hylasposts

[hylasposts]

PRISON FOR LIFE (1) | joel miller x fem!reader

“Rest assured, he’s anything but sweet if someone comes for me.”

CASE-> It's simple, really. Joel Miller takes a girl. Girl hates him. Girl is wanted for murder. Now everyone’s looking for said girl—and he’s the fool hiding her in his bed. A.N.-> you've spoiled yourselves fawning over daddy Jackson!Joel for long enough. after all that softness and sensitivity in falling, I really wanted something dark as shit. god forbid, a girl fantasises over shady, two-edged anti-heroes with weathered hands and a cowboy accent. so, here comes the real big daddy - QZ Joel. W.C.-> 15,500+ C.W.-> 18+ MDNI, QZ!Joel, BIPOC fem, rejoice all my multilingual girlies, Joel's POV, dark-ish and morally ambiguous Joel, suggested age gap, Joel's got a saviour complex, dark themes and imagery, high stakes, kidnapping, smut (is grinding still smut? whatever), voyeurism, domestic violence, grey thoughts, blood, gore, guns.

Home hits different for Joel nowadays—oftentimes like a shard of glass trying to open his throat.

He figured it’s only fair. You didn’t burn bridges and expect to roll out a welcome wagon on the other side. Still, there was a certain charm in knowing his girl cared enough to aim.

Joel ducked, just in time. The edge nicked the collar of his coat, scored at his chin, and whistled past his throat, burying itself in the wall behind him with a sharp thunk. A lesser man would’ve flinched, or even panicked.

But Joel only hung his head, unable to believe his luck, and bared a game-on smile over his shoulder.

That was the thing about this new world order—comfort came wrapped in divine chaos. You couldn’t trust the eye of the storm, even if you managed to navigate there. Not anymore, not in the Boston QZ, not after everything. But when things got loud—bullets ablaze, fists swinging for fuck all, someone trying like hell to take you out—he didn’t really mind. Something was vaguely soothing about invariant hostility. At least it was honest.

Joel turned back toward her, wiping a smear of blood off his chin with the back of his hand. “Had your fill t’night, darlin’? Or should we go for round two?”

She didn’t answer, just stood there breathing hard, dark eyes blown wide and wild. The shard she’d thrown had come from a broken bottle she must’ve found tucked under the sink. Clever girl. He hadn’t searched the bathroom as well as last time. That was on him.

He yanked out the glass shard she’d missed him with and dropped it in the trash. No anger in the motion. Just habit. “Almost got me this time. Gotta work on that swing.”

She was bleeding from the heel of her palm again, hair knotted, shoulders tense like she was ready to spring again. Spry little panther, this one. He felt a flicker of admiration, and not that he’d tell her that. She hated him too much already. She hadn’t spoken in two days, not since he brought her here.

No. Not brought.

That wasn’t the word the world would’ve used. They would have called it what it was—taken.

But Joel didn’t see it that way.

Four days ago, he’d watched from the alley across the street while her husband slammed a fist across her jaw in the stairwell of that rotting apartment block. She went down hard, shoulder hitting concrete, cheekbone bouncing off the rail. Not one neighbour stepped in. Nobody pulled that dickhead off her. Nobody yelled. Nobody even looked twice. And sure as hell, no FEDRA soldier gave a shit.

The way the ball bounced around here—your pain was private. Intimacy, even worse. FEDRA didn’t blink for domestic calls. A scream behind a wall might as well have been the radio static. People stayed in their lanes.

Boston QZ didn’t have heroes. It had hardass survivors. You stayed, you lasted. And Joel Miller—he wasn’t in the business of pretending.

He was a goddamn realist.

And look, he’d been watching her long before that hit. He cannot be called a stalker or—what was that they said? A voyeur? None of that shit. No labels.

He wasn’t good, but he was right.

It took weeks of watching. Not in a way he was proud of—maybe, maybe not—but he’d never lied to himself about the things he was. He had to be sure sometimes, that’s all. Had to know what kind of a rut she was stuck in. Whether she was worth the risk or the cost.

She’d never once smiled at him out of the couple of hundred times they crossed each other, with Tess or without. She darted about like a doe, head ducked, like she was trying to disappear into the spaces between atoms, just like everyone else. He’d watch from the shadows—corners, rooftops, alley mouths—counting bruises. That sick fuck—her husband—he had a temper like a livewire. Doors would rattle off their hinges when he was home. Joel could feel the walls shake through concrete and brick.

Another time, he’d been up on the roof two blocks down, late, borderline curfew, trying to get a look at FEDRA’s rotation before his next run. Nothing strategic about it, not that night. He’d wandered—more toward her apartment than away. Just wanted to make sure she was still alive. Maybe catch a glimpse of her silhouette in the window, trudging slowly like she always did after a beating.

But the window was open. And the man’s voice carried across the street. Slurred. Spitting.

“—you hear me? You’re nothing. Just a mouth to feed.”

From that rooftop, he could see her—thankfully behind the bedroom door, hunched on the floor, not even sitting on the goddamn bed. Knees tucked under her chin, hands cupped around her ears, face scrunched tight. She didn’t move to make an escape.

The piece of shit bashed the door with his foot. Pacing, unhinged, bottle in hand. Yelling like she was vermin, like she was lucky to breathe air in the same room as him.

The door knob jiggled this time. “Say something. Right now. Open the door.”

No answer.

He slammed his fist once more. “Fucking open it! I will break this door down if you don’t fucking say something!”

Still, nothing.

She kept silent, and that’s what stuck with Joel more than anything. No fear left to show. A human being stripped down to instinct: don’t provoke. Don’t cry. Don’t speak. Survive.

Joel hadn’t realised his hands were clenched around the brick ledge until they started to shake. He’d left shortly afterwards and couldn’t watch anymore.

And yet... he couldn’t not watch either.

There had been that one night when he came back, begrudging, ready for another shitshow. Oh, he got a show, alright. One that stuck like a splinter in his brain.

The upstairs window had been cracked open again—luck paid off—heatwave in the QZ, no fans, no power. Joel lay prone on the tarpaper roof, waiting, not expecting much, eyes locked on the half-parted curtain like it was a wound bleeding light. She had to be alive. Or had he beaten her bloody again?

But then—she’d ridden him.

Yes. Straight up fucked the life out of the guy. Not two days ago, they were at each other’s throats.

Her husband, that piece of shit. She was on top—straddling him like she meant to crush the light in his eyes. Hips working in sharp, punishing strokes, springing up and down, speeding back and forth. Her knees dug into the mattress like she needed leverage, and every thrust came from someplace deeper than lust. Her body moving with a kind of vicious rhythm, as if fucking was the only language she had left to speak her hate.

Her shirt was gone; he could see the rolls of muscle undulating, ripples on a lake. Her skin glistened with sweat, flawless and deformed all at once—brown, golden under the city’s dead glow, with sick, purple blooming bruises charted like constellations across her ribs and down her thighs. Fingerprints. Knuckle-blows. The map of a warzone. A beautiful spectrum of misery.

Her hair swung loose, wild, sticking to her shoulders and breasts. Tangled, half-fisted in that bastard’s hand. He tugged hard, dragging her head back, baring her throat like an animal’s. She didn’t flinch, simply arched when he sank his teeth where he could, grabbing aggressive fistfuls of her skin, skating a palm from her collar all the way down, past her pulsing breasts, the lines of her stomach, to where she trickled around him, sliding into him, sore, swollen and wet. She ground down harder, took him deeper. Lips parted—not gasping or crying—just open. Like she couldn’t breathe, though it could have been pain.

Joel didn’t know or care one bit, if he was being honest.

Because he’d watched all of it.

He could see her teeth flash in the dark, and for a second, he thought she was smiling. No, this little showstopper wasn’t into that. A desperate snarl shaped into what he imagined was pure, wicked sex.

And Jesus fuck, she was beautiful.

Exactly in the way women were in these times. Fierce, volatile. She was sweat-slick and bruised, biting down pain with every roll of her hips. A creature made of muscle and rage, bound in skin that held captive every blade of light and became glorified.

Joel’s hand slid into his jeans almost without thinking. A reflex. A need.

Callused fingers met himself with anticipated pressure. He kept his eyes peeled on her—on the lune of her spine, the puckers in her thighs, the dimples, the way her blunt nails clawed at the wall behind the mattress. She was somewhere else entirely, not even in the same fucking planet. She was ascending out of her body, piece by piece.

And he wanted to go there with her, pinned there to her. In that moment. Forever.

He stroked to the soundless cadence of her body, mouth watering, jaw clenched, eyes drinking her in like an oasis in a desert. His breath hitched, edging right there, wrist twisting faster, when her back bowed, hips grinding down in one final, furious thrust. Her jaw tightened, head thrown back, bruises on full display. He could hear her faint, helpless whines all the way across the street.

She looked powerful. She looked wrecked. She looked sexy.

He came hard to that exact image, replaying—spilling into his hand, the bite of it scraping a grunt from his depths. His stomach clenched. Thighs twitched. Eyes still locked on her, starving even as he exhaled, emptied. He came, not for her, not even for him.

Just for the sheer idea of her.

And for a few seconds, he lay there with his jeans open and his heart hammering like he’d run six flights. Slick coated his fingers. Pulse echoing in his ears. What the fuck had he just done?

Except he didn’t feel guilt or anything, only a cold, electric satisfaction, the heat and want.

He hadn’t even touched her, but seeing her like that—writhing over a man she loathed, fucking him with a vengeance—it made Joel feel like he understood her in a way no one else ever had.

He’d wanted her long before he’d saved her, and that was the truth of it.

So yes, maybe that was why he snapped. Without an ounce of impulse or rage.

He’d watched her go down the stairwell like some phantom, dragged by her hair, toes slipping on concrete, no fight left in her, not even to scream. Just her pretty hands blindly gripping the railing. Her face went slack, cat-like eyes gone somewhere far away where she wasn't hurting.

And Joel was the cold wind of motion. Had to teach some lessons around here.

One bullet from behind a silencer. Neat and efficient. One to the leg—calculated, not fatal. The bastard collapsed with a yell that echoed off concrete, half rage, half disbelief.

Joel holstered the pistol with a calm he hadn’t felt in years. Simply stepped over his body without so much as a glance and looked at her.

She freed her hands from her ears, turned her face and saw her poor husband groaning, writhing, blood pooling under his thigh. Her eyes went wide.

A little bit of gratitude would have had Joel feeling like a goddamn superhero. No, this girl—this stupid girl loved dead ends.

She charged ahead—not for Joel, not for the gun, but toward the sick fuck. Crumpled to the floor beside him and grabbed at his shirt like she meant to hold him together. Hands fluttering, powerless. Muttering soft and fast.

“No. No, no, no.”

Joel didn’t say it outright, but it bloomed like a blaze in his chest. The fuck is this? This part didn’t sit right with him or make sense. He didn’t understand it at all—how she could grieve a man who treated her like trash? Who left her bleeding like that? Humiliated her?

But, what the hell. Grief was complicated, and neither was it for Joel to understand or judge. He had his fair share of heartache and despair.

Frankly, he should’ve put the second bullet in the bastard’s skull. It would’ve been cleaner. Over and done. But he was held back by the brunt of the situation—the noise, the witnesses, the need to move fast. Or maybe—he’d wanted her to see it, to know that someone could hurt him back.

But here she was, sobbing over the bitch. That had got to stop.

Joel’s hand went to his pistol again. He didn’t draw. Just stood there for two beats, staring at them—her pressed to the blood-slick floor, the man gurgling through a broken scream, her voice fraying to nothing.

It was wrong. Everything was so wrong.

He wasn’t supposed to feel jealous. He wasn’t supposed to feel betrayed. But that’s what it was, right?

She didn’t know better. She thought that was love. Unless, maybe, she deserved better—and didn’t know it yet. He would make her realise.

He’d approached slowly, called her name twice—not that she told it to him, but he’d learned it. Heard it shouted down alleys and whispered through walls. And she’d looked up, eyes wild, mouth about to scream.

“He ain’t gonna die, but he ain’t gettin’ up either. Go on home,” he declared before she could.

Despite that, her bloodcurdling scream lasted a fraction of a second before Joel’s hand clamped down on her mouth.

So he did what he had to.

A tap. Just a little one, back of the neck, knuckles precise, like shutting off a light.

“My way then, sweetheart,” he murmured to her, releasing her mouth.

She folded into him, slumped against his chest, soft bones and unconscious, quiet breath still moving beneath his palm. He’d caught her before she hit the ground, held as if he had done a righteous act, even if it wasn't to everyone else. A precious stolen emerald, maybe—but fuck it.

He threw her over his shoulder and got the hell out before the blood could even dry.

No one stopped him. No one even saw him. Boston QZ didn’t care if women went missing, didn’t blink if a man dropped dead in an alley with bullet wounds. She’d disappear just like all the rest.

Now, she was here.

Now she had him. Warm blankets. Hot food. Heat that didn’t come from her own body being used up. Bandages and clean water. Soft clothes folded in drawers. No more limping down mold-rotted staircases, no more bruises she couldn’t hide, no more sobbing through the walls while that fucker slammed doors and broke plates.

Just Joel.

Just his hands—rough, sure, measured, safe.

He hadn’t laid a finger on her since. Not like that. Not even when she spat at him, when she kicked and clawed and tried to break his nose with the heel of her palm. She still didn’t understand him. Didn’t see past her rage, just like him.

He knew she would eventually. He would give her time. Because Joel wasn’t like that asshole. Joel hadn’t beat her up when she couldn’t say no. He hadn’t used her.

He fed her. Let her sleep. Gave her time. Gave her space. Gave her safety.

And yes, he kept her tied at first—hands bound at the front, ankles too, just enough to slow her down if she tried something stupid. He wasn’t proud of it, but he told himself it was just a precaution, just until she calmed the hell down and realised that she wasn’t chained anymore, not like she had been.

Sometimes he sat at the far end of the room, back to the wall, watching her pick at the blanket he’d given her. Quiet, distant, but not broken. It would take more than him to break this girl.

He didn’t sleep the first night. Just lying quietly by the mattress, watching the shape of her silhouette in the dark, listening to her breathe. And wondering—what the hell have I done? And worse—why doesn’t it feel wrong anymore?

She’d stopped crying, mostly. Now she just looked at him like she didn’t know whether to hate him or beg him to kill her, too. Sometimes he caught her watching him back, tracking his movement—eyes sharp, still fighting, still full of heat.

And he really liked that. In some sickening way, it meant she wasn’t broken yet. Not like she’d been in that stairwell, limp as a rag in a man’s fist.

Now she stood. Now she struck.

And God, when she came at him these few nights, with that shard of glass or broken plastic pipes or kitchen knife (that one insane time), blood in her fists, and fury in her breath—Joel had smiled. For the first time in weeks, he’d fucking smiled.

Wasn’t that proof? Wasn’t that exactly why she was better off?

He hadn’t made her weak. He’d given her her fire back. Her will to live. And no matter how many times she screamed at him, cursed him, tried to claw her way out—he wouldn’t raise a hand.

He would chalk that up to the better part of his upbringing. He could still hear his mama’s stern voice still, thick with that East Texas heat, unperturbed: “Don’t you ever lay a hand on a woman, Joel Miller. Not in anger, not even if she lays you flat first. You don’t break what you’re meant to protect.”

He was ten the first time she said it to him. Fifteen, when she smacked him across the back of the head for yelling at a girl in a parking lot for stealing their spot. Twenty when she looked him in the eyes, right after Sarah was born, and said: “Now you teach her better than most men’ll ever know.”

And he tried. Even now, here—in this nightmare world where right and wrong had bled into each other so long ago they were damn near the same color—some part of that stuck. He wouldn’t hurt her, not even to stop her from hurting him.

“Y’oughta be careful with that face,” Joel said, nodding to the pieces of broken glass, all her missed marks, still jutting out from the drywall like jagged teeth. “Ain’t no one else gonna look out for you but me now.”

She flinched—barely, but he saw it—and his jaw worked tight.

He hated that. Hated when she looked at him like that. Like he and him were the same. Like he was just another man trying to take something from her.

He wasn’t. Fucking rude to be compared to that horrible piece of shit.

He could’ve left her there. Could’ve walked right past, like everyone else did, but he hadn’t. He’d done something. That had to count for good.

“You’re safe here,” he said to her every night. Almost a whisper, almost to himself. “Doesn’t matter if you believe it yet.”

There was a time Joel might’ve felt ashamed. A time he might’ve questioned whether the line he’d crossed even existed anymore. But that was before Sarah. Before all the years of carrying cargo and trading lives like currency. Now, he measured the colours of right and wrong by one metric only: Did they survive?

That was it. And right now, she was alive and well, in the right colours. He’d made sure of it.

The apartment was dark now, save for the two lanterns bordering each other. Old FEMA housing, third floor, corner unit. Nobody came up here anymore. The neighbours on either side were either dead or too doped up to care what sounds came through the walls. The city was half-abandoned, the QZ barely held, but Joel did his utmost best to keep the place clean, warm.

He’d changed things for her, just so she could feel at home.

He put up curtains. Gauzy ones with lacework, soft enough to block the glare she always blinked against. Got an armchair from a military drop, even stitched a patch on the cushion so the stuffing wouldn’t poke her legs. Found a stack of magazines in the back of Bill and Frank’s garage—National Geographic, Life, TV Guide. She liked the pictures; sometimes, she traced them with her finger like they were maps.

He even set up a stereo—one of those heavy things with real knobs and a tape deck. Brought over mixtapes he'd burned a few years ago, the music soft and strange—Bill’s taste mostly. Blues and folk and old standards with warbled voices that made the place feel… less empty.

And well... she spoke when he did. Not much. That wasn’t so much a setback as it was a hassle.

Broken English, like shattered glass—delicate, sharp if you weren’t careful. No wonder she never talked to that fucker. Mostly she stuck to her own tongue, something way out East, he guessed. Joel didn’t know the name of it, even now. Maybe Russian or Polish, or Hindi. Her language was rhythmic, syllabic, full of retroflex sounds, and more winding. When she muttered to herself, it sounded like poetry, like wind threading through tall grass.

He listened sometimes, closed his eyes and let it wash over him. Pretended she was talking to him. Attempted to learn some inflexions, the words she repeated, and made sense of it.

She also said his name the way no one else did. Almost like it hurt.

“Joel,” she whispered now, one hand pressed to the windowsill, the other curled at her chest like she was holding back a scream. “You… wrong. This—” she gestured wide, the apartment, the door, him— “is not… good. Not good.”

The same fucking thing, over and over again. But no, he would not get tired of it. He would be patient, he still had it in him to listen to her.

He scrubbed a hand over his beard and tried to collect his bearings. He hadn’t come in here to argue. He’d come in gentle tonight—wanting to ask about her day, trying to make this feel normal. Livable. Maybe even good, eventually.

“Yeah, okay,” he sighed.

She didn’t smile or soften for him. Just kept watching him, eyes sharp, cautious, studying him like she was still trying to decide what he was.

Joel knew that look. The one people get when they’re planning something—a lie, a sprint, a knife pulled too fast.

He crossed the room to her like a shadow. He wasn’t a threat, nor was he trying to be.

But she moved quicker—like a deer catching scent—backing away from the window, slipping along the far edge of the table like it was some kind of shield. Her eyes locked on him, glassy and rimmed with red, red that didn’t come from tears but from days of not crying. Like she’d forced it all inward.

“No,” she sneered.

“Look, I ain’t—” He started, voice catching. He didn’t even know what the fuck he was trying to say.

So, he had a quick rundown of what he was dealing with.

Barefoot again. Always barefoot. Her skin dry, cracked at the knees. Wearing one of his shirts—worn-soft flannel, sleeves rolled to the elbows, hem falling just past her ass. Her hair was still damp from the bucket bath she’d taken earlier. He could smell the soap on her skin. Simple. Clean.

But then he stepped again—just one more step closer—and she snapped. No warning or sound. Her hand closed around a mug, and she flung it across the room. It shattered against the wall inches from his head.

Joel ducked out of reflex again, porcelain shards cracking behind him on the wall. His head turned, eyes tracking the splinters on the floor, jaw ticking tight.

Always a fight with her. But he was not complaining.

Not because he liked it or that it didn’t make his blood boil, but because this—her—he could handle.

Anger, he could read. Rage made sense. A thrown object was easier to steer through than silence, or sobbing, or the pain that came from the depths, quiet and unnavigable.

He also knew that you don't add to anger, you learn to absorb it. And that’s what this was now: Joel was absorbing it.

So he only watched her—like he was waiting for the second volley, there was another mug right within reach—and when it didn’t come, he made a choice.

He straightened up, willful. Then lowered himself into the armchair with the ease of someone untouched. As if what had just passed between them hadn’t brushed the fragile border of restraint.

He hunched forward, pinching up his jeans like he meant to stay a while, elbows digging into his thighs. His hands met in a quiet knot.

Two fingers rose—an unspoken signal: come here.

She didn’t budge a foot. “Fuck you,” she hissed through her teeth.

His mouth twitched. Almost a smile, but not kind. “Goddamn,” he murmured, a little proud, as he jostled off his boots and kicked them aside. “Look at that. Russian shit got too mouthy, huh?”

Her glare sharpened. He could see the hate in her eyes, but it wasn’t pure. There was confusion in it, too. The kind that made her angry with herself. That look of hers, it drove him up the fucking wall.

Joel leaned back, head cocked, and gave a slow nod toward the floor between his knees like he had all the time in the world.

“Well, you keep lookin’ at me like that, and we’re sure as hell not fuckin’ anytime soon,” he drawled.

Then, with the kind of lazy motion that still felt like a threat, he reached behind his back and pulled the pistol from his waistband. It landed on the coffee table with a faint click.

“There. Civil enough for you?”

She stared at the gun. Didn’t speak.

“I said, get over here,” he summoned.

He felt like a wire drawn too taut when she came forward like she was walking a plank, inch by inch, expecting the drop. Her bare feet silent against the floor. That long, slow drift toward him. Arms crossed like she thought they’d protect her, like they were armour and not just skin and bone.

His arm curled along the back of the chair, a posture that read relaxed, but wasn’t. It was calculated—intentional. Let her see he wasn’t chasing. Let her decide. Let her choose.

Because that was the point of this, wasn’t it? After everything, Joel knew control was the only goddamn thing she still had left. He’d stripped her of everything else—and he’d done it with unfeeling hands and the goddamn certainty that he was right.

But he wasn’t blind.

He could see it in the way she looked at him—as if she was waiting for him to snap, or touch her without asking, or leash her to the radiator. She didn’t understand the rules. Not his language, not the game. But she was learning quick.

Now Joel was testing the waters. Testing himself.

He wanted her to let him touch her, and that was the ugly truth of it. Not even in the way men usually did, not in the way she clearly expected. He just wanted something real. Soft. Her. To break the fog of this prison they were both locked in.

It’d been so fucking long since he’d held something that didn’t die.

When she was finally near him, it didn’t feel close enough. So Joel flicked his chin, a small, silent gesture—closer. Right between his knees.

She didn’t move at first, because of course not. Just stood there with her hands curled into tight little fists, quivering like a live wire, her mouth twisted in that stubborn sneer he got used to. Then, reluctantly, she stepped forward. One inch. Maybe two.

He rubbed a thumb into his eye socket, stifling a dry laugh. Christ, she was maddening.

“You gonna just stand there, all noble?” he muttered, more to himself than her.

She gave him that look again—that furrowed, confused one, like she’d been handed a riddle with missing parts. It hit him then: he was a few gestures behind, trying to communicate with someone whose English was chopped to hell.

So he sighed and patted his thigh. “Sit down.”

Her gaze slid sideways to the gun on the table. Joel didn’t even need to pick it up, and it wasn't like he was going to use it. She’d already done the math—had done it every day since he brought her here. The gun stayed where it was. Useless now, unless he handed it to her. Which he wouldn’t just yet, she was fun even without it.

Jaw clenched, she flopped down on his thigh exactly like an indignant kid forced to take a school photo. Perched on one side, stiff as a corpse, arms crossed, chin up, eyes glaring at anything but him, lips moving miles per minute in her native tongue. When she turned her back and gave him the crown of her head, he had to bite the inside of his cheek not to laugh. Theatrics. Little fucking actress.

“Now,” he drawled, voice low. “Talk to me. What’d you do today?”

“Fuck you,” she mumbled again, barely audible.

He cocked a brow. “Be nice.”

She turned her face just enough for him to catch the shine of her teeth. “Fuck you.”

Joel let out a soft hum and reached for her, taking a strand of her hair between two fingers. It felt dry at the ends, slightly tangled. She didn’t flinch, not right away. Still getting used to the small gestures. Or maybe she was just waiting to see what he’d do next.

“Hmm. What a shiny set of pearlies you got in that screwed-up head,” he muttered, brushing her hair back to get a better look at her cheek.

The damage from that fucker was still there, crusted with blood, swollen a little. A mottled wound carved into the soft skin just beneath her eye, stretching back into her hairline. He’d stitched it the night he found her—rough and ugly, but functional. She’d ripped half of it open a day later, as if punishing her own face for ending up here.

He traced along the edge of it, gentle. Less like a man handling a woman, more like someone touching the edge of a broken mirror.

He didn’t get far before her hand swatted his wrist. “No touch,” she hissed.

He raised his palms in mock surrender, letting the humour flicker briefly across his face. “Fine,” he said. “At least answer the damn question.”

She sat rigid, breathing with sharp puffs, like even that had cost her. Her eyes flicked to him, suspicious, as if trying to locate if she was being beguiled.

Joel just waited. No anger, no push. The silence was better than force.

Finally—finally—she spoke. A pause. A breath.

“Uh.” Her fingers grazed her chest, hesitant. “I... wash clothes.” She mimed the motion, wringing invisible fabric between her hands, then pointed toward the dented metal bucket by the bathroom door. “With—there.”

Joel nodded slowly, letting it register. Normal things. Domestic things. Something to anchor her before he was sure she was in her right mind.

He couldn’t stop thinking about her doing laundry. Bare knees on cold tile. Hands submerged in grey suds, scrubbing cloth raw, like she was trying to erase a memory. She didn’t know it, but that image burned itself into his chest. She still wanted to feel useful, he thought. Or maybe, she just didn’t want to feel powerless.

His voice dropped a little, softened without his permission. “That’s real good, baby,” he said, and the word—baby—hung there between them like smoke.

She blinked, brow furrowing. Like the tone had startled her more than the word itself.

Then—almost fast, like she needed to fill the space—“I listen to music.” Her hand fluttered toward the stereo, then mimed the brim of a hat. “The… boy. He sings nice.”

Joel let out a short breath of a smile. “Elton John,” he said. “Yeah. He’s somethin’, alright.”

She didn’t respond to the name—didn’t recognise it. Her eyes remained sharp, cautious, still trying to decide what Joel was.

And Joel continued his deductions of her, with the silent calculation of a man trying to figure out if the thing sitting on his leg was more fragile than it looked—or more dangerous.

She tapped her chest suddenly, breaking his thoughts, and lifted the delicate gold chain around her neck. A copper pendant in the shape of a penny swung there, like a baited hook. Her thumb pressed it tight.

“My... husband. Where?”

Ah, that again. Another complication, as if things weren’t tangled enough.

His expression didn’t flicker, but inwardly, that ignorance unwound, since the truth was—

He did put a bullet clean through that bastard’s skull. No ceremony. No explanation. Just another piece of rot carved out of a dying city. The moment the fucker recognized him—barely a second of smug bravado crossing his face, preparing to tell him he was fucked or some shit—Joel fired.

One shot, no mess. An infection cauterised at the root.

Of course, she didn’t know any of that. She’d been fast asleep, curled like a bleeding, kicked dog beneath his jacket in the corner outside of that miserable tenement.

He hadn’t done it for her, exactly. It was neater this way. Loose ends got people killed. Especially when those loose ends wore a FEDRA uniform.

And it wasn’t like lowlife sons of bitches like her husband had long lifespans anyway. Their luck always ran out eventually. Joel had seen the kind before, seen what they did with power when no one was watching and everyone was too scared to interfere. Yet still, the bigger portion of the truth weighed over him like a dangling knife. Although, it would have been better—more comfortable—if her husband was just some street-level scum.

Except he was ranked.

A captain. A goddamn fixture in the QZ.

That was the part he had rightly lost his shit over—the part Joel hadn’t considered beforehand. The part that made all of this more than personal. Because when a FEDRA officer vanished without a trace, people noticed. Whispers started. Accusations flew.

The Fireflies, naturally, were first to catch blame. And in fairness, it did look like them—clean execution, no witnesses, no mess, right before the freshly spray-painted Firefly logo. Talk about a streak of luck. Later that day, Tess had even joked that Marlene and Tommy’s people finally found their balls and did something worthwhile than just blowing shit up.

But Joel knew the truth.

And here was the collateral damage, sitting on his lap with her fists clenched and that little penny catching the light, looking at him like he was the thief.

Her fingers reached up again, this time tugging his chin toward her with surprising strength. She forced his eyes to the necklace.

“Where?” she growled, a threat in her throat.

Joel didn’t answer right away. His tongue felt thick. His jaw locked like a trap.

“Gone,” he finally muttered.

Her brow creased, struggling with the phrasing. “Gone?”

“He moved on. Left the city a while ago.”

It was a bad lie. A lazy one. But it was all he had. The truth would only gut her, and he didn’t want to watch that.

“Left city.” Her voice cracked around the word, tasting the lie on her tongue.

She blinked hard, eyes flooding, words tumbling beneath her breath in her language, frantic and mournful. Then, suddenly, trembling, desperate: “No. He say to me—promise. Promise. He…”

Joel’s jaw tensed. “Promised what?” His voice rose without warning. “The fuck could that piece of shit promise you? That he’d stop? That he’d be better? That he’d treat you like a person instead of a fuckin’—”

“You don’t know,” she snapped, eyes flashing.

“I know enough.”

He looked away, unable to bear the weight of her gaze. The way she wanted to believe in a ghost.

And then—her hand snapped forward. Fingers like claws, she grabbed his chin, jerking his face toward her. The necklace swung wildly between them, clinking against his collarbone.

“Where?” she demanded, her voice breaking apart in a choke mid-word. “Tell me.”

Joel’s pulse jumped. His grip twitched.

“You don’t gotta worry about him anymore,” he muttered. “He’s gone. It’s done.”

“Done what...” she echoed, disbelieving. Her lips curled. “No. You lie.”

She gave him a look then. Cold. Knowing.

One beat. Two beats. He aptly readied himself.

She lunged—her hand shooting for the pistol holstered at his side.

Instinct overtook thought. He caught her wrist, slammed it down hard enough to shake the lamp. She shrieked—more rage than pain—and swung her other arm, clipped him right at the jaw until he felt his teeth clack before he grabbed that one too, twisted both behind her, and pressed her chest against his. His arms locked around her, an iron hand manacled both her wrists to the small of her back, knees snapping shut around her thighs, and ankles coiling immovably around hers.

She thrashed in his grip, screamed in that serrated language of hers, every syllable like shrapnel, spine arched, her breath wild and furious in his ear. It took everything in him not to flinch at the force of her rage.

He felt every breath she fought to take.

“Jesus, sweetheart,” he muttered, his lips grazing her temple, “always a game with you.”

“You take him,” she spat, accent slicing each word with venom. “Bastard!”

Joel tightened his hold with a jerk, his breath warm at the base of her neck. “You’re fed,” he ground out. “You’re warm. Got music. A goddamn life. Nobody’s touchin’ you but me—and I ain’t hurt you.”

She bucked against him again, wrists straining. “You steal me.”

“I saved you.”

“You steal.” Her voice cracked. “From me.”

She was burning hot now, every inch of her coiled muscle and stubborn fire. She cursed him, snarling in that sharp, beautiful tongue he didn’t understand, but felt. Wrists wresting. Nails digging. Teeth clenched like she wanted to bite him, bleed him, break him.

She was fire and fury, and grief all in one. Every inch of her was a rebellion, and yet he held her tighter.

There were no restraints here, and Jesus—he fucking loved it.

“I’m not yours,” she said again, this time quieter.

The words landed like a gut punch, the sweetness dying on his tongue. She was everything he wanted to protect and couldn’t control. Everything fragile that wouldn’t stay still, trust, or at least thank him.

She turned her face and spat the only words she loved to say to him. “Fuck you.”

Joel shut his eyes.

He didn’t know if it was rage or shame—but it scorched through him like wildfire.

He wanted to kiss her—to silence her, yes, but more than that. He wanted her to stop looking at him like he was no better than the man he killed. He wanted her to see him. Understand that what he did—what he was doing—wasn’t cruelty. It was care... wasn’t it?

Her chest was pressed tight against him, trembling from the inside out, her breath hot on his throat, heart hammering beneath her ribs. He felt it through his own bones, like their pulses were trying to match. Trying to find the same rhythm and failing.

Every part of her said don’t you dare. Every tense muscle, every flicker of her eyes, the tip of her nose brushing his, every shallow inhale and yet—

He did. He bit the bullet hard.

His mouth crashed into hers—desperate, unthinking, a blind man throwing himself at a fire just to feel it singe. He braced for the impact: fists, teeth, knees, the crack of her skull against his nose. He was ready for pain. Expected it.

But instead—she went slack.

Her body gave in—there was no surrender or peace, but like a wire pulled too tight, finally snapping under strain. Her lips parted under his, not receiving but yielding, opening right into his, letting him have a taste. A gasp caught in her throat, soft, raw, like it surprised even her.

The fire didn’t leave her. It changed.

From rage to need. From no to not like this.

He loosened his grip on her wrists. Eased it, slowly—one finger at a time—like peeling himself away from something sacred. His breath stuttered. His hands trailed down her arms, callused fingertips brushing skin like it might burn him alive.

Her hands moved, crawled up his chest, and curled into his hair, and then—Christ—her nails raked into his scalp, dragging fire down the back of his neck, and he choked on the sound that left him—low, guttural, pained.

She clung to him like she wanted to break him open and see what he looked like inside.

Hurting him. Kissing him. Both.

She bit his lip hard enough to draw blood, and he didn’t flinch. Just groaned, bleeding, panting between kisses, dragging her closer like gravity wasn’t enough. He needed every nerve ending of hers soldered to his, to take his pain as hers.

“Fuck,” his voice cracked, sucking on the bruise she left before soothing it with another aching kiss. “C’mere, c’mere—oh, shit, baby—”

He didn’t even remember what he said. He only knew the pull—desperate, breathless. He needed her near, like his air. Like absolution through suffering. Maybe this was the only way she could reach him. Maybe this was the only form of love he’d ever understand, when it came with pain.

Her hands were all over him, mirrored to his own—yanking at his shirt, tearing it up over his ribs just to pierce into the skin beneath. Her thighs cinched tight around him, hips grinding down with zero grace, zero rhythm, just need. Raw, ugly, wicked, intimate need.

He gripped her hips like he could disappear into her. She wrapped her arms around him to suffocate him.

Her hand slid around the side of his neck, palm to his throat, and she squeezed, just enough to say I could end you. Enough to make him let her.

His eyes slammed shut, and he swallowed against her hand. His heart kicked against his ribs, and every breath turned to steam between their mouths.

Because this was exactly what he wanted her for. This was what love looked like when it had no softness left, when it was all scar tissue and flesh.

He let her hold him there, half-strangled in her grip, her breath crashing against his cheek, teeth dragging over his jaw. Let her kiss him as much as she hated him, as much as she needed to feel the shape of his bones just to be sure they’d break.

His hands slid down, under her thighs, lifting, adjusting, anchoring.

She arched into him, spine convexed, mouth breaking from his only to return harder—tongue and teeth and breathless, brutal want.

One hand dragged under her shirt—skin to skin now—and Jesus, she was hot to the touch, sweat-slick and tense. He could feel how her breast swelled into his palm, nipple straining as he rolled them between his fingertips, peaked for a bite. His free hand slid up, knotted in her hair, tugging just enough to bare her throat to him.

Her hips rocked for him. Once. Twice. He just about blew a load right there.

It wasn’t smooth—wasn’t the standard, wasn’t some slow-burn bullshit. It was frantic. Distraught. Messy. Clothing still clung between them—her shirt rucked up to bare the trembling line of her stomach, his pants shoved just far enough to feel her pressed against him, denim grinding over cotton, the hot friction of her soaked through the fabric and painting flames along the length of him. His belt bit into her inner thigh with every swell of her hips, a cruel, grounding pressure that made her chase the ache instead of shying from it.

They were still half-dressed—still pretending this wasn’t whatever the hell it was—but it didn’t matter. Not with the way she moved, not with how she found that rhythm and used it against them both. Her hips rolled, slow at first, then faster, dragging the drag of wet cotton and rough seams in a torturous loop, over and over. He could feel every goddamn thing. Every inch she refused to give him.

His hands slid up the backs of her thighs, greedy, possessive, slipping under fabric, needing to feel skin. He traced the perfect curve of her ass, held her there, guided her against him, helpless to do anything but meet her. Match her. Let her ride this out, grinding him to the edge without mercy.

The heat between them was unbearable. Soaked. Slick. Sex, somehow. Radiating through every barrier they hadn’t yet torn away. And the worse part—the most fucked up part—was that he didn’t want those barriers gone, not if this was what he got in return.

The denial was part of it. The pressure. The ruin of not-quite.

The way her breath caught every time she pressed down just right, her lashes fluttering, her hands gripping at his shoulders—

“Jesus,” Joel panted against her collarbone, dragging his mouth along her skin. “Just like that, baby—fuck—you feel that?”

She didn’t answer with words; this was the only way he'd ever get her.

She just moved—grinding down faster, harder, with enough force to punch the breath from his lungs, sinking her teeth into his shoulder through his shirt. Her hands were under his jacket now, nails digging into his back like she meant to peel him apart.

And when her hand came back to his throat, thumb digging into his pulse—tightening, commanding—he didn’t stop her.

They weren’t making love. They weren’t even fucking, that would have been so much easier.

They were taking each other. The moment. Whatever scraps of comfort their broken bodies could offer. They devoured each other—gasping, grasping. Not lovers. Not strangers. Just two wrecks trying to crash harder, as though destruction might finally give them peace.

He didn’t know if this was hate or need or some venomous middle ground—but fuck, it didn’t matter.

Then, just as he felt that familiar pleasure start to crest—

Cold. Pressed between his ribs.

A click—sharp, surgical—cut through the static of heat between them.

His breath caught mid-thrust of motion, eyes dragging open in slow disbelief.

His pistol, safety off.

She’d drawn it from his side, the sneaky little minx, sometime between the very distracting kiss and the clawing and the way her hips had started to ride him.

Now it sat between them, lodged like a truth or a secret neither of them wanted to name.

Her hand didn’t shake. Patient, deadly.

“Easy,” he managed to grunt.

Her eyes—bloodshot, tear-lined, feral—didn’t look at him so much as through him. Glassy. Hollowed out. The barest tremble of breath hitched in her throat.

Joel’s chest rose and fell against the muzzle, his own heartbeat ticking into the cold barrel like it was trying to knock the gun loose. Like it could plead its case in pulses.

Goddamn it.

He was so close. So fucking close to—whatever this was. This twisted, ruined wanting that burned hotter than anything he'd ever known. Her bruising lips parted. Her thighs still clamped around his hips, soaked cotton on show. She looked like sin and war and sex, all kiss-bitten and shaking—still, she held him at gunpoint.

He’d fucking forgotten, in all that hunger, in all that heat—in the way he let her take from him like he owed her the goddamn marrow in his bones—he’d forgotten who she was.

She was a woman caged, and he was the man with the keys.

And yet—even with the barrel of his own damn gun pressed to his chest, even with hers heaving like she might scream or sob or shoot—he broke out into a smile.

Slow, crooked, that old, lopsided kind that had nothing to do with joy or any apology in it. Not for what he’d done, and sure as hell not for what he was about to do.

His head tipped back, rough stubble dragging against the cushion, and a low breath escaped him—a laugh, real, gravelly, full of grit. Girl kept him on his fucking toes.

“I take you now,” she insisted.

Joel didn’t even blink, just let his voice slide out like it had all the time in the world. “Oh, honey,” he drawled, voice syrup-slow, “you took me, alright. Great job.”

He meant it. Christ, she’d taken him—like some vixen. Stripped him raw and left him feeling like a man again for half a heartbeat. Right before jamming a pistol into his ribs.

She scowled and smacked his hands off her waist with the gun. He let them drop, palms up in mock surrender, wrists limp.

She peeled herself off him with all the grace of a fight ending mid-swing. Her shirt plunged back down over her hips, and that—it almost made him groan. What a goddamn shame. He’d liked her like that. Wild. Wet. Half-dressed. Towering over him like she had all lthe damn power in the world, a flame that might eat him whole if he let her.

She stepped backwards, gun never wavering in aim.

“I… leave,” she stated.

Joel exhaled like she’d just suggested skipping across a minefield.

“Sure,” he said. “Knock yourself out. But what the hell you gonna say to the FEDRA grunts when they stop you?”

She narrowed her eyes, not getting it yet. “Why?”

“For shootin’ your husband.”

Her brow creased. Still breathing hard. Still trying to win a war with herself.

“No,” she said, almost defiantly. “You—you shoot. I—”

He cut her off, voice flint-hard.

“Darlin’,” he said, and it wasn’t sweet. It was a warning. “A FEDRA captain who beats his wife ends up dead in a ditch. Wife goes missing. Who d’you think they’re gonna pin it on?”

There. He saw it. Her brows knitting, reeling in the hurt, the comprehension sinking its claws in. Her hand left the doorknob, and Joel could almost see the fight leak out of her bones.

It was absolutely cruel, watching it land. But it wasn’t personal; it was survival. His, even hers, if she listened.

Now, she wasn’t stupid. Hurt, cornered, running on instinct—but not dumb.

He groaned and leaned forward, cracking his neck with a roll of his shoulders as he moved, every joint complaining. His body was still thrumming—wired from her touch, from the taste of her anger, from the bullet of adrenaline still lodged somewhere under his ribs.

And from the loss. The goddamn loss of what nearly happened.

“Go ahead,” he said, nodding at the door like it didn’t matter. “Run. Get caught. Get shot. Or let ’em drag you to that concrete hole under the barracks. You won’t last an hour in there. Not without someone ownin’ you.”

She sagged back against the door, one hand to her head, knuckles pressed into the skull like she could stop the spin of her thoughts by force.

She looked broken again. Not weeping—no, she never gave him that. But cracked. And tired. And haunted all over again.

