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celestie0 · 9 months ago

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gojo satoru x reader | fake marriage au [18+]

in holy matriphony ch.4 in a mother’s eyes

ᰔ pairing. fake marriage au - neighbor&realtor!gojo x nurse!reader (ft. choso x reader & suguru x reader)

ᰔ summary. gojo satoru is your extremely annoying next-door-neighbor who you're pretty sure is the most insufferable man you've ever met. given the fact that you exclusively work the night shift at a chaotic emergency dept, just got broken up with your boyfriend of seven years, and have been taking care of your sick mother ever since her multitude of diagnoses, yet somehow your neighbor is the main source of stress in your life should speak volumes. but when your mother's medical bills start to skyrocket to more than you can manage, and you learn that said neighbor of yours has the best private health insurance plan in the country, you ask him to enter a matrimonial agreement with you for the spousal benefits all in the name of saving a few hundred thousand dollars. but you'll have to see if suffering cohabitation w him is worth any amount of money.

ᰔ genre/tags. fluff, smut, angst, enemies to lovers (sort of), annoyances to lovers (that's more like it), small town romance, fake marriage, next door neighbors, lots of bickering, suburban shenanigans, slow burn, mutual pining, gojo likes to play house but you don't, hatred for the american healthcare system, gojo always forgets to mow the lawn, jealousy, an insane amount of profanity, mentions of cigarettes, depression/anxiety; btw gojo in this fic is in his mid 30s n reader is in her late 20s

ᰔ warnings. reader in this fic has a sick mother w alzheimer's & cancer so there is secondary medical angst!!

ᰔ chapter. 4/x

ᰔ words. 10k (omg a whole number...very sexy)

a/n. hellooo my ihm friends! hope you're all doing well. ahh i'm glad to finally be posting this chapter lolol. it's a littleee off tangent from what happens in ch3, but still has some important plot developments. it does dive into feelings of depression & anxiety, so just wanted to give a warning on that! but yea other than that i hope you enjoy and see you at the bottom!! :) also so sorry if there are errors i only had time to skim through it once :((

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“Just go ahead and sign right here for me.”

You take the pen from the hospice nurse’s hand. It’s cheap black plastic with a pink fuzzy pom pom attached to the end of it with peeling glue.

Your eyes briefly flit across the paragraphs detailed in printed ink until your gaze lands on the highlighted lines at the bottom of the page. Your signature. Spouse’s signature.

“We’ll need to have your husband come here to sign the paperwork as well, since he’ll have to add your mother on his list of dependents, but we can certainly get started on expediting this process for you since the insurance has already been pre-approved,” the nurse tells you as she accepts your signed paperwork and then neatly tucks it into one of the compartment holders.

The afternoon goes by smoothly, with your mother surprisingly patient as she sits in the waiting room while you wait for the nurses to formally show you to her new room.

You thought that you could put off putting her in hospice for a little longer, because in all honesty, you weren’t prepared to let her go just yet. You weren’t prepared to not have her in the house anymore. But lately, she’s been putting herself in lots of danger, like attempting to take her own medications when she does not know the correct dosing, and forgetting things on the stove when she attempts to cook.

But the last straw was when you came home from a very brief run to the grocery store at night a couple days ago to see a handful of your neighbors out on the front lawn with your mother at their side. She had apparently gotten out of the house and walked down the neighborhood, then fallen on the sidewalk but was unable to get up. When your neighbors had found her, a miracle as they were just coming home from dinner and caught sight of her in the illumination of their headlights, they tried to help her get up but she couldn’t. She couldn’t even tell the firefighters that came by to help her what her name was, or what year it was, or where she lived.

It was when you realized you couldn’t even keep her safe anymore that you had to let go.

“Is that a wedding ring?” your mother asks, pointing a trembling finger to it as she lays tucked inside her new hospice bed, “are you married?”

You glance down at the ring Gojo gave you in the courthouse, almost surprised to find that you were still wearing it in good faith. “Yes, mom. I am.”

“Why am I here?” she asks you, “I don’t want to be here.”

You stiffen a little. Although you were mentally preparing yourself to answer these questions, the preparation didn’t make it any easier. “I know. I’m sorry. It’s just for a little short while, okay? The doctors want to run some tests on you.”

“Who are you married to?” she asks.

“To Satoru,” you tell her, “our neighbor.”

She lets out a small gasp. “The sweet boy who fixed our A/C?”

You roll your eyes. not sure why your mother has hyper fixated on that memory with Gojo when most days she’ll look at you like you’re a stranger. “Yes mom.”

“Oh, I like him,” she tells you with an affectionate nod. She hesitates slightly, wearisome of some other thought that flashes through her mind. “How long have you been married?”

You let out a small sigh. This is already a conversation you had with her a couple days ago, and it doesn’t feel good to lie to her. It was hard enough to do once, but to have to constantly lie to her over and over again over all the smallest things just so that she stays calm and safe and happy seems to drain you of all your energy and happiness you had left in your bones.

Little white lies, that’s what they are. Harmless ones. That’s what you tell yourself to absolve yourself of the guilt.

“I’ll come back soon, okay? I’ll tell you more about him some other day,” you say to her, speaking gently in the way an adult would speak to a child. The way she used to speak to you. You could never exactly pinpoint when those roles became reversed.

You finish discussing some more insurance matters with the front-desk nurse as she puts together a small folder of documents for you. While she works, you glance at the little counter shelf that includes a plethora of pamphlets on how to deal with the complicated feelings that arise from putting a loved one in hospice care, and dealing with the emotions of having a relative with advanced stage dementia. They are pretty brochures, lovingly creased at the folds as if looked through multiple times by people who walk in and out of this facility, but seemingly only few take them home. You slip one of each into your folder when the nurse hands it to you, manage the best smile possible, and then turn on your heel to head out the hospice doors.

The sun is setting outside as you take the walk back to your car, which was purposefully parked a half mile away to afford you the luxury of a melancholic stroll. Somehow, you feel like you’ve left a piece of yourself back at the hospice. A feeling you can’t quite shake from your bones.

Your feet stop walking somewhere along the sidewalk on their own, the street lights above you flickering brighter into life as the sky is now a dusty gray with only streaks of purple. There’s a liquor store you spot across a small parking lot to your right, and you’re guided towards it, but not without a sickening feeling in your chest.

When you open the door, the bell at the top jingles, and you glance to the right where you see a lanky young man playing some sort of shooter game on his phone by the cash register. You grab a bottle of vodka, a bottle of white wine, some packs of skittles, one of the mini pizza boxes at the hot food station, and then dump it all onto the counter.

The young man scans all your items without even so much as sparing you a glance, but does take a look at your ID, then says, “Total’s $68.65, cash or card?”

“Card.”

Just before you tap your card, something displayed behind the cashier counter catches your eye. Something familiar, something tempting, something you weigh in your head about twenty times within one millisecond all due to the cortisol coursing through your veins and you eventually say, “Uh, and could I get one of those, too?”

The cashier looks behind himself to what you’re pointing at before turning around. “Sure.”

The same jingle is heard on top of your head as you leave the store, now with a burning hot mini pizza box in your hand as well as a plastic bag that carries your candy and the two clinking bottles of alcohol.

“Oh!! omg, y/n,” you hear a feminine voice call out and you’re instantly wincing. The last thing you wanted was to be bothered right now. You just wanted to go home and get drunk and then pass out on the floor of your living room. But alas, the world is small.

You turn around to see Hana come running across the sidewalk lot towards you, and when she’s about a few feet away, she glances down at your hands and all the things you were carrying. You quickly shove your last-minute purchase into your jacket pocket with a shameful conscience, and try to hide the plastic bag of liquor behind your calves. There was no hiding the pizza box, but at least that was the least incriminating.

“Oh, Hana, wow! What a coincidence seeing you here,” you say to her, pressing your lips into a small smile.

“Yeah, I um,” she points over her shoulder towards the hospice that’s standing tall in the darkness of night, cells with windows illuminated with light. If you didn’t know any better, you would think it was a prison. “Remember I told you my friend’s mom is sick and she’s at this hospice?”

“Yeah,” you say.

“I was just visiting her mom with her,” she tells you.

“Aw,” you comment, “I see, I see.”

You adore Hana, you really do. She was there for you when the whole Yuna and Choso thing went down, picking your shifts up for a good week when you couldn’t stomach going into work when your ex-best friend’s stupid face was gloating in the halls over how she stole your boyfriend. Hana was there for you when you were a new hire and all the doctors were being bitchy about a “newbie in the ED”, but she stood up for you, even cussed the fuck out of one of attendings for the whole hall to hear when you were being disrespected by one of them. She’s someone you can beam about how hot the EMT and Firefighter men that stroll into the ED are, too. A priceless companion.

And even though you two have hung out after hours sometimes, it was still always a little awkward to see a coworker outside of work.

“What are you doing here?” she asks.

“I actually, um, was going to tell you at our shift tomorrow, but I just admitted my mom to the hospice too,” you say, “and…thanks a lot for telling me about it. I really appreciate it. It seems like a wonderful facility.”

Her eyes briefly widen with surprise before they soften once again. “Oh, that’s wonderful, love. I hope all goes well. And your little insurance scam worked! Good for you!”

“Shhh,” you hiss at her, looking around yourself with paranoia, “the feds are everywhere.”

She laughs, sweet in the air, before the sound settles and she looks at you with something reminiscent of well-intentioned concern. Her eyes flit to the plastic bag you were still holding behind your legs. “Hey…um, if…if you ever want some company when you come to visit your mom, just let me know. I hope you know you don’t have to do everything alone.”

You blink at her, sucking in a short breath to respond, but it only leaves you as a slight puff of air. There’s a silent gratitude that you give her, because it’s hard for you to express any feelings with words, but you’ve found that the people in your life who know you best can always read you without them.

“Thank you, Hana,” you manage to say with a slight croak to your voice because you were fighting back tears.

She smiles at you. “Take care, okay? And see ya tomorroooowwwwww,” she coos at you, coming up to you to give you a small hug, a squeeze of your upper arm, and then she heads back towards the direction of the hospice.

You watch her walk away until you can’t see her anymore. And then you head towards your car.

When you arrive at your neighborhood, you park in front of Gojo’s house. You have a feeling that you won’t be able to bear the vast emptiness of your home now that your mother is elsewhere, and so you drag your feet up the stone stairs of his house with a heavy heart instead.

The spare key that he gave you weakly pushes into the keyhole with about as much force as your fingers can manage, and you realize they almost feel atrophied.

The house is dark when you step inside, spare for the ambient street lights shining through cracked open blinds on the windows, and the curtains rustle gently from the draft of the AC, a chill that reaches you too by the time you make it to the staircase.

It doesn’t seem like Gojo’s home. A glance at the clock tells you it’s close to 8pm. You briefly consider texting him to ask where he’s at, why he’s out so late, when he’ll be home, and what’s for dinner, but you can’t even bring yourself to pull your phone out of your coat pocket.

Weak legs manage to take you upstairs and you’re about to pass through to your room when the slightly open door to the master bedroom taunts you, like a peephole into some other wordly dimension. Like the wardrobe in the chronicles of Narnia. A portal into your fake husband’s life.

With a palm pushing on the door, you slowly crack it open, and you know the anxious voices in your head are getting worse by the day when the creaking of the door hinges sounds like a lullaby to you.

Was this an invasion of privacy? And did you really care if it was?

The room is big, with a king sized bed off to the left, sheets neatly made and duvet primly tucked under, like the way hotel beds are set up. You feel a slight flush of embarrassment when you remember you haven’t been making your bed in the mornings for the past couple days you’ve been living here so far, and you wonder if Gojo would judge you for something like that. If he’d think you were a messy or undisciplined person. If he would think less of you.

Truthfully, in a lot of ways, you still felt like a child. You barely weathered a lot of your formative adolescent years when dealing with your parents’ divorce, and you’ve had to put so much of your life on pause to take care of your mom ever since she got diagnosed. So here you were, in the body of a 29-year-old woman, yet still feeling so painfully juvenile. One that forgets to make her bed in the mornings, and on most nights can’t seem to stomach anything other than cereal for dinner. It was like you were still at a party that everyone else had left, except all it ever was is hell. Your life was such a stark contrast to the lives of other adults you’ve come across. The ones that wake up at six to go on runs, the ones that have paid off mortgages with five figures in their retirement accounts, oh god, the ones that meal prep, and the ones that, all things considered, have their lives together. The ones that don’t spend at least an hour of every day, in fetal position on their bed, sobbing until tears soak through the sheets of the pillow down to the feathers like bone, because you’re so overwhelmed with stress and preparing yourself for the grief of losing your mother which you know that, no matter how hard you try to save her from, will inevitably one day come.

You used to cook dinner every night, make your bed every morning, and go to pilates on the weekends. Back when you were a little younger and healed and excited to live life. But now, you barely get by. Your priorities are with your mother. You can’t remember the last time you did anything nice for yourself, including something as simple as the luxury of getting to come home to a clean house because you hardly ever had time to clean it, not with all the doctor’s appointments you were driving your mother to, not with all the extra shifts you were picking up at the hospital to pay off your debt, not with all the times you felt too depressed to even get out of bed.

But your mother is in hospice now, so you’ve made time, right? You’ve made the decision that everyone in your life has been begging you to finally do. So why do you still feel so empty inside?

By a quick survey of the room, you notice Gojo doesn’t really have many framed photos hung up on the walls or perched up on surfaces. None, actually. Only a contemporary painting above his bed frame and then a faded vintage horror movie poster plastered up near his desk. Not terribly odd, since in your experience most men don’t really do the whole “cluttering the house with millions of photos of their family” thing until they at least have a couple of kids and some purebred dog. The thought of Gojo someday setting up a little portrait photo at his desk with his wife’s—his eventual real forever wife’s, pretty face in it, posing with their two beautiful kids, makes an oddly melancholic feeling waft through you. You wonder if he would keep a two-by-two in his wallet, too.

Your feet move one in front of the other as your finger traces the surface wood of a dresser cabinet, something that looks a little vintage and oaky, in stark contrast to the modern minimalist vibe Gojo has set up in the rest of the room. A family heirloom, maybe? There’s no dust that coats your finger, which surprises you. If you were to run your finger across your dresser at home you’d have collected enough dust to snort down your windpipes like a recreational drug. But Gojo’s a real estate agent, making a living off of dressing houses up in perfect cosplay so that monetarily stable middle class families feel inclined to buy them. So you’re not exactly surprised he’s invested in keeping his own house in pristine condition too.

There is a little bit of chaos, though. Like the shirt he has haphazardly hung over his chair at his office space over to the right. There’s a coffee mug sitting there too, porcelain and reflecting the moon light off, but upon peering inside you see that it’s half empty with stale coffee. He’s got pens sprawled across the desk, in a fashion that suggests he accidentally knocked them over in a rush, and slowly, like some grounding exercise, you place them one by one back into the paper mache pencil holder. It briefly occurs to you that he has a lot of paper mache containers of sorts around the house. You lift up the pencil cup, turning it in your hand until your eyes catch something written on it with glittery pink gel pen.

i luv u unkle toru! -yur BEST FREND 4EVUR juno!!! :D

A small smile makes it onto your face. The handwriting was messy, more like scratches than smooth lines, and nothing less than what you would expect of a child. You remember making paper mache and clay trinkets at preschool for your mom and dad when you were younger. And you’re sure if you were brave enough to open the box of memorabilia that sits in your attic some day, you’d see your own scratchy scribbled handwriting on them. An innocence that is long gone and buried, never again to be delicately placed on desks or counters for all the living.

The draft from the AC reaches you once again, brushing over your skin and causing a chill to shiver down your spine. It kicks at the curtains as well, causing them to ruffle up towards you, baring the dark outside world into the streets. And you notice in that momentary glance that there’s a roof just outside the window that overlooks the backyard. A roof? Spotted by a depressed woman going through a quarter life crisis? There was nothing more tempting than that.

The window was easy to open, which only caused unease over the revelation of how easy it would be for someone to rob this house. You make a mental note to tell Gojo to get a ring camera or security system of some sort since he doesn’t seem to have one, but you can already picture him telling you something about how statistically low the crime rates are in this neighborhood compared to all the other neighborhoods, and then you’d tell him that it’s just for your peace of mind. But whether he’d compromise or not after that, you’re really not sure.

You take a seat on the roof, a little scared as you sit because of the slight slope, but it’s comfortable once you’re settled. You sit criss-cross-apple-sauce, staring out into the neighborhood of perfectly lined up suburban houses. You’ve got a better view into some neighbors' backyards, noticing that a couple of them had pools while some of them have big gardens. There's a cat resting up on a fence in the distance. A car drives by with headlights illuminating everything in its proximity briefly before zooming off. You glance up at the sky, and notice the full moon, but it’s too cloudy to see any stars. Or perhaps it was just the light pollution from the lamps making it difficult to see.

On instinct, your hand reaches inside your coat pocket for your phone, but your knuckles hit something else instead. A moment of brief confusion flickers through your head, but then you immediately recall the last-minute purchase you made at the gas station.

Your hand pulls out the object, and then you stare down at it. Squinting your eyes a little, because it’s a sight that feels familiar but also one you haven’t seen in so long: a pack of twenty Marlboro red cigarettes.

You’ve tried a lot of things to manage your stress over the years. Excessively working out, eating a lot of sugar, going on six hour hikes to touch grass, flirting with random men at bars, fucking Choso until he was rendered speechless, multiple types of antidepressants, you almost tried smoking weed once with your roommate in college but you wimped out last second. But the habit that had gotten you through the years of 21 to 24 is held loosely in your hand right now. It’s been five years since you quit, but resolve was often a fickle thing. As the saying goes, once an addict, always an addict.

There’s a brief moment of hesitation as you slowly peel the plastic off of the back, but then it all comes back to you like a reflex you’ll never forget up to where you slide a cigar up out and then pinch it between your two fingers. Forgetting to buy a lighter with the cigarettes is definitely something you would do, but because you remembered it was something that you would do, you remembered not to do it. The flick of the flame coming to life is ASMR you didn’t know you were painfully nostalgic for, and you balance the cigarette between your lips in that sort of movie-star way people used to obsess over back in the day. But just as you bring the lighter up to the end of the cigarette, and just before you can light it—

A hand shoots out in your periphery, grabbing your wrist and entirely stalling the movement.

You gasp, lips parting enough for the cigarette to fall from them and into your lap. The hand wrapped around your wrist is large and masculine, and you briefly consider screaming, but when you snap your neck to look at the perpetrator, you see Gojo crouched down next to you on this roof. You notice he’s wearing a black suit, a tie that was loosely secure hanging from his neck into the space between his spread thighs as he’s crouched, and whatever gel he had in his hair from earlier only barely remains as strands fall over his forehead haphazardly. He looks like he’s on the other end of a long work day.

You blink at him, expression plastered with surprise, but his is only earnest. With breathtaking blue eyes that you realize he could easily use to surrender a person just by looking at them, like the way he’s looking at you right now. His lips are pressed together into a firm line, as if to suppress some emotion, but the slight crease to his brow makes you feel like you’re in trouble somehow. Like he was silently scolding you for something.

“I—” you stutter.

He lets go of your wrist and discreetly pulls the lighter out of your hand. And then his hand reaches for the pack of cigarettes you were balancing on your knee, but on some reflex that you don’t even think about, you try to snatch them away from him, and now you’re both tugging at the same pack of cigarettes.

“y/n,” he says, “let go.”

“No,” you say stubbornly.

He sighs and tugs a little harder. “Give them to me.”

“But—” you stammer, voice becoming softer to see if that’d work on him, “I’m…” Your grip on them tightens. “I’m stressed.”

He raises an eyebrow at you, then finally loses his patience and snatches them right out of your hand. He stands up from his crouched down position to toss the pack off to the side onto the roof somewhere. You’re surprised when he lets out a sigh and sits down next to you on the roof, as if he felt the obligation to. His legs stretch out in front of him, but still bent slightly at the knees, and he leans backwards with his body weight braced on his palms laid flat on wood paneling behind him. “There are better ways to relieve stress,” he tells you candidly.

“Like what?” you ask, and just when he opens his mouth to speak, you clarify, “and don’t say sex.”

He shuts his mouth and his eyes flit up to the sky for a brief second. “Damn. I didn’t have a back-up answer.”

You roll your eyes, releasing a deep breath, then draw your knees to your chest before resting your chin on top of them.

“I didn’t know you smoke,” he says after a century-long minute.

You wince a little, because you were half hoping he was going to just drop the subject all together.

You bite your lip nervously and hug your knees to your chest tighter as if to hide yourself from him. “I don’t. Well, I haven’t. Um, not for a while.”

“Huh. I see,” he says.

Another silence passes, and as he shuffles next to you, the fabric of his suit brushes against the fabric of your coat, and you’ve become entirely too aware of the feeling.

“So,” he says, breaking the awkward silence, “your mom’s in hospice now?”

You nod, enthusiastic enough to where you won’t look like you’re entirely depressed about it.

“That’s good,” he says, “no issues with the insurance?”

You shake your head. “They need you to sign some papers by the end of the week though,” you tell him. “We’ll have to go in person.”

He nods slowly to affirm he’ll make time for it. “I really hope things get better for your mom,” he says, voice soft as he stares off into neighbors homes like you had been doing ten minutes ago. You see the cat that was resting on the fence get up, do a big stretch, and start walking along the length of the fence. Your eyes briefly glance at Gojo, and you notice his gaze is tracing the cat’s path.

“My—” you start, hesitant all of a sudden by the vulnerability you already feel swelling within you, most definitely due to sitting with someone on a rooftop late at night, but you decide that you’ll be nice to him for once, “…my mom seems to remember you a lot. More than she remembers me.” You let out a small humoring laugh, as if that fact doesn’t completely destroy you. “She was blabbering to me again for the seventh time about how you apparently fixed our AC.” You try to bite your tongue, but can’t help it when you say, “although I’m pretty sure you just pressed a bunch of buttons until it started working again.”

“Yup. That’s exactly what I did.”

You roll your eyes and sigh.

Another awkward silence.

“Can I ask you a question?” you say.

“Sure.” His voice sounds deeper, like he’s sleepy.

“Why did you agree to marry me? That’s not something people just do out of nowhere.”

He glances over at you, and you flicker your eyes to him. “Why? Having regrets?” he teases, with a slight nudge of his elbow to your side.

“Just answer me.”

He lifts his palms up from behind him and leans forward, placing his hands on his knees instead. “I don’t know. If something I could do would help someone out that much, I wasn’t going to say no.”

You hum quietly, still confused by his intentions. But you’re too jaded to question them.

“It costs nothing to be nice,” he adds.

You run soothing circles over your thigh through the fabric of your jeans. For some reason, your mind wanders to Choso. Thinking of all the years you wasted staying with him even though you knew his affections were long gone, just because you didn’t want to break his heart. Only to realize that you never had that privilege in the first place.

“I think,” you say, your voice barely above a whisper as you draw your knees closer to your chest, “that sometimes it does.”

A gust of autumn wind breezes by, ruffling the trees that the two of you are at eye-level with at the moment. You're pretty sure you’ve completely lost Gojo’s interest at this point, where he’s finally too tired to deal with your oddly cryptic attitudes and overall generally displeasing vibe, assuming this based solely on his prolonged silence beside you. You’re ready for him to get up and abandon you here on this roof, left to ponder every single thing you’ve done wrong in your life. It was any second now.

“Sometimes,” he instead speaks up, and it’s so surprising to you that you jolt a little bit, “you can do everything right, and people will still find a way to fuck you over. But I don’t think that’s any reason to stop being nice to others.”

You glance over at him, your eyes widening slightly, but he just continues to peer off straight into the night. His blinks are slow, lingering on being closed for a moment before he opens them again, and you’re mesmerized by the sight. The skin under his eyes is slightly dark from exhaustion, heavy with character that makes you aware that he’s just a person too. And for what feels like the tenth time this week, you realize that he’s—…handsome. And for what feels like the tenth time this week, your heart flutters in your chest.

He scoffs suddenly and dusts his hands off. “I sound like a fucking youth pastor.” He lets out an exhale before suddenly standing up onto his feet before you can think more on it. He looks off into the night again and lets out another exhale that sounds more like a sigh this time. “God, it’s getting a lot colder these days. Might have to start running the heater.”

You blink up at him with no commentary to add.

He looks down at you. His face is relaxed, but you can tell those eyes are distracted. A shimmering blue ocean in its own world while he attempts to stay present in this one.

He holds his hand out to you, and you stare at it blankly like you’ve got no clue what he intends for you to do with it. But you finally take the hint and curl your hand around his palm so that he can pull you up onto your feet too.

You stumble a little, falling forward from the sudden blood flow to your brain, but he holds you steady by the strong grip of his hands on your elbows. He’s close to you, close enough to where you can smell the faint lingering scent of his cologne. Something different than that expensive one he wore to the courthouse, but it’s comforting somehow. A fragrance that’s more him. And you feel nervous as you look up at him underneath pale moonlight.

He lets go of your elbows. You feel cold from the loss of his touch. But his right hand moves to gently hold your left hand in his palm, holding it curled as his thumb barely grazes the stone you wear on your ring finger; the one he gave you.

The way his thumb prods at the silver band is like he’s inspecting its quality, as if it has to pass some test to be worthy of sitting on your finger. Or maybe just any finger, if you were to quell the delusion. You’re not sure if he’s satisfied with his inspection.

“Where did you get it—” you blurt out.

His gaze flickers up to your face briefly before he’s back to examining the ring. “It was my mom’s.”

Your mouth gapes slightly in shock, heart dropping a little in your chest, and all of a sudden you feel guilty. Guilty that he put his mother’s ring on your finger for something that was fake, something that was essentially a business deal, something exchanged to you out of fraud when it was a precious family heirloom that should be exchanged with love. And maybe he didn’t care about it much, some people don’t care about the sentiments of objects. But your mind thinks of the oaky vintage dresser in his room, so out of place in the aesthetic of its surroundings, a decision you can only imagine him of all people, mr. “everything in this house has to look like an IKEA catalog”, would do if the dresser held some importance to him that was more than meets the eye. And so you’re compelled to think that maybe this ring did, too.

“Why would you give me this?! You could’ve just gotten a cheap fake diamond ring from a pawn shop and called it a day,” you ask him, suddenly feeling burdened by it.

“Well I wasn’t exactly given much time to think of other options.”

“But—” you start, only to realize you have no counter arguments for that.

He lets out a huh noise, like the sound someone makes when they’re pleasantly surprised by something, as he looks down at your hand that he still held in his. “It’s kinda crazy that it fits you perfectly. I wasn’t sure.”

Your mind wanders to when he slipped the ring onto your finger in the courtroom, followed by the kiss. Soft, sweet, the lingering warm sensation of his palm on your cheek as he cupped your face, the same way those heartthrob actors do in all those romance movies and kdramas that you watch on Friday nights while snuggled up in a blanket, wondering when anyone will ever kiss you like that. You remember the ghost sensation of his hand hovering over the small of your back, fingers lightly grazing the nape of your neck, his frame blocking out everything around you as he kissed you, just to pull away and for the two of you to then pretend like it never happened, as if it wasn’t one of the sweetest kisses you’ve ever known.

You slowly pull your hand out of his, the moment feeling too tender for your liking, and you clear your throat before flitting your eyes up to his.

“Rule #1,” you remind him with a soft whisper, “no touching.”

You purse your lips, watching his round eyes blink once, then twice, before he shoves his hands in his suit pockets. He rocks back and forth on his heels for a few seconds, nodding slowly in submission, and then he turns on them to head back to the house. You’re standing a little stunned from the abrupt ending to this trance of a moment on the roof, and you’re also a little surprised with how your chest is heaving a little bit with fast breaths, but you eventually snap out of it to follow him inside too.

You two make it back inside the house, with little words exchanged. You pretend to not notice the way Gojo tilts his head at his desk, like he’s confused about why it looks tidier than when he left it. You’re prepared to feign innocence or ignorance, but he doesn’t press you about it.

“Y’know,” he says from behind you, his chest briefly brushing against the back of your head as he pushes the bedroom door in front of you open so that you can head out into the loft, “those oversized 1800s-esque nightgowns you’ve been wearing around the house kinda make you look like a less-hot version of Ebenezer Scrooge.”

“Go fuck yourself.”

•┈┈┈••✦☽✦••┈┈┈•

“Sign right here for me, sir.”

You watch as the nurse slides the papers across the high-raised counter of the hospice nursing desk towards Gojo, his eyebrows narrowing as his eyes skim the words on the paper and land at the highlighted lines where he’s been intended to sign. You feel nervous for some reason, as if he’d suddenly find something disagreeable and refuse to sign, then take you to the courthouse first thing to finalize a divorce and send you off to prison while claiming he was blackmailed into the whole marriage in the first place.

Instead, he pulls a pen from the chest pocket of his suit jacket, clicking the end of it and scribbling his signature onto the paper with some jet black ink that looks like it takes a second to dry. How pretentious of him. The pink pom-pom pen was right there.

The nurse behind the counter continues to chat with him about something, blah blah dependents, blah blah tax claims, blah blah you’ll receive an itemized bill in the mail. You’re trying your best to eavesdrop in on the conversation, but most of your senses are being occupied by examining all your surroundings. When you dropped your mother off at the hospice, your feelings were at the forefront of conscience, but now that you’ve had a couple days to come down from that overwhelming emotional high, you’re here to scope out the quality of this place you’ve just dumped your mom at.

