#Reblogging to add to masterlist properly

[asterafroditis]

𐔌 . ⋮ fame's shadow .ᐟ ֹ ₊ ꒱

☓┆Vil Schoenheit x insecure gn! reader

𓏵 695 words

ᝰ.ᐟ 2nd Person POV, no pronouns used, established relationship with reader, angst, hurt/comfort

kind of a self-indulgent post bc this sickness is making me feel things （；￣＾￣）feel free to like, reblog, or comment!

ᝰ.ᐟ masterlist

It started with a single article.

“Vil Schoenheit’s New Muse? Mystery Student Spotted by His Side!”

You’d laughed when you first saw it, showing Vil the grainy photo of the two of you walking through Main Street after classes. He’d only sighed, brushing it off with the ease of someone far too used to the tabloids. "They’ll get bored soon enough. Just ignore them, darling."

But they didn’t.

Soon, there were more headlines. “Ordinary Nobody Caught in Vil’s Spotlight!” “Rising Star Vil Schoenheit and Their Unworthy Partner—How Long Will It Last?” Comment sections filled with snide remarks, nitpicking everything from your appearance to the way you stood next to him.

At first, you convinced yourself it didn’t matter. Vil loved you. He chose you. That should’ve been enough.

But the comments stuck.

"They don’t even dress properly. How embarrassing for Vil."

"Must be nice riding his coattails."

"Do they seriously think they can keep up with someone like him?"

You stopped mentioning the articles to Vil. He was always so busy—filming commercials, practicing for his next show, overseeing the Pomefiore dorm. Every moment you had together felt precious, and the last thing you wanted was to add to his stress.

So, you smiled. You nodded. You told him you were fine.

But you started checking your reflection more often, tugging at your clothes and wondering if they looked too plain. You spoke less around his friends, afraid of saying something the media would twist into another cruel headline. You scrolled through hateful comments at night, your heart sinking further with each word.

And Vil, ever composed, ever radiant, never seemed to notice.

“You look tired,” he’d comment sometimes, brushing a hand against your cheek. “Have you been taking care of yourself? You know how important self-care is.”

You’d nod, force a smile, and tell him everything was fine.

Until it wasn’t.

It hit you during one of Vil’s photoshoots. You’d tagged along, thinking it would be nice to spend time together, even if you were just watching from the sidelines. But the photographer’s assistant, unaware of who you were, had muttered under their breath while passing by.

"Can’t believe they’re the one Vil chose. He could do so much better."

You froze. The room buzzed with activity, Vil effortlessly shifting poses under the bright lights. He looked perfect, untouchable. And you? You felt like a stain in his otherwise flawless image.

That night, you couldn’t hold it in any longer.

"Vil, do you ever wonder if… if you’d be better off without me?" you asked quietly, voice barely above a whisper.

Vil blinked, clearly caught off guard. “What kind of nonsense is that? Where is this coming from?”

You hesitated, then shook your head. “Forget it. I’m just overthinking things.”

But Vil didn’t forget. He studied you with sharp, discerning eyes—the same eyes that could catch the slightest flaw in a stage performance or a fashion ensemble. And for the first time, he truly saw the exhaustion behind your smile, the way your shoulders sagged under an invisible weight.

“Darling,” he murmured, stepping closer, “who’s been filling your head with such ridiculous thoughts?”

You tried to brush it off, but Vil wouldn’t let you. Not this time. And when you finally broke down, confessing everything—the articles, the comments, the way you’d slowly started believing them—his expression hardened, not with anger toward you but at the world that had dared to hurt someone he cherished.

“You should have told me sooner,” he said, voice softer now, thumb brushing away a stray tear. “I can’t protect you from shadows I can’t see.”

That night, Vil didn’t just hold you; he made calls, sent emails, and ensured that certain tabloids would think twice before publishing another cruel word. But more importantly, he promised—no matter how bright his spotlight shone, it would never cast you aside.

Because in his eyes, you were never a shadow. You were the light that made his world worth standing in.

[1800titz]

THREE

The one where Y/N and Harry are neighbors in an apartment complex, he's got a bunny called Snuggles, he makes softcore porn spanking people (it's a REALLY LOUD HOBBY), and Y/N has definitely called the police for a domestic disturbance next door.

WEE third part and she's a big one, this is where the plot kind of heavily starts to differ from the OG. This one definitely gives more of a deep-dive into Harry's character to set things up in that aspect. Reblogs/feedback always super appreciated. If you like a fic, sharing the work with the reblog button and leaving a comment/sending an anon keeps writers motivated to keep posting on this platform for free! (ꈍ◡ꈍ) <3

FETISH masterlist : PATREON masterlist (316.7K+ words of content and updating) : MAIN masterlist

CONTENT/WARNINGS: rumors, a DIY pastry delivery service (flavor: apologetic), sexual undertones/smutty insinuations, impact playing/spanking mentions

WC: 13.3K

Some people collect souvenirs. Harry collects tote bags.

It’s not inherently a purposeful, curated trove of keepsakes— not in the same way an avid mug collector would eye one of those kitsch ceramic cups with a city name stretched across it on a trip abroad, and then add it to their collection. It’s just one of those things that keeps happening. A bookstore here; a street fair there; a pop up farmer’s market that sold homemade pepper jam and, incidentally, merchandise that could not be ignored.

He likes them. They’re convenient, and whoever had started the stigma against man-purses just had an agenda to steamroll practicality. As a child, he’d had the hardest time wrapping his mind around it— seeing his mother with a heavy purse perpetually slung over her shoulder, always assuming the practice was some normatively imposed hassle, rather than a beacon of functionality. As an adult, however, Harry can confidently admit, with full disclosure, that he was naïve, misinformed, and frankly, uneducated.

From the array, he has his go-to’s— a jute edition with a singular green sardine embroidered into the center (both a durable option and quirky in its minimal, offbeat design), and a cloth alternative with the word NO in plastisol ink. Simple, effective, all caps, midnight black lettering; it speaks for itself. The third option is another cloth variant, but it’s decorated with the outline of a steaming mug, and he’d picked the piece up from a poky coffee shop during a trip to France, years ago.

Most from the assortment, however, remain as untouched bundles of fabric stacked in the corner of his pantry as soft, vaguely judgmental relics of errands past. There are four tote bags that he hasn’t used in over a year. One is from a pop-up wine shop. Another has a sardonic quote about late capitalism on it, and he only ever reached for it when he was in the midst of a particularly antagonistic streak. One is too stiff to fold properly and therefore exiled. The last one— plain canvas, no print, worn soft at the corners— has inexplicably developed a smell he can’t quite place. Not bad, just faintly of old paper and maybe a foreign shampoo that’s never existed in his possession— something that feels achingly, too closely squeezed between nostalgia and a sense of impending existential upheaval. He keeps intending to throw the bag out, but there’s something threaded into its lived-in texture that feels a little too personal to discard. It’s been to all the best places with him. He once brought it on a third date with a girl whose name he can’t quite place anymore, and he suspects that’s part of the reason he’s held onto it for as long as he has; sentiment by proxy. The bag has stayed, for whatever reason, even as the woman it vaguely reminds him of has almost completely faded from memory— face, and name, and all. 

It’s the kind of thing Harry doesn’t notice has become a habit until he’s opening up his pantry door and discovering the tangle on the floor, shoved up under the lowest tier of the shelving unit. Something he’s reminded has calcified without his conscious awareness. The tote bags. The particular corner by the door where he deposits his keys out of muscle memory. The rhythm of casual consistency interacting with the other tenants carries: a nod in the hallway; cheerful smalltalk; one of those instances where one of the elderly ladies Harry has befriended in the complex— by the grace of God-given dimples and a sense of charm his friends scoff at— (Barb, who lives on the same floor, and Eunice, who resides on the seventh) ropes him into a conversation and ultimately hands off a plate of baked goods. It’s consistent— it’s comfortable. 

Which is why, Harry supposes, the shift in energy feels so loud. 

It’s been four days since Y/N had confronted him head-on with her grievous misconceptions— in the middle of the night, surrounded by a half-awake cohort of their neighbors, no less— and despite his upfront explanation, within those four days, the rumors have multiplied at a rate that defies science. 

Only a couple of days ago, he’d stepped out to water his plants and overheard a group of girls, unbeknownst to his eavesdropping— a circle of collegiate roommates, as far as he understands, given that he’s heard them discuss Kappa Sigma’s infamous Brett’s cock in disgustingly avid detail (is girth more important than integrity? The world may never know)— conversing out on the balcony right beneath his own. Once, he’d sat through four whole minutes of what sounded like an intervention about “the ethics of fucking your lab partner for Adderall.” The conversation wasn’t nearly enthralling enough to stomach more before he finished his joint and went back inside, but this time, the snippet he hears gives him pause. He stands still with his watering can in his hand, hovering over Monte (a bushy thing that’s tripled in size since he first acquired it from the plant nursery), and his pink mouth slowly settles into a grimace the longer he listens. 

“I heard he was on house arrest, but they removed the ankle monitor early.”

“No, no, he’s just in witness protection. But like, bad at it.”

“Wait, I thought he was an ex-cop?”

“No, he’s a dom.”

“…A what?”

“A dom. You know. A professional one.”

“Like a dominatrix?”

“Isn’t that just a woman?”

“I don’t know, I just know he runs one of those torture chambers and probably wears leather.”

“Holy shit, Jess.”

Oh, Jess. A 3.9 GPA— honestly, impressive, given that she’s spent more time scrolling GreekRank gossip forums and contemplating professor tier lists based on cuddle game than studying— and still, somehow, so, so off.

When someone else tacks on, after an awed pause, “…Do you think there’s a sign-up sheet we could hit?” and a peal of girlish giggles erupts, the man literally has to muscle down his eye roll. The last group of people he wants on his roster are a freshly-legal coalition of matching crop tops with vodka breath. It’s not exactly his ideal demographic.

Harry walks back inside off the balcony with a new understanding that day; according to the messy sorority circle in the apartment under him, apparently he’s a dom-for-hire. Which is also— he discovers in the oncoming days— probably one of the friendlier, more innocent assumptions.

It’s not overt; it’s not like anyone says anything to him directly, or plasters misdirected anger management flyers to the back of his door. It’s soft-burn, subtle things. Quieter than a simple dirty look pointed into his direction. 

For starters, the man in 9E, who unironically refers to him as buddy, in the way only a middle-aged dad does during a Superbowl party with an amicable shoulder-clap, doesn’t return much more than a brisk yep in response to some cordial, small-talky joke Harry makes in passing regarding a local sports team. It’s an instance that isn’t inherently suspicious, but when taken into consideration alongside the way the lady in 9G with the green glasses doesn’t smile back at him all of a sudden... well. It packs a little more of a punch. Even the yappy little pomeranian leashed around her knuckles— who typically opts for self-strangulation via collar in its pursuit to get closer to him and paw up at his knees— seems to hang back, sniffing at the air as he passes and choosing to chase its own tail instead. 

Harry doesn’t consider himself to be paranoid. Intuitional, contemplative— sure. Paranoia, though, that’s for the type of man that trims a duct tape square to stick over his laptop camera and tells someone that 5G will give them brain tumors. And yes, in theory, every semi-curt interaction he’s archived with his neighbors over the prior days could be chalked up to perfectly excusable coincidences in a collective bad experience, entirely unrelated to him, but Harry simply has awareness. It does not operate off of a tinfoil hat or a conspiracy rant posted onto a niche online forum— it involves that strange feeling in the pit of his stomach and dresses itself far better than delusion. A group of ladies stops and stares in the mailroom, huddled like an overly lip-glossed coven— all pristine acrylics, and Gymshark workout sets, and coconut dry shampoo— in a way where Harry can feel their eyes searing into the muscle along the side of his shoulder.

It’s not guilt. He knows that much. It’s not quite shame, though, either. No, he’s long past shame— that’s a mechanism he discarded a long time ago when he’d started wearing those tiny running shorts that ride high on the thigh and realized he didn’t particularly care who watched him haul a bag of frozen peas out of Trader Joe’s while donning them. 

It’s something worse.

It is a vague, creeping certainty that a version of him now exists that he can no longer control. 

It’s always existed, somewhere, at some point, he supposes. It varies— mutates— wears one face in a group chat somewhere, takes another shape in a soft-spoken recollection over a plastic coffee cup, one girlfriend to another. He’s been around— a… polite, genteel euphemism for the flyer miles he’s packing below the belt, Harry supposes— gotten around enough, to know that this piece of him lives like a shadow and occasionally reinvents itself through word-of-mouth. He’s self-aware. Probably alive as a screenshot and a one-sided story in a group chat or three.

The problem with this edition, though? It’s alive, and it’s false, it spores. It magnifies, and it reaches, and it’s current— it does not exist like a weak echo in a group text; it smears itself over his face like a clear film as he walks the halls, and he can’t wipe it. It is a version constructed out of silhouettes, and assumptions, and just enough circumstantial evidence to stick. 

He’s lost control of the narrative on a large scale, and he doesn’t know how to get it back. 

It’s not that he even cares what people think, not necessarily. He’s a grown man. He pays his bills on time and almost every lighting fixture in his home is bluetooth. He doesn’t crave approval from a bunch of twenty-somethings who, as far as he can tell, spend their nights screeching over which of their exes had the best dick game and arguing over whether or not a “real feminist” would get lip filler. He’s not interested in being a topic of conversation among girls named Kennedi and Tiffani with an “i.” He just… would prefer not to be accused of domestic violence in a vague, wafting way that only groupthink and mildly traumatic social media exposure can concoct.

The thing is, he can’t even find it within himself to be truly upset with Y/N for the fallout. Not in a sincere way, at least, like a burgeon of spite rooting in and gnarling into a grudge. He’s a little miffed, sure, (frankly, justified, given that having his reputation dismantled over adults exploring consensual bruising techniques was never exactly the ideal), but he doesn’t fault her for her vigilance. In fact, he would probably have similar assumptions and a similar moral dilemma; if only he wasn’t on the other end of the misinterpretation, and if he wasn’t aware that what sounded like violence was just a consensual implementation of a fairly aggressive fetish. 

He thinks he can pinpoint the incident that’d caused the spiral, vaguely, but really it’s a bit of a raunchy blur given the usual rotation, isn’t it? Really, it’s basically, probably Katy’s fault for being so loud in that session with the hairbrush over an overdue parking ticket (not quite short and sweet, but she’d literally asked for it, please and all), which in turn translates into it being his fault for not coaxing her to practice a little more restraint with her pipes.  

Anyways, he can technically retrace the steps and find the root of how a little agreed upon accountability has branded him into public enemy number one, but he’d at least like some benefit of the doubt (given that every unsmiling neighbor has entirely bypassed the fairly thorough explanation he’d given the girl). A little guilty-until-proven innocent action. It’s the bare minimum, really. 

The man stares up at the popcorn ceiling and a little frown envelops the pink corners of his mouth, tucking them down. Guilt is strange, he thinks, especially when he’s technically done fuckall wrong. It’s not that it’s a foreign emotion by any means, but so many times he’d resided on the other end of the equation, with the guilty party strung over his lap, or on her knees between his legs, or caught up between his fingers. He can’t fathom how the sensation coiling in the pit of his belly could ever be twisted into an aphrodisiac, but he supposes it’s a bit different when a power exchange is involved. 

Something taps his socked foot. Slowly, the man lifts his chin and blinks down from the angle where he’s craned his neck flat against the back of the couch. Snuggles climbs over his foot nonchalantly. 

It would blow over. Of that, Harry was grotesquely certain. Canceled Tuesday; forgotten by Friday. People, as a collective, mostly remembered rumors with the clarity of a windshield smeared in expired mayonnaise— foggy, patchy— and had attention spans mirroring all the longevity of a soap bubble in a hurricane. Right now, he’s become the unfortunate centerpiece in the monthly community scandal, but it would only take one yoga mom inevitably starting an affair with her personal trainer, and the spotlight would be diverted. Eventually, the soft-core cancellation would fossilize into one of those half-remembered stories, not nearly exciting enough to be retold, and the mythos rots. 

Besides, in a world where a man could get a sponsorship for reviewing moisturizer on TikTok while actively evading tax fraud allegations, Harry figures a mild spanking kink has ever been grounds for permanent exile. It’ll be fine, the man reminds himself. There is absolutely zero call for spiraling.

Y/N is spiraling.

As the days pass and the realization of what she’s done— what she’s managed to accomplish with a cracked moral compass and a sense of justice wired too tight— truly settles, the consequences, (uninvited, overdressed, in heels), anchor somewhere behind her ribcage. It does not crash. It glides in, quietly, like a cat with blood on its paws circling her ankles, and the young woman steeps in the tracks the longer she weighs it out in her head and picks it apart. Puts it back together. Picks it apart again. 

The little investigatory descent into his digital footprint had, shockingly, been for the worse after all— it’d only fostered a new dilemma. Because now, not only did she feel bad about the accusations, but she was catastrophically aware of his large hands and what they looked like doing pixelated, raunchy (terrible, horrible for whatever flimsy scaffolding of morality she was still clinging to, and his dignity, in that order) things.

It is with this vague sense of impending doom that Y/N decides she probably owes the man a formal apology. The only question— a daunting conquest she’s been left to unpack— is how. A note left stapled to his door, despite the efficiency, feels far too impersonal (given the… weight of her transgressions). A note slipped offhandedly into the envelope collection residing in his mailbox, on the other hand, feels downright intrusive and borderline stalker-ish. It’s soaked in the same energy of shoving love notes into locker grates in junior high, retreating with a whistling speed walk, and the sheer notion nearly puts a bad, familiar taste in her mouth. Surely if Zachary didn’t appreciate the method fifteen or so years ago, her next door neighbor wouldn’t, either. She doesn’t have his phone number, but sending a text would probably feel just as sterile as the first idea, chock-full of the same emotional sentiment as elevator music.  

Hey, so— sorry I accused you of being a felon! (cup-pong attachment). 

This conclusion, of course, is what leaves her clumsily following an apple pie recipe off of Pinterest on her day off, flour smeared across the crests of her sweaty cheeks and dusting the front of her Arctic Monkeys sleep shirt. The best way to express regret and make amends— the valiant, adult method— Y/N decides, is to confront the conflict head on, face to face, in the flesh; and the proper measures to decrease the likelihood of having a door slammed in her face would be the introduction of a baked good alongside her tight, awkward smile. A touch of sweetener.

The pie— honestly, as Y/N had pessimistically expected, despite the way she’d gingerly followed the digital instructions to the T— had dissolved into the kind of spectacular failure typically reserved for first-though tweets and mid-season AMC finales. 

The filling soaked through the undercooked base. The crust was too aggressively homemade— patchy in some places, too thick in others, with a venting cut-out that had vaguely resembled a uterus, or possibly a jellyfish. It was a shape that was hard to place. Ultimately, it was the kind of in-the-flesh reminder of her aggressively consistent inability to bake that had prompted her to opt for store bought treats. Namely, the cute little scones her cafe offered; partly due to the employee discount, and partly on account of how popular the menu item seems to be.

So, here she is; metaphorically twiddling her thumbs in front of his door on a Saturday afternoon with her knuckles curled around a paper bag of edible reparations, attempting to convince herself to just knock. 

Just knock. Just… knock.

She’s not entirely sure if the way she feels her pulse rabbiting (a steady, progressively intensifying thrum that makes her head feel a little light) in her throat should be credited to her general sense of apprehension addressing this, or the different lens she sees him through, courtesy of his video diary archive. She had always found the man next door attractive (it was unavoidable, really— she had a working set of eyes, after all), but the little research project had spun him up into a new light, and the lewd details still web across in the pit of her underbelly. For courage, Y/N puckers her mouth and blows out a deep breath, and then she lifts her free hand and raps her knuckles against the door. 

And for a long moment, there’s no answer. Shifting her weight from one knee onto the other, the young woman lets her eyes peruse over the crown molding that decorates the hallway. The only noise in the lull is the sound of the paper bag in her hand crinkling and the undeviating whir of the AC pumping along the floor. With all of the delicate, calm patience reserved for the waiting room in a dreaded dental appointment, Y/N casts a glance to her own respective door, only a few, short steps away. The stretch of lingering silence reminds her that he may not even be home at all, given that it’s a weekend, (and this whole thing is so impromptu, and strange), and—

Before the young woman’s paper-thin shred of courage inevitably combusts, the familiar sound of a door chain slipping open on the other side and then the door lock unfastening breaks through the haze of her thoughts. She freezes. 

As the door peels back to reveal her innocuous (tenderly sleepy-looking) neighbor— bare feet, sweats (the kind that cling to and hang from all the right places), conspicuously vulgar tee (Safe Sex!: two cartoonish, faceless lilac figures with their arms crossed and their hands fisting over the others’ phalluses), and gently sleep-mussed curls— Y/N can only blink up at him with all the words she’d rehearsed so meticulously lodged at the back of her throat. 

