#AND ARE THOSE FRECKLES I SEE ON FRANKY??))

[snapitkeeper]

I finally finished porting all of my FO76 favs ( in order of the post: Frankie, Beckett, Weasel, Sam ) into FO4 !! this is mostly just fr my own entertainment and posing once the mods get updated !! im so happy 2 see them all here !!

[intheorangebedroom]

The corner deli, part 2

Summary: Frankie takes you on a second date. Somehow, firearms are still involved...

Pairing: Frankie Morales x fem!reader

Rating: Explicit 🔞

A/N:  Happy Frankie Friday, Orange besties 🧡 Thank you so much for your kind response to part 1! I hope you like this part too (pun intended). And please, see the end notes 🧡

Word count: 4.1k (I managed to cram in nearly all my kinks, can I get a woot woot?)

[part 1] [blog masterlist]

Part 2: Crimson and Clover

“Isn’t it cheating, though?”

The carnival rifle looks comically small between his hands. He presses the trigger, and a fourth balloon explodes with a loud popping sound, amplified by the wooden box. You jump. He doesn’t even blink.  

“How is it cheating?” he asks, looking down at you with a cocked eyebrow as he casually reloads a tiny lead bullet into the rifle’s barrel. Wow. Competency, much?

“Well, you were in the Army. Don’t they train you to shoot at stuff?” you ask, eyes trained on the little target inked on his left hand.

He shrugs. 

“You want that teddy bear, or not?”

“I do. I do want the teddy bear. It’s– it’s a plush Grogu, but yes, I do want it.”

“The plush green alien, yea.”

You make a face, taking mock offense.

The date —he said it was a date, so you guess you can call it that, right?— has been going extremely well, so far. Conversation flowing easy, stolen glances that don't make you wanna crawl out of your skin; he’s asked you a lot of questions, but it didn’t feel forced. You’re not sure if your brain is not gonna ask for payback at 3am on a Sunday, but you're feeling relaxed and at ease. He’s paid for everything, the diner, the rides, even the cotton candy, but he didn’t make a show of it. You could get used to this. The hanging out, that is, not necessarily the paying for everything part. 

“I’m teasin’ you. I love Star Wars too.”

“You do? Wait, are you one of those fans who’s gonna tell me I am not a real fan because I haven’t read all the books and comics and I can’t speak Jawa, but really it’s because I got a vagina?”

“Do I look like the kind of man who feels threatened by a vagina?” 

Oh. Oh shit. Ok.  

“Guess not,” you whisper, ducking your head so he can’t see your cheeks, that are fucking burning up. 

“Star Wars is actually the reason I became a pilot.”

He brings the butt stock of the rifle to his shoulder, adjusting his aim, and oh boy, he’s a sight to behold. That poor t-shirt of his is pulled taut across the breadth of his shoulders, seams ready to burst. You admire the way his thick finger slides around the trigger guard, and in, before another balloon goes BOOM. 

The young man keeping the stand lets out an ostentatious sigh. He grabs a long pole with a hook at the end to get you the toy, but really, it looks more like it’s a pitchfork he’s gonna chase you away with.  

“How’s that?” you manage to articulate. 

“Han Solo is the coolest, and I wanted to be as cool as Han Solo.” 

He gives you a shy grin, setting the rifle down on the counter. 

“Shut up! I wanted to be Leia!”

His eyebrows shoot up.

“Is that so?” he asks, taking a step closer to you.

Oh. Oh. 

Oh, that’s close. He’s crowding you against the counter, towering over you, his heady scent wrapping around you and he gives you that cocky look that turns your legs into Jell-o.

“Yeah,” you whisper, trying your hardest not to stare at the dip between his collarbone, and the little freckles on the tanned skin of his neck. 

The stand employee shoves the ginormous Grogu into your back, propelling you into Frankie’s chest. The man is HOT. Like, really hot. His skin is on fire, you can feel the heat through his threadbare t-shirt.

“Can I take you and Grogu home now, or is it too fast?” he says, his breath fanning your lips. “I don’t know how these things are supposed to work.”

Oh god, his hips are pressing into yours.

“I’ve no idea either, but I think you’re doing fine.”

“Yea?”

“Mmh mmh,” is the only sound you manage to produce.

“Good. Let’s go. Gonna make you see stars,” he adds, pushing away from you, and he immediately winces at the lame joke.

“Wow. Really?” you laugh. 

He flinches, hiding his pretty face under the brim of his hat.

“Fuck…”

—

Well, he wasn’t lying. You saw stars. And then you saw stars again. And again. And then you saw some more.

But the first thing you see when you get to his place is how clean it is. Tidy, but in a lived-in way.  

It’s a one-bedroom apartment on the fourth floor of a brick building. The kitchen sink is empty, a single plate and set of cutlery drying on the metal rack next to it. Some magnets adorn the fridge, among which you recognize a picture by Manuel Álvarez Bravo, and another by Berenice Abbott, and you try to police your expression because these are your two favorite photographers and that’s a pretty freaky coincidence, right? 

You step into the living-room while he washes his hands. It’s cozy. A soft amber glow pours in from the streetlights through the three narrow windows, behind a big slouchy leather couch. There’s a plant that looks alive and well on the console next to it, and an entire wall of seemingly handmade shelves, lined with books. The TV is old, downright ancient, and there’s a turntable propped onto a vintage stereo. An opened book lies face down on the coffee table. 

You crane your neck to read the title. Engineering Circuit Analysis. Okay, so that won’t be a conversation starter. 

You don’t know if the place always looks this tidy or if he cleaned it because he thought you might be coming over, and you’re not sure if the sheer assumption shouldn’t be a red flag, given it’s only the second time you’re seeing the guy, but you find that you don’t care. You really don’t. Not in the least. 

He joins you in the living-room, but he doesn’t turn the lights on. He’s taken his hat off and he’s combing his fingers through his thick mane of curls, and that sight alone was worth driving all the way here in his truck. 

“Want something to drink?” he asks, and that’s a very good question, do you want something to drink? 

You should, probably, because your mouth is so dry you can’t even gulp, and your nerves could use some alcohol, but you just stand here, like an idiot, watching him walk slowly toward you, wondering how close he’s gonna get before he stops walking.

Very close, apparently.

He looks so fucking tall and broad, you don’t think you’ll ever get used to it, but then again, it’s only the second time you see him. He leans over you, you have to twist your neck up to keep your eyes on his, but really, what you want to do is chew on his lips. Or his neck. You’re not picky.

He hooks his index fingers into the belt loops of your jeans to draw you in. Fuck, now your panties are ruined.

Time goes in slow motion as he licks his lips, his gaze flickering between your eyes and your mouth. 

“I’m gonna kiss you now. Is it ok?”

“Yes, please.”

Yes, please, Jesus fucking Christ, can you get any more cringe?

“There’s a lot of things I’m wanna do to you, if I gotta be honest,” he adds.

Oh, there, you can gulp. You think people might have heard you swallow from the other side of town.

“Okay. You can… do your worst, Morales.”

“You sure? Because my worst is… You need to tell me if–”

“Yes. I’m sure. You got my consent. All of it. Please.”

Who needs dignity? Not you. Not today.

“You’re fucking adorable, you know that? I am going to ruin you.”

You hate meeting new people. Meeting guys. You hate that whole dance, when you have to pretend you don’t really wanna fuck each other, oh but really you do, you hate getting undressed in front of a literal stranger, the awkwardness of it, new skin, new touch, everything grosses you out and you feel like curling into a ball inside your own skin, waiting for it to be fucking over. 

But this, this is different. Of course, it’s different, everything has been since you’ve laid eyes on him across that aisle in the corner deli.

You want him. God, you’re practically vibrating with it. And you want him to want you, too. 

He presses his lips to yours, and it’s subtle, the delicate, albeit insistent press of it, testing but also very much signifying you he’s gonna do everything he said he would, pulling you closer with your belt loops. 

Fuck it, you think. Fuck it. You want this. All of it. The taste of him and the weight of him and his touch and his skin. 

Your eyes flutter shut and you lean into the kiss with a quiet little moan, your hands traveling up his large back, balling his t-shirt in your fists. He doesn’t miss a beat, his hand comes up to cup your face, fingers carding through your hair and you feel the wet glide of his tongue, prompting you to open. 

You do. Oh god, you do, and you taste the cotton candy as he licks into you. There’s the little tickle from his mustache, the pressure on your waist, the sparkling tingle along your spine and everything is delicious. His other hand is kneading at the curve of your hip, sliding down to your ass and he grabs you there, strong fingers splayed right between your cheeks, it’s firm and hungry and commanding.

He pulls you flush into him, and with a gently swaying motion against your belly, he lets you feel it. Feel what you do to him. Feel how much he wants you.  

Your body goes slack and tense at the same time, loose limbs, loose chest, clenching cunt and hardening nipples. 

“Fuck,” he gasps, pulling away just a bit, “fuck, you’re sweet.”

He doesn’t give you time to answer, not that you’d know what to say, his mouth is on yours again, his plush lips a perfect fit against yours, his tongue swirling inside you. And the kiss lingers, languid, unhurried, his hands roaming your figure, strong and slow, kneading your curves and using the grip to press you closer and closer into him.

When your fingers thread through his hair, you give his locks a little tug that has him grunting into your mouth. He breaks the kiss, but his mouth remains on you, lips sucking along the edge of your jaw, teeth scraping down your throat, slick pooling sticky and wet between your hips. 

There’s the ghost of a bite over your pulse point; you moan into it and suddenly, time accelerates. His kisses get frantic, he’s devouring you, only lifting his lips off your skin to tug off your t-shirt, deft fingers unclasping your bra. You pull so hard on his shirt you might as well rip it, but he only bites you harder, pushing into you stronger. The back of your knees hit the coffee table, you fall onto the couch. 

And that’s when everything slows again.

His gaze, raking over your naked breasts as he stands before you. His tongue darting between his parted lips. His movements, as he unbuckles his belt. 

You get lost in the sight of his chest, bare, broad, golden in the orange semi-darkness. 

“Take off the rest of your clothes, baby,” he says, and the endearment shoots right through you. 

You’re never recovering from this night, this much you can tell. You’ll want this man forever, you are so fucked. 

You manage to get rid of your shoes and your jeans, but it’s a damn miracle with how much your hands are shaking. He’s toed off his boots and unbuttoned his pants without taking his eyes off you even for a split second. 

There’s something carnivorous in the half-smile dancing on his lips. He’s palming the bulge tenting his black boxer briefs, and you’re about to slide off your panties without a second thought when he stops you. 

“Wait. Bedroom. C’mere.”

Yes, sir. 

You stand up on wobbly legs and his hand skims around the curve of your hip, down the swell of your ass. He takes your arm, lifts it up to wrap around his neck, and you follow, diligently, circling your other arm around his broad shoulders. 

He picks you up like you fucking weigh nothing, how strong is this guy? What do they feed them in the Army? 

He keeps you there for a moment, your legs wrapped around his tapered waist, skin on skin, his head slightly tilted up and his eyes boring into yours. His hands grasping your ass cheeks, a bruising grip, the tip of his fingers reaching into that hollow curve at the top of your thighs, under the line of your panties, where you’re soaked with want for him. 

Your heart is beating so fast, pounding so hard, it’s going to tear out of your chest. Land right into his. 

The crease in his brow deepens, his gaze on you intensifies, thoughts clouding his rich brown eyes. He opens his mouth, as if to say something, but closes it again.   

“Frankie—” you start, but he cuts you in. 

“Wait. I need to know this is not a one-time thing. I’m gonna see you again, right?”

“Oh,” you breathe out.

There are people laughing outside in the street. The sound of a police siren in the distance. A dog barking. You commit everything to memory. The amber darkness, the city noises, the hope in his eyes. The sensation of his strong hold, and that of your hardened nipples grazing his chest. 

“Yes. Yes, please,” you whisper, and he smiles, that wide dimpled smile you’d do everything for, his fingers burrowing a little deeper into your flesh. 

He carries you into the bedroom, bathed in the same orange semi-darkness, and lays you onto his bed. You sink into the fluffy cottony material of the comforter that smells like him. Leather and musk and safety. He hovers over you, eyes locked on yours. 

He rocks gently into you, just a faint press, his waist spreading your hips open, his hands roaming along the expanse of your naked skin, palming your breasts. The fabric of his tight boxers catches at your soaked panties, the button of his jeans biting into your belly. 

“Can I taste you?” he asks, his voice a low husk, and for a second, you think he’s asking if he can kiss you again, but you quickly register, and your eyes grow wide. 

You nod, unable to articulate around the anticipation swelling in your throat. 

He makes a start at moving over you, but stops, and instead leans in to kiss you again. A wide, hungry kiss, licking into you avidly, pressing into you greedily, swallowing your moans as your fingernails run through his nape and into his hairline. 

He pulls away, and you all but whine, chasing his lips, rising to your elbows. Unwavering, he moves down on the bed, and there’s another flash of that carnivorous smile as he takes off his jeans, as he kneels between your legs. 

You watch, wide-eyed and ragged breath, as he brushes his knuckles along that curve at the top of your thigh, thick fingers hooking under the elastic band of your panties, pulling it to the side. He smiles at you again, before his head dips. 

His tongue parts your fold, and your head lolls back between your shoulders with a strangled cry. His hand pushing up the back of your knee, spreading you wider than you ever thought your body capable of, he licks into you with a rumbling groan. 

The curled tip of his tongue dives deep into your cunt, tasting you with thorough strokes, but he lifts his head with a pained grunt and a sliver of self-consciousness rips through your chest. 

“Fuck, baby, I think you’re going to ruin me.”

Your arms buckle, your back hitting the mattress, and he slides your panties down, twisting them around his wrist, before hooking your legs over his broad shoulders, and he buries his face into your cunt again. 

The wet glide of this tongue is hot and heavy, licking in broad stripes, sucking on your clit, thrusting into you. Arousal pools in, sticky and rich, at the base of your spine, streaming down your walls. You moan and wither against his mouth, and he chases your movements, cueing his ministrations to your reactions. 

Wet, explicit sounds fill the bedroom. He plays you like an instrument, your hips bucking against his face, wanton whimpers spilling out of you like music, fingers threading through his curls, and he brings you close, so close to your release, without ever letting you tip over the edge.

He’s taking his sweet time about it, true to his word, and you're begging now, sweet little moans you didn’t know your voice could carry, Frankie, Frankie please.

Gently, he eases your legs down, sitting back on his haunches on the bed. It’s a hitched breath, a broken little cry as cold air hits your soaked cunt but he runs a soothing hand along your inner thigh. 

“Shh, I got you, baby. I got you.”

Empty. The word flashes through your dazed brain, and you turn your head to the side to hide your face in the comforter. 

You’re empty, and you want him to fill you up. And you don’t know what you’re hiding from, if it’s from him or the embarrassment of being so fucking needy or the magnitude of your desire, but there’s this abyss inside you only him can fill and fuck, you’ve never felt this vulnerable before. Why now? Why him?

His finger presses at your entrance and you let out a quivering breath. A shallow thrust, an easy glide, and he adds another. Your back arches with relief. A flex of his digits, and he’s stroking a soft spot inside your cunt you didn’t know existed. 

With your last shred of strength, you lift your head up. He’s watching you, his boxers pulled down, practiced fingers circling his cock, dragging slowly up and down along the length of it. The orange glow from the streetlights ripples over his skin in amber shades and dark shadows. Your eyes trace the broad span of his chest, his strong, corded neck, the dark crown of his curls. 

The man looks like a fucking god.  

“Jesus,” you whimper, and he chuckles, that wolfish smile tugging at the corner of his lips. The bottom half of his face glints in the semi-darkness, shiny with your slick. Precome dribbling over his knuckles. This is fucking filthy. You revel in it.

Your head drops with a soundless laugh, hips swaying along with his stroking fingers. 

You’re going to lose your mind with how good it feels, you think, but then it gets even worse, or better, when he lowers his thumb to your clit, rubbing smooth circles over it and your chest heaves with a silent plea. 

Soon, a tremor sizzles along your thighs, your release coiling brisk and strong at the center of you. It builds up like electricity, like liquid fire, potent and fast and white-hot.

Your entire body is alight with it, it travels down every nerve-ending and you come undone, you fucking unravel, his name dragging out on your lips. 

He lowers himself to slant his mouth over your cunt and you recoil, but he’s careful, his tongue darting swiftly into you, drinking your release with greedy groans. 

When he’s sure to have it all, he moves back over you, his face out of focus through your glazed eyes, the bulk of him engulfing you, his heady scent filling your lungs. 

“Wanna taste how sweet you are?” he asks, and you nod, sprawled out, boneless, pliant. 

His hand hinges your jaw open, thumb on your bottom lip. His spit rolls down his tongue into your open mouth and his hooded eyes, black with want, flicker down to your throat as you swallow it all. 

“Oh, you’re a good girl,” he marvels, and the praise is like a shockwave, like a second high, it coats your palate and sticks to your skin. You could swear it’s fucking tangible. 

You need more, more of him, more of that, but you’re not sure what’s next. This is uncharted territory. No man has ever prioritized your pleasure over his, before. 

You lift your hips off the mattress, bucking into him, but he frowns.

“If you need time—”

“I need you inside me,” you plead. 

“It’s a lot more than two fingers, baby,” he warns and yes, you can tell, with the heavy weight of his cock thrumming hot and angry against your belly. 

“I can take it.”

He huffs a smile, but it quickly falls when you tip your chin, wrapping his thumb between your lips. Your tongue curls around the pad of it as you suck on it, and you hear him gulp. One all. 

Oh, but he was right, it’s more, much more than two fingers, and his first thrust, however gentle, however shallow, has you squirming around the stretch of him. Your fingernails digging into his arms, he grunts with the effort, pushing in slowly, pulling out, and in again, sweat beading along his spine, restraint tensing his jaw. 

You lift your head, scraping your teeth over that bare patch in his scruffy jaw. 

“I can take it,” you repeat, and he growls, head dropping into the curve of your neck, sinking his sharp teeth into the soft skin at the base of your throat. 

He shoves himself in down to the base, and you cry out, but he doesn’t stop. He moves into you. With deep thorough thrusts, fast-paced and rough, he fills you up, just like you wanted, just like you asked, skin catching around his girth at your entrance. Sucking hard on the tender skin of your neck, sharp little bruises blooming in purple flecks along the column of your throat. 

Knees hitched up high along his sides, you feel sweat breaking on your forehead as you ease into his relentless rhythm, into the impossible size of him, into the pleasure-pain, because this is what you wished for. To feel him tonight. To feel him still tomorrow. And perhaps the day that follows. 

His grunts fan the shell of your ear, sending more slick rushing down your walls. His hand squeezes your breast, his trigger finger and thumb pinching your nipple, merciless, and your cunt starts to flutter along his length, a frantic collapsing of your walls, eyes clenched shut under your pinched brow. 

“Oh god, I’m so close,” you whine, and he straightens up without breaking his rhythm. 

“I wanna see your face when you come on my cock”, he growls, hooking his elbow under your knee, using it for leverage to bear you down on his cock as he picks up the fucking pace. 

His broad hand splayed reverently over your belly, the heel of it is a steady pressure over your clit, and when you come, your whole body quaking with the force of your second relief, he quickly follows, pulling out just in time to spurt thick pearly ropes over your quivering skin. 

“Oh shit, look at you,” he pants, before he collapses on the bed next to you, chest heaving. 

You lie there side by side for a beat, the room around you slowly coming back into focus. That damn dog is still barking, the night traffic a low and distant hum. 

Would it… would it be okay, acceptable, if you gathered his come with your fingers and licked them clean? Could you ask him to fuck your mouth, next? Or should you scamper off the bed to gather your clothes and leave? What’s the common protocol here? No one has ever turned you into this feral, greedy little monster before.  

He clears his throat. Oh fuck, that’s it. He’s gonna politely hint that you should now be leaving the premises. 

“Can you stay the night?”

Your eyes flutter shut. A hindered little sob rattles inside your chest. You address a heartfelt thank you to your lucky star for the midnight cravings that placed you in that corner deli the same night as him. Fuck, you’ll throw one in for that armed robber too.

“Do you want me to stay?” you ask.

He turns to his side to face you, folding his arm and propping his chin in his hand. His soft brown eyes meet yours. And there’s that gentle smile that swells up your heart three sizes.

“Yes, please.”

****

End note: the opening scene is very much inspired by one of the fair scenes in Anchor Stitch, on Ao3. Not for every one, but one of my all-time favourites. Also, this is fanfiction, so I wasn't going to bother with a fucking condom, but I know you're smarter than that.

[kieranxvalentine]

Trouble. [Yandere! Player! OC x Reader]

༻♡༺✎ You knew he was trouble, but he wanted you. ༻♡༺✎ Yandere! Player! Oc x Reader ༻♡༺✎ 17+ (Kidnapping alluded to at the end, blackmailing) ༻♡༺✎ 0.7k words ༻♡༺✎ Authors note: Please request fics guys! Also I may be opening a kofi where more longer fics about these characters will be posted! (This has not been proofread!)

“Oh my god he’s finally back!!”

“Look at how cute he is~!”

Franklin rolled his eyes in irritation as he walked through the school, he was just coming back after a vacation with parents, and now that he was back. He was looking for a particular person. 

His Princess.

Franklin had dark green hair with unnatural purple contacts that he wore and simply refused to take out (especially after his princess had complimented him on them).

He had soft tan skin, his right eye was bandaged, covering a scar he’d gotten when he was younger. Freckled cheeks with dimples that showed when he smirked or smiled that always made the girls swoon.

He wore a white/blue collared shirt with dark blue pants and blac heels boots {That he truly didn’t need! He was 6’1, he just liked being taller}

He ignored most of his fangirls, pushing past them as he made his way to the (h/c) girl who made his world.

Those innocent (e/c) eyes looking up at him whenever he talked. The way your skin glows in the morning light when he would watch you walk to school. The way how you would try to avoid eye contact, making him have to move just so he could look at your pretty face fully.

Franklin Whetsone, or Frankie as everyone else called him was a player, He was a player. He was known around the academy as a heart breaker. Girls around the academy wanted so desperately to be with him, and he would humor them for a bit before moving on to the next.

He was known to date multiple girls at once, having them over to the apartment that he had. Girls would constantly fight over him. Saying that he belonged to them!

Oh how stupid they were..

Normally, Franklin wouldn’t allow himself to be tied to one girl for too long. He hopped around from girl to girl not allowing himself to become attached to the girl he is in pursuit of.

That was…

Until you decided to come along.

You were the girl he just couldn't get. You would reject him each time he would come up to you. You were that forbidden fruit that he wanted so badly to get a taste of. It would cause Franklin to stay up late at night, dreaming of the day that he would finally have you in his arms. Not one of those other annoying bitches.

Franklin was obsessed with you in a way. Girls usually would fall for his charms and he would simply talk them into his bed. But You? You would always reject his advances with the same phrases with that sweet voice of yours.

“S-sorry, I don’t think I’m ready for a relationship..”

Or “A-aren’t you seeing someone?..”

WHY COULDN’T YOU SEE HE WANTED YOU!? All those other girls he was with didn’t mean a damn thing to him, they were just to pass the time until you would finally give in.

But he was tired of waiting.

Franklin approached you with a smirk on his face, just like he would always do. Leaning down to face you, just inches away from those plump lips he loved so damn much.

“Babycakes~ Just who I was hoping to see~! I surely missed you,” He says noticing the blush on your face and how desperately you tried to avoid eyecontact. Oh no no, he loved eyecontact, he craved it…especially with you. He forced your chin so you could face him, and have no choice but to lock those pretty (e/c) jewels with his. 

“Let’s move to the rooftop. I have something i need to discuss with you. And ONLY you.”

You didn’t even fight him. You allowed him to guide you up to the roof. He smirks as he brings you upstairs. When he got you upstairs, he wrapped his arms around your body and hugged you tightly.

“My princess…my baby…you don’t know how much i’ve missed you.”

“You-”

“Shh. Shut up right now. I want you to listen how my heart beats for you…”

He doesn’t care how uncomfortable it makes you. He holds you against him, little do you know he already had plans made.