And Joel felt something in his chest stir. Maybe guilt, or just the memory of who he used to be. The man who might’ve been better. But that man didn’t survive the QZ.

Look, he didn’t lie for sport. He lied to keep breathing. Lied to keep her breathing, too, whether she knew it or not. Close enough to scare her, and close enough to the truth to make her stay. That was all that mattered.

He watched her jaw tighten, and her fingers curled again around the grip.

She raised the gun. Took aim. Closed a finger on the lever.

Her mouth didn’t move. Her glassy eyes didn’t blink. And without a word—

She pulled the trigger.

X

Maybe Joel had underestimated the hell out of this little vixen.

Now how the fuck am I gonna explain this to Tess, was the only coherent thought Joel had as he stood before the mirror, biting down on the inside of his cheek, needle in hand, tugging thread through the scorched skin just beneath his jawline, watching the wound pucker and twitch. The graze from her bullet had missed killing him by about an inch—give or take—and now it burned like hell every time he pulled the knot tight.

He’d stitched himself up before. Dozens of times. But this one—this one wasn’t just some random scrape from patrol.

This was hers. Her mark on him. Her signature.

Through the mirror, he caught her reflection—sat stiff-backed at the dining table, cables wrapped tight around her wrists and ankles on the chair. Her hair was mussed from the struggle, chest still heaving a little like she hadn't come down yet.

And those vexatious eyes, watching him like he was a feral lion. Like she wanted to peel him open and crawl inside just to claw his heart out.

She glared, and glared, and glared. He almost preferred the fighting.

Joel didn’t look away either. He met her eyes as he tied the knot off. His hands moved with muscle memory, practised, controlled, even as his pulse thumped in his ears.

He flashed her a smirk. Nothing soft about it. Just teeth and the ghost of a man who used to know how to laugh.

He tried, uselessly, to chase the tension out of the air. “Love bites already, darlin’?”

Her jaw ticked. Didn’t so much as blink.

He chuckled low, voice rough with disuse. “No sense of humour. Damn near tore my shootin’ arm off—figure that’s your version of foreplay.”

Bad timing. But it was either that or remember how close he'd come to dying. Or how close he'd come to letting her go.

The cables were back—the same black extension cords he’d ripped from the wall—tied to the chair legs like some backwoods crucifixion. He’d ditched them two days ago, figuring maybe she didn’t need restraining anymore.

He’d been wrong.

It had taken him a full three minutes to get her under control when she made a break for the door. Or the fallen gun. Maybe both. It was hard to say when he saw her bolt. Either way, she’d fought like a damn rabid wolf. Screamed, scratched, bit, clawed. He hadn’t even been mad—hell, he'd been impressed. He took the hit like a man, even when her knee slammed up between his legs and turned his world white.

Now he was the proud owner of a busted lip, a sprained elbow, and an insanely sore dick.

And still—still—he couldn’t stop looking at her.

To fuck with her, and maybe to test the hideous part in himself, he dropped the pistol on the table just out of her reach. Right in front of her bound hands. Watched her eyes flicker toward it, a tiny twitch of her knee and wrists, just for a second, before she clenched her jaw and looked away like it wasn’t worth the effort.

Joel rose, blood sliding lazily down his neck. He took a pull from the bottle, the whiskey biting down his throat, and wandered to the wall where the bullet had hit, thankfully gone wide. Scarred plaster, smoke still curling out, a smudge of his blood, just above the armchair where she’d pinned him.

One inch to the left, and she’d have blown his goddamn skull open.

He tilted his head, studying the dark crimson spray pattern.

Goddamn. What a woman.

Mad as hell. Mouth like poison. Fire in every limb. And Joel—twisted, tired Joel—was drunk on it. On her rage, on her defiance, on the fucking danger of her.

She made him feel everything, and it wasn’t clean or noble or even sane—but it was real. In this half-rotted purgatory of a world, she was the only thing that made him feel alive and not just... moving.

He turned and headed to the tiny galley kitchen where he had left her. The whole apartment was a shithole like every other in the QZ, a patchwork of tradeoffs—walls cracked from old artillery shockwaves, rusted pipes, a hot plate that shorted out if he looked at it wrong, dented cookware, rust-stained sink. But he’d managed to keep it clean, more or less. Old habits die hard.

Dinner would usually be a ration can—protein sludge fortified with sawdust, probably—dumped into a pan with water and a stingy pinch from a seasoning packet. But for her, especially, in the very back, it sat vacuum-sealed, smuggled from a soldier who owed him: two tiny pouches of canned chicken. Probably expired. Definitely tasted like shit. But she liked it.

But tonight, thanks to her, he was too roughed up to bother about putting anything in his system.

Joel held up the bottle and shook it in her direction. “Want some?”

She glanced at her wrists, tied tight. Her lips pulled back in a snarl.

Joel grinned around the lip of the bottle. “You hate me that much, huh?”

Her eyes flared.

“Hate you,” she hissed through clenched teeth. “You—you—you—”

Then she spat a curse at him. One of too many. Sharp and syllabic in that language, he still didn’t know but understood just fine by tone.

He leaned back against the counter, savouring the burn of the whiskey as it settled in his gut.

“Didn’t see you runnin’,” he said, quiet now. Watching her over the rim. “You came back. Fought me. Didn’t have to.”

“You catch me. I try,” she spat, spittle gathering at the corner of her mouth. Either he was going mad, or he truly imagined running his tongue along it.

“To kill you. I kill you—fucker—”

Then more words he couldn’t parse followed. Foreign, sharp-edged. The cadence was all fury. A hymn of loathing, and he listened to every word like it was meant for him alone.

Fury. Grief. Close to mourning, maybe. For herself, for what he’d done, for the way the world had split her open and let a man like him crawl inside.

Joel drank her in like the whiskey. Let her hatred settle over him like a second skin.

Believe it or not, she hated him harder than he hated himself, and that was the closest thing to affection he’d known in years. And Joel would take attention like a dying man takes morphine.

He went over to sit on the edge of the table, right in front of her, merely them and the slow collapse of what was left of their sanity.

“Next time, darlin’,” he said, tipping the bottle toward her like a toast, “don’t miss.”

He picked up the gun behind him and let her watch as he slid it back into his waistband, slow and deliberate. Made sure she saw it vanish beneath the hem of his shirt, snug against his spine.

She tracked the motion with narrowed eyes. Sharp, silent. Like a hawk sizing up a coyote.

He dragged a chair forward and set it beside her, dropping into it with a sigh that scraped the bottom of his ribs. Body still running hot from the fight, the sex that wasn’t, the goddamn shot to the neck.

He reached into the crumpled paper bag he’d left on the table earlier and pulled out a sandwich wrapped in wax paper—dry as hell, probably two days old. Could’ve been crow meat for all he knew. Tasted like it.

He bit into it anyway, jaw grinding against the toughness. All this fighting, all this blood—it drained a man. Emptied out from the inside. But food was fuel. He chewed slowly, eyeing her where she sat bound, still breathing like she wanted to kill him with every exhale.

Then, because he wasn’t all an asshole—because somewhere in that tar-black heart of his, the muscle still twitched now and then with human impulse—he angled the sandwich toward her mouth. Held it out, edge-first.

“Here,” he muttered, around his own chew of stale bread and mystery meat. “Bite.”

She jerked her head like he’d tried to slap her. “No.”

He pushed the bread's tip closer to her lips. “Open your goddamn mouth.”

She stared. Defiant. Chin lifted, eyes sharp.

He met her stare, held it a beat, then shrugged. “Fine. Starve.”

Silence crawled in after that. He made it halfway through the sandwich—chewed, swallowed, wiped a smear of grease from the corner of his mouth with the back of his hand—when it hit him:

He didn’t know a damn thing about this woman other than her name, her routine, the bare bones of misery.

Not her age. Not where she came from. Not what she believed in. Only that she hated him hard enough to nearly kill him—a hate, truthfully, turned him on. Not just the heat of it, but the clarity.

She looked at him like he was exactly what he was: dangerous. Unforgivable. A man to fear. A man to fuck. A man to fight.

Joel leaned back in the chair, studying her through the haze of cheap overhead light.

“So, what'd you do,” he asked finally, tearing another bite, like he was asking the wall instead of her. “Before all the world went to shit?”

He expected another string of curses in that slanted tongue. Or a lie. A don’t-ask-don’t-tell kind of glare. She was good at those. What he didn’t expect was her eyes flicking over to him—assessing, calculating, head to toe—and then:

“Vegas,” she said.

He paused mid-chew. “Vegas?”

One word. Simple. It caught him off guard. Not just how she said it. Way-gas, she said. A confession. Like she was daring him to judge her for it.

He blinked, sat up a little straighter, suddenly seeing things he hadn’t let himself see before.

The legs. The defiant sway in her hips. The sharp tilt of her jaw, the lashes that curled without effort, the skin that still shimmered faintly with sweat. The way she moved her ass around like she owned the goddamn air. How she held herself—not like a soldier or prey, but like a woman used to being watched.

Son of a bitch. How the hell had he missed it?

He let out a low whistle.

“No stripper,” she added quickly, eyes narrowing, shoulders squaring as his gaze lingered a little too long. “Burlesque. I danced.”

She rolled her Rs in that accent again, proud, like she was used to people misunderstanding the difference and correcting them always. Her knees drifted closer together, trying to reclaim whatever dignity the cable ties had stolen.

He nodded slowly, mouth twitching. “Fancy strippin’. Classy.”

She glared. “Is art.”

“Sure.”

But Joel didn’t laugh to mock her. Not really. It was more… wonder. It was absurd. This woman—this firecracker with those eyes like war—used to wear sequins, sashay and peel layers off her body for a crowd.

He sat back, eyes roaming, letting himself picture it. Couldn’t help it. He imagined her beneath coloured lights, smoke curling in the dark, descending slowly from a velvet swing in some nightclub, dusky legs gleaming, hips swathed in a flaming red corset, tits pushed up high. Hair pinned up in glossy waves, a fake beauty mark by her cheekbone, lips blood-red, just to drive the crowd wild. Fur slung around her shoulders for the tease, heels clicking across a stage, strutting to jazz tunes, prancing, undressing like it was a game she’d already won.

And she’d be grinning. That feline grin he envisioned on her when she was about to kill him or kiss him—he wasn’t sure which.

Jesus.

He unseeingly looked down at his sandwich, then at her again.

“Bet you had the whole goddamn place in your pocket,” he said. Not as a joke this time. Dead serious. “Men tossin’ out their last paycheck just to get one look at you.”

Shit, if Vegas were his backyard and he were thirty and thriving in the old world, he would've been one of those horny idiots.

The corner of her mouth poked up.

Then, there it was. A crack in the armour. The faintest smile—small, sly, quick. And it hit him harder than any punch she'd thrown. He could've sworn a goddamn dandelion sprouted from the mildew beneath the floorboards. Didn’t belong there, or last. Made it all the more striking.

“Were you famous?” he asked, voice dipping quieter.

She nodded softly, eyes far away, remembering it or mourning it. “They loved me.”

“Yeah,” he murmured, almost under his breath. “I’m sure they did.”

Because how the hell could they not? She had that thing—that magnetism. Something about the way she said it—like she knew she’d owned it. The stage. The room. The people. All of them orbiting her while she stood dead center, burning like a damn flare in the dark.

Due to his envious tendencies, he had to ask, “Met your husband there?”

Just like that, the moment shattered. Her face dimmed. The glimmer was gone.

She shook her head. “He help me.”

“Help what?”

She tried to lift her wrists to gesture, but remembered the cords. Let out an irritated breath, rolled her eyes. “Nothing.”

Bullshit.

He stared at her, waiting. She didn’t meet his eyes. So he hazarded a small-minded guess. “He helped you stay in America?”

Another shake of the head. “No, no. In QZ. Gave me ID. I don’t have a visa then.”

Joel leaned back in the chair. The old thing groaned under his weight. He scrubbed a hand over his mouth, sighed. “Jesus.”

“I married him,” she said simply. “I have to… um…” Her shoulders rolled in an inward shrug. “Protect. My mama and me.”

She said it like it was a plain transaction. Like she’d bought safety in the shape of a ring and a man she didn’t love. That hit him sideways. He didn’t know why.

“But my mama,” she continued in a breath, “she… breathing, uh... spores? Breathe in the spores.” Then clucked her tongue. “Then, they took her to the camp. She die. No more.”

That part, she delivered with the softness of a knife. No tremble, no grief. Just a cold, hard period at the end of the sentence. She’d buried her mother a long time ago—maybe in the ground, maybe just in her heart. Joel knew that tone, and what it meant to put someone in the ground then never look back.

He looked at her again—at the tension in her spine, the way her eyes stayed forward, never down, never soft. This wasn’t just some girl he’d taken an interest in and dragged off the street.

She’d survived, just like him. Done things she didn’t want to do, so she and her mother could keep breathing. She’d worn feathers for strangers and married a man to disappear into a system that never gave a shit about her. And now here she was, in a dingy little room, half-starved and still staring him down like he was the one who should be afraid.

He reached for the sandwich again, held it up to her mouth without a word.

This time, she opened. No more fucking fighting. Just her eyes locked on his, and then her teeth sank in.

He watched her chew. Watched her throat bob when she swallowed. It felt ceremonial, as if she’d finally accepted a truce. Or at least his presence. Something like respect crept up the back of his neck.

He didn’t even realise how intently he was staring until she raised a brow at him, like, what? He looked away, clearing his throat.

She finished the bite, then licked her lips and looked at him with almost approaching curiosity.

“You,” she said, tilting her head. “What you did… before?”

Joel’s body tensed, air thickening around him. It wasn’t a question he liked answering—a life he liked remembering. Too many memories. Too many ghosts.

Still. Fair was fair. He had it in him to be honest.

“Contractor,” he said gruffly.

Her nose scrunched up, confused. “What?”

“Built things,” he explained, rubbing at his beard like the word itself might scratch off some rust. “Houses. Apartments. Plumbing. Sheetrock. Whatever needed fixing, I did it.”

There was a pause before—“Ah,” she said, like it had finally clicked. Then, hit him with a plain ridiculous: “Tinkerbell.”

Joel’s head jerked up. “'Scuse me?”

“You know,” she said, nodding solemnly, deadpan. “Little fairy. With um... tools.”

He exhaled through his nose, trying not to grin. Scrubbed a hand over his face like that might hide it. Goddamn wildfire.

“You call me that again,” he muttered, “and I’ll tie your mouth too.”

She shrugged, eyes half-lidded. “Still Tinkerbell.”

He looked over at her again, her bite marks on his collarbone still smarting, the scratch on his neck bleeding a little. And yet, somehow, she managed to call him a fairy with a toolbelt while being fed scraps from a washed-up relic. A tease between... not quite friends, but not quite enemies anymore either.

He didn’t say anything for a long minute. Just handed her another bite of the sandwich and watched the flicker of light in her eyes as she took it.

Her bite and her kiss—those two things, the same intensity, the same hunger—the difference between them was so thin, it probably lived in a hairline fracture.

X

“So you walked into a fence...” Tess drawled, arms crossed, one brow arched as she leaned against the rusted support beam. Her eyes flicked toward the gauze taped along Joel’s neck.

“...and it nicked you.”

Joel grunted. “Yeah.”

He didn’t elaborate. Just kept his focus on the ration manifest spread out on the crate in front of him, one finger tracing along the rows. Half this list was bullshit—spoiled inventory marked as fresh, numbers fudged. Someone was skimming.

Tess didn’t move, and honestly, didn't need to. Her stare was enough to pull answers out of most men.

But Joel wasn’t most men. And besides, the lie had already lodged too deep in his throat.

The truth was, he hated mornings like this—when the buzz of violence hadn’t quite worn off and his nerves still prickled like static under his skin.

Especially this morning. After waking up to her.

Sprawled across his mattress, all sweet, unconscious temptation, wrists still twisted in cord to the radiator just in case she didn't try to push a pillow into his face and asphyxiate him while he snored. Shirt rucked up to her ribs, plump, round ass on show, one leg bent, the other kicked out, mouth parted, skin soft and warm with sleep. Fucking irresistible enough to make him forget what the hell he was even doing anymore.

He’d left without waking her, not trusting himself to look too long. He'd be back in a few hours anyway.

“It was dark, lights were out,” Joel muttered now. “Let’s move on.”

“Next time,” she said, “try walking into a better lie.”

She came around the crate, hands on her hips. They’d met up to review a shipment—some busted battery packs smuggled in from Zone 3—but she hadn’t even looked at the gear yet. She could always tell when something was off. Joel being quiet? That was normal. But Joel being twitchy—Joel dodging her eyes, fiddling with his collar, rubbing at a nonexistent itch beneath his jaw—that set off alarms.

“You’re jumpy,” she said finally.

“Tired.”

“You don’t get tired.”

Joel shot her a look. “I ain’t immortal.”

She always knew when to push and when to let him breathe. That was Tess. Sharp as a damn blade, dry humour like a whetstone, all clipped words and hard lines—but she'd been by his side through years of blood and ash. They’d run jobs together. Smuggled, bartered, fought like hell to carve a solid life out of the wreckage. There was history between them. Not romance. Not love. Not in the way people used to have it.

But there was something.

He knew she had... feelings. She never said a word, never asked for more, for these ghosts of tenderness. But they’d flickered through—in the way she always drifted to his right side when patrols got rough, like she knew he favoured that side to draw. The time she held his arm longer than necessary after a knife caught his ribs. The little things people noticed when the world burned down and there wasn’t much left to hold onto.

Joel never encouraged it. Never used it, either. He wasn't built that way. He didn’t have it in him to lie to someone like Tess—not when she deserved better. And he didn’t have anything left to give. Not love, softness, not even a glimmer of promise.

Not to her. Not to anyone, really.

Or so he thought—until a girl with a broken accent and showgirl hips ended up on his shitlist. Until she clawed at the quiet places in him he thought were long dead.

“So what’s this about?” Joel asked, shifting the subject as he stood, wiping his palms on his jeans. “Why’d you drag me out?”

Tess leaned against the frame of a busted pallet jack, arms crossed tight, a cigarette burning slowly between her fingers. Her eyes scanned the space like she was building the words in her head.

“Word is Marlene’s been sniffin’ around.”

He paused. Just a beat. Not enough to give him away. But Tess had known him too long—she clocked it, like a tick in his jaw.

“Tommy mentioned something last night,” she went on, like she wasn’t watching him unravel. “Marlene’s looking for the captain’s wife. The one who went missing after someone shot the asshole in the head. Ring a bell?”

Joel didn’t answer. Just grunted, shoved the crate harder than he needed to. Bones grinding under the weight.

Tess kept going.

She flicked ash to the concrete. “Guess she thinks the woman might’ve seen something. Or knows something. Or maybe Marlene just wants another pretty fuckin’ face to make a martyr out of. Put her on a flyer. Stir sympathy. You know how she works.”

He grunted—noncommittal—but even to his own ears, it sounded hollow.

“They’re saying she ran,” he finally muttered. “That she’s long gone.”

“Sure,” Tess said. Her voice was quiet. Measured. “Except Marlene’s not the type to chase ghosts.”

He didn't answer.

He turned, meaning to brush past her—to walk it off, let it cool—but her hand came out quick, firm on his arm. She cocked her head, gesturing over his shoulder.

“Speak of the devil.”

Joel turned. His blood ran cold.

There it was.

The wanted posters, freshly lined up among the other rotting ones. Stapled all crooked on the rusted bulletin board outside the warehouse window, weathered but clear. The ink was smudged, wind-bleached, but still legible. Still her.

It wasn’t even a good sketch, rushed, blurred shading, like someone drew her from memory after seeing her once. But it was her. The slope of her nose, the shadows under her eyes. The curve of her mouth, parted just enough to make him remember how much it hurt to kiss her. She looked startled in the drawing. Like she’d just turned around and found someone aiming a gun at her back.

His throat closed.

The poster flapped in the wind, mocking him with every ripple.

Liar, liar, liar.

He’d lied to her. Told her there was nothing out there. Said the streets were crawling with patrols looking for her husband's murderer. That she’d be shot on sight. That it was better—safer—to stay.

And now here was the proof he was right... just not in the way he’d claimed.

Yes, they were looking for her. Not to kill.

To use. To catch and cage. Trade and twist. Make it into something she didn’t understand and couldn’t fight against.

A prize. A pawn.

Joel’s fists clenched at his sides. The ache started in his knuckles and climbed up his arms, settled in his chest like a dull hammer strike. Rage stirred low in his gut—hot, seething—not at Tess, not at Marlene. At himself. For how fast he’d gotten tangled, how deep he’d let her burrow in. For thinking, even for a second, that he could bring someone like her into his world and keep her safe.

He should’ve let her go that first night. Should’ve turned around and walked away from the sound of her crying behind that locked door. Should’ve shut it all out—like he always did.

But no. He felt like the goddamn wolf in the story, telling Little Red to rest a while. That he’d take care of everything.

Now here she was—on paper. A bounty. A target. A story someone else would write if he didn’t do something fast.

Tess came up beside him, quiet, cigarette nearly burnt out to the filter between her fingers. She didn’t speak right away, just stood with him, her shoulder brushing his.

“You ever see her?” she asked finally, voice low.

Joel didn’t move. “No.”

A beat passed. The silence crept in, discomfiting.

“Would you tell me if you had?”

He turned his head to meet her gaze. Her eyes weren’t sharp—just tired. Guarded. Asking more than the question itself.

“You think I’d be stupid enough to hide someone FEDRA wants that bad?”

Tess didn’t blink. “You’ve done dumber. We all have.”

Joel let out a humourless breath. Scoffed, looked away. “I got enough shit to worry about.”

And that was the truth. Except it wasn’t the whole of it.

Because this wasn’t just some woman anymore. Not some frightened girl stashed behind his door. Not the reluctant wife of a dead tyrant. She was wanted. Valuable. Tied into something bigger—that neither of them had any damn control over.

And he—reckless, half-broken bastard that he was—had gone and tied her up, brought her into his home like she was a stray he could tame. Thought if he fed her, clothed her, gave her a warm corner of his bed, that’d be enough. That she’d stay. That he could keep her safe.

Look, that should’ve been the end of that conversation. But Tess took one last drag and said, all casual—

“Three hundred ration cards.”

Joel pinched his lips. Jesus, she could not be serious.

“Not bad, right? We find her first,” she added, tossing the cigarette to the ground, “we could hand her over. Say we picked her up wandering. Could use the trade.”

She said it with that dry smile of hers, that half-joking tone that wasn’t really joking at all.

Joel’s jaw worked. Don’t take the bait.

She was watching him sideways, like a trap. As though she already knew the answer and was just waiting to see if he’d lie.

And he almost did. Almost nodded and said, “Yeah, maybe,” to play along.

When the silence came too fast, Tess noticed.

She just tilted her head, studying him out of the corner of her eye, obviously weighing odds, smelling blood in the water. Joel could feel it—the shift in the air between them, subtle but sharp.

He kept his expression flat, unreadable. But inside, gears were grinding.

Tess wasn’t stupid. She’d been too close for too long. Knew how he moved, how he lied—more importantly, how he didn’t lie. She could read him in a way that made his skin itch.

He could practically hear what she was thinking: You hesitated. You froze. Why? What do you know? Why won't you tell me?

Joel clenched his jaw, hands flexing uselessly at his sides. She was sniffing at the edges of something she hadn’t seen yet. But the shape of it was there. The silence was too precise, his calm too controlled.

He’d misstepped.

Tess didn’t press. She just gave a quiet little “hm,” then looked away, like she was cataloguing the moment for later.

Joel didn’t breathe until she took a step toward the warehouse doors, already half done with the conversation. But she paused long enough to glance back over her shoulder.

“You let me know if you hear anything,” she said.

Joel gave her a nod. One of those short, practiced ones that didn’t mean a damn thing.

Then he stood there, still as stone, while she walked away.

And all he could think about was her—barefoot, soft-voiced, wild-eyed—waiting in his apartment.

But those walls were closing in now, the chessboard moving. He could feel it—the cold edge of the blade behind his back, his own lie pressing down like a boot to the throat.

Because Marlene wanted a pawn.

And FEDRA wanted blood.

And him?

Joel Miller—realist, killer, smuggler, protector, proficient kidnapper, whatever the fuck he was now—didn’t know what the hell to do next. He didn’t even know what he wanted from her. Not in a way that made sense anymore.

Only that the thought of someone else getting to her—this fucking poster itself—made him want to raze the whole shithole QZ to the ground.

© damneddamsy

Reblog and comment, I'd love to hear what you thought! open to critique! How might it go? What's Joel going to do? Do we want a part 2 soon? I don't think it will go on that long 🤔, maybe just 3 or 4 chapters?

[hylasposts]

On The Green: 5

Ezra Prospect x f!reader

Rating: M — some prospecting violence

A/N: I cannot even tell you how much this chapter kicked my rear end — it would have never been finished without the love and care and hand holding of @the-scandalorian and @the-ginger-hedge-witch ❤️ Both extremely insightful in their own ways, I am eternally grateful to each of them ❤️ Enjoy!

Series Masterlist

—

All morning he’s been watching you when he thinks you aren’t looking.

The weight of his gaze on your back every time you turn around, logic argues it’s because he’s guiding you into something he knows you’re nervous about. But in the end, shame wins out. It tells you that he knows what you were doing last night while he was in the shower. You contemplate just asking him directly, if only to relieve the feeling, to get it out in the open.

Instead, you keep your mouth closed and decide to put your focus where it should be in the first place.

“Go over it again,” you ask him.

He nods underneath the dome of his helmet, carefully picking his way along a nearly invisible path.

“It’s a wreck. Been one for a while. I came across it a few cycles back, but once I saw that she was no longer functional, I cut my losses. Went through her innards, took what I could – which,” he looks back at you, “mind you, wasn’t much.”

He faces forward again, holding a branch to the side for you to pass. You step carefully over a thick root, accepting the hand that he holds out for help.

“She had been long abandoned even then, so I don’t think we’ll encounter any unsavory protectors today.”

You can tell from the state of the path that he must be telling the truth. The indentation made by long ago steps is covered by overgrowth, a trench you can only feel rather than see. The ground slopes underneath the creeping vines, the crooked line of it hidden by lush leaves. You follow his yellow suit like a beacon, the color a distinct contrast against all the green.

With each step, nerves unfurl in your stomach at the idea that he might be wrong. That there might be another person there, just as eager to keep what’s theirs as you are to take it. The feeling creeps through your veins like the thick vines that crawl over the soil, and keeping your eyes on the familiar yellow in front of you, you squash down the nervousness with every break of one under your boot.

“Slow now. She’s close.”

He holds a gloved hand out to the side, and you peek around the curve of his shoulder. Just beyond the trees, there’s a pod covered in overgrowth, a relic left behind. The windows are yellowed with age, mildew growing over their oval openings.

The hatch is closed, and the area is silent and still.

He takes careful, scouting steps and you follow close behind him.

“Weapon out, Birdie.”

Your thrower already in your grasp, you tighten your hold on it.

You focus on his breathing for a moment, slow and steady through the speaker in your helmet.

“You good?” His voice crackles over the comm link.

When you look up, he meets your gaze with a level one of his own. Patient, checking in.

At the hesitation you can feel in your expression, he reassures. “I promise you, any occupants are long gone.” Reaching out, he lifts the barrel of your thrower. “Still though, can’t be too careful.”

You nod, and he takes the lead, shielding you.

The hatch takes some strength to pry open, and though you should be more nervous about what – or who — you might find inside, you’re temporarily distracted by the sound coming through your commlink. Heavy exhales, low grunts. A low groan of exertion as he pulls, followed by a breathless sound of relief.

The crux of your thighs throbs, and as he disappears into the hatch, you scramble up behind him, right on his heels. There is a tense moment as he rounds the corner, but when he gives you the all clear, your shoulders drop their pressured weight. Relaxed, you both study the disarray in front of you.

Everything is covered in a thick layer of dust: the shards of broken monitor glass scattered on the floor, the torn seats with stuffing spilling out, the stripped panels from the wall. It’s easy to find the compartment you’re looking for: a gaping hole in the middle of the floor, wires spilling from its depths.

You curse silently. “Someone’s been in there.”

“They take everything?” he asks. Using the tip of his pistol, he nudges the lid off the top of a storage compartment and peers inside.

“I’m not sure.”

Setting your thrower and gloves to the side, you get down on all fours and reach into the open compartment. A tangle of wires obstructs your view and your fingers sift through them all, searching by touch alone.

Your arm disappears all the way up to the shoulder before you locate the sharp edge of the circuit board. Grasping it, you lift it free with a sharp tug. It takes forever to ease it out, but when you do, a grin breaks over your face.

Two converters. Worse for wear, but it’s something. Not near what you need, but it still feels like a victory nonetheless. Carefully detaching them from the board, you hold them out for his inspection, cradled in your palm.

“Look at you, my little channel rat.”

His levity sucks all of the remaining tension from the room.

You grimace. “What did you call me?”

“A channel rat. Your little scavenging fingers, digging through the depths of a ship for a treat.”

Dismissing his teasing smile, you shake your head. “Didn’t you tell me once that those things reeked of piss?”

He chuckles. “I did indeed.”

Going back to the hole in the floor, you study the wires left behind for possible scavenging. “If you call me that even one more time, I’ll shoot you in the back.”

His grin widens at your deadpan delivery.

“Deal.”

–

Back in the safety of your own pod, you pull in deep inhales of fresh air as soon as you lift your helmet off. There is a certain sort of pleasure to it, feeling the recycled air hit your cheeks. Inside the helmet, it’s humid and sticky, the blower pack in your suit not enough to combat the heat from your body. It’s built to keep you cool, but under the helmet, your hair sticks to your nape and your forehead with sweat. Under the helmet, your stale breath blows back into your face. Under the helmet, you feel like you can’t breathe sometimes - which is ironic, given the reason for it in the first place.

Ezra stands close, tossing his helmet down to fumble with the zipper of his suit.

That sound. You can hear it in your sleep. No different than the sound of your own zipper being tugged down, and yet, somehow, it is. You envision the entire scene with startling clarity every night: his bare fingers working the clasp, his suit falling away from his body, the sound underneath it all.

“You good?” He checks on you, and when you nod your head but don’t say anything, he bends his gaze to your level. The stark lighting of the pod makes his eyes look even darker, and his hand comes to rest on your shoulder. Right at the edge of your neckline, the heat of his palm brushes against your skin. “You sure?”

“Yea,” you reassure him, trying to ignore the weight behind your navel his touch brings. “It went good. Really good.”

“I think so,” he replies. “I’m impressed. Our first job as a duo, gone off without a hitch.”

He winks, squeezing your shoulder for a brief moment. When his hand slides away, you stop your body from chasing it.

“Here.” His voice pulls you from your reverie, a cleaning kit held outwards towards you. “You do this, and I’ll do dinner?”

Nodding, you take it from him.

Cross-legged on your cot, you enjoy the sounds of domesticity filling the pod: the gentle scrub of your steel cleaning brush, the clink of a metal pan on the stove, a spoon swirling along the bottom of the pan as Ezra stirs. His humming joins the din, and you glance up at him.

If there was something that you’d never have expected from your first confrontation with the man, a scene like this would be at the top of the list. When your attraction initially began, it used to eat you up inside thinking about how you didn’t know him. You felt immature and foolish thinking about how the feelings were rooted in loneliness, sprouting from a life lacking attention and flourishing in close proximity. However, as scenes like the one in front of you became more common, it was easier to accept it.

The want that you feel coats the space like the dust that lingers in the air outside; ever present, in every breath you take. You try to ignore it, a small pocket of embarrassment bubbling up every time you think about approaching him, though he seems like the type who would be into whatever arrangement you’d propose. Especially given how long he’s been alone. Not only that, but the way in which he carries himself suggests he’s ever fluid, open for whatever comes his way. Adaptable, a side effect of his lifestyle you’re sure.

You know better though.

His carefree conversation is practiced, a facade. One meant to disarm and distract. You’re fairly certain he’s past that stage with you, given not only the amount of time you’ve spent together, but also the way he looks at you. Unguarded, in the morning after he wakes or in the evening, right before he goes to bed. Distracted, letting himself slip into thought, his eyes hooded as his tongue slides slowly across his bottom lip.

Sometimes though, sometimes you see him looking at you in the same way he looks at others: like they are something to study, his eyes keenly assessing.

That look always gives you pause. No matter how much you know he’d probably say yes, his motives are the question you’d really want answered.

Picturing the bare skin along his ribs that rippled in his stretch the other day when he emerged from the shower, you silently flex your hand, mentally fitting your fingers along the velvet skin. Safe in the secrecy of your own mind, you let your daydreams flourish – a bubble that pops when he approaches your cot.

“Not a feast, by any means,” he says, sitting down next to you. “But it’ll do.”

You accept the bowl gratefully, steam rising from its contents. He blows on his spoon, taking a bite. The motion makes his jaw work, and when he swallows, you watch through the fringe of your eyelashes.

“You did good today.”

His easy praise just slips off his tongue, and for someone who has spent so much time in the darkness, you keen under its light.

You smile over at him, and he returns it - but only for a fraction before it drops.

He looks away, down at his food. “The next one might be a touch harder.”

“How come?” you ask, your mouth full.

“Because it’s occupied.”

You stop chewing.

His eyes flick up to meet yours. “Unattended pods are a thing of rarity. Most are occupied, and their inhabitants can be…”

You raise your eyebrows when he doesn’t finish the sentence. “Can be…?”

“Protective of what’s theirs.”

His statement hangs in the air, his expression sober.

Swallowing hard, you sit with it for a minute. “Makes sense, I guess.”

“Look,” he sighs, studying you. “I feel I should go alone, little bird.”

Frowning, you let your bowl rest in your lap. “What? Why? It’s too dangerous.”

He huffs in amusement. “You wound me with your lack of faith in my skills. I assure you, I’ve been navigating such situations alone for far longer than you’ve even been alive.”

The reminder of his age compared to yours should make you feel more at ease about his capabilities, but instead the statement temporarily distracts you. You take in his calloused hands, the lines that edge around the corners of his eyes, the grey flecks in his beard.

“I’ve taught you a lot,” he continues, “But letting the idea marinate, I believe it’s safer to keep you here.”

His suggestion catches you off guard. Everything about your arrangement has been with the word “partnership” in mind: he’s taught you how to dig, how to shoot, how to be aware of your surroundings. For him to want you to stay behind versus alongside him must mean there is something more dangerous about the situation than he’s letting on.

Not liking the idea of being separated from him, you press. “Trust me, I don’t doubt your skills. I’ve seen you in action.”

He sits up straighter, a proud smile stretching his cheeks, and you roll your eyes, undeterred.

“You’re the mechanic, I’m the muscle,” you mimic in his voice. “Weren’t those your words? If there is anyone there, you’ll deal with them so I can get the converters.”

“I’m afraid they won’t part with them as easily as your statement suggests.”

“I never thought they would.” You hold his gaze, searching. “Why don’t you want me there?”

He hesitates, and you can see a war within the depths of his eyes. Eventually, he answers, his voice softer. “I don’t want to subject you to…an avoidable confrontation. Not if I don’t have to.”

A beat of significant silence fills the space between you. Your dinners forgotten, the space around you shrinks to the size of the cot that you share. The urge to toss your bowl onto the ground and pull him to you builds the longer you sit with his statement, but there is something else about his words that tugs at the back of your mind.

You picture him walking into the Green alone, disappearing from your sight. Weeks with him at your side has you rejecting the mental image. Your stomach churns, your hand reaching out to cover his.

“If you go, I go.”

A grimace flashes over his features, the scar along his cheek highlighted for a moment. “I thought you’d say that.”

Rationally, you know he’s just trying to protect you, but you let your hand fall back, hurt. Busying yourself with your bowl again, you can feel him looking at you.

“Hey now,” he says, soft, but stern. “It’s not a lack of faith in your skills, trust me. It’s just that mercs out here are ruthless, raw. Their sensibilities have been swallowed whole by this place, and I don’t want you anywhere near them.”

His voice lowers even more, his tone gentle. “You remember what I said? About girls being rare in this place?”

You look up, and his gaze is fixed on yours, earnest and serious.

“I meant it.”

Apprehension flickers in your chest, but you remain firm in holding your ground. He can’t go alone.

“You really want to come with?” he asks.

You nod instantly. “Yes.”

The corner of his mouth tugs up, a hint of pride flashing through his eyes.

“Okay then, partner. Let’s talk about a plan.”

–

Ezra shifts on his cot, forcing his pillow into submission under his head.

“If you go, I go.”

Your words echo in his mind, your face appearing alongside. Your presence pulls at him from across the short distance between your cots, and he shifts again, rolling to face the wall.

He doesn’t want you to come with tomorrow.

He knows what this place is capable of, the way it carves out the morals of men to leave them shells of desperation. He himself has fallen victim to it, and though he hasn’t often found regret in his actions, he already regrets agreeing to let you come. He’s been here long enough to know that a partner is crucial to survival, but you…you’re unprecedented. You’re a girl. You’re something no one has seen in a long time, and he worries (an emotion he’s not used to) about how they’ll react when they see you.

If it’s anything like the way he reacts to you, you’re both in trouble.

You stir behind him, and he listens. You shift again, and he stills his breath.

The idea that you might be restless with the want you sated last night blossoms in his mind, heat pooling behind his navel. His fingers lightly scratch the wiry hair underneath it, just over where he aches. His cock twitches in interest, and distracting himself from the thought of everything that could go wrong tomorrow, he immerses himself in the thought of you.

You, right behind him, feet away.

You, trying to be quiet, slick need gathering between your thighs.

You, slipping your hand underneath the band of your leggings.

A phantom stickiness smears across the tips of his fingers, and they twitch against his skin. He teases at the band of his thermals, pretending his hand is yours. He moves it slowly, imagining your hesitation - eager, yet shy.

He thickens fully at the thought.

Unpracticed at hiding his attraction towards someone, he’s testing the limits of his self restraint with every minute spent in your presence. Constantly reminding himself of how vulnerable you are, the idea that you’d go along with any sort of proposition out of intimidation makes him sick. But you wanting it? You making the first move?

His hand (your hand) creeps a little lower, brushing against the base of his cock. It’s stiff to the touch, and he closes his eyes – only to be assaulted with the idea of someone else grabbing your hand to force it underneath their pants. His erection wanes, a series of images flashing through his mind: you screaming for help, you being forcibly dragged out of his sight, someone else taking from you what you never offered.

He softens.

His attachment to you is something like he’s never experienced before. This urge to keep you hidden from the world to protect you, while also helping you flourish. The need that coats him from the inside out, yet is forced to stay on a leash. It feels like a fever dream sometimes, the time he spends in the pod with you. A liminal place, a trapped sort of existence akin to hell itself in the way he wants you, but also something akin to heaven.

A companionship he’s missed, a presence he ached for and now has. Like you dropped from the sky, meant just for him.

He hears you shift again, and he frowns.

He should roll over and ask you if everything’s okay, but he knows it’s not. You’re probably worried about tomorrow and you should be. You’re as ready as you’ll ever be — as ready as this place will allow you to become before you’re thrown into the heat of the fire.

He also shouldn’t because he doesn’t know if he’ll be able to stop himself. If he rolls over, he’ll see you — see your shadowed form in the darkness, the dips and curves of your body. He pictures himself being drawn to it, crawling the distance between your cots. Settling close to you, feeling the heat of your skin. Murmured, dulcet tones of soothing. His hands smoothing away your nerves.

His mouth being drawn to yours in the dark intimacy of the night.

He wants to tuck your face into the crook of his neck and tell you it will be fine.

But he doesn’t know if it will be, and so he stays still, guilt eating at his restless bones.

—

The pod stands alone in the clearing, silent and imposing.

Boot prints have tamped down the soil surrounding it, the greenery eaten away. The tracks are fresh, and they lead in every direction.

“How many do you think there are?”

Hidden in the green together, you speak lowly even though no one is tuned into your frequency but Ezra.

“Hard to say. I’d judge two, maybe three.” He shifts, trying to get a better view. “The size of their vessel doesn’t say much for numbers. Can’t be more than that.”

“Do you think they’re in there?”

Noting no sign of life surrounding the pod, you try to peer in the windows from afar to spot any movement.

He sighs, a heavy and resigned thing through your connection. He turns his head, and you do the same, facing each other.

“Unfortunately, Birdie, we won’t know until we open the door.”

He checks the charge on his pistol, flicking his eyes to your weapon in a motion for you to do the same. “You ready?”

Nodding, you grip your thrower. “Ready.”

Standing from your hidden spot, he takes an automatic lead in front of you. His slinking steps are careful, his breathing steady and measured. The dust motes surrounding you make the whole thing seem like a suspended dream, like you’re moving in slow motion along with them. For every step he takes, you do the same until you’re moving as mirror images, creeping closer and closer.

Anticipation and adrenaline have your entire body on high alert, yet the green around you remains eerily calm. There is no movement and no sound other than the gentle rustle of the trees, and while that would normally be muted underneath the dome of your helmet, your straining ears pick it up. A bead of sweat glides down the back of your neck, your eyes focused on Ezra’s back as he reaches the pod.

His gloved hand strokes down the smooth metal of the hatch, searching for an opening. When he finds it, you can hear a terse smile in his exhale of relief.

“There she is,” he murmurs. “You gonna open up for me?”

He works the latch open with force, and you spot check the edges of the clearing. Your heart is beating so fast you can feel it in your chest, and in contrast, Ezra seems as calm as ever. You think about your own pod in the middle of a similar clearing, and how your role has reversed in your weeks here. Once the trapped person inside, now the intruder seeking what belongs to someone else.

The hatch opens, and you crawl in behind him.

It’s empty inside, though clearly in use. Two cots are pushed against the wall, blankets and pillows crumpled on top of them. Thermals litter the floor, metal dishes are stacked next to the small sink, and there is a station of cleaning tools left out, as if someone stopped mid-task.

“Speed is of the essence, little bird.”

His voice grounds you, your eyes immediately scanning the floor. It takes a minute to find the sealed compartment, but you catch the edge of it underneath one of the cots.

“Help me move this,” you ask him, picking your way over to the panel. While you’re careful with your steps, he stomps without care on anything in his way: discarded papers on the floor, a dirty shirt. He lifts the cot with a grunt, and you drop to your knees.

The panel springs open and sifting through the wires, you wish you stopped to take your helmet off. It’s hard to get close enough to the floor with the dome limiting how close you can get, and a small huff of frustration slips from your mouth as you stick your arm down, down, down, stretching it as much as you can.

