#spring is a dangerous time y'all

[dawntheduckrb]

I used to treat this blog like a diary, and when I went offline recently I realized how much I normally bottle up. Really not feeling well so vent post below :') feel free to skip

I really tried to not let my dog passing affect me as much as it has; but 3 weeks later, I'm finally admitting that I completely shut down when it happened. My ability to focus on anything other than good ol' instant-gratification media has literally gone to the gutter, and I've only recently worked up the ability to talk to close friends. I only took a day off of work and classes when it happened, and I realize in retrospect that it wasn't nearly enough.

At this point, I'm so far behind in my classwork that I have no idea what to do with myself; I'm skirting by all of my classes doing that absolute bare minimum I have to, and it feels awful.

And at the same time, I've wanted nothing more than to communicate with people, and I really have tried, but I keep talking myself out of it because of all the things I haven't done yet. I can't justify giving myself the time to message a friend - even though my brain has no problem letting me waste literal hours doomscrolling and watching the same videos over and over - because "what about that one thing you could also be spending your time on?"

I really wish I knew what to do about it but I have no clue. I haven't gotten a single full night of uninterrupted sleep for the past three weeks. I keep falling asleep on top of assignments I stared at for so long that I started to doze, because flitting in and out of sleep is easier than just doing the work that has never given me trouble in my entire four years of classes. And I've berated myself for not working or communicating, and I've tried giving myself more breaks and intermittent rewards for getting even the tiniest things done, and I've tried brute forcing my way through it all, and on the whole, it's just not working.

Normally I end these posts with a proposed path for myself to get better, or a question that I need answered so I can finally move on with life, but right now I just need these thoughts out of my head. I just think I needed to finally admit to someone that I'm not okay, and that this time, I really just don't know what to do.

[ponderingmoonlight]

Sharing a bed with kny men

Pairings: Yoriichi x fem!reader; Sanemi x fem!reader

Word Count: 5,7k (lmao)

Warnings: injury in Yoriichi's part, smut in Sanemi's part so read if you're 18+, this is a long ass fic y'all, not proofread

This is actually my first time posting Sanemi smut and I'm super scared. Let me know what you think 🥹🤍

Also, do you want me to do other characters too?🫶

Yoriichi

I heard you @laurencrsnt 🫶

All your life, you never even thought about the possibility that maybe, you’ll encounter a demon someday. Why you, out of all people? Why especially you?

Even now with its cold eyes glaring down at you and your shoulder ripped open by its claws, you fail to find an answer for that. Is it your fate to die right here, when you only went out at night in order to buy medicine for your little sister who has fever? Is dying the cruelest death really your destiny when you wish for nothing more than growing old and watching your own children live their lives?

It’s unfair.

You shouldn’t lay here, crumpled onto the still wet street. You shouldn’t feel the sensation of your eyes watering, your hands trembling, your heart racing.

This shouldn’t be your last day walking on this earth. You didn’t even have the chance to find the man of your dreams yet…

It’s ridiculous and you know it, that spark of determination that rushes through your bones. All of the sudden you spring back onto your feet and start running. Out of the city, away from the lit streets straight into the dark woods.

Even if you have to die here, you won’t give up this easily. You won’t allow this demon to end your life without putting up a fight.

“Why do you girls always think you can run away, huh? It’s too easy to sweep you off your feet”, the demon behind you comments dryly.

With a swift motion of his hand, it digs open your tender flesh all over again, sends your violent scream echoing through the lonely forest. You fall to the ground like a bag of rice, your torn leg now refusing its service completely.

“Let me go!”, you shriek in horror.

No, you don’t want to die here, you just want to go back to bed and forget about this.

But the forest ground isn’t your bed and the demon in front of you who’s ready to slice through your throat isn’t only a nightmare.

Your heart sinks to the floor, body suddenly feeling numb and lifeless. You will die here.

“I’ll keep you in good memory. Well, at least for tonight”, the demon jeers at you.

You close your eyes, desperately try to imagine your little sister. She’ll find herself a loving husband and her very own family without any doubt. Even without you around, her life will turn out alright. Even without you around, life goes on. You don’t have to feel sad or guilty, you just have to let go…

“Get away from that woman.”

A low male voice, so charismatic that you think you might dream. He sure must be handsome. Men with voices like that always have a matching face.

A slicing blade, a dull thud. But no claws that dig into your flesh one last time, no bow of relief that you’ve been awaiting for quite some time by now. Your eyelids start shivering. When is this finally over?

“Are you alright? Please allow me to help you up.”

The second something touches your skin, your eyes snap open in an instant. But they aren’t greeted by those venomous red orbs from earlier. No, these ones are soft but strong and have that calming fuchsia color. This isn’t a demon.

This is a man.

“Don’t be afraid. The demon is gone”, he continues speaking with his low voice.

You have no control over your own body and shivering limbs. It’s impossible for you to say a single word. Are you really out of danger? Is it really over?

When he pulls you off the ground, a violent scream escapes your lips. No, you don’t want to die, you don’t want your life to end tonight. Not like this, not without saying goodbye.

“Please calm down, everything is alright now”, the stranger tries to reassure you, but his words don’t even reach your ringing ears.

You gasp for air like a fish on land, forehead now covered in ice cold sweat. This can’t be your end.

If Yoriichi doesn’t act now, you might faint due to your stress. But what is he supposed to do? You don’t seem to listen to his words and touching you might only make it worse. Maybe you need, assurance?

“I won’t hurt you, see? My hands have no intention of doing you any harm.”

Gently, he glides his fingertips up and down your uninjured harm. Despite the look of horror on your face and your gaping wounds, you do have a lovely face and truly remarkable eyes.

“I came here to help you”, he continues until his fingertips finally brush over your tear-soaked face.

What is this feeling of warmth deep inside his chest? You aren’t the first woman he saved from the claws of a demon.

“I would like to accompany you on your way back home-“

“No”, you suddenly blurt out.

Even though lying in bed on your own was all you were able to think about just a few moments ago, the thought feels like a threat now. What if another demon follows you back home? What if your little sister gets attacked because of your foolishness? No, you simply can’t go back now. But on the other hand…Just the thought of sleeping alone here in the woods runs shivers down your spine.

“I…I’ll find a place to stay. Otherwise…they might harm my sister…”, you mutter.

“Allow me to escort you to my estate, then.”

You yank your head to the side in sheer disbelief, eyes searching for a spark of humor in his calming orbs. Is he really serious about that? After all, you’re a stranger. He doesn’t even know your name. Now that you think of it…who is this?

“How can I know for sure that you aren’t a demon yourself?”

“Take my hand”, he instructs you gently.

Is this really a good idea? You take a deep breath in, try to calm down your pounding heart. What do you have to lose?

When your shaky fingers wrap themselves around his much larger hand, you get ingulfed by warmth. His palms feel rough but also comforting against your bruised skin.

“Demons are cold since they are dead”, he explains briefly.

“But I am not. I am a demon slayer. It is my only destiny to safe innocent souls from their death.”

Oh. Your gaze drifts towards a katana that hangs dangles from his belt. No, demon don’t find with those weapons. So, are those words really true?

“You…You want to help me?”

“I’d love to help you if you allow me to.”

What has gotten into him? Did he really offer you to hold his hand, let alone to sleep at his house so you don’t have to fear the night on your own? Never in his life, Yoriichi allowed himself to develop feelings apart from empathy for those around him.

But those eyes. Those eyes of yours really captivate him, devour him fully. How is he supposed to leave you out here, soaked in your own blood with bruises all over your body?

“You…really would?”

Is this really okay? When you were a child, your mother told you over and over that you aren’t allowed to talk to strangers, let alone man.

But…does that also include the handsome, charismatic and armored ones?

“I keep my word. Also, your wounds need care as well. Please, allow me to help you.”

What do you have to lose.

“If that’s the case, I’d love to take your offer”, you reply shyly.

“I’m glad to hear that. I will show you the way-“

A loud groan escapes your lips before you’re able to stop it. His charismatic eyes almost made you forget about the gaping wound the monster from before inflicted on you.

Almost.

“You shouldn’t move your leg with a wound like that. I will carry you to my estate.”

“You will…carry me?”, you mutter with widened eyes.

But just when you try to take a step forward, his words become painfully clear. No, there really is no way you’ll be able to walk anywhere with that leg. But allowing him to carry you?

“I might be a little heavy.”

“Let me assure you, you aren’t heavy at all.”

“Fine…”, you grumble.

“But only a few meters.”

Gently, he stranger wraps his arms around your shoulder and knees before he starts walking.

He smells good. Like a field of flowers on a sunny day. And the way his heart beats against your cheek reminds you that you’re still alive, that you survived somehow.

This man saved you.

“I didn’t even thank you.”

“There’s no need to thank me. This is the least I can do for you after I almost came too late.”

He stares blankly at the blood that still drips from your leg. Just a few seconds later and that demon would have killed you with him simply watching. Why? Why is he not able to save them all, why is he still not good enough to stop this madness?

“Don’t tense up, don’t think anything less of yourself because I was injured. I was a fool for leaving the house this late at night on my own.”

Despite the fact that cold sweat still runs down your forehead and even though your fingertips still shake in shock, you cup his cheek and force his troubled eyes to look at you.

“I am beyond thankful for my rescue. The worst thing about dying today would have been leaving my little sister behind. But you saved me. And not only that, you even offered me a safe place to stay for the night. I really don’t know if…If I’d be able to sleep on my own tonight…”

The stranger doesn’t say a word, his eyes roaming around your face without a real aim.

“Oh, I didn’t even ask. What’s your name?”

“My name is not important-“

“I’m (y/n)”, you introduce yourself friendly.

“My…my name is Yoriichi”, the man carrying you mumbles.

Yoriichi. An unusual name that you’ve never heard before.

“That name suits you well.”

“We’ll arrive soon. I hope you don’t expect a big mansion since I am living in a rather small cottage-“

“I’m living in a tiny barrack in the city. A house in the woods sounds like a dream”, you mutter.

The second you open your eyes again, you find yourself in a wooden cabin with a plain futon lying on the floor and an improvised kitchen in the back of the house. Nothing special, very fitting for the man who gently lowers you onto the futon.

“I will take care of your wounds now”, he announces before taking off his haori and katana.

Without his threatful weapon dangling from his belt, he looks like a normal man.

If it wasn’t for those captivating eyes. He has to be the most breathtaking man you’ve ever seen.

“Fortunately, the cut on your leg isn’t deep. I’ll disinfect the wound and bandage it”, he explains briefly before his skilled hands spring into action.

“You really are good at everything”, you comment.

He’s so gentle that even the alcohol that disinfects your wound doesn’t seem to burn. Why have you never stumbled across him? You were so sure that you know each and every man around that it almost drove you insane. But him? He’s different from all the others. He’s truly special.

“You will have to take your kimono off. I need access to the wound on your shoulder.”

Oh.

“Y-yeah, sure…”

Hesitantly, you pull the blood-soaked fabric down your shoulder so that only your chest is still covered. Yoriichi’s eyes seem to gleam in the moonlight like liquid metal.

“You look lovely”, he flusters into the night.

He doesn’t know what has gotten into him. Is it the alcohol rising up his nose, the smell of blood that radiates from your bruised body that makes him say those strange things?

No. It has to be because of those eyes of yours. Those eyes that captivated him from the moment he first saw them.

"Thank you," you stammer, your cheeks flushing as you nervously tuck a strand of hair behind your ear.

"You too," you add quickly, immediately regretting your awkward response.

Both you and Yoriichi swallow hard, the atmosphere in the room suddenly changing.

“I am finished. You should rest for tonight. After all, this was a draining fight for you”, he mutters while getting up.

You let out the breath you didn’t know you were holding, heart still hammering so roughly against your ribcage that you’re almost sure he’s able to hear it. What was this tension?

“But…this is your futon-“

“You are my guest. Of course, I will sleep on the floor on the other side of the room.”

Oh. A wave of disappointment rushes over you before you’re able to stop it. What were you expecting, secretly hoping? That this man will share a bed with you?

Honestly, yes.

“You…you really don’t have to…”

Oh, how much Yoriichi wished he wouldn’t have to.

“I insist on taking the floor.”

“I actually want you to sleep by my side. Please.”

The begging tone in your voice stops him mid-track.

“This night was…horrible. A little company would definitely help, if you don’t mind.”

“I don’t mind at all”, he replies a little too hasty.

“I just don’t want to invade your personal space. After all, I’m a stranger.”

“A really kind stranger”, you add shyly.

Are you acting out of line? You shouldn’t push him to sleep next to you when his offer to let you sleep here is already generous enough, right?

“Forget my question, I was acting out of line-“

“No, not at all. I would love sleeping besides you.”

He crosses the room in an instant and kneels down next to you.

“But let me know whenever I become too much.”

What a ridiculous thought. Why would he ever become too much? Him, your savior, that remarkable man.

You scoot over until your back is pressed against the cool wall, eyes still fixated on his gleaming eyes. Will you really be able to sleep tonight when this is the first time ever a man lies beside you?

And what a handsome one on top.

“You should try to sleep now. Nothing will happen to you as long as I am here”, he reassures you.

That is the least he can do after failing to protect you in the first place.

“Again, thank you for all of this. I definitely own you a favor”, you mumble.

Suddenly your lids start to get heavy, your mind slows down bit by bit. Maybe this rough night really took its toll on you. Is It the safety he radiates, his calming smell? In the matter of seconds, only your low and even breath is heard.

Finally, Yoriichi is able to allow himself a closer look at you. You look so peaceful and innocent with a face so remarkably beautiful that he can’t stop staring. You have to be the prettiest woman he’s ever seen. A man like him really doesn’t deserve lying next to a woman like you. Maybe he should give you space, leave you now that you fell asleep-

With a quiet groan, you draw closer to him in your sleep until your head rests on top of his chest and with your arms wrapped around his upper body.

He doesn’t dare to move an inch, eyes widen in utter surprise. Is this…cuddling? His mind races back and forth, eyes resting on your calm features. What is he supposed to do now?

Hesitantly, he allows his hand to rest on your back. What an unknown sensation, all those feelings that rise up his chest right where your hand rests.

For the first time since forever, he is the one who feels safe.   

He is the one who feels loved.

He is the one who feels warm.

And you? You cuddle yourself against him until the sun rises all over again.

Sanemi Shinazugawa

This one's for you @muichirolover14 🤍

“This is bullshit”, the man walking next to you mumbles under his breath.

“Keep focused. It was Kagaya-sama’s personal wish that the two of us go on this mission together”, you mumble with a fake smile decorating your bright red lips.

And that’s the only reason why you agreed in the first place. Why else would you pretend to be Sanemi Shinazugawa’s personal concubine if it wasn’t for Kagaya-sama and this undercover mission?

The plan is pretty simple. Countless people, including other demon slayers, lost their lives in this little innocent village that becomes a red-light district at night. Nobody knows why or who is responsible for this.

One of the upper moons, maybe.

It just made sense to dress you up as a concubine. After all, you are the light hashira, a mighty swordswoman and probably the most talented out of Mitsuri and Shinobu when it comes to acting.

And then there’s him. You glance at Sanemi’s annoyed face from the side. Why on earth did Kagaya-sama choose him? What about Rengoku, Giyu, Obanai, Tengen, Gyomei? Aren’t they a way better fit?

You sign to yourself.

Truth is, they aren’t. While Rengoku, Obanai, Tengen and Gyomei would stand out immediately, Giyu would never be able to sell you as his concubine. No, no one except the wind hashira is able to make this look natural.

No one but him looks this good in a dark green kimono.

What?

“Stop staring at me like that, brat”, he hisses through gritted teeth.

“I was just hoping you might disappear if I stare long enough, idiot”, you bite back in frustration.

Why does he always have to be so mean, though? You really tried to get along with him countless times, put on the most precious smile whenever you talked to him and made sure to always bring him ohagi whenever you had the chance to. But Sanemi Shinazugawa never stopped hating you. And eventually, a part of you started to dislike him as well. That one part though…

You allow your eyes a minor glimpse at his barely exposed chest. That tiny part deep within your head is somehow still drawn to him. And you hate it.

“Aren’t concubines supposed to shut up?”

“Watch your mouth or I’ll leave immediately.”

“Both of us know you wouldn’t do that.”

You let out your shaky breath, your hand crushing his while you wear the same friendly smile as before.

“Don’t mess with me, Shinazugawa”, you speak out with low voice.

His face tenses up ever so slightly, hand fighting for freedom out of your merciless grasp.

“You’ll regret talking to me like that when we’re alone, brat.”

-at the estate-

“I’d like to show you to my newest possession. Please introduce yourself”, Sanemi speaks out.

Like Amane-sama showed you, you bow in front of the man that looks you up and down with his filthy eyes.

“My name is Kiyomi”, you introduce yourself oh so sweetly.

“That name really suits you. What a beauty you are. I’m sure I’d find a lot of paying customers for you here”, the disgusting man purrs and stretches out his hand in order to touch your face.

“Don’t touch the goods”, Sanemi barks at him immediately before slapping his dirty hand away.

Who does this guy think he is, trying to touch you so casually? No. That jerk isn’t allowed to caress your face. The plain thought of men like him getting to put their hands on you…

Sanemi’s guts turn.

“Aren’t you here to sell her and yourself for the night? If that’s the case, she won’t be your good anymore for the next few hours but mine.”

He smiles at you through rotten teeth, his breath almost forcing you to choke. You are only here to detect the demon who is responsible for the countless deaths in this area. You don’t have to touch any of these men. None of them will touch you.

What about Sanemi, though? An uneasy feeling rises up your chest when your eye catches a group of women who stare him up and down with lust in their eyes. Will he allow himself a taste before continuing with this mission? Will he find a woman he is attracted to? All of them look flawless, too good to even consider the service of a paid men. But if that man looks like Sanemi…

“You will find your room to the right. This is where the female customers choose their good. After paying, you belong to them”, the man explains briefly while showing both of you around.

“Why would these women pay for the services of a man? This is a noble region that is well-inhabited by countless men”, you blurt out.

“It’s not about them being men. It’s about looks. Only the fine-looking men even get the chance to work here for the night”, he explains briefly.

Fine-looking man, huh? Well, there is no doubt in the fact that Sanemi suits that description way too good. With his firm muscles highlighted by scars from countless battles, he looks like a walking god. Let alone his perfect face, his eyes that now look soft and seducing without being irritated constantly. His white hair that frames his features perfectly.

“As for the women, we look for a broad variety of bodies, looks and personalities. You are very easy on the eye and mysterious. I’m sure countless customers will fall for that.”

“And what…what services do they expect?”

The man in front of you bursts out in hysteric laughter, you can feel Sanemi’s eyes piercing through your skull.

“What they expect? Intercourse and everything that revolves around it, of course! Do you think they pay you for some cuddles and nice words?”

You swallow hard. There is no need to do that, right? You’ll somehow shrug them off and investigate this place at night. Maybe you’ll find the demon right away and-

“Now, you are a fine-looking man. Who is this?”, a woman suddenly purrs out of the shadows.

“A new worker for the night”, the disgusting man explains with a dirty smile.

“Well, if that’s the case, I’ll definitely make a reservation.”

“It would be an honor, my lady”, suddenly replies in the same cheeky tone

Your guts turn in an instant, eyes narrowing slightly as you watch how a smile forms itself on Sanemi’s usual resting lips.

“What a gentleman he is. I cannot wait to meet you.”

“The honor is on my side, my lady.”

And then he steps in front of her. Elegantly, he grabs the hand she already holds out and kisses her knuckles. Your heartrate quickens, the warm flush that starts creeping up your face barely covered by your makeup.

Fucking asshole. So he’s acting like a jerk towards you all this time while treating other women like this? You hate the knot that forms itself in your throat, the disgusting feeling of disappointment that rushes over you.

Does he really hate you this much?

“Well, I think I should introduce myself to the customers as well. Have a pleasant night, Sir”, your monotone voice speaks out on its own.

With one last bow towards him, you follow the man into the women’s corridor without even gifting him a single look. Sanemi can’t help but furrow his eyebrows at your sudden reaction. Did you really want to get rid of him so badly? Maybe you’ll actually meet up with some of those guys and…

“Are you interested-“

“I will meet up with you later this evening, my lady. Please excuse me.”

Without another look or word, he storms into his assigned room and closes the door behind him.

Sanemi’s mind starts going insane. What if you actually like one of those guys? Or what if one of them hurts you, tries to force you into something you don’t want? He heard the worst stuff about places like this.

Fuck, he shouldn’t have let you go in the first place. Why you? This mission is way too dangerous for someone like you, for someone this gorgeous-

“I’m losing my fucking mind”, he mutters through gritted teeth.

“I can’t do this”, you breathe out in sheer panic while lying in bed.

No, just the thought of Sanemi having the fun of his life with that girl from earlier feels like ripping your beating heart out of your chest. Will he really share a bed with them?

If it’s for the mission, he definitely would. Nothing is greater than his urge to kill demons, especially when it comes to an upper ranked one. That little sacrifice wouldn’t stop him.

And it breaks your dumb heart.

A hard knock on the door rips you out of your running thoughts. Is this your first customer? All color drains from your face, eyes widen in horror with every bow against the wooden door.

“Just a moment”, your shaky voice shouts.

You…Do you have to look presentable? You have to think about the things you can tell him. Maybe you don’t even have to sleep with him, maybe this will distract you from the things Sanemi is probably doing right now.

You open the door.

And stare straight into the furious eyes of Sanemi Shinazugawa.

Before you’re even able to react, he pushes himself into your room and closes the door behind him before yanking you against the wall.

“What did you do?”, he hisses through gritted teeth.

Your heart starts hammering roughly against your ribcage. Him? Here?

“What the hell are you doing he-“

“Answer my question right now!”, he barks into your face.

“I didn’t do anything!”, you shriek.

“What the hell has gotten into you!?”

“Has somebody touched you?”

His rough hands start running up and down your neck, yank the sleeves of your kimono upwards in a haste.

“What?”, you breathe out.

What the hell is going on? Just when you managed to pull your arm away from him, he grabs your wrist again with his face only inches away from yours.

“Did somebody touch you?”, he screams into your face.

“No!”, you cry back.

“But why would you even care? It looked like you had plenty of fun!”

He shakes his head while looking at you in utter surprise and confusion.

“What non-sense are you talking now-“

“Did you sleep with that woman from earlier when I was gone?”

God, you hate the way your voice cracks in the middle of the sentence, you hate the way your eyes fill with hot tears. He came here to confront you with all those accusations while he was out there having the time of his life, while all you were able to think about is him?

“No, I didn’t sleep with anyone!”

“Stop lying to me!”

“You’re the only one I want!”, he suddenly blurts out breathlessly.

“What?”, you utter in hushed panic.

This has to be a cruel joke, an unforgiving way to stop you from doing anything. Sanemi Shinazugawa, wanting you?

“Since I first saw you with your fucking perfect face and so melodic voice, I can’t think about anything else! You, sleeping with some random guy while I’m just a few doors away. I can’t take it!”

He grabs your head with both hands, eyes staring at you so intensely that you feel like collapsing any minute. If that’s really true, if that’s really how he feels…

“But…I want you too”, you squirm.

“I always wanted you, Sanemi.”

His lips crash against yours with so much power that you almost fall over. Suddenly his hands are all over your body, tongue unforgiving as he discovers your mouth with a passion you’ve never felt before. You allow your very own hands to finally discover the deep valleys of his muscular back, to let your hasty fingertips wander over his tight chest.

It becomes unbearable. Everything starts to become unbearable. That minor gap between your bodies, the clothes that still deny you full access to his naked skin, the feeling of not having enough.

“I need more”, you whimper against his lips, not even knowing what exactly you’re asking about.

Sanemi lifts you up with ease, not even breaking the kiss when he pushes you onto the bed with his massive body lingering on top of you.

You feel like suffocating in the most exquisite way.

“I’ll give you whatever you want”, he breathes against your lips that now find your neck.

A whimper escapes your mouth before you can stop his, body rearing up underneath him.

“S-Sanemi!”

“Fuck”, he hisses before his dark eyes meet you again in distress.

“Tell me you want this.”

“I…what?”

You can’t produce a single logical sound, head still spinning from the unknown sensation that starts building up inside your stomach. Is this what desire feels like?

“Tell me you want this too. Tell me you want me.”

“I wanted you all this time”, you reply without thinking twice.

With a swift motion, you find yourself engulfed by his arms with his lips caressing yours all over again. Like in trance, you begin opening his kimono, expose his bare skin to your merciless eyes.

“You look so shamelessly good”, you whimper.

Oh, how often you pondered about how his chest feels like, if his scars are soft or as rough as his walls.

“Can I…?”

His hands grab the ends of your kimono, eyes staring down at you flustered. Is that blush creeping up his cheeks?

“It’s just…You know…I’ve never done this before…”, you stammer.

“Do I look like I did, idiot?”, he mutters while gently taking off your kimono until you lay underneath him.

Completely naked.

“I mean, yes…”

“No, I didn’t”, he barks.

“I guess I waited for someone special…”

“I did as well”, you reply in an instant.

Is this real or are you dreaming? Sanemi Shinazugawa laying on top of you fully nude. Sanemi Shinazugawa stating that he likes you. Sanemi Shinazugawa’s hand that start moving downwards…

Until he reaches between your legs and simply takes your breath away.

“Are you okay?”, he mutters, eyes filled with worry.

You nod absently, eyes rolling back into your skull. God, this feels like heaven. When a groan escapes his lips, you completely lose yourself. Out of instinct, you grab his neck and yank him even closer towards you, your hot breath clashing against his face.

“Sanemi!”

His name sounds like a prayer coming from your mouth, forces his fingers to move even faster. Is this good? Is he doing everything alright? Your whimpers grow louder and louder, nails digging into his now oversensitive skin with so much pressure that it threatens to burst. You look so gorgeous with your eyes pressed shut, your delicate mouth forming an “o”.

And then you burst right underneath him, scream his name over and over again with your legs shaking. He can’t wait no longer, can’t contain himself another second.

“I need you”, he mutters.

“Please, let me have you.”

“Yes”, you breathe out, mind still spinning when the firework that just exploded in your lower body slowly starts wearing off.

Until you feel him all over again. But this time, not his fingers. Your glossy eyes widen in utter surprise when he carefully stretches you out and disappears inside of you, hands holding onto him for dear life.

“Are you okay?”, he whimpers.

“Please…give me…more…”

He almost loses his mind, the new sensation almost eating him up alive. Countless nights, he dreamed about what it might be like to have you, what it would feel like. But the reality is so much better than any dream.

Sanemi picks up his pace and grabs your waist passionately in order to keep you in place. Over and over, again and again your sticky skin collides with his until he threatens to burst.

“You’re mine”, he presses out through gritted teeth while pounding into you.

“I’m all yours, Sanemi!”, you cry out, nails now leaving marks on his skin.

“I need…ah! I need you! Please!”

He knows exactly what you’re asking for. One last time, he picks up the pace while holding onto you for dear life.

Until finally, you scream his name. Finally, he’s able to let it all go.

“(y/n)!”

He collapses on top of you, his weight leaving you dizzy and unable to move. None of you dares to make a move, the only thing that’s filling the room being your shaky and sharp breaths.

“I love you, (y/n)”, Sanemi finally mutters, his hand caressing your cheek oh so gently.

“I love you too-“

“Mission report, mission report! Kagaya-sama requires a mission re- AH!”

“Get out of here right now!”, Sanemi barks at the crow that casually entered the room.

“WHAT IS GOING ON HERE!?”

“Get out!”, Sanemi screams on top of his lungs before yanking up and hunting the crow butt-naked through the room

Tags: @chilichopsticks @hellkaiserinphoenix  @ynackerman9499 @keepghostly @beatrexworld

@froufrousnowman @hidazinie @tomiokathedepresso  @poketrainer2270 @chaoticwinnercupcake

@lees-chaotic-brain @wordskeeper @polarbvnny @sugu-love @ryva @baku2345

@komelrebi-san @kentocalls @barbuse @sunshine7queen @lavenderdrxp

@yaninnaacu @hopefulbelievertimemachine @laurencrsnt

[sarahroutldge]

inked.

a/n: hey y'all! this is my first fic on this account. just a fun little jj one shot - lmk what you think!! (gif not mine - credits to the creator)

pairing: jj maybank x reader

summary: you and jj have been dating secretly for half a year, and a small question about a mysterious new tattoo leads to his friends finding out about the two of you.

word count: 2.8k

warnings: fluff/humor, marijuana use, implied sexual content, I think that's it

JJ’s not the greatest at dates, and he’s aware of that. But when it comes to you, he’s decided to step up his game, and that’s why he took the initiative to take you to Charleston for your birthday. While he currently can’t afford to spring for an elaborate dinner at a pricey restaurant, he’s trying to make tonight something special. Usually, you’re the one who has to pick up the slack when it comes to romance—though you’re not great at it either—but he figured that since it’s your birthday, all the planning should be his responsibility.

And so far it’s been great.

Walking hand-in-hand down the cobblestone streets of Charleston, you can feel how much freer JJ is when he can take you out somewhere people won’t recognize you. It’s been hard keeping such a big part of his life a secret from his friends for so long, but he doesn’t want to push it too far. You’re what he calls ‘kook-like,’ since you’re from Figure Eight but you went to the local public school instead. And while you never really interacted back in high school, JJ doesn’t want to have to explain to his friends everything about your relationship. It’s private, and though he knows he’ll confide in the Pogues at some point, he’s just not there yet. And thankfully, it doesn’t seem to bother you.

It’s been silent for a while, but not uncomfortable. You just enjoyed a delicious meal that JJ had to fight with you to pay the bill over, and you feel calm. Peaceful. Outside of the Outer Banks, there are no kooks and no pogues, just the two of you. 

Choosing to break the silence, you voice your inner thoughts. “It’s nice to not have to worry about running into people we know, you know?”

JJ nods. “Yeah, it’s nice to know that I can kiss you without being afraid of being punched by Topper,” he teases.

You chuckle at his comment before pulling him to a stop. “You said you’d never bring it up!”

“Hey, he’s your ex-boyfriend,” JJ retorts, pointing at your chest.

“Hardly. We dated for two weeks when I was fourteen. And it’s still my greatest shame.”

“I thought I was your greatest shame.”

You roll your eyes, knowing he’s joking. “Never.” As he leans in to kiss you, you can swear that you’ve never felt lighter. You’re a bit tipsy from the drinks at dinner and JJ has a sparkle in his eyes that’ll never stop making you smile. 

His lips press to yours, and you swear you know what the romantic comedies mean when they talk about fireworks. It’s nothing too heated—you’re standing on a sidewalk and you’re not that crazy—but it’s special and passionate. Your lips are a perfect fit for one another, and if you don’t pull away soon you know you’ll get swept up in it.

Knowing JJ has other plans for the two of you, you break away from the kiss and wrap your arms around his shoulders. “Alright, so what’s next on the agenda, Jayj?”

And that’s when you spot it—the signature twinkle in his eye that only shines when he has something a little bit crazy planned.

“Oh no…” you protest in preparation for whatever’s about to come out of his mouth.

“Okay, it’s just a crazy idea I had and it’s totally up to you. We don’t have to do it, but I think it would be fun.”

“What?” you ask. He unwraps your hands from his shoulders before grasping one of them in his own again, and starts to guide you down the street. “JJ, where are you taking me?”

“You’ll see.” He winks, and at that point you decide to just let him lead you wherever. You know he’d never put you in danger, and he’s safely gotten you out of your comfort zone many times before, so you’re sure that it can’t be too bad. Right?

As the two of you walk down the street hand-in-hand, your mind wanders. You’ve accepted your fate, but where could JJ possibly be taking you? And before your mind settles on a single answer, he pulls you to a stop in front of a little brick-walled building. ‘Inks Tattoo Parlor,’ the sign reads.

“Okay, I know it might be a crazy JJ idea,” he starts.

“I’m glad you’re self-aware,” you retort.

