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the-californicationist · 9 months ago

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Cali's Kinktober: Day 12

Kinktober Masterlist vi coactus - "under duress" Simon "Ghost" Riley/TF141 x f!reader Kinks > SHAME, forced orgasms, bimbo/dumbification Full tags on AO3 - MDNI - Read at your own risk.

“Under duress” — A quick exfil means limited seats in the TAC-V. Simon lets you sit on his lap, but it’s a really bumpy road. When you realize that his thigh is the perfect shape, and that it’s pressing against your most sensitive spot, there’s not much you can do to stop yourself. Might as well enjoy the ride.

Warnings: SHAME! EMBARRASSMENT! SHAME!!!!, mean teasing, slut shaming, it's not non-con but no one asks for permission; this truck is not a safe-space.

No one said a word. Once the noise of the petrol explosion and the machine guns faded from your ears, all that you could hear was the rattle and rumble of the engine of the TAC-V. The mission had been successful, but barely. You’d secured the package, but it had cost you the chopper exfil that you’d been desperately counting on. What was a quick twenty minute flight was now an eight hour drive through the bumpiest mountain road known to man, and you were sitting on Ghost’s lap for the entire trip.

The TAC-V sat two in front and three in back, so with Price and Gaz up in the driver and passenger seats, you should have been able to fit in the rear with Ghost and Soap. But, the care package was taking up your spot. As the smallest member of the squad, you were relegated to lap-status, much to your audible dismay.

“Shut your mouth and get in the truck, Corporal!” Price had shouted, spraying cover fire over the hood of the vehicle.

So, that’s where you found yourself. Mouth shut. Seat secured.

There was only one problem. Ghost’s thighs were enormous. He never skipped leg day, and when you tried to sit against his hips to distribute your weight, his gear vest was in the way. So, he’d shifted you over onto his right thigh, forcing you to straddle him, and now you could feel… everything.

Every time Price hit another bump – which was once or twice every few seconds at this point – Ghost’s rock-solid quad muscle would jerk up into your pussy, shaking your most sensitive bits. It was savage, but it was making your body respond in ways that you did not appreciate. And now, you were in the middle of fighting off the most embarrassing orgasm of your life.

You could feel how wet you were through the canvas pants you were wearing. Your panties were soaked in the first hundred kilometers, so they were useless against your slick pleasure. Soon, Ghost would be able to feel the warm stain of your cunt imprinting itself on his own trousers, and there was nothing you could do about it.

You had tried to shift away in the beginning of this trip, rotating your hips back and forth, trying to search for a less-shameful angle, but he had grumbled,

“Sit still, love. Tha’s enough squirmin’ around.”

His hand had reached out to secure your hip, pulling you down into a deep seated position, crushing your soft lips against his thigh and spreading them apart unknowingly.

You’d managed to suffer in pure silence so far, but that was becoming more and more challenging as the ride got rougher. The desire to roll your hips against him to take the edge off of the blinding friction you were experiencing was mind-numbing. You were sweaty from battle and now you were sweaty from nerve-racking lust, and there was no escape. You still had hundreds of kilometers to go, and you didn’t know what you were going to do.

Your body knew exactly what it was going to do, though. It was going to come whether you wanted to or not.

“You alright, lass? Car sick?” Johnny asked, peering over at you as your head rested against the driver’s headrest in front of you.

“Need a break, babes?” Gaz turned in his seat to check on you.

“No can do,” Price shook his head and peered at you in the rearview mirror, “Still in the red zone. We can’t stop here and expect to make it out without drawing unwanted attention.”

“Here,” Gaz reached back and unclipped your vest, “At least take this off so you can catch a breath.”

You let him slip the vest off your shoulders and stuff it in the footwell on the floor in front of him. He passed you his canteen, and you tried to open it with trembling hands.

“She’s not fuckin’ sick,” Ghost hissed, grabbing the canteen and opening it for you before lifting it to your lips so you could drink.

The rest of the truck-full of men waited to hear the rest of Ghost’s explanation. You felt heat rush to your cheeks in painful humiliation as you waited for him to reveal your predicament. You knew, now, that he could feel you. You had thought you’d gotten away with it so far, but it was too obvious. He could feel the wet, sticky patch on his quad growing with every tremulous shake of the truck, and he knew what was happening to you. You could almost hear the jeering smile on his lips when he told them,

“She needs a quick wank, innit that right, Corporal?”

You tried to keep your eyes trained on the floor, but you had to see what their faces looked like. You lifted your gaze to meet Price’s bright blue eyes in the mirror, the evidence of Ghost’s truth written all over your expression.

The silence was broken up only by the road noise. No one spoke and no one breathed. You looked to Gaz and saw his mouth open in shock, curling at the edge of his lip with a boyish glee. Soap’s brow was furrowed in disbelief,

“S’that true, bonnie?”

Ghost didn’t even give you a chance to answer him. He shoved his gloved hand under your crotch as if to feel the evidence on his hand that he was sensing on his thigh, chuckling at your sorry predicament,

“Bumpy road, been wet and warm for almost an hour. Gonna have myself a pretty little pussy stain by the time we get to base. And if I give her somethin’ to work against…”

Your lieutenant curled his fingers that he had shoved underneath you, finding your swollen clit with a surprising ease. As if he’d pushed a button, you let out an obvious moan. You cut it short, unable to hold it back from crawling out of your throat, but the damage was done.

Silence again, and then Gaz’s low voice,

“Holy fuck.”

Ghost removed his hand and settled back in his seat, keeping his grip on your hips with a steadfast strength. He was looking at you in the mirror along with Price who kept glancing up from the road. The message in Ghost’s eyes was a clear challenge; he wasn’t going to give you any more relief, and if you wanted to come on him, you’d need to figure it out yourself.

The urge to hump his solid thigh was overwhelming, and now that the cat was out of the bag, you thought it wouldn’t be possible for you to be any more ashamed, so you started to hump your pussy against him, ever so slightly, almost imperceptibly… but, Ghost couldn’t keep his mouth shut.

“See? Needy thing’s grindin’ on me. Can’t help yourself, huh, love?”

You shook your head, looking to Price for some sort of rescue, but what could he do? Your captain was driving as fast as he could out of enemy territory, and you were stuck in place, tumbling into an orgasm and suffering the pain of embarrassment in front of your whole squad.

You moaned, trying to hold your breath, but your whole body shook as you came. Your hole was so wet and burning hot, and you could feel yourself gush as you clenched your muscles around nothing, wishing you had something… someone… inside of you.

“There she is… good girl,” Ghost teased you, rubbing your back as you shuddered above him, rolling in your high.

“Did she just…” Soap gaped.

You looked up at him, and even though your eyes begged for pity, you received none from him. He met you with a filthy grin,

“Come over here with me, lass. I’ll give you somethin’ to fuckin’ sit on.”

He reached for your arm, attempting to drag you over the care package, but Ghost jerked his hand away and wrapped his arm around your belly, forcing you to lean back against him, the tools in his vest digging into your flesh,

“She’s fine where she is, Sergeant. Aren’t ya, sweetheart?”

You felt hot tears stinging the corners of your eyes, and you squeezed them shut, whispering,

“I’m s-sorry…”

“Shh, love. Nothin’ to be sorry for. Can’t be fuckin’ helped. C’mon,” he snarled in your ear, his mask smelling like his menthols and sweat, “Beg me to help you. Beg for my fingers, princess.”

“Simon,” Price warned, watching your degradation unfold behind him.

“Eyes on the bloody road, Cap,” Ghost chuckled, “Bumpy enough back here as it is.”

Gaz hadn’t stopped staring, and you watched in horror as he palmed his hard length over the rough denim of his jeans.

You felt yourself building to another crescendo, the waves of your first orgasm swelling to threaten a second, easier now that you’d let down so much silky come, allowing your pussy to slip that much faster over Simon’s huge thigh.

“Beg me, baby,” Ghost growled in your ear, “Beg me to fuckin’ touch you right here where they can all watch me make you come.”

“No…” You gasped, “I can’t… I’m not…”

“Not what? Not a dumb little slut? Oh, sweetheart. Yes, you are. You’re so fuckin’ wet it looks like you pissed yourself. I bet those pretty knickers are fuckin’ ruined, aren’t they?”

He grabbed you by the chin roughly, startling you, making your core clench tight, turned on by his cruel aggression as he almost shouted in your ear,

“Aren’t they? Tell the fuckin’ truth. Tell it to him,” Ghost’s eyes turned toward the rear view mirror and you looked up at Price, pleading with him for forgiveness in your tone. You mumbled,

“My panties… are…”

“He can’t hear you, baby.” Ghost held your face, forcing you to look at his captain in the eyes through the reflective glass.

“My panties are ruined, sir.”

“Is that so, Corporal?” Price asked in a low droll, and you saw him readjust himself in his pants before putting both fists back on the steering wheel, gripping it so tight that his knuckles turned as white as bone.

“Better see for myself, yeah?” Ghost chuckled, unbuttoning your trousers and yanking down the fly.

He reached inside and grabbed the fabric roughly in his hand and, with a strength that shocked you, he tore them right off of your body with a loud rip, breaking the elastic at the seam and slipping the scrap from under your lips and ass. He held it up for the entire truck to see, showing them how the gray cotton was stained dark from your wetness, how they gleamed in the light of the setting desert sun.

Soap reached out and snatched them from his hand, and Ghost laughed out loud, watching Johnny shove them to his nose and moan out a breath of satisfaction.

“Go on, then,” Ghost turned his attention back on you, “Beg me for it. I wanna hear you say please, sir. You got that, Corporal?”

He snaked his hand back down the front of your belly, barely touching your furry mons, resting his gloved finger just above the hood of your clit, touching you with a light, teasing pressure.

You could feel the rough canvas against your soft pussy now, and the seam was giving you something to grind against, but it was nothing like the feel of a strong finger. You chased another orgasm, but it was just out of reach. You were humping him lewdly, at this point, rocking your hips back and forth with abandon, unable to stop yourself from chasing your second, hard burst of pleasure.

You bit your lip, struggling with all your might, but you were failing to surge over that exaltant peak. You needed his help, but you didn’t want to beg for it. You couldn’t. You were too dismayed at your fallen state.

You looked at Gaz, hoping he could talk some sense into your lieutenant, but he was jerking himself off with a hand down his pants, watching you through hooded eyes. You turned your gaze to Soap who had your ripped panties in his hand and was using them to wet his own heavy cock, smearing your juices all over his ruddy head.

Ghost’s grip tightened on your jaw, and he turned your head toward his passenger window, stopping you from looking at the other men,

“They can’t help you, love. Just me. Now, use your fuckin’ words.”

“Please… touch me,” your voice was barely a whisper.

“Please, what?” He bit back.

“Please touch me, sir,” you whined, sick to your stomach at your own weakness.

“Tha’s a good girl,” he smiled.

He moved his fingers lower, shoving two of them between your lips, applying firm pressure to your clit. He didn’t even need to rub you. Your pussy started to come the moment it had his relief, and you cried out like a paid whore, keening into the hollow cab, rolling your hips against him, chasing your crashing orgasm.

Then, he started to move his hand frantically, rubbing you back and forth, dragging out your bursting come even further than you thought was possible, turning one orgasm into two, back to back, a painful overstimulation, enough to make your body convulse from his effort.

“No, no… oh, fuck!” You screamed, trying to close your legs but his thigh was in the way, and all you could do was ride him.

“Yeah, tha’s it, love. Give it to me. Come on me, you filthy fuckin’ slag. Let ‘em hear what I’m doin’ to this needy cunt.”

“Mmngh! Please… Ghost, please, oh, fuck…”

“Listen to that sound, lads,” he grunted, commenting on the wet, milking noises your cunt was making under his hand, “Runnin’ like a hot tap.”

“Hurry up, LT,” Soap barked, pulling on his cock with your panties wrapped around the hard shaft like he was furious with it, “I’ll only be so patient.”

Ghost shook his head,

“Tsch, tsch, alright, Johnny. If you insist. C’mon, baby. Keep those legs spread f’me like a good girl, yeah?”

You felt him ruck down the back of your pants and shove them onto your legs, exposing your ass to the whole truck. Then, you felt the tell-tale drag of his cockhead over your folds, and before you could even think to protest, he was shoving himself inside of you, slipping through your slick without much resistance, your wet come helping guide his length all the way up to your womb.

Once he had whet his prick down to its root in you, he used both hands to lift your hips and slam them back down, using you like a cocksleeve. He was so thick, but your body was primed and ready to take him, and you found yourself without words, only able to moan and whine as he filled you up.

Gaz reached over, leaning out of his seat to grab your face, turning you towards him so that he could kiss you. You couldn’t even kiss him back, you were so mindless, and he spent most of his time licking your lips and sucking on your tongue as you whimpered for Ghost’s heavy dick, your body jerking up and down as he slammed you onto his steel-hard length repeatedly.

“Does he feel good, babes?” Gaz asked you, sticking two of his fingers into your mouth and down your throat, making you choke on him until you started to instinctively suck and swallow against him, “Tha’s it. Pretty thing just needed somethin’ in her mouth, didn’t she?”

Every time you choked from Gaz’s hand in your throat, you clenched around Ghost’s cock, and he begged his sergeant for more,

“Choke her again, Garrick. Makes her so fuckin’ tight.”

Gaz laughed, full of mischief, and reached up with his other hand to pinch your nose. Then, inside of your mouth, he pressed his fingers in a downward motion over and over and over, making it feel like he was fucking your face with a throbbing dick, too big for you to breathe. You gagged, and then, when you tried to take a breath, you gagged again, your whole body spasming, fighting for air. You could only suck in short breaths when you opened your mouth wider, and Gaz held the relief of those moments from you for as long as he could.

Finally, Ghost wrapped both of his hands around your torso and ripped you away from Gaz’s cruel hand, laying you against his chest and fucking his cock up into you from below, creating loud, pornographic slapping sounds that filled the truck.

“Fuck!” Ghost groaned, “Gonna make me come, love. Say please, baby. C’mon. You can do it. Say it.”

“Dinnae think she’s still with us, LT. Fucked her brains right out of her head,” Soap chuckled.

“She can do it,” Ghost insisted, “C’mon, sweetheart. You’re not gettin’ my come until I hear you beg for it.”

You looked at his eyes in the mirror again, not recognizing yourself in such a mindless state of indulgence, drowning in pleasure and losing yourself to it. He was looking at you with such an intensity, you wanted to please him. You wanted to follow his orders. You wanted to show him that you could be such a good girl.

“P-please…. Please! Ungh, please, sir… Give me your come. Please, sir… I need it. I need it. I need… mmnff-fuck!”

You felt his cock swelling, throbbing, and bursting with hot, sticky ropes of his cream, buried deep inside of your walls, coating the head of your womb as your pussy squeezed out another orgasm, milking him like a hungry mouth. He pulled out a bit only to ram himself back in, deeper this time, stretching to touch the end of your sheath, aching to plant his seed.

