#I apologize for you all having to see this...

[valeisaslut]

⭒࿐COLLIDE - epilogue

credits for the fanart: nramvv - edited by me

𝐄𝐏𝐈𝐋𝐎𝐆𝐔𝐄 - 𝐅𝐈𝐍𝐀𝐋𝐄

𝐘𝐎𝐔'𝐋𝐋 𝐍𝐄𝐕𝐄𝐑 𝐆𝐄𝐓 𝐀𝐖𝐀𝐘

𝐅𝐑𝐎𝐌 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐒𝐎𝐔𝐍𝐃 𝐎𝐅 𝐓𝐇𝐄

𝐖𝐎𝐌𝐀𝐍 𝐓𝐇𝐀𝐓 𝐋𝐎𝐕𝐄𝐒 𝐘𝐎𝐔.

𝐏𝐓. 𝟑 : 𝐖𝐄 𝐁𝐄𝐆𝐈𝐍 𝐖𝐇𝐄𝐑𝐄 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐑𝐒

𝐎𝐍𝐂𝐄 𝐂𝐎𝐋𝐋𝐈𝐃𝐄𝐃.

← 𝑒𝑝𝑖𝑙𝑜𝑔𝑢𝑒 𝑝𝑡. 𝟸 | 𝑚𝑎𝑠𝑡𝑒𝑟𝑙𝑖𝑠𝑡 →

⚢ pairing: Rockstar!Ellie Williams x Popstar!Reader 𖥔 ݁ ˖

⭒ synopsis: After watching them lose and bloom, shatter and survive, fate exhales—and answers the question that has haunted every stage, every verse, every sleepless night: will it finally loosen its grip and let them have what was always theirs? Maybe it doesn’t tie things clean. Maybe the red string coils into knots, frays with time, tangles itself around distance and silence and years that almost swallowed them whole. But it never breaks. And now—at last—it pulls tight. Not to strangle, but to lead. This is not the end. This is what happens when stars remember where they belong—and finally, collide 𖥔 ݁ ˖

⭒ word count: 16,6k 𖥔 ݁ ˖

⭒ content: JUST READ BABE. JUST READ. TRUST. AFAB!Reader, modern AU setting, multi-part series. MEN AND MINORS DNI. Likes and reblogs are deeply appreciated — thank you for supporting! 𖥔 ݁ ˖

For the full experience, I recommend clicking on the songs linked to Spotify as you read!

But now, take my hand—let’s walk into the end of this story together <3

Two weeks.

That’s all that remained before Ellie Williams stepped back into the spotlight.

Not for an interview. Not for an apology.

For a stage. For a reckoning. For her.

She wasn’t coming back with headlines or handshakes. She was coming back the only way Ellie Williams ever knew how—burning. No warning, no press run, no apology tour. Just a guitar in her hands and one hundred thousand people at Michigan Stadium.

The same stage you opened your tour.

But now, it was her turn.

People flew in from every corner of the world. Slept in tents outside the gates. Painted her name on their cheeks like war paint. Wore her lyrics on their jackets like armor. Some hadn’t heard her voice since the Louder Than Fate tour, when she was still burning and hadn’t yet turned to ash. Others had never heard her live at all—just in headphones, in bedrooms, through car radios. Some came because they loved her. Others because they missed her. But most came because they needed to see her.

Needed to know if she was still real, still standing, still capable of singing through the wreckage she crawled out of.

Ellie got the offer from the label just days after she dropped the album.

She could’ve said no. She could’ve let the legacy speak for itself. But she didn’t.

Because she was hungry again.

Hungry for the stage, for the sweat, the sound, the roar of something louder than memory and pain. Hungry for the sting of light in her eyes, for the weight of the guitar against her chest, for the noise that could drown out everything she used to be.

Hungry to prove to the world—and herself—that she could step back into the spotlight that once shattered her and not just survive it, but reclaim it.

And the moment it was announced, the news spread like gospel.

Ellie Williams. Live. One night only.

It sold out in seconds.

The world was watching—eyes glued to screens, hearts clenched in anticipation, waiting to witness history.

But when the day finally came, none of them knew what she felt backstage.

She was sitting in front of a vanity mirror that didn’t feel like hers. Harsh yellow lights beat down on her face. The reflection staring back at her looked familiar in the way a childhood home does after a hurricane. Same bones, different air.

Her hair was pulled back into a low bun—not styled, just practical. She wore a white ribbed tank that clung to her shoulders, old jeans and a leather belt that still held the shape of her past, and those battered boots she’d once played entire tours in.

Her tattoos looked darker somehow, more defined, every line sharpened. Her face was clearer, stripped of eyeliner and pretense, scattered with freckles the world hadn’t seen in years.

She didn’t look older. Or younger. Just… still. Like everything that once raged inside her had burned to the ground—and something stronger had chosen to stay behind.

And for a moment—one long, breathless, soul-splitting moment—Ellie didn’t think she could do it.

She then stood beneath the humming lights of the corridor, the roar of one hundred thousand people pulsing through the concrete like a second heartbeat, and felt the weight of her own body like it was something foreign. Her chest was tight. Her hands trembled at her sides. Her mouth was dry, like even her voice had curled away from her in fear. 

There were no rails to cling to. No coke to jolt her heart into rhythm, no pills to anchor her breath, no needles to blur the sharp edges. No easy lie to armor herself with, no persona to slip into like a stage costume, no mask to make the trembling feel like performance. No Jesse cracking jokes beside her. No Dina tugging her sleeve, telling her to breathe. 

No you waiting in the wings to kiss her good luck, to squeeze her hand and tell her she was born for this. No soft smile to ground her. No voice whispering in her ear that she could do it, that she’d be okay, that she was already more than enough.

Just her. Raw and unfiltered. Barefaced. Bare-souled. Skin-to-bone vulnerable. Walking willingly into the same blaze that once swallowed her whole, but this time with no promise she'd come out the other side.

She felt the full, awful presence of her own unmedicated nerves. Her unedited grief. Her unmuted past. She didn’t know if her knees would carry her forward or buckle beneath the weight. She didn’t know if her voice would hold, or if it would crack and betray her in front of everyone. 

She had never felt smaller. Never felt more real. Never felt more alive.

But then—Joel appeared.

He didn’t knock. Didn’t clear his throat. Didn’t ask if she needed anything.

He just walked in.

The same way he had stepped into that hotel suite three years ago, when she was dying beneath taped-up curtains and cold bathroom tiles, when the air reeked of confinement and something worse, when her hands shook for a million different reasons and her soul felt like a ghost trapped somewhere deep in her chest, pounding to get out. 

And now, in this dressing room, on the edge of everything she’d become, he stood the same way, like time had folded in on itself to remind her: you are not alone this time, either.

He stood behind her in the mirror, silent and solid, a figure made of earth and time. That familiar weight in his shoulders—the kind of strength that doesn’t announce itself, but holds up the roof when everything else comes crashing down. 

He wore denim. Flannel. His boots were dusted from the road. His hair was streaked with more grey than she remembered. 

But his eyes—his eyes were steady. Unmoving. They had been holding still for years, just waiting for her to look up.

“…Y’know,” he said, voice low and rough around the edges, worn like gravel and truth, “first time I saw you hold a guitar, you were what—six?”

Ellie blinked, almost smiled. “Five.”

“Five.” He nodded. “Right. And your hands were so damn small I thought you were gonna snap the neck clean off just tryin’ to tune it.”

A breath escaped her. It was half a laugh, half a sob. That sound she only made around him. It meant she remembered, too.

“But you didn’t,” he went on. “You figured it out. I taught you how to play, sure—but you taught yourself how to make it sing. You took wood and wire and turned it into something unforgettable. And that something made you the greatest.”

He then stepped forward, slow and sure, and rested his hands on her shoulders. He looked at her like she was made of light and grit and second chances.

“I know you’re scared,” he said. “Hell, if it were me, I’d be scared too. But what’s in you, kiddo… that don’t get killed by fear. It don’t quit when it hurts. You’ve already walked through hell and came out the other side, and you’re still standing. Still breathing. Still singing.”

She looked down, breath catching, throat tight.

His hand moved to her cheek—rough thumb brushing just beneath her eye, the way only a father could touch someone and make them feel safer by standing still.

“You’re not what broke you,” he said quietly. “You’re what survived it. And you don’t gotta go up there alone—not ever again.”

He held out his hand.

She took it.

And in their in-ears, a voice crackled to life: Showtime in five seconds.

She closed her eyes. Breathed once. Twice.

The stadium lights dimmed.

A single spotlight cut through the dark like a blade through velvet.

And two silhouettes stepped into it. Side by side. Unshaken. Unafraid.

Ready.

The crowd saw Joel first—and the sound that erupted wasn’t a cheer. It was a detonation.

A seismic, full-body scream that tore out of a hundred thousand throats at once, rising from the depths of Michigan Stadium like the earth itself was howling. People weren’t just applauding. They were sobbing. Collapsing. Grabbing strangers. Shaking.

Joel Miller’s return to the stage after a decade was already legendary on it's own.

But then Ellie stepped into the light.

And the world broke open.

The noise became inhuman. It was the loudest thing she’d ever heard, even with her in-ear monitor trying to block it out. A sound so raw it blurred into static—like every heart in the stadium had burst at once. People dropped to their knees. Clutched their chests. Stared like they’d seen God materialize in front of them.

Because in a way, they had.

Not the myth. Not the scandal. Not the ghost they’d whispered about for three years in every corner of the earth.

Just Ellie fucking Williams.

Stripped of costume and spectacle. Her jaw set. Her eyes full. Her spine straight. Boots grounded on the edge that once shattered her. Her first acoustic guitar strapped across her chest like a shield made of memory.

And when the noise dimmed by the smallest fraction—her voice came through.

A voice that had once disappeared into silence now rose like a phoenix from ash.

“I’m just a poor wayfaring stranger…”

The way it moved through the stadium felt ancient. It came from something bigger than music.

Then Joel’s voice slipped into the harmony like it had always belonged there, effortless, worn in, achingly right.

The way their voices braided together felt less like a performance and more like a memory being rewritten in real time. 

And the crowd felt it. You could see it in the way people started crying and didn’t stop. Not polite tears, not glossy-eyed admiration, but full, collapsed sobs. As if hearing something they didn’t know they’d been starving for. Fathers held daughters like lifelines. Lovers clutched hands, some of them sobbing into each other’s shoulders. Fans leaned on strangers, weeping like confessionals. 

Because it wasn’t just Ellie up there. And it wasn’t just Joel. It was both of them, together—alive. Not as the fractured pieces of the people they used to be, but as something whole and rebuilt.

They stood side by side, boots grounded. Their playing wasn’t polished, and it didn’t need to be. It was raw and imperfect and so incredible it can barely be described. 

The scrape of strings, the breath between verses, the unfiltered ache in their voices—it all bled into something more honest than perfection could ever offer.

And somehow, that stripped-down moment, with no band behind them and no noise to hide inside, was more powerful than any anthem ever could’ve been.

When the final note rang out, it didn’t end with applause. It ended with stillness. The kind that makes you feel like the world has stopped spinning. For a heartbeat, it was silent enough to hear the breath of the person beside you. 

And then the sobbing started again—quieter now, reverent, as if no one wanted to break what had just happened.

Ellie turned to look at Joel.

Joel was already looking at Ellie.

And in that look, she saw something she had never seen before. Not the complicated, unspoken weight of a father who didn’t know how to hold a daughter made of fire.  She saw pride. Pure, earned, bone-deep pride. It didn’t need to be said aloud to be known.

And Joel saw her, too. Not the haunted. Not the addict. Not the one who ran. Not just the artist who rose from her own ashes, turning them into songs that brought the world to its knees—all over again.

But the daughter he thought he’d lost forever, standing beside him with her chin lifted and her voice unshaking. The saw the woman who clawed her way back from the dead.

The song ended, but something far more important ended with it.

The wound Joel had left in Ellie—the old, unspoken fracture of absence and disappointment—closed. Quietly. Completely. 

And the one Ellie left in Joel—the guilt, the helplessness, the deep, clawing ache of a man who feared he’d failed—finally softened into something like peace.

There were no apologies spoken.

Only a father and daughter, once torn apart by silence, who found each other again in the only language they never forgot how to speak—music.

