#Amber deserves everything | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

followyourfleart · 20 days ago

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To Be Warm Again

blurb - Joel knows you deserve better. A closed-off, stubborn, fifty-eight-year-old man is the last thing you need. But when you’re this close to slipping through his fingers for good, he can’t bring himself to let you go—not when holding on feels like the only thing he still knows how to do.

warnings - nsfw, mdni 18+, jealous, yearning, second chance romance, love birds, hurt, angst, relationship help, happy ending, insecure!JoelMiller, oldman!JoelMiller, Jackson!JoelMiller, implied age gap, some plot before the porn, emotional sex, dirty talk, pussy pronouns, SPITTING (hey we're the freaks tonight), face fucking, creampies (don't try this at home!).

One shot requested by: @ anyomous

wc: 10.1 k

Joel didn’t want to be here.

Didn’t want to sit at this goddamn table in this goddamn bar, pretending he gave half a shit about whatever livestock report Tommy was tryin’ to show him. Didn’t want to make small talk with Maria, who kept giving him those sideways glances like she was bracing for a storm.

And he sure as hell didn’t want to look across the room again.

But he did.

Every few seconds.

Like a fucking compulsion.

There you were. Sitting at the end of the bar. Back straight, drink in hand. Your laugh was softer than usual—he could only hear it in flashes—but it still hit him like a punch to the gut.

The man beside you? He was new. Joel had seen him around, helping out with the fencing crew. Young. Maybe thirty. No older than thirty-five. Sharp jaw, easy grin. The kind of guy who didn’t creak when he stood up. The kind of guy who could keep up with someone like you.

You were smiling.

Not the way you used to—not that quiet, tired smile you saved for Joel when you were curled up in bed, wearing one of his shirts and tracing old scars on his chest with your fingertip—but still. It was real.

You were smiling.

And it wasn’t for him.

Joel’s jaw flexed. He took another drink, fingers clenched so tight around the glass that the joints ached.

“Joel,” Tommy said cautiously. “You okay, man?”

He didn’t look at him.

Didn’t trust himself to.

Maria shifted in her seat beside Tommy, hands laced neatly on the table, watching Joel with those calm, sharp eyes that always saw more than they let on.

“We can go,” she offered gently. “You don’t have to sit here and torture yourself.”

“I ain’t torturin’ nobody,” Joel muttered, staring down into the amber swirl in his glass.

“Right,” Tommy said. “That’s why you’ve been starin’ holes through the side of her head since we walked in.”

Joel didn’t answer. Just rolled his shoulders, tried to act casual. Failed.

Because the truth was, he couldn’t stop looking at you.

Not since the moment he saw you walk in.

Hair brushed and curled, your favorite sweater hanging soft off one shoulder. Lip gloss catching the light. You didn’t look like someone trying to prove a point—you didn’t look like you were out to make anyone jealous.

You looked like you were trying to feel normal again.

And that cut deeper than anything.

Because Joel had spent years convincing himself he was the one who knew how to keep you safe. How to make you feel steady. Loved. Even if he never said it aloud, never gave you the words.

Even if he kept his past locked up behind his ribs and only ever let you peek at it in pieces.

He thought it’d be enough.

But it wasn’t.

You left.

And you didn’t slam the door. Didn’t scream. Didn’t throw a single fucking thing. You just… packed a bag, folded one of his shirts, and said I can’t keep giving you everything and getting silence in return.

He didn’t stop you.

Didn’t say what he should’ve said.

Didn’t say Don’t go.

Didn’t say I need you.

Didn’t say I love you.

Because he thought he had time. Thought you’d cool off. Thought you’d come back.

But here you were. With someone else.

And Joel had never felt older in his life.

His knuckles were swollen from last week’s patrol. His back ached from the cold front. There were lines on his face he hadn’t noticed before, deepening around his eyes and mouth like time had finally caught up.

What the hell did he have to offer you anymore?

What could he give you now, at fifty-fucking-eight, that you didn’t already deserve from someone younger? Someone untouched by twenty years of blood and grief and failure?

He rubbed a hand over his mouth, suddenly too warm in his coat, suddenly too loud in his head.

“I shoulda said somethin’,” he mumbled. Barely audible.

Tommy raised a brow. “What?”

“I shoulda—” Joel cut himself off. Exhaled hard through his nose. “Never mind.”

Maria leaned in, voice low. “It’s not too late, Joel.”

He shook his head.

“It is,” he said. “She’s movin’ on.”

Tommy sighed. “Maybe. Or maybe she’s just tryin’ to remember what it’s like to feel somethin’. After you spent months makin’ her feel invisible.”

That one landed.

Joel flinched. Visibly.

He deserved it.

He knew it.

But the truth was—he didn’t make you feel invisible because he stopped loving you.

He did it because he loved you too fucking much.

Because loving you meant dragging you into all the wreckage of his life. It meant you knowing how deep the damage went. How fucked up he really was underneath the surface. And he’d spent so long building walls, burying things—Sarah, Tess, everything in between—that letting you in felt like peeling his skin off.

But you’d already seen him, hadn’t you?

You saw every goddamn thing. And you stayed.

He had just forced your hands until you couldn’t stay.

And he let you go anyway.

Now here you were.

And that man beside you? He leaned in to say something. You smiled. Shook your head. Looked down at your drink, then back up at him with a softness that wasn’t flirtation, not yet, but it could be.

It could become something.

Joel swallowed hard.

He needed something stronger.

The bourbon wasn’t cutting it. Not tonight.

Not with that man’s hand still resting a little too close to yours. Not with your laughter trailing through the bar like a ghost he couldn’t catch. Not with every goddamn ache in his body echoing the one in his chest.

Joel pushed up from the table, muttering something half-formed to Tommy, who just gave him a look. One of those you sure you’re alright? looks that Joel didn’t want to deal with right now.

Maria said something too, something soft, but he didn’t catch it.

Didn’t care.

He moved through the crowd like a man with a mission. Eyes forward. Shoulders tight. His boots thudding against the floor louder than they needed to. He kept his jaw clenched the whole way to the bar, biting down the burn rising in his throat.

He wasn’t drunk. Not yet. But he wanted to be.

Not sloppy. Not out-of-control.

Just… numb.

He flagged down the bartender with a lift of two fingers.

“Something rough,” he said gruffly. “Whatever’s got the most bite.”

The man behind the bar nodded and poured something dark amber into a glass that looked too clean. Joel wrapped his hand around it, let the chill seep into his palm.

He didn’t drink it. Not yet.

Just stared at it, watching the way the light fractured through the liquor. The way the ice cracked against the sides. It reminded him of tension—of pressure building until it finally snapped.

He was so tired of pretending this didn’t hurt.

So damn tired of holding it all in.

And then—

A tap.

Faint.

Right on his shoulder.

He turned sharply, half-expecting some drunk asshole wanting to start something. Maybe the guy you were talking to—hell, maybe Tommy, coming to drag him home before he embarrassed himself.

He opened his mouth to growl something ugly—

He stopped cold.

You.

You were standing there, looking up at him like you hadn’t just shattered his entire evening. Like you hadn’t carved him open just by walking into the same room.

Your eyes were soft. Cautious.

Like you were bracing for the wreckage too.

Joel’s spine went stiff. His mouth opened, then closed. His first instinct—to glare, to cover the bleeding with anger—flickered and died the second you tilted your head.

“Hey,” you said gently, barely audible over the buzz of the bar. “Can we talk?”

He blinked.

His throat worked around a knot that hadn’t been there a second ago. Talk? Here? With him?

You gestured vaguely toward the back of the room, where a few couples were swaying in the open space cleared for dancing. The music was slower now—some old Willie Nelson track playing softly on the speakers. You looked like you weren’t sure what to do with your hands. One of them lifted. Reached for him.

Not quite touching.

Not until he nodded.

“…Sure.”

The word felt jagged in his throat. He downed his drink in one brutal motion—felt the liquor burn down to his ribs. It wasn’t courage. Not really. But it was something. Something to help hold back the goddamn shake in his hands when you stepped closer.

You reached for his hand.

And Joel, without thinking, gave it to you.

His fingers closed around yours instinctively, like they remembered this. Like they’d been aching for this. You turned, tugged gently, guiding him through the bar. He followed.

And it was so easy.

Too easy.

That’s what scared him.

Because this—your fingers threaded with his, the scent of your shampoo drifting back as you walked ahead of him, your thumb brushing once against the side of his hand—this felt like home.

And home wasn’t something Joel had let himself believe in for a long damn time.

Not until you.

The dance floor was dim. Sparse. Only a few couples moving in lazy circles under the fairy lights strung up overhead. Your steps slowed. You turned to face him, your expression unreadable. Something sad flickered in your eyes, but you didn’t speak right away.

Instead, you pulled him a little closer.

Joel stared at you.

Then at your hand.

Then back up.

“You wanna dance?” he asked quietly, unsure, half-hoping he’d misread this whole thing.

You didn’t answer his question with words.

You just stepped in close.

And slowly—tentatively—you lifted your arms and draped them over his shoulders, like you’d done a hundred times before, in moments far easier than this one. Joel’s hands hovered awkwardly in the space between you for a second too long before they found their way to your waist. The fit was still there. Muscle memory. His palms curved around you like they remembered every inch.

You started to sway.

No rhythm. No flourish.

Just… movement. Just closeness.

The kind that ached.

Joel exhaled, slow and quiet. His forehead didn’t quite touch yours, but you were close enough that your breath ghosted across his chin when you spoke.

“I need to get my stuff back.”

It wasn’t angry. Wasn’t even cold.

Just a fact.

Something real to ground all this softness.

Joel’s grip tensed, just slightly. A beat passed. Then another.

“Yeah,” he muttered, eyes unfocused. “’Course. Figured you’d ask.”

You didn’t say anything.

Joel tried to hide the way his throat worked around the words he wanted to say.

The way his chest tightened at the thought of your toothbrush still tucked in the bathroom drawer. Your sweater draped over the back of the chair by the window. That dumb mug with the cracked handle you always reached for first. Your handwriting on the notepad by the fridge, where you’d scribbled half a shopping list before storming out five weeks ago.

He’d left it there.

Still did.

Your stuff was everywhere.

It wasn’t just stuff. Not really.

It was the only proof he’d managed to build something with warmth.

And now you wanted it back.

Joel cleared his throat.

“I can drop it off,” he said. “If you want. Save you the walk.”

You pulled back just enough to look at him. Not all the way—just enough for your gaze to meet his. Joel hated the way his stomach dropped when he saw the flicker of sadness in your eyes.

“Or I can leave it on the porch,” he added quickly, like he didn’t care. “Whatever’s easier.”

You didn’t answer right away.

You just looked at him.

Like you saw through every defense he was scrambling to raise.

“Joel,” you said softly. “How are you?”

He blinked. Pulled his gaze away. Let it drift over your shoulder, toward the corner of the room where the shadows were quieter.

“I’m fine.”

He said it too fast.

Too clipped.

You didn’t buy it. He knew you wouldn’t.

You always had a way of getting him to drop the act.

You leaned in a little closer, your arms shifting slightly around his neck. “That’s not what I asked.”

He closed his eyes.

Just for a second.

Because he was so goddamn tired. Tired of pretending. Tired of swallowing everything that should’ve been said when it mattered.

His hands tightened gently on your waist. Not pulling. Not holding on. Just… needing.

“How am I?” he echoed quietly. “I wake up, and your shoes are still by the door. That sweater you always wear when you're cold—it’s still hangin’ on the back of the chair like you’re gonna come grab it in the mornin’. I make coffee and pour too much ‘cause I forget you ain’t there to drink it.”

You blinked hard.

Joel looked down at you again. There was no anger in his face. No heat.

Just exhaustion.

And grief.

He paused. His voice dropped to something near a whisper.

“I left your favorite vinyl on the turntable the other day. Just… forgot to change it.”

Your eyes shimmered in the low light. You didn’t interrupt. Didn’t say I’m sorry. You didn’t owe him that. You didn’t owe him anything anymore.

Joel swallowed hard.

“I’m not great,” he admitted, finally. “That’s how I am. I’m not great.”

The silence between you pressed in heavy. Not suffocating, but weighty. Like truth always was.

You shifted your arms, one hand rising to thread your fingers into the back of his hair. Joel closed his eyes at the contact. His grip stayed steady at your waist, but he swore he felt his legs go weak.

“I’m not great either,” you said softly. “Thought I would be.”

Joel gave a breathy laugh through his nose. “You seemed happy earlier.”

“I was trying,” you admitted. “I was pretending I didn’t still feel you in every room.”

Joel’s eyes opened slowly.

Met yours.

And there it was—that thing he thought he’d lost. That unspoken current. The pulse of something still alive between you, flickering just beneath the surface.

You swayed in silence again.

Neither of you said a word.

The music faded into the background, just soft enough not to matter. Just enough to give the illusion of rhythm while you swayed together in the quiet middle of a too-loud room.

Joel leaned in, forehead brushing against yours. Barely there. But it felt like too much and not enough all at once.

You smelled the same.

Like soap and skin and something faintly sweet—something that lived in your sweaters and in his sheets. Something he hadn’t been able to scrub out no matter how many nights he’d tried to sleep alone.

Five weeks.

Five fucking weeks.

It didn’t sound like much. Not in the grand scheme. He’d gone longer without food. Without rest. Without safety. But this?

This was something else entirely.

And for a second…

God.

For a second, he let himself pretend you were still his.

That you’d be there in the morning. That when he turned over in bed, he’d feel your bare thigh brushing his, your palm resting lightly on his chest, your breath rising and falling in that easy rhythm he used to memorize.

He missed waking up to you.

He missed the sound of your yawn when you stretched beside him. The way your hand always found his under the covers, cold and shameless, like you knew he’d warm them for you.

He missed the shuffle of your slippers down the hall. The smell of toast. That little click of your coffee mug against the counter.

He used to grumble, pretend he hated it when you cooked breakfast like he couldn’t do it himself.

But he fucking loved it.

You’d hand him a plate with that quiet smirk, always fussing—“Eat it before it gets cold, Miller”—and he’d do exactly that. Because it tasted like care. Like you loved him even when he didn’t ask for it.

He missed coming back from patrol and finding you stretched out on the couch in one of his flannels, legs bare, book cracked open on your chest, a throw blanket half-falling to the floor.

You’d look up when he walked in, and there’d be this softness in your eyes. This quiet little smile, like there you are, like the whole day had been waiting for him.

He missed that look.

Missed you tossing your book aside just to sit beside him, curl up under his arm, legs thrown over his lap like you belonged there.

You did belong there.

He missed passing the bathroom after a shower and catching the scent of your soap in the steam. That faint citrus smell. The one that lingered on his pillows. On his shirts. On his goddamn skin.

He hadn’t smelled it in days.

He left the bar of it sitting in the shower anyway. Stupid hope.

Like maybe if he didn’t move it, you’d walk in again. Humming. Smiling. Telling him to get out 'cause you needed the mirror.

Joel’s hands gripped your hips a little tighter.

He swallowed hard.

And then—God help him—his thoughts slipped lower.

Because it wasn’t just the comfort. Not just the routines. Not just the domestic quiet you brought into his chaos.

It was the heat of you.

The need.

He missed the feel of your hands on his chest, tugging his shirt off impatiently. The way your mouth dragged across his jaw with purpose. Like you knew exactly what he needed and weren’t shy about giving it.

You were never shy with him.

Not once.

He missed you pulling him in with a handful of his belt, whispering against his mouth, Come on, baby, take care of me, like you weren’t the one unraveling him.

He missed the way you straddled him on the couch, kissed him deep and slow while your fingers dragged down his stomach. How you’d rock your hips against his, lazy and teasing, like you had all the time in the world to ruin him.

He missed how you bit him when you came.

Soft, quick, right against his shoulder.

Like a secret you couldn’t keep.

Joel breathed out slowly through his nose, trying to steady himself.

But it didn’t work.

Because you shifted against him then. Innocent. Barely a move. But enough to bring your chest flush against his, enough for your fingers to tangle a little deeper into the hair at the nape of his neck.

You were warm.

So fucking warm.

And soft.

And his whole body was screaming for more.

He missed your thighs clenching around his hips as he buried himself inside you. The way your breath hitched when he pressed deeper. Slower. When he held your wrists above your head and whispered all the filthy things he’d never say anywhere else.

He missed the mess of it.

The sweat. The gritted teeth. The way you’d cry out his name like it meant something. Like you trusted him to break you apart and put you back together again.

He missed your skin. The taste of it. The scent of you in his sheets. The way you said Joel like a fucking prayer when he brought you over that edge again and again and again—

He missed being needed.

Physically. Completely.

He missed being yours.

Not just in the daylight. Not just in casual moments or shared coffee or post-patrol silence.

He missed being the man you reached for at night, when you were desperate and aching and honest in a way the sun never got to see.

Joel opened his eyes.

And you were right there.

You were still swaying with him.

Still close.

Still holding onto him like this moment mattered. Like it meant something. Joel could feel your breath against his throat, warm and even. You hadn’t spoken. Neither had he. And part of him wanted to stay in this silence forever.

But it wasn’t real.

It was borrowed time.

And he couldn’t keep pretending.

Not with you so close.

Not with the memory of your smile already fading from his house, from his mornings, from the quiet in the shower.

So he forced himself to speak. Quiet. Raw.

“I won’t stop you,” he murmured, barely louder than the hum of the song.

You blinked.

Pulled your head back just slightly, brows drawn.

“What?”

“If you wanna go.” He swallowed hard. “If you wanna be with that guy—”

“Joel—”

“—I get it,” he cut in. Not harsh. Just final. “You should. He’s younger. Smoother. Probably better at sayin’ all the right things. Probably ain’t spendin’ half a day tryin’ to get up from a chair.”

You stared up at him, clearly not amused by his joke. Your lips parted, but no sound came out.

Joel’s heart ached.

“And if that’s what you want,” he said softly, “I’ll wish you the best with it. With everythin’.”

You shook your head, once. Like you didn’t understand.

Joel held your gaze.

“I mean that. I’ll always be your biggest supporter. Even if I ain’t the one beside you anymore.”

Your breath hitched.

The tears came fast.

You let go of him like you’d been burned.

Took a full step back. Then another. Shook your head again, more violently now.

“Stop—” you choked, voice cracking. “Don’t say that. Don’t fucking say that.”

Joel’s throat closed. But he couldn’t take it back.

You looked down at the floor like it hurt to meet his eyes.

And then, just like that, you turned.

You pushed through the crowd with both hands, shoving someone out of the way, rushing for the back doors like you couldn’t breathe. Joel’s stomach twisted.

He stood frozen for half a second too long.

Then he moved.

The air outside hit him like a slap.

It was cold. Windy. Crisp.

You were standing a few feet away, arms wrapped around yourself, back to him, shoulders trembling.

He could hear the sharpness of your breathing—hiccuped, fractured, like you were trying not to fall apart again.

“Hey—” Joel called softly. “Wait.”

You didn’t turn.

Didn’t speak.

Joel stepped closer, slow.

“Just—let me say this,” he said. “Please.”

You finally turned. Tears were streaked down your face. Your eyes were red. You looked like you hated him and missed him all at once.

“You always do this,” you whispered. “Every time. When it gets hard, you freeze up. You disappear. You shut down and I’m left talking to a fucking brick wall.”

“I know,” Joel said. Quiet. Barely there.

“You don’t fight for me,” you said, voice cracking again. “You never fight for me. And now you’re telling me to go be with someone else—like that’s what I want? Like I left you because I didn’t love you?”

Joel shook his head. “That’s not what I meant—”

“Then what did you mean, Joel?” you snapped. “Because it sure sounded like you were giving me permission to leave like it doesn’t matter. Like we don’t matter.”

He was breathing hard now.

“I meant I want you to be happy,” he rasped. “Even if it kills me.”

You blinked.

Hard.

Joel took another step closer.

“I didn’t know how to love you right. I never got it right. But God—darlin’, I love you.”

You didn’t answer. Just stood there, trembling, tears tracking down your cheeks like you couldn’t stop them even if you wanted to.

Joel didn’t know what to do with his hands. His chest ached like a bruise, sharp and sore and tender all at once. He reached for you, slow, cautious—his arms wide like he was afraid you’d vanish if he touched you too fast.

But before he could pull you in—

You grabbed him.

Fisted your hands in the front of his jacket.

And kissed him.

Hard.

Messy.

Desperate.

Joel froze for half a second. Shocked. Breath stolen clean from his lungs.

And then—

Goddamn.

He kissed you back like a starving man.

Like he hadn’t tasted anything real in five whole weeks.

His hands flew to your face first, palms cradling your jaw with a tenderness that didn’t match the pace of his mouth—rough, hungry, grateful. Then they dropped, skimming your waist, your ribs, your back. Like he needed to touch every part of you to make sure you were real.

You gasped against him, lips slipping, teeth clashing just slightly. Joel groaned—deep—from his chest, like something inside him had just cracked under the weight of everything he’d been holding in.

The kiss broke for a second—barely.

You caught your breath.

Then grabbed him again.

You didn’t speak with your mouth. You poured it into him—every ounce of pain and love and fury and longing you’d been biting back since the night you left.

Joel didn’t care who saw.

Didn’t care who was still in the bar, or if Tommy looked out the window, or if Maria came after you.

None of it mattered.

Not when your mouth was on his like this. Not when your hands slid under his coat, under his shirt, gripping his waist like you never wanted to let go again.

He pressed you back against the side of the building, brick cold under your spine, his body flush against yours. His hands roamed like he’d earned it. Like he needed to feel you again, every inch, before it all disappeared.

You broke the kiss just long enough to whisper against his lips.

“Take me to our home.”

Joel’s chest clenched.

Not a home.

Not your home.

Just ours.

His.

Yours.

Ours.

Something hot twisted in his gut. He buried his face in your neck, breath shaky, lips brushing the skin just beneath your jaw.

“You sure?” he murmured, voice low and wrecked and so goddamn soft.

You nodded, nose brushing his. “Joel. Please.”

That was all he needed.

He didn’t wait.

Didn’t think.

He just took your hand, gripped it tight, and started walking.

The streets of Jackson were still.

Quiet. Cold. Empty.

Winter was still holding on by its teeth—frost clung to the edges of porch steps, old snow gathered in shadowed corners of roofs and fences. The moon was low and yellow, clouds creeping over it slow like they didn’t want to interrupt.

But Joel didn’t notice any of it.

All he could feel was your hand in his.

Still there.

Still warm.

Still real.

He didn’t look back at you—not directly.

Not yet.

He glanced, sideways, just enough to watch the shape of you in the corner of his vision, like if he turned too fully, the spell would break. Like if he looked too hard, you’d vanish all over again.

It felt like a dream.

No, not a dream.

A story.

Something ancient. Mythic.

Like he were Orpheus, and he was walking you out of the underworld. Back to him.

Except this time—he wouldn’t look back. Wouldn’t ruin it.

