#How to write a letter of intent

[wavesoutbeingtossed]

Thinking about your dreams/fire post which led me to “you paint dreamscapes on the wall” and then as always I come back to Coney Island of “do you miss the rogue who coaxed you into paradise and then left you there” because he was drawing these dreams and making her think they were possible and then didn’t follow through

yessssssssssss!!!!!!

tbh I think I had the dreamscapes line in a previous draft of it too haha.

And it's not to get into the ~discourse~ of it, but that's just the crux of it: someone convincing you that you could build this life together, where you take steps to make that happen and put all your trust in them, only for them to reneg? It's such a blow. It's why the double-whammy is so painful because that's what BOTH of the main muses did (and why I think it's so easy to see both of them in so many of the songs but I don't want to annoy people about that on main because at this point we all have our own thoughts about things and I'm not here to convince anyone and in any case it doesn't even matter because it's all just art after all ANYWAY) in very different but equally painful ways, with a secret third party being the one to do it first as people so eloquently put it when the album came out.

I don't know if this makes sense, but it's like the difference between "stars meticulously glued next to the ceiling fan" vs "impressionist paintings of heaven turned out to be fakes": to me, one is like, a concrete life that was once built albeit doomed from the start and then destroyed (intentionally or not) vs. one selling a lie from the get-go. One is painful because is was once so close they could taste it and it crumbled under the weight of their problems, vs the other one that preyed on those dreams and never intended to follow through. (But then again I can also see other interpretations of that line but I digress lol.)

This is a tangent, but it's why the "bravery" theme is so interesting to me on TTPD. Because yes, on the surface it's about the conman who she sets up in the epilogue as carrying a sword he couldn't lift (...), but underneath it all is the one-time prince who promised these things she believed, and we see it across multiple albums. Part of TTPD to me is her saying, "I wasn't crazy to believe this, right? Because it happened. You promised these things. But you didn't follow through. So why am I the one in the wrong for setting these expectations?" And yes, she says that outright about the conman, but it's also the larger story of the hothouse flower, too.

(I actually saw a clip the other day of an old interview -- I think from Red era -- where Taylor says she's trusting to a fault, and I think that plays a role in all this along with ~all the things~ at play.)

It's not to get into the muse discourse, but one of the most heartbreaking things really is this idea of the person you pinned your hopes on, who you love and believe loves you back, promising you the things you long for most in this world and at the time saying they'll be by your side through it all, only for them to cut and run (whether physically or emotionally) when the going gets tough. It's devastating, because what are you supposed to do when the person you love and trust the most, who's world you shaped yours around, ends up pulling away? And what's worse, leaves you feeling like it's somehow your fault? You're left with all these dreams unfulfilled, but no clear exit route on how to make it out or sense of self in some ways.

I could speak about this forever and add another tangent about the epilogue but I fear this is already long enough haha.

[microwavetoaster-selfships]

In relation to the doodle I just postedd........ don't mind me I'm just going to be gushing down here in the blow the under the cut.....

(Im FINE I forgot to add the little blushy lines to the drawing I just dont know what to do with my face my facial expressions range from it looks like you're watching a Thomas Sanders skit to I'm internally emoting and i have to announce it outloud just in case.)

I just. Waugh. Somehow drawing two the same height is more of a pain for me than different heights. Digital laso tool I owe you so much.

But for the gushing though. I was thinking about this so hard last night and it occasionally comes in my head, but I chronically wear jackets and hoodies all the time, particularly when I'm leaving the house. And I often of course like to have my hands in my pockets while I walk around. Especially because I always have to be doing something with my hands or else I end up doing that hand pose that I can only describe as the thing that Leni Loud always did from the Loud House because I don't know if there is a term for it. And I am such such such such a horrible sucker for the linked arms thing having arms hooked/intertwined HOWEVER YOU WANNA CALL IT. Messes me up so badly I love it so much. It's like being cuffed together but in the most sweetest way possible. Okay it's like being cuffed together but in that one BBC Sherlock episode where he and John Watson are hand-cuffed together but they're having an awkward time running together and so Watson is like "We are going to have to cordinate" and Sherlock is like "..Okay. Take my hand." And then they are running together while holding hands and there is the most gorgeous shot ever of them being out infront of a bus and. I just love it. Such a little thing but it means so much to me. It's like openly admitting you want someone to just be constantly around you and glued to you, you two can't possibly be away from one another if you two have your arms like that. One person goes to walk in one direction then the other will get tugged with, and if you both go to walk in a different direction then you just get pulled right back towards each other. It's harder to get any possibly physically closer to someone unless you two are like laying on top of each other. It's like saying "I want you here with me through this and this and this and this-". And it is such a notable look as well. You see people with their arms locked and you just know "Okay, those people are probably close to one another." and YES this is different than just having your hand on their arm this is INTERLOCKED.

Bonus points if both people both have their arms in their pockets so they are literally getting each other stuck together. I don't know why this thought gets to me so much but I almost crumbled in the grocery store yesterday. Going shopping with him and if we interlock arms then I am going to be taking up a good five to fifteen minutes of the shopping trip trying to pull myself together from it. Thank you for coming to my esssay and my art showcasing. I would like the government of England to send me my visa now, I'll mail them my passport and biometrics if I must but let me greencard my way to being a UK citizen please and thank you and I would like that under a multiplier of x2 as well please and thank you very much my cell number is 252-555-5555 I can probably relocate in the next 8-12 months depending on how getting a job goes and funding, thank you, I have phenominal potential to become a mechanic I know it because I said so and because I am stupidly passionate as this blog may indicate and I'm sure my alleged FBI agent that monitors me through my screens can also advocate I am also good with customers I have great costomer service because I am a problematic empath so I chronically give people the benefit of the doubt to typically a questionable amount and I also love to ask questions and I know the rule of thumb and agree with the rule of thumb that it is better to ask a stupid question than to outright do something stupid, I am sure I can work up many stupid questions, I unironically love British food and I can go on about that another time but please it all looks like a massive pile of comfort food I am so so okay with that and one of my favorite foods/meals that I got fixated on was out of a tin it was tinned food and I ate it till I can barely stand it anymore but I still look fondly on it now and it was almost as bad as the peanut butter incident where I had so much peanut butter that I actually gag a little at the thought of peanut butter sandwhiches or crackers because I had so much in fact I STILL do a little bi and this happened way back when I was probably like 13 or something and I have a very vivid memory of it was when during they were doing a lot of Back at The Barnyard reruns on cable TV ANYWAY I am also so very good at running my mouth, clients will ask me questions and I will not spare them from a single detail they will know every little thing in fact they will have to ask me to hush, I know my years of expereince are small but my heart is big and my passion is absurd and my potential is strong and I like to think part of me runs off of sheer willpower and determination simply because I must do what I do and I pushmyself many often to do scary things like.... well sometimes I cut off a little extra more cake than I told myself that I would but I eat it anyway even though I get worried I might explode but I never do. I am sure you are a possibly busy government but I can write longer more love letters if it so pleases yes I will be a suck-up if it helps. I am also short which means I am sligghtly smaller than your average man which means I can fit my hands into more places in car enginges. Okaty I am finished now. Sincerly yours, Kane. my last name will also be in my passport which will be given to you with my biometrics and other documents. I also accept simple easy stress-free hand-holding skilled worker visas if that is something you would like. Specifically in, Being a mecahnic. Goodnigth.

[passthroughtime]

as an update about the ever-changing chapter 7, all i can say is that i'm at the start of the 5th "scene" out of 7 total planned, and

it's not looking good

[mariamlaila]

please please please for the love of all that is good

stop using AI for digital art

stop using AI for writing fics and novels

stop using AI for writing screenplays

stop using AI

[shdwtouch]

While I absolutely agree with the sentiment and think oc positivity is sorely needed, comparing writing canon muses to fast fashion sounds a bit icky to me. I know you don't mean it in a bad way, but it does kinda sound like you're implying that people writing canon characters are putting less love, effort and creativity into their portrayals. Just because there are multiple people writing the same character doesn't cheapen their value, so I'd personally look for some other metaphor.

firstly, just want to say: I have so much anxiety about this message. like I know you're coming from a good place but its confrontation and alarm bells in my head so let me see if I can articulate. ; ; also, I'm posting this from mobile so I apologize for any weird formatting etc owo;

I'm going to stand by my statement (tho I deleted the tags [edit: I did take a screenshot for context sake]) honestly because I definitely was not implying that canon portrayals have less value, in fact I specifically stated that both canon and original characters have value, just like fast fashion and couture have their own values.

let me explain my thought process.

you walk into, say, Walmart and pick up a pair of Levi's. why ? because you've probably worn them before and like them, or heard of them from others and want to try them out. or because you're simply browsing and like the style and color and they're in the right size so why not ? canon muses have that ease of access, whether it be knowing the fandom or simply having a range of content and reviews to go off of as a "consumer".

original characters don't have that luxury; I don't know about other people, but for me sometimes engaging with original characters - and this is coming from someone who writes predominantly fandomless original characters and agonizes over how accessible their lore is - is, well, bottlenecked by my own energy and willingness to engage with the information and content the creator had provided. it's much easier for me, energy wise, to play a video game and then gravitate to muses from it because I'm already familiar with them, so I already have a foot in the door so to speak.

I fucking love reading original lore tho ! I also FUCKING LOVE canon divergence and headcanons ! but it isn't always easy to engage with or incorporate, and I think that's something that impacts a lot of people in how they view ocs compared to canons. original characters just often take more effort to engage with and understand, and that's not a bad thing ! but in a busy life it's understandable that folks want to go to what is comfortable and what they know, so they pick up a pair of Levi's instead of going to get a tailored pair of pants.

next, I should clarify that the characters are clothes, and we, as writers, are the ones who wear those clothes. which is to say, our own personal style and actions play into the overall appearance and feel of our portrayals. two people can take the same shirt and make completely different outfits with it ! maybe one of them decides to crop it, or bleach it, or cut it up and sew it into something new. and all of these things are valid ! and they all have value. you may be wearing the same shirt as someone else, but you still style it the way you want to. you still look different, still unique, still beautiful. there is nothing bad about liking fast fashion or canon characters. fast fashion is convenient, so are canon characters. some canon characters are poorly written and need to be dressed up or fixed to be worn, while others are quality and wonderfully made ! just like clothes ! and honestly, the same applies to original characters too !

the pants I'm wearing right now ? my favorite pair of pants. I've had them for like... four years. and they're still going strong. fast fashion isn't necessarily cheap, just like couture isn't necessarily haute. but again, it's about how you wear it. and everyone in the BG3 rpc wears their clothes, whether they be canon or original, in their own unique, beautiful way ! we all have our own style, and that style provides value to what we're trying to portray. neither canon nor original characters are better than the other, they BOTH have pros and cons. just like fast fashion and couture. they both have value, and their mode or means doesn't detract or add to the value of the final product.

I apologize if it seemed I was implying canon writers aren't as valuable as original writers, or somehow cheaper due to volume, in my tags. I definitely see where you are coming from and that's a valid perspective. However, that was not my intention and I hope I've managed to clarify my stance and explain myself a bit better. thank you for your message, I hope you're well ! sending lots of good vibes ♡

also, in case anyone was curious, my pants:

they are incredibly soft and flowy, very nice. I sleep in them and wear them out. I know they're winter themed but I think they're subtle enough to be worn outside the season, plus they have polar bears on them and I love polar bears !

also, if it's of any value, I have written my fair share of canon characters. I wrote extensively for assassins creed and marvel, in fact that's where I got my start in the rpc ! if I had to carry the metaphor, my "fast fashion" would be my (canon divergent) cli.nt bar.ton. I may have gotten him from marvel but I have since sliced him up and incorporated the pieces of my portrayal into my original projects ♡

[longagoitwastuesday]

I actually like the last chapter. I think the ideas are very good. I have my qualms on how some things were managed, as I always do, but I think shonen authors get tangled in the expectations of a shonen to the point it jeopardises their writing, often even when they're not lacking in skills

[fredheads]

thinking about how boy meets worlds first season aired 93-94 and how its very possible fred couldve been babysitting some kid during that time on a friday night and it was on tv and freds sitting down watching cory and shawn like "wow they remind me so much of me and my best friend fp who has gone away to the army and left me here alone..." lmfao anyway!

SICKENING!!!!!!

[lesmiserablables]

Literature fucking slaps. Noone is doing it like Her.

[vers-1]

Chat I think imma about to crash out

[edwisefoundation]

Statement of Purpose (SOP) for Study Abroad: How to Write an Impressive SOP

A Statement of Purpose (SOP) is a crucial part of the application process for studying abroad. It provides admissions committees with insight into your academic background, goals, and personal motivations beyond your grades and test scores. A well-written SOP can significantly enhance your chances of acceptance by showcasing your unique qualities and passion for your chosen field. The essay should also address why you are interested in studying abroad and how you plan to contribute to the institution.

For more details on how to craft a compelling SOP, visit Statement of Purpose for Study Abroad.