The days had passed like mist through your fingers—formless, slow, devoid of shape or meaning, as if time itself had been grieving with you. Since the moment you pressed play on Ellie’s album, something inside you had cracked so quietly it didn’t even echo. Just a shattering, inward. A collapse you didn’t notice until you were already buried beneath it.

You moved through your days like a version of yourself caught between radio static and a memory—doing what you were supposed to do, but never quite arriving.

On stage, you sang the notes like a ghost of yourself. You moved the way you always had—fluid, rehearsed, divine—but something underneath had ruptured all over again. You smiled when the cameras were on, told stories on late-night couches with perfectly timed laughs. But every step offstage felt like unraveling. Every green room felt like a tomb.

And after, you went home, to this apartment high above the city. No press. No afterparties. The kitchen untouched. The bedroom too big. The pillows still smelling faintly like lavender and someone you didn’t name anymore.

You didn’t answer Abby. Not when she sent a long paragraph apology, somewhere between remorse and confusion. Not when she called three times in a row. And not when she finally gave up subtlety and said, “We can try again. If you want.”

You didn’t even open it.

Not because you wanted to be cruel. Not because you didn’t appreciate the softness you’d been offered, or the effort it took to stay at your side while you were halfway somewhere else. But because the truth had already bloomed inside your chest like a bruise you couldn’t ignore. It wasn’t Abby. It was never Abby. And no amount of stability or warm hands could quiet the voice you heard again.

Because that voice—her voice—had broken through the silence of your carefully reconstructed life like a blade. And in that moment, with every lyric, with every breath she sang into the dark, you knew.

Your heart had never moved on. Your soul had never made the journey. You had been surviving, yes. But you hadn’t really lived since her.

And in the aftermath of that album—raw, confessional, impossible to misinterpret—you finally let yourself accept what you’d been running from in the quietest, most painful kind of surrender.

That maybe you were destined to haunted by the ghost of Ellie Williams forever.

A shadow stitched into your ribcage. A presence that time could blur but never erase. A love that refused to die, even when you begged it to.

You’d walked into the studio the next morning after hearing it with your makeup already done and a smile pinned so tightly to your lips you were sure it would scar. Not even your stylist said a word. Not the lighting guy. Not your publicist, who usually couldn’t shut up about viral angles and fan engagement. You were handled like something breakable, a crystal vase perched too close to the edge of a windowsill. Everyone knew. No one dared to name it.

You got through the first hour of recording. Barely. Your voice cracked once, then again, and again—until it was no longer convincing. You stepped out mid-take, blamed it on exhaustion, waved off concern with a perfectly practiced flick of the wrist. My voice is shot, you said, and they nodded.

You didn’t check headlines. Couldn’t. The internet was drenched in her name—suffocating in it. Every push notification felt like a gut punch. Every flick of your thumb opened a trap. Ellie Williams Breaks Her Silence. Ellie’s New Album: A Love Letter or a Confession? “Lover, You Should’ve Come Over”: A Song No One Was Ready For.

Your inbox overflowed. Interview requests. Podcast pitches. Brand deals—each one clawing for your reaction. All of them starved to know what you thought, desperate for a paparazzi shot of you crying. If they could catch you unraveling in real time, they’d rake in the numbers.

You hadn’t posted since.

You couldn’t care less about engagement, PR, or damage control. You hadn’t even posted the breakup statement with Abby—it still sat in your drafts, unsent and untouched.

Because knowing the media, of course they’d link it to Ellie’s return.

The worst part? They’d be completely right.

So now, you were in the penthouse.

In a second, you swore the whole place inhaled with you. The walls themselves paused, the air tensed, the silence had shape and sound and a pulse. Moonlight spilled across the hardwood in a long, silver exhale. You didn’t know what was coming. Only that something was.

You were lying in bed minutes later, barely breathing, when your phone lit up.

Rachel.

Your body didn’t jolt or freeze. It just… stilled. Like it recognized this moment before your brain did. You blinked, slow. Blank ceiling. Heavy air. You didn’t move. Didn’t answer right away. Just watched the screen light up with the name of the only person who might understand, the one who had always been there on the edge of everything, never pushing, always waiting.

You could have let it ring. You almost did. Let it vanish into missed call silence, another unopened door you couldn’t walk through.

But something deep inside you twitched—sharp and certain. A low, humming knowing that said respond.

So you reached quietly on the fifth ring, dragging the phone to your ear like it weighed your entire life.

“What.”

Your voice was flat, but your pulse had already spiked.

“RUN TO YOUR TV. First channel you can find—national, local, WHATEVER—just turn it on. RIGHT NOW. GO—”

Rachel’s breath was erratic on the other end, like she was sprinting through adrenaline.

“What? Rachel, what’s going on?” you sat up, “Why? What happened?”

“I—I can’t—OH MY GOD—JUST DO IT!” she half-laughed, half-screamed. “YOU’RE GONNA DIE. GO. NOW.”

Your heart lurched in your chest like it had been yanked by a string. Then raced.

Something electric ignited then—wild, primal, terrifying—the kind of feeling that didn’t come with warning. The kind of feeling that only meant one thing: Her.

You bolted barefoot across the hardwood, phone clutched in one hand, the other fumbling wildly for the remote. It was like your body already knew what your mind couldn’t yet process.

You clicked the remote on with trembling fingers.

The screen blinked to life.

One second of black.

And then—

Michigan Stadium.

Night sky overhead.

Lights flooding the stage.

And there.

There she was.

The one you thought you’d never see again.

Ellie.

You dropped the phone. It hit the floor hard. You heard Rachel screaming through the speaker, but her voice was a distant echo, swallowed by the roar in your ears.

Because she was there.

You stumbled back like the image itself had struck you in the chest. The air left your lungs all at once, sharp and violent, like you’d been punched by a ghost. Your knees caught the edge of the couch and buckled, and you sank down without grace or thought, eyes locked to the screen, unblinking, unmoving, undone.

Ellie stood in the center of Michigan Stadium like the world had tilted just to make room for her. White ribbed tank. Old jeans. Those battered black boots you once tripped over in the hallway of a hotel room you both refused to leave. Her hair was pulled back, out of her face. Her tattoos sat dark beneath the lights, inked relics of a war she survived. Her guitar rested across her chest like it belonged to her ribcage.

But it wasn’t the outfit. It wasn’t the set. It wasn’t the crowd.

It was her.

She looked radiant.

Not in a polished, made-for-press kind of way. Not only because she was already perfect. But because she looked holy. There was a quiet power in her posture, a stillness that rang louder than any scream. The kind of beauty that had nothing to prove. Her skin glowed under the lights, untouched by highlighter or stage makeup. Her arms were fuller now. Her face softer. Her body no longer carved by tension, but by healing. There was more weight to her, more color, more breath.

She looked more beautiful than your memory had dared to keep.

Changed in all the ways time demands, but still, so unmistakably her.

Because under it all, that Ellie the world and you fell in love with remained—that wild, impossible gravity only she had ever carried. The quiet danger curled beneath her stillness. The glint in her eye that dared every soul to look away. That fire in her blood, reckless and unrelenting, that burned you down and still made you crawl back, aching to be scorched again. It was the way she held a room without even speaking. The way her presence felt like prophecy.

No matter how much she changed—no matter how much softer, fuller, steadier she became—that raw, untamed pulse inside her still called to you like it always had.

But this woman, this Ellie, was alive in a way that made your throat close. Not because the pain was gone, but because she had walked through it. Burned, broke, and rebuilt every shattered piece.

You could feel it, pouring off of her in waves. This sacred knowing that she had faced death in all its quiet forms and chosen, somehow, to live.

And then—

Joel.

You pressed a hand to your mouth as the tears came fast—silent, unrelenting. They streamed down your face like they’d been waiting for this moment longer than you had. You weren’t only crying because it was beautiful. You were crying because it was real.

Because for the first time, you saw Ellie not just standing—but held.

The stadium around them was thunder, rising like a hurricane of disbelief and devotion. People wept. People screamed. People collapsed into each other in the stands.

Ellie’s voice was raw silk; Joel’s was gravel and time. Their voices braided together, weathered and warm. The song lifted into the night like smoke from an old fire. The commentators were speechless. And you—

You were wrecked.

The tears came freely now, tracing slow, aching paths down your cheeks, slipping over the curve of your jaw, soaking into the collar of your shirt. You folded over your knees, one hand clutching the center of your chest like you could physically hold your heart together, the other trembling in your lap.

And through the storm of breathless, silent sobs, you whispered—thank you.

Again and again. You thanked whatever had listened. The stars. God. Fate. The wind. That unnamed force that had heard you in your quietest agony and, at last, answered back.

It didn’t matter that she never called, not anymore. Didn’t matter that her name never lit up your phone, that she hadn’t texted or knocked your door or whispered your name back into the silence.

Because Joel was beside her. And he wasn’t hiding either. Not from her, not from you, not from the past that had nearly torn them apart. 

Because you knew, even without needing to be told, he had been with her this whole time. You could see it in the way she looked steadier. She had finally let someone love her without pushing them away.

And you knew why.

Because you had made that call.

You never got a thank you. You never needed one.

This—this moment, this breath, this proof of life—was enough.

Every night you cried for her. Every scream into your pillow. Every time you shouted into the dark, begging the universe not to take her from you.

All of it had been worth it. The pain. The silence. The years. The songs you wrote just to survive.

Because she was there, glowing. Standing with her chin held high, the stage catching her in that impossible kind of light. A light she wore like truth. No longer flinching at the crowd. No longer hiding from the name that came before her. No longer hiding from her own name.

And you sat there, tears streaming, broken open, watching from thousands of miles away. And your heart—after three long years of beating wrong—finally remembered the rhythm it was made for. 

The moment Wayfaring Stranger ended and that final chord rang out—slow and aching and holy—the stadium held its breath. The sound hung in the air like a ghost refusing to leave. Ellie stood still for a second, her head bowed, breath heaving gently in her chest.

Then she turned to Joel.

In unspoken sync, they each reached for their guitars, slinging them over their shoulders with practiced ease. The weight settled against their backs, familiar and grounding, old promises they never dared to break.

And then, without a word, they stepped forward and wrapped their arms around each other.

It was real hug—reverent, both arms around his shoulders like she was closing a loop neither of them ever truly believed would close. He held her back just as tightly, eyes shut, face buried in her shoulder like he was anchoring himself to her heartbeat. 

The crowd erupted. Not just in applause, but in something deeper. Gratitude. Relief. As if they had waited years not just for her return, but for this. For the proof that some stories do find their way back.

Ellie pulled away first, her smile faint but real. She stepped towards the mic and the light found her eyes—glassier than before, brighter than they had ever been.

“Everyone,” she said, breath catching on the word, voice rough from the weight of the moment, “A round of applause for Joel Miller. My dad.”

The response was thunder. The crowd roared like it was gospel, a wave of noise so massive it nearly lifted the stadium off its foundations. Joel shifted under it, awkward and quiet, rubbing the back of his neck like the sound might crawl down his spine. It had been over a decade since he’d stood this close to a stage, even longer since the roar of a crowd had been meant for anything he touched.

It hit him like muscle memory and whiplash at once—how the sound swelled in your chest before it ever reached your ears, how it made your ribs rattle, how it made your past feel like it never really left.

He gave a half-nod, like a man trying to stay small and humble beneath worship.

Ellie turned and looked at him—and the tenderness in her gaze made something in your own chest twist, ache, break. She held up a hand, waiting for the noise to dim, her fingers steady.

“In the past,” she said, “I was afraid I’d never be enough to step out from under his shadow. I thought I had to run from it. Outgrow it. Beat it.”

She glanced at Joel again, that crooked half-smile of hers spreading like sunrise.

“But now I get it. He’s not a shadow. He’s not a name I have to live up to. He’s my father. And I’m grateful every single day for who he is—for the fact that he’s still here. And for the fact that he still believed in me… even when I didn’t believe in myself.”

Joel stepped forward slowly, clearing his throat as he leaned toward the mic. The stadium went quiet. As if everyone knew this moment wasn’t to be missed.

“Ellie. My daughter,” he began, and even those words felt like a benediction, a prayer finally spoken out loud. “The one who made it out. And is still standin'.”

He paused. The lights caught the tears in his eyes. His voice cracked, just a little.

“The strongest and most brilliant person I’ve ever met… and ever will meet. I couldn’t possibly be prouder of her.”

He exhaled, eyes wet, the pride in him so loud it didn’t even need music.