“Fuck, finally,” Soap grunted, reaching over the crate with both hands this time to drag you from Ghost’s lap, “Couldnae wait much longer, LT.”

You felt Ghost’s cock slip from you, spilling his come down your leg, your pants sliding down to your boots as Soap dragged you into his lap.

“There she is,” Gaz smiled, returning to his efforts and shoving his fingers back down your throat, this time shifting them back and forth, massaging your tongue as he fucked you on his hand, “Suck them for me, baby. It’ll be my turn, soon.”

“Better enjoy the easy ride while you can, Corporal,” Price sneered, “You’ve got PT in my quarters as soon as we get back to base. Might take all night.”

As Johnny’s fat dick squeezed into your come-soaked pussy, you wanted to protest. You wanted to make some snide comment back, but your usual biting retorts were unavailable at the moment. You really were blissed out of your mind, and the only thing you could do was fuck and suck like the dumb little slut that you were.

If anyone comments on this OBVIOUSLY TAGGED shame kink fic that it was "too embarrassing to read!! huehueuhe"/"i tried but i couldnt do it. too cringe!", I'm gonna come to your house and shit in your shoes, you coward. Get the fuck off my page.

#cali’s kinktober #kinktober 2024 #cod kinktober #call of duty kinktober #graviora manent #by the californicationist #x female reader #x fem!reader #tf141 #captain john price #captain price x reader #kyle gaz garrick #gaz x reader #johnny soap mactavish #soap x reader #simon ghost riley #ghost x reader

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reiderwriter · 1 year ago

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Unfair We're Not Somewhere

Chapter Eight of I Can't Help Myself

Summary: With a little bit of help from someone who could relate a little bit too closely to your situation, Y/N tries to come clean. Tries.

Warnings: Mentions of pregnancy symptoms/ general pregnancy things, unsub mentions, plot.

A/N: Chapter Eight! I'm so excited for where the rest of this series is going to go, though I do feel like people are going to be a bit annoyed by this one lmao. Let me know your thoughts in the comments below or in an ask! Don't be too mad...

Masterlist || Add yourself to the tag list

You sat quietly in the clinic as you waited for the pharmacist to fill your prescription - a simple pregnancy multivitamin that was supposed to help your food go down, make your hair shinier, and fix all your problems.

You wondered if the bottle could tell Spencer you were pregnant. You wondered if it could make him magically okay with that and prepare him for fatherhood, too.

Your phone buzzed, and you surfaced from the field of thoughts you'd been lost in as you checked it.

“Outside,” an unknown number had sent. You took that as your queue, stood up, and left the clinic, trying your best to avoid looking back at the small boy Spencer had been playing with.

You weren't sure if you were going to have a boy or a girl yet. You didn't mind either, though you'd always envisioned yourself with a big enough family that you assumed at least one of each was inevitable. Though even you had to admit how stereotypically nuclear that was, and how only 18% of the country was living that was lying anyway.

You shoved psychology from your head for a few minutes and let yourself breathe.

“Y/N!” JJ signalled from the driver's side of her still running SUV. She waved slightly, and you smiled politely as you quickly paced around to the side of her vehicle and got in.

“Hi,” you said, unsure if you should introduce yourself or not. She'd been in the office the day you'd been taken into custody (protection), but you still had yet to speak to her. She'd been exempt from protective duty so far due to her status as a senior field agent and the fact that she had two kids and a husband at home waiting for her.

You were sad she was the anomaly in the BAU, the only one with someone waiting on her.

“I'm Y/N,” you said, still unsure if you should hold out a hand or not. You hadn't made the best impression on most of Spencer's colleagues, and while you didn't think there was much point in trying, you still couldn't bring yourself to be intentionally blasé.

“I know, you're all we've been talking about for weeks,” the woman laughed, pulling out of the clinic car park and smiling at you.

“Oh, right. Case. Of course, I've heard you probably know more about me than I know about myself.”

“We have a profile, sure, but that's not what I meant.”

You nodded awkwardly and stared out the window for a second, the sky darkening slightly as it prepared to rain.

You drove for a few minutes before JJ spoke up again.

“I don't know if Emily told you, but it's actually my day off today,” she said, turning off into a cul-de-sac you'd never seen before.

“Oh, oh my god, I'm so sorry. I could've just got a taxi or something or just… gotten over myself. You didn't have to-”

“Yes, I did,” she looked at you for a second, cocking her head to the side in a gesture that said, ‘and you know why.’ It was a look only a friend would give, and you felt an instant connection with her.

How had Spencer found so many wonderful, big-hearted women to surround himself with, and how could you get in on it?

You supposed, by letting him get you pregnant, you'd probably found a cheat code for whatever the answer might have been.

“Anyway, it's my day off, so I promised my boys a fun day at home with mommy. We're doing finger painting and macaroni art. I hope you don't mind getting messy.”

“Wha-? Me? Oh. No, not at all,” you tried to seem nonchalant, but your heart suddenly beat faster now that you were faced with this unexpected opportunity. As a lecturer, you'd been surrounded by kids professionally for years now. 18 to 21 year old kids. The kind that already had defined morals, world views, and, secretly, alcohol tolerances. The last time you'd encountered any kind of child younger than 18 was when you yourself were under 18.

The joys of toiling away at a doctorate for the better half of your adult life. You knew how to talk to professors and scholars. You were absolutely scared shitless of interacting with a kid.

“H-How old are they?” You asked, trying to sound polite but falling somewhere between anxious and terrified with a simple stutter.

“Well, Henry is turning 8 in November, and Michael is just about 22 months. He's just about talking, which is as fun as you can expect.”

Her voice was tired, but there was genuine affection there, love for her kids and pride. You wondered if your voice would change if you'd suddenly begin speaking like that, too, about something other than a paper submitted to a journal or a job opportunity.

She pulled into a street parking space and turned off the engine as two bright haired little boys came bouncing up the path of their garden to greet her, stopping at the gate.

“Mommy! Michael got glitter on the carpet, and Daddy said we shouldn't tell you.”

“And you have no sense of loyalty when a pretty face comes around, do you?”

Hopping out of the car, you heard JJ's husband drawl as she greeted him with a kiss. She'd probably only taken half an hour to pick you up, but they were still greeting each other so warmly. For a second, you wondered what that would be like before you remembered throwing yourself into Spencer's arms the night before. Your face heated as you stood awkwardly at the side of the car, trying not to cradle your stomach as you watched the family interact.

Would your baby ever get that tall? Would it have brown eyes like Spencer, or one's more similar to your own? His hair was curly. Maybe your baby would get hair that waved like his, too.

After all, JJ's kids seemed like perfect compromises between her and her husband. Other people's kids didn't, though. You wondered a lot of things before JJ gestured you over again.

“Henry, Michael, this is Aunt Y/N. She's going to do those crafts with us today - after we've locked away the glitter and thrown away the key.”

You laughed as she wrapped an arm around your shoulder and pushed you forward into the chaos of two kids under ten.

You were a little startled as the smaller one - Michael - grabbed your hand. He had a pacifier in his mouth, though he was probably outgrowing it, and he stared up at you with big, wide eyes, blinking and sizing you up as he toddled along beside you.

Your heart grew three sizes, and you felt sorry for ever being afraid of interacting with the kids.

JJ whispered to her husband quickly as you entered the LaMontagne household, and he greeted you quickly.

“So you're Spencer's lady friend. It's nice to meet you. It's nice that you're real. Honestly, I was getting a little-”

A look from JJ cut him off, though he did still seem a bit confused.

“I'm sorry, am I under the wrong impression? JJ said you were pregnant with Spencer's baby, y'all aren't…”

“Oh my god-” you whispered, suddenly panicking again but whispering just in case. You weren't sure if the pair was religious, and though you certainly weren't, it probably wasn't the best time to blaspheme. You needed as much god as existed in the world.

“So, does everyone know?” You asked JJ, trying to keep your voice bright and calm, so Michael didn't take too much of an interest and grow frustrated by hushed tones. You knew enough about child development and psychology, it translated over, right?

“Everyone who's observant. Luke noticed the pregnancy vitamins in your bag, Tara was talking about your mood swings in the office the other day. I guess you told Emily earlier, and I have two kids.”

You nodded at the answer.

“And Spencer?”

“You haven't told him yet?” JJ asked, slightly surprised.

“If I told him, you'd know.”

“Well, you're right on that. He's not the most easy-going during pregnancy,” JJ laughed and steered you into the living space, where your de facto art studio had been set up for the day, along with the offending glitter bomb.

��Really? You thought you could keep that a secret?”

“Well, of anyone was going to find it, it was going to be my beautiful, smart, funny, profiler Wife,” Will said, giving her a small peck on the cheek as she rolled her eyes at him. “I'm clocking in now. Call me if you need anything.”

You waved him off, and sat down with the kids.

JJ started the craft and then planned your hasty escape as the two boys were enraptured by making the perfect macaroni necklace, dusting it in objectively too much glitter as they proudly created their art.

In the kitchen, she handed you a mug, and you sipped it quietly as she began again.

“So, you're not dating?”

“Nope.”

“And he doesn't know you're pregnant?”

“No.” You took another sip and shifted from one foot to the other.

You knew what was coming next. It was what you'd gotten next from Emily, from Penelope, from yourself when you'd thought about it for longer than ten seconds. You needed to tell him.

“Okay. What's your next move?”

You were so shocked you almost splashed the hot tea over the mug you held, close to burning yourself as you turned to face her.

“I… what?”

“Well, what's your next move? You're what, five months along? You're not going to be able to hide it for much longer. And you have to think about maternity leave, your hospital stay, and names, and who's going to drive you to the hospital. And obviously, how you're going to pay the hospital fee, and then custody and child support.”

“Oh god…”

“And you also have to sort your relationship out with Spencer. So where are you starting?”

It wasn't a question that didn't have an answer. JJ was staring at you, waiting for one as you opened and closed your mouth, head suddenly so empty you almost forgot what you were talking about.

“He doesn't like me,” you suddenly blurted and wished you hadn't, face crumpling as you physically cringed at your own words.

“Y/N, he was telling us about your toothbrush yesterday. Part of the office has a theory that he made up this case as a reason to get closer to you.”

Again, you felt the heat blossom on tour skin as you looked away, taking another sip.

“We don't do anything but argue.”

“You do at least one other thing,” JJ said, hands on her hips as she confronted you.

“No, that doesn't count. We were still arguing while we were doing…that.”

“TMI,” she groaned as you fanned yourself. “Y/N, I know for a fact that Spencer is at least half in love with you. If you're absolutely sure you don't feel the same way, you need to at least let him down easy.”

“I…. I don't know. He's infuriating sometimes, but then he's so smart and annoying. But he's pretty great at comforting me. And the, uh, the other stuff, that was good, too.”

“Don't need to-”

“Like really good. Like, I'm not surprised I ended up pregnant practically first time good-”

“Back on topic, please!” JJ whisper shouted, throwing her hands up as you zipped your mouth shut.

“You like him,” she said.

You sighed and finally gave in.

“Yeah. Yeah, I like him.”

“Great. What next?”

“Next, I tell him I'm pregnant and make him hate me for a while.”

She patted you on the back and poised you another mug of tea before leading you back over to the kids and sitting beside them at the table.

“We can plan something later. For now, macaroni art is calling.”

You weren't sure if it was the stern, practical pep-talk from JJ or the little tiny grasp of your hand from Michael. Maybe it was even Henry's goodbye of ‘see you soon, Auntie Y/N’ that had you suddenly invigorated, but you suddenly kicked yourself into gear.

The pregnancy wasn't going to put itself on pause while you worked up the courage to tell Spencer about it. You had to do it.

JJ dropped you off at home at 6 p.m., knowing that Spencer would be back at the apartment shortly.

“You're sure you don't need me to stay up there with you? The commute can get a bit long this time of night, Spencer could be anywhere between 15 and 45 minutes.”

“No, I think… I think I need some time to think about how I'm going to do this. I need some alone time.”

She nodded quietly and sent you off after calling Spencer and giving him an update on your whereabouts.

You paced the apartment wondering what the best option was.

You could go for the bookshelf again, though it was still organised into your first message. You'd not moved a book in that stack at all, and surprisingly, neither had Spencer.

Running into your room, you grabbed the pair of baby shoes you'd thrown into your bag from your apartment. Maybe if you left them on the shelf next to the books…?

You put them there and frowned, wondering if he'd be able to see them from the door when he walked in. He was so used to the surroundings of his house that he really didn't check for irregularities.

You moved them to the coffee table. Then you wondered if you should just hand them to him when he walked in.

“Spencer. I am..pregnant,” you practised, looking into the bathroom mirror as you tried to force a smile.

“Spencer. We're pregnant. No, not a chance,” you sighed.

“Spencer, I have a parasite growing in me. I've had it for five months now, and then I'll have it for another four and hopefully a long time after that as well.”

That one was mostly a joke. Mostly.

“Spencer, I… We're going to have a baby.” You looked down at your bump again and decided that was probably your best option. It wasn't a state. It wasn't a condition or a parasite. It was a baby.

You rubbed your stomach again and looked up, wiping away tears from the corner of your eye as you composed yourself again.

The doorbell rang, and your heart race picked up. It was time. Spencer was home, and you were going to tell him.

Suddenly, you were filled with excitement, with happiness. You ran to the door, stepping on the sofa to get there quicker as you ran to pull it open.

Maybe it was the pregnancy brain fog, but you forgot where you were.

Spencer Reid lived in this apartment. He didn't need to knock on the door or ring the doorbell. He'd never done it before. But you'd already swung the door open quickly, and you were so relaxed and ready for it to be him that when a hand extended and covered your mouth with a cloth, thick with a scent that had your body protesting, you could do nothing but crumple to the floor with your hands cradling yourself, protecting the life growing within you.

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startheskelaton · 7 months ago

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I'm curious how becoming a parent/mentor on Cybertron works. Do the ones that want sparklings just go pick a random one from the ground? Is there like a process they need to go through first?

So first off, this post goes into some information on protoform nurseries. However I’ll delve into this further!

Where you are born determines who and what you are. For example, I image the Seekers as being a noble family in a way, as they have their own nursery that creates bots that are able to fly in vehicle mode (a very coveted ability). Also having red eyes, as that indicates a particular powerful spark. So those sparkings are given to Seekers in need of a disciple or ward, helping to sustain the Seekers high status.

With middle class nurseries, I image it’s more of a fill out a form and get assigned a sparkling kind of thing. Middle class transformers don’t really have to take in Sparklings, as any that are not found homes are given to academies to grow and learn a skill, be it as officers, builders, teachers stuff like that. They can be cars, motorcycles, trains, and even boats

Miner Sparklings are born in the mines, no surprise there. All are checked and given batch numbers as names, only some are given more traditional names by caretakers. They enjoy a small time of peace before being put to work in the mines when it’s deemed they can fallow directions. Miners are mostly working vehicles/ heavy duty vehicles, loading trucks, even mining equipment is common.

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quickinsureindia · 5 months ago

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lillaydee · 13 days ago

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I'm Right Here Part 15

BFF!Joel Miller / F Reader

Sometimes the person we've been looking for has been right there all along.