Finally, as if her sense of social awareness has kickstarted into recalibration, the young woman pastes a smile over her mouth, so flimsy she feels her lips wobbling as they curl around her teeth and so wide that her cheeks burn from the strain. The vague sense of anxiety coursing through her blood spikes, and the hammer behind her ribcage forces her numb tongue into motion off the roof of her mouth as her cheeks blister and her head swims.

“Hi. I, uh— I have scones. There’s, uh. Three of them, here,” Y/N launches, glancing down at the paper bag and nearly prying it open as she over-explains the unanticipated visit. “They’re not poisoned,” she tacks on, lashes fluttering as her nervous system forges on in overdrive, and the idiotic statement nearly has her gnawing her tongue in half the second the words slip off its textured, wet landing, “…don’t worry.”

With all the energy of a man limned in fatigue, facing a door dash delivery he’d never ordered, Harry blinks.

Y/N is a nice girl. Up until only a few days ago, in fact, Y/N had been just about the picture-perfect definition of Harry’s ideal next-door tenant; relatively reserved and just polite enough to bypass the awkward inconvenience that rode on the recurrent issue of their mail interchanging. There was, of course, the misaligned streak of vigilantism, but at her core, Harry’s sure that Y/N is still a nice girl. 

This theory in mind, the curly-haired brunette genuinely feels a little bad at the level of amusement swelling up within him as he watches her, with no apparent trigger, self-destruct in real time. Although, if he’s being entirely honest, it’s only a faint echo of a thought— all things considered— and is significantly outweighed by his mirth.

There’s a flavor of entertainment— a rare, emotional genre that lives in that exclusive umbra between secondhand embarrassment and morbid fascination, the kind that morally treads the same bandwidth as laughing at a video of someone getting hurt in an unpredictably ridiculous manner. And Harry— still fuzzy around the edges with the kind of creeping, misty stage of somnolence that dozing off midday entails (he’d been in the midst of a particularly important ritual; lying spread-eagled on the couch with one leg kicked up onto the back, half-engrossed in a documentary on luxury trains, eating dry cereal out of the bag when the drowsiness started settling like fog in the hollows of his limbs)— watches Y/N flounder with the same mild fascination he reserves for Youtube compilation videos of cats falling off of countertops. 

Her hair is slung up into a messy, haphazard updo, loose strands climbing out and stretching in soft static wisps to cup her cheekbones, and she’s wearing a short sleeve brown tee with a small Sip Happens logo embroidered over the left corner of her chest. It’s a coffee shop that the existence of vaguely lives in the dells of his memory, based on how often the man passes by it on his runs, and the wardrobe choice implies she’s either an avid punch-card user, or she works there. Tiny, almost imperceptible dry flakes of mascara cling to the soft skin of her under-eyes, like the layer of pigment has crumbled off her lashes over the course of the morning. Her cheeks are flushed as if she’s run a mile, and her grin (if it can even be called that) resembles trembling enamel more than friendliness. It’s cute in a way that probably shouldn’t be, doesn’t intend to be. Oddly endearing.

Apparently she has baked goods— scones, three of them, unpoisoned (which is a mildly relevant detail)— and she feels the need to announce it, so, based on context clues, he can only assume this element is related to her presence at his doorway. He thinks he can deduce what this is supposed to be (apology with a capital A; one that comes wrapped around café-sourced penance), but he hasn’t quite uncurled the warmth from the stretch of skin where his forearm had pressed into the couch for two hours too long, and her dewy pupils are cha-chaing behind her lashes like she wants something from him, so.

“Hey,” Harry murmurs, finally. His voice sounds thick (aggressively all too familiar to the kind of husky sounds she’s heard from the other side of the wall); vocal cords blatantly weathered in sleep, (verve cudgeled in sex, palm probably all sore and stingy from)—

The curly-haired brunette clears his throat, and Y/N simmers in the heat welling up under her skin. 

“Are these—“ Harry nudges with his chin, pointedly into the direction of the paper bag lodged under her clammy fingers, “…are you sharing?” 

“Yes! Yeah. They’re, well,” she holds the bag out to him, her tone laced with only the kind of over-enthused notes nervousness could conduct, “they’re for you, actually.”

Slowly, one of his hands reaches out, and as he locks his fingers over the side of the bag— right beneath where she’s got her own grip clasped over the haphazardly rolled top— the only thought that the young woman can conjure is a hysteria-laden mental-screencap of an image she’d rather not describe out loud.

As if entirely to dismantle Y/N’s sanity, the sheer size of his palms and the way they cradle the bag as she hands it off is enough to make her feel like something vile and wicked is clumsily somersaulting in her stomach. The indisputable fact is this: they are just hands. Long, delicately svelte fingers; colossal, massively, unjustifiably large hands, but hands nonetheless. 

The other irrefutable fact? These are hands Y/N has watched in incredibly obscene action. 

The thing is, by all technicalities, he is so soft, and his current state does no favors to dispute this impression. Right now, sleep-tousled and low-toned, words spilling like honeyed molasses in the languorous husk of his words, the whiplash spills through her like dense ink. Delicate tattoos reside over and under his kneecaps in fine lines, and in every other circumstance, a soft beam chisels dimples into his cheeks as he casually toes the line between real, alive man and fresco escapee. Behind the door somewhere, he’s got a rabbit called Snuggles, and that’s the brutal anomaly, Y/N decides. It is the foundation to which the geometric edges of her brain refuse to bend around. Because there is a fine, fine line in the way his soft, indigo-lacquered hands stretch out to accept an olive branch sown from overly-processed carbohydrates, and the way they move on camera; the way they plant flat, open-palmed blows on warm skin like bruising kisses, the way they trace the pink welts smacked alive in their wake with a delicacy reserved for reverence. They’re strong, rugged, steadfast, mean—

The young woman’s molars squeeze into the smooth, gummy lining along the inside of her cheek. There’s a little vein that runs up along his wrist, and that tendon bracketed by that jut of bone flexes in a manner so heavenly when he pauses to shake his fingers out. The bag, by no surprise, is dwarfed in his grip, and Y/N stands there with his eyes feeling like sticky, heavy inkpools drilling her into place. 

“How thoughtful,” Harry responds, eventually, faux musing, and an undeniable, little smile teases at the corners of his mouth on the latter fragment of the statement, “thank you for the… unpoisoned scones.” 

Sensing the man’s amusement at her awkward introduction, Y/N restrains the vivid sense of embarrassment that buoys to the surface, instead opting to tell him, “Right! Yeah. You’re welcome,” as her face flushes. With the original point of the delivery in mind, the girl clears her throat. “It’s… well, it’s actually, like, an apology-slash-please-don’t-sue-me gift,” she admits, gnawing into her lower lip. 

He leans a shoulder onto the doorframe then, brows shifting (rising) just a smidge, as an almost imperceptible symbolism of intrigue, before they settle back into place. “Is that hyphenated?”

Y/N stares. 

“Apology-slash-please-don’t-sue-me gift.”

“I— maybe?”

For a moment, her neighbor doesn’t say anything. Meaty arms crossed, paper bag hanging out from the hand that’s tucked under inky, smooth muscle, dark, cherubic ringlets coiling around his forehead. He purses his pink mouth like he’s biting back another simper, and then he sighs theatrically. 

“I won’t sue you,” he murmurs, faux-rolling his eyes playfully, as if the notion involves him being the bigger person and shedding a grudge, rather than letting her settle into a rightfully earned consequence. “Do you wanna come in, then? Miss Hyphens. I’ve got tea.”

His teeth— the front two, blocky and just a tad longer than the others— gently lodge over his plump lower lip expectantly. “Or coffee,” he tacks on, casting his gaze briefly onto her workwear. “Whatever goes with… scones.”

Y/N, for all the time she’s spent living next door to this man, despite sheer proximity, has never actually, fully held a conversation with him beyond simple mail-swap pleasantries. And for a man she’s so thoroughly defamed— a man she’s practically publicly sacrificed on the altar of assumption— he’s almost unexpectedly forgiving. Sure, the sweeteners are working just about as brilliantly as expected, but the invitation, unanticipated nonetheless, throws her so heavily that for a long beat, Y/N can only wordlessly blink at him from the hallway. That is, until her social awareness mechanism, sculpted by a handbook of socially acceptable etiquette rules hammered in from her from kidhood, kickstarts for— what? The third time? Maybe the fourth? In all honesty, she’s lost track, and frankly, it’s by no fault but her neighbor currently interacting with her. The thing is— he’s not even inherently doing anything. Just standing there, propped up against his own door frame, curls tufting around his ears, dewy eyes vibrantly taiga-like. And in all honesty, perhaps the only thing worse than dragging his good name through the mud, like a public medieval ritual, is the way she’d turned around right after the fact to sexualize him behind his back. That part? The softcore porn part? The way something low in her tummy had swirled, seeing him like that, rings denting faint shapes into skin? That’s something she will not— will not— revisit contemplating while standing in the radius of his jawline. It’s not even a jawline, she thinks. Not really. It’s a weapon. 

And despite however shitty of a person Y/N believes herself to be in this particular moment, libel and objectification and all, the rational fragment of her mind (chiseled by those social expectations), considers that accepting a warm drink from her neighbor when prompted— as opposed to wordlessly gawking— is the right choice. The normal option. Something a normal person would do. The alternative is spontaneous death on his welcome mat, and frankly, she doesn’t have the social stamina for that kind of posthumous legacy. There are only so many seconds a person can stand there, sweating through their coffee-stained work shirt, before offbeat, maybe semi-endearingly awkward takes a sharp pivot into the direction of downright strange.

And right now? He’s looking at her like she’s still in the former. 

So, with her face hot and her hands cold, Y/N blinks and nods, anchoring as much nonchalance into her voice as she can manage given the circumstances, “Yeah. Yes. Sure.”

The young woman is not entirely sure what she expects of Harry’s apartment. Not anything in particular really, beyond the fact that the layout should, in theory, be a mirror of her own home right across the drywall. What she discovers, inching quietly across her neighbor’s living room, is that while the general floorplan is almost a precise duplication in terms of spatial organization (that, while they share the same, pasty painted walls and worn beige carpet), the actual integrity of his design sort of puts her own to shame. On the granite peninsula that juts from the wall in the little kitchen beside the living room, in place of where Y/N has a stack of half-sutured envelopes— various bills, coupons, credit card offers, that one cancellation notice from her car insurance she’d received months ago (now resolved, but something she’d forgotten to bin)— there’s a stack of apartamento magazines with a half-burned Le Labo candle on top like a paperweight. In place of the barstools she’d picked up from a garage sale, there’s a record stand: wide, wooden, sleek, and by educated hypothesis, probably full and meticulously organized behind the doors. A tall shelf lined with books resides beside the sliding glass door to the balcony; classics, topics on philosophy, fiction, and self help. One book is all about failed utopias of the twentieth century, and another is on the cultural significance of soup. A hardback edition of the Kama Sutra is crammed into the corner. 

Y/N’s couch was a hand-me-down from a cousin. A ratty, jet black recliner that looked like it withstood the tale of time, surrendered over into her possession when said cousin’s wife finally convinced him into a new one after their ugly little maltese scratched up the leather. Harry’s looks like it’s a direct derivative from an Eames design catalog page. It stands facing the flat screen on the other side of the room, and beside it, there's a floor-level chair that, paradoxically, manages to somehow look both comfortable and like the stiffest resting invention to ever exist. In the center, there’s a dark, wooden accent table and on top of it there’s another pile of magazines, as if for the sole sake of decoration, and a stack of ceramic tile coasters with mismatched mid-century patterns, each one seemingly a different retro motif— abstract fruit, vaguely psychedelic squiggles. Beside the handful of other eccentric decorations Y/N notes (a framed architectural drawing on the wall, a marble fig with a chipped stem on the bookshelf, a tray with exactly seven multicolored lighters— three of them are red— an arc floor lamp with a tan paper-shade that dramatically arches over the couch), she can’t help but recognize that the apartment is painstakingly clean. Organized. Enough for her to gingerly toe off her non-slip sneakers by the door before she makes her way further into his home. 

Instead of immediately taking a seat, the young woman hovers. 

The first words out of her mouth are: “Where’s your bunny?”

“Probably off eating cardboard, somewhere. He’s a very… independent sort of bloke.”

Y/N nods, as if the admission is entirely in the ordinary. The man turns toward the television, operating on low volume, currently detailing some sort of video inside of what looks to be a carwash, with a close up of a mechanism being the shot that plays as he acknowledges it. His brows furrow. “Care to learn about the… wonders of carwash mechanics— I dunno what the fuck this is actually, I was watching something about trains.”

He looks up at her, a lopsided smile ticking the edges of his lips when he recognizes that she’s just lingering by the coffee table like she’s unsure of what to do with herself. “You can sit, you know.”

Y/N blinks like a deer in headlights as she’s called out, limbs unraveling from the way they’ve caged over her chest in universal symbolism of apprehension. “Oh. Thanks.”

She’s kicked her shoes off, and she’s standing in his living room in a fashion that implies she’s afraid to touch something (lest it break), and it’s a sight that’s still, from a morally dubious standpoint, sort of deliciously entertaining. But, he’s a decent host after all, and she did go out of her way to bring him baked treats, which is a considerate notion, so he’s not going to let her literally stand there and stew in her own awkward hesitancy, no matter how amusing the view is.

“You brought scones,“ the curly-haired brunette twists his chin over his shoulder as he passes into the kitchen, quipping playfully, “That’s at least fifteen minutes of hospitality.”

When Y/N takes a seat on the couch, hands gluing to her knees— opting for the safe choice (she’s not quite ready to discover whether the leathery, pillow-looking togo chair on the other side will sculpt to her posture or annihilate her tailbone)— she discovers that this seat, at least, is more comfortable than she’d anticipated. She’s still not quite sure what to do with herself though. What to say, whether she should launch into an apologetic monologue on the misunderstanding (given his unexpectedly cheery disposition, she supposes she won’t have to grovel for forgiveness, which is a reassurance). Meanwhile, her neighbor busies himself in the kitchen, picking up an electric kettle from the counter and propping the lid open with a button on the handle, filling it with water from a filtered container beside the sink, and then setting it back onto the heating base that’s plugged into the wall. The process takes an entire, silent fifteen seconds.

“I like your place,” the young woman settles on, eventually, her eyes still wandering over the expanse of his decor. Her gaze ends up resting on a little bear statue on the TV stand. “It’s… nice. Like, quietly cozy.”

“Surprisingly no screaming women,” Harry responds nonchalantly, still turned away with his back in her direction. 

The comment catches her off guard, and the squeezy, sick feeling coils up her stomach at the reminder. Right. The monologue was… probably the correct choice, after all.

“Oh, God.”

“You said ‘quiet,’” Harry pivots, still only half-facing her (granting her the sight of his hulking shoulder), but he sounds far more amused then disdained, like he’s muscling it down and teasing, and a dimple presses into his cheek like punctuation before it fades out, “Not me. Tea? Coffee?”

“Yeah, please. Tea. I’m… sorry. That was— I don’t even know.”

Y/N wants to bury her face in her hands. She doesn’t. She keeps them very politely sealed over her knees, because that’s a new level of self-pitying pathetic she won’t let him witness, but she can’t bridle her grimace as she contemplates what had happened, nonetheless. It’s like a… bad memory she can’t burn out from behind her skull. 

Pulling open the kitchen cabinet across from him, Harry retrieves a plate alongside two mugs. One is a deep shade of blue, hand-glazed, with just enough imperfections to insinuate he’d either picked it up as one of those hand-made junk-donations from a thrift store or wheel-thrown it himself. The origin is the latter; he’d sculpted the creation in a little pottery shop downtown with a group of friends, years ago, and, admittedly, the shots the cohort had taken before taking on the crafting experience shows through its craftsmanship. The other is a white mug with a little doodle of an orange jellybean on one side, and it has a chip on the rim. Not sharp enough to cut, but just misaligned enough to require constant lip navigation. From the same cabinet (different shelf), he also culls a sealed cardboard cylinder of loose-leaf black tea that he prefers to order online. He reserves the chipped option for himself and carefully shakes out a serving into each cup.

“Hm, yeah. Horribly offensive,” Harry murmurs offhandedly, his voice laced with faux-disappointment as he twists the lid back on, “You should be flogged. But I’ll accept the scones as a plea deal.”

Despite the way the joke is delivered with no openly coy motive, spoken with the same energy as a jesting “jail” comment (no intended innuendo), something twists deep in Y/N’s belly when it lands. Something distinctly different from the shame that’s been bubbling. 

A nervous bark of laughter squeezes at her vocal cords, scraping its way out from the back of her throat before she clears it and pivots the topic of conversation sharply. She is not going to soak in that inadvertent double entendre or attempt to dissect what the suggestion means. 

“What do you do, um, for work?”

As the kettle continues to heat to the required setting, with the tea stored back into its spot and the cabinet door softly closed, Harry turns back to face his guest and reaches for the bag of scones he’d set onto the peninsula.

“I’m a videographer.” For a moment, his features crinkle up, green irises skating to the ceiling as if in brief thought, then smooth, “Well. Kind of. I was, now I just mostly stick to the editing side. I do, like, real estate listings for social media.”

“Oh,” Y/N says, genuine notes of intrigue coloring her tone, “that’s awesome.”

One of his shoulders rides up in a shrug, like the job is what it is, as he one-handedly spills the packet’s contents out onto the plate he’d earlier set aside— scones, three of them, unpoisoned. Although the job itself is comfortable and remote, with a wide spectrum of clientele (courtesy of his networking abilities), it has its difficulties as much as its perks. The man sets the plate up onto the peninsula as he discards the bag into the bin. “It’s alright. I used to do weddings and I always thought groomsmen choreography was tragic, but I’ve learned that you don’t know despair until you’re working with a realtor that looks like they’re being held at gunpoint because there’s a camera in their face.”

Last week, he’d been sent a collection of files in which, in the most polite terms possible, no clip was any better than the last. While technically filmed well (given that he partners with other reputable videographers he’s worked with before, usually borderline unemployed college kids looking for gigs, comfortable taking a cut of the profit— Harry had realized early on he couldn’t handle directing camera-shy gen x-ers without feeling incredibly drained by the end of the day, and honestly preferred the almost entirely remote work), it was the behavior of the agent being filmed that had made him cringe. He’d sat there, one hand dug into a bag of Hippeas and the other on the mouse, with the monitor screen providing the only light source as he watched through the attachments on the drive. It genuinely took so little effort to forge some drive into whatever pre-scripted spiel they were giving— check out these custom cabinet handles! or this gorgeous flooring, genuine wood, dates back to…— and flash a few smiles into the direction of the lens that Harry was sure just about anyone could do it. And watching some of the horror-show clips he’d received back left him slightly unsure of how exactly some of these clients managed to make a living to begin with. In theory, these people should already know how to sell a house, and the entirety of the process should be even easier given the fact that there are no limits on exactly how many clips are taken. And still, somehow, Harry had sat through about nine of the same— similar enough— recordings of an agent completely demolishing what little hope Harry had for the industry. 

Some involved long pauses and mispronounced words. Others involved awkward body language through the delivery— hangs swinging nervously, eyes lingering to the side where he imagines cue-cards were held up. Every clip involved the same lifeless tone and the same uncomfortable posture. A genuinely dismayed, semi-disgusted sound had spilled from his mouth as he witnessed the fallout before he’d plucked another puff from the bag and chewed. The thing is, yes— Harry can alter the footage. Cut any awkward breaks, sew clips together seamlessly enough if anything doesn’t work. But he can’t actually alter whatever the person is doing on the clip, and when every sentence sounds like someone is threatening them from the other side of the camera, he can’t even opt for voice-overs over b-roll. 

Needless to say, sixteen hours of editing later, Harry had a semi-presentable product to send off, but he also had a headache and a distinct mental note to never work with that man again. 

“That sounds… unreasonably bleak for a job involving marble countertops and voice overs.” 

“It is,” Harry admits, deadpan, “It’s like if HGTV and a hostage video had a baby.” 

He turns back to the kettle as it chimes, signifying the water has heated to the optimal temperature, and then lifts it off the base to pour water into both mugs and let the tea steep. 

“And I’m gonna assume,” he says, twisting his chin over his shoulder at her in acknowledgement as the water trickles, plumes of steam seeping up from the tops of the mugs, “you’re a barista? Lucky guess?”

Y/N blinks, batting her lashes at him from the couch at the assumption. “Why do you think that?”

With the kettle back in its spot, Harry turns slightly, one hand planted onto the counter and the other situated on his hip. The one on his hip motions out as he pretends to mull it over, brows furrowing, “Well, you’re either the Sip Happens unofficial brand ambassador, or you work there.”