Just when you’ve reached your limit, you feel the edge of the panel.

“Anything there?” He delivers the question calmly, though you can hear the slight tone of urgency that slips through.

“Got it,” you grit through your teeth, tugging it free.

The edges of it catch on the neat wiring that surrounds it, and impatiently, you tear through it all. Lifting it from the floor, your eyes widen.

“Ten. There are ten, Ez.”

You look up at him in awestruck wonder, and he returns a tight smile.

“Speedy now. Show me how you use those nimble fingers of yours.”

You click them off with practiced precision, trying to tamp down the elation that you feel at the added weight of each one in the pouch attached to your hip. When you have all ten, you toss the panel back into the nest of wires and slip the lid back into place. Standing to get out of his way, you watch as Ezra unceremoniously drops the cot back onto the floor.

He smiles at you, a genuine one this time. “You did so good, Birdie. So good.”

Relief floods your chest at his praise. Your stomach has been in knots all morning, worsening as you sat in the bush and waited, and though you know you’re not out of danger yet, you take a moment to let your victory wash over you. A sudden, fierce wish to be back in your own pod with him takes you by surprise, a burning need to throw your helmet off and have him do the same so you can kiss him. Your body subconsciously leans forward, drawn to the idea and to him and to the need to have his praise breathed directly into your mouth for you to swallow.

A similar look flashes across his own dark features, and there is a beat of weighted tension. It swirls in the space between you, filling it — and breaking, when he grabs your hand.

He gives it a squeeze, leading you back towards the hatch. “Come on. Before they get back.”

Following the back of his suit out of the pod, you notice the surroundings of the clearing seem brighter, less ominous. The dust that floats through the air no longer seems threatening and nightmarish, but more like a pleasant dream. You take in the details for the first time today, your eyes fixed where the tops of the trees brush the sky – disappearing when you’re ripped from behind with a sudden, forceful jerk backwards.

“Ezra!”

Your thrower gets tossed from your hand, and the air is pushed from your lungs as your back hits the ground with a thud. You kick wildly and try to scramble up, and a sharp kick from behind keeps you trapped in place, forcing you onto your front.

Coughing, you lift your head under the helmet, but the edges of the dome obstruct your view. Straining, you squirm underneath the heavy pressure of a boot on your back, fighting to see where Ezra is. You can see only his boots, toe to toe with a stranger’s.

The voice above you is grizzled and deep. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”

“Looking for something we need,” Ezra drawls, and though you can’t see his face, you can picture it. The truthful admission comes out slow and confident. “We found it, so we’ll be on our way.”

You hear the charge of a thrower above you, and Ezra’s boots shift slightly. It’s a special sort of hell to hear him through the comm link without being able to see him.

“Go in there and see what the fuck they took,” orders the man pinning you to the ground.

You see his partner's boots walk out of your sight, and hear him climb the ramp to the pod.

“You stay right there,” he warns Ezra. “One move and I’ll shoot your partner here.”

Lifting your torso with a grunt, you shift just enough to get Ezra in your sights before the boot on your back forces you back down. Even though you’re prone and he’s being held at gunpoint—both at the mercy of a stranger—reassurance floods through you at just being able to see his face.

“That would be…regrettable.”

The shift in Ezra’s expression is cold and menacing, his fingers flexing slightly on the grip of his pistol.

“That so?” the man teases. His boot wiggles, shoving you deeper into the soil. “Feels kinda scrawny. Can’t imagine what use he is to you for someone so small.”

“You’d be surprised,” Ezra counters.

“Let’s see him.”

The words take you by surprise, just like the swift jerk of your shoulders. He flips you faster than you can react, his boots coming down to step on your arms and the tip of his thrower aims directly at your face – his eyes wide with surprise right above it.

“Is this – is this a girl?”

Your boot flies up to kick him in the back, and he grunts but doesn’t budge. You do it again, and he presses the muzzle of his thrower into your chest.

“Do it again and see what happens.” Antsy, he glances up in the direction of the pod and yells to his partner. “What the fuck is taking you so long?”

Taking advantage of his split second of distraction, you use every ounce of strength you have to bow your back off the ground just enough to catch him by surprise. His boots falter, taking the pressure off your arms and you quickly sit up, driving your elbows into his thighs. He growls in frustration, trying to keep his thrower on you while also bending to swipe for your leg, and you scramble backwards in the soil. Your boots slide on the damp earth, your gloved fingers digging into the ground for purchase and there is a sharp crack in the air as Ezra aims his pistol at the man and misses. You flinch, crawling backwards to get out of the man’s reach, and panic cuts through you when you hear the stomp of boots coming down the ramp.

“What the hell –”

Those are the only words the man gets out before you hear more cracking shots, and then he’s falling backwards, dead, onto the ground.

“You son of a bitch!” The man who had you pinned lunges for Ezra, his thrower tossed to the side, a knife in his hand instead.

Ezra abandons his own weapon, throwing himself at the stranger. You watch helplessly as two of them hit the ground, fighting for control of the knife. Crawling towards Ezra’s gun, you stretch your hand towards the weapon when you hear it.

“Just wait till I kill you,” the man warns between his teeth. “I’m gonna fuck that girl raw. Right here. Right next to your dead fucking –”

A grizzled choking sound cuts off the man’s words, and you whirl to face them just in time to see Ezra jerking the knife out of the man’s neck. Blood spurts across Ezra’s gloves, and he shoves the knife down again, and again. The force behind it is immense, Ezra’s face contorted in a look you’ve never seen before. His jabs are ruthless and quick, cutting and deep, and his arm speeds up, his face in a rage-filled trance, his eyes wild and cold all at the same time.

“Mine,” you hear him between heavy breaths, between each plunge. “She’s mine.”

Frozen, you watch in a morbid sort of fascination, but also in relief.

He doesn’t stop stabbing until the man is long dead.

—

The walk back to the pod is as quick as it can be, with Ezra’s weight leaning heavily on your side. All traces of joy and victory have long vanished, and the two of you say nothing to each other as you trudge along the hidden path.

His expression as he killed that man plays on repeat in your mind the whole way, along with his words.

“She’s mine.”

Though he’s trying to mask his pain, his grip on your hip tells you the truth, as does his labored breathing. You didn’t see it happen, but the man must have hit his mark at least once, judging from a telltale stain of dark red smeared across the front of Ezra’s suit. It seems to take forever to get back, and with every step, his wound gets worse and worse in your mind.

Finally back inside your pod, you strip and toss everything carelessly onto the ground.

“I need the med kit,” he groans, collapsing against the wall. His movements are jerky as he rips his helmet off, and then his gloves, using his teeth. “Fuck,” he sighs, his eyes pinched closed.

He’s pale, his sweat matted hair stuck to his forehead and you kneel in front of him with the kit, rifling through the contents.

“What do you need?”

His hand splays protectively over his lower stomach. “He got me through my suit, just here.” He shifts, a loud groan breaking free when he peels down the top of his suit. He rolls it to the waist, and gingerly pushing the fabric down, you see his thermals underneath, stained dark and saturated with blood.

He lifts it, and you wince.

“Looks worse than it is,” he breathes heavily, letting his head fall back against the wall.

“It looks pretty bad, Ez. Really bad.”

His stomach is matted and smeared with blood, and at the center of it all, a gash.

He holds his hand out for gauze, dabbing at the wound with a hiss. “See?” His stomach flinches, and he wipes it again before looking at you. “A stitch or two should do it.”

“You sure?” you ask, and he nods, letting his head fall to the side as he looks away.

“In you? Always.”

Your fingers tremble slightly when you flick open the med kit, and then rote memory takes over. You’ve done this – your father used to stumble home all the time with various gashes. Bar fights, brawls in alley ways. Prospectors are a rough crowd, and you’d stitched him up more than once. This is just like that, only better because you don’t have someone yelling at you to do it faster – but also worse, because you care about this person more. The thought leaps into your mind, and knowing you don’t have time to dwell on it, you shove it away.

Ezra flinches at the touch of your hand against his bare stomach, his muscles tensing under your fingers.

You pause, and he lets out a nervous laugh.

“Sorry. Cold hands.”

You give him an apologetic smile.

“Keep going.”

You take your time disinfecting the wound, making sure all traces of dirt are gone. Your hand sweeps across this skin more than once, trying not to think about all the ways you imagined touching his stomach for the first time. It’s soft under your fingertips, a slight round to his lean belly and though his neck is taut with tension, he remains still under your exploration. You want him to look at you: for reassurance, for acknowledgement of your hands on his skin – but he is resolute, keeping his eyes fixed on the wall.

Setting your rag down, you pick up the stapler.

“You ready?”

He nods.

Using one hand to pinch his flesh together, you brace the stapler against his skin, blood smearing on the metal. You punch the first one through, and he hisses, his hand gripping your wrist.

“Shit. Shit. Keep going.”

His breathing has turned into panting, his eyes clenched tight. You slide it along his skin an inch, and then punch another one.

The groan he lets out would be filthy, if not for the situation you’re in. It’s a strained, long thing — his head tipped back, veins highlighted along his neck and you toss the stapler to the side, pressing fresh gauze against the wound.

“All done. It’s done.”

He nods, a tired smile gracing his face. Leaning forward, he keeps one hand on his stomach and you watch nervously as he crawls onto his cot. He falls back onto his pillow, calmer now, but still pale.

“My thanks, Birdie.”

He slips into a stress-induced sleep, and you look at him for a moment before cleaning up.

At the sink, you notice his red hand print around your wrist. The blood had pooled between his fingers, the digits a slick slide over your small wrist and you brush your thumb over the marks he left behind. It looks violent, yet there is a part of you that likes it. Being branded with him, a part of him smeared into your skin.

You hesitate to wash it off.

—

He sleeps, and you keep watch.

You had worried for your father sometimes, but it was nothing like this. In the small amount of time that you’d come to know him, Ezra already meant more to you than your own father ever did.

In the dark, you finally let yourself dwell on the realization.

Your father had never truly been a father. He was more of a stranger, or a roommate at best. He dragged you down with him, keeping you close enough to use you when he needed. He was never invested in you, never cared what you thought or wanted. You never needed him for anything, but Ezra…Ezra you need. You need him to survive and get off this planet, but you also need him more than that. Deeper than that.

The respect and courtesy he treats you with is something that surprised you, given the way you met. In a short while though, you’ve come to realize it’s exactly what’s been missing from your life this whole time. His curiosity and interest is genuine, and his care for you — especially after the events of today — is obvious.

She’s mine.

Did he say that because it’s true? Or because he needs everyone else to believe it’s true?

His lashes flutter, a dream seemingly racing through his slumber and you watch the movement of his eyes under his lids. His fingers flex, and without thinking, you place your hand on top of his.

He stills, and so do you.

The minutes and hours slip by, the moon slowly making its way from one pod window to another and you keep your vigil all the while. He murmurs in his sleep, and you cradle the curve of his jaw. Even after he stops, you keep your hand in place.

Your thumb traces the line of the scar on his cheek - a hooked thing, violent. He never told you how he got it, and you long for him to wake up and regale you with the story. He’d make a meal out of it, you know he would.

When he doesn’t stir, you continue your exploration.

Delicate touches: a swipe over his silken eyelid, a trace down the line of his nose. The bristle of his moustache tickles the pad of your thumb, a direct contrast against the smooth patch of skin on his jawline where there is no hair.

He’s a killer, and you wonder how many have gotten as close as this.

She’s mine.

He’s right — you are. In a short while you have become his. The juxtaposition of the man you saw today versus the man in front of you now is jarring, as if he couldn’t be the same man at all. And maybe he’s not, for anyone else. But for you, he is.

You get both, and while you should have been scared by the way he savagely killed today, you instead find yourself proud. You find yourself drawn to it, admiration and assurance and a sense of protection swirling around in your mind.

He did that for you, something no one has ever done.

Emboldened by this knowledge and drawn to his profile in the dark, you rest on his firm chest, and your fingers splay outwards over his heart.

Leaning down, you press your lips lightly against his.

–

He’s been awake for a while.

He has wished for you like this so many times. Just like this, only he never imagined himself like this. Just his luck that his wish comes true, but at a cost.

You’re so close, your face hovering just above his. He can smell the sweetness of your breath, of your skin. The way you’re looking at him has been one he’s only ever seen in his dreams, and though his body aches with a hidden want that threatens to consume, he stays perfectly still, not wanting it to end.

He’s never been touched like this by anyone, and it takes everything he has to keep his eyes closed — until he feels you press your lips against his.

He responds instantly, his hand coming up to cup the crown of your head.

Your kiss is so soft — soft and delicate and vulnerable, just like you. Your mouth fits neatly against his own, and before he can truly savor it, it’s gone.

He opens his eyes and your shadowed form comes into focus, your proximity intoxicating. His dream come to life.

His hand slides down the back of your hair, settling on your neck. Holding you place, he can see the vulnerability that seeps out of your every pore, and he longs to soothe you. If he knew what he should soothe, he would.

He knows what he wants to soothe, but he waits.

“What are you doing, Birdie?” he whispers.

Your eyes flit between his, and you bite your lip, thinking. He watches as you war with yourself inside your head, and his touch drifts to cup your cheek. His thumb slides across the soft curve of it, and when his eyes dip to your mouth, he watches your expression change to something more assured.

Confident, resolute.

“This,” you whisper back, bending down for another kiss.

[hylasposts]

Busy, Dying. Part 1;

Pairing: Joel Miller x F!Reader

Summary: In an in-between place called his life, Joel Miller is alone. In search of a cure. In need of a miracle. In want of God.

Can I interest you in a cure for loneliness? She'd asked him in a language without words. Taking it is the easy part. Letting her go is impossible.

-OR-

an a/b/o soulmates AU

Rating: Explicit 18+

Content Warnings: No Outbreak AU, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Soulmates AU, Infidelity, Cheating, HEA!!!!!, Angst, Fluff & Smut, Mating Bites, Knotting, Heat Sex, Breeding Kink, Group Therapy, Social Experiments, Basically puppy training for unsocialized Alphas, And by God that man will be house trained by the time she’s done with him!, Complicated family dynamics, Discussions of self harm, Depression, Existential Angst, Author returns not with a whimper but with a KNOT, I wrote this in a very unserious state of mind beware 

A/N: Gray November, I've been down since July - but we're so back, baby. I’ve missed this so bad. I’ve missed you all, I won’t drone on and on. I hope you enjoy, and please talk to me in the comments. Update me on what I’ve missed, let me know how you’ve been and what’s happening in your life.

A great heartfelt thank you to all of my wonderful friends who so supportively cheered me on while I struggled to write this. Sincerely the best people I know. 

Love you all madly.

Word Count: 6.5K

Read on AO3

Part 1;

The old linoleum tiles are the most peculiar shade of puce, and Joel has realized that there is someone sitting at the back of the room who smells… strange. 

More brown than purple—an ugly color. There’s something about it that fascinates him.

The woman that is currently speaking tells of her husband; it’s the only tale she has to tell. She’s been doing it for weeks, and they all know it well by now. Older, omega, the woman, and at the latter and less comely stage of life. Most of them here can say the same. They usually give their names, those that get up to share—although it’s never a requirement when you attend, it is highly encouraged—the sharing, he means—but he never pays much mind to them—the names, that is. That’s not what he’s here for after all—to make friends. Although, he does see how that’d be the initial assumption. 

Joel Miller is here for something more specific.

Six weeks he’s been showing up to these things now, and he’s yet to take a turn. He tells himself he’s working up to it. 

What that specific thing is…he hasn’t quite figured out. He’s listening for it, though, and intently, even if he does skip over the names. It’s the details of what they’re telling that matter to him. The hows and intricate whys of what it is that brought them here today.  

Her youth had been spent on a drunk, the woman is saying—her husband—and he’d been cruel to her in those days when there was still currency to spend in the form of her vitality. Joel nods at the puce—yes, he thinks, that’s usually the way of it. But later, there’s more to the story she reminds her audience, he drank himself into a fit, and had never been right since. The cruelty had been taken away from the marriage after that, and she’d been put in charge. 

“But I wonder,” she says, “If sometimes I don’t miss it, the way he’d been,” —if the reason she was here now, with all of the rest of them that were just like her in their own unique ways, was that she’d been left lonely after her cruel husband had been exchanged for a sick one. 

Joel nods again and wonders what sort of face the woman wears as she confesses but doesn’t bother to check. No matter, he knows they’re the same. If not in designation, then in heart. 

It’s easy, that thing, he does it too, to wish for the bad. To want to hold on to it, the thing that hurts. Addictive, even, in some cases. Missing it is easy. 

It’s why he’s here. 

And it’s what they promise you. In their flyers and pamphlets, when they stand on the corners of streets talking people up wearing that look in their eye and that slouch in their step, when they smell it on you—or in the lack there of—a mate or a purpose.

Welcome to our meeting. We’re here to find the cure for loneliness. 

That’s what they promise you when you come here. 

It’d been that word: loneliness, actually, that had caught him. L-O-N-E-liness. There was something attractive about it to him. Not a label but a state. 

You see, it was like this: Joel had seen a therapist once, several years ago, against his will and at the behest of another, who’d said all the wrong things in all the wrong ways. 

“You sound depressed, Joel,” the therapist had told him. 

He’d worn horn rimmed glasses and had a shiny bald head he could see the reflection of the overhead lights in. And worse—the non-scent of a beta which told him they’d never understand each other in the ways Joel longed to be understood. He’d—not hated him, necessarily—but felt an immense apathy for the man; more so than the regular apathy he felt for most things in his life. 

“I don’t know what that means.” 

“Very, very sad,” was the official diagnosis.

Joel hadn’t liked the sound of the word. The label. He did not like that a word so succinct could be ascribed to him and all that had happened to him in his life. There was no word for it. It just was. 

But there was something different about a state of aloneness, which if attributed to himself, he could accept. He had been left alone, in ways. It was a tangible thing he could look around a room inside of himself and recognize. 

They’re meetings, is what this place is—encounter groups this coalition offers where lonely demi humans can come to congregate, discuss their aloneness, what had led them to such a state; their lack of attachments, connections, mates—alpha, omega. Held in the basement of the Emmanuel Episcopal Church on Newbury street, right between his shop and house, although they never talk about religion which he likes because he doesn’t believe in religion. 

God is still under review. 

He wonders if the Catholics wouldn’t have them. 

Sitting forward in his seat, the metal folding chair that always leaves his back aching something fierce, he presses his elbows into his knees to distract with alternative pressure. Focusing on his fingers woven together between his spread legs, he tries to pay attention to the man who’s stood up to speak now. Older than himself, late sixties, no children, no family, no nothin’; he’d run them all off. 

But Joel is distracted. 

The smell is stronger now. Stranger too. Something full bodied, but metallic like rust, astringent bleach, built in a way that forces saliva to pool heavy between his suddenly aching gums. A mask that sits atop something of a much different chemical architecture—that’s the strange part. 

Or—no. The back of his neck itches, and Joel lifts a palm to cup his nape, quell the sting, feel the tender mark. No. The strange part is not the illusion of the smell. What it is, actually, is that he’s fairly certain what he’s smelling is someone else's blockers. Something which he’s positive he’s never consciously noticed on another person in the thirty plus years since he’d presented as an alpha. 

He has, suddenly, the quite intense urge to peek over his shoulder, certain that he’ll be caught smelling things he has no business smelling. That there will be someone just there, breathing down the nape of his neck with accusation on their tongue—boo!

Silly. But he’d known today would not be a good day. 

It’d started off wrong. The milk had gone sour overnight, the check engine light had come on in his truck, all his socks were suddenly mismatched with not a single pair to be found, and his usual route to work had been waylaid by some freak accident. A tree split in half, one side into a house, the other into the road. Not a sign of lightning in the sky all night long. 

Perhaps he might be compelled to believe in God after all. 

Joel does not like it when things are out of order or out of the ordinary. His life was organized in a way that never caused him strife or excess. And it was not that he was stuck in his ways, only that he enjoyed his routine and disliked when things were not as they should be. And this—whatever it is he’s smelling, whoever—is not as it should be. 

The older gentleman, an Alpha too, is still speaking. He had a daughter, has, who no longer speaks to him. Won’t even take his money. He’d had a long career in government that’d filled him with greed and paranoia and a radical view of life that refused to align with the way young people saw the world now. Perhaps he’d tried to change at certain times, but he was old and set in his ways. Or maybe he hadn’t wanted to change as badly as he should have when he still had the chance to. Happily stuck in the past. His wife had died, and his daughter had gone away from him. Too tired of his mediocrity as a father to give him another chance. 

The man sounds like he feels sorry for himself. Like he thinks himself the victim, and this one, Joel does look up at. He looks old and worn down, heavy beer pouch and thinning hair and sagging jowls. A sad and lonely man. Joel wonders if that’s how he looks to the other people in this room, as well. 

“No man knows how bad he is until he has tried very hard to be good.” Joel blinks, looks at him more closely, tries very hard to find similarities between themselves. But no—not quite right, not the thing he’s looking for. Their plight is different. This man is not alone, he’s got his weakness to keep him company. 

The one thing Joel had fought like hell to keep out of his repertoire of issues. He’d run from even the possibility of it as soon as she was dead, left Texas straight for the Northeast and from thereafter, everything he’d done, he’d done with a staunchness of character. If at the end of it, that staunchness was made up of apathy or numbness or dissociative fury, well, then at least he wasn’t still that man who’d been too weak to save his daughter. 

That counted very much in Joel’s book. 

An overabundance of cold numbness, little anger, everything a static haze—an abstinent winter. That was his whole life. But then, look at him now, he was here, wasn’t he? He’d taken that brochure handed to him on that last warm Tuesday weeks ago as he’d headed back to the shop from lunch. 

Hello, sir. Could I interest you in a cure for loneliness? The young omega had said. 

It’d started like anything—an experiment or a desperate ploy. The monotony had been steady going the past few years, getting older, colder. He’d grown hard and solitary around his wound, loneliness spread like a fungus, and he’d longed for any sort of change. 

“A cure…how?” The terrible shrink had come to mind.

“Oh, nothing to fret over.” The young man had a nice smile, Joel remembers. Kind and straight toothed. Honest in the way that a stranger knocking on your door to sell you a Bible seems honest. “We call it an encounter group. People come, share, tell the tales of their designation and their lives. In the end, the result is different for different people. Some move on to a second step if they need more. Others find what they’re looking for just through the connection of sharing. But no matter the result, you’ll see, you’ll be cured. Promise.” He’d winked, smile deepening, giving him an appreciative once over at the end of his spiel. Joel had blinked back, surprised, confused, but curiosity peaked enough he’d obsessed over it for three short days before he’d found himself stepping into the molted incense smell of the belly of a church so dimly lit he was sure not even God peaked in this sad space any longer.

“It’s that easy?” Joel had asked, childlike in his throat-strangled hope.

“That easy.”

It seemed the smile had been honest enough to sell him the Bible. 

The scent insists upon itself as the older gentleman finishes up, and Joel’s nose tickles with whatever it is it’s whispering at him. He wants to get up and walk out, run away, but suddenly his gut is tight and hot, and he isn’t sure he can actually stand up without disgracing himself in front of all these people. A wash of agonized heat moves through him, confused at what’s suddenly happening to his body. 

“We have a newcomer today sharing for the first time,” Maria, the woman who leads the group, says at the front of the room. “Everyone give her a warm welcome, it’s her first day and already she’s brave enough to jump on up here.”

There’s the shuffling of bodies in their seats, a cleared throat, the man sitting behind Joel breathes so loudly he thinks he’s gotta have some sort of medical condition, the puce turns more hideous by the second, and his own heart is beating so hard in his ears the rush of blood is dizzying. He feels each thump of the thing against his breast bone in some sick imitation of a fist begging to be let out. 

The new voice begins as nothing but a murmur. 

An introduction—he misses the name. His breathing goes shallow, he’d tip over in his seat if he didn’t have both boots planted firmly against the puce. The voice gains strength and with it, Joel wishes he’d been paying attention from the start. He didn’t get to hear her name. 

It’s a girl.

She’d run away from home in the spring of her sixteenth year to join the opera, she tells them. Had come upon the city in roaring spring and thought the rest of her life would be exactly like that, pure novelty in bloom, nothing like what she’d left behind. And was deeply disappointed when the reality was nothing such. 

And Joel hears it, that disappointment in her voice at what she’d not been able to find after searching for it so religiously. This is what makes him look up at her. This, unlike all the others, he thinks he can relate to—just by the sound of her voice. The search for a thing lost which can never again be found. The fruitlessness of it all. 

At that first vulnerable, terrified glance, she’s already staring at him, eyes catching like hooks. 

He blinks once, twice—color—is sure he can hear the movement of his eyelashes passing through the air, the stick of his lids meeting—color—bright. This is it.

That wash of heat turns into a blaze, every single bead of sweat blooming on his brow is a tell evaporating into the ether. This is what he’d sensed from the start of the evening. Maybe even from the moment he’d seen that split maple. 

“My mother always said I needed to be stronger, bolder, not so sensitive.” She looks away from him now. “I grew up in an angry house where you had to fight tooth and nail not to be overrun. Because of this, I left it at a very young age, and it was the greatest fight I could muster, abandoning that house of anger. I found myself something to bring me what I thought would be joy, a job and a city, and for a time, it was enough. But starting your lonely life so young…it’s hard.” After a pause of breath, “It’s been hard.”

“And it’s made me never want to have to—exert myself,” she says, searching for the right words, smiling when she finds them, and Joel has the urgency to smile back. “Now, I never want to have to be strong. I never want to have to try. I want to only be the way that I am. If that’s weak or sensitive or whatever it might be at any given moment, I don’t care. I don’t want to have to fight. I never want to be in an angry house again. I want someone who’ll see this in me and understand and never make me work for it, that they would give it to me willingly, easily, without me having to ask. Do you understand?” She looks about the room, and he hopes her eyes will land on him again, and even though they don’t, he feels she’s speaking directly to him. He nods, the hook of her temptation cast beneath his chin. “This is a fantasy. And it makes for a lonely existence. This idea of how I need it to be for it to be right—love.” She looks down at her hands folded atop the podium where they go to stand at the front of the group and share, and he wills her gaze to find him amidst the crowd again. “It’s so difficult. And this might seem very bad to you, weak willed, but it’s not. It’s only very honest. Which can never be a bad way to be.” That’s why she’s here, she tells them.

Finally, she looks back at him, and it’s that loneliness of two people amidst a crowd, facing one another, knowing themselves mirrored against the other and yet still disparate. There’s something indecent about the way she looks at him in front of all these people, the way he, in turn, looks back. A little bit like finding your own face on a stranger's body in a crowded room. Color rises to his face, and she gives him that same elusive smile from before. 

He’s the one to look away this time. 

As the crowd disperses for coffee and pastries after the last of the speakers, he searches for her. He needs to ask her name, feels as if he’s some blighted creature without it, swears he’ll never forgo attention during a meeting again if he can fish it out of her.

He finds her at the dessert table, Maria at her side and a hand at her shoulder. Something of a thank you is being imparted between the two women. The girl is saying she’s grateful for the welcome, grateful that they’d found each other. 

Joel has things to be grateful to Maria for, too. His brother, mainly. It’d been pure chance that Joel had met her here, that she knew Tommy also. She’d met his brother on a summer trek to Wyoming where they’d become friends and had kept in touch afterwards. The woman has a thing about her that ingratiates people by sheer force of will. Perhaps it’s that she’s an alpha, too. Perhaps it’s just the charisma and wide smile. The fact that she has a countenance that takes no shit from anyone, that makes demands of a person whether they’ve got any give or not. But whatever the case, they’d realize their connection through Tommy, and she kept Joel updated on his brother whom he’d not spoken with in many years. 

Watching the two women stand together and share that easy thanks that Joel so urgently owes, and yet which he cannot voice, he feels, suddenly, so angry. So awkward. So humiliatingly inexperienced. So unable to grapple with the pain of human contact, the fascination of it, the humiliating necessity. 

That decade old anchor weighing him in place and the guilt of even thinking of it as such. 

I feel decrepitly alone and odd, he thinks. And how strange, no? He was a normal man. He has a normal job. He lives in a normal house. Unexceptional in every sense. Everything in his life had been ordinary up until that one great tragedy. And then, as if none of the before had ever existed, it was as if everything afterwards was one great landslide of wrongness. The filth of it slinging mud all over his life so that nothing had ever been right after her. 

So that now he cannot even approach this girl whose name he needs to know, and Maria, to whom he owes the last surviving connection to his brother. 

As Maria turns to go, she gives him an encouraging nod, sending him into an agony of shyness. She’d sensed him hovering. 

The girl remains at the dessert table, perusing the pastries. He can see her fingertips dancing over the golden, sugared confections, before she settles on a plain, glazed donut. He watches the bend of her elbow, bringing it to her mouth and thirty seconds later, the empty hand reaching for a napkin. He can’t help the huff of laughter it draws from him. 

Watching the unknown creature with her back turned, he peers down the length of himself. Wood stain marred t-shirt, old work jeans and scuffed boots, he’d come straight from the shop. Looking back at her, she seems perfectly packaged and pristine. The two of them, different as chalk and cheese. He tells himself he shouldn’t do it, turn around and go, leave her alone, as he steps up beside her at the table. 

Immediately, there’s the heat of her skin, the smell of her shampoo, and he realizes, and it’s silly because it should’ve been obvious from the get go, she’s an omega. The epiphany, not that she is one, but that he’d been too stupid and oblivious to notice, leaves him feeling vulnerable and angry. 

Any sort of hello that’d been coming alive on his tongue immediately dies. And he’s about to make a run for it once again when she speaks up from beside him, “Would you like a donut?” Her small fingers are dancing over the pastries, searching once again. “I haven’t had one yet,” she lies, “I can’t decide which looks best.” 

The dancing hand pauses over a golden brown puff pastry, seemingly coming to a decision, when she turns to look up at him. The scent of her isn’t just shampoo, not just the blockers he’d shockingly picked up on before, sharp, burning his nose. It’s her skin now, too. The dry sweat from hustling under her coat to make it to her first meeting on time salted along her limbs. Hot, sweet almonds. The shocking vermillion of the morning’s split maple comes to mind. He can smell her.

“A puff pastry?” She presses, quizzical crook to her brow at his silence and glower. “I think you really need something sweet. It’ll make you feel better.”

He wants to agree, to say he also thinks he needs something sweet. All he can manage is a short grunt because she smells…indescribable. Honeyed musk, something heady, like she herself had just got done baking, straight out of the oven and full of sugar into his waiting mouth. 

That earlier anger, it kicks up a notch. Why isn’t he fucking saying anything? 

She shrugs, as she lifts the puff pastry to her mouth he finally manages sound. 

“You stink.”

He doesn’t know when he became such a liar.

A pause, mouth open, straight, white teeth ready to bite into the fluffy sweet bread. He can see her small, pink tongue, and it makes him go a little woozy.

He might be losing his mind. 

She’s got elegant eyebrows that shoot straight up her smooth forehead. The look of her skin is glorious. “Excuse me?”

Now, there seem to be too many words spilling out of his mouth. “You need better meds or somethin’. Need to sort your shit out. Can’t go gallivanting about the world smellin’ like that.” Oh god, shut up. 

“Excuse me!” She takes a huge bite of the pastry. “I do not gallivant,” she shoots back, mouth full of sugar and Joel goes hot everywhere. “What is wrong with you?” she demands, the pursing of a prim little mouth as she chews, eyeing him maliciously. 

He hasn’t the damndest clue. 

She is not wary of him in the slightest, which in turn tells him he needs to be wary of her.

Another large bite, inexplicably she extends her free hand towards him—potentially going into shock and entirely out of his depth when he takes it, the vulnerability of tendon and muscle soft beneath his strength—offering him a firm shake. She gives him her name. 

In that moment, she has a look about her that tells him she’ll bite back if he isn’t careful, even if she hurts herself in the process. 

And now he knows you. 

-

“We might as well acquaint ourselves if you’re going to insult me. Don’t you think?” Peering up at him, he’s tall, well over six feet, and broad shouldered. Older, distinguished, but in a rough way, hewn oak, gray. “Are you typically this rude? Or is this a special occasion?”

Incredibly handsome. 

“I’m being serious.”

“I do not stink. No one has ever said that to me, and my blockers are quality. It must be a you problem.” The puff pastry really is very good. And this man really is very handsome. Coming here today was a good idea. 

One of the girls from the theater had suggested it, handing you a pamphlet with Looking for the Cure for Loneliness? emblazoned across the top, and even though she’d done it kindly, any other person would’ve taken the implication as an insult. Hey girl! No offense, but we all in the company think you’re super weird and have you heard about this support group for losers? Kind of like Omegas Anonymous!

Those hadn’t been her exact words, and you hadn’t taken offense. After the initial agony of embarrassment, you’d warmed to the idea. You’d heard of groups like these before. Congregations of demi humans where one could come to find community or connection. Be it socializing or support for people struggling with their designations and all that they implied, they served their purpose. And anyways, you weren’t in a position to be nitpicky. 

It’s true, you’re alone. 

So alone, in fact, that even the people around you could tell. Strangers, coworkers, your roommate and her girlfriend. Like some noxious cloud of loneliness following you around virtue signaling the desperate need for love and companionship and understanding you’re so in need of. 

You increasingly saw yourself as a dancer on her toes, trembling delicately all over, vying desperately to survive to the end of the song. A monster with too many heads. A Cerberus of the richest caliber. 

Two or three would’ve been acceptable—heads—but you'd long surpassed that and moved on to something unrecognizable and unpleasant. Desperately in need of a solution. 

“Maybe you’re the one that stinks. Maybe it’s your upper lip.” And voila, the monster makes her debut. 

“My—” The rude alpha, obvious, that one, lets out a choked sound, a deeper wash of color immediately flooding his cheeks. You dip your head sideways, appraising him as you polish off your second pastry. He has pretty bone structure, masculine, and after he’s done choking and spluttering, he can’t help but laugh a little bit. You see it. 

Beneath a mouth that looks forbidding, perhaps even a little cruel, you can sense that he is not an unkind man. 

Yet you’re not so green that you can’t recognize the gnawing hunger of loneliness in others. There’s always a reason people find themselves in places like these. His face, edged with the weariness of age, makes this obvious. He has good reason for subjecting himself to this. 

Reaching for the lovely eclair you’d been deciding between earlier, you take a large bite of it. Almond cream and a thick layer of icing on top, humming happily as you chew while he stares at you like the three headed dog. 

You hold the dessert out towards him, offering. Palm up, he shakes his head no, slightly disgusted look on his face. 

“So. You come here often?”

He blinks. “Really?” Patronizing look on his face now. 

“Why not? I am actually interested to know if this is worth my time.”

He rolls his eyes. Oh, he’s fun. “Yes, I come here often. Every Friday, for the past two months just about.”

“And you like it?”

“Is this the sort of place one likes?”

“Oh, come on. You never know what you might find.” He watches your mouth as you finish the eclair, swallowing hard. “Anyways, I think the world is kind of over out there. Don’t you? Might as well make the best of it in here.” 

Thumb pressed against the edge of the table, he looks down, suddenly awash with shyness once again. A shy alpha, who’d of thought. 

“What did you used to do?” He asks, motioning at the crowded room full of chatting alphas and omegas. You wonder how many of them will go home together for a fuck after this. 

“When?” You ask, sure he means in lieu of this group, if you’d ever had another form of demi human community. 

“Before this.”

“Before this? Nothing.” Smiling at him, certain he isn’t picking up on your teasing. 

“Nothing?”

“Nope. I’ve always been here.”

“But— Don’t you…I thought...” He’s cute, shaking his head like you’re just too confusing to sustain. “You sing, right?” He pivots. 

“Sing? Me? Whatever made you think such a thing?” The sly look on your face goes completely over his head and slides to the rest of the sweets. If he wasn’t watching, you’d have another. 

“You said. You said you’re in the opera,” he gruffs back, looking visibly aggravated now. 

Such fun. 

“I’m a supernumerary,” you concede as you turn, making your way to an old relic of a pew along the far wall, tragically abandoning the desserts. 

He follows as you go, sitting a respectful distance beside you. 

“I don’t know what that is.”

“We’re the actors that fill the stage at the opera.”

“No singing?”

You shake your head, flirting with him. “I’m a wench, I’m a courtesan,” You bat your lashes, fingertips pressed coquettishly beneath your chin, “Part of a harem. I’m every woman you’ve never known. It depends on the opera.”

“I’ve never heard of that before.”

“I started as a stagehand when I first got to Boston. Worked my way up.”

“How’s it work? Lines or somethin’?”

“No lines. No anything. I’m a background actor—an extra, basically. If anything, I’m given some simple choreography direction, laugh, sigh, show fear, horror, shock. Whatever. I’m playing pretend without actually having to do anything.”

“No working for it.”

Your smile melts to blandness. So he’d been listening, then. 

“Did you want to sing?”

“No. I wanted to be a supernumerary.”

“Strange. I’ve never heard of that,” he repeats.

“You did say, yes.” Now, the smile turns auspicious. Everyone’s here for something. “What do you do?” Perhaps this is it for him. 

You eye the rest of the congregation, at the far exit, there’s a large alpha helping an omega into his coat. 

“Got a shop, furniture, woodworking and such.”

“You make things?” He nods. “Ah, a man of creation.” 

Sitting back to take him in, he’s got the beginning insinuations of silver speckling the dark hair at his temples, a well groomed beard, and large, intimidating hands. 

His small huff of laughter is bashful, tinged with something disappointed. “No, nothin’ that grand.” And he’s got an accent heavy at the ends of his words, not Bostonian. Southern.

“But you know, I wanted to say…”

“Yes?” You press when he loses his courage, leaning towards him, inhaling deeply. 

“Well, that I know what you meant earlier. Sometimes I can be the angry house.”

You blink once. Sit back. “I see.” 

“It’s hard work. I have to try every day at it.” 

Hard work being the house, or not? Two opposite sides of the same coin. 

“How do you stop yourself?” You cast a line, fishing for his character.

“Don’t know. Keep myself cold, I think.”

“That’s no way to be.”

“No. It’s not.” He sounds amused. You want to bite him.

Everyone’s here for a reason. 

“Ah, well. Perhaps that’s what’s brought you here then,” you say, twisting the toe of your sneaker against a scuff on the old hardwood, leaning forward on your palms wrapped around the edge of the pew. 

“Maybe,” he says, but a sort of pained, exasperated sound follows it. Your hung head turns to peer at the handsome face, and he’s already looking at you. 

There’s something animal afoot. Perhaps in terms of designation, sure, of course, like the rest of the alphas and omegas here. Your designations weigh heavily in the air. But also intrinsic to your two personalities. You feel you know him. That the two of you might have the same sorts of problems, desires. And as you stare at him, you think you may be equally measuring each other’s character, finding that similarity in one another. 

His eyes move quickly between yours, over your face, and you can tell that prolonged eye contact isn’t his norm.

He has the most surprising set of bright hazel eyes like river stones. 

Suddenly, you feel desperate to pull out a flicker of sexuality in the man, hear it in his voice. Sure, that with him, the experience would be entirely different, exhilarating. Perhaps a challenge. He seems to be more quiet and more patient than any other man you’d ever come across, but also more stern—taking in that soft mouth held so firmly. Far more remote too, by the far away look in his gaze. You want to see how he could be moved and what the sight of it would look like. 

“Maybe not,” he finally continues. “I’m looking for something, I think.” 

“Something like what?”

“Someone like me.”

“An alpha?”

“No,” he looks away, cringing. The word out loud seems a shock to him. “Did you listen to the woman at the start—missing the bad thing? I struggle…with that. Holding on, not letting go even when I know I should.”

You’re at an age now which sometimes makes it hard to realize or accept that what you’re living is your life. That it’s been time to grow up. That you have to remember to move forward when it’s your turn in line. 

Which is to say, that you understand him—the difficulties of knowing when to hold on and when to give up.

“Sometimes you hurt yourself because you don’t have anything else to do. Sometimes, because the alternative is much worse.”

“Holding on ‘cause there’s nothing else to do?”

“Sure. Or you’re used to it.” You’ll be gentle with him, you decide. He’s in need of gentle handling despite the stern face; not a puzzle so arbitrarily solved. And those eyes are still so bright, he doesn’t seem like he needs any more hardship.

“Don’t know why I’m tellin’ you this,” he says, accent heavy. 

“Well you did come here for a reason. Didn’t you?” Discreetly, you slide closer to his side, but he doesn’t notice. Apparently lost in the realization that perhaps this was what he’d come here for, to talk to someone, to have someone listen and relate. You’re almost positive he’s never gotten up to share with the group before in all his time coming to the meetings; doesn’t look like the type.

“I came here because I’m going to take better care of myself,” you tell him. “I’m going to try harder.”

“Harder at what?” He blinks as if attempting to come out of a dream.

“Everything. I don’t want to end up like my parents; drunk, angry, alone. I’m scared of it. I’ve avoided at least two of them.”

“I’m afraid of getting older,” the dream moves in his eyes. “That I’ll forget,” he says, but you don’t ask what.

All of a sudden, he seems very real. The swells of grief and loneliness moving through him so similarly, so close to the surface. 

Springing up, you turn to face him and he follows to stand too. You can hear the crack of his knees unfolding, and when he lifts his left palm to stifle a gruff cough, the band of gold around his finger is paralyzing. 

All of a sudden, he’d seemed like what you’d been looking for here too. There’s laughter coming from the church rafters. 

“You’re a widower?” He wants to forget, he’d said he wants to let go. 

Hadn’t he?

But instead, “What? No.” You stare pointedly at the ring, and he looks down at it also. “No,” he repeats. 

“So’re you looking for a fuck, or what?” You try and hold back the bite it comes with, but you can’t.

“No. No. That’s not what I’m looking for.” 

You don’t understand, impaired by your youth, you forget you’d chosen to be gentle with him. “Maybe it’s what you need,” you tell him, turning towards the exit before you can watch him cringe.

He follows at your heels, grabbing his coat from the hook by the doors before he’s stepping out after you into the fall blister. It’s cold and wet and glorious out. 

“Don’t you have a coat?” He demands.

“Nope.” You start walking towards Arlington Street and the park. 

“Did you walk here? It’s freezing out.”

“I did,” you turn back towards him, still moving, and he starts to follow. 

“From where?”

“Downtown.”

“Where?” He scowls at your uncooperation, the married man. Alpha. The truth was that he’d smelt strange to you too. Like no one ever had before. As glorious and shocking as the cold. Like if snow had a scent. Disappointment churns in your gut alongside the excitement at the sight of him stalking after you. 