The facility is clean and sleek, with a color theme of red and an ocean blue across the signs, the furniture, even with the paperwork they hand out. All the workers had color-coded scrubs based on their occupation or specialty, and none of them had stains on the fabric. You take a glance down at the modest leather pumps you were wearing past the creases of the long skirt, and notice that the floor was shimmering off their reflection in a perfect polish. It wasn’t bad, this place.

“Thanks, you too,” you hear Gojo say to the nurse behind the counter. He has a professional smile on his face, but still kind and genuine, which makes the woman at the computer something bashful and unable to make eye contact. He folds something that looks like a receipt into his chest pocket before tucking his pen back in there too and then turns to face you. You make a mental note to pay him back for whatever he just paid for, at least once you move some money around.

Your eyebrows lift, feeling a little dazed as you blink at him blankly.

“Alright,” he says, shoving his hands in his pockets, the sound of his shoes on the polished hospital floors satisfactorily tapping in your ears as he took a couple steps towards you, “where’s your mom’s room?”

“Huh?”

“What’s her room number?” he asks you.

“Y-You wanna go see her??”

“Of course I want to,” he says, “she’s my mother-in-law.”

You roll your eyes and pet the fabric of your skirt to smooth the wrinkles out. “You’re getting a little too invested in this role of fake husband.”

“I get to annoy you all day and ride the adrenaline rush of committing a federal crime,” he says, “of fucking course I’d get invested.”

You sigh, tossing some of your hair to behind your shoulder before glancing up at the signs, squinting slightly to locate the ward where your mother’s room is, before you hear an extremely high-pitched and somewhat catty feminine voice call out from behind you. You glance at Gojo’s face as he peers off to whoever’s behind you, and you see him visibly stiffen a little.

“Is that Dayton county’s sexiest realtooorrr???” the voice purrs, and you turn on your heel to see a blonde bombshell of a woman clacking her kitten heels down the glistening floors of the hospice, with another brunette bombshell just a few paces behind her. Bombshell #2 sighs something like “it issss” before they walk right up to your fake husband and take turns at giving him a playful squeeze of his bicep. You have to physically stop your jaw from dropping at the sight.

“Wow! Ladies, so��...so great to see you two,” he says out of polite obligation, and you immediately clock the fact that he doesn’t address them by name.

Bombshell #1 turns to look at you, all of her hair moving as one solid entity with the motion from all the hair spray that’s probably holding it up, and she points at you with a long slender finger that narrows into a french-tip. “Oh who’s this?? Another one of your clients??”

“Oh, no, she’s my–”

“I’m his wife,” you interrupt him, irritated for some reason.

Both the women chirp something out like oh! before their faces twist with confusion.

“I didn’t know you were married,” Bombshell #2 says in a thick New Jersey accent.

Gojo lifts his left hand up, the silver band on his hand glimmering under fluorescent hospice lighting. “Very happily,” he says, as if someone was holding a gun to his head.

Bombshell #1 crosses her arms, and you try not to stare at how nice her boobs look in the low scoop-neck jaguar print top she was wearing. You were no better than a man. And now you’re pissed off at the idea of Gojo glancing down too, but a flick of your gaze up to his face tells you he’s safe. For now.

“You weren’t married when I asked you if you were a month ago,” Bombshell #1 sneers at him. It’s true, the math wouldn’t make sense, but in his defense, this marriage was a fraud.

“Or when you took me out for dinner last week after I bought my house,” Bombshell #2 snarls with an undertone of hurt.

Gojo clears his throat beside you before pointing at Bombshell #2. “How is that, by the way?” he asks in an attempt to change the subject, “the half acre down on Maple Ave, right? You, uh, enjoying the pool?”

The woman let out an offended scoff and–were her eyes sheening with tears?? She puts her hands on her hips. “No. Mine is the three bedroom house with the cedar gazebo on 14th street.”

Her friend next to her rolls her eyes and smacks her gum between her cheek. “I’m the one that bought the half acre down on Maple Ave, jerk. Ugh!” She grabs her friend’s arm with a high-pitched hmph noise leaving her throat, and you can hear the other one sniffling subtly as she wobbles on her heels with her friend’s pull of her arm.

Right before leaving the two of you alone, Bombshell #1 turns to you and says, “I hope you find someone who treats you better,” and then they storm off together down the hallway, their perfectly blow-dried hair bouncing in sync with each stomp.

You blink at the sight, a little flabbergasted from the interaction, and then flit your faze up to Gojo. You see him awkwardly scratching at the back of his head with a grimace on his stupidly handsome face.

“That’s what you get for being a manwhore,” you tell him.

“I’m not a manwhor–”

“You went on a date with another woman while you were maaaaarrrieeeddd?!” you coo as you let out a fake gasp and slap your cheeks with your hands, “despicable, really.”

He lets out some disgruntled noise, the source coming from deep within his throat. “No. We weren’t fake-married yet,” he vindicates himself, “and it wasn’t a date. I just bought her dinner as a congrats for buying a house. Not a big deal. I do it for all my clients.”

“Satoru. You do realize you’re leading these women on, right? I mean, I’ve seen the way you talk to them. Even if you think you’re just being friendly, please know that your definition of friendly is most people’s definition of flirting.”

“That’s ridiculous.”

“It’s true.”

He raises an eyebrow as he glances down at you. “Alright, how come this flirting in disguise of friendliness hasn’t worked on you then?”

You scoff in disbelief before crossing your arms. Maybe you did deserve a better fake husband. “You’re never friendly with me. You’re always rude to me.”

“What? I’m not always rude to you.”

“Well, you’re certainly much more rude to me than you are to other women,” you say, tapping the tip of your shoe with irritation.

“Can we not do this right now? We’re in the middle of a hospice.”

“God, you’re such a cop-out,” you mumble as you forcefully push past him towards the hallway that’ll lead you to your mother. You can hear that Gojo’s on your tail, following you down one of the more dimly lit hallways, and you can tell he needs to stall the strides of his Daddy Longlegs to not overtake your pace.

“What the fuck is a cop-out?” he asks you from behind.

“Look it up on urban dictionary, Grandpa. Unless you don’t know what the Internet is, either,” you spat.

You waltz right up to your mother’s room just in time to see a nurse making her way out with a clipboard in her hands. She glances over to you when she sees you approaching in her periphery.

“Hi! How can I help you?” she asks.

“Is it alright if we visit my mother?” you ask her.

“Oh! Sure, let me just clean her bed pan really quick.”

Your brow furrows. “B-Bedpan?? Why is she using a bedpan??”

The nurse stops in her movements. “Well, yesterday and today, that’s just what she has decided to use.”

You immediately become hostile. “That’s not right. She never needed to use one at home. Why is she suddenly using one here? Is that not a clear sign of deterioration? The restrooms must not be kept well enough here if she doesn’t want to use them.”

The nurse becomes something meek, her eyes widening as her mouth gapes slightly. “Ma’am,” she squeaks out, “we see this commonly with patients as they begin to adjust to hospice life. We’ll urge her to use the restroom, but as of right now, we need to prioritize what she finds most comfortable.”

Your expression softens, your shoulders relaxing from their tense position, and you duck your head a little with guilt. “Right…I’m sorry.”

The nurse presses her lips together with a well-meaning smile before shuffling into the room and closing the door behind her. You sigh and lean your back against the wall next to the number plate, cheeks flushing slightly from the confrontation. You have no idea how loud your voice was or who heard you. But you try to convince yourself that you’re just stressed and trying to look out for your mother, although the guilt still sits.

You glance up to see Gojo staring at you with slightly wide eyes, his hands shoved into his pockets, and he tilts his head to study your expression.

“What?” you snap at him.

“Are you doing okay?”

“Just fine, thanks.”

“Are you sure?”

“Satoru,” you cut his questioning off by raising a palm into the air, “just—…just stop.”

His brow furrows together slightly, but before he can show any further concern, the nurse exits the room and holds the door open for the two of you.

“All set!” she chirps, and Gojo moves to hold the door open in her stead, and then the nurse bolts down to disappear somewhere down the hallway.

You hear Gojo let out a small huff of a scoff as he stares down in the direction the nurse ran off in. “Glad to know I’m not the only one that’s scared of you.”

You roll your eyes and walk into the room through the open door.

Your mother lays in her bed, looking out the window with her hands resting on top of layers of white linen sheets, her skin looking slightly paler than usual. You approach her bedside slowly and she finally turns her head to look at you.

“Hi mom,” you gently greet her, sitting down on the stool beside her bed, “how are you doing?”

Her eyes dart across the features of your face, and you briefly glance towards the wall to the right where you see Gojo standing from a slight distance.

“Oh, hi dear,” she says with a smile, and relief washes over you.

You match her smile with your own. “Mom, I brought someone here to see you.” You glance over at Gojo, who starts to close distance now as he approaches the foot of the bed, “this is Satoru, my husband.”

Your mother’s eyes widen, “Oh! I know him,” she scoldingly swats a hand at you, like you’ve embarrassed her somehow by assuming that she doesn’t know who he is, “he’s my neighbor!”

You sigh, “yes mom, the one that fixed the A/C?” You attempt to finish her sentence for her.

She looks confused for a moment, but slightly nods as if to avoid any further confusion for herself. “But—…but, why…” she trails off and then looks at you, “I’m sorry, are you my nurse?”

Your shoulders drop slightly. “No, mom, it’s me. Your daughter. Do you remember?”

Her face scrunches before it entirely relaxes to keep some image of composure despite the haze you know she feels in her head. “Oh…yes, yes…my little girl. I remember you, of course!”

Your eyes become layered with a slight sheen of tears, “I’m glad.”

“Where’s your father?” she asks, “he said he’d bring me some…oh dear, what—…he said he’d bring me tea. I’ve been waiting.”

“Mom, dad is—” you pause for a moment to think on your feet. You could either tell the truth, or a little white lie. You never know what to do. And either one comes with either guilt or sorrow. “Well, he’ll be here soon, I just wanted to come see you.”

“Oh okay…” she trails off, her eyes squinting at you once more with that same look of confusion on it, but then they drift towards Gojo. “Oh you’re a very handsome young man! You look just like my neighbor.”

Your eyes flicker up to Gojo, and he walks up to your side by your mom’s bed. “Yes, Mrs. l/n, I am your neighbor.”

“With the lemon tree!”

“The avocado tree,” you correct her with a small sigh. “And he’s my husband mom. And also our neighbor.”

“Oh I see I see…” she says, looking up at him, and in a moment that shocks you, she holds her hand up for him to take.

There’s a slight moment of surprise on his face too, but he accepts her frail hand in his, and you glance over to your mom to see her look at him with some look of peace on her face.

“Oh, sit down here, won’t you?” she tells him, and you both blink at her in a moment of hesitation.

He pulls a stool up to the side of the bed right next to you and takes a seat down onto it. Your mother holds his hand with both of hers now, soothing her palm over the back of it before she taps on it lightly.

“Oh, my little girl is very sweet. She would bring me flowers from the garden when she was,” she glances at you, confused once more, “well I remember her when she was so little but she looks…a little older now. Ah, but she would bring me such pretty flowers.”

Your heart aches in your chest. You never knew what version of you your mother would remember. Some days, you’re still supposed to be an angsty teenager that shuts doors in her face, some days you were just as you are right now, and other days, you were just her little girl. And it confused her, the image of not seeing you in the way that she remembers. In the only way she knew how.

“You’ll take good care of my sweet girl, won’t you?” she asks him.

And it knocks the wind out of you.

It drops your heart to the center of the earth.

The thought that, after so many moments where she doesn’t remember you, she still knows that you’re someone she wants to keep safe.

Your mouth gapes slightly, tears welling in your eyes and you try your best to blink them away, but you see Gojo’s hand slip out from being held by your mother’s hands, to instead use both of his to hold hers. Your eyes snap to his face, and you see that same earnest expression you’ve been growing used to seeing these days.

“Yes,” he responds, eye contact level with hers, “I will.”

A small puff of air leaves your lips, a single tear streaming down your cheek and you quickly swipe your trembling fingers to remove any evidence of it before you huff out a shaky, “excuse me.” And then you’re standing up off the stool, and in a few hurried steps across the room as more tears continue to stream down your face, you make it to the door to push out into the suffocating air of the hallway.

It’s hard to breathe, huffs and puffs barely leaving your lips as you struggle to pull air into your lungs while you storm down the hallway at a fast pace, your heels clicking underneath you in a way that only sets you off further. Suddenly, all the sounds around you make you sick to your stomach, a wave of nausea washing over you, and your nose burns with the intensity of the tears that continue to stream down your face. A few hospice staff look at you with concerned expressions, and you eventually reach a heavy-duty door that leads you out into a secluded staircase hallway where the dim lighting serves to relax at least some of your senses, but you still feel like you’re about to pass out.

Even in the haze of your emotions, there’s this glimmer of a memory that comes to mind. One from when you were younger and you were pushed on the playground at school. You cried and cried and cried in your mother’s arms, but even then, you didn’t want her to baby you. You would say to her, I’m a big girl now! in that same way a child knows nothing of what it truly means to brave the world.

That little girl had no idea that one day, there would be moments where she wouldn’t be remembered as her mother’s little girl anymore.

No matter how old you grow, you will always be my little girl, your mother’s voice echoes to you, the feeling of her squeezing you in her arms as she holds your sobbing little form in hers casting a ghost sensation across your skin.

In a mother’s eyes, you’ll always be her baby.

And that’s why it hurts.

Because it’s all fake.

It’s phony.

It’s not real.

This arrangement you have with Gojo.

And if your mother were to die tomorrow, there would be no one to take care of her little girl anymore.

Not in the way she believes there will be.

Of all the white lies, this one pierces you straight through your heart in a way that leaves you gasping for air.

Amidst your whirlwind of thoughts, you hear the door push open harshly, and when you glance over, you see Gojo standing in this dimly lit hallway as he turns his head quickly to the left and sees you standing there.

“Hey,” he says, catching his breath as he lightly jogs up to you, “hey, hey, hey,” he repeats with more concern now when he sees the state you’re in, and he seamlessly pulls you into a hug, your cheek pressing against his chest that feels warm even through the fabric of his suit jacket and shirt, and that familiar scent of him completely engulfs you.

You sob quietly, wiping your snot on his tie and your tears on the felt fabric beside it, your hands balled into tiny fists at your chest, squeezed between the two of you. You feel him tuck your head under his chin and his arms wrap around you tighter. You don’t even realize it at first, but suddenly, it has become easier to breathe.

Then, you wail, and you cry, and you sob, because you don’t have the words to even explain how you feel, about not just this, but with everything, a buildup of everything that has been suffocating you in your life that just comes crashing down on you all at once.

“I know,” he says, his palm resting on the back of your head as he holds your face to his chest, his voice soothing in your ears while you sob until there’s nothing left to cry. “I know.”

You two stay like this for another minute or so as you come down from the cries, your remnant sniffling echoing in the hallway while you wipe more of your snot on his jacket. You make the first move to pull your face away from his chest, but he still keeps his arms wrapped around you when you look up at him.

With your gaze darting across his face, you take in the blue in his eyes. Eyes that are looking at you so softly it’s suddenly hard to breathe once more. And when those eyes flit to your lips, your mouth parts slightly as you two breathe in unison.

It’s possible that you could have dreamed the moment you saw him lean down slightly towards you, his eyes still set on your lips, but it didn’t matter because you’re pushing him away with strong fists before you can even register the thought in your head.

He lets go of you entirely, his eyes wide once more, and you glance down at your feet.

A tender moment, just like on the roof, broken just because you can’t handle that—…that way, that intense way that he looks at you. New rule, no looking at me longingly like you want to kiss me. I won’t allow it.

“I want to go home,” you whisper, still examining your shoes. And you suddenly feel embarrassed that he had to see you this way. He’s supposed to be scared and intimidated by you, not holding you in his arms while you cry.

He’s silent for a moment, but you can tell he’s searching for things to say. “You don’t want to say bye to your mom before we go?”

You swipe your palm against the wetness on your cheek. “No. I just want to go home.”

“y/n,” he tried to convince you.

You finally look up at him. “Please.”

He breathes in a few breaths as he studies the features of your face in a way that makes you feel so seen that it’s frightening. But he slowly nods, then says,

“Okay.”

[end of chapter 4]

a/n. hi friendsss i hope you enjoyed :'') yea like i said at the a/n in the beginning, this chapter is a slight off-tangent from last chapter, but ch5 will continue with a lot of the stuffs that were brought up in ch3. but yea i wanted to explore the whole process of emotions reader would go through putting her mom in hospice, since it kinda felt like a big thing, hence why it got its own chapter. aaa i hope to see you in the next one!! much love from me :''0

➸ take me to chapter five!

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d-z20 · 7 months ago

Text

The Agent Next Door (NSFW)

Pairing: Agent Rio Vidal x Reader

Summary: You don't really talk to your (extremely attractive) neighbour, Rio Vidal, until one day an accident leads to you staying at her apartment for a couple of days. And an awkward encounter results in having your fantasy come true. -OR- Rio finds you injured after you slipped and fell out the shower and decides to look after you (non-magic AU)

Warnings: 18+ MDNI, blood, small injury, fluff, smut, fingering (R receiving), oral (R receiving)

Words: 3.4k

A/N: Just wanted to write a bit of Rio caring for reader and well then it turned into smut and I have no regrets. Also I have their whole relationship arc in my head now lol

AO3 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Master List

The Worst Morning Of Your Life (so far)

Rio Vidal is your neighbour. You've noticed her plenty of times before—a striking woman with a sharp, confident look that's hard to ignore. You live in the same apartment building, just across the hall from one another. Most days, your interactions are limited to polite smiles and brief chats in the elevator, her dark suit and badge often catching your eye. You've heard her phone buzz with work calls that end with her curt, professional voice. It's obvious she's someone important—serious and dedicated. You've pieced together that she's an FBI agent, but beyond that, you don't know much about her.

You can't deny that you're drawn to her, though. There's something about the way she carries herself—all self-assured and enigmatic. You've caught yourself staring a few times, your heart skipping a beat when she looks back and flashes a rare, amused smile. It's not just her looks—it's the way she moves, the air of mystery she carries, like she's seen things you could only imagine. It makes you nervous, but at the same time, you can't help but look forward to those fleeting moments when your paths cross.

One morning, your shower decides to betray you—your hot water cuts out just as you put your head under. You let out a bloodcurdling scream, quickly trying to jump out of the shower. Unfortunately for you, your foot slips on the hard floor, and you come crashing down, hitting your head on the sink, landing with a very loud thud. Dazed and confused, you are unsure if you passed out for a second there or not, but either way your head is killing you.

"Fucking brilliant," you mutter to yourself, draping an arm across your eyes to shield them from the light.

At that moment, you heard your front door slamming open and hurried footsteps searching your apartment. You had just about enough sense to yank your towel off the hook and cover up your naked body.

"Y/N?" called a voice just outside the bathroom door.

Shit. It was Rio. You wished the ground would just swallow you up.

"Are you okay? I heard you scream, and then I heard something shatter." You could hear the genuine concern in her voice.

Lifting your head slightly, you noticed the shards of glass from what used to be your bathroom shelf, surrounding you. All you could do was let out a groan and close your eyes at this new development of what was turning out to be the worst morning of your life so far.

This was a bad choice, as a split second later, Rio barged into your bathroom.

"Well, aren't you a sight for sore eyes?" Your neighbour teased, but you could hear the relief in her voice. She moved further into the room, assessing the damage. "Not to ruin such a perfect morning for you, but I might have broken your door getting in here."

You open your eyes, blinking up at her. Taking her in, you noticed she was wearing a cropped baggy tank top and gym shorts. You blink up at her again, and your head throbs with each beat of your pulse, the pain radiating down your neck. You're still dazed, trying to process how you ended up sprawled on the cold bathroom floor with your FBI agent neighbour standing over you. Rio's sharp eyes take in your silence, concern clouding the playful smirk she'd worn just moments before.

"Hey," she says, voice softer now, as she crouches down beside you. She reaches out, fingertips gently brushing your cheek to turn your face towards her. "Y/N, can you hear me? Do you know who I am?"

You swallow, trying to focus. Her touch is surprisingly tender, a stark contrast to her usual no-nonsense demeanour. You nod slightly, the movement making your head spin. "Rio," you manage to croak out. "Neighbour, FBI agent. And, apparently, a door kicker."

She huffs a laugh, a brief flicker of relief crossing her face. "Good. That's a start. I don't usually make a habit of barging into people's bathrooms uninvited, but I heard that scream, and... well, I'm glad I did." Her eyes drop down to your arm, where blood seeps from a jagged cut. She curses under her breath, her grip on your shoulder tightening just slightly. "You're bleeding. We need to get you cleaned up."

You glance down at your arm, wincing at the sight of blood trickling down to your hand. "I really know how to make an impression, huh?"

Rio shakes her head, lips pressed together in a tight line. "Let's save the jokes until you're not covered in glass, yeah?" Without another word, she slips an arm under your shoulders, helping you sit up. The world tilts slightly, but her hold on you is firm, steadying you as you get your bearings.

"You're going to have to trust me for a minute," she tells you softly. "Can you stand?"

"Maybe," you say, though you're not entirely sure. She helps you up, careful not to jostle your injured arm, and you try to ignore the heat of her skin against yours, the way her fingers dig into your side just enough to ground you.

Rio's eyes dart around the room, quickly assessing the mess of broken glass and water pooling on the floor. "Alright," she says decisively. "I'm taking you back to my place. We'll patch you up there. Your shower is out of commission, and I don't trust that you won't take another tumble if I leave you alone here."

You don't have the energy to argue, so you just nod, letting her guide you out of the bathroom. The two of you make it to the hallway, but not before she grabs a spare towel and wraps it around you more securely. Her movements are quick and efficient, but there's a gentleness to them that surprises you. It's a side of Rio you've never seen before—one that's patient and caring, not just the tough, sarcastic woman you've exchanged pleasantries with in passing.

As you step into her apartment, you notice it's much more personal than you'd imagined. There are framed photos on the walls—nothing too sentimental, mostly candid shots of places she's travelled to, city skylines, and sunsets. Her living room is cosy, with a worn leather couch and a small stack of books piled on the coffee table.

"Sit," she instructs, pointing to the couch. You sink down into it, feeling strangely out of place but oddly comfortable. Rio disappears into the bathroom for a moment, returning with a first aid kit. She kneels in front of you, carefully prying your hand away from your arm.

"This is going to sting," she warns, pulling out an antiseptic wipe. You flinch as she cleans the cut, her brows knitting together in concentration. "Sorry," she mutters. "I'm used to dealing with criminals and suspects, not clumsy neighbours."

"Criminals don't trip in the shower much?" you quip, trying for humour despite the pain. It earns you a small smile from Rio, her eyes flicking up to meet yours.

"Not usually, no. Though I'll admit you're far more entertaining." Her voice softens again, the smirk fading as she wraps a bandage around your arm. "You scared me for a second there, you know."

The confession catches you off guard. "I did? you ask, watching her face as she finishes tying off the bandage.

She doesn't look up, her focus still on your arm. "Yeah," she says quietly. "I thought something bad had happened. Guess I care more about my neighbour than I realised."

Your heart skips a beat, the words hanging in the air between you. It's the first real admission of anything beyond casual friendliness, and it leaves you breathless. You're about to say something—anything—but Rio stands up, offering her hand to you.

"Come on," she says. "Let's get you some proper clothes and maybe a coffee. You can stay here until we sort out your door and shower."

Rio's grip on your hand is firm as she helps you up, her expression still hovering somewhere between concern and her usual, dry amusement. You follow her into the kitchen, and she releases you, motioning for you to sit at the table. It feels strange being here, in her space, especially after the chaos of your morning. She pulls out a chair for you with a slight roll of her eyes, as if it's absurd that you'd even try to resist her instruction.

"I don't have any shifts for the next two days," she announces, moving towards the coffee maker without glancing back at you. "And considering you might've blacked out for a second back there, I'm not letting you out of my sight. So, you're staying with me, here, until you're back on your feet properly."

You open your mouth to argue, but the look she throws over her shoulder silences you. It's one part worry and two parts something else—something softer, almost protective.

"I can manage," you say, but your voice lacks conviction, especially as you rub your throbbing arm. The bandage is already starting to bleed through a bit. Rio's eyes narrow at the sight, and she steps closer, prodding your arm gently.

"Yeah, you're doing a great job," she says dryly, then nods to herself. "You're staying here."

"Fine," you sigh, though part of you feels a flutter of something—relief, maybe, or the thrill of being looked after by someone like Rio. "But I can sleep on the couch. I don't want to kick you out of your bed."

Rio's lips twitch into a smirk. "I'm not letting you take the couch. You've already proven that you're a danger to yourself in any situation that involves standing up."

You can't help but laugh, despite everything. "So, what, we share your bed?"

She raises an eyebrow, as if daring you to challenge her. "It's a queen size. I think we can manage. Unless you've suddenly developed a fear of co-sleeping?"

The thought of sharing a bed with her sends a rush of heat through you, but you try to play it off with a shrug. "As long as you don't hog the covers."

"I'll do my best," she says, the smirk widening.

The first night is awkward, as expected. You lie stiffly on one side of the bed, while Rio takes the other, the space between you feeling like a chasm despite the closeness. She's warm though, and you can feel the heat radiating from her body and the subtle scent of her shampoo filling your senses. It's both comforting and maddening, making it hard to fall asleep. You’re hyper-aware of every shift she makes, every time her arm brushes against yours. At some point, she turns onto her side, facing you, and you feel her eyes on you in the dark.

"You still awake?" she whispers.

"Yeah," you reply, swallowing hard.

There's a pause, then you feel her hand brush against yours. It's light, almost as if by accident, but when you don't pull away, she leaves it there, her fingers barely touching yours.

"Try to get some sleep," she murmurs. "You need to rest."

"Alright," you say, voice hoarse, and somehow, with her so close, you finally drift off.

Over the next day and a half, the tension between you shifts, It's subtle at first—small, lingering glances from Rio that last a bit too long, the brush of her fingers against your back when she helps you into the kitchen. Her sarcasm returns, but there's a flirtatious edge to it now, like she's testing the waters.

"You're really milking this injury, aren't you?" She teases, handing you your drink to have with the pizza she bought for dinner. "You'd think you broke your entire body, the way you're lounging around."

"Hey," you protest, setting the drink down. "You're the one who insisted I stay. Don't blame me for enjoying the hospitality."

She leans against the counter, arms crossed, a grin tugging at her lips. "Oh, I'm well aware. But don't get too comfortable with me waiting on you hand and foot—I've got to go back to work tomorrow.”

That night, the atmosphere between you shifts even more. When you climb into bed besides Rio, there's no hesitation this time. She turns towards you almost immediately, her hand resting lightly on your hip as if it's the most natural thing in the world. You can feel the heat of her body through the thin fabric of your shirt, her breath warm against the back of your neck. It's a small touch, nothing too bold, but it feels significant—an unspoken acknowledgement of everything simmering between you two. You fall asleep like that, closer than before, your fingers unconsciously brushing hers under the covers.

When you wake up, she's already dressed for the day, leaning over you with a mug of coffee in hand. She sets it down on the nightstand with a playful smile. "Morning sweetheart," she says, her voice laced with that familiar teasing tone, but there's a softness to it now. "Try not to do anything risky while I'm gone, yeah? I don't want to come back to find you've taken a tumble without me here to save the day."

You laugh, reaching for the coffee, but there's a flutter in your chest at the pet name, even if she means it jokingly. "I'll do my best," you say. "But no promises."

She smirks, leaning down just enough to press a light kiss to your forehead. "Good. I'll be back later. Make yourself at home."

You do. The rest of the day passes in a strangely pleasant haze, and you find yourself enjoying the small comforts of her apartment. It's quiet without her, but there's a sense of ease you haven't felt in a long time, like you truly belong here. You find yourself smiling for no reason, touching the small trinkets on her shelves, running your fingers over the soft throw blankets she has draped across the couch.

By the time you decide to take a shower, you're feeling entirely too content. You strip down, stepping under the hot spray with a sigh. That's when your thoughts drift back to Rio—how she looked last night, half-asleep and tousled, her arm draped over your waist, her expression unguarded in a way you'd never seen before.

Your thoughts turn to fantasy almost unbidden. You imagine her joining you in the shower, pressing you back against the cold tiles, her hands sliding down your wet skin. You can almost feel it—the heat of her breath on your neck, the firmness of her body against yours. You start to move your hand towards your aching clit, letting out a quiet, shuddering moan, lost in the fantasy of what it would be like to kiss her and have her hands on you.

You don't hear the bathroom door open, but suddenly, you hear her voice—low and amused. "You sure you're okay in here? Didn't have another fall, did you?"

You freeze, eyes snapping open. You can barely see her through the steam, but she's there, standing just outside the shower curtain, and you realise with a jolt that she must have heard you. You heart slams against your ribs as the curtain slides back just a little, and Rio steps inside completely naked, her smirk evident even through the haze.

"I really just can't trust you not to injure yourself while showering, can I?" she says, voice teasing but thick with something else—desire, maybe. Her eyes travel down your body, lingering in a way that sends a shiver through you.

"Rio," you breathe out, half a warning, half a plea.

She steps closer, crowding you against the wall, her hand sliding up to cup the back of your neck. "You know," she murmurs, her lips so close to yours now that you can feel the brush of them with every word. "I think you've been waiting for me to do this."