He’s going to ask you to be his. And if you would refuse?

He would threaten your education, after all, his grandfather is the dean, and has gotten rid of a few problems for him previously. He chuckles internally at the thought.

You were stuck with him~! He wasn’t ever going to let you go. Franklin doesn’t care how many girls he’s flirted with in the past that try to throw themselves at him. He would ignore them all because he finally has his baby in his arms~!

“Hmm? Maybe you should just quit school all together! I’ll take care of you? You would like that right? You always complain about how school is so cruel to you baby…”

“Don’t worry…your frankie is gonna take care of you..”

©kieranxvaletine 2023 <3 Hope you all enjoyed!

[thelightsandtheroses]

sing fever to the form | frankie morales x female reader

Summary: Fake dating Frankie Morales seemed the obvious solution to both of your problems, until you caught feelings and now everything is a mess. Pairing: Frankie Morales x female reader Warnings: language and explicit content, 18+ blog - minors do not interact, a little angst with a happy ending romcom style,no physical descriptors, no use of Y/N or specific age mentions for the reader. Word Count: 6.3k Notes: the fic title is from one of my absolute favourite songs which features on every single playlist i ever compile (fever to the form by nick mulvey). I also owe a huge thank you to the lovely @mvtthewmurdvck for her support on this one 💕 i think without her, this would have probably languished in my drafts.

In the cold light of Benny Miller’s bathroom, you come to the conclusion that you’ve made several mistakes. The worst one of these, the one that set the rest in motion like dominoes, had honestly seemed like such a good idea at the time. It appeared such an obvious solution to the numerous questions, interrogations and unspoken pity that you were encountering. You could never have expected this.

You’d moved to Florida for work some time ago and while you had friends and a great career, your love life was definitely lacking. People picked up on it and while no one directly said it, you felt you were continually judged.  Sure, it was all well and good that you had a nice job, but if no one’s dating you -  well, what’s your red flag?

Between that and the fact your parents kept asking about whether or not you were dating, or if you’d met anyone nice at work, it started to weigh on you. Was there a problem with the way you were living - was it you? Your loved ones seemed so disappointed that you weren’t dating and putting yourself ‘out there in the world’. You tried to tell them the dating pool was not great, that the apps were awful and the only guys you ever seemed to attract came with so many of their own red flags that they could have lined the whole of your street. You’d dated enough bad guys already, you didn’t want to date any more.

You just needed some space.

Frankie was your friend and he was experiencing similar pressures. His friends were asking him when he’d start dating again and he was grappling with a new status as a single father. So, he also needed a break, needed to remove some of the noise from those around him.

Fake dating might belong in the movies, but it seemed an obvious solution to both of your predicaments. For a while, it was perfect. 

Frankie is the ideal fake boyfriend, he’s better than any you could have ever imagined. In fact, he is probably the best boyfriend you’ve ever had, which is part of the problem. Most of your previous boyfriends hadn’t been the best, and suddenly here’s Frankie, acting like the perfect man for you?

Of course, you ended up falling for him.

It might have seemed a good idea back then, only now you’re hiding in a bathroom, fighting back tears and berating yourself as the BBQ you’d been looking forward to carries on outside. You’re so stupid. This is a dumb game. It isn’t real.

You’re not supposed to catch feelings.

But you have.

“So, how did we get together?” Frankie asks, leaning his head back against the sofa so you can see all the freckles on his neck above his hoodie.

“Um…” you chew your lip, take a gulp of your drink, “I have no idea.”

Frankie’s house is the sort of home that has comforting chaos and mess to it. His daughter’s things are strewn around the living room, an aviation manual rests on open pages on the coffee table next to you and a pile of battered paperbacks are stacked next to the sofa. The walls are a warm yellow; surprisingly comforting and bright. It’s a stark contrast to how Frankie presents himself outside of his home - cool, collected, a little quiet.

His home feels lived in. You always feel comfortable here.

“We could say that we just realised one day, hanging out, I mean crazier things have happened. A big story would stand out. KISS principles an’ all.”

“What did you just say?’” you ask. “Did you just say kissing principles?”

“Kiss?” He shakes his head. “Keep it simple, stupid! The way I see it, the only way for us to get away with this is to keep it realistic, boring almost so people don’t ask more,” Frankie says thoughtfully. 

“Ah, so hooking up with you would be boring? That’s good to know.”

“Oh, carinô, if I kissed you for real that is not the word you’d use …”Frankie trails off, mischievously raises an eyebrow.

“Ergh, you can be so arrogant,” you tease, “Okay, fine. We had a sudden movie like realisation and what - we just got together and then what did we do?”

“Well then, y’know, by that point, you couldn’t exactly walk away.” Frankie smirks salaciously.

You throw a sofa cushion at him.“I think I hate you, Frankie Morales..”

“No, no that’s definitely not what you said.” 

“So,” Frankie pauses, runs a hand through his hair. “We should agree what the boundaries are, when we’re with others.”

“Others?”

“Yes, when we’re with our friends. It needs to be believable, right? And I’m sorry, but if we stay like we are now, around my friends, then they’ll know it’s fake in five minutes.”

“Why?”

“I did an online quiz with my ex and um, physical touch is my love language,” Frankie says sheepishly. 

“You do know that whole love language thing is bullshit, right?”

“No, it’s not. Jessie said -”

“She’s wrong.”

“Regardless, the quiz said that - ergh, fine, whatever. So, what’s the plan there? I don’t want either us to feel uncomfortable though, okay.”

“We’ve been friends a long time,” you say lightly, “This won’t change that. We can figure this out.” It’s not like you’ve never hugged Frankie or he hasn’t put an arm around you before. How hard can it be - you need people to believe you?

“Also, I am not lying to my kid, or getting her to lie for me. We need to keep her out of it, tell everyone else we’re taking it slow with her until we know it’s serious, okay?” Frankie looks at you with a suddenly serious expression. Oh god, he’s a dad and this is stupid and complicated and you can’t involve her in this and you’ve just been discussing the physical boundaries in this stupid game and this is ridiculous. 

It was a pathetic idea of yours.

“Maybe we shouldn’t -”

“It’s fine. We just keep her out of this.”

“Okay, that sounds sensible.”

“So we’re really doing this then?” he asks with a shy smile.

“Yeah, I think we are.”

It’s Frankie. What other choice was there when it came down to it? It’s Frankie with his deep brown eyes that have mastered the puppy dog expression and his shy smiles. You care about him and all of his insecurities, doubts and vulnerabilities you’ve learned over the years. They make him tangible, real, and truer. Perhaps you always liked him and you didn’t know. Maybe you did and subconsciously thought this was the only way you’d have him which is why you’d pursued such a ridiculous idea. Perhaps you had thought this would be like the movies, that he’d confess his love for you and you’d drive off into the sunset.

You’re now accustomed to the way his hands skim your back or waist when you’re with friends, the way he leans closer to you and you can feel his breath against your ear when he whispers sweet nothings in his low voice, smell the laundry detergent on his clothes.

He’s so convincing.

No one has ever questioned whether it’s real with the two of you. You don’t think it would ever cross their mind that the two of you are fake dating. 

Your body and mind certainly doesn’t think it’s fake anymore.

You sit on the edge of the bath and try and try and pinpoint when you realised you felt this way. You’ve both been flirting with danger for weeks; the way you’ve let him trace shapes on your side when he pulls you close, how you lean into the crook of his neck, play with the ends of his curls when you’re out with friends. You tell yourself it’s just to make it look real, to make this situation look authentic.

You’ve certainly fooled yourself.

You’re not even sure when you realised this. One moment everything was like normal and then it wasn’t. Perhaps it’s your fault, you have always been a dreamer. You’ve always walked through life fantasising that this will be the moment when everything changes, when you suddenly fit in and someone will like you or fall in love with you. Given the way your mind works, it was inevitably a stupid idea to even try this with Frankie.

It’s been overwhelming at the BBQ today; the gentle touches, the way he looks at you and you almost believe it’s genuine.  It wouldn’t normally bother you so much, but now you’re aching for it to be something it can’t be and it’s all too much.

You couldn’t help looking at Frankie throughout the BBQ; wanting to count the freckles on his neck, to run your hands through the curls hidden by his hat as you notice the ends peeking out at the nape of his neck. You’re always taken with the broadness of his shoulders too, his hands. 

You’re completely doomed. 

You can’t do this anymore. It’s not fair, it’s a betrayal of your friendship with him. It’s a betrayal of his trust because agreeing to do this fake dating was an exercise in trust, one you are failing.

You’ve been thinking about it for days. The reason you feel so safe with Frankie is because it’s not real, because you weren’t supposed to have to give your heart away. It was just meant to distract people so you could breathe again. You’ve seen too many romcoms and movies, you’re too much of a dreamer to have ever let this work without getting messy. You thought you could be detached and objective, but you can’t.

It’s you, you’re the one who has screwed up.

So you go downstairs, make your excuses and leave.

You’ve been fake dating for two weeks and this just might be your best relationship ever.  You can’t decide if that’s sweet or perhaps the most depressing thing you’ve ever admitted.

You’re in Frankie’s car on the way to Tom’s birthday, playing with the handle of the gift bag you’re holding. The sun is out, Frankie’s playlist is setting the scene and you feel so happy in this moment.

“Don’t be surprised if they say something about us,” Frankie says casually as he changes gear, “The guys have been giving me grief since I told them about us. Well, since I told them about what we’re saying about us, anyway.”

“I thought the idea was it would stop them giving you grief?”

“Oh, this is much better than it was, trust me,” he says, laughing as he looks at the road ahead. With his sunglasses on, no hat and a loose t-shirt he looks more relaxed than you’ve ever seen him. Frankie strikes you as a tightly wound coil, he’s just got that energy. He’s calm, not something or someone you are afraid of, but you recognise the way he thinks, see the nervous anticipation in his eyes before he smiles at one of his friends on a night out.

You see the same thing in yourself.

“You know, I can’t believe this is working,” you say cheerfully to Frankie, “My mom has even stopped sending me those news articles about people who meet their soulmates later in your life.”

“Your mom was sending you those?” Frankie asks, raising an eyebrow. 

“She means well,” you say placidly. “My parents have always had a lot of expectations for me.”

“Shit.” He reaches over and squeezes your hand. “Well, I can promise you that you’re the best fake girlfriend I’ve ever had.”

“Likewise, Frankie, likewise.”

You don’t mean to ghost Frankie after the BBQ. It’s just you’re not sure what to say to him. I’m sorry, but I think this fake dating is getting a little too authentic because I might be falling for you?

You can’t do that to him, can’t embarrass yourself with your stupid crush either. It’s better to just ignore the messages, pretend it’s not happening and bury your head in the sand.

Of course, Frankie knows where you live, so you shouldn’t be as surprised as you are when he turns up at your home.

“So what’s going on? I texted you,” he says with a forced casual voice as he leans against your kitchen counter. He’s wearing a loose t-shirt and jeans, his usual hat discarded next to him. He runs a hand through his hair and looks over at you.

You don’t want to look at him properly, so you focus your attention on your kitchen tiles instead . You really need to mop the kitchen floor later. 

“I think, I think this thing has run its course.”

“Oh, really?” Frankie looks surprised, almost sad, when you dare to look at him, “I thought this was working well for us both.”

“A little too well,” you mumble under your breath.

“What was that?”

“Nothing.”

You sigh.

“Hey, cariño, talk to me.”

“It’s just us, Frankie, you don’t have to call me that right now.”

“Why, do you not like it?”

You exhale again with exasperation and shake your head. Just make this easier on me, you think, stop muddying the water. When you meet Frankie’s eyes he looks perplexed though, concerned and his brow is furrowed.

“What’s going on?” he asks, arms folded as he looks over at you. “Talk to me.”

“I think we should stop with this fake dating arrangement. I mean, the idea was just to do it until my friends and my parents were off my back and until your friends were off yours, and they are. So, let’s call it a win and move on.”

“Did something happen?” Frankie asks. “You meet someone?” There’s a strange tone to his voice, almost wistful.

“No, no. I just - I don’t think we should keep doing this. I mean that girl asked you out last week at the bar and because Will and I were with you, you said no.” 

“She wasn’t my type anyway and that’s what this is about? Come on!”

“I’m - I’m clearly holding you back and that’s not what this was supposed to be.”

“Is this what you really want?”

“Absolutely,” you lie brightly, smiling as widely as you can. “We’re friends and we’ve helped each other out so let’s bow out of this gracefully. We can say to the others - we can tell them we realised that we’re better off as friends.”

“Right. Okay.”

“Okay?” you repeat, disappointed that he’s just giving up, that this really is it. 

A small part of you was holding out hope for Frankie fighting back, for him to declare his love for you, take you into his arms and then for the two of you to have the most passionate, intense sex of your life right there in the kitchen. That’s what happens in the movies and books. It’s all meant to end with a kiss.

Only he doesn’t do that.

He just quietly acquiesces to your demand that this ends now and when he smiles, as though his acceptance will make you happy, he shatters your heart into a million pieces.

You have no idea how your friendship will recover from this. You have no idea how to watch someone else love Frankie in the future, to watch him put his hands on someone else or look at them like he looked at you and know it’s real for them but wasn’t for you.

“I should probably go,” Frankie says, his gaze fixated on the floor.

“Oh, right. Well, I’ll see you around.”

The story of your breakup spreads quickly. Your friends are disappointed, they tell you it’s obvious you both liked each other, they ask if you’re sure you can’t work it out? Your parents are clearly disappointed, but at the same time you catch a glance of relief on your mother’s face when you tell her.

“He’s complicated,” she says, taking a sip from her cup of tea.  It’s your mom’s first visit in months, a visit you had originally planned during the fake dating misadventure.  

“Complicated?”

“He’s a single father and the job he has? Being a pilot isn’t like a regular 9-5.” 

“He makes his hours work for his kid, and none of those things were the reason we broke up”you say defensively. “And at my age, most people have previous relationships and baggage so I don’t think that makes him any more complicated than anyone else I could meet.”

“You don’t, darling, you don’t have any baggage.”

“That in itself is clearly a complication,” you say, rolling your eyes like a petulant teenager. “I mean, you and Dad hated it when I was single. You were always asking if I’d met someone, or if I was looking and -“ you trail off and stare at your hands on the table. Your nail varnish is chipped. Rouge Noir, the classic vampy red you always put on when you’re feeling blue, when you need a confidence boost. It’s not working for you right now though.

“We just want you to be happy,” your mom says, gently taking her hands in yours. “Whatever that looks like.”

“I am happy.” It’s meant to sound assertive but it comes out more like a question as you speak. You’re happy, dammit. Or you were before everything went wrong.

“No, honey, you’re in the middle of a break up and it’s obvious you still feel something for him. Are you sure - are you sure it’s over? You told me you were the one who ended things.”

“Yeah, I did. I don’t think - I don’t think it’s a good idea, mom. I’ll get over it. I have this big work project and then that trip and the apartment move soon, so I’ll be fine.”

You’re not sure of anything now. You thought stopping the arrangement with Frankie would save your friendship, but it didn’t. Now you don’t have him at all and it fucking hurts.

You are so angry and sad and confused. This is all your fault for getting feelings that you’d laughed at the possibility of months ago. You’ve lost him anyway and it’s caused a great  chasm in your heart.

 How can you be mourning something that wasn’t even real in the first place?

When you became friends with Frankie, he introduced you to some of his friends from his military days. While you didn’t exactly get on with all of them, Tom is aloof at best, Benny and you had become friends over time. In the wake of your fictionalised break-up, you’ve lost those people too. You’ve avoided Benny’s fights, wanted Frankie to have his friends without the bother of you. Besides, you’ve been focused on work. You had a trip away for a few days and then you had a big project, presentations. Work has been something to throw yourself into.

It’s a good plan, but Benny keeps texting you and personally invites you to his next fight.

You and Frankie have both said you’re still friends so what’s the problem?

I don’t know if it’s a good idea.

Just come to the damn fight, would you? Liv keeps asking after you.

You decide you should go at least once to show your face. You can do this, you can handle one night. You like Liv, Benny’s girlfriend, and you can say hello and then vanish quickly after the fight ends. If you’re careful with the seating set up, you might not even see Frankie or have to talk to him at all.

The bar is crowded and while Will, Santiago, Tom and Frankie all greeted you when you arrive, it feels different. Stilted somehow.

 It’s almost how it would feel if this was a genuine break up, if this was real. You suppose it is to Santiago, Tom and Will.

You sat with Benny’s girlfriend, Liv, for the fight. She squeezed your hand sympathetically when she catches you looking over at Frankie.

Frankie still looks the same as ever, you think as you cast your eyes over to where he is in the crowd. He’s wearing his usual hat, the one you’ve teased him about for years but can’t picture him ever giving up, with well fitting jeans and a jacket. He looks infuriatingly good.

Before the fight Frankie had moved so he was next to you and he looked like he wanted to say something to you before the fight began. Panicked, you quickly moved next to Liv instead and so you were sitting on the other side of the group to him as you took your seats.

Crisis averted, you thought. Only now, you can’t stop wondering what he might have said to you.

“I can’t see why you can’t get it together,” Benny says, taking a sip from his bottle of beer. The two of you are standing together by the bar, waiting for the rest of the group’s drinks. Benny’s mostly fixed up from his fight, with just a small red stain on his forehead between the steri-strips and bruises. You think the other guy must look a lot worse. 

“Wait, what did you say?” you ask.

“I don’t see why you and Frankie can’t work it out. I mean, look at him,” Benny points his bottle towards your friends, to where your attention had just been. Frankie’s standing on the edge of the group, arms folded, hat rigid. He looks uncomfortable.

You shouldn’t have come here tonight.

“We tried and it wasn’t a good fit. It wasn’t going to work out,,” you say flatly, repeating the line you and Frankie had agreed on.

“Look, you might have fooled the others, but you can’t fool me.”

Your stomach sinks. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, I know you guys were fake dating at first.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You could barely keep your stories straight about how you got together when I asked,” Benny says softly. “You kept adding details and I noticed Frankie shake his head whenever you did that.”

“Why didn’t you say anything? Does Frankie know?” You’re mortified for him, you know how embarrassed he would feel if he found out that Benny had guessed all along it was fake.

This really can’t get any worse.

“‘Cause you two obviously liked each other. I assumed that you’d figure it out along the way. I thought you had, but then -” Benny trails off.

“You know when you assume, you make an ass -”

‘Oh sweetheart, don’t even finish that sentence.“ Benny exhales. “How are you holding up?”

“It’s what you said, it was fake and we ended it and it’s all fine now.”

“Bullshit,” Benny exclaims, his southern drawl even more pronounced.

“It’s not.”

“It is.”

The bartender interrupts by finally handing you the rest of your drinks and between you and Benny, you take them and rejoin your friends.

‘Cause you two obviously liked each other.

Benny’s words echo in your mind. He didn’t say because you liked Frankie, but because you both did.

Frankie doesn’t like you like that though, you know this. He’s clearly just a very good actor.

You end up the one handing Frankie his drink, no doubt due to Benny’s meddling. Your hands brush against his as he takes the bottle and you can’t help looking up at him, noticing the unreadable expression on his face.

Will coughs loudly and you quickly take a step back.

“It was a good fight, Benny,” you say awkwardly, hoping he’ll take the change of subject.

“I need a smoke,” Frankie says, hunching his shoulders as he walks away from the group.

The room instantly turns cold. 

You awkwardly pull the edge of your jacket down, wishing the ground would swallow you up. Santi, Tom and Will are staring at you and you can’t be here. They hate you, they’re judging you.

This is so fucked up.

“I’m uh, going to go.”

Liv makes a motion as if to stop you, but she doesn’t, and Benny’s looking at you with real disappointment but that doesn’t stop you either. You’re getting good at running away now.

You’re too afraid to look behind you and see whether they’re looking at you as you walk away.

Frankie’s standing by the parking lot when you finally weave your way past the crowds and bloody fighters to reach the exit.

He looks surprised to see you. Just seeing his face makes your heart ache because you’ve lost him, you’ve lost him and you didn’t want to.

“I’m leaving now, so you can go back in” you say flatly.

“I was just having a smoke,” he says defensively. It’s an obvious lie, you both know it.

“Sure, Frankie. Look, you can’t just stomp off like that. You can’t leave me in that position with everyone. It’s not fair.”

“Yeah, well, there’s a lot of things we don’t discuss, lot of things that aren’t fair,” Frankie says bitterly, tossing his cigarette to the floor and stamping on it a little too vigorously.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“What’s going on with you? This wasn’t meant to affect our friendship. I never, ever would have agreed if I’d known,” Frankie says firmly. “You were my friend and I still wanted you to be but you ghosted me and ended our deal. That’s fine, but we didn’t go back to normal after. We just - it’s like you hate me now.”

“I don’t hate you.”

“Just would you tell me what I did wrong?”

“You didn’t do anything wrong.”

“Then why -”

“It was too real,” you whisper, folding your arms around yourself and leaning against the brick wall.

“What? What did you say?” Frankie asks, moving closer.

“You know, the faking it thing. It was too real, it was confusing me. And I - I didn’t want to ruin everything but I still ruined it all. Story of my life.”

“Don’t say that. Don’t be so hard on yourself.” You think, somehow he’s going to break your heart even more tonight and you didn’t think that was possible..

“I just - I got confused.”

“How did you get confused?” he asks in a low voice, taking another step closer to you.

“Don’t, Frankie, don’t make me say it.”

“Say what?” he asks, dramatically throwing his hands in the air, “I can’t understand you. I mean, this was your idea and then you ended it and now you don’t even want to be friends? I don’t know what I did but -”

“You did nothing, Frankie. It’s me, not you.”

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me. Clearly something happened. Can’t you just talk to me? I’m fucking miserable here. You were supposed to be my friend and I miss you.” You hadn’t thought that your actions could have hurt Frankie, you thought you were protecting him by doing what you did.

You feel even worse, a sick feeling rising in your stomach. 

“It got muddled in my head, okay, it felt like it was real and I couldn’t do that to you, so that’s why - that’s why.” You falter at the end of your sentence as all of the adrenaline and energy from your body fades away..

“It got too real for you? What are you saying?”

“That I like you. That I ended up liking you more than I should, you obtuse jerk!”

Frankie pauses then takes another step closer. “Why didn’t you tell me?” he asks, a slight smile on his face that you can’t make any sense of.

“It’s embarrassing, Frankie. We made an arrangement and I caught feelings like an idiotic teenager. I’m just daydreaming my life away again.”

Frankie is so close to you right now, he braces his hands against the wall as he stands right in front of you.

“You caught feelings, huh?”

You notice a familiar smirk on his face and then he’s kissing you.

Frankie’s kissed you before; it’s been part of the facade after all, but not like this.

This kiss is everything. It sends molten heat down your core, renders your mind completely blank. All the anxiety, all the internal dialogue is gone for once. The silence is blissful as you can feel your heart pounding, take in the soft texture of Frankie’s shirt as you fist it to pull him closer because now he’s with you like this, you can’t let him go.

It’s not an aggressive kiss, it’s not teeth clashing or fury. It’s not exactly gentle either.  Frankie kisses you with care; like he’s trying to take you apart right here and now with just a kiss.

In just one minute, he’s ruined you for other people. No one else could kiss you like Frankie does.

“I told you, if I kissed you for real it wouldn’t be boring,” Frankie mumbles, moving his attention down your jaw and neck to your collarbone. You can feel the velvet softness of his lips, the heat of his breath.

“Oh fuck you,” you joke.

”Well, baby, I think I’m trying. Not here though, we can do better than that.”

You both laugh. The tension breaks for just a second as you wrap your arms around his shoulders, laugh into his neck, breathe him in.

“C’mon, you had to know I liked you. I just, I  just thought you deserved someone better than me -” Frankie starts.

“That’s bullshit,” you argue. Frankie is kind, thoughtful and funny. He’s also so competent, multi-skilled and as you’ve just learned, an excellent kisser. Frankie has that quiet and collected energy you’ve noticed in a lot of ex-military people too. He flies planes and helicopters for a living. He’s your friend. How could you deserve any better than him?

“Can we get out of here?” Frankie asks, “Talk, not talk, I don’t mind. I just - I want to be with you right now. God, I missed you.”