“I don’t think you know it.” Your backward walk is interrupted as a hurrying stranger bumps into you, sending you staggering. Watch it, the Boston snark spits. The alpha turns to scowl, heavy boot forward like he’s half a mind to follow after the person you’ve just inadvertently assaulted. 

And it occurs to you, “You didn’t tell me your name.” How silly of you. You’d been so distracted you’d forgotten to ask, and what if you never see him again after this? What if you can’t muster the courage to come back again next week? What if he can’t?

“It’s Joel.” 

You think it sounds right. 

“I might—know it.” Where you’re headed to. You smile at the dog with a bone. The disappointment pulses. “Is it far?” He presses. You shrug, looking over your shoulder. You’re going to lose yourself in the garden for a few hours, forget about him. “Why don’t you drive?”

“I like to walk,” you tell him, turning back. 

He looks at you like he doesn’t like the things you say much less the way you say them much less the way you’re grinning at him. Perhaps he can see the disappointment and is disturbed by the sight of it, but the possibility seems too altruistic. 

“You should try it sometime, Joel. You might like it too.”

His huge body seems to be shivering in the cold. 

“I think…” The look on his face has turned suspicious now. He takes a step towards you. “You’re very strange. And you’re very young. I don’t think we should be friends.”

Your heart gives a demanding thump. “We’re not going to be friends.” When you’d first spotted him in the crowd, the strangest feeling had come over you. A tug behind your belly button, a scalding heat at the back of your neck, at your wrists. Perhaps it’s merely imagination, the look of disappointment you think you see on his face right before you turn away from him to continue on walking. “And I’m not that young anymore.”

You’d known today was going to be a good day. Extra cinnamon in your latte, a late start to your morning, warm in bed, no rain in the sky despite the cloud cover. And your director, late for rehearsals after some freak accident had befallen the roof of his house.

“That’s what all young people say.”

Part 2;

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Million Dollar Baby | FUTUREPROOF

prologue

summary: you're in la, and it's time to get this show on the road.

pairing: f!rockstar!reader x country star!joel

ratings/warnings: 18+, MDNI. one minor drug reference. reader has hair and can swim.

wc: 3.3k

an: this is an edited repost of the original prologue! i've jiggled some stuff around to do with joel - he's now a gravelly voiced, universally adored country superstar.

if you've read before, it's up to you if you read again. see you soon anyhoo! <3

dividers from the glorious @saradika-graphics

series masterlist | main masterlist | follow @pudding-notifs for updates!

The sunlight is warm, the breeze is mellow, and the bedsheets smell like home. 

Soft, so soft, cool against your warm limbs - every nudge of smooth linen cocooning your body against the waves of wakefulness. You stretch your legs - muscles loosening, mind empty - then your toes, and bury your face back into the pillow with a quiet grunt. 

Everything feels achy today. Just fatigued - cooped up on planes, huddled in the studio, hunched over a notebook in what Jack has fondly dubbed your ‘shrimp position’. But this feels good. Spreading your legs to starfish beneath the covers, breathing in the scent of your own shampoo, before shooting your arms to the headboard and pressing your palms against it. Sinew relaxes a little more, spine crackling. 

One eye winked open finds the room washed in gold, sheer curtains fluttering in the floor to ceiling windows, just obscuring the crest of the hills beyond the pool. 

You close your eyes again, breathing in deeply. Your tongue tastes sour, ashy - the only blot on the morning; a reminder of last night. The whirlwind of faces and places you’d been swept through by Eimear after leaving the studio, blurred into one soundscape while you were dreaming. 

You following her - a satin palm curled around your forearm, the gloss of her braids. Have you met…. Completely sober, brain ringing in your skull from ironing out kinks on the record, you’d made your excuses and escaped as quickly as possible from the glitteringly dark bar back to the house. Closed your eyes against the buzz of the Uber’s window, dragged yourself to the sofa, and shared a joint with Adie before hauling yourself to bed.

There’s a clench in your gut, a rumble. You groan, hunger creeping in, bubbling in your throat. You swing a hand away from the headboard, scrabbling about on the nightstand for your phone, squinting at the screen over the duvet. 

No missed calls. No urgent texts.

But at some point in your slumber, you’d snoozed your alarm.

You drop your face into the pillow again, mouthing a fuck into the cotton. Plans of eating at the café in the next neighbourhood over eviscerated by a fuzzier head. Again. 

You throw the covers off your legs, rubbing roughly at your face, and stand with a yawn. Pick up the pants and t-shirt you’d discarded on the floor last night, sling them over the chair in the corner of the room, and then move to retrieve your bikini from the balcony beyond the curtains.

A fine day out. Still warmer than you’re used to summer being, sun hot on your face even this early, but the view - the view. Spoiled by the label, high up enough to be away from the bustle, but close enough to watch the lights and the smog and the constant glimmer of dreams. 

You step back into the bedroom to tug and tie the swimsuit on before swinging open the door. The landing is quiet, empty. The same as you pad down to the kitchen. 

Everything is white, and where it’s not white, it’s glass and natural wood. It’s beautiful, it’s serene, and - as Eimear had said when you first arrived - very rock and roll. 

The wide, clean kitchen, marble-topped island stretched all the way across the space. Perfect for hosting. The sunken living room and its floating hearth. The rugs and the throws, the cushions, the potted plants, fading smell of incense. The bifold doors thrown back so you can step straight out to the patio and then the pool - sparkling, rippling in the morning sunlight. 

The doors Adie obviously hadn’t closed last night. The bottle of champagne he’d left open on the side. 

You give it a sniff as you walk past, deciding it isn’t worth it as you step towards the fridge instead. You pour a glass of orange juice and poke around for something else, grabbing a tub of mango you’d picked up yesterday. Croissants from the bread bin on the counter, then your sunglasses from where they sit next to the flowers Nick had sent you. 

The patio is hot underfoot, and you all but skip your way to one of the loungers set up by the edge of the pool, clutching your breakfast. You slide your sunglasses onto the bridge of your nose, settling cross-legged on the pale cushions. Orange juice cradled between your thighs, croissant and mango in front of you. 

Nick Walton, Hollywood’s newly heralded genius. You’d thought he’d be wanky at first - obnoxious, loud, demanding - but the man who had introduced himself to you months ago, who had joined you in the studio over the last week, was quiet, kind. A crooked smile, an asinine sense of humour. Ready and generous with praise and votes of confidence, gentle direction offered when needed. He’d been a dream to work with, so much so that the whole band had been quick to tell him they’d love to work together again - if he wanted to. And he did.

You savour the earthy sweetness in your mouth, rip a corner off the croissant. 

It was exciting. Being privy to such a project, being sent rough cuts and signing new NDAs. It had been something to do on the road - a distraction from the venues you were playing every night, a challenge to fit to a brief. Something you, as a band, had never really done before. Working not just to convey a message, a feeling, but a place. A story beyond what you knew.

You lick the mango juice from your fingers, your wrist, swipe the crumbs from your lap. Finish your orange juice in great gulps, enjoying the coolness, the tartness. You wanted Nick to be confident he’d made the right choice. Confident that you respected his work, appreciated it, wanted to uplift it. 

The extravagant florals that had arrived before Eimear had whisked you away last night confirmed that. The only thing left now was to lay down the last of the vocals and earn the seal of approval from Joel Miller - co-producer, man of the moment. 

So squeaky fucking clean you wonder whether the air around him sparkles.

You stand from the sunbed, reaching up, wiggling your fingers at the sky, before swooping low to touch your toes. Almost. You fold your sunglasses up next to your glass, leaving them to tiptoe around the edge of the pool. Moving to stand at the top of the tiled steps, up to your ankles in the water. Cool, cool, cool. The LA skyline stretched out ahead of you - concrete jungle sprawled under clear blue sky. 

Joel Miller somewhere out there, getting ready to share his thoughts on the track. A big deal. Critically acclaimed albums, AMAs, BMAs and Grammy Awards, nominations up the wazoo. Something lurches in your stomach, a familiar that has tread with you since the beginning. The doubt, the worry. The almost overwhelming expectation to disappoint. 

Maybe he won’t like you. Maybe he’s never liked your music. Maybe he’ll wear sunglasses the entire time and won’t speak.

Don’t be childish. You take a step deeper into the pool. 

Maybe he won’t.

Maybe he’ll be everything people say he is. Unfailingly polite, sweet. Humorous, if prone to a little grump now and again. Maybe he’s heard a few songs on the radio.

You take a step deeper.

Maybe he’ll be taller than you think. You know he’s handsome. Broad, strong. Greying curls, deep, sad eyes, full mouth and scruffy beard. Voice like smoked velvet on his tracks for Red Sky, cradling you through the mixer. Not that you ever thought about him and that voice when you’d crash in your hotel room at the end of a night. Not his gravelly tone, or his hands. His thick fingers on his guitar, nor the bulge that strained in videos against his low slung belt - 

You crouch, arms joined over your head. Feet anchored, pressure forced down as your legs extend and lift, arcing towards the water. 

The dive sweeps the remnants of sleep, worries, thoughts of Joel Miller away. The water fills the conches of your ears, softening sound. You close your eyes, lost to the peace of the dark. Coolness slips past, greases joints, holds you gently. You kick and pull until your lungs strain, pushing one foot off the floor to pop back up to the surface, wiping chlorine from your eyes, your lips. 

You look back over the city, treading water, before turning to face the house. Much bigger than it needs to be - but pretty and green. There are plants everywhere - trees and flowers, grass to your right. Sweet honeysuckle on the breeze, musk of heated tarmac. 

You tip your head back, and your body follows. Sound muffled again, you blink your eyes open to look up into the blue. Endless. You search for birds, letting it calm you - how small you really are. How, no matter how many people gather in crowds, there are more who simply couldn’t give less of a fuck about who you are. 

It doesn’t matter if Joel Miller is one of them. 

You swim a few leisurely laps before pulling yourself out and wrapping a discarded towel around your shoulders, drying off just enough to come back inside the house. You’re brewing coffee when Adie emerges - freshly showered, shirt only buttoned halfway, sunglasses on.

You smirk at him, and he flips you off, wincing as he takes a seat at the island. He rests his head in his hands.

“Morning, rockstar,” you beam, pouring the drink into mugs, and he grunts in response. 

You scrub a rough hand over his buzzcut, and he grumbles out a low “Fuck off,” voice low and raspy.

You snicker, placing a steaming cup beneath his hanging head. He’s always suffered the worst with hangovers, unaided by the five years he has on the rest of you. 

“Come on, dude,” you grin, sliding onto the seat next to him, rivulets of pool water trickling down your back. “You’ve gotta look sprightly. You’re seeing George today, right?”

“He’s seen me worse,” he grumbles, taking a sip. He pulls his sunglasses down his nose just enough to give you a once over. “Aren’t you seeing Nick?”

You nod, blowing steam away from your cup.

“And Joel.”

“Joel,” Adie repeats, like he’s rolling the name around his mouth. “Still want to do disgusting things to him?”

You pull a face, knocking his shoulder, and he clutches his stomach with a groan.

“Ew, Adie.”

“Don’t move me,” he gasps, “I’m not at my best.”

“Yeah, no shit,” you snipe, eyeing him over your coffee. He glances back at you once he’s taken a couple of deep breaths.

“Well? Do you?”

You wrinkle your nose at him.

“Obviously, asshole.”

He shrugs, a slow smile stretching his mouth as he curls himself over the counter. You giggle, an embarrassed little sound, and he snorts into his coffee, choking, spraying it over the marble and your arm. You howl at him - Oh, gross, dude - and then you’re cackling together, something like excitement finally rising in your gut. This is your best friend, this is the dream, even ten years in. And this is part of the cycle - tour, crash, doubt, do it again. You swipe your hand down your arm, holding it out to wipe on his shirt. He catches your wrist before you can, twisting so the silk is as far away from you as possible.

“Absolutely not,” he says, grappling with you, “If I have to go upstairs to change, I will literally never make it back down.”

You give up easily, knocking your forehead against his shoulder, still giggling. He smells like Adie. He smells like home.

“You, on the other hand,” he continues, pushing your head back roughly with his palm, “Could definitely do with a shower. If only for the one and only Mr Mi-”

You flick his ear, and he crows at you -

“Bastard! I’ll find some other wanker to sing!”

- as you take off, dancing around the island, edging towards the stairs.

You put your hands on your hips, tongue in cheek.

“I knew you never liked me - y’know, you were always much more made for the attention -”

“Shut the fuck uuup,” he groans, rolling his eyes, “I love you forever, kisses, kisses, whatever the fuck. Shower,” he says, levelling a finger at you.

You bite your lip against your smile.

“Will you be gone when I’m ready?”

He nods, making to cross himself. You snort again.

“God willing.”

“Alright. Have fun. Give George my love. Make sure Cam’s got nothing in his teeth.”

He smiles, all mischief, all genuine affection.

“Will do, bud. You too. Knock ‘em dead.”

You blow him a kiss as you begin to ascend the steps, and he feigns a swing to bat it away.

“Save them for Joel!”

You flash him the finger, and his cackle is the answer to your ringing -

“Fuck you, Gilman!”

Her voice is sweet, gentle down the phone. It makes his chest tighten a little, nails dig into his palms. I miss you.

“Dad, you’ll be fine,” Sarah sighs, breath of air shooting through the line. If he closes his eyes, he can see her smile. Knowing, placating. Hundreds of miles away, back in Texas for college. Sick of LA ever since they moved here.

Sometimes, Joel reckons she had the right idea.

“You’ve worked with way more... intimidating people. And from what Nick’s said, she seems really nice.”

He grunts, swiping a hand across his face, scratching at his beard. She’s right.

“I know. Jus’ want it to go well. Jus’ hope she likes it all, so I’m not gon’ be sittin’ there feelin' like -”

“Dad,” she groans, “Chill out. You're a pro. It wouldn't have gotten this far if it was bad, Nick or someone would have said something. All you've gotta do is sing your part and say you thought their stuff was great, then get a selfie for Ellie. And that’s all you need to do. Anything else is a bonus.”

Joel casts a glance over at Ellie - all limbs sat at the kitchen counter, munching on cereal, earbuds in. 

“Okay. Alright.”

There’s quiet for a moment, and he cringes at how well she can read him.

“Sure?” She checks. He clears his throat, nodding.

“Yeah. It’ll be fine.”

He can hear her smile again.

“It will. Right, I gotta go. Call me later, I want all the details.”

He chuckles, kneading his forehead.

“I will. I love you, baby girl.”

“Love you too, Dad.”

The line cuts, three beeps, and he turns his attention back to Ellie. Takes a moment to watch her head bopping, her foot tapping, before waving an arm around until she takes an earbud out.

“Ready to go, kiddo?”

She swallows comically, giving him a thumbs up before leaping off her seat, crossing the kitchen to deposit her bowl in the sink. 

“Yup. Are you driving?” She asks, crossing back over to the foyer, eyeing the keys in the blue dish by the door.

“Sure am,” he grins, taking her bowl from the sink and stacking it in the dishwasher. She rolls her eyes, jamming a foot into a shoe. “Precious cargo.”

“Joel,” she groans, standing, “I am seventeen years old -”

“Ah,” he chuckles, clapping her on the back, opening the front door. “Still my kid. Let’s go.”

She’s watching him. 

He can see how her eyes keep flicking his way in his periphery, her smirk from the passenger seat as he taps his thumbs on the steering wheel, chewing his cheek.

“Are you nervous?” 

His eyes find hers, crinkled with a smile, warmth hidden behind the mirth. A depth of understanding that goes beyond her years.

He shrugs.

“Is it obvious?”

She looks out the windscreen, avoiding his eye, but he can still see the downwards tip of her mouth as she tries to hide her amusement.

“No.”

He grinds his jaw, feeling the beginnings of a flush crawl up his neck.

“You know,” Ellie says, turning to face him again, “She’s supposed to be really cool. Nice. They all are, even if you don’t meet the whole band. Forget about anything else you might’ve heard. And - she’s just a person. Like you. And dude, this is literally your job.”

A single eyebrow climbs up his forehead.

“You heard that, huh?”

This time, she does smile.

“Relax,” she says, “And if you screw it up, at least get that selfie for me.”

He chuckles, eyes scanning back out over the road. Traffic, people, lights turning red to green.

“I’ll do my best.”

He doesn’t want to tell her how he stayed up late last night watching your interviews. Doesn’t want her to know how he watched the Wired Autocomplete video three times - because you’re funny. Smart and sharp, and private. He appreciates that. Knows you must have worked hard to reach a point where others have so many questions. 

Doesn’t want her to know how he then went on to watch live performances, songs recorded in front of thousands of people. Wishing he’d paid better attention when she’d shown him before. Covers sung in live lounges, radio appearances - one by Sabrina Carpenter that’s been everywhere lately, another by fucking Chris Stapleton, before finding his favourite. Just you, strumming a guitar - something rare in all the other footage he’d watched. Lover, You Should've Come Over.

How he’d then tapped out your name on Instagram, scrolling back through weeks of posts. Photoshoots, festivals, tour, magazine covers. Stumbled across edits, something Sarah had taught him about. Videos, compilations of you that made his face heat with shame, his heart beat faster. He’d thought he was above it all - within the same stratosphere, unaffected by such things. But he’d been proven wrong. Taken in by your voice, your words. How you looked in that dress, the sliver of stomach exposed on stage. Your doe eyes in the dark of a bathtub, a shoot for Vanity Fair.

He’s really realised, perhaps for the first time, that Ellie is right. Ellie, who’d had your posters up in her room until a year ago. Ellie, who Sarah had taken to your gig at the Staples Center. Ellie, who’d been playing your music - loud - ever since she’d first found it. Music which, he knows now, also loves.

You are cool - so fucking cool, so fucking beautiful. Accomplished, respected, talented. And now he’s noticed the colour of your eyes, the curve of your lips, the ease with which you perform. The way you move, how electric you are.

And he feels so out of his depth.

He pulls up just down the street from her school, slow halt of tires on tarmac, watching the throng of students cross the road. A jumble of bags moving along the sidewalk, and when they part, he watches Ellie grin as Dina looks up from her phone to wave at the two of them. 

His daughter grabs the backpack by her feet before leaning over to kiss his cheek. He tries to smile.

“You’ve got this,” she whispers, a gentle hand on his arm. She smiles back as she pops open the door and scooches out. “Remember, selfie - and if Vic is there, tell her I’m single -”

“I’m right here,” Dina laughs from over her shoulder, giving Ellie a playful shove. Joel chuckles, returning her yelled Morning, Mr Miller. Ellie shrugs.

“Okay, tell her nothing. I just think she’s cool,” she winks, closing the door with a soft thud before throwing an arm around her girlfriend, chatting away to her as they disappear into the crowd of teenagers. 

Joel waits until he can no longer see them before checking his flush in the rearview mirror. When he’s satisfied he looks close to normal, not nervous, he takes a deep breath and pulls off. 

There’s someone he has to meet.

[hylasposts]

omg perfect human

AHHHHHHH LANDO WITH PUPPIES!!!!!!! 🫶

[hylasposts]

my heart! love these three!!!

Pairing: Javier Peña x f!reader x Katie

Word Count: 3.9k

Rating: Explicit

Summary: You fuck up. Javi helps you to make it up to Katie.

Warnings: established polyamorous relationship (and navigating what this means) | allusions to homophobia | a little bit of negative self-talk | a tiny bit of internalized homophobia | voyeurism | oral (f receiving) | masturbation (m) | exhibitionism | fingering (f receiving) | a little bit of dirty talk | praise kink | cum-play (in a blink and you’ll miss it kind of way)

Notes: And we're continuing with my 10k follower celebration fics!!! A very sweet anon requested "I would love to spoil you, can I do this for you?", "You're still holding back, let go" and "You're not my dirty little secret. And I never want you to think that", set in the Triumvirate Universe. And honestly at this point there isn't much left to say about Triumvirate that I haven't already said expect that writing about them brings me so much joy!!!!! I love you for requesting this, my beloved anon!!!!!! Shoutout to Dani @alexturner who reacted with 🥺 to one of the lines in this, so I guess it might be slightly emotional 🤭

***

It’s quiet in the early hours of the morning, as quiet as it gets in a city where millions of people share the same space. Usually, this is your favorite time of the day – you love to sit with your thoughts for a while, to read a book or to listen to a record, the volume turned low so you won’t disturb Javi and Katie. Eventually, one of them always joins you, or you hear them in the kitchen making breakfast.

Today, you dread the moment you’ll hear movement in another part of the apartment. Your heart is heavy with the kind of grief that only comes with knowing you made a mistake that can’t be fixed. Nothing can distract you – no book holds your attention for long, you’re scared of spoiling your favorite songs by listening to them when you feel like this. All you can do is sit on the leather couch, the material sticky against your skin, and turn yesterday’s events over and over in your mind, cursing yourself because you’re never brave enough. Why can’t you be brave just once, for the people that matter the most to you?

Eventually, you hear the bedroom door creak open and then shut quietly. You take a deep breath, steeling yourself for what’s to come. Do you want Javi or Katie to be the one coming down the hallway? If you could choose, you’d prefer neither of them but Katie would be indefinitely worse; you’re not ready to face her hurt and disappointment. You had enough of that last night.

Javi is the one who walks into the living room, yawning and scratching his chin. He’s naked apart from short boxer briefs that cling to him in a way that usually makes your mouth water. Today, you avert your gaze, hoping against hope he won’t see you sitting there. It’s no use.

“Sweetheart, what’s wrong?” he asks, his voice quiet so he doesn’t wake Katie.

You shake your head and angrily wipe at your cheeks, only now realizing that you’re crying. “Nothing.” Your voice is heavy with tears.

“Hey.” Javi rushes over to pull you into a hug. You let him, even though it makes your heart squeeze painfully.

Javi doesn’t push you to tell him the truth, he just holds you close and waits, soothing you by running his hand up and down your back. He smells of sleep, and faintly of sweat, and he smells like Javi, a scent that is so familiar to you that it has become a part of who you are. You don’t know what would happen to you if you ever were to lose it.

Eventually, you pull yourself out of the hug and look down at your hands resting in your lap. “I think she hates me after what I did to her yesterday.”

“No,” Javi contradicts you immediately, “Katie could never hate you.”

You see that look on her face again, full of hurt and heartbreak after you pulled your hand out of hers to move closer to Javi. You remember how she barely looked at you when you got home, let alone spoke to you. “Did you notice how she immediately turned away from me last night in bed?”

Javi pulls a face that’s impossible to read, even though you know him so well. “She’s hurt. I can understand why. She wants things that you can’t give her, things that might … And I understand you too,” he adds quickly as you feel your heart sink from your chest into the pit of your stomach. “You’re afraid to hold her hand in public. It’s –”

You interrupt him. “It’s not that.” It is that, at least partly. “People know we’re together. What if they see you and Katie together? What if they see me and her?”

“It was never a problem when it was just a casual thing we did once in a while,” Javi deadpans.

You pause, carefully considering his words. “Because there was no danger of losing either of you,” you finally answer.

Javi laughs, the bright sound filling the living room that’s full of bright morning light. “Yes, there was. There always is. Oh, baby.” He puts one arm around your shoulders. “You have to stop worrying so much about what other people think.”

“That’s easy for you to say.”

“No, it’s not.” Javi squeezes your shoulder. “One wrong step could get me fired. Or killed. But us three, we have to trust each other. If you talked to Katie and told her how you felt, I’m sure she’d understand.”

You lean forward and bury your face in your hands. “How can I ever make it up to her?”

Javi shrugs. “Just tell her you’re sorry.”

You sigh, your chest heaving. “I don’t know how.” You still have no idea how to navigate this, although by now you feel like you should. Javi and Katie don’t seem to be having any issues with your situation. Why is this so hard for you?

“Then show her you’re sorry,” Javi suggests.

Now it’s your turn to laugh, and the sound comes out a little bit strangled. That’s Javi’s way of doing things. And you don’t mind … you don’t mind at all when he’s on his knees, his head buried between your legs, licking and kissing you until you’ve forgotten why you were mad at him in the first place.

“That’s your forte, not mine,” you point out.

You don’t know what you expect Javi to reply to that, but him smiling softly down at you isn’t it. “She loves you,” he reminds you. “Whatever you do will be enough.”

Javi takes your hand and pulls you off the couch, and you follow him even though your heart is hammering in your chest. You’ve never been good at apologies, so you’re trying to live your whole life avoiding any situation that would force you to give one. And still you fucked this up. If you said those things out loud, Javi would only smile again and give you the standard answer. “We all make mistakes.” Then why are the mistakes others make so easily forgiven and forgotten while you wear yours like a brand on your skin?

Javi stops in the doorway to your bedroom and pulls you to his side. Katie is still asleep, stretched out over half the bed, one of her hands reaching out as if she’s looking to touch either of you. You love that about her, the way she wears her heart on her sleeve, never afraid to fight for the people she loves. You wish you could be more like her; you wouldn’t be in this situation if you were.

“Look at her,” Javi whispers into your ear.

You do. You see her dark curls, her tanned skin, the cluster of freckles on her right shoulder, like a constellation of stars pointing you home. Maybe she has already forgiven you because she loves you, just like Javi thinks, but even if she hasn’t, you want to do whatever is necessary to earn her forgiveness. Because you lo love her.

Katie stirs, yawns, her eyes still closed, and it feels as if a hand wraps around your heart and squeezes it tightly. You yearn to be with her, yearn to feel her skin against yours, her lips on your lips, to open yourself up to her until there is nothing left for her to learn about you. Just as you did with Javi and Javi did with you.

“Go to her,” Javi whispers then, and releases you.

On unsteady legs, you walk toward the bed that was yours long before it was hers, but that can never be complete without her in it, and climb into it on her left side, careful not to wake her but eager for her to open her eyes. You run your hand up and down her naked back and kiss her temple, her cheeks, her closed eyelids.

She doesn’t push you away, like you were scared she might do. Instead, she asks, “What are you doing?” her voice heavy with sleep.

You glance at Javi who is still standing in the doorway. He nods. “I would love to spoil you. Can I do that for you?”

Katie stiffens beneath your hand and it takes everything in you not to pull back and run for cover. Your heart clenches again, painfully, and you brace yourself for the inevitable rejection. But you stay, trying to breathe as evenly as possible, almost daring Katie to start the fight she so desperately seems to want to have with you.

Katie opens her eyes and looks for yours, and you hold her gaze, ready for whatever she is about to say to you. But there is no hurt in her eyes anymore, no fire, no guardedness. She looks curious, almost mischievous instead, and finally, she nods.

You don’t give your body time to respond to that nod, to let relief wash all over you. Instead, you trap her chin between your thumb and forefinger and kiss her like you’ve been thinking about doing ever since you saw her lying in bed, completely unguarded. She kisses you back, eagerly parting your lips to let you in, almost as if your fight never happened. Nothing seems to have changed, and you don’t quite know why, but you push those thoughts out of your mind. This isn’t about you. This is about Katie.

You pull the thin cover off Katie and hungrily let your gaze wander over her naked body. She rolls onto her back and bites her lip, waiting for you to decide what to do with her. You start by kissing her neck (she giggles), the top of her breasts (she holds her breath), the peaks of her hard nipples (she gasps), and you run your hands all over her body, wherever you can reach, eager to leave no spot untouched. She laughs airily, surprised by your enthusiasm. You laugh too, surprised by how easy she’s making this for you.

You suck one of Katie’s nipples into your mouth and she moans, a hoarse little sound. Your gaze flickers to Javi to see his reaction to it, but he is still standing where you left him, motionless. You only find approval on his face and that, paired with the way Katie’s hands dig into the skin of your arm, tells you you’re doing this right.

Eventually, Javi moves and your heart skips a beat. You didn’t ask him what his plans were, whether he wanted to join Katie and you or whether he wanted to make this about you and her, but you had been hoping he’d be there with you. He stands at the foot of the bed at first, a quiet smile on his lips, then pulls his boxer shorts down. You have to turn your head at an awkward angle to see he’s half hard, and Katie immediately notices she doesn’t have your full attention anymore.

“Hey!” she snaps and grips your jaw. “Eyes on me.”

In the past, you would have felt embarrassed at how loudly you moan in response, but there are no secrets between the three of you anymore. All your desires have been laid open a long time ago. And this morning the only thing you desire is to give Katie anything she wants, anything at all.

You feel the mattress dip as Javi climbs into bed next to you and leans over to give Katie a good morning kiss. They both have their eyes closed, and Katie’s hand finds its way into Javi’s curls. Your heart finds its way into your throat and gets stuck there, just as it always does when you see Katie and Javi kiss. That’s another desire you’ve come to terms with, one that you wear proudly on your sleeve, like one might wear a wedding band on the fourth finger of the left hand or a scar that says, I went through terrible things, but I’m still here. I made it out alive. And you love to watch Katie and Javi together, love to see her writhe beneath him, love to see him lose his mind when she has her mouth wrapped around him. You love that they want you to be a part of it all too, love that they need you to be there.

Javi runs his thumb along Katie’s cheekbone and Katie’s eyes flutter open. “Do you want her to eat you out?” he asks.

Katie’s eyes land on you, glazed over with lust. Her cheeks are flushed now, and when your eyes flicker to her throat, you can see her eagerly fluttering heartbeat beneath her skin, like something trying to free itself, trying to lay itself bare hoping it won’t get crushed. Katie bites her bottom lip (you love it when she does that, you should really tell her that more often) and nods eagerly. You smile in response, then slap Javi’s arm playfully.

“Don’t interfere,” you tell him off, ignoring the eager pull in the pit of your stomach that comes with imagining tasting Katie on your lips. “This is my apology.”

Still, all three of you know how this is going to end, so there’s no need to pretend. You scoot down Katie’s body, leaving a trail of wet kisses on your wake, until you kneel between her spread legs. It’s one of your favorite sights – Katie all open and vulnerable, just for you. The high you get from that is unrivaled.

Katie props herself up on her elbows, her long hair tumbling down her beautiful shoulders. “What are you apologizing for?”

“Shhh, don’t talk,” you tell her, and dip your head down between her legs.

You lick a broad stripe from her opening all the way up to her clit, the taste of her a million times more intoxicating than you had imagined. You let out a groan against her at the same time as she falls back down against the pillow with a sharp exhale. She shifts beneath you, spreading her legs even wider, pushing her hips up into your mouth ever so slightly.

You move up her body again even though your own screams for you to stay where you are and devour her whole. You kiss the soft plane of her stomach, that one birthmark next to her belly button that you love so much, and then you make your way up to her breasts, cupping one and licking across the hard nipple. Katie lets out a soft whimper that makes your heart clench.

You don’t know what makes you look away from Katie and over to Javi, but something must have and what you see makes you clench around nothing, your hips eagerly rocking forward. He’s stroking himself slowly, almost casually, drawing out his own satisfaction, watching the two of you. That’s also something you love – him watching Katie and you, not being shy about the pleasure he gets from it; sometimes he even asks you to put on a little show for him, and you and Katie love doing that because you know it’s not just about the sex for him. He loves to watch the two women he loves fuck each other.

Javi smirks at you, and you pull your mouth off Katie’s nipple with a wet pop, ready to tease him, when she begs, her voice all broken and quivering. “Stop teasing me.”

Your attention snaps right back to her and you kiss her wet nipple. “That’s teasing for you?”

Katie grips the back of your neck, her nails raking your skin. “I thought you wanted to apologize.”

You laugh, but it doesn’t come out all nonchalantly as you had hoped it would. “I said I wanted to take care of you.”

Katie’s eyes are bright with fire that’s impossible to get under control as she considers calling you out on your lie. She pushes up her hips. “Take care of this then.”

When you laugh again, it’s a sound full of relief. Maybe Katie isn’t as angry with you as you had feared. Maybe this can be fixed just as easily as it was almost ruined. You certainly want to try.

You move back down and come to rest between Katie’s legs. She’s glistening with arousal, a sight so inviting you can’t help yourself. You run your fingers through her drenched folds before you push two of them inside, holding her down when she tries to lift her hips to meet your thrust.

“You’re so wet, do you know that?” you ask, your voice deep and hoarse.

Katie props herself up on her elbows again and nods.

“I love it when you’re like this,” you go on, “and I know it’s all because of me. I love how eager you are for me to touch you. I love that you can’t get enough of this.” You curl your fingers and hit that spot that makes Katie’s legs quiver.

You kiss the inside of her knee, her thigh, that little spot just above where she wants your tongue the most. Never once do you stop fucking her with her fingers in a steady rhythm, giving her just enough to build pleasure but never enough to make it all come crashing down. By now, you know her body well enough to do that.

“Please,” Katie whispers, and you can never refuse her anything when her voice sounds like that.

You flick her clit with the tip of your tongue, then massage it gently before sucking it in between your lips, making Kaite moan so loudly you’re sure your neighbors must have heard. You look up at her to find her watching you with wide eyes, her chest and neck covered in a deep, red flush, her mouth hanging open in an attempt to get more air into her lungs, but her shallow breathing tells you she’s failing. Her eyelids flutter when you suck on her clit again, but she keeps them open, sending a jolt of electricity through your body.

You pick up a steady pace with your tongue and your fingers, and your eyes wander over to Javi. He’s still watching you, still stroking his now very hard cock in time to your steady licks. You slow down and he matches your pace, you speed up again and he keeps up. He tries to smirk at you, but you flick Katie’s clit with your tongue again, and her responding moan makes his jaw go slack and his eyes flutter shut. You can’t quite describe what you feel, but it sure feels like you’re on top of the world.

You kiss Katie everywhere – her thighs, her soft folds, her clit, her stomach, even her wrist when she reaches out to grab for you. You kiss her everywhere she will allow. Her breathing comes in sharp pants now, and when you lick her sloppily, hungrily, it turns deeper and deeper, sounds you feel in your chest right next to your heart. You move lower, lick across her opening, push the tip of your tongue inside of her, but when you glance up at her, she’s still watching you with her wide eyes.

Javi notices it too: the way Katie still tries to hold on, as if she’s scared of what a loss of control might mean for her. “You’re still holding back. Just let go.” His voice is strained, like he’s doing the same, like he’s postponing his own pleasure for the sake of hers.

Katie’s eyes flicker to you and she blinks slowly, as if she’s only now remembering his presence. Javi doesn’t allow her even a single second to make sense of it all. Instead, he kisses her, slowly, languidly, as if you’re only just getting started. Katie doesn’t move at first, stops breathing all together, and then finally – finally! – she sinks down against her pillow, closing her eyes.

You pull back with a shaky breath, watch as Katie reaches out for Javi, as she grips a handful of his curls, and holds on. Javi growls against her mouth and deepens their kiss, still moving his hand up and down his cock, leaving a wet spot on Katie’s side where the tip brushes her skin. You want nothing more than to watch them, but your bad conscience still gnaws at you, and you decide that Katie has been played with long enough. Without pretense, you push your two fingers back into her and soak up her desperate whimper like a desert soaks up the rain. She clenches around you when you roll her clit under the tip of your tongue and that involuntary response to you makes you moan against her drenched folds.

“I love how you taste in the morning,” you tell her, and she clenches again, signaling you that she heard you. “It’s my favorite taste in the whole wide world.”

Javi’s breathing becomes ragged and he lets out a deep moan, a drawn-out sound that suddenly hitches. You glance up at him and see that he’s coming, thick ropes spilling onto his stomach and Katie’s, his hips bucking up into his fist. Your face grows hot as you watch him, hot with shame at how hard your pussy clenches, eager for him to fill you up.

You don’t get to enjoy that sight, that feeling it gives you, for long though. Katie lets out a gasp and presses her palm to the back of your head, hard, pushing your face down between her legs while rolling up her hips into it. She clenches and clenches and clenches around your fingers and you fuck her through it, unable to draw a single breath as she rides out her orgasm, gushing around your fingers and onto your chin and tongue. Her ragged pants fill up the entire room, pushing all of the air out of it.

When it’s all over, you wipe the back of your hand over your mouth, your heart hammering in your chest. Javi lazily runs his fingers through the mess he’s made on Katie, while she just lies there, eyes closed, her chest heaving. You push yourself in between them, crawling on all fours, until you let yourself fall, facing Javi. You kiss him, and he kisses you back, taking his time to run his tongue over your lips, your chin held tightly between his thumb and forefinger. You know how much he loves that, tasting one of you on the other.

Eventually, Katie curls herself up against your back and you turn so you face her, while Javi places gentle kisses against your neck and shoulders, and whispers, “Well done,” into your ear, so low only you can hear it. Something in your chest expands at that.

You cup Katie’s face and she opens her eyes, her gaze bright. Gently, you wipe away a stray tear making its way down her face. “You’re not my dirty little secret,” you whisper against her lips, your eyes locked onto her face, making sure she understands what you’re trying to tell her. “And I never want you to think that.”

Katie smiles one of her open smiles that always announces to the whole world what she’s feeling, then kisses you, ending it with a quick nip to your bottom lip before you have time to enjoy it.

“Tease,” you mumble at the same time as she says, “I love you.”

It’s strange how easy it can be sometimes. “I love you too,” you reply.

[hylasposts]

I To Dig a Grave I Chapter 5 I

Summary: Twenty-one years after the outbreak, you come to Wyoming looking for something and end up in Jackson after a stranger saves your life.

But he doesn't stay a stranger.

Turns out Joel Miller is looking for something too. It feels like a fresh start. But when bad luck seems to follow you, Joel is the only one to turn to, forcing both of you to confront your feelings about your pasts- and each other.

Pairing: Joel Miller x F!Reader Rating: Explicit / MDNI Word count: 20k+ Tags: Hurt/Comfort, Angst, Friends to Lovers, Slow Burn, Age Difference, Smut, Explicit Content, Grief/Mourning, Mental Health Issues, Canon-Typical Violence, Chose not to use Archive Warnings, Tags to be added

AO3 LINK // Series Masterlist // Playlist

notes: between writing this and the voice memo of pedro on omars new album? im in the trenches. sending all of you lots of smooches for the recent comments and feedback, please know that i do a lil jump every time i see someone has commented <3

this fic will deal with heavy topics. please note that it doesn't use archive warnings and tags will be added as we go in order to avoid spoilers. each chapter will have detailed warnings in the end notes on ao3.

Chapter 5 – The Wake

‘I don’t mind so much being haunted by a dead ghost, but I resent like hell being haunted by a half-dead one.’ — J.D.Salinger, Franny and Zooey

The typewriter is fixed by the time you get up. But before you can sit down and ponder how to begin your speech, Joel forces you downstairs for some breakfast. He has somehow gotten his hands on orange juice and refuses to let you leave the table before you’ve had two glasses and some toast.

Eventually, he clears his throat. “We could grab some of your stuff today, if you want.” He pauses for a moment, searching your face. “Or I could, if you prefer to—if you’d rather stay here.”

The thought of going back home seems unbearable. The thought of Joel leaving you alone seems almost as bad.

“Can’t we do that tomorrow? I’d rather—I want to finish the speech. And we’re leaving in a bit.”

“Okay,” Joel mumbles. “Okay, yeah, we can do it some other time.”

You both head back into his workshop upstairs afterwards. He’s laid out some paper and pulled up a more comfortable chair for you. He settles down on his own and watches as you hesitantly begin to type, occasionally glancing out of the window. It’s begun to snow again, the thick flakes drifting against the other side of the glass and beginning to pile up on the windowsill below.

“If it keeps snowing like that, they won’t be able to prepare the grave, will they?”

Joel stares at the book that's spread out in front of him, determined not to let your eyes meet.

“I’m sure they’ll figure it out.”

They're not the words he should be saying. But they are the only ones able to push past his throat and flow into the open.

***

“Watch out for the steps, they’re frozen over.” Joel closes the front door behind himself, taking his first breath of cold air. It’s still snowing and he watches as the first flakes settle on your coat. He hurriedly pushes his gloves onto his hands and follows you down the small flight of stairs that leads to the street.

You place your feet carefully, partly because you would not find slipping and landing on your butt entertaining and partly because your body feels like it belongs to someone else again. You automatically turn to your left but Joel catches your arm before you can begin to move down the street. He jerks his head to the street ahead of you instead, the one that follows along the walls of the graveyard. They seem to have gotten much taller than they were a few days ago.

“We can get to the church through here,” Joel says, his hand squeezing your arm before he lets it go. “Less people.”

“Good point,” you agree quietly and begin moving again, this time across the street and past the green house on the corner. Joel follows your lead, putting himself between you and the graveyard, his broad form shielding you from view.

Which is a stupid thought, you think after a few moments. It's not you he is trying to hide. You are the one he's hiding something from.

You slow down a little, making Joel glance back at you. As his hand nudges yours again, you notice that his gloves are the same ones he wore when you met. A little more worn down maybe, but still the same leather, the same shade of brown. And here he is, still saving you, even if in a completely different way.

“Come on. We’ll be late.” Joel pulls on your hand lightly and you begin walking again. You don’t let go of his hand though. He doesn’t mention it.

When you pass the large metal gate that opens to the cemetery, you automatically turn your head. “It’d be quicker through here.”

Joel's head swirls around at that. “No.” You almost think you feel a slight tremor in his hand as he shakes his head. “I think it's better if we stay on the street for now.”

His hand is still in yours so you don’t find it in yourselves to argue, even if you find the cemetery quite beautiful. It feels less like a cemetery and more like a small park, with high trees and benches, a small oasis from the occasionally busy life in Jackson.

You can’t really tell if you’ll still find it beautiful once Lane's name will be carved into one of the headstones.

The two of you walk in silence for the remainder of the way. As you reach the far end of the church and when your gaze moves past the library shed tucked away to the side of it, you make a mental note to check in there once you’re done. You try and distract yourself by keeping your eyes on it, thinking about which books you could take home to pass the time with, trying to make a mental list.

But as soon as you step over the holy threshold, you can’t name a single one. The scent of burned down candles and wood greets you.

“I think I may pass out.”

Joel instantly switches his hands, wrapping his free arm around you, no doubt ready to catch you if your knees do give out. “Like right now?”

“No, I—I've just—never done this before,” you choke out. You’ve seen Infected and bodies and funerals. But there’s never been a wake. People just die and rot in this world. 

You suddenly feel like you want to cry and desperately try to pull yourself together. If this is the last chance to say goodbye, you want to do it with grace and you want to do it right. For Lane’s sake.

You take a shaky step forward and Joel takes the hint, moving you further down the hallway and stopping in front of a door to the left that is slightly ajar. His arm is still around you, his hand resting in yours.

“Want me to wait here?” His voice is low.

