Steve interrogated Bucky for answers, listening intently while the Captain and the Falcon began rummaging their heads for a viable plan of action.

Once Sam left to reach out to his contacts, Steve also excused himself from the room, muttering something about needing to make a phone call and leaving you alone with the burly man who was trying miserably to hide behind his curtain of hair.

Wordlessly, you walked towards the paper bag you kept on a rusty oil barrel, grabbing one of its contents before cautiously approaching the brooding man in the center of the room. Bucky looked up the moment you shoved the packaged croissant in his face, confusion shining with blue under the taut crease of dark eyebrows.

“Take it,” you said simply.

Bucky's frown deepened as he stared at your hand.

You masked the sinking feeling in your stomach with a sigh, putting the package next to the makeshift chair Bucky was sitting on.

“You haven't eaten since yesterday.” Your hands were buried in the pocket of your jeans as you spoke, hiding the tremble in them so the man in front of you wouldn't see just how much your heart was breaking for him. “We have a long journey ahead of us. And if Steve is anything to go by when it comes to a super soldier's calorie intake, you must be running on extreme deficit by now.”

Bucky stayed silent.

You scraped the ground with the toe of your shoes, trying to fill in the quietness as you rambled, “I would've loved to prepare you a nice three-course meal, but considering half of the world is on our asses, I didn't think you'd mind a small downgrade. Believe me, I'd kill for a real croissant right now. There's a bakery near the Avengers’ old tower whose owner makes the best chocolate and butter croissants. They're fantastic. This one tastes like a foam board compared to them.”

Bucky continued to stay silent, only perusing you under his intense gaze. You rubbed the back of your neck and managed an awkward chuckle. “You know what? You don't have to eat that. It tastes terrible anyway. I'll just throw it out. Let me see if the pigeons would like some.”

You reached out to grab the plastic packaging, but Bucky stopped you in tracks, grabbing the croissant with a hesitant drag of his hand.

“Thank you,” he muttered curtly.

The sight in front of your eyes would have made you chortle under any other circumstances—the ludicrousness of seeing a Herculean with a metal arm grappling with the flimsy packaging of a factory-made pastry. The croissant was ridiculously small in Bucky’s hand, and you felt foolish for thinking it could offer anything close to sufficient sustenance for a man his size. He could probably devour the whole thing in a single bite and still be starving.

And yet, before he even savored a taste, Bucky tilted the croissant towards you in a silent proposition. An offer to share. To tear the pastry in two as if he didn't barely have enough for himself in the first place. The gesture lurched at something in your chest, winding down your ribs like overgrown vines.

You feigned a smile, feeling it crack around the sorrow you were desperately trying to quell. “That’s for you, Bucky,” you told him softly. “I have mine.”

The man nodded, hesitantly, as if the thought of having something to himself was stranger than fiction. He took a tentative bite, his forehead creasing as he chewed on the sad excuse of a pastry.

“Bad, huh?” You cringed sheepishly. “Told you. It's borderline inedible. You don't have to finish it if you don't want to.”

“I've had worse.”

You clenched your teeth.

There was no room for doubt in your mind that he probably did have worse than an additive-laden confectionery.

“Yeah?” You didn't know why you were asking. “Like what?”

The metal fingers on Bucky's thigh whirred, like he was flexing, removing the stiffness in his joints if there had been flesh instead of vibranium. You waited with bated breath as he stared at a suspicious puddle on the ground.

“I was stuck in an underground cave system once,” Bucky began, pausing to take a tiny bite of the croissant. He looked defenseless that way. Almost like a child. “Spent a few days there. The only thing around me were bats.”

Your nose wrinkled. “You ate bats?”

Bucky didn't attempt to correct your assumption, just kept on munching on the artificial croissant as if he were a kid snacking on candy.

“Were they… good?”

Stupid.

What an incredibly, unbelievably stupid question.

“They were good enough to keep me alive.”

You didn't know what to say to that.

“Well,” you cleared your throat, “just tell me if you change your mind on that croissant. I can get you something else. Remember those pigeons I mentioned? They're not bats, but they've got, you know… protein.”

Then, upon some kind of miracle, it happened.

Bucky smiled.

It was brief, an ephemeral thing that evaporated by the next time you blinked, but it was there. As clear as day, as real as the foul smell of rotten carcasses that surrounded you in that dismal place.

You willed for the excitement in your belly to die down—the last thing Bucky needed was for you to go deranged over a mere smile, probably one of the firsts he allowed himself to have after decades of drought—giving Bucky a short nod before turning around to reward him some privacy, but you didn't go far before a rough voice halted your footsteps.

When your gaze landed on him again, Bucky was tense. His shoulders curled inward as if struggling desperately to keep himself small, his fingers twitched where they were curled around the half-eaten pastry.

“Are you okay?” he eventually asked.

“Me?” Your eyebrows knitted in a mixture of confusion and surprise. “Uh, I'm fine? Well, as fine as one can be after becoming a fugitive of the law, but otherwise—”

“That’s not what I meant.”

His scrutiny roved over your figure from the distance, as though his stare could penetrate through the deepest layer of skin, lighting up a flame that licked through every inch of your bloodstream. Blue irises jerked towards the side of your abdomen, a fleeting tic, but it was enough to force the realization to dawn on you.

Bucky was talking about your wound.

The laceration wound that he—no, that the Soldat—had administered during your altercation in D.C.

Instinctively, your hand lifted, brushing against the jagged scar that you knew was seething under the cover of your shirt. The simple movement didn't escape Bucky's notice, and you chastised yourself for your lack of consideration when you saw his body fold lower towards his knees.

“Bucky—”

“I'm sorry,” he said heavily, shakily. A striking fragility from a man who was supposed to be carved out of steel.

You shook your head in urgency, crossing the distance between you and him before stopping a good six feet away from the defeated man. He didn’t even look up at your proximity, keeping his head angled to the ground, shrinking more and more with every passing second as if he wanted to disintegrate into oblivion.

With careful strides, you removed the remaining space separating you and Bucky, sinking to your knee right in front of him. You called his name softly, begging him to glance up, coaxing him out of the shell of condemnation that he had crawled himself into.

When he finally peered at you, the blue of his eyes had dimmed into a stormy gray. You bit the inside of your cheek, fighting the urge to lean forward and gather this broken man into your arms.

“Bucky,” you called his name again, resolutely this time. Firm and steady, offering no room for even an ounce of doubt or a breath of protest. “It wasn't your fault.”

Bucky fleered.

“I mean it.” You searched his gaze, commanding him to stay there, to not run away from your eyes because you needed him to hear this. You needed him to believe. “I'm not gonna hold you accountable for what happened on that highway, or for anything else you might have done in the past few decades. None of that is your fault. They used you. You couldn't even remember your own name, let alone understand what HYDRA was forcing you to do. You're also a victim here, Bucky.”

He shook his head.

Your heart shattered into tiny little pieces all over the ground.

You shifted on the ball of your knee, sighing as you felt exhaustion pulling at your limbs.

“Steve would agree,” you said quietly.

Those three words managed to snatch Bucky's attention.

“Actually, Steve does agree.” You glimpsed towards the entrance where the Captain had disappeared through earlier, swallowing the lump that had lodged itself in your throat. “It's the reason why he's here. The reason why we all are. He is the literal embodiment of everything good in this world, Bucky. And if Steve Rogers—Captain America himself—looks at you and sees someone worth saving, someone who deserves a second chance despite all that happened, then that says everything I need to know about the kind of man you truly are.”

You waited for something to shift, for the contempt in his eyes to dissipate, for the strain in his shoulders to melt, but nothing happened. He continued to drown, making no moves to get himself out of the murky waters that were pulling him under.

“Everything that happened while you were under HYDRA’s control—the missions, the casualties—none of it is on you, Buck,” you pressed on. “The wound on my side? That wasn't your fault either. Hell, I was shooting at you, too! I didn't know who you were back then. You didn’t know me. You didn’t even know yourself. They made sure of that.”

You took a shuddering breath, physically readying yourself to voice the next conviction out loud.

“If someone has to carry the blame, it should be HYDRA,” you determined. “Not you, Bucky. Never you.”

The silence that followed was strangulating. You watched Bucky with heart in your throat, waiting for him to react, to do something or say something. Perhaps if he had cried, it would've been better. Because then, you might have been able to help, to offer him the solace of your arms, to teach him how he could peel back the guilt that was clinging to him like a second skin.

Yet, Bucky just sat, still as a tombstone and quiet as a graveyard.

The eerie calm before a catastrophic storm.

When he finally looked up, Bucky's eyes were a tempest—dark and turbulent, thundering with the repercussions of a hundred lifetimes he never asked to live.

“Maybe—” Bucky's voice quivered. He ran his flesh hand across his face and started over, “Maybe you're right.

Your chest staggered.

Before you could respond, Bucky's gaze dropped, teetering towards your side, as though he could see the ridges of skin underneath the cotton fabric of your shirt. The place where flesh had once split under a blade he hadn't even known he was holding.

On his knee, Bucky's fingers twitched, like he wanted to reach out, to inspect the remnant of the wound with his own flesh and skin but didn't know how to trust himself enough to do so.

His jaw tightened.

“But it was still me, wasn't it?” Bucky's breathing stammered. The words came out choked, as though the truth tasted like rust on his tongue. “I was still the one holding the knife, Sugar.”

The nickname maimed you more than one could expect. Had Bucky said it with enough cynicism, maybe you would have chalked it up to bitterness and moved on. But he hadn't said it like that—he had said it with a devastating frailness, a frayed piece of another life bleeding through the cracks. It came from a version of him that had smiled at strangers and walked dates home in the rain, a boy from Brooklyn who probably said it with a charming grin and a flirtatious warmth.

Your heart broke for him all over again.

You ransacked your brain for something to say, to convince Bucky that he was wrong, but the sound of incoming footsteps stripped you of the chance, forcing you to quickly rise to your feet just in time for Sam and Steve to enter the room. Your conversation with Bucky was shoved to the backburner as the other two apprised you of your next step, both unaware of the tension stretching taut in the air, suspended between you and Bucky like a ghost no one else could see.

The next thing you knew, your life was unraveling like a house of cards in the span of one night. It felt like you blinked, and suddenly you were standing in the middle of a tarmac, staring down faces you used to sit with during breakfast and mission briefings, others who carried the weight of loyalty you could no longer afford.

The spider-like kid who loved to crawl on things was the first one you faced. He was nimble, all limbs and chatter, a fleck of innocence to testify to his lack of experience. You tuned out his nervous jokes and wide-eyed commentary as you focused on blocking each of his strikes, breathing through the ache in your ribs, willing your body to stay sharp.

But then, your instincts faltered.

The agonized sound wasn't loud, especially compared to the surrounding chaos that had befallen the airport. Your eyes flitted towards the man anyway, as if having a mind of their own, making you lose your footing for a fraction of second as your gaze landed on him from the distance.

Bucky.

The sight of him staggering back—blood blooming across his skin like a crimson tear—rustled an unknown weight within your chest. Natasha stood just a few paces away, her favorite knife in hand, the blade gleaming in the same shade of red running in rivulets down Bucky's cheek.

The moment of distraction was fleeting. Short. But it was the only opening your opponent needed to yank you off balance and send your back straight to the ground.

“Sorry,” the Spidey kid huffed, straddling your legs, his grip surprisingly strong for someone built like a string bean in spandex. “Big fan, though. Seriously. Hey, crazy idea. Maybe after all of this, you can sign my—”

He never got the chance to finish his sentence.

With a drive of your elbow to his side, coupled with a shove of your knee to his chest, Spidey was now the one pinned to the ground—winded limbs and spayed webbing as he stared up at the clouds. You rose to your feet with a heaving chest, the ground trembling beneath your boots as you stole a moment to breathe.

You didn't even notice the light shifting in the sky.

Your reflexes awakened a second too late, stirring only when a dark shadow swept over your head. There was no time to run. Whatever protective measure you could whip up, whatever direction your feet could carry you in a matter of seconds, the end result was clear—you wouldn't be able to make it out of there unscathed.

Or at least, you should not have been able to make it out of there unscathed—but you did.

Because Bucky Barnes—the Winter Soldier, the man whose name was whispered between cautions of death and terror—had saved you.

He lunged from somewhere behind the smoke, arms wrapping around your frame before shoving you forward and down. The force of the blast rocked the ground as a small aircraft detonated a few yards away, radiating a heat so raging it licked at your back. Debris rained down all around you as Bucky’s body remained curled over yours, shielding you from the worst of it, lying like a fortress between you and the explosion's aftermath.