Your fingers stayed locked in his, tight but calm. You didn’t speak, and neither did he. The silence wasn’t heavy. It was sacred. Like everything unspoken was too delicate to be named just yet.

He was scared.

Not of you.

Not of the cold.

But of what came next.

Scared of what he might say when the door closed behind you.

Scared of what you might see when you stepped inside and realized—nothing had changed.

He hadn’t moved your book off the coffee table. Hadn’t folded the blanket you always used. Your mug was still beside the sink. He didn’t touch the turntable. Didn’t fix the curtain you always claimed was crooked in the bedroom.

He hadn’t let himself forget.

Not a single goddamn thing.

When you reached the porch, Joel fumbled for the key.

The lock stuck—like it always did—and his fingers were stiff from the cold, from nerves, from you.

And then he opened the door.

Let you step in first.

He followed, closing it gently behind him.

And then… you stood there.

In the soft dark of his home.

Your home.

Your eyes moved slowly.

He could feel it—your gaze drifting across the living room, catching on the blanket you left draped on the arm of the couch. The open book Joel had kept exactly where you left it. The throw pillow you always used, still shaped to your body like it remembered better than he did.

He stood behind you awkwardly.

Cleared his throat.

“I, uh…” His voice cracked. He tried again. “I can make you coffee. If you want. I know it’s late but—”

But you were already turning.

Already closing the space between you with three sharp steps.

And before he could finish the offer, you were on him.

You gripped his shirt in both hands and crashed your mouth to his like you were making up for all the time lost in the silence.

Joel reeled.

He gasped against your mouth, caught off guard—but only for a second.

Then instinct took over.

He kissed you back hard. Messy. Like he needed to taste every second of the last five weeks he’d spent alone.

Your hands were greedy, tugging his shirt free from his jeans, palms sliding underneath to find his skin. He groaned—loudly—into your mouth, arms locking around you, pressing you into him like he couldn’t stand even an inch of space.

Your coat hit the floor with a thump, and his followed soon after. You both knew what the other craved.

Your lips moved down his neck, open-mouthed and reckless.

Joel swore under his breath. “Shit, baby—”

Your teeth scraped his pulse point and he hissed.

He couldn’t think.

Couldn’t breathe.

The adrenaline, the grief, the relief—it all crashed together like a wave breaking in his chest.

“I missed you,” you breathed against his skin. “I missed you so much.”

Joel’s hands were everywhere—your back, your waist, the curve of your ass, your thighs, your jaw. He couldn’t decide what to touch first. Couldn’t hold enough of you, not all at once.

He wanted you in his arms. In his bed. In his house.

Where you fucking belonged.

You pulled back just enough to look at him—cheeks flushed, lips swollen, hair wild from his hands. And Joel?

He stared at you like you were the only goddamn thing in the world that ever made sense.

He didn’t let you walk.

He couldn’t.

You were back in his arms, and Joel Miller was not taking a single goddamn risk.

He carried you to the bedroom like something precious. Sacred. Like if he set you down too soon, the moment would vanish—just another dream he’d wake from, soaked in sweat and aching with loss.

Your arms were around his neck. Legs around his waist. Mouth on his jaw, his neck, the hinge of his throat. Joel groaned every time your lips brushed skin. He was hard already. Had been from the moment you kissed him outside the bar. But he ignored it. He could wait. He would wait.

He stepped into the room and kicked the door shut behind him with his boot.

You looked at him like he was everything.

Like home.

He couldn’t take his eyes off you.

He sat you down on the edge of the bed with careful hands, just for a second. You started to reach for his belt, desperate, and Joel caught your wrists again—not rough, not punishing. Just still.

“Slow,” he rasped. “Let me.”

Your eyes flicked up to his, wide and breathless. You nodded.

He exhaled, like he’d been holding his breath for five weeks.

Then he knelt in front of you. Not to tease. Not to play.

To worship.

His hands came to your ankles first, callused thumbs brushing just under the hem of your pants.

“You’re shakin’ already,” he murmured. “Missed me that much, huh?”

You gave him this broken smile. “Joel—”

He slid his hands up your calves, your thighs, slow and sure.

“I know,” he said. “I missed you too.”

He leaned forward and kissed your knee.

Then your inner thigh.

“You been thinkin’ about this?” he asked, voice low and rough. “’Bout me undressin’ you like this? Slow?”

You swallowed hard. “Every night.”

Joel smirked. “Yeah? Bet you touched yourself. Got all needy in that big ol’ empty bed.”

Your breath hitched.

“Thought about me,” he said, dragging your pants down inch by inch, pressing a kiss to every new strip of skin. “Thought about my hands on you. Mouth on you. My cock inside you—deep. Slow.”

You moaned—loud and broken—and Joel’s chest ached with it as he tossed your pants over his shoulders.

“God, I missed that sound,” he growled. “You sound like heaven when you want me.”

You took off your own shirt and bra. God, those breasts. He loved them. Beautiful and tight. Another classic example of you. He stood, hooked his thumbs in your waistband, and pulled your underwear down next. You lifted your hips willingly.

He didn’t look away—not once—as you were revealed to him again. And fuck—his knees almost gave out.

Pretty. Pink. Folds swollen and wet to the point that he knew you would be embarrassed about it. But never him. He loved how messy you got when you wanted something, like your body was speaking for you when your mouth clamped shut.

He stared up at you from below, chest heaving, eyes dark with something deeper than lust. Something older. More carved in. More earned.

“Goddamn,” he muttered, voice hoarse. “You’re so fuckin’ gorgeous like this. Laid out for me. All soft and warm and—mine.”

Your breath caught.

Your thighs trembled.

He kissed your inner knee, the inside of your thigh. His hands rubbed up and down your calves, your hips, his thumbs digging into the softness like he was grounding himself.

“I missed this more than I missed anythin’,” he rasped. “This right here—” he kissed the crease where thigh met hip, “—was all I thought about. Woke up some nights with your name in my mouth and nothin’ but air in my fuckin’ bed.”

You whimpered.

Joel leaned in, closer. He kissed lower.

And then—

He devoured.

There was no preamble. No soft, lingering kiss meant to ease you in.

No, this was hunger. This was over a month of tension, weeks of near-misses, days of unsaid things and glances that scorched.

His mouth met your cunt like it belonged there. Like he’d been born for this, for you. His tongue parted you, slow at first, just to taste. Just to sample the mess you’d already made for him. But then—

Then he groaned. Low and deep, the sound rumbling through his chest like thunder.

“Jesus Christ,” Joel muttered, voice rasped and reverent, breath hot against your folds. “You taste better than I remembered. Sweet fuckin’ heaven.”

Your thighs twitched at the sound, at the praise, at the pressure of his tongue licking a long, deliberate stripe right through your center.

You cried out—sharp and breathless—your hips jolting off the mattress. And he grinned against you. Like the bastard he was.

His hips jolted forward against nothing, instinctively, like his whole body couldn’t take being this close to you without burying himself inside.

“Fuck,” he growled, lips still brushing your soaked skin. “She’s drippin’ for me already. Look at her, baby. So fuckin’ wet.”

Your thighs twitched at the sound of it. The way he said it.

“You miss this?” he rasped, voice low and dangerous, eyes locked between your legs. “Missed my mouth on her? On this sweet little pussy?”

“Y-Yes,” you gasped, breathless. “God—Joel—yes—”

He chuckled darkly. “Thought so.”

Then he sucked your clit between his lips—slow at first. He knew exactly what to do, knew exactly what made your voice catch. Then harder. Focused.

Tongue flicking over you in tight, calculated strokes until your back arched and your hand flew to his hair, fisting tight.

You weren’t quiet.

You couldn’t be.

The noises—your moans, the wet suck of his mouth, the low sounds he kept making like he was drinking you in—filled the room like heat.

“Fuckin’ perfect,” Joel muttered. “She’s so goddamn soft. So sweet. You feel that?” His voice rumbled against your clit as he flattened his tongue and dragged it up through your folds. “That’s what I missed. The way she opens up for me. So greedy.”

You whined—broken and desperate—grinding your hips against his face.

He didn’t stop you.

He loved it.

“Go ahead,” he murmured, licking into your entrance, tongue fucking shallow and slow. “Use me, baby. Rub her all over my face. I can take it. I need it.”

“Joel—fuck—I’m gonna—”

“Nah.”

Joel’s voice came from low in his chest, ragged and breathless. He pulled back just an inch, his mouth flushed and glistening, his eyes wild.

“Not yet,” he said again. “Don’t come yet. She ain’t done with me, is she?”

You barely shook your head. Couldn’t even speak—

Not before he fucking spit.

It landed right on your clit—hot and thick—and he watched it hit like it was the sexiest thing he’d ever seen. You jolted, crying out, already grinding into the air—

And then he licked it up.

Groaning as he did, slow and deep, mouth dragging through every soaked inch.

“Jesus fuck,” he muttered, thumb spreading you open wider. “Look at her. So wet she’s fuckin’ shinin’ for me.”

He spit again. Lazily this time. Watching it trail through your folds, mix with everything else he’d already coaxed out of you.

“Joel— your mouth,” you gasped, trembling beneath him. “God— I can’t fucking think when your mouth’s on me.”

Joel looked up at you, pupils blown, face shining. “Then don’t. Let her do the thinkin’.”

You moaned loud and shameless. “She’s not the one begging. I am.”

Joel grinned, tongue flicking out to catch the mess before it could drip too far. “That right? Then tell me. What do you want?”

“I want more,” you said, voice wrecked. “I want every bit of you. Tongue, fingers, cock—all of it.”

He growled, face diving back in like you’d just set off a fire in his brain. His tongue swirled, mouth suctioning hard around your clit, then easing off just enough so he could spit again.

“Fuuuck,” he groaned, watching the new mess drip over your cunt. “She loves it. Fuckin’ sloppy for me.”

“She’ll take everything you give her,” you breathed, chest heaving. “You know that. You trained her. Broke her in.”

“Oh, I know.”

He sounded proud. Possessive. Obsessed.

“She knows who she belongs to.”

Your body shuddered.

“I love her, you know that?” he said, fingers spreading you open for his tongue again. “Love this pussy. Love how she feels, how she tastes. I could fuckin’ die between her.”

Your fingers twisted tighter in his hair, thighs squeezing around his head, desperate and overwhelmed. But he loved it—grunting low, letting you pull him in deeper, tighter, closer.

“She’s got me fuckin’ obsessed,” he muttered against you. “Get hard just thinkin’ about her. Wake up fuckin’ leakin’ ‘cause I dream about the way she clenches around my tongue—”

He slipped a finger inside you. Thick. Rough. Curling just right.

Your whole body snapped.

“Oh my god, Joel—!”

“That’s it,” he groaned, voice low and ruined. “Come on. Let her come. Give it to me, baby—I want it. Want to feel her pulse on my fuckin’ face.”

You shattered.

Your thighs locked up, your body bowed off the bed, and your pussy clenched hard around his finger as you came with a cry that echoed off the walls. You said his name like it was the only thing you knew. The only word that mattered.

Joel didn’t let up. Not even as you started to tremble.

Not even as your legs threatened to close.

He held you open—pinned—and kept licking, kept sucking, kept claiming.

He moaned into you, letting you ride it out on his face, licking up every drop you gave him like he needed it to survive.

Joel could still feel your pulse on his tongue.

He still had your slick all over his mouth and beard. The taste of you burned into him—sharp and sweet and sacred. It had knocked something loose in him. Something primal. Something that made him want to tear the rest of his clothes off, drag you into his arms, and finally sink into the place he’d been dreaming about for five long, lonely weeks.

He staggered up from the bed, breath ragged, belt undone with trembling fingers. His body was flushed, hair mussed, lips still wet from your taste.

“You don’t know what you just did to me,” he muttered, voice hoarse like it had been scraped from the inside out. “I can’t fuckin’ wait anymore—I gotta be inside you, baby, now, I—”

But you moved.

Slid off the mattress like smoke. Like fire under silk skin and bare thighs. A slow, molten kind of hunger.

And Joel froze the moment your knees hit the floor.

You looked up at him with heat in your eyes, mischief in your mouth, and a hunger that dared him to stop you.

“Wha—baby—what’re you—”

“Shh,” you said, voice like velvet dragged over flame. “Let me.”

His hands fisted at his sides. His chest rose and fell in hard, shallow pulls. He looked down at you like he wanted to stop you, like he should stop you—

But didn’t. Couldn’t.

You undid the rest of his belt slowly, methodically. Let the tension stretch between you like something alive. The button popped. The zipper dragged down with a slow hiss.

And through it all, your eyes never left his.

“You know how many nights I imagined this?” you murmured, kissing the strip of skin just above his waistband. “How many times I touched myself pretending it was your cock between my lips?”

Joel groaned, hips jolting forward, instinctive and needy.

Your fingers slid beneath his boxers, confident and sure. And you didn’t tease.

You freed him. Let him fall heavy into your palm.

Fuck.

So thick. So hard it looked painful.

You looked at him like he was a goddamn revelation. And the sound that spilled from your lips—low and reverent—nearly knocked Joel off his feet.

“Oh, baby,” you whispered, wrapping your fingers around the base. “You’re perfect.”

Joel shifted, self-conscious in the way only time could teach. He wasn’t young anymore. He was never young, even when he met you. But you fed him well, and with all the labor, he bulked up, bringing out his stomach.

You slapped his thigh. Not hard. It was like you knew where his thoughts were heading. Just enough to snap his gaze back to you.

“Don’t do that,” you said, low and sharp. “You don’t get to hide from me. Not here.”

Joel’s throat worked. “You don’t gotta say that—”

“I’m not sayin’ it to be nice, Joel,” you growled. “I’m sayin’ it ‘cause I’ve been fucking starving. And now I get to taste what I’ve been dreaming about since the second I walked out that door.”

Joel’s eyes darkened.

You leaned in and kissed the base of his cock, slow and reverent. His body shuddered.

“You taste like him,” you whispered against the skin. “Like the man who used to own me without even trying.”

And then you licked.

From root to tip.

Deliberate. Worshipful. Filthy.

Joel’s head dropped back. “Jesus Christ.”

You opened your mouth—wide—and took him in.

Hot. Wet. Deep.

Joel moaned, sharp and sudden, a sound dragged straight from his spine. His hips jerked, but your hands were already tight on his thighs, holding him in place.

You worked him slow. Rhythmic. Purposeful.

You weren’t just giving head—you were consuming him.

Joel didn’t know where to look. The way your lips wrapped around him, the hollow of your cheeks, the spit starting to drip down your chin? It was sickeningly gorgeous.

He looked down, saw your eyes staring back at him. Saw your jaw straining to take more.

“S’too good,” he rasped. “Too fuckin’ good. You’re gonna ruin me.”

You pulled off just far enough to speak, letting a string of spit fall from your lips to his cock.

“Maybe I want to ruin you,” you whispered. “Maybe I want you thinkin’ about my mouth every time you jerk off alone in the dark.”

Joel hissed through his teeth. “You got a mouth on you.”

Your tongue traced a slow circle around his tip.

“And you love it.”

“I do,” he growled. “Fuckin’ love everythin’ about that mouth. But you keep goin’ like that, baby, and I’m not gonna last.”

“Good,” you said, licking along a bulging vein. “I want it. All of it.”

And then?

You took him again.

Deeper this time. Throat tighter. Drool messier. Your spit sliding down his cock in obscene trails.

Joel’s hips stuttered. His hands fisted at his sides like it physically hurt not to touch you. Like he was barely hanging on to the dominance he always carried.

“You like that?” you said when you pulled off again, spit smeared on your lips, eyes glazed with hunger. “You like seein’ me like this?”

Joel groaned, barely coherent. “Look at you. Mouth full’a cock, beggin’ for more.”

“I am begging,” you whispered, licking the tip and smiling like the devil. “So don’t hold back, Miller.”

Something inside him snapped.

He gripped your hair—tight, firm, not rough but definite—and held you right there.

“You want me to use this mouth?” he asked, voice low and filthy. “That it?”

You moaned again, eyes fluttering closed as your throat worked.

Joel cursed. "Fuck."

And then he started to move.

Slow at first. Testing.

Your hands gripped his thighs harder, anchoring yourself now.

Joel watched the way you took him. Let him own your mouth. The way your lips stretched, the obscene squelch of your throat as he pushed in and out. He could hear every inch of it. Wet and raw and real.

You looked up again, and he nearly came on the spot.

“You’re so fuckin’ good at this,” he gasped. “Jesus, sweetheart—you take me like you need it.”

You blinked up at him, teary-eyed and eager, your throat fluttering around him again.

Joel growled.

“You like it when I fuck your mouth like this? Like a goddamn filthy man?”

You nodded, or tried to, and he felt the motion around his cock.

His knees nearly gave out.

He was panting now. Full-body trembling. His hands threaded deeper into your hair, tugging at your scalp in a rhythm that matched his hips—thrusting in, slow but hard, dragging against your tongue and hitting the back of your throat again and again.

You whimpered, gagged just a little—and Joel lost it.

“Oh, fuck, baby—don’t do that—don’t you do that unless you want me to come right fuckin’ now—”

You pulled off, gasping, spit connecting your mouth to him in a slick string. His cock was flushed, angry-red, twitching in the open air, gleaming with your spit.

You licked your swollen lips, then backed toward the bed slowly.

Kneeling there.

Waiting.

Like a fucking vision.

Hair messy, skin flushed, mouth parted, chest rising and falling like you were starving for him. Like you needed him to get over there and do what he was made to do.

Joel stared.

Didn’t speak.

He dropped his flannel to the floor—then his shirt, then his jeans, his boxers—and crossed the room without breaking eye contact. He was breathing like a man chasing down his last chance. His thighs ached from how tight they’d been clenched. His stomach wasn’t flat anymore, body worn down by age and time—but you looked at him like he was everything.

Like he was still the man who could ruin you with just one touch.

He crawled up onto the bed—slowly, knees sinking into the mattress, palms planted on either side of your hips.

And you?

You laid back, legs parted, eyes heavy-lidded, the picture of wrecked devotion.

Joel hovered over you, arms caging you in.

For a second, he just looked at you. Like maybe this was a dream. Like maybe if he moved too fast, it would disappear.

Then he kissed you.

Hard. Deep. Tongue sweeping into your mouth like he needed to taste every part of you again. Like he didn’t just want to fuck you—he wanted to live inside you. Breathe with you. Lose every broken part of himself in the warmth of your skin.

Your hands gripped his arms. His back. Anywhere you could reach. Your legs wrapped around his waist, pulling him in tight.

And then Joel reached down, slid the head of his cock through your folds.

Up. Down. Just to coat himself in you.

He pushed in slow.

The first inch had his breath catching. The second had his eyes closing. And by the time he was all the way in—seated deep, buried inside you—Joel’s soul had already left his body.

You were everything.

Everything.

Warm and soft and tight, like you’d been molded just for him. Five weeks apart, and still—you welcomed him like nothing had changed. Like he belonged there. Like he’d always belonged there.

You gasped, mouth falling open, fingers clutching his arms like they were the only steady thing in the world.

Joel couldn’t move.

Not yet.

Not when it felt like this. Not when it had been five goddamn weeks of aching and silence and empty rooms and dreams that ended in nothing but sweat and a hollow bed.

His eyes opened slowly. Just to see you.

Your brows drawn together, lips parted, a soft shine in your eyes that had nothing to do with pain.

You weren’t crying.

But it was close.

So was he.

Joel braced himself above you—one forearm pressed into the mattress, the other hand gently pushing your hair back—and kissed you.

It wasn’t messy. It wasn’t greedy.

It was reverent.

He kissed you like he needed you to understand. That he never wanted to be without you again. That no one—no person, no place, no damn argument—could ever replace what you were to him.

When he finally moved?

It was slow. Careful.

A pull, and a push.

He exhaled, voice breaking. “You feel so good, darlin’.”

You whimpered beneath him, nails pressing into his shoulder blades.

Joel didn’t rush it.

Every movement was like worship. Like penance. Like he was apologizing with his body—saying all the things he hadn’t known how to say before.

He rolled his hips again.

Your mouth fell open. “Joel—”

“I know,” he breathed. “I know, baby. I missed you. Missed this.”

Your eyes met his. And for a moment, everything went still.

Just heartbeats.

Breath.

Bodies pressed together like they’d never come apart again.

Joel kissed you again, deeper this time, hand slipping under your back to hold you closer. And then?

He moved faster.

Not rough. Not harsh.

Just urgent.

Like he couldn’t stand the space between your skin and his.

You moaned—high and sweet and wrecked—and that sound went straight to his chest.

Joel groaned low. “That’s it,” he rasped. “That’s the sound I been waitin’ to hear. Five weeks without it, and I thought I’d lose my damn mind.”

You clung to him harder. Wrapped your legs around his hips, anchoring him there.

“Don’t stop,” you whispered. “Please don’t stop.”

Joel’s rhythm shifted—deeper, harder, but still loving. Still present. His forehead dropped to yours, eyes half-lidded, breath hot on your lips.

“Never gonna stop again,” he muttered. “Never lettin’ you walk out that door.”

You arched beneath him.

His name left your lips again, this time softer. A plea. A promise. A prayer.

Joel held you tighter.

“You fit me,” he panted. “Like you were made for me. Like you always fuckin’ have.”

Your breath hitched. Your eyes fluttered shut.

And Joel watched every second of it.

Because that’s what he’d missed most.

You. Just like this. Not just the sex. Not just the body. But the way you looked at him like he was worth it. Like you saw him, even when he couldn’t stand to look at himself.

He fucked you like it mattered.

“That what you needed?” he asked, thrusting again, a little harder. “Needed me to fuck you like you belong to me?”

You nodded—whimpered—and he growled.

“Say it.”

“I belong to you.”

“Louder.”

“I fucking belong to you, Joel!”

That was all it took.

He grabbed your thigh, hitched it higher on his waist, and slammed into you. Again. Again.

The bed creaked. Your cries filled the room. Joel’s voice—low, hoarse, reverent—was in your ear.

“Missed this pussy so bad,” he panted. “Missed how tight you squeeze me. Missed how you fuckin’ moan when I hit that spot—right there—yeah, you feel that?”

You squealed—a sound so pure and broken it made Joel want to cry.

He couldn’t stop.

Didn’t want to stop.

Not when you were wrapped around him like this, clinging to him, crying out his name like it was the only word you remembered. Not when you were looking at him with that shattered kind of love in your eyes. Like you’d missed him just as much.

Your thigh was hooked high on his hip. Your hands were in his hair, on his back, gripping, clawing, grounding yourself. Joel could barely think—could barely breathe—with how tightly your body hugged his.

“Fuck, baby,” he panted, voice strained. “This feel good to you?”

You nodded fast, desperate. “So good—so good, Joel, I missed you—I missed this—I—”

He caught your mouth in another kiss. Swallowed the words. Gave you everything in return. His thrusts hit deep, perfect, the way only he knew how to give. And he listened for it—that cry you made when he angled just right. When he found that spot and pressed into it, unrelenting.

“There?” he murmured, dragging his hips again.