He rolls his eyes. “Just hear me out. I know we haven’t been dating for long and maybe I had too many drinks at dinner but I know you’re it for me. We’re young and I know we haven’t talked about marriage and I know we’re nowhere near there yet—”

“JJ, just breathe,” you say to comfort him, squeezing his hand in reassurance.

“Well, basically, I love you. Like a lot. Like more than I ever thought I could, and I think I want a tattoo of your initials on my ass.”

And then you give him the weirdest expression he’s ever seen. He can’t tell if he’s scared you off or turned you on or maybe both. But slowly, a smile makes its way onto your face.

“Okay, well, number one: this is definitely a crazy JJ idea,” you start. “But crazy JJ ideas are part of why I fell in love with you, and it’s your ass—you can do whatever you want with it. Frankly, I’m honored.”

He smashes his lips to yours and you kiss him back, chuckling against his lips. “Oh, babe, by the way, this ass belongs to you, too.” You playfully swat his chest, and his smile only grows.

You don’t know if the drinks from dinner are finally getting to you or you’re just on a high from spending so much quality time with your boyfriend, but as you and JJ wait for him to get tattooed, your mind starts to wonder if maybe you should get one as well. 

After the tattoo artist finishes up with his previous client, you get up from where you were waiting next to JJ and look at the intricate designs on the wall. “Hey, Jayj?”

“What’s up?” he asks, looking up from his phone.

“What do you think of this font?”

JJ squints before deciding he might as well come over to get a better look. Standing behind you, he rests his head on your shoulder and examines what you’ve been pointing to. 

“It’s alright, but not my thing,” he responds, as he wraps his arms around your waist. “Plus I think I’m just gonna stick with something simple. No twirly shit.”

You chuckle at his description of the font. “I didn’t mean for your tattoo, Jayj. I meant for me.” And that catches him off guard. 

Unraveling his arms from around your waist, he moves to stand in front of you. “You’re getting a tattoo?” he questions. 

A bit annoyed at his disbelief, you roll your eyes. “Why is that such a big deal?” 

Racking his head for an answer that won’t make him sound like a dick, the best he comes out with is “well, it’s just not very… you.” 

“Maybe that’s the point.” 

JJ lifts his hands in defeat. “Hey, it’s your body. Your body, your choice, and all that, or whatever.” You chuckle at his wording. “What would you even get?” 

“JJ, duh.”

His eyes widen. “You’re not serious.”

“Why not?”

He stares at you for a minute, looking deep into your eyes, trying to see if you’re joking with him, but he can’t seem to find any nervousness. “Well damn. Where are you gonna get it? And don’t say your ass because that would just be copying me.”

You roll your eyes. “No, I was thinking on my hip, right above my bikini line, you know? And it wouldn't be big or anything, just two J’s. No extra swirls or details or whatever.”

JJ puts his hand to his chin as if he needs to think it over, before stepping as close to you as possible and whispering in your ear, “that’s kinda hot, honestly.” He punctuates his comment with a kiss on the inside of your neck, and before you can do anything more you hear a clearing of breath from the tattoo artist.

“You’re up next.” 

The two of you break apart from one another as if you’re fifteen and you’ve just been caught making out by the lockers during class time. JJ winks at you before laying down on the cot. “Alright, man, tat my ass up.” 

Two weeks later…

“Kie!”

“Wake up!”

“Get up, Kie!”

“You’ve gotta see this!”

“Alright, I’m up!” Kiara relents, rolling her eyes as she wakes up from a heavenly nap in the hammock on the employees-only floor of the tackle and bait shop. “This better be an emergency.”

Sarah, John B., Pope, and Cleo squint a bit at her casual threat. “Okay, so it’s not exactly an emergency,” John B. clarifies. But before Kiara can object again, he explains, “JJ has an ass tat!”

“What?” Kiara asks, still a bit dizzy from her nap.

“JJ has a tattoo on his ass,” Pope clarifies proudly, and Cleo rolls her eyes in response.

“I know what an ass tat is, thank you very much,” Kiara bites back. “And why do we care that JJ has one? And also, how do you know that he has one?”

“Okay, well, you know how sometimes JJ doesn’t wear underwear?” John B. asks.

“Gross, but yes, I think we’re all unfortunately aware after the regrettable cliff diving incident last July.” Everyone shudders in horror at the memory. 

“We care because it’s not something JJ-y,” Sarah explains. “He has a tattoo of someone’s initials!”

“And it’s not like JJ to, you know, ink anything remotely sentimental on himself. To be honest, I was surprised he didn’t get a joint tattooed on his ass first,” Pope elaborates.

“Well, what are the initials?”

“Y/I. And I can’t think of anyone with those initials.” John B. answers.

Now invested in the mystery of JJ’s ass tat, Kiara concentrates, trying to think of who she might know with those initials. Coming up with nothing, she asks, “Are we sure it’s not just something stupid?”

“Come on, Kie. It’s JJ. If there’s anything we’re sure about, it’s that there was a high level of stupidity involved in this decision,” Pope answers.

“Fair point,” Kiara concedes. “How did you even see the tattoo?”

“John B. walked in on him sleeping butt naked,” Sarah confesses. He shoots her a look, and she smirks. “I’m just glad you didn’t find it cuter than mine.” John B. rolls his eyes in response, and Sarah chuckles.

“Never,” he says, before kissing her on the lips.

“Gross!” Pope interjects.

Elsewhere on the island, you and JJ are enjoying a day at your favorite secluded part of the beach. The waves never get especially big here so you’re not crowded by surfers, but it’s a nice area to get away from it all and simply relax with one another. 

You’re lounging on a towel, letting your back tan, as you engross yourself in your current book. Right next to you, JJ sits shirtless on his towel as he does whatever on his phone. It’s been relatively quiet for a while until you sense your boyfriend starting to stir.

You glance over at JJ only to see him typing incessantly on his phone. 

“Babe?” 

“Yo,” he says in acknowledgment, but without looking up from his screen.

You roll your eyes and move over onto his towel, making yourself comfortable behind his bare, sun-tanned back. Looking over his shoulder, you try to make out what he could possibly be doing.

Wrapping your hands around his stomach, you feel his abs tense under your fingers. “What’s going on?”

“I think our cover might be blown,” he answers, placing his hand above his phone so you can see the messages in the blaring sun. 

John B.: Please tell me she’s not a kook.

Sarah: Hey 🙁

Cleo: We want to meet her!

Pope: How did you convince her to go out with you? Is she being held against her will?

Kie: I stfg JJ if you don’t just tell us her name.

Sarah: We’re at the usual surf spot on the beach, bring her over!

Pope: You have to come now because I need proof that a real human woman agreed to go out with you. Also if she doesn’t exist then JB owes me fifty bucks.

“Your friends are funny,” you say into his ear, and he smiles wide.

“So, what do you say? Do you want to meet them? I know we’ve kept this thing a secret but I guess it’s pointless now.” 

“I’d love to meet them,” you respond, giving him a quick kiss on the cheek before standing up and packing your book, towel, and your cover-up into your bag. 

Once you’re all packed, he grabs your hand and pulls you into his chest. “Thanks for doing this, babe.” He lightly presses his lips to yours.

“Don’t thank me, I can’t wait to meet your friends and hear all the embarrassing stories you haven’t told me. And of course I’ll have to share some of my own in return.” You return his kiss, and for a few seconds the two of you just stand there, kissing under the hot sun. His tongue makes its way into your mouth, and you tug on his messy blonde strands in response. He moans into the kiss, but before it can get too heated, you pull away. “As much as I love this, if we don’t stop, I don’t think we’ll make it in time to meet your friends.”

“Who cares about them?” he jokes, before pressing his lips to you again. And then, in signature JJ fashion, he grabs your bag in one hand and tosses you over his shoulder.

You shriek in response. “JJ put me down!”

“You’re the one who wanted to hurry. I’m just making sure you don’t get distracted.” As he walks you to his truck, you giggle at being held upside down, swatting his butt playfully. 

Meeting his friends goes great, and you easily fall into a rhythm with Sarah, Kiara, and Cleo. John B.’s extra welcoming since your existence means that Pope now owes him fifty bucks, and by late afternoon you’re all relaxing around a bonfire. Gathered in a circle around the flames, you swap embarrassing JJ stories and enjoy just getting to know the Pogues. You pass around a joint, and a comfortable silence grows among the group, interspersed with a few chill conversations. Lounging in between JJ’s legs, his hands begin to wander before settling comfortably on your hips. 

He plays with the hem of your cover-up, pulling it up and down ever so slightly. Sarah sits next to you, tugged under John B.’s arm. She glances around the group before she notices a bit of ink along your bikini line. “Ooh, that’s such a cute spot for a tattoo, what is it?” she asks.

You feel your face warm and JJ shoves his head into your back, chuckling at the situation.

The rest of the group looks confused at JJ’s reaction, and now everyone’s attention is on the both of you. Realizing there’s no way out of this, you meet JJ’s fingers at your hip and ever-so-slightly move the string on your bikini bottom so that Sarah can make out what it says.

She squints. “Oh my god! You have JJ tattooed on you!” 

Everybody else’s eyes go wide and they all look at you in shock. 

“Really?” Pope asks, questioning your judgment, and Cleo slaps him in response. 

“Leave her alone, it’s cute.” 

You smile at Cleo in thanks, and JJ looks at Pope. “Pope, it’s like the hottest thing ever, I swear. The sex was great already, but now–” 

You cover JJ’s mouth with your hand in embarrassment, as John B. smirks in amusement. It’s silent for a second before JJ decides to lick your hand and you immediately pull away. “Ew!” you shout, and your boyfriend howls in amusement.

Standing up from between JJ’s legs, you wipe your wet hand on your cover-up, before tugging it off. “Anyways, I’m going to go for a final swim before the sun goes down completely. Anyone want to join?” 

“I just want to finish my beer, but I’ll join you in a minute,” Sarah answers, and you smile. Cleo and Kiara nod in agreement, and you make your way into the water. But before you can reach the ocean, JJ runs up to you and lifts you off the ground. You yelp at his antics, and again he lays you over his shoulder. He turns around to wave at the group as they laugh at the two of you.

The rest of the Pogues look on as JJ drops you into the water. “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but they might be perfect for each other,” Pope confesses.

Everyone nods in agreement. “They’re adorable,” Sarah adds. “Absolutely adorable.” 

so... please let me know what you think! I don't currently have a taglist, but if you'd like to be tagged in my next jj fic, please send me an ask :)))

[toxicanonymity]

needs

3.3k, joel miller x virgin f!reader

joel masterlist | miniseries masterlist

Summary: Joel wants to find a bed before you go all the way, but neither of you can wait that long.

A/N: Follows ✨ Fires (1.6, prologue), Aches (900), and Thoughts (1.6).

WARNINGS: I8+, big girthy age gap (20/50s), still only one sleeping bag, pining, c*ck hunger, fingering, grinding, masturbation, oral m receiving, cum eating, unsafe P in V, reluctantly pulling out, loss of virginity, pet names, praise, POV alternates, NO Y/N.

“God have mercy,” he mutters to himself.

He's gonna give it to ya good one day, but not yet. Not in a sleeping bag on the forest floor. Not yet. Not yet. Not yet, he tells himself . . . Your first time shouldn’t be like this. Shouldn’t be here. But god damn . . .  

-------

It’s all over your face. He’s never seen anything like it, the way you crave his cock. You shamelessly stare at his pants. His whole body, really. You were bad enough before you touched it, and it’s only gotten worse. You can’t focus, you can’t listen. It’s dangerous.  He should put a stop to this, take it away cold turkey. Sleep back-to-back. But you both have needs, and he's not gonna do that.

Joel feels like he might as well be a virgin himself, it's been so long for him. Frankly, he’s dying to put it in you just as much as you long to have it.  He’s been trying to wait until Jackson so he can do it somewhere safe, somewhere a little nicer, more comfortable. 

He wants to wait and make sure it's nice and special for you, but good lord, you’re makin' it hard. You make the sweetest little sounds when he touches you, and even when he doesn’t, like in your sleep. You ask him things like, “doesn’t sex feel better than hands?” He tells you half-truths, like “not always.” Of course it would with you.  Of course it would.

-

You’re in the forest. With dusk approaching, you're just about to set up camp while there's still light. Joel is taking a leak at the edge of a small clearing, calculating mileage in his head, counting down the days ‘til you should get there. His back could use a real bed, too.  He's shaking his dick dry and a twig snaps behind him. His head whips around and he reaches for his gun. 

It’s you. God damnit, he could’ve killed you. 

“Can I see it?” you ask. 

“What the hell are ya doin’ over here?”

“I just wanna see it.” You look down toward his jeans. “Can I?” 

It’s fair that you’re curious, he knows that. You mentioned it the night before with your hand wrapped around it, I wanna see it, really see it, I bet it’s good looking. You’ve only felt it at night and caught glimpses in the moonlight. At the time, he mindlessly reassured you, you’ll see it, baby, you'll see my cock, and he should’ve known you’d spring this on him.

“Not now,” he mutters, trying to calm his heart rate.  “Can ya gimme a second, honey?” 

“Okay.”  He can hear the sadness, practically see the disappointment on your face. God damnit. He tucks himself away and zips up. You're only about eight feet away.  “Now?”

“No.  Ain’t nothin’ to see right now.” You probably don’t realize what a big difference it can make. 

“What do you mean”

“Just trust me, it ain't how ya wanna see it.” 

“Why?" 

“Cause it ain’t as. . .”

“Ain’t as what?”

“Nothin’, baby. Just not the right time.”

“Better if we’re close together, right?” You step closer. 

He closes his eyes, pinches the bridge of his nose, and takes a deep breath. “This ain’t the time or the place, honey.” 

When he looks at you again, your face has fallen, and you mumble, “K.” 

He puts a big, comforting hand on your shoulder and walks you back to where y'all are setting up camp. “When we find a bed, I’ll show ya. . .”  

"And when we find a bed," you repeat. Don't say it, don't say it, he prays to God you don't say it. "We can do it, right?" He doesn't answer. "You can put your cock inside me, right?"

Fuck, you're gonna drive this old man crazy. At least one of you needs your wits about you if you'll ever make it to Jackson. "We'll see," he sighs. 

After a moment of silence, your voice trembles as you ask, "We'll see? Why not yes?"

"Cause we ain't gonna make it there at this rate," he complains, then sighs with instant regret. "I'm sorry, honey. But you gotta try to knock it off with this stuff."

You swallow and your eyes glimmer. "Sorry," you whisper. 

He turns away to adjust himself, then sits down on the ground, leaning back against a log and extends an arm for you. "S'okay, c'mere."

You sit on the ground next to him. He squeezes your shoulder and changes the topic to twenty questions. 

——

He’s nicer at night. He’s nice in the day, too, mostly.  Once in a while, you can tell you’re annoying him, and you feel bad.  If only he knew how many times you thought about it and didn't say something, he’d appreciate your efforts. It’s practically all you think about. It’s even worse now that you feel it in your hand every night, but the last thing you want is for that to stop. 

You had been thinking about it all day when you finally asked what you thought was an easy request – if you could just see it, just a glimpse while he already had it out anyway. 

Even if you don’t get to see it, at least it’s easy enough to recall what it feels like.  Smooth, warm, and stiff. Soft veins, tiny wrinkles. A leaking slit. 

—--

“Can I taste it?” you ask one night with your little fist wrapped around his shaft. 

He groans quietly. “Yeah, you wanna taste it?”

“Yeah,” you whisper, your hand sticky with the lube of your own slick, a bead of precum under your thumb. You smear the precum and let go of his hard cock, making it slap against his stomach.  You take your thumb into your mouth and hum, “Mmm,” at the salty taste. 

“Whatcha think,” he whispers breathily. 

“Can I have your cock in my mouth?”

“Oh, baby, ‘course ya can.” The zipper of the sleeping bag jingles, then you hear the satisfying zzz as it unzips.  He folds it down and you get up on your knees. You bend at the hip and don't waste a second. You wrap your thumb and forefinger around the base, trying and failing to make your digits touch. 

Then, your lips wrap around the head.  He inhales sharply through his teeth.

“Did I hurt you?” you ask.

“God no, honey. Go ‘head, taste it all ya want.”  

 You curiously tongue the slit and suck for more. 

“Oh god damn,” he breathes.

You lick around it under the crown and you’re salivating. 

He wraps his hand around yours and moves it up and down, then leaves you be. “Use your spit, honey.” You let it dribble out of your mouth and onto his tip and catch it in your fist. You kitten lick the shaft, tasting your own tang, and letting your saliva fall out of your mouth as it accumulates, occasionally sliding the open ring of your finger and thumb up and down but mostly forgetting because you’re so focused on it in your mouth.

“Ya like that, sweetie? ya like how we taste?” You take a couple inches into your mouth then suck a little more of it in. It twitches against your tongue. The biggest vein throbs. 

“Alright, baby,” he pants and takes it from you. He urgently pulls up his own shirt, slides his hand a few times, then comes with a groan, his voice and pulsing manhood making you ache with need, even though he already made you come. You stay there on your knees.  In the dim moonlight, you watch his tummy rise and fall with the shiny trail leading to, and pooling in, his navel. 

“Can I taste that, too?” you ask. 

“Yeah,” he nods. 

You dip your tongue in the trail below his navel. It’s thicker, headier, saltier than the precum.  It’s not every day you get to taste something new. It’s not often at all. It's delicious.

“Like it,” you whisper.

“Yeah? take all ya want.” 

You lick and seal your lips as you suck it up. You pause to pluck a hair from your mouth, then continue to his navel. You dip your tongue in and his stomach flexes abruptly. You take your mouth off and pause. “Sorry,” you whisper.

“Nothin’ to be sorry ‘bout.” 

You tongue his navel, then suck, and he inhales a chest full of air as you do it, his stomach rising into your lips. You lick up every drop. 

“Good girl,” he sighs and  cups your cheek. “Such a good girl," he sighs.

—

All day you think about it in your mouth, in your hand, resting hard against your back, between your thighs. You imagine it all over your body. Doesn’t matter if he’s pressing it up against your hip or resting it in the crook of your elbow, God, you just want to feel it somewhere. You try not to think about it inside you too much because that makes you want it so bad, you could cry. Like really cry.

It’s not a want. It's a need.  You see it happening everywhere you look. You see a tree, and you imagine him sitting on the forest floor against it, holding his cock at attention, ready for you to sit on it.  You see another tree and he’s pinning you up against it with your legs wrapped around him, jeans pulled down under his ass as he rails you. You see a patch of moss and cluster of ferns that would be a nice pillow with him on top of you.

You think about it, and you dream about it, too. You can’t help that. He starts wearing jeans to sleep, and you can’t feel the shape of him quite as well against you, but it doesn’t matter. The fact that it’s there and it’s hard is enough to drive you mad. Even after he gets you off, it's bound to come back at some point in the night. Worst case scenario, you lose sleep over it. Best case, it works its way into your dreams.

----

One night, you're moaning in your sleep again, and Joel can hardly take it. His cock is painfully stiff and the strain against his jeans makes him ache. His hips press into you on their own; he can't stop them. All he can do is take off his jeans in hopes that being free of the rigid confines will lend some relief.  He was wearing them as an extra layer between the two of you for this exact scenario, but he can no longer bear it.

On one hand, he’s taking precautions, like keeping his jeans on.  But on the other hand, in the heat of the moment, when he’s touching you, he’s taking measures to prepare you, and to see how ready you are. Lately, he scissors his fingers, inserts three to see how you take it.  “Good girl, that’s real good,  honey.” He curls them inside you, “Ohhh, baby, you’re takin’ this real good.”

God, he wants a bed for this. You deserve a fuckin' mattress at the very least. He’s gotta wait. And yet now he finds himself taking off his jeans. He carefully removes them without waking you up. He lies there with his fist around his cock for a minute, still in his boxers, doing nothing but softly squeezing, as if that’ll make it go away.  Then he resigns himself to the magnetism of your body.  He curves his form around yours again and silently sighs as the hardness in his boxers rests against you and he wraps you in a hug. He manages not to thrust against your ass, but in no time, you're pushing yourself back against him. "Joel," you mumble in your sleep. 

"God have mercy," he mutters to himself. 

He's gonna give it to ya good one day, but not yet. Not in a sleeping bag on the forest floor. Not yet. . . not yet. . . not yet, he tells himself, taking deep calming breaths. Your first time shouldn’t be like this. Shouldn’t be here. But god damn he wants to take that tight little hole.  

"Joel,” you whine and push back on him again. He can't stand it. He really can't. He has to wake you up.

He whispers, "Whatcha dreamin 'bout, sweetie?" then feels your breathing change. 

When you blink awake, your hips are slowly moving, pushing your ass back into Joel's hard cock until you stop yourself. 

"Sorry," you mumble. "Did I wake you up?" The sweet sound of your voice isn’t helping.

"Don't be sorry, baby," he murmurs into your hair. 

"I dunno how to stop it," you whisper. "I'm sorry."

"Nothin' to be sorry 'bout, baby doll." He hugs you tight. “Don’t be embarrassed.” His cock swells harder against you. He whispers in your ear, "They want each other real bad, that's all." 

"I know." 

"Have a good dream?"

You sigh. “Yeah.”

“‘bout what?”

“I dunno if you wanna hear it,” you tell him. Fair enough, he's told you to knock it off, after all. 

“Sure I do, honey. Was it you and me?”

“Yeah,” you wedge your hand between your legs. 

"You want a hand?"  

“Yeah.”

“What’d ya dream?” he asks as he reaches into your panties. "God damn," he whispers. You're soaked, swollen, and your clit is throbbing against his hand. "Poor thing." He thrusts his hardness against your ass.  "No wonder you're tryin' to get at this, huh?" 

You're quiet. 

"No wonder ya can't stop thinkin' ‘bout it." He thrusts against you again and moans softly. "What'd ya dream, baby?"

“It was. . .” you can hardly form words thinking about it. It was so vivid, so real. “We were right here, like this.” 

“Yeah?” He uses your ample moisture to lightly rub your clit. 

He begins to make peace with himself that this might happen before he wants. He hooks his fingers into your panties. “Let’s take these off for a lil bit, hmm? Let her breathe.” 

“Okay.”  You bend your knees as he pulls your soaked panties down. 

—-

"We were right here like this, in the dream?" He repeats. 

“You took it out of your pants,” you whisper. He moans softly, takes his hand away, and jostles behind you. Then you feel his naked cock against your skin. Your breath hitches and you whimper at the contact.  He returns his hand between your legs and lazily circles your clit, pressing his naked dick against you.

"Took it out like this?" He asks soft and deep.

"Yeah," 

He thrusts against you and whispers in your ear, "Then what?"

"You put it between my legs." 

He inhales sharply then wedges his cock between your thighs, shuddering as he slides it forward along your dripping seam and the head meets his fingers on your clit. 

You tilt your hips and he whispers, "Oh, baby. Like this?"

"No, you put it inside," you whisper. 

Joel's breath hitches and he twitches against your heat. You moan. He slides slowly through your folds to your clit and back. He tries to slow down and think it over, but there are no thoughts, just his stiff, aching cock and your tight little pussy begging for it.

——

“Will you do that,” you ask, looking over your shoulder but not enough to meet his eyes. 

Joel takes a deep breath. “You think I should? Don’t wanna wait for a bed?” He thrusts in small pulses. “Just a few days, baby.”

“They wanna be together real bad,” you whisper. “how they’re meant to be," you remind him.  

Joel groans at your words. “I know, baby doll.” He takes a deep breath. “How’d it feel in your dream?”

“Full, really full,” you tell him, then sigh. “Felt so big.’

“Ohh, fuck,” Joel breathes into your hair and slides his cock against you, wet and stiff.

“It was like I was hugging you with my, um,” you say, then swallow and tilt your hips. "Hugging it."

“God damn,” he sighs. He pulls his cock back, and as he slides it forward again, it catches at your entrance. You spread your thighs ever so slightly. “You sure ‘bout this,” he confirms, and uses the hand between your legs to nestle his tip just inside. You gasp. 

“Yeah,” you nod. “Yes, please. Joel, please,” you whine. You push back on him with a small grunt, stretching yourself open on his tip. 

“Oh god, baby,” he sighs, then he holds you still and slowly pushes himself inside with a quiet groan muffled by your hair. “Fuck, you’re–ohh, you’re tight.”  You gasp as his girth parts your walls and your body makes room for him.  “You okay?”

“Yeah,” you nod urgently, and he twitches inside you. 

You shiver with pleasure as he pushes further and sighs, “Oh, baby.” 

“Joel,” you whine, “its so big”

“Too big?”

“No,” you reassure him. “I want it.”

He pushes the rest of himself in until his pelvis is flush. He breathes heavily and mutters, “fuck.”

You moan and push back on him. “s’perfect,” you whine.

“you like havin’ me in here?”

“I love it,” you say. 

“As much as the dream?”

“More than the dream.”

“What happened next?” he asks

“Then you it moved like you do in my hand.”

“Yeah,” he begins to rock his hips, his thick cock dragging inside you. “Like this?”

“nnngghh–yeah,” you nod then gasp as you're filled by his length again. “ohhh,” you moan. "And then you came inside—”

He groans, then pants as he’s moving inside you, “Ohh fuck, sweetie I can’t—ohh, I can’t do that, uggghh–god damn.”

“Felt so good, like a massage”

“Ohh, baby, please don’t–”

“And warm”

“Fuck,” he breathes and covers your mouth with his free hand, bicep flexing under your neck as he does it. No way he’s gonna last with you talking like that. 

He begins to slowly move again and you whimper.  You’re right, it is like you’re hugging him. You’re so tight and wet for him, taking his cock so good. 

"Good girl," he whispers, burying his length in you every second or so, only pulling back halfway each time. 

"Such a good girl, wantin' my cock so bad." He moans. "Waitin' all this time—uggh." You push your hips back to meet his thrusts. "That's my girl, takin' me so good," his next thrust is harder and you moan. "Yeah, just like that," he breathes.  His hand teases your clit as he fucks you. You whimper and he repeats, "just like that," his voice shakier, his breath heavier on your ear, “yeah.”

You moan into his hand, and his fingers circle your clit. “C’mon, baby,” he pants. “Gonna come on my cock?” You nod and hum your agreement. “Better do it now, then, you can do it.”

You let go and your clit pulses madly, your walls clench down on him. It feels so good, your eyes well up in tears.

“Ohh, baby,” he sighs, and suddenly pulls out. He replaces his cock with two fingers that your cunt begins to hug. “Such a good girl, squeezin’ my fingers.”  

His aching arousal presses against your ass, and he humps against you as he fingers you. “Ohh, yea--ohhhh.” His cock begins to pulse, spreading a silky warmth across your skin. He moans and sighs as you finish coming on his fingers and his balls empty. 

—-

He uses a shirt of his to clean you up. As his breathing calms down, he hears you sniffling. “Hey, hey, you okay, sweetie?”

You’re fine, more than fine, but you can’t talk.

“Shit,” he mutters to himself when you don’t answer.  He peeks over your side, gently stroking your arm. “Hey, c’mere, talk to me, sweetie.”  You turn around and face him.  “You okay, honey?”

You nod and smile at him with watery eyes.

His brows knit as he finishes catching his breath.  He kisses you on the forehead and wraps you in a hug. You sniffle again and he speaks into your hair. “I know that was a big deal for you, baby.”  He pulls his head back and tilts your chin up. “It was big for me too, okay?” You nod.  He reads your eyes, then presses his lips into yours. He reads your face again, then repeats the kiss and you kiss him back. He kisses you on the forehead and holds you, stroking your head. You fall asleep holding each other face-to-face.

-----

-----

Thank you so much for reading and engaging! Your comments and reblogs go a long way in motivation so if you liked it plz consider saying something 🫶. my joel masterlist has 🍒 on virginity loss fics. Left in Lincoln is a pretty similar Joel, in terms of how he is with you sexually. For more Joel POV, the most recent raider, Night Air, has a lot.

-----

for fic notifications, please follow @toxicfics, subscribe to notifications, and make sure your tumblr app settings allow push notifications. ⚠️ some of my fics are pretty dark.

-----

[imaginedisish]

Wild Horses (Logan Howlett x Fem!Reader)

A/N: Proofreading took way longer than I thought; sorry this didn't go up on time, y'all. Anyway, the song references came from an idea from an anon, but the fic itself isn't a request. Working through requests now (sorry I haven't been doing more). I really like this fic, and I hope you guys do too. There are a couple of songs in this one, but "Wild Horses" by the Stones is def a Logan song. Enjoy!

Summary: Logan takes you out for a friendly drink...that ends up being more than just friendly.

Warnings: 18+ SEXUALLY EXPLICIT CONTENT MINORS DNI! Oral (f!receiving), Fingering, Unprotected PIV (wrap it up), multiple orgasms, overstimulation, porn with very little plot, implied!age gap (Logan is older than everyone, tho?), friends to lovers, alcohol consumption, cursing, feelings, f!reader/afab!reader, def some grammatical errors, I think that's it.

Word Count: 4,362 back on my BS

You’re sitting in a chair in the hallway, decompressing from the day—which, to be honest, is impossible in a place like this. Kids playing, running, yelling, T.Vs blaring all across the mansion. It’s always so noisy, always so active. And sometimes, that can be too much. 

A cacophony of voices bursts down the hall. One is bassy, louder, angrier than all the others. You smile softly to yourself. Logan. You can hear his footsteps against the hardwood floors as he makes his way towards the front door. He has his keys in his hand, and his leather jacket on his back. 

You perk up, trying not to seem upset that he’s on his way out. Although it’s probably no use; you wear your heart on your sleeve. You care about Logan, and that care extends beyond friendship. You’ve wanted him for months, but you’re not quite sure if he’ll ever feel the same. You’re friends—close friends—but just friends. 

He looks over to you, his frown suddenly turning to a smile. “I’m going out,” he says, nodding to the door. “Wanna come?”

“S-sure,” you stutter, pushing yourself up from your chair. You look down at your denim shorts and tank top. “I don’t know if I should change tho—” “You look perfect,” Logan says, shaking his head and smiling. Your breath hitches in your throat, and you try your best not to overthink Logan’s words. His hand is at your back, warm and undeniably massive, guiding you with him to the door. 

A cough erupts from behind you. “Where are you going, Logan?” You know exactly whose voice that is. 

You and Logan turn around, and there’s Scott. “Out,” is all Logan says, gruff and short. 

“We aren’t done talking, and you still have to run drills with—”

But Logan is tugging your arm and leading you out the door and towards the garage before Scott can get a word in. 

“Logan!” Scott calls from the front door. But Logan doesn’t stop, his hand now clasping around yours. He raises his fist in the air and unleashes just one of his claws: the middle. You giggle as Logan leads you inside the garage.

He walks you to the passenger door of his truck, opening it for you and closing it once you’re safe inside. It doesn’t hit you until he’s walking around the front that he opened the door for you. 

He slips in the driver’s side door and turns the key in the ignition, the truck springing to life. He pulls out of the garage, down the driveway, and through the gate. 

“So, where are we going?” You ask, turning to face Logan. 

His eyes drift between you and the road, a small smile playing on his lips. “Thought maybe we could get a drink,” he says, eyes on you again. There’s something behind his stare—a softness, maybe. It’s intoxicating and dizzying. It’s so distracting that you have to force yourself to acknowledge what he said.

“Sounds good,” you finally answer, smiling back at him. He nods, one hand on the wheel and the other on the gear shift, dangerously close to your bare thigh. 

The ride to the bar is quick and quiet, but not uncomfortable. You feel safe with Logan, cozy, like you could have spent the entire night just driving around with him. The bar looks like a little cabin—definitely Logan’s kind of place. It’s quaint, and perhaps a tad divey. But you don’t mind. You’re with Logan; that’s all that matters.

He slips out of the car, and you follow suit. He’s at your side when you open the door, smirking, holding out his hand to help you out of the truck. You take it, stepping onto the gravel of the parking lot. You think he’ll let go, that he’ll drop your hand to your side, but he doesn’t. 