[thewriteadviceforwriters]

✨ HOW TO ACTUALLY START A BOOK

(no ✨vibes✨, just structure, stakes, and first-sentence sweat)

hello writer friends 💌 so you opened a doc. you sat down. you cracked your knuckles. maybe you even made a playlist or moodboard. and then… you stared at the blinking cursor like it personally insulted your entire bloodline.

here’s your intervention. this post is for when you want to write chapter one, but all you have is aesthetic, maybe a plot bunny, maybe a world idea, maybe nothing at all. here’s how to actually start a book, from structure to sentence one.

—

🌶️ STEP 1: THE SPICE BASE ~ “WHAT’S CHANGING?”

start with this question:

what changes in the protagonist’s life in the first 5–10 pages?

doesn’t have to be earth-shattering. they could get a letter, lose a job, run late, break a rule, wake up hungover in the wrong house. what matters is disruption. the opening of your book should mark a shift. if their day starts normal, it shouldn’t end that way.

🏁 opening chapters are about motion. forward movement. tension. momentum. if nothing is changing, your story isn’t starting, you’re just doing a prequel.

—

⚙️ STEP 2: THE CRUNCHY BITS - CHOOSE AN ENTRY POINT

there are 3 classic places to start a novel. each one works if you’re intentional:

The Day Everything Changes most popular. you drop us in right before or during the inciting incident. clean, fast, efficient.

pro: immediate stakes con: harder to sneak in worldbuilding or character grounding

The Calm Before the Storm starts slightly earlier. show the character’s “normal” life, then break it. useful if the change won’t make sense without context.

pro: space to introduce your character’s routine/flaws con: risky if it drags or feels like setup

The Aftermath drop us in after the big event and fill in gaps as we go. works well for thrillers, mysteries, or emotionally heavy plots.

pro: instant drama con: requires precision to avoid confusion

📝 pick one. commit. don’t blend them or you’ll write three intros at once and cry.

—

🧠 STEP 3: CHARACTER FIRST, ALWAYS

readers don’t care about your setting, your magic system, or your cool mafia politics unless they’re anchored in someone.

in the first scene, we need to know:

what this person wants

what’s bothering them (externally or internally)

one trait they lead with (bold, anxious, calculating, naive, etc.)

that’s it. just one want, one tension, one vibe. no bios. no monologues. no “they weren’t like other girls” essays. put them in a situation and show how they act.

—

⛓️ STEP 4: OPEN WITH FRICTION

first scenes should create questions, not answer them.

there should be tension between:

what the character wants vs. what they’re getting

what’s happening vs. what they expected

what’s being said vs. what’s being felt

you don’t need a gunshot or a car crash (unless you want one). you need conflict. tension = momentum = readers keep reading.

—

✏️ STEP 5: WRITE THE FIRST SENTENCE - THEN IGNORE IT

okay. now you write it.

no pressure. you’re not tattooing it on your soul. this isn’t the final line on the final page. you just need something.

tricks that work:

start in the middle of an action

start with a contradiction

start with something unexpected, funny, or sharp

start with a small lie or a weird detail

💬 examples:

“The body was exactly where she’d left it - rude.” “He was already two hours late to his own kidnapping.” “There was blood on the welcome mat. Again.” “They said don’t open the door. She opened it anyway.”

once you’ve got it? keep going. don’t revise yet. don’t edit. just build momentum.

you can come back and make it ✨iconic✨ later.

—

📦 BONUS: WHAT NOT TO DO IN YOUR OPENING

don’t start with a dream

don’t info-dump lore in paragraph one

don’t give me three pages of your OC making toast

don’t try to sound like a Victorian cryptid unless it’s on purpose

don’t introduce 7 named characters in one scene

don’t start with a quote unless you are 800% sure it slaps

be weird. be sharp. be specific. aim for interest, not perfection.

—

🏁 TL;DR (but make it ✨useful✨)

something in your MC’s life should change immediately

pick a structural entry point and stick to it

give us a person, not a setting

friction = good

first lines are disposable, just make them interesting

and if you needed a sign to just start the damn book, this is it.

💌 love, -rin t.

P.S. I made a free mini eBook about the 5 biggest mistakes writers make in the first 10 pages 👀 you can grab it here for FREE:

[passthroughtime]

sunday six (but i don't write anything beside kuwagami)

@jichanxo @four-white-trees @overdevelopedglasses @mike----wazowski

i'm getting my groove back with chapter 5 and don't really want to distract myself with something else, so this week's kuwagami is the ever-changing edition

He got to know. He had to figure out what to do to help Kuwana. Even though the best help he could possibly provide now would be to step away, Yagami wasn’t about to do that. He wasn’t good at that. And if he didn’t do something, then… It was proven time and time again that he couldn’t ever leave anything in Kuwana’s hands.

Out of the two of them, Kuwana was the most prone to fucking up. He was reckless. He was used to taking risks. He wasn’t concerned about his safety— about his life.

Yagami had to do everything for him. How irritating it was, that he cared about Kuwana more than Kuwana cared about himself. He had no right, no capacity to deal with it on his own. How couldn’t he understand? How could Yagami possibly step down and let everything run its course, trusting Kuwana to follow sound judgment? He had none. Yagami knew that better than anyone, and because of that, he had to make sure Kuwana hadn’t done anything stupid and was staying away from further trouble.

If it came to it, Yagami would even risk his life and safety; wouldn’t be the first time, right? He never promised Kuwana that he wouldn’t, and Kuwana had to know him better than to hope his plea was listened to. He should’ve already come to realize just how stubborn and unruly Yagami was… unless he didn’t know him at all.

[stimmingandstruggling]

i’m still figuring out how redbook works so i can’t share the video here yet, but y’all.

a woman made a post on tiktok talking about li hua, a pseudonym students in china learning english would write under to american “pen pals.” these letters were never sent. apparently it was crazy common, hundreds of letters have been written from li hua.

and people have started saying they feel like li hua is getting a response.

this woman posted this on tiktok and the comments were full of people writing responses, apologizing to li hua for not being in touch for so long. and one american mentioned how when they were a kid they dug holes in the beach and thought if they dug deep enough they could reach china all the way on the other side of the world, and that just awoke some MEMORIES. like, i did that. i dug holes in the sand and wondered how close i was. “as children we dug holes at the beach to try to get to you. we wondered what you’d be like our whole lives.”

the same woman made a post talking about THAT on redbook, saying it feels like we’ve both been just struggling to reach each other for so long. “i suddenly realize, this meeting was actually a two way effort. it’s like you’ve done a lot of hard work and come a long way before a date, and the wait was too long that you gradually started to forget the original intention of embarking on this road, and began to doubt, is your date real? suddenly one day, they really appeared in front of you and tell you i also made an effort to see you. and that’s a wonderful thing.”

idk that just made me cry a bit. i’ve seen a couple people refer to the feeling of being a little kid at the playground again, awkward and clumsy and sometimes hurting each other but everyone just eager to meet and share what they love.

[the-travelling-witch]

Needles to say ily?!? IS THE SECOND CHAPTER FOR MODREN XIAO?

That is the cutest thing ever!! I definitely wanna Support a good cause and uplift my favorite write on here (definitely not Holly.. I mean pfft why.. why else am I re reading the spidy Childe au or xiao in her Modren au.. you guys are banana) but srs i would love to do this! Not only for a good cause but also. Holly fics <33

Question though; will this make u feel pressured to work and finish fics?

well it certainly isn’t part one lol considering i have said multiple times i’d work on his part two next and it being on my status update, yes it’s safe to assume it’s part two /silly

i was kicking myself for not using the pun the first time around, so i just used it for part two; as you can tell by my usual status update, i normally embody the gatekeep aspect of gaslight gatekeep girlboss, as in i never disclose titles or summaries before posting, but i thought i might as well create a little “hype” around my writing since it’s for a good cause

(also aww wait? your favourite writer? i told my friend that hearing that once is like my life goal, so i can die in peace now hshsh but anyway thank you so much <3)

that’s so sweet of you to worry about, darling, but pressuring myself to finish fics comes with the territory of being me, so things wouldn’t change at all!! i’d be happy to know i can contribute even a little to a good cause though!!

for things that have multiple chapters like the isekai au or twst pokemon au, i want to get at least a few chapters done, if not finish them completely, before posting at all, so what i want people to understand is that i won’t pressure myself into posting early just bc someone sponsored it, if that makes sense

if anything people basically daring me to add a certain word count to a doc might actually help snap me out of just staring at it hshsh

[erwinsvow]

𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐞 𝐢𝐬 𝐦𝐲 𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐰𝐢𝐥𝐥 𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐦 𝐲𝐨𝐮 — 𝐚.𝐜.

summary: against better judgement, you send a letter to a man at folsom with very sad eyes. against even better judgement, you send letters every week for years until he stops replying one day. and against everything you know, when he shows up at your door, you invite him inside.

pairing: prison letters reader x andrew cody

word count: 12.4k

tags: reader is silly and does things i do not recommend. kids do not write letters to prisoners and fall in love with them. unless it's andrew cody obviously. lots of context no one asked for. nurse!reader, descriptions of wound (andrew cuts himself to get into your work because why wouldn't he!), descriptions of wound handling, smut (oral - f receiving and mating press and the tiniest hint of breeding). takes place in season one, but just imagine he's got season two's hair. you have to fully immerse yourself in the fact that it's andrew cody and then ask yourself—wouldn't you take him home too? it's not her fault!

author's note: here she is! thank you for the patience ♡

you honestly had signed up as a joke. the club was known through your campus to be run by a couple of bleeding hearts. no one had thought the school would approve their activities—letters to prisoners. it was a recipe for disaster.

you should have known better.

but a friend of a friend was involved, and you knew it would make your nursing school application look better, and honestly, you didn’t think anything would come of it. a couple of letters here and there. you had thought it’d be all anonymous, messages of motivation and prayers signed with a first name only.

until your friend—bleeding heart and hopeless romantic, trying to appeal to those very same qualities in you—had shown you the website. that’s when you should have realized it wasn’t just a recipe, it was going to be a disaster.

the prisoners recorded videos—thirty seconds, short and sweet. a name, a couple of sentences about them, hometown and hobbies. underneath the video you could see what they had been arrested for. only the ones who were in for petty crimes—drugs and robbery, things where no one else had really gotten hurt, were allowed to partake. that was good at least. didn’t need any murderers sending letters to pretty co-eds.

your friend picked the guy she thought was the cutest. you watched his video—he was handsome, you couldn’t deny it. but the more videos you watched, the less you wanted to write a letter. you could almost see it, the desperation behind their eyes. it seemed like every man had nefarious intent. like your prettily written letter would not be used for motivation and prayers of a better life outside.

you decided not to send one. you’d rather have an empty slot on your application than a bad feeling in your gut for the rest of the semester. it’s not like the prison was across the country—it was just a couple of hours away.

she asked you to give it one more chance, watch a couple more videos. just pick a cute one, she’d told you. when you’d made a noise of disapproval, she had rolled her eyes.

“okay, pick whoever seems the nicest, then.”

so you had.

the video had been labeled andrew cody. first degree robbery.

the man in the video had been incredibly genuine. you don’t remember exactly what he had said—just bits and pieces. you knew he was from oceanside, born and raised from the way he sounded. he said he had a lot of brothers and a sister back at home. that he spent his time working out and reading books to distract himself from how noisy it was inside. the first thing he’d do when he got out was go to the beach and listen to the waves and breathe in the clean salty air.

and deep down inside, you knew you were just as much of a bleeding heart as the rest of your friends. you had folded instantly.

but it wasn’t just that. you spent the next several nights thinking about him. sad eyes, a singular half-smile at his own joke and then a real one when he mentioned going to the beach once he was released. he’d followed it up with—not that it’ll be any time soon. that made you sad, in turn. you thought about what he was like before prison—did he smile more? was he always so sad?

you thought about a lot of things. more than whatever your friends did, telling you how they had sent their letters, flirty yet inherently professional, so as not to get in trouble with the advisor.

you took a while to send yours. first you couldn’t think of what to write—everything felt so stupid compared to what he must be going through. andrew would hardly want to hear about the mundaneness of your daily life, or the struggles of trying to get into the nursing program.

you thought about not sending a letter at all after the first few times you tried to put pen to paper.

and then you thought about how sad he must feel, how lonely and scared, how terrible it would be to see all the other prisoners get letters besides him.

so you drove to the beach. you surprisingly had more in common with andrew cody than you even realized when you selected him. there was nothing you loved more than the beach, which is why you had even picked your college to begin with. and now, four years later about to graduate, you couldn’t imagine living anywhere else.

you caught the sunrise. you brought your little notebook with you to the water after setting your bag down on the bench. the seagulls were flying around, a couple of other beach-goers walking along the border where the sand met the ocean. it was a day like any other.

there were two sides of you—a hopeless romantic inside of an inherently logical girl. one side argued how stupid it was to send letters to a stranger. the other wondered if this would be the day that changes your life. you push away the thought and focus on writing the damn thing.

you thought andrew might like if the letter smelled like the salt-water. the stupid idea felt a lot less silly when you were attempting it, bringing your notebook all the way down to the water and hovering it. a slightly bigger wave caught you by surprise, the corners getting wet where it splashed up.

cursing to yourself, you walked back to the bench with sandy feet. and then you started writing.

dear andrew, and then you paused. fuck. you got out some of the introductory stuff—your first name, that you were a nursing student. it took a while to get the rest of the page filled, until you stopped for a moment and thought about what you would tell the man with the sad eyes if he was sitting next to you.

i came to the beach to write this letter. i’m sorry if the corners are wrinkled when you get it, i almost dropped it in the water trying to get it to smell like the beach so you had a little piece of home with you. i’m not near oceanside but it’s still the pacific.

i can’t imagine how hard it must be to grow up near the water and then be so far away for so long. but at least you know it’ll always be waiting for you when you get released. they want us to write motivational things but i’m not sure how motivating it would be for you reading this letter about my silly life. so i thought i’d write about the beach instead.

it’s about seven in the morning. the weather isn’t too cold and sky is pink and orange right now. the waves were calmer an hour ago when i got here but now it’s getting more intense. there’s a couple with their dog, and another man running on the sand. i’m on a bench writing this, but i’ll walk along the water again before i leave. i would try to send you a shell but i’m sure they’d take it away. maybe sand?

i love the sound of the waves too. my school isn’t close enough to hear it, but i have one of those machines that makes the noises. it helps a lot when i’m trying to sleep. maybe you can get one when you get out too.

you fill up a page, and then another page. when you fold up the letter and slip it into the envelope, you take a couple grains of sand and drop it in there. a little piece of home for him.

then you mail the letter, and think that was that.