You sobbed. “There.”

Joel grinned against your cheek, even as sweat ran down his back, even as his muscles ached and trembled.

And then you were saying things—soft, half-broken, whispered against his ear like confessions.

“I love you,” you breathed. “I never stopped. I never stopped.”

His heart clenched.

He pulled back just enough to see your face, still moving inside you, still holding your gaze like it was holy.

“I love you,” he said, voice breaking. “Been lovin’ you since the start. Been waitin’ for you to come back so I could say it again.”

You kissed him—messy, desperate, teeth clicking.

“Don’t let me go again,” you whispered.

“Never,” Joel swore. “Not a fuckin’ chance.”

Then he slid a hand between your bodies. Found your clit. Pressed two fingers to it, circling slow, firm, just the way you needed.

You screamed.

Your whole body arched beneath him—taut, electric, unraveling. You came hard, pulsing around him, your voice sharp and open in his ear.

And Joel—fuck—Joel lost it.

You clenched down, and he was gone. Buried deep, his body locking up, breath stalling in his throat. He groaned loud, raw, like the release had been dragged from his bones. His forehead dropped to your shoulder as he came inside you, holding you as tight as his arms would allow.

Everything was you.

Your scent. Your breath. Your body. Your voice still saying I love you like a prayer.

Joel stayed there, wrapped around you, chest heaving against yours. The room was warm now—sweat-slick skin, tangled limbs, the sheets pushed down and forgotten. Your bodies were still joined, hearts thundering in time.

You didn’t speak.

You didn’t have to.

His breath slowed against your shoulder, nose tucked into the crook of your neck, and you ran your fingers through his hair—soft, slow strokes. He could feel your pulse beneath his lips, steady and alive. Like you were anchoring him there. Like if he let go, the world might slip again.

He didn’t want to move.

But eventually, he had to.

Joel exhaled slowly and began to pull away, his hands careful at your hips. He didn’t want to hurt you—didn’t want to lose that closeness, not even for a second.

Still buried deep, he paused.

Then he slid out of you, slow and reverent.

You whimpered softly, body shivering at the loss. Joel glanced down, and the sight of it—his cum, white and hot, spilling from you—had his throat going tight. His stomach clenched.

“Jesus,” he muttered. “Look at that.”

You shifted on the bed, stretching slightly, and the movement only made more of him leak out of you, trailing down your thighs.

Joel cursed again. His voice was raw with wonder and regret.

You looked at him, flushed and glowing. A lazy, content smile pulled at your lips.

“Gonna gawk, or you gonna hold me?” you teased gently.

He huffed a breath—half a laugh—and climbed back into bed, gathering you into his arms like you were something fragile. He tugged the blanket up over both of you, let your head rest on his chest, one hand smoothing over your back, the other tangled in your hair.

For a while, it was just that.

Breathing.

Touching.

The afterglow wrapped around you like another blanket, and Joel held you tighter, like maybe he could trap time. Keep it from moving forward and tearing this moment away.

But it did move.

And eventually, you spoke.

“Can we talk?” you asked quietly.

Joel stiffened—barely. He nodded. Cleared his throat. “Yeah. Yeah, of course.”

You lifted your head just enough to meet his eyes. “I didn’t leave because I stopped loving you.”

“I know,” he said softly. “I—fuck. I know.”

Your eyes searched his. “But I needed more, Joel. I needed you. Not just your body, not just your actions. I needed your voice. Your thoughts. I needed to know what was goin’ on in your head when you shut down like that.”

Joel looked away.

The guilt was sharp. Cutting.

He exhaled, rubbing at his face. “I’ve always been like that,” he admitted. “Since… since Sarah. Since everythin’ after. When shit gets too much, I just… just go quiet. I don’t know how not to.”

You laid your palm over his chest, right above his heart.

“It hurt,” you whispered. “When we fought, and you walked away from me with silence. It made me feel like I didn’t matter. Like I was yelling into a void.”

Joel’s eyes flicked back to yours. Pain settled behind them, low and heavy.

“I don’t want you feel that way,” he said hoarsely. “I just… I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t wanna make it worse. Didn’t wanna say the wrong thing and ruin everythin’.”

“You not saying anything was the wrong thing,” you said gently. “That’s what hurt us.”

He nodded slowly. Took your hand in his. Pressed his lips to your knuckles like they were sacred.

“I know. I see that now.” He swallowed hard. “I want to fix that.”

Your expression softened.

“I don’t expect you to change overnight,” you murmured. “I just want to feel like you’re in this with me. That when things get hard, you don’t disappear.”

Joel’s grip on your hand tightened.

“I won’t,” he said. “You have my word.”

Silence fell again—but it was warm now. Comfortable. Like a sigh through the sheets.

After a moment, you nestled closer.

“I missed this,” you whispered. “Not just the sex. Just… this. You. Me. Quiet.”

Joel pressed his lips to your forehead.

“I missed you every damn day,” he said. “House was too quiet. Coffee didn’t taste right. Nothin’ did.”

You smiled. “You make shitty coffee anyway.”

He chuckled. “Hey now. It’s improved. Slightly…”

You laughed softly and tucked yourself against his side, a perfect fit.

Joel stared at the ceiling for a while, then turned his gaze down to you.

“I’m gonna try. I want this—you. For long as you’ll have me.”

You looked up at him, eyes shining again.

“Forever sound okay?”

Joel kissed you, slow and soft, like it was the easiest vow he’d ever made.

“Forever sounds perfect.”

Guys, it feels really good to be writing something different, other than terms & conditions. I love t&C, I really do, but something new never hurt anyone once in a while!

4K notes · View notes

tokoyamisstuff · 5 months ago

Note

I know you only write for dilfs usually, but could you make an exception? I'm starved for Invincible content🥺

so many perfectly fine dilfs /gilfs in this series, smh...but for you I'll make an exception. 💌

Variant! Invincible x gn! Reader

Second Chance At Love

...in which another version of Mark invaded your world to claim something he once lost.

Warnings: angst, unrequited love, yandere adjacent, blood, kidnapping, murder, not proofread A/N: I didn't specify which variant, pick your poison

This is it. That’s how you’ll die.

One of innumerable casualties in the wake of this surreal destruction, caused by no one else than the man you were still helplessly in love with. Well, at least the people responsible for this chaos all wore his stupidly handsome face, though the innocence in his eyes despite everything being long since absent in theirs.

You’re cowering in a corner of the nearest safehouse, huddled in there with countless other civilians as you start to reminisce and regret in the face of doom.

Maybe you should have told Mark about your feelings after all. Not that there ever was an appropriate moment to do so, between his relationship with Amber and Eve seamlessly afterwards. Both were amazing women in their own right, and you could never think of comparing yourself to either of them. But damn it you couldn’t even be mad at those wonderful two, even through all your jealousy.

Mark and you had been childhood friends ever since you had moved into the same neighborhood as a preteen. It was a storybook-like friendship that eventually turned into a one-sided infatuation as you grew older, but not wanting to ruin your friendship you cowardly suppressed them until it was too late.

And when your friend's powers finally awakened, you found the perfect opportunity to end this bond once and for all.

You remember it as if it was yesterday: His face, so full of shock and hurt as you broke out in tears and told him you couldn’t do this anymore. It wasn’t a complete lie.

Being this close to a literal hero made you a walking target, you claimed. Even if you as an individual are insignificant in the greater picture, even if villains wouldn’t try and hurt you to get through to him, conflict seemed to follow him everywhere, so you’ll most likely get into harm’s way at some point.

It was a cheap excuse to hide the pitiful truth that you couldn’t stand to see him build a life with someone else. And in hindsight you hated yourself for having done this. Invinc- Mark had gone through so much already, suffered great losses and was carrying guilt that weighed so heavy it astonished you that he hasn’t yet broken down under all the pressure.

And to add insult to injury, you - one of his closest and most trusted friends - abandoned him out of a selfish hurt that didn’t even make up a fraction of what he felt on the regular.

Enough self-pitying. You’re not the victim here.

If – by any miracle – you survive this, the first thing you’ll do is make things right. Contact him immediately, explain yourself, and promise to overcome this silly crush to be a friend he deserves this time.

But just when you made up your mind, a loud, grating noise cut through your pondering…

…and when you looked up, you were horrified to see the view of a bright night sky.

That meant someone had not only found this place, but also effortlessly tore off the rooftop which was made up of strengthened steel.

For the fraction of a second, when your eyes met all too familiar ones, a naive hope inside of you thought it was your Invincible that had arrived, worried for your safety. But the vastly different costume – covered with blood and viscera - reminded you painfully that again it’s just wishful thinking. A dream that would never become reality, no matter how long you refuse to acknowledge it. This world’s Mark is probably fighting alongside Eve right now, not wasting a single thought about you, and you couldn't blame him.

The Viltrumite scanned the crowd for god knows what, his face falling flat as his gaze fell on you. A flash of recognition flickered in his eyes, just to be replaced by an almost predatory glint.

“Found you!” his tone was oddly cheerful, yet sent a shiver down your spine as you could barely perceive him lunging at you with his sheer inhumane speed. You were sure that now you’ll experience pain beyond your greatest imagination, praying he'd make it quick...

...but much to your surprise the impact never came.

Instead you found yourself high in the air, fighting the nausea rising in the pit of your stomach due to the way too fast ascend. Beneath you the outline of the collapsing safehouse became blurred by darkness and distance, the dust driving tears in your eyes even long after the rubble drowned out everyone's screams.

“He’ll drop me” is the only thought present in your mind, feeling tremendously selfish for not caring about the others whose death you just witnessed. Yes, soon this sociopath will make you fall to your death and laugh at your misery like it’s some kind of wicked game.

And you deserved it either way, didn’t you?

Maybe you disappointed Mark in other realities as well. That must be it, that’s the reason he went out of his way just to find you – to get his revenge for you abandoning him in his darkest hour.

Your first instinct was to scream and lash out at him, and yet you knew trying to oppose a force of nature like him was to no avail. So with no other options you cling to your captor like a lifeline.

Clutching the fabric of his costume in tight fists, you hide your face in the crook of his neck, desperately trying to shun out the reality of your situation. Your behavior earns a low chuckle from the villain, who in return wraps his arms a little tighter around you as he carries you through the sky nearly bridal style.

“Don’t tell me your Mark never brought you flying with him?” he asked nonchalantly, as if any of this wasn’t an absolutely terrifying concept for you. Concerned at your lack of response, he slowed down in midair, gently squeezing your sides. “Hey, it’s okay. I got you. We’re almost there.”

You wanted to ask where to exactly, but your voice failed you each time you tried. So you stayed cradled against his muscular chest like this, trying your best to ignore the way you felt his gaze burning into you even though you refused to open your eyes.

“There we are” he announced, carefully letting you down. And still, as soon as your legs touched solid ground again they gave up and you fell to your knees right away. Initially this foreign Mark wanted to help you, to catch you in his arms once again and reassure you that everything was gonna be alright - but upon seeing tears dwelling in your eyes he knew he had to stop himself, hands falling loosely to the sides and balling to fists in mild frustration.

For a while you remained like this, staring at each other in awkward silence while a storm of conflicting emotions was raging beneath.

“You’re safe here” Mark ultimately spoke, and looking around this place really did seem rather peaceful compared to what you've seen in the news. “The others won’t attack rural areas. We were ordered to destroy main cities and crucial infrastructures mainly.”

“By whom?” The question was burning on your tongue but it died right there, because what does it matter? Knowing wouldn’t make any difference since you couldn’t change the outcome anyways. So instead you ask “Why…why did you bring me here?”

You were already dreading the answer as your mind conjured concerning possible scenarios, however the variant merely gave you a confused puppy gaze that almost made you forget the threat he posed.

“Isn’t it obvious?” He sheepishly rubs the back of his head, avoiding your eyes. “I wanted to get you before the others would."

That sounded more like a subtle threat than a honest reassurance.

“Please…don’t hurt me…” you beg and whimmer, overwhelmed by all the recent events. You’re shaking violently, tears now wettening your cheeks. The mere sight of it - and knowing he’s responsible - shatters what’s left of his rotten heart.

“Wha- of course I won’t-" He nervously paces around, wildly gesticulating as if he's struggling to put his thoughts into words - seems like they all do have similarities after all. "Oh man, sorry. You know I suck at comminicating! Shit, I fucked up the first impression already..."

Continuing to mumbles inaudible ramblings under his breath, he grips a pillar so harshly that it's combined to dust, making you shuffle even farther away from him.

“Nonononono, please don’t be afraid of me!" he yells so loud that you wince, and the fact that he keeps making things worse upsets him even more. "I could never hurt you, I swear!"

The man in front of you looks utterly devastated, and you can't put your finger on why that is or what you have to do with it.

After all, you're no one important, especially to him. Right?

At first keeping his distance, he hesistantly approaches you while simultaneously trying to appear as harmless as possible. Hands raised in a placating manner, voice calm and quiet, he whispers "I'm so, so sorry...I didn't mean to scare you."

"It's- it's okay..." you stammer feebly to appease him, your body still paralyzed by fear. A small squeal escapes your throat as you feel his palm stroke your cheek, the blood sticking to his gloves drying on your skin.

The former hero was watching you intently, face contorting through a mixture of relief and despair. But there was something else about him - the Mark you knew never acted like this. It's probably only your imagination, but he's so...

Before you could finish your line of thoughts, he closes the gap between you and his lips crashed over yours in sheer exasperation. You could feel the heat radiating off of him as he pulled you close, the barely contained strenght of his grip both frightening and thrilling.

"Damn...I keep fucking up" he blurts out, an enamored smile playing on his lips nonetheless. "Sorry for...well, this...got a bit carried away."

It was such a bizarre view: Someone possessing an indescribable strenght, unmatched on nearly the whole universe, being reduced to a stuttering, blushing mess in the presence of a pathetic human.

He was still holding you, without any intent to let you go any time soon, blissfully unaware - or rather ignorant - of how insane this whole situation actually was.

"I always wanted more than friendship, you know?" He confessed this so casually, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world - and opposed to all logic you felt your heart flutter at his words. "But in my world I never had the guts to confess...I was too afraid to lose you completely in case you don’t reciprocate."

You shouldn't feel guilty that you briefly thought back about the Mark you once knew, wondering if he ever felt the same, and yet you did. As if you owed the one in front of you right now some kind of loyality just because he was currently pouring his heart out.

No. Stop. What are you doing here? This isn't right!

The man in front of you is a homicidal maniac who did god knows what to his homeworld, and caused mayhem and suffering across the whole globe without any remorse, just to...

...yeah, why exactly?

As if your thoughts were clearly written on your forehead, he tries to explain himself, expression turning somber as he spoke.

"Back at my world I made some mistakes- no. I did so many irredeemable, atrocious things...and I only understood what truly mattered after I already lost it...after I lost you because of my actions. But I won't repeat those errors again, I swear. I promise I'll keep you safe and sound at my side to cherish you forever..."

You shouldn't feel anything but hatred and disgust at his display, yet you couldn't help but pity this forlorn, broken shell of a man that clutched you like a child would cling to their soothing blanket.

"This world's Mark, he...doesn't appreciat you." His eyes were manic, bordering on pure madness and you felt his fingers possessively digging into your flesh just shy of being painful. "But me, I would erase as many planets as it takes if only it meant being able to hold you like this for another day."

This man was truly a wolf in sheeps clothing - a vicious, instable monster that could snap any time shall your reaction not appeal to his delusions. All that's left for you to do is playing the part and hoping that the remnant of his humanity was enough to postpone a horrible fate.

So instead of answering you quietly sobbed in his vice-like embrace, tears mixing with the stains of death on his costume. You felt him rubbing soothing circles on your back, so tender and tentative you wondered just how long it's been since those hands had inflicted anything but pain.

Who would've thought that getting the one thing you had wished for an eternity could turn into a literal nightmare?

[Next Part]

#invincible #invincible s3 #invincible x reader #mark grayson x reader #invincible spoiler #fanfiction #writing #oneshot #drabble #nondescriptive reader #civilian reader #no use of y/n

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littlelaurendraws · 1 year ago

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WHATTT

EVERYONE LOOK AT THIS RIGHT NOW

THIS IS SO SMOOTH WTH?? LOOK AT THESE TALENTED PEOPLE THAT DESERVE LOVE AND APPRECIATION FOR THIS

OH MY GOD I LVOE THIS

THE ANIMATION

ITS SO SMOOTH OH MY GOD

Watch on Youtube It is done!

Thank you all these wonderful people for being apart of this and working so hard on it!

Part 1: Me! Hello! Part 2: @kibbits Part 3: @piixelpaint Part 4: @nebuladreamz Part 5: @smoljeanius Part 6: @garbagechocolate Part 7: @garbagechocolate Part 8: @amberluvsbugs Part 9: @cookiiemancer Part 10: @cloudyvoid Part 11: @skizabaa Part 12: @circleheadd Part 13: @gopsnippers Part 14: @just-a-drawing-bean Part 15: @nosleepygayy Part 16: @soupdweller

Go send them some love if you love the MAP!

#WHAT WHAT WHAT #DUDE THE ANIMATION WAS SO SMOOTH THAT I WAS AGAPE THE ENTIRE TIME #ESPECIALLY THAT ONE PART WHERE MOON LIKE PUTS THE WIRE ON AND STARTS BOUNCING TO GO BACKWARDS #THAT PART WAS SO SMOOTH THAT I WAS IN SHOCK OF HOW SMOOTH AND GREAT IT WAS AND MY MOUTH JUST STAYED OPEN FOR THE REST OF THE MAP #OH MY GOD #CONGRATULATIONS JEEZ #YOU GUYS DID SO GOOD #OH MY GOD.#AND ALSO AMBER!! OMG SO THATS WHAT THAT ANIMATION CLIP WAS FROM #AND THAT SCENE IN AMBER’S PART WAS SO COOL #AND THEN ANOTHER SCENE FROM SOMEONE ELSES PART #AMAZING #OH MY GOD AMAZING #IM GOING TO FILL UP THE TAGS WITH WORDS IM SORRY BUT LIKE THIS DESERVES IT #I LOVE EVERYTHING ABOUT THIS #THE ART THE STYLES THE ANIMATION THE SHADING #THE IDEAS/SCENES LIKE SUN AND MOON’S FACE SPLITTING APART OR WEARING A MASK #THE TURNING WITH SUN AND MOON BEHIND EACHOTHER AND PERSPECTIVE STUFF #THE LITTLE DETAILS OF SUN’S PUPILS BEING FAINTLY VISIBLE AND ESPECIALLY VISIBLE IN SHADOWS #AND MOON BEING GLITCHY AND TRANSPARENT AND BEHIND SUN #THIS IS AWESOME #MORE PEOPLE NEED TO SEE THIS #I LOVE THIS SO MUCH OH MY GOD #YOU ARE ALL SUPER TALENTED WOAH #:0000000!!!!!!!!#👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀!!!!#LOVE THIS!! :DDD!!#dca animators project #this makes me wanna animate now >:3c #OH OH AND THE WEIRD RABBIT SNAKE WAS SO COOL TOO. THE STORY ASWELL!!!

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estrellami-1 · 8 months ago

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Ok so I saw a post about Steve as a teacher letting his kids control his Spotify which means his Wrapped is All Over The Place but the top artist is Corroded Coffin and Steve finds out from the thank-you video that Eddie is hot. I see it, I love it, it’s inspired.

I’m thinking something… a little different.

“Alright, class!” Steve calls. “Marcus, it’s your turn to choose the music, right?”

“Actually, Mr. H?” Amber pipes up. “Spotify Wrapped came out today!”

Steve blinks. “Spotify… what?”

Marcus is nodding. “Spotify Wrapped! It tallies up what you’ve listened to and gives you stats and stuff. It’s cool!”

“Ah,” Steve says, nodding, squinting at his computer. “And I see that… how?”

There’s a cacophony of noise until Steve holds up a hand. Everyone quiets, and Becky holds her hand up. He nods at her. “It’s at the top,” she says softly. “Where your recently played is.”

He smiles at her. “Thank you, Becky.” He navigates to it, clicking on it and letting the graphic play.

Their genre, apparently, is soft grass indie metal. He’s entirely sure that’s made up. Their top artist, making up sixty-four percent of the music they listened to, is Corroded Coffin.

There’s a video; a little thank-you the band put together. It starts with Eddie up front, as the lead singer. Gareth, Jeff, and Freak are slightly behind him, grinning at the camera. Steve recognizes the background as Jeff’s living room. “Hi!” Eddie starts. “Thanks so much for listening to our music this year.”

“We couldn’t do what we do without you,” Gareth adds on.

“And everything we do is for you!” Jeff says.

“It’s totally metal of you to listen to our music, and we appreciate it!” Freak finishes. They all wave, and the camera cuts off.

Steve is… gobsmacked. He loves his husband, truly, but he looks so uncomfortable, and the way he’s speaking is weirdly stilted. He was not made to stand still.

He shakes his head, knowing he’s about to make Eddie’s year, and blow these kids’ minds.

Eddie had always been more vocal than Steve about coming out, saying fuck it to the consequences. Maybe being gay was accepted in the metal community, but Steve had been too new in his current job to even think about the jeopardy this could put his career in.

But honestly. That video was terrible, and his kids deserve better.

He sighs, raises a hand to get the class’s attention. “I know that was cool,” he chuckles. “But if you can be quiet and patient, I could get you something even cooler.”

“Cooler than a video from Corroded Coffin?” Nick asks.

Steve tilts his head. “Cooler than that video, at least.”

Nick doesn’t look convinced. “Are you sure?”

Steve just smiles. “How about we find out?” He puts a finger to his lips and FaceTimes Eddie.

He makes sure his volume is low, enough so that he even has trouble hearing when Eddie picks up.

“Baby!” Eddie exclaims, then clocks the background and is instantly worried. “Wait, you’re still at work. Are you okay? Is everything okay? Did you hit your head again? Do I need to come get you?”

“Christ, you’re dramatic,” Steve mutters, grinning wide. “I’m fine. I’m with my class, and we just finished looking at our Spotify Wrapped. Guess who our number one artist for the year was.”

Eddie’s eyes sparkle. He grins. Steve nods. “Corroded Coffin,” he confirms, then sighs. “I have to say, though, I was a little disappointed by the video.”

Eddie groans, throwing his head back. Steve gets a great view up his husband’s nose. “I know! I know, it sucked, but the guys were happy with it and it was, like, our eighth go, and-”

“I get it,” Steve promises. “But how would you like to one-up it?”

It takes Eddie a second, but his eyes gleam. “Are you sure? Your career-”

“Is stable enough now,” Steve finishes. “I’m sure. If you are.”

“Fuck,” Eddie mouths, conscientious of Steve’s class. “I love you.”

Steve smiles, blows a kiss to the camera. He gets a smattering of awws from some of his female students.

He figures out how to connect his phone to his computer to the screen, pushes the volume button up, and nods. “Go, Eds.”