Logan leads the way into the honeyed, yellow light of the bar. It spills across the porch as he opens the door, the light consuming you as you walk inside. The bar is warm, filled with couples and friends sharing drinks and listening to music. Some people are dancing over by a set of speakers. You smile, instantly recognizing the song blaring from the speakers. 

I met her in a club down in old Soho Where you drink champagne and it tastes just like Coca-Cola C-O-L-A, Cola

You sing along, mouthing the words to Logan. A grin spreads across his face, his gaze flitting between your eyes and your lips. “You know this song? You like The Kinks?” He asks, his eyes narrowing as he tugs you over to a stool at the bar. 

“Of course! How old do you think I am?” You ask, moving your shoulders to the song as you sit down. 

He smirks, shaking his head. “Younger than me!” He shouts over the music, sitting down next to you, finally letting go of your hand. You wish he didn’t. You wish he held on. 

“Everyone is younger than you!” You shout back, singing the lyrics and swaying your head from side to side. 

Well, I'm not the world's most physical guy But when she squeezed me tight, she nearly broke my spine Oh, my Lola Lo-Lo-Lo-Lo-Lola

Logan is watching you—watching the way your lips make that O in Lola, the way your hips shake in the chair, the way you throw your head back laughing when you mess up a line. He’s entranced by you. You finally notice him watching, and you giggle, hiding your face in your hands. 

Your eyes widen as his hands come up to yours, tearing them away from your face. “No hiding,” he says softly, so only you can hear him. “It was cut—”

“What’ll you two be having?” The bartender interrupts, arms crossed against his chest, towel thrown over his shoulder. 

“I’ll have a Coors, and she’ll have…” Logan turns to look at you, and you nod towards him. He takes the hint immediately, as if he can read your mind. “The same as me.” You smile as the bartender walks away to get your drinks. 

You part your lips, almost ready to ask Logan what he was going to say before the bartender cut him off, but you’re interrupted again as your beers are placed in front of you. 

“Thanks, bub,” Logan says, pulling out a twenty-dollar bill and slapping it on the counter. The bartender grabs the bill and walks off to help the next patron. 

“So…” you trail off, watching as more people drift to the makeshift dance floor. “Have you been here before?” You ask, making conversation. There’s something about being out with Logan that makes you more nervous than usual. He’s never awkward to be around or hard to talk to. But in here? Out together? Alone? This is different. It’s almost like…

A date. 

“Just a few times,” Logan answers, snapping you back to reality. His long fingers wrap around the neck of his bottle, and he takes a swig. You catch the way he licks the little droplets on his upper lip, his tongue darting out all quick and gentle. You can’t help but wonder what his tongue would feel like against your own lips, and in other places too. Now is certainly one of those moments when you’re thankful Logan isn’t a telepath.  

You trace your fingers over the wet, cool bottle and take a swig, too. It’s ice cold, the alcohol burning at the back of your throat ever so slightly. Lola fades out, and Whole Lotta Love starts up. You nod your head, singing along in between quick sips. 

Logan shakes his head. “This one too?” 

“Oh my god, old man,” you remark sardonically. “Do you think I live under a rock?” 

“Didn’t peg you for a Zeppelin girl,” Logan says, tipping his bottle to you. “I’m impressed.” 

“Well, maybe there’s a lot you don’t know about me,” you say, meeting his bottle with yours. The clink is almost suppressed by the bass of the music. You bring the beer back to your lips and watch as Logan sips, too.

“Yeah?” He asks, pulling the bottle away. “What else don’t I know?” He leans in, his shoulder brushing yours. Maybe it’s the alcohol, maybe it’s the music pumping through your body, but you find the courage to lean into him. You can smell him—the pine and musk and tobacco on his flannel, his body. 

Your face is inches from his as you turn towards him, your noses practically touching. “I like dancing,” you hum. You down the last dregs of your beer and set it on the counter, grabbing Logan’s arm as Robert Plant’s voice croons throughout the bar. 

Way down inside

He knocks back the last of his beer, placing it on the counter as you tug him to the outskirts of the dance floor. 

Woman, you need, yeah

“I don’t usually dance,” he says, his hands finding your waist despite his words. He squeezes softly.

Love...

“But I’ll dance with you,” he says against the shell of your ear. And then his hips are rocking into yours, swaying with you to the beat. He’s never been this close, never this intimate with you. His lips ghost yours as the guitar and the drums echo against the wood floors and walls of the bar. 

Shake for me girl

I wanna be your backdoor man

You need more, need him closer. Logan pulls you in—chest to chest—his grip on your waist tightening. His hands slide around your back, slipping under your shirt. Your heart beats out of your chest as his fingers trail up and down your back. His lips find your ear again. 

“You’re pretty when you dance,” he whispers. “Pretty all the time.”

You look up at him as the song fades out. You part your lips to say something, but the next song starts up before you can find the words. You recognize the opening riff immediately, the acoustic guitar strumming gently through the speakers. It’s slow and soft. Logan pulls you back into his arms, closer this time. His palms rest against your lower back, and you let your arms wrap around his neck. 

“Don’t tell me you know this one too,” he husks, his lips at your ear again. 

Graceless lady

You know who I am

You know I can't let you

Slide through my hands

You smile into the crook of his neck. “Of course I do,” you answer. “Wild Horses. The Stones.”

“God, you’re fucking perfect,” he murmurs, pressing his hips harder against yours. You let your head fall to his shoulder as you lean into his chest. You can feel that ache between your legs spreading like wildfire. Friends don’t talk like this. Friends don’t dance like this. 

Because maybe you two aren’t friends. Maybe you never have been. 

“Logan,” you call, lifting your head. 

He’s just centimeters away, his eyes locked on yours. He tightens his hold on your lower back, your foreheads pressing together. “Wanted you for so long, pretty girl.” 

And then his lips find yours, consuming you, engulfing you like an open flame. He’s warm and soft, better than black treacle and golden honey and maple syrup. It’s slow and languid, his arms wrapping around you tighter, trying to pull you closer. 

Wild horses

Couldn't drag me away

Wild, wild horses

We'll ride them someday

You reluctantly pull away as the song goes on, looking up at Logan—looking for more. 

“We should get out of here,” he says, keeping one hand firmly around your waist as he guides you off the dance floor and towards the door.

He grips you tightly as you head to the truck, practically breaking the passenger door off the hinges as he opens it for you. He closes the door more carefully now that you’re inside. In the blink of an eye, Logan is on the other side, opening the driver’s door and slipping in. He turns the key in the ignition, and quickly makes his way out of the parking lot and onto the road. 

His hand moves across the center console and finds your bare thigh—exactly where you wanted him to be on the way here. His thumb brushes gentle circles into your skin. Something about it is possessive, like he needs to touch you, needs to know that you’re not going anywhere. His foot is practically through the floor as he presses down on the gas, racing back to the mansion. 

A few minutes later, Logan is pulling into the garage, his hand giving your thigh one last squeeze before putting the truck in park. And then you’re both tumbling out of the truck and towards the mansion. 

Logan’s hand finds yours, tugging you along and through the door. The mansion is swallowed in darkness save for the few hall lights scattered here and there. 

He suddenly pins you against the wall, his lips capturing yours. “Could fuck you right here,” he whispers. “But I wanna fuck you properly.” He steals another kiss before letting you go and leading you up the stairs towards his bedroom.

Logan twists the doorknob and guides you inside. Moonlight pushes through his curtains, washing his bed in white light. He turns around to face you, grabbing your waist and pushing you against the door. He’s caging you in, towering over you. 

“Logan,” you whisper, his lips crashing down on yours again. He’s all firm and solid against you. He bites your lower lip, his tongue swiping across to soothe the sting. You can feel his erection straining in his jeans, throbbing. He needs you, and you need him too.

“Want you so fucking bad, pretty girl,” Logan says between kisses. His hands slide down to your ass, squeezing gently before hoisting you up in his arms. You wrap your legs around his waist as he carries you across the room. He settles you in the center of the bed and climbs on top of you. He’s straddling you now, grabbing the bottom of his flannel and pulling it up and over his head. He’s wearing one of those beaters that you love so much underneath—tight against his abs. 

Logan lowers himself down over you, balancing on his forearm while his free hand explores your body. He slips under your tank top, his fingernails tracing every inch of your stomach. Your shirt hikes up as he reaches higher. He finally hits the hem of your bra and looks down at you. 

His Adam’s apple bobs in his throat. “You sure you want this, sweetheart?” He asks, his fingers dipping tentatively underneath your bra. 

“Y-yes,” you stutter, arching up into his touch. “More than anything.” 

His hand slips around your back in an instant, unclasping your bra before you fall back down to the mattress. He sits up, knees on either side of your waist, straddling you again. 

He grabs the hem of your shirt and practically tears it from your body, your bra falling away with it, leaving your upper half bare before him. His hands find your tits, grabbing, squeezing, palming them. “So fucking beautiful,” he husks, his thumbs brushing over your nipples. He settles back down over you, resting on his forearm as his free hand continues to glide over your breasts, pinching and pawing. 

“Lo,” you whine, rubbing your thighs together, searching for more friction. “N-need…” You trail off, unable to finish a coherent thought.

“I know, princess,” he soothes, swallowing your whines with a kiss. His lips trail to your jaw, your pulse point, and down to your collarbone. He keeps moving down, pressing a kiss between the valley of your breasts and then to your belly button. He spreads your legs with the palms of his hands and settles between them, his fingers tracing the skin just above the waistband of your shorts. 

You sit up on your elbows, staring down at him. He smiles softly, cocking his head as one of his hands unbuttons your shorts and pulls the zipper down. He’s teasing you, leading you on as he thumbs your clit through the denim. A jolt of pleasure shoots up your spine. You can tell by that smirk, that look on his face, that he’s loving this. 

“Please,” you whimper, and Logan obliges, fingers hooking into the waistband of your shorts and panties, tugging them down your legs and throwing them over his shoulder.

He settles back in between your thighs, his palms splayed on either side. His breath is hot against your cunt. “You gonna keep these pretty legs spread for me?” He huffs, and you nod emphatically. You need him now—you can’t wait any longer.

“Lo,” you whine again. “Please, fuc—”

But you’re cut off as he licks a long stripe through your folds and up to your clit. He does it again, another slow, long stripe. He’s taking you in, consuming you, committing your taste to memory. He smiles against you as one of his hands climbs up your inner thigh. 

“Tastes so fucking good, sweetheart,” he mumbles against you, the bass of his voice rocking through your body. His fingers finally find your folds, your slit, spreading your slick before gently prodding your entrance. “Pretty little pussy,” Logan murmurs, shoving two fingers deep inside you. He takes your clit between his lips, sucking roughly, his teeth grazing the bud. 

You curse under your breath as he laps at you—starving, reckless. His face is buried deep in your cunt, his hair a mess. His fingers pump in and out, deepening with every thrust. His tongue swirls around your clit, drawing hard, fast circles. You’re already getting close. It’s all too much—the feeling of his fingers deep inside you, hitting that sweet spot every time. 

“I-I—” you stutter, throwing your head back as your walls flutter around Logan’s fingers. 

He chuckles against you. “You what, pretty girl?” He pulls your clit into his mouth again, sucking harder this time. “Use your words. Tell me what you need.”

“F-fuck,” you stammer. “Y-you. Just need you.”

“Yeah?” Logan answers. You can feel him smirking between laps. “Just me?” And then he’s adding a third finger, plunging deep inside. He’s dragging against your walls, scissoring inside you. 

“Y-yes,” you answer, arching your back as he pumps in and out, down to the knuckles with every thrust. “Only you.” Logan mutters a curse against your cunt as he buries himself deeper inside. “Need you too,” he hums, his tongue flicking your clit, drawing rough circles around the bud. “Such a good girl,” he praises. “Can feel you getting closer, sweetheart.” As if on command, your walls clench around him, taking him in deeper.

“Feels so good,” you choke. He’s pushing you over the edge, and you can’t hold back anymore. “L-Lo I’m gonna—” “That’s it, pretty girl. I’ve got you,” he coos between harsh laps, his pace unrelenting. “Let go for me.” 

And then you’re coming undone around him, your walls contracting and fluttering. Pleasure washes over you in warm waves like liquid fire. You’re trembling underneath him, his head still buried between your legs. His thumb brushes over your hip comfortingly as his pumps slow and his fingers slip out. His tongue drags through your folds a few more times, savoring you, before he pulls away and looks up at you. 

“You okay?” He asks, his tongue swiping out to lick your juices from his lips as he sits up on his knees. 

You nod, reaching out to him. “Need you, now,” you beckon. Logan smiles, grabbing the hem of his beater and tugging it over his head. He unbuckles his belt, letting it fall to the floor as he works at his button and zipper. His fingers hook into the waistbands of his jeans and boxers, yanking them down his legs. 

His cock springs up to his stomach, and you can’t help but let your jaw drop at the sight. Your breath catches in your throat at the size of him. You always thought he’d be big, but he’s massive. 

“Don’t worry, pretty girl,” he husks, settling between your legs as he lowers down over you. He balances on his forearm as his hand wraps around his erection, guiding his cock to your entrance. “Gonna take care of you,” he whispers, his tip sliding through your folds. “Gonna make you feel good.” 

And then he’s filling you up, bottoming out with one thrust. Your chest is flush with his, his cock unmoving inside you. You’ve never felt so full, so whole. “Fuck,” he murmurs, his forehead pressing to yours. He pulls out and plunges back in, down to the hilt again. “So fucking perfect.” 

His hand lets go of his cock but stays between your bodies, his thumb finding your clit and circling softly. He starts to set a rhythmic, gentle pace, letting you adjust to the sheer size of him. But you know he can’t hold himself back for much longer. You can feel the way his cock twitches and throbs against your walls as he drags himself in and out. 

You rock your hips against his. “Logan,” you moan. “M-more.”

His lips find yours—two puzzle pieces coming together. “You sure, sweetheart?” He asks, his thumb adding more pressure to your clit. 

You nod. “Y-yes,” you stutter. “I can t-take it.”

He curses under his breath, pulling out and slamming back in. He pounds into you, his cock hitting that spot deep inside, where you need him most. “Wanted you this whole time, pretty girl,” Logan grunts, thrusting in and out carelessly, punishingly. “Thought about you all the time, thought about fucking you just like this.” 

“Th-thought about you too, Lo,” you whimper. 

His cock twitches inside you. “Love it when you call me that, sweetheart,” he groans, his hips snapping against yours, thumb flicking your clit. “Say it again.” “Lo,” you pant as he fucks into you. You wrap your legs around his waist, pulling him closer, fingers clinging to his biceps. “Logan,” you moan again, his name the only thing on your mind. 

Your walls flutter around him as he pounds into you with reckless abandon. “That feel good, sweetheart? You like when I take what I want?”

“Fuck, Lo, yes,” you whine. You’re growing closer and closer with each snap of his hips, with every swipe of his thumb against your clit. You know you can’t last much longer, not with his lips on yours, not with his praises floating through the air. 

“Doing so good for me, princess,” he whispers, his voice deep and raspy. “Taking me so well. Can feel you squeezing me.”

You contract around him as he sinks inside you, working you open with every thrust. It’s too much. “L-Lo,” you stammer. “I’m s-so…” You trail off, your eyes fluttering open and closed. 

“I know, princess. I’ve got you,” he hums, pressing a chaste kiss to your lips. “Wanna feel you come on my cock.” His thumb circles your clit, faster, harder, still splitting you open with every pump. “Know you can come again; know you can take it.”

You shatter underneath him as the words leave his lips, falling apart in his arms. “Logan!” You cry out, your orgasm crashing into you, harder this time. His thumb is still on your clit, his cock pumping in and out with no signs of stopping. He isn’t letting up or letting go. Your nails dig into his biceps, searching for support, purchase, something, anything. 

Logan slams into you, chasing his own orgasm as that tension builds inside you again, liquid heat raging through your body. “Lo,” you whine. “It’s s-so much.” The pressure is so intense it almost burns, but it burns deliciously. It’s thick and hazy, dizzying and uncontrollable. 

“Just a little more, pretty girl,” Logan soothes, his pace faltering, growing sloppier with each pump. “Know you have another in you, know you can take it.” 

He flicks your clit, electricity sparking at the base of your spine. You’re so close again, ready to burst. “C-close,” you stammer. 

“Me too, pretty girl,” Logan grunts, cock twitching against your walls. “Wanna fill you up, wanna stay inside.”

You wrap your arms around his back, keeping his chest pressed to yours. “P-please,” you whimper, clenching down around him uncontrollably. His thumb is still stroking your clit, back and forth, drawing rough, tight circles. 

“Come on, princess. Come on my cock again,” he whispers at the shell of your ear. You listen, his name on your lips as you let go underneath him. You’re melting into the sheets, dissolving into nothingness, into air, as your orgasm courses through you. 

Logan lets go too, filling you up, spilling inside you. “So fucking beautiful like this. Always so beautiful,” he praises, his thrusts slowing as he rides out his orgasm. He pulls out, his thumb stroking your clit a few more times, easing you down from your high. 

He presses a soft kiss to your lips, rolling onto his side and tugging you with him. He wraps his arms around you, pulling you close to his chest. “You have no idea how long I’ve thought about doing that…how long I’ve thought about you,” Logan confesses, his fingers drawing abstract shapes across your lower back. “Wanted you for so long, pretty girl.”

Your chests heave together, breathing in time. You can feel him, still half hard against your thigh. “I thought you saw me as just a friend,” you say, smiling at how quickly things have changed in one night. 

Logan shakes his head, smiling back. “Never saw you as just a friend, princess.” He presses another kiss to your lips, savoring the feeling of you against him. “Should’ve taken you out sooner.” He presses his forehead to yours. “But I would’ve waited…waited forever just for you.”

You can see the adoration in his eyes, the love. And you know he means it. You bury your head into his chest. “I love you, Lo,” you whisper. 

“I love you too, princess. Always have.”

tags: @ilysmdovie12 @prettyseaveins @spiderset @figsnpassionfruits @silversprings-mp3 @movhoney @wittyjasontodd @theasiaabattoir @fanfic-writing-barbie @manipulatour @pedrohoe04

[why-animals-do-the-thing]

Very, very fresh bison calf.

Months and months ago I promised y'all photos of the bison birth I was lucky enough to observe at the Cleveland Zoo last spring. As requested, they'll be under a cut, because unlike this lovely photo from the zoo announcement post, my photos are... goopy.

His name is Tighee, a name which the zoo said is "the name of a Shoshone chief."

We walked up just as things started to get going, and the story is below the cut...

This is Blue, a female bison who arrived at the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo in fall of 2022 already pregnant. When we got to the habitat, there were a ton of people gathered around, and it wasn't quite clear what was going on.

Then we noticed her full udder and the extra pair of feet.

She was dead-center in the (pretty large) habitat, which was nice - though there was a crowd, she had some good distance from everyone for most of it. The calf came pretty quickly, all things considered (something especially helpful when you're holding a heavy camera up on full manual zoom without a tripod). Because she was at a distance, my friend and I spent a bunch of time showing people near us photos on my camera screen so they could get a good view.

I was honestly really surprised at the number of people who asked why the zoo staff weren't in there with her, helping her give birth. So we explained to folk that zoo staff don't normally go in with bison on a normal day because they're so big and dangerous, and that during a birth (a time of potential stress for the whole herd, the rest of whom were off to the side of that habitat) it would be especially risky to do so. But you could see people in the zoo's uniform colors clustered around the fence, keeping a close eye on her.

And then there was a calf! For folk who haven't seen what a whole amniotic sac looks like, I'm including the next couple photos.

This one is still mid-birth, as you can see. The hooves come out first, with the calf's head laying parallel to them.

Blue immediately moves to break the amniotic sac and clear the calf's airways of mucus. Om nom nom.

We have open eyes and an awake baby! The amniotic sac is full of fluid that helps protect the baby while it's in the uterus, which means once it's broken, the baby is goopy. One of mom's first jobs is to lick all of it away to dry the calf off.

A first attempt at using legs!

Nope, being born was too hard and legs don't work yet. Time to rest and recover from the effort of thinking about standing up.

The first inquisitive member of the herd, another young female, comes to check out the newest addition.

More attempts at legs! Getting better but still not coordinated enough yet.

They're starting to help the baby stand up. In a non-captive setting it would be important for him to be able to walk pretty quickly after being born, and he has to stand up to be able to nurse!

Everyone comes to check him out, now.

We have legs! They work! He hadn't quite figured out where to nurse from yet, though.

And that's your bison birth for the day!

[another-fantasy-world]

Turning Tables

→ student!agathario x professor!fem!reader

word count ~ 2.1k

summary: You built your reputation on cold stares, brutal grading, and a mind sharpened by trauma, spite and caffeine. But when Agatha Harkness and Rio Vidal, two academic legends cloaked in power and mystery, walk into your classroom as students, everything shifts. They watch you like a challenge. Like a hunt. And for the first time, you're not sure who's in control. What begins as a lecture in literature turns into a slow unraveling of self; tense, electric, and laced with something far more dangerous than desire. You were the one meant to teach. So why do you feel like prey?

authors note: my first agathario fic skfnfkjx panicking so much. i've longed to write for this fandom yet has been scared until I swallowed my fear and asked @saphiccarma for help. So, I dedicate this to her, and to all of the members of the lesbian army behind agathario. I hope y'all like it 😔🦶

content warning(s): minors do not interact pls, sexual tension in the classroom, unhealthy dynamics, older students agathario and younger professor reader, might be smut in future chapters, psychological unraveling, loss of control, shitty writing, non-canon compliance, shitty characterization

═════════════

If someone had told you you'd become your mother before hitting thirty, you'd have told them to shove a pipe cleaner up their ass sideways.

But here you are, burnt coffee in hand, fake smile plastered on, trapped in the sacred hellscape of the faculty lounge. Surrounded by crusty relics in crocheted cardigans who quote Plato like it's a kink.

The worst part? You're one of them now. A professor. A fucking academic.

The university, though? Disgustingly prestigious. The kind of place that gets whispered about in overpriced cafés and college admissions horror stories.

State-of-the-art everything. A three-story library that's still expanding. Gyms that smell like money and ambition. Dorms so cushy they might as well be hotel suites.

With that kind of setup, it’s no wonder people assume you slept your way into the position.

Would’ve been easier if that were true.

But no. You didn’t climb the ladder by seduction. You clawed your way up fueled by childhood trauma, hatred, and a PhD’s worth of spite.

Now you’ve got two jobs, more money than you know what to do with, and just enough friends to keep from being labeled a total psychopathic freak.

A poetic little fuck-you to your dead mother who said literature was a waste of time.

You’re on your third cup of disappointment, pretending that bitter caffeine will buffer you from the social agony of the faculty lounge. It doesn’t. The couch springs are older than you. The conversation stinks of tenure, arrogance and ego.

At least your office is far enough from these fossils. Shame they won’t let you bring your own coffee machine, something about “budget regulations” and “fire hazards,” as if anyone here had enough energy to spontaneously combust.

“Professor Sunshine!”

Your eye twitches.

The nickname is less about warmth and more about fallout. You burn too bright. Students flee like they’ve looked directly at you for too long, and sometimes, they have.

You don’t mind. You get paid whether they cry or not.

“It’s Doctor Sunshine to you, Mr. Maximoff,” you say flatly, turning to the walking sports drink in khakis.

Pietro Maximoff grins like a frat boy who never quite grew out of hazing rituals.

“I see the sun’s shining less today,” he quips, snatching your mug and taking a bold swig. He grimaces. Good.

“Let me treat you to something better.”

“I make more money than you,” you shoot back.

“I find that hard to believe.”

“Then I’m a miracle.”

He snorts. “Okay, hot stuff. Heard you’ve got two world-class historians in your class.” He wiggles his eyebrows like a cheap sitcom extra.

“And?” You're used to having famous people in your class, you wonder why Pietro even mentioned such a thing.

“Nothing… Just betting five bucks you can’t make them drop.”

“What are you? A college frat boy?” You scoffed at him, raising an unimpressed brow

“He was,” a silken voice interrupts, light and amused.

Wanda Maximoff appears beside him, graceful as ever, red hair tucked behind one ear like she’s the muse in a painting no one’s allowed to touch. She taps Pietro’s head with her ring-heavy hand before turning her attention to you with that knowing smile she always wears; soft, maternal, quietly terrifying.

The siblings were opposites. Complete opposites.

Sokovian History professor. Faculty darling. Her evaluations read like love letters. Where Pietro was all sweat and chaos, Wanda moved like silk in a summer breeze; graceful, calm, but with an undeniable weight to her presence. She was the kind of woman who didn’t need to raise her voice to be heard. When she walked into a room, conversations hushed, not out of intimidation, but reverence. Her voice, laced with a gentle Sokovian lilt, wrapped around every word like a spell cast with scarlet gloves.

Students clung to her every word, enchanted by her quiet brilliance. She didn’t lecture; she wove narratives. In her class, history wasn’t a timeline, it was a living, breathing creature, resurrected by the soft cadence of her voice and the stories that lived in her gaze. She taught with the care of someone handling old wounds, her fingers gentle on the past, her eyes sharp enough to see through it.

And there was something ethereal about her, something in the way her rings caught the light as she gestured mid-thought, or the way she always seemed to know more than she let on. A mother to her students, yes, but a terrifyingly perceptive one. She noticed everything. Remembered everything.

Even now, she was looking at you as if she already knew where your story ends.

Meanwhile, Pietro teaches Sports Science and gets fan mail from student-athletes and wide-eyed girls auditing his class. Last year, he lost the “Hottest Male Professor” poll to Professor Rogers and sulked for weeks.

“Fifty bucks,” Pietro says, doubling down.

You flash him a predatory grin. “Deal.”

Wanda sighs, long-suffering and elegant. “One day, you two will outgrow your pissing contests.”

You doubt it.

You brush off Pietro’s smugness, but his words stick like a dare. You don’t believe in omens, but something about today feels off.

You were right.

And fuck Pietro. You're never taking another bet from him ever again.

You enter the lecture hall like always: bored, bitter, buzzing on burnt caffeine. The room smells like old textbooks and anticipation. You’ve locked the door behind you; your usual ritual of academic sadism. No latecomers. No mercy.

But something’s off.

There’s a weight in the air, heat, almost. Not temperature, exactly. Just the kind of heat that coils down your spine, instinctive and ancient. You feel it before you even meet their eyes.

When you scan the room, your gaze skips past the sleepy freshmen and hungover upperclassmen until it snaps, front row, dead center.

Two women.

They sit like they own the space. Not trying to. Knowing they do. Confidence was oozing out from them in beautiful waves, they seemed like the embodiment of professional arrogance. Their eyes, although different in color, stare at you the same way. It felt heavy, yet not suffocating. It felt strangely comforting, and that thought alone sent shivers down your spine.

The one on the left has dark eyes like bruised velvet and a mouth made for ruin. The other leans back with a legal pad and the posture of a queen at court; unbothered, unreadable, untouchable.

Their gazes land on you with perfect stillness. No blinking. No flinching. Just that weight again.

And in that exact moment, you know.

You’re fucked. Deeply. Profoundly. Existentially.

They don’t look like students. They don’t look like anything you’ve ever taught.

You grip the podium like it’ll anchor you to reality.

You cleared your throat, breaking eye contact like it burned.

“If you're here because you thought this class would be easy. Get the hell out.”

The words came out flat, practiced. You always open this way, your voice is steady. Cold. Scripted. It’s the same line you give every year. It usually works. The scared ones scatter. The cocky ones get humbled after the first exam.

But not them.

They don’t even blink.

The tension didn’t lift. It coiled.

Like they were waiting for something.

Like you were the one being tested.

“If you’re still sitting here in five minutes, you’re agreeing to read the blood and bones of every civilization that ever wrote a word. You’ll write essays that rewrite your brain. You’ll drown in dead languages and sleep with metaphors under your pillow.”

You click the remote. The first slide glows behind you.

No one moves.

Especially not them.

The woman with dark brown yet silver-streaked hair leans back in her seat, languid. Deliberate. Her fingers trace something into the spine of her notebook, though you’re too far to see what. Her gaze flickers to you—sharp, ancient. Not tired, but measured. Like you’re a puzzle she's already halfway through solving.

Beside her, the one with a jaw like carved stone and a stare like a held knife to your throat doesn’t even try to pretend she’s paying attention to the slides. She only watches you as she nibbles on her pencil in a playful and annoyingly seductive way.

Then it hits you, like a brick that fell from 15 stories high.

You do know who they are. Everyone on campus does.

You mentally kick yourself for not realizing it sooner.

Dr. Agatha Harkness, expert in ancient texts, dead languages, and cryptic footnotes that even seasoned scholars refuse to touch.

Dr. Rio Vidal, historian of legal theory and the laws no longer written. To make it easier, she's a historian of law, but not the kind written in dusty textbooks. The kind etched in blood, carved in stone, whispered across centuries.

They’re legends in academia. The kind of people who give guest lectures that make other professors take notes. The kind of names that carry weight, and bite. Both with credentials that make your curriculum vitae look like a high school résumé.

They’ve taken classes before. Rumor has it that they're working on a PhD that you're pretty sure they already have. Wanda, in particular, had thoughts. She blabbered for an hour straight in your apartment once, her voice shifting from frustration to reverence and back again like she couldn’t decide whether to curse them or canonize them. You’d laughed at her, teasing her for being so dramatic.

Stress, admiration, annoyance, arousal, she cycled through all of it in a single paragraph.

You remember thinking she was overreacting.

Now, standing in front of them, you’re not so sure.

You didn’t look at your roster. You never do on the first day.

And maybe that was a mistake.

Because you didn’t know they’d be here.

You didn’t know they’d be like this.

You didn’t expect the air to shift with their gaze. You didn’t expect to feel watched. Studied. Hunted.

You turn back to the projector screen like it’s armor. Like it can block the way their eyes follow your every movement.

You speak. Words about Gilgamesh and Sumerian cuneiform fill the room. You’ve said them a hundred times before.

But your voice feels foreign in your mouth. Your pacing is off. You almost trip over a quote from an Epic because-

You can feel them.

Not in the way students usually feel. Not in the twitchy, distracted, too-online way. They’re quiet. Still. Intent.

Like they’re dissecting you. Or worse, understanding you.

Your pulse skips a beat. You’re hyper-aware of your throat. Your instincts whisper one word: run.

You clear your throat again. You’re not nervous. You’ve taught this class for years. You've spoken at conferences with stricter crowds and colder rooms.

You’re not nervous.

Your hand tightens around the remote. It was an attempt to keep composure, to stay strong.

“Attendance is irrelevant,” you say, voice clipped. You make yourself sound bored. Detached. Like you’re above this.

“This class will not cater to your schedules, your feelings, or your GPAs. You’ll pass if you earn it. You’ll fail if you don’t. I don’t do second chances.”

It comes out clean. Sharp. You're good at this.

You move through the next slide, keeping your eyes away from them. You’re aware of their presence like you’re aware of gravity; constant, invisible, undeniable.

“This is not a course in reading comprehension. We’ll be dissecting context, subtext, and cultural memory. We’ll read what was said, what wasn’t said, and what was forbidden to say.” You continue

You hear the faintest sound, a slight rustle of fabric followed by the soft creaking of university issued plastic chairs, and maybe a breath caught at the wrong moment. It’s quiet, but your brain latches onto it like a warning.

Still, you push forward. You have to.

So you did. Despite the magnetic pull they seem to both have, you managed to keep yourself together until the end of your orientation and the short discussion of your syllabus. You might be cruel, but you're not a monster to immediately begin a lesson on the first day.

The class ends like any other. You dismiss them. They rise.

And yet they don’t rush. In fact, they stay behind, the last students to ever walk out your doors.

Agatha meets your gaze for a breath too long. She doesn’t smile, not really. But her mouth moves like she might.

Rio tilts her head slightly, like she’s filing you away in a mental drawer.

“We’ll see you tomorrow, Professor,” one of them murmurs.