And then she kisses you, slow and heated, like she's been thinking about this just as much as you have. Her mouth is soft but insistent, coaxing a response from you until you melt into her, hands tangling in her hair as you kiss her back just as eagerly. The steam from the shower mixes with the heat between you, the world narrowing down to just the two of you.

When she finally pulls back, both of you are breathing hard, her forehead resting against yours. "I knew it," she whispers, her voice laced with satisfaction. "You've been wanting this so badly, haven't you?"

You nod, swallowing thickly. "Yeah," you admit, barely louder than a whisper. "I have."

She grins, tugging you closer until you're pressed against her, chest to chest. "Good," she says, leaning in to kiss you again, deeper this time. "Because I've been wanting it too."

And with that, she shoves you against the wall. Hard. She's kissing you all over, igniting the skin where each one lands. She nips and sucks at your neck, finding where you're most sensitive. A moan escapes your lips, and you buck your hips, trying to get any kind of friction against your core. For a brief moment, you start to get embarrassed, but then one of Rio's hands finds its way between your legs. She dips a finger between your lips and hums at how wet you already are for her.

Looking directly into your eyes, silently telling you to keep her gaze, she lowers herself to suck on one of your tits, tongue swirling around your nipple, making it harden quickly. The hand not on your clit, starts to pinch your other nipple, pulling another loud guttural moan from you.

Working her mouth down your torso, marking up your body as she goes, Rio sinks to her knees, her face now directly opposite your dripping cunt, eyes still locked on yours.

Her hands deftly grip your hips, steadying you against the wall. "You've got to promise me you're not going to fall again, sweetheart," she all but growls, the arousal evident in her voice.

You nod your head, but it wasn't enough for the woman, who digs her nails into your skin where she's holding you. "Ye-Yes. I promise."

That is all Rio needs before she starts to drag her tongue through your folds. Switching between broad licks along the length between your entrance and your clit, and firmer, more purposeful circles over your bundle of nerves.

You feel dizzy, but you know it has nothing to do with your concussion and everything to do with the woman kneeling between your legs. Despite your head spinning, you manage to bring your hands down to tangle in Rio's hair, pushing her harder into you. You need more.

She moans against you, clearly enjoying how turned on you are. The vibration from the moan goes straight to your core, and you nearly cum just from that. Sensing you're close, Rio pushes two fingers inside you, causing you to curse her name inbetween moans.

You feel her chuckle and then start fucking you more vigorously. "I want to hear you, baby. I want the whole floor to hear you moan my name," she says, momentarily pulling away from your pussy. You can't help but oblige as she starts to curl her fingers, resuming her licking and sucking.

With her fingers curling inside you like that, it isn't long before you climax, legs shaking, cumminng hard over her fingers and tongue. Rio helps you through the end of your orgasm, making sure to hold you up as you come back down.

"Okay, darling, I think we need to sit you down before you lose another fight with gravity," Rio smirks. You can't help but agree; your knees feel very weak and it's taking all of your concentration to stay upright.

"Oh, by the way, I bumped into the maintenance guys on my way in," Rio says lightly, helping you out of the shower. "And they said that your door isn't getting fixed for at least another week. So, it looks like you'll have me to help you shower for a little while longer." Winking, she drags you to her bed, determined to continue what she had just started.

alright folks, I've got a sequel in the works but can't decide on the vibes (there'll be smut regardless): READ PART 2 HERE

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stylesispunk · 3 months ago

Text

Blind faith | part iii

Priest!Joel Miller x night club dancer! Reader

masterlist | previous chapter | next chapter

summary: the aftermath of Joel finding you are a stripper and you reveal your truth to some extent. A day trip to the beach and how Joel realizes something.

wc: 9,5k

warnings: age gap (Joel's in his late 40s and reader late 20s), forbidden love, angst, mentions of death, mentions of injuries, sexism, so much tension between joel and reader, they falling harder, fluff.

a/n: Hello loves! Here's chapter 3. I was kinda excited for this one but I'm kinda more excited for the following one. I hope you like this and how the story is developing. I'm really loving writing it. Please share your thoughts, and please take note that reader still have secrets to share. Please, share your thoughts with me I LOVE READING THEM. Reblogs and comments are always appreciated.

dividers by @/saradika-graphics

You were in despair the moment you left the stage. Joel’s stare still stung on your skin, burning everywhere as if you were ashamed to have been trapped after the lies you had made up. You warn, pushing Carmen with no intention behind.

“Hey, hey, Estrellita, where are you going like this” She asked, placing her hands on your shoulders that seemed to ease its fire.

“I need to-I need—to I need to…Joel, uhm, the priest, she was here and he saw me.”

“Who? What the hell was he doing here?” she asked, surprised at the information.

“Someone must have told him about me.” You replied, the thought of him changing his mind towards you hurt more than any wound you could have.

“Okay, breathe.” She nodded her head, trying to erase your anxiety, “You weren’t doing anything wrong.”

“I’m—”

“Why do you care so much about what he thinks?” she questioned.

“Because he has been good to me. I don’t want him thinking I was playing with him” you replied, without being able to ease your heart stammering against your ribs.”

Carmen’s gaze softened, but there was something knowing behind her eyes. “And what if he does?” she asked, tilting her head slightly.

You swallowed hard, the thought twisting something deep inside you. “Then I—” you hesitated, feeling the burn of unshed tears behind your eyes. “Then I don’t know.”

Carmen sighed, her hands squeezing your shoulders. “Estrellita… men like him, they don’t come here. But you have to ask yourself something—was he here because he wanted to judge you, or because he wanted to understand?”

You shook your head, exhaling sharply. “I don’t know. But I saw his face, Carmen. He looked—” You cut yourself off, shaking your head.

“Hurt?” she guessed.

You flinched, looking away.

Carmen let out a soft laugh, not unkind. “That man is already gone for you,” she murmured.

You didn’t want to hear that. You couldn’t.

“I need to go,” you said instead, stepping away from her grasp.

“Go where?”

“I—”

“Rest.” She said, “Let him to process this and then you can go and talk to him tomorrow, okay?”

You hesitated, but ended up nodding.

“Okay.”

Three days had passed and there was no sight of him. At least no in the way you wanted it. You tried looking out for him at the church even, to his house, but everything seemed to be in vain.

Three days. Three days of trying to catch his eye, only for him to look away. Three days of waiting outside the church, only for him to slip out the back. Three days of silence where there used to be warmth.

And it was driving you mad.

Joel had never been like this with you. He had never shut you out like this before. Not when you first met, not when people whispered about you, not even when he wrapped his arms around your waist during the night you feel asleep together on his couch. But now? Now, he was slipping through your fingers water in your hands.

You found yourself outside the church again, fingers curling into fists at your sides, fidgeting your jeans as you took a steadying breath. The doors were open, the flickering glow of candlelight casting long shadows inside.

He was there. In front of the altar, on his knees, praying.

You knew it before you even stepped inside, and when you saw him, your breath caught.

He must’ve heard your footsteps because he tensed. But he didn’t turn around.

“Are you going to pretend I’m not here?” you asked, voice steady despite the storm inside you.

He exhaled, but still, he wouldn’t look at you.

“I’m not pretending,” he said, voice rough.

You scoffed. “Really? Then what do you call this?”

Silence.

You stepped closer. “Joel.”

He finally turned, and the look in his eyes nearly knocked the air from your lungs.

Regret. Want. Something deeper, something you didn’t want to name.

“Call me father, not Joel” he said, shaking his head. “Not anymore.”

The words cut through you like a blade. Not Joel.

Not anymore.

You blinked, your throat tightening as you searched his face, waiting, hoping for some sign that he didn’t mean it. That this was just another wall he was building between you, one you could tear down if you only pushed hard enough.

But his expression was set in stone.

“You don’t mean that,” you said, voice quieter now.

He exhaled sharply, looking away like it hurt him to see you standing there. “I do.”

Your stomach twisted. “Why?”

“Because this has to stop.” His voice wasn’t unkind, but it was firm. “This… whatever you did to me.”

You shook your head. “I didn’t do anything.”

“You’re a liar. You seduce your way to people. I’m sure of it. You dance in that way for men and for women, you are what? A stripper? It was fun, wasn’t it? To walk inside this place but not being more than a sin?”

He could have slapped you in your cheek and it would hurt less. Your breath hitched, and for a moment, you could only stare at him, stunned.

Joel had never spoken to you like this before. Not even when he had been cautious of you, when he had been wary and careful with his words.

This was cruelty.

A slow, sharp ache curled in your chest, pressing against your ribs like a wound you hadn’t braced for. Your hands trembled, and you clenched your hands “Is that what you think of me?”

Joel didn’t answer. He just looked at you, his jaw locked tight, his fists at his sides like he was trying to convince himself of his own words.

You swallowed hard, blinking back the sting of tears. “You think I was playing with you?” Your voice was quieter now, but there was an edge to it, something raw and unsteady. “That I… what? Tricked you? Made you feel something you didn’t want to feel?”

His silence told you everything. You let out a bitter, hollow laugh, shaking your head. “You’re a coward.”

That got a reaction. Joel’s gaze snapped to yours, something dark flickering in his eyes. “Watch yourself.”

“Why? You think you can hurt me more than you already have?” You took a step forward, your voice trembling now. “I didn’t do anything to you, Joel. You were the one who kept looking for me. You were the one who made me feel—”

You stopped yourself, pressing your lips together, shaking your head. He didn’t deserve to hear it.

“I should have known,” you murmured, voice quieter now, laced with something almost mournful. “I should have known you’d find a way to make me the villain as everyone else.

Joel swallowed, his throat bobbing. But he didn’t say anything.

You took a shaky breath, willing your voice to stay steady. “I never wanted to hide this, Joel.”

Then you turned away, walking toward the door.

But before you left, you hesitated, your fingers tightening on one of the pews. You didn’t turn around when you spoke again.

“I hope you can sleep at night,” you whispered. “There is no pray you can use to feel better about yourself.”

The church fell into an eerie silence. He stood frozen at the altar, his grip tight around the pulpit as the heavy wooden doors groaned shut behind you. Your words still rang in his ears, they feel like bleeding.

"There is no prayer you can use to feel better about yourself."

A muscle in his jaw twitched. But what was he really mad about? Was it the fact that you had hidden this part of yourself from him? Or was it something he didn’t want to name?

His fingers flexed against themselves. He told himself it was about you, about the way you had let him believe you were someone else, perhaps pure. Someone untouched by the kind of life he had walked into that night at the club. Someone untainted.

But deep down, in the part of himself he didn’t let see the light. He knew that was a lie.

It wasn’t the lie. It wasn’t about the way you danced, about the way you let people look at you, about the way they whispered your name in the dark.

It was pure jealousy. A slow-burning, sickening jealousy that clawed at his ribs, that twisted inside him until he couldn’t breathe. Because he had wanted to be the first. The first to see you like that, to watch you, to take in the way you moved, the way you let your body speak without uttering a single word.

The first to know the weight of your touch, the warmth of your skin, the sound of your voice when you said his name and not just Father.

But he wasn’t. He would never be. Joel squeezed his eyes shut. The pulpit felt wrong beneath his hands; the church suddenly too quiet, too empty.

He had spent years preaching about self-control. About discipline. About resisting temptation.

But no one had ever told him what to do when he was the one being tempted.

When the sin didn’t come from you—but from him.

And that was the worst part of all.

The music pulsed through the walls, the usual hum of the club coming to life as the night stretched on. But tonight, it felt distant. Muted. You ears ringed.

You sat in front of the mirror, fingers resting in your lap, staring at your reflection without really seeing it. Your costume was half on, shimmering fabric draped around you, waiting to be fastened. But you couldn’t bring yourself to finish.

Because no matter how much you tried to shake Joel’s words from your head, they clung to you like ghosts.

"You seduce your way to people."

"I’m sure of it."

"It was fun, wasn’t it? To walk inside this place but not being more than a sin.”

Your throat tightened.

You had never felt this ashamed of yourself before. Not for dancing. Not for the way you made people feel about you. The stage had been your home long before any church and its priest. It was the one place where you had control over your body, over the way people saw you. This time it was different but still was the closer you had.

And now? Now, it felt like your skin was too tight. Like if you stepped onto that stage, it wouldn’t be you anymore. It would be whatever Joel thought you were.

A hand landed gently on your shoulder, and you jolted, blinking out of your thoughts.

Billy stood beside you; his brows furrowed in concern. “What’s going on in that head of yours, Estrellita?”

You tried to smile. Failed. “Nothing.”

Billy scoffed. “Don’t lie to me, cariño. I know that look.” He knelt beside you, adjusting the hem of your costume with practiced ease. “Who do I have to fight?”

A soft, breathy laugh escaped you before you could stop it. “You? Fight?”

He grinned. “Don’t underestimate me. I might be small, but I’m scrappy.”

Something in your chest loosened, just a little.

Billy had been one of the first people to welcome you into the club, one of the first to make you feel safe. You had learned his story in pieces—how he had been thrown out of his home when his parents found out he was gay, how he had wandered the streets for days before stumbling into this place.

He had found his family here. His home.

Just like you had. And for the first time that night, you felt something like steadiness return.

Maybe Joel didn’t understand. Maybe he never would.

But Billy did. Carmen did. Everyone who worked here saw you and they still loved you.

Billy squeezed your hand, his voice softer now. “You don’t have to dance tonight if you don’t want to.”

You looked at him, at the warmth in his eyes, the quiet understanding there. Maybe you didn’t feel like dancing tonight.

But you weren’t going to let Joel take this from you.

You took a deep breath, straightened your shoulders. “I want to.”

Billy searched your face for a moment before nodding, helping you fasten the last of your costume.

As you stepped onto the stage, the lights warmed your skin, the music vibrated through your bones.

And just like that, you let the weight of the night fall away.

The music pulsed through your veins, wrapping around you like a familiar embrace. The stage lights bathed you in warmth, illuminating the shimmering fabric of your red suit as you stepped forward. The crowd murmured in expectation, eyes fixed on you, waiting for you to come.

So, you danced. You let the rhythm take you, let your body move as it always had, fluid, effortless, free. The music carried you, and for the first time that night, you felt like yourself again.

Until you saw him here again. Your breath hitched mid-spin.

Joel.

Hidden in the corner of the club, dressed in dark clothes, a cap pulled low over his face. His hands wrapped around a glass of whiskey, but his gaze, his gaze was all on you.

The weight of it burned, heavy and unreadable as if he was tracing marks with fire over your skin.

Your stomach twisted, your limbs faltering as a shockwave of something sharp and unbearable ran through you. He wasn’t just watching, he was consuming you with his stare, with an intensity that made your skin prickle.

And just like that, your legs gave in, ankle wobbling.

Your balance tipped.

A sharp gasp cut through the music as you stumbled, your heel catching awkwardly against the stage and you fell. The floor met you hard, the impact sending a jolt up your spine, stealing the air from your lungs.

Silence. The club held its breath.

The murmurs started then, a mix of concern and amusement rippling through the room. Billy was already moving toward you, but before he could reach you, someone else was there.

Joel.

His hand was on your arm before you could blink, strong and steady, lifting you to your feet like you weighed nothing at all.

Your heart pounded as you stared up at him.

His jaw was clenched, his brows drawn together, his breath uneven.

You should have been embarrassed. Should have been angry. But all you could think about was why.

Why was he here? Why he has come back here after all he said?

Why was he looking at you like that? And why, after everything, did he still come running the second you fell?

Joel’s grip on your arm was firm but fleeting. The moment he was sure you were steady, he let go like your skin had burned him. His face was unreadable, stormy eyes, tense jaw, lips pressed into a hard line.

You barely had time to take a breath before he turned away.

No words. No explanation. Just gone.

The moment he disappeared into the shadows, Billy was at your side, helping you the rest of the way up. “Are you okay?” he asked quietly, searching your face.

You swallowed hard, nodding. “Yeah.”

But your hands were still trembling.

Carmen appeared next, her gaze flicking toward the direction Joel had vanished before settling on you with knowing eyes.

Neither of them said a word about him. They didn’t have to.

The music had already started up again, the club moving on as if nothing had happened. As if you hadn’t just fallen, as if the man you’d spent days trying to reach hadn’t just been here, watching.

You exhaled sharply, forcing your shoulders back. If Joel wanted to act like this meant nothing, like you meant nothing.

You weren’t going to chase him. So, with the eyes of the room still on you, you turned toward the crowd, lifted your chin, and danced.

Back in the dressing room, the adrenaline had started to wear off, leaving behind a hollow ache in your chest. You wiped at the sweat on your brow, breathing in deeply, trying to ground yourself.

But before you could even sit down, Billy and Carmen were already on you.

Carmen leaned against the vanity, arms crossed, one perfectly arched brow raised. "So... what was the priest doing here?"

Billy, standing beside her, nodded, arms folded tightly. "Yeah, and why was he dressed like some guy sneaking into a bar for the first time?"

You ran a hand over your face, sighing. "I don’t know."

Carmen scoffed. "Bullshit. He was watching you, clear as day."

Billy narrowed his eyes. "And then he just left when you fell? Didn’t even say anything?"

Your stomach twisted. "No."

Carmen let out a low whistle. "Damn. That man is tortured."

Billy leaned closer; his voice softer. "And you?"

You hesitated. What were you supposed to say? That seeing Joel there had rattled you to your core? That his stare had nearly burned through you, stripping you bare in ways you weren’t prepared for? That part of you had been desperate for him to stay?

That would be admitting too much.

So instead, you shook your head. "It doesn’t matter."

Billy and Carmen exchanged a look, but neither pushed further.

“Yo conozco a un hombre enamorado cuando lo veo” (I know when a man is in love when I see him” he said. Leaving, to help another of the dancers with her dress.

A man in love?

Later at night. You were back at the house you shared with Carmen. After the show and all the emotions storming in your head, you were getting ready to go to sleep, removing, the makeup, brushing your hair and slip into an oversized t-shirt you wore to sleep.

You were at the kitchen, sipping a cup of warm tea, while the clock shown two a.m. in the morning. You were about to go to the bedroom when a knock at the door stopped you.

You stood frozen in place, your fingers still curled around the mug. The knock at the door echoed through the quiet of the house, cutting through the remnants of the night like a blade.

Your heart pounded. No one came to see you at this hour.

Taking a slow breath, you stepped toward the door, pausing just before your hand reached the knob. Another knock. Firmer this time. You swallowed hard and opened it.

Joel stood there, bathed in the dim glow of the streetlamp. His dark eyes flickered over you, over your loose dress, the curve of your collarbone, the tired set of your features. He was still wearing the clothes from earlier, his shirt wrinkled, his hair slightly mussed like he had run his hands through it too many times.

Neither of you spoke, but you stepped back, just enough to leave the door open. An invitation.

Joel hesitated. His hands curled into fists at his sides like he was fighting himself, but then, he stepped inside.

The house was dimly lit, the soft glow of a single oil lamp casting shadows along the walls. Carmen’s door was closed; she was still out, unaware of the storm brewing in the doorway of your shared home.

You crossed your arms, your t-shirt brushing against your skin. “You shouldn’t be here,” you murmured, echoing his own words.

Joel’s jaw tightened. “I know.” But he didn’t leave.

You watched him, the way his shoulders rose and fell with slow, measured breaths. His eyes never left yours, dark and unreadable.

He looked tired. Like he hadn’t slept in days.

You swallowed. “What do you want?” then you pause, “Why were you at the club tonight?”

Joel let out a slow breath, running a hand over his face. “I—” He stopped himself, shaking his head. “I don’t know.”

You tilted your head. “You don’t know?”

His gaze flickered down your frame before he tore it away, shaking his head. “I just—” He exhaled sharply. “I see you everywhere. When I close my eyes. When I—” He cut himself off again, rubbing the back of his neck. “It won’t stop.”

Your throat tightened.

"I'm sorry" he began, "what I said about you...I was wrong. You're not—You're not at all of that. You're not a sin. That was so wrong of me to say."

He took the scene in front of him, red eyes, glisten and red from all the crying. He had seen the way he had broken your heart in a cruel manner, throwing daggers at you without even thinking, without hearing what you had to share.

There were no words left for him to make this better.

"I-I thought I could trust you." you replied, barely hearing your own words,"you were so kind to me all this time but you weren't capable of hearing my truth. Instead you heard people calling me names and cursing my name with venom, and that father, that makes you as shitty as all people in this fucking town."

"I-"

"Leave, father. Don't waste your words in a whore like me, you could get burned." An as a final statement, you closed the door leaving him standing there, speechless and with a heart so heavy he could barely stay stand in place.

Joel didn’t move for a long moment. He stood there, staring at the closed door, your words ringing in his ears.

You could get burned. Perhaps he already had.

The weight in his chest was suffocating. He had come here thinking he could make it right, that his apology, his regret, would be enough to fix the damage he’d caused. But there was no fixing this, was there?

Because you were right.

He had judged you without listening. He had let his own fears, his own jealousy, fester into something ugly, and he had taken it out on you.

His hands curled into fists at his sides. He wanted to knock again, to beg you to open the door, to please let him try—But he had lost that right.

With a sharp inhale, Joel forced himself to step back. To turn away.

The night air was cold when he stepped outside, but it wasn’t enough to dull the ache in his chest. He walked through the empty streets of town, past the glowing streetlamps and shuttered windows. He should have gone home, should have locked himself away and prayed for forgiveness.

But instead, he found himself back at the church.

The place that had once given him solace now felt suffocating. He stood in the center of the room, looking up at the altar, at the cross above it.

What had he done? He sank onto one of the pews, dropping his head into his hands.

Maybe this was his punishment. To pray until his heart stop bleeding.

Next day, Joel’s voice carried through the church, steady and memorized words that felt empty.

He had given hundreds of sermons before, about faith, about redemption, about the weight of sin and the promise of forgiveness. But today, the words felt hollow in his mouth. He spoke about grace. About salvation.

But his mind was elsewhere.

On you.

He kept glancing at the doors between sentences, expecting—hoping—to see you walk in.

But you never did. The pews were full, the congregation nodding along, but the one person he had been searching for wasn’t there.

He had told himself it was for the best. That his anger, his frustration, his jealousy—God help him, his jealousy—had been justified. That staying away from you was the only way to rid himself of this ache, this temptation.

But every day that passed without seeing you felt like a slow unraveling, like a thread pulled too tight, ready to snap.

And now, standing at the pulpit, words leaving his lips with no real meaning behind them, Joel realized. He didn’t know what the hell he was even talking about anymore.

Continuing with the day, the town square had come alive with laughter and soft music, the scent of roasted nuts and fresh bread hanging in the air. Stalls lined the streets, filled with handmade crafts, sweet pastries, and bottles of drinks, lemonade and children running between the booths, their carefree joy a stark contrast to the weight pressing down on your chest.

You walked slowly, keeping your head high, but you felt it, the judgment, the whispers.

Women clutched their baskets tighter as they passed you, their gazes cold and cutting. A few of them turned their backs as if your mere presence tainted the space. You weren’t surprised. You had expected it after that night. After Joel. After he had spoke about sin.

What you hadn’t expected was the men. The ones who had watched you under the dim lights of the club, whiskey glasses clutched in their hands, their eyes heavy with hunger. They weren’t turning away.

They were staring. Lingering.

The way their eyes traced over you made your skin crawl, the same gazes that once felt like power now left you feeling exposed.

You swallowed hard and pulled your shawl tighter around your shoulders, your heart pounding.

The sun hung high in the sky, warming the cobbled streets as you wandered through the people, stalls lined the path, displaying fresh produce, homemade bread, and steaming pots of food. The scent of roasted corn and spices lingered in the air, mixing with the distant sound of a guitar being played by a street performer.

You stopped at a stand where an older woman stirred a large jar of lemonade, the condensation on the glass glistening in the light.

"Una limonada, por favor," (A lemonade, please?) you said, reaching for your coin purse.

The woman’s stirring slowed, her eyes flicking up to meet yours. Her mouth pressed into a thin line, and she didn’t move to pour the drink.

Behind her, another woman, one of the same ladies who had spoken to Joel that morning at the church,leaned in, whispering something into her ear. The vendor’s expression hardened.

"Sorry, I don’t speak Spanish” she said flatly, setting down the ladle. "But there is no more left."

You blinked, glancing at the nearly full jar. "I can see it full."

The woman wiped her hands on her apron and turned away as if you weren’t standing there at all.

Heat crept up your neck, not from the sun, but from the weight of the stares you suddenly felt around you. A few of the other vendors had gone quiet, their conversations dying as they turned to watch. You recognized some of them, women who had smiled at you in passing before. Now, their faces were unreadable, their expressions edged with something closer to disdain.

You exhaled slowly, setting your coins back into your pocket. "A la mierda con esto” (Fuck this) you murmured, stepping back.

You turned, walking away with your head high, refusing to give them the satisfaction of seeing how much it stung.

The whispers started as soon as your back was turned.

“She is shameless”

"And then she was fine, as if nothing had happened."

"After what happened in the church..."

Your fingers curled into your palms as you picked up your pace, pushing through the small crowd until you were free of them.

It wasn’t the first time you'd felt like an outsider in this town. But today, it felt different. Today, it felt personal, like daggers thrown in your direction.

You didn’t go far. Just enough to be away from the whispers, away from the stares that burned into your skin like embers.

A quiet little street opened up ahead, lined with a low wooden fence overlooking a field. The wind swayed through the tall grass, the golden tips catching the sunlight. You sat down, letting your hands rest on the rough wood, the warmth of the day still clinging to it.

And then, finally, the tears fell.

You bit your lip, staring at the horizon as your chest tightened. You had told yourself you wouldn’t let them get to you. That you wouldn’t let their judgment, their disdain, push you down. But here you were, shoulders trembling, wiping at your face with the sleeve of your blouse like a child.

It was everything. The weight of the past meeting the present, the uncertainty of the future. The ache of missing your old life.

The sound of footsteps on gravel made you stiffen.

You wiped your face quickly, trying to gather yourself before turning your head.

Joel stood a few feet away.

His brows furrowed, eyes scanning your face, taking in the redness around your eyes, the slight shake of your hands. His jaw tensed.

He had that look again, the one he always got when he was trying not to feel too much.

"You following me now, Father?" you asked, your voice rough from crying, trying to mask the way your throat still ached.

Joel didn’t answer right away. Instead, he sighed, stepping closer.

"I saw what happened," he said, voice lower, like he didn’t want to say it too loud. Like he didn’t want to remind you of it.

You scoffed, looking away. "Guess the whole town did."

Joel was quiet for a moment. Then, he sat down beside you, elbows resting on his knees, staring out at the field like you were.

"You don’t have to prove anything to them," he said finally.

You swallowed, blinking rapidly. "I know."

"Do you?"

You turned your head sharply, meeting his gaze. He didn’t look smug, didn’t look like he was trying to challenge you. If anything, he looked… concerned.

And for some reason, that made your chest hurt even more.

You exhaled shakily, dropping your gaze to your lap. "I just—" Your voice wavered, and you bit the inside of your cheek before shaking your head. "It doesn’t matter."

Joel didn’t push. Didn’t demand you say more. But when his hand came to rest lightly on your back, a steady warmth between your shoulder blades, you nearly broke all over again.

You didn’t move because Joel’s hand was warm, grounding over your back. He didn’t rub circles into your back, didn’t try to pull you closer, didn’t say anything at all. Just let his touch be there, solid, steady, unshaken by the weight of your silence.

You sniffed, staring out at the field, blinking quickly to stop more tears from falling.

"You should go," you murmured.

But Joel didn’t move.

You exhaled sharply, shaking your head. "They already don’t like me. And if they see you sitting here—"

"I don’t care," Joel interrupted, his voice firm.

You turned to look at him, brows furrowing. "Yes, you do."

His jaw clenched, a muscle ticking. "Maybe I do," he admitted. "But not enough to leave you sitting here like this."

The words hit something deep inside you, something you weren’t ready to face. You pressed your lips together, looking down at your hands.

Joel sighed beside you, shifting slightly.

"They’ll get over it," he said. "Eventually."

You let out a dry, humorless laugh. "You sure about that?"

A pause.

"No," he said simply. "But people forget. They always do."

You swallowed, staring at the dirt path beneath your feet.

"I don’t know how much more I can take," you admitted, voice small.

Joel was quiet for a long moment. Then—"You wanna get outta here?"

You looked at him, confused. "What?"

He nodded toward the dirt road, toward the open fields beyond the town. "Come on. Let’s take a drive."

You hesitated. "Joel—"

"Come on, let he said. "Just… somewhere else."

You searched his face, trying to understand him.

"Do you want to get out of town for the day?" He asked, struggling to take words out your lips.

"What?" You asked, dumfounded.

"Get out. You and me. We can go to the beach for the day, wherever you want.”

"Are you for real?"

He stood, offering his hand out for you. Joel's hand hovered between you, fingers slightly curled, waiting. His jaw was tight, his shoulders stiff like he was bracing himself for rejection.

"I know I don't deserve it," he said, voice rough, "but just—just for the day. No town, no church, no whispers. Just us."

You stared at him, searching for a lie, a trap, but there was nothing but raw sincerity in his face.

For a moment, you thought about telling him to go to hell. About slamming a door in his face again, making him sit with the mess he had made.

But then, you thought about the weight pressing on your chest, the suffocating stares when you walked through town, the way you felt like you couldn't breathe anymore.

