#BEAMING MY EMOTIONS AT U | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

revasserium · 7 months

Note

can i have one were zoro realises she does things bc of truama (like doesnt speak much etc)

hold me (still)

opla!zoro; 6,680 words; slow!!!!burn, fem!reader, ex-assassin!reader, straw hat!reader, general tragic backstory/trauma, fluff, hurt/comfort, bit of angst, emotionally constipated zoro, communication? what's that?, nami playing therapist bc she's the only one with 1 iota of emotional intelligence

summary: sometimes, stillness is a virtue, and others -- a tragedy. or, in which the straw hats pick up a new member and zoro is equally intrigued and weirded out by you.

a/n: well. you guys asked for slow burn and... the burn is so slow u gotta squint to see the smoke yall. but trust. the burn does get there! pls be patient!! and i tried to combine 2 dif reqs in this one fic :)

You are of the quiet sort. Just a shadow dancing in the periphery of their vision, and when they first met you, you’d told them it was your superpower, a soft, still smile slipping across your lips. Luffy had bought into it immediately, and the invitation was out his mouth before anyone could stop him.

“Come with us!”

“Oh…” your lips pressed into a thin line of consideration.

Zoro’s fingers itched towards his swords because something about you makes the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. But something else — something uncomfortable and strange, something very much like curiosity — seizes his chest and twists his stomach. Strange, he thinks, too strange.

“C’mon! It’ll be fun!”

And then, you’d smiled wider, and nodded, and that had been that.

It’s been three months since then, and you are still of the quiet sort, though it had receded a bit with time. What with Sanji’s gentle flirting and Usopp’s not-so-gentle stories and Nami’s bright, dry-humored companionship, you’d begun to “open up a bit”, so Luffy observed.

Zoro, for his part, has kept his distance. Because sometimes he still catches you at the bow of the ship, staring out across the midnight waters, still as a stone-carved statue. Still as a wooden beam — stiller, even.

“What’s with that?” he asks one day, strolling up to Nami as she traces a fine line over a new map she’s working on.

“Hm?” is her very eloquent response.

Zoro ticks his tongue against his teeth and casts his eyes about the ship, finding them drawn to the shape of you, up at the bow again, reading in the shade of the tangerine trees. Nothing moves except for the wind as it whisps through your hair and the slow scanning of your eyes as it skates across the page.

“New girl,” Zoro says, crossing his arms as Nami finally looks up at him and then off towards you.

“Why don’t you ask her yourself?”

Zoro lets out a puff of breath, unfolding his arms to glare at Nami. He finds her grinning a lopsided grin as she clicks shut her compass and puts down her pen. She leans a hip on the barrel she’d been drawing on and folds her own arms.

“Oh, you like her.”

“I’m weirded out by her. ‘S not the same thing,” Zoro snaps, but when he tries to leave, Nami blocks him with an arm and pins him with a sharp, leveling look.

“No, no, no — we’re gonna work this through.”

“No thanks, I’m good.”

“Uh-uh, you still owe me after that round of drinks the other night — remember when you bet you could drink more than me?”

Zoro narrows his eyes, “I did drink more than you.”

Nami’s grin is gleeful, “No, you didn’t. You had to be dragged back to your room after clogging up the toilet. Or do I need to show you the evidence —”

“Alright — fuck, fine. But really? This is what you’re gonna waste your favor on? You could’ve asked me to —” Zoro gestures around vaguely, “clean the bilge or something.”

Nami shrugs, looking almost too pleased, “Nope! This is what I wanna use my favor for. And, really, you think a bit of bilge water is gonna gross me out? C’mon.”

Zoro heaves a sigh and leans back against the main mast, closing his eyes.

“Fine then. Go.”

Nami sits back on the edge of the barrel.

“No, you go. Admit that you like the new girl.”

“I don’t.” He doesn’t open his eyes.

“I’ve seen you staring at her. We’ve all seen you staring at her.”

“What, that a crime now?”

Nami fights the urge to roll her eyes, “No, but I’ve never seen you try so hard to avoid someone before.”

Zoro lets out a bark of laughter, hard and mirthless, “Yeah, so that must mean I like her.”

Nami cocks her head, “It means you feel something towards her. And I’d suggest you figure it out.”

“And how’d you propose I do that?”

Nami once again waves in your direction, “Go. Talk. To her.”

Zoro lets out another breath, eyes scanning across the ship, anywhere but towards where you’re still sitting and reading, finger flipping a page in a perfect, smooth, singular motion.

And Zoro’s not blind. Blunt though he may be at times and careless as he is about most material things, he can still appreciate beauty when he sees it. And you — there’s no denying that you’re beautiful. Your strange stillness aside, when you do move, it’s with a dancer’s lissome grace, fluid lines, not a single movement wasted. When you smile, it seems to light you up from the inside, and your words, though soft, carries the well-worn weight of river stones, glittering beneath the clear, spring stream of your voice.

There’s a sharpness in your eyes, a straightness to your spine, a way of carrying yourself as if you’re afraid that one wrong move might shatter you and the entire world around you.

Sometimes when he sees you, he wonders at the hands that had sculpted you this way. He wonders at your life before they’d picked you up in Loguetown, when you’d oh-so-silently slipped up the execution platform and helped Luffy down, all the while staying free of Smoker’s watchful gaze.

The few times he’s seen you fight, he can’t help wondering if you’ve eaten some kind of devil fruit as well. No human could be so fast as that. Or be so quiet. But then again, he’d fought Kuro, and they’d seen stranger things. Still, he marvels at the way you flicker in and out of sight, slipping around the edges of battle like a dark, haunting thing, and men would drop like flies beneath your quick, quiet hands. With nary a sound or shout before their eyes roll back and their breathing is no more.

On the instances when Sanji had asked about your past, your eyes had gone misty and dark, unfocused. You’d gone still, freezing for so long that Usopp would cough just to fill the silence. And then slowly, ever so slowly, you’d turn back towards them with a small, sad smile and say:

“There’s… not much to talk about. I grew up somewhere far away, where if you didn’t keep quiet and still, bad things would happen to you. And then when those bad things happened, if you weren’t quick — the quickest of all, you’d die.”

Bad things, huh? Zoro thinks as he makes his way towards you, a hand resting on the hilt of his swords. He comes to a stop next to you and leans against one of the white planters, casually peering over your shoulder at the book in your hands.

For a long moment, neither of you move. Then, Zoro clears his throat and forces himself to speak.

“Is it good?”

It takes you a second, but eventually, you turn towards him.

“The book? Yeah, I suppose.”

“Not exactly a glowing review.”

You laugh, a soft, breathy little thing as you look back down at the page.

“It's about a girl who falls into an enchanted sleep, and a prince who wakes her up with a kiss.”

“Must’ve been one hell of a kiss.”

“Yes, and one hell of a prince.”

Zoro finds himself chuckling, his shoulders loosening as he takes another breath.

“And then what?” he asks.

“And then… he asks her to marry him.”

You run your fingers along the page, smoothing your palm over the ink and parchment. Zoro watches you, wondering, always wondering.

“What’s she say?” and it’s then that he notices his own voice, hushed and low, barely a whisper.

You look back up at him and smile a smile a sphynx would have been proud of.

“I don’t know. I haven’t gotten there yet.”

Zoro takes a breath, and the breath tastes distinctly different than all the breaths he’d taken before it. As if the world takes the breath with him, and some fundamental truth had shifted on the exhale.

The moment breaks, as moments are wont to do, when Sanji calls out for lunch and Zoro jerks out of his almost-reverie. You slowly close your book and rise to your feet, turning back to smile at him.

“C’mon, it’s lunchtime.”

Zoro nods and follows you into the kitchen, where Luffy and Usopp are already digging in, and Nami is pouring herself a drink. She spots the pair of you and catches Zoro’s eyes. A grin ticks at the edge of her lips but before she can say anything, you’re accosted by Sanji sweeping into a deep, flourishing bow, and ushering you towards the table, where he’d set your place in a manner fit for a princess.

“Where’s my setup?” Zoro asks as he drops into the seat next to you, cocking an eyebrow. Sanji shoots him an unimpressed look.

“I’m surprised you can use a fork and knife, moss-head. Just be grateful and eat up.”

Zoro scoffs but digs in nonetheless.

When next they dock, it’s on a rare, peaceful island — an island of light and books and learning, where the air smells of salt and ink and drying parchment, of unwritten words and untold stories. But it smells of a stillness too, and Zoro knows without having to ask that you’d like it here.

And you do.

He’s never seen you smile so much, never seen you so vibrant and full of life. You chat and laugh and read with a voracious hunger, and he finds himself drawn to this new, warm, moving side of you. He finds himself, more often than not, by your side, even when neither of you speak. And he basks in the comfort of the quiet that permeates the air when it’s just the two of you — him hanging in the hammock on deck, you reading by his side.

But now, there’s the soft tapping of your foot, the shuffle of pages when you flip forward to see what’s coming next, and of course the ever-present shush of the ocean as it washes against the Merry’s side.

The Log Pose needs two weeks to properly calibrate to the next island, so they’ve got time to kill.

On the fifth night, over dinner and drinks, Luffy asks the question that everyone’s been thinking since the day they’d all met you —

“So. Why’re you so still all the time? Not that it’s weird or anything — well, actually — it kind of is, but it doesn’t bother me. I’m just asking cause I'm curious!”

You look up from your half-finished wine but Zoro feels it happening, like the hush of a fan blade slicing through air, the gasp before a porcelain vase tips over and shatters. You stop. You stare. You’re frozen in every sense of the word. And he’s known you for long enough to know that you only go still as a reflex, only reach for it as a shield. Against what? He doesn’t quite know.

“It’s… something of a long story,” you say, your voice low and hoarse.

Luffy grins, smacking his lips as he sucks the meat off a chicken leg, “We’ve got tons of time! Right?” he looks around as if for validation, but everyone’s eyes are caught on you and your unnatural stillness.

Zoro shifts slightly in the seat next to you, opening his stance and turning towards you.

“Could do with a good story.”

Your eyes flash in his direction and he offers you the barest hint of a smile.

You relax, ever so slightly, drifting back in your seat, your glass cupped in the palms of your hands. And then, you begin to speak, your voice smooth and lilting, your words washing over them like the faint lull of the tides.

“When I was three, my father sold me for a barrel of beer.”

A dull clack echoes around the room and everyone turns to see Sanji hurriedly righting the thick stein he’s knocked over. Thankfully, it’d been empty.

“Sorry — I just — what?” he sounds furious but Usopp lays a hand across his arm and shakes his head.

You take a deep breath and continue, your voice oddly emotionless as you say, “The man who bought me took me to an island. It was… a dark place. A quiet place. I only learned its name after I escaped — an island called Elysium.”

Nami gasps before clapping her hands over her mouth.

“I’ve just — I’ve heard of that place before, but I thought… I thought it was just a made-up place.”

Luffy swallows hard, frowning, “What’s it like?”

Nami’s eyes flicker between you and Luffy, “Supposedly… it’s the home island for… for the most feared group of assassins in all the seas combined.”

Usopp’s eyebrows jerk up, “The most feared?”

A faint smile seeps across your lips like blood.

“Yes. The Shadows that Live.”

Everyone turns to look at you. Luffy picks up another drumstick.

“Whoa… cool name!”

Zoro hums, “I’ve heard of them before — but mostly, it was just an old wive’s tale about… shadow assassins who hunt in the dark. Mercenaries for hire. But… no one’s ever seen one before.”

“Because… once you see one, you’ll never live to tell the tale,” you say, your eyes now downcast and fixed on the glass in your hands.

“Then…” Usopp’s voice is soft, “What about… you?”

“I… I ran away.”

Silence greets you. But after a moment, Luffy spits out a bit of bone and uses it to pick at the space between his teeth, his eyes round.

“Wow! You must be pretty good to run away from an island full of shadow assassins!”

You almost laugh, his boundless trust hitting you like a punch to the stomach.

“So…” Sanji lets out a puff of silvery smoke, “the staying still thing… that’s just part of your training, yeah?”

You nod, “Something like that.”

Someday, you think, you’ll tell them about the hellscape that was Elysium island, of the long echoing halls, dark and still and silent. Of the mechanical beasts that hunted by sound and movement alone. Someday, you’ll let them know about the poisoned pomegranate seeds that they feed all the “recruits” to keep them hazy, of how you’d kept six of them suspended in your mouth and spat them all out when you’d finally made it far enough from the island to allow yourself to breathe.

“And… are these shadow assassins gonna come after us?” Nami asks, her voice careful and light.

You purse your lips, “I… I don’t know.”

Nami sighs, but a moment later, she moves to refill her drink with a slight shrug, “Well, just one more enemy to add to our growing list. Soon, we’re gonna have to post a sign-up sheet.”

At this, everyone laughs, and the tension snaps like a wounded spring.

Luffy burps loudly, patting his stomach, “I’m not worried — I mean, if you were able to run away from them once, that means you’re stronger than them, right?”

You pause, your hand hovering over the wine bottle. Zoro gently reaches over and refills your glass for you. You shift back into movement, casting him a small smile and taking a sip. The wine is cool and tangy as it hits the back of your throat. You breathe, and the world keeps spinning.

“I… I’m not sure — I’ve never fought… any of… them… before.”

“Guess we’ll find out if they try to come for you then — but you’ve got us now!” Luffy says, reaching for an apple and chomping into it, “ — Sho… you duon gotta wourry —” he licks his lips as he takes another huge bite before tossing the core towards the waste bin, “We’ve got your back!”

Nami makes a disgusted face, “Don’t talk with your mouth full, ugh.”

Sanji chuckles, tapping out his cigarette, “Yeah Luffy, mind your manners.” But his voice is full of laughter and you find yourself relaxing into the sway of the night, the swing of conversation. Beside you, Zoro refills his own glass and leans over to clink it against yours.

You turn, but he only raises his glass before taking a sip.

You mirror his movement, cradling the cup to your chest when you finish.

Later, he finds you by the tangerine trees, ghosting your fingers over their lush green leaves, dark enough to look black in the evening light.

“Hey.”

You turn, “Hi.”

Zoro sighs and looks out over the darkened waves, the moonlight refracted into a million shattered bits of sky.

“Luffy’s right, y’know.”

“What about?” you ask, joining him by the railings. The night air is cool and crisp. Behind you both, the island oozes with lamplight and laughter. Even from here, you can hear the joy, the peace that permeates the air here. It wouldn’t be a bad thing, you think, to stay here forever.

“If they come for you,” Zoro says, “we’ll have your back.”

You let out a small chuckle, looking down at your hands, “I know.”

“So,” he turns towards you, his earrings glinting in beneath the scimitar moon, “you don’t have to be afraid anymore.”

You lick your lips, and instinctively, you reach for the stillness. All the days and weeks and months with the people around you have softened you, and for that, you know you should be thankful. Still, old habits die hard, and you have to clench your fists and dig your nails into your own palms to keep from freezing completely.

You take a shivering breath and force it out again.

“Fear’s a hard habit to break.”

At this, Zoro grunts, though it sounds something like consent. The moment stretches, long and soft and taffy-sweet.

He turns back towards the sea, “Yeah,” he says, and then —

“But we can take it slow.”

You swallow hard, passed the broken shards of forgotten words lodged in your throat (you find that they all somehow taste like thank you), and you nod. Warmth tickles your cheeks and you wonder why he’s said we instead of you — and later, lying in your bed at night, staring at the moon-slatted ceiling, you wonder if he was really talking about fear or if it was something else entirely.

You don’t get a lick of sleep that night.

The next few days pass in a light, repetitive blur. You and Zoro are sent on a few short shopping trips in the city, and you’re glad for something to do that involves movement. Shocking how quickly the body adapts once the weight it’d been holding on to is lifted.

You are still quiet, and he, the same; but the silence has shifted around you, and whereas before it’d been solid and steady, it’s now thrumming and charged with some unspoken energy.

Neither of you are blind to it; nor, it seems, is the rest of the crew.

Sanji’s taken to openly teasing Zoro about being with you all the time, complaining loudly that he can’t get a word in edgewise because Zoro refuses to leave you alone. Nami keeps on trying to drag you out for “girl's day” shopping trips, hinting at all the cute clothes you could get and how “green really suits your skin tone, y’know?”

Luffy and Usopp for their part, both just grin whenever they see you together — Luffy stoked at the fact that you seem more happy and talkative, Usopp gleeful at the way Zoro always seems so much softer when he’s next to you.

You’ve taken to watching him when he trains, sitting in the shade of the tangerine trees, a cold drink in your hand as Zoro runs through his katas. You content yourself with watching him flow through the movements, one and then another, and then another after that. He contents himself with your presence, knowing that you’re here, feeling your eyes as they skate down the length of his back or the width of his shoulders.

It’s a peaceful sort of companionship, even if it is living on borrowed time.

When you all wave the little island goodbye, it’s with heavy hearts and tearful smiles. It had treated you well, and you think you’d miss it. But adventure is as adventure does — it calls, beckoning to those with wandering hearts to listen.

The first week back at sea is a strange one, full of a ringing nostalgia. As if you’re simultaneously coming home and leaving one at the same time. Everyone is a bit quiet, except for Luffy, of course, who literally bounces off the freshly waxed planks, humming to himself as he sits on top of the great ram’s figurehead.

“Is he ever still?” you ask one day, sometime in the second week.

To which Zoro makes a sound between a scoff and a laugh, “You’ve been here a while. What’d you think?”

You sigh softly and tear your eyes away from the bright, shivering ball of energy that is your captain towards the far horizon. A sliver of uncertainty twines through you and your breath slows. Zoro glances at you, now long since attuned to your subtle shifts in movement and stillness. He narrows his eyes.

“What is it?”

You shake yourself back into the moment, forcing a smile.

“Nothing. I think…” your words fade as the feeling twists in you again, knife-sharp and stinging. You clear your throat and reach up to brush away a strand of hair. Skin grazes skin as Zoro’s hand meets yours in the same gesture and you both freeze — hands held up, his finger caught against the bend of your cheekbone, your fingers curling over his.

Time slows, slackens around the pair of you, and the moment stays, suspended in space — garnet dark and perfect.

Neither of you dare to breathe. It’s then that you realize how close Zoro is — close enough for you to see the entire ocean reflected in his eyes: big and dark and so endless it nearly unmoors you. Close enough for you to feel the warmth of his skin; his body, emanating heat. You’d often wondered, in the long hours of watching him train, at the glistening copper of his skin and the light-kissed quality, if the sun himself favored Zoro as well.

Like this, it’s easy to believe that beneath his skin, there pulsed something like sunlight.

“Look! It’s an island! It’s an island!”

And just like that, the moment shatters. Time slips back into motion and you pull away from each other, breathless, with warm cheeks and thundering hearts, feeling somehow lightning-touched and static-ridden.

You take half a step back, reaching up to press a hand to your mouth as if to stop something from tumbling through. But what? You can’t really say.

Zoro tips back as well, whipping around to help Usopp and Sanji with the sails as Luffy continues to holler, waving his hat. On the horizon, you see it looming — the silhouette of an island. You lower your palm from your lips to your heart and wonder what kind of island it will be.

Deserted — seems to be the answer when you all make landfall. The island is quiet, but the occasional chirp and cricket staves off your nerves as you all wander cautiously about the beach, squinting into the dense forest that seems to encompass the whole of the island.

“Looks like a good place to camp for the night!” Luffy says, grinning as he plops down on the sand.

Sanji nods, dusting off his hands, “We’ll need some wood for a fire, but I reckon I can whip up some grilled fish from the fresh catch.”

You wrap your arms around yourself and look around, glancing back at the darkening horizon.

“Something the matter?” Zoro’s voice is soft as he helps you carry some of the camping supplies from the ship.

“No… yes… I —” you look up at him, pursing your lips, “I don’t know. I’ve just… this island is…”

Zoro looks around, his dark eyes scanning the thick swath of forest just beyond the beach, “Too quiet?”

You let out a tiny laugh, “Yeah, something like that.”

He nods, “Don’t worry, I’m — we’re here.”

And he leaves it at that, hoisting a stack of wood over his shoulders and going to help Nami with the fire. You watch him with a smile, wondering what on earth you’d done to deserve this level of caring, this magnitude of kindness. Soon, dinner is had and drinks are shared and laughter is spilled like so many silver coins over the white sand beach. The lull of the evening takes over you all, and before long, Luffy and Usopp are slumped over each other, snoring loudly.

You stare into the depths of the fire and try to tamp down the growing dread festering inside your bones. All those years of holding still, of breathing and listening and feeling — you shake yourself — no, not all stillness is a bad thing. Not all silences are made the same.

“You’re doing it again,” Zoro’s voice almost makes you jump. Instead, you turn, finding him next to you as he nurses a half-drunk bottle of wine in his hands. He doesn’t look at you, but there’s a loose grin hinged across his lips.

“Sorry,” you say, ducking your head, feeling a now familiar heat creep into your cheeks that has nothing to do with the dwindling bonfire.

“Don’t be,” Zoro takes another drink, “But I told you… you don’t have to be afraid anymore.”

“I know… and I’ve said before —”

“Fear’s a hard habit to break,” Zoro echoes back at you, finally glancing over and catching your eye.