Eddie grins and waves at the screen. “Hi, Mr. Harrington’s class! I’ve heard so much about you guys. It’s totally metal that you’re listening to our music—that’s something your teacher neglected to tell me.” He grins at the screen, a private thing for Steve, who dutifully rolls his eyes.

“I hear your music every day, Eds, forgive me if I don’t think anything of it when I hear it here and at home.”

“Mr. H,” Nathan asks in a pseudo-whisper, “how the hell do you know Eddie Munson?”

Eddie bursts out in a laugh. “You must be Nathan,” he says.

Nathan goes white, then pink. “H-hi, Mr. Munson, sir.”

“I think you should be their teacher,” Steve says, grinning first at Eddie, then his class. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard Nathan say sir before.”

Everyone laughs—including Nathan—and Eleanor raises her hand. “How do you know him?”

Steve takes a breath, glances at his phone. Eddie’s smiling patiently at him, and Steve’s own smile grows as he answers her. “I’m his husband,” he tells her.

“Ten years and counting!” Eddie crows. “Though we’ve known each other for… twenty… something.”

Steve chuckles. “Twenty-three, Eds. If you count high school, which I don’t.”

“But I do,” Eddie nods. “Twenty-three years. And counting.”

Steve chuckles again. “And counting,” he agrees.

As his room explodes into noise, he looks back at his phone to find Eddie already looking at him.

That’s the way it goes, he thinks. Eddie saw him the whole time. It took Steve a while to catch up, but now that he has, he’s never been happier.

Twenty-three years and counting, indeed.

#stranger things #steve harrington #eddie munson #steddie #I don’t know what this is #it’s probably terrible #my brain didn’t want to do this #but I made it #starambles

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bluemerakis · 7 months ago

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────────── ᝰ bluemerakis ༝༚༝༚ ───

❝ this one’s on me ❞

─ ۶ৎ ─

pairing ୨୧ dean winchester x fem .ᐟ reader

warnings .ᐟ s4 .ᐟ spoilers, cussing, dean’s really just suffering omg, and he’s also like, secretly smitten over reader; small age gap, a slow-burn build up to car sex, grinding, nip sucking, oral f receiving (he’s such a tentative munch pls), unprotected p in v, fluff. lmk if I forgot any :))

synopsis — dean’s physically free of hell, but he finds that his own demons have never really left him. having already made his fair share of bad decisions, he figures that it couldn’t hurt to make one more—the pursuit of you.

word count ~ 10.5k (i’m done apologising y’all know how carried away i get 🤟)

──────────────────────

Rowdy occupants teetered throughout the local bar, their cheers and protests slurred by this evening’s two-for-one special on all drinks. The bar was lively enough on most nights, but always in a manner sophisticated enough for Dean to enjoy a glass or two in comfort. Now, the space had become a raging fest of body against body, and the music was so loud that he could feel the ringing of his ears pressing all the way into the back of his eyes. The abrupt change in atmosphere felt personal, like it’d been specially planned to further tug at Dean’s gradual undoing.

His elbows were propped onto the bar top before him, fingers restlessly tapping at the sweaty, glass keep of his beer. All around him, barmaids wove frisky lines to tend to drunken groups seated along either side of him. Occasionally, one of the girls would attempt to cast their hook into him with an overzealous offer to top up his drink, and a candid nibble of their glossed lips, but he’d nicked their lines at the ready.

Any other night, he would’ve jumped at the opportunity to show those gorgeous barmaids a time to remember, but as of now, he had other company to entertain—the unwanted and persistent voices in his head. Sounded insane, huh? Quite frankly, he was starting to feel the part. It was making him a bit of a downer, and that wasn’t much his style with the ladies.

Dean’s head lolled between his hunched shoulders, where he glimpsed his lonely reflection in the bubbling amber of his drink. He realised he must’ve stood apart from the bar’s bustling and cheerful atmosphere like a sore thumb, sat in broody silence as he indulged his second beer with a hefty frown on his brows.

He could have scoffed at the idea of being alone. If only onlookers had the ability to peer into the depths of his tainted mind, then they’d know that he was anything but alone.

True silence was a luxury Dean had long since been robbed of. It was a concept that held hands with peace, but there was no peace to be found in a soul as wretched as his. He didn’t deserve it—not after everything he’s done.

Those years he’d spent wrapped up in hell had remade his psyche in all the worst ways. And even now, as he walked amongst the living once again, it felt as though a fraction of the underworld had carried through and engraved itself in his very DNA.

He felt tainted by its touch—heard the way it mocked him with the voices of all the strangers he’d tortured to spare himself the same turmoil. It looped in his mind like a sadistic ear worm. Every hour, every minute, every damn second of the day. And to top the icing on the screw you cake? He had no idea how to make them shut the hell up.

It hadn’t always been that way, though. The first time it happened had been a rough week or so after his return. He’d taken on a rather grim job with his brother—a chain of victims that had been tortured to the death by a rogue demon. Dean had let out a wry scoff when Sam had first told him the details. He had a hunch on what that was about.

The demons hadn’t had any say in Dean’s release from hell. If it were up to them, they’d have kept him in a glass display for all eternity. When Cas had pulled him from the fiery depths, the angel had just about pissed off every single demon down there. They knew they couldn’t lay hands on Dean and drag him right back down to his eternal misery, so they’d taken to doing what they did best—causing havoc. And they’d found just the way to make it personal.

Each victim the brothers had found had been tortured in a different way—methods that were all too familiar to Dean. Methods that he’d invented. He’d had years to become creative. Each sighting had mortified him, and he’d had to swallow several times to suppress the bile adamantly reaching up to strangle his airways. What hurt him the most, though, was having to put on a detached facade for Sammy. His brother had no idea what Dean had been through down there. . . what he’d done down there—and why should he? He’d be more than eager to offer up a steaming fest of pity and guilt if he knew the truth, but Dean didn’t deserve any of that. It was all his own doing. His choice.

Cas might’ve liberated him from his physical hell, but he’d never truly been liberated from anything. Most of the suffering had always come from within, anyways.

They’d never found the demon responsible for the murders. It almost made Dean believe that he’d reverted back to his primal nature and killed all of those people himself. He’s hurt people before, so what was stopping him now, right? Maybe he’d done it in his sleep. Maybe, as soon as he’d let his head hit the pillow and dull his battered mind into a much needed deep sleep, all the worst fragments of his subconscious would pull together into some twisted alter ego that came to kill at his unspoken will.

Had Cas freed an innocent that day, or had he just unleashed another, wretched demon into the world? Boy, if it was the latter, Lilith surely had nothin’ on him.

The voices had started ever since that disturbing case, and they were yet to leave him alone.

It’s almost as if that cheap, goddamn knockoff on the real events of his life had been last switch that needed flipping to tune his mind into hell’s channels. Now, he heard them all—the voices—at every frequency and at every volume. And it didn’t matter how hard he cranked up Baby’s radio, their agonising pleas would always pull through in a haunting backtrack. One time, while he and Sam had been on the road, the voices had grown so loud that it made his eardrums feel as though they’d implode. It had hurt like a bitch, pushing him to the brink so that he’d lose control of the wheel and swerve into oncoming traffic. Thankfully, dear ol’ Sammy had been quick enough to grab ahold of the wheel and steer them clear of the looming truck they were en route toward.

The truck’s bellowing hooter had set him straight again as it whipped past the rear, almost as though it were the stern chiding needed to pipe those asshole voices right back down. His brother, bless his soul, had offered to drive them for the rest of the day, quiet concern alight on his features. But Dean had declined almost instantly. Sam hadn’t pushed to know what had overcome his older brother in that very moment; he’d known enough to pin it onto the aftermath of hell.

For the rest of that day, the younger brother had said nothing about it, but he did cast a few, fleeting glances with those damned puppy eyes of his. Dean pretended not to notice. Furthermore, he’d chosen to forget that that instance had ever happened. Fake it til y’make it, right? He didn’t need to look worried—didn’t need to make Sammy worry.

How his brother had grown up unmarred by Dean’s personal shit was beyond him—but he was thankful for it. And he’d continue to withhold that burden from his brother for as long as he could. This hell business? It was his alone to bear. Sammy needed no part in his suffering, and Dean doubted his brother could do much about it, anyway.

Man, the younger Winchester could do no wrong. It almost sickened Dean to know that they shared the same blood. He supposed it created a balance in nature, like how a coin had two sides—one lucky, and the other anything but. It wasn’t hard to know which side was his. Wasn’t much fair, but which aspect of his life had ever been? No matter. For Sammy, he’d keep on flippin’ that damn weighted coin if it meant that he could keep his brother safe.

Dean shifted atop the uncomfortable bar seat and sniffed away his restless thoughts, bringing the thawed beer to his lips. His nose dipped into the glass as he downed an eager gulp, the lukewarm beverage engulfing his tongue with a warmth he would’ve rather claimed from a skimpy barmaid. But alas, he’d made himself the promise to keep any and all contestants from playing this whirlwind of a game that was anything remotely related to his life.

Was this how celibate priests felt? ‘Cause man, it sucked. Not that they’d know the feeling of that, either.

He lowered the partially emptied drink back onto the bar top with a bitter scoff, eyes downturned to where he twirled the glass base within the ring of moisture it had bled onto the wood.

“Something funny, or have you just finally gone insane? Called it, by the way.”

Now that was the last voice Dean had expected to hear tonight. And in a bar, of all places—somewhere your holier than thou self had once sworn to never set food in outside of hunts. Granted, you were probably just being dramatic, but the thought still amused him.

He needn’t turn much to witness your figure. You slunk into perfect view as you took up a seat beside him. “Fancy seein’ you here,” he greeted through a lazy half-smirk, lifting his glass in a one-sided cheer.

You shot his drink a pitiful glance before returning his curious stare with an amused smile. “And I’m sure the bar hates to see you coming,” you retorted lightly, averting your gaze as you lifted your hand to wave over the bartender. “Whiskey, neat, thank you,” you said sweetly once the man had approached.

Dean risked a quick sweep of your figure—adorned with a dress so simple and casual, it shouldn’t have beckoned for his attention the way that it did. But honestly, this was one of very few times he’d seen you in anything other than your hunting or roleplay attire. And to be a little more honest, it was a view he could get used to watching.

Your head swivelled to face him for a brief second, which was enough to pluck his eyes away from what could be considered leering, if he’d made a point to stare any longer. And he was oddly tempted. But you quickly turned to face the bartender once more, initiating friendly chatter while he poured your drink with an extra chirp to his tone. You tended to have that effect on people, making bonds both meaningful and meaningless wherever you trod. Shit, look at the way you’d so easily strolled into both Sammy and his life. He wasn’t one to let strangers linger around, but for you, he’d made some sort of exception.

Dean lowered his head to study his glass once more. It was a view he’d long since grown tired of, but it was for the best. He shouldn’t be looking at you like that, anyway. You were Sammy’s friend first, and with that connection came the unspoken obligation of keeping his destructive hands off of you.

Sam had met you all the way back college. You weren’t the brand of friendship Dean would’ve expected his former anti-hunting brother to delve into—being a hunter and all—but that fact had only been disclosed after an unfortunate day of you being caught in the crossfire of one of their cases. It was a day Dean had thought you done for, for sure, but then you’d gone and surprised the both of them with your hunter’s wit, immobilising the threat like it’d been nothing of a challenge.

Dean would never admit it to your face, but you were a whole lot more knowledgeable than himself and Sam combined—and that’s considering that his brother is a colossal nerd before anything else. Since then, you’d stuck around, always helping Sammy with the nit-picky bookworm bullshit that Dean had never had much desire to do. He’d thank God himself for the lucky find that was you, if the big man in the sky really existed to begin with. Even after having met the angels, who were by no means impressive (save the girth of their dick nature), he couldn’t be convinced that there was a God who’d sent them here.

His attention strayed back to you as you reached across the bar top with a cash tip in clutch, which the bartender drank in with slightly flustered eyes before refusing it politely. Dean found himself huffing softly at the sight of it—not long after he’d come in, he’d seen that same bartender lay a fit on one of the occupants who’d refused him a tip after wrapping up the bill. He could’ve guessed that the demanding air you brought to the place had something to do with it. You didn’t mean to do it—demand things your way—it was just a string of events that always managed to fall into place whenever you showed up.

It was a quiet allure you’d always had to you. Dean could call you a good-luck charm for it. It made him want to hold onto you, just a little tighter, but he’d be selfish to do it. And whatever found it’s way into his grasp always seemed to shatter.

You reached for your glass almost shyly, as though you felt some slither of guilt for not being able to compensate the bartender’s effort, before turning to face Dean more directly. You tilted your head in the slightest manner, free hand brought up to cradle your cheek in poise as you gazed at him. “What did you mean by that, anyway?”

He frowned lightly. “What did I mean by what?”

“Fancy seein’ you here,” you mocked in a tone far too deep. A shameless grin spread your lips before you lifted your glass to take a sip—your eyes holding a glint he couldn’t quite decipher. And he didn’t try to linger on your stare for long enough to find out. There was some pull to it—like a getting caught in the sea’s rip current, and it made him feel something he couldn’t quite place. Or wouldn’t place, for the sake of keeping things unattached.

He glanced off to the side with a simple shrug. “Nah, I mean, you’re always off chasin’ some fairytale with Sammy. Just figured the two o’ya woulda found a fresh tail to nip by now,” he said nonchalantly, glass brought to his lips as he took a tense swig that finally emptied his glass.

“Well, yeah, but it’s after hours now. And I need a break, just like you,” you laughed. “Besides, I think you of all people could take the biggest break from chasing anything for the time being—which I’m glad to see you doing, by the way.”

He offered a simple nod of acknowledgment before lowering his glass and swirling the beer around his tongue, racking his tired brain for the next thing to say. It irked him a bit. Part of his charm was that chatting it up with the ladies always came easy. Who the hell would be be without it? But something about tonight—about you—had him feeling like a gawking numb-nut with a desperate need for a wingman.

He swallowed his sip and cleared his throat somewhat self-consciously, finally mustering up the courage to face you again. You had your fingers wrapped around your glass now, your eyes narrowed in eager focus and the corners of your lips slightly upturned—all while you sat waiting for him in patient silence. A silence that had no reason to make him feel. . . anxious, but it did. Were you doing it on purpose? Did you even know what you were doing?

Get it together, man, you’re blowin’ it, he said silently. You always do. Where do you think this’ll go? Nowhere. It’ll all crash and burn. Burn. Burn, the voices taunted. They’d become far too comfortable in his head, and now they had no shame popping up during his any and every conversation. Whenever the hell they pleased.

Mouthy bastards.

He ignored their jeering and settled for poking at the past, hoping it would invite you to carry the conversation he was so clearly dropping. “Now, correct me if I’m wrong, but I seem to remember you sayin’ somethin’ ‘bout how bars are home to sad men and madly horny men. So, that begs my earlier surprise that the Judgemental Judy herself showed up at the weepin’ whorehouse,” he said with a light chuckle.

You seemed more than happy to perk up at his teasing, a sight that made him ease off the clutch on his glass. “Well, maybe—just maybe, I have the guilty pleasure of making fun of sad sobs like you afterhours. I mean, the job gets so dull sometimes, you’ll forgive a girl for having a stupidly fun hobby.”

Dean narrowed his eyes slightly. “You callin’ me a loser?” He asked through a grin.

Your shoulders lifted in the most dramatised shrug you could’ve possibly mustered. “Dunno, Dean,” you sighed. “Are you?”

He shook his head through a weak grin—not as a response to your question, but at the way you always found it in yourself to tease him with thinly veiled insults. He could’ve gotten mad over it, but it had become something like a tradition between the two of you—the very soul of your friendship. Now, he’d let you compare him to every depicted loser in the literature of insults if it could have you both sharing a hearty laugh by the end of it. If it would buy him a second longer of your presence.

You can’t have her. Not yours. She’ll break if you touch her, the voices pressed on. He never could place any of them—not to a face, not even to a name. But he must’ve known them, must’ve met them face to face when they’d been strung up for a beating by a weapon of his choice. The voices were right, too. Dean could tell himself he was a blacksmith, that he’d have the power to handle you in a way that would only make you malleable without breaking. But at the end of the day, he always managed a slip up. He knew he’d swing a little too hard, or bend you a little too far, perhaps even just hold you with a little too much force.

He’d break you the way he’d broken everything else. The way he’d broken himself.

“Are you okay?” Your slightly concerned voice broke into the chasm of his torment, causing him to raise his brows with a growing awareness.

“Yeah, no, I’m all right,” he attempted to say casually, coaxing forward a smile to reinforce his statement. But you didn’t look convinced—and why would you be? You knew him better than that. If anything, you might’ve been the one person who knew him better than Sammy. Not because he’d necessarily allowed it, but because you were scarily observant. He didn’t like how vulnerable that made him feel, but he couldn’t deny the facts, either. And he’d rather be faced with the hard truths than entertain myths forged for his own comfort.

“Come on,” you sighed all-knowingly before your leg crossed over the other, your whiskey pushed aside as you leaned yourself in a little closer to him. “What’s wrong, Dean?” He held his breath at the sudden closeness, but he wasn’t fast enough to miss the sweet caress of your perfume. It wafted beneath his nose like a taunt, and it fuelled the voices in his head even further.

Run away now, Dean. Save her. You’re doomed. Don’t doom her to the same fate. Don’t be selfish. Those words bit at his chest. Shut the hell up, he seethed silently, but they’d never listened before, and they wouldn’t listen now. You can’t shut out the truth, one sniped back.

He turned his head to the side. “Nothin’s wrong. Been a long day, that’s all. Sammy’s been wearin’ me down with all the hell crap. I just need a damn break.”

“I think that’s what you call brotherly concern,” you said, inching forward in your seat so that you nudged at the corner of his vision. “Is it so bad having somebody check up on you from time to time? Can’t do everything on your own, Dean, even if you like to think so.”

Dean released his glass and pushed it away from him, wringing his fingers out before he began to play with his ring. How could he tell you—tell anybody that this was something he could only do on his own? There wasn’t a single thing you or Sammy could do. It wasn’t the sort of thing that the books you skimmed through for hunts had an answer to. Traumatised man struggles to confront his tainted past. Now that’s a book that might’ve come in handy. But he wasn’t about to take a stroll through the local library’s self-help section, and reading it would only feel slightly validating if it’d been assigned by somebody with the degree to back the premise.

Besides, even if he’d been willing to talk to somebody who could help him, he’d surely be given a one-way ticket to the looney bin after the first session. Which wacko got to spew tales about the voices in their head without waking up between four padded walls the next day?

Dean cleared his throat dismissively. “Hey, uh, how’d you get here, anyway? Sammy drop you off?” He asked, eyes still glued to his fiddling fingers before he lifted his head to try and scout out the bartender. He could use another drink to drown the nerves he felt lingering within, and hopefully also drown out the voices while he was at it. You know, kill two birds with one stone and all that.

“Took a cab,” you answered hastily—a clear indication that you had no intention of entertaining his bullshit small talk. “I notice things, you know?” You added more earnestly, something that told him he wasn’t getting out of this one so easily.

Oh, trust me, I know, he remarked silently. He could’ve said the same about himself, especially when it came to you.

For instance, he noticed the way you’d never been a big drinker—how you’d only order something whenever he did. Obligatory pressure? Maybe, but he also noticed the way you always ordered the same whiskey. It was a whiskey he’d chosen for you the first time you’d gone to a bar together, and it was the same one you currently nurtured so gently between your fingers.

He noticed that you tended to care from a distance that didn’t feel suffocating, like making him that piping hot cup of coffee in the mornings he’d be too tired to pluck himself from the sheets, or all the times he’d gone days without eating and then woke up to a breakfast you’d prepped and plated at his bedside table. Hell, even all the times he’d left the motel in a scramble and forgotten essential equipment or some personal belonging, and you’d been right by his side, calm as a cucumber while you procured the items from your backpack.

Even now, you’d come all the way out here to keep him the company he’d never asked for, but that you must’ve known he needed. It was slightly more transparent than the rest of your previous acts of care, but he didn’t mind it, especially because you never tended to hassle him about his problems the way Sammy did. Up until now, at least. It was the little things like that that defined you in his eyes, things he’d come to admire about you.

Honestly, when it came to you, Dean couldn’t do anything but notice. You gave him the sort of impression that there was nothing you couldn’t try and fix. But she can’t fix you, a voice barked at him. You can’t be fixed.

Oh, piss off, you ass-probing sons o’ bitches, he spat internally. I’m not tryna get fixed. He wasn’t naive.

He shifted slightly in his seat as he grew more desperate for a numbing release, his eyes searching the bar frantically. But the bartender seemed to have disappeared entirely, and he gave a barely audible huff at tonight’s rigged luck. There goes the fuckin’ rescue. If he had to endure whatever mushy heart-to-heart was about to come next, he’d rather have done with some more alcohol to cull the consequences.

Almost as though you’d read his mind, the glass you’d been savouring was pushed in his direction. He glanced at you with slightly widened eyes, then gave a tiny dip of his chin.

“Thanks, but I prefer mine on the rocks,” he said thickly. Nothin’ like an icy gulp to remind me where the hell I am. That’s right, Hell. You’ll be back there in no time.

“Oh, I know, but if we’re gonna have this conversation—and we both know we will, you’re gonna need something stronger.” You nudged your glass another inch in his direction, modelling a clear-cut expression that told him not to argue any further. “Take it. This one’s on me,” you added with a cheeky smile. It was on you, only, it hadn’t cost you a dime.

Dean watched you for a few seconds longer, his tongue poking through to drag along his lower lip in silent debate. She’s not going to stop. She’s going to find out who you are. She’ll leave you. Just like everybody else. You’ll be alone. All alone. Alone. Again.

Neither of you moved to claim the drink—you out of protest, and him out of something far darker. All you did was cross your arms onto the countertop as you shared his silence, watching him through those calculating eyes of yours that made him feel a little too seen. Just what was going on inside of your head?

“All right,” he relented, slowly reaching across to clutch the glass. He brought it toward himself before lifting it to you in good gesture. “Cheers,” he said, then with a pause, his head tilted in silent consideration. “Again,” he added wryly.

You gave a tiny smile of victory, and the sight made his heart skip a beat. He immediately dropped his attention to the drink, where he brought it in for an eager drain. But his hand hesitated midway when he spotted the evidence of where your lips had settled for its first sip—the coloured print of your kiss overlapping the rim he’d planned to taste just seconds before.

“What, a little lipstick scare you?” He glanced up in time to see your eyes lifting from the same print on the glass rim, only to fix him with a slightly daring grin.

“Nah,” he answered almost too eagerly. He could’ve cursed himself for acting like a rattled school boy. He lifted the glass to his lips and took a long, hearty gulp of the whiskey. It seared every inch of his insides for the entire trip down to his stomach, but the burn was something different and oddly welcoming. With a smack of his lips and a sigh of relief, he set the remainder of the drink down and flashed you a content smile.