And you thought about him. About the Joel you had known all this time.

The one who had been kind. The one who had made you laugh. The one who had looked at you like you were something worth knowing, something worth.

You exhaled sharply. "The whole day?"

His throat bobbed as he nodded.

You hesitated for only a second before reaching out and slipping your fingers into his. His palm was warm, calloused, solid.

"Okay," you said quietly. "The whole day.”

The drive through California's highway felt warm, the sun spilling golden light over the dry hills and endless stretches of road. The hum of the engine was the only sound, the occasional breeze ruffling your hair as you drove, the windows rolled down. There was something about the air, the space, that felt different—like you could breathe for the first time in days.

Joel kept his eyes on the road, but you could see his hands grip the wheel tighter than usual, his knuckles white, like he was trying to hold onto something. You weren't sure what, but his silence was louder than anything else, and you couldn't help but steal glances at him now and then. His jaw was set, his face a little more drawn than you remembered, but there was something else—something softer about the way he looked at the road, like he was giving himself permission to leave everything behind, even if just for a moment.

When you arrived at the beach, the sound of the waves crashing against the shore filled the air, soothing and constant. Joel pulled into a parking spot, then reached into his pocket for some change, heading to a nearby stand to grab ice cream. You lingered by the car, watching the ocean stretch out before you, the sand warm under your feet as you took in the vastness of it all.

Joel returned a few moments later, holding two cones. "Here," he said, handing you one, a smile playing at the corner of his lips. "Do you like chocolate?"

You nodded, accepting the cone. "Yeah, thanks."

He sat down next to you on the sand, his shoulders relaxed for the first time all day. The warmth of the sun on your skin felt comforting, like it was inviting you to leave everything behind and just exist for a while.

You took a bite of the ice cream, the cold sweetness a perfect contrast to the heat of the day, and sighed. For the first time in so long, you weren’t worried. You felt free.

You took another bite of your ice cream, the sweetness swirling in your mouth, but the question still lingered in your mind. You glanced at Joel, watching him for a moment as he stared out at the ocean, seemingly lost in thought. The steady rhythm of the waves only seemed to deepen the silence between you two.

After a few moments, you couldn’t hold it in any longer. “When was the last time you saw a woman in those clothes?” you asked, your voice quiet but clearly talking about the night he saw you at the club for the first time.

Joel turned his head slightly, his brow furrowing as if the question caught him off guard. He blinked once, then twice, as though trying to piece together the question in his mind. Finally, he sighed, his eyes dropping to his ice cream cone, his voice low.

“Never,” he said simply.

The word hung in the air like a truth neither of you were quite ready to face. You didn’t know what to say to that, but you felt something stir in your chest. Something raw. Something familiar, but unfamiliar at the same time.

You turned your gaze back to the ocean, letting the waves crash against the shore as you processed his response. Never. You wondered what that meant, what it meant about him, about you, about everything that had happened between you both. But the questions were too heavy, too complicated for this moment.

But then, “Do you want to know the real reason why I became a priest?” He asked, looking at you.

You looked at Joel, surprised by the vulnerability in his voice. His gaze was fixed ahead, but there was something in the way he spoke, something raw that made you realize you were hearing a part of him he hadn’t shared with anyone.

You blinked, taken aback. “What?”

He hesitated, his hand gripping the edge of his ice cream cone a little tighter. He didn’t meet your eyes, but you could feel the weight of his words coming, like a burden he’d been carrying for a long time. “I became a priest because a woman broke my heart.”

Your throat tightened, but you couldn’t bring yourself to say anything, so you just nodded, silently urging him to continue.

“My… what happened?” you finally managed to ask.

Joel’s lips pressed into a thin line as he took a deep breath, then slowly began to speak, each word coming out heavy, like it was wrapped in years of pain.

“We were together since we were sixteen. I married her at 21.” His voice cracked just slightly as he said it. “We were going to have a kid together. One night, we got mad at each other. She took our daughter and drove away… said she needed space.”

Your heart pounded in your chest as you tried to imagine what that must have felt like. But Joel kept going, his voice steady but distant.

“Then there was this accident…” His voice trailed off, and for a second, you thought he might stop talking. He swallowed hard before continuing. “My daughter died. And I—”

You could hear the pain in his voice, even if he tried to keep it under control.

“She was one.” He said, “Adeline survived but my Babygirl didn’t.” his voice almost breaking.

“I stopped seeing grey hair and holding hands in my seventies on a porch,” he said, his words quiet but heavy. “I just never thought I would be able to love someone else that way.”

For a long moment, you couldn’t say anything. His words hung in the air like they were too big to process all at once. You could feel the weight of everything he was carrying, the layers of grief and loss, and the way he was trying to put his life together again, piece by piece.

But then you felt it, how much of this story wasn’t just about his wife or daughter, but about everything that had happened between you two. How much he had been struggling with the things he’d said, the things he’d believed about you. How much pain he was still holding on to.

“I’m sorry, Joel,” you whispered.

He gave you a soft, almost imperceptible nod, but he didn’t say anything more. Instead, he just let the silence stretch between you both, and for the first time, it didn’t feel like there were walls between you. It just felt like two broken people, sitting side by side, with a shared understanding that didn’t need to be spoken out loud.

You sat there for a moment, the cool breeze from the ocean ruffling your hair, the sound of the waves crashing rhythmically against the shore. The weight of Joel’s story lingered in the air between you, but the silence felt different now, less heavy and more... shared. As if, for just a moment, both of you could exist in this small, quiet space without the world pressing down on you.

You didn’t know what to say. What could you say to something so raw, so painful? But your heart ached for him in a way you hadn’t expected, and before you could second-guess yourself, you reached out, your fingers brushing lightly against his hand.

His hand was tense at first, like he wasn’t sure if it was okay to let someone in. But when he felt the warmth of your touch, his body seemed to relax, and slowly, his fingers unfurled. You let your hand settle in his, fingers entwining as the quiet of the beach surrounded you.

“How old were you back when it happened?” you asked, fearing he would get offended by it.

“Twenty-two” he replied, simply.

“Why did you think you would never love someone again?”

“Because love hurt people.” He said, “It makes you dumb and afraid of yourself and I didn’t want that happening to me ever again.”

“But maybe there was someone out there. “

“I’m forty-eight, darling. There is no one for me out there.” He said without glancing at you but at the sea because deep down, he knew that someone was sitting next to him, and he was afraid to admit he had sacred vows at such young age when his perspective was tainted by hurt.

“I don’t have the answers for you, Joel,” you said softly, your voice steady, despite the storm of emotions swirling inside. “But I’m here. I’m not going anywhere.”

He didn’t respond right away. He just looked at you, his thumb brushing over your hand slowly, thoughtfully. You could see the battle inside him, the conflict of wanting to open up but being so afraid of what that might mean.

Joel’s eyes met yours, his gaze intense yet searching, as if trying to read the words you hadn’t spoken yet. You felt a strange pull inside, the urge to break through the silence and share something that had been buried deep within you for a long time.

He nodded slightly, his voice a whisper, “Yeah, if you want to share.”

You took a slow breath, your fingers still tangled with his, the connection between you grounding you in this moment. The ocean breeze was soft against your skin.

“I’m a ballerina” you said.

Joel’s eyes widened slightly, his thumb still brushing over your hand in a soothing, almost unconscious rhythm. He hadn’t expected that. The quiet intensity in his gaze softened just a bit, as if he were seeing a side of you that he hadn’t imagined before.

“You’re a ballerina?” His voice sounded surprised, as though the revelation was both unexpected and fascinating to him.

You nodded slowly, a small smile tugging at the corner of your lips. "Yeah, I was. I went to university and studied dance. It wasn’t just a passion; it was everything to me. I put in hours, years… But things happened. Life happened."

You looked out at the horizon, the ocean stretching endlessly in front of you, as though it might somehow offer the words you were struggling to find.

“I taught little girls how to become dancers too,” you continued, your voice a little quieter now. “I used to love watching them, seeing the joy in their faces when they learned something new. They were like little versions of me, full of dreams and possibilities. But…”

Joel’s expression softened further, and he leaned back slightly, taking in your words with a mix of empathy and understanding. “What happened?” he asked, his voice gentle, as though he were offering you the space to say whatever you needed.

You hesitated, unsure if you were ready to share the full story, but the words came anyway. “Achilles’ heel” you said.

Joel raised an eyebrow, leaning in just a little, intrigued by the sudden shift in your words. “Achilles’ heel?” he repeated softly, almost as if testing the phrase on his tongue.

You nodded, your eyes tracing the rhythm of the waves as you tried to gather your thoughts. “Yeah,” you began, your voice quiet but steady. “I got that injury and everything stopped.” you stopped, biting your lip as if the words themselves were too sharp to say.

You were lying a bit, but not entirely.

Joel’s gaze softened, his face etched with understanding as he listened to you, his body now angled toward you, as if every part of him was leaning in to hear your truth.

Joel’s eyes never left yours, his expression full of empathy, as if he could sense the weight behind your words, even if you weren’t saying everything. His hand tightened slightly around yours, a silent reassurance. “I get it,” he said softly, his voice steady. “The thing that defines you, that you think is everything... and then it’s gone. Like the ground beneath you suddenly disappears.”

You nodded slowly, the tightness in your chest spreading as you realized how much that injury had really taken from you, even if it wasn’t just physical. It had been more than a torn muscle or a strained tendon—it had been the loss of something you’d built your identity on. The thing that had once made you feel like you had a purpose, a place in the world.

“Everything stopped, yeah," you said again, more to yourself than to him. “I didn’t know how to live without it. I still don’t really know who I am outside of it. I’ve spent so much time trying to get back to that... and sometimes, I wonder if it’s even possible.”

Joel’s gaze softened further, and for a moment, the world around you felt distant, like it was just the two of you, suspended in the quiet of the beach. His voice, when it came, was calm, but it held a depth of understanding that surprised you.

“You’re more than that. More than just what you’ve done or what you’ve lost,” he said, his words carrying a weight of truth. “I can see it. You’re still you, even without all of it. You don’t have to keep chasing something that doesn’t define you.”

His words hit harder than you expected. You hadn’t realized how much you had been holding onto the idea of your past, of who you used to be, instead of seeing who you were now. It was easier to cling to something that felt familiar, even if it hurt.

“Dancing at the club is the closer I got to live from what I love” you confessed, your voice barely above a whisper, the vulnerability in it raw and real.

Joel’s thumb brushed across your hand again, the softest of motions, but it felt like the most grounding thing.

Joel’s gaze never left yours, his expression gentle but unwavering. The weight of your words seemed to settle between you, hanging in the air like an unspoken truth. He squeezed your hand softly, as though offering comfort, or perhaps just a reminder that you weren’t alone in this.

“That’s... that’s something, you know?” he said quietly, his voice filled with understanding. “I can see how much it means to you, even if it’s not the same as what you imagined. You’re still living it. It’s just... in a different way.”

You nodded slowly, the warmth of his words sinking in. "It’s not the same, though. It’s not what I dreamed of when I was younger, when I thought I’d be teaching classes, running my own studio, surrounded by little girls learning to dance. But at least when I’m on that stage, it feels like I’m close to who I was before... like a part of me hasn’t completely disappeared."

Joel’s thumb continued to move over the back of your hand, the quiet gesture a grounding presence in the midst of everything swirling inside you. He didn't speak immediately, letting the silence hang there, as though giving you space to breathe and reflect.

“Sorry for what I called you before” he said, looking at your eyes.

You met his gaze, a small, uncertain smile tugging at the corners of your lips. “Sorry for what you had been through. I think you’re stronger than you realize. Stronger than you’ve given yourself credit for.”

Joel’s eyes softened, the weight of your words settling between you both, filling the space with a quiet understanding. He inhaled deeply, as though your response had lifted a burden he hadn’t even realized he was still carrying. For a moment, neither of you said anything, simply sitting in the comfort of each other’s presence. The sound of the waves crashing against the shore was the only thing that filled the silence, their rhythm slow and steady, like the pulse of life itself.

“I don’t know if I’ll ever really be okay,” Joel finally said, his voice low, carrying the weight of years of unspoken pain. “But I’m trying. I’m trying for me, and for... everyone around me, even if it’s hard.”

You squeezed his hand gently, your heart swelling with empathy. “That’s all anyone can do. Try. It’s enough.”

He turned his head toward you, his gaze searching, but this time it was softer, more open. “I hurt you. I called you things... things that weren’t true. And for that, I’m sorry. I just didn’t know how to handle all the... feelings. And the confusion.”

You felt a knot form in your throat, but you swallowed it down, nodding in acknowledgment. “I know. I get it. And I’m sorry for... for pushing you away when I shouldn’t have. It’s just... I didn’t know who to trust anymore.”

He didn’t reply right away, his thumb moving in slow circles against the back of your hand, grounding you both once more. The world around you seemed to fade into the background, as though nothing else existed but the two of you on that beach, sharing this fragile moment.

After a few moments, he whispered, “I never wanted to hurt you. Never.”

“I know,” you whispered back, your voice filled with the same quiet sincerity. “I know you didn’t.”

Joel took a deep breath, looking back at the ocean for a moment before turning his gaze to you once again. “Maybe... maybe we can start over. No labels. No expectations. Just... us.”

You smiled softly, a real smile, one that reached your eyes. “I’d like that.”

With that, he leaned in, his forehead gently resting against yours, as the sound of the waves filled the air around you. It was a small gesture, but it spoke volumes, conveying all the unspoken emotions that had built up between you.

The night sky had settled over the town by the time you and Joel returned, the world around you bathed in the soft glow of streetlights. The air was cooler now, the warmth of the day fading into the peaceful stillness of the evening. The drive back had been quiet, but the silence between you didn’t feel heavy—it felt comfortable, like the kind of silence that only comes from being in the presence of someone who understands without needing to say a word.

As you reached the edge of town, Joel parked in front of his house, getting out the vehicle, you turned to Joel, your heart still full from the day you had shared. You broke the silence, your voice soft but sincere.

"Thank you for taking me out of the city, Joel" you said, your lips curving into a smile that reached your eyes, accentuating the little wrinkles at the corners that made his heart skip a beat.

He glanced at you, a soft smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. “Did you feel good?”

"I did. Thank you again."

Joel’s gaze lingered on you, his expression softening as he looked into your eyes. "It was nothing," he replied, his voice low, yet filled with sincerity. "Seeing you smile like this is enough for me."

"I'm really sorry for what I said to you the other day, you aren't that. You're not a sin but an angel."

You felt your heart flutter at his words. They were simple, yet they meant everything. You took a small step closer to him, the space between you shrinking until you could almost feel his warmth, the subtle scent of him mingling with the cool night air. His cheeks flushed softly as he noticed how close you were.

Your smile widened, and you took a step closer to him, his cheeks tinted in soft pink as he realized how close you were, in front of him, tiptoeing in your feet to place a soft, lingering kiss on his cheek.

How could he be so close to you and not falling into temptation? How could he be so close and not dive into the waters and be sunbathed by your light?

He didn't want it to admit it, but his heart spoke for him. Sending clear signals, each beating, slow and fast, it was all because of you.

Because of the way you were.

Because of your smile.

Because of the little wrinkles on your nose when you smiled.

And because of how your face was sun kissed by the day you had shared today looked like under the light of his own eyes.

Without thinking, Joel cupped your face gently with both hands, his touch tender as he gazed down at you. You gasped softly, your breath catching in your throat, as he leaned in and placed a lingering kiss on your forehead, his eyes closing in the moment.

You didn’t want to admit it either, but your heart was bursting in that instant. He was everything you had dreamed of, a man who could love you with such sweetness, with such kindness, that he could build a fire just to keep you warm.

"Joel?" You spoke at the silence settled, his eyes seemed lost on your face, still inhaling the scent of vanilla of your perfume as if he wanted to memorize it forever.

You hesitated, your eyes flicking around as if you expected the world to turn against you, the hateful glares of the town’s people coming for you, their judgmental eyes sharp and heavy.

"I don’t think I should," you replied, the words tentative, the unease of the world outside pressing against you.

Joel’s voice was steady as he met your gaze. "There’s tea inside."

You chuckled softly, the corners of your lips lifting in amusement as you met his eyes. "Oh, you should have started by saying that."

Having you close was healing something he thought it was forever broken.

And he smiled, opening the door of his house that seemed to welcome you all over again, a fort where you could truly be you and him, with no eyes watching.

"You can stay over." he said out if nowhere.

"Why?"

"Because it's late and I don't want you walking alone at this time." He replied, trying to convince himself that was the only reason he wanted you here, closer to where he was.

"that's nice, but seriously why?" You asked him again, softly, looking for the real reason behind those soft brown eyes that made you this weak.

"This place seems brighter with you in it." Joel’s cheeks flushed a deeper shade of red as he met your gaze, his voice barely a whisper now. "This place seems brighter with you in it."

The words hung in the air between you, as if they were a secret the two of you had just shared. You smiled, a tender, knowing smile that spoke volumes without needing to say anything more.

"Okay." you smiled.

"Okay." he said after, mirroring the same lopsided smile he prayed to see each day.

And both of you laughed at the same time. Every possible line to be crossed was already crossed. This day you had both shared has ripened into love, it had consumed you, completed you as if the soul has spoken the words "oh, I already found you."

Perhaps, Joel was the destination where your strings landed on.

And perhaps, you were the soul Joel had given up to a long time ago, he had found you, and he stayed, worshipping the poems he had written about you all these years.

tags: if you want to be removed, you're free to tell me.

@jasminedragoon @mandaloriankait @jellybeanxc @spencercmlover @lilac-boo @disco-fairy75 @correapunk @existentialdreadofhumanity @secretcheesecakenacho @laliceee @exzidss @missladym1981

@drewharrisonwriter @hjzghi-blog @picketniffler @nobodyssfool @pedritosgirl2000 @koshkaj-blog @cigarxttxs @sweetpeakarolinaaa @wandasimp-69 @canteenee4 @obivari @shortandderanged @casualbananapatrol @stevie75 @hammerhead1776 @brittmb115 @strangersdotmp3 @goodvibesonly421 @jackie923 @lunpycatavenue @capuccinodoll

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mv1simp · 10 months ago

Note

my constant thought about max is him and virgin reader where r is saving herself for marriage and for her husband but max convinces her that doing anal means she’ll stay a virgin <33

Anon YOU EVEN MADE ME BLUSHH 🤭🤭🤭 do u know how hard that is. got me kickin and gigglin an shit, here u go u filthy animal keep the requests coming 🫶

Low Life ♥️

Max Verstappen x Horner! Reader

I been on the molly and ‘em xans with your daughter, if she catch me cheatin’ I won’t ever tell her sorry

Mad Max is back in full force with the poor Redbull strategy this season - and his boss, Christian Horner, doesn’t seem to be doing anything about it. Guess Max will just have to find some other way to get his revenge and relieve his stress…starting with his boss’s precious, spoiled daughter.

Content includes: 18+ MDNI, smut, innocent virgin!reader, who’s also a spoiled brat lol, dark! Max, blackmail, coercion, filming, VERY dubcon, anal, size kink, dom/sub, bimbofication, religious themes, EVERYTIME I WRITE A DARK MAX FIC IT KEEPS GETTING MORE NASTY GODDAMN, 5.2k WC

To say Max was pent up with rage would be an understatement. After dedicating himself tirelessly and dominating the track since his debut, the Redbull team had disappointed him this season with their pisspoor car and even poorer strategy. And to top it off, his boss was now making comments to the media about how he needed to spend less time on the sim rig the night before a race, making Max scoff. As if Horner knew more about winning a race than a 3 time world champion, Max thought angrily, yanking off his helmet as he stormed straight to his boss's office to give him a piece of his mind after another disappointing P3 finish.

Horner was having none of it, though, telling Max some bullshit about how the team needed to have a united front blah blah blah. Max has already tuned him out, cause what the fuck does he mean the team - he was the one bringing home the results every weekend, and anyone who tried to say otherwise just needed to look at the track record of Max completely dominating his teammates in equal machinery. God, he hadn’t gotten this mad in a long time, so he excuses himself rudely as he can tell he’s about to wreck something if he has to hear another one of Horner’s excuses. He wrenches open the office door just to have you stumble straight into his firm chest as you try to enter it.

You, Christian’s Horner’s daughter from his first wedding, freshly graduated from some private all girls college. He’d met you 3 months ago while you were trotting about like the spoiled little brat you undoubtedly were. No job, just using your degree as decor while you used your daddy’s fame to find yourself a rich man to spread your legs for, he had speculated, knowing just your type.

And it irritated him to no end that you looked the picture of innocence, an angelic figure in your white minidress and kitten heels and wide doe eyes, with a matching purity ring and all - even though your pretty tits and fat ass were openly ogled by many a male staff member. Max himself had to readjust his pants a few times when he’d seen you bend over.

He’d assumed you’d try to sink your gold digging claws into him soon enough, wanting some of his multimillionaire status for yourself, but you’d surprised him by skittishly avoiding him, almost looking a little scared, which he found amusing. He supposed he did dwarf your 5 foot frame though, and you had all the aura of a sweet little lamb compared to the Dutch lion. You’d surprised him again last month, when you’d introduced your dad to your pick of a first boyfriend - Tim, a docile looking, short guy who was a lowly new hire in the F4 reserve category. Too far down in the rankings to do any real benefit to your status. Conveniently, though, Tim’s father happened to own a software development app that was currently in the process of a $3 million acquisition deal. Chump change to someone like Max, but like he said, he knew your type, didn’t he?

But he’d been most surprised when he’d overheard moaning one night when he’d stayed late in the garage - and had pervily gone to investigate down the abandoned hallway and into one of the empty rooms - only to get an instant hard on at the sight of you on your knees, dress pulled down to your waist and those delicious tits out on display. So entranced by the angelic vision, Max hadn’t even noticed your loser boyfriend - till a scowl appeared on your pretty face as Tim furiously jerked his tiny dick off in front of you. He was panting and whining, sweat running down his face as he pathetically begged please, please can i touch your boobs-

You were no scared little lamb now as you snapped at him viciously. No! I told you, only looking and no touching! I promised daddy I would stay pure for my husband- Eww! Oh my god, what is that?

You’d been cut off as your boyfriend came, his small, clear load weakly spurting past his fist so that only a couple of drops landed on your caramel skin. Max had thought you’d been lying about the purity bullshit, just wanting an excuse to avoid Tim’s touch - but his eyes narrowed at your look of disgust at your boyfriend’s dick, and the genuinely puzzled expression on your face as you tried to figure out what the clear fluid that landed on you was - making the impressive semi he still rocked twitch, despite your pathetic boyfriend ruining his show. Interesting, you were still a virgin, huh?

Sure, you’d piqued his interest then, but he ignored you now as you stumble back from his hard chest, wide brown doe eyes blinking up at him. He’s still furious with Horner and starts to move past you but your aggravating father perks up, asking if you could show Max where his new drivers' room was in the refurbished wing, so that he could cool down and destress in peace after today’s race. Of course, daddy, you responded sweetly, making Max’s cock stir. He eyed you doubtfully as you lead the way. You had to know what you were doing, a grown woman using that word, right? But then again, he’d seen you call Horner by that title in a team wide press conference, making GP choke on his water next to him - so maybe not.

His anger hadn’t dissipated one bit as you approached his room, in a much more secluded area of the new wing for him to “cool down” as Horner had passively aggressively suggested. Still clearly nervous in his presence, you accidentally dropped the key you’d fished out. As you bent over to collect them, your miniskirt rose up, revealing your juicy ass peeking past your white cotton panties. Oh, he’d found the perfect way to get back at his boss, Max thought devilishly.

As you unlocked the door, he stepped in behind you, giving you no choice but to stumble inside - and then he’d casually stopped in front of the door to block your exit. You nervously twirled your keycard in your fingers, shuffling side to side.

Why don’t you sit down, he offered, we should get to know each other, yeah? You still looked like you wanted to bolt any second, but at Max’s authoritative tone you gingerly sat down on the plush couch.

He started with some generic bullshit about how he’d seen you around, you were his boss’s daughter after all, and as Horner’s best driver he should be on good terms with you too, no?

You relaxed, now looking up to meet his eyes and smiling brightly, pleased that the great Max Verstappen had come to seek your favour. You start saying that it was nice to meet him too, you’d heard lots about him, he was such an incredible driver-

You hadn’t noticed Max discreetly locking the door behind him. Stepping forward, he responded neutrally to your excited questions as he casually strips off his top layer, leaving him shirtless.

You abruptly stop talking, going pink in the face, and he asks what’s wrong, I’m just getting changed, are you a virgin or something? His mocking tone makes it clear that he still didn’t quite believe you were one. When you don’t reply, he gently lifts your face up with his large hand. And as your eyes shyly rise up to meet his, desperately avoiding looking at his broad, toned abs, there’s no faking the genuine innocence in them. I am, you stutter out. A virgin, I mean. I made a promise to daddy to wait till marriage.

You twirl your promise ring around anxiously as you say it. Max didn’t know what kind of sick brainwashing Horner had been subjecting his daughter too, but he fully intended to use it to his advantage. Really? He says slyly. Does your daddy know you let your little boyfriend jerk off on your tits?

You gasp, then glare as you demanded to know how he knew that, had he been watching, that was soo creepy and gross -

There’s the bratty angel he knew had been hiding. He cuts you off, confirming that yes, he’d been watching - but you’d been the dirty girl who seduced her innocent boyfriend in the garage for just anyone to see, hadn’t you?

You’d look outraged at his statements, but he reminded you of the power he had when he nonchalantly mentioned that he hadn’t planned on telling your father, but now that he knew about the promise you had made - well, it was his duty to let Horner know what kind of naughty things you’d been doing behind his back, right?

That had wiped the bratty glare right off your face, instead making you wide eyed and tremble with fear at the thought of your daddy finding out. You begged Max to keep your secret. Please don’t tell him, he would die, you'd do anything to stop him knowing!

Jackpot. Smirking darkly, Max pretended to consider your option before saying that he supposed he could keep it to himself if you helped him destress and relax like your father had sent you here to do, okay?

You nodded eagerly, looking up at him with those innocent doe eyes as he stepped right in front of you, watching you predatorily. His thick fingers brush along your pink lips, and his eyes darken as you instinctively take them into your mouth, sucking sweetly. Oh, you were going to be such a sweet little angel for him, he just knew it.

Within seconds he had you dropping your dress down to your waist, exposing those lush, pretty tits of yours. You blushed when he stared hungrily and ordered you to play with them, and at first you obliged and gently squeezed them, but then stopped to brattily ask just how this was supposed to help destress him, was he just being pervy again?

Great point, he said, and sat down next to you to easily lift you into his lap, taking over and roughly palming your tits. N-no touching! You had squealed, desperately trying to escape his strong arms. Rolling his eyes, he forced you back against him, explaining that it was okay, you knew that it didn’t count if it was to help him destress, right? And besides, nothing would affect your promise to your daddy except a man’s cock actually entering your precious virgin hole-

Okay! You had said frantically to put a stop to his explicit words, face flushed. Okay, if you promise it doesn’t count, I’ll still be a virgin, right?

God, it was so cute how naive you were. You hadn’t even realised that if what Max was saying was true then there was nothing illicit with what you and Tim had done - and Max had nothing to hold over you. Right, Angel, Max promised, enjoying the dazed look you gave him at the nickname as he squeezed your tits, bending down to take a pretty nipple into his mouth. It doesn’t count.

And that was how Max had his boss’s innocent little daughter wrapped around his fingers, ready to do whatever he asked of her, as long as he kept your secret. It was such a rush, having his way with you right under your father’s nose, being able to punish you for his crimes and ruining you more and more each time Horner pissed him off - and oh, did he piss Max off constantly.

So the next race, he’d had you fully strip for him, and yes, even those cute panties, Angel, when you’d whined, embarrassed from his intense gaze. You’d bit your lip and slid them off, obediently spreading your legs and gently playing with yourself like he’d asked, using unfamiliar movements. Soon enough you’d become accustomed to Max’s hungry stares at your innocent parts and began thrusting your tiny fingers inside your virgin cunny, because it had started to feel sooo good and soo tingly down there, and you’d never felt like that before.

You’d become distracted, closing your eyes from the sensation and when you opened them you shrieked, because Max was now standing right above you, greedily looking down at your petite form as he stroked his own private parts - called a cock, he’d made you repeat. He’d also warned you never to scream again in his room, or he’d gag you next time and tell your dad about Tim. You pouted, nodding obediently, but whining that you got scared Maxie, why was it so big, so angry, was it going to hurt you?

Of course not, Angel he’d reassured at the next race again, this time making you sit next to him, naked except for your kitten heels and a lacy blue thong he’d had delivered to your house - your father as clueless as ever when he handed the package over to you. It won’t hurt you, he promised, but it's very hard from stress and needs you to help drain it, okay?

He’d guided you to his large cock, smirking evilly as you struggled to grip him even with two hands. He moved one large hand over both of yours, showing you how to jerk him off the way he liked. You’d picked it up very quickly, innocently asking him why Tim's cock was so much tinier that his. Cause, Angel, I'm just a better man than he is, he had said with a chuckle. Oh, you had said, then - I hope my husband is a good man then, and has a big cock like you.