“Is she in there?” Your voice is equally quiet, matching the somber atmosphere around you.

Joel takes in your features for a moment before giving a slow nod. “Yeah. Yeah, she’s in there.”

“Can we go in together?”

You are certain you do come near to passing out when you step into the room, pressing your body against Joel’s, unconsciously using him as a shield. There is a small table full of candles to your left, a stained glass window half covered by snow at the far end of the room and two mismatched chairs to the right.

You do not see any of it. The second the door opens, your eyes are on her.

She’s bedded in a wooden coffin with white sheets. Her skin is almost as pale. The stark contrast that draws your eyes in is her hair. Ocean blue, the tips already losing their color.

Joel looks down at you, carefully and slowly disentangling himself from you. “Would you like a moment alone?” The small nod is all he needs to see, squeezing your hand once more before heading back outside, leaving the door ajar.

It suddenly strikes you how still she is. A body, usually so full of life, decorated by countless miniscule motions. The corners of her lips turning upward, the anxious turning of the silver rings on her fingers, a strand of hair falling into her face.

You move closer. You sit next to her. You stroke her cheek. She looks like she’s sleeping very deeply.

Joel lets out an involuntary sigh as he steps back out into the hallway. They managed to get the blood out of her hair, covered the right side of her head with a pillow. It almost looked comfortable. And he feels like he can breathe again. It’s a much better sight than the one in the cabin. You shouldn't have to remember her wounds. Only her face.

But he finds that he’s glad to get a moment alone. Because unlike you, he knows exactly what her temple looks like under the dainty, white pillow.

He sits down on one of the wooden benches lining the hallway, making sure to keep his movements quiet. Not because there is an enemy around. But because the wooden structure around him takes him right back.

He hasn’t been to a service in forever, not even before the outbreak. But the high ceiling and the stagnant air still make him automatically lower his voice, making him feel like he’s all of eight years old again and dressed for Sunday service with his parents somewhere just outside of Austin.

He hasn’t had time to consider how to do this, a small voice in the back of his head says. He hasn’t considered how the hell he will get you through this in one piece, if he is the one that should be doing so. There is so much baggage in him, tucked away into the dusty corners of his house, that he’s surprised you haven’t found it yet.

He stares at the floor and wonders if it had been easier for him to move on if he’d been able to say goodbye in a pretty room, surrounded by candles and lacy pillows, with high ceilings above. And for a split moment, he allows himself to imagine the hair resting on white sheets not to be blue but dark brown and curly.

Joel is leaning against the wall of the hallway when you finally emerge from the room, managing a weak smile. He stays quiet as you step towards him, raising your arms to sneak them around his body while you bury your face in his chest.

You can feel the exhale of his lungs below you as he sighs, bringing his arms around you and pulling you into him.

It comes so naturally now. The way he rests his chin on the top of your head, your hair tickling his graying beard. The feeling of your face pressed tightly into him, clearly having found a place where you can hide from the questions you already know people are asking.

Joel's hand caresses your back in gentle motions. His voice remains as quiet as it was earlier. “Did you say goodbye, darlin’?”

“Yeah,” you mumble into his chest, giving a shaky nod. “Yeah, I did.”

“Wanna take a break and go back in? Or come back later?” he offers quietly. He knows exactly how hard it is to let go—to walk away from the last piece that they leave behind when they leave the earth. The body holds so many memories.

“No, I think—I think it’s okay.” Hot tears have gathered in your eyes and threaten to spill into Joel's shirt. “I think I said goodbye.”

Joel quietly coos at you for a few more moments before he begins leading you back outside. He’s content to leave the church behind that feels so laden with bad memories despite it holding none.

You're just leaving the small hallway and passing back through the church when he abruptly moves you to his side, putting a small amount of distance between you. His arm is still wrapped around your waist but it's less strong, merely enough support to keep you from falling back.

“Oh. Hello, you two.”

Your breath hitches in your throat as you stare at the woman in front of you. She has short hair that's tied in a neat bun. The lines and wrinkles on her face seem to have increased rapidly since you have last seen her. She's wrapped in her black winter coat, one that is slightly too big for her small frame and almost reaches her knees. You realize that all her clothes are, in fact, black, even if some are slightly faded.

You feel Joel shift again beside you. “Ma’am.”

With a quick motion of your free hand, you wipe your eyes. It feels silly to be crying in front of her. You’ve lost a best friend.

She has lost a daughter.

“Mrs Moss, I’m so sorry—I meant to come by, I swear,” you blurt out, hoping that you sound as honest as you are. The tears threaten to come back.

“It’s quite alright, dear. I know it can’t have been easy for you,” she says gracefully. “And it’s Deborah, I’ve told you before. Eleanor’s friends are—” For a split moment, you can see something twinkling in her eyes before she corrects herself, carrying on as if nothing happened. “Eleanor’s friends were always welcome in my house.”

Your heart feels like it’s stopped. Eleanor. You almost forgot that Lane wasn’t her real name, despite it feeling more real than Eleanor ever has. You try and remember the story behind it and you’re certain it had something to do with her grandmother but you can’t recall the entire thing. You make a point not to ask.

The woman in front of you stays quiet. Her eyes wander between you and Joel for a moment, sending a completely different kind of discomfort through your body.

“Well, I’d like to go inside now,” Mrs Moss announces quietly and Joel and you shift to the side to let her pass. She gives you another sad smile in passing. “You’ll be there for the ceremony, won’t you? Eugene came by this morning. They are clearing the receiving vault out today.”

Joel tenses next to you, his grip getting a tiny bit tighter. You just stare blankly at the woman in front of you. “Receiving vault?”

You bite down on the inner side of your cheek.

“Oh, it’s what they call that small building. Of course, once spring comes around, we’ll bury her properly.”

Mrs Moss does not seem to realize what she has just set into motion or that all of these details were complete news to you. She gives Joel a small, polite nod and continues down the hall.

The taste of blood fills your mouth.

You don’t hold hands on the way back.

***

You brush past Joel the instant he opens the door and, while he is still stripping off his gloves, hurry into the small bathroom at the end of the hall. It’s rarely used and has become more of a makeshift storage room if you’re being honest. A few plastic containers are piled up next to the sink and you squeeze around them before letting your tired body sink onto the toilet lid.

You can hear Joel hesitate in the hall, his heavy boots on the wooden floors audible through the thin door. You can't see the way his face is scrunched up in worry—and guilt. The guilt that threatens to swallow him whole as he briefly glances at the small cupboard under the stairs, one of the few that is locked. He knows you won’t check there.

With a small sigh, he follows down the hall, hesitating in front of the bathroom door. He leans against the doorframe, his gaze fixed on the floor.

“I meant to tell you.”

No reply comes. But he can hear your breath, the small squeak of your shoes as you move your feet on the toilet seat. You’re pressing them to your chest as tightly as you can.

She won’t be buried. She will be stored in the back of some shed like something you plan to forget.

“If I’d known she’d be there—” Joel shakes his head despite knowing that you can’t see him. His hand flies to his face, pinching his nose as he closes his eyes, trying to find the right words to make you understand that he needs to do this, that this is his job. He’s supposed to protect you. And he failed miserably, letting you walk right into Lane’s mum with no clue about the arrangements.

“I would’ve told you in time. I swear.”

The hand leaves his face and instead gravitates towards the doorknob. He pauses for a moment, the metal cool under his touch. “Honey, can I please come in?”

“Fine,” you press out, keeping your gaze fixed on the plastic containers below. You don’t want to look at him. Mainly, you don’t want him to look at you.

Joel gets to his knees, unable to suppress the small groan as he does so. He hesitantly reaches out to place a hand on your knee, squeezing a little. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you before. I thought it was—not the right moment.”

“Okay.” You nod, determined to punish him with as many one-worded sentences as you can. Today has been one bad surprise after another and it’s entirely his fault—except you know that’s not true. But you’re not ready to place the blame on the person who may deserve it—you’re not ready to think of Lane with anything but fondness and longing. And maybe, a tiny part of you pipes up, one that you’d much prefer to be quiet, maybe you know that Joel will take the blame if you place it upon him, that he would proudly carry your hate like a crown and still let you eat his food and still let you sleep in his bed.

Your eyes meet his and he looks so miserable, broad shoulders still wrapped in his winter coat, his hair slightly wet from the melted snow and his eyes. His eyes, begging, asking to be forgiven.

The thoughts of blame and hate are gone in an instant. Instead, the tears that you didn’t allow to come in the church and all the way back home, finally spring up in your eyes.

“I didn’t think—when that man died last year in the winter—” you choke out, the thoughts forcing their way into the tiny bathroom. “They buried him, he got a grave—”

Joel brings his free hand up to your face just in time to catch the first tear rolling down your cheek and wiping it away, his calloused hand smoothing over your skin.

“Darlin’, he was sick. You know that, right?” Joel keeps his voice low and soft and his motions slow. Like he is approaching a sick animal, trying not to startle it.

You didn’t know that he’d been sick, to be truthful. But you also don’t see how that made a difference.

It’s almost like Joel can read your mind. He tilts his head a bit. “They knew he was gonna pass, sooner or later. They dug his grave in the fall.”

You can’t help the sob that escapes you at that. Because it’s a horrible, horrible thing, digging a grave for someone who is still alive. And because it’s a horrible, horrible thing to not be able to.

“No one dug—'' You think you feel snot running down your face. “We didn’t know—No one dug a grave for Lane—”

“Yeah,” Joel agrees quietly, his voice filled with a heaviness. “No one dug a grave for Lane.”

No one knew she’d need one.

Joel lets you cry, even when his knees are screaming at him to get off the bathroom tiles. He pats your arm and wipes your tears. He doesn’t try to cheer you up or make you see the bright side or, worst of all, tries and tell you that Lane is a better place. You both know her place was here.

He lets you wear yourself out from crying before he asks if you want a bath and, following a shy nod, scoops you up in his arms and carries you upstairs into the bathroom, the one you actually use.

The small moment of hesitation after he’s set you down on the edge of the tub is his way of asking for permission. You give a tired nod.

He lets you undress and climb into the tub while he begins to heat the water, insisting on placing a towel below you so that the porcelain won’t be too cold on your skin.

It doesn’t take long until the air in the room is comfortably warm and steamy and the faint smell of jasmine and cotton fills the air, replacing the lingering one of old buildings and grief. You feel like you’re transported back to the first time you were curled up in Joel Miller's bathtub, the first day you’ve ever spent in Jackson.

“Lean a little to the side,” he instructs quietly, lathering the top of your head with the shampoo and working it into your hair. His fingers are scratching circles into your skin, making you feel like he’s washing off all the things you’d like to see disappear down the drain. The sorrow and the pain. You don’t touch the guilt yet.

“Do you remember the last time you did this?” you mumble and hear Joel hum behind you as you continue. “I wouldn’t let you cut my hair.”

“You also called me an asshole.” You are glad your head is slightly lowered so that Joel can’t see you smile. Then again, you have a feeling he knows.

“Yeah, I guess I did.”

His fingers work around your head, gently tilting it into whatever direction he needs to reach every part of it. He surprises himself when he speaks up.

“You know what you looked like?” Your head perks up slightly at that, attempting to turn around but Joel guides your head back with a gentle motion. Because he doesn't want shampoo to get into your eyes. Definitely not because turning around would mean seeing—

“Tell me,” you insist, despite keeping your gaze forward now.

“No, nevermind, it’s—it’s silly.” He tries to brush you off but you aren’t having it.

“Joel. Come on. Please?”

He can see you’re on the verge of turning around again and reckons it’ll be easier to just answer your question instead of having to deal with all the thoughts he is so successfully pushing away.

“You looked like a fawn. Curled up, trembling. Waiting on someone.” “I wasn’t waiting on anyone.”

“I know you weren’t.”

You sit in comfortable silence, tilting your head back as Joel pours warm water over your head. He steps back into the bedroom to grab some fresh clothes, leaving you to wash your skin and dry off by yourself.

“They’re not much but they should do until we get some of yours,” Joel mutters as he hands you one of his worn shirts. You pull it over your head, each part of it a bit too big on your body. The collar is draped slightly to one side, making your soft skin peek out from under the fabric.

Joel smiles weakly, trying so hard to avert his gaze. But not enough to miss you struggling with your hair, attempting to pull the still wet strands into a bun.

“C’mere,” he instructs, taking another step towards you and reaching around your head to take the hair tie from your hands and carefully gathering all your hair in his right fist. You’re left there without distraction, without anything to do except stare up at him, so close that you can make out the gray hairs in his beard and the small scar that decorates his nose.

“There we are,” Joel mutters, securing the hair tie before hesitating for another moment as his gaze shifts down to your face, your eyes meeting.

He’s looked at you hundreds of times. So he’s not sure why, at this moment, his lungs suddenly seem to stop working, drowning in the softness of your eyes that seem to be completely focused on him. For a split second, he thinks he sees your gaze flicker downwards.

One of his hands finds a strand that escaped his grip before and he tucks it behind your ear, his eyes never leaving yours.

“You still look like that sometimes.”

He is so close. If one of you leaned just a tiny bit forward—

The moment is over as suddenly as it appeared. Joel drops his hands a little too quickly to be casual about it, taking two steps back. Like he’s gotten too close to something dangerous.

But you're not dangerous, a small voice in the back of his head says. You’re just a fawn.

He cannot touch you. He is certain of one thing: He would find a way to ruin you.

***

A few months ago, being back in Joel’s bathroom would've been your favorite thing in the world. And it’s still good and comforting. But it’s not the same.

You give yourself to brief illusions. That this is your first day in Jackson, that you don’t know anything about the man beside you except his name and that he carries his gun in the back of his jeans. That you will be taken to your new home in a few days and meet your roommate, the one with blue hair you’ve already spotted around town.

But you know it won’t happen. You had another shot at life here, the chance to do and say all the right things this time. And you failed.

You can feel the mattress dip beside you as Joel crawls under the thick covers. It’s nice to feel the heat of his body next to yours, to feel him shelter you with what he can. He sleeps on the side that is closest to the bedroom door, leaving you tucked away to the more closed off one.

But it never makes you feel trapped. Quite the opposite. Anyone who hopes to reach you will have to pass by him. You wish that grief too could be politely turned away or chased off with a drawn gun. But it seeps through the cracks of the old wooden house, drifting through the hallways, spreading its arms and placing itself right on your chest.

The thin curtains are drawn but you can still see the faint shimmer of the snow that’s stacked up outside, reflecting the lights of the few lamp posts that line Rancher Street. You move your head just enough to be able to stare at the silhouette of the window, wondering if any of the candles next to Lane are still burning or if she’s already shut away in the receiving vault, without any light at all.

Joel sighs softly beside you, his gaze following yours and lingering there for a few moments. “Want to talk about it?”

You both know what but you still find it an odd question. You do talk to him about Lane, more than anyone else even. He’s not touching you and something tells you that it has to do with what happened in the bathroom before. Just that nothing actually happened, you tell yourself. But you don’t dare to bring that up. Defense is better.

“Talk about what?”

“About whatever is keeping you from closing your eyes,” he mumbles quietly, his eyes back on you. “I know it ain’t easy but you need a few hours of sleep at least.”

“She’s there when I close my eyes,” you whisper into the quiet room, tensing slightly at just the idea of it. Of her. You don’t understand how something you love so much can feel so unwelcome in your head.

“I didn’t know you had bad dreams,” Joel muses quietly.

“It’s not that. But she must feel so alone. And confused,” you whisper, curling up a little more into yourself, as if that will protect you from the images that keep forcing themselves to the front of your mind.

“Honey, she’s not—she doesn’t feel those things anymore, okay?” Joel sighs beside you, hesitating for a small moment before reaching out and lightly rubbing your shoulder. “I promise it’ll get better once you get the ceremony over with.”

You both stay quiet for a few moments, both thinking about graves and funerals and those you’ve lost. There are so many you’ve lost.

“Can I ask you a question?” you pipe up, your voice trembling a tiny bit. You’ve never outright asked him—only taken what information he gave willingly, which was very little.

“If you promise to try and sleep after.” Joel chuckles quietly, leaning back into the pillows. The small laughter dies on his lips as he hears your question.

“Did you have a funeral for her?”

The small intake of breath to your right tells you he didn’t expect this. You immediately feel your stomach give a lurch as you sit up slightly. “Sorry, you don’t—I shouldn’t have brought it up—”

“No.” Somehow, despite his voice being very quiet and low, it’s strong enough to make you fall silent in an instant. You bite your lip as you try and make out Joel’s face but it’s too dark to do so without moving closer and you’re afraid that one more misstep will have him either running off or throwing you out of the house.

“It all happened very fast, with Sarah.” His voice quivers a tiny bit as he says her name. “We were lucky to make it out at all. Tommy took—He got us out.”

Maybe it’s your tired mind playing tricks on you, but Joel doesn’t sound like he feels very lucky about having made it out. You can’t blame him. Some part of you, too, feels like you should have been with her, in that cabin. Should be with her in the vault. That there should be two graves waiting to be dug instead of one.

“I’m sorry,” you whisper, again, because apparently you are not good at finding the right words and you feel just like you did in front of Mrs Moss earlier today, just that this is Joel and that is precisely what makes it so much more difficult and so much worse.

“It was a long time ago,” is all he says.

To your surprise, the quiet that follows is not uncomfortable. Maybe because he feels that you understand, at least partly. Or maybe you’re just two very tired people, glad to have each other to hold on to.

After a few minutes, you can feel him turn towards you in the dark, opening his body up so that you can shift a bit closer, the excuse about the night being so incredibly cold dying on your lips when you feel how readily Joel wraps his arm around you, pulling you into him. You press your face into his chest, taking a deep breath that actually makes you feel like breathing comes a little easier. Your hands sneak around him, holding on. Always holding on.

A small sigh leaves Joel’s throat, his voice so low you can barely hear it.

“Let’s get some sleep, little fawn.”

thank you very much for reading! if you like this fic, please consider supporting me by rebloggin or liking or whichever buttons you prefer to press <3 if you have any feedback, it is also very welcome!

[hylasposts]

I’m freaking out omg

Trifocal

Part 5 of Triumvirate

Summary: A well-deserved holiday, as seen through the eyes of three people.

Pairing: Javier Peña x f!reader x Katie

Rating: Explicit.

Word count: 6.8k

Warnings: female reader, established polyamorous relationship, threesome (f/f/m), romance, smut (oral / piv mentions / fingering / dirty talk / D/s elements / orgasm denial / sex toys / overstimulation / ass play, but in a blink and you’ll miss it type of way), alcohol consumption mentions... Please let me know if I missed something!

Notes: The Triumvirate trio goes on holiday! We're taking a bit of a jump here from Part 2 to Part 5, because we find Javier, Katie and Reader in a relationship together. How did they get here? Some hints in this one will have to satisfy for now, but we're working on Part 3 and Part 4 to show you the full story! A very big thank you to my writing partner in crime @javier-pena, without whom Triumvirate wouldn't exist in the first place, who patiently checked this for mistakes and who almost singlehandedly kept my belief in myself as a writer alive over the past year.

----

Javier never takes a holiday.

You urged him into this one, as you had done with every holiday you had taken together, and while you were planning it together, he realized he couldn't remember the last time he took time off before he met you. It’s not like he never had any time, he just never really felt the urge. Work kept him busy, and the girls and alcohol kept him distracted. It wasn't until he met you that things became… easier, more balanced. You certainly helped him to take it easier on himself, to bear the importance of his job but to stop feeling like the weight of the world was on his shoulders.

To take holidays.

One of the simpler parts of planning had been figuring out where to go. Katie’s desire to visit Europe outweighed every other option, especially after the embassy had cancelled her work trip to Spain. He’d been the one who had to break it to her, and the look on her face, the quick succession of surprise, disappointment, and forced acceptance, made his heart ache. Suggesting a holiday to Europe earned him one of her signature smiles, the one that makes him want to give her anything she wants just to see it.

The distance had been a pleasant prospect, too. He can’t get called back into the office when he’s nearly 6000 miles away…

Two days ago, the three of you arrived at the place you rented, and he immediately felt as close to relaxed as he had in a long time. It’s secluded, spacious, gives the option to hide away and be as you all want; it’s easier, being here and being the three of you together. 

The small town you’re staying in offers anonymity in a way that makes him feel at ease to walk around the way the both of you are now, in front of him. His eyes travel from your linked hands, up to your profiles as you talk, and smile, and lick away at your ice cream.

He likes to watch you with her. It gives him a chance to observe you in a way he never gets to, and it’s like he falls in love a little more every time. Though he can’t deny that Katie offers you something he finds difficult to provide, something… carefree. It’s something he struggled with at the very start of this, the thought that maybe he wasn’t the best match for you — that you belonged with her.

You’ve made it very clear you are right where you belong: With her and with him.

“Here, try this,” Katie says, offering her cone up to your mouth, watching your tongue dart out to swipe along the cold treat. 

She watches you with dark eyes, and Javier finds himself equally affected. It’s something else he gets out of this that he still struggles to come to terms with. That it’s okay that he likes it. That you do as well, and so does Katie.

As if she can read his mind, she turns to him with an expression that makes him feel warm. The pride he finds in her eyes — the awareness that you get to share all of this, that everything between the three of you always runs in a circle of sorts — is something he relates to. He acknowledges her look with a jerk of his head, and it makes her face break into a smile. After, she turns back, accepting your offer of your ice cream for her to taste.

As she does, Javier’s eyes drop down to the little camera bag Katie carries with her. If he had a camera, he would take a picture now, when the two of you are unaware of how he’s watching.

Click.

Another time.

----

Katie feels like she’s dreaming.

Because being here is like a dream. It’s something she’s wanted for as long as she can remember, and it’s everything she expected it to be — the people are friendly and easy-going, the food is delicious, the landscape is beautiful…

The street in front of her is a perfect example: narrow and cobblestoned, ivy growing up the side of the small, crooked houses. It’s almost like a fairytale. She excuses herself, untangles herself from your grip and reaches into her bag to find her photo camera.

She bought it with the first paycheck she got after she started working at the DEA. It felt like something worth celebrating, to materialize the pride she felt over moving to an unknown city and taking a new job. It’s not even like she needed a camera, per se, but walking past a camera store in Bogotá, she was drawn in by the pictures in the window. It got her thinking. It would be nice to document her life, use the film to take pictures of the city, her new friends, to show them to her dad when she’s back in the States.

This holiday definitely feels like something worth commemorating; a way to celebrate your relationship after the tests it has faced. 

It’s the three of you. It feels right. It is right.

She gets the feeling again later, when you’re taking a break from sightseeing, sitting at a table in front of one of the restaurants for a drink.

Javier and you are sitting opposite her, lost in conversation, and she lands in it too late after studying the menu too long to really participate, but it’s fun to watch. Neither of you are particularly animated, but you’re equally engaged, not letting the other win until—

“Jesus, fine!” you laugh, shoving at Javier's shoulder. “You’re so stubborn.”

Katie can tell it’s meant to chastize him, but it just comes out fond. Javier simply grins, then lets his hand fall on your thigh in affectionate victory. The look you give him in return stirs something deep in Katie’s chest, makes her want to reach for her camera to capture it, but the moment passes.

She’ll get her chance one of these days, she reasons.

----

“Anyone else want something to drink?” you ask, stretching where you’re laid out on the big lounge bed beside the pool. The curtains surrounding it billow in the wind while you get up before you pad down the poolside. 

On your way to the kitchen, you gaze down into the water. Katie floats by, on her back, topless, eyes closed behind the sunglasses perched on her nose. She thanks you and asks for a beer. Javi, on the opposite side of the pool, sitting in the shallow end, does the same.

Once inside, you allow yourself an extra second in front of the open refrigerator, basking in the cold air, before plucking two beers and a bottle of water from the door. You fill a glass with water, and bring it to your lips to take a large gulp that slides pleasantly cold down your throat. 

You’ve been here for the better part of a week now, and you could get used to this. The warmth is different from the sweltering Colombian heat, the passage of time here makes the days seem twice as long and it feels like the first time you haven’t been worried about any aspect of your relationship with Javi and Katie. With everything out in the open, there’s finally time to enjoy it.

When you gaze up at the pool through the window, you see the two of them clearly had the same thought. 

They’re in the shallow end, Katie in Javi’s lap, their kisses innocent until Javi’s mouth opens under Katie’s for a kiss that’s obscene. Javi takes hold of the bottom of her breast and dives down to close his mouth around her nipple. Katie cups his head, pulling him closer as her mouth falls open.

You shiver at the sight, and can imagine all of it; Javi’s mouth there, his moustache on the sensitive skin, your own mouth there, the sound Katie makes when you let your teeth play with her. Heat licks up the base of your spine, and you hesitate, not sure if you should act on it and join them, or take a mental picture of this and let them have their moment. It’s decided for you when Katie’s eyes suddenly find yours through the window, and she smiles before beckoning you to her with her free hand.

You almost smash the glass as you put it down on the counter, forget their drinks, and walk through the door with hurried determination. Plunging into the pool via the side closest to you, you wade towards them, finding your place behind Katie and between Javi’s knees. You pepper her warm shoulder with kisses until you reach her neck and find that spot where she’s sensitive.

“Hmm, you feel good,” she sighs, her hand tangling in your hair and holding you in place.

Your hand curls around her body, cupping her other breast with a squeeze. “So do you,” you whisper in her ear.

Under the water, Javi’s hand finds the side of your thigh, squeezing before Katie’s hand knocks him away. He pulls away from her with a wet gasp, and a confused look in his eyes.

“Kiss her,” she says, framing his jaw with her hand and leading him to your face over her shoulder.

His mouth lands on yours, kissing you with fervour as Katie’s hand disappears back under the water. You hear the water slosh around you, feel how your knees slide along the bottom of the pool as Javi’s body presses more of Katie’s up against you. She moves between you, her hand finding his lap until he bucks into her touch. 

Javier breaks away from you with a growl, his eyes dropping down to watch where Katie’s hand undoubtedly circles his cock. You watch with him, hands roaming Katie’s soft skin. In turn, Katie twists her free hand behind her back, her palm sliding down your abdomen and past the waistband of your bottoms. Her movements are limited on account of the angle, and the fabric that isn’t giving, but she finds your clit with expert precision and circles it with one of her fingers.

With a gasp of her name, you try to widen your thighs to give her more space, teeth sinking into her shoulder when she works a finger into you. As you do, you slide your hand around her hip, attempt to return the favour, but she stops you with a soft, “Don’t,” as she slides a second finger inside. “Just enjoy it, sweetheart.”

You know that this is how she likes it — playing the role of observer and participant, getting the chance to let her mouth run knowing it will only make you wetter, Javi harder. It comes natural to her in a way that you wish you had a little more in you — in a way that reminds you of Javi.

Javi’s hand comes up to twist her in his direction until he can look into her eyes. He looks intimidating, his hair slicked back from the water, his eyes dark, but Katie doesn’t seem to notice. Or pushes on in spite of that. 

“Feeling a little left out?” she asks, the control she has over the situation making her bold, and brazen, and you grind down against her hand in response.

“Careful,” he replies, his voice deep and raspy, before kissing her and biting at her lip.

She threads that edge, pushing closer, squeezing him in her grip. “Or what, Javier?” she asks.

You watch with curious eyes as Javi’s top lip trembles with a hint of a snarl, before his eyes go a little softer and his jaw goes slack. You know this expression, she’s doing that thing he likes where she circles his frenulum with her thumb – that thing you taught her.

“Hmm, I thought so.”

The words make you throb — she’s so sexy like this, when she wins, holds the both of you in the palm of her hand and knows exactly how to play you.

“We’re going to move this over there…” she tells you, eyes dark with lust, with an idea, as she nods into the direction of the lounge bed you were seated on earlier, “...where Javi’s going to fuck you.” 

She says it so matter-of-factly, and you’ll never get used to it. Her hand slides out of your bikini bottoms, and resurfaces to take your chin between her thumb and forefinger. You find yourself nodding along at her words with lust-filled conviction. It fuels her, a pleased expression gracing her features. The kiss she places on your parted lips is chaste, but her words after are anything but,

“And I think I’ll sit on this pretty face.”

----

Two days later, you find yourself sightseeing once more.

“I saw pictures of this in the travelling brochure, but it’s much bigger in person,” Katie says. 

Her head is thrown back to look up at the castle she’s referring to, at everything she told you and Javier about when she pressed you to go here; battlements, towers and turrets, arrow slots, cream coloured bricks, baby blue roofs and spires… It was a sizable drive, but her enthusiasm for it sold it pretty much right away.

The last time you saw her so passionate about explaining something was when she talked about the time she went fly fishing with her dad.

Without looking away, Katie reaches for the little bag hanging by the side to find her camera.

“Why don’t you give that to me?” you ask when she takes it out. “I want to–”

“Didn’t I tell you?” she interrupts happily. “It’s so pretty”

“And it’ll be even prettier with you in the picture with it,” you say, clarifying your intent. You take great pride in watching the realization wash over her face — her understanding, a blush, the way she hides a smile — you love being able to do that to her.

“You’re such a flirt,” she says, playfully narrowing her eyes at you before shoving the camera against your chest and turning to find a good spot to stand.

Seeing her through the rectangled little glass makes her seem like she is the only person there. And in that small moment, she is. As you change the angle, make sure the light looks right, that the colours will come out like they’re supposed to, she flashes you a radiant smile, and it doesn’t leave you unaffected. You capture her just like that.

Click.

It occurs to you that you never told her about the photography class you took when you were in school, and you almost do, until you see Javier at the edge of your view, making your mind change directions. He’s fiddling with his hands, nervous. It’s easy to imagine how a workaholic like him would find it difficult to wind down. It’s crowded here, and he’s vigilant, even far away from his DEA duties. 

“Javi — Javier!” you shout, waving him in Katie’s direction.

He nods in understanding, makes his way towards her and hangs his sunglasses off his shirt. They’re facing each other, engaging in a conversation you can’t hear from your distance. Then Javier tilts her chin up and wipes a thumb over the tip of her nose — some sugar from the donut she had earlier, maybe? Katie’s nose scrunches up. Javier keeps his index finger hooked under her chin, smiles at the face she makes. 

It’s the perfect moment.

Click.

“Excuse me,” a voice next to you asks in a thick accent. “Should I take a picture of the three of you?” When you look up, a man is looking at you expectantly, holding his hand out for the camera. “You will have some proof you were here also.”

You assess him quickly: He's pushing a stroller with a small, sleeping girl inside, and there's a woman by his side who gives you an encouraging smile. Not exactly the kind of people who would take the camera and hit the ground running.

“That would be nice, thank you.”

You jog towards Katie and Javier, and you know your smile in the picture will be genuine when Javi puts his arms around your shoulder, pulls you close, then does the same to Katie. After a few moments, the man gives you a thumbs up, and when you’ve made your way back to him, he places the camera in your hands as you thank him again for his offer.

“You are very brave for going on a holiday with a couple,” the woman says.

“I’m sorry?”

“Those two,” she says, looking in Javier and Katie’s direction. “Very in love, no?”

You follow her gaze, and find them looking at the castle, Katie’s back against Javier’s chest, his arms around her, his chin resting on her head.

“Oh,” you say, smiling and trying to hide the fondness in your voice. “Don't worry, it's not as bad as you'd think.”

As soon as the family is out of view, you raise the camera back up and find Katie and Javi through the viewfinder.

Click.

----

It's been five days since Katie got the better of him in the pool, and Javier can't let it go.

It's not like he didn't enjoy it; far be it for him to complain about watching her sit on your face until she came all over it while he fucked you. If he’s really honest with himself, it’s the fact that someone stepped to him and succeeded, and that instead of feeling threatened, he feels invigorated by it. He feels that way every time she manages that.

This afternoon, she’d been so sweet. It's a joy to experience this trip through her enthusiastic eyes, and his attraction to her soars when he hears her talk about all the research she’s done about all the places you visit together. She also makes meeting people and small talk seem effortless; it’s like Katie has never met a stranger.

So no, he doesn’t want to "get back at her", because it isn't like that, but he’s in the mood for something. The desire is making him itch, especially now that she’s getting cheeky.

After a dip in the pool to escape the afternoon heat, you’re out for a late dinner, and she's back to pushing his buttons. It doesn’t help that she looks gorgeous. Her air-dried curls look more wild than usual, and her cheeks have gone freckled, slightly red, all from the sun. Seated across from him, she keeps finding his calf under the table to stroke the top of her foot along it. All the while, she’s seated next to you, scanning the menu for desert. Or pretending to, anyway. It all comes to a sudden halt when she excuses herself to find the bathroom.

"So, what is it?” you ask as soon as she’s out of view.

"What?" he replies.

You close the menu in a way that makes him think you know you won’t be staying for dessert, and put it on the table. "Your big plan for her.” Placing your hands on the table’s edge, you look at him with a raised brow. “That's what you're thinking about, aren't you?"

In any other scenario, he would feel like he got caught thinking about something he shouldn’t – someone he shouldn’t. Your tone doesn’t match that, though. Your tone is encouraging, your interest piqued. When he doesn’t answer, you lean over the table, move closer, and the movement pushes your chest against your hands, presses the tops of your breasts up in your top in a way that distracts him.

Leaning back in his chair, he purses his lips in thought. "Remember, before we left, when you asked me if there was anything you should bring?"

Your expression instantly goes from playfully inquisitive to something giddy and knowing. "Yes."

"That's my plan," he decides, watching as Katie makes her way back to the table with nothing but mischief in her eyes. "And you're going to help me."

----

“Stop.”

Javier’s voice is so stern it sends shivers down Katie’s spine, the deep timbre of it seemingly reverberating off the walls. The small vibrator he has pushed against her clit stops buzzing, and the two fingers you have pushed inside her stop moving and curling. Her back lands back against the bed where it had been arched up from, the sheets damp with her sweat.

Katie’s pretty sure she shouldn’t enjoy this as much as she is. She’s aware this is more for your shared pleasure than for her lone benefit, but it’s a byproduct that suits the three of you all too well. Because the truth is, she loves being at your mercy; a participant in something the two of you are doing together. 

Ever since sleeping with the two of you for the first time, she’s never once been bothered by the time you were together before she joined you. How could she? Javier and you were clearly perfect for each other, a team in so many ways. She complements you, but not in a way that she’s inferior in this relationship — you’re all equal. There’s a little bit of both of you in her, and she knows that plays its part in why this works.

Despite enjoying the teamwork, it’s getting harder and harder to take — and to stay dignified. She’s been worked up to the edge two times now, and the desire to get vocal about it is rising in her throat. 

She’d mistaken it for something else at the start of this, thought having the two of you in bed, on either side of her outstretched legs, was a simple shared moment of pleasure and not an assertion of dominance. The first time the both of you had brought her to the edge and stopped before she could tip over, she’d tried to finish the job herself, a hand flying between her legs. Javi had warned her not to with a, “Hands above your head. And keep them there or I’ll find something to tie them up with,” to which she had curled her fingers around the bars of the headboard. 

They’ve gone numb now.

“Give her a taste,” Javi says. 

Katie gasps as your fingers slip from her cunt in a wet rush and present themselves at her lips. She opens obediently, her lips closing around them to taste her own desire with a hum.

“More,” Javi tells you.

Katie’s eyes flick over to him, watch as he takes himself in hand while you slip further down her tongue. The tip of him is slick with pre-come, and he uses it to stroke himself to the sight of the two of you.

The slick sounds mix together, filling the bedroom in tandem. You pull your fingers back before sliding in deeper, and repeating. Katie knows you’re pushing her, she can tell from the look in your eyes, the way you slide along the back of her throat and push a little further each time. It makes her heart race, makes her try to hold out and build up the anticipation, but you get what you’re looking for when she lets out a choked sound. Tears form at her waterline when you do it again, and she clenches around nothing when you compliment her with a,

“Well, don’t you sound pretty.”

Katie heaves a wet gasp for air when you allow her one, feels the trails of spit sliding down the corners of her mouth, her chin, before she chokes again when you push your fingers back down her throat. 

“Enough,” Javi says, letting go of himself. His palm lands wetly on Katie's thigh, spreading her open to slide the toy back between her legs. 

Following his lead, your fingers find her opening, use her saliva to add to the wetness and glide back inside. 

You go again.

It’s when Javier tells you to stop for a fourth time that Katie loses her composure. 

One moment she feels like a livewire, like she’ll come from just the right caress, the next everything stops, leaving her feeling frustrated and tender. She’s so close she can taste it, desperately clenching around your stilled fingers, a phantom buzz still between her legs even without the toy. 

“Please,” she cries out. “Please, keep going."

Katie’s watery eyes flash to you when she feels your hand twitch, slightly, but still. “Javi,” you begin, voice soft and unsteady. Your conviction is wavering, she can see the confliction in your eyes. She knows it’s not because you think she can’t handle it. It’s more in your desire to please, the satisfaction you get out of her getting off. You move with every intention to continue pumping and curling… until Javier's hand closes around your wrist.

“Feel that?” Javier asks, addressing Katie with a voice that sounds like the complete opposite of yours – clear, in control. His hand moves, your wrist moves, Katie cries out, and the headboard creaks in her grip. “She wants to give it to you. Think we should do that, baby? Do you want to come?”

Katie nods, and it crosses her mind that this must be what it’s like to feel fucked dumb, the deep desire and need so raw on the surface that she feels like it’s the only thing she needs. “Please, Javi,” she begs, her voice coming out raw. “Can I come?”

His expression is unreadable. It reminds her of when she’s been on the other side of the interrogation room glass, watching him question people with iron determination. She knows that he knows how to get what he wants. So much so, that it’s almost a shock when the vibrator clicks back to life, when Javier’s thick fingers spread her open and bare her clit so he can circle, circle, circle.

“Oh, please,” she babbles, writhing against the sheets when your fingers start moving in tandem, as she races towards her peak again. Everything pulls taunt, the muscles in her abdomen contracting before Javi’s hand lands there and pushes down, keeping her in place and making your fingers hit that perfect spot. “Pleasepleaseplease–”

Katie comes with a shout, rolling her hips as best as she can with the way her movement is restricted. Her hands fly down, clutching the damp sheets as the oversensitivity burns through her limbs. You stop moving, but keep your fingers in place. Javi, however, doesn’t let up.

“J-Jav,” Katie stutters, eyes pleading as something new and devastating begins tingling up her legs.

“You wanted to keep going,” Javier says, the device click-click-clicking under his thumb as he increases the vibrations. Her sweat runs cold. “So put your hands back up and let's see how long you can last.”

----

The first time Katie wakes, it’s 3:06 am. She’s squished in between the two of you, your breath softly fanning out against her chest while Javi snores puff out softly against the back of her neck. Her eyelids feel heavier every time she blinks, until she falls back into a dreamless sleep. 

The second time she wakes, two hours have passed. 

Nothing else has changed.

----

When you wake, it's close to the afternoon, and it’s just you and Katie in bed. You can tell she’s still far away, breathing heavily, and you can’t blame her after the night she’s had. As you contemplate getting up, your rumbling stomach decides for you; some food would be nice. Carefully, you untangle yourself from her, then find a shirt on the floor and slip it on.

In the kitchen, you find a bowl and fill it with some fruit, then circle the house to look for Javi. You find him by the open backdoor, a cigarette between his lips and his yellow-tinted sunglasses on his nose.

He’s someone who struggles to unwind, to allow himself that, but you’re proud of how he’s doing on this trip. Especially these past few days; you haven’t heard him and Katie talk about work for a solid five days. He matches it in looks, his hair more dishevelled, more buttons on his shirts undone (if any are done up at all).  

You greet him by sliding your hand up from his back to his shoulder, and step outside to stand next to him. The concrete below your feet is warm from the morning sun, the sky is a clear blue, and a little breeze plays with your hair; tell-tale signs it will be another day in paradise.

“She still asleep?” Javier asks, before hollowing his cheeks around the cigarette.

You let your index finger play with the grapes in your bowl, pop one in your mouth and answer, “Yep.”

“Maybe we were a little too hard on her,” he prompts, taking another drag.

As you chew, you look at him from the corner of your eye, watching a little smile lifts one corner of his mouth as he puffs out the smoke. He knows as well as you do that she likes it, maybe more than she’d like to admit. By your count, she came five times. You bask in the knowing silence. It’s both thrilling and comforting, knowing what goes on in her mind, knowing it also occupies his.

“I liked doing that with you,” you say, rolling the one grape you have left around in your bowl. “A lot.”

“Yeah…” Javi says around an exhale, his final plume of smoke before putting his cigarette out. He takes the bowl from your hands, sets it down on the garden table by his side. With a little sway, he takes you in his arms, looking down at you with a playful expression, “...I noticed. Who knew you’d like it so much to be knuckle deep inside another woman, hmm?”

You inhale sharply at the lewdness of his words, but smile at the truth in them. “Well, I could say the same for you.”

He hums again, before a small frown puts a crease between his brows. “Aren’t you glad we figured that one out together?” His voice is softer, and his tone is different — less lighthearted, more serious.

“Yes,” you assure him, hands sliding up his bare chest on their way to cupping his cheeks. “Very glad.”

He leans down to press his lips to yours; it’s chaste and soft, and full of emotion. You return it with the same sentiment.

“I’m going back to bed,” you tell him when you pull away. “Are you coming?”

He strokes his nose against yours, and nods.

----

This isn’t what Javier expected from “going back to bed”.

It had started with just you, pushing him on the empty bed, straddling him before crawling down to lazily suck him off… until Katie emerged from the bathroom. She watched at first, but quickly became a participating voyeur, kneeling behind you and flipping your shirt up to bare your pussy to her.

"Sweetheart, look at you," she’d cooed, her hands circling the soft skin of your ass, the slick sound of her parting your lips following. "Getting so wet from sucking his cock."

Javier had gotten up on his elbows just in time to watch her lean down to taste you. With a stutter of his hips, he forced more of himself into your mouth.

Three groans echoed through the room.

Katie has you close to it now, he can tell by the way you’re distracted, moaning around his length while she holds you tightly against her. With a sound that makes him throb in your mouth, she pulls away to watch herself slide two fingers into you. The visual and physical stimulation makes Javier’s eyes go out of focus for a second, glassy with pleasure until he catches Katie looking up at him over the curve of your ass. Without breaking his gaze, Katie flicks her tongue up between your cheeks, and it goes straight to his cock when you come up with a gasped, “F-Fuck, Katie, keep doing that, you’re going to make me come.”

Your forehead drops against Javi's thigh, your hand clumsily stroking him as your free hand reaches back to palm the back of Katie’s head and push her back down until you come with a cry. You tremble in the aftermath, your puffs of breath making goosebumps rise along his sensitive skin. 