@copperhalfcent, @demonsasss, @bergamote-catsandbooks, @peelieblue @liciafonseca @ultra-nina-bella @joelmillerpascal @kirsteng42 @heartpatch @capnjaket @formulafun, @avidreadee123 @missladym1981 @titlee78 @joelalorian

Let me know if you want to be tagged or removed from the tag list

WARNINGS: BFF Joel Miller, Protective Joel (The Last of Us), Joel is Bad at Feelings (The Last of Us), Good Parent Joel (The Last of Us), Angst, Love Triangles, Miscommunication, Past Child Abuse, Alternate Universe - No Cordyceps Outbreak (The Last of Us), Joel Needs a Hug (The Last of Us), Joel is a Clueless Idiot, Jealousy, Minor Character Death, Implied/Referenced/Supposed Sexual Assault, SEXUAL ASSAULT, SELF HARM, Joel has PTSD, Murder, Child Murder.

SERIES MASTER LIST

Part 14

You looked behind you, looking for the Agent this man was referring to. There was no one. Instead, Mike froze next to you. You could feel the nervous energy flow out of him.

“Mike?”

He didn’t answer you. Didn’t look at you. He simply left your side and joined the man, going with him into the house. You stood there like a statue, your eyes following him.

What the fuck was going on?

Joel came back to you, having noticed the awkward situation between you and Mike.

“You okay?” he asked. “Where did Mike go?”

You didn’t answer. You had no idea what to say, if you’re being honest. You were so confused.

Why would he tell you his name was Michael Parks, a temporary art teacher from Sarah’s school, but answer to Agent Pike?

“Hey, Joel, Ms Stevens,” his buddy, whose name kept escaping you, came to join he two of you. He looked at you, “Don’t freak out, but I just overheard someone say that the injured guy, the one who broke in, fell through the rotten floor trying to get something. Something the feds have been looking for, something that apparently got stolen from some rich guy’s collection a few years back. They found him clutching to it. Word was, even gravely injured, the man was fighting unconsciousness to stop people taking it off his hands.”

“Some rich guy’s collection?” Joel asked, confused.

“I don’t know man, that’s what they said.”

Mike walked out of the front door, carrying something long in his hands, a largish scroll? It seemed to be in a tubular something, wrapped up in so much plastic it lost its shape. He went straight over to one of the official looking SUVs, placing the item in a box in the trunk, closing it. Someone wearing an FBI jacket handed him the keys to the vehicle and he climbed right into the driver’s seat, his eyes meeting yours for a moment, guilt-riddled, before closing the door and driving off.

A creeping sensation crawled up your spine as your mind began to decipher what this all meant.

You had no idea who he was, did you? You went out on a date with someone whose actual name you didn’t know. Spent hours with him next to your bed after knowing him less than a day, let him into your house, almost kissed him, even felt hurt when he didn’t kiss you.

To say you were embarrassed was an understatement.

You were horrified. Terrified, in fact, at what could have happened.

And this house? Fuck this. You’re washing your hands off.

You called Esther’s lawyer, told her to come over and deal with this, before going to Joel’s truck, silently waiting for him to take you home.

Once he got into the truck, you started tearing up, looking out the window, silently letting the tears fall so that Joel wouldn’t notice. You didn’t even know why you were crying, but you needed to cry. As if realizing you didn’t wish to talk, Joel didn’t ask you any questions all the way to your driveway.

You couldn’t even thank him for the ride when you got there, just squeezed his hand and bolted inside, locking the door, checking and double checking that the rest of the house was locked up, even going so far as to jam chairs under the door knobs just to be sure. You sat on the couch with a cleaver in your hands, worried for whatever and whomever might come, unable to sleep a wink all the way until morning. You didn’t know if you were in danger, or even what or whom you may be in danger from, but that cleaver made you feel safer.

You sat on the couch, eyes roving all over the living room, ears pricked alert and head swivelling every time the wind blew. You decided between panicking that you were going to surrender the inheritance, leave it all behind and fly back to Bangkok at the first opportunity. You hated your aunt anyway, and that house was full of bad memories for you, so why the fuck were you gagging to come back and deal with Esther’s final revenge for you for whatever it was you did to her that made her hate you so much? You didn’t need the money.

This was not worth it. None of this was worth it. This house was the reason you were in this stupid predicament you were in in the first place. If you hadn’t come back to deal with this house, you wouldn’t have found out about Joel and his increasingly invasive wife Annie. And you wouldn’t have met Mike. Who was Agent Pike, apparently. And you wouldn’t have broken your fucking shoulder. And you wouldn’t have felt like this.

The longer you sat there the farther your mind took you down a winding road. Okay, Mike was an Agent. Obviously. The man called him Agent Pike. And he left in a government issued vehicle. The man just handed him the key, like he knew this Agent Pike all along. So, FBI, right? There were men in FBI jackets all over the place. Was he undercover? For what? Whatever they were looking for was found in the house. Did he know about it all along? Was the house the reason he befriended you? The whatever it was Carl was looking for? Did he arrange the fucking meet cute? Oh God, he did, didn’t he? He arranged for the truck to almost hit you? Did he set Ellie off to the streets to bait you? Was Ellie an FBI cat?

Shit, Sarah was FBI too, wasn’t she? They train agents that young?

Was Joel FBI too? Annie? Was that why the whole marriage was weird? Was Sarah even their daughter?

Fuck. You were spiralling.

Before you knew it you were jolted awake by the doorbell, the lights still on, the curtains closed, bright daylight streaming in through the cracks in between them. You opened the door to an excited Sarah, all dressed up and ready to go for your lunch date with her.

There was a huge part of you that wanted to cancel. You simply didn’t have the energy for this, you hardly slept, you were still reeling about the mystery that was Mike, or Agent Pike, or whoever the fuck he was.

But, the disappointed face that greeted you upon seeing the state you were in made you feel bad. “Are you sick? Should we not go?” she asked, clearly crestfallen.

She didn’t do anything wrong. She wasn’t involved in this whole travesty, you knew that, even if your panicking mind made her out to be a young FBI in training. Plus, if you were leaving earlier, which was your newly laid plan, you wanted to at least spend some time with her before you leave. And the last thing you wanted to do was leave with her thinking of you as flaky Auntie Daze who cancelled on an innocent girl just because the man she had deluded herself into thinking was interested in her turned out to be a super-secret spy who was clearly out to get her.

So you told her you needed 15 minutes and got ready in record time for your date with her.

It turned out to be a great little date, one that was enough to get your mind off the whole Agent Pike thing. Sarah dragged you through the mall, going from one shop to another, even managed to get you to try something new at this very hip, very new fast food restaurant that you had never heard of. The girl was a joy to be around, just mature enough to not make you feel like you were babysitting, but just a teenager enough to somehow trick you into buying her a shockingly expensive slab of chocolates that was the ‘in’ thing to eat now, apparently.

She had booked tickets for a movie for the two of you, buying the biggest bucket of popcorn to go with it. Her Dad told her you always buy less food than needed, she said, so she got the biggest one so you’d have enough popcorn to snack on.

“What movie are we watching?” you asked, preparing yourself to sit through whatever popular teen stuff that was in at that point, internally cringing at the thought of it. And of course, you were wrong. She had booked tickets to some sappy romantic period drama thing, not even a comedy, apparently, the people walking into the theatre all obviously paired up and in love, making the older lady and teenage girl combo that you were stand out.

“Oh, I need to go to the bathroom,” she said, passing you the popcorn and drinks and told you she would meet you inside, running off before you could even say anything.

You went inside, only then finding out that she had booked the theatre called ‘The Bed’. Instead of seats, there were double beds, complete with comfy looking pillows and duvets. The couples surrounding your ‘bed’ were already making themselves comfy, all cozying up to one another, clearly looking forward to the lights being switched off. Oh well, might as well make yourself comfy too, you thought, placing the snacks on the ‘nightstand’, fluffing the already fluffed pillows and cushions before lying down, pulling the blanket over your middle.

“Daze?”

You shot up, looking at the source of the super familiar voice.

Joel was standing on the empty side of the bed, holding some snacks, looking so confused.

“What are you doing in our seat?” he asked.

“What are you talking about? This is our seats,” you asked him right back.

“Who’s our?”

“Me and Sarah, she went to the bathroom. She said she’d meet me here,” you told him.

He sighed, placing the snacks on the ‘nightstand’ closest to him and taking his phone out, shaking his head, looking a bit… angry? Disappointed?

“What’s going on?” you asked, standing up, taking your own phone out to call Sarah.

“This was supposed to be my seats, with Annie. She went to the bathroom. She said she’d meet me here,” he parroted, his face darkened, even in the dim lighting. “She’s not picking up.”

You called Sarah, who wasn’t picking up either.

You walked out of the theatre as fast as your legs would take you, eyes looking around for the teenager. Joel followed, clearly looking for his wife. “There,” he pointed to the entrance, and sure enough, mother and daughter were just leaving, giggling with each other.

“Sarah!” you called out. The two of them stopped, looking around, their cheeky faces turned when they saw the looks on your and Joel’s faces.

“What do you think you’re doing?”

Sarah looked at her Mom, eyes pleading for help, shaken at how angry you looked.

“Hey, don’t yell at her, she didn’t do anything wrong. It was my idea,” Annie defended, pulling Sarah behind her.

“And what exactly is this idea of yours?” Joel asked, not looking very pleased himself.

“You two needed to be alone, catch up, I told you that. And you kept refusing. I had to do this,” she said, looking exhausted, as if it was the only explanation that was available, as if you should have known that was going to be her answer.

“You expect me to lie in bed with your husband, watching a romantic period movie?” you asked, unable to believe what you had just heard.

She splayed her hands out, shrugging, as if what she had suggested wasn’t the most ridiculous thing you had ever heard.

“What were you thinking?” Joel snapped, looking so angry you actually found yourself feeling rejected.

“Joel…” Annie tried.

“I told you, Annie, stop this. We’re married, end of,” he sternly said.

“Dad…”

“Not one word out of you young lady,” Joel stopped her, hand out in warning, finger pointed at her.

“Joel, if you’d just…” Annie tried once more.

“Stop, this is the most idiotic thing, you can’t force me to do this!” he raised his voice, causing some of the people going by to stop and look.

You could feel yourself feeling smaller and smaller every single time he spoke. You were done.

You left.

You sat in your Uber willing yourself not to cry. You didn’t even know which feeling you were supposed to feel first. Anger at Annie and Sarah’s brazen plot to have you and Joel lie next to each other through a romantic movie on a plush bed in a darkened room or hurt at how angry Joel was at the prospect of having to do exactly that with you.

It’s all so fucking embarrassing. Why the hell would Annie and Sarah do this? Was it that obvious? Did you look that desperate for male company? Daisy must be so fucking hard up, all alone all the way in Bangkok, no men around to keep her bed warm, so let’s pimp Joel out to her? What the fuck were they thinking? Who does that? Who pushes their husband and father to go on dates with their childhood crush? And the most embarrassing part? Even Joel didn’t want to do this. Even he looked reluctant. Guilty. Forced. Angry. Disgusted, even.

To make matters worse, your phone started buzzing endlessly. You thought it was Joel or Sarah, but nope. It was Mike. Oh, sorry, Agent Pike. Text after text after text, all of which you didn’t bother to read. Then the calls, one after another, the phone dinging with voicemail notifications in between.

Fuck this. Fuck all of this.

You slammed the door behind you once you got to the rental, going straight upstairs to pack. You can just stay at the airport until the first flight to Bangkok became available. You’ll handle everything else online. You could sign whatever waiver for the house away online. You could ask for a referral to a doctor in Bangkok for your shoulder online. You could pay whatever fee online. You didn’t need to be here, this was a stupid mistake. Surely you can do that these days, right? You’d hit your limit. You were done. Just… done.

“Daisy,” Annie’s voice called out from your bedroom door. “Where are you going?”

“Home,” you answered, not looking at her, going to the closet to take out more of your clothes to toss into the suitcase.

“Please don’t do this,” she pleaded, following you downstairs and you whizzed past her to go to the laundry room to get more of your clothes. “Please, I’m begging you, don’t leave Joel like this. Don’t do this to him.”

That’s it. You no longer had any patience for this woman.

“What the FUCK are you talking about Annie? Don’t leave Joel like what? Don’t do what to Joel? Why the fuck would a married man, YOUR married man, factor into my decision to leave? WHY ON EARTH are you trying to push me into YOUR husband’s arms? What kind of twisted game are you playing here lady?” you screamed into her face.

She stood there, shocked at your outburst, her face gone rigid.

“I don’t know what mysterious, deranged thing you’ve got going on in your marriage, but I can tell you this right now. Whatever twisted fantasy you’ve got going on in your head, I am not interested to be a part of it, at all. This is sick, this is crazy. That’s your husband. YOUR husband! Do I seem like some kind of floozy who wants to fuck someone’s husband, Annie? Am I that desperate for a man’s attention that you think I could only be cured by joining in whatever kink or fetish you may have? I am so done with you trying to get me and Joel together, telling me what he likes, what habits he had, sending him to check in on me, do errands for me, pushing me into spending time with him, all the while bragging what a good husband he is to my face! You won, Annie! He’s yours, and by the looks of it, he wasn’t too happy with your pushy behaviour either. So count me out of whatever fantasy you may have in your head about me and him, go home to your perfect little family and leave me the fuck out of your marriage!”

It was as if you had pushed a button. The pleading look, the shock on her face was gone. All that was left was a stern one, her eyes sharp, her lips in a straight line, her face serious. She pulled your good hand, taking you with her as she stormed out of the rental, surprisingly strong for someone her size, dragging you with confident, big, strong strides all the way to her house. Try as you might, you couldn’t get her to let you go. She kept pulling you through the house, up the stairs and into the master bedroom, finally letting your hand go when you were sat on the double bed.

“Sit down and listen. I will tell you everything, and if you still wanted to leave, I would not stop you. Just please, listen.”

You couldn’t move, too shocked that the sweet, demure Annie had managed to hulk out like that.

She closed the bedroom door and sat next to you on the bed.

“This is my room, it’s where I sleep. Sarah sleeps next door. Joel sleeps in his room downstairs.”

You couldn’t help the frown that practically jumped off your face.

They slept in separate rooms?

Okay, no judgment. Lots of couples do that, surely? You’d read something about it, maybe? About how sleeping in separate beds actually help a couple? Keep some sort of mystery between them?

You know some couples have different bathrooms, a celebrity you liked once even admitted to living in separate houses on purpose. So, this was not weird, right?

She studied your reaction for a while before sitting fully on the bed, her legs crossed. She pulled your hand so you would do the same. When you did, she took a deep breath, as if bracing herself for what was about to happen and looked you straight in the eyes.

“What I’m about to tell you, Daisy, is only fully known to me and Joel. Sarah knows bits and pieces. She is okay with it. It’s what she has always known. She is in therapy. She’s okay, she will be okay. But no one else knows, Joel and I agreed to this together. I told him to tell you, but he refused. I need you to know this.”