"Everyone—a round of applause for Ellie Williams.”

The crowd didn’t cheer. They roared—with the force of something seismic, soul-deep.

Joel took a step back from the mic, gave a short wave, and began to turn. His role complete, the chapter closed.

But she blinked, tilted her head, and leaned into her mic.

“Ellie Miller.”

The crowd gasped, then rose again—like they hadn’t just been hit with the most personal, quiet bombshell of the night.

Joel froze mid-step. Slowly turned. Squinted at her with an exaggerated dad face so full of mock-scandal and affection it drew laughter through tears across the entire stadium.

“Oh, that’s how it is?” he said, feigning offense. “Changing your stage name without tellin' me?”

Ellie shrugged, expression sly and soft all at once.

“Figured I earned it.”

And then—Joel laughed. Really laughed. A deep, unfiltered sound.

He didn’t say another word. He just stepped back to her and hugged her again.

This time, longer. This time, tighter. This time, with every apology they had never said, every word they’d both gone without, every year lost that now didn’t matter anymore.

Ellie leaned into it, buried her face in his shoulder. Her mouth moved against his shirt, barely audible over the applause.

“I love you, Dad.”

And Joel, without pause, without blinking, held her closer still.

“I love you too, kiddo.”

And after the crowd finally settled, when Joel let her go and stepped backstage, someone from the wings came forward and placed it in her hands.

Her guitar.

The black Les Paul. The same one she’d played since the beginning—since cramped clubs and broken strings and dive bars that smelled like vodka and regret. It had followed her through every tour, every groupie, every breakdown, every rebirth. It had always been there, waiting.

But tonight, as she curled her fingers around the neck, it felt different.

It didn’t sit in her hands like a weapon anymore. It didn’t tremble like it was afraid of her. It rested there like it belonged.

Ellie adjusted the strap slowly, her movements precise. She stepped forward, boots echoing against the stage, and stopped just behind the mic. Her eyes swept across the crowd—one hundred thousand held breaths—and then back to the band behind her.

She nodded once. They nodded back.

Babe, I'm Gonna Leave You.

And when she started playing, everyone understood. This wasn’t a comeback. It wasn’t a redemption arc.

This was a resurrection.

Ellie had always carried something inside her—molten and unnamable, twisting in her chest like starlight caught in barbed wire. It wasn’t polish. It wasn’t performance. It was presence. That rare fire no one could teach and no label could manufacture.

And now, she didn’t just glow, she burned. She lit up that stage like she’d been born with a crowd already roaring for her. But the truth was, she didn’t need one.

Because Ellie had that thing. That impossible, untouchable thing artists spend their whole lives chasing.

She had always been her own spotlight.

And tonight, she only needed four things: a mic, a guitar, her voice and you.

From your penthouse window, even LA pulsed with the sound of her. The echo of her voice bled through televisions, car radios, rooftop speakers. A storm rolling in from the horizon, crawling towards your shore with one specific purpose.

But it wasn’t until the broadcast returned, the camera cutting back to her face—those unmistakable green eyes locked and unflinching, burning straight through the screen—that you felt it in your bones.

She had one hundred thousand people screaming her lyrics into the sky like scripture. Fans sobbing, collapsing, gripping each other like they were witnessing something divine only she could summon. The moment felt too big for sound, too holy for explanation.

But Ellie didn’t want their eyes on her. Not really.

She only wanted one specific pair.

Yours.

She stared into the camera like it was a portal, like if she looked hard enough, deep enough, it might carry her back to you. Might pull you through space and silence and time.

And somehow, it did.

Because you were there.

Watching.

You couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t blink. You were on the floor now—knees pulled tight to your chest, forehead resting against the crook of your arm, trying to stay anchored as your whole body threatened to come undone. Your mouth open, tears flowing. Your heart thudded against your ribs in perfect time with every chord she struck, every note she gave away striking like a bullet.

Because they were yours.

She wasn’t just singing the songs—she was ripping them out of herself. Tearing them from some raw, unspoken place deep within, where grief and longing and love had grown too vast to stay hidden any longer.

These were songs that had your name buried between the syllables, hidden in the breath between verses, stitched into final notes that lingered just a second too long.

Her voice wasn’t polished. It wasn’t pristine. It was a wound, sharp and aching and raw. A voice that bled. A voice that sliced the air open and somehow managed to stitch it closed again in the same breath.

She didn’t perform. She confessed.

Every lyric was a letter she never sent. Every chord was a memory she couldn’t bear to forget. Every time her fingers moved across the guitar, it felt like prayer.

And the crowd, the cameras, the stadium, the roar of one hundred thousand, none of it mattered.

Because she only cared about you.

She didn’t care where you were—whether you were alone in some quiet corner of the world, laughing with friends, tangled up in Rachel’s orbit, or with...Abby. All she wanted was to reach you.

But God, please not with Abby.

She didn’t care how the sound found you—through the static of a car radio, from the corner speaker of a bar you didn’t mean to walk into, or echoing faintly from someone else’s phone across the room. She just needed her voice to brush against your world, land somewhere near you ears and slip in your chest.

And she didn’t care how you saw her—on a screen, in the blur of clip gone viral, in a reflection that caught you off guard, made you look twice, made you remember. She just needed you to look long enough to recognize her, not as a star on stage, but her.

The girl who had loved you. Who still did.

Because what she was doing now wasn’t just for the world. Wasn't just for herself. It was for you.

She stared into the camera like it was a window she could reach through. Like maybe the songs would travel across the signal, across the air, and find the only heart they were meant for. The melody a key sliding into the lock of your chest.

And it did.

Sitting on the floor of your living room, lips parted, eyes blurred with tears, arms wrapped around yourself like you might fall apart if you didn’t hold tight—it did.

The way she looked into the lens when she sang the bridge of Iris—like she was standing at the edge of a cliff, and the only thing keeping her from falling was the thought of you. The way her voice cracked—just barely, but undeniably—on the second verse of Not, like the memory lodged in her throat finally fought its way out. The extra, aching strum before the outro of Twilight, a pause that wasn’t in the studio version, but lived only in this performance.

And then there was Black—that velvet, bruised wail of a song, the way she leaned into it like confession, like penance. The way Lilac Wine and Grace made her close her eyes, guitar cradled to her chest like a heartbeat, the melody unspooling as if it had been fermenting inside her for years. And in Francesca, when the lights dimmed and turned into a cold blue-purple haze, she looked up—not at the crowd, not at the band, but straight into the camera. Straight through it. Into the silence where you lived.

And the cameras caught her in it—that impossibly magnetic, sharp-browed and sharp-tongued beauty. The defiance in her jaw. The crease that lived between her eyes like a scar she never tried to erase. The green of her gaze, luminous even under the relentless blaze of stadium lights, cutting through like it had been sharpened for you.

She played, sang, and performed like she was starting a war and making peace in the same breath—every note a battle cry, every word a surrender.

Backstage, someone whispered, "She’s a fucking legend."

Another voice, awed: "This is history in the making."

Someone else, "She’s not human."

And maybe they were right.

Maybe she never was human, at least not in the way the rest of humans were.

Because Ellie on that stage wasn’t the girl who vanished three years ago, shaking and hollow, disappearing into a silence so deep it swallowed her. She wasn't the daughter of. She wasn't the ex-frontwoman of the Fireflies. She wasn’t the heartbreak you wrote an entire album about. She wasn’t even just the girl you loved.

Standing at the center of the biggest stadium in the country, with her Les Paul slung low against her hip, sweat glistening down the line of her throat, breath catching from the weight of her own voice, she was all of them at once.

She looked out into the dark, into the crowd, into the camera, and didn’t flinch.

She reached.

And somehow—so impossibly—you reached back.

And when the lights dimmed again, it felt like the air had been sucked from the world.

No music. Just a breathless, crushing stillness—like the universe was holding something behind its teeth. The stadium buzzed in the dark, bodies charged with static, hearts beating out of sync, phones lifted like trembling offerings.

But the band was gone. The monitors had gone dark.

And Ellie was nowhere in sight.

A few minutes passed. Maybe more. It was hard to tell. Time had folded into itself.

Then—movement.

Far stage left, barely illuminated, a silhouette appeared.

At first, it was just shape and shadow. The camera didn’t zoom. The lights didn’t rise. No cues. Just the slow reveal of a presence.

The stadium held its collective breath.

It was her.

You could tell by the weight of her walk—the deliberate thunder of boots hitting the stage like war drums. A now clean black tank clung to her shoulders, her jeans darker, still stiff from the quick change backstage. The Les Paul still strapped across her body like shield. Her stance was familiar, yet different. She wasn’t reemerging.

She was summoning something.

And then—

A second figure stepped into the low light beside her.

A woman. Lean. Curly hair catching the stage glow like a halo of fire. A bass hung low across her hips, hands already poised, one foot forward, like she’d never stopped playing. Like the time apart had only sharpened her.

The audience froze.

Then—A third figure appeared in the back.

A man. Seated. Shadowed. Hands spinning a pair of drumsticks like magic, like memory. His shoulders wide, head bowed as if in prayer, coiled with precision.

The crowd didn’t scream. Couldn’t.

Because no one dared to speak into what was happening.

The Fireflies.

The screen finally zoomed in, not all at once, but slowly. Like even the broadcast crew understood they were capturing something mythical. A resurrection not just of a band, but of legends.

Ellie stepped up to the microphone, backlit by fire and myth, sweat still shining across her collarbone, guitar strapped tight like her ribs might break without it.

The crowd still hadn’t broken their silence. They waited. Breathless.

Then her voice came—low, serrated, full of that old venom, aged like the finest wine.

She leaned into the mic, the corners of her mouth lifting between a smirk and a warning.

“Guess what, fuckers—turns out fire doesn’t die. It just waits.”

The crowd erupted.

A scream so violent it shook the camera feed, sent tremors through the floorboards, nearly knocked people to their knees. It wasn’t just cheering. It was release. It was reverence.

Because the impossible had just happened.

Screams tore through the stadium so loud, seismic sensors in three counties thought it was an earthquake. Security guards were crying. A paramedic fainted. One hundred people passed out instantly. At least five breakups and one proposal happened mid-scream. The cameras struggled to focus through the chaos. Hands reached towards the stage like the second coming had arrived.

If Ellie thought she’d already heard the loudest sound of the night—this made it feel like a whisper.

And just like that, she ripped the first note from her guitar like it had been waiting three years to scream.

Her voice cut through the sound system like a beast unleashed. 

“WE'RE BACK FROM THE DEAD!”

And behind her, Jesse slammed into the drums with a grin so wild it made three thousand headlines the next day.

Dina’s bass rumbled in, low and unrelenting, the kind of sound you felt in your ribs before you heard it.

In those hidden weeks in New York, Ellie, without warning, showed up at Jesse’s door.

No text. No heads-up. Just a knock, long past midnight.

He opened it, groggy and confused, rubbing sleep from his eyes—and froze.

Dina was on the couch behind him. She stood. They stared at Ellie like they'd seen a ghost.

Five full seconds passed. No one spoke.

Then—just like that—they broke.

They collapsed into each other in the hallway, tears wetting shoulders, hands clutching sleeves like they might disappear again if they didn’t hold tight enough. There were no apologies. No screaming matches. No grand speeches. Just the kind of crying that sounds like relief. The kind that only happens when someone you thought might lose forever walks through your door.

They didn’t try to fix everything all at once. They didn’t need to.

Instead, they talked.

For hours. Cross-legged on the floor. Curled up on the couch with knees tucked into their chests like kids. They passed a joint back and forth, laughed until they couldn’t breathe, ate chips from the bag. They talked about nothing. About everything. The silence between them softened into something like trust again.

At some point, Ellie played The Shape of What I Lost on Jesse’s living room speakers.

None of them moved while it played. No one spoke when it ended.

Five full minutes of silence.

And then Dina looked up, eyes glassy but clear, and said,

“So… when are we getting the band back together?”

It was never a maybe.

It was always a yes.

They planned it like a heist. In secret. No press. No leaks. No teams. Just the three of them in borrowed rehearsal spaces, writing new arrangements with old muscle memory and fresh scars. They rebuilt everything from the bones—new sound, new fire, same soul. Rehearsing like their lives depended on it.

Because maybe they did.

They started with a Fireflies version of Black Vultures. They stripped it raw, loaded it with grit, sharpened every verse until it sounded like vengeance. It was thunder. It was blood. It was the kind of opening track that let the world know—this wasn’t nostalgia. This was now.

