#HOUSE. OF. ERECTILE. DYSFUNCTION.

[your-fave-has-ed]

Gregory House from House MD has erectile dysfunction!

[sceletaflores]

GIVE IT TO HER LIKE A MAN!

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｡𖦹°‧➵ pair: dbf!joel miller x fem!reader

｡𖦹°‧➵ wc: 5.1k

｡𖦹°‧➵ contains: 18+ SMUT MDNI, no outbreak au, no ellie, joel’s pov, swearing, age gap (52/23), semi-public sex (more of a semi-public ALMOST over the pants handjob?), p in v, clothed sex, unprotected sex, rough sex, hair pulling, spit kink, degradation, pussy spanking, creampie, fucking in your childhood bedroom RAAAHHH, one (1) single line about joel wanting to slap you, one (1) single use of the word daddy, erectile dysfunction? we don't know what that means in this house because that old man can fuck like he's twenty, porn w/o plot, no use of y/n.

｡𖦹°‧➵ nat’s note: hi babies! i'm back! did you miss me? cause i missed you and oh em gee i'm so excited to be rejoining the party. this actually wasn't what i planned on posting but the angsty joel fic is kicking my ass so hard that i had to take a break from it. i just needed to word vomit some raunchy, freak-nasty porn to cleanse my palate! i don’t normally go for the dbf trope but it's just so joel i couldn't not dip my feet in these waters. it's also more like dad's-close-but-distant-acquaintance-joel because in my head that man has little to no friends honestly. hope you love it, mwah!

dividers by @cafekitsune & @saradika-graphics!

joel gives the best graduation gifts...

Joel isn’t the type to get invited to these kinds of things.

Graduation parties for Ivy League brats. Champagne in fancy crystal flutes and catered hors d'oeuvres getting passed around on silver trays. Men in loafers and pastel polos calling each other “old buddy” without any irony. It’s a far cry from his usual crowd—his mangy old t-shirt and stained blue jeans stick out in the place like a damn sore thumb.

The invitation came from a distant friend, someone he used to work with before his career took him in an entirely different, much shiner direction. He was here more as a favor than anything else. Tommy’s been worried about him, says he needs to get out more.

“Meet some new people, drink a few beers.” He’d said with his hand clasped on Joel’s shoulder. “It ain’t healthy to spend every weekend fixin’ shit around the house, Joel.”

Joel doesn’t see the problem. He’s fine the way he is. But somehow, he still got roped into going when he could have used any excuse to pull out at the last second. He could have faked sick, faked busy, faked like he had anything else to do besides sit at a fancy oak table on a back porch bigger than the whole first story of his house, decorated in Yale blue balloons and streamers. 

He regretted giving into Tommy the second he pulled up in the driveway—a too-big Craftsman style place in West Lake Hills, all clean laid brick and perfectly manicured lawns. Joel couldn’t for the life of him remember why he said yes in the first place. Maybe it was the guilt of worrying his brother. Maybe for the decent catered food and overpriced beers he knew would be there when he first got the address.

What he hadn’t expected—what hit him in the goddamn chest when the door swung open after he knocked—was you.

And Christ, did you look smug about it.

It had been months ago. The only reason Joel was even in Connecticut was to meet with a client, a big time East Coast entrepreneur who wanted a new add on to his ten car garage and was fine slinging around the money to pay for a round-trip flight and a cushy hotel room.

He hadn’t planned on going to the bar that night, but after hours of back-and-forth about permits and material costs, he needed a drink. Just one, maybe two—enough to take the edge off before heading back to the hotel.

It was a shitty little dive about ten minutes from where he was staying. The beer was cold, the lights were low, and he wasn’t supposed to be making decisions with his little head. But then he saw you across the way, right in the middle of the dancefloor.

You were in a circle with a few other girls, your dress riding up higher and higher each time you’d roll your hips to the heavy bass blaring from the overhead speakers.

Joel watched you like that for a while, leaned up against the bar lazily sipping at his beer. He hadn’t planned on doing anything about it, just sat there and enjoyed the view. But you’d caught him looking, and instead of turning away and pretending not to notice, you’d smirked.

Joel should have known right then that he was in trouble.

It wasn’t long before you left your little group and made your way over, slipping on the stool beside him like you belonged there, like you’d already made your mind up about what was going to happen next. You’d leaned in close, close enough for him to catch the scent of whatever perfume you’d rolled over your throat before heading out—something rich and heady that damn near made his head spin.

“Hey, cowboy.” You’d said with a tilt of your head, the long column of your neck dewy with a light sheen of sweat he wanted to feel under his tongue. “You’ve been watching me?”

There was no accusation in your voice, just a quiet sort of amusement, like you already knew the answer.

Joel had huffed a laugh, he didn’t see the point of denying it. He was a lot of things, but subtle wasn’t one of them. “Yeah.” He’d admitted, taking a slow sip of his beer before setting it down. “What about it?”

Your eyes dropped down the length of his body, studying him, and he’d let you. Let you take your time looking, even as heat crawled up the back of his neck.

“Buy me a drink?” You’d asked, smiling up at him like butter wouldn’t melt in your mouth.

That was all it took.

One drink turned into two, which turned into three, and then you were leaning into his space like you were made to be there. Your index finger teasingly tracing along the collar of his shirt as you whispered something filthy in his ear that had all the blood in his brain rushing down south.

Joel really shouldn’t have let it go any further than some goddamn footsie under the bar and a few dirty words whispered over the rims of shiny glasses, he was too old for shit like that. But you were just so damn tempting—confident and sharp and pretty as all hell.

Before Joel knew it he had you pressed up against the side of his truck, giggling into his mouth, fingers tugging at his belt like you couldn't get it off fast enough. You’d tasted like the fruity cocktails he bought you and something sweeter underneath, something distinctly you, and Joel had to have more.

You let him have it too—fisting his shirt and dragging him into the backseat without a care in the world, all eager hands and breathless laughter as you straddled his lap.

It was supposed to be just that. A reckless decision with a pretty young thing as the cherry on top of his trip. A one-night deal he’d let himself have because, fuck, it had been a long time since someone looked at him like that.

Joel tried his damndest to think how he should’ve, tried not to let some one off fuck turn him all sorts of ass backwards. He tried his damndest to boot you out of his mind the next morning when he was boarding the flight back to Austin—but you stuck anyway, like a burr in his goddamn brain. 

The way you’d looked sprawled out under him, eyes glazed over with pleasure, lips parted, or the way you’d moaned his name like it was a prayer you needed him to hear. The way you’d rode him nice and slow, dragging your nails down his chest just to watch him shudder. The way you’d kissed him after, lazy and sweet, before sneaking off into the night like a goddamn thief.

Joel could've sworn he saw God that night, a smudged silhouette in the fogged up windows of his truck.

And now you’re here, standing in the doorway of some polished, high society home, looking like sin wrapped up in tulle and pearls.

Joel wasn’t a man who spooked easy, but seeing you again, surrounded by people who had no goddamn idea what you’d let him do to you in the backseat of his truck all those months ago, knocked him on his ass harder than a sucker punch.

The recognition was damn near instant, your eyes shining just as much as the sparkly sash that read “GRAD!” in big glittery letters. The initial shock gave way to a tiny, secret smile as your gaze slid up and down his body shamelessly, like this was some kind of funny inside joke. 

Joel was seconds away from turning tail, walking back down your ridiculously long driveway and getting in his truck to get the hell out of there, but then your father was walking up behind you with a big grin on his face. He clapped Joel on the shoulder roughly and introduced his “Old buddy Joel Miller from his blue-collar days!”

You were all coy smiles and wide eyes. A sugared, “It’s so nice to meet you, Mr. Miller. Thank you for coming…” passing through your glossy lips.

The same lips that left shiny red smudges along the skin of his cock when you slid him down your throat, peering up at him with glassy eyes. The memory alone was enough to get heat stirring deep in his gut, and the way you looked at him now—all demure and polished, like you were some angelic scholar fresh off a podium—only made it worse.

Joel is too damn old for this.

“Very top of her class,” your father boasts, swishing his beer bottle through the air towards you flippantly. “Can you believe it? Just think of what we were doing at her age, brother. She sure as hell didn’t get any brains from me, that’s all her mother.”

Joel tries to chuckle with him, but it sounds strained, forced. He keeps his eyes facing forward, knee bouncing restlessly under the table. You’re looking at him again, hot and persistent against the side of his face. The heavy weight of your gaze practically begging him to look back. He doesn’t.

This dinner is it’s own form of torture, because of course, you just had to sit in the empty seat next to Joel—close enough that he can feel your knee bump up against his every few minutes.

He’s done a good job avoiding you until now, always walking the other direction when you waltz into the same room, not making eye contact when your gaze would sweep over the crowd hoping to catch his, trying for once in his life to be a good man.

A good man that suffers through this damn party without doing something he'll regret, that leaves at the end of the night and never has to see you again.

“Yeah,” he says, nervously starting to pick at the label of his own beer. Some snobby, imported New England brewery, probably sixty bucks a six-pack. “Good times.”

Joel can see you lean forward out of the corner of his eye, the neckline of your dress sliding down an inch as you stare at him, attention rapt. “What were you like back then, Mr. Miller?”

Joel nearly winces, his fingers tightening around the neck of his beer hard enough to turn the skin around his knuckles white.

‘Mr. Miller’ echoes in his ears lewdly, blaring like church bells. Your voice is nothing but a honey-sweet mockery, so syrupy he can nearly feel it trickling down his throat to add to the warmth settling low in his stomach. 

Your father snorts over the lip of his bottle, answering you before Joel could open his mouth. “Joel didn’t go to college, honey. He went into the trades right after graduation,” he takes a long sip, Joel feels your knee bump against his again. “That’s how we met.”

You hum, nodding your head languidly. “You’re an architect too?”

Joel shakes his head, not looking at you as he answers. “Carpenter.”

Your father launches into some story about his old work days with Joel, about how back in the day, they were “real men” with “real jobs,” but Joel can barely process any of it. He nods along absently, lets out some half-hearted chuckles when he needs to.

Joel nearly puts his knee through the table when he feels your barefoot brush up against his ankle, hiking his jeans up ever so slightly. He shoots you a glare as subtly as he can.

It’s a look so sharp, so warning, that it should be enough to make you back the hell off from whatever game you’re playing. You’re not even looking at him anymore, eyes glued to your father as you nod along to whatever story he’s telling now. 

But there’s a knowing little smile on your lips as your hand creeps beneath the table and falls into his lap, the pads of your fingers pressing against the inside of his thigh.

Joel goes still. Rigid as his breath catches on a sharp inhale.

Christ, you’re trying to kill him.

Your father’s voice pulls him out of the silent panic and heavy arousal waging a war inside of him. “How’s business, Joel?” he asks, leaning back in his chair. “You and Tommy still running things at a hundred miles a minute?”

Joel barely registers the question as your hand inches higher and higher. He can hear his own pulse pounding in his throat, in his chest, in his cock, already half-hard in his boxers from some goddamn heavy petting like a wet behind the ears teenager. 

“Yeah, we–” Joel pauses, willing his voice to steady with a quick cough to clear his throat. “We’ve been pretty busy with Summer rollin' around.”

Your father hums in agreement, cracking open another beer. “Of course, my schedule’s been a killer too this season,” he brags shamelessly, tone heavy with understanding like he and Joel are in the same boat. Only your fathers boat is a three million dollar yacht sailing for blue-print meetings with big shot celebrities and architectural digest interviews. “It’s a miracle I even had time to fly in for the party, isn’t that right sweetheart?”

Your hand slides up the length of his cock in one slow stroke, your palm grinding roughly over the tip through the tented denim.

“Yes, daddy.”

Your voice has gone all light and airy around the edges, almost melodic as it buries itself in Joel’s ears. At first, Joel thinks you’re talking to your father, but when his eyes flick over to you, you’re looking at him—your eyes half-lidded and sparkling with something dangerous as your fingers tug at the tab of his zipper.

Joel’s hand flies to your wrist, squeezing tight enough to stop your pawing at his now fully hard cock. “Alright if I use your bathroom?” he asks sharply, his voice a little too loud. He tosses your hand away and stands abruptly from his chair before he’s got an answer.

“Of course,” your father says easily, thankfully not noticing the tension at the table, or the way Joel’s trying to subtly hold his hands over his crotch. He turns his attention towards you, “Would you show Joel where the downstairs bathroom is, honey?”

Your smile only widens as you slip your sandal on and calmly stand from your own chair. “Sure,” you say breezily, but you’re not looking at your father, dark eyes still glued to Joel’s. “Follow me.”

The flowy fabric of your dress swishes behind you as you walk through the yard, Joel hot on your heels. He waits until you're both in the house, stepping through the open sliding glass door and out of view before his hand flies to your arm and squeezes hard.

Joel hears you wince softly, but you don’t try to fight your way out of his grip. He leans down closer, his lips inches away from your ear. His voice is low and rough as he grits out, “Take me to your room, now.”

You lead him through the kitchen and up the stairs silently, but Joel can still see the smug smile on your lips as you turn the corner. The need to slap that bratty shit right off your face wracks through him like thunder, anger burning hotter in his chest with every step.

You push the door to your bedroom open and step inside, barely turning to face him before Joel slams the door shut behind him and stalks past you. His eyes are dark, filled with a mix of rage and want as he stares you down.

“Do you think this is a goddamn game?” His voice is teeming with fury, the calm facade he scarcely maintained at dinner now entirely gone. “That you can do whatever the hell you please because your Daddy’s sittin' across from you?”

You bite your bottom lip, leaning against the door with your arms crossed behind your back coyly. “You didn’t bring me a present.”

It’s a taunt if Joel’s ever heard one, and it finally breaks him.

He crosses the room in three large strides, pinning you against the door. His hands on either side of your head, caging you in. Joel cranes his neck down, his face inches away from yours. He can smell your perfume this close, it’s different than what you wore at the bar—something soft and girly and sweet that has his cock straining in his boxer.

“You’re real fuckin' proud of yourself aren’t you?” he spits roughly, watching the way your pupils dilate, eyes going glossy under his intensity. “Does your old man know how much of a tramp his precious little baby girl is? That she’s got such a greedy fuckin' pussy she can’t help herself from rubbin' his buddy Joel’s cock under the table like a desperate slut.”

“Joel,” you whisper breathlessly, all the attitude draining from you at the drop of a hat the second he gets a little mean. Your eyes are stuck on his lips and, after a beat, you start leaning in, like you’ll die if you don’t kiss him.

Joel stops you with a hand fisted in your hair, keeping you still a few centimeters away from his lips. A pitiful whine falls from your slack mouth, wide eyes flicking back up to meet his with a pleading look.

“You want me to kiss you, princess?” he asks, mean and condescending. Your breath puffs over his lips, hot and needy as you nod your head as best you can. Joel laughs, dark and cool as he shakes his head slowly. “Whores like you don’t get kissed baby, they get fucked.”

It does something to you—Joel can see it in the way your lashes flutter, in the way your thighs press together, like you can feel his words between your legs. He watches the rise and fall of your chest quicken, the way your lips part as a little breathless sound escapes them, and he knows he’s got you right where he wants you.

Desperate. Squirming. Ready to let him ruin you.

“Look at you,” he murmurs, low and almost reverent, but the wicked curl of his lips betrays the softness in his tone. “Bet you’re already soaked, aren’t you?”

You nod, your chest rising up to press against his with every breath.

“Words,” he demands, voice sharp as a needle. Your thighs twitch at the sound of it.

“Yes,” you breathe shakily. “I’ve been wet since you got here.”

That has Joel groaning, jaw ticking as his cock twitches heavily in his boxers, pre-come oozing into the cotton.

He doesn’t waste another second. He drops your hair to grab your shoulders, pulling and pushing until you’re tumbling onto your old bed. You let out a sharp gasp as your back hits the mattress, the force of it bouncing you a few times.

Joel looms over you, watching you, finally letting himself get a good look at the picture you make. Splayed across dainty floral sheets, chest heaving, staring up at him with need written all over your pretty face. It practically pumps off of you in waves, he can almost taste it.

Without another word, Joel reaches for his belt, his heavy gaze never leaving yours. The metal of his buckle clinks loudly in the quiet of the room, underscored by the quick pants of your breath. It snaps with how hard he yanks it out of his belt loops, the leather cracking in the air menacingly.

"You wanted this," Joel mutters, popping the button on his jeans, dragging the zipper down with a sharp hiss. "You practically fuckin’ begged for it."

You make a desperate little sound at the sight of his cock finally being freed from the confines of his jeans—thick, heavy, and leaking when it slaps against his stomach. Your legs spread wider like an offering, like you need it in you now.

Joel huffs out a laugh, grabbing your ankle and yanking you down the bed, making you squeak in surprise. He climbs on the mattress, his body completely blanketing yours so you couldn’t move if you wanted to.

His hand drags down your body, over the swell of your breasts, over your ribs, the curve of your hip, until he’s gripping the hem of your dress. Joel slips his hand under the skirt, rough palms gliding up the soft skin of your thighs before gripping the meat of them hard enough to bruise.

The thought of you finding the marks tomorrow, pretty shades of purple and yellow branding your skin as a reminder of this moment, of what Joel did to you—it makes his stomach flip with a sick thrill.

It doesn’t take much for Joel to push the bunched fabric around your hips the rest of the way up, exposing the barely-there scrap of lace covering you.

He makes a sound low in his throat when he sees the little damp spot blooming along the powder blue fabric. “So fuckin’ needy,” he mutters, tracing his middle finger along the wet seam of your pussy, featherlight, teasing. “Can’t even sit through one damn dinner without beggin’ for my attention like a two-bit truck stop whore.”

You nod frantically, lips trembling, pupils blown wide as you blink up at him.

Joel tsks mockingly, raising his palm to give your clothed pussy a sharp slap that has you crying out. “Use your words, baby.”

“Yes,” you gasp. “Please, Joel.”

Your voice is so soft, so wrecked. And Joel feels himself get impossibly harder, his cock throbbing where it’s pressed against your stomach, blurting pre-come onto the delicate pink tulle of your dress. He can hardly wait any longer.

Joel hooks a finger into the leg of your panties, dragging them down hard enough that he hears a rip. He can’t find it in himself to care, he just pulls them far enough that they pool around your ankles uselessly.

He finally takes himself in his hand so he can drag his cock through the wet mess of your pussy, bumping it up against your hole but not giving you a damn inch. A devastating noise falls from your lips, slow and sweet as molasses, your hips buck up off the mattress, trying to take him in. He presses one heavy hand down on your stomach, keeping you still.

“Ask me for it,” Joel whispers darkly, slapping the head over your glistening clit. “Beg for my cock.”

Your fingers curl into the sheets, frustration and desire burning in the inky black of your pupils. “Please, Joel. It’s all I can think about, can only think about you,” you ramble senseslessly, voice breathless. “About you fucking me. About your cock stretching me open. Please fuck me, please, want it so bad.”

Fuck, he loves hearing you beg.

Joel grips your hips, holding you steady as he presses inside, slow at first, just enough to make you gasp, enough to let you feel how thick he is stretching you open. He curses, head falling forward as he watches himself disappear inside you inch by inch.

Your hands scramble along the length of his back, nails scratching uselessly as you try to adjust to the sudden fullness. Joel knows he’s too big, the stretch too much all at once without prep. He knows it. He just doesn’t give a damn.

“I know, it’s a big stretch ain’t it?” Joel coos, his thumbs rubbing soothing circles over the skin of your hips. “You can still take it, darlin’. It’s what you wanted, wanted me to lose my goddamn mind and ruin this sweet little pussy.”

You nod desperately, a loud cry bursting from your chest as he pulls you back until his hips are flush with your ass. Your velvety heat feels scalding around him, snug and perfect, like it was made for him—made for his cock.

“Fuck, baby,” he stays there for a beat, buried to the hilt—forcing you really feel the full, aching stretch before he starts to move. He drags his cock out to the tip, almost all the way, before slamming forward again, knocking the breath from your lungs. “That’s it—take it all, just like that.”

Joel sets a brutal pace, fucking you so deep he swears he must be in your goddamn guts. His grip is merciless, his fingers digging into your hips as he uses them to pull you back against him, meeting every punishing thrust. The dirty sound of skin on skin fills the room, mixing with the slick squelch of your pussy as it tries to suck him back in each time he pulls out, the pretty soft gasps and moans you’re struggling to keep quiet the cherry on top of it all.

It’s so loud, a symphony of lewd sounds bouncing off the walls enough that Joel would be worried that someone might overhear if your house wasn’t such a maze.

Joel watches you writhe beneath him, your back arching, hands grasping at his shoulders, his arms, his hair, desperate for something to hold onto as he fucks into you with ruthless precision. Every thrust sends a shockwave through your body, makes your breath hitch, your legs trembling where they’re locked tight around his waist.

“Poor thing,” he mutters, voice a low rasp in your ear. “Too dumb to talk now, huh? Just layin’ here, takin’ it like a good little whore.”

Your eyes roll back in your head when he tilts his hips, the new angle forcing his cock to rub up against your sweet spot with every thrust. “Joel–”

Joel leans over you, breath hot against your ear as he mutters, “This what you needed, baby? Needed Daddy’s friend to hike your pretty dress up and fuck you good and hard like this?” He speeds his hips up fast enough to get the bed shaking on its frame. “Actin’ like a spoiled little brat all night just so I’d drag you up here and teach you some fuckin’ manners?” 

“Yes, yes, yes, fuck—” Your words slur together, breathy and high-pitched, your fingers twisting in his hair as he keeps up that relentless pace.

Joel reaches up to snatch your jaw in a tight grip, the rhythm of his hips never faltering. “Open your mouth,” he growls, fingers digging into the meat of your cheeks meanly. When you don’t, too fucked out of your mind to listen, he shakes your head back and forth like a bad dog. “Open it.”

The command breaks through the pleasure filled haze clouding your mind, and your mouth falls open obediently. Your slick lips parting enough for Joel to see the enticing pink of your tongue. A groan claws its way out from deep in his chest, and he leans down close to spit into your mouth.

Your moan is a high, choked whine as your eyes flutter shut, your pussy squeezing around his cock impossibly tighter. 

“Don’t you dare fuckin’ swallow,” he says, fucking into your clenching heat harder. “Hold it right there.”

You open your eyes to stare up at him like he’s some kind of God, your lashes clumped together and glossy with unshed tears—gaze glazed over with a kind of bliss that makes something dark and satisfied wriggle to life in his chest.

“Good girl,” he mutters, barely above a whisper, but the words hit you like a sack of bricks. Your walls squeeze around him, and he groans low in his chest. His hands grip your thighs, spreading you even wider so he can watch the way his cock disappears into your puffy pussy, shining with your slick every time he pulls out. “Look at that. Fuckin’ made to take cock, aren’t you?”

You moan around closed lips, nails digging little crescent moons into his shoulders so hard that he can feel his shirt ripping under the force of it. Joel can tell you’re getting close, your whole body trembling violently as the coil of your orgasm winds tighter and tighter.

“Go ahead and swallow for me, baby girl.” Joel needs to hear you, needs to hear you say his name when you come on his cock. “Wanna hear that pretty voice.”

The sound of you swallowing is music to Joel’s ears, his hips stuttering as he watches your throat work.

“Please,” you gasp, fat crocodile tears rolling down your cheeks. “Need to come, need you to make me—”

“Yes,” he hisses, his thrusts turning sloppy for a beat before he regains his rhythm. “You gonna come for me, baby? Gonna soak my cock nice and good?”

His words push you right over the edge. Your entire body tenses, pleasure rolling through you in a white-hot wave as your climax crashes over you, stealing your breath. You sob Joel’s name, thighs shaking uncontrollably, body shuddering beneath him as you clench down so fucking tight he can barely move.

Joel groans, his jaw going slack as he watches you fall apart, losing himself in the feel of your pussy milking his cock. He grits his teeth, hips snapping erratically as he chases his own release. 

“Fuck—gonna fill you up, baby,” he groans, voice wrecked. “Gonna fuck you full of me, make you mine.”

With one last thrust, Joel spills inside of you. He buries himself as deep as he can go, warmth flooding your core as spurt after spurt of come paints your insides, thick and hot. His body shakes with the force of it, a deep, guttural moan falling from his lips as he rides out his orgasm.

Joel just stays there, panting, his forehead resting against yours.

For a moment, both of you are too overwhelmed to move. You just lay on the mattress tangled together in the aftermath, breaths mingling, bodies slick with sweat. Joel smooths his hands up your sides, grounding himself as you both come down from the highs of ecstasy.

When you finally stop shaking, Joel pulls back just enough to look at you, to take in the wrecked, spent look on your face. He brushes his knuckles over your sweaty cheek, softer than before. “Still think I didn’t bring you a present?”

You let out an amused huff, pushing your hands up under the back of his shirt so you can trace the column of his spine with gentle fingers. “Trust me, it’s the only present I’m getting that’ll be worth a damn. Money can’t buy this, Miller.”

Joel chuckles, low and smooth as warmth blooms in his chest. He presses a lingering kiss to your shoulder. “You earned it, baby.”

mini nat's note: thank you so much for reading! mwah.

[10thmusemoon]

The second Shen Jiu realizes he has romantic feelings for Yue Qingyuan, the system should activate like a sleeper agent and shove every ridiculous wife plot possible at them.

Why is YQY late to their weekly meeting? An aphrodisiac weed appeared in the garden outside his window that morning, apologies shidi it took a while to circulate his qi enough to burn it out.

A mirror appears in the bamboo house? Somehow it only shows the inside of the sect leader’s private quarters! How scandalous!

An Ding Peak disciples tripped carrying a massive barrel of oil! Suddenly the sect leader is on the floor ass up with his clothes sticking to him like a second skin.

Oh no! Acid rain has passed over QDP! What’s this? Only the sect leader’s robes have burned away? What bad luck!

A new qi rich mineral with restorative properties has been discovered! Mu Qingfang is eager to test it out! How funny that the most effective shape for it is precisely two nipple piercings! Yes, this Had to be announced during a peak lord meeting, MQF is very passionate about scientific innovation! Please pay no mind if the sect leader starts lactating, they haven’t found a work around to that particular side effect yet.

Did you hear? Yue Qingyuan’s long lost family has appeared and they brought his betrothed! …Shen-shixiong are you unsheathing Xiu Ya?

While retiring from visiting another sect the inn only has one bed AND Yue Qingyuan has been bit by a Gaping Hole Spider AND was hit by the pollen of a Eternal Brothers Chrysanthemum! Quick Shen-shixiong! We need to find someone zhangmen shixiong once considered a brother to fill his holes with their life essence or he’ll die!

Just increasingly terrible and specific plots that only Shen Qingqiu has any hope of solving. They hold out for a long while because Yue Qingyuan is allergic to “burdening others” and solves most of them on his own until they get especially ridiculous. By the end of it, after all the truth reveals, QiJiu are so exhausted they don’t even have it in them to be horny anymore. That’s been their default state for months. Erectile dysfunction would be a blessing.

[whispersofascorpiomoon]

Toxic side of Mars in the Houses 🏡

First House

overly dominant or aggressive in sex,using as a way to validate the ego.

A tendency to rush or demand sex without fully considering partner’s needs. Reducing intimacy to a conquest rather than a connection. Using sex solely based on appearance or looks. Sexual Addiction (Hypersexuality) NPD Traits

Second House

Possessiveness

Equates sex with ownership, wanting to control or possess someone. jealousy, materialism, or using sex to keep a partner around, rather than forming a deeper emotional bond. Sexual Coercion or Possessiveness, often tied to Obsessive-Compulsive Personality Disorder (OCPD) Sexual Sadism Disorder

Third House

Manipulation through words.

Using sexual banter to control or confuse their partner, employing mind games or using words as weapons. always craving new mental stimulation, often at the expense of emotional depth. Sexual Masochism Disorder. Sexual gaslighting

Fourth House

overly attached or emotionally manipulative.

Uses sex to emotionally bind their partner or create a sense of security, leading to possessiveness or controlling behaviors.

Insecurities cause sex to be used as a tool to reclaim emotional dominance. Sexual Manipulation or Emotional Dependency

Fifth House

Narcissism or sexual recklessness.

Sees sex as a game or a conquest, seeking novelty for the thrill of it rather than true intimacy. If Mars is harshly aspecting other planets, one may struggle with commitment, bouncing between partners and never truly connecting on a deeper level. Sexual Addiction or Reckless Sexual Behavior

Sixth House

Treats sex like a job or responsibility rather than a passion. Can become overly focused on perfection or overthinking their sexual performance, creating a sense of obligation rather than enjoyment. If Mars is afflicted, sexual frustration can also arise, leading to dissatisfaction or detachment. Sexual Frustration or Compulsive Sexual Behavior. Erectile Dysfunction (ED) or Sexual Aversion Disorder if anxiety is present.

Seventh House

Power struggles or competitiveness.

Sex may turn into a battle for control or dominance, with a focus on winning rather than enjoying the experience. They may also have difficulty with commitment, using sex as a way to keep the upper hand or avoid true emotional vulnerability. Coercion or Sexual Manipulation

Eighth House

Control, obsession, or sexual manipulation. May use sex to assert dominance or trigger emotional power plays. There can also be a tendency toward sexual addiction, jealousy, and destructive behaviors that hinder true intimacy and connection. Sexual Obsession or Addiction. voyeurism, exhibitionism, or fetishes

Ninth House

Recklessness, using sex as a way to escape from emotional depth or intimacy. There can be a fear of commitment, and they may treat sex as a tool for adventure or personal growth rather than a meaningful connection. May constantly seek new thrills, avoiding deeper emotional bonds in the process. Sexual Compulsion & Escapism

Tenth House

Uses sex as a tool for control, dominance, or career advancement. There may be a tendency to exploit others sexually to climb the social ladder or to gain attention.

sexual relationships might feel transactional, focusing on status and control rather than mutual intimacy. Sexual Exploitation Disorder

Eleventh House

Fear of commitment and a tendency to treat sex as an act of rebellion or escape. They may struggle with emotional intimacy, always seeking new sexual experiences or distractions rather than grounding themselves in a relationship. This can lead to an unhealthy cycle of detachment and sexual exploration that doesn’t fulfill their deeper emotional needs. Sexual Objectification Disorder

Twelfth House

Sexual repression or escapism. may struggle with sexual shame, guilt, or fantasies that feel taboo or out of reach. There may be a tendency to hide desires, keep them secret, or even self-sabotage their sexual experiences out of fear of vulnerability. Sexual Repression or Dissociation

[writingwisterias]

I know requests are closed so there really isn't any rush, please take your time and respond when you are ready. :) But I would love to hear your take on the reader letting Leon use them as a toy, while he looks at porn or scrolls other girls profiles. I just want to be a vessel for his cock and nothing more <3

I sure can omgggg, I mixed this is with an idea that has been stuck in my head all fucking day! I know this is late lmao but it works perfectly. I can't tell if I hate or love it either

Warnings: SMUT, MDNI, Degradation Kink, Cock warming, Dom!Leon, Intox Kink, Age-Gap, Overstimuation, Dickhead!Leon, Erectile dysfunction (Whiskey Dick), Light Praise kink, Creampie, Unprotected Sex, Reverse Cow-girl, Light Angst, Drinking, Alcoholism, Self-doubt

Vendetta!Leon x AFAB!Fem!Reader

It wasn't normal to have a relationship like this, you knew that. To be with someone so closed off to not only the people they care about but themselves. You knew you weren't going to get anything better with him but he still gave you attention. Still kissed your pretty tears away when he would fuck you. Being used by him at least made you feel like you had a purpose in this life, that someone actually wanted you.

