Stay happy, kid.
An old coworker emailed me out of the blue today. “Like oldie and moldy people, I was thinking of the past,” he said. Was grateful for what he had, and hoped I was doing well.
I sent him a note back, excited to hear from him (a lot of good people lost in recent layoffs, I thought he might not have made it. He was old blood back when I was still young blood) and did a little reminiscing about old times even though we didn’t have many of them. Told him I was good.
He was surprised I replied. Happy, but surprised. Gave me some good advice about keeping in touch and maintaining bridges (I always try), and he signed off with mentioning how brighthearted I always was and said “Stay happy, kid.”
I very unexpectedly burst into tears at that. It took a long time for me to get to happy. I was faking it when we worked together but I’m here for real now--thanks to the kindness of people like him--and I’ll fight like hell to stay.
Something about brief connections, little kindnesses, reaching out, rooting for someone long after you’ve seen them maybe for the last time.
Stay happy, kid.
Stay happy, kid.
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✎. he tells you they’re the problem and leaves it at that before sliding a plate of eggs and toast in front of you.
tags. fem!reader, mild dubcon, possessive and obsessive behavior, but he's also kinda sweet?? [18+ only]
You like your new roommate.
Simon’s surprisingly better to have around than the last person who lived with you—a girl you knew from college who had an affinity for stealing your clothes and conveniently never had money for rent. He’s the type to make you soup when you’re sick, acknowledge you if you’re in the same room, water your flowers while he rolls his cigarettes on the fire escape, and carry your groceries up the four flights of stairs to your floor.
He’s attractive, too, in the not-so-conventional sense, but in a disarming way, all small smiles and knowing looks and soft hair you know he doesn’t put much effort into—that sometimes curls around his ears when he lets it get too long—yet it still manages to look better than yours on the best days.
He never tells you what he does for work, and you’re too polite to ask. But you have a feeling he makes enough to afford a place on the less crime-infested side of town—somewhere nicer than your cramped apartment with its outdated appliances, leaky faucets, and the bright neon sign atop the building across the street that shines through your windows all times of the day—but he says he’s not ready to live alone.
Something tells you there’s more to it than him being a lonely bachelor, but again, you don’t pry.
“Does this place have wi-fi?” is all he’d said the first time you meet, in a voice so smooth and only slightly broken up by his accent, clad in a shirt that looked two sizes too small around his arms and clutching a duffle bag in one big hand.
Your brain was this shaken-up box of words and syllables that when you answered him, it came out in a nervous stutter. “Y-yeah, I’ll, er…I’ll give it to you—the password, I mean—once you've moved in. If that’s okay.”
He’d dropped his duffle bag in front of the room that would be his. “Consider me moved in.”
The smile he gave you, crinkling eyes and chuckling lightly, only made the stutter worse.
You let his charm roll off you; you always figured it came naturally to him, a characteristic that comes with being attractive and good.
A handful of months later—of finding a routine around each other and lazy smiles in the morning—something changes the night you go out with a guy Mary from work eagerly sets you up with.
His name’s Robb, he’s a doctor, and you both love cats; he has a house in Spain. Did I mention he's my cousin?
(A dull no way concealed behind your teeth.
If you hadn’t said yes, you feared your entire lunch break would consist of her waxing poetic over a man you're unsure about meeting.)
For a flicker of a moment, there’s an unreadable expression on Simon’s face as he watches you touch up your makeup in the hallway mirror and slip your hand into the crook of your date’s elbow at the door. There’s a slight glint of something uncharacteristically cold behind the mask of indifference before a small smile replaces it.
“Have a nice night,” you throw over your shoulder, except you don’t notice that he never says it back.
You mope around the apartment when Robb—who surprisingly exceeded your expectations of mediocre dates, not that you ever plan on admitting that to Mary—doesn’t reach out to you for three days. Then a week. You’re at that age to understand when people get busy, and a nice night doesn’t always mean it’s mutually reciprocated. But you liked him, and it felt promising after he’d kissed you goodnight against your front door.
It had to have been the kiss that turned him off. Maybe he realized it was too much too soon.
When Simon finds you curled up in a ball under your comforter, one thumb gently wiping away your tears, he doesn’t even bring up your date. Instead, he orders your favorite take-out and puts on a sitcom you’d mentioned to him once—somewhat surprised that he remembers—the dreamy doctor who’d ghosted you blissfully forgotten with greasy food and a warm, comforting chest to rest your head on.
Simon’s there again—sweets in hand and a soft voice to soothe you—when another date (Rin from finance on your floor) a month later is a no-show, and a few weeks after that when Rin tells you without context that he can’t see you anymore.
The third time of let downs feels worse. It’s worse because maybe there’s something wrong with you, and when you ask Simon, he’s too nice to rub salt in your wounds. He tells you they’re the problem and leaves it at that before sliding a plate of eggs and toast in front of you.
You've been Simon's roommate for a year, and he doesn't take it well when you tell him you're looking for a new place.
It’s after he comes home from a three-month work trip. The shadow that crosses over his face should’ve been your first hint that something is wrong.
Had you noticed the signs sooner, you wonder if you’d be less like prey caught by the softness of your underbelly, kept in place by the scruff, and sharp teeth at your neck.
"Beg me. Beg me not to cum in you."
"S-Simon," you whimper wetly, "don't cum in—ah—me."
His fingers hold your chin with an unyielding grip, ensuring your gaze doesn’t stray from his in the cracked mirror. You’re embarrassed by what you see, how spread open you are to his dark, inkwell eyes hungrily watching as you twitch when his other hand slides between your thighs.
"Don’t stop begging, love,” he growls, squeezing you tighter, “or I might forget."
There’s that dark look again, the one that sends a shivery feeling up your spine, possessive almost with how he traces every inch of you as if burning the image of you into his memory, the softness washed away by something more sinister.
A little voice in the back of your head tells you to flee, but another knows he'd find joy in catching you.
No one would ever think your sweet, attractive roommate would be the same man staring at you now—everything you thought you knew about him stripped away to reveal a new canvas, bare for splashes of paint to fill in the cracks—teeth marks imprinted along the curve of your jaw, on the inside of your thighs.
He hides it well. His humble personality doing the trick of being the impenetrable mask for what he’s concealing underneath: a raw obsession, an addict finally getting his hands on his favorite drug, someone who can’t recognize defeat and knows how to take.
“What do they have that I don’t? Hm? Must be a desperate little thing. My pretty slut,” Simon’s voice rumbles low against your ear, shy of unhinged. “They won’t treat you as good as I do. Don’t I treat you good?”
You whimper when his grip grows tighter, but he doesn’t seem to notice—like he’s not fully here with you. No trace of the soft, gentle man who keeps the freezer full of your favorite ice cream, who runs to the store when you run out of tampons and comes back with chocolate and a new pair of fuzzy socks. A few words have turned him into someone you don’t know. Perhaps you never did.
“Answer me.”
An indiscernible squeak is the only sound you make.
He chuckles darkly, his head dipping down to rest his lips against the fluttering pulse in your neck, a finger slipping through the alarming amount of wetness between your thighs where his cock rends you down the middle, and begins rubbing firm, tight circles over your clit, pulling a moan from your throat.
“It’s okay, love,” he mumbles, words barely audible above your heartbeat swimming in your ears. “I’ll be everything for you. Everything you need. I’ll show you why I’m better.”
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