He blinks and nudges his chin pointedly at her choice of wardrobe, a slow smile unfurling over his lips as the girl glances down and the realization hits her. She’d forgotten, for a moment, that she was still wearing her uniform from the morning shift, and she blinks back up at him with sheepish recognition swelling in her features, a little half-smile cresting her mouth. 

“Oh. Right. Yeah.”

“Milk?” his pointer taps against the granite, “Sugar?”

Y/N takes a deep breath. “No thank you and yes please.”

As the man turns on his heel and picks up a jar of sugar situated beside the kettle and then pulls a spoon out from a drawer, Y/N swallows and clears her throat again. The sound of the metal spoon clinking against the edges of ceramic overlaps with her inquiry as he mixes the sugar into her respective cup. “How did you get into videography?”

“I went to school,” Harry answers once the sugar’s been mixed into the hot beverage, and the leaves are in the process of settling to the bottom, swirling around in the liquid. He sets the utensil into the sink, and takes a mug in each hand. “And then I realized that law felt like a… very expensive way to slowly rot from the inside out. Just about as soul-sucking as everyone promised.”

The proximity between them decreases as he explains, and by the end of his statement, he’s stood ahead of her in a way that has her chin tilting up to meet his gaze. His fingers are cupped over the rim of the mug in a purposeful way— to have the handle readily available for her to take. She glances down at the offering, gingerly curling her fingers over the curved attachment so as not to burn her skin on the heated ceramic, murmuring a quiet thank you as he hands the tea off.

“Don’t worry,” he assures, voice low and teeming with low grade playfulness, “It’s also not poisoned.”

“Ha,” Y/N responds flatly. Despite the molten heat spilling through the ceramic and the way it stings at her fingertips when she touches it, she takes the mug by the handle and grazes the other side with the opposite hand. The heat, to some extent, grounds her. 

That same nervous edge itches into her veins as she watches him pick a coaster up from the stack on the accent table and set it down ahead of her. Then, he sets the plate of scones into the center, on top of the magazines, plucks one up, and takes a seat on the togo chair with his own respective mug. 

“What about you?” Harry asks, motioning out with the treat between his fingers before he takes a bite, “Caffeine always been your calling?”

It’s a good scone, he’ll give her that. He can almost taste the notes of apology sewn into the blueberry flavoring as he chews. He watches her shoulders sag as she breathes, her gaze skidding to the side in thought before it settles back on him.  

“Surprisingly enough, it’s incredibly hard to find anything besides museum curating or glorified church janitor work with a bachelors in anthro,” Y/N nods, a little simper gracing her mouth before she cups the mug up to her mouth and puckers her lips into a soft ‘o’ to blow over the heat. 

He takes another thoughtful bite, chewing slowly as his brows furrow before he swallows the mouthful. “Church janitor work? You need a degree for that?”

As Y/N takes a sip of the beverage, she raises her eyebrows over the top of the mug in response before she answers softly, “It’s technically a historical monument.”

“Hm.”

The third bite is the final one, and he works it over for a longer, quiet beat. And he looks so sexy like that, is the thing, Y/N thinks— carved jaw flexing, thighs split wide, gaze pensive, off to some corner of the room as if in deep thought. It has her head swimming, and simultaneously, the self-awareness has her pulse thumping heavily in her throat. She peels her gaze away from him, opting to sling it onto the television instead, where some stocky male is discussing something about car washes, and she buries her mouth against the mug as she tips it for another drink. It burns her tongue a just a tad, but the way the warmth spills down into her chest is a solid enough distraction from whatever is going on in the chair beside her. 

The silence, of course, doesn’t last. 

“The girls downstairs think I’m a dom-for-hire,” Harry comments with little to no warning, and the admission is so sudden that it catches the young woman off-guard mid-sip and causes her throat to close up around the heated liquid.

She presses the backs of her fingers to her lips as she chokes on the mouthful of scorching liquid, all to prevent coughing and spewing tea all over his carpet and his nice accent table. Summoning every morsel of strength to inhale through her nose and swallow the rest down, Y/N clears her throat as she glances over at him. She thinks he might be fighting down a grin, but it’s hard to say.

“I’m… sorry.”

“That’s alright,” Harry tells her as she clears her throat again, lifting a shoulder. She thinks he might be done. But then he says, offhandedly, like he’s just nursing this odd icebreaker and not currently wringing her guilt like a twisted wet shirt, “I reckon it’s a nicer thought than what some of the others must think.”

Y/N frowns, glancing down at her tea, where her own shiny, wounded-eyed reflection meets her over the burnt umber depths. Sincerity bleeds into her cadence, and she meets his gaze earnestly to repeat the words, “I’m sorry. I really do feel so horrible about it.”

There is, typically, something so oddly delicious in hearing a pretty girl say sorry. Watching it; in the right context, of course. It’s a strange predilection, really, and sort of sounds oddly cruel, but in all honesty, it’s because of how doughy they get. Because they become all doe-eyed, dewy; soft. It doesn’t have anything to do with some weirdly misplaced remorse in actuality, or genuinely negative emotion. Of course, that’s only in the right context, and seeing Y/N, truly frowning, a little ruckle creasing its way between her brows— the posture of her shoulders folding in just slightly as she holds his gaze and then apprehensively casts it down to the hot tea cupped between her palms— has a little burgeon of… not pity, it’s not quite that. It’s more cautious, and it blooms apart in that soft space between his lungs and his ribs. As misguided as his neighbor had been in her assumptions, his intent wasn’t to pestle her down over it, or contrive some sort of revenge by any means. Really, his intention was only to tease the girl, and he tucks as much earnestness as he can manage into his soft tone as he blinks and meets her eye, ducking his chin a bit.

“I’m just messing, yeah?” Harry tells her then, shaking his head, “It’s all good, really. I understand where you were coming from. And I’ve already accepted your scones as a plea deal,” his lips twitch, “remember?”

Y/N doesn’t immediately respond, and for a moment, Harry thinks she might start crying— God forbid— or something equally as uncomfortable, and then he’d probably truly be fucked, because what does he even do in that situation besides awkwardly side-glance? He’s already starting to mull it over, he remembers he might have a pack of tissues still tucked into the coffee table somewhere, courtesy of… things (whichever direction one would like to think in: probably yes), and—

“Do you think,” Y/N’s soft voice breaks him out from his thoughts, and he redirects his sight from the corner of the floor he’d reluctantly driven his eyes into to avoid the fallout in its full, uneasy glory. She’s looking at him from under her lashes, her short nails scratching over a divot in the sculpt of the mug, “they could work as a rebrand? A mass baked goods handout?”

The quip catches him so off guard that it takes him a second to respond. And then he recognizes that she’s attempting to jest— he pauses, intrigued, settling with his back fully against the backrest as he pretends to ponder. 

“Damage control in the form of a baked goods giveaway… I like it. I figured we let the press cycle cool down, first.”

“Right,” Y/N ducks her chin into a nod, “Standard protocol. Lay low. Tasteful radio silence. Avoid the balcony.”

A slow-splitting grin shapes its way around his teeth, dimples engraving into his cheeks, “Exactly,” and then he schools his features into a mask of mock-seriousness, draping himself in fabricated contemplation once more, “Maybe leak a blurry photo of me donating books to an underfunded library.”

“We can give you a rescue dog to hold,” Y/N offers, holding one hand out, palm up. 

“You’ll need to be seen crying on a bench,” Harry muses, raising his eyebrows and directing his index at her, before he rubs his palm down his jaw in consideration. “Something tasteful. Cashmere coat. Glossier skin tint. A latte you’re too tired to drink. Public remorse, but chic.”

“Strategic vulnerability,” Y/N nods, chock-full of agreement, as if they really are on the same wavelength, and then her brows pinch together, “What about a pinned instagram post? Empty chair, caption starts with something like, ‘I don’t owe anyone an explanation, but—‘“

“No, that’s too deflecting,” Harry waves out with his hand, reciting the plan as if he’s got the whole thing figured out to the minor details, “We draft a joint Notes app apology. Story post. You take full responsibility. I forgive you graciously.” 

“And I’m assuming…” one of her brows climb as she talks, “I’m writing this?”

“You’re head of PR,” Harry deadpans, blinking, “It’s literally your job.”

To stifle her smile, the young woman buries her teeth into her lower lip. She clears her throat and then asks, “Do I get health benefits?”

“No,” Harry responds, eyeing her over the rim of the mug where he’s hiding the beginnings of his own grin. He takes another drink, swallows, and then asserts, like it’s all common sense, “You get tea.” 

The duo settle into a comfortable silence, then. The kind of comfortable neither would have really anticipated, but with Y/N’s feelings on the matter clearly regulated and with the man’s (Y/N has assumed) issues on the manner squared, both parties feel as though they can breathe and just co-exist. Tentatively, Y/N is the one to shatter the lull this time.

“How did you, um. Get into that?”

A gust of air spills out from his nostrils, something like an almost-laugh. “Fake press management or the alleged spanking enterprise?”

Y/N raises an eyebrow once more, this time pointedly. “…Alleged?”

Behind the mug, a little smirk paints over the man’s mouth. “Very delicate segue.”

Harry had never really been a fan of labels. Titles. 

Roleplay-adjacent nomenclature; whatever the grand performance of slipping on a new skin before climbing into bed (or worse, therapy-scented kink discourse spaces) is called. Labels— well, those are cementing. Not in the warm, anchored, adult-in-therapy sort of way, but in the slowly-filling-sandbag-on-his-chest kind; the kind that wouldn’t let him wriggle out even when he’d decide he changed his mind.

They’re too serious. Too official altogether, and there was always something about the label-happy subculture associated with kink, in particular, that made him a little itchy. Acronyms, micro-identities, moniker-wrapped semantics, all to take the form of raunchy, glorified LARPing, clad in latex knee-highs, bull-whip draped around a nape like an explicit rendition of a loose winter-wear accessory, specifically tailored for those who liked to edge others just to see them cry— 

He just didn’t identify with it. Dom-status. Disciplinarian— he doesn’t like that one. It’s a word that, in his opinion, belongs more to the musty back corner of a Catholic prep school than to anything involving arousal. Something with chalk dust in its teeth and a ruler clutched in one authoritarian fist, the kind of persona that comes with polished oxfords and an aggressive disdain for late homework. It wears a waistcoat and has strong opinions on proper trouser ironing techniques (he doesn’t particularly care how many people say it’s hot— there’s nothing remotely erotic about a title that sounds like it comes with a pocket watch and a library card).

It just wasn��t him. Isn’t.

And still, somehow, he now exists, tangled several years deep into an increasingly absurd, niche pattern of carefully arranged connections with women who want one very specific thing from him: structure, and the inevitable sting that follows when they break it.

He likes spanking. That’s the clean-cut version, at the very least, that doesn’t devolve into the complexities surrounding why arousal and red-hot bruises go hand in hand. That’s all. That was how it started, and how it remains— more or less— though the logistics have evolved into something far more complicated and softly bizarre, the way simple shrubbery mutates into a crawling jungle over time. And the way it all began? It wasn’t even his idea, really. It hadn’t been a lifelong compulsion, or some neatly traceable fixation formed in adolescence that sharpened over time into a clean-cut kink identity. It wasn’t that profound. Or that romantic, or nearly as organized. He didn’t find kink through an orphaned copy of the Story of O left on a bus seat, or through anything nearly as intentional as looking for it. Instead, looking back, it was something that had settled over him slowly, then all at once, until he couldn’t remember a version of himself that hadn’t been holding the reins. He’d fallen into it in college, the way people fall improv groups or casual coke habits in that weird semi-adult stage where nonchalant self-destruction masquerades as self-discovery. Accidentally; socially. 

It started with an ex, naturally. One of those shitty apartments he was renting on the outskirts of his university with mold along the bathroom ceiling and a sink that groaned like it resented being used. The air always smelled vaguely of canned soup and boyish delusion, and the windows didn’t shut all the way, which meant everything— relationships, tea, existential spirals— happened against a soundtrack of distant sirens and someone else’s Spotify Premium echoing through the wall, including the throwaway comment about whether he’d ever considered putting someone over his knee. 

The ex in question was a second-year film major with a horizontal tongue piercing. She wore thrifted leather boots year-round, almost perpetually had this little patch of chipped red polish on her index finger that drove him weirdly mad, and once insisted she could tell if someone had divorced parents based on how they held a cigarette. (Apparently, Harry was obvious. He still refuses to comment on what kind of emotions that psychoanalysis stirred up). 

There were exactly three tattoos on her body: one was a poem for her mother, another was a joke no one else understood, and the third was just the word reminder in verdana font, tiny and delicate in that soft spot along the inside of her elbow. She claimed that last one literally served as a reminder for whatever trivial detail she needed to remember in the humdrum of a day, and offhandedly commented that the pain getting it done had felt strangely good, which in hindsight, should have been… an indicator.

Harry’s usual type had always been a tragic amalgam of self-titled tender parasite and art-soaked amateur philosopher.

Usually at least mildly broken. INFP’s, typically, because— yes, MBTIs carry more rational bearing than star signs. There was something vaguely magnetic about their (usually) self-imposed torment, the way they pressed into an old, metaphorical bruise on themselves like they wanted to feel the ache again. Creative types with unresolved emotional turmoil. It’s not that he has knight syndrome— he doesn’t feel the need to be needed and he’s never been compelled to fix anyone. Maybe it’s the fascination. Maybe, without ever acknowledging it, he has more in common with them than he’d ever be willing to admit. But maybe? It’s just easier to justify the fallout when it was always partway broken.

It’s always worked like this: he chases, coaxed by some deep itch inside of him he hasn’t quite ever been able to dissect, and they meet him halfway. And for some reason or another, he’d always seemed to gravitate toward something usually halfway to collapse. 

Emotionally battered baristas with bite, who’ll flirt by mocking his order and blushing when he tips; the Etsy shop entrepreneur with an anxiety disorder, hand-stitching lingerie as she watches true crime. Bookstore clerks with a collection of expired bus passes, calmly annotating erotica with a pencil behind the desk. Music school girls with frayed cuticles and a pack of nicotine gum next to their crumpled sheet music. 

And back in the day, a film major with snake eyes and a bruised peach of a laugh? She went right in the drawer of Harry’s mental taxonomy marked bad decisions with excellent legs. There was this trick she had with the tip of her tongue during oral (probably courtesy of the snake eyes— apparently wildly controversial in the piercing community) that, without fail, made his toes curl into the carpet like he was grappling to keep himself physically grounded. It was euphoric. 

They’d been seeing each other for a few months. Maybe less. Time was slippery in college—measured more in backlogged assignments and 2 AM curry fries than any real emotional awareness. It didn’t happen during sex, which— statistically speaking— would’ve made more sense: a bit of rough play, a tap that landed harder than expected at an awkward angle, a moan into his mouth in response. No, when the actual conversation happened, they were sharing a tea bag between two chipped mugs, and she was still waiting on the third coat of polish to dry on her toes with two of those stupid-looking foam-spreader things on her feet, and she’d asked the question the same, nonchalant way someone might ask for a stick of gum.

“Would you ever spank me? Like, for fun. Or, well— like, not for fun, too.”

It was spoken politely, offhandedly, like it was just another item on the grocery list. Eggs, coffee, a handprint across her ass. It was asked like this particular inquiry wasn't about to rearrange the way he saw sex, power, touch, and trust in the span of one aggressively under-furnished semester. Harry genuinely doesn’t remember the exact reaction he’d had, but the word spank had hit him square in the dick like a cartoon piano falling out of a third-story window, and logically speaking, he was probably weird about it. He was twenty. He still got flustered when someone made eye contact while eating a popsicle. He was weird about everything. He was still getting off to whatever suggestions existed in the first three queues of the Pornhub homepage, and had no sexual creativity, and he thinks he might have settled on something eloquent like, “Uh.”

He probably tried to be cool after that. Said something like, “Define spanking,” in that insufferable way he was just learning to mold flirtatious, which was an important development considering he’d only recently learned how to avoid burning scrambled eggs and still called his mother with a debrief of how his week was going every other night. 

He’s not entirely sure what it was even about him that didn’t just make her scoff and roll her eyes, but maybe he should give his past self more credit. 

Anyways, he did it, despite the entirety of the awkward preamble. He was careful, moving through the motions wearily, like he thought he might break something. Which, to be fair, was entirely the right, justified instinct— only the thing is, he’d missed the mark a bit by assuming it was her body that needed caution. It wasn’t. It was his own.

Because something in that moment short-circuited. Not in a cartoonish, lightning-strike way. More like a slow-burn short fuse in the recesses of his brain, something cellular, and ancestral, and alarmingly simple— he liked it. Maybe too much. More than he’d anticipated. It didn’t feel dark, or deviant, or devouring. No. It felt… focused. Singular. 

Harry didn't plan for it to become a recurring motif. It was never intended, from his perspective, to anchor him, and it certainly wasn't there to define him. At the time, he'd thought it was a one-time thing, like waxing his chest, or trying hot yoga, or letting someone gaslight him into believing that olives don't just taste like someone preserved despair in brine. At best, he'd figured it would be a strange, mildly entertaining story to pull out after drinks with a select, close-knit group of attendees. It'd fall in line somewhere between the one about the dentist with the singular nipple piercing and the time he'd mistakenly crashed a wake because the GPS rerouted him through a church parking lot.

And then she called him Sir.

One minute he was perched awkwardly on the edge of the bed he'd snagged off of Facebook marketplace (suspiciously low price tag— maybe haunted), wondering if tilting her too far would result in blunt force trauma via nightstand, and the next, she was twisting her chin to look at him over her shoulder, voice low and syrupy-sweet, eyes half-lidded as she was saying it— Sir— with this kind of reverence that made him feel like someone with gravity. Purpose. Like he was something more than a financially unstable, sleep-deprived undergrad sporting a semi; like something cracked open in her ribs every time she used it, and he was the only one who could crawl inside.

He remembers the sex was really good after. Her on top, nails digging jagged, rosy pink lines into his pectorals, her warm ass in his hands. Somehow, it made him cum harder, holding onto that; the warmth there. Feeling that. And after, she fell asleep on his chest, like she didn’t short-circuit the last decade of his sexual development in the span of a singular afternoon. 

Retrospectively, that was the beginning of the end.

A kind of slow-brand over the pit of him that he wouldn’t recognize had fundamentally changed his outlook until it was just… his norm. 

Anyways, of course he went to the party. 

Not a sex party— he wasn’t that interesting yet. Party was a form of loose, glorified nomenclature for the impact play mixer said film major later dragged him to. A very specific, curated event deep within the subgenre swamp of the kink community was a fairly unconventional idea for date night, but at the time, most of their dates consisted of glassy-eyed coffee stops between study sessions or makeout intervals on a creaky couch with something random on the TV in the background. He thinks it might have been called Spankapalooza, or something equivalently tragic, and it was held in a borrowed warehouse that smelled like spilled spearmint lube and leather conditioner. There was a registration table and color-coded wristbands. There were demo tables and a table spread of gluten-free baked goods.

He didn’t play. Just watched. Took mental notes while people negotiated scenes like they were unionized actors: pacing, tone, tools, aftercare methods. Someone got lectured in a New Zealand accent about not cleaning the kitchen counters. Someone else got paddled, smiling and bound, with a toy that was being handed around a group of three other people. It was all very adult in a way that felt mildly deranged and weirdly beautiful.

It was also, oddly enough, incredibly peaceful. Everything negotiated. Everything explained. Nothing creepy, or secret, or shameful. Just people with wristbands, and name tags, and decades of learned wisdom about which parts of the body bruise best and why it matters whether someone uses a bath brush or a frat paddle. One man— Gene, possibly the most soft-spoken person Harry had ever met— casually mentioned that he typically tasked his submissive with picking out a switch from the backyard if she forgot to charge her phone overnight, and (wow! Okay! moment) Harry had to physically sit down for a second just to process that reality (it was the only incident, to date, that ever managed to top the first time he’d had a threesome and had just ended up starfished on a beanbag afterwards in a state of catatonia).

And here’s the thing: he liked it. Not the performative bits. Not the leash-wielding, collar-clanking theatricalism of it all; it was the honesty. The focus. The moment of contact, the sting, the way a breath hitched when someone realized they were being paid attention to, thoroughly and with care. It felt like the kind of intimacy no one admitted to craving. It felt like holding something steady while the world spun stupid around him.

What struck him most wasn’t the spectacle. It was the precision. The ritual. The unblinking sense of acceptance, because this was normal, and attainable, and safe, and something that made him feel like he was on fire and so strangely serene all at once. The structure didn’t take away the heat— it was the heat. Like edging, but emotional. Like someone had found a way to turn boundaries, and sadomasochism, and niche methods for conflict resolution into foreplay. It made everything feel deliberate. Made the intimacy feel earned. 

It was an intimacy in and of itself.