Your body started to relax. There was such earnestness in her eyes, pleading, even, that you felt the need to just listen. You nodded.

She took another deep breath.

“Do you know how Joel and I met?”

You shook your head. No one did, if you recall correctly. They all told you Joel brought her home one day and announced they were married, and that she was pregnant with Sarah.

“After Jen attacked him, that second time, the night before he was planning to go to Bangkok to see you, he spiralled. He couldn’t sleep, so he took some pills to help. He overdosed, almost died.”

“Tommy found him in time, and he was placed on suicide watch, just in case,” you continued, telling her you knew this. That was just about the last thing you knew about him before you cut off contact. She nodded, confirming your story.

“I was there too. I was on suicide watch too. That’s where we met.”

You were shocked, to say the least. Someone as chirpy (albeit annoying in larger doses) as her was on suicide watch?

“I was married, before Joel. My high school sweetheart, Kyle. We married right out of high school. We were so in love, we couldn’t wait to start our lives together. We got pregnant right away, and our son, Jimmy was born not long after. I was 20. It was hard, we were both in college full time, but we made it work. When Jimmy turned five, we moved into a house we just purchased. We finally had some financial stability, we had good jobs, we were so happy, living in our little bubble, this sappy couple who was so in love with each other and our son. We were even planning on a second child.”

She took a book out of her night stand, showing you a picture she used as a book mark of a happy, smiley, young Annie and a smiling man, holding a toothy toddler. They looked like the happiest family ever. Content.

“Kyle had this friend Dan, his best friend since high school. We were all friends, us and Dan and his girlfriend Kim. They got married around the same time we did, but their lives didn’t turn out the way ours did. They fought a lot, and they got involved with some bad crowd, started depending on alcohol and drugs, although Kim sobered up the moment she found out she was pregnant with their son. He didn’t. Dan started working immediately, didn’t go to college. He had been hoping for this promotion to save their marriage, I guess, Kim was complaining a lot about his drinking and drug use, and the fact that they almost never had anything left at the end of the month to spare, so Dan thought this promotion was gonna put everything right, higher pay, all that.”

“Instead, the company hired Kyle to do the job. His life went on a downward spiral after that. Kim left him for a man with a college degree, a good job, took their son with her. Dan spiralled, missing work due to his alcoholism, and when Kim found him unconscious in his own vomit with their son crying next to him during his custodial time, she filed for sole custody, claiming he’s a danger to the child. She won.”

She stopped, taking more deep breaths, bracing herself.

“He blamed Kyle for everything going wrong in his life. Apparently they both had a crush on me in high school, but I got with Kyle instead of him. He claimed that if Kyle hadn’t gotten in the way, he would be just as successful as Kyle was. That if he had me, he wouldn’t have turned to drugs and alcohol, that he could’ve gone to college and gotten a better job, that Kyle stole his life, what he could’ve had. That day, the day he found out he lost custody of his son, he also found out Kim was engaged to the man she left him for. That they were moving overseas for her new man’s job. He was never gonna see his son again.”

She stopped talking for a while. You didn’t dare say anything.

***Warning, horrific descriptions of assault, sexual assault, murder, suicide attempt and child murder***

“That night, he got drunk, high on drugs, and brought his buddies to our house. His friends wore masks, but Dan didn’t even bother. They broke in, tied me to the bed, beat Kyle half to death and tied him to a chair. Then they…” she broke, stopping, but not crying, her eyes on her hands, which was now clasped together so hard her knuckles were white.

“They took turns with me. Made Kyle watch. Made sure he watched. He needed to understand what it’s like for him, Dan said, to watch someone else take his wife, his life, and be hopeless to help.”

Your sight blurred, your eyes filling with horrified tears. Annie was still staring at her own hands, her eyes unfeeling, dead.

“My screams and pleas woke Jimmy up. He came running into our room yelling at the men to not hurt his mommy. Dan picked him up and taunted Kyle with him, asking Kyle why he deserved to have Jimmy when his own son was taken away from him. We pleaded with him to let Jimmy go. But he just… looked at us with hatred in his eyes and broke my son’s neck. Just like that. I remember screaming so loud I was surprised no one heard me. Then, he just… tossed my son’s limp body out the second storey window like he was a doll. Took a bat and beat Kyle to death with it after. They left after that. The others, they wanted to kill me too, I saw Dan’s face, but Dan said no, that I had to live with the consequences of my choice. I chose Kyle, helped him ruin Dan’s life, and this was my punishment.”

You were positively sobbing by this point. It was one of those moments in life, the one where you thought you had it bad, only to find out that what you went through was unicorns and rainbows compared to what she went through.

She placed her hands on your lap, consoling you, and when that didn’t work, she full on hugged you, rubbing your back as she tried to get you to stop crying. “Shhh…” she coaxed, “It’s okay sweetie… I’m okay. We’re all okay…”

This wasn’t right, you thought. You should be consoling her, not the other way around.

She wasn’t crying. She didn’t even tear up. She looked calm, too calm, in your opinion. She waited as you forced yourself to stop crying, so hard that your throat started hurting from your own heaves. She didn’t speak for quite a few minutes after you stopped, as if wondering where she should restart.

“Anyway,” she finally said, “I tried to follow them, my husband and my son. I wanted to be with them. But my family, my friends back home… they came over and kept a close eye on me. I had to sell the house at a loss, got a small apartment instead, and eventually, after almost a year pretending I was doing okay, going to therapy, being the model patient, they left, back to their own lives. So I tried it again at the first opportunity I got. But, lucky me, my nosy neighbour was snooping. She saw me. Called 911. The next thing I know I was in a hospital, forced to stay. I was there for over a month. Around two weeks in, I met Joel. We got to talking. Me about Kyle and Jimmy, him about you. We didn’t talk about what happened that got us there in the first place, but talking to each other about the people we love helped. He got discharged before me, but he came to visit, helped me move back to my apartment, kept in touch. We became friends.”

“On what would have been the one year anniversary of Kyle and Jimmy’s deaths, I was ready to join them again. I prepared everything, but I needed to call Joel. I wanted to say goodbye. He had an inkling of what I was going to do, so he rushed over, and we ended up talking. That was the night we told each other of what actually happened to us, the reasons we ended up meeting in that place. We just started drinking as the stories got more and more detailed, and the next thing we knew, we woke up in bed together, naked, more hungover than we’d ever been in our lives. That was the night Sarah was conceived.”

You kept your head down, unable to look her in the eyes as she told you this.

“Daisy,” she called out, taking your hand in hers. She only spoke when your eyes met hers. “That was the only time Joel and I had sex. He was far too traumatized by Jen, and I was… you know…”

You could only nod.

“We agreed to let the past stay in the past, never to speak of that night again, but to remain friends. We were the only people who knew each other’s stories, we needed each other. Just to keep each other calm, you know? When we found out about Sarah, we thought, well, we were never going to be with anyone else, right? We were both too traumatized, too untrusting, my loves were gone, you were at the other end of the world, but Sarah deserved loving parents. A complete family. So we got married. Over time, we grew to love and respect each other, but we are just that. Husband and wife in name only, separate everything, except for Sarah. She’s our priority. But we are not married in that sense, Daisy, we are partners. We give each other what we needed. That’s all.”

“Sarah knows?” you couldn’t help but ask. This was far too weird, even if you could see the logic behind it.

“Joel used to sneak into my room just before she woke up, back when she was just old enough to go to school, old enough to remember and understand that parents usually sleep in the same room. But she caught him one day, I think she was about eight. Starting that day, we made the decision not to lie to her anymore. She was suspecting something anyway. Not about what happened to me and Joel, but that the marriage was an arrangement. We were never physical, not like her friends’ parents, not like Auntie Ollie and Uncle Will or Uncles Benny and Eric or Grandpa and Grandma. She never let on, though, kept our secrets. We’re very lucky. She’s a smart kid,” she explained, love shining through in her eyes.

You nodded slowly, trying to digest this information you had just received.

“What’s this got to do with me?” you finally asked.

“Daisy,” she began, scooting closer to you. “Ever since I met him, he had never hidden the fact that you are the love of his life. He has been in love with you since he could remember, and he has never stopped. You are all he talks about. He knew you didn’t want to hear about him, so he never tried to reach out. But Daisy, you should’ve seen his face whenever the family talks about you. Even Sarah noticed. That day you had breakfast here? Sarah and I saw a side of Joel we had never seen before. He’s so happy with you around, Daisy. I want him to always be that happy. Sarah wants him to always be that happy.”

“Annie,” you shook your head, pulling away from her. “What are you suggesting here? That I get with Joel? Annie, he’s married to you. And did you see his face just now? He doesn’t want to be with me. He’s with you. I don’t care what kind of arrangement your marriage is, but Joel Miller is not that kind of man. And I am not that kind of woman!”

“I know,” she said, “But, you see, the day we decided to get married, I asked him what would happen if you came back. He couldn’t answer. Daze, he bought another ticket after that night we got together. The weeks that followed, his mind got clearer, and he decided he wanted to be with you, really be with you. He was going to see you. He was so excited but nervous too, he was worried you would turn him away. But then we found out about Sarah. I’m so sorry Daze. He stayed because of me, because of Sarah. So I promised him that if you should return, I will leave, so he could be with you, as he should be.”

“Annie, no, that’s so wrong…”

She huffed a laugh. “You and Joel are the same. That’s what he said when I reminded him of that promise.”

“You actually made such promises with each other?” you asked, disbelief clear in your tone.

“Yeah, well, I did. He jested that if Kyle ever came back, he promises to leave me too. But you know, we laughed, and then we got married.”

“Because Joel Miller is a good man, he believes that he made a promise to love and to hold ‘til death do you part, and he intends to keep it. This is silly, Annie. Don’t get me involved in this. And don’t you dare break his heart for a stupid promise!”

“Daisy,” she pleaded, taking your hand, stopping you from leaving. “I know I’m crossing lines here, I don’t expect you to marry him, or even be with him, Daze, just… please be his friend again. Don’t leave him. He needs you. Sarah needs you.”

“What are you talking about? That’s why you are here, Annie. I will be his friend, I will be Sarah’s friend, as much as they want me to be, but it has to be on my own terms, on my own will, not because you force me to. I am an adult, Annie, and whatever good intentions you may have for Joel, myself, or Sarah, will never be achieved if you force us together like this. Think about how today looked. Were you really expecting me to lie in a bed in the dark with someone’s husband? That’s not right, Annie.”

She nodded, “I know, I’m sorry. I got a little carried away. It’s just… the man gave up a life he wanted for me. All I want is for him to be happy, Daze, and you make him happy.”

“Annie, he wouldn’t have stayed if he didn’t want to. You and Sarah make him happy. He loves you both,” you assured her. She nodded, telling you she knew, a small smile on her lips.

“Please Daze, don’t leave yet. At least stay until your birthday. Stay another week. Let us all say a proper goodbye. Don’t run like this. Not on my account. I promise I will not force Joel on you. Please.”

“Okay, but you need to promise me you wouldn’t do anything stupid. Don’t run away and leave him. Not for some stupid promise he didn’t even intend to keep. Think of Sarah, Annie. Think of your vows.”

She nodded, eyes now teary. She asked if she could have a hug, and you gladly gave her one. She held on to you tight, apologizing for her overstepping, to which you nodded, apologizing to her in turn for screaming at her. She walked you to her front door, laughing at your kinky theories, to which you could only cover your face in shame. But you parted with her as friends, and your heart felt lighter for it, leaving her front door with a smile on your face.

You suddenly stopped in your tracks, turning back to face her.

“Annie, you’re not gonna do anything drastic, are you? You’re not gonna try to join Kyle and Jimmy again?” you warily asked.

She pulled a silly face, “No, you loon, I’m over that, I have a daughter to think about, don’t worry,” she assured you.

“Okay,” you said, giving her one more hug before leaving.

She watched you leave, “I don’t have to do anything to join them, Daisy,” she softly said to herself.

You got back home to Joel sitting on your stoop. He stood up when he saw you. You turned to his house, Annie smiling at you, Sarah going inside with her after giving you a sweet, apologetic smile and wave, which you returned.

“Can we talk?” he asked, hope in his eyes.

He sat on the couch with you, asking you what Annie told you. He closed his eyes when he heard, telling you she had been going on and on about that promise since you came home.

“I’m sorry if you felt like she was forcing your hand, Daze, I told her not to. I didn’t think she would recruit Sarah to help her with her plans, who, by the way, got a stern talking to in the car on the way home,” he assured you, standing up to leave.

You got up to walk him to the door, but something Annie said came bubbling up your chest, and you couldn’t help but ask.

“Was she telling me the truth, or was she lying?”

He stopped walking, his body stiffened, taking his time before finally turning towards you, his face unreadable. “About what?” he asked, not looking you in the eye.

“Are you still in love with me?”

You could see his whole body tense up, his hands fisted, his lips trembling, his eyes wet, not looking at you still.

“I’m a married man, Daze. I am not a cheater, and I don’t want to be a cheater. So it doesn’t matter what I feel. I made my choice, I married Annie. I will keep my vows. ‘til death do us part.”

“That doesn’t answer my question.”

“What does it matter?” he asked, finally looking you in the eyes, longing and sadness in them, his tears falling down his cheeks. You walked up to him and wiped them away, just as he wiped your own off yours. The two of you stood silent, weeping for the life you could have had but missed out on. He leaned in and kissed you on your temple, taking deep stuttered breaths as he tried to get a whiff of you, wanting to commit it to memory. It took everything in you not to just burrow yourself in his arms, this knowledge that he had never stopped loving you more of a curse than a blessing.

Oh, how you wished Annie never told you. She shouldn’t have told you. You needed to leave. You couldn’t be here any longer. You should leave, despite your promise. These few seconds being this close to him was torture, a temptation, one that put you both far too close to a line neither of you wished to cross.

Pulling away from him seemed like the most difficult thing you had ever done, but you did it, opening the front door for him to leave. He wiped his face clean and left, not looking back.

For the first time since that first year you were in Bangkok, you cried yourself to sleep that night.

You were just about to browse for plane tickets with your morning coffee the next day when the doorbell rang. You ran to open the door, thinking it was Annie.

“Mike.”

He was dressed in a suit. A fucking suit. He screams FBI agent. How did you not see it before?

“Actually, it’s Marcus. Marcus Pike,” he corrected, looking uncomfortable.

You straightened up and looked him straight in the eyes. “How can I help you, Agent Pike?”

He looked crestfallen at your question. He was about to say something when you heard the slamming of a door, followed by a hysteric Sarah shouting for you.

“Auntie Daze, you need to come quick! Dad already left for work, but my Mom won’t wake up. I can’t wake her up! Please! Her body’s so cold! Auntie Daze, she’s not breathing!”

Part 16

#joel miller fanfiction #joel miller #joel miller x reader #the last of us fanfiction #joel miller x you #tlou fanfiction #BFF!Joel Miller

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speedforce-zoomies · 2 months ago

Text

I think it would be funny if all the Gotham heroes randomly experienced Tim’s “I’m just gonna fall asleep here” ailment.