You breathe out, looking down at your own hands, “Yeah… but I’m trying.”

You both fall silent, and for a while, the only sounds are the crackle of the dying flames, the shush of the ocean waves, and the occasional snores from the rest of your crew. It’s late — later than you realized.

“Do you… want me to grab a book for you?”

You smile, “No, I don’t think it’s bright enough.”

“I could restoke the fire.”

“No, it’s — it’s okay.”

“Alright.”

A bird coos the distance.

“Why don’t you tell me a story?” you ask, turning to look at Zoro proper, shifting till your body is facing him.

In the faint light, you can see the edge of his adam’s apple bobbing as he swallows.

“You’re asking the wrong guy — you should wait till the Great Captain Usopp’s awake.”

“Yeah, but I want to hear one from you.”

Zoro sighs, his eyes fixed on the last of the flickering flames. He takes another swig of wine before he starts to speak, his voice low and a bit stilted, but he pushes on. He tells you about his childhood, the village he’d trained in, the doujou in the middle of the wood, his friend who he’d never beat — not even once.

He tells you about he early mornings and the late nights, and how the world had seemed large enough to conquer.

“… And then… there came a morning when she didn’t show up… and sensei came and told me that there’d been an accident.”

His voice almost breaks then, and your eyes catch on the shining white hilt of the Wadou Ichimonji — his thumb pressing against the guard, running along it’s hard metal edge.

“Oh… I’m sorry.”

Zoro shrugs, “Don’t be.”

You nod, “Still.”

Zoro slates you a lopsided smirk, “So. Now you know my tragic backstory too.”

You laugh, leaning back to cast your eyes up towards the sky, “And you know mine — it’s almost like we’re friends or something.”

Zoro lets out a long breath, “Yeah… or something.”

There’s a tightness to his voice that makes your skin tingle and it takes everything you have not to look over at him, to try and see if he’s looking at you, watching you the way you’d imagined him to be. You fancy you can feel his gaze on your face, but you close your eyes instead.

You let yourself fall into the warm haze of sleep, and for a while you drift there, your mind sifting through shards of memories and slivers of sound, casting them against the backs of your eyelids as you slowly slide into the darkness of dreams.

You wake up to a gasping stillness — the silence pressing in on your eardrums like thumbs, the darkness around you so complete it’s almost a solid thing. You freeze, your breath hissing to a halt inside you. Then distantly, ever so distantly, you hear the sounds of battle — metal clashing against metal, the hard thud of boots against flesh. You shake your head and reach up to clap your hands over your ears and only then do your senses return to you, snapping back as if you’d been abruptly shunted back into your earthly body.

“Gum Gum — Pistol!”

“Seize her!”

You whip into movement, fast as a flash, dashing away, hoping against hope that it would draw your attackers far enough from your crewmates.

“No one… ever… leaves us…”

The voice is serpentine and susurrus, sinking into your skin like sharpened teeth, but before it can reach you, it’s cut short by a bright flash of silver.

You gasp, whirling around, reaching for the nearest pulse, instinct taking over as you sink your fingers into muscle and flesh. The rush of blood thrumming beneath your fingertips comes too easy, even as a familiar scent accosts you. A moment later, your hands are being pinned above you, and thick, rough bark is digging into your wrists as Zoro stands before you, a sword in one hand, the other holding you still.

His eyes are a little wild and a lot worried. There’s a ring of red rawness around his neck, thin trickles of blood trailing along his jugular, disappearing into the wide scoop neck of his shirt.

“Hey, look at me.”

You nearly whimper, struggling against him, fear still coursing through you like a drug but Zoro is strong enough to keep you held. Behind him, you can see the rest of the crew fending off several shadowy figures, Usopp waving a torch, screaming at the top of his lungs, Luffy whooping as he whacks another figure with his fist.

“Z-Zoro?”

“Yeah, it’s me — eyes up here.”

You swallow in a breath, and then another, and you feel the bright thrum of urgency leave you as your body slowly falls slack. And then you’re slipping, and he’s looping an arm around you to keep you upright.

“Th-they’re here — they —”

“They’re gone — we got rid of them — hey.”

Zoro takes you by the shoulders and gives you a gentle shake. Finally, your eyes catch on his and your gaze holds. You see yourself reflected in them, stark and terrified, but alive — somehow alive.

“They’re gone,” he says, his voice soft and low by your ear, his arm still wrapped around your middle. Shivers wrack your body as you bury your face in his shoulder. He smells of steel and skin and the metallic tang of blood. It’s then that you remember — the wounds on the sides of his neck. The marks in the shape of your hands —

You jerk back and feel a sticky wetness against your cheek.

“Zoro, I hurt you!”

At this, he scoffs, pulling back far enough to flash you a look.

“This is nothing. C’mon.”

He offers you a hand, and after a second you take it, letting him pull you to your feet. Wordlessly, he presses his palm to the small of your back, his arm extended to keep you steady as you both make your way back towards camp.

“Phew! That was a workout!” Luffy is saying just as you both reach the outskirts of the now-darkened bonfire. Sanji is pulling out a cigarette, striking a match, and first lighting the end before tossing it into the remains of the firewood, fanning it up into a slow flame.

Nami and Usopp both look a bit shaken, but none worse for the wear.

They all pivot to look at you.

You go still against Zoro’s side, uncertainty flooding through you. Faintly, you feel Zoro’s fingers as they press into the bend of your waist, solid and steady.

Then, Usopp coughs, “C’mon y’all — the Shadows that Live? Psh! More like — the Shadows that Fled, am I right? Yeah? Didya see the way I sent ‘em runnin’ with my brand new fire-powered explosion rounds?”

Nami chuckles and Sanji follows suit, shaking his head and letting out a thin wisp of smoke. Luffy’s grins at you, pumping a fist in the air, clapping his right shoulder.

“See? Told you we’d have your back! We are your crew, after all!”

Weakness seeps into your limbs as you nod, hot pin-pricks of tears itching at your lower lashes. You lower your head and rub at your eyes before looking back up again with a smile. Sanji grimaces as he looks over Zoro.

“Got something on your neck, mate.”

Zoro glares but you glance over and feel your stomach twist with guilt.

“Sorry… I can clean that up for you. They’re not deep but they do need to be bandaged up.”

Zoro wipes down his sword before sheathing it and motioning towards the ship. Behind you, you can hear Nami yawning and saying something about catching up on some more sleep and Sanji reassuring her about having the last watch anyway.

The kitchen is still dark, but the dusty dawn sweeps against the far horizon and neither of you bother to turn the lights on. You carefully set the first aid kit on the kitchen counter and collect the supplies as Zoro leans back against the edge and folds his arms. You work in near silence, reaching up to first wipe the thin threads of drying blood before tending to the tiny, crescent-shaped puncture wounds.

You press an alcohol-soaked cotton ball against one of them and feel Zoro wince.

“Sorry.”

“I’m fine.”

You bite your lips, “If this had been a bit deeper or a few inches over —”

“But it wasn’t. So it’s fine.”

You don’t look up at him but you can feel his eyes on you. Your movements are fluid and sure; you’d clearly done this before.

“Hey, look at me.”

You freeze, eyes slowly gliding up the planes and divots of his neck, slipping up the line of his jaw, so sharp it might’ve been turned on a diamond cutter’s lathe. Your breath hitches as you finally meet his eyes, and there’s a dark, knowing glint behind them that makes your stomach flip.

“I’m fine.”

And for the second time in a handful of hours, you’re caught by the realization of your closeness — only a breath of space between you. There’s a crimp at the corner of his mouth that looks dangerously like a smile and then you’re tipping forward, a thumb reaching up to trace the line of his bottom lip once —

The movement acts like a trigger, and suddenly, he is leaning in and the breath of space disappears.

For all your life of stillness, you thought you’d learned to appreciate the depths and widths of movement. But nothing could’ve prepared you for this — for the push and pull of lips on lips, for the force and friction of skin against skin. For the gasp and hiss, for the breath and kiss.

For the feeling of his large palm as it settles along the swallow’s-nest bend of your neck, the way his thumb runs along your jaw like tracing the guard of his beloved sword, tilting your mouth towards him. For the way your heart might flutter like a tiny, caged bird, or the way you might feel his heart thumping like a fist from his chest to yours.

For the way his voice rolls over your name like a ship at sea; for the way it would shake your body from your bones and leave you more liquid than solid in his arms. For how you never used to think your story would be a love story, but then you realize that every story is a love story if caught in the right moment, in the right light.

And here, breaking apart from Zoro, with a thick, stolen streak of lemon-yellow sunlight leaking in from the kitchen window — that’s exactly what it feels like.

“Oh,” is all you have the strength to say.

Zoro, in all his solid brilliance and quiet audacity, laughs.

You taste the smile on your own lips before you realize you’re smiling. But when you try to bury your face in his neck, he winces slightly as you brush his still-fresh wounds.

“Crap, I forgot about these.”

Zoro chuckles as you hurry to press a few small bandages to the wounds.

“It’s okay. So did I.”

You finish dressing his wounds in silence, though this silence is markedly different from every other silence that had ever existed between you. There’s ease and tension, both, and when you’re finally finished, Zoro takes both your hands in his.

“So…” you say, unsure suddenly of where to look.

Zoro’s laugh is just as soft, just as uncertain.

“So.”

You try to look out the window, but by now, the dawning sun is so bright that it temporarily blinds you and you jerk back. Zoro smiles, reaching up to run his thumbs along your closed eyelids before dropping them to hook around your wrists again.

“Do you… wanna talk about it?” he asks, quiet as always.

You purse your lips and let your lashes flutter open. You find him watching you. Heat crests up your shoulders and into your cheeks, and suddenly, the exhaustion of the night before saps at your limbs. You sigh.

“Right now? Not really.”

“Yeah, neither do I,” he says, sounding as relieved as you feel.

You bite your lips and cast your gaze shyly across his face, your bird-wing heartbeat still flapping in your chest. You fight the urge to go still, to reach for that shield that has always protected you before. Faintly, you feel Zoro’s thumbs tracing circles along the insides of your wrists.

“Can I ask for something else, though?”

“What is it?”

You reach up a finger, nudging one of his golden earrings. You don’t miss the way he shivers, or the way his breath quickens in his chest.

“Kiss me again.”

Zoro grins, tugging you towards him, leaning into the curve of your palm as he does.

And does.

And does again.

reqs are: temporarily closed

but feedback is much loved and appreciated!!!

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absolutelydedinside · 30 days

Text

Dear Il Dottore,

I love you so much it cannot be contained into words. Even this letter is but a mere fraction of my affection. But I hope it gets the point across!

Every night when I cannot sleep and you're busy with work I imagine you laying next to me, your warm arms feel so real. I imagine you giving me snuggles and kisses. Even if in reality it is a mere delusion, it makes me happy. I care not if it is hurtful to me to love you so much, the happiness I feel with you by my side is something I will never forget nor change. Your existence brings me motivation and strength; something I find slipping from my grasp everyday without you.

In the early hours of the day I love it when I eat with you, even if it is a mere scrap or another tub of ice cream. Having you there with me is comforting. I know i'll never be alone because I have you with me! and i'm here for you as well! No matter what i'll always be here for you! 💕💕💕💕💕 I will be here to make you happy!! 💕

I love it when you tell me about how the serum you injected into patient 67 was a success or how you figured out what the missing component was to a machine. I love you so much Dottore!!!!!!! I feel like crying when you arent with me, even writing this im getting so emotional im.not evem joking.

AAhhhhh I just love you so much !!! I love you eyes, your face, your hair, your wardrobe, your ideals, your inspirations, your smile, and your EVERYTHING!!!! I just love you so much <3 WHENEVER I LOOK AT YOU I GET SO OVERWHELMED !!! I have to scratch and claw at my bed to calm myself down !!!

I love you so much I LOVE YOU I LOVE YOU DOTTORE!!!!!!!!!!

I remember you were so happy when I suprised you with that cheesecake for your birthday. You picked me up and gave me so many kisses!! I was so happy. And then for my birthday you made me a giant killing machine 😊 It was the best birthday present EVER!!!!!!!! I still love to snuggle with it!. I even got it a cute pink bow so it could match with you! It's so cute!! (but you're cuter~)

I love all the segments if it wasn't already obvious too!! Even if you cringe at things you did when you were younger, which is pretty funny :3 I love our son babyttore who gets rocks thrown at him!!! I love playing lps with him (he likes pulling them apart but its ok because he puts them back together afterwards) I love snuggling with you and all the segments!!!! 💖💖 YIPPE !!! *jumps around joyfully* I LOVE U DOTTORE!!!

*BEAMS MY AFFECTION DIRECTLY INTO YOUR HEART* *BEAMS MY AFFECTION DIRECTLY INTO YOUR HEART* *BEAMS MY AFFECTION DIRECTLY INTO YOUR HEART* *BEAMS MY AFFECTION DIRECTLY INTO YOUR HEART*

I love you dottore!!!!!!!!!!!!!! you are so silly...... you are silly man :] 💕☺️ I love big spooning because it means I get to feel your soft hair!!!!!! YAY!! I LOVE YOU DOTTORE... You mean so much to me!! YOU ARE SUCH AN AMAZING MAN!!!! A BEAUTIFUL MAN!!! YOU ARE SO ADORABLE AND CUTE!!! I JUST WANT TO SMOTHER YOUR FACE WITH KISSES!!!!! AND I WANT TO HUG YOU FOR ALL ETERNITY!!!!! you hold such a special place in my heart, all my thoughts lead to you. I see you EVERYWHERE!!!! I hear you EVERYWHERE!!! I'm so in love with you Dottore!!!

My dreams, which used to be empty now have you in them, whenever I close my eyes I see you there smiling at me. I love you! you are my everything in life, my sweetie pookie bear kitten. I love being with you every day 💕 you make every day worth it!!!!!!!!!! I LOVE U DOTTORE!!!!!! i love you :3 you are so smart and pretty, you're the prettiest man EVER!!!!!!!!! and I love you!!!!!!!!!!! :]

When im sad I think of you and my day immediately gets better! You bring me so much joy ! you make every day my best day! I love listening to you ramble about your experiments and theories! and I love seeing you happy.

I love kissing you!!! seeing you cute face blush whenever I kiss you makes it so worthwile! I know you think that you don't deserve it, but I will always be here to remind you otherwise! I WILL ALWAYS LOVE YOU DOTTORE!!!! 💖💖💖💖

I have some other things i'd love to say too but... *giggles* ehe! not here *blushes* thats for private ;) giggles :3 lets just say!! I wanna make whoopie with your cushions! 💖💖💖💖💖💖 *blushes madly* hehehe..... >//////< got a bit too carried away there sorry sweetcheeks <3 lets get back to the more sfw stuff~

You have such a beautiful smile that it rivals the world. Your eyes are like a sunset and your hair is the blue sky. Your smile shines like the clouds which litter the sky and the stars that scatter at night. You're my favorite view. You light up my world.

Even if others throw rocks are you I wont!!!!!! I will shield you from those rocks and bear the pain. I will protect you my princess! I will save you from the evil tower!!! and then I will kiss you 💕 I will give your face kisses.... and then I will kiss your lips!!!! 😊😊😊😊

A world without you feels so far away, the thought of you vanishing is one that brings me pain. I would rather bear the heat of a thousand suns than think of leaving you, my beloved sopping wet beast. I'll stand by your side no matter what!!!!!!!!!!! because I LOVE YOU!

You're so smart and determined that it inspires me to be my best self everyday!!! to not let others bring me down! You bring out the best in me and I bring out the best in you 💖 we bring out the best in each other!!!! We fit together like puzzle pieces 💕 Whenever i'm with you i feel like im drowning in a sea of love and affection, a blue abyss of serotonin 🥰

Your eyes are the same color as that which keeps my body alive, maybe this is why I always find myself getting lost in them. Whenever I think of you my chest feels like its going to explode! my love for you is so strong. Your happiness is my happiness, Dottore 💕 I love your eyes so much!!! they are so beautiful and I love how you get flustered when I compliment them ☺️ you're just so cute when you blush!!! It makes me want to kiss you all over! ♡

The warmth of your body when we snuggle is a comfort I love experiencing every day!! I used to have a hard time sleeping but with you I don't! The love of your embrace never fails to lull to me dreamland at night 🥰🥰 I LOVE YOU DOTTORE!!! I LOVE YOU!!!

You bring me so much happiness, I can't even imagine a world without you!! I would probably be withering in the corner of my room like a dead fly in a fridge (reference to the dead fly that was in my fridge). I would have been turned into tiny little mold particles!! but IM NOT BECAUSE YOU'RE IN MY LIFE!!! :DDD

Ill fight the heavens to save you. ILL PROTECT YOU MY SNUGGLE BEAR!!!!!!!!! I love you so much. Even writing this I feel my cheeks heating up! 😊 and when I hear your voice I feel butterflies in my tummy !!!!! i love you so much 💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕😊☺️😊😊

I LOVE YOU I LOVE YOU I LOVE YOU I LOBE YOU I LOVE YOY I LOVE YOU I LOVE YOU I LOVE YOU I LOBE YOU I LOVE YOU I LOVE YOU I LOVE YOU I LOVE YOU I LOBE YOU I LOVE YOY I LOVE YOU I LOVE YOU I LOVE YOU I LOBE YOU I LOVE YOU I LOVE YOU I LOVE YOU I LOBE YOU I LOVE YOY I LOVE YOU I LOVE YOU I LOVE YOU I LOBE YOU I LOVE YOU I LOVE YOU I LOVE YOU I LOVE YOU I LOBE YOU I LOVE YOY I LOVE YOU I LOVE YOU I LOVE YOU I LOBE YOU I LOVE YOU 💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖

Ahhh! so joyous!!

Love, Absol ♡

#love letter for my babygirl #absolposting #long ass post because im a normal person in society #long post #yumejoshi #love letters 2 dottore <3

727 notes · View notes

netherfeildren · 7 months

Text

Pink : Part II: I See Your Father as My Father

Series Masterlist : Part I

Pairing: Joel Miller x F!Reader

Content Warnings: No outbreak AU; Welcome to the father-in-law suck and fuck extravaganza; Fix-it-fic but the thing that needs fixing is a person; Daddy issues; Daddy kink; Divorce; DD/lg dynamics; Older man/Younger woman; Inappropriate relationships; Self esteem issues; Discussions of emotional and mental abuse; Unhealthy coping mechanisms; Ass play lite; Unprotected sex; Creampie; Praise kink; Aftercare; Size kink; Spitting; Come eating; Thigh fucking; Oral sex

A/N: Check the tags on the masterlist, as well!

Word Count: 12.3K

Rating: Explicit 18+

Read on AO3

Ko-fi

2. I See Your Father as My Father

When he swings the door open, he’s still half pulling a t-shirt over his curl messed head, faded gray, rust orange longhorn across the front, a flash of hair sprinkled belly. All man, man, man. It stretches over his broad shoulders so the holes strewn there stretch and gape wide making your face heat unbearably. And he’s struck silent for a second, realizing it’s you taking up space on his front porch, trying to hide against the shadow of the wooden beam at your back, ringing his bell in the middle of the night like the Devil’s on your heels. Brow pulled low, he steps out onto the porch, into the shadows with you, his gaze flashing back and forth between your eyes. He says your name, and you hate it. “Did somethin’ happen? Are you alright?” And you want to say no, that nothing is alright. That you know you shouldn’t be here, but you’re here anyways now, and so he needs to tell you what’s going to happen next because this is as far as you’d planned. The sound of his voice, the sight of him, that’s as far as you’d planned. The rest is up to him now, even if he doesn’t know it. Your eyes fall down the long, broad length of him. Rumpled jeans, hastily pulled on, and his bare feet, oddly erotic. They’re paler than the rest of him, sun deprived, and briefly, ridiculously, you wonder if he has that funny sock tan men get around their ankles. The skin stretched over strong tendon and bone, beautifully arched. You give a tiny shake of your head, something like a whimper slipping up your throat. And you think he must realize or understand because he sighs, long and drawn out, dragging his palm over his mouth as he watches you struggle. You think that’s his tell, that dragging hand; he does it when he’s thinking, confused, worried, upset which leads you to worry that maybe he’s upset you’re here now, but it’s done, you’ve come. There’s nothing either of you can do to undo it now. Your eyes move back up to his face, and he’s taking stock of you now also. The soft, loose jersey shorts, too big pullover almost covering them entirely, the sleeves twisted around your clenched fingers. “You gotta tell me what you’re doin’ here, sweetheart. You gotta say it out loud.” You let out a rough, frustrated sound through your clenched teeth, looking away from him for a second.

“We never talked about it,” you say instead because you want to hear him acknowledge it, you want that to be said out loud.

He understands immediately, “You never gave me a chance to.”

You look back at him, he’s taken a step closer, and you wrap your arms back behind the beam, trying to meld yourself to the wood, keep yourself away from him.

“What else was I supposed to do? If we talked about it, it would’ve happened again.”

“Well, then that’s why – that’s why we never talked about it.”

“But did you want to?” And your voice breaks a little at the end, “Did you want to talk about it?”