+

two weeks later, you get a letter in the mail. you’d heard some of the other girls had also gotten responses—some had been mildly wholesome, while others had been more along the lines of what are you wearing?

but you weren’t worried when you opened yours. andrew didn’t seem the creepy type to you, it felt more like… like he would be glad to have someone to talk to.

you read it in bed, holding an old stuffed animal tightly. his handwriting is stiff and neat, the evenness of the letters and dotted i’s and crossed t’s makes you smile. the way he wrote your name, with bleeding ink like he had pressed too hard into the paper while doing so, made you smile wider.

the first line—thanks for the sand—made you laugh.

andrew writes of the book he’s just read, how the beach you described sounds just like the one in his hometown, and a request that you tell him more about your life in the next letter. his letter isn’t as long as yours, which makes sense to you. he couldn’t have that much to write about. but the last line is what really gets you—thank you for the letter. it’s nice to talk to someone.

you blink away tears, unsure when you had started crying. you reread the letter twice over the next day and a half, deciding to head back to the beach early in the morning to write the next one.

and you’ve always been bad at this. your friends have always called you a hopeless romantic—but maybe you’re just in too deep. it was the product of having been alone for your entire life, not having the dreamy, intense love that so many of your friends had already gone through once or twice at this age. the result had manifested in how you treated the world around you. every door someone held open, every nice response, every lingering gaze could mean something more. that this could be the person, that this could be your soulmate.

you knew it was stupid. nothing could be stupider than assuming that a prisoner, for god’s sake, would be anything more than just that—a prisoner you write letters to. but your heart still beats faster each time you reread the letter, and when you think of his pretty, sad eyes and earnest expression, the urge to write another letter haunts over your entire body.

dear andrew, thank you for writing back. thank you again for writing back and not being creepy (like the responses some of my friends got). i could tell you more about my life but i really wasn’t lying—it’s pretty silly and mostly boring, but since you asked so nicely i’ll try for you. right now i’m getting ready for graduation. i bought a white dress last week. i’m waiting to hear if i got into the nursing program here. i majored in nursing so I just need to do one more year and then after that i can go work in the hospital. i’m thinking about labor and delivery since i think it would be so nice to see babies all day, but one of my friends said the emergency room is always hiring. she thinks it would toughen me up. but I’m not so sure i want to be tough. just incase all of this school talk is boring you, i’ll just tell you about my day on the condition that you'll tell me about yours. yesterday i woke up early and went on a walk. i made breakfast and went to class, and then studied in the library. my friend showed me a creepy response from one of the fellow inmates (by the way, thank you again for not being creepy.) i walked to get a chai—i don't really like coffee. and then i studied, watched the bachelor. it was terrible! my favorite contestant got sent home :(. and had dinner, then I went to sleep early because i woke up early to come to the beach today to write this for you. so i went to sleep thinking about this letter and woke up thinking about it too.

you add a little bit more about your routine this time, just so he has something to read about. you try to make yourself sound interesting where you can—but you’re really not. and you don’t want to force it, make your letters sound grand and full of lies.

you don’t know why—it’s not like you’ll ever meet him. but lying to andrew feels wrong, you guess.

stupid. you’re stupid for adding the last part—but something in your heart flutters reading the line again, because you did. andrew’s sad eyes are in your mind all the time, and you know it’s just a silly infatuation, that he’s a prisoner and you’re a random student and more likely than not, he’s not going to respond to this letter. but you still keep it in.

and so you send the letter. and what’s worse—the one you get back makes your heart swell. he says that you describe your routine so well he can almost see it happening in his head like a movie. he says that he could describe his day-to-day but that it might make you sad. you’re sure it will. he seems to know a lot about you from just a handful of letters.

you reply. he sends another. you reply. and before you can even discern what’s happened, this has been going on for the better part of a year and a half.

andrew gets all the life updates—your nursing school acceptance, how the first year goes. early morning clinicals, the mean preceptor who made your life hell for a month, the baby you got to help deliver, the cat you’re thinking about getting. and the not so great stuff—despite the nursing shortage, it seems the only available job at the hospital you like is in the emergency room.

you don’t give him names but he figures it out well enough. the program you sent the letters through was smart enough not to include the university’s name in the return address, but dumb enough to use a p.o. box in the same city. and in that city, there’s only two colleges, and only one of those has a nursing program.

these are the things he uses to figure out where you are after he gets out—not that you need to know any of that just yet.

after you get the job, the letters are stamped with the mark of the local post office. you must not know that they’re doing that, now that you can’t send the letters through the school anymore. that’s the last piece of the puzzle, figuring out which emergency room you had been working in.

he keeps those letters. they’re his sanctuary—pages and pages about your life. the highs and lows of an innocent girl who thought it would be a good idea to send letters to a prisoner. letters where you asked about him, how he was feeling, how he was doing. how much time he had left, how he thinks the next parole meeting will go, how that annoying guard has been recently. how’s your family, andrew?

if he closes his eyes, he can almost see you. you’re a faceless entity, a glowing angel with a halo hovering in his mind when he really needs you. you’re too perfect to be real—and he knows you would be outside too. if you can care this much through letters, go out of your way to send them even after you graduate, he can only imagine how you’d be if you stood in front of him.

the other students who sent letters stopped after one or two. he’s likely the only one who’s still getting them, and when someone questions who they’re from, he tells a story about his girl, waiting for him outside. a nurse—smart and pretty and devoted and who never fails to send him a weekly update. lives too far to drive up here but he’ll be there one day.

and then he gets sent to solitary.

he doesn’t like to think about it, if he can avoid it. sometimes the noises of the world get to him, brings him back to days and hours he wish he could wipe from his memory. the sound machine you recommended in your very first letter helps some. but the day he goes free, there’s only one sound he knows will calm him down—your voice, the first time he’ll get to hear it.

he has to go home first. he needs a car, the internet, a couple of phone calls to make sure he’s going to the right place.

days turn into weeks. unfortunately—very unfortunately. the only thing andrew wants is to finally see you in person, to finally hear what your voice sounds like. what color is your hair? what color are your eyes? he knows you like yellow—what would he find if he saw you? yellow hair clips? painted nails? how about your apartment? would the walls be yellow?

no, probably not. you rent. you wouldn’t do anything that wouldn’t get you your security deposit back. you’re too good for that, too safe.

yellow sheets, maybe. blankets, pillows. if he closes his eyes, he can imagine himself in it.

he tries to leave after the first job but there’s too many watchful eyes, too many moving pieces. he needs to get everything together—his truck, cash and some cards, a plausible excuse. he needs to make sure no one comes following him, needs to make sure that in his quest to come find you, he doesn’t get you tangled into the web of his family instead. he’s stuck somewhere between figuring out how to keep you safe and the realization that the safest you’ll ever be is right now, before he comes for you.

but fuck, if it doesn’t haunt him. the fact that he’s finally so close to you. that you’re a car ride away. that somewhere out there is the girl who, one day, realized another letter wouldn’t be coming.

had you cried then? been upset? wondered what had happened? bothered to find out if he was dead or freed or living without you? he hates that he couldn’t get you another letter to explain himself, but he figures explaining in person would be easier, and better. in all those years, you never once wrote him about a date or a boyfriend or anything in that realm.

the way your last few letters were, it were almost as if he was your boyfriend. (he lets the thought linger inside him for a few seconds, if that. any longer and it would possess him like a demon and he’d be rendered useless. unable to work, unable to think, unable to breathe. just him and the idea that he was that important to someone else.)

+

and then one day, a couple days after a job and after being fed up with the entire world being scared of him, he leaves to find you.

that’s just the thing—no one understands him. all his life, he’s been the unstable one, the one others are worried about, frightened of. but no one understands that there’s nothing to be afraid of.

no one, except maybe you.

so he says he’ll be back in a week, and he drives down to the hospital where you work.

he hasn’t gotten a real look at you yet. he spent the first night in the parking lot of the emergency room. he watches hordes of nurses go in and out, and no one stands out. he spends some time doing research—nurses only work three times a week.

his odds of seeing you for the rest of the time he’s in town are fifty/fifty. it feels like he should be able to pick you out from a crowd, with the way he knows you so intimately, but he can’t. he keeps an eye out for yellow water bottles or shoes or lunch bags, but he doesn’t see any for two days.

so he decides that he needs to get inside.

pope keeps a pocket knife on his person, and another one hidden in the car in case of emergencies. that’s what he uses to slice his palm open so he has an excuse to get inside. not too deep—he’s not stupid. just deep enough to need stitches, shallow enough that he can still feel all his fingers and wiggle them around.

and then he goes inside, and he waits.

each time the doors open, a different nurse steps out. some are too old, others too young. no one has anything yellow on them, or the personality that he knows could only belong to you. cheery, but serious. empathetic to a fault. you would probably cry if you saw a kid crying, just like how you used to write to andrew, telling him you had cried thinking about a patient you lost and their family, cried thinking about him alone in prison.

you’ve shed tears for him. a man you’ve never even met. he has to recognize you when he sees you. he knows he will—the two of you are bonded in more ways than one. through ink and blood and tears.

“david?” a voice calls out. so lost in his thoughts, he’d not realized the doors had opened again or the name he’d given them. he looks up, making eye contact with the nurse, his nurse, and she walks closer. “david?” the voice repeats, and he raises the non-bloody hand.

you are just like he thought you’d be. your hair is pulled back, which is a shame. he wants to see what it looks like when it’s down, what it smells like when you get close enough. pieces in the front fall out from behind your ear. his finger twitches momentarily.

and, he thinks with a pleasant sort of smugness, there is yellow—the plastic band around the stethoscope, the badge reel with a smiling cartoon on it, the pens tucked neatly in your scrub top pocket.

“hi david, i’m going to be your nurse today,” you start, looking at him in the eyes. your eyebrows furrow a little, like you’re trying to remember why this man looks so familiar—it’s not like he had expected it. his hair isn’t the same anymore, longer than the video you had seen of him. if that was your benchmark, he certainly looked somewhat different. he doesn’t fault you for not recognizing him right away. in fact, it’s better this way. “if you’re ready, i can take you back now.”

you smile at him, beautifully. a bright, wide smile, like there’s nothing in this world you’d rather do than take david back, and have a look at whatever’s bothering him. it’s genuine, it’s safe, it’s warm. how do you do it? he thinks briefly to himself, how do you make everyone feel like they’re the most important person in the world? just with a smile and a couple of sentences you must say a thousand times a shift.

andrew’s not one for many words, but his thoughts run rampant—he’s always thinking. he can’t get his brain to turn off, not now, not ever. even putting pen to paper was hard for him, even for you. but you seem to understand him, just like you did back then. without words, without talking, without touching or knowing. you just know him.

you take him to a bed behind a curtain and start rattling off a list of rehearsed questions. first name, age, date of birth. the more he says, the more you seem to get a step closer to recognizing him, but he doesn’t push it.

you come closer to the bed and gesture to his wrapped up, bleeding hand.

“may i?”

“yes. yes,” andrew says, unsure of how it’ll be to feel your hands on him for the first time. you start slowly, unpeeling the layers of gauze that he had brought with him from home as a just incase. he doesn’t flinch or wince, but you still speak up.

“i’m sorry, i know it’s not very comfortable.” you apologize without needing to, and he’s sure it’s because you want him to feel better about it. “how did this happen again?” you ask, staring at his wound closely. you’re not very far from his face. he can feel your breath even against his skin.

“accident. was cutting something.”

“well, you should be more careful, david.” his middle name has always felt foreign to him, though somehow, it doesn’t seem that way coming from your lips. andrew briefly feels like there’s nowhere else he’d rather be than here, no one else he’d rather be than david, getting his hand tended to by you.

“yeah. i should.”