You don’t remember which.

You stay frozen long after they’re gone. Only whispers of their presence remain.

You’re used to narrating the room like a well-worn novel; predictable, underlined, annotated. But now, the chapters are being rewritten without your consent, and for the first time, you don’t know if you’re the author… or just a footnote in someone else’s story

You're definitely losing that bet.

[wintrwinchestr]

strangers | part 3

summary: when nothing comes of the frantic call for help you'd made just before joel had attempted to take your life, you realize that he had been telling you the truth—nobody cares about you, and nobody is coming for you. the fear of being forgotten becomes so overwhelming, you decide to go against your better judgement in a last-ditch effort to make sure that somebody knows you're still here. what you hadn't anticipated, is that you'd be putting more than just your own life in danger by doing so.

!!PLEASE READ WARNINGS, THIS IS A VERY DARK FIC!!

I've tried to label this fic as detailed and as boldly as possible. I will not be held responsible or bullied off the internet if you choose to read this potentially upsetting/triggering work of fiction anyway.

warnings: joel miller x f!reader, 18+, smut, age gap (reader is college-aged, joel is mid-50s), no outbreak au, serial killer!joel, dark!joel, talk of death/murder and blood, mommy issues, lying/gaslighting, manipulation, introduction of female original character, reader's skintone shows bruises, reader has at least shoulder-length hair, reader's hair texture can be put into ponytails, reader has pubic hair, groping, fingering, kissing, fingersucking (both reader and joel), mild blood kink, domination and control that is essentially abuse, development of stockholm syndrome, pet names (baby, darlin', babydoll, sweetheart), story inspired by "preacher's daughter" by ethel cain, vaguely set in the 70s, please respectfully let me know if i missed anything and i will rectify the tags

word count: 12.9k

a/n: heyyy... how y'all doin... it's been a while. i am very excited to share the next part of this story, written by some miraculous feat of perseverance. if you're still here, thank you for sticking around. i love joel and babydoll so so much and they have never left my heart or my mind, even when i was taking a break from them. i thought that putting a hard stop to my hobbies while i was having a difficult time at work was a good coping mechanism, but i realized last month that i can't let them take my creativity away from me no matter how hard they try. thank you @chippedowlmug and @polaroidpascal for always yapping with me and keeping their story alive even when i didn't have it in me to write it all down. there is much more of them still to come, thank you for being here <3

divider by @saradika

series masterlist/moodboard

read this chapter on ao3

part 4

You can’t sleep.

Each time the air conditioning kicks on, or the pipes let out a rattling groan, or the mattress springs creak underneath Joel’s weight, your eyes snap open again. Each time you hope to awaken to the sight of blue and red lights streaming in through the crooked blinds, and each time you’re disappointed. Your heart rate hasn’t been able to settle into any kind of steady rhythm all night, the muscle beating erratically every time you hear so much as a cricket chirp or a gust of wind outside. You could’ve sworn at one point you had heard distant footsteps crunching through the gravel parking lot, and you’d held your breath as you imagined they belonged to a police officer coming to your rescue, sent by the woman who had picked up your call for help. Any minute now the footsteps would reach your room, and you’d hear fists pounding on the door as they demanded entry. 

That minute had turned into five, then ten, and then fifteen, before the sound had repeated itself, and you’d realized it was just some nocturnal critter rustling around in the trash can outside the door. 

It’s been hours now since you’d made your futile little escape attempt, since you’d uttered all of about four words to the woman on the other end of the line before Joel had pounced on you like an animal, ripped the phone out of your hand, and dragged you back into his lair. 

…Someone had picked up, hadn’t they? Your memory is failing you now. Maybe the line was dead, maybe you hadn’t inserted enough coins for the call to go through, maybe you had only wanted there to be somebody out there who cared, and you had just hallucinated the woman’s tinny voice in your terrified state.

What you can be sure you hadn’t hallucinated, however, is the contents of the box you wish you had never pulled out from underneath the bench seat. You can’t escape the graphic memories of the polaroids that project themselves onto the backs of your eyelids each time they dare to close, jolting you back into reality the second your consciousness begins to slip away. You can’t help but think about how Joel had made you lay perfectly still for him while he forced himself inside of you, and you taste bile in the back of your throat as you wonder if he had ever really violated any of the other girls that way, or if it was just some sick fantasy.

You’re almost certain of what the answer is, but you try to swallow it down along with the sourness in your mouth.

You think about how scared you were, how scared you are, and how scared they must have been in their final moments, knowing there was nothing they could do anymore except submit themselves to his violence and hope he would at least make it quick. Eighteen or so years’ worth of dreams and desires and ambitions dashed in a single night, snuffed out in an instant as he reduced their bodies to nothing more than something limp and pliant for him to play with. You think about Ruby, and try to blink away the sudden vision of sunken glassy eyes and blonde ringlets covered in dirt and blood, skin pale and body decaying in a forgotten patch of land off the side of the road somewhere. You hope if he had ever spared even one of them from his grotesque defilement, that it was her.

You’re crying, you realize, when you feel a hot tear pooling in the shell of your ear, and you try to suppress your shuddering sobs as the guilt begins to feel all-consuming. How come you’re still alive to feel Joel’s hot breath raise the hairs on the back of your neck, and yet there’s a fucking shoebox full of dozens and dozens of girls who’d been brutalized and violated and discarded like trash? What makes you so fucking special? Being lost and naive and stupid enough to play into his little game without knowing what the cost would be if you’d tried to back out, to say that you’d changed your mind because he was too rough and controlling and it wasn’t fun anymore, like the rest of them probably had? It isn’t fair that you get to escape their fates just because you were the only one fucked up enough to enjoy the game, at least while it had lasted.

You’re going to wake him up with all your sniffling and shivering if you don’t get yourself under control somehow. You need to breathe. You need to get some air. Feel the breeze on your face and look up at the stars and calm yourself down enough to try and get at least a couple hours of sleep tonight. Lord knows you’ll probably need them tomorrow. 

Although Joel had fallen asleep with his arm locked tight around your chest, it rests across his own now, rising and falling slowly with his breathing. He seems to be in true, deep sleep, having laid perfectly still for the past couple of hours save for the bear-like snorts he lets out every once in a while. Must have really worn himself out last night, you think to yourself, the tone of the voice in your head dripping with venom.

You wait another couple of minutes for the AC unit to turn back on, and use its obnoxious metallic rattling to cover the sound of you peeling back the thin sheet and musty comforter. You do so carefully, in as slow and as delicate movements you can manage in your current state, practically placing your feet on the carpet one toe at a time before pushing yourself up to a standing position. Joel makes some kind of grumbling cough just as you finish straightening out your spine, and it startles a gasp from you. You cover your mouth quickly and turn back to face him with wide eyes, afraid that you’ll find his own darkened ones staring back at you. 

They’re still closed, to your immense relief, but his mouth is hanging open now, his sharp canines catching the moonlight in a way that sends a shiver down your back. You still have another minute or so of cover from the air conditioning before the room is cloaked in sinister silence once again, so you use your last remaining seconds to sweep the floor with your bare feet, blindly feeling around in the dark for your shoes. Come on, where the fuck are they? you wonder, sure that you would’ve kicked them over by now, if they were still in the spot Joel had put them after he had stripped off your clothes and pulled you into the shower with him. 

Fuck.

He locked them in the fucking truck, along with the rest of your clothes, along with all of his clothes and both of your bags full of your modest belongings. You’d been tucked into bed already, sniffling quietly into the pillow as he’d made one last trip outside in nothing but his briefs just to ensure that you wouldn’t be motivated to try something again during the night. You’d hardly be able to make it anywhere without a stitch of clothing on your back except for his threadbare t-shirt, after all, the length of it just barely enough to cover the tufts of curls that poke out from the apex of your thighs. 

“Just a lil’ insurance policy. You understand, sweetheart,” Joel had whispered, slipping the key to the truck underneath his pillow before slithering into bed behind you, wrapping his arms around you and constricting you like a snake. 

Fuck it. It’s been too long. You tiptoe across the few feet of space between your side of the bed and the door to the room, thankful that the AC rattles out one last dissonant groan loud enough to cover the squeak of the hinges and the click of the lock. 

Free from the confines of that cage-like room at last, you shakily exhale the breath you’d been holding, and the desert air is cold enough for you to see the pale cloud of it against the onyx-colored sky. With your back pressed up against the door and your hands splayed out against the wood, you look up at the endless expanse of stars above the treeline and let out a shuddering sob, the sight both comforting and overwhelming all at once. 

You feel small. You feel lost. You feel trapped. Scared. Sick. Confused. Everything. Nothing.

There’s a whole world out there, right in front of you, all around you, and it was waiting to welcome you with open arms, if you hadn’t fallen into the wrong ones first. You feel both grateful and damned to be alive, relieved that you’ve been fortunate enough to live to see another day, but knowing that each one that follows will be spent with him. In his captivity, doing his bidding, spending the rest of your life trying to decide which side of his polaroid camera is the worse one to be on. 

The polaroids. You just can’t fucking get them out of your head. The only physical evidence of what happened to any of those girls, now sitting at the bottom of a gas station trash can, likely covered up with empty soda cans and fast food wrappers and grease-stained napkins by now. That black plastic bag was probably tossed into a dumpster sometime last night, ready to be loaded onto a trash truck and taken to a landfill, never to be seen again. Discarded. Forgotten.

If anything, you wish you could at least provide some kind of closure to their parents, to Mr. and Mrs. Carpenter, who only gave up the search for their daughter because they had let the police convince them that their bright, beautiful, and promising child had just decided to run away that summer. You wish you could somehow make it back across the country, walk up to their home and knock on the door and be able to tell them “I know what happened to her. A man took her—a monster. He killed her. I’m sorry.”

But then, what condolence would that provide them, without a body to lay to rest? You wouldn’t even know where to begin to look for her. Joel probably doesn’t even fucking remember where she is anymore, where any of them are. He probably just picks the most unassuming, low-trafficked area he can find nearby to dump their bodies after he’s done with them, chosen as carelessly as he would the next cigarette out of his pack—a thatch of tall grass off the side of a back road, a pile of dry-rotted debris where a barn once stood, an algae-covered pond behind a long-abandoned farmhouse. Bleak, filthy, forgettable places, where nobody would ever be able to find them.

Another sob wracks your body, and you muffle the sound with your hand as you slide down the door, your knees giving out from underneath you as you collapse onto the sidewalk. 

Nobody knows where you are, or what happened to you, and nobody fucking cares. Not the police, not your own mother. You’ll be forgotten just like the rest of them if you haven’t been already, whether you make it out of this alive or not. 

You can’t bear the thought. You thought you could, when you had first left home and started following Ruby’s trail all that time ago. It had seemed inspiring at the time, the idea of leaving that suffocating little town in search of somewhere else to plant your roots and let yourself bloom. But now… you have to make sure that someone knows the truth. Whether they care about you enough to come to your rescue or not, you need at least one person out there to know that you didn’t just vanish into the wind. That you’re still alive. That you’re still out there. That you haven’t given up yet.

You close your eyes for a moment, taking a few steadying breaths as the cool night breeze dries your tears and the thin veil of sweat that your anxious spiral had produced. When you open them again, your gaze lands on the payphone across the parking lot, and you heave a despondent sigh as you study a moth fluttering dizzily around the bulb that illuminates the little booth. The phone is even more useless to you now than it was the first time, without access to the handful of quarters that are still locked inside Joel’s truck. With that option eliminated, you push yourself up to your feet, and feel the tiny muscles in your toes spasm with the desire to run. You try to rewind your memory several hours back, searching for even a glimpse of something that might tell you where the fuck you are, which direction to head in—had you passed any street signs, local schools, city halls, anything? You must’ve been too terrified to pay any attention to your surroundings as Joel drove from the gas station to the motel, devoting all of your focus to planning your failed getaway. Joel was probably counting on that, and had intentionally picked this drab little motel in the middle of fucking nowhere in order to imprison you here.

You finally tear your eyes away from that hopeless, trapped little moth, instead turning your head toward the motel office all the way down at the end of the row of rooms. There’s a dim light on inside, but no other sign of a person working there. Considering the isolated nature of this bygone stretch of highway, the motel might not even get enough business to justify paying a person to man the front desk all night. You chew on your lip, debating if it’s even worth a shot just to take a look around and see if you can find anything of use in there.

Your feet are stepping one in front of the other before you can stop them, leading you toward the door with “OFFICE” painted on the glass window in bold red letters. Goosebumps rise on the exposed skin of your legs as you walk, and you almost hope that there isn’t anybody in there after all, just to spare yourself the embarrassment of having to talk to some innocent bystander while you grasp desperately at the bottom hem of your shirt and your remaining shreds of dignity. You hate how well Joel’s little “insurance policy” is working exactly the way he wanted it to.

The doorknob is cold against your fingertips, and your breath hitches in surprise when you’re able to turn it with no resistance. You slip inside the office and close the door behind you quietly, taking a beat to survey the wood-paneled room—there’s a corkboard of room keys with only one empty hook, a clock on the wall that makes you jump with each startling tick, and a coffee maker in the corner covered in a thin layer of dust, illuminated by the slices of white moonlight coming in through the blinds. It’s all too still, too untouched, everything about the room only emphasizing how absolutely alone you are here. And yet, you can’t shake the eerie feeling of a presence, of eyes on you, watching you and waiting to jump out from the shadows and drag you back to your keeper. 

Just find what you came in here to look for and get the fuck out, you scold yourself, stepping behind the front desk and opening each drawer one by one as you search for the handful of items on your mental checklist—a pen, paper, an envelope, and a stamp. 

It’s not your brightest idea, attempting to send a letter back home to your mother. But it’s better than doing nothing, just disappearing into the forest and letting the monster that lurks there kick dirt over your trail of breadcrumbs. Even if just one remains, it will be enough to prove that you were ever there at all.

The pen and paper were easiest to find, sitting right on top of the desk in plain sight. You’d torn off a sheet of the motel’s personalized notepad, the place’s name and address printed neatly across the top. If your mother does find it in her heart to come looking for you, at least she’ll know where to start.

The envelope and stamp are proving more difficult to locate, and each deafening tick of the clock above your head taunts you with its reminder of how much time you’ve been in here, out of bed, away from Joel. Your searching becomes a little more frantic, less gentle moving of objects out of the way and more haphazardly swiping them around the drawers in your fruitless scavenging. 

“Um… hi there—” comes a voice from behind you, nearly startling a scream from your throat as you whirl around. You hit your hip on the open drawer and wince, and the owner of the voice puts her hands out in front of her, as if she had just spooked a small dog. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you…” She flits her eyes up and down your minimally clad form as she apologizes, and you self consciously yank your shirt down over your thighs. “Are you okay? Can I help you with something?”

She’s young, pretty, maybe a few years older than you, with doe-like green eyes and a pale face dappled with caramel-colored freckles. 

“I-I was just, um… looking for an envelope? A-and a stamp, if you have any,” you confess shakily, your heart pounding and cheeks burning as you fidget nervously with the hem of your shirt. You glance over the girl’s shoulder and see a door you hadn’t noticed before, now open. There’s a drab-colored couch and a small flickering TV inside, playing at a volume low enough that you hadn’t heard it at all through the closed door. She must spend most of her night shift in there, watching reruns of old movies and munching on stovetop popcorn to stay alert just in case some poor soul comes stumbling into the office in need of her assistance. You feel a small pang of jealousy in your stomach as you imagine what a relaxed, carefree night she must have been having, while you were fighting for your life under the very same roof.

“Oh, sure! They’re just, um… Excuse me—” she says meekly as she steps in your direction. You scurry out of her way, swiping the pen and paper from the top of the desk as you do. She takes your place to crouch down and tug open the very bottom drawer in the stack you had been searching through, and rifles around for just a moment before she finds what she’s looking for. She hands the items off to you as she rises back to her full height, just a couple of inches above your own. “Here you are. Is that all you need?”

Yes. No. Not even fucking close.

You turn over the stationery in your hands, running your thumbs across the smooth surface of the envelope as you debate whether or not you should ask her for what you really need—help. 

But the girl has so much life in her eyes, so much color in her cheeks that you can see even in the office’s low lighting, that you’d never be able to forgive yourself if you decide to involve her in this. Her face would be printed on the side of a milk carton the second you open your mouth.

“Mhm, just this stuff. Thank you.” You do your best to make it sound like the truth.

“...Are you sure?” She presses, gesturing to either side of her neck, her auburn eyebrows peaked with concern.

Shit.

In your effort to make sure your bottom half stayed covered, you had forgotten about the dark marks Joel had created around your throat just a handful of hours earlier. They must be pretty noticeable already, if this girl—Chrissy, her name tag reads—is able to spot them just by the light of one yellow bulb and a few slats of moonlight.

You nod, fighting the whimper that threatens to escape when you bring one hand up to press into your bruises, the other holding your letter-writing supplies in front of your lap.

“Yeah, it’s nothing,” you lie, though you can tell she doesn’t believe you. You wouldn’t believe you, either. But you’re thankful that she decides to let it go, anyway. 

Chrissy nods, too. “So… you’re trying to mail a letter, then? We can’t really send it from here, but there’s a few mailboxes in town, if you’re gonna be sticking around for a little bit.”

“Oh, um… I’m not sure. Maybe,” you reply, offering a small smile as you shift your weight awkwardly. “Thank you.”

Chrissy presses her lips together, giving you another quiet nod along with one last sympathetic glance at your disheveled form. “Are you sure you don’t need anything else? I might have a pair of sweatpants with me if you—”

“No, no, it’s okay. I have to… he’s gonna, um…” You fumble, gesturing back to the room at the end of the row while you scramble for some kind of excuse that doesn’t give too much of your situation away. “I’m just going back to bed anyway, so… I’m okay. Thank you, though.”

A few beats of silence linger between you before you speak up again. “Could I write it in here, though? Just like… at the desk? I’ll be quick, I promise.”

She looks at you like you’re a kicked puppy as she replies, “Of course you can. I’ll be back there, if you decide you do want the change of clothes after all. If you could just close the door on your way out, and… be careful, okay?”

“Okay,” you half-whisper, and you can’t help the way your bottom lip trembles when Chrissy retreats back into that cozy little room, leaving the door cracked open just enough for the voices from her movie to keep you company while you write. You glance up at the clock once before you begin, promising to allow yourself no more than five minutes to say what you need to say, seal it away in the envelope, and sneak back into bed without Joel ever noticing you were gone. 

You used to pride yourself on your neat handwriting, when you were still in school and a thing as trivial as that actually mattered. But you haven’t had to write anything by hand in so long now that you hardly recognize the disconnected capital “T”s and chaotically pointed “M”s as you scribble them down. The words are still mostly legible, though, even the ones that were accidentally blurred by stray tears you couldn’t wipe away in time before they hit the page.

You read over the letter once as the clock counts out your last remaining seconds, and decide it’s good enough to be slipped inside the envelope and secured with a swipe of your saliva. Your stomach flips when you go to write your home address on the front, fearing that you’ve forgotten it in all the time that Joel has spent scrubbing you clean of who you were before you met him. But when you close your eyes, you hear the song your father used to sing to you to help you remember it when you were little, in case you ever got lost and needed to tell someone where you came from. It had never really come in handy, until now.

With your sufficiently addressed and stamped envelope in hand, you quietly exit the office and pad your way back down the sidewalk to the room where your captor lies waiting. You press your ear to the door before entering, and wait until you hear the telltale groan of the air conditioning kicking back on. When the mechanical sound reaches its full volume, you slip back through the door and shut it behind you all in one swift, delicate movement. You slink over to your side of the bed like a cat, and tuck the envelope underneath the mattress as you gently crawl back underneath the covers, next to Joel’s still-sleeping form, in the exact same position you had left him in. The slight disruption of your weight depressing the mattress prompts him to roll over in his unconscious state, and his skin is scorching against your own as he wraps you up in his arms again, pulling you tight against his chest. He gives a slow buck of his hips against your backside and releases a quiet growl into your hair that makes you shiver despite the heat he radiates.

You can’t fight the pull of your heavy eyelids for much longer, the wave of adrenaline you had been riding all night finally coming to a crest and crashing against you all at once. Telling your story, getting the words down on paper, having some kind of half-assed plan to make sure you don’t just disappear into the ether, seems to have given you more peace of mind than expected, at least in your delirious, traumatized, and sleep-deprived condition. For now, you’re still treading water, still holding your head above the surface of the deep dark unknown that awaits, and it’s enough for your exhausted mind to finally show you a few hours worth of mercy. 

You will survive this, you won’t disappear, even if you have to take it one excruciating day at a time.

—

The first day of the rest of your life begins that hazy morning after, when Joel finally rouses around ten o’clock from what seems to have been a relatively deep slumber. He tightens his grip around your upper body as he purrs out a sleepy groan, wetly kissing under your ear before mumbling, “Mornin’ babydoll.” Your body seems to have not caught up with reality just yet, evident in the way your cunt still flutters involuntarily at the sound of his gravelly morning voice and the warm slide of his tongue. You curse yourself for the instinctual reaction, wishing you could just reset all of the ways that your nerves have been trained to react to his touch over the past few months.

“Morning, Joel,” you whisper, and you can feel his half-hard length pressing into your back.

“You sleep okay, sweetheart?”

Your eyes go a little wide at his question, and you’re grateful that you’re still facing away from him. Is this a test? You can’t be sure anymore. But if he had ever realized you were gone during the night, surely he wouldn’t wait until the next morning to do something about it… right?

You nod. “Mhm, fine.” Your voice cracks a little, but Joel doesn’t seem to notice.

“Good, tha’s good…” he snakes a hand between your legs, finding its way underneath your—his—oversized shirt to lightly prod at your bare little hole. “And how’s she doin’, hm? Was dreamin’ about her all night, how fuckin’ good ‘n tight she was for me… She feelin’ sore at all this mornin’, babydoll?”

“A little, yeah.” His touch makes you shudder, but you know better than to try and reject it.

Joel tuts, circling the roughened pad of his finger over your clit. “Poor thing… ‘M sorry about that, baby. Jus’ got a lil’ carried away last night, tha’s all. You forgive me, don’t you, sweetheart? You understand?”

You hesitate, swallowing down the bitter taste of the lie you’re about to tell. “Yes, it’s… it’s okay, Joel.”

“Mmm, just the sweetest lil’ girl, ain’t you?” Joel says, swiping two of his fingers through your folds to collect some of your involuntary slick. He pulls his hand out from under the covers and sucks one of the damp digits into his mouth, releasing a pleasured groan. Joel gives another slow grind into your ass before bringing his hand in front of your face, pushing the other still-wet finger between your lips and forcing you to taste yourself. “See how sweet she is for me, baby? Think she forgives me too, don’t she?”

You nod around his finger, humming in pretend agreement.

“Perfect… so perfect for me, my lil’ doll,” Joel muses, sliding his finger back and forth across your tongue and teasing the back of your throat with each intrusive thrust. You fight to suppress your gag reflex until he eventually removes his finger from your mouth, wiping the dampness off on your shirt. “C’mere, pretty girl. Gimme a kiss,” he grumbles, gripping a paw onto your shoulder and pulling backwards, using the leverage to get you to roll onto your other side to face him.

The warm morning light coming in from the window illuminates the back of his head, highlighting the way his mussed salt and pepper locks stick up every which way. This is the first time you’re getting a good look at him since you had first spotted his disturbing keepsake box peeking out from underneath the bench seat, since he had snapped at you for trying to grab it, since you had still thought that would be the worst thing he’d ever do to you. It’s almost comical, in a sinister sort of way, how harmless Joel looks like this, with his scarred nose and stubbled cheeks still rosy from sleep.

You hadn’t anticipated how complicated it would be to still have to feign intimacy with him, how dizzying it already feels to stand on the sidelines in your own mind and watch your desire wrestle with your disgust. Joel presses his lips against your own, and you do your best not to grimace as you kiss him back. He still feels the same, still tastes the same, like black coffee and cigarettes and spearmint. But he isn’t the same.

Joel parts your teeth with his tongue as he deepens the kiss, hungrily lapping into your mouth as you let him take what he wants, only pulling away from him once he breaks the connection first. He brushes some of your hair away from your face when he does, admiring your slightly swollen lips as he rubs his calloused thumbs across your cheeks.

“Whaddya say we just have ourselves a nice afternoon together, hm? Think there might be a lil’ town nearby, could get us somethin’ to eat, maybe even do some shoppin’, dependin’ on what’s there.”

There’s a few mailboxes in town, if you’re gonna be sticking around for a little bit, you hear Chrissy’s voice repeat what she had told you last night, and feel an exhilarated pang in your chest when you remember the envelope you have hidden beneath you.

You try not to answer too eagerly, taking a beat before you respond with a quiet “Really?” “Yeah, babydoll. Why, you don’t wanna?”

“No! No, I—that sounds good. I just didn’t think… I thought you’d wanna get going again, or something. After… you know.” You bring your hand up to touch the sore sides of your neck instinctually, unable to bring yourself to say it, to think about it for longer than a couple of seconds. 

“Like I said, sweetheart. We’ll just leave your hair down today, nobody’ll see ‘em,” Joel says casually.

It’s unsettling, the evenness in Joel’s tone as he suggests having a normal day together, attempting to just move on as if the contusions you’re discussing aren’t a direct result of his abuse. You’ve only just woken up, and you’re already feeling the whiplash from the softness of his words in comparison to the degradation he was spitting at you last night. You wonder how much of it he even remembers, if he had really just let some entirely separate entity inside of him get “carried away”, or if it was all Joel. He couldn’t have been that good at hiding his true self from you the entire time you’ve known him, could he? What does it say about you if the signs had been there all along, and you’d either chosen to ignore them, or missed them completely? How can you ever be sure now which Joel you’re in the company of at any given time?

“Okay,” you agree, putting on a small smile that he’s quick to return. 

“Alright, we’ll get to it, then. Jus’ stay put, sweetheart, lemme bring our stuff back inside, find you somethin’ to wear.” Joel plants a whiskery kiss on your hairline before tossing the sheets aside and rising to his towering height, retrieving the key to the truck from underneath his pillow in the process. You can’t help the way your stomach flips as you watch him lumber towards the door, squeezing your thighs together under the covers at the sight of his visible morning wood bobbing in his briefs with each heavy step. You roll back onto your other side as soon as he steps over the threshold, letting the corners of your mouth drop as you curse yourself again. Is this how it’s going to be from now on? A constant battle between wanting to forget and feeling disgusted with yourself for even trying to? There has to be some way to navigate this without completely fucking loathing yourself for just trying to stay alive. 

Joel returns to the room a few minutes later with his arms and hands full of the clothing he’s chosen for both of you. He drops his boots onto the carpet with a heavy thud, but sets your own shoes down next to them with more care. He tosses a few articles of his own things onto his side of the bed before coming around to yours, holding out his free hand for you to take. “Up you go, babydoll, c’mon,” he commands. You grab hold of his steady hand, using it for support as you slide out from underneath the covers and push yourself off the mattress, the springs creaking in protest.

Joel entwines his thick fingers in yours as he leads you toward the small bathroom. You loosen your grip to shut the door behind you, expecting him to drop his handhold to allow you some privacy, but his grasp only tightens. You inhale sharply at the dull pain caused by his fingertips digging into the back of your hand, and turn to face him with panicked eyes. The stern expression you’re met with makes your heart rate quicken, terrified that you’ve already somehow found a way to upset him again.

“I just need to use the bathroom first, I’ll try to be quick,” you insist, still attempting to untangle your fingers from his.

“Not with the door closed you don’t.”

“...W-why?” You question timidly.

Joel jerks his head toward the shower, his gaze still trained on you. “That lil’ window up there. Just gotta make sure you ain’t gonna try anythin’, tha‘s all.”

You glance over to the tiny window he’s referring to, the kind that doesn’t even open all the way, just cracks open enough to let the steam out.

“But… I couldn’t even fit through there. And I… I learned my lesson, Joel, I promise—”

“Shh, don’t gotta get all worked up, ‘s alright, sweetheart. Jus’ do what I ask, okay?” Joel finally drops your hand in favor of cradling the side of your neck, brushing his thumb across the tender cartilage at the front of it. “You understand, don’t you, baby? ‘S just a precaution.” 

Joel speaks to you so gently, with such adoration in his tone and in his expression, even with the threatening placement of his hand on your throat. The blatant display of manipulation makes you dizzy. You drop your gaze from his face to the bathroom floor, and try to use the cool sensation of the tile against your bare feet to ground yourself. 

“Are you gonna watch me while I… go?” You ask meekly, your cheeks warming with embarrassment.

“No, no, sweet girl,” Joel placates, using a hooked finger to lift your head back up. “I’ll wait outside for you. Jus’ leave the door ‘bout halfway open, ‘s all I’m askin’. Besides, ain’t nothin’ I haven’t seen before, hm?” He pinches at your chin with a teasing smile, continuing to act as if everything he’s asking of you is completely ordinary. 

“Yeah, but…” You start, but Joel huffs in warning.

You concede with a sighed “Okay,” and he finally leaves you to conduct your business. You’re thankful that he at least isn’t watching you, instead just leaning his broad back against the doorframe outside the bathroom with his arms crossed. Although, you think he might’ve taken a peek when you had first sat down, in the brief moment when your oversized t-shirt was rucked up to your tummy. You go through the motions as quickly as possible so as not to prolong your mortification, practically flushing and stepping over to the sink all in one hurried movement. Joel slides himself behind you as you’re washing your hands, setting your clothing down on the back of the toilet before placing his hands on your hips. His hard length is slotted against your backside, and you do your best to ignore him as you dry your hands with the bleach-stained motel towel. He only continues to use his weight to press you harder against the edge of the sink, undeterred by your efforts, and you wince a little at the pain that begins to pulse under your ribcage.

“Lemme tell you how this is gonna be from now on, okay babydoll? Look at me,” Joel orders, and you meet his darkened eyes in the mirror where he towers above you as he continues, “You ain’t gonna do nothin’ for yourself or by yourself ever again, ‘s that clear? Nothin’. Know we had some of that before our lil’... incident… and you liked that, didn’t you, baby? Liked me takin’ care of you like that?”

You nod, because it’s true.

“You’re nothin’ but a lil’ doll to me from now on. Gonna let me dress you this mornin’, do your hair up, brush your teeth, everythin’... And when we go out today, you ain’t gonna talk to anybody, ain’t even gonna look at anybody, you understand? Nobody except for me. I’m all you got for the rest of your life. And that’s what we always wanted, ain’t it? Just each other…” He says the last part almost wistfully, letting go of your waist with one hand in favor of twisting a lock of your hair around one of his roughened fingers. “You’ll come to like livin’ like this, babydoll. Got no other choice, do you?” 

You swallow, biting your lip to stave off burning tears that you know will only upset him if you let them spill. 

“Do you?” Joel repeats.

“N-no, I don’t,” you reply, and he hums in satisfaction before rewarding you with a wet kiss to your temple that makes your skin crawl. 

“Yeah, tha‘s right… Turn around now, arms up for me, sweetheart.” Joel steps back from the sink to allow you room to obey his command, and you don’t hesitate to do so. He carefully lifts his t-shirt over your head before tossing it to the floor, and you shiver as the breeze blowing in from that one cracked window wraps itself around your naked form. Joel tuts when you wrap your arms over your pebbled nipples on instinct, gently scolding, “Nuh uh, don’t cover up what’s mine. Lemme look at ya.” He uses a light touch to guide your limbs down to your sides, whistling low as his predatory eyes roam around your trembling body, spending a few extra moments on your exposed chest. “Most gorgeous lil’ thing in the whole world… Would jus’ parade you around with me all bare like this if I could, show y’ off to everybody. Bet you’d like that, huh babydoll?” He taunts, pinching at one of your hardened buds.