He sighs again, a muttered curse under his breath. He isn’t going to give you the easy way out. “Tell me why he left you,” and you flinch. He, his son. It’s the truth, no reason to cower. You were left. You have to look away again, unable to confess this when looking into the kinder version of eyes that never loved you.

“I think you know. I think you could tell from the very first moment you saw us together.” He hums his agreement, and the sound fucking hurts. “He never loved me. He never even really liked me, I don’t think. But that became okay after a while.” A tear falls, and you listen to the sound of him suck in a sharp breath; it makes you smile just a little, that small sound. You look back at his face, “I don’t want you to think I’m not okay with that now because I really am. It made me realize that he’d never been what I wanted or needed either. That he couldn’t ever give me what I wanted either.”

“And what’s that?” His voice sounds gentle, but you know that it’s put on. You know there isn’t going to be anything gentle about this.

You choose to ignore that, “You know he said once, that I’d lied to him about who I was. But I didn’t– I really didn’t, Joel,” and you say it with such panic, or fervor, or something that’s desperate to ensure that he doesn’t think the same of you. That he doesn’t take you for a liar also. “He just couldn’t understand that this is the only way I know how to be. Being scared all the time makes you a liar. It makes you what the moment needs you to be no matter what that is. Do you know what I mean?”

“Yeah,” he nods, “I know what you mean,” but he looks nervous, the truth of him too close to the surface, and it soothes you. The two of you are the same, you knew it.

You peek down at your twisted fingers, nails gnawed raw and bloody and disgusting. “I don’t think he ever loved me and that made me sad. But now, I don't think I ever loved him either, and that makes me sadder. It was all for nothing, I let him turn me into that thing for nothing, and I was always waiting for him to treat me better, different. But a person who can treat you badly once usually finds it quite easy to do it again.” You look back up at him, shocked for a moment at your sharp honesty. “I’m sorry. He’s your son. I shouldn’t say these things to you,” even thought it sounds like hypocrisy, for look at where you’re standing in the middle of the night.

“And you’re you.”

And the sober way he says it sobers you, recenters you. “Yes. I’ve always been only myself.” And it’s the truth, the most difficult one. That despite Sam’s claims that you’d made him believe you to be someone you weren’t, despite the sick desire for complacency, to please all those around you, you have always been only you. Even when they’d tried to force you to be something you weren’t, you were still always only yourself. You say it again, just to hear the sound of the words.

“You gotta tell me what you’re doing here then. You want to talk about that? About what happened that night? Is that it?”

“Yes.”

He sighs, that telling gesture over his stern mouth again. “If we do this, there’s no goin’ back, and I–”

“There already is no going back for me. I can’t forget. I can’t stop remembering.”

“It would be different– if we– if I take you, it’ll be different. You get me? I won’t be able to stop. I know myself well enough to know that. I won’t be able to stay away from you after.”

“I don’t care.”

“So that’s what you want?” But you can’t say the words out loud, you can’t, you can’t. You’re ashamed, embarrassed, humiliated by your own desire, small and slanted. Despite all your progress, and as much as you want it, you still know you shouldn’t. “I gotta fuckin’ hear it, sweetheart. Is that what you want?” You shake your head a little, another tear, wrapping your arms around yourself. You can see the fight in his eyes, trying to hold you off from the inside out. I don’t know, another tear. He makes a frustrated noise, turning to pace to the opposite end of the porch, hand fisted in his hair. When he turns back he seems to deflate, eyes going cool and steady and then, suddenly, like a ricochet, bright and light, a flash fire. Once more: “What do you want?” To be wanted. To be good. “You want me to kiss you? You want me to fuck you?”

And your eyes flutter closed in relief, there it is, finally, the hard part’s over. It’s been said out loud. “Yes, that’s what I want.” He’s on you in three ground eating strides, big hand wrapping around the contours of your jaw, the other fisting in the hair at the back of your head, pulling you up so that you’re balanced on the tips of your toes. Your eyes fall shut, mouth parting embarrassingly ready for him to kiss you, but he gives your head a little shake between his palms. “You’re supposed to belong to my son, goddamnit. I’m not supposed to want you like this. This is wrong.”

“I never belonged to him,” and then bitter truth, honesty laminated in humiliation, “And I don’t care if it’s wrong.” Followed by a thought, a wash of shyness, held in his hands as you are, large strong hands: there is a part of me that feels very innocent still, naive, experienced hands that will finally teach you how to be good. You watch the bob of his Adam's apple beneath the sun roughened skin of his throat, and when you look back up at his eyes, there is nothing like innocence, nothing like naivety in them, only the reflection of something complex, something more. He goes very still, almost vibrational with restraint, his fingers clench around you once, and then, with unbearable control, his hands flex open, releasing you.

“Get in the house,” he says very, very quietly. You cup your own palm around the space of your chin where he’d gripped you and turn on your toes, scampering inside, into the home of the man who would have remained your father-in-law for the rest of your life had his son ever decided to love you. The door slams shut behind him.

He steps into the dark restroom with a staying hand out and ready, as if approaching a wounded, rabid animal.

His son, his son is a cruel and small man. Joel is coming to realize this with something like horror running in currents beneath his skin. Quick to anger, quick to aggression. And you, his daughter-in-law, no one knows this better than you do. He’d naively thought, when his fully grown son had appeared at his door steps all those months ago, that the question Joel had carried on the tip of his tongue for half of his adult life had finally been answered. Alone but never necessarily lonely, something like a film of boredom and monotony over his life. He was content with the place he’d made for himself; he had his business and his brother and friends, and Joel was fine. But a child of his own, he’d never expected it, never even considered it a possibility. And what he’d come to discover: his son, who shouldn’t still be a child, but in many ways, was.

He licks at the groove of his molar as he watches the tremble of your back, trying to hide your weeping face in the shadows of the bathroom wall. A small, anxious thing that had been, out of everything, perhaps the biggest shock of all. To learn that he had a son, an entire life lost to time, and that there was someone in the world that his son should have loved enough to tie himself to – it was shocking. To discover that his son was married when Joel was not, disorienting.

He says your name softly and watches the jerk of your frame, that vein of anxiety he’d sensed in you from the get go that he was fairly certain Sam had a large part in sowing. You’d shown up with your hair picked up today, only the second time you’ve ever worn it so. Piled messy at the top of your head, a few strands laying against the nape of your neck, the vulnerable slope of your shoulder. He feels strangely afraid of you, afraid for you. Unsure of what to say, heart beating out of his chest, rebounding against his ribcage so hard he’s sure you can hear it. “I’m sorry. He didn’t mean it. He–”

“Please, don’t apologize for him.” A tiny sniffle. “Don’t apologize for him,” you say again, and there’s a hum of exhaustion in your voice, brokenness, it makes Joel go from afraid to entirely terrified, but then angry too… angry too. He takes a step forward, another, he’s an arms length away from you now. He could touch you if he was brave enough. If the intent behind it wasn’t as wrong as it is. Angry because he’s looking at that vulnerable nape, imagining the fit of his palm molded over the delicate column, and you’re something to be taken care of. Something like a gift. Even though he doesn’t know you well enough to say such a thing yet, even though he shouldn’t be thinking such a thing about his daughter-in-law. Even though you hold yourself with a hard rigidness most of the time, quiet dignity and cold vulnerability that seem almost impossible to get through. And yet he suspects that with enough care and patience you could become immediately soft, easily penetrated. He should see his son as a gift, and he does, he does, he does, he swears he does. If Joel repeats it enough times in his mind surely he’ll come to believe it with his whole heart, but what he sees more than the gift of a child that was kept from him, is nothing but a boy beating down a creature that was not taught to defend itself. And that makes him angry beyond belief.

Joel can be a hard man. He is a hard man. Perhaps, a large part of the reason why he’s still alone, why nothing more than a quick fuck ever seems to work out for him. Women like him, they enjoy his company, they come to bed with him easily. But Joel is hard and cold, and he’s never much minded his aloneness, a difficult thing to sell to a woman, the reality that he doesn’t really care to need anyone else. And so perhaps, this is his son’s inherited vice, that coldness, but despite Joel’s preference for solitude, for the fact that he doesn’t care about making a person stick around, he tries to never be cruel, and he is sure to never hurt those that are more easily hurt than himself. He doesn’t think there’s any worse sort of sin, and so he knows that this cruelty he’s witnessing didn’t come from him. But then he thinks that if it didn’t come from him, then it surely came as a consequence of him, of his absence, and so he is just as responsible for it. So he can’t help himself when, instead of more platitudes in favor of his gift of a son, he says: “You should leave him.” You let out a bitter sound of a laugh, something that pokes at that wound of fear of his.

“Should I? I don’t think that’s what you’re supposed to say.”

“Isn’t it? It’s the truth. It’s what you need to hear right now,” The sweetheart he adds at the end has a tiny shiver moving down the length of your spine that his own vertebrae can’t help but imitate. You hang your head, bearing more of that lovely nape, head seemingly bowed in supplication for something gentler than what his son can offer you, and he can’t help himself again. He wants to sink his teeth into that soft expanse of skin. You’re too pretty, pretty in all the ways a perfect thing can be, and Joel is a hard man, not a weak one, but he feels weak now. He feels brought to his knees, heavy stone of guilt weighing in his gut as he lays his palm on the back of your bared neck. Don’t touch, don’t touch, don’t touch, this doesn’t belong to you. He tightens his hand, grips the column, presses the calluses of his palm to the soft skin. “Look at me–” he gruffs, turns you by the pressure of his hand, a kitten gripped by the scruff and made to listen. “You deserve more than that shit.” That shit being his son, his blood. Joel is two feet tall and so ashamed he’s nauseous. But your eyes, they look up at him, tear filled and so lost, and he wants to show you how it should be. “You deserve more,” he says again. Later, he’ll tell himself he surely must have said the words out loud, asked for it with teeth and tongue. The blame can only be his, he provoked it, he soothed the wound, incited it, because you’re surging up and against him, fingers clawing at his shoulders and throat and pressing your mouth to his, clumsy and tear stained and open so that the first thing he tastes is your breath on his tongue, then your tongue on his tongue, and then absolution tinged with shame, gross desire like desperation. He groans like a dying man, clutching at you immediately, unthinking, pulling you into himself, soft, full tits against hard chest so that he feels like he’s burning and dying and coming back to life all with the taste of your spit and tears in his mouth. He holds you steady, hand still clamped to the back of your neck and thinks that if he’s going to commit a sin he might as well take his fill. He eats at you. Head held in place, knees bent and arm banded around your waist to bring you level with each other, he pulls your head back, mouth open and tries to swallow you whole. And Joel doesn’t think of his son, not for a single second, while he kisses his daughter-in-law.

His lips slide to your throat, hunting for your pulse, tasting the tiny flutter, going weak at the knees at the whimpered sound you make, cock harder than it’s been in years, a noise like begging, like more. He sucks hard at that thrum, but your noises shift to frightened, protesting, fingers digging into his shoulders to warn him. He can’t leave marks, he can’t leave marks on something that belongs to another. His erection is an iron band down the leg of his jeans, and he has to force himself not to thrust the aching cock into the soft apex of your thighs, feel your warmth there. He has to stop, he has to– to what? To let you go back to a boy that mistreats you? Even if that boy is his son, it’s wrong, it goes against everything Joel is as a man. He presses his face into the blistering heat of your throat, a muttered fuck under the ledge of your little chin. A rattling shiver has started up in you, teeth chattering with the force of it, and he bands his arms around you tightly, pressing the air out of your lungs, hand smoothing up to twist in the back of your hair and force you entirely still. “Don’t,” his voice is so deep he almost doesn’t recognize it coming out of his own mouth, “Don’t be afraid.” The sound of his popping knees as he unbends to his full height, your weight still in his arms. He lets you go in increments, slowly so as not to jar you further, hands holding tight until the last moment when he forces them to unclench, let you go. “Don’t be afraid,” he says again. “You did nothing wrong. This was all me.” Your eyes are huge, but you’re not crying anymore, and that feels like victory to Joel, despite the rest, the only thing that matters.

You run from him after that, because of course you do. What’s the other option? That he’d keep you there in that dark restroom, from his son and your marriage and the world, forever? He clutches at his chest and is swallowed whole by his shame and his guilt, the terrible fear that he isn’t the sort of parent that can blindly see past their child’s faults, love them despite everything else, not the type of man who can keep himself from wanting something he shouldn’t, he hadn’t felt so when he’d kissed you with that sick desperation on his tongue. And once he hears the sound of a slamming car door, and Sam’s truck peeling out of the drive and speeding away, he takes out his hard cock and fucks his fist until the heat of his semen is sliding over his skin, a handful of pathetic strokes and the sound of your name almost like a sob in the dark.

You listen to the sound of his bare feet padding across the wooden floor, and your head feels like it’s breaking water, seeing clearly for the first time in years. It’s a rich parquet, gleaming in the dim light of the street lamp glow. You wonder if he installed it himself, like the wallpaper, proof of the care and attention to detail in his home. You think you would like to be cared for as such also. There’s a soft green throw draped over the back of the chocolate leather couch, and you dig your fingers into it, twisting amidst the knitted weave as you turn to face him, and he has that look in his eyes again, the one from before. The one like too much, too much, the one like fear and want. Stopping just in front of you, the tips of his bare toes meet the front of your shoes, and he reaches to drag the pad of his thumb over the high slope of your cheekbone, the fine skin catching beneath his calluses. “You’re too beautiful,” he says, and you wish it sounded like an accusation, but it doesn't, and you want to tell him you don’t believe him, just to be difficult, just to be contrary, but you know he’s not the sort of man that lies. It only sounds like praise. His eyes are so dark in the shadow of the house, the green and brown and caramel striations gone away in the night, and he’s shifting his jaw, chewing on a thought before he spits it out. His other hand comes up to gently, so gently cup the other side of your face, and he holds you there, just so, angling you this way and that, appraising you, chewing, chewing slowly. “Too beautiful – I never even stood a chance,” he says more to himself than to you. This is a man that does things with intention. This is a man that sees you as a complexity, as something more. This is a man. “He told me something – last time we saw each other.” Your heart beats painfully in your chest, you can feel it in your eyes and ears and the backs of your knees.

“What’s that?”

“That the two of you were havin’ problems. In– in the bedroom. That–”

You try and jerk away, but he holds you trapped. “Stop. Please. Don’t–”

“Is that all this is? Older man – want me to teach you somethin’?”

Cradled as you are, you close your eyes, brow folding in a frown, unable to refute him with a shake for the way he’s captured you. You bring your own hand up to circle his thick wrist, fingers not meeting around it. He has hair here, your palm slides further down, hair here too. All man, man, man. No longer in the hands of a boy, and you’re touching him. Now you’re touching him too. “That very first time I met you– I wondered what you’d taste like. How heavy you’d be inside of me. If you’d be rough, leave marks, or gentle. You know I– I wanted– If he hadn’t been there, if–” Now he’s the one that begs you to stop.

His hands on you are tighter now, almost strangling, squeezing a moan out of you. “Are you going to tell him?” His grip goes loose again, caressing. “ If we do this– are you going to use this against him? It’s yours to do with as you will, I just want to know beforehand. It won't change the way I have you tonight.”

“Only tonight?” Your voice sounding strange, hungry.

His eyes move entirely around your face, taking you in, held as you are. His gaze is manic, fevered, but his words are slow, stacked one on top of the other for you. “No. No, I don’t think it’ll only be tonight.”

“I’m not going to use this against him.” For the first time in two years, what you’re doing, the decisions you’re making, have nothing to do with your ex-husband. This is only for you. Joel is only for you.

“Tell me what you want,” he asks for the last time.

“To be good,” you finally say, and the rough sound he makes, the flush you can faintly see crawling up the column of his throat, it has a painful knot of want tightening your cunt, the wet drip of slick pooling in your panties, all hot and bruised feeling on the inside.

He lets his hands slide slowly from your face to hang loosely by his sides, and you take it as your invitation to touch him as you like now. He’s so much taller than you, your neck craning back to look up at his face. You start there, the crest of his cheek, the strong, curved nose, plush mouth that looks specifically made for kissing a cunt until it cries. He makes your thoughts feel savage, he makes you feel like something you’ve never been before. “You’re just a little girl, aren’t you?” He says softly. Your hands move down to his thick neck, and you try and cage him there, hands too small to circle him entirely, the insinuation of a strangling. Too small, too small, too small. You shake your head, mesmerized by the contradiction of your small fragility trying to capture all that strength held inside of him. You look up at his eyes, holding him around the throat as you are, and shake your head. You’re not. “Then what are you?”

“I don’t know. I want you to show me.” And that does something to him. You see the change come over him in that very moment, something chimeral in the change your words provoke. He’s made of nothing but vibrational restraint, giving you your moment of peace to explore him as you need to before he takes you for himself. You’re almost certain you can hear the sound of him grinding his molars to dust inside his mouth. And you want him to show you, it’s the truth. As wrong or whatever it is that it may be, it’s your truth. You’d always felt like you’d done being a woman the wrong way, a grating way, an unappealing way, but you didn’t want to be unappealing or wrong. You only wanted to be yourself. And worst of all, you’d been made to feel like that, over and over again, by the man who should have done nothing but the opposite. And you know it might be bad now, to want to be shown or that there was no right way, but still, but still, you want it. You would still like for someone, for Joel, to teach you how to be better, how to be good. Was that really so bad?

Your hands slide down to the thick muscles of his chest, thumbs dipping into the dents of his collarbones, lower to the soft of his belly, the edge of his jeans. The both of you are trembling now, you in lust, desperation, him in restraint maybe. There are beads of sweat dampening the curls at his temples. “We shouldn’t do this.”

“Do you think so?”

He nods, but he’s cupping your elbows in his big hands anyway, pulling you towards him so that your breasts graze the top of his belly. “But we’re doin’ it anyway.” You go up on your tiptoes, hand cupping the sharp edge of his jaw to pull him down towards you, and he’s like a leashed wolf; heavy, hot breaths fanning across your face, and he slowly does as you bid, mint, mixed with something sharp like whiskey. He’s watching you so intently, watching to see what you’ll do with him, but your eyes are only on that soft wet mouth. You want his tongue inside of you, and that first press is so, so soft, barely there. A sound like dying, you can’t tell who it comes from, another soft brush, and you’re taking his top lip between both of yours, sucking on it lightly, hands snaking over his thick shoulders to bring yourself up closer so that he’s finally wrapping his arms around you, pressing you tightly to himself, belly to belly. He still hasn’t closed his eyes, he’s still watching you, and your heart is beating so fast and so hard and you want this so much that you’re sure he can feel it reverberating into his own chest cavity, spurring his own beating muscle on. You press another tiny kiss to his full, open mouth. “I’m scared,” you whisper onto his tongue, and he smoothes a staying hand down your spine, settling over the curve of your ass and squeezing there, holding you in his snare. He’s barely even touched you, and yet, you already know that no one else has ever been like this.

“That’s alright. Got nothin’ to be scared of – I’m gonna be so gentle with you, baby.”

“I’m not your baby,” hint of an obstinate, provoking whine in your voice.

“But that’s what you are.” He changes the angle of his descent, and now he’s the one moving in for another tiny kiss. “Just a little baby.”

“And I don’t want it gentle.”

“You’ll take it how I say. How ‘bout that?” Another kiss, and now the taste of his tongue. You’d never forgotten it, the slick, hot slide of it, from that other time. He licks into you, takes away your ability to talk. In a single blink of an eye, less than a second’s thought, he’s taken all control from you, made the game his own, and now you’ve finally gotten what you’d come here for. Now you can finally say it out loud. He wraps a massive fist around the length of your hair and eats at your mouth, makes it his more than it’s ever been yours. All tongue and teeth and wet spit, the sound of his pleasure for you vibrating in your ears, and there is it, the pressure of his hard cock as he slides his hand lower, between your legs to feel the heat and damp of the pussy that’s wet only for him, pulls you further into himself. The heft of the bulge has you whining and squirming in his hold, clawing at his shoulders and the skin of his neck to climb up the length of him, get closer, get more. You want that cock, you want it inside of you, filling you with its weight and its come. You’ve wanted it from the first time you’d met him as his daughter-in-law, standing beside his son in the place of his wife. You’d wanted his cock more than you’d ever wanted his sons, and you’re only ashamed that you’re not ashamed at all. And he tastes that desperation on you, nips at your lip with a gruff settle, a little yank of your hair to tug your head back and unlatch his mouth from yours, sliding in a wet trail to your neck, settle, settle. He bites at the line of your throat, hard. Sucks even harder, leaves a mark, leaves a claim he wasn’t able to last time. The deeply rumbled sound that comes from him attests to his intention and your answering, whimpered mewl is nothing but a cry for more; I know, baby, I know, he whispers into your ear. His mouth moves down your chest, pulling the already stretched neck of your pullover wider to nuzzle at the deep groove of your cleavage. You want to ask him if he’s worried, guilty, if he’s wanted you for as long as you wanted him, if he was hard when you kissed him that night in his little wallpapered restroom, but then the heat of his mouth is clamping around your nipple and sucking, wetting the fabric of your top with his tongue, biting down at your breast, the sharp of his teeth clamping down around your sensitive flesh, nothing but your soft sleep bra beneath to protect you. You yank hard at his messy curls, trying to pull his punishing teeth away and pull yourself closer, all at the same time. His eyes flash up to yours, mouth latched at your breast, cheeks hollowing as he takes a hard, wet pull and there’s laughter in his gaze, hot and bright and infectious. “I’ll be gentle, but I’m not gonna be nice, baby.” He nuzzles into the wet spot left behind, presses another kiss, soft and conciliatory now over your throbbing nipple. “You want me to be nice? Want me to be nice to this little pussy?” He rubs the flat of his fingers over that desperate place between your legs as he turns to walk the two of you back towards the front of the sofa. There’s no response to be given, mouth hanging open, eyes wide. He turns to sit, pulling you to remain standing between his spread thighs, hands wrapped around your hips. “Gotta use your words, pretty baby. I wanna hear what you want.”