“well i’m going to go ahead and get this cleaned up. just to be sure, any drug allergies?” he shakes his head. “great. we’re gonna clean it and then the doctor will be in here to stitch it up and we’ll get you on your way back home. does that sound okay?”

you look at him earnestly. as if on the off chance he said it didn’t sound okay, you’d have an answer ready to go. nothing to shame him, nothing to make him feel bad. just to comfort him and make him feel better. like there’s nothing more important than getting him back home with aid instructions for the rest of the week.

memories of your letters wash over him like a warm wave over soft sand. you’ve known from the jump that you were meant for this, but it all suddenly makes sense. how kind you are, how gentle you are with him, how you’d be with anyone.

you were meant for this, just like how you were meant for him.

“that sounds okay.”

you sit on a stool at the level of his hand. you dab with the cleaning solution and tell him you’re sorry about the sting. it’s half a dozen apologies in the short time he’s known you, and he sits and wonders, staring at your pretty hair and the undoubtedly smooth skin of your neck, that he’ll have to work you out of that habit.

you shouldn’t be apologizing for anything, much less helping people the way you do.

he stares at you while you think of another question to ask him to distract him from the pain of cleaning his wound.

and your patient is nothing if not a starer. when you got up to add something to the chart and stopped to chat with a fellow nurse and friend of yours about how long it might take the doctor to see him—calling him by his nickname, mister sliced hand in bed four—she interrupted you half way through the conversation.

“the one who’s staring at us right now?” you turned your head too quickly to see what she was talking about, and were faced with sliced-hand david, looking at you and the other nurse.

not in a creepy way, like some other past patients of yours. he’s just…looking. like he’s waiting for you to come back. his gaze doesn’t leave you, you notice. he watches your friend as though he’s watching over you.

the thought is almost… sweet.

and then you shake your head and turn around, breaking the eye contact. you have a bad habit of doing this—turning every interaction, every look into your eyes and held-open door into something more than it was.

your new friends at the hospital also call you a hopeless romantic. you knew that you were just sort of an idiot when it came to these things. it was the long-standing result of still never having been in a real relationship. you’d never felt the fireworks, never known the rom-com sort of true love and happy ending. you had never even gotten to the angst-filled third act breakup.

so maybe you were still a bit of a projector—projecting every single interaction into something more than it was. a patient with a staring problem became a man who was looking out for you, worried for you, love at first sight.

and you shake your head again. snap out of it. you had a problem, seriously.

the closest you’d even come to anything remotely related to love at first sight was the insane amount of letters you’d written to a prisoner a few years ago, and even then—

stop. it. you barely knew what the guy looked like, and yet, you found yourself wondering all the time what had happened to him. if today would finally be the day you’d find out. he could be the stranger next to you in the coffee shop. the person buying fruit next to you in the grocery store.

for all you know, he could be the next guy who walks into your life, and yet—

“you are seriously such a goner,” she says with a laugh, playfully shoving your shoulder.

“what? i-i just got lost in my thoughts.”

“a guy could blink at you and you’d be imagining your embroidered towels and baby names-”

“that is not true-”

“right, i know. you’re right. you’re just gonna hold out for mister prisoner until you’re an old lady with a bunch of cats-”

“hey! i have one cat and he is adorable, okay-”

“yeah, yeah. that’s how it always starts. one cat.”

“i’m going to go take care of my patient now.”

“don’t let him blink at you.”

you roll your eyes and make your way back to bed four, where david stares up at you with pretty, sad eyes. eyes that seem a little familiar, but it’s hour eight of twelve and you’ve taken care of half a hundred people so far. your tiredness seeps through your pores but you still smile and sit on the stool.

“sorry about that, david.”

“are you okay?” he asks, incredibly earnestly. you blink at him dumbly. once, then twice.

“yes?” you reply slowly, unsure of what he means. maybe you’re more tired than you thought. “is everything okay?”

“i saw her push you.” you blink again.

“oh. oh. no, no, she’s my friend. that was just, um-” you blank momentarily. his concern is so palpable you can feel it in the air. “-a joke. she was joking.”

“oh. okay.” david goes silent but his eyes are still on you. you decide the best course of action is to change the subject.

“so! david. this might be hard but no going in the water for at least a couple days. maybe more, depending on what the doctor says.”

“sure. can i.. can i still go sit on the beach?”

“yeah. that should be fine.” you clean out the wound further, but he doesn’t wince. “do you do that often?”

“yes. it calms me down.”

“me too. something about the sand and the waves. the air is just-”

“cleaner.” for the first time that night, david interrupts you. your eyes leave his hand to look up at his face.

“yeah,” you agree, slowly, wondering why his words feel so familiar to you. “cleaner.”

there’s a brief pause, and david doesn’t say anything. you look back down at his hand, continuing your work. but something inside of you stirs, curiosity poking and prodding at your memories. you’ve heard that before, somewhere, and even then you had thought about how no one had ever used that word to describe the ocean air before, when—

“i thought you wanted to deliver babies. do you not want to do that anymore?”

as if it was in slow motion, you retract your hands away from his. you move your head to look up at him and your jaw falls open a little—you had known david looked a little familiar, but when you had seen that thirty second video of him, his hair had been short and his skin had been a little paler, and the man sitting in front of you now—

well he wasn’t cute anymore.

he was handsome now—dark brown curls grown out. he looked like he’d spent some time in the sun, recently. his eyes—sad and pretty as they were—seemed a bit softer now. and your gaze on him made them even softer, like he was trying his best not to frighten you. how someone takes care of a skittish animal, ready to bolt at any second.

you swallow, and then bring your hands back to his, keeping the piece of soaked gauze on top of his wound gently

“i-i do. want to. this was just the only job opening when i-” you pause, sucking in a deep breath. he already knows about this—andrew. it was in one of your letters. “when i finished school.”

you feel his hand move under your touch, and then his other hand, the unwounded one, over yours. his grip isn’t tight, but it’s tense. hard. like he wants to make sure you can’t just disappear like sand between his fingers.

“i thought you might have found another job by now.”

“it-it’s hard. you get used to something and it’s hard to leave.” you pause again. there’s a million and one questions storming through your mind, but you stare into hazel eyes and they all go quiet, one by one. “you said your name is david-”

“i wanted to see if you would recognize me.”

“i’m sorry, i-”

“don’t apologize.” andrew, like his letters, speaks concisely. you should have guessed. you would send him pages just to get a few paragraphs back—and he would always say it’s because he didn’t have much to talk about, that learning about your day to day was much better than whatever he could tell you.

it was the first time your heart fluttered with the knowledge that out there, somewhere, is a man who wants to hear about your day. the closest you had ever gotten to the semblance of a real relationship. a man who cared about you, even if he never said as much. it was always clear to you, through his carefully chosen words and the things he wrote you about and how much he said he liked hearing about you.

he used to ask you questions about things from a dozen letters ago. remember to follow up after some big exam or a really hard week at work. asked you what you did to feel better. tell you what he would do to help you feel better—nothing creepy, never creepy. if you were supposed to be scared of him, you never were. he never gave you any reason to.

“are you okay?” andrew asks, and you blink yourself out of your thoughts.

“yes. yes, sorry. i just-” it’s a little ridiculous.

you’re a smart girl. you’ve always been a smart girl. you don’t do stupid things—you don’t drink yourself silly at bars and go home with random men. you don’t say yes to dates with strangers, despite how much you believe that a stranger can become a soulmate in an instant. you don’t put yourself in situations you can’t get out of.

but when it comes to andrew, you haven’t listened to a single one of your own rules. you sent him letters for ages after the other girls in your class had stopped. you had opened up about your life and wanted to learn about his life in exchange.

and despite every greater instinct, you had fallen asleep for years thinking about the day he might walk back into your life.

“did you ever get my last letter, andrew?”

you’re not even sure where the words came from—that’s the last thing you should be saying right now. how did you find me? when did you get out of prison? why are you here right now? should have all come before.

but something inside you burns, like it has for years, with the knowledge that he never sent you another letter. and you need to know why.

andrew sits up a little straighter, taking heavy breaths and staring at you. it’s the first time he’s heard you say his name, his real name. you two haven’t moved an inch, his hand still on yours. he blinks slowly at you and you don’t realize it, but you’re holding your breath.

“i did. i-i was in solitary. they don’t let you write letters there.”

“oh. i’m so sorry,” you say, and it’s second nature. you hate what andrew went through, and seeing him in front of you brings you back to the first letter you ever got back from him. how polite he was in it, how sweet the whole thing seemed. it was never meant to get this far, but it had, and you—

you are nothing if not a believer of soulmates and fate.

“that’s okay. not your fault.”

“but still. that must have been really hard.”

“i wanted to write back. i-” he stops, pulling out something from the pocket of his button-up shirt. he unfolds a piece of white notebook paper—and the breath you were holding leaves you quickly. that’s the paper you used to write him letters on.

“is that my last letter?” when andrew moves to look at you, he’s expecting it. a nervous lilt to your voice, fear in your eyes. like he’s crazy, like you’re scared.

instead he glances over hesitantly and you’re beaming up at him.

“you carry around.. my last letter?” the words come out as a smile forms on your face—pretty and genuine and sincere. you stare at him expectantly, and he doesn’t know how to respond.

“i…” the words falter. “i just wanted to ask you about it. did you, did you get that cat?”

“i did!” it comes out louder than you meant it, drawing the attention of some other nurses around you. you turn briefly, using your free hand to push the curtain so it’s closed around you two. “sorry. i did, yes. he’s so cute. i don’t have my phone or i’d show you the pictures-”

“that’s okay. you-you can show me later.”

“but i didn’t say i was getting a cat in that one. i just said i was thinking about it,” you feel breathless.

“but there was another one before that. you mentioned it then too. i figured you’d get it since you were thinking about it so much.”

“yeah. yeah, exactly.” your brain can’t seem to compute what’s going on. any fear that had been in you, if there was any of it to begin with, has completely melted away, replaced with a warm, glowing feeling in your chest, slowly spreading out to your limbs.

you had been thinking about getting a cat for ages—a thought you had mentioned to andrew maybe twice. and your justification had been just as andrew said, because you were thinking about it so much.

how did he know that?

and then the curtain opens behind you, and the doctor comes in to stitch up andrew’s hand. you have to pull away from his hand and andrew thinks you’re leaving, eyes following you and his expression shifting, but you don’t leave. you go to the cabinets to pull the supplies and help the doctor and and keep your eyes focused on the wound while his hand gets stitched up. eight stitches and not a single wince of pain or discomfort.

and though the thought makes butterflies emerge and fly around your stomach, when you finally look up at andrew, he’s been staring at you the entire time.

+

you have a tiny apartment in a shitty neighbourhood. it doesn’t feel safe at all, save for the fact that one of the houses down the street is owned by a rookie cop and his wife. there’s not that much crime, but the area inherently feels bad.

maybe it’s just that way to him—since he doesn’t want you living in a place like this.

it’s fine for now though. he’ll get you a better place soon enough. it’s by the water, and when he closes his eyes, he can hear the waves crashing on the sand. the sound alone might be enough to justify why you’d live here.

he keeps his eyes shut, just for a half dozen heartbeats, when he pulls up against your curb. he just wants to hear it before he says goodbye—it’s getting late, almost dark, and you must be exhausted. you’ve been at work all day and though you act like you’re completely fine, he knows how intense it is. there’s other letters, safely stored away, where you told him about how breaks are far and few in between, how you barely get time to drink water and eat a snack because of how busy it gets. he offered to stop and pick you up something to eat but you refused, saying you had food at home that you shouldn’t waste.

you sit in the passenger seat of his truck, staring around it as if you’re looking for some more information about it. anything would help you—half-empty drinks or gum wrappers or extra clothes in the backseat, but there’s nothing. the truck looks like he just got it yesterday, no sign of use or anything branding it as andrew’s car.

“can i walk you to your door?” you snap out of your thoughts.

okay—maybe it wasn’t the smartest idea in the world to let a virtual stranger drive you home. but when his hand was taken care of and you give him the paper instructions with way too many sample packets of antibiotic gel, all he said was that he’ll wait for you.

“wait for what?”

“to make sure you get home safely.”

and, really, what are you supposed to say to that? no, i’m good, thanks. you’d be even stupider than you already are to say that to someone who is just trying to be nice to you.

(he’s more chivalrous than any guy you’ve ever talked to, and probably more than any guy your friends have ever complained to you about. and more than that, it’d be rude to say no, especially once he realized you wait for a shoddy-at-best bus to get you home because you don’t have a car and it’s too dark to walk. he wouldn’t take no for an answer after that.)

and more than that—he waited another two hours for you to get home. every time you’d step out to bring back another patient, you’d see him, sitting there, waiting patiently for you. glancing up when the door would open to get a glimpse of you, of the small smile you shot his way before taking back whoever’s turn it was.

and he’s not a real stranger, a voice in the back of your head keeps reminding you. you’ve known him for longer than some of your coworkers have known their fiancees and husbands. and in all the time you’ve known him (meaning all the letters you’ve sent and received), you’ve never gotten a creepy word or even a fragment of a sentence that frightened you.

so you think the least you can do is let him drive you home and walk you up the two flights of stairs.