It didn't matter it was just for sex. For Leon that was perfect having no connection to someone meaning he didn't have to spill the horrors that plagued him.

It wasn't unusual for you to saunter into bars, prying on the broken men slumped against the stools for free drinks. Uni was rough, barely having enough money to pay for your food yet alone the drinks you craved. All that work, a diploma under your belt just for you to be wondering here every night dressed to the point where your tits might as well just hang out. Normally as a thanks to the poor souls you would convince to get a drink or two, you'd drag the round back or to the toilets and give them a few pumps of their gross cocks and then leave them in the alleyway drowning in the aftermath of their orgasm.

Not Leon though.

He didn't fall for it. Leon's words never slurred like the others guys did, his shoes didn't drag across the floor in an eager drunken stumble as he followed you with a warning smirk. You weren't used to drunk men being so coherent with you, to actually realize they were paying for your drinks with the promise of a ghost of your touch. The growing pit in your stomach told you that you would have to do more than a few fake moans and whimpers to get him to cum. His looks made it worthwhile, his attitude demanded your attention and effort. Almost like if you didn't cave into this persona he put in place you weren't worth his time.

However, Leon differed to the other men, somehow in a more pathetic way that caused you to suck in you bottom lip to prevent the low chuckle. No despite the darker look in his eyes, the ego you were surprised even fit in the bar entrance. The poor guy could not get his cock to rise. His cheeks flushed pink as he stared at his stubborn dick as it flopped pathetic in front of you. Trust it to ruin his night further.

You thought Whiskey dick was just a rumour, never really experiencing despite all the older men you dragged around like a puppy on a leash...it until now. Maybe that's why you took pity on him and allowed him to drag you back to his home on a risky drunken bike ride.

It was all so dangerous...so thrilling. Being dragged back to the strangers house, the feeling of sipping the alcohol from the glass he held in hand. That night changed everything, not just for him but for you. Perhaps this was you purpose in life. Your true calling was to be this sex doll for a depressed alcoholic so he could finally get some release in his supposed shit life.

It should have insulted you more that the only purpose you to him was to be a glorified doll but then you would have gotten this lavish life. To be able to wander around his penthouse free of rent, money chucked at your feet to keep you quiet as he sauntered off to god knows where. Your soul purpose to him was to sit there and look pretty.

So that's exactly what you did.

Leon's cock was so far inside of you stretching the limits of your poor pussy. It had been hours since he managed to get it to even twitch let alone becoming hard enough for you to sit on it like this. He spent half the time blaming it on the stress from the mission he had just returned from and not the whiskey glass that was sat on the side table. Your throat burned from the neat liquid that he gave you. He had to share...he always shared. You didn't care though not when it took away the burn from his stretch or the ache in your thighs from where they remained spread out across his own.

He didn't pay any attention to you, no, his eyes were glued to the phone that he held out to the both of you. Your job was to squirm and clench him as he watched the porn he pulled up. His fingers absently moved around that needy little clit drawing figures of 8 around the puffy nerve. Smirking at the small gasps that left your lips as his finger pinched it. You couldn't see the video, not with the tipsy glaze that washed over them. Instead you had to rely on the stimulation he was giving you to reach an orgasm.

You moaned loudly as he finally started to move his hips, a shallow grind nothing like the pace the man had on the video he was watching. Leon liked to make it last, after all the days of him getting this hard and thick were far and few between. The sudden change was a lot for your tispy brain, his soft grunts filled your ear as he nipped at your neck. You felt his arm around your waist tightening as he adjusted you. "Shh, just take it" Leon grunted, his lips muting you in a harsh kiss. His lips tasting like the remains of the whiskey from his last sip.

"Good girl" He groaned as his hips grinded inside you, his length barely exiting you.

You cheeks flushed darker with the compliment, your back arching against his chest just for something...any form of simulation. Leon's grip loosened around your waist allowing your hips to circle slightly. You listened as his grunts soon turned into groans as he felt your walls contract around him. You worked yourself to an orgasm, providing him with the warmth as stimulation of your moments not entertainment.

Leon's eyes still remained only on the small screen. Watching the guys cock slide in and out of the girls pussy much like his was doing right now.

He watched your breasts bounce in the corner of his eye as you adjusted yourself to used his knees for leverage to bounce once his arm fell from your waist. Your nails bit into the fabric of his trousers. "Fuck" You muttered as he shfited himself to sink back in the chair, his legs spreading wider. "Shit I needed this...I need you" He groaned. You weren't sure if he was telling the truth most of the time. You could never tell if you were actually something to him instead of a glorified fleshlight.

"Much better than my hand or any toy...my personal little sex doll"

Each word sent tingles down to your pussy, your clit twitching against his balls. "Leon-"

"Dolls don't talk sweetheart, I want to hear my video"

An apology lingered on your lips along with your moans and whimpers silenced by the bite of your lower lip. You were you to do anything above your station for him. It was all becoming too much, his cock was perfect filling you perfectly as the tip brushed against that spongy spot inside. The twitches of it were becoming more violent the closer he got. His grunts and groans finally becoming breathless, all signs that he was almost done. That his tired dick was finally ready to pump the cum it was meant to do after so long of forcing it to rise.

Your moan slipped past your lips as your orgasm finally snapped, your walls sucking him in tightly. No doll could do that, squeeze him like a vice as they whimpered and shivered on his lap. "Fuck sweetheart" He grunted as he buillied his cum into you. His eyes only leaving the phone to pull you back against him to stop the obstruction to the money shot of his cum leaking out from between you falling on the fabric that surrounded his balls. He watched your chest rise and fall you heaved out breaths, your limbs becoming loose on him like a weighted blanket.

It didn't take long as guilt settled whilst he came down from his high. Leon the thought about the way he treated you, the way you just put up with it all with no complaints. As if that was your only worth in this life.

He couldn't bare look in the mirror not when the eyes of his younger self would stare back in shame. Instead his fingers placed the phone on the side table and reached for the whiskey instead. Drowning the thoughts was better whenever it was with your pussy or the amber liquid. He wasn't ready to face the younger version of himself. Or the belongings that he managed to keep buried deep on the top shelf of the closet, where they should stay.

He knew you had your own problems that's why you didn't hesitate as he bought the glass to your lips. You didn't cough as the burn of the amber liquid settled on your chest. Instead you looked at him, eyes begging and craving for something more from him. This was the only intimacy that you got, these post nut clarity where his mind was just slightly clearer. Perhaps this is all you'll ever get from him. The intoxicating whirlpool of Leon Kennedy.

[aliwritex]

DO I WANNA KNOW? pt2 fc43

summary: franco realizes he wants more.

wc: 2.3k

warnings: 18+, pinv, oral, fingering and everything, L word obv. a little bit of anxiety related erectile dysfunction i did not read this through very well

Franco was acting different, you knew that, all your friends knew too. The thing was that they knew why but wouldn’t tell you. You tried making your friend talk multiple times but she would budge, you were starting to think it was something bad. Maybe he wanted to end your little arrangement and didn’t know how to, maybe you had done something wrong or maybe he just wasn’t into you anymore.

You started to keep your distance, you didn’t want him to be forced to hang out with you and maybe if you eased out of your situationship then there wouldn’t have to be an actual conversation or ‘breakup’.

And as far as situationships go, you were driving each other insane. All your friends were watching closely, it was funny really. You both thought they didn’t know about you but they had found out the same night when you ended up sleeping in the guest room before he snuck out in the morning. The – not so – subtle questions you’d ask only gave them more insight of what you two had going on. Questions like “Is she seeing someone?” or “do you think he’s been acting weird?” were being thrown and discussed in a group chat without you two.

On one side Franco had just started to feel confident enough in your relationship to confess, tell you that he wanted more. But it was making him nervous. On the other side, you were completely misreading his nervousness as something else, like he wasn’t enjoying being with you. In your defense he had gone soft on you twice because of his overthinking.

“I know we talked about you coming over tomorrow but turns out I have plans” you lied as he came back from the bathroom.

“Oh? Okay.” he tried to understand but didn’t miss the weird way you brought it up “Can I still sleep over, though? Don’t wanna drive back home. Tired”

Franco left the next morning and you didn’t talk that weekend or the week after that. And the next time the group got together you said you couldn’t make it, you would be studying for a test – which was true – but that night Franco took the opportunity to talk to your friend.

“Tina, do you think she has been acting different lately?”

“Oh, god, you will drive each other insane.” she said, taking a sip of her drink “We know you’ve got something going on so please just tell me so I can help”

So there he was, sitting in a booth in the club boring Tina to death as he told her everything he deemed important about your relationship.

“Look,” she spoke when he finished, “from what I’ve gathered, she thinks you’re not into her anymore and to be fair I’m guessing you’re the guy that went soft on her twice.”

“She told you? I was- I don’t have to explain myself to you” he realized.

“Didn’t ask you to. Franco, the point is, I think she’s really into you and you should do something about it because she’s trying to push you away”

“How could she possibly think I’m not into her? I’ve been throwing myself at her for over a year!” he was genuinely surprised and couldn’t understand how you came to that conclusion.

“Then maybe keep doing it, okay? She says you’ve been acting different, I get it that you’re nervous about telling her but you can’t let that affect your performance, darling, apparently that’s all your relationship is based on”

“I hate you. Why would she tell you that?” he whined “She won’t really talk to me, she’s making excuses and avoiding my texts.” his explanation comes out as a sigh.

“Bother her a little more, show up to her house, she’ll give in eventually.” she shrugged, getting up from her seat.

Franco left the club earlier that night and texted you before getting in his car. “you still awake?”

You rolled your eyes at the text, yes you were still awake at one in the morning, but it was because you were busy. “i’m studying franco” “not a good time.”

He only read your text, didn’t say anything else because he was driving. Driving to your place but not without a quick stop to a 24 hour grocery store. He knew that if you had been deep into your studies to be up that late you deserved some good snacks and just as he was leaving he saw some mediocre flowers, they would have to do, so he picked a small colorful bouquet – he didn’t know your favorite color but it was surely amongst them.

He didn’t text or call cause you would tell him no, so he just showed up at your door and knocked. You knew immediately it was him.

“Fran, I said I’m bu-“ your mouth stopped moving when you saw him with a grocery bag and the flowers in his hand. Franco froze, he forgot to think of what to say. “I told you I was busy”

After a couple of seconds – that felt way too long for him – staring at you he finally spoke, “I thought you might be needing some rewards, for studying so hard” he lifted up the bag, showing it to you.

You stood in front of him, your head rested against the door, watching him smile a little when he realized you were wearing his shirt. “Hope you don’t mind”

“No, never. Guess if I forgot it wasn’t that important in the first place.” he paused for a second, still looking at you “I got you these” he lifted the flowers “figured the ones you had last time I was here would be dead by now. I realized I don’t know your favorite color, or what flowers you like, think I was too busy looking at something else other than your flowers. I guessed you had to like at least one flower or one color from this one.”

“Fran, what is this about?”

“I wante- Can I come in?” he asked nervously.

You moved out of the doorway to let him through, smiling to yourself as you realized you were completely wrong. He put the things down on the table by your door as you locked it and when you turned back your arms wrapped around his neck, as you kissed.

His hands came down to your waist and he was slightly surprised at your sudden action, but melted into the kiss. “Missed me?”

“A little” you confessed, pulling away from him and walking to your bedroom.

You heard him follow right behind you, reaching for your hand when you walked in. Your lips met again but this time his hands guide your legs and guide them to wrap around his hips as he walks to the bed. He placed you where he wanted, right in the middle with your back against the pillows, your legs naturally spreading for him to settle between. He knelt up for a second, grabbing the stuffed animals around you and throwing them on the floor. You rolled your eyes.

“You know I don’t like them here”

He smiled and bent down to kiss you. His hands sneaked up your hips to your waist, under your shirt. Yours ran around his neck, nails against the sensitive skin, knowing it would turn him on. His lips lowered to your jaw, making you let out a sigh, relaxing all your muscles after being tense in a desk all day. He let his hips meet yours, grinding slightly against yours as his mouth started working on your neck, sucking and kissing all the spots he knew. His hands then lowered to the band of your shorts and tugged them down till he had to pull away from you to slip them off your legs.

“You look good in my clothes, should leave them around here more often” he smiled, making you blush as he positioned himself between your legs, laying on your bed.

Your hand reached out to caress his cheek, he smiled against the skin of your thigh before kissing it. He started leaving open mouthed kisses all over, your thighs, your lower stomach and over your panties, making you shiver when you felt his lips brushing against your cunt, only your thin underwear separating you. But not for long, once he felt like he had teased you enough his fingers hooked on the sides of your panties and slowly dragged them down, then he was facing your bare cunt, wet and ready for him.

Franco licked his lips at the sight before sticking his tongue out to spread your lips apart. He moaned when your taste hit his tongue, he had missed it. Once he started he was unstoppable, licking into you till his tongue and lips were covered in your wetness. Your hands dropped to grab his head when he took your clit into his mouth. His fingers joined the combo, slowly making their way inside you before gently curling up, he was making a mess out of you. Moans started leaving your mouth as he worked on you. His free hand made its way inside your shirt, reaching up to palm your tit. Your back arched onto his touch immediately, making your hips shift slightly and his fingers reach the perfect spot inside you.

“Fran” you whined, grasping his hair harder.

He just fucked his fingers harder into you, making you see stars and clench around them, By that point he knew you were close, just a couple more thrusts right to your gspot and you’d be gone. You felt your walls tightening as he started sucking harder on your clit, your muscles tensing and your legs trying to close around his head till he pushed you over the edge, making you cum around his fingers. Franco kept working you through your orgasm, his movements slowing till they came to a stop. You were biting a smile back as he kissed your thighs and your stomach, making his way up your body.

Your lips met again in an intense kiss, as you reached down to unbutton his jeans. He chuckled against your lips at your desperateness but helped you kick them off and knelt up for a second just to pull off his shirt. When he bent over your body again you flipped over him, straddling his legs as he looked up at you, surprised. You took his lips back to yours, kissing down his face to his neck as your hand reached down to rub his cock through his underwear. As small as the touch was it made him sigh, almost moan.

“Guess you missed me too” you teased before pulling him out of his underwear.

It was only a few pumps of your hand before raspy and shaky moans were making their way past his lips, “please” he whined.

You took a condom from your nightstand, making quick work of getting it on him. His lips were parted and his brows were just as expressive as always, furrowed together as you guided his cock between your lips, sliding yourself back and forth onto him just to tease. A struggling moan left his lips as his hands dropped to your hips, lifting you up so you could guide him inside. You lost all composure when he slipped into you, it felt like those couple of days without him had been so much more and like he was fucking you for the first time again.

His hands started guiding your hips slowly, letting you both get used to the feeling as you pulled him into another kiss. Your hands rested on his chest as you started moving faster, your hips now moving in circles, making your clit rub against his skin. He could feel your thighs flexing under his hands as you moved but what he couldn’t take his eyes off of was your face when you pulled away. Your bottom lip was trapped between your teeth, soft moans still escaping your throat, your eyes were screwed shut and your brows furrowed as you concentrated on making yourself feel good.

All it took for your high to wash over you was the gentle touch of his fingers to your clit and you were coming for him, clenching around his cock as your hips stilled on top of his. He waited a second before guiding you to move again. You knew he was close too, his body was giving you all the signs and his face was twisted in pleasure, just a little more and he would be there. You reached out for his face, making his eyes open after you kissed. Franco stared into your eyes for a second, eyes open as he came. He kissed your thumb that brushed his lip and spoke in a soft whisper “I’m in love with you”

You smiled, bending over to kiss him “I figured,” you said with a chuckle. He let out a breath he didn’t know he was holding and pulled you down to kiss him, both breaking into smiles as your lips met, “and I’m in love with you too”

He wrapped his arms around your waist, pulling you impossibly closer till you were rolling on your sides, still connected and kissing. Franco only pulled out when you groaned into his mouth but he couldn’t bring himself to unwrap his arms around you.

“I bought ice cream, you know” he whispered after a while “do you think it’s melted yet?”

“I think you should go find out” you whispered back “you were the one that said I needed a reward for studying so hard.” he scoffed and nodded on your shoulder but when he tried to pull away you held him back “No, stay. I don’t mind melted ice cream, I actually like it better.”

[girlpowerenthusiast]

The flaws and postives of dating leon.

cw: angst (substance abuse, etc), mentions of, suicide, substance abuse, erectile dysfunction and sex but never goes into too much detail. ends on a happy note <3 hurt/comfort (?)

Usually I picture older leon so anything having to do with damnation leon and older ^^

The flaws.

──★ substance abuse.

it's no doubt (almost) every leon struggles with using alcohol abuse as a way to cope with his issues. even if he's trying to quit. when he's drunk, he gets irritated easily. he's also really dramatic. and clingy. He's impulsive, and you'll have to scold him constantly when he does something stupid or unsafe. And don't get him wrong, he think you're beautiful, gorgeous, stunning even, but he can't get it up. So expect lazy soft sex with him if you guys have sex at all. Another part is he comes home at late times from drinking at bars at early times of the night. And he's so loud so he wakes you up, you can hear loud bangs, cursing, etc. His drinking also always leads to bed rotting to the point he has food everywhere, and bottles of whatever he wanted at the time scattered on his floor, trash, clothes, it's just bad. On a more postive note, he does quit shortly after the events of vendetta, it takes a lot of convincing himself to go but that leads to another set of challenges, since he's suffering from withdrawal, but during his time quitting, he goes to AA meetings, and therapy to find other things to cope, he even gets a sponser (his name is ken, he loves him), and if it gets really really bad, he'll go to rehab, then a wellness center where the nice nurse ladies will take of him, and he'll play uno with the rest of the depressed people. he honestly loves a hospital setting, he loves feeling taken care of. And as of death island, he'll have been sober for 8 1/2 months. So good for him.

──★ ptsd.

Another thing you might have expected. Leon's life hasn't been cupcakes and rainbows since his parents died. But Racoon city takes the cake for him. In some re6 documents, it talks about leon wanting to commit suicide, but didn't to protect Sherry. After RC, he has nightmares, panic attacks, and sometimes his fears can make him be irrational, like worrying about everyone being the sick, or worrying if his job is watching him to see what he's doing. However, his job makes it easier for him to bottle and mask (autism, hear me out please) his emotions until he's considered "safe", so rarely will he ever act out at his fears, but you can always tell his secretly freaking out. His hands get terribly sweaty, and he always seems to jump at loud noises. But, just you being there is nice to him. He loves being able to see alive, it relaxes him or something. So when you're cuddling, he'll listen to your heartbeat and hearing you breathe. Which eventually helps him fall asleep into an actual peaceful slumber. When it is considered safe to him, he has a meltdown from masking his emotions for too long. He is more sensitive and easily annoyed, and gets overwhelmed by things he normally wouldn't find annoying, like pen clicks, bright lights or his pants feeling weird, like why do jeans feel like that? it's like a mix of burnout and masking coming to him.

── .✦ forgetful.

leon is the perfect boyfriend, who doesn't forget anything. And that is true most of the time, most of the time. He's very present, he knows everything about you, your favorite movies, favorite songs, shows, etc. But he forgets holidays, easily. It's probably his work schedule. He works so much, even on the holidays sometimes, so to him, it feels like a regular day. And he rarely checks calendars. It could be valentine's day, no gift, nothing, and when he realized, he gets now why you're ignoring him and acting so weird. He also forgets chores, rarely ever helps around the house, which is frustrating. Never had to help clean as a kid, cause a nanny or maid always did it for him. He gets irritated on why you're pissed at him for not doing the dishes. Like he did them last saturday! He think he's helping but he isn't. However, if you tell him, you feel overworked with doing everything, he tries doing chores more often on his days off, and you'll come back to a clean house. that won't happen again. sorry.

── .✦ boring and old fashioned.

leon likes mundane things, things most people find boring and unfun, and it will get worse the older he gets. he likes watching the news every morning, waking up and going to bed early, etc, etc. because he's old fashioned. he will have the same phone for years and won't think about changing it until it gets destroyed. he will judge you for getting a new phone even when your old one still works, or "buying something you don't need".

the positives.

──★ attentive.

I'll add more I promise and make a part two!!!

like i said in the forgetful category, he is good at remembering everything you tell him. Just not holidays. But he'll remember everything you tell him, for example, when you're shopping and he sees you stare at something to long. He'll buy it for you, oh you like this flower? Here's a bouquet of them! Oh you like this style of clothes? Here's a store full of them and he will be carrying the bags.

[jimmywilsonschutzpah]

GUYS (gender neutral)

Where is the fic where House’s erectile dysfunction, caused by his Vicodin use, meets Wilson’s inability to orgasm, caused by his Zoloft??

[roxabellas]

Please Don't Go Any Higher

｡･:*:･ﾟ༓･*˚⁺‧͙ﾟ+..｡*ﾟ+˚୨୧⋆｡˚ ⋆ₓ˚. ୭ ˚○◦˚.˚₊✩｡˚☽

word count : 16,574

warnings : everything. angst, drug use (cocaine), other drug mentions (heroin & weed), relapsing, matt helders is there for quite a while (sorry), betrayal, weight loss, erectile dysfunction (he can't get hard), relationship problems, alcohol, roleplay (it's very awkward), masturbation (him, but he can't do it), he watches porn, insomnia. i think that's all

It had been coming up to two years of sobriety from cocaine for you and Alex. About a year and ten months. You'd both vowed to quit together, for each other and for your relationship. It wasn't the first time you'd both tried to quit, but almost every other attempt at leaving the addiction behind had ended in a late-night coke binge after anywhere from a couple of days to a week. The kind of relapse that left you reeling with the effects for days afterwards before falling back into your previous destructive habits of burning through one or two grams a day like clockwork.

But just when it had started to feel like you'd both finally overcome it, like you were finally sober for good, he got invited to his friend Matt's birthday over text.

He knew exactly what the party would be like, and he wasn't too keen on going. A typical house party with drinks, music, cigarettes, and likely lots of drugs. The last place a recovering drug addict should even think about going.

But then again, it was his friend's birthday, and Matt knew he was recovering. He would keep him away from the drugs all night, distract him. At least he should.

The night of the party was thick with smoke and haze, a sharp chime of glasses being clinked together in cheers ringing through the crowded rooms every so often, the high-pitched sound lingering and hovering until the next clink came along to take its place.

The faint vinegary, slightly acidic and distinct scent of heroin being smoked and cooked wafted through the air every so often, weaving in and out of between sweaty bodies like a needle through thin cotton and filling rooms with its harsh, almost suffocating presence. It clung to the walls, mingling with the stale smoke from someone's cigarettes, the earthy smell of cannabis burning in the corners, and the strong odour of spilled liquor.

Alex hadn’t intended on staying for too long, just turned up to show his face for his friend's birthday, maybe a beer or two. But when the shots had started to come, he decided to let himself loose just a little bit. Just one for old times sake, then another one because Matt insisted, then yet another one because it was rude not to. And before he knew it, his throat was warm and his tongue felt too big for his mouth, the alcohol spreading its warmth through his body.

At a point in the night, he found himself in the humid kitchen, the dim, flickering, yellow light bulb that was definitely way overdue a change giving off an uneven glow, casting shadows where there shouldn't have been any. Its tiled walls did little to muffle the echoing bass pulsing from the other rooms of the house, loud laughter and distorted conversations, reverberating across the tacky floors, coated with layers of spilled beers and fruity mixers.

His glass beer bottle with a rogue, now damp cigarette rolling paper stuck to the bottom vibrated in his hand from the sheer intensity of the volume of some grimy remix, so oversaturated he could hardly tell what the original song was.

The cluttered countertops were sticky with a substance he wasn't sure he wanted to identify as he rested his palm against the edge, premature guilt slowly thickening in his chest, crawling up from his stomach to the back of his throat.

The small, clear plastic bag sat opened and half empty next to Matt's dark green beer bottle, its powdery contents pale and shimmering like ground glass beneath the dodgy, flickering light.

He watched Matt as he chopped the fine white powder with his expired driving license on the messy counter, tapping it against the granite as he separated it into three thin lines.

“Just do one line, mate. It's not like you're gonna relapse,” Matt said, trying to persuade Alex into it as he slid his stained license across the counter, sweeping the line of cocaine with it to put some distance between the three.

Alex stared at the piles of small piles of white powder carved into perfect lines, the faint but sharp, chemical-like scent taunting him, luring him, a smell that used to fill him with promise, conviction, and security, now flooding him with an overwhelming sense of dread and disgust.

“I've been clean for almost two years, Matthew,” Alex tried to argue, but the double vodka shots he'd knocked down earlier in the evening had mostly clouded his judgement. “I don't want to get back into all that.”

Matt, more intoxicated than Alex, obviously wasn't going to let up, trying to appeal to that small part of Alex that still craved the rush that the drug brought him, the blissed-out highs and euphoric space-outs. “Just one line,” he tried to convince him, his hand fishing into the back pocket of his worn-out jeans for the five pound note he'd tucked in there earlier. “It's just for a laugh. You can control yourself now, can't you?”

He watched helplessly as Matt rolled up the note with a practiced hand, similar to how he'd roll up a cigarette, and leaned forward, one end of the note against his nostril as he inhaled.

His nostrils flared slightly as the cold, sharp sting of the coke travelled up his nose, biting at his sinuses. He stood up straight again, sniffing a few more times instinctively as if trying to pull the feeling deeper into his body, restless and impatient as he waited for the rush of the drug to hit. His hand came up to his face subconsciously, wiping his nose with the heel of his palm as if to try to get rid of the lingering burn.

He rested back against the countertop, carelessly knocking something over behind him with a clatter as he leaned back a bit too far, now facing Alex with a heavy, daunting gaze, a mix of challenge and expectation floating in his dilated pupils.

“Your turn,” he finally said, his voice smooth and coaxing. Alex's heart thudded in his chest, his whole body frozen save for his eyes, which were darting between Matt and the remaining two thin lines of cocaine.

He raised his eyebrows slightly, waiting, a small, mocking smile tugging at the corners of his lips. “You know you want to,” he added, low and teasing, trying to remind him of something buried deep inside him, something he'd fought to forget. “Don't be a bore. It's just one. For me. Birthday and all that. You look like you need it, anyway.”

It was working.

Alex swallowed hard, his throat dry and tight as he felt the familiar but now dreaded ache of temptation seeping back into his veins, blurring into his bloodstream. He rubbed his face with his free hand, fingertips pressing hard into his eyes like he might be able to erase the need clawing behind them. 

He could almost feel it, the cold, biting rush followed by the practically heavenly high, and he craved it. The alcohol and all its warmth and deceptiveness swam through him, weaving in and out of between his ribs, tying tight knots around his lungs, and clutching his heart in its unforgiving grip.

He hated how much he wanted it. The bitter edge of the drug as it burned through his nostril lining, that sudden electric-like jolt that made him feel alive, the all-consuming, floaty high that followed just a few minutes after that made him feel like nothing else in the world mattered, and he started to forget how far he'd come and how hard he'd fought to stay clean. Some nights he dreamed of it. Dreamed of the routine that became ritual, burn, the rush. The silence that always followed after, and ringing echoing in his ears as the world stopped screaming for a moment. It never really left. It just waited.

“I won't be able to control myself if I do any,” Alex said with a low voice, almost brittle.

Matt didn't flinch. He licked the pad of his thumb and pressed it to the edge of the sticky granite countertop where some stray white dust clung like flour, and stuck it beneath his lip and rubbed it along his upper gum. “It's not a relapse if you don’t let it be one.”

Hadn't Alex whispered those words to himself before, when he was still drowning in his addiction? Muttered them under his breath while staring at his reflection in the mirror, eyes wide, cheeks flushed and nose bloody, vibrating with the lingering effects of his binge. It’s only a problem if you make it one. You’re in control.

That final string of restraint, of self control, of logic, threaded inside of him began to fray, withering away and wearing down more and more with each passing second that he allowed his mind to feed into Matt's persuasion, to the illusion that this would make him happy.

The backs of his eyes tingled as Matt held out the rolled up note between his middle and index finger, and Alex tensed up, his resolve crumbling under the weight of the overwhelming temptation.

One line. One tiny, thin, short line. It wouldn't do him any harm. He could stop after just one. He would stop. It would be worth it. Just one. 

His hand trembled and shook as he reached out, every fibre of his body screaming at him to stop, to take control of his urges, to remember how and why he'd battled so hard to curb his addiction for this long.

The weak, fragile voice inside him, the one of reason, grew quieter, drowned out by the deafening noise of his detrimental desire.

He inhaled shakily, his breath hitching as he brought the note up to his right nostril, the feeling of the cool plastic against the soft but miniscule hairs inside of his nose. It felt both alien and painfully familiar, a sensation he hadn't felt for so long, yet it settled back into place as if it had never left. Like a puzzle piece that had been missing for years, and when it's found a few years later, it's dusty, and a little bent out of shape, but still fits into its designated spot just right.

He shut his eyes, an attempt to blind himself from the moment, to block out the reality of what he was about to do.

With a trembling, hesitant hand, he pressed his left nostril closed, and with one swift motion, he inhaled sharply, the powder rushing up his nose. It felt like a harsh slap to the face. The cold bite hit him immediately, like someone had stabbed an icicle straight into his brain, causing the note to fall from his fingers onto the countertop as his hand flew up to rub his nostril as a futile attempt at easing the sting, as if he could somehow take it back, as if the damage hadn't already been done.