For a moment, all you could hear was your own ragged breathing. Your ears were still ringing when Bucky finally stood up, pulling you by your elbow to your slightly unsteady feet. He examined you from head to toe, his grounding touch remaining steadfast around your forearm, eliciting goosebumps.

“Are you okay?” he asked quietly.

You nodded, still in shock. Still breathless.

“Bucky.” Your fingers convulsed, moving up to clutch his jacket and stopping once you thought better of it. “You saved me.”

He didn't answer at first, and when he did, his eyes evaded yours, jaw clenching as his gaze meandered somewhere distant. “It's the least I could do.”

Then, that same gaze moved, lowering until it settled on your side. You didn’t need him to spell it out to know exactly what he was thinking. The wound had been his doing once, delivered by a man with the same face but none of the same mercy. The shadow of a life that felt like his own but one he gravely wished to relinquish.

You felt the phantom sting of it then, not from the wound, but from the way Bucky was assessing it—like he was measuring his worth by the depth of that scar. Like saving you had been a down payment for a debt he could never repay.

Your mouth parted, already halfway to saying something, anything, that might severe the penance he had inflicted upon himself.

But before you could say a word, the world raged again, sending ripples of a faraway explosion that rattled the earth.

You swallowed hard, grounding yourself as you imparted, “We need to get to the jet.”

Bucky nodded once, his stature straightening as if his resolve had always been intact. The two of you broke into a sprint immediately, side by side, boots striking the tarmac in tandem as the smoke closed in all around you.

That was the first time Bucky Barnes saved your life.

And you knew, as you dashed across the airport grounds, that it wouldn't be the last.

After two years in Wakanda—two years since the disastrous battle on that infamous airport—you were finally bringing Bucky back home to New York.

Tony was not happy when he greeted the two of you at the compound, and you were even less thrilled to see him after everything that went down following his support for the Sokovia Accords—which, to your delight, had officially been nullified. Tony had promised he would play nice, and that included absolving Bucky—or at least, trying to—for all of the crimes that HYDRA forced him to do. It wasn't ideal, but it was a start; a show of good faith as Tony pledged to assist Bucky's recovery in every (financial) way possible.

Still, that didn't stop you from making sure that you walked in front of Bucky while the two of you were approaching the front gate, offering yourself as a human barrier should the philanthropist do anything untoward.

The first few weeks at the compound were dedicated towards ensuring a seamless transition for Bucky. From creating his daily schedule, vouching for a potential therapist, to showing him the nooks and crannies of his new home—you tackled every single task with purpose; convincing yourself that it was about structure, routine, and reintegration, but deep down, you knew better.

It was about keeping him close. Keeping him safe.

And maybe, that was exactly why you found yourself lashing out at Steve when he told you, a few weeks later, that Bucky would be sent on his first mission as an Avenger.

“This is bullshit,” you seethed, your fingers curling around the edge of the conference table in a death grip. “It's barely been two months and already they wanna send him back out there? After everything he's been through?”

The Captain sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. “I don't like this anymore than you do—”

“Then stop it.”

“I tried!” Steve's eyebrows creased, his mouth pressed into a thin line. It was a rare sight to see Captain America this upset. “The higher-ups were asking questions, and his therapist already told them that Buck is ready. I tried talking to him about it, but he's adamant to go. There's nothing else I can do.”

“There's always something,” you retorted. “Maybe you just haven't tried hard enough.”

Despite how much your words stung, Steve forced himself to move past it. He knew they hadn't come from a place of malice. Instead, it had come from a place of affection—perhaps even love—a protectiveness he also shared towards a certain super soldier with a metal arm.

“Look,” Steve began, shifting in his seat, “have you ever thought that maybe this is what Bucky needs?”

Your head snapped up.

Steve took your silence as a cue to continue, “We know he hasn't forgiven himself yet. Not fully. And that's understandable, isn't it? Maybe what he needs, right now, is the chance to make it right. Maybe going on a mission—one he actually chooses to partake in, where he knows something good will come out of it—could be Bucky's way of making his amends.”

The Captain trailed off, letting his words linger above the tense atmosphere of the conference room.

You hated how much it made sense.

With a drop of your shoulders, you pinned your stare on the faraway wall, biting the inside of your cheek before mumbling, “Fine.”

Steve smiled, ready to wrap up the conversation once and for all when your voice interrupted him, “But I'm going.”

“What?”

“You heard me.” You got up from your own chair and sauntered towards the door, flicking a firm glance towards Steve that left no room for objection. “I'm not gonna stop you from assigning Bucky to that mission. But if he's coming, then I'm coming, too. And there's nothing you can do to stop me.”

In the end, Steve had relented, and what was once supposed to be a three-person crew's mission became four as you, Bucky, Sam, and Maria Hill took off towards Panama City.

Interference hailed the four of you upon arrival, running you into more hostiles than the initial intel had suggested. Despite your time away in Wakanda, your instincts didn’t waver. The rhythm came back effortlessly, muscle memory filling in the gaps left by your mind without a sliver of hesitation.

However, between every swift kick and precise strike, your focus frayed. Not from fear, but from a certain super soldier who was never out of your sight for long. Your gaze strayed to his silhouette again and again, making you stumble more times than you cared to admit, trying desperately to stand your ground in your own fight while keeping an eye on him all at once.

It was reckless.

And it was precisely why, as you realized too late, you ended up failing to notice the grenade.

“Watch out!”

Two strong arms—one flesh and one vibranium—shoved you out of the explosion's radius, a flying shrapnel missing your head by inches as your shoulder crashed against the ground. Bucky got thrown immediately on impact, sent over the edge of the skyscraper as the ground started to crack, fragment, and disintegrate into nothing.

“No!”

Horror erupted in your stomach at the building's cession to gravity. You scampered forward, dropping to your hands and knees to lean over the skirt where floor was supposed to be. Your relief escaped in a stammered breath when you spotted Bucky a couple of stories down, still alive, dangling by his flesh arm around the corner of a deteriorating girder.

A window pane launched into the air.

Bucky's agonized scream ripped through the chaos the moment it rammed against his left shoulder.

Something in your guts twisted at the sight of artificial axons peeking out of the ripped seams of his tactical jacket. Blood soaked through the torn fabric, staining the silver beneath in unforgiving red.

“Bucky!” Your pulse hammered. “Don't move, I'm coming to get you!”

“Don't.” Bucky's voice was stern. Final. “You gotta get outta here before the whole thing collapse.”

“I'm not leaving here without you!”

Inside your earpiece, noises began to crackle.

“Guys?” Maria's voice emerged. The sound of punches and clatter reverberated from her end of the line. “I think I need some help over here.”

“Go help Maria,” Bucky commanded.

“But you—”

“Sugar.”

The nickname halted you in place. Bucky was smiling as he looked up at you, although you knew that it was nothing more than a facade. Any other person would have been fooled by his performance, but you could easily pinpoint the shadow of a grimace he was trying to conceal, the exhaustion crippling his body as he struggled to hold himself up at an angle that wouldn't put additional strain to the already splintering steel beam.

Blue eyes softened. “I'm gonna be fine. You should go.”

Your throat constricted.

You crouched frozen on the ledge, the roar of distant gunfire echoing through the shattered high-rise. Fifty stories below, parts of the building's skeleton scattered on the ground. Your hand twitched towards Bucky, wanting to reach out, desperate to haul him back into your arms, but the chasm between you felt impossibly wide.

Meanwhile, Maria's grunts and struggle continued to echo in your ears as she seemed to wrestle a few assailants at once. You knew you should go to her aid. You knew this wasn’t the time for hesitation.

And yet… Bucky.

His lips were still curled into that easy smile—the same one he shared with you during clandestine moments around the compound, because this side of Bucky Barnes was one he reserved specifically for you. His knuckles had gone white from supporting his entire weight, the beam creaking under the slightest sway of his body, jerking slightly.

“I don’t—” Your voice cracked. “I don’t know what to do.”

“I do,” he said gently, as if he weren't hanging by one arm over nothing but air. “You save her.”

You could barely breathe.

The seconds were ticking—Maria was calling for help, and Bucky was slipping.

You weren’t enough to save both of them.

“Sam,” you gasped, pressing your hand to the comms. Static was the only response, and you prayed to the heavens above that wherever he was, whatever he was doing, he could listen to your plea. “You’ve gotta get to Bucky. Now. He’s gonna—I can’t—just… please.”

There was a beat of silence, the kind that stretched longer than a lifetime.

Just when you began to think he wasn't going to answer, Sam's voice fizzled in, “On my way.”

The comms fell silent again.

A violent wind tore through the air, hitting like a freight train.

The steel girder—the one remaining lifeline fastening Bucky to this world—buckled with a piercing screech.

In the blink of an eye, the girder snapped.

“BUCKY!”

A blur of silver and red swooped below him in the same breath, and before you could lunge forward to follow Bucky as he fell, Sam was there—arms locked securely around Bucky’s torso, wings flaring wide to steady the sudden addition of weight. Bucky’s head dropped against Sam’s shoulder, dazed but alive. Your whole limbs teetered towards the verge of liquefying as your lungs finally released the air you didn’t know you were holding.

“You okay, man?” Sam’s voice chirped through your earpiece. “Christ, what did they feed you in Wakanda?”

A sound escaped your chest—something between a strangled sob and a wry laugh.

Gathering yourself, you pressed another hand to the comms, rising to your feet and sprinting towards the server room as you announced, “Hang on tight, Maria. I'm on my way.”

By the time you and Maria went back to the safehouse over an hour later, Sam and Bucky were already there. Bucky was lying on the couch the moment you strode in, his metal arm detached and thrown almost haphazardly on the coffee table while Sam tinkered with Redwing on the kitchen counter.

From the bandage wrapped around Bucky's shoulder, you knew that the on-site medical android had taken a look at him already, but the anxiety in your mind still wasn't pacified. It dribbled all over the floor as you marched towards him, your body shaking partly from the adrenaline still coursing through your veins, but also from the anger and dread boiling in your blood.

“Why the hell did you do that?!”

Venom leaked from your voice the moment you approached the couch. Behind you, Sam and Maria fell silent, readying themselves for the imminent confrontation ahead. Bucky's face remained impassive as he rose to a seating position, a faint tug at the corner of his lips.

“Hi, sweetheart.”

“Don't fucking sweetheart me.”

Your chest rose and fell in a dizzying rythm, daggers flying from your eyes towards the man in front of you. The same one who had nearly, stupidly welcomed death into his arms due to some kind of foolish heroism embedded in his principles. The one who was currently looking at you with cerulean eyes so tender it almost made you forget that he was close to slipping from your fingers a mere hour earlier.

Bucky let out a sigh. “I'm okay.”

“Quit talking to me like I'm stupid, Bucky. We all can see your ripped metal arm on the table. Your bandaged shoulder.”

“It's nothing.”

“It's not nothing!”

“It's nothing compared to what I've suffered before.”

An incredulous laugh tore from your larynx, sharp and sardonic. It was the only thing keeping the lump inside from choking you whole. “Just because you've survived worse doesn't mean you're fucking invincible, Buck! You could've died. You almost died. If Sam hadn't got there in time, you would've—”

The words wedged in your throat.

Your eyes fell shut as you expelled the images of Bucky dangling between life and death out of your mind.

Gentle fingers encircled your wrist. You gasped at the sudden warmth surrounding you, opening your eyes to find that Bucky had tugged you closer to stand between his parted knees. Your palms automatically landed on the column of his neck, chest pounding at the unbearable softness shining out of Bucky’s eyes.

This was new territory—Bucky had always treated closeness like something fleeting, something borrowed. His touches, his embraces, were often hesitant, as though affection was a luxury he couldn’t afford. But now, he held you like he had done it a thousand times before, like your body against his was the very thing chaining him to reality. His hand curled firmly around your waist, anchoring himself, grounding his entire existence to the certainty of your presence.

“Hey,” Bucky said, squeezing your side lightly. “I'm right here, Sugar. I'm alright.”

Your chest burned. “We almost lost you.”

“But you didn't.”

“But what if we had?!”

“Then you should take solace in the knowledge that I haven't gone in vain.”

Your fingers clenched around the edge of Bucky's shoulders, nails branding crescent moons into the skin. He didn't even flinch.

“You don't need to sacrifice your life for me, Bucky. I don't need that kind of thing on my conscience,” you spat.

“I wouldn't call it a sacrifice, sweetheart,” Bucky said firmly, resolutely. “If that's what it takes to keep you safe, then I'd gladly take the fall.”