“of course. thank you, for-” your sentence gets interrupted. andrew gets out of the car and you turn to do the same, but then you see him—walking around the front of his truck, coming to your side and then opening the door for you.

oh.

your heart thuds dully in your chest at the very idea of andrew opening his car’s door for you to get out. after driving you home and politely asking to walk you up. whatever inhibitions you had melt away and you briefly think that whatever he asked of you, you’d do it in a heartbeat, no questions asked.

if that made you stupid, then so be it. you’d gladly be the stupidest girl on the planet if you get to feel whatever it was that andrew cody has made you feel for the last couple of hours.

his truck is jacked up tall, and he gives you his hand, the one without the cut, to help you get down, and you accept. he closes the door for you and lets you lead the way up the stairs.

silently, you two walk up the creaky steps together. hands brush together for all of seconds and he briefly wishes seconds lasted longer, until you’re standing in front of your door.

you’d once had a cute spring-themed wreath on the door, bought on clearance from the local store after easter, and a matching door mat. your elderly neighbor had told you to get rid of it because it was basically an invitation to criminals that a young girl lived here alone. you’re stupid, but not that stupid.

and now your front door looks barren and empty. there’s a few plants you can see from the window sill but the curtains are drawn and there’s an extra dead bolt a fellow nurse from the hospital’s husband had helped you install.

you look up silently at andrew and he looks back at you. this is it—it’s supposed to be goodbye. any normal girl would know that this is where the night needs to end, that you need to process what all of this means and if you had any friends you trusted with this information, calling them and asking what to do.

but you don’t want to call your friends, because you know what they’d say—to lock your door and get a restraining order and burn andrew’s letters, the ones you kept in a cute box under your bed and reread much too often for anyone’s comfort.

and you’re not a normal girl.

“do you want to stay for dinner?”

there’s not much to study on andrew’s expression—he keeps it stern and serious for the most part. his eyes are soft when they look at you and they soften even further when you say those words.

“yes. yes, thank you.”

you think maybe he wasn’t expecting it. you think that you weren’t expecting it either, not exactly sure where the words had come from. but you still lead andrew inside, showing him the only slightly comfortable couch you had to get delivered since you didn’t have anyone to help you lug a used one up the stairs. the squeaky door that leads to the bathroom, the tiny space you called your kitchen. your bedroom is behind a closed door and andrew stares at it when you go inside to change out of your scrubs and come back out in the kind of clothes that you sleep in.

and then he stares at the shut door even after you leave, before realizing that you’ve already made your way to the space between the living room and kitchen, a narrow expanse with a small round table and some placemats with flowers on them. you set down your backpack and take your hair out of the clip that holds it back for you at work and suddenly, he’s staring again.

it’s just a little too close to everything he’s been dreaming about for years.

“i’m really sorry. i was supposed to go grocery shopping but i hate bringing everything up-”

“don’t apologize.”

“also, i’m-i’m not really a good cook. i’m sorry-”

“i don’t think anything you make can be worse than prison food.”

“i really doubt that. you’ve never had my cooking.”

you glance back him and he meets your eyes at the same time, and you both start laughing. it’s nothing crazy—andrew didn’t seem like the kind who laughs easily anyway, but he cracks a smile and the noise is indelible—all you can think of is how you can get him to laugh again.

“do you like spaghetti?”

+

if someone had told you yesterday that this time tomorrow, andrew from your letters would be sitting across from you at your dining table, eating spaghetti that you made while rushing, looking so in place in your tiny home that your heart hurts, you think you would have passed out.

you watch him while he eats, absentmindedly swirling your own noodles on the plate, unable to focus on eating when he’s really in front of you. after countless dreams and days spent wondering what had happened to him and if he was okay and if he ever thought about you. he’s… bigger than you thought he would be. shoulders broader than you had realized from that tiny video. his mannerisms interest you more than they should—how quiet he is, but how he seems to latch onto every word when you go on and on. just like the letters, it seems he’s still a listener.

(it doesn’t help matters when he tries to clear the table and wash the dishes after—you have to wrestle the plates out of his hand and tell him to go sit down, that he can’t get his bandage wet. jostling against his iron-hard body was not on the list of things you thought you’d get to do today, and the very realization that andrew is twice as strong as you on his worst day does…things to you. things that do not need to be named or explored right now. he’s still a stranger, you try to remind yourself. no he’s not.)

but it seems that he can’t sit still. he wipes down the counter and then comes back to help you dry your yellow dishes and when you both finish up, with you still smiling at him and unsure of what excuse you can conjure to get him to stay, he finds it all by himself. you tell andrew to go sit on the couch while you finish up and he does, and when you follow him out there, he’s standing in front of it. he turns his head to look at you and then back at the couch.

your cat is perched on his usual spot, and you go over to him, scratching the top of his head between his ears and making extremely childish, stupid-sounding noises at him.

“andrew this is wardy,” you say, picking him up and bringing him closer. “he’s really friendly. i promise.”

“hello, wardy.” when he says it, you look up at him with a look he can’t find words to describe. as close to love as you can get it when it’s a technically a stranger. the way he greets your cat and helps you clean and knows more about you than some of your friends and coworkers do.

there’s no words for it. it just is.

so you sit on the couch next to andrew, your cat between the two of you, and you wait for him to tell you that he wants to leave. you flick on the television, settling for whatever silly romance movie is playing on your netflix account, sitting in the almost-silence with andrew and wondering why still, it doesn’t feel necessarily uncomfortable.

eventually andrew reaches out to pet wardy, and he curls up into his touch, settling comfortably against his forearm. (his huge, thick, veiny forearm, you think briefly, before chasing the thought away with a broom. and then another one—no wonder he had bled so much at the hospital. with veins like these.)

“this area’s not the best,” andrew says, speaking as though you need to be reminded of it, to know that he doesn’t approve.

“i know. but it’s cheap and it’s near the beach.”

“but you live alone. it’s dangerous.”

“but-” you glance over at him. he takes up most of your couch, wardy’s head resting against his thigh now, while he continues petting him. he looks over at you and it’s clear—this isn’t an argument. “you’re right. but i mean, how bad can it be? if you’re here now?”

you pause. stupidly, you’ve just revealed whatever thoughts have been rattling around in your head. like the fact that you’re assuming he’s going to be here more often, when the truth is that you have no idea if that’s true.

why would it be true? you tried, in earnest, to make sure your life never seemed anything more than it really was in your letters. but andrew drives a brand new truck and wears an expensive watch and you have absolutely no idea what he was robbing or why he was doing it—and you never asked. the assumption that just because he found you, meant that he was going to keep you was completely insane. a misgiving on your part, because surely, whatever’s waiting for him back home is better than your crappy cooking and a tiny apartment and a cat that you—

“sorry, i’m sorry. that’s such a jump. we just met. i’m so sorry, i can-” you stand up, and so does andrew.

“why are you apologizing?”

“because i just.. i don’t know.” you try to pace around your apartment but you only get a few steps away before you have to come back. “this is crazy. we’re both crazy.”

you feel it in the air before you hear him say it. it gets tenser, quieter, more serious. like what you’ve both been dreading for the last few hours is about to happen.

“do…do you want me to leave?” you turn to face him quickly.

“no! no, i don’t. that’s why this is crazy. people are going to think we’re insane. i don’t want you to go. i want you stay. i want you to tell me everything i missed in the last year and a half. i want to know what you did with my letters. i want to know-”

and when andrew reaches forward to grab your forearm—gently, not meant to hurt you—you freeze in your tracks. staring up at him, all the words in your brain, every stupid thing your friends ever told you about this make-shift relationship you had concocted in your head melting away.

“i want that too.”

“oh. well, i just thought-”

and this time, he doesn’t let you finish, leaning in for a kiss that makes your knees give out. andrew’s mouth—wet and hot and on fire—kisses you like you two were made for each other.

as cheesy as the thought feels, you swallow it and wrap your arms around his neck. it’s every stupid romance movie you’ve ever seen coming to life, your life. all because of him. he doesn’t break the kiss, not even to breathe. you feel his tongue poke into your mouth and you accept it gladly. you fall back on the couch and the movement of it makes wardy scamper off, and you move your head just for a second to see where he runs off too, but andrew doesn’t stop. he lines kisses along your cheek and your jaw until you turn back and he gets your lips again.

you feel his weight on top of you, and briefly, you wonder if you should tell him.

countless nights spent wondering what this would feel like, how he would kiss you, all the things he would do to you. you have to keep reminding yourself, you’re just a stupid girl—it’s not your fault that a few nice letters was enough to make you head over heels for the last few years.

because somewhere deep down inside, you knew. you knew that it would be like this, that it would be perfect, that it would be everything you wanted. that he would take care of you and want you as badly as you want him. your crown title of hopeless romantic had finally paid off.

another thought stirs as he keeps kissing you. it’s feverish and hot and makes you warm all over—how long it’s been since he’s had someone, how he kisses you like he’s out of practice. his mouth is so hard against yours it almost hurts, but you welcome the pain. it’s like he’s proving to you that he’s really there now, that nothing can tear him away from you.

but then he does pull away. you catch your breath, hands traveling to his face and running your fingers through his hair. andrew’s pretty eyes close and you cherish it—that you made him feel like that. he leans into your touch, head resting against your hand while you both take long, heavy breaths.

andrew leans in, pressing your foreheads together.

“i-i’ve wanted to do that,” another breath. you feel butterflies continuously emerge and flutter around your chest and your stomach, all the way down to between your legs. “since your first letter.”

and then you can’t resist—leaning back in for another hard, wet kiss. you feel him shift, strong hands on your hips, but staying firmly there, not traveling despite how much you wish they would. he’s been polite again, you think. waiting for you to give him permission.

“you can-” you start, but andrew keeps pressing kisses against your neck that make it hard to finish your sentence. “you can touch me.” you expect his hands to spread—grope and grab and tease until you’re begging for more. for him to be impatient and hungry and not stop until he’s inside of you.

“i can’t believe you’re real,” he says quietly, one hand moving up to your waist and touching the soft skin there gently. he traces up your arms and then down before intertwining his fingers with yours. you stare up at him, stupid as ever. every time you think you know anything about andrew, he proves you wrong.

“i can’t believe you are, either,” you say, tilting your head up for another kiss. a short, chaste one this time. “you’re just as nice as i knew you’d be.”

“you think i’m nice?” he asks, voice low. you nod in response, words escaping you. you settle to answer with another kiss, hands going to his shoulders to steady yourself, tugging and pulling on his bottom lip with your teeth.

you push up until he understands, and he uses two huge hands to get you into his lap, sitting up with his back against your couch. you straddle him, trying your hardest to not lose your train of thought as you realize how hard he is against you.

“i think you’re too nice,” you tease, unsure where you’re finding the confidence. under you, andrew looks spacey and flushed and all kissed out, but you don’t plan to stop. you lean in to press kisses to his cheeks and work your way to his jaw and neck. when you stop to look at him again, he looks hopelessly up at you, and you think he’s waiting again, waiting for permission to do something. “i think you’re so nice that you’re not telling me everything you’ve wanted to do to me these last few years.”

the way andrew looks up at you after you said that—god. you wish you could engrain it into your memory. you’re not someone who does this often, but you might just be good at figuring out how to get andrew to crack. he looks up with some of the hunger you’d imagined there’d be, and it makes something stir inside of you.

it feels strange to be wanted the way andrew wants you right now. you’re just not used to it, not entirely sure that you’d ever feel this way. that someone would ever make you feel this way.

your thoughts are wiped again when he pulls you into another kiss, and you deepen it, moaning into his mouth. you’re being so loud that your older neighbor might be able to hear you, but you can hardly bring yourself to care right now. andrew is quiet, like you thought he would be, but each soft grunt and heavy sigh is enough to make your entire body tingle.

you think you’re being better at staying quiet yourself when andrew scoops you up into his arms, carrying you like it’s nothing for him. you yelp loudly, forgetting everything for a second, realizing how lovely it feels to be carried by him. he leads you two to your bedroom, setting you down gently on the bed.

you stare at him, hovering above you, wondering how you’ll get to do this. how you’ll get his clothes off and watch out for his hurt hand and that you’ll finally get to feel him inside of you—when he just stops moving.

andrew looks up and around your bedroom, craning his neck to take in all of it. you’re not sure why, stuck in a position under him that forces you to just watch.

“is everything okay, andrew?” when you say his name, he turns back to stare down at you.

“yes. yes, it is. it’s just-” he pauses, looking back up and then down. the room is decorated with lots of pretty frames. there’s yellow curtains on the windows and your sheets are yellow under you too, just like he’d suspected. seeing it in real life almost sends him back to years ago—the first time he’d wondered what your bedroom looks like. the place from where you write your letters, the place you read them. “it looks just like i thought it would.”

and just like every other part of tonight, your reaction continues to surprise him. you smile and then laugh, holding onto his shoulder even tighter.

“spend a lot of time thinking about my bedroom, huh?” you tease, and he remains just as confused as ever.

you are such a conundrum. andrew thinks that he wants you so badly he can’t form a proper thought—and then the thoughts merge and blend and anger at the very idea that you’re so trusting of him. you should be more careful. you shouldn’t trust anyone how much you’re trusting him right now—inviting him inside your home, letting him into your bedroom.

and then you pull him down for another kiss and it all washes away like letters in the sand.

eventually he does pull away—though it takes an enormous amount of self control. the words you said on the couch haven’t completely left him yet and he still needs to answer you. you claw and pull at his shirt so he lets you take it off of him, you trace a hand down his chest, stopping at his heart and pressing your palm flat against him.

you’re staring, he thinks, but you’re really just admiring. taking in every detail, every scar and bruise so you can ask him about it later, moving your fingers down his abs and biting your lip while you stare daggers at his chest.

he moves away from your touch though, as sad as it makes you.