Oh, Jesus. Max was definitely going to hell after this. Feeling his peak approaching, he ordered you onto your knees, making you hold your tits up - and then proceeded to cover them with his thick, creamy release, so much of it that it dripped down onto your stomach - and much more than the time you had seen Tim’s cock explode. You’d almost screamed again but bit your tongue at the last minute, remembering Max’s threat last time. But it didn’t stop you from glaring up at him, brattily asking what this gross stuff was, eww, you didn’t want it on you-

That’s fine, Max had said cooly. That’s fine, because next time he'd make you drink it all instead. Your eyes went wide at that, tears forming and you adamantly denied Max, saying you’d never do something like that, it sounded pervy and dirty.

But your reluctance meant nothing to Max, as he smirked at you from your fathers side the next day, whispering something in his ear that had your daddy looking over at you and an icy chill running down your back. You were petrified as you got a text from your father to come see him in his office now, walking in on the verge of tears only to have him smile delightedly at you because Max mentioned you’d been very supportive of his races lately, it’s been a big reason why he’s so much more of a team player these days, so proud of you for helping the team, sweetie!

You’d accepted his praise, blushing from the attention, and later had dutifully wandered back to Max’s room to greet him after the race. He smirked at finding you there, already naked except for a pink lacey thong and heels, on your knees for him, shyly thanking him for keeping your secret and saying such nice things to your daddy. Of course, Angel, he murmured, unzipping himself. You know just how to say thank you then, hmm? And you obediently nodded, jerking him off like he’d taught you, then licking and sucking on his cock when he asked, and then taking all of his length inside your eager throat at his command, gagging the whole way as he tutted disapprovingly at you, taking over and controlling the pace with his large hands. It had really hurt your tiny mouth, and you couldn’t speak properly afterwards, but seeing Maxie swear and tell you how good you were doing, how he never wanted to let you go, made that tingly feeling come back in between your legs again. Instead of ignoring it like you normally did, this time you couldn't resist fingering yourself, thong pushed the side as you shoved your fingers inside your wet cunny.

Maxie had gone breathless seeing that, and then he tensed before you felt his warm, sticky thick cum fill your mouth. You swallowed every drop, opening your mouth afterwords for him to inspect. Good girl, he said, patting your head. My sweet angel, you drained my stress so well. Oh, so that’s what it was, you say innocently. I’m glad I made you feel better, Maxie.

After that, there were no races for a whole month as the paddock went into summer break. You had thought you’d be glad for the relief from Maxie and his mean demands, but you found yourself texting him often, missing his loving kisses and touches after you helped relieve his stress, missing the tingly feeling you got when he looked predatorily at you spread open for him.

You’d been shocked when you opened your eyes as a shadow had blocked out the sun while you were sunbathing at your family’s St Tropez holiday home, only to find Max grinning down at you, saying your dad had invited him to come for the week. Had you been doing your homework? You nodded diligently, looking at the banana you’d been practising swallowing whole without gagging to copy the dirty video Max had texted you of a petite woman eagerly sucking a very big cock - he must be a good man, you’d thought, just like your Maxie.

Secretly, you were so glad he was here, shooting him looks over the dinner table as he sung praises about what a good friend you’d been to him, helping him get back to P1, making your daddy proudly pat your head. And after dinner when everyone had gone to bed, he joined you in the hot tub to unwind. You’d excitedly begun to tell him about what you had been upto on the break when you felt his thick fingers creeping up the inside of your thighs. You’d frozen instantly, because Maxie had never touched you there himself, but before you could say anything your father stepped out onto the veranda, asking you something about your plans for the next day.

Answer him, Max mouthed, smirking as you had no choice but to let him keep gliding up your legs and undoing your tiny bikini. And when your daddy had gone back inside, oblivious that the flush on your face wasn’t from the heat of the pool, you’d tried to shove Max’s hand away, brattily saying you didn’t want his hand near your private parts, that was just for your husband-

Doesn’t count, Angel, Max had cooed, easily overpowering you and sliding a finger in, much thicker and longer than yours and making you squeal as he started pumping it in and out of you. And he hadn’t stopped despite your half hearted protests, because you’d started to feel really good, really tingly, and Maxie, I feel funny, I think I’m going to pee-

After you had your first orgasm, he carried your tired figure back into the house, setting you down and licking your cum off his fingers. And then, through your half asleep state, you felt his tongue swirling around your nipples, leaving hickeys and then trailing down, and down before his warm breath gently blew over your puffy cunny. And then you felt his wide tongue licking your folds, making you gasp awake and squeal cause why was he kissing you down there, that’s so pervy-

But he’d easily bullied you back into quiet muffled moans again, your skimpy bikini bottoms shoved inside your mouth as he warned you that your father was going to wake up right next door and come investigate if you didn’t shut up. So you reluctantly let him continue his filthy kissing, spitting and licking on your most innocent parts until you felt you had to pee again. He grinned wickedly as you squirted a second time, completely ruining the sheets, before redressing your passed out figure in a comfy hoodie. You felt the ghost of a sweet kiss on your forehead before he walked away.

You avoided him the next few days, glaring when he would approach you, angry he’d kissed you somewhere only your husband should. He’d promised you were still a virgin, sure, but still! It was just too much, wasn’t it?

But you’d been unable to resist his advances any longer when he’d cornered you in the family study one day when everyone else had gone out to the markets. He’d sweetly apologised, presenting you with a new Dior bag he’d had speed delivered that morning, and you happily snatched it up, gasping with delight as you look inside to find a Cartier bracelet. You’ll forgive me, right, Angel? Max had said, slowly wrapping his arms around you from behind and rubbing his practically blue balls against your plush ass as you distractedly admire your new gifts. I just wanted to make you feel good, hmm?

You nodded breathlessly, agreeing that you supposed it had felt really good, you liked that tingly feeling in between your legs. Yeah? Max had grinned, kissing you and slipping his tongue inside and saying that he knew a way to make you feel even better, Angel, and you’d still be a virgin after it, he pinky promises, okay?

With the new Dior bag and diamond bracelet you’d become a lot more agreeable, and didn’t protest as he laid you back on your father’s study table, lifting your miniskirt over your hips and grinning wickedly when he found no panties - just your glistening pussy. Y-you always just rip them anyways, Maxie you pouted.

Oh, you secretly wanted this, didn’t you? Acting all bratty just cause you wanted to make him work for it, he was certain. Your sweet body was such a good plaything for him that he didn’t really mind, deciding not to punish you for avoiding him.

You curiously watch as he unzips himself, taking his thick cock out, then you squeal adamantly in protest when he brings it close to your innocent hole. Shh, Angel, it’s just on the outside, he’d promised, I won’t put it in, it’ll feel so good, trust me.

And it had felt sooo good, making you bite your lip and toss your head back as he dragged his warm length along your folds, slapping your clit a few times with his cockhead, making you spread your soft legs invitingly as you felt the addictive tingly feeling come back again.

He’d been unable to resist the temptation, sliding just the tip into your virgin cunny- but you’d immediately screamed in protest, twisting away and he had generously released you from his hold, tongue in cheek as you sashayed away with a backwards glare, Dior bag in hand. He’d had to leave the next day, and you didn’t see him the rest of the break.

After the break, you had seemed different to Max. You carried the brattiness openly in your eyes, confident now in your ability to seduce him as he has brought such expensive apology gifts just for a little taste of your virginity.

You had infuriatingly said no when he tried to rub himself against your cunny at the next race, and at the one after that, so here he was, stuck fingering you and sliding his tongue in and out of your folds for the 3rd time this week while his cock ached to be buried inside you - when the wicked idea came to him.

He’d made sure to have all the preparations ready for the next race, knowing you would be a brat and try to weasel your way out of it. Like he’d predicted, you make your way to his plush sofa, spreading your legs to show off your naked pussy and demanding he come kiss it how you liked.

Oh, his Angel had become quite the spoilt little bitch, hasn’t she? He’d have to make sure you learned your lesson about who was in charge around here. You smirk as he drags his tongue up and down your puffy folds, thinking you had the millionaire driver all wrapped around your fingers. His thick third and ring fingers join his tongue, making you moan and close your eyes as he pumps them into your pussy. And then, his thumb drops down, lower, to circle your other winking hole before sliding inside.

You’d jumped in shock, naively asking why he was touching your dirty hole, that’s so embarrassing, you don’t want him to touch that place!

Max cooes that he couldn’t care less, besides, he can clean it out for you, yeah? If he just slides his cock in, just a little bit, he can make sure it’s all clean for you.

Your eyes go impossibly wide at the thought of his big cock anywhere near your ass. You furiously close your legs, brattily telling him that you’d had enough, wasn’t he just being a pervert now, and you’d already broken up with Tim ages ago and since Max seemed to be very relaxed now given his P1s has resumed you didn’t think you needed to help him out anymore!

Time to pull out the big guns. Sitting back on the sofa now, Max palms his growing erection as he calls out to you, making you pause from where your hand rested on the doorknob.

You know, Angel, I’ve had a lot of creepy fans sneak onto the garage lately. Some even got into my room. I guess they just really wanted to see me shirtless, huh?

You turn around to look at him, confused, until your eyes slowly widen in horror as he points to the camera tucked in the corner. There’s no trace of sympathy on his handsome face as he starts lazily jerking himself off, telling you that it had been your fathers idea to set it up, for his safety, and he’d even kindly offered to go through all the footage later - he took any threats against his prized driver very seriously.

You panicked, already teary eyed at the thought of your father seeing you spreading your legs sluttily and demanding Max pleasure you. You immediately dropped to your knees, begging Max to keep the tape himself-

Now why would I do that, Angel? Max cooes, getting harder at the sight of you kneeling in front of him and crying for his help. After all, you’re the one who’s forcing him to kiss her pussy on that video, hmm?

He knows he has you right where he wants you as you beg him, offering up your precious pussy to slide against again if he wanted, just don’t go inside, okay?

That’s not the hole he wants, Angel, he told you darkly. No - he wanted your other hole, the dirty embarrassing one, and he wants to sink his entire cock inside it.

He watches you stutter and gasp, before you take a deep breath and naively ask My husband won’t be able to tell, right Maxie? I’ll still be a virgin?

Max smirks. Of course, Angel. You know he’d never break your precious promise. And with that, you’re ready to become his obedient pet again, blankly turning around and sticking your ass up in the air like he asks, spreading your cheeks for him to look at.

And oh, Max takes his sweet time looking, enjoying the twisted satisfaction of having completely broken you down like this. He generously douses you in lube, making you squeal at the chill, before he’s furiously pumping his thumb inside your impossibly tight back hole. You tremble as he lines his cock up, ordered you to relax or it’ll hurt, Angel. Slowly sinking inside, he moans as he finally finds his way into your heat, feeling like he’s reached heaven. Tears stream down your face as you wail once he begins meanly thrusting, wickedly taking your anal virginity all for himself and giving you his fingers to suckle on and keep quiet.

He doesn’t stop until he’s finished inside you, panting heavily and pushing his matted hair out of his eyes, pressing kisses down your spine to let you know you did so well for him.

He pulls out with a wet squelch, enjoying the sight of his cum dripping out of your poor, abused little hole. Sitting back comfortably on the sofa, legs spread, he gives you a cocky smirk as you turn around, still seated on the ground in front of him.

Now clean it up, he demands meanly. He can’t have your hole make his cock dirty now, can he? And you obediently responded, crawling forward with glazed eyes, licking him clean from balls to tip like he’s trained you to do.

After that night, Max had held you completely in the palm of his hand. You’d be the perfect angel for him, doing whatever he wanted wherever he wanted - except for entering your innocent pussy, of course. He’d let you keep it yours for now, finding the fantasy hot. He’d buy you a diamond ring one of these days, he mused, so that you’d beg him to finally claim your virginity.

But for now, he had a couple other tricks to try out. And if you’d try to refuse, he’ll pull up the video he has on his phone of your eyes rolling back as Max ate you out on your father’s work desk from summer break.

He’d taken you back to his hotel room to teach you those tricks, making you wail and scream his name without restriction, headboard banging against the wall. It was hilarious when Horner had come upto him at breakfast the next morning, patting his back and saying it sounded like he’d been celebrating his win very well last night, congratulations, he deserves it and sounded like the girl couldn’t get enough!

Max had to hold back his laughter, as your clueless father had no idea he was carrying an extra croissant up for the very same girl who couldn’t get enough - his precious little daughter, who still lay sleeping in his hotel bed, exhausted from his dirty activities all night.

You’d ended up missing your flight back, making some weak excuse to your daddy and had followed Max into his private jet, obediently spreading yourself open for him as he pulled you behind the privacy screen. The flight attendants had blushed as they heard your eager moans and the lewd sounds of Max greedily fucking your ass again.

And when you landed, greeting your waiting family, Max had to discreetly wipe the line of cum that trickled down your skirt. You didn’t have to worry, though, he’d already thoughtfully ordered another delivery of sexy underwear straight to your home 🖤

—————————————————————————

A/N: I actually gave myself post nut clarity writing this (post writing smut clarity?? Post smut conscience??) time to go outside and reconnect with nature. As always,,,lmk what u think 🤔

#max verstappen fanfic #max verstappen imagine #max verstappen smut #max verstappen x reader #max verstappen x you #f1 smut #max verstappen #f1 fanfic #f1 imagine #formula 1 #f1 x reader #christian horner #horner’s daughter #smut #18+ mdni

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deebris · 1 year ago

Text

The Mysterious Visitor 2

Batfamily x batsis (platonic!)

Synopsis: The unknown child evokes conflicting feelings in Bruce Wayne, who once again finds himself needing to deal with Talia's life problems. The girl only wanted the simple desire to see her brother again, unaware of the danger she had put herself into on her journey.

Warnings: The reader is 13 years old and is Damian's twin sister; the tone of the story is somewhat sad; Bruce is intimidating; Hugo Strange mentioned.

Word count: 2.8k

Note: I feel like maybe I could have developed a more emotional scene between Bruce and the reader, I also want to delve deeper into her thought process, but I hope to make up for that in the next part.

Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3 - Part 4 - Part 5 - Part 6

Alfred could finally check the exact time now that he was standing in front of Bruce's room, admiring for a few seconds the clock in the corridor's decoration, which showed 4:17 am. He prepared to knock on the door, but suddenly a thought crossed his mind: would it be more rational to wake Damian instead of his father? Throughout his life, he had faced unusual situations thanks to the Wayne family; hardly anything would shake him now. His concern, however, was not for himself, but for Bruce.

Talia was a persistent shadow in Bruce's past, still haunting him, and although he had tried to convince the butler many times that the only link he had with her now was because of their son, Alfred still doubted it. Their relationship had been complicated in many ways, either because of her ambiguous nature or Ra’s al Ghul's insistence on trying to persuade Bruce to join the League of Assassins, making Alfred fear that Bruce's morals might deviate because of this passion at the time.

Alfred raised his fist to knock three times and waited patiently as was his custom, but it seemed that was not enough to wake his master. He knew the door was open and knew he was allowed to enter without knocking, so just this once he used the liberty the young man had given him over the years; because in the end, Bruce Wayne was just that, a young man, and would always be seen that way by him.

Inside the room, he turned on the light, and the intense glare made him close his eyes to avoid the sting of the brightness. Approaching the bed, he sighed at the sight of Zolpidem pills left on the nightstand. This had been the only way Bruce found to stop spending sleepless nights, reluctantly since he was too stubborn and preferred to patrol in the darkness. Waking him would be a difficult task.

"Master Bruce," he called, waiting for a response, but got nothing. Alfred felt sorry for waking him, seeing how he finally seemed to be resting. "Master Bruce," he called again, this time nudging his shoulder. The pills must have been wearing off because he started to stir on the mattress.

"What’s going on, Alfred?" Bruce asked in a hoarse voice while rubbing his eyes to relieve the discomfort from the lamp. He sat up in bed, leaning his back against the headboard, blinking several times to see the butler in the corner. One of the room's curtains was open, and he saw the snow falling outside with the dark sky, showing that it was still night. "Is it Hugo Strange? Has he shown up somewhere?"

"Unfortunately, or fortunately, no, sir." Alfred paused, then licked his lips, preparing to continue and finally revealing, "There's a young lady downstairs who claims to be Master Damian’s sister." Direct, as always.

"Sister of Damian?" Bruce repeated the information, still not fully comprehending its meaning. He needed some time, just standing there absorbing the words. It seemed to be taking an eternity, but Alfred wouldn't interrupt the moment of clarity he was having.

He squinted, pushed the covers aside, and picked up the shirt he found nearby. Buttoning it up and getting out of bed, he continued, "When did this happen?"

"Just now, sir."

"Did Damian bring her here?" The question had a bitter tone but never crossed the line of respect that was drawn between them, and Alfred knew he should prepare for his interrogation. Bruce saw the alarm clock and, like the butler a few minutes ago, checked the time. "He never mentioned anything like this."

"Nor to me." Alfred suddenly extended a coat for him to take. Bruce held the fabric between his fingers, confused. "This coat is hers. There’s a map of Gotham City and a letter inside. I recommend you take a look at the addressee."

Pulling the papers from the right pocket, Bruce noticed a map folded into many smaller parts and a letter witch was still sealed, though the corners were noticeably crumpled and marked by small fingers. Carefully analyzing the cursive handwriting, he read. "I had no idea Damian still had contact with his mother. Much less that Talia had a daughter," he said, still drowsy, staring at the name 'Talia Head,' to whom the letter was addressed and recognizing his son’s elegant handwriting. Apparently, she still used the alias surname.

"It's not surprising considering you only discovered your son after so many years." The statement could have easily been interpreted as irony, but it was acidic. "She didn’t seem sure Damian lived here; I suppose she found out because of this letter."

"You left her alone downstairs?" he ignored the previous comment.

"I left her in Master Dick's care."

Bruce stared at him for long seconds and hurried out of the room. Halfway down the stairs, he could already see some glimpses of Dick's hair over the back of the sofa, talking to someone, or rather, laughing with someone.

"Dick?" The voice quickly caught his attention, turning his face to see his father approaching. When Bruce stood in front of the fireplace, he could finally look at the child beside the boy. Dick began to say something, but Bruce couldn’t hear.

He stared at the girl, analyzing everything about her, from the way she intertwined her fingers nervously to her deer-like eyes. Her iris were shining, as if she had cried, and her swollen and bruised lips were quite noticeable. She had definitely been outside not long ago, shaking and rubbing her hands together constantly to warm herself up. She seemed too sweet, but Bruce knows that appearances can be deceiving.

His gaze passed over the pendants hanging from her bracelet, a simple detail that caught him off guard. Two crossed swords and a demonic head, he understood well what they meant; they were some of the symbols of the League of Assassins, the third was a simple "T" surrounded by a moon. He shouldn’t have been surprised, Talia was a possessive woman and he knew that the "T" was her way of marking property.

"Her name is Y/n," he heard Dick say after a long time.

You noticed how this man's eyes went dark while he watched you and couldn’t help but shrink back on the sofa. It was impossible to hold his gaze, and you began to feel ashamed of being stared at for so long.

"Y/n, this is Bruce Wayne."

"What do you want?" That came out ruder than he intended, but his aversion to the League of Assassins stirred a certain anger. The idea that this could all be a trap crossed his mind. You might be young and exude innocence, but you must have enough understanding to participate in their malicious plans.

"I just wanted to see my brother," you said with sadness in your voice, questioning yourself if this whole situation was worth it. Bruce knew the best way to confirm if this was all true would be by his son’s word, but the signs were so explicit that it might not even be necessary.

You don’t look anything like her, at least at first glance, but you wore her favorite colors and clothes so perfectly matched that no girl your age could choose yet, exactly to Talia's taste and with the appropriate youthful touch for your age. The pendants, the cut of your hair, literally everything had her touch. It was impossible for anyone to convince him otherwise.

"Go get Damian." He said, and Dick understood that the message was for him. Bruce needed to make sure you were telling the truth, or at least needed to make sure you weren’t dangerous. This could still be a League scheme or some plot by your mother.

"Can I see him?" Your voice was the loudest you had spoken that night. The excitement was clear, and it was so much that irrationally you stood up to follow Dick, but a calloused hand suddenly wrapped around your torso and stopped you, making your back hit a slightly prominent belly. You looked up and saw the old man again, his expression was not happy, and you realized it was directed at Mr. Wayne, who had an arm extended towards you but that never managed to touch you.

Like his face, his arm was tense, with visible veins and contracted tendons. You didn't know what his intentions were, but by the way the old man grabbed you to prevent him from laying hands on you, maybe he wasn't as good as he or Dick. It was a very scary sight., making you feel that this man could be dangerous. Trusting the old man, you turned to hug him, hiding as much as possible. Mr. Wayne’s aura was dark, very unfriendly, but you still saw how he recoiled with his face displaying a certain sense of regret.

Dick noticed Alfred's sudden movement behind him before he could leave the room. He glanced at their faces and for a moment considered whether it would be appropriate to turn back and mention the conversation he had with you to the butler in secret, but then his eyebrows furrowed thinking of Damian. Maybe he should confront the little demon first.

"Don’t do anything stupid, Bruce." Dick thought.

Frantically he knocked on the boy’s door. One, two, three, four times until he lost count. At no point did he hear any noise inside, so he began to turn the doorknob, only to find it was locked.

"Of course he’d lock it, that brat..."

"What are you doing?" Suddenly Tim's bedroom door behind him opened abruptly, making a sliver of light from inside illuminate the opposite wall. He was obviously irritated at being woken up but still had that tone of seriousness he carried most of the time.

"Where's his room key?" Dick completely ignored his brother's attitude.

"Forget it. I heard him sneak out to patrol again." Tim's voice sounded tired.

"And you let him?!" Dick snapped but reminded himself to contain it, remembering that Jason was sleeping in one of the rooms in that wing and that you three downstairs might hear the commotion. "Why didn’t you stop him?"

"And what good would it do? That boy is too stubborn." Tim tried to defend himself. "Besides, I have his location right here. He’ll be fine." He opened the door a bit more to show one of his computer monitors tracking the trajectory and heart signals of a green dot on the streets of Gotham City.

Dick looked both ways down the hallway before pushing Tim back into his room and closing the door.

"Hey, what's this? Why are you acting so weird?" Tim was startled by Dick's unusual behavior, feeling anxious as he watched him go to the computer to check Damian's exact location, observing the dot on the screen moving. Dick pressed a button, likely an emergency notification to get Damian to return home. Then he turned to Tim, gripping his shoulders and looking at him with intense seriousness.

"Tim, what I'm about to tell you might be a lot to take in, and I need you to try to understand as much as possible." Dick pointed a finger in his face, waiting for confirmation.

"You're scaring me like this. What the hell happened?"

"No questions and no interruptions! Understood?" Dick's tone was authoritative, stepping back only when he saw Tim nodding affirmatively.

"Why the hell is everyone awake downstairs? Did someone die or something?" Jason barged into Tim's room without ceremony, trying to make a joke, but when he saw the ghostly expressions on their faces, he quickly shut the door again, this time with him inside the room. "My God," he exclaimed in shock. "Can I join in on your little secret?" he asked ironically.

"Did you see the girl?" Dick asked Jason nervously, with a certain expectation.

"Yeah. I saw a girl with Bruce and Alfred. But they didn't see me, since I went back upstairs. The mood down there is pretty tense." Jason threw himself on the bed, making the mattress bounce and Tim frown in displeasure. "I think Alfred is going to give him a lecture afterwards."

"She's Bruce's daughter."

Jason propped himself up on his elbows, and Tim had to sit in the computer chair. His mouth formed a perfect 'O' as he struggled to believe Dick's words.

"With who this time?" Jason seemed to be reacting better than Tim to the news, even letting out a light laugh. It was a typical, caustic Jason response.

"That's not all." Dick ignored his comment. "She said she's Damian's twin."

Tim let out a short whistle, processing the idea like a complex calculation. "Tell this story from the beginning, Dick. Why did she show up now?" He finally managed to rejoin the conversation. It took a while for the shock to pass, but now he had his usual rational demeanor.

Dick rubbed his hands over his face, trying to recount the night and organize the information. "Apparently, she doesn't even know Bruce is her father. And he doesn't know about it either."

"Damian also never mentioned having a sister."

"Damn. Hiding one kid for a decade is something, but two?" Jason stared at the floor as if it were the most interesting thing in the world, a strange sensation taking over the room. But seeing the melancholic expression on Dick's face, his curiosity grew even more. "What else do you know, huh Dick?" He questioned him, sensing there was something much deeper behind this, and his brother just gave him an enigmatic look.

"She said she came here to see Damian. That she found out where he was because of a letter he wrote to Talia..." Dick suddenly froze, pulling a little box from his pocket as if it were a dangerous bomb. "While we were talking, she said a man had helped her get here. He gave her a map and asked her to deliver a present to Bruce, but she gave it to me to deliver." He handed the beige little box to the two, but it was Tim who took it.

Whatever it was, it was very well wrapped.

"Is it right to open it?" Tim asked. "I mean, it's for Bruce, isn't it?"

"I already opened it." Dick said bluntly. "I thought it might be a trap, I was careful."

"Give it here." Jason took the small box from Tim's hands. It was the same size as an engagement ring box, perfect for carrying in a pocket. He pulled the lid off and took out a card, freezing when he read it.

"What does it say?" Tim was curious, taking the card from his hands and reading it out loud:

'I sent your daughter home as a demonstration of my benevolence. Merry Christmas, Batman. Signed, H.S.’

"Holy shit," Jason exclaimed, leaning forward and resting his elbows on his knees. "That bastard figured out Batman's identity."

"Even worse: he knew about her before we did." Tim added reflectively, his voice barely a whisper. "That means he knows much more than just Batman's identity. He might know other things, including our identities. He probably suspects we are also vigilantes."

"I want to hear the whole story properly." Jason's intensely serious voice broke the silence that had settled in the room, determined to fully understand the appearance of this girl and how she got involved with Hugo Strange.

Dick took a deep breath, gathering his thoughts before speaking. "Alright, here it is. Minutes ago, Alfred and I woke up because a girl showed up at the manor claiming to be Damian's sister. She told me that she had a map of Gotham and a letter addressed to Talia from Damian. Alfred brought Bruce to her, and then I went upstairs to call Damian, but I discovered that he's out on patrol. And now we're here."

Tim interrupted, "Wait, so Damian's been in contact with Talia and didn't tell us?"

"That's what it seems like," Dick confirmed, rubbing his temples. "The girl didn't even know Bruce was her father. She mentioned that a man helped her get here and gave her a map along with a present for Bruce."

Jason leaned forward even more. "And this man was Hugo Strange."

"Not xactly, he could have sent someone else." Dick nodded. "The present was that card. Strange knows about her and about Bruce being Batman. He sent her here as some twisted gift."

Tim, processing the information, asked, "Did she say anything about why Strange would do this? What does he gain from sending her here?"

"She didn't seem to know much about Strange's intentions," Dick replied. "She just wanted to see Damian. But it’s clear that Strange knows a lot more than he's letting on. He must have some larger plan in mind."

Jason clenched his fists, his anger palpable. "So, this girl is just a pawn in his game. We need to figure out what his endgame is."

"Agreed," Dick said. "But first, we need to make sure she's safe and find out everything she knows. We also need to talk to Damian and see what tell us about all this."

Tim nodded, adding, "And we have to stay vigilant. If Strange knows this much, we can't underestimate him. He could have more moves planned."

Jason stood up, his determination evident. "We need to get to the bottom of this before anyone gets hurt."

"But what about Talia? Did she just let her daughter go out there, be deceived by a stranger, and then simply come here?" Tim pointed out. "And you, Dick? Are you going to tell Bruce?"

Suddenly, the sound of someone tapping on the window glass was heard. The three brothers turned their heads to see Damian, clad in his Robin attire, asking to come in. "Open up already, you idiots."

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Credits for the divider: @cafekitsune

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organic-bloodbath · 5 months ago

Note

Can you write about kang Dae-ho x American reader, that Dae-ho has developed a big crush on the reader but he doesn't know how to respond to it because he's never been ina relationship before and everyone else in the group (except the reader) notices it and tease him about it?

Just admit you like me

Dae-ho x American!Reader

This applies to two different requests i got, the second one being:

"Can write about Dae-ho x American reader that Dae-ho having a crush on reader saves her in the mingle game and once it came down to two players, Dae-ho was able to have an opportunity to admit his feelings to the reader and share their first kiss?"

— Anon

Summary: As above. Dae-ho just being a nervous wreck around you.

A/N: i love this man sm. He's just a bit lost with his feelings here.

☆☆☆

You felt out of place. You were the only non-Asian player here and felt like everyone's eyes were on you whenever you weren't paying attention, though you might have been only imagining things.

You had arrived to Korea to spend your holidays here, you got two weeks off from college and needed to travel somewhere by yourself. Somewhere you couldn't possibly run into anyone you personally knew. Joining a game of life and death for money - a lot of money too - hadn't been on the list of things and places to experience during your stay in this country.

When the first person was shot to death, all you wanted to do was run away like so many other players, but you knew there was nowhere to escape. You felt your body shaking and it was a miracle your movements weren't noticed.

Suddenly, as you started running again, you tripped and lost your balance, falling backwards after some idiot pushed you - intentionally or not. For a second you were sure you were going to die, that was it, your part on the game ended before it had even properly started. Your family would report you as a missing person and would never get you back home or even know what happened to you.

Until you felt someone grab your body behind you. Arms wrapped securely around your waist, keeping you against their chest. The massive doll had turned to face you right at that same second, so you weren't able to stand up and take a better position. This person was fully in charge of holding you up and saving your life in process. The position you were in was extremely uncomfortable.