Bucky's declaration propelled the tears you had been desperately trying to contain to the forefront. A strangled whimper shredded from your lips. You quickly tried to mask it with a scowl.

“That's the very definition of a ‘sacrifice’, you idiot.”

“Not in my book.” Bucky smiled. “Not when it's you.”

Before he could say another word, you removed the distance between you and threw yourself in his arms. The dam within you finally caved in, freeing the ragged sobs you had been trying to keep at bay. Your tears stained the collar of his undershirt, your arms locking around him tightly as though sheer willpower might fetter him to you, to life itself.

He staggered slightly under your weight, grunting from the pull on his wounded shoulder, but his hand—his only hand—immediately rose to your back, fingers splayed as they began tracing slow, calming patterns across your spine.

“Don’t ever do that again,” you whispered hoarsely. “Don’t throw yourself in front of danger for me. I don't ever want to watch you fall like that again. I can’t—”

“I know,” Bucky murmured, pressing his cheek to your temple. “I know, Sugar.”

“Promise me,” you croaked out.

He stilled for a second. “I can't,” Bucky said breathlessly. “I'd do it again in a heartbeat, sweetheart. I’ll always choose to save you.”

A fresh wave of tears surged behind your eyes. Your fingers curled tighter into the fabric of his undershirt. You hated him for that.

And you loved him even more because of it.

From behind you, someone cleared their throat.

“I hate to interrupt the Notting Hill shit we’ve got going on here,” Sam said, “but is anyone else starving or is it only the guy who just saved Barnes’ ass?”

The evening wind bit your cheeks the moment you stepped out of the bar. In a chorus of jovial shrieks and mischievous laughter, your friends from the Academy all bid each other goodbye—some heading straight home, some scuttering after the next round of drinks and fun, but all equally giddy and tipsy—stumbling on the curb and crashing against unassuming lamp posts.

“Sure you're not coming?” one of your friends asked.

“No, told you I've got an early morning tomorrow,” you slurred slightly, shaking your head twice when the face in front of you began to blur around the edges.

“Okay. Text me when you get home!”

You waved them off with a lopsided smile, turning on your heel and starting the slow trek back to the station. The pavement felt oddly slanted under your feet, and you blamed the tequila for the fifth time that night. The wind swept down the empty street, nipping at your exposed skin, sending discarded wrappers tumbling aimlessly along the sidewalk.

“Hey, Gorgeous! You need a ride?” a voice called out.

You didn’t bother looking. The city was full of idiots, and you weren’t in the mood for petty confrontations when your balance already wavered like a tightrope walker with a death wish.

You were in the midst of stifling a yawn when your foot unexpectedly hit a shallow crack in the pavement, pitching your body forward, arms flailing wildly before you caught yourself mid-fall.

The voice spoke again, this time laced with a grin that lit a match in the back of your mind, “Careful, sweetheart. Steve's gonna be pissed if you break an ankle before the mission tomorrow.”

Your eyes snapped up.

Leaning against a dark motorcycle across the street, like some kind of B-list actor playing a bad boy in a trashy movie franchise, was none other than Bucky Barnes. He looked way too good for someone who just watched you nearly eat concrete—leather jacket unzipped, gloved hand resting on the handlebar, and an easy smile tugging at his lips.

Your face broke into an instantaneous grin.

“Bucky, what are you doing here?”

You skipped across the street without looking. The squeal of tires resonated in the air, blaring horns and flashing headlights as you registered too late the oncoming car speeding your way. You stumbled in your haste to escape the street, to save yourself before your crushed skull and its content became the next headline for tomorrow's 6 A.M. news.

But before gravity could make a fool out of yourself, Bucky’s arms were already around you. He caught your body with ease, keeping your face from planting onto the curb, his broad frame shielding you from the splash of puddle as the honking car zipped past.

“Jesus, sweetheart,” he muttered, his metal fingers squeezing your hip, “you lookin’ to give an old man a heart attack?”

“Sorry,” you offered sheepishly, willing the percussion in your chest to assuage. “Thanks for saving me.”

“I'd save you anytime and anywhere, Sugar.” Bucky smiled, his gaze soft and genuine despite the flirtatious nature of his words. “But it'd be nice if I didn't have to do it all the time.”

You feigned a gasp. “And here I thought you were my personal hero on call, Buck.”

The man in front of you laughed—a carefree thing with his head thrown back, ocean blue glinting under the paltry luminance of streetlights. You stepped out of his embrace with great reluctance, shivering slightly in the absence of Bucky's warmth.

The motion didn't escape Bucky's notice. “Did you not bring a jacket?”

“I did.” You wrapped yourself with your own arms, stroking the goosebumps away with your palms. “I lent it to my friend and I guess… well, I forgot to ask for it back.”

“Why does that not surprise me?”

“Because everyone knows how kind, selfless, and generous I am?” You grinned.

Bucky didn't say anything in return. Instead, he made quick work shedding the jacket off his back, revealing the outline of muscles under the gorgeous cover of dusty blue henley. Your throat went dry, every nerve ending lighting up in fireworks when Bucky stepped forward, draping the leather garment around your shoulders.

“There you go. That would have to do for now,” he muttered.

His fingertips brushed your neck as he tugged the leather collar closer around you. The scent of coffee, mint, and something indistinguishably Bucky attacked your senses, stealing your breath and leaving the taste of longing on your tongue. He looked at you in that same infuriating tenderness that made your insides spume, reduced to tiny bubbles filled with hope and yearning.

“Thanks,” you breathed out once he withdrew. “By the way, how come you're here? I thought you had that mission with Nat today.”

“I did,” Bucky replied, burying his hands in his jeans’ pockets.

Your forehead creased. “No way. Did you bail?”

“Are you crazy? Steve would have my ass.”

“Then…”

“Came straight from the jet,” he said casually, the impish quirk of his lips giving him away before his words even landed.

“You what?” You gawked. “Are you serious? Did you even debrief with Steve before you went here? Did you even go to the medbay? At all?”

“It was just recon.” He shrugged, far too nonchalant for your liking. “Nat can handle the debrief. She did all the sneaking around anyway, I barely lifted a finger.”

“That’s not the point.” You groaned, massaging the headache that had started gnawing at your temple. “Who cares if it was just recon, Bucky? The procedure says you're to go to the medbay after every mission. The rule is there for a reason. What if you were injured but you didn't even notice? What if you were exposed to a dangerous substance while you were on the field? It's incredibly reckless, stupid, and—”

Your words dissolved the moment his hands cupped your cheeks.

Bucky studied your countenance in silence, his eyes delicate, his thumbs gentle as they skimmed along your jaw. He smiled at you as if your soul was scribbled in a script only he could decipher. An intimate secret shared between the meager spaces the two of you occupied in this infinite universe.

Your breath hitched.

Everything around you tilted on its axis, the world dulling into a distant hum to make room for the cosmic threads tethering you both to each other. His eyes were tired as they locked onto yours, but behind the muted blue, something else shone through—something steadfast and searing, like an eternal flame trapped in the most secluded heights of the Himalayan range.

“I’m okay,” he said at last, voice low but certain. “I’m right here, and I’m okay.”

You didn't blink—you couldn't.

Your chest deflated in the aftermath of worry, the relief sweeping through you like a tide pulling back after a storm. Bucky withdrew, his hands leaving your face in a parting goodbye, and you had to fight the urge to yank him back in, to stay in the fragile moment that had cracked open between the two of you.

“‘Sides,” he drawled, a teasing glint replacing the ferocity in his eyes, “if I didn't pick you up, you'd probably end up passed out in a dumpster somewhere. Can't have you jeopardizing the mission like that, can I?”

You groaned and shoved his shoulder. “Ass.”

Bucky chuckled, rounding the bike before handing you a helmet. “C'mon, lightweight.”

You rolled your eyes, although the blooming smile on your face betrayed the faux irritation as you climbed onto the motorcycle. Bucky was warm in front of you, your arms finding purchase around his waist the second the engine roared to life, buildings and trees alike blurring past as the two of you sped through the streets of New York.

This time, you held Bucky a little tighter than usual, just in case he forgot how much it mattered that he made it home safely.

The pain was the first thing your brain registered.

Lights spilled through the all-encompassing darkness, rousing you awake, filling the gaps in your mind with an awareness of life. The ache traveled through your body in an unimaginable speed, a ravenous beast as it ate away your soul, and you could barely contain the pained whimper before it tumbled free out of your lips.

Something engulfed your hand.

Warmth.

“Sugar?”

You whimpered louder.

“Shit." There was a rustling by your side before the same voice sprouted again, “Hang on, sweetheart. I'll get the doctor.”

Time stumbled in and out of your grasp. You thought you could hear several voices conversing in the room not long after. One of them, unrecognizable in your ears but settled deeply within your chest, rose above all of them. It sounded desperate, broken, as if the person had attempted to barter with God using merely a mangled heart and a splintered spine.

“...please,” you caught him say, the end of a sentence blown by the breeze before you could curl your fingers around it.

“I understand, Barnes,” another voice spoke. “We'll take care of it. Just wait outside, will you?”

A pair of hands proceeded to roam over your body. You felt the pull of consciousness behind your eyelids, heaving you out of the void, an aimless ghost slipping violently back into flesh.

You gasped.

The world returned in a fragmented mosaic—white ceiling, antiseptic air, and a beeping monitor that echoed stubbornly beside your ear. Inside your body, a burning agony erupted. It sank into the deepest corners of your being, clutching around your lungs, turning you into nothing more than a wailing heap of muscles and bones.

“Hey, hey, easy now,” came a calm voice.

The words arrived in the company of gentle hands, too cold for your liking, but they were a reprieve nonetheless. The face in front of you zoomed in and out of focus like moonlight dancing across shattered glass, the contours merging and sundering as they finally morphed into the features of a familiar friend.

Dr. Helen Cho.

She pressed the back of her hand to your forehead before shining a penlight into your eyes. “Pupils reactive. That’s good. Welcome back.”

You blinked away the harsh light from your vision, wincing when the effort sent a jolt of pain through your neck and shoulder. Your lips parted in an attempt to speak, but your throat felt like it had been shoved with hot coals, shredding your voice into nothing more than a torn, fragile snivel.

“W-what… what happened?” you croaked out.

“You were shot,” Helen answered. “Do you remember?”

Just like that, the memory barreled into you like a sucker punch to the face.

Images of drab walls and ceilings, the sight of mold and moss co-existing with dead rodents’ remains filled your mind. The abandoned building once posed as the warehouse of an illegal bio-weaponry enterprise that had long ceased to operate. The Avengers’ presence on site was supposed to be a straightforward recon—gather the intel on the culpable syndicate, perhaps scour for names complicit in supplying the deadly goods in the first place—and it was implied as such on the case files given to the entire team.

No one could have predicted that the simple job would turn into an ambush.

Your mind began flipping through the pages of memory, recalling how it took you no time at all to neutralize the four agents sent your way. Under different circumstances, you might have felt offended by the measly number of hostiles assigned to you—had your thoughts, of course, not already been preoccupied with a certain super soldier. Still, any insolent disparagement your opponent once hurled at your combat abilities was indefinitely put on ice as you dashed across the site's west wing.

By the time you arrived, Bucky was already cornered.

Instinct, and something else akin to protectiveness, fueled your movements as you thundered into the room. Most of the assailants were already lying in stacks on the floor, the rest following suit with every deliberate strike you threw their way. Your chest rose and fell in erratic bursts, each breath scraping your throat as the last body hit the ground.

Across the room, Bucky rose from behind the makeshift fortress, aiming his gun before stopping dead in tracks. The corner of your mouth lifted when your gazes found each other.

“Hi, handsome. Miss me?”

Bucky let out a rough breath, his grip around the gun loosening. “Was wondering when you'd show up, sweetheart.”

He stood up and approached you in merely four strides, smiling so sweetly as though your presence in front of him had been God's own gift to mankind. You fought off a shudder and attempted nonchalance as your palm brushed the dust off his shoulder.

“Sorry, Sarge. You know I like to keep people on their toes.”

The grin on Bucky's face expanded. He bumped his shoulder to yours, the two of you heading for the exit as Bucky started requesting for extraction through his comms.

A split second was all it took for everything to go sideways.

You didn't know what compelled you to turn around for one last glance. Had you heard something? Felt something? Had the hairs on the back of your neck sensed the imminent danger before your brain could even begin processing it?

It was impossible to say, but something dragged your gaze over your shoulder, an invisible hook yanking you back just in time to catch the glint of metal under the scanty light. One of the bodies on the ground, presumed dead, had begun to stir. His arm trembled as he lifted his gun from the blood-slick floor, the barrel rising with all of the inevitability of a verdict carved in stone.