“you wanted to know everything i’ve thought about you?” andrew says, and the words make you tense up—thighs clenching, walls fluttering just from words alone. your fingers tighten around his bicep where you’ve been holding on, and you nod up at him dumbly. “can i show you?”

your head falls back onto your pillow with a thud. you nod again.

you let andrew set the pace—he peels off your clothes and you lift your hips and raise your arms in compliance. he starts with a kiss to your stomach that makes you whine, fingers leaving his skin and grabbing onto your sheets instead just to have something to hold on to.

you’re embarrassingly wet—you already know you are. it’s almost painful how badly you want him, even against better judgement that tells you that you could have, at the very least, taken things slowly.

you guess andrew just brings it out of you.

his kisses move south and you brace yourself, every muscle tensing up in anticipation. andrew is silent except for his deep breaths and somehow, with each one deeper than the last, they make your entire body shudder in anticipation. when he finally gets to your leaking cunt, you hear it. a strangled moan, sounding painful and from the depth of his chest and filled with want and need. just from looking at you. you can’t imagine what he’ll sound like when—

“this is what i thought about. this is always what i thought about.”

and then andrew licks down the length of your cunt with the flat of his tongue, and you can’t think about anything else anymore. he’s relentless, exploring you with his mouth like he’s a man starved. you can hear the noises, obscene and sloppy and wet as they are.

and then you feel it—his mouth around your clit while one finger prods at your tight opening. your back rises off the bed but he holds you down with one huge hand over your stomach. his finger slips inside you more easily than he thought it would. though you’re wetter than he imagined, he doesn’t stop teasing your clit.

your wetness coats everything—his tongue, his lips, his chin. your thighs are wet too, and he’s sure he can get your yellow sheets soaked too if he could tease you long enough. but he’s been incredibly patient all these years, unsure if he can wait any longer to get what he’s wanted.

his hand keeps you pinned down while his mouth stays on your clit and then andrew adds another finger and you thrash up against him. it’s useless against the weight of his hand holding you down, but your body moves anyways, hands wrangling into his brown curls, likely making a complete mess of them. you keep pulling and he moans between your legs and the vibration makes you thrash harder, a completely exhilarating cycle.

when he finally releases you from his grip, you think the other hand will explore up and down your body, but true to form, you’re wrong. andrew finds your hand and holds onto it, lacing your fingers with his while he keeps going.

when adds a third finger, you realize that he’s saying something against you. you can’t quite make it out with your heart thudding in your ears and how loud you’re being, but then it becomes a little clearer—

“you taste even better than i thought you would-” and you can’t stop it, the tension in your stomach winding tighter and tighter before it snaps altogether. a white hot heat washes through your body and makes you shake even harder, but andrew’s hold on you keeps you completely grounded. he works you through it, not stopping even once, not until you’re trying your hardest to pull away from him. you try to catch your breath but it’s useless. your head feels completely empty.

incoherent, you grab at andrew, murmuring something about inside, please, and he really tries to stay level headed. but one glance at your naked, writhing body and your expression while you beg for him is enough to tip him over the edge.

resisting you requires a level of self control that he doesn’t think he’ll ever be able to have.

andrew doesn’t think he’s ever had any self control when it comes to you. it’s why he did this, isn’t it? showed up at your hospital with your sweet letter folded up and somehow convinced you, without saying much of anything at all, to trust him and let him back into your life. he doesn’t even know how he did it—he can’t recall most of what he said to you. it plays in his head like a movie, like how your letters used to.

he doesn’t know what he did to deserve your trust, just knows that he’ll do whatever he has to in order to keep it forever.

andrew’s thoughts about keeping you cloud him while he lifts up your legs, manhandling your body while you squeal under him. he pushes your knees to your chest and lets your legs hang in the air while he hovers over you. all he can think about is getting inside of you—-giving you exactly what you’ve been begging for, fulfilling every fantasy he’s had about you in the last three years. the noises you’ll make. how tight and wet and warm you’ll feel around him. how you’ll look with his cum dripping out of-

“andrew, please, please,” you plead, and he’s not sure that you understand exactly what you’re asking for. it’s good that it’s him you picked for those letters, good that he’s the one who tracked you down.

someone else, well, he thinks, lining himself up with your soaking wet entrance, someone else might have had bad intentions with you. not andrew, though.

his intentions for you are only good. intentions to keep you happy and safe and move you away from this tiny apartment and make sure you get the job that you want, no matter who he has to threaten in order to do so. intentions to keep everything taken care of so the only thing you ever have to worry about again is him, just like you’d done for all those years when you wrote to him.

and as he slips inside, he knows those letters are in this bedroom somewhere, that this bed is where you read them, that these were the pretty hands that held his letters and these were the pretty eyes that read them.

you stare at him while he hovers over you, not pushing in just yet. andrew’s dick is just like the rest of him—thick and broad and so wide that you don’t know how you’ll be able to walk tomorrow. there’s veins too, just like his arms, and it’s all you can think about with him enclosed over you.

when he pushes his thick head past your fluttering walls, you make a noise like nothing he’s ever heard before. pure want and heat wrapped up with pleasure and pain. you keep begging for more but he’s not sure you can even handle it—but who is andrew to deny you?

he pushes further inside of you, now half way, and you cry out. andrew leans in to kiss you again, swallowing the noise and letting you moan against his lips.

another thrust and he’s almost all the way in. he pulls out and pushes back in, and then he starts his rhythm. your tits bounce with every thrust and he watches entranced, until his eyes go back to where you and him meet. in this position, on his knees with you folded underneath him, he can see it perfectly.

it’s enough to make him finish instantly. you look completely fucked out under him, crying out with each push of his hips.

your open your wet eyes and glance up at him. through wet lashes and blinking eyes, you get out a few words, stopped by each thrust.

“is it-” you gasp, words getting caught in your throat because andrew is so deep inside of you that you can feel him in your stomach and your chest. “is it what you imagined, andrew?”

“god, yes,” he says, and the sound is so perfect to you. it comes out broken, in the form of a gasp and a moan combined, and you want to hear it again and again. he says your name like it’s a prayer grounding him to you and you keep your arms wrapped around his neck, holding him close to you and bringing him in for another kiss. you can feel andrew’s pace start to stutter, his moans getting louder and his grip on you getting tighter. you hold his face in your hands, locking eyes again.

“inside, andrew, please, i want it inside, please, please,” and again, andrew thinks to himself, like some besotted fool, who is he to deny you? he releases whatever inhibitions he had left and fills you up with his cum—rivulets almost never ending. it leaks out around his dick, messing up your sheets and staining your thighs and making a mess of everything. he hears your heavy breaths and looks to see you smiling sweetly up at him.

and then he collapses next to you.

“hi andrew,” you say quietly next to him. your hands go to his, playing with his fingers and running the pad of your thumb over the veins on his hand. “was it how you thought it’d be?”

“it was better,” he says, breathless. you giggle and lean in to press a kiss to his cheek—and for a moment, he forgets everything. the circumstances of your introduction and the way he’d discovered you long forgotten for a few heartbeats. just you and the sound of your laugh and the promise of the future he wants with you before him.

“there’s still some things i thought about that we didn’t get to yet,” you tease, and he wonders, briefly, what he’s going to do with you.

and then you two hear it—scratching at your closed bedroom door.

“oh god,” you say, sitting up in bed.

you groan a little since your thighs are sore and it’s a wet, sticky mess between them. andrew keeps his hand on your arm and helps you sit up, and joins you in the position, like he’s preparing to help if you need something.

“warden, stop,” you say, but he doesn’t listen. you turn to andrew. “i’m gonna get him.” you try to move your legs and put weight on them, but you feel your knees buckle immediately, with andrew rushing to your side to help you back into bed.

“oh my god. you broke me.”

“i’ll get him. just-just sit down.”

andrew opens the door and picks up your cat like it’s second nature, bringing him to you on the bed before getting in right beside you. your cat is sweet but there’s not many people over at your apartment, and you worry for a moment that he won’t be nice to andrew when he wants your attention. but wardy doesn’t move from his position, staying curled up again andrew’s chest and arm, completely at ease.

“he likes you. that makes sense,” you say, smiling up at him, leaning in to pet wardy’s head.

but andrew doesn’t understand.

“warden. i thought you said his name was wardy?”

“that’s just a nickname.”

“why warden?”

“oh well. it’s silly, um-”

“tell me.”

“well, uh. well, warden is just the letters in andrew. uh, rearranged.”

“oh.”

“i’m sorry. i’m so sorry, is that creepy? i was really projecting, i guess, when i got him. i just loved your letters so much and i’ve never had a boyfriend or anything like that-”

“do you think we should get married?”

thanks for reading! ♡

[i-love-ptv]

Hand Prints and Good Grips…✱*.:｡✧

Elias ‘Stack’ Moore x Childhood Best friend!Reader

Trouble brews once Mary walks into the twins’ juke joint, and you just wanna be the girl Elias likes.

wc: 6,103

warnings: porn with lots of plot, jealous!dom!Elias, sub!reader, clit slapping, face-sitting, cunnilingus, unprotected p-in-v, dirty-talk, degradation (not tew much but it’s there), overstimulation (r receiving), rough sex, manhandling, slight tit sucking/licking, marking, creampie (gulp??), language, one klan mention, shitty southern writing

an: HEY GUYS!!! THIS IS MY LONGEST FIC EVER WOOHOO! (ignore how it took me a month to make it, i’ve been going thru it man) i’m literally obsessed w sinners so hopefully i did stack justice! do y’all even read these? anyways

feedback is always appreciated n welcomed <3

Your hair was starting to cling onto your forehead as if you were drenched in sticky molasses.

The air was humid and dry; of course, this was a Mississippi custom, but it doesn’t help that there’s dozens of bodies stomping and prancing around.

Though you can’t complain much, considering that you were right here with them—dancing as if you hadn’t in years.

In a way, you haven't. You haven’t felt a rush of autonomy and euphoria quite like this before.

With everyone being nothing but working busy-bodies, there’s been little to no time to plan big events such as tonight. The lack of excitement has been a major factor too.

Hence why as soon as the Moore twins came back into town with the intention to open up their very own juke joint, everyone was on board.

The pair hadn’t been seen here in seven years.

Seven long, cruel years without the twin you’ve grown to love.

Stack.

Well, he was Stack to everyone else. But to you? He was still Elias. Your ‘Lias.

Seven years without his lingering touches and pearly smiles.

You weren’t the only one that missed him, it seems.

Your sister told you that when she went down near the train station, she was right there waiting for your Elias.

Mary was waiting.

You don’t have a clue as to how she knew he was coming home before you did, considering that nobody from the Delta had heard from him except for you. And a letter from him was rather rare.

Mary had nearly thrown a fit once she saw him; it didn’t help that Elias had turned down her persistent advances.

The lack of contact obviously sent her over the edge.

Apparently she mentioned their former relations; their connection being a secret to none.

You were envious of this; never jealous, but overcome by a feeling of want.

Growing up with the twins meant that the three of you were as close as can be. That being said, though, they looked at you as if you were their little sister. It was fine when Elijah assumed the role of a family member, but Elias?

Just thinking about it makes your heart ache.

You longed for the flirtatious remarks that he’d give off to any and every woman, a night filled with intimacy plagued your mind constantly.

But you got over it.

You had to. Not only for the sake of your friendship with Elias, but also because of his prolonged absence from town.

That’s why tonight—right now, you had to pump the breaks and focus on celebrating the twins’ success.

Speaking of success?

You making your way over to the bar with your wobbly heeled-covered feet was a success. Surprisingly.

“Someone’s been dancin’ a lil too hard, huh?” Annie chortles, looking at you with nothing but sisterly-love, and a bit of amusement.

“Only dancin’ I was doing was during my cooking—nothin’ like this in a while,” you exclaim with bliss through a beaming smile. You huff as you sit down in front of the bar. “Y’got anythin’ good back here?” You motion to the bottles Annie has surrounding her.

“Better than good,” Annie replies before ducking down and searching below the counter.

You brace your hands on the counter and slightly peer over at the woman, but then she pops up quicker than you can plop back down onto your chair. She quirks a brow at you before placing a bottle down in front of you.

“What’s this?” You question; if Annie didn’t know any better, she would’ve thought that it was Christmas morning with the way you were looking at the bottle.

“Authentic Irish beer; straight from the north side of Chicago. Different from the rest they’re sellin’.” She replies. “Your man brought it specifically for you—made me promise I wouldn’t give it to nobody else, no matter how much they was payin’.”

You bite back a smile at her words; you knew exactly who she was talking about.

“He fixin’ to be Mary’s.” Your lips straighten, it’s bittersweet.

“That so? ‘Cause that ain’t what I heard,” Annie muses, making you pause. You savor Annie’s words as if they were your holy grail. Was there a chance that Elias looked at you the same as you did him?

You crane your neck and your gaze is set over your shoulder—over at him.

He catches your eye and he gives you a cheeky smile, to which you return rather eagerly.