When you were allowed to move again, this person helped you to stand up again on your own, and you turned around to face him. Now in front of you stood a young man, looking down at you.

"Oh, thank you," you said quietly. "You saved me."

The doll turned around again, freezing you on your place, your head still turned towards the man's face. You had been too slow to react and continue the game.

"You're welcome," the man subtly said between his teeth, trying not to move his lips too much.

Before you started running again, he gave you a sweet smile. In only a few seconds he catched up with you and stayed right in front of you.

"Stay behind me," he said quietly, and you did as you were told.

You ran the rest of the game the same pace as him, not moving anywhere behind him. You were going to be screwed if he was going to be shot and you'd have to jump over his dead body.

But luckily, both of you made it to the end. After reaching the finish line, you walked to the guy who had catched you.

"Hi, um, thank you again," you said nervously. "Without you i'd be dead, i suppose."

"No big deal, glad to help," he smiled.

"I'm Y/N," you said and offered your arm for him to shake.

"Dae-ho," he said with a slight smile, taking your hand in his, which was much bigger than yours.

When he didn't figure out what more to say, you left him to stand there alone and went back inside.

That evening, Dae-ho wanted to approach and talk to you, but he was constantly overthinking what he would say to you. How did you start a conversation with a stranger? With a woman as gorgeous as you?

"Hi, how are you?"

"Good, thanks for asking."

"Okay, great. Bye."

Talking to men, he didn't care what he said to them and if it would mess up the conversation. To you, he would have wanted to make a good impression.

He didn't know what it was about you but when had saved your life during the game and you had turned to look at him and thank him, he was so taken aback by the sight of you for a second he had almost forgotten how to move.

☆☆☆

The next day arrived and you were given 10 minutes to prepare groups of five for the second game. You looked around the room, until your gaze landed on the group which Dae-ho was included.

"Hi, um, could i join your group?" you asked shyly, not knowing who you could rely on. The only person that had spoke to you by far, and helped too, was Dae-ho, and he felt like the safest option to choose. You looked at all three men at the same time, meaning the question to all of them.

"Of course, welcome," Gi-hun said smiling and motioned you to sit down next to him as you waited for the game to start.

You looked towards Dae-ho who only gave you a nod and an awkward smile. One more girl joined the group. She was apparently pregnant, but you all welcomed her with open arms.

When it was your group's turn to play, your feet were linked to each other, your left foot against Dae-ho's.

You rested your hand on Dae-ho's waist, your other hand on Gi-hun's back as well to keep your balance as the five of you started walking forward in total sync between the mini games.

You couldn't see it because you only kept your gaze forward, but every time you pressed your hand on Dae-ho's back, his cheeks turned a little red and his heart started beating faster. And when you let go, he instantly missed your touch.

When you had finished the entire game and could walk on your own again, all of you cheered in excitement for surviving another game. You hugged Gi-hun next to you and then wrapped your arms around Dae-ho, completely startling him.

"We made it," you smiled against his chest and let go.

You didn't think too much of it, you were a people hugger. The hug didn't last longer than couple of seconds, but Dae-ho would think about your touch on his skin until he fell asleep that night.

☆☆☆

"So," Gi-hun started as your group was eating the dinner together after the second game, "what's it like to live in America? Which state are you from?"

"I've been living in California for the past five years, though i was born in Michigan. I moved there for college and really like it there," you explained.

Gi-hun and Young-il asked bunch of questions about your studies, the differences you've noticed between the U.S. and Korea and so on. They told you about places which you must visit before you return to California and you had heard of none of them before, excited to go and see them. Gi-hun especially mentioned one diner you'd have to try.

Dae-ho sat next to you, barely saying anything during the conversation, just looking at you, smile on his face. Your voice was like music to his ears and he could have listened to you talking all day long until you were out of breath.

"Right, Dae-ho?" you asked, turning your face towards him, startling him out of his trance. He hadn't realised he had zoned out and not listened to you for the past couple of minutes.

"Huh?" he breathed out and straightened his back. "Yes, right, exactly."

He had no idea what you had said to him, but in panic he knew he should just agree whatever you were saying.

"See, the Marine guy agrees with me too," you said to Gi-hun and put your hand on Dae-ho's shoulder.

Dae-ho noticed Jun-hee holding her laugh but tried to ignore it. You paid it no attention. When you had turned your face away from Dae-ho, he gave Jun-hee an annoyed look to shut it.

"So, Y/N," Jun-hee started, taking care of the next route in the conversation, giving Dae-ho a subtle, but suggesting grin. "Are you in California by yourself or with someone?"

"Oh, i'm not alone," you said, making Dae-ho's heart drop for a second. "I live with my roommate, Sarah."

"That's nice," Jun-hee said slowly. "There's nobody else, hm, special in your life?"

"Not right now, if you don't count my dog," you chuckled.

Jun-hee winked at Dae-ho when you weren't watching.

Gi-hun and Young-il were talking together about something that didn't interest Dae-ho, and Jun-hee got up to go to the bathroom. That left you and Dae-ho alone, just the two of you for a moment.

"What do you plan to do with the money when we get out?" you asked. "Like, after you've payed off whatever debts you owe, of course."

Dae-ho tried to gather his words together and explained some of his plans to you.

"And you?" he asked.

"Well, i'm not sure yet," you said. "I know i want to travel a lot, maybe spend a year just exploring the world."

"That sounds fun," Dae-ho agreed. "I've always wanted to travel more."

"Maybe you could join me one day," you suggested, smiling.

"Oh, yea, maybe," Dae-ho said and turned his face away from you. He felt his cheeks becoming warmer.

☆☆☆

Next morning, you truly started to feel like Dae-ho was intentionally ignoring you. You had had that feeling ever since the day one. Almost every time you looked at him and your eyes connected for barely a second, he immediately turned his face away and avoided your gaze.

Jun-hee was walking towards the bathroom, but you managed to stop her and pull her to the side.

"Hey, can i ask you something?" you asked quietly, looking around you to see if anyone else would hear you, until turning back to her. "I don't know if i'm just imagining things but is Dae-ho mad at me or something?"

Jun-hee furrowed her eyebrows. "Why do you think that?"

"I don't know, he's seemed to avoid me and i feel like i've made him maybe upset."

"Oh don't worry, he's not mad at you," she chuckled.

You furrowed your brows, confused what might be the problem then. "What is it then? Do you know something?"

Jun-hee was about to say something but shut her mouth before any words were able to leave her lips. "You know, maybe you should just talk to him."

Then, she just hurried away, leaving you by yourself. That was odd.

☆☆☆

"So, Y/L's pretty, isn't she?" a man asked, suddenly appearing next to Dae-ho, startling him. It was player 124 smirking at him, elbows leaning on his knees as he sat down. He had never talked to Dae-ho before, so he was confused for a fair reason.

"What?" Dae-ho mumbled. "I mean, um, sure."

He looked towards you, feeling butterflies in his stomach when he heard your laugh all the way to the spot he was sitting at.

"Do you think i'd have chance with her?" the player 124 asked. "You two are friends, right? Could you ask her what her type is?"

"Her type?" Dae-ho's eyes widened and there was a pitch in his voice. He couldn't watch another man to flirt with you, there was no way.

"Yeah. Like what kind of guy she is into?"

"Well, i don't know. She hasn't talked to me about it," Dae-ho nervously shrugged.

"Okay, so," he started and put his arm around Dae-ho, "you go and ask her and come to speak to me again after the next game, yes?"

"Um, i don't think that's a good idea."

"Come on, brother. Man to man. I'll owe you one," the player 124 winked and smacked Dae-ho's shoulder, then standing up.

When the guy, whose name Dae-ho wasn't sure of, had left, Dae-ho felt his heart burst. He couldn't watch another man make a move on you, it would absolutely kill him. Thankfully, the guy didn't rush immediately towards you, but to his own group which included Thanos, a few other guys and a girl. Dae-ho didn't know the girl's name, but why couldn't he try to hit on her instead, and not his Y/N?

His Y/N. You weren't exactly his either, but he didn't want to see you with anyone else except him. But of course that wouldn't happen if he didn't actually talk to you about it. He had started to feel possessive over you for no reason and he somehow managed to make himself mad without anyone else's effort.

Jun-hee was next to come and keep him company.

"So, she thinks you're mad at her," she said seriously.

"Mad? I'm not mad at her," Dae-ho insisted, confused, and straightened his back.

"Come on, you have to say something and stop avoiding her like that." Jun-hee took in a deep, frustrated breath when Dae-ho didn't know what to answer. "Why is it so hard to just be yourself around her?" Jun-hee asked, clearly frustrated with his attitude and behavior.

"I just," Dae-ho started but didn't find the words. "I don't know."

"Anyone with eyes can see that she's gorgeous and if you don't act soon, she's gonna be off the market."

With that said, Jun-hee got up and left him alone. Dae-ho knew she was right and he hated it. He could already see you running into player 124's arms if he didn't start doing something about this. And that image itself in his mind made him feel ill.

☆☆☆

The Mingle challenge started and Dae-ho knew he had to make sure that you weren't left alone at any point and be lost among the crowd, all freaking out and almost ripping each others' clothes off. When the carousel was slowly spinning and everyone stood still, Dae-ho stood right next to you, gently putting his hand on your wrist.

"Stick close to me, okay?" he said quietly and swallowed.

"I will," you answered with a smile that made Dae-ho automatically smile as well.

"Can i hold your hand?" Dae-ho asked, nervous for your reaction. "Just in case, you know."

You looked at him in the eyes with a warm gaze.

"Sure," you said and took his hand in yours, taking a tight grip with your fingers so he couldn't easily let go of you.

As the rounds went by, Dae-ho didn't let go of you even for a second until you had safely arrived inside one of the rooms and the door had been locked.

When it was time to find a room for two, Dae-ho immediately sprinted towards the rooms as fast as possible, trying to be one of the firsts to reach a free room.

After the door locked, he almost forgot to let go of your hand, finally relieved that the game must now be over.

"Dae-ho?" you said next to him.

"Oh, sorry," he stuttered and let go of you.

"You've been acting oddly, are you alright?"

"I'm fine, everything's fine," he assured you but by the tone of his voice he knew you weren't buying it either. This was it, he had to be direct with you right now or otherwise the player 124 would reach to you first. "Okay, fine. It's just, i get so nervous around you."

"Nervous?" you repeated. "What makes you nervous?"

"You," he whispered with a mere breath. "You, because i... i like you, Y/N."

"I like you too, Dae-ho," she said, confused. "I really struggle to see the problem."

"No, i mean i really like you," Dae-ho corrected himself. "Like more than anyone else here. A lot more. Like just, differently."

You narrowed your eyes, until let out a quick laugh, hiding it with your hand. Dae-ho was scared that he had just completely embarrassed himself.

"Dae-ho," you smirked and looked back into his eyes, speaking slowly. "Are you saying that you have a crush on me?"

His cheeks turned red. "Um, i suppose i am, yes."

"How long, hm?"

"Since the time you crashed on me on the first day probably," he admitted and looked away for a moment, but you put your hand on his cheek and made him look at you.

"Have you never liked a girl before, Dae-ho? What are you so afraid about?"

"Well, um-"

"That i wouldn't like you back?" you questioned.

"Probably, yeah," he stuttered.

"Well, i think you're really sweet," you started and took his hands in yours, now both of them. "And brave. Funny. Strong..."

"But?" Dae-ho asked, sure there was gonna be a turn in her words which made him feel hopeful.

"There's no 'but', silly," you said and playfully hit his shoulder. "I haven't known you long enough to get to the 'but' part."

Dae-ho looked at your hands tangled together, but you lifted his face up, finger on his chin.

"I like you too, Dae-ho," you said. "And i would like to get to know you better if you'd stop avoiding eye contact with me."

Dae-ho let out a relieved laugh.

"That's, well, good to hear," he said and swallowed, eyes moving between yours and your lips. Even though it was only a second, you noticed it and took his face in your hands.

You planted a soft kiss on his lips, not longer than couple of seconds. Almost right after that, the door unlocked itself.

"Nothing more romantic than bunch of people being slaughtered behind the door while we share our first kiss," you pointed out, both of you laughing.

"I hope there will be many more," Dae-ho whispered.

"There might, if you take me on a date."

"If we get out of here alive," he said.

"We will get out, have some hope," you insisted. "I'll take you to America too some day, if you want to."

"Really?"

"Of course."

You pressed another kiss on his cheek, until took his hand in yours and led him back to the rest of your group, relieved that all of them had survived.

Dae-ho couldn't stop smiling and could still feel the ghost of your lips on his cheek.

☆☆☆

A/N: If you've sent me a request, know that i'm working on them when i'm in the mood to write about that specific character, i'll try to update the existing fics too which have more parts coming up but it'll take a while 🫶🏻💙

#squid game imagine #squid game x reader #dae ho imagine #dae ho x reader #dae ho squid game #dae ho x you

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galene-gothic · 6 months ago

Text

𝖸𝗈𝗎𝗋 𝖼𝗎𝗋𝗋𝖾𝗇𝗍 𝗌𝖾𝗅𝖿, 𝖿𝗎𝗍𝗎𝗋𝖾 𝗌𝖾𝗅𝖿 𝖺𝗇𝖽 𝗀𝗎𝗂𝖽𝖺𝗇𝖼𝖾 𝖿𝗋𝗈𝗆 𝗍𝗁𝖾𝗆

୧ ‧₊˚ ⋅* ‧₊ I hope this reading found you in good health, every reblog is appreciated and thank you for everything :) ˖♡ ˎˊ˗ ꒰ 🐇 ꒱

ˏˋ༻ʚ♡︎ɞ༺ˎˊ˗ PAID SERVICES TIP JAR

⊹ ! ೀ Pile 1 ꒱

꒰ Your current self ꒱

Currently, you’re in a state of ‘pause’ is what I’m getting. Your perspective is different from what it once used to be but you’ve not fully developed it yet. You think that you’re starting a new, like you’re still building foundations for your character and life. You could be confused about what to choose and how to move forward because there are just so many things that you want to do but there’s also a sense of curiosity and hope about where you’re being led to. You seem to be hurting emotionally and pretty low physically too. The pain that you experienced seems to have affected your mindset, hormones and hence, your focus, and body in general. You could be feeling more tired these days and I’m picking up on a sense of burn out. Some of you are carrying on working despite this sense of burn out and lack of focus that you feel while the rest of you have sort of broken down. I wouldn’t be surprised if some of you cry a lot or are just genuinely really hurting. There were bitter endings, possibly one after another for some of you, it’s just hard to process it all. You could find your heart hurting, chest hurting or your posture being very bad with your shoulders and back slouching down. Emotionally, you seem to have dealt with major fights or drama. There is a competitive energy that I am picking up on from other people and even you. Due to how competitive they were being, you could have acted accordingly too but it led to connections ending. Much of it was not even competitive, it was outright aggression and power that they were trying to place, and have over you. You seem to be in a state of mourning. Somehow these moments of feeling emotionally unfulfilled, left out and no connection with others is what’s caused you to come out to be more in your power. You desire status, morality and power, every time that you’ll get distracted, you’ll get hurt and that hurt will redirect you into this mode of desiring respect, status, morality and power. Some situation where you put a lot of effort and tried to see through end up breaking you down and it could have caused you to be aware of your childhood issues. You’re growing into a more empowered version of yourself but for right now, you are in a state of pause. You desire power, status, control, etc. but due to this pause state, you aren’t being able to cultivate it or go after it. You have a desire for selfless service or you just enjoy giving, you’ve fallen victim to receiving the shorter end of the stick in the past and have started really valuing mutuality, reciprocation and equal give, and take. You pretend to have it all in front of others even if you may not. You tend to feel lonely too but decide to maintain inner abundance and gratitude while moving forward. It is definitely difficult for you to feel abundant though, you’re not feeling emotionally fulfilled. You are choosing to live with your passionate and fiery nature or you just naturally are doing so, and have a silent power due to all that you’ve learned from past experiences. You also keep your emotions and what you’ve gone through close to your chest, and mind so that your mind can process it and learn from it. Your heart has turned sort of iron-like and it would be difficult to melt it. You feel pretty lonely though. You seem to love to enjoy spending money. Like, it could be a way to cope honestly but yes, you’re trying your best.

꒰ Your future self ꒱

Your future self is someone mature who takes life seriously. Mentally, they’re going to be thinking about wanting happiness within the house and love. They’re going to be thinking about sex a lot as well. I’m picking up that you either already think about sex a lot or used to but have a low libido ever since the realisation of whatever tragedy occurred in your life hit you 💀. Either way, your sex drive is going to be high. You’re going to be carrying the realisations of past heartaches and will have learned your lessons. You’ll be craving love pretty deeply though. For some of you, this could be a future self who’s already in a relationship. They’re going to be nurturing, loving and almost mother-like in nature. You’re going to have stepped into your power and will have grown a lot. You’re going to be aware of your darker sides and weaker sides, and will be working with both of them. You’re going to be a bit “me, me, me” because you’ve always been “others, others, others” in the past and they kicked you, and left 😍. You’ll still be craving deep, devotional love though. You will just want the quality of love to be high or you won’t want it. Also, emotionally you’re still not gonna be over things yet but you’ll be seeing the light at the end of the tunnel and will be recovering since things will not be as fresh any longer. You’re going to be craving old school and traditional connections romantically, and in terms of friendships, you’ll want ethical friends who would stick by you and remain ever loyal. You’re going to be very soft hearted, sensitive and loving. I’m also picking up on you being competitive and drama not scaring you as much anymore. You will look at others trying to fight with you or intimidate you as something flattering because why do they give a damn about you? You’ll be focused on your goals most definitely, almost aggressively focused. “You either assist me, move out of the way or let me walk from on top of you” is the energy that I’m getting from your future self. You’re going to have a lot of empathy for other people’s pain but not at your expense. You’re going to be very loving, there’s no doubt of that. Your future self is going to be very careful regarding extremes of any situation. If they’re trusting someone too much, they’re going to pull themselves together, if they’re getting angry and yelling, at the moment they may not realise it but later they’re going to be like “I shouldn’t have behaved that way” and will try to control their anger better going forward. You are possibly going to be someone who’s rejecting people left and right until you find someone who truly does appeal to you.

You are going to be quite an over thinker and could have other’s words, and actions weigh on you. I’m getting that you might have to deal with other people trying to drag you down by humbling you, humiliating you or just talking shit about you (to your face or behind your back). You’re going to be guarded and unwilling to do too much for free, and will prefer loneliness over disrespect. You’ll have a lot of inner strength and will be persevering forward, trying to do your best. You’re going to be someone who’s difficult to break externally but yes, you’ll either be dealing with sleep issues, overthinking and breaking down by yourself, etc. but will not allow others to see you break or even if you do, you’re going to make sure to continue pushing forward. I would say that you’re very admirable indeed. You’re going to be a bit cold hearted and demanding, desiring bonds that are well matched on all levels especially value wise. You’re going to want to work together with people who are willing to put in equal effort and are capable of learning, and teaching in connections and any other setting. “You either meet me at my level or you die.” Also, you’ll have many qualities that you’re going to want within them. Others could consider your hopes and standards to be unrealistic but yes, as long as you’re capable of giving what you want, you shouldn’t have to lower them. You’re still going to be healing and the pain that you’ve experienced so far is going to be something that will have stuck with you, making you fear instability and crave deep connections that are ride or die in nature. “You’ll meet thousands who like you, there will be one who you’ll spend your life with.” “You’ll find thousands of friends when you’re happy, there will only be one who you share your sorrows with.” You’re going to be very stable and grounded within yourself, and will be building a strong character, you’ll have already built a pretty strong one by then. You are going to have a mature, wise and provider kind of mentality, so you’re going to want a partner and people in your life who matches accordingly. You could very well feel like you’re out of place from rest of the people your age because they may say things like “you’re still young, have fun. Don’t take relationships too seriously” but it’s going to be in your nature to do so. You’re going to feel so grown and traditional, you’re going to have many old school values and will value the ethical way of living, wanting people who are similar to you to be friends with and get into relationships with.

꒰ What do you need to spend more and less time doing ? ꒱

You need to spend more time letting go of the idea and obsession with romantic love. Instead of wondering why you and your love has been rejected or neglected time and time again, you need to think about and understand how and where you’ve been crushing the personal progress that you’ve made as a person in order to please other people or by falling victim to peer pressure. You need to understand that certain people, things and situations are just a wastage of time, and effort. You also need to understand that you didn’t have a long term vision when it came to romance in the past because if you did, you wouldn’t have put yourself in situations that seemed to be leading to nowhere. You used to have an inferiority complex and used to doubt your ability to be loved by anyone. It was very deep rooted and so you acted out in ways that weren’t authentic to you. While, you may think that certain outcomes were unexpected and yes, certain outcomes were in fact unexpected because you seem to have been betrayed by those you invested a lot into, not all of them seem to be romance related, you’ve been let down even in platonic relationships. You’re being told to learn how to discern and instead of putting effort into situations, and people that are likely going to fail and disappoint you, focus on yourself. “Make the most of your life, while it is light, while it is rife.” You really need to redirect your focus onto yourself. Set aside the desire for love of any sort. Even if you feel the desire, which is okay, learn how to set it aside and have your focus on your own growth instead. You’re being told to learn how to present yourself in a way that’s beautiful to you. Set any and all desires for external validation aside, and figure out what it is that you truly like, what it is that you find to be beautiful, how do you personally like to adorn yourself? “You don’t need a boyfriend, you need hobbies, skills, a strong identity and a life.” You may have always gravitated towards some sort of art but may not have been able to develop it to the fullest extent that it could reach which leads to lack of confidence within you. You’re being told that it’s your calling to some extent, even if you’re not supposed to monetise it, you’re supposed to learn it so you’re always going to be called to it, so you should invest into these skills. You’re being told that isolation is a blessing. You’re being told not to be dramatic and impatient about love, if it is meant to find you, it will, and if it’s not, worrying about it will do nothing. You’re being told to mature and let go of the past completely. As in, you’re being told not to keep any space in your heart for ‘a first love’ or ‘the one that got away’, etc. Understand that it’s in the past and the past doesn’t exist, and the way they hurt and betrayed you or at least left you behind. You’re being told not to ruminate over issues from your past and instead heal them without letting yourself be emotionally shaken by them. Including issues from your childhood and school years, or whatever past you may have had during what I consider to be your formative years. You’re being told to be completely honest with yourself and accept that you’ve had negative and possibly manipulative behaviours in the past too.

I’m getting that you’re a very funny person. Some of you could have decided to manipulate someone in order to gain their affection but you got attached to them instead and forgot about your plan just because you’re that much of a loving bitch 💀. For the most part though, you have always been pretty loving and genuineness comes so naturally to you, that’s why you failed in whatever this plan or these plans were. You need to accept that your connections have been ingenuine so far, not because of you but because of your inability to be your authentic self and also other’s personal issues. You do not need to feel guilty about having ingenuine intentions initially because you didn’t even follow through. Everything you did, was in fact for affection too. As long as you received love and connection, you were not interested in manipulating anyone and acting all strategic. You seem to have always been unlucky and lonely in love, and I’m not just talking about romantic love but despite this, there’s also been some luck that you’ve had. Anyone you’ve connected with, no matter where it led, if it even led to anything, has taught you a lot and connected to you in an almost soul level. While, you seem to have struggled to present yourself authentically, those who had to see you, did see you, maybe not to the fullest extent but you received their understanding and space within their thoughts, and emotions, and that’s your blessing. If you recall properly, you’ve had at least one person adore you at almost any point of life. You’ll also never be forgotten by them because the connection seems to be kind of irreplaceable honestly. You’re yearned for and adored, and loved so deeply, and so dearly, you may not even be aware of it because these people may not feel comfortable enough expressing their affection for you due to you being inauthentic in your actions and living because they are still human, and they still don’t know if they’re just imagining certain things about you. You need to see the truth of situations and heal, and grow from situations. Forgive yourself, others and release any pain, forget past people and experiences completely. Be optimistic and remember that it gets better, only if you let it. Spend more time being honest with yourself and learning how to be present, learn how to deal with homesickness by becoming your own home instead of finding temporary solace in the nostalgia of past experiences. Learn how to create yourself and present yourself in the way you’d like, and how to create in general. Learn how to create and craft your life as you’d like, and spend more time living and doing rather than thinking, and weeping. Always remember “life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.” You need to spend less time being indecisive about investing into connections or investing into them further. You need to be honest with yourself about what’s going on i.e. if someone treated you well in the past but has switched up recently, you need to accept the current version of them and not let them consume you or have a hold on you emotionally. “The moment you feel like you’re competing with someone else for affection, connection and to be chosen, you’ve lost.” You don’t need to know and understand everything but you need to make difficult choices in regard to seeing the reality of things.

Some of your connections weren’t or aren’t as deep as you might think, you may be deeply incompatible and it is okay to accept it, and give up. “You’re allowed to choose too.” You need to understand that you’re not helpless, you’re allowed to unchoose people, you’re allowed to unlove people. If people leave you behind or start acting distant or like they do not want you, it’s not your responsibility to make things right or even think about them. You’re allowed to continue your life the best that you can with gratitude and being present instead of thinking about what occurred. “You’ll be much happier if you do not think about the past, do not romanticise connections but instead find beauty in your present moment and practice gratitude.” You also need to stop being so generous and giving. Learn how to not give too much of yourself to anyone and not give to anyone who doesn’t reciprocate. “There are other people pleasers in the world too, let them please you. You do not have to be the one to extend an invitation for connection every single time.” You need to stop having hope and daydreams about connections that are not grounded in reality, and stop being loving to everyone. “Your love is sacred, learn how to gate-keep it.” You’re being told that doing things for people, being nice to people, reaching out first, etc. being all loving does not mean people are going to choose you. Also, just because people chose someone else over you doesn’t mean they made a good choice. Stop seeing hope and potential in hopeless people, and don’t act out of emotions for them, understand that everything in life is an investment and negotiation, and on the long term, emotions may not always be fruitful but common sense definitely is. Sometimes making premature decisions is the best that you will do for yourself. The spirit is telling you that you do not need to give chances or get to know people and situations deep enough to decide what you want to do with them. “You do not have to drink the entire ocean in order to know that the water is salty.” Give up on thinking about the ‘what if’ way of thinking because if they cared enough, there would be no space for the ‘what if’ way of thinking. “Your affection won’t be valued unless it’s earned.” You just need to give up on trying to get people to like and love you. You need to stop giving yourself away to others and giving them chances to show themselves if they’ve already disappointed you in any way. You need to stop giving your affection away for free just because no one seems to want to claim it for themselves :(. Choose yourself, even if it leads to loneliness. You tend to feel like you don’t belong anywhere, like no one has loved, understood, prioritised and chosen you. You also probably know that you’ve given a lot to others in hopes of receiving just something, just anything but you need to stop placing yourself at such low value, that’s when you’ll be loved and people will try to understand, and choose you. Your desire for giving and receiving love, and attention should not take away your reasoning skills and value. Thank you for reading, much love and take care.

⊹ ! ೀ Pile 2 ꒱

꒰ Your current self ꒱

Right off the bat, you’re taking the landslides that you survived and turning them into mountains for you to climb. You’re a loving person who thinks about romance and sex a lot. Also, beauty and being attractive. You desire being someone’s crush and the kind of romance that you seem to want to experience is romance where it feels like you’re soulmates, are deeply and primally attracted to each other, not just physically or character wise but as a whole, as if it’s just the other person that you were looking for and vice versa. “No one else compares” is what I heard. You also want them to have a crush on you for the rest of your lives and you want to feel the same kind of attraction towards them. You want to feel your heartbeat quicken, face heating and feet happily start swinging at the mere sight of them. This is so cute. However, at the same time, right now you are more self sufficient and want to be by yourself for a bit. I just heard the saying “if you try to catch butterflies, they will fly away but if you spend that time building a beautiful garden for yourself, the butterflies themselves will come flying to you.” I think you know that right now, you will probably not meet the kind of person you desire and even if you do, you want to be focusing on yourself so that you can connect with them authentically. Your beauty and attractiveness seems to be your focus too. You make an effort to look good on a daily basis. You’re also someone who doesn’t express yourself too deeply right away. You have accepted the cycles of life and count your blessings, and things to be grateful for rather than the shortcomings that everyone has in life, in one form or another. You have accepted that life has ups and downs but are in a much more stable place now, you’ve also attained a lot of wisdom and are flowing according to your destiny, even if you feel like it’s not like that, you are. Some of you here feel assured about your future despite not knowing everything about it because there’s just this awareness that things will turn out alright. Someone here has been seeing 222 a lot recently. You’re a very charitable person who gives to others without asking for anything in return. You desire to be more giving and service oriented but just know that you’re already giving what you can, and have always done so. You’re a very abundant person and I think you lean more towards the glamorous side in regards to style, appearance and charm.