"Holy shit,” you manage to huff out after a while. “Come here.” Letting go of him, you turn over on your back to pull Katie to you. 

Javier watches her land on top of you with a giggle, kiss you, pull your shirt over your head as you exchange whispered words. He can’t make out all of it, but his cock jumps where it’s curved back against his stomach when the words “taste him together” reach his ears. 

For a moment, it had felt like his orgasm was ebbing away, but when the two objects of his desire untangle and turn until they’re on their stomach, side by side between his legs, he feels the fire reigniting in his gut.

You take turns on him in a bobbing of heads that you’ve almost perfected over time. Even without looking, he could tell who is who. You take him deeper, add a twirl of your tongue when you come off of him that makes his toes curl. Katie is sloppier, like you taught her, her spit sliding down his length as she sucks on his tip. But watching is better — much better. 

It’s hypnotic, watching you work together and share a wet kiss over the tip of him before you focus back on his cock. Except this time, Katie kisses you once, twice, then tells you to, “Keep going,” while she slips from between his legs and disappears from his view.

It makes Javier zero in on you, only vaguely registering the mattress dip behind him. Your hand curls around the base of him, holding him steady in the absence of Katie’s help, and just when you slide up, eyes on his, your mouth open along the underside of him, wet, warm, familiar, when his head falls back into the pillow with a grunt of pleasure…

…there’s a click.

When Javier opens his eyes, he finds Katie kneeled behind him, camera in hand, lowering it from in front of her face to watch as you jerk his cock. Unable to resist, he reaches for her, pulls her down for an upside-down kiss that he can feel her smile into. He likes this about her, her playful nature, how easy it seems to come to her despite everything that has happened between the three of you, and how she has the best ideas. 

“Give that here,” he whispers when he pulls away, “and get back down there with her.”

Katie swallows hard, on account of the order, he suspects, something he noticed she likes coming from him. With a nod, she places the camera on the mattress next to him, before crawling back between his legs.

You’re still in your place, curious eyes following Katie’s every move and accommodating her body next to yours again. Katie brushes your hair aside, kissing your jaw, your cheek, before wrapping her hand around the base of his cock and offering him to you. 

It takes him back to the start of your holiday.

His thighs tremble when both of your mouths go back to sucking him off, sliding up and down the side of his cock again, and again, and again—

“Take a picture, baby,” you prompt hoarsely.

He’s surprisingly steady as he picks the camera up with one hand and lifts it to his face. It looks so much more erotic through the viewfinder, like a snippet from a dirty movie. It fills him with a sensation that tingles up his legs and blooms up between his hips. He must make a sound, something he’s unaware of, because you and Katie look up at him at the same time, with bright eyes, spit-slick lips still wrapped around either side of his dick—

Click.

It happens with an accidental twitch of his finger, but he has a feeling it’s for the best when he feels himself throb, twitching between your lips… “I’m gonna—” he begins, managing to toss the camera back on the bed before coming with a stutter of his hips and a deep moan.

It coats both of your faces, slipping down cheeks, and lips, and necks… He gets a taste of it when the both of you crawl back up to him, gets it fed back to him off fingers and lips and tongues. The aftermath puts him in a daze, and the way both your hands are stroking along every part of him make him feel intimately cherished. It also reignits something deep in his gut that makes him stir, and hungry for something else - more.

You squeal when he sits up and flips you over with a growl.

Later, when you’re all spent and satiated once more, he watches as Katie reaches for something next to the bed. She produces her camera from the floor, and he feels guilty for discarding it so carelessly earlier. 

It must show on his face, because she’s quick to assure him. “Don’t worry, it’s sturdy.” She puts the camera back in her bag, “But I don’t think we can ever get these developed.” 

Javi snickers at that. Katie’s right, it was fun while it lasted, but seeing the results means bringing the film to a store and allowing them to be seen by others to get them developed, which would be…impossible. It’s a shame, but not the end of the world. At least, that’s what he thinks, until he looks at Katie, when he sees a smile on her face that doesn’t quite reach her eyes. Just as he goes to assure her that the real thing is better than the pictures anyway, something clicks. 

It isn’t about your private photos, it’s about the others.

He takes her hand and pulls her against him, pressing a kiss on her brow. You stir next to him, turning to face him in the early stages of sleep, and as he watches you, a plan begins to form.

----

“Is this like last time?” Katie asks.

The excitement in her voice makes you laugh, and when her head whips in your direction. Javi’s hands almost slip from their position over her eyes as he leads her blind through his apartment. You’ve been back in Colombia for a week now, but there’s still unfinished business from your trip.

“Don’t make fun of me!” she splutters, covering Javi’s hands with her own to keep them in place. “You look sexy in blue lace. Though it was more fun taking it off you. You really missed something, Jav.”

“Apparently,” he replies, eyebrow raised.

You wave his expression away. “Yes, yes,” you say, cheeks heating at her recollection of the blindfolded fun you got up to during Javi’s latest business trip. “It’s not like that…” you watch her purse her lips in disappointment, “...but I think you will like it.”

Javier and Katie come to a halt in front of one of the doors, and you open it before motioning for Javier to take his hands off Katie’s eyes. When he does, she blinks her eyes back into focus, undoubtedly still confused by what it is that you’re showing her when she looks into the black of the room. It’s completely dark on account of the taped off window, but when you flick the lightswitch, the room is bathed in red light. It highlights all the equipment — the enlarger, trays, photo paper, timer, a line of rope from corner to corner…

“I took a course on this a couple years ago,” you explain. “I dug up most of the equipment, we got you some new supplies. I could teach you, help you develop our holiday pictures.”

“Wow,” Katie whispers, stepping inside to let her eyes roam around the room. “You giving up your office for me, Javi?”

Javier crosses his arms in front of his chest and shrugs, before leaning against the doorpost. “I have an office at the office, and… this is more important to me.”

There’s a sparkle in her eye when he says that, something you recognize from yourself when Javi expresses his affection in a way that you didn’t see coming. 

She looks back at you. “Can you… show me now?” It’s clear she’s trying to mask the eagerness in her voice, but she’s doing a horrible job, and you love it.

Who could say no to that?

“Of course.”

Katie smiles brightly, turning on her heels back to the living room to retrieve her camera.

You approach Javier, and he uncrosses his arms to make room for you, to let you slide a hand up his chest and say, “Good idea, baby,” before cupping his cheek and giving him a kiss.

As you do, you hear a click.

----

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[hylasposts]

um ok i have no idea who arthur morgan is but i NEED MORE which is such a testament to your writing!!! amazing imagery used here xo

observance

Pairing: Arthur Morgan x f!reader

Word Count: 1.8k

Rating: Explicit

Summary: In the quietness of a cooling summer evening, you see something you shouldn’t have.

Warnings:voyeurism | masturbation (m) | a bit of swearing | reader is not a virgin but quite inexperienced

Notes: I was actually planning on posting this as part of Kinktober this year, but since I’ve decided to focus my time and attention more on my novel and a bit less on fics, I won’t be doing Kinktober after all. However, I already finished some fics for it, and I have a few more ideas which I want to write as well. Anyway, this fic is about a young Arthur Morgan trying his luck as a farmhand.

***

He started to work at the ranch about a month ago. Mr. Sedgwick introduced him to everyone as “Mr. Arthur Morgan”. And everyone took a shine to him immediately. The other two girls in the kitchen can’t talk about anything else. The ranchers talk about his skills with horses in awe. Mrs. Sedgwick watches him from the window sometimes but closes the curtains when he looks her way. And Miss Sedgwick tries to get his attention any way she can, acting dumber around the animals than she is.

Keep reading

[hylasposts]

A GRAY HAIR *faints* I love this story so much! You can’t help but hurt for Marcus. Another amazing chapter, Penny!!

How to Kill an Immortal / Chapter 7

Pairing: Marcus Pike x OFC, with flashbacks of Marcus x other OFCs & OMCs

Rating: M (non-explicit smut)

Word Count: 5.5k

Warnings: In the flashbacks: Angst, drug mention, death mention, depression. In the present: Fluffy fluff fluff! 

Summary: "How does it feel?" Evelyn asks–quietly, timidly. "Do you regret it?" Marcus squeezes her hands. "Feels like coming home."

A/N: This is the PENULTIMATE CHAPTER OF THIS STORY. Next chapter is in progress and I plan to work on it right after this while I have the momentum. All the credit for finishing this chapter goes to @outercrasis, who is a veritable Good Ideas Factory and every time I message them looking for help, I end up writing 3k words in one sitting. Birdie, thank you for your amazing help and for reading through this for me!!

Series Masterlist | Main Masterlist

Chapter 7: The Decade of Greed

York, England. 2014 AD.

"I'm sorry, run that by me again?:

"I'm retiring. Effective immediately," Marcus repeats into the phone.

"Retire? You're thirty-nine!" comes the indignant response. 

Marcus chuckles to himself in spite of it all. "Let's just say the years have been too long."

"Listen, this just all feels very sudden. You only just arrived in D.C.–I know you really went through it with Teresa, but don't you think you should take some time, and–"

"No," Marcus interrupts. "I know it seems sudden to you, but believe me when I say this is a long time coming." 

He shoots a crooked grin over at Evelyn, who is hovering nearby but very obviously attempting to hide her investment in the conversation. 

"If that's what you really want–"

"It is," Marcus says quietly, and with finality. 

"You're a credit to the force, Pike. It'll be hard to lose you."

"I understand," Marcus says, pressing his lips together. "Thank you, for the opportunity."

"Are you really not coming back to the states? What about your apartment? Your stuff? Your… life?"

Marcus smiles–a soft, sad, wistful expression. "I'm good at disappearing."

"No shit."

Marcus finishes with a hasty goodbye, and ends the call.

"You won't miss anything?" Evelyn asks, coming up behind him and winding her arms around his middle. 

"I've always traveled light," Marcus replies. His hands instinctively cover her hands, and he lets himself lean back slightly, pressing against her, which she easily counterbalances. 

"Just this?" Evelyn taps his pocket, where she knows a little plastic bag containing a threadbare, faded blue handkerchief resides. 

"Just that. To remind me of where I've come from."

"In some ways, you're back where you started," Evelyn remarks. 

"I am," Marcus agrees. "Truthfully, I'd never thought I'd be back here. Once I leave a place, I've never returned."

"How does it feel?" she asks–quietly, timidly. "Do you regret it?"

Marcus squeezes her hands.

"Feels like coming home."

New York City, USA. 1980 AD.

This place was fascinating.

Marcus supposed it was the biggest cliché in the book–being so entranced by the lights and sounds of the city, having come from incredibly humble beginnings himself. And Marcus’s beginnings went so much further than the stereotypical "small town boy." If only Isabella could see this, he found himself thinking over and over as he craned his neck up to look at the impossibly-tall buildings. It was funny–he could kind of remember a time before cement and iron and steel took over the landscape, but the experience, the memory of what it was actually like to live in the small room above their Medieval bakery, had long-since faded. 

Marcus liked to walk downtown–going nowhere in particular, having no real aim or goal in mind, just… watching. Taking it all in. He would eat lunch on a bench in Central Park and watch people come and go, an endless stream of bodies moving forward in time with a goal, a direction, a purpose. 

Marcus wasn’t sure he had a purpose, any more. He was in between jobs–the last one had been just after going AWOL in the middle of the Korean War. He had taken a modest factory job in Japan, just working to get by, spending his evenings playing cards and slowly learning the language. He could never stay in one place for long before people started to get suspicious, so after almost thirty years, he left without a trace, taking only what he could carry, and headed to New York.

Marcus could admit to himself that he was severely depressed. Three wars had taken their toll, and he’d had no one to share the long years with recently–just a string of casual lovers. He’d purposefully avoided any romantic entanglements for quite some time–since Alice, really, and she had been nearly one hundred years ago, now. Had it truly been that long ago? He was losing track of time, losing track of himself. He wasn’t sure who he was, without someone to love in his life. As he sat on a park bench staring aimlessly at the pigeons that had started to cluster around him, he realized he had nothing. He had no one.

“Fuck!”

Marcus looked up just in time to see a woman fall spectacularly on the pavement a few yards away, the briefcase she had been carrying falling open and spilling papers everywhere.

“Shit!” the woman hissed, sitting up and lunging for a few loose-leaf files that were starting to blow away in the crisp winter air.

Marcus hopped up and started gathering a few that were blowing his way, picking them all up as he approached the woman, who was still on her knees trying to retrieve the rest and shove them haphazardly back in her briefcase.

“Are you okay?” he asked quietly.

“It’s these stupid heels!” the woman exclaimed. “I was in a rush, and I think I rolled my ankle.”

Marcus handed her the rest of the papers, and she added them to the pile, then closed and latched her case. He extended his hand, and the woman hissed as she took it–the angry skin of a scraped palm rubbing against his. She took a step, and he noticed she was limping slightly. She let out a frustrated groan.

“Hey, you’re okay,” Marcus said gently. “C’mon, why don’t you sit down and rest for a second.”

He helped her over to the bench he had been occupying, and she collapsed onto the seat with a heavy sigh. 

“Well, now I’m really going to be late,” she muttered.

“Late for what?” Marcus asked.

“I’m supposed to be taking minutes at a board meeting,” she groaned. “I’m an executive secretary for Wells Fargo.”

“Sounds fancy,” Marcus replied. “How do you get a job like that?”

“My father is Carl Reichardt,” the woman answered.

“Riiight…” Marcus drawled, not understanding.

The woman giggled. “He’s the CEO of the company. I’m Patricia. Patricia Reichardt. But everyone calls me ‘Trish.’”

“Marcus.” He stuck out his hand. She shook it vigorously, then hissed again. 

“Shit! I already forgot I skinned it,” Trish said with a self-deprecating laugh.

“Let me see,” Marcus offered.

Trish extended her injured hand, and Marcus held it gently, swiping a few rocks and pieces of asphalt from the abraded skin. A few of the deeper scratches had little rivulets of blood beading at the surface, and Marcus frowned.

“Hang on, I think I have–” he rummaged in his coat pocket and brought out a few tissues. “Promise they’re clean,” he said with a wry grin. “Here.”

Marcus pressed one of the tissues against her palm, speckling it with flecks of red as he dabbed the small wound clean.

“Aren’t you the sweetest,” Trish cooed, and Marcus looked up at her–really looked–for the first time. She was lovely–she had shoulder-length, dirty-blonde hair that was a mess of voluminous curls, bright red lipstick that showed off a perfect cupid’s bow, and beautiful green eyes. She was smiling at him. He felt his heart skip a beat.

“So,” Marcus began. “What does Wells Fargo do?”

Trish threw her head back and laughed. “Are you kidding me? They’re only one of the largest banks in the world. How do you not know about that?”

Marcus shrugged. “Never really had much of a use for banks, I guess.”

Trish looked sidelong at him. “Where on earth do you keep your money, if not in a bank?”

Marcus bit his lip. They were getting close to a topic of conversation he really didn’t want to be having. His behavior was suspicious in this new, modern world, and he knew it. He adjusted well to some changes–airplanes, microwave ovens, coffee makers–but was slow to adapt to others. Banks fell into the latter category. Marcus was used to leaving everything behind and starting over in a new place, and he never took more than he could carry, but he did have quite an impressive collection of cash simply by nature of existing long enough to amass it. He estimated that he had around twenty thousand at this point, although he rarely counted it out. He used it as needed for living expenses and travel, and didn’t pay it much mind.

“I just use cash,” Marcus said. 

“Do you work?” Trish asked, incredulous.

“From time to time,” Marcus answered vaguely. “I’m in between things right now.”

"Are you a vagrant?" Trish asked. "No, no, you're dressed too nice to be a vagrant."

Marcus laughed. "No, I'm not a vagrant. I just like to travel, and I travel light."

"What, like a 'no possessions' kind of hippie?"

"If you like," Marcus shrugged. 

"What brings you to New York?"

"I've never been," Marcus replied. "Thought I'd see what it was like."

"You must have some money for you to travel like this with no job."

"I've got a fair amount packed away."

"You mean literally packed away, don't you?"

"You're catching on," Marcus said with a laugh. "It may or may not be stuffed under a mattress."

"I could help you," Trish offered, bouncing up and down with excitement. "I could get you a bank account. You could write checks instead of carrying a bunch of money around from place to place. Why don’t you come with me to the office! We’ll get you squared away in no time."

“I–I don’t know, I–”

“Oh, come on,” Trish wheedled. “Besides, I–” she giggled, glanced from side to side as if looking for eavesdroppers, then back to him again. “I hope you don’t mind me being too forward, but I think you’re cute,” she confessed. “Maybe you could… take me to dinner, afterwards?”

Marcus nodded slowly, weighing the costs and benefits in his mind. He had been lonely. It had been far too long since he’d simply talked like this, since he’d felt that little spark of electricity that comes when someone is interested. 

“Sure,” he agreed. “Dinner sounds nice.”

—

Marcus felt somewhat like an animal at a zoo, or, probably more accurately, a museum exhibit, when he arrived at the massive skyscraper that held the Wells Fargo offices with Trish. They’d completely missed the board meeting, but she pulled him into her father’s office–a bright, modern-looking room with floor-to-wall windows–and gave the man a highly embellished story about her fall in Central Park that made Marcus out to be a hero, showing off her skinned knees and scraped wrists and branding him her ‘White Knight.’

Her father thanked Marcus profusely, and was immensely curious about his ability to get by in the world without a checking account. They both seemed to believe that Marcus was the product of some remote hippie commune, and Marcus did nothing to dissuade them of this assumption.

The ability to access his money without having to take it from place to place did sound far more practical–although, with Marcus’s penchant for disappearing every few decades or so, he worried about the longevity of this tool. After all, he didn’t have a “real” identity in the world–all of his documents were forged. For all intents and purposes, Marcus Pike did not exist. 

That didn’t seem to be a problem, though, because after only fifteen minutes, Marcus was the proud owner of a bank account and a new book of checks.

“Have you ever thought about investing in stocks?” Trish’s father asked as Marcus flipped through the blank pages.

“No,” Marcus answered. “Not really.”

“It’s a good way to ensure you’re set for the future,” the other man asserted, and Marcus had to stifle a snort.

The future. Marcus had an endless future, on a scale at which stock shares would hardly matter. Would the stock market exist in two hundred years? What about five hundred? For a large portion of his life, there had been no such thing. It would be arrogant to assume that the modern system of capitalism would outlast one Marcus Pike.

He would outlast everything. 

But Trish was looking at him with a mixture of interest and attraction and excitement, and she seemed so delighted at the prospect of using her field of expertise to help him, so he shrugged, and said “Sure, let’s do it.”

Marcus was handed a list of available stocks, and he squinted at the offerings. Some of the names were nonsensical, and he had no idea what any of these companies did or sold, or what services they offered. Scanning the list and preparing to pick one at random, his eyes fell on a familiar, simplistic word.

“Apple?” Marcus wondered aloud to himself.

“Interesting choice!” Trish’s father boomed from across the desk. “Little technology company, just went public a few days ago.”

Marcus nodded. “What kind of technology?”

“Computers, I think.”

Computers. Marcus liked computers. The rapid pace of technology development astounded and fascinated him. It was the closest thing to ‘magic’ as he could find, outside of himself. Except, instead of miraculous happenstance, computers were pure, old-fashioned human ingenuity. He loved it–loved the creativity and inventiveness of people. 

“Okay,” Marcus agreed. “Apple, it is.”

There was some debate back and forth as to how much he should invest. Marcus didn’t really care, as long as he had enough left over to live off of for the foreseeable future. Trish’s father suggested that anything under a thousand wasn’t really worth the trouble. Trish disagreed, insisting that Apple was a big risk for a man who was more of a drifter than a stockbroker. The other man argued that larger risks could reap larger rewards.

Eventually, Marcus decided on five thousand just to get out of the room.

He hoped he hadn’t just thrown a quarter of his money down the drain.

York, England. 2015 AD.

"Look at you fidgeting," Evelyn teases. "Why, if it were anyone else, I'd say it was nerves."

"And who says I can't be nervous?" Marcus replies, abandoning his tie and allowing Evelyn to step into his space and straighten it for him. 

"Wouldn't you be… you know, used to this? Figured it would be 'old hat' by now." Evelyn jokes, but Marcus can still detect the hesitancy behind her humor. 

"Hardly," he answers, kissing her on the forehead. "Love is never 'old hat.'"

"Are you ready?" Evelyn asks quietly, threading her fingers through his. 

"You're sure about this?" Marcus asks. "You're certain you wouldn't rather kill me, instead?" The words might sound biting, but there's a mischievous glint in his eyes, as if this is a well-trodden inside joke of theirs. And, he supposes, it is.

Evelyn rolls her eyes. "You ask me that every day," she deadpans. "The answer won't change."

"Maybe I should leave my wet towel on the floor a few more times."

"You wouldn't dare."

"My nail clippings in the sink–"

"Shut up," Evelyn squeals.

Marcus pulls her in for a kiss. 

"Is it worth it?" she whispers against his lips.

"One of my worst qualities," Marcus says, "is that I'll always choose love, no matter the cost." He kisses her again. "I'm a selfish man," he confesses. "If I am to lose you regardless, I'd rather have my fill before you go."

"Poetic," Evelyn remarks, although the emotional waver in her voice dulls the sharp edge to her teasing.

"I learned from the best."

Evelyn pulls back. "You didn't," she gasps, her mouth falling open. "Did you fuck Shakespeare?"

Marcus barks out a laugh. "No, I didn't. But I saw a few shows while he was still alive."

"In hindsight," Evelyn begins with a wry smile, "what lover was the biggest surprise?"

"Hmm…" Marcus looks up, putting on a show of thinking. "Lord Byron was terrible in bed."

Evelyn laughs loudly, her joy incandescent, and Marcus is reminded, as he is with every time he sees her happy, why he puts himself through this over and over again. She's radiant today, wearing a pretty, white sundress and a pair of white sandals. Her hair has been plaited into a simple braid, into which she's tucked a dozen little wildflowers.

Marcus extends his arm to her. “Are you ready then, Ms. Croft?”

“Ready.” Evelyn slips her hand around his arm with an exaggerated flourish.

It’s a simple affair–a reflection of both of their preferences. There are no churches, no speeches, no vows–none that are spoken aloud at the Registry Office, at least. The vows will come later, most of them unspoken, under cover of darkness as Marcus worships at her altar. Underneath the harsh, fluorescent lighting of the outdated building, they simply clasp hands in front of the counter, where an elderly woman peers at them over the rim of her thick, wire-framed glasses.

“What’ll it be then, loves?” she croaks in a heavy Irish accent.

“Marriage license,” Evelyn replies in that stiff, no-nonsense tone she uses when she’s nervous that Marcus finds exceedingly precious. “Please.”

"Do you have your items?" the woman asks.

Evelyn cocks her head in confusion. "My items?"

"Your good luck charms, love! 'Something old, something new…'" the older woman trails off expectantly.

“Oh! I didn’t–we aren’t doing that,” Evelyn tells her. 

The woman tsks. “Bad luck, you know.”

Marcus watches as Evelyn purses her lips. He knows by now that it’s a tell of hers–a clear indication that she’s absolutely incensed. “Is it standard practice to tell new couples that they’ll have bad luck on their wedding day?” Evelyn asks indignantly. 

Marcus puts a gentle hand on her forearm. “Here,” he says resolutely. He reaches into his pocket and pulls out the only thing that’s been constant in his life for seven centuries. It’s never left his side, never been entrusted to the care of another person, but here, in this little office with the only other person he’s ever met with unexplained magic in their life–magic that’s inexplicably pushed her toward him. Perhaps it’s time to let old things die.

Evelyn turns to him in shock when he hands her the little blue handkerchief. “Marcus,” she whispers. “What are you doing?”

“It’s old, borrowed, and blue,” he answers quietly. “Right?” 

“But it’s–it’s Isabe–” “Why don’t you carry it for me for a while,” Marcus insists. He takes ahold of her hand and presses the object into her palm. “I want you to.”

Evelyn presses it to her chest, right over her heart. She holds Marcus’s gaze in a meaningful stare for a few moments, her eyes too bright for the room, before she turns back to the woman.

“There you are,” she says briskly. “And the dress is new. No bad luck for us.”

Marcus pulls Evelyn close as the two of them are handed forms to sign. He watches her sign her name in looping cursive–Evelyn Adeline Croft–before handing the pen over to him. He gives her a quick kiss on the temple before penning in his name beside hers.

Evelyn’s eyes are dancing with excitement as she looks up and asks the woman behind the counter, “Is that it?”

“That’s it,” the older woman confirms, a smile playing at the corners of her mouth. “Unless you want to kiss your bride…?”

Marcus shoots Evelyn a crooked grin. He always wants to kiss her–and he does, bringing his palm to her cheek and gently cupping her face as he captures her lips with his. It can hardly be considered erotic, this tender kiss, but Evelyn reacts anyway–her fingertips digging in to his shoulders ever so slightly as she fights back a soft sound of pleasure. She follows him when he breaks the kiss, chasing his lips even as he pulls back with an amused glint in his eye. 

“What shall we do now, Mrs. Croft?” 

Evelyn laughs. “Let’s have dinner. I didn’t get all fancied up just to go to the Registry Office.”

“Dinner,” Marcus agrees as he threads their hands together. “And then I’m going to take you home and take all of those pretty little flowers out of your hair one by one.”

After dinner, they walk hand-in-hand through The Shambles, stopping in several little shops to browse. Evelyn holds up a funny patchwork owl in Little Saffrons, and exclaims, “I saw this silly thing in a dream last night!” 

Marcus laughs, and takes the owl up to the counter to purchase, grinning at her pleased expression.

“What else have you dreamed about, lately?” he asks her quietly as they exit the shop. 

“I’ve dreamed about today for weeks,” Evelyn answers. “I’ve dreamed about um… tonight.” She blushes prettily.

“Have you?” Marcus teases, letting his voice deepen.

“Mmhmm.”

“Tell me,” he says gently as they walk.

 “There were wildflowers all over the bed,” she hums wistfully. “I was on my stomach and you were pressing down on me so hard, like you were afraid to be separated from me by even a centimeter. Your voice was in my ear, telling me all the things you wanted to do, the places you wanted to take me.”

Marcus winds his arm around her and pulls her closer, pressing a kiss to her temple, and they’re quiet for a while as they stroll together down the cobblestone street.. 

“When did you leave York, the first time?” Evelyn asks quietly, breaking the comfortable silence.

“Somewhere around the early fourteen-hundreds, I think,” Marcus replies. 

“So a lot of this street might look the same, then? Most of these buildings date back to the late fourteenth century.”

“Eerily familiar,” Marcus agrees. “Although it’s far nicer, now. It used to be a row of butchers’ shops. I remember the streets ran red with blood.”

“Ew.” Evelyn wrinkles her nose, then she perks up. “Hey, do you remember where you lived?”

Marcus bites the inside of his cheek. “I remember it was southwest of here,” he offers. “That part of town looks fairly modernized now, so I doubt I’ll recognize anything. I–” he breaks eye contact, looking down at the stone pavement at his feet “–I’ve been avoiding that area ever since I came here,” he admits. “I don’t know if I can–”

“It’s okay, we don’t have to go,” Evelyn says quickly. “I was just curious. I want to know everything about you. Even the hardest bits.”

Marcus stops abruptly in the middle of the street, and Evelyn turns, shooting him a confused look. 

“Wha–”

That’s as far as she gets before Marcus takes her face in his palms and presses his lips to hers–again, and again, and again, losing himself in her, in how much he loves her, right here in the middle of the street.

When Marcus finally pulls away, he doesn’t let go of her face, keeping her close and feeling her breaths fan out across his cheeks.

Evelyn’s gaze is equal parts amused and desiring as she asks, “What on Earth has gotten into you?” with a little giggle.

“I love you,” Marcus murmurs back, his voice full of solemnity. “I want you to know–I’m glad it went this way, instead.”

A brilliant smile slowly spreads across Evelyn’s face. “I’m glad, too.”

Marcus tries to lower his mouth to hers again, but she stops him with a playful finger against his lips. 

“Wait! Wait,” she laughs. “Take me home, Marcus.”

New York City, USA. 1985 AD. 

The sun was setting, bathing the landscape of skyscrapers in orange light. In one such high-rise, Marcus Pike looked out of a large, plate-glass window, looking down at the streets below him. 

The thirtieth floor penthouse he shared with his now-wife, Trish, was the nicest housing he’d ever owned. His whole life seemed to be dripping in excess–Trish came from an astounding amount of wealth, and Marcus’s lifestyle had changed accordingly. He spent the last five years continuing to buy and trade stocks at her request, and accumulated quite a bit of riches himself. He lived at a level of comfort that he’d never known before–usually choosing to live modestly, even meagerly, not seeing the point of accumulating resources that he’d never need.

He… he hated it. 

The sights and sounds of the city that had started out as exciting and fascinating were little more than noise and irritation to him now. Everything moved so fast, even more so relative to Marcus, who felt more and more as if he were standing still. Time felt different to him. He could lose hours staring out the window without realizing it. He could stay awake for days and then sleep for just as long. Time was meaningless. The longer he lived, the more he felt meaningless. So, he watched as, thirty stories below him, all the people of the world went from place to place, doing this and that, having lives he’d never know about.

From this height, they looked like ants. 

“Hi honey!” came a bright voice from his front door, and Marcus perked up a little. 

“Hey, Trish.” He turned around and gave his wife a peck on the cheek in greeting. “How was class?”

“Oh my God, my legs are going to be killing me for days,” Trish gushed. “Jane Fonda is a genius.”

Marcus chuckled, turning slightly to glance back down at the maze of cars again before moving away from the windows.

“What are you doing?” Trish asked with a teasing smile.

“Just watching the world go by, I guess,” Marcus replied with a little sigh.

“Oh! Sarah was back at class this week. Do you know why she’s been gone? She’s pregnant!” his wife squealed.

“Oh,” he offered, not really knowing how to respond. “That’s nice.”

“Marcus,” Tish started, “I’m not getting any younger, here. I turn thirty-two next month.”

Marcus frowned. “I thought we’d talked about this, Trish. I was clear from the start that I really don’t want any children.”

“I thought that was just the single bachelor in you talking,” his wife pouted. “I thought you’d change your mind eventually, once we’ve been married for a while.”

Marcus laughed weakly. “I’m not changing my mind on this, sweetie. I told you I didn’t want kids and that isn’t going to change.”

“Why?” she insisted.

“I–I just can’t bring a child into this world,” Marcus answered quietly. “I can’t explain why, I just… really hoped you’d respect that.”

“Sometimes I feel like I don’t really know you,” Trish accused. “Sometimes it feels like you have this whole other secret life that I’m just not privy to.”

Marcus chuckled in spite of himself. If only she knew. “Trish, honey, I’m sorry, I–” he trailed off, searching for some kind of explanation for the way he was. “I’ve just been feeling kind of… down, lately.”

“Down? Jesus Christ, who isn’t? Just take some Prozac like the rest of us do,” she said exasperatedly. 

“What, so I can just be numb to it all?” Marcus replied. “I’d rather feel something than nothing at all.”

“I’m just saying, maybe you should talk to a shrink,” Trish said. “Maybe you’ll see that when your outlook on life improves, you’ll want kids after all.”

“Nothing is going to make me want kids, Trish.” he argued.

“Well, not with that attitude, it won’t.”

“Are you really not going to let this go? I thought we went into this marriage knowing we wouldn’t have children. I thought I had been as clear as I could be, I didn’t want to give you the wrong idea–”

“I really thought you’d change,” Trish said again, her voice pitching higher. “People change, hell, I’ve changed, but you…” she shook her head, “you’ve barely changed at all since I’ve known you. You’re like a statue, stuck in time.”

Marcus almost laughed at how unintentionally close she had come to getting it right. The only reason Trish saw his growth as stagnant was because he operated on a far larger timescale than her or anyone else, for that matter. If she only knew how much he’d changed in six hundred years, how much he’d had to change for an adapting world, she’d be amazed. Language alone had evolved so much since he’d been a boy–speaking what now was referred to as ‘Middle English’–although it was so long ago that he didn’t think he could replicate it, now.

“I’m sorry you think that,” Marcus murmured. “I’m truly sorry, Trish.”

“I really want kids,” Trish whispered sadly. “I want a baby, Marcus.”

“What we have…” he began carefully, “it’s enough for me. I’d hoped it was enough for you, especially since we’d talked about–”

“Well it’s not,” his wife interrupted with tears in her eyes, and Marcus felt as if the floor was dropping out from under him, sending him plummeting down this skyscraper toward the busy streets.

“Trish…”

“I’m going to go stay at my sister’s for a few,” she murmured. “I don’t–Marcus, I love you, but I’m not sure we want the same things…”

Marcus’s jaw dropped. This couldn’t be happening. His mind started searching for anything, anything to stall the inevitable, to keep this from barreling forward and crashing in a spectacular fashion.

“You want a baby? Is that what it’ll take?” he said, panicked. “Fine, we’ll have a baby. Sweetie, I’ll do whatever it takes to keep you.”

Trish backed away, shaking her head sadly. “You don’t want kids.”

“No,” Marcus admitted readily. “I don’t. But I want you. I love you.”

“I don’t understand what’s so bad about children,” she muttered.

“I just need you to trust me on this, I just can’t–”

“How can I trust you if you won’t fucking tell me anything?” Trish interrupted, voice raised. “You rarely talk, you rarely tell me about your life, I don’t know about your past, I don’t know who your parents are or where you went to school or–”

“You want to know why I don’t want to have a kid?” Marcus snapped, his temper finally getting the better of him. “I can’t bear the thought of outliving them. I can’t bring another person that I will inevitably lose into the world.”

“That’s fucking stupid,” Trish said, rather unsensitively. “Why are you so convinced that they’d die young?”

“They might, they might not,” Marcus replied, unable to stop the deluge of words, of emotions now that he’d begun. His marriage was ending, and he was apparently unable to let it die without nailing this one final lynch pin. “It doesn’t matter, I’ll outlive them. I outlive everyone. I know it sounds crazy, but I’m a lot older than I look. I’ve been alive for centuries and I’ll be around for centuries more. I’ve lost everyone. I’ll lose you, too, even if you don’t decide to walk out of that door in the end. Not having kids is an act of self-preservation. I can’t watch another child of mine die.”

“Another?” Trish parroted disbelievingly. “Marcus, what the fuck? Have you been in my cocaine stash?”

“You know I hate that shit,” he snapped. “No. You asked me why, and I’m telling you why. I don’t expect you to believe me.”

“Good, because I don’t.” Trish yelled. “Get some fucking help, Marcus.”

The sound of the slamming door echoed through the penthouse.

For a long while, Marcus didn't move from the spot, and continued to stare at the door Trish had just vacated.

Then, he turned his gaze back to the streets below.

York, England. 2023 AD.

Marcus stumbles out of bed when the first rays of sunlight filter through the blinds of his bedroom window, creating little orange stripes on the wall.

He stretches stiffly, his joints feeling like they're protesting every movement, and he grunts as his knee pops loudly. 

After using the bathroom, Marcus glances in the bathroom mirror at the same face he's seen for over seven hundred years.

Then he stops. 

He turns toward his reflection, a slight frown on his features as he rotates his head this way and that.

He steps forward, the furrow on his brow deepening as he stares at himself from inches away, barely daring to breathe. He spends a few endless minutes trying to convince himself that what he's seeing is not a mirage, not the fault of a water stain on the surface of the glass.

Finally, Marcus straightens, spins on his heels and strides back into the bedroom, sitting on the edge of his bed, where a mess of pin-straight black hair fans out over one of the pillows.

"Evelyn. Evelyn," Marcus whispers urgently.

Evelyn groans. "Easy there, hotshot," she croaks tiredly. "My mortal arse has a limited number of hours to sleep and by God, I intend to use them."

"This is important," Marcus insists. "Look."

Evelyn blinks her eyes open, stretching and rubbing away the sleep. She narrows her eyes in confusion. "What am I supposed to be looking at?"

"You don't see it?"

"See what?"

Marcus points at his temple. "This. What the hell is this?"

Evelyn cocks her head to the side and sits up, brushing her fingers against the hair where he had indicated. 

He feels the moment she notices the change. Her fingers pause in his hair, her breath catching and her eyes widening with astonishment.

"Marcus," she murmurs, "that is a gray hair."

**

A/N: Some historical notes: 

Carl E. Reichardt was the CEO of Wells Fargo in 1980. I have no idea if he had any children, or what their names are, so Patricia is a fabrication.

Apple went public on December 12, 1980 at $22 a share. If Marcus had invested $5,000, it would be worth $3,378,200 today.

Little Saffrons is a real shop in The Shambles and I spent way too much time on Google Maps looking for little stores to mention.

[hylasposts]

SQUEEEEE

So I'm thinking How to Kill an Immortal chapter 7 potentially on Friday????????? 👀👀

[hylasposts]

Holy crap the yearning!!! They’re like magnets to each other

Laredo, Summer, Age 24: High School Reunion

'Is there going to be a reunion at this reunion?'

Rating: 18+

Warnings: Smut, Public Sex, Dirty Talk, Javier Peña being a Cocky, Beautiful, Bastard.

A/N: Finally getting back to the main chapters 🥳 Even if this one was an unexpected addition. Enjoying how many times Bug reiterates YES I AM AN ADULT NOW. We've all been there. We're all secretly 6-year-olds in a big trench coat.

Laredo, Summer, Age 24: High School Reunion

Standing at the entrance to your former high school, you redact every positive thing you’ve said about Laredo in the past two years. 

Since getting away, the distance between you and your hometown had allowed for a surprising amount of positive reflection on the place you grew up. You’d had a bad time, you reviewed empathetically; it was understandable that you’d felt the way you did, for as long as you did. Add puberty, parental abandonment, and teenage heartbreak to the mix, and it’s almost a fully evidenced argument for flying the nest and not looking back. All it had taken was some breathing space and a bit of room to develop into your own person to be able to look back fondly and realise this place really isn’t so bad. You’d been dramatic, overwhelmed, and too quick to judge. That was childhood: one big adolescent misunderstanding. You were an adult now, after all. 

But as you loiter in the parking lot finishing the cheeky cigarette that you knew you were going to need in order to get through this evening, you realise, to her credit, that your nineteen-year-old self had got it right. 

Leaving had been a good idea. This place was the worst.

High school reunions were always something you had relegated to the realms of TV dramas and old people- genuinely old people like your Pa and his graduating class of god knows what forgotten era, that would actually appreciate the chance to catch up and find out who was still about and kicking. Plus, for your generation, you knew the reunions that really mattered were those that happened in another fifteen or twenty years when people had kids and houses and divorce settlements. That’s when your cynical side could really come out to play; the opportune moment to take quiet revenge on all the people that had mattered so much when you were sixteen, but had since slipped into the quiet obscurity of the glue trap, unable to make it any further than city limits. Receding hairlines and pot bellies: that would be your curtain call. 

You resolve to be hot and rich by the next time you stand in that school gym. Hotter than the majority, at least. 

In spite of your successful escape, you struggle to remember exactly how you’d ended up back here again. It was summer break, yes, the start and end of all the best and worst decisions you’d made in your short lifetime. But why you were here specifically, the parking lot of the proverbial hellhole that had held you captive for the best part of five years, you were still struggling with. 

Mel and Petra are the real answer, you know, but even then you’re questioning your better judgement in spite of your closest friends' persistent arm-twisting. Had you really gone so soft that you were here just because they asked? 

You’re well aware you sound like a cynical bastard as you play through your depressing monologue in your head, but you can’t deny that your younger, perhaps more obstinate, self would be distinctly unimpressed to find out that you’d made a break for it, only to find yourself back here by choice at the big age of twenty-four. 

“It will be fun!” they’d implored in unison as they dried the dishes you were washing up, passing them down the production line lovingly to Chucho, who put them back in the cabinet. He was a sucker for your girlfriends, loved to make a fuss and cook for them and feel his heart soar when they insisted they wash up since he had made dinner. 

“It will be fun, niña,” he had echoed, trying not to laugh at the absolutely mortal look you’d sent his way when he adamantly took their side. 

“Don't you start,” you chided at him, silently loving the way the three of them had continued to work together over the years to force your best interests. “Has anyone ever had a good time at a high school reunion?” 

“Us!” implored Petra, gathering you into her arms to give you an overzealous squeeze, accidentally slapping you with the damp dish towel in the process. “We will! We’ll make it fun, I promise.” 

“Plus, you know Javi will be there. Which means he’ll want you there,” chimed in Mel with an evasive look on her face. 

You could hardly call the sentiment a low blow when it had been your calling card for mandatory attendance at almost any event since you were six years old. ‘Javi will be there’ had forced you to weddings, funerals, Sunday services, anniversary celebrations, and any number of other indiscriminately dreadful occasions that otherwise would have had you running for the hills. The bait of having your best friend in tow to get through whatever social occasion was calling for you was used flagrantly and in excess. And the worst part is, it worked every damn time. 

He was the rest of you, and everyone knew it. Javi, the one thing that always turned your head, especially as of late. 

You’d had a blissful year of it at twenty-three. After Fairfax, everything really had fallen into place. Once the parameters were set, there had been nothing holding either of you back. In the wake of the promise to avoid the tawdry specifications of commitment, the two of you had accidentally found yourselves permanently involved for the best part of a year, and then some. ‘Together until you said otherwise’ had been the unspoken rule as you left his dorm room, and the two of you had picked up the ball and ran with it. 

In spite of the absence of a verbal commitment to fidelity, you were both entirely aware of what had happened between the two of you; the slip, the gentle transition into something that could easily have been labelled if it had ever seen the light of day or the public eye. Despite the fact you’d never admitted it, you had been together, in some strange, unconventional way. Whatever ‘together’ really meant. 

It would be difficult to deny that this year had been a shock by comparison. 

As soon as Javi had graduated, things got a little more complex. Since the BNDD had been reincorporated in ‘73, DEA had always been his goal. Funding was way up, recruitment was heavily incentivised, and once he had found his route to the direct training programme, he well and truly had his sights set. 

A year of making it work and the blissful summer that followed had bled into an unusually tearful goodbye in the new year and six degrees of separation ever since. You went back to college for your post-grad, and Javi moved on-site to Quantico the first week in January. Heaven knows the man’s a trier.

It had been around six months since you’d been in the same place, perhaps the longest you’d ever gone without seeing his face. While the physical distance between you hadn’t changed since you started college, the separation had become more meaningful. It was hard. Harder than before. There was even more of him to miss in the intermediary. 