Like Dick’s looking for him throughout the manner and can’t find him so he looks at the tracker that’s embedded in the funky shoelaces he gave Tim for his last birthday (Tim knows and didn’t say anything cuz Dick gets special privileges) and then the tracker leads him to his room and Tim’s fast asleep under DICK’S bed for some reason? Or in some random room that he’s completely forgotten even exists.

Cass and Steph will make a game of it and split up, Cass knows her brothers and Steph knows Tim. Cass will think back to when she last saw him and based on how he was behaving then she’ll have a list of places he might be. Steph will think about where she last saw him and put together the clues based on what he messed with or messed up in his sleep deprived state. Both usually find him, on a rafter, halfway in somebody’s laundry basket, etc but who gets there first is a toss up. There’s only been one time neither of them could find him and he refuses to tell them where he was.

The others think Duke is cheating because he can just use his ‘Ghost Vision’ to just track Tim down. Sometimes he does so just so he can join Tim and not have to deal with anyone else or so that he can prank them into thinking they’re both missing. Later someone else will find the both of them fast asleep curled up in the pantry or on random back staircase, seemingly in some kind of pattern no one can figure out.

Damian also kind of cheats because he’s trained Titus and Alfred to track him down after seeing Bruce do the same with Ace. When they find him, sometimes he draws the odd position he finds his bother in as an anatomy study. Sometimes Tim wakes up to Alfred or Titus curled up around him. Sometimes he wakes up to Damian staring really intently at his face, really close up. Tim’s just learned to accept it as Damian never explains (he’s been practicing figuring out a person’s medical status while they’re unconscious on Tim like checking vitals, etc).

Jason rarely actively seeks out Tim when Tim’s not readily available but he will just randomly stumble upon him, like one time he went to the Wayne library and found Tim out cold on the window seat, with one leg outside the window for some reason? Another time he found Tim on one of the shelves on a bookcase in Bruce’s study when he went to steal borrow something of his. It actually really freaked him out because Jason couldn’t see him behind Bruce’s desk and chair until he got closer. One time he even found him fast asleep propped up next to the entrance door.

Barbara uses the manor’s security system to her advantage when she needs to find him, she can find him easily about half the time and with some effort another 40 percent of the time and around 10 percent she gives up and sics Dick on him.

Helena rarely visits the manor but she will sometimes come home, realize Tim has broken in, and then have to figure out what random space in her apartment he’s hidden in that he should not be able to fit in at all much less comfortably enough to fall asleep in. One time Rene and Helena were working a case together and she went to grab a mug and found Tim curled up in the cabinet. Helena just shrugged and so Renee just shut the door again, not even bothering to ask.

The first time Maps found him asleep in a corner of a random hallway she freaked out thinking he was seriously injured and Bruce had to apologize for not warning her.

Darcy once found him fast asleep half way over the railing of his houseboat and she dragged him back by his collar and when it woke him up she just stared at him until he told her he wouldn’t fall asleep there again.

Harper sometimes gets permission to borrow a vehicle and then has to take out her second choice instead of her first because she found Tim asleep inside the vehicle or even on top of it.

Tim has forgiven Jean Paul but the other hero hasn’t found him asleep since he his time as interim Batman, he doesn’t bring it it up, he understands why.

Kate has found Tim asleep in the backseat of her car and she’ll snap a pic and send it to the others, the caption always ???

Bruce has Ace trained but he’s also tried to categorize Tim’s moods to see if he’ll go to certain places based off what he’s feeling - sad = staircase? Angry = sibling room? Tim learns about the data set and purposely messes it up so Bruce has to keep changing his hypotheses.

Alfred takes note of the direction Tim splits off in every time just in case he needs to find him later.

Everyone’s just kind of accepted if you live in the manor or have a room there you’re gonna find Tim fast asleep somewhere odd and if you don’t? Good chance that you’ll find him asleep somewhere you frequently are at some point or another.

Also when they go to theme parks Tim gets a buddy because of the “one time guys!” he fell asleep on a roller coaster (Robin issue 171).

Far less often, but rarely a rouge who’s pretty chill with Tim like Selena will find him asleep somewhere they’re plotting at and just ignore him til he wakes up.

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court-jobi · 9 months ago

Text

You're It For Me

Pairing: Bakugou x reader (biker!prohero reader, afab pronouns used)

Words: 4K

Rating: T+

Warnings: Pro-hero Bakugou/Pro-hero Reader, canon-typical aftermath, love confessions, light hurt/comfort, protective Bakugou is protective, bedsharing-not spicy (yet)

Summary:

Bakugou fears very little in this life- because he knows with you by his side, even fighting the worst of the worst villains is easier when you're on the other end of the line in his headset. But never one to let things go unsaid, he makes sure to cup the side of your face and tell you the greatest promise short of 'I love you' that he can before storming out for the mission: "You're it for me. Got that?" You have to swear it back every time, so he believes it. It's both a promise and a lifeline- especially when he hears the worst possible communique: that the team's lost visual of you.

A/N: my ao3 loves have encouraged this pairing to be something of a series, so maybe that's what this will become!

For my My Hero Academia Masterlist, check it out here!

Read on AO3

Beeping right into his left eardrum signals an incoming update through Bakugou’s earpiece, pinpointing the alert straight to the source over the raucous cheers of his thankful public. He’d taken on the ‘A’ grouping of villains, while you pursued ‘B’ as they made an escape from the scene. The ‘A’ punks were the ‘muscle’, but Dynamight was far stronger than any of them had anticipated.

‘Pissy extras, you weren’t worth my time’, he’d touted when his good ole buddy Cellophane wrapped em up tight in a nice, neat bow.

Bakugou might have celebrated this win a bit more with the crowd surrounding him, having caught the villain and was prepared to call it a day alongside Sero, ticking off another win tally in traditional, mega-blasty action… if not for the update coming through on his comms:

"We lost sight of Joyride- crash site at the industrial pylons at 6-5-2 and 6-5-7- Tightrope is-- confirmed; eliminated. Repeat, requesting visual of Joyride-"

Bakugou's soul drops to his gut.

There was a crash and you were missing. Sero hears the same update and looks to Bakugou gravely- knowing full well who you are to him. Not just a teammate, but more, in every way.

Turning quickly from the gathering of people, Bakugou takes a one-armed leap from the side of the building and blasts off a slight cushion to his fall, then jogs towards the incoming transport with Jeanist's interns calling out for him to report back. He doesn't listen to any word of thanks as he marches to the transport. He's fueled by pure anxiety behind masked eyes, rage bubbling hot in his breath. He listens to his radio, and prays.

"--still no sight of- wait, wait! Joyride spotted! We have visual! Status? She alive? Affirmative, she's coming up over the edge- (laughs) I can't believe it, she chucked that eight-wheeler straight into it!"

Bakugou swallows, throat tight despite the relief.

"Ok Dynamight, off to rende with Joy–?-"

"YOU HEARD ‘EM, MOVE!"

Poor intern shutting right up and driving away, Bakugou shucks off his pauldrons and vambraces against his discipline that he should really keep em on until fully off duty, but with his protective instincts still in overdrive, he knows he's producing more than enough sweat should he be caught by surprise at this point in the aftermath. He's not going to need the extra firepower where he's going.

Screeching to a slowed approach, Bakugou can't wait the extra second to allow the van to come to a complete stop before he's chucking the door open and jumping past the cordoned off emergency vehicles assisting passersby. He shouts only briefly for 'making way', and people listen to the man on a mission. Calls of thanks fall to his deaf ears- by choice, this time.

From around the corner, he turns assessing the damage surrounding the crash site below. He spots Uravity already helping, and is grateful for her expertise while still set on recovering you.

There ahead -his angel in a leather jacket trudging up the off ramp with weary steps- is the sight he thanks every god in the heavens for.

Bakugou stays his swearing out of sheer gratitude to not see copious amounts of blood draining your face; that sheen on you is just sweat as you’ve chucked your helmet off to breathe better. One look at you and it’s like no other day; you just look understandably tired and in want of a shower more than life. Your expression isn’t pained– just your usual distaste for incline treks by show of your flat, annoyed brows and mouth breathing. That look coming from a top 20 Pro Hero known for her stylish grace is funny- if only under different circumstances.

There's a crack in his voice as he shouts your callsign, but he's not ashamed of it; not with the punch of fear ripping the sound from him. He sets off in a run– straight to you.

You look up at the alarmed call. Dynamight is hurtling towards you, and you're just as relieved to see a sight for sore eyes. Seems the shock of what you just did catches up as you find renewed haste in leaving the smokey scene behind you. You pick yourself up into a jog with a delirious smile forcing its way onto your face.

In a span of a few seconds, Bakugou shoves up his protective face mask, catching your bounding self up into his arms, hugging you tight for two full, shaking breaths before pulling you into a fire-loaded, protective kiss.

Smokelines are smudged across his cheeks and burning tears lay built up at his lash line as he heaves grateful breaths in and out through his nose against your cheek. This kiss is tense, but needed. Without an ounce of regret, he keeps you painfully close. You held no less affection from him, your hands immediately grabbing for purchase on his nape, sweat-licked and all. You gasp for a breath with a laugh before he smashes his mouth across yours with tongue, messy and relieved and angry that something has scared him so bad.

Releasing your lips from his, he bumps his forehead to yours for a solemn few seconds to rein himself in.

He husks, "You good-?"

"Yeah."

"Not hurt?"

"Nah~"

"You swear."

You nod with your eyes still closed, breathing a quick answer before being given another couple hard kisses on your cheek. You're hugged tight again, swayed as he takes a couple traipsing steps with you in his arms. A heart-wrenching, gutteral sigh rasps from him, leaving you reeling as he holds you in sight of who knows how many. The fact that you're not alone in this moment is only a fleeting thought as your residual adrenaline causes you to shake- probably the reason why Bakugou is set on keeping a tight hold on you.

"I'm ok, Katsuki. M'okay-" you answer shakily, barely a whisper. You're convincing yourself under the guise of assuring him. It works, in a way.

"Thank fuck," he answers to your neck.

He’d done his part- you heard so on the coms once you found your dislodged helmet after you made a timed dismount off the bike before it careened you both off the exit ramp. It was then that you reactivated the jostled ‘live’ signal from your helmet and typed back the status code that you were alive. The mic had broken, or else you would have reported so yourself.

But the fact remains, you haven’t told anyone reporting on the scene what you’ve seen- what you’ve done. You did stop the villain’s crew from taking what they’d stolen, but you’d effectively ended anyone else’s chances of recovering the files with the demolition site you’d essentially forced them into. The valued records didn’t fall in the wrong hands, certainly, and it’s an ultimate grace that no other civilian lives were lost, but you do think about how grim the scene looks at the bottom of the ramp.

There’s no earthly way anyone could have survived that firefest. For some reason, the gravity of that fight grips you now. You’d almost joined them had you not thought hast enough.

"He's.. he's dead. Tightrope and them, the uh- runner. I hit 'em."

"Good. F’he wasn’t, I was gonna kill him myself."

You chuckle, despite the subject matter. Tired breaths still heave from you, coupled with the gentle relief of Bakugou’s supporting arms around you– bare arms you now notice are cannonless, as they set you fully down on your own.

"Oi, BACK IT UP!"

You realize there's a few reporting drones coming in at your back when Katsuki’s dominant hand lifts off of you to bat one away with a harmless smack on a lens; luckily Bakugou is already ushering you back to the van, keeping you ahead of him with a careful palm to your shoulder. He lets you lead towards shelter and a thorough once-over from the medic team for the shock. More grateful civilians cheer praises on both of you, especially your name since it was evidently shared by many as the saving agent of the day.

Unlike your chilly counterpart, you did offer a wave and a reassuring, proud grin for those onlookers, but Bakugou knows your true feelings better as you grit through your teeth,

“Oh, yes please, photos. What I’d kill for a bath right now…”

After a ride back to the agency, you start to breathe normally again. On the bus where you’re strapped up with a bp cuff monitoring your status, your care is complete with your hand in Bakugou's as he stands above you. He hovers even more after you hit the showers, dress down comfortably, and receive one of the highest compliments from your agency lead on your quick actions and limited infrastructure casualties. Finally, true ease in your tummy relaxes as you get a pass on submitting your report while in your current state until morning, and as you are given a lift back to the apartment complex-- of course, with Bakugou in tow.

It's the early morning hours when you are able to go lay down, the smallest change in the sky after the night’s darkest hour giving way to a persistent sun. It does little to threaten your desire to sleep though, with your protective boyfriend playing bodyguard keeping a hand on you at all times then offering to stay 'until you fall asleep'.

You feel the safest you have in months that morning…

When he follows your soft ask for him to see you safely upstairs, carries out his nighttime routine alongside yours, he does nothing more forward than wrap his entire body as close to you as possible. He kisses you goodnight with care and softness and just an edge of heat.

"You fucking scared me." Bakugou whispers into the quiet space you've created.

"I thought nothing scares you."

He huffs, but it's a sad, wet sound. "Tch, like hell it doesn't."

You're both quiet for a while after that, just relishing in your joint safety, touching each other to soothe the chills from within, soaking in his light presses to your forehead until he lays a kiss longer than the others–

"I love you so damn much," Bakugou rasps all in one go, "I love you."

It's the first time he's said it, outright.

You'd thought you'd scream and kick your feet if he ever got around to saying what you already believed to be true. All you want instead is to absolutely melt into his skin and sob.

"HEY-"

Bakugou called out to you at the start of all this in full, armored glory- nearly every bit of skin covered up in his winter suit while the dead of summer sun bears down. For this crazy mission, he’s been preparing all afternoon, ready to bring his all to the fight ahead.

One word and you whip around before he yanks you into speaking range. He grounds you with a hand to your shoulder keeping you still- expecting him to say ‘be careful’, maybe even an extra ‘watch for those crackhead speed demons out there’.

But with his commanding, brash voice on, you weren't sure what he'd say to you- not when he’s looking at you like that.

"You-- y'better not pull anything stupid now," he stares you down with complete earnest, choosing words carefully because he figured you might be listened to on the team’s headsets.

Yet never one to let things go unsaid, he cupped the side of your neck for the next bit-

"You're it for me. Got that?"

Your azure-blazed helmet hid most of your face, so you smiled with your eyes so he could see that you agreed. You heard him loud and clear, and got his meaning entirely.

You placed your hand in an 'i love you' sign on his chest before another call over the radio gave directions and pulled you both apart to look for the flare.

"-Got it,” you resolved while only giving him a second before you crafted a biped transitbike in record time with your quirk- "Go kick some fuckin’ ass!"

Heart zinging with motivation, you sped away- leaving Bakugou to cackle at your rare cursing and blowing his own way skyward and into his element.

Tipping your head up, you can barely find words with him looking at you like this. It’s the look from this morning all over again: a tight, straight-set scowl dead set on keeping himself from crying, hand sifted itself into your hair like you're going to be ripped from him in an instant, and soft eyes that are begging- a look you never thought you'd see from him.