Suddenly, you were leaning toward him, your hand reaching for his face. The sight made his heart race, and all he could do was lean back an inch in his seat, as though you had a case of cooties he was trying to avoid. “Hey, uh—woah,” he laughed nervously, and then he didn’t make any sound at all. Your thumb was pressed against his lips, but it didn’t hover for long before it did a brisk swipe and your arm retreated back to your side.

“Lipstick smudge,” you told him innocently, but he caught that delighted look on your face, and he knew then that you were perfectly aware of the effect you seemed to have over him.

Dean’s head buckled to conceal the heat in his cheeks—hoping that it hadn’t reached your attention the way everything you did reached his. “Yeah, well, at least buy a guy a drink first,” he chuckled hoarsely.

“Technically, I already did.”

He gave a series of minuscule nods that depicted his defeat. “Touché.” Technically, you hadn’t bought anything—you’d gotten a freebie. But he supposed it was the sentiment that counted.

“Anyways, as I was saying,” you continued your earlier agenda. “I notice things, Dean.”

She’s going to find out exactly who you are.

“Oh, yeah?” He muttered half-heartedly, the heat in his cheeks vanishing only to be replaced by a feeling of dread. His chin perked up when he caught sight of the bartender creeping into the corner of his eye. There you are, ya prick. He lifted his hand to wave the man over, before he finally turned to face you. “Like what?”

He knew exactly what, and so did you. Where to begin was the real question.

Luckily, the bartender appeared just in time to offer a preparatory interlude, which he gratefully seized at the throat. Turning to the man, he leaned onto the counter. “Hey, man, could you fix the gal over here with a. . .” He trailed off with a questioning glance in your direction.

“I’m good, thanks,” you refused politely, but Dean could make out a hint of impatience peering through.

He cocked his head slightly. “Suit y’self,” he murmured, then faced the bartender again to order himself another round to down after he finished the whiskey—drown your sorrows, or whatever it is they say. But your hand reached into his space with far more sense than him, silencing his impulse before his lips could even split to give the order.

“He’s good, too,” you told the drinks master, and the man glanced between the both of you before settling on you with a knowing smile and taking his leave.

Dean turned to you with a slight pout and a ruffled frown. “Man, seriously?”

“Yeah, seriously,” you retorted bluntly, hand retracting back into your own vicinity. “I’m not carrying your drunk ass out of here. And neither is Sam,” you added when Dean attempted to argue his brother onto his case.

“Yeah, fine, whatever,” he mumbled, reaching for the singular, remaining drink he was apparently being limited to for the rest of tonight. But he didn’t take another sip just yet. Instead, he used the glass as more of a coping device, his fingers wrung tightly around its fragile body. And he couldn’t look at you while he waited for you to say whatever it is you had to say; he wasn’t strong enough to confront that particular Pandora’s box head on.

“You haven’t been okay for a while now,” you began. His teeth reached to bite the already-raw skin of his cheek. “And I know that it’s because of. . . you know—” he did, “—the things you’ve been through during your time in Hell. I mean, I can’t imag—”

Dean already knew the ending of that sentence before you finished it, and all the spite he’d garnered within drove him to face you with unintentional hostility. “No, you can’t,” he snapped gruffly, but he came to regret it shortly after seeing the hurt creep into your expression. With a sigh, he turned away from your crippling stare, his head shaking lightly in defeat. “This is why I don’t wanna talk about it. . . you and Sammy, you can’t understand what I’ve been through down there—what I had to do down there.” Go on, tell her. Tell her about the monsters in hell. Tell her about the biggest monster of them all.

“You still need to talk about it, Dean,” you urged gently. He noted how soft your tone was, almost as though you were afraid to push him too hard, whether it be with your choice of words, or with a single, harsh pitch in your voice. “If not to me, then to Sam, at least. I mean, he’s your brother, I’m sure he understands most things that other people wouldn’t.”

“Nah. . .” Dean murmured, his voice trailing off as he picked at his battered brain. He brought the whiskey to his lips and took a sip, savouring the burn in his chest. He hovered the glass in the air. “Sammy. . . he can’t help me with this. He shouldn’t have to, anyway. I’m the big bro, I gotta keep my head on for ‘im, y’know?” He glanced at you finally, and he didn’t realise how shattered he must’ve looked until he saw heartbreak soften your eyes.

His attention flickered down to where your crossed arms faltered, your hand briefly reaching forward as though you’d wanted to offer some slither of physical reassurance, but something else had kept you from engaging. He wished it hadn’t.

“Well,” you murmured, that same hand rubbing tender patterns along your forearm. “You don’t have to keep your head on for me.” Dean glanced up at you in surprise. “You’d be stupid to try, anyway. You’re not fooling me, Dean.” You gave a light laugh of defeat. “You’re not even fooling Sam. But the difference is that you don’t have to share that burden with him if you don’t want to. . . but you can share it with me.”

Could he, really? He couldn’t help but feel as though once he did open up to you, you’d realise the true magnitude of his shit. Only then, you wouldn’t be able to back out. You were too kind for that sort of rejection. But you’d both become miserable, and he didn’t think he could do that to you of all people.

With a slight jerk of his chin, he said, “‘fraid I can’t,” and gulped down the last of his drink to flush away the guilt of the mere sound. He hissed through gritted teeth as he placed the glass down with a bang, something that caused a few loiterers to glance his way, but he ignored them as surely as he’d been doing this entire night. “We should get back to the Motel. Bet Sammy’s startin’ to wonder if he should give me a call and chew me out over missin’ your curfew.”

“Dean—” you started, but he stopped listening.

He reached into his jacket pocket and plucked out his wallet, fingers prying the worn leather to slip out a hefty note. He folded and plopped it onto the countertop, his chin dipping in a brief thanks to the bartender who’d begun to saunter over and claim the bill. “Thanks, man,” he murmured, rising from his seat as he buried his wallet once more.

When he did finally make eye contact with you again, you had this sullen look to your features, but he tried not to show the way it made him feel. Feeling guilty? Like a douche? A prick undeserving of her time? After she came out all this way to speak to you. Tsk, the voices sneered.

Piss right off to hell. You first.

“Come on.” Dean jerked his chin at you, averting his gaze almost immediately when he saw your eyes narrow. He half expected you to start arguing, or to continue sitting there in a determined protest, but much to his relief, you rose up before him in a nerve-wrecking silence.

He glanced back at you, noting the light shake of your head before you let slip a hopeless scoff. Before he had a chance to prompt you further, you pivoted on your heels and whipped off into the busy bodies suffocating the bar. Behind you, your perfume lingered like a tantalising trail of candy, one that he knew he’d have no return from if he followed. But he did, anyway—the same way Hansel did Gretel because something about you had always felt like the home he’d never had. Even if he might burn it all down eventually.

He kept you in his sight all the way until the bar’s entrance, where you both eventually slipped out into the cool, unwelcoming air of the night. Dean drew up beside your hovering figure, his hand brought up to cradle your back and guide you to where he’d parked the Impala. He tried to catch your eye to ask whether you’d like his jacket because he felt your faint trembling beneath his hand, but you seemed to stop noticing he existed. Maybe that was for the best.

When you reached the passenger’s side of the car, Dean released you to reach for the handle. It clicked open, and he widened the door with an usher for you to climb inside. But all you did was stand there, tussles of your hair carried in hypnotising whisks by the night’s nipping breeze. He caught the scent of your shampoo, the same one he often found himself breathing in too deeply whenever he’d man the shower after you. And he could still remember it’s name—some limited edition crap he’d forced himself to memorise so that he could find another bottle like it and gift it to you on your next birthday. You’d been complaining for a good month that your current one was running dry.

He didn’t much like the idea of gift-giving, it wasn’t exactly his forte. But he knew the way you and Sammy both lit up at the mere thought of it. Besides, he’d be rude not to return the favour after having received gifts for his birthday from the both of you. Who are you fooling, boy? The best gift you could give her is to get out of her life. Don’t bother playing pretend with anything else.

You finally turned to face him, which instantly halted any and all thoughts he’d slowly been drowning in. There was some new resolve furnishing your features—brows furrowed, lips slightly parted and nostrils flaring with the weight of your own thoughts. But before Dean could ask the first thing about it, your hands came to wrap around his jaw, your lips pressing against his in a firm kiss.

Your lips were so warm against his, so soft that he could’ve fallen deeper into their padding. And he wanted to, so desperate for their welcome that he had to bring his hands up in a gentle bracket of your neck to keep himself from falling prey to his deepest desires. He pulled his lips from yours almost regretfully, keenly aware of your lingering warmth. There was so much emotion brimming in your eyes as you gazed up at him, but he saw uncertainty glare the loudest. He wished he could’ve said something—done something to displace it, but he had to remember where his priorities lay. In keeping you safe. Away from everything that was him.

“We can’t,” he murmured softly.

“Why not, Dean?” You answered with equal volume. He felt your thumb stroke across his stubble.

His lower lip fell loose with a heavy sigh, his head buckling in your hold. “We just can’t,” he repeated.

He waited for a reply, for any sound that echoed your frustrated with him, but you said nothing as your hands fell away from his jaw. He was forced to release his hold on you when you backed away from him and ducked into the salvation of the car’s privacy, his hands collapsing to his side in regret. He lifted his head to the sky with a brief breath of strength before he reached to shut the Impala’s door and tensely made his way around the fore. When he slipped into the driver’s seat, you’d already taken to the view of your window, hand cupping your cheek as you stared at anything that wasn’t Dean.

Fair enough.

He got Baby up and running, carefully picking his way out of the bar’s crowded lot before they hit the road winding toward their motel. The drive’s scenery was quiet, a stark contrast to the earlier atmosphere, and it made the air between yourself and Dean a whole lot tenser. There weren’t many cars, or people, found wandering by at any point of the trip, so it truly felt like the two of you had been locked alone in a room to confront the unspoken elephant. But he wasn’t so eager to pick at that fresh scab. Besides, what else more did he have to say that wouldn’t end up hurting you?

It felt like a lifetime had passed when he pulled up at the motel, the lot desolate save another car somewhere down the line. You finally shifted from your position of gazing out the window, but it wasn’t to look at him. It wasn’t even to reach for the handle that’d free you from this suffocating place beside him. Instead, your head was turned forward as you gazed through the windscreen.

“You’re one stubborn shit, you know that?” You said suddenly.

Dean followed your lead and decided to focus on the bug stain streaking the windshield just above the view of his wheel. “Yeah,” he scoffed knowingly, his fingers restlessly tapping the wheel’s rim.

“You’re just so determined to let yourself suffer alone—as if it makes you righteous in sparing us the hurt. But in reality, we’re already suffering. I mean, we’ve all got our own shit going on, right? The only thing making it worse is that somebody we care about is going through something unimaginable, but we don’t know how the hell to help him because he just won’t talk about it. Because he’s scared about—I don’t know—making us accomplices to his problems, I guess.”

Dean’s head buckled to the view of his lap as he listened to you talk, gripping the wheel’s rim a little tighter as he strangled the emotion threatening to take ahold of him. He heard you shift in your seat, noting as your knees turned toward him for a more direct confrontation. He didn’t think he could endure your frustration for any longer without finally cracking, and that scared him.

“When will you stop being so selfless, Dean?”

He allowed that question to linger in the air. Him, selfless? He wasn’t sure he’d call it that. To tell the truth, though, keeping his mouth shut had slowly been wearing him down. And it was almost as though walling off both you and Sammy had allowed the voices in his head to get as bad as they did. He knew all of this, but still he couldn’t find it in himself to open up. He’d never been good with rationalising his emotions, or with asking for help to do so. After all, growing up, he’d had nobody to ask. So he’d done the only thing he knew how to—suck it up and act the steadfast parent so that he could take care of Sammy. And ever since, he’d never quite learnt how to step out of that role, or how to take care of himself.

“I guess I’m just not ready to talk about it, yet,” Dean admitted in an unsteady murmur. His lower lip began to quiver, and he hated the way no amount of clenching his jaw seemed to quell it.

The hand he’d hovered on the wheel moved hastily to wipe the moisture he felt brimming on the cusp of his eyes, and he swallowed hard to fight his urge to flee the car. There was a loud silence from your side that made his ears ring; he wished you would say something—anything—before his voices did.

“I get that,” you said eventually. It made him release a breath he didn’t know he was holding. Your hand came fourth to rest on his shoulder, which made him drew a sharp, shuddering breath, despite your warmth seeping through his layers in a way that should’ve soothed him entirely.

“I just need you to know that you don’t have to do everything on your own,” you continued. “It gets exhausting. Trust me, I’ve been on my own for practically my entire life before I met you and Sam.” You paused when Dean turned to face you. “You wanna know something? Humans weren’t made to be alone—to do things alone. We’ve never been strong enough. That comes back to bite some people in the ass, but I’d say for people like us, it’s a blessing. So count them, Dean.”

And finally, as Dean sat stewing in his vulnerability, held hostage under your intense stare, he understood what glint had been in your eye all along. He couldn’t look away from it anymore. As if you seemed to witness his change in demeanour, the hand on his shoulder began to trail down the sleeve of his jacket in a suggestive caress. It set a fire to his chest, one that made him breath a little deeper for the air you seemed to be stealing from his lungs.

“Listen. . . you’re Sammy’s friend,” he pushed out weakly, an attempt to reason against his pressing urges. He hoped that by saying it aloud, he’d be able to silence the part of him that craved the pursuit of you. But for once, amongst the many voices in his head, he could hear his own—loud and clear in it’s true hopes that you’d be braver than he felt and make nothing of his poor argument. That you’d be brave enough to give him the permission he’d been withholding from himself.

You gave him this subtle squint—he caught it briefly in the thinning of your lashes. And then there was the slight hitch in the corner of your lips. The sight made his heart flutter up an inch. For all the voices in his head, he wished he could hear yours right now. Did you want this as much as he did?

Eventually, he caught you leaning closer to his yearning self. “So?” You murmured, the challenge accentuated by the purse in your lips. “I’m my own person before I’m Sam’s friend. I think I’m pretty capable of making my own decisions and dealing with the consequences that come after.”

Dean’s lower lip sank open at that, his brows quirking on anticipation. “I can’t promise you that. . . this, whatever it is, will be an easy ride,” he said. That I’ll be easy to love, he added silently.

You fixed him a long stare, your lips pressed into a thoughtful line. “I told you, Dean, this one’s on me,” you murmured.

This time, he knew that you weren’t alluding to the drink.

You’ll regret this, the voices barked. That’s my own damn decision.

Slowly, he began to lean in toward you, holding your stare and feeling further encouraged by the eager glint that seemed to grow in their breath-taking depths. The voices in his head blared a united jest. She doesn’t want you, she only pities you. You’re going to ruin her, just like you ruin everything else. You think Sammy’s going to forgive you when you break his closest friend? Traitor. Some big bro you are. You’ve always been selfish. He pushed back a mental answer. Shut. It. They didn’t listen.

He felt his heart begin to thud a little harder at his chest, but he gave a hefty swallow to dampen the feeling, and before it had a chance to return reinforced, he pushed his lips to yours.

Silence.

For the first time in what felt like ages, there was silence. Blissful, unequivocal silence. As if your touch was the antidote he’d needed all along to quench the fire hell had set alight to his brain. As if you’d been the missing incantation he’d needed to chant to keep all his demons at bay. And it made him greedy—this taste of peace you seemed to offer him. So he claimed more of it, the kiss deepening as he brought up his hands to cradle both delicate curves of your jaw. In turn, your hands flew up to bracket his neck, before drawing sensual lines all the way to his nape. Your touch was as gentle as he’d imagined, and as kind as he knew you to be, and he craved more of it. More of you. All of you.

Goddammit, he shouldn’t, but he did. He was only human, after all—even if he was all the worst parts of one.

He pulled away briefly to take the view of you in, lips parted in a slight pant. You mirrored him well, the gentle glare of the lamppost light reflected across your slicked lips. The sight made him burn with a more feral desire. He just had to have you. He was far beyond fending off his selfish desires now.

“Dean?” You called softly, an unsure twinge to your tone. You must’ve thought that he’d begun having doubts about pursuing this because there was a sudden, anxious furrow to your brows. But your hands didn’t falter from his neck, and he sure as hell wasn’t letting you go, either.

“C’mere,” he breathed softly, releasing your jaw only to slide his hands down your waist and to your hips, where he settled a firm grip to encourage you onto his lap. You followed his flow so naturally, hands sliding along the toned slope of his shoulders to grip there for support. You manoeuvred across the conjoined seat and reached the first leg over his lap, which Dean cupped at the thigh to steady you onto him. “Yeah, there ya go, you got it,” he murmured encouragingly, and your other leg followed shortly after until you comfortably straddled him.

You tilted your head up to drink in the impala’s ceiling, which could manage a graze of your nose if you lifted yourself any further. “Bit of a tight fit, isn’t it?” You giggled, glancing back down at Dean. He wanted to bottle the sound.

“Hey, she’ll do plenty fine,” he chuckled huskily, his hands comfortably settled at the meat of your hips. His thumbs rubbed tentative circles across your clothed skin, and he watched the way your lower lip drew into a subtle bite. It drove him nuts. He found himself leaning up to reach for your lips once more, but you held him back with an index finger to his chin.

“And just so we’re clear, I don’t have a curfew,” you said pointedly. Dean knew you were alluding to what he’d said back at the bar.

His lips split with a thankful grin. “Hallelujah to that,” he drawled huskily before lowering his lips to deliver a playful nibble to your finger. You let slip a giggle the most bubbly he’d ever heard before plucking your finger away and replacing it with your hungry lips.

His hands found their way below the hem of your dress, where he rubbed a firm line up your thighs. The touch coaxed a moan from your lips, poured into his mouth like the drizzle of honey—he couldn’t help but lap it up. Your hands wandered messy lines up and down the expanse of his neck, even going so far as to tousle his hair. The stimulation drove him crazy and sent a jolt down to his core. The longer your lips spent entangled, the more he felt his jean begin to strain beyond his control—but he didn’t have much adoration left to conceal. If anything, he wanted you to know exactly how you consumed every part of him.

He pulled away from the kiss, chest heaving as he fought to catch his breath. “You have no idea how long I’ve been wantin’ this,” he husked. “Wantin’ you.”

He could see the way the kiss had left you breathless, too, and strands of hair had fallen from the keep of your ears to messily frame your face. God, you looked beautiful. “Your damn fault for taking this long to pursue it. I’ve given all the signs, Dean Winchester, but you are as naive as boys come.”

He reached up to tuck the hair behind your ears, making a point to trail his fingers along the contour of your jaw as a knowing smirk felt out his lips. “Nah, just a good ol’ case of self-restraint,” he murmured.

“Oh because you know what’s so good for you?” You teased. Even under the dim lamplight, he could make out the rosy tint to your cheeks.

“I damn well do now.”

“Then show me.”

Dean grinned at your blatant challenge, hands moving to grab at your hips. He slowly began grounding you against his erection, which plucked from your lips a series of noises that began to grow more and more lewd with each passing second. He felt your nails digging into his shoulders, the padding of his jacket cushioning the sensation into gentle kneading. He couldn’t help but grunt with each blissful stroke against him—god, he could do this all night. It wasn’t long before you’d taken over the job entirely, your hips stirring back and fourth across his lap to a slow, tantalising rhythm that made his head loll back against the seat.

“Fuck,” he grunted, his teeth grit as he endured the waves of pleasure riding its way through every nerve of his body. His fought the urge to flutter his eyes closed, to drown in the darkness of his euphoria because there was no way in hell he was missing a single detail about you—lower lip nibbled, fluttering lashes, heaving chest, a show all for him.

“You like that?” You asked thinly, your eyes fluttering closed as you threw your head back with a single, harsh push of your hips.

“Like it? You’re killin’ me over here,” he pushed out—a gruff, strained sound as he battled the heat accumulating in his groin. The demons, the angels, every asshole out to get him could go stuff it. At the end of the day, it was you that was going to be the sure death of him.

You let out an impish giggle, your hands releasing his shoulders to plough through your hair in the most seductive manner you could manage. It made him clench his jaw, made his grip on your hips a little firmer than before.

“You’re so goddamn beautiful,” he praised breathlessly, eyes fluttering through his lashes as he gazed up at you. You were mesmerising, in everything that you did. You didn’t ever have to be doing much for him to want to stare. Existing was enough. Doing more than existing was a bonus.

He saw the way you lit up at that compliment, and it made him want to shower you with many more like it. Hunting had its kicks, but fuck, this—you—he could find himself addicted. That should’ve made you dangerous, especially when you were all he needed to take to stifle the voices. But he couldn’t pull away from you now. He wouldn’t. In fact, it only made him want to hold onto you more fiercely.

Your hands reached back for the steering wheel as you sought out just the angle to intensify your movements, and that’s when you accidentally struck the hooter. The both of you jolted with the noise, which made your hands fly up to cup your mouth in both horror and amusement, your hips stilling against his lap.

Instinctively, both Dean and yourself turned to glance through the windscreen, zoning in on the door that lead up to the three bed motel you’d been renting for a good month or so. A few tense seconds passed, but the door never opened to reveal an inquisitive Sam, and you both let out with a breath of relief. You collapsed onto the crown of Dean’s head with a fit of laughter, practically hugging his head. He burrowed into your chest with his own chuckle as his hands dragged up your body to wrap around your waist in a hug.

“I’m thinkin’ maybe we should move this party to the backseat,” he murmured against you.

You pulled back to face him, hands entangling at the nape of his neck. “I think that’s for the best,” you giggled, leaning down to place a tender kiss on his lips. He loved how gentle your touch felt, like he was being admired more than desired—something to savour and not to lap up like a greedy, guilty cheat meal. It made him feel valued, and he’d take every damn second of this night to return the favour.

He received your kiss eagerly, eyes falling shut as he basked in your soothing warmth. He found himself breathing a little deeper, your scent streaming in to envelop him further in your essence—as if he craved to be remade in your image. Then, much to his disappointment, you pulled away and left his lips bare as you began to shift from his lap. He watched as you reached past his torso to bend yourself over the seat, and then with a few noises of effort here and there, you heaved yourself over—your flailing foot nearly striking his eye in the process.

“You good?” He called back, twisting in his spot to catch you sprawled on your back along the seat. Oh, you were comfortable, all right.

“Just get over here, Lover Boy,” you giggled, hands grabbing the empty air.

Dean chuckled and shifted onto his knees with a grunt, carefully reaching over the seats to place his hands on either side of your torso. He got the last of himself over so that he towered over your waiting figure, the necklace permanently wrung around his neck slipping his top to dangle toward you. Your eyes latched onto it curiously before you reached up to hold it between cautious fingers. He half expected you to ask about it, but instead, you released it and wrapped your hands around his neck, as if nothing other than him mattered in that moment.

Before he knew it, he was pulled down into a kiss, and he leaned down even further to get lost in the taste of you. His hands lowered along your body to find the hem of your dress, where they fastened around the material and began dragging it up and over the curves of your legs. When he’d gotten to your torso, he broke off the kiss to lift himself a fraction, your hands coming up to aid the removal of your dress. He slipped it over your head and tossed it onto the floor before moving to shed his own jacket and layered shirts. The clutter of your shoes falling to the floor sounded some ways behind him, and he took a moment to do the same, shrugging off his boots into the oblivion below.