“Okay. I really fucking missed you too,” you say, kissing his shoulder lightly before leaning back against the wall.

He doesn’t stop touching you the whole way to your apartment. He’s either holding your hand or touching your leg. If he has to temporarily remove himself to make a turn or change gear, he’s immediately back with you as soon as possible. You wonder if he’s worried you’ll leave or vanish if he’s not actually touching you, if he’s also wondering if this is really happening..

His car stereo blares uncharacteristically cheerful music by the latest pop sensation and you raise your eyebrows when he looks over at you.

“It’s her favourite album by her favourite singer and school’s been rough for her the last few weeks so this cheers her up,” he says defensively, flexing his fingers on the steering wheel, “I think I can probably hear it even when it’s not playing now.”

“Sure, but your daughter’s not in the car with us. Is she, Frankie? You could have switched it over.”

“I keep forgetting to change the CD,” he whines unconvincingly. “This car’s old.”

You make your way to your apartment, his arm around you, fingers entwined with yours the whole time.

As soon as you close the front door, he’s pushing your back against the wall, cupping his hands around your face to kiss you deeply.

You move your hands up to meet his and then move one of your hands down his chest.

“Your heart’s racing like crazy,” you mumble as he kisses a particular spot on your neck.

There’s always a moment of fear at a junction like this. What if the sex is bad - what if you’re just not compatible this way? But you need him, you need him with you, in you and the two of you are both too far gone to focus on that now.

Your friendship is changed anyway. There’s nothing more to lose.

He places his hands on your hips, pulls you away towards your bedroom.

“I want you so much,” he says.

“I want you too,” you reply, dazed between kisses as he navigates you to the edge of your bed.

He ghosts his hands down to the edge of your top and you move to desperately pull it off you.

You watch him take in the sight of you in your bra, take in the smile on his face. He looks at you with something like reverence; as if he can’t quite take it in that you’re real and you’re with him. Part of you wants to glow under his gaze and the rest of you fights panic, because this feels different, it feels real. You’ve never been looked at like this before.

You’ll do anything to keep this moment.

He gently unhooks your bra, moves his kisses down from your lips to your neck to your collarbone to the curve of your breasts and then down again.

His hands fumble with the button of your jeans and you’re desperate for him.

“What do you want, baby?”

You, you think, I just want you.

”C’mon, tell me,” he coaxes.

“I just need you. I want you to - ”

“I’ve got you,” he says, calmly lifting your hips to remove your jeans, to touch the hem of your underwear - and could you have not put better underwear on this morning?

You open your mouth to say something but then he comes back to meet your lips as he moves his hand inside your underwear. You’re already slick with wanting him, he slides a finger inside before tracing circles over your bundle of nerves to make you gasp.

 “You’re so fucking pretty,” he whispers as he continues taking you apart.

“Frankie -”

“I’ve liked you for so long, I just thought you didn’t want me that way. I’d take anything you give me - friendship, I mean fake dating. I thought it was as close as I’d get.”

“Frankie, how could I not want you that way? You’re - you’re Frankie.”

“Exactly.”

“I’m going to show you.”

You feel your orgasm building and clasp your hands over his shoulders, into his hair. You shut your eyes and then it’s gone.

“Frankie?”

You open your eyes to see him take his finger into his mouth then mischievously smiles as he moves back and off the bed. He moves you so your legs are over the edge of the bed and then. He gets on his knees.

You take a deep breath He kisses the inside of your knee, traces kiss up your thigh until he meets you. You sit up slightly on your elbows as he looks up to meet your gaze with a dazed smile before he turns his attention to you.

Frankie Morales knows exactly what he’s doing between your legs but in case, you tell him how good he is anyway. He takes you apart with expert precision, gets you back to the precipice of pleasure all too quickly and guides you over the line.

“Do you want to -” he asks breathlessly as he comes back to you afterwards and kisses you. You can taste yourself on his lips, can feel his hardness pressing into you.

“Yeah, I do. I have uh - condoms in the bathroom cabinet.”

“Give me a second.” He kisses you briefly and you shut your eyes again as he goes to the bathroom. You try and catch your breath back and get your legs to stop trembling.

Why are the condoms so fucking far away? You still desperately need him, still need to feel him.

When Frankie comes back, he kisses you hungrily before he slides the condom over his length.

“Fuck, to think we could have been doing this the whole time,” he says before he’s sliding inside you.

There’s nothing else at this moment. It’s just you and him and the way you dig your fingers into his back with your free hand and the way your other hands is entwined in his as he moves inside you, the two of you desperately exchanging  sweet nothings to each other, groaning each other’s names.

Your heart is racing and the blood is pumping in your ears. You watch the expression on his face just before he buries his face in your neck, sure he can feel the way you’re tightening around him, can surely feel how close you are too and then just as he takes you to that place one more time, you hear the way he moans as he joins you.

The next morning you watch Frankie pacing your balcony as speaks on the phone to his daughter. His hair is still damp from the shower, curling at the ends, and he has a mug of coffee in his other hand. He turns and smiles at you.

Just twenty four hours ago, you never thought Frankie could feel that way about you. You were resigned to your mistakes and your losses.

You were wrong.

He hangs up the phone and you walk over to join him on the balcony, your mug of coffee tightly clasped between your hands.

“Hi.”

“Hey,” he says, putting his phone in his pocket and wrapping his now free arm around you as he takes a gulp of coffee.

You take a sip of your own coffee.

“I was just thinking,” Frankie says, “so, I guess the story we came up with before was true, right? We just realised how we felt about each other one day - and okay, it might have taken some fake dating to get us both there - but no one else needs to know that.”

“No one else needs to know that.”

You definitely need to tell Frankie at some point that Benny has figured everything out, that Benny clearly pushed you two together last night. You probably owe him a thank you, but you’ll never tell Benny that.

“So, what do we do now?” There’s a lot you need to discuss, figure out, but you just want to be with him. Surely that’s enough for now.

Frankie grins. “Well, I don’t need to be home until the afternoon so I’ve got some time right now.”

“I’m sure we can think of some things to fill that time.”

Frankie laughs. “Definitely.”

Tag List

All Pedro characters: @harriedandharassed @pedrostories @hiroikegawa @pedrosaidsheispunk

[guess-my-next-obsession]

Hello Beautiful 😍

If you are still doing those lovely prompts I was hoping I could make a request for Frankie for the following:

6. “You look so good beneath me.” 

11. “Louder. Let me hear you.”

30. “I will never get enough of you.”��

I love your works

Lost In Love

pairing: frankie morales x f!reader

rating: E (18+ ONLY, piv, frankie talks, multiple o’s, romantic shit)

wc: <500

frankie masterlist

You look so good beneath me.

Frankie had your body spread out on the fresh sheets covering your shared bed, the bed you bought together, the bed he built with his skillful hands—those same hands gripping the back of your thighs as he pressed them towards the mattress.

He’d been lost in you for hours, taking his time in building up to this moment, practically making you beg for it.

What had started as a date night in—a movie both of you had been wanting to see since it was released in theaters now long forgotten in the background—turned into one of the most erotic and intimate nights of lovemaking the two of you had ever experienced. You weren’t sure who initiated things first or how it got so fucking desperate, but here beneath the weight of his firm but deliberately slow thrusts, you couldn’t bring yourself to care.

He’d already unraveled you three times—once with his fingers, once with his mouth, and once with your vibrator, forcing you to let him give, give, give until you were begging him to take.

“I can never get enough of you,” he rasped into your ear, soft and low, his hips carving his name into yours with every slow thrust in and every pull out.

“Frankie,” you whined, your head rolling against the pillow as you clawed at his back, doing some claiming of your own as he lit you up in flames of pleasure with every press of his cock against your spot.

“Louder,” he demanded, squeezing his hands to clutch your thighs even harder. “Let me hear you. I want to hear how fucking good I make you feel, baby. Only me, huh? I’m the only one that—fuck—that makes you feel this way? You’re the only fucking one that makes me feel this way.”

“Frankie!” you cried, that tingling sweet burn in your belly trickling up your spine and down into your fingertips, forcing you to claw into his back again. He groaned against your temple as he placed a kiss there, his hips stuttering into you.

“Cum.” The command was simple, your body overworked and tired from reaching the cliffs of euphoria three times tonight but complying nonetheless.

Your nails raked down the golden skin of his back as you came, leaving red streaks over the freckles that covered the expanse of his broadness.

“Fuck, yes,” he groaned, long and drawn out, his cock punching into you three more times before he stilled. You held him tight as he shuddered against you, his face buried in the safe warmth of your neck, his voice an incoherent mumble as he praised you like you were his god.

“I love you,” you whispered against the shell of his ear, kissing it to seal the promise of your affection. Frankie lifted his head to look down at you, a lazy, sated smile taking the place of the focused frown he was wearing just moments ago.

“I love you,” he whispered back. “I’ll never get enough of you.”

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[wildemaven]

Sweet Creature: Chapter Nine

Pairing: Dieter Bravo x F!Reader

WC: 8k

Warnings: 18+ Blog; Fluff, a kiss of angst, talk of past relationship and break up, pregnancy scare, mopey Poppy, nervousness and anxiety, brief mentions of sobriety, smut, self doubt, public speaking, reader has the nickname Poppy- zero physical description, to dumb dumbs in love

A/N: This is a doozy of a chapter, there was so much to pack in for these two. I can’t believe we’re nearing the end, I had definite moments of sadness as I was wrapping up this chapter but also found so inspiration to help tie up the story for these two! You can listen to Dieter & Poppy’s Playlist Here. Also a big thank you to @gnpwdrnwhiskey for constantly listening and helping me through this one, I definitely needed it on this chapter.

Series Masterlist / Playlist / Main Masterlist

Previous/ Epilogue

It had taken a few months for Dieter to tangle himself into your life. 

Inching his way into your mind, settling deep within your bones and eventually finding shelter in the most sacred of places— your heart. 

It took only a matter of a few short days for him to imprint himself into your home, pieces of him lingering in your space, even long after he had left. 

But you can’t seem to pull yourself from the confines of your bed, each morning since his departure, you study the hollowed out spot where his worn body claimed as his, still having yet to find the energy to make it or wash the sheets clean of the hours of intensity and conversations ingrained into the plush pillow-top. 

Your fingers run over the creases of the pillow, remembering how you would trace the same lines etched across his face in the early mornings, the usual scrunch between his brows smooth and relaxed, the faintest of snores escaping his parted lips— memorizing his angelic dreamy state. 

A soft thread catches the path your finger continues to take. A silky strand of hair, no longer a part of him, now woven in through the fibers of your cotton pillowcase— proof he was here and existed in this space with you, with those unruly thick curls tousled with ardency, sweat and sleep— your fingers still managing to work through the wildness. 

*

-Saturday Morning-

“What was your last serious relationship like?” Dieter asks, laying on his side with an arm bent, head propped on his hand, your bed sheet draped over his naked lower half. 

His free hand mapping out the plains of your exposed skin, the morning sun filters through your bedroom window, providing a soft muted light as his fingers continue to unearth new details of your body he has yet to see in daylight. 

“Oof! Hitting me with the serious stuff first thing in the morning.” The rasp of sleep still coating your throat, your body turned in close towards him with one arm tucked between your pillow and resting head, your free hand mesmerized by the texture of his skin— connecting invisible lines between each freckle painted across his neck and chest. 

“Question for a question then. But you don’t have to answer it if you don’t want to.” 

“No, it’s fine. It’s— just a lot for some people to hear. Kind of just keep it to myself, less questions and ‘how come’ once they find out.” 

“Hey, I won’t judge you, for anything you tell me— ever.”

Dieter watches the way your eyes flit about for a few seconds, his hand stopping to rest on your naked hip with a gentle squeeze, a reassuring gesture of sincerity in his words. 

“Frankie was my high school sweetheart, we started dating our senior year. We were together— gosh…. 5, almost 6 years.” You let out a sigh, all the memories of your previous relationship flooding back to you, having been locked away for so long. 

“After high school, when we realized things were getting serious, we decided to figure out what we wanted moving forward. We were on the same page with everything for the most part, no real deal breakers. We would get married after college, buy a house— a seemingly cookie cutter life together.”

“I’m not following— sounds like the perfect life to me.” Confusion settles across his forehead, brows drawn together as he studies your face. 

“Except, I couldn’t give him the one thing he wanted— kids.” You notice the way his face drops when you say it, knowing his first thought is exactly what everyone else usually assumes when you tell them.

“I guess I should rephrase that— I didn’t want, don’t want kids. It was something we established too, both on board with living a childless life. We agreed we would be the best Aunt and Uncle for our friend’s kids.”

Dieter nods at your admission, the hand on your hip starting to leave feather-like strokes the length of your side, goosebumps scattering across your warm skin. 

“It wasn’t until we were well into our relationship that things changed. We had a bit of a pregnancy scare, we were both very careful too, so it was a bit of a shock when it happened. I was angry with myself— how could I let it happen? What did I do wrong? All the things running through my head the minute I saw those pink lines, wondering how we were going to afford a baby on our combined income, all while trying to get through finishing college— I spiraled pretty hard for a good week. But, through some routine testing, we discovered it was a false-positive— I was so fucking relieved!” 

Your fingers still over the hollow of his neck, taking a deep breath, not really sure how Dieter is taking everything you’re saying. 

“In the midst of my inner turmoil over the thought of being pregnant, I hadn’t really checked in with Frankie to see where his head was at, I had just assumed he was riding the same boat as me.”

“He changed his mind?” He asks. 

“Yeah— or it was what he had always wanted, he just didn’t realize it until that week, when it was almost a possibility.”

“So you broke up?”

“We stayed together for another year afterwards, thinking we could work through it. But I couldn’t keep that from him, it would have eaten me alive being the reason he wasn’t 100% happy. We decided it was best if we split.” You can’t help the smile that starts to develop, Dieter’s receptive demeanor made this whole moment feel a little less heavier than you thought it would be. 

“I ended up running into Frankie a few years ago. We caught up and I learned he ended up joining the army, Special Forces I think, met his wife while saving her from some bar creep, always the chivalrous one—  and they have two little girls. I like to think we both ended up where we were supposed to be.”

There’s a prick of something that ricochets across his chest— the pairing of unaltered reverence and adoration. You just want the best for others, and it shows even in how not that long ago how you went to battle for Diem out of pure love, wanting the best for her and Wren— he respects you so much now looking back on it. 

Dieter leans over and places a few soft kisses to your lips, the last one lingering a little longer before pulling away to rest his forehead on yours. 

“Thank you, for sharing that with me.” He murmurs against your lips. 

“Of course. My question now— What about you? Do you want kids?” You ask. 

Dieter gently pushes you to your back, settling himself between your legs, peering down at you with a soft smile.

“I’ll only ever be Uncle Dude— never had the desire to be a dad.” 

His head dips down to your still bare chest, the few kitten-like licks before he takes your nipple into his mouth, scorching and persistent, causing your back to arch up into him, eyes fluttering closed and mouth wide as you emit a breathless whine. 

A few intense sucking motions before he gives your breast an experimental bite, his eyes observing the way your body writhes at the juxtaposition of sensations before releasing it with a pop, blowing a stream of cold air across your wet skin and watching the way your nipple instantly tightens. 

He crawls up your body, one arm resting next to your head as the other snakes down between your bodies taking hold of his now hardened cock, a few quick strokes before he’s notching the head at your now dripping entrance. 

“Doesn’t mean I don’t like partaking in the act.” His words punctuated by him fully sheathing himself into your cunt.

“Oh fuck! Dieter—“ Your laugh quickly exchanged for a heady moan. 

Your bodies meld together in a heated indulgence. The slippery grip of dewy skin as your bodies work in a synergistic fashion, calculated snapping of hips take you both to a climactic level of bliss. 

*

BUZZ BUZZ BUZZ

The vibration of your phone against your nightstand draws you back from the reliving of your weekend with Dieter, interrupting the playlist streaming through the phone speaker. 

You grab your phone to check who the message is from…

Mom ❤️: Hey Sweetheart! Let me know when you’re heading over. Going to sit by the pool for a bit until then. This place is beautiful, I might not ever leave! Talk to you soon!

The music promptly picks back up again with its uptempo beat, you connect your phone to your speakers in the living room, the words floating brightly in the background as you will yourself out of bed. 

In route to a much needed cup of coffee, you pull on the fuzzy warm jacket that seems to have established itself as an essential element in your daily life, dropping your phone in its cavernous pocket before bringing the fleecy fabric to your face for a brief moment. It’s a cognitive experience, the inhalation of the still drenched in his signature Dieter-musk, making your insides gooey and flustered. 

‘Ooh, I lose control, can't seem to get enough, uh-huh

When I wake from dreaming, tell me is it really love?’

You chuckle into your cup as you take that first sip, the words a flawless depiction, and complete coincidence of every morning this week. 

A quick text back to your mom to fill her in on the day’s plans. 

Poppy: Hi Mom! Had a bit of a slow morning, but I’m up and moving now! Going to shower and get ready. I thought we could go to this new sandwich shop that just opened. I've been wanting to try it. I’ll text you when I’m on my way to the hotel. Love you

Your mom had gotten in late last night, still having not seen her yet. Diem was so kind to put her up in the Capri for the weekend, your mom insisting she didn’t want to intrude and give you space. 

It was her first time visiting since you had moved, but not her first time to Ojai. She had visited on numerous occasions in her travels before having you, it was usually a brief stop for a few hours to grab a quick bite and then off to her next stop. 

As a child, you would spend hours browsing through her endless collection of photo albums, dreaming up your own stories about visiting her favorite places— grainy Kodak Portra 160 was her film of choice, the color grading and light leaks adding to the cinematized scenes. There was something alluring about Ojai, always spending a little extra time with those images, it had become your ‘one day I am going to move there’ place. So, when you had started actually considering moving, your mind instantly went to Ojai— it was a no-brainer this was the place you were meant to set your roots in. 

A slow sip of the ambered liquid trickles down your throat, its atomic structure hitting every nerve as it slowly expands in your veins, giving you the ample amount of energy to keep you from crawling right back in bed. 

A thrumming piano tune dances across the room, instantaneously reliving the moment you coerced Dieter to add it to your growing playlist, selfishly you hope the familiar high falsetto voice evokes the same memory for Dieter as it does for you when he shuffles through the songs. 

Just a small town girl

Livin' in a lonely world

She took the midnight train going anywhere

Just a city boy

Born and raised in South Detroit

He took the midnight train going anywhere

*

-Sunday Afternoon-

“Add. The. Song. Dieter!” A purely joking dramatic version of yourself pleads with him, you sense the song isn’t a front-runner for Dieter, but you’re enjoying the banter it’s causing. 

The popular chorus continues roaring through the living room where you’ve both been camped out for the last hour, switching off listening to music on bith your record player and Dieter’s Spotify account.

It felt silly when you suggested you both should create a compilation of songs that you could listen to and think of the other person— complete cheeseball move. It was reminiscent of junior high when you would download songs off shady sites and then burn the perfect cd mix for your crush, labeling it— I really like you but I’m not good with words, so here’s some songs instead— the cover art hand drawn sharpie doodles and emo quotes that could bring a 15 year old girl in love to tears. Being it was modern times, Dieter opted for a playlist of top favorite songs between the two of you, dubbing it ‘Dieter’s & Poppy’s Mix Tape.’

He wants to engrain this scene in his mind forever, your naked form cloaked in his beloved brown jacket, dancing around your living room, belting the lyrics in the most out of tune way. 

“Streetlights, people!— Dieter, please! You said our favorite songs— this would be a favorite of mine! Add the damn song!!” 

“This— This is your favorite song? It’s like the most overplayed karaoke song in the history of music” His cocked eyebrow as he holds his phone with the Spotify app open in his lap, finding it hard to hold off his growing smirk and not surprised in the least that it’s a top pick for you. 

“I’ll have you know, I am the reigning Karaoke Queen, west of the Mississippi River— you're in the presence of royalty, Babe. Don't stop believin' Hold on to that feelin'!” Grabbing another slice of cold pizza from the half eaten box on the coffee table, you continue twirling about on your tippy toes, maintaining your off-key singing between bites. 

“Something tells me your full of shit. Fine— It’s added. But I’m adding ‘You Need to Calm Down’ for tax.”

“I need to do what?” Your twirling ceases, the bottom of his jacket swaying about as you watch the way he stares down at his phone, fingers pecking at the screen. 

“No— it’s a song. According to Wren, “it’s a Taylor Swift masterpiece!’” His air quotes and deadpan expression almost take you out. 

“Never would have pegged you as a Swiftie, but I love it.”

“Well, it’s all she wants to listen to on the drive to school. I can’t help it if i know every word to almost every song.”

The next song plays through, Dieter continues to watch you from his spot on the couch, loving the carefree manner in which you move, your infectious smile on display as you sing along to a song you definitely do not know a single word to, eyes closed and arms stretched out letting the chorus fully envelop your mind— this whole moment solidifying his love for you. 

He brings his phone up and snaps a few pictures, each image progressively blurrier as he tries to capture you dancing, his last attempt is more or less successful, the timing just right and the result an accurate depiction of how he wants look back on this time together— a flash of your beaming smile that causes your eyes to crinkle at the edges and your audacious desire to be completely yourself in front of him is a picture worth taking. 

“Are you taking a picture of me?” Breathless and smiling. 

“Guilty. I need something to remember this day while I’m away.”

“Okay, but take a better one then.” 

Grabbing his sunglasses off the table to situate them on your face, your bare leg crossed over and kicked out to the side in an ameture Radio City Rockette fashion, middle fingers erect while your hands cover your now exposed breasts, a one-sided nose scrunch and curled lip with some semblance of a smile, all while the remaining slice of your pizza dangles from your mouth. 

“Beautiful, just like the other ones.” His chest vibrates at the sight of you, he pats his thighs motioning for you to come over to where he’s seated. “Alright Karaoke Queen, get your sexy little Believin’ ass over here!” 

Tossing your crust back into the pizza box, you skip-hop over to him, your knees sinking into the cushions of the couch as you straddle his boxer clad lap. His hands sliding under where his Jacket is splayed open, his warm touch glides over your thighs. 

“Let me see— the others, please.” You ask timidly, not sure what ‘others’ entails, pulling his sunglasses off and tossing them to the side. 

His thumb swipes and presses across his phone screen, then hands you an open folder of images, tiny intimate squares fill the screen. You click on the most recent ones of you here in your home, laughing at how ridiculous you think you look, glancing up to see Dieter’s head tilted to the side and his gaze fixed on you. Refocusing on his phone, you start swiping, so many images of times you had spent together, except you're the main focus of each photo, very much unaware of your photo being taken. 

There was the afternoon spent baking cupcakes for no reason other than they sounded delicious. Flour covering the surface of the counter, while you and Wren laugh at something completely unrelated to the making of said cupcakes— equal amounts of flour coating both your hands and faces. 

There’s the backyard dinner Diem had invited you over for. You were seated across from where Dieter and Diem were sitting, listening intently to something she was saying. The sun warm against your back as it had started its descent, your elbow propped on the table and chin resting on your hand, your attention focused on every aspect of the conversation. 

The first evening Dieter and Wren had attended your art class together, a few of you talking about something art related and then a couple of you actually painting and drawing— your face naturally lighting up at you sharing art with others. 

Each swipe revealed another image, so many of you smiling while looking off at whatever had your attention, full body laughs shared with someone out of frame, deep in thought or absorbed into something you were reading or looking at on your phone. 

Seeing your life candidly curated in a digital collection of photos has so many emotions whirling through your mind, love being the most prominent one. 

Your breath hitches when you scroll to the last image in the folder.

You're at the front of your classroom, a stack of papers tucked against your chest as your smile beams out to your class. You note your outfit isn’t your usual uniform, you're wearing your favorite band tee, jeans and sneakers— it’s the morning you were late and Dieter stepped in to help you out, bringing a sense of ease to your disarray of a morning. 

“I think that was one of the moments I knew.” Dieter’s smoky voice cuts into the air, pointing at the image you’ve been studying a little longer than the others.

“Knew what?” Looking up from the phone to see his chestnut eyes twinkling with adoration, his hands gently rubbing against your hips. 