His vision blurred at the edges as his eyes watered, the burn now deep in his sinuses as the cocaine settled. It clung to the back of his throat, the bitter, chemically taste clawing its way through his body. He used to find comfort in the sensation, the suffocating, painful feeling bringing him a strong but faux sense of security, but now it only pulled up deeper into his endless pit of strangulating regret.

It crept up on him slowly, giving him enough time to think about how long he'd been clean, how deeply he's betrayed everyone who believed in him. Every beat of his own heart seemed to mock him and his pointless promises, the ones he'd made to both you and himself. The promises you'd rebuilt your relationship on after losing sight of each other through the dense fog of your addictions.

He stared blankly down at the countertop, his eyes vacant and focused on the pattern of the dark grey granite, his body frozen in place. His tongue tingled, a numbness plaguing his gums, making his teeth itch.

This is fine, he thought. I'll let the high hit, then after that, I'm done. It's just one.

Matt snapped him out of his bubble with a hard slap on his upper back with a loud laugh, almost sending him into the counter. “There he is! I knew you still had it in you, mate.”

Alex didn't reply, though his glassy and a little distant eyes stayed locked on Matt as he straightened up. He brought his hand up to his face and rubbed at his nose again, the skin reddening under his palm with the intensity he hadn't even realised he was rubbing it with. He looked around the kitchen with what little mobility his mind had convinced him his body had, and everything felt vivid. It didn't feel good, not yet, at least. Noises sounded brighter and colours looked louder. Colours leaked and bled into his central vision from his peripheral like wet ink on paper, smudging and blurring everything together.

He felt the guilt first, rising in his chest like a slow and oily tide, staining his ribs with his sin.

One year and ten months.

All that suffering, nights spent staring at the off-white ceiling with bloodshot, hollow eyes, wondering is it even worth it? The mornings spent waking up with a sweat, and pouring coffee instead of whiskey with shaky hands. How he used to cry when he was home alone, the overwhelming urges and cravings hitting him like sledgehammers. How hard it had been to stop, how much he didn't want to admit that he adored it, the rush. He hadn't let himself even imagine it for almost two years.

The beat of the music thudded in his chest like a second, third, fourth, fifth heartbeat, interrupting his inner turmoil. He could feel each thrum in his muscles, his pulse hiking up, making every inch of his body feel too hot.

A few minutes passed like that, dissociative, disorientating, dizzying, the limbo between snorting the line and the high hitting. He was unable to keep still, moving in slow circles around the kitchen, his restlessness evident in his hands as he drummed his fingers against whatever surface they could crawl to the quickest, then cracked them, then threaded them through the sweaty mop of strands that lay atop his head as his nose began to drip.

He felt it coming on strong, a tremor beneath his skin, his thoughts speeding up faster than his mind could keep up with. It spread from his nose, through his skull, down his body, seeping past his muscles into his bones until it felt like he was levitating. It felt like there were fireworks in his brain, and his jaw tightened once more as he turned his head to look around the kitchen with renewed clarity. The previously dull, plain, grainy kitchen cupboards and dusty walls now seemed extraordinary to him, illuminated by the blaring light overhead that no longer flickered, but sparkled.

The adrenaline ran through his veins, pumping around his whole body, all the way to the tips of his fingers.

Everything made sense for what felt like the first time in months. He felt fucking incredible, his heart racing in his chest. His vision felt sharper, every edge looking more defined, every colour more vivid. He looked at Matt, who was fumbling with his pockets and muttering something about where his lighter was, with a slightly lopsided grin and said, “That's fuckin’ good.”

Matt looked up at him at that, his own pupils blown wide and nose tinged red, and his lips pulled upwards in a smile. “I told you, didn't I? Fuckin’ told you.”

Matt nodded towards the remaining thin, white line of coke, and he said, his voice quieter than before, coaxing, “Have it. Go on. You've already had one, might as well go all in.”

Alex didn't need convincing this time around. Any thought that managed to make itself prevalent among the whir of his blurred mind was promptly drowned out by the irrational but insatiable urges of more. Of prolonging the high, of intensifying the rush, of getting so insanely beyond out of it to the point where he didn't even know what was real anymore.

He picked up the note he'd dropped after his first line and rolled it back up tight before holding it up to his nostril, pressing his other one shut as he leaned down again. He lined up the other end of the note with the edge of the line of powder before inhaling sharply, quicker this time, greedier, the powder rushing up his sinuses with that same cold sting, but this time, he welcomed it.

He smiled as he straightened up once more, blinking furiously and rolling his shoulders back, the tip of his nose still damp from the first hit. He felt alive, invincible, like the brightest possible version of himself with tingling skin and a surplus of energy.

He'd forgotten the promises, the sobriety, the hell he'd clawed himself out of, the small voice of reason rapidly shrinking underneath the need, the rush, the need for the rush.

He sniffed hard, trying to pull any last bits of powder deeper into him as the telltale numbness spread across the bridge of his nose, blossoming across the centre of his face until he could barely feel his skin anymore, his vision warping like an out of focus camera lens.

He cackled, feeling the cold sweat beginning to prickle and collect on the back of his neck. The music made the walls throb with the sheer volume, every colour piercing his vision, and he said, louder than he'd intended, “I forgot how fuckin’ good it was.”

Everything quickly spiralled after that second line. Each time they felt the euphoria start to taper to an end, Matt chopped up fresh lines to keep them both suspended in that dizzy, all-consuming high.

He kept telling himself this is the last one, that he'll just do one more, but whenever someone cut another line for him, it was like his body moved on its own. Bending over and snorting it greedily, desperate to keep the buzz alive, because heaven forbid he go five seconds without it.

He did three more lines. Maybe four. Maybe five. He'd stopped counting once he'd realised the numbers served as nothing but strikes on a tally chart in his mind.

At some point in the night, probably closer to morning than midnight, he ended up collapsed on one of the tattered settees in Matt's smoke-filled living room, strong weed, faintly vinegary heroin, and bitter cigarettes having flooded the room hours ago, festering in the corners and lingering on the walls. There were either half-naked or fully naked women everywhere. A few had pressed their bare skin against him periodically throughout the night, their fingers twirling his hair, their giggles hot against his ear, but he didn't engage with them beyond a crooked grin and a gentle nudge to show that he's not interested. But as he was sprawled on the couch, two girls who were almost as high as him that he hadn't known for much longer than five minutes curled up on either side of him, a hand on his chest, a bare thigh draped over his legs, both giggling and whispering slurred attempts at dirty talk.

Their floral perfume made his nose itch, so strong it was sickening to breathe in. Their hands on him felt almost painful, wrong, but he didn't move them, or shove them off like he probably should have. He didn't have the energy to move himself, let alone two other people. He laid there, staring at the ceiling, his mind making the blank, off-white colour seem far more interesting and intricate than it really was.

He let the girls beside him drift off into shallow, drugged sleep, their hands still sprawled uncomfortably on his body. He didn't even have the physical strength to move their hands off.

Sleep came in broken, jagged pieces, if it could even be classified as sleep. The grey morning light bled in painfully through the blinds that were stained with god knows what.

It was well into the afternoon when he finally stumbled out of Matt's house, squinting his aching, bloodshot eyes against the harsh noon sunlight. He was still wearing his clothes from the previous night, reeking of alcohol, cigarettes, and everything in between. He may as well have had a massive sign reading “I relapsed” in big, bold letters draped over him. It would've been less obvious.

He felt like he'd been hit over the head with a thousand glass bottles then been stuffed with the shards. There was a persistent, omnipresent painful throb behind his eyes, reverberating through his skull with each step he took.

His skin felt too tight for his body, like it was pulled taut across his bones, almost accentuating every regret from the night before. His hands trembled in his pockets, feeling hollowed out, scraped raw on the inside. The high was long gone, and now all that remained was a crippling soreness riddled with shame left in its place.

By the time he turned up home to the little house you share, it was almost 3PM. His keys clattered sharply against the door as he fumbled to slot the correct key into the lock before turning it, pushing the door open after hearing the quiet click of the handle unlocking.

He stepped inside quietly, worriedly rubbing his nose with the back of his hand, paranoid, as if there was some leftover powder dusted over his nostrils that would give him away. He heard the quiet simmer of the kettle boiling in the kitchen and the accompanying clink of a ceramic mug being set down on the countertop.

He dropped his keys onto the entryway table, trying to will himself into being normal, but his skin crawled, the ghost of the cocaine clinging to him like a filthy second skin. He took a few deep breaths, trying to convince himself you wouldn't know, couldn't know. You weren't there. He just had a lot to drink, that was all. He could not let you find out. It was just a one night thing anyway, he wouldn't let it become a pattern or a routine like it was before.

He swallowed hard before he stepped into the kitchen, his eyes settling on you pouring yourself a cup of tea, the searing sound of the boiled water being poured into the mug painfully loud for his fried senses.

As you turned around the fetch the milk from the fridge, you saw him stood in the doorway and you jumped, having not heard him come in over the sound of the kettle, and you said, startled, “Fuck off, you scared me. You alright?”

He let out a dry attempt at a laugh that morphed into a heaving cough. Seeing your smile sent a twang of pain through his chest. You didn't deserve this. You didn't deserve to be lied to. “I'll be fine, probably. Drank too much.”

You shut the fridge and crossed the room back to the counter and twisted the lid off the milk. “I can tell. D'you want a cup of tea?”

You were already pulling his mug out of the overhead cupboard before he got a chance to reply, a stupid-looking Back To The Future novelty mug you'd gotten him for his birthday a few years prior. “Please, love. Bring me back to life.”

You let out a small laugh as you filled his oddly shaped mug with the boiled water, watching as the tea leaves gradually seeped through the filter paper, bleeding into the water in thin tendrils and staining it a deep brown.

He let a half-hearted wonky grin infiltrate his face, but it felt stiff and foreign. You poured a splash of milk into his mug before giving it a stir with the same teaspoon you'd used in your own, the metal clinking against the ceramic walls before you handed the mug to him. “You smell like shit,” you added, only half joking.

He smiled and took his mug, flexing his fingers to properly grip the boxy shape before taking a slow sip, hoping the hot drink would replenish some of his aching soul. “And how do I look?”

You sat yourself down at the small kitchen table with your mug, and you said, “Even worse. Didn't know it was possible for you to be ugly.”

“Harsh.”

“Go have a shower.”

He took another long sip of his tea, almost emptying his cup in one mouthful before playfully arguing, “I just got in!”

“And you can just go and get in the shower,” you retorted, watching him dismally swirl the remnants of his tea in his mug, probably regretting drinking it so fast.

You turned your head down to the page of your magazine you'd just flipped open, the corner of the page folded down. He tried to catch a glance of which one it was, Cosmopolitan, Vogue, ELLE, but he couldn't work it out. They all looked the same to him. Overly-edited pictures of celebrities framed with bold, colourful text containing promises of ‘hot moves that drive a man wild’, the quickest ways to burn belly fat, and flashy gossip columns.

He set his mug down a little too close to the edge of the smooth countertop before lazily pushing it further inwards and making his way out of the kitchen towards the bathroom with slow, weighted strides.

The door shut behind him with a dull click that seemed to echo in his ears. He leaned back against the wood for a moment, eyes closed, his body aching in places he didn't even know could ache.

One hand came up to rub at his throbbing forehead in an attempt to ease the pain plaguing his mind. He dragged his palm down his face, rubbing his nose again, rubbing it until the skin was red and hot to the touch, trying to find anything to blame for what he did. Anything except himself.

He peeled his clothes from his body, his clothes dry to feel but drenched in the vile smells of smoke, sweat and booze, the odour so thick and strong that it was almost visible as it rose up off of the fabric.

He tossed it in the corner before setting his fingers on the task of undoing his jeans, a task that seemed like far too much effort for him. He shut his eyes once more as he tugged at the denim to pop the button through the small hole, followed by a whir of the zip being pulled down, and he tugged them down his legs and stepped out of them as they gathered at his feet.

He left them in a heap on the bathroom floor before slipping his fingers beneath the taut elastic waistband of his boxers and letting them fall to his feet as well.

He felt disconnected from his body, like he wasn't inside his own skin. He didn't want to look in the mirror, didn't want to burden himself anymore than he already was with what would be staring back at him.

He looked down at his body, smudges of dirt and lipstick he didn't even realise had gotten on him decorating his clammy, almost grayish skin underneath the harsh overhead light.

As he moved to turn the warm water on, he caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror, and something inside of him recoiled violently at the sight. He didn't just look like shit, he looked wrecked. And he didn't just look wrecked, he looked spoiled. Exhausted.

He reached over the bathtub to turn the temperature up even higher, up to a sweltering heat, almost scalding. Something for him to feel, to make him focus on anything other than the sickening guilt swelling in every inch of his body.

He stepped over the edge of the tub and under the shower head, the boiling hot water hitting his back like a hundred tiny whips. For a moment, he just stood there with his head bowed, letting the blistering hot stream beat down on his bruised body, hoping it'll wash away the smell, the taste, the shame that felt like it was permanently tattooed on him, inside and out.

But it didn't work. If anything, it seeped deeper into his bones, into the marrow, the guilt settling in cold and thick as it made it clear that it wasn't going anywhere.

How could you do this? After everything you promised her, after being sober for that fucking long. And you threw it all away for one stupid night.

He dragged the soap over his skin with harsh, angry hands, over his arms, his chest, scrubbing at his face until it stung, but it wasn't enough. He wanted to peel his skin off, crawl out of this foreign body, and start anew.

He let the water run over him, so hot it felt like he was going to shatter like glass, leaning his head back against the wet tiled wall and closing his eyes, his breathing shallow and broken. It replayed in his mind constantly. Matt's shit-eating grin as he cut up the cocaine with his debit card, or his driving license, or some random old loyalty card with scuffed edges and curled in corners, he couldn't remember. He didn't want to remember. The feeling of the cold burn shooting up his nose, sour and sharp, followed by the hollow high.

He thought about your face when he walked into the kitchen, so sweet and trusting, oblivious to how badly you'd been betrayed just the night before.

He wanted to cry, properly cry, cry the tears that had been building up in his ducts from the very moment he let himself set eyes on the cocaine, but they wouldn't come. He just stood under the burning heat, his jaw clenched tight enough to crack.

Eventually, he turned the tap off with his weak fingers, fingers that didn't even feel like they belonged to him, and he stepped out over the rim of the tub and onto the bath mat, his damp feet leaving small imprints on the soft fabric.

He looked up to the fogged mirror, his reddened silhouette thankfully blurred due to the steam from his shower, and he dried himself off mechanically, dragging the scratchy fabric along his weak limbs. He wrapped the towel around his waist, drawing it tight, and he reached for the door handle, but he paused.

He wrapped his fingers around the handle tightly, taking a few deep breaths, filling his lungs with the humid air, trying to remind himself that you didn't know.

And you couldn't know. Couldn't find out. Because he knew it would destroy you, and him, to find out he'd relapsed, broken the solemn promises you'd made to each other to stay clean. And worse yet, to find out he'd relapsed and not told you about it as soon as it happened.

He swallowed down the lump of sickness and guilt in his throat and pulled down on the handle and walked out, padding down the carpeted hallway, leaving a small trail of water droplets behind him.

He pushed open the bedroom door with his foot, the hinges creaking as it swung open, and he moved across the room quietly towards the chest of drawers and he tugged open the top drawer. He grabbed a folded pair of black boxers and pulled the towel loose from around his waist and tossed it onto the unmade bed you shared and stepped into his underwear, pulling them up to his hips.

He rifled through the neatly folded shirts and jeans piled in the drawer, the ones you always teased him about, saying he folds clothes like an old man.

He dragged a faded grey top over his head and worn pair of jeans up his legs. It felt like he was dressing a corpse. He kept his head down, not wanting to see himself in the mirror again. He didn't think he could stomach it.

He tried to pull himself together, raking a hand through his damp hair, willing himself to be normal. His heart knocked uncomfortably against his ribs, and there was a tremor in his hands. He felt like a jumble of mismatched limbs and organs all stuck together.

He didn't want to leave the room, didn't want to face you again, not knowing how long he'd be able to hide what he'd done. He wanted to stay in the dull, quiet safety of your bedroom, where he could pretend he hadn't fucked everything up, where he could forget that he was no better than he used to be.

He forced himself to stand up with a shaky breath before heading out of the room to find you, his fresh clothes clinging to a few still-damp parts of his body, burying everything deep down where he prayed you wouldn't see.

He walked down the hallway towards the kitchen, stepping through the doorway, expecting to see you still sat at the small kitchen table, or maybe stood at the sink washing up a few plates you'd let pile up, but you weren't in there. His geeky mug that he'd left on the counter had been washed and left to dry on the rack, perched beside the mug you'd used, and he smiled a little to himself.

He turned back around and moved back down the hallway to the living room instead. He poked his head around the door and saw you curled in the corner of the couch with your legs tucked beneath you, doodling on your hand with a pen that looked to be almost out of ink, a blanket his mum had given you for Christmas a few years before draped over your lower half. You looked up at him as he entered and smiled, “Hi, stinky.”

He let out a small laugh, trying not to make it sound too forced, and he crossed the room, the late afternoon sun casting a line right across the middle of the floor through the curtains, and he sank down beside you on the settee. “I'm not stinky anymore.”

He leaned into you, tucking you under his arm, and he pressed a kiss to your temple, swallowing the lump in his throat. His hand found your belly instinctively, gently rubbing his thumb against it as he nestled into you.

You shifted in his arms a little, tilting your head up to look at him, and you asked softly, “How was last night?”

He felt his body stiffen just a little, and a thin blade of panic sliced through his chest. His mind scrabbled for something to say, something believable, something that wasn't the truth, but not entirely a lie either.

He let out a rough chuckle, his hungover headache still pounding around his skull, and he said, “Was alright. You know, lot of music and drinks. Quite loud. Matt got really carried away.”

You smiled, and he continued, giving your shoulder a gentle squeeze to try and distract you from looking any deeper into his words. “It was mad, really. Definitely drank too much, obviously.”

You let out a small laugh, your eyes lingering on him for a moment longer before letting your head drop back down onto the arm rest, and he felt his queasy stomach flip with guilt once more.

He still felt dirty, even after his scalding hot shower, the kind of dirty that couldn't be washed away, no matter how much soap he scrubbed himself with.

The rest of the evening passed quietly, tenderly, the kind that would've made Alex feel at peace if it wasn't for the acidic guilt gnawing at every inch of him.

You took care of him gently, making him tea and getting him water, and trying to get him to eat plain toast or just a few dry crackers, both of which he could barely stomach.

You knew he could sometimes get a bit dramatic when hungover, acting like an old victorian man with the bubonic plague, but if anything, it made you care for him more, trying to keep his exaggerated complaints at bay.

When you finally led, dragged, him to bed, you curled up around him while he swallowed down the bile of self-hatred. He held you close to him, your warmth anchoring him as he stared up at the ceiling in the dark. His thoughts kept him awake long after you'd drifted off, the haunting echo of last night's mistakes chipping away at his skull more than any hangover ever would.

The next day dawned bleak and grey, a subtle drizzle streaking the windows, mirroring the heavy fog that festered inside his head. Physically, he felt a lot better. He was able to walk without the floor tilting beneath him and able to eat more than a few bites of dry, plain toast, but inside, he was rotting.

Each time you looked at him with those soft, loving eyes, it felt like a twist of the knife. Throughout the day, as you moved around the house, he hovered behind you like a shadow, brushing his fingertips along your waist or pressing a little kiss to the back of your head, anything to help him disguise the desperation clawing inside of him.

It was sometime in the late afternoon when he heard a ping from his phone, and when he checked it, his throat tightened. Matt's name lay in his notifications, perched above a message reading House isn't a tip anymore. Fancy coming round?

He pursed his lips as he read it once more in his head. Part of him wanted to believe that maybe he was going to apologise for pressuring him to do the coke, but another part of him just knew that wasn't going to happen. He scratched the back of his head, his cheeks puffing slightly as he sighed. He heard you moving around in the kitchen, quiet and efficient as you started making whatever you had in mind for dinner, contrasting how fast thoughts were flooding his brain.

You should say no. You should stay here, with her. Have a night in with your girlfriend. Pray to every god that you won't fuck up again.

But his fingers moved faster than his mind could come to a solid decision. He typed out, Yeah mate, might pop over in a bit.

He sent the message before tucking his phone back into the pocket of his grey joggers. He was just being polite, he'll have a couple of beers with Matt, maybe they'll watch a couple films.

He pushed himself up off of the couch, reaching behind him and gently rubbing his lower back with his hand for a moment before walking into the kitchen where you were pottering about.

You smiled at him as he came in before tossing a few things into a pan. He couldn't quite work out what you were making, but there was a pot of pasta boiling, and whatever was in the pan smelled like something vaguely tomato-ey. He leaned back against the counter, his tongue pressing against his cheek, before he asked, “Matt's asked me to come ‘round again. Can I go?”

He's never asked if he can go somewhere before, he usually just tells you, and you're the same.

You looked over your shoulder at him, a bit confused, and you said with a small laugh, “I'm not your mum.”

He chuckled dryly, shifting his feet beneath him, and he said, “Yeah, sorry, just because I went out last night and all. I don't know when he wants me there.”

You turned back to the stove, getting back to stirring the pot, and you said, “Go after we've eaten.”

Dinner was fairly simple. He sat at the small kitchen table across from you, mindlessly twirling his fork in the spaghetti while you chattered about your week, the people who had been bothering you at work, and some headline you saw plastered across a newspaper.

Your foot nudged his under the table as you told him about some silly thing you'd seen on your phone. The late evening sun casted a soft glow on you through the window, shining perfectly on your features, while he sat in the shadow.

You leaned over when you were both done, pressing a small kiss to the side of his mouth before stacking the dishes by the sink to wash later.

He stood awkwardly for a moment, every nerve in his body telling him to stay at home, to choose this instead, but he swallowed it down just like he swallowed everything else, and cleared his throat before saying, “I'll be off now.”

You smiled at him, grabbing his cheeks and pulling him into a quick kiss. “Don't be back too late, okay?”

“I won't, love,” he smiled and you let him go. He left the room and grabbed his keys from the entryway table before shouting a final ‘love you’, slipping his trainers on, and leaving.

The walk to Matt's place was slow and chilly, the cold air biting at his bare arms and sending a ripple of goosebumps across his skin. He stretched out what would've been a ten minute walk to be almost twenty as he dawdled. The puddles beneath him slicked his boots with each step, the cool breeze blowing his messy hair back, and he nearly turned back half a dozen times, but there was something restless and forbidden gnawing its way out of his chest that kept him going.

Matt's house was tucked behind a row of terraced houses with a cracked path leading up to the front door, which could've definitely done with a better paint job. It was in a dodgy area, people smoking god knows what on every corner, but he wasn't one to talk.

Alex knocked on the door, and Matt answered almost immediately, the door swinging open with a squeak from the hinges, and he had a wide, wonky grin plastered across his face. He dragged Alex in before he even got the chance to say hello.

Matt kicked the door shut behind him before saying, “Looks better than Friday, eh? Did most of it myself.”

They sat in the lounge together, cheap beers in hand and a severely outdated film playing on the equally outdated TV, the omnipresent lingering scent of stale cigarettes floating through the air that would likely never fully go away.

The conversation was easy for a while, the kind you'd expect from two people who'd been best friends for years. Matt told him about a girl he'd been seeing, a job he was going to try and pick up, and a new band he'd started listening to. Alex mostly listened instead of talking himself. He preferred to listen.

After a long while of chatter and laughter, Matt slouched deeper into his tattered settee, absently scratching behind his ear, and he said casually, “Wanna do a few lines?”

Alex's heart stuttered painfully in his chest. He knew it was coming, but he didn't want to acknowledge it. He gripped the bottle in his hand a little tighter.

He wanted to say no. He should've said no. He knew that. He knew it with a bright clarity that almost made him nauseous, but the word no stuck like glass shards in his throat. Because hadn't he already fucked up? So what difference would it make now?

It's Sunday, he reasoned with himself. Sunday night. A fresh start tomorrow. He could draw a line under today, under this whole past week, pretend it never happened, and start over on Monday.

This terrible, twisted logic wormed its way through his skull and into his brain, using its sick, persuasive tactics to trick his mind.

He swore to himself right then and there that if he just let himself have one more night with it, then he'd stop for good. Again. Hiccups in recovery are normal, he told himself. It's normal to relapse every once and a while. He'll start again tomorrow, and it'll be like it never happened.

Before he knew it, he heard himself say, “Yeah, fuck it.”

Matt's face lit up and he grinned, and Alex forced a smile in return, trying to mimic the easy, casual one he used to wear a couple of years ago when he was the deepest in his addiction, when it was all just a joke to him, a bit of fun.

Within mere minutes, Matt was chopping out neat thin lines of the fine white powder with his expired driving license, just like he did on Friday. Alex watched, unable to take his eyes off even if he wanted to, his stomach clenching with that painfully familiar mix of anticipation and dread.

When it was ready, Matt handed him a tightly rolled up ten-pound-note, slightly scuffed at the edges, the plastic a little sticky, but with little to no resistance, at least no visible resistance, he leaned down, one end of the note pressed against the edge of his nostril while he lined up the other end with the edge of the coke line, and he sniffed it up sharply.

He squinted his eyes, his face screwing up as the icy burn tore through his face. He sat up straight again, holding the rolled up note between his fingers like a cigarette, and his free hand came up to rub his nose, trying to ease the bite.

He slumped back into the back cushions of the sofa, swirling the remaining liquid in his beer bottle around as he waited for the euphoria to begin. His nose stung fiercely, making his eyes water and his nostrils drip, and he felt stupid for a few minutes, like a child who'd just stolen a sip of their father's whiskey and were now waiting to feel drunk.

He pursed his lips and let his lashes weigh his eyelids down, and he tried not to think about you. About what he was doing, about what he'd already done, about the mess he was making of everything.

But it's fine, right? He'll start again tomorrow.

He brought his bottle to his lips as he started to feel the high begin to rise in him, wrapping his lips around the rim and taking a long sip as the static began to bloom deep in the marrow of his bones.

His limbs started to feel lighter as the drug worked its magic, filling all the gaps inside him with bliss. The threads of his thoughts slipped apart at the seams, dissolving and dissipating until he was left with just this soaring, almost orgasmic ease.

He peeled his eyes open, a smile curling up at the corners of his mouth, and Matt leaned forward to cut a few more lines. It was thin like icing sugar, spread out in delicate rows, glistening slightly like crushed glass in the dim light, mirroring fresh snow.

“This is good, proper stuff, mate. Not mixed with cornstarch or anything,” Matt said proudly. “The man said it was from Peru. Paid a fuckin’ fortune for it. Worth it, though.”

Alex nodded, almost dreamily, hanging onto every word that came out of Matt's mouth. He leaned forward, tightening the rolled up note that had loosened between his fingers. He snorted another, the powder scraping up along the delicate lining of his nostril. It felt like someone was holding a flame to the tip of his nose, painful but hypnotic, and the sweet, numbing pleasure that he knew would follow was too good to resist.

He rubbed some excess dust along his gums with his thumb to bridge the short gaps between each line to extend and heighten that dreamy state.

Matt reached over and clapped him on the shoulder before taking the note from him to do a line himself. The coke sat on the scuffed table like small piles of sugar, looking like something that belonged sprinkled across a child's birthday cake rather than chopped up into lines like small soldiers in some dimly lit drug addict's living room.

Alex watched as Matt hunched over, his spine almost forming the curve of a question mark, and lined up the opposite end of the tightly rolled cylindrical note, angling it just right, tilting it to optimise how much he sniffs up.

He watched as his face screwed up as the powder shot straight through him, watched him blink rapidly for a moment to try and stop his eyes from watering, only for his nose to drip instead, the cool, liquid sensation trickling out of his nostril.

Alex's vision frayed at the edges, every movement blurring and fading together, and every noise a little too loud for his alert ears. The small plastic bag sat perched on the table, a thin halo of stray white powder surrounding it, an open invitation.

There had been six grams packed into that small pack to begin with. It had looked like so much when Matt first pulled it open.

Alex lost count of how many lines he did. After the first few, counting became impossible anyway. Numbers were nothing more than straight lines jumbled up and arranged in different ways, just another tedious relic of the real world that he'd left behind once he'd snorted the first line. Like his mind had been rewired to only understand and register the scraping of Matt's driving license, the tapping of it against the wooden table as he sorted them into rows, and the sharp inhale whenever either he or Matt had another line.

The cocaine hit differently as the night dragged on, the early, first couple of doses fulfilling that craving for him, satisfying the part of him that itched for the dreamy, floaty release, but as he did more and more lines, it turned hungrier, meaner.

His jaw ached, throbbing from constantly grinding his teeth, his muscles spasming uncontrollably whenever he forgot to force them to keep still. He jittered restlessly, alternating between bouncing his left leg, then his right, while his heart raced beneath his ribcage.

He kept wiping his nose every minute or so, first with the back of his hand or a stray tissue he'd found in the windowsill, then later just smearing the watery snot across his face without meaning to, without entirely realising.

He laughed at something Matt said, a ragged sound that hurt his throat on the way out, but not really registering what he said or why it was funny, before he bent down for another line, the rolled up note long abandoned, the curled plastic forgotten on the floor.

It wasn't fun anymore, not really, not like it had started out like, but it felt necessary now. To keep the momentum going, to keep topping up, to keep the crash at bay, not wanting to face the comedown just yet, unable to cope with the nauseous repercussions.

By the time the bag was empty, just small sticky clumps left at the bottom, which they scraped together and chopped as fine as possible for one desperate last round.

As the cold sting mingled around the rim of his nostril, Alex glanced up at the clock on the adjacent wall, and he couldn't tell if the clock was out of sync or if it was just his eyes. “Does that clock work?” he asked with a scratchy voice, pointing vaguely in the direction of the wall it was mounted on.

Matt looked to where he gestured, like he'd forgotten he even owned a clock, and he clarified, his voice just as if not more croaky than Alex's, “Ah, no. It's a few hours ahead and the minute hand's all fucked up.”

“Right,” Alex mumbled, reaching for his phone he'd tossed carelessly aside earlier, fishing into the gap between the cushion to retrieve it.

He brushed a few pieces of fluff, some crumbs, and some specks of glitter somehow off his screen before clicking it open, and his blurry eyes widened when he managed to decipher the numbers. It had just gone past 1:30AM. He promised you he wouldn't stay out late. He bit the inside of his numb cheek before pulling down his notifications, seeing a few messages from you, and he read the top one in his head.