“Y-yeah, I would,” you appease quietly, but he doesn’t seem to pay your unenthusiastic response any mind, too preoccupied with shimmying a new pair of panties up your legs. He takes a little too much extra care in settling them around the creases of your thighs, and huffs to himself when he notices the way your little hole squeezes around nothing at the sensation of his fingertips sliding underneath the elastic, just barely teasing your folds. Joel has you turn around to face the mirror again so he can clip your bra behind your back, and a small smile tugs at the corners of your lips despite yourself when he zips on the pretty blue dress he picked out for you. You like how it compliments your eyes, even with how tired they look.

Just like Joel had told you he would, he doesn’t allow you to do a single thing for yourself as he completes the rest of your morning routine, holding your chin securely in the dip between his thumb and forefinger as he brushes your teeth and tips a glass of water into your mouth for you to rinse out the minty paste with. He cradles the base of your skull with one hand, using the other to scrub the sleep from your eyes and the oils from your cheeks with a damp washcloth. Joel gets to work on your hair next, pulling the top half of it into two small ponytails and tying each of them off neatly with ivory-colored ribbons. You’re surprised at the delicate movements his hands are capable of despite their size, despite the damage they’ve caused. He’s clearly had some practice with this, but you try not to think about it too hard.

Once Joel deems his doll pretty and presentable, he leads you out of the bathroom and has you sit on the edge of the bed, kneeling before you with some protest from his aching joints. He slips a pair of lace-trimmed socks over your feet, one at a time, followed by the same canvas sneakers you were wearing when you had first met him. The sight of them brings you a little comfort, somehow, the discolored laces and smudged rubber soles making up just about the only familiar things you have in your possession anymore. Nearly everything you own, everything about you, has been tainted by Joel in some way now. You should’ve just taken off in the other direction when he’d pulled over his truck, left nothing but a cloud of dust in your wake and never even have given him the chance to ask you in that stupid disarming Southern twang of his if you needed a ride, if you were lost, if you had family or a boyfriend who cared about you enough to come looking for you. You’d advertised yourself in big bold lettering that you were the perfect fucking victim, practically wrapping the rope around your white woolen neck yourself so he could lead you to slaughter. This is what you deserve, stupid lamb that you are. Look at you now.

Joel instructs you to stay perched on the bed while he completes his own morning regimen, and you hang your head low as you rest your hands in your lap, picking at the skin around your fingernails. They’re practically raw now, but you can’t stop even though you should, even though it hurts, even though you’ve made yourself bleed. It had always been a nervous habit of yours, and you hadn’t noticed until you started up again last night that this was probably the nicest your nail beds had looked in years. You’d felt so comforted, so safe with Joel that you hadn’t had a reason to continue the self-destructive behavior, until all those fluttery feelings were ripped out from under you in a second. You’d been biting and tearing at your skin all night in addition to the many other things you’d been doing instead of sleeping, the habit having returned with a force as you’d used the pain to… what? To make up for the lack of blood you’d shed, to apologize to the ghosts of Anna and Elizabeth and Ruby and ask them please not to haunt you, you’re sorry, you’re sorry, you’re sorry. See? He’d made you bleed, too.

You’ve been attempting to balance your attention between your hands and the bathroom, waiting for an opportunity to arise where Joel is distracted enough for you to retrieve the envelope from its hiding place without him seeing. You keep your chin close to your chest as you observe his movements, trying not to make it too obvious that you’re watching him. After a few minutes, he finally bows his head into the sink to splash some water onto his skin, and you quickly reach behind you to swipe the letter and shove it underneath the waistband of your panties. Joel still hasn’t lifted his head back up by the time you’ve got it situated, and the corner of your mouth twitches in satisfaction. For a plan that you’re basically just making up as you go along, it’s going better than you expected. 

You return to your preoccupation with your hands as you wait for Joel to finish up, and you remain hunched over yourself even as he flicks off the bathroom light and stalks over to where you’re now sucking the taste of bitter iron from one of your fingers. He startles you out of your focused state when he asks, “What’re you doin’, babydoll?”

You lift your head up, releasing the smarted skin from your mouth as you hold out your hand to examine the injury. Both of you watch a little crimson pearl begin to swell in the groove where your nail disappears into the skin. “Oh…” Joel sighs, grabbing your hand gently and raising it closer to his face, turning it this way and that to admire how your blood catches the light. You swear you can see his pupils dilate before he sucks your finger into his own mouth, swirling his tongue around your skin as he savors the metallic tang mixed with the remnants of your saliva. You feel the sharp edge of his teeth graze the pad of your finger, and your breath catches as you fear he might just bite the thing clean off from the last knuckle down. He doesn’t, of course, just lets his eyelids quiver and his cock twitch before releasing the digit from his mouth and rumbling out a quiet growl. You can’t help the somewhat sickened expression that overtakes your features as you watch Joel’s perverted little display, but work to fix it into something more neutral as he opens his eyes again.

“Pretty sure I got some bandaids in the truck, lemme get dressed ‘n then we’ll hit the road, hm?” he says, in a tone too casual to belong to someone who’d just had a near orgasmic reaction to tasting your blood. You suppose this is just another consequence of your survival—having to endure Joel’s unconcealed freakish tendencies now that he knows you’re not a flight risk anymore.

Joel tugs on his standard uniform—his thick canvas jacket layered overtop a simple undershirt and earth-toned flannel, paired with tattered jeans and his sturdy leather work boots. You allow him to help you to your feet as he leads you out to the truck, his thick fingers laced tightly through the ones of your non-bloodied hand. You have to squint at how bright the late morning sky is, your eyes aching as they adjust from the dim lighting of the motel room. 

“Hey, morning!” Comes a cheery voice from down the row. You turn your head in the direction of the sound, and put your hand up to shield your eyes from the sun in an effort to get a better view of the person it came from. When your gaze finally focuses, you’re able to make out a feminine figure with auburn hair and alabaster skin, her slender arm waving at you in greeting—Chrissy.

Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck.

You dip behind Joel, attempting to hide yourself from her view. He puts a protective hand across your body, and takes the lead in responding to her. “...Mornin’. Can we help you with somethin’?”

Her footsteps pause on the pavement, and there’s a beat before she says anything else, likely not expecting Joel’s less-than-friendly response to her sunny demeanor. “...No. Well, I just wanted to say ‘hi’, check in on you—Both of you,” she corrects herself quickly. You’re staring straight down at the sidewalk, avoiding eye contact just like Joel had demanded of you. But you can still see her out of the corner of your vision, attempting to lean around Joel’s large form to get a better look at you. You feel like your heart is about to burst out of your fucking ribcage as Joel turns his head toward where you’re cowering behind his arm, then slowly back to Chrissy. 

“We’re fine,” he says plainly. 

The silence that follows feels like it lasts an eternity. You hate how weak you must look in front of her, practically shaking where you stand like a newborn fawn while you seek the protection of this much older man whose hands, Chrissy must notice, are large enough to have created the marks on your neck that she had pointed out last night. It doesn’t take a genius to put two and two together, to figure out the reason—the person—behind your flighty, nervous, and fidgety behavior in the office. Chrissy takes a few steps backwards, away from this strange couple standing before her, one she realizes is in her best interest not to engage further with.

Her voice comes out noticeably more unsteady now than it did when she had first approached you. “W-well, I just like to say ‘hi’ to guests on my way out if I see them. So… ‘hi’, and, um… if you need anything, someone else will be here soon to cover the office.” She rushes through the latter part of her sentence, like she just wants to spit all the words out as quickly as possible so that the interaction can be over with. You can’t see his face, but you suspect Joel is giving her some kind of hooded-eyed look that’s making her stumble over her words. “Have a good day, you two. Be careful,” she adds before she departs, and you know that those last two words were meant for you.

Joel watches her as she disappears around the corner of the building, only lowering his arm once she’s completely out of sight. You don’t look up until the sounds of her footsteps dissipate, until Joel’s arm is on your lower back as he ushers you into the truck. 

“Get in, baby,” he commands, opening the door for you and helping you up into the passenger side of the bench seat. He reaches across your body to buckle your seatbelt for you before you can even lift your hand to do it yourself.

Once you’re situated to his liking, Joel closes your door and makes his way over to the driver’s seat, climbing inside and igniting the rumbling engine. He roots around in the truck’s center console, tossing aside cigarette butts and gum wrappers and loose change, eventually coming up with a single bandaid. Its paper sleeve looks crumpled and neglected, and you suppose it’s because he’s never really had a use for it until now. There isn’t much of a point in trying to bandage the type of wounds he typically inflicts, anyway, the damage already having been done.

“Gimme your hand, darlin’, hold it still for me.” Joel tears open the wrapper with his calloused thumbs and flicks away the little paper tabs from the fabric’s sticky surface, wrapping the bandaid around your finger tenderly. It would be a sweet moment, if it weren’t for the way he adjusts himself upon seeing the deep red droplet bloom on the other side of the little cotton pad. You make a mental note to work on finding a different self-soothing mechanism, lest you want to wake up in the middle of the night with his knife at your neck and his cock in his hand, deciding that you weren’t worth keeping around after all, that he just had to know if you really are just as pretty on the inside as you are on the outside, to know if the rest of your volume tastes as sweet as the small sample he’d already taken. 

You sit on your hands the entire ride into town.

—

The drive was mostly silent, but actually kind of pleasant, finally giving you a real opportunity to take in the vast surroundings of… wherever you are, New Mexico. Your hands had gotten uncomfortably warm where they were squished under the bare skin of your legs for the entire half-hour or so drive, but you didn’t dare remove them. You’d have had nowhere else to put them anyway, not with the way Joel’s large paw was clamped onto your upper thigh, his pinky finger slipping underneath the hem of your dress and tracing the edge of your panties. You were grateful you’d had enough forethought to slip the envelope into the right side of your underwear, predicting that he’d get handsy like this in the truck. You’d just kept your body perfectly rigid with your head turned away from him, and tried not to descend into madness thinking about what he had made of your interaction with Chrissy earlier, if he suspected anything, if he knew you were hiding something, if he suddenly developed x-ray vision overnight and knew exactly what you were concealing under your dress.

Relief washed over your nervous system as you’d observed jagged rockwork and ochre-colored scrub brush gradually turn into modest Pueblo-style homes and businesses, glad to have finally been granted an opportunity to escape the motel after your twelve hours of terror. The steadily approaching signs of civilization had served as a reminder that the world does actually have other people in it besides you and Joel, despite what he’s been attempting to convince you of.

The town had become more populated the further the truck had chugged along down the main street, with a few friendly-looking people walking their dogs and carrying paper grocery bags as they strolled along the storefronts. You had even found yourself staring at a group of girls around your age sipping their coffees together on a bench, giggling and gossiping and making you wish you had problems as superficial as theirs. They reminded you of the type of girl Ruby was, bright-eyed and carefree and beautiful, and you’d tried to swallow down the bitter resentment that had begun to simmer in the pit of your stomach. Joel hadn’t even seemed to notice the girls as the truck passed them by, and you weren’t sure if his disinterest should make you feel satisfied or hopeless. Yesterday, you would’ve told yourself that you’re the love of his life, of course he wouldn’t dare have eyes for anyone but you, he’ll never leave your side for the rest of his life. But the sentiment takes on a much different connotation today, feeling more like a life sentence than a daydream.

You hadn’t realized how hungry you were until the truck had finally rolled to a stop outside of a quaint little restaurant, its terracotta awning decorated in twinkling lights. The sign on the facade read The Coyote Café, and had a little silhouette of the namesake animal painted next to the words. You could see through the turquoise-trimmed windows that there were already a handful of other patrons inside enjoying their meals, and it made you feel a little safer, knowing that Joel would be more motivated to put his mask back on in front of so many pairs of eyes. In a town this small, the two of you probably stick out like a sore thumb enough as it is, the café seeming like the kind of place where the waitresses know the regulars by name. You were eager to finally be able to drop your defenses, at least for a little while.

Joel had chosen a table all the way in the back corner of the place, furthest from the door, and had insisted on the both of you sharing the same side of the booth. Although you could feel a few stares on you, you’d remained steadfast in your obedience of the rules he had laid out for you this morning, and kept your head down while he placed your orders with the waitress—a plate of enchiladas and a beer for him, and a cheese quesadilla with a glass of water for you. You probably would’ve been able to eat more, but you suspected that his choice of meal for you was deliberate, so as not to provide you with too much energy that you might use to make another break for it. It had reminded you of the way he had convinced you to take your coffee decaf at Moody’s that night, all of it seeming so fucking obvious now, in hindsight. 

“You know somethin’, babydoll?” Joel suddenly asks through a mouthful of beans and rice. “Think I saw a lil’ consignment shop just down the way. Whaddya say we head on over there next, let you pick out somethin’ pretty for yourself since you been so good today, hm?”

You hadn’t exchanged many words as you’d been eating, other than the occasional semi-awkward comment about how nice the weather is or how good your meals are. Ordinarily, you’d be making up stories about the interesting-looking strangers sitting at the counter, or quizzing each other on the country songs playing over the radio, or debating whether the color of his flannel was really green or brown. You’d sometimes hang out at diners so late into the evening that the waitstaff would have to kick you out, and you’d be apologetic as you made your way back out to the truck, hardly able to believe how much time you’d lost track of while you were flicking wadded up straw wrappers at each other or taste testing each other’s desserts. You mourn the version of Joel in those memories as you push around the crumbs on your plate, quietly responding to him with, “Really? You’d let me?”

“‘Course I would, sweet girl.” He wipes the corners of his mouth with a napkin before lowering his voice, leaning down closer to your ear. “Long as you let me take it off of ya later tonight.”

“Let me.” As if you have any other choice.

Joel chuckles at his own crude comment as he slings an arm around your shoulder, pulling you flush to his side. He finishes the rest of his meal with one hand while he rakes the other along your upper arm, occasionally sliding a finger underneath your bra strap and snapping it against your skin. You’re only able to let your posture relax for just a moment when the waitress brings around the check, and he finally removes his scalding hand in order to retrieve his wallet from his back pocket. He slaps a few crumpled bills onto the table, and then his thick fingers are forcing themselves in between your own smaller ones as he pulls you up from the booth and leads you out of the café. You spare a glance at the motherly-looking waitress on your way out, and you exchange sympathetic looks with each other behind Joel’s back. You wish she didn’t look so sorry for you, like you’re a wounded animal being dragged around by the hunter who shot an arrow through your heart. But isn’t that what you are?

Your feet stop dead in their tracks when you step down onto the sidewalk outside the cafe, your brain too enamored with the landscape of the surrounding valley to tell them to keep moving. The wide open sky and limestone hills dappled with towering evergreens almost look like a painting, the way the mountains turn paler shades of blue-green as they extend further into the distance. It’s so unlike the flat, beige midwestern states where you and Joel had begun your journey together, it almost takes your breath away.

“You just gonna stare up at the sky all day, or d’you wanna get to shoppin’, hm?” Joel says, startling you from your state of wonder.

“Oh, no, we can go. I’m sorry,” you submit, hurrying to Joel’s side. He makes an enamored little hum and kisses the top of your head before continuing to pull you along the storefronts. You keep your head down, counting the cracks in the pavement as you work to keep up with his long strides. 

“See that buildin’ down there, the one with the pink siding? Tha’s the lil’ clothin’ store I was talkin’ about.” You flick your eyes upward to where Joel is pointing a lazy finger, immediately spying the technicolor little shop he’s referring to. The unusual choice in paint color is certainly eye catching, but what you’re really drawn to is the dark blue metal receptacle standing on the sidewalk just in front of it—a mailbox, just like Chrissy told you there would be.

This is it. This is your chance. When you get up to the mailbox, you’ll improvise a way to direct Joel’s attention elsewhere, and use the opportunity to slip the envelope from under your dress and deposit it into the box without him noticing. You’ll have to move quickly, precisely, quietly, or it’s all over. 

You should start tugging it loose now, so that it’ll be halfway in your hand already by the time you reach the store. You pat your hand against your upper thigh, expecting to feel the paper crinkling against your skin.

Except, you don’t. You can’t feel it. It isn’t there anymore. 

You feel panic start to bloom in your chest, but try your best to keep your cool. The mailbox is only a few paces away now, and you’ll have nothing to deposit into the slot, because your chance at preventing yourself from being completely forgotten by the one person in your life who might actually care, is gone. Vanished.

Where the fuck is it? Had it fallen out when you were exiting the truck? Is it laying on the floor of the cab for Joel to discover when he helps you back into your seat later? Where could it possibly have—

“Hey, excuse me! Mister?” A young-sounding voice—male, unfamiliar— shouts from behind you, followed by the sound of jogging footsteps. Joel turns around, your hand still held securely in his own. Your feet stay planted exactly where they are, your eyes unblinking and locked onto the mailbox, just barely out of reach. “Did one of you drop this? Found it on the floor by your table when I was cleaning up, didn’t want you to leave it behind.”

“Uh… don’t think so. Lemme take a look—” Your arm pulls in an uncomfortable direction as Joel reaches toward the boy to retrieve the mystery object. Well, it’s a mystery to him, you already know exactly what it is. All you can do is hold your breath while Joel undoubtedly reads your handwriting on the front of the envelope, hoping that if you stand perfectly still, you might really be able to disappear. Without the letter, that’s the ending you’re destined for now, anyway.

Joel laughs breathily. “Y’know what, son? Think we did drop this. Thank you kindly for bringin’ it back to us.” Joel squeezes your hand so hard you think all the fragile little bones might shatter, and you bite your lip to stifle a pained whimper. Your eyes start to water as the crippling fear you had felt last night begins to climb its way up the back of your throat, and you wonder if this bus boy in the middle of nowhere, New Mexico, might just become the last person besides Joel to see you alive. Or at least, the back of your head. Without giving him a good look at your face, he wouldn’t even be able to recognize you when they show your picture on the news a day or two from now, or be able to go to the police and tell them that this lumberjack-looking older man he encountered was the one he saw you with last. You should’ve known better than to try tempting fate again. 

“Of course! Have a good one,” says the bus boy, and a tear escapes your waterline as you wait for the sounds of his footsteps to fade. You can’t be sure if the wetness collecting on your lashes is from the pain of Joel’s iron grip on your hand, or from the sheer terror of being found out by him again. What you do know, is that he doesn’t seem like the type to let you go through all three strikes before he puts you out.

“We will,” Joel responds, but only loud enough for you to hear.

He turns back around after what feels like an eternity, sighing disappointedly. You don’t need to look at him to know that he's upset, angry, furious. It radiates off his skin, penetrates your soul, wraps itself tightly around your throat in replacement of his hands. Your palm is sweating, but he doesn’t let go, just digs his dull nails into the back of your hand as he snarls a one-worded command close to your ear—”Walk.”

Joel drags you the rest of the way to the mailbox, shoving you down onto the wooden bench just beside it. You’re surprised that whatever it is he’s about to do to you, he’s confident enough to do it in broad daylight, in front of a few dozen potential witnesses. You keep your eyes on the ground, waiting to hear the flick of his pocket knife or the cracking of his knuckles, but all that comes is a tired groan as he kneels before you, lifting your chin up to face him. 

Joel wags the envelope in front of your face with his other hand, looking at you with a more pitied expression than an enraged one. “You wanna tell me what this is, babydoll?” He asks in a confusingly even tone. You search his eyes for the reddish hue they had become last night when he was spewing obscenities at you and threatening your life, but you don’t find it. 

“It’s… it’s a letter,” you admit, blinking away tears. You avoid his gaze even with your chin raised, looking around at the townspeople to see if any of them are staring at the little scene the two of you are putting on. 

“Don’t look at them, baby, look at me. They ain’t gonna help you.” Joel jostles your face in his grip, and you flick your eyes back to him immediately. “I can see that it’s a letter, sweetheart. Who were you plannin’ on sendin’ it to, hm? Whose name is this?” Joel prompts, using his thumb to tap the name and address you had scribbled onto the center of the paper.

You let out a sob, the patronizing tone of his questioning making you feel so fucking stupid with just a few words. How is he so fucking good at this? At breaking you down, spinning the effects of his own actions back onto you, making you feel like the one in the wrong.

“My mom, I… I wrote it to my mom,” you reply through little sniffles, and you can hardly stand the exaggeratedly sympathetic way that Joel’s eyebrows peak at your answer.

“Babydoll… What could you possibly have to say to her? You ‘n I both know she don’t care about you anymore, never did. She’d open this up and just throw it right in the trash… I mean—” Joel releases your chin from his hold in order to slide his thumb along the envelope’s seal, tearing open the flap and removing the page of motel stationery you had written your plea on in the dim lighting of the office. “Here, sweetheart. Why don’t you read it to me, lemme hear what you wanted to tell her so badly you decided to do it behind my back. You snuck outta bed last night to do this, I assume?”

You nod, taking the letter from his hand and unfolding it.

“Hm… Have to do somethin’ else about our sleepin’ arrangements from now on, then.” You don’t know what he means by that, and you aren’t looking forward to finding out. “Read it to me, darlin’, go ‘head.”

You take a deep breath, blinking hard as you try to get your watery eyes to focus on the page. “I s-said that, um… that I was sorry for leaving, that I don’t blame her for the way she treated me growing up.” You pause to swallow the moisture collecting in the back of your throat as you cry, and attempt to steady your wavering voice before you continue. “A-and… that I was with you, that we’ve been traveling together, but… But I got scared, and I w-wanted her to come get me. Um… ‘Please don’t forget about me. I love you. I’ll see you when you get here.’ That’s the last thing I said.” You set the letter down on your lap and collapse in on yourself, burying your wet face in your hands as your sobs become full force.

“Oh, babydoll…” Joel soothes, rubbing a hand up and down your arm as you cry. “Where did you get all these ridiculous ideas, hm? Sayin’ that you love her, that you forgive her? I mean, do you really believe she’d come lookin’ for you all the way out here, snatch you up and take you home ‘cause she cares so much about you?” “I… I don’t know, maybe. I just couldn’t sleep last night, I got so afraid of—” “That girl in the parkin’ lot this mornin’... it was her, wasn’t it? You moseyed on into the office lookin’ all pitiful last night and she talked you into doin’ this? She took advantage of you, baby?” Joel brushes a stray lock of hair behind your ear, his face contorted in dramatic concern.

You’re so caught off guard by his accusations, your shuddering body finally stills. You lift your head up from your hands, wiping your eyes on the backs of them. “...What?”

“I mean, I know you know better than this, so it must’ve been her, puttin’ all these nonsense ideas into your head, convincin’ you to do somethin’ that’d only get you hurt… She don’t know what’s good for you like I do, baby. What was gonna happen when you sent off your lil’ letter, and you waited ‘n waited ‘n waited, and your mama never came for you? Who’d be there to take care of you, hm? Me. Always gonna be me.” Joel gently swipes his thumbs underneath your eyes, collecting the salty dampness still there. He sounds so sure of his own words, they’re almost convincing you that you’re misremembering your encounter with Chrissy last night. It was late, you were exhausted, and Joel is right, you do know better, you’ve told him yourself. Had she done more than just provide you with the envelope and stamp? Was the idea in your head before you walked into the office, or had she somehow persuaded you of it without you being any wiser? You’d remember if Joel’s version of the story is the one that really happened, wouldn’t you?

“No, Joel, she didn’t—” you start, but he cuts you off swiftly.

“She did, baby, I think she did… Poor girl, must’ve been too out of it to even remember what really happened. D’you see now? This is why it’s gotta be just you ‘n me from now on, sweetheart. ‘Cause there’s all kinds of people out there like her who wanna get inside your head, convince you of things that ain’t true…”

As undeserving as Chrissy may or may not be of the blame for your childish endeavor, you feel relieved that your most recent act of defiance doesn’t seem to have the same effect on Joel as the one you attempted last night. He seems more… sorry for you, than anything else, and you aren’t quite sure why he seems to feel differently now than he did a mere twelve hours ago. Maybe he views it as proof of your loyalty, the fact that you had made it outside, gotten yourself a small taste of freedom, and still decided to crawl back into bed with him afterwards. You could’ve taken off running down the road if you’d really wanted to, his “insurance policies” be damned, but you didn’t. You stayed. And you hate what that says about you—that you’re fucking weak. But you’ll take “weak” over “dead”, at this point.

You decide to poke the bear a little bit, just to confirm if you’re in the clear the way you seem to be. “So… you’re not upset?” 

“No, no, I ain’t upset with you, baby. But this is why you can’t do things without me no more, okay? Can’t trust nobody out there except for me, can you?”

You pause, then shake your head at him.

“Good, good girl… Y’know what, baby? Here—” Joel reaches into the pocket of his jacket, and pulls out a tarnished silver lighter. “Why don’t we just forget about all this, huh? Forget about your mama, that girl back at the motel… All those people who don’t care about you the way I do.” He places the cool metal object in your hand and closes your fingers around it. 

“You… want me to burn it?”

Joel shrugs, quirking his mouth into a pout. “Don’t see why you’d wanna keep it… Ain’t goin’ anywhere, is it?”

“...No, guess not,” You mumble under your breath. You know what this means, what it symbolizes, why he wants you to do it yourself. So you can bear witness to your one last glimmer of hope dissolving into embers and ash on the sidewalk at your feet, so you can understand that there is no other outcome other than the one Joel had predetermined for you the second you had agreed to let him take you to Moody’s that night. There is no way out. There is submitting to him, and there is death. Take your pick.

You flick open the lighter, raise the flame to the paper, and watch it ignite. It only takes a few seconds before you feel the heat begin to lick at your fingers, and you drop the still-burning remainder of the letter onto the pavement below so as to spare your hands any further injury today. It curls in on itself and crumples as it chars, and the two of you stare at it until it’s nothing more than a smoldering pile of cinders. You swear you can see an amused smile tug at the corners of Joel’s lips in the edge of your vision.

“Don’t that feel better, baby? Finally lettin’ go of her?” he asks, taking the lighter from your hands and shoving it back into his pocket, along with the envelope. 

You sniffle once, shrugging. “A little.”

“I know, sweet girl. It will, in time. You’ll understand sooner or later.” Joel groans as he pushes himself back up from his kneeling position, then extends a hand down for you to take. He helps you stand, then adjusts your hair to sit nicely over your bruises again, before placing his hands on your shoulders. “Now, that red-headed girl… Did you get her name, sweetheart?”

“...Chrissy. Her name was Chrissy,” you answer hesitantly, the intonation of your response sounding more like a question.

“Chrissy…” Joel repeats, letting her name settle on his tongue. “Whaddya say we just head on back, see about payin’ Chrissy a lil’ visit, hm?” He retakes your hand in his, then starts in the direction of the truck.

Your heart sinks into your stomach, realizing the hidden meaning of his words. “Jus’ gotta bring ‘em to me, tha’s all. Maybe go after ‘em if they try to run,” Joel had rasped into your ear last night, when he was describing the role you’d be forced to play in continuing his sick habit. 

“W-what? Why? She won’t be there anymore, remember? She said she was leaving, that somebody else would be working in the office for the day,” you frantically remind him, hoping that she can be spared after all, hoping that you can be spared from your first time acting as bait.

Joel stops walking for a moment as he considers your words, then pulls you along with him again. “Pay a visit to whoever’s workin’ in there, then. See if they know where she might be.” He doesn’t look at you as he speaks, just stares straight ahead as he hones in on the truck like a missile. The overly concerned facade he had put on earlier seems to be faded now, replaced with something more akin to bloodthirsty determination.

You scrape the far corners of your mind for something, anything you could say to him that might talk him out of this. “But… I thought you said she took advantage of me? Why would you want to see her if you think she tried to hurt me?”

A muscle in Joel’s jaw ticks. His nostrils flare.

“You know why.”

tag list: @beefrobeefcal @iamasaddie @rebel-held @dilfgestivo @joeldjarin @kamcrazy123 @hellowoolf @rexamongthestars @stevie75 @luxurychristmaspudding @noisynightmarepoetry @mewantpeepaw @pedritoferg @alex-does-art-things @evolnoomym @annoyingmarvelreader @joelsdagger @natalieispunk @mermaidgirl30 @untamedheart81 @galway-girlatwork @pinkiec6-rubi @wand-erer5 @arminsbf @shivispunk @gigistorm @theoreticalfreak @vinceelser @always-andromeda @path0logicalpeoplepleaser @old-logan-and-old-joels-slut @zliteraturehoe @k1l4ni @hjzghi-blog @xkyxkyxxlylcylulucuflfluclu @kay1805 (if your name is crossed out, it won’t let me tag you!!)

[iamasaddie]

tell her to stay away from the light

Clint x f!Reader

summary: 1982, Clint parks at the screening of ‘Poltergeist’ in the local drive-in. Somewhere between ghosts intrusions and seances, he finds a much more appealing thing to look at in the car next to him. warnings: DARK FIC, DO NOT READ IF ARE EASILY TRIGGERED! Clint POV, voyeurism, edging, unreliable narrator (?), not thoroughly edited a/n: this is my too early of a submittion to @pedgito's spring fever challenge ! it was something new for me since it's not straight up porn but i hope y'all will still be able to enjoy it!

The light reflecting from the flickering screen plays ornately on your skin, giving it a cold hue. Clint is used to seeing those colors on those he dealt with. Bluish, purplish, grayish. Lifeless. The shades he knows so well. It is odd to see now, like you are going through the premature postmortem hypostasis while your heart is still pumping hot, thick blood through your veins, and your pupils are dilating with a range of emotions.

Diane Freeling's heart-rending screams are accompanied by the hum of gasps and yelps that come from dozens of different cars. Clint can’t tell what is happening on the screen anymore. All his thoughts are focused on you. So beautiful, so pitifully lonely. No girlfriend, no boyfriend, whose shoulder you can bury your scared face in when fear takes over your body. Instead, you lean back, pressing into the seat of the old Honda as if it can save you.

Clint doesn't take his eyes off your heaving chest. The white tank top clings tightly to the skin, leaving no room for imagination. It's too hot in a cramped car with the windows closed, but as if sensing an external threat, you don't rush to roll down the windows. 

The car parked to your right is packed with a bunch of obnoxiously loud guys. They laugh every time the people on the screen or in the neighboring cars scream in horror. The fear of others is just entertainment for them. Clint had seen dozens of guys like them, pompous dicks in soccer jackets, confident as long as they were in a crowd of equally muscular jerks. However, they squeal louder than a pig on a slaughter when they finally sense the danger themselves. When the only working convolution signals them about a deadly predator, when the instinct of self-preservation screams to run. Clint laughed himself when he heard their screams, their panic, their pleas. He's who they pretended to be.

And although Clint understands perfectly well what you're afraid of, he can't help but snicker arrogantly, because you still don't know where the threat really comes from.

A foggy gradient whitens up the windows in your rustbucket – a consequence of your heavy breathing combined with the usual stuffy and humid southern night. Clint returns his gaze to the stretched canvas where the movie scenes change. He is trying not to miss your movements with a peripheral glance, while not being obvious.

Leaning over the center panel, you reach for the passenger door, and soon the window is down, and a cool air seeps inside the car. The windows in Clint's car were rolled down from the very beginning, and now the last barrier between you has been eliminated. Everything is going according to plan.

For a second, Clint feels your searching gaze on his face, and makes an effort not to turn, not to meet your curious eyes. He concentrates on the film, even though the plot has been lost to him for some time.

After a few moments, you return to your usual position, fragile shoulders pressed into the old upholstery of the driver's seat, eyes darting across the screen from one character to another, lips parted. At the same time, Clint allows himself to return to scrutinizing you. He is pleasantly surprised by the way the movie captures your attention completely. Maybe he'll come back to watch it again, it looks like the story is worth it. But now his evening is coming up with a much more attractive story.

As if you can physically feel his caressing gaze, he smoothly glides it along the column of your neck, descending below, where the neckline of your almost see-through top teases him with a view of your chest, rising and falling to the rhythm of your fear. Your skin is glowing, a thin film of sweat has left its mark on the flawless canvas. Your body, that was so hungry for some freshness, is covered goosebumps as soon as a breath of wind actually invades your car. Following with his eager gaze lower, Clint feels the familiar tension in his groin area just as his eyes land on your taut nipples. No shame, no bra. Clint loves summers in the South.