“Knew that I needed you in my life, however that was.” 

“There were others?”

“Your art class was another.”

There’s a beat of silence between you, the start of the next song picking up its pace. 

“Do you ever imagine what it would be like if we would have met each other sooner than we did?” Something you’ve thought about at times, wishing you had more time with him, maybe if you had met sooner. Your fingers trace along the ridge of his collarbone as you wait for his answer. 

“No— you would have definitely deserved better than who I was back then. You would have hated the thought of being in the same room as me.” 

He wouldn’t have been anything close to who he is now, grateful you were never fully subjected to the asshole he used to be. 

Your hand settles on his bare chest, right where his heart is beating fiercely.

“I deserve you now though. And I definitely want to be in every room you walk into.” 

‘Tears stream down your face

I promise you I will learn from my mistakes

Tears stream down your face, and I

Lights will guide you home

And ignite your bones And I will try to fix you’

Your lips meet his in an unhurried embrace, Dieter pulling your lower body closer to his, his fingers digging into the meat of your backside when your hips start to gradually begin to grind against him, his cock hardening with each brush of your wet cunt. 

His hands create their own intimate paths over your body, one traveling up the length of your spine, the other moving to the underside of your breast, cupping the supple weight of it in his palm. A swipe of his thumb over your sensitive nipple has you gasping into his mouth, the catalyst for your silent plea for more— and he hears it loud and clear. 

His hands. His mouth. His cock— all working in perfect, articulate motions. Until you’re succumbing to the culmination of purposeful exertion and precise execution. 

The last 48 hours were spent with Dieter's departure looming in the background of your minds, not allowing yourselves to stew on the impending heartache that was to come the moment you said your goodbyes. 

Between the hours of relaxed conversations and alleviating desirous needs, you both managed to get through the weekend with a strong sense of optimism about the future. A shared commitment to each other, with endless promises of check-ins whenever possible and working out a plan to see each other once Dieter had his schedule set, it was enough to keep the sadness at bay— it gave you something to look forward to. 

The afternoon slowly began to bleed into your final evening together, tangled limbs and intimate memories treated with exactness, fueling hushed whispers of ‘I love yous’ embedding themselves into every single part of your soul. 

*

KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK 

You hadn’t been expecting anyone, the rapid knock on your front door was a complete surprise. 

After confirming your name with the sweet delivery lady, she hands off the beautiful dried floral arrangement, mentioning a card was tucked into the center, wishing you a great rest of your day before driving away. 

You had never seen anything like it before, an incredible assortment of dried flowers, stems and oversized leaves arranged meticulously in a ceramic vase. 

Placing the flowers on the kitchen counter, you pull the small card from it, reading the small written note:

Poppy, I’m so proud of you! You’re so talented and I can’t wait to hear how tonight goes. Love you, Dieter

You smile at his thoughtfulness, missing him so much and needing to hear his voice desperately. 

Pulling your phone from the coat pocket, you dial his number and hope there’s a chance you catch him at a good time. 

“Hello.” There’s warmth in the way his voice cracks through the phone. 

“Hi. I just got the flowers— they’re absolutely beautiful, Dieter. Thank you!” 

“I can’t take full credit. Nessa, my assistant, said you might like them, something about them lasting forever. Anyways, she set up the order while I was in a meeting.” 

“Well, I’ll have to thank her at some point then.” There’s some static carrying through the line as you continue your conversation.

“How are you feeling about today?” 

“Good. Just finally pulled myself out of bed. Going to get dressed, then have lunch with my mom before I get ready for tonight. I miss you, Dieter.” 

There’s a brief moment where it sounds like the call cuts out, looking at the screen you see it’s still counting up the call minutes, still connected. 

“I— you too. ‘Ant wait— it goes….”

“Dieter?…Hello? Babe, your phone keeps cutting out.”

*Call Dropped* 

The connection was lost, conversation cut short, staring at a now black phone screen. 

Poppy💐: Your service must be shitty or something, couldn’t hear most of what you were saying. Call me when you can. Love you 💜

You attach a photo of the flowers along with your message. Knowing if he was in a bad service area, you wouldn’t be getting an immediate response, so you take that as your cue to get yourself ready. 

Poppy: Getting dressed! Should be leaving here in 20 minutes. See you in a bit mom! 😘 

*

Your mom’s presence was exactly what you needed today. Seeing her sitting across from you now makes you feel less overwhelmed by the fact that your boyfriend isn’t here and you’re hours away from sharing this passion project of yours, something so intimate and personal, with a room full of art loving strangers.

But even in her presence, you still find your mind wandering— Dieter being the central character of your deviating thoughts— even things outside your home, the smallest of details, reminding you of him in some way. 

Bart’s across the street, a favorite spot for both of you, especially after the talk you both shared coming to an understanding and moving forward together with a new perspective on each other.

Someone walking by, where your mom and you are sitting together on the restaurant patio, was carrying a merchant bag from a store you had bought Dieter’s birthday present. There was a gold colored velvet button up shirt cover in a large geometric print that you had seen while out shopping with Diem one weekend, she had made the offhand comment that it was totally something Dieter would wear and when you had found out a few days later that Dieter’s birthday was the following weekend, you immediately went back to buy it for him. 

You had also thrown in a pair of tiny Frozen charms, Elsa for Wren and Olaf for Dieter, for the Crocs you had seen him wear around Diem’s house on movie nights, in the chance he hated the shirt you knew he was a sucker for kitschy gifts— by the way he wears the shirt regularly, it’s fair to assume he likes it. 

You even think of him in the most laughable ways too, like when a car similar to his drives by the restaurant, you of course immediately think of him— you find yourself to be a lost cause at this point. 

“I’m so sorry, Sweetheart, I’m sure Dieter would love to be here if he could. Aside from him leaving, how was the rest of the week after he left?” 

“Hmm?” 

“I asked how’s your week been? We haven’t talked much since last week.” 

“Oh my gosh, Mom! I’m so sorry— I’m literally the worst person to be around right now, I’m sure. I’ve been so in my head lately, I can’t even think straight.” You cover your face as you apologize for being lackluster company to her, realizing you’ve spent most of lunch off in La-La-Land. 

“My week was good though. With summer break starting last week, I spent most of this wrapping up last minute grading and finishing up paperwork. Monday and Tuesday I went to clean up my classroom, just mainly clearing out old projects and lesson plans from the past year. Which then left me the rest of the week to get my canvases prepared and hung up over at Reverie, where the art opening is tonight.”

“Sounds like it’s kept your mind off of Dieter not being able to be there tonight.” She gives you a sympathetic look, and it makes you feel so appreciative that she flew out to be here for you. 

“If I’m being honest, it really hasn’t. I just selfishly keep wishing he didn’t have leave so I could have more time with him. And then I hate myself for even thinking that, because I’m so happy and proud of him— he deserves this, I just miss him so much. We’ve tried to talk and FaceTime when we can, but his schedule right now has been busy, so I just sit and wait for him to call most evenings. God, I sound ridiculous!” A slight crack to your voice as you’re overcome with emotion, it’s sadness and happiness all wrapped up in a perfect little box sitting in your chest, lifting your chin up as you fight back the tears that threaten to break. 

“Oh, honey.” She passes you a few clean napkins, noticing the few tears that managed to escape. “Maybe give him a call in a bit, I’m sure hearing his voice will help you feel better.”

“Yeah, I’ll give him a call when I get home. Thanks mom. I’m so glad you’re here! Let’s talk about something else, bring the mood back up. How’s retirement going?” Changing the subject to hopefully suppress your mopey demeanor, dabbing your wet cheeks lightly. 

“Oh, it’s great! I’ve actually been thinking about doing some traveling now that I have all this time.” 

“I love that for you mom. You should go, see the world— you deserve it.” 

She shared about the places she had already started planning to visit— in and around Canada, parts of Europe, then several areas of South America. You greedily wished she didn’t want to go, feeling a steady wave of emotions rock through you at the thought of her being gone for so long. But, you know how much traveling means to her, it’s pure joy watching the way she can’t stop smiling as she shows you landmark places she’ll be visiting— a true testament to chase after the things you love. 

*

Doubt. 

Fear. 

Trepidation. 

A war of anxieties. Ruthless, belligerent intruders, battling for control and power. Your mind slowly forfeits, white flag in waiting, ready to surrender yourself to the helm of your own enemies. 

Even with the excitement surrounding tonight, you hadn’t really mastered the art of calming intrusive thoughts and apprehension once they began to build their way into your consciousness.

There’s the brief moment where you consider getting back into your car and driving home— rid yourself of the stress and anxiety that is overcoming you at the thought of being the center of attention tonight— albeit your art the main focus, but with that will come talking about yourself and it has you ready to bail. 

But, you had put so much time and effort into this collection, executing and curating an intimate journey of discovery in the form of detailed lines and brush strokes that make up a whole series of paintings you are incredibly proud of. 

Breathe. 

In. 

Out. 

Dieter comes to mind, the words he shared with you before he left: 

“You were made for this, it’s who you are and it’s what you know— don’t let you be the reason you stop chasing what you deserve. I believe in everything you do, you should too.” 

His words wash over you, each one forging a path for you to conquer your reluctance to seek out something that you have always dreamed of doing. 

You pull out your phone to shoot Dieter a quick text before heading into the gallery. 

Poppy💐: Hi! I miss you and wish you were here ❤. Hope you had a great day. I’ll have Diem take pictures to send you later. Call me when you can. Love you xo

Remembering back to when  Dieter had shared something he does when his anxiety starts to surface, deciding to take a minute to borrow his technique to help ground your thoughts. 

You see the vibrant lights from the front windows of Reverie Studio, the way the moon is peeking out from behind the building making its way through the sky, the streak of lights from headlights of passing cars, blurred bodies of people milling around the streets unbothered by you rooted in the center of the sidewalk, the time stamped over an image of you and Dieter as the lock screen on your phone. 

You feel the weight of your phone leaving your hand as you drop it in your purse, the flowy dress that you picked out with Diem a few weeks ago specifically for this evening, a folded piece of paper with notes for the small speech you were going to give, a good luck charm in the form of Dieter’s 1 year chip clutched tightly into your hand. 

You hear the muted chatter of the early birds spilling from the open door of the gallery, the mingling musical instruments in the local park showering concert goers with an original melodic song, an indistinguishable mix of hello’s and goodbye’s wrapped around gossip filled phone conversations. 

You smell the sweet-vanilla-waffle confections of the little ice cream shop that stays open late during the summer, a hint of a smokey musk dusting the air reminding you of the woody spicy that’s so distinctly Dieter. 

You taste the delicate flavors of a savory future, one that has a palatable balance of sweetness and verve— something so delectable that you don’t think you’ll be able to stop reveling in its richness. 

BUZZ BUZZ BUZZ

Your immediate thought is it’s Dieter, pulling out your phone to see it’s instead Diem. 

Diem: Are you going to stand out there all night?? Get your ass in here!

She’s standing in the window with Wren on her hip, both of them waving at you. 

Feeling a somewhat renewed sense of confidence, you wait for a break in the passing cars and jog across the street to join the crowd already forming inside. 

You’re completely taken aback once you’re through the front door, not by the overwhelming number of people who showed up to view your work, but by how the room is filled with a plethora of vases overflowing with poppies. 

The edges of the room, table tops, display pedestals all covered in a sea of pinks, oranges and pale yellow flowers. 

“So glad you could show up!” Diem and Wren wrap you in a joint hug, a warm greeting with a touch of her special sarcasm. 

“Where did all these flowers come from? They weren’t here yesterday when I stopped in to do some final touches.”

“A certain someone might have wanted to surprise you with something special.”

There’s an immediate pang in your chest, his thoughtfulness and his way of showing support by filling the studio space with your favorite flowers, you have to actively fight off the urge to cry tears of happiness. 

You snap a few photos, focusing on the ones that sit below where your canvases are hung on the fabricated display walls. 

You can’t contain the smile plastered across your face, seeing your work being admired by those in attendance, getting a chance to catch up with friends and fellow artists and having your mom close by listening to her talk up your talent with complete strangers— all still while wishing Dieter were here bask in the excitement with you. 

“If I could have everyone’s attention please.” The owners ask, the room’s noise quickly reduced to a curbed level. “We thank everyone for coming to show their support for this wonderful event. We’ll have her share more about it with you and then we’d like to say a few words afterwards.” 

Applause breaches the silence as you’re beckoned to the center of the room, your paper of scribbled notes in one hand and Dieter’s chip in the other, making your way to the front of the mass of people. 

You introduce yourself as you take in all the faces, some familiar and some new, Diem and your mom in a side embrace with Wren to the front of them, each person enthralled and eager to hear you share more about you and the art behind you. 

“Art has always been a part of me, in so many different ways. Growing up I would tear apart my mom’s magazines to make collages of pretty pictures, sorry mom.” Glancing down at your paper as a wave of soft laughter filters around, it elicits a surge of excitement and sureness blooms somewhere deep in your soul, deciding to for-go reading anything you had written and just share from the heart. 

“And then I got my first sketchbook, that thing never left my side. Always with me at school, trips to the grocery store and even on days when my mom worked late, I’d sit in the corner of her classroom and just draw— creating little scenes from memory. I filled the pages rather quickly too, pages were barely hanging on with the amount of wear and tear I had put it through. Before I knew it, I had amassed a collection of sketchbooks and canvases over the years. Art has always been a part of who I am and I think it always will be.”

Everyone seemed so fascinated by everything you’re sharing. Explaining the story behind your collection— starting as a literal dream and slowly becoming a now etched on canvas reality. 

Even the collaborative piece with Dieter is hung among the others, you went the extra step to add his name onto the little artist placard:

Artists: Dieter & Poppy

Title: ‘Sweet Creature’

Medium: Acrylic on Canvas

$: (Not For Sale)

“Thank you all for taking the time out of your busy schedules to be here tonight, I appreciate it so very much, I’ll be around the rest of the evening to chat more or answer any questions. And thank you to Reviere Studio, you’ve become like a second home to me. I’m so grateful that I had the opportunity to share my love for the arts with the many who attended my classes in this very space, but also to be the last art showing truly means so much to me. I will miss you all.”

Another round of applause and cheers fill the open space. You feel like it went pretty well for how nervous you were earlier in the evening, not really sure why you were doubting yourself to begin with. 

The crowd slowly starts to disperse as you start to weave to where Diem, your mom and Wren are standing, getting stopped for hugs and hellos from former class attendees, congratulatory remarks for complete strangers too— you’re even shocked when Betty and Marilyn stop to share their well wishes with you. 

“I’m so proud of you sweetheart, it’s all so amazing!” Your mom wraps you in praises and a tight hug. 

“Thank you mom, I’m so happy you could be here!”

“I’m happy to be here too!” Wren’s excitement is barely containable as she bounces off the floor. 

“I’m so happy you’re here too Wren!” You tell her as you bend down to give her a hug as well. 

Standing back to your full height, you turn to Diem and just wrap your arms around her shoulders and hold her close, she returns the same energy. 

“Thank you so much for everything, you are literally the best friend I could have ever asked for. I love you so much Diem!” 

“God dammit, Poppy! I didn’t wear any waterproof mascara because I wasn’t planning on crying tonight! I love you too!” She pulls away and starts fanning her face, drying up the tears that had started to fill her eyes. 

“Excuse me! We have a quick, exciting announcement to make before the evening continues with drinks and appetizers.” The sweet owner Susi’s voice boomed out to the guests. 

*

Dieter doesn’t like lying, not in general at least and especially not to you— open and honest is how he continues to move forward with his life. 

But this doesn’t feel like a lie, in a sense. A secret. A surprise. 

Taking this role meant sacrificing his time away and that terrified him, especially being his first project to jump back into. 

After a call with his agent on the drive back to LA Monday morning and a check in with his sponsor,  Dieter requested a meeting with the movie’s higher ups. 

That meeting didn’t happen until a few days later, but when he found out filming would be held in and around LA, Dieter learned his request for weekends to travel back to Ojai was successful. 

That gave him less than 24 hours to get flowers ordered to be delivered to the gallery, let Diem in on his plan to ensure everything was in motion, all while you had no idea what was happening. 

Dieter settles in the back of the crowd, tucked out of sight, finding it difficult to keep his eyes off you as you stand up there. 

Watching you share about your life and how art has always been a big part of it, the two of you so similar in many ways makes him feel a deeper connection to you. 

He recognizes the paper you’ve started crumpled into your hand, worn and creased from the repetitive folding and unfolding, scarred by the cross-hatching over abandoned words or shelved sentences, bullet points of importance to add substance to your speech. He likes the version you who was pacing around her living room Sunday morning, paper in one hand and pen in the other, reciting each line with a fluctuating ambivalent tone, stopping intermittently at the coffee table to rework a line or add something he had suggested. But he loves this version of you standing before him right now, no hesitation in your words, speaking with certainty and feeling— you were more than prepared. 

The way you wear your confidence stirs something inside of him— trying his best to keep a low profile, because all he wants to do is scoop you up and kiss you breathless, to tell you over and over, how perfect and amazing he thinks you are.

He notices the light catching something you’re intently smoothing your fingers over, tracing repeatedly over every word— It’s not going to be easy, but it’s going to be worth it— engraved on his 1 year chip, a habit he’s welcomed into his daily routine. You had refused to take it from him when he offered it, not wanting him to be without it longer than necessary, but he had vowed to take it back the moment you were reunited. Placing it in your palm, hinting at the streak of luck it had brought him over the past year, ensuring that it would do the same for you— but he knew you wouldn’t need any.

He wants more of this— more time with you. To feel immersed back into this normal paced life and experience the joys that you feel regularly. 

He has to shuffle himself around a bit when the crowd starts to move about, still trying to not be seen, watching you celebrate post speech with your mom, Diem and Wren— eagerly wanting to do the same. 

The gallery owner’s announcement signals the beginning of something exciting. 

He just hopes you’re as ecstatic about what’s about to be revealed as he is. 

*

Susi takes a moment for everyone to quiet down and focus their attention on her before continuing her speech. 

“Earlier this year, we had made the difficult decision to close our doors— deciding it was time to seek out a new chapter with new adventures and close this chapter on Reverie Studio.”

You’re sandwiched between Diem and your mom, hands intertwined as your head rests on Diem’s shoulder, somber as Susi’s heartfelt words about the studio’s closing. 

“But we have some exciting news to share with you all. The gallery and studio are now under new ownership and will continue to stay open. It will be under a new name, but will still retain what Reverie had previously been known for— classes, art openings, studio space. And while we’re sad to hand it over, we’re excited to see it continue to serve the community.”

The delighted commotion pours out into the streets, catching the attention of passersby’s curiosity. 

“So, we welcome you to the new home of Les Coquelicots Studio. The new owner is somewhere here in the audience too.” Heads begin to turn, seeking out where this mysterious owner is, when Susi points towards the back of the room and waves. “Ah, there he is. Please be sure to make him feel welcome and thank him before you leave. Thank you all again for coming and have a wonderful rest of the night.”

Music begins to brim over the conversations that start to pick up, guests dispersing to fill their small plates with finger foods and refilling of drinks, ambling about observing your artwork and surrounding art pieces. 

But you're too focused on the fact that you had no idea that the space wasn’t closing, as you continue turning about scanning the room for the new owner. 

Everything stills. 

No sound. 

No horde of people. 

Just him. 

Dieter Bravo. 

All Dieter-like too, leaning against the back wall, hands secure in his pockets, the slightest tick of his jaw punctuating his dimple. 

Your brain is actively working to re-hardwire your body to function properly, but you’re motionless. Speechless. 

He’s here, propelling himself forward and making his way to you, even as he stands before you, it doesn’t feel real. 

“Surprise.” His voice nearly takes you out, it hasn’t been that long since you had last spoken, but you’ve missed its gravely tone so much. 

“What are you doing here? I thought— I don’t know what I thought because I can’t think straight at the moment. How are you here?” Dizzy with total surprise and confusion. 

He leans in, laughing at your flustered smile, hands slinking their way to your face, his touch charged with fervor as his thumbs sweep over the apples of your cheeks. 

“Came to see my girl.” He smiles softly, his words a breath away from where you want him most. 

You close the distance between you, his lips fitting perfectly against yours, unbothered by the room full of people around you. You knew you would never get that same feeling or experience like with your first kiss, but this is second best and you welcome it fully. 

Before the kiss has a chance to turn into something more than what is appropriate for the setting, you pull away, resting your forehead on his, breathless and happy. 

“It’s you isn’t it— You bought this place?” The answer is clear as you look into his warm eyes. 

“I did.”

“Les Coquelicots? Monet’s painting?” 

“Poppies.” 

This is it. Your forever. With him. Always. 

“I know how much this place means to you, think of it as a thank you— for giving me a chance, for believing in me.” 

“You didn’t have to buy me an art gallery as a thank you, dinner would have been fine.” Your fingers catching the rampant tears streaming down your cheeks, emitting a breathy laugh. 

“We can go to dinner after this then.” His words mumbled in a kiss against your forehead. 

“You still didn’t answer my question— How are you here? What about your movie?” 

“When I found out we would be shooting locally in LA, I told them I had one request— that I was able to go home every weekend if I wasn’t needed on set.” 

“But your home is already there?”

“I’m selling my home in West Hollywood— my realtor is getting it ready to be listed next week, hopefully moved out by the end of the month. So I can move home.” 

It goes without saying that you know what he means, but you want to hear him say it out loud.

“Do you mean here? You’ll be moving here?” 

He nods his head in response.

“What if this place gets too boring for a big movie star like yourself?” Biting your lip with a hint of a smile. 

“Poppy— wherever I go, you bring me home.” 

The kiss is short, but full of a warmth you crave when he’s in your presence, your arms linking around his neck as he pulls flush against, white knuckle grip on your hips— the two you lost in each other as the work around you carries on. 

“Hmm— so, you’re gonna move in with Diem permanently?” 

“Nah, I’ll find some place eventually.” He winks, no real rush to move in together, but he sees it as an option at some point in the future. 

“Well, if you’re over living with your sister, I have a comfortable couch with your name all over it.” You snort at your offer. 

“Poppy, I’m not sleeping on your fucking couch.”

“Suit yourself then.” You mirror his wink before pulling him in for another string of small pecks. 

“I love you, Dieter.”

“I love you too, Poppy”

Next

[itwasntimethatdidit40]

Hey there!

I wanted to post that for a while so, here we are.

Wondering who’s behind this blog?

Here’s something about me under the cut:

• I identify as a woman, my pronouns are she/her

• Born and raised in Italy, I still live there.

• I’m 141 LOL but according to people I still look like I’m in my 30s so let me indulge in that, thank you very much.

• I don't think there's anyone who makes me more feral than Joel Miller. I just can’t help it. My (un)holy Pedro characters triad is Joel, Oberyn and Peña 💕 (immediately followed by Frankie)

• I have a little elephant pendant that I always wear, no one knows what it's about *wink*

• I’m Leo Sun, Libra Rising and Aries Moon. You scared? I promise I don’t bite, unless explicitly requested 😏

• I’m Bi/Pan as fuck, always been obviously but I realized only last year. LOL, better late than never i guess. I only have problems with cisgender white males because I mean… they’re the worst, okay, I don’t make the rules.

• Single, unmarried, not interested in having kids even a little bit, I prefer to be the cool auntie.

• I love cooking and I'm quite good at it, I had good genes from my Italian grandmas 😌

• I can’t function without coffee, especially in the morning. I take my coffee bitter with just a little bit of milk.

• I can’t stand lies, the phrase “oh I didn't tell you so as not to make you suffer” (UGH, no you didn’t tell me ‘cause you’re a fucking coward and that’s it, my friend), misogyny, racism, fascism, homophobia, bi-erasure, any other form of verbal or physical violence towards LGBTQIA+ people, injustice in general, if you are any of the above you are not welcome here or in my life.

• I love dogs. I have a poodle named Brienne after the GOT character, she’s 5 years old so that means she got me through pandemic and she’s my love and joy. Isn’t she adorable? Yes, she is.

• I’m unfortunately allergic to cats (yep, like Pedro) and can’t pet them unless I wish for an asthma attack. That sucks, I know.