I don't mind if you're staying there tonight, just let me know x

He swallowed thickly, and it felt like the stem of a rose going down his throat. It took him a minute to read the words properly, but when he did, he clicked on the notification and slowly typed a message out, being careful not to make any mistakes, not to draw any suspicion to what he'd done.

He hesitated before he sent it, his finger hovering over the tiny paper plane icon.

He could stay here, sleep the high off and play off the comedown as another hangover when he went home the next day.

But instead, like the fucking idiot he was, clicked the arrow-shaped send button before he could stop himself.

No, I'll come home xx

He stared at the words on his marginally cracked screen, the regret flooding him instantly. What the fuck did he do that for? He wanted to come home, that was true enough, to be in your arms and let you smooth out all of his jagged edges, but not like this. He couldn't come home like this. Blasted off his tits, his pupils blown wider than his iris, every vein pumped full of the three grams of coke he'd shared out of the six.

You'd know.

You'd been deep in the addiction with him those years ago. Kneeling together beside the coffee table, snorting lines where you'd now only set mugs or magazines, kissing between each dose. You'd experienced the freezing fire setting alight to your nostril lining, the limbo between, the drug-fuelled rush, and the sickening comedown, all with him for the years you two were addicted together.

You knew the signs. Maybe you wouldn't be able to tell immediately, wouldn't want to believe that he'd betray you, betray the promises of sobriety you'd made to each other like that, but you'd find out. He knew you would. And then everything would collapse.

The way he couldn't sit still, his chewed-up nose, the clenching of his jaw, his hollow eyes. They were all dead giveaways.

He dropped his phone onto the wooden table with a dull clatter, his elbows on his knees as he cradled his head in his hands, breathing hard through his sore nose.

He heard a low mutter of Matt's voice, probably saying something unintelligible, but it sounded distant, sounded underwater, muffled by the waves of guilt, regret and paranoia flooding his body.

He dragged a hand through his hair before pushing himself up off of the collapsing couch, grabbing his phone, his legs unsteady beneath him. They didn't feel like they belonged to his body anymore. Nothing did.

His joints ached as he forced himself to straighten up, his head too heavy for his neck. The room tilted slightly on its axis as he shakily walked, not enough to topple him over, but just enough to make a subtle seasickness bubble in his stomach.

He stepped into the kitchen, the harsh lights overhead fluorescent and stinging his eyes as he squinted, trying to find something to focus on. His eyes settled on the far corner of the counter, where he'd relapsed for the first time after almost two years of being clean just the other night.

Practically blinded by the bright lights after being accustomed to the dim living room lamp for a few hours, he grabbed a glass from the sink, unsure whether or not it was clean, not really caring either way, and he swilled it half-heartedly under the tap before filling it to the brim with cold water, his shaky hands causing it to slosh and spill all over the edges of the tall glass, all over his hand curled around the sides.

He brought the rim to his lips, a few droplets dripping down onto his t-shirt, and he drank it down greedily, the coldness of the water soothing his raw throat. It felt good, for a moment, just like everything else, but it didn't last.

He drained the whole glass in three mouthfuls, gasping for air between each gulp, desperate to wash it all away, but the bitter residue of the cocaine clung to his tongue like a permanent film, and the water did nothing to shift it or even begin to break it down.

His stomach clenched in an uncomfortable lurch as the beginnings of the nausea began to settle in, and he stayed there for a minute, hands splayed on the counter with his head hung low between his shoulders.

The high was still in him, but the flame was dying out, a crackling, ugly descent back down to reality. Even lower than reality. The self-loathing, anxiety and the gnawing shame were going to start leaking through the cracks.

Another wave of dizziness crashed into his brain like a migraine, and he gripped the counter tighter, his knuckles bleaching white from his grip.

He stayed in the kitchen for a while longer than necessary, his chest heaving despite his shallow breaths. The high gradually began to peel away, layer by layer, taking parts of him as it went until he was left with nothing but the nauseating, aching emptiness.

He wallowed there for what felt like hours, though in reality it was fifteen, maybe twenty minutes, marinating in his self-disgust, in his guilt that was so thick, so grimy, it coated him like a greasy second skin.

When the comedown sickness was too much to ignore and he knew he couldn’t delay it any longer, he forced himself to move, his sore feet protesting with every step. He shouted something to Matt, something vaguely relating to him leaving now, but he could barely hear himself over his deprecating thoughts, let alone understand himself.

He stumbled out of the door, nearly tripping on the cracked pathway as he made his way out of the estate with uneven steps. His trainers scuffed along the damp pavement, the shallow puddles looking murky underneath the dark sky. His limbs were sluggish, every movement feeling like the weight of the world was pressing down on him. His mouth was dry, his throat raw, and his heart's beating mirroring the skittishness of a moth trapped in a jar.

His hands delved into the front pockets of his joggers and he tried to focus on keeping his breathing even, steady, normal, to try and pretend he was just drunk, even though he'd only had a few beers.

The whole grueling trudge home, he muttered words under his breath like a mantra, a manifestation.

I'll start again tomorrow.

A fresh start, fresh week.

Tomorrow I'll never do it again.

He clung to it desperately, the phrases comforting him, trying to convince himself that it's okay, and that what he did was okay.

As long as he started again tomorrow.

By the time your familiar street came into view, his legs were trembling with exhaustion, making each step forward feel like a battle.

He walked up the neat path, bracketed by rows of flowers you'd planted after deciding on a whim that you'd start being into gardening, and his key fumbled with the lock, his other keys jangling together beneath it as he tried to turn it with numb, uncoordinated fingers. It took him a couple tries to even get it in properly, but eventually, the door creaked open as he unlocked the door with a small click.

He stepped inside, his damp trainers making a quiet squelching noise from the puddle water they'd absorbed on his way home. He stood in the hall for a moment, swaying slightly, before dropping his keys onto the small table and pushing the door shut behind him, pulling off his damp shoes without bothering to untie them.

He made an attempt to tuck them neatly together beneath the entryway table, but he put them the wrong way around, the left where the right should've been, the tongues stained and flipped over the top, and the sweaty smell rising from them was something he didn't even want to think about.

He'd just act drunk. At least a little drunk. Like he'd gotten carried away with a few too many beers, and he was just a bit tipsy.

He climbed the stairs slowly, clumsily, the creak of each step beneath his feet punctuation the silence, even though he was trying to tread lightly.

He pushed open the bedroom door, careful and slow as he wasn't sure if you were awake or not, but he saw you curled up on the bed, the thick duvet covering your body and your hair a sprawled out mess on the pillow, and you lifted your head slightly at the sound of him coming in. You gave him a small smile, though it wasn't visible in the dark, and the pillow crinkled quietly beneath your head as you rested it back down.

“Hey, love,” he murmured but it sounded more like a croak, his throat like sandpaper, shredding every word that tried to come out. He coughed to clear the phlegm, trying to sound and seem drunk-tired rather than coke-shattered.

You extended your arm out lazily to him and he took your hand in his before climbing onto the bed, fishing his phone out of his pocket and setting it on the bedside table before getting himself comfortable beside you.

You wrapped your arms around him, wrinkling your nose a little at the faint smell of stale beer clinging to his soft shirt, and you mumbled, “Y'alright?”

You frowned slightly at how clammy he felt, but you said nothing, just rubbed his skin gently with your thumb. He closed his aching eyes, and murmured hoarsely, “I'm fine, just… A few too many beers.”

He felt you smile sleepily against him and you replied quietly, “You smell awful.”

He let out a small, brittle laugh through his teeth, and you curled your leg around his beneath the covers.

He turned his head to press a small goodnight kiss to your temple, his eyelids still closed, covering the thin sheen of tears glossing over them, pricking at the corners of his eyes.

He didn't deserve to be loved. Not right now. Not like this. Not by someone who had no idea all the promises he'd broken, not just once now, but twice.

But tomorrow, he'll have a clean slate. He'll start afresh.

The next few weeks dragged by like a heavy weighted chain.

It was never supposed to get like this again.

Never supposed to turn into a pattern again, or a habit, or a cycle.

He always started his excuses to himself in the same way. Something vaguely along the lines of I'll just start again tomorrow.

Whether it was him telling himself he'd wait until Monday to start again, promising himself that it's for good every time, or saying in his head that he'd start after the next weekend, after the next party, once his current bag was empty.

The idea of texting Matt, asking for a beer or for a chat, something innocent and harmless, began feeling less like an idea and more like gravity, because he knew how the night was going to go, that it definitely wouldn't stop at a couple of beers.

Some nights it was just a line or two, just something to take the edge off, lift the weariness from his bones to finish off a tough day.

Other nights, he'd burn through three grams, sometimes four, entire bags disappearing between the two of them. They'd sit hunched over on the couch, carving out row after row, snorting them intermittently until their gums were numb and their noses were bleeding.

The coke made it so easy to lie to himself. He wasn't an addict again. Addicts couldn't help themselves. He had control. He was just blowing off steam. He was stressed and needed a release.

At home, the cracks began to show, no matter how desperately he'd tried to keep them sealed. You'd started to watch him more carefully, the tremor in his hands when he thought you weren't looking, the way he blinked too much and too often, and how he moved too quickly, like his body was a few steps ahead of his mind, quite literally.

His pupils stayed blown out long after the sun had gone down, and you noticed how he sweated through his t-shirts even when the windows were wide open, and how quickly his moods changed, like a yo-yo, back and forth between showing manic affection to hollow, isolated detachment in a matter of heartbeats.

You noticed how he started to act more cagey around his phone, though subtle, avoiding leaving his phone alone around you and often concealing his screen with his hands.

You also started to see the way his body changed physically, the curve of his hips hollowed out, how his jeans hung a little looser on his frame and how he had to change the belt hole he used to use the most and tighten it to a different one that hadn't been worn down and frayed from a good few years of being relied on, and how his eyes seemed to sink in a little, looking almost bruised from the lack of sleep.

It was all disgustingly familiar to you. You knew what cocaine did to someone, did to him, did to you, and you didn't want to know it was happening. You didn't want to believe it.

He still loved you, still kissed you with chapped lips and cuddled you with his big arms, but in a strangely empty way.

You had questions, but you buried them, swallowed down the creeping doubt that rose up your throat every time he left for another night at Matt's with some half-hearted kiss and an even more half-hearted promise to "not be late." You told yourself maybe you were wrong. Maybe it was just alcohol, just stress, or maybe it was just bad sleep, or too much caffeine, or, god, just anything but that.

There were nights where he lay beside you in bed beneath the covers, wide awake with his heart rapidly pounding against his ribs, staring at the ceiling while you breathed slow and steady beside him, and he thought, just tell her. Just say it. Tell her before it gets worse, but the shame always strangled him at the last second before he could voice them.

Along with the jittery movements, uneven temperatures and lack of sleep never giving him peace anymore, it was starting to infect everything, every aspect of his life, seeping into places he couldn't control, places he'd forgotten it would affect.

He first noticed it one night with you, basking in the warm sanctuary of your bedroom, your lips on his neck and your hands threaded in his hair, something that normally unwound him instantly, but yet, nothing stirred or tingled inside of him aside from a detached sort of longing. He wanted to want you, yearned to will his body into being able to give you everything he could, but no matter how many times he closed his eyes and tried to lose himself in your gentle touch, his body just wouldn't let him succumb to it. It was like there was a wall inside of him now.

He was embarrassed, mumbling excuses about how he was tired, stressed, hungover, but you didn't push. You just whispered to him that it was fine, pressing kisses along his skin and reassuring him that it was normal, that you still love him, but he knew that for him, it was a lot less than normal, and a lot more than abnormal.

It gnawed at him, a fermenting humiliation that made his stomach twitch with guilt each time you so much as even laid a hand on his thigh. It wasn't just a one-off, either. It kept happening. Or rather, didn't happen. Every time you touched him or tried to get close to his crotch, he'd press his lips together, looking at you with guilt in his eyes. He knew it was getting to you, the sexual frustration, and he did his best to get you off without the use of his dick. He used his fingers, his mouth, a vibrator, all of which proved exhausting when he didn't feel any physical sexual desire himself, leading to him not doing them for you nearly as much as he should've been. Maybe once a week, if that.

The worst part was, he knew exactly why it was happening, and it was painful to conceal it with a different, slightly altered lie each time. He knew it was the cocaine clogging up his system, fucking with his head, his nerves, shrinking his libido until it was gone entirely, starving him of the things he knew would make him feel better, replenish his bruised soul, even if only for a little while.

He'd tried to get himself off, just to reassure himself that it wasn't him being not attracted to you anymore and was, in fact, just the drug use fucking with his sex drive.

You'd left him home alone one night to go out with your friends, and he took it as the opportunity to finally try and see if he could work out what was wrong with him, apart from the obvious.

He was sat hunched on the edge of the bed, his trousers and boxers pooled awkwardly around his ankles, and his phone glowing dimly in his hand.

It was embarrassing what he was doing. PornHub on his screen, a standard video pulled open of a girl with sultry eyes riding a guy, the artificial moans and feigned lust spilling out of the battered speaker on the bottom of his phone, muffled slightly by his thigh as he tried to prop it up against his hand.

The girl in the video mildly resembled you, which is why he picked it, hoping it would help, stir something in him, ignite that flame again, but just like always, his body betrayed him.

He stared down at his lap, humiliated despite it only being him there, his fingers curled loosely around his hopelessly soft cock, heavy and limp in his palm, willing it to react, even just a little, but nothing happened.

He tried to squeeze tighter, increase the pace, shift his attention from his shaft to his balls, but still, nothing.

He decided to change positions, lying back on the bed instead with his head on the pillows with his boxers and trousers unlooped from his ankles and discarded on the floor in a crumpled pile, his fingers wrapped around his dick as he tried to stroke it, but just ended up dragging his foreskin along his impossibly limp shaft.

He decided to change the video to a completely different looking girl, this time of the girl giving the guy a blowjob, but her moans were too loud and her eyes were a bit crazy, but he gave it a go anyway. Tugging at his hopeless cock, watching his foreskin roll over the head as he tried to squeeze even a drop of precum out of the tip, but to no avail.

He sighed, almost brittle, before he switched off his phone and let his head loll back, releasing his cock from his futile grip.

For once, he really hoped it was the cocaine doing this to him, and not him losing his interest in you. He really fucking hoped.

The day of your two year anniversary of being clean was just around the corner, daunting, mocking him for the milestone he never got to reach. As the day crept up on him, far too slow but incredibly fast at the same time, and you talked to him about how you wanted to celebrate two years, spending the day out together, dinner in the evening, maybe starting the process of adopting a kitten like you'd both wanted for a long time, the guilt rotted him from the inside out, viciously eating away at him.

You managed to reassure and convince yourself that if he had relapsed, if he'd been doing cocaine again behind your back, he would've told you. He would've confided in you, let you help him out of it again. You told yourself that he trusted you enough, and trusted that you wouldn't be angry at him, wouldn't ridicule him or break up with him. The words you told yourself comforted you, shielded you from what you didn't want to believe.

You'd been gentler with him, under the influence of what you believed he'd do. You brushed off all of his odd behaviour under the loose excuses of being stressed or being tired, blissfully ignoring the tension in his shoulders when he hugged you and the delay before his smile reached his eyes.

The morning of the two year anniversary of being clean woke him up stiffly, the morning sun bathing the bedroom in a glow that should've felt homely, comforting, but to him it just felt enervating.

He felt groggy, his eyes painfully peeling apart as he tried to open them, glued together from the sleep collected in the corners of his eyes. He grumbled sleepily as he propped himself up on his elbows and stretched his legs beneath the duvet, his eyes aching slightly from the lack of sleep.

He turned over onto his side, as you weren't awake yet, just watching you breathe peacefully, and it felt like his slightly bloated stomach was filled with wet concrete with how sludgy and weighted he felt.

Two years clean. At least, you were two years clean. For him it was more like two days clean. He was going to act normal today, do his absolute best to remember what it felt like to be sober and do an impression of that.

It was supposed to be a celebration, something he'd been looking forward to before he ruined it all for himself. Two years had been the main milestone for both of you, ever since the first day of recovery when you vowed to each other to never touch cocaine again, all throughout the highs and lows of the journey, two years had been the marking point where you could both be certain you were off the drug for good. You'd both made plans to buy a nice house out in the countryside, to go on holidays together, to adopt a pet, under the condition that they made it to two years.

He closed his eyes again, not to go back to sleep, but just to think without any visual distractions, think about when he's going to tell you, if he even should tell you, if he should just start his whole journey of sobriety again alone all while pretending to keep up with yours.

He let his mind hopelessly wander, thinking and dreaming about how he'd feel right now if he never did that first line, if he never succumbed to Matt's peer pressure, if he never even went to the party in the first place. How much more important the anniversary would feel, how light he'd feel, how peaceful. How he wouldn't have to worry about being caught in a lie he'd webbed himself in.

You interrupted his thoughts with a rustle of the bed sheets as you woke up, stirring with a soft, sleepy groan, and you turned your head to see him opening his eyes.

You gave him a small smile, your voice hoarse and a little croaky from rest as you whispered, “Morning, baby. Happy two years.”

He looked down at you, and his stomach twisted and his heart clenched. You looked so trusting, so heart-breakingly beautiful, and he kissed your forehead with trembling lips, forcing a gentle smile in return despite the brutal war going on inside of his mind, “Happy two years, love.”

After dragging himself out of bed and pulling on the same jeans he'd been wearing for almost two weeks straight that had been left crumpled in a pile on the floor from the last time he took them off, he headed downstairs with you, the hem of his ever so slightly too long jeans dragging across the floor as he made his way to the kitchen, just a couple of steps behind you.

You flicked on the kettle before turning around, your back against the edge of the counter, and you looked at him with a small, teasing smile. He knew that look, one he'd seen many times before from you, but before he had the chance to ask what was up, you started to speak.

“I thought we could try something new. Tonight, I mean. Sex. If you're up for doing something new.”

He paused, looking at you with uncertainty in his eyes, and his tongue poked against the inside of his cheek. “What do you mean?”

“Roleplay. I told one of my friends about your, or our, ‘problem’, and she suggested it. Said it'll be interesting for a change.”

His eyes widened a little bit, at both the mention of roleplay and the fact you told someone about his recent inability to get an erection. “You told your friend about my dick?”

You smiled, looking away from him and down at the floor. “Not really. I just said we hadn't had sex in a while and I didn't know what to do.”

“You can talk to me about that, y'know.”

“Yeah, and I tried. You've been saying you're tired or hungover or whatever the fuck else for, like, two months now.”

He sighed. “I have been. It's not your fault, honestly. Still think you're sexy.”

You let out a small breath of laughter before turning around right at the kettle ticked, indicating the water being boiled, and you grabbed two mugs from the cupboard. “Ask me about the roleplay.”

He tilted his head to crack his neck, grunting quietly as it clicked before he answered without a slightly strained voice, “What are we going to roleplay?”

You smiled excitedly to yourself, biting the inside of your cheek to stop it from growing too wide as you grabbed a couple of instant cappuccino sachets from the small box. “I bought a nurse outfit. It's meant to be coming today. You can be the patient.”

The air caught in his throat and he turned his head towards you. “What?”

You tipped a coffee sachet into each mug and you laughed. “I think it'll be fun. And relaxing, maybe, for you.”

“...Tonight?”

“Tonight, yeah. If you want to. Don't have to.”

He shook his head. “No, no, it's not that I don't want to, it's just… Well, we've never done anything like that before, have we?”

“That's what I mean. That's what this is about. We haven't done anything proper for ages, thought this would bring us back. Do you want to do it?”

He looked at you for a second as you stirred the hot water you'd just poured into the mugs into the coffee powder before you turned your head to meet his eyes. He hesitated for a second before saying, “Yeah. Yeah, sure.”

You smiled, your eyes squinting slightly as you turned back to the coffees, trying your best not to let your excitement show too much. It had been so long without feeling him like that, that you just couldn't help it.

The day went as easy as it could for the two of you. After breakfast, you two headed out for a mid-morning/early-afternoon walk together, hands interlinked, you chatting excitedly about all the things you'd promised each other after being clean for two years, about a new house, a cat, talking about going on holiday somewhere in Greece, all while he just did his best not to burst into tears.

He nodded, smiled, chimed in when he was supposed to, painted over the rotting guilt with half-hearted dreams he was terrified he'd never deserve. Every time you looked at him, full of that devastating, unshakeable belief in him, it felt like another needle stitching shame into the lining of his skin.

You ate ice cream, sat at the beach and laughed at him when he got sand all over his bum on his jeans, and wandered aimlessly through the town, pointing out pretty, intricate details on buildings or smiling at an old, interesting car that looked to be from the 1930s that was somehow still allowed on the road.

Later, in the evening, you ended up at a restaurant you both loved, somewhere with simple food and a casual atmosphere, where the tables were scratched and the menus were printed on laminated card, every item typed in a generic font. He let you choose where to sit, and he followed you to a booth tucked into the corner, breathing in deeply, trying to let the warmth of the air heat him up from the inside.

You ordered a pizza to share, after a small, playful argument about the toppings, you trying to convince him to order one with pineapple on it, while he insisted it would've been a crime worse than manslaughter, and a bowl of chips for the two of you as well.

You talked about the stupidest things while you ate, the topics ranging from what breed of cat you should adopt to the shirts you think he looks the worst in. It was perfect. It was horrible. Because underneath all of the sweet, mindless chatter and the gentle kisses, was the truth he'd swallowed and buried and fed until it became a living thing, festering and gnawing at his insides.

You noticed the way his elbow protruded more than usual as he reached across the table for another slice, the bone more defined and visible. It wasn't a dramatic change, but you saw it. You noticed. From the years you'd spent touching, feeling, memorising his body, it was hard for you to not see it.

It didn't sit right. The way his jaw looked sharper, the bone so pronounced it looked painful to move, like the taut skin pulled over it could tear at any wrong movement.

His collarbones sat prouder, the dips and hollows of his neck, the bones in his hand all made him look fragile. Even just the way he held himself now, tighter, folded in, felt smaller.

You didn't mention it. Didn't want to make him feel guilty about his appearance, or feel unattractive, and you didn't want to ruin how good the night was going, so you pushed the thought down. Deep enough so that you could keep smiling, but shallow enough so that you could keep it in mind in case it got worse.

Later that night, back at home, you stood alone in the bedroom, staring at yourself in the mirror. The nurse costume was definitely a choice. The cheap fabric was thin, the arms a bit too tight and the torso a bit too loose, and you didn't even want to think about the tiny, stiff hat that kept falling off of your head.

Alex was sat in the kitchen at the table, a magazine in his hand that you'd made him hold for his “character” that he wasn't even bothering to read. He knew it wasn't going to be great. From the second you'd mentioned it that morning, he'd been dreading it, but seeing the look on your face, how excited you seemed to be for it, he just couldn't tell you no. It was a bit ironic, as this was meant to try and help his whole not being able to get hard thing, but he wasn't interested in it at all. He knew it wasn't going to help.

He heard the dull noise of your heels as you walked downstairs, down the hallway to the kitchen where he sat, holding a blank piece of paper you pretended to read off of. “Mr. Turner?”

He looks up at you and his eyes trail down your body, over the outfit, and he forces a small smile before you speak again. “If you'd like to follow me, please.”

He dropped the magazine back onto the table with a tiny thud before he stood up, adjusting his jeans a little before he followed you down the hall, into the living room. He sat down in the middle of the sofa and he looked up at you, fidgeting with his hands.

You folded the empty piece of paper and set it on the coffee table before your hand went to the toy stethoscope loosely looped around your neck as you said, “Let's check your heartbeat, then.”

You plugged the ear pieces of the stethoscope in before kneeling over him, one leg perched between his thighs while the other dug into the couch cushion beside his hip, and you looked him in the eyes as you pressed the disc to his chest, your fingers purposefully brushing over his nipples to try and pull a reaction from him.

Your tongue poked out to swipe over your bottom lip, dampening it as you hummed quietly in faux approval. You smiled a little, albeit awkwardly, and you said, quieter than you wanted to, “It's fast.”

It was a lie, obviously, not just because the stethoscope was fake, but you just wanted to keep the ‘story’ going.

You put your hand on his shoulder to steady yourself as you got off the couch, pulling the stethoscope from your neck and setting it on top of the folded paper on the coffee table.

“How's your temperature?” you asked, stepping back over to him and pushing his hair back to feel his forehead, tilting his head upwards slightly to look at you.

He chewed on his lower lip as he met your eyes, and you could tell he just wasn't into this.

You swallowed, trying to make it work, and you murmured something about him feeling a little hot. You pulled off your heels, dropping them aside with a dull thud as you said, doing your best to not let this be cut short, “Why don't you take your trousers off and we can take a proper look.”

He hesitated for a few seconds, his lips pressing together, before he stood up, popping the button through his jeans and pulling the zip down with a quiet whir, and tugging the denim down his legs, letting the soft, worn fabric lie loosely around his ankles.

You grabbed a small bottle of hand lotion you'd set aside on the table tucked between the armrest of the settee and the wall just before you started, and you squirted some into your hands and rubbed them together as you knelt down between his legs, as close as you could get with his trousers in the way, and you looked up at him, the hat a bit wonky atop your head now. “Have you been feeling any different down here, Sir?”

He swallowed, not really sure what to say, not sure what you wanted his ‘line’ to be, so he mumbled, internally cringing at himself, “I'm feeling a bit tingly.”

You gave him a small, almost encouraging smile, happy he was playing along even though you could now tell he wasn't into it. You adjusted yourself between his legs to get more comfortable on your knees and you replied, “How about you take your boxers off for me, and I'll see what I can do about those tingles.”

He took a deep breath in before sliding his thumbs beneath the elastic waistband of his boxers, embarrassed by what he knew, and you knew, was underneath.

He lifted his hips to pull the fabric from underneath him, letting them fall down his legs, joining his jeans around his ankles. You couldn't help but frown a little as you were met with what you'd been both expecting and dreading.

His soft cock lay draped on his thigh, lifeless, but you decided to persevere, to just give it one more try.

You scooped up his limp cock in your palms, massaging it, running your hands along the length as you tried to coax it to life, for it to give you any sign of it not just being useless.

The silence between you was filled with your heavy breathing, and the wet sounds of your lotion-covered hands gliding along his flaccid dick. You looked up at him every so often, hoping for some kind of reaction, even if it wasn't from his cock, but nothing. Each time you looked up, he was either staring at the wall, or looking down awkwardly at you.

Eventually, you took your hands off of him, resting your elbows on his knees, and you said, “I know you don't like it.”

He was quick to respond. “I'm sorry.”

“No, you don't need to be sorry, it's just… I don't know. I thought it would work.”

His lips parted, sucking in a deeper breath before he swallowed hard, “It's just not you. It doesn't feel right.”

You tugged the cheap hat off of your head, tossing it to the side as you muttered, “Nothing fucking feels right for you anymore.”

He looked up at you with his jaw hanging open every so slightly and his eyes a little wider, but before he could respond, you continued as you stood up.

“Always fucking tired, or hungover, or drunk, or stressed. Even when we do do stuff, your cock's soft. Is there another woman? That's why you can't get hard with me anymore?”

His eyebrows furrowed, struggling to take it all in. He tried to argue back, “No, love, what?”

“Then why don't we have sex anymore? We haven't had any actual sex for almost three months.”

He sat up a little, leaning forward to pull his boxers back up to his hips. “I've told you, babe, I've just been too tired for it.”

You raised your voice a little, “How have you been tired every single night for three whole months?”

He stood up himself to pull his jeans back up as he said, trying to keep his tone the same, “I don't know, I've just had… stuff. You know how easily I get tired.”

“Where's all this tiredness come from? I know you get tired, but not for three straight fucking months.”

He swallowed, clamping his clammy hands together behind his back as he left the front of his jeans open, and he whispered, “I don't know.”

It hurt him more than he could explain. Not just you getting angry about the sex, or lack thereof, but lying to you, how he has been lying to you for months. Betrayed you, sneaking behind your back, doing the exact thing you thought you were both done with for good.

You stared at him for a moment, before you sighed and left the room, your steps carrying a little more weight than you'd intended as you walked up the stairs, into your bedroom.

You practically tore that awful nurse costume off, the velcro getting stuck in your hair as you lifted it over your head. The cheap fabric felt vile against your skin.

You lay on the bed in just your underwear, as you weren't wearing a bra with that costume, hoping your cleavage framed by that cheesy costume would've been enough to get him going.

You didn't hear him downstairs for a while, presuming he'd either sat back down on the couch or was just still standing in place. You let your eyes close as you tried to calm down, and after a while of being alone, you started to feel guilty for having a go at him. You knew what it felt like to just not be in the mood, or just be too tired for sex, and you felt incredibly bad for shouting at him for it.

Just as you sat up and swung your legs over the edge of the bed to go and apologise to him, you heard your phone ding on the bedside table. You picked it up, switching it on and smearing a lazy pattern over the grid with your thumb to unlock it and you swiped down the notification to see a text from him.

Popping out.

You clicked on it to reply, and you typed out, Where?

You could see he read it, but it took him a minute to reply.

Just out.

You sighed to yourself, sending another message.

With who?

He responded a bit faster that time.

I'm going to Matt’s.

You swallowed, your eyes fixating on the screen. Fucking Matt. Ever since Alex had started going there more frequently is when he started to change.

You typed out another text.

Don't be home late.

You switched off your phone and tossed it aside, losing it in the sea of your thick, unmade duvet, and you stayed sat hunched on the edge of the bed, listening to him downstairs as you heard him moving about, the muffled sound of keys clattering followed by the front door closing shut.

He rarely left without a kiss, a hug, a proper goodbye or an ‘I love you’, but you tried to not let it seep in too deep.

His walk to Matt's slow, numbing, but had become his escape, in a way. His brain had tied all of the feelings, the euphoria, the rush, the high, all of them, to Matt's house. He just needed a line or two to help him calm down from that argument. It was barely even an argument, but he needed an excuse for himself, a reason to comfort himself so as to not feel as guilty for what he knew he was going to do.

Matt greeted him at the door, grinning, kicking the door shut behind Alex as he trudged in.

He gave Matt a brief summary of what had happened, how today was your two year anniversary of being clean, the argument which he exaggerated to try and validate himself and his reason for needing another hit, but he made sure to leave out the roleplay parts.