He imagines how hard your heart is beating. If he looks closely, maybe he'll see how your tits shake with the influence. He could feel how fear makes adrenaline rush through your veins. Cold sweat, slippery and salty, is now accumulating on the back of your neck. Greedily, he sniffs the air, his nostrils flaring, as if trying to completely absorb the smell of your sea.

His hand reaches for his swollen dick, but he doesn't take it out, doesn't even unzip his fly. On the contrary, with a wide palm, he rubs himself slowly, applying the perfect amount of pressure over the rough material. The movement would have made him growl if he wasn't so close to you. But he doesn't want to scare you off, so he just clenches his jaw, not letting even a sigh leave his mouth. 

The caresses over his jeans do not bring any relief. His arousal, unable to spill in the heat of orgasm, courses through his veins, teases, tickles. 

Without taking his eyes off you, he continues to torment his suffering dick. The head was so swollen that any touch felt like torture. He knows that the plain cotton boxers already have the shameful stain of his arousal on them. And it's your fault.

So beautiful, so scared. So lonely. Clint thinks about your skin prickling up with chills, but now because of him. The way your hard nipples would feel against his palms. The way you’d scream when he lets his teeth mercilessly close on the sensitive buds. The weight of your soft breasts would pull them down painfully, but his teeth wouldn’t let go of the delicate skin. In his imagination, tears are spurting from your eyes. Now he regrets that he didn't look at them after all. What color are they? Blue? Are they green? Brown? Maybe black? It didn't matter, red goes with any color equally well.

Involuntarily, and as much as his jeans would allow, his hand begins to tighten around his cock, which has been begging for release. Clint has learned to enjoy this torment caused by you. He'll pay you back in kind later.

As soon as you start fidgeting, he freezes. Only his cock is pulsing helplessly in the captivity of his pants. Your hands reach for your head, gathering up your unruly hair, trying to peel off each strand from your sweaty temples and neck. That neck. Clint bites his lip, the familiar iron taste hitting his tongue. Such a thin, fragile neck. He is sure that one hand is enough for him to wrap around it almost completely. His thick fingers will be too rough compared to your delicate skin, even if he does everything more gently than usual. There's nothing to do about it, swans like you always have breakable little necks. 

Will you gasp for air, kick him, scream for help? Will you beg? Clint's gaze returns to your face, as if trying to find an answer, but in vain. Will you ask for more? Moan with pleasure? Squirm with desire? You will. Just like all those who came before you.

Lost in his thoughts, Clint himself flinches when the drive-in descends into darkness for a couple of moments. His eyes lazily trail across the noisy field of cars until they stop on the screen. The film had come to an end, as the opening credits indicated. 

With diligence, he unclenches his fist, which was lying like a sledgehammer on his left thigh, and removes his right hand from his groin. The loss of pressure and heat almost makes him whine like a beaten dog. Steadying his breathing, he raises his palms and wraps them around the leather of the steering wheel. 

All that remains is to wait, and he does. He waits for the cars to slowly start leaving the site; he waits for you to start your car. To his delight, he notices that you're not in a hurry. Apparently, you wanted to let that group of noticeably intoxicated guys from the car on your right side go ahead. By the time your Honda makes the pitiful sound of the engine starting, the field is almost empty. Clint pretends that his car won't start. An act that he has performed dozens of times, the one that would with a standing ovation if he played it out in front of an audience. Everything is going right as he directed it, and here you are, throwing a pitying glance in his direction and pursing your bitten lips. Gotcha.

“Do you need any help?” You lean towards the window, which is still open, trying to shout over the noise of the engine. Clint just shakes his head in fake annoyance.

“Don't worry,” he rubs his eyebrow where an old scar cuts through the short hairs that are starting to turn gray. The sound of his sad laugh is frankly unnatural, but, unexpecting, you don't notice anything. “The damned thing breaks all the time, maybe it's easier to just leave it on the side of the road and walk.”

You shrug, clearly not knowing what to say to that. Clint can see the cogs turning in your head. 

“Maybe,” as if doubting your own decision, you paused for a second. Clint pulls the key out of the ignition and slams on the steering wheel, hoping that the little scene won't scare off a trusting lamb like you. “Maybe I can give you a lift to the station? You can still catch a bus.” 

He doesn't miss the way your gaze appraisingly runs over the part of his body that you can see. You're evaluating whether you can handle him if he turns out to be a psychopath. And now it’s Clint's turn to shrink, try to make himself smaller, even though it's impossible with his stature.

“Are you sure?” He adds embarrassment to his voice, a slight tremor, a question. “I wouldn't want to inconvenience you. I understand what it looks like: a creepy old man in a broken-down rust bucket abuses the kindness of a young girl. Just what they write in those scary newspaper stories.”

You laugh, your shoulders relax, and he finally gets out of the car, having previously closed the windows of the Toyota he rented a couple of hours ago. Clint pulls down his shirt, covering his still painfully hard cock. Black jeans are always a good solution.

“It's okay, I'm passing through the station anyway. Besides, you don't look creepy or old at all.” You push the passenger door open, inviting Clint to climb inside.

“You haven't heard my knees pop yet.” 

You laugh again, twisting the steering wheel. Clint takes the last look at the screen. The credits stopped flashing with the names of the actors and the characters they played. The movie was over, but his evening has just begun.

tag list: @toxicanonymity @milla-frenchy @aurorawritestoescape @evolnoomym @pascalispretty @imaswellkid @joelemillersgirl @laurrrra @kyloispunk @codenamekitten please LEAVE A COMMENT AND REBLOG <3

[wolverigrl]

Trying to have a romantic night at home with Hugh but the kids and then Ryan who rings him keep runing the mood

😉

Romance and Unicorn Plushies

Hugh Jackman x f!reader

A/N: Thank you for this idea, and I hope y'all like it! xx

Warnings: fluff

Enjoy!

---------------------------------------------------

Tonight was supposed to be our night. Hugh had finally finished his work, the kids were tucked in, and we were going to have that long-overdue, romantic evening we'd been craving for weeks.

I could already picture it - just the two of us, no interruptions, candlelight, soft music, and then maybe... well, more.

He was in the kitchen finishing up Dinner, and I couldn't take my eyes off him. The way he moved, so effortlessly casual, like he wasn't even aware of how ridiculously attractive he was.

His forearms flexed as he stirred the sauce, and I found my mind drifting to much less innocent thoughts.

"Careful." Hugh teased without even turning around, his voice a low mumble.

"If you keep looking at me ike that, dinner's going to end up burned."

I leaned back against the counter, niting my lip as I gave him a slow once-over.

"Maybe I like my food with a bit of heat."

He turned then, giving me thas boyish grin that always made my heart race.

"Is that so?" He walked over, eyes never leaving mine as he placed his hands on either side of me, caging me in against the counter.

"I can think of a few ways to turn up the heat."

His breath was warm against my neck, sending a shiver down my spine as he leaned in, just close enough for his lips to brush against my ear. The nearness of him, the smell of him, was making it hard to focus on anything other than how padly I wanted him to close the small gap between us.

"Like what?" I asked, my voice teasing as I tilted my head, giving him more access.

"Mmm.." he murmured, his lips grazing my skin in the softest, most frustrating way.

"I could show you.. but it's much more fun if I make you beg for it."

I let out a soft laugh, running a hand up his arm, feeling the muscles flex beneath my touch.

"Hugh Michael Jackman.. do you really think I'm going to beg?"

He smirked, that slow, dangerous smile that set my pulse racing.

"Oh, love, I know you will."

Before I could come up with a witty response, his lips captured mine, slow and deliberate, as if he had all the time in the world to drive me insane. His hands slid around my waist, pulling me closer until our bodies were pressed flush against each other. The heat between us was immediate, electric, and I was suddenly not hungry for anything other than him.

He pulled back just slightly, his lips still hovering over mine, teasing me with every breath.

"Pasta's almost ready.."

I groaned, tugging him back toward me.

"I don't care about pasta!"

His laughter rumbled through his chest as he kissed me again, deeper this time, his hands slipping beneath my shirt to trace lazy patterns on my skin. I could feel every inch of him, the tension building between us like a coiled spring ready to snap.

"Are you sure?" he murmured against my lips. "I've been slaving over a hot stove for you."

I couldn't help the laugh that escaped me as I pulled him even closer, our bodies flush.

"If you think pasta's more important than this right now, I'm gonna start questioning your priorities!"

"Fair point." he whispered with a grin and his hands wandering lower.

"But you haven't even tried it yet."

His lips trailed down my neck, and tilted my head back, completely giving in to the sensations he was pulling out of me. He knew exactly what he was doing, exactly how to get me to the point where I couldn't think about anything but him. And he was enjoying every second of it.

Just as his hands slipped a little lower, the sound of giggling echoed from upstairs.

We both froze.

"You've gotta be kidding me!" Hugh groaned, dropping his head to my shoulder.

"They swore they were going to sleep." I said, exasperated.

But the laughter continued, and there was no use pretending they'd settle down on their own.

Hugh reluctantly let go of me and straightening up.

"I'Il go check on them."

"I'll come with you." I said with a sigh, and we both headed upstairs.

Sure enough, Ava and Oscar were wide awake, tangled up in sheets and pillows, whispering about something and clearly not planning to sleep anytime soon.

"Guys, come on.." Hugh said, rubbing is forehead.

"You promised you'd be asleep by now."

"Sorry, Dad.." Ava said, looking guilty but still too amused to be fully remorseful.

Oscar just grinned, as if this was all part of his master plan.

"We couldn't sleep."

I couldn't help but smile despite myself.

They were adorable, but right now, I wanted nothing more than to be back downstairs with Hugh, picking up where we'd left off.

"Alright.." Hugh sighed, trying to keep the frustration out of his voice.

"But seriously, you need to go to bed. It's late."

"Can we have one more story? Pleeeease!" Ava asked, pulling out the big, puppy-dog eyes and Hugh, of course, melted immediately.

"One more." he agreed smiling. "But that's it! Then you sleep!"

I gave him a look, raising an eyebrow. He just shrugged sheepishly.

He managed to get them settled after one more short story, and by he time we made it back downstairs, I was ready to pick up exactly where we'd left off. Hugh, as if reading my mind, grabbed my hand, pulling me back into his arm: with that same fiery look in his eyes.

"Where were we?" he asked, his voice a low, seductive murmur. His iands slipped down my back, and I shivered under his touch.

I wrapped my arms around his neck, pulling him in closer.

"I think you were about to make me forget my own name."

He chuckled softly, his breath warm against my neck.

"You make it very hard to keep track of time."

His lips brushed mine, and this time the kiss was deeper, more urgent. His hands slid under my shirt, fingertips grazing the skin of my waist, sending shivers through me. I pressed against him, feeling the solid warmth of his body, every muscle taut with restrained desire.

"Bedroom?" I breathed between kisses.

"Good idea." he muttered, lifting me slightly as we stumbled toward the stairs again without our lips parting.

Just as we reached the foot of the stairs, the doorbell rang.

We both stopped, frozen in place.

Hugh groaned loudly, resting his forehead against mine.

"This is some sort of cosmic joke!"

I couldn't help but laugh, even though I was equally annoyed.

"You should probably get that."

He ran a hand through his hair, clearly frustrated, but headed to the door. I leaned against the banister, trying to catch my breath and calm the frustration that was building as well.

We were so close.

Hugh opened the door, and there, standing in the doorway, was none other than Ryan.

"Ryan?" Hugh asked, exasperation clear in his voice. "It's almost ten o'clock at night!"

"Hey, mate!" Ryan grinned, strolling into the house like it was the most natural thing in the world.

"I just remembered my daughter left her unicorn plushy at your place."

Hugh blinked, still confused. "And you remembered that now?"

Ryan nodded solemnly.

"Yeah, she can't sleep without it, so I couldn't wait till morning."

Suddenly he leaned in, whispering just loud enough for us to hear.

"She has superhuman ears for the sound of her teddy bear being touched by anyone but her!"

I couldn't help the laugh that escaped me, and when Hugh glanced back at me with amusement, I shrugged.

"Unicorn plushies are serious business!"

"Yeah, see! She gets it!" Ryan said, smiling brightly. "You're the real MVP here!"

Hugh stepped aside, letting Ryan in with a sigh. "It should be somewhere in the living room. Try to be quiet. The kids just went to sleep."

As Ryan tiptoed through the house with exaggerated care, I couldn't stop giggling.

Hugh's frustration was palpable, but there was something so absurd about the situation, it was impossible to stay mad. Ryan, of course, found the plushy within minutes, triumphantly holding it up as though he had found some priceless artifact.

"I found it!" he whispered, glancing around dramatically, as if afraid the sound of his voice alone might wake the kids.

"Great. Now, out." Hugh said, trying to hide a grin, but failing miserably. He leaned against the doorframe crossing his arms in a way that would've looked intimidating to anyone who wasn't Ryan Reynolds.

"Leaving, leaving!" Ryan said, mock-saluting. "Sorry for the intrusion. Looks like you two were busy."

Hugh groaned playfully as Ryan winked at me before strolling out the door, whistling to himself like nothing out of the ordinary had happened.

Hugh closed the door behind him and turned to me, his face a mix of exhaustion and amusement.

"Why do I put up with him?"

"Because he's your best friend!" I teased, still laughing.

Hugh sighed, running a hand through his hair before walking back over to me, pulling me back into his arms.

"Now, if there are no more interruptions.

Where were we?" I asked, letting my hands wander across his chest feeling the tension still simmering between us.

"I think I was about to make you beg." he murmured, his voice low and teasing, lips brushing against mine.

"And what makes you think I'm going to beg?" I challenged, wrapping my arms around his neck.

His smile widened, a wicked glint in his eyes.

"Oh, love, I'll have you begging before the night's over."

---------------------------------------------------

Tags: @angelofthorr @haytchee

[meadow-of-daisies-and-lavender]

Summary: The winter ice has melted, and the spring blossoms have bloomed. But as the elders continue their tyranny over your village, your gods seemingly disappeared. Or had they? Eventual Poly 141.

A/N: Please comment and reblog. Thank you to @ethereal-night-fairy and @wildflower-and-honey for feeding my brain worms. I love you three and cannot thank y'all enough <3 Thank you, @saradika, for the beautiful dividers I use in everything.

CW: (18+) Children begone! PIV smut, swearing, a Dyslexic wrote this, Religious Kinks, some violence. Let me know if I missed anything!

NO AI

Leave a comment and reblog!

There was something in the air that had come with the visiting traders. Perhaps it was the joy of seeing fresh faces or new goods for the village, but you knew it was the change of winter melting into springtime, coaxed by the longer days and warmth of the sunshine peaking hopefully from between the rain clouds. Who couldn’t help but stretch their arms and sigh as if waking from hibernation? Even the trees reached their blossoms to the sunshine, eager to play in the rays of light, drink from the rain once more, and splash in the mud.

The melting waters came with the waking warmth, opening the trade routes in time for the Spring Festival. What once was a holy holiday to celebrate the addition of Kyle Garrick to godhood, the creation of youthful spring, was now a feast to celebrate wealth, trade, and alliances between villages.

You sat beside your neighbor, adding your dish to the feast to share, before twisting in your seat to watch the village elders light the bonfires for the evening’s celebrations. After a week of trade, your village offered a feast and celebration on the night of the holy spring festival as thanks to those who had traveled far and wide to come to the village. You only remembered the Spring Festival being a sacred holiday as a young girl. Somewhere along the way, the spring celebration had fallen from the gods and landed on mortals' laps, becoming a jovial, insignificant matter.

“Why do you look so sour?” Elder Sheppard spoke with a stern face. You would have turned, but his hand clamped down on the back of your neck, squeezing until you grit your teeth.

Elder Sheppard jostled you around like a kitten who needed scuffing. He was known for a forest fire of a temper, flaring into dangerous territory when he was the one who wanted you dead in winter.

You stumbled to your feet as he pulled you from the bench, holding you closer to his body. It was one thing for the elders to plot your murder in the wintertime, to speak ill of you until you had a reputation of a rumored curse. It was another to dehumanize you into their little doll, playing with their food until they decided it was time to eat. He shook you, squeezing your neck until you whimpered, speaking words you couldn’t make out over the ringing in your ears.

The hand disappeared as Elder Sheppard was pulled away by a trader in white, leaving you stumbling onto the table bench, shivering. You rubbed away the touch of Shepard until your skin felt hot.

A mouse had more fight than you did when Sheppard rattled you around. It was how the elders had managed to get you into the woods in the first place, even when you knew it would be your death. Being around the elders left your mind limp and your body frozen in fear, unable to breathe in the fumes of their reign, poisoning you slowly to death. A slow death was still a death- and the miracles to save you were used up and dried out.

The wind picked up as the clouds gathered overhead, threatening rain the next day. You ate silently as musicians began to play, dancers gathering around flames, emboldened by the flowing alcohol. Since winter, the elders made it known you were being watched. You were supposed to be a frozen corpse in the snow or a slaughtered woman at the hands of the gods.

Instead, you had been saved by the gods and granted a miracle of one more day alive. You had slept with the god of winter, partially in thanks, partially because you wanted to. John Price left his marks on your skin as the winter ice marked the rocks, splitting them over time. Apparently, even the gods wanted nothing to do with you now that John had his fill, leaving without a word or answered prayer over winter.

“Look!” Your neighbor gasped. Turning, you covered your mouth as Elder Sheppard hobbled from the trader in white, spitting insults at him as his broken nose gushed blood. The trader, who wore a hood and a mask, glared at the man oozing blood while he remained spotless. You quickly turned to your meal as if you saw nothing and took a drink of wine.

“He will have to leave in the morning as soon as dawn comes if he wishes to leave alive,” Your neighbor spoke. “Elder Sheppard is not a forgiving man.”

“He deserved it. A right bastard, treating people like animals on leashes like that if you ask me.”

A man’s voice from behind made you jump, nearly spilling your wine. With a sigh, you turned in your seat, looking up at the trader in white. Now, closer to the firelight, you could see the golden sparkle gliding through his gaze.

“Punching a stranger from a different village with high standings is like asking for war, trader,” You spoke, rubbing the back of your neck. “Doesn’t do much of anyone good to irritate the elder more than necessary.”

“Well, if he knows what is good for him, he’ll keep his hands off of a pretty bird like you,” The man’s eyes crinkled as if he was grinning under his mask. “Care to dance?”

“No. I only came for the food.” You stood to go home for the evening, appetite lost for the night. “Besides, you already have enough of a death wish with your hot-head actions.”

“Hot-head actions?” The man scoffed. “What he did was a right improper thing. What kind of leader treats his people like that? Yet, I’m the hot head?” The man spoke as he followed you away from the fires, his thumbs looped in his belt pockets. He walked side-by-side with you, only brushing your arm on occasion.

“It is said to be bad luck to speak ill of the elders around here, trader. A man died last winter because of it,” You scoffed, thinking of the soldier who traversed into the woods before you. “I’m lucky to be alive and do not wish it jeopardized, nor should you.”

“Pity. I heard dying is in fashion nowadays,” the man joked.

“Only for those lucky enough to be immortal,” You blandly replied. The man did not respond, deciding to pluck a blossom from a tree and examine it between his fingers. You kept walking, leaving him behind.

“I don’t remember the Spring Festival being a thing about trade.”

You rolled your eyes before stopping to respond, “It’s more lucrative to twist the meaning to bring trade opportunities in. They believe the old gods are dead, and only the new god of power reigns over their hearts and minds.”

“And do you, Fawn, believe the old gods are dead?” The trader spoke, making you squint in the darkness. You hadn’t been called Fawn since...

Tears welled in your eyes, and you unexpectedly felt your stomach drop. The whisper of John’s care still hovered in the memory of your body, keeping you awake and praying for his return. You had tried returning to the woods so many times over winter. But the elders were always there, watching and waiting for your failures. Your prayers echoed in the temple's vaults, responding in a puppet of your voice, mocking you. The gods had gone silent. For whatever reason, they did not want you anymore, casting you aside to deal with your mortal issues alone.

“There,” You swallowed thickly before clearing your throat. “There is a difference between the gods being dead and the gods not caring. Why should the gods not care for what has not cared for them?”

You furiously wiped at your eyes with your sleeve. Your village did not care for your gods anymore, but did it mean nothing that you still cared for them? That you still prayed nightly to John, Kyle, Ghost, and Johnny? That you tended to your altar within your home out of your love for them? Was it all for naught?

“Have you stopped caring for us, Fawn?” The man whispered.

Whirling around, the man had removed his hood and mask to reveal the god of spring, Kyle. His brow was knit low, the bud he had picked now plucked to parts on the road by his boots, and the golden sunshine in his eyes dark to match the reflection of the moonlight. Memories of waking in the north and east gods' presence were cloudy. Of Gaz, you only recalled his bright grin and his brown eyes. The shapes had gone fuzzy in your recollections, lost to time.

“I,” You paused as a light flickered in the distance, growing larger as the shape of an elder grew, walking down the road. Kyle turned, huffing once he caught what you saw.

“You would think your village elders had nothing better to do,” He huffed, placing a gentle hand on your lower back.

“They won’t bother me at home. I’ll make you some tea,” You offered, slipping your hand over his bicep and guiding him to your little home.

“I’m surprised to see you here,” You confessed as you deposited your muddy boots on the porch of your home. “I haven’t heard from you since winter, not even John.” You opened your door and began to busy yourself with illuminating the space.

“John wanted us to wait for you to come to us. He didn’t want us to overwhelm you,” Kyle mentioned as he followed suit, removing his boots. Standing, he moved to enter before pausing, holding the inside of your doorframe.

“What’s wrong?” You questioned, shucking off your outerwear.

“Well,” Kyle chuckled, fingers tapping along the oak, feeling the smooth surface. “We were waiting for you to come to us, but we never saw you enter the woods without the elders following you. And it seems whatever prayers you prayed had been blocked by… this.”

He tapped the top of the corner frame, where a very small sigil had been quickly etched into the frame. It was sloppy, the smooth curves of letters jagged in the rush. Such magic practices were unfamiliar to you but not unfamiliar to your people. However, very few still practiced the magic.

“It is made to keep anything from the spiritual realm out. Prayers, offerings, ancestors, everything is cast out,” Kyle informed you. “Even the fuckin’ gods.” Kyle reached into his belt, pulled out a knife, and whittled away the sigil until it was a scarred, scratched patch of splinters.

“I didn’t do that,” You muttered, fingers hovering over the spot. “Such magic must be an old practice if it works.”

“And it works all right,” Kyle spoke as he crossed the threshold, a gust of fresh air following him into the home. It was as if you had opened all the windows to chase away the stagnant build-up of air, a sudden wash of rejuvenation breathing new life into your space.

Glancing at Kyle, who had entered your home and leaned on the closed door, savoring the fresh air with his eyes closed, you couldn’t help but admire the scars on his cheeks and his tilted smile. You took a step forward, fingers itching to touch his cheek, to trace the plush swell of his lip and the divots of scars to the bridge of his nose. His eyes flickered open, and you froze, heat gathering on your neck. Stepping back, you retreated into the kitchen, rubbing your cheeks.

You loved the gods as a devotee. Out of that love, you let the god of winter, John Price, kiss your skin and cradle your love in his hand as if porcelain. Setting the kettle to boil, you jumped as Kyle settled his hands on your hips, but he waited to see if you would step away before slowly pressing his chest to your back.

“If we had realized the elders were keeping you from us, we would have done something,” Kyle confessed, lips moving as he spoke against your neck. “Price thought you wanted nothing of us after having you in our bed. That didn’t make sense to me, so I came to find you; figure out what’s happening.”

“Wanted nothing to do with you?” You scoffed, turning in his arms. “That’s the most absurd thing I’ve heard.”

Kyle chuckled, squeezing your hips. You reached to cup his cheek, finally being able to brush your fingers over his scars. He melted into your touch, his shoulders hunching as if the world's weight had been shucked from him.

“That’s why I came to see for myself, Fawn,” he grinned, pulling you closer. “We can’t let you slip that easily.”

“We?” You questioned, leaning closer to his face.

“We. Who do you think allowed me to go?” Kyle’s eyes drifted down to your mouth, and he leaned closer.

“I didn’t realize it was a group decision,” You breathed.

“It’s always a group decision, love,” Kyle brushed his nose against yours before kissing you softly.

Kyle kissed you as if committing the taste of your flesh into his memory, unrushed and slow. He did not bother to move his hands when yours traced his shoulders and biceps and scratched the back of his head, urging him to devour you. He seemed fearless of the coming dawn, blind to time and her urgency.

Coaxed by his ease and gentleness, your impatience soon melted away. Becoming lax in his arms, you conceded to follow his pace.  His hand slowly slid lower on your hips, reverently smoothing over the bumps of fabric and fat to palm your ass. Your hips jilted forward, bumping into his, making you moan as he swiveled his hips teasingly against yours.

“Fucking, take me to bed already, Kyle,” You huffed playfully against his mouth.

“I don’t know where your bed is, love. Your home, not mine,” Kyle teased back. You rolled your eyes, making him chuckle as he took your hand to follow you into the bedroom. He removed his clothes as you removed yours, eyes darkening as he took in your form.

Asking you to lay on your back, he kissed down your neck, reverently cupping your tits in his hand. He did not pinch or twist; he simply squeezed and caressed the softness in his hands. You rubbed your thighs together, but he settled between them, forcing your wetness to drip down and cool your aching cunt.

“Kyle, please, hurry up!” You huffed, tugging at his short curls.

“Fawn, we have all night,” the god of the north grinned, nipping at your nipple. “Let me enjoy you.”

“What if I’m not enjoying your teasing?” You countered, mouth dropping as his hands covered the icy scars of John’s creation over your womb just as he sucked at the sensitive side of your neck.

“Tell me you aren’t enjoying my mouth on your body, Fawn,” Kyle goaded into your ear, dropping his hips to grind his length against your wetness. He grunted, letting out a moan in your ear. “But it doesn’t seem like you hate this, love.”

No, you did love it. Reaching to grip his pert ass, you tried to coax him inside your cunt, but he swatted your hands away, pushing you up the bed as he spread your legs even wider. Staring intensely at your cunt, he licked his lips, easing a leg over his shoulder.

It tickled as he brushed his lips over the inside of your ankle, made you shiver as he licked the back of your knee, had your hips bucking by the time he sucked the skin of your thighs into his mouth, biting the flesh or rolling his tongue against it.

The only reason for your existence was to give his mouth your supple flesh to consume and drink from. His hips shuttered against the sheets as he ground his cock into the mattress, his back and hip muscles rippling with the motion. You moaned, throwing your head back into the pillows and pushing your hips against his cheek.

“Absolutely soaked for me, aren’t you, Fawn?” Kyle hummed as he dragged his tongue over your pussy, drinking you up. He avoided your clit, deciding to agonizingly insert a finger into your heat, rubbing against your walls until you relaxed enough for a second finger.

“I want to suck your cock, Kyle,” You whined, gasping as his other hand rubbed circles on your clit. “Probably as pretty as the rest of you,” You babbled, thinking about being on your knees for him, reducing him into as much of a flustered mess as you were at the moment.

Quietly, you heard the shlack, shlack, shlack of him fisting his cock before he licked at your cunt. Squealing, your bucked hips were shoved back to the bed as he wrapped his arm around your body to anchor you to him. With one hand around his cock, and one now playing with your clit as he ate you out, you gushed, knowing your wetness was wrapped around his cock.

“Are you going to cum all over your hand for me? I want to see you cum- so good,” You couldn’t stop talking, rolling your hips in time to his hand around his cock. “Shit, I’m,” You groaned, grabbing the back of his head, but just as you neared your orgasm, he pulled away, panting into your thigh.

Your body dissolved into the bed with a frustrated squeal, your cunt still pulsing for attention. You sputtered out curses at Kyle before feeling him hoist your legs in his arms and pull you down the bed to his waiting mouth, building you back up.

Over and over again, he teased you. Bringing you to the brink of the edge, he’d ruin your orgasm until you were babbling and thrashing beneath him. Finally, as he sucked your clit and pushed three fingers inside your cunt, he pressed down on your lower stomach. He let you cum then, bursting and gushing with a cry over his hands, feeling a very small stream of liquid escaping you.

Ears ringing, you went limp, feeling your pussy pulse with distant contractions. Your chest rose and fell with each pant as Kyle gingerly set your legs on the bed, rubbing at your sore thighs.

“Feel good, Fawn?” He whispered, leaning down to kiss your temple and brush his nose against yours. You nodded, letting your heavy eyelids fall, sinking into blissful warmth.

Kyle had fucked you before he left that morning, entwining his arms with yours as he worked his cock in from behind, spooning you in the morning hours. After, he fed you berries and nuts from his altar, which you had chastised him for.

“What’s the point if I can’t share?” He countered. “Besides, I don’t want them to go to waste when you need energy after last night.”

You had managed to wobble out to the door to see him off, kissing him one last time before he tugged up his white mask, making his way north to his woods. The birds sang from the blooming trees, and even with the morning chill, you couldn’t help but melt against the doorframe and inhale, exhaling into the stillness of the morning dew.

But even in the stillness of the morning darkness, tinged with the dusty blues of dawn’s hatching, you could feel the eyes of another raking over your skin. Peering down the road, you glared at a neighbor staring intensely at you from their porch and returned inside your home for more rest, knowing the elders would hear of your guest by sunup.

When you were woken by the mid-morning sun, you were not surprised to discover your arms wrapped in silver scars shaped like ivy and vines, the god of Spring, marking you as his.

a/n: Please comment and reblog!

[ponderingmoonlight]

yotd men walking in on you in a hot spring

Pairings: Shin-Ah x fem!reader; Hak/Kija x fem!reader; Bonus with all yotd men hehe

Word Count: 4,6k

Warnings: it's getting heated in Hak's part y'all hehe

I would super duper appreciate it if you like even though you're not a fan of Yona of the Dawn but because of me hehe <3

Shin-Ah accidentally protecting you from danger

The hot spring’s warmth soothes every aching muscle in your tired body, the gentle lap of water against the rocks almost hypnotic. You tilt your head back, letting the steam curl around you like a protective cocoon while you can’t help but let out a sign of relief. When was the last time you’ve had some time for yourself? Away from constant danger, away from the snide remarks of Hak and Jae-Ha who annoy you straight to the core. No, it’s just you and the moon-lit forest around the spring which hums with life - chirping crickets, rustling leaves, and the distant call of a bird.

But then, the forest goes quiet.

The sudden stillness prickles at the back of your neck. You sit upright, scanning the tree line, your heart thumping louder than the now-muted sounds of nature. What on earth was that? Should you…call for the boys?

“SOMEONE HEL-“

Before you can call out, a shadow moves. There’s a blur of movement, and then he’s there.

Shin-Ah steps into the clearing like a ghost, his sword glowing faintly in his grasp. His golden eyes flash across you, scanning the surroundings with deadly precision.

“Shin-Ah?” you call, startled, your voice cracking slightly.

You instinctively sink deeper into the water, heat rushing to your face. There might be something dangerous out there, but…

You’re still completely naked.

His head snaps toward you, his gaze meeting yours. For a moment, his body remains rigid, and you swear his grip on his sword tightens. Then, slowly but surely, recognition dawns. His posture softens just slightly, though his eyes dart around the spring’s edge.

“Danger,” he murmurs, his voice low and clipped.

He’s still scanning the shadows as if expecting something, or someone, to emerge.

“Danger?” you echo, confusion lacing your tone.

“I didn’t…wait, is there something out there?”

Shin-Ah takes a step closer, the faint glow of his dragon power intensifying. You can see his chest rise and fall beneath his cloak as he breathes deeply, his heightened senses working overtime. Then, from the bushes nearby, there’s a rustle and a loud, sudden croak.

Your heart skips a beat, your body instinctively pressing against Shin-Ah’s. You’ve never really been a fighter, only joined because Yona is your best friend. You can’t die out here, butt-naked in a hot spring while taking a bath, right?

A frog leaps into the clearing, landing with an awkward splash near the water’s edge.