“I want whatever you want. I want it however you want it,” you say through your flush and your shyness. You want to be honest, not a liar here in this moment with him.

He lets his head fall forward to rest against your lower belly, nuzzles there, and you hear his whispered, Jesus, fuck, before he pulls back to look up at you, drags his palms down the back of your legs all the way to your ankles, nudging your shoes and socks off, and then sliding all the way back up, scratchy calluses making you shiver until he reaches the edge of your shorts and tucks the tips of his fingers there. “Take your shirt off,” he says gently, and you only pause for a second of timidity before you’re pulling it over your head, left only in your soft pink sleep bra not intended for the eyes of ex-father-in-law’s you’ve come to seduce. Your shyness flushes higher, burning your face, sprouting beads of embarrassed sweat at the nape of your neck. He untucks his fingers from the waistband of your shorts, smoothing his palms up the slopes of your curves, thumbs dragging up the plane of your belly, dipping into the dent of your navel to reach up and squeeze your breasts tight in his big hands, then pulls the straps down over your shoulders, the bra down over the curves of your breasts to leave them bare and heavy. And his eyes never leave yours as he gets you naked for himself, fingers sliding down your sides now to pull your shorts and panties and the scrunched bra down, the flush in his face deepening, heightening even though he’s yet to look at you. Don’t be scared, he whispers again, shaking his head a little when you wrap your arms around your breasts, trying to hide yourself away from him. When he’s taken your shorts from you, gripping each ankle to help you step out of their circle, he finally looks at you, takes in the entire bare expanse of your naked body, gently prying your arms from your breasts. “Lemme see, lemme see, you’re so fuckin’ pretty, baby.” He runs his hands all over you, the slope of your belly, lifts the weights of your tits in his palms to let them fall and sway heavily, down the outsides of your thighs and back up and around to squeeze the lush of your ass. He pulls you further towards him with that clutch on you and presses his nose into the apex of your thighs, nuzzles at the soft thatch of curls there, brings his thumb up to pet at it and breathes deep. “I like this – so pretty,” he tells you again. If it was possible for a person to die of shyness you surely would in this moment, but this was what you’d come here for, this was what you hadn’t been able to say out loud. He presses his nose there again, takes another deep breath, and then starts to mouth wetly, pressing soft kisses and then the wet of his tongue, licking and parting at your slick seam. He groans so deep it sends you to shivering, hands coming up to cover your face, to hide away from that sound of lust, the feral look in his eyes when he looks up at you with the taste of your cunt in his mouth. He starts to lap at you in earnest, closing his eyes in sheer enjoyment as he pets at your clit with his tongue, shifting his angle this way and that to get at you more deeply. He pulls one of your feet up onto the edge of the sofa to open you, and you’re jostled forward, catching yourself on his broad shoulder as he spreads and eats you. His hand on your ass shifts lower, searching for your opening from behind and starts to pet at you there too so that he’s coming at you from the front and the back, and it’s too much, his sucking mouth and probing fingers. Your standing leg buckles, and he’s forced to pull his mouth from you, steady you. You let your knees give out slowly, coming to a folded kneel between his legs. He leans forward, mouth glossy with your slick and pulls your face to his, chin pinched between his fingers to kiss you, and the taste of you on his tongue sets something off within you.

Suddenly, your shy insecurity doesn't really matter as much with the flavor of your pussy on his tongue. You surge up on your knees, pressing closer to him, pulling him to you with your arms twisted around his neck, moaning into his mouth as you taste the sweet muskiness on his tongue. Like kindling catching fire in your veins you start to claw at him, pulling at his clothes, his hair, scratching at his skin. He half pulls you up and on top of him, your steaming hot form, entirely bare and naked on top of his clothed one. You can feel the heft of his cock against your belly, grinding there, trying to find whatever friction possible, and he makes a frustrated noise at the back of his throat, pushing you back down onto the floor and pulling back to open his jeans. He’s panting and sweating, chest heaving and cheeks flushed a bright red. He wants you just as much as you want him. And it’s bad, it’s bad and wrong to compare, God knows, but when he finally pulls his cock out, he’s not wearing anything beneath his jeans, you know that this is a man unlike your husband ever was; long and thick, fucking big, swollen, flushed tip peaking out from soft surrounding skin, leaking a clear slick of drool. He takes it out and sits back, pushing his hips forward to settle into his seat and stretches his long legs on either side of you. You listen to the sound of the scooting coffee table as he shoves it back with his foot. His cock arches obscenely from his open jeans, and you reach up slowly, a little intimidated, to circle it with your fingers delicately. “You’re so hard,” you whisper.

He drags a gentle hand over the crown of your head, pulling the hair tie from your ponytail as he goes. “This is how much I want you. This is all you.” He circles his big hand around your much smaller one, squeezes his big cock tighter with both of your hands, and you flush with a pleasure so intense it’s almost painful. You can make a man hard, the proof is right here in front of you.

He’s uncut, and that’s doubly intimidating. “I’ve never seen one like that,” he pulls your hand up slowly with his, squeezes and twists hard at the sticky wet tip.

“It’s okay, baby,” he croons, looking down at you with a maniacal sort of glint in his eyes. “Just open your mouth,” he wraps his other hand around your jaw, “You don’t need to see it if it’s inside you,” wedges his fingers between your molars over the skin of your cheeks, prying your mouth open. You bend your head forward, tongue hanging out, and he taps the heavy weight of his cock there, jostles the wet tip slightly from side to side, the wet sticky sound of it has your pussy clenching around terrible emptiness. He slides his hand up your cheek, twists his fingers through your hair and directs you how he wants you, slides his cock further back on your tongue, and you wrap your lips around him, give him your first real suck, tongue swirling gently around the fat head. Pulling back with a sharp hollowing of your cheeks, he squeezes his fist around yours almost painfully, and you press an open mouthed kiss at the spongey tip, gently tonguing the slit, lapping at it with the flat of your tongue like a little kitten. The sight of you licking his dick has him groaning, bearing the white line of his teeth at you.

“You taste so good,” you say up at him with big wet eyes, “Like I always imagined you would.”

“Fuck–” he snarls, “Killin’ me,” and he’s jerking you up off the floor roughly, pulling your knees apart to settle you in a straddle on his lap, pressing you close with a hand on your ass so that the wet heat of your cunt is meeting the heat of his cock. The both of you groan like it hurts, like you’ve been waiting for this for longer than is right, and he pulls your mouth back to his, wet and messy, sucking on your tongue, gripping your hair so tightly, your eyes smart and water. You claw at his shirt, pulling it up, trying to get at his skin, and he pulls back suddenly, frustratedly ripping it over his head, and then coming back to your mouth, single minded in his dedication to having the taste of you on his tongue. You try and grind down on him, but he hitches you up higher so your breasts are level with his face. “This’ll be over ‘fore it’s even begun if we’re not careful,” he laughs as he settles you, cunt leaking against his stomach and turning the hair there sticky sweet with your slick, and slots his hand between your thighs, gives you something to rub yourself against while he kisses you. “Oh, baby, you’ve got the wettest little cunt,” he says between kisses, lips sliding down to suck at your neck, lifting your breast to his mouth to lick and bite at your swollen nipple.

And past sense, past restraint, you beg: “I want your cock, please, I want it so badly.”

“Nuh uh,” he grunts, “Not yet. You’re not ready.”

You whine and beg that you are, you promise you are, but he only sucks at your tits harder, presses his hand harder between your thighs, and you can literally hear the wet squelch of your pussy as you ride his palm, your clit grinding against his belly on the forward slide as you work yourself up into a frenzy, wet whimpers and a pathetic little tear or two slipping out in your frustration to come. Need you nice and soft to take me, sweetheart, he murmurs into the tender skin beneath your chin, but he decides to be kind, crooking his finger just so that it brushes up against your clit, setting off a shivery little orgasm fluttering through your belly. He laughs softly, humoring the silly little thing wiggling around in his lap that’s so desperate to come, decides to be kinder halfway through your orgasm and starts to slowly press a single thick finger into your hungry, clenching hole. Shit, you hear his curse, while you moan and cry into his shoulder, mouthing and biting at the sun freckled golden skin there, gnawing on him like some rabid thing. And then he says, a little teasing: “Just from this, huh? Just from a little wiggling around on daddy’s lap?” sending a wash of agonized relief through you as he wedges a second one of those thick, thick fingers inside to stretch you further. It’s what you’d wanted to call him from the first moment. Just one more thing said out loud. You nod your head against his shoulder, a whine and a breath and daddy, daddy, daddy, as he stretches you; make that sound again, he begs and pets and coos at you, yes, yes, I could come from that sound alone, gives you all the patience you’d always needed. “Look at all this slick you’ve made to take my big cock in your little cunt, baby. What a good girl you are.” He twists his wrist, fucks space into you with his fingers, “You’re so fuckin’ tiny – how’re you gonna take me in this little thing, huh?” He bites down on your soft breast, encourages the sway of your hips with his fingers hooked inside of you. “Don’t worry, I’ll make it fit,” presses a kiss to your forehead, scratchy beard against the sensitive skin there, gently stroking you into another orgasm around his fingers, petting at something raw and bruised feeling inside of you, sending you to tears.

He pulls his fingers from you slowly once you’re done, leaving your body to tighten and gape around terrible emptiness, and you feel the wet smear of your come on your asscheek where he grips you, searches and pets your asshole to slick it with your wet. “You want daddy to fix you?” He says then, “Want me to make you all better? S’what you want, right?”

You nod slowly, sniffle, “Make me good,” you mumble into his neck.

“But you’re already good,” and he takes away all your choices, the ability to argue or refute, “You’re already so good. A perfect, gorgeous girl.” Kindling in your veins, madness, something more desperate than anything else you’ve ever felt in your entire life, true hunger. Worse than your desire for your father to understand you, to love you, to not be angry, your fight to keep a husband that would have never stayed. You reach for his cock, trying to impale yourself on it blindly, shifting to press the hot, blunt head at your wet opening. He moans like a dying man, “Wait– wait, lemme get a condom.” He sounds like he’s begging.

“No, please, now.”

“Fuck– fuck, you’re so eager to jump on my bare cock without a rubber or anything.” But it’s only because no one has ever touched you like this, and when he grips the thick root of his cock and notches it as your cunt, pushes inside slowly, you realize he’s doing it in a way that makes you understand the difference between the man and the boy.

“I need to feel your skin,” you sound like you’re begging now too. Sighing in relief when he starts to stretch you, when it starts to hurt. It’s slow going, fitting the largeness of his body into your much smaller one. But his hands are steady and soothing as he works you down another inch, another, let’s you fuck yourself on his cock. Murmured praises and all of his desire for you and yeah, just like that, take daddy’s cock, until he’s fully seated inside of you, holds you down, presses and grinds there, thick tip made fatter by his foreskin kissing your cervix. Finally, he pulls you back by the hair, and your father-in-law’s cock is inside of you. “Want you to look at me while I teach you how to fuck– how to take a cock,” because he knows, because he’s always known, had the gross ability to read you exactly as you are. He shifts his hips back, presses up, up, up, inside of you, and his eyes are so beautiful, and he teaches you how to take a cock, not a little girl now, only a woman. You wrap your arms around his neck, kiss his face, lick his tongue, nibble on his ears, feel him all over, he’s all over and everywhere, and it should maybe be humiliating, riding the cock that made the man that was your husband, it should feel wrong or something like a sin, but it only feels, instead, like it was made for you. Like this is where you should have been all along. Once you’ve adjusted, he grips your hips tight and harsh, makes your skin smart enough you know you’ll have bruises in the shapes of his fingers and pounds up into you, the slick slide of your cunt sucking him deeper, taking him as hard as he wants to give it to you, swollen and sensitive, squeezes your ass and grunts and moans and says, yeah, baby, bounce on this fat cock, like it’s the only thing you’d ever have to do for the rest of your life. You wish it was. And the sounds he makes, that’s what really makes you come again, what sets off your orgasm while you’re riding him – the desperate, rough sounds of a man fucking up into a tight, hot cunt that’s wet only for him. It coils in you so tight it hurts, it hurts, and then goes loose and fluttery, pussy flooding around his thrusting length. You can’t even moan, mouth hanging open, proably drooling a little, probably crying a little, nothing but hot air and wet and not a little girl anymore, only a woman, and he doesn’t gentle, fucks you harder, rougher, squeezes your ass and chases his own orgasm. His thrusts going sloppy and uneven, his moans turning to cracked whimpers.

“I’m not on birth control… but– but my period’s soon,” you whisper into his ear, and he makes a noise not wholly human, going still for a moment, throbbing inside you, thinking, thinking of the risk, decides he doesn’t give a fuck by the murmured, fuck it, I have to, and starts to move again, harder, hurting on every punch up against the mouth of your womb. I have to, is what he says, and that settles something inside of you. “Gonna come in this pretty, tight cunt. Gonna make it all mine.” You decide you don’t really give a fuck either. “Make daddy come. Squeeze down on daddy’s cock – yeah, just like that. You wanted to play at being the big girl? Now m’gonna treat you like one – gonna fuck you full, baby.” And you’re nothing but want and yes and please and thank you, daddy. And that first spurt, that hurts too, burns you, changes something inside of you that you know will never go back to the way it was before. You’ll want that hurt for the rest of your life, and you won’t ever be able to forget it, and it might be the worst thing that’s ever happened to you, but the heat of it spurs on another small orgasm of your own, jars you with the swell and throb of his cock, fills you till the come from your cunt is leaking down onto his slick balls and the leather beneath. And he holds you through the whole thing, stroking and squeezing and tasting, taking sips of your mouth, pressing his breath back into you, breathing life into you. No longer a ghoul in the night either. You feel him go soft and yet still heavy inside, a muted bruise against your womb, sighing frequently as you settle, little kittenish sounds that have his spent cock stirring lazily inside of you while you leak and leak and leak and go drowsy and then just on this side of fully asleep.

“Are you okay?” You remember to ask in a small voice while his fingers play gently in the wet where you’re connected.

He makes a soft sound, like he’s humoring you, like you’ve surprised him. “Course I’m okay,” presses a kiss to your forehead.

When he shifts you off of him to stand, a protesting whine at the back of your throat, he shucks his jeans off with a soft grunt, finally as naked as you’ve been the whole time, and his cock hangs heavy between his legs, shiny with your cunt as you stare up at him while he looks down at you. Afraid for a brief uncertain second before he’s lifting you in his arms, and when he carries you to his bed after, you feel terribly like a child. Again that naivety, that hope, but it isn't a bad thing, here and now with him. Not something to be used against you, not a bruise or a wound or a lost limb, and you haven’t failed at being good because he’s already made you so.

You’re pressed right up beneath his chin when he wakes up. Your soft, warm form all along his side, lush tits and the vulnerable slope of your belly against his skin, and it feels so intimate, entirely twined around him as you are. He brings his palm up to cup the small bowl of your skull, and in the hushed morning light, your mistake breathes life into the world. Joel has always been a hard man. Joel has always been a hard man, but never weak, and certainly, not good, per se, but never cruel. But there’s something like weakness, there’s something that should be like cruelty here, waking up with you bare, still leaking his spend in his bed, and Joel can’t tell if that weakness, that cruelty is his, born of him or of his own making, he only knows that it should be here, probably is here. It’s difficult to gauge the moral acumen of what he should or should not be feeling when he has you like this beside him. And most confusing of all, that it actually feels nothing like a mistake. Only like it was always meant to happen, and now it finally has.

He’d come inside of you, worst of all, sense gone away in the night, couldn’t claim exemption from weakness now, filled you until you’d leaked down his balls, the woman who’d been the wife of his son, and he should feel guilty, he should feel disgusted with himself. A betrayer of his own child. But all he feels is that he needs it again. That he needs you again. That if he could, he’d keep you.

Joel had never wanted children. The thought or desire had never really crossed his mind… and yet– You make a sweet little keening sound in your throat right before you open your eyes, and he feels the stretch and wiggle of your little toes against his shins, the flutter of your long lashes against the tip of his chin. “Good morning.” Soft hand coming up to cover his mouth, hold him in place while you wiggle and slither all over him.

“How do you feel?” He’d expected you to be shy, regretful, nervous waking up, and to find you entirely not, to get to wake up to you like this, soft and warm and lovely in his bed smelling of his come and his sweat, smiling that pretty little smile; it’s the mightiest sort of victory. You drape yourself on top of him, all soft limbs and softer tits, and the heat of your cunt pressed against his belly as you nuzzle into his chest hair. You’re different now, compared to before, that exhaustion he’d sensed is closer to the surface now, more easily visible, as if your body’s been collecting it, pulling it from the depths of you, getting ready to finally expel it. But there’s a clarity about you now too, you’re tired, but you’re also more yourself. Or on your way there. So lovely it hurts, vulnerable and fragile but entirely yourself. Afraid too, he can tell, because it’s your right to be afraid, because it’s normal, because we’re all afraid sometimes. “Sore?” Another nuzzle, and then, settling on your cheek to look up at him with those gorgeous eyes that’d damned him from the very first moment.

“Just a little.”

“You did so well last night,” he pets your hair slowly. “You took me so well. I’m so proud of you.” And oh, you like that. Blooming, the temperature in your body seeming to spike suddenly, suffusing all your limbs, radiating from your belly. Shifting and squirming on top of him. His half hard erection, trapped between the two of you, aching already, and you try and rub yourself all along its length, hitching a knee up by his hip to open yourself. He gives you a rough sound to settle, but you want something from him now, trying to rub your wet pussy all over him. If he was younger, a man of less control, he’d be fucking into you already and without thought. “It’s time for listening now, little girl.” He grips your hair tightly, tilting your face up to look at him, uncurls his fingers to cup the small bowl of your skull and hold you in place. “Sometimes people need time, sometimes they need us to be patient with them, wait for them. That’s what you needed, and there ain’t anything wrong with that. And you’re not gonna feel bad or less for getting there a little more slowly than others. Everything comes in its due time, and that’s okay.” You’re staring up at him, wide eyed, something like fear or panic, but you’re going to listen to him if it’s the last thing he does. He fists your hair again, gently forces your head into a nod. “Agree with me now. Say yes.”

“Yes, daddy,” you whisper very softly, pressing up to peck him lightly on the mouth. He catches you by the nape, a kitten picked up by the scruff, and holds you there, immediately turns the kiss wet and savage. You feel, so much, like you’re his, and this terrifies Joel. You aren’t his to keep, he knows this. He is not unaware of what’s happening here, of the consequences. He is not delusional about how this will end. But still, but still, you feel like his.

You’re back to you’re squirming now, whines and pleading moans as you try and rub yourself against his cock, and he reaches down to cup you, gently fingering at your folds, feeling the havoc he’d wrought on your pussy last night. “You’re so swollen, baby. Can’t fuck you again so soon.”

“Please, daddy, please, please. I can take it, I promise.”

“Not gonna hurt my soft little cunt.” The start of another whine, but he cuts you off, gives you a staying look, cranes his neck to lick into your mouth. “I’m not.”

“I want you so badly. I want you to make me come.” Tiny kisses and kitten licks to his jaw and throat. There’s fire in his belly, cock throbbing something fierce. He grips beneath your knee, opens your leg and pulls back to slot his cock between your thighs, up against your slick, swollen cunt, then presses your thighs closed back together tightly.

“Just like this – how ‘bout that?” He says as he starts to thrust up slowly against your pussy, trying to keep his movements gentle, careful not to hurt you. He runs his palms along the length of you, squeezes your tits and pinches and plucks at your swollen, sucked dark nipples. The signs of him are all over your body, and it makes him something like wild, infuses him with something like madness. Joel has never felt like this about any woman, ever. And to have it be you – to have this happen to him with you, there is something like weakness and like cruelty here. He needs to keep his head on straight. Remember what can and cannot be. He squeezes your ass tightly, digs his short-shorn fingernails into your soft cheeks, brings one hand up to get his fingertips spit slick, and then pulls your cheeks apart again to pet at your asshole. His gut goes tight and fire hot, he wants to fuck you here too. He wants all of you to be only his, his, fucking his. You hitch your hips in a desperate little arc as he presses gently on the tight ring of muscle, teasing you. “You like that?” He gruffs. “Want me to fill your little ass too, sweet girl?”