Not long after he'd gotten there, after only being able to do just about three lines, his phone switched to life with his ringtone, and your name lit up his screen. He thought about ignoring it, about just pretending it had ran out of battery, or he had his volume down, or he'd just fallen asleep already, but at this point, fairly buzzed and floating in the shallow euphoria, the thought of your voice in his ear cut through the high like a cool breeze.

He brought the phone up to the side of his face with a clumsy sort of care, and he motioned vaguely towards Matt, signaling him to shut up for a moment.

Your voice was quiet through the line when he answered. Tired, raw, almost. “Can you come home, please?”

There was no anger anymore, no accusations, all there was was a thin brittle film over your voice like a veil.

He wiped a hand down his face, pinching his nose as he sniffed hard. “Yeah,” he answered after a moment. “I'll come back.”

He ended the call after that, shame crackling in the back of his throat and tears whispering behind his eyes, threatening to spill over.

He wasn't sure if he was going to be able to hide it this time.

The walk home felt heavier, the cold air biting at his cheeks felt sharper, its teeth longer and pointier than ever before. The sharpening comedown had already begun scratching at the edges of his skull, threatening to spread and infect the rest of his head.

He reached your road, the street lamps flickering with their fluorescent yellow glow above him as he dragged his feet along the rough pavement with each step.

He rubbed his eyes with his hands just before he turned to step onto the path leading home, a final, half-hearted, futile attempt to shrink his pupils before he fished his hand into the pocket of his jeans.

Before he could pull out his jumble of keys, he looked up and saw the front door crack open, the hallway light spilling out onto the cracked front step.

He paused for a moment before stepping inside, pushing the door shut behind him with his elbow as you stood in front of him, studying him, and he swallowed hard.

He knew the second your eyes met his, he knew what you saw. The faint tremble in his limbs, the twitch in his nose and his blown out pupils that had remained wide even after his attempt to shrink them.

He looked into your eyes, the dim light shimmering against the faint sheen of tears glossed over them, and before he could say anything, string together some kind of unintelligible excuse, you spoke.

“Have you relapsed?” you asked, your voice brittle, but the words flat and gentle in the worst way possible. There was no venom behind them, it wasn't an accusation, just a question. A pure, unfiltered, heartbreaking question.

His mouth opened slightly, and instinct tugged at his jaw to say something along the lines of, no, of course not, what the fuck are you talking about, but nothing came, because he knew. He knew that you knew. You just wanted to hear him say it.

You knew that if he wasn't guilty, the words would've been flying out already, fast, defensive, maybe even offended, but instead, he just stood there, his shoulders rising and falling with the weight of his breaths.

That silence, that dead, awful, painful pause, told you everything.

You didn't say anything else. You let the tears spill down your cheeks, and your breath hitched as you stepped forward to press yourself into his chest, wetting his shirt with your tears.

His body tensed up for a moment. All of the other feelings going on in his body, the nausea, the itching in his skull, the numbness across his skin, he didn't focus on them, couldn't.

He hesitated before lifting his arms slightly to loosely wrap around your waist as you cried into his chest, right over his heart, where the guilt had already started carving its mark long before you saw it.

He just stood there, his lips pressed together, holding you as you sobbed against his shirt, the broken trust, the regret, the overwhelming ache of sadness lurched through his body.

He lowered his head, resting his chin against the top of your hair, shutting his own eyes as your cries rang in his ears, as the weight of his betrayal finally sunk its claws in deeper than ever.

Neither of you said anything. There was nothing you could say. There were a million things he wanted to say, a thousand acknowledgements, ten thousand reasons, and a hundred thousand apologies, but there was nothing he could say that would ever take back what he did.

｡･:*:･ﾟ༓･*˚⁺‧͙ﾟ+..｡*ﾟ+˚୨୧⋆｡˚ ⋆ₓ˚. ୭ ˚○◦˚.˚₊✩｡˚☽

i don't want to be too personal but i did base this on my own experiences with cocaine and how relapsing was genuinely one of the worst decisions of my life and it was a bit upsetting but surprisingly quite comforting to write. i tried to convey emotions i felt and how i imagine i seemed to my boyfriend at the time. also pretty much that whole part with the awful roleplay and he can't get hard part is heavily heavily inspired by the inside no. 9 (one of my fav shows, a bit like black mirror if you like that, has anyone watched season 7? i hated it) episode to have and to hold. but im 2 years clean from coke now who clapped!!!

[sceletaflores]

HALF YOUR BRAIN JUST AIN’T THERE!

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｡𖦹°‧➵ PAIR: Joel Miller x babysitter!fem!reader

｡𖦹°‧➵ WC: 11k

｡𖦹°‧➵ CONTAINS: 18+ SMUT MDNI, no outbreak au, pov switching, trailer park joel awooga wooga, tommy miller appearance because daddy i love him, joel is kinda sleazy and pervy, large girthy age gap (53/early 20s), and it’s very much brought up, finding joel’s porn drawer because he’s vintage, reader is called jailbait like once, reader is also a little creep lmao, just two freaks coming together praise, masturbation, fingering, brief allusions of fisting, the BAREST hint of ass play, p in v, rough sex, riding, pussy pronouns, spanking, finger sucking (told you i can’t stop), erectile dysfunction? yeah we don’t know what that means in this house because that old man can fuck like he’s twenty, porn with too much fucking plot, no use of y/n.

｡𖦹°‧➵ NAT’S NOTE: i blame tommy gunn for this…and my period for rearing its ugly head and making me act like an animal. i don’t know i guess my brain is just fully rotted, but y’all’s are too so here’s a nice little gift from me to you, i’m lovingly placing this on your dash xoxo. this isn’t really based on manchild sorry for the false advertising babies, i just thought the lyric was super cute and it’s been stuck in my head so yeah here we are lmao. hope y’all love it, mwah!

｡𖦹°‧➵ NAT’S HEADPHONES: Manchild - Sabrina Carpenter

dividers by @cafekitsune & @saradika-graphics! plus the delicious icon from @iamasaddie!

joel miller needs a babysitter, you’re back in town…

Gruene hasn't changed much. Not really.

You're not sure how much different it'd be after only a couple years away, but still. Something in you had expected it to feel even smaller—like the way old t-shirts shrink in the wash when you’re not paying attention.

The air felt the same when you first stepped out of your beat up Chevy, heavy and humid like a wet mouth. The pavement in front of your house still burned the bottom of your shoes, and the cicadas were buzzing in the dry grass like they never stopped.

You left for college thinking you’d never come back. And yet, here you are. Spending summer back in your hometown, a little more than half a degree under your belt, flat broke, and bored to death.

Your room’s the same, maybe just a little smaller now that you’ve lived other places, slept in other beds. All the posters are still up, faded from the sun and curling at the corners. Your mom left your old tennis trophies on your dresser, like maybe she thought you’d want to see them. You don’t, not really. You appreciate the effort anyway, at least she didn’t turn it into a yoga room or a place to keep extra boxes and Christmas decorations.

You try not to spend too much time at home, even though you technically don’t have anywhere else to go. You kill time with long drives down the streets you memorized years ago, past beat up gas stations with sun bleached lotto signs and eighteen wheelers parked in the back.

You try your hand at some half-hearted job hunting at a few different places that promise to call but never do. And you sit in the back booth of an old diner where you and your friends used to sneak fries from abandoned tables and smoke paper wrapped joints in the alley out back.

Every place you go feels like a ghost town version of what you remember. Familiar, but all hollowed out.

“You know who might be looking for help?” Your mom says one morning, standing at the stove fussing over a pan of bacon. “Joel Miller, you remember him don’t you?”

You pause, your fork stuck hovering just above the plate. “Sarah’s dad?”

“Mhm. I ran into him at the market a couple weeks ago and we got to catching up. He’s needing to pick up some extra work, and it’s just him, you know. Sarah’s starting high school in the fall but he’s still not wanting to leave her on her own. He looked stressed, poor thing.”

You hum warily, pushing your eggs around your plate to distract from the way your stomach flutters.

Joel Miller.

You haven’t heard that name in years. Not since you stopped babysitting Sarah, not since you left. It has something low and guilty stirring somewhere deep inside you.

You shouldn’t be surprised that it’s floating back into your life like cigarette smoke—all pungent and sour and impossible to ignore. In a town of less than two thousand people, you were bound to circle around some old memories sooner or later. And Joel Miller was a big one.

Mr. Miller was a few years older than your mom, a single dad that lived with his daughter in the trailer park a few miles past the city limit. You met him when you were seventeen and trying to save as much as you could for college, when your puny part time job flipping burgers and serving ice cream cones wasn’t cutting it. 

He needed someone to pick up Sarah from school and watch her until he got home from work, you needed the extra money. It seemed like a perfect fit.

But Joel was always…different. He scooped you up off the gravel and carried you into his living room to bandage up your knee when you took a bad fall outside his trailer. He never ratted you out when he caught you smoking one of his Marlboros in his backyard after you put Sarah to bed one night. He drove you home when you got too drunk at a field party and couldn’t stomach the thought of calling your mom. 

You can still remember the way his truck smelled—gasoline, sunbaked leather, sawdust. 

He didn’t say much, just kept his gaze trained on the road as you watched him through glassy eyes while Johnny Cash floated through the cab. He looked back once, slow and quiet, like he was really thinking something over. 

It’s been a long time since you thought about that night, but the reminder of it resurfaces sharp and sudden, like a thumb pressed into a bruise.

Now, your mom’s pouring more coffee into your cup and saying his name like it’s no big deal, like she didn’t just drop a live wire into your lap. Like he didn’t take up way too much room in your seventeen year old imagination.

“You should go down there and talk to him sometime,” she says, casual. “It might be a good way to make some money while you look around for something else.”

You bite back a grimace, conflicted. “Isn’t Sarah old enough to stay home alone by now?”

Your mom shrugs like it doesn’t matter. “Maybe, but like I said Joel’s always been a little…anxious about leaving her on her own too many nights. She’s at that age, you know—boys, phones, lord knows what else.”

You frown, stabbing at your eggs. You only remember Sarah as the sweet little girl who’d beg to stay up and watch Disney with you, who was more interested in her Barbie dolls than any screen. You used to braid her hair while she did her times tables, let her wear some of your lip gloss when she begged.

You take a sip of coffee, the burn of it trickles down from your throat to settle somewhere deep in your chest. “You really think he’d hire me again?” 

Your mom shrugs again, plating the bacon. “I don’t see why not. Sarah always loved you, Joel too. He’s asked about you once or twice, said you were a real good girl. Very responsible and all that.”

You try not to laugh at that. 

Good girl. Responsible. Right.

You nod vaguely, standing to clear your plate into the trash even though it’s still half full. “Maybe,” you mutter. “I’ll think about it.”

Later that night, alone in your room, you find yourself scrolling through Facebook like an angsty teenager. 

You kicked your sheets off a while ago, cracked your window open to let in the cool breeze swirling outside. Crickets sing quietly in the background, only drowned out every once in a while by the sound of cars passing your street.

Joel’s profile is still public, but it’s sparsely updated. A new truck photo here, a blurry picture of Sarah’s eighth grade promotion there. She looks the same, maybe a little older. Her hair’s longer, but still curly as ever.

There’s no recent pictures of Joel anywhere. Not posted by him or any of his friends. You can’t tell if the feeling that blooms inside of you is disappointment or something else entirely.

You’re about to exit the app when finally, a tagged post catches your eye.

A post by an account with the name Henry B. attached to it. It’s just a grainy photo of someone’s backyard littered with wood pallets and stray tools, Joel standing in the middle of it all with a few other people you don’t recognize.

His account is tagged in the caption underneath. Big thanks to my buddy Joel Miller for the extra set of hands tonight. Saved our ass! It’s dated June 13, 2023.

You pause, your thumb hovering over the screen. So he’s still handy, you think distantly, chewing on your bottom lip.

You remember that much. There were always new projects cluttering the yard in front of his trailer. A crib for the expecting couple a few doors down, a rocking chair with ornate vines and flowers carved into the armrests, a soccer goal for Sarah to practice with when she started getting serious about it in the fifth grade.

You zoom in on the picture, just a little.

The angle’s weird and it’s overexposed as shit. Joel’s face is half shadowed by an old Longhorns baseball cap, but even still—there’s that jaw. That mouth. That same broad width of his shoulders you used to trace with your eyes when he’d lean on the doorframe after he got home from work. 

It’s still an older picture, and you can’t help but wonder how much he’s changed since.

You breathe through your nose, one long uninterrupted breath before you close the app and toss your phone face down on the mattress.

Joel Miller was handsome when you were in high school and stupid and still biting your nails. 

He was a late forty-something, tired around the eyes. Always in pair of ratty, stained jeans and those soft, worn down flannels with the sleeves rolled up. Sarah’s dad. The hot one, according to the girls at school. The divorced one, according to the snooty moms at the PTA. He was tall and strong, thick arms with dark hair dusted along veiny muscle. Big hands that were calloused and rough to the touch when he slipped you a couple folded twenties at the end of every night. 

You haven’t seen him since the summer after you graduated, but sometimes you still think about the way he used to look at you.

Like he shouldn’t.

Like he knew he shouldn’t, and did it anyway. 

You can still feel it. That heat, that weight. The way his eyes always lingered a little too long when you bent down to grab your homework off the coffee table. The way his voice got low and syrupy when he asked what you were doing that weekend.

You were young then, but now?

Now you’re not sure who you are, not entirely—but you know you’re not that same girl. You’ve lived. You’ve done things he couldn’t even guess at.

You’ve grown up. And you wonder if Joel would notice too.

You don’t plan on going. Not really.

The next day, your mom leaves a note taped to the fridge that says she’s out running errands and won’t be back until later. You stare at it for a while, then glance at the clock.

It’s barely noon.

You have nothing to do. No plans. No job. So you get into your boiling hot car, roll the windows down, and drive.

You’re not sure what makes you do it. 

Maybe it’s the antsy feeling that’s been worming around under your skin since you got here. Maybe it’s the way Joel’s name has been bouncing off all the corners of your mind like a moth against glass ever since your mom said it.

Either way, you find yourself veering onto a familiar exit off the highway, tires crunching under gravel until it turns to dirt when you pull into the same trailer park on the edge of town. The same one you spent most nights back in high school.

You sit in your car for a little longer than necessary, keys still in the ignition, engine ticking quietly as it cools.

The place hasn’t changed much either. Same sloped roof, same white paneling, same wind chimes clinking together on the porch. There’s a pair of muddy work boots by the steps, and your stomach knots.

You didn’t bother calling ahead. You don’t even know if he has the same number. You’re regretting that now.

You should leave. You really should. But you’re already pulling the car door open and stepping into the dry afternoon heat. The air’s thick again, the sun sitting high and mean in the sky. Your shirt sticks to the sweaty skin along your spine as you walk through the gate and up the short gravel path.

You hesitate at the foot of the stairs, clenching and unclenching your fists a couple times like that’ll magically relive all your nerves. You wonder, and almost hope, if Sarah will be the one to open the door. If she’ll even remember you.

Then, the screen door cracks open before you can knock.

Joel’s standing there. He looks the same as the last time you saw him.

“Well I’ll be damned,” he mutters, opening the door wider. He’s in jeans, barefoot, nothing but a tank top clinging to his chest, a dark patch blooming at the collar where it’s damp with sweat. “Look at you.” 

No, not the same.

Older. Broader, somehow. More worn in, like a favorite jacket that’s been well loved. His hair’s longer than you remember, messier. His beard is thicker too, dusted with more gray, and there’s a little more weight around his middle. But his eyes are just the same—dark, steady, and sharp in a way that makes you feel instantly, achingly seventeen again.

He looks you over once. Not quick. Real slow. Real deliberate. A single drag of his eyes from your flip flops to the shorts you maybe shouldn’t have worn. His gaze sticks when it reaches your chest, lingers there a beat too long before flicking back up to your mouth. And then, finally, your eyes.

You shift your weight, offering a small smile. “Hey, Mr. Miller.”

His eyes narrow, and there’s the ghost of a smirk pulling at his mouth. “Don’t start with that ‘Mr. Miller’ bullshit. You’re grown now.”

Your stomach tightens.

“I, uh...my mom said you might be looking for help,” you say, fighting the urge to squirm where you stand. “With Sarah, I mean.”

He leans against the doorframe, one hand gripping the wood above his head. The movement lifts his shirt just enough to show a strip of his stomach, a trail of dark hair disappearing under the waistband of his sweats. “She did, huh?”

You nod, still frozen in place at the bottom of the steps.

Joel lets the silence hang in the air, heavy and charged. Then he huffs a quiet breath through his nose—half amusement, half something else—and steps aside. “You comin’ in or what?” he asks, jerking his head impatiently, giving you another long, lazy once over. “Ain’t polite to keep an old man waitin’, kid.”

Your heart beats wildly against your ribcage, and with one last quick, steadying breath you hope Joel doesn’t notice, you climb the stairs.

Joel hadn’t expected to see you again. At the very least like this, showing up at his place in the middle of the day—standing at the bottom of his porch like a mirage in the heat, older and more grown in all the places a man like him shouldn’t be noticing. 

And sure as hell not in those shorts.

He watches you walk past him into the living room, slow and uncertain, that little sway in your hips you maybe don’t even mean to have. Or maybe you do.

Either way, it’s a goddamn sight.

Joel closes the door with a soft click, dragging a hand over his mouth like that’ll help wipe the look off his face. It doesn’t. The look of you—bare legged and smiling, sun kissed and back in his house after all this time—sticks to the inside of his skull like syrup. 

You look around the room with a small smile, eyes scanning the familiar furniture. Some of it’s new, some of it’s the same. Joel’s never been much for decorating. You pause in front of the bookshelf he built a few years back, Sarah’s old school pictures still sit in a few mismatched frames next to a couple of paperbacks.

He clears his throat, scratching at his beard so he has something to do with his hands as he walks to the kitchen. “You want somethin’ to drink? Water, iced tea? I think I got Coke in the fridge somewhere.”

“I’m good, thanks.” You follow slowly, looking younger somehow in the kitchen light. You rest your hip against the doorway, eyes watching him as he walks to the fridge. “I won’t stay long. I just figured I’d stop by real quick and see if you still needed some help.”

Joel pulls the fridge open anyway, grabbing a beer from the half empty six pack. He cracks the tab with a soft hiss and leans back against the counter. “Sarah’s mostly independent now. She don’t need a sitter like she used to, but I still get caught up workin’ late. Don’t like the idea of her bein’ here by herself too often. 'Specially not with some of the boys sniffin’ around lately.”

You laugh, soft and bright. “Well, I’ve got time,” you say, toying with a loose thread on your cutoffs. “I don’t know how much help you actually need, but my schedule’s pretty much open. I can do evenings, weekends, whatever you want.”

Joel has to bite back a grin. Whatever he wants. 

If you only knew the half of what he really wants.

Joel shifts his weight against the counter. “It wouldn’t be every night,” he says, shaking his head. “Just the evenings I pick up extra hours, or if I get called out for a job.”

You nod. “I can help. You don’t have to worry about paying me a whole lot. I’ll just be happy to keep busy.”

His mouth pulls into something that might be a smile. “I’ll pay you,” he says, almost gruff. “You’re doin’ me a favor.”

The silence that follows feels familiar. Not awkward—just full. A little tight around the edges. 

He’s always known how to talk to you, but now there’s something different to it. You’re not seventeen anymore. Not biting your lip and looking away when he catches your eye. You’re standing there calm as you please, looking straight at him, like you already know he’s thinking things he shouldn’t.

Joel watches you from across the kitchen, beer can sweating against his palm. The ceiling fan spins lazily overhead, stirring warm air that doesn’t help much with the heat climbing under his skin. You’re standing there across the way from him like nothing’s changed, like you never left. Like no time has passed at all.

Except that it has. And it shows.

“You still in school?” he asks, voice rougher than he means it to be.

You blink, head tilting to the left. “Yeah. I’m up in Chicago now, Northwestern.”

“Big shot,” Joel whistles low, nodding appreciatively. “That’s a ways away from here.”

You shake your head, smile small and bashful. “It is. It’s expensive as hell too, my scholarship’s the only reason I’m there.”

He makes a soft sound in his throat, impressed. “Smart girl.”

“I try.” You shrug, but there’s pride under it. “I’ve got one year left, usually I stay for the summer to try and make as much as I can in the city. I—I just needed a breather, I guess. Some time to figure shit out, you know?”

There’s something soft in your tone when you say it, an openness he didn’t expect, and maybe shouldn’t pry into. But part of him wants to. Always has.

“You don’t seem like the type that needs figurin’ out,” Joel says, voice a little quieter now. “Always thought you had your head on straight.”

Your smile flickers into something crooked, something secret. “That’s because you didn’t really know me.”

He chuckles, deep and rough. “No, sweetheart. I think I knew you just fine.”

Your eyes lock for a second too long after that, thick enough with heat and history to make the air feel heavier than it already is.

You look away first, your eyes flicking to the living room. “I, uh–sorry, do you mind if I use the bathroom?”

Joel gestures vaguely with his free hand. “Go ahead, you remember where it is.”

You push off the doorway with one last grateful smile and duck down the hallway, footsteps silent against the linoleum. Joel watches until you disappear around the corner, his gaze dipping low without shame.

He waits until he hears the click of the bathroom door shutting behind you to exhale a slow breath, setting his beer down on the counter harder than he has to.

Jesus Christ.

She’s not a girl anymore, he thinks to himself. And you’re not, you’re far fucking from it.

But that feeling, that ugly one churning deep down in Joel’s gut, it’s still there. It feels just as dangerous as it used to, maybe even worse now. All because of you. 

The look of your glossy lips forming around the words whatever he wants. The shape of your thighs, those damn shorts clinging to you like a second skin. The way you were looking at him, eyes all wide and shiny under his shitty kitchen light. 

Joel can’t help himself, he thinks back to a few years ago. You, curled up on his couch every night when he got home from a long build, looking so soft in the hazy glow of the TV. Barefoot and sleepy, blinking up at him in those skimpy little after school clothes you’d always throw on.

It was a vision, something to settle his aching bones.

He thinks about how he started looking forward to it, coming home to you. It was sick, he knew that much, the fucked up little game of house he played, projected onto you. An old man like him leering at you, thinking of you long after you’d left, waving sweetly from the window of your moms car.

Joel should’ve known better. Should’ve done better. But that never stopped him before, not when it came to you.

A knock at the door pulls him from his thoughts. Two quick raps, followed by a heavy creak.

“Joel?” Tommy’s voice fills the trailer before he can even move, loud in the quiet. “You home?”

Joel sighs, brows pinching together as he pushes off the counter. He didn’t even hear the damn truck pull up.

Tommy rounds the corner, sweaty and covered in dirt. He’s got a ratty bandanna hanging from his jean pocket, sleeves pulled up around his shoulders and a pair of aviators covering his eyes.

“You ever heard of callin’ before you just barge in on someone?” Joel doesn’t try to hide the annoyance in his tone, brow arched as he stares at his brother.

“Hello to you too, jackass.” Tommy just walks past him like he owns the place, opening up one of the cabinets above the sink. “You gettin’ memory loss already, old man? You said Saturday.”

“Yeah, well now ain’t a good time, Tommy.” Joel cuts his eyes to the hall, to the light bleeding out from under the bathroom door.

Tommy just snorts, still rifling through the cabinet. “Yeah right, you got a woman over or somethin’?”

Joel doesn’t answer, eyes still fixed on that thin sliver of light glowing under the bathroom door like it might give him away.

Tommy catches on, turns slow with a shit-eating grin already stretching across his face. “You do have someone here.”

Joel gives him a hard look, one that should tell him to shut the hell up—but Tommy only laughs, knowing.

“C’mon,” he drawls. “Didn’t know you were even seein’ anybody. You been holdin’ out on me?”

“It ain’t like that,” Joel mutters, too fast, too defensive.

Tommy tilts his head, chewing on that like a dog with a bone. “Huh. So she’s not yours then?”

Joel doesn’t get the chance to answer. Before he can shoot back with something mean enough to shut him up. From down the hall, the bathroom door opens with a quiet click, and then—

Then you're back, smoothing your hands down your thighs as you reappear around the corner, voice drifting back into the space.

“Jesus, that sink is still running freezing cold water? I nearly put my-oh…” You’re clearly caught off guard, your eyes catching on where Tommy stands in front of the sink. “Tommy?”

Joel watches it click in real time—your eyes lighting up with recognition, mouth parting into a surprised smile like you’ve just stumbled on an old friend. Which, in a way, you have. Tommy was around a lot back then. Backyard beers, watching football on the TV, leaning against Joel’s truck while you wrangled Sarah inside for dinner.

“Well shit,” Tommy says, slow and low, pulling his sunglasses down. “That isn’t the little babysitter, is it?”

You smile, sheepish and sweet, and Joel feels something sour twist in his gut. “It’s been a while.”

“Yeah.” Joel watches Tommy take a good long look at you just like the one he did, eyes wide as his gaze rakes from your head down to the bare skin of your legs and back up all over again. “No kiddin’.”

It makes the space behind Joel’s ribs burn with something hot and ugly, Tommy’s eyes on you. Shameless and obvious as all hell. He might just be the biggest hypocrite in the country for it, but he can’t find it in himself to care.

“I didn’t know you were back in town,” Tommy goes on, leaning in like he can’t help himself. “You home for the summer?”

“Yeah, just for the summer,” you say brightly. “I thought I’d see if Joel needed help with Sarah again.”

“Oh, I bet he does,” Tommy says, and Joel’s had about enough of this.

“We were just finishing up,” Joel cuts in, his voice sharp enough to slice through the air. “She was about to head out.”

You don’t seem to notice the tension, if you do, you ignore it with grace that makes it worse somehow.

Your eyes flick to him, and for a second, Joel thinks maybe you notice something’s off. But your smile is still easy. “Yeah, I should probably get going.”

Joel gives a short nod and steps toward you before Tommy can open his mouth again. “I’ll walk you out, honey.”

You look between the two brothers for a second longer, then nod and head back into the living room, Joel right behind you. The sound of Tommy’s boots are hot on his heels, following.

You bend down to swipe your keys off the coffee table, not by much, just enough for your shirt to ride up and your shorts to dip low. Joel nearly swallows his tongue at the sight of lace. Bright pink, thin. A pathetic little scrap of fabric clinging to either side of your hips.

Joel’s throat goes dry, heat rolling under his skin like a slow burn, thick and unrelenting. You straighten back up, smooth the hem of your shirt down, but the damage is done. He feels that familiar ache stirring low in his belly, his cock twitching with interest in his sweats.

He doesn’t look at Tommy, he doesn’t need to. The quiet crunch of a beer can bending under a tight grip is all he needs to know that he isn’t the only one taking that lace peeking out from under those damn shorts as a neon sign flashing all the wrong kinds of welcome.

Joel barely has enough wherewithal to drag his eyes up to your face when you turn back around—that sweet, oblivious smile still pulling at your lips.

“Okay.” Your fingers toy with your keys, the metal soft and jangling in your palm. “Ready.”

Joel gives you a short nod, jaw tight. He doesn’t trust himself to speak.

Tommy, of course, steps in the silence, voice syrupy. “Hey, don’t be a stranger, alright? Good seein’ you again, sweetheart.”

You glance over your shoulder, lips parting into a lazy little grin. “You too, Tommy.”

Joel holds the door open for you, watching the way the light hits your shoulders, the back of your thighs, the little shadow that dips right at the curve of your spine.

The cicadas are buzzing, your car parked half crooked along the curb. You walk slow, gravel crunching under your sandals. Joel stays beside you, hands shoved deep in his pockets. The sun’s lower now, soft gold spilling across the lawn.

You open the car door, pausing with your hand on it. “That was…fun.”

Joel nods, biting back a frown. “Yeah, sorry about him. Tommy hasn’t got much of a filter.”

You laugh, shaking your head. “It’s okay, I missed you guys.”

Joel’s heart kicks hard in his chest. He’s not sure what to do with that. 

“You know where to find us,” he says finally.

You nod, climbing into the car. The engine kicks up and the window rolls down.

“Thanks for the talk,” you say. “And the job, I’ll call you?”

Joel leans down a little, arms resting on the open window frame. You’re so close like this. Too close. He can smell the sweet perfume mixing with the bright tang of sweat on your skin.

“Of course,” he says, eyes flicking down to your lips. “I’ll be waiting.”

You smile. “It was nice seeing you, Joel.”

Joel watches you drive off, his reflection shrinking in your side mirror until he’s nothing but a speck in the dust your tires kick up.

He lets out another long breath, turning to walk up to steps. When he comes back inside, Tommy’s on the couch now, feet kicked up on Joel’s coffee table.

Joel shuts the door a little too hard behind him.

He lets out a low whistle. “Damn.”

“I told you,” Joel says, low and firm. “Now ain’t the time.”

Tommy’s grinning. “No shit it ain’t the time. Jesus, Joel. She’s what—twenty? Twenty one?”

“Somethin’ like that.” Joel says, arms crossed tightly over his chest.

“Oh, well never mind then, that makes it fine,” Tommy says, laughing. He cracks open the beer in his hand, taking a slow sip. “You’re outta your fuckin’ mind, you know that?”

Joel clenches his jaw, not bothering with an answer. His heavy silence speaks louder than any words could.

Tommy watches Joel closely, taking his silence for what it is and grinning wide enough to show off the sharp point of his canines. “She filled out real nice though, didn’t she?”

Joel shoots him a warning look, brows pinched together. “Don’t.”

Tommy holds his free hand up in surrender, but he’s still smirking. “All I’m sayin’ is—I remember when she was this pretty little thing runnin’ around here. Now—” He makes a vague gesture at his own chest. “—jailbait’s a whole lotta grown.”

Joel takes a step forward, hands clenched into fists at his side. “Watch your goddamn mouth.”

Tommy raises a brow, and the air goes real still between them for a beat. Joel knows his little brother—knows he’s testing the waters, seeing just how deep the river runs.

Joel shakes his eyes off him, walks to the kitchen and snatches his forgotten beer off the counter.

He hears Tommy chuckle again, more to himself than anything, his voice is louder so Joel can hear him. “You better watch yourself, man. That one? She’s trouble.”

Joel downs the rest of his beer in one long, bitter swallow, eyes peering out the window—locked on the road your car disappeared down. His voice, when it comes, is low and final.

“You got no idea.”

It’s almost too easy, falling back into the routine of it.