• I have deep brown curly hair, brown eyes and I’m short (158 cm).

• I have a lot of freckles, you could go on a treasure hunt following them.

• I’ve been to more than 100 concerts in my life including some festivals abroad.

• I currently listen to Hozier and Chappell Roan on a daily basis. I also love Billie Eilish, used to be a big Muse fan (listen, their first albums were great, okay) plus I’m a sucker for ‘90/‘00 music ‘cause that’s the music I grew up with.

• I love beer more than wine.

• I love reading, I used to read all the time, I have less time to do it now and it bothers me so much. I’m still reading fanfiction though. 🤭

• I’m a sucker for True Crime Podcasts, I only listen to Italian ones for now so unless you’re Italian you don’t know my faves and it’s a pity ‘cause they’re really good.

• Cults scare the shit out of me but at the same time they’re one of the things that makes me more curious ‘cause my mind can’t really comprehend what happens in people’s mind when they get sucked into them.

• Some tv series I love in no particular order: The Last of Us, Breaking Bad, Better Call Saul, Lost, The Handmaid’s Tale, Bojack Horseman, GOT (until seasons 7 & 8 happened 💀), Sense 8, Jane the Virgin, Grace and Frankie, Narcos, Only Murders in the building, The Bear, Succession, The Morning Show, Friends, Stranger Things (mostly because Jim Hopper is there, certainly not for those z*onists, you know), Mad Men, Gilmore Girls (Luke Danes *cough*), Mindhunter, Peaky Blinders (huge Tommy Shelby’s slut, don’t look at me like that, okay), My Brilliant Friend, The Affair, Black Mirror (until last seasons happened but it used to be one of the greatest things ever), The Walking Dead (got bored halfway through season 9, I recently started a rewatch and I hope to get to the very end of it lol), Fleabag, Normal People, When They See Us, Hill House, Bly Manor, Midnight Mass, Chernobyl.

• Films I love in no particular order: Parasite, Aftersun, Past Lives, All of Us Strangers, Brokeback Mountain, Almost Famous, The Goonies, Stand By Me, The Breakfast Club, The Killing of a Sacred Deer, The Lobster, The Neon Demon, Midsommar, One Day, When Harry Met Sally, There’s still tomorrow, Strange Way of Life, Prospect, The Banshess of Inisherin, Coco, The Emperor’s New Groove (so underrated), Mommy, The Virgin Suicides, Girls Interrupted, Saltburn, Promising Young Woman, Little Women (1994), Gone Girl, Shoplifters, Bin-Jip 3 Iron, Love Me If You Dare, The Piano, Fried Green Tomatoes, Notorious, Some like it Hot, Rear Window and you can ask for my Letterboxd account for more.

• Bad weather makes me sad and melancholy.

• I obviously love Italian cuisine with all my heart but I also love to try new dishes especially when I’m abroad. I love chocolate and I have a sweet tooth in general but there’s nothing I crave more than good carbs (I can be happy with a slice of good bread or focaccia). I love spicy food but I can't handle it when it’s very very spicy.

• I love bags, I have so many bags and I still want more lol

• When I was a kid I wanted to be a writer or a journalist. What do I do now? I’m a secretary LOL (I also have a second job not related to writing as well)

• As a friend, I’m loyal to the bone, I could do anything for you if I love you. If you betray me real bad though don’t expect a second chance, I mean I could try but I know i can’t ‘cause you’re changed forever in my eyes.

• I have so many kinks, you can ask if you want to know, okay. Also, so many authors here are responsible for giving me new ones. I love you deeply.

If you want to know more my asks and dm are open!

Here’s a little bit of me, byeeeee.

[supernaturalgirl20]

The Way Back to You

Part 2

Pairings: Frankie Morales x f!reader

Warnings: Smut 18+, explicit, unprotected sex, oral (both receiving), semi public sex, a lot of angst, fluff, cursing, infidelity, mention of miscarriage, enlisting.

Summary: You find yourself back in your hometown after almost ten years. The one place you swore you’d never come back to. Now, back for your brothers wedding, you have to face your past, along with the man whose always had your heart. Can you have a second chance at forever?

Part 1

Comments and reblogs really appreciated 🥰

Your feet carried you out of the house and down the driveway, past the old oak tree and onto the street. You shuddered as the cool night breeze pimpled your skin, silently cursing yourself for not grabbing your coat on the way out. Laughter filters from the open window of the sitting room and you take in shaky breath, hand coming to rest on your chest. Relieved to have escaped the crowd. Escaped him.

The beat of your heart thrums beneath your skin and you gaze up at the night sky admiring the twinkling stars. Something you’ve missed in the city. A car door slamming startles you and you continue to move down the street to the one spot you know you’ll have peace.

The corners of your mouth twitch, lifting into a smile as you take in the small park. A small slide, a set of swings, a seesaw and a small bench. It’s exactly the same, you think to yourself as you make your way over towards the set of swings. Sitting on the swing you begin to move. Back and forth, higher and higher, laughing as you lean back, hair almost touching the ground. You felt like you were flying.

“I knew I’d find you here.” The deep timbre of his voice sends shockwaves down your spine as you come to an abrupt halt. “Frankie?” you say startled. “What are you doing here?”

His figure emerges from the shadows, and you let your eyes trail over him, taking in his broad shoulders, the thickness of his thighs and the way his jeans hug his ass just right. Jesus, get a grip! Averting your gaze, you focus on the leaves on the ground and how they crunch under your feet. “Saw you rush out of the house. Wanted to see if you were, ok?”

“I’m…I’m fine, honestly. Just a little too much, you know?” He smiles down at you before motioning to the empty swing beside you. “Can I?”

Nodding you watch as he grabs the metal chains that are holding the swing, giving it a quick tug. You scrunch your eyes at him, and he lets out a nervous laugh. “Just making sure they aren’t gonna break. Don’t want to fall on my ass.” Laughter bubbles up from inside you and he laughs right along with you. “Same old Frankie.”

He stops laughing and you glance over at him quickly to find him slumped a little, his shoulder tense. “Yeah, same old me.” Guilt courses through your veins and you unconsciously reach over resting your hand on his thigh, squeezing gently. “That’s a good thing, Frankie.” Lifting your gaze, you find him already looking at you. Those brown eyes flickering around your face as if he was searing it to memory. As if he was mapping it. Every dip, every curve, every freckle. You become acutely aware of how close you both are. Of how your hand still rests atop his strong thigh, the heat permeating your skin. But you pull it away as if you’ve been burned.

Clearing his throat, he turns his gaze upwards, and you admire the silhouette of his face. That strong prominent nose that you loved, love. Especially when it ran along the skin of your bare thigh. Stop! “How did you know I’d be here?”

Keeping his gaze upwards, he smiles before answering you. “Course I knew where to find you, shortcake. I always know where to find you.” Christ, your heart is going to give out its beating so hard. Screaming at you from beneath your ribcage to get up off the swing and close the distance between you both. To pull off his cap and run your fingers through his hair. To kiss his slightly chapped lips and ravage his mouth with your tongue.

But you can’t.

He doesn’t belong to you anymore.

“Do you remember that time, when your father was in one of his moods and you had been missing for hours. I remember Pope calling and he was frantic, he was so worried. Said you’d been gone a while and they couldn’t find you.”

“Yeah, I remember. Although I’d rather not,” you say, tone slightly clipped. “Sorry.”

“Its fine.”

“Well, once he hung up, I ran out of the house and came straight here. I knew this is where you’d be. And sure enough, there you were, sitting on the bench in the pouring rain. You were soaked to the bone, and I stood there thinking, Fuck I’ve never seen anything more beautiful.”

“Frankie I…”

“All I’m saying is that this is where you came to get away from it all. It was always your place.” Our place.

“Well, I distinctly remember you sitting on that bench over there crying over, what was her name? Sophia? Sara?”

“Sophia Rodriquez and I was not crying. I had a hair in my eye.” You laugh loudly, patting him on the back. “Sure. Whatever you say, Frankie.”

“Its also the spot where you told me you loved me,” he whispers, his eyes boring into the side of your face. You can’t do this. Not right now. Not here.

Standing, you wrap your arms around yourself and begin to walk away. “I better go, Frankie. Santi will be wondering where I got to, not to mention my mom will send out a search party.” Frankie stands and walks towards you slowly, afraid that any sudden movements might scare you off. “Look, shortcake, I don’t want things to be awkward between us, ok? We were friends before everything else. Can’t we just…try and go back to that?”

You hesitate a moment. Unsure if being friends is even possible after all you’ve both been through. “I’ll try, Frankie. It’s all I can promise.”

“I’ll take it, shortcake. Come on, lets get you back.”

***

Frankie walked up the street his feet instinctively carrying him to the one place he knew you’d be. The park.

When he rounds the corner, sure enough there you are laughing as you lean back on the swing and it’s as if no time has past at all. He’s transported back to all those times you would both hang out here, laughing, crying and …

He takes this moment to take you in, to admire the way you seem so carefree. Fuck he’s really missed you. He doesn’t think he realised just how much until you were right there in front of him. If things were only different. If it hadn’t ended the way it did. He kicks himself everyday for the part he played, the things he said.

Taking in a deep breath he moves towards you, slowly. “I knew I’d find you here.”

You let him sit beside you and he can’t help but admire the beauty of your face. The freckles that dust your cheeks, the dimple you get when you smile, or the scar just above your eye from a bike accident.

Your eyes sparkle under the moonlight and he thinks that this is it. This is the reason he hasn’t dated anyone since you left.

None of them will ever compare to you.

Conversation is easy. It always is with you and Frankie can’t help but reminisce about all those times you used to hide out here. Alone at first and then with him. This is where your friendship blossomed into something more and the night you told him you loved him with stay with him forever.

He’s so caught up in his thoughts he doesn’t realise he’s said all this out loud and now you’re pulling away. Fuck! Rain it in Frankie or you will loose her forever.

Friends. We can be friends right? It won’t be that hard to keep my feelings in check?

“Come on, let’s get you back.”

***

Its been two days since you arrived back home and life has just gone right back to how it was before you left.

Rubbing your eyes, the sun shining through the curtains a harsh reminder that it’s time for you to get up. You groggily sit up and stretch out your back when the sound of muffled voices draws your attention.

You stand and grab your oversized hoody – the one you’ve had for years - from the floor and make your way down the stairs.

“There she is. Thought I was gonna have to throw a bucket of ice on you to wake you up. Coffee?”

“Yeah thanks big bro. Oh…Frankie what are you doing here?” You say slightly embarrassed at your lack of clothing, only wearing your hoody and shorts.

“Rude.” Santiago says as he hands you a steaming cup. “Sorry. It’s just like, really early?”

“Are you asking or stating? Cause it’s like one in the afternoon.”

“What? No it’s not,” you say incredulously as you tilt your head to look up at the clock. 10 am. “You shit,” you curse as you give Santi the finger. All the while Frankie sits his eyes glued to your figure. You don’t notice and then he’s laughing at your antics.

“Thought I’d come see me if you wanted to come to the farmers market? I know you always used to love going.” Santi sits atop the stool beside Frankie, his eyes flickering between you both.

“Umm, sure. Why not? Just let me get changed and then I’m yours.” Frankie seems in a daze but quickly shakes it off and smiles up at you. “Great.”

***

Jesus!

She’s wearing my hoodie. The one I gave her the first night she stayed at mine. She used to walk around the house when my parents weren’t there in nothing but that. Fuck! Does she know it’s mine? Does she remember?

Y/N runs off up the stairs to dress and Frankie can feel his best friend staring at him. “What? Just say what ya gotta say man.”

“Nothin’ just…everything ok with you two?”

“Yeah. Great. Good. Fine.” Frankie wants the floor to open up and swallow him whole. Anything to get off this topic. “I just don’t want you getting your hopes up man. That’s all. I know you love her still. That your hopin’ maybe you can both have a second chance and I hope so too, but…look I don’t know what went on back then and I don’t know if I want to. But Y/N isn’t the same girl she was back then. She’s been hurt, so just don’t push her.”

Frankie loves how much Pope loves you. He was even a little envious, always wishing he had a brother or sister but he knows he’s right. He can’t push you. He hurt you back then - you hurt him too but that’s not the point…with the things he said and he knows he has no right to ask for another shot. So he’ll wait. For as long as it takes for you to come to him in your own terms.

It can’t hurt if he gives you a little nudge though, right?

Part 3

Everything: @maievdenoir @amneris21 @hnt-escape @elegantduckturtle @harriedandharassed @jediknight122 @ayrusss @hayley-the-comet @sherala007 @alexxavicry @scorpio-marionette @donnaa @practicalghost @tanzthompson @beskarprincessjenny @littlemisspascal @icanbeyourjedi @thatpinkshirt @maryfanson @sunnshineeexoxo @misspearly1 @misspearlssideblog @its--fandom--darling @sara-alonso @doommommy @trickstersp8 @nembees @kaitieskidmore1 @mswarriorbabe80 @allthe-ships @tintinn16 @rosie-posie08 @manuymesut @all-the-way-down-here

Frankie Morales: @paulalikestuff @vanemando15 @hb8301 @djarinslove @browneyes-issac @agingerindenial @afootnoteinyourhappiness @almaeunice @readsalot73 @marielovesstuff @a3trogirl @loonymagizoologist @amb11

The way back to you: @mashomasho @meandorla @dadbodfanatic-x

[cyborg-franky]

Happy Halloween/X-mas!

I got a Halloween prompt in for my Secret Santa so I jumped at the chance <3 I hope they like it [they don't have a tumblr but posting it here also @op-secret-santa

Sabo and Ace throw an awesome Halloween party for the people they care the most about. PLATONIC Word Count: 965

“Think this is the year we tell Luffy he’s getting way too old for Trick or Treating?” Ace asked as he climbed up on the chair, hands full of fake cobwebs and a roll of sticky tape, the intention of sticking the webs across the ceiling of their apartment.

“I mean, he seems happy enough to keep going and he’s not dragged us out in a minute so, I don’t think it’ll be the end of the world if he puts on a cape and goes screaming through the streets for candy, right? Keeps him out of trouble and eating everything we put out for the party.” Sabo replied and picked up the scattered magazines from the table.

“I guess your right,”

Ace shrugged his shoulders as he focused on his task, pulling the tape taut and using his teeth to cut it, a wad of cobwebs in the other hand, sticking it across the ceiling. Sabo watched for a moment making sure his brother didn’t fall off the chair, again.

“How many people are we expecting this year?” Sabo asked as he retrieved his phone from his pocket, looking at all the notifications, seeing messages from those he’d invited to their yearly Halloween party.

“Oh shit, now your asking.” He sighed and finished sticking the last string of white nylon covered in tiny fake black spiders in place. “Marco, Thatch, Izou… Kiku… Yam’s… I think all of Luffy’s friends are coming over when he finishes up…” Ace paused, thinking of the guest invites in his head as Sabo flopped on the couch.

“Koala is my only confirmed guest..” Sabo sighed and tapped his foot on the plush carpet, looking over in time to see Ace almost fall off the chair as he climbed down. “Eh, she’s the only fun one anyway so it doesn’t matter right?” Ace offered with a grin.

“That’s true, the rest are busy working, and no one seems as into Halloween as me.”

“Man, no one is as into Halloween as me you, and Luffy though, most people are normal about it.” Ace grinned, his freckled cheeks rounding as he could tell he was making his brother’s mood change, the frown melting away into a matching grin.

“Yeah, that’s a good point.”

–

Ace and Sabo spent the rest f the afternoon rushing around, decorating, and carving pumpkins to set around the apartment. It was a lot of effort and work but was something they both loved, it helped them feel closer as brothers, something they could always agree on.

Sabo was in the kitchen looking at how many beers they’d stuffed in the fridge along the shelves that didn’t have food. People always thought the brothers brought in help when it came to hosting their Halloween parties but no one really knew how put together and handy around the kitchen Ace was.

Both had headed into their respective rooms, rushing to get dressed for the party. Ace wore his cheesy werewolf costume, fake ears, paws, ripped jeans, and his chest on display. Sabo had gone for something fancier, and something that covered more of himself. A grim reaper in a vintage-looking cloak, gloves on his hands, and some dark makeup.

The doorbell rang and alerted them of their first guest, they made bets on who it was as Ace walked down the hall, opened the door, and saw his three best friends standing there. Thatch dressed as a pirate, Marco as a bat, and Izou as the bride of Frankenstein. Ace grinned and stepped back, letting them all in.

Koala didn’t take long to arrive with the other girls, Nami and Robin, Kiku. All dressed in matching outfits, looking beautiful. Ace was about to compliment Kiku when he felt an aura emitting from Izou in the corner and simply welcomed her to his home.

The rest of their guests came in one big group,  Luffy letting himself in with everyone piled behind him. Usopp, Brook, Franky, Sanji, Zoro and Yamato. The party suddenly got very, very loud, and even more life was injected into the get-together.

Everyone dressed up, milling around their apartment, catching up with friends, having drinks, and eating snacks before Ace, Sabo, and Luffy got to them all first. Marco sat with Ace on the sofa as people chatted and swayed to the cheesy music.

“You did great everyone's having a good time,” Marco said sipping his beer and watching Ace stretch out his legs, the beaming look of pride on his face. “Yeah, we didn’t do too bad huh?” Ace sighed, happy as Sabo suggested spooky-themed games to which there was a collective cheer.

The night grew longer as games were played. Sabo was in charge of the first few games before Ace picked himself off the sofa to join in. At some point the music was turned from songs to spooky sound effects, someone had dimmed the lights, and Ace and Sabo had helped usher everyone into a circle around the room.

“Ghost story time!” Thatch proclaimed as Ace got comfy on the floor, Sabo sat next to him cross-legged as Luffy draped himself across his brothers with a loud giggle.

Everyone took it in turns to tell spooky stories, Thatch always the king of them, making everyone (well, not Robin) sit on the edge of their seats, biting their nails and gripping the cushions as he told his.

Ace leaned in, intently listening before Thatch shouted, a jumpscare, he jumped and elbowed Sabo who was laughing at him, Luffy in fits of giggles and was rolled off of their laps until he was in the center of the room. Everyone now laughing at their friend's outburst.

The party was so full of life and joy as friends and found family all enjoyed the night.  

[omniblades-and-stars]

ROY G BIV tag

tagged by @outpost51 and thereby inciting a panic but also I want to play.

Rules: Search your your writing for the colours of the rainbow and post the excerpt.

this is me tagging whoever wants to play!

look under the cut because this is bound to be out of control

RED

From: The Last Time (A Game of Cat and Mouse)

The door cracked open and the first thing out of it was a slender, human, woman's foot. It was clad in a precarious, ruby red high-heeled shoe, a thin strap buckled around a delicately arched ankle. Her legs, shapely and well-toned, were covered by sheer black stockings. A pronounced seam ran up the length of her calf, disappearing behind her knee and beneath the hem of a charcoal gray skirt so tight, it could have been a second skin.

ORANGE

From: following the current, circling the drain

Something burns in my leg and my stomach, but I can’t stop moving. If the krogan gets his hands on me, I'll die. I leap onto his back, I nearly drop the assault rifle, it’s too big for me. I launch myself from his crest plate and fire down into his neck while I’m still in the air. It's sloppy, it's messy, it's too fucking loud. He’s still coming, and I just keep firing. It's over. I'm covered in blood, indigo, cadmium orange, and my own emerald. A cruel painting in brilliant organic color. I run to Tertus. He's already dead. Honey eyes glassy. Jaw lax, mandibles hang limp next to his dear, sweet face. I scream, everything hits me all at once. The fear, the anger, the heartbreak. But I have no time, I hear more boots on the ground, and I am surrounded by bodies and covered in blood. I don't hesitate. I leap into the river and follow the current to somewhere new.

YELLOW

From: Suck It Up, Buttercup

"You gonna walk in front so that bright fucking armor of yours draws all of the fire?" "Says the man wearing sunflower yellow! If you wanted to look at my ass, all you had to do was say so. Now, enough dicking around, let's move out." Frankie pointed above her head and spun her hand in a tight circle. "After you, sweetheart," he said with a touch of sarcastic daring. "Gonna have to work harder than that to get under my skin, bounty hunter. Keep trying, I like seeing you struggle.” She smiled and took her place at the front of the squad. Miranda and Zaeed fell in quietly behind her without further comment.

GREEN

From: Torment Me Until Dawn (Dragon Age)

He shuffled forward, one shoulder stooped severely, sword hanging limply from his hand. His movements were those of something not quite human. His skin had taken on a green tinge, and his face had a skeletal quality. Skin clung to his cheekbones as if there was no longer any muscle or fat to separate it from his skull. He had no visible wounds, except . . . Oh, Maker, his eyes! They were gone. Dark, brutalized and empty sockets existed where bright, light brown eyes had once been. The skin around them looked as if he had scratched his own eyes out - harsh, uneven grooves rent into his flesh. There were little trails of blood where tears might have been.

BLUE

From: Under the Rays of an Autumn Sun

I have always had a weakness for beautiful eyes. Humans have a saying, "The eyes are the windows into the soul." It's a sentiment I wholeheartedly share. Hers are a light brown that I am unused to seeing in humans, but they are heavy. I can see the weight she carries within them, evident in the red lines lightly spidering over the white space around her iris. Blue tinged glass presses to soft, bare lips, and she coughs as the liquid burns down her throat. A warm chuckle bubbles up after it, and she sits next to me. "I don't know if I'll ever learn," she shakes her head, chestnut waves brush against the sun-kissed and freckled skin exposed on her back. "Eden Shepard," she says and offers me her hand to shake. She is named after the holy garden of one of Earth's many creation myths. It suits her, I think, but the thought passes before I can fully understand why I feel that way.

INDIGO

From: The Way

It's in the way she can be so boastful without being arrogant. She calls herself a biotic bomb. At first, he thinks that smirk as she says it is cocky, and it is. But then he sees her in action. With biotics like that, she doesn't even need a gun. He knows the smirk isn't cocky, it's knowing. She's earned being cocky, the way she wields the forces of physics themselves. How the air shifts around her body just before she ignites brilliant indigo. The sudden change in air pressure around them as she reaches out to pull an enemy towards them takes his breath away. Or maybe it's just her that does that.

VIOLET

From: Tipping Point

Except that Commander Shepard was the one who wreaked this particular havoc, was still wreaking actually. She was standing dead center of the cargo deck, bathed in violet energy so intense it had pulled her hair free, it floated up around her as if she were underwater. She was wreathed by a glowing halo of her own power. It was terrible and it was beautiful all the same. Oh, shit.

[sleepykamukura]

ashe/cass/genji headcanons

they should all kiss…

ashe

despite being older, she got her tattoo after cass

piercings!! she has her septum, helix, lobe, and industrial piercings. she only really wears lobe nowadays

more tattoos. she has a vine of poison ivy on her chest and a small eagle tattoo between her shoulder blades + some roses on her left thigh

her arms and legs aren’t really toned in her skins where you can see it which is crazy to me!! she’s not buff like jq or zarya but she deff has some muscle

nicknames : lizzie, callie, and ofc calamity (+ my dove -cole)

cole call her “ash” over text because it makes her mad

bisexual but everyone is convinced she’s lesbian

cole cassidy

convinced ashe to get all those piercings. he bought her guages for her 19th birthday and she never wore the

youngest of the founders (nearing 17 at founding, frankie is 18, ashe is 18, bez is 19)

freckles!! none if his models has freckles which is so sad. he is TAN he’s in the sun… he used to be a farmhand!! where’s the freckles!!

has a thing for rich assholes with red eyes (genji and ashe)

had a massive out of nowhere growth spurt during his time in deadlock. used to be the shortest of the founders, now he’s the tallest

always either smells like cheap cologne or a mystical forest with fairies. never an inbetween

snores

writes poetry sometimes, thinks it’s bad

genji

also has piercings. his septum, tongue, lobe, and helix

i like to draw him with more scars than he canonically has, picked up from missions & obv… the almost murder

probably a swiftie

happi genji with lifeguard mercy & lifeguard cass. bisexual dream

accidentally found cole’s poetry, loved it

probably has a tramp stamp let’s be honest

was very flexible originally but his cybernetic body made it even easier to stretch and bend

the wires from his blackwatch suit gets caught on doors all the time

nicknames: sparrow (-shimadas), my raven (-cole), asshat (-reyes)

[intheorangebedroom]

Tonight you belong to me, chapter 3

Summary: He comes to you every Friday, in a shady motel on the outskirts of town.  What happens if you can't make it to the motel on Friday evening?