When he and the film major broke it off, eventually, inevitably— blocking each other on social media but staying logged into the same Netflix account for the next three years— she was gone, but the idea of it, of this, had already imprinted itself somewhere deep in his wiring.

And the rest? Well. That’s as they call it, history. 

The blog was an offhand thing. Not entirely intentional. He’d launched it a year later with another girl he was seeing, and it was her idea, yet again. They filmed it (without their faces) because watching it back made her wet. It was grainy, and shot on his old iphone 4S with poor lighting. There was some animal documentary on in the background and the camerawork was shit in his shaky hands when he picked the phone up off the dresser to film the color her skin bloomed into. But then came a comment about branding sex in a cinematic light, something-something authentic kink education— her words, not his— and he’d laughed and said something noncommittal. They put it up. 

Eleven million profile views later it's just a thing. Another collection, like the totes, only this one is intentional— personal, and feels far more like an art form than a pile of cloth sacks in his pantry. It’s a folder of observations. A quietly color-corrected archive of records. Documentation of the way someone melts when they’re understood through restriction like it’s softness. The quiet smugness in knowing exactly what someone needs and how to deliver it in increments of five. 

When his casual flings rotated out like seasons, the blog stayed, and so did the growing name. The brand. The requests. Women kept showing up. People he’d meet at events, or friends of friends, recommending him through the grapevine like a sordid new lunch spot to hit up: “Have you tried Rings&Paddles? They have really good… service.” Although that analogy sounds far more prostitutional than it’s ever been, and he’d like it to be known— officially, on the record and all— that orgasms are not an actual menu item, readily available for order. More of a secret menu arrangement type-deal. What he does, according to the fact that the only currency he takes is obedience and punctuality, is basically just civic duty. 

Charity work, practically, according to the young woman who once messaged him on FetLife to say his videos made her feel "more emotionally regulated than therapy," which was both flattering and a sign that the world was very, very deeply broken.

He never labeled himself a dominant. Still doesn’t. The title feels too large, too performative, like a costume two sizes too big, even with an excel spreadsheet detailing his usual churn of dynamics, rules, preferences, timestamps, and all. The more rule-heavy type stuff, the kind that leans into that prep school punishment cosplay he’s actively disavowed? That didn’t come until later, and wasn’t inherently by his own volition, anyways. It escalated, as these things do, somewhere between a girl getting a recommendation from a friend for a method of mild catharsis (because she had a shitty receptionist job and little to no coping mechanisms) and the way he’d let her sit on his lap after and cry into his hoodie for twenty minutes like his loungewear was baptismal cloth for her emotional exorcism. 

Despite his inflated reputation and the nature of the hobby, less of these things were actually sexual than not. Not every session led to something carnal. Not every dynamic cracked something open beyond this deeply intimate genre of connection and, ironically enough, casual politeness afterward. Some girls showed up, got spanked, said thank you, and left like they were clocking out of a very niche part-time job. Some messaged him twice a month like it was a recurring dental appointment. A few never made it past one session, deciding— respectfully— that it just wasn’t their thing, or that Harry wasn’t their particularly-sought flavor of authority, and that was fine.

He didn’t push it. He didn’t chase it. The structure (or the psychological purge, depending) was what most of them came for. The sex, when it happened, was entirely incidental. But he did make friends along the way. Eventually, he’d sit with a repeat visitor after and discover they both liked the same music, or had the same disdain for couples matching roman numeral tattoos, or some equally surface-level interest that whittled a genuine bonding moment. 

And that? Those evolutions, probably alongside the whole mechanism of aftercare paired with vulnerability— incredibly important step to the whole process, in his opinion— started to foster something new. Just an… unacknowledged softness. An edge of rawness that started showing up in the way they wrote to him.

More emojis. More thank you’s. One of them left him a voicemail once— completely unprompted, completely uncalled for— just to say that he was helping her feel like a person again, that no one had made her feel this safe in years. That she didn't know how to explain it, but it mattered.

Harry had listened to the recording exactly once, standing in the cereal aisle at Trader Joe's, staring down the shredded wheat like it had personally wronged him. He'd paused it, locked his phone, and then bought two boxes of something sugary and chocolate just to reassert control over his own autonomy. It didn’t help.

Initially, Harry didn't like the feeling. It was strange, being mistaken for someone capable of that kind of generosity. He wasn't safe— he was consistent, and that was only because he was a stubborn creature of habit that was allergic to change. But the girls kept coming. Kept asking and saying things like, "Would it be okay if I told you when I mess up?" and "You don't have to reply, I just like knowing you're there."

And what was he supposed to do? Say no? Say, "Sorry, I'm only emotionally available when someone's bent over my lap with their skirt hiked up and a very clear safeword system in place" or, "Actually, I'm more of a benevolent pervert than a real support system, but thanks for the vote of confidence"?

He just said, "Sure."

And then he added a new tab to his spreadsheet, and then he re-sorted it by name and infraction type and timestamp. He never meant to become a fixture in anyone’s story, but apparently, structure— when delivered with a calm voice and a little spectacle— sticks. Even when the rest of it doesn’t. He was good at it. That was the problem. He was too good at it— too good at tone, at pulling someone across his lap and delivering a scolding that made them blush before he ever lifted a hand. He was the type of person who didn't make things weird. Who could calmly say things like that's ten for the attitude and two more for being late, isn't it? and could make a girl feel like following some arbitrary rules was the fun part, but breaking them, just a little, just enough to get his attention, was even better.

It’s sort of a bit like very hands-on therapy, in a way. Nowadays, only a handful of them, if that, are rule-heavy (and looking back, it was always that way— a full spread kind of catering project, instead). Not all of them are punishments. He tailors. Sometimes someone wants routine emotional regulation. Other times, a girl he’s been fucking basically asks for glorified lovetaps and his nails lightly trailing over the backs of her thighs before his fingers find their way between her legs. It’s not about control. It’s about closeness, the quiet calm that settles into his bones. The way he knows he’s giving the other person the same.  

But he likes spanking. All kinds. Silly, giggly bratting that ends in threats and cherry-red skin. Lazy, indulgent swats between kisses. Stern, structured correction with lectures, and safewords, and someone blinking up at him like they need to hear it— that what they did mattered, that someone’s paying attention.

And when it is disciplinary— when it’s not about sex, or flirting, or fun— he expects to be called Sir, because every man needs a little gravitas to offset the fact that there is a hungry holland lop roaming the same living room, between their feet, like an equal shareholder in every square foot of the property. It’s not about the title. It’s about the shift. The mutual recognition that they’re stepping into something together, something that requires structure, presence, follow-through. Something that says, I will hold you to this, because you asked me to, and I care enough to do it right.

So, that’s the story. There’s no deeper meaning. No psychosexual backstory he’s ready to unpack in therapy. And sometimes… 

Harry sits up and stretches over the table to reach for the next coaster available, setting his mug on top of it as he gives his palms room to motion. Folding his hands and his lap and pursing his lips as he stares down at a piece of the carpet across the room, he chews over where to begin. Eventually, he meets her eye. “So, there’s this girl in uni, right?”

Sometimes, when it’s late and the room is warm and someone’s looking at him like they trust him to know when enough is enough, he lets himself think that maybe that strange little corner of connection is the closest thing to intimacy he’ll ever not run from.

Next part here

[evansbuckle]

Mechanic!Singledad!Bucky Barnes AU

Part four is yours. This might be my favourite chapter yet to be honest. Likes & reblogs are always appreciated <3

Word Count: 2.1k

Warnings: suggestive content, swearing, reader is referred to as y/n and uses she/her pronouns, men being gross, Bucky being protective, I pretend to know about cars again, Bucky is a girl dad.

masterlist part one part two part three part five part six

Grease, Part four.

The day had been awful from the start. Alarm wasn’t set properly, Cheryl barked at very noise, neighbours decided it was appropriate to listen to heavy metal at two in the morning. All of that to say, I hadn’t slept. Add in a group of builders parading in and out of the cafe, leaving half empty cups on every other table every twenty minutes, and you’re left with a y/n who’s taken three crying breaks in the bathroom already. The only thing calming murderous intent was the memories of Bucky’s lips on mine, his hands rough and large and everywhere.

The bell above the door chimed, and I wiped my hands over my face, preparing to make another flat white that wouldn’t be finished. 

“Hi, how ca- Bucky!” 

The brunette rested his hands on the counter, leaning himself forward. 

“Hi sugar.”

Tears started to well up in my eyes at the sound of his voice, I try to blink them away, shaking my head.

“It’s so good to see you, you have no idea. Sit, let me bring you a coffee.”

He sat at an empty table, eyes not leaving me as I move around, bringing him his cup and a muffin. 

“What’s wrong, plum? Look like you’ve been crying.” Bucky still doesn’t move his gaze off me, his brows knitted together in worry.

“Ha, yeah. Sorry about that,” I rub at my eyes, feeling grateful for the lack of makeup. “Bad day, bad sleep, bad customers.” 

His hand reaches up to hold mine, thumb stroking over my knuckles. The moment doesn’t last long, the bell of evil ringing out again. I press a quick kiss to his temple before going back to work.

Bucky sits there for the better part of an hour, just observing. He takes in the cafe, wondering how he never noticed the cloud wallpaper, the blue chairs, the pale yellow ceiling. It was a cute place, and the curly-haired waitress buzzing around added to the charm, he thought. He was about to leave, coffee empty and muffin finished - a sure sign to get back to work, but there was a man with a white helmet sat two tables across from him who wouldn’t stop staring at the counter. Bucky turned his head then, and nearly keeled over at the sight. 

She had taken her hair down. Frizzy, free, no two strands of hair the same, y/n looked like the physical embodiment of pure, unadulterated joy. The sunlight beaming in from the glass doors casting a downright angelic glow all over her. 

That, and she was more or less bent over the back counters, reaching for something behind one of the machines, giving Bucky and the white-helmet-freak a good view of her ass. He couldn’t leave then, not when his joy was being ogled at by some douche who was drooling. He kept his gaze on the man, watching. 

“Hey, Miss,” one of the man called out, signalling me over when I turned around. I grabbed a pot of coffee, briefly looking at Bucky before walking over there. “When’d you get off, hotness?”

“Sorry?” I felt a heat creep up on me, but not the good kind.

“I’m going to a party tonight, you should come. Intimate gathering type shit.”

“No, thank you.”

“Aw come on now, it’d be a laugh.”

“Yeah, no thanks.”

“You’re too se-”

“She said no, buddy. Move along.” A deep voice called out from next to me, and I swear I could’ve fallen to my knees then and there. The man at the table grumbled a ‘you’re ugly anyways’ before leaving. Bucky’s arms turn me around so I’m facing him, enveloping me in a hug. 

“You smell good.” I muffle out into his chest.

“Thanks, it’s grease and sweat.”

“Mm, I love it when you talk dirty to me.” I don’t get a chance to laugh at my own joke before he plants a quick kiss on my lips, "thanks for stepping in."

“When do you finish?” 

I check my watch, “four more hours.” 

“Your engine came earlier. Come over after when you’re done, sugar. Let’s see if we can make this better for you.” 

I nod, waving him bye as he leaves. I take the cup and plate into the back room, barely managing to walk in before my coworker, Taylor walks in.

“He’s hot.”

“Who?”

She raises a single brow at me, a smile on her mouth. “The dilf that just left?”

“Oh sure, yeah. He’s hot.”

“Boyfriend?”

“No.”

“Husband?”

“No! We’ve just been, like, hanging out? I think.”

She laughs at me then, “you’re sleeping together.”

I scrunch my face, her mouth dropping. 

“Girl, what? How do you let him walk around like that and not?”

“We’re taking it slow, I suppose. I’m seeing him later and honestly it’s the only thing that’s gonna get me through this shift.”

“Heard. It’s a nightmare and I don’t know where all these people have come from.” She shakes her head and leaves me to my thoughts. 

*

The shift flies by, the rush was over fairly quick, leaving me, Taylor, and a few others to bask in the slowness. I rid my head of work thoughts as I push open the garage doors. It feels different than the last time I was here, personal, almost. It doesn’t take long for Bucky to spot me, pulling over to his little corner where my car was. It was missing the hood, but it looked fine.

“Is it done?” Bucky chuckles, wiping his hands on a rag, chucking it on his shoulder that was barely covered by a once-white vest. He looked criminally good, the vest stretching over his broadness, black pants struggling over the thickness of his legs. 

“Haven’t started. You wanted action sugar, you’re getting it.” He nods over to the open bonnet, grabbing his tool box. 

“So, I’ve taken the hood off and drained it. Don’t want any spillages, or leaks, do we?” I shake my head, “so now I’m gonna disconnect some of the lines, and then I’m gonna get you to do the wiring.”

“Me?” 

“Yeah sugar, you.” He leans over the hood, rag in hand as he tampers round with the lines. There’s a light layer of sweat forming on his forehead, grunting lightly as the pipes struggle to disconnect. He works at it for a minute, forearms tense as the veins in his arms show up. The building gets warmer, and the sweat on him glistens.

“Alright see these?” He points around to a few wires plugged into various things on the inside of my car. “You’re gonna pull ‘em out.”

“What if I break it?”

“Then I’m here to fix it. But I’m not gonna need to, cuz you’re not gonna break anything, come on.”

He moves my body to the middle of the car, his chest pressed to my back. His hand points to the first wire, and I pull it out slowly, careful not to damage it. “That’s a good girl, this one next.” His voice is low, and I can feel his breath on my ear as his head dips lower, kissing my neck, barely. I pull the next one, still as careful, still as slow. Bucky hums in approval, pointing to the last four wires, “You know what to do.” I take them out one by one, struggling through it while Bucky’s face is buried in my neck, kissing, biting, sucking, marking. I tilt my head back into him, stretching my neck, softly moaning as he goes on, his hands wrapping round my waist. 

“Told you ya wouldn’t break a thing.”

He pulls away from me, handing me a clean rag for my hands. 

“You’re evil, Barnes.” He chuckles, leaning against a table. 

“How so, sugar?”

“You’re just gonna do all that,” I point to where we were two minutes ago, “and then just stand there?”

“Well I could sit if you’d prefer.”

I roll my eyes at him, gently throwing the rag on the table next to him. 

“I told you i’m waitin’.” 

I nod.

“Don’t ever think I’m not achin’ for you, sugar.” He stands upright now, stepping forward until I’m pressed against the passenger door of my car, head lowered till I could feel his voice by my ear and smell the sweat off his neck. “Don’t think I don’t fall asleep thinkin’ ‘bout the day I get to bury myself in your pu-”

“Who’s this, Barnes?” A voice rings through the garage. Our heads whip round at the sound, my eyes landing on a man, rag thrown over his shoulder the same as everyone else in the place. 

“Sam, this is y/n, y/n, Sam.” He nods to the smiling man, face still flushed. 

“Nice to meet you,” Sam offered his hand to me and I shake it. 

“Yeah you too. I really should be going though.” I look back to Bucky as he nods, demeanour thrown off by the interruption. 

“Text me when you’re home, plum, and lock your door.” I nod at him, waving bye to Sam before heading out.

“‘Plum’?” Sam asks Bucky.

“Shut it.” Bucky shakes his head, eyes scanning over the hood-less car, before opening his tool box again. 

“Real cute Barnes. She your girlfriend?”

“No.”

“So, what then?”

“We’re friends.”

“Last I checked friends don’t pin each other to cars like that, man.”

“We’re good friends.”

“Right, okay.” Sam slaps Bucky on the back, stifling a laugh at the way the older man jumps at the contact. “In all seriousness Bucky, we’re all glad you’re putting yourself out there.” 

“Who the fuck is we?” 

He points to the other side of the garage, where the rest of the boys are stood in a huddle, whistling and cheering. Bucky doesn’t bother replying to any of them, settling for a scowl in their direction instead. 

*

Bucky walks through the front door of his home, the smell of pizza wafting through the entire place. He follows the scent to the kitchen where Becky and her sitter, Louise were washing dishes.

“Hey, guys.” 

“Daddy!” Becky jumps off her stool, wet hands covering the floor in water.

“Hi, baby. Missed you too much,” he lifts the girl into the air, holding her tight against his chest, absolutely enamored with the little piece of his heart that lives outside his body. She giggles and swats at him.

“Made pizza for you!”

“Yeah I can smell it, doll. Who’s idea was it?” Bucky looks at Louise then, a smile on both their mouths as Becky delves into an explanation on why pizza, and why today. 

Louise stays for dinner, but only after Bucky insists, she helped make it after all. He was entirely grateful to her, and the time and care she showed Becky day in, day out. He showed it by stuffing an extra twenty in her coat pocket before she left.

“C’mon baby, bedtime.” Becky happily abides, holding onto her dad’s hand as he leads her into bed, tucking her in amongst pink bedsheets and a pretty purple blanket. “You want a story or no?” He lets her think while he switches off the big light, turning on the fairly lights that he’d recently put up on the wall. Becky nods her head, pointing to a copy of ‘the hobbit for kids!’. Bucky laughed, picking up the book and sitting on the floor beside her bed. She settled down, big blue eyes wide and hanging onto every word that came out of her dads mouth. Bucky didn’t get a chapter in before he heard little tired snores coming out of the girl. “I love you, baby. Sleep well now,” he whispered, kissing her softly on the head, turning the lights off before leaving. 

Bucky put himself to bed early that night too, not really wanting to do much else. His mind wandered as he lay in the dark room.

He didn’t believe in love at first sight that was for damn sure, not even Becky’s mum had changed his mind on that. But there was something about y/n he couldn’t quite place. Maybe it was the way she managed to calm his heart, even when she just sat quietly, not saying a word. Or maybe it was the way she was with his kid, soft and gentle, but not afraid. Maybe it was the way he felt when he thought of her - the way his heart physically jumped in his chest and he felt tingly inside. He didn’t know, but he didn’t really care.

He just knew she was for keeps.

✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　

taglist: IF YOU'D LIKE TO BE TAGGED LET ME KNOW <3

@yellowsbutter

[hederasgarden]

nunc scio quid sit amor

Summary: Lucius tells your son the story of how he fell in love with you.  Pairing: Lucius Verus x F!Reader Word Count: 1.7K Rating: 18+ only.  Explicit smut (PIV), mentions of breeding kink and pregnancy, and just a lot of fluff and happiness.  A/N: Thanks to @ryebecca of beta’ing. This is part of Lucius and the Fisherman’s Wife Series. Based on this request. Please comment or reblog if you enjoyed this and want to see more. Or scream at me in my inbox. That always makes my day.

Gladiator Masterlist ♡ Masterlist

“If I have to listen to Senator Aelius drone on about the price of grain one more time, I will lose my senses,” Acacius mutters. “I grow tired of their endless petty quarrels.”

“I know,” you commiserate, thinking of the day-long session you both endured with the senators. Your back aches from sitting in the stiff marble chair in place of Lucius. “They need to come to a decision about the aqueduct repairs soon. It has been delayed far too long already.”

Acacius lets out a heavy sigh. “Lucius could always issue a decree...”

You shake your head, knowing full well that your husband would never override their authority. He agreed to take on the mantle of Emperor only until the Senate could function properly on its own, and despite the inevitable bumps along the way, they have indeed made progress under his and Acacius’ guidance.

“Yes, yes,” he grumbles dismissively, waving you off. His frustration is palpable and you share it, rubbing your belly absently.

You take his arm as the two of you continue walking, the familiar comfort of his presence settling over you. Felix, ever your loyal shadow, follows just a few paces behind. While there is no need for his protection in the palace he never strays far from you. He’s been by your side since the days when you and Lucilla were hidden away on the coast, and though you don’t truly need guarding now, you always feel safer with him nearby. Still, you can ask for no better protection than Acacius, even if today he wears the Toga Praetexta of a senator and carries no sword.

You pass through one courtyard and then another, the sound of your husband’s low baritone and your son’s light, rising voice filtering through the air. Acacius catches your eye, a smile shared between the two of you as you stop to watch the scene before you. Maximus, your son, is seated on the edge of a shallow pool, his small hands trail the surface of the water, leaving ripples behind. Silvery fish glide lazily beneath the lily pads, vanishing into the shadows each time the water stirs.

“Tell me again how you met Momma?” Maximus asks, his ever-inquisitive face intent on your husband

"That is a complicated story," Lucius replies.

"Did you love her when you first saw her? Like Avus Acacius and Avia?" Maximus asks eagerly. "Avus Acacius said it was like...a bolt from Jupiter!" he adds, eyes wide with excitement.

You glance at Acacius beside you, who can’t help but grin, his chest puffing out with pride. It's clear he's still pleased by the story he shared about his and Lucilla’s first meeting. 

“I thought you were a soldier, not a poet,” you whisper to the man beside you, amused.

“I have hidden depths,” he replies with a playful wink. “And I love entertaining my grandson.”