A few nights a week, just like before. Joel calls. You come over. The knock on the door doesn’t even feel necessary anymore, since Sarah already knows it’s you when she yanks it open and launches into talking before you’ve even stepped inside. 

You know where the snacks are. The remote. You know how to work the tricky thermostat and still have all the emergency contacts scrawled on a paper tacked to the fridge memorized.

It all comes back like muscle memory—like no time has passed at all. 

Sarah’s older now, a little more sarcastic. Witty and bolder in a way that surprises you sometimes, just enough edge in the way she talks to you that reminds you how much time has passed since you used to sit on the same couch and color. She’s brimming with the kind of secrets she’s aching to spill to someone she knows won’t tell her dad.

You’re still not quite a “grown-up” in her eyes, but you’re not a kid anymore either. You’re in that sweet spot—a cool older girl with her own car who lets her say things like shit and dickweed when Joel’s not around.

You’re not supposed to let her stay up this late, but you both pretend not to notice the clock. She’s curled up next to you on the couch, draped over the armrest only half watching the reruns you turned on with her chin propped on her palm.  

"Can I ask you something?” Sarah says suddenly, grinning. 

You narrow your eyes at her, mock suspicious. “You can, but I’m not promising I’ll answer.”

She laughs, kicking you gently with a socked foot. “Did you ever, like, sneak around when you were my age? Steal beer? Hook up with anyone?”

“Jesus, Sarah.” You raise your eyebrows, but she’s too amused to be embarrassed. You toss a throw pillow her way lazily. “You know your dad would kill me for answering that, right? He’d think I’m giving you ideas or something.”

“That’s not a no,” she sings, smirking.

“No comment.” You shake your head, smiling in spite of yourself. “I don’t need to give you any blackmail material to use on me later if I piss you off.”

“Please,” she huffs with a dramatic roll of her eyes. “I’d never narc on you like that. Besides, Dad still thinks I’m eight, I don’t even think he knows that I know what “hooking up” means.”

You laugh, shaking your head as you turn your attention back to the TV. “You’re his baby.” You shrug as a new episode of Daria starts. “It makes sense that he’s treating you like one.”

“Gross,” Sarah huffs again, letting her head fall back against the cushion to stare up at the ceiling. “He’s just so overprotective sometimes. I mean, I guess I get it but, come on? I’m basically in high school now, I’m not really a baby anymore.”

You glance over at her, and she isn’t. Not really. Not the gap toothed little girl who used to fall asleep on your shoulder watching Finding Nemo. She’s growing up in the kind of terrifying, beautiful way that makes your chest ache a little—already too smart for her own good.

She cracks her eyes open a bit, peering across the way at you. “Bet you noticed that when you were my age, right? When guys started looking at you differently.”

You blink. It’s not the words that shake you—it’s the timing. The way they hit, low and close to the bone. 

Because yeah, you did notice. You still do. Especially now. Especially here.

Before you can say anything, the alarm you set on your phone blares loudly, cutting through the quiet.

“Alright!” You push her feet off your lap and stand, happy for the distraction as you clap your hands together. “That’s curfew.”

Sarah groans, but she rolls off the couch with no argument and starts down the hall. 

You busy yourself with tidying up the living room as she brushes her teeth, pointedly ignoring the growing pit in your stomach. Her words ring in your ears like church bells, her voice tolling a little too close to something you’ve pointedly ignored since you got back. Something half buried and dangerous.

Bet you noticed that when you were my age, right? When guys started looking at you differently…

You breathe out slowly, shutting off the TV and dropping the remote onto the couch a little harder than necessary. You shouldn’t read into it. She didn’t mean anything by it. Just a kid mouthing off, reaching for connection, for understanding. 

But it rattles you more than you want to admit, especially here—especially in his house.

You swallow hard, clearing the dirty dishes off the coffee table and walking into the kitchen. You just won’t think about it anymore, it’s that easy.

You're just being ridiculous. Paranoid. That's all.

A little while later, you’re still tidying up.

The dishes are all done, washed and drying in the rack next to the sink. The living room looks better than when you got here. It’s damn near pristine. 

Sarah went to bed almost half an hour ago. You crane your head down the hallway as you fold an old blanket, her door is cracked open enough that you can see the light from her alarm clock shining in the dark. The soft sounds of waves drone quietly from her noise machine.

You smile, a warm fondness blooming in your chest.

That fuzzy feeling doesn’t last long, not when your eyes drift almost on their own, landing on Joel’s door. 

Joel’s room.

It’s cracked open too, just like Sarah’s, but there’s no light shining from inside. You keep folding the blanket, distracted. It’s not like you haven’t been in Joel’s room before, you have. Passing through it with clean loads of laundry or sneaking his phone charger from the plug near his nightstand when your phone died.

But you’d never gone in alone, and you’d never stayed long. Sarah was always hot on your heels, catching your wrist in her tiny hand to drag you back out—following you around like an overexcited puppy. Not to mention it was always in the light of day, never at a time like this. When the moon is shining high in the sky and the stars are scattered across vast velvety darkness like spilled sugar.

You drape the folded blanket along the arm of the couch, eyes still glued to the door. The cogs in your mind turn and turn, spitting out an idea that has your stomach clenching with something you can’t quite put your finger on.

You gnaw on your bottom lip anxiously, eyes cutting to the clock above the door.

11:53

Joel told he’d be a while tonight, before he left. He said they’d be short a man, that the job would drag on because of it.

That’s not an excuse, you know that.

You shouldn’t. You really shouldn’t.

Your feet are moving before your brain can catch up to how bad of an idea this really is.

Your steps are silent on the linoleum, barefeet not making a sound. The wood of his door is dark and shiny, cool against your hand when you lay your palm over it. You give Sarah’s room another sideways glance, you can see the shape of her beneath the covers. Sound asleep.

The door creaks when you push it open, just barely. The sound isn’t enough to scare you off, and you step inside. The carpet is plush under you, it silences your steps even more as you walk to the nightstand and flick the light on.

Your heart pounds against your ribs as you take it in. The messy, unmade state of Joel’s bed. The covers are thrown back, there’s a dip in the pillow where his head rests. The nightstand has a paperback open and laying face down, a pair of wiry reading glasses resting next to it.

The room smells like him. 

That scent that used to cling to you by accident when you were younger—clean cotton and cedar, a little motor oil and sweat, and whatever body wash he’s been using for years. It hits you all at once.

It has something stirring in your core, the familiarity of it. You look around some more, greedy eyes taking in every tiny detail you can. There’s a few paintings and framed pictures littering the walls. Pictures of Sarah, of Tommy, all kinds of different Texas landscapes. 

An old guitar rests on the wall across from you, you can see that it’s a little beat up even from where you’re standing. The glossy wood chipped and well loved.

Then your eyes land on the dresser.

It’s old, stained a light brown. You wonder distantly if he built it himself.

Your gaze catches on the top drawer, the pull handle worn with use.

Again, you know it’s wrong. That you’ve already crossed every line imaginable by just being in here, but you seem full to bursting with bad ideas tonight. 

You’re across the room with your fingers resting gently on the handle before you can even blink. Slowly, like something’s pulling you on a leash, you slide it open.

Socks. Boxers. Old, ratty belts. It’s nothing special, but heat climbs up the back of your neck all the same.

The next drawer has shirts, old band tees and fancier button downs that really should be hung up. You press your hand against one of them, feeling the starchy fabric beneath your skin.

The third drawer sticks a little, enough that you need to yank on it harder than the last two. It slides open with a dull thud. You wince, your eyes flicking to the door like Joel could be standing there, catching you rifling through his underwear like a sick little perv. 

The darkness of the hallway is all that greets you. Quiet, empty.

You take a steadying breath, but your hands don’t stop trembling as you tug it the rest of the way open.

You’re not sure exactly what you’re looking for, but then, you see it.

There, tucked toward the back under a couple old flannels, a small stack of magazines. 

Playboys. A couple Hustlers. From the look of them, they're mostly 90s, maybe early 2000s. It’s so vintage, so Joel. The covers are glossy, edges curled and worn. 

Your breath hitches. The heat between your legs is instant, sharp and impossible to ignore.

You pull one out, heart hammering, and flip it open carefully. Your eyes skim over picture after picture, some of the pages sticking together as you thumb through them. The scent of paper and dust and something faintly musky drifts up, and the centerfold you finally land on is obscene—posed, yes, but raw in a way that makes your thighs press together. 

Legs spread wide on a bearskin rug, pink mouth parted, full bush and glossy nipples.

She’s brunette, hair poofy and curled up to Jesus like they used those big old school rollers. Her eyes are the same color as yours, half lidded and covered in a sparkly blue shadow.

You glance down at the caption under her photo. 

“Turn-ons: Older men. The kind that know how to use their hands.”

A shiver rolls down your spine.

You should be laughing. Maybe grossed out. But instead—

Instead you imagine Joel, sitting in this room, flipping through these pages alone. Hand between his legs. That rough, big, calloused hand. Not fast, not frantic. No, you imagine him slow.

Measured.

Probably gritting his teeth, because he seems like the type who doesn’t let himself sound desperate even when he is. Grunting softly. Breathing hard. Coming into a tissue or his palm or maybe just letting it land on his stomach. Because there’s no one here to see. No one to touch him. Just him and the sound of paper turning.

You shut the magazine too fast. Slide it back in place, heart pounding.

Before you can push the drawer closed, your eyes catch on one of the flannels that covered Joel’s little secret.

It’s an old one—soft looking, broken in, a faded green and black. You should put it back, lay it down exactly where you found it so there’s nothing even hinting at you digging around in places you shouldn’t.

Instead, your hand closes around it, and without letting yourself think too long, you hold it up to your nose.

God. It smells like him. Like his detergent, like summer sweat and wood and something faintly smokey. Warm and safe and so damn inappropriate in every possible way.

It’s too much, it’s not enough. It’s obscene.

You can’t help yourself, you push the rest of the flannels back over the magazines, but the one in your hand gets tucked under your arm.

You don’t even try to justify it. You don’t even look back.

You don’t touch yourself right away.

You wait. You ride the buzz all the way home. Eat a popsicle standing barefoot in your kitchen, flannel in a heap on the counter like a loaded gun. You pretend to forget about it. You go about your night like normal. Shower. Brush your teeth.

Then you’re in bed and it’s just there. Laying on your mattress.

You unfold it. Run your fingers over the soft, worn fabric. You should feel guilty. You do, but that doesn’t stop you from pressing it to your nose and inhaling a deep lungful. You crawl into bed, tearing your shirt off and kicking your shorts down your legs all at once.

You lay back against your sheets, flannel still clutched in your hands. You rub it along your chest, over your peaked nipples, down your stomach. Rubbing Joel’s scent into your skin like it’s your own personal brand.

Your free hand slides down your body, down the lacy fabric of your panties. You’re already wet. You’ve been wet since the minute you opened that drawer.

You close your eyes, fingertips teasing along the wet expanse of your pussy as you let your mind go there—

To the thought of Joel finding you like this.

His flannel draped over your face. Your hand between your thighs.

Would he be mad? Would he punish you for it?

Would he take it back? Rip it out of your hands?

Or would he make you put it on—just so he could see you wear it while he ruined you?

You want to come like this. Wrapped up in something of his. Want to ruin yourself in it. You dip your fingers into your underwear and finally—finally—brush them over your clit.

The gasp you let out is sharp.

It’s not just his cologne. It’s his scent. That hot-skin smell that clings to the inside of his hats and his truck and his work boots. It’s Joel, soaked into the fabric like he’s holding you down.

You rub slow circles over your clit, hips twitching. You can’t stop picturing him. Not just his face, but the sounds he’d make. The weight of his body over yours. The way his voice would rasp against your ear if he caught you doing this.

“Dirty fuckin’ girl, so desperate you’re gettin’ off with my dirty laundry?”

You slide two fingers inside yourself and gasp, mouth falling open. You imagine his hands instead. Rough, thick, calloused. Bigger than yours. Slower. Crueler.

“Oh fuck, Joel—” you whisper without thinking, the name catching on your teeth like a sin.

You come hard, pressing the flannel to your face, thighs trembling, biting down on soft cotton as you ride it out. It rolls through you in hot waves. Shame, lust, guilt, need—all tangled up.

When it’s over, you lie there panting, the room silent except for your heartbeat in your ears. You relax your jaw, the flannel falling from between your lips, fabric soaked with your spit.

You drift off with it clutched to your chest. Still wet between your legs. Still aching. Still imagining what he’d do if he ever found out.

And you sleep better than you have in weeks.

You don’t think anything of it when you see Joel’s truck parked in front of the trailer. It’s not out of the ordinary, he’s almost always there to make sure you get in safe before he leaves.

You climb the creaky steps and knock like usual. Three little raps, your knuckles against the thin aluminum of Joel’s door, already shifting your weight to the side as you wait for Sarah to yank it open and start catching you up on all the latest gossip from her last summer soccer practice.

Only—it doesn't swing open. Not right away.

You frown, Sarah’s usually opened the door before you can even raise your fist to knock again. It’s only then that you notice how quiet it is. 

No music thumping out from her window, no light flicked on in her room. No hum of the TV playing. No voice yelling “Just a second!” from down the hall. Just the light hanging above your head buzzing faintly and the dull thud of your knuckles against the door.

You knock for a fourth time, less sure.

A few more seconds go by. One, two, three, four. 

You count all the way to ten before the door creaks open, the screen with it. Joel fills the frame, one shoulder leaning against it. The light floods out from behind him, a warm yellow glow spilling into the dark and haloing around his broad shoulders. 

He’s not dressed in work clothes, just an old grey short sleeve and a pair of jeans that ride dangerously low on his hips—a beer bottle held loosely in his left hand. He doesn’t even have shoes on.

You’re hit with a violent wash of déjà vu, your traitorous mind thinking back to the first day you saw him again. 

“Hey,” you say as casually as you can, shifting on your feet. You peer around him into the living room. Empty. “Where’s Sarah?”

Joel doesn’t move, head tilting as he watches you. “She’s stayin’ over at a friends.”

You blink. “Oh.”

“Yeah. Oh.” The corner of Joel’s mouth raises slightly, it’s not quite a smirk, but it’s close. “I texted. You didn’t check your phone?”

You shake your head slowly, but you can’t help the way your brows furrow. You had checked it, right before you left your house, like you awake do. No calls. No texts.

“I must’ve missed it.”

Joel gives you a lazy once over, eyes dragging down your front like a slow lick. “Huh,” he says, but it’s far away. “Guess you might as well come in anyway, wouldn’t want you to waste your time comin’ out here for nothin’.” 

He steps aside, holding the door open expectantly. 

“It’s fine, really.” You laugh, but it’s awkward. “I can just go—”

“Come inside.”

He says it low. Not a suggestion.

You hesitate for half a second, nerves suddenly scraping just beneath your skin. But you step in anyway, brushing past him into the cool dimness of the trailer, the familiar scent of cedar, beer, and Joel hitting your nose all at once. 

The door shuts behind you with a heavy click.

Joel walks past you, sets his beer down on the coffee table before his eyes find yours again. You can see his face better in the light of the living room, his eyes are hard. Dark in a way you haven’t seen in a long time. It has your stomach clenching tightly, the sour edge of alarm churning with arousal inside you.

“It’s good you’re here. We oughta talk.”

You open your mouth, then shut it. His tone is strange—off—but not angry. Amused, almost. You wring your hands behind your back anxiously. “Everything okay?”

“Yeah,” he says, voice low, rough, “I been meanin’ to ask you somethin’. Just been waitin’ for the right time.”

You frown. “Ask me what?”

Joel drags the silence out. He watches you try not to squirm, mouth tilted in another half smirk. 

"You go through my shit, baby?"

Your heart trips three times over in your chest, stomach dropping down to your feet. “I—what?”

Joel huffs hard out his nose, that smug smirk spreads. It’s all teeth now, feral and amused. “Did I stutter?”

You’re shaking now, hands trembling in time with the frantic beat of your pulse. “I just thought—I didn’t think you—”

Joel clicks his tongue, cutting you off. “Yeah that’s the problem, ain’t it? You didn’t think.” He takes one slow step toward you, eyes locked on yours, heavy and dark and hot enough to burn.

“It’s real funny,” he says offhandedly, too casual—like you’re talking about this week’s forecast. “There’s only a few people who’ve been in and outta here lately. And I know Tommy ain’t the one riflin’ through my drawers, takin’ shit that doesn't belong to him. I ain’t dumb, baby.”

Your mouth opens and closes desperately, mind racing to say anything. To lie, to defend yourself, to beg for forgiveness. Nothing comes out. Your throat works around nothing, and your hands are clenched so tightly behind your back they’re going numb.

Joel just hums. A low, throaty sound that vibrates down your spine. His fingers curl under the hem of your shirt, lifting it slightly, just enough to show the little strip of skin above your shorts. “You touch yourself in it?”

The question punches the air from your lungs. You don’t need to ask him what it is.

“I—Joel—”

“Don’t try lyin’ to me.”

Your face burns. You can’t bring yourself to nod, let alone speak. You don’t have to. 

Joel laughs—dark and low, like he already knows the answer. He trails his hand along the skin of your stomach, his touch featherlight. You can’t hide the shiver that wracks through you, goosebumps pebbling along your skin.

His hand falls away, only so he can drop down onto the couch behind him. Legs wide, thighs spread, jeans tugging tight across them as he leans back like he’s settling in for a show. His voice is pure gravel. “Go on, then. Show me what you did.”

You just stand there. Eyes wide. “What?” 

Your voice shakes, quiet and small in the tension. 

Joel shakes his head, sighing like he’s dealing with a stubborn child. He hooks one finger in the waistband of your shorts, tugging. You move without thinking, stepping into the space between his spread thighs.

“See, I don’t wanna have to ask you again, baby. So, are you gonna show me?” he says slowly, his touch dipping low enough to brush over the lacy edge of your panties. “Or am I gonna have to make you?”

Your breath catches in your throat, heat flooding your body in less than a second. “Joel—”

He cocks a brow. “What’s wrong, sweet thing? You were bold enough to sneak into my room, go through my drawers, take what don’t belong to you. Don’t get shy now.”

You feel it then—that impossible to ignore, deep, slick throb between your legs. Shame and heat twisting up your insides. Your whole being pulses with heat, phantom flames lapping over your skin.

You don’t know if you’re more humiliated or turned on—your body doesn’t seem to care either way. Joel hasn’t taken his eyes off you.

There’s no way out of this. And you’re not even sure if you want one.

You bite your lip, cheeks burning as your fingers trail down your belly, under your shorts and down between your thighs. Already wet. Slick with the shame of it, slick with how bad you want him watching you.

Joel swats your hip, not hard enough to sting. Just enough to make you feel it. “No ma’am, none of that shit. Shorts off.”

You freeze, your hand still buried under the waistband, your pulse thudding in your ears like a war drum. Apparently, you don’t move fast enough, not for him, and Joel’s already leaning forward, hands on your hips as he yanks them down himself—your shorts and panties in one brutal tug.

“Fuckin’ brat,” he mutters, almost to himself, dragging the fabric down your thighs and letting it pool at your ankles.

Your breath hitches as he sits back again, arms draped lazily over the back of the couch, dark eyes fixed on the wet heat between your thighs like he’s starving.

You step out of your clothes, naked from the waist down, cheeks burning, heart beating so hard it’s making you lightheaded.

Joel tips his chin toward the floor. “Go on.”

Your stomach flips. You’re sure he can see it, the way your chest heaves, nipples pressing hard into the thin fabric of your top. Your hand drifts between your legs again, slow and shaky. Joel’s eyes follow every motion. Every tremble.

Your middle finger dips down and slides through your folds, slow. You let out a shaky breath. You brush over your clit, and twitch, hips jerking without meaning to.

“That’s it.” Joel nods, his hands clenched into fists. “See how easy it was, sugar? Feel’s good, doesn't it?”

“Yes,” you whisper, your voice threadbare. You’re rubbing yourself faster now, pressure building fast. “It feels so good, Joel.”

Joel groans at his name falling from your lips. “I bet it does. Bet you fucked your fingers into that tight little cunt while smellin’ me on the collar of that damn shirt. You nasty little thing.”

You nod, barely, lips parted as you circle your clit again, breath hitching on contact.

“I should spank your ass red for that,” he growls. “Should bend you over my lap like a fuckin’ child. You need discipline, don’t you?”

Your knees nearly give. “Joel. Please—”

He cuts you off again, gesturing lazily to where your hand disappears between your thighs. “Open her up. Let me see.”

You press two fingers between your folds, spreading them apart so he can see your glistening pussy, sticky and swollen from just a few strokes.

“Goddamn,” Joel groans, reaching down to adjust the thick shape of his cock hard under his jeans. “She’s fuckin’ drippin’. That for me, baby?”

You nod, lips slack as your thighs tremble.

“Yeah,” he drawls, stretching the word like out taffy between his teeth. “That’s real pretty.”

You moan at that. Loud and desperate. Your touch dip that much lower to push one finger inside. Then another, like you just can’t help yourself. You’re so wet there’s no resistance, your pussy welcoming them in like it’s done this a hundred times thinking of him. Slick drips down your thighs, shining under the light of the lamp.

Joel licks his lips slowly, deliberately. “Look at that.” He leans forward, pupils wide and dark as an oil spill. “Just a little rub like that, a little stretch and you’re already makin’ a mess.”

You whimper, hips rocking against your hand. “Joel, I—”

“Give yourself another finger. Show me how you take it”

You grind down onto your own fingers, mouth slack with soft moans that breathe to life before you can muffle them. You press in a third finger. The stretch burns, but you don’t stop. You’re panting now, skin dewy, hips jerking forward to meet your hand. Joel watches like a man starved.

He grins, smug and handsome and infuriating. “Yeah, three feels nice don’t it, honey?” He reaches out, his hand sliding up your thigh in one slow motion, lazy and unhurried through the slick. “Bet you could take my whole fuckin’ fist if you wanted it real bad.”

A pathetic little whine fills the air, more of a mewl than anything. It takes you a second to realize you’re the one making the noise, so desperate and gone from the tiniest amount of touch. It makes your walls clamp down harder around your fingers.

Joel sees. Joel knows.

And it’s all he needs to finally break.

“Come here,” he growls suddenly, jerking his head impatiently.

You scramble over, straddling him, bare thighs spread over his denim clad ones. Joel undoes his belt with one hand, the clink of the metal making your pulse trip. He pulls himself out of his soaked boxers, hard and straining, the rosy head drooling precome onto his shirt when it slaps up to rest against his stomach.

Your mouth falls open at the sight of it, flushed and big. Bigger than you’ve ever seen, outside of guilty late night porn searches. 

Joel chuckles darkly, taking himself in his hand. He strokes himself slowly, twisting his wrist over the head. “You think you can take all this?” he taunts meanly, dragging the tip through your folds, wetting himself with your slick. “You’re just a baby, sweetheart. You think you can handle this dick?”

You moan as he rubs himself over your sensitive clit, warm and wet. Your hips twitch down, desperate for more. Your pussy clenches around nothing, overwhelmingly empty.

He slaps your ass, hard. He kneads the tender skin in his rough hand after, dragging out the sting. “How old am I? Tell me, honey. Say it.”

You gasp, eyes screwing shut in embarrassment. “Fifty–ah! Fifty three,” you breathe, not looking Joel in the eye as you say it.

You can’t, not with the humiliation coursing through your veins like pure kerosine. It’s white hot, burning so bright, but it’s still not enough to stop your pussy from dripping sticky all over his cock like a broken faucet.

“Damn right,” he growls. “Old enough to be your fuckin’ daddy.”

Joel thrusts into you in one brutal push.

You scream. Your nails dig into his shoulders hard enough that you feel the thin material of his shirt straining under it. The stretch feels like it’s tearing you in two, like your fingers didn’t do anything to prepare you for his cock carving a place for itself inside you.

Joel kisses you, sucks the noise right off your tongue. He tastes like beer, like sweat and salt and something that’s only him. You moan into his mouth, your fingers threading into the soft hair curling at the nape of his neck.

He pulls back, a string of spit connecting your lips until it bends and breaks under the weight of gravity. “Come on, darlin’.” He slaps your ass again—once, twice—and you squeal, the burn sharp and perfect. “You wanted to fuck me so bad you couldn’t keep those thievin’ hands to yourself, huh? Well now’s your chance. Fuck me, give it to me good.”

You don’t ease into it, too worked to even think about starting slow.

You bounce on his lap like you’re possessed, thighs slapping, slick drenching his jeans. Joel groans with every roll of your hips, low and drawn out. He lets his head fall back against the couch, the tan column of his throat on display.

“Been waitin’ for this,” he pants. “Since the day you showed back up. Actin’ all grown. Look at you now. Cryin’ on my cock.”

You’re drooling. Dizzy. Brain turned to static as you ride him, his hands gripping your hips so tight you know you’ll bruise.

“You’re so fuckin’ tight,” he growls, raising his head to watch you. “This pussy wasn’t made for boys your age. Needs a man to stretch it out. To ruin it.”

You whine, your pussy tightening around the throbbing length of his cock. Joel notices, of course he does.

His hands grip your ass, urging your hips up and down faster. “You like that, sweet thing? You like lettin’ an old man fuck you raw like this?”

“Yes,” you whine, tears burning at your water line. “I love it, want you to come inside me so bad Joel, fuck-”

“I know, baby.” Joel kisses your cheek, softly. Too soft, too tender. “You ain’t ever gonna want some college boy after this. You’re gonna be thinkin’ about how Mr. Miller fucked you open better than they could.”

Your moan is muffled by his fingers pushing between your slack lips, filling your mouth. You whine at the taste of yourself coating his skin, sucking obediently as he presses them down on your tongue.

“Gonna make you mine,” he pants. “Mine. No more sneakin’ around, no more stealin’ my shit—you want something, you ask for it like a big girl, and I’ll fuckin’ give it to you.”

You shake your head, babbling around his fingers. “Yes—yes, only you. I’m yours—”

You can feel your orgasm building deep in your belly, the coil of pleasure tightening and tightening until it threatens to snap.

Joel rips his fingers from your mouth with a dark growl, reaching back down to grip your ass again. He spreads you open, the cool air making you gasp. One finger, wet with your own spit, rubs over your rim. 

He doesn’t push in—just teases, circling, pressing, tugging—enough to make you clench and cry out as he starts pounding up into you. His hips lifting off the couch and filling the room with the loud noise of skin on skin as his balls slap against your ass with every thrust. Your pussy squelching around him with dirty, wet noises would make your ears burn if you weren’t so far gone already.

“You gonna let me play with this too?” he murmurs, lips brushing against your. “You lettin’ me train this hole next?”

That’s it. It’s all you can take.

You shatter with a scream, pussy squeezing so tight it makes Joel snarl and buck wildly up into you. He grabs your ass, choking out a strained string of  “fuck, fuck, fuck—”

He curses, pulls you down hard onto his cock one last time as he spills inside you, so deep you swear you feel it behind your ribs. His head drops to your shoulder, breath ragged as he comes and comes. 

It feels endless, spurt after spurt of hot spend flooding your walls until it’s forced to leak back out along the fever hot skin of his cock, slipping down his balls to drip onto the couch.

It’s filthy.

It’s obscene.

It’s exactly what you wanted.

You both lean into each other, breathless and spent as you come down. Sweat drips down your back, rolling down your spine as your hands stay buried in his hair.

Joel strokes your thigh lazily, still inside you, watching the mess drip down where you’re spread open around him.

“You’re stayin’ the night,” he says simply.

You can’t fight the tiny, secret smile you press against the sweaty skin of his throat as you nod wordlessly, thighs still shaking violently around his hips.

You’d never make it to the door anyway.

MINI NAT'S NOTE: what's so funny to me about this is that i didn't realize how much i actually missed writing for joel until i took a little mini break to work on my other frankie and harry fics like it’s so dramatic truly, but baby we’re so back! back and hopefully pissing off the joel age gap haters!

shoutouts to baby rylea for giving me the flannel idea cause this fic might have been lost without it. it was rescued from being just another abandoned wip and instead turned into a literal monster which was never supposed to happen but uh that's chill i guess…two fics over 10k words in one month? that’s literally unheard of over here. ALSO my first venture into ass play to spite @ebodebo and @yuenity sooo that’s fun. i love them both really LMAO

once again it's four a.m because i just can't function like a normal person. thank you to femme bot by charli xcx, pink red bull, and ofc my geeky bar for letting me power through and finish this mess. okay i'm done now sorry for talking so much, i just love yapping to you guys :(( thank you so much for reading, love you!

[realbeefman]

we deserved an episode of house where wilson becomes patient of the week and they can't figure out what's wrong with him until eventually house figures out that he's having the worst reaction to the fucking erectile dysfunction pills he got from the GAS STATION. then they have sex in the hopital ofcourse.

[krirebr]

More Than This 4

Pairing: Ransom Drysdale x f!reader, Steve Rogers & f!reader

Word Count: ~6.1k

Summary: Arranged marriages have always been used to solidify business deals among the ultra-wealthy. Your stepfather wants to be in business with Harlan Thrombey, so now it's your turn.

Warnings: Heavy angst, age difference, adult themes, institutional sexism, Linda being Linda, a panic attack, p in v sex, sex in maybe not the best mindset, explicit language, the slooowest burn - Warnings will be added as needed for subsequent parts. All of my work is 18+ - Minors DNI

Dividers by @saradika-graphics

Series Masterlist

Masterlist

A/N: I thought this was gonna be a short one. 😂

Gigantic thanks as always to @paperweight91 who helped me figure out what the problem was when I was really struggling to feel inspired on this one, and then later on when the narrative took a bit of a turn that I wasn't expecting, she helped me navigate it and come out the other side. Chelsea, you continue to be the very best!

And an additional hat tip to @thezombieprostitute, who left a comment on the last part that inspired part of Linda's visit here. Thanks, dear!!

Unsurprisingly probably, this is another sad one. But I hope it'll be worth it!

Any comment, reblog, or ask to let me know what you think will be greatly appreciated. And if you need to come scream at me, that's ok too!

As always, thank you so much for reading! 💜

You’ve reached the phone of Steve Rogers. Please leave a message after the beep.

“Hey, Steve. It’s me. Again. Your sister. Um, shit. Yeah, you’re at work now, aren’t you? Sorry, I still haven’t gotten used to the time difference. I got your texts, and, uh, everything is fine. I’m– I’m doing good. But I miss you. And it’d be nice to hear your voice. But I’m fine, I’m good, I promise. I just– I’ll try again soon. Love you. Ok. Bye.”