Yes, daddy, and he’s sure those must be the greatest words ever uttered to any man in all history.

“You make the prettiest sounds,” he says while you sing and moan for him. “When I touch you like this,” he moves down to the wet mouth of your cunt, taps on it gently, “And like this,” further, a flutter at your clit while he fucks between your thighs, “And the way you cry when you come for me,” back up to press at your asshole again. “Will you do it for me again?” Christ, he’s going to end up taking you if he doesn’t stop, and he will not hurt you. With a rough sound of frustration, he flips the two of you over suddenly, laying you flat, kneeing your thighs open wide and spread for him. He shakes his head down at you, squeezes his eyes shut because the sight of your bare tits and messy hair and swollen lips, cock hungry blurry eyes, isn’t helping his restraint. “Gotta stop provokin’ me.”

“But it’s so fun, daddy,” you whine, arching to brush your breasts up against his chest. He lets his head fall, opens his mouth wide and takes the whole, heavy weight of your tit into his mouth, sucks hard, bites soft, switches to the other one, gives it the opposite. He pulls back then, going to his knees between your spread thighs and holds you open for inspection. Cunt all red and swollen and shiny with slick just for him. He’s sure if he pressed his fingers inside he’d be able to feel the slippery slide of his semen still. Another shake of his head, and he runs his palms down the soft of your thighs, cups the round of your knees in his palms. You jerk the right one back when he squeezes you there, and he fingers the sore spot, “What’s this from?” bends forward to press a soft kiss to the small hurt.

“I was in a rush last night,” you say shyly.

“Rush for what, silly girl? I was right here waitin’ for ya.” Your face does a little spasm at that, confused and vulnerable and then maybe even a little hurt, brow crumpling, and you squeeze your eyes shut. When they spring open again, they’re feverish, “Please, please, fuck me, Joel. Please, I don’t care if it hurts. I don’t–”

“Quit.” He pinches the inner slope of your thigh. “Not gonna convince me to hurt you.” You moan, frustrated and wanton, on the verge of tears, petulant and trying to twist away from him, but he traps you in place, stretches himself over you, propped up by one thick arm, and you drag your palms all down the length of his chest and belly. He squeezes your jaw with his other hand, pries you wide, “Open, lemme see.” He tilts your face this way and that, inspecting the wet gleam of your mouth, your little tongue and shiny, white teeth.

“Wha’re y’lookin’ for?” You mumble with your jaw wedged open, eyes comically large.

“Hmm, wonderin’ what it’d look like filled with my come,” he says with a laugh. He feels like a teenage boy, all the excitement of discovering sex with a woman for the first time. And it makes his stomach hurt a little bit, his heart pinch in fear. He sticks his fingers in your mouth, pressing down on your tongue, widening the angle, “You think my cock’ll fit in that little throat?” And you moan, eyes fluttering shut, writhing beneath him, begging for it, a garbled groan that sounds something like please, let’s find out. “Dunno… should we?” He let’s go of your face, goes back to his kneeling position between your legs, and finally gives his aching cock the relief of his fist squeezing tightly around it. He could come just from the sight of you, he’s sure, is just there on the edge already. He squeezes hard, almost painful at the root, sliding up dry, scratchy calluses catching at the soft skin around his head to make it hurt and sting, strangling the heat he feels pooling at the base of his spine and in his balls. He smiles at the memory of your wide, comically shocked eyes when you’d realized he was uncircumcised. I’ve never seen one like that before, and all he’d stupidly wanted to say was that you’d never see any other ever again. Ridiculous.

He drags his thumb over the head of his cock, through the sticky drool of precum there, then reaches to pet through your slick soaked folds, parting you down the middle. You watch him with wide, wet eyes, as he pops his thumb into his mouth, humming around your combined tastes. “You wanna taste how good we are?” All you’re able to manage is an open mouthed nod. He leans forward and over you again, “Open,” he orders, and spits onto your waiting tongue, hand clamped around her jaw. “Close now – swallow. How’s that taste?” He asks when you obey so nicely. Your eyes flutter shut, jaw shifting from side to side as you savor the taste of your shared want for each other.

“S’good. Want more.” You look back up at him, mouth open, and nothing in his whole life has been scarier than this. Not even a twenty something year old son, who should have been a man, but was still nothing but a child in such desperate need of his father, showing up on his doorstep one day out of the blue. There should be guilt in that Sam-shaped spot inside his chest, he’s sure of it, and maybe there is, maybe there’s a bitter ribbon of guilt threaded all the way through him, but it’s also entirely overpowered, overshadowed by the desire he feels for the little girl splayed out beneath him. He pulls back again, tries to temper the rising heat in his core, takes hold of his cock again and starts to slowly jack himself. “Finger that little pussy, lemme see. Be gentle with her.” But he grips your hand right as your fingertips are about to make contact with your glossy folds and brings them to his mouth, spit slicking them, there you go, before giving them back. You play in your wet, watching mesmerized as he slowly jerks himself off to the sight of you, circling your swollen clit, thrumming at it gentle, gentle, be soft with her, petting at the leaking mouth, winking at him, begging to be filled. He shifts closer, squeezing and twisting at his tip, pulling the skin back to make the bulbous dark head bulge. He wants it to hurt, he deserves for it to hurt. You watch the rough handling of himself like you’ve never seen anything like it before, head tilted on your neck so your cheek is squished against your shoulder to get a clear view of what he’s doing to himself. “You want it so bad,” he teases, and you nod, looking back up at his eyes. He shifts forward a little closer so that the backs of his knuckles are brushing up against your sex now, wet and sticky, and you let your fingers trail up his wrist, his forearm, while he quickens his pace, moves against you, over himself. You spread yourself a little wider, bringing your knees up higher to your chest, opening yourself for him, and he pulls his hips back a little, you want to come, he can see it in your eyes, you’re almost there, presses the tip to your wet clit, slides down the to the hungry mouth, circles, circles there, presses just a tiny bit. You’re nodding your head up at him, goading him on, please, please, just do it, please. “Not gonna,” he gruffs. “Not gonna convince me.”

“You’re so mean,” you cry, arching your hips, writhing, trying to find firmer pressure.

“Didn’t I tell ya last night I wasn’t gonna be nice?” But he takes pity on you, presses the fat head just a little harder, gives you just the tip, grinding breathlessly against it, popping it in and out of your hot little cunt. “Better?” His whole body feels like one boiling vat of hot blood, sweaty and desperate, grunting, more animal than a man. “Gotta come just like this.” He quickens the jerk of his fist, bumping it into your clit on the slide forward, watches the stretch of your cunt taking just the first inch of him. He feels unhinged, thinks for one second of just fucking all the way in, hearing the sound of your cry as you take the hurt. He has to be able to do this all again, entirely, have you again the whole way “God, baby,” he groans, “You’re gonna let me fuck this tiny little pussy again, right? Tell me you’re going to let me fill it with my cock again?”

Please, please, daddy. Please. “Just do it now.” Joel doesn’t think he’s ever heard anything like the sound of you begging for his cock, anything as pretty, ever. “I– I need to–”

“I know what you need, baby. Just let daddy put his come in you, and then I’ll take care of you.” He’s just there, one last harsh squeeze and twist, and there’s warmth flooding his cock and balls as he starts to come for you, covering the entirety of your sex with his white milky spend, groaning like he’s dying. He pulls his hand from his spent cock, smearing his semen into your skin, little begging whimpers of his name and daddy, please from your mouth, and he spreads your legs and lowers his mouth to your swollen sex, eats his own come out of your cunt, pressing two fingers inside, slow and gentle as he can, to give you something to bear down on. He laps softly at your clit, soothing the ache, eats you until you’re going tight as a fist, cunt sucking his fingers as deep as it can and gushing all over his face, slick pooling in his palm where he laps and slurps at it when he’s unlatched his mouth from your pulsing clit.

“I don’t think I can stay away from you,” he tells you later, while he dresses you slowly, sits you on the bathroom counter and brushes your teeth for you with his own toothbrush and combs the knots and gnarls out of your hair. Holds your cheek cupped in the palm of his hand as he drags a warm washcloth over your sweaty face.

“Don’t want you to stay away,” you say in a small voice as you paw at his chest, twisting his t-shirt in little grabby fingers, pulling him into the cradle of your hips with sharp heels at the small of his back; needy, needy, needy thing. And worst of all, a sick part of him, something bitter sitting heavily on his tongue, wants to be the thing you need, the thing you’re desperate for, the thing you cry those pretty tears for. He’s weak now, he is. Joel finds in himself that he does have the capacity to be a weak man when the moment demands it of him. He shucks the washcloth into the sink, cups your face in his hands like something precious. He’d said once you were a gift, he’s sure of this now more than ever.

And he tells you, because he knows he must: “We can fuck, but we’re not allowed to fall in love,” and tells himself that he only imagines the glint of defiance in your eyes when he says it.

- That meeting in the dark had stayed with you, the sound of his voice telling you to leave his son, that you deserved better. The sound of his kindness, you’d stretched toward it like a flower seeking the light, the singular attention of a man like that. You’d gone over the memory of it over and over again in your mind, worn the edges of it until it was faded and worn. And when Sam had served you the divorce papers, and you’d all but gotten on your knees and begged him to please, please, stay, please, don’t leave me alone, that sound of kindness had been what you’d clung to through all the rest. That terrible clamor of failure and abandonment and not good enough, his kindness had remained, and you’re sure now, that it had brought you here too, to his home, to his bed, into his arms. This was where you’d always been meant to end up, perhaps, even from that first moment you’d met Sam all those years ago on the college green, in the arms of his father. Nothing could feel wrong after kismet like that, even if you weren’t allowed to fall in love.

Part III

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#pink fic #Joel miller #joel miller x reader #joel miller fanfic #joel miller fanfiction #joel miller smut #joel miller x you #joel miller/reader #joel miller/you #the last of us au #joel miller imagine

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diaryofaprettyprincess · 7 months

Text

pervy!carmechanic!stepdad!eddie munson x innocent!stepdaughter!reader where her daddy's been coming into her room at night n her rubbing her until she squeals with delight, coming on his fingers, her stuffies, etc.

she feels those familiar butterflies flutter in her tummy when she sits on the lawn chair, watching eddie fix her cherry red car, his tattooed knuckles slowly becoming more dirty with grease as she sucks on her watermelon lollipop, biting her lower lip as she watches her stepdaddy roll out from under the car. she pushes her heart-shaped sunglasses on the top of her head.

eddie looks at her. god, he thinks, she was so beautiful he wanted to cry.

"baby," he watches her eyes light up, "can u grab me the wrench next to u behind the bench?"

she nods, biting her lower lip as she tries to tame those naughty butterflies.

she stands up, walking to the work bench before bending over to display her pink cotton panties, eddie's mouth practically watering as he pushes down on the tent forming quickly in his pants.

"i-i don't see it, daddy.." she bends down further, and eddie watches her swollen folds press against the thin material of her underwear, biting his lower lip.

"jus-just down more, sweet girl--think it might be under the tool box.." his words are airy and soft as she bends over further, and he catches small wet patch spreading on her panties. "good girl."

suddenly, she pops up, "found it, daddy!" she skips over to where eddie is sitting on the garage floor, handing him the wrench.

"t-thank you, baby."

she beams, her cunt aching as she bites her lower lip, suppressing a whimper as she sits back down on the lawn chair, spreading her legs n not thinking much of it as eddie forces himself to get back to work, the bulge in his pants throbbing.

about fifteen minutes later, she decides to go inside as she was getting warm all over--yes, from the heat of summer but also from her body pricking with arousal.

inside, she tries everything to satiate the hunger that burns between her thighs, but nothing seems to work. she spends five minutes rubbing her fat button on her bear stuffie, wetness soaking the fur but alas, no help. she pulls her panties up all of the way until her swollen folds envelope the material, her hips rutting. (eddie did this to her once before as he sucks on her pebbled nipples n she came almost immediately, but it didnt work this time). her lust clouded her mind so incredibly much that she tried rutting her bare cunt against the corner of her bed, but that didnt even work!

she huffed, grabbing her emotional support teddy as she walked back outside to the garage, the butterflies practically fluttering a tornado in her belly.

eddie was busy wiping the grease off of his hands with a ratty washcloth. his messy hair tied back in a loose bun, his facial hair making her heart pound.

"daddy?" her voice came out small n squeaky, and eddie recognized this.

"princess?"

she smiled softly and timidly, twiddling with the fur on her stuffie.

"i got butterflies in my belly,"she pouted softly, tears forming in her doe eyes with frustration as she looked up at her stepfather. "hurts."

eddie's breath hitched in his throat before he cleared it multiple times, running his index finger n thumb over the hairs above his upper lip. "yeah? what kinda butterflies u got,sweet girl?"

she only bit her lower lip nervously. talking about sexual things still made her incredibly shy.

eddie continued , his tone soft and sweet. "the normal ones or the ones where u want daddy to come into ur room in the middle of the night to fix em?"

lets just say her daddy spent three hours fixing her dilemma.

FJSDKFJKFD OKAY THATS ALL I GOT hehe

#eddie munson smut #tw: dark content #eddie munson x reader smut #stepdad x reader #innocent!reader #st season 4 #eddie munson x innocent!reader #stepdad!eddie munson #stepdad!eddie munson x reader #stepdad!eddie munson x innocent!reader #perv!eddie munson #car mechanic!eddie munson #spoiled!reader #smut #tw: stepcest

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tflaw · 8 months

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Bless u for papa neuvi 😩👌

now im brainrotting about the melusines that absolutely treats neuvi’s son like their own little brother and helps the reader takes care of him whenever his papa’s too busy with a trial 😩😩😩

౨ৎ ⋆˚ where the heart is ft. neuvilette. reader is referred to as ‘wife’. fluff — or at least an attempt was made ;; ++ here’s another one of papa!neuvillette <33 enjoy !! this is not proofread.

—

having a kid results in a lot of different things. one of which is a perpetually chaotic house right at the crack of a glorious morning. it’s particularly in disarray during weekdays and whenever court necessitates neuvillette’s absence from home.

“i’m sorry to leave you alone this early, darling. but i must, so i can be home before the sun goes down.” neuvillette kisses the top of your head while carrying your little boy in his arms.

“you needn’t worry; this little guy and i can manage. right, sweet boy?” with a smile, you poke at your son’s chubby cheek, earning a soft giggle from his precious lips. “you’ll help mama clean up, won’t you?” he merrily claps his hand in response. “see? that’s our boy.”

“it seems like we have a gentleman in our midst,” neuvillette comments, soft delight evident in his eyes. “take care of mama for me, alright?”

and it’s majestic: the scene before you. neuvillette has struggled a long time to morph emotions that can suffice his heart’s content. looking at him now standing against the sun, its rays forming a halo around his and your son’s bodies while the latter sizes up his tiny hand with his father’s huge one, sudden warmth caresses your chest.

you clasp both their hands tightly with your own, tip-toeing to bestow neuvillette an airy kiss on the lips. “take care, my love,” you murmur.

the unforeseen affection blows open neuvillette’s eyes, casting a hue of glowing red on his cheeks. you’ve been married for years already, and yet his world keep tilting upside down whenever your lips collide. as though the eruption of his world seems not to bother him, he leans in for another kiss— fervid with passion this time.

neuvillette brushes your forehead with his lips as a final seal to the magic you shared. you close your eyes, drinking in his scent, before responsibilities stow him away and buries him neckdeep in work.

“come on, darling.” the little boy lifts his arms reluctantly to you. under his curling brows, on the verge of tears, are twinkling eyes glued to his father.

the father takes his little chin, leaving the little one with a promise of returning home as soon as work permits. then, neuvillette tramps towards the door, only to see three melusines carrying their baskets, smiling from ear to ear.

“father!” they call in unison. sundry of greetings soon followed; each of them eager to wish neuvillette an agreeable and smooth journey ahead. “mother!” they beam, canting their heads to peek at you from the doorstep. it’s mamere, puca, and canotila.

neuvillette steps aside to let the children inside the house. they dash for the boy, faces gleaming with joy at beholding their sibling’s little frame.

“will you stay with mother while i’m gone?” neuvillette inquires, crouching to meet the melusines’ level.

three heads nod at once. neuvillette opens his arms, then, to embrace the three melusines. they murmur their goodbyes and promises that you and the baby will be alright. albeit flooded with the need to stay, which is exceedingly evident on neuvillette’s face, he departs for the court of fontaine. and thus, your day with the children begin.

“who wants to help mother bake?”

all three jump on their toes; puca and canotila have followed you to the kitchen, while mamere occupies herself by playing with your son.

not a day goes by that your house wouldn’t be flooded by the melusines. they contribute a great degree in making the air much vibrant with all their jovial disposition.

it’s a life you’ve been well-acquainted with ever since sealing the vow with neuvillette. the melusines are a part of you as much as their father is.

—

people used to name neuvillette as an immovable pillar; before the heaps of paper on his desk, he’s a man of patience and perseverance. he passes the opportunity of sleep without second thoughts if work demands his extended time in attending matters concerning the region.

however, he has acquired a strict sense of time after his marriage. once the clock finally signals his departure, it matters not whether papers keep piling on his desk, neuvillette will stand up and journey towards home.

he cannot help it; the tightness between his ribs and the ever-growing need to be with his family are too palpable to ignore. and it would seem as though a great part of him is being cut down the longer he’s away from home.

only the image of the house, with lights glowing from the inside, has been a salve to his rather impatient need to be in your arms.

“welcome home—”

he embraces you, then, cleaving the words you wish to speak. he embraces and sniffs at your hair, letting the heat of your body travel to his own, caressing the coldness away.

“i’ve missed you dearly, my love,” he murmurs, a little embarrassed, yet a whole lot fulfilled.

you giggle against his chest, the sound going straight to his heart where it marked yet another reason of why neuvillette loves you more than life itself.

“we’ve missed you, too. come into the house, darling. taste the cake we’ve made.”

“where are the children?” neuvillette asks, noticing the silence prevailing inside. normally, the melusines together with the little boy would be all around the house this time around; laughing and filling the corners with their merriment.

“oh, come! let me show you something.” you tug at your husband’s hand, exuding radiance that almost blinded him. “all of the children are currently in dreamland.”

you open the door to your room. upon the sight which greeted him, all the day’s worries and baggages shred off his skin. there, on the bed, the melusines are sleeping soundly. they’re formed in a cirle around his little boy, their chests heaving slowly. everything is peaceful.

“welcome home, my love,” you whisper once more, squeezing his hand and rubbing your cheek against his arm.

voice mixed with a sweet cadence, he answers, “i am home.”

#neuvillette x y/n #neuvillette x you #neuvillette x reader #neuvillette fluff #genshin fluff #genshin x you #genshin x reader #genshin impact fluff #genshin impact x you #genshin impact x reader

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hemmingsleclerc · 2 months

Note

Omg 🥹

ur writing for dad max is soooo cute

Can u make one where Olivia is graduating pre-k or something from school and the whole family attending the mini graduation and being so proud of her 🥹🥹❤️❤️

yes yes yessss 💗💗 thank u sm!!!!

Preschool Graduation┃MV1

It was a beautiful morning and Max was dressed in an elegant tailored suit. He stood proudly next to his wife Y/N as they attended their little daughter Olivia's preschool graduation. The air was filled with excitement as families gathered in the hall, adorned with beautiful decorations and colorful balloons emblazoned with the phrase ''Class of 2023.''

Max's heart swelled with pride as Olivia, in her tiny cap and gown, joined her classmates on stage. The little graduates were beaming with joy, and Max couldn't help but feel nostalgic about how quickly time had passed since Olivia's first day at preschool. He still remembered when he had cried that morning with his daughter in arms trying to convince his wife to stay home that morning and not send her to school because he still couldn't believe that the day had arrived.

Y/N, with a proud smile, squeezed Max's hand as they took their seats. Both families, the Verstappens and the Y/L/N, were there to celebrate this special moment. Max's parents were sitting nearby and exchanging proud glances with Y/N's parents.

The ceremony began with the children entering, holding hands and laughing. Max tried to maintain his composure, but every time he caught a glimpse of Olivia's radiant smile, his eyes filled with tears. He dried them discreetly, hoping his wife wouldn't notice.

When Olivia's name was called, Max couldn't contain his emotions. He let out a proud cheer that echoed throughout the room. He jumped to his feet, camera in hand, and started taking pictures madly. "That's my daughter!" he yelled, not caring that it elicited some amused looks from the other parents. Although his wife was not far behind, she also stopped to record from the moment her little girl got up from her seat until she turned to see her parents and waved with a huge smile full of joy from stage. Both families burst into applause and shouts when the little girl received her diploma. And to Olivia's surprise, all of her uncles were there too. Charles, Carlos, Lando, Daniel, George, Alex and even Checo with his family were there, all applauding excitedly and some crying.

Max's eyes shone with tears of joy and he wiped them away with the back of his hand, laughing at his lack of self-control, but he didn't care in the least.

To the amusement of the other parents, he snorted and pulled a handkerchief from his suit pocket, declaring, "It's very emotional, okey?"

When the ceremony concluded, Max took Olivia in his arms and spun her around as she laughed with joy. Both met with the whole family along with the other drivers.