You don't have it in you to tease him, or even be your trademark soft and demure to contrast his hard and offensive shell. No, you feel like doting on him when he's like this, because you know you’re the only one who sees him this way. This vulnerable, laid beside you with a weighted blanket on him to soothe his anxiety, too.

So you promise your whole existence to him instead: a genuine word without fear of an audience.

"I love you, too. You’re it for me."

You sink in and out of sleep while he holds you like this. Though gratefully, he's out like a light after the last few kisses he laid on your head when you said it back-- like his spirit could finally rest knowing you believed the same.

You keep waking up in the night unsettled by some restless instincts left over from the night before.

After twisting again and turning your neck to bleakly look at the light coming in, you heard his drowsy inhale bring out a grumbly moan,

"Go t'sleep."

'It's bright,' you say through your exhaustion, but it's evident that you're far too awake by your tone.

At this, you heave in surprise as Bakugou completely flips you onto the other side of him, tilting you with a palm until you turn the other way (towards the bathroom) and lie completely in his shadow. You check his face to see if he's upset at your waking him, but his eyes remain shut by sleep and are solely focused on blindly making sure you're completely locked in and comfortable in his arms, still.

It's thoughtful and strikes you sweetly, tucked back in his embrace again. You feel completely secure with his warmth flooding you at your back.

"Thanks."

Again, he simply whispers,

"mmm sleep f'me, 'ngel... I've gotcha."

A phone buzzes just minutes later, his. It's Kirishima- and like moth and flame they are for each other, Bakugou answers, tipping only onto his back so he’s barely moving from you. You still sleep through lightly and you hear him talking, but not each and every word fully.

Bakugou swiped up to answer the call, but didn’t deign a chipper welcome necessary.

"......hey uhhh Bakugou?"

"hmwhat."

"Are you still sleeping?"

"Yes."

"It's after 2pm, man! Thought you were dead to the world~"

"I am. Whaddya need."

"Well, just wanted to check on you man. I saw the fight last night, and I've tried calling Little Miss, too but she's not answerin’."

"Had the same night. She's 'sleep too."

"Eh, I shoulda figured. Looked like it took it out of you."

"Tch, wasn’t that hard."

Kirishima played into his mischievous lilt on his end of the line,

"mmmm sure bout that? That uh, kiss, didn't look like ‘nothing’."

...Kirishima wasn't there. How would he have known you kissed?...

Bakugou wakes a little more. "Huh."

Kirishima burrs the speaker a little on the other line. Must be from him laughing through his nose knowing Bakugou's severe dislike for that sort of attention.

"I mean, I get it. I'd probably be the same after watching my girl go down like that, but-- hate to break it to ya, but it's everywhere, Kats."

"-Whaddya mean."

Notifications have flooded his phone when he cracks open an eye to really look at it, but he opens the most recent from Kirishima, texted by the redhead’s insistence for Bakugou to take a look.

There are stills of said clip of him running up to you and kissing you– one particular shot looks gorgeously cinematic because someone with a photo-optic quirk had clearly followed him, probably from that drone he almost broke. Screenshots Kirishima has collected (proof of ‘true manliness’, he claims) all bear headlines of how this was the most unexpected hero pairing of the season: how "Joynamight" is stealing the hearts of swooning civilians everywhere- and likely the shutdown of the entire hero rumor mill surrounding the explosive hero standing at No. 5. The dating scene has allegedly erupted into chaos over the news.

Bakugou stared at the photo of him holding you. One camera turned more at his shoulders by the way he'd stepped, so in this photo, he could see you more clearly- holding on as just about any loved one would hug their better half, but so beautifully content and safe in your face- if a little emotional yourself.

A blank hum is all Bakugou offered. Soft. Seemingly disinterested if it wasn't for the proud smirk.

Kirishima snickered on the other end of the line. "You sucker."

"Yeah, yeah."

"...dytell er yet?"

"Not there... But.. couldn't not, yknow."

"aaand?"

"... Dont scream about it, mtired."

Kiri audibly gasped, then at least honored Bakugou's request for distance from the phone, whooping and hollering off speakerphone, uplifted at the news. His carrying on made even a sleep-laden Bakugou happy, even if he lay there rolling his eyes for his friend to be done.

You finally stirred beside him, turning over with a stretch and seeking him out. He quickly received you, kissing your forehead again, then tipping back to the phone. "I'll call you back later, Eij."

"--Huh? Dude I WANNA KNOW WHAT YOU SAID, WHAT HA-"

"Mmm who's that," you moaned.

Bakugou rubbed your back to rouse you the rest of the way. "Your big red dog."

You chortled at Kirishima's new moniker. "Whas’hewant."

Bakugou debated letting you stay in your bubble, but figured ripping the bandaid might be best.

"Just called to give us a head's up."

You looked up to him, "About what?"

Bakugou only smirked, tilting his phone to you. To focus on the light, you woke up fully, eyes widening to just how bad they did -indeed- immortalize your private moment on the scene.Those grimey, windswept headshots you’d feared at the medtend were the least of your photogenic worries now.

But-- like his own reaction-- you couldn't keep from smiling.

"Ohhhh~" you sighed, then deeper, "Ohhhhh we are in deep shit."

Bakugou snuggled in– smug as all getout, "Yeah, we are."

"Wait, lemme see-- oh my God, Kats... Oh Katsuki, this-.."

"Yeah yeah, give it back-"

"Nooo I need that one! Send it to me!"

"It's likely blown yours up too, dummy! Get your own!"

Memory of your reentry home failed you, so you had to ask him where your phone ended up because you didn't have a clue. He’d put it on the charger for you, of course. Then, sitting side by side, you both were reviewing the more urgent notes from your respective social media managers with deep, secretive chuckles.

These photos were a romantic’s dream, but a PR jumpscare. Had to be addressed in some way or it would never end, truly.

"What’d yours say?"

You fixed your wonky part with a little fluff to your hair, settling your initial overwhelm of nerves: " ‘Go on something lowkey- Present Mic’s show or a podcast off the mainstream, say ‘friendship is magic’, maybe tease it if I want to, and move on.’ I dunno- that seems like a lot of public speaking and scheduling out the wazoo. You?"

"She's just yapping. Didn't read it all." Bakugou barely cared about his social media presence since his manager did most of the publishing, save for Bakugou sharing some highlights of his select, predictable group of hero team ups. Besides that, he just focused on paying them well enough to cover his bullshit if he ever let his temper flare. Besides, now he was waiting on what you'd say, "So what're you gonna do?"

You debated, smirking like a devil the whole time as you realized what could be the fastest way to get your take out in the open,

"... I wanna share the photographer's post. Not this J’akku Press spread."

This earned a smirk for you, "Yeah?"

"...yeah?" you returned a shy look- wondering if you were crazy.

"I will, if you will."

Bakugou’s soft, sleepy loyalty is one you fear will disappear after you both get started with your day. When Dynamight reports back in, you can only hope that he’d still feel the same way today as he did yesterday- though you imagine managing the tabloid fodder a post like this can make will be less than pleasant for him. He’s so private most of the time, and when he’s not digitally absent, he’s loud. This hesitation must have shown on your face– because he takes your hand for a second and kisses it to stop your spiral.

"I meant what I said. You’re it- you’re mine. Whether we tell the world or not. Up to you."

You bite your lip again, and doubled down. You shift to snuggle with your back cradled on his chest, building the shared post:

"Aftermath: Joyride emerges from crash scene unscathed, reunited with Dynamight in a rare tender moment for today's top tier heroes." Joyride_fm: see edit: Lucky, lucky girl. Sorry for scaring you, m'love❤️‍🔥❤️‍🔥❤️‍🔥 #rideordie

Bakugou snickers, kissing your shoulder closest to him. "Do it, I'll repost that one."

He, however, did not let you read as he added his response thread, making you wonder what kind of a novel he was going to be sharing because of how long he was taking...

Instead, you just curled into his side and peppered him in a few distracting kisses on his chest. He’d come bolting to you last night, a core memory you’d be fantasizing about for a long time. Just watching the way his chest is rising and falling here in bed so calmly when you know just hours ago it was heaving like you’d been lost at sea, you are so gone on him. When he nudged his shoulder for you to check his draft, you damn near cried:

"Aftermath: Joyride emerges from crash scene unscathed, reunited with Dynamight in a rare tender moment for today's top tier heroes." THE_Dynamight_SoV: Hero work is not for the weak. We train, we fight, and we do everything we can to make our world a safer one, to whatever end. This woman is one of many selfless, ball-busting, indomitable heroes that I'm not only proud to do this work with, but one I can't see myself living without. You're looking at the face of a man who's holding his priorities right there in 4k. So yeah. If you see one of us like this after a battle, know it's because heroes get scared too– for good fucking reason. Better not make this a habit, dummy. ❤️‍🔥❤️‍🔥❤️‍🔥 #rideandDONTdie

"Oh my God~~" your tears and misty sniffles had you caving into his shoulder, "my tweet was so STUPID!!"

Katsuki bragged with proud cackles as you cried it out, sending the post out for the Internet to bawl over before you could dare edit your post, and turned his phone right back to silent.

You got snotty and overly emotional at how sweet he was with his statement, but were comforted by his hands smoothing over you until you calmed.

"Love you,” you settled into the peace he held you in.

"Love you, dummy."

When you got up for the afternoon run back to the office to finish your reports with fresh eyes, you entered the building as normal. There’s no hint in how either of you carry yourselves that say you all just spend the last twelve hours like koalas draped over each other. The only sign of such affections was your use of an Allmight tervis you're nursing your coffee with –clearly his– which your good ole partner in electric crime, Chargebolt, clocked from the end of the hallway:

"JOYNAMIGHT 2024!!!!"

"SHUDDUP, POWER OUTTAGE!!!"

#bakugou katsuki #bakugo katsuki #bakugo x reader #bakugou x reader #katsuki bakugo x reader #katsuki bakugou x reader #mha fanfiction #my hero academia #boku no hero academia #mha x reader #bnha x reader #mha #bnha

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jobalertpro · 10 months ago

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joelalorian · 3 months ago

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Under False Pretenses - Chapter Thirteen

Stepdad!Dave York x f!reader | wc: 7344 | masterlist

Summary: A challenging mission, whirlwind marriage, and an unexpected yet captivating stepdaughter push Dave York to the brink as secrets, feelings, and loyalties collide.

Warnings: Explicit, 18+ mdni. Stepdad trope. Unspecified age gap. Soft, sexy, and intense Dave. Nicknames and terms of endearment. Cursing. Secret spy shit is not so secret anymore. Angst. Being held captive. Violence. Murder. Vengeful Dave. Rescue. Desperation. Dry humping and coming in the pants.

Series Masterlist

The frantic search for you took a day and a half. In that time, Dave hadn’t slept. Had barely eaten. Time blurred into a feverish cycle of tracking leads, chasing cold trails, and battling the gnawing fear that he was already too late.

Mac had been so careful – almost too careful. Every trace of you vanished the second he stole you away from the safe house. They had nothing until that old, grainy gas station video of you was discovered. Dave’s tenacity paid off – he wasn’t going to give up until he found you.

During that day and a half, Dave had Resnik digging through every bit of footage from satellites to doorbell cameras, Kovac calling in every favor the group had left, and Ari – furiously sidelined but stable in a private hospital room – tracing Mac’s digital footprint for the past ten years. Sprinkled in there, Dave made frantic calls to the emergency vet to check on Ranger’s status. He needed that dog to be okay, just like he needed you to be.

Every dead end fueled Dave until his desperation to find you warred with the urge to rip the skin from Mac’s bones.

That grainy gas station footage changed everything. He knew McCall would slip up somewhere along the way. And involving your traitorous mother in his plans was a huge slip-up for McCall.

While you watched in horror as McCall snapped your mother’s neck, Dave and the boys raced to the docks to find you, Susan Plummer and her team of reinforcements not far behind. The weather turned fast as they neared your suspected location, the wind whipping, rain thundering down on the SUV’s windshield so hard the wipers could barely keep up.

“The temperature’s dropping, boss,” Kovac said, eyeing the readout on his military-grade watch. “We’re gonna need the GORE-TEX over our Kevlar.”

Dave slowed the vehicle to a crawl as they entered the empty dockyard, tires splashing through the building puddles. Killing the engine, the team moved fast to distribute their gear. The men looked like the lethal strike team they were – quiet, efficient, and deadly in their black gear.

Dave spoke before they turned to scour the dockyard, his voice barely louder than the driving rain but no less clear.

“This is not a negotiation. This is not just a rescue mission. This is war, one I intend to win. Are we clear on the mission objectives?” Dave’s expressionless face masked the turmoil within.

“Crystal.” Kovac and Resnik replied simultaneously. With a simple nod from Dave, the team moved like shadows, spreading out with weapons drawn, senses honed from years of training.

The nor’easter tore through the dockyard, turning the world into a violent blur of rain, wind, and crashing waves. The cold air smelled of sea salt and pungent metal as it whipped through rusted shipping containers and old boats, making them groan and creak like dying beasts. Puddles turned into small rivers, water rushing between cracked concrete slabs and through exposed soil beneath their boots as they moved, rifles raised, senses sharp.

Lightning flashed overhead, casting eerie shadows over the towering cargo stacks and boat masts.

“Clear,” Kovac’s voice crackled through the radio once he entered the lone building on the property, a dilapidated structure that once served as the dockyard office. Now, the roof had caved in with age, and nothing remained inside except one small room with a single chair and…

“Lisa’s dead,” Resnik added grimly, having followed close behind Kovac. “McCall took her out.”

“He’s not leaving any loose ends behind,” Kovac muttered as Dave stepped into the room beside him. He bent down to check for a pulse despite the obvious signs of lifelessness.

Dave barely registered the words. Lisa was already a ghost to him – collateral damage in a war she had no business starting. You were the priority, his only priority.

He assessed the rest of the room for clues, eyes settling on a pile of rope on the grimy floor. “There’s a rope over there. He must’ve had her tied to that chair.” Dave could picture you restrained, eyes wide with fear as tears rolled down the soft skin of your beautiful face.

What had Mac put you through?

Dave prayed you were in one piece when he found you. Part of him even hoped you gave his former commander hell.

“Come on, York. Let’s search the grounds. We’ll find her.” Resnik led the way out of the poor excuse for a building to search the abandoned cargo containers and boats scattered about the dockyard.

The men split up, Dave taking the northern approach. His eyes scanned every shadow, head on a swivel as he searched for any signs of you and Mac. The downpour made it impossible to track footprints in the quickly flooding ground, and the howling wind masked all sounds except for the occasional creaking of the aged containers.

But there was no hiding the dark blue sedan, visible from the corner of his eye as he stepped out between two empty cargo containers. Dave’s head snapped toward it, and his gut twisted. Parked haphazardly near the water’s edge, it rocked slightly from the wind.

Dave knew. He just knew.

He sprinted toward it, barely feeling the icy rain slicing against his face. Strong fingers curled around the trunk handle, yanking it open as he heard the faint, rhythmic thump coming from inside.

You.

A sight for sore eyes, as they say. Bound, gagged. Cold. Shaking.

But most importantly, alive.

Your wrists were bound with zip ties, delicate skin chafed and bloody from struggling against the restraints. Your lips trembled from the chill with nothing more than your lounging clothes and a ratty blanket covering you. Dave lost his breath as you stared up at him, eyes wide and glassy in the dim glow of the trunk light.

Rain had seeped into the trunk, leaving your clothes and the blanket damp, your body curled tight as if you were trying to disappear into yourself. He had to get you out of there.

“Jesus fucking Christ,” Dave breathed, reaching for you with shaking hands. “I got you, baby. I got you.”

His gloved hand brushed a lock of damp hair from your face. You were exhausted, shivering from the cold, and crying as he pulled the knife from his ankle to cut the zip ties. You whimpered as he undid the bindings, and he eyed the raw wounds on your wrists. With slow, gentle movements, Dave placed careful kisses on the torn skin before ripping the gag from your mouth.

“Dave,” you croaked, throat too dry to do much more. Your hands, stiff from the cold and lack of proper circulation, clutched his jacket as if making sure he was really there and not just a figment of your imagination.

He pulled you from the trunk, wrapping his arms tight around you and wishing he had the time to warm your body with his and tend to your wounds. Before your feet even touched the ground, a shot rang out, the crack echoing across the abandoned dockyard.

The bullet whizzed past his head, slamming into the metal of the open trunk with a deafening echo. It missed him by an inch.

Fuck!

He whipped around, shielding you instinctively as another shot hit the pavement just inches from his foot.

“Sniper!” Kovac’s voice roared over the radio.

Dave swore under his breath, his mind flipping into tactical mode. The storm made it nearly impossible to see more than a few yards ahead. McCall could be anywhere – hidden on what little remained of the rooftop, perched inside a container or in a tree, waiting for the next clean shot. It’s what Dave would have done in his shoes.

Mac wasn’t hiding, wasn’t running.

The asshole was hunting.

And this? This was his kill box.

Double fuck!

Dave kept a soft grip on your arm, careful not to be too rough after everything you’d been through, pulling you further down behind the car as another bullet ricocheted off the trunk. He knew McCall’s playbook. Knew exactly how he liked to set his traps.

Unfortunately, this time, Dave was the one inside it.

He yanked off his coat, wrapping it around your shaking frame. He tugged the hood over your head, tightening the strings and adjusting so you could see. Once you wormed your arms into the oversized sleeves and were all zipped up, he gripped your arm tightly, forcing you to focus on him.

“Stay down, kitten. Please,” he ordered, his brow pinched. Pulling the pistol from the holster, he held it up toward you. “Do you know how to use one of these?”

“C-conceptually,” you stuttered, teeth chattering from the frigid air.

Dave nodded. “I’ll give you the basics.”

He provided a few instructions on where the safety was and how to hold the weapon. “Just point and shoot. Got it?”

You nodded, feeling the weight of the pistol in your hand as he passed it over. You demonstrated the movements once, and Dave’s lips curved into an almost smile.

“Remember: stay low. Stay out of sight. Only use it if you need to.” Dave leaned down and kissed you. The kiss was tender yet overwhelming, saying everything that neither of you could say out loud, given that you were being hunted and there just wasn’t time for loving proclamations. “I promise this will be over soon.”

Your fingers curled around the weapon as you nodded, but your expression was pure fear. “Dave—”

“Do not move until I come back for you.” His tone left no room for argument though your lips parted as if to try. Rainwater clung to your lashes as you nodded.

Then, he moved. Darting behind cargo crates, Dave used the storm as cover as he began his own hunt. His breath was steady, his hands were calm.

McCall was good. But Dave York?

Dave York was better.

Nothing tested your mental fitness like being bound and gagged in a dark trunk during a nor’easter. It was an entirely humbling experience.

The first thing you noticed was the cold. Not just from the frigid winter air seeping through the gaps in the metal but also from the way it had settled into your bones. Your adrenaline and fear had spiked and settled a dozen times already, leaving your exhausted body more susceptible to the cold.

You had been here too fucking long. Hope was almost starting to dwindle now that the storm was in full swing.

Your wrists burned from the zip ties cutting into your skin, fingers tingling from hours of restricted circulation and movement, half numb from how tightly they were bound. Your ankles the same, though at least they were free now. Fat lot of good that did you – it’s not like you could break out and run away. You already tried everything you could think of - kicking out the taillights, kicking at the backseat, feeling around for an emergency pull tab. Needless to say, you failed. It was impossible to see anything in the dark.

Every breath felt shallow, muffled against the fabric of the gag knotted at the back of your head. The edges of the material were damp from the tears you couldn’t stop shedding.

The trunk was too small, the barely covered metal pressing in on you from every angle. Your knees were curled to your chest, your body forced into an awkward, suffocating position in the limited space. Your limbs – scratch that, your whole body – ached, the stiffness turning into something so sharp and relentless that it became a part of you, something you barely felt anymore as all you knew now was discomfort. And fear.

That was all you could feel.

It ebbed and flowed, swelling and cresting like the storm-churned waves crashing over the sea wall outside.

This fear didn’t just sit in your chest or take up space in your mind. No, it wrapped itself around your throat, coiled in your stomach like a sickness that refused to leave. It stole the breath from your already depleted lungs and frayed your already frazzled nerves. Every moment, it threatened to shatter the lingering hope in your heart that Dave was coming.

He promised he would always come back for you.

Blinking hard against the very idea that Dave would not fight to find you and keep you safe, you tried to focus on the here and now. What good would that do, though?

You had no idea how long you’d been in here, been gone from the safe house.

Hours? Days?

A fucking lifetime?

You had no way of knowing – you never wore a watch and had been stripped of your phone even before you were dragged from the place you were told would be safe.

The place where you watched a madman stab your sweet dog as he tried to protect you. God, you hoped Ranger was still alive, and Ari too. That they got help in time, you couldn’t bear the thought of the alternative…

No.

You couldn’t let your mind go there.

Time blurred together when you were left alone with nothing but the sound of your own heartbeat thudding too fast in your ears. It echoed in your head like the drumbeat of a marching band.

And even worse than that?

The waiting.

It was a lesson in futility, waiting for time to pass.

You waited hours for the SUV to stop when McCall first took you.

At some point, you must have passed out from the adrenaline crash, as you woke up in the trunk of a car instead of the SUV an unknown amount of time later.

Then you waited for the car to stop.

The interminable time spent waiting for the trunk to open.

Waiting to find out if that was it – if McCall had finally decided you were no longer worth the effort of keeping alive.

At first, you screamed. You fought, hard, thrashing against your restraints until your wrists ached, your muffled cries swallowed by the sound of the engine, the wind, the gag, the sheer indifference of the world around you.

McCall had been silent all that time. He hadn’t said a word until he had you tied to that rusted chair in the broken-down building. Only he and a God you no longer believed in knew where you were then. You thought for sure that was it, the end.

But no, McCall had a plan. His silence had been intentional. His goal to spook you, to keep you on edge.

It worked.

You were shaken to the core when your mother revealed herself, and her role in this horror film come to life. Shaken further still when he ended her life right before your eyes.

McCall never hit you or hurt you – the current cuts at your wrists were your own fault from struggling to free yourself.

You finally understood why - why he physically hurt the others instead of you.

Because your torture was psychological.

He let the cold do the work. The exhaustion. The fear.

Sure, he taunted you in that building, tried to make you doubt Dave’s intentions. But he knew, just as you now did, that the real damage was being done here, in this trunk.

Hours in the trunk turned into a prison sentence inside your own head.

You thought of the girls. Alice’s laughter. Molly’s tiny arms wrapping around you before bed.

They already lost their mom. And yours was a piss poor substitute during the brief time she was pretend married to their father. You were the closest thing they had to a mom again.

Would they think you left them? That you abandoned them –

No.

No, you couldn’t think like that.

Your thoughts shifted to Dave.

His handsome, clean-shaven face and neatly styled hair. You wondered what he’d look like with a little scruff along his jaw and upper lip. How he’d look if he let his hair grow a little – would it curl at the ends?

You loved him just as he was, every bit of him, but wondering about things like that kept your mind occupied, distracting you from the horrifying reality. You longed to run your hands through his hair. To kiss his mouth, neck, down every inch of his strong chest. You ached to just see him again.

What would he find first, you wondered?

Your body?

Or just the empty shell of you, hollowed out by whatever else McCall had planned.

What if Dave wasn’t even looking for you?

Your mind was doing it again. McCall tried planting that seed back in that room long before he threw you in here. It didn’t work then. It wouldn’t work now.

Dave was coming.

You hoped.

Hoping was fucking exhausting though.

Nuzzling further into the ratty blanket to shield against the unending cold, you fought another rising wave of panic. You needed to get out of this trunk, away from this terrifying man, and back to Dave and the life you yearned for, now that you knew you could have it for real.

You tried again, in vain, to find an emergency cord or something to free you from the trunk. You feebly kicked at the taillights again to no avail. Crying out in frustration, you beat at the metal trunk just for something to do.

Suddenly, it was light. Blindingly so. After so long in the dark, you flinched, curling away from it and whoever was standing above you.

Then…

Warm hands. Strong arms. A familiar voice.

You cracked your eyes open, half afraid you were hallucinating. There he was.

Dave.

The storm raged around the dockyard, rain hammering against the rusted metal of the cargo containers, the wind howling like a living thing. Lightning cracked across the sky, momentarily illuminating the abandoned dockyard.

Dave moved silently, a ghost slipping between shadows, using the rain and wind to mask his approach.

Mac was perched somewhere high – Dave knew it. The vantage point, the angles. This was a sniper’s playground. And Mac had the advantage.

Except he didn’t.

Dave had years of insight into how the man’s tactical mind worked. He knew how McCall planned his kills, his missions. And right now?

Right now, he knew McCall was waiting for him to make the wrong move. To step out from cover. To make a run for it.

Dave knew all this, so he gave Mac nothing. No sound. No silhouette against the lightning. No desperate charge into the line of fire. Instead, he did what Mac wouldn’t expect.

Dave waited. Listened.

And like clockwork, there was a shift in the wind. A faint movement. The slightest creak of metal above the wind.

There.

Dave swung his rifle up, aiming toward the source of the sound – an abandoned crane platform above the dockyard.

Dave fired first. The shot shattered the rusted guardrail where McCall had been. There was a blur of movement, and McCall rolled just in time, avoiding the impact before retaliating with a shot of his own.

The bullet whizzed past Dave’s head.

The shot was rushed and sloppy. Dave grinned despite the situation. Mac was rattled.

McCall moved, abandoning the sniper’s perch, realizing too late that Dave had already predicted his next play. He needed to reposition. Unfortunately, that allowed Dave to move as well.

Dave’s forward pressure kept him on the defensive, herding him down from his high ground. Cutting off his exits.

This was not good.

His plan was unraveling before his eyes, leaving McCall spiraling. He had always been an apex predator, a master tactician with meticulous planning skills. But Dave York had been trained to kill apex predators, that training reinforced by Mac during the years under his command.

The roles had reversed. The student became the teacher.

For the first time – McCall was the prey, and he didn’t like that one damned bit.

You watched from behind the sedan, your breathing uneven, pulse pounding in your ears. Your hands were still shaky from the adrenaline and cold. But you weren’t scared anymore, not with Dave and the guys here.

No. Now, you were fucking pissed. A complete 180 from how you felt while trapped in the trunk of that damned car. Your mind rehashed the events of the past couple days with a new perspective.

Your mother had been complicit in all this. She set you up. She betrayed Dave.

You knew she could be a royal bitch, had experienced her wrath first-hand your whole life, but this was next level. She handed you over to a madman, getting rid of you so she could have Dave, even after he told her he was not the least bit interested in her.

McCall used you as a pawn in this charade. He tried to break you in his efforts to get to Dave. He killed your mother right in front of you like she was just another sacrificial piece on his chessboard. And, yeah, that was fucking traumatizing, but it pissed you off even more.

Because what was the point of all this?

It seemed like revenge or something, but you didn’t quite understand. You didn’t have the full picture. You didn’t need it, though. All you needed to know was that Dave came for you. He was out there fighting for you, trying to take out the man who kidnapped you.

The man who underestimated you.

Peeking over the hood of the sedan, your eyes searched the grounds. Through the haze of rain, wind, and gunpowder, you saw him.

Dave’s movements, flanked by the guys, forced McCall into a position where the man’s back was exposed to you.

Functioning on pure instinct and rage, you moved. Ignoring the searing ache in your limbs from being tied up and tossed around, shoved in a trunk for hours. Your fingers curled around the pistol grip, the metal ice cold but solid in your hand. Recalling the limited instructions provided by Dave, you held the weapon with both hands, thumb flicking off the safety as you stepped silently, stealthily through the puddles.

A flicker of movement to the left caught your eye – Resnik was moving forward in time with you. A glance to the right showed Kovac doing the same. The men were some distance away, but you all had the same target in your sights.

Suddenly, you spotted Dave step out in front of McCall, his dark, angry eyes locking with yours over the older man’s shoulder for a short beat before focusing on the man at the center of it all.

Dave had moved through the storm like a predator, rifle raised, every muscle coiled. McCall was leading him somewhere. Dave knew it, and still, he followed.

Lightning split the sky, illuminating the dockyard for a fraction of a second. It was just enough to see where the man was heading. McCall shifted, backing down an old, half-rotten dock, waves crashing against the beams with such force that the entire structure groaned under the pressure.

Dave didn’t hesitate.

Neither did you or the guys.

Dave stepped onto the dock, the wooden planks slick beneath his boots, the storm wrapping around the two men like a cage.

You and the others stayed along the seawall, close enough to hear their shouts above the wind.

“It doesn’t have to end this way, Mac,” Dave called, voice carrying in the wind as it blew towards the shore.

McCall let out a breath, almost amused. “You really believe that?” His posture was relaxed – too relaxed – weapon hanging loosely in his grip. “I’m already dead, York. I died years ago in that bombing. The difference this time – I get to take you out with me.”

Dave shook his head. That would not be happening. “You have another choice. Walk away.”

McCall’s lips curled at the edges, dark eyes squinting against the driving rain. “Like you did?”

The words hit harder than Dave expected, and he thought of you, standing back on the seawall. He didn’t have to think too hard about what was coming – McCall was going to air all of Dave’s dirty laundry for you to hear. What would you think of Dave after that?

McCall let out a breath, shifting his stance. “You and I, we’re the same.”

“No, Mac,” Dave refuted, shaking his head. “We’re not.”

McCall studied him for a long moment before glancing past him back to the shore. Dave knew Mac was staring right at you, and he couldn’t help but turn his head to look at you over his shoulder. He needed to see your face when the truth about his past deeds was revealed.

“Tell me, York,” McCall shouted. “Does she know? About all those contracts you took. Murder for hire to the highest bidder. Does she know she’s in love with a contract killer?”

Despite being barely visible through the wind-driven rain, Dave saw your mouth drop open in surprise, your eyes shooting to meet his in question. He stared back at your stricken gaze, imploring you to reserve judgment for now, and mouthed, “I’m sorry. I’ll explain later.” He hoped you understood.

“Yeah, I didn’t think so. Good luck explaining all that now.” The older man laughed when Dave turned to face him once again, studying him with an assessing gaze. Satisfied with whatever he saw play across Dave’s face, McCall spat his parting shot. “Like I said, you and me, we’re the same. And if you pull that trigger, York, you prove me right.”

A beat of silence, then two. At the third beat, both men raised their weapons, and the world exploded in gunfire, even though only two shots were fired.

The first shot hit McCall in the upper left chest.

The second hit Dave’s left bicep, pain flaring hot and sharp as the bullet sliced through the protective layers into his flesh.

McCall staggered backward a step, his lips parted and body swaying. His dark gaze met Dave’s with something that might have been resignation. Rifle still in hand, he reached up as if to fire another round in Dave’s direction but…

The deteriorated wooden planks beneath his feet snapped, and McCall fell with a frustrated shout. The stormy sea swallowed him whole, a flash of red blooming in the waves before being swept away by the raging tide.

Dave stood there stunned, chest heaving, blood dripping from the bullet wound in his left arm.

The wind howled. The waves crashed. Robert McCall was gone. Dave collapsed on the wooden planks as the storm surge washed over the dock.

No one moved until your scream pierced the air. Then, it was chaos.

You were barely aware of the gun being removed from your clenched grip, the hands grasping your arms gently, the huge, warm body guiding you away from the scene toward an awaiting SUV. The storm had worsened during the showdown, and the gunfire had long since faded, yet your ears still rang.

You felt outside of yourself, like a ghost watching over the scene. Nothing seemed real.

Strangers in tactical gear moved around you, calling out orders and questions. The arms supporting you helped you into the backseat, heat on full blast, and a rugged face with a thick, grizzly beard hovered in front of your line of sight.

Kovac.

An older woman appeared beside him, badge on her hip and phone to her ear. “Target is down, confirmed. What about the asset?”

Her eyes met yours, her face a mask. Your heart stopped.

“No,” you whispered, stomach lurching. It looked like a wound to the arm from where you’d been standing. Surely, he didn’t… he wasn’t… Your vision began to blur at the thought of losing Dave after all of this.

The woman turned away, dropping the phone to her side with a grim smile. Confused, you followed her gaze, and you saw him.

Racing toward you through the storm, blood spreading through the field bandage hastily wrapped around his wound. His face was pinched with pain, but he was alive. His eyes met yours, and you cracked.

“Dave.”

He caught you in one arm as you fell out of the truck, his name a sharp cry, clutching him to you like a lifeline. Wet hair matted to his head, blood-soaked and exhausted from days of stress, and still, he never looked more beautiful to your eyes.

“I’m here,” he rasped, voice rough. “I got you. We’re safe now.”

Tears blurred your vision, but you didn’t care. Dave was alive. He saved you. The nightmare was over.

“Susan,” Dave rumbled a few minutes later as you fretted over his wound. “Thanks for the backup.”

The older woman nodded. “Good to see you alive, York. We’ll debrief after you get that checked out,” she replied, gesturing towards the gunshot wound. “But we got the others in custody and recovered the intelligence data. Mission’s over.”

Dave merely nodded. You stared up at him as Susan walked away after gently patting his right shoulder, searching his face for a reaction to the news. He stared back at you with warmth in his eyes, his forehead falling forward against yours. “It’s over.”

The storm waned then, the downpour slowing to a drizzle over the dockyard. The wind still howled, but its fury had died along with the villain. You weren’t thinking about any of it, though.

All you could see was Dave. Your Dave.

His handsome face was pale, arm slick with blood still oozing from the wound, his movements slower than usual as he let Resnik step closer to wrap a new bandage around his arm. The sight of it made your stomach twist, panic clawing its way up your throat despite the relief of having him alive.

You stripped off the soaked jacket and gently tugged Dave with you as you slid into the backseat of the SUV once again. “Dave.”

His tired eyes flickered to you once you were both settled. You reached for him, hands trembling as you embraced his right side, your fingers pressing into the solid warmth of his skin where his layers had been torn away, as if anchoring yourself to reality. “You’re bleeding,” you whispered, the breathy tone rough with emotion.

Dave exhaled, something between a chuckle and a sigh. “Yeah, kitten. I noticed.”

Your eyes burned with a mix of relief and frustration as you gaped at him. “This isn’t time for jokes, baby. You need stitches. A hospital.”

He shook his head. “I’ll live.”

“That’s not the point!” Your voice broke, and suddenly you weren’t just worried over him. You were frantic, the emotional toll of the past few days finally coming to a head. “You keep getting hurt, and one day you may not—"

Your throat closed up, the words refusing to come out. Dave saw it. He felt it. Without hesitation, he cupped your face in his good hand, his thumb brushing away the tears trailing down your cheek. “I’m here,” he murmured, his voice quieter now as Kovac and Resnik climbed into their seats. “I’m right here.”

You let out a shaky breath, laying your head on his shoulder. “You scared the shit out of me. This entire thing scared the shit outta me,” you admitted. “I’m gonna need counseling after this.”

Dave’s lips quirked at the edges. “You and me both, Firecracker.”

A broken laugh slipped from your lips before you could stop it. Then, just as quickly, the panic slammed back into your chest.

“Ranger!” you choked out, pulling back suddenly. “Where—is he okay?”

Resnik turned in his seat to look back at the two of you as Kovac drove toward the nearest hospital, his expression uncharacteristically soothing. “He’s back at the house with Ari. They’re both milking their injuries for all they’re worth, getting all the treats they deserve.

Your stomach clenched, the relief almost knocking you flat. Dave’s fingers curled around yours, grounding you. “He’s tough,” he said softly. “Just like you. He’ll make a full recovery and be back to being your shadow in no time.”

You swallowed thickly, nodding, but part of you still wouldn’t breathe properly until you saw Ranger and Ari with your own eyes. And then, as if your heart wasn’t stretched thin enough, another thought slammed into you with full force.

“The girls. Are they okay?”

Dave’s hand squeezed yours. “They’re safe,” he reassured you. “Enjoying their time with their grandparents in the Poconos. They don’t know anything.”

Your chest ached. You needed to see them. To hug them. You weren’t alone in that.

Dave’s gaze softened, something unreadable flickering in his dark eyes as he watched you. He needed them too, just as much if not more.

Hours later, after a visit to the emergency room and a debrief with his DIA team, you and Dave were finally home. The house was eerily quiet without the girls. Ranger laid on his bed near the fireplace, midsection wrapped in a large bandage and a cone of shame around his neck, tongue lolling out of his mouth, a little out of it from the vet's medication.

The storm had passed, the mission was over, and you were freshly showered, layered in warm sweats, and relieved to be home. And yet – the air wasn’t entirely clear.

You stood near the fireplace, arms crossed tightly over your chest to both keep warm and protect yourself. Your mind was a mess of emotions you weren’t sure how to untangle, yet you ached for him, to be with him. You and Dave needed to have one more important conversation before things could finally settle.

Dave sat on the couch, his injured arm resting in a sling, the bandages still fresh from having the bullet removed. He watched you, waiting, his face unreadable, except for the tension in his jaw, the slight crease between his brows.

He knew what was coming. He knew you heard every word McCall said out there on that dock, through the roar of the wind and crashing waves.

“Tell me, York! Does she know? About all those contracts you took. Murder for hire to the highest bidder. Does she know she’s in love with a contract killer?”

He knew the words had stuck. Burrowed under your skin like a splinter you couldn’t pull free. He only hoped that you’d let him explain, try to understand. He couldn’t lose you after all you’d just gone through, not over something like this.

You took a slow breath, the question burning on your tongue as you slid next to him on the couch. “What did he mean? About murder for hire? And please, don’t lie to me. I deserve the truth, now more than ever.”

His eyes softened, his brows pulled in and up, making him look like a sad puppy, yet his body still carried the weight of a heavy burden that had been buried for too long. He leaned forward, resting his right elbow on his knee as he faced you.

“I won’t lie to you ever again,” he started. With a visible gulp, Dave continued. “It’s true, what Mac said. It’s not something I’m proud of by any means, but it is the truth.”

You stayed quiet, listening with an open heart and an equally open mind as he explained how he’d been injured in the explosion they all thought killed McCall, how their team had been dismantled, leaving money tight and options limited. He went to work for the agency, but the pay just didn’t cut it. There had been secret contracts for off-book operations. People with names and targets and high price tags attached.

He looked at you with such guilt in his raw, unfiltered gaze. “So, I took the jobs.”

Your pulse thrummed in your ears as you tried to make sense of it all. “You—”

“Did things,” he finished for you in a flat voice. “Killed people who needed killing. Some were threats to national security. Some weren’t.”

Your chest tightened, your heart aching for this dichotomous man sitting before you. “Murder for hire,” you murmured, McCall’s words echoing in your mind.

Dave’s jaw ticked as he looked down at his hands, almost expecting to see the blood of others still staining them. “I told myself it was just work. Just another mission. A way to make money to support my family. That it wasn’t personal.” He swallowed. “Until it was.”

Your brows furrowed at that. “What do you mean?”

His hand curled into a loose fist against his knee, and you reached over, prying it open to tangle your fingers with his. Dave’s eyes met yours again, the burnt umber filled with such remorse your heart hurt.

“The last job I ever took – it wasn’t for the agency. It was private.” His throat worked as he swallowed, his Adam’s apple visibly bobbing beneath the smooth skin. “A man approached me and the boys with an offer we couldn’t refuse. The money was just too good to turn away. I had just found out about Carol’s cancer, and my cut would have been enough to pay for her treatment in full and still have plenty left over.”

You could barely breathe as you waited for him to continue.

“We found out too late that it was blood money and came at a cost I wasn’t willing to pay.”

“What happened?” you questioned, squeezing his hand gently, urging him to continue.

A long silence stretched between you. The only sound was the faint creak of the house settling, the crackle of the fire in the hearth.

“The target turned out to be a DIA asset. We didn’t find out until after we did the deed. That woman at the dockyard? Susan Plummer. She’s a fellow agent and was assigned to investigate the hit. It made the news. She called me in to assist. It was a fucking mess. The client demanded that we eliminate her, but I just…”

You’d never seen Dave like this – physically injured and so emotionally broken – it tore at your heart. “You don’t have to continue, Dave. I understand. I mean it.”

He shook his head adamantly, avoiding your gaze as he rasped out a sharp, “No. I need to tell you this.” Dave took a few breaths before carrying on. “You need to know everything before you decide whether or not you still want to be with me.”

“I couldn’t do it. She was a colleague, a friend, who did nothing wrong. She didn’t deserve to die for doing her job, trying to uncover the truth,” he explained. “The guys supported me in that decision, and we went after the client instead. Eliminated him and any evidence of a connection back to us. Somehow, Mac found out what we did.”

Everything began to come together in your head – why Dave wanted out of the DIA, how he was connected to McCall, why they were at odds, what the man was getting at on that dock.

“I’d already decided to give up the extracurricular work before he showed up at my door like a dead man walking. I thought that’d be the end of it. I was wrong.”

Your arms tightened around him as Dave shook his head, his voice low, regretful. “I’m sorry about all of it. I never wanted that part of my life to touch you or the girls. I thought I could just leave it behind. I’m sorry about your mom, too. She didn’t deserve to go out like that.”

He sighed, leaning back against the couch, tilting his head against the cushion to avoid meeting your gaze. “You must think I’m a monster.”

Your breath hitched. “I don’t think you’re a monster.”

Dave’s head snapped up at that, dark eyes studying you carefully. “Then what do you think?”

You swallowed, searching for the right words.

“I think…” You hesitated and started over. “I think you’re a complicated, many-layered man who did what you had to do to support your family. I think you hated it, hated having to do it, but you were good at it and got the job done. You provided the means for a beautiful life for your family. The girls want for nothing because of what you sacrificed. I think you are a great father and an amazing partner. I hope to someday discover how great a husband you are, too.”

His throat worked as his eyes darted back and forth between yours, searching for any hint of falsehood in your words. He came up empty, and those dark orbs began to water.

“I love you,” he whispered, unbelieving that you could be so understanding, supportive of a man who used to kill for money.

Nodding, you sank back into his side, cuddling against his warmth to reaffirm your love for him. “I see you,” you whispered against the salty skin of his neck. “The whole you. Not just the parts you let me see. And I’m still here. I’ll always be right here.”

Dave exhaled sharply, his grip on you tightening, his shoulders sagging in relief.

“And for what it’s worth, my mom totally got what she deserved. She fucked around and she found out. Part of me is sad because she was my mom, but she was never a good person. And she would have let that man kill me if given the chance.”

A low, dark chuckle sounded in your ear. Perhaps there was a dark part hidden inside you that matched Dave’s inner darkness. Perhaps you were both complicated, flawed people who happened to be perfect matches for each other. You really liked the thought of that.

Sitting up, you gazed at Dave, taking in his strong features. The jut of his brow, the cut of his nose, those perfect cupid’s bow lips. The patchy scruff along his jaw from a few days without shaving. The sparkle in his eyes as he watched you catalogue him. The urge to kiss him, be with him became too much, and you slowly, carefully eased your body into his lap, straddling his slim hips.

You were too exhausted to really do anything sexual, but the desire, the heat, the need was too great to do nothing about it. After such traumatizing events, you needed to feel normal again. Feel wanted. Feel fucking alive.

Eyes wide open and watching each other’s every move, you leant forward and kissed Dave. It started soft and slow before quickly morphing into a frenzy of lips and tongues, teething clashing and nipping. Your fingers weaved through his hair, nails gliding along his scalp as your hips pressed down. Dave’s cock stirred, hardening quickly under the weight of you against him.

Hindered by the injured arm, Dave steadied you with his right hand as it grasped desperately at your tit, thick fingers pinching the nipple in time with the roll of your hips. You moved against each other, fully clothed, mouths feasting on one another, and gazes never wavering.

The tension built quickly – too quickly – after days of separation and stress, and you came in Dave’s lap, the friction of grinding against him hitting your clit most divinely. He swallowed your mewls, pulling you closer to him as his hips jerked upwards once, twice, thrice, and Dave came in his pants with a guttural growl. You could feel his cock pulsing beneath the layers of clothing separating you and you sunk against him in exhaustion.

The moment reminded you of that first time on the couch in your basement suite, when you dry humped until you both made a mess of yourselves. Back then, the moment was rushed, hidden away in a secret relationship. Now, you were on the couch in the sitting room, relationship no longer a secret, no further lies to keep hidden.

“Let’s get you to bed, my little Firecracker,” Dave murmured as he peppered tender kisses along your neck and face. “I’m sure we could both sleep for the next day or two.”

For posterity, you both slept in your basement bedroom.

tbc

Chapter Fourteen

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