Pairing: Frankie Morales x fem!Reader (OFC)

Rating: Explicit 🔞 see series masterlist for extensive tw.

A/N: Happy Frankie Friday, Orange besties 🧡 @frannyzooey thank you for your help and beta reading, I fucking adore you so much it's downright obscene 🧡

Word count: 12.2k

[prev] * [series masterlist] * [next]

Chapter 3: The Man At The Frontier

Make us come, baby. Make us come together. 

These words are yours. 

Even if you never see him again. Even if you lose him before having had the time to map the freckles on his skin. To sleep in his arms. To hear him repeat them. They’re yours to keep. 

He mouthed them against your skin, sunk them into your bloodstream in bright mahogany before coming undone, wrapped around your body. 

They’re yours, right? 

Even if you don’t get to see him ever again. 

—

It starts with the cramps. That’s how it usually goes. A myriad of microscopic pliers nipping at your intercostal muscles. 

Your eyes shoot open at the familiar ache. The early morning hues redefine the room in blue shadows. You blink your sleep-heavy eyelids a few times, confused, before your vision adjusts and you recognize the room around you. It’s your bedroom. Your nightstand, your lamp, your books. Your pills. Your tube of scented hand cream. The chair in the corner, that ugly, Louis XV style, transparent polycarbonate monstrosity by that French designer. The large windows. Those damn floor-to-ceiling windows that let in too much light, too much heat, too much open view. Nowhere to hide, in here. 

It has to be sometime between 4 and 5 am, you assume, before another cramp seizes you. You curl up into a tight ball on the edge of the bed, pulling the comforter to your chin.

Not today. Please. Not today.

Friday. 

Inside your abdomen, nausea streams densely, like liquid lead, from your ribs to your stomach, as cold shivers run up your spine. Sweat breaks on your forehead. You know only too well what’s happening, but it can’t be, there’s been no warning signs. No headache, no stabbing sensation in your lower belly, no spinning head. 

Today is Friday. 

You reject the obvious.

Were you so engrossed in the memory of him to pay attention? His hand wrapped around your nape, his forearm molded along your spine, pressing you into his chest, making you two as one. Closer.

Nausea is already lapping at your esophagus. The pliers bite harder at your ribcage and you know you have to move now if you want to make it to the bathroom before it happens. Shuddering, you push away the comforter, then get up and run.

Kneeled on all fours on the cool bathroom tiles, you dive headfirst into the toilet’s porcelain bowl as everything inside you collapses on itself, emptying the content of your stomach, mostly liquid. You should have eaten something last night. 

You know you’re not pregnant. For an infinity of reasons. 

Because you haven’t let Adrian fuck you in weeks. Because, when he does, he always wears protection. That’s your mutual, very tacit agreement. A silent understanding that you’re never the only woman, at any given moment. An unspoken confession on his behalf, implicit permission on yours. 

Because your contraceptive pill is the only one you’ll never stop popping. 

Because you’ve suffered through more stomach bugs than you care to count.

And of course, because Frankie won’t come inside you. 

You stand up on fawn-like legs and flush the toilet. 

You splash water on your face and grab your toothbrush with a trembling hand, shaking from head to toe. You know this is only the beginning, but it’s coming in strong. This one is most likely going to be a bad one. At least for now the pain is gone.

Above the sink, the woman in the mirror stares at you with unsettling, disproportionate glassy eyes. Her skin looks waxy, she scares you, and you have to lower your eyes. You brush your teeth as quickly as you can. 

You haven’t made it back to the bedroom when the second wave of cramps squeezes your abdomen. The pain folds you in half, and you let out a low whine. 

It echoes like distant thunder along the glass walls of the empty corridor. 

—

On Fridays, you count. You break down hours and minutes and steps and heartbeats into small, bearable quantities, so that you can live through them without going crazy. Today, however, you’re counting trips to the bathroom, and the time between two attacks from the cramps, like you’re readying yourself to give birth to a terrible monster, feeding off you from the inside of your quivering body. 

You’ve managed to spend most of the day hiding in your office, with the window cracked open, and the AC cranked up to the max. The clothes you wear are the same as yesterday. Your expensive formal blouse sticks to your sweaty skin in clammy patches. You’re cold, cold and hot all at once. In fact, you’re burning up, and a chill sweat has you shivering in the non-existent breeze. 

You haven’t gotten any work done, to state the obvious. You’re just dozing in and out of consciousness between two crises, head like a rock sinking onto your arms on top of your shiny glass desk. Its surface fogs with every one of your short breaths. You’re running out of toothpaste. 

Being the boss’ daughter has never granted you any particular privilege over your coworkers, except on days like this. At the first signs of sickness, you go home, or call in sick. Stay in bed for a couple of days, sleep it off, sip water tentatively every time you throw up until you can finally keep it down. No one has ever thought to comment on the frequency or duration of your sick leaves. Not even your father.

Kaytee has probably noticed something’s wrong with you. Her office is right by the bathroom, and you've run there seven times since you’ve arrived this morning, an hour late, which is uncommon, to boot. You look like a walking corpse, your eyes eating up half of your face and your lips pinched in a tight line. And surely, she will find a way to use this against you in the near or distant future. She’s been dying to take your place ever since she was recruited nearly two years ago, champing at the bit, waiting for you to slip so she can bury you. 

If she only knew. How you are dying to let her have it all. That you are convinced she’d be so much better at the job than you’ll ever try to be. 

With your last shred of energy, you push down the thought, like you push down the nausea and the shivers. On Fridays, everything that’s not him is irrelevant. At 6pm sharp, you’ll count your steps down to the parking garage and hop in your car. You’ll sit in traffic until you reach the 589 and you can finally cruise towards the motel in the protective semi-darkness of the Tampa suburbia. 

You haven’t yet considered what will happen beyond this point. When he steps into the room and finds you sitting there, looking like an undead version of yourself, reeking of stale bile, rancid sweat and toothpaste. 

All you have to do is make it there. You won’t give up, simple as that. You’ll suck it down. 

Demonstrating resolve you never knew you possessed, you make it to sundown. You hold out through the pain, through the cramps, through the soreness on your knees and the abrasion in your throat and the stabbing sensation behind your eyes and the pulling of your gums. 

At 6pm, you turn off the alarm of your phone and put it away in your purse. The room swirls around you the first time you try to get up. You wince, falling heavy on the simile leather chair you sweated on all day. You wipe your damp forehead and neck with a tissue, and you stand up again. 

All the blood in your body rushes to your feet. There’s not a drop of it left in your brain. You swallow hard against the bitter taste clinging to your tongue and palate and start counting your steps toward the elevator, only to lose track somewhere after 18.

Dark, green circles flash in rapid succession across your pupils, narrowing your vision. You grip the strap of your purse harder, and register you can’t feel your fingers. Something is wrong with your balance, your whole body slants to the left. You try to correct its trajectory but you can’t feel anything below your calves either. What you can feel is your forehead and your nape, defined by pain, burning hot and somehow also freezing where beads of sweat run down your skin.

You’ve made it to the lobby when everything fades to black. 

—

In your early 20s, you had genuinely tried to shake off the melancholia. An honest, hopeful attempt. You were away at college, and even though you didn’t get to choose your major, different and various paths seemed possible, within reach. A couple of years after graduation, when you had met Adrian, you had tried again, with renewed vigor and motivation. 

You did want to get better. 

You cut back considerably on hard liquor. You smiled broadly, at everyone. You said “please,” and “sorry.” Applied lipstick daily, polished your nails weekly. You went out to dinners and parties, wore high heels and interacted with strangers, drank wine in stem glasses and in reasonable quantities. 

On your mother’s advice, you went to “see someone.” As your father prescribed, you read the news and followed sports results. 

But the sadness kept settling down inside you, like the white particles inside a snowball. The vomiting spells became more frequent. Despite your willingness and earnest efforts, you kept falling short, and each fall hit you with increased brutality. 

For your mother, you were too much. For your father, never enough. For Adrian, you would soon come to realize, you were a commodity.

Trying to please them in turn, learning your cues, anticipating their needs and wills and whims, torn up between their contradicting desires and expectations, smiling pretty and meek, you completely lost track of what you liked and who you were. 

Anxious, confused, perpetually dissatisfied and unsatisfying, you withdrew within yourself. Hid away between the folds, detached and ready to flee, wishing for nothing more than to disappear. 

As Ava grew up, her loud and unapologetic personality compelling everyone’s attention, she provided you with a reprieve and, most importantly, a purpose. But a diffuse sense of guilt soon arose, as your little sister’s struggles could hardly be instrumental to your self-fulfillment.

Inside of you, isolation and loneliness grew solid, like a second skeleton, keeping you upright.  

Apathy soon took over. You resorted to medication to control it all. 

And when it was no longer enough, you found your way to the Hole in the Wall.

—

The smell of rubbing alcohol floats around you in the chilled darkness, its rough acetone accents abrading your nostrils. There’s an undertone to it. Rotting perfume and decaying bodies. A faint beeping sound tugs at your consciousness, and as you begin to come to, pain strikes you in multiple places. 

Something sharp stings the thin skin on the back of your right hand. Each one of your intercostal muscles is sore. Your throat is parched, rougher than sandpaper; your tongue too big for your mouth, stuck to your palate. Every single joint in your body is sensitive, but the worst, by far, is the piercing ache in your forehead. It glues your eyes closed. 

Panic floods your brain with static when you stir, wincing against the shooting pain, and you don’t recognize the motel’s mattress. The one you’re lying on is too hard, the linen covering you too starchy, the darkness is closing in on you, you need to open your eyes, fence off the pain, find Frankie…

Frankie. 

You never made it to the motel. Where the hell are you? When the hell are you?

“Ah. At long last, she wakes. How are you feeling, babe?”

Adrian’s honeyed voice hauls you through the darkness. Your eyelids flutter against the light until you open your eyes to a square room with a single, large window, blazing sun darting through. 

Adrian is sitting in the corner by the foot of the bed. A hospital bed, apparently. A narrow, dark blue mattress, unusually high, encased with rails on each side and at your feet. You’ve never been hospitalized before. 

He’s looking at you with a Cheshire cat grin stretching his thin lips, like he was just let in on a juicy secret. He’s dressed in his golf apparel. 

The violent luminosity intensifies the splitting sensation in your forehead, it vibrates to the back of your skull, from within, from the sides.  

Squinting, you turn your head to the side to take in your surroundings. On top of a beige, melamine nightstand are a black phone with a long twisted cord, an oval device with a red and a white buttons and another cord, and a metal kidney dish. 

There’s a tray table over your legs, with a jug standing next to a hard glass already filled with water, and some paper napkins. There’s a needle in your hand. A drip. With a cord. You flinch a little at the sight. A white rectangle eats up the tip of your index, a red light flashing from inside it. Another cord. It’s linked to the source of the beeping sound, a square monitor to your right, displaying wobbly lines of green. Another two cords are plugged in, you follow their sinuous lines to your bed, where they disappear under the sheet, and you take in the two round patches taped to your chest.

So many cords. Too many sensors. 

“Where’s my phone?” you mumble. 

Your tongue feels like a piece of carpet. You’re not sure whether it’s even your voice anymore. 

“You scared us this time,” Adrian says. His tone is cold, practiced, policed. 

You reach for the plastic glass and bring it to your chapped lips. The liquid flows down your throat like a waterfall; you wince again.

“Can you pull down the blinds, please? The light hurts.”

He lets a moment pass before he gets up, then circles the bed, unhurried, pacing toward the window, but instead of shutting the Venetian blinds, he sits by your side. The mattress dips under his weight. You hold your breath, anticipating a new jolt of pain. Behind him, the daylight forms a halo, blurring the outline of his silhouette. Your eyes water against the brightness. 

“What day is it?” you try again. 

“One thing we don’t understand is why you didn’t go home. You got us all worried, you know?”

The beeping picks up pace, imperceptibly. You wipe your eyes with the back of your hand. The one with no cords linked to it. You know this dance, he won’t cooperate until you ask the right questions, the ones he wants you to listen to him answer. Better to give him what he wants, for now.

“What happened?” 

“We don’t know exactly, that’s the thing. Well, you were sick, this you know,” he punctuates his words with a knowing grin and a wink, “but instead of coming home, you stayed at work, for some reason. We think you lost consciousness on your way out, and you hit your head on the elevator’s frame in your fall. We couldn’t help you right away because most employees had already left the floor. Jerry found you. He called your dad.”

You close your eyes, blocking the image of Jerry, of all people, finding you sprawled out and unconscious on the floor. And why would he call your father? Why not 911? You resent that collective we. Who the hell is we? Right about now, you could swear it’s the entire world versus you. 

Besides, you’re fairly certain Kaytee was still in her office at the time. She never leaves before 8pm at the earliest and makes sure everyone knows about it. 

“You split your forehead open. Apparently, you were running a pretty high fever, too. Oh, and you were critically dehydrated, according to the doctor I saw this morning,” he frames the words critically dehydrated in air quotes. “He also said something about a light concussion, I think.” 

You lift a heavy hand to your forehead, the tip of your fingers gingerly testing what they find there, a gauze dressing, held in place by medical tape. 

Having the clinical explanation behind the multiple aches throbbing inside your body somehow eases some of the pain.

“I’m sorry I scared you,” you say, unable to look him in the eyes with the harsh light behind him. “I need my phone. Can you give me my phone, please?”

“What do you need your phone for?” he asks casually, seemingly absorbed by something on his pants.

It’s a dare. You know that tone all too well. Today, however, you find that you don’t feel like playing. You want your goddamn phone.

Frankie cannot possibly have tried to reach you as you never exchanged numbers, but you want to call the motel. Find out if he came. What happened then. You want to know what time it is, what day, how much of him you’ve missed. You’re craving his touch, his skin between your parted lips, your heart pumping on empty, racing madly from the need for him, and of all the sensations making your body known to you, this one by far hurts the most. 

The beeping sound accelerates, drawing Adrian’s attention to the monitor, then to you. His cold blue gaze narrows on your face. You try to slow down your breathing, hoping it translates to your heart rate. 

“I need to call Ava. She must be worried.”

“Ah yes, your sister, of course,” he exclaims, feigning a bright mood, as if you’d just reminded him you’re traveling to Hawaii together next week. 

Getting up, he walks nonchalantly to the foot of the bed, leaning against the wall underneath the TV set, hands in his pockets. The black screen dwarfs his lean proportions. His red polo enhances his pallid complexion. You avert your gaze, lest the monitor picks up your disgust like it does your nervousness.  

“Yes, it’s true, she probably got very distressed, when you didn’t show up at all last night,” he agrees with affected concern.

There’s a foul taste in your mouth. Acid, rubbing alcohol, and something else. The glass is empty, but you don’t think you can lift that jug. Each one of your muscles is vibrating, waiting for the axe to fall. If only that fucking monitor could stop beeping. 

“Remember back in October, when Kenneth went to New York over the weekend for the symposium at NYU? Well you’ll never guess. He saw your sister there, in some uptown restaurant, making out with her…” his upper lip curls, “with this older woman, her girlfriend.”

So this is it. He knows. All this time, he’s known. Since October, practically since the beginning. And he let you believe you had him fooled, that you had the upper hand on the situation, that this part of your life was yours. He lured you into a false sense of safety, a deluded feeling of freedom. And all the while, he’s known. 

It’s really your fault, for forgetting that’s how things are with him. That nothing truly is what it seems. That he likes you scared, anxious. Perpetually waiting for the other shoe to drop. 

There’s no point in trying to control the beeping, now. In fact, given its cadence, you expect a nurse to barge in any minute. 

“Polly’s not old,” is your answer. 

“Yeah, whatever, they’re degenerates, both of them.”

“Where’s my goddamn phone, Adrian?”

“What do you want your phone for?” he barks.

The words are spat in your direction, and the sheer volume of his nasal voice startles you. Red blotches erupt on his cheeks and neck, his eyes are blazing with contempt. 

“You need to call your fucking dealer? Is that it? You think I haven’t noticed that you’re high half of the time?”

You remain perfectly still, holding your breath.You can feel your skin pulling at the medical tape in your hairline. 

He doesn’t know shit. In fact, he’s scared. He’s so, so small. 

“Listen, I don’t care what the fuck you do every Friday night, ok? But can you at least be fucking discreet about it?”

The poison in his tone and his words corrodes your confidence. 

“They will announce the senior partners in January, I cannot fucking lose your father’s business until it’s done, do you understand me? So whatever you do,” he points his index finger at you and stabs it through the air to accentuate each of his following words, “you be fucking discreet. More fucking discreet than that shitshow you pulled, do you get it? Do you understand what I’m saying?”

Should you nod? Is he waiting for you to manifest your understanding of the situation? 

You hate yourself for thinking, ever so briefly, that he might have been jealous, that he might have cared. Held down on this bed with all these cords, you feel like a butterfly pinned in a glass case, on display in a cabinet of curiosities, a mere object amidst a multitude of other trophies covered in dust and mold. You’ve always hated butterflies. They gross you out. 

You allow yourself to breathe again when his posture relaxes. Looking down at his feet, with his hands on his waist, he shakes his head and huffs. The stance reminds you of Frankie, the difference in their proportions almost comical, like a circus monkey aping the brawny horseman, the one who gets top billing in the show. 

Frankie had you pinned on a bed repeatedly, without ever making you feel like a study in entomology. 

“Your dad is waiting for me, I’m already late,” Adrian says, coming toward you, “I’d love to stay a little longer, but you know how he is about golfing. Don’t want to keep him waiting!” 

He pecks a kiss on the crown of your head. The pain darts through your skull in all directions, all the way down to your spine. 

“Where’s my phone, Adrian?” you call one last time as he strides toward the door.

“You don’t need your phone, babe. What you need is to rest. Get those magical hospital electrolytes. Doctor’s orders,” he adds with a wink. 

And he’s gone.

Furious tears hang from your lashes. You focus on the plastic box on the tip of your index, and you begin to inhale and exhale, as deeply and slowly as you can. It’s shaky at first, but you’re encouraged by the decreasing cadence of the beeping. 

Adrian and your father go golfing at 2pm on Saturday afternoons. Meaning you’ve been out for over fifteen hours. Without your phone, you have no means to assert the time. Your watch is nowhere in sight, neither are your clothes, shoes, jewelry, purse. 

The room has a phone, but you have no idea if it’s connected. You don’t know the number to the motel. Hell, you don’t even know its name, only its location. 

Frankie’s silhouette invades your thoughts, the size of him, the shape of him. His broad back, his strong shoulders, the line of his neck. The sensation of his hands grasping your waist. Their precision, their roughness. Their intent.

Is this how it ends?

Fresh tears swell under your eyelids. You quickly clench them close. 

You did everything wrong. What an appalling idiot. You should have acknowledged you’d never make it there, not in the state you were in. You should have called the motel to leave a message, explain your absence, and promise you’d be there again the following Friday. 

Now you have no means to reach him. You probably have lost him forever. The warm touch of his skin. His unique scent. His taste.

The beeping grows frantic. Heavy wet sobs heap up inside your chest. Your hand flies to cover your eyes. You anchor yourself to the throbbing pain in your skull and the prickling needle in your hand. To the faint clasp of the pulse oximeter on your index finger. Pursing your lips, you exhale.

Whether the phone is connected or not is just a detail. You can always signal someone with that little remote on the nightstand and have the option charged to the room. Ava’s phone number is the one you have memorized, she can come and get you, and when you manage to get out of here and get your phone back, you’ll replace Adrian’s contact info with hers as your ICE. 

The point is: you’re not trapped. You’re not a dead butterfly in a glass case. 

Your heart rate slows down. 

Between the cords and the hospital sheets, you look up at the white ceiling, and do what you do best: you check out, slip back between the cracks, disconnect.

—

The pain from your head injury is overwhelming. You’d ask for painkillers, but that collective we still haunts you. 

You expect Adrian to come back on Sunday. He doesn’t. Throughout the day, you fall in and out of sleep, a restless, feverish slumber crowded with violent dreams of flesh-eating monsters licking your bones clean.

On Monday morning, the doctor comes in to see you. A man in his early 60s with a thick mane of gray hair and a carefully trimmed beard, he calls you “sweetheart,” and when he raises his eyes from his tablet, he flashes you a perfunctory smile with blinding white veneers. He introduces himself as the head of the gastroenterology department. And a friend of Richard. He makes sure that you understand that his name on your chart is a favor to your father. His demeanor commands your respect, preferably by way of intimidation. 

Whatever he tells you, you’ve already learned from the nurses who waltzed in and out of your room in a brisk and constant ballet throughout the weekend, to check with skilled, professional movements the multiple cords and tubes pinning you to your bed. 

You suffered bacterial gastroenteritis, with severe dehydration, necessitating an antibiotic treatment, and, from your fainting spell, a minor concussion and a head injury. A thin split, on the right side of your forehead, perpendicular to your hairline.

You got sick. You fainted. You hurt your head.

After the doctor’s gone, you’re finally allowed to get up. Under the fluorescent ceiling light of the adjacent bathroom, you spend several minutes observing the seven stitches adorning your forehead. The thick black thread tied in neat little knots that look like dollhouse barbed wire. The visible indentation in your flesh underneath them. The kaleidoscopic and psychedelic coloration of your skin, spreading from your brow to your scalp.  

One of the nurses assures you the scar will quickly fade and disappear. Just like you. 

You find your belongings inside the narrow closet by the bathroom door. The slit of your pencil skirt is torn nearly up to the waist, and the blouse is bloodied. Your jewels are tucked inside your purse. You stand in front of the shelves, staring blankly at the black leather rectangle with the two gold C’s entwined on the front. One of the very first gifts you received from Adrian. You can’t remember if it was for Christmas, or your 30th birthday. Every Friday evening for the past three months, you’ve shoved it unceremoniously under your car seat. You hate that thing. It’s soulless, tacky, it begs for attention, it screams money.    

Later in the afternoon, your mother comes to visit. She brings you magazines, In Style, Elle, Southern Homes, Vogue … At first, she doesn’t look at your face, and when she does, she crumbles into tears. You comfort her. You watch her pad the corner of her fake lashes with a tissue she pulls out of her Birkin purse, and reapply lipstick.

Adrian comes back on Tuesday, with a large bouquet of roses, a box of imported Belgian chocolates you’re not allowed to eat, and your phone. He doesn’t stay long. Before he leaves, he presses an open-mouth kiss to your lips. You wait until he’s passed the door to spit into the kidney dish.

Your father calls within minutes of his departure, with an apology for not visiting. Work, he says, the magic word that justifies everything, from the clothes on your back to his shitty behavior. You tell him the doctor has advised to rest for the remainder of the week. 

In the evening, you finally text Ava. She calls you back immediately, which, beyond her audible concern, puts a lump in your throat. When she asks you how you’re feeling, it’s a minute before you can even speak. 

You’re discharged on Wednesday, with a tube of antibiotics, a short list of food to favor and a much longer one to avoid. 

Ava comes to pick you up. She brings you a change of clothes, a pair of baggy, distressed jeans and a white t-shirt that spells PRIDE in rainbow letters. You smile at your reflection in the bathroom mirror, and when you come out, she laughs like a child at her own joke. You laugh with her. It hurts a little, but the pain is worth it.

You’re still smiling when you ask her if you can keep the t-shirt, and her face drops. She hugs you, a bone-crushing hug with closed fists compressing your back, her face slotted into the crook of your neck. Her voice quivers when she answers that everything that is hers, is also yours. 

You stuff the pockets of your jeans full of your things and leave your purse in the closet. With a little bit of luck, the person who will find it can get a good price for it. 

On Friday morning, you drive back to the hospital to honor a 10:30 am appointment to remove your stitches. You’re led through a sprawling maze of corridors into a windowless room with baby blue walls, and instructed to undress to your underwear, which you don’t. Sitting on the examination couch, legs dangling in the air, palms rubbing on your jeans, you wait for the nurse to come in. 

She doesn’t remark on your defiance. In fact, she makes a point of soothing your nervousness, introducing herself as Diane, complimenting the color of your sneakers. She promises that you won’t feel a thing, and you believe her. When she smiles, her irises nearly entirely disappear, and a wide-spanning arch of wrinkles appears at the corner of her eyes, like sunbeams drawn by a happy child. 

While she prepares her utensils, she engages you in small talk, skillfully stirring the conversation toward the matter of your mental health and physical well-being. You’re well-trained too. You divert without shame or remorse. 

True to her word, she makes quick work of it, and when she’s done, she hands you a mirror framed in a blue, rubbery material. 

At first, you refuse to look, but she kindly insists. Her voice is gentle, angelical, her hands are warm when she lays them on your shoulders. She never once pronounces the word “scar.” She calls you “a beautiful and brave young woman.”

So you let her guide your hand upward until you’re faced with your image. 

“See? Barely visible. Once the ecchymosis has faded, you won’t even be able to notice it. Just something that happened.”

As she stands behind you, her warmth radiates through your cold bones, and she smiles broadly at your reflection. You blink back your tears. You want to commit her words to memory, uncorrupted by emotions. Just something that happened.

Out in the street, a strong wind blows in gusts from the east, in an overcast sky. The damp smell scrunches up your nose. Even without the sun, the air is too warm for the season. When you get into your car, the first thing you do is crank up the AC. 

That rotten hospital smell is still clinging to your skin and hair, you keep having these drops in blood sugar that leave you trembling like a willow tree and drenched in cold sweat. The whiplash from this morning’s anxiety does nothing to level your mood. 

You glance at your watch. 11:30. You let your head roll back on the headrest. You can’t remember a time in your life when you were not exhausted. 

You consider heading straight to the motel. Originally, you intended to go home first, change your clothes and apply some makeup. Cover up the giant bruise on your forehead, and do your best to look alive. It would be smart to put some food in you, too, and of course, to hydrate.

“Fuck it.”

You start the ignition, and merge into the midday traffic. 

The drive is excruciatingly long. A week from Christmas, the traffic is terrible. Getting out of Tampa takes over an hour. 

It’s the afternoon when you pull into the motel’s parking lot. Your eyesight’s unfocused, your nerves are raw, your shoulders pulled taut. 

Of the three other cars parked in the lot, none look like the one you’ve always assumed to be Raul’s, an ancient white Jeep Wagoneer with a rusty back bumper. 

As you try to ponder what to do next, the prickling of your healing tissues riles you up, convoking intrusive thoughts of your scarred reflection. The antibiotics drill a hole into your stomach, the discomfort creases your brow into a constant frown. Your right leg bounces continuously on the car floor. 

You’re running on empty. Pure, solid stress is what’s holding you up.

Once again trapped, this time inside the carbon fiber box of your car, while the outside world is defined in movements. The course of the overcast sun across the pearly gray sky, and the ever-changing shades of the clouds chased by the eastern winds. The occasional vehicle driving past the motel on the secondary road. The trembling of tree leaves, birds flying over, lonesome or in flocks. 

That decaying smell is everywhere in you, around you, but it might be your festering thoughts.

You’re too much, not enough, a disposable commodity. 

Is this how it ends?

Sometimes before 7pm, the white Wagoneer pulls into the parking lot, followed a few minutes later by a red sedan. Raul’s short, bespectacled figure is recognizable through the windshield of his Jeep. Then, it’s the familiar sight of his blue overall as he climbs the flight of stairs to the reception. You slide down on your seat, you don’t need him to see you already stationed here. 

Shortly after, a curvy young woman with a straight, blonde ponytail that goes down to her waist comes out and jogs to the red sedan. She gets in on the passenger side, and you wait until the car disappears on the horizon to exit yours. 

The short walk from your car to the office should be muscle memory. Only today, the gravel feels steady under the flat soles of your Van’s, and your jeans allow you to take actual, proper strides. Carried by the momentum, you march into the room, opening the door so wide it bangs on the door stopper with an ominous sound of shaking glass panes. 

Behind the desk, Raul lifts his head. It’s easy to tell by his puzzled expression that he doesn’t place you. And why would he? You look nothing like you usually do on every other Friday evening. Your clothes are casual, your face is bare, your features pulled taut by mental and physical exhaustion and an array of soreness and pains, your forehead shines in Technicolor, set off by a fresh, inch-long scar. 

“Good evening,” you start with a tight smile. “I—“

A whole week. Seven days, and you haven’t thought this through. The liability that is your impractical brain appalls you, exasperation heating your temples. In the silence that ensues, the droning of the AC unit seems to grow louder. You smile again. 

“I come in every week?” 

Jesus. 

“Oh yes,” he nods, his boot-button eyes boring into yours, “Friday nights, room number 2.”

“Yes,” you answer with a strained, cringy little chuckle, “room number 2. Is it–”

You wipe your sweaty palms on the sides of your jeans.  

“I was wondering if the room was booked last week?”

“Yes, last week room 2 was booked. But you didn’t come, last week.”

“Yes, no, I was held back,” you hear yourself say. You wince before you add, “And, the— the tall man— the tall man who joins me, did he come, last week?”

“Yes. He came. He waited, two, maybe three hours. You didn’t come, so he left. No refund.  Reservations paid in advance are not refundable unless canceled at least 48h—“

“Oh no, that’s fine,” you cut in, relieved he might have thought this embarrassing interaction was about money. “And is the room booked for tonight?”

Raul’s boot-button eyes linger on you for a beat before he lowers them to the computer screen on his left. The mouse clicks a few times, loud and suspenseful, as he operates the thing. You try to catch the reflection of something, anything in his round glasses. There are seven rooms, two cars beside his and yours in that parking, what can possibly take him so long? 

If the bacteria hasn't killed you, the wait surely will. 

“No,” he eventually declares, looking up at you, “it’s not booked for tonight.”

The answer falls on you like a guillotine. It rings out in your ears and you sway on your feet from the violence of the blow. You don’t know how to breathe. 

“Do you want to book it?”

You shake your head slowly.

“No. Thank you.”

Back outside, in the muggy semi-darkness, your wobbling legs find the way to your car on autopilot. 

He made no plans to come back. This time, he didn’t leave any note. This is how it ends. Between your lungs, the wild creature is bleeding. 

You should turn around, ask if they have his full name, bribe Raul into giving you his contact info. You never thought of memorizing his plates, but you could always drive back to the Hole in the Wall, see if he’s been there, if he came looking for you. 

You don’t. You won’t. You’re not entitled to any of it. He was never yours. Never yours to want, to long for, to miss, to hold.

All that’s left now is the abyss and the fear. You’re terrified. Of what lies ahead, the choices you’ll have to make, the answers you’ll have to give. The hollowness in your chest. The gap in your existence. The fracture in your years. 

The before and the after him. 

He has changed you. You changed yourself. You’ll never know if you changed him. 

Stunned, you stand still by your car, cloaked in the velvety night, frozen in space and time. Your hand petrified on the door handle. Unable and unwilling to leave. Eyes riveted to the brass number on the door, glinting with a blurry glow in the soft yellow hues of the porch lights. Moths flutter fuzzy and silent into the light beam, oblivious to the drama of your story. 

The rectangular window stands guard over your secret life. Behind the yellow curtains, your lonely silhouette awaits to come to life, poised and silent, seated on the edge of the bed. 

That woman, young and brave . Want has made her bold and determined. In just a few moments, her trained ears will pick up the sound of an old truck engine drawing near on the empty road. Her existence will come into focus with thrilled anticipation. She will bloom out of her restraints at the sound of tires on the gravel. 

“Oh god,” you whisper, whipping your head around, your grip on the handle white-knuckled as the red truck parks behind your sedan. 

His massive silhouette comes out, and you clasp your hand to your mouth to muffle a dry sob. 

It’s a trick of your overwrought brain. He’s wearing a pair of worn-out jeans and a suede jacket over a dark t-shirt. The brim of his hat casts a long shadow over his face, but he’s moving fast, and in a couple of strides, he’s standing before you, hands on his hips. He’s smiling, a broad and bright smile. You catch a glimpse of a dimple you’ve never seen. A trick of the mind. 

Oh but he’s here, in the flesh, your body knows before your brain comprehends his presence. The instant pull, the humming purr of the creature inside you, the blood level instinct.  

“Hey!” he calls. He sounds out of breath. Like he’s been running. Running to you. 

“I’m sorry,” you blurt out through your clenched fingers. 

“What?”

His smile drops when you take a step back. 

“I’m so sorry, I couldn’t make it, I thought I could, but I couldn’t make it, and then I couldn’t—“ 

Your throat closes around the memory and you swallow hard, eyelids weighed by stubborn tears that refuse to fall. 

He takes a step forward, tilting down his head. That scowl. That scowl, you know. You’re only too familiar with it.

“Then it was too late and I couldn’t reach you,” you finish.

“What happened to you?”

The low timbre of his voice reverberates inside your chest. His eyes flicker up to your forehead. Before you can think of anything to say, he cups your face with both hands and turns it to the side, towards the light. The whole sequence happens so fast that you trip on your feet and catch yourself on his forearms. 

“Who the fuck did that to you?” he grits, leaning so close his breath fans your forehead.

“I’m sorry,” you repeat in a whisper. 

“Did he do that to you?”

“What?”

“Your husband. Did he do that to you?” he asks again, louder, this time. Separating each syllable.

“Oh no! No, I fell.” You bring the tip of your fingers to the sensitive mark. “The nurse said it will fade.”

“How did you fall?” he presses. 

He doesn’t believe you. Like you could lie to him if you wanted to. 

The tension from his frame resonates through yours, where a week’s worth of suppressed emotions and tears are piled up, waiting for a detonator that will bring down the dam. You push away his hands, your frown mirroring his own. 

“I fell, ok? I’m here now, so let’s go inside.”

“I’m not– no,” he huffs, hands back on his hips, shaking his head. His boots scuff over the gravel, the grating sound loud in the empty lot, in the stifling night, and despite the dimness you can make out that scowl, ever present, splitting his gaze. 

“You can barely stand.”

However relevant, his rejection burns your cheeks. You raise your chin, leaning against the hood of the car for countenance. For balance.

“I’m fine. The room is free. Let’s go.” 

“I said no. I’m not fucking you. Look, I don’t know what happened to you, but you’re clearly not well enough–”

“You don’t fucking tell me what I’m well enough to do,” you snarl with your heartbeat in your throat, pushing away from the car, sustained by your last shred of strength. “Don’t assume you know what I’m capable of.”

He stands in front of you, seemingly unmoved, impossibly tall, infuriatingly silent. Stoic, and you’re thrumming with frustration, standing stubborn and brittle in front of him. He gives you none of the myriad of micro-expressions that usually play across his face, that you read instinctually. You feel ugly, exposed, but you withhold his gaze, jaw clenched, breathing heavy through your nose. You might faint again.

The silence drags on. It’s a minute before he moves again, crossing his arms over his chest. His voice is calm, when he speaks next, low and quiet, almost soothing. You don’t want it to be soothing. You don’t want to be soothed, you’re not done with your anger. He didn’t book the room, and now he doesn’t want to go in. You are a swappable vessel, after all. 

“I don’t. I don’t assume anything,” he says, “I don’t want to hurt you, that’s all.”

“I told you already, you cannot hurt me,” you snap, impatient.

“Wanna bet?”

You don’t need to. You know he could. Just not in the way he thinks he would. He’s already marked you permanently, deeper than any injury, any wound ever could. 

“Listen,” he begins with a sigh. 

“No, I get it, I look like shit and you don’t want to fuck me—“

“Alright, that’s enough!” he silences you with his index finger pointed at you. His voice booms in the dim parking lot, and you avert your eyes. Weariness washes over you, you fall back against the hood of your car.

His shoulders sink just a bit, the slightest drop in the tension pulling them taut. He steps closer to you, leans down, seeking your gaze, searching your face in the semi-darkness. 

“Hey, why don’t we go for a drive?” he offers. “We can talk. Or not. We can listen to the radio. Or just drive in silence, if you want. Clear our minds. What do you think?”

Our minds. 

He’s so close you can smell the clean scent of his t-shirt and the musk of him underneath it; you can feel your skin reaching out for him in feverish little tendrils you cannot control. 

“Ok.”

“Ok?”

“Yes, ok.”

He smiles, a cautious, appraising smile. The light catches at the mahogany depth of his eyes. He reaches for you, placing a large hand in the small of your back, and whispers, “Alright, let’s go.”

— 

The cab of the truck feels almost sacred. For months, it’s been your favorite daydream. Picturing him alone in the only private space of his you’ve ever seen, driving to you. 

What are his thoughts, then? Are they of you? Are they happy? Are they hopeful?

On any other occasion, you’d relish the opportunity to be in here with him. You’d catalog and store up every tiny detail for future use in your fantasies of him. Instead, you’re sitting tight and rigid on the wide bench seat, pressed against the door, face turned toward the window, seeing absolutely nothing. 

You hate yourself for that, too. 

After a while, you risk a glance at the dashboard. 

Judging by the analog dials, the truck has some mileage, but it’s visibly been well maintained. There’s no visible spots, no dust, no dents, only the patina of time. The vinyl bench seat is upholstered with a soft fabric whose colors have fainted after too many years under the Florida sun. There’s a cassette player and a cigarette lighter. The windows are manual. 

The one on Frankie’s side is cracked open. The night air carries his scent over to your side of the cab. Leather, laundry, musk. You can’t escape it. 

“Hey. You ok there?”

In the moonless night, you can only make out the sharp lines of his profile against the outside darkness of the country road. 

“I’m sorry,” you mumble. 

He looks at you, brow pinched, but his expression is soft. Compassionate. 

“C’mere.”

The truck slows down to a snail pace, and he unbuckles your seatbelt. You scoot over near him. Without taking his eyes off the road, he reaches to your right and rolls out the middle seat belt across your lap, fastening it between your hip and his. 

The truck accelerates to a cruising speed, and he wraps his arm over your shoulders, drawing you closer. 

You let him, allow your body to slump against his, embrace his warmth, your cheek pressed against his chest. It’s solid and strong, a match for your skeleton of loneliness. The suede fabric of his jacket is smooth, worn in. You inhale him there. You rest a hand on his thigh, and slide the other under his jacket, to rest on his chest. It rises and falls with his breathing. If you lie real still, you can feel the steady thumping of his heart. 

“I’m not married.”

“Ok.”

The word is felt through your cheek as much as you hear it. 

“The man I live with. He’s not my husband.”

“Ok.”

The nodding motion of his head nudges you a bit. 

“And I really fell.”

He remains silent, adjusting his grip on the steering wheel. The leather lining creaks inside his fist. 

“I got sick, last Friday. I get these stomach bugs all the time, but this was a mean one. I tried to make it through the workday, but eventually I passed out. Like a corporate rendition of a Victorian damsel, or something.”

You chuckle, diverting the humiliating memory. Just something that happened. 

He tightens his embrace. 

“That when you hurt your head?”

“Yes. On the edge of the elevator’s frame. At work”

“Fuck. Did it hurt a lot?”

“Actually it didn’t? I was out. It hurt when I woke up later, in the hospital, though. I had this terrible headache. I didn’t know where I was, or when I was.”

You feel him shake his head as he asks, “Were you scared?”

How to put into words, that the only fear you’ve ever had, is to never see him again? 

“I survived,” you answer with a shrug and a little, empty laugh.

If you were brave enough, if you had some strength left, you’d ask. How did he feel, when he got to the motel and found the door to the room closed. Why he didn’t book the room again. Why he still came tonight. 

“Does it still hurt?” he asks. 

“No,” you lie. 

“Mmh. And for real?”

You rub your cheek against the smooth suede, imprinting your soft smile into it. And maybe some of your scent for him to keep. In case, just in case he does care.

“A little. I’ll be fine.”

The truck cruises over the black asphalt, between the straight, stretching yellow lines. 

Your next words come in quiet, but not hesitant.

“He wouldn’t hit me.”

“Ok.”

“That’s not what he does.”

He exhales slowly through his nose. 

“What does he do?”

You bite your cheeks, already regretting this moment of weakness. The treason. 

“He makes me doubt.”

“Him?”

“Myself. And him too.”

Your eyes clench shut. His chest flexes under your cheek as he hardens his grip on the wheel. 

The truck drives past a gas station, through a small town. Neatly delimited square lawns, white houses with flags hanging on their porches, Christmas lights blinking through square windows, and you tilt up your head to look at him in the streetlights. 

His outlined profile, his steady expression, everything about him feels safe and grounding. The beauty that radiates from him, from within him, sinks to your heart. It races madly, awakening the soreness in your bruised ribcage, and perhaps he can feel it, with the way you’re curled up into his side. Leaning down, he brushes a kiss to your forehead. You bunch up his T-shirt in your fist. 

Soon, the yellow lines unwinding endlessly in the truck’s headlights weigh down your eyelids. In the safety of Frankie’s hold, your mind and body slowly drift into a peaceful slumber. 

“You ok? Want me to close the window?”

His voice is a distant whisper skirting the edges of your consciousness. 

“No, ’m good,” you mumble. “Wanna stay like this forever.”

Under your palm, Frankie's heart thumps loud and heavy. 

—

When you wake up, the truck is still and silent. Engine cooled off, windows rolled up. The night is pitch dark. Frankie’s scent, heady, familiar, everywhere around you. Your cheek is resting on his lap, and his hand lies heavy on your waist. His breathing comes in even and slow. Both your seatbelts are unbuckled. Your feet are bare. 

Aside from your legs, sore from being crammed into the length of the seat bench, you feel better than you have in a week, with your headache finally gone. 

You sit up, take in your surroundings and his sleeping form, seated behind the wheel. He stirs, lifting an eyelid and glancing in your direction, the corner of his mouth tugged up into something that resembles a drowsy grin. 

At some point while you were asleep, he drove back to the motel. Parked the truck so that the cabin faces away from the only source of light. 

You stretch side by side, sleep-heavy limbs, comfortable silence. You watch him lift his hat and comb his fingers through his hair, a tender smile lifting the corner of your lips. You know the curls he hides there. 

Of course, it cannot last forever. Nothing ever does. In a couple of hours, it’ll be daybreak. He’s always gone, by then. 

You won’t make this uncomfortable or difficult for him. You slip your socks and shoes back on. You’re reaching for the handle when he stops you with a hand on your thigh. 

“Wait. I need to talk to you.”

His voice is low and husky from sleep. You realize you have never woken up next to him. Never slept with him through the night. Probably never will. 

You hum quietly, pivoting on the seat bench to face him. 

“I can’t come, next week,” he says, searching your eyes. 

Emotionless. That’s how you have to be. You know how to do this. Not when it comes to him, but you can try. You try your best, your very hardest. 

“I understand.”

“I imagine you can’t be here either.”

No, you can’t. Thanksgiving at your parents’, Christmas with Adrian’s family. Always. 

“No, I can’t.”

The following week, either. But you don’t share that.

This is when the two of you should discuss a practical means of communication. The awareness hangs between you, loud and unspoken. The consequences it would have on whatever it is that the two of you share. The shockwave, the shift in nature and intention. The names that exist to describe your situation, crass, overused, sordid. Tainted with lies and deception, secret texting, hushed phone calls, disgusting, undeniable guilt.

Frankie moves first, getting out of the truck and going round the hood to open the door for you. You slide out of the high cab into his arms, and when your feet touch the gravel, you wonder if this could be the last time he will ever hold you.

In the feeble porch lights, his face is a landscape of diffuse shadows. The dip in his collarbone draws you in, a beacon in a dark ocean. You nuzzle into it, inhaling his scent, taking in his fragrant warmth. You tuck your face in the crook of his neck, graze your cheek along his pebbled skin. What if you stayed there? Tucked away forever. Disappeared to the rest of the world. Would it matter? Would he let you? 

Your fists bunch the sides of his jacket. 

“Kiss me, Frankie, please.” 

“Yes.”

His first kiss is tentative, the plush cushion of his lips a soft press over yours, but they return immediately, hungry for a taste, for more, the tip of his tongue brushing against your parted lips. 

All that you crave, all that you need is here, in his embrace, between his arms and his hands tugging at your waist, beckoning your body closer to his. 

Your arms circle his neck, the tips of your fingers seeking his curls. His hand spans your back, finds your nape. He molds you into his chest, and with the way he’s pressing you against him, firm and commanding, you know this will be one of these moments that feed into your hopes. The delusion you’ve been nurturing since the first time you’ve faced him. The dream that he wants you to be his above anyone else. 

His third kiss opens you up, tongue swirling around yours, and you keen, rising to your tiptoes, angling your head to take more, more, more and he gives. Hands gripping, tongue licking, crushed lips and guttural moans, he gives you all that you need like he needs it too. 

You’re floating above the gravel, there’s no time, there’s no space, his body has no end and there’s no beginning to yours as he kisses away your fears, your doubts, your darkness. 

Together, you stand entwined between night and morning, linked by chance, need and hurt, bonded by will and desire. 

There’s no urgent hunger in the spanning of his splayed hands across your body, no rage in his kneading of the soft of your hips, or the swell of your breast. His grip is strong, but studious and thorough. He takes you in, your curves, your dips, the slopes and slants of your figure. Like he’s storing up the feelings and memories of you for when there will be no more, when you’re far and gone, away with your husband who is not your husband. There’s despair in his touch, but most of all, there’s foresight, and intent. 

He’s untucked your t-shirt, calloused hand skimming up to cup your breast, thumbing the hardening peak of your nipple.

Once again, you find yourself pressed against the hard, cool metal of the truck, and like the first time, you’re frantic in his hold, but he’s in control. His thick thigh parts your legs, offering friction to the coiling need between your hips, that fire pooling liquid down your core. You squirm against the firm muscles. 

“Want me to make you come, baby?”

He’s breathing into your mouth, and you whine in frustration. 

“No, I want you inside me.” 

“Shit, you sure?”

“I’m not made of glass, you’re not going to break me.” 

You push away to look at him, a demonstration of strength. All talk, but you’re that desperate. He pulls you back into him for another kiss, chuckling into your mouth. 

“You think I don’t know that?”

So many simple things you had never done with him before tonight, after months of lying bare and naked, to his gaze and his touch, inside and out. Driving, falling asleep, walking, his steadying hand nestled in the small of your back. 

Behind the reception desk, Raul seems unfazed by this new development. The drawing pad blackened in charcoal is back.

“Room number 2,” Frankie asks, “for the night.” 

It’s so wild to consider that the two men have never interacted, when Raul plays such an important part of your Friday ritual. You’d try to get Frankie’s full name, real name, perhaps, but Raul doesn’t ask. This is not that kind of place. 

“I can pay,” you whisper into Frankie’s shoulder, tucking your t-shirt back into your jeans. 

“I know you can.”

When he flips open his wallet, a small color picture pops out, next to his driver's license. The photo booth format is easily identifiable. In the snapshot, a bare-headed Frankie is holding a very young child. The picture is that of a moment, seized through movement, the kid holding the Standard Heating Oil hat in her chubby hands, likely mere seconds after having snatched it from Frankie’s head, who’s looking down at her, with a bemused grin, tousled hair. 

It’s him, his distinctive, sharp features unmistakable, only he hardly looks like the man you know. There’s no trace of the grief he carries like a cloak when he meets with you. No crease splitting his brow like when he looks at you. Instead, his eyes glint with pride, creasing with a smile that dimples his cheeks, large and genuine. And the child’s round, plump face is brightened by the same irresistible dimpled grin, the same head full of wild curls, the same mahogany eyes.   

You quickly avert your gaze, but you’ve seen enough. The guilt is physical, visceral, it squeezes your ribcage harder than the pliers. The pain has you wincing and you grip the reception desk for balance, but Frankie’s arm is already wrapped around your waist and he’s leading you outside. 

In a trance, you walk beside him to room number 2. Your room. That picture-perfect image of fatherly love dancing before your eyes. 

He’ll never be yours. The wild creature shivers between your lungs. The certitude shatters your heart. 

Stepping inside, you’re rooted to the floor. Limbs too heavy to lift. Your blood has turned into lead. The fire in your core is a pile of ashes. You can taste it on the back of your tongue. 

Frankie flicks up the toggle switch, and the room lights up in amber hues. It feels too big, the satin quilt, the brown carpet, the yellow curtains, everything is foreign and distant.

Behind you, he sets his hat on the desk, drapes his jacket on the back of the chair.

“You ok?”

His voice jolts you up. You turn around to face him, unshed tears hanging round and heavy from your lashes. After a beat, he takes a step towards you, and you feel that absolute pull tugging from behind your midriff. 

His gaze drifts up to your fresh scar, where your flesh is tender, swollen and bruised. Yours travel down along the pebbled skin of neck, to the dip between his collarbone. A firework of freckles springs from the V-shaped collar of his faded blue t-shirt.  

Carefully, he slides your t-shirt out of your jeans again. You lift your arms like a docile child, let him undress you. He places a hand, warm and calloused, beneath your sternum. His palm heats your skin, warmth seeping into you. It untangles something, there. Something you didn’t know was still bruised. You lean into it. 

He stays like that for a while. 

Then his hand skates up to the base of your throat. His cold hard stare finds your soft sad eyes. 

“Do you get wet, thinking I could hurt you?”  

“I trust you,” you answer, a nod contradicting your words. His gaze hardens.

“Why did you think I wouldn’t come tonight, then?”

You shake your head, blinking fast. You never mentioned that. How would he know your thoughts? 

“Don’t you know I would fuck you on my deathbed?” he grits.

But you don’t know. Of course you don’t know, and how could you? Nothing in your life has ever prepared you for him, for this, for the strength of that pull, inescapable, for this obsession that has uprooted your life, your body, your instincts. Nothing has prepared you for the magnetism of his skin, the things you’d do to be in his presence, to breathe the same air, what you’d risk for his touch, what you’d give up for his attention, what you’d destroy for his affection . Your comfort, your safety, your future, your health. Your family and his, nothing fucking matters compared to the insatiable hunger of this wild thing inside your chest and its incessant chant of him, him, him. 

Your chest heaves, but his grip is firm. He leans down, lowering his lips to your ear, where he whispers, “What’s your name?”

You close your eyes, the wild creature is gnawing at your chest, eating you raw from within. 

“I want you.”

His hand lingers, travelling higher, fingers splayed across the width of your throat in a loose grip. You hope he tightens it. Like he does sometimes when he’s inside you. Tune out your mind, toss you into white-hot pleasure. Into oblivion. 

He doesn’t. 

He’s never truly been gentle with you before. Tonight, his kisses are languid, his touch soft and slow along your ribs. Delicate, when he reaches the swell of your breasts and slides down the cup of your bra, replacing the fabric with the palms of his hands. When he leans down into you, wrapping his plush lips around your nipple, sucking in the peaked bud ever so lightly, flicking the flat of his hot wet tongue around it, lips pursed, suckling. 

Against your belly, you feel him harden. You shiver with arousal and anticipation, with exhaustion. With the weight of this week and the burden of your life. With pain, ache and soreness. With your empty body, and your empty cunt. With that creature in your chest that can’t be tamed or satisfied. Can’t even be named. 

You shiver in his hold, for fear that this’ll be the last time. For fear that he’ll never be yours, that he’ll never want you the way you want him, with determination, with madness, without a choice. 

“I want you inside me, Frankie please," you breathe out, and he backs you into the bed to lay you down on the quilt. 

The fabric is cold under your burning skin, you shudder at the contact. He takes off your shoes, rolls off your socks. He slides your jeans down and off your legs, then your panties. 

You sit up to watch him undress, his eyes of mahogany brown never once leaving your face. 

He stands before you, naked, erect, filling your vision with this breadth, and you want to rip your beating heart out of your aching chest. 

The bed dips and he’s crawling over you. Leaning down, he drags the crown of his head up along your belly, along the valley of your breasts, his hair a soft caress on your quivering skin. Your fingers twine in his curls, you get lost in the sensation. For weeks he has barely let you touch it, kept it out of your reach. Now the abundance feels decadent, your head sinks back into the mattress with a faint exhale. 

Cautiously, he parts your folds with two knuckles. You bite down a gasp, tensing up. You can’t shake off that chilling dread, the one that trickles inside you, cold and piercing, when you think you’re losing him. But your body knows better, that sticky wet slick pooled between your hips, the coiling heat at the center of you. 

“Stop me,” he breathes into the crook of your neck, “don’t let me hurt you.”

He inches the tip of his length inside you with a strained groan, hooking your legs around his waist. He tries to work you open with a few shallow thrusts, panting against your temple.

“Fuck you’re tight.”

“Please, Frankie–”

His frame tenses up under your palms.

“I’m trying, you’re too— fuck, you’re too tight. Let me eat you open.”

“No!”

That’s not what you want, not tonight when you have no strength to spare, no time to lose, no patience left out. 

“I can—“ You trip over your words. 

“What?”

“I can sit on it.”

Heat creeps up your neck, setting your cheeks ablaze. He gives you a quiet chuckles. 

“Yea. Yea you can.”

He grabs your wrists and lifts you with easy strength. A few swift movements and he’s lying on the bed underneath you, your folded knees a straddle across his lap. You feel dizzy, like your blood can’t course along your veins fast enough, like it’s no match for his strength, for your arousal. 

“Spit on it,” he says. 

You circle his cock, smooth, heavy. It throbs into your hand. You take it all in, with a trance-like gaze, the coarse curls at his base brushing your skin, the round head, an angry shade of red, the ridges and pumped up veins along the length, the tip of your fingers that don’t meet around it.  

“Come on, don’t be shy, spit on it.”

Bending down, you lick a broad stripe along the thick ridge of his underside, from his balls to the fat round tip, where the skin is smooth and his taste heady, and he hisses something you can’t make out. It shoots through you, his sound, his burning skin, his taste. The curled tip of your tongue slides inside the small leaking slit, collecting the pearly drops he gives you. Your eyes flutter shut. His hands grip your thighs above the knees as you take him into your mouth, his fingers digging, a bruising furrow, something desperate. 

“Fuck, fuck, fuck.”

Your lips slide along him, up and down, tongue wrapped around his girth. With hollowed cheeks, you take him deeper with each stroke until your head is spinning and you slip him out, rueful, glassy-eyed. 

His breathing comes in almost as heavy as yours. 

“Sit on it, now.”

His voice sounds wrecked, like you must look. 

“Yes,” you pant. 

Hands braced on Frankie’s chest, you’re not that flimsy, empty shell. You’re that fierce creature inside your chest, the one that claws and purrs and spits and demands. You tap into the bottomless pit of its life force, tap into the rumbling of Frankie’s ragged breathing under your palms, and you take.  

Eyes strained on the solid breadth of his chest, on the expanse of his amber skin and the darker circles of his nipples, on the constellation of soft brown freckles that turn your insides into a sticky leaking mess, you slide up his lap, part your folds with his hard cock, rub your clit over it.

“Fuck, you feel good,” he murmurs, not for you, not really. To himself. Like the memory comes back crushing. 

The bobbing of his throat, the low rasp of his voice, the wet sound of your slick smearing over his cock, it all builds up hot and prickly right under your navel. 

Sweat breaks on your forehead, along your spine, down in the bow shape of your arched back. 

You push away from the cradle of his hips, knees sinking into the creaking mattress. Raise yourself from his heat just enough to line him up, with his hands curled around your thighs, a steadying help. 

You’re tight, but wanton-wet. He’s a gliding stretch along your walls as you sink down on him with all your weight, your cunt ready to collapse, fluttering frantically. 

His thrashes back into the mattress, corded neck, strained muscles. Thick fingers bruising the tender flesh of your legs. 

“Fuck wait, don’t move, don’t move. Stop moving, shit!”

You still, not like you can move anyway, the pleasure-pain has you numbed out, limp, blinded. Your head lolls back, your eyes roll shut. Your lower lip twitches with the tension and the stretch. He’s so big you forget how to breathe but this is what you wanted, for him to annihilate all the other pains.

A sound comes out of your parted lips. A grating against your vocal cords, a primitive vibration of the air that’s punched out of your lungs. It’s not you, it’s the creature mewling.  

You can feel his cock pulsating hard and angry inside your belly. It’s a tidal ripple that travels up your chest. Your heart skips several beats. 

His hands cup roughly around your breasts. You lean forward into his hold, hips swaying, slack mouthed. You keep him inside you, a deep roll, hipbones to hipbones. The coarse black hair at his base a harsh scrape against your swollen clit. 

And suddenly, he fucks up into you. A hard shove, filling, merciless, into your cervix. You cry, nearly toppling backward and he sits up with a cinch, arms wrapping around your waist, catching you before you can fall. 

“Too much?”

“Oh god yes.”

You’re crying, at last. Big, hot beady tears of salt rolling down your cheeks. Full, fucked out, filled to the brim. Everything that’s not him obliterated. Thoughts, emotions, sensations.

“That’s what you wanted, right? You want too much, baby?”

His voice is quiet and soft like silk, teeth raking along your throat. It’s almost a bite but not quite, tongue tasting your sweat, lips wrapping around your pulse point, barely sucking in. You can’t speak, your nails dig into his arms, forming little pink crescents you’re not allowed to leave behind. 

You nod, you breathe out, “Yes, I want too much.” 

He straightens up, your breasts are pressed to his chest, sweats mingling. His scent is overwhelming. That musk he exudes, a leathery spice, whenever you’re fucking. The scent of his desire. 

His hand tangles in your hair. He makes sure you’re looking at him.

“Take it. Take what you want. Fuck, you’re beautiful, so fucking beautiful, you believe it, right?” 

You try to tilt your face down, hide your tears, hide your scar. He doesn’t let you. So you give in. Because, what if you are? 

“Say it again, please.” 

“Look what you do to me, baby. Can you feel what you do to me?”

His fingers dig into the soft flesh of your ass, and he grinds you onto his cock, a slow, thorough grind, splitting you deeper onto him. It’s coiling fast, hot and heavy, right at the center of you. 

“I’m gonna come, Frankie.”

“Do it. Come. Use me, make yourself come on my cock. Make yourself feel good. Take everything you need.” 

He talks you through your orgasm as you tremble and crumble in his hold. It’s a high that feels like a free-fall, like you’re unraveling, like you’re never landing. Like your skin’s burning and your mind is the horizon. 

You’re sobbing quietly when he carefully eases out of you, still hard. He carries you in his arms and you think you’re floating. You’re drained, boneless, falling asleep already. 

He lies you down under the covers, tucks you in. Places a glass of water on the nightstand. Folds your clothes on the desk. 

You don’t hear him dress up. You don’t hear him leave. 

And in a few hours, when room service wakes you up, barging into the room, you won’t remember his forehead kiss. 

****

[telltalebatman]

hey so that ask game about your OC describing their LI, what if the LI described the OC? for frankie and charlie, obvs

oh HELL yeah

oz about charlie:

"Thank you for agreeing to do the interview, mister Cobblepot. Gotta say, I'm honored to be the first journalist interviewing you one-on-one." "Oh, it's nothing, really. Gotham Times is my darling's newspaper of choice. I'd be in the doghouse if I turned this offer down." "I see. Well, let's start with the obvious one. While a great deal is known about your backstory, not much is known about your personal life. So... What is it like?" "Well, as you're probably aware, I am in a situationship with one Charlie Schiller-Aberdeen. It's public knowledge at this point, but it is pivotal to my life outside of this office. We are... Devoted to one another, and to call her light of my life would be to say nothing. She is the best bloody thing to have happened to me in years. And it is my greatest joy in life to have someone like her devour everything I make. Her stomach is as bottomless as are my feelings for her. Waking up next to her in the morning feels like being born anew. And looking at her - really, truly looking at her - kills my need for fine art." "Wow, that's... Surprisingly touching." "Why would I hold back? I do love her. The curls of her hair, the glimmering of her eyes, her freckles - that only I get to see - and her... Akhem... Finer details." "...yeah, I can understand that. So... What do the two of you do to relax, for example?" "Oh, many things. Now I will not get into too much detail, since most of what we do is just between us and our bed... But she is a delight to be around in any case. Sweet like wine, and as irresistible. But sometimes we simply go out for walks. Play board games. Watch movies. I like to take her out to see live performances at the opera, which, admittedly, she likes a lot less... Or so she says. She is not a good liar. But she is clever, way more clever than she gives herself credit. But not clever enough to not run her pretty mouth to her friends about certain things. Yes, darling, I know you're reading this interview. I know what you've talked about behind my back. This is a message to you, my darling: the night will be long, and you best practice your puppy eyes. Because we will sit through the entire performance of Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg." "Uhm... Why does it feel like it's not just about the opera?" "Oh, don't worry about it too much, miss Vale. Charlie will know what I mean."

mac about frankie:

"Hmph. You think you know someone." "Fucking christ. What is it about this time?" "Don't act dumber than you are, Gargan. It's about your wife." "And? I'd watch my mouth if I were you, Rhino. Think about your words carefully." "Gargan, please, I can beat you with my eyes closed. But I thought I know you, Gargan. When did you marry?" "None of your fucking business." "No it is my business. The Six sticks together. You know Oksana. But I don't know... What's her name?" "...Frankie." "Frankie. Beautiful name. It means... Free. Truthful. French." "She is two out of those three. Now she is free. Now she can live her truth." "And what is her truth?" "Her truth is that she was meant for greatness. It's in her blood." "She seems nice." "Well, she is - once you get to really know her. She is nice, and caring, and made it worth for me to force the suit off. But I can't do it anymore. The suit is me, and I am it. Mac Gargan is no more. There is only Scorpion." "Mmmm. You're stupid, Gargan. Oksana - for Oksana, I keep Aleksey alive, even as the world only sees the Rhino. And your Frankie - did she marry the Scorpion? Or did she marry Gargan?" "The man she married is dead. She deserves better anyway. After what her so-called family put her through, she deserves the world. Not just money, not just power - she deserves peace. And I cannot give it to her. So I hope she finds someone else. Someone who will give her what she deserves. Someone who will love her even as she flips them off." "...she sounds nice." "She had every right to kill me after what I've dragged her through. But she didn't. Instead, she fell in love with me, and she accepted that I've been in love with her for months. She accepted I've been in love with her even as she told me to die, even as she treated me like scum. I loved her then. Now I want for her to be loved by someone who won't hurt her." "But you didn't hurt her, Gargan." "Oh, I did. And for that, I need to vanish. I'm sure there will be another. Maybe she'll grow her hair out for them. Maybe she'll bake for them. Maybe she'll do those things she hates for them, things I don't deserve for her to do for me. And if I want to see her eyes again... I can just look at the moon. She has eyes silver like the pale moonlight, you know." "Gargan..." "Don't say another word, Rhino. I'm warning you. Don't bring her up again. I need to keep the real her and my memory of her separate. I need to let the real her go. Because as long as I have even the tiniest bit of sanity left, I can return to her in my memories. To her laughter, to her eyes, to all the nights we've spent together. And looking at you is making me lose my fucking sanity." "...fine. Have it your way, Gargan." "And stop calling me Gargan." "Ugh. Fine, Skorpion."

[fashionablyfyrdraaca]

P H I M for the smut headcanon game >:3

tfw you spell out mr man's last name <3 Thank you for sending an ask in! :D

P: Playlist: Archibald is definitely the type to be a product of his times. I think he would prefer instrumentals and soft, gentle songs. Ironically bardcore is totally a genre I think he would love, especially the instrumental ones for his sexual escapades.

The cover Hildegard Von Bingen does of Bad Romance is unironically one he would play when with a lady.

After the Summer by Jerry Galeries is the type of song he would play if he was trying to perform more confidently, especially considering him is fine with the Likely Lass opening their relationship while he's at sea

The first few times with Likely, Can't Take My Eyes Off You by Frankie Valli and the 4 Seasons is a song that fits him very well. I can actually see it being the song that plays when they first meet, since the game has you meet the sweetheart option in a tavern.

Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! by ABBA but covered by Feuerschwanz is Archibald's sexlife as viewed by Likely Lass lmao. Sweet True Lies by Beast in Black is a song that I've been obsessed with for them but am not sure if it fits their relationship or not. I Want it I Need it (Death Heated) by Death Grips is a HUGE Archibald sexyman song

H: Handsy (When they can’t keep their hands to themselves)

Archibald is the type to want to always have a hand on his lover once they've confirmed their relationship. Whether it be a hand on their waist, shoulder or back. He would be the type to play with their clothes, when wanting to take them back to his room. Such as playing with the collar of their dress or the lace. A big signifier would be him idly touching their earrings and staring at them while just going "mhm" to whatever they're saying and not breaking eye contact.

I: Initiator (Who initiates most of the time? How?)

If it's during his relationship with Likely Lass, I think most of the time it would be pretty equal between them. Especially if he has been at Zee for a long time.

Before the birth of their son, it would be as soon as they reach the townhouse he bought for her. As soon as the door is locked, they would cling to each other and slowly lose garments until they ended up in the bedroom.

After the birth of their son, Archibald would want to wait until el babbo is completely asleep as he values privacy and is not emotionally ready to explain those sorts of things to a child. I think Likely would be a bit irritated at this, but ultimately respect him on the issue.

M: Morning (Describe morning sex)

Mornings usually end with Archibald leaving for Zee. Or Likely leaving to go back to work. So I imagine morning sex would be initiated by Archibald, thankful that he woke up at all. It would be tender and soft, both taking their time. It would be less demanding and needy than nighttime or daytime intercourse. It would involve Archibald wanting to memorize every curve, every freckle or birthmark so that he can dream of them while at Zee. It would be a wordless way of Likely saying goodbye for every goodbye comes with the fear that the Zee takes him forever.

[cebwrites]

Heeey could you please write some headcannons for Ace and or Marco with a male (or gn reader) whose having a hardtime and just needs a little extra love and attention? Thank you so much <3<3

of course, franky! this is my first time writing anything for marco, though, so i hope he’s not too ooc for you ;3; if anyone else needs a little bit of pick-me-up ace content, you can pop by these hcs here!

comforting their s/o who's having a hard time (ace, marco)

masc reader, one line of poly at the end word count: 0.6k

Ace

You don’t need to ask, Ace is already at your side, immediately swooping you into his lap or ‘subtly’ nudging you for cuddles but spinning it to sound like he needs em more than you do

He’s good at running from those icky feelings, he’s done it his entirely life - though he wouldn’t want you to bottle up what was making you upset forever, Ace is a natural at taking your mind off stressors in the meantime and just having fun

He’d shoot you a cheeky little smirk while you were tucked by his side and you’d immediately know what he was up to 

Ace making mischief was nothing new, whether it was with the Spade pirates or on the deck of the Moby Dick - it’s the express way he’d look to see if you were enjoying yourself, keeping closer by even with his less dangerous stunts, or how he seemed like more of a goofball than usual

That’s what tips your peers off to something being potentially wrong, but they leave it to Ace to handle internal affairs, you boys’ cleanup duty isn’t going to be any less severe depending on the amount of trouble you two cause, however, no matter how much Ace whines

Ace’s favorite wind-down activity is just sitting up somewhere high and watching the stars with you, your head nestled comfortably on his chest while Ace has an arm around your waist and goes on and on about the same old stories, about his lovely boyfriend, too

They’re mostly about his childhood with him and Sabo, and also largely about Luffy, but you’d listen to them no matter how many times Ace repeated himself - you still tease him about it though to watch freckled cheeks turn a brilliant shade of red, even with his tan covering most of it in Ace’s favor

Marco

Marco’s methods are a lot less destructive, thank the lord for that

He’d see you not being yourself, likely out of stress or upset, out of the corner of his eye and make plans to rectify that behind the scenes, pulling double-time on his work to make sure he’d be free enough

With his responsibilities settled for the time being and Pops giving the okay for him to take some time off, Marco takes you on a nice day out on the town

He has a whole itinerary of shit to do (all very laid back, but there’s a list no less) - a short walk through town for a breather, some window shopping, sharing a drink or two if you’re out after 5pm, and then dinner, Thatch’s courtesy, in a little gazebo on the island Pop’s docked at

Everyone stays out of the way or so help him god Marco threatened not to heal them the next time they were in trouble

If you weren’t feeling right enough to go out, though? Well, shit- It’s not ideal, but Marco can work with this

A day cooped in his office isn’t too shabby now either, is it?

He’d sit you in his lap while he worked away at his desk, pen in one hand and the other snugly around your midsection, taking breaks every now and again to coo against your ear and squeeze cute giggles out of his adorable boyfriend

When you feel yourself getting a little stiff from the position, the doc prescribes lunch and a little afternoon nap for the both of you, tucked away comfortably in his quarters with no one daring to bother you for hours 

Barring maybe Ace, who has the audacity to crawl in next to you, kiss both his boyfriends on the cheek in an overtly obnoxious way, and pass out against your back, arms around you just as Marco had before - smelling like today’s menu

[animunerdery]

your art is very good and i love it a lot !! ur vrry talented ! however, you seem to still draw usopp with his minstrel lips? i know thatd how they look in canon but a caricature is a caricature. im not saying thid in a mean spirited way, i just want to see your art improve and not alienate who you're trying to depict

Oda certainly has some “issues” with his designs, Usopp and most of the other black and brown characters, along with pretty much all of his women have fairly obvious “these were designed by a Japanese dude who loves boobs and has probably only seen non asian people in film/media vibes.”

That being said… if it were up to me, I probably would still exaggerate a fair amount of features, but push them more towards the direction of the ethnicity / nationality they’d represent.

Luffy and Vivi for example, I would definitely make brown. I’m pretty sure the live action show will be a disaster given how bad cowboy bebop was, BUT! The casting of live action Luffy is spot on! Curly hair? Check! Thick assed eyebrows? Check! Feral boy energy? Check!

Zoro I’d have it so he dyes his hair, his eyebrows can be dark thick assed Asian eyebrows and the moss is his choice cuz he’s an idiot and thinks it’s cool.

Nami, I’d make her overall a bit more elfin; give a bit of an upturn to her nose and freckles obviously. Aside from that not too much of a change. Animu already makes ppl kinda white looking…

Usopp would definitely be wide nose instead of long nose and frankly I’d give him more prominent eyelids. I think he’d be darker relative to the other mugiwara even if Banchina is mixed race.

Sanji I would definitely give a much bigger much more French nose and maybe make him more like a French Buscemi overall? Sanji’s biggest problems are in his writing, but I think Oda has definitely been showing growth in our weird confused little misogynist.

Chopper I can see as half Asian tbh bc there’s a ton of Asians in Canada. Also he’s a kid so not that different from the way I already draw him haha.

Robin I think would also be more about making that nose more prominent and making those deep set eyes and heavy eyelids pop. Though tbh she could be kinda mixed too, like white Eastern European mixed with Asiatic Steppe ppl blood could also work?

(The main thing I’d change with all the women is waistline and boob size lol, also Nami face, I would definitely make Hancock and Tashigi clearly Asian. Love that Nojiko is black in the live action and would totally make Miss Double Finger black as well. Vivi would totally be brown, why not black? Ptolemaic Egyptians are essentially Greeks, so more Middle Eastern Mediterranean Sefardi vibes for Vivi.)

Franky doesn’t really need much change except maybe the nose also being more prominent? He already does look kinda like a large white dude to begin with lol. His butt-butt chin thing is weird but within the realm of cartoon liberty.

And my Brook would probably look like an older cross between Marley and Hendrix. So not thaaat different from Oda’s design I guess? I think of him as being from Jamaica at any rate, no idea where Oda had actually slated him to be from…

I didn’t do them, but Jinbei would probably be an older chunky Asian dude, and Yamabro would probably be an albino? The whole white hair red eyes thing lol…

At any rate… design is still incredibly labor and thought intensive so despite his issues, I take my hat off with full respect to Oda sensei and base my drawings off those designs.

Also… redesign takes time and energy as well and tbh this blog is just dumb throwaway doodles that take me 5-30min to cobble together. If you wanna see beautifully redesigned mugiwaras, check out these blog rolls of incredible artists who actually put time and energy into their work!