Despite your independence and glamorous way of presenting yourself or wanting to do so, your kindness, giving and down to earth charm kind of just shine through. No matter what you may wear and how independent you may be, when in public, you look out for people, try to help them if asked, offer them something that you may be eating, etc. Also, maybe because you present yourself so well, others offer you help and free things. You’re also someone who just because you do things for people or they do things for you, you do not just let them into your life, you still try to vet them properly or just decide that you won’t let them enter your life right at the start. Emotionally, you’re very strategic and also keep things close to your chest. You understand that people could be lying to you, fooling you or may just not have the best intentions towards you so you maintain secrecy too. You’re self protective and private with your emotions, not wanting to talk about certain things to certain people. You deeply value intimacy, honesty and peace, and you know that even if no one else in the world gives that to you, you can give it to yourself. You value self care and know that when you’re emotionally vulnerable, it’s best to take your space. You probably love your bed a lot these days especially if it’s winter wherever you live 💀. You do not try to force things and instead patiently wait for emotional connections that are meant for you to find you. You can also acknowledge how far you’ve come and feel proud of it but yes, you do desire more. You desire recognition and want to be valued, and praised. You probably have some dream that you want to fulfil and you’re being told that you are capable of achieving it. You’re also a naturally abundant and content person. You’re letting go of many insecurities or issues but every-time you feel like you’ve let them go, you end up realising that you still kind of hold onto them. You are especially a very possessive person who wants people for yourself. You’re not toxic but you like to experience life and especially love, and romance wholeheartedly, you want it to consume you, you want to heavily indulge into it. You want to have the space to give to the other person, to almost devote and sacrifice yourself to them, and you won’t feel safe enough to do that unless someone is yours to keep.

꒰ Your future self ꒱

Your future self is someone who is emotionally fulfilled and puts emotional abundance as something very important to them. They think that the reason emotions are being used against each other in this world is because humans are deeply emotional beings and as long as one can control their emotional state, nothing will overpower them or have control over them. They have a fiery personality and goals, and are just unabashedly charming, full of life and going after what they want. They’re also very witty and curious about things. They’re someone who is unwelcome at a community because of competition. Others tend to compete with them and just treat them aggressively or passive aggressively, trying to humble them. “You’re not all that” is what I heard. They are principled and ethical. They are also down to earth and genuine intentioned so when all of this happens. They’re going to accept that connections didn’t progress as they had wished and will be bringing out a more firm and stern side of them compared to the friendly, fiery and warm side that they had previously greeted others with. They’re a reasonable person who won’t pick beef with people without being picked on first and in fact, even on being picked on, they won’t say anything back but will not let themself break down in front of the people who are trying to bring them down. Despite, the external tensions, their inner abundance will not be depleted, in fact, they’ll only find it flattering that others are so affected by them. Also, at that time, you’re going to be feeling like whoever is hating on you, trying to bring you down or is creating fights and chaos with you isn’t even all that. I have a feeling that you’ve already dealt with something similar to this because you seem to know exactly how to go about it. It is going to make you feel unstable most definitely but you’re going to keep in mind to tap into your inner strength and continue pushing forward with self control, and a compassionate, soft and therefore fierce energy. Despite everything that they’ll be putting you through and it inevitably interrupting your peace in some way and you feeling pretty left out from community.

Also being more reserved and cold in contrast to yourself in the past, you’re going to continue pushing forward as a controlled and compassionate person, you’ll also be waiting for better days to come but will already be fairly content with where you are at. ‘IT girl’ by Aliyah’s interlude is energy that I’m getting from your future self. Whatever they’ll be doing and however they will be treating you is only going to motivate you to do more, be more and win more in the future. You’re going to be feeling determined to work hard and succeed. You’ll have developed really strong willpower by then. You already seem to possess it but in the future, you’ll be more fearless? You’re going to have let go of many of your insecurities and will not be willing to let anyone strip you off your power. You’re going to be very powerful, choosing to take it back again and again if necessary. You’re going to have many options at that time and will have a slight coldness, knowing your boundaries and maintaining them even if it’s considered cruel or excessive. You’re going to be fiercely protecting yourself without even saying anything, you will just be holding up well and with self control, choosing to not let their words and actions get to you. You’ll want to be yourself at all costs that’s for sure and you’ll be doing a very good job at that. Actually, at some point, you may say something, not early on. You’re someone who can take a lot until you eventually burst. You’re also someone who doesn’t express frustrations to others but instead just grows from whatever they made you go through. That’s going to be a place and environment where you’ll either learn how to stand up for yourself verbally, will already be doing so or will simply just win by actions, and decide that that’s what works best for you. ‘Wannabe’ by ITZY and ‘obsessed’ by Mariah Carrey (alongside the song I mentioned earlier) is the energy that I’m getting here. Your future self has a lot of haters, stay prepared and brace yourself for what’s to come.

꒰ What do you need to spend more and less time doing ? ꒱

You seem to have experienced moments that pretty much pulled the earth from right beneath your feet. It was very difficult to make sense of everything and you had to deal with the fear that came with unavoidable changes and hence, unavoidable circumstances. These sudden changes happened related to some commitments, it could have simply been committed and stable friendships or relationship that you had worked hard to build that turned out to not be as much as you thought it was. You seem to have invested heavily though. If not, there was some sort of an institution or community that you left behind, by choice or force. “A major sacrifice but clueless at the time” is the energy that I’m getting here. For example, if you left your previous school, you could have terribly missed it, if you left your home town, you could have missed that instead, etc. Many emotions were connected, you had tried to be ever loving and empathetic, trying to give the best of you to certain people, connections and situations but it led to you not being able to fix anything because these people were twisting your words and actions based on their own personal insecurities, maturity and values at that time. I’m getting that you were trying to lovingly make them understand you and your emotions, and also listen to their own thoughts and emotions so that you can correct anything that may have hurt them but their main focus was on misunderstanding you even if at that time, they tried to make it seem like they were interested in fixing things or like they were dealing with the situation with maturity when that wasn’t the case. Some sort of self forgiveness had to take place and it did. It seems like before all of this chaos occurred, you had made significant progress as a person, character wise or so it seemed so when you ended up straying away from it and the realisation of it hit you, it just led to some mourning and questioning, also regrets. However, you are a fair person and you’re able to accept if you may have done somethings wrong, if you made mistakes too but mostly, you did realise that there was a sense of unfairness and were desiring fairness. Since, you had that understanding that the world isn’t fair, you could have started believing in karma or you literally experienced karma. For example, you did something that affected someone else but you experienced a similar or possibly even the exact same situation or well, this is just confirmation that you and others are going to have to reap what you sow, that it can’t be avoided so if others have done you wrong, just let it go and if you have done others wrong.

Just accept what’s to come and try to perform good karma to balance it out. It was something that required you to have to restart, to rebuild from within and also the outside. You were trying your best to stay controlled. At that time you were trying to practice self compassion so that you’d feel better and also so that you’d be able to extend your compassion outwards. There was acknowledgment that the grass is in fact greener on the other side. You diligently worked on yourself and life itself which led to you meeting parts of you that most people would much rather not see about themselves but though fears and confusion could have popped up and most likely did, you only used it to grow further. You grew to become more mature, wise and emotionally intelligent through what you experienced within your psyche. You also got more in touch with your personal charms and are warm, also competitive as in, you want the best for yourself and will strive to get it. You’re a loving person who’s come to realise after many conflicts and illusions that true love is healthy and empowering, and in romance, two people hold each other to the highest regard, loving each other the most, without feeling the need to let their eyes and attention wander elsewhere. You also got really in touch with your own authentic love energy, pouring your love into yourself causing you to retake your power. You’ve grown to have even judgement and are being called to be your authentic self, you’re already being so to the best of your abilities. There’s a desire to be seen being your authentic self just because you’re shining brightly. You also want to be secretive and private despite shining. You want to have a persistent and strong personality where you don’t break but instead keep on going. You’re being told to join the world. You should spend more time becoming one with the world. You experienced others unnecessarily competing with you in the past and are abundant so aren’t connecting with people as much as you could be but you’re being told that it’s time now. You need to trust yourself enough to not let others take you for granted and need to let your guard lower just enough to connect with others because you’re going to learn a lot from them that will prove to be valuable to you going forward. If you’re delaying joining university or getting back to education or skill training of some sort, you’re being reminded that no matter what you may do, time is going to pass anyway. You’re being told that no matter how much strategy you may approach life and other people with, it’s not worth it. You deserve those who are interested in you and love you for who you are, and not the games you play or challenges you provide.

Feel hot, dress up, do your hair and makeup, try heels, go out, just spend more time taking care of your body and presenting it the way you like, also think about it positively while trying to maintain healthy habits in order to honour your own body. Make sure to stay true to yourself and if that’s not possible, remind yourself of the truths that you hold close, that you hold sacred and simply just ‘true’ whenever you stray away from them. Have fun, live life and explore the unlimited potential that you have. Free yourself from the trauma, limiting and negative beliefs, and mindsets placed upon you by the actions of other people. For some of you here, probably because it’s winter, you have a hard time getting out of bed in the morning, if you live in the southern hemisphere and it’s not cold for you, for some reason you could still have a bad sleep schedule. You’re being told that you need to get out of your bed first, the rest will follow. As soon as you wake up, after a while of lying, decide that you’re going to get up within three seconds and go for it. The three second rule is going to be a golden rule for you, you’re being asked to master it. There is also another rule that I’m picking up on. 555 rule where you should ask yourself “will this affect me in 5 minutes?” and if it does, ask yourself if it will affect you in 5 hours, days, weeks, months and years. If it doesn’t affect you for five years going forward, don’t spend more than five seconds stressing about it xD. Spend more time rebuilding and truly determining the value of things, and people. Build a mindset of growth where you’re focused on growing and also remember the lowest moments you’ve gone through which has left you in a place you’re currently at. You might have dealt with a low reputation and social/financial status where you were barely treated like a human at some point? Use it as a motivational drive for you to build more and more for yourself. You need to make sure to heal yourself and keep your mind as clean as possible. Don’t waste your energy, love and connection on those who aren’t ride or die, there will never be a way to determine if someone is loyal and ride or die because humans lie and always try to present themselves as being better than they truly are, all you can do is let people give up on you if they want to. Don’t hold onto connections too tightly, it isn’t always that you’ve done something wrong. You seem to know logically that it’s not up to you to make everything right but you like to try until the end so that you don’t have any regrets which is a good trait but you need to train yourself to let others go, to let them be, to let them think, feel and experience life the way they want to, if they think that it’s better off without you.

Find solace in solitude but be open to connecting. You’re allowed to be mad at people even after all this time because you seem to have been done pretty dirty at some point but crying over spilt cups doesn’t do anything. You’re being told to never forget your sorrowful and low moments, and how you managed to rise above it but also always focus on moving forward with love. Have love for yourself, for the world and everyone within it. Your genuine and thoughtful nature which causes you to notice little details such as how someone is looking for a pencil in their pencil bag just to not find it when the test has already started, etc. is what makes you so special. Your essence is entwined with love. No matter how happy you are, don’t forget the sorrow that still exists in the world. Use the knowledge and resources you’ve managed to gain so far to try, and help others. You do not have to do anything beyond your means but just do as much as you can. Always lead with love because the bravest leaders are able to hold love. Anyone can push their will without compassion for the rest of the people involved if put in a position of power. That’s dictatorship, not love. They’re usually resented or/and feared, not respected. Kind people who do not bend over backwards to please others but still lead with love and understand the reality of the world, the suffering of others and seek to love, to give, to serve are respected and become natural leaders, and role models. Aspire to be more loving and kind but don’t forget your negative experiences of the past, don’t let them have a hold on you but understand that some people, their minds, actions and intentions are so dirty, and disgusting that it is better if we do not even understand how they think because just five minutes into their psyche could leave people like us in a state of disbelief and lack of comprehension, pretty much traumatised. It would be difficult for us to even accept that someone can and does think that way, and that they exist in the same world as us. With that being said, spend more time compassionately extending yourself and your love to the world but don’t trust just anyone, don’t let just anyone in and understand that it’s sometimes better not to understand why people do what they do, and how they think, and how they truly are. Be discerning and understand that you don’t owe anything to anyone, you do owe certain things, qualities, actions and responsibilities to those you have personal connections with but don’t bend over backwards for the rest. Feel free to reject romantic connections without feeling bad, in fact, you need to do it more.

Understand that you’re not at a lack, I personally do not like to believe in the concept of ‘options’ but understand that there are a lot of possibilities and that you deserve the best, you deserve what you give out, don’t be thirsty enough to settle. Fiercely be yourself, defend yourself from the inside by not letting anything affect you even if you do not externally do it. Have faith that you’ll find the kind of people and connections you deserve, and desire, and don’t settle for anything less. Move on to bigger and better things, and leave anything, and everything behind if it doesn’t serve you well. Don’t regret anything, don’t forgive people in order to reconcile with them, don’t hold grudges but don’t forget the disrespect so that you’re not naive enough to let them or anyone put you in a similar position again. Don’t settle for being anything less than a priority. You need to get rid of the mindset that there’s always someone else. Understand that even if there is someone else, it doesn’t lessen your value. When the presence of a third party is made known to you, take it as a blessing, a sign that you deserve better than that and that it’s time for you to walk away. Real life of example of this is that you could be gold by there are people who still prefer silver despite gold being more valuable. Understand that you’ve done the best that you could and don’t be scared of changes, reflect on the changes you’ve already undergone and how they have affected you positively instead, and readily welcome changes. Do not act moody with others and don’t overextend empathy either. Carry yourself as though you’ve literally won a lottery worth a million dollars or even better, as if you’ve earned it. You’re being told that it’s time to let go of your childhood trauma or trauma related to beauty, attractiveness, etc. during your younger days. If you felt like you were romantically unlikeable back then, it’s okay. Think what you want but know that it’s not your reality anymore. There’s no need to feel hopeless and unattractive remembering past days, and events when you’ve so obviously changed. Stop thinking that you need to change anything about your standards, that they’re too high, etc. when that’s not the reality. Don’t change yourself for love and connections, and only engage when there’s mutuality and ethics involved. Don’t wake up all night overthinking. I’m getting really high cortisol levels for some of you. It’s like, when you get in bed, for a while you’re unable to sleep because when you try, you feel uncomfortable, you feel a tingly sensation that makes you want to fidget, you just feel irritable at that time honestly.

You’re being told not to overthink during the day and at night, and to try and go to bed early if possible. If you cry before bed after replaying the default negative thoughts or possibly even adding onto them, you need to minimise it until you stop completely. You’re being told to meditate at night, especially before bed. Don’t give up, you can’t afford to do so right now because I’m getting that some of you do not come from fortunate families where you’re naturally well respected, it’s something that you’ll have to earn. Others of you, even though you’ve grown a lot, there’s a certain standard that you hold yourself to and have a vision for. You’re bound to get there if you keep pushing forward but you do not need to be hard on yourself or disregard your value as you are. You are already who you want to be, you’ve just not received the peak that you desire yet but the core is still the same, when you become successful, you’re not going to ‘become’ someone because you’re already that someone, you’re just going to have more achievements to show for it at that time. You’re an overachiever in every aspect, you feel like you need to be witty, smart and intelligent person, who has a life and multiple things going for them but also someone who is well balanced in their work and home life, you think that you need to be emotionally available and understanding as well, and ethical, principled and respectable if you want to be loved, and that’s great. You should strive to maintain these skills and grow them accordingly but know that you are not unworthy of love just because you might fall short in certain ways and situations. Be nice to yourself, you’re just human and trying your best. You are doing well but this deep rooted belief of your unworthiness brought about by past experiences when you were younger and your mind was more impressionable still affects you, you seem to logically know that every thought that your mind comes up is not true but this belief is deep rooted, and is going to have to be pulled from the very root itself for it to stop bothering you. The most effective way of doing so is going to require self control and mental strength, when such thoughts come into your mind, affirm to yourself that they’re not true, remind yourself and just let those thoughts go, do it every time until you eventually start believing that it’s not true because as soon as something like that comes up, you already know that it’s not true. You’re doing very well already though, you’re just being told to continue going. “Stay optimistic” is what I just heard. Thank you for reading, much love and take care.

⊹ ! ೀ Pile 3 ꒱

꒰ Your current self ꒱

You are letting external stuff affect you internally and question, and change your beliefs, and mindset. You are questioning yourself, the purpose of life and seem really shaken internally. You are trying to have an even judgement but are struggling to focus on work, are ungrounded, burnt out, overworked and heavily burdened. You have an interesting personality, you feel like everything is your responsibility. Some of you had gotten rid of such traits in the past for a while but they just came right back and that’s because they weren’t plucked from the roots so the roots sprouted until it grew into something like this. You need to be nicer to yourself. So well, your judgement is slightly more even than before, you’re able to see things more clearly and now that that’s the case, you’re thinking about the cold, harsh and unrealistically high standards that you were demanded to meet while not even receiving something as basic as loyalty and respect. “Now and then I think of all the times that you screwed me over, making me believe it was always something that I had done” is the energy that I’m getting here. For some of you, you think that the grass is green right where you are, that you are stuck? I think there are multiple groups of people here. I’ll just characterise you all, one by one, the first one are hung up on someone from their past but are also angry at them so if the other person tries to talk to them or were to do so, they’d blow off. They seem to be feeling the connection deeply, having fears and have found different sides of themself due to the connection. They’re feeling things very intensely, they’re likely wanting to make up with the other person but feel out of control emotionally, they love their person a lot but there’s a lot of anger involved too. They are feeling pretty desperate, they do not even care if the other person wronged them because they feel like there was a reason, like the understanding that you have for the other person is not fair to you. The second group is desperately trying to make up with the other person and mad at themself even though it’s the other party that did them wrong? The third group is probably still with the person and is scared of leaving. The final group is farther off in their journey from the previous three. This group has an even judgement of the mistreatment she faced. I just heard ‘unpaid labour’ could be of any kind - mental, emotional or/and physical. All the groups are fearing the unknown but this group in particular is more disappointed than anything. This group is holding back from people and situations that could be similar in nature and tends to overthink but is focused on diligently working, this group is likely prioritising self, money, stability, education, skills, etc. above connections right now. They prioritise connections but only want them with people who are diligent, hard working, ethical and long term focused. A deep level of incompatibility is present with whoever you’re dealing with or dealt with in all the groups. The final group has a love for children, understanding just how innocent they are or they could hold a particular child dear to them, or a place with children around could have affected them significantly and they hold it dear. If not, they dream about their childhood, they reminisce about the past, they think about their hometown, they might in fact be in their home town, etc. If you belong to this group, I’m just going to talk to you in first person now. If you belong to the other groups, you’re free to read it because this is who you’ll grow into if you simply just find a little more courage and if you’re not planning on doing better, this reading is useless.

I’m saying it with peace and love but there’s no future self, you’re going to be stuck in this energy or even worse if you do not free yourself from it. You’re being warned, if someone has started acting up and disrespecting you, if you’re starting to hurt “don’t worry, this is just the beginning” is what you’re being told. However getting back to the final group of people, this group is mad that they ever thought they were meant for something so less, that they were acting so desperate for something or someone with little to no value. All of the groups are likely to have quite a temper. You sometimes end up comparing yourself and your achievements to other’s. However, you try to ground yourself by doing routine activities, to get you back in touch with reality. You have become intolerant after everything that you had to tolerate in the past. You still don’t understand certain things, you have fears, confusion and overthink just like others but this seems to be a channel for you to get to know yourself deeper, to form a deeper relationship and understanding of yourself so that you can be more at peace with yourself, and your life experience is richer. Not everyone has such an access to their own psyche, you do, you should make use of it. You tend to feel things very intensely and that has doomed you at times but you’re starting to heal, you have a chance to move on without any regrets. You could be realising that anything and anyone you lost in the past was not even all that after all, that they weren’t as valuable as you acted like they were 💀. “Was it just my emotions that made them seem so interesting and worth fighting for?” You desire connections to be so deep that it is almost codependent in nature, you might not accept it outwardly but think about it, what I’m saying is true. You want to blend and become one with the one you’re sharing your heart with. You’re struggling with feeling worthy and beautiful. While you’re not as down bad as the rest of the groups anymore, you’ve developed certain emotions and beliefs that aren’t accurate. The problem here is that your self worth is reliant on how others have treated you, how they treat you, etc. instead of who you truly are. Many of you here are doing well enough to know that it’s all in your head but you just become very vulnerable when the past issues come up, you’re unable to think straight because you just felt so unloved and unnurtured at some point that it was difficult to not relate your worth with it. You are very excessive as a lover or possibly even when you simply just love people, you might like to touch them, talk to them, write for them, just show your love to them in any and every way possible. Sometimes, you might not even want to separate from them at all. Right now, you seem to be a bit more distant though. You’re scared of connection and choosing to put yourself first even if it feels selfish sometimes. You have trust issues and doubt loyalty of others. You also feel like others have a misalignment of values causing you to not be able to connect with them even if you’d like. You’ve finally become biased towards yourself. You don’t mind not fitting in. In fact, you’re embracing being the misunderstood but innovative black sheep. You are supposed to use the rage, insecurities, doubts, everything as motivation to create yourself and life as you want it, and also to build more power and intellect. You’re on your way to grow to be so resourceful and action oriented that you won’t ask questions, you won’t chase anything, you’ll just know that what you want you’ll get it and if you don’t, it’s because there’s something else that’s better. You know that you have unlimited potential, it’s time to try and harness it, bring that potential to life and make something out of it because otherwise, it’s just that ‘potential’, nothing tangible will come out of it.

꒰ Your future self ꒱

Your future self is a powerful person who knows how to carry themself and is controlled. You’re also going to be someone who is reliable and understanding. Someone who is more action oriented. You’re going to be wise and have many decisions, you’re either already indecisive or are going to be like that at that time. You could just be torn between something at that time. Life will not be working in your favour, in fact, things that you didn’t even expect will have happened. For some of you, certain events that were out of your control but turned your world upside down have already happened, for the rest, it has not. However, you’ll have dealt with even more significant life changes by then. You’ll have a lot of responsibilities and burdens that you’ll be carrying mentally. You’re going to have an inner contentment but also an acknowledgment of your previous dreams having been broken. we You’ll still be recovering from the extreme changes that you’ll have experienced. You could possibly have a crush on someone at that time or might be in an innocent kind of a love relationship, could simply be a deep and mutual platonic connection too. I’m leaning more so towards a crush or a friendship because I’m getting that you’ll have too much going on in your life to be in a relationship though some of you could be trying. You’re going to be an emotionally intelligent person who wants a deep soulmate like connection otherwise. Even if you do not necessarily use that word, you’re going to want a deep, devoted and respectful connection where you see and choose each other, and each other only. You’re going to be desiring one on one connections definitely but I’m not getting any sort of desperation from your future self. They’re going to have healed a lot and will still be doing so, they’ll have forgiven and learned a lot as well, and will not be willing to settle anything less than what they desire. You’re going to have some confusions, overthinking and fears but mostly, you’re going to know yourself and have the ability to meet others at a very deep level. You’re going to have the ability to almost telepathically understand others. You’re going to have found out many truths about people and will have gotten a very deep dive into not your subconscious but the unconscious like random realisations of self, others and life will be coming to you out of nowhere. You’ll realise really deep side of yourself, others and life i.e. the dirtier sides too so you could be feeling humiliated. I’m not sure how to put it for you. It’s just going to be uncomfortable. Let me give an example, there was once a point when I deeply connected to someone. That person touched a very sensitive part of me that I was not even aware existed.

When we separated for some reason I thought it was all my fault and was being humiliated publicly too but the inner humiliation was much worst, now I’ve grown more aware of the other person’s motivations and dirtier sides, and have learned the deeper aspects of myself beyond just the sides that caused me to feel ashamed and humiliated. I feel like the feeling that I’m trying to describe is not being channeled out properly through words due to how is more of something that one experiences first hand than something that can be expressed through words. The way I remember back then is that it was a very confusing and overwhelming time but also otherworldly like I’m not sure if I’ll ever feel anything like it again due to how much self awareness I’ve cultivated and how one of a kind it was, plus I’m not as naive as I was back then. Back then, I was suddenly pushed into a place that felt unfamiliar and realising things about myself, others, and life. It felt scary, confusing and overwhelming. Especially because I was getting to know myself on a very deep level and my focus was on the negative, dirtier parts of myself but little did I know that overtime I’d understand myself deep enough to understand why these sides of me exist and also to see parts of myself that was once unknown to me. Also that the unnecessary shame and humiliation that I once felt would turn disappointment with others as I’d see their true colours and understand their intents. You’ll be regretting giving these energies so much power in the past. You’ll feel like you unnecessarily sacrificed so much and dealt with so much humiliation, and scrutiny. I wonder if you’ve already undergone whatever situation or event this is. You are going to be contemplating how stupid it was of you to let things get to your head or think that you were the problem in any way when you weren’t. You may have dealt with external humiliation too, you’re going to feel like you should have stood up for yourself and fought back. You’re going to be in a more stable position in life but will be dealing with issues with beauty, women, mother, females in general or possibly your own, or someone else’s lack of femininity and nurturing. You’re going to be healing and will be putting your personal matters, and self to be sacred. You’re going to want to or will have to spend a lot of time by yourself either by will or unavoidable circumstances. One thing that’s standing out strongly is that the door for the past is going to be almost completely closed. Your sex drive is going to be excessive but it will manifest more so as you having to masturbate every morning or/and night. Your libido is going to have grown with you 😭.

꒰ What do you need to spend more and less time doing ? ꒱

The issues that you’re dealing with are related to money, being a person of character, accepting life’s lows, accepting life’s endings and changes. Don’t get me wrong, you’re doing your best but there are better ways to deal with things. There’s this saying that goes “follow your dreams or desires” and well, life is short so you should follow your desires but I personally believe that the saying should go “follow your dharma (faith, good deeds, path of righteousness and virtue) alongside your kama (desires and pleasure)”, following your path is so much more important than following your desires because your path is right here, in the present, your desires can be grounded into reality overtime but you need to maintain a steady path first. Be a good and reliable figure to your community, and family even if they’re being difficult. Don’t do so to people please, do so because that’s right. Of course, if you’re being beaten and abused, that’s different. Also, understand that life is a cycle of good and bad. Some people have really simple and easygoing lives with their problems being very sophisticated. Such as, issues with visa, their love life going poorly or them not being invited somewhere. Some of us don’t have the privilege to have our love life or documents be our biggest problems. No matter where you belong on the ladder of wealth and no matter how low of a point you’re in, accept it and try to work with it by accepting things as they are. Don’t try to reminisce when things hadn’t changed yet unless you’re going to learn from it and instead accept changes, accept the negative circumstances and work to even them out. Treat people well even when you’re at your lowest and learn how to be the bigger person because trust me, you’re going to be very hard on yourself and hence, unhappy if you are unable to maintain a certain level of good character. Keep service in mind and instead of desiring for others to be kind to you, to receive favours from others, be the one who’s kind to others and gives them favours. Don’t give favours to those who don’t need or appreciate it like peers who are rich enough or have other people to help them but give it to poor children who might not have money to buy study material for school for example. You’re also being told that you’ll never be empty handed, don’t be scared of giving to those who can’t give back to you. Learn how to perceive people as ‘limited’, some people just don’t have it in them to match and meet you at the level that you need them to match, and meet you because that’s just their limit. You’re being told to give to those who truly need it but in the past, you’ve likely given to those who didn’t appreciate what you gave them and it felt unfair, it still does but you need to stop letting it weigh on your mind. You are not at a lack because the more you give, the more you receive, from elsewhere but you’re receiving. You are being told to stop giving to ungrateful people but to not feel bad about having done so in the past. You need to firstly make the decision to become a controlled individual who is the bigger person in situations, compassionate, loving and strong towards self and all and then to spend more time making sure you make this a reality.

Become more empathetic and develop more emotional intelligence, and wisdom i.e. also learning how to self regulate emotions better, controlling your attention to not let things get to you and learning how to not take things personally. You need to understand that people do what they do and that it often won’t have much to do with you and if it does, learn from it instead of letting it burden you. Make peace with yourself and forgive yourself, and others. Don’t let emotional issues weigh on you and don’t try to be responsible for other’s emotional well being, listen to them and be there for them if you want to but don’t carry it within yourself because it’s still their issue to deal with. Even if you try to help them, understand that it’s their karma to work through it and the only thing you can do is guide them, and the best way to guide them is by learning how to become the bigger person and by leading by example. You need to ground yourself better and passionately go after your goals, try not to hold any negative feelings or intentions towards anyone because one who holds a hot coal to throw it at someone else will only end up getting himself burnt. Keep your vision of a family in tact and strive to be the kind of person you’d want to share a family with, you are being told to keep your ego, pain and past resentments aside in order to look after your family and community. Treat people well while they’re around you even if you do not share a long term connection of any sort with them. The thing is that people won’t remember what your hair looked like, what you were wearing, etc. until you’re striking enough to have them remember how you made them feel. Besides, if your visual appeal is the most memorable thing about you, you need to start doing better in life. Spend time loving yourself and try to improve your focus, get rid of habits such as procrastination and spend more time by yourself, trying to build the life you desire. Also, learn how to be grateful and feel content with the abundance you already possess. For example, you don’t have good parents, friends or money but share a lovely bond with your siblings, understand that that in itself is a blessing. Just train yourself to see life as being half full instead of half empty. Spend less time in your mind. You feel passionately about your past, you’ve spent so much time in it after all but what you’re not realising or may have realised but aren’t being able to get rid of is how the issues of the past make you become that version of you temporarily or within your mind even though that’s not who you are anymore because there’s just a thin line between what was and what is. The energy that I’m getting is someone who was on the chubbier side and bullied for it being unable to get rid of the trauma despite being skinny. It doesn’t have to be the same thing but that’s the kind of mindset that you sometimes end up operating under. You know in your logical mind that you’re not who you used to be but it’s difficult for you to fully grasp it and get rid of what you identified with for such a long time. Whatever it is, the past you and the experiences you’ve had have caused you to have wounds concerning your self worth.