"Congratulations, my little champion!" Max exclaimed, his eyes shining with pride. Olivia smiled at her father, a miniature version of Max's infectious smile on her face.

The day continued with a celebration at Verstappen's house. Max and Y/N had organized a small gathering with family and close friends to honor Olivia's achievement. The backyard was adorned with decorations and a special cake.

While guests enjoyed the festivities, Max found himself reflecting on his journey into fatherhood. He had always been passionate about racing, but watching Olivia grow up gave him a different kind of satisfaction.

During the celebration, Max and his wife took a moment to share a few words for her little girl, expressing admiration for her determination and enthusiasm for her life. They talked about the joy she brought to their world and how her accomplishments, no matter how small, filled them with an immense sense of pride.

Many might know Max as the beast he was when he got into his F1 car and raced on the circuits, or others as the triple champion, but despite that, he was the best father to a beautiful little recent graduate named Olivia and he best husband for his beloved.

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astraystayyh · 4 months

Text

Echoes of love

"to love someone is firstly to confess; i am prepared to be devastated by you."

Chapter ii. to remember

genre : memory loss trope. angst. slow burn. unrequited love except you were in a loving relationship and everything changes overnight.

pairing : minho x reader. (3racha cameo)

summary : if given the choice would you love minho again? yes, you would've once said in a heartbeat. but now, you aren't sure of your response anymore.

cw : depiction of a nightmare and anxiety attack. allusion to mc having a bad family history with alcohol. suggestive in the end (allusion to sex but no smut). reader had she/her pronouns.

word count : 11k words.

song recs : the night we met/terrible love/black friday/cover me/already gone/enough.

chapter i. skz quotes series masterlist.

A.N: PT. 2 IS HERE!!!! i hope you'll enjoy this one, she's my baby and i put so much work and thought into her, so feedback is highly highly appreciated!!! thank you to my @forlix for being with me every step of this journey, i love u the most<33

Day 33.

With a gentle, absentminded sweep, your fingers trace the delicate contours of your wrist, a faint dance with the pulse beneath your skin– the cocoon of the soul you’re gradually growing accustomed to. It is a trying task, you've found out, to no longer yearn to flee from your body, leaving the weight of your worries for your bones and flesh alone to bear.

A subtle fragrance floats in the air surrounding you- the familiar gardenia and honey tones of your sweet perfume. It is a scent you reserve for special occasions, such as this one- your first date, in three months according to the world, in more than a year for your memory.

You swiftly retrieve a mirror from your pouch, checking your appearance for the tenth time in mere minutes. Your nude lipstick is still, unsurprisingly, in place, and you smile reassuringly at your reflection. She smiles back, though sometimes you half-expect her not to. In defiance, perhaps, maybe even repulse.

The melodious chime of the café's bell captures your attention, and the man you've been awaiting finally enters. He confidently strides in, clad in a blue polo and black slacks, an evident effort poured into his appearance.

Standing before you, his warm, gleaming eyes meet yours, effortlessly melting your lingering worries. You smile at him, he beams at you.

“Did I keep you waiting?” Changbin, your date, asks as he pulls the chair adjacent to you.

“No, just in time.”

Two weeks ago.

Day 17.

“Use me. Use me to remember,” Minho whispers, the distance between your lips resembling the thin edge of a blade.

You close your eyes, the world narrowing down to the sound of your heartbeat, a rhythmic drum drowning out any attempt at coherent thoughts. Kiss him, your heart chants, kiss him and all your memories will flood back. But what if they don't? What if the abyss persists before the brightest beam of light?

A tender kiss lands on your forehead, gently interrupting your tumultuous thoughts. Minho’s lips are as warm, as soft as you remember them. They're now imprinted into your skin, no longer a hazy memory beyond your reach.

His hands cradle your hair, smoothing it down, making the ringing in your ears soften. You surrender to his gentle embrace, to the soft tide of emotions rippling from him to you, pulling your wounded soul to safe shores.

“You need to forgive yourself,” he whispers, his words echoing against your skin, lips still pressed to your forehead. A rush of warmth overwhelms you, all your senses coming to life, ringing the alarm- he sees you, he sees through you.

“None of this is your fault,” he assures, a sudden cooling balm against your scorching wounds. These are the words you've been aching to hear. You didn't know, but Minho did, reading between the lines of your quivering lips and your reluctance to look into his eyes.

He knows you better than you know yourself.

“Don’t blame yourself, please.”

“But all I do is hurt people,” you confess, tears streaming down your face like a relentless downpour, soaking Minho's hands.

You expect punishment to strike you, bolting lighting aiming straight for your heart as you finally admit to your biggest sin- the shadow of sorrow that trails your every step. It is the way it has always been since you were a child. It is what you fled from.

What you don't expect is for tenderness to cradle you instead— in Minho's warm hand as he gently guides you to his chest, your ear resting above his steady heartbeat. Its rhythmic cadence akin to a lullaby- you shouldn't apologize for existing, you hear it sing to you.

“If you need forgiveness, I’ll give that to you. you’re forgiven, okay? I forgive you. Today and tomorrow. I'll forgive you until you'll forgive yourself.”

“Okay,” you nod, muffled words against the fabric of his shirt.

“Now, will you please come back with me? The cats will miss you a lot if you don’t,” he suggests, pressing his cheek onto the crown of your head.

“I don't want to leave them,” you reply in a small voice, dewdrops gathering in your eyes at the thought of running again.

“You don’t have to. It’s your home too.”

“Okay,” you sigh in acceptance, relief, encircling his waist with your arms. He is all inviting, like an open book, and you're resting between his pages, scribbled with love confessions for you.

The world stills, waves slowing their relentless crash against the shore, as you draw in a deep breath from the pits of your soul. You don't remember all you’ve once felt for Minho. But you know it must have been safe, like stumbling upon a haven and then learning it was specially carved for you.

“I miss you, Minho.”

“I know, I miss you too.”

Day 19.

“Minho, can you come to the kitchen please?” your voice reverberates through the house, weaving through the air and reaching the bedroom where Minho has been ensnared, his less-than-graceful complaints echoing loudly for the past hour. You had sealed him within without explanation, only making him promise not to leave the room until you told him to, much to his dismay, and deep down, amusement.

He chuckles lowly to himself as he rises from the bed, before making his way to the kitchen. There, he finds you near the doorway, hands concealed behind your back, dusty flour adorning your cheek like an artist’s absentminded paint stroke.

“So…,” you trail off and Minho smiles, crossing his arms before his chest.

“So?”

“A situation may have happened.”

“Which situation?” he inquires amusedly, attempting to peer past you into the kitchen. Your extended arms block his view.

“You know how I got a concussion from the car accident,” you ask.

“I do.”

“I think it may have affected my cooking abilities.”

“But you didn't have any to begin with?” he muses, tilting his head to the side innocently.

“Shut up,” you playfully admonish before clasping your hands in a silent plea. “Will you help me?”

“Mm, what are you making?” he inquires, leaning against the doorway.

“Pudding.”

“Pudding?”

“For you.”

“Oh.”

A blush creeps up Minho’s neck as he grapples to find a reply, his surprised gasp hanging into the air. You giggle faintly, entertained by his sudden speech impairment.

In response, Minho takes a step forward, delicately brushing away the flour on your cheek, his thumb hovering near the corner of your mouth. “How did this get here?”

“Huh?” you sputter, pink splashing across your cheeks like spilled Rosé.

Minho is testing your waters, dipping one toe in, hoping he’ll find your reassuring embrace lurking beneath the surface. Did you blush from the heat of the stove or his touch? Minho doesn’t know. Minho needs to find out.

“And you also forgot this,” he lightly pouts, reaching over your head to the hanger behind you, caging you between his arms.

He’s sacrificing his heart, placing it on the frontlines of hurt once again. Yet, when you look up at him, dewy eyes flickering to his lips, Minho feels a single match lighten up in his core, not enough to burn all his doubts. But enough to signal hope.

Hope is a perilous possession, akin to cradling a fragile glass that threatens to shatter at the slightest tremor. Hope is the only thread Minho can now hang onto.

“You forgot your apron,” he finally says, withdrawing two aprons from the hanger. He drapes one over your head before placing a hand on your shoulder, gently turning you around. He silently ties the strings into a ribbon, his fingers brushing against your spine. He can distinctly remember the feel of your bare skin beneath his fingertips, silky, smooth, intoxicating.

“There, a pretty knot,” he whispers, not moving back an inch, waiting for you to swivel around. Yet, you remain silent, undoing your hair from its loose ponytail. Your hair cascades over your shoulders, resembling the unveiling of curtains, and Minho senses something unfurling in the depths of his stomach.

“Tie it for me?” you whisper, handing him the hair tie without looking back. Your fingertips brush against each other, and Minho inhales deeply.

“Sure,” he says, voice thick with emotion, he needs to drink water. He needs to drink you in.

He gathers your hair strands in another low ponytail, trembling hands as they brush against the nape of your neck, akin to powerless leaves before the autumn breeze. He’s close, so close to you, so much his chest almost brushes against your back.

As soon as he’s done, Minho swiftly steps back before doing something he’ll surely regret, like placing a tender kiss on your shoulder, or worse, confessing that he misses the simple act of brushing your hair at night.

“So, pudding,” he clears his throat, rolling up the sleeves of his white hoodie. your eyes follow his movement, lingering on the veins protruding on his forearms. Minho feels a bit foolish for wanting to flex for you.

“It’s really easy actually. bring me two eggs?”

“Sure,” you grin, heading for the fridge as Minho retrieves sugar from the cupboard, throwing away the odd liquid mixture you managed to conjure.

You stand beside Minho, eyebrows furrowed as he explains why the milk needs to be brought to a boil before adding the cornstarch, or how adding the vanilla at the very end will help preserve its flavor. You listen intently, nodding along, and the tension between you dispels, leaving place for something comforting, familiar– you’re erasing the remnants of his sobs, the sight of him crumbling over the green kitchen tiles.

“Let's leave it to chill,” he finally says, closing the fridge’s door.

“Okay,” you nod, packing away the butter. Minho leans against the countertop, an ember of curiosity ablaze at the tip of his tongue

“Why did you want to make pudding?” he asks and you freeze in place.

“To see if I’m capable of not being a lost cause,” you respond playfully but the undertones of your voice indicate otherwise- laden, charged. One more match that you could light up?

“Really?” he says softly, taking one step toward you.

“No,” you giggle faintly and he nods, a gentle smile unfurling on his face, gradual as the eclipse of a moon.

“It was supposed to be your birthday gift. That's why I locked you in the room. I even bought little birthday hats for the cats, silly I know, and very late, but, turns out I’m a horrible-”

“I wanna see the birthday hats,” he cuts you off.

“Really? They’re really ugly.”

“It's my birthday gift, right?”

Five minutes later, you and Minho are seated on the floor, legs crisscrossed, three perplexed cats before you, and on their heads, obnoxiously neon green hats.

“They look so…” you tilt your head, assessing the view before you.

“Stupid?” Minho suggests, eliciting a startled snort from you that swiftly transforms into an almost maniac cackle, which in turn, catches Minho off guard. He gazes at you bewilderedly before succumbing to a fit of giggles, which intensifies your laughter, as you punctuate his shoulder with light hits, tears streaming down your face in an attempt to regain composure.

One hundred matches light up in Minho’s heart at the sight, all at once.

“My God, they look so stupid, I’m so sorry,” you laugh harder, your body collapsing to the ground, hands tightly clutching your stomach.

They can laugh again, the house sighs in relief, something other than sobs can still echo within my walls.

Day 22.

“I miss the sea,” you sigh softly, cradling a cup of chamomile tea between your hands. Minho, absorbed in his book, glances up to find a melancholic expression etched on your face—a poignant blend of sorrow and longing that he knows weighs heavy on your heart.

“We saw it over at the bridge, no?” he ventures tentatively, setting the book aside on the living room table.

“Yes, but I miss the sand, and the waves lapping at my feet. I miss feeling the sea, not just seeing it.”

“I’d take you, in a heartbeat,” he says assuredly, ready to bring you the moon if only you dare ask. “But it's far, and you can't get into a car.”

“I can try.”

“You can?” he questions, hope budding in his eyes.

“I mean- I want to, it's just… I don't know,” you retract, nails drumming anxiously against your cup, gaze lost into the amber liquid.

“Talk to me, yeah?” he smiles softly, draping a reassuring hand on your arm. His thumb swipes across the slate of your shoulder, and an impossible knot in your throat untangles.

“The accident took a lot from me. My health, my memories, a year of moving forward.” You quiet down, eyes meeting his in a barely veiled vulnerability. Silence speaks of your hardest loss— him.

“Can you help me get the sea back?”

Minho’s radiant smile is louder than any spoken agreement.

…

Thread by thread, drop by drop, your fears unravel as Minho lowers all the car windows’ before gently guiding you into the car seat, dispelling any prospect of feeling confined within the vehicle.

He remembers everything, even the panic that gripped your being when you went into his enclosed car, nearly a month ago.

“Can I blindfold you? It might help, so you wouldn't see the car lights since it’s night,” he suggests.

“Yeah, that'd be nice,” you agree, your hand lightly gripping the car seat.

“Hey, hey,” he calls out gently, “I'm here, okay? The second you feel overwhelmed I'm stopping this car.”

“Will you drive safely?”

“Of course. I promise you.”

Your nod is met with the softening of Minho's eyes, as he delicately tucks a strand of your hair behind the curve of your ear.

“I'm proud of you,” he whispers, tone laden with so much tenderness, love, that your throat becomes a garden, vocal cords bound not by thorns but the delicate blossoming of flowers.

With a gentle touch, Minho wraps a tie around your eyes, cocooning you in a tranquil darkness. His hand seeks yours instinctively, fingers intertwining with yours akin to the wind weaving through the strands of your hair.

In this moment, every fracture within you is delicately filled by Minho.

He starts driving, a soothing piano instrumental playing out of the car’s speakers- his hand still in yours. “Breathe,” he murmurs, his thumb tracing a soothing path across your palm.

“Follow my touch.” A gentle sweep to the right, an invitation to inhale slowly. “In,” his voice guides, and you draw in a deep breath.

Another caress to the left, a silent directive to release your confined breath. “Out,” he whispers, and you exhale, surrendering to the rhythm orchestrated by his thumb.

He raises the music’s volume, his touch becoming a maestro, speaking silently to you. You’re grateful for it, for the way in which he’s driving- avoiding curbs and speeding, safely, making the wheels float across the road.

Your heart still constricts in your chest, anxiety squeezing your veins, bleeding them dry, but you focus on Minho’s thumb, you let it guide you, like a compass navigating the dark tunnels of your heart.

“We're almost there,” he reassures as he stops by a red light.

“I look silly, right?” you reply, giggling a bit.

“What?” he asks, confused.

“I can feel you looking,” you clarify.

“How so?”

“My right cheek is tingling.”

Minho snorts incredulously. “What does that even mean?”

“You have a piercing stare. You're like melting through my skin and vibrating my bones.”

“Idiot,” he chuckles. My my my idiot, Minho grieves to say once again. The human heart is peculiar, he learns day after day, mourning the loss of a myriad of minuscule things, even words.

“And, you don't look silly,” he clears his throat minutes later, as he finally parks by the beach.

“You look pretty,” he utters, unraveling your blindfold, and you blink, caught between the sudden light and the weight of his words. “You always do,” he concludes, a whispered confession that lingers like the afterglow of a sunset, painting your world in golden hues.

“Minho, I…” you trail off, eyes landing on the vast sea ahead, blending into the sky in an alluring shade of turquoise. “We're here!” you shout bewildered, a magnificent grin on your face.

“We are,” Minho smiles, drinking in the delight in your expression.

“Oh my god I missed the sea!” you giggle as you undo your seatbelt, quickly opening the car’s door and taking off running.

Minho follows closely behind, captivated, as he watches you glide across the shore, the sand ricocheting off the soles of your shoes. You look like a fairy, bending the wind to your will, coaxing it into a choreography that mirrors the rhythm of your movements, your messy footprints marking your pathway to happiness once again.

Upon the sand, you finally settle down, and Minho walks over, sitting beside you. Both of you quietly gaze ahead, entranced by the moon's silver glow caressing the water’s surface. Each shimmering wave resembles glistening diamonds, a celestial mirror reflecting the lights in the sky.

“Have I ever told you why I love the sea?” you speak after a while, tone softer, more content.

“You did.”

“Can I tell you again?” you say. Can I tell you what I still remember? He understands.

“Of course.”

"There was a beach near our home, back then," you reminisce, a nostalgic aura enveloping your words. “And whenever I felt lonely I used to go there and watch the waves, to calm me down. But, one time, I was really overwhelmed so I ended up crying. And then, coincidentally, it started raining too.”

Your eyes widen slightly, a hint of amusement in your voice. “At that moment, I chuckled at the timing, how the sky was crying with me.”

“Ever since that day, I liked to believe that the sea is made up of the sky’s tears, the ones that fell in sync with those of humans, so it'd comfort us. And the tears grew from a pond to a river, to a vast ocean, as humans cried more and more. That's why sometimes the sea’s waters are gentle because those are tears of happiness falling somewhere. Sometimes they're stormy, since someone is crying out of anger. Sometimes they're melancholic, just relentlessly crashing against the shore, because someone is in pain. Like we are.”

A tranquil hush falls over the night as you quiet down, before turning around to meet Minho’s teary eyes, mirroring yours.

“And if the sea persists through tempests and tranquility, if it goes on despite the myriad of emotions it holds within, then so will we.”

Hope isn't fragile, as Minho once believed. Hope scrapes its bloody palms against the rough surface as it climbs defiantly to the pinnacle once again. Hope picks out rugged stones with weathered hands and builds a home out of them. Hope is strong, it clutches onto the thinnest threads so we’d endure and endure once more. As many times as we need to.

“Well, the sky isn't crying right now,” Minho notes.

“I know,” you smile softly, “Because we're holding on to hope.”

Day 26.

Under the soft glow of the TV, Dori settles comfortably on your shoulders, nuzzling her tiny nose onto your face every now and then. Soonie and Doongie are a bit far away, playing with a piece of yarn, captivated by its vibrant red threads.

It is an ordinary, comforting setting to watch a movie with Minho, on a Sunday night, a bowl of popcorn nestled on his lap while his cats lounge around. So familiar that the world around you blurs, like the vague brushes of an impressionist painting— a vivid déjà-vu sensation clinging to your body. You’ve lived this scene before. You want to live it again, now and in the future. More and more.

However something is different— your skin tingles, a buzzing sensation that travels from thigh to knee to hand, as if your body knows that something’s amiss. Minho’s touch perhaps, his palm casually resting upon your skin.

You don’t know where this urge is coming from— to lay your head on his shoulder, to have him run his fingers through your hair. Even more, to lose yourself in the nutmeg and peppermint notes of his cologne, to disintegrate your worries into his hold and rest.

“Would you mind if some of my friends came over?” Minho speaks up suddenly, cutting off your trailing train of thought.

“Hm?” you hum absentmindedly before clearing your throat. “I mean, no, I don't mind. Who are they?”

“Han and Chan. They’ve been asking about you for a while now.”

“Sure, this is your home.”

“It is yours too,” he says, gaze locking onto yours. His eyes are like a dark tapestry woven with threads of stardust- you’d never tire of looking into them, into the universe they seem to cradle within.

Do you know that there is a galaxy inside you? You almost slip out, words in an urgent race against your mind. You barely stop them at the tip of your tongue, before smiling and peeling your eyes away from his, painfully, like scratching a burn scab long before it heals.

…

“They’re here,” Minho announces as someone knocks on the door.

“Okay,” you smile, a tad nervous. You’re not even sure what for.

“If they annoy you too much tell me, I’ll kick them out,” he reassures, raising his brows playfully at you.

“That's mean,” you giggle, albeit soothed by his words.

“They already love you,” he grabs your wrist, his thumb gently swiping over your pulse. “No need to be worried.”

He drops it, as though a countdown is ingrained into his brain— never to touch you for more than ten seconds. Wouldn't it be selfish, pathetic even, to ask him for more?

As Minho heads to open the door, you linger in the living room, idly fidgeting with the hem of your sweatshirt. It is a weird circumstance to greet strangers who know you— you may have brushed against their shoulders in an alley and not known who they were.

Your thoughts dissolve as two men saunter into the living room, stopping in their tracks once their eyes land on you. They’re both beautiful– that is the first thing you note, closely followed by how relieved they seem to see you. Simultaneous soft sighs escape them, gentle smiles blooming across their faces. Tentatively, you return the gesture.

Minho takes the initiative to introduce them. “Yn. This is Chan,” he points to the man on the right, clad in black from head to toe, his smile grows wider, his eyes disappearing into moon crescents, two dimples peeking gleefully on his cheeks.

“And Han,” the younger man, sporting a Supreme t-shirt despite the cold, beams at you, highlighting his round cheeks, and an adam-apple that weirdly resembles a heart.

“I want to hug you but Minho put us on a strict no-touch notice because of your ribs,” Han speaks first, a small pout tugging at his lips as he glances at Minho, who simply rolls his eyes at his words.