The two of you stand in silence, watching Lucius, who seems to be carefully measuring his words. One day you'll tell Maximus the full story of how you and Lucius came to be, but not yet. He’s still too young, his world still so simple, untouched by the complexities that shaped your lives.

 “It was not quite like that for us,” Lucius finally says.

The answer clearly disappoints your son who deflates, a small frown tugging at his sweet features.

Lucius glances down at him, his expression softening as he continues. “Our love was more like a seed — one we didn’t even know we had planted. It was nurtured slowly over time, carefully, until one night, it bloomed unexpectedly.”

“Ugh, that is boring,” your son replies. Then he jumps to his feet, suddenly energized by a new idea. “I want to be struck by Cupid’s arrow!” he announces, mimicking the gesture and flopping dramatically onto the floor, hard enough to make you wince in sympathy.

“Sometimes the best kind of love takes time,” Lucius says, “growing inside you so slowly you don’t even realize it’s there.”

Maximus pauses for a moment, considering his father's words. Finally, he nods and sits up with renewed curiosity. Resting his small arm on his knees, he looks at Lucius with wide, innocent eyes. “Maybe,” he says, his voice thoughtful. “But you thought Momma was very pretty, did you not?”

To your surprise, Lucius looks up at you then, his gaze steady and warm, locking with yours. A soft smile forms at the corners of his lips, barely visible beneath his thick beard. “More beautiful than I have words for,” he says.

“Tell me about being a Gladiator!” Maximus demands suddenly, clearly growing bored with this topic. "Avus Acacius says you were the best."

Lucius gives a long suffering sigh as he shoots a look at his stepfather. "Avus Acacius likes to exaggerate.”

“I do no such thing!” Acacius declares with a wide grin, his voice booming across the courtyard as he steps from the shadows. You follow him into the sunlit space.“I speak only the words Veritas commands me to!”

He lets out a playful growl and suddenly charges toward Maximus. The moment catches your son off guard, and a burst of delighted laughter escapes him when Acacius scoops him up into the air, lifting him high above his head.

“Momma!” Maximus suddenly shouts, his voice ringing out as if noticing you for the first time. 

Without a second thought, he rushes over to you once Acacius sets him down, his tiny feet thumping against the stone floor. You bend down slightly, kissing him on the top of his head. He smells of sun and sweat, the familiar scent comforting. He pats your belly, your bump still small but growing every day. 

“Hello little sister,” he declares. 

“We do not know if the babe will be a boy or a girl,” Lucius reminds your son. 

Maximus looks up at him with wide, serious eyes, his small chin jutting out in defiance. He stomps his foot with determination. “It will be a girl,” he declares, his voice confident and unshakable. “I have asked Juno Lucina.”

A small, amused smile tugs at the corners of your lips, and you exchange a fond look with Lucius, who raises an eyebrow.

“The gods do not always grant our wishes,” you say gently. “We must wait and see what the fates have planned.”

Maximus pouts for a moment, clearly disappointed, but then his face brightens when a new thought occurs to him. “Well, a brother would be just as good I suppose. We can play gladiators together.”

“A fun prospect,” Acacius agrees, taking hold of his wrist. “Come, let us practice so you will be prepared to best him once he arrives.” Maximus follows his grandfather eagerly as he chatters with excitement about the gladiator battles he would soon win.

When they move further into the courtyard Lucius steps closer to you, his presence solid and warm. Without a word, he draws you into his arms. You rest your head against his chest, and he leans down to capture your lips in a soft kiss. The touch is gentle at first but it soon deepens, becoming more insistent, a slow burn that ignites something within you. Lucius groans, his tongue seeking entry to your mouth that you permit with a little gasp. 

“Maximus will be entertained for quite some time,” he whispers, pushing you back until the warm light of the courtyard fades and your figures are swallowed by the shadows of the hallway. 

These are your private quarters, and with Felix guarding the door, there is little risk of being discovered. Yet, despite the security, it still feels wrong to let Lucius have you here. Your weak protest is quickly silenced by your husband’s insistent fingers parting your dress and dipping between your thighs. These days it takes so little to make you ready for him and you groan, the cool stone a relief against the heated skin of your back. 

“It has been too long since I have felt your warmth,” he whispers. 

Your chuckle of amusement turns into a moan as he lines himself up and sinks inside you slowly. Pleasure blooms in your chest and you roll your hips in response, needing him deeper. “You had me this morning,” you remind him breathlessly. “Twice.”

“It is not enough,” he groans, urging you to wrap a leg around his hip. You teeter on one foot, your balance already unsteady with your growing belly, and clutch his shoulder for support. “I should be inside you every hour. Every minute.”

His words make you shudder and the burn of desire and pleasure intensifies within, an inferno that threatens to consume everything. You work with his rhythm, feeling frantic.

“More,” you gasp into his mouth. 

His next thrusts nearly lift your remaining foot from the floor and you throw your arms around his shoulders. His warm breath fans across your face and you exchange a desperate kiss, holding on while he jostles your body with each eager snap of his hips. A moan, loud and wanton, bursts from your chest as you come undone, your vision fading out. Lucius growls and his hand falls to your backside. He grabs your flesh and pushes himself deeper than you thought possible, the action edging on painful if it weren’t for the powerful waves of pleasure washing over you. 

“My love,” Lucius groans. 

The shudder that passes through him as he comes makes you throb around him, sparking another wave of pleasure. You hold on to one another as your ecstasy ebbs away, sharing the same warm air. When Lucius sets you back on your feet you tremble. He slips from your body and eases a hand over your belly before capturing your mouth in a long kiss. Your thighs are sticky and sweat gathers at the back of your neck but you’ve never felt more content. 

“Perhaps we should retire to the bathhouse,” he suggests. 

“Only if my Emperor commands it,” you reply with a playful smile, laughing at the intense look Lucius gives you in return.

“Perhaps he does,” he murmurs, rubbing his nose against yours. “Perhaps he also commands you to spend the rest of the day relaxing with him.”

“Oh, well if he commands it, I must comply,” you whisper, kissing him again.

[pampushky]

the oracle told him to beware the ides

Alpha! Lando Norris/Omega! Lauda! Reader - chapter 8 - 4.8k words

*ringing dinner bell* NEW CHAPTER YA'LL COME AND GET IT!

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February 28th, 2024. Ḥalba al-Baḥrayn ad-Dawliyya, Mamlakat al-Baḥrayn.

Coffee is lovely. Especially the stuff from all the Middle Eastern races. You loved them, quite honestly, at least for the food and museums you’d get to browse through, though you did feel slightly uncomfortable with some of their rules, being an unmated omega and all. Despite everything, that much couldn’t be hidden as you flew from place to place. Immigration knew everything, but it could be hidden easily as long as you could answer their questions in private, like you always had. 

And even now, on a media day, the first race of the year, the whole pack takes up an entire floor of the hotel, all gathered in your hotel room to drink tea and coffee and indulge in room service that Carlos and Oscar are currently bickering about while ordering. But Eggroll, ever the loyal companion, was by your side, head set neatly on her paws as she watched the two argue, with Logan browsing the menu lazily beside you. 

“Dramatic, aren’t they?” Logan mumbled, eyes widening a bit when he sees some absolutely decadent waffles listed in the entree section. “Ooh, Mouse, look here!”

“No, it has banana on it. I don’t like banana, you know this,” you start to gnaw on your bottom lip, pulling it into your mouth. Carlos, without breaking eye contact with Oscar, smacks your foot to get you to stop. The pros and cons of being practically raised with him were starting to show, especially when Logan dug around your backpack to look for the rubber chew your therapist gave you specifically to stop you from accidentally drawing blood when you got anxious. The tips of your fingers had finally healed as well. 

“We can ask them to remove the banana, don’t worry,” Logan coos, leaning over you, and gently patting your head. “We could ask them to add other fruit.”

“You should have scrambled eggs,” Carlos looks back at you over his shoulder. He’s actually held up his hand to pause the argument with Oscar, who’s now nodding in agreement to him. “You need more protein. Remember what the pack doctor said?”

“Yes, I remember what the pack doctor said,” you flop down, rubbing your eyes with the heels of your palms. “….but maybe I want waffles, ‘Los!”

“Protein waffles exist.” Logan provides cheerfully, while you glare at him. Oscar snorts. “They’re good.”

“I want normal waffles. Fuck protein.”

“She doesn’t want protein.” Carlos groans, and just lifts you up and places you on his shoulder while you let out an annoyed huff, going limp to try and make it harder. “Aye! Stop that. Don’t make me get Nando!”

“Get me for what?” The prime omega’s voice is clipped, looking at the two of you as though you’re pups again, his arms crossed. “Oh, what did you do this time? Don’t make me call Nico on you,”

“No!” The cry from both yourself and Carlos is instant, the two of you fumbling to stand properly in front of the older omega. “Nando!”

“Don’t be hasty, please!” Carlos whines, while you nod in agreement, as Lance yawns, walking in sleepily, seemingly having followed Fernando. He mumbles a greeting to the other pack members before flopping on the bed and pulling the quilt around himself. “Wha— how come Lance gets to be lazy!?”

“Because Lance got me coffee,” Nando snips, squeezing Carlos’ nose and using his other hand to tug on your cheek, the two of you submitting quickly to the prime. “I don’t know how, given how sleepy he is.”

“Walked.” Lance gurgles, blinking owlishly. Oscar snorts, watching the Alpha with a slowly forming grin. “They saw a white guy and just pointed me towards the nearest Starbucks.”

Oscar nods sagely and then looks pleadingly to Logan, who simply sighs, gets up, and kisses his forehead as he goes to seemingly fetch a coffee for his omega. Carlos’ jaw drops, and the Aussie just looks smug, before Fernando also hooks him with a withering look.

“Oscar. Go with your Alpha, I need to have a conversation with my pups, it seems,” Fernando folds his arms as Lance blinks again. Carlos’s cheeks go pink and you mewl. It’s a strange call back to when you were all truly pups— down to each behavior you all still display— and it’s oddly endearing. Which is exactly when Lewis waltzes in, and then promptly tries to escape from the room. Alas, just a beat too late. “Hamilton! Don’t you dare try to walk away from your pup’s bad behavior!”

“My pup? Lauda? She’s an angel, I don’t know what you mean,” Lewis holds up his hands, trying to grin at his former teammate, only to look incredibly constipated when he does. “Look at her! A sweet baby—“

“Who is refusing to follow her doctor’s diet.” Nando squeezes your cheek, lovingly, but enough to make you whimper. Lewis just chuffs, a non-threatening warning to be gentle with you. There was a reason that many people considered you his and Nico’s pup, after all. But, Nando was there just as long as Lewis was. And before there was Lewis, there was always your Nando. 

Oh, you were Niki’s, through and through. His pup, the one he’d raised from that day in the hospital onwards. But you were Nico’s and Lewis’s, too. The only thing that had stopped the mating bond from severing in 2016. You were Nando’s, having spent countless summers learning to swim in his Spanish home, feasting on seafood paella and wrestling with Carlos and his littermates when Niki was away on business. 

It took a pack to raise a pup, afterall. 

“I wasn’t—“ You whine, only to be elbowed harshly by both Carlos and Lance, making the words die in your throat with a groan. “Not fair! Why am I the only one getting held to their diet plan?! Lance inhaled a whole box of donut holes last week! And Carlos—“

“Hey! You snitch!” 

“You did what, Lance Stroll?!”

And from where he stands just outside the open door, Lando’s eyebrows look as though they’re crawling up his forehead. He’d been walking down the hall, on his way to go annoy Max and Charles when he saw Oscar and Logan pressed up against the wall next to a door, close enough to hear what’s going on inside. The rest of the hall is quiet. Naturally, Lando immediately copied after them on the other side of the door, nosy and wanting to understand what in the hell was happening. Leave it to the younger members of the pack to be thoroughly invested in drama. 

You’re being lectured! By Fernando! Who may as well be one of the many surrogate Dams you’ve got, aside from Marlene, Nico, and Seb. 

Oscar looks like he’s trying not to laugh at the lecture. Logan is biting his nails. And Lando is still somewhere between shocked and impressed you’ve stood that long against Fernando. 

“Okay, okay, enough lecturing my pup,” Lewis steps between Nando and yourself. “I’ll make sure she has her protein. Nico and I were just about to go grab her for breakfast, since we don’t want her to be alone here, of all places.”

Lando’s brow furrows. He mouths ‘What does that mean?’ to Logan, who looks pale. But your voice rings from inside the room, stubborn as ever. 

“I’m fine! I’m not a pup anymore! And Eggroll is here with me! She’s trained to alert when anyone I don’t know comes up behind me!” 

“I just worry, Mousie,” Lewis says softly, and there’s an agreeing rumble. Lando recognizes it immediately as Carlos trying to comfort you. “You— you know you’re not in trouble, we just want to keep you safe,”

Now that was even more confusing. Lando looks at Oscar and Logan, only to see both of them staring right back at him, as if that was something he’s not supposed to know about. Logan physically looks ill. Oscar is biting the inside of his cheek. The room has gone quiet. 

“This is so stupid,” 

“S’not,” Lance’s voice is soft, and it takes Lando a moment to realize who it was. He should really talk to the quiet Alpha a bit more— Lance just always seemed to be a bit stressed whenever they were pushed into public areas together. “It’s just the pack protecting the pack.”

The answering groan and flop on the bed from you makes Lando even more confused. You were disabled, yes, but you could clearly stand up for yourself. 

“Listen. We just don’t want a repeat of last year,” Lewis murmurs, and Lando finally realizes this is a conversation he really shouldn’t be listening in on anymore, silently leaving to go find Max and Charles, not really wanting to think about what he overheard. 

But he can’t shake the odd feeling in his chest. A repeat of last year? Aside from the entire Williams debacle— what had happened last year in Bahrain? 

Or maybe, he thinks, This is about the Williams stuff. And it’s more than they’re all letting on. 

Which doesn’t sit quite right with Lando. You’d gotten so shaken up at any mention of it. Granted, you had known the person who’d been attacked by the other race engineer, and probably had known the other race engineer pretty well, being coworkers and all. Hell, Lando couldn’t imagine being in a situation like that. 

It couldn’t help that you clearly didn’t like to talk to the media about anything aside from the car, and even then, that was a stretch on the best days. Honestly, Lando is still having trouble unraveling his own feelings about you suddenly joining the team without him really knowing. That was on him, he was the one who’d decided to do a phone-cleanse without really telling anyone. But still… it just felt like something was out of place with you. Like things were being hidden from him.

When he bumps into Carlos in the hall, being lectured by Fernando, he doesn’t meet his former teammate’s eyes, nor does he try to even challenge the prime omega. But your sickly medicinal scent is all over both of them, and he hates it.

Breakfast was in the little cafe just a block from the hotel. Entrance in canine form only. You’d first come here as a pup, squeaking and yapping while held by the scruff by Marlene as she and Niki took you to meet Micheal, and many other Motorsport legends. You’d ended up dozing off with Victoria, Mick, Max and Jack all partially under the table, with Carlos and Gina still fighting to stay awake while all the adults spoke. There was a picture somewhere, of the pile of little pups asleep on the cushions. Perhaps you’d find it? And add it to the photo dump your family’s PR manager wanted to post after this race.

Many more sets of eyes were on you now, with the move to McLaren and the start of the season. They wanted to see if you properly bore the Lauda name. 

But walking into the cafe now, after stretching back into your human form is comforting. No one jumps forward to meet Nico, Lewis, or yourself. Just continuing the conversation lazily, as if it didn’t matter who walked in. 

It was a private location. Meant to be a place where the elite could truly relax. And while that did strike you as odd— the circumstances of you even being considered elite all hinging on a single, tragic night— you’d grown to look past it. 

You had been taken away from the mountains, but you knew a part of you would always belong in the misty, secluded region you’d been born in. The cabin your mother had owned, now sitting squarely in your hands, in your name, was a tether back to a life you very well could have lived. 

Nico sits across from you, lounging along the cushions. The floor seating and low tables made everything feel intimate. Hearing the yapping of pups from the wealthy families who gathered for their breakfast is grounding. Eggroll lays across your lap, dozing off. Milky tea and brown sugar sit squarely in the middle of the table. 

“So what’s this about refusing your protein, meine Mausi?” Nico tilts his head, pouring himself tea and watching you with a small, yet dangerous smile. You just wish suddenly you were eating breakfast at a normal restaurant where you could hide under the table. Lewis hides a snort behind a fist. “Lew, don’t you dare laugh. This is our pup—“

“M’not a pup anymore,”

“Yet you still behave like one,” Nico chides, reaching over and effortlessly wiping a smudge of something from your cheek, while pushing a menu in front of you. “Mausi, please take this seriously. This is so you can live without some of the chronic issues being as bad, the nutritionist was here to help.”

You continue to pout. Eggroll lets out a loud huffing noise. 

“Maus.” 

“Fine, I’ll have eggs,” you huffed, looking at the menu sitting in front of you before picking a thick slice of bread with poached eggs and a spiced chickpea mash. Nico’s purrs make you preen, proud to make your adoptive dam so pleased. He doesn’t miss the way your shoulders relax, or how Lewis looks at you. 

Niki may be your Sisi. Your biological grandfather, your grandsire, the one who raised you and is legally recognized as your sire. But Nico and Lewis were there for every moment. From the moment Nico had found you, asleep in a pillow fort in the Pack’s motorhome, blinking at him drowsily and murmuring in German. You’d had them wrapped around your little finger, doting on you. When Niki wasn’t watching you, they were. You’d slept between them in their bed as a child, Lewis had been there when you had your brief foray into karting, before you’d been fascinated by how the engine worked. 

Everyone could see it. 

The countless pictures that were shared by the official Formula 1 account made it obvious. You sitting on Lewis’s shoulders. You tucked under Nico’s arm like a rolled up blanket, your tail wagging. The countless pictures from 2016 that had become memes in the fandom, with you standing between Lewis and Nico, looking like you wanted to be anywhere else. The tweets alone, the debates and blog posts—

NICO DID NOTHING WRONG @NicoBritberg6 • 2015-03-11 nooo they got my girl sitting between them to keep them from fighting in public 😭 [The attached picture shows Nico, Lewis, and yourself as the focus, sometime during the winter break of 2014, and right before the 2015 season. You look like you want to be anywhere else, sitting between the two of them. They have rather stoic, if not somewhat annoyed, expressions on their faces, as if they had just finished arguing about something.

You’re holding one of your hands to your head and staring off into the distance. You’re practically sliding down what looks like a rather uncomfortable folding chair. Rookies Carlos Sainz Jr and Max Verstappen are seen behind you, slightly blurred. Their expressions are clearly uncomfortable though, as if they’d walked in on their friend’s parents arguing while at their house.] 3 replies | 12 retweets | 24 likes

Brocedes Divorce Lawyer @OmegaLewisAgenda • 2015-03-11 she’s a child of divorce and an affair baby. Can’t wait to see this get spun into some motivational bs when she nepo babies her way into motorsport in like 5 years 1 reply | 1 retweet | 0 likes

Nico to RedBull 2016 @wholelaudalove • 2015-03-11 Bro wtf why would you say that 1 reply | 0 retweets | 2 likes

Brocedes Divorce Lawyer @OmegaLewisAgenda • 2015-03-11 its a joke, get over it. The only reason people like her is because she’s Niki’s youngest kid. She wouldn’t be famous otherwise and that’s prob how she’s gonna get her job 1 reply | 0 retweets | 0 likes

NICO DID NOTHING WRONG @NicoBritberg6 • 2015-03-11 ok so we’re just being misogynists now??? Cool cool cool cool cool 3 replies | 7 retweets | 12 likes

You’d sunk your teeth into Lewis’s hand, the only time he’d used his alpha voice on Nico during the Spanish Grand Prix in 2016. You should have been celebrating the maiden victory of your practically-adoptive brother, but instead you had left a vicious bite that had needed stitches on Lewis’s hand. Permanently disrupting the tattoos you used to trace when you were in the Pack nest with him.

It hadn’t happened again after that. He’d looked disgusted with himself while you curled up next to the omega, whimpering loudly, nudging into the curve of his body, so similar to how you’d once slept between them as a pup. Niki had looked stormy after that, forcibly making Lewis submit to him, snarling things he didn’t understand in German. 

Those hadn’t been the sweet, loving things Nico would coo when he was under him in their most intimate moments. Wasn’t the snarky things he heard you and Sebastian using towards each other. Nor the proud, loving words that Micheal would whisper as he held you, or when he was congratulating Nico or Seb on something notable.

But the scrape of the fork and knife against the plate yanked Lewis into the present. Where you’re grumbling about your nutritionist’s vendetta against you, and Nico is laughing at your dramatics. Eggroll sniffs the plate before you even take a bite, and lays down happily, not alerting to any ingredients you’ve been told to avoid. 