There’s this feeling of staying put mentally despite having had breakthroughs physically. For example, I was humiliated pretty badly for being ugly in middle school and it honestly feels like severe bullying to me despite nothing physical having happened so even though I’ve grown into my features, become prettier, understand that I didn’t deserve such cruel treatment simply because of the way I looked, the effects of that time have stuck to me. I do not like talking about myself because for the most part, I’m doing well and I know that I’m worthy but on certain days, the past just haunts me. Thankfully, I do not let it have a hold on me anymore though, you might be in a similar energy, you could be either in the same energy or the energy that I experienced earlier when I had just recently started changing and was not acting like the changes yet because my mind hadn’t even registered it properly yet. You’re a passionate person who has a strong character with good discernment, reasoning and virtues, and have become a go getter, and are grateful, happy and content but the self worth issues haven’t been gutted out of your system yet. Emotionally, you’ve been at terrible lows and have pulled yourself out of them in order to get better, and more stable. You also know yourself on a very deep level because you were exposed to and either are still exploring or have explored really deep into your psyche, the subconscious as well as the unconscious. You are aware of your dirty sides and your pure ones, one more thing that you’re aware of is how deep your emotions and self runs. You understand that humans are complex and have a lot of unconscious things that affect them, and that most of them never get a peek into their subconscious and unconscious but you did, it was scary, confusing and very overwhelming but you’ve still managed to come out as an empathetic and emotionally intelligent person. You need to stop thinking about the abandonments you’ve faced, many of the self worth and other issues that you’re dealing with seem to be a result of others abandoning you or hurting your emotions in such ways that you had no choice but to leave them. You haven’t moved on yet, you’re being told to move on. It’s funny because you seem to know that whatever and whoever you lost was not even that great to begin with but you so can’t help but have regrets and guilt over not having walked away sooner, not having seen the true colours early on, having ignored them and having gotten emotionally involved at all but you are also being unable to move on, you’re done with these situations though like you’re completely fed up and are grateful to be in a better place now. You’re being told to look at things as they were, that situations lacked fairness, you were probably even disrespected, these people weren’t reliable or high value, and misused your affections for them. Understand that you never truly belonged in their world because if you did, you’d still be with them. Some of these people weren’t even honest with you either in the beginning, towards the end or throughout the connection. Spend less time thinking about the betrayal and their sneaky, and messed up ways, and more time accepting them, and understanding that there’s nothing you can do except move on. By this point, you’ve gotten well enough to not hurt or cry anymore, so stop reminiscing and replaying the pain. You need to heal enough to start finding these situations boring because trust me, there’s more to life than this. Thank you for reading, much love and take care.

#pac #pac reading #pick a card #tarot pac #tarot pick a card #pick a card reading #intuitive readings #pick a deck #pick a photo

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triplefrontierbabe · 5 months ago

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2 Hands Lando Norris Imagine

smau linked here

summary: you’re a world famous singer dating Lando Norris

pairing: f! singer reader x Lando Norris

warning: suggestive content, language

a/n: this is part of a request paired with a smau, linked above

Ask any woman what their favorite part of a man is and she will most likely say his hands. There’s just something so innocently sensual about man hands, especially if they’re the hands of a racing driver.

It’s no secret that using your significant other as inspiration for your work is one of the highest forms of flattery, especially when it comes to art. And ever since you met Lando Norris, he has been your muse for your work. Every song somehow suddenly was about him, he’s all you thought about. Now that your second world tour has come to an end it’s the perfect time to get back in the studio and you have the perfect idea of what to do.

To be honest, one of the first things you noticed about Lando was his hands and how they looked like they were carved from marble. The mere sight of him holding a coffee cup made your mind wander like no other. All you could think of was how his hands looked on your body and how he would touch you with such gentleness and care. Occasionally you’d sneak a photo of his hands while you were around him. Soon enough he realized the obsession of his hands that you had developed.

One night you and Lando were heading out for a nice dinner when you pulled out your phone to take a photo of you two in the elevator mirror. Lando immediately grabbed your phone out of your hands and moved his hand from your hips to the front of your stomach, and dangerously low might you add. You blushed at his actions, knowing your not so secret obsession had been found out.

“I know you like them.” Lando said cheekily handing the phone back to you as your face broke out in a blush yet again.

“Can you blame me though?” You asked, grabbing his right hand and examining the rings he had on. Those rings were another weakness of yours. The way the cool metal clashed with your burning skin made your whole body shiver. His hands were going to be the death of you.

“Write a song, it’ll last longer.” He responded with a mischievous smile as the elevator door opened. You looked over your shoulder at him and rolled your eyes.

“You know I just might, Norris.” You said as you stepped out of the elevator.

“Atta girl.” He said laying a light smack on your ass which earned a whispered scold from you.

A song about his hands is exactly what you wrote. The writing process for this song was probably the fastest you had ever written a song in your entire life. Your producer was shocked when you got to the studio and had to make minor changes to the lyrics, it was practically perfect– like Lando’s hands.

While Lando was halfway across the world for a race you facetimed him to play a demo of the song for him.

“You mean it?” He asked, looking at your face on his screen with a look of disbelief.

“Every word.” You simply replied, giving Lando a sly smile.

“What about a music video?” Lando inquired, shifting in his seat.

“Okay, hear me out” you began “I was thinking about incorporating cars into it somehow, maybe a McLaren or something.”

“A McLaren, huh?”

“I dunno, just a thought. Could be a fun little easter egg.” You responded by shrugging your shoulders while stealing a glance at his hands that were barely in sight on the phone.

Before you knew it music video rehearsals had arrived. On your first day of rehearsal you walked into the studio to see a box wrapped in bright orange- or papaya- wrapping paper with a big blue bow on top. There was a card attached that read ‘although this isn’t a sports car, i hope this gives you some inspiration ;) -4’. Lando had gifted you one of those battery operated kids’ McLaren F1 cars.

Another month had passed of working on 2 Hands but it was finally ready to be promoted, and so was your relationship with Lando. Since you started dating him, small easter eggs of your relationship had been sprinkled throughout your instagram posts.

But the post you made announcing that you had new music coming out, you decided to be bold. You included a picture of you on the toy car that had Lando’s number on the front. But the kryptonite of the post was the last picture which was a closeup of Lando with his hands on his helmet with his hand veins on full display. You had spent hours of looking through social media for the perfect photo of his hands, many thanks to the thousands of other girls who were just as enamored with his hands as you were.

The minute you posted, your phone was blowing up with countless fans speculating a relationship between you and the famed driver but more so, the attention was on his hands like you wanted it to be.

Abu Dhabi rolled around which was a big weekend for the both of you. Lando won the race, McLaren won the Constructors’ Championship and 2 Hands was released. You were with Lando at the hotel basking in his victorious weekend and listening to your new song. It was a perfect weekend and you couldn’t have imagined it to be any other way.

“I fucking love this song.” Lando said, grabbing you by the waist giving you a deep kiss. “But I love you way more.”

“I couldn’t have done this without you, Lan.” You replied, raking your hands through Lando’s curly hair. “I love how everyone loves your hands too. Did you know there’s pinterest boards dedicated to your hands?”

“Of course there are.” He responded by throwing his hand back in laughter. This moment was perfect, just being in the same room as him celebrating your accomplishments together.

“But, I’m the only one that knows what they feel like.” You said with a wink.

“Well, look at you Miss Possessive.”

F1 Masterlist | Indycar Masterlist

600 followers celebration!

taglist: @r0nnsblog @bernelflo @ifyouaintfirstyourelastt @f1updates4you

#triplefrontierbabef1 #triplefrontierbaberequest #lando norris x reader #lando norris #lando norris smau #2 hands #f1 x reader #f1 imagine #mclaren

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bo0tleg · 1 year ago

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One thing I like about Top Gun (1986) is how believable the development with Ice and Mav's dynamic is.

I've seen a lot of the "Rivals suddenly become buddies after traumatic event together" in media, but I don't think I've seen it done better than in Top Gun. Mostly, I attribute it to how much build up it has.

Most of the time, the 'Rivals' hate each others guts throughout the entire movie/series and then they go through an extremely traumatic event that binds them for life and shifts their entire concept of each other. Ice and Mav never once changed how they saw each other, it just changed their understanding of it.

Ice saw Maverick as dangerous and Mav saw Iceman as stuck-up and commanding. And they weren't wrong, by any means.

From the beginning, they have tension between them because of how different they are. And it ends up in the audience seeing Ice as the 'Antagonist' because that's how Mav sees it, and we're seeing it from his perspective as the protagonist. But Ice was never inherently wrong, in fact he was right.

Other than his first scene, Iceman always has a point in what he's saying. He's criticizing Mav, not insulting him. Sure, he does it in a brash way because masculinity, but he's not trying to insult him, he's trying to knock him down a peg and wake him up to reality. All Ice wants is that he starts to act as a team player, start caring about everybody's safety AND his own, rather than being reckless for the sake of being reckless. But Mav sees it as an insult because he can't process criticism in a healthy way (due to how he grew up). The same thing happened with Charlie, for the record.

And so the strife between the two begins. What I like about it is how it bleeds out of them over time, becoming more settled as the movie goes on. In the locker room "You're dangerous" scene, the tension is palpable. It's obvious they're agitated by each other, and feel the need to prove they're the correct one.

If you pay attention, this whole... demand for superiority goes away as time progresses. They're fine with each other's presence, it's not like they're constantly at each others throat all the time. In the shower scene, Ice dropped all of the aggression and competitiveness from his tone and is instead just laying out what he thinks. He's not undermining Maverick, he's not lecturing him like a child. Iceman is just telling Maverick exactly how he sees the situation in hopes that it would make him realize what the fuck he's doing, but with little hope that it'll actually work.

That doesn't mean Ice is always correct either, he doesn't understand why Mav acts the way he does, thus fails to take into consideration the emotional trauma behind it. Which only causes even more strife.

The entire time, Iceman isn't being a dick for the sake of it, he just wants Mav to stop being stupid (by his standards). And Maverick doesn't understand it because all he gets from what Ice says is insults.

Maverick isn't good at understanding what people mean to say if it's implied, you need to say it to his face. This is the reason he stayed quiet in the shower scene, because Ice finally laid everything out in simple words that he can understand without making it sound like a dick-measuring contest.

Thing is, the tension mellows out. At the beginning, you could see the tension and cut it with a knife. By the middle you can see them getting used to each other without jumping to constantly trade jabs (namely: the volleyball scene, it's just a bunch of guys being dudes, and the scene where Charlie says that Mav flew recklessly in front of the whole class, Ice doesn't comment on it in any way). Over time, they've settled down into their tension without needing to address it all the time.

Then Goose dies.

And the tension between them is still there.

Just because Goose isn't there anymore, doesn't mean their whole dynamic vanishes all of a sudden. You can see their hesitation towards each other (especially Ice), and that's great! It demonstrates that Goose dying doesn't magically resolve their problems with each other in solidarity.

Ice tried to give his consolations to Mav, and is awfully awkward about it. You can see on his face that he wants to say more, but doesn't because he knows it's not his place given their history. And not much is said, but a lot it communicated. (Val Kilmer is a killer actor for this, OH MY FUCKING GOD BLESS THAT MAN)

Even in the graduation scene you can see how out of their depts they really are with each other. A stilted congratulations, that was it. But they're trying, and that's what matters.

A scene I think gets overlooked a lot is the scene right before the Layton, where Ice expressed his worries about Mav to Stinger, and Mav heard him. Because I feel like that was a shift that was more drastic than the Layton itself for them.

What Ice was doing in that scene wasn't doubting Maverick's flying abilities, it was his mental health. Sure, he passed the psych eval, but that means next to jack shit when in a real combat situation so close after his backseater dying. And Ice might be worried that he's gonna be left hanging, but with the way he was speaking I'm more inclined to believe he was more worried about Maverick's wellbeing than himself. Ice almost looked resigned. He knew it was gonna get dismissed because that's the military for you, but he still wanted to try to vouch for Mav to stay groundside, if only to keep his mind at bay.

But Maverick heard him, and as usual, he read it as an insult. He wasn't wrong to assume Ice didn't believe him capable of flying the mission, which wouldn't be a lie, but failed to realize that he had more than one reason to want Maverick on the ground rather than in the air. And for the first time, Maverick believes him.

Up until this point, Mav dismissed all of Ice's so called 'insults' because he was certain in and of himself. But now he isn't anymore.

And it affects his performance in the air. I'm not saying he was as shitty as he was at the start of that combat because of what he overheard, but I am saying that it certainly didn't help matters in the slightest.

So their weird 'stepping-on-eggshells' situation is all over the place by that point. Because they started to care about each other despite not being what one would call proper friends yet. It's establishing a potential friendship by implying that 1. Ice cares about Mav's wellbeing and 2. Mav cares about what Ice thinks.

On the ground, they have the wingman exchange, and their suddenly buddy buddy. Thing is, it wasn't sudden at all.

They've been setting this up the entire fucking movie.

Going back to what I said at the beginning: Ice thinks Mav is dangerous and Mav thinks Ice is stuck-up and controlling. After the Layton, they still think those things because they weren't wrong to begin with. What changed was that instead of seeing it as something that pitted them against each other, it was seen as something that simply was about the other, and that there was no changing it. It could be good.

Mav being dangerous could be good and Ice being stuck-up and controlling could be good, because those were just traits of who they were. By the end of the movie they didn't change how they saw each other, just how they interpreted each other.

And it was built up during the entire fucking movie.

There was a reason to why they acted the way they did with each other because of the stilted interpretation they had of each other. From rivalry to friendship (and perhaps more later down the line), it's glaringly obvious throughout that it wasn't a sudden shift, it was exponential.

That's why I think it was so well developed, because you could see it coming.

#I implied that Mav is autistic here and there because yes #i just love them your honor #this is what I call good writing folks #take notes #top gun #tg86 #icemav #iceman x maverick #top gun iceman #tom iceman kazansky #iceman kazansky #pete maverick mitchell #pete mitchell #top gun 1986

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euphoriaslux · 1 year ago

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two’s a party.

summary: you recently transferred to stanford, and decide to tutor a tennis player in your class. he has a friend. severe indecency ensues.

word count: 3.3k

warnings : smut, threesomes, f!oral receiving, swearing, smoking, drinking. slight cuck energy if you squint (i’m sorry ((no i’m not))). no challengers spoilers!

a/n: this fic got away from me big time but this movie has rotted my brain and as a result i have written utter debauchery that i will not apologize for. just had to get this out of my head, enjoy!

stanford science hall. monday , march 3.

You swear the last thing you’ll hear before your body is lowered into your grave is the process of lactic acid breakdown.

It’s 2:30 PM. Kinesiology 189 with Professor Wilson, a lanky middle-aged man with a PhD in exercise science and a half-grown beard that you don’t think will ever fully grow in, is almost over. He’s teaching Extended Studies of the Human Body in a humid classroom filled with student-athletes, most of whom are trying to stay awake, trying to hide that they’re taking a nap, or making no attempt to hide that they’re on their phones. You don’t really blame any of them, because the professor’s voice is so soft and monotone that it feels like he’s begging everyone to pay attention to anything but him. You’ve managed to stay somewhat on course with the thread of today’s lecture, the notebook in front of you filled with scribbles of incomplete molecular structures and somewhat legible drawings of the muscular anatomy of a hamstring.

This class is required for your biology major since you’re on a pre-medicine track. You don’t know why you’re doing it, the whole doctor thing, but you’ve developed a weird fixation for this class. The functionality of the body, how muscles stretch and tear with each movement, and how amino acids work to build them back even bigger.

And, possibly because of the tennis player who sits four rows ahead of you every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.

His last name is Donaldson. You know because of the faded label on the massive bag he throws on the floor every time he walks into class, at least ten minutes late with a backward Stanford Tennis cap on his head. His first name remains a mystery, partly because he never talks in class, and mainly because you’ve made no attempt to speak to him. You like to think it’s because you’re so focused on the curriculum.

Professor Wilson knows your name, though, since you’re in his office hours every Thursday at 11 A.M. In part because he gives out most of the answers to his homework, and because you just transferred to Stanford your last year and very desperately need a letter of recommendation for medical school. Hence why you agreed to tutor a student with lower than 60% in the class during one of your meetings. And why everyone in the class was staring at you right now.

“... first come first serve, so reach out to her sooner rather than later.”

You give a tight-lipped smile, glancing around the room. Most people have looked away, back to their distraction of choice, but you meet eyes with the fluffy blonde-haired tennis player.

stanford library. wednesday, march fifth.

It’s 11 A.M., and you feel like your brain is about to explode if you look at another practice set.

“Hey”.

Your head whips around to the harsh whisper, only to be met with the blue-eyed mystery from your class. He has that large bag slung over his shoulder, with the end of a tennis racket peeking out of it. His hair is slightly stuck to his face, and his compression tee is slick to his chest like a second skin.

“Hi,” you whisper back. He smiles before tossing his bag on the floor and sitting in the chair across from you, either unaware of or completely ignoring the glares he’s receiving from the other students studying.

“You know,” he pulls out some kind of nutrition bar from his bag, unwrapping it and taking an aggressive bite, “for someone advertising their services, you’re pretty hard to find.”

“You’re in Mr. Wilson’s class, right?” you ask, hoping your subdued voice will remind him that he’s in a notoriously quiet place. He hums, pointing at you with his half-eaten snack.

“And I’m trying not to fail, but you didn’t leave your number anywhere in the classroom, and you bolt after every class. So how am I supposed to patronize your tutoring services…” he trails off, his volume the same level as when he walked in. You furrow your brows as he leans back into the chair.

“That’s when you say who you are.”

You feel a burn on the back of your neck as you tell him your name. He glances down towards the problem set you’ve nearly finished.

“How do you turn in any of those, I can’t get halfway through one of them.”

You pause for a moment before leaning slightly across the table to whisper:

“This new weird thing called studying. I think it just got approved by the CDC.”

“Very funny,” he shakes his head as reaches for your binder with your class schedule printed out on the front of it.

“Why are you taking so many bio classes?”

“Because I’m a biology major,” you can’t help the sarcasm dripping from your voice, and he looks at you with a raised eyebrow.

“Sorry, you’re making this too easy for me,” you raise your hands in conceit.

“I have practice every day at five so you can tutor me for like an hour beforehand,” he says before standing up, crunching up the silver wrapper and stuffing it into the front pocket of his blue jeans. You scoff at his sentence.

“Well, thank you for so generously fitting me into your schedule,” you roll your eyes, turning the page in your textbook. He grins.

“Tell the coach you’re there for Art. They’ll let you through.”

stanford tennis courts. friday, march 7th.

It’s 4 PM, and the California sun is sweltering. Your shorts feel like they��ve become a part of your legs, and your bag feels like it weighs a thousand pounds. By the time you make it to the tennis courts Art is already on the green concrete, shirtless with beads of sweat dripping down his face and chest. You hear his grunts as he sprints across the court, hitting the ball toward a slightly taller brunette with dangerously short red shorts. You watch them at the entrance for a few minutes, slightly entranced as the two play so seamlessly, as if they know every move the other person is going to make. You force your eyes away as you walk up the bleachers, stepping over leftover water bottles and chip bags to sit down and grab your notes from your backpack. It takes a couple more minutes for Art to notice you, yelling your name after he turns around to grab a ball his partner had hit particularly hard. You wave, and he says something you can’t hear to the brunette before the two of them jog across the courts and up the stands to where you are, blocking the sun as the two stand side by side.

“Who’s your friend?” you ask as you stuff the problem set you were working on in between the pages of your notebook.

“I’m Patrick,” he says, with a toothy smile and his ears poking out from under his hair. He has a bit more of a boyish charm to him than Art does, whose eyes are glued to his brunette counterpart.

“Are you in Mr. Wilson’s class too?”

Patrick opens his mouth to answer but Art speaks first, slightly pushing his friend with his shoulder as he says “He doesn’t go to Stanford, too busy being a tennis pro.”

Patrick rolls his eyes but his smile doesn’t leave his face. You notice how different this Art feels from the one in the library, how direct his playfulness is and how close he and Patrick stand together, their sweaty torsos nearly melding together.

Interesting.

“Like, Andre Agassi level pro?” you smile as the two of them laugh. Patrick raises the bottom of his shirt to wipe the sweat off of his forehead, and you can’t help but take a glance at the exposed skin just above his waistband.

“Sorry, he’s like the only tennis player I know.”

“No, no I’m taking that as a compliment that you think I’m on the level of Agassi. No takebacks if you see me play,” Patrick points at you.

“Will do,” you salute, turning over to Art.

“You ready to study?” you ask him as he makes a comically loud groan, his head falling back. Patrick laughs, reaching over to ruffle his friends hair.

“You do remember that’s why I’m here, right? Midterms are in two weeks.”

“I definitely have not forgotten that.” he says. You purse your lips just as Patrick’s eyes seem to light up.

“I’m staying at the Courtyard Hotel for the weekend. You two can come over and study, I need to review my last match anyway. Kill two birds with one stone,” Patrick suggests.

“Just studying?”

“Just studying,” Art says, wrapping his arm around his friend's shoulder. You glance between the two of them, trying to decipher the unspoken communication they seem to be doing. But you can’t crack it, so you shrug.

“Sure.”

“Let us finish this set, and then you’ll have me all to yourself. Sound fair?”

“Wow, what a privilege. Don’t take too long, it’s hell on Earth out here!” you yell the last part as Art jogs down the steps and back down towards the net. You look up once you realize that the sun is still being blocked, and Patrick is still standing in front of you.

“You ever play?” he grins, flipping the tennis racket in his hand.

“Tennis? God, no, that would not be a pretty sight. I’ll stick to what I’m good at,” you gesture to the books and notes in your lap. Patrick nods.

“If you ever want to learn, I could teach you sometime, you know if-” he’s cut off by Art yelling his name, and you both glance to see him with his hands on his hips.

“Go, don’t keep your boyfriend waiting,” you wave him off, and you swear you can see him blushing. Must have been the glare.

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” he says over his shoulder as he runs toward Art.

courtyard hotel. saturday, march 8.

It’s 11 pm. There’s a cold shiver in the elevator as you wait to get to the fourth floor, your tennis shoes tapping against the floor as one hand plays with the handle of the pack of beer in your hand while the other crumples and re-crumples the piece of paper with the hotel room number Patrick scribbled on it.

what are you doing?

You don’t have time to think about the consequences of your actions as the robotic voice signals that you’re on the fourth floor, the elevator doors fluttering open. It’s like your feet have a mind of their own, as you find yourself almost mindlessly wandering through the hotel halls until you’re planted in front of room 4B. You raise your hand to knock on the door but before you can make contact with the wood it’s thrust open, and Patrick is standing behind it. His dark hair is slightly tousled around his face, his striped shirt unbuttoned and his black boxer briefs low on his waist. He’s smiling, that same big smile as before, but his face is a little flushed, a gentle pink hue touching his cheeks. The two of you don’t say anything for a few seconds, as if you were both testing to see who would concede first to acknowledge the other’s presence. You raise the pack of Pabst Blue Ribbon in your right hand.

“I brought studying fuel.”

You were never good at waiting.

Patrick laughs before he moves slightly out of the way to allow you to walk into his room. It’s small, with a queen-sized bed and a tiny desk, and the A/C emits an odd rumbling sound as it smacks against the window. Clothes and scorecards are strewn across the floor, and the scent of cigarettes permeates the room. You place the alcohol on the floor before deciding to sit on the bed, kicking off your shoes as you cross your legs. Patrick seems to stall for a moment, smiling to himself before closing the door behind him. He doesn’t lock the door, but you didn’t notice.

“Art’s not here yet?” you ask, watching as Patrick walks over and tears open the cardboard case, cracking open a can. Taking a sip, he leans against the desk as he smiles.

“Art can be bad with time.”

“As I’ve noticed,” you reach your hand out to motion towards the drink and Patrick hands it to you, staring as you take a large sip.

“Well,” you wipe the side of your mouth, “I told him to bring the topics he wanted to study, so I guess we can’t do anything until he gets here.”

Patrick nods with a slight pout, his fingers playing with the pop tab of the can. “I guess we can’t.”

“How’s tennis… stuff,” you laugh as you finish the question, not sure of exactly what to say.

Patrick seems to tense a little at the mention of the sport, moving over to sit next to you on the bed. His knee grazes your leg and you feel a slight buzz at the contact as he takes the beer from your hand.

“I’m kinda fucking it up right now,” he says, and you furrow your brows.

“How? You were like, really good yesterday.”

He chuckles, shaking his head slightly. He hands you the beer and you finish it off, placing the empty can at the bottom of your feet.

“I’m good with Art. It feels so fucking natural and easy with him. But in my other matches, I don’t know. I just … can’t replicate it.”

You nudge him with your leg.

“Sounds like you two were made to play tennis together.”

He makes a noise of agreement, his hands slowly moving to ghost over your thigh.

“You and Art are pretty close?” you ask as he plays with the bottom hem of your shorts, but he doesn’t say anything. You take his silence as a yes.

“Do you ever get jealous?”

“Of Art?” he asks, almost incredulously. You shrug.

“Yeah, or jealous of the girls he’s with. Either or.”

Patrick sits on that for a few moments before smirking.

“What’s mine is mine, and what’s his is mine.”

You laugh at that, a real deep laugh, and Patrick giggles next to you, the both of you tipsy from the can of beer you finished. You reach over and put your hand on his flushed face, rubbing your hand across his cheek.

“What were you doing before I came?” you feel his face warm even more against your skin as you position yourself closer to him.

“Practicing- or, sorry, rereading my scorecards from my last match.”

You tutted as you moved your hand to the back of his neck, gently running your hands through his hair.

“You can tell me the truth, Patrick.”

He turns his head to press a gentle kiss to the palm of your hand before looking up at you as if to check if that was too much. Whatever your expression is gives him the confidence to move down to your neck, his tongue licking your skin.

“I think you know.”

You feel a pull in your lower stomach at his words, muffled by his mouth nipping at the sensitive spot just below your ear, and he sucks hard enough for you to put your hand around on his face at the pressure. Pulling his face up, the two of you stare at each other for what feels like an eternity, and his eyes glance toward your lips. You wanted to wait, to make him beg and plead for it, but your body seemingly pulled you forward as your pressed your mouth onto his.

You were really quite bad at waiting.

He tastes like tobacco and faintly of the fruit medley in the dining hall, and you sigh as his lips interlock with yours and his hand grabs the back of your neck, pressing you into him. The kiss gets messy and hard, his tongue gliding over your bottom lip and into your mouth as you lift your leg to straddle Patrick, grinding into him. He whimpers into the kiss as his calloused hands drop down to the waistband of your shorts, hesitating for a moment before dropping his hand into your underwear. You grind just a little bit faster as his fingers press circles into your clit, covering your mouth with your hand as you moan.

“You’re so beautiful,” he murmurs as he uses his other hand to guide your hips, and your move your hands down to tug firmly on his hair. You can feel your climax building, the pressure in your stomach getting closer and closer to taking you over the edge-

You both jump at the sound of the hotel room dor slamming shut. Art is standing there, in that damn backward cap and a Stanford tee shirt as he crosses his arms over his chest, saying nothing as you and Patrick sit up straight, him adjusting his crotch and you smooth down your shirt, avoiding his gaze. Finally, the silence is broken by Art laughing.

“Christ, I’m not the cops,” he slips out of his slides as he waltzes over and opens a can of beer, drinking about half of it in one go. You look at him, and at Patrick, and then back at him, not knowing what the hell you just got yourself into.

“You want to fuck him right?” Art asks, and you can’t help your small gasp at how easily he said that. You glance at Patrick, hoping he’ll know what to say, but he’s just staring at Art.

“I-um,”

“So, no one’s stopping you,” Art cuts you off, taking a final swig of his beer and moving to stand directly in front of you. You open your mouth to try and explain, but before you can talk Patrick’s mouth is on yours again, his hand roaming your body. His grip is firmer now, his fingertips digging into the side of your stomach. He tugs at the bottom of your shirt and you separate, breathless as you pull your shirt over your head and toss it on the floor. Patrick’s mouth moves down to your neck, then your collarbones, and then your chest as he reaches around to take of your bra, and you feel on fire from Art’s gaze across the room. As Patrick kisses down your stomach and yanks down your shorts, you turn over to meet Art’s eyes.

“Come here.”

Whatever resolve Art was holding onto crumbles as he quickly takes off his shirt and slips out of his Nike shorts, tossing his hat on the dresser. In a flash Art’s hands are on your neck, tilting your head around to kiss you as Patrick lifts up your hips so he can take off your underwear. Art’s lips are softer than Patrick’s but he kisses you a little bit harder, his hand cupping the base of your neck. Somehow, they both taste the same. You moan into Art’s mouth as you feel Patrick’s tongue swirl around your clit, rolling your hips into his mouth as Art’s cock presses into your back. It’s just so much so fast, and that familiar buzz starts to pool in your lower stomach.

“Look at him,” Art turns your head to Patrick and you look into his eyes as you cum, Art’s hands hold your head forward as a wave of euphoria crashes over you. Patrick’s hands are digging into your hips as he stares up at you and Art. Your chest heaves up and down as you try to catch your breath, leaning against Art as Patrick leans back up, his mouth a few inches from yours.

“Who do you want first?

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