Then came Back from the Dead.

Their first new song in years.

Written together. One night. In the middle of that too-small studio with too-warm beer and half-empty notebooks, Ellie had looked up from her guitar, her voice hoarse, and said, “This isn’t about being back. It’s about surviving it.”

And now—here they were.

After Ellie strummed one of the most powerful, soul-baring solos of her entire career—fingers blistering, guitar wailing—the final verse rang out into the night. It didn’t just echo through the stadium. It resounded across the entire city, flooding rooftops, trembling windows, bleeding into alleyways and high-rises and hearts that had been waiting for their return.

Black Vultures came.

They weren't just performing it. They were reinventing it.

The Fireflies version was heavier. Filthier. Sharper. It was blood-slick and golden, packed with harmonies and breakdowns and that wild, reckless chemistry that only the three of them could create.

Jesse’s drum kit pounded like an earthquake. Dina’s bassline and backing vocals hit like a fist through glass. And Ellie—center stage, mouth on the mic, eyes burning like flames in hell—howled.

Her voice was louder now, stronger than it had ever been, even in her prime. She sang like she wanted the whole universe to know:

The Fireflies weren’t just back.

They had never sounded better.

The bridge crashed in like a wave of fire, and Ellie dropped to her knees at the edge of the stage, her guitar howling beneath her fingers like it had waited years for this exact moment.

And with auburn strands plastered to her face, sweat slicking her arms, voice burning from the inside out—

She screamed the bridge.

She didn’t just sing it—she hurled it from her chest like it had been clawing at her ribs for years. The sound tore through the stadium, ripped through amplifiers, cracked across the sky like thunder made of bone.

Louder than anything she’d ever screamed before.

Louder than pain. Louder than addiction. Louder than guilt.

“I’M STILL ALIVE.” (2:46)

Her voice broke—sharp, guttural, glorious—and for a split second, it sounded like her soul was breaking with it.

Because she was still alive.

Against all odds. Against every headline. Against everything that tried to kill her.

And the world shook around her like it understood.

And you?

You were mess of sound—crying, laughing, screaming—all at once. Your hands clutched your chest like you were afraid your heart might actually tear itself free. You shook your head like you couldn't believe what you were witnessing, because how the hell could your body contain that much awe, that much history, all crashing back to life in front of you?

The Fireflies.

Your brain couldn’t make sense of it, but your soul did. Your soul was already on its knees.

And when the last guttural notes of Black Vultures shattered into silence, there was no formal send-off. No staged goodbye. No polished encore.

Just darkness.

Just three shadows—collapsing into each other, disappearing as one.

A constellation folding inward. Stars returning to the sky.

People didn’t clap. They screamed. They sobbed. They shouted things they couldn’t put into words. Strangers held each other. Generations wept side by side.

And the Fireflies stood at the center of it all, wrapped in a hug so tight, so chaotic, it looked like a home they had built out of each other. Ellie’s arms around Jesse and Dina. Their heads pressed together. Faces red with sweat and tears.

Nothing had ever broke them—not distance, not silence, not time.

They had found each other.

The image was already going viral. Captured from a thousand shaking phones. Every corner of the internet was drowning in real-time sobbing posts, reaction videos, screen recordings, blurry zoom-ins of that one perfect second.

Dina stepped forward, snatched the mic with shaking fingers, and through laughter and tears, said what everyone had been praying to hear for three years:

“THE FIREFLIES ARE FUCKING BACK!”

The stadium erupted like a match to gasoline.

Jesse stumbled forward next, still breathless, drenched in adrenaline, drumsticks half tucked into his back pocket.

“Y’all thought we were done?” He grabbed the mic from Dina and grinned. “Nah. The hiatus is OVER. Burned. Buried. Signed, sealed, fuckin’ obliterated. Lock your doors, hide your stages.”

Dina laughed, wiping her face, tugging Ellie between them. “And your girlfriends.”

Jesse barked a laugh. “Especially your girlfriends.”

Ellie, standing in the center, boots planted, face flushed, soaked in sweat and disbelief, waited until the crowd went quiet again, hanging on every breath.

She looked at Jesse. Then Dina. Then at the crowd. Her voice low, serrated, sure: “We’re the Fireflies. We're back.”

Ellie’s grin was feral. Her eyes gleamed.

“And we’re never fucking leaving again.”

And in that moment, three people who nearly didn’t survive it—did. Together. Loudly. Permanently.

And the Fireflies walked off together—shoulders touching, arms around each other’s backs, bathed in gold, glowing with something larger than life. A moment carved into music history like it had been written in blood.

Immortal.

But Ellie didn’t follow them.

She stayed.

The band had returned, melting into the shadows.

Ellie walked to the very edge of the stage. Not with power. Not with purpose. Just quietly. Like the weight in her bones had finally stilled. The stadium lights softened to a single warm glow that haloed around her like dusk.

She held only her acoustic now—no distortion pedals, no echo, no fire. Just six strings and silence.

The crowd fell into an eerie, reverent stillness.

And then—

She looked up.

Right into the camera.

Her face was calm, but her jaw was tight. You could see the pulse in her throat. The muscle flickering in her cheek. Her eyes—God, those eyes—shone like green of forests on fire.

She exhaled slowly.

And the chords of Lover, You Should’ve Come Over started ringing out behind her.

“I... I wasn’t gonna say anything,” she said, her voice low—frayed at the edges like old denim, worn from being bitten back too many times.“I thought the songs would do it for me. That they’d be enough. That maybe if I screamed it into a chorus, someone would understand what I meant.”

She paused, eyes flicking out over the sea of lights, breath catching like the words were scraping their way up her throat.

“But—fuck it. If I never get to say this again, I need to say it now.”

Her fingers tightened around the neck of the guitar like she was anchoring herself, grounding against the tremble in her chest. Her shoulders lifted, then sank.

“This was the first song I wrote after everything. And I wasn’t even gonna play it tonight. I was scared it would ruin me.”

She swallowed. Blinked hard. Her voice dropped to something raw, unvarnished.

“But not playing it… felt like lying.”

A hush swept over the stadium like fog. Even the air seemed to stop moving.

“I wrote it for someone who saved my life. Not by pulling me out of a fire. Not with some grand gesture. Just… by being herself. By existing. By letting me love her.”

She blinked hard. Her gaze didn’t leave the camera.

“I don’t know if she’s watching. I don’t know if she hates me. I don’t know if she ever wants to see my face again. But if she is… if you are out there, I need you to hear this.”

She leaned forward, the mic catching every breath, every break. 

“I will love you until the day I die. Always.” 

Her voice trembled on the last word.

“In every lifetime. In every version of me. In every fucking universe where I come back right or I don’t fall apart or I don’t ruin it. I have never stopped—not for one goddamn second.”

The crowd didn’t move. Couldn’t.

“I don’t need you to forgive me. I don’t need you to call. I don’t even need you to come back. I just needed you to know it.”

Her lips parted, trembling.

“I hope you’re happy. I really, really do. Even if it’s not with me. I hope they treat you the way you always deserved. I hope they see you the way I did.”

She drew in one last breath, as if steadying the part of herself she’d just cracked wide open.

“And I’m proud of you. For surviving. For growing. For still being here. Even if I was never meant to stay… you were always meant to be loved right.”

She then adjusted the mic, fingers trembling slightly as they brushed the stand. She strummed once—gentle, unsure. Then again. 

And she began to sing.

No introduction. No theatrics.

Just her voice, bare and hoarse and open, stripped down. It stretched out across the cavernous hush of the stadium and threaded itself through satellites and static and signals, leaking into living rooms and bedrooms and car radios and headphones like smoke under a door. Her voice crawled into the cracks of the world. It didn’t ask for permission. It just filled the silence, turned it into something alive.

You didn’t cry at first. You couldn’t. Your body didn’t know how to respond to all of it.

You sat motionless, bones locked, eyes burning. Her face took up the screen and everything ceased to exist. The city below you vanished. The walls melted. The clock stopped.

All that remained was that voice—fractured but somehow steady—and the impossible way it made you feel like she was in the room.

Her eyes didn’t flicker from the camera, and for a moment you weren’t watching a broadcast. You were reliving it—every version of her you ever loved staring back at you, woven into this one moment.

And something inside you cracked. Just a hairline fracture, somewhere deep in your chest. But it spread—slow and certain, like it had been waiting for this exact moment to give way.

Then the tears came. Hot, blurred, relentless. You didn’t even feel them at first. Only realized when her face on the screen shimmered at the edges and dissolved into color and light.

You found yourself crawling closer to the TV, like a child chasing a ghost. Your hands touched the glass when her face appeared again, fingertips pressed to the image like they could somehow reach her. As if maybe—just maybe—she’d feel it. As if you could hold her the way you once did.

And the song wasn’t a performance. It was an undoing. Her voice stumbled, broke open mid-line, trembled in places where it roared minutes before. But she kept going. You could hear the exact breath where she almost couldn’t. You could feel how much it cost her. How much she meant it. Every note sounded torn from scar tissue and sewn together with your name.

You could hear the devotion behind it. The guilt. The grief. The quiet, impossible hope.

She wasn’t asking for forgiveness. She wasn’t trying to rewrite the past.

She was offering you what remained.

And you let it wash over you. Let it dig its hands into the wreckage of your heart and do what only she could ever do—make something beautiful out of it.

Because this—this was what it looked like to crawl back from the grave of who you used to be and still reach for the same hand.

One tear slid down her cheek during the final chorus. She didn’t wipe it away. Didn’t flinch. Just let it fall.

She didn’t know where you were, or who you were with. But she sang to you anyway, and her voice was still yours. Still filled with the shape of you, the shape of what she lost. Still aching with all the things she never got to say.

She sang like she could tear the world apart just to rebuild it in the shape of your silhouette. 

And you just watched the woman who once destroyed you sing herself back into your hands.

When the lights dimmed for the last time, there were no pyrotechnics. No encore. No choreographed goodbye.

Only Ellie. Alone at the center of the world. Her chest still rising like she hadn’t come down yet. Her guitar silent. Her body shaking. Her voice lingering in the air like it didn’t want to leave. Her hands hung loose at her sides, like she had given everything. 

Because she had.

The crowd—one hundred thousand strong—stood frozen. Reverence had swallowed them whole. They had just watched someone confess in a language more powerful than apology.

Ellie stepped forward.

Her face was flushed. Her lips parted. Her eyes glassy. Her voice was rough now, worn down from thirty songs delivered like confessions, like penance, like a prayer with no promise of an answer. She leaned into the mic.

And when she spoke, she didn’t pretend. She didn’t perform. She just told the truth.

“I wasn’t supposed to be here.”

The words landed with a hush, like snowfall.

“Three years ago, I walked off a stage and I didn’t know if I’d ever walk back onto one. I didn’t know if I’d ever sing again. Or write again. Or even want to.”

She paused. The crowd didn’t make a sound.

“I disappeared because I hit the lowest point in my life. I became someone I didn’t recognize. Someone I didn’t want to be. And instead of asking for help, I—”

She inhaled, steadying herself.

“I numbed it. I ran. I used.”

The silence deepened. All those years of rumors, headlines, speculation. And she was saying it now, for the first time. Out loud. Unafraid.

“I was an addict.”

Gasps, yes. Tears, yes. But not judgment. 

“And I’m not saying that because I want sympathy, or because my PR team finally let me say it. I’m saying it because I don’t want to hide anymore. I don’t want to lie. I don’t want to be ashamed of something I survived.”

Her voice cracked beautifully.

“I’m not proud of my past. But I’m proud of what I made out of it. I’m proud that I made it here. That I’m clean and still here.”

The stadium roared, not in chaos, but in agreement. Applause like thunder, cheers like an exhale the world had been holding for three years.

“And I don’t give a fuck what the media says about it. I don’t care what the headlines are tomorrow, if they call me ‘broken’ or ‘damaged’ or ‘a scandal.’ I’m alive. And that’s enough.”

She gripped the mic stand—not to steady herself, but to ground the moment. 

“And if you’re listening to me right now—” she began, her voice quiet but unshaking, “—if you’re where I was… if you feel like you’re drowning, if your hands are shaking, if you’ve convinced yourself it’s too late—it’s not.”

She scanned the crowd. She wasn’t looking for applause. She was looking for the people who needed to hear it.