He took a moment to glance you over, almost naked save the pretty set of lace underwear. He’d pictured this moment far too many times than he’d like to admit, and now he drank in your every curve, scar and blemish, and marvelled at the soft sheen of your skin to the point where he hoped he’d come to memorise you. Somewhere in the mix, he picked up the sweet tang of your lotion.

“God,” he pushed out absentmindedly, his hands moving to rub soft lines down your waist.

“A believer now, are we?” You poked, your back arching an inch off the seat as you bathed in his endearing touch.

Dean jerked his chin. “I mean, come on,” he grinned, doing another sweep of your body before he leaned down to litter soft kisses along your neck. Your head caved further into the seat, broadening the horizon for his appreciative lips to explore as they pleased—and they did.

He drew passionate lines all over the curve of your neck, even managing a sneaky trail up to your ears, where he nibbled lovingly at the lobe. You giggled, the sound pure music and bliss to his ears. He wandered all the way down to your collarbones, experimenting with light nibbles along the tender anatomy before he soothed it with a slow kiss. You let out a passionate moan that spurred him on, the strain in his jeans becoming far tighter than he could bear, but he couldn’t stop himself from exploring every inch of you just yet. He intended on pressing all of your buttons—desperate to know just how many sounds he could coax from you.

He dipped down to place a kiss on your breast, so perfectly hoisted by the bra he sought to slip from your body. He pulled back in a light pant, his hands coming up to fulfil his wishes. Thankfully, it was one of those that unhooked in the front. It sure as hell would save the extra effort. While he reached for the clip, your hands wandered up his muscled forearms, thumbs tracing over the veins of your choice. He stole a glance from you, noting how you seemed as enticed by him as he felt by you, before he turned his focus back to your bra with a sheepish grin on his lips.

“What’s got you more flustered than a frat boy with a serious crush?” You asked, your hands straying from his arms to trail down his toned abdomen.

Your touch stopped just shy of his navel, but the heat carried all the way to his groin. “Don’t you play games with me,” he warned through a smirk, the bra’s clip coming undone. Slowly, he parted the cupping, his breath usurped by the view of your spreading breasts. “Y’know what, play as many games as you’d like—but keep the damn view, will ya?” He chuckled, aiding your efforts to shimmy the bra straps from your shoulders.

Your hands hovered half-way over the hem of his pants, framing his gently carved v-lines in admiration. And then you began to undo the button of his jean, the zipper splitting downward in a slow and steady whir that hoisted his primal urges. You made a point to simultaneously tug at the hem of his underwear as you pulled down his jean, which he shifted to help aid the removal of. He felt mildly embarrassed at the way his manhood bowed with eager anticipation, but you drank in the view with flustered eyes, lips thinning with an exhilarated grin that told him you were marvelling in the spell you’d cast over him.

When you met his gaze again, there was this almost pleading look to your eyes. He answered your silent prayers by bowing down to place tender, thorough kisses all around the curves of your breasts, even taking a moment to adorn your hardened buds with a hot swirl of his tongue and a gentle toying of his teeth. This action alone seemed to tug at your last thread until you’d unravelled into a mewling mess, slurring his name in a manner that made him never want to stop. His hands came up to squeeze your breasts a little harsher than he’d intended to, but you let out an approving groan that left his grip steadfast as he continued his toying.

The hands you’d settled into his hair was the last straw he needed to finally drag his attention lower, where he instilled sloppy, hasty kisses all along your stomach. He reached the hem of your delicate lace, hands gliding over the meat of your hips to hook his fingers under the waistband and yank it down your legs. You discarded the undies eagerly, and with his newfound access to your womanhood, he gave you a content smile before dipping between your thighs to drag his tongue through your slicked folds. He curled his arms around your propped thighs, his nose burying against your clit as he lapped up your core at slow and steady pace. He deliberately took his time to draw all manner of patterns along the tender skin, keenly listening for any hitch in your moans that indicated he’d found a sweet spot. The sound of your undoing? Now that was a voice he’d gladly allow to plague his mind—all day, all night.

He could tell by the progressive loudness of your moans and the more frantic jerking of your lower half that were close to your limits, so he intensified every flick and whisk of his tongue to help carry you to that point.

“Dean—stop,” you breathed out suddenly. Immediately, he withdrew from your proximity with a concerned glance in your direction.

“You all right?” He asked, releasing his grip on your thighs to rub calming circles along your sensitive skin. “If I pushed too far, I’m sor—” he attempted to apologise, but you were eager to cut him short.

“No, it’s not that!” You said quickly, propping yourself onto your elbows to take the view of him in better. “You’re doing amazing—you’re amazing,” you said through a soft smile, your cheeks blown red by a combination of your stimulation and your almost undoing. “But I don’t want to finish just yet. I want to feel you—all of you,” you explained.

Dean caught on quickly, his heart lurching a short distance. “Yeah—yeah, of course,” he murmured, inching his way back up toward you, where he leaned in to brush his nose against yours tenderly before he dipped to place his yearning kiss onto your lips.

“I want you so bad, Dean,” you murmured between kisses—a sweet, breathless sound that cooed into his ear.

“You have no fuckin’ idea how mutual the feeling is,” He breathed, answering your plea by reaching down to grab ahold of his manhood. He delivered a quick, preparatory pump along the length before he pressed it to your slicked folds and dragged it down to your entrance. You let out a sharp moan at that, the kiss temporarily seizing.

Slowly, he began to insert himself into your warmth. You drank him in so eagerly that he couldn’t stop a strained moan from slipping his lips.

“Oh, man,” he mumbled huskily, head collapsing just past yours as he drove himself into the first pump—so controlled and calculated as though he were afraid to hurt you. You seemed appreciative of his pace, your hands coming up to wrap around the toned contours of his back. “You still good?” He checked in as his hips retracted for the second stroke, angling himself to achieve just the right curve that would boldly reach your sweet spot.

You mumbled a feeble mhm, your fingers burrowing little divots into the muscle of his back. That confirmation cemented him, and he took on a steady pace within you, one hand reaching down to grip your thigh in support. It wasn’t long before the impala began to sway under his growing pace, each powered thrust of his hips against yours providing all the momentum needed to rock the steadfast steel. The mingled tune of your moans and grunts filled the isolated air of the car, the windows tinted with a secretive sweat bled from your combined body heat. It carried on for a while, and he could only hope that nobody was around to witness it.

His high came on strong—and embarrassingly, a lot more quicker than yours. He’d blame it on his infatuation with you. That, and the fact that he’d practically cleansed his brain of the mere thought of you. It’d all been necessary to spare himself the torment of fawning over every aspect of your existence, but now that he was finally afforded the opportunity to truly taste you, could he have blamed himself for being greedy? Still, he throttled the urge to scatter his pleasure, straining and waiting as you reached your own breaking point. He knew you were near when he felt the twinge of your nails against his back, and he brought both arms up to straddle your head as he pressed a desperate kiss to your lips.

With a single, deep thrust of his hips, you both spluttered a weepy breath. The knot in his core dissipated into an elated, white haze that consumed his every sense. For a moment, all he could do was hover himself over you, his lips splayed against yours as he grunted into you. Your lips tangled in breathless bouts of air, occasionally snagging in a weak kiss.

“You’re amazing,” he breathed against your cheek, placing a kiss onto the flushed skin.

Your hands came up to cradle his face and push him just far enough to drink him in. “I adore you, Dean Winchester,” you whispered lovingly. “I always have.”

The way you gazed at him was enough to throb his debilitated heart, and suddenly he felt rejuvenated within—as though you were all the motivation he needed to keep on powering his way through this cruel experience he’d come to call surviving. You made him want to do more than survive. You made him want to live—if not for himself, then for you. You were the type of person he’d have fought himself free of hell to return back to. And now that he was back, one thing was for certain—he’d keep on fighting to ensure his place on this earth. To remain beside you.

Dean had never been too good with words out loud, so he gave you a soft smile that he hoped could convey a fraction of what he felt for you. He removed your hands from his jaw, crowning each with a kiss before he shifted your bodies into a comfortable spooning session. Your back curved into his chest, your lower half perfectly conforming to his as he held you against him like you’d slip away if he relented for even a second. And you laid like that until a gentle, shallow rhythm of breathing overtook you, sleep coming to claim you with a haste he envied. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d slipped into dreamland as quickly as that—and when he did, his nightmares would turn up like an eager workaholic reporting for dawn duty.

Now, with you nestled between the arms that had come to memorise the shape of loneliness, he didn’t mind laying there in wake. He listened to the gentle whisper of your flaring nostrils, taking in a fraction of the peace etched across your partially concealed face. He was glad that somebody else could draw peace from him and claim it in the way that he’d never been able to claim for himself. He was glad that somebody was you.

It had always been you.

He’d been the biggest fool trying to convince himself otherwise.

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a/n: trying out a new format here bc the old one is exactly that. old. n e ways. first Dean fic—be kind to me!! :’) this was so daunting to write, but boy did I have my fun with it. i hope y’all enjoy this piece, i haven’t been able to get this sad sad man out of my mind. i just want to hold him close at all times. also i’m not responsible for any typos i’ve missed bc it’s currently 2 am and i’m scrambling to get this out. the drafts are sick of it.

thank you for reading! all likes, comments & reblogs are deeply appreciated! ᡣ𐭩ྀིྀིྀི

tags — @gibson-g1rl @bohemianblasphemy @fallbhind

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comment/message me if you’d like to be added to/removed from the taglist of any future dean winchester works!

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darkmatilda · 6 months ago

Text

𝐰𝐢𝐥𝐝𝐟𝐥𝐨𝐰𝐞𝐫 | 𝐬.𝐫𝐞𝐢𝐝

𝐬𝐮𝐦𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐲: you’re starting to suspect that, to spencer, you’re nothing more than a form of comfort—a bandage for a lingering wound, a way to cope with the ghost of the girl who came before you.

𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐬/𝐭𝐰: spencer reid x female!reader, spencer is not over maeve but starts a new relationship, alex blake's first appearance in my fics, reader is kinda a people pleaser who takes the blame for everything and it hurts me so much that i just want to hug her and tell her she deserves the whole world...

𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐝𝐬: 3.5k

𝐚/𝐧: this fic was written for @mggslover celebrate her 1k followers event <333 it took me a while, but belated congratulations—you fully deserve it! love you, girl!

wildflower

billie eilish ♥︎

⇄ ◁◁ 𝚰𝚰 ▷▷ ↻

01:05 ━━━━●─────────────── 04:21

but i see her in the back of my mind. all the time.

"Snow?" You slowed your pace, lifting your head in surprise.

Above you stretched a starless night sky, with the moon faintly emerging from between the clouds. The falling flakes were small and sparse, drifting toward you in a lazy, graceful descent, only to vanish almost instantly upon landing on your clothes or the ground.

You glanced to the side at Spencer. Your…well, probably boyfriend. You had only started seeing each other recently, but ever since he appeared in your life, you knew there was something special about him—something you wanted to keep close. What began as casual meetups had gradually turned into hours of rhythmic conversations, your first honest confessions, and real dates. Wonderful dates.

You were walking to the restaurant on foot, and you liked the way your arms remained intertwined as you moved side by side, step for step. You had often seen older couples walking like this—it carried a certain elegance, and to you, it had always felt like something deeply tender and full of care.

Matching your pace to another’s, making sure they were right beside you, never falling behind by even an inch. Sharing your warmth, reminding them of your presence and your feelings, even when you were both lost in silence, unable to express it with words.

"I admit, it's unusual for this time of year," Spencer replied after a moment, raising his hand as a snowflake landed on his skin—only to melt instantly. It vanished.

It was only then that you realized you had interrupted him mid-sentence earlier. He had been talking about…With a hint of embarrassment, you realized you couldn’t remember. At some point, the conversation had taken an unexpected turn and drifted into territories you weren’t entirely familiar with. Not only did you lack a degree in that field, but it simply wasn’t something you had a particular passion or deep interest in.

From the moment you met him, you knew he was a man of knowledge, and it hadn’t taken long to realize that in his voice, everything sounded at least three times more interesting than it should have. Plus, he had a sexy voice.

So listening to what sometimes felt like full-blown monologues was nothing short of a pleasure. Even if, at times, you didn’t fully grasp the bigger picture. You wondered whether you should apologize and ask him to repeat what he had said, but by then, you had already reached the entrance of the restaurant—a small, cozy place within walking distance from your apartment.

Its windows, framed in black, were made of slightly amber-tinted glass, softening the light that spilled inside, making it warmer, easier on the eyes, and undeniably soothing.

“Spencer?”

A voice called out behind you just as you were about to step inside—before you even had the chance to open the door.

Both of you turned toward the pair standing nearby—a man and a woman with brown hair, the hem of a blue dress peeking out from beneath her coat. She was just tucking her car keys into her purse, though her sharp eyes didn’t leave your faces for even a second. Then, as if realizing herself, she blinked and quickly summoned a smile.

“Running into a coworker on my first day off in ages—what are the odds, right?” she said lightly.

You glanced at Spencer out of the corner of your eye, wondering if he saw this coincidence as a good thing. He always said the team was like family to him, but you were still holding onto his arm, and you could feel the subtle tension in his posture. His expression shifted into something unreadable—strange, almost.

But then, he quickly composed himself, introducing you to Alex, as it turned out, and then introducing Alex and her silent husband to you.

"Nice to meet you," she said as you shook her hand.

She seemed friendly, but either some previously unknown paranoia had just kicked in, or she was studying you a little too closely. Especially after Spencer hesitated slightly before using the word girlfriend to introduce you.

"Sorry," she murmured suddenly, shaking her head slightly. "I just had no idea Spencer was seeing someone. And I definitely didn’t expect to run into a familiar face at our favorite restaurant," she added, glancing at her husband, who confirmed her words with a small nod.

"Well, it’s slowly becoming our favorite too," you joked. She was just surprised to see you, nothing more. You tried not to show any reaction to the fact that Spencer had apparently never mentioned you before. You kept your smile in place, reminding yourself that it wasn’t a big deal. Because it wasn’t, right? He didn’t have to report his love life to everyone around him. "They have the best ravioli here. Have you tried it?"

"Hm, you know, I don’t think we have? But if you recommend it, maybe I should…"

The conversation continued for a little while—just casual, friendly small talk. Spencer barely participated, only forcing a polite smile when necessary or nodding with a slight delay. Out of the corner of your eye, you caught the way he briefly pressed a hand to his furrowed forehead for just a fleeting moment.

It started to worry you. You wished Alex a pleasant evening, and on your way to the table, your thoughts revolved around how to bring up the topic. You sat across from each other at a round table, the waiter took your orders, and only then did he manage to speak.

"Is everything okay, Spencer? You suddenly went quiet," you observed gently. "Or maybe that small talk outside just drained you. They tend to do that, true. Not like our conversation about CRISPR," you added with a smile, only now remembering what topic you'd interrupted him on earlier when it started snowing.

Spencer slowly returned your smile, shaking his head in an almost apologetic manner.

"Sorry. Alex really caught me off guard, that's all," he explained, focusing his gaze on you—but not on your face—before widening his smile even more. "You look beautiful."

The sweetness in his voice as he said it made the previous topic vanish into the depths of your attention.

"You told me that before we left," you teased. "I'm starting to suspect you’ve been lying to me this whole time about your eidetic memory. Could that be true, Dr. Reid?"

"Maybe," he admitted with a small shrug. "Or maybe some facts just deserve to be repeated. After all, we choose what we believe."

You let out a short laugh.

"You’d probably prefer if I blindly believed the second version. Fine, I’ll do it—but just know, I’m keeping a close eye on you, okay?" you warned, pointing a finger at him. He raised his hands as if washing them of all accusations.

You smiled again, but behind it still lingered the interrupted topic. You swallowed.

"Alex seems really nice. You’ve told me a little about them, so I thought you might have told them about me too."

You said it before you could stop yourself. You saw the expression that crossed his face—surprise that you had addressed the issue so directly, mixed with a deeply buried nervousness at having to explain.

"I..." he began, drawing in a breath. "You know, I just prefer to wait with things like this. They’re my friends, but I keep a lot to myself. That’s just…that’s just how I am. I didn’t think it would hurt you..."

"It didn’t," you cut in quickly. A wave of discomfort washed over you for even bringing it up. Spencer was right—that was just the way he was, and you didn’t want to criticize the way he navigated relationships. Besides, it really wasn’t a big deal. You didn’t want to ruin the evening over something like this. You really didn’t."Seriously, it’s not like that. I was just curious. They know about me, but I don’t expect you to tell everyone about us. They’re your friends, and you should tell them when you feel like it."

"Your opinion matters here too," he pointed out, a faint crease appearing on his forehead. "Did you…did you tell your friends you were seeing someone?"

You pursed your lips, pretending to think it over. The real answer was pretty much everyone. But you knew that if you said that outright, he’d feel awkward about it, so you held back.

"I might have mentioned something…but I was waiting for things to be clear between us first. Also, that was the first time you called me your girlfriend."

"Was that okay?"

"I hope so. I mean…was it okay for you?"

For a moment, you both fell silent before bursting into laughter at the sheer absurdity of the conversation. This was exactly what you needed—to wrap yourselves back up in the lightheartedness the evening called for. The occasion. The date.

You let out a quiet breath of relief, inwardly pleased with how the evening was unfolding. Conversation flowed as easily as ever—teasing remarks, grins smudged with amusement, and chaotic little anecdotes filling the space between you. Then your meals arrived.

You both followed a natural path in your discussion, one that inevitably led back to the topic that had dissolved along with the snowflake on Spencer’s hand. Genetics. And the longer he spoke, the harder it became to pretend you actually understood what he was saying.

Because this wasn’t like summarizing the history of Henry VIII’s wives—an engaging tidbit that could be followed with interest, even without prior knowledge. No, this felt more like jumping back into a conversation that had been paused, except you were the wrong person to be continuing it.

You shifted in your seat, uneasy.

You had never found yourself in a situation like this before, and you weren’t sure how to handle it. There was also a strange, nagging feeling—like this wasn’t the first time it had happened. Had Spencer done this before, and you’d just never noticed because you hadn’t been listening closely enough?

You knew you should address it, but it took you so long to work up the nerve that, by the time you finally spoke, he had already been talking for several more minutes without your active participation. The fork in your hand suddenly felt heavier as you took a deep breath.

“Spencer,” you forced yourself to interrupt.

He stopped immediately. Then, as he took in the worried expression on your face, his lips parted slightly in surprise. You could tell he was already wondering whether he’d said something wrong.

You tried to keep your tone light. “Why…why are we talking about this, exactly? I mean, it’s not that it isn’t interesting, but I’ve never had anything to do with genetics. I can’t really keep up with this conversation.” He stayed silent as you let everything spill out, and you instantly felt like it was somehow your fault. The urge to apologize nearly overwhelmed you. “Sorry. You know…never mind. I must have just not been paying enough attention….”

Spencer froze in place, his gaze fixed on the table in front of him for a moment. There was a fleeting devastation in his expression. Emptiness didn’t just appear in his eyes—it spilled out, breaking through like lava erupting from a torn surface in disaster films.

But suddenly, he looked into your eyes, and in an instant, it was gone.

It had only managed to tighten your stomach.

"You're right," he admitted, nodding with guilt. "Sorry, I just..."

And then he trailed off, gazing at you with a kind of helplessness. Slowly, you set your fork down.

"Restroom. I'll be right back," you excused yourself gently, offering a soft smile as a quiet reassurance that everything was okay.

Bitterly, you called yourself an immature runaway in your mind. You didn’t understand why you couldn’t stop yourself from bringing up these topics, from manifesting your discomfort during moments like this. You knew how to ruin an evening—you did it almost habitually, as if it were your job.

You could have just let him talk. He was happy; you could have let him stay that way.

You always cared deeply about the people around you. But when it came to Spencer, it was different. In some special way. Because even though you hadn’t been together for long, you were beginning to fall for him, and his worries were slowly becoming your own. He didn’t talk much about it, but he had told you about his previous girlfriend. About grief, about feeling lost. You knew his job affected him, too.

Very, very rarely did he allow himself to have moments of weakness around you. At least, you hoped they were just moments. You prayed they were only fleeting, not something permanently etched into his face or clawing relentlessly at the inside of the mask he wore every day.

That was when his gaze would slip away in that same distant way. When he would sink into himself, only to snap back to order. He never spoke about it out loud. You wished he would, but maybe it was too soon between you to ask for that. You didn’t want to scare him off. You didn’t want to lose him.

You pressed your hands against the sink. They trembled.

You promised yourself that you would go back with a smile on your face and make this evening the best one you had shared in a long time.

That was when you felt someone watching you.

Alex stepped into the restroom, but she didn’t look like she intended to use it.

You forced a smile onto your lips, though it took effort. You turned to the sink and started washing your hands, pretending nothing weighed on you.

"Can we talk?" Alex asked. Her arms were crossed, and she spoke softly, delicately—like she didn’t want to scare you off. That tone reminded you of a teacher talking to a preschooler, and you disliked it immediately.

"Sure," you replied. Despite your best efforts, you sounded dry. "About what?"

She sighed. You didn’t look at her in the mirror. You didn’t meet her gaze.

"Do you know why I was so surprised to see you with Spencer?"

"Because he never mentioned me before?"

"Because it’s been so little time," she said, ignoring your response.

At last, you turned to face her, forgetting to dry your hands. Something inside you already sensed where this conversation was heading, and you didn’t like it.

Alex’s eyes widened.

"He…he didn’t tell you…?"

"About his ex-girlfriend?" you cut in. "That she died? He told me, of course, he told me. We’re together. I just don’t understand why you’re bringing this up now."

She tilted her head to the side with a solemn expression.

"Because I don’t think enough time has passed for him to be dating someone new."

Her words hit like a slap, and you immediately took a defensive stance.

"Good thing it’s not up to you to decide what Spencer should or shouldn’t do," you stated, no longer hiding your sharpness. "Grief is a personal matter."

"That’s true," she admitted patiently, inclining her head. "It’s a very personal matter. Everyone experiences it differently. But it’s only been two months since Maeve’s death. And forgive me for saying this—it might sound harsh. You seem like a wonderful person, and Spencer is my friend. I really don’t want to hurt either of you. But he hasn’t moved on. I can tell because I see him every day. You need to be aware of how this looks from the outside. Like he’s seeking comfort..."

"I won’t have that," you cut her off, your voice trembling.

Your head buzzed. You didn’t want to take her words to heart, didn’t want to believe her. She didn’t know what she was talking about—she knew nothing about your relationship with Spencer.

For the first time, you heard her name. Maeve.

He had never said it. He always just called her girlfriend.

He had also never told you when it happened. You had assumed it was much longer than two months ago. Especially since…

“How long have you been seeing each other?” Alex asked, undeterred by your tone.