2016 is long over. The mating bond between himself and Nico thrives, and they’re… well, the plans for a nursery are certainly becoming more and more real with every passing day. The pastel paint swatches on the walls of their Monaco apartment are still clear in his mind. Maybe you’d help them paint an accent wall. Lewis feels giddy at the thought. 

The rest of breakfast is intimate and loving. You even FaceTime Niki, Lukas, and Mathias in, eating with them as they elect to have an early breakfast, just to be able to join you. 

It’s so loving and intimate that you forget that your scent-blocking cream had faded when you’d gone canine to enter the cafe. Too secure and safe amongst your closest pack members to remember to put more on, even as Lewis helps you tie your hair back, on the way to the track.

The drive to the track is oddly calm. Lando doesn’t mention what he overheard, and Oscar doesn’t mention that he was out in the hall. Both are very happy to ignore that the other was trying to listen in. Fans, of course, wave from the streets and try to knock on the windows of the car and get them to sign things.

But it’s lovely. They’re bantering. You’d even sent a picture in the group chat of McLaren drivers and engineers  with your service dog — which Oscar immediately starts to insult, calling Eggroll a nasty little creature, and accusing her of committing several war crimes. It was an admittedly bad picture, explaining why you’d be just a tad late to the meeting for the engineering team, clearly made in jest. Lando saves it absentmindedly, to use as a reaction image later, due to the look of utter confusion on the dog’s face, and the awkward angle you’d gotten of the sweet little beagle.

Oscar snorts at something, and Lando tries to lean over, wanting to see whatever is making the Australian laugh. He can’t see whatever was making him laugh, but he did see three eagle emojis for the contact name, along with a badly angled picture of Logan. 

“Nosy,” Oscar grumbled, pushing Lando softly away, and disappointingly, pushing it into his hoodie pocket. 

“I just wanna see the meme,” Lando says innocently enough, huffing. 

“It’s not a meme, just… an inside joke.” Oscar waves him away, but there’s still a little grin on his face. A blush on his cheeks.

“This alpha you’re talking to is gonna get jealous,” Lando grins, and Oscar’s face turns pink, the younger man burying his face in his hands. Oh, now he’s really in— his years as the second oldest sibling and stirring the pot with his sisters and brother have prepared him for this very moment.

 “Logan’s an alpha,” Oscar mumbles, and maybe it’s a bit of a dick move, but Lando cackles, clapping his hands together. “Wha— why are you laughing at that?”

“I’m sorry but— him? Really?” Lando grins, all charm, everything he’s used to doing to get under the skin of his little sisters when they were courting someone. “Leader of the deconstructors championship? Why would I believe you’re courting him?”

But something else entirely happens, because Oscar’s face goes from pink to an angry puce, and a vicious growl from the back of his throat rises to fill the car. Lando’s eyes widen, and his hands raise in defense. The smell of burning oranges makes Lando nearly gag. “Shit— it was a joke— I didn’t mean anything by it, Osc—”

“He’s in a Williams. An old one, at that,” Oscar hisses back, baring his teeth. “The way that team has treated him, especially after Mouse left—” 

A ragged breath rattles its way out of Oscar’s mouth, and the Aussie’s head hangs lowly, closing his eyes. “I’m just… I get defensive over him. He’s one of my only real friends in paddock, I’ve known him since we were pups.” 

“Yeah, of course,” Lando whispers, holding his hands awkwardly in his lap. The good mood officially ruined, to say the least. “I… if it helps at all, George and I felt the same. With Alex.” Oscar gives a jerky nod. Not meeting his eyes. “We were furious when Red Bull tried to make him out to be the problem.”

“But he won’t do the same for Logan, he won’t even try,” Oscar whispers. “No one will. He doesn’t have the backup like Lance does, and he doesn’t want to speak out and shake the boat. He’s alone.”

“He’s not.” Lando feels odd insisting otherwise. “We have the pack. Even if the worst happens, he’ll still be pack,”

“Yeah.” 

Oscar doesn’t sound certain. Lando doesn’t like that, especially as they enter the track.

You’re there, right outside the turnstile, waiting for him, with a tablet tucked under your arm, and a passive expression on your face. Your hair has been tied back, and Lando can even see a few small braids throughout the pony tail. The medicinal scent that normally clings to you is… faint, today. The scowl you hook one of the Netflix cameras with is enough to make both Oscar and Lando snicker. The press officer isn’t as amused. 

“Ms Lauda, please,”

“Bleh!” You stick your tongue out, waving her away as Lando and Oscar come to stand on either side of you, with Lando trailing just a step behind. Oscar smacks your hand before you can even think of flipping off a camera, and you look aghast.

“No, Mouse.”

“You hit me!” You whine, looking back at Lando with wide eyes, as if asking if he saw that. “Oscar Piastri!”

“You’re not about to make a PR tail spin before the season’s even properly started, it’s only media day,” Oscar says dryly. Lando only snickers, and you glare at him, cheeks puffed out. Eggroll sniffs the air.

It’s incredibly clear to him now that you’re a bit spoiled. Which, to be fair, so was he. When you came from a  family with money— especially old money, like the Laudas— things tended to come easily. You’d probably gotten your way with nearly everything you wanted, being the cherished youngest pup of the Lauda pack, and the adoptive pup of nearly every notable motorsport name within the past fifteen years.

Lando had, admittedly, done a lot more stalking. Even texting Carlos to get baby pictures of you from when you’d spend summers in Spain with the Sainz pack, who were members of the greater motorsports pack.

“Oh— about that,” The press officer grins. You look about ready to crush something just from the tone in her voice alone.

“No.”

“I haven’t even told you what we’re filming!”

“Absolutely no.” You’re scowling heavily now, the one side of your mouth turned down in a clear sign of how unhappy you were. “No filming! The lights make my makeup… sticky.”

“You wear makeup?” Lando tilts his head to the side, like he’s a curious pup. 

“What— of course I do. People get weird about my scars if I don’t.” You laugh a bit, and it’s all teeth, showing off your canines. Lando’s pulse quickens. “Surely you saw it on the call?”

“No, you mostly showed the upper half of your forehead,” Lando quips back, poking you there, grinning right back at you in a way that makes the press officer pause. 

“I have a great forehead.”

“A large one, you mean.”

“I do not— look! Count the fingers on my forehead right now—” 

“You two call?” The press officer interrupts, trying to sound casual, and so clearly failing. You nearly feel bad for her, until you pick up her slightly disappointed  tone. “I thought there was… tension, between the two of you?”

“Why do you care? Unless Netflix wants me to be the villain, with my accent and grumpy moments,” You grumble, kicking at the ground, just as you all round the corner of the paddock, turning to walk along the street that hosted all the motorhomes. You dutifully stop when Eggroll pauses in front of you, sniffing the air before walking forward, deeming it safe for you to continue. “Why not play into my American heritage? Or is that too white-trash for them?”

Oscar, again, reaches over and cuffs your ear, hissing like he’s your older brother. The press officer looks too baffled to respond. “Mouse! You can’t say that!”

“Maybe it’s better not to let her talk to Netflix,” Lando slides into the conversation easily, layering his voice with his boyish charm, hoping the press officer takes it for what it is. “Being practically raised with Max and Carlos— she was bound to take after one of the two, and it seems she got the less charming of the two.”

“I’m plenty charming,” you butt in, arms folded, “Besides, I could be so much worse—”

“You’re blunt. Having heartfelt conversations with you is akin to pulling teeth,” Oscar puts his hand over your mouth, preventing any other damning statements from being made. “Continue, Lando.”

“—and besides, she said it best herself. She’s not a driver. So why do we keep treating her like one?” 

You look partially offended, as if by the principal, but nod, with Oscar’s hand still covering your mouth. The walking pace has crawled to a near stop just outside the motorhome, to the point where multiple drivers have passed your little group. The poor press officer, bless her heart, still looks like she wants to convince you to try and do whatever task she’d signed you up for. 

“But she’s Niki Lauda’s pup,” The press officer looks between the three of you. Oscar, covering your mouth. You, glaring from over his hand. And Lando, with a crooked, nervous little grin. “One of our past champions, and a legendary driver who helped Lewis Hamilton and Micheal Schumacher rise to the top. Two drivers who’ve been monumental in your upbringing, Ms Lauda—”

“So? They can read my Wikipedia page.”

“But they want to hear it from you,” she stresses, clutching her tablet and schedule tight to her chest, eyes wide. “They want to hear it from the newest Lauda on the grid!”

“I am more than my sire’s pup,” your voice sounds oddly hollow. Pushing Oscar away from you. Your entire body shakes, and something acrid-smelling is rolling off of you in waves. Burning hair, melted plastic, the charged air in the eye of a hurricane, and most notably to Lando, rotten peaches. You’d forgotten to reapply your scent blockers, after all. “I am more than Niki Lauda’s child, do you understand me—”

“Maus! Beruhige dich!”

Nico Rosberg is walking briskly towards you. Fury and worry in his eyes as he catches a whiff of your scent. With the snarl of a concerned dam, Niko pulls you away from the press officer, glaring daggers at her as he takes you towards the Pack Motorhome. Eggroll is hot on your heels, not alerting to anything, but certainly keeping up a quick pace behind Nico.

Lando can’t stop thinking about how you smelled like rotten peaches, the scent beckoning him to you, to follow after you. But Oscar grips his arm, fingers digging into the skin. Holding him there, while the press officer stares after your retreating figure in horror. 

Now... for something fun....

You have the next week (Thursday, June 26th) to decide! Go, go, go!

taglist:

@charlesgirl16 - @boo8008 - @actuallyazriel - @vellicora - @fangirl125reader - @noam-isd - @blackmage24 - @henna006 - @l3thal-l0lita - @poppyflower-22 - @hiireadstuff - @mrsmelinda - @laura-naruto-fan1998 - @seongwaexile - @amalialeclerc - @neferaskingdom - @gremblewald - @sainzluvrr

[aemondsbabe]

Ñuha Zaldrīzes

summary: future & facesitting || discussing wishes for your baby with your husband turns into something more

pairing: daemon targaryen x f!reader

warnings: mature/explicit, 18+ (minors dni!), no use of y/n, afab reader, pregnant reader, oral sex (f receiving), allusions to piv sex, dirty talk, daemon being soft and loving we love to see it, let me know if i missed anything!

word count: 1.8k

a/n: happy day eight of 12 days of smuff!!! surely this counts as future otherwise i'd have them fucking in a spaceship & that just didn't sit right with me

12 days of smuff masterlist!

gif creds to @pedropcl

likes, comments, & reblogs are very appreciated but never required!

🌟add yourself to my taglist to be notified when i post new fics!

A soft giggle bursts from your lips as Daemon’s hand skirts over your large belly yet again, his soft touches tickling your skin as his hand ghosts lovingly over your bump, the delicate lacy fabric of your nightgown bunched around his wrist. 

“Okay, okay, so,” you say breathily, finally calming down as his touch seems to settle on your hip, “If it’s a little girl, perhaps Vaenera? And for a little boy… Vaenor?” You suggest, your breath warm against the prince’s neck as you rest your cheek against his shoulder, tucked safely into his side atop your silk covered bed. 

“I still think we should name her Visenya,” the blond drawls, tracing soothing patterns into your hip as he holds you against him, “With a nice strong name like that, she will grow to greatness.” 

You stay silent for a moment, your eyes locked onto the fluid movements of the sheer curtains that lead out onto the balcony, watching as they blow in the breeze carried in by the Narrow Sea. Daemon can’t help but notice you still against him and he smiles softly when he sees that familiar, far off look in your eyes – always his dreamer.

“Where did you go?” He asks gently, all traces of the usual brash, cocky tone with which he speaks gone. 

“Nowhere,” you smile, tilting your head up to peer at him through your lashes, “I was merely thinking of what kind of person this little one will grow up to be.” You stroke a hand over your belly as you speak, your smile only growing as you feel a soft, barely there kick against your palm. 

“If they’re even half as kind and gentle as their mother, the world will be a much better place with them in it,” your husband whispers, pressing a soft kiss to your forehead. A pink blush blooms across the apples of your cheeks, as it always does when he speaks so tenderly. 

“And if they’re half as hard headed as their father, well… somehow, I will love them all the more,” you whisper, laughing yet again as Daemon trails his fingers over your side, tickling you purposefully this time.

“Me, hard headed?” He teases, laughing along with you, “I’m not the one that nearly sent the kitchens into a tailspin this evening when they demanded duck, now am I?” His violet eyes sparkled in the low light of the candles that flickered around the room, a teasing smirk etched across his face.

“That’s very unfair!” You giggle, leaning up to properly look at him. “You know how I am when I’m with child,” you huff, your blush only deepening when you see his eyes darken just slightly as his gaze flits over you, “Especially once it’s this far along; all I want is roast duck and–”

“And lemon cakes at every meal,” Daemon finishes for you, softly smiling, “Yes, sweetling, the entire castle is most aware.” He chuckles. 

“Then the kitchens should know to have duck, that’s all I’m saying…” You grumble, sinking back down into his embrace. The two of you relax into a comfortable silence for many minutes, your husband’s breathing so steady and calm that you assume he’s fallen asleep. When he speaks again, his soft voice almost startles you.

“The kitchens did particularly well with the lemon cakes this evening…”

Your eyebrows furrow together at the statement and you lift your head again, meaning to give him a confused stare. The cakes were exceptionally good this evening, but you can’t help but notice the teasing lilt in his voice.

You open your mouth to speak, but the darkness in Daemon’s eyes gives you pause, a breathy, barely audible whimper escaping your lips before you have a chance to stop it.

“However, I can’t help but be in the mood for a much different type of dessert, little wife.” He says lowly, gently pulling you up until your faces are level, careful to be ever conscious of your growing stomach. 

“Daemon –” You start, only to be cut off with a searing kiss as he presses his lips to yours. You whimper against his lips, your head already spinning in his embrace as his tongue toys with yours.

“It’s been so long,” he starts, trailing kisses down your jaw and neck, nibbling at one spot that always has you seeing stars, “Since you’ve let me have what I want.”

“H-Husband,” you gasp breathlessly, your nails digging helplessly into his chest as you cling to him, “You had me just this, Gods, this morning for breakfast, if you’ll recall.” You managed to say between whimpers and gasps as he practically feasted on the sensitive spot on your neck, his hands softly kneading and caressing your breasts. 

He makes a small, displeased hum before he pulls back to look at you, his dark eyes studying you carefully before a small smirk grows on his lips, “You know very well that’s not what I’m after.”

Your eyes widen just slightly as you finally catch his meaning; you shake your head with a small chuckle. “Surely you can’t be serious,” your smile fades as he holds your stare with a small, unchanging smirk, “Daemon, I’ll crush you!”

“And what an honorable death that would be, sweet wife,” he chuckles, his hands firmly grasping your hips as he lifts you up and onto his lap, your head spins as you feel his already hard length pressing against you through the thin linen breeches he has on, “I’ll be fine, it’s not as if this is exactly new territory for us…” He teases, gently skirting his hands over your belly. 

“We’ve never done it when I’ve been… like this, though,” you shyly point out, looking down at your bump. 

“Do you really not see how insatiable I become every time you’re with child?” Daemon asks, his voice soft and gentle, “I will only ever have you like this a scant few times. Please, sweetling, let me savor it.”

Biting your lip, you gaze down at him, eyes trailing across his bare chest and shoulders and up the strong column of his neck before they finally settle on his face – the look in his eyes nearly making you gasp. His violet eyes are fixed on you, roaming over your body with so much love and adoration that you feel as if you may melt from it. 

Before you even register the movement, you’re nodding. 

Daemon’s eyes instantly flick up to yours, sparkling with victory. His hands grip your hips again, gently guiding you up his muscular form as he silently thanks the Seven that you wear nothing beneath your Myrish lace nightgowns. A loud groan practically bursts from the prince’s chest once you’re positioned over his face; he loves being surrounded by you — loves the way your soft thighs bracket his head, the way you position your dripping center perfectly over his mouth, and the way the only thing he sees when he looks up is your belly, swollen with his seed, his child. 

If it were up to Daemon, he would happily spend the rest of his days here. 

Your chest heaves as you grip the headboard of the bed, your heart hammering in your chest from the anticipation of it. You whimper softly as his hands, rough from so many years of sword fighting and dragon riding, grab at your thighs and hips. 

He presses soft, sweet kisses to the inside of your thighs before licking a slow, steady line up your center; you can feel him smirk triumphantly against you as moans and whimpers spill from your lips. 

“Oh, Gods, Daemon!” You gasp, voice already ragged as you white-knuckle the headboard. Your thighs tremble with the effort of holding yourself even a fraction of an inch above your husband’s face, something he notices quite quickly. A displeased growl rumbles from his chest, making you pant as it vibrates against your core.

“Fucking sit,” Daemon rasps, tugging you against his mouth, his tongue roughly spearing into you as he grinds your pearl against his nose, hands moving your hips against his face. 

Your mind all but whites out as he rocks you against him, nose and tongue working in perfect tandem to send shivers down your spine. Your eyes squeeze shut, frantic moans pouring from your mouth as a fire steadily builds within you. 

“H-Husband,” you pant, walls clenching tightly around his tongue as he groans into your heat, “I— Fuck, I’m—!” You can hardly get the words out as Daemon seals his lips around your sensitive bud, suckling it at a maddening pace as his hands move down to cup your ass, kneading it roughly. 

Your face flushes at the slick sounds pouring from between your thighs as the prince growls against you, sounding as if he’s gaining as much satisfaction as you are. Your core clenches at the thought, pleasure threatening to consume you. 

“Daemon!” You cry urgently, shaking above him, a thin sheen of sweat covering your body. You want so badly to thread your fingers through his hair as you normally would, but you can’t even see his face around your protruding belly. 

He groans loudly beneath you once more and fucks his tongue back into you, causing the knot in your belly to pull tightly before finally unraveling. Sparks burst behind your eyelids, your back arching as your whole body tenses and relaxes in time with his movements. 

The prince moans appreciatively, messily drinking down your pleasure as you peak on top of him. You jump when one of his hands smacks against your ass, the tingling sting extending your release, the intensity of it nearly making you go mad. 

Finally, once your signs of relief have turned into whimpers of overstimulation, Daemon releases you with a pleased hum, helping you shuffle back down his body until you’re straddling his hips once again. 

You laugh softly at the sight of him — his cheeks flushed a light pink, hair sticking up at odd angles, and a pleased, self-satisfied grin on his face. 

“You look as if you were the one who was ravished, my dragon,” you tease, your heart rate slowly returning to normal as you trace over the muscular dips in his chest and stomach.

The prince chuckles lowly, his violet eyes still dark with lust as he takes in your curves. “Ravishing you is a pleasure in and of itself, sweet wife,” he drawls, smirking as you gasp at the feel of his cock against your sensitive core as he rolls his hips against you, “I trust you’ll allow me to feel it again?” He asks, that all too familiar cocky tone back, as if asking is merely a formality. 

Sighing happily, you bite your lip as you stare down at him, the knot in your belly beginning to tighten again as you feel his length pressing hotly to you. 

“I believe that can be arranged.”

tagged lovelies: @helloworldiamnotarobot @drakonflames @marysucks-blog @watercolorskyy @valeskafics @iamaegontargaryenwife0 @aemshaircare @1997babyyyy @lovellies @little-moonbeam-666 @blackswxnn @alerisc @fan-goddess @wickedfrsgrl @moonriseoverkyoto @echos-muses @schniiipsel @avidreader73 @marvelescvpe @imawhorecrux

(tags are based on your answers to my google form; if you were mistakenly tagged, please contact me & update your answers on the form! thank you!)

[violettwrites]

fourth of july — tp!daryl

summary: tp!daryl and reader celebrate fourth of july at the trailer park.

a/n: hi guys !! pls bare with me bcos i am not american and have never experienced a fourth of july— so i’m just basing this on what i’ve seen on social media and film LMAO

if you enjoyed, please give me a like, reblog, and/or comment ! don’t forget to follow me if you enjoy my stuff and want to read more 😊

warnings: swearing, mentions of alcohol

word count: 1,550

resources: divide by @adornedwithlight

➸ tp!daryl masterlist

➸ regular masterlist

➸ ask box — requests are open !

the fourth of july at the trailer park has always been a rowdy affair for as long as you could remember. a huge bonfire would blaze in the field next to the park, kids ran wild with sparklers, and an absurd number of fireworks lit up the sky— sometimes you wondered if it was even legal. add in as much cheap beer as people could drink, and it was clear the holiday was a big deal.

you found yourself standing in the cramped kitchenette with daryl and merle, leaning against the counter as you watched the two brothers debate over what cds to play for the night.

“merle, i swear to fuckin’ god— if you ask for pantera one more time, ‘m gonna cut yer dick off,” daryl grumbled, his hands splayed on the small table, blue eyes narrowed at his older brother.