For a moment, neither of you move. Then Shin-Ah’s shoulders slump, his sword’s light fades as he lowers the blade. The danger was nothing but a…frog?

You burst into laughter, the tension in your body evaporating while you’re forced to hold onto Shin-Ah’s shoulder for support.

“You thought a frog was dangerous?”

Shin-Ah turns back and glances at you, his mask hiding any expression, but the way he hesitates and fidgets with Ao’s tail betrays his embarrassment. His ears, you notice, are bright red by now.

Still smiling, you tilt your head at him.

“You didn’t have to rush in so dramatically, you know. I was perfectly fine. Even though I have to admit I was glad seeing you when I heard that strange noise.”

But then his eyes flicker down to the water - and widen slightly as realization dawns.

Your body is pressed against his, your skin burning through his wet clothes. But it’s not only the fact that you’re touching him.

You’re…you’re nude.

His entire body stiffens, and he takes a quick step back, his hand gripping Ao a little too tightly while he stumbles back like an idiot.

You follow his gaze and remember too late: you’re naked in the hot spring. And to top it all off, you pressed your naked body against his.

“Shin-Ah!” you shout, sinking deeper into the water, your face burning hotter than the steam surrounding you.

“Don’t look!”

“I…I wasn’t!” he stammers, his voice higher-pitched than usual.

He turns so quickly that he almost trips on the hem of his cloak, spinning on his heel to face away from you. You can see the tips of his ears glowing crimson beneath his hood.

“I… I didn’t notice. I mean - I noticed, but I wasn’t looking-!”

Before you can stop yourself, a giggle escapes your lips. Did you ever feel more embarrassed than right now? Well, no matter how embarrassed you feel, one look at Shin-Ah’s tensed back tells you more than urgently that he feels 10 times worse.

“I hope I didn’t scare you with that body of mine-“

“Scaring me? Your body isn’t scary at all! I mean…I mean…-“

“What’s going on back there? (y/n), are you-…What the hell is going on here!?”, Hak blurts out while stepping into the scene.

“Hak, get lost!”, you shriek, hands desperately trying to cover your sensitive parts.

Hak pauses, taking in the scene with his signature smirk growing wider and wider by each passing second. His gaze bounces between Shin-Ah, who is still stiff and glowing faintly, and you, nearly submerged in the water.

“Well, well,” Hak drawls, crossing his arms with a cocked eyebrow.

“This is a unique look for the two of you. I didn’t realize you were having private lessons in…whatever this is.”

“It’s not like that!” you yell, mortification threatening to drown you more thoroughly than the hot spring itself.

“And don’t look, you idiot!”

“Oh, don’t worry, I’m not looking-” Hak teases, though his eyes deliberately flick to Shin-Ah.

“But it looks like Shin-Ah got an eyeful.”

At that, Shin-Ah’s head snaps up, his wide, horrified gaze fixed firmly on Hak.

“I… I didn’t! I-!” His voice wavers, flustered beyond words, as his golden eyes dart everywhere but toward you.

Hak’s grin only deepens.

“Relax, mask boy. I’m just saying, I didn’t expect you to be the bold type.”

“Hak!” you cry out, but before you can yell at him again, you feel the soft weight of something warm drape over your shoulders.

You glance down and see Shin-Ah’s thick fur cloak now shielding your exposed body, the comforting smell of his presence surrounding you.

Shin-Ah has turned to face Hak fully, standing between you and him like a shield. His tall frame blocks you from Hak’s line of sight entirely, his glowing gaze unwavering as he steps forward.

“Leave,” Shin-Ah says softly, his voice uncharacteristically firm.

“Oh? Feeling protective, are we?” Hak quips, unfazed.

 He leans lazily against a nearby tree, clearly enjoying the situation.

“Fine, fine. I’ll go. Just don’t take too long, or I’ll have to assume you’ve been turned into frog food.”

He waves as he retreats, calling over his shoulder,

“You’re welcome for the rescue, by the way!”

The silence that follows is almost as loud as Hak’s teasing had been. You sigh, pulling the fur tighter around yourself as Shin-Ah glances at you hesitantly. His ears are still red, his mask tilting slightly downward.

“Thank you,” you murmur, your voice soft now.

“For the cloak… and for standing up to Hak.”

Shin-Ah nods slowly, his hand resting on Ao’s head for comfort.

“Sorry,” he whispers, his voice almost trembling.

“I didn’t mean… to make you uncomfortable.”

You smile despite yourself.

“It’s okay. You were trying to protect me.”

Shin-Ah stays silent for a moment before finally stepping back toward the shadows.

“I’ll… make sure no one else comes. Enjoy the rest of your bath.”

And with that, he disappears into the treeline, his presence lingering like the warmth of his cloak around your shoulders.

Kija and Hak walking in on you during an argument

The hot spring’s warmth envelops you like a comforting blanket, its soothing waters easing every ache and strain from days of travel. A sigh escapes your lips as you let yourself relax, sinking further into the water. What a hell of a week this was, the only truly comforting thing that happened was meeting Zeno. But stumbling over that hot springs? Priceless, without any doubt.

It’s been far too long since you’ve had a moment to yourself. Away from Hak’s endless teasing, away from the group’s constant chatter, and away from Kija’s persistence that he protects you from every little thing. No danger, no distractions - just you and the peaceful sound of the water lapping against the rocks.

But the peace is short-lived.

As usual.

A rustling sound breaks the stillness, and you freeze, your gaze darting around without a real aim. You listen closely, heart starting to race. The forest, once alive with the faint hum of crickets, has fallen silent. You sit up in the water, eyes scanning the darkened treeline.

Before you can call out, voices cut through the night.

“Hey, white snake! You think she fell into the spring or something?”

Hak.

Your heart skips a beat.

“Hak, don’t even say that!”, Kija’s voice follows, loud and frantic.  

“Why would you assume something so catastrophic?! What if she’s injured - or worse?”

Footsteps crunch against the forest floor, and you feel panic rising as they grow louder. No, no, no. This cannot be happening. They aren’t on their way to you, right?

“Wait! Hak, Kija, don’t-!” you call out, your voice echoing off the rocks, but it’s too late.

The two burst into the clearing like a pair of wayward storms, Kija with his dragon arm glowing faintly in preparation for an attack and Hak looking as relaxed as ever, his glaive resting lazily against his shoulder.

The moment they see you, time seems to stop.

There you are, chest-deep in the water, steam curling around your bare shoulders. Kija’s dragon arm immediately lowers as his jaw drops, his pale skin quickly turning a deep shade of crimson. Hak, on the other hand, raises an eyebrow, the corners of his mouth twitching in amusement.

“What are you two doing here!?” you shriek, sinking deeper into the water and flapping to cover yourself with your arms.

Hak is the first to recover, his trademark smirk spreading across his face as he leans casually on his glaive.

“Well, this is unexpected. Thought we were here to save you from drowning, but it turns out you’re just having a nice soak.”

He pauses, letting his gaze flicker to Kija’s dumbstruck expression before adding,

“This might be even better, honestly.”

“Don’t look!” you yell, your face burning hotter than the spring.

“I’m not looking,” Hak replies, though the playful edge to his tone says otherwise.

“Not really, anyway.”

“Hak!” Kija snaps, finally coming to his senses.

He spins around so fast you almost feel the wind from his motion, his back now firmly to you. His hands tremble as he clenches his fists at his sides.

“This is highly inappropriate! Miss (y/n), I…I deeply apologize for this unspeakable intrusion!”

Hak snorts.

“Unspeakable? Bit dramatic, don’t you think?”

He tilts his head, clearly enjoying himself.

“Relax, white snake. She’s fine. No harm done.”

“Fine?! This is mortifying!” Kija hisses through clenched teeth, refusing to turn around.

His dragon arm flexes, his knuckles white.

“We should never have come here!”

“You don’t say,” you mutter bitterly, your embarrassment mounting by the second.

Hak’s smirk widens.

 “Oh, come on. It’s not every day you walk into a scene this memorable. You’ve got to admit, the timing’s kind of perfect. And the view is even better”

“Hak,” you growl, the water splashing as you resist the urge to throw something at him.

“Shut up and leave already!”

“Oh, I’ll leave,” Hak replies, holding up his free hand in mock surrender.

He glances at Kija, who still looks like he might pass out from sheer humiliation.

“But I don’t think Kija’s feet are working anymore. Guess it’s just you and me, (y/n).”

“GET OUT!” you scream, splashing water in Hak’s direction.

He laughs, dodging the spray with infuriating ease.

“Alright, alright. I’m going. No need to get violent.”

He turns, throwing an exaggerated wave over his shoulder.

“Next time, though, maybe leave a note if you’re sneaking off for a midnight soak. Could’ve saved us all some trouble.”

As Hak strolls off, still laughing under his breath, Kija hesitates, his back rigid and unmoving.

“I… I’ll make sure Hak never speaks of this again!” he promises, his voice high-pitched and frantic.

“Miss (y/n), please forgive us for this - this indecent situation!”

Before you can respond, he takes a shaky step forward to follow Hak, literally running away for dear life.

You still fail to catch your breath. As if Kija being here isn’t worse enough, why on earth did it have to be him? You’ve had a crush on Hak for as long as you can remember, still always admiring him from afar. Did he…look at you, maybe even find you attractive?

Out of instinct, you shake your head vehemently. What kind of nonsense is this? As if a guy like Hak would even look your direction.

You take a deep breath, trying to calm your racing heart and chase his stupid perfect face out of your thoughts as you sink back into the warmth of the spring. There’s no use in interpreting too much into this situation. After all, it was probably Kija who worried about you, right?

But your pulse quickens again when you hear that familiar voice you tried so desperately to chase away.

“Don’t worry, it’s just me.”

You barely have time to react before Hak steps back into the clearing, his eyes gleaming in the moonlight, leaning casually against a tree as though nothing’s changed. His easy grin makes the air around you feel heavier.

“Hak,” you snap, trying to control the heat rising in your cheeks.

“What are you doing back here?”

He raises an eyebrow, taking a slow step closer, not at all bothered by the situation.

"Just making sure you’re all right, of course."

“Stop messing around. I told you I’m fine.”

You try to sound convincing, but it comes out strained. It’s hard to focus when his gaze lingers just a little too long. His eyes trace the curve of your shoulders, down your arms, your body beneath the water, and you can feel the weight of his attention like a physical touch.

Hak seems to notice your discomfort and smirks even wider.

“I know. You’re fine. But you’ve been avoiding me all day, so I thought I’d check on you.”

“I’m not avoiding you,” you mutter, your voice wavering despite your best efforts.

“It’s just… uncomfortable when you keep making things weird.”

His smirk doesn’t fade as he steps forward, and you instinctively inch back, but there's nowhere to retreat. He’s just a few feet away now, his body blocking the space between you and the edge of the spring. You feel like dying and flying at the same time.

"Is it weird though?" Hak asks, voice dropping to a husky whisper as he leans in, his presence overwhelming you.

“You never told me to stop… not really.”

You blink, and before you can protest, Hak continues, his tone darker now, almost teasing.

"You don't mind when I get close, do you? Not really."

The air grows thick, the steam around you suddenly feeling even hotter than before. His gaze locks onto yours, intense and unyielding. You’ve never seen him like this before, and the sudden shift in his manner makes your heart race. What on earth has gotten into him?

“Hak…”

Your voice comes out breathy, betraying your attempt to remain composed.

He smirks, but there’s something different about the way he’s looking at you now - something that sends a tingle straight down your spine. His hands flex at his sides as he steps closer, his body almost touching yours.

"You sure you want me to leave? Because I'm not getting that impression."

You’re too flustered to answer, heat rushing to your face, your body tense beneath the water. You're caught between the urge to push him away and the strange pull that draws you closer. His eyes flicker downward to where the water clings to your skin, and he breathes in slowly, as if savoring the moment.

"Don't look," you mumble automatically, your tone half-warning, half-pleading.

"I’m not."

Hak’s voice is low, teasing, but there's an edge to it.

"But if you didn’t want me to look, why are you hiding under the water like that?"

You glare at him, biting your lip to keep from responding too quickly.

“I’m not hiding.”

He takes another step forward, closing the distance until you can feel the heat of his body radiating against you.

“Sure you’re not.”

His voice is low and seductive now, each word making your heart beat faster. He leans in, his breath warm against your ear as his fingers brush the edge of the water.

“I’m just trying to make sure you’re okay. And it seems to me you’re not so fine with me leaving. Aren’t you?”

Your breath catches in your throat, and before you can stop yourself, you gasp when his hand barely skims your shoulder, sending a shock of heat through your body. Your instincts flare up, and you try to pull back, but his presence is suffocating, and there’s nowhere to go.

You glance at him, eyes wide with something between irritation and panic, but your words get caught in your throat as he steps even closer. The tension between you is suffocating now, crackling with something raw, something primal, something that makes the air heavy and thick with desire.

"You’ve been avoiding me all this time," he whispers, his lips brushing your ear, sending a shiver through your body.

"But you can’t hide from me forever, (y/n)."

You shiver, unable to speak, your breath coming faster as his hand traces lightly down your arm. His fingers linger just long enough for you to feel the warmth of them against your skin, igniting a fire within you.

“W-what are you doing?” you manage to breathe out, barely able to get the words out past the tightness in your chest.

Hak’s lips curl into a half-smile, the teasing edge still there, but there’s something deeper behind his eyes now.

“I’m just making sure you understand what I’ve been trying to say.”

His voice is thick, husky now, like the air between you both is too thick to bear.

The space between you both is impossibly small, and you’re not sure if it’s your breath or his that’s filling the air, making everything feel suffocating. You can’t remember the last time you felt this close to him - felt this seen by him.

But somehow, you never want it to end. No, you want him to stay like this, you want to feel him this close to you.

You want him, none other than Son Hak.

“Maybe…I want you”, you breathe into the night.

Bonus: all the men hehe

The hot spring is supposed to be your reward. After days of trekking through rough terrain, dealing with bandits, and sleeping in the dirt, this feels like heaven itself. Even Yun had chimed in, saying you deserved a moment to relax, offering you some alone-time in the hot springs. They had specifically assigned this hot spring to you, promising that no one would disturb you. Sometimes, they are able to act nice.

You sigh cheerfully, the warm water easing every ache and pain in your body. It’s peaceful, calm, and the perfect chance to relax.

Until the door to the changing area slides open with a loud clack.

You jolt upright, your heart leaping into your throat. Before you can even process what’s happening, Hak strides in, wearing nothing but a small, damp white towel slung low around his waist. Water drips from his messy hair as he steps confidently into the spring, seemingly unaware of your presence.

“Man, this is going to feel great,” Hak signs, stretching his arms overhead.

You feel like seeing a ghost. Didn’t the old lady tell you in front of everyone else that the hot spring number three will be reserved for you only? Are you mistaken?

“H-Hak?!” you sputter, your voice echoing in the steamy air.

He freezes mid-step, his dark eyes snapping toward you. For a moment, neither of you say anything. Then, his signature grin returns, twice as mischievous as usual.

“Oh? Didn’t expect to see you here,” Hak comments smoothly, his tone dripping with faux innocence.

“Don’t mind me - this is my assigned tub, too.”

“What?! No, it isn’t!” you snap, your face turning bright red as you sink lower into the water, desperate to hide yourself.

Before Hak can reply, another voice calls out.

“Wait for me, Thunder Beast! Don’t hog the spring!”

Jae-Ha appears, his towel slung over his shoulder and his long legs carrying him gracefully into the clearing. The green dragon freezes mid-step when he spots you, his eyes widening slightly before a sly smile spreads across his face.

“Oh my,” he jeers, tossing the towel around his neck like he’s suddenly a model.

“This is quite the surprise. If I’d known we’d have company, I’d have brought wine to celebrate.”

“Get out!” you yell, your face burning as Jae-Ha perches casually on the edge of the spring, clearly ignoring you.

“Oh, don’t be shy, darling. We’re all friends here,” Jae-Ha teases, kicking one leg lazily into the water.

Before you can scream again, a third figure enters. Kija, holding his white cloth with a prim sort of dignity, strides in with his nose held high.

“Hak, I told you to wait for the rest of us before-”

His words trail off as he spots you, blue eyes widen in sheer shock.

There’s a beat of silence, and then Kija’s face turns bright red. He spins on his heel so fast he nearly trips.

“What are you doing in here?! This is improper!”

“Me?” you shriek, waving a hand at him.

“You’re the ones barging in here!”

“Don’t yell at me!” Kija shouts back, his voice an octave higher than usual.

“I wasn’t told this spring was occupied! Especially not by you!”

“STOP SOUNDING SO DISGUSTED!”

He whirls back around to glare at Hak and Jae-Ha, who seem far less mortified than he is.

But there’s no time to argue or for further protest, because Zeno skips in next, humming a cheerful tune. He’s the only one who doesn’t even hesitate, wading straight into the water without a care in the world.

“Ah, nice and warm!” Zeno chirps, sinking into the spring as though this were a casual picnic.

He glances at you and tilts his head.

“Oh, you’re here too? That’s great! Makes it more fun!”

This can’t be true, right? They have to be a hallucination, every single one of them. But something about Hak’s slight grin tells you it can’t be, that this is bitter reality.

“Zeno, get out!” you groan, holding your hands over your face.

“What? Zeno didn’t do anything wrong!” he protests, grinning wide as ever.

Your sanity shakes on the edge as yet another figure appears. Shin-Ah stands in the doorway, frozen in place as he takes in the scene. His glowing golden eyes flicker between you and the others, and you can see the color rising in his ears even beneath his hood.

“Shin-Ah, please tell them to leave!” you plead, clutching the edge of the spring for dear life.

Finally someone with a little bit of sense. He nods once, almost robotically, before turning to departure - only for Ao to leap from his shoulder and dive into the water with an enthusiastic squeak.

“Great,” you mutter as the little squirrel starts splashing around.

“To be honest, Ao is the only one I really want here.”

“I-I’ll take Ao,” Shin-Ah mumbles, clearly flustered as he steps toward the spring, only to stop dead when his foot slips on a wet stone.

He stumbles, barely catching himself, and the towel around his waist slips a little before he falls straight into the water.

Straight against you.

Your naked self, to be exact.

“Shin-Ah!”

 “I-I’m sorry!” he stammers, his voice barely audible as he scrambles backward, his movements awkward and frantic.

He dashes away from you as if you’re the plague, his face so red you think steam might start rising off him.

Before you can fully process what just happened, a low whistle cuts through the tension.

“Well, isn’t this interesting?” Hak drawls, leaning back against the rocks with that insufferable smirk of his.

He crosses his arms over his chest, looking far too amused for your liking.

“Guess we know what Shin-Ah’s type is now. Didn’t think he’d make such a bold move, though. Props to him.”

Your jaw drops.

“What did you just say?!”

Hak shrugs, feigning innocence as he gestures toward the flustered Shin-Ah, who looks like he wants to melt into the water and disappear.

“I mean, falling into you like that? Pretty smooth move if you ask me. Maybe I should take notes-”

“You should take notes on leaving me alone!” you snap, your voice practically reverberating off the rocks.

“Seriously, Hak, of all the idiotic, inappropriate - HOW IS THIS FUNNY TO YOU?!”

Hak raises an eyebrow, clearly entertained by your outburst.

“Come on, it’s a little funny-”

“IT’S NOT FUNNY!” you scream, throwing a handful of water in his direction.

He dodges effortlessly, of course, laughing even harder.

“You’re impossible!” you huff, clutching the edge of the spring to keep yourself from launching at him.

“First, you barge in uninvited, then you make inappropriate comments, and now you’re making jokes about this?! What is WRONG with you?”

“Plenty of things,” Hak admits with a shameless grin, earning himself a chorus of groans from Kija and a small splash of water from Zeno, who seems to be trying to cheer you up.

“Shut up, Hak,” Kija mutters, pinching the bridge of his nose.

“You’re going to get us all killed.”

Jae-Ha chuckles from his perch on the edge of the spring.

“To be fair, Thunder Beast does have a knack for digging his own grave.”

“That’s it!” you shout, pointing furiously at all of them.

“I’ll kill every single one of you right now!

Finally, Yun storms in just in time, his face already set in a scowl.

“What is wrong with all of you? I can’t leave for one second without laughing around like idiots and talking trash-”

He stops, taking in the chaos: you half-hidden in the water, Hak smirking, Jae-Ha lounging, Zeno grinning, Kija fuming, Shin-Ah frozen, and Ao splashing around like it’s a game. Yun pinches the bridge of his nose. So, that’s what’s going on here. Did all of them not listen to what the old lady said earlier?

“You were all supposed to be in the other spring!” Yun yells, his voice echoing so loudly that even Hak winces.

“Do none of you listen?!”

“It’s fine, Yun,” Zeno interferes, waving him off.

“It’s cozier this way! And being naked together helps with bonding!”

“Oh, I know something you can do naked that helps with bonding as well”, Jae-Ha comments with a slight grin.

You let out a strangled noise, your head sinking into your hands.

“I’m going to lose my mind…”

“Relax,” Hak says with a laugh, slipping into the water like nothing is amiss.

“We’re all friends here, right?”

“Out!”

[dixonsdarkelf]

A Little Snooping Never Hurt Anyone: Murphy MacManus & Fem!Reader

Summary: Bedroom activities with your boyfriend never ceased to leave you fully satiated, but tonight was different. And only later is it revealed what exactly had gotten into him.

Main masterlist Murphy x Reader Masterlist AO3 link

Genre: Fluff, suggestive, implied smut

Word count: 878

Warnings: MDNI, implied smut (like we don't see any of the action but they were clearly fucking), implication of unprotected p in v & creampie (I do not endorse this, y'all know better), swearing

A/N: This was inspired by this post from the lovely @negansbestie 🤍 I hope you enjoy this angel. Consider it a belated birthday gift 🖤 And thank you to my favorite second set of eyes, @dixons-sunshine, as always 🖤

The door crashes against the wall, the sound of those rusty hinges reverberating through the small apartment. His lips had already collided into yours before you’d even approached his apartment, his kisses tender but needy, every cell in his body already tingling at the thought of feeling you in the most intimate way.

Barely in the doorframe, his hand finds your waist, pressing you against the wall and boxing you in. His other hand trailed to your leg, lifting it slightly to hook around his. You could feel his hardness against your thigh, dangerously close to your core. The heat radiating off of him, but especially from between his legs, was searing, suffocating almost.

His lips traveled down your jaw slowly, almost achingly so, eventually finding the sweet spot on your neck. He kissed, licked, sucked gently—teasing you, testing your patience. Which you had none of today.

“Fuck, Murph.” Your head falls back to allow him easier access, your fingers digging into his shoulders as if it was the only thing keeping you upright. Your moans sent shivers down his spine, every little reaction your body had to his touch traveling straight to his cock.

“Ye make the sweetest sounds, lass,” he groaned against your neck, resisting the urge to grind against you. He wanted to take it slow with you. He always did. Tonight, though, would be just a little bit different.

He pulled your leg up further, his hand sliding down to pull your other one up and encouraging you to wrap them around his waist. He captured your lips again, ensuring he had a firm grip on you before pulling you away from the wall and carrying you over to bed.

That was some time ago. Half an hour, 45 minutes, you couldn’t be sure, nor did you care.

And now here you were, strung-out and spent, the mattress springs squeaking as your partner adjusted himself next to you. He slipped on that infamous grey robe before lying back, pulling the blanket over himself and cuddling closer to you. You smiled up at him, the dazed, cock-drunk look in your eyes making him chuckle.

“Ye good, lass?” he inquired. He brushed some hair from your face, admiring you as you lay there on your back, staring up at the ceiling.

“Yeah,” you sighed, your stupefied expression carrying into your voice. Sex with Murphy always left you satisfied after, but today? You’d never felt pleasure like that. Never felt him like that. He was gentle with you, of course, but there was an unfamiliar voracity in his thrusts, an earth-shattering hunger as he bucked and emptied himself into you. “Holy shit.”

“That a good “holy shit?”” he teased, a chuckle escaping him once again.

You turned your head to meet his gaze, those deep pools of blue pulling you toward him like a siren song. “Are you kidding me? My legs are still twitching.” Rolling over onto your side, you propped your head up with your hand, resting on your elbow. “That was incredible. I’ve never seen you like that before.” You paused for a brief moment, a beat just long enough to contemplate asking the question that’d been on your mind. “You were wild, babe. What got into you?”

A faint blush appeared on his cheeks, quickly creeping down his neck. “Saw yer texts the other day,” he confessed, sounding ashamed as his eyes fell to the bed, “left yer phone open when ye were in the shower.”

Your ears perked up at his statement, and despite your best efforts, you could feel them beginning to redden against your will. “And what exactly did you see?”

“A message of ye tellin’ ye friend, and I quote, “I want him to hit it like a drawer that won’t close.”” His voice had grown softer, timid, like he was a little bashful to be uttering such words. Though after what he just did, the notion seemed silly—getting flustered after giving you a life-changing orgasm.

The heat gathering in your cheeks was like fire, burning you from the inside out. The embarrassment flooding your system was suffocating, your breath catching in your chest as you gasped. Your hand instinctively shoots out from under the blanket to swat his chest. “What the hell, Murph, you little sneak! You snooped?”

“Don’t know if it technically classifies as snoopin’, Y/N,” he shrugged, “never touched it. Only saw what was open. Ye know I’d never do it intentionally.” He snaked his arm around you, pulling you flush against his chest and kissing your forehead. “And I don’t know why ye lookin’ so embarrassed. Seein’ ye lose yourself, watchin’ how ye reacted because of a little something I could do…gonna go stir-crazy if I keep thinkin’ about it.”

You giggled softly at his praises, resting your head in the crook of his neck. “I just never expected you to see it. But I’ll admit, the way you were tonight was something else.”

“Guess a little snoopin’ never hurt anyone,” he teased, his other hand sliding down your lower back to bring your whole body closer to him. “Especially not in this case.”

“Yeah,” you agreed. A hint of laughter laced your words, bringing matching smiles to both of your faces. “In this case, I guess it doesn’t.”

General taglist: @raddydaddydude @lovenormandixon @angeldemoncrowley @negansbestie @holdmytesseract @dixons-sunshine

Hit me up to be added to/removed from the taglist 🖤

GIF, 'continue reading' divider and © message below were created by me. Three-heart divider was created by @/enchanthings.

[appalachiancowboy99]

hello lovely M 💕 i just wanted to check in and see how you're doing, and hope you've got plenty of inspiration and time to do what you love. i was rereading that delicious snippet of Cure for the Common Cold, and enjoying your gorgeously sensual writing, and had to say hi. i hope you're well, dear!

Hi, my lovely Ari! 💕 Thank you so much for checking up on me! I've been doin' well- mostly busy with some tasks that needed to get done now that spring is in full swing and summer is fast approaching! I'm so glad that you've enjoyed the last snippet of A Cure for the Common Cold! I'm an atrociously slow writer, so what little updates I have given have been far and few between (my apologies for that 😭). BUT that's to say I've been working very hard on this piece and making it absolutely perfect for y'all! 🤗

So, if you'd like to give it a read, posted below is another little snippet of this piece that will be posted much sooner than I'd like to say 😉 (Also, thank you to @pinescent-and-gingerbread, @photo1030, @grymghoul, @wipidek (thank you again, Ari 🤗), and @cassietrn for tagging me in their WIPs 💕)

- WIP Wednesday (But not really Wednesday)

Photo from Pinterest and dividers from @olenvasynyt

"Ah.." An audible sigh escapes your lips as relaxation passes over you for, what feels like, the first time in weeks.

Blackness crawls from the recesses of exhaustion and opens its mouth wide to consume your vision in the nothingness behind your fluttering lids. There in that darkness every sound is heightened like the shrillness of a hat-pin clattering against the floor in a silent room. Crackling embers inside the burning hearth catch wind and pop wildly with the smallest whine and simmering fizzle. Droplets of water trickle out from the stretched faucet’s neck, long and craned over like a beautiful swan patiently waiting for a dip in the lake of milky warmth below. Even the soft pads of Arthur’s feet tap rhythmically against the cold tile as he flits around gathering up things you care not to look at in your comfortable position. A loud scrape, followed by a creaking wooden-groan, echoes to your left where he reclines in the vanity chair that was once nestled away beneath the mirror. Yes, it is a blissful kind of rest here behind your eyelids where sleep is fast to encroach on the dying threads of consciousness. Only… if it weren’t for the sudden knocking rapture at the front door willing you back to the world. 

“Who’s that?” You stare at Arthur, wide-eyed and fearful of what dangers may lurk beyond the confines of this room, though he soothes you with an air of confidence only years of self-defense can attain. “You jus’ wait here, Darlin’. I’ll be right back.” He waves a careful hand in your direction and quiets himself with precaution. 

He leaves you there, silent and wishful that no trouble has come to claim either of you.  Had someone managed to see his poster plastered someplace along the way to Saint Denis? Was he spotted racing you into town? Thoughts race wildly with the beating of your heart. Blood rushes to your ears, deafening any sounds coming from the other room, until the distinctive low hum of Arthur’s voice reverberates its way back to you. 

“What do I owe?”

Again, thank you so much for checking in on me and thank you so very much for expressing interest in this little drabbles of mine! 😌💕

To others that have also expressed interest, thank you very much!

Please check out these other people’s works, since I also draw creative inspiration from them and the others I have already listed! @emerald-ranch @zae-heeyyy @coltermorning @twola @subpopizzy @necesitotequila @amorgansgal @tortureddpoett @moeitsu @rivetingrosie4 @dilf-luvr-4evr

Love each and every single one of you! And remember, you matter 😌💕

[cinewhore]

The Hunt - morning

Pairing: Frankie Morales & fem!reader Rating: G for General  warnings: mentions of dead animals. word count: 732 Summary: Frankie takes a job as a park ranger after Colombia. He soon realizes that danger lurks in every corner - human or not. A/N: it's been a HOT minute so I'm not sure what I'm doing exactly but it's been so refreshing jumping back into writing. This has been sitting in my drive for the longest so I figured it's time for it to see the light of day. Pulled some inspiration from The Descent. I am not a wilderness expert!!! Didn't consider myself a Frankie girly but he's got potential. Credits to the gif creator and @saradika for the fic divider. Hope y'all enjoy :)

The Appalachian trail is considered one of the most popular hiking trails in the world. With its lush greenery and inspiring views, it’s no wonder why an estimated three million outdoor aficionados visit each year.  

The soothing whistle of the wind. 

The restorative bubbling springs. 

The charming and varied wildlife. 

To the wandering eye, it was beautiful. To those who knew, it was horrifying. 

It had taken Frankie some bribing to get him to commit to the job. The original ploy was that Will would join him and the two would have idyllic views, serene silence and all the free food they could ask for. It seemed too good to be true, all of these perks plus free lodging and a monthly stipend. 

He guessed it couldn’t hurt to spend the summer in the mountains and as long as Will was with him, it’d allow the time to pass. Out of all his brothers, he and Will were the most alike. Stoic with a keen sense of dry humor, bound together through unimaginable circumstances. 

Perfect. 

Except Will now had a girlfriend who was a bit too touchy for Frankie’s taste. Her family came from the richer side of the tracks and spent their summers on the seas. She masterfully held in her distaste at the announcement that Will wanted to take up the park security position and that out of all the people that could join him, it would be Frankie. He knew she didn’t care for any of them, Benny and Santiago included. She refused to stick around for Benny’s fights and when Will introduced them, she didn’t dare shake his hand. 

So it didn’t shock Frankie that in the morning he and Will were due to head out, he received a text from the blonde headed man saying he’d have to venture on without him. 

Anna wants me to meet the parents. I owe you one. 

Bastard. 

Frankie could always just not go. He wasn’t the main point of contact for the head of park security, who happened to be a friend of Will’s, so he figured there were no real consequences. However, staying meant having to deal with Charity from the bar and he didn’t have the energy. She was a great girl, he was sure, but one drunken night that should’ve never happened turned into a half assed “relationship”.