“I swear to you, it’s never too late. I thought I was beyond saving. And then someone made a call. And I lived.” Her voice caught. She closed her eyes, breathed through it. “If I made it out, so can you. And I will keep saying that until my voice gives out.”

The stadium had gone quiet again. Every word she said felt like it mattered more than anything they’d heard in years.

“Every single cent from this concert is going to addiction centers across the country. Because people saved me. And now, I’m gonna spend the rest of my life trying to return that favor.”

She paused. Swallowed hard. Her lips curled, just faintly, into something like awe.

“Thank you, Michigan. I will never forget this.”

And then—without spectacle, without sound to carry her away—Ellie stepped back from the mic.

The silence that followed held its breath. It was the kind of silence that happens after birth, after death, after the truth has been spoken out loud for the first time. No one cheered. No one screamed. It was reverent.. A hush draped over one hundred thousand hearts, like the world itself needed a moment to process what had just passed through it.

Joel Miller came back.

The Fireflies came back.

Ellie came back.

She had cracked her chest open and stitched a cathedral out of light and sound. She had unburied herself with her voice and her guitar—splintered, guttural, alive, carrying the weight of every unsaid thing.

It became the kind of night people would name their children after. The kind of night that would live forever in documentaries and tattoos and the back corners of minds that knew they had witnessed something unrepeatable.

The night the girl the world thought it had lost opened her mouth and dragged the sky back into color, like she’d never stopped painting it with her music.

And the second she stepped out of the spotlight, Rolling Stone pressed send on a headline. No debate. No discussion. The entire world already knew in their bones.

The Queen of Rock Has Risen.

Backstage, the light was dimmer, but somehow still glowing. The kind of golden warmth that comes after miracles.

The noise of the crowd—the screaming, the applause, the frenzy—felt a thousand miles away. Her legs were trembling beneath her, but she walked anyway. She didn’t feel triumphant.

She felt hollowed and filled all at once.

Jesse was already there.

He instantly pulled her into a hug like gravity had brought him forward and his body didn’t know how to do anything else. His arms were tight around her, his chin pressed into her shoulder, and it took half a breath before she melted into it—arms around his ribs, forehead buried in his neck, shaking.

“I missed you, bro,” he murmured.

“I missed you too,” she croaked, already crying.

Dina crashed into them next, wrapping around both of them with that reckless kind of love only she knew how to give. She was sobbing and laughing at the same time, kissing Ellie’s temple, whispering, “We came back. You came back.”

Joel stood off to the side for a moment, letting them have it. Watching them like he’d never seen anything so beautiful. Then he walked forward, slow and steady, and wrapped his arms around all three of them like he was pulling the broken pieces of the universe into one.

It was the kind of hug people spend lifetimes waiting for.

They cried, all four of them. Jesse muttering, “You’re a legend, you hear me?” Dina swearing through tears, “You just rewrote history, oh my fucking god Ellie—” Joel whispering, “You did good, kiddo. You did so good.”

It wasn’t just an embrace. It was a reckoning. A forgiveness. A coming home.

Eventually, Dina pulled back first. She wiped her cheeks with the sleeve of her black jacket and looked at Ellie with a spark in her eye. “Okay. Everyone’s waiting. The press is foaming at the mouth.”

Jesse nodded, still grinning. “A thousand celebrities are waiting just to breathe the same air as you. You should probably change your shirt.”

Ellie let out a laugh that felt like it had taken three years to reach the surface.

“I’ll be out in a second,” she said softly.

Dina paused, searched her face, then nodded. “We’ll be at the end of the hallway. Take your time.”

And they left.

The crew, the band, the stagehands, the roar of one hundred thousand people still vibrating through the concrete—it all drifted away, like the echo of a dream.

Leaving just her.

Joel.

And the silence behind the storm.

Ellie sat down slowly, her movements heavy with the weight of what she’d just done. The Les Paul still hung across her like a cross she hadn’t yet set down. Her fingers trembled in her lap, twitching with phantom chords. The adrenaline was still thick in her bloodstream, but the ache in her chest was different. Older. Deeper. Familiar.

Joel leaned against the doorframe, arms crossed. He watched her for a long moment—not as a legend, not as a miracle, but as his kid.

And then, gently—so gently it almost broke her—he spoke.

“You still something feel like something's missin'."

It wasn’t a question.

It was the truth. A soft, unshakable bell rung into the space between them.

Ellie didn’t answer.

What could she say? That she had screamed her love into thirty songs and one stadium and still felt it tearing through her ribcage like wildfire? That every note had been a plea she couldn’t say aloud? That the only moment she almost lost her footing was the one where she swore she could feel you watching, even from halfway across the world?

Didn’t have to.

Joel moved towards her and sat down—carefully, like a man approaching a wild animal he knew well enough to fear. 

Ellie stared at her hands. The calluses on her fingertips. The faint tremor that hadn’t stopped. Her jaw flexed. She blinked hard.

“I thought maybe the music and saying those things out loud would be enough.”

Joel tilted his head, eyes never leaving her. “Was it?”

“No,” she said. Voice cracking. “Not even close.”

He looked at her for a long, quiet moment.

“Then why didn’t you reach for her?”

Ellie’s jaw tightened. Her voice, when it came, was so small it barely sounded like her.

“She’s with someone else, Dad. I already said it. She moved on.”

Joel’s eyes didn’t move.

“She deserves to live her life.” she whispered, throat thick. “ I already took too much of it. I already hurt her enough. I don’t get to ask for anything more.”

Joel exhaled through his nose.

His voice came slower than usual—like he was peeling something loose from a part of himself that had long been sealed shut.

“You know…” he began, quiet. Measured. “I never told you this. Not until I knew you were truly ready to hear it.”

Ellie didn’t move, but her eyes, dulled and distant from everything she’d left on that stage, flicked up just enough to meet his.

“That night,” he said. “When I found you—”

His voice cracked. He cleared his throat and kept going.

“When I said someone called me… that someone begged me to come. Said they didn’t know where you were, only that you were close to the edge…”

His gaze finally lifted, locked onto hers. Nothing in it but the weight of truth. No buffer. No armor.

“It was her.”

Ellie didn’t react. Not at first. But she could feel the shift in her body, her breath leaving like a bullet had torn through it.

“She called me,” Joel continued. “Sobbing. Could barely get the words out. She told me everything that happened between you. Said she’d tried everything. Said she couldn’t reach you, couldn’t save you… and if she didn’t tell someone who could, she’d never forgive herself.”

Ellie’s breath left her body like it had been shot out of her. Her shoulders caved inward, like a second wave had hit—and this time she hadn’t braced.

“She didn’t just save you once,” Joel said, voice shaking. “She saved you twice. She called me, and you’re alive because of it.”

Ellie’s lips parted. But nothing came out. Her face contorted—silent, cracking open. One tear fell. Then another. Her hands, limp in her lap, trembled as she tried to hold herself still.

“That girl…” Joel said, softer now. So soft, like the words were breakable. “That girl still loves you, Ellie.”

He swallowed hard.

“I don’t care where she is, or how much time has passed, or who the hell she’s with. It’s written all over her. And it’s written all over you.”

He reached for her hand. Held it. Gentle, but firm.

“That kind of love,” he said, “isn’t normal. It’s bone-deep. You two—whether you’re together or not, whether the world likes it or not—you’re soulmates, Ellie. And I know that word gets thrown around, but I mean it. I’ve seen it. I’ve felt it.”

Ellie shook her head, barely, but he tightened his grip—not to argue, but to anchor.

“Listen to me,” he said. “I’m not telling you to beg, or fall at her feet or throw yourself into some story that already broke you. I’m just telling you this—”

“You owe it to both of you to reach out. To find out if there's still something waiting on the other side of all that silence.”

Ellie sat in it. The weight. The unbearable truth of it all.

Then—barely audible, like a child trying not to cry—she said:

“…What if she doesn’t want to hear from me?”

Joel smiled.

Not wide. Not triumphant. That other kind of smile. The sad, knowing kind.

“Then at least you’ll know,” he said gently. “At least you’ll know you tried. And that’s more than most people ever get to say.”

He brushed his thumb once across the back of her hand.

“You already came back from the dead tonight, kiddo. You stood in front of the whole world and told the truth. That was the hard part. One more step?”

His eyes softened.

“It won’t kill you.”

Ellie let out a sound—a half-laugh, half-sob, ragged and real. Her hand went to her face, wiping her eyes with the heel of her palm.

She looked down. Then back at him.

And nodded.

“Yeah,” she whispered. “Okay.”

And in that small, broken, brave words—fate shifted.

Joel stood, squeezing her shoulder. 

Ellie didn’t wait another second.

The minute he left the room, her body moved before her brain could catch up, before fear could creep in, before she could second guess the string that had already gripped her by the throat and yanked. She didn’t speak. Didn’t think. Didn’t let herself feel anything but urgency—pure, breathless, blood-hot urgency.

She stripped the sweat-drenched black tank from her chest with shaking hands, heart pounding so hard she could hear it in her ears. Reached for the nearest thing that felt like armor and found it—a grey hoodie at the back of a chair, long abandoned, still smelling faintly of woodsmoke and rosemary and something safe.

Her fingers trembled as she zipped it up all the way to her collarbone. She didn’t tie her boots. Her legs were already moving before the zipper clicked shut.

She skipped the afterparty. Skipped the press. Skipped the team waiting backstage with champagne and glittering tears and a thousand wide-eyed congratulations and documentary cameras itching to catch her.

She had somewhere else to be.

No one could stop her, and no one tried. There was something in her face—hollowed out and bright, wild-eyed and burning—that told them all: this wasn’t about them.

She passed Joel in the hallway. He was waiting there, leaned against the wall like he’d known she’d come flying past. He didn’t ask where she was going. Didn’t need to. Their eyes met for a second, and the entire weight of everything passed between them.

He nodded once. Slow. Certain.

“Go get your girl.”

Out of the venue. Into the car. The night air hit her like a second wind—cold against her skin, slicing straight into her lungs. Her hands were shaking so hard she could barely book the flight on her phone, her thumb smashing the screen like she could break through it.

Private. Direct. L.A.

At the airport, people recognized her. Of course they did. It was her night. The world was still reeling from her resurrection. Her name was everywhere, her voice still echoing off satellite feeds and breathless news anchors trying to define the undefinable.

But she wasn’t theirs. Not anymore.

She walked through security like a ghost. Like a girl in a dream she refused to wake up from. The guards didn’t stop her. Didn’t dare.

She boarded the jet like it might fall out of the sky but she didn’t care. Sat by the window with her hoodie pulled tight over her hair, hands clenched in her lap like if she let go of herself, she’d come undone.

She didn’t know what she was going to say. Didn’t know what you’d say. Didn’t know what she’d find.

She didn’t need a map. Or a message. Or a pin drop on a location app. She didn’t need confirmation. Didn’t need a green dot under your name or a picture posted or a text from someone who might’ve known.

She felt it.

The way she had always felt you—quietly, fiercely, impossibly—like gravity. Like a thread humming between her ribs, always pulling taut when you got too far away. The same strange, unshakable force that had made you crash into each other in the first place.

Ellie could feel you in her teeth.

She couldn’t explain it. There was no logic to it. She didn’t believe in fate. But something ancient inside her did. Some part of her that had been waiting since the beginning. Since that night that was supposed to mean nothing and ended up meaning everything.

She didn’t know what time it was. Didn’t know what you were doing. If you were asleep. Awake. Alone.

She just knew—

It was pulling her for a reason.

And across the country, you were mid-breath. Mid-cry. Somewhere between shaking and unraveling, curled in on yourself in the corner of your living room, your face wet from the tidal wreckage Ellie had sent crashing through your chest. Her voice had faded, but the echo hadn’t. You were still hearing her in your bloodstream.

Then—something hit you.

Not thought. Not reason. Not logic.

A pull.

You sat up so fast your neck cracked. The air in the room shifted. It felt like pressure building in your ears before a storm. You couldn’t explain it, couldn’t name it, couldn’t pin it to anything real. But it gripped you by the spine and yanked.

And without thinking—without blinking—you opened your laptop.

Your fingers moved faster than your mind.

Private. Direct. Michigan.

No planning. No second-guessing. You didn’t care if it was reckless. You didn’t care what time it was. You just booked it.