Your usual summer reprieve had been well and truly eliminated by his new work schedule, too. No six-week break, no unadulterated stretch of time together like last year and every year before it. No opportunity to play pretend over the long, hot, summer. The way you’d flitted in and out of one another’s lives throughout college had been more ideal than you’d let on, and the loss of it seemed to stir a strange premonition in your mind. You always knew it was going to be hard if you gave into it like this, even at twenty-one you had known that. But what you hadn’t foreseen then was the romantic chaos that followed, the reality of just how much you enjoyed sharing his life as well as his bed. 

‘You were an adult now, after all,’ you repeat in your mind. And with adulthood came a whole new plethora of adult problems. You tried not to dwell on it too much. Kicking the can had worked just fine for you so far. 

Despite his busy lifestyle, Chucho was adamant the prodigal son would be making an appearance for the event, even if he apparently hadn’t taken the time to RSVP Lorraine’s multiple committee invitations. And you’re sure your father is right - Javier Peña was never one to miss a get-together, especially not one that involved all of his ex-girlfriends being in the same place at the same time. It would be his sadistic idea of heaven; getting to be sweet as anything to all those girls, now that the amnesty of time had softened the blow of their residual heartbreaks. New and exciting, fresh off the press of his first year in training, he’d be a walking babe-magnet, leaving every twenty-something-year-old within a mile radius of his orbit yearning for a glance. 

So here you are, a week on from your kitchen inquisition, ready and waiting, as always, for the golden boy. 

And there he is, you drawl to yourself, as you watch him stride across the parking lot, Mel and Petra in tow, not a minute later. He must have offered them a lift in your absence, reluctantly accepting your explanation of coming straight to the event after seeing a friend. In reality, you’d just needed some space before this whole thing kicked off. The $10 in cab fare was worth the opportunity to stick your head out of the window for a few moments and take some deep breaths before putting your big girl pants on. 

You stub the cigarette under your sandal, quelling the small voice at the back of your mind that begs you to let it simmer and burn the whole place to the ground. 

This will be good for you, you resolve, throwing your head back and strutting towards the gym. You haven’t worked on yourself for all these years not to show it off to anyone that will pay attention. And they will pay attention. It worked just fine in Ann Arbour, so why not here?

Those bastards wouldn’t know what had hit them. 

Inside, everything is the same: the tiles, the walls, the smells. And just through those double doors, the people, too. 

You often wonder why stagnation has made you so uncomfortable your entire life. It’s not as if you longed for chaos, if anything having had far too much of it in your life to date. But the idea of staying stationary for too long had always made you feel uneasy. There were select home comforts that you held very close to your chest, but everything else in between just seemed to make you feel like you had a target on your back that said ‘things going too well: aim here’. While it didn’t seem to make too much of a difference day to day (you were clearly capable of forming long-term attachments, even proving your ability to commit to things that didn’t even make sense) you generally wrote it off as a utilitarian ability to not expect too much of a good thing. Or any thing for that matter. Another heartfelt gift from your parents.

Plus, the way you feel walking down the familiar hallways reminds you that that survival instinct might not necessarily be a bad one. It’s good to want to move forward, to want to leave behind the places that hurt you, and to recognise a threat when you see one, especially when it's wrapped up in sage green linoleum. 

Pausing at the doors to the gym, you offer yourself a final get-out-of-jail-free card. Namely: the fact you actually are an adult now, or so you keep saying, and can come and go as you damn well please. Just because you had to do what you were told the last time you were here, doesn’t mean the rules still apply. 

But at the very least, Javi is in there. Your Javi. The one thing that, ironically, in spite of innumerable material changes, stayed exactly the same in some indescribable way. And you wouldn’t pass up the opportunity to see him for anything. Wild horses couldn't keep you away.

Mind made up, you hold your breath and open the double doors. 

The girls spot you immediately, giving you a comedic wolf whistle as you make your way across the cavernous space towards them, avoiding all extraneous eye contact as you hurry along. You feel thankful as they gather you up, tucking you into their circle and stoking your confidence with affectionate pats to your backside and gentle fingers pushing your hair from your face. One of them presses a plastic cup filled with god-knows-what firmly into your palm, and you don’t look to say thank you before you quickly take a long sip and wait for the acrid feeling to hit your stomach. God bless Chucho’s leftovers, the ultimate first step to lining your stomach. 

Mel, Petra, and Maya are surrounded by a number of extraneous people that you can just about recall from one class or another, but you admire the absolute sincerity with which you're unable to recognise maybe 60% of the people present. The school was big, but did they even go here? It’s amazing how this place felt like the edge of the universe when you were living in it, and now you couldn’t even tell one person you supposedly sat next to in Chemistry from another you were apparently partners with in gym.

You nod and smile in earnest, laughing at the right moments when the conversation dips and nodding along when someone mentions your name, but you find it surprisingly liberating to essentially feel like a stranger passing through. You recall your earlier observation; time heals all, if not most, wounds. As usual, the idea had been worse than the reality.

You see Javi following the next crowd in a few minutes later, presumably also having snuck off for a quiet smoke at some point before diving in, and clearly having found some friends in the process. Even from afar, you can see he crosses the room in broad strides that exude authority, smiling boldly and waving confidently as people call his name to say hi. This place was his bitch back in the day, and it was written all over his face. He may not have played football or performed exceptionally in his classes, but he was well-liked, and when it came down to being remembered, that was what really mattered. He'd been gone for less than a year and he was already as close as Laredo got to a local celebrity.

Once he’s finished saying his hellos, shaking hands, and kissing cheeks, you watch him turn to face the room. He’s searching you out, scanning the place for you the moment he’s got himself a drink, but can’t make you out through the crowd of women surrounding you. It gives you free leave to stand a stare, just a little. You and everyone else, apparently. 

“Javi looks good, you know,” sighs Maya, clearly spotting him from across the room.

“You shouldn’t say that. You’re engaged!” mumbles Petra, scolding her halfheartedly as he tries to cover her laughter with a cough. Five years later and Maya still said everything that was on her mind. You wished everyone was a bit more like her. “If you’re going to be inappropriate at least be subtle about it.” 

“Well, it’s true!” she quips back, unphased by the reprimand. “Look at him. He’s tasty. And if you disagree, you're lying. Even Bug would agree, and she’s like his sister.”

You baulk at the statement, feeling your eyes pop out of your head just a little.

The outward optics of your relationship with Javi had become a running joke between the two of you since things had kicked off last year, one that he was none too fond of when he spent most of the summer between your legs with his thumbs buried in your skin. It was a cheap jest that only earned you a pinch on the backside and usually another round of proving just how wrong that statement really was, but it made you laugh nonetheless. 

Hearing it from Maya was different though. It made you feel a bit green, but she did have a point; the line probably did look blurry from the outside in. It was a burden of your unconventional situation, and one that often begged a question the two of you went through great lengths to avoid answering: what would people think if they found out? 

Years of sneaking around had left you a practised hand but, as you’d surmised in Fairfax, it’s not like it had ever intentionally been a secret. It had just never crossed your mind to make it collective knowledge, either. Most of the time, it was too fleeting to even warrant putting it in a sentence. At the very least, Maya’s abrupt suggestion reassured the fact that public opinion was, as usual, none the wiser. For a town that loved to gossip, most people really had no idea what was going on behind closed doors. 

Except for Mel. Mel wasn’t like the others. She paid attention to everything, especially your soft spots. And he was your softest spot of all. You pretend not to notice her sideways glance from your left but, as usual, she lets it slide. If she wanted to comment, she would.

“It’s the training,” you add, trying to match the tone of the discussion. “He said it’s been intense. Lots of… heavy lifting.” 

“Well if I wasn’t otherwise involved, he could lift me any time. Every woman in this room is going to be looking at him twice tonight.”

You school the furrow in your brow yet again. Mel smirks.

Finally spying the line of women essentially checking him out from across the room, Javi, at last, catches your eye. He frowns, points, and shrugs huskily at you, a combination of gestures that depict a frustrated ‘Where have you been?’ You can see from the way he paces across the room that If it was acceptable to run to you, he would. 

“Thank god, there you are,” he husks, scooping you under his arm easily with his broad reach and yanking you aggressively to his side. The movement is full of energy that he’s trying to dissipate. If the circumstances were different he’d probably be throwing you over his shoulder right now, but instead, you see the way he’s directing it elsewhere, funnelling it into a more socially acceptable greeting. Instead of lifting you from the ground, he tucks you protectively, against him, something resembling a human shield, and presses a soft kiss to your temple. 

“Here I am,” you reply somewhat breathlessly, enjoying his immediate proximity for the first time in a long time. “Long time no see, Peña.”

“Peña? Am I in trouble?” He winks at you, his mood light and jovial, but the way he’s staring at you, into you, is mesmerising. You wish, crudely, that you were alone. 

“I’m not sure yet.” 

“Do I need to get another drink?”

“From the looks of things, you’re going to need one. I think it’s going to be a long evening.” 

“You’re telling me. Talk about leaving me to the dogs, I thought you’d bailed. I actually like most of the people here, but there are only so many times you can say you like the decorations. I had to go outside for a rest. Thankfully all the fun people still hang out by the back door.” 

“I guess some things never change.” 

“Ladies,” he nods at your friends, eventually acknowledging their presence after he’s given you a good look over to check that you’re generally still in one piece. 

His smile is sickly sweet as he waves them hello. You resist the urge to pinch his backside from your concealed position at his side, but can’t hide the face of mock disgust as they all chime ‘Hi Javi’, their voices bordering an octave higher than normal. If they kept it up, you weren’t going to be able to hold your tongue all night. Meanwhile, Javi was beaming like a slick git. 

Dipping in and out of the chatter with the others, the two of you string together a parallel conversation in hushed whispers and lowered tones. 

“You look good,” he husks, pressing another small kiss to your head.

“So do you.”

“Missed your face. And your ass. Is there going to be a reunion at this reunion?” 

You scoff at his blunt appraisal but revel in the openness of his intention. You’re glad six months hasn’t put him off, offered him up something else, something better. 

“You tell me. I’ve always followed your lead.”

He turns to you more obviously now, blocking the others from your conversation entirely. He couldn’t care less for the optics. “I hardly think that’s true, sweetheart.” 

“Really? You think I’m in control here?”

“I think neither of us is. At this point, I’m relying on manifest destiny.” 

“Interesting,” you whisper back lowly. “I’ll keep that in mind next time I think I’m making a conscious decision about my sex life.” 

“All I’m saying is there are about a hundred different places I’d love to run you ragged about this place. And if you thought I wouldn’t notice exactly which sundress you’re wearing, you’re sorely mistaken.”

You chuckle at his observation. The dress you’d been wearing that night he took you home after your date, the night that changed everything. 

“‘Sorely’,” you repeat back. “I think I like the idea of that.” 

So what if you’re not alone, it still always feels like you are. 

“So Javi, tell us. How are things?” pipes up Mel, drawing the two of you from the bubble you so often find yourselves in and offering you a line back to the real world. “You’re the talk of the town, as usual.”

He blushes slightly, but in reality, that must be his favourite question right now: ‘How are things at your dream job?’ Hearing him gush outwardly is simultaneously too sweet for words and a tad grating. How many times in one conversation can a man say ‘all in a day's work’? He’s made for the small talk as much as the role itself. But you can’t begrudge him his happiness. This is everything he’s ever wanted. You think.

When the niceties are all used up the conversation drifts. Eyes are caught across the room and the girls dissipate to chat with other people, something you have no desire to take part in. Finally left to your own devices, Javi ushers you over to the bleachers, and you take a seat next to him, as close as the circumstances allow. Thankfully, the two of you sitting side by side is nothing to warrant a second glance. 

“I’ve missed you. So much,” he huffs, the relief to finally speak freely weighing on his words. 

“Me too. It feels like it’s been forever, even for us,” you breach, choosing your words carefully. 

“We were spoiled last year, I think,” he grumbles in agreement. “It almost felt like… I don’t know.”

“Like we were together,” you fill in easily, wanting to say it. Wanting to acknowledge it, because it’s true. Or it was. You’re sure to keep your tone registered, non-committal, but you don’t think it has the desired effect. It’s loaded, and he knows it. The interaction was familiar but the circumstances were not. You hadn’t planned what this part was going to feel like; the first time after the last time. 

He seems stumped, but not offensively, as if he knows this isn’t the time to talk about it. “It was a very good run.” A non-commital reply. 

“Calling it a run implies that it’s over,” you can’t help but add, unable to meet his eye as you say it.

“Let’s not be hasty, I don’t think that’s what we agreed in Michigan.” 

“I have some news, though,” you pipe up, perhaps a tad obvious in your conversational retreat. “I think I’ve found a job I’d like to go for.” 

“Oh? That’s great. What is it?”

“Well, I can’t really say.” 

“What do you mean you can’t say?” he laughs, confused.

“It’s complicated,” you lilt, covering the small smile at the corner of your mouth. “We’ll call it a data protection issue.”

“What does that even mean? Are you going to be an agent or something?”

“Hah,” you breathe, again trying to remedy your tone. “More like PR, client work, that kind of thing. Just don’t get shirty if I start acting vaguely about it all. I think I’m going to go for it.”

“That’s different, for you, no?”

“Yes and no. Have you ever considered that maybe there are some things you don’t know about me?” The question comes out harder than you mean it to, your tone a bit too harsh to be fair. 

“No, actually,” he replies bluntly, and you hear that same restraint in his voice. “I don’t think I like the idea of it.”

“Well, a lot can change when you don’t see a person for six months.” 

And there it was, slipping loose in a single sentence. The way it always did with him, whether you liked it or not, the person you chose to share nearly everything with. He sighs quietly when he finally gets the gist of what he’s dealing with. Not only are you frustrated, but you’re talking about it, however unintentionally. Not a traditional combination for you.

“You know it’s not on purpose, sweetheart,” he begins, testing the water.  

“I know it’s not. I never said that.” 

His brows quirk, trying to hide his amusement. “Are you actually grumpy at me, or at the situation?”

You grouse at how directly he calls your bluff. “I’d like to say both, but it’s not true.”

“Well go on, out with it then. You’re sitting on the fence and you know it.” 

Rearing at the challenge, you let it out.

“I think you’re right, about us being spoilt. I was just enjoying it. It was a nice summer. A nice year, or two. I won’t say that I took it for granted, but I will say I was… pleasantly surprised. Maybe I had just assumed it would keep working. More than anything I’m just annoyed at myself for expecting anything different. I thought I knew better, but then I see you and…” You look across at him apologetically. “Nothing is simple when I actually see you. All my plans…” 

You hear him hum in some sort of reluctant approval when you can’t find the words, and when he doesn’t know how to respond either you decide to fill the gap with the question that’s been on your mind for months now. 

“Are we still on the same page? I just need to know. I worry sometimes that I’m a few chapters ahead, or that you’ve backpedalled. If there’s someone else-,”

“There is no one else,” he interrupts calmly, offering no room for negotiation. “It’s the same page. Just different books. In different places.” 

You feel a non-committal tap to your shoulder and find yourself turning your head before you can answer. 

“Lyle?” you blurt out, incapable of hiding the surprise in your tone. Lo and behold, towering over you is your old lab partner, beer in hand, staring down at you sheepishly. 

He nods at you politely, smiles, and offers a hand to Javi at your side. “Javier,” he states, his voice strong but perhaps a little nervous. 

“Lyle,” he mutters back in response, shaking his hand in return, hard. 

“How are you?” he asks, directing the question to your person but it’s Javi that interjects with the forced pleasantries. 

“Great thanks Lyle. And I can see you’re doing just fine. Long time no see.” 

“I was hoping to have a word, if you don’t mind?” he asks, trying again to direct his attention at you and you alone, this time stepping to your side to lean and catch your arm with his palm. 

“Actually, we were just about to head out for a smoke,” Javi cuts in, yet again. You flash your eyes at him widely, unable to hide the smirk that breaks your face. If he didn’t have that shit-eating grin plastered on his face, this interaction would be bordering offensive, but his overly-friendly persona is holding everything together by a comedic thread. 

“Right,” replies Lyle, clearly working hard to hide the obvious rejection. “Well I just wanted to say…” he turns to you entirely, doing whatever he can to cut Javi from the conversation with minimal success. “I wanted to apologise for the last time we saw each other. I think about more than you’d expect. I don’t really know why I acted that way if I’m being totally honest. It’s just what I thought boys were supposed to do, not really give a shit about anything. But I’m really sorry, I was an ass.” 

Both you and Javi gawk from your position on the stadium seating, your eyes wide with sympathetic surprise, Javi's narrowing suspiciously at the scene unfolding before him. The way he’s looming at the edge of the surprisingly heartfelt interaction is bordering comical. 

‘That’s… really kind of you, Lyle. I didn’t expect that from you, or anybody here tonight, actually.” 

“Well, I was young, and stupid. Easy enough to say in retrospect but it’s true. I just wanted you to know... I wouldn’t make that same mistake again.”

You see Javi try his hardest to school his features. He’s holding on to his smirk by a thread. You’re fighting for your life to remain calm and indisposed.

“Thanks, Lyle. I really appreciate it.”

“Not that you seem to need to hear that. You look great, really great. And I think everyone knows it,” he offers jokingly, opening up his stance to gesture to the familiar crowd of boys who are observing the interaction menacingly from the other side of the room. You try not to audibly gag as you watch them, watching you, but you suppose it was the effect you had been hoping for. They definitely had noticed.

“Well, that’s all," he sighs, clearly disappointed by the inopportune moment. "I’ll let you guys go now, you have a good night.”

“No seriously, Lyle,” calls Javi as the other man strides away. “Thank you.” Lyle nods back, clearly perplexed, perhaps on the border of understanding. Javi beams back insincerely, lifting his hand to wave, and then turns quickly to exit the room, pulling you in tow.  

“You just love to push your luck, don’t you?” you whisper when you catch him up, falling into step as you make your way toward the exit.

“It was funny. You know it was funny. Do you really think I’m not going to thank the guy? If not for him-,”

You turn quickly to catch him, stopping him cleanly in his path. 

“If not for him then what? Hm?”

He steps into you just as swiftly, filling your space, matching your energy faster than you can describe. 

“If not for him, then I’d never have had the opportunity to show you what a good time is supposed to look like.” 

“Oh 'a good time', is that what that was?”

“Too fucking right it was, fancy another one?” 

You beam up at him, and the way his face cracks into a smile when he stares down into you is enough to make your toes curl.

“You fucking bet I do.” 

He opens the door of the old truck, offering you a hand to let you perch on the rear passenger seat while he braces his arm against the roof to close the space around you. You watch the way he pulls the pack of cigarettes from his pocket, fobs the straight into his mouth, and lights it, all in one swift, practised movement. He couldn’t deny he’d picked up the dirty habit, but you’d struggle to say it didn’t make him look handsome. 

Since he’d first walked into the room you could see that everything about him carried a new air of maturity, control. He’d always held space in a casual sense, commanding the room or arranging the conversation easily, but it was something more than that now. His teenage confidence had transpired into effortless self-possession, and it fit him like a glove. If you were being unkind you’d compare it to when he’d received his hall monitor badge when he was nine, revelling in the recognition of being somebody important, someone to be listened to, however menial it may have been. But really, you couldn’t be happier for him. 

The root of his need to pursue something he deemed as 'worthwhile' would be lost to you still for a while yet, something he kept so closely guarded even you barely got more than a glimpse of it. You had your secrets, he was allowed his. But the fact that that need, that requirement, to prove himself was being satisfied one way or another was all that really mattered. And it was clearly paying off in other ways. He was thriving. With his leg propped against the doorframe, humming absentmindedly to himself, he was unapologetically himself, just as he always had been. But, for the first time in a long time, you could see he wasn’t questioning it. The self-imposed weight of expectation was lifted ever so slightly by the knowledge that he was exceeding expectations. He’d done exactly what everyone thought he would, and with that came a chance to bask in the glory of public approval.  

You reprimand yourself for coveting it: you couldn't wait to know what that felt like.  

As always, you just hoped that his idea of the ‘right thing’ was grounded somewhere secure; more a matter of proving something to himself than to everyone around him. Lamentably, you already knew that wasn’t true. 

He gives you a long look as he puffs away, regarding you, you know, with as much affectionate scrutiny as you’re giving him. The thought of him being able to take you apart in the same detail as you can him makes you feel both nauseous and overwhelmed with fondness. You wish for the hundredth time in your life that you could read his mind. 

“I knew I’d be here, but I didn’t expect you,” he eventually surmises, as if he’s only now thinking about it. “I thought you’d be well over this kind of stuff.”

“I am. There was a bit of arm twisting involved,” you laugh, thinking of the girls standing in the gym behind you. “If I’m being totally honest, I was banking on the fact you would be here. I’m running out of ways to coincidentally run into you on the basis of things like ‘sharing a home address’ or ‘religious holidays’. You’re an increasingly hard man to reach.” 

“I know,” he replies simply, “I’m sorry. I should have started with that when you brought it up. I knew it was going to be busy but I didn’t expect… It’s been longer than I wanted. If it's any consolation I’m not happy about it either. But I think it’s going to stay like this, at least for a while. But never say never.”

You absorb his upfront sincerity and swallow the urge to reply with something acidic and sarcastic. “I think you’re probably right. I don’t love it, but it is what it is. It’s just… difficult, after having it so good for so long. But I think you’d be more worried if I was loving your perpetual absence.”

He nods thoughtfully, absorbs your stance, chuckles at your inevitable quip. “Is it still hard? Being here?” he presses on. 

“Yes and no. For a while there I wasn’t really that affected. My parents are long gone. Absence makes the heart grow fonder and all that. If anything, I’ve enjoyed the times that I have come home because I’m choosing to do it. But, yes, actual high school might be pushing the limit just a bit.” You’re amazed at how easily the words leave your own mouth. Only for him. “And you’re loving this, I assume?” you return. 

He tries to hide the quiet smirk that's drawn from being exposed so directly, but fails quickly. In the late afternoon light you notice the shadow of his stubble has become a permanent feature. It only adds to this new idea of him. 

“Yeah, a bit. I love it here, full stop. But since I’ve been gone I can’t shake the feeling that I’m taking a step away from the person I was here. There’s nothing worse than realising you peaked in high school.” 

“Javi,” you scoff, “you’re the last person I’d pin as having peaked in high school. Have you seen yourself? No one in that room can take their eyes off you. You’re fucking golden balls, just like always.”

“Coming from you,” he returns earnestly. “You really have no idea, do you?”

“What do you mean?” you mumble, flustering a bit as he takes a step closer to you, invading your space even further in the open door.  

“You’re beautiful, Bug. In spite of this place, you come in here and breeze through those doors like you own the place. And you’re not even trying. There’s nothing wrong with coming back here just to blow the doors off the place.” 

“I like the person you are now,” you offer in response to his earlier remark, lost for words at his overwhelming accolades.

“I like the person you are now, too. A lot.” 

“And if it’s any consolation, there’s one thing that will clearly never change. I’m pretty sure you’ve had those jeans since senior year.”

“Different jeans, same cut. Not my fault I got it right the first time. I've never heard you complain before.”

“I never said I was complaining,” you hum back warmly, smiling smugly as he closes the gap between you even further.  

Taking the final step, he leans down, ducking his head under the doorway of the cab to kiss you firmly. You’re living your life strung together by a golden thread of those kisses. You’d give anything for those kisses. 

“I’d like to see the look on Lyle’s face if he came out here right now,” he huffs teasingly. You feel the words against your skin as he pulls his mouth away just for a second to eek them out, unable to resist the opportunity. 

But you’re just as petty. 

“Kid sister?”

He sputters at your words as if he can taste them, pulling away quickly and frowning down at you thoughtfully in spite of your devilish grin. “You know I hate it,” he grovels, spanking your hip sharply with his fingertips before returning his face to your neck, brushing his stubble up and down the tender skin there. 

“I know. Maya brought it up. It just makes me laugh just how little idea people have of it.”

“Of what?”

“Of the fact we’ve been having incredible sex, at least semi-frequently, since we were twenty-something.” 

You swear he presses against you automatically at the open mention of your sex life. Acknowldgeing it out loud has always been a point of excitement for you both, driven by the lack of opporunuity to talk about it in any conventional sense. It was a flirtation with chance to speak about it frivolously. 

“I’ve been significantly missing that ‘incredible sex’ since I’ve been on base, you know.”

“How ever have you been coping?” you drawl back, batting your lashes at him. 

“Hand over fist. But it’s not the same without you whimpering in my ear,” he husks, pressing his cheek to yours to stream his words directly into you ear so that you can feel the full weight of them.

“I do not whimper.”

“Yes, you do, and it’s just about the best thing I’ve heard in my entire life. I love the way I get to see you turn to jelly, it’s kept me up at night for years.” 

Pressing his lips to yours again, he takes advantage of your position below him and pushes you playfully onto the backseat until you come flush with the worn leather. Without thought, you pull him with you, and he follows you down willingly, unhurried, adjusting himself gently to spread his board frame over the length of you. You love the size of him against you, the way he can pull you against him so easily with just the palm of his hand against the small of your waist. 

If you’d known this was how the evening was going to go, you wouldn’t have hesitated. What would the people say, you jibe in your own head. Getting caught making out in Javier Peña’s car, with Javier Peña. Now that would give them something to talk about. 

As if mirroring your thoughts, he ruts your body against him harder and brings his teeth down to catch your lower lip between his own. The biting. You had forgotten about the biting. 

“God I am unbelievably turned on right now, this is definitely some kind of reticent fantasy.” 

You moan against him, resisting the urge to egg him on any further. You didn’t want to give them too much to talk about. The sun hadn’t even set yet.

“We can’t fuck in the school parking lot.”

“Why not? I haven’t been caught before.”

“I don’t even want to know what you’re implying there,” you scoff in partially genuine disgust. Let’s just go somewhere,” you implore, getting surprisingly impatient as you tug and pull at his large frame, encouraging him to cover you entirely, pin you down, hide you away.  

“What? Home? At 9pm? Where Dad is?”

“Ngh,” you moan, stifling the truly libido-killing suggestion. You weren’t going back to shagging with your face in a pillow. Not when you’d had him exactly how you wanted him. Shoving him off you reluctantly, you push off the bench seat and move to the front passenger side. 

“Just get in and drive, I know a place.” 

Your recollection of the shrouded dirt path is surprisingly accurate as you direct Javi down a secluded turning off one of the old back roads. Considering you’d never made the journey in daylight, you admire how easily you can recall its location, recognising the abandoned call box and the wonky sign reading ‘private: keep out', still redundant as ever.

“How do you even know about this place?” queries Javi as he parks the truck off the track and looks at you suspiciously. 

“That’s for me to know,” you reply cooly, pretending not to look at him.  

“Tut tut.” 

Instead of rising to his teasing, you reach across the space for the buckle of his belt and tug unceremoniously. If you really were back here, sneaking away down a serupticious back road, you were throwing caution to the wind with absolute enthusiasm. 

“No more questions. Stop talking and help me get your cock out, Peña,” you huff as you crash your lips into his, this time with none of the censored reservations from the parking lot. You see his arousal flare immediately, unable to do anything but gape at your forward movements. When you continue to fumble hastily, he finally reads how intent you are on undressing him, and begins to help you with the zipper. 

“Undo your shirt,” you breathe as you pull the length of him unabashedly from the tight confines of the taut denim, “I want to see you.” 

“Jesus-,” he huffs, both at your words and your hands, unable to hide the shudder of his breath when you wrap your fingers around him. He follows suit and begins to undo the buttons, revealing his broad chest inch by inch until you’re greeted with the full view of his tight bare stomach and his hard length pressing against it. 

“Please tell me you’ve been this hard since you kissed me,” you moan, your tone glazed, unapologetic in how lovingly you’re staring down to admire the sight of him, tense and wanting in your small grip. 

It never failed you to amaze you, how lewd the sight of him laid out for you like this would always seem. It was the small part of your brain harrowing back to that first night, when everything was new and absurd and above all else, obscene. The part that says, even now, seeing him like this is so wrong it’s right. You’d never get over the fact you got to have him like this, tender and ripe and yours for the taking. He wanted you badly, in whatever form you came.

“I’ve been this hard since I saw you,” he breathes back, bringing his own hand to join yours around him, and fucking his hips up hard into the hold of your combined grip. 

You moan outright at the sight of it. He has one arm braced against the window, the other wrapped around your own as the two of you coax him intently.

Emboldened by the transparency of your mirrored enthusiasm, you bring your head down to join the fray, taking the ripe head of him in your mouth and feeling him continue to fuck up into you, through your hand and his, and against your tongue. He groans headily, and you feel his thighs tense under your palm as you steady yourself against him.

You feel no fear with him like this. His arousal is so clear, so plain in the palm of your hand, that you have nothing to question about yourself or him. You were allied in your emotions, in the way your feelings overwhelmed you both so easily, stolen but not lost in the give and take that you'd learned to find in one another. Having someone want you, crave you so desperately that you can only be lured further into that lurid space where lust takes over and nowt else matters is something you could happily chase for the rest of your life.

You longed to always feel this way; to be so sure of yourself that, no matter which way you stepped, you were going to be met with a firm hand and gentle praise.

“That’s it,” you murmur, never letting your lips leave the smooth swell of him as the two of you work together. “That’s it, you good boy.” 

“Fuck. Fuck- Get in the back, in the back,” he orders, flustered by your authority but unwilling to concede to it. When you try to continue with your movements, ignoring his instructions, he slaps your backside, grabs you by your waist, and pushes you through the gap in the central console. 

You gasp as he manhandles you into the back of the vehicle, surprisingly aroused by how easily he manages to put you off your course and place you somewhere else. You turn to sit on the back seat, flustered by the upheaval, to come to face him as he looks towards you from the driver's side. “But I want to-,” 

“I don’t care, you can take your time with me later. Would you just put your legs up so I can get between them, please?”

You eyeball him deeply, equal parts frustration and arousal. But he knows you love it when he talks. And he knows you can’t say no to him when he does. 

“Don’t make me ask again,” he growls.

Using what little restraint you have left to call his bluff, you spread your legs from your position on the back seat, bringing one knee to your chest and the other so that your foot comes to rest on the headrest in front. You see his lips form a tight line, while yours upend into a smug smile. 

“Bug,” he stutters, hands coming to grip the back of the seat as he swallows hard. “Where’s your underwear?”

“In my purse,” you reply coolly. 

“How long have they been in your purse?”

“Since I saw you in the parking lot. Call it… what did you say? Manifesting.” 

“Call it- fuck-,” he breathes, and throws himself over the centre control to the backseat to join you. Pressing you back down to where he had you earlier, your back flush against the bench seat, he brings his knuckles up between your legs to brush harshly against you, totally exposed and waiting for him.

“God, I love-,” he sighs, unable to finish his sentence when he feels the slick touch of you against him. “There’s no way you can tell me you don’t enjoy these run-ins being in weird places. You’re soaked.”

“I never said I didn’t like the weird places,” you groan, cupping him with just as much zeal as he arranges himself against you. 

“No, you’re right. You didn’t have to, the answer’s all over my fingers.” 

The benefit of this being a repeat affair is the familiarity of it all. But with the time apart, you can sense it’s like a game. He’s always loved to show off, loved that he’s the root cause of nearly everything you know about sex and what you like about it. He knows your best and worst spots, your favourite things, the ones that drive you wild. And now, given the chance, he wastes no time in stringing them all together. As if on queue, he bites down on your throat, and presses his fingers, hard, up and into you. 

And was right, before; you do whimper. 

“'Some things never change',” he breathes smugly into your shoulder as he pushes his fingers into you at a dominating pace. 

You retaliate, tucking your ankles around the back of his waist to draw him closer against you. You know he loves to feel you, loves to be so close against you that there’s not even an inch to spare. 

“You want to play that game?” you raise. 

“We already are,” he returns. 

He pulls you apart with his fingers easily, taking advantage of your worked-up state to bypass your usual anxieities. You’re too far gone to care anyway, too engrossed by having his attentions focused on you in the confines of the tight space, knowing you’re meant to be somewhere else doing something altogether more appropriate.

Revelling in your spaced-out gaze, he sits up between your legs and shrugs the open shirt off his shoulders, his eyes never leaving yours as he does it. The sight of him towering over you, levis around his knees, torso bare and gleaming and golden with the heat of the small space, makes you draw your legs together with a sigh.

“Bend over,” he huffs, balling the shirt and throwing it to the floor.

“Make me.”

The attitude rises, and the two of you smile satisfyingly at one another. 

“Suit yourself.” 

A large palm grips at your thigh, the other at your hip, and Javi flips you onto your front in a surprisingly swift movement. You had joked about the training, but he was strong, noticeably so, and the feeling of him easily arranging you exactly where he wanted you made your head spin. You could give in to it if you let yourself, let him have you and take you however you wanted. You could go limp and fragile under his touch and surrender, totally. That would be a big step, the final one, even.

Not yet, you resolve.

Instead, you work with him, and as he crowds over you, you bend your knees and manoeuvre yourself into place underneath him. He holds you tightly as you arch your back, steady yourself, and bring your backside up to rest against his hard length. He pushes the straps of your dress from your shoulders and pulls the slick fabric down over your chest, and up over your ass, leaving you exposed, and him free to finally run himself against you, painstakingly slowly.  

Running his stubble across your bare back to bring his face to your ear, he wraps his arms around you, and asks the final question. “Do you want it?” It’s sultry and tedious, a totally unnecessary mockery as he holds you at the end of a thread. “Tell me you want it, and I’ll give it to you.”

You shift against him, causing him to pull through your folds, and both of you to sigh frustratedly. 

“If you don’t-,” you start to threaten, but before you can even finish the sentence he pushes into you and bottoms out in one easy movement. You feel him in your belly and somehow, despite the heat, still manage to blush.

“Oh fine, you’ve convinced me.” 

He takes you hard and fast and with a devastating precision that can only be admired given the limited surroundings. Using his tight grip on your hips, he thrusts against you viciously, leaving no room to slack once he hears your enthusiastic murmurs. He loved to prove it to himself, even now; loved to know that you loved it. 

"Fuck," you squeal as the skin begins to slap and you find yourself focusing on the sounds around you, wet and crude and immeasurably exciting given the absurd location.

"Fuck, yes," he corrects, forever intolerable, even at the height of passion.

His voice brings you back to him, back to the person you have holding you tightly, tenderly, even as he attempts to break you to pieces. There was nothing like this, nothing as visceral and beautiful as the way he held you close while he took you apart. It was different, he was different, yes, but exquisitely so. Every time you wish things would stay the same, you eat your words. Every time he offers you something more. You'd be a fool not to take it.

As you start to retaliate, throwing your hips back to meet every one of his hard thrusts, you feel the telltale sign of him gripping the fold of your hips, trying to focus his mind as he gets close. 

“You know,” you tease between your own shaking breaths, “if you come, it’s game over. But I can keep going.”

“Just because I come doesn’t mean I’m finished,” he replies through gritted teeth, deciding to slap his hips into you harder, faster. “It just gives you something to clean up.” 

Caught out as always by the effortless filth that pours from his mouth, you wail, and curse yourself for it. 

“That’s it,” he hisses, entirely too pleased by finally getting you exactly where he wants you, noisy and pliant. “Take it. Take. It.” His words are punctuated by his thrusts, which in turn are met every time with your own. “You looked so good, shame you’re going to go back in there all messy.” His words are losing their punch as he gets closer and closer to his limit, but the breathy moans that replace his authoritarian tone just make the feeling that much sweeter.  

“Maybe they’ll know. Maybe they’ll know exactly why,” you keen back, desperate to push him over the edge the same way he does with you.

“As they should,” he finally growls, and you feel him bend, break, and pull out sharply to spill over the sight of you. His hand never leaves your side, not even for a second. "As. They. Should.”

“Tonight. Wait until two, then come and see me. If you can walk that far.” 

That’s what he’d said to you as you both sidled back to the gym as if nothing had happened.

You’d baulked at his audacious words, spoken so freely in the open space, but even then already felt the familiar pull in your belly only moments after getting what you’d wanted. If you thought you craved him before, this new Javi, the adult one, was something else. The trip in the car was... sultry, grown up. You’d go anywhere he told you to. Not that he needed to know that. 

He breezes past you, glancing calmly over his shoulder as re-enters the main hall. You take a moment, forever academic in your administration, to let him reintegrate into the crowd before you follow, smoothing your crumpled dress over your thighs as you wait.

Once a year, to twice a year, to whenever you could manage it; this arrangement had gone from seemingly neat and tidy to a logistical and emotional rollercoaster.

But when brush your fingers over the tender split in your bottom lip, the place where his teeth had been, you resolve that you had got it right after the storm: it was worth the hassle. Enough to get you out of bed at two in the morning, at least, and have you creeping down the hallway of your own house like a cat burglar. Your feelings had never been simpler, plainer, your passion growing unashamedly year-on-year with ever-less to hold you back.

What was getting harder, though, were the choices. For you, at least, the stakes had never been higher.

In the back of your mind, you knew it was eventually going to be him, or you, or neither. A situation didn’t exist where you both got what you needed from yourselves, whilst still getting it from each other.

You’d made him promise not to compromise for that exact reason; you would never be the thing to keep him from what he needs by offering him something that he wants. Six months was a long time. And he was right, it was only going to get longer. At the end of this year, you were going to have to choose for yourself what you wanted and where to go. And you already knew it couldn’t with be him, not in the way that meant you got both. 

It was doomed from the start, one way or another. You always knew that. But you didn't care. Nothing worth having ever came without a fight. You knew that better than anyone.

For now, there was one more night where you didn’t need to think about it. Where, in quiet serendipity, you could just be exactly what the other needed, one day at a time. 

A/N: The ‘agreement in Michigan’ that Javi refers to and the 'promise not to compromise' that Bug ends with will be explained in the interlude Solicitation.

Playlist Recommendation

Taglist

@furious-rogue-stuff

@athalien

@sara-alonso

@vanemando15

@chronic-nosebleed

@mashomasho

@hnt-escape

[hylasposts]

October 9th!!! Long runs are getting longer and my body is feeling some type of way. I do the same thing when I’m running but I’m so happy you’ve put your stories down in writing so I can lie in bed with my massage gun assaulting my quads reading our lovey kinky Marcus!!

Born to Run Series Masterlist

Pairing: Marcus Pike x Marathon Runner f!reader (no y/n)

Rating: E for eventual smut

Word Count: 55.2k (main story COMPLETE)

Warnings: TW: Attempted Assault in ch. 1, slow burn, sexual tension, size kink, PIV sex (eventual), eventual soft dom!Marcus, light bdsm, spanking. Additional warnings in individual chapter headings.

Summary: Marcus is sent on a vacation to a cozy cabin on a wooded bike trail by his coworkers after his devastating breakup with Theresa. You are training for your upcoming marathon on the same bike trail when one of your runs is interrupted by a creeper on the trail, and you are 'saved' by a handsome stranger with a tragic (recent) past...

A/N: Welcome to my first fic! This is sooooooo self-indulgent and I make no apologies. This came out of a little fantasy I would weave for myself as I--you guessed it--trained for a marathon. I've never watched a whole episode of The Mentalist and I'm sure it shows. I've only ever seen the Marcus bits. Any inaccuracies or inconsistencies are due to my ignorance of the show. This Marcus is a sweet cinnamon roll with a little bit of darkness in the center for uh… added spice. He’s got some anger issues inside, but he’s got good coping skills from a therapist because we love a man who works on himself, folks.

[Playlist]

[Read on AO3]

Chapters

[* denotes spice, **denotes explicit smut]

Prologue (1.7k)

Chapter 1 (2.4k)

Chapter 2 (2.8k)

Chapter 3 (1.7k)

Chapter 4* (4.3k)

Chapter 5* (2.2k)

Chapter 6** (4.8k)

Chapter 7** (3k)

Chapter 8 (2.3k)

Chapter 9** (4.6k)

Chapter 10 (2.5k)

Chapter 11** (2.9k)

Chapter 12** (2.7k)

Chapter 13** (3.8k)

Chapter 14 (5k)

Chapter 15 (3.2k)

Chapter 16 (3k)

Epilogue (2.3k)

Oneshots

Interlude** (takes place between chapters 10 & 11)

Utter Devotion** (post-series)

Am I?** (post-series)

Merry and Bright (post-series, Christmas one-shot)

Yellow ** (post-series)

Break**(post-series, warnings: gun kink)

Drabbles & Asks

What Reader thinks of Marcus's job**

Protective!Marcus Ask (The Break-In)

Period Sex Ask**

Bonus Content and Extras

Moodboard 1

Moodboard 2

Moodboard for Chapter 14

Here's what the bike trail and Marcus's cabin look like

Here's the bridge from Chapter 4

[hylasposts]

ugh this story really GETS me - i mean...literally training for my first marathon and its been.....NOT IDEAL! I like to imagine my own marcus pike waiting for me after my terrible long runs in the humidity. when we talk about comfort fic...this is it for me!

Born to Run Series Masterlist

Pairing: Marcus Pike x Marathon Runner f!reader (no y/n)

Rating: E for eventual smut

Word Count: 55.2k (main story COMPLETE)

Warnings: TW: Attempted Assault in ch. 1, slow burn, sexual tension, size kink, PIV sex (eventual), eventual soft dom!Marcus, light bdsm, spanking. Additional warnings in individual chapter headings.

Summary: Marcus is sent on a vacation to a cozy cabin on a wooded bike trail by his coworkers after his devastating breakup with Theresa. You are training for your upcoming marathon on the same bike trail when one of your runs is interrupted by a creeper on the trail, and you are 'saved' by a handsome stranger with a tragic (recent) past...

A/N: Welcome to my first fic! This is sooooooo self-indulgent and I make no apologies. This came out of a little fantasy I would weave for myself as I--you guessed it--trained for a marathon. I've never watched a whole episode of The Mentalist and I'm sure it shows. I've only ever seen the Marcus bits. Any inaccuracies or inconsistencies are due to my ignorance of the show. This Marcus is a sweet cinnamon roll with a little bit of darkness in the center for uh… added spice. He’s got some anger issues inside, but he’s got good coping skills from a therapist because we love a man who works on himself, folks.