Your breathing caught.

Everything in your body told you to run. To take shelter behind the wooden crate in the corner of the room, call out a warning, anything. But you knew exactly where that gun was aimed, where that bullet would go if you dared to move even an inch.

Straight into Bucky.

The whole world narrowed. What happened next wasn't a choice—it was a decision your body made under direct instructions of your heart, born not from years of training but from the gentle fondness you harbored for the man beside you. It commanded you to hold your ground, freezing your limbs, your chest pounding as though wishing to somehow intercept the bullet before it could write the ending you weren’t ready to read.

Then, the shot rang out.

Everything else had transpired in a blur. You remembered certain bits and pieces through the fog in your mind—the pain on your neck, the retaliation shot Bucky had fired from his gun, the look of pure terror you saw on his face as he held your crumbling body before it could shatter against the concrete ground.

The confession.

“Bucky.” His name fled your lips before you could even think about it.

Helen's gaze softened. “He's outside. He's been here the whole time. Never left your side since the surgery.”

You swallowed, throat thick with the weight of half-formed questions. “H-How long…?”

“Thirty-eight hours,” she replied. “The bullet missed your artery by millimeters. We almost lost you a couple of times. You were extremely lucky this time, Agent.”

Your eyes closed momentarily. When they opened again, your gaze found Helen with an unshakable purpose. “Could you please send him in?”

The doctor gave you a single nod, landing a reassuring pat on your knee before leaving the room silently.

Not long after, the door opened with a quiet hiss.

The sight of Bucky standing in the doorway smashed your heart into a million little pieces.

His hair was unkempt, sticking to different directions as if his fingers had run through them too many times to count. Even from the distance, you could still see how bloodshot his eyes were, how hollow and agonized they were under the harsh lighting of the room. He looked like a man who had outrun hell only to realize that it had made a home right inside his chest.

“Bucky,” you called out, slowly, gently.

His shoulders tensed at the sound of your voice.

Bucky's movement was tedious, as though it was painful for him to move, as though lifting his head required more strength than Atlas needed to carry the world on his shoulders. The moment his eyes met yours, something inside him cracked and splintered.

“You're awake,” he said hoarsely.

“I am,” you replied, offering a soft, shaky smile. “I'm okay.”

Bucky didn't move.

He looked like he didn't even breathe.

It was as if an intangible weight had shackled itself around his ankles, stopping him in place. Bucky didn't try to fight it, to break himself out of the phantom hold he had been cast under. He just kept standing there, motionless, like he was afraid that if he came any closer, the fragile image of you in front of him—alive, breathing, and speaking—would vanish.

Your throat tightened.

“Buck,” you tried again, a tremor in your voice now, too. “Come here.”

His fingers twitched.

“Please.”

It was that single word that finally did it—the plea that fell onto him like a torrent on scorched earth.

He took one step, then another, erasing the distance between him and the bed with a slowness that might convince someone he was walking barefoot on shards of glass. You watched every inch of him draw nearer, his pain thick in the atmosphere of the room, heavier than the oxygen nesting in your lungs.

The hesitation returned when he reached your bedside, keeping him a good six inches away from you. He hovered in the space around the bed, uncertain, both of his hands clenching and unclenching like they wanted to hold you but were afraid you would completely dissipate like vapor under his touch.

You lifted your hand and reached out, tentatively, with the precision of someone trying to pet an easily-spooked cat. Eternity must have passed at least once or twice when your fingers finally brushed the inside of his wrist.

That was all it took.

The singular touch was all it took for Bucky Barnes—the Winter Soldier, the man with the power of a collapsing star, who had faced death and catastrophe greater than anybody else on earth could ever imagine—to entirely crumble under your palms.

A sound escaped him—something torn and guttural and not meant for human ears to hear. He fell to his knees beside the bed, clutching your hand like it was the only echo of mercy in a world that had offered him none. His head bowed against your stomach, shoulders shaking violently with the aggressive sobs he could no longer contain in his chest.

Your own tears spilled out of you in a tide stronger than the Pacific current, staining your cheeks as you brought your other hand to cradle the back of Bucky's head, threading your fingers through the short tendrils.

“I’m okay. I'm okay, Bucky, I'm fine,” you whispered, over and over, each word a balm against the searing agony inside his bloodstream. “I’m right here, darling. I'm okay now.”

“But you weren’t,” he choked, the sound of his anguish slicing your nerves deeper than the sharpest dagger ever could. “You weren’t, a-and God, I thought I lost you, sweetheart. I was holding you, tried to stop the blood—there was so much blood—and you just… you just went still. Was so cold and still and I couldn't—I didn't know what to do.”

“Bucky.” Your voice quivered. “I'm here, baby. You didn’t lose me.”

“I almost did.”

His head rose, and your breath halted in your throat at the sight or red in Bucky’s eyes. He was not someone who cried often—perhaps it was the archaic 40s’ notion of masculinity that was still embedded in his system—and the only time you had seen him cry was back in Wakanda, when you and Ayo stood by him in the vulnerable moment that confirmed the severance of HYDRA's control over his soul.

Somehow, this Bucky—the one kneeling in front of you—looked even more shattered than the one in your memory.

“Your heart stopped, Sugar,” Bucky continued, the weight of his words pressing and twisting your ribs until you were nothing but a mire. “You weren’t breathing. So cold and stiff, and I… Shit—I didn't know if you'd make it. Had to do CPR the whole flight. Everyone told me to stop. They said y-you were gone. But I couldn't, Sugar. I just—I couldn't.”

“Bucky,” you whimpered. “Darling.”

“I thought I was too late,” he rasped, voice fracturing under the weight of a requiem still resonating in his chest. “I kept thinking if I'd been faster—if I’d stood closer—if I had just noticed sooner, then you… you would've…”

You cupped his face, forcing him to stop his self-torment and look up at you. To remind him that whatever horror still clawing at his being was no longer real, because you were fine, you were alive, and you were here with him. His cheeks were wet, flushed with the remnants of grief and an exhaustion that had been postponed for far too long. The pain in his eyes had dimmed the blue in his irises to gray.

“I'm fine now, Bucky,” you murmured, misty eyes and traces of salt on the tip of your tongue. “You did it. You saved me.”

“I shouldn't have had to,” he said, shaking his head as if trying to reject the truth. “You shouldn't have been in that situation in the first place. You should've been safe. I was supposed to protect you.”

“You did, Bucky. You did protect me.”

“Not enough.”

“Baby, look at me.” Your voice is firm, a lighthouse cutting through a war-born fog. Bucky's forehead furrowed as his eyes locked with yours, as if he still struggled to believe that the you in front of him weren't simply a mirage. “You brought me back, Buck. You didn’t lose me. I'm here because of you.”

His breath hitched.

His lips quivered.

You leaned down, pressing your forehead gently to his, ignoring the strain it caused to your wound because this—the man you held inside your palms, this tender moment you shared after everything the universe had put you through—was far more important than any pain you could ever feel.

“You didn't lose me,” you repeated.

There was silence in the next breath, a sacred one commonly heard in the space between lightning and thunder. You could feel his every exhale, shallow and staggered, like a beast coaxed out of fight but still bristling with a proliferate instinct.

After a stuttered heartbeat, his metal arm slithered around your waist, his flesh one wrapping around your hand again, tighter this time.

“Say it again,” he begged, barely audible. “Please.”

“You didn't lose me,” you uttered. “I'm here, I’m alive, and I’m not going anywhere.”

He crushed you against him then—still careful, still gentle—but underneath the heedfulness, his desperation bled through. Gripping you like you were the only thing that mattered in this vast universe, like he wanted to fold you into himself and keep you some place where danger and death could never lurk over you again.

You felt Bucky's lips on your skin, grazing along your shoulder, moving up the curve of your neck, your jaw, and your cheek. Worshipping you with prayers shaped as a thousand reverent kisses, moving like he was searching for the evidence that you were real, like he was memorizing a miracle while time was still ticking.

And when his mouth finally found yours, the press of his lips wasn’t rushed. It wasn’t greedy.

It was trembling.

He kissed you as if you were the divine being who granted him life, respiring your moans and gasps as if they were the instruments needed to mend his ruptured soul. Bucky tasted like every future you were always too scared to envision for yourself—the promise of companionship, affection, and happiness that had once been too surreal for your heart to believe in. But now, in this moment with him, they all suddenly became inevitable.

You kissed him back, slowly, cradling his face between your hands to hold together all of the fractured pieces that forged his being. Time slipped away in the hush where sorrow once lived, getting you lost in everything Bucky, until eventually, your lungs had to force you to part and come up for air.

“I love you,” Bucky confessed, holding onto your wrists to keep you tethered to him. To this moment. And to life itself.

Your thumb brushed the apple of his cheek, catching a silent tear, leaning in to steal another kiss from the corner of his mouth.

“I love you, too,” you whispered.

A sound between a sob and relief escaped him, and Bucky buried his face in the unwounded crook of your neck, breathing you in like he had been suffocating for days and had finally resurfaced for air. His arms stayed enveloped around you as he murmured praises against your skin—thanking the Gods for listening to his prayers, thanking the universe, thanking you. Paying reverence for the mercy that fate had bestowed over a mangled man such as himself.

You stayed like that for a long time. His weight against your side, his heartbeats slowly steadying beneath your touch. The monitors beeped gently beside you, grounding the two of you to reality, an anchor in the otherwise stagnant room. But in that moment, the only sound that mattered—the only one you cared about—was the soft inhale and exhale of your breaths, a proof of life, shared within the modest spaces that felt more freeing than a hummingbird flying over an open field.

Gradually, the room began to fade into silence.

And in the safety of Bucky's embrace, you had never appreciated the quiet more.

Taglist: @steph88x @athenabarnes @sugarmummystuff6 @wintercrows @jay-jaystevebuckyloki @spideysimpossiblegirl @vainillacookie @mazzaroni-cheese @killerwendigo @s-r-reads @nydubs @rafeskai @unpeellievable @thisismyacc11 @rimunagenius @buckygirls @buckyslove1917 @defn0tonyourleft @buhangini @infinitymitten @lemonhead456 @thescooponsof @buckytheloveofmylife95 @mizukiqr @littlegreenjellybean @p3nis-parker @shortlikerdj @onlyheluvsme @theschoolbasketcase @jjulesii @jvanilly @seaskysunrise @minminswag04 @dameronspector @buckybarnesfic @nameless-ken @marie-sworld @silverwolfeyes @idkitsem @waiting-so-long @redtabularasa @buckyinluv @ghostytoasty17 @moreadsfic @chlovocaine @mcira @personal-fanfic-storage @spookyreads @eternalsams @the-sunflower-room

2K notes · View notes

jamminvroomvroom · 7 months ago

Text

as sick as it sounds, i loved you first. 1

LN x fem!leclerc reader

part 1 of 2 -> find part two linked HERE!

in which you just can’t help yourself and neither can lando…

I’M BACK BITCHES!!!! hi sorry it’s been a while but we are back with what i hope is a bang lol. i’ve missed writing so much and as stressful as this was, i’m so so glad to be uploading something! i worked hard on this one and, of course, now i hate it whoops, but my girlie @lavenderlando made this possible and worth it. that’s my hype woman fr fr. N E WAY enjoy! lemme know what you think, and use some imagination for the timeline…

songs to set the vibe: i love you, i’m sorry by gracie abrams, 2hands by tate mcrae, love in the dark by adele, illicit affairs by taylor swift, think twice by suki waterhouse

warnings: 18+!! minors GO AWAY! smut, angst, fluff, kinda enemies to lovers? kinda? r is charles sister oop, miscommunication, both of them are down bad for eachother but they are also extremely dumb! breeding kink, size kink, pain kink (if u squint), unprotected p in v (don’t be silly!),

part 1: 10.3k words

1. oncoming traffic

“hey, osc, who’s that girl hanging around leclerc? thought he was still with alex.” lando tries his best to sound nonchalant, but oscar can see through him like a freshly buffed window, the way lando clears his throat and nervously ruffles his unruly hair.

“mate, i know you’re not the sharpest but i didn’t think you were that slow.” oscar laughs, side-eyeing the brit. he was baffled that lando was even asking. lando just shoots him a glare. “wait, you really don’t know?” lando’s glare hardens further, his eyes demanding an answer and oscar just laughs. “that’s his sister, you idiot. how have you never seen her?”

lando didn’t know how he’d never seen her. this year had been nonstop, what with the pseudo-championship battle and the never ending media shitstorm that rained on him whenever he reared his head. he’d also learned in his years of racing never to look too closely at the women in another drivers entourage. that’s how you ended up in the wall during a race. but charles’ sister? how had he never noticed?