You were already moving. Already on your feet. Already grabbing the suitcase from the back of your closet, tossing in the essentials—half-folded, half-thrown, hands trembling with sudden and strong urgency. You didn’t care what you wore. You didn’t care what would happen. All you knew was that you had to see her.

Not through a screen. Not from the crowd of a hundred thousand people. Not in a song.

You needed her.

You couldn’t take it anymore. The waiting. The wandering. The silence. The unbearable thought that she still believed you were with someone else. That she thought you’d moved on. That she thought you didn’t love her anymore.

You couldn’t let her keep believing that.

Not when every cell in your body had been screaming her name for years.

You paced your apartment barefoot, floor cool beneath your soles, heartbeat louder than your footsteps. The windows glowed with the soft pulse of the L.A. skyline—silent, unmoving, unaware. But something in the air had shifted. It felt charged. Unnatural.

Your chest buzzed with electricity. With instinct. With truth.

You didn’t know what would happen when you saw her. 

You only knew that you would step off that plane because the earth owed you something holy. The universe owed you an answer. The girl who used to kiss your shoulder while the sun rose still lived somewhere in the body of the woman who’d just sung her soul back to you.

You would find her.

And you would tell her everything.

That you never stopped loving her. That you tried to. That you wanted to. That you failed, gloriously and repeatedly. That loving her was the most alive you had ever felt. That breathing without her had felt like holding your head underwater. That even when you were in other arms, your heart was still bleeding in her hands.

And above you—somewhere between coasts, between midnight and morning—Ellie Williams was flying through the sky in the opposite direction.

Back to the city she swore she’d never return to. Back to the girl she hadn’t dared to call. With hope clutched in her fists and need bleeding like a pulse in her chest.

The city was still wrapped in silence, the kind that only lives between 5:00 and 6:00 a.m.—when night hasn’t fully gone and morning hasn’t fully arrived. The streets were washed in blue light. The horizon glowed like a secret waiting to be revealed.

She stood on the sidewalk, staring up at the building like it had been waiting for her.

Same glass. Same frame. Same quiet ache sitting behind every window like the memory of you.

She hadn’t slept. Her eyes burned. Her limbs ached. But none of it mattered.

There was something—something—that had pulled her across the country like a thread made of gravity and hope. A blind, relentless force that told her she had to be here, and she had to be here now.

She walked toward the door like she was stepping into the ocean.

And somehow—after all these years, after everything she’d done to forget—her hands remembered everything.

The code to your private elevator. Four digits. Punched in without hesitation. Muscle memory forged in a different lifetime. The screen blinked green, and the hum of the mechanism stirred like an old song. The doors slid closed behind her, and suddenly she was rising—slow, steady, silent.

Each floor ticked by like a pulse.

20.

21.

22.

She didn’t breathe the entire way up.

Her heart had been loud for hours, but now, in the stillness of the ascent, it quieted. Like it, too, was waiting. Like it knew the next breath might change everything.

Outside, your SUV was already idling on the curb.

Inside your penthouse, your suitcase sat zipped by the door. Passport tucked into the side pocket. Phone in your hand. Charger in your bag. You were dressed. Ready. 

Ellie found herself standing in front of your door like she had been summoned by the ache in your chest.

She hadn’t knocked yet.

Her fingers were frozen mid-air, inches from the surface. Her eyes traced the curve of the wood. The faint scuff mark near the bottom corner—she put it there once, with the toe of her boot accidentally.

She stared at it like it might open up and swallow her whole.

Her other hand was clenched at her side, white-knuckled. She’d spent the entire flight and ride up rehearsing what she’d say, but now couldn't remember a single thing.

You reached for the handle, breath shallow, some mix of fear and instinct surging through your veins like storm water. You didn’t know what you were expecting—maybe a delayed flight, maybe a burst of courage, maybe nothing.

And then—

You opened it.

Just as her hand was about to knock.

There you were.

And there she was.

Ellie's hair was still knotted in a messy bun, cheeks flushed from wind and disbelief, breath hitching in her chest like she hadn’t stopped running since the stage lights dimmed. The hoodie you once stole—faded gray, fraying at the cuffs—hung from her shoulders like a flag she didn’t know she’d still carry. Her sleeves were shoved up to her palms, hands trembling faintly. 

She looked different and exactly the same—like time had passed through her, not around her. Her jaw had sharpened, her shoulders squared, but her eyes—those wild, unholy green eyes—still held the same storm that ruined you the first time. Beautiful in a way that knocked the breath out of your chest. 

And you—

Suitcase behind you, coat halfway off your shoulder, lips parted in a breathless, disbelieving oh—stood like the earth had just cracked open and revealed something holy inside it. There was more grace in your shoulders now. More armor in your spine. You looked stronger. Beautiful in a way that hurt to look at. 

Your hands still shook from the moment you decided you couldn’t live one more second without seeing her again. You were halfway out the door to chase her across the country—and there she was.

Like fate had been watching both of you run in opposite directions and decided it was finally enough. 

And suddenly, the entire world narrowed to the space between your bodies.

Her hand was still hovering in the air, just inches from the door. 

Your fingers were still on the handle, knuckles white.

In one impossible second, everything aligned.

One divine collision.

The only sound was the pounding of your hearts—wild, breathless, almost violent. As if they might tear out of your chests, racing to reunite before your bodies had the stepped closer.

You opened your mouths, as if words might tumble out, but none came.

Just breath. Just silence. Just awe.

Just you standing in front of her. Just her standing in front of you.

Because what started in that club—that single, electric night, a hookup meant to burn fast and disappear—became the axis your whole world tilted on. It should’ve ended there, a forgettable blur of sweat and strobe lights. But it didn’t. It spiraled. It bloomed into something reckless and unplanned. A fake relationship born of convenience, publicity, and chaos.

And what started as a lie—a shared performance for the cameras, for your teams, for the world—became a love so blistering, so consuming, it remade both of you. A love neither of you could name without trembling. A love that burned in silence. That bruised in secret. That shattered you from the inside out and still, remained the purest thing you had ever felt.

And now here you were.

Three years of silence. Three years of wreckage. Three years of bleeding into microphones, of screaming each other’s names into the void and pretending not to hear the echo. Of becoming ghosts in each other’s lives, but never quite exorcising the love. Of dreams that ended in a jolt, in a sob, in a name bitten back before waking. Of lyrics more honest than phone calls, more vulnerable than voicemails. Of entire confessions wrapped in agony and mailed to the stars because it was the only place that felt far enough, safe enough, to hold them.

You both had your own catastrophes—different storms, same devastation. You broke in private, rebuilt in silence. You clawed your way out of grief with nothing but your fingernails and rage. You both carried the weight of what you lost like it was sacred.

And somehow, you both healed. Slowly. Ugly. Miraculously. Not perfectly. Never perfectly. But enough to stand again.

You both died and were born again—more than once. You had grown out of your fears.

You walked through fire barefoot, bleeding and blistered, and survived.

And now you were standing at the doorway of a home you thought you’d never return to.

Each other.

You looked at her and saw every version of her at once.

The girl who loved you like it was the last thing she would ever do. The one who broke your heart. The one who tried to die. The one who didn’t.

She looked at you and saw every version of you at once.

The girl who held her in that green room like her hands could stop time. The one who screamed at her in songs that set the world on fire. The one who still waited—through heartbreak, through silence, through everything.

You had found yourselves—even if you had to lose each other to do it.

And the only thing that hadn’t changed, the one thing that never even flinched—

Was the love.

And now, it stepped into the hallway between you and wrapped its arms around your chests, breathed back into your lungs, and said: “You found each other again.”

You stepped forward.

And she did too.

At the exact same moment.

Like you’d rehearsed it in a dream.

And your bodies collided with a gentleness so raw, so wide open, it knocked the breath out of you.

Her arms went around your waist, yours around her neck, and it wasn’t a hug—it was a memory. A heartbeat. A return.

You buried your face into the crook of her shoulder, nose brushing the fabric—faint lavender and something uniquely Ellie: warmth, sweat, a hint of old smoke, guitar strings, rain. She smelled the same. She smelled like you remembered. She smelled like love. Her face pressed against your neck, breath shaky, lashes damp against your skin. You felt her exhale and it sounded like something sacred breaking.

And then—

A sound she thought was lost forever, echoing now like a miracle she didn’t dare hope for.

Ellie giggled.

Just a little. Disbelieving. Like she was overwhelmed, like her body didn’t know if it should cry or laugh or both. It made your eyes sting harder.

You made a choked little noise in return, part sob, part joy, part something you didn’t know how to name. Your fingers dug into the back of her hoodie like if you didn’t hold tight enough, she might vanish again.

She squeezed you back just as fiercely. Her hands fisting into the back of your coat. Her whole body was shaking. You felt it in your ribs. Her grief. Her awe. Her relief.

There were no words. There didn’t need to be.

Only the echo of your breathing. The trembling of your hands.

You only melted into each other like this was the only place you’d ever belonged.

In that hallway, as the sun bled over the skyline and the city below began to wake, you held each other for so long, time dissolved.

You weren’t in the doorway. You weren’t in the penthouse. You weren’t in LA or Michigan or Earth at all.

You were somewhere else entirely, suspended in a place made of heartbeats and fingertips, breaths and silence, forgiveness and love. You held each other like gravity had reversed, like if you let go, the sky itself might fall apart.

After what felt like hours and seconds at the same time, Ellie pulled back just enough to look at you, her hands rose to cup your face, thumbs softly tracing your cheekbones as if she was trying to relearn a face she had seen a thousand times in her dreams. Her eyes were red-rimmed, shining like the first break of dawn, fierce and gentle all at once.

The sun had risen, painting gold and rose across her face, illuminating every freckle, every scar, every tear-stained line.

“I came here for you,”

She whispered, her voice shaking.

“I—I couldn’t celebrate, I couldn’t wait another minute, another second. I couldn’t breathe until I found you.”

Your breath caught, tangled itself in your chest as you smiled softly, almost disbelieving.

“Ellie, I was about to leave for the airport. I had a flight booked to Michigan,”

You whispered, your forehead tipping forward to rest against hers. 

“I couldn’t wait either. I was going to find you, no matter what it took.”

She laughed softly, a beautiful, broken sound. Her eyes widened a fraction in disbelief, her thumbs tracing your face, afraid to stop touching you.

“Of course you were,” she breathed, shaking her head. “Of course you fucking were.”

She swallowed hard, blinking fast, and you saw a shadow cross her face.

She took a breath, then softly—painfully—began, 

“I—I know you’re with someone else—”

But before she could finish, you brought your hands to her face, gently cupping her cheeks and tilting her gaze back up to you.

Your voice was clear, sure, gentle, as you interrupted:

“Not anymore.”

Her breath caught sharply, lips parting in surprise.

You stepped even closer, chest to chest, heart to heart, and let your thumbs stroke softly along the edge of her jaw. 

“Ellie, it’s a long story, but… the short version is—I never loved anyone or anything that wasn’t you. Not once. Not even for a second.”

She stilled, breath hitching audibly. Her eyes widened slightly, disbelief and relief flooding her gaze like light chasing out darkness. “You—”

“I never stopped loving you. I couldn’t.” you said fiercely, your voice shaking now, your throat raw with emotion, your hearts laid bare between you. 

“You were always there. Every song. Every breath. Every heartbeat. It’s always been you, and only you.”

Ellie’s expression shattered beautifully. 

Her chest rose and fell quickly, her hands trembling slightly as they cradled your face, her gaze melting deeper into yours. Tears spilled freely down her face as she pressed her forehead to yours, holding you desperately close. 

“You're the reason I’m breathing right now.” she whispered, voice breaking. 

“The reason I woke up, the reason I tried again. You’re my everything—everything good about me is because of you. I never stopped loving you, I never even tried to stop.”

You smiled softly, your tears mixing with hers, your breaths warm and shared in the narrow space between your mouths. 

“Ellie, I know,” you said gently, so sure, so steady it almost broke you both.

“I promised you always, and I kept it. I held onto that promise every second we were apart. Even when it hurt like hell. Even when I thought you were gone forever. I still loved you—always.”

She nodded softly, pressing her forehead deeper against yours, her voice dropping to a whisper, a confession, a prayer. “When I promised you always, I meant it. I always did. And I still do.”

You drew back, just enough to look clearly into her eyes. Just enough to see the girl you met in a dim-lit club, who wore a cocky smile and bruises like badges, who took your heart away and never gave it back.

Just enough to see the woman who survived it all—who fought addiction, fame, silence, grief, and still came back to you.