You hadn’t had a single nonchalant bone in your body it seems.

Your shared staring was cut short as Mary forced Elias’ attention back onto her, but it wasn’t exactly a hard task for her.

Something about her was just so easy and simple, despite the ring shining on her hand that matched another man’s being anything but simple. The way that they connected even after all these years made you feel as if you swallowed a jar of mud.

After a few sips of beer, you can’t help but let a smile rest on your face. Elias knew you’d love it, and it makes your heart dance.

Speaking of dancing, your dearest friend Pearline struts up to you with a grin that soared for miles.

“What’s got you cheesin’ all hard?” You raise your eyebrows at her, making her giggle.

“Y’know the Preacher’s boy? The one that was just singin’?” Pearline’s nearly jumping out of her skin with excitement.

“Lil’ Sammie Moore? Course I do, why? What’d you do Pearl?” You gape at her and hold her hands tightly in yours.

“Well…” She trails off. “Let’s just say, he showed me he ain’t a boy, but a real man.”

Your eyes nearly bulge out of the sockets as you exclaim a Pearline! that could probably be heard for miles.

Pearline gushes, “He made me feel things I ain’t never felt before.”

“Not even with your mister?” You gasp.

“Not even close. And that’s not all,” she pauses before looking around, then leaning in towards you.

“I wasn’t even able to freshen up. He didn’t want me to,” Pearline whispers.

You shout, then look around in embarrassment at your outburst; you shake Pearline vigorously by her shoulders and giggle some more.

You decide to look around the joint, and you coincidentally catch Sammie looking right at the back of Pearline’s frame in utter awe.

You nudge Pearline, and she looks over at him with you. The look that she throws his way is nothing short of flirtatious.

“He looked at ya like he wanted t’take a bite,” you snicker.

Pearline looks at you mischievously, “Funny, considerin’ he already did.” You can’t help but laugh.

“So, y’thinkin’ bout singin’ like he said?” You ask.

Pearline hums, “Maybe. ‘M thinkin’ you should too.”

“No, not happenin’. Not a chance,” You scoff playfully.

Pearline whines and grabs your wrists. “C’mon, sista! When’s the last time you got the chance to do this?” She pouts, and tries hardest to make puppy-dog eyes at you.

“Besides, this could be y’chance to make a move on Stack. Ain't that whatcha been waitin’ for?” She drags.

You falter at the question she poses.

“Tonight’s the night, sista.” Pearline murmurs softly.

It’s crazy how you always get in your head when it comes to him.

The thing is, you weren’t one to throw yourself out there just to entertain a man. No, that just wasn’t your style.

But God—tonight? His suit was fitting snug in all the right places, his grills glimmered dangerously in the dim lighting, and his eyes always found yours, recklessly.

You couldn’t resist Elias Moore.

And right now, you’re starting to wonder if you ever could.

“Y’better wrap that scarf on tight, Pearl,” you say as you grab her arm and start walking with her to the front. Pearline shrills and claps her hands with glee.

You saunter towards the stage with a pep in your step and your arm linked with a perky Pearline. Your heels clack on the wooden floors as you come face-to-face with the band and none other than Delta Slim, who’s now grinning at you.

“Been tryin’ to getcha to sing for years girl, what’s with the change o’ heart?” He questions with a smirk, as if he already knew the answer. You’re sure that he did with the way that his eyes looked past you and towards Elias.

“It’s a nice night, figured I’d try sum different,” you shrug, trying to mask your sudden embarrassment. Pearline intertwines her hand with yours and uses her other one to gesture to the band. You inhale deeply while looking at her; she gives you a look of reassurance.

The patrons of the juke joint grow silent at the sight of you two taking your stances and the band readying their instruments.

Pearline starts humming and you lightly stomp your feet on the stage, starting to form a beat as the band follows.

Elias feels as if his heart was being weighed down by a ton inside of him. He held his breath—scared that the rise and fall of his chest would make him miss the steady view of you: parading around as if everything outside the joint had come to a halt.

You looked completely, and utterly divine up there; moving swiftly and effortlessly, as if you owned the very ground you were stepping on.

You were absolutely ethereal in Elias’ eyes.

And he’d be lying if he said that he wasn’t falling even harder for his sugar as of right now. He was the only man that could get away with calling you sugar; he knows it, so does everyone else in the Delta—and Elias can’t help but let his pride swell every time he thinks about it.

Your body sways carelessly as if you were one with the words that escaped your lips, but your eyes are grounded—powerful, even. Speaking of them: your glittering orbs meet his, your gaze nothing short of a vixen’s.

Though, the interlocking of your sights is interrupted when Mary makes her presence known yet again at Elias’ side. He can’t help but sigh at the intrusion.

Luckily, Elias’ ever-growing agitation fades when the patrons of the juke let out their elation around him. The band’s playing picks up, as well as you and Pearline’s voices.

Don’t let it shine, shine, shine once more

Pale, pale moon, pale, pale moon

Everyone chants and stomps rhythmically.

“I wanna sing, like I hear the crickets do,” Pearline sings seductively while peering at Sammy as she struts.

Pale, pale moon, pale, pale moon

“I wanna hoo,” you and Pearline sing simultaneously, harmonizing beautifully as your backs meet and you both slide to a crouching position.

Pale, pale moon, pale, pale moon

“I wanna howl,” the two of you sound as if you were straight out of a folktale—like one of those myths of the sirens that Annie had explained to Elias once before. You and Pearline then reside in a crawl as you look at the crowd with a sense of hunger in your eyes.

Mary gets ahold of Elias’ tie, but he quickly removes her grip from him—without even breaking eye contact with you. He knows she’s interested in spending the rest of the night with him; maybe in hopes of rekindling an old flame.

But how could Elias be interested in another woman when his woman—his sugar—was looking at him so deliciously.

You grin slyly at him, biting your bottom lip before licking your teeth.

Pale, pale moon, pale, pale moon

“I wanna scream,” Pearline sings, as you mouth the three words to Elias.

Three little words that have Elias fucking mesmerized, hypnotized even. You have him in a trance, right where you want him, and you both know it.

Elias wishfully thinks that the pick up in your breathing isn’t just from all the dancing you’ve been doing tonight. He bites his lip at the thoughts running through his mind.

Mary can’t even say that she recognizes the look that Elias gives you, for she has never been on the receiving end like you have been. Her frustration and jealousy boils over, and she eventually huffs before walking away from Elias, and out of the juke joint.

Elias doesn’t mind one bit, and he sure as hell doesn’t when the song finishes and you hug Pearline with excitement as the joint nearly turns upside down. You’re jumping up and down and Elias can’t help but smile til his cheeks hurt.

Elias feels a hand slap somewhat roughly on his shoulder. He knows good and well it’s his brother, with or without the wave of tobacco radiating.

“Came out here after the game finished, saw the way she was lookin’ at’cha, too.” Elijah grumbles.

“Breathtakin’, ain’t she?” Elias remarks breathily, not even turning to his brother—keeping his sights on you, as you hug Slim and the rest of the instrument players.

“Not ‘bout how I feel, ‘s ‘bout how you feel,” Elijah sighs. This makes Elias turn towards his brother.

“Don’t know what’chu waitin’ on, already been years,” Elijah then pauses before continuing, “Don’t be surprised when somebody see what’chu see.” Elijah trails off, almost ominously, and nods his head in your direction.

Elias follows his twin’s trail of sight and spots you: talking to a man he ain’t even seen before. You were beaming, your hair a little frizzed up by the humidity, your lipgloss smudged a little onto your shimmering skin.

Speaking of your lipgloss—whoever you’re talking to decided to rub his finger below your lip to wipe it away. Right now, Elias’ demeanor resembles the snake him and his brother killed earlier: cold and unmoving.

You glance around the sea of bodies, and Elias takes this as a sign. He starts to walk up to you, but not before having to mumble several ‘excuse me’s while side-stepping quite a few people—who seem to not be able to hold their liquor.

He finally reaches you, and he gets a glimpse of you over the guy’s shoulder, who has no idea he’s even there.

“We got a problem?” Elias murmurs, making the stranger nearly jump out of his skin.

“N-nah man,” the man chuckles awkwardly as he faces Elias.

“I reckon we do, since y’talkin’ to my lady,” Elias replies, sizing him up as he takes a step closer to him. The man takes a step back in return.

“I ain’t know, I-I’m sorry, Stack,” the man trembles meekly. Elias only hums. The man glances between the two of you before making himself scarce.

Elias stays in the same spot for a beat, before turning and giving you a look that says let’s go, before walking towards one of the back rooms of the joint. You hesitate, before inching behind him.

“So I’m y’lady now?” You don’t bother to tone down the sass in your voice.

“‘S what I said, ain’t it?” he mumbles, not even looking at you.

You scoff, “Yeah, well, y’got a funny way a’ showin’ it.”

Elias pulls you into a dimly lit room and finally faces you as you stand before him. “What’s that s’possed to mean?”

You narrow your eyes at him before speaking. “Means I saw you messin’ with ole Mary.”

“She don’t mean nun to me,” Elias guaffs. “Why d’ya think she left already?”

You roll your eyes and begin to head out the door you just came from. You’re not sure where this attitude just came from, in all honesty. The moment your eyes met him while you were on stage, it felt as if everything else had faded away, and it was just the two of you.

Maybe it was the irritation caused by Mary that left you in a sour mood now, you’re not sure. You know it won’t be beneficial to you nor Elias in this moment, but you can’t help it.

Elias grabs your wrist before you can get too far away from him.

“She ain’t nun, y’hear?” If you didn’t know any better, you’d think he almost sounded desperate. You stay quiet.

“Asked you a question, sugar. ‘N with that attitude of yours, I ain’t fixin’ to repeat myself.” His lips ghost the shell of your ear as he speaks, and heat twinges through your stomach. Elias seems to take notice of the subtle switch in your demeanor; he smirks and his chocolate brown irises darken even further.

“I…I don’t believe you,” You almost whisper, but still meet his gaze.

Almost immediately, he responds with, “What I got to do to convince you, baby?” Elias matches your tone, but there’s still a hint of assertiveness conveyed through his words.

You don’t speak—it’s almost like you couldn’t, but you release your wrist from his grasp gently.

Elias’ jaw clenched slightly, but you still spot it. He looks as if he’s pondering his next words.

“‘S not makin’ sense, darlin’. I mean, you were acting like a whore on stage, now you don’t want me to touch you?” He cocks his head at you and your lips part—like it was reflex, and maybe it was. Elias clicks his tongue.

Your breath picks up, and if your mind weren’t turning fuzzy, you would’ve chided yourself for making a fool out of yourself in front of a man—Elias at that.

The man you’ve yearned for longer than you can even remember.

“I ain’t no whore,” you speak, finally regaining your senses.

“That right, sugar?” You can feel Elias’ breath on your heated face, and all you can do is nod in return.

“Y’wanna know what I think?” Before you can answer the question Elias poses, he murmurs lowly, “I think that deep down….You are a whore—and you needa be fucked like one.”

Despite the vulgarity of his words, the way that Elias places his palm across your cheek is soft—loving, even.

You press your thighs together through your dress unconsciously, desperately seeking even an ounce of friction to cool the impending heat between your legs.

Elias takes the hand that rested upon your cheek and moved it to the stiff rim lock that resided on the door’s surface.

Thank god—You’d hate for the likes of someone such as Sammie barging in and being witness to sin hotter than the Mississippi sun.

Elias then starts to walk you back to the table that remained bare in the dingy-lit room, removing his suit jacket and vest, followed by his tie. The backs of your knees meet the edge of the firm table, making you stumble just a bit. Elias takes it upon himself to lay you down onto the table.

You rest on your elbows as you look up at the six-foot-something man in front of you, and you can’t help but swoon. His beating eyes look down at you lustfully—almost as if he were a predator, and you his prey.

It made you weak.

Weak at the hands of a man you’d been waiting on while he had the time of his life in Chicago, with all sorts of Italian customs. Your actions are beyond halfwitted, but you make no effort to straighten yourself out anymore.

Elias takes his warm hands and spreads your knees with ease after unbuttoning his shirt, making you yelp involuntarily at the near-abrasiveness. He licks his grillz and lets out a short, deep chuckle; you feel it vibrate your bones, while he aligns himself so that almost he’s eye-level with your warm core.

“Elias, wait—“ You whimper meekly,

He hums disapprovingly, letting out a firm ‘mm-mmn’. He rips his gaze from your thighs to your eyes, “Been waitin’ for years, sugar, not sure if I can any longer.” He repositions his hands, lifting your dress and hitching it up to your upper thighs, nearly to your pelvic bone.

Elias massages your thighs with an iron grip, it’s not yet rough, but not exactly gentle either. His switch between the two is making your mind reel.

He kisses up from your knee almost to where your dress bunches up as he removes his button-up, leaving him in his undershirt. He then says, “…So, m’sorry if I lose m’manners,” he breathes hotly against your skin, “But I don’t think I can live without destroying this pussy for a minute longer.” He damn near groans.

His mouth hovers above your clothed cunt—he purposely breathes in a way that makes you squirm at the feeling you’re unable to run from. As you shudder and tilt your head back, you suddenly hear a rip and you feel a gust of air.