“maybe i should go and introduce myself.” lando trailed off thoughtfully, his voice remaining playful. oscar snorted beside him, adjusting his racesuit.

“ooh, yeah, send twitter into a frenzy. it’s been boring lately.” the aussie driver drawls sarcastically, successfully dodging lando’s rapidly approaching elbow to his ribs.

“glad to know that you take pleasure in my never ending public humiliation!” lando grins maniacally, sauntering out of the garage, no longer any intention of seeking out the pretty girl in the short, black skirt. it was for the best.

he’s passing through the pit box, immersed in a groupchat thread with max and p about a trip to portugal that he didn’t really want to go on, and bam! like the idiot oscar had just accused him of being, he slams blindly into oncoming traffic.

oncoming traffic: the pretty girl in the short, black skirt.

“are you incapable of looking where you’re going?” your accent comes out thick, low with rage. it tickles his brain, like he’s heard it before. lando opens his mouth, like a fish out of water, closes it again pathetically. “seriously, for a pilot you have abysmal spacial awareness!”

“sorry… what the fuck.” lando mutters. why is this woman shouting at him like she knows him? like he regularly barrels into her?

“lando, yes?” you’ve calmed down a bit now, but you still speak through gritted teeth.

“…yes?” he replies like he’s not so sure.

“learn to look where you’re going.” you wrinkle your nose, composing yourself before stepping around him and strutting down the pitlane as if nothing had happened.

lando stands there, fixed in place, watching her walk away in utter confusion.

“smooth!” oscar calls from inside the garage, flanked by several laughing mechanics.

“go fuck yourself!” lando’s flushed red, now, and beeline’s for the pit wall.

he’s out of earshot when oscar says it.

“think he just met his wife, boys.”

lando is staring at the data on the screen when it hits him, will’s voice somewhere far away all of the sudden.

the mysterious leclerc had every right to reprimand him, because she was right. he did need to learn how to look where he’s going.

she’d told him that already, during their actual first meeting.

2. the first collision

the music was too loud, suffocating him along with the overbearing smell of cheap perfume, but the alcohol in his system and the outpouring of validation kept lando going.

three time race winner, lando norris.

five years of clawing back points and grabbing at podiums with two impatient hands had built up to this, to the incomparable glory of gracing that prestigious top step, and lando wasn’t about to let go of this moment just because of a pressing headache. max and pietra were waiting for him in a booth, surrounded by the rest of lando’s touring entourage. he was wracking up quite the tab, but it was all worth it. every slap on the back, seductive grin sent his way, made it worth it.

he’s stumbling over his feet, wasted, or close to it, grinning lazily, peering through hooded eyes. the vodka cranberry in his hand is sloshing dangerously around in the glass, his careless movements propelling him towards disaster.

lando hears the splatter of liquid, first, the scoff of disgust immediately after. long hair whips against his face as she turns, eyes wide with fury, set into a face that was never meant to look angry. he can smell vanilla, flowers. she’s an angel, turned devilish under the strobe lights, her delicate face morphing when he takes in the sight of him.

“are you fucking serious? mon dieu!” her accent twists his tummy, as does the increasingly see-through material of her tight white dress, layers of chiffon turning transparent with the stark red liquid. it’s all over her back, running slowly down the length of her exposed thighs, sticky. lando stands there, utterly transfixed and useless. she looks like she might slap him; he kind of wants her to. “of course, just stand there. fucking pilots.”

she mutters the last part and lando gulps. what does she know about other drivers? the implication makes his skin crawl for no reason, the idea of this nameless, mystery woman being familiar with his co-workers. he’s flushed with embarrassment for a multitude of reasons, opening his mouth just to close it again.

“‘m sorry!” he finally calls out to her, over the music. can the dj turn that shit down? “can i buy you a drink?” she just glares at him, gesturing at her ruined dress. “or… a new dress?” lando tries again, flashing what he hopes are puppy dog eyes.

he wants to take her back to his hotel room, lick the sweet liquid off of her frame, lap at her til she’s clean and crying. he wants to peel the stained white material off, tear it a little - it’s already ruined anyway! he can’t, though, because she’s wrinkling her nose at him, eyebrow raised, judging, and he’s awash with embarrassment all over again. the club spins and he feels nauseous. he finds max’s eyes on him, his friend stifling laughter at the tragic scene.

she’s gone when he looks back, seems to have disappeared into a cloud of distinctly expensive perfume, and her friends are curling their lips up at him, dismissive. they don’t care who he is. he wonders if they’re redbull fans, ferrari fans, perhaps.

he’s met with hoots of laughter as he slumps into the booth. he grabs a shot without a thought, doesn’t even register what liquor it is as it slides down his thick throat.

“can’t believe you just did that. only you would spill a drink all over leclerc’s sister.” max teases, elbowing him playfully.

“wha- he has a sister?” lando slurs, spluttering.

he doesn’t remember much after that.

youruser just posted on instagram:

tagged: francisca.cgomes, alexandrasaintmleux, charles_leclerc

liked by francisca.cgomes, alexandrasaintmleux, charles_leclerc and others.

youruser: shoutout to the guy that spilled his drink all over me!

francisca.cgomes: so beautiful so slay i miss u already

alexandrasaintmleux: love you!!!

charles_leclerc: delete this 🤦‍♂️

and other comments.

3. the watchful eyes of the big, black horse

your arm is linked with kika’s, giggling with her as you walk through the paddock.

“what about him?” kika whispers, pointing her chin towards one of the passing alpine mechanics. he’s blonde, pale, eyes dark. “pierre said he heard that he’s good with the ladies.” she wiggles her eyebrows and your cheeks heat up, swatting her playfully.

“i am not about to get a reputation for sleeping my way through the paddock.” you scoff. “plus, he’s not my type.” you shrug.

“you need to start putting yourself out there more, you keep saying you want someone.” the portuguese girl reasons. you nod sheepishly.

“i don’t wanna look for something, i want it to find me. is that pathetic? i just see how you are with pierre, how alex is with charles, and that’s what i want. something… real.” you sigh. kika sees the way your eyes gloss over with sadness.

“it’s never as easy and as perfect as it looks, babe, trust me. and anyway, maybe just focus on… the thing you were telling me about.” kika lowers her voice, giving you the look.

“shut up!” you squeal. “god, i am not discussing that here!”

“discussing what?” you hear pierre before you see him, hot with embarrassment. you’ve know him since before you could even walk, which is why you have no problem voicing your deepest, darkest shame.

“how i’m not getting laid, apparently!” you drawl sarcastically, slapping your hand over your forehead.

a poorly concealed laugh that you don’t recognise has you whipping around, eyes wide with bewilderment. it’s hearty, smooth, surprisingly warming. you practically growl when your eyes land on the source of the noise, standing next to pierre who looks embarrassed for you, his lips pressed thinly together to prevent himself from cackling.

“why is he here?” you grit your teeth, squeezing your eyes so tightly shut that you feel a pang in your temples.

“as polite as ever.” lando smirks. you open

your eyes just in time to catch him eyeing up the skin of your thighs that your skirt doesn’t quite cover. is he checking you out?

“says the drink spiller.” you bite back, rolling your eyes.

“hey, i tried to pay for the damage.” lando looks utterly amused, pink lips still twisted into a punch-worthy smirk.

“so, you’ve met lando, then.” pierre grins, staring between you both. you don’t register the way he’s trading looks with kika, watching whatever this scene is unfold.

“unfortunately!” you smile tightly at the racing drivers.

“pretty sure you walked into me that second time. distracting me in the workplace, or something.” lando chimes in, enjoying this all a bit too much.

“if you did a better job at looking where you’re going-“

“okay, so this has been delightful!” pierre buts in, knowing that you have the shortest temper of all the leclerc offspring. “you,” he points at you. “get laid. you,” he points at lando. “don’t piss her off, you won’t like the result.”

kika can only send you a sympathetic smile, and remind you of the coffee date you have scheduled for tomorrow morning, as she’s dragged away from your place of social suicide. pierre winks, tilts his head far too pointedly for your liking towards lando. you fantasise, in that moment, of clawing his eyes out.

“i am sorry, for the record.” lando smiles at you, genuine and gleaming. something inside of you twists.

“for which time?” you’re just teasing now, but he doesn’t need to know that.

“you have quite the attitude on you. that why you’re not getting any?”

you’re about to rip his head off and give max an even easier ride towards the championship, but lando steps forward. you can smell old spice, tangy and alluring and masculine.

“how fucking dare you-“

“because most men don’t know what to do with a woman like you. don’t know how to treat them right.” he’s so confident when he says it, leaning towards you in a way you can only describe as enticingly.

“oh, and you do?” you scoff, arms crossed. you must remain combative, or else you’ll give in. is this rock bottom?

“i’m free tonight if you wanna find out.”

“i’ll be far too busy doing literally anything else.” you can only pray he hasn’t caught the tremble in your voice, the ever so slight quiver of you bottom lip. you chew it into your mouth to stop yourself.

“but not anyone else.” lando doesn’t pose it as a question. it seems that he’s got you all figured out.

“whatever helps you and your hand sleep well tonight.” you spit. there’s heat between you, sparking into a flame that could burn down your whole life. you feel eyes burning into the back of your head - green ones that match yours. you falter. “i’m done here, lando. have a fantastic evening.”

he takes another liberty, leaning in even closer. spearmint and the idea of a million bad choices flood your every pore. you can feel the big, black horse watching over you, now, set into bright yellow, adorned with ferrari red. looming, warning, turning you in.

“you know, something tells me i will.”

lando disappears first, not even giving you a chance you spin on your heel and storm off. you want to kill him, hurt him, sink your teeth into that bronzed, thick throat, claw into his back, down, down, down… until you’re on your knees and-

“why were you talking to lando?” charles’ voice cuts through your filthy thoughts and you sign yourself over to god immediately, purifying yourself as you banish the visions of delicious sin. after all, you’re standing in the presence of il predestinato, the prince of monaco, a saint to many. but to you, he’s just your brother. your big brother, always in the way, always meddling, always, always watching. you sigh.

“friendly conversation.” you quip, short. you love him dearly, would take bullets for him, but, god, he keeps you on a leash. leo’s has more give than the conceptual tether charles has to you, keeping you close, boyfriendless, out of “trouble”. you know why, and deep down, you’re beyond grateful, all things considered. you can’t admit that, though.

“that’s not how pierre described it to me.” charles raises an eyebrow, voice bitter despite the clear attempt he’s made to try and hide it.

“fucking pierre.” you grunt. “it’s nothing, he came over with pierre. i was with kika. first time i’ve ever even had a conversation with lando.” that didn’t result from a drink being spilt over you to the point of transparency. you leave that bit out - charles really doesn’t need to know that.

charles mulls over your words, eyeing you suspiciously. you want to stomp your heeled foot like a child, a brat, scream and shout and kick and wail that he has to back the fuck off eventually, but you just smile innocently and pray he believes you.

“okay,” he mutters, making his peace. “i don’t want you getting too… familiar with him. bad reputation. he used to be quite sweet until his last breakup and now he will fuck anything with a pulse.” you wrinkle your nose at your brothers crude words, feeling the need to jump in and object. but why? you don’t know lando, you don’t care about lando. you press your lips into a thin, painful line. “you should go back to the hotel with alex. looks like i’ll be here late.” he rolls his eyes, you know how it is.

“sure, good luck.” you offer, smothering the rage that pools in your belly. let me fucking live, you think. just because he’d had to swoop in and save you from yourself once before, didn’t mean that you could live like this forever.

he has lit a spark under you, one that spreads like a wildfire towards the flame that lando ignited minutes before. if only your brother knew how to keep his big mouth shut, you wouldn’t be spurred on to bad behaviour.

if only lando hadn’t spilled that drink over you, maybe you wouldn’t be opening his instagram profile and sending a message request.

a place. your room number. a time.

you only wish you’d gotten to see the devilish grin on his face when he received it.

lando can’t want you for the reasons that other guys do. your status as charles leclerc’s little sister, and the gateway to your brother that you provided, meant nothing to the brit. that’s why you’d let him have you; he wouldn’t try to take more than you wanted to give.

4. generous

the knocks are soft against the door, yet they manage to have every hair on your body standing to attention. you’re quick to let him in, itching to get him inside and away from prying eyes. this is clandestine, secret, could even feel somewhat sacred once it’s over, and the last possible thing you could ever need is for another soul to know what you intend to do with lando, what you intend to let him do to you.