[Playlist]

[Read on AO3]

Chapters

[* denotes spice, **denotes explicit smut]

Prologue (1.7k)

Chapter 1 (2.4k)

Chapter 2 (2.8k)

Chapter 3 (1.7k)

Chapter 4* (4.3k)

Chapter 5* (2.2k)

Chapter 6** (4.8k)

Chapter 7** (3k)

Chapter 8 (2.3k)

Chapter 9** (4.6k)

Chapter 10 (2.5k)

Chapter 11** (2.9k)

Chapter 12** (2.7k)

Chapter 13** (3.8k)

Chapter 14 (5k)

Chapter 15 (3.2k)

Chapter 16 (3k)

Epilogue (2.3k)

Oneshots

Interlude** (takes place between chapters 10 & 11)

Utter Devotion** (post-series)

Am I?** (post-series)

Merry and Bright (post-series, Christmas one-shot)

Yellow ** (post-series)

Break**(post-series, warnings: gun kink)

Drabbles & Asks

What Reader thinks of Marcus's job**

Protective!Marcus Ask (The Break-In)

Period Sex Ask**

Bonus Content and Extras

Moodboard 1

Moodboard 2

Moodboard for Chapter 14

Here's what the bike trail and Marcus's cabin look like

Here's the bridge from Chapter 4

[hylasposts]

“If love is as simple as Neruda says it is… I probably am in love with you.” THIS LINE KILLED ME! I could read snapshots of their life all day. The scenery and dreamy imagery was so vivid. I love these bebes.

Fic: Your Eyes Close As I Fall Asleep

A Cherry Trees fic

Read on Ao3

Fandom: Narcos

Ship: Javier Peña/OFC (Eva)

Words: 2,026

Tags/warnings: Kissing, fingering, outdoor sex, PiV sex, a little mishap involving a zipper and pubes, the big L word!

Summary: We revisit Eva and Javi on the ranch about a month after the end of What Spring Does To The Cherry Trees.

Taglist: @chronic-nosebleed, @flora-screeches, @stevie75, @a-trial-run-on-paper, @mswarriorbabe80 @paulalikestuff, @apascalrascal, @tanzthompson

I do not love you as if you were salt-rose, or topaz,

Or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off.

I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,

In secret, between the shadow and the soul.

I love you as the plant that never blooms

but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers;

thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance,

risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body.

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.

I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride;

so I love you because I know no other way

than this: where I does not exist, nor you,

so close that your hand on my chest is my hand,

so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep.

Letting the last words of the Neruda poem linger in the air, Eva puts down the book in her lap and waits for Javier to speak. The sunset is giving a splendid performance in front of them, and the fall night feels cool. Eva pulls the coarse wool blanket tighter around her and leans the back of her head against Javi’s shoulder. In return, he tightens his arms around her and kisses the side of her head. His body radiates warmth against her back and with his lips against her hair, he mumbles:

“That’s beautiful, but I still don’t get it.”

She smiles, amused by Javi’s inability to appreciate poetry.

“If you think it’s beautiful, half is already won.”

“Why are you so hellbent on making me like poetry, mija?” His hands are slowly making their way to cup her tits under the blanket.

“No soy tu mija.”

“Excuse me, bébé.” He has now proceeded to tracing his lips along her neck.

She scoffs but can’t hold back a smile.

“It was your idea to come out here and to bring a poetry book,” she reminds him, redirecting her attention to the sunset and how it seems to paint everything in blazing shades of red, orange, and yellow. The low trees scattered across the grassy plain cast long shadows over the cattle coming to rest, the occasional low moo carrying with it a sense of sleepiness. The nocturnal chorus of insects is not as mighty as it was in summer, but still provides a welcome ambience to the peaceful scene.

“I like it when you read to me,” Javi admits. “And is there a special reason to why you picked that poem in particular?”

“How do you mean?”

“It had like five I love you’s. Is there something you’d like to tell me?”

Eva sighs softly. A month has gone by since she left Big River Ranch but came back before she even made it into town. Since then, she and Javi are no longer hiding the fact that they are lovers. What more they are is still unclear but her feelings for Javi are profound and real. I love you is, despite the three simple words, a very strong and complicated concept.

“Maybe I don’t see love as something simple, but I wish I could,” she replies. “If love is as simple as Neruda says it is… I probably am in love with you.”

It is no grand proclamation worthy of a movie climax, but Javi understands to take it for what it is. He pulls her in and kisses the side of her head again.

“It doesn’t matter anyway. You’re here.”

“So are you.” Eva turns her head to redirect his lips to hers. The first kiss is a tentative brushing of lips, a gentle teasing of warm breaths in the cooling air. The second is more tangible, lips touching, nipping, Javi’s aquiline nose bumping against Eva’s, both chuckling faintly before starting the third kiss, where Eva leans into Javi, tilts her head, and parts his lips with her tongue. A low murmur rises from Javi’s chest, reverberating through him, the vibrations traveling to Eva as he kisses her back with his trademark hunger. When she shifts with the intention of turning around to face him, he stops her.

“Let me take care of you,” he tells her, his voice dropping more octaves than she thought was possible. Her arousal bleeds into her panties and Neruda’s works fall from her lap to the truck bed when Javi unbuttons her jeans and slides his hand inside. He finds her quickly, his other hand moving under the blankets to cup her breast. Her bra, t-shirt, and puffer vest make it difficult for him to get a good hold, so Eva quickly undoes a few buttons so that he can reach his hand inside, pull down the bra cup, and tease her nipple until it’s stiff and sensitive between his fingertips.

“Javi,” she gasps when he starts to work her clit with two expert fingers of his other hand. Holding onto his thighs on either side of her, she presses her back against his front, eyes closing to the spectacle of color in the sky before her. He peppers her neck with kisses, murmurs encouragements into her ear, and when her core starts to gather and coil up, she begins to move her pelvis and finds that he is hard in his jeans. She rubs herself against him, her moans growing louder and more desperate, legs kicking against the truck bed.

“Fuck me,” she begs of him, and he readily slides two fingers inside her soaked pussy, crooking them just right to make her shake. His hand is like a claw on her mound, his thumb presses down on her clit as he obliges her. It takes only a few moments for her to fall apart, pussy clenching around his fingers, spine bent in a stiff bow, head on his shoulder, his lips on her neck.

“Beautiful,” Javi praises her, withdrawing his hands and instead holding her tight while giving her a chance to collect herself. “Absolutely gorgeous.”

His stiff cock against her back is a palpable reminder that this is far from over, so Eva slowly turns around and comes to her knees between his thighs.

“This for me?” she breathes, hand on his cock straining against the tight denim. Javi swallows audibly and hums when she strokes him lightly.

“You did bring rubbers, didn’t you?” she asks, not really worried he wouldn’t have thought that this would be a perfect opportunity to fuck without Chucho in the next room.

“Back pocket,” Javi confirms, and Eva crashes her mouth to his, kissing him with a desperate passion. She fumbles with his fly as he unbuttons the rest of her flannel, and when she finally unzips his jeans, Javi startles with a shout.

“Ow, fuck!”

“What?” Eva jerks back, staring in surprise.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck!” Javi’s hands go down to his fly. “My fucking pubes got stuck in the zipper!”

“Your what?” Eva’s not sure what she heard was correct.

“My pubic hair is stuck in the zipper!”

As realization dawns on her, she must use every ounce of self-control she has not to laugh. In the dying light, she bows over Javi’s crotch for an inspection.

“It doesn’t seem to be more than a couple of hairs,” she tells him. Javi is breathing in audible hisses.

“Do something!”

“I can either use a knife to cut off the hairs, or just yank – “

“No yanking!”

“This is what happens when you go commando,” she smirks as she moves across the back of the truck to the box of tools. Rummaging through it, she discards different barbed wire cutters and eventually finds a sharp knife. Javi’s eyebrows fly skywards when she shows it to him.

“Please be careful,” he groans.

“I have a steady hand.”

She easily and precisely cuts the offending hairs free and Javi breathes a sigh of relief, even if his face is still distorted in pain.

“Better?” she winks at him as she puts away the knife. Javi glares.

“It’s not funny.”

“It is a little funny.” She straddles him again, raising her hands to his cheeks, thumbs gently passing over his moustache like she was calming down a spooked horse.

“You okay?” she asks in a low voice. Javi’s eyes narrow.

“You mean am I okay to have sex?”

“Not what I meant at all.”

“Just thinking of getting dick…”

“Okay, fine: is your dick okay?”

He comes forward and catches her lips with his. “We’re gonna have to find out.”

The last rays of light find them stripped of their clothes and hiding under the covers, her leg hooked over his hip as they lie facing each other in the gathering dark, Javi’s cock pushing inside Eva’s slick, quivering pussy.

“So good,” she whispers breathlessly between the kisses, “Javi, your cock feels so good, I missed it all day…”

Javi curses in Spanish under his breath, hands fumbling for a grip on her that will keep her in place when he starts to thrust harder, deeper, faster. Eva offers a solution to his problem by pushing him over onto his back and straddling him. To keep warm, she drapes herself over his chest and pulls a blanket over her back, Javi immediately wrapping his arms around her to keep it in place. Reconnecting her lips to his, she starts a slow yet intense grind on his cock, savoring the delicious stretch.

“You feel fuckin’ amazing, hermosa,” he moans between the kisses. “You know just how to ride it.”

“Like this?” Eva squeezes him inside her and smiles when his breath stutters.

“Fuck… do that again.”

She complies, and the growl Javi lets out makes her shiver. She starts to ride him faster, finding the right rhythm for herself to build up again. Wrapping herself around him and hiding her face in the crook of her neck, she rolls her hips hard to get him to rub against the right spot, the heat under the blankets rising as she breaks a sweat. When the orgasm washes over her she sits up straight, cherishing the cold air on her sweaty skin, and shakes as her pussy pulsates with wet release. Barely has she lasted out the waves before Javi pulls her back down on top of him and starts to thrust up into her spent core. Each jab makes her cry out and hold onto his broad shoulders, and Javi throws his arms around her, holding her tight as if to prevent her from escaping until he’s done. When he cums, he sinks his teeth into her shoulder, like he so often does. She has grown used to it and has even begun to look forward to that brief sting of his teeth very nearly breaking her skin.

They lie entwined and look up at the stars twinkling in the dark expanse of space. The moon is almost full, the world bathing in silver and blue. It’s warm and cozy underneath the blankets and that heat in combination with the crisp air makes both of them nod off. When they wake up, they’re shivering and have to hurry to get dressed.

“Careful with the zipper,” Eva teases him.

“I’ve managed fine until you came and nearly butchered my poor – “

“Maybe time to buy some underwear?” she quips and jumps down from the back of the truck. Walking to the passenger side, she is caught up by Javi, who stops her by grabbing her shoulder and making her turn around.

“What – “ she begins, but falls quiet when she sees his face, calm and certain in the cold light of the moon.

“I love you, Eva.”

Eva stares at him, knowing he needs an answer. There’s no point in trying to evade the topic by throwing poetry and excuses at him.

“I…” She clears her throat and starts again. “I love you, Javier.”

He kisses her then, slowly and thoughtfully, as if instilling her with the love he just proclaimed for her. They’re both starting to freeze but kisses require their time and not until their teeth start to chatter does Javi open the passenger door for Eva before rounding the car to get in on the driver’s side.

[hylasposts]

Omg omg!!! KATIE + READER SUPREMACY!!! Amazing follow up!!!

virtus

Part 2 of Triumvirate

Pairing: Javier Peña x f!reader x Katie

Word Count: 14.2k

Rating: Explicit

Summary: Ever since you and Javi invited a third person into your bed, you’re happier than you ever were before in your life. Still you can’t help but feel that something is missing.

Warnings: mention of food | so many feelings!!! this is 50:50 on feelings and smut | smoking | power dynamics | a lot of bi panic | threesome (f/f/m) | Javi is in charge (as a treat) | the oral fixation in this is … a lot | oral (f and m receiving) | size kink | brief hand job | cum eating | a bit of dirty talk | praise kink | fingering | voyeurism | masturbation (m) | spanking | (unprotected) p in v sex

Notes: I am so sorry for the delay, first for making you guys wait for more than a year for an update and then not posting the update when I said I would post it. But it’s finally here: Triumvirate Part 2! I can’t believe it took me almost a year to write this, but I hope it was worth the wait. As ever, this fic wouldn’t exist without its co-author Dani @adricnchase​ who probably spent just as many hours working on this as I did. And I want to thank all of you who patiently waited for an update for such a long time and didn’t give up on this story. You guys are amazing!

***

It was supposed to be a one-time thing.

Keep reading

[hylasposts]

oh god THE PAIN!!! the dynamic of wanting marcus to die to have peace but wanting him to live for evelyn is such DELICIOUS TENSION!! another amazing chapter, beb!!!

How To Kill an Immortal / Chapter 6

Pairing: Marcus Pike x OFC, with flashbacks of Marcus x other OFCs & OMCs

Rating: M (non-explicit smut)

Word Count: 5.7k

Warnings: HEAVY angst, character death mention, HEAVY discussions of death, prominent mention of a gun, Marcus is trying to get himself killed in a very literal sense. In the flashbacks: lots of mentions of war, death, fighting, etc.

Summary: “You promised me you’d do this for me,” Marcus says sharply, a hint of anger rising in his voice. “I returned the sword. It’s time for you to uphold your end of the deal.”

A/N: Buckle up friends it’s time for the climax of the story. Will she? Won’t she?? This is VERY ANGSTY but it’s GOING TO BE OKAY. If you aren’t sure about this one feel free to message me. Any italicized dialogue in the flashbacks is meant to indicate they’re speaking French or German. This chapter is dedicated to my amazing grandfather, 97, who was a WWII vet and emailed me twice with incredible details about his time in France, Germany, and Austria. He was in the Alsace region mostly, but his job, like the one I give to Marcus, was to be a translator, speaking to German POWs and the people in the provinces, commandeering rations and the like. He told me he “made a number of friends” by offering to send letters home for German soldiers. I took those little details and sprinkled it into the story. :) If you’re interested, you can read more HERE. Thank you also to @mandocrasis for the beta <3

Series Masterlist | Main Masterlist

Chapter 6: War

York, England. 2014 AD.

Marcus opens the door of his rented house to see Evelyn standing there. He can tell she’s been crying, although she isn’t now. Her jaw is set–as if she's trying as hard as she possibly can to put on a brave face… and is falling so, so short. He has a sudden, inexplicable urge to hold her close, to wrap his arms around her and bury his nose in her hair and just breathe until everything is okay.

Fuck. He can’t let himself get distracted–he’s so close, he’s so fucking close to this all being over. He ushers her inside.

“Don’t cry,” he orders her. “Please. This is a good thing you’re doing–you’re bringing about an end to countless lifetimes of pain.”

Evelyn just stares at him, her lower lip trembling.

“You promised,” he reminds her quietly.

“I did,” she whispers. “But I don’t know if I c–”

“People aren’t meant to live this long,” Marcus says emphatically. “The longer my life gets, the more it feels like I’m losing my mind. I can’t–there are so many things that I can no longer remember. I’ve lost so much. Evelyn,” he murmurs. “I want this. I want this more than anything.”

Evelyn swallows thickly. “How… how am I supposed–How are we doing this?” she asks.

Marcus purses his lips. “We’re staging this like a suicide,” he says. “I’ve already written a note, it will leave no doubts as to what happened. No one will ever know that you were here.”

Evelyn nods slowly, her eyes still brimming with tears.

“You’re gonna put these on,” Marcus hands her a pair of gloves. “Don’t touch a single thing in this house without the gloves on. Especially not this.” He pulls his gun from its holster.

Evelyn backs away quickly. “What?” Her voice is high-pitched, frantic. 

“Evelyn,” Marcus says calmly. “It has to look like I did it.” He holds the gun out to her. “I’ll show you exactly how to–”

“No!” she suddenly cries. “Absolutely not. I can’t do this.”

“Evelyn,” he repeats, a little firmer this time. “You promised. It’s supposed to be you. It has to be you.”

She’s still shaking her head. “I can’t do this. I can’t just shoot you.”

“I know I’m asking a lot. I am,” Marcus concedes. “I’m going to help you, okay? You can close your eyes and turn your head. You won’t see anything. I don’t want you to have to see.”

“I’m not going to fucking shoot you!” Evelyn hisses.

“You promised me you’d do this for me,” Marcus says sharply, a hint of anger rising in his voice. “I returned the sword. It’s time for you to uphold your end of the deal.”

“I’ve never even shot a gun,” she squeaks. 

“I’m going to help you,” Marcus says again, his tone gentling. “All you need to do is shoot, drop the gun right where you are, and back away without looking.”

He pulls her into the bathroom. “We’re gonna do it here,” he says decisively. “We’ll crack the door, so that you only need to stick your arm through. That way you won’t see a thing.”

Evelyn is crying again. Marcus grabs her shoulders. “I’ve waited for this moment since Isabella’s death,” he tells her. “I’m begging you.”

She shoves him away, tears streaming down her face. “Marcus, please, I–”

“God dammit, Evelyn, you fucking promised!” he yells. He grabs a gloved hand and shoves the gun into her palm. “I can’t keep doing this!” 

“Do you still wanna know about the dreams?” Evelyn yells back at him through broken sobs, her voice heavy and hoarse with crying. “Wanna know what I saw almost every fucking night when I went to sleep for years?”

“No,” Marcus grits out through clenched teeth. 

“We’re lovers,” she growls. “We’re supposed to be together. I knew you before I met you–I knew your personality, I knew your sense of humor, I knew your mannerisms. And as soon as I saw you, I knew that the dreams had it all correct. Every. Single. Detail.” 

“God dammit, please don’t do this,” Marcus begs her. It… it can’t be that. He can’t be that for her and the fact that he wants, against all good sense and reason, for Evelyn’s visions to be true makes him even more resolute in his goal. He can’t let himself do this again, he can’t– 

“I knew you were sweet and kind and caring and I knew you were sad, haunted by your past,” she sobs out, her voice quieting. “I didn’t know how much of a past, obviously, but I knew you had experienced a lot of pain.”

“If you know that about me then you know you need to put an end to it.” Marcus urges. “One person cannot possibly handle this much pain. Dangling this… relief in front of me and taking is back is just plain cruel–”

“You can’t make me be the one to do it,” she whispers. “It can’t be me. Not after over a decade of slowly falling in love with you.”

Marcus stares her in the face in disbelief and horror, his breath coming in short, furious bursts. He yanks her hand, still holding the gun, up to his temple and presses it there. “Evelyn,” he growls. “Fucking do it.”

Cantigny, France. 1918 AD.

The smell of smoke was in the air. Smoke, mold, dirt, and death. 

Marcus’s unit of fellow infantrymen was huddled in a muddy trench as the sounds of shelling echoed all around in the pitch-black night.

He was significantly older in appearance than all of them–looking closer in age to the Colonels and Generals than his fellow soldiers, some of whom were barely eighteen. Marcus estimated that he looked to be around forty, perhaps, although obviously the truth of the matter was that he was older than most of the damn trees in the forest.

After the initial curiosity surrounding his age, he had become sort of a father figure to some of the youngest soldiers. He supposed very well could have been if he truly were around forty as he appeared. As he looked around the group of muddy, frightened faces, Marcus could only see the faces of his children. Wade. Emma. Charlotte. 

One of the soldiers–Tom, he thought–was shaking in his boots after a particularly close explosion. Marcus reached out his hand and touched the boy’s forearm. 

“Easy, son,” he said quietly. 

Marcus wasn’t sure why he hadn’t done this sooner. He’d seen many wars come and go and had never had the inclination to be a soldier before. After six hundred years, each human life seemed so fleeting to him, so short and precious. He had no interest in violence; he’d seen enough death for ten lifetimes, but the prospect of ending his immortality by chance had become too tempting to ignore. Even now, so near to the Western Front, Marcus had managed to come all this way without killing another soul. 

All his bullets seemed to just miss their targets, which earned him the reputation of being a horrible shot. In reality, he was a better shot than most; it took quite a bit of talent to manage to aim to cripple the enemy ranks–shooting the weakest points in their weaponry, putting holes in gas tanks–all to keep both them and his unit as safe as they can be in the middle of a war.

The reason Marcus was here at all came down to timing. At the same time as war raged in Europe, influenza tore through North America, even coming to Quebec, where Marcus and Alice had eventually settled. One month after she had died from the sickness, Marcus forged his paperwork and enlisted as an American soldier.

He didn’t have a death wish, exactly, but he didn’t not have one. He supposed he’d leave it all up to chance. If the witch Sabine was correct, and he could only die by someone else’s hand, then surely a death at war would be the easiest way to go about the messy business of not being immortal anymore.

It was simply too much. All the years, all the things he’d seen and experienced, the places he’d been to, the people he’d loved and lost… Marcus hated that he could no longer remember many things about his past. He could not recall his lodgings in Italy, he could no longer see the streets of York in his mind’s eye, and even the details of faces were becoming fuzzy.

To make matters worse, the blue handkerchief made from Isabella’s dress was starting to decay exponentially. Marcus had tried to preserve it by putting it in a little envelope before he left for France, but it wasn’t enough, nor could it reverse the deterioration that had already taken place.

The damn thing will be a single thread and yet I will still remain, he thought to himself as he sat in the mud at the bottom of the trench with his unit. 

Finally, after what seemed like hours of shelling, the explosions came to an end. Dawn was just starting to creep across the sky, and Marcus stretched and yawned. It had been a long night. 

“We’d better take this opportunity to get some sleep,” said their commanding officer, a First Lieutenant who’d been sent to replace their old one, who had recently been killed in the line of fire. The other soldiers shuffled around, taking out ratty blankets, sneaking drinks from flasks, unwrapping ration bars before settling down for an uneasy slumber.

Despite the ache in his bones, Marcus couldn't sleep. The truth is, he was always tired. Sleeping didn't seem to make much of a difference, and his mind was almost always too restless for him to drift off. 

Marcus had predicted that, as he aged hundreds of years, he'd sleep more. As it turned out, the opposite was true instead. 

Instead of attempting to catch a couple of hours’ rest at best, he grabbed a worn leather-bound sketchbook and a beat-up tin of charcoal pencils and flipped to a clean page. 

Marcus lost himself in it, forgetting everything for a little while. This was how he remembered best–drawing faces from his past. It kept the details from becoming too faded in his brain.

"That your girl?" asked a voice behind him.

"It is," Marcus confirmed quietly as he shaded a cheekbone.

"You're a good artist." 

Marcus turned to see Lieutenant Nelson sit down beside him.

"Thank you, Sir," Marcus murmured, not looking up from his work.

"Nice to have someone sweet waiting for you back home," the Lieutenant said. "Keeps you going."

"She died," Marcus responded quietly. 

"I'm sorry. Is that why you enlisted? Thought you were looking a little old for a Private."

Marcus huffed a laugh through his nose. "In a manner of speaking, yes," he said, although that wasn’t exactly true.

"She was beautiful," said Lieutenant Nelson.

"She was," Marcus confirmed. "The medium hardly does her justice."

Nelson clapped him on the back before getting up again. "You should really try and get some rest," he told Marcus.

Marcus nodded. "Yes, Sir," he mumbled absentmindedly, although he had no intention of obeying. He looked down at the page, where the likeness of Isabella stared back at him. 

"Wish we had cameras back then," Marcus murmured to the paper with a little smile. "And indoor plumbing, I suppose." 

He flipped through the journal and watched as the faces on each page blur together with the rapid movement. AliceMadelineCarolineWilliamIsabellaWilliamAliceCarolineIsabella–

Feeling overwhelmed, Marcus turned to a new page and started sketching the landscape before him instead. He had just finished a depiction of Private Botsford, who was seated across the way drinking coffee and staring blankly at the sky–when their commanding officer returned with a telegram clutched in his hand.

“Listen up, soldiers,” Lieutenant Nelson began. “We’re one of the few units left in this area, and General Bradley needs a missive delivered to a contingency of spies behind enemy lines. They’re asking for one soldier to operate as a courier to deliver classified materials to Saint-Quentin.”

"That's a suicide mission," one of the youngest soldiers remarked in alarm. Worried murmurs started to spread around the small group that had gathered as each man came to terms with what was being asked of them. 

"Aye, it just might be," Lieutenant Nelson said with a sigh. He held up a fistful of toothpicks. "That's why we're going to draw straws."

Marcus looked around at the grave faces of his fellow soldiers. All so young. All destined to die long before he takes his last breath simply by nature of what he is. He'd lived long enough–he wouldn't take away the chance at a long life from any of these men. 

He raised his hand. "I'll do it."

York, England. 2014 AD.

Evelyn screams and drops the gun. It clatters to the floor, and Marcus lets out a strangled sob. She isn’t going to do it, she–

Evelyn drops to the floor as well, sinking to her knees in defeat, her head in her hands. Marcus can see that she’s shaking violently with fear and stress and adrenaline, and suddenly, before he’s thought it through, he’s kneeling too and pulling her into his arms, clutching her to him desperately–as if to an anchor in a storm. 

He holds her as she sobs into his shoulder. He hears someone repeating, “No, no, no,” and it takes him a surprisingly long time to realize that it’s him. 

“Dammit,” he whispers. “Dammit, Evelyn.”

“I’m sorry,” she whimpers. “I’m so sorry. I–I just can’t.”

“I know,” he soothes her, although he’s still seething with anger on the inside. “I know.”

“I know too much,” she murmurs. “I’ve been shown too much. The dreams, I–” she pulls back to look at him. He takes in her puffy eyes, her tear stained face, messy hair. She’s so beautiful to him. He watches as her eyes frantically search his face, before falling to his lips and back up to his eyes. No. Oh, no. 

She moves–or maybe he does–and suddenly his lips are meeting hers with a crack of electricity going off in his brain. The kiss is rough–hardened by fury and passion–their emotions at a peak. She parts her lips with a gasp and Marcus is licking inside her mouth with a groan. It takes him a few moments to realize he’s crying, too–desperate, mournful tears as he clings to her.

Marcus kisses her until they both have to break apart to take their own heaving, shaky breaths. He doesn’t let her go far, pressing his forehead against hers as he wills his heartbeat to slow, tears still falling down his cheeks.

“You have condemned me to endure yet another loss,” he says quietly, his voice full of despair.

“Marcus, I–”

“I’m so furious with you,” he whispers, but he reaches his hand up to gently caress her cheek, catching a few of her tears on his thumb. “Fuck, I’m so furious.”

Evelyn closes her eyes, her face a picture of remorse. “I couldn’t do it,” she repeats sorrowfully.

“It’s okay,” Marcus says, although it absolutely isn’t. He slumps backwards against the bathroom wall and pulls her into his lap properly, winding his arms around her still-trembling form.

He sighs. “It’s okay.”

Saint-Laurent-sur-Mer, France. 1944 AD.

Marcus was in a bleak mood as he wandered the abandoned streets of the little coastal village looking for resources.

This was his job–knocking on doors and politely asking to commandeer what meager wine and rations they had for the uses of the Allied forces. 

It rarely went over well. 

After his abject failure to get himself killed in the first Great War, Marcus had remained in Europe, pursuing a fleeting desire to become an Archaeologist. Having nothing but time, it had been no trouble for him to simply return to university until he had a shiny new Doctorate in Archaeology. 

Degree in hand, Marcus had convinced a team of British Archaeologists to let him join a team bound for Egypt. The year was 1922, and the tomb of Tutankhamen had just been discovered by Howard Carter, spawning a veritable swarm of Archaeologists and Egyptologists to the area. Marcus had been beyond pleased to be one of them. 

He had stayed there for many years, unearthing treasures and meticulously cataloging and then donating them to the Egyptian Museum, and writing extensive reports for the Egyptian Antiquities Service detailing provenance, including his original sketches .

His work ensured that he had little time for love. He had partners here and there, but dedicated those years to research and study to try and keep a clear head. 

When the world erupted in war again, just twenty short years after his last stint as a soldier, Marcus decided to try to cure himself of immortality once and for all. It had been a good life, after all. He’d seen so much, loved so many. He’d embrace death with open arms, knowing he’d done everything he’d ever dreamed of and more.

More forged paperwork, more ribbing at being a terrible shot (despite hitting his secret, non-fatal targets each time), and more suspiciously coincidental misses by enemy fire, and Marcus was now at Normandy asking civilians for bread to spare, a job he hated.

Due to his ability to speak both French and German, Marcus had unofficially become the translator for the unit, although he secretly said far different things than his superiors usually asked, especially when asked to interrogate any prisoners-of-war that were captured.

(“Tell him if he doesn’t tell us the location of his unit, we’ll be forced to cut his rations in half.”

“Do you have any friends and family that you’d like to get word out to?”

“Ask him if he has any intel regarding movements in Ardennes.”

“I received a reply from your parents; they are alive and well and missing you. I can sneak the telegram into your cell tonight with some cigarettes.”)

Marcus knocked on the next door and waited, with a bored expression, for the occupant to appear so that he could dutifully ask for extra rations.

A suspicious looking young man opened the door, rifle in hand and with a hostile expression, which softened slightly upon seeing Marcus’s uniform.

Marcus started his spiel in a monotone. “The United States Army asks that you respectfully–”

His sentence was interrupted by a volley of gunfire, one of the bullets hitting the door just inches from Marcus’s head before the young man grabbed his lapels and roughly yanked him into the cottage, slamming the door behind him.

Marcus fell to the floor with a grunt, but quickly scrambled to his feet. He had nearly been–fuck. This always seemed to happen. Divine intervention, odd coincidences, near misses… Marcus could just not seem to get himself killed, not even in the midst of a bloody war. 

It was hardly fair, really–so many other people dying, and yet here he remains.

If he couldn’t get killed storming Omaha Beach, it couldn’t be done.

It was polite to thank someone for saving your life, so Marcus did, although he felt almost no gratitude. It was hardly the young man’s fault.

“What were you doing out there?” the man asked.

“Commandeering resources for Uncle Sam,” Marcus said with a wry grin. “I have to ask if you have anything to spare, but I won’t fault you for lying.”

“You must be terrible at your job,” the other man remarked.

Marcus shrugged and looked around the small cottage. There were paintings everywhere, and an easel in the corner. The man’s hands had a few spots of stray paint on them.

“Painting in the middle of a battlefield?” Marcus asked sardonically.

“A little normality keeps us sane, non?” 

 Marcus grinned and retrieved the leather sketchbook from his coat pocket. “It does, indeed.”

The French man extended his hand with a surprised expression, and Marcus granted his request, handing over the little book of sketches for him to peruse. It wasn’t the same one he had carried with him during his last stint as a soldier, of course–that one had long since been filled up and discarded, as was his usual way with his belongings. Burn it down, onto the next thing. Otherwise, he’d be so laden with sketchbooks alone that it would take several large rucksacks just to lug them around. 

The man flipped through, cocking his head at the collection of drawings. Some quick sketches of the French coast, fellow soldiers, and, littered throughout, the same five faces, over and over. Isabella. Madeline. Caroline. William. Alice. 

“Who is this?” the man asked, holding up one such portrait of William.

“Just a face from the past,” Marcus answered. “I draw them to remember.”

“A brother?”

Marcus chuckled. “No, not a brother.”

The man nodded thoughtfully. “I do not have resources to spare for Uncle Sam, but I may be able to split the rest of a bottle of wine with a fellow artist.”

Marcus flashed the man a smle. “I’d be honored.”

The man extended his hand. “Antoine.”

“Marcus.”

While the man went to retrieve the bottle and two glasses, Marcus looked around the room at the paintings. They were beautiful, he thought. Full of life and color, with painstaking details. His eyes fell on a pile of canvases stacked against the wall, and he went over to peruse them. A still life. A landscape, an oceanscape. A pair of old, weathered hands. A portrait of a young girl and a dog. And in the very back, two lovers, entwined.

Marcus paused and studied that one with a sad, wistful smile: two men, wrapped in each others’ arms, sharing a heated kiss. 

Antoine returned then, nearly dropping the glasses with a muttered ‘mon dieu,’ when he saw the painting Marcus was inspecting, regarding him with guarded, wary eyes.

Marcus set it aside with a little smile and reached for a glass. 

“A votre santé, Antoine,” Marcus murmured, letting their fingers brush together.

York, England. 2014 AD.

Marcus loses track of how long he sits on his bathroom floor holding Evelyn in his lap. His legs have gone numb, but she hasn’t loosened her grip and he, weak man that he is, cannot seem to bring himself to pry her fingers from his shoulders. For just as much as she appears to be drawn to him, he, in turn, cannot help but feel the same way. Now that he has her in his arms, he’s not sure he wants to let go. It goes against everything he thought he wanted, but he can’t fight the pull he feels when it comes to her. 

Finally, she pulls back to look at him, tears still swimming in her eyes. “What are you going to do?” she asks quietly. “Are you just going to go ask someone else to kill you?”

Marcus sighs and tips his head back against the wall with a little thunk. “I don’t know,” he replies. 

“Are you going to go back to the states?”

“Whatever questions you’re going to ask, I can assure you, I don’t have any answers,” Marcus says tiredly. 

“I don’t want you to leave,” Evelyn whispers. “I feel like I’ve waited a decade for you, and this is the time we get together? I–I don’t understand it, then. The dreams, I mean. What were they pushing me towards?”

“Oh, Evelyn, I’m sorry,” Marcus murmurs, pulling her into his chest again. “I don’t know what they were for. I don’t know if I can give you what you’re looking for.”

“You,” she replies simply, the words slightly muffled by his chest. “I’m just looking for you.”

Something deep inside Marcus’s heart breaks with a snap. 

He pulls back to look at her again, and this time, when he kisses her, he doesn’t stop.

He doesn’t stop when he finally slides Evelyn off of his lap and pulls them both to standing. He doesn’t stop when he scoops her into his arms and carries her to the bedroom, laying her on his bed. 

Marcus doesn’t stop kissing her when he follows her down, covering her body with his and tangling their limbs together. He doesn’t stop when he slowly strips her of her clothing before removing his own and groaning at the feel of skin on skin.

He doesn’t stop when he slips inside her, their fingers entwined above Evelyn’s head as he begins to move slowly, achingly slowly, loving her with his body, with his hands, with his lips.

Marcus can’t deny that they just seem to fit together. It feels as if they are old lovers in this bed, rather than two people just coming together for the first time. Evelyn’s hands seem to know Marcus’s body in a way he can’t explain, their grip familiar and strange at the same time.

This is a well-known dance, one he’s done, and done well, for hundreds of years, and yet–

Burying himself in Evelyn’s body feels like coming home.

“Tell me more about the dreams,” Marcus murmurs, some time after they separate, sweaty and panting–wanting to hear something other than his own pounding heart and swirling thoughts.

Evelyn huffs through her nose and draws little circles against his bare chest. “I already knew how you kiss,” she admits, her voice small. “How–how you love.”

The very corner of Marcus’s mouth quirks upwards for a split second. “And how is that?” he asks quietly.

“Like you’ve been doing it for seven hundred years.”

Marcus can’t help the quiet laughter that escapes his lips at that.

“I worry my talents might pale in comparis–,” Evelyn starts, but Marcus shushes her with a kiss. 

“You’re exquisite,” he says against her lips. “Everything about this was–” he trails off, searching for the correct words. Familiar, intimate, profound…

“You felt it too?” she asks, hopeful.

Marcus nods carefully.

“Do you still not believe in soulmates?”

“I don’t,” he responds quietly, and he watches her face fall. “I’m sorry, Evelyn,” he whispers. “Not after the life I’ve had. I can’t.” 

She’s quiet for a moment, absorbing his words with a thoughtful expression.

“You’ve really loved everyone the same?” she asks.

“Of course,” Marcus replies immediately. “And Evelyn,” he adds quietly, “every single time I lose them, it hurts just as much. Please–I don’t know how I can possibly survive it again.”

Uijeongbu, South Korea. 1951 AD.

Marcus came to slowly, blinking away his blurry vision as he tried to remember what had happened. He frowned as he took in the room full of hospital beds. Where was he? 

“You’re awake,” a soft, surprised voice remarked off to his side.

Marcus slowly turned to face the direction of the speaker, and saw that the voice belonged to a nurse wearing green fatigues. His first thought was that she was absolutely beautiful, but he decided it was probably just his brain latching on to the first person, the first soft voice and kind smile he saw upon waking after… after… 

“Wh-what happened?” he croaked, his voice hoarse from disuse. 

“I’m not surprised you don’t remember,” the nurse said kindly, approaching his hospital bed. “By all accounts, you should have died on the operating table, if not before.”

Images flashed through Marcus’s mind. Oh, right. The mission. He had volunteered to collect intelligence from behind enemy lines and had tried to fight his way out. Explosions. Gunfire. A sharp pain. Then—nothing. 

“Where…?” he choked out.

“You’re in a mobile hospital unit in Uijeongbu,” the nurse answered. “You were brought in almost a week ago with a bullet to the chest.” She sat down on the little chair next to his bed. “By some miracle, your heart just kept on beating,” she told him. “You’re very lucky to be alive.”

Lucky. Marcus almost snorted. This latest brush with death confirmed it for him–he was unable to die at war.

“I’ll let the doctor know you’re awake,” she said. “He’ll be wanting to speak to you.”

He nodded tiredly. 

“I’m glad you’re awake, Marcus,” the nurse said, and Marcus felt himself twitch in surprise at the mention of his name.

“Your dog tags, silly,” she teased. “Marcus Pike, 115-26-0873,” she recited. “O positive. No religious preference, though. I thought that was odd.”

Marcus smiled crookedly to himself. What is a God to somebody who cannot die? 

“Do you memorize every patient’s dog tag?” he asked.

“Only the ones who are medical miracles,” she laughed. She leaned in and whispered conspiratorially, “And the cute ones.”

Marcus huffed and shook his head in amusement, watching her look down sheepishly. 

“Don’t tell anyone I said that,” she giggled. “I’m Nurse Stephens by the way, but you can call me Betty.”

“Betty,” he repeated quietly, dropping his head back down on the pillow and closing his eyes. “Thanks, Betty.”

Marcus spent several weeks recovering at the small, understaffed hospital. He let himself be sweet on Betty, figuring there was hardly any harm in a few affectionate touches before he was loaded onto a bus and sent somewhere else.

What was the harm in a little bit of warmth, of happiness, in this endless life of his? 

Marcus came to the conclusion, as he wandered the dirt roads between the tents, that he’d had enough of war. He’d hated it to begin with–humans with already-short lives killing each other over arbitrary borders, over Gods, over resources–it made little sense to him on a larger timespan. He wished desperately that he could get people to view things on his scale, to let them see what he sees, just for a moment.

It was becoming clear to him that he was not going to be able to die at war. Once he had made that realization, he knew he was done.

When he was well enough, Marcus was going to leave his dog tags behind and disappear.

After centuries of doing it, Marcus was very good at disappearing.

He didn’t get as much of a chance to recover as he thought. One night, the small mobile hospital was hit with heavy shelling, and the hospital staff worked frantically to move the injured soldiers–Marcus included–into buses and send them away from the blasts. 

He watched as Betty hastily hooked up an IV to a young man who had only just arrived the other night with shrapnel in his leg before moving to go back for more injured soldiers.

“Betty, wait–” Marcus said urgently, taking her wrist as she passed his seat. “The shelling is getting too close, it isn’t safe to–”

Betty broke free with a shake of her head. “There are still men inside,” she protested, running out of the bus and back towards the tent. 

Suddenly, Marcus was thrown backwards by an explosion, and when he struggled to his feet, the tent had already been reduced to ash and mangled metal.

The bus lurched as the driver slammed on the pedals, speeding away from the encroaching front lines as quickly as they could, and Marcus could only look on in resignation as the smoldering remains of the hospital shrank in the distance.

York, England. 2014 AD.

Marcus wakes with a start, sitting up with a strangled gasp, his heart pounding and body drenched in sweat.

“Marcus. Marcus! It’s okay, you’re okay, you’re safe–”

It takes Marcus a moment before the events of the day before come crashing down on him. Evelyn. The gun. The kiss. She’s in his bed, now, and it’s the middle of the night, having fallen asleep together after their lovemaking.

He lets out a little sob. His dreams have been so dark, lately. He can still see Betty’s determined face behind his eyelids, refusing to evacuate herself until everyone had been loaded on the buses. Her face transforms into Alice’s, into William’s, into–

“Marcus!” Evelyn says, louder this time, and he feels her arms wrap around him, steadying him. It’s only then that he realizes he’s trembling.

“I’m sorry,” Marcus croaks. “I–shit–” 

He collapses back on the pillows with a groan, pressing the heels of his hands into his eyes.

“Do you have lots of dreams like that?” Evelyn asks gently, coming to lay beside him again, her hand resting on his chest.

“They come and go,” he answers hoarsely, his voice still shaking from the adrenaline. “Whenever I’m stressed, I start dreaming about war again.”

“Have you ever talked about it?” she asks.

“Have I ever told someone about my time as a soldier in three separate wars over the span of nearly forty years, the first one being a century ago?” Marcus asks with a wan smile. “No, I have not.”

Evelyn laughs quietly, then sobers. “If you ever want to talk about it,” she says quietly, “I’m here.”

Marcus pulls her to him, and then, when it’s not nearly close enough, rolls on top of her again and meets her lips in an fervid kiss, which she returns eagerly. He threads his hands into her jet-black hair and deepens the kiss, entering her and taking her once more, far more urgently than the first time, and a touch less gentle. 

When they separate for the second time that night, Evelyn clings to him again, and he can feel her shoulders shaking slightly.

“Stay,” she whispers, barely audible. “Please, Marcus.”

“Okay,” Marcus whispers back. “Okay.”

He hears Evelyn gasp in surprise, her grip turning almost bruising on her shoulder as she clings to him and God, his heart hurts, but he's beginning to understand–her dreams are prophetic. Perhaps he should stop questioning them and embrace the strange magic in his life, the magic that's pulling him towards her..

“After all–” he cups her jaw, stroking her cheekbone gently, “you’ve caused me to reverse my position on my immortality for the time being.”

Evelyn’s jaw drops, her eyes filling with tears again. “I love you,” she murmurs, far too much gravity in her voice to be saying those three little words.

Marcus understands. It’s no simple thing, loving an immortal. It’s no simple thing for someone like him to be able to give it back, knowing how temporary it all is. 

He always was a terrible liar, though–even to himself. He knows he feels the same–has felt the same, for quite some time now, ever since they’d revealed their “magical” secrets to each other at the pub. The moment the words leave her lips, all he can do is give them right back. 

He closes his eyes and sighs. “I love you, too.”

---

Tagging a few interested parties since this is scheduled and I can't add all of my taglist. I apologize for the double-tag when I officially tag everyone!

@katareyoudrilling @mandocrasis @ezrasbirdie @songsformonkeys @shadesofnerdlygrace @chronic-nosebleed @absurdthirst