The worst part was that she genuinely seemed concerned about you. At least, that’s what her expression suggested. You would have preferred pity over sympathy. You would have preferred if she was just trying to sabotage you. Then you could have ignored her.

You met Spencer a month ago.

You turned your back to her so she wouldn’t see the look on your face.

She saw it anyway. The mirror was right in front of you.She stepped forward, reaching out as if to place a hand on your shoulder, but you moved away. She nodded in understanding.

“I’m sorry you had to find out this way,” she said. “But I couldn’t forgive myself if I didn’t tell you. You have the right to know. I’d prefer…I’d prefer if you didn’t mention this conversation to Spencer.”

You just wanted her to leave.

But she stubbornly waited for a response.

Eventually, you nodded.

Once she was gone, you dropped your head over the sink.

You needed a long moment to untie the knot that had formed in your stomach as a result of that interaction. Her words kept coming back, and they hurt. They came back and hurt, over and over, knocking on the door and then running away like kids playing a game to annoy the neighbors. Your eyes burned with tears of disbelief, but you quickly pushed them away. You didn’t want Spencer to notice anything.

You started rationalizing it all.

Yes, you had only been together for a short time, but you had never questioned his intentions toward you. He had never lied to you, never deliberately hurt you. Besides, he was a smart man, and you couldn’t believe that someone like him would toy with another person’s feelings—his partner’s—just to make himself feel better. He wouldn’t use you as a temporary bandage for his pain. That wasn’t his style, and the argument about his recent grief didn’t convince you.

Yes, it was soon.

But as you had said yourself, it was personal matter.

You almost felt foolish for letting Alex’s words—those of a woman you had only just met—affect you so deeply. You smoothed your hair, steadied your breathing, and smiled at your reflection. That was how you intended to return to the table—composed, ready to immerse yourself in conversation, to lift both your spirits, to let him talk about anything he wanted as a form of atonement for your doubts.

And that’s exactly what you did.

You listened to him from beneath lifted lashes, delighting in the happy spark in his eyes, even though the meaning of his words barely registered. The knot in your stomach had dissolved, and you could eat again, savor the meal, the evening, his presence. Nothing could change that.

So even when, caught up in conversation, he mentioned a phone call you didn’t remember ever having, you just let it slide.

You couldn’t remember the last time you had woken up next to each other.

You lived separately, and in the end, you both worked so much that the opportunity rarely presented itself. The rest of the evening had been absolutely wonderful, and when you opened your eyes, your first fleeting thought was that the morning would unfold in the same warm atmosphere.

But then you quickly realized it was far too early to be waking up.

The room was still cloaked in darkness, broken only by the faint outline of your tangled bodies and the soft glow of white sheets.

You hadn’t woken up together.

You had woken up alone—or rather, you had been woken up by his sudden movement, the sharp inhale of breath.

Still drowsy and dazed, you propped yourself up on your elbow, trying to get a better look at Spencer. His hair was tousled, his eyes squeezed shut far too tightly for someone in peaceful sleep. He mumbled something under his breath before jolting again, this time murmuring something almost pleadingly.

That’s when you realized—he was having a nightmare.

You felt a pang in your chest, a rush of compassion filling you. His face looked so defenseless against whatever haunted him—even in sleep. This was the first time you had witnessed something like this in your relationship, so you hesitated for a moment before deciding on your next move.

Gently, you wove your fingers through his hair, stroking it soothingly. Then, you pressed yourself closer to his side, wrapping your arms around him as much as you could, whispering quiet reassurances.

At first, he didn’t move. You thought the nightmare had passed, and you remained still, wondering if it had been your doing. Not that it mattered. What mattered was that he was okay now.

Still caught in sleep, Spencer turned toward you, burying his face against your neck. His breathing started to even out, the steady warmth of it tickling your skin. You couldn't help but smile softly.

He mumbled something you couldn’t quite understand.

Was he still dreaming?

“I love you.”

You finally made out the muffled words, and they caught you completely off guard. You had never said it to each other before—you thought it was too soon. You thought those words needed the right moment, something special. But as you lay there, wrapped up in the quiet of the night, you realized this was the perfect moment. Just the two of you, small in the arms of the darkness, so drowsy you were forced into honesty.

I love you too.

You were just about to say it when Spencer spoke again—just a little faster, just a little softer.

And what he said was like a quick, unexpected stab. You didn’t feel the pain yet, but you could already see yourself bleeding.

“I love you, Maeve.”

#criminal minds #spencer reid #spencer reid x reader #criminal minds fanfic #spencer reid criminal minds #spencer reid fanfic #spencer reid angst #dr spencer reid #criminal minds fic #criminal minds angst #spence reid #spencer reid x y/n #spencer reid x you #lovers1kevent

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ackermanrage · 1 month ago

Text

ʟɪᴘꜱᴛɪᴄᴋ ᴄᴏɴꜰᴇꜱꜱɪᴏɴꜱ

levi ackerman x fem!reader warnings: none :) an: finally some levi fluff hehe~ i saw a fic like this a long time ago and decided to recreate it 😊

You stood near Levi’s desk, arms crossed and a teasing smirk on your lips as he finished adjusting the straps on his gear. The early morning light poured in through the window behind him, casting his office in an amber glow—warm enough to soften even the infamous scowl on his face.

“You’re triple-checking your harness like a rookie,” you said lightly.

“I don’t intend on dying because of a loose strap, brat.”

“You don’t intend on dying, period,” you corrected, walking over and gently pulling his cravat tighter around his neck. “Besides, you’ve got someone to come back to now.”

Levi’s eyes flickered up to meet yours. That intensity—the one only you ever got to see soften.

“I don’t need a reminder,” he said lowly.

You didn’t break eye contact. Instead, your fingers trailed from his cravat up to his cheek. His hands instinctively found your waist, steadying you, grounding both of you in that rare and quiet intimacy that existed only behind closed doors.

He glanced at you sideways. “What are you doing?”

“This,” you whispered, and pressed a soft kiss to his cheek.

He sighed, as if he were already exhausted by your antics—but you didn’t miss the way his fingers flexed at his side.

“Are we really doing this right now?”

“Mmhmm,” you murmured, lips grazing his jaw. “Before you go risking your life, I think you deserve a proper goodbye.”

Another kiss—lower this time, brushing the underside of his jaw.

Then one near his ear.

Then one just above his collarbone.

He shifted slightly, but still didn’t stop you. Maybe he didn’t want to.

“Don’t get carried away,” he muttered.

“You love it.”

“You’re leaving marks.”

You leaned in and said sweetly, “I'm not.”

Another kiss, slow and possessive, right at the side of his throat.

Levi let out a breath through his nose and fastened his cravat lazily over it. “You done?”

You tapped your chin in thought, then kissed his mouth once—quick and warm.

“Now I’m done.”

He adjusted his jacket, grabbed his gloves—but didn’t notice the trail of lipstick evidence decorating his pale skin.

You, of course, stayed completely quiet.

As he stepped toward the door, he glanced at you once more, his tone softer now.

“Try not to miss me too much.”

You gave a slow, coy smile. “Too late.”

---

The morning chill hadn’t yet burned off. The squad stood in a loose circle near the horses, the kind of barely-coordinated gathering that usually only happened when Levi hadn’t arrived yet.

Eren was yawning. Jean was pacing. Mikasa was already fully prepared and silently judging everyone else.

“Where the hell is he?” Jean muttered, shifting his weight. “Captain’s never late.”

“Maybe he’s sick,” Connie said, brows raised. “Or like, sleeping in.”

“Maybe a Titan ate him,” Sasha added helpfully, chewing on a hunk of bread.

Mikasa didn’t say anything, but her eyes were on the HQ building like a hawk.

Then—footsteps.

Levi emerged from HQ, striding toward them with his usual quiet confidence. Scouts jacket. Bladed gear. Blank expression. Standard-issue everything—

Except the very obvious lipstick mark on his left cheek.

And the one half-hidden under his jawline.

And the faint pink blur at the base of his neck, slightly covered by his scarf but still peeking out.

He didn’t notice.

But they did.

Hange blinked once.

Sasha choked on her bite.

Armin visibly froze, as if trying to compute a math equation that broke physics.

Jean stepped back like he’d seen a ghost.

“...What the fuck is that?” Jean muttered. “Does anyone else—? Am I losing it?”

“Wait—waitwaitwait,” Connie gasped, grabbing Armin’s arm. “Look at his face. Look at his face.”

“I am looking at his face,” Armin whispered. “There’s lipstick. There’s definitely lipstick.”

Hange turned, took one look at Levi, and let out a loud, delighted cackle. “HOLY SHIT.”

“Are those—?” Sasha started.

“Lipstick,” Mikasa confirmed, arms crossed.

Jean took a step back like he’d seen a ghost. “Who the hell kissed Levi Ackerman?”

Eren squinted. “That… that can’t be real. That’s Levi. He doesn’t—he doesn’t do kissing.”

“LOOK AT HIS FACE!” Jean barked, pointing. “Someone full-on made out with him before he got here!”

Moblit looked like he was glitching. “Did we enter a parallel universe?”

Levi stopped walking. His expression was blank, jaw tight, but he could feel all eight of them staring holes through him.

He considered just mounting his horse and leaving without a word.

But no.

Too late now.

“What,” he said flatly, “are you all gawking at?”

“Captain,” Armin started delicately, “you… seem to be wearing… um…”

“Several very vibrant statements of affection,” Hange supplied. “In Rich Rosewood. Excellent shade, by the way.”

Levi glared. “Tch. It’s none of your business.”

“You’re covered in it,” Sasha said, voice an octave too high. “It’s everybody’s business now.”

“You’ve got kisses all over your damn face,” eren said, incredulous.

Levi frowned. “I do not.”

Mikasa reached into her pocket and whipped out a tiny compact mirror. “Check the evidence, sir.”

He looked into it.

Pause.

A longer pause.

His expression didn’t change—but his eyes did.

“…Shit.”

Connie exploded. “WHO KISSED YOU?!”

“No way this was just one kiss,” Sasha breathed. “This was like—a storm.”

Armin looked genuinely distressed. “Captain, are you in a relationship? Like—a real one?”

Hange’s grin stretched ear to ear. “Oh my god, it makes so much sense. You've been disappearing more. Staying late in meetings that mysteriously don’t involve any of us. That mysterious bruise on your neck last month. The weird good mood. This is huge.”

Levi adjusted his cravat again, this time higher, but it was far too late.

He considered lying. Brushing it off.

He sighed.

“I’m seeing someone,” he said, voice sharp as steel.

Sasha screamed.

Connie dropped to his knees. “THE WORLD ISN’T REAL.”

Jean’s eyes narrowed. “Wait. Wait, wait. Who is it? Who could it possibly be?”

“It’s not your concern,” Levi said calmly, starting toward his horse.

“It absolutely is our concern!” Jean cried. “We’re invested now!”

“Are they in the Corps?” Armin asked, trying to keep the tone respectful. “You can just say yes or no. Blink twice.”

“No,” Levi replied. “But yes.”

Moblit whispered, “What does that even mean?”

“Are they hot?” connie asked.

Levi didn’t answer.

“Oh my god,” Hange murmured, looking skyward. “It’s y/n, isn’t it?”

Levi froze mid-step.

And that silence said everything.

Eren howled. “YOU’RE DATING HER?! SHE’S LIKE—THE COOLEST PERSON IN THE ENTIRE BRANCH!”

“She could punch all of us and I’d say thank you,” Sasha added.

Jean shook his head slowly. “I didn’t even think you liked people.”

“I don’t,” Levi muttered. “She’s an exception.”

Mikasa was quiet, but the smallest, faintest smile tugged at the corners of her mouth. “She makes sense for you.”

Levi mounted his horse without further commentary.

Everyone watched him like he was a newly crowned deity.

“When did this happen?” Armin asked.

“None of your damn business.”

“Do you love her?” Sasha blurted.

Levi paused. “Irrelevant.”

“OH MY GOD YOU LOVE HER,” Jean screamed.

“Like. Deep,” Sasha whispered.

“You guys gonna get married or—?” Connie started.

“Enough,” Levi barked. “Anyone who brings this up on the mission gets left in the forest.”

Hange sang out. “This is the best day of my life.”

“Shut up.”

“You can’t stop us,” Connie said proudly. “This is the tea of the year.”

“Connie,” Levi deadpanned, “do you want a concussion?” "But you gotta admit captain, you're down bad." Eren said, smirking.

Levi turned around. But from the way his shoulders tensed ever so slightly, the answer was clear.

And he still didn’t wipe off the lipstick.

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thewritingfairy · 1 month ago

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↪ 18. For justice knows many faces

PREV PART trigger warnings: character death, (past violence), (past) emotional + medical + physical neglect, drugging, delusional batfamily, anger, medical emergencies, anger, tell me if I forgot any main m.list series m.list bad ending m.list

Willow is gone.

Willow died.

Her injuries too great, your ‘brothers’ hadn’t held back at all. They had broken the founding rule of Batman, don’t kill. Sure Jason already had broken it quite a few times (as well as Damian, but that’s a different story), but for Dick to ignore this rule? You don’t know how to think, you don’t know how to feel.

Everything was a blur, everything was silent and most importantly the investigation of the police was lacklustre. They didn’t even question Francis. It was as if they looked at Willow’s family and decided it was of no use to get justice.

It pisses you off. It pisses you off to the point you do something stupid.

You publish the file.

You don’t give it to the police, no, because when you tried they dismissed you. They said; “it’s Gotham, shitty things happen all day. It wasn’t someone important, there is no reason to investigate.”

How dare they act as if Willow is unimportant? How dare they act like the judge and executioner at the same time? How dare they tell Francis and his parents that their loved one is nothing to them?

Everything feels like a blur, you go through the motions, you ignore the dizziness that has been shouting for you to shit down. You ignore how your hands shake as you start to fall and you ignore how Francis calls out to you when your head hits the hospital floor. You need to call your boss, you need him to read the file. You need to tell him who your family is, they deserve to pay. Your morals mean nothing, not when your family ignores theirs.

All that matters is justice, justice for Willow. Not for you.

Your vision slipping as you try to push yourself up, your body shaking as if it’s preparing for a seizure and your mouth fills with the taste of blood. Your eyes roll back and there goes your vision, there goes your control as your body does all you don’t want it to.

It feels as if your own death is near, and right now you wouldn’t mind it.

Too bad your friends would, they already lost Willow, won’t you stay? Won’t you live so that you can destroy your family? Won’t you live so that you can become the person your mama wanted you to be?

For Francis can’t believe it, not only has his sister died now you are on death’s door. Not because of your illness, or any usual reasons. No, your medication was messed with.

And Duke immediately knew who did it, Bruce.

His anger was to not be messed with, Gotham’s anger is not to be messed with. For not only is the manor now being stormed by anger citizens the Penguin is making a move. A move that will cause everyone to turn against the Wayne family. A move that will call for Batman to destroy the family that influences him. For Justice knows many faces, and Penguin isn’t afraid to take over (even if it harms his criminal reputation).

He knows that it’ll take time, he knows that it will be hard to convince everyone to turn against the Wayne’s. For they have done so much for Gotham.

But when you wake up. He’s certain you can do it.

For justice knows many faces.

And you can make it happen, you just have to stay alive to do so.

NEXT PART I know the chapter is tiny and a bit messy, but I'm trying to figure out the good ending. It has to get worse before it becomes better. I promise

taglist CLOSED: @prettiest-thing-in-the-morgue, @bunniotomia, @devotedlyshamelessdetective, @princessbonnie-bell, @seemee3, @pix-stuff, @venomsvl, @amber-content, @stove-top96, @frank-vanderboom, @leeiasure, @1abi, @shadowytravelerlover, @chericia, @lithiumval, @lingxio, @cssammyyarts, @marsmabe, @foolishseven, @kore-of-the-underworld, @bunbunboysworld, @homeless-clown, @miashico, @alwaysholymilkshake, @1cxndy, @kittzu, @rtyuy1346, @exactlynumberonekryptonite, @hopingtoclearmedschool, @artistwithcreativeburnout, @alishii, @vanessa-boo, @holylonelyponyeatingmacaroni, @91-kya, @ryuushou, @jjsmeowthie, @justthere1956, @depressed--therapist, @xzmickeyzx, @cheappremingerfromdelululand, @plsfckmedxddy, @itsberrydreemurstuff, @trashlaternfish360, @leogf, @dirtydiavolo, @lilyalone, @welpthisisboring, @kenman00001, @nxdxsworld, @icefox8155, @ironsaladwitch, @holderoflostmemories, @asillysimp, @wisefuncherryblossom, @eyeless-kun, @marina27826, @muggleloveralways, @ironsaladwitch, @shyenemyperson, @iamaunknownsecret

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lanabuckybarnes · 2 months ago

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| The List |

18+ MINORS DNI

Pairing(s): Professor!Bucky Barnes x Student!Stark!Reader (F)

Warnings: Smut right from the start we are not dipping our toes we are diving, Assumed Age Gap, Dom/Sub Themes, PinV, Oral (F), Punishment, Spanking, Denial, Squirting, Public, Humiliation probably, A lil aftercare but not enough fr — If there are any more let me know!

Word Count: 2.1k

Note: This is the first time I’ve wrote anything remarkable in over a year so please don't judge too harshly 🫣 Also, you like the theme? I needed a switch up after coming back. I’ve also looked over this a bajillion times to make sure I’m happy with posting it and its touch and go so fuck it. Enjoy yourselvessssssss!!!!

“Come on, Stark, I thought this was too easy.” Fuck him. Fuck him, and his work and—oh fuck.

You preen, back bowing away from his hard body. The blunt head of his cock jabs against your g-spot again, torturing the bundle of nerves within you. The minutes tick by without you even noticing them; the once-blue sky broke into shades of amber and pink. Barnes was merciless; one measly comment about the lack of complexity in his papers, and here you were—hands bound and panties displayed on his desk for you to see just how much you wanted this. How much you deserved it.

Ever since starting at AUSL, you’d been a thorn in Professor Barnes’ side with your cocky, know-it-all attitude. But your surname made you untouchable. And you encompass everything that last name stood for. You even had a list,—a ‘people to piss off list’ so to speak and Barnes was easily at the top. He bit and chewed at every remark, taunt, or jab you swung his way making him your favourite to tease. And then one time he kept you after class and showed out just how much he cared about the power your surname held. You’d behaved for your other professors since then, but Bucky? He just couldn’t seem to tame you.

“Stark—”

“S-shut up,” you gasp, voice trembling with desire. Your head lulls forward, warm forehead connecting with the cool wood of the desk supporting you. You were still trying to keep up with the attitude, showing him that no matter how hard he pushed, you pushed back — but the drag of his heavy length against your walls made it all just a little too difficult. All you wanted was to get lost in the raw pleasure you so eagerly craved from Bucky, and let your mind wander. You loathed being the smartest person in the room all the time, but he wouldn’t let you forget that.

You sigh as cool metal splays out over your abdomen, dark-plated fingers tracing patterns over your flushed skin. They trail upwards slowly, to the meaty flesh of your breasts. Slowly, too slowly for your liking, he peels the nude coloured cup from each one, letting your hardened nipples kiss the gentle air. He squeezes soft, then harder a second later before pinching the left peak between his thumb and forefinger. Dark hair brushes against the exposed expanse of your neck, his rough salt-and-pepper beard scraping as he raises his head. His chapped lips attach to your silky skin, nipping, marking what’s his.

When he pulls away a growl rips from his diaphragm. “You wanted a challenge, doll. But when you’re given one you present me with this? How poor.” His words carry that mocking lilt that grinds your gears and soaks your panties simultaneously.

Bastard.

His left-hand glides from your breast to your hip, nudging you further up the polished surface with ease. With your hands tied behind you, you’re left with no support, your chest flopping onto the desk unceremoniously; a startled gasp choked out of you as sensitive peaks squish against the cold. Like fire and ice, your skin steaming as you’re manhandled onto the mahogany. Memories fill your mind of the many occasions in the past when you were stacked similarly, everything presented for your Professor.

Slowly, his tanned skin peels from yours. Barnes withdraws, inch by agonising inch of his length from you, leaving your body clenching around nothing. It should be pathetic to feel as empty as you did once he finally pulled free — no man should make you feel like you need him to survive as much as he made you feel. A snide grin blooms across Barnes’ face, hurting his cheeks, at the sight of your pathetic little self using whatever strength you had left to roll your hips, desperate for his contact again. His right hand, calloused and battle-torn, soothes over the smooth flesh of your rear. He hums appreciatively as the supple flesh reacts under his gentle touch, it makes a thought cross his mind and a moment later his hard palm connects with your cheek.

You yelp, your hips buckling inwards away from the pain that sears across your flesh. It stings in the shape of his hand and you know there will be a mark, welts demanding your attention simply so you can sit down without drawing attention to yourself at dinner tonight. That’s if you made it back in time. He slaps again once you have settled, fingers gripping the skin so the hurt lasts longer. Over and over he leaves dark handprints along the flesh of your ass, thighs and hips, your voice hitting a new pitch, bouncing off sterile white walls.

He chuckles at your lack of control, “If I didn’t know any better, Princess, I’d think that you want people to hear how fucked out you are for me.” His breath ghosts along the shell of your ear, tongue following, licking along the curve. “Is that what you want? Professor Rogers is right across the hall. You know you’re his favourite right? Do you want Rogers to know how much of a little slut his favourite girl is for a cock that ain’t his?”

You sniffle, hot breath bouncing off the wood and into your face.

“S-stop.” He knows just how to pick you apart, leaving you embarrassed and weak for him.

“You and I both know you don’t want that.”

Metal fingers snake up the base of your neck to the back of your skull and clink together, twisting locks of your hair in the plates and pulling you up. His lips smash onto yours roughly but the kiss is anything but. He’s tender and loving, telling you things without even uttering the words. ‘I may treat you like nothing but you’re still mines to love.’ And fuck he loves you hard.

His broad head presses against your entrance again, gathering your essence as lube before he impales you on him for a second time. The desk squeaks in protest at his brutal thrusts but no one listens. His free hand grasps the crook of your leg, pulling it up onto the desk, your knee clattering hard against it. The new angle pushes him deeper into your body, his tip battering your spot, again and again, the edge of the desk rubbing your clit perfectly.

The change from nothing to everything is mind-numbing. From pain to pleasure, unforgiving pleasure that couldn’t care less how much it messes with you. Your end hurtles towards you, the knot coiling in your stomach drawing so tight that it hurts to bear.

You cry out his name like a prayer that will bring back the dead, others who still wander the halls of the large building be damned. You are long past caring what the others think of you now, if they didn’t know already by the state of disarray you leave Professor Barnes’ room in then they were dumb anyway. Not worth your time.

“Buck!” you warn him again knowing that he won't take too kindly to you unravelling without his permission.