“hey.”

“hi.”

you stare at each other.

he steps forward. you don’t move away. he takes it as an invitation to close the space entirely, so close that, there it is again: oldspice, except this time it’s mixed with something fresh, shower gel you guess, sea salt. his curls are crisper than they were a few hours ago, still damp from the shower he must have just taken.

“what changed your mind?” he asks.

“i was feeling generous.” you deadpan. he bites back a laugh.

“generous, huh?”

“very.”

“considering your alleged dry spell, i’d say i’m the generous one, no?” his voiced is edged with something dark, dropped a few octaves. you could absolutely squirm under his gaze, but you hold strong.

“you know where the door is if that’s how you’re gonna be.” you coo, mocking his seductive undercurrent. all he does is flash his teeth, grinning cheekily, his way of accepting your challenge, your attitude.

“i think you want me to stay, honey.”

honey. you fear it works on you. the gap closes even further, you fear it’s your doing.

“you’re only getting this opportunity because i invited you here.” your resolve is slipping. you’ve admitted that you want him in your pathetic bid to hold the power, when the truth is, you want him to pounce on you, strip away every layer and barrier and make you see stars, feel euphoric.

“okay, honey, whatever you say.” he chuckles, cruel and taunting. “so, how dry of a spell has it been? wanna know what i’m working with.”

lando touches you then, lightning shooting down your arm as he traces from your elbow down to your fingers, featherlight, barely there, a ghost of a touch that haunts you so deliciously. your fingers intertwine. you initiate it, but really, it’s his fault. this is all his fault.

you try and laugh, but it sounds broken, quivering it’s way out from your dry throat.

“dry.”

he just stares at you, expectant. he needs to hear more, needs to know. he craves details about you, has ever since you body slammed him outside his garage - leading to some very covert instagram stalking on his behalf and his oh so convenient way of worming his way into a conversation with pierre when lando could see that the other driver was on his way over towards you. it’s pathetic, maybe, but he craves you the way one craves nicotine forever after just one puff of a cigarette. he has you, just for tonight, maybe longer if he gets this right, so he will know everything he needs to know so that he can touch you just how you need.

“i’ve only… it’s been a while.”

he sees right through you.

“you’ve only what?” he presses. he needs to know.

“i’ve only done this once.” you whisper. it’s the meekest he’s seen you. he loathes it.

“and was it good?” lando murmurs so attentively that you want to cry.

your fourth interaction with this man, and he has you melting.

“not really.”

“do you trust me?” his nose is bumping yours. you’re locked in, twitching. he has both hands on you, now, one still laced with yours, the other trailing up your arm, tempted to brush his fingertips against the taut skin of your neck.

how the fuck can i trust you? i don’t know you! what the fuck are we doing? what the fuck am i doing?

that’s not what you say, though, because for some reason, you are so sickeningly comfortable and okay that you worry that something is wrong with you.

“yes.”

“then this time will be so, so much better. i’ll make it all better.”

when his lips meet yours, you’re surprised at how good it immediately feels. you don’t know what you were expecting, but his lips are plush, enveloping yours softly, but firm enough that you sink into him, allowing him to cement that grip on the side of your neck that he’d been taunting you with.

he kisses you like he’s sure of everything, like this is second nature and you’ve done it a thousand times. you want to kiss him a thousand times. why it’s so good, you’re not sure, but it gives you the confidence to lean into him, grab the bottom of his hoodie in your hands and tug.

“be patient, ‘n i’ll make you feel so good, honey, i promise.” he mouths down your cheek, nipping at your jaw, down your neck until he finds that special spot below your ear. he nibbles there, lapping his tongue over your sensitive skin like he already knows your body. you want to see just how familiar with you he can get. “but,” he punctuates the word with a sharp bite. you both dread and revel in the mark it will leave. “you have to behave for me, okay?”

his words are whispered against the shell of your ear and you shiver, eyes rolled back already. you wonder if he’ll get them to do a full three-sixty rotation in your skull.

“‘kay.” you breathe, mindless, floating away. it’s already better than last time.

“‘kay’?” he mocks. “no, honey, you gotta promise me. can you promise me?”

“promise.” you lock eyes, conveying your obedience. his eyes blow wide, pupils dilating to shove away the mysterious bluey green. his teeth grit. he knows he’s hit the jackpot.

“good girl.”

you’re stripped naked, mustering all of your energy to shove his clothes off, his hoodie flying away, his sweats kicked into a faraway dark corner. you’re left naked, him in some increasingly tight boxers, and you tumble into the freshly made bed. he slinks over you, crawling on his hands and knees, predator stalking prey.

he stains your inner thighs purple, tugging your legs over his shoulder, huge hands warm and rough as they manoeuvre your malleable body to his liking. lando presses kisses to every inch of skin, dragging his tongue over your bare flesh before he spreads you open, sucking and tasting and savouring. he moans into you, open and wet, and it ricochets off of every nerve ending, sending your body taut and arched, catlike. you’re trying to get away, whilst simultaneously grinding yourself closed to him, feeling that broad, sharp nose of his bump messily and firmly against your clit, an ache spreading through your pelvis that makes you shake and shake and whine his name out to the gods.

“taste like heaven.” lando’s words are simple, straightforward, make you bite your lip so hard you taste something metallic seeping over your tongue. “so tight, even around my tongue,” he slurs, drunk, lost. “gotta stretch you out for me. that okay, honey?” you can just about make it all out, and you nod furiously, pleading.

his teeth graze your clit.

“say please.”

“putain! please!” you kick your feet out when all he does is laugh into your wet flesh.

one finger grazes through your folds, parting them and collecting a mess of your slick. he looks transfixed as it drips down his finger.

honey.

you watch him watch how he opens you up, revelling in the utter fascination painting his features, pussy drunk and curious, transfixed.

“can’t believe you’ve never been fucked right.” he coos, breathless, genuinely shocked. you quake under his skilful hands and his awful, sinful, dirty mouth.

“more.” you plead, not ashamed by your crude begging. you’re a mess for him already, might as well get the full experience.

“think you can take another?”

a second finger slides in, rocking against your walls, testing the waters. you writhe, meeting his movements with shallow thrusts of your hips.

“faster, i need- mon dieu! anything, lando, please just-“ he really goes to town then, scissoring your dripping cunt open, curling and twisting and grinding the two digits so deep that you see white, hazy chocolate coloured curls and deep, glazed over eyes.

“that’s it, honey, there you go. so fucking pretty for me.” lando whispers the last bit, awestruck, and you’d take the time to wonder why if you weren’t on the verge of tears, overstimulated, ears ringing. your orgasm crashes over you like a surge of electricity, tearing through your body like it’s trying to escape and take cover. it’s so strong that you’re damp everywhere, sweating and crying and so fucking shocked that it can feel like this.

“lando.” you pant, mouth dry, voice hoarse.

“you did so good. was it okay?” he rubs small circles into your hips, eyes flitting between your own and where you’re still leaking for him. he manages to tear his eyes away, like a trance has broken, snaking up your body until he’s laying next to you, propped up on his elbow. he hovers over you, raking his eyes over the rising and falling lines of your body.

“pretty good, i guess. didn’t know you had it in you.” you tease, smirking lazily up at him.

you want to keep staring at him but your vision is blurring as your eyes begin to droop. what a long day it’s been.

“high praise coming from you.” lando reasons, laughing lightly. he strokes over your hipbone and you jolt, curling around onto your side. his skin is warm against yours, soft and smooth, and you dare you press your even closer, shy, as if he wasn’t just buried mercilessly between your legs. you hum in response, spent and languid. “you wanna get some sleep?” he asks.

“we didn’t… i mean, you didn’t…” you trail off, awkward, gesturing towards his middle.

lando just smiles.

“guess i’ll just have to come find you in monaco.”

you flush, cheeks burning as you consider the fact that you’re gonna be in the same country, a very small, very private city. who knows what could happen?

you fall asleep quickly, easily, far too comfortable next to the british driver. if you were to ask, he’d say he left immediately. he watches the way you breathe far too intently, ever so slowly pulling his clothes back on. he doesn’t know how long passes, but what he does know is that he can’t wait to have you like this again.

5. some guy

you sink into the oversized armchair, sitting back and letting kika and alex talk, nattering backwards and forwards about nothing in particular. or, maybe you’re just zoned the fuck out.

you can’t stop thinking about the way he touched you, your body littered with evidence, dark purple bruises turning a stale green between you thighs. when you woke up, you initially wondered if it was all a dream, but the dull, sweet ache thrumming through your bones told you just how real it really was. you went through the motions, embarrassed momentarily before deciding to just embrace it, try to bask in the way he’d made you feel: sexy and desirable and electric.

it was just a shame that it had to be him. that’s what you kept telling yourself, at least.

kika’s nodding along to a story alex is telling about leo, about to respond with a similar anecdote about simba but she gasps instead, almost spilling her americano all over herself. this gets your attention and you open your mouth to ask her is she’s okay, but she beats you to it.

“my god, what is that?” she chokes, staring at you. or, well, your neck.

you flush, heated, blood pooling in your cheeks.

you’d tried to cover it up, seriously, applying layer after layer of concealer and strategically placing your hair in such a way that you prayed it wouldn’t be noticeable, but nonetheless, there it is, clear as day. red raw skin tinged purple around the seams, branded into your neck like some kind of public humiliation ritual.

fuck you, lando fucking norris!

you avert eye contact, leaning away from alex who is now making a point of leaning in, going as far as to push your hair back so she can get a closer look.

“oh my gosh!” she squeals, giggling with kika.

you take a long, slow gulp of coffee, not caring that it burns your tongue.

“who was it? holy shit, was it lando?” kika whisper shouts and you officially drop dead on the spot, watching her connect the dots so easily.

“oh jesus, no! no!” you lie, feigning offence, your leg bouncing shamefully under the table. the two girls eye you suspiciously, but you assume you’ve played it off well.

“who, then?” alex asks. you wonder if kika has told her about yesterdays interaction.

“just- i don’t even know, some guy.” you huff, playing with a loose thread hanging from your jumper.

“some guy? after what you were saying yesterday? okay, babe.” kika teases sarcastically. “no, cmon, who?” she pouts, leaning in as well.

“just… someone.” you squeak, unable to look up at them.

“okay, well, we will find out eventually.” alex wiggles her eyebrows and you stick your tongue out, mock-glaring at your sister in law.

“no, the fuck you won’t.” you try and fake some confidence, scrapping for a mere shred of control.

yes, the fuck they will, because when you leave for the bathroom, you leave your phone unlocked like the utter fool you are. god has it out for you, you figure, because that’s when he chooses to strike.

the message lando sends you is short and sweet, and alex chokes on a piece of cake when kika starts gesturing wildly at the notification that pops up on your screen.

for when you’re lonely at home and can’t find anyone to fuck you right.

attached is his address.

they don’t breathe a word when you come back, but they share a knowing smirk when they catch you smiling at your phone, and again when you ask if either of them have anything with a higher neckline that you can wear for the race.

youruser has just posted on instagram:

tagged: francisca.cgomes, alexandrasaintmleux

liked by: francisca.cgomes, alexandrasaintmleux, landonorris and others

youruser: race day, big slay

user1: LEO!!!

alexandrasaintmleux: prettiest girl in the world

user45: lando what are you doing here 🤔

6. manners

“are you even listening to me right now?” charles scoffs, finishing off his drink out of annoyance. your eyes snap back to him, the thumping music vibrating through your body.

“sorry, just tipsy.” you purse your lips, attempting to lock back in on whatever he’s saying, but it’s hard. it’s hard, because sprawled out in a booth across from where you stand at the bar, lando is watching your every move.

you’ve managed to avoid him thus far, no contact since you’d liked the DM he’d sent you a few weeks back. you’d be lying through your teeth if you said you didn’t think of him and what you’d done at literally every waking moment, so the way he’s watching you, hooded eyes sparkling under the strobe lights, has you squirming. it was easier to tell yourself that, surely, it wasn’t that good when he wasn’t right in front of you in a half unbuttoned shirt. the navy blue fabric is wrapped around his body deliciously, taut where his muscles are, the colour popping against his tanned skin - which you can practically feel writhing against yours.

you wish charles would go away so you could crawl into that booth and commit public indecency.

speak of the devil, your brother seems to have clocked that you have zero interest in what he has to say so he huffs, ordering another round for the table and telling you he’s going to find alex. he shuffles away and you subtly search for the british drivers mindful eyes, but he’s disappeared, left his entourage in the booth. you swallow disappointment that makes you feel pathetic, head in your hands against the bar top, but the lightest brush of fingers against your waist drags you out of your spiral. you know immediately.