“what the fuck’s wrong with pantera!?” merle protested, looking genuinely offended.

“it’s all you listen to,” you chimed in, crossing your arms over your chest as you stepped forward to examine the pile of cds scattered across the table. you sifted through them, trying to make sense of the chaotic selection.

“there’s nothin’ wrong with listenin’ to one of the greatest bands of all time,” merle scoffed, rolling his eyes at you. you shot him a pointer glare and started organising the music into piles.

“what are ya doin’?” he asked, while daryl just stood there watching you.

“i’m deciding for you two, since you clearly can’t do it yourselves,” you replied with an exasperated huff. after a minute of sorting, you straightened up. “there. you both get a bit of what you like, but i can’t promise other people won’t complain— there’s gonna be kids, you know?”

you looked up at the brothers, raising an eyebrow. they both shrugged in unison, as if they hadn’t considered it at all. letting out a sigh, you shook your head. you had a feeling it was going to be a long night.

— — —

as the sun dipped lower into the sky, casting a fiery orange glow across the trailer park, the smell of barbecue and bonfire smoke filled the air. laughter and the occasional pop of firecrackers echoed through the grounds as more neighbours showed up, ready for the fourth of july festivities. the giant bonfire had already been lit, kids were chasing each other around with their sparklers, their excited shreks cutting through the air.

back inside the trailer, the tension between you, daryl, and merle simmered down as the playlist issue was officially resolved. daryl seemed a little more relaxed now, his gruff demeanour softening just a bit when he glanced your way.

“thanks for sortin’ that mess out,” daryl muttered low enough so merle didn’t hear. he cracked open a beer before handing you one, his fingers brushing against your own.

merle, never one to stay still for too long, grabbed a couple of the cds you’d organised. “guess i’ll take these out,” he grumbled, clearly still not thrilled with the lack of pantera, but made his way outside anyway. “y’all can figure out the rest, i’m gonna make sure people are celebratin’ properly.”

daryl gave a nod of his head toward his brothers retreating figure, causing you to let out a breath you didn’t even realise you were holding. “properly, huh? i don’t even think i wanna know what he’s up to.”

daryl shook his head, the corner of his lips twitching into the faintest smirk. “means he’s gonna get drunker than hell and try to light more fireworks than the kids.”

you chuckled softly, rolling your eyes as you leaned against the counter, beer in hand, watching as daryl settled into the chair across the small kitchenette, his usual brooding expression easing. the sounds of the party outside filtered in, but in here, it was just the two of you, the tension of the chaotic party slowly bleeding away in the quiet moments.

“y’know,” you said after a beat, swirling the beer in your hand. “for all the crazy shit that happens every fourth of july, i kinda like it.”

daryl’s eyes met yours, something soft and unreadable flickering in them for a moment. “yeah, ain’t so bad. ‘specially with you ‘ere.”

your heart gave a small flutter at his words, and before you could respond, there was a loud bang outside, followed by a chorus of whoops and hollers. you both shared a glance— merle was definitely up to something already.

“wanna see what kinda trouble your brother’s gotten into already?” you ask with a grin, pushing off the counter and heading towards the door.

daryl rolled his eyes but stood up. “better make sure he ain’t blown off a hand yet.”

the sun had fully set by the time you and daryl stepped outside to join in on the festivities, a chorus of laughter and fireworks filling the air. merle, true to his word, was already in the thick of it— his rowdy voice carrying over the crowd as he set off firecrackers dangerously close to a group of onlookers.

“jesus,” you muttered under your breath, watching as a few sparks nearly hit someone. daryl shook his head beside you, but you noticed the slightest hint of a smirk pulling at his lips.

“he’s gonna blow ‘imself up one day,” daryl grumbled, though it was clear he wasn’t too concerned. you chuckled, judging him lightly with your elbow.

“maybe one of these years he’ll learn to take it easy.”

“doubt it,” daryl replied, taking a sip from his beer before glancing at you. “you wanna sit down or somethin’? could use a break from all this shit.”

you nodded, grateful for the idea. the two of you wove through the crowd towards the bonfire, it’s flames flickering wildly in the night. a few lawn chairs had been set up in a circle, mostly occupied by people chatting or shouting at each other over the sound of music and fireworks.

daryl dragged over an empty chair and motioned for you to take it. “‘ere.”

you raised an eyebrow. “you’re not sitting?”

“i will,” he said, grabbing another chair from a nearby stack and setting it next to your chair. he plopped down on it, looking as casual as ever with his forearms resting on his knees.

as you both settled in, the chaotic energy of the trailer park seemed to face, replaced by the crackling of the fire and the occasional whistle of fireworks overhead. for a while, the two of you just sat there, enjoying the warmth of the flames and the cool night air. there was something peaceful about it— being close to daryl in the middle of all the noise.

after a while, he leaned over slightly, his voice low. “ya know, i ain’t much for crowds. but this—“ he gestured vaguely to the people around, “ain’t so bad with you.”

you smiled, his quiet compliment sending a warmth through you that had nothing to do with the bonfire. “same here,” you said softly, free hand to reach for his so you could intertwine your fingers with his.

the two of you watched the fire, and for a moment, everything else seemed to melt away. you could help but steal a glance at him— his sharp features softened in the firelight, his usual rough edges not so intimidating now. he noticed you looking, meeting your gaze with a raised brow.

“somethin’ on my face?”

you laughed softly, shaking your head. “just thinkin’. can’t believe you get stuck dealing with merle on nights like this.”

“someone’s gotta keep him from burnin’ the whole damn place down,” daryl chuckled lightly, looking at you.

“guess that makes you the responsible one, huh?” you teased, taking a sip of your beer.

daryl smirked, tilting his head slightly. “don’ know ‘bout that.”

you were about to respond when another loud crack erupted in the distance, followed by a round of cheers. merle was lighting off more fireworks— ones that shot high into the air and exposed in brilliant colours. the sky filled with bursts of red, blue, and gold, reflecting off the faces of everyone watching.

as the night went on, laughter and music filled the air once again, and you realized this moment—this feeling—was exactly what you loved about these gatherings. with daryl by your side, it felt like home, even amidst the chaos of the celebrations.

the two of you settled into your seats, fingers still intertwined, as the night unfolded around you. you exchanged glances, each one filled with unspoken understanding and warmth. fireworks continued to light up the sky, their vibrant colors reflected in the excitement of the crowd.

“you think merle’s got any more tricks up his sleeve?” you asked, a playful grin spreading across your face.

daryl chuckled softly, shaking his head. “if he does, we’ll be in for quite a show.”

you leaned back in your chair, the warmth of the bonfire wrapping around you like a comforting blanket. the sounds of laughter and celebration filled your senses, and for a moment, everything felt perfect. you couldn’t wait to see what other memories the night would bring, knowing that whatever happened, you were right where you wanted to be—with daryl, enjoying the wildness of the fourth of july together.

[potatomountain]