Taking one last look around his shoddy home, Frankie closes the front door swiftly, double checking the lock before throwing his bags into the hood of his truck.

The first month was boring as shit. Frankie would run the same routine everyday, hoping that someone would throw a wrench in his plans but for once, all park goers were on their best behavior. He found ways to keep himself occupied: Reading and quizzing himself on the employee manual, completing several one thousand piece puzzles, organizing the mess the last person left behind. 

It was mundane and drove him mad. He enjoyed the quiet but too often he’d find himself sweaty and short of breath due to the constant night terrors. Sometimes he thinks he sees Redfly in the shadows of his room but he knows how crazy it sounds. To help bury the past, Frankie becomes a regular at the dive bar. It was shitty but had a local charm and cheap booze. What more could you ask for? 

Another month would go by before people started warming up to the ex-soldier. The judgy stares and barely hushed whispers turned into inviting smiles and loud conversation. The duo of army veterans welcomed him with open arms, recounting stories of the good ole’ days in-between bottles of beer. Frankie refrained from sharing too much of his time in the service, proving to be an excellent listener to Al and Reggie. 

On a warm night like any other, Frankie was throwing back his last bottle when he spotted her out of the corner of his eye. 

A lot can be assumed upon looking at Irene Awahi, given her stern face and austere personality. Underneath the uniform and brief interactions, people would look at Irene as a pillar within the community. She was fair, intelligent and did her duties well. For the elderly who had lived in the area their whole life, they knew her as the inquisitive young girl who followed on the heels of her father. Her light dimmed a lot after he had passed and town gossip would have you believe that she never got over it. Irene would just tell you to mind your fucking business. 

Frankie was drawn to her immediately. He was always partial to a woman who could carry her own, was steadfast and took no shit. 

Irene rejected him the first three times she even got a hint that he was coming onto her. Neither of them are sure what happened the fourth time except that Irene awoke at his, panties ripped and phone dead. 

The awkward tango continued between them, complete with stolen glances and buried emotions. Frankie had met his match. 

Irene woke up before him, making them both coffee before getting dressed to head into work. Frankie quietly regards her as she puts on her clothing, appreciating the care that went into her appearance. Irene had always insisted on staying over at Frankie’s, they were less likely to get caught and made to feel like scandalous teenagers than two consenting adults. 

Little conversation was had as they both prepared to face the day. Others might have felt the need to fill the void with useless chatter but Frankie enjoyed their shared peace. Except this morning was complete and utter torture. 

Things were different last night. Irene had called and invited him over. She was unlike herself, clingy and temperamental. Frankie had tried to get to the bottom of her attitude but she began to cry and begged for his touch, so he gave in. Long after she was asleep, Frankie remained awake, mind wandering. 

He knew that this was likely a temporary arrangement, one he was happy to agree to but his hands got sweaty every time she was near and he found himself caring about the things he said and did in front of her. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t get her to open up to him. Frankie could see through her clear as day, even though Irene refused to look in the mirror.

Frankie clears his throat. “Long day today?”

Irene shrugs, fiddling with the buttons on her shirt. “Probably. What’s the date again?” 

Frankie taps his phone, screen lighting up with a picture of him and his brothers. “It’s the 9th.” 

Irene’s fingers stop for a brief second before continuing. She’s swift in the rest of her movements, grabbing her keys and phone before standing beside the door. “Let yourself out, yeah?” 

“Irene-” 

She shakes her head, eyes boring into Frankie’s. “Not today, Frank. We’ll talk soon, I promise.” 

Irene doesn’t wait for a response and sets off. Frankie exits a few moments after, careful as he locks up. 

“So much for an uneventful day.” He mutters to himself, driving off back to his own station.

Frankie thought he was seeing shit at first. Sure, it was early in the morning and he was in an area crawling with hikers but this was different. This didn’t look like a typical hiker. 

You stand in the middle of the road, chest heaving from your run. It had been a difficult journey and the first glimpse of a road had you clawing your way through the bushland. You had zero clue of where you were, what day or time it was. It didn’t matter. What did matter was that you had survived and would live to tell the tale. That is, if anyone believed you. 

The roar of a truck approaching startles you but you make no movement to get out of the road. After making it through a literal nightmare, getting taken out by a truck actually made you grin. 

The vehicle slowed down and a few feet from where you stood, it came to a stop.

A man exits. 

“Hey,” Frankie yells out. “Are you ok?” 

You stop in your tracks, keeping your distance. The man’s hand was grasping something tightly and the last thing you needed was to get shot because a sudden movement caught him off guard.

Raising your hands slowly by your head, you inch a few more steps forward, just enough so that you are in a better line of sight. 

His eyes flew around your figure furiously, assessing every inch of your body. You were bruised, clothes clinging onto you haphazardly that had been cut by bushes and tree branches. Frankie could tell that you were in a state of shock, given your slight whimper when he called out to you. 

You hadn’t heard a human’s voice that wasn’t wrapped up in a scream or choked grunt in a while.  

Frankie looks to his right and then his left, ensuring that you were alone. He had seen many things and battered women being used as bait wasn’t a usual trick but one he had experienced before. 

“You by yourself?” 

You nod. He lessens his hold on what you could now make out as a gun, tucking it in the back of his pants. 

“You lyin’ to me?” He probes. You shake your head, remaining as calm as you could. He seems to believe you because he eventually comes to stand closer to you. As his dark brown eyes rake over your face, they widen in slight recognition. He stalks backwards a few steps before motioning to his truck. You don’t move. 

“Listen, I’m not some random fucking creep. I work for the park and can take you someplace safe, I promise. I’m here to help.” 

If he was a creep, he was a pretty good looking one. Plus if he wanted to hurt you, he would’ve done so by now. It has been difficult to differentiate between realities lately, the one you had always known versus the one you were forced to believe in during your time out in the woods. Frankie seemed genuine in his concern and whether you liked it or not, he was the only option at getting help.

The cold leather of the couch irritates the skin of your thighs. It had been a while since you sat in an actual chair. Being out there for as long as you had, everything seemed weird and out of place. The man who had found you, Frankie, looked worse for wear. Reflecting upon him under the fluorescent lights, he reminded you of one of those hardened cowboys from the westerns. The grays seeped into his beard and hair, stuffed under a tattered baseball cap. He had a consistent tick in his jaw, mouth always fixed in a permanent pout. 

Frankie had asked the basic questions while he drove back to his station, only stopping to make a quick phone call. Given the remoteness of the area, calling for an ambulance could have you waiting for a while and you assured him that you weren’t gravely hurt so there was no need. It wasn’t as bad as it looked and you looked like shit. 

After arriving, he pulled out a first aid kit, working his way efficiently through the different materials inside. You were impressed by his knowledge but figured he had to know first aid, he wouldn’t have made a good ranger if he didn’t. 

 Frankie remembers then that he hasn’t offered you anything to eat or drink, rushing into the tiny kitchenette. He returns with a glass of water and a few granola bars. He leaves them on the coffee table in front of you before returning to leaning against the wall across from you. 

His radio crackles to life at the same time that his cell phone rings and he excuses himself, squeezing into the office space, leaving the door ajar. 

After what feels like hours, the side door to the cabin opens and a woman enters the room. You watch Frankie visibly relax, shifting out of his stance to greet her. She was gorgeous, even in a work uniform. Her hair reminded you of ink, given how fine and straight it was. You wondered what her secret was for keeping it so neat, especially in the southern humidity. 

She exchanges fast and hushed words with Frankie, throwing occasional glances in your direction. You pretended not to be invested in their conversation, examining the cabin instead. It was bare, tidy and quaint. There were a few paperback books on the other side of the couch, one of them a park guidebook. He kept much of his personal effects packed away in his suitcase, ready for departure at the drop of a pin. 

The whispers cease and you turn to face the duo, meeting their hard stares. 

“My name is Irene Ahawi, I’m one of the lead rangers in this park. Francisco tells me he found you out by the Montague trail, is that correct?” 

Francisco? You nod your head, swallowing thickly. Irene nods along with you, pink tongue peaking out from behind her lips. 

“You’re a ways from where you’re supposed to be.” 

If you weren’t paying attention, you would’ve missed the hint of accusation in her tone. 

“We got a call from the sheriff from a few towns over a few weeks ago, he mentioned something about a pair of missing hikers who went off trail, likely to end up around these parts.” 

Frankie’s eyes narrowed and his jaw ticked. You could feel his calculated stare penetrating your being, curious as to what he was thinking. 

“My sister and I take a hiking trip every summer. She starts medical school in the fall, so we figured this would be our last hoorah. We were only supposed to be gone for a week but things got weird halfway through our trip so we turned back. We tried our best to retrace our steps but realized that we weren’t on the same path as before.” 

“Where’s your sister now?” 

You open your mouth and nothing but a strangled cough comes out. You instantly close it, reaching for the bottle of water instead. 

Frankie doesn’t say anything about the dried blood underneath your fingernails and neither do you. 

“Well?” Irene queries again. 

You don’t meet her eye line as you answer. “I don’t know.” 

Irene huffs, cutting her eye at Frankie before looking back at you. “I’ve called the authorities, we’ll meet them-” 

A shrill ring cuts through the air and you yelp, covering your mouth with your hands upon realizing it’s just Irene’s phone ringing. She answers with haste. 

“Go for Ahawi.” 

You and Frankie both remain silent while Irene listens to the panicked voice on the line, gears working overtime as she tries to comprehend what’s being said. “I’m on my way.” 

“What the hell is going on?” 

Irene doesn’t look at Frankie as she dials another number, yanking the front door open. “We’ve got a situation. They need my help.” 

Frankie grits his teeth. “And what about this one?”

“Just take her down to the station. I’m sure the guys there will do the rest.” 

Frankie follows Irene out like a lost puppy, a striking contrast to his demeanor with you. They make it to Irene’s jeep before he stops her. 

“Hey,” his voice softens, shoulders sagging. He places a gentle hand on her forearm.“Be careful out there. I can’t explain it but something’s not right.” 

Irene gazes out into the vast thicket, mind briefly clouded. The need to give into Frankie’s touch caused her insides to twitch but she knew better. This was official business and the lives of others depended on her being fully intact. Irene couldn’t let another man get in the way of her career. 

She gives the yearning man a tight smile before shaking his hand off her arm. “I can take care of myself. Keep your ringer on in case of emergencies.” 

With that, Irene hastily jumps into her vehicle and takes off. Frankie watches her go, teeth gnawing at his bottom lip. Reverting back to his regular sour mood, he returns to the house where you remained in your seat, head snapping away from the door to prove you weren’t eavesdropping. 

“Your girlfriend’s mean.” you comment quietly, attempting to break the icy silence. 

“Get in the damn truck.” 

The tires of Irene’s Jeep grinds the soil and gravel as she screeches to a halt, pulling alongside two police cars parked shy off the main road. The red and blue hues bounced playfully off her rich brown skin, emphasizing her exhaustion. Yellow tape creates a perimeter around the scene, more bodies in uniforms scattered around it.

One of the newer recruits to the force closes in on her, an eager skip in his step. His first taste of real action, she thought. 

“Hi, Ranger Ahawi. Thanks for coming down on such short notice.” 

Irene smirks. She remembers the first few months of working at the park. Bright-eyed, bushy tailed and a can-do attitude that would have solved world hunger and then some. That got beat out her real quick. “How you doin’, Warner?” 

Warner looks back at the scene, Adam's apple bobbing as he swallows. “Uh, well, I’ve had better days. Happy I haven’t had breakfast yet.” 

Irene raises an eyebrow.

“I can’t explain, could you just-” he gestures for her to follow him. Irene wasn’t able to describe the feeling that overcame her the moment she took a step forward but it felt like someone had dumped a bucket of ice cold water all over her. The hairs along her neck stood frozen, goosebumps pimpling their way down her arms. As they inched closer, Irene could make out Kai. He stood further out from the rest, grand figure leaning against a tree. Head bent and covered by his hat, the cigarette butt illuminates his face in a soft glow. 

Irene turns her head before Kai could catch her staring, focusing back on the situation at hand. Warner lifts up the yellow tape and Irene dips under, hand swiftly covering her nose. The stench of rotten flesh and death pummels all her senses, bile threatening to rise from her throat. 

“Sorry, I should’ve warned you.” Warner utters. “I've never seen anything like it.” 

He could say that again. Sprawled out in front of them was something lifted straight out of a horror movie. At least half a dozen of white tail deer had been slaughtered mercilessly, carcasses strewn about haphazardly, a handful of bones missing. Irene takes her time as she surveys the scene, careful to sweep her eye over every detail. 

Warner studies her profile. “What do you think could’ve done this? I ruled out larger predators like bears or coyotes, they’re neat eaters compared to this. Definitely not done by humans.” 

He could say that again. 

“When was this called in and by who?” Irene questions. 

Warner tips his head back in the direction of Kai. Fuck. 

“He did, about an hour ago.” 

Irene clears her throat, patting Warner on the back. “Thanks for your work. Make sure to keep the area clean and clear of tourists. I don’t want this getting leaked to the press if we can help it.” 

“On it.” Warner nods. Irene exhales audibly before marching up to the emotionless man. 

He doesn’t move when she finally approaches him, stare fixed on the ground, cigarette perched in a calloused hand. 

“What the fuck are you doing out here?” 

Silence befalls them, the smoke from the stick billowing in the air.

 Finally, he speaks. “The kid is nice. Reminds me of you.” 

Irene posts up against the tree adjacent to Kai. “You shouldn’t be out here.” Irene points to Kai’s ankle. “How you even got this far with that on is beyond me.” 

Kai glances down at the thick black monitor strapped around his left ankle. “Today is her birthday.” 

“I-I’m sorry.” Irene stutters. The weight of the vast forest presses down on her, anxiety manifesting itself as a tight chest. “I meant to call.” 

A chuckle mixed with a cough emerges from Kai as he takes one last drag of his cigarette before stubbing it out underneath his foot. “Sure you did.”

He slowly creeps towards her until their chests were nearly touching, Irene shrinking under his intense leer. Eyes she once found solace in were now pools of bitterness and anger. Kai traces a lone finger down Irene’s cheek, delicately lifting her chin. He pokes at her neck. 

“Cute hickie.” 

The warm touch now turns cold as Kai snatches his hand away, sulking past Irene. She waits until he’s out of earshot before she lets out a ragged breath, tears spilling down her face. 

a/n: we must set the scene! I don't use tag lists anymore :,(

[vanishingstarrs]

midnight rain ( k. bakugo x reader, slow burn, hurt x comfort, anxiety, fluff ) ( as an insomniac, this was v much self indulgent, also for the sake of this story the timeline is irrelevant, i kinda went all over the place so let's just pretend it all lines up (: also also feel free to imagine whatever quirk you'd like i never really had one in mind except for the side effect is you being v v cold bc it worked for the plot lol sorry it took so long to get this out, just wanted it to be perfect !! hope y'all enjoy <3 )

part 1, part 2, part 3

It was raining. Hard.

You were a nervous wreck.

It had been agreed that your classmates and you would be permitted to retrieve Midoriya from his self isolation. The heroes were out in the streets, instructed to call as soon as he was sighted since your class had full permission to spring into action and try to convince him to come back. The heroes told to stay back and allow you guys to take the lead on the mission.

Part of the reason you couldn’t sleep as of late was your classmate out in danger. You and Midoriya had never been best friends by any means, but you’d been close enough and you’d worked alongside him a few times. He was a nice person and always trying to help those around him, he’d come to you multiple times with theories on how to better improve your quirk so you wouldn’t overwork and accidentally freeze yourself to death. Even if he hadn’t done any of that, you likely still would’ve felt guilt over being safe while he wasn’t. He was good, and he deserved to come home.

All of this in turn meant more baking and less sleeping. You’d been out of bed for thirty minutes now, having brought your journal with you in order to go through your recipes.

You’d been in your room before, tinkering with your costume and doing little workouts while waiting for everyone to head to bed, not wanting to bother anyone.

The day had been spent training and putting more work into improving your individual powers, leveling up so that when the time came… you and your classmates could join up in the war. It was a frightening thought, and you weren’t sure you were quite ready for that again.

Speaking with Katsuki had been some help though, the way he spoke of heroes and nobility made you want to be brave like him.

And so, to thank him for the late nights, you were now up again, only this time you baked with purpose. For him. You weren’t sure how you were going to approach him to give him the baked goods, and part of you hoped he might be awake and come out on his own to save you the trouble of an awkward conversation.

You sighed as you double checked your recipe, making sure of your next step before incorporating dry ingredients with the wet ones.

It wasn't that you wished another sleepless night on Bakugo... but it was definitely easier to go to bed after having had him around. Maybe it was the fact that he didn't bullshit you, or the way he let you talk about nothing in particular until you were ready to open up about what had actually been weighing on your chest. Things you had yet to even bring up to your best friend.

You went through the motions almost at a sloth’s place, overthinking to yourself as you made sure everything was perfect for the muffins you were baking.

When all that was left to do was wait for the room to start smelling of cinnamon, you sat yourself at the island, headphones blasting as you grabbed you pen and journal again. You turned the page from your experimental recipes and found your sketches for the new costume you were working on, you'd asked Hatsume for some suggestions, but she'd dismissed you; she was too busy right now. She said she'd help you create the final design, but she didn't have the brain capacity to make something from scratch for you.

A groan left your lips as you stared at the page, just about ready to tear it and your hair out when your headphones were yanked down to your neck and the chair next to you scraped the floor as someone sat down,"Don't you ever sleep?"

"Don't you?" You scoffed, the response coming naturally,"Thought you were Mr. go to bed at seven every night, what happened?"

"That was before." He rolled his eyes,"Whatcha working on?"

You stared at Bakugo, unsure if he was actually there. Had you conjured him up somehow? Were you hallucinating? And was he actually making small talk with you right now?

"Muffins... for you, actually."

"Hah?!" His eyes bulged as he turned to the oven, like he just noticed it was on,"What are you making shit for me for? And I meant the sketches, idiot."

"Oh." You frowned.

"I'll eat them." He declared, realizing that it sounded as though he didn't care for them.

"No, it's okay." You looked away, trying to hide your smile and the fact that you were teasing,"I'll offer them up to the others. Who doesn't like apple cinnamon muffins with a nice crumble on top? No, don't worry, my efforts won't be in vein, maybe Momo will make a nice tea for us all."

"Tea? I can make tea, I'll make you the best damn tea you've ever had, and we're eating these damn muffins if it's the last thing we do." He grumbled as he stood up and found his same mug, as well as somehow finding yours amidst the array of everyone's cups.

His was orange with his first initial on it, and yours was purple with the multiple facial expressions of Kuromi all around, she was your favorite Sanrio character. You had no idea how he'd known that it was yours, but didn't dwell on it as you turned your frown back to your notebook and the aforementioned sketches.

"Been tryna come up with a new costume design, I'm not very great at it... Midoriya kinda helped me with my last one." You mentioned as he began boiling water for your tea.

You heard him scoff.

"What?" You asked immediately, self conscious now.

You had thought he'd done a pretty good job, and most of it was your idea anyway; he'd really only brought your vision to life since he was a lot better at that kinda stuff than you were.

"Nothin'. Didn't say anything."

"You didn't have to, is my costume ugly? I'm not really a big fan of the flashy stuff, I just want something simple that won't make me stand out..."

He walked back over, leaning against the island counter as he raised his eyebrows at you,"You do know the whole point of being a hero is standing out, right?"

"No..." You denied,"Not all of it. What if I just wanna help people and not be seen?"

"What about recognition?" He countered,"I see you standing back all the time, especially when you make shit like this and just leave a note, you don't always sign your name, don't you want people to know what you've done? What you've accomplished?"

"I'd hardly call baking a few cookies an accomplishment." You scoffed.

"When I got kidnapped." He brought up,"You were there."

It wasn't a question. He was stating it like it was something he knew for a fact and you didn't know how that came to be.

You'd never spoken about it, you'd gone along as a favor to your friends, they thought your power might be useful just in case the situation escalated. You'd agreed and at the end of it all, after getting him back, you'd gotten separated in the crowd. You didn't bother meeting back up, feeling you'd done all you that could and gone home. It was a long time ago, you felt.

"Who told you that? Kirishima?"

"Deku did." He corrected with a roll of his eyes,"He wanted to make sure I thanked you properly."

"You never did."

"I should've."

The oven timer dinged and you used it as your excuse to remove yourself from the conversation. You cleared your throat as you stood up and grabbed your oven mitts, your face felt warm and it wasn't just because you were removing baked goods from the oven.

"We'll have to wait for them to cool." You said aloud.

"Still gotta brew the tea, so... it's fine."

You felt incredibly awkward and he must've sensed it too, because he changed the subject back to the original.

"Y'know I can help you with this." Bakugo was holding your journal when you finally mustered up the courage to face him again,"My parents are fashion designers, I did my own costume. Won't make it too flashy if you don't want, or you could just wait for Deku if that's what ya want, he'll be back soon anyway."

"No." You said, maybe a little too eagerly.

He stared back in surprise.

"You help me." You made your way across the room again,"Please."

“Alright, alright, no begging it makes you look pathetic.” He said, though it had no fire behind it,“I guess I owe ya anyway.”

You rolled your eyes, but couldn’t help the tiny smile as he tugged you closer and took charge of the project. He made a few comparisons from your last costume to the lame prototype you’d been working on and then asked you for your favorite aspects of both before starting up from scratch on a different page, his writing was surprisingly neat as he listed a few support items he thought you should look into for the upcoming battles.

“It has to be purple.” You stated your only condition as you took the pen from him and started to shade a few spots, you had to lean close into him to be able to reach the journal and you heard him inhale sharply before moving it closer to you.

When you reached something actually resembling a good costume, you grinned and turned to him,“It’s great, Katsuki, thank you so much.”

“No problem.” He seemed to whisper, he was staring at you in a weird way that made you look back down at the costume you’d drawn up together,“Let’s, uh, eat those muffins now.”

“Wait! We have to sign our names at the bottom.” You held his arm before he could move away,“C’mon, we’re the designers.” You quickly scribbled your signature before handing the pen back to him with a grin.

He rolled his eyes, but snatched the pen from you nonetheless and quickly wrote his name next to yours. It felt… binding, weirdly enough.

You let him go and he brought over the tea he’d brewed, which had cooled a little but not enough to be cold. The muffins were perfect and you watched for a reaction that he never gave, so you went poking for compliments.

“You can say they’re good.” You teased as he took several bites in one breath.

“I was getting there.” He grumbled, after swallowing hard. He looked at the tray of muffins and then back at you,“You really made these for me?”

You shrugged,“You said they’re your favorite.”

He took another huge bite and around it he managed to get out something sounding close to a thanks.

You laughed,“You’re welcome, Katsuki.”

When he finished off two muffins, he wordlessly began helping you clean up your mess. It didn't take too long, as much as you wished that it would so you could talk to him more. When you handed him a tupperware for the muffin's he seemed to get an idea as he walked away and came back with a piece of tape and a sharpie.

He started writing "DO NOT TOUCH" on the tape.

You couldn't help snort,"Had a feeling you weren't the sharing type."

"They were made for me, weren't they?"

"Mhm." You hoped you weren't blushing as you agreed.

He stuck the tape onto the top before showing it to you,"I can share, but only with you."

You were definitely blushing now as you read "Y/N and Katsuki's muffin's" underneath the initial message for no one to touch them. You smiled,"You're sweet."

He scoffed,"Am not."

"You totally are." You teased as he rolled his eyes at you for the hundredth time while also turning you around and pushing you toward the stairs, he was holding your headphones and journal in hand and when you reached your door, you held out your hand expectantly.

He held them back,"One condition."

Feeling emboldened, you went up on tiptoes to whisper into his ear,"My door will be open, don't worry."

With your heart beating wildly in your chest, you quickly brushed your lips somewhere along his cheek while grabbing your things from his hold,"Night, Kats."

You weren't sure if you heard him say it back, but you thought he did as you escaped into the darkness of you room, blushing.

That night, you had one of your better sleeps.

The next day, however, came early. And before you knew it you, along with your classmates, were suiting up and leaving U.A. to chase a possible Midoriya lead. The state he was in when you guys finally found him broke your heart in a way you didn't know was possible, the boy was working hard to get Japan back to how it'd been before and the citizens seeking safety in U.A. didn't understand that. Tears were brought to your eyes after a touching speech from Ochaco, and when the day finally came to its end your bones too were crying from all the extra exertion.

When everyone got back, you'd set to work making a simple batch of chocolate chip cookies since the last one hadn't lasted longer than the morning on which they were discovered. The bath had been miraculous for your muscles, and you'd almost fallen asleep while sipping on the tea Momo had brewed for everyone.

The day had been quite momentous, and through it all, you couldn't help want to seek out only one person...

You sighed as you turned over in bed.

You had your phone turned on in your hand, your text messages with Mina blinking up at you as you typed and deleted the same text many times.

You deleted it one last time and reread her text.

mina ෆ⃛(ˇᵋ ˇෆ)ೄ: soooo you and bakugo ?? 👀👀 noticed he was prettttty worried abt u getting hurt / just u in gen during mission bring deku home, didn’t know y’all were so close hm 🤔🤔🤨

You debated letting your best friend know you’d somehow become sort of friends with Katsuki, having spent a few nights in each other's company. But how did you explain to her that somehow, through three simple nights, that you might be having other feelings for him. And that you'd kissed him. Well, his cheek, but still. That move was quite bold for you and then, like a coward, you ran away. You'd always dismissed things like crushes and boys, but Katsuki... he was loud, to put it simply, and therefore was much harder to ignore.

You hadn't thought he'd paid you any extra mind in comparison to everyone else during the fight, but having been focused on Midoriya... maybe you'd missed it?

You pulled out your phone again, sending your friend one last reply.

y/n ʕ•́ᴥ•̀ʔっ: lolll as if girl yk he doesn’t do friends, think he’s probs just on edge bc of midoriya

She texted back immediately, but rather than opening the text you opened up your music app and pressed play on a soothing playlist. You listened to it, along with the rain that had yet to stop, and felt your body start to relax into your pillows.

You weren't lying to your friend. Bakugo had made it clear he was at U.A. because he wanted to be number one. He didn't have time for "extras", as he so often put it, what exactly made you so different? Nothing. Exactly, you told yourself, nothing at all.

Sure, he was calmer around you on those measly nights on which you found one another. But that was just because everyone else was asleep and maybe he was being considerate. Sure, he listened to you talk on and on and watched your silly romance drama with you... but that had to be because he had nothing better to do, having already been awake... right?

You groaned, the longer you thought about it the more the frustration with yourself grew. How could you be so clueless?!

When it all became too much, you pushed your covers off and ripped your headphones off, your feet found your slippers immediately as you picked up your glasses from your nightstand and slid them on. You marched toward your door with purpose, ripping it open only to freeze at what awaited on the other side.

He had his fist up, ready to knock. There he was.

Katsuki Bakugo, right outside your door.

“Bakugo… hi.” You breathed out, you felt your heartbeat start to pick up a bit.

“What happened to Katsuki?” You faintly heard him say, but your attention was elsewhere, eyes taking him in completely.

He was wearing a pair of grey sweatpants you’d never seen before and a fitted black t shirt. His hair, you noticed, was pushed back by a black headband. You never wanted to be a headband more. Was this his usual sleep attire? Last time you could’ve sworn he was wearing a muscle tee and a pair of shorts. Focus, Y/N, focus! You yelled at yourself internally. You snapped out of it in time to hear him say your name.

Aaand shit. So preoccupied with him, you had momentarily forgotten your own attire: Kuromi pyjama bottoms and a sports bra... and your glasses— shit, shit, shit.

Embarrassed, you pulled your hair forward to try and cover yourself just a tiny bit,“Oh, my god, sorry, hold on, let me grab a shirt.”

You turned, but didn’t make it more than two steps when you felt his hand wrap around your wrist, he pulled you back and firmly asked,“Were you coming to look for me?”

You gulped, forcing yourself to meet his eyes,"Yes."

His eyes widened slightly, like he couldn't believe how easily you admitted to it.

"You too, by the looks of it." You pointed out, and he nodded.

He looked away, gaze zeroed in on the ground as he released a deep breath, and with it, how he truly felt,"All I seem to think about these days is impending doom. Well, that, and also you.” His lips pressed together and you noticed his hands clenching down at his sides, you wanted to unfold his fingers and tuck your own around them.

“Whenever I talk to you, or I’m near you… it helps. I don’t know what it is, but being with you makes me not have a fire lit up under my ass or something.” He confessed.

A weight was instantly lifted off your shoulders. You allowed yourself to smile,"That's super poetic, Katsuki, and sweet."

He rolled his eyes, and you could swear his ears were turning red too,"I'll take it back."

You gasped,"You wouldn't dare."

He shook his head, releasing a small sigh,"I'm no good with words, but am I..."

You took a step forward, listening to your heart and taking his hand into your own. He seemed to want to pull back, but you didn't let him as you wound your hands together.

"They're sweaty." He argued.

"Don't give a shit." You grabbed his other hand too,"You're not alone, you know. I feel the same way you do, not about the impending doom part, but the rest of it. Ever since that first night when you were there... I just feel at ease with you. You may say you're not good with words, but you're pretty good at listening, and I think you've done great at comforting me in your own way. I didn't really see it today, but you were there, watching me, making sure I was good, I was so scared—”

“I was terrified.” He said at the same time.

You smiled even bigger now,“Good thing it all worked out in the end, huh? You got your friend back.”

He scoffed,“He’s not my friend.”

“Am I your friend?” You asked, still grinning.

He shook his head and the smile instantly left your face as you started to pull your hands away,"Oh—"

You didn’t get a chance to fully let go as he pulled you forward with one hand and grabbed your waist by the other, and before you realized what was happening, his lips had met yours for the shortest kiss. So light it could barely qualify as one, but it was enough to freeze you in place as you once more repeated:

“Oh...”

He leaned his forehead against yours and you inhaled, consumed by him and his scent.

"Hold on, can I...?"

You didn't wait for a response as you stood up on your toes, placing a hand on his cheek and kissing him again. This one lasted longer and you thought you might've tasted chocolate from the cookies you'd made earlier on his tongue, you hadn't seen him around when you were passing them around and you were happy he'd gotten to enjoy some after all. When you pulled away, you were smiling again.

"I'm not good at this." He repeated once more.

You shook your head,"You're doing perfectly."

He kissed you a third time, another short and sweet peck that led to one more on your cheek and then the other cheek and then your forehead and lastly, your nose.

You blushed as he buried his face in your neck and hair and inhaled deeply,"You smell so good, like cookies and warmth."

"Katsuki?"

"Mm?"

He tried to move, but you kept him there by running your fingers through his hair and making him relax further into your hold. You couldn't look at him for what you were about to ask. You felt your face heat up,"I know that was our first kiss and you said we're not really friends, which I think means something and if it does mean that thing, well, our timing isn't great and we can't really go on a date or anything to even start the thing, and if Aizawa were to find out, surely we'd be dead, but could you, maybe, think about possibly staying with me tonight?"

Katsuki pulled away, hands in your hair as he agreed right away,"Thought you'd never ask."

He pulled you back into his arms, shutting the door behind himself as he walked right into your room like he owned it. "Those glasses drive me crazy." He said as he instantly made himself comfortable under the purple comforter of your bed.

"Really?" You scrunched up your nose before taking them off and putting them back on your nightstand,"I hate them."

He shook his head,"You should wear 'em more."

"When classes start back up, maybe, I'll think about it." You hesitated as you laid down next to him.

It lasted maybe one minute before he was pulling you closer, your head on his chest. You could hear the pounding in his chest as he said,"It's new for both of us, but I think we can figure this out."

His warmth and his arms around you were already making you sleepy, you agreed with him,"Mmm, tomorrow?"

He gave a grunt of acknowledgement and you could tell the lack of sleep lately was catching up with him too as he shifted his body even closer, head burying into your neck again,"Night, Y/N."

You smiled, content,"Goodnight, Katsuki."