You hung up and sighed, setting your phone down beside you. You hadn’t actually spoken to Steve since you’d gotten on the plane a week ago. Which was fine. You were doing fine. He’d texted you. And he was busy. You knew he was. It’d be easier, you thought if you were too. But everything had been unpacked. The housekeeper took care of all the upkeep of the house and you got the distinct impression that she didn’t much care for your “help,” so now when she was here you mostly tried to stay out of her way. Even Lola was getting tired of going for walks around the neighborhood.

You’d barely seen your husband since your disastrous attempt at sex. He’d been avoiding you, leaving early in the morning and coming home late at night. You hadn’t talked about what happened. You’d barely talked about anything.  

You looked at your laptop on the coffee table and exited out of the WebMD entry on erectile dysfunction. That wasn’t helping. With nothing to do and no one to talk to, all you could do was think about what would happen to you if you couldn’t get Ransom to fuck you. If you didn’t get pregnant. You still hadn’t seen the contract and weren’t sure what the actual terms were, but you knew the consequences would be nothing good. 

Steve had had an aunt on his mother’s side who’d been found in breach of contract and had her marriage dissolved. You never really knew her, but you remembered how Joseph talked about her, about the desperate arrangement she’d eventually had to settle for, the sadness in Steve’s eyes whenever she came up. That wouldn’t be you, couldn’t be you. You knew you wouldn’t even start to feel secure in your arrangement until that part of the contract had been fulfilled. You just needed to figure out how.

But, dwelling on it wasn’t helping. Googling possible causes of Ransom’s issue wasn’t helping (although it was better than listening to the voice in your head that wouldn’t stop telling you that he just didn’t want to touch you). You needed something to do. Back in LA, you’d worked part-time at an art gallery Steve had introduced you to. You’d mostly answered the phones and greeted people as they came in, but you’d liked it. There had to be something like that available in Boston. And at least trying to find it would give you something to focus on.

So you lost yourself in compiling a list of galleries you could try to contact, sitting on the couch with Lola curled up beside you. When Ransom came home late that night, that’s how he found you. You looked up, startled when he came in the door, and found a similar expression on his face. 

“Oh,” he said. “You’re still up,” as he took off his coat and shoes.

“Yeah,” you said, not knowing what else to say.

He nodded and came as far as the beginning of the living area, then stopped and just stared at you for a moment. You waited for whatever it was he was going to say. Then, finally, “How was your day?”

“It was fine,” then, gathering your courage and hoping you wouldn’t be shut down, you added, “I started to look for a job.”

“Oh,” he looked mildly surprised. “Do you have any experience?”

You pushed down the tinge of hurt that bubbled up at that. The question wasn’t completely uncalled for. Many of your friends back home had never worked a day in their lives. But you couldn’t help feeling a little defensive when you answered, “Yes, I worked at the front desk of an art gallery back home. I liked it. I’d like to find something like that here.”

Ransom hummed thoughtfully as he nodded. “Well,” he said, looking off into the corner of the room, “uh, let me know if there’s anything I can do to help with that.”

“Oh,” you said, too surprised to say anything else for a moment. You’d been sure he’d say no. You weren’t quite sure what to do with an offer of help, of all things. And you would need his help if you got the job, with a way to get yourself there at the very least. But you didn’t want to jinx it or push things too far right now, so you just said, “Thank you. I will.” And then, “Uh, how was your day?”

“It was fine,” he said, stiffly. “Busy, I’ve been really busy. And I’m, uh, I’m exhausted now. So I’m going to go straight to bed. Feel free to stay up as late as you want. Obviously.” And just like that, he turned on his heel and left the room. 

You should’ve gone after him, maybe. Made him talk to you about it. Or just taken your clothes off while he was talking (although that hadn’t worked the first time). Something. But you were tired too and you just didn’t have it in you, as important as you knew it was. 

So, you gave it about half an hour before you went to bed yourself, going through your nighttime routine as quietly as you could in the ensuite. When you went back out to the bedroom, you found Lola already on the bed, curled up against Ransom’s side. You stopped, wondering if you should move her. She’d slept in the bed with you for the last four nights, ever since that awful night, and Ransom hadn’t said anything about making her stop. And he obviously hadn’t noticed her snuggling up next to him, so maybe it was fine. You climbed in next to her and wrapped your body around hers, ignoring the way it made you brush up against Ransom, too.

The next afternoon, you were busying yourself with trying to reorganize your walk-in closet, when you heard someone moving around downstairs. It wasn’t one of the housekeeper’s days, so you made sure you had your phone on you and started down the stairs with caution. 

When you got about halfway down, you saw Linda standing in the middle of the living room. “Linda!” you exclaimed, unable to hide your shock at her standing before you. “Ransom didn’t tell me you’d be stopping by. I didn’t know you had a key.”

“Of course, I do, I’m his mother. And I’m the one who set him up with this house.” She cast a judgemental eye on the room. “I see you’ve been moving some things around.”

“Oh,” you said, now at the bottom of the stairs and looking around a little worriedly. You’d tried so hard to disrupt as little as possible. “Not much, I don’t think. Just a little to make room for my own things.”

Linda hummed in a way that made you want to shrink inside yourself. “Well,” she said and held out a gift bag. “I brought you a little something.”

“You didn’t have to do that,” you said, forcing a smile as you took the gift, slightly afraid of what might be in it. You glanced inside, moving aside the tissue paper to find about a dozen pregnancy tests. “Oh,” you said, afraid if you said anything more you might burst into tears. It was fine it was fine it was fine.

“Just want you to be prepared,” she said.

“Thank you,” you forced out. “You really shouldn’t have.” 

“Well,” she clapped her hands together, “why don’t you get us some coffee?”

You forced another smile, trying to cover the panic you felt that she was staying. “Yes, of course.” You took your time getting the coffee prepared in the kitchen. Once it was ready, and you had the cream and sugar and everything else gathered on a tray, you couldn’t delay it any longer and brought everything out to the living room. Linda helped herself to a mug, finishing it to her liking as you did the same. You caught, though, the little face she made at her first sip. That was fine, it was her son’s fucking coffee.

“This is nice,” she said, in that particular syrupy tone of voice she had that meant she was trying too hard to seem friendly. “Just the two of us. Overdue.”

You made yourself nod. “Yes,” you said, “It’s great to see you.”

“I was talking to Ransom this morning, and he mentioned that you’re looking for a job?”

“Oh,” you started, something about her tone making you cautious, “yeah, you know, something to keep me occupied. I used to work at an art gallery and I’m hoping I can do something similar here.”

She took a sip of her coffee, then pursed her lips. “Well, that sounds lovely. But are you sure it’s a good idea with a baby on the way?”

You did your best to chuckle, trying to keep things light as you felt a sinking feeling in your stomach. “I’m not pregnant yet, Linda.”

“Maybe not, but you will be soon. And do you really think it’s fair to get a job when you’re just going to have to quit in a few weeks anyway?”

You stared at her confused, your own coffee now forgotten. “We don’t know exactly when I’ll get pregnant.” You may not care for Ransom much, but you certainly weren’t going to discuss his possible impotence with his mother. Or the fact that he just didn’t want you. “And I don’t understand why I would have to quit once I got pregnant anyway.”

“Well, I’m sure Ransom won’t want you working once you’re pregnant. He’ll want you to focus on growing his child and getting everything prepared for the baby.”

You felt the air go out of your lungs. All you could do was gape at her. What? You flashed back to the wedding, to Harlan telling you how good you were going to be for Ransom. To your mother telling you to keep him happy. To Joseph’s speech barely even mentioning you. It was like you as a person didn’t exist anymore. You were just here for him. Your whole life set up just to cater to him. You felt the tears starting to gather in your eyes, but you would not cry in front of this woman. 

“But,” you started, “you worked all through your pregnancy and Ransom’s childhood, didn’t you? I don’t understand why I wouldn’t be able to, too.”

“Oh,” she said, as she gave you the most condescending look you might have ever received, “I see. You think you and I are the same. Sweetheart, no. I helped my father choose my arraignment. I came into it with my own money, having already established myself. A real career, not some silly part-time gallery job. I’m the one who supports Richard. I’ve always had the power. I was never you. And you will never be me. So, how about you let Ransom take good care of you and you focus on the things that you can give him, hmm?”

You just stared at her, feeling suddenly numb. What the fuck were you supposed to say to that? You’d only spoken to her a few times and every single time she’d made you feel so small, insignificant, weak. 

She placed her mug on the table and stood up. “I’ll get out of your hair now, dear, but this was so nice. We’ll have to do it again soon.” She stood in front of you as all you could do was sit and stare. She raised her perfectly manicured eyebrow at you and you finally realized that she wanted you to stand. You robotically did so, still so numb from this short visit. As soon as you were upright, she gave you a stiff hug and patted you on the shoulder. “I’m so glad we were able to put this silly job idea to bed,” she said. “I’ll show myself out. Have a good rest of your day, darling.” And then she was gone and you were left standing alone in the middle of Ransom’s living room.

You spent the rest of the afternoon running Linda’s visit through your mind, over and over. The thing you couldn’t understand was why, if Ransom was so against you working, he hadn’t said anything about it last night. Wouldn’t it have been easier to just tell you no right away, rather than siccing his mother on you the next day? Why would he say yes? Was it just so that he could look like the good guy before he had his mom do his dirty work for him? Was he really that much of a chickenshit? 

When you got to a point when you thought you might actually drive yourself crazy if you thought about it anymore, you got your phone out and tried, once again, to call Steve. 

You’ve reached the phone of Steve Rogers. Please leave a message after the beep.

You wanted to scream. You were so fucking tired of talking to his machine. Every time you thought you couldn’t feel more alone, you just fell deeper.

“Hey, Steve. Um, I’d really love it if you could call me back. I know you’re busy. I don’t mean to– I’m sorry. I just– I just really miss you. I’d really like to talk to you. I love you. Ok. Bye.”

You hung up and then just stared at your black phone screen for a moment. You couldn’t just sit in the house anymore. “Lola!” you called out into the house, not sure of where she’d gotten off to. “Want to go for a walk?”

Ransom didn’t come home that night, the absolute fucking coward.

When you woke up the next day, you couldn’t tell if Ransom’s side of the bed had been slept in or not. Lola was sprawled across it, taking up much more space than her tiny body would indicate. You decided not to dwell on it.

There was a text message from Steve, sent in the middle of the night.

Hey chipmunk. I’m so sorry I keep missing your calls. I’ve been absolutely slammed this week. I’ll try to call you soon. Hope you’re doing ok. I miss you so much. Love you.

You couldn’t stop staring at it. The childhood nickname combined with the distance the message represented made your whole chest ache. 

As the day wore on, you didn’t know what to do with yourself. The housekeeper didn’t want you around. All the unpacking was done. You couldn’t look for a job. You tried to read but you couldn’t focus. You called Steve but he didn’t pick up, again, and you just didn’t have it in you to leave another message.  

You felt like you sleepwalked through the whole day, so when Ransom walked in in the evening, you were startled to realize the day was gone.

Lola lept off your lap on the couch and ran to him as soon as he came in the door, hopping up and down and prancing in front of him. He froze, his scarf halfway off his neck and caught in his hands. “What is it doing?” he asked, turning to you, absolutely bewildered.

“I– I don’t know,” you said, staring at your dog. It was stupid, you knew it was so stupid, but you couldn’t help the frisson of betrayal that ran through you. She was supposed to be yours. She was supposed to love you, only you. And now she was consorting with the enemy. And you were jealous of a dog. But what else did you have? Your husband wouldn’t touch you, your brother wouldn’t call you back, and now your dog loved someone else. It all made you want to sob. “I think she’s happy to see you.”

He looked at you aghast. “Why?!”

“I don’t know,” you said again. “Lola,” you called, but she was still hopping up and down in front of Ransom. “Lola!” She turned at your stern tone and reluctantly ran back to you. You picked her up and cradled her in your arms. “Sorry,” you said to Ransom, then quietly murmured, “What were you doing?” into her fur. You glanced at the time. “You’re home early.”

“Uh, yeah,” he said, somewhat sheepish. “Finally got out of work at a decent hour.”

“Oh.” It felt so weird to have him here. “I guess we could have dinner. Have you eaten?”

“Uh, no. Dinner sounds great.” He finally came out of the entryway and began digging through his fridge, pulling out two of the pre-prepared meals his housekeeper kept there. 

As he put them in the microwave, all you could do was stare at him. You’d had the last twenty-four hours to stew in your anger and sadness and now all you really felt was tired. There was nothing you could do. It was his house, his family that held the strings. You were far from home with no one to back you up. He’d seen to it that you didn’t have a job to fall back on. All you could do was go along with what he wanted. The only thing you could do was make your place here more secure. As he bent down to get a plate out of the microwave, you blurted out, “Why won’t you fuck me?”

He straightened up quickly and stared at you. “What the fuck?!”

“I just–” you tried, “Has that happened before? Your problem. I’ve read that as men get older that happens sometimes.”

“I’m thirty-five, not fucking sixty. What the actual fuck?” He loudly dropped the plate down in front of you. “Eat your fucking food. I’m not talking about this.”

You sullenly started in on your food, it was pasta. You barely tasted it. You needed to keep talking about this, but doing it while he was angry probably wasn’t the best approach. 

He heated up the other plate and then joined you, taking a seat next to you at the island. You both ate in silence, until he finally said, “I just don’t think this is anything we need to rush into. We have plenty of time.”

You looked up at him. Of course, he wouldn’t think there was any rush. Of course, he didn’t have any personal stakes in you getting pregnant. Of course, he could forbid you from working but then deny you the one thing that would give you something to fucking do here. Something that would take a portion of your anxiety away. “We don’t actually,” you growled. “We have no idea how long it’s going to take me to get pregnant.”

“You keep saying that, but I just– I think rushing it would be a mistake. We have more time than you think and putting this off until we know each other better is a good idea.”

And suddenly, you saw red. Every single fucking thing was on his terms. His hometown, his family, his house, his things, his staff, his single car, his timetable. “And how are we supposed to do that, huh?” you yelled, standing up now. “When you’re gone before I wake up and you cross your fingers I’m in bed before you get home. If you even come home! When exactly is this getting to know each other supposed to happen?!”

“Hey!” he yelled, standing up as well. Lola ran upstairs at the sound of his stool scraping against the hardwood. “Calm the fuck down! What is the big fucking deal if we wait a few months rather than doing it right now?”

“Because the longer we wait the less time I’ll have to get pregnant! And the more likely it’ll be that it won’t happen and we’ll nullify the contract and our marriage will be dissolved. And you’ll be fucking fine! You’ll still be your grandfather’s and your mother’s heir. Nothing will happen to you. But I’ll be sent back to Joseph. I’ll have to accept a second arrangement with anyone who will take me. I’ll– I’ll–” You couldn’t breathe. You couldn’t breathe. The room was getting smaller, pressing in on you, and you couldn’t breathe. 

You sank down to the floor and suddenly Ransom was in front of you. He called your name, but it was hard to process it. He called it again and you made eye contact with him. “You’re having a panic attack. You’re ok. You’re alright. I’m here.” He was speaking so quietly, so gently. “I’m here to help you, ok? I’m going to stay with you.” You nodded as best you could. “Can I touch you?” he asked, and you immediately shook your head. “Ok,” he said quickly, “that’s fine. That’s ok. I won’t touch you. You’re breathing too fast, ok? You need to slow down. Can you breathe with me? Come on, do it with me.” And then he breathed in slowly and you tried to match his rhythm. In and out, in and out, so slowly. At some point, he started counting. In 1 2 3 4 5. Out 1 2 3 4 5. Eventually, you could do it on your own, without him coaching you. 

You spent a few more minutes on the floor with him, you both just breathing at each other. Then finally you were able to find your words. “I’m ok,” you said. “I’m alright. Sorry. I’m sorry.”

“Nothing to apologize for,” he said, still so gentle. “Nothing at all. Can you get up?” You nodded and he helped you up. “Are you hungry?” he asked and you shook your head. “Ok, I’ll clean the food up later. Can I help you upstairs?” You nodded and he, very carefully, put his hand on your back, so slowly that you had all the time in the world to pull away. His touch was warm, soft. His touch was always so soft with you.

He guided you to the bedroom where Lola was already on the bed, shaking steadily and looking at you with big, fearful eyes. You climbed on and curled up next to her. “You’re ok,” you whispered to her. “I’m sorry we scared you.” She scooted so she was snuggled up right against you and you carded your fingers through her fur, scratching gently.

Ransom hovered at the foot of the bed. “Thank you,” you said quietly.

“Of course,” he said. “Has that happened before?”

You shook your head. “No, I don’t think so. How did you know how to help?”

“Oh, uh,” he rubbed his hand over the back of his neck, looking down at the floor, “I used to get them when I was a kid. I had a nanny who, uh, she was really good about them.”

You just nodded, feeling like you should tuck away that information. You knew so little about him, real things that hadn’t been in the binder. You wanted to file away everything you could.

“Are you– Will you be ok if I go take care of the food?”

You nodded again. “Yeah,” you said, softly. “I’ll be fine. Lola will take care of me. Won’t you, baby?” Lola flopped onto her back so that you could give her tummy scratches and you let out a soft giggle. You smiled up at Ransom, to reassure him. And he just sort of stopped. And stared at you. Your brow furrowed as you became self-conscious under his gaze and your smile started to drop. 

He suddenly shook himself out of whatever had been happening and nodded. “Yeah, ok. Yell if you need me,” and he darted out of the room. 

You weren’t sure exactly how long he was gone. You passed the time snuggling with Lola, taking comfort in her. You felt shaky and raw. And scared, still scared of everything that could happen, everything you’d yelled at Ransom about. And Ransom himself, how he would take to being yelled at like that, once he was done being worried. 

You heard his heavy footfalls at the top of the stairs and looked up as he came back into the room. He sat on the edge of the bed and turned so you could see half his face. “I didn’t–” he started and stopped. Then, after another moment, “I didn’t realize you were so worried about all of this.”

“How would you?” you asked, your eyes cast down, locked on Lola as you continued to pet her. “You’re never here. We never talk.”

“I’ve been really busy,” he said, just a tinge of defensiveness in his tone. “Work’s been awful.” He paused, then repeated, “I’ve been really busy.”

“Sure,” you said.

Neither of you said anything for long minutes. You just kept petting Lola, your hand moving over her body rhythmically. 

Then finally, Ransom said lowly, “We can work on it. Getting pregnant. If that will make you feel better. Make things easier for you.”

“Can we?” you asked. “I don’t know if what happened– if that was something that happens to you a lot, or if,” you looked back down, “or if you just don’t want me.”

He moved his hand so that his fingertips grazed yours on the bed. “It’s not that. It wasn’t ever that, ok?” You couldn’t help the way your whole body heated, just a bit, at the implication. You looked up just as he tilted his head back and closed his eyes. “I just– You were clearly so scared. You wanted to be anywhere else, I could tell. You wouldn’t let me touch you, you wouldn’t even look at me. I can’t do it like that. I just can’t.” He opened his eyes and looked right at you. “I just can’t.”

“Oh,” you said quietly. “That’s– I’m sorry, I–”

He shook his head. “No, that’s not– I just thought you should know.”

You sat quietly together for a few moments. Then you took a deep breath and said, “I think we should try again.”

He gave you a surprised look. “Now?” You nodded resolutely but he shook his head back at you. “You’re still coming down from your panic attack. This can wait til tomorrow.”

In the aftermath of your anxiety, the anger you’d felt had mostly faded away, but now it bubbled back up again. You were so tired of him dictating how everything would go. “No,” you said firmly. “I don’t want to put it off anymore. I’m fine now. This will make things better.”

He just looked at you, searching your face for something. You tried to show him how calm you were now, how sure. Finally, he let out a long sigh. “Fine,” he said. Then he got off the bed and started taking off his clothes. You scrambled up onto your knees to take your top off, gently coaxing Lola off the bed. She looked up at you, waiting for you to join her, but Ransom, now clad only in his boxers, picked her up, gently you noted, and deposited her in the hallway, shutting the door behind her. He looked at you as you continued to strip down to just your bra and panties, his eyes running over your body, and for the first time, you felt it. Maybe he did want you.

He climbed back on the bed. “Can I kiss you?” he asked. You froze for just a second, then nodded. He slowly brought his mouth to yours and caressed your lips with his own. His lips were soft and warm. The kiss was hesitant on both sides, not exactly passionate, but not chaste either. Nowhere near the worst you’d ever had. A quiet arousal began to pool in your core. Not need, not exactly. But it would be enough, you thought. You broke the kiss and laid down on your back. “I’m not trying to shut you out,” you said, trying to keep your tone kind, “but it’ll be faster, I think, if we both just get ourselves ready.” You started the same as last time, one hand on your breast, the other slowly traveling down your body to play with the hem of your panties. “But you can watch,” you added. “If that’s something you like.” 

He cleared his throat and nodded. Then he reached over and lightly grabbed your underwear with both hands. “Is this ok?” he asked.

“Yeah,” you breathed, trying to push down your nerves. Everything was ok, this was what needed to happen. You were fine. You were ok.

He pulled your panties down your legs, then tossed them on top of his own clothes. You closed your eyes to focus again on your goto fantasy. The man standing over you. His voice in your ear. And again, you heard the sounds of Ransom getting himself ready. The snick of him opening the bottle of lube. The wet sounds of his hand working over his cock. This time you didn’t let it bother you. This time, you willed yourself not to flinch when you felt his hand on your leg. You had two fingers in your cunt and you worked yourself open, your thumb rubbing over your clit. Once you were wet enough, stretched enough, you opened your eyes and sat up. Ransom was staring at you, one hand on his hard cock, kneeling in front of you. 

“Ok,” you said, “I think I’m ready.” He started to move forward, but you stopped him with a hand on his bare chest. “Can I be on top?” you asked. “Is that ok?”

He looked down at where you were touching him and then back up at your face. “Yeah,” he grunted. “Yeah.”

You switched places as he laid down and you moved over him, straddling his pelvis and then carefully lowering yourself onto his cock. You tried not to grimace as he stretched you. He grunted again, as you slowly took more and more of him. Both of his hands came up to grasp your hips as you began to ride him, slowly at first, then picking up your pace. He was staring at your body and it was– it was a lot. Too much. You closed your eyes against it, hoping you just looked like you were into it. As he got closer, he started to buck up into you. You couldn't help but gasp at it. One of his hands moved from your hip to rub circles with his thumb over your clit, the rest of his hand splayed over your pelvis. You breathed through it, trying to let go enough to let yourself come, but you could tell that wasn’t going to happen. That was ok. That didn’t need to happen. Only one of you needed to come tonight.

He continued to buck up into you, his movements becoming more erratic. You balanced yourself with your hands on his shoulders. “Can I–” he grunted. “I’m gonna– Can I move you?”

“Yeah,” you whispered. “Yeah.”

He sat up and tucked you into him, rolling you both over so that you were now on your back and he was on top of you. He thrust back into you, once, twice, three times, and then he was coming, filling you up. His whole body stuttered over you and then collapsed on top of you. He breathed into your neck for countless moments and you didn’t know why, but you brought your hand up to gently stroke at the short hairs at the base of his skull. “Do you need me to–” he started to ask.

“No,” you said, knowing he was offering to help you finish. “I’m fine. Good. I’m good.”

You felt him nod, just a little, but he didn’t say anything else. It was so quiet, just the sounds of him catching his breath. Then he placed a soft kiss where your neck met your shoulder and lifted himself up and off you. You whimpered, just a little, as he pulled out. 

You quickly lifted your hips up to keep his cum inside of you. You reached blindly next to your head until you found a pillow that you shoved under your lower back to keep your pelvis canted up. Ransom moved around the room, picking his underwear off the floor, and then into the bathroom. A few minutes later he came back out with a washcloth. He moved it towards your cunt and you shot a hand out. “No! Wait.”

“Hey,” he said softly, “it’s ok. Just for your thighs. I know. I understand.” He gently moved the warm washcloth over your legs. “Are you alright?” He asked, not quite meeting your eyes. “Was that ok?”

“Yeah,” you said, moving your hand to brush along his forearm. “I’m alright. That was good.”

You lay in bed as Ransom lightly snored on his stomach next to you, Lola curled up between you. You couldn’t sleep. You’d been tossing and turning for about an hour, probably. You sat up. It was no use. Your mind was too busy. Sleep wasn’t going to come.

You grabbed your phone and got out of bed, moving downstairs to the living room as quietly as you could. You curled up on the couch and hugged your knees. You weren’t sure how you felt. It had been fine. Parts of it had even been good, maybe. It’d just, it’d been a long night. You’d gone through so many feelings, and now– Now, you just felt a little empty.

You looked at your phone. It was just before midnight. That meant it’d be a little before nine in LA. Steve hopefully wouldn’t still be working, but he wouldn’t be asleep yet either. He might be out, or painting, or busy some other way, but. It was worth a shot. 

It only rang once. “Oh my god! I’m so sorry!” Steve gasped. “Work has been a fucking nightmare, but that’s no excuse. I was going to try to call you tomorrow, but I’m so, so glad you called me now. How are you? Are you ok?”

The tears had started as soon as you heard your brother’s voice. “Steve,” was all you could get out before you were full-on crying.

“Oh, chipmunk, no. What’s wrong?”

You wiped your eyes and took a deep breath, trying to get yourself together. You finally had your brother on the phone. You weren’t going to waste the whole conversation crying. “Nothing,” you managed. “I’m ok, I just– I’m just so happy to talk to you.”

“Yeah,” Steve said, and you thought that maybe his voice sounded a little thick too. “Me too. I’m so happy to talk to you. I’m so sorry it’s been so long. How are you doing? Your messages, you sounded– Are you ok?”

You sniffled as you tried to nod and then realized he couldn’t see it. “Yeah, I’m fine, I’m good. It’s just a little lonely here. I miss you so much.”

“I miss you too. Everything’s so different here without you. Shit, it’s late there. What are you doing up?”

You shrugged. “Just couldn’t sleep. It’s been a long day.”

Steve hummed and there was a tone to it you couldn’t quite decipher. “Is Ransom there?”

“Yeah, he’s asleep upstairs.”

“And how is he?” Steve’s tone was decidedly cold now.

“He’s fine,” you said, ignoring it. “His work’s been really busy too.”

“And how’s he been to you?” he asked and you definitely didn’t miss the challenge there.

“He’s been fine, Steve,” you said and you weren’t sure whether or not it was a lie. “Everything’s fine.” You’d already decided you weren’t going to tell him about the job thing. That wouldn’t do anything but upset him. Get him on a plane here, maybe, so he could try throwing his weight around. You rolled your eyes. It was better this way. “I’ve just been unpacking mostly. Nothing too exciting. What about you? What’s going on with you? I want to hear everything.”

“You’re sure it’s not too late there?”

“No, not at all. I’m wide awake. And nothing much to get up for in the morning anyway. But if you’re busy or need to go to bed or something, you can go whenever you need to.”

“Not a chance. I wanna talk to you as long as I can,” Steve said. And you knew he couldn’t see it, but you grinned into the phone anyway.

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[dreamsofbroflovski]

Okay one, when Butters is super horny and it's just you two he'll hump your leg without realizing it and two can we have HCS of the main 4 + Butters with a reader that doesn't finish easily cuz they're on antidepressants? U don't gotta go into detail but it's a similar thing that I struggle with :3/nf

- 🐣 anon

 #1 - ABSOLUTELY. In your sleep too...

 #2 - Here it is! Hope I did it justice. I might've been a bit too honest about how I see these people. was it made clear i have a favourite? no?

Also, for the people that have sent me asks with requests and stuff: I did not yeet them into the void. I try to do the most I can, so if I haven't gotten to your ask yet, it's very likely I'm holding onto it because I either need another request done first (I guess y'all have noticed how slow I am) or need to converse with my three brain cells (which only awaken in a very specific planetary position) before I can actually write it.

MAIN 4 + BUTTERS HEADCANONS - ANORGASMIC READER

𓆩♡𓆪 STAN MARSH

Eeeeh… Well, sorry. But the very first thing this dude will do is blame himself.

After your first time together when he cums and realizes you didn’t, it’s an automatic shift in the mood from chill and sexy to absolutely dark. He fully sulks, thinking he’s the most selfish motherfucker on the planet, that you’re definitely going to leave him and you should because he doesn’t deserve you.

Which then makes it a shock when you actually explain to him what’s going on - it involves you opening up about some rather personal subjects, and he pays close attention to every word, slowly feeling even worse for making your problems about himself. Out of nowhere, it turns into the both of you butt naked talking about life.

You bond over something. He drowns himself in alcohol to escape his own depression, right? Alcohol can cause erectile dysfunction. At first he didn’t imagine his problem could be similar to yours - but, even if it’s not the same thing, he feels a bit… seen, in a way. Less ashamed of himself.

The concept of things maybe getting a bit more difficult moving on scares him a little bit, no doubt. Like, what if he ends up doing wrong by you and then it really becomes his fault? But he’s suddenly determined to not let something like this get in the way of your relationship - so he pushes through it, and you two end up emotionally closer as a result since you decide to face your problems together.

𓆩♡𓆪 KYLE BROFLOVSKI

The smartest about it. i love him so much i married him 3 times already actually

This is the type of knowledge he’d have even if he doesn’t take antidepressants himself. So, once he finds out you do (either by you outright telling him or by him noticing something around your house), the dots connect in his mind instantly.

So he knows the issue isn’t with either of you, rather it’s a side effect like all medications have, albeit a very bothersome one.

And what do we do with problems? We sort ‘em out. So this guy is doing research and reading scientific articles to try and approach it from a practical sense for you, especially if you’re getting in your head about it, he’s showing you actual information to drill into your head that it is normal.

To be real with you, I think that, in general, Kyle’s one of those people that heavily subscribes to the notion that ‘sex is more about connection and both parties feeling good rather than orgasms’. So he’d have your back in that regard, remind you of it often, and keep that philosophy whenever you two are together. i’m marrying him a 4th time right now

Extra little fact: He’s read through the medicine information leaflet for your medication like a dozen times to figure out everything that it does and any potential other side effects. And probably cornered himself into an anxiety attack of his own by doing so, tbh.

𓆩♡𓆪 ERIC CARTMAN

sighs I’m holding onto the hands of all the Cartman wives right now. But y’all knew what you were in for when you chose the hellspawn. And he’d by far be the hardest to come to an understanding with.