The woman you never stopped loving.

“Then kiss me.” 

You whispered, your voice so quiet, so vulnerable, that it was almost lost in the air between you.

And then, with all the gentle bravery of someone stepping into daylight after a lifetime of darkness, she leaned in. Impossibly gently, she closed the distance like it was holy ground.

Your eyes fluttered shut, your lips parted softly in anticipation, your heart pounding wildly in your chest.

And then—finally—

Your lips met hers.

And it wasn’t just a kiss.

It was fate and destiny and that invisible thread everyone spoke of, wrapping tightly around your souls, binding you back together. 

Her mouth tasted like tears and truth and the same undeniable hunger that had brought you together that first night. Your fingers tangled in her hair, pulled her closer, needing more. Her hands went south and tightened around your waist, gripping you like you were the only thing left holding her to the earth.

It was desperate, yet gentle.

Furious, yet forgiving.

You kissed like you were breathing each other’s air. Like you were finally letting yourselves live again.

Ellie’s hands held you tightly, securely. It was a reunion of your broken pieces, a reclaiming of everything you lost, a quiet vow that said: never again.

Because what had always held you both together wasn’t fate, or luck, or even destiny.

It was simply love—wild, endless, patient, fierce love. The kind that rewrote stars and healed wounds and bridged chasms so wide the world had called them impossible.

A love that refused to let go, that waited patiently.

And as you finally broke apart, just enough to rest your foreheads together, chests rising and falling in rhythm, Ellie whispered softly, voice thick with love and relief and awe and a small and sweet smile curling the edges of her mouth.

“I’m never letting go again,” 

You smiled softly, pecking her lips and holding her even tighter, knowing you were exactly where you belonged, exactly where you'd always meant to be.

“Good,” you whispered back. “Because I wasn’t planning on letting you.”

The world outside your door began to wake fully now, sunrise bleeding through the window, bathing both of you in gold.

Unaware it had just witnessed a miracle—two souls, once lost, finally finding their way back home.

And there, in the doorway, you kissed her again.

The end and the beginning. The hush after the storm’s last scream. The first note after a symphony of silence.

A moment that bent time—where everything broken came back to life.

The impossible reunion of two hearts that never truly said goodbye—only paused, mid-sentence, until the universe was ready to let them finish the song.

Time, once the cruel god of your story, has softened. 

It no longer roars through your chapters like a thief, no longer dares to take. It lingers now, lacing your hours with light. It lives in the steam curling from mugs at sunrise, in the shadow of windchimes flickering across your porch, in the breath that passes between when neither of you are saying a word, but everything is understood.

It moves slow now. Gentle. Forgiving.

There are still stages, but now balanced with the lull of domestic quiet. 

Ellie still sings. Still performs. Still fills stadiums like they were built just for her. But not to prove anything Not for the charts, not for the noise, not because the world is watching. She does it because the stage is the only place where her soul stretches out its arms and exhales. Where the fire inside her flickers steady, not wild. Where she can be everything at once—loud and soft, broken and healed, gone and home.

And you still fill stadiums too. Still write songs that echo down city blocks and through the hearts of strangers. Still pile up golden awards. But it’s different now. Less frantic. Less like bleeding. More like breathing. More like living with the wound instead of trying to cauterize it.

What once felt like survival now feels like grace.

But now, both of your music live in quieter places too. In the kitchen, where her low, rasping hum drifts through morning light as she makes you coffee, barefoot and half-asleep. In the bathtub, where your voice softens, half-lost beneath the rhythm of water, singing just for her.

Somewhere along the road, after the world gave you every crown and award, after your names were stitched into history with gold thread, you realized the only place you ever wanted to be legendary was in each other’s eyes.

And you are. 

Even when your bodies ache and your hair has changed and your voices go softer by evening. You look at each other and see the full truth. Every version. Every bruise, every resurrection. You both see a girl who wrote an album to survive. The one who stood in front of thousands and broke herself open just to be seen. Who wouldn’t let go. Who stayed. Who held grief in one hand and love in the other and refused to put either down. You both see all of it. You always have.

You don’t talk much about those years anymore. The dark ones. The bloody ones. The ones where you vanished from earth and from each other in different directions and came back new. 

But sometimes, when the night is quiet and the dishes are put away and the cat has found its usual place curled at the end of the bed—you sit with your backs against the headboard, and you remember. You talk about the club. The pretending. The songs. The silence. And you press your hands together, and you say thank you. Not to each other.

But to whatever thread in the universe refused to snap.

And you both remember the day you stood—beneath a sky that felt too small to hold the weight of what you were about to vow—and promised. Not perfection. But to choose each other. Loudly. Publicly. Eternally. Again. Again. And again.

The event of the decade. Cameras lined the coast, desperate for a glimpse. Celebrities and icons flew in from every corner of the world, but none of them mattered. You wore white. She wore black. She cried the second she saw you—before you’d even made it to the altar. You kissed her before the officiant could finish the words. And when the crowd threw roses into the air like prayers, Ellie looked at you like she always had.

Like you were the only person the universe had ever made. Like all the noise, all the years, all the fire had only ever been a road back to you.

Dina, Jesse, and Rachel wept like widows—shoulders shaking, faces buried in trembling hands. Even Joel couldn’t hold it in. Especially Joel. He cried the hardest, in a way only fathers understand.

And now, years later, you still look down at your hand all the time—at the ring that catches the light like it was carved from stardust itself. A massive diamond nestled in platinum like it belongs in a museum, but the band worn smooth from years of sleeping with her hand curled in yours. 

And then, there’s Melody.

Born in the late hours of a stormless night, in that suspended breath between yesterday and tomorrow, she arrived—howling and perfect and wrapped in light. And Ellie was there, holding your hand—the one she’d slipped the ring onto beneath a sky full of stars, the same hand she hadn’t let go of once that night. Her fingers trembled. Her cheeks were damp with awe. And when the doctor whispered she’s here, Ellie looked at you like the world had cracked wide open all over again—only this time, it wasn’t just you standing in the light. It was you. And her. And the little life you wished for together.

A new beginning, wrapped in warmth and wonder, weeping softly between you.

Her name chosen into the hush like it had always been waiting—on your tongue, in her bones. She came into the world with a freckled face and eyes the same shade of green that made you write entire albums, that made you bleed onstage, that made you believe in fate. Her hair was yours—soft, wild, unbrushable—and when she sings, which she does constantly, you swear it’s your own voice coming back to you, bright and velvety like she’s sharing a secret in the most intimate way.

She doesn’t walk. She bursts. She doesn’t ask. She declares. She runs through the house like it belongs to her—because it does. She fills every room before her feet even cross the threshold. Her laugh shakes the walls. Her tantrums are operatic. She stomps when she wants something, yells for both of you like the universe itself should answer. She has Ellie’s recklessness, your fire, and the defiant tilt of a girl born of storm and song. She performs in the living room with a wooden spoon as a guitar and insists on an encore every night before bed.

The little princess of the queen of rock and the queen of pop came into the world like she already knew who she was: the daughter of two legends. Born not just into a family, but into music royalty. Into myth. And not in the headline sense—not in the Rolling Stone profiles or the Grammy speeches—but in the real way. In the spilled coffee on sheet music. In the quiet harmonies hummed over pancakes. In the fierce, unwavering love that has become the pulse of her home.

Born of the greatest love story the industry ever knew. One written not just in verses and hooks, but in survival. In forgiveness. In the choosing—over and over—of each other. Her mothers burned the world down and built it back again just for each other. They laid the foundation in heartache and climbed out of the rubble hand in hand. 

Now she runs barefoot through hallways lined with platinum records and crayon drawings, her voice echoing between trophies and guitars, her tiny shoes lost somewhere under the couch where your first demo still sleeps. She sings lyrics that were written years before she was even imagined. She wears your old Supernova tour shirts like royal capes. She calls Ellie Mama and you Mommy, and her favorite place is between the two of you—wrapped in the kind of adoration most people spend their lives dreaming about, a love she’ll never have to search for.

Because she was born into music. Into magic. Into something rare and real and unspeakably beautiful. She was born into love that didn't just survive the fire. It composed a symphony from the ashes.

You are not at war anymore.

You have lived. You have stayed. You have kept the promises that mattered. 

And every day since that door opened, since you stood face to face and didn’t have to say a word, you have loved each other without apology or pause.

Because this is what the end of a love story looks like when it refuses to end.

And when you close your eyes and breathe, you feel it everywhere—in the warmth between the sheets, in the quiet laughter down the hall, in the pulse beneath your skin.

This is the life you bled for.

This is what it looks like when people don’t just survive, but bloom.

This is what it means to collide,

and never let go.

← 𝑒𝑝𝑖𝑙𝑜𝑔𝑢𝑒 𝑝𝑡. 𝟸 | 𝑚𝑎𝑠𝑡𝑒𝑟𝑙𝑖𝑠𝑡 →

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࿐♡ ˚.*ೃ Goosebumps. Just… goosebumps. I don’t even know what to say.

This story holds a piece of my soul—one I gave willingly, one I’ll never get back. Collide has been more than a fic to me. It’s been a home, a storm, a love letter, a scream into the void. And now it’s done.

And I’m mourning in the corner like the most dramatic widow you’ve ever seen.

Thank you—for reading, for screaming, for holding Ellie and the reader the way I did. Thank you for feeling with me.

They loved each other like the world was ending.

And maybe, somehow, that’s exactly how it had to begin.

THANK YOU, FOREVER.

♡

[dawngyu]

₊ ˚ ⊹ ིྀ 𝐈𝐅 𝐘𝐎𝐔'𝐑𝐄 𝐎𝐔𝐓 𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐑𝐄

⠀˚⠀⠀♡⃕ㅤ pairing:ㅤㅤhusband choi beomgyu x wife reader

You haven’t spoken in days. You don’t even breathe loud anymore. Not since the night you saw what happens to those who do. The monsters don’t miss. The monsters come for sound like it’s blood in the water. One gasp. One sob. One accidental whisper and it’s over. Not just for you. It’s for the tiny life growing inside you. And if anything happens to you, you know. It’ll be the death of him, too.

𝗐𝖺𝗋𝗇𝗂𝗇𝗀𝗌: a quiet place au, apocalypse!, established relationship, pregnancy, angst, romance, hurt/comfort, horror!, death!, descriptions of giving birth, subtle signs of postpartum!d. if any of the warnings above might be triggering for you, please step back. let me know if I missed anything. this is a work of fiction.

𝗌𝗆𝗎𝗍-𝗐𝖺𝗋𝗇𝗂𝗇𝗀𝗌: MDNI, multiple-smut scenes, missionary, nipple-play, fingering, oral!fem receiving

𝗐𝖼: 22k — playlist.

𝗇𝗈𝗍𝖾𝗌: thank you to my girl izzy, who made me watch a gameplay and unknowingly sparked the idea for this story. and a big thank you for my angel, cam — for sticking with me through everytime i got confused, scared, or just plain lost. i love you both.

“What?” you breathe out, with pretensing offense. You rest your head against his bicep, his arm curled around you, fingers gently combing through your hair. His other hand traces idle patterns on your skin, his thumb brushing your cheek, to the corner of your mouth, then down the column of your neck. “So you want me to die first?” you ask quietly.

He hums, nodding, a lopsided, boyish smile playing on his lips as you roll your eyes. He laughs under his breath, the sound warm, and shifts closer, his bare skin pressed to yours, “When we’re old,” he says, “so old everything’s white and wrinkled and slow…” He pauses to laugh again, eyes crinkling as they find yours, soft, because he’s seeing the softness on yours too. “If we die from just... being that old, I want you to go first.”

You blink, stunned for a second, and he continues, his voice gentler. “Because I can’t stand the thought of you being left behind. I’d rather stay just a little longer. To hold your hand through the end. To take care of you until your last breath. Until I know you don’t have to be alone.” His thumb brushes your cheek again, slower this time. “And when you can’t see me anymore… then I’ll go.”

They say marriage dulls love eventually. That over time, it settles into something quieter... less magic, more habit. Maybe that’s just how it goes. Maybe that’s what people mean when they call it normal. You see fewer families that are still whole. You meet more children who learned how to cope with absence before they ever learned how to tie their shoes.