“did you dress like that for me, or are you just a slut?” he’s grinning, light and teasing, surprisingly sober, tipsy at most, just like you.

“i could ask you the same.” you smirk, blatantly eyeing his exposed chest. he shrugs, leaning in.

”might have left an extra button undone just for you.” lando winks and you hope the lights hide the way you flush.

“sure you did, just for me and every other girl in here.” you challenge. his eyebrows furrow.

“nope. just for you.” his eyes darken, just a tad but enough that you notice. your mouth runs dry. “you never replied to me.”

“not true, i liked the message.” you smile coyly, sipping your drink. your lipstick smears against the rim of the glass and you watch him stare at the print, tongue wetting his lips.

“you are something else.” he shakes his head, pushing his curls back. it could be frustration, but he still seems at ease, like he’s enjoying your combative nature. you smile into the glass, hoping he doesn’t notice. he does. “how much have you had to drink?”

“this is my second.”

“you sober enough for me to take you home?” lando’s face is mere inches away from yours now, and you can feel the pull, desperate to crawl into the space that still remains and lose yourself there.

“depends.”

“on?” you truly exasperate him, but he thinks he loves it.

“if you’re actually gonna fuck me this time.” you casually take another sip, playing it off as if your crude words had no impact on you.

lando’s eyes widen at your bluntness, and so does his grin.

“meet me by the valet.”

lando leaves, and you quickly follow, downing the remnants of your glass and touching up your lipgloss.

alex watches from her booth, and pulls out her phone.

to: kika gomes

oh, she’s deeeeefinitely sleeping with lando!!!

pietra leans towards her boyfriend, close enough that he can hear her over the noise.

“isn’t that charles’ sister?” she shouts, pointing to the bar, where lando is stood.

max analyses the way he’s stood, leant against the bar, nice and close to the ferrari drivers little sister. he knows that look on lando’s face, and he knows it far too well. max pinches the bridge of his nose.

“oh for fuck sake.”

it’s weird, sitting with him in silence. he’s only had half a drink, able to drive back through the winding hills to his apartment. you stare out the window, mostly, when you aren’t staring blatantly and curiously at lando. you can see the sea, glistening under the moonlight and you wish you could focus on that instead, but he’s there, and you have to admit - begrudgingly, albeit - that he’s stunning. his hands wrap around the wheel tauntingly, as if he’s trying to convey how he’ll touch you, all consumingly. your thighs press together, your fingers clasping together as if you’re subconsciously stopping yourself from reaching out for him prematurely.

as if he can hear your thoughts, his palm smoothes over the skin of your bare thigh, right where your dress has ridden up, without a second thought, nothing tentative about the way his digits curve around your skin.

“so, you’ve been thinking about that night, then?” he breaks the silence, glancing over at you.

“what makes you say that?” you whisper, not even meaning to but the silence had been so heavy.

“well, you only left with me on the condition i’d bend you over.” he laughs loud, whole and warm. you fight it, just for a second, but then you join in, giving in to him. you can’t help it, he makes it easy.

“you got me.” you concede, rolling your eyes. without realising it, you’ve relaxed completely into his touch.

he pulls off of the road and into a private garage. you breath hitches.

“do you want a drink or…?” lando gestures blindly towards his kitchen, walking further into the apartment.

he’d spent the elevator ride up to his place leant against the opposite wall, taunting, making you wait. he’d let himself look at you, totally unabashedly, raking his eyes over your frame, meekly tucked into the corner, shy under his intense gaze but frustrated by his lack of urgency.

“i’m good. didn’t come here for a tea party.” you hope your words push his buttons. they must, because he turns on his heel, facing you again, suddenly towering over you.

his eyes are steel, face serious, and you don’t know what to do. you’ve never seen him look at you like this.

“i think we need to work on your manners.” he speaks condescendingly, down at you, and if you weren’t so needy, hadn’t been waiting weeks, you’d turn around and leave just to really prove his point. but you stay planted, looking up at him through mascara coated lashes, softening you gaze until you’re sure you’re conveying faux innocence.

“maybe we can work on them in your bedroom.” you truly don’t know where you get this confidence from, he’s the second man to have ever touched you so intimately, but he’s magnetic, drawing you out of your own head and straight towards him.

he tugs you towards him, kissing you messily, right there in the dim light of his kitchen, pawing at your waist hungrily. his tongue brushes your and you moan, humming into his mouth at the faint taste of mint and vodka, long gone but you can taste everything. his thick fingers find your ass, hoisting you up until you have no option but to wrap your legs around him, your dress scratching at your thighs the higher it rides up, but all it does it turn you on more, rough sensations on sensitive skin.

lando walks you blindly to his bedroom, never breaking the kiss, and you wonder how many times he’s done this to get it down to muscle memory. the thought makes you nauseous, drags you mercilessly right back into your head, and you pull away, your lips barely brushing his.

“why me?” you breathe, panting into the shallow space where your mouths have parted.

“what?” he whispers, confused.

“why do you want to do this with me?” you have to check, past insecurities rising to the surface like bile in the back of your throat. he looks genuinely baffled and you feel foolish for ruining the moment.

“why wouldn’t i? you’re gorgeous and-“ he cuts himself off, his eyes glazing over. the demeanour slips and you’re stuck, his arms still tight around you, holding you close in the empty space at the foot of his bed.

“what?” you whisper.

“you’re part of the same life.” the way he looks at you says words that he can’t.

words that will sound too shallow and too selfish and too meaningless, even though you will understand them because you’re here for similar reasons, and therefore, they will mean too much.

you can’t take things from him. you can’t fake it. you can’t break him into a million pieces when he finally discovers that you want him because of what he can give you.

you nod once, firm.

“i get it.” you smile sadly. lando wants to know more. he can find out some other time. a moment of clarity passes between you. “kiss me, again?” you ask. he delivers immediately.

kisses you all the way onto the bed. kisses you while he helps you take off your heels, while he drags the zipper of your dress down. you both feel safe now, understood, and that really moves things along.

“so pretty.” he mutters into your skin, shedding you of your tight dress.

your shaky fingers work over the buttons of his shirt, peeling it off of his broad shoulders, taking in the sight of him all over again. you’re left in your panties, braless already, and he gawks down at you, like he’s seeing everything for the first time. it makes you feel powerful.

“can you hurry up?” you writhe, arching into his touch. he smiles, covering his body with yours and pressing a kiss to your lips. his fingers slide over the curves of your body, finding the band of your underwear and toying with it.

“want me to take them off?” he purrs, trailing his lips down your jaw to just below your ear.

“now.” you beg, eyes fluttering closed as his warm breath pricks at your skin, teeth nibbling. “no marks.” you whine, flashing back to the weeks over knowing looks and attempts at covering the last one up.

“what were we saying about manners, hm? gonna need to start hearing some ‘pleases’ and ‘thank yous’, okay, honey?” he bites down again, harder this time, and you squirm underneath him, your soft belly moulding to each dip of his abs.

his fingers dip into your panties, finding your clit amongst your wetness. you just about bite back a moan, but you can’t help but roll your hips into his hand, his fingertips gliding easily through your folds.

“va te faire foutre.” you mutter, teeth gritting at the pleasure and his words. go fuck yourself.

“i’ve lived in monaco long enough to know what that means.” lando whispers, pinching your clit once before plunging a finger inside of you.

you hiss, head thrown back, the feeling of him smiling against the hickey bittersweet. and to think, it was almost healed. you can’t help but keen into his touch.

“more,” you pant. “please.”

“you learn fast.” lando approves, and quickly fulfils your request, adding another finger.

they flex inside of you, grinding deeper and deeper until you’re whimpering his name and leaking down his wrist. your arms wrap around him, nails digging in to his smooth back, his ropey muscles tensing under your firm touch. his thumb bumps your clit, over and over, pushing you to the precipice, so close you can taste the impending orgasm on your tongue.

“it’s so good, merci, god.” you sound wrecked already, and lando can’t wait to see how far he can push, how far apart he can take you.

“that other fucking loser didn’t know what he had, jesus, you’re so fucking hot.” he rasps, admiring the rise and fall of your chest, how your breasts bounce with every thrust of his fingers, the way his hand is glistening in the low light of his bedroom. his words are your undoing, the awe in his voice sending sparks shooting through every nerve ending.

“lando, ‘m gonna… putain!” the way you switch languages is sexy to him, tells him how scrambled your brain is, and he twitches in his boxers. when you cum, it’s as gorgeous and as enticing as the first time, and he jolts against your hip, desperate to get inside of you finally.

“you’re so beautiful.” he groans, pulling his fingers from your entrance. he stares blindly at the mess you’ve made on them, salivating, remembering the way you taste. it’s a no brainer for him, and he licks both digits clean, giving you just a moment to recover.

“i need you.” you whisper, your legs still spread, quivering slightly.

you pull him in once more, his covered crotch grinding against your slick and you cry out, the friction sending you into overdrive. his teeth dig into your shoulder, the sensation entrapping him, leaving him weak, ready to give you whatever you ask. he pushes his underwear away, and your eyes go wide.

“you can have me,” he grunts, running his hand over himself. “think you can take it?” he wets his lips and you think you could cum again at the sight of him. sweat slicked, tight curls falling over his eyes, lips licked pink and kiss swollen, hard and heavy in his own hand, body curved over yours possessively. you’re a simple woman, really.

“i think i can try.” you want to sound confident, but it comes out as a squeak.

he sits back on his knees and brings his free hand to cup your jaw.

“i’ll go slow with you, honey, okay? you can tell me to stop.” lando promises. “you sure you want this?”

you nod, pouting up at him.

“i want you, i can take it.” you manage through a deep breath.

the stretch is brutal, splitting you in half. all you can do is breathe, watching the way he watches you, and that’s what you hone in on, his pretty eyes watching where he’s filling you up. when he bottoms out, he stops for a second, scanning your face for discomfort.

“are you okay?”

“c’mere.” you coo, and he falls back over you, paws at your waist. “move, lando.” you plead.

it’s slow, deep, makes your toes tingle. you can feel each and every drag of him against your walls and it makes you dizzy, a knot twisting and tickling in your belly. your fingers are twisted around him, around his biceps, crumbling a little bit every time he flexes in your grip.

“oh, mon dieu.” you’re whimpering, legs wrapping around him like vines, tighter and tighter with every buck of his hips.

“‘s it feel good, honey? yeah? you’re so fucking tight for me.” lando chokes, licking over the sweat on your collarbone. “‘m i making it feel good?” he sounds so cocky, sexy, but there’s a soft edge around his words. it matters to him, how he’s treating you, this, a certain delicateness hanging around your intertwined bodies like a cloud.

“so good, lando, so fucking good.” the words scratch your throat raw, and your teeth sink into your bottom lip.

“no, no, lemme hear you, pretty girl. can feel how close you are for me.” you can hear the edge to his voice, can tell the end is near for both of you, the way his words wobble despite his best attempts at hiding it. “need you to look at me, and i need to hear you.”

you don’t even realise until then that your eyes are shut, screwed up tight as the pleasure rolls through your body, flooding each and every one of your senses. you free your lip, and everything pours out, whines, raw slurs of his name.

“i’m so close.” he grunts, watching the way your face moves, hanging on to every micro expression, the way you battle to keep all of your attention on him.

“fill me up.” you urge, squeezing his hips between your thighs. his eyes widen, the request slowly registering, and he blinks away the voice in his head telling him to do it.

“you know i can’t.” he’s firm, sensible even if you aren’t.

“want it so bad, lan, please, wanna feel it.” you reason, cupping his face and pushing his curls back.

“not tonight.”

“yes, tonight. give it to me.”

“i said no, don’t be a fucking brat.” he hisses, squeezing his eyes shut.

“know you want it.” you whisper, seductive and devious. you can see his resolve slipping, tightening around him.

before you can say anything else, your hands are scooped up, pinned above your head. he’s right over you now, your hips perfectly aligned, and he’s driving so deep that you swear you can feel him in your tummy. his thrusts resort to a harsh grind, digging into each other with every snap of his pelvis.

“you want it so bad? huh? fine.” he growls, forehead resting against yours. “want me to cum in you, fuck it all back in? yeah, honey? you gonna keep it all in for me?”

“whatever you want.” you promise, eyes rolling back in your head. “just- please, please do it.” you pant, mouth dry.