“You can never keep something for yourself,” Minho sighs, rubbing the space between his eyebrows. You stifle an amused giggle.

“And she technically doesn’t remember us so it’d be weird for her to hug a stranger,” Chan notes, offering you an understanding smile.

“Hey, I didn’t mean it in a creepy way! more of ‘Oh my god I’m so happy you’re alive, thank you for still being here, I was so worried about you’.”

“But were you worried?” you ask, tilting your head to the side.

“Of course, I-”

“Then why weren’t you at my bedside?” you question, an eyebrow raised, and Minho chuckles at your words.

“W-what?” Han asks, glancing worriedly at the two men by his side.

“Why weren’t you there sobbing when I woke up? It doesn’t look like you were worried,” you muse, throwing a wink to Minho who walks over to you.

“Right, you should’ve sent her a pic of you crying,” Minho adds, as you drape a hand on his shoulder.

“A picture for every day you didn’t come see me,” you say solemnly as Han’s face grows paler by the second.

“I-I didn’t, I really was worried, I swear, I kept asking Minho every day about you and…” he trails off as giddy smiles break out on your face and Minho’s before you both burst out laughing.

“You guys are evil,” Han laments, as Chan pats his back in faux sympathy, a string of giggles falling from his full lips.

“I’m sorry. we made you dinner to make up for it,” you grin and Minho looks at you pointedly.

“He made you dinner,” you correct with a huff, and Minho smiles, satisfied, raising his brows smugly at his two friends.

“Let’s choose a movie then!” Han claps, turning to the TV as Minho sidles by his side.

“I’ll set up the table,” Chan announces.

“I’ll help you,” you offer, and he nods, clearly grateful for your assistance.

You’re taking out four plates from the cupboard, Chan effortlessly bringing out the glasses, clearly familiar with the nooks and crannies of your home, when he suddenly speaks.

“How are you, Yn?”

“Do you want the truth?” you ask back, and he grins. “Always.”

“I’m okay. Right now. I don’t know if I’ll still be tomorrow, you know? It all fluctuates so much.”

“Mm, I understand,” he says, and something about his tone indicates that he isn’t saying this just to comfort you. “And that’s okay too. What you went through wasn’t easy, but good times will come again. They always do, you know, just like the sun always comes back after the rain.”

“The sun,” you repeat, as you glance out at the living room, where Minho is laughing at something Han just said, his head tipped back, bunny teeth peeking out.

Perhaps the sun rays were by your side all along.

“Thank you, Chan,” you beam at him. “Truly, for being worried about me too.”

“It's nothing to thank us for. We care about you, even though you don’t remember us,” he pouts, a hand on his heart in mock offense.

“Hey, it’s not my fault I got amnesia!” you chuckle.

"Excuses!" he drawls with a playful tone as he exits the kitchen, and you can't help but laugh quietly to yourself. You recognize what he's doing—making light of your accident to alleviate the weight on your heart.

The night blurs in your memory, but this time it is tinged with happiness and laughter. The three men recall fun stories of their time together, a seven-year bond rooted in love and care, albeit silently. You witnessed it in the details—Chan ensuring the food was on their plates first, Minho peeling shrimp for Han, the latter rubbing Chan’s arms when he complained of being cold.

Then you saw it directed towards you– how they put on the movie you wanted and watched in anticipation as you took the first bite of food, draped the fuzziest blanket around you, and rushed to your side simultaneously when you stumbled on your feet.

You were loved, although you didn’t know of it. The accident took away your memories but it didn’t plague theirs.

“Thank you,” you beam at the two men as you walk them to the door. Opening your arms wide, you invite them in for a hug. Han embraces you first, a large smile on his face, and you gently beckon Chan in too. “Easy,” he whispers in Han's ears, careful not to put any pressure on your ribs. They both pat your back as you wrap an arm around their respective shoulders before leaning away.

“I’ll call you,” Minho bids them farewell, tipping his chin forward. They wave to him before finally leaving

You close the door, leaning against the auburn wood. Minho watches you, a soft smile playing on his face.

“Good?” he inquires, closing the distance between you.

“Mm, good,” you reply with a smile as he halts just an inch away. His intoxicating scent envelops you, permeating your bones and flowing through your veins like liquid warmth.

A torrent of memories floods your mind—images of you pressed against this same door. It is dark, a stark contrast from your first memory, a lone lunar beam of light slashing through the night. Minho’s hands grip your waist with a fevered urgency, while yours entwines around the nape of his neck, in passion, in hunger, almost as if you were deprived of him for so long.

You angle his mouth closer to yours, his lips pressing against your own repeatedly, a desperate attempt to brand the contours of his mouth into your soul. His hair, a cascade of midnight silk, tickles your fingers with an electric charge, like the crackling of the air before a storm. His tongue sweeps across your lower lip, seeking entrance, one you willingly surrender, white flag easily thrown to the ground. With every kiss, your bodies meld together, so much so that you could merge into the door, disappearing into the shadows as one.

“What's wrong?” Minho breaks your trance and you snap out of your reverie, a bright flush adorning your cheeks.

“N-nothing,” you stammer.

“You’re all red, do you have a fever?” he asks, coming closer, his hand pressed to your forehead. His woody scent envelops you once again– everything about him is enticing— his cologne, his lips on you, his fingertips dragging underneath your shirt, his eyes piercing yours, undressing you before his hands ever could.

“Yn?” he questions and you grab his jaw, angling his face away from you.

“Stay like this, don’t look at me for a moment.”

“What?”

“Just… please,” you say and he chuckles, shaking his head in disbelief, and yet he complies, his side profile now facing you.

How does he live with these memories each time he looks at you?

You take in a deep breath, focusing on his silhouette. It might seem counterproductive to fixate on the same man consuming your thoughts, but how could you not when he was mere centimeters away, his eyes averted from yours?

You exhale softly as your gaze glides along the graceful curve of his neck, a solitary mole resting just beneath his sculpted jawline, leading the way to his plump lips, a cupid's bow delicately carved by the hands of the divine archer himself — crafted to be kissed, to be adored.

Your eyes trail up, tracing the high bridge of his nose, another mole perched at its pinnacle, sharp and smooth as if chiseled by a master sculptor, one who dedicated months to perfecting his artistry. His eyes are a mesmerizing brown, punctuated with long lashes that flutter like the delicate wings of an angel with each slow blink.

Minho sweeps aside strands of his hair, his fingertip delicately fluffing them upwards. It dawns on you, a sudden revelation of the necessity of art — to immortalize such beauty for generations to come.

You imagine admirers gazing upon Minho, sighing in sheer amazement, their hearts tightening with emotions that words struggle to encapsulate in the face of this epitome of beauty. Inside and out, you reflect, inside and out.

“You told them not to drink around me, right?” you ask softly.

A blush grows from the base of Minho's neck to the tip of his ears, like roots expanding into the soil. He sighs before finally looking at you.

“I did. How’d you figure it out?” he wonders.

“I asked Han if he wanted a drink, but he refused so categorically that I assumed he didn't like alcohol. But most of his stories were of him drunk,” you chuckle quietly, and Minho shrugs sheepishly.

“We get loud when we drink. You don’t like that,” he says simply as if it’s a given, an absolute certainty that he’d do anything but make you uncomfortable.

He's beautiful, the light of his heart basking his face in a glow that even Michaelangelo's skillful hands wouldn’t be able to replicate.

And he loves you.

Till when? Your heart sounds out in alarm. Till when will he love you? What if the grains of sand slip away from the hourglass before you can reciprocate his love? Two stars colliding at disparate speeds, never converging into a singular entity, destined to erupt and scatter into cosmic dust.

How long do you have left? How many more days will he love you for?

How many more days do you have to love him back?

Day 30.

Minho is sick.

He tried his best to conceal it from you, as he came back from his dance studio, strands of his hair clinging to his forehead, a thin sheen of perspiration above his right eyebrow. Yet, his uncharacteristic silence betrayed him, as he quietly retreated into the shower, emerging with a solemn expression on his face.

Seated on the bed, book long forgotten by your side, you bit your lip tentatively. “You're okay?” you inquired, perched on the edge, concern etched in your gaze.

“Mm, just tired,” Minho responded, his attempt at reassurance falling short as he laid down on the floor mattress. “Can you turn off the lights?” he softly requested. “Hurts my eyes.”

“Yeah, of course. Will you sleep now?”

“I think so.”

“Okay then. Good night, Minho,” you uttered gently, the veins in your heart tangled with worry. “Good night,” he whispered in return.

In the stillness of the night, you were roused by soft whimpers escaping Minho's lips. He writhed in apparent discomfort, his features contorted with an unseen anguish. His pupils moved furiously underneath the thin layer of his eyelids, betraying the tumultuous thoughts raging in his mind.

You've never seen Minho so disrupted in his sleep, mouth slightly hung agape as if he struggled to breathe in the depths of his dreams. Your worry for him came back to haunt you ten times fold.

You lean over the bed, gently shaking his shoulders. “Minho, wake up.”

“No... no-no, don't-don't go,” he whispers, caught in the vines of a restless dream, seemingly wrapping around his mind, trapping him in. “Minho, come on wake up,” your pleas grow more insistent, but so do his. “Don't go, s-stay,” he implores, voice broken, prompting you to abandon your bed and join him on his mattress.

“Minho!” you call out, shaking him until his eyes finally flutter open. He gasps for air— as if inhaling his first breath on this earth, shooting upright, wide-eyed and disoriented.

His gaze locks on yours and he instantly cradles your face in his sweaty hands, bringing you closer to him until your noses bump into one another. “You didn't go,” he whispers, and you shake your head. “I'm here.”

“Fuck,” he swears, releasing his hold on you and sinking back into the pillow.

“Minho, what's wrong?” you ask softly, afraid you're treading on stormy waters.

“I… I don't know. I don't feel good,” He admits, fingers tugging at the collar of his shirt, as if the fabric morphed into a vise around his throat. A flush creeps up his neck, red dots splashing across his ivory skin. A droplet of sweat traces a slow path down his temple, as the white fabric clings uncomfortably to his warm skin.

“Do you have a fever?”you ask, placing your hand on his forehead, sensing an unusual heat radiating beneath your touch. “Minho, where is your thermometer?”

“Bedside drawer,” he breathes out.

Fetching the thermometer, you gently tug at his chin, opening his mouth to check his temperature. “Stay still”" you instruct, watching anxiously as the numbers climb steadily.

“40°C, fuck Minho, you have a really high fever,” you exclaim as he shuts his eyes, an unmistakable weariness claiming him, rendering him malleable, akin to the silk pillow he's resting on.

“I feel dizzy,” he admits, burying his face into the covers.

“You need to take a cold shower now,” you urge a sudden lump materializes in your throat at the sight of his suffering.

“It's okay, I'll just sleep.”

“No, no, it's far from okay!” you almost exclaim, tears stinging at the corners of your eyes as if you were peeling an onion—your own emotional layers unraveling, exposing the depth of your concern for Minho.

“Minho, please, you have a really high fever,” you plead, feeling an unexpected surge of panic at his unwillingness to cooperate.

“Yn… are you worried about me?”

“I am.”

“It feels nice. Please be worried about me more,” he mumbles, eyes still closed, eliciting an incredulous laugh from you.

“You are so unbelievable, my god,” you pull him up and he doesn't resist, nearly stumbling on his feet.

“Okay?” you ask, running your hand through the nape of his neck.

“Mm,” he hums, burying his head in your shoulder. “Sleepy.”

“I know, you'll sleep after the shower,” you reassure softly, guiding him to the bathroom, his entire body weight leaning onto yours. There, you turn on the light, your right hand holding Minho's waist tightly as you lead him to settle atop the toilet.

“Can I take off your shirt?”

“Are you planning to undress me?” he smiles lazily, hooded eyes locked onto yours.

“No, I just-” you stammer, but he’s quick to cut you off.

“Because I don't mind.”

“I can't believe you're flirting with me while you're sick.”

“I always am, I can't help it,” he says, raising his hands as a silent signal for you to remove his shirt.

“You're awfully candid tonight,” you observe, seizing the edges of his shirt and drawing it over his head. His tongue glides across his lips, his gaze drawing tantalizingly slow over your form, and you clench his shirt tighter in your hands. He's the one with the fever, yet it's you who feels ablaze, flames of longing licking at your every sense.

“Come here,” you beckon, the icy water now flowing as you turn the knob. He reaches his hand out to you, and you grasp it, guiding him under the frigid cascade, soaking you both.

“C-cold,” he stutters, and you nod, your breath escaping in short, visible puffs.

“I-I know, just a little longer,” you reassure.

2 a.m. is a peculiar time to shower, the water droplets echoing against the tiled floor is the only sound that can be heard. That, and your labored breaths in tandem with the chilly embrace of the water filling your bones. The quiet makes way for other unspoken sentiments to surge forth, electric and palpable, heightened by the way Minho gazes at you through the liquid curtain, his hands clinging tightly to your arms for stability.

Droplets of water weave seamlessly through his hair, and an unexpected pang of jealousy grips you— you envy the liberty of those water beads as they thread through his locks, tracing the contours of his broad shoulders, nestling in the enticing recesses of his collarbones, without fearing the consequences of such acts. You don't dare look further down, wary that the rivulets on his skin may lead to your own undoing. Instead, you close your eyes thanking the stars that you weren’t wearing a white shirt, which would have turned translucent by now. You don’t even want to contemplate the consequences of such a premise.

After a few minutes, you turn off the water, stepping out of the shower and swiftly enveloping Minho in a towel.

“Go change, I have some spare clothes in here. Oh, and don't wear a top,” you instruct.

Minho chuckles quietly and you roll your eyes. “Shh. Make sure to dry your hair too.”

Taking your time in getting dressed, you peel off each wet layer, depositing them into the washing machine, before donning a spare pajama from a cabinet. You stroll to the kitchen to pour Minho a glass of water and retrieve medicine from the drawer, lingering at the counter long enough to ensure he'd be dressed by the time you return to the room.

You knock softly before opening the door, and the sight of Minho freezes you in your tracks. The room basks in warm, orange hues from the lamp's glow, playing upon Minho's skin and casting enticing shadows on the contours of his muscles—a masterpiece created by the skilled hands of light. His toned arms rest between his legs, back against the headboard, and an inexplicable urge to flee washes over you, your heart sinking to your knees in the face of his long-avoided vision of beauty.

You swallow the tumultuous thoughts raging within you before handing him his medicine, which he drinks diligently. Pressing your palm to his forehead, you're relieved to find a slight reduction in his temperature. “It will go down more once the medicine takes effect,” you assure.

“One of my students had a nasty cold. I think I got it from him,” he explains, and you nod, your hand lingering near his. Your fingers twitch as his pinky brushes against yours—akin to birds fluttering their wings in anticipation, awaiting, aching for a release from their cage, at last.

“I'm tired,” Minho sighs, closing his eyes. “Lay down,” you gently instruct, and he complies, resting his head on the pillow.

“It's cold,” he whines, swaying like a child throwing a bedtime tantrum. He's endearing, melting the frost that had gathered in your heart.

“You have a fever, silly,” you chuckle, pushing strands of his hair from his forehead, twirling them around. “Your hair's gotten longer,” you muse as you braid a tiny section of his bangs, only to undo it again.

“Can you play with my hair some more?” he requests softly.

“Of course,” you reply, threading your fingers through his locks, jet black as if all the stars in the sky collided, leaving behind nothing but a dark abyss.

“Please stay healthy, Min. Take care of yourself too.”

“But I like it more when you take care of me,” he pouts, before sighing shortly after. “I'll probably regret a lot of my words tomorrow, right?”

“Why is that?”

“Because you don’t feel the same for me,” he confesses, leaving you silent, grappling with the echoes of his words. What do you feel for Minho?

The question jolts the breath from your windpipe violently, an unyielding force crashing against your lungs till the answer finds its footing on your tongue.

“Can I ask you something?” you finally speak, cringing at the sound of your voice disrupting the fragile quiet.

“Anything.”

“Where did your scar come from?” you inquire, gesturing towards the mark just below his belly button.

“I got surgery a long time ago. I’m kind of self-conscious about it,” he confesses, a bit shyly.

“Really? But it’s beautiful, it looks like a strike of lightning,” you sincerely remark, coaxing a tender smile from Minho, unfolding like the gradual sunrises of autumn.

“This is exactly what you told me months ago.”

“Did I?”

“Mm, and then you traced it with your fingertips,” he grabs your hand, hovering it over his stomach. You can easily slip out of his grasp; you choose not to.

“Like this?” you murmur, tracing his scar gently, fingertips grazing his skin like a lit fire, subtly enough not to scorch. His flesh tenses beneath your caress, muscles constricting as you navigate from right to left—a trajectory of dusty stars akin to the Milky Way, his skin soft to the touch, rippling beneath you with thinly veiled goosebumps.

“Yes,” he breathes out, his gaze wide, running furiously over your face. Yet, your attention lingers on his skin, shadows dancing across its surface, its honeyed hue a shade you wish to sear behind your eyelids. Your hands ascend and descend, mapping his body which blushes in response, as if his very being memorized your touch, imprinting your fingerprints onto its memory. You slide down his forearms, pausing over his fragile veins, seemingly offering you his life.

Silence envelops you, punctuated only by the weighty exhales escaping you both, for there are feelings that words cannot encapsulate, no matter how much human languages strive to, ultimately succumbing to the profundity of silence— the one language only souls comprehend.

Your hands ascend to his neck, thumb grazing the tender skin cradling his pulse. It resonates throughout your bones, echoing from his being to yours as if you’re harboring two lives within you.

“You… you could've kissed me over at the bridge,” you whisper, bringing to light the question that’s been lingering at the back of your mind. “Why didn't you?”

“I wanted you to kiss me because you wanted to. Not because you longed for our past or our future. I wanted you to want me in the present,” Minho explains, vulnerability seeping into his words, like honey melting into a warm cup of tea.

“I’m scared,” you admit, your voice a fragile murmur, even as your head leans forward, hair cascading around Minho’s face, enclosing him in an intimate curtain. Minho gently grabs your hand and cradles it against his cheek, pressing a tender kiss to the center of your palm.

“Right now. Do you want me?” he asks simply, offering himself openly to you.

Do you want him?

After a momentary pause, you tentatively lean in, planting a gentle kiss upon his forehead. A resonant exhale escapes him, as your lips trace a path along his cheeks, leaving behind a trail of tiny kisses. Moving to the tender skin beneath his eyes— as easily bruised as your emotions—you bestow soft pecks to it as if seeking forgiveness for every tear he shed in your name.

His eyes remained closed, his trust evident in the surrender of his being to you. The answer to your internal query is written all over his features— the hushed exhale escaping his body, the gentle rise and fall of his chest, the tranquility nestled between his eyebrows.

Yes. Yes, you do.

Your lips finally meet Minho’s in a delicate union, unmoving like rose petals folding onto one another. A surge of warmth emanates from the depths of your heart, coursing through your entire being like sunrays, submerging your soul in a tranquil white glow.

Leaning away ever so slightly, you press a tender kiss on his lower lip, enclosing it between your own. Your hand cradles his jaw, running gently through his damp strands. Your lips move against his slowly in a saccharine kiss, parting, only to meet again, in the same tenderness, perhaps a growing one as you become accustomed to the contours of his lips, to the languid moves of his mouth, following your rhythm. You were leading the dance, his lips mere puppets to your heart’s wishes. He didn't rush you, only allowed you to kiss him, whichever way you wanted.

A pause, a moment suspended in time, your hands trembling as they rest upon his cheeks, his palm hovering above your own, offering a comforting press. The gesture reassures you in your curiosity that won’t be satiated, urging you to seal your lips on his with a tentative fervor. The world outside dissolves into a distant murmur, the seconds blending into a timeless run, you slamming the door before your worries protesting at the entrance of your mind. Tomorrow, you’ll find the answers. Tonight, you are kissing Minho.

As you press a final, lingering kiss to his velvety mouth, visions of you at peace flood your being. You see yourself sinking into the warm pool of your aunt’s country club, you see yourself walking on the beach with sand molding to the contours of your feet, you see yourself laying on the grass while observing sunrays weaving through the trees. And then, amidst your most serene memories, the act of pressing your lips to Minho stands out, the warmth of his mouth against yours eclipsing all other sensations.

Leaning away, you rest your forehead on his shoulder, and Minho's hands cradle your hair.

"Which lip balm do you use,” you giggle against his bare skin, relishing in the sweet taste of his lips.

“Yours.”

Day 31.

Minho’s nose is buried in the crook of your neck, his arm draped across the expanse of your stomach. He sinks further into you, binding himself to your body, anchoring his hold on your being. You are warm, your skin is soft to the touch and Minho doesn’t want to wake up from this tender dream, akin to plummeting into a sea of silky pillows, falling into a blanket of clouds.

Except, he's awake, Minho realizes with a jolt. He blinks repeatedly, allowing the sunrays to stream to his eyes, his pupils dilating once they settle on you— so much their obsidian depths swallows the brown of his irises whole. You stir beneath his touch, making your cheek press upon the crown of his head. He's fully awake now, snatched from the velvet threads of his dreams made up of you, thrown into your arms once again after thirty-three days.