You back your hips up again, desperate to match his thrusts, to push him even deeper than the hilt. If you could just reach around and strum a finger over your bundle of nerves, giving it that direct pressure it needs compared to the grazing of the desk, you know you would explode. But it doesn’t happen. Barnes pulls out sharply, laughing wickedly at your desperate cries; your body being so prepared, so tense and built up for release only for him to pull away just as you were about to tumble over that precipice. It aches, to be denied such a well-deserved reward.

“What the fuck?!”

He cups your face and kisses your scowl. “Wouldn’t be much of a lesson if I just gave you what you wanted now, would it?”

You huff. He’s so unfair. You grunt and whine as he shifts you again. Your leg muscles ache from being pushed so far beyond their limits; they sing as he pulls it off the desk. He wraps his gold-accented prosthetic around your waist and pulls you to him, turning you before shuffling you back till your reddened cheeks pressed against the edge of the desk.

He lifts you with ease, hushing your yelps thanks to the marks he left on your behind, then urges you onto your back, your arms pressed beneath you making your shoulder muscles strain ever so slightly. He owed you a five-star massage that’s for sure.

You know what he wants. What started this whole thing. One measly answer. “Would you like me to read the question again?” he asks. He takes the damned paper in his right hand, his left settling on your thigh, drawing circles over it.

“I know the question.” You’re being snappy, but can anyone honestly blame you? If they could they could deal with him next time…maybe.

“Ah, in your own time then. Just your answer will do; I trust you know the working.”

You inhale, then breathe out, letting the stream of air out through pursed lips. It’s a silly attempt to calm your vibrating mind but you’re desperate for even a tiny sliver of your mind back so you can prove to your Professor that you are what you say you are. Then this asshole moves again; his thumb meeting your clit, drawing slow, gentle circles against it. The neglected bud screams pleasure after being neglected human touch till the last second, driving your body insane.

Your hips roll and your fingers scrape for purchase underneath you but to no avail, you groan partly out of frustration and the other part pleasure, your eyes slipping shut and your head making contact with the desk in a dramatic thunk. When you open your eyes again you swear you see concern flash in Bucky’s lust-filled gaze but it’s gone after a blink. It’s almost impossible now to think of the answer, your thought process interrupted by your horny little brain crying out yes. But you manage.

“Four hundred and thirty-two.” You bite out the words and he hums, giving you a nod of approval. Correct.

The page flutters to the floor like the first snowfall, landing just beside where Bucky sinks to his knees. He wastes no time in diving between your thighs, eating you out like a man starved. His fingers press into you, fucking into you with abandon; they curl at the right spot, in a way that only he knows how thanks to many years of practice. Your body is addicting to him, your scent and essence like water to him.

“B-Buck! I can’t h-hold—“

“Then don’t,” he pants, nipping your clit. “Don’t you fucking dare hold back on me, Stark.”

Your moans mix with his animalistic noises, creating a filthy symphony that the whole floor was sure to hear, but it was the last thought on your mind as white spots mottled around your periphery before fireworks explode in your brain and across Bucky’s face. You didn’t realise what happened until he stood, beard glistening in your juices and his once-pressed shirt soiled. He smiles up at you, cheeks flushed, pride prominent. He kisses up your body till his nose nudges yours and his lips press onto your own. His musk mixed with your end so sinfully tasty.

“I can’t believe I did that.” You admit quietly, almost too quietly. He hates that he can hear the embarrassment in your voice and is quick to shut it down with another peck.

“You did, and I wanted you to. Don’t feel embarrassed for giving me what I want Miss Stark. It pisses me off.” He stands, bringing you with him. You lean against his stable frame, catching your breath and wiggling the feeling back in your legs. You stretch like a cat, back popping with relief, then you loop your arms around his neck, kissing him again. He lifts you and settles back onto his office chair, you on top, your legs dangling over one of the arms.

“You did so well for me, Doll. I’m so proud of you.” He praises as his warm hand soothes over your aching body, his lips making their journey from your own to your neck. No matter how hard he pushed one way, he always made sure to balance it out — keeping your scales equal.

I DO NOT give permission to have my work copied, translated, or reposted under a different account. If you see my work on anywhere else except this page I have not given consent for it to be used. Please report and tell me.

Comments, Reblogs, Likes & Asks are always appreciated (although if you liked this piece please consider reblogging so it can reach a wider audience). They let me know that you are enjoying what I’m publishing and gives me motivation to right more.

Thank you for reading~

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kissesz · 6 months ago

Text

𝐢𝐬𝐧'𝐭 𝐠𝐨𝐥𝐝, 𝐛𝐮𝐭 𝐬𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐞𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐬𝐚𝐦𝐞

caitlyn kiramman x f!reader

warnings : see above. mdni. angst. f!sub!reader. dom!caitlyn. mean!caitlyn, just briefly. cunnilingus. tribbing. vaginal sex. non-sexual intimacy. read: kissing. a lot of it. sapphic debauchery at its finest. arguing. emotional hurt/comfort. mentions of injuries & blood but not too graphic.

notes: (can be read as a standalone, part II of 'all that glitters') a oneshot—which, clearly, it isn’t anymore. i may have made a promise about making up. unfortunately, the dialogue is subpar at best, perhaps because i genuinely dread writing anything involving communication (which is why i attempted—only half-successfully—to compensate with overly long descriptions). on top of that, i’ve rewritten this at least a thousand times, meaning six and a half hours were spent agonizing over every single paragraph. i digress. i love you all, dearly.

Aged whiskey scorched a trail down your throat, amber liquid catching glimmers of the kaleidoscopic hues painting Piltover for Progress Day—sapphire tones of hextech glinting off effervescent fireworks, swirling and bleeding like watercolors through the fractured prism of your mind.

Or perhaps that was the alcohol, settling leaden in your veins as you draped yourself against the balcony railing.

Revelry echoed distant and muted from the streets below, laughter filtering through as if from ripples underwater. Each scintillating burst a reminder of her, salt in wounds unhealed—nights of bare skin illuminated by those same lights, susurrous promises you'd been foolish enough to believe. Skin and sweat and lies, impermanent.

So naive.

The crystal tumbler in your hand caught light, throwing severed rainbows across your fingers. Watching them dance, you tried (and failed) to focus on anything but the ache that had made its home in your ribcage months ago, a persistent throb that no amount of liquor could numb.

Then, a knock cleaved through the silence like a gunshot.

Your heart seized—a pavlovian response so violent it stole the breath from your lungs, leaving you gasping. Two strikes against solid wood, precise, just like the woman behind them.

"Don't you fucking dare," you hissed to the empty air, fingers tightening around the railing until your knuckles blanched white against the dark metal. After months of absence, after countless nights spent aching and alone, after everything—she had the audacity to return?

The knock came again, more insistent this time, the sound like a second heartbeat, out of sync with your own yet impossible to ignore.

"Open the door." Caitlyn's voice, muffled yet unmistakable in its authority. That voice that had once whispered such honeyed poison against your skin now felt like sandpaper against raw nerves, abrasive and unrelenting. "Please."

Your laugh spilled out bitter, a broken sound for a broken moment. "Or what, Officer? You'll break it down? Add that to your litany of things you've destroyed?"

Silence stretched between you—taut and ready to snap. Then: "I'll wait all night if I have to."

"Go ahead." The drink seared going down, a familiar burn doing nothing to thaw the frost in your veins. "You're good at that, aren't you? Waiting until the perfect moment to walk away?"

More silence followed, heavy and sticky as molasses. For a moment, you thought she'd left, until you heard it—the soft thud of something solid against wood. Her forehead, perhaps, resting against your door as if she couldn't support her own weight anymore, as if the burden of her choices had finally become too much to bear.

"I deserve that," she said quietly, her voice carrying a of vulnerability you'd never heard before. A hairline fracture in her usually impenetrable facade. "I deserve all of it. But please... let me explain."

"Explain what?" The words clawed their way from your throat, each word tasting of copper and acrimony. "How you used me? How you'd come to me in the dead of night, take what you wanted, then vanish like I meant nothing?"

"You were never—" Her voice splintered on ‘never’, the sound slitting something in your chest, a fissure spreading through the walls you'd built to keep her out. "You were everything to me. That was the problem."

The crystal glass shattered in your grip, a startling crack that echoed the something rupturing inside you. Shards scattered across marble tiles like fallen stars, blood and alcohol—you couldn't tell which—dripping from your trembling fingers. The pain felt distant, secondary to the storm of emotions threatening to rend you apart.

Your feet carried you to the door of their own volition, possessed by a desperate momentum that overrode any semblance of self-preservation. The handle felt unfamiliar against your palm as you wrenched it open.

And there she stood.

Caitlyn Kiramman, in your foyer, like a washed out black and white photo of a deceased relative you couldn't bring yourself to look at. Her uniform was spotless as always, every button polished, every crease perfect—but her eyes—her eyes told a different story. They widened at the sight of your bleeding hand, that familiar concern suffusing her features before she could conceal it.

"You're hurt–" She reached for you, her fingers extending with such tender intent that it made your chest constrict, your heart stuttering behind the cage of your ribs.

You recoiled as if scorched, spine colliding with the wall behind you with a dull thud. "Don't." Your voice emerged raw, stripped of all pretense. "Don't you dare pretend to care now."

"Do you hear yourself? How ridiculous you sound?" She advanced, her presence flooding your space like smoke, cloying and suffocating. The scent of her, vanilla and gunpowder, so achingly familiar, made your head reel. Or maybe that was the blood loss. The whiskey. Turning everything soft at the edges except for her, sharp and impossible to ignore. "Not once, for a single second, did I stop caring. I left because I cared too much, because it was destroying me. Every time I chose you over my duty, every time I let my heart overrule my head, we were—"

"Oh, spare me the noble sacrifice bullshit, Caitlyn. Your precious integrity, right? Let me remind you of what you said: 'You know where I am if you need me.' Do you remember that? How you kissed me goodbye like it wasn't the last fucking time?" A dismissive sound tore from your lips, acrid.

"Enlighten me," you continued, voice quavering in a way that made you want to claw the weakness from your throat, "in all those months, all those nights I spent alone, where exactly were you? Because I needed you. Gods, I needed you every single day! And you were nowhere to be found!"

"It wasn't—" she started, but you cut her off, unwilling to hear whatever justification she'd made up for her absence.

"Shut up." Your palm struck her chest, leaving behind a bloody handprint stark against her pristine uniform. The fabric drank it in like it had been starved for it, marring perfection with your pain. Some bitter part of you relished it, wanted her to wear your anguish for once.

Hands caught your wrists then, a grip gentle but resolute, like you were something fragile, something invaluable she was afraid to break.

The calluses on her palms, from her rifle, from years of relentless training rasped against your pulse points. "You think it was easy?" Her voice trembled, her composure fracturing like a teacup on the verge of shattering. "You think I wanted to walk away? To lie awake every night remembering how you taste, how you feel, how you cry out my name when you—"

"Stop." You tried to wrench away but her hold was unbreakable, fingers branding your skin with unspoken apologies, with pleas for absolution. Your heart battered against your ribcage, that traitorous organ that still raced at her proximity, even after everything.

"Why?" She surged forward, and suddenly you were pinned between the heat of her body and the unyielding wall, nowhere to run, nowhere to hide.

Her breath ghosted across your face, expensive brandy chasing crisp mint—she'd been drinking too. She'd been drinking too, and that realization struck you like a knife to the sternum, twisting viciously. "Because it hurts? Because despite everything, you still remember? How I'd touch you, how I'd make you beg, how you'd unravel for me like you were made for it?"

"Fuck you," you spat, even as your body responded to her, muscle memory overriding reason.

"You did, darling." The endearment dripped from her lips, sweet and searing like honey on a spoon. Her face was a hairsbreadth from yours, close enough to count the individual flecks of navy in her eyes, to feel the heat of her breath mingling with your own. "Countless times. And I remember every single one. Every sound, every sigh, every way you fell apart beneath my hands."

Your breath hitched, catching on a breath suspiciously similar to a sob. "I hate you."

You did, truly.

Hating her felt natural, instinctual.

"No." Her thumb skated over your bottom lip, coming away stained with the smear of your lipstick. The tenderness of the gesture was devastating, a brutal reminder of everything you'd lost. "You wish you did. Just like I wish I could stop loving you."

The confession hung between you like a noose, tightening with each shallow breath.

"Why now?" Your voice cracked, splintering, jagged and razor-edged. "Why come back after all this time?"

"Because I'm tired," she breathed, resting her forehead against yours, the contact like a livewire against your skin. Her skin burned feverish against your own, her breaths labored. "Tired of pretending I don't need you. Tired of walking past your building every night, aching to come up but telling myself I shouldn't. Tired of being half a person without you."

Closing your eyes, the nearness of her was overwhelming, intoxicating; it made you dizzy, memories crashing over you in waves—lips on your throat, hands on your hips, her voice in your ear whispering vows she couldn't keep, oaths she'd shattered like porcelain against stone.

"You broke me." Words falling from your numb lips, more honest than you'd allowed yourself to be since she left, since she carved out your heart and took it with her.

"I know." Her lips brushed your temple, a benediction and a curse. A tear—yours or hers, you couldn't say—slid between your pressed skin, salt and sorrow. "Let me put you back together. Let me try."

"How?" You opened your eyes, meeting her gaze, stripped of all pretense. Your fingers itched to trace the circles beneath her eyes, proof that maybe she'd been haunted by your absence just as viscerally as you'd been ravaged by hers. "How can I ever trust you again?"

In lieu of an answer, she kissed you.

Not like before—not with the practiced restraint of Officer Kiramman, the consummate professional. No, this kiss was desperate, woozy and salty of mingled tears. Her hands cupped your face like you were something hallowed, her thumbs sweeping away the evidence of your shared misery, your shared sin.

Kissing her back, it bordered on violence, every shred of hurt and longing poured into the crush of your mouths. Your fingers knotted in her hair, yanking hard enough to sting, needing her to feel even a fraction of the agony you'd endured in her absence. Silken strands twined around your fingers like they'd been waiting for your touch, like they remembered every time you'd gripped them in ecstasy rather than anguish.

She gasped into your mouth, the sound caught between a moan and a whimper, apology and plea tangled on her tongue. "I'm sorry," she murmured between bruising kisses, each word a fervent promise falling from kiss-swollen lips. "I'm so sorry. I love you. I never stopped. Please..."

You bit down on her bottom lip, hard enough to taste blood of her own, the metallic sting a twisted sort of penance. "Prove it."

Her eyes met yours, understanding dawning like the sun cresting the horizon. With deliberate, measured movements, she began to strip away her armor. Her utility belt hit the floor with a leaden thud, bullets rattling in their clips. Her badge followed, the metal making a mournful sound as it clattered against marble. Then her uniform jacket, each button slipping free of its mooring until the garment slid from her shoulders like a remnant of a past she was shedding, a chrysalis giving way to something raw and new.

Each piece of her fell away until only Caitlyn remained.

The woman behind the title, the beating heart beneath the badge. She stood before you in her crisp white undershirt, more vulnerable than you'd ever seen her, her chest rising and falling with unsteady breaths, her eyes wide and shining in the low light.

"I'm yours," she said softly, her voice replaced by something fragile and aching. "Just me, loving you, for as long as you'll have me."

You stared at her, this woman who could command an entire city with a single look yet now trembled beneath the weight of your gaze. Who could stare down the barrel of a gun without flinching yet now looked at you like you held the power to destroy her. Who had walked away from you once yet now stood before you offering her heart, her future, her everything.

"If you leave again..." you started, the words tasting like rust on your tongue, sharp and metallic.

"I won't." She stepped closer, her hands finding the dip of your waist, the swell of your hips, relearning curves and planes she'd once mapped in the dark, in stolen moments that now felt like lifetimes ago. Her touch sparked wildfires in its wake, your skin remembering her, craving her, even as your mind screamed for self-preservation. "I can't. Losing you... it nearly killed me. Let me spend the rest of my life making it right. Making us right."

You knew you should’ve resisted, should’ve made her work harder for your forgiveness, for a second chance at the heart she'd so carelessly shattered. But then her lips found that spot just below your ear, the one that made your knees buckle and your breath hitch, and all rational thought fled, replaced by an all-consuming need, a hunger that had gone unsated for far too long.

Her hands relearned your body with admiration that bordered on worshipful—each touch an act of contrition. Her fingers caught on scars she'd never seen before, on new edges and angles wrought in the crucible of her absence, but she didn't shy away. Instead, she traced each one like a devotee tracing the lines of a sacred text, committing them to memory, etching them onto her heart.

"I missed you," she breathed against your throat, her voice cracking on the admission. "Missed this. The way you melt for me, the way your pulse flutters beneath my lips." To illustrate her point, she pressed a lingering kiss to the hammering beat at the base of your throat, smiling against your skin as you failed to bite back a whimper.

Her name fell from your lips like a benediction, like a curse, like an invocation of something bigger than both of you. "Caitlyn..."

She pulled back just far enough to meet your eyes, and the naked adoration in her gaze stole the breath from your lungs.

Gone was the stoic persona, the enforcer of the law. In her place was a woman laid bare, stripped of all pretense. A woman whose eyes shone with unshed tears and unspoken promises, whose hands shook with the force of her need, her longing.

"I love you," she said simply, the words rusty from disuse but no less true for it. "I love your fire, your strength, the way you never once made it easy for me. I love the way you see me, all of me, even the parts I try to hide. I love—"

You swallowed the rest of her words with a searing kiss, your hands fisting in the fabric of her shirt, dragging her closer until you could feel her heartbeat against your own, a desperate staccato that echoed the racing of your pulse.

She caught you as you swayed, strong arms banding around your waist, holding you up, anchoring you to her as she'd always done, even when you insisted you didn't need it, didn't want it. "Let me take care of you," she murmured against your lips, the words akin to a plea. "Let me show you how much I've missed you, how sorry I am, how I—"

"Show me," you demanded, the words scraping your throat raw with their urgency. "Make me believe you."

The sound she made was part growl, part whimper, animal and anguished. Her hands glided down your sides to grip the backs of your thighs, fingers sinking into yielding flesh, and then you were airborne, your back hitting the wall with enough force to rattle the abstract art piece hanging beside your head. Your legs locked around her waist on instinct, muscle memory overriding the part of you still screaming for restraint.

"I'll spend forever making you believe," she vowed, punctuating each word with a press of her lips—to your jaw, the edge of your lips, the sensitive spot where neck meets shoulder. "Forever proving that you're it for me, that I'm done hiding from this, from us."

As she carried you to the bedroom, her steps never faltering despite the tremors wracking her frame, you realized with startling, terrifying clarity that you wanted to let her. Wanted to give her the chance to piece back together the remnants of you, to rebuild from the rubble and ashes she'd left behind.

A tangle of limbs and discarded silks draped upon the edge of your bed held nothing new, freshly washed sheets tousling as she haphazardly lowered you into their embrace.

And then, she was on you, her hand sliding up the apex of your thigh, teasing.

Finally, finally, her tongue met the barrier of your underwear, the fabric the only thing separating you from the heat and wetness that promised heaven. She took her time, tracing every inch of you, biting and nipping, until you were writhing beneath her, begging for more. And then she pulled them down, your hips lifting off the bed to accommodate her, exposing you completely to the cool air and the burning heat of her gaze.

Her mouth followed the path of your underwear, leaving a damp trail of kisses as she descended. She hovered above your clit for a moment, her eyes searching yours for permission, for reassurance. You gave it with a nod, and she took it as the invitation it was, her tongue flicking out to taste you, to show you without words how much she'd missed this, missed you.

The sensation was foreign in its familiarity, your entire body tensing before relaxing into the bliss she’d coaxed from you, licking and suckling, driving you closer to the edge with every pass.

And then, with a lingering kiss, she pulled away, leaving you panting and desperate. Deja vu, perhaps? "Take these off," she ordered, her voice thick with desire, gesturing to her own pants. You obeyed, your fingers fumbling with the zipper, eager to feel her bare skin against yours. When she was finally naked, she straddled you, the wetness between her thighs pressing against your stomach, leaving a damp heat that sent a shiver of anticipation down your spine.

Her hands roamed your body, touching, everywhere, and you watched her, breathless, feeling your desire for her swell until it was a living, pulsing thing between you.

When she reached your breasts, her caresses were feather-light at first, teasing your already-sensitized nipples until they were hard points of pleasure-pain that had you gasping. Then, she took one into her mouth, her tongue flicking against the sensitive flesh, her teeth grazing the tight bud, sending skitters of desire straight to your core.

As she worked you over with her mouth and hands, each touch, each kiss, each lick brought you closer to the precipice. Your hips bucked against her, seeking more, seeking everything she had to give, needing to be filled, to be claimed by her again. You reached down to guide her, impatient (if it were another time, she’d make a show of rolling her eyes), fingers curling around hers, to show her where you needed her most, and she took the hint, sliding down your body, aligning herself with your aching sex.

Her hips rolled against yours, the friction building until you were both heaving and desperate. The world narrowed to just the two of you, the slick slide of skin on skin, the gasps and murmurs of pleasure. You felt her love in every stroke, every touch, every shudder of her body as she took you higher, until you were both teetering on the brink of oblivion.

The feeling of her was exquisite, the pressure just right—coiling tighter and tighter, until you were both ready to shatter. Your nails raked down her back, leaving red streaks on her skin, and she groaned into your neck. The sound sent you over the edge, your body convulsing with the force of your climax, waves of pleasure crashing through you like a storm at sea. She followed, her hips stuttering against yours, her own release a hot, wet rush that mingled with yours, until you were both spent, limp and trembling in each other's arms.

Perhaps there would be no gold at the end of this, no sunset-fade and happily ever after. Perhaps you'd end up right back here again someday, bleeding out on memories gone septic with neglect. Perhaps you'd lose as much as you'd gain, in the end.

But what a thing it was—to be shattered and scattered, to cut yourself open on the fractured pieces and trust that the other person would help you staunch the flow of injuries after. To hold your own heart in your hands and decide that theirs was worth the risk anyway, every time.

So you sealed your mouth to hers and poured yourself into the spaces between, the cracks and scars and fault-lines cobwebbing you both. Let her lick the hurt from your teeth, suck apologies purple-dark into your skin until you couldn't tell her contrition from your clemency.

And later, when you laid tangled up in sheets that smelled of sex and forgiveness, her head pillowed on your chest and the ghosts of your names still ringing in the rafters, you thought that maybe this was a new breed of faith.

To believe, against all evidence, that you could piece each other back together. To know that you'd never be what you were before, untarnished and golden all the way through—but that maybe, just maybe, there was something rawer and realer and infinitely more precious to be found in those broken places.

To reach your hand between each other's ribs and hold tight to whatever you found there, battered and bloodied but beating still. Whispering: I love you, I love you, I love you.

I love you enough to stay.

I love you enough to bleed.

I love you in ways only the shattered know how to love.

I love you, and all your splintered edges.

I love you, and the way you carve yourself into me.

I love you, and I'll spend every breath I have left proving it.

I love you, and that's the best and worst thing I know how to do.

©️ kissesz

tags for the lovely sweethearts who requested a continuation: @prettyyyy-girl & @hiroklaiz

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