You're lucky, they say, if your husband still comes home at night. Not even with flowers or apologies just... home. That’s what your mother always told you. Maybe because it was easier to say that than admit she was waiting for a man who rarely looked her in the eyes. Maybe she believed it, after enough nights of watching your father’s gaze follow women who weren’t her.

And as you got older, resentment took root. Maybe it wasn’t just men you started to hate. Maybe it was love itself or the idea of it. The way it demanded pieces of you and called it devotion. The way it asked you to wait, to bend, to stay small. You built walls. You spoke in sharp edges. You told yourself you were safer alone than ever being seen and still not chosen. You wanted nothing of it; none of that soft, foolish ache your mother carried in her eyes when she thought no one was looking.

No one really tells you that even the strongest walls don’t always hold. That storms, no matter how loud, eventually... settle. And that the sky doesn’t bloom with colour until the rain has had its say. You didn’t see it coming. How everything you once said you’d never need, never want, could begin to change. Almost without asking permission.

All because of one person.

You still remember the day you met your husband.

“Hey.”

You froze at the sound of Kai’s voice, jaw tightening as you continued folding flannels at the booth with your back still to him. Cold. Distant. And he knew exactly why.

He sighed, because yeah, he fucked up. And now you were icing him out, and rightfully so. He, along with Taehyun, had worked painstakingly to earn a place on your side. Now here he was, ruining it in one careless moment. “Y/N, I’m sorry, okay? I thought you already knew that — ”

“That what?” Your voice cut clean through the air, sharp. You finally turned to face him, and for a second, he almost wished you hadn’t. Your eyes weren’t tearful or hurt, they were hard. Disappointed.

You weren’t just anyone, you were the spine of this whole group. The one no one dared cross. The one everyone looked to when things got messy. Queen of the batch, they called you. And right now? He knew exactly how small he was beneath your gaze. Kai cleared his throat, suddenly unsure of where to put his hands, his guilt too loud in the silence between you. He glanced at Taehyun, desperate for backup, but Taehyun didn’t even look up. He kept shuffling papers like his life depended on it, like the tension in the room hadn’t tripled.

He wasn’t getting saved.

Not this time. “Uh—”

“I told you to study for it, Huening Kai. Am I right?” The full name. Shit. Even he knows that’s when it’s bad. “So we could present together. And now you’re standing here telling me you didn’t even look at your assigned parts?”

“I forgot, okay?” he stammers, eyes wide and guilty. “There was band practice, and then—there was—”

“Stop. Talking.”

He snaps his mouth shut instantly, lips pressed together in a dramatic pout. “Yes, ma’am,” he mumbles, like a kicked puppy trying to look cute.

You sigh, deep and tired. Not just at him but at yourself, for expecting better. For thinking this time he’d actually take it seriously. Your fingers press to your temples as you close your eyes briefly, grounding yourself before you say something worse. He’s looking at you like he’s one bad breath away from a full apology or running.

A year ago, you would’ve let the anger win. You would’ve said something that bite, just to feel like you still had control, but you now don't. Because now… now you’re learning to make space for the boy standing in front of you.

“Kai…” you start, softer now, “I didn’t ask for perfect. I just asked for effort. Fine, I'll do it.”

Kai’s about to open his mouth, probably to try another sorry excuse — when a loud laugh echoes across the auditorium, careless. You glance up instinctively. There they are; two seniors strolling in like the place was built for them. The taller one with deep dimples flashes a grin, saying something that makes the other throw his head back in a laugh that fills the space. He’s all hair and arrogance, long strands brushing the tops of his shoulders. Your eyes narrow, tracking him across the room.

Do they even realize this is an important event? Do they care? You roll your eyes, jaw clenched as irritation flares anew, like a match struck just a little too fast. Beside you, Kai quietly mutters another apology, but your attention has already shifted, redirected like a storm changing direction. You hate it, how easily they command the room. How everyone watches them. How they know they’re being watched. Just because they’re seniors.

Entitlement looks good on them, and that pisses you off even more.

“I hate that guy,” you mutter.

Taehyun follows your gaze. “Be specific,” he says, monotone. “There are two.”

“The loud one,” you snap. “One with the hair.”

Taehyun hums, unbothered. He knew why. “Of course.”

Kai leans in. “Be honest… is it hate, or is it hate-hate?”

You shoot him a glare so sharp he visibly leans back. “Okay. Hate it is,” he nods quickly.

Even as you turn away, your eyes flick once more to the boy with the laugh that somehow still echoes in your head.

You hate him.

You do.

The day moved in a blur. Fast at first, then agonizingly slow as your turn crept closer.

Most teams had two, sometimes three people standing up there together. You had no one. Alone behind the podium, trying to hold yourself upright on nothing but adrenaline and a little bit of pride. Still, you managed. You held your own. Answered every question crisply, clearly, almost like you’d rehearsed in your sleep. Everything was going fine. One of the panelists shifted in their seat, glanced down at their notes, then asked, “What do you think is the most important thing we should do for prospectives?”

It wasn’t a technical question. It wasn’t numbers or science or theory. It wasn’t anything you could calculate or memorize or recite.

You froze. Not because you didn’t care, but because that part of the project, that question was Kai’s. You stood there, blinking once, then twice. You could calculate a compound’s atomic behavior in a heartbeat, you could solve a formula blindfolded, but this? This felt like a punch to the gut in front of everyone. You focused on facts, ratio and numbers too much. It was so simple, so human, and you're giving silence.

You could feel it. eyes narrowing. Confusion settling. Their expectations hanging in the air like lead. Aren't you supposed to be the smart one? Is this all you are? Talk? No follow-through? You’re about to clear your throat, to say something, anything, to fill the itch clawing at your throat, when movement catches your eye.

In the very back, nearly hidden by rows of students, a hand lifts into the air. Not high. Not obvious. Almost like it wasn’t meant to be seen. No one else notices, except the boy next to him, who nudges him, brows raised. Your eyes stay locked on him.

Choi Beomgyu.

He doesn't speak, doesn't call out. He just forms a shape with his hands. Subtle, a quiet symbol drawn into the space between you.

A heart.

It feels louder than anything else in the room.

You look away. Swallow the lump rising in your throat. And when you turn back to the panelist, your voice finds itself. “Heart,” you say, “The most important thing is to reach the heart of your audience. Because if you don’t connect, nothing else will matter.”

A breath slips from your lungs the moment you catch the flicker of approval on the professor’s face.

Everything ended, hours pass and around you, the noise returns. Chairs scrape. Bags zip. Voices rise again like nothing happened. Kai and Taehyun are already across the table, heads down as they quietly gather the presentation materials.

You feel Kai’s eyes flick toward you, but not at you. Past you.

You turn. Choi Beomgyu stands just a few feet away, hands shoved in his pockets, watching you like he isn’t sure if you’ll stay or walk right past him.

You sigh, tugging your bag higher on your shoulder. “Alright,” you mutter, “It’s due, isn’t it? What do you want?”

Beomgyu blinks, caught off guard. His voice is quieter than you expect, almost like he wasn’t planning to speak at all. “…A thank you?”

“Thank you,” you mutter, barely meeting his eyes. Out of the corner of your vision, you catch Taehyun dragging a starry-eyed Kai away, literally pulling him by the elbow. A few students glance your way too, some whispering. You know why.

The two students, each known as the best in their own batch, now suddenly in the same frame.

“I know that’s probably not enough,” you sigh, folding your arms. “Men never really settle for just words, do they? What is it, food? A favor? Something for your class? Say it.”

He laughs softly. “I just think…” he starts, then trails off, scratching the back of his neck. “I just think you’re the prettiest woman I’ve ever seen. Maybe that’s why I did it.”

You blink. Of all the things you expected him to say, that wasn’t one of them. He’s flushed now, stammering through the rest. “I, I mean — I’ve watched you since before. Not in a creepy way, I swear. But just… fuck, you could sell poison and I’d still line up for it.”

A laugh breaks from your chest before you can stop it. He grins, almost in disbelief, like he can’t believe he got you to laugh.

What you didn’t know back then, what no one could’ve told you, was that the same boy standing here, flushed and awkward and a little reckless with his heart, would be the one to melt it all away, would be your exception, and would be the one to stand at the end of an aisle, eyes shining, waiting to marry you.

You blink, stunned for a second, and he continues, his voice gentler. “Because I can’t stand the thought of you being left behind. I’d rather stay just a little longer. To hold your hand through the end. To take care of you until your last breath. Until I know you don’t have to be alone.” His thumb brushes your cheek again, slower this time. “And when you can’t see me anymore… then I’ll go.”

They say marriage dulls love eventually, but as your eyes blur with tears from the way he looks at you, so full of awe, as if you’re still something he can’t believe he gets to hold, and as your heart pulls tight at the gentleness in his voice, you know they were wrong. If anything, he loves you more. As if every day, his heart just finds a new way to fall for you.

“I love you,” you whisper, it's small but he hears it. He doesn’t speak — he can’t. His mouth moves around the words I love you too, but his voice catches before it can reach you. His eyes shine, his throat tight, and all he can do is look at you.

It’s been six years since you first met your husband, Beomgyu. He pursued you like you were gravity itself. He waited for you outside your lectures, rain or shine, just to walk you back to your dorm. He brought you coffee before exams, left sticky notes on your textbooks, made it his mission to learn the things you loved, just so he could love them too.

Within months, you said yes. Not just to being his girlfriend, but to the rhythm of a life slowly intertwining with his. Breaks became your sacred hour. Homework turned into nights side by side, papers spread out like puzzle pieces, his laughter softening the cruelty of long days. You studied. You dreamed. And you fell, so deeply, so fully, it terrified you. By the time Beomgyu graduated, it wasn’t just your hearts that had found home in each other. Your families met and clicked as if the universe had been planning it all along.

While Beomgyu poured himself into his Biology degree, interning as a lab researcher with determination, you chased a harder dream. You wanted to become a general surgeon — something that demanded long hours, relentless focus, and years more schooling. You feared the distance your ambition might create, the strain it could put on, but Beomgyu never flinched. He adjusted, he waited, he stayed.

He carved his own path slowly, carefully, becoming a research specialist step by step, all while holding space for you to grow. He never made you choose. Instead, he became the steady presence who picked you up on your worst days and celebrated even your smallest wins.

And when the time was right, when you were still tired from hospital rotations, hair a mess, hands aching from studying; he knelt on one knee, ring in hand, eyes full of the same certainty he had when he first saw you.

It’s been two years since you said your vows; two years of being married, of building a life not just in promises, but in the everyday. You’re both in your late twenties now, older, a little more tired maybe, but grounded in something stronger than youth. You’re still studying, pushing through the final stretch of your residency, while he’s found his name with respect in the field he loves.

Beomgyu wakes up early with you, even when he doesn’t have to. He packs your lunch on days you forget, leaves notes on your coffee cup when you’re too bleary-eyed to speak. Some nights, he waits up just to reheat your dinner, just to ask how your shift went, even if your words are half-slurred with exhaustion.

And still, somehow, he looks at you like it’s the first time.

Every hard day ends with him. Every version of your future still starts with him. In all the chaos, he remains your calm. In all the movement, he remains your constant. You used to wonder if love could last, if love was real. Now you know — it is. It just takes someone who chooses you every single day, even when the days are long and the words are few.

Beomgyu never stopped choosing you.

"You’re free today, right?" your husband asks as he flips a pancake, his tone light but full of meaning. “I was thinking... we could just stay in bed all day. Cuddle. Make love. Just… be.”

You choke on your orange juice, sputtering as the sweetness burns down the wrong pipe. Even after all these years, he still manages to catch you off guard. “Y-Yeah,” you cough out, cheeks warming. “I don’t have anything today. I remembered you were off.”

He flashes that boyish grin, throwing both fists in the air. “Yes!” he whispers dramatically, the spatula still in one hand. You giggle at the sight, he’s always a little ridiculous when it’s just the two of you, and your heart aches with how much you love him like this. He sets the pancakes down with exaggerated care, and you help him plate the rest, moving around each other in that familiar, wordless rhythm. Now seated across from him, he digs into his food with satisfaction, and you take your first bite too.

He looks up between chews. “Wanna watch a movie later?”

You were just about to speak when something twisted deep in your stomach, a pressure climbed your throat. You barely had time to register the panic flashing across Beomgyu’s face before instinct took over.

“What’s wrong?” he asked quickly, half-rising from his seat. His voice trembled with concern as he watched you press a shaky hand over your mouth.

You couldn’t answer. The chair scraped loