#lightning protection for house

[duncebento]

there’s a thunderstorm over my house right now. as loud as the lightning is, it and the rainfall are ultimately set dressing, and i’m warm and dry inside.

there was a storm over palestine today, too. for marah, a college student like me, the rain meant a flooded tent, waterlogged flour. mud and wet feet and chill. no shelves to protect precious belongings from the damage.

here’s my post linking to the baalou family’s fund. please spread this around— conditions become critical as quickly as a storm comes.

[gutsby]

Heavy Hitter

Pairing: Little League Coach!Joel x Reader

Summary: A kick in the dick is a strange way to get a man’s attention, but Coach Miller doesn’t mind at all.

Warnings: 18+. Protected p-in-v. Oral (m!&f!receiving). Blunt testicular trauma turned semi-sweet meet cute. Light bondage vis-à-vis coach’s whistle. Soft dom!Joel. Overstimulation. Age gap. Size kink. Some discomfort during sex. Brief mentions of drug use, vomiting, & SA.

Note: Technically not necessary to understanding the plot, but lyrics/references to John Mellencamp’s ‘Hurts So Good’ are featured throughout, so I’d recommend giving it a listen! :-)

Another note: Amy’s was my go-to when I lived in Austin for a summer, but I have no clue if that’s where the locals go lol

Word count: 17.3k

You woke Sunday morning with heatstroke, a hangover, and one very pissed off nine-year-old pinching your nose.

“GET UP!”

Your half-crusted eyes made as if to open, then failed. Shifting side to side in more of a grimace than a look, you squinted and spied your brother under a heavily lidded gaze and then caught sight of a uniform.

A baseball uniform.

Sam’s widely-loved Little League team, the Fireflies.

With an emblazoned logo of a lightning bug staring you right in the face, you realized at once you were fucked. You heard the shrill of your mother’s voice calling your name downstairs and knew you were double fucked.

You were supposed to be the one driving your brother to his game that day. But, rather than choosing wisely last night, you’d decided to play a two-for-one trainwreck and clusterfuck and drink yourself stupid until well past four o’clock in the morning. Now you were suffering the consequences—and would be feeling them tenfold if you didn’t get your ass out of the house and into the car with your brother before your mom stomped her way upstairs.

Without another word, you snagged your phone, your wallet, your keys, your purse, and your brother’s small arm to drag him behind you out the back door and left.

The events of last night were still little more than a blur.

Even a half hour later, pulling into the packed parking lot of Wright Field with the full brunt of a Texas summer’s heat beating down on your shoulders, you remembered next to nothing. There were bits and pieces, no doubt—a quick pit stop at Mayor Garcia’s political rally at seven, a few beers at Djarin’s bar around nine, Tipsy Bison at…ten, maybe? You couldn’t be sure. Everything from the time you took a hit of Tess’s dab pen between bars and several more hefty swigs from Marlene’s flask in the street left the happenings of the full night fuzzy at best. A trace of spearmint on your tongue and some upbeat ‘80s tune replaying in fragments were all that remained.

You were in sweatpants you didn’t recognize. A black satin bodysuit you only vaguely remembered putting on and shoes you were half-certain were Tess’s. Glancing down at the strange ensemble while you put your truck in park, you were truly more lost than you’d felt in a long, long time. Your hangxiety was at an all-time high, too.

“Help me get the stuff,” Sam said, sliding out quick.

‘Stuff’ meaning the snacks it’d been his turn to pack for the team: pretzels, granola, muffins, and Goldfish, along with drinks and some over-the-top fresh fruit medley your mom had prepared that morning. Luckily, your brother had packed all the shit himself while you were passed out in your room. For that, you were grateful.

You tousled his hair while you watched him try and lug two full cases of Gatorade out of the bed of your truck. Sam made a face, casting a sidelong glance to the field to make sure none of his teammates could see him, then huffed as he dropped the cases to the ground at his feet.

“Okay, maybe—” He puffed his cheeks out again, reaching for a big YETI cooler that looked to be even heavier, “—maybe I should carry these over on my own.”

You stared at him, incredulous.

“You kiddin’? This is a ton of stuff, Sammy.”

Sam winced, whether from the weight of the cooler he was barely able to fit his arms around or the nickname you’d used, you weren’t sure. The hulking plastic cube pressed heavy on his chest as soon as he tried to slide it off the truck bed, and, swiftly, you secured your hands under the thing to help him lower it down to the ground.

It was heavy as shit. Your mom must’ve thrown in a thousand extra oranges while he wasn’t looking.

“Fuckin’ A,” you hissed.

“Language,” Sam chided.

The cooler hit the tarmac with a resounding thud.

“Sorry. Why, uh…why don’t you want my help, bub?” You were genuinely curious, and a tad hurt, that your brother seemed not to want you there—he always had before.

“‘Cause,” he said, kicking absentmindedly at a small patch of gravel, “Just don’t…need it right now, ‘s’all.”

“That’s a load of crap.”

“Is not!”

You rolled your eyes.

You reached for the big white cooler in spite of your brother and started to lift, when he tried yanking it away—‘I mean it, I can carry it myself!’—and you nudged him off. He nudged you back in more of a push, and you huffed sharply to back off, I got it, we’re gonna be late. He pushed you again, hard enough to cause the cooler to slip out from your fingers, and when the thing dropped again, this time on your toes, you let out a piercing yelp.

“Sammy!”

“Sorry!!”

You probably would’ve pushed back again—and likely started a slap war in the middle of the parking lot, like you and your brother had long been accustomed to doing—were it not for the sound of a voice cutting in, calling out to you both from a row of cars over:

“Y’all need some help?”

Motherfucker.

You didn’t even need to turn your head to know the owner of that voice. You shot Sam a lethal look.

“We’re good, David, thanks,” you called back.

The ‘thanks’ was nothing more than a courtesy for your brother. That creepy old cunt could eat shit and die.

You forced a smile as you watched the assistant coach of Sam’s team approach through two minivans nearby. He had his black athletic shorts pulled high above his belly button, Fireflies tee tucked in as neatly as any one man could hope to have it, and a baseball cap pulled snug atop his sparse, greasy, strawberry blond head of hair.

With just one grin from him in return, you knew he was still convinced he would get to fuck you at some point.

You wanted to vomit but had no food left in you to do it. You tasted spearmint in your mouth again, and that nameless tune you had stuck in your brain kept playing.

And, true to his irksome, meddling nature, Coach David swooped in and had both cases of Gatorade stacked on top of the cooler and the thing hauled up in his arms before you could stop him or speak a word in protest.

“Sam, help your big sis out and grab the waters, would ya?” He said, nodding to the truck bed with authority. Before he turned back around, he shot you a wink.

While Sam went crawling across the tailgate and tried wrangling the case of Aquafina into his arms, you felt a presence at your shoulder. Then a gaze searing shamelessly into your cleavage, which had been rendered far more exposed than normal in your bodysuit. You wiggled your top up a little, fighting back a scowl.

“Fun night?” David chuckled.

“The funnest,” you returned without humor.

Sam shouldered the weight of the water with some effort, letting out a sound that he was struggling.

“Lift with your legs, buddy,” David barked. Then, to you, “If you need help with anything else, just holler, alright?”

Another goddamn wink. What was it with middle-aged men and winking? Fortunately, he had the cooler and the drinks weighing him down, so he couldn’t stay for long. He did, however, make sure to bump your ass with his hip walking past, and afterward, you could’ve sworn you saw a smirk growing on his face with wretched pride. Then he strode off in the opposite direction, toward the field. Just when he was out of earshot from you both, Sam plopped down with the case of water. He frowned.

“That’s why I didn’t want your help,” he muttered.

“Huh?”

But you knew what he meant.

David was far from the first man who’d ever hit on you in front of your brother, and he certainly wouldn’t be the last. Sam despised it; almost as much as he hated every guy who even thought they had a shot, and made you plainly uncomfortable. Just as he was about to continue, —and as if to prove his point—a herd of preteen boys passed by. All of them waved, grins overtaking their smug, dumb, prepubescent faces as they yelled out:

“Hey, Sam!”

Then, of course, one brave soul waved to you and said:

“Hey, Sam’s sister!”

And the whole group snickered amongst themselves and slapped the brave soul’s shoulder in congratulations.

You already knew what Sam’s expression would be before you’d even turned around to face him again.

“Alright. You win. Tote your stuff over there, and I’ll just…wait in the truck,” you said, hands raised in surrender.

“Okay.”

Then Sam was gone, trotting after his teammates with the water bottles still sloshing around in his little arms. You watched him, almost forlorn, and felt a bit too much like your mother, overcome with a memory of some soft- rock song you still couldn’t name and the sense that your baby brother was growing up way too fast for your liking.

The scary thing was that someday he could turn out to be like David. His teammates. Or worse. Maybe grow up, tune into a few misogynistic, braindead alpha male podcasts, and become the same insufferable, woman-hating douche you both detested. The thought made you shudder to even consider, and you were fairly certain it read plain on your face as you slammed the tailgate shut and started back around toward the front of your truck.

Contemplating just how much you wanted to save your brother from that fate, you almost missed something huge through the open back window on your way.

Glistening in the sun a neon green: Sam’s bag.

“Shit,” you muttered to yourself. You reached inside.

You were certain he’d need it for the game, but you also knew if you set foot on that field you’d never hear the end of it from him. Gingerly, you hoisted the thing up, straining under what felt like a hundred pounds of old clothes, cleats, and a dozen other things, then started to pull it over your shoulder—considering your options.

The soles of Tess’s shoes, unfortunately, had little to no grip to do so. Stepping down from the truck’s running board with a bag in tow was tricky, and for a second, you slipped. You didn’t fall, but the bag’s strap did come to slide off your shoulder the second you pitched back, and the half-zipped tote was sent tumbling to the ground.

A dozen old baseballs went flying, bouncing, and rolling every which way across the hot concrete. You groaned.

Then you were on hands and knees in an instant, skittering across the cracked blacktop and fumbling for balls like a fucking idiot. You grabbed two, three, four, and— shit, you dropped half of them. You scrambled and crawled again. Deposited the balls one-by-one into Sam’s bag, knees scraping along pavement all the while, and gradually got to six or seven of them before you realized at least one more was missing from the batch.

You stuck your head under the red Jeep Wrangler beside you and heaved a sigh. You spotted the last baseball.

“C���mere, you little shit.”

You sank waist-deep beneath the car, stretching your arm toward the ball. You got about an inch away, straining desperately, before the back of your head hit something sharp and hard sticking out from the Jeep’s undercarriage, and you cried out loud, ‘O-OW! FUCK!’

Come on, baby, make it HURT— SO— GOOD!

You clawed at the ball with an exaggerated huff, grabbed the thing, and started crawling back, head throbbing.

Sometimes lo-o-o-o-ve don’t feel like it should.

Your brain was so steeped in pain, anger, and just a stabbing, generalized resentment for all ‘80s music and men—they were somehow to blame for this—that the second you spotted an all-too-familiar pair of dorky ass New Balance 608 Cross Trainers planted behind your feet, beside the car, you couldn’t help but groan again.

You knew those calf-high crew socks anywhere. Knew that David was just dying to crouch down any second now, ask you in the world’s most grating, flirtatious tone if you needed his help again. Then probably stare at your ass or tits another minute. You weren’t putting up with it.

So, with all the hostility you had reserved for him, the many men like him, and the headache that was just then taking shape at the base of your skull, you said, sharply:

“Hey, Coach, could you FUCK OFF?”

Sam’s good graces with the coaching staff be damned, you had to let this fucker know how you felt. Fair was fair when the man had literally been hitting on you since your freshman year in college and still hadn’t gotten the hint.

You crawled out from under the Jeep expecting a fight.

An appalled expression, grim look, sour gaze, anything.

What you weren’t expecting to find was a man who looked absolutely nothing like David—and everything like a shocked, scared, and very sexy man in skintight lycra.

“Fuck me,” you said under your breath.

You immediately wished you hadn’t.

Whether from embarrassment or arousal, you should not have said those words under any circumstances. Now the man was staring you down even harder, most likely shocked and embarrassed on your behalf. His brows were raised, eyes blinking in what looked like a haze; if you hadn’t known any better, you might think he was—

“Oh, hi! Hey…you.”

A little awkward and strange.

He was stupidly handsome, there was no denying that. Dazzling, even, with the force of a dozen different strong, prominent features in perfect harmony, dimpled cheeks, tan skin, and a sublime Tom Selleck mustache. But something in the way he was watching you now, like his gaze had never strayed across a woman’s form before in his life, put a pit of unease in your stomach. You found yourself staring back, watching him closely, wondering how in the hell you could feel both violently attracted and questioning, still, if this man might veritably kidnap you.

All a part of girlhood, really.

“Hi,” you replied anyway. Hoping he didn’t have a windowless van parked anywhere close by.

“Hey,” he said again. Again.

Chomping down on his gum and smiling.

Sexy, strange man was beaming at you now. Practically exuberant in the way his lips had been stretched to make a wide, happy grin while he stared and chewed away.

You couldn’t take this for much longer.

“Sorry, I thought you were—” you started.

“David?”

You paused to give him a quick once-over, as if searching for clues before you answered him. You found nothing.

“Yeah…David.”

Then you caught sight of a nametag. Miller.

Somehow, the man’s grin got even bigger—and with it, your raw discomfort. Why was he smirking like that?

Maybe you were paranoid. Maybe you were stupid. Maybe you had spent far too much time watching true crime shows to have any fair sense of impending danger, but this guy’s aura was downright intimidating and odd. When you saw him slip a hand in his far-too-tight gym shorts and fish around for something in his pocket, your heart clenched in your chest, and its rate nearly tripled.

“Funny findin’ these—” he said, pointing with his other hand. Then reaching toward your lower half, like he was ready to hook his fingers in the waistband of your pants.

Oh, hell no.

Your most-of-the-time reliable instincts kicked in, your gut tightened up, and, truly unable to think or stomach another man feeling entitled enough to touch you again, you found yourself lifting your most readily available limb to stave off the stranger’s advances as fast as possible.

Unfortunately for him, that limb was your leg.

Or your kneecap, rather, hitting him squarely in the balls.

You didn’t even bother to wait for a response. You knew damn well what a knee to the testicles would do to any man, so your fight turned to flight just as quick, and you took off sprinting across the parking lot. A strangled groan and a string of expletives were all you could hear at your rear, and frankly, you didn’t give a single fuck whether it hurt him or not—you needed to get away.

You ran as far as your legs would carry you, and then some. You ran past the cars, across the street, down the sidewalk, between two metal bins that nearly toppled as you passed, and all the way through the gate until you reached a tall, familiar building, gasping for air. In your panic, you’d slung Sam’s bag over your shoulder, but because it hadn’t been zipped, you lost about half of its contents while hauling ass toward the sports complex.

You’d beg for Sam’s forgiveness later. For now, you had only to try and steady your breaths and temper your nerves to the point of not appearing like a total fucking lunatic walking through the place right now. You paused in the middle of the breezeway to press a hand to your side—you hadn’t sprinted that fast in years, probably.

Families were still trickling into the stadium by turns, most too rushed or inattentive to give a shit who you were or what you were wearing. Others stared. It was the stern, disapproving looks you earned from several mothers that made you reconsider being there at all.

And then you saw Frank.

He and his husband were part of the ‘too rushed’ group, ushering their son ahead of them in a breakneck haste while they muttered and cursed to themselves that warm-ups started ten minutes ago, Bill, I told you not to stop for coffee! And Bill just grunted in reply, most likely.

You sidled up beside the latter, giving a quick greeting before joining them in their speedwalk to the fields. In all the sixteen years you’d been neighbors, you hadn’t seen a single event that Frank and Bill had arrived to on time.

“H— oh shit.” Bill didn’t bother to disguise his surprise when he ran a quick look up and down your person.

So it wasn’t just the soccer moms. You did look like shit.

“Mornin’, sunshine!” Frank chirped anyway, unfazed.

Their son, Nathan, cocked a brow but said nothing.

“Hey, Nate, would you mind giving this to Sam?” You held the backpack out to him as the four of you rounded a corner, about to part ways before the bleachers.

The kid nodded and took the bag. Then, shortly, he picked up his pace from a brisk walk to a jog the second he saw his team meeting up on the field. He broke off in less than a second, and you, Bill, and Frank were left to find seats in a sea of hot, metal benches. The taller of the pair was nudging your ribs before you’d even sat down.

“Dare I ask?” Frank whispered.

“I think somebody might’ve, like…tried to grope me in the parking lot,” you replied, slowly but at full volume.

That earned a couple more stares from the parents around you. Bill audibly sputtered and coughed.

The three of you had just sat down at a comfortable distance from first base when Frank turned to face you fully. His eyes were wide, all decorum momentarily lost as he leaned in to say, ‘No fuckin’ shit! Are you okay?!’

You nodded.

“No, yeah, I’m fi—”

“Who was it?”

That was Bill. You could already tell from the flare in his nostrils that some brutal, ruthless beating was being concocted in his mind for whoever had crossed you. You placed a hand over his, quickly, and shot reassuring looks between him and Frank before you continued.

“No, no, I mean, he didn’t actually— it was just…”

You had to cut yourself short, unsure of what the stranger had actually been trying to do before—

“I kneed him in the dick,” you finished bluntly.

That didn’t seem to appease either party. At all. If anything, it just caused their blood pressure to spike, as Frank’s hand flew up to his mouth, and Bill’s eyebrows leapt halfway up his face in visible horror and shock.

“Well who the— what man’s got the goddamn nerve to just—” The one with the sky-high brows seemed to struggle with his words, and right as he was about to reclaim them, a new presence nearby stopped him cold.

Or maybe he kept talking. You couldn’t tell. Truthfully, it was probably only you who’d gone deaf to the rest of what was said, because in that moment, you were met with a gruesome new discovery stumbling onto the field.

Walking with a limp from the dugout to the nearest umpire—practically bow-legged with how carefully he was treading to avoid disturbing his balls—was the guy.

Your guy.

Creepy guy.

Brand new coach of the Fireflies guy, by all appearances.

Suddenly, the man looked far less vile and menacing in his short-sleeved neon tee, shorts yanked up to his ribs in the fashion all Little League coaches were apt to do. His shoes—the same ones you’d mistaken for David’s—looked just as lame as before, but now you saw them connected to a poor old forty-something dude who volunteered to coach snot-nosed kids in his spare time.

He looked about as pitiful as could be, hobbling over to one man in a black-and-white striped shirt and shaking his hand. Then shaking the hand of another. Then exchanging some words, and obviously straining to maintain his composure as he spoke. Smiling kindly.

Trying to ignore the fact that his nuts were on fire.

You lifted a hand to cover your mouth.

Frank’s gaze followed yours.

“Is that—”

“Yeah.”

Shit.

The Fireflies lost 8-0.

The Morales City Catfish weren’t even that good of a team, and still, the boys had suffered a crushing defeat. Naturally, you saw uniform faces of dejection and gloom coming back up to you once the game had been called, and you could tell it would take a shit-ton of ice cream and encouragement to get the team over this funk.

Sam was so down he barely even acknowledged your presence, or the fact that you weren’t supposed to be there in the first place. He just sniffled, hung his head in abject shame, then accepted a quick side hug from you before turning away, crossing his arms, and trying his best to play it cool in front of the rest of his team.

“Uncle Frank, can you take us to Amy’s?” he called over your shoulder, where Frank and Bill were already consoling a similarly miserable Nathan behind you.

“Sure thing, sport,” Frank shot back. He knew just as well as you that two scoops of Rocky Road were likely the only things capable of cheering them up right now.

And, over the course of that long, ugly game, you’d come to learn that Frank also knew Joel Miller. Coach Joel.

Soft-spoken and sweet, salt-of-the-earth Joel Miller who was serving as the Fireflies’ head coach pro tempore while his best friend was taking time off to recover from gallbladder surgery. Frank and Bill most certainly didn’t disbelieve what you’d told them about your encounter with him, but on closer examination, it became clear to you all that there might’ve been a misunderstanding.

In other words, you’d probably jumped the gun on kneeing the poor guy in the dick. You felt like shit.

Particularly when you watched him walk off with David after the game to put equipment away, and you saw he was still struggling to walk without a conspicuous limp. You, Bill, and Frank had decided it would be best at least to talk things out with him, but now that the time was actually here, you were dreading going up to Coach Joel.

Luckily—or maybe unluckily—you didn’t have to.

You felt a light tap on your shoulder as the rest of your group was starting to leave. Sam and Nate were leading the way, and the adults in front of you were too busy talking to notice you’d been stopped. You turned around.

The first thing you saw was a stack of clothes.

You couldn’t bear to look up at the face.

“You dropped these.”

Right. Right. When you’d been flailing like a cat on a hot tin roof to get away from the man. Your cheeks warmed.

You accepted the clothes from Joel and were already starting to shake your head, when your voice clawed out of your throat, far too small and feeble for your liking:

“I am…so…so sorry, Coach.”

At last, you mustered the courage to meet his gaze. It was cool and indifferent as soon as you reached it.

“I thought— see, I-I didn’t know you were—” You sounded downright pathetic, stammering like a kid caught with their hand in the cookie jar, “I kinda—”

Then a new voice cut in.

“C’mon, we’re leavin’.”

That was Sam.

Gaze hardened to that of an almost-stoic, he stared at Coach Joel and didn’t even bother to mask his grim look.

He probably thought Joel was trying to make a move.

If only he knew how fucking far from the truth that was.

You swallowed and smiled sweetly all the same. Glancing down at the clothes in your hands, then nodding to his bag, you reached over to hand your brother his stuff.

“Coach Joel just wanted to give back some of the junk I, uh…accidentally dropped when I was walkin’ in earlier, Sammy,” you said, trying your best to sound relaxed.

But Sam just turned to the side, wordlessly telling you to put the clothes in the bag for him, and you knew it was because he wanted to keep mean mugging Joel as much as he possibly could while your attention was diverted.

Nine-year-olds were weird like that. Sam might not have had the guts to tell his friends off, or even a familiar ‘authority figure’ like David, but Joel was fair game. He was basically as good as a stranger to him and wouldn’t even be with the team for more than a couple weeks. So he stared him down and continued to frown while you re-zipped his bag, hoping he wouldn’t say anything dumb.

“Why’re ya walkin’ around so weird, Coach?”

“Sam!”

Clearly, you’d hoped a little too soon.

Your cheeks were on fire now, glancing between your brother’s pinched, insolent expression and Joel’s neutral one. It was like the latter hadn’t even registered the jab.

“Sam, you can’t just ask tha—” you started off in a hurried whisper, only to have your speech cut short.

“Old age, buddy,” Joel returned swiftly, words laced with the faintest trace of humor, “Threw my back out this mornin’ chasin’ after somebody, and now it hurts.”

The coach’s eyes didn’t even try to refrain from flitting over to yours when he said ‘somebody.’ You coughed.

Sam smirked, oblivious.

“Yeah? Who?”

“Wish I knew.”

“How come they were runnin’?”

“That’s what I’ve been tryin’ to figure out.”

Offering nothing more than a noncommittal shrug and a scrunch of his nose, Joel re-shouldered his bag and started to lift the other stash of equipment he had tied up in a mesh tote. He blinked a little harder as he did.

Sam looked down at the tote.

“You, uh…need some help with that?” he asked. For the time being, at least, intrigue had supplanted mistrust.

“Nah, ‘s’okay. I got it.”

“Sa-a-am!”

You glanced over your shoulder and saw Nathan with his hands cupped over his mouth, standing by the gate with his parents. Even at a distance, you could see the curious looks on Bill and Frank’s faces. You tried your best to appease both with a nod—‘I’m good, don’t worry.’

Then, before you even realized what you were doing, you found yourself turning back to Sam and smiling. Again.

Sweet and pleading and strained as you’d ever been:

“Go on ahead, I’ll help Coach carry the stuff.”

You weren’t sure why that statement felt so momentous, but it did. You looked back at Joel for half a second to find his eyebrows raised, as if he’d interpreted your message the same, and quickly, you both tried to conceal whatever you were feeling on your faces.

It was hard.

Sam looked between the two of you, suspicions seeming to creep back in for a second. He gave Joel, in particular, a pointed look, and for a moment, you thought he might change his mind and insist on coming along with you.

Then he sucked in a quick breath and remembered ice cream awaited him with Nate and the rest of the guys. His attention span was decent enough for a kid his age, but even that had its limits—and food was too tempting.

‘Whatever’ appeared to be his last, decisive thought.

“Hope your back feels better, Coach,” he said quickly, before he started off across the pavement, “See ya!”

At length, Sam called something over his shoulder about meeting you there, but you could tell he was already too caught up in the prospect of hanging with his boys to really care. You watched him sprint down the breezeway full-speed, and, just as he made it to the gate, he turned:

“Hope ya find that dumb sonovabitch, Coach!”

He was smiling extra big as he said it.

You wanted to yell back and tell him to watch his language, like he would always do to you, but he was gone before you could even start to form the words.

The little shit.

Once he had left, you and Joel exchanged a look that lasted no more than a second, and neither of you smiled.

The coach tossed his mesh bag your way with all the concern he might have had for a sack of potatoes. A heavy set of metal gear clashed and clanged around in your arms, and for a second, you staggered backward.

“Locker room’s that way,” he muttered. Nodding toward the back of the sports facility but saying nothing else.

Joel didn’t wait for you to follow along. He just went.

Kindness wasn’t so much an expectation as it was a foolish hope—that Coach Joel might be willing to make amends, forgive and forget, maybe even grace you with one of his dimpled grins once all of it was said and done.

So far, he hadn’t even looked your way, much less given you the chance to apologize. He strode ahead, quickly, as soon as you’d started walking behind him, then he pressed his phone to his ear and hadn’t stopped yapping away while you trotted on his heels and tried to keep up. Through the bleachers, the breezeway, and a near-labyrinthine set of twists and turns to get to the locker rooms at the rear of the building, Joel was like a wall.

As handsome and fuckable as a wall could ever be, but one whose face you couldn’t even see to properly read for any emotion, because he refused to meet your gaze.

The closest thing you’d gotten to contact was him nodding toward a supply closet on your way in, cupping his palm over the bottom of his phone and going, ‘There.’

“For the…stuff?” you asked dumbly, lifting your bag.

Coach Joel barely gave a hum of acknowledgment before turning away and resuming his phone call with vigor. Then he pivoted again, put a hand on his hip like he meant business all of a sudden, and pretended to be extraordinarily invested in this other, better conversation.

Or maybe he wasn’t pretending.

You didn’t know the guy.

You stepped inside.

Dropped the bag.

And when you returned, Joel was gone, leaving you to a long, empty, dead-cold corridor with no sign whatsoever of where he went—or where you were meant to follow.

Asshole.

It struck you then that not a single, sane soul would bother to haunt these hallways once the weekend games were over. It was just you and Joel and…Joel and you with nothing between but the stale, fetid air and echoes bouncing back and forth across the concrete walls. More sounds followed as you started down the hall yourself.

The first corner you rounded led to a door—Emergency Exit Only. You turned to your left, spotted another closet. Spun on your heels and tried going the other direction, only to find that the adjoining passage was shrouded pitch black. All but one fluorescent bulb that way was turned off. You stared into the darkness, it stared back, and through the soft, flickering glow of that one lone panel, you finally saw the entrance to the locker room.

It looked ominous as all hell.

Already picturing some axe-wielding psycho in the depths of the shadows, you walked ahead, unfazed. Hoping silently, stupidly, someone would jump out and rock your shit before getting to Joel, you treaded as slow as you possibly could. When you pushed the door open and not one serial killer bothered to stop you, you sighed.

“Coach?” you called.

No answer.

For a second or two, you contemplated whether or not you were even allowed to do this, but you went inside. Slowly. Taking two hesitant steps across wet, white tile, craning your neck to make sure no one else was around. Stealing a look in the mirror and seeing yourself cowered—whether from fear or dread, you couldn’t be certain—and shit did you look extra dumb wearing those big, grey sweats that were about two ass shakes away from falling off your hips. You walked up to the mirror and frowned.

The reflection you saw was unsettling—who the fuck gave you these, anyway? What happened to your skirt?

These questions and at least a dozen more began to percolate between your ears with growing unease, memories rehashed and scrutinized into the tiniest, bite-sized pieces. No matter how hard you stared and tried to remember, full recollection was always out of reach.

Such was the state of your mind that you couldn’t believe your eyes when they first drifted to your left.

It seemed too serendipitous, too crazy and coincidental and plainly on the nose to be something from reality staring you straight in the face. You blinked in disbelief.

Sitting in an unzipped bag on the floor was the skirt.

Your skirt—a flimsy little mid-rise denim number that you’d snagged half off at Kohl’s last summer. In there.

Folded at the top of an old nylon tote labeled, ‘MILLER.’

For the second time that day, you would’ve lost your lunch all over the floor if you’d had the food to do it. Instead, you found yourself dropping to your knees and yanking the skirt toward you, eyes widened with shock. Fingering the blue fabric in your hands like the material might disintegrate between them, staring at the thing and almost wishing it’d dissolve so this wouldn’t be real.

So Joel—Coach Joel, with his big bruised balls and all—wouldn’t have your skirt in his bag and know something about the things you’d done last night that you did not.

With this bizarre turn, and the way your day was going, it should’ve come as no surprise when next you heard:

“What are you doing here?”

But, of course, the voice did catch you off guard.

It was like Coach Joel had a knack for finding you in the worst possible spots, at all times. You rose to your feet.

“Wh— what are these doing here?” you snapped anyway.

Joel didn’t flinch.

“Oh. You found it,” he returned, voice devoid of interest.

Like this was no great discovery. Like this was old news. You took a step closer to him, still holding the skirt out.

“Yeah. What the fuck was it doing in your bag?”

“I meant to give ‘em back earlier.”

“Wh—”

“Figured it wasn’t the most appropriate time for that, with your son standin’ right there between us an’ all.”

Your son?

“My son?”

“The kid.”

“That’s my brother,” you said, exasperation only rising, “Why did you even have this thing in the first place?!”

At that, Joel paused. His brows drew in, and his frown grew deeper. Like he wasn’t sure what to make of you.

“So you lied,” he said, finally.

“Lied?”

“‘Bout how drunk you were.”

“I never said—”

“No. You said plenty,” Joel spoke over you, stern. Then, eyes narrowing, “If you can’t remember it, I was right.”

You couldn’t tell whether it was the tendency to interrupt or simply the condescending glint in his eye that you despised, but, by turns, you could feel the remorse seep out from your bones and any desire to make amends dissipate right along with it. And then there was that mention of ‘it’—was he insinuating something had happened between you two while you were blacked out? You gripped your skirt tighter and eyed him just as hard.

“What the fuck are you talking about?” you spat.

The face across from yours was tough, but evidently not imperturbable. A shadow of some amorphous hurt passed behind his eyes, if only for half a second.

“You don’t…remember last night at all, do you?”

You didn’t.

You wished you did, but you didn’t, and it was just then beginning to irk the hell out of you that this man did. You couldn’t stand to be at such a disadvantage—or to have been at such a disadvantage if, in fact, he’d taken you home and done things you couldn’t even remember.

So, perhaps more cruel than you should’ve been, but feeling the need to reclaim some leverage, you said:

“Why? Were you, like, my pity fuck of the night and that’s why you’ve got my skirt? And tried groping me earlier?”

Coach Joel’s nostrils visibly flared; he stared even harder.

“No. No, I tried— those are my pants there, I was—” Growing agitated in the face of the accusation you’d just leveled against him and struggling to find the words to defend himself, Joel’s brows pinched tighter. His lips pursed, and he shook his head. You went on, undaunted.

“Yeah? So you normally fuck girls too drunk to even—”

“No.”

Joel’s response was immediate. Insistent. Voice carrying through the near-empty, wide and tiled room with all the force of a sonic boom. He hadn’t yelled at you, though.

And, before he could continue, you heard the very real scream of a door squeaking back on its hinges from the opposite end of the locker room. Heavy wood struck a doorstop no farther than ten or so yards away from you.

Joel coughed.

“Milleeerrrrr, you in here?”

Choked.

The next thing you knew you were being shoved in a shower stall to your left with Joel painfully close in tow. One broad hand appearing beside your hip like magic, yanking a knob, then slamming a hot and clammy palm over your mouth before you could scream at the spray.

A ruthless, ice-cold downpour had you both drenched in seconds. You would’ve leapt back or turned away if there were space at all to budge, but there wasn’t. And Joel had you constricted to his chest like a python anyway.

‘Don’t’ was all he whispered in your ear before turning.

Then shouting back, loud, “What’cha need, Big D?”

David cackled at the nickname. You inwardly cringed. Huge, glacial spates of water continued to shoot down your back, you squeezed your skirt in your hand like a vice, and the man behind you hugged your body to him even tighter as you squirmed and tried wriggling away.

“Just came to see if you needed a ride to Amy’s. The boys are all already over there,” David replied, and in turn, he was treading closer. Walking slowly to the stall.

Joel pinched your face like you were somehow to blame. You jerked a sharp elbow to his ribs, and he let up a little.

“Nah, man, I—” Joel began, ever-so-slowly reaching out toward the shower knob and turning it, “—gotta talk to Ezra, make a couple more calls. I’ll meet y’all over there.”

Outside, David made a low, disappointed huff. Then he plopped his ass on a bench from what you could hear.

“I can wait,” he said.

“There’s really no need—” You could feel the strain in Joel’s voice, picturing him gritting his teeth and wincing beneath the torrents of water. Slowly, the shower heated.

“Believe me, I’m in no rush to get over there,” David chuckled. The bench creaked as he leaned back.

Then, he added:

“Ain’t like Ms. Cum-On-Me-Tits’ll be there anyway.”

I beg your finest pardon?

You wanted to thrash out of Joel’s arms the second you heard the name—knowing damn well who he meant—but the big, wet arms out in front of you were pressing down on your chest like the oxygen in the air was scarce. Your lungs could barely expand far enough to breathe, much less venture to fight him off of you and leave.

“Ms. Who?” Joel said, sounding dumb as a bag of dicks.

“You know who,” David barked out a laugh this time, “The slut you were eyeballin’ the whole fuckin’ game.”

You’d kill both men with your two bare hands if you could—if you had to be subjected to one more second of this asinine ‘locker room talk,’ you just might off yourself, too.

Joel’s arms noticeably tensed around you.

“I don’t—”

“Sam’s sister, man. I don’t blame ya one bit. Pretty little thing like that, I’m starin’ at those tits every chance I—”

You ground your heel hard into Joel’s toes then, and he groaned. Loosened his grip on you just long enough for you to turn around in that tiny, compact shower and look up to pin him with the most vicious stare you could. He didn’t have to be the one saying these things for the words to sting and make you feel every bit as objectified. As far as you were concerned, and on top of everything else going on, his silence made him equally complicit.

Above you, a pair of brown eyes tried to apologize.

Or maybe just commiserate about how badly David sucked. Joel cleared his throat and cut back in.

“She’s…alright,” he said, eyes boring into yours as he spoke—then, pointedly, “Not really my type, though.”

“Bullshi-i-i-it!”

David sang an incredulous cacophony before continuing:

“Tell me, Joel, does your ass get jealous of all the shit that comes outta your mouth? Or is it used to it by now?”

In another sopping wet and raw moment of discomfort, Joel frowned. The water enveloping you both had slowly crept up to a more comfortable temperature, and just as a pinkish hue ascended his neck, you wondered if it was the warmth or something else that ushered in the color.

And the answer to that came much sooner than you expected—one superb cherry atop a monster-sized shit pie—when something stabbed your pelvis a second later.

Your mouth fell open as Joel’s snapped shut. He blinked; you stared; neither one of you possessed the courage to look down, but you knew what was standing there, stiff.

Then, as if to compound every last one of your problems and add the cruelest of insults to injury, David sat up.

Again, he laughed.

“You know I’m right!” he chided when Joel said nothing, “Got yourself laid after you left Tipsy Bison last night, and it still ain’t enough for a horny fuck like you, huh?”

Now you had to be sick. Your head was throbbing.

Glaring lack of food be damned, you felt the urge. Again.

You almost tore the shower curtain aside when Joel caged you back against the wall with his body, torso pinning yours, and you heard a far-off cackle once more—this time, accompanied by the sounds of David’s shoes squeaking as he stood. Boner momentarily forgotten, Joel pressed his body to yours on cool glazed ceramic and made a plea as he stuck his index finger to your lips.

And whatever that wordless message was, you were too mortified to meet his gaze. You just stood in place and stared over his shoulder as David made to leave outside.

Some words were exchanged; they barely registered with you. Joel told David, again, that he could drive to Amy’s without him—David said something about ‘big butts’ and ‘college sluts’ and promises of hearing the ‘whole story’ when Joel got there—and Joel hummed, noncommittal.

As soon as the door slammed shut behind the Fireflies’ asshole assistant coach, your hands went straight to Joel’s chest to shove him off as hard as you could.

“Hey—”

A short, emphatic ‘fuck you’ was obscured just slightly by the sound of the shower curtain being yanked to the left, your feet moving quickly underneath you, then the splashes of puddles as you walked—stomped—away.

You were back outside, exiting through a different door than David had and making it out into the hallway again.

“Hey—”

“Don’t care.”

Those words weren’t muffled at all. You stalked down the hall with your skirt in a fist and your whole body dripping.

You made it halfway before a hand found your waist, but you tried to keep going in spite of the pull. Straining.

And, personally, you would’ve liked to use your sopping wet denim just then as a projectile, launched directly into Coach Joel’s face. It would’ve been easy, smacking a creep upside the head when he clearly couldn’t comprehend a lick of difference between a ‘fuck you’ and a ‘thank you,’ but the weapon in your grip was virtually useless if you didn’t have the strength to lift it.

Or if Joel didn’t stop you then to make you face him, use one broad hand to burn a wet-hot imprint in your side while his other nudged a door open beside you.

Or if you didn’t stumble inside with one nudge.

If there hadn’t been a bone-empty coach’s lounge waiting behind that door, rattling with the sound and sheer force of the thing shutting swiftly behind Joel.

Then, before you could try and curse him out again:

“I’m sorry.”

“Bullshit.” You sounded like David saying it before.

You were already backing up in that tiny office space, wishing you had the willpower to just chuck your skirt and run, but of course, your pride was too great. Your curiosity was too wild, and your anger was unrivaled.

“Nothing happened last night,” Joel said, emphatic.

“Wh—”

“We didn’t fuck. Or do anything. I swear.”

That kind of candor was a first. You weren’t sure just what to make of it. Wordlessly, you dropped your skirt.

“David said—” you started again.

“David heard—from my little brother, if I had to guess—that we left Tipsy Bison together. And we did…but, uh…” Joel trailed off, shifting his attention to something of note over your shoulder, and then stepping, reaching carefully around you, “I just wanted to get you home.”

“To fuck me,” you finished.

“No.”

Joel tensed again as he shook a towel out in front of you, then draped it over your shoulders. You made a face at the coarse texture but stayed quiet as he wrapped you. He paused, pressed your arms lightly, then appeared to decide in the blink of an eye and one awkward cough that now was not the best time to be touching. You couldn’t deny the warmth was a welcome change as you stood soaked head-to-toe, yet nothing could uncurl the ice-cold fist in your stomach at the sight of him now.

Joel stood, still semi-erect in his five-inch inseam shorts.

A puddle was starting to form on the floor around you both. Joel’s breathing was slow; he stood so close you could feel it. Hear it. Smell it. He started to back away.

Before he did, you got a whiff of something light on his breath. Then some dim, misshapen word began to form.

Spearmint.

You stood and you stared. You saw an image flash before your mind—a memory. At some point in time, you had danced with this man. One night. Last night? Maybe.

‘I knew him as John Cougar. That’s how old I am.’

‘And he’s Mellencamp to me. So what?’

‘Means you’re too young for me.’

All the same, the man’s hand had tightened its grip. Splayed out at the base of your spine and drawing you closer, the fingers tapped along to a heartland rock tune playing loud across the way on the Tipsy Bison’s jukebox. Joel smiled and chewed. Chewed and smiled.

And chewed some more—still, to the present moment.

Joel Miller kept a pack of Wrigley’s Sugarfree Spearmint gum in the pocket of every clothing item he owned. He indulged in the stuff so often because it helped ease his nerves some. You knew this because he’d told you, right before his lips had grazed the corner of yours and told you, slowly, there were worse ways to smell than minty. You had proceeded to frown and demand a proper kiss.

But that night, last night, Joel never did.

“We didn’t…do it,” you said, question and statement commingled as you searched his face for an answer.

What you got in return was more akin to a wince.

“You were drunk,” Joel answered simply.

‘Blackout’ was implied by the tone of his voice. Then, when the same old muscles went tensing beneath the smooth, tanned skin of his jaw to keep chomping away—nerves shot to hell no matter how hard he chewed—Joel held your gaze and drank you in, as you did to him.

And the memories came trickling back, one by one.

“I— took that off myself, didn’t I?” Pointing to your skirt.

Joel’s eyes didn’t need to follow your own. He nodded.

“Stripped it off pretty quick when we got in the truck.”

You wanted to die. Now the mere idea of remembering was something more like an anvil hanging overhead, ready to drop any second. You sucked your bottom lip in.

“Kept on sayin’ to me, ‘I’m sober, I swear!’ and took the skirt off to show ya wanted to, y’know—” Joel paused to circle around the desk behind him. He went rummaging, quietly, then, “You threw it over your neighbors’ fence as soon as we got to your place. I had to fish it out later.”

Coach Joel made it through two, three, four drawers before finally setting his sights on the one he needed—the one where they kept old athletic clothes stored, it seemed. You watched him set aside a heather grey shirt of some minor league baseball team you didn’t recognize, followed by a pair of gym shorts.

It certainly wasn’t the most trendy attire, but it was dry.

Joel was still dripping wet when he motioned to the stuff. Before he could offer it up, though, you frowned.

“Wait— we were at my house?”

Joel smiled in that wry, humorless way of his and nodded. Pretended to inspect a smudge on his shoe so he didn’t have to meet your gaze and watch the first inklings of embarrassment morph into pure humiliation.

Your cheeks were on fire. You remembered it now.

How Joel had calmly set you up in the passenger seat of his truck, politely pushed your feet back inside when you whined and insisted you were fine to keep drinking, let’s go back, then artfully dodged a kiss that you’d tried to plant on his lips. You’d got his cheek instead and huffed.

“Joel, I am so, so sober, it’s insane,” you hiccuped, “Pinky promise we can fuck now if you wanna.”

“I don’t,” Joel grunted. He put the car in drive.

You must’ve gone back and forth on that topic for hours—or however long it took to get from the Tipsy Bison’s parking lot to your parent’s house in the dead of night—and Joel had been adamant. Insistent. He wouldn’t lay a hand on you until you’d sobered up and gone to sleep.

He’d somehow managed to wrestle you into a pair of his sweats after you threw your own skirt over the fence. He’d reasoned, pleaded, then outright begged you to follow his lead inside. When you refused, he had no choice but to throw you over his shoulder and—

“—sneak me into my room?” you said, words steeped in disbelief. Your parents would’ve murdered the man in cold blood if they’d seen him toting their half-conscious, fully drunk daughter over his back and into her bedroom.

Coach Joel was brave for that.

Kind-hearted, too.

And you’d kicked the poor soul in his balls the next day.

Suddenly—and conspicuously—your gaze fell to his dick.

“I-I…Joel, I am so…fucking sor—”

“‘S’okay,” Joel cut in, gently. Wincing at the memory and pretending not to see your eyes burn a hole in his shorts.

Your gaze was still fixed firmly on that spot when you saw his hand stir at his side. He reached into his pocket.

To your immediate chagrin, he withdrew a little wrapper.

Just big enough to house a strip of gum, but it didn’t, at least not anymore. Someone had removed the gum and flipped the wrapper inside out to write something down.

Joel’s fingers flattened it out some, and then you saw it: a phone number scribbled on the small silver parchment. The man in front of you held it out for no more than a second before placing it on top of the clothes on the desk and sliding the pile toward you. Clearing his throat.

“Forgot to give you this,” he said, “I was just, uh— tryin’ to pull it outta my pocket. Earlier. In the parking lot.”

So not trying to grope you. Or kidnap you in broad daylight. Or do anything even remotely malevolent.

Just trying to give you his number. Pointing to his pants.

No sooner had Joel set you down on your bed than you were squirming against your comforter, trying to drag his sweatpants down your legs with some effort. Joel immediately seized both of your hands at the waistband and shook his head. He yanked the pants up while you tried, unsuccessfully, to pull them down your body.

“This ain’t happenin’ now, honey,” he’d said softly.

“Why—” You fisted the fabric even tighter and attempted to wriggle out again, to no avail, “—not?!”

“One: you’re drunk…” Joel replied, voice even as ever. Tugging his sweats back up to rest comfortably at your hips, then rotating your body in bed so he could pull the sheets over you, “Two: date comes first, remember?”

You blinked in embarrassment—again—at the memory. Joel bit the inside of his cheek, as if remembering too.

“I promised I’d take ya on a proper date,” he said simply. Flatly, almost, “Y’know, ‘fore we did anything like, uh…”

And from one shared look alone, the two of you knew what would’ve followed after. Or had a rough idea of it, anyway. Perhaps feeling a bit too forward with that wordless admission, or still uncertain whether you even remembered the date he’d promised you in the first place, Joel looked down. He glanced over at the clothes and opened his mouth to speak again, probably to tell you to get changed, now, you’re fixin’ to freeze to death—and maybe you should’ve waited for him to say it.

Maybe.

Maybe you should’ve waited for Coach Joel to tell you that he’d step outside and give you some privacy while you changed, offer to give you a ride to Amy’s if you needed it. Keep things professional. Platonic. Put dates on the back burner for the time being and leave it at that.

But you were already so cold, and your inhibitions low.

Maybe some part of you wanted to make it up to Joel somehow—thank him for being so kind the night before.

So, instead of letting him speak, you hooked your thumbs under the waistband of his sweatpants, just like you’d done the night before, and started to pull down.

“Does the date have to come first?” you said. Soft, slow.

The wet and heavy fabric fell around your ankles with a less-than-sexy thud, but you stepped out of it calmly all the same. Your legs were met with another biting chill, the kind that was bound to seize your limbs when left bare below the waist—save for your bodysuit—and you felt a wave of goosebumps break out across your skin.

Joel stared as you stepped closer. He hadn’t evinced so much as a note of surprise, but you could tell from the glint in his eyes he had to have been thinking something.

‘Christ’ was all he muttered.

You drew nearer, until just the tips of your toes were about to graze his own, and you kicked off Tess’s shoes with a nonchalance you were amazed you were able to feign. Inside, your heart was hammering against your chest, and your stomach doing somersaults as Joel’s gaze drifted back up to your face. His chewing had slowed, but you could feel the faint fragrance of mint on his breath. You wished he would touch you, but he didn’t.

“Figured we could just...cut through the—” you started.

“No.”

It seemed Joel loved to interrupt. Loved telling you no.

You leaned back a little, both eyebrows raised. You were about to take a step away, sensing by the stern look that had crossed over his face that maybe he wasn’t in the mood to touch, or kiss, or do anything with you at all. As much as rejection would’ve felt like a punch in the gut, and likely compounded your embarrassment tenfold, you would never try to cross that line without his permission.

You’d just sucked in one last inhale of spearmint and failure when you felt a hand on the front of your top.

Joel’s index and thumb pinched the fabric.

They tugged you toward his body, gently.

At the first influx of relief, you smiled—thank fuck you hadn’t creeped the poor guy out—and started to reach for Joel just the same, but his other hand stopped you. Again, it was tender, but appreciably firmer this time:

Don’t touch me.

Your face fell. Hand dropped limply beside you and eyes winced with confusion as Joel continued to pull forward.

He brought you to a stop before your bodies made contact. Then he slipped his touch from your belly, up your sides, before eventually settling on your...shoulder?

He applied light pressure. You didn’t understand why.

When he pushed harder and made your legs buckle underneath you, the message rang a little more clearly.

Your knees made the gentlest splat atop wet hardwood, the office floor soaked from your body and Joel’s. You’d barely managed to keep your balance between his feet and had just started to tilt your head up to meet his gaze, hands instinctively reaching out and gripping his thighs for support, when the fabric rustled under your palms.

The soaked, black shorts were being peeled off, slowly.

You blinked up at Joel in disbelief. Did he seriously—

“Think you should say you’re sorry first,” Joel said.

Your heart thudded even harder. You scarcely had another second to process his words before Joel had pulled his shorts down just enough for a strip of skin to show; for the material of his boxers to glide down and leave the tiniest bit of plaid fabric to contain himself.

Coach Joel smoothed his other palm across the back of your head, nudging you closer without pushing you in it.

Amazingly, there was still a palpable undercurrent of concern, even as he had you planted on your knees in front of him. He stroked your scalp with his thumb.

“Nicked my balls pretty good this mornin’—least you could do is give ‘em a kiss to say sorry, right, darlin’?”

You continued to blink, still not quite capable of speech.

“Uhhhm—” you sputtered, only for Joel to intervene.

“‘S’just fine by me if you don’t,” he murmured, “Figured they’d feel a bit better with your pretty lips on ‘em is all.”

From the sweet and encouraging lilt in his voice to the gentle rubs of his finger going back and forth across the crown of your head, you felt a stab of saccharine pride. An urge to preen beneath his touch and soak in the tiniest streaks of affection wrought by the pad of one thumb and a smile taking shape lazily above you then.

Joel didn’t tug the waistband of his boxers any further; you did. The gears in your brain whirring alive with a desire to have him keep smiling at you like that, keep stroking your head and voicing his dulcet appreciation, you reckoned the effect was something akin to a drug.

You weren’t watching his cock when it finally sprang out. Your eyes were just glued to Coach Joel’s, holding his gaze and hoping he liked the sight of you there beside it.

Beside him.

Beside every inch of him, and— oh fuck were there a lot.

Your attention momentarily diverted, you peered up at Joel’s cock as it sat nestled against a small tuft of grey-black hairs at the base of his belly and almost coughed.

He was huge in every aspect. Your mouth fell open.

Seeing your lips so parted, Joel had to fight back a chuckle, it sounded like, and gently nudged your head.

“‘S’okay, baby. Just the balls, remember?”

Your gaze flitted back to his, visibly unnerved. Confused.

“Just…the balls?” you breathed.

At length, the short, shallow exhales from your lungs were fanning across Joel’s family jewels, and you almost couldn’t believe he wanted you to neglect his cock completely in favor of kissing them. You swallowed.

When your mouth reopened, caught somewhere between a look of curiosity and muted surprise, Joel pressed the pads of his fingers into your scalp once more. Prodding you gently toward the source of his desire without applying too much pressure on the spot.

“Right…there.”

Your lips latched onto the smooth, warm skin as he said it. It was strange, landing straight on a plane of flesh that you typically didn’t pay attention to until you’d licked and bobbed your head down his cock a few times. These soft and rounded globes felt almost foreign to you, as you curled your lips into one, gently, and then felt them spring back with a pop. Your mouth was watering.

Joel groaned at the slippery wet friction from that kiss.

While you stared and started in for another soft peck, Coach Joel sucked in a hiss of a breath through his teeth.

“Feels better already, honey,” he grunted.

You kissed the other. You ran your tongue along the underside and guided it back to your mouth so you could suckle some more, and the fingers noticeably tightened.

Another soft, punctured breath. Another rumbling moan.

“Fuck— baby, you look so pretty. Kissin’ ‘em so well.”

Feeling confidence swell in your chest, you locked eyes with Joel and opened your mouth wider. If you hadn’t been otherwise preoccupied, perhaps you would’ve felt a small twinge of embarrassment at the drool that leaked out of both corners of your lips as you did it, but, at any rate, you were busy, and evidently, the sight had only made Joel’s cock harder. Your eyes shifted to the stiff, thick, veiny member standing upright above you, all but pulsing with need, and you lifted your hand to touch it.

Joel brushed it away.

“Nuh-uh,” he tutted.

Without meaning to, you whined. Tongue ushering more of that soft, smooth flesh against your lips and jaw hanging slack as your cheeks stretched to accommodate as much as they verily could, you felt deprived, in a way.

You pressed your fingertips into his thighs, pleading.

And, as if to answer your question, Joel shook his head.

“An apology to me ain’t about what you want, darlin’,” he said, voice gravelly as he spoke, “Keep your hands off it.”

Something in his tone, though not unkind, grated on your ears like some of the worst news you’d ever heard. An aura you hadn’t been able to decipher until just now seemed to sink beneath your skin, made you sick with it—that feeling of dread that you’d disappointed the man. Perhaps it was because he was a coach, because he knew how to assume an authoritative stance and hold you to it, that you felt especially dispirited by his words. That simple, clipped ‘hands off’ hurt more than expected

You tore your gaze from his and resumed the quiet ministrations with your lips and tongue on his balls, bracing yourself tighter against his thighs as you did.

“‘M’sorry— I—” you said, voice muffled between kisses and gentle laps of your tongue, “—didn’t mean to, Joel.”

You felt the muscles in his legs stiffen as you bathed him with attention, spit smeared all over and lips working tirelessly to massage him, give him more pleasure.

“It’s alright, pretty girl,” Joel murmured, voice strained with the force of another moan clawing out of his throat. At length, he gave in—squeezing your head to him a little tighter and letting out a sound so obscene that you felt a new wave of warmth pool into your panties, trickling fast.

And, as if he could hear your arousal seep out, knowing just what his honeyed praises were liable to do to you:

“Good girl, just like that— fuck, your mouth feels nice.”

The sting of his last admonition was beginning to fade. Your lips worked hungrily over him, suckling and kissing and taking more into your mouth, as much as your jaw would allow. You were just about to try and squeeze all of him in, when you felt Joel shift in front of you slightly.

Then stepping back, crouching down to your level.

You probably would’ve fallen flat on your face had he not scooped you up in his arms the second after. Your knees were like jelly, your brain scarcely more functional and feeling a little self-conscious about the spit on your chin. You were just about to wipe it off with the back of your hand when Joel got it for you—using his mouth to do it.

Licking a stripe across the lower half of your face, mixing his own saliva with yours and tickling your cheek with his mustache in an act that seemed almost pornographic.

“You are so fucking sexy,” Joel murmured, teeth nipping at wet skin and lips pressing light kisses here and there.

Before you could respond, he turned you around and shoved you onto the desk. Pressed a hand to the small of your back, flattened you facedown on the table’s surface with your ass hanging over the edge, and then stepped behind you, quietly. Quickly. Working to rid himself of clothes that were still clinging to his body like a second skin, Joel shrugged his shirt off, yanked his shorts and boxers the rest of the way to his feet, then kicked all three articles of clothing aside as he drew closer to you.

You heard four drawers open beside you, underneath you, in quick succession. Joel was rummaging again.

Where excitement normally would’ve taken root at this point—pleasure pooling between your legs as the man hastily procured a condom and tore the wrapper open, worked it onto his dick—you felt uncertainty instead. Sadness, even. You kicked your feet back and forth, toes scraping the oak floor as though the friction might conceivably rouse something lighter inside you. It didn’t.

Joel returned, and you couldn’t see his face. He gave your ass a taut smack, then kneaded the flesh in his palm, and you couldn’t be sure if he was smiling or frowning or simply glowering down at you with a look of indifference. When you felt his touch graze over your hands and tuck them coolly at the small of your back, you wanted to tilt your chin some to face him. You didn’t.

Instead, you stared at the wall across from the desk and hoped that he liked whatever he saw. When you felt something wrap around your wrists, you didn’t protest, only bit your lip and waited for him to tie it extra tight.

Joel leaned in and dropped a quick kiss on your shoulder.

The knot he made was snug but not suffocating.

You really wanted to see him now, for some reason.

“This OK?” Joel said. He tapped your wrists.

Before you could answer beyond just a nod, though, he tugged the knot and made a noise in his throat that sounded like a scoff. He pressed something cool and light against your palm, and a shiver pulsed through you.

“Is that…your, uh…” you breathed out an awkward laugh.

He’d tied your hands behind you with his whistle.

“Uh-huh,” Joel hummed, sounding pleased.

And in the next, you could hear a trace of a smirk:

“Always wanted to tie a slut up just like this, y’know?”

Ouch.

Joel was great with praise, but his degradation hurt a bit. You squeezed the metal whistle and tried to pretend like there wasn’t a strangely painful lump taking shape at the back of your throat—it shouldn’t have felt like that at all.

You shouldn’t care what a total stranger thought of you.

That’s all Coach Joel was after all: a stranger to fuck.

But as you felt him unclasp the fastenings at the bottom of your bodysuit, tug your panties down, and line himself up with your entrance from behind, you kind of wished he wasn’t. Maybe you’d been mistaken in initiating this thing and would’ve been better off accepting the date like he’d offered. Maybe then you wouldn’t feel so weird.

At any rate, he was already gripping your hips in his hands and starting to ease himself inside you. Groaning at the pressure and warmth enveloping his cock and uttering curse after curse with just the head notched in. You could sense the slightest sting of latex at your center; Joel’s girth felt every bit as imposing as it had looked, and now your face was screwed up with a wince trying to take him in. Your clit was untouched, throbbing.

Just as you’d bit down on your lower lip with discomfort, Joel dropped his head back and let out a satisfied groan.

“Fuck me,” he grunted, “You’re so…fuckin’ tight.”

Next, ‘good girl’ was quick to become a strangled refrain on his tongue as he worked a couple inches in and out of your aching hole. It felt okay, as you’d gotten plenty wet on your knees for him before, but it stung with each stab of his hips, and your body had gotten overly tense. Worse yet, Joel was so focused on getting himself in that his fingers still hadn’t found your clit. They massaged your ass instead, evidently in awe of how small you looked taking him inch by inch; the sight mesmerizing to him.

“Joel—” you started to whimper.

“This what ya wanted all along, huh? Gettin’ fucked over my desk like a little slut?” Joel’s words were equal parts indelicate and venomous—even sexy as they crawled off his tongue—but the tone with his thrusts was too much. He was gripping too hard, pushing too far, being unkind in a way that would’ve been alright if you were a doll. But you weren’t. The least you needed was concern. So, gently, you let out a breath and turned your head.

“Joel—”

Before bottoming out completely, Coach Joel slapped your ass once again and groaned through his teeth.

“C’mon an’ tell me how much ya like it, baby, how—”

“JOEL.”

He stopped. From the corner of your eye, you spied a startled, half-blanched face. Joel pulled out immediately.

“Wh— hey, you okay, sweetheart? Hey,” the man said, leaning in and loosening the restraints on your wrists. When you nodded for him to keep untying, please, he tugged the whole thing off and turned you back around,

“Is everything okay?”

His eyes were much wider than you’d expected to find them, hands gripping you by either arm as his gaze scanned your face. Out of some unsettled feeling, it seemed, he drew closer, hastily, until your legs were nearly enmeshed and his hands cupped your cheeks.

“I don’t…like that,” you answered in a small, soft voice.

“You don’t…” Joel trailed off, blinking slow at first, then appearing to process your words and turn to stroking the cusp of your jawline with his thumbs while he did.

When it hit just how much you hadn’t liked that and why, he paled even more. Like he couldn’t get his touch to be apologetic enough, his eyes soft and glossy and sorry.

“Did I—” Joel leaned in, squeezing your face, “I’m sorry—did I hurt you any? You can tell me, honey, honest.”

“Not much.” And you tried to crack a smile, but the man wasn’t having it. He switched positions, hoisting you up.

He carried you over to the sofa. Held you in a semi-awkward cradle once he realized the couch was all but broken in two from decades and decades of use, then resigned himself, gladly, to just holding you in his arms.

Pretending not to see you make a face as if to say, ‘Joel, I’m alright now,’ he nuzzled his own closer to yours and started sponging little kisses near your chin and neck.

“‘M’sorry,” he mumbled again, voice now stifled by skin.

You tried not to get too squeamish, or giggle in his hold, but the fact was that his lips were so light—feather-like, almost—and the places he was kissing were so sensitive, you couldn’t help but let out a couple sounds that were half-laugh, half-strangled gasp. With each one of these, Joel would start smiling in between affectionate pecks.

And his dark, dampened curls, though striated with grey, framed his face in a boyish way; he grinned and lost a decade. You were amazed what a difference a glimpse of him could make, and now that he was caressing you, kissing you, your body knew it too, suffused with warmth

When Joel’s lips found yours, you almost forgot it was the first time he’d done that today. Or ever. You kissed each other comfortably, without a shade of pretense or pause, and found that your mouths worked so well together it was a small wonder you hadn’t thought to do that sooner. Joel pulled away, still holding your face.

“We did this backwards,” he said, sounding deflated, “Date first, kiss second, embarrassingly bad sex last.”

You shrugged. Smiling. Silently hoping Joel hadn’t felt your cheeks warm while he cupped your face like that and then tried deflecting that attention away by saying:

‘Two out of three isn’t that bad, Coach.’

And, just as swiftly as he’d brought you over to the sofa, Joel had you flipped and pinned under his body on the old, misshapen cushions and squealing out a laugh.

“I thought ya wanted it rough, honey,” he groaned against your throat. Kissing the skin as you giggled.

“And your idea of rough is—” you started.

“Callin’ ya names, slappin’ your ass, all that kinda sh—”

“—constantly interrupting people while they talk, too?”

Joel suspended his affectionate ministrations just long enough to swap his lips and tongue with teeth, giving your neck a light bite. For all his outward displays of Southern gentility and gentleman-like behavior, he was, after all, still a coach: the kind of guy whose primary sustenance was competition, whose ability to hold a conversation reflected the desire to dominate, always.

Maybe he didn’t like having this fact brought to his attention, stated so plainly as his body blanketed yours and his head burrowed even deeper into your neck. Joel squeezed the sides of your body, about to pull you closer, when you squirmed out from under him and sat upright.

You glanced down and saw that Joel had already chucked the condom. He was starting to lean back into the sofa, length standing semi-erect against the shelf of his belly while his hands fumbled over your thighs and hips. Trying to steer you into his lap, he muttered another string of apologies along with some words like, ‘I know.’

“You’re right, I know I’m bad about that, I—” he began.

“Get another.”

Now you were the one to interrupt, limbs resisting his pull as you nodded to the desk. Telling him to go.

“You wanna—”

“Yeah.”

When Joel blinked a couple times and didn’t move, you stood up yourself. He reached for you; you ignored him. You strode over to the desk where he’d retrieved the condoms the first time and grabbed the box, snagged a square metallic wrapper out of it, and walked back over.

You sat down beside Joel and didn’t wait for him to take the lead. You tore the packet with your teeth and, careful not to chomp down on the latex itself, pulled the rubber out. It wasn’t until you sank down on your knees in front of Coach Joel on the wet, hard floor that he stirred at all.

He grabbed your wrist before you could slide it on.

“C’mere.”

Again, you resisted his efforts to pull you into his lap—‘Joel, I wanna do it now, I swear’—and when it seemed you were going to remain as defiant as you ever had been, on the floor, Joel leaned forward and kissed you.

Somehow, he reached you even deeper than he had before. You were on your knees, chin tilting to his and lips parting, slowly, and Joel cupped both sides of your face to drive his tongue inside. Now he wasn’t just touching but tasting, too, his efforts quick to be accompanied by the gentlest of sounds from his mouth to yours. Thumbing your cheeks even harder when his tongue moved against yours and a grunt crept out of his throat.

“I wanna—” he said in between soft, strained breaths.

You already knew what he was going to say. You shook your head against his before pulling away. Watching him watch you with a hungry look and follow you to the floor.

“I need you to fuck me, Joel,” you cut in. You scooted back and spread your legs, and Joel crawled forward.

He murmured something about eating you out, licking that pretty pussy clean before he gave it to you again, but you just told him no, again, and fisted the damp grey ringlets at the back of his head to pull him closer to you.

Joel was already slotting himself between your legs, dismayed not to be able to taste your cunt but also keen to join you as you came to lie supine on the floor before him. His eyes were alight with curiosity, mouth opening and closing with the threat of a teasing word or two on his tongue until you started to slide the condom down.

You almost couldn’t believe it yourself: how forward you were being—sober this time. With the sting from Joel’s first entry reduced to a mere throb between your legs, the space where he’d been before was pulsing, blood pumping, and with each new second you could feel the need amplify. Your legs curled around his waist and pulled him closer, hips inching forward on hardwood beneath him to get his cock pressed flush with your heat.

“Take it…real slow this time.” Joel was already sliding a hand under your head. Cradling the back of your skull as his tip moved over the wet and sticky warmth that had pooled between your folds. His eyes searched your face.

Just sensing the weight of his gaze, his grip, the restraint from his lower half as it hovered over yours, you already felt safer. Silly, almost, for how much that wordless reassurance and concern from Joel came as a comfort—and had you writhing under him for more, now, please.

“We’ll get there, hon, don’t you worry your pretty little head—” And as he said it, Joel pressed a kiss to your forehead, “—and if it hurts any, ya tell me, alright?”

“I will, Joel, please,” you whimpered.

Smooth and bulbous and just a pinch too snug in that latex, the head of Joel’s cock made a dizzying squelch against the rim of your cunt. The tip was all it took to remind you just how big he was, how tough it was probably going to be to adjust to his size, how—

“Hey,” Joel said, voice grounding you immediately.

You looked up to meet his gaze.

“I’m still takin’ you on a date, by the way,” he mumbled, and you smiled, “If you wanna save this part for later—”

As though your bodies had both said ‘no’ at once, Joel’s cock eased forward slightly, softly, and notched into the slick ring of muscles that had kept your parts separate. The intrusion was barely an inch, and not your very first, but it felt like a novelty—something tender and delicate to steal a breath from your chest and Joel’s—and the stretch, now, was a welcome one. Your legs tightened at Joel’s sides, and his lips pressed over your own, briefly.

“This okay?” he asked.

“Yeah,” you nodded.

“You sure?”

“Mmmh—ohhhh, fuck, yes, Joel.”

The words flew from your mouth without meaning to. Your hands moved up to his chest, his shoulders, squeezing his trap muscles and sinking your nails in the skin while a welt of pleasure blossomed between your legs. Joel kissed the corner of your mouth, smile already starting to tug at both ends of his. Then he kissed it again.

Joel swallowed his awe—and pride—and leaned closer.

“Shoulda been treatin’ her sweeter, baby, I’m sorry,” he hummed against your cheek. Then he sank his length even deeper inside and relished the soft pulse of you.

He was rutting gently with just half his dick, and still, your body and brain were on the fritz, all but overcome with that swollen, coiling bliss. You glanced down and were half enrapt with the heft of his stomach boring into yours. You trailed your fingertips over the soft plane of flesh, pinched it gently while Joel’s steady and shallow thrusts split you even further open, and you smiled, too.

“That’s a first,” he said, chuckle rumbling low.

“What? Fucking on the floor?”

“That— that too,” Joel tried to make the same amused sound but was interrupted by a groan bubbling up in his throat. You’d clenched, and he drove in even deeper, “You…you touchin’ my, uh…my stomach, I mean.”

You pinched it again, feeling soft grey hairs in your palm.

“Your tummy?”

Joel couldn’t help but grin a little at the word.

“My tummy,” he repeated, as if he didn’t believe it.

Again, you could’ve sworn you saw a flush of pink creep up the side of his throat, but you decided not to mention it. Instead, you just slid your hands back up to his chest and stretched your legs even wider to take more of him in. Joel obliged with the last remaining inch and groaned.

You moaned too, squeezing tighter. He’d just bottomed out, and you were already, somehow, on the brink.

It didn’t matter that you were getting fucked on the frigid wood floor by your little brother’s baseball coach, water pooling around you and between you and commingling with the minuscule beads of sweat that were starting to form on your bodies. Joel was as handsome as he’d ever looked, brow drawn inward and lips taking the shape of an ‘o’ whenever they weren’t sponging kisses over yours. The stretch you felt was approaching euphoric now, walls fluttering with each slow and gentle stroke inside you. Joel was deep, and he was measured—and he was careful in the force of his thrusts, taking pains to watch your expression for any changes or signs of discomfort.

He was praising you, too. Strings of ‘Right there, baby—doin’ so good for me’ and ‘Feels so nice’ and ‘Keep goin’ were like music to your ears, nudging you closer and closer to climax with every tender thrust. When Joel’s hand descended to your hip and the cadence of his own body grew a little more deliberate and fixed, you were certain he would be teasing out your release any minute. You wound your fingers through his hair, preparing to pull tight in anticipation of that heady, blissful feeling.

Evidently, Coach Miller wasn’t as ready. He wrenched himself out of your grip and withdrew the next second.

And, try as you might to contain the sound, a whine tumbled off your lips, followed by a ‘Joel!’ just as quick. A hollow feeling swallowed your lower half; you felt you had no other choice but to prop yourself up on both elbows, cast a despondent look between your legs, and groan:

“I was so clo—”

“Couldn’t wait. ‘M’sorry, honey.”

You might’ve liked to give him a little more hell for that—particularly observing the smug smile that had crawled onto Joel’s face as he said it—but the feeling was short-lived. Just when you opened your mouth to speak, you watched him glide down your front. He was painstakingly slow, then swift as soon as he slipped between your legs. His shoulders bumped your thighs, heedless of the feeling the motion would evoke, and came to rest with his face between them. Happy. Or pleased—even eager.

You couldn’t fault him for that enthusiasm for long, either, because the next thing you knew, Joel’s mouth was lowering further. Slotting his lips and tongue against your glistening folds and nudging you gently, teasingly, as if knowing exactly what you lacked in that moment. Your fingers found his hair again and this time were free to tug as long as they liked; Joel busied himself intently.

He flattened his tongue and licked a stripe up your slit. He lapped at your folds, collecting whatever sweet, tangy parts of you had trickled out over the stretch of that morning, and didn’t flinch when the jolt of pleasure it sent caused your hands to make fists in his hair. In fact, the sting on his scalp only seemed to make his actions that much greedier. He grinned when you whimpered.

“Still close?”

The fucking tease.

“N-N— No shit, Miller.”

You hated the way his mouth made a faltering mess of your own. In spite of the impairment, though, it was clear that this state wouldn’t last for long; a couple more strokes of his tongue and a soft, semi-complaisant suction on your bundle of nerves and you would be gone.

Coach Miller was mean, but he wasn’t so cruel as to deny you the sublime pleasure of getting to cum in his mouth. With one hand, he gave your thigh a comforting squeeze, and with the other, he trailed his touch to your entrance. When his index and middle fingers first slid in, he held your leg again and stroked the skin in small, tight circles.

“You’re good, hey. You’re okay,” he assured you softly, the fingers of his other hand sinking even deeper.

You felt pathetic and squeamish, but the heft of that one push just felt so good. Paired with his tongue on your clit and a vicious little suckling here and there, his mustache dragging back and forth along the cusp of your mound, it came as no surprise to you or Joel when next your body tensed and your lower half flooded with pleasure.

What little remained of your resolve not to cry disintegrated in less than a second—by turns, your thighs clamped down around Joel’s head like a vice, your eyes squeezed shut, and the whine that tore out of your throat was as shrill and piercing and high as you’d ever heard it. Succeeded shortly by a fuck, fuck, FUCK, Joel, fuck and a gush of warmth down his chin, your climax couldn’t have been more pronounced if you’d tried. Fortunately, the fully-drenched man beneath you didn’t mind at all; if anything, he saw it as a personal success.

Climbing back up your body, bracketing his bare, muscly arms about your torso, and gripping the base of his cock, triumph was there, painted clear across his every feature. It softened his face. Made his length even stiffer and more ready than ever to re-enter your warmth before you could press so much as a hand to his chest, sighing gently. Joel snagged your lips between his for a kiss.

“That’s it, pretty girl, keep goin’.”

His words were muffled by your mouth—a tiny gasp.

“Gonna make this last a little while longer, that alright?”

He breached the first two inches of your swollen, shiny, still-pulsing cunt as if to punctuate the question. All raw and tender from the last orgasm he’d coaxed out of it, and being stretched around his tip without fair warning, your muscles spasmed again. You both let out a breath.

“It’s— Joel, it’s—”

Another inch. Almost too good to bear. The man appeared to nod in understanding, before he smoothed a hand over your face and cradled it. He drove in deeper, while your voice broke off in some low, muffled whine.

“A lot. I know,” he finished, softly, as if commiserating with you while splitting you open on his cock, “I know it’s a lot, baby. You just tell me if it gets to be too much.”

His words had all the air of a calm, measured authority, spoken in tones you knew too well. He sank further. No inflection quite as stern or steady could have belonged to anyone else but a coach, you reckoned. Coach Miller, the hard-boiled voice of reason for the baseball team, so-called ‘silent type,’ object of every last housewife’s desire—and also the guy you’d kneed in the dick that morning.

It was only fair he got to return the favor in his own way.

Now he was holding your hip in his free hand, pinning you down to the floor while he started to ease in and out of your cunt at a generous pace. He knew you were spent. He sensed he was already on the brink himself, most likely. He also probably knew he couldn’t leave your limp, boneless body well enough alone before he felt the urge to make you hurt a little too—and enjoy it, of course.

Joel was all shining, hopeful eyes as he stabbed inside and found that spot, watching your own flutter closed.

“Coach.” It came out without much thought on your part. It just seemed like the right thing to call him, no matter how ethically grey or downright weird it was.

Joel liked it.

He squeezed your palm when it reached for his, and he brought it up to his mouth, peppering soft, sloppy kisses across the back of your hand while he fucked you into the floor. Shamelessly, he also used your grip on him to gauge how near you were to your next release. From what he could tell in the sights and sounds and frantic little clinches of your fist, you were close. Still loath to give in to that feeling, or else afraid to accede so quickly after the last, though, your breaths were labored. Timid.

“I-I-I don’t know if I can,” you cried, shaking your head.

Inside you, there was a big, swelling something taking shape at the pit of your gut, and with each new brush of Joel’s cock, it only got larger. The sensation was so keen and acute it might well be construed as pain if he kept at this any longer. You didn’t know if you could cum again.

“Go on an’ try, sweet pea,” Joel cooed and lowered your hand, still grasping his, between your trembling legs, “Won’t take any more’n a second or two, just touch—”

His thumb fumbled with yours and made a hapless little circuit on your clit, which almost shrieked at the feeling.

“—right here, and—”

“Fuck me,” you panted.

Your fingers and his were drenched in your nectar, all but oozing down with each slick, deliberate thrust from Joel.

“That’s what I’m doin’, no? Ya like it?” He couldn’t help it.

Frankly, neither could you. From the near-sated, happy-and-about-to-cum-on-your-dick glint in your eye, you sensed he’d know what you meant when you said, next:

“It hurts.”

“Good?” Joel grinned.

“So good.”

The man delivered a thrust that felt like it might puncture your lungs, and with it, your last resolve.

He drew even closer, until his nose and yours were brushing, smiles faint but there all the same, and his thumb guiding your own across your throbbing clit:

“Give it here, baby. Make me feel it.”

And you did. With one more stroke inside, you let it all flood out, cunt spasming and pulsing and leaking liquid heat down the length of Joel’s cock. He fucked you full, only the condom between you, and as your moans gave way to whimpers and whines, the noises in his own throat took on an even more desperate kind of timbre.

Your stuffed, overstimulated hole felt as greedy as it had ever been, and the man rutting into it was still needier. Using your body, squeezing your hand, panting out hot and frantic breaths that all but begged you to keep letting him fill your cunt—please, baby, feels so damn good, keep goin’. Try as he might to maintain the upper hand whenever he could, it was clear this time around he was fucked, top to bottom and ten ways to next week. He had a look that struck you as pleased, pained, and on the last trembling webs of cum being emptied from his body, Coach Miller held onto your face and kissed you.

While your highs died down, he stayed inside—still kissing, grunting, mumbling how good you felt. You barely had the presence of mind to hear it, but you smiled and let him go on. You’d made a mess of yourself.

Of Joel, too. Apart from the sheen of sweat and still-damp and dripping hair, his body was wrecked. Groaning. Lower stomach painted with your slick, chest heaving as he tried to catch his breath. Now that the fucking was done and the room was mostly consumed by silence and strangled breaths, you had the distinct, albeit less sexual, pleasure of seeing some other things.

Like the way the joints in the coach’s knees made a pop when he tried to sit up. How the soft and weathered face pinched tighter, wrinkled further as he ventured to drag you with him, in what would eventually only be a semi-seated position on the floor, against the coffee table. How you straddled his lap, still impaled, and felt a groan vibrate through his chest when you tilted your hips the tiniest bit. He just might’ve grimaced if he wasn’t so spent and lazily fixated on you, eyes glued to your lips. He traced the seam of it with his thumb, looking amused.

“You really thought I was tryin’ to kidnap ya earlier, huh?”

Your cheeks warmed. You hoped he wouldn’t feel it.

“Well, you…you were reaching for me!”

Menacingly, you wanted to add.

“Grabbed you a couple times after that, too, didn’t I?”

And the smile on Joel’s face said he’d already felt the temperature rise in yours. You tried turning your head, embarrassed, but he held it, letting his palms sink in.

“Yeah, well, I’d say we’re even now, Coach.” Your words came out a bit muffled with his hands squishing your cheeks between them. Adamant as you were, defiance was hard to feign when the man was making you pout. You made as if to get up, but Joel just held on tighter.

“Far from it,” he said. He kissed your puckered lips, and you couldn’t ignore the little flutter in your stomach.

“How come?”

“‘Cause I owe you a date.”

You should’ve known he wasn’t the kind to give up, or forget, that easily. Even when you gave a playful push to his chest, pretended not to revel in the spattering of kisses he’d begun dropping along your collarbone—‘That’s a bad idea and we both know it, Coach’—he just pulled you even further into himself, and you felt your defenses falter, if only for a second. Maybe he was right.

“I can take you now,” Joel added.

“Like hell you will,” you laughed.

Your voice was even, but beneath it, the façade unsure. Joel was lifting you to your feet, then looking around.

“I know a place,” he continued, casual. His eyes scanned the room, and you surmised he was looking for clothes. When they landed on the shirt and shorts he’d left for you on the desk, he walked right over. He handed them to you. While you dressed, he grabbed another set from the desk drawer and began doing the same, going on:

“It’s this spot called ‘Amy’s.’ I hear they’ve got gr—”

“Joel.”

Your eyes met his again, expecting to find a smirk on his face. You saw no such expression. Instead, he watched you earnestly. Drew the drawstrings in on his too-tight shorts and smiled. You had to fight with every fiber of your being not to do the same as he strode back over and stood in front of you. You shook your head at him.

“Not happening,” you said. Your lips twitched once.

Meanwhile, Joel’s were stretching into a full grin.

Before you could stop him, he was pulling you out of the office. Leading you back down the hallway from earlier. Your footsteps echoed all through the concrete corridor.

“Think Sam’ll kick my ass when he sees us?” he mused.

“Probably just knee you straight in the dick.”

Even from where you were being tugged along behind Joel, you could feel him wince. He flashed you a sidelong glance, and you returned it with a half-apologetic smile.

“I kissed it all better, didn’t I?”

“I think you missed a couple spots, I dunno.”

And with that, Joel was smirking. Shooting you a wink.

You groaned at the memory of David doing the same.

“Please never do that again,” you begged him.

You strolled into the locker room together.

“Do what?”

“Wink.”

“Oh.”

Joel was slinging the strap of his bag over his shoulder.

“Is that…” he started.

“Creepy as shit? Correct.”

He nodded back in wordless acknowledgment, but deep down, you sensed he was most definitely going to wink at you again at some point in the day, just to piss you off.

You’d get him back eventually.

Or maybe kiss the few remaining spots left untouched.

You were about to tell him as much—maybe give him a preview of what was to come with some road head on the way over to Amy’s, for fun—when you paused. You and Joel were walking back down the hall and headed to the exit when you felt something vibrate in your pocket.

You pulled your phone out and checked the screen.

From: Sam

Leaving Amy’s now

Don’t need a ride 😁

Why the fuck a nine-year-old even had an iPhone was beyond you. You typed as you walked alongside Joel.

From: You

Where are you going?

You approached the set of exit doors and stepped out.

From: Sam

Movies. Frank’s driving us.

You were headed out to the parking lot, listening to Coach Joel argue his case for taking his truck to Amy’s.

From: You

Who’s us? Are y’all gonna need a ride back?

From: Sam

Sarah ☺️

The little shitbird never elaborated when he was talking about his plans. You followed Joel out to his vehicle and thanked him as he helped you into the passenger seat. You weren’t really listening as you focused on the texts.

From: You

Sarah who?

Joel was starting his truck. Cranking the A/C and the volume on the radio—an ‘80s rock station, of course.

John Mellencamp’s voice flooded the cabin, and you could feel Joel’s grin kick up. Luckily, it wasn’t the song.

Something or other about authority, you heard dimly.

Sam was taking forever to reply. You were on the way.

From: You

Sarah who??

“Everything okay over there?” Joel asked. He reached over and squeezed your leg to punctuate the question.

You blinked. You nodded once.

“Yeah, it’s just my brother. He’s…going on a date, I think.”

Again, Joel’s smile stretched wider, like this was news.

“No shit? He’s only like nine years old,” he chuckled.

“Yeah. Third grade going on thirty, this kid.”

You watched your text conversation as if staring harder might procure another message. It stayed the same.

Meanwhile, Joel was pulling onto the highway, and his palm was moving up your thigh. The music played loud.

Your gaze flitted to his, and in it, you saw a brazen look.

“Where’s he takin’ her?” His fingers crawled further up.

Joel would be pulling off to the side of this roadway if he didn’t ease up. You spread your legs a little wider for him.

“The movies, it sounds like,” you murmured back.

Then you grinned and were about to set your phone aside when it vibrated in your hand. You glanced down.

“Sounds like a fun place to go,” Joel hummed, probably thinking of all the things he’d like to do to you in a theatre

From: Sam

Sarah Miller

You scanned over that message and didn’t think twice. Something registered in your mind—a faint recollection of that name, and then a sweet, cheerful face you’d seen at Sam’s school before—and you had to smile a little bit.

You liked Sarah Miller.

You were glad Sam seemed to like her too.

Nerves easing a little bit now, you texted back. Telling him to have fun and be safe, call me when you need a ride home. You couldn’t contain the smile on your lips.

Apparently seeing this pleased look, Joel slid his hand to the inside of your thigh and squeezed again. He brushed the heel of his palm against your shorts, then inched it backward, so that he was grazing the soft heat between your legs. You squirmed a little bit but didn’t stop him. In fact, your teeth snagged your bottom lip, and you were subsequently forced to stifle a sound. Joel leaned over.

“We’re ten minutes out. Think you can be a good girl and cum on my fingers just once before then?” he whispered.

The truck was humming along. The air was warm. The music was as deafeningly loud as ever, and your skin was quickly growing damp with sweat, but you were game.

Biting down on the smallest fragment of a whimper, you nodded your head. Joel’s fingers dove under your shorts.

“Oh, but…” you trailed off, sucking in a quick breath. Remembering. “We gotta get back to my car right after ice cream. Sam’s probably gonna need a ride home.”

Joel groaned.

Evidently, he’d had other plans post-Amy’s.

“Can’t the girl’s parents drive ‘em home or somethin’?”

“It’s just her dad, I think. Sam and Sarah have been fri—”

“Sarah?”

Suddenly, Joel’s gaze was darting right. Meeting yours. The fingers that were moments away from plunging deep within your heat were drawing back. Halting.

“A friend from school,” you finished slowly. “Sarah Mill—”

Oh.

Oh.

“Miller? Sarah Miller?” Joel interjected again, eyes wide.

You’d never made the connection.

You just remembered the kid with the bright, warm smile and thought nothing else. What are the odds she’d be—

“My daughter?!”

It seemed Joel’s right hand had completely forgotten its former mission, in favor of freaking out about his kid with your brother, in a movie theatre. Alone. Protective dad mode had kicked in instantaneously, and you couldn’t help but smile seeing that development. You sighed at the loss of his fingers but almost wanted to laugh when you saw the truck’s navigation shift from the ice cream shop to the closest movie theatre. Joel’s nostrils flared.

“But our date, Joel,” you whined, tone all faux protest.

Joel shot you a look and glowered at your teasing smirk.

“You’ll get your date, sweetheart,” he answered. Promised. His grip tightened on the wheel and twisted. “Just gotta make sure my player knows how to behave.”

Something told you he wasn’t talking about baseball.

“Whatever you say, Coach. Whatever you say.”

[quarterlifekitty]

Lately I’ve been imagining being Price’s prized, spoiled little kitty hybrid. Silky satin bow on your lacey collar with a sterling silver bell. You’ve got a big embroidered pillow in every room in the house to lounge on. A beautiful bright bay window to lay in every morning.

He lives on a large, ranch like property near the woods. One day while you’re outside at the edges of the property, a sudden downpour comes. A sudden bolt of lightning and thunder makes you take off in a bad direction, until you’re lost and soaked. Wailing for help.

Enter Simon. A stray (or maybe even a mountain lion?) who’s spied you from the tree line from time to time. You’re scared of him, but he’s so big it’s not hard at all for him to scruff you and drag you back to his den.

He sets you on some soft furs to soak up the water, using his tongue to groom you (a little haphazardly, as it’s apparent he barely even grooms himself). Holds you tight to his chest, fingers bloody as he feeds you strips of meat from his most recent kill.

By the time Price is able to find you, Simon’s curled around you protectively— and they’re both pretty sure you’re knocked up with his litter.

[formulafanfics13]

The reader and Max have been friends since childhood and live in the Netherlands. On Max's farewell night (he moves to become a Formula 1 driver), they finally let their emotions get the better of them and sleep together. The reader gets pregnant but chooses not to tell him because she thinks it will harm his career. She moves to another country to hide the pregnancy and the people close to Max never find out. The reader lives in a country where a Formula 1 race is taking place and Max ends up finding her and the child. He had been going crazy looking for her since he left. He goes to her, they argue but end up making up (🔥) and finally live as a family.

The Night Before and Everything After - MV1

masterlist

Summary: Years after a final, desperate night together in Holland, the reader discovers she’s pregnant with Max Verstappen’s child. Instead of telling him, she disappears to protect his career and his freedom, raising their son alone. Six years later, fate throws them back together in Monaco — and Max meets his child for the first time. The emotional fallout is brutal, intimate, and ferociously raw, culminating in a cathartic confrontation and an unhinged reunion that proves their love never really died, it just waited in silence.

Warning: Major emotional themes including abandonment, teenage pregnancy, single parenthood, parental trauma, guilt, and long-term regret. Intense emotional confrontation, explicit sexual content, rough sex, oral sex (f receiving), crying during sex, possessiveness, light choking, primal desperation, emotional whiplash, and themes of grief and forgiveness.

The last time he touched you, it was raining in Holland. Not the kind of rain you run through, laughing. Not the soft kind that dusts rooftops with silver. No. That night, it was the kind of downpour that drowns everything it touches. It made the trees bend, the sky spit lightning, the air hum like grief.

Max had kissed you in the hallway of your childhood home, soaked through from running the short distance from his to yours. He didn’t care that his hoodie was dripping or that your hair was still in messy braids. He didn’t say anything at first. He just looked at you like he was already sorry. Like this moment had been coming for years and he’d never been brave enough to stop it.

“Don’t,” you’d whispered.

But he’d kissed you anyway. You’d let him. Because there was nothing else left to do.

You grew up side by side. Your bedroom windows had faced each other since you were eight. You’d spent summers in bare feet, winters in matching ski suits, and every second in between tangled up in that strange, childhood best-friendship that everyone else thought was just waiting to become something more. But it never had. Because you knew Max. You knew his father. You knew the anger in that house, the expectation that curved into his spine before he was even old enough to understand it.

He’d been planning his escape since he was fourteen.

And that night, after years of “someday,” he’d finally gotten the call. Jos had arranged it. Red Bull had accepted. He was leaving in the morning for the UK, and then he’d be in Australia by March. Formula 1. Full seat. His whole fucking life about to change.

You were proud. You were terrified. You were already grieving. So you fucked him.

You were both seventeen. It wasn’t planned, and it wasn’t gentle, but it mattered. You had cried. He had pressed his forehead to yours and told you that you were the only thing that made this all hurt.

You let him fall asleep in your bed, wrapped around you, heart pounding against your spine. He had promised to call. To visit. To come back.

But he didn’t. Not once.

Not for birthdays. Not for Christmas. Not even when your grandmother died and you sat at her funeral in a black dress with shaking hands, staring at the door, hoping he’d come home.

He didn’t even text. And six weeks after he left, you found out you were pregnant.

You didn’t cry. Not at first. Not even when the test came back positive in your childhood bathroom. You just stared at it like it had written something else. Like it would change if you looked at it hard enough. Max’s toothbrush was still in your drawer. His hoodie was still on your chair. Your body still ached with the memory of him. But he was gone. Not just gone. Vanished. Already being shaped into a weapon by Red Bull PR. Already behind velvet ropes. Already unreachable.

So you didn’t tell him. Not out of anger. Not even out of fear. You did it out of love. Because you knew what that life would do to him. You knew what Jos had built him to be. You knew that if you told him, he would try to choose you. And it would kill him. Or worse, he’d grow to resent you. You couldn’t live with that. You couldn’t chain him to a version of himself he’d spent his whole life trying to escape.

So you left. Left Europe. Left the only town you’d ever known. Moved across the fucking world with nothing but a student visa, a burning secret, and the quiet promise that you’d raise your child without bitterness. That you’d never speak his name with anything less than reverence. That you’d protect what you had made, even if it shattered you.

And you did. Your son is five now. He has Max’s eyes. Max has no fucking clue.

You don’t see him again until Monaco. Because of course it’s Monaco. Because the universe is a twisted bitch with a sick sense of timing.

You’d only come back to Europe for a wedding. One of your cousins. A quick trip. Five days max. You brought your son with you, made it into a little holiday, booked an overpriced Airbnb with a sea view and ignored every warning in your gut about proximity. And then, because apparently you’re a fucking idiot, you took your son down to the port during free practice. He loves cars. Of course he does. He has that same unholy fascination with speed that Max used to. You thought, stupidly, so stupidly, that you’d be safe. That it would just be noise and fan zones and overpriced gelato.

But then the Red Bull garage appeared on the big screen. And Max stepped into frame. You froze. Your son didn’t. “That car,” he whispered, pointing. “I like that one.”

You didn’t even hear what you said. Something like yeah, that’s Red Bull or cool, right? But your pulse was screaming. Your vision blurred. You hadn’t seen him in person in six fucking years. And somehow he looked the same. No. Worse. He looked better. Sharper. Taller. Tan skin under fireproofs. A black cap pulled low. Eyes you knew like muscle memory. He looked like the same boy who’d kissed you in the rain and whispered your name like a prayer. But now he was a man. A champion. A fucking god to every screaming fan in this city.

And you had his son. 

You panicked. Grabbed your child. Left the port. Didn’t even remember how you got back to the flat. You didn’t sleep that night. Didn’t breathe, barely moved, just watched the ceiling and wondered if you were cursed. If fate was always going to bring you back here, to this moment, where the truth would bleed out of your hands and drown everything you’d built. And then, the next day, it happened.

You were walking through the Place du Casino. Broad daylight. A warm croissant in one hand, your son’s hand in the other. And Max fucking Verstappen stopped dead in front of you.

“Hey.” It wasn’t a question. It wasn’t holy shit, or is that really you, or what the fuck are you doing here.

Just hey. Like it had been a week. Like you hadn’t disappeared halfway across the world to raise his child. Like the whole world hadn’t cracked wide open under your feet.

Your breath caught. Max looked at you like he was trying not to blink. His eyes flicked down your body, not like he was checking you out, no, not this time, but like he was confirming that you were real. Your throat went dry. You opened your mouth to say something. Anything. But then your son looked up. And the moment Max saw him, everything stopped.

Everything. Like the air had been sucked out of Monaco.

Max stared. Not blinked. Stared.

His jaw clenched. His eyes narrowed. His body went completely still in that way you remembered, that dangerous, surgical stillness before he made a decision that would ruin someone.

You couldn’t speak. Your son glanced between you. “Mom?”

Max’s face shattered. Like physically. He flinched, staggered back half a step, his eyes glassy like he’d been hit. He looked at you, just once. A single glance. And it was enough. Then he turned and walked away.

No words. No rage. Just silence.

He found you that night. Pounded on the Airbnb door like he was going to rip it off the hinges. You answered with trembling hands, stepping out into the hallway before he could see your son sleeping inside.

Max didn’t waste time. “How long have you known?”

Your voice cracked. “Since March. That March.”

His hands curled into fists. “You were pregnant when I left?”

“Yes.”

He didn’t yell. He didn’t scream. He just stared at you like he didn’t recognize your face. Like something inside him was breaking and he wasn’t even sure where the pain was coming from yet. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

You looked up at him, eyes burning. “Because I loved you.”

His mouth opened. Closed. You kept going. “Because I knew what Jos would say. What Red Bull would do. What it would cost you. And I couldn’t do that to you, Max. I couldn’t be the reason you gave it all up.”

His voice was hoarse. “You didn’t get to decide that.”

“I did,” you whispered. “I had to.”

Silence. And then, “What’s his name?”

You told him. Max swallowed hard. His entire body trembled. Then he said, “I want to see him.”

You didn’t argue. You just opened the door. You didn’t turn on any lights. The flat was quiet, Monaco humming outside like an afterthought. Somewhere in the distance, boats creaked against the port and nightclub basslines melted into ocean wind. But inside, it was still. Dim. Warm. Like a sanctuary. Or a lie.

Max stood in the doorway for a long time. You didn’t rush him. You just watched the way he looked around, not like a stranger, but like someone trying to anchor himself. Trying to register what this place was. What had happened here. What he’d missed. His chest rose and fell in slow, shallow breaths, like his lungs weren’t keeping up with the rest of him. You saw it in the twitch of his fingers. The rigid line of his shoulders. The way his eyes flicked toward the closed bedroom door.

“How old is he?” Max asked, barely above a whisper.

You swallowed. “Five and a half. He turns six in September.”

Max closed his eyes for a beat. Nodded. You didn’t need to say more. Because the math was flawless. He was Max’s. Undeniably. Entirely. And Max fucking knew it. You reached for the door handle first. Paused.

“He’s a light sleeper,” you murmured. “But… if you’re gentle, he might not wake up.”

Max nodded once. His mouth was tight. Eyes burning. You could feel the air shift around him like a storm gathering.

You opened the door. The room was small. Cozy. Dimly lit from a crack in the curtains. It smelled like bubble bath and vanilla cereal and whatever that soft detergent was that you only bought for his clothes. The bed was too big for him, he always slept diagonally, limbs sprawled like a starfish, and his stuffed bear was tucked under one arm.

Max stepped in. Then stopped cold. He didn’t say a word. Didn’t breathe. You watched his body react before his mind could. Like every cell in him recognized what he was seeing. His legs went weak. His hand gripped the doorframe. His jaw clenched hard enough to bruise.

Because there he was. The boy. His boy. Asleep in a tangle of cotton sheets, mouth open slightly, dark lashes fanned out over sun-warmed cheeks. His hair was a little messy, sticking up at the crown the way it always did when he was too tired to brush it properly. One arm thrown over his pillow. Peaceful. Dreaming.

Max moved closer. One slow step. Then another. He crouched beside the bed like he was going to pray. His hand hovered. He didn’t touch, not yet, but his fingers trembled with the need to. He was looking at him like he was holy. Like this child was some impossible miracle and Max was afraid to blink in case he disappeared.

You leaned against the doorframe, watching.

“I missed it,” Max whispered, so quiet you almost didn’t hear it. “I missed… everything.”

Your throat closed.

He turned his head toward you. “Does he know?”

You shook your head. “He knows he’s loved. That’s all I ever made sure of. He never asked about a dad. He just… accepted what was.”

Max pressed a fist to his mouth. Swallowed hard.

“He looks like you,” he said. “But he- fuck, he has my nose. He’s got my fucking nose.”

You nodded, tears biting the corners of your eyes.

Max didn’t move for a while. Just knelt there in silence, watching his son sleep like the world had shifted underneath him and he hadn’t quite caught his footing. He looked like he was grieving. Like the five missed birthdays were slamming into him all at once. The lost Christmases. The first word. The first tooth. The night terrors and the drawings and the school forms and the songs he’d never heard. All of it. Every single memory he hadn’t known he was allowed to have.

“Can I-”

He broke off. His voice cracked.

“Can I touch him?”

You nodded, tears slipping freely now.

Max’s hand trembled as he reached forward. Just a brush of fingers. Barely there. A stroke of knuckles down his son’s arm. His expression shattered like glass. A breath escaped his throat that sounded like it had been held for six years.

And then, without warning, your son stirred. He blinked. Looked up. Eyes cloudy with sleep.

Max froze. Your breath caught in your throat.

The boy sat up slowly. Squinted in the dark. “Mom?” he mumbled.

You stepped forward quickly. “Hey, baby. Sorry, we didn’t mean to wake you. There’s someone here who wanted to meet you.”

Max didn’t breathe.

Your son rubbed his eyes. Then looked at Max. Curiously. Blinking slow.

Max whispered, “Hi.”

Your son blinked. “Hi.”

“This is…” You paused. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. “This is Max. He’s someone very special.”

Max swallowed. Hard. Your son tilted his head. “Are you a friend of my mom’s?”

Max looked like he’d been slapped. But he nodded. “Yeah,” he said softly. “I’m… I used to know her, a long time ago.”

Your son stared. Thought about it. Then he nodded. “Okay.”

Like it was nothing. Like it was simple. Max let out a breath that sounded like a sob buried under a smile. Your son yawned. Then looked at you. “Can he stay for breakfast?”

Max laughed. Broke completely. Covered his mouth with one hand and just nodded.

“Yeah, buddy,” he said hoarsely. “If it’s okay with your mom, I’d… I’d really like that.”

Your son nodded once, sleepy and unbothered. Then he laid back down. Already drifting off again. And Max sat on the floor next to him, watching. Just watching. Like he couldn’t believe it. Like this was the first moment he’d ever truly been alive.

You sat beside him. Neither of you spoke. You just let the silence stretch. Shared it. Breathed it. Max was still crying, silently, his chest hitching in slow spasms. He didn’t try to hide it. He just let it fall. You touched his arm. He didn’t flinch.

His voice cracked when he spoke. “You should have told me.”

You stared ahead. “I know.”

He turned to you. His eyes were red. “I would have left. For you. For him. I would have walked away from the whole fucking sport.”

“I know.”

“I would’ve chosen you.”

“I know, Max.”

The silence after that was unbearable. You stood up first. He followed. In the kitchen, he leaned against the counter, staring at his feet. “You lied to me,” he said finally. “You made that choice for me.”

“I did.”

“I hate you for it.”

“I know.”

“I also love you more than I ever have in my entire life.”

Your breath caught. He looked up at you, eyes bloodshot and wet. “And I don’t know what the fuck I’m supposed to do with that.”

You didn’t answer. You couldn’t. Not before he kissed you. Not before the flood broke. It wasn’t sweet. It was years of silence breaking. It was the sound of what never should’ve happened crashing into what had.

He kissed you like a curse. Like your mouth held every answer he never got. His hands weren’t gentle, they grabbed you, pinned you, slid under the hem of your T-shirt and dragged it up, baring your ribs, your waist, your past. His mouth left yours only to speak, not words, not whole ones, just broken, bruised things against your neck. “You fucking left me…”

“I had to-”

“You fucking ran-”

“Don’t,” you choked out, shoving him, dragging him back to you in the same breath. “You know why. You know why.”

He growled. No other word for it. The sound he made when his fingers dug into your thighs and lifted you onto the counter wasn’t human. He shoved your shorts down, no time, no patience, just raw fury disguised as need. You didn’t stop him. You fucking welcomed it. The burn. The chaos. The destruction. Because it was him. And it had always been him.

“I should hate you,” he whispered, kissing your collarbone like it hurt. “I should, but fuck, I can’t-”

You pulled his hoodie off. Yanked his shirt with it. Dragged your nails down his chest, leaving lines. He didn’t flinch. Didn’t blink. Just kissed you harder. Dirtier. Like he needed to hurt you to survive.

His fingers found you, wet, already open. He paused. Looked at you. “No one else?” he asked hoarsely.

You shook your head.

He exhaled like it shattered him. “Good,” he said darkly. “You’re mine.”

Then he dropped to his knees. Right there. In the kitchen. With your back against the cupboard and your legs falling open like muscle memory. His hands were under your thighs, holding you open, eyes locked on yours like he was watching the moment you broke. And fuck, you did. You broke when he licked you like it was revenge. When his mouth buried itself in your cunt like he was making up for every second of silence.

You came fast. Too fast. Screaming his name, thighs shaking, hands in his hair. He didn’t stop. Didn’t even slow down. Just held you there, kept eating you like it was the only language he remembered. You dragged him up with shaky hands and kissed him, tasting yourself on his lips. His cock was hard against your thigh, and your whole body was on fire.

“I want to hate you,” you whispered against his jaw. “I do.”

His hand wrapped around your throat. Not tight. Not cruel. Just there. “Then hate me while I fuck you.”

You nodded once. And that was it. He didn’t even undress you all the way. Just shoved your panties aside, pushed his jeans down enough, and slammed into you in one brutal, desperate thrust. You gasped. Clawed at him. He didn’t wait. Didn’t give you time to adjust. He just fucked.

It wasn’t gentle. It wasn’t romantic. It was years of silence and agony and regret crashing into something that tasted like salvation. “Mine,” he kept saying. “Mine. Mine. Mine.”

You cried. You didn’t mean to. But you fucking cried. Because this was the boy you loved. The man you lost. The father of your child. And now he was inside you like he never left. Like his whole body remembered the shape of you. The feel of you. Like your name was still carved into his fucking ribs and now he was clawing it out.

Your legs wrapped around his waist. Your nails dragged down his back. Your teeth caught his shoulder and he groaned like he was unraveling.

He didn’t slow. Not once. Just kept driving into you, muttering your name like a prayer, a plea, a punishment. His lips were on your throat, your chest, your mouth. Every thrust sounded obscene. Wet. Violent. Sacred. You felt like you were being rewritten from the inside out.

When you came again, it was with a sob. He buried himself deeper. And fucking came with you. He didn’t pull out. Didn’t even try. Just held you while he came so deep it felt like ownership. His head against your neck. His hands still gripping your thighs like they were his lifeline. The sounds he made were ruined. Raw. Like he’d been holding them in for years and they finally clawed their way free.

You stayed like that for a long time. Sweating. Panting. Crying. Both of you silent. Then he kissed your cheek. Your jaw. Your lips. Soft, this time. “Tell me it wasn’t just this,” he whispered. “Tell me you still feel it.”

You touched his face. “I never stopped.”

He nodded. Just once. Then, finally, finally, he said what he hadn’t said since you were kids. “I love you.”

You kissed him like you meant it. Because you did. Because you always had. Because you’d never stopped being his.

[kithtaehyung]

yoongi's interlude: fugue pt. ii (3tan) (m) | myg

title: yoongi’s interlude: fugue pt. ii (m) pairing: 3tan!yoongi x reader(f)  series: masterlist | three tangerines | fireworks | house party | basketball |  stay |  sidewalk talk | friends | dalo | like that | anytime | sundress season | yoongi’s interlude | forfeit | flutter | video call | busted | broken pt. 1 | broken pt. 2 | fugue pt. i rating/genre: m (18+) ; angst , smut ;  brother’s best friend au, implied age gap au summary: he would do anything for you, even if that means leaving your light... to venture into his dark. note: fugue—in music, a compositional procedure characterized by the systematic imitation of a principal theme in simultaneously sounding melodic lines ; a state or period of loss of awareness of one's identity, often coupled with flight from one's usual environment. note 2: if you haven’t read them or haven’t read them in awhile, i highly recommend rereading busted, broken pt 1, and broken pt 2 before diving into this one. note 3: yes. this is where i will hold hands. warnings: language, flashbacks, time skips, angst, heavy isolation, brain fog, fugue state experiences, ruined instrument, depression allusions, alcohol mentions and consumption, fight scenes, spice from yoongi’s pov????, trauma, bro is a real one, drugs mention/use, the demons are being fought y’all, among other things😔, blood, yoongi please get up😭😭, darkness, jimin being his ride or die self, surprise reader cameo?, anxiety, ptsd reflexes, the ex is getting screen time🚶‍♀️‍➡️, friendship is truly power, yoongi just needs a gd hug😭, dark thoughts, tension, the ending.. oh god the ending<33 ; nsfw warnings: under the cut! drop date: july 1st, 2025, 9:57pm est word count: 21.1k wtfffff

smut warnings: YOONGI SMUT POV!!!, ch*king, head/hair tugging, reader has a pain kink and yoongi knows it, penetr*tive s*x, chains but come on now, protective s*x, cowgirl, or*l (m/f rec), edg*ng a ha ha, thro*tf*cking, kissing :’))), kissing D:, hitting from the b b back, yoongi king of consent sheesh, multiple org*sms, spitting lmfao, sl*t/wh*re mentions, yoongi jfc lol, the aftercare y’all already know!!

“How do you even call this work? You don’t do shit!”

—

—

When you’re in the eye of a tempest, you don’t see the danger surrounding all sides. You feel the calm. The temporary peace—when really your mind is constantly on the run. 

But from the outside looking in, no one can reach you through the darkness. If they get too close, they risk getting hurt. Swept in the chaos and shut out from where you stand in false hope. 

They’ll scream for you to leave. Beg for you to run. But only you can make that choice once you have the chance to hear them. And why would you? If you don’t see any issue with what’s in front of your eyes? 

They will try, and try, and try. Their voices will run repetitive until distant. Pleas will fall on deafer and deafer ears. Try as they might to step into the rush of fury, they’ll only get pushed away because you can’t deal with the cacophony of disappointment. 

Pretty soon, nobody wants to brave that cyclone. Nobody will come save you from the wrath because all it does is make them burn. 

You’re happy, right? Why can’t they be happy you’re happy where you are? Safe. Comfortable, like you’ve never been before? They don’t see it like you do. They don’t understand what you have. 

Slowly but surely. One by one—even the best one. No one except your storm will be there beside you.

And when it abandons you to drown in the ocean it created?

Only then will you realize all your lifelines are long, long gone.

—

—

The sky is dark again.

From the dips of his sofa, Yoongi awakes to pitch black, watching the ceiling flash sinister grins with lightning white teeth.

Ah. Back to the beginning. 

Not that he’s surprised, of course. Everything always goes back to the way it was. Back to the way it’s supposed to be. Because it’s all he deserves. 

Right? 

When thunder crashes into the night, Yoongi flinches in knots, memories jagged at the edges piercing his head violent. 

You know not to—

—shitty day to—

Seriously?

—knew this would—

Prove it.

—only gonna end up alone. 

—

—

Thunder booms once more.

But Yoongi wakes in a memory.

“Why don’t you just stay?”

He looks to his side, seeing a face that has been with him for more days than anyone else’s lately. 

No one has ever asked him to stay. At least, not during the morning after when there’s not much left to talk about. With everyone else, it’s been a quick one in the nearest bathroom or him bouncing before the sun comes up. 

It’s his fault for sleeping this long. He should’ve at least gotten woken up by—

Thunder cracks outside, catching Yoongi’s attention before he finds himself still hesitating. “You sure?” 

“At least until the storm stops. Then you have to go.” 

A bit of morning attitude does feel nice. And at least he remembers her name. He should, though, since this is the fourth time he’s been over. 

“Uhm.” The only complication is that… Yoongi has a thing. A pretty important thing, since his friends are finally all in town again and planned to spend the day together. He’s surprised his phone isn’t blowing up right now, which is what he expected to be woken up by.

He shifts. Oh. It’s dead. 

Yoongi hears a snort behind him before an arm snakes around his bare torso. “It died a long time ago, you know.”

Interesting. “You didn’t charge it for me?”

Another smug laugh crawls along his spine. “I could’ve.” When the hand on his stomach slithers lower, Yoongi’s body responds on instinct, his eyes closing and his heart bumping just a bit louder. 

And he doesn’t yet know it. 

“But I wanted you all to myself.”

Yoongi turns. “Is that so?”

But this stormy day from years past is significant. 

Lashes bat at him with shimmering lust as he’s lured away from his still-uncharged phone. Away from his plans. Away from his awaiting, concerned as hell friends. “Find out for yourself.”

And Yoongi’s gone before the next groan of thunder ends its roar. “Fuckin’ plan on it.”

It’s not a cleanse. Not a relief.

But an omen. 

—

—

Time passes as he’s thrown back to the present.

But Yoongi doesn’t know how long it’s been. Hours? Days? …Weeks? 

It’s dark again. 

But his phone is alive. Barely there across the room, a light blue screen is all he can make out. Someone could be texting. Or calling. Or whatever else he’s gonna ignore. 

How did it get all the way over there?

Whatever. Not like he cares. He’s not gonna need it for awhile anyway. 

The last thing Yoongi remembers is clutching your words in his hands, but apparently Namjoon and Hoseok found him eerily sick. Practically kicked him out of the studio to force him to get better, not knowing how painfully ironic that would become.

The endless rot coaxed a slow descent into his warring mind, corroding from the inside. Seeping defeat along his veins. 

Pelts pelts pelts against the windows hit him like punches, weakening his resolve to even stay awake. It’s all too much. His brain is too battered and bruised to fight right now. 

So he plummets from the sofa back into the past. 

—

—

“That one looks like you.”

From a ways behind, Yoongi watches his younger self, seeing vibrant hair shaking in a laugh before sweeping his pensive gaze along the hazy, deep orange skyline. 

He remembers this hilltop, benches and trees overlooking the city life below. How can he forget when he passes it every time he goes to practice with the guys? Well, every time he went. He doesn’t think he’s gone anywhere in a minute. 

At least he’s observing this memory from a distance this time. Yoongi assumes this is his mind’s way of coping. Because reliving the memories from his own point of view was too much to bear. 

The air carried a certain hue of pink that day. And his hands can still recall the stickiness of the popsicle he held as stickier lips get caught in another kiss. 

Right. This is where it happened. Where Yoongi fell in love for the first time. 

At least, that’s what it felt like to him. He felt wanted for more than his body, understood on a level that no one else had before. Be it his yearning for companionship or for simply being needed, Yoongi felt something beat in his chest that day, spurning him to embrace new emotions never before experienced. 

But something feels off as he relives it on the sidelines. She says those words so differently than how he remembered before. 

“I love you.” 

Yoongi turns away before he can watch himself react. Because he doesn’t need to witness the light in those eyes, a light that would soon be squashed and smothered to the point of nothingness. 

Because in the end, it wasn’t love he received. Love doesn’t come with terms and conditions that don’t go both ways. Love doesn’t make someone second guess everything they’ve ever said and done. 

Love doesn’t make someone want to end it all. 

But what did he know back then? All he saw was someone making him feel good. Great, most of the time. What he didn’t think about, though, was why they were on the hilltop in the first place. 

Right now, that Yoongi doesn’t know about this girl skipping out on work to hang out with him. He doesn’t remember shirking responsibilities to meet her in her bed, caught in his feelings enough afterwards to blow his friends off yet again. 

How many times did he do that at this point? Were they already annoyed with him? Or was this when they started asking if they’d even get him back?

Sighing deep, Yoongi stuffs both hands in his hoodie as he watches another kiss unfold, grimacing at the way she tries her best to swallow him whole. Months down the line, she accomplishes that. He’ll feel trapped with no way out in no time. 

He needs to get out of this nightmare. The sunlight is fading and so is his control. 

Then he watches himself get up, begging to not get in that car. To not leave. To just run. 

Fuck, he wants to haul himself away with everything in his bones. The fact that he can’t stop any of this from happening is what hurts the most, feeling like he can save himself yet knowing it’s impossible. All he can do is watch. 

As she yanks on his younger arm to haul him back down to the bench, Yoongi flinches where he stands, triggered by all the times he tried to leave his own fucking place just to be guilt-tripped into staying. Every time. So many times so many times so many fucking times. 

Get out of here. Either version, get the fuck out of this timeline and into any other. He’s damn near ready to beg and sacrifice anything with a squeeze of his eyes. 

And when he opens them, Yoongi meets a different orange hue on his speckled ceiling, blinking before turning his head into a pillowcase that smells like… You. 

Thank fuck. 

Wait, how’d he get here? Wasn’t he just on the couch? Whatever. Doesn’t matter. 

Relieved, he burrows a cheek into your lingering presence, inhaling short to preserve the one thing that makes his apartment feel like a home. It’s such a comfort that he feels remorse in his chest, right before something leaks slow from his eye.

Even in your absence, you save him once again. There’s nothing Yoongi won’t give you when he gathers himself again, because you’re the only thing keeping him tethered to something good. 

Guess going back to sleep is not an option. Maybe he’ll finally try to work on some tracks again. 

—

—

A boom of thunder jolts him conscious, and Yoongi winces at the crick in his shoulder before grabbing it in a rub. What the hell? When did he fall asleep? 

Checking his dimmed screen, he squints when the brightness blooms and curses at the many, many, many errant notes displayed on his workspace. Because of fucking course he fell asleep on his keyboard. 

The instrument track is deleted without another thought. 

But after a brief stare, Yoongi undoes the action and goes to the very beginning of the timeline, just to see if he had an idea to start with before descending into a dreamless symphony. 

Nope. Delete.

Failure wisps down his chest before he rubs both eyes. This has got to be the most disjointed he’s ever felt. Yoongi doesn’t even know when he last ate something, much less spoken to somebody or taken a fucking shower. 

Disgusting. He needs to do that last one. It’s the only productive thing he does before falling face first into his bedsheets, wondering when he last washed them before succumbing to sleep again. 

—

—

“Wow, about time you finally brought her!” 

“Ah, yah, he’s back out from hiding!” 

Yoongi can visibly see his hand squeezed with apprehension, and he remembers nails digging into his skin hard enough to crunch his smile. 

Throughout the house, multiple people greet them both as they pass, and even Yoongi shifts as if he isn’t just a ghost of a bystander. 

This party. This night. This very house witnessed the moment when everything started going to absolute shit. 

For once, she agreed to come with him to a party. It wasn’t at Jimin’s, since she never wanted to be there—red flag stupidly ignored—but at another acquaintance’s across town. 

Yoongi was simply relieved, happy to be able to see everyone he cared about in one place. But it soon became harder and harder to hold conversations without being pulled somewhere else, being told to go elsewhere, feeling bad about not making it a good time for her. 

As his younger self follows her to a room upstairs, Yoongi prods his cheek. Because unlike sneaking around with your shy smile, this was to hash out a petty argument about nothing. Nothing. 

But he cared about her so much that he took the harsh statements behind closed doors. He listened as she expressed that she felt ignored the whole night. He hated himself for making her feel that way because that wasn’t his intent at all. 

Poised against the wall just outside the door, Yoongi hangs his head, hearing the same painful words from the other side and sending his past self all the love he didn’t have before. 

And he watches as the same door bursts open, his ex rushing for the stairs and his bright hair bolting after her.

Soon, he’ll chase her down the stairs, calmly try to reason with her but failing miserably. People will stare. People will talk. 

But they’d already be in a car and silently driving away. 

—

—

Another day. Another thunderstorm.

Somehow, Yoongi always ends up in his living room when this happens. Like his bedroom feels too sinister when it rains—unless you’re in there filling it with your sunshine. 

He hopes you still know how beautiful you are. How wonderful, how mesmerizing he finds you, no matter where in space and time he resides. Are you finding ways to be happy? Are you out there conquering whatever you want simply because you can? 

Can he send himself to your dreams instead? 

No. Even in dreams, he doesn’t deserve to see you right now. 

And there’s his same problem again. The shadow standing over him. Whether this is due to his past mistakes, or the darkness in his mind, Yoongi fully believes he isn’t yet worthy of your light. 

Besides. As he feels the guitar standing in its same place, he hears it speaking. Reminding him of all the things he’s done wrong. 

When lightning strikes, Yoongi counts the seconds. And four counts later, he flinches at the boom before blanking again. 

—

—

“Who’s that?”

“No one.” 

“You know not to tell me that. Who is it?” 

Ah. He knows why this memory is still taking up space in his mind. Yoongi takes a spot along the wall of her living room, remembering how clean it was and knowing that’s one of the reasons he liked her in the first place. 

Settled on the spotless couch, his younger self with undyed hair turns his head. “The studio guy I was talking to before. Wants to bring me in so I can see what’s up.” 

She gets up with a pout, “Awhh, does it have to be today?” 

He remembers being excited as hell for this. But no one would be able to tell based on his response, “Uhh, I think so. Is that okay?”

“Umm.. I mean, I guess.” 

Truthfully, there were many reasons Yoongi liked this girl. But there were also warning signs, and he must have ignored them in favor of bliss and companionship. 

“What’s wrong?” 

Walking up to his knees, she starts to mount his lap. And this is when Yoongi softly thumps his head back on the other side of the room. 

“I just wanted to hang out today.” 

“Well.. I practically live here now.” When he watches his younger hands skirt along her legs, no feeling rushes into his veins. It’s all evaporated. There’s nothing where everything used to be. “We can when I get back?”

“You don’t live here officially,” she tuts, slinging arms around his neck and bringing him into her chest. And again, his current self is repulsed. “Are you sure you need to go? What are you even gonna do?” 

She fucking knows what she’s doing. Red flags are everywhere for eyes unblinded by infatuation. 

“It’s not that I need to, but I really fucking want to. It sounds really sick and I think I can work there with them.”

“With who?” 

“The.. Studio guys?” 

This is more painful on the other side. 

Because that boy doesn’t know what’s coming. He doesn’t know the pain that will splay out from his inability to see what’s happening to him. Those arms will tighten and tighten around his neck in due time, suffocating like mad. 

But for now, she agrees to let him go, dismissive of the main reason and having ulterior motives. “Fine, but you’re bringing me back food.” 

“I got us,” he readily agrees. And Yoongi can just feel the rush in his chest. Incredible, considering he recalled zero emotion from her earlier touch. “Just let me know what you want.” 

This is when it hits again. This feeling in his gut is not because of the food they ate when he returned. But from preparing for what’s coming next. 

And he dreads the next time he can’t stay awake anymore. 

—

—

Yoongi eyes the molded tangerines in his bowl.

And his heart walks away before he does. 

—

—

Hail comes down in sheets as Yoongi watches himself haul ass to the apartment corridor. Right behind him, growls and angry yells erupt, “I told you it would be a shitty day to do this.”

“It’s my only day off,” he reiterates, steadying a box with the door as he jingles in the key. “Been busy as fuck lately.”

“At that studio again?” 

Waiting as they bustled inside an empty unit, Yoongi’s jaw locks right up. Right then and there he should’ve walked away from that dangerous precipice, new place be damned. So slippery with condescension. So littered with malice and passive aggression. 

But they both took that step from beyond the bounds of friends with benefits, and with those benefits also came the ones of his doubt. Because Yoongi dealt with the jabs. He could handle those, though he shuns his own naivety of liking instead of loathing them. How did he ever let himself be subtly shot down so many times?

It continued to happen all throughout the day. Even when they both waited out the hailstorm and came out to their cars dented to hell, all he’d really hear were complaints about his hobby—his hobby?—taking up so much time. 

It’s when they’re almost done that she drops a heavy hit, with Yoongi watching them from the hall. “Just think about it, okay? You’re spending all this time and money on it and aren’t really doing anything.”

Maddeningly, it’s hard to really tell someone a hobby is actually your entire life. Especially when you haven’t got anything to show for it other than a couple self-produced tracks and one producer credit on a local, aspiring singer’s album. Man, that guy was an asshole. He needed to learn how to move sessions along even with artists bickering the whole way or else—

“Are you even listening?”

“Sorry,” Yoongi mumbles, adjusting the moving box in his arms that’s holding a deconstructed bar cart. “Work shit again.”

“Seriously? Can you not for like two seconds? I just wanna get everything done with and shower. I feel gross.”

“You aren’t supposed to shower during a—”

“Don’t care! I do not care. Let lightning strike me the fuck down while I scrub my asshole.”

Yoongi snorts as he struggles to open his door once again, noting in the far, far back of his mind that the person with a free hand could’ve held it open but didn’t. That should’ve told him enough. But of course, he gave her everything, including way too many chances to redeem herself. 

As they stumble inside, Yoongi follows, remembering how, despite moving someone in, he felt so… Alone. 

His music equipment gets shoved over for more desk space; his shoe collection stuffed in cramped spaces to make room for smaller kicks; his kitchen groaning with boxes and bins with no organization that was slowly but painfully driving him up and through the nearest wall.

Watching this dreary day play out from a distance, Yoongi observes his younger self with abject misery, sweeping his gaze across a cluttered living room and noting the obvious slump in his shoulders. Shoulders that bore the weight of his brash decision of a relationship. 

What were his friends doing that day? Were they watching a basketball game together? He remembers it was the end of the season, so a lot of them were gathering for watch parties and cook-outs. Get togethers he had turned down for weeks in order to spend time with her. 

If only he had asked himself one question. One question should’ve been enough to tell him everything he needed to know.

If he ever had the chance to tell his younger self not to get hung up on one mistake in his life, he would pick this one. Because this one fuck-up set him back years, and became the first splotch of grey in his shrinking, shrinking universe. One question he could’ve asked himself. One answer he could’ve gotten to immediately. 

Why didn’t anyone help him move her in.

—

—

There’s nothing in the fridge Yoongi can eat. And there’s a severe lack of food in his pantry, even though he remembers it being stocked but not taking any of it out. So for the first time in awhile, he forces himself to go outside for sustenance. 

Yoongi shuts his door before locking it, also noting that very empty bowls lie next to his shoes. 

“Oh! There you are.” 

Who the fuck? Who’s even out at this hour? Sluggish, Yoongi turns, noticing the elder lady next door watering the plants along her welcome mat. What was her name again? He thinks it starts with a vowel. But when he tries to answer with a hello, his voice cracks and dies on his tongue. 

Holy shit, when’s the last time he’s even spoken? 

“You okay, sugar? I haven’t seen or heard you in a long time.” 

Wait. Even the neighbors are getting nosy now? How long has he been away from the world? Attempting speech again, Yoongi swallows before rasping out, “Yes, ma’am.” 

“Don’t lie to me, boy. Where’s that nice girl that’s been coming over?” 

Oh. He thinks that’s a pulse in his chest before he answers, “At her place.” Where you need to stay. Far, far away from him.

“Oh… Well, I hope she comes back over soon.” She sets her watering pail on the windowsill. “You two have the best time when she’s here. Hah! Those laughs I hear when I don’t have my dramas playing.. You two give an old lady hope.” 

…What? Yoongi can’t even form a coherent thought. 

Did… Did you really make his laughs so hard his walls couldn’t contain them? The concept seems so obvious yet so foreign, because he can’t even recall the last time he used muscles in his face to smile. Let alone expel joy. 

Suddenly, he sees rain on a cloudless night. Where is he? He doesn’t even fucking know anymore. 

“I’ll be waiting,” the lady continues, breaking through his haze again. “You look like you’re about to tell me something. But I know you aren’t done with her yet.” 

Closing his mouth, Yoongi blinks before nodding his tired head. “Yes, ma’am.” 

“Good! And tell her Miss Dion says hello, okay?” 

Yoongi hasn’t spoken to you in awhile now. But he doesn’t have the heart to tell her that. “Yes, ma’am.” 

—

—

This memory doesn’t reveal much other than onyx static. But it morphs and twists until it sprouts edges, and it sends him into shakes. Fuck. This is the night he always dreads. The night that transcends time, showing itself like a specter no matter the time of day. The night he said those three words that have him fucking tethered to his living room corner. 

The night of his twenty-first. 

It happened all those years ago, with only the two of them because she wanted it to be special and waved off his desire to have his friends there. For a milestone that should have been celebrated with whoever he fucking wanted. 

And he remembers being completely fine with the isolation. Because despite all the studio shade, all the music dismissal… She got him a brand new guitar. A real one. Not just some rented instrument he had to keep returning, but a true, beautiful black guitar. 

She got it for him because music was his hobby. His hobby. 

Not his life, not his dream career. But a hobby. The gift was laced with malicious intent and he didn’t see it until months later. When everything was becoming crystal clear and frightening. 

Yoongi wedges himself in the corner so strongly he can actually feel the scrap of his walls, watching with short breaths as his younger, ignorant self takes it from its case with admiration. Breathe. This isn’t real anymore. Fucking breathe. 

He will always hate this memory. He wants it to burn, to break, to shatter into pieces just so he can’t witness it any longer. But it’s always there. Taunting him when he’s close to healing, whipping around his arms when he’s close to feeling okay again. You’ve done every fucking thing you could, but even you aren’t strong enough to fight this one for him. 

Only he can conquer this. And he’s only succeeding in failing. 

Yoongi’s head drops when he hears himself say those three little words again, eyes pinching tight at the reaction he gets back. 

“You got there,” she says through manufactured tears. “I knew this would do it.” 

Get him the fuck where? Hell? The abyss? In the middle of the fucking ocean? 

Hair slides in front of his eyes as he has to hear her cry again, feeling his heart sag knowing he’s tugging her in for a hug. “And I’m there forever,” he mouths along with his past self. 

Her grin is still piercing. Sharp. Striking. “Forever.” 

Get out. Get out, get out, get out. 

Forcing himself out of the nightmare, Yoongi shoots from his bed, unsurprised his head is pulsing hard. 

Fuck this. He’s got to get out of here. Your house. Your bed. Your arms. God, the yearning for any of those claws at his chest and bangs against his ribcage. But the studio is his safest place that doesn’t have you in it. So he hastily grabs his keys, heading to the door to slip on his shoes. 

Aiming an offensive finger at the guitar in the corner. The same one that will be waiting for him when he returns. 

—

—

“You’re seeing someone else.” 

“What? Why would I be?” 

“You were seeing someone when you saw me.” 

Yoongi’s stomach lurches at this particular memory. Because hearing that accusation from her lips crushed his heart and slid it across their apartment floor. “First of all, that’s not what happened.” 

“Looked exactly like how it happened. And you won’t even admit it.” 

If she was willing to be down with that, then she was no better. But why would she ever put herself in the wrong? Her aversion to ownership was something else. 

Yoongi watches from the kitchen this time as she taps her utensils on the table. At least she’s not digging lines in it this time. His words across the wooden surface sound completely unlike her ire, “I said I wasn’t good for her. And I left before we got serious.” 

“Well why aren’t you serious about us now?” 

That was a goddamn stretch and they both knew it. It took everything to not slam on the gas, crashing into the window next to his shoulder. “What makes you say that?”

“You don’t make time for me anymore.” 

Because no matter how upset he got, Yoongi could never find it in him to shout. That was her thing. He vowed to never make it his. Explaining soft, he moves food around his plate. “It’s the only time that studio space is free. And I picked that place because it’s the closest one, like you asked.” 

“You’re so cheap.” Both versions of himself feel the same deep pang. “But whatever. Why aren’t you answering my calls lately?” 

When he watches himself sigh, Yoongi flexes both hands at his sides. “Phones are out when we’re in there.” 

“Bullshit.” 

“Are you gonna believe anything that I say?” 

“I’ll believe it when you actually make time.” Every memory seems to be harder to watch than the last. 

“Okay,” his younger self relents, knowing this is how all the arguments end. “I’ll try. But I’m making progress so as soon as I’m done with this mix—” 

She laughs while slamming the utensils down, the dining table screaming in pain. “Of course!” 

“Of course what?” 

“Another excuse, Yoongi,” she grits out, leaning back to fold angry arms. “You don’t even bring that guitar with you, either.” 

“Cus it’s staying here.” 

The way she could slip between the monster and the victim makes him squirm. Her eyes grow wide, brows creasing with a practiced pleading that makes him grimace. “Why? You don’t like it?” 

“I don’t wanna break your gift.” 

“Oh.” 

He holds his hand out, and Yoongi slides his jaw knowing what he does here. Taking her by the hands, the younger him offers a moment of peace, “You really think I’m not in this for real?” 

“It’s more like.. I feel like I’m competing with your job and your.. thing. And losing.” 

His thing. Yoongi loves his thing. He is genuinely enjoying creating and analyzing and experiencing music that he can’t wait to go back. It’s all he can think about when he sleeps, when he wakes. But now he feels bad because he may need to do it less to spend time with her. “I’ll prove it.” 

“Prove what?” 

“That you aren’t.” 

“Okay,” she sighs, gripping his hands. “You better.”

Voices that aren’t his or hers leak into his slumber. And the memory starts to fade into dust on his tongue.

“Let him sleep.” 

“He’s gonna wake up as soon as we start anyway.” 

“Why’d he sleep in here and not the back room?” 

Yoongi slowly opens his eyes, blinking away sleep as blurred shapes come into focus. Mm. He made it to the studio. And he’s definitely on the couch, based on the awkward slant of his back. Lolling his head sideways, he watches all three of his coworkers bustle around the console, flipping on different switches and wincing at the loud hum of the CPU. When Hoseok glances back to see his eyes in squints, he tuts to the others, 

“Ah, see? He’s already awake.” 

“Mmph,” Yoongi grunts out as they all turn, struggling to a sitting position and kneading his eyes. “Don’t wait, I’ll get up now.” 

“When’d you get here?” Jungkook suddenly asks, his bright hair flopping as he pulls off his jacket. “You finally feel better?” 

“Awhile ago,” he sleepily responds, a yawn swallowing his last syllable. “And yeah.” Joints popping at his upward rise, he grimaces while Namjoon cuts through the youngest one’s laughs, 

“I dunno about that, old man. Is it like that every morning?” 

Your favorite nickname for him echoes lovingly through his mind. Like a rush of water to soothe the burn of his terrors. “Pretty much.” 

Hobi can’t help but chuckle with a finger point, the company to his misery. “I’m getting like that, too. It’s only a matter of time for you, Joonie.” 

The tallest in the room sighs before everyone locks into work mode, “Looking forward to it.” 

— 

—

Ah. Back here this time? Looks like his younger self needed him to drop into this one, if only to give him support from another celestial plane. 

“How can you call this work? You don’t do shit!” 

“We’re working on a project—”

“We? Are you even on it?” 

The roll of his chair bumps into the bed frame behind him. “I’m… Making some of the decisions, but—”

“So you aren’t even in charge? What are you gonna get for this?” Not a lot. But his silence answers before he can give a true amount. “Exactly. So ridiculous, you need to get a real job that gives you real money to pay for all this shit.” 

Yoongi was doing just fine when it was just him. But taking care of someone that has a bit more refined taste, too? It’s draining him to the point of alarm. “We can cut our spending, too, you know.” 

“Excuse me?” 

“We don’t have to get food all the time. We can just cook here.” 

“But… Ugh, doing all that work just to eat and then clean?” 

Well. Yes. That’s the order of operations. From his leaned position in his bedroom doorway, Yoongi shakes his head. Even cooking was an issue? He did it all the time when he was alone. It’s not hard. What the hell did he get himself into? How did he not see any of this from the jump? 

“My uncle might be hiring. I can ask him to get you an interview or something, but you cannot fuck it up.” 

“Where at?” 

“Does it matter? It’s a job.” She sighs while sliding hair down her shoulder. Oh, how he’s been tricked by that move too many damn times. “It’s downtown.” 

Fuck. That’s way too far from the studio he’s working at. There’s no way he’d be able to work both… And she knows it. Goddamn. “You really want me to quit?” 

She gives him a look, and he can’t tell if she’s stricken or annoyed at the question. “I mean, not… Really. It’s just…” A sigh. “I’d rather you get a real job now and make music when you’re more stable.” 

Even now, Yoongi gets that. But at the same time, nothing else truly called to him. Music is his real job, the very thought of doing anything else makes him anxious. He doesn’t want to commit to anything that he’ll dread going to every fucking day of his life. But if that’s what she wants, he’ll at least try because he cares about her. Enough to lose a part of himself along the way? Guess so. 

Guess so. 

“Yoongi?” 

His head jolts from the memory as he’s positioned in the middle of a studio. The very current studio that’s only a few doors down from the job he ended up getting years ago. Several pairs of eyes are staring as he takes in his surroundings. Shit, when did he wander off? How did that even happen this time? Why is he looking at a very familiar band he’s listened to for years? 

“You okay, man?” One of them asks, a guy with such a relaxed look that just seeing him makes Yoongi’s shoulders loosen. “It’s just us, no need to be scared or anything.” 

“I dunno, Sammy, you look kinda rough around the edges in person.” 

“Do not?” 

Beside him, Hoseok claps Yoongi on the back, his grip both comforting and telling him to get it the fuck together. “He’s fine! We’ve just been busy, and this guy’s been working hard to get everything ready for you guys.” 

“Give him a sec,” Namjoon agrees, shaking all the band’s hands while Yoongi continues to buffer. “But yeah, we’ll give you a quick look inside and see if it works for you?” 

“Works for us,” Sammy agrees with a smile. “Lead the way.” 

All four members walk through the recording room door after Joon, thanking Jungkook for keeping it open before he heads inside, too. Leaving Yoongi with a very concerned Hobi, who turns to him with furrowed brows. “Hey, you good?”

“Yeah,” he finally forces out, throat scratched. Fuck. “Yeah, I’m good.” 

“If something’s up, tell us.” Hoseok watches the silent movements and conversations happening through the studio glass. “Your gut’s the one I trust the most.” 

Oh. Wait. That’s not nearly what Yoongi’s got on his mind. Even though he’s snuffed out flaky musicians and artists before today, that isn’t the current issue. That’s not what’s sticking to his mind like a parasite and feeding him random haunts from his past. “Nah, it’s not that. I’m just shocked they’re here.” 

“Right! When Jungkook said it’d be a surprise, he wasn’t kidding. I might damn near faint.” 

“Don’t do that just yet,” Yoongi warns. “We can’t have two of us out of it.” 

They both puff out laughs at his previous blanking. And they fall silent with folded arms when Woosung—Sammy—picks a guitar off the wall for hopeful inspection, nodding and smiling at a doe-eyed Jungkook. 

The kid knows how to develop connections, that’s for sure. He needs to start doing that, too. 

“But seriously…” Yoongi looks at Hoseok, met with a stare that he only gives when wanting nothing but the truth. “Anything bothering you? You looked… I don’t even know.” 

“I’ll be fine, Hob,” he breathes out in a sigh. “Just got some things on my mind.” 

The look keeps going, and going, and going. But there’s no more scrutiny when Hobi finally turns forward with an unconvincing, “Okay.” 

—

—

Embers crackle while sparks float to a darkened sky. Yoongi can still smell the metal of the train tracks, still feel the dirt under his shoes as he tips a bottle for another sip. 

A bunch of them were gathered that night. And he wasn’t gonna miss this no matter what, already expecting the onslaught of terror waiting and pacing the cage he calls his apartment. 

Since he got that job downtown, he’s been trying his best to do the work and head across town to the studio to finish things there. But that effort wasn’t taken pleasantly. Apparently, she wasn’t asking him to make music a hobby; she was telling him to give it up—for now, of course. Always for now. And he ended up leaving it far, far behind. 

After he gave that up, everything else followed. Every time he made plans to hang out, he got yanked back into the apartment, whether by a desperate arm or a scathing, manipulative scowl. His whole life was being stripped away. Nothing was his anymore. 

But this night? He finally got away. And Yoongi watches as his younger self faces the heavens with a wide smile. 

Your brother’s there, along with some friends he hadn’t seen in ages. Even a younger Jungkook tags along, watching as they push each other in abandoned shopping carts and fling random stones in open spaces. All of them in questionable fits, his hair as vibrant as a polarizing ice cream flavor, everything defines this pocket of time and no other. 

Watching them like this? Yoongi almost buckles from the pang of nostalgia seizing his chest, wrapping its roots around his heart in a bittersweet embrace. It reminds him of a balcony. It reminds him of you. 

This is the night he chose to not go home. Because his home is here with his friends.

Fuck everything. Fuck life. Fuck love. It was all he could say and express as all of them stuck middle fingers to the world, as if doing so would banish all the troubles in their lives. Every single conversation he had that night was cynical in a freeing way. Because nothing mattered. They were all infinite. Infinite and infinite. 

With each bottle chucked into a blazing fire, his eyes droop lower to the ground. Without much effort, his head lolls, mirroring a few others around him until they’re a heap of buzzed freedom and youth. And honestly, he doesn’t remember much beyond this. He doesn’t even remember who drove him back to your place. 

They were infinite—

A vacuum sucks Yoongi out of his dream so fast he flinches, muscles seizing and locking at hard angles. Fuck, fuck, fuck. What the fuck is happening? Focus on something, anything. Is this his room? Okay, he’s in his bed. 

Raking sweaty fingers through his hair, Yoongi closes his eyes, centering himself as he slowly raises to a sitting position. His room. His desk. His television. Even his sheets look fine other than his crumpled side of the bed. What the fuck was that. 

He’s never experienced something like that. Sure, he’s been yanked from a dream while in free fall, or when he’s almost slammed into something. But he wasn’t even doing anything that time except lulling to sleep? So what the fuck was that about? 

Shit. The whole fucking point was to get this shit under control. To fight the memories and the dreams and shove them out of his mind to make room for his own. For yours. Yours and his, his and yours. So why hasn’t he even been trying? 

Panic starts to rush up his throat, clogging it and jamming and amalgamating into something so thick he can’t even breathe. Shit. Shit, shit, shit, get the fuck up. 

He hasn’t had to do this in so long he’s almost embarrassed to reach for what he’s beelining for in his kitchen, perched on top of the fridge behind an unopened case of water bottles. Water bottles. Yoongi clings onto a familiar memory with you yet again. You, you, you. 

The bag crinkles as he rips it open, some wrapped pieces pinging onto linoleum. As he hastily opens one of the candies, he pops the sour coated lifeline on his tongue, slowly closing his eyes and sagging against his refrigerator. 

Shaking, shaking, sour apple, stop fucking shaking. Breathe. In out in out in out in out. Eat another one. Breathe. Silence. Clear head. Sour cherry. Nothingness. 

Breathe. 

Sliding down chilled aluminum, Yoongi feels his ass hit the cold ground, his arms immediately coming up to rest on tired knees. After a minute goes by, he lets more pass. Then another. And another. And another. 

It’s not fun knowing the panic’s back. 

As much as Yoongi wants nothing but your concern crossing kitchen tile, he’s thanking the universe that you haven’t ever seen him like this. Your brother has, but you don’t need to. Ever. But if his demons have all the power again, he might be too far gone.  

—

—

He should feed the cat.

Never mind.

The food from two days ago is still there. Which means she left him a long, long time ago.

—

—

What day is it. Is that the sunset or a new day. 

Doesn’t matter, does it? Even music doesn’t call to him now. 

And that single, damning fact slathers his whole brain in shadow. 

—

— 

A knock sounds at the door. Which Yoongi completely ignores until it erupts into straight banging. 

“Fuck, hold on,” he rasps in a cracked whisper, falling off his couch before his arms crumple, every muscle in his body creaking with lack of use. Pain jolts through his limbs as he lies there for a beat, jump-starting his mind into sudden, bleary awareness. 

What day is it? How did all these bottles get on the floor? How fucking long has it been this time?

More knocks break through the fog of Yoongi’s brain before a voice pierces the door, “I swear to god if you don’t let me in—!”

A sigh escapes in the dark. Jimin. 

Shit, Yoongi doesn’t wanna be seen. Not now. Not when he can’t even recall the past however many hours. But knowing this particular guest, the door will be kicked down if he doesn’t answer soon. 

Hissing, he slowly gets up, stumbling to the door a few steps away before resting shaking fingers on the doorknob. Breathe. Just fucking breathe. 

“Alright, you motherfucker, I’m breaking this fucking door—”

Yoongi cracks it open a tad, a sliver of his unkempt hair and stubbled chin the only things he’s willing to show. His eyes squint as bright light spills into his apartment, but all he can see are the telltale shoes of his best friend. 

“...Yoongi?” 

When he finally looks up, his heart clenches and erupts all the way up to his ducts. The first emotion he’s felt in the sludge of time he’s been chained to his dipping, sagging sofa. 

Because Jimin is staring right at his face. Eyes so rubbed they’re rimmed red. “I thought… I didn’t… No one knows where you are,” he starts, shaking the words out of puffed lips. “And when your phone kept going to voicemail, I—I couldn’t think of anything except coming here so when you weren’t answering the door, I thought—” 

As soon as Jimin breaks, Yoongi slowly closes his eyes and rests his forehead on the door’s edge. Nothing can get him like this other than the tears of a select few. If you had been the one crying at his doorstep, he probably would have given everything up.

But his mouth is so dry he can’t form words, arms so numb he can’t move them to swing the door. There’s dust where his tongue sits, shadows at the edges of his fingers. Anything he tries to say is swallowed, adding to the lump in his scratchy throat. Instead of a tempest of rage, this is the other way to lose control. The subtler, scarier, sinister way to let go. 

Yoongi says nothing. Because he can’t think of anything to say at all.

“Are you listening to me?”

Unmoving, Yoongi breathes, long hair falling onto his paling cheek. He doesn’t even know what month it is. And that scares him so bad he doesn’t hear the next sentence. So Jimin says it again,

“Let me in.”

“Gimme a sec,” he croaks. 

“Now.”

A sigh. Yoongi knows he lost the second he heard Jimin’s voice through wood. So he slowly wills his body to move, stepping—swaying—to the side to let his friend into a dark, blacked out space.

“Holy fuck,” Jimin curses, stepping through a sea of glass bottles before wrenching open the curtains. Light bursts around his silhouette and, for a split second, Yoongi thinks he sees an angel in his living room. 

“Yes. Okay.” With hands on stern hips, Jimin nods to himself before inspecting the litter around his feet. “Yeah, I’m staying here now.”

—

—

“You don’t have to do this,” Yoongi drones while his best friend scuttles around his apartment like a roomba. Clinks of trashed bottles and shifts of trash bags rattle next to the front door, and he sighs before looking out the window. “I’m up now.”

“You don’t get a say in it,” Jimin blithely responds, hauling another groaning trash bag from the kitchen. “And stay there, I’m almost done.” 

“Where the fuck would I go.”

“Anywhere but here?”

Yeah. Right. Where else would he even go right now? Your room is the only place he wants to take residence in—the room in which he said goodbye without knowing when the next hello would be. 

When’s the last time he’s even texted you? Shit, he really has left you behind completely and he feels like a fucking idiot. 

Determination thumps to the door, with a little more force than necessary, though understood. Jimin rarely gets this mad, so when he does, molten emotion rolls off of him in reddened waves, “Couldn’t even fucking call? Text? Do you ever think about what that does to all of us?” 

Yoongi buries a hand in his hair. “Listen, I—”

“Shut the hell up. You don’t get to have excuses this time. Last time this happened you scared me to death and I am not letting it happen again.” 

“You see me. I’m alive. So you can go home.”

Jimin whirls at the door before slamming it behind him, eyes wide in shock as he stomps to the kitchen. “If you think you can get me to go home, you’re an idiot. What else hasn’t been cleaned in a week?”

…A week? Fuck. Maybe it is better if Jimin stays. 

His friend wrings his hands in water before drying them, moving to sit in the chair you usually occupy. Used to occupy. Yoongi’s head sags. 

Jaw ticked, Jimin sits and rests elbows on his knees, brows up in a way that leaves no room for arguments, “Tell me what the fuck is going on.”

With a sigh, Yoongi closes his eyes, shifting his own jaw in the hopes he can find enough courage to do this. Because even though Jimin knows most about what happened before, he’s been the one pushing him to move forward, not backward. Which means Yoongi is in for a verbal beatdown. 

But before he can say anything, Jimin urges again, “Start talking.”

Fuck. “Go home.”

“No. Try again.”

It’s back. The anxiety. Making him vacate his seat and slink against his bedroom door. “I’m not doing this right now.”

Jimin rockets out of his chair right after, getting all into his space. “Tough fucking shit. Tell me. Now.”

He can’t. The words won’t come out. “It’s nothing.”

A bubble of caustic laughter flings out of Jimin’s throat before he outright shoves Yoongi against his door. Slight pain erupts from his back, branching out and alerting his body with adrenaline. But he’s so numb he doesn’t even say anything. Nothing. Just… pain. 

“Is that it? Not even gonna say anything?”

Silence. Yoongi can only serve silence. A lighter push at his chest doesn’t do anything either, neither do the grips at his shoulders before he’s shoved against wood. Is this all he has left? Pain? He can’t feel anything else. Why? What’s happening? Why is he so… drained? 

“Yoongi…” The words wobble. So soft now. So pleading. “…What’s wrong?”

Like a burst of shock, that jumpstarts something deep.

A thousand things. Three thousand things. All of them having to do with him and his inability to deem himself worthy of the one thing he wants most. His shameful weight of the past barring him from everything good, and bright, and healing. 

You would ask him the same question. Yoongi knows it in his heart. But here you are, giving him the space he asked for and trusting him with your feelings because that’s just… You. And he has done absolutely nothing to show for it.

A whole week passed and he didn’t know it? He still doesn’t even know what day it is. How long has he kept you in the dark? How long will he keep failing you because this isn’t fair to you at all. You deserve better. 

…Is this when he lets you go?

Dark, painful throbs in his chest let him know he’s barely alive. But if he’s been radio silent with no explanation, who fucking knows what you’re thinking now. About him. About yourself. Fuck, the panic is rushing in again and his breaths are short, short, short—

A hand warms his shoulder, prompting him to look up and notice that blurred, wavering red eyes are staring back at him. 

And the only thing Yoongi feels after that is a hot trail of regret down his cheek. 

“Fucking hell, man—” The pull yanks at Yoongi’s heart as strong arms wrap tight around his shoulders, and he buries searing eyes into his friend’s familiar cologne, drowning it in heaves of sobs that burn his lungs and spread fire into his throat—burning, burning, burning. His heart is on fucking fire. 

But Jimin is there, hugging tight and trying his best to smother the flames, choking on his own sobs and apologizing for anything. Everything. Nonsense, but it’s Jimin all the same. 

“I can’t fucking win,” Yoongi chokes out, finally setting all the fears free. “She’s always here. I can’t… Fuck.”

Jimin grips tighter. “You can,” he says with a rasp. “I promise you can.” 

“How do you know.” He can’t even recognize his own voice. “You don’t know what it was like.” 

Jimin flinches before holding on even tighter. “Because you won’t do it alone this time.”

Yoongi feels a vice clamp his chest.

“I’m… Shit, I’m really sorry for not trying harder before. We all are. We were young, and stupid, and should’ve paid a lot more attention instead of…” His friend sighs to the ground. “Instead of letting her slowly kill you.” 

It’s a gut punch. Reliving all those memories is confirmation enough. 

Jimin chokes out his last vow, and it tugs at Yoongi’s very being. “So. Yeah. I’m not leaving until you know you have someone. Even if it’s just me.” 

Now Yoongi feels like an asshole. All that time, he’s been so lost that he didn’t even think of his friends. The self-deprecation devolved into self-isolation, squeezing him inside a smaller and smaller box until he couldn’t breathe. He owes Jimin more than his life. 

Hands slowly raise, hope and promise lifting them to his friend's shoulders. There’s a million words he can say to this man, but the only thing that comes out is a mere, “Thanks.”

“You’re thanking me now, but. Even if you get annoyed, I’m not leaving.”

A knock comes at the door, and Jimin finally leans away before smiling. “We’re gonna fight this, yeah? You got us. So get used to it.” 

Yoongi nods. But then gives his friend a scowl. “Who the fuck did you invite to my place.”

Is it your brother? Is it you? Fucking hell, Yoongi would give anything for you to be on the other side. 

But Jimin smirks at his reaction. “It’s not her, but I like the look on your face.” 

A glare is shot while his friend walks to open the door. 

While Yoongi’s heart deflates, he still gives a shake of his head when he sees the newcomer. “If you’re both staying, I’m booking a hotel.”

Taehyung stands affronted while Jimin laughs behind his broad shoulders. “Excuse you? I’ve just been sent here to bring food.” 

Are those bags of groceries? Fuck, he already can’t thank them both enough for what they’re doing. His stomach hollows at the thought of food, which is a good sign because that means he’s ready to eat again. 

“Ah ah, tell him what else.” 

Yoongi tilts his head as he goes to help. “What else is there to do here.” 

Jimin already stormed through like an unstoppable force to clean everything and take out the trash. Ironically, the clouds outside seemed to clear when his apartment did. 

Thumps of vegetables and fruit litter his counters before the newest guest smiles soft, “I’m here to update you on what the love of your life has been up to.” 

Yoongi blinks at paper bags before slowly turning to meet his gaze. Long, speechless, and so fucking relieved. 

“But only if you cooperate.”

—

—

You got the job. And he fucking missed the opportunity to congratulate you. 

Neither Jimin nor Tae judge him for needing a moment to himself. 

—

—

This memory is one he hasn’t visited yet. But Yoongi recognizes it immediately, and he steps aside as his younger self bolts from your brother’s room. It was the morning after they all defied the world. And frankly, he doesn’t remember how they got here but knows for a fact he didn’t drive. Following himself into your familiar foyer, he winces at his own freak out, his tousled hair sticking in all directions. 

But both versions of him freeze when he sees you, standing with a spatula in the kitchen he’ll eventually end up kissing you in years later.

This happened right before you left for university, heading to a really good one according to your brother. He didn’t doubt that at all, either. Both of you look so much younger, living completely different lives. 

You barely get out a nervous smile and hello before he quickly comes up to hold your shoulder, noting how softly nice you smell before reassuring, “Hey, he’s fine. But check on him in like an hour.” 

He whizzes away as soon as you ask, “You okay?” 

But he doesn’t have time to explain. You’ll understand. You’re a pretty, smart girl—Wait. Pretty smart girl. Right. 

Yoongi doesn’t know why he looks back, but he remembers seeing you standing in your doorway, watching him open his car door with nothing but concern.

Standing on your porch, his current self remembers that tug in his chest. It was small, but it was there. Regardless, he chalked it up to the anxiety telling him to get home now. So he gives you one more look before shoving into his car and driving off, not knowing he was going backwards that whole time. 

Like a dream, the scene change is abrupt, dumping him in the middle of the fight that happened minutes later. Shards of glass litter the kitchen floor as the bar cart once full of alcohol lies shattered and bleeding potent fumes. 

“You lying mother fucker!” 

“I was helping—” 

“Didn’t even tell me? Didn’t even think to say something?” 

“I was focused on keeping him alive?” Keeping him alive and home safe. Something that your brother had done for him multiple times. He’s with him until the end. End of story. “Are you gonna ask me if I’m okay? Do you even care?” 

Yoongi should’ve recalled that you did. But not right now. He doesn’t think about anything until later. But watching from this side, you were the only one that asked. 

“You’re here, right? That tells me enough.” 

Yoongi stands there. So broken, so distraught. “What if I wasn’t?” 

“Don’t even ask stupid things.” 

“I’m serious. I’d look everywhere for you.” 

She can’t answer. And Yoongi knows exactly why. He loved someone that never loved him back. This is the karma he gets for all the hearts he broke. The people he played with. It’s all rearing its head and kicking him straight in the teeth. 

This was the final straw. He was done feeling like shit in his own home. With one look at the glass pieces at his feet, he loads finality into his tone. “If you can’t answer me, we’re done.” 

“No, babe, please—” 

“Don’t.” 

“…What?” 

“You do this every time.” His younger self’s finally gonna do it. He’s gonna stand up for himself, and Yoongi hates what he’s gonna hear next. “Cut the bullshit.” 

“I’m not, I just—” 

“If you’re gonna answer, answer.” 

“Don’t rush me. You putting this back on me now?” 

“Cool.” He opens the door, signaling for her to leave and never come back. “You’ve already moved or broke a bunch of your shit, so. This should be easy.”  

This is the moment. The singularity that forever sucks him back into the dark.

“Useless piece of shit.” And here it all comes undone. “What a joke. After I bought you all this shit and you don’t even use it.” 

He has. She’s just never paid attention.

“Fucking loser. I gave you the world and you gave nothing. Nothing.”

He gave up everything. 

“It’s sad, really. How you’re only gonna end up alone.” 

That will be true. This is when he decided that, right? To be done with this shit. Done with love. 

“How did I even let you keep me this long?” 

Yoongi stops, his fingers shaking. Him? Keeping her? It’s so twisted that his vision still jangles. He’ll never forget that feeling, being blamed for the exact same thing she had been doing to him the whole time. 

“Forget it. You’re just gonna fuck up until you have no one left. And I can’t wait to see you end up all by yourself.” 

Yoongi doesn’t respond to her wrath, walking to the corner of the room and grabbing the guitar he was gifted. But he’s halted by a pointed finger. 

“Keep that. Cus you’re gonna remember this. You’re gonna realize I’m right and there won’t be a thing you can do to fix it.”

“Are you done actually? Or is this another stunt?” 

“A stunt? The only one that does that is you.”

It’s his turn to unload. And he makes it a point to say everything he needs to. “I don’t do anything. I don’t go anywhere. See anyone. Or whatever the hell you’re accusing me of. I stay here, or go to the studio. That’s it.”

“Some studio you got there. Haven’t even heard one single thing you’ve done this entire time.”

“You’ve never asked.”

“Huh?”

Ah. Yoongi remembers this. Right then, he was finally, finally done. “You never asked about anything I’ve worked on once.”

“Well, you never cared to share.” Acid bubbles from her throat, hair tossed back in an unforgiving laugh. “A fuck-up and now a screw-up? Why did I ever think I deserved you in the first place?” 

Yoongi stares for what seems like the final time. And he couldn’t be happier. “Hope you find someone that you do.” 

And the door shuts right as he’s flung from deep sleep, thrown over any perception of reality and taking in the voice at his face. 

“Hey, hey, it’s okay—” 

“Give him space—”

Yoongi shudders, breathing ice cold fire and chilled by the air ghosting over his sweaty back. Front. Legs. Fuck, he’s drenched. 

“Yoongi?”

Gulping air, he flicks his eyes between Jimin holding him steady with shaky hands, and Taehyung on the other side of the bed, watching him with eyes locked and one knee making a hard divot in the comforter. 

Shit. This isn’t like the other night he fell asleep in his kitchen. This is a whole other level of frightening.

“Please say something,” Jimin squeaks out, lightly rubbing him on the shoulder and providing much needed warmth. “Anything. Please.”

“Let him breathe, babe,” Tae softly orders, to which Jimin snaps his head at but calms. 

Tae’s right. Breathe. Breathe deeper. It was just a dream, just a memory, just the past. Fuck. Yoongi thought having people over would help. But that was a terrifying reminder that he was wrong yet again. 

Head dumped in his wet hands, he notices his hair’s new length before raking it back. Looking straight at his desk, he takes it all in, quietly reminding himself that it’s filled with equipment. 

That’s it. Nothing else. Just his equipment, his notepads, his writing utensils. No traces of broken keyboards, cracked monitor screens, snapped wires. Nothing except your light touches which he will take any day over what occupied it before. In his whirlwind of thoughts, he wonders if anything else of yours on that desk would look nice—Ah. He’s truly losing his mind. 

“I’m good,” he croaks, startling everyone in the room including himself. “What the hell happened.”

Taehyung answers first, “We heard a lot of noise, so..”

“We checked in and saw you,” Jimin finishes, his eyes holding back multitudes. 

“Saw me what.” 

“Thrashing.” Taehyung holds his gaze unflinching. Because one of them has to be level headed, and Jimin is clutching Yoongi like he’ll sink into the bed. Maybe he would have. 

“It looked painful,” Jimin rasps out, voice sagging with melancholy. Sitting on the edge of the bed, he looks Yoongi in the eyes before whispering, “Does this happen a lot?”

“Not in a minute.” And for once, he’s honest about this. “It’s only the second time recently.” 

He thanks every star above that you’ve avoided seeing both. This is exactly why he shunned himself, isn’t it? Until this is dealt with, he doesn’t think he can be with you on a clear conscience. 

Taehyung’s fully sitting on the sheets now, hair looking like he was yanked from a deep sleep, too. “Have you told anyone about it?”

“No.” 

“You should.”

“Maybe.”

“Tae’s right,” Jimin whispers, his expression filled with grey. It’s a look Yoongi decides he doesn’t ever wanna see on that face. “I think you need that, too.”

Something very close to discomfort creeps along Yoongi’s bones, making him shift in his seat. His very moist seat. God, if he doesn’t shower now he’s causing a riot. “Lemme wash first,” he offers, barred from swinging out his legs until Jimin gets up. When he gets to his bathroom, he flips on the switch inside before deciding, “Then I will.”

Tae stays still as Jimin walks up to his side of the bed. The closer side to the bathroom. “You sure you’ll tell us?”

“Yeah.” Yoongi looks down before heading in to shower, saying one more thing as he shuts the door, “But you won’t see me the same after I do.” 

—

—

He tells them everything. All the memories plaguing him for years. The things they don’t know and some of the things they do. While they listen, Jimin’s eyes blink the least, not wanting to miss a single second. 

Taehyung’s hands grip the couch cushions harder with each passing moment. But neither of them judge. Neither of them offer pity. If anything, they’re ready to pick up swords they don’t have to attack someone that doesn’t exist to him anymore. 

Lies. If she didn’t exist to him, none of this would be happening. 

So therein lies Yoongi’s problem. He needs to get rid of anything that still ties him to her, the biggest one being the guitar watching all of them right now. 

“Why didn’t you tell us. Tell me,” Jimin asks through fresh tears. “Why didn’t you say anything?” 

“I thought about that for a long time.” Yoongi hangs his head between his knees before lifting. “Turns out, I was just.. Ashamed. I dunno.” 

“Does anyone know all of this?” 

Well. “Just one.” He doesn’t have to elaborate for them to know who it is. 

“I didn’t wanna bother anyone with it,” he finally admits. “Didn’t feel like you guys needed to hear how fucked up I am.” 

“Yoongi.” He raises his gaze to meet Jimin’s. “That’s exactly what we want to hear. Because we’re friends.” 

“You’d say the same to us,” Taehyung adds. “And to her. Who, if I’m being completely honest, would lose her shit if she knew.” 

Yoongi doesn’t doubt that. “I know.” 

“No, you don’t. I’m not saying because of the reasons. I’m saying because she would offer to do exactly what we’re doing now.”

Burns sear around his eyes. Because deep down, he fucking knows that. He does. And yet, he still can’t accept how selfless you are when it comes to him. How good, and reckless, and understanding. And a revelation pierces right through his bruised heart. 

He’s lived in his dark for so long that he’s afraid of your light.

Fuck, his admittance scratches every inch of his mouth on the way out. His heart takes collateral damage, seeping out of his eyes, “I think I have to let her go.” 

In an instant, both pairs of eyes gloss over to match his. 

“I’m doing all this for her,” he rasps out. “Everything, for her. But I can’t fucking do it and she deserves someone that isn’t so fucked—” 

“Yoongi—”

“My ex was right. Back then. Now. She was right.” His voice lulls to a dull thrum. “I’ll just end up alone.” 

“Shut the fuck up.” His head snaps to Jimin’s at the same time as Tae’s. “Are you alone right now? Hmm?” 

No. But he doesn’t say a damn thing. 

“I’ll answer for you since you’re being an idiot. No, you’re not.” That’s not the point, but— “And even if we weren’t here? You’re never alone unless you decide that, not some fucked up ex. And the Yoongi I know? Is too smart to do something so stupid.” 

Ouch. But fair. “That’s not what I mean and you know it—”

“So what? You wanna talk about relationships? Let’s talk about the one you’re in—because yes, you’re in one—and how you’re fucking it up because of some bullshit.” 

“Jimin—”

“No, I’m tired of this shit! Why can’t you see what’s in front of you? Why can’t you see all the good shit you do? Why can’t you just be happy—”

“I’m trying all of that for her—”

“You need to do it for yourself!”  

Jimin stands rigid as his words pulse around the room, eyes swimming and unblinking as Taehyung dons a similar look. 

“This isn’t about her. This isn’t about anyone else.” He shudders out a breath. “Right now? You need to get your shit together to pull yourself out.” 

Shit. 

Yoongi completely lost the point along the way. Didn’t he think like that when all this started? When did it all become so muddled? Did part of him always know this, deeper down? And that’s the part of him that he had left behind first? When he tries to speak, he can’t. No words, no thoughts, no sounds escape the desert of his mouth. 

“And you can do it. I’ve seen you do it before,” Jimin whispers. “But now, you have two people—three people—to fight for this time.” 

Ah. But one of those people still doesn’t know the truth. Doesn’t know why Yoongi’s done this to himself in the first place. A sour laugh leaves his lips before he stares at nothing. “He’s trusted me with everything. And I’ve told him nothing.” Lifting his head, he shudders out, “Say I do all this. Once I tell him the truth… I’m losing him. I know it.” 

“You don’t know that.” Jimin sounds very unconvinced. 

“Hah.. Right.” Yoongi sighs. “We all know he’s gonna kill me.” 

“Well.” Taehyung is the one that finally interjects, and Yoongi shifts his gaze before the man correctly and accurately assumes, “You’d die for her anyway. What’s the difference if he knows.” 

Oh. Well, that’s…

There’s a ping of silence before Jimin blurts a puff of amusement. 

Then Yoongi breaks into a smile as Taehyung’s sudden laugh joins the fray, all of them grinning and laughing because it’s all so fucking simple. Really, really fucking simple. And for the first time in weeks, Yoongi feels like things are gonna be okay. 

Coming down from the broken ice, Jimin reiterates the whole point, “You’re not gonna lose her. But you will if sulking is all you’re gonna do.” 

A nod. “I know.” 

“So what are you gonna do?” 

Yoongi looks at them both, then sweeps his gaze around the living room before landing on his coffee table. Warmth fills the divots in his cheeks as he allows himself to grin, not caring if he gets peculiar looks at his first order of business. His highest priority. 

“Gonna move some books.” 

—

—

The loudest roar of thunder signals the end of a storm. And in following that same pattern, the rest of Yoongi’s week goes by dreamless. Calm. Merciful. 

And he cannot thank Jimin enough. 

He helps him when he cooks, drags him out for walks in the afternoon, and even Taehyung drops by to show him a bunch of movies that he is appalled he’s never seen before. 

Yoongi even goes back to the studio on the regular, earning looks of relief and mild annoyance, which he fully expected. But with minimal questions, he throws himself back into work, urging himself to eventually tell them what happened. 

When Taehyung stays over, too, all three of them simply… Talk. About anything and everything, deeper and deeper conversations the more he gets to know them. Yoongi doesn’t talk as much as they do, but he does divulge a lot more about his past than he ever has. Both of the guys present never judge him for any of it, which makes him feel seen. Feel not so alone. 

Because he’s learning that these experiences are universal. The true danger lies in not knowing how to handle them. How to be accepting of those parts of his life when he’s all he’s got.

Now that he’s got his priority straight, he knows he can get there. He can find that door to himself again, no matter how long it takes. Yes, for you. Yes, for his best friend.

But, first and foremost, for himself. 

—

—

To his complete shock, the cat comes back. And in the quiet, radiant night, Yoongi’s eyes gloss over when his heart tells him her name. 

She’s gonna be yours. For getting the gig. The idea itself breathes life into his soul, and he can’t fucking wait to get everything ready for the day he gets to surprise you.

Finally, Yoongi has something to look forward to. Just wait for him. He hopes you can hold out just a tiny, tiny bit longer. 

Filled with joy and excitement, he sends Tae to the store for some food, supplies, and a new set of bowls, barely noticing Jimin watching his detailed orders with a newfound sense of relief. 

—

—

One day, Jimin comes back from work and asks if Yoongi is ready to see people. When he asks why, he talks about his brilliant idea of bringing the parties to him. When Yoongi continues to ask why yet again, it’s to fill his apartment with even more life. Maybe even a certain person will come, too. 

Nah. You probably won’t. 

But if you do? Yoongi won’t be able to contain himself. And just knowing that he’s okay with feeling that way is a step in the right direction. 

—

— 

Three months.

Based on the date on the studio monitor, it’s been three months since he left. Way too long, and the remorse in his stomach is acidic. 

Three months. How many seconds is that? You would know. You’re brilliant and know everything except the dark secrets he can’t tell you yet. 

And it’s the deepset shame lining his bones that won’t allow him to go see you, as much as he fucking wants to. Letting it all out for his friends did lift an astronomical amount from his shoulders, but now he’s embarrassed as hell for taking this long to do something so simple that he’s still unsure. Unsure of when he can show himself to you again and is terrified at how you’ll perceive him. 

But just because he doesn’t know about seeing you. Doesn’t mean he can’t at least talk to you.

And he’ll make that call last the entire night. Jimin and Tae have given him space for a little while now, both of them back in their respective places, so he has the apartment to himself and your voice. If you give him another chance. 

It’s that one solid loophole that has him rushing out of the studio and eager to finally ring you up. The uneasiness is getting beaten out by excitement, pouring over from the news they all received about the album release party. 

Things are finally, finally, finally looking up. He’s feeling better. Not enough to face you, but enough to not feel worse than complete shit. But all of that freshly blossomed energy sweeps into a torrent of worry as soon as he’s greeted with silence on the line. 

“Hello?” 

He can’t blame you for hesitating. Fuck, you’re probably over him and are just answering out of pity. You aren’t saying anything. Shit, he fucked all the way up. 

But your silence isn’t because of anger. Or annoyance. Because you make the smallest, most desperate noise he’s ever heard in his life. 

And the intention to burn the rest of the world shatters every shackle he’s placed on himself, fierce sparks igniting his body to go wherever the fuck you are and deal with anything awaiting his wrath, “Where are you.” 

He’s coming to you no matter what. 

—

—

Is that you? Are all those bags chips? 

Holy fuck, that’s the funniest shit he’s seen in months. 

He’s so fucking in love. 

—

—

He wants this drive to last for hours, if only to maintain this expansion in his chest that lets his lungs breathe. 

Being in the car with you? Your pretty voice singing along to all his favorite songs? This will always be one of his favorite things, long after he’s too old to operate even the slowest vehicle in existence. 

Remembering the mountain of bags in the backseat, he selfishly tuts, “You still have to gimme chips.” And he also selfishly glances over your chest when you reach behind to get a random flavor. Goddamn. You’re still perfect. 

“You really made me get these just for you, huh? Are you eating?”

“Yes, my love. And I never said that.”

…Did he just say what he thinks he said? Well. No taking it back now. Especially when it felt like the most natural thing to call you. An oath. A reminder. To himself, more than anyone else. 

It takes you awhile to respond as you open the bag. And Yoongi assumes your comment is to brush off the same sudden shock he still feels, “Such a smartass.”

“You’re the smartass.”

“Don’t act like you aren’t smart, too,” you laugh before pulling down your dress. Wait, are you cold? “I know you are.” 

He doesn’t know how to take that compliment, reaching into the bag and watching you shiver, wondering why you’re just dealing with the chill. “Why?” 

Yoongi is so thrown off by your reason that he laughs after you say it, “I just… You read.” 

His cheeks strain as he lowers the fans, the music now commanding most of the air space. The way you’re turned away is so cute, and you immediately stop fidgeting with your tiny dress. “I’m smart cus I read? How do you even know?”

“You have books under your coffee table. And you don’t have decor just to have it, so…”

Did he ever tell you that? He doesn’t remember saying it, so did you just accurately read him again? Who’s the avid reader now? But speaking of those books… You don’t know what he did with them, or why, and that curves his mouth up a tad. “I moved those, by the way.”

“Em”—you cough—“Embarrassed?”

“Proactive.”

“Huh? For what?”

Perfect. You lead him right where he wanted you to. Proudly telling you why, he says it all through a smirk, “The next time you decide to fuck up my place.” 

“Oh, bullshit!”

You’re tickling him while he’s driving? That’s unfair as fuck! “You soaked—aish—my whole apartment!”

“That was you!”

“No?”

“Yes? I was nice and only got your head wet!”

Mm. That sounds like a damn good idea. The visual in his mind is nowhere close to appropriate, and Yoongi’s enjoying your squirm in his passenger seat. Elated you’re back in it in the first place. But you’re almost out of reach again. And he’s dreading the next rolling stop. 

At least he gets to hear your huffs again. Those are his absolute favorites. “Ugh. Whatever… I’m right.” 

You haven’t changed a bit. Still the same person he left behind, and his heart pangs from the need to do it once again. 

But your quick resistance halts his brain. Screeches it to a stop. Fuck, you’re begging him not to do it and he doesn’t want to do it but it’s the right thing. He’s trying to do the right thing but god, does he want to just veer off the goddamn street. He can’t. He can’t he can’t you can’t— “Babe… We can’t.” 

“I don’t care.”

“I was only gonna bring you back.”

“Baby, please.”

“He’s home—”

“Do you still miss me?” 

…What? Yoongi stills, mind resetting and going blank. 

Still miss you? He’s never fucking stopped. 

Suddenly, Yoongi abandons any sense of restraint. All control he previously held onto falls away and crumbles to dust. You have his full attention. And you rip his soul to shreds with every word you say,

“Because I get it if you don’t. I do. But I really… I really fucking miss you. And not just because of, whatever. But I consider you a friend and fun as hell to be around, and I haven’t…” The shake of your exhale rattles his eyes. “I haven’t been this happy in weeks. And we aren’t even doing anything.” 

God, he feels the same. You could both sit in silence and he’d be filled with joy just looking at you. 

“I know you said I wouldn’t see you. But after getting to know you? The real you? …That sucks.” 

Shit. 

“I’m not gonna make you change anything, just. Telling you what’s on my mind. Like you said. I’m gonna do that a lot more now.”

Yoongi doesn’t say a word as a tear cuts one of your cheeks, and you’re brave enough to look his way again. “But it’s been three months, Yoongi,” you whisper. “Is that still not enough for you?”

Every brick. Every wall. Every fortress he’s built around his mind crumbles into stardust, shards pinging around his ribs and cutting into his beating, beating, beating heart. 

A day was enough for him to miss you. And these three months have felt like three years. 

There’s no denying it. He fucking needs you. 

Of course. That’s the only reason he sped down here to pick you up and pinned you against his car as if you’d flee. You’re his oxygen, his inhale, his breath of life and hope for new beginnings and goddamn if he lets you go now you’ll never know it—

“Stop.” 

Just tonight. He’ll allow himself one night. Does he deserve it? Probably not, but you sure as fuck do for laying your dying heart in his withered hands. 

And Yoongi decides with a lock of his jaw. Following where his own broken heart points and peeling out into the street.

—

—

Once he gets his hands on you, Yoongi can’t fucking stop. From the car to the walls of his apartment, his fingers can’t decide where to stay, raking down your sides and tugging you close before finally shoving you against his bedroom door. 

God, your touch. Your lips. Your little sounds of pleasure. Why the fuck did he deprive himself of the one person that makes him whole? Yoongi’s so lost in you that he barely remembers his pain, and he loves the way you laugh in the face of it. So fucking hot. 

Closer. He needs to be closer and it’s driving him mad how he’s limited to pressing against your front. Hitching your leg up, he shoves himself forward, the rush of blood tightening his groin and emptying reason from his head. 

This is already too much. You’ve already taken things too far. But goddamn, he’s not stopping even if the entire complex broke down his door. “Shouldn’t be fucking doing this—” 

You moan and he’s a goner again, the next twitch in his pants straining against your soft pelvis. When a plea leaves that pretty mouth, Yoongi’s ready to give you the world. All you have to do is say it and it’s yours and yours alone. “Please what.” 

The tug of his hair makes him groan, but it’s your words that drag his soul across coals, “Choke me. Use me. I don’t care, do it all.”

“Huh?”

What did you fucking say? 

Nah. Yoongi needs to hear that again because he cannot forgive himself if he’s hallucinating all of this, too. Yanking you forward, he strains his ears just to be bombarded by your demands, 

“Don’t be nice. Spit in my mouth. Make me beg like a fucking slut, I need it.”

You’re gonna be the fucking death of him. “The fuck.”

Any hesitance Yoongi had before flings out the door. The whole time he’s trying to do the right thing, here you are spewing everything good and wrong and he’s enraptured. You’re clearly not holding back, so why wouldn’t he match that chaos like his life depended on mania? You give and give and give, and Yoongi makes it his mission to reciprocate. 

Soon, he’s everywhere, swallowing you devouring you inhaling you like his last meal of his last life. Busting into his bedroom, the hot rush of adrenaline magnifies his darkest thoughts. But you don’t even give him the chance to say them out loud because what the fuck he’s in his chair now? “Babe—”

What the fuck? What’s gotten into you and what can he do to suspend this moment in time? You’re sin incarnate at his feet, dropping to your knees and attacking him, undressing him with a force that downright startles him through. 

It borderline scares him because he’s never seen you like this. Shit, he can’t shake an icky feeling off now and he can’t fully immerse himself in the moment if he’s correct. “Are you su—”

“Let me do this,” you plead upward. And Yoongi lets those sparkling eyes lure him down. 

Fuck, fuck, focus. The way you hold his cock is heavensent and the feeling will never get old and he can’t help but groan at the feel of your fingers. But the feeling is still there. The question is still occupying his mind. 

So Yoongi utilizes every single ounce of control to stop you, saying your name for the first time in weeks. When you shoot him a look of rejection, his heart breaks in two, because your mind is like his when it defaults to the worst possible scenario. 

All he wants to do is kiss you. So he does just that, keeping it tender to calm your potential buzz. Voice soft, he asks through the dark blue of night, “You drank tonight, yeah?” 

“Yeah…?” 

Ah. He was right. Fuck, if you aren’t lucid enough, this has to stop right now. No matter how fucking bad he wants to tear you apart. 

But you reach out to palm his cheek, as if you knew exactly what he was getting at without asking. “I’m not drunk, baby. I just missed you.” 

Please be telling the truth. He won’t live with himself if you aren’t telling him what’s really going on. 

“I’m not,” you reassure through a smile that he’s missed so fucking much. Once again, Yoongi kisses you, because he can’t bear not feeling those puckered lips on his for another second. How strange it is, being able to breathe best when his mouth is smothered by yours. 

“So are you gonna fuck my throat or nah?”

Holy fuck, you can’t do that. You can’t just say shit like that and get away with it. It’s infuriating in the best way and Yoongi will worship this new, unbridled attitude of yours. What an honor to say he knew you had it in you all along. Yoongi never doubted your skyrocketing appeal for a second. “What are you doing to me.”

“This.” You don’t even give him the mercy of a warning. All Yoongi feels next is those angelic, sinful lips around his tip, eyes fluttering shut as his head kicks back in a moan. 

Euphoria. You’re his beginning and end, the middle and the rest. Nothing else in the world can bring him to his knees like this, and he can’t imagine being anywhere except at your feet. He’s in trouble. You’re not going home for a long while. 

Every swirl you make zings light along his limbs, and he opens soul-sucked eyes to you tugging your dress down fuck. 

He tastes himself when you kiss him, the wet of your efforts slathering around his mouth but he doesn’t fucking care. Reaching out, Yoongi smacks at your perfect tits, laughing to himself knowing how lucky he is. “Get the fuck back down there.”

And the smirk you send his way makes him fall in love ten times over. 

Yoongi doesn’t even know where he is. And this time, he counts that as a win. Because your licks and sucks are sending him into space, straight past the stars and into the next galaxy over. When the fuck did you get this good? It’s spurning the competitive side of him that vows to not lose to you even though he perpetually will. “Holy fuck.” 

His back muscles strain between arching and collapsing, the squeak of his chair the choir to your sinful symphony of sounds. Unbelievably hot. He may as well pass away from how good you’re milking him down.

Then he feels the back of your throat and then some. And something ignites in his core that causes his hands to find your head. 

Fuck, your eyes. They’re molten. “So fucking filthy...” 

Your laugh around his cock sends him into another frenzy. “Don’t do that.” 

But you disobey like the good girl you are, unsheathing your mouth just to swallow his balls oh goddamn. “Fuck!”

It’s over. It’s over for him. All you have to do is tell him what you want and he’s shoving the world aside to make it happen. Your insecurities? He’s banishing. Your wants and needs? He’s providing. There’s no one else but you and his chest is heaving with shallow shallow shallow breaths. 

When you let him push you closer, Yoongi groans, tapping that pretty cheek with his length and savoring the way you suck him back in like an addiction. 

He’s addicted to you, too. And after tonight, he doesn’t think he can ever get enough. The withdrawals will hit like no other, and he’ll shake and tweak until the next time he can steal you away. “So perfect… So fucking perfect… There will never be anyone else.” 

Can you even hear him? You’re so goddamn loud. 

“Fucking hell, baby,” Yoongi praises, thrusting into the heat of your mouth and shivering at the sensation you’re willing to give every time. “Missed that fuckin’ mouth.”

You’re already a beautiful sight around his cock. But when you come up for air, erotic effort dripping from your mouth and sloping down in strings to your bare chest? That’s when you’re mesmerizing. And Yoongi doesn’t dare to look away from your face. 

What the fuck, you’re going in again? Fuck that. You’re gonna make him bust before he gets the chance to ruin you. 

Gathering sweaty hands under your arms, Yoongi yanks you upward, tossing you onto his bed and growling with pride. After he’s through with you? You’ll never doubt where he stands anymore. And quite honestly, he’s damn near scared you’re gonna realize you’re much better than him, in every aspect of your promising life. 

Because you’re radiance personified, laughing up at him as if he never left you in the dark. How he played with your light, Yoongi won’t ever forgive himself. But you already have. And his heart lurches forward to worship you. 

“Take this off,” he commands into your chest. Because he needs it all. Everything, everything, everything. “No more hiding.” 

He helps you with shaking hands as you strip the dress for him, breath ragged with excitement and relief to have you here again. When you question your shoes, Yoongi immediately interrupts, because this is a fantasy he’s had from the fucking jump. “What about my—”

“Don’t.” He grips your pliant thigh. “I’m fucking you with them on.” 

“Oh, fuck.” 

That’s right. You’re getting all of him—the good, the bad, and all the forbidden thoughts he’s kept locked away. All of it’s now unleashed, unlocked by your ability to finally tell him what you want. 

When Yoongi smacks the side of your ass with a possession he’ll think about hours from now, the sound you make launches him to the edge. And when he wrenches your legs apart, his eyes blow obsidian at the sight between them. 

Yeah. He’s wrecking your shit tonight. And you’ll feel so good he might cry. 

“Please fuck me, baby,” you whisper soft, a far cry from your uninhibited demands from earlier. 

But the feeling inside Yoongi’s chest renders him even softer. Because yes, he’s going to. But there’s so much he didn’t get to do, so many things he’s been wanting to give but tore apart every chance. 

You deserve more. A whole lifetime more than what you’re asking for. And Yoongi can only summarize how he feels with a single sentence, “I’m gonna do a lot more than that, doll.” 

You don’t truly understand. But that’s okay. All you need to do is sit back and let him cherish you, starting with the smooth skin of your ankle that he brings in for a soft kiss. 

There’s no way to deny anything anymore. Here you are ready to be used, and Yoongi’s taking precious seconds to plant kisses on your leg? Of fucking course he’s too far gone. He’s been too far gone for months. If there’s one way to show you how he feels without words, he’s gonna take it. Because those three syllables are too profound to be said in a mere tryst under moonlight. 

So he pries your legs apart with passion taking the reins, growling out safer thoughts that praise you, “So fucking perfect.” 

“No, you,” you counter with a pout, and he cups your cunt to shut that shit down. “Hey!”

“None of that,” Yoongi orders with finality. “Not after all that shit you said at the door.” 

“I dunno what happened there,” you admit, now shy and looking more like yourself. It strikes his heart so hard a confession flows right out of his mouth, 

“Almost made me come.” 

“Be for real.” 

“Damn serious.” Goddamn, that grin. Yoongi has found a new obsession. 

“Then I should keep going?”

“Uh huh.” Perfect. Spill everything from those shining lips, break him down like you did two times tonight already. “Tell me.” 

Yoongi thinks you aren’t gonna do it again. You usually spark like a flare, simmering down after your initial fire then defaulting back to that adorable shyness again. So when you surprise him? All bets are off. Nothing is off limits. 

“Fuck me like you missed me.” 

And that’s when Yoongi fucking snaps. 

He launches for your throat first, feasting on your succulent skin and forcing you up his bed. When his dick brushes against your soft center, his name expels from your mouth at the same time he groans like mad. “Careful,” he finally sends you a warning about your last demand. Because he needs you to know what’s about to happen in this room. “You won’t leave if I did that.”

“I don’t want to,” you hastily respond, gripping his hair just how he likes it. “Wanna stay.”

Stay. He wants nothing but you to do that, too. It’s why he’s wrapping himself around you, latching onto every inch of your skin and grasping at anything he can get his fingers on. 

Of course, reason weasels through his brain again, seeping from his mouth without his permission. “You shouldn’t even be here, babe.”

“Just tonight.” Fuck, you sound deflated already. “But if you really don’t want this then please kick me out before—”

“Fuck that.” Yoongi tweaks your chest before rolling hard against you, relishing in the feel of your cunt and defying all sense of morals. “Fuck all of that.” 

Kick you out? You’ll learn to never say that again. “Don’t move.”

Yoongi drops to his knees, nudging your legs aside and promising dark and dangerous thoughts against your thigh. Fuck, you smell like heaven. He’s painfully hard and it will take everything in his soul to not come on his bedroom floor. 

What are you flinching for? What did he fucking say? “I said. Don’t move.” 

“But—Yoongi!” 

Patient, he shifts your slick thong sideways, breath heady as his tongue flattens completely against your cunt. And the taste, holy fuck. This is his favorite place and he’ll keep eating until you’re a shuddering, shivering mess on his sheets. The most exquisite mess he’s ever had the pleasure to make. 

A dark chuckle rumbles as you instinctively clamp your legs together. And he will always be willing to punish for that because your little whines in response are his guilty pleasures. “Uh uh.”

You taste so fucking good. All essence pooling from your folds coats his mouth in layer after slick layer, his tongue basking in the warmth of your core and lapping over, and over, and over. Greed is too light a word to describe his thirst, and he sucks at the spot he knows you love until you tremble. 

Gripping his cock with slicked fingers, Yoongi pumps himself slow, moaning as he keeps licking, sucking, penetrating your cunt with his tongue and deciding that’s not enough for him. He wants you losing your goddamn mind because you made him lose his. He wants you thrashing on his sheets and locking those beautiful muscles for hours. 

Your sounds tighten his groin impossibly hard, mingling with the squelches of his feast and the slide of his fingers along his length. Nothing beats this. Nothing will ever compete because you both sound so fucking obscene.  

The neighborhood gets to hear you again, and that thought carves a prideful grin into Yoongi’s features. You’re back, and they’re gonna know it. For as long as he can make you scream. 

When he inserts a finger to join his tongue, the sound you make almost makes him come  oh fuck. Say his name like that again and he will. Days from now, he may even bust off that singular memory alone. 

When you grab at his hair, he knows that’s when you’re close. And it spurns him into his next twisted fantasy that has his stomach fluttering. 

“Yoongi—I’m—” Nope. You’re not getting there yet. And your response curls his mouth into something ominous. “No no no! Please, fuck—”

Unbothered, Yoongi swats your sopping cunt, completely ignoring your cries for release, “What’d you say?” 

“Plea—Baby!” 

“Huh?” 

Such a terrible listener. What a shame he wouldn’t have it any other way. Because every fucking time you speak, he gets to shush you with a wet tap. And every time you decide to be a smart ass, he rewards you with no hope of reaching the edge you so fiercely crave.  

And this goes on for minutes. 

Yoongi has time. In fact, he has all the time in the world when it comes to breaking you down. You’re gonna spiral for him, you’re gonna unwind under his tongue. Because this is what you wanted and he’s nothing but incredibly thorough. 

Your thighs are quivering by the time he’s ready to reward you release, and he kisses them lovingly as you prattle off complete and utter nonsense above his sweaty head. Standing, he roves his gaze over his sheets, satisfied to hell how he’s made you a mess among them. 

And Yoongi is far, far from done with you. Sliding his dick along your folds, he hums, “This is what you wanted, huh. You gonna be a good little slut?” 

That obedience you give sets butterflies free in his chest. Because Yoongi knows you hold all the power here, him nothing but a vessel to carry out your every whim. “Then fucking beg.” 

When his cock pats your pretty pussy, your reaction has him fraying at the seams. So fucking beautiful when you twist like that. He can’t believe you gave him all these chances to see you at your most vulnerable because this is when you can’t hide a single thing from him. Your mouth betrays you in the best ways, your soul speaks to him when your brain can’t find the courage to. 

And Yoongi preens when you shower him with nothing but praise and a sailor’s barrage. His lips find yours after way too long, and when you tug at his shirt his heart pulls taut with it. 

“Please,” you finally beg. “I need you.”

“Need you, too.” He does, he does, he does. 

Quickly getting up to grab a condom, Yoongi smirks at the way you keep spouting nothing and everything, as if a dam inside burst with no hope of being stopped. Fully stripping himself, he slips the protection on before finding solace between your twitching legs, kissing you once again because fuck he cannot get enough of you tonight. Ever. No matter what lifetime he meets you in.

When you whisper his name, he takes it in his mouth, and the innate need to have you completely makes a mess of his hands. 

This is what will destroy him every time. This connection with you is what he will remember long after everything else fades away. There will never be another soul that embraces his so fully, and that truth is a belief so deep rooted it’s unshakeable. No matter what branches he cuts off, no matter what decisions he has to make. He will always, always come back to you. 

Because you’re it for him. And he can’t thank his past self enough for walking onto that balcony.

You like it best when he starts slow, especially since it’s been awhile since the last time. When Yoongi knows for a fact you haven’t seen anyone else, either, his heart grows a size, making his breath shudder while he slides further and further inside. 

He’ll wait. As always. But you don’t take long to feel comfortable, your hands lifting up to softly pull at his chains. Yoongi’s shoulders relax as you slide up to hold them for support, and he almost can’t look into those eyes he’s so afraid of.  

Bliss. This is exactly what he’s been fighting for. This is exactly why he’s going to make a much better effort—now, tomorrow, and forever. 

“I’m ready, baby,” you whisper. 

And Yoongi lets himself loose completely. 

Fuck, you feel better than he remembers, wrapping around him just right and pulsing against every ridge. If he could stay inside you every second, he would. There’s only one thing he can think of that would feel better than this, and just imagining that has him vibrating. The warmth enveloping him buckles both arms at your sides, and he crumbles to an elbow to smush his body against yours. 

“Look at me,” he commands, and he gives you a light pat on the cheek before squeezing your jaw. “Open up.”

When you do, spit flings from his mouth into yours, and his eyes blaze and twist at the primal dragon laying claim to you in his chest. Because you’re his, and he’s yours. This is all he ever needed to know. 

“Fuck!”

Fuck, that was too fucking hot. If he doesn’t control himself now he’s spilling inside of you in seconds. “What do you say?”

“Me?” you pant, hissing when he grips your chin once again. “Thank—” 

He’s thrusting inside you too hard you can’t think. But Yoongi doesn’t relent. Because he knows you can fucking take it. He knows how strong and relentless you can be, reckless just for him and pulling those same commitments from his core. 

And you prove him right yet again. “Thank you.”

“Now swallow.” As soon as he shoves inside, your obedience is his unraveling. Watching your eyes roll and your mouth part in release drags him down the shoreline with you, and he can’t fucking save himself because your tugs are too goddamn dominant. Fuck, you’re unbelievable. He will never, ever get enough of you. 

“Such a whore for me,” Yoongi praises, smiling lopsided when you remember exactly what he’s referring to. That first night you hustled the shit outta him and left him with a mind so jumbled he didn’t know what to do. God, that was ages ago. He’s not even sure he’s the same person anymore.

But you are. Just a lot more confident. At your core, you’re still the same wonderful woman, and the light in your eyes has not faded even one shade. “Love when you do that,” you admit, and he laughs when you shake your head. “Don’t know why.” 

“Me neither.” He spears you again with a cheeky lip bite. “But it’s so fucking hot.” 

Your grin can’t be contained, and this is where you wanna be. Right here. Nowhere else in the fucking universe. 

“I’m ready.” When Yoongi regards you with curiosity, he gets blindsided yet again by your forthcomingness. “Fuck the shit out of me.” 

Oh. Tonight is his last, it seems. “Goddamn, this isn’t good for me.” 

“What?” 

“Nothing.” Sitting back on his knees, he gathers your pretty ankles in a bunch. “Hold these pretty legs up for me. There you go.” It’s his turn to not give you a warning. Because you’re slick enough to handle what’s coming and he’s determined to make you do the same. 

Driving hard and fast, Yoongi unleashes his energy, slamming into your pussy again and again and relishing in the way you mewl and moan and whine. Keep doing that. He wants to hear you. It’s fuel for him to keep going and give you exactly what you want and need. If you felt insecure around him before tonight, he vows to erase all of that worry until it’s wiped from existence. You’re his world. You’re his everything. 

“Feel so good—”

More. More, more, more, he needs fucking more. When he leaves your cunt, you mewl before he grunts, “Fucking—Get up.” Raising you up by the arms, Yoongi leads you to the edge of his bed before swiping a firm arm to clear his desk. Knowing what he’s about to do, his cock twitches like mad. 

Fuck, you already look divine facedown on the surface, your legs teetering on those heels and making him grit out a groan. 

He cannot come. Not before living out one of his deepest fantasies. Fucking you on his desk? His workspace where he works on his other love? Yoongi’s already shaking before he even grips your quivering hips, shoving your thong away and letting it rest useless on one side of your perfect ass. Fuck. 

“Yoongi—”

He finds home again in an instant, pushing your bowing spine down when you habitually flinch, “Uh uh. Stay like that.” 

“I wanna—” Your words are cut off with his spank. “Fuck!”

“There you go.” The rock of the desk is so strong that every bang against the wall booms loud, equipment sliding back and forth and teetering just like you had on your high heels. Just the mere sight of you like this makes him spiral. And Yoongi can’t help but whoosh out a raspy laugh. “Goddamn.” 

He grabs your hands, shoving you even flatter against his desk so he can pin your arms against your slick back. Possessive? Yes. Unsatiable? Even more so. 

Your moans fling out as he doesn’t let up, and Yoongi moans at the way you squeeze and milk his cock—relentless, uncompromising, just how he fucking wants it. 

More. He still wants more? Fuck. “Come here.” He gathers your wrists in one palm before reaching around your chest, hauling you up and pinning you against his body by the throat. It’s so sweaty under his touch, glistening and tempting to be sucked until he mars you with lust. 

“Never fucking kicking you out.” His next stroke is intentionally harsh, and those moans will take residence in his mind for years. “Don’t even think about saying that again.” 

Your weight falls on his arms when he shoves into you again, feet scrambling for solid ground and wobbling your legs into jello. 

But Yoongi doesn’t give a shit. “You hear me?” When you let out a breathy confirmation, he still isn’t satisfied. A hand pats your cheek before he asks again, “Say it louder.” 

“Yes!”

“Good.” That’s all you get before he jumps into a frenzy, pistoning as fast and as hard as he can possibly manage. When he brings you back down to his desk, Yoongi takes advantage of the position, thrusting and thrusting and thrusting into your heavenly velvet. 

This is exactly what he needed. What you needed. Of course you both yearned for the same blue flame, ripping each other apart and rebuilding each other again. 

You’re close. Yoongi can feel you. So he menacingly decides to prolong your release yet again—

You shove him so fast he can’t react, thumping onto his bed and cackling like mad when you leap onto his frame. Fuck, your eyes are so blown and vicious they set him on fire, and he’s gripping your sloping hips and shoving you against his length before he can fully taunt, “Let’s go then, pretty bitch.”

“You already fucking know.”

“Show me what I’ve been missing.”

“Don’t fall in love.” 

Right. He’s already groaning when you take your throne, regal and royal and showing him exactly why he already has. But when you swing your pelvis and take him even deeper, Yoongi reminds himself that he can always fuck you like he doesn’t. And that’s both of your favorite ways to sin. “Fuck.”

His head kicks back, eyes squeezing shut in lust. He’s so tight that he might hurt you, so his hands grapple his sheets instead and tense his muscles indefinitely. 

You feel good. Way too fucking good. If you’ve been practicing with those secrets you have in your bedside drawer he can damn well fucking tell. Soon, his hisses devolve into groans, and he snaps his head back up to slap your breasts—one after the other before gripping your hips with force. “Fuck, I missed this pussy,” he confesses with husk, and you whine in response as you lower yourself to kiss him deep. 

“It missed you, too.” You’re extending yourself up his body now, upping his heartbeat until it races to catch up with his feelings. But everything unholy fills him to the brim when you arch your tits to his face. It seems you figured some things out while he was gone. 

A dark chuckle leaves as he suckles on one of your nipples, lolling around and drawing whines right out of your lips. It’s adorable to feel you frozen around his waist, too distracted by his tongue that you can’t multitask both ends. 

It’s okay. He can do that for you. Grabbing the back of your neck, Yoongi thrusts himself up into your heat, marvelling at the way your mouth flops open to say his name. “Uh huh.”  

Before you can talk again, his other hand joins in to choke you from the other side, and his eyes engulf in black when yours roll impossibly far back. 

Fuck. He’s not gonna last much longer. But you’re gonna reach bliss a thousand times before he worries about himself. “You gonna come?”

A frantic nod.

“Then come.” 

As soon as you hear the words, you do exactly that, windpipe released just as you pulse around him so hard he hisses out a curse. Shit, shit, his release is right behind yours. The way you tug at his cock proves too much, and he stutters out words of encouragement when spilling out his own release inside latex. But you’re inundating around him even after he comes, and Yoongi selfishly commands you with a rasp, “Again.” 

To his shock, you obey immediately, crying out and arching so far back Yoongi feels himself close again, too. Has he come more than once in awhile? He doesn’t remember the last time that happened, if at all. But he knows it can happen with you. There’s no doubt he can get there with you, because he loves you so fucking much. 

Fuck. Fuck, did he just say that last confession out loud? No. No, he didn’t. There’s no fucking way. 

Sitting up, he waits as you sling arms around him, leaning back and smirking at the way the new angle makes you moan. Confident you can do it a fourth time, he repeats, “Again.” 

Your head shakes before your arms lock around his neck, and one tilt of his hips pushes you over the edge. And god. Damn. This reaction you have to your own body sends Yoongi to a higher plane. He stares in awe as your eyes roll again, drinking in the sight of you and questioning what the hell he’d done to deserve a front row seat.

You’ve both come so far. But Yoongi is more proud of you for finding your sensuality in perfect stride and pace. This is wholly you, losing yourself and baring your soul to him in full. Despite what you’re doing, you radiate such an angelic aura, and Yoongi has pricks at the corners of his eyes. 

He has his guardian angel back. And he would burn the universe without a second thought if it kept you safe and warm. “So fucking perfect.”

“For you,” you wisp out. “Only you.” 

How you decided to stay with him, Yoongi will never be able to fathom. But you came back effortlessly. You welcomed him back like the promise of a nostalgic summer.  

Lowering you to his sheets, he positions you to where you’re most comfortable. When he asks if you’re okay, you can only nod, and he plants another kiss on your temple before sliding off his protection. It doesn’t take him long to trash, and he makes his way back to the bed to take full advantage of your body heat. 

There’s complete silence now. But for the first time in months, Yoongi’s more than fine with that. Because it’s nothing but comforting, with your occasional nudge against his chest and soft breaths warming his chains. 

Soothing your back with circles, something walks into his brain, and he can’t hold it in any longer as his mouth spreads wide into a grin, “I need to re-up this damn cat’s food.” 

That squeal is so fucking worth the surprise. 

“I knew it!” Yoongi pretends to be annoyed when you figure him all the way out. “Tried to hide it from me all these months? Somebody’s getting soft.”

“First off.”

“Uh huh.”

Someday, one day soon, he’s gonna take you shopping for her. You’re going to run through his entire wallet, but Yoongi doesn’t care because he’s gonna be at his happiest picking toys and things out for you. 

He can even buy you storage for some of your clothes, too. 

Maybe that can be your next surprise. 

“I’m her favorite.” 

Your scoff is immediate, and Yoongi watches as you attempt to tower over him. “Only because you gatekeeped her.”

Gatekeeped? Is that even a word? A soft disagreement precedes a more prominent, “Won’t even matter.” Because she’s definitely going to warm up to you more. He’s gonna take pride in the small amount of time he’s the favorite before being recognized as the lowly food and water boy. 

Something softens in your stare. And he’s wondering what’s floating around in that attractive mind of yours. “You took care of her.”

He did. Because she came back when he was himself again. And if that wasn’t a sign for good things to come, Yoongi will make it one anyway. “She was gonna be your surprise,” he finally murmurs. “For getting the gig.”

Your eyes still before you offer a smile that stops his heart. When you lean down to give him a kiss, the same organ beats in double time when you plant love on his forehead right after. 

Oh. That was… 

“Come here,” Yoongi whispers, wrapping you against his side as you lie back down. Calling it what it is, he’s simply too shy to look into your eyes right now. “How are you gonna get home?” He’s fine taking you. But there’s a lot of risk there if your brother is awake or driving up at the same time. And—

Shit. You still have those shoes on. They can’t be comfortable while lying down, especially after you took him like a champion.

“I’ll call a ride in the morning. He’ll be out cold until noon at the earliest.” 

“K.” 

“Did I keep you from anything?”

A puff flies out his nostrils. Of course you’d still ask that after commandeering the rest of his night. “Kinda late for that, huh.” 

“True. Sorry.”  

“But no, we were finishing up when I called.” 

“Okay… Did I scare you?” When Yoongi can’t confess out loud, he lets his eyes speak for him. Which makes your voice heavy with apology, “I’m sorry. I don’t know what came over me.” 

“S’ok.” 

“I just… It hurt tonight.” Fuck. “Really hurt.” 

He knows exactly what you mean. It’s been hurting like this ever since he left. Which means he  has to make up all that time. Grappling onto this chance you gave like a lifeline, he’s gonna right all his wrongs and fully commit. No matter how many shadows are in this damn apartment, because he now knows you’ll help chase them away.  

After a light squeeze, Yoongi gently shifts his weight, resting his head exactly where your hand clutches your chest. When you move your fingers, he kisses that same spot, hoping you understand what he means. “How about now.” 

Fingers meek, you clutch his head with a broken response, “Maybe try that one more time.”

He’ll do it as many times as you ask. 

Yoongi can feel the shudder in your chest. And he knows what that usually means. So he decides to run from your expression one more time, trying something else to hopefully comfort you. Sliding to the edge of his bed, he gently lifts one of your ankles onto a leg, back fully facing you as he undoes the meticulous leather straps. “I always do, babe.” 

When you’re silent, he slips one heel off before clarifying. “Miss you.”

“I just… Wasn’t sure.” 

He hates the waver in your voice. Hates how he’s the sole cause of it and fighting hard to not hurtle down another hole. “That’s my fault.” 

Throat small, you’re swift to reassure him. “No, no. I need to just suck it up. I’m sorry.” 

After freeing your other foot, he rubs it without prompt, finding comfort in massaging your exhausted soles. If he allows himself to dream, it would be to end each and every night just like this. Driving you to release before soothing your tired bones as you talk about whatever’s on your mind, working toward his dream while you drift off and get lost in yours. 

Can he have that? Will the universe let him have a future despite his past? “Just a little bit longer, doll,” he says, turning to look at the floor. “I’m sorry.” 

“You gave me tonight.” When he swallows, you reassure him with all the support you can give, “A little longer is nothing.” 

Of course. How could you be any less than perfect? A moment passes before he shifts, and this is when he finally spots the ocean of littered pens and papers on his floor. 

Is his smile that obvious? It doesn’t take you long to call his ass out. “You liked whatever happened over there, huh.”

Immediately, Yoongi’s shoulders bob with a laugh before he admits, “Fucking you on my desk? I’ve wanted to do that for months.” 

“Really?”

“Yeah.” Going through all the other scenarios he’s thought of—one that occurs a little far from here—he grins. “There’s a lot of shit I’ve wanted us to do for months.” 

“Oh? Like what?”

He looks over his shoulder, and you scoff in frustration at his answer, “What’s the fun in telling you?”

“Ass!”

—

—

Yoongi does his damned best to keep that smile on your face. After a shower that proves steamier than usual, he offers to make you dinner when your stomach roar makes him double over in laughter. And while he whips up a meal from the last batch of groceries Taehyung brought, Yoongi peeks around the bar to watch you discreetly open his front door. 

Wearing a shirt he used to wipe his own tears weeks ago. He’s been an utter, complete fool. 

“Is she there?” He calls out, to which you turn with a prominent pout on your lips. 

“No.” When you huff and puff to the kitchen, his eyes crease tight. “Whatever, I have plenty of time to become her new fave.” 

Over dinner, your laughs mix with his own as you tell him all your work stories. And Yoongi quickly realizes that this could’ve been the whole night and he’d be just as happy. Just as fulfilled. What does that tell him? Nothing he doesn’t already know. 

It’s when you both settle into bed that things simmer. And as Yoongi lies on your hearth of a chest, you tell him everything that happened with Jungkook. How you met, when your brother went from protectiveness to approval, up until the night he broke your heart. 

Yoongi doesn’t say a word. But he does encourage you to keep talking about your new job. Because it seems like the perfect fit for you, which is the complete opposite from where you were before. 

“Oh, wait,” you suddenly stop during a story about office decorating, “What did you call about?”

“Huh? Tonight?” 

“Yeah.” 

Now that it’s his turn to speak, Yoongi feels shy. You’ve been experiencing so much while he was away, and it’s relieving to know you didn’t lose most of your spark. “We finally have a confirmed date. For that album,” he murmurs. “I was gonna invite you to the release party.”

You tense. “Me?”

A laugh flows out, warming his cheek. “Yes, you. All of y’all.” 

It takes a second for you to ask what he suspects you would, “That won’t be weird?” 

“Nah. You can bring anyone you want, so. I was assuming you’d bring your friends.” 

“Ah, I see.”

Nope. There’s that insecurity again. And he’s already there to push it away, planting kisses along your skin, your neck, and landing home on your lips. “It won’t be the only one,” he promises. “We got time.”

“Duh,” you giggle. “And I’ll be at all of them. Whether you like it or not.” 

Oh. Yeah. He loves you more than words could ever convey. 

But he doesn’t feel like he can tell you just yet. That’s the last hurdle he has to clear, and he finds himself eating shit every time he attempts. But it’s okay. There’s still time. Because you chose him again, you gave him another chance, you’re here. 

Finding his spot on your chest again, Yoongi immediately feels at peace. All the nights he dreaded, and all the nights he doesn’t remember—every single one can’t touch him now. Because in you, he finds a safe haven, the rolling hills of your limbs and the valley of your breasts shining and warm under your smiles. 

He’ll find a way to do this. He’ll find a way to set things straight with your brother and his past. Soon. Maybe. Hopefully. 

Yoongi starts to lull as you glide gentle fingers through his hair, something else that lends him the solace he’d been seeking for months. God, all he needed was you. And you’re the only thing he left… behind…

You’re humming. 

Ever the curious musician, Yoongi perks his ears to figure out what you’re singing. Is it something he can recognize? Is it a song he doesn’t know? No. You aren’t humming anything in particular. Which makes this performance unique and only for him, and your soft lilt tugs on every single string of his heart. 

Forget everything he had said before. This is how he wants to end every night, floating amongst your stars while your voice dips his mind in a stream of gentle song. 

God. You’re composing and don’t even know it. The way you stop before trying something different, the small grunt you make before going again to make a phrase better. It’s not unlike his own creative process, and that connection yanks tears straight from his soul. 

What did he ever do. What did he ever do to be with you.

“Shit, was I too loud?”

Yoongi just shakes his head, holding you closer and hoping you don’t notice the droplets through his tee. “Not at all.” 

So you keep going, humming more familiar tunes and phrases, moving on to a drumline on his head that makes him huff in pure delight. 

But Yoongi commits that moving line you liked to memory, remembering every note and already weaving it into the fabric of his own making. A breakthrough sparks new life into his eyes, and Yoongi squeezes them tight while his lungs silently burn and burn. 

It’s what he had been fucking missing.  

You were the key this whole time. 

And he waits until you fall asleep to let out grateful, heavy sobs into your chest. 

—

—

The day after you left is one of the most stressful ones of his life. From the whirlwind of a morning to the moment of bravery in the studio to handling your brother, Yoongi needs a whole week of no brain activity. 

But that call with you long after night fell just changed his whole perspective on the time he’d been gone. 

You sounded so broken, so fragile, so defeated. It didn’t matter to have that one night of reunion. He fucked up the next day by falling asleep and leaving you worried yet again. 

You asked if he was done with you. And from the way you asked it, you already believed it to be true. 

And Yoongi never, ever wants you to question where he stands again. Not when there’s three words he wants to say to you every fucking day. 

When the phone cuts, Yoongi’s hand falls, his stare shifting straight to the living room. Right towards the corner that stares back. “You’re nothing to me anymore,” he vows, walking to the guitar that almost shies away. “I’m done.” 

Keep saying it. Keep believing it. Keep focusing on the present and grasping that instead. And one day, these words will be truer than true. 

Reaching for the case, Yoongi stops midway, his hand unable to go any farther. 

All he has to do is throw it out. That’s it. Just take it, walk to the nearest dumpster, and discard. Years of toxins will fester somewhere else, and he’ll finally be rid of the dark. 

In the end, he still can’t do it. But that won’t stop him from showing you he’s better now. Showing himself he’s better now. 

Because he is, he is, he is. 

“For us.” 

-

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tbc in fugue, pt. iii

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so... thoughts before part 3? | join the server! | fugue pt. iii

a/n: this was the part that i couldn't write until i knew yoongi was fine. it was always the plan to have him isolated, but to see real life yoongi go through all that last summer.. i couldn't find it in my heart to write his self-isolation and self-deprecation without my soul hurting. it just didn't feel right. but as soon as i saw him okay? 3tan yoongi came back again. and my fingers flew. a/n 2: thank you again, everyone. i hope you all love all the parts of fugue in equal amounts! any support, love, or encouragement means the whole world to me. again, i'm sorry for taking so long to update the main storyline, but i am back. for real. love you guys so much. ++ feedback box: ⇥ of course, any reblogs/comments/messages are appreciated! ⇥ for the ones that are too shy to reblog with a review, comment on this, or send a message, i went ahead and made another anonymous form where you can send in what you think! ⇥ no emails collected, no need to put in a username. it’s literally just a comment dropbox :D feedback can be as short/sweet or as long as you’d like! ⇥ here! ++ more links: ⇥ masterlist  ⇥ three tangerines masterlist

[rhyrhy]

Something Like Sin

Older!Farmhand! Abby x perv!farmers daughter R

CONTAINS: rough draft for a fic idea I had. MDNI. Religious guilt, impure thoughts, short.

She does it on purpose. You swear she does.

The lift of her shirt to swipe sweat from her forehead. Being sure you’re in her line of sight while she works. The small touches when passing by.

How could one woman weaken your resolve so much?

How, after a long day of doing nothing but giving your wet dreams more fuel, could she step into the main house and “report back”?

Listing everything she took care of—

That wobbly fence your belt loop always seemed to catch on. The left tire on your daddy’s truck that made that god-awful squeak when started in the early morning.

Everything but the small flicker of amusement she’d get when she caught your stare—or even just felt it.

The grumbling of your father’s “Sounds good, thanks again, Abbigail,” seeming more frequent than before.

Didn’t she fix that fence last week?

The only relief was writing it out.

The dark green journal that stayed tucked in the back pocket of worn jeans. Pages of thoughts, frustrations, fantasies.

And hidden in the back pages— Not passwords to the Wi-Fi, or the lockbox— Your feelings. The real ones. About her. Starting innocently from last summer, when she filled in for her father.

Jerry did honest work. Only lived a few roads down—he was the first person you called when things went belly-up. But he’s older now. Knees don’t work as well. So naturally, she came.

Quiet. Worked quickly. Efficient. Good hands are always welcome on the hundreds of acres your family owned.

Months of torture.

Farmhands came and went—but not her. She—Abbigail—always came back.

In your dreams.

And in the back pages of that journal.

June 5th, 2025

“She said she liked the top I was wearing last night. The one I swore I’d never wear again because of how tight it felt across my chest. But her eyes—they lingered. Just for a second. Long enough to make me feel bare. I didn’t sleep after that.”

God, you prayed she never read that one. But what was a girl like you calling on Him for? Impurities like that didn’t deserve His protection.

Sinners only thrive when hidden in the comfort of shadows.

When the sun greets the sky, the mask takes its place— In the form of the farmer’s daughter.

She made supper every evening, brought water to those helping hands, leaned into her daddy’s kisses on the forehead.

So busy being the golden girl, you—so worn—you didn’t notice that your back pocket was empty as you entered the house. Sleeping peacefully in your mattress. Farm dog Gracie barking occasionally when cars passed in the distance.

All while the green spine cracked open—

By fingers that didn’t hold the pen that stained the pages. With an ease, nothing rushed—like it had been done millions of times.

The pages flipped until their heart’s content.

Those same eyes watched you the next morning, messy hair falling as you lifted from your bed. In full view of the bay window warming the room.

The new day dances around you. Smiles and “you’re welcome”s, as usual. Until a voice sent panic striking through you like lightning.

“Not doodling in those pages of yours this mornin’?” your father said as you reached the bottom of the stairs, still slightly sleep-ridden.

No caffeine could wake someone faster. Your hand flew to your pockets. Eyes widening as the words stuck in your throat.

Where is it? Why didn’t I double-check last night? Did someone else find it? Your mind raced.

“Oh sweetheart, relax—you probably left it in your room,” your mother called out from the kitchen

Before they could say another word, the screen door flew open. Your boots crunched the gravel, bolting for the barn. You’d been there last night, writing to your heart’s content. Dreams of the future. Leaving the fields behind one day. Sending postcards to Momma with different cities attached.

But those weren’t the ones you were worried about.

A heaving chest and shaky fingers reached for the rusted latch. Greeted by moos, and Gracie sleeping near the ladder. Eyes searched the wooden floors, hands and knees warming as you looked.

And looked.

Where the hell is it? The furrow in your eyebrow deepened as did the pit in your stomach.

“You alright?” a voice called out a few feet away.

Your body jerked, a small gasp leaving you. Not expecting anyone else to be here. So early anyhow. Slowly lifting your head, trailing up the woman who almost seemed to have appeared.

Heavy boots, dark-washed jeans. That thick brown belt, silver buckle. A white beater lifted just enough to see that blonde happy trail that made your thighs squeeze together.

“Jesus, you scared me—yeah, I’m alright.”

You glanced to the woman with a quirked eyebrow at your position. Realizing how ridiculous you must’ve looked, you pushed to your feet. Hands dusting off your knees.

“Good morning, Ms. Anderson.” You stood slightly awkwardly, with a small head nod.

“I always tell you that just Abby is fine.” She smiled. “But good mornin’” The silence stretched out. Abby cleared her throat and spoke once more. “What are you looking for… in here?”

“Nothing, I just… thought I lost something in here. And now that I’ve checked… I’ll be on my way.” You gave a small smile, shifting to turn on your heels. Unable to hold that eye contact any longer.

“You sure?” “Because I found this—“ short fingers grazed something as she turned, reaching behind her. “on the floor.”

There it was. Thank God. Maybe He was listening.

“Oh! Thank you—little squirrel brain of mine sometimes.” A joke you forced out.

She huffed at the attempt and hummed “Don’t mention it.”

Your fingers brushed as you went to take it from her. Your heart rammed against your ribs. Pausing when she lifted it again slightly like she’d changed her mind. Eyes flickered to her face, meeting hers. Your hand now left with nothing as she teased it backwards. Only you heard her say—

“The way she moves—like she knows time will wait for her.” You froze. Your breath caught. Abby only tilted her head “That’s pretty, y’know? Like poetry.”

Oh, how sweet, you thought. Yet, Your heart pounded louder. How far did she read?

“Thank you…It’s nothing really. Just something I do when I’m bored.” You barely managed the words. They sounded distant, hollow in your mouth—like they belonged to someone else. Your hand closed around the journal like a secret you couldn’t bury fast enough. And then you turned. Quick. Too quick. Boots scraping against the barn floor. already vowing to be more careful next time.

That was a close one. Just leave, get this book of sin from her. Wanting to throw lighter fluid on it even. However, before you could make your escape she continued, the words burning in the light—

“Her eyes lingered. Just for a second. Long enough to make me feel bare.” Then with a small chuckle “That’s the line, ain’t it?”

Her silky voice cut through the air behind you, amusement wrapped around every word. You stopped cold. Turned slowly. “Didn’t sleep after that, huh?”

“What—what did you—” you stammered. “Oh lord—I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean for you to read—”

She cut you off with a soft laugh, stepping closer. “It’s alright, really”

“That’s a filthy little thought for a girl who says good morning like a church bell.” Her eyes flicked to the journal still clutched in your guilty hands.

“What else keeps you up at night, sweetheart?”

[iris-qt]

What I Cannot Say

knight!theo | medieval au ⚔︎

The castle slumbers.

Rain patters softly against the high, stained-glass windows, and the candle at your desk burns low, its golden flame dancing across your ink-stained fingers. You shouldn’t still be here. The other court scribes have long since vanished, and even the guards are trading shifts beneath their breath.

But the scrolls before you whisper like old friends, records of ancient treaties, old languages curling across parchment like spells.

You don’t notice the door open.

Not until the floorboard creaks... the one you keep meaning to fix.

Your quill stills.

You look up, heart skipping.

He stands there, silent in the threshold, half-draped in shadow. Rain beads across the black leather of his shoulder guards, his hair damp, curling at the edges. A dark cloak slung across one shoulder. A blade at his hip.

Ser Theodore Nott.

He shouldn't be here. Not at this hour. Not in the library. Not with you.

“My lord,” you say softly, standing too quickly. You nearly knock over the candle.

He doesn’t blink. His gaze, sharp and unreadable, scans the room before returning to you.

“I was told you kept the original texts from the House of Gwael,” he says, voice quiet. Clipped. As if it costs him something to ask. “I need to read them.”

You swallow. “Of course.”

You bend to retrieve the scrolls, your fingers trembling. Not because you’re frightened. You’re not. It’s just—

He’s taller than you remembered. And even in the flickering candlelight, he’s beautiful in the way statues are beautiful: cold and eternal and utterly untouchable.

You hand him the scroll.

His fingers brush yours.

A mistake, probably. He’s wearing gloves, and yet the contact makes your breath catch anyway.

Theo notices. You can feel it... not in any expression (his face stays unreadable as ever), but in the slow, precise way he unrolls the scroll, eyes flickering toward you only once.

“I didn’t think knights cared for language,” you murmur, half to yourself.

He glances up. His voice is low and sure.

“I care for many things people assume I don’t.”

You don’t know how to respond to that, so you return to your seat, unsure whether to keep reading or flee to your chambers and scream into your pillow. The candle gutters. He stays.

Minutes pass. The only sounds are rain, your turning pages, and the soft scratch of his gauntlet against parchment. Then, quietly:

“Why do you work so late?”

You look up.

Theodore’s gaze is trained on the page, but his question lingers in the air, warm and unexpected.

You blink. “No one notices me here.”

At that, his eyes lift. Hold yours.

“I do.”

Your heart thuds. Loud enough that surely even a knight can hear it.

“I’ve noticed,” he says, more gently now. “You’re always the last to leave. Even in the cold. Even when your hands shake.”

You flush, throat tight.

“I like the quiet.”

He hums. “So do I.”

A long pause. A soft flicker of lightning. His hand drifts, without thinking, to the hilt of his sword, the motion absentminded, protective.

You wonder if he’s always like this, or just with you.

Theo rolls the scroll back up and sets it down but doesn’t leave. Not yet.

Instead, he says softly, “You read poetry, don’t you?”

You nod, uncertain.

“I remembered a line, once,” he says, still not looking at you. “When I was bleeding. I thought I would die. But it came back to me anyway. Something about stars. And the way some people carry light inside them.”

You stare.

He finally meets your gaze.

“I thought of you.”

And just like that, the room feels smaller. Warmer. Brighter.

Like a candle that refuses to go out.

...

The next time you find it, it’s tucked between the pages of your copy of Herbal Magicks of the Olden Kingdoms.

A shard of dragon glass. Real. Cool to the touch, with a small crest engraved at its center: not from your kingdom. Foreign. Ancient. Pinned beside it: a note. Neatly folded.

Your name is written in an impossibly tidy hand. You open it.

For the scholar who outshines the sun with her questions. This was taken from the ruins of Aelwyn, where the old queens studied spellfire and starlore. I thought of you when I saw it. —T.N.

Your breath catches.

He thinks of you. In battle. In ruins. In other kingdoms.

You clutch the note to your chest and spend a full five minutes pacing the length of the library trying not to combust.

You don’t get the chance to thank him. Not yet.

Because the court session that day is… a mess.

You’re summoned to bring the translated treaty notes, normal work, but the nobles are restless. They gossip, drunk on mead and power, casting eyes at the quiet scribe who dares sit in council.

And then Lord Durran (slimy, bored, and old) speaks up.

"Tell me, girl," he sneers, loud enough to echo. “When did scribes begin thinking themselves courtiers? Or are you simply warming Lord Nott’s lap in exchange for coin?”

The hall freezes. You do, too. Until the scrape of a chair. A deliberate step.

Theodore Nott doesn’t raise his voice. He doesn’t need to. But when he moves, the entire chamber listens.

“I suggest,” he says coldly, “you keep my name off your tongue unless you’re prepared to swallow your teeth.”

Gasps ripple. Durran flushes, paling. No one challenges Ser Theodore. Not even fools.

He doesn’t look at the others. Only at you.

And then, in the shadows of the halls outside the courtroom, he walks over and places another small item in your palm.

It’s a pendant this time. Worn. Engraved with a script only three historians in the realm could read.

“I thought you might translate it,” he murmurs, quiet enough just for you.

And with that, he turns. Walks away. Cloak swirling. Sword gleaming. You remain frozen, your heart racing. It says something that you don’t even open the pendant until much later. You just stand there, cheeks burning, wondering how it’s possible for someone so silent to make this much noise inside your chest.

...

It takes you three days to crack it.

Not because you’re slow, gods no. You’re the only person in the castle who can read High Eltheric, a long-dead language that looks like poetry and spells had a lovechild.

But you hesitate.

You hold the pendant beneath your pillow, beneath your breath, fingers tracing the etched lines like they’ll whisper something before your mind dares translate it. Every time you try to begin, you think of Theo’s eyes on you. The way he placed it in your hand. Like it meant something. Like you mean something.

Finally, on the third night, rain against your windows, firelight low, you set the pendant beside your ink pot, take a steadying breath, and begin.

Word by word, the meaning unravels:

To the one whose mind is a thousand burning stars I offer what little heart I have. If you ever wish to claim it.

Your quill drops.

Your breath hitches.

You read it again. And again. And again.

It doesn’t change.

He gave you a coded love confession. In a dead language. That only you could read.

What kind of maddening, infuriating, devastatingly romantic knight—

You sit back in your chair, staring at the pendant like it might burst into flames. Because now you know. Now you see it. The pattern of his gifts. The books. The relics. The looks that lingered too long and the way he always stood between you and danger, like a silent shadow forged of steel and longing.

You bite your lip.

And you smile.

Because you realize: he thinks you haven’t noticed.

A/N: obsessed with this au | ty to @kiaxika and tagging @ladyblablabla

[sexiestpodcastcharacter]

Sexiest Podcast Character 2024 — Scripted Undefeated Bracket — Round 6

Propaganda

Mari Datuin (Hi Nay):

Vote for Mari she's cute she's hot and she's voiced by a real life Brown person and she's the nonwhite female protagonist of a horror podcast, which is statistically like seeing ball lightning in real life

John Doe (Malevolent):

Hello everyone, PLEASE REMEMBER OUT TRANS ICON JOHN DOE OUR KING OF KINGS <3

Character growth is sexy

Additional propaganda below the cut:

Mari Datuin (Hi Nay):

Shes pan, shes fillipina, she might be God. She talked to the cops without a lawyer, and let them into her home without a lawyer [DONT DO THAT] but she did it for the plot. She’s gorgeous, shes chubby, she loves bubble tea. She was the mediator/ divorce lawyer for a breakup between two of her friends. She has reasonable beef with old people, shes fighting a cult, she is viciously allergic to therapy. Objectively a Character Of All Time. Listen to the podcast if you haven’t.

#in her defence the cops were hot but also she was wrong for that even if she ends up loving them ; do not let cops into your house #character of all time 🥹

#i don't go here but i read filipina and felt my pinoy pride shine through

#<- you should go here come to the dark side

#Mari is the sexiest sexy podcast character she has it ALL

This is propaganda for all the female characters. Voters please remember how pretty all women are and factor that into every single vote you make. Thank you.

please let the canonically fat, Brown Queer Filipina be the definition of sexy, we can make it happen <3

VOTE MARI VOTE MARI I LOVE YOU MARI

Mari laughing animation by @motziedapul.

John Doe (Malevolent):

A fragment of the Eldritch Deity that has gained independence, attached to possibly the world's most pathetic man. Also have you heard his voice

JOHNNN, JOHN I BELIEVE IN YOU

Gonna need everyone to vote for John plz

Don't let John down, he needs a win, he's had a miserable time lately : (

his voice is jsut. really good

sorry but queer rumbling voice John Doe is too powerful to not vote for here. Also no one in canon will tell him this and he deserves to know.

ok but the way John Doe said labrynthine

If John wins I'll write him kissing Noel

Trans Icon

LISTEN TO HIS VOICE

Threatens to disembowl anyone who hurts the person he loves

Once tried to kill a priest for making goo goo eyes at his man

Was an evil warlord turned soft poetry lover

Can still throw hands when needed

Clever as fuck

Wants to see a movie SO BAD

Memorizes poems just for his wet cat -V protective of his wet cat partner

Crew we can't let trans icon movie lover, most jealous husband in the universe John Doe lose...

If John wins I'll cosplay him again

Vote John!! he's everything. eldritch god, in a codependent relationship with a feral cat of a man, nice voice, he even likes poetry

I've actually nutted to John's voice before. /hj

like this isn't even his full power s2 voice but mannnnn he sounds so hungry and feral for Arthur all the time...

ASSEMBLING THE MALEVOLENT CROWD. POOKIES FOLLOW YOUR DUTY AND HELP THIS MISERABLE MAN OUT!!!!

do NOT let my glorious goat LOSE!!!!

hey all my mutuals, do some work for your favorite yellow boy

Guys vote John Doe as sexiest podcast character please he deserves this 🙏

VOTE JOHN DOE EVERYONE!!!! LOOK AT HIM!!!!! MY BELOVED YELLOW GLOWING EYE CREATURE!!! HE CERTAINLY DESERVES YOUR VOTE !

PLEASEEEE VOTE FOR JOHN😭😭😭 he’s so GODDDD HES AN ELDRITCH GOD THAT JUST WANTS LOVE😭😭 (if you know me PLEASE VOTE FOR JOHN I KNOW YOU DONT KNOW HIM BUT PLEASEEEE HES PERFECTTTT!!! And also listen to Malevolent 🤩)

(vote John tho, he's such a baby, you wouldn't hurt a baby!)

i wasnt gonna say anything and just see how it turns out but PLEASEEEE VOTE FOR JOHN PLEASE MY POOKIE💔💔💔💔💔FAVOURITEST GUY EVER HIS VOICE IS SO NICE PLEASE PLEASE💔💔

Let’s not let this trans icon down guys. He didn’t fight to be who he decides for nothing. And that is the sexiest thing imaginable.

John was absolutely an eldritch nightmare BUT is literally getting better and learning empathy and consent which is very sexy

Hello my friends and random people in my phone. Please consider voting John Doe for Sexiest Podcast Character. He is barely beating Helen Distortion and eyes are so much cooler than spirals. John deserves one (1) nice thing and if that nice thing is being voted the Sexiest Podcast Character of 2024, who am I to deny that to him? Who are we to deny that to him? Use your voice, tumblr. Vote for John.

The one who’s changing and growing, powerful and terrifying but can be tender and good, capable of mind-fuckery but instead trying to be a better being and make up for thousands of years of terrible choices

John's entire identity is about defying the rules you were forced into at birth, and deciding you can be whoever you decide. And nothing is sexier than that.

Hello, we the good people at John's campaign headquarters, come to you with a very special message about our candidate and why he deserves your vote with a compilation of his best hits.

A vote for John is a vote for justice. And being your true self. And choosing your own name. And being really really cool.

VOTE JOHN PLZZ KING DESERVES IT

PLEASE ONCE AGAIN I BEG EVERYONE TO VOTE JOHN DOE

Mutuals, friends, family you know what to do,

Im pissed it was originally just yk what to do but somone rebloged it with anti john propaganda....

So please vote John Doe

Please please please vote for John people!!!!

It's his birthday 🥺🥺

VOTE JOHN ITS HIS BIRTHDAY

John Propaganda video by @lunaescribe and @rotflea.

JOHNDOE2025 video by @curbledmiilk.

John Doe Acceptance speech by @malevolentcast.

[gloomwitchwrites]

Dog with No Teeth // Chapter Six

Simon "Ghost" Riley x Female Reader

Chapter Specific Warnings (MDNI): swearing, suggestive themes, medical examination

Word Count: 5.2k

Ghost brings you to the safe zone. You find out the meaning of reintegration.

Chapter Five // Chapter Seven

ao3 // main masterlist // dog with no teeth masterlist

“Oh, dove,” purrs Lieutenant Riley. “You’ll look bloody gorgeous choking on mine.”

Honey should be sticky—have a hint of sweetness. This is putrid and rotten, a foul thing that deserves to be discarded. It is regret. Entrapment and regret. Over and under and sliding between bone.

Housed within you are two warring voices. One rebukes the idea of you submitting to Ghost, to fall to your knees and present yourself in obedience. The other preens at the notion, knowing that you would look a gorgeous mess with a stuffed mouth and aching throat.

Lieutenant Riley’s words fuel an itch—a manifestation of a twitch in the tips of your fingers. It is all the realization you have before your flattened palm swings toward Lieutenant Riley’s face. Full comprehension comes like an exploding bullet. Ghost maintains eye contact and seizes your forearm, halting the slap in its tracks.

“Careful,” says Lieutenant Riley, keeping that sultry purr in his voice. “Or it’s a public punishment.”

The muted roar of the room widens, swallowing you into reality. Ghost’s hand shifts, easing its grip, guiding your arm back to your side. Sliding down, the tip of his index finger slowly traces a line along the underside, pausing at your palm before retreating. It’s a fleeting caress, but it sends a shiver through you.

“I’m done with this conversation,” you breathe, backing up, hands trembling slightly as you grasp the sides of the tray.

Retreat is rearing its head. This place is too bright, too loud, too much. Lieutenant Riley’s imposing figure doesn’t help. The way he looms over you, nearly trapping you against the counter, is cage-like.

Lieutenant Riley hardly blinks. Hardly breathes. He is a statue, and that intensity pins you to the spot. “Tell me you’ll stay away from him.”

Tooth and claw and bite.

Gentle doe. Submissive dog. Survival instinct.

Two sides. And the venom wins.

“Jealousy isn’t an attractive quality,” you reply sharply, staring right back.

Ghost is unmoved by your irritation. “Say it,” he growls, and there is so much authority in his voice it gives you pause.

Lieutenant Riley is a stranger. Sergeant Noah Fields is a stranger. Everyone in this room is a stranger. This place is strange. You’ve been wedged into a tight space with little room to turn and face both walls. You’re stuck forward, propelled toward a choice you didn’t make for yourself.

“Fine,” you mutter, the agreement nearly an exasperation. “Fine.”

Better to relent, to ease Ghost’s fears if it gets you to your breakfast faster, to end this conversation. Not that your stomach is growling anymore. Even that has abandoned you.

“If it makes you happy, Lieutenant,” you sigh. “I won’t speak to him.”

“No. You won’t go near him,” corrects Ghost.

“Can I eat now?” you ask, irritation clear in your tone.

“Say it.”

You exhale heavily, rolling your eyes. “I don’t understand you,” you whisper as a young man wearing black fatigues walks past. “Or this possessiveness. I don’t belong to you, Lieutenant.”

Ghost pushes in, and you lean back to maintain eye contact. “You’re under my care and protection. What I say goes.”

“I am not your property.”

His response is a bolt of lightning. “On base, you are.”

On base, you are.

You don’t belong to me.

Maddening. Infuriating. You specifically asked Ghost if the mandate made you his, and he told you no. Now here he is, marking you as a piece of property as if it’s perfectly okay and not a slap in the face.

No choices. No options. You’re nothing more than a penned animal. Worse, actually. You’re the mud in the pen that’s more shit than wet earth. The urge to lash out rises, snapping and hissing like a rattlesnake. You want to strike him, to kick and scream and shriek like a banshee. Burn it all down. Throw a fucking fit.

“Well, your property wants to eat her fucking breakfast.” You say it slowly, adding all your seething anger. “Does she have your permission?”

Lieutenant Riley is silent a long moment, that piercing whiskey-brown gaze of his slicing right through to your marrow. It’s tactical. On purpose. The silence widens and it only squashes whatever resistance you’ve mustered up. Your question dangles in the air—a tempting bite. When you think he won’t speak—that Ghost will say nothing, give no ground—he inclines his head, clearly indicating that you’re finally allowed to sit down, and fucking eat something.

“Great,” you say through clenched teeth.

With hands grasping the sides of the black tray, you lift, turning toward all the tables in the communal dining hall. The overwhelming sensation from earlier reappears to wrap itself around you, hugging you in a vice. A fleeing rabbit stalked by prey. All those eyes on you. Mouths moving, whispering to each other, urging you to drop your tray and fucking bolt. Your vision narrows to a tunnel, and your chest heaves, each inhalation sharp and biting.

Lieutenant Riley’s hand finds your lower back. It flattens. Presses to urge you forward. His touch is enough of an anchor to ground you, to slow some of the racing adrenaline. Your feet are phantoms, moving only at his beckoning touch. Ghost could lead you right out the main doors and back to the cabin and you’d go without hesitation. Like cattle, you are herded, forced into a seat that is isolated and away from everyone. No one even glances in your direction.

Ghost lingers but he doesn’t sit.

“Are you not staying?” you ask, suddenly nervous.

This man might annoy the fuck out of you but not having him around in a room full of strangers is worse.

“I’m staying,” he affirms.

You gesture at the empty seat across from you. “But you’re not sitting?”

“No.”

With that one word—no—Lieutenant Riley disappears. Walks away. Leaves you utterly alone. You sit, stunned, fork clenched in your fist as you attempt to figure out where he’s gone. Scanning the room reveals nothing. He is shadow, melting in until you can’t tell the difference between faces. Turning away from the lingering looks, you focus on the food in front of you.

Fork to plate to mouth to plate again.

Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.

Fork. Plate. Mouth. Plate.

Breakfast is all silence. It is you sitting alone at a table while everyone watches but refuses to approach. It’s fucking isolating—almost embarrassing. It’s like you’re a child again, separated from your friends during lunch for misbehaving. And you still sense Ghost. You know he’s nearby, lurking, but just out of sight. There are brief flickers. Fleeting glimpses. You’ll glance up, catch sight of his balaclava. Then he’ll return to the crowd like he was never there at all. But the man doesn’t come sit with you, doesn’t come to tamper with your mood or to aggressively flirt and piss you off. Lieutenant Riley removes himself entirely.

And you?

You’re a machine. Feeding yourself even though you taste nothing. It’s all instinct now. Fueling your body instead of enjoying what’s in front of you.

Sucking your fork clean of syrup, you rest it on your plate, dabbing at your lips with a napkin.

“Left you here by yourself?”

The familiar, Scottish accent draws your gaze upward. Soap stands next to the table, arms crossed over his chest, one eyebrow slightly arched with amused concern.

“I’m sorry?” you choke, startled.

“Lt.”

Lt. Lieutenant. Ghost.

You shrug. “He’s around,” you reply, giving the dining hall a once over.

Soap shrugs, a sheepish expression on his face. “Apologies for interrupting this morning.”

You almost spit out your water. “Nothing happened,” you say quickly, wiping away a dribble of liquid with the back of your hand.

Soap’s lips purse slightly. “Wouldn’t let me join. He always lets me join.”

“He—what?”

“Means he likes you.”

“Sergeant,” you squeak, a little wave of dizziness rising.

Soap opens his mouth, prepared to continue, but Lieutenant Riley appears on your other side as if he snapped into existence, summoned by the fact that you dared speak his name without him around.

“Johnny,” he grumbles.

Soap beams, clearly unaffected by Ghost’s gruff tone. “Came to find you. Thought you’d be with your woman.”

“I’m not his woman,” you growl.

Soap keeps talking. “Convoy’s ready. Price wants to head out soon. Go home.”

Lieutenant Riley nods, his attention turning on you. “Finished?”

“Yes?” you answer, and you have no idea why it comes out a question.

Behind the balaclava, his eyebrows rise slightly. “Not enough?” He sounds genuinely surprised.

“It was,” you quickly correct, standing. “Where do I put this?” You gesture at your tray.

Ghost answers by picking it up and walking away. You follow him, Soap snorting with amusement as you try to keep up with Lieutenant Riley’s large strides.

“I can do that,” you say, nearly catching up to him.

All you hear is a muted grunt, and then Ghost is handing the tray off to the dishwashers at the far end of the buffet line. He turns abruptly, almost knocking you down.

“Ready?” he asks.

No. No, of course not. What the fuck kind of question is that?

“Would it matter?” you breathe, defeated.

“No,” he states plainly, because it doesn’t, and you know this. He knows this.

Your choice is obsolete, and autonomy only matters to you. No one else cares that you’ve been dragged away from your previous life, that you’re going to places unknown. They all appear unfazed. Lieutenant Riley certainly doesn’t seem to care. The “mandate” is a duty to him, and you should be thankful for it.

What a fucking honor.

“We should go,” says Ghost, voice gentle and soft like he’s trying to ease your worry.

The soothing nature of his tone fails to pacify. There is no calmness in your heart. Only defeat and anger.

He places his hand on your lower back again, drawing you away, escorting you toward the main doors. You press into his side, seeking shelter and comfort because it’s all you have. It’s not fair. It’s not right. As much as you loathe him, there is a kindness there that chips away at your shell, exposing the fracturing interior.

The crisp air stings your skin. You keep your gaze ahead, staying pace with Ghost and Soap as the three of you head toward the convoy.

“Ghost! Soap!”

You slow, and Ghost glances over his shoulder at you as the two men move ahead. Gaz approaches, but you’re not part of this group. It feels odd to stand beside Lieutenant Riley. You give a quick shake of your head at Ghost. He turns away.

They grasp hands in greeting, speaking in low voices. If they aren’t paying you any attention, can you slip away? How quickly would they lock this place down in search of you?

“Dove.” Lieutenant Riley’s gruff voice washes over you.

You close your eyes. Inhale. His warm hand slides over your neck to cup your cheek. As your eyelids flutter open, Ghost gently guides your face around to him. He’s standing so close, almost on top of you.

“You shouldn’t touch me like this,” you sigh, hating that you’re enjoying this.

“Why not?”

You lick your lips. “Haven’t earned it.”

The pad of his thumb brushes over your chin, traces the underside of your bottom lip. “You hate me,” murmurs Lieutenant Riley.

“I do,” you agree.

Ghost lowers his head, hovers like he’s waiting for a kiss. “In time, you won’t.”

His touch becomes a firm hold.

Ghost’s hand shifts to the back of your neck, squeezing, fingers lightly digging into your skin. It’s possessive—domineering. And you resist, pulling back just as Lieutenant Riley pulls.

“No, love,” he growls. “Behave.”

“Fuck you.”

Though he wears a balaclava, you know he’s smirking. You see it in the way the skin around his eyes wrinkle. “Think you’re cute?”

“I don’t belong to you.”

Ghost’s hand on your neck tightens even more, the fine hairs there catching in his grip, the roots stinging as they’re pulled. “You will,” he breathes. You smack at his arm but he’s immovable. “And now we’re leaving.”

With Ghost gripping the back of your neck, you’re half-walked, half-dragged to the convoy. This is the shit you hate.

“I can walk,” you growl, attempting to yank yourself from his grasp.

Lieutenant Riley says nothing as he brings you to a stop beside a Humvee. His hand on the back of your neck remains until he opens the back passenger door.

“Get in,” he nods.

This is a demand. No room for arguing.

As his hand falls away, you smack it, deliberately forcing Lieutenant Riley to draw back. You shoot him a death glare. “I’m sick of you touching me.”

“A lie,” he drawls. “Now, get in the vehicle.”

“No.”

“Get. In.”

You stand tall, shoulders back, spine straight. “Fuck. You.”

“More than happy to toss you in.”

“You—fuck.” You glance away, unable to stay strong.

Lieutenant Riley rests his arm against the side of the Humvee. “You worried?”

“Of course I’m fucking worried, Lieutenant.”

“Just asking,” he mutters.

“Why can’t you take me home?” you breathe.

“The man—”

“The fucking mandate. Yes. I know.” You shake your head. “But that’s not an answer.”

“It is,” insists Ghost.

“Not to me,” you gasp, almost choking on a burst of hysterical laughter. “Do you even understand how I feel right now?”

Lieutenant Riley remains silent.

“Fine. Fucking fine,” you mutter, sliding into the Humvee, moving to the far side to give yourself space.

Ghost casually glances over his shoulder before sliding in after you, shutting the door. The front driver and passenger doors open, two soldiers hopping in. You discreetly check their arms. While the United Nations flag is the same, the two country flags are different from the two that drove the Humvee on your way to base.

“Ready to head home, Lieutenant?” asks the driver as the Humvee roars to life.

Ghost nods. “Are you?”

Shifting gears, he answers. “Ready to see my wife. Hug my kids.”

The Humvee rolls forward.

“How old is your youngest?”

“She’s three now.”

“You’ll see them soon,” replies Ghost.

You keep your gaze averted, not wanting to engage in conversation with any of them. It only makes you yearn for home, for your hammock and your books.

As if sensing your discomfort, Ghost leaves you to your solitude. Space is another matter. He spreads out, stretching his legs, and you find yourself pressing yourself against the Humvee door to regain some of that bubble. Distance and quiet is what you crave, to be alone with your thoughts, to fucking brood and be left alone.

Staring out the window, you watch the base become a dark spot in the distance before disappearing entirely. It is open road and overcast skies. Like yesterday, the roads are astoundingly clear and uncongested. Weathering has created holes and cracks, the tarmac sometimes raised or sunken in some areas where the ground has shifted. A few times, the convoy slows, navigating around craters that could easily swallow a vehicle. It’s still strange how the roads themselves aren’t exactly maintained yet are somehow completely clear of cars. Those you do see are pushed off into the medians or ditch, allowing for a clear path.

A question blooms.

You begin to lean toward Lieutenant Riley, the words ready to leave your tongue. His head turns as if sensing your eagerness to ask him a question. Gazes meet. Pupils dilate. Ghost matches your movement, sliding closer to you.

Sudden panic rises.

You think better of it, twisting away from him at the last second to deliberately stare out the window. From your peripheral, Ghost shifts to the right, scooting closer to you. He knows you wanted to say something, and he’s trying to draw your attention back to him.

Fuck.

Fuck fuck fuck.

The overcast skies dissipate—becomes sunny. The convoy halts briefly to refuel from the tanker. You’re able to stretch your legs, to walk a bit, to enjoy the sun against your skin. Ghost keeps a respectful distance, but you feel his gaze with every step. The respite is brief, a flicker of relief before you’re back in the stuffy Humvee. It’s more road. More silence. At some point you drift off, jerking awake when the Humvee hits a deep dip in the road.

“We’re five miles out, Lieutenant,” says the driver.

“Use the long-range radio.”

He presses a few buttons on a panel embedded in the front dash. He brings the microphone to his mouth. “Eagle this is Bravo. Over.”

He pauses. The vehicle is silent.

“Again,” instructs Ghost.

“Eagle this is Bravo. Over.”

A few seconds, then the radio crackles.

“Bravo this is Eagle.”

“Convoy returning.”

“Heard. Convoy returning. Welcome home, Bravo.”

All three men sigh, their relief palpable. You do not share in their joy. A creeping dread settles in, starting in your stomach, unspooling to claim chest and lung and limb.

“You’re nervous,” murmurs Ghost, and you nearly jump at how close his voice is.

You turn abruptly, finding him in your space. “Why would you think that?” you whisper.

Lieutenant Riley nods downward toward your lap. You follow that nod, and find your hands clenched into fists, the skin taut over the bone from tension. Shaking out your hands, you stretch your fingers to ease the ache.

The convoy crests a hill, and whatever snarky reply you were going to say evaporates.

As the vehicles ahead slow, so does the Humvee as the convoy reaches a checkpoint. It’s not a makeshift box with a gate. The structure consists of two large guard towers connected by a wide overhang that arches over the road. The sides extend outward into a solid stone wall before giving way to high electrical fencing. Machine guns face the road, aimed at some point in the distance. You expect the convoy to come to a stop, but it only creeps through. Several men on the ground wave, but it’s fleeting, and then you’re back on the open road again.

But it’s not empty. There is no barren landscape or desolation. On either side are vast fields full of growing food. People work, moving along the rows, crouched or bent over. Harvesters roll through another.

The world is supposed to be broken. Shattered. But from your current viewpoint, humanity appears to be thriving. Are any of the things you know the truth? Is it all a lie?

“Didn’t expect this?”

This time, Ghost’s voice doesn’t startle you. You lean toward him, so many questions blooming, eagerly wanting to burst forth.

“How?” you whisper, voice breaking slightly. “How is this possible?”

“Not what you thought?”

“No.”

Fields give way to a few low buildings and pastures full of animals only to return to fields again. Through the windshield, a sharp forms. A wall. Not makeshift. Not like the one your little community built. This is a true barrier. This is a city.

“Ghost,” you whisper, as the convoy breaks away from the main road, heading right along the exterior wall. You press your face to the glass, looking upward. “What is this place?”

“The safe zone. Home,” he answers.

You draw back from the window. “But—”

“You’re surprised?”

“Yes,” you hiss.

“You know nothing about the safe zones?”

“Of course I don’t. I thought we already established this.”

“What do you know?”

You lick your lips, not wanting to admit how little you do.

“This is the farthest I’ve been from home since everything…collapsed.”

Lieutenant Riley’s expression is passive. “There’s time to talk about this later.”

“Don’t dismiss me.”

“I’m not,” he growls. “But this conversation deserves space. I can’t give you my full attention right now.” Ghost glances away from you, gazing out the windshield. “When we stop, follow my lead.” He returns his attention to you. “Do not speak to anyone. Do not stop for anything. Stay at my side until I hand you off.”

“For processing?” you deadpan.

“Tell me you understand.”

“I understand,” you snap.

What’s the point in fighting? You can’t go back. You can only go forward.

Ghost has his door open the moment the convoy stops. Sliding out, he turns and gestures at you in a “come here” motion with his hand. You shimmy across the bench seat. As you swing your legs to hop out, Ghost grasps your waist and lifts you right out of the Humvee. The move is so startling that your hands grasp his shoulders to steady yourself.

Heat rushes to your cheeks. Ghost gives you a flirty wink. Someone whistles in appreciation.

You promptly drop your hands. “You did that on purpose,” you mutter.

“I did.”

You scoff and roll your eyes. Lieutenant Riley ignores your irritation, placing his hand on your lower back. “Follow me.”

The ground beneath your feet is paved, and where it isn’t is mud, the grass either dead or worn away. Soldiers move about, many in all black, faces covered. They move amongst the buildings and tents, their gazes raking over you but their voices silent. But looming over everything is that wall. It’s not monstrous yet it’s tall enough that you have to look up at a sharp angle to see the top.

Ghost tugs you along, guiding you toward a plain building in a faded army-green. The two of you pass under a partially enclosed awning, but Ghost doesn’t go to open the door. Another sharp tug, and you’re pressed up against the tarp-like fabric of the awning.

“When we pass through that door, I won’t be able to come with you?”

He presses in, enclosing the space until it feels like it’s just the two of you in the world.

“What do you mean?”

“You have to go alone.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?” you ask, voice rising slightly. “All this and now you’re going to abandon me?”

Ghost’s brow softens, his gaze shifting to a sultry look. “Thought you hated me?”

“This is not the time, Lieutenant.”

His gaze softens even further, rushing toward a concern that you want to wish away. There is no reason for this affection.

Grasping the sides your face, Ghost cradles your head in his hands. “You’ll be fine. But you promise me you’ll do as your told behind that door. Don’t resist.”

Tears start to form. “What’s going to happen to me in there?”

“Nothing bad,” he murmurs. “Promise.”

“But you can’t tell me?”

“You’ll hate me more if I do.”

You shake your head, hands grasping Ghost’s muscled arms. “No,” you whisper. “Just take me home. Please.”

“I’m sorry, dove,” he replies softly, brushing a single tear with his thumb.

He pops that thumb into his mouth, swallowing your tear.

You shove at him even as he grabs your elbow, guiding you to the door, entering a code in the keypad. The buzzer sounds. The door clicks open.

“No.”

You dig your feet in but Ghost is so much stronger.

There’s a bite of where your heels catch—then a stumble. You’re thrust into a small, enclosed atrium, no larger than a bathroom. A plain, grey door leads to an unknown place while a balding man sits at a desk behind a glass panel.

Caged. A trapped animal.

“Have an outsider for reintegration.”

Ghost’s voice is completely detached, like you mean nothing to him, as if he wasn’t between your legs just this morning, kissing you like he wanted to devour you.

The man behind the desk nods, reaching off to the side, pressing a button. “Reintegration. Female,” he says flatly.

Ghost tugs you a little closer, his gaze serious and unreadable. You count the seconds, each passing tick bringing with it a growing fear. Lieutenant Riley is your safety net even if he’s your enemy.

The grey door opens, and a blonde woman with a severe bun steps through. She wears a white coat, and a stethoscope hangs around her neck. Her smile is nice. Happy. No maliciousness lurks beneath.

You turn to Ghost, eyes widening.

“You’ll be fine,” he insists with a whisper.

I don’t lie.

You give a slight shake of your head. Ghost grasps your hand, squeezing it in reassurance. “I’ll see you on the other side.”

He releases your hand. Steps back. There’s a softness in his gaze that you recognize. Ghost knows he’s ripped you away from everything. It’s a silent apology.

“Through here, dear,” the woman urges.

You step toward her, and she moves to the side to allow you to pass. Every step is shaky, but you go, looking back over your shoulder, looking at Lieutenant Riley until the door shuts. With it’s closing comes a coldness. A numbness that settles into your limbs.

“I’m Doctor Roe.” She extends her hand and you take it, giving you name in turn. “It’s lovely to meet you.” She gestures ahead. “We’ll go down this hall, show you where you’ll stay the next five days.”

“Five days?” you ask, voice cracking.

“Did Lieutenant Riley not tell you about quarantine?” Dr. Roe sounds genuinely surprised.

How does she know Lieutenant Riley?

You shake your head. “He didn’t tell me anything.”

Dr. Roe inclines her head, her mouth forming a small frown. “That’s unfortunate. But you don’t have anything to fear.” That frown melts away. “It’s standard procedure. We don’t want to release you into the general population if you’re carrying something.”

“Wouldn’t I have exposed the soldiers?”

“Yes, but they’re fully vaccinated. They’re also tested more often, especially those that go beyond the exterior checkpoint. Stricter requirements.”

The two of you pass by several doors. All of them shut.

“So I’m locked in a room for five days?”

“Oh, no,” she laughs, waving her hand in front of her. “Nothing like that. It’s just where you’re staying. You’ll be pulled periodically. Once the five days are up and you receive a clear bill of health, you’ll meet with someone to talk about your transition to life behind the wall.”

She comes to a stop at the second to last door. There is no lock, no keypad, and at first you think it odd. But where would someone like you go? You wouldn’t get far even if you tried.

The room is small but spacious with a private bathroom and no visible cameras. There’s a queen bed shoved against the wall, a small kitchenette, a lounge chair with a spare bookshelf.

“It’s not much,” Dr. Roe sighs. “But it’s something.”

“I’m a science experiment,” you mutter.

“It does seem like that, doesn’t it? I’ve been asking for more activities to put on the bookshelves, but do they send me anything? No.”

She’s making conversation like this is all completely normal.

“It’s fine. I’ll be fine.”

“You’ll get three meals a day. And snacks.”

“Lovely,” you mutter, poking your head into the bathroom.

Dr. Roe clasps her hands in front of her. “I’ll leave you for now.”

You only nod, because there is little you want to say. When the door shuts and you’re left in silence, you sink to the floor, curling in on yourself. Tears come, and you cannot contain them. They fall and go dry and then you choke.

When someone finally comes to fetch you, it’s another doctor accompanied by a security guard. Their presence is a silent instruction. Comply, or be dealt with. Instead of fighting it, you hesitantly go along, Lieutenant Riley’s words repeating in your head. You’re taken for a full physical with a blood draw. The next day are vaccinations. Then a dental exam. Then a psych eval. You’re poked and prodded and questioned, but the worst comes last.

“Is this necessary?” you ask, staring at the vaginal speculum.

Dr. Roe replies while looking at her chart. “It’s just to ensure everything looks good. We’ll do a swab, check for any abnormalities and sexually transmitted diseases.”

The door opens, the security guard entering the room. He shuts the door, standing just inside like he’s supposed to be there.

“I don’t want to.”

You sound pathetic. Weak.

Dr. Roe side-eyes the guard. “Can you wait outside. Please.”

“Protocol—”

“I’m aware,” she interjects. “Wait outside.”

“I’ll have to file a report.”

“Then file a report.”

He leaves with a grumble. “I’m so sorry,” she sighs. “This entire process isn’t pleasant, and they certainly don’t make it easy.” She settles on her stool. “You had an examination like this before, yes?”

You nod.

“It’s the same thing,” she says with sweet reassurance. “I won’t do anything different. I’ll talk you through everything I’m doing. Okay?”

“Okay.”

It takes all of three minutes. And then it’s two days of silence. Just you in your room with your meals brought to you.

“Congratulations!” You sit up in bed as Dr. Roe bursts through the door. “You’re clear!”

“I’m—oh.” Standing just inside the doorway is Lieutenant Riley. “I’m free to go?”

“Yes,” replies Ghost just as Dr. Roe says “no.”

She shoots him a look. “You’re free to go from here,” she corrects. “But Lieutenant Riley is going to escort you to the Commander.”

“To the who?” you ask, looking toward Ghost for guidance.

“We’ll talk on the walk,” he says firmly.

Dr. Roe’s smile doesn’t faulter. She’s a beaming ball of energy as the three of you return to the grey door you entered from.

“Good luck,” she whispers, waving.

You step outside and into the dark.

“It’s the middle of the fucking night,” you state, turning on him.

“It’s exactly…” Ghost checks his watch. “0300 hours.”

With an annoyed growl, you punch his chest. “Fuck! Why are you so solid?”

“You listened to me, dove,” he says, voice full of affection.

“It was five fucking days! Five!” You punch him again and wince. “You could have warned me!”

“You’d bolt.”

“I might have,” you admit. “But that is not the point.”

“Still hate me?” he asks, a little croon in his question.

You ignore him. “And who is this ‘commander?’” You make quotation marks with your fingers. “Is he the man in charge?”

“No,” replies Ghost, that sweetness in his tone evaporating.

“Then who is he?”

“An arrogant wanker with a title,” he mutters.

Oh. This is interesting. “Since you hate him, does that mean he’s on my side?” It’s a tease. A poke.

“If you find something redeemable about Commander Graves, keep it to yourself.”

You hold up your hands in a placating gesture. “Heard, Lieutenant.”

As your hands drop, Ghost grasps them, pulling you against his hard body. His shoulders hunch forward, creating an intimate barrier from the outside world. It’s just the two of you beneath the awning, obscured by the flapping tarp.

“What comes next?” you ask, energy deflating slightly.

“I take you to Graves. You’ll talk. Then you go to your new home.”

“My home?”

“Yes.”

“Is that with you?”

Ghost lowers his head, the fabric of the balaclava brushing against your cheek. “It can be.”

“That’s not what I want,” you breathe.

“Stop lying to yourself, dove.”

“You don’t know me,” you murmur. “This morning meant nothing.”

Ghost grasps the back of your neck, cradles your cheek. The balaclava presses against your lips. You feel the outline of his mouth beneath.

“You’ll want me,” he states with such confidence you almost believe him. “In time, you’ll want me.”

[starlitscars]

Made of ice

Jackson era! Joel Miller x F! Reader

Summary: One stormy night in the safety of Wyoming, it occurs to Joel that even though life has turned his heart into a slab of ice, there's a soft, melting spot buried deep inside... Only reserved for you.

Word count: 5.2k

Masterlist

Tags/warnings: MDNI, NSFW, implied age gap, canon-typical violence, Joel Miller needs his own warning, protective! Joel, soft! Joel, angst, fluff, smut, finger sucking, fingering, pet names, praise kink, language, no use of y/n, soft dom! Joel, negative thoughts, dea*h wish, self-doubt, self-confidence issues, Joel is a sweetheart here (but he doesn't think he's worthy of peace), rain, lots of rain, lightning, stormy weather, kinda established relationship, let me know if a tag has gone unnoticed.

Author's note: This is my very first attempt at writing for Joel Miller. I've had the idea in my mind for a few weeks now and it's hard to resist when it comes to him (did I say Pedro Pascal?) So I hope the details are accurate and if you decide to read this one shot, I hope you enjoy it as much as I did while writing it. If you want to be mutuals, I'll be more than glad <3

Divider by: saradika-graphics

Made of ice

You should've seen what you made of him.

The calm, slow beats in his chest are strikingly different from how he remembers them. In fact, he vaguely recalls the way those racing, dreadful patterns had carved themselves into his memory. With a rigid heart made of ice, it was nearly impossible to find the pulse in him, even at his most frightened, disappointed state. 

Joel used to walk into the face of danger with a rifle clutched in his dying grip, a life to save and thousands to destroy, and in all those moments any sign of life was nonexistent in him. There used to be rage, hatred, regret, and frustration... Oh lots of frustration, running through the veins in his body. He used to walk, talk, and breathe. But he wasn't alive.

Now he doesn't find it in himself to call it miracle. But somewhere between the lines, you happened. You happened and fuelled the dying fire in the far corner of his heart. He used to keep it empty and dark, like a deserted house with no furniture, a perfect place for the noises in his head to become loud and maybe help him stand the never-ending days of what everyone called life. 

You entered his life and now most of what he feels in these old veins is warmth, safety and attachment. Yes, he doesn't call it miracle, because his past doings are too  stained and unforgivable to deserve a miracle. To deserve you. The real miracle. The fathomable idea of what it feels to be alive.

Joel feels alive.

Some days, it feels like his wretched past is clawing its way back into his mind, calling those demons to end his days of peace with you. Some nights, he's restless... So terribly restless. What if you get injured on your next patrol? What if the Raiders attack you when you're out of the gates of Jackson? What if something bad happens to you the moment his eyes close? What if these damn what ifs come to life? This old mind tricks him into seeing pictures of what has never happened and probably never will. You always assure him that you'll be careful. He trusts you and your abilities, but he does not trust his fears. Because if life is too good, it scares him. 

It scares Joel Miller, way more than it would if he was trapped in a dark room with all of his fears and demons creeping on the cold hard floor towards him. He'd rather spend every day fighting off the Clickers and Raiders and every nasty threat out there, instead of pacing around the room and waiting to see if your patrols end well or not.

So he has no choice but to either convince Tommy to pick him as your patrol partner every damn time you have to do it – which he makes sure is as limited as possible – or occasionally keep an eye on you from a distance and let his thoughts consume him at the same time. Just like what he's doing now. 

His persistence in being close to you tends to earn him annoyed eye rolls and "She's more capable than that, Joel." comments from his brother... almost all the time. But he simply can't help it, and he thinks that you know it. Because you never complain nor haul him over the coals for his instincts and worries and the immense amount of care his rigid heart feels for you. He's silently thankful for that understanding.

You are safe here, he thinks. Even though he feels restless, his heartbeat has never been this calm. He sits and watches you on nights like this and there's only one thought ringing in his head. All the scolding is worth it. You're sprawled out peacefully on the bed. His bed. It must be straight out of a fucking impossible dream. You're here, in his atmosphere, in his menacing, guilty, dark presence... And you have chosen it knowingly. It's all he can ever ask for. 

The dim moonlight is swimming in through the curtains, casting a soft, silvery shadow over your face. Your hair is falling all around you like you're knowingly doing it... Posing for an artist just to paint this delicate beauty on a canva. 

Despite his bitter mood, a content smile tugs at the corner of his mouth. Tearing his gaze from you, he downs the remaining whiskey and silently places the empty glass on the table, deciding that he needs a short walk to free his troubled mind. One morning, Maria woke up and decided that Joel needs to stay behind and help Tommy in fixing the issues in the town's only library. So you should have another partner for your patrol days for god knows how long. He fucking hates being told what to do. He fought tooth and nail to prevent that, and if you weren't there to stop him, he would as well turn the mess hall into another ruin that needed to be fixed – which only meant more time away from you. 

So it's going to take only two weeks, at worst. Only a terrible fortnight before things go back to normal. It's almost unbelievable how you have managed to awaken a sense of normalcy in him that he hasn't known in decades. Your absence is an instant threat to this normal life.

Maybe it's about time he gets used to it. He's not that weak. He shouldn't let his angers and worries run him. More importantly, he shouldn't ruin your much needed sleep with his usual problems right now. You've still got the weekend. He'll take a walk and be back here before you as much as stir in your deep slumber.

Oh. The damn library.

...

Jackson is eerily quiet in the middle of the night, enveloped by darkness and as isolated as it can be in this corner of the world. It's a stark contrast to how busy the whole community is during the daylight – bustling with happy greetings, careless jokes, movie days, small parties, and lots of work to do. It all asks for social interaction and he deeply hates it.

He hates when every passer-by's attention turns to you every time you step out in the open. He hates how prying eyes rove up and down your frame every time you walk into the bar. He hates how... He shakes his head, almost rolling his eyes at the loudness of these thoughts. Joel has to remind himself that he is the one you hold onto and introduce to everyone in every social gathering. The proud gleam in your eyes always placates him. There's no need to break a jaw in this town... Perhaps.

Lights flicker by the porches and the sound of his boots on the ground is the only sound that disturbs the silence. The sky is clouding over, distantly promising another stormy night in its gloomy wake. Occasional flashes of lightning light up the road and before Joel knows it, he's passing by the Tipsy Bison. It's 3 past midnight, no wonder why its doors are locked and closed. Either way he comes to a halt, letting the gears turn in his head as he opts for a very familiar path.

Your house. It's a short walk away from the bar.

Joel still recalls that day. How long has it been? Five, six, seven months? It feels like yesterday to him.

He'd had a terrible conversation with Tommy, not at all the way he'd planned it on his first day in Jackson. Things got heated up pretty quickly, leaving a bitter taste of rejection lingering on his tongue, the burn of the whiskey only worsening his mood.

"Just because life stopped for you, doesn't mean it has to stop for me..."

The words were ringing in his head as he stormed out of the bar. Shrugging his jacket on, all he wanted was to walk as far away from that area as possible. This affronted, begrudging, irrational sting was boiling in him and in that moment he was more than ready to leave the gates of Jackson even if it called for more danger. Life had really ended for him years ago, but to hear it from Tommy right after the hell he'd went through to find him... It really hurt. 

The pain was resurfacing in rapid tides.

If his boots could dig deeper, get stuck in the snow and propel him into the cold biting blanket of the earth, he'd welcome it. If life had really ended for him, he had to make it make sense by ending himself as well. This... There was this distant melody echoing in the air and cutting through his troubled thoughts. The wind was harsh against his ears, and each step brought the melody closer. 

It really could be the last song that played before his funeral.  

Joel was surrounded by all the colors, and all he could see was white, eyes fixed on the ground. He didn't pay much attention as he bumped into someone. He barely lifted his head to apologize, and then his gaze settled on the crackling fire on the left side of the road. 

Red and orange and yellow hues. It was a fresh contrast. His eyes were hurting from all the white snow.

He came to a halt, mindlessly waving at the person he'd bumped into. A dozen of kids had gathered around the burning logs in a barrel on the porch, rubbing their hands together and listening to the same melody he was entranced by. The same melody that he thought would be his burial hymn.

Joel's eyes followed their excited faces, wondering who they were looking at. He saw you mirroring their hopeful gleams first, and then he registered the guitar on your lap. 

To make the matters worse, you had tilted your head, shooting him a funnily quizzical look. He might've looked weird back then. The town's newcomer, with a permanent scowl on his face, maybe plotting murder as well (considering that it was the main topic in all the words that already flew around about him).

He didn't answer, still dead in his tracks as if he was immobilized by some invisible force. So you shifted in your seat, silently offering him a spot among the children as if to say "You can come over and join us."

He had two choices in that moment, either a polite decline was on the table or a dismissive frown. He looked over his shoulder at the bar and finally opted for the third choice – or so his mind created another choice for him – and he nodded, joining in on your little gathering without as much as saying a word. He really wanted to hear that song.

He never asked whether you knew the words to that song, but that night when he lay in bed and his thoughts were far from the idea that he wanted to bury himself in the snow, he vaguely remembered the lyrics. And it hit him hard, like a punch to the gut.

Yeah, I don't want to hurt

There's so much in this world 

To make me bleed

Stay with me

Let's just breathe

Stay with me

You're all I see

He wanted to ignore how the words affected him in the middle of the night. It was the first night he could feel some semblance of peace, not sleeping with an eye open in case someone attacked them. Ellie was safe in another room. So he really considered that. He considered the possibility of staying. He was relatively new to the community... And so damn unaccustomed to the whole arrangement. He almost woke up the next morning and started packing before he remembered where he was.

Stay with me

Let's just breathe

Those words stuck with him.

And his first encounter with you was a harbinger of different things to come.

One day of patrolling with you led to another, one night of inviting you for a drink led to another. One peaceful afternoon in the stable led to another. One gloomy evening in the clinic did not lead to another. He was way too protective of you to let that happen again.

He truly feels lucky. You could be anywhere else, better off if you picked anyone other than this grumpy, old man. And yet you still want him. You silly girl. You've melted his heart with your warmth. 

But he's like a lake, deserted in the middle of a haunted forest and engulfed in coldness. Even though the center is warm and gooey, he keeps the surface frozen and rigid and menacing. Hard enough to keep his instincts sane and alarmed. Cold enough to let everyone know that you're his and he will not fucking share. 

Lightning strikes again in the sky.

He lifts himself up and off your front stairs with a heavy grunt. An hour has passed since he left for a walk. The clouds have fully gathered in the sky and he thinks that he should be by your side now.

Joel really cares little for the details, always asking Tommy and Ellie to spare him the explanation and get straight to the point. But with you, it's hard to forget a couple of things. One night, a few weeks ago, you were pulling him past the threshold of your house. So adorably drunk and inviting. He was still a little pissed by how the rainstorm had ruined your nightly walk. Despite your complaints about sharing a kiss in the rain, he'd dragged you back to the nearest shelter possible, because he just didn't want to get fucking soaked. Joel didn't find it romantic at all. He was frowning, still pinning you against the wall for a begrudgingly needy kiss. You giggled into his mouth, playful fingers pocking at his chest. "Come on Joel. Let yourself enjoy it... All these neverending drops on the roof, the fresh earthy scent that comes after it... It's just really beautiful. One of the few things that kept me sane before I came here..." 

He's not really against the idea. But the changing weather doesn't bode well with him. One day is sunny, and the next is rainy and it just goes to show how he has no power over the situation.

Hell. A part of Joel is really terrified of the changing weather. One day it was scorching hot, and the next his boots crunched against the white blankets of neverending snow, reprimanding him for his carelessness. Time would pass whether he wanted to or not. He is still terrified, wishing he could stretch the time he could spend with you. God knows he wants an eternity with you. 

He has seen enough rain for a lifetime. He hasn't seen you enough. How could he enjoy getting soaked in tiny drops of water when all he wanted was to bury his face in the crook of your neck and stay there for a while – maybe forever and a little more?

But he has considered it since then. If there are a few things that keep you happy and rainy days have to be one of them, he'll give you that. He'll get used to that. There's no pattern with the rainfall in here, and the weather forecast is pretty much nonexistent. He has promised himself to tell you whenever it rains, even though he despises the idea of you catching a cold after minutes or hours of dancing in the cold, letting droplets of water wash over you without a care in this wretched world. 

He also despises the idea of waking you up.

But he knows you'll like it. You careless, adorable girl. He lives to see that excited gleam in your eyes. Everytime you show it, this old heart pounds impatiently in his chest and it all feels like the first time it has happened.

He's back home in no time. 

So, kicking his boots off as silently as possible, he trudges over and settles down by the edge of the bed, suppressing a low groan. His knees still ache from all the never-ending effort he's put in repairing the library over the past few days. Jesus, he just wants it to be done as soon as possible. It feels like he's losing so much time when he's away from you. Now that you're still pretty much asleep in the same position he last saw you, all Joel wants is to lie down by your side and melt in your warm embrace instead of having to fight with his thoughts and the world to not take away yet another precious piece of him. He can't afford to even think about losing you.

Each flash of lightning illuminates the contours of your beautiful face and he can't help himself when he lifts a hand and lets his knuckles gently stroke your cheek. Your lips are parted ever so slightly and you look so innocent in your unconscious dream. He almost backs down, part of him hoping that it rains throughout the day, just so he doesn't guilt trip himself for the pout on your face if you miss it. You need to rest.

As if you sense his hesitation, you stir in bed and lean into his touch. A low hum escapes you, and Joel is too weak to deny himself the softness it brings. His wounded knuckles are soon replaced with a calloused thumb and he wonders what's so interesting about these hands that never ceases to catch your attention.

One night at the bar, Joel had caught you actually staring at them and when he teased you a little about it, you just shrugged and grinned mischievously. "I mean... I just like them so much. Your hands are always warm, and... and that's all."

He shrugged it off that night. Ellie had also considered it a flex for him to have warm hands even in the coldest days of winter, but with you and the way you looked at him... It was different. He knew it was more than that. 

And when the nights he shared with you went further than his sinful thoughts had planned, you showed him that it was more than that. It was more than the warmth you found there. If anything, your helpless whimpers were an indication of how capable and strong these hands were.

Heat blooms in his chest. It simply is endearing. The way you always seem to recognize his touch and send his head spiraling with the idea that you want him to do more. You've never been afraid of him. You've never pushed him away. You've never judged him for the horrible things he's done. Jesus, it should terrify him. Joel should've pushed you away at some point, because he knows you'd be better off without him, but how could he muster the strength to do so? Since that fateful moment on your porch, your presence keeps on inviting him for more. More than simply existing. And God, if you knew how he wants to do more than that every second of the day... Only if the world lets him breathe a little.

There's another bolt of lightning and raindrops finally begin to drum against the window pane.

Joel shakes his head to get rid of those worrisome ideas. Propping himself on one elbow, he leans over ever so slightly and lets his thumb trace its way to your chin, up to your jawline, and then back to the soft skin on your cheek. He draws circles over the blooming flush and then his thumb is traveling down to your lower lip. Your mouth parts just a little more, breathing even and content and if he gets a grip on himself, he may notice that there's a ghost of a smile in there as well.

"Baby..." He whispers softly, his gaze drifting all over your adorable face. You really are a piece of art, tangled in the sheets, in the safety of his house, and your innocent hums are doing something to him. Some obscene voice that silently pleads for more. More and more... Just to give you more. 

You stir a little more.

He leans over and places a gentle kiss on your forehead, the sweet, fruity scent he's come to like a lot about you engulfing his senses. He watches every little movement with amusement. "My sweet baby... You want to see what's waitin' for you outside."

"Joel," you mumble sleepily, voice drowsy and laced with a hint of confusion as you rub your eyes and stretch your arms before looking around the dark room with a quizzical expression on your face. It doesn't take long for the realization to hit you and the familiar gleam in your gaze makes him smile. You stare a him, wide-eyed. "Is it- again?"

He chuckles and gestures at the window. "Yes, a heavy one at that."

Again, there's that hum of delight as you follow his gaze. The pitter-patter of the rain cheers you up like a lollipop would do to a child. It's maddeningly adorable.

You should be running to the backyard by now, but instead you stare at him for a while. It's his turn to be confused. Your smile gets broader by each passing second as your delicate hands trace his face and run over the salt and pepper patches of his beard. When you playfully ruffle his hair, your eyes are still droopy and dreamy and so damn kissable that he just can't help himself.

His other hand fondles with a loose strand of hair beside you on the pillow before twirling it between his fingers. You bite your lower lip and lift your head just enough for a brief peck on the tip of his nose. He chuckles, letting his fingers draw a line over the column of your neck, down to your chest, and at last they disappear beneath the sheets, settling comfortably on the warm expanse of your belly. 

Joel assumes that his presence is not too close to lock you in place, and yet not too loose to let you drift back into unconsciousness. You just have the perfect moment to escape. For goodness sake, rain is the one thing you choose over anything else. The thing you like a lot.

But you're still here, dazed eyes flickering all over his face and it just gives him a second thought. A new idea to test your patience. Seeing you still pinned under him and unmoving, was not really in his list when he decided to walk back home and wake you up. He chortles with amusement. If you want what he thinks you do, he could give you that... "Come on sweetheart, what's stoppin' you?"

His fingers drift lower, exploring the bare flesh of your thigh, right where his mouth was hours ago. Still as warm as he remembers, maybe a little bruised too. "It's all rainy outside. Ain't that what you wanted?"

"I know..." You mumble, an undertone of need sewn in your voice as you look down over the sheets that cover every movement of his hand. It's too dark for you to see anything anyway. He could easily toss the covers aside, but it's wickedly satisfying this way. "I'm- um, just feeling a little under the influence...and it's- uh, it's distracting."

His hand caresses its way to where he knows you need it the most, and you barely repress a shudder when his fingertips glide over your folds. But he barely feels you, a ghost of a touch hovering there as a smirk threatens to flicker at the corner of his mouth.

"Wonder if my hand's makin' a good influence or a bad one. What d'you say, baby?"

It pelts down steadily outside, but you don't seem to care the slightest about it. Neither does Joel. A low gasp emanates from you when his touch becomes proper, rubbing circles and spreading the slick over your clit as slow and unrushed as he physically can manage. You're still indecently wet after he'd brought you over the edge again and again before you dozed off... and the fact that some of his cum might be gathering in his hand is fueling his lewd thoughts.

You naughty girl.

"A very bad one, I see." He tuts, feeling your chest heaving up and down beneath him. It's easy to rile you up this way. Desperation is written in your expression... and he hasn't even started yet.

"She needs fixin', doesn't she?" Joel asks, bringing his movement to a sudden halt. You're too distracted by everything he does to form a coherent thought. He lifts an expectant brow, now actually waiting for an answer.

"Yes- yes Joel... need it so bad... so bad it hurts." You breathe, a helpless pout forming on your lips.

"I know baby. I know... Jus' lay down and let me take care of it, hm? How's that sound?" He demands again, but this time he doesn't give you a chance to respond as he pushes two fingers past your weeping hole, burying them knuckles deep within your warmth. You gasp at the sudden intrusion, eyelids heavy as you grasp his arm, squirming like a helpless, needy girl.

What a cruel man he is.

"Not off to a good start, angel. I know you can be more patient."

You nod quickly, biting your lip in an attempt to stop yourself from wriggling and twisting on the bed. For a split second, Joel considers pulling out to nuzzle his face between your legs and let the heat consume him. A perfect place to brave the cold, restless seasons. 

But his fingers aren't shy either. He starts with slow thrusts, effortlessly sliding in and out before picking up the pace. He makes you adjust to his rhythm, and when you let go and open up, the obscene moans and chocked out cries are all that fill the silence of the house. Jesus, he lives to hear them every day. He rewards you by curling his fingertips to hit that spot that makes you see stars.

You shudder particularly hard at that, more arousal pooling inside you and soaking his fingers. You're losing your grip with reality, and he can sense it as your legs begin to shake and your knee brushes over the denim of his jeans, but you still remember to abide by his "No squirming" rule.

You're so pliant and obedient in his hands that it does nothing but to spur Joel to give you more. And so he does.

"I like these sounds," He adds a third finger, tilting his head to whisper in your ear. "I dream about them all the time."

You whimper and tighten your hold around Joel's arm. When he feels that your orgasm is creeping impossibly close, his thumb joins and rubs rapid circles over your bundle of nerves and that's your undoing. You clench around him, walls tightening and squeezing his fingers deeper – if that's even possible – as waves of white-hot euphoria crash over your worn-out body and take over your senses. Your back arches involuntarily into him. A sound between a groan and a curse escapes his throat.

"That's it. Atta girl... that's it, so fuckin' beautiful."

His touch is unrelenting as he talks you through it with a string of sweet nothings. 

Only when you come down and rest back on the bed he slowly pulls out. You're panting heavily, face flushed and heated and so effortlessly seductive that Joel is sure no fucking artist could ever capture it in words of a poem or colors of a painting. Joel is the only one to witness this moment and it swells his chest with pride. He wants to drink it in, let it run through his veins like never-ending liquor.

He lifts his hand, smirking as you gape at the way it's glistening under the dim light. You're in awe. He softly places the tips between your swollen lips and you waste no time in swirling your tongue around them, licking the slick off as if it's a delightful lollipop. And the hazy look on your face says that it's more than just a sweet treat.

His own breathing hitches when you open your mouth a little wider and take him fully in, sucking and humming and driving him absolutely crazy. He shakes his head slightly, catching the playful gleam in your gaze.

"Hm. Still a very bad influence."

When you're fully recovered and satisfied, Joel lifts you up in his arms and walks towards the backyard, chuckling at your confused expression. You give a squeal and wrap your hands around his neck to keep yourself steady, at the same time trying to gauge what his next plan would be. You really have forgotten about the rain, haven't you?

He comes to a halt, making sure the blanket he'd just picked off the bed is not leaving any part of your body uncovered. The rainstorm has eased off considerably over the past hour, but he doesn't want to risk it. Keeping you warm and safe in the cold is and will always be his top priority, no matter if his back or knees protest from how much they ache. Hell, he aches for you and that content smile on your face. Nothing beats it.

"My girl still wants to go out, hm?"

Your eyes flicker between him and the half-open door, filled with excitement and delight and a tiny flicker of doubt. "Yes Joel... but...you sure you want to join in?"

"I don't know," He feigns innocence, pretending to think for a short while before his face lights up with an idea. "Do I get a kiss for it?"

You laugh and lean up to press your lips into his in a soft, lingering kiss. It's so tender and reassuring that he has to pull back before changing his mind and taking you back to the bed.

"Then it's settled."

It has been settled for a long time.

Maybe he can get used to it. Maybe you get a better idea of what you've made of him with your presence at times when he easily complies with things that make you happy. A heart made of ice, molten enough to experience the world with you all over again. Even if he gets soaked in the rain, he's alright with it. You kiss him and all the discomfort is forgotten.

He should give it time and learn to breathe again. Learn to stay, to settle. To let you know that you're all he sees.

Yeah, I don't want to hurt

There's so much in this world 

To make me bleed

Stay with me

Let's just breathe

Stay with me

You're all I see

The words are carved in his head. He chances a glance at the living room before walking past the door. Your guitar is placed on the couch. Maybe one day he'll bring himself to play his melodies for you too. He thinks that he's got a lot of time for it now. He wants an eternity with you, and in this wretched world, eternity lasts as long as you'll have him.

One, two... Ten droplets fall over him. He kisses you again, harder and longer. His ice-cold heart melts just a little more at your careless laughter. Just stay with me.

[cece693]

So, I got this silly idea where Pamela Voorhees manipulates the male reader into being Jason's caretaker, because (bless her soul) she knows she won't be here forever. So, while giving this male reader attention and 'motherly' love, she unknowingly gives Jason a bride. And because the male reader is so preconditioned to tend to another person they're like 'okay. This guy is definitely crazy but also kinda hot...' So yeah, this idea is out there, but I like it. Hope you do too!

NEW CAREGIVER.... (AND LOVER)

pairing: jason voorhees x male reader tags: reader is a runaway, shitty home, what else can I say, Pamela is a scheming lady, but you get Jason, so is that too bad???, nah didn't think so, fluff

The moon was an indifferent coin above the highway the night you ran—bare-footed, half-blind with tears, flinching at every blast of a passing horn. Home had never deserved the name; it was a house of slurred curses and shattered dishes, a place where love arrived in bruises. When you finally collapsed at the treeline of Crystal Lake, you expected the cold or coyotes to finish what your father started.

Instead, you woke beneath a patchwork quilt that smelled of cedar and lavender water. An elderly woman sat knitting beside a pot-bellied stove, her smile warm yet oddly knowing, as though she’d been waiting for you.

“I’m Pamela,” she said, voice soft as cattail down. “Pamela Voorhees. You’re safe here, dear boy.” It took you only a day to discover what here meant—Camp Crystal Lake. Pamela called the place a sanctuary and grave in the same breath, yet with an air of how a person spoke of cathedrals.

Mrs. Voorhees’s hospitality tasted like something you’d forgotten was real. She mended the splits in your soles with neat whip-stitches, pressed warm cornbread into your palms, and brushed the tangles from your hair while you dozed by the window. But comfort was only half her gift; the other half was preparation.

“The forest isn’t cruel,” she instructed. “but it is indifferent. If you wish to protect someone in these woods, you must become its equal.” You learned to tread silently through the forest, to smell rain before clouds formed.

“Some wounds,” she murmured, gaze faraway, “don’t bleed red. Treat them anyway.” You practiced on burlap dolls, then raccoon corpses you found tangled in old fishing net. Your stitches grew beautiful and grotesque all at once.

“He’s a growing boy,” Pamela said, ladling venison stew into a third bowl you placed reverently at the empty seat. You’d glance at the untouched spoon and feel a prickle behind the eyes, as if someone watched from the tree line, salivating at the thyme-tinged broth.

You never dared ask why she trained you with the severity of a drill sergeant, only for whom. However, she simply answered with a wistful pat to your cheek: “In time, you’ll meet my Jason.”

Late spring blurred into summer when things irrevocably changed. Lightning split the August sky when a group of camp counselors returned, laughing with guitars and bottles. Pamela’s knitting paused mid-row. The smile she gave you was sad yet resolute: “Stay inside, dear. Boil water. Fold bandages. Wait for me.” Then she slipped into the trees with a hunting knife and a resolve that glinted like frost on iron.

You did not see her alive again.

When dawn paled the lake, the forest stank of metal and rain-damp carnage. You stumbled upon her body by the generator shack—head missing, cardigan soaked black, her eyes forever spared the horror of what she’d done and what had been done to her. Grief tore every stitch she’d sewn into you. You buried what you could beneath a stand of birches, whispering a prayer you half-remembered from a childhood chapel, though God had never done either of you favors.

The sensible thing would be to leave.

But you stayed.

Grief motivated you to continue with your rituals. Keeping the cottage immaculate, preserving her collection of knitted sweaters, sharpening the kitchen knives every Sunday. Nights, you dreamed of water lapping at rotten docks; of a child’s gurgling sobs just beyond the tree line. Then the gifts began:

A butchered stag laid across the porch like an altar offering.

A jar of marigolds—roots, soil and all—placed beside your pillow.

Heavy boot-prints circling the cabin at night, too large for any man you knew.

The first snow had not yet melted when you finally met him. You heard something massive wading ashore, yet before you could grab the hatchet—you froze.

He wasn't a kid, defenseless and weak as Pamela had hinted at. Instead, he loomed in the doorway: a towering figure in mold-streaked coveralls, burlap sack knotted over his head. One eye—wide, milk-blue, yet oddly innocent—studied you. In his fist dripped a wood axe, but he made no move to raise it.

Instinct overrode terror. “You’re hurt,” you whispered, noticing the gash bisecting his shoulder. You reached for the first-aid kit Pamela insisted stay stocked. He flinched yet allowed it, gaze following your every motion the way a half-feral dog watches the only hand that feeds it.

When you finished bandaging, you pressed a palm to his chest. “Jason?”

The name left your tongue like an invocation. The giant’s breathing hitched; then slowly, he retrieved a tarnished locket from inside his shirt—Pamela’s, the same oval cameo she once pressed into your palm for “safekeeping.” Two photographs faced one another: baby Jason…and now, tucked beside it, you.

Pamela had written your name beneath the picture, shaky but intent.

Everything clicked: the chores, the sewing lessons, the knife work, the rules. She’d been fashioning you into more than a ward. You were the keeper of her legacy, the caretaker—the bride—for the son who lived beyond death.

Jason remained mute, but devotion needs no dialogue. You learned his language in nods and tilts of that burlap-covered head: hunger, pain, agitation when strangers trespassed. He shadowed you while you cooked, his hulking frame squeezed into the doorway like a child desperate not to be left out. When you laid a sweater—Pamela’s favorite blue one—across his shoulders, enormous fingers fumbled with the buttons until you guided them.

Nights grew strangely gentle. He’d sit cross-legged by the hearth while you read aloud from Pamela’s brittle prayer book, big head tilting at the cadence of your voice. One evening flames spat sparks; you startled, and Jason’s arm swept you behind him in reflex as if flesh were expendable, you were not. The gesture shocked warmth into your marrow.

And yes, there were killings. Outsiders who trespassed, teens seeking thrills—they vanished beneath the frozen lake or hung like ornaments from the pines. You cleaned the machetes afterward, murmuring that he’d done “well.” Morality blurred; love is an elegantly cruel tutor.

[unconventional-lawnchair]

Marauders and Lightning Era Masterlist

started - 08.13.2024

last updated - 02.12.2025

Credit for Dividers

All triggers and small summaries listed in the fanfiction

Matured audience advised

Random fic ideas

Faceclaims

HARRY POTTER and CO.

-In The Absence of Goodbye (Angst, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort - Enemies to Lovers to Strangers to..)

Bartemius Crouch Junior x Fem!reader

Summary: Concept- After being sent back in time to spend a year in the Marauders Era, reader is thrown forward in time and has her memories erased. But was she truly sent home? Aka: Dumbledore underestimates Barty's absolute disregard for order when it comes to his vixen.

-HIATUS We'll Heal Together (Angst, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort) 13/? parts Remus Lupin/Sirius Black x Reader

Part 1-9 can be read as a standalone. Summary: Harry Potter grew up without the warmth of a family he should have known. A father in James Potter, a mother in Lily Potter, a God Father in Sirius Black, and an uncle in Remus Lupin. Oh, and let's not forget, a godmother in {Y/N} {L/N} Alt Summary: Starts at the end of Chamber of secrets and into the Prisoner of Azkaban with the first chapter, Harry meeting his father's old friends, and starts learning the fate of {Y/N}, who has long since been presumed dead. there seems to be more of a story hidden behind her disappearance, and in turn, her reappearance.

-Good boy, Pads {Mini-Siris}

Summary: Long hours, late nights, and dark alleyways. Good thing you have a guardian angel looking out for you. {Aka: Padfoot protects a muggle reader on her walk home}

-Expectations

Summary: Reminiscing on some romantic encounters, you have come to the conclusion Harry Potter is not someone you'd ever date. HURT/COMFORT

HEADCANNONS

Jealousy, Jealousy

Where the boys get jealous... (Feat. Barty, Regulus, Sirius, Remus, and James)

POLY!SHIPS

-Poly!Marauders+Lily x Fem!Reader

- Zombie Apocalypse Au

-Loving You is Easy

Summary: Being younger than all your respective partners was never a big deal; until they graduated and you were left behind. As your mental health declined and their lives started without you, a break was needed.

-Lily's Touch {Omegaverse}

Summary: The reader is experiencing her first heat, and nothing matter how hard she tries, she can't get the nest right.

-Jily x Slytherin!Reader

Jily x Slytherin!gnreader Summary: An interesting situationship with Jily}

-Sirius/James/Remus Band Au

Summary: Reader has a horrible encounter on stage and the boys comfort her

-What's Your Name? {Sneak Peak}

Moonwater Fluff

-Status Quo

Summary: Early mornings and the Status Quo of the Marauder's house hold. {THIS FANFICTION IS INSPIRED- no, actually, basically a tribute to @/ellecdc's PadVix fanfiction. I would be amazed you are reading any of my stuff and not having read theirs but the link is here if you need it.

REMUS LUPIN

-Spoiled Brat (Pt 1?) (Lil Angsty, +18, fluff)

Summary: When your escapism over the summer turns a bit more real, as you fall in love with a half blood your father would never approve of}

-Think like a Lupin (Angsty, lotta angst, happy ending! fluff +18)

Summary: Your parents are planning to marry you off the second after you graduate, but after an unfortunate encounter with a werewolf, plans change.

-Break a Leg Not My Heart (Some angst, mostly light hearted fluff)

Summary: You get hurt during Quidditch practice and Remus doesn't leave your side. Friends to lovers.

-Meeting Royalty (Fluff, Suggestive)

Summary: Meet cute but make it royalty} Part 2

-Too Late (Angst, no comfort) {Pt.2}

Summary: Remus comes to terms with a love lost to his own insecurities.

-Stray

Summary: Post war Remus finds home for his heart

-It Repeats Itself

Summary: Even years after the war the effects of Voldemort's reign still had waves of effects. One just so happened to have a poor girl caught in the cross fire. (This is more of a concept then a fleshed out story-a little cliche)

-Just thinking about Sirius testing tattoo ideas on you...

-Over and Over Again

Summary: The legend of soulmates and the myth of endless lives tied to one another permanently was once a myth you don't believe. Until you met Remus Lupin.

BARTY CROUCH JUNIOR

-The boy I knew {Sneak peek}

Summary- When Barty knew love

-The Boy I Knew {Part 1} (Angst, Fluff, +18)

-Do You Some Good

“When we’re done here, we can go back to hating each other. Deal?” “You’re not going to believe this, but I think I actually prefer things like this.”

-Dear Future Husband

-Cat and Mouse

Summary: The reader can never truly get away Barty, no matter how hard she tries. He'll always find his family.

-Love me, too

Summary: Late nights with loose lipped Barty, a single conversation unraveled years of yearning.

-I am not writing this because I could not mentally take it but...

-Trust and Obedience

Summary: Small snippets of moments between you and Barty, where you really should have picked up on his spiral.

Potter!Reader;

-Everything is Blue

Summary: As things escalate with Barty he draws a line in the sand.

-I Might Still Hate You

Summary: An unexpected guest shows up at your house late at night.

-Not Quite Poison- {Pt.2}

Summary: after a chance meeting in the library; a whirlwind love affair between Barty Crouch Jr and the youngest Potter blossom, but neither of them were prepared for how life would go after.

-They'll Be Alright

Summary: James Potter learns to like tolerate his sisters taste in men.

-Making Mistakes - {Pt.2}

Summary: After a horrible break up in 7th year, Barty and you haven't spoken a word to eachother. Then, he comes barreling back into your life begging for forgiveness, will you trust him?

JAMES POTTER

-Fall in Love in a Night (A lil angst, basically just a fluffy fluffy love story)

Summary: College AU, Muggle AU, James falls in love with the some of the worst parts of you }

-Fix it Yourself (All the Angst, lil comfort) +18

Summary: Falling in love with James Potter was a whirlwind affair full of lies and heartbreak. Everything comes to a head when he asks you to fake date someone so Lily will give him a chance.

-Little Lupin (Fluff)

Summary: James has a little crush on little Lupin

-Masterpiece

Summary: James Potter goes a little too far with a girl everyone happens to like.

-Just Kiss Her

Summary: You find a few unsent letters with your name on them- literally.

-Bed Hopper

Summary: After creating a tradition of cuddling James before bed, you'd think you'd have the path down by now.

-Not Made for Easy

Summary: Years of loving and yearning unfurl the night before graduation. A dramatic love confession.

-Why Couldn't It Be Us

Summary: James grappled with the reality of loosing the love of his life.

SIRIUS BLACK

-Casual (Angsty, fluff at the end) +18

Summary: Sirius falls for his most recent hook up, and she refuses to cave to what she wants}

-Fix it Yourself (All the Angst, lil comfort) +18

Summary: Falling in love with James Potter was a whirlwind affair full of lies and heartbreak. Everything comes to a head when he asks you to fake date someone so Lily will give him a chance.

-Like my father {Blurb}

Summary: Reader wants a man to love her like her father loves her mom. She just hasn't met him yet.. maybe.

-Kiss And Make-Up

Summary: Pool side at the Potters, Sirius takes you for a swim.

-Rock 'n Roll

Summary: Sirius stays home with a hangover, but the reader is always there to lend a hand.

-Just thinking about Sirius testing tattoo ideas on you...

-Self Fulfilling Prophecy

Summary: Potters love like it's a sport, but it seems that only a Black can challenge that.

FRED WEASLEY

-Summer Talks

Summary: Fred lets you know what he's waiting for

-Too Much Like Me

Summary: James finds out Lily's type in men is apparently genetic.

-Burning Bright, Falling Hard

Summary: Fred Weasley and you share a quiet moment in your room

HERMIONE GRANGER

-Invisible (Lil Angsty, basically just fluff) Blurb

Summary: Reader is a bit of a punk like Sirius, with Remus's insecurities. She doesn't believe she deserves a girl like Hermione. No real plot just Angst straight into fluff

MATTHEO RIDDLE

-But daddy I love him (Lil Angst, fluff)

Summary: Harry finds out his sister is dating Mattheo Riddle Ft. James, Lily, Remus, Sirius - No war au }

" Dinner Party " (Pt 2)

Summary: The Potters throw a dinner party; Mattheo meets the family} Wc- 4142

-King's Gambit

Summary: You go to a Ministry gala with your family, meeting and dancing with Mattheo Riddle, who is just looking to cause some trouble,

REGULUS BLACK

-Monarch butterfly (Hurt/comfort) wip

Summary- Monarch butterflies only live for up to six weeks. Their life brings an unspoken joy to the people who witness it, a peaceful feeling to the life that last so much longer then their own. They bring smiles to the faces of children, they bring good luck for those who choose it, they bring so much value to lives they will never truly be a part of. Your butterfly was, and always would be, Regulus black.

BLAISE ZABINI

-Before a Stranger

Summary: Friends before a stranger

[driverlando]

✧.* FAMILY FIRST

synopsis- In which Charles and Y/n have had enough of the paparazzi standing outside their house

before you continue: it’s been a while since I did anything for Charles, I missed this! If you enjoyed this then please reblog and give me a follow! <3

—

—

—

✧.* Charles has had enough

You glanced out the window, your heart sinking as you saw the familiar sight: a cluster of paparazzi, cameras flashing like distant lightning, capturing moments of your private lives for public consumption. You sighed deeply, feeling the weight of their intrusion settle heavily on you shoulders. Another day, another invasion of your sanctuary.

Charles entered the room, his footsteps heavy with frustration as he followed your gaze to the window. “Again?” he muttered through clenched teeth, his hands balling into fists at his sides.

“They just won’t leave us alone,” you said softly, your voice tinged with weariness as you absentmindedly rubbed your pregnant belly, the new life within a poignant reminder of your need for peace and privacy.

Charles kissed your forehead tenderly, a silent reassurance before he strode purposefully outside. His jaw was set in determination as he approached the nearest photographer, who greeted him with a mocking smirk.

“Hey, dude! Got any news for us?” the paparazzi taunted, his camera clicking away relentlessly.

Charles’s temper flared, a surge of protective instinct coursing through him. In one swift movement, he closed the distance, snatching the camera from the man’s hands with a firm grip. “I’ve had enough of this,” he growled, his voice low but carrying an unmistakable edge of authority. With a forceful gesture, he tossed the device to the ground, the clatter of impact punctuating his frustration.

The photographer stumbled back, momentarily taken aback by Charles’s sudden assertiveness. His eyes widened in surprise as Charles stood tall and unwavering, his presence commanding respect. “Get out of here,” Charles commanded, his tone brooking no argument, his stance a formidable barrier against further intrusion.

The paparazzi hesitated, uncertainty flickering in his eyes before he begrudgingly began to retreat, muttering under his breath as he moved away. Charles watched him go, a mix of relief and lingering tension evident in his posture, before he turned back to you.

“We’ll figure this out,” you reassured him gently, her touch a soothing balm against the raw edges of his frustration as you placed a comforting hand on his arm.

Charles sighed heavily, the weight of responsibility for their family’s well-being pressing heavily on him. Pulling you close, he buried his face in your hair, his cheek resting against yours. “I just want our family to have some peace,” he murmured softly, his voice filled with a mixture of longing and determination.

You stood together in the quiet of your home, finding solace in each other’s presence amidst the turmoil.

—

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✧.* the boys show their support

—

charles_leclerc

liked by lewishamilton, yourusername and 156,478 others

charles_leclerc To the tabloids and paparazzi lurking outside: here’s your exclusive! a never seen before picture of me holding my son for the first time, hopefully this will stop you from spending day and night outside my house.

view all 14,628 comments

yourusername well they’ll have no choice but to leave us alone after the lawsuit 🫢

user1 omg crazy how this was 3 years ago and now yall are having another baby 🥹

user2 dad Charles is everything to me

user3 im glad they have gained some control, hopefully the paps leave

landonorris cutest baby (I’m not talking about you Charles)

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Charles Leclerc’s Explosive Confrontation with Paparazzi: A Battle for Privacy

By: Sasha, Rumour Radar

In a gripping saga that has captured public attention, Formula One star Charles Leclerc and his influencer wife Y/N Y/L/N have found themselves embroiled in a fierce confrontation with paparazzi over their family’s privacy. The couple’s determination to protect their young son and their unborn child has led to heated exchanges, a broken camera, and a looming lawsuit against intrusive photographers.

The First Signs of Trouble

The tension reached a boiling point when Y/N tweeted a stark warning to the paparazzi:

“Hey paparazzi, here’s a tip: stop scaring my son. Respect our privacy or lawyer up.”

Charles Leclerc, known for his calm demeanor on the race track, showed a different side of himself by retweeting her post with his own impassioned message:

“I’ve reached my limit. It’s exhausting having to explain to my 3-year-old son why there are grown men waiting outside our house with big cameras. Please respect our privacy or be prepared to deal with the consequences. Nothing matters more to me than my family’s peace and security, and it’s my duty as a father and husband to shield them from any intrusion, especially now that my wife is pregnant.”

Forced to Reveal the Pregnancy

The couple, who had hoped to keep the news of their pregnancy private for as long as possible, felt compelled to make an announcement after the initial confrontation. The public reaction was overwhelmingly supportive, with fans expressing outrage at the paparazzi’s disregard for the family’s privacy.

Despite the couple’s plea for respect, the relentless paparazzi returned a few days later, once again besieging their home. The situation reached a critical point when Charles, frustrated and protective of his family, confronted the photographers and broke one of their cameras.

Charles’s Bold Statement on Instagram

In a bold move to address the paparazzi directly, Charles posted a poignant message on Instagram alongside a never-before-seen photo of him holding his son for the first time:

“To the tabloids and paparazzi lurking outside: here’s your exclusive! A never seen before picture of me holding my son for the first time, hopefully this will stop you from spending day and night outside my house.”

The post quickly went viral, with fans and fellow celebrities rallying behind Charles and Y/N, applauding their courage and condemning the paparazzi’s invasive behavior.

Legal Action Looms

Y/N followed up with a decisive announcement that the couple would be pursuing legal action against the photographers:

“We have had enough. Our privacy has been violated, our son has been scared, and our peace has been disrupted. We are taking legal steps to ensure this stops. Thank you to everyone who has supported us and respected our privacy.”

The news of the lawsuit has added another layer to this dramatic story, highlighting the ongoing struggle between celebrities seeking privacy and the relentless pursuit of paparazzi.

Public and Celebrity Support

The public reaction has been largely supportive, with social media flooded with messages of solidarity. Fellow drivers and celebrities have also spoken out, condemning the paparazzi’s actions and expressing their support for Charles and Y/N.

Carlos Sainz tweeted, “Absolutely unacceptable behavior from the paparazzi and it needs to be stopped. Charles and Y/N deserve to share their happy news on their own terms and to live their lives without being hassled. Congrats on the baby, my friends!”

Lewis Hamilton chimed in with, “Proud of @/Charles_Leclerc and @/YourUsername for standing up for their family. Privacy should be respected. Congrats on the new addition ❤️”

Moving Forward

As Charles and Y/N prepare for the arrival of their new baby, they continue to advocate for their right to privacy, setting a powerful example for other public figures facing similar challenges. Their story underscores the importance of respecting personal boundaries, even for those in the public eye.

This ongoing battle between the Leclercs and the paparazzi serves as a stark reminder of the toll that media intrusion can take on a family’s peace and well-being. As the lawsuit unfolds, it will be a pivotal moment not only for Charles and Y/N but for the broader conversation about privacy and respect in the age of instant celebrity.

Stay tuned to Rumour Radar for the latest updates on this unfolding story and more celebrity gossip.

[b00tyliciousbabe]

munch

bisexualbigboybf! x THICC!male reader

summary: manifesting my future husband

notes: THANKS FOR 1k ppl dem! BEEN IN DRAFTS FOR A WHILE. i think there needs to be some more love + appreciation for bi men and big boys so i amalgamated the two. not a fetish y’all, just a preference, they be taking care of my inner princess and for that i will ALWAYS be grateful. a lot of feminisation in this one so tread carefully. it’s a lil messy (jumps in tenses and stuff like that) but i litch couldn’t focus without getting too excited. ENJOY MY HEARTS.

song rec: normani - big boy (feat. starrah)

⋅•⋅⊰∙∘☽༓☾∘∙⊱⋅•⋅ ⋅•⋅⊰∙∘☽༓☾∘∙⊱⋅•⋅ ⋅•⋅⊰∙∘☽༓☾∘∙⊱⋅

your big boy bf didn’t think he had a chance with you at first, nor did he even want one. at first he hated you, watching how all the other men in your life were one flirty conversation away from having a piece of your juicy ass, and how the girls envied and coveted your thick hourglass figure. your sweet personality sickened him ; you made sure to give them your gym routine and your diet, being the beauty guru you were. but what he realised, was not that he hated you, but that he hated not having you. when he realised this, he needed you, more than anything.

you embodied a refreshing style of hyper femininity that made you all the more attractive to your bi man. seeing your body in its thick glory made him love himself more. how your belly added to your voluptuous figure, your plump cheeks, and fleshy muscle surrounding your chest and thighs, he was mesmerised by your form. you were, in his eyes, divine. little did he know that you had fallen first; his broad shoulders, strong biceps and pudgy belly practically had you ovulating. your gigantic teddy bear, standing at a foot taller than you, had a heart of gold and this protective aura around him, enamoured you.

when you debuted your relationship online, you were met with a flurry of mainly positive responses. yeah sure there were the odd few denouncing your femininity and body shaming y’all, but you ignored them because you don’t have to convince the world that you’re THEE baddie b and your man is the sexiest mf to ever exist.

luvagoalz: they are literally the embodiment of the wattpad height difference. I NEED.

user222: y/n getting dicked down DAILY by a giant is so girlboss of him.

sza: bestie got himself a big boy - y/n send me the deets for the wedding.

your bf is a huge gym rat and when you two became exclusive, your already voluptuous figure became all the more defined with his help. you were flawless. you love seeing him in the gym, sweating as the veins in his forearms pop out making him look so attractive. he definitely enjoys your company there, teasingly rubbing his bulge against your ass and face when no one was watching. his exhibitionist kink goes crazy seeing how beautifully your workout clothes hug your butt and cinch your waist. he used to be slightly insecure about his stretch marks but after a cool down session, and you complimenting them like lightning bolts imprinted on his skin, he felt superhuman. you always knew what to say to make him feel better.

he’s so protective of you. always sleeps on the side closest to the door and isn’t afraid to send someone to hospital if they even look at you the wrong way, or in a manner he doesn’t like. in his mind he’s seeded you and you’re literally carrying his kids and thus it’s his responsibility to protect you. it’s almost primal. he isn’t controlling or anything, but finds it incredibly important to remind you that with him you are completely safe.

they say the best way to a man’s heart is through his stomach, and boy was that the case during your talking stage. it was perfect; you love to cook and so he’s more than happy to try your baked goods. your boyfriend loves his sleep on the weekends and so in true house husband fashion you often prepare breakfast in an apron with your thick cheeks hanging out from behind. one day he woke up to the sweet smell of you making his favourite. groggily stumbling into the kitchen, he rubbed the sleep from his eyes, long dick swinging out of his briefs as he advanced towards you.

‘good morning love.’ his deep voice sent shivers down your spine as he kissed the words into your neck. he held onto the groove of your hips, caressing your lower back with the tip of his index finger and watched as you writhed beneath him. ‘babe, what are you doing up? you need your sleep, you’ve been working so hard lately.’ you said, breathing haphazardly as he ground himself into you. ‘i missed you. and i want my morning kisses.’ beginning to untie your apron he turned you around, and removed the lace from around your neck. hiking you up on the table top, the heat of your bare ass, that his dick previous massaged into you, was cooled by the granite. you wrapped your legs around him, as your hands stroked his beard. wiping that shit eating grub off of his face, your lips came closer to his own, as you could feel his heartbeat in his throat - this man is so in love with you. the kiss lasted quite a while, precum staining the opening of his boxers and pooling on your thighs. you knew that you were about to be fucked dumb and so you turned of the hob to avoid burning the house down. the fire inside y’all was more than enough to keep you going.

your man doesn’t fully realise his own strength. he was very hesitant to have sex with you for a while and mostly stopped at groping you before his dick got too hard to ignore. so, for your first time, he had to refrain literally ripping your clothes to get to the prize of your nudity. he absolutely loves seeing you (try to) deepthroat. the reason? his size kink goes insane when you attempt to take his gigantic package. this man is LONG and GIRTHY, capable of splitting you in half and abusing all your spots with ease. the veiny sausage he’s packing could do some serious damage but he held back when it came to your first couple times with him.

he always takes time to ensure that your safe and comfortable. initially his size intimidated you, your mannerisms connoting your subtle anxiety. he kissed the fear out of you, reassuringly saying, ‘you know I would never do anything to hurt you.’

your boyfriend is the KING of consent, always ensuring that you want his big cock just as much as he wants to feel the warmth of your boy pussy. one day whilst he was working from home, he noticed you squirming like an omega in heat. he sighed and smirked. ‘d’you want me to fuck you?’ he burst out. already used to his blunt disposition, you nodded. advancing closer towards you, staring down at the desperation in your face, he stroked your hair. ‘use your words y/n, i wanna hear how badly you want it.’ his charisma practically had you high. ‘I need you, please.’ you began to undo the string that held up his joggers, as he removed his tshirt. ‘i can never say no to my baby boy.’ he smiled, pants bunching at his ankles as he slowly railed on the edge of your shared bed.

he encourages you to take him fully each time, praising you because no one else had been able to take him past halfway. ‘i know baby, i know, do it one more time for me.’ he said endearingly, wiping the tears from your face as his dick invaded your throat.‘THERE IT ISSS UGH FUCK! i love your mouth.’ he cooed.

equally, your bf is the only man you’ve been with that’s been able to satisfy you sexually. you steered clear from all the men who were only interested in your body and not your heart and so you had very minimal experience outside of toys and your hands. the few you may or may not have been with were damn near clueless. on the other hand…your man has had plenty of hoe phases. it sly bugged you how he’d been intimate with a greater number you could’ve imagined but all that disappeared when he first made love to you. the best thing about him is that he can handle allat that ass. despite the clear size difference this doesn’t stop you from being a FREAK. He even encourages it. loving your thick globes of ass flesh kiss his lower belly as you push back and twerk all over his dick. his favourite part of your shape are your hips. he wants to breed you full of his children.

whenever he says ‘fuck yeah baby, back that shit up.’ it sends you orbital. it’s well known that the two of you share a huge affinity for doggy. the way you stroke his pudginess while he rails you in that position has become a safety mechanism - one that he has learnt to make the experience all the more enjoyable. with one hand holding you up (realistically struggling to, under the sheer passion of his fucking) and the other one bent behind your back fingering his belly button. his huge dick borderline tears you open and by grabbing onto him makes you feel safe. he usually recognises that it’s getting a bit too much when your moans become screams, and you get tighter. and as much as he loves seeing you overstimulated and fucked out on his cock, he doesn’t wanna break you (completely). so he slows down, soothing your pain with sweet nothings and his large hands massaging your ass cheeks.

for him personally though, he loves to smush you underneath his weight. in prone bone, he has direct access to your ear, whispering words of affirmation but degrading you with the grip of his arms around your neck. his beard hair softly touching your cheek, causing a wave of bliss to hit you, always gets him going. he knows you love hearing him praise you; his grunts are so delectable, a symphony with the percussion of him clapping tf outta your cheeks. as you whine like a lil bitch, they become guttural, like an alpha in his rut. the carnal passion of your heavier and rougher sessions reveal a callous side to his possessive nature. dangerous how much it turns you on.

words can’t really describe how much you love his stomach, happy trail adorning his belly, and riding him offers you the opportunity to see allat that on a platter. his smirk as he tries to contain his excitement that your his and only his.

on the topic of eye contact, you’re favourite mutual position is definitely missionary - your bf adores every inch of you. how your body becomes compliant. your hole crafted to take his big dick. the way it pierces through the walls of your pussy, massaging your gumminess. he sometimes drools from how lost he can be in the experience. ‘take my cock, yhhh baby, fuckkkk.’

slowing down his jack hammering pace, he’d lean forward with his low hanging balls rutting into you agonizingly slow.

‘you like that shit, huh baby? yeah? loving on my dick so well.’ whispering as he begins to mark your collarbone. then moving upwards onto your neck, massaging your previously pummeled throat as you looked up, desperate to kiss him. he exhales into your mouth, breathing life into you that he had taken away with his hard thrusts. his softness escaped as quickly as it arose, thrusting his entire load into you.

‘shit’ you scream as he laughs hoarsely, the rasp in his voice a melting honey.

in the same position, you love his cum face. something about how his eye and nose scrunch as he pants and grunt deeply. his beard ticking your chin. it also allows him to be vulnerable with you. he would hold your head cradling it with an affection rivalled only by how sweetly his tip kisses your prostate with each lengthy thrust. when he first enters, he’s checking to see if your okay, if you want more lube. you say no. legs just above his hips, you bring your hand to stroke his beard as he concentrates on directing his dick in a way that doesn’t make him cum immediately upon re entry.

‘i love you.’ you say getting all emotional from how well he’s treating you. ‘I love you too y/n.’ he leans down for more kisses as your hand now snakes around the back of his head.

he stops, letting you catch your breath, playing with your hair and caressing your face lovingly. your arms drop immediately at the warmth of his touch. he lifts and cradles your head, a delicacy opposing his rough demeanour.

‘I fucking love you,’ your bf grunts, placing forehead kisses, panting, as he starts moving faster. your legs now wrapped tightly around his abdomen like a vice. he plants both hands behind your head, balling his fists at either side of your head to create the perfect foundation to fuck you hard. brings one of his hands to cradle your hair and to bring your head closer to his. your temples meet ensuring that you’re so close and intimate. the man brings his body up, still inside you, collects your legs together, one leg on each shoulder holding onto the thick flesh of your upper thighs, allowing you to adjust, before toppling over onto you again to get deeper inside your pussy. later, moving his hands up to behind your knees, his rugged fingertips grip the flesh of your hamstrings.

your boyfriend brings his fingers up to stroke your cheeks and remove the hair sticking to your face. he’s growling at his need to go ham, but he exercises self-control as a means to take care of you. however, what he doesn’t realise is that his painfully slow strokes transport you to a utopia of bodily ecstasy.

he ABSOLUTELY loves seeing the imprint of his girthy cock in your stomach, pressing down on it to add to your respective pleasures. and when you both reach the top of the mountain, the visual of you being completely fucked out on his huge pole, as it protrudes through your stomach which is now decorated with your own personal release, makes him wanna rail you again. and again. until you pass out or his dick becomes limp. the latter would never happen because wherever you are, that cocks gonna be UP.

aftercare is so underrated with him. in his past relationships, it was usually a hit and quit it situation - his words not mine. thus he didn’t really know what to do at first. he’s so used to hookup culture, that he never bothered. but with you, he knew he had to change; one, because he knew you’d never let him near you again if he didn’t take care of you, but mainly two, because you were his and he had a responsibility to cherish you. considering you literally couldn’t walk and body was limp, your man needed to ensure you were taken care of. though he always reassures you, you make sure to do the same. the first time you spooned him he slept like a baby. BIG BOYS NEED CUDDLES TOO Y’ALL.

he gets really apologetic, constantly asking ‘did I go to rough.’ as he massages the bruises on your hips. sometimes feels guilty that he fucks you too hard. You put his mind at ease telling him that you do like it. your bubble butt and tight hole were made to take his cock.

this still doesn’t stop him from confessing to you; ‘baby, I’m so sorry.’ he kisses your skin. ‘when I see that ass if yours jiggle, it drives me crazy, I just can’t stop.’ it often leads to him overcompensating. as the his cum seeps out of your obliterated cunt. he just wants to make you feel safe. the same safety he feels when he’s with you.

⋅•⋅⊰∙∘☽༓☾∘∙⊱⋅•⋅ ⋅•⋅⊰∙∘☽༓☾∘∙⊱⋅•⋅ ⋅•⋅⊰∙∘☽༓☾∘∙⊱⋅

tag list:

@gayaristocrat

@ghostking4m

@lysanderplume

[kaisacobra]

Speak No Evil - Sam Carpenter

Part 1 of Dark Knight series

Summary: You think Tara's sister hates you, or, at least, she is embarrassingly aware of your little crush on her. You couldn't be further from the truth, but Sam wouldn't let you know the length she'd go to protect you.

Warnings: Fem!Reader, Stalker!Sam, violence, blood, character death (not main) mentions of sex, cursing, mostly following canon.

w.c: 5.6 k

“Ugh, I just want to get home and throw myself on the couch.”

“Real.”

You and Tara climbed the stairs to her apartment side by side, dragging your feet more than anything else due to the exhaustion of the grueling day in college. You almost sighed with relief when you arrived in front of the familiar door, seeing your best friend take the key out of her pocket and open the lock with her shoulder already against the wall.

She entered the house already throwing her own bag aside, without even noticing the object sliding across the wooden floor. Being a visitor, you couldn't afford the same carelessness, opting to leave your bag on one of the small sofas. Your shoulders thanked you when they were spared the weight of the textbooks after long minutes on the subway and walking.

“You're home early, Sam.”

Automatically, your heart started racing when you heard Tara's simple words and you turned around at lightning speed to see Samantha Carpenter emerging from the kitchen, wearing nothing more than a gray tank top and black pants, comfortable to wear at home but dangerous for your eyes.

“They robbed that electronics store next to the bar.” She shrugged at her own explanation, but you were more focused on the way her biceps seemed to bulge when she crossed her arms. “The boss chose to close it for safety reasons, plus no one would want to drink with a police car parked right outside the door.”

“H-Hi, Sam!” You raised your hand to greet her, but your brain froze as you decided between a gesture, and you ended up with a strange three-fingered salute.

Your cheeks felt like they were on fire as you instantly regretted your action, especially after Sam barely reacted to your presence, with nothing more than a nod to indicate that she had heard you. She had barely finished greeting you when she turned to Tara again. “Since I'm here, I can cook something for dinner instead of getting takeout.”

“Great!” Tara agreed beside you. “Just don't do too much. Y/n and I are going to make popcorn and watch a movie right now, I won't be that hungry later.”

“And I'm not staying for dinner!” You hastened to say, not wanting to give Sam any more trouble, especially when she seemed to stare into the depths of your soul with those piercing dark eyes. “I-I still have a lot to study, I have to get back early.”

Still remaining a woman of few words, Sam merely nodded and began to retreat to the kitchen again, before stopping to point at Tara. “Just don't make it too loud. Last time I had to listen to a lot of complaints from the lady upstairs.”

“You got it.” Tara replied with a joking salute and the older sister just rolled her eyes before finally leaving the two of you alone. It wasn't long before you became the butt of Tara's jokes, as she mimicked your voice in an annoyingly high-pitched tone. “H-Hi, S-S-Sam...”

“Fuck you.” You punched the girl weakly in the shoulder as you walked over to the couch, throwing yourself against the cushions with your arms crossed. Tara paid no attention to the micro-aggression, laughing even louder as she sat down next to you, crossing her legs on the furniture.

A sigh escaped your throat as Tara turned on the television and flipped through the catalog of some streaming network, probably looking for another horror movie. “I think your sister hates me.”

“Nah, that's just how she is.” The shorter girl threw a gesture of indifference. “But she surely knows about this big ass crush you have on her.”

You felt your face catch fire again at the accusation. “I don’t- .”

“Yes, you do. It's obvious and it's disgusting.”

“Yeah?” You decided to join in Tara's teasing game, knowing that this was just one of your usual friendly banter. “Like the crush you have on that blonde from the basketball team?”

“Look, i’ll have you know that-”

You interrupt Tara with a shush escaping from between your lips, parted in a smile. Your phone had just beeped with a notification and you quickly pulled it out of your pocket to see Mindy's text on your lock screen.

Unfortunately, the content of the message instantly broke the fun mood. “Shit.” You cursed through your teeth, feeling the corners of your lips drop.

You could feel Tara stirring on the sofa, dragging herself to your side as she tried to read what was on your screen. “What?”

A sigh. “Mindy's asking me about what happened at ARCS.”

“Oh.”

Analysis and Reflection on Contemporary Society, also called ARCS, was an elective that you and Tara were taking and it basically consisted of having a debate on a topic proposed by the teacher every class. You had joined because the proposal was interesting, but most of the students were only there because Professor Ross graded you through attendance and not through exams.

Which was a good indicator of the type of person who was attending those classes.

The moment of silence was broken by your best friend's hesitant voice. “Do you... want to talk about what happened?” 

Tara, bless her heart, wasn't the best person to offer emotional support and you knew that very well, both because of the long year you'd been friends for and because of the complete awkwardness she found herself in. Even so, you knew she wouldn't rest until you took some of the weight off your back.

“I don't want to pay too much attention to this.” You huffed, shoving your phone back into your pocket as if it were the reason for your anger. “E.J. Abrams called me a bitch to the whole class, who cares? Everyone knows I was getting his ass in that debate.”

Seeing that you were more annoyed than hurt, Tara jumped at the chance to curse the boy, feeling much more comfortable now that the topic seemed to be centered on hatred. “That little shit. He thinks he can do whatever he wants because he's blond and strong and some dumb girls suck his toes.”

“I think it's more the fact that he's a medal-winning swimmer on the Olympic team and he's in one of the most exclusive fraternities on campus.”

“Well, fuck that ridiculous fraternity and fuck his medals too.” Tara continued, seeming to enjoy the way the F-word came out of her mouth. “I can't believe Professor Ross didn't even give him a warning.”

“I can.” You retorted without much joy, knowing damn well that the man would never intervene in any discussion between students because it was all part of the “debate experience”. Which, in fact, seemed more like an excuse so that he wouldn't have to get directly involved in any conflict.

With the movie completely forgotten in the background, you and Tara continued to curse every last generation of E.J., transferring all your indignation into words that the boy would probably never hear.

Meanwhile, someone else was listening to the entire conversation through the thin walls of the apartment, making a mental note to do more research on E.J. Abrams another time.

__

Sam was glad she had decided to wear a stronger jacket. New York nights were gradually getting colder as winter approached.

If she turned around, she would probably see students rushing around as they crossed campus, trying to get to their dorms before the curfew. Without even looking at her watch, Sam knew that they had approximately 5 minutes before 10:30 pm. She liked to arrive at 10.

But she didn't turn around, choosing to keep her back against the bars of the fire exit one floor above yours. She still couldn't believe that she had a perfect, hidden view of your entire room through your window, but Sam would never complain about that gift.

It was a safety issue, yes, but you were never going to be in danger when she was right there, in that fire exit, every night. No other person would harm you as long as she was there.

“Are you still hiding behind false pretenses?”

Sam would recognize that dry, slurred voice anywhere. She barely had to turn her head to see her father, or the image of him, sitting right in front of her with that familiar mischievous smile. He looked as he always did, not that a hallucination could have such a vast closet. White blouse stained with blood, messy black hair and eyes that Sam sometimes recognized in the mirror.

“There's nothing false about what I'm doing.” Sam muttered in response, even though she knew she shouldn't. 

“There’s no need to be embarrassed.” Billy continued, his smile getting wider with the attention he was receiving. “I know more than anyone that everyone needs a good obsession. Obsession makes perfect, doesn't it?”

This time, Samantha chose to leave him without an answer. Obsession. That word sounded so ugly to her ears, completely wrong too. She wasn't obsessed with you, she was just... protecting you.

At first, that hadn't exactly been Sam's intention, of course. When Tara talked about a new friendship, her protective big sister instincts instantly went on alert. No one could blame her after everything they'd been through in Woodsboro and more recently in her own apartment.

But she also couldn't deprive Tara of having a normal life and interacting with other people. Not everyone was a psycho waiting for an opportunity to stick a knife in the Carpenters. Still, Sam wanted to make sure that you weren't going to be another disappointment in her sister's life.

That's how she found herself on that fire escape for the first time, making sure that you really lived in the dorms, that you hadn't lied about your identity, that you didn't have a secret agenda or sneak out at night to play God and take some lives.

But you were... normal. Sam would even say that you were more normal than she and Tara would ever be. Everything about you was genuine and you carried with you a kindness that made Sam stop thinking of you as a suspect to someone she put on her mental protection list.

And it was by studying your normality, immersing herself in your pure and well-intentioned actions that Sam realized she was no longer watching you because she lacked trust in your person, but rather because she wanted that for herself. Those moments watching you from afar, seeing you live your life, brought an inner peace to Sam that she couldn't even explain.

It had been months since she had started this routine, so Sam knew very well that in a few minutes your roommate would open the window to use her pink-flavored vape, since you hated the smell being trapped in the room. The open window would allow Sam to eavesdrop on 20 minutes of conversation between you and your friend, which Sam thought was perfect for finding out at least a little about what was going on in your life.

Just as planned, the blonde opened the window and leaned both elbows on the sill, letting the flavored smoke escape through her lips as she took another drag of the pink device. Sam didn't like your roommate, Sammy - yes, she had also found the coincidence of names a bit ironic -  because she thought the girl was... too clingy with you.

But as far as Sam knew, it wasn't a crime to be a clingy friend. It was just annoying. Annoying wasn't enough reason for Sam to do anything about it.

“... Well, frat guys are shit.” Sammy spoke over another puff of smoke, probably finishing answering something. “They must have a total of two neurons combined.”

“I knoooww...” You whined, rubbing a hand across your face in frustration. Sam could see you lying on your bed with your phone in your hand, certain that you must’ve been scrolling on your social media, as you always did at that time. “But the people in class laughed at me at the time and, I don't know, I don't want to be made a laughing stock.”

Sam felt an angry pulse in her neck. It was outrageous that you were afraid of being ridiculed in your class because some idiot thought it was funny to interrupt your debate to call you a bitch. She could almost picture the scene if she closed her eyes, and just the thought of seeing your lost and embarrassed expression made her blood boil.

“Did they put any videos online? If you want, I can delete it.”

The proposal was genuine. While Sam was still doing her own research on your life (for safety's sake, of course), she had found your roommate's data as well. Sammy was a computer science major and, from the internship she had landed with a great salary, she must have been very good at what she did.

“I'll take a look.” You answered in a low voice, your eyes frantically running over the phone screen, looking for something that Sam would never be able to see from that distance.

Billy chose that moment to come back to torment his daughter, his evil smile almost shining in the moonlight. “It's so good that there are so many people who care about our girl, isn't it?”

“Shut up.” Sam grunted through her teeth. He could even be a figment of her mind, but Sam was never going to let Billy ever refer to you as his possession.

In response, he just laughed, his dead head falling back as he amused himself at the girl's growing annoyance. If Billy had a material body, Sam would already have provided a fresh wave of red on his stained shirt.

“FUCK!”

Sam turned her head towards the window like a bolt of lightning as soon as she heard your cry of outrage. Sammy had also done the same, removing the vape from her lips as she turned around with wide eyes. “What?! What?!”

“Look at this shit!” You squawked, waving your phone in the blonde's direction. From a distance, the most Sam could see was the layout of the app. It looked like twitter, but she couldn't be sure.

Not that that was going to be a problem. Carpenter quickly took her phone out of her pocket, opening it to the app that used to have a bird as its icon. Fortunately, the account she wanted to use was already open and she had no trouble finding what she was looking for.

Yes, Sam had also created one or two fake social media accounts when she was investigating you, just to be safe. She had gotten the data from a Gordon Wu, who was majoring in engineering at your university and had apparently never created an account for himself. Sam thought he wouldn't mind if she borrowed it.

It was easy to create a profile with no photos and start following other students at the university to keep up to date with everything that was going on, as well as other random accounts such as soccer memes and Pokémon just to keep her little disguise authentic. Fortunately, the app's algorithm seemed to understand that what Sam really wanted to know was what was going on at Blackmore.

So it wasn't long before she saw E.J Abrams' verified account on her timeline, with a tweet that had over 2k likes:

@themanEJ: That bitch in ARCS just got mad cause she wants this d again

Sam's eye twitched.

“I can't believe he posted that!” You complained even louder, a mixture of anger and dread in your voice. “I've never slept with him! Never! And I never want to!”

The comments were horrible. Men encouraging E.J., calling you crazy and giving reason to his lies, women saying they wouldn't miss the same opportunity or adding fuel to the gossip, asking for the name of the mysterious bitch.

“I'll see if I can delete it, okay?” Sammy patted your shoulder before going to her own side of the room, opening her computer while trying to somehow take down that tweet. Meanwhile, Sam's hands clenched into a fist in the pockets of her jacket.

“You know what to do, Sam.” That familiar voice whispered in her ear, like a snake tempting her to bite the apple. “Are you really going to let that fucker hurt our girl?”

“She's not your girl.”

“But she's yours, isn't she?” Billy retorted without wasting any time, his dark eyes sparkling at the mere idea of having fun in his favorite way. “Don't you remember how good it felt to finish off Bailey? How amazing you felt sticking that knife, my knife, in his eye after he played with your family?”

Sam remembered the excitement, the adrenaline coursing through her veins as she took revenge for everything he and his family had done, the smile that automatically opened on her face after he had stopped moving. She remembered how satisfying it had been to slit Richie's throat as if he were a fish, watching him beg for air as the blood dripped to the floor.

E.J... he hadn't killed anyone, but... he deserved it, didn't he? He shouldn't have messed with you. Someone had to teach him a lesson.

“You know you want this, Sam. Don't fight your instincts.”

She felt the weight of Billy's knife in her pocket, serving as a nudge, as if it were another way for the universe to tell her that she was right, that she should do it. 

For the first time in months, Sam looked behind her at the fire escape, now no longer focused on your window, but on the entrance to the house of a famous fraternity that wasn't that far from your dorm.

__

It was incredibly easy to get into the house. Really. The front door was open.

Sam didn't even have to make an effort to get to the boy's room, as her footsteps were completely drowned out by the loud trap music that was blasting from the speakers. She caught a glimpse of four guys playing ping-pong in the kitchen and another two playing video games in the living room.

None noticed her presence and she didn't make a point of being seen either, especially while she was dodging protein bar wrappers and plastic cups that were lying on the floor. She climbed the stairs two steps at a time, wanting to do what she needed to do right away to get out of that nightmare of a place.

She took her phone out of her pocket as soon as she reached the top floor, looking at one of the photos E.J. had posted on his Instagram that showed a bit of his bedroom from the back. The walls were dark blue with some of his medals hanging on them, along with photos of him receiving them. Sam hoped that the boys' rooms weren't all the same.

Fortunately, the first door she walked through was exactly where she needed to be. E.J.'s room wasn't much better than she had imagined. Pants and boxers (which she hoped were clean) were scattered all over the floor and the room smelled of an uncomfortable mixture of aftershave and an extremely woody perfume, to the point of making Sam's nose sting in response.

And there it was, the blue wall full of medals and photos of the boy, like a mural entirely dedicated to his narcissism. Sam was tempted to destroy some of those pictures, punch them right in the middle of that static smile of the boy-next-door that she knew very well was completely fake. There was nothing good about E.J. The world would be a better place without him.

Sam sat on the completely messed up bed, with one sheet turned over and two pillows completely crumpled. E.J. seemed to be the kind of guy who had someone to do the cleaning for him at home, of course he wouldn't be able to do something as simple as making his own bed. He probably thought it wasn't his job.

Speaking of the devil, it didn't take long for E.J. to walk into his own room and be surprised by the sight of the brunette in his bed. He was tall and strong, as an athlete should be, of course. Some people would say he almost looked like Captain America, if you completely ignored the part about having moral values.

Not that that would intimidate Sam. If anything, it would only make the result all the more satisfying.

“Heeey, babe.” Abrams cracked a mischievous smile, analyzing Sam as if she were a piece of meat. “I don't remember having anything scheduled today. Did the guys fix you up for me?”

She had to press her black gloved hands against her thighs to stop herself from immediately jumping on the boy's neck. Act, Sam. Billy's voice and her own were mixing in her head, trying to keep her in line. Sam cracked the best smile she could manage. 

“I just had to have a chance with the hottest guy in Blackmore.” She winked, trying to swallow the disgust she felt at those words. Sam got out of bed slowly, her movements being followed by E.J. like a hungry predator. “Better lock the door, huh? We don't want any interruptions.”

“You're right, beautiful.” The boy quickly agreed, turning the lock behind him at the same time as Sam reached him, pulling him closer by the collar of his shirt. “You've got attitude, kitten. I like that.”

“I bet.” Sam smiled again, knocking him onto the bed just as he made a move to try and grab her waist. She tugged at the hem of his shirt, trying her best to maintain a seductive voice. “Why don't you take it off for me, E.J.?”

“Right away.” He nodded, making a show of opening the only three buttons on his polo shirt before pulling the green fabric off over his head, as if Sam was interested in seeing that pile of muscles that would soon spasm until they stiffened.

Sam took a single step closer to the bed, watching the boy crawl through the messy covers until he rested his back on the headboard, spreading his legs as if to invite Sam in. She just tilted her head to the side, her arms crossed. “E.J… What does it stand for?”

“W-What?” The athlete muttered, his eyes widening for a brief moment before he tried to pull himself together in his fake suave persona. “You don't need to know that, kitten. Come here and I'll give you something else to think about.”

“Can I guess, then?” Sam continued, finally climbing onto the bed, her knees sinking into the soft mattress right next to Abrams' thick thighs, pinning him in place. He only nodded, biting his lip as he appreciated the sight above him. “I'd say it's... Edward Jacob Abrams. But you tell everyone you're Edward James, so you don't have to admit that your mother named you after the two hot guys from Twilight. You don't think that's a very manly name, do you?”

E.J.'s expression went from surprise, to panic, to pure hatred. His set jaw quickly clenched and he made a point of getting up to confront Sam. “Listen here, you bitch - OOF.”

Whatever he was going to complain about was interrupted by a swift punch right in his Adam's apple, causing the boy's hands to go up to his throat as he searched for air. His white face quickly turned red and a few tears escaped from his eyes as he struggled to breathe.

Sam smiled at the scene. “You're really like calling women by that word, huh? It's about time someone shut your filthy mouth.”

With a lot of effort and his eyes twitching, E.J. managed to spit out a few words. “Y-You're c-crazy!” He coughed, the veins in his throat widening with the effort, his skin almost turning a purplish hue.

“Maybe.” Carpenter murmured, calmly taking the knife out of her pocket, admiring how the metal of the blade glistened against the moon rays coming through the window. “But you need to learn a thing or two about swallowing your words.”

In one swift movement, Sam used the handle of the knife to strike E.J.'s fingers with a resounding crack, making him grunt in pain and pull his hands away from the front of his neck, which had been Samantha's target all along. He raised his hands, trying to reach the woman to strangle her, but Sam had been faster.

With a single blow, now with the blade, E.J.'s throat had been slit open, spurting wine-red blood from his neck down his bare torso like a waterfall. He opened his eyes wide, his vocal cords gurgling in an attempt to speak, or to call for help, but nothing came out.

He struggled with one last effort to escape, but Sam also had strength in her lower limbs and trapped E.J.'s thighs between her own, forcing him to stay in place while he lost more and more blood and oxygen.

In a way, it was as if Sam was stealing his soul. Her eyes glowed maniacally as the brightness of the boy's eyes dimmed, his muscles growing weaker and his limbs abandoned him, giving up any chance of salvation.

Sam leaned forward, not minding the way her gloves got stained with the blood that now covered the entire bed. She moved closer to E.J.'s ear and whispered, “Who's the bitch now?”

Taking advantage of the boy's almost deoxygenated state, Sam opened his mouth without resistance, aligning her knife with E.J.'s tongue. Through the reflex of the blade, she swore she’d seen Billy’s eyes staring back at hers.

The sharp object descended on the tip of the athlete’s tongue, cutting the muscle with fluidity and letting the small piece fall back into EJ’s trachea, making it even more difficult for the boy to breathe, who at that point was a few seconds from fainting. His mouth was filled with blood, escaping from his lips and mixing with the red that drenched his neck.

E.J was finally unresponsive, breathing non-existent as well as his pulse. The boy’s blue eyes were completely lifeless, staring at Sam in an empty expression. She thought she’d feel a little bad. He was young and had not done much more than stupid mistakes of a 20-something asshole.

But she didn’t feel bad. Because that stupid mistake had been made against you, so he deserved it.

"You didn’t have to do this thing in the end, you know?" Billy commented in a faux bored voice, walking through EJ’s room with his hands behind his back, admiring the walls. "You’re more of a dramatic killer than I am."

"Shut up." Sam muttered back, feeling the tiredness begin to take over. She looked at the digital clock by E.J’s bed, which marked 00:04. Maybe she could be in bed by 1 am, which would give her six hours of sleep before she needed to get up for work. It was more than Sam usually slept, but she had the feeling her sleep would be hard as a stone that night.

Sam stood up from bed carefully, murmuring swears as she saw that the blood had stained her gloves and pants. She had expected to throw the gloves off but, man, she liked these pants.

"Who would’ve guessed that the impulse you needed to become like me was to mess with your heart and not your head."

"I’m not like you." Sam denied, turning to the image of her father in the corner of the room, his damn smirk seemed bigger than ever. She did not try to deny the rest of the sentence, however, because she knew it was true.

Her heart was her greatest weakness. And you seemed to be taking up a lot of space in it.

Billy laughed, approaching his daughter with slow, calculated steps. "You can deny as much as you like, Samantha. You have my blood in your veins and other’s blood on your hands. You cannot escape your family line."

"But, of course, you only did what you did because you needed to defend the honor of the poor and helpless Y/n." he continued, mockery escaping from his non-living lips, feeding on the growing anger in Sam’s chest. "Her knight in shining armour. No, scratch that. There’s nothing shining about you, Sam. You’re her Dark Knight"

She looked into the eyes of her father, seeing her clenched jaw being reflected in the pupil surrounded by an onyx iris. As much as she hated the way he talked about you, Sam couldn’t say that she hated the idea of being your knight, however twisted it was.

"I’ll up the dose of my medication."

"Ha! It’s gonna take more than a few pills to get rid of me, Samantha." Billy shook his head, a humorous smile still on his face. He bypassed his daughter, analyzing the crime scene as an art expert analyzes a painting. "Now let’s clean that up, shall we? No Loomis leaves behind evidence."

__

"If anyone asks me about E.J today, I’ll kill myself."

"Woah! Okay, how about we avoid suicide here?" Mindy replied from your side, gently pushing her shoulder with yours as you walked around the campus. 

"Yeah, if someone has to die here, it’s got to be the people who come and try to fuck with you." Tara added, walking on your other side with the headphones hanging from her neck. "I’ll do it!"

"How about we don’t kill anyone?" Chad joined the conversation, a little further behind you while still struggling to put on his football jacket. Anika, next to Mindy, rolled his eyes with the boy’s words.

"Stop being boring, dude."

The familiarity of the conversation with your friends relieved some of your anxiety, but not completely. E.J’s tweet had gotten more than 3k likes throughout the night and most of them came from people from your college. As stupid as he was, people liked to be siding with a pretty face.

As you approached the communal area of students, more you felt a weight falling on your shoulders. It was almost as if your body was anticipating the looks, whispers and fingers pointed in your direction, as if you were a circus attraction - "The girl rejected by E.J Abrams"

But that never came, not even when you approached the tables occupied by several students. They all seemed more concerned to look at their own phones, apparently immersed in some gossip by the increasing volume of whispers in unison.

"What happened?" You turned to your friends with furrowed eyebrows, watching Mindy mumble a brief I don’t know while pulling the phone out of her pocket. Around you, people seemed scared, as if something terrible had happened. 

You unconsciously thought it might be something else related to the ghostface attacks and the hell your friends had experienced in the past. You had heard the stories, had sympathized with the trauma experienced by them, although you secretly wished that the same fate would never fall on you.

Maybe that was the universe signaling you had no escape.

"Oh My God!" Mindy exclaimed as she opened her phone. Anika, beside her, took a hand to her mouth in complete horror and shock. You, Chad and Tara rushed to surround her, trying to read the news that had left the entire student body in a state of dread.

Athlete and fraternity member is found dead this morning. Suspicion of foul play falls on his roommates.

Gasps were slipping out of your throat as you kept reading the news. E.J Abrams was dead. His throat and tongue had been cut and the boy had bled to death in his own bed. The police had found some traces of hair from the other residents of the fraternity on his nails and they were the main suspects, with the current theory that it had been a prank that ended very badly.

You had a ringing in your ear. You’d woken up this morning wishing EJ would die, but now that he was really dead you felt... What? Relief? Revenge? Disgust? Fear?

A silence fell on your friends, but you could understand the thought that was being shared even without words. None of you felt bad for EJ, but the idea of your cursing suddenly being materialized seemed eerily real.

"Well, I hope they don’t cancel classes." Tara shrugged, being the first to give up pretending to care about the situation. "I didn’t walk all this way for nothing."

She pulled you by the arm, taking you out of your inner thoughts for a moment as you went towards the ARCS room, both knowing that one of the chairs would be empty but with the sketch of a body that was once there.

E.J was dead, but instead of relief, you felt in your guts that something was wrong.

[itsreallynotriri]

Thunder

After James and Lily’s passing, they entrust their son, Harry, to the care of James’ sister, Y/N, and her husband, Regulus Black, who raise him as their own.

[regulus black x fem potter! reader]

warnings: fluff

One stormy night, the wind howled through the trees, rattling the windowpanes as rain splattered against the glass in uneven bursts. The heavy clouds outside swallowed the moonlight, casting the house into near darkness. Inside his small bedroom, four-year-old Harry Potter tossed and turned, his tiny fingers gripping the soft fabric of his blanket.

Then, a particularly loud crack of thunder split the night, shaking the walls with its ferocity. Harry gasped, his heart hammering in his chest. The sound was too much—too loud, too sudden, too scary. His small body tensed, and tears pricked at the corners of his emerald-green eyes. He sat up quickly, the dim glow of the enchanted nightlight barely doing anything to push back the shadows that seemed to loom larger with every flash of lightning.

Without a second thought, he flung aside his blanket and clutched his beloved stuffed stag, a gift from his Uncle Siri, one he never went to bed without. Holding the plush toy tightly against his chest, he scrambled out of bed, his little feet hitting the cool wooden floor. The hallway stretched ahead of him, dark and unfamiliar in the storm’s flickering light, but he didn’t hesitate. He knew the way by heart.

Each step was cautious yet determined as he padded down the corridor, his breath coming in quiet, hurried puffs. The house groaned under the storm’s weight, and another rumble of thunder sent him into a near run. By the time he reached the large wooden door of his baba and mama’s room, his tiny hands were shaking. With effort, he pushed the door open just enough to slip inside, the comforting scent of home immediately wrapping around him like a warm embrace.

Blinking in the darkness, his bright green eyes searched for them, his safe place. The familiar figures of Y/N and Regulus lay curled together beneath the blankets, the rhythmic sound of their breathing a soft lull against the storm’s fury outside. He didn’t hesitate. With a soft sniffle, he scrambled up onto the bed, crawling between them and pressing himself into the warmth of their bodies.

“Mama… Baba…” he whispered sleepily, his voice small and frightened. “The sky is loud.”

Regulus stirred first, groggy but instinctively protective, his arm curling around Harry and pulling him close. “Mmm…” he hummed in acknowledgment, his voice thick with sleep. “It’s alright, Harry”

Y/N shifted as well, barely opening her eyes before instinctively reaching out, her fingers brushing through Harry’s wild, untamed hair. The feel of his small frame trembling slightly made her frown, and she gently pressed a kiss to his forehead. “You’re safe, love,” she murmured, her voice warm and reassuring despite her drowsiness. “The thunder can’t hurt you.”

Regulus, still half-asleep, let out a low hum of agreement, his hand rubbing slow, soothing circles on Harry’s back. “Just the clouds talking to each other,” he murmured.

Harry buried his face against Y/N’s side, his small fingers clutching at the fabric of her nightshirt. “Don’t want the sky to talk anymore…” he mumbled, his words slightly muffled by sleep.

Y/N chuckled softly, exchanging a knowing glance with Regulus over their son’s head. Thunderstorms had never bothered her much, nor did they seem to faze Regulus, but she knew to Harry, that each roar of thunder felt like a monster lurking in the dark.

“Well then,” she whispered, brushing her fingers through his hair in slow, comforting strokes. “We’ll just have to drown it out, won’t we?”

Harry peeked up at her with tired, curious eyes. “How?” he asked softly, still gripping his stuffed stag.

“With a bedtime story, of course,” she said, her voice gentle and sure.

Regulus gave a sleepy chuckle, shifting slightly but not letting go of Harry. “Hmm… make it a good one,” he murmured, already half-asleep again.

Y/N smiled as she began weaving a tale, her voice soft and rhythmic, each word forming a safe, warm cocoon around them. Harry’s little body relaxed further, his breathing evening out as his eyelids drooped heavily. The storm raged on outside, but he felt safe here, nestled between the two people who loved him most.

Within minutes, his quiet, steady breaths told them he was asleep, his tiny fingers still curled around Y/N’s nightshirt, his stuffed stag tucked under his chin.

Regulus let out a contented sigh, tightening his hold on both of them before whispering, “He’s ours, isn’t he?”

Y/N smiled, pressing a soft kiss to Harry’s head. “Always,” she whispered back.

As the storm continued outside, their little family slept peacefully, wrapped in warmth, love, and the quiet promise of safety.

-> next chapter