He wouldn’t comprehend it at all. Like, surely this couldn’t be a problem with him (and, for once in his life, he’s right on that!), right? He’s amazing! So that leaves out the other half of the equation, which is you, and he’s sure that’s where the ‘problem’ lies.

It’s entirely possible that you two might even fight over it. He feels a bit threatened by the prospect of there being an inadequacy in your relationship, and so he gets defensive.

Once he gives it a Google search and finds out it’s actually something that happens, though, boy does he regret arguing. And then you get something that you probably should’ve recorded because it’s a once-in-a-lifetime affair: an honest to God apology, complete with flowers on your doorstep, from Eric Cartman.

He ends up having to re-learn a lot of his preconceived notions about sex. A lot of newfound understanding about orgasms not being the end-all-be-all of the deal, and learning different ways to bring you pleasure, physically and mentally. But we know how he gets when he sets his mind to something, and he does deliver on that regard. Cartman growth arc what do you know

If he does make you cum, though? No one is ever hearing the end of it. So so smug.

𓆩♡𓆪 KENNY MCCORMICK

At first, this idiot sees it as a challenge. Like you’re being bratty or testing him out or something - which he’s down for.

But then he goes serious immediately when you explain what actually is going on, and he does apologize. It is all a little bit confusing in his mind, to be fair - for him, arousal and sex are the only actual easy things in life, so this feels out of left field to him. 

Honestly? It would take a bit of explaining to him that your situation is a side effect from medicine. I feel like his household is one where the concept of depression is spoken of as ‘laziness’, so his knowledge about the subject is zero when you first talk.

He’s willing to make amends, though. He does provide a lot of emotional support - in the usual Kenny way; there’s a lot of non-sexual touching involved - and makes sure you understand that it’s not gonna be a problem for him and that he doesn’t think less of you for that at all despite his initial misunderstanding.

And from then on, whenever you two meet for that, he’s a man prepared for battle. Sex toys, lube, water and snacks to replenish energy, anything he can possibly try on you to bring you that pleasure. And if still by the end of the ordeal you don’t finish at all, he’s gonna have made sure you felt good. 

𓆩♡𓆪 LEOPOLD ‘BUTTERS’ STOTCH

So sweet it gave me a cavity, as usual. 

Does blame himself a bit as well at first, but doesn’t get in his head nearly as much as Stan would. It just takes a little bit of talking and that sadness gets quickly replaced by legitimate concern.

Another guy who wouldn’t understand antidepressants very well because his parents would’ve probably given him the belt if he even thought about saying he was depressed. He’s a fast learner, though; the explanation amps up his concerns for you a bit, but it also brings him back to his regularly scheduled programming, which is…

You get absolutely smothered with support and reassurance. He’s not gonna let you feel bad about a single thing if he can avoid it; so if you have any insecurities in that regard, he’s helping get rid of them with loving words and a little bit of careful insight he’s picked up from his limited understanding of the matter.

He’s eager to go through with any possible suggestion to sort things out and make things better for you. Different positions, actions, or sex toys? Why not! Sex therapy? He has no idea what it actually entails, but sure, go right on. He needs you comfortable first and foremost, whatever shape that takes.

Dividers by @cafekitsune

[atleastpleasetelephone]

Little Darling

Chapter 7 - I wanna be in love

It's 1997, and Elvis is still alive and well. He quit music in 1972 after a successful world tour, and now he runs Presley Studios - teaching people karate across America. His daughter and grandchildren are regular visitors at Graceland, and when he’s in Memphis he likes to do a little teaching. His life is quieter now, though. Most of the Mafia have gone - going to live their own lives - and after his divorce from his second wife, Elvis is sworn off women for good. Will a Welsh girl with a wicked sense of humour be the one to make him break his promise to himself not to fall in love again?

Need to catch up? Go here.

Pairing: Old Man!Elvis x OC - Tegan, a Welsh girl he meets at karate class.

Word Count: 3.9K ish

TWs: Possessive kink, dollification if you squint, Elvis is a little dominant, praise kink, use of Daddy in a sexual context, fingering, p in v sex, erectile dysfunction, crying, self-esteem issues.

Elvis spends the rest of the week living in Tegan’s apartment, trying to do something to keep it tidy and also trying to cook them both dinner. He burns a lot of things and ends up ordering a lot of deliveries, but she finds the fact that he keeps trying to do things for her that he’s never had to do for himself incredibly endearing. Elvis likes being in the apartment. It’s harder to feel lonely in a place so much smaller than Graceland, and he looks forward to Tegan coming home from work every day. He buys her little gifts to make up for the terrible food and also for the time when he did a load of washing and somehow managed to dye all of her white clothes pale pink. He reads and sometimes he calls Jerry, who he’s been missing lately and who he wants to update on his relationship more than anyone, for some reason. Maybe he’s trying to give the other man hope for the future, as he goes through what sounds like a messy divorce. Elvis empathises, more than he thinks his friend really realises. 

It’s Friday, and Elvis hears the clunk of the door and rushes to greet Tegan.

“Hey baby. Good day at work?” 

He already has his arms around her and is kissing her neck before she’s even got her shoes off. 

She giggles. “Yes, thanks. Tiring, but good.”

“Thought ya were never comin’ home.”

“Sorry, the session dragged on longer than expected.” She looks around the apartment. “What have you been up to?”

“Cleaning,” he replies, proudly. “Cleaned the kitchen. Mopped the floor.”

She turns her head and puts a hand up to stroke his cheek. “You’re getting to be such a good little house husband, ‘raur,” she teases. 

He growls in her ear, squeezing her and tickling her and making her squeal and laugh at the same time. “Don’tcha go tellin’ anyone about this. I’ve gotta reputation to live up ta.”

“I promise. I’ll tell them you just laze around all day, when you’re not having sex with supermodels.”

He sniggers. “It’s not lazin’, it’s post-coital recovery time.”

“Exactly.”

They look at one another for a moment and then he leans down and kisses her thoroughly.

“Gotcha a gift, baby.” 

Letting her go, he walks over to the kitchen counter, picking up the fancy bag there and handing it to her. 

“Of course you did, it’s a day with a y in it,” she replies. He pouts and plays at looking dejected, and she kisses him again. “I’m teasing. You know I love presents.”

“Presents,” he repeats, mimicking her accent. “Presents for Queenie.”

She puts the bag down and launches herself at him, telling him off for making fun of her whilst poking and tickling him. He laughs, easily fending her off for a while, but the more she tells him to stop taking the piss out of her accent the funnier he finds it, and he ends up giggling helplessly on the sofa, with her on top of him tickling him and making it worse. 

“Please… please… ahhh... I surrender!” 

She laughs and flops down onto his chest, both of them exhausted and breathing heavily. 

“Ya gonna open them?” He asks, when he’s got his breath back.

She sits up, half on his lap and half on the sofa. “Depends. Are you going to keep taking the piss out of me?”

Elvis bites his lip, sniggering and trying really hard not to make a comment about what she’d just said. “N-no, honey. I uh… I’ll keep quiet.”

“You better.”

He grins as he watches her get up and walk over to the bag. She’s wearing one of her work outfits, a brightly patterned blouse and a form-fitting pencil skirt, and he can’t help wishing that the apartment was wider so that he could watch her walking away from him for a little longer. 

“You looking at my arse, Mr. Presley?” She asks, walking back with the bag now. 

“Guilty as charged, ma’am.”

She snorts, sitting back down next to him and pulling two large boxes out of the bag. They’re both from a fancy clothes boutique, and she opens the first one to a sea of gold material. Finding spaghetti straps she decides it’s probably a dress, and lifts it up by them to get a better look at it. 

“For ya to wear tomorrow,” he says as she stares at it. 

“I thought it was just a casual barbeque?” 

The dress looks like something a disney princess would wear, with an asymmetrical skirt made of layers of gauzy golden material. 

“Yer my Queenie, so ya have to dress like one.” He smiles and kisses her. “Ya want a crown too? I bet I could get Lowell to make ya one.”

She giggles. “I don’t need a crown. Elvis, this is too much. This is something to wear to a fancy dinner, not a barbeque with Lisa and Maria and Sonny.”

He shakes his head. “I said yer wearin’ it, so yer wearin’ it.”

“You’re not the boss of me,” she replies, a teasing smile on her lips. 

His hand reaches for the necklace she’s wearing, holding the diamond-encrusted initials between his fingers. “Think ya know I am.”

She blushes, looking down at his fingers around the letters and squeezing her thighs together. He notices immediately and smirks, letting the necklace go and lightly slapping the side of her thigh. 

“C’mon. Open the other one.”

Putting the first box to the side, she pulls the lid off the second one. A gold bikini. She should’ve known. 

“Elvis it’s gorgeous, but…”

His hand, which had been resting on the outside of her thigh, shifts a little and gives her leg another firm slap. 

“Uh-uh. No. Yer wearin’ it under that dress. No arguments.”

She looks up into his bright blue eyes as they stare back at her. He looks deadly serious, but she can’t help pushing him a little. 

“I hope you’re going to be wearing something a bit nicer than this then.” She tugs at the sleeve of his tracksuit top. 

“Oooh woman! Do not test me!” He’s laughing a little at first, as he grabs her and pushes her onto the sofa cushions, rolling himself on top and pinning her beneath him. But then his face changes to complete seriousness. “I will wear whatever I goddamn please, and you will wear whatever I tell ya.” Her heart thumps in her chest and blood rushes in her ears as she stares back at him. 

The seriousness lasts for all of five seconds and then his mouth falls into that cute lopsided grin and his eyes shine with amusement. “I’m kiddin’, darlin’. But I think you’ll look damn good in that bikini and that dress. And I’ll wear somethin’ decent. Got my whole closet at home to choose from.”

She nods, her heart racing.

“You okay, baby?”

She blushes a deeper red and puts a hand over her eyes. “I kind of enjoyed that.”

“Oh really?”

“Mmmm.”

“So you’d like it if I told ya that ya had to wear those clothes? And I want yer nails painted to match?”

She nods, hand still over her eyes. “I kind of enjoyed the way you said it, too.” She bites her lip and cringes a little at her own words. He quite often played with being possessive in bed, telling her that her pussy belonged to him and he could have it whenever he wanted, but this was a bit different. This was something she didn’t know she liked.

Elvis smirks a little at how coy she’s being. He gently takes her hand off her face and gives her a reassuring kiss. Then he shifts so he can push her skirt up, briefly noticing her panties as he pushes them to the side and slides his fingers against her. She definitely had been enjoying it.

“You’re gonna wear what I tell you to,” he hisses, voice low and menacing in her ear. “No more arguments.”

His middle finger slides inside her, curling around and making her cry out. “Oh!”

“You’re gonna wear that goddamn dress tomorrow to the barbeque. I want you ta look good for me.”

His finger pumps in and out of her steadily. She whimpers.

“What’s ‘at?”

“Mmm. Yes. Yes I’m going to wear it.”

“Good girl.”

Tegan can hear her own breath coming out in little pants as she closes her eyes, feeling another finger pushing inside her alongside the first. 

“I don’t like these panties.”

Her eyes spring open again and she looks at him, nervously. “S-sorry,” she mumbles, her head spinning, trying to remember which ones she put on this morning. 

“Get rid of ‘em. I only want ya in matching sets.” His voice is low and even and his face is deadly serious, none of his usual smirking and joking and teasing. He’s enjoying himself though, watching the look on her face and feeling the way her body is reacting to him, her hips bucking into his hand. 

She closes her eyes, half-afraid of his serious expression, half turned on by it. She feels his fingers gripping her cheeks and opens them again. 

“You listenin’ ta me?” His tone is harsh and she nods quickly. 

“Y-yes. I won’t wear them again, I’ll throw them away.”

“Yes, what?” He asks, then presses his lips to her ear. “I know ya wanna call me somethin’, baby,” he murmurs, in an entirely softer tone. 

She’d nearly slipped up a couple of times when they were in bed together, responding “yes, d…Elvis…” and even murmuring “daddy” once, so quietly that he’d almost missed it. Her husband had been a little older, and she’d liked to call him that in bed sometimes. But she wasn’t sure how Elvis would feel about it, especially not after all of the stuff that had been written in the paper about their respective ages. So she’d tried to hold back, sticking to her Welsh pet names for him. But he’d obviously figured it out and now it seems like he wants her to say it. 

“Yes, Daddy,” she whispers. 

He growls, pushing her legs back and thrusting his fingers in and out of her harder and faster. She throws her head back and moans. He feels his dick hard in his pants at the same time as she is soaking wet and ready for him, and he doesn’t want to miss his opportunity. They’d fooled around a few more times since the disastrous attempt at Graceland, but she was never quite relaxed or turned on enough and he usually ended up losing his erection mid-way through. 

He hurriedly pulls his sweatpants down along with his boxer shorts, sliding his fingers back out of her as he pumps himself a few times with one hand. Her senses are still reeling, and so she doesn’t realise what’s happening until he starts to push inside her, stretching her so much it hurts a little. 

“Ow. Elvis!”

He looks up quickly, just about managing to pause what he’s doing and praying it doesn’t mean he’s about to lose his erection again. 

“Rub your dick on me, get it wetter.” Tegan knows she’s not really supposed to be telling him what to do right now, but that feels closer to penetration than anything that they’d done before, and she knows he just needs a little more lube. 

He grunts, pulling the tip back out of her and continuing his silent prayers about staying hard. Pulling her panties off and throwing them across the room, he pushes her legs back again and exposes her pussy, groaning at the way it’s glistening with her wetness. They both moan at the sensation of him rubbing himself against her, his foreskin moving back and forth on her puffy clit, desperate for stimulation. 

He huffs out a loud breath. 

“That’s enough,” he says, half to himself but also in an attempt to regain control of the situation. “Yer mine and I wanna fuck you.”

She whines at his words and then at his dick pushing inside her, this time making it past the head, the whole shaft sliding inside until his balls rest against her skin. She’s whimpering at how full she feels, and he just stays there for a moment, as the two of them stare at one another in something like disbelief. 

She props herself up on her elbows so she can look him right in the eye. 

“Please fuck me, Daddy.” 

The sofa is not the easiest place to have sex, and his knees slip every so often as he starts to thrust in and out of her. He grabs hold of the back of it for balance and although it’s deep he starts to worry a bit about falling off. Eventually she flops onto her back and holds her arms out for him, so he lays on top of her, kissing her needily as his hips jut into hers and her legs wrap around his waist. 

“Does it feel good?” He asks, between kisses. 

“Mmm. Yes. Really good. You?”

He nods, breathlessly. “Damn good.” His eyes close in pleasure and he buries his face in her neck. 

He starts to try and speed up his thrusts but the sofa cushions start sliding out, unbalancing both of them. 

“Ah, fuck.”

He pauses and they look at one another, both a little sweaty, their foreheads pressed together. 

“You think we can move to the bedroom?” She asks. 

“Think we’ll have ta try.”

They kiss a little more and then Elvis gets up, slowly pulling out, going back to his silent prayers. They shed their clothes as quickly as they can on their way to the bedroom, until they’re both naked in the bed. Elvis looks down and sighs. 

“Think that was one step too far fer the little guy.”

Tegan bursts out laughing. She finds Elvis’ tendency to talk about his dick like it’s its own person absolutely hilarious. 

“Well you laughin’ at him won’t help any, honey.” He frowns. 

“I’m laughing at you, not your dick.”

“Hmmm.” He tries to look annoyed but he can barely hold in his own amusement. 

“Let’s see if we can, er, perk him up a bit,” she says, wrapping her hand around Little Elvis and starting to work him up and down. “Think he liked it when you were kinda bossy to me, earlier.”

“Mmm.” Elvis’ hand strokes her side. “I think he did too.” He thinks for a moment. She’s naked now, so he can’t really say things about her clothes anymore, and he’s done her outfit for tomorrow. He always liked his girls to have nice hair and nails in the past though, and keep them done for him. Maybe that would work. 

“Don’t think yer keepin’ yerself lookin’ good enough fer me, are ya?” He begins.

Her eyes go wide, wondering what he means. “I-I don’t know. I try to look nice…” she trails off, a little unsure. 

He puts his hand in her hair and pulls it a little. “I want you in the salon every week so yer hair’s lookin’ real pretty for me at the weekend.”

She nods, rushing out a quick, “yes, Daddy,” when he looks stern. She feels him start to get harder in her hand again and pumps a little faster. 

“An’ no chips in yer nails,” he continues. “Can’t have ya goin’ round, lookin’ a mess.”

She can hear herself whimpering again, knowing his words are making her wet even as she worries a little that he does think she’s a mess and she’s not really pretty enough to be on his arm. 

His erection is back so he pulls her hand off his dick, knocking her onto her back and pushing her legs up. Continuing to grip her hand in his, he holds it up so he can examine her fingernails. He shakes his head, giving a low whistle and letting her hand drop back down onto the bed. 

“Ya better get those fixed fer tomorrow.”

He lines himself up and pushes inside her again, this time in one movement, making her groan and her eyes roll back in her head. 

“Ya hear me, little girl?”

She nods quickly. “Yes, Daddy. I’ll get them fixed. Ohhhh.”

He starts to move and now he’s on a mattress and not a sofa he goes hard and fast straight away. Holding onto her thigh with one hand and rubbing her clit with the other he pounds into her. Watching as her breasts bounce with every thrust and loving the feeling of her pussy hugging him tightly, he tries to pay attention to her movements, her breathing, her little tells. Wanting to know when she’s close. 

“Whose pussy is this, baby?” He asks, panting, feeling his own release starting to build as he sees her hands grasping at the bedding and balling into fists. 

“Yours, Daddy,” she moans back. 

“Good girl. Cum for Daddy.”

His thumb rubs her clit more firmly as he carries on his assault on her pussy, his orgasm right at the base of his dick now. As she arches her back she feels him hit somewhere inside her that makes her want to scream, and the combination of that and the way he’s touching her with his thumb is finally enough to trigger waves of pleasure washing over her as she cums. Feeling herself let go completely, the noises that fall from her mouth may as well be screams as her walls squeeze and squeeze and tip Elvis over the edge too, making him cum hard and deep inside her. He cries out in ecstasy, falling on top of her, and the two of them lie there together, dizzy with pleasure.

When he finally feels like he can move again, he rolls off her and pulls her into his arms. She puts an arm and a leg around him too, cuddling up close. 

“That was incredible. Baby, we did it!”

She buries her face in his chest. “I can’t believe it,” she mumbles into his skin. 

“Ya had a good time?” He asks, suddenly worried that her response isn’t quite as enthusiastic as he was expecting. 

“Mmm. Yeah, it was amazing.”

He strokes her back. “But?”

There’s a long pause, where she tries to work out what to say, how to phrase it so she doesn’t sound silly. Eventually she just looks up, shyly, and says, “do you think I look a mess?”

Elvis blinks, wondering why she’s asking, and then realises what he’d said to her earlier.

“Oh, no, honey. I think ya look beautiful, all the time,” he tells her, his hand on her face. “But I do kinda wanna show ya off…” he pauses, looking for her reaction. “I mean, I want people ta be blown away by ya.”

“Hmmmm.” She nibbles on her lower lip and digs her fingers into his chest hair. “So you meant what you said?”

He frowns. She’d definitely said she wanted him to talk like that to her, and now she seemed to be going back on it. “I’d never force ya ta do anythin’ ya didn’t want, honey. You don’t wanna wear that dress tomorrow, that’s up ta you. I was only playin’ coz ya said ya liked it. I don’t wanna upset ya.”

Tegan leans her head back down on his chest and sighs. She doesn’t know what she wants. She definitely enjoyed herself in the heat of the moment but now she’s scared again that he’s pretending she’s pretty. 

“What’s a matter, honey?” Elvis’ voice is low and gentle, and he accompanies the question with patterns traced on her back by his fingertips.

She lets out a long breath that she didn’t realise she’d been holding in. 

“You could be with someone much prettier than me. And… and now especially after…” she swallows and tries to collect herself and not cry. “...you… you’re going to find someone else.” Her shoulders shake and she finds herself crying anyway, the intensity of her orgasm and the feeling of closeness she’d shared with Elvis making her suddenly feel vulnerable and afraid. 

Elvis’ eyebrows knit together in confusion. “Hang on a minute…” he tips her face back up towards him and sees it streaked with tears. “What makes ya think I want anyone else? Ya think I’m gonna do yer laundry, cook yer dinners and mop yer kitchen floor and then go find someone else? Why would I do that?”

Tegan wipes her face a little. “Well let’s be honest now, you didn’t really successfully make much dinner.”

He pulls her up his body so that their foreheads are pressed together again. “I’ve never even tried ta make a woman dinner before you.”

She looks at him for a moment and then starts to cry again. 

“Oh baby,” he wraps both arms around her, holding her close. “What’s wrong?”

“Think you only wanted me because I didn’t care about your dick. And now we’ve had sex you’re just going to leave.”

She tries to roll off him again in embarrassment, but he holds onto her tightly, one hand on the back of her head and the other splayed across her back. 

“Tegan bach,” he begins, firmly. “I wanted you before I knew ya didn’t care about it, and after I knew, and I still want ya now, more than ever. It’s not like ya magically fixed me and now I’m on my way to fuck a bunch of supermodels. We’ve got somethin’ special here. Don’tcha think?”

“Y-yes. That’s why I’m a-afraid to l-lose it,” she sniffs. 

He kisses her gently on the mouth. “I’m sorry I ran away from ya so many times before, an’ fucked this up so many times, an’ ya had to wait fer me ta grow up and realise what I’ve got here. But I’m not goin’ anywhere now. I promise.”

She sniffs again and nods, although she’s still afraid. 

“Let’s dry these tears on this pretty little face, hm? See if ya can gimme a smile.” She moves so he can wipe the tears from her cheeks with his thumbs. He kisses the end of her nose, making her smile slightly. 

“I went ta the store earlier,” he pauses for a minute to reflect and then changes his sentence. “Well, that’s not exactly true. Mary went ta the store fer me, an’ I asked her ta get ingredients for cottage pie.”

“Oh did you?” Tegan is smiling a little more now. “And what are you planning on doing with those then?”

“I was plannin’ on makin’ my Queenie dinner.”

“Well that sounds nice.”

She can almost see him thinking, like he desperately wants to ask her to help him, so it doesn’t end up burnt with lumpy mash, but he also really wants to save face. She decides to put him out of his misery.

“Do you want a glamorous assistant?”

He breathes a sigh of relief at her suggestion. “Fuck yes.”

They both giggle together again and Elvis looks at her lovingly. How she could think he’d want anyone else is beyond him, but he thinks he’ll have to keep showing her how much she means to him. He sits up and looks around for his clothes. The first step of that is making her an edible dinner. 

***

Part 8

Taglist:

Please let me know if you want to be added or removed:

@vintagepresley @arg-xoxo @from-memphis-with-love @msamarican @blursedblegh @returntopresley @eapep @everythingelvispresley @i-r-i-n-a-a @sissylittlefeather @arrolyn1114 @jhoneybees @cattcb @polksaladava @lookingforrainbows @jkdaddy01 @ccab @epthedream69 @lustnhim @elvisslut @pomtherine @that-hotdog @ladelinee @angschrof @fairybloodsucker @deltafalax @makethemorning @elviswhore69 @ilovequeen978 @wildhorseinkansas @pocketfulofpresley @dkayfixates @iloveelvisss

[nuclear-w1nter]

What if I wrote an absolutely horrible smut fic of House with erectile dysfunction but it’s fine because the courier doesn’t even care and they play with his joystick anyway. His princess wand. Somebody kill me via firing squad

[sissylittlefeather]

Kinktober Day 15: Porn Watching

Pretty, Pretty Baby

Warnings: 18+ Minors DNI, SMUT, mentions of drugs, mentions of erectile dysfunction, mentions of body insecurity

Word Count: ~1.5k

Kinktober Masterlist

You wake up in the cold dark room and reach out for Elvis in the bed. Wriggling around under the electric blanket, you finally come to the conclusion that he's not in the giant bed. This has happened for the past three nights and tonight you're not going to let it slide. You miss him. The last couple nights he's assured you he was in the bath or the kitchen, so you start in those two places. No Elvis. You wander around the big house in your scandalous little nightie and pray you don't run into any of the guys. But it's 5:30am; no one is awake yet. 

Finally, you stand at the top of the stairs to the basement and listen, avoiding walking down there if you can help it. You hear a woman moaning and your blood turns to ice. How can he be cheating on you?! He assures you all the time that he loves you, despite the women that still throw themselves at him, even if he is 40 now and doesn't look how he thinks he should. You don't care. He's as sexy as he ever has been and you do everything in your power to prove to him that you feel that way, but sometimes he just doesn't believe you. But now he's having sex with someone else? 

You stomp down the stairs ready to throw a bitch out of what you think of as your house, but you're shocked to find him alone. He's got some kind of skin flick on the projector and he sits on the couch with his hand wrapped around his cock. He pumps himself kind of half-heartedly, but you're still a little jealous. He's pushed you away all week. And now here he is with some movie and his own hand. 

What you don't know is he's desperately trying to get hard and stay hard for you. He hasn't felt up to it in a while and he thought a little practice might help. He's been doing this for the past couple nights in an attempt to make something happen for you on your anniversary on Saturday. 

"Elvis Aaron Presley. What are you doing?" You ask him once you've had enough. He jumps and covers himself quickly. 

"Goddamnit, doll! You scared me. What the fuck are you doin' down here instead of in bed?" You walk over and plop down next to him on the couch, the naked women still moaning in the background. 

"Woke up and you were gone. I miss you." You try to cuddle up on him and he pushes you away. He's desperately embarrassed that you found him in such a compromising state. "Fine then. Can I watch with you if I stay all the way over here?" 

"Honey, this is not the kinda thing a little girl like you oughtta be watchin'."

"Elvis, I'm 28. I've seen porn before." He cringes a little, first at how young you are and then at how easily you say the word "porn". Even in 1975, he's not used to women who own their sexuality. 

"Still, baby, you don't need to be watchin' it with me." You turn and lean against the pillows, running your feet down across his lap, massaging his thighs with your toes. 

"Please, daddy." You pout at him and he melts. He never can resist you when you're like this. 

"Alright, fine. Just for a little while." You squeal with excitement, mostly just happy to spend a little time with him. 

"I don't mind if you... y'know... while we watch." You don't say the words, knowing how he hates it when you're crude. 

"Naw, honey, I couldn't with you down here." You pout again, but he still shuts you down. 

After a few minutes of watching, you feel yourself become aroused. It's a pretty good porno and you've always been turned on by pretty girls. There are plenty in this film and they're all touching each other, so you start to get a little hot and bothered. You look over at Elvis and he seems to be trying to purposefully ignore you. When you realize he's not going to look at you, you huff and slide your soaking wet panties down and off. You toss them into his lap. It takes him a minute, but eventually he figures out what just happened. He looks over at you to find you with your legs spread, fingers rubbing your clit as you bite your bottom lip and moan softly. He's entranced for a few seconds watching you and he feels his cock twitch in his pajama pants. Still, he can't let you carry on like this. 

"Doll, just what do ya think you're doin'?" He asks, his eyes still glued to your hand on your pussy. 

"Nothin' just... mmm... makin' myself feel good." You moan softly as you slide one of your fingers up into yourself. 

"Now, baby, that's not somethin' you should do down here. Or at all really." He says the last part quietly, like he doesn't really believe it. He still can't look away from your hand. 

"Daddy, if you won't touch me I'll just have to do it myself."

"No ma'am, little girl. You stop it right now." You can't quite tell if he's angry or playful. He seems to vacillate between the two so quickly these days. You decide to go with playful. 

"Or what?" 

"I'll have to bend you over my knee and spank ya a bit. Teach you a lesson." You look at him mischievously. 

"You promise?" You move your fingers faster, feeling your orgasm gather in your hips. "Mmm daddy, it feels good." 

Now you're just taunting him. 

"Damnit, doll, cool it. Or I'll-" He stops suddenly when he tries to move and realizes he has a raging hard-on. 

"You'll what, daddy?" He brightens instantly. 

"I'll come over there and make you stop. Put this cock inside you. Is that what you want?" You moan, remembering how he used to fuck you on this couch before the pills got to be too much and his weight started to really bother him. You look him dead in the eye. 

"That's exactly what I want, daddy." He grabs your calf and yanks you towards him, grabbing your hips and pulling you up to straddle him. You pull his pajama bottoms down just enough to let his rock-hard dick free and he bucks his hips to give you better access. Without another word, he guides you as you sink down onto him, groaning as he fills you up. A lot of things about him have changed, but his cock, when it's hard, hasn't. 

"Fuck, baby. Your little pussy is so good to me." He whispers in your ear and kisses your neck as you begin to bounce and roll on him, pushing him deeper and deeper. 

"It's because she loves daddy's cock." You whisper into his ear and begin to moan with the actresses on the projector. It's been a long time since he's actually fucked you. Normally, he just goes down on you, makes sure you cum a couple times, and then tries to go to sleep. But not tonight. Tonight his cock is fully functioning and he plans to enjoy it while it lasts. 

"Lay down, baby." He whispers to you and you quickly rearrange as he climbs on top of you, praying he stays hard through the position change. And he does, pushing into you as you wrap your legs around him. 

"Yes daddy... I'm gonna cum!" You moan as he hits your g-spot repeatedly. His dick always was perfect. "Fuck!" 

You holler and shudder as your release washes over you, crashing into you like so many salty waves in the ocean. He feels your walls flutter and pulse around him and grunts. 

"You want a baby, honey?" He asks, like he always does when he's fucking you so deep. You answer the way you always do, despite being on the pill. 

"Yes daddy. Cum inside me!" That's all it takes for him to rut into you, shooting you full of his release. His hips stutter into you and you hold him tightly on your chest until he comes back down. 

"My pretty, pretty baby." He mumbles as he kisses your chest, fully spent. You run your fingers through his hair and whisper to him affectionately. 

"You know I love you, right?"

"I know baby."

"Will ya quit bein' so melodramatic about all this then?" Elvis shakes his head. 

"I can't make any guarantees, babydoll. But right now I'm happier than I have been in months." You lie there together for a while, silently, as you stroke his hair. Eventually you realize that his breathing has evened and his body is relaxed. He's asleep, finally. 

You burrow into the pillows and make sure he is comfortably wrapped around you. He always sleeps best after you make love. Before you drift off, you kiss his forehead and whisper. 

“I love you with all of me, you silly man.” To your surprise, he grumbles against your chest. 

“Thank you.” And you know that in this moment, that means more than any “I love you too” ever could. 

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

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