Kinktober- 2024 Ateez

Masterlist for 2024 Ateez Kinktober!!

~~~ updated: --- ~~~

So for Kinktober this year I went by requests! I got 12 in total, and decided to add one for myself! I am going to attempt to complete all 13! i am a people pleaser :')

The reason is to also complete the Kinktober "Kink" list that was presented in the network @mirohs-aurora-society

For this, the kinks for the network even are listed under the piece (but there are more in the fic, and all will be properly noted in each fic!) And other members are also doing Kinktober! and the parallel Flufftober! (These will be linked below the cut!!)

SOME THINGS TO NOTE

~Pieces shall be linked below and on the member masterlists!

~No order of posting. Once the piece is posted, will be linked with the title instead!

~They are all varying in length

~these 13 will be posted along side 3 other pieces, making a total of 16 pieces for October! CIY will not be posted during this time (its a lot broskis)

Remember to read at your own risk, no MINORS, and pls reblog! Liking does nothing! I'm giving up a majority of my free time this month for this (as is many who participate in full month events like this) and we only ask that if you like the work, SHARE IT! reblog and give nice feedback if possible! Just telling us you like it is perfectly okay too! (keyboard smashes are highly accepted as well)

when reblogging, exclude the network tags pls and thanks!

Dinner and a Show - khj, psh x fem reader

Kinks: Free use, praise kink, orgasm control, exhibitionism, multiple partners

Puppy Play Time - jyh, smg x fem reader

Kinks: Voyeurism, Pet play, threesome, free use

The Prettiest Picture - bf!khj x GN reader

Kinks: marking. voyeurism, body worship

Cnc with Jongho x afab reader (requested by anon)

Kinks: Mask play, degradation, power play, free use

Dragon Yeosang x afab reader (Requested by @thesafecafe )

Kinks: size kink, monster fucking, breeding

Wooyoung x reader x Jongho (requested by anon)

Kinks: Aphrodisiac, brat/brat tamer

Stalker Yunho with San x afab reader (requested by @sousydive )

Stalkers tie up reader once they had enough

Kinks: Bdsm, bondage, impact play, threesome

Dom! Yunho, Hwa, and San x afab reader (requested by: anon)

Kinks: daddy/mommy kink, impact play,  multiple partners, dacryphilia, brat/brat tamer

Rope bunny genderbent Wooyoung x dom afab reader (requested by anon)

Kinks: Shibari, orgasm control, nipple play, temperature play

Yandere Hongjoong x yandere gn Reader (requested by: @arki-sha )

Hj knows reader stalks him but reader doesnt. Reader kidnaps him when they have had enough.

Kinks: Knife kink, blood play, bondage, choking, heavy marking

D&G San dark fantasy warrior (requested by @amazing-flurryfries)

Kinks: Hate sex, blood play, powerplay

Tattoo artist hwa x customer afab reader (requested by me/inspired by @sanjoongie)

Kinks: tattoos/piercings, mirror sex, oral fixation, dumbification

Other Fluff/Kinktober pieces/lists by MAS members! (will be added as they post!!)

@ghxstwrites - Flufftober & Kinktober

Flufftober: Kinktober: Huge - SMG by @kpop---scenarios Halloween Night- Lee Know by kpop---scenarios

Find my other works HERE

Taglist (continued in reblogs):

@crispybaguettes | @sugarnspice630 | @mingsolo | @isiloiale | @candypop1611 |

| @lavishloving | @thesafecafe | @meepsters-world | @mysticfire0435 | @heihaneul |

| @cloudysannie | @sanhwalvr | @plutoneu |  @sousydive | @staytinyinmybpack |

[sevarchive]

bllk headcanons! #6

sae itoshi! doing the “whisper affirmations” asmr trend

a/n: this piece was written for a ticket from the ask roulette carnival! the requester got their surprise prompt, and this was the result. to see what their emoji unlocked (or check your own entry), visit their original ticket here!

starring: sae itoshi

SAE ITOSHI is not the type of person who volunteers to be on camera. especially not whispering to strangers on the internet. so when you climb into his lap holding your mic and ask, “can we do the boyfriend affirmations trend?”

sae stares blankly at the screen. “why would i say that to strangers.”

“it’s for comfort,” you explain, already setting up the mic. “people like to hear soft words when they’re overwhelmed. you’d be good at it.”

“i’m literally not soft,” he deadpans, but you just grin and say, “you are to me.” and it’s so unfair how fast that shuts him up.

he grumbles a “fine” under his breath. “but if i sound dumb, i’m deleting it instantly.”

you set everything up: warm lights, pillows, mic on the table, and settle beside him, giddy. he sits awkwardly, arms crossed, eyes half-lidded with quiet regret.

“i’m already regretting this,” he says. “just try,” you whisper. “pretend you’re talking to me.”

he mutters something like “i always am,” but you’re too focused on hitting record to catch it properly.

you pause the recording and scoot a little closer. “okay, what would you say to me if i was having a really bad day?” sae blinks. “…i’d probably make you lie down and hand you your favorite snack.”

you tilt your head. “and what would you say?” he frowns slightly. “nothing? i’d just sit with you.”

“sometimes people need the words,” you say softly. sae stares at you for a beat, like he’s trying to get it right. “…okay. fine.”

he leans toward the mic, visibly uncomfy. “uh… if you feel like a mess, it’s fine. you’re still doing your best.” a beat. “even if you cried over something dumb.”

he shifts a little. “you’re not hard to love. just so you know.” his eyes flick to you, then away. “i mean it.”

his voice lowers, a little unsure but real. “you’re allowed to have bad days. it doesn’t make you weak.” he adds, quieter: “you’re still enough. even when you think you’re not.”

he clears his throat, like it’s too quiet in the room. “you matter. even if you don’t feel useful. or interesting. or whatever.” he looks away again. "you make things feel better just by being here.”

the video blows up in under a day. you wake up to thousands of likes and comments, your dms full of strangers going “i cried at his voice 😭” and “he doesn’t know how powerful he is.”

“why are people saying i’m comforting?” he mutters. “i literally threatened to delete it halfway through.”

“because you were perfect,” you say, tapping a comment that reads “he sounds like someone who doesn’t say much but means every word when he does.”

you peek at him, grinning. “were you thinking of me when you said all that?” he hesitates, then mutters, barely above a whisper, “…yeah. who else would it be.”

your smile turns all mushy. “i knew it.” he groans, tugging his sleeve over half his face. “stop looking at me like that,” he mumbles—but he’s blushing and smiling at the same time, and he doesn’t pull away when you lean into him.

ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤdedicated to @🍀anon

જ⁀➴ © sevarchive ✦ masterlist like/reblogs are appreciated ꣑ৎ

[boydepartment]

enhypen as things from 2014 tumblr

a/n: i am literally frothing at the mouth that 2014 tumblr is coming back. around 2016-2018 this aesthetic and mentality was my EVERYTHING. now in 2024 the mentality and aesthetic is still there just a lil more.... um flavorful for me 😋😋 but it’s okay! i also had to go on my LAPTOP to lay this out so please like this post... my ass worked hard on this- i also dont know if heeseung's aesthetic photo for his headcanons is messed up?? if it is i am so sorry

warnings- 2014 tumblr was a lil cray cray, but i worked my hardest to make sure none of the photos or themes would be triggering :) if you felt anything negative during reading these headcanons- tell me and i will add it to the warnings. but as far as i know and with my own experiences/disorder everything is pretty good and non triggering! :)

MASTERLIST

🕰️jungwon- specifically that one brand of music

okay let me elaborate: out of my league by the fitz and the tantrums

tongue tied by grouplove

electric love by børns

the really like happy yet sad songs??? he’s very like HES SO TONGUE TIED BY GROUPLOVE IM SORRY???? listen to the song that is jungwon he is that song. he is def like that summer romance who you never speak to again and it’s so sad because you loved him so much but now you’re like strangers. just wait till next summer tho, he’ll make you fall in love with him all over again. it’s bittersweet

⚰️heeseung- knee socks

okay me being out of pocket for a sec

heeseung is absolutely fucking insane and drives me nuts. and so do knee socks. any socks that go above the shin drive me fucking insane because they don’t sit properly ever, no matter the size the sock or the size i am they FALL. but i own like 4-6 pairs, because they look nice and make me feel pretty when they sit properly. heeseung drives me insane but i want to be his gf ☹️☹️

he’s def the type of guy to fix your socks too when he notices they’re shifting

🎥jay- the wallpaper quotes

like the sad ones everyone had EVERYWHERE. i was on quotev during this time around 2015?? and they were EVERYWHERE. bangchans wallpaper from 2018 core

these aesthetic quotes just remind me of jay. music is everything to him so he’s the mf to reblog this being like

“this resonates with me.”

he’s also very arctic monkeys coded but do what you will with that 😋😋HE WOULD SO POST HIS OWN WRITINGS AND AESTHETIC GUITAR PHOTOS. HES LIKE THE TUMBLR HOT GUY. imagine while he’s like super popular on tumblr ur like the actual “rockstar’s gf” aesthetic. LIKE THAT ONE FUCKING PHOTO OF THE 1975 ROBBERS MUSIC VIDEO??? I THINK IT WAS THAT ONE RIGHT??? i’m attaching it rn

💋jake- the bold lip makeup + messy photos

dayum let me get out of pocket rq again

that really specific dark aesthetic where it’s in parking lots and blurry and you can make out the dark lip makeup, bleached damaged platinum blonde hair, and the makeup is messy. everything is messy

HEUWBDJBFJAVSHDBBD that is jake :) he’s def the type of guy to be like “wait let’s take a cool photo.” then kisses you to smudge your lipstick then snaps a photo with the flash so when you’re alarmed by the flash you move and it makes the photo all cool looking bc it’s blurry.

👓sunghoon- the john green obsession

i’ve read every john green book pre 2016

i hated looking for alaska it was fucking insane. however sunghoon is like the good part about the paper towns book. like the fun road trip part. that happened right? or did i imagine that? NO IT DID. sunghoon very like curl up bbg im gonna read this book to you and make little stupid comments during it. def the type to have you in his arms while he reads, you hold the book and he has his hands over yours, softly rubbing circles.

💍sunoo- the victorias secret aesthetic

this is actually me rn sorry, all my clothes come from there pretty much. if it’s not thrifted it’s from victoria’s secret. it’s not just lingerie, they have like everything there. NONETHELESS it also screams sunoo. a lot of it is very like chic in a way and it just fits him perfectly. the black and pink colors, the small pops. it just really fits him. the aesthetic is just chefs kiss. especially since i feel like he’d be obsessed with the lotions (i own the mint chocolate lotion and wear it)

def the type of bf to come home with new body sprays for both of you. probably mixing scents too. MATCHING JACKETS AS WELL

📸riki- the electra heart album

MARINA AND THE DIAMONDS. god everything abt this album screams riki.

me relistening to this album and realizing how much it did effect me😨😨😨😨 maybe i’m just projecting now but besides the point

that album is so like riki coded let me get quotes

“I think I want your, your American tan- I think you're gonna be my biggest fan”

“The pretty lies, the ugly truth”

“All I ever wanted was the world- I can't help that I need it all”

“Rule number three, wear your heart on your cheek- But never on your sleeve, unless you wanna taste defeat”

“You're never gonna love me, so what's the use?”

“you don’t love me- big fucking deal”

"question good and question bad."

okay i’m GONNA BE WRITING A BOOK I HAVE TO STOP. he’s def the type of bf where if he hears you listening to this album he’s like “wtf…” then finds himself humming to it. he’d be like that with all your music taste too. riki with black chipped nailpolish OKAY I WILL SHUT UP ABT HIM NOW

[yoongissweetdream]

7:23pm.

-> Pairing: Bang Chan x GF!Reader

-> Request: No. This is a repost from my old account.

-> Synopsis: Reader is pleasantly surprised by Bang Chan's new surprise for her.

-> Warnings: None

-> Word Count: 301

-> Requests: Closed. I will make a post when they are open again.

Bang Chan Masterlist

©️ 2024 dancinglikebutterflywings - do not copy/modify/repost anywhere. Likes, comments & reblogs are welcomed and appreciated, thank you. 

Y/N finds Chan in his bedroom, his headphones on, a pen in his hand and focused on the computer screen in front of him. Knowing he wouldn’t hear her knocking on his doorframe, she steps into his room, dropping her overnight bag by his dresser. Moving behind him, she gently places her hand on his shoulder getting his attention.  

Taking off his headphones, he turns around and smiles seeing that it’s her. “Hi, baby,” he greets her, standing up and pulls her in for a kiss. “How was work?”  

“Tiring but okay,” she answers. “How was your day? Are you working on something new?”  

“My day was good,” he says and goes back to his computer. “I’ve been working on a new song,” he adds doing something on the computer. A soft melody starts playing from the speakers. “It’s a love song.”  

“It sounds really good, my love,” she smiles, getting immersed in the music. “Are you hoping it will be on the next album?”  

“Not this one,” he tells her, pulling her into his arms as he starts to sway around the room.   

“No?” she questions him, letting him lead her in their little dance and resting her hands on his shoulders.  

“This one is for you and only you,” he tells her, his face going slightly red.  

She looks at him shocked. “You wrote me a song?”   

He nods. “I wanted to show and let you know how much I truly love you.”  

“Baby,” she pouts feeling her bottom lips start to tremble as she’s overcome with emotion and pulls him into a hug. “I don’t know what to say.”  

“Just say that you love me too,” he smiles as he continues to sway to the music, his beautiful vocals filling the room.  

“I love you too,” she whispers. 

Bang Chan Tag List:

@staytiny2000 - @kpopmenace143 - @treehouse-mouse - @alexxavicry - @jedi-dreea -

@rainydayteacups - @tinyelfperson - @yeonjunnie - @laylasbunbunny - @skz1-4-3 -

@pinkies-things - @kayleefriedchicken - @everythingboutkpop - @oddracha - @kpopsstuffs -

@beefcakebarnes - @pinkpunkdynamite - @katsukis1wife - @armystay89

Unable to tag (properly or at all - please let me know if you do get the notification so I can change it):

@instabull - @marianxde08

If you aren't able to be tagged, this might be able to help: how to change mention (tags) settings on phone

[rc-catalog]

Are you ready to fall in love again and again? We here at rc catalog are super excited to reveal our Valentine's Day Event: 14 Days of Love! 💗

Join us for the fourteen days and put your favourite pairings/blorbos in different situations.

Please remember to follow the rules and most importantly — have fun!

Feb 1: idiots in love | blushing

Feb 2: unrequited love | cooking together

Feb 3: platonic love for friends / galentine’s day | having a bubble bath together

Feb 4: forbidden romance | making-out in secret

Feb 5: rivals to lovers | hand-holding

Feb 6: sunny vs grumpy | slow-dancing

Feb 7: only one bed | blanket-sharing

Feb 8: star-crossed lovers | hickeys

Feb 9: holiday romance | kissing in the rain

Feb 10: childhood sweethearts | “we were never just friends”

Feb 11: first love | first kiss

Feb 12: accidental confession | fake dating

Feb 13: disastrous date | candle-lit date

Feb 14: date night | valentine’s spicy night; “i never knew you had that kink”

To submit your creation, you should:

tag @rc-catalog and use the tag #rc catalog vday

mention the prompt at the beginning

add a page break if your fanfic/post is longer than 100 words

follow the submission guidelines!!

You can choose whichever prompt you want and submit it whenever, there's no need to wait for the corresponding day.

We accept any type of fanwork—fanfiction, drawings, edits, moodboards, playlists and whatever you come up with! We only ask you to tag your works properly and remain respectful.

For this event, we only accept new creations — please do not submit old works that you've already posted.

Submissions will be reblogged within a few hours/up to a day (if not — you may contact the mods), and added to a one big event-specific masterlist in the middle of February.

We hope you have fun and wish you good luck with creating your masterpieces! 🩷

[valeriianz]

hi! in the spirit of Dreamling Week, here is an updated masterlist, now with clickable links to tags to follow along with a series :) welcome to my corner of the fandom, where it's predominantly human aus!

in time, all of my fics will be transferred to Ao3, so if you're interested in that, follow along here! this list will (finally) include (some) links to fics ive tagged on in reblogs that i usually ignore... but not this time! :'D Everything here is complete unless otherwise stated: (wip)

G - T Rated:

tepid - 1.3k canon, Dream can get sleepy, too

Stay - 1.7k hurt/comfort, vague mafia vibes

the date that never ended - 1.2k humor, established relationship

You Know How That Thrills Me - 2.2k The Devil Wears Prada AU, + blog tag which includes fanart, here!

savvy? - 1.2k pirate au! Hob rescues Dream

daydream - 1.1k fake dating, UST, fitting room pining

Exit Wounds - 2.1k hurt/no comfort, infidelity, angst

call me back for more - 2k NYE, strangers to lovers, sexual tension

scratch a little itch - 5.6k neighbors, pastry chef!Dream and professor!Hob

The magic of the mistletoe - xmas fic, canon

Hob grieves over Dream - canon, vague comic spoilers, angst

Cowboy AU (snippet) - aka Charro!Dream, Mexican rodeo vibes + blog tag with lots of art and collaborators :)

spin the bottle - highschool setting, friends to lovers

Reason in the Noise - 3k+ (wip) musician!Dream, companion piece to Bolt in the Blue (but can be read as a standalone)

Retired!Dream with facial hair along with part 2! - canon(ish), domestic, light spice

The Parent Trap AU and part 2! - loosely inspired by the film.

Hob walks in on Dream dancing - musician!Hob and Dream dancing to his music. marshmallow fluff.

Personal Chef!Hob, single dad Dream - what it says on the tin, part two here! and my 'chef Hob au' tag full of art and recipes!

NYE and slightly possessive Hob - another obligatory New Years Eve fic

The Proposal AU and also a part two! - a couple silly romcom things in collaboration with valiantstarlights here's the tag for it!

Bday fic for ambarden - the night before college graduation, pining,

Road Trip - the start of an idea...

ASMR youtuber!Dream - an add on... Hob is a fan. meet cute

Hard of Hearing Dream - pining, bittersweet, friends to lovers

Spicy/NSFW fics under the cut!

M - E Rated:

Bolt in the Blue - 102k+ (wip) the epic band au, slice of life, fluff, touring. see everything related to this fic in the tag fic: bolt in the blue

skipping breakfast - 667w domestic and a lil spicy

obsession - 1.6k canon, making out on the dancefloor

Fin de siècle - 3.2k vampire hunter!Hob and vampire!Dream

parked - 1.1k canon, car sex, PDA

tease - 1.3k Dream has a vulva, Hob fingers him in a car

ushy gushy pussy Dream - and he refuses to get off Hob's cock

Mr. Gadling's Bodyguard - 11.7k The Hitman's Bodyguard AU, action, humor... second chapter does not relate to the film at all and is just smut

Savory & Sweet - 6k+ (wip) restaurant au, unhinged behavior

Let Me Down Easy - 21k photographer!Hob and model!Dream but they're exes. angst with a happy ending

never enough - 7.3k friends to lovers, love confessions, mutual pining

turn the lights off - 3.3k phone sex, side fic inspired by by the minute by issylra

kiss me properly (and pull me apart) - 4.2k Hob wears a butt plug all day (lol) inspired by this incredible art by messmonte

Dream stepping on Hob - power imbalance, PWP

Bathtub shenanigans - a bit of relaxation ;)

Hob as Sexy Santa - and Dream can't handle it

Celebrity Dream and his normie bf Hob - inspired by that 3am photo of Ferdie looking all sweaty and disheveled

One of Your Girls AU - an ask fic/prompt i sent to Gabe and she added on <3

Let Me Down Easy [deleted scene] - they get frisky the morning after

Dream can feel Hob's lewd daydreams

Bi-curious Dream - basically a summary/headcanon of what i think Dream having his bi awakening with Hob would be like. and then hardly-an-escape went and wrote a full ass fic about it. but im counting this anyway lmao

#my writing

btw i am so sorry, yes i did give up on including the word count. i just... gave up. but everything without a word count is most likely under 1.5k.

[hprecipe-recfest]

🌯Welcome to HP Recipe Rec Fest!🍰

Ingredients:

1 whole tried and tested recipe

A handful of any of your favourite Harry Potter characters

1 plot bunny (fresh)

A dash of productivity (double concentrated)

5 sprigs of inspiration

Method:

Sign up using the google form or by sending us an ask (here is an accessible log of all the pledged recipes, to avoid many multiple versions of the same dish).

Write your fic/ draw your art. Note: your fic/art must reference or include the dish matching your included recipe; this can be in passing or central to the story.

Ensure your recipe and the method is clearly identified within the fic or attached to the art - this may be at the beginning or end of your fic, or incorporated into the story/art.

Post your art or fic BY MAY 31st ensuring it has been properly tagged. This can be just to tumblr, or ao3, or both! If you would like to add it to the collection, you may do so.

Use the tag HP Recipe Rec Fest 2024 on ao3 so all recipes can be found under one tag.

Tag us on tumblr for a reblog and to have your recipe added to the ‘Masterlist Recipe Book’*

Enjoy your efforts with a cup of tea.

*NB: The Masterlist Recipe Book will be published on June 1st.

Nutritional advice:

All content warnings must be properly tagged. On tumblr posts, tag with #hprrf and #hp recipe rec fest. You should also @ us for a reblog and so we can read/view your work.

We will try to update the sign-ups as quickly as possible but there may be a short delay due to time zones and being working adults.

Chef (author) notes:

- ALL HARRY POTTER SHIPS WELCOME

- This fest follows SALS, YKINMKATO, DLDR

- We appreciate that recipes may not be of your own creation. Where a recipe has been directly lifted from a book/website, please drop a link/title. If your recipe found in a book/website has been adapted, this is not necessary.

- Ideally, fics will be between 1,000 and 10,000 words (though we don’t want to curb your enthusiasm).

- Please only write E-rated fics if you are over 18. Authors who abuse the rule will not have their works reblogged or endorsed by the fest.

- Multiple recipes and fics by the same author are welcome, but please complete your first before you submit another recipe to the google form

**I would like to give a huge shout out to @eyra and @greyeyedmonster-18 both of whom have written fics (TORFPS; Eyra and Chef’s Kiss; Grey, which is no longer on ao3) about sharing food together/recipes and cooking, and have recipes linked or have shared recipes related to them. Without their works, I wouldn’t have come up with the fest idea - thank you endlessly for sharing these with us <3 Rory**

[lvlyghost]

In the Midst of War: IV

PAIRINGS: Simon 'Ghost' Riley x F!Shadow!Reader

SUMMARY: Home is no longer where it used to be. Left with no one else you wonder who your friends and foes are.

WORD COUNT: 2.3k

TW: poorly written action lol. Fluff, hurt with so much comfort 🤭. Suggestive but no smut yet🌝. Mind the english!🐸 lmk if i missed any.

A/N: okay so this was supposed to be longer but decided to split the last part for chapter v 🐣 it'll be worth it i promise. next part is coming up sooner! as you know i do a lot of double shifts at work and December is the busiest season for me at work lol, just bear with me💖 comments, likes and reblogs are highly appreciated 🩵

Masterlist✨

"𝒆𝒗𝒆𝒓𝒚𝒃𝒐𝒅𝒚 𝒕𝒐𝒍𝒅 𝒎𝒆 𝒍𝒐𝒗𝒆 𝒘𝒂𝒔 𝒃𝒍𝒊𝒏𝒅."

It's a cold night by the time you get to the safe house in a secluded street somewhere outside Kaindorf. Ghost grunts standing next to you, one of his arms draped over your shoulders to help him keep steady or at least as much as you can help with someone his size. The mission —your first mission since Las Almas— had been successful until it wasn't. You type the code and wait until the door opens with a mechanic sound revealing a not so bad interior. The whole place is silent when you walk in, mirroring the dead of the night. No sound of cars outside not even the sound of the wind to accompany you.

"How are you doing Ghost?" You turn your face to him, he's already staring down at you, noticing the struggle that comes with trying to hold part of his weight. This is not how things should've played out. Yet there he was. A nasty bullet wound on his left shoulder and another to his leg; the latter being just a graze but still hurt like hell.

"Never been better." He growls. And you know he's trying to act nonchalantly. That's just who he is. Who you've come to know. But his injury, especially the one on his shoulder is no joke. You had tried to stop the bleeding right before digging for the bullet. The amount of pain he must've been in was as bad as yours a few weeks ago "How did we miss them?" He mutters under his breath, no doubt recalling the events.

"I don't know. But we'll find out." You lead him to the nearest couch in the corner of the living room and turning on the lamp next to him. Ghost sits down struggling to find a position where he feels comfortable enough. "Alright..." swallowing down you look him in the eyes. "I need to check your wounds again and clean them up properly, okay?"Ghost closes his eyes for a second before nodding, he's too lightheaded to do anything else or maybe it was the morphine you gave him before, he doesn't know anymore.

Trotting back to the truck you unload the duffel bags where all your weapons and medical supplies lie. Closing the door shut and locking it before returning to where the Lieutenant rests. The lamp is turned off again so you can only make the outline of everything. You stop in your tracks dropping one of the bags and shuffle nervously.

"Umm, Ghost?" He hums in acknowledgment. "I can't see anything, do you mind turning...-"

"No." His response comes fast. "I'm not wearing the bloody mask."

So he had taken it off the moment you walked out.

"Then how am I supposed to look at your wounds?" Rolling your eyes you start approaching.

He growls something unintelligible and then adds:

"Fine just don't bloody look up or...-"

"Don't worry, I've no interest in looking at your face."

But the truth was that you wanted nothing more than to see him. The real him. You had dreamed about his face. What would he look like? The small parts of Ghost that you had taken a glimpse of were not enough to make you any less curious. For all you knew was that he most likely was blond. His eyelashes are so light that you wonder if his hair is the same shade. He has soft pink lips and a strong jaw. All of him was huge. Massive. You would never say it out loud but you felt drawn to him.

"Afraid you might like what you see?"

You snort, walking towards him and kneeling in front of the couch he's sitting on. His eyes follow every move you make, never looking up in the process. You slowly peel off the bandages you had previously wrapped around his right leg.

"Does it hurt?" You ask, taking the disinfectant out as you begin to clean up his wound again.

"Not that one." For a moment you almost forget that you're not supposed to look up, but you do. You were trying to take a quick glance to his shoulder, instead laying eyes on his face.

"Shit." You bow your head down as quickly, apologizing profusely to Ghost and expecting some sort of angry reaction from him but he remains in complete silent. "I- I didn't even really see anything, forgive me Sir."

"Fucking hell." He growled. "It doesn't matter. Just don't do it again."

It was true. You barely even saw the entirety of his face. Just pale skin, light brows and a crooked nose from being broken too many times.

"Okay." You swallow hard, hands slightly shaking when your skin makes contact with his much colder one.

Ghost shifts in his seat seemingly uncomfortable with something you can't put a finger on. "Think it's time to stitch that one up." You gesture to where his shoulder should be not daring to look again. Fumbling with the needle and thread waiting for his permission. There's no verbal answer to your previous statement, only a low hum that's enough for you to stand up and silently sit on the armrest next to him, his face is turned the other way hiding himself from you. "You know you can just put it back on?"

"Where's the fun in that?"

"Yeah, right." brows lifting in surprise. "Want me to get you something for the pain?"

"Get it done, kid."

Breathing deeply you oblige.

Ghost's whole body tenses with the first sting of the needle piercing through his skin. Your eyes are fixated on your work but every now and then they travel to the back of his head. Blond hair. So you were right; and you can't fight back the grin that appears on your lips. You're marveled by something so simple as that; if only he'd let you come closer...

"I think it's my turn to cook something for you. All this time you've taken care of me."

"You don't have to. I was doing what I was told."

Blinking you tap his shoulder lightly to get his attention. Ghost merely turns so a small part of his side face shows, still not enough for you to see.

"I want to." Even if he says it was his job. Even if it didn't mean anything to him. All you needed was a way to thank him for what he had done. That was who you were. How you were taught to be. Grateful amongst adversity. "I'm a good cook I promise."

One last stitch. One more. And then you're done, and his body relaxes as you come to stand gathering the medical supplies while looking down the floor. Before you leave he reaches out, grabbing your wrist in a gentle yet firm grip. Eyes going wide.

"You can look now." His voice is low and when you turn he's put the balaclava back on. Big brown eyes staring with intensity. "Thanks for what you did back there."

You stutter when you speak, something about the way he holds you makes you forget how to form words.

"I had to. It was my job, although I failed..."

"You didn't fail." He growls. You motion at his wounds, embarrassed because you knew you could do better than that. "I'm here, aren't I?"

Your mouth hangs open, lips quivering when his words reach your ears. All this time you've tried to look calm. To appear strong when in reality everything has gone from bad to worse; it began with the loss of your former team and the people you held close and dear. People you thought would be there for you for eternity. And then all of the sudden there were none. Alone in a dirty side road to die, you guess that in the end there were no good people. Just soldiers following orders. But standing in front of a man who was always portrayed as the devil himself maybe... just maybe not all hope was lost. And not all people were bad. Much to your dismay, Ghost stands from his place on the old couch, rising in all his massive glory as he takes one firm step closer to you. Your hands threaten to let everything fall onto the floor, breath getting stuck in your throat. You're lucky. So, so goddamn lucky that he's your ally. Someone who, in these past weeks has become something you don't dare to name.

"At ease soldier." He commands in a hushed voice. And he's close. Too damn close you feel the heat radiate off of him. It makes your skin burn and hands sweat. "I'm just looking at you."

-

Ghost is terrifying when you look at him in full gear. The white skull mask a legend itself among all the military forces in the world. Hushed stories told during late nights back on base. You had never met him nor had the chance to work with him. All you knew was that. Never in a million years would you have thought you'd have to be his eyes from the distance; to be the one who guards him. Your finger caresses the trigger of your sniper rifle, ready to shoot at anyone who you deemed dangerous.

"Should've brought my own mattress." You huff, shifting your body to find a more comfortable position.

"You've been out for a few weeks. It can't be that bad." His deep voice talks right into your ear.

"My stomach was literally reattached, Lt."

A deep chuckle that doesn't last long enough can be heard.

"If you can't do it let me know. I can take you back to your room, yeah?"

"I'm having a hard time deciding if that's a good or bad thing, sir."

"The latter, Vesper."

Laughing you turn your head, maybe it's the paranoia of being back but you feel someone constantly watching you from behind.

"How's that a bad thing? Thought you liked me in my room."

You can practically hear him suck in a breath and then a muttered curse.

"Not when you're injured and nearly comatose." He grunts after a few seconds of silence.

Oh.

Oh.

"Well then's a good thing i'm here."

The mission was rather simple. Break in, gather some intel and get out. Nothing was supposed to go sideways but it did. It had started with the room where the intel was supposed to be.

"Vesper." You hear Ghost calling you. "There's civilians in here." His voice drops an octave.

"What?" A shiver runs down your spine. "They are not supposed to be there." All you hear is the sound of muffled voices. Cries for help. Ghost swearing under his breath. And then shots are fired.

Your heart races when the first couple of hostiles appear through your scope. Not being one to hesitate you aim to their heads and fire.

"Vesper sitrep." Ghost barks, his end way more chaotic than yours.

"Hostiles coming in groups. You need to get out of there asap."

"Bloody hell." It's all he says before another round of shots is fired. "Meet me at the evac point."

"I'm not leaving you behind!"

Shifting your scope to look through one of the windows you watch as a dark figure runs downstairs. Ghost is trying to make his way to the back exit when another group reaches the abandoned building. You effectively take out the first three men that jump out of the black van. Then another ominous creak of crunching leaves in the god forsaken roof of the house across, rolling on your back your turn at the exact moment a bullet is fired your way, and hitting the the ground where you previously laid prone.

Wide-eyed your face pales as recognition hits your features.

You know him. And he knows you too.

-

His big hand lifts slowly as if asking permission to touch you to which you give a small nod. Ghost is looking at a spot on your left cheek his thumb softly caressing the soft skin of your face. You don't know why but you find yourself leaning into his touch.

"How'd you get this?" An unknown look is all you give him. "There's a scratch, right 'ere." Careful not to hurt you or cause you any pain he keeps his motion.

"Must've been when we ran through the woods." You mumble. "I'm sure I didn't let any of them get me."

"Atta girl." A small pause settles when all you hear is the sound of the night outside. Crickets and the now casual passing of cars far in the distance, returning from work, oblivious to the dangers of the world. Some things they'd never heard of before, things they wouldn't witness in their lifetime. "Better me than you."

You melt at his words. Heart nearly beating out of your chest. It's like your body acts out of pure impulse. Hands —your hands— grab the sides of his neck pulling him down just enough that his forehead touches yours, and you rest there with ragged breathing fanning over his face. Closing your eyes you weigh in your options. Break the moment and tell him about the encounter with the man back in the roof, or let yourself feel him? Because truth be told this could only mean one thing. Ghost wanted to be near you in ways that were not professional at all. And hell you wanted that too from the moment you saw him. You just didn't know it.

If the things you heard were true he didn't let just anyone close to him. What was so special about you? You wanted to ask, but you feared that even if you moved, this thing would be broken and the moment would slip through your fingers.

In a quick movement you go from standing in the middle of the living room to sitting on the nearest table, you shriek as Ghost slots himself between your legs. Seemingly unfazed by what he just did you then see the corner of his eyes crinkle. He's smiling under the mask.

"You're hurt. You'll reopen the wound and..."

"I don't care, sweetheart. I've got you where I want you." A sheepish smile forms on your lips and your cheeks grow hot. "One word. Say it and I will stop."

You nod right before he lifted his mask and his lips crash down on you.

Part 5

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@fictionallifestuff

[yuriko-mukami]

Diabolik Creations Challenge for 2025

Use prompts as inspiration to bring alive your Diabolik Lovers' fan content whatever that may be. Art, fanfics, moodboards, videos, drama CD scripts, edits etc. are okay.

PROMPTS

Winter Stars

Found Family

Lips of Blood

Blood and Flowers

Obsession

Sweaty

Sunrise or Sunset

Full Moon

Taking a Bite

Intoxicated

Midnight Rapture

Sadistic Pleasure or Masochistic Bliss

RULES

Creations must be somehow related to Diabolik Lovers

Everything must be posted within the year 2025

Canon characters, DL OCs, and DL SIs are all allowed, use tags for the characters on your post

Shipping is allowed (C x C, C x OC, C x SI), use ship tags on your post

You can use all prompts or just some of them, interpret each freely as you wish

Tag me (@yuriko-mukami) if you want me to reblog your work and add it to the masterlist

If you make content not suitable for minors, remember to tag it properly

You can use the tag #diabolik creations challenge for your posts