You gasp and look down, where you’re met with Elias looking up at you cheekily, with one half of your panties in his mouth, and the other in his hand.

“‘Lias!” You exclaim.

Elias feigns innocence, “Told ya I ain’t mean no harm.” He then averts his focus to your legs, and he leaves a kiss to your mound.

“Y’not gon let me freshen up, will ya?” You ask quietly, already knowing the answer.

Instead of answering, Elias takes his tongue and trails it from your hole to your clitoris, and you puff out the air you didn’t know you were holding in.

Elias seems to enjoy your reaction, for he then gives you another long lick.

And another,

and another,

and you guessed it, another.

You press your lips together, muting your sounds, and Elias ‘tsk’s at the sight.

He nips a bit of the skin next to your lips, making you choke on your own spit. “Don’t like how quiet you’re bein’.” Elias reprimands you.

“Stop t-teasin’ then,” You manage to huff.

Elias chuckles in disbelief, “Wanted to be gentle, but y’makin’ it hard,” he then lifts you up from the table, and places his back where you once laid. He hooks your legs over the sides of his head, your pussy now inches away from his plump, shining lips.

Elias’ typical, million-dollar smirk is back on his face, but there’s something more sinister behind it—your legs would’ve buckled if he weren’t holding them.

“You’re a whore, jus’ like I said y’were.” His southern drawl makes your stomach twist in knots, despite the familiarity. Before you could get a word out, Elias placed you onto his face.

You mewl at the feeling of his tongue swirling around anywhere, and everywhere.

Your clit, your lips—it was almost as if he were starving.

There was no rhythm, no harmony and contentment, just the actions of a man on a mission.

A mission to make you scream louder than the birds on your farm.

Then, abruptly, Elias leaves a small, yet firm slap to your clit. “Admit it,” he says between licks. “Admit that you’re a whore.” He leaves another slap.

You don’t respond, too caught up in both the pain and pleasure. Your head hangs back and your eyes are clenched shut, and Elias grows impatient.

He removes his mouth from you with a ‘pop’ and almost snarls at you, “Thought I told ya Ion like repeatin’ myself.” He slaps your clit again, this time with more force.

“Okay—Okay! I was bein’ a whore tonight, ‘m sorry!” You cry out as your back arches.

Elias starts to lower you towards his grinning face, and you shiver at the feeling of his cold grillz.

Instead of teasing kitten-licks, Elias sucks at your slit and lets his tongue roam freely, without a care in the world. You writhe and whine on top of him, your body bending back and creating a dull aching sensation.

His advances are relentless, and you have no chances of escaping his grasp; he readjusts his grip as soon as he feels you start to slip away from him. You don’t know whether to clench around his tongue as he fucks you with it, or to cry–you end up doing both, and this continues on for who knows how long.

You’ve stopped counting the number of orgasms you’ve had after the second one–you think–but you think Elias has been keeping track. He’s muttered ‘jus’ one more, sugar’ maybe three times now, and you don’t know how many you have left in you at this point.

After what feels like hours, Elias finally lifts your hips up, allowing you to slide down and straddle his hips with your head resting upon his chest.

The beating sound of his steady heart fills your ear, and you try to match your breathing with Elias’. You feel a vibration as he shakes with laughter. You slightly drag your head up just enough to peek at his face, and he looks down at you with amusement.

“We ain’t done, not yet, peach,” he chuckles breathily at the wave of surprise that washes over your face.

You fumble with your words, “What d’ya mean? ‘L-Lias, I-I’m spent!” You continue to tremble in his arms.

“Y’still talkin’, ain’t ya, sugar?” He scoffs, it’s antagonizing. And before you can utter anything else, Elias flips you around onto the table, so you now lay with your back on the wood once again. Your dress rides down a tad at the sudden movement, and Elias holds your back, lifting you so that he can push your dress up past your breasts.

Elias lowers your back, before leaning peck your nipples. You bite your lip, but quickly let out a moan once he blows air onto your nipples, watching almost menacingly as they harden. One hand tweaks one of your nipples, as the other drags down your rib cage.

His hot, glistening tongue swishes around your tits, as he leaves sloppy, open-mouthed kisses to your skin.

He sucks harshly as you whimper beneath him. One of his hands leaves your body and goes down to his slacks, he unbuttons them with ease without even looking, as he continues to leave hickies on your chest.

He untucks himself from his underwear, and you can’t help but buck towards his cock in anticipation.

“Easy, girl. You’ll get it when ya prove y’deserve it,” Elias mocks, you whine in response.

“I deserve it, more than anybody else–y’know that, ‘Lias,” You plead in hopes of him giving you what you want.

“That right, baby? All this yours, nobody else's?” He challenges, starting to stroke his length.

You squeeze your eyelids together, almost as if you were personally pained by the question.

“Damn right,” You huff as you look at him with a sudden wave of fire blazing through your eyes. Elias scoffs with a mixture of incredulity and mirth.

“Yeah, baby–always been yours. Glad ya finally came to y’senses.” And with that, Elias pushes inside of you, and you let out a broken gasp.

Elias quickly finds his pace as he thrusts in and out of you rapidly. He nearly pulls entirely out of your dripping cunt–and you think he’s going to tease you again, but he then slams back into you roughly, making you cry out as your back arches into him.

You’re now chest-to-chest with Elias as he continues to pump into you with little regard to your overstimulation. The contact of skin makes your toes curl in your heels. Elias grunts at the feeling of you clamping down on his cock and bites forcibly at the flesh of your neck.

Elias groans–almost as if fucking you were the key to heaven’s gates. He takes his large palm and pushes it down onto your torso, making your sweating body meet the barely-covered, rumbling wood.

You weep helplessly and squirm as he keeps you pressed against the shaking table.

“Mmnf–”Lias! Please!” You cry yet again, but without knowing the reason behind it this time.

He doesn’t respond to your watery blabbering, instead putting your legs on either side of his shoulders. Elias slowly–and almost lovingly–kisses your ankle, before unclasping the latch of your heel and sliding it off of your foot, letting it hit the floor with a thump that neither of you seem to catch through the sounds of your bodies meeting.

You two damn-near become one.

He repeats his actions on your other leg, but this time he kisses from your calf to your ankle before removing your heel and letting it meet the ground with your matching one.

His hand grips at the ankle he just kissed, using it as if it were the only thing keeping him grounded; like an anchor. He then sucks and nips at your leg, quickly marking just above your ankle with a red bruise, which you know will be purple by the time the sun rises for morning.

You hiss when he bites a little too roughly, and he shows his sympathy by licking at the irritated skin, soothing the tender ache.

“That feel good, darlin’? Tell “Lias how much y’love it, peach, c’mon,” Elias coos, lifting his shirt up so he can get a proper view of your sex.

You babble through sobs intelligibly, mewling something along the lines of ‘so so good, ‘Lias!’—at least that’s what Elias makes of it.

“Can’t hear ya, baby. Ya gotta–fuck! Ya gotta speak a ‘lil louder f’me, hm?” Elias manages to speak through his panting and groaning. You bawl, hot tears dripping from your cheeks down to your chin.

“It feels so good–oh god—‘Lias!” You shriek, not caring about the volume of your crying. “Please don’t stop! Please, please, please–” You ramble with a slur.

If Elias ever felt guilty at the way he man-handling you, seeing your fucked-out expression made all his worries wash away at the sight of you: tongue hanging out, as your tears dribble into your open mouth.

Your panting grows more frantic, little ‘uh-uh-uh’s being let out more frequently as you feel another orgasm course through your veins. “‘Lias—cummin’! S-sh-it, I-I’m cummin’!”

Elias firmly plants his feet on the floor, repositioning the arm on your stomach onto your other leg so that he can fuck you even deeper–deep enough to create a slight bulge in your stomach with his throbbing tip. “Yeah, that’s it. Fall apart on this dick, y’know y’want to, sugar. Been dreamin’ ‘bout it f’years, huh?” He taunts.

You try to answer him, honestly! But he’s hitting your cervix just right and his abs rub against the backs of your thighs–it’s too much.

Elias thought you’ve learned by now that he doesn’t take silence for an answer, so to remind you, he gives your spent cunt a more forceful slap than before.

“Fuck—Yes! A-always been wantin’ you, ‘Lias,” you wail. “I-I never let nobody touch me! Nobody but you!” You exclaim without thinking.

This fuels Elias to quicken his pace; he almost fucking growls at your words, and he tightens your legs around himself–right now, as he feels himself getting closer and closer to climaxing, he has no plans on pulling out.

He continues to heave words of encouragement as fucks you ruthlessly through your orgasm.

You moan and blabber as your vision turns white, and your ears start to ring. Your toes curl and flex, and your nails scratch at the table, hands desperate for something to hold. Your voice then gives out, as your tongue lolls out of your mouth yet again.

Elias gives you a few more earth-stattering thrusts, before his seed fills your puffy, aching hole; the guttural groan that leaves his throat ups in pitch–nearly turning into a whimper.

He pumps his cum into you once more, before releasing your legs from his grip and laying down on top of you. As he half-lays-half-stands against the table, he feels as if a cold bucket of water was dumped onto him.

He can no longer focus on the tingling feeling that shoots from his skull to his toes, but now on the fact that he was the first man you’ve been with.

You spent your first time with him–in a rickety building he bought from a Klan member, on an even dingier table.

Elias then taps your face, just enough to get you to come back to your senses. You open your eyes with a lazy grin at the feeling of his seed mixed with yours, but when you’re met with his panicky expression, you quickly push yourself up–to the best of your ability.

“What? Wha’s wrong, ‘Lias?” You question worrisomely.

He allows himself to catch his breath before speaking, “Y’serious?” It’s all that he says.

You furrow your brows and tilt your head at him, “Bout what? Y’scarin’ me, Elias,” you chuckle awkwardly.

Had you said something you shouldn’t have?

A million thoughts run rampant throughout your mind.

“‘Bout all this,” he flails his hand, motioning to where your bodies had just met. “Was that really ya first time?” He speaks loudly, and you feel mortified.

Your breath catches in your throat. You confirm his worries, your voice softer than a freshly picked feather, “Yes.”

Elias takes a step back, and it takes everything in you not to reach out for him. Instead, you sit up fully and push your dress back down to your thighs. You twiddle your thumbs idly, seeking for even an ounce of comfort as Elias pushes his shirt back down and tucks himself back into his boxers after wiping himself off with a rag. Despite his glowering, he hands you a rag so that you can wipe away the slick from between your thighs.

Did he regret spending the night with you? Did he find the fact that you remained a virgin because of him embarrassing?

“Why you ain’t tell me, girl?” He exclaims, “I wouldn’t have said and done all that foolishness if I knew you ain't never been with a man before!”

You feel your soul come back into your body. “You would’ve been all sweet with me? That whatcha sayin’, ‘Lias?” You can’t help but giggle.

“Ain’t nothin’ funny, woman! I was all rough with you ‘n–” You cut him off with a kiss to his lips, wrapping your legs around his hips and pulling him closer to you. You fold your arms around his neck, and you feel his hands drift down to your waist and squeeze lightly. Your nose nudges his, his breath fans your face as yours does his.

You break the kiss when you feel yourself losing your breath, and you gaze at Elias lovingly.

“You were perfect, I couldn’t imagine it any other way,” you whisper.

“Well for starters, could've gotten you a bed in the house ‘stead of a table in this dark ass room,” Elias grumbles.

You grin, “I think the lightin’ was just fine. Added ambience ‘n all that.” Elias pouts, and you peck his lips.

“I don’t care ‘bout the details, “Lias. Long as it was with you.” Your tone is as sweet as the finest honey in Clarksdale, and it pulls on Elias’ heartstrings.

“Y’really waited all these years….For me?” He whispers.

“Course I did, couldn’t imagine bein’ with anybody else.” You speak just as softly. You recognize the guilt that crosses his face, despite his best efforts to mask it with his bravado. “Don’t feel guilty, please. I don’t blame you for nun.” You caress his hair. Silence fills the room as Elias deciphers what to say, you just hold him tenderly until he’s ready.

“I-I love ya, more than y’know, sugar…” He trails off before finishing his sentence, “I jus’ want ya to know that. I have since we was young.” He looks at you with adoration and love in his eyes.

“I love you too, Elias Moore. Have since you stood up to my daddy on his farm f’me when we was seven.”

He smiles, but it’s tight lipped, making you frown. “Jus’ wish I could’ve admitted it sooner. Then this would’ve went down differently—would’ve been better.” He sulks.

You take your thumb and index finger and pluck his lips, making him shout ‘hey!’ with a laugh.

“Stop beatin’ y’self up, Elias. I told you, I’m perfectly happy here, right now. Ain’t nun gon’ change that a bit.” You scold him.

“If ya stop all that moppin’, I’ll let ya try again tomorrow, however y’want,” you giggle mischievously. Elias’ eyes light up almost immediately, the way he perks up reminds you of a puppy that was just given a treat.

Elias roars with laughter and squeezes you, before lowering you back down onto the table, he presses nearly all of his weight onto you.

You squeal and cackle as he tickles your sides, “‘Lias!”

You lay wrapped up with Elias, you felt as if you could lay there forever, and honestly in this moment, you wanted to.

Clarity and revelations do the body good.

Everything was good.

Until you heard a commotion on the other side of the door.