A soft gasp escapes Minho’s lips, the air stolen from his lungs as if it was yours to claim. Echoes of the night replay in his mind— a fever, you tending him to me, a cold cascade of water, you tracing his scar, and then, the kiss.

You kissed him. A long shiver runs down his spine at the memory, a subtle twitch that stirs you from slumber once again.

What does one kiss mean? The question dances wildly in Minho’s mind. More importantly, what do you want it to mean?

Minho whines softly, closing his eyes for a few seconds, relishing in the fragrance of your hair, in the serenity that floods his being each time he’s around you. This was his most restful slumber in weeks, because you were near, his mind recognizing you, relaxing underneath your touch, drifting to a mindless sleep.

Reluctantly, he untangles himself from you, a bittersweet departure from your arms. Work was calling his name.

He prayed you’d call his too soon.

….

You wake up to an empty bed, the only lingering trace of the night you spent being the tingling of your lips, as if aching to be kissed once again. You sigh, running a hand through your face. It was much easier to succumb to your heart’s wishes when it was late at night, when minho laid bare beneath your touch, so enticing in the gentlest of ways. When you were cradled by the moon’s soft glow, blanketed by the night’s cloak of darkness.

But it was light now, the sun was glaring as it streamed through the windows, exposing all the flawed ways of your mind.

What does one kiss mean?

Nothing, if it wasn’t minho who you had kissed. If it wasn’t as tender as the meeting of your lips.

The tomorrow you believed far quickly came, and you still beheld no answers. A few hours drifted by and you still knew nothing. What does this kiss mean? It's late afternoon and you’re strolling through the park nearby and you can't find an answer. The question rings in your mind as you sit by a bench, and you still don’t know.

“You seem preoccupied,” a voice quips up nearby and you startle. You hadn’t even noticed the man sitting by your side. His arms crossed before his chest, making impressive muscles constrict beneath the snug fabric of his black shirt, a cascade of fluffy black curls sat at the top of his head, a slight smirk etched on his lips.

“Pardon?”

“I said you seem preoccupied.”

“No i heard that,” you roll your eyes subtly, “do i know you?”

“No. You just look worried, that's all.”

“You really don’t know me?” you ask, a tad apprehensive, unsure if this was someone else your memory faulted you of.

“No? Are you a celebrity of some sorts?” he inquires, tone much more cheerful, angling his body towards you.

“No, i’m not,” you giggle, before quieting down, an exhausted sigh escaping your body. “Is it that obvious then?”

“Yeah. I’m afraid so,” he pouts sympathetically, tone almost desolate and you huff, burying your face in your hands.

“Do you need help with something?” he offers after a while, his concern evident in the frown of his brows. You are comforted by the anonymity of talking to a stranger, you were but a blank canvas to him. You wouldn't see him again, anyways.

“I feel lost. I can't seem to find the answers I'm looking for.”

“Maybe you’re just not asking the right questions.”

Oh.

The guy claps his hands suddenly, long before you could dwell on his words and their implications

“I actually have a question for you!”

“Ask away.”

“Do you want to go on a date with me?”

“No?” you chuckle, amusement dripping from your voice. “I don't know you?”

“That's the point of a date.”

“Are you this bored?” you smile, arching an eyebrow at him.

“I'm not bored. I just need to take my mind off things,” he shrugs, a slight smirk on his face. but you somehow see beyond it, right into the dull twinkle of his eyes. Maybe he also couldn’t find the answers he was looking for.

“So you're using me?” you fake outrage and he giggles, a high pitched sound that reverberates through the playground, making some kids nearby stare at you. You stifle a surprised laugh.

“I'm not using you if I tell you upfront why I asked you out.”

“You are right, but i decline your kind offer,” you say solemnly and he nods, shaking his head in defeat.

“Here is my card, in case you change your mind. Or need a little escape, call me,” he smiles, handing you a sleek black card before getting up and dusting his pants. “See you,” he says, as if he was sure you'd call him back. you stare in disbelief at his retreating figure, before glancing down at the card.

Mr. Seo Changbin, you read, CEO of Gold’s Gym— the largest gym branch in the country.

Oh wow.

The amused smile lingers on your lips as you gaze ahead, lost in thought, contemplating the words spoken by Changbin. Maybe he was right; perhaps you are afraid of asking the right questions. Sucking in a deep breath, you decide to take the longer route home, eventually finding yourself outside your favorite bakery; the one you discovered on one of your many walks with Minho.

You go to open its door when an unexpected tingling at the back of your neck freezes you in your tracks. Your heart tightens in your chest as you turn around slowly, greeted by the sharp eyes of two familiar faces—Lia and Mari, your coworkers from before your accident. A tentative smile graces your lips, but the alarms of warning in your mind intensify.

“Hey, yn!”

“Hey, guys,” you greet back, taking a step backwards from them.

“How have you been since… You know, your accident,” Lia pouts, but the question lacks sincerity, as if they were wearing masks before you, concealing their true intentions. You wonder which one they'll put on next.

“Good, i’ve been good,” you force a smile, as their eyes move up and down your body, judgment dripping from their gaze.

“We wanted to come see you but we didn’t know if you were still at your listed address. Since your boyfriend lives there.”

“Oh, um, yeah, I still live there.”

“But didn’t you forget about him?” Lia feigns ignorance and you feel anxiety picking at your skin like relentless protruding needles. You want to run.

“Lia that’s rude. I think he's her ex-boyfriend now," Mari chuckles, mockery palpable in her tone.

“Poor Minho, he must suffer a lot. Say hey to him from me,"Lia smiles, a chilling feline grin, her eyes narrowing down like a hawk peering at his prey.

“I will.”

“We’ll see you at work. If you’re still able to keep up with the tasks,” they leave, ugly laughs echoing after them, and an urge to throw up overtakes you, the scent of pastries furthering your nausea. You hasten your steps toward your building.

You’re almost safe, almost, keys trembling in your hand as you struggle to enter your apartment, when the door adjacent to you opens. Your neighbors smile at you, although it is a gesture tinged with pity. You painfully smile back before slamming the door.

Yeart hammering in your chest, you press your back against the door, hand clawing at your throat.

“Did you know she got into a car accident, and apparently she forgot her boyfriend?”

“Really? They were so cute though.”

“Yeah, it’s a shame.”

Their words suffocate you, stepping atop your lungs, syllables choking you from within. Is this what everything thought of you? Did they all pity you for the accident? For forgetting your lover? Did they see you as a burden, a parasite plaguing his life? Is this what Han and Chan saw when their eyes lingered on you? Is this what the librarian and florist whispered to each other each time you passed by?

You didn’t know these people and yet they had their minds set on you, fixated storylines you couldn’t change, no matter how much you tried to rewrite them.

Your thoughts spiral like the unloosened screws of a ticking clock. Minho, the unanswered questions, the expectations of others—everything converges in the base of your mind, making your ears ring cacophonically within your skull.

You slide down the door, fingers trembling as you take out your phone then Changbin’s card from your pocket. You dial his number with haste. You needed a breather, to talk to someone who knew nothing of you, of who you were, of who you could be.

“Hello?” his voice booms clearly through the phone.

“Changbin,” you breathe out. “Let's go on a date tomorrow.”

You were asleep when minho came back from work, your back turned towards him, soft exhales escaping your body. He didn't want to disturb you, so, he made sure to come earlier the next day, a strawberry and cream pastry in his hand that he knew you loved. Perhaps, you’d both talk about your kiss today, what it meant for you both.

But, he doesn’t find you home. The only indication that you had just left was the lingering scent of your perfume, tickling his nose as if to mock him. Poor minho— the gardenia and honey tones spelled out in the air; the one fragrance you strictly reserve for dates. The one you used to put for him.

It looked like you found your answer after all.

Day 33.

“Did I keep you waiting?”

“No, just in time,” you smile as Changbin pulls the chair in front of you, settling down with ease, a pang of confidence coloring his movements.

“How are you, today?”

“Better, i think,” you falter under his scrutinizing gaze, your facade cracking. “I don't know, it’s all complicated,” you sigh and he nods, signaling for the waiter to take your drinks order. Chai latte for you, hot chocolate for him.

“Spill, what’s preoccupying you?” he leans forward, arms crossed on the table.

“You don’t even know my name,” you giggle, looking around at the warm interior. Cozy, faint music playing in the background, taupe chairs and amber tables, the smell of cinnamon rolls wafting through the air. Minho would like it here.

“What's your name?”

“Yn.”

“Okay, Yn,” he emphasizes, a slight smirk on his face. “Spill.”

You shake your head as the waiter places down your drinks, wrapping your fingers around the heated cup, hoping the warmth would seep into your being through your palm lines.

“Did you want to become a therapist by any chance?” you muse, arching an eyebrow at him.

“No, it’s just fixing others' problems helps me forget my own,” he winks and you snort at his honesty. it was admirable, how frank he was to a complete stranger.

“Fine, it’s a long story, but basically…” you lick your lips, wondering what’s the best way to go on about this. “I got into a car accident and I lost my memory of the past year and so.”

Changbin winces at your words and you sigh. “Yeah. Except I was in a relationship before…”

“And you totally forgot about it?”

“I did. It hurt him a lot.”

Changbin nods in understanding, taking a sip of his drink. He places his chin on his palm, carefully eyeing you.

“But how does that make you feel?”

“Me?”

“Yes, you. You're the one who lost your memories after all.”

“I feel guilty for forgetting such a relationship.”

“Why is that?”

“Because everyday i can see why I fell in love with him.”

“And you don't love him now?”

“No,” you quickly say before pausing, shoulders dropping under the weight of your questioning. “I don't know. It's complicated.”

Changbin absentmindedly tugs at the charms of his bracelet, gaze flicking down to his wrist for a couple seconds, before locking on yours intently.

“Describe him to me in one sentence.”

“You sound like my annoying French teacher,” you roll your eyes and he huffs, not offended in the least. “Look, I just want to know my competition.”

“Do you have a retort for everything?”

“What can I say? I'm witty and all that,” he shrugs confidently and you giggle before quieting down, muling over his question. “In a sentence…” you muse, fingers drumming along your cup. You don't even realize that a fond smile has unfolded on your lips, but Changbin does.

“He's the light rain that falls during spring, that makes the flower bloom and the smell of earth waft through the air. He brings things back to life, in a way.”

Changbin smiles softly, tilting his head to the side. “Can you really not see it, or are you hiding the truth because you're scared?”

“What do you mean?”

“Yn, he brought you back to life.”

“I… no.” you pause, voice faltering. “Did he?”

You see Minho pushing you on a wheelchair to your home. Minho protecting you from your mind. Minho washing your hair. Minho making you tea. Minho baring his soul to you. Minho helping you cook. Minho bringing the sea to you. Minho holding your hand. Minho comforting you before comforting himself. Minho forgiving you so you'd forgive yourself. Minho devastating himself so you'd piece your heart together. Minho, minho, minho.

“Fuck, he did,” you whisper in realization, as a grand feeling swells in your heart suddenly, pushing your heart against the confines of your ribs. Flowers bloom into your entire body, petals melding into the coursing blood in your veins, butterflies fluttering their delicate wings across your chest, an effulgent light flooding in like the sun was spilled inside your very core.

“Aren’t I so smart,” Changbin grins, satisfied at the awestruck expression on your face.

“What should I do?” you ask anxiously, gripping the edges of the table.

“Go talk to him. Don't waste any more time.”

“You are right, oh my god,” you grab your purse, standing up abruptly. “I have to go, I…”

“It's okay, don't worry about me, I'm always the side chick,” he sighs in faux sadness and you giggle, swatting his shoulder.

“Thank you so much. I'll repay you for this, I promise!” you start walking before stopping and turning around.

“Oh and Changbin?”

“Yes?”

“You know what to do too. They made you that bracelet right? You haven't taken your eyes off of it.”

“Shut up,” he grumbles, “those are my lines.”

“They are mine now too,” Laughter dances from your lips as you flee the café, taking off running to your home. It was near, merely a five-minute walk, nestled beside the playground where you encountered Changbin. Yet, urgency propels your steps, a fervent need to reach Minho swiftly. You had wasted thirty-three days, three million seconds that could’ve been spent with Minho. You don’t know how many more breaths the universe might extend, what if the stars tire of your reluctance and blow the winds of his love to another soul? You couldn’t stomach it.

You climb up the stairs, chest heaving, breaths escaping your being in an erratic rhythm. you didn't even know what to say, your words remained unscripted, unsure of what confessions will spill forth when your eyes will meet Minho's. Yet, you're not worried. You know that whatever surfaces would be surging from your heart.

What you don’t anticipate is for an uncharacteristic silence to find you at home, the scent of your perfume faintly wafting into the air. Minho sat in the living room, a bag by his side, his head downcast. The cats watching you from the corner of the room.

A desert- dry sensation clings to your mouth, your tongue heavy as if crafted from lead. Your once vibrant excitement extinguishes, much like a match blown out, leaving only a lingering stench behind.

“Minho?”

“Yn,” he responds, eyes actively avoiding yours. “I was waiting for you. I... I'll be gone for a few days, a week at most.”

“What? Where to?”

“I already told my parents to come pick up the cats so you don't have to worry about feeding them. The fridge is stacked, so you-” his voice falters, “so don't worry about that either.”

“Minho... what-what are you saying?”

“I need time away, alone. I'm sorry, I tried, I tried so hard, Yn, but there is only so much I can take,” he whispers, and your heart shatters, tiny million pieces blown away by the wind.

“Minho, look at me,” you crouch before him, your hands resting on his knees. He still avoids your gaze.

“Minho, please,” you plead, and his eyes finally lock on yours. They glisten with tears, reflecting light akin to a celestial mirror.

“My heart hurts so much, but it's not your fault. Loving me once doesn't mean you'll love me again, and it's okay if you want to see other people. I just... I need to go somewhere, for a little. I need to make room for the pain because it's overwhelming me,” he confesses, his words eating at your insides. Was it too late? Have you lost him?

Minho gently takes away your hands before standing up. Fear overwhelms you as you watch his shoulders drop, his eyes glazing over the walls one last time. He will come back, but not here, not to you. He's bidding goodbye to the home and you because you killed his hope. He would leave everything behind but echoes of him that you'd be sentenced to hear alone, every day, every night.

“Minho,” you seize his wrist, “Minho, don't go.”

"Why?" he asks in the smallest voice you've heard from him. He's like a river cut off by a dam, yearning to run back home, to flow the way it used to, back to you. His heart rings loudly in his ears, pain overwhelming him, yet your touch calms him down. You are the knife and the medicine, the scorch and the cooling balm; you are everything at once.

“I'll make room in your heart, I'll take out all the bad weeds and start again. Just don't go.”

“What do you mean?” He's breathless, hope inflating in his heart, clouds parting to reveal the sun.

“I know things won't go back to the way they used to. I don't think I'll ever remember everything, but I want you to tell me,” there is a lump growing in your throat, but you push it away. Your voice breaks and cracks, yet you still speak. You need him to know.

“I want you to take me to all the places we've visited and then tell me how we fell in love in them. I want you to show me how I loved you,” your hand trails down his hand, intertwining your fingers with his, pulling him closer. “I want to learn you, what you like, what you hate, what makes you angry and what makes your heart flutter.”

“And I want to love you, not because you love me, but because my heart chose you," your hand travels up his arm, settling right down at his cheek. Your thumb swipes across his tender skin. “I choose you over and over again. It's you, Minho, it's always been you.”

“You want me again?” he says tentatively, eyes wide, pouring onto yours—your galaxy to love, to admire, to peer into for the rest of your life.

“I want you. Please don't go.”

“Swear it, please.”

Instead of ephemeral words, you softly press your lips to his, as you did last night. “I swear,” you whisper against his mouth. “I'm falling in love with you,” you peck his lips, hand snaking up against his neck, moving his mouth closer to yours. “Not falling,” you say, pressing your forehead to his, nuzzling his nose against your own. “I'm coming back. I'm coming home.”

“You came back to me,” he whispers, voice hoarse.

“I'll always do,” you promise, a grin overtaking your mouth. “Can you kiss me, Minho?”

Minho blinks in amazement, his eyes darting all over your face, each blink resembling the capture of an image. He's stitching this moment into his mind, the hue of your cheeks and the gleam in your eyes. He missed the way you're looking at him, the slight shiver running through you as he brushes his lips against your own, slowly savoring the feel of you so near. His hands find your jaw, cradling it softly, and then he kisses you, just like how he dreamed of doing for the past month.

The kiss is dizzying, far different from your previous one. You’re no longer grasping at elusive cigarette smoke, fleeting through the gaps between your fingers. You are no longer awaiting a beacon of remembrance to shine upon your mind. You have minho, and he's delicately nibbling your lower lip, eliciting a soft gasp from you. His tongue glides across the tingling expanse, soothing down the pang of hurt, asking you for more. You willingly give it to him in a fervent, whirlwind kiss, his hands finding solace in the curve of your waist, while yours become poets, weaving tales in his hair, tugging at his strands the way you've always yearned to.

It is muscle memory, to press your body against his, to gasp into his mouth, to match the rhythm of his tongue, the way it circles tantalizingly around yours, the way you groan against his mouth, as he briefly parts from you, his giggle a sweet prelude to meeting your lips once again with increased fervor. His tongue weaves words against the roof of your mouth— I missed you, I want you, I love you.

Minho snakes his hand around your lower back, guiding you back until his legs find the couch. He eases you down, fingers hooked through the loop of your jeans. You kiss him again, a cadence as natural as breathing. Time unravels, rewinding to mend the fractures in his heart, erasing thirty-three days of heartbreak in mere seconds. You kiss him, again and again, thirty three days of longing exploding in your touch.

“Are you crying?” you whisper against his lips, your thumbs delicately swiping across his damp cheeks. Unaware of his flowing tears, he closes his eyes, embarrassment coursing through him. “I'm here,” you reassure, peppering his face with kisses – from his ear to his nose, cheeks to the corner of his mouth. “I'm here, honey. I want you.”

“Only me?” he questions, tone fragile.

“Only you,” you kiss him again, tenderly, inhaling life through his lips. “Let me show you how much, hm?”

Your lips trace a path down his neck as you draw his shirt over his head. An ivory canvas, he is meant for you to mark, to touch however you desire. Your lips graze the scar on his stomach, kissing it in the way you've ached to do since two nights before.

You're sinking to your knees before him and yet you’re the one in control, rippling shivers all over his skin. He’s impatient, needing you close, so he quickly pulls you up, before hovering over you, his hands drawing everywhere, running wild across your body. He missed the plush feel of your skin, the contours of your body that he yearned to explore once again. He's a prisoner deprived of the light for so long, sinking into the sun once again.

Minho's eyes never leave yours, as he touches you, moves in you in ways your soul seems to remember. He's gentle, removing strands of your hair out of your eyes, smoothing down the side of your head. All encompassing, drinking in your moans and groans, burning you up and soothing you all at once. “Good?” he asks, again and again, waiting to hear your affirmation before picking up speed again. Your answer is yes each time he asks, as he seals the void in you, the one he's been carefully stitching up for the past weeks. You store his glazed eyes and scrunched eyebrows in the gallery of your mind, you make room for new memories with Minho.

You're overwhelming him, in the most beautiful ways, contradicting feelings coursing through him like a rain flood. He's aching yet relieved to have you beneath him, lost in waves of pleasure so he grabs your hand to anchor himself, entwining his fingers with yours, before bringing it to his mouth, placing a tender smile on your palm. You beam at him, trust reflecting in your eyes as you bare your being to him. It is a rare fortune to be chosen by you not once, but twice, he can't believe how lucky he is to have you as his guiding star.

Your eyes never leave Minho’s, a shimmering pool mirroring your emotions. You see everything you feel in him—your better reflection. You had missed him, you were home now. “Miss you,” he whispers as he buries his face in your neck, seemingly hearing your thoughts. “Missed you so much,” he mumbles as your hands tangle in his hair, tears descending gently upon your cheeks, as they are on his. “Please don't leave me again.”

“I won't- I won't,” you promise, as light floods your vision, reaching the pinnacle of your pleasure. Colors burst before your eyes in a kaleidoscope, resembling shades of Minho— the warm brown of his eyes, the honeyed hue of his skin, the pink tint of his ears whenever he's embarrassed, the red of his lips, swollen as they kiss you. Tonight and tomorrow and every day after this one.

Day 1.

In the hushed aftermath, your head rests upon Minho’s bare chest, listening to the quiet rhythm of his heartbeat, calming down as the seconds trickle by. His arm curls around your body protectively, keeping you from slipping off the couch. Your knuckles trail up and down his shoulders, soothing the places where you had scratched too hard. His hand seeks yours, delivering a kiss as tender as the silence enveloping you—quiet and secure. The forgotten past doesn't matter; you will rewrite your story once more.

“Do you think our designated stars are sad somewhere far away?”

“Why would they be?”

“I don't know. Don't you think it's bittersweet how they missed out on so many days of loving one another?”

“I don't know, did they?” he muses, planting a tender kiss on your shoulder. “I think mine loved you all the same.”

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