“that’s it, pretty girl, take it all for me.” he buries his face in your neck, nipping at your collarbone. “doing so good.” the words fan against your throat, hushed, leaving you warm from the inside out, brainless.

when you spill around him, it’s at the same time as he lets go, and he fucks you through your orgasms. you go limp beneath him, taking it, letting it all wash over you, letting him wash all over you. you feel like you can’t breathe, suffocating under the weight of him and the reality of what you’ve just done. again. for some reason, you don’t care, and decide that you’ll do this again and again, anytime he’ll have you. not that you’ll ever tell him that…

“fuck.” he exhales, rolling off of you carefully, but the overstimulation - and then lack thereof - makes you wince, and he strokes your hip gently in apology.

“that was better than i thought it would be.” you grin, staring blankly up at the ceiling.

“you know, these are starting to sound kinda backhanded.” he beams, laughing breathlessly, but just as he begins to relax into his bedspread, he remembers. “oh fuck, shit, we need a pharmacy!” lando bolts up so that he’s sitting, scanning the room blindly for his clothes. you giggle and he snaps his head towards you, panicked.

“no, lando, we don’t.”

“all of that ‘uh, fill me up, please lando you’re so sexy’ talk means that, yes we absolutely do! fuck, how much is plan b these days?” he’s spiralling now, tugging at his curls.

“first of all, i’m on birth control. second of all, i don’t sound like that, and most importantly, i did not call you sexy.” you smirk, stretching out your tight muscles.

“that’s the most important part? woman, you nearly killed me.” lando gasps, slumping back down into bed.

“‘m sorry, couldn’t resist playing with you a little. good to know we share a kink, though.” your smirk turns into a coy smile, and you swing your shaky legs out of the bed, your feet sinking into the plush rug.

“oh, yeah? what other kinks are you hiding from me?” lando sits back against the headboard, tucking his hands behind his bed. you have to look away, or else you’ll accidentally fall back into his bed.

“guess you’ll have to wait and find out.” it makes him quirk an eyebrow, a look of understanding settling over his face.

“so this is gonna be a regular thing, yeah?”

you’re putting your underwear back on when he says it, searching for your dress, but his words make you freeze. he sounds hopeful, and it makes your chest pang… wait, is that your heart?

“i don’t… i mean, as you unfortunately know, i haven’t done this before. i don’t know how this works.” you say it so earnestly, so innocently, that his whole face softens, awestruck and boyish.

“i want it to be a regular thing.” he says it gently, like he’s offering it to you, to the universe.

“okay. me too.” you whisper back, shy under his gaze.

“are you… like, do you think you’ll be sleeping with other people?” lando squeaks, doing a terrible job of playing it cool.

“for so many reasons, no.” you grimace. “but if we’re doing this then i wouldn’t want to anyway.” you say softly. your dress is back on now, but he has you flustered, and you can’t quite get the zipper.

“lemme help.” he offers, and he’s out of bed and before you in a matter of seconds. his calloused fingers graze your skin as he pulls the zipper together and up, adjusting your dress back into place. it feels so terrifyingly intimate, exciting, and you can’t bring yourself to move away. “i wouldn’t want to either.” he breathes the words quietly into the small space between you.

“okay.” you don’t even try to hide the way you beam, staring up at him.

“i’ll take you home, yeah?”

“yeah.”

7. worth it

and so, begins a clandestine affair, touches in the shadows, subtle glances, watchful eyes.

one of you calls, the other comes, sneaking through doors that neither of you should enter, leaving bars a few minutes apart, making up excuses to get out of plans.

there’s the time lando has you bent over the end of your bed, tears leaking into the mattress, slick everywhere. he’s so deep this way, hammering away at the special spot nestled within you that he’s become very familiar with. one of his hands is dragging your hips back to meet his thrusts, the other splayed out across your back, holding you down.

your phone rings. it’s alex. you were supposed to be a brunch twenty minutes ago. you groan out, frustrated in every sense of the word.

“answer it, honey.” lando grunts, pulling you towards him even harder. you whimper, shaking your head, words dying on your tongue. “go on, i know you can do it. wouldn’t want alex to worry, would you? let her know you’re okay.” he coos, condescending.

he’s so arrogant, full of it, and you like the challenge. you can’t let him win, can’t let him revel in how fucked out he has you, so against your better judgement, you grab the phone, fingers shaking as you answer.

“hi, love. i know, i’m late! ‘m sorry, i’ll be there soon!” you wince at the way your voice shakes. you hope she can’t hear the way you’re panting, or the sound of his hips hitting yours.

lando slows his hips, hitting deep at such a torturously slow pace that feels a million times better than it already did. your free hand flies back, swatting at him.

“where the hell are you? i was worried!” alex sounds relieved, but there’s something else in her tone that you can’t quite decipher.

“i’m on my way, i promise! i was with arthur.” you lie, throwing your younger brother into the line of fire. you know, for credibility. alex is silent for a moment.

“oh, okay. well, get here soon, please! love you!” and with that, she hangs up the phone. you release a breath you were holding, crying out when lando immediately speeds up again.

“i hate you.” you choke, grinding your hips into him. lando just scoffs, sliding a hand under your belly, flush against the mattress. he finds your clit, playing with it, urging you quickly towards your release.

“no, you don’t.” he laughs. “you better cum for me, pretty girl, i think you have somewhere to be.”

“i’m on my way, i promise! i was with arthur.”

alex has to bite back a laugh. she stares across the table, where arthur is having an avid debate with charles and joris. arthur, who had been with her and charles for hours.

“oh, okay. well, get here soon, please! love you!” alex hangs up the phone, giggling to herself. leo stirs in her lap.

“what’s so funny?” charles asks her. she shakes her head.

“oh, nothing, she just overslept.”

there’s the time where he has you hiked up on your kitchen counter, messy curls tickling the insides of your thighs. he’s licking at you ravenously, dragging his tongue up and down, twisting around your clit in circles.

you’re tugging on his hair, holding him close to where you’re aching, dripping, slicking up the lower half of his face. he’s groaning into you, starved and desperate. it’s been a week since you’ve seen him, had him like this, the longest you’ve done without him since the first time you’d had sex. its untamed and needy and you fear what it means, the way you’re so addicted to one another.

you also haven’t seen your brother for a week, something you realise when you hear a key turn in the lock, down the corridor. you have seconds to react, the noise washing over you like a bucket of ice cold water. you squirm, pushing a very confused lando away, managing to kick him lightly in the head as you leap from the counter.

“mon dieu! fuck, i’m sorry!” you gasp.

“what the fuck is going on-“ you cut him off, slapping your palm over his mouth.

you glance around frantically, looking for a way out of this. there is but one option available.

“the balcony! just- fuck, get out there!” you shoo him over to the small window, begging him with your eyes. “please! i’ll get rid of him!”

you can hear footsteps approaching. you’re sweating now, smoothing down your skirt and your hair anxiously.

charles calls your name, rounding the corner and walking into your kitchen, just as you pull the window closed again.

“shit, you scared me!” you fake, clutching your chest. you can feel your heart hammering.

“i did knock, sorry!” charles looks you over, scanning the kitchen. “are you okay?”

“yeah, fine, sorry, i must have been out of it. i’m in the middle of an assignment.” you lie.

“oh okay, well i can always go…” he’s looking at you weirdly, and you fear he knows something, that he can tell.

“can we get dinner tonight? i’ll book.” you offer, scratching your neck.

“yeah, that’s great. are you sure you’re okay?” your brother asks, turning to leave.

“promise, yeah, i’m just so busy with work, deadlines and all that.” you wrinkle you nose, feigning distaste.

“well you can tell me all about it later, okay? love you.” charles says sincerely, smiling.

“love you too.” you call, listening for the sound of the door closing behind him.

you immediately rush for the window, throwing it open, peeking your head out. lando stands with his back against the wall, shivering in nothing but a t-shirt. you look at him sheepishly.

“get back in here.” you tell him, standing back to give him space to crawl back through. “‘m sorry.” you giggle.

“you’re lucky you’re worth it.” lando teases, stalking towards you and wrapping you in his arms. his skin is cold against yours, and you huff, try and push him off. “hey, i’m cold!” he pouts.

“you know, you’re lucky you’re worth it, i could have just let him murder you.” you reason, looking up at him. your hands slide around him, returning his embrace, warm hands skating up under his shirt.

“you wouldn’t.” he says simply. “i’m way too good in bed.”

“you keep telling yourself that, norris.”

“i don’t need to, you tell me more than enough.”

lando leans down to kiss you, then, nothing all that unusual but it always feels like a step too far, intimate in a way that you two usually aren’t. you kiss him back regardless, because really, you love it. he always tastes minty, divine when you let him lick into your

mouth.

“i believe we were in the middle of something.” he whispers.

“remind me.” you breathe.

and there’s also the time where he’s fucking you in his drivers room, the massage table thudding dully against the wall with every hard thrust.

his race suit is pulled down just enough, your dress bunched around your hips, and he’s slamming into you mercilessly.

the whole thing was a blur, really; you’d always vowed that you would never have sex at a race track, but that promise was old news, now, broken the very second you caught the way he was staring at you. his eyes were hard, unreadable, jaw clenched as he glared at the man talking to you. you were just being friendly, catching up with franco, but lando wouldn’t have it, not after such a shitty race. one harsh snap of his neck towards the mclaren motorhome had you quickly excusing yourself. you knew what it meant.

“you don’t talk to me at the track but you let him?” lando growls, rutting into you wildly. you cling onto the damp material of his racesuit, head thrown back.

“was just saying hello.” you gasp out, opening your eyes to look up at him. he’s staring down at you, angry. it’s hot.

“i don’t wanna see you talking to him. you see how he was looking at you? fucker should know who you belong to.” he hisses, sliding his hand between your legs. “you’re gonna cum for me when i say, okay? and you’re gonna be nice and loud, honey. no holding back.”

“lando i’m-“

“when. i. say.” he cuts you off, punctuating each order with a snap of his hips.

all you can do is take it, dripping all over him. you can hear it, the wet squelch of him filling you up.

“should mark up this pretty neck, yeah? let everyone know that you already belong to someone.”

you barely register what he’s saying, but the words leave you hot, pushing you even closer to the edge and you clamp down around him.

“squeezing me so tight, bet you’ve wanted me all day, huh, honey? saw you looking at me earlier, pretending like you weren’t when i caught you. couldn’t just asked and i would’ve fucked you right then.” lando grunts. you wail out, thrashing against the makeshift bed and he nods, letting you know it’s okay.

“that’s right, pretty girl, that’s it. been so good letting me have you. cum for me, baby.”

baby.

it’s the first time he’s ever called you that. it’s the final push you need.

he collapses into you as he finishes, sweaty curls plush against your bare shoulder. you’re both panting, spent, basking in the moment of silence.

“thank you.” he whispers, sealing it with a kiss against your neck. it tingles, a foreign feeling settling in your belly, shooting through your veins.

“you drove really well.” you reply, quiet. his breathing halts, a self deprecating laugh filling the room.

“don’t do that.”

“what?”

“act like you were watching my race. charles have a great drive, that must have been a lot more interesting.”

“maybe, but i was watching you.”

your words hit him hard. he can’t help but kiss you. you swallow a moan, and a whole heap of feelings that you’re too scared to tackle.

“you better go. will i see you in brazil?”

“yeah, lando. you will.”

youruser just posted on instagram:

tagged: francisca.cgomes

liked by: alexandrasaintmleux, landonorris, charles_leclerc and others

youruser: hola chica 🤭

francisa.cgomes: my love my loveeeee

user21: once again i am asking. why are you here lando? 👀

user56: stop inventing!

alexandrasaintmleux: my beautiful girlies

user66: icon mother slay incredible

PART TWO IS HERE!

taglist

@boysthatgovroomvroom @welld0nebaku @thegirlinthefandoms @mcmuppet @japanesekel @vinvantae @ggaslyp1 @dr3lover @smiithys @rachstash @infinitebells @fizzpopsnap101 @gaily19 @icecoldtires @mysticalnightenthusiast @thatchickwiththecamera @oyesmendes @disneydaydreameralways @canyouseethesainz @ferrarifwendvale @fcbformulaeri @tony-stank3 @maih23 @soleilgrec @carolineworld @anthonykatebridgerton @allywthsr @iamasimpingh0e @ophcelia @lovelynikol16 @coffeehurricanes @jennx03 @blueflorals @lqvesoph @sidcrosbyspuck @better-dead-than-smeg @buendiabebeta @pjofics @kovalcin @wintergilmore3 @for-writing-shit @youdontknowmeshh @im-an-overthinker @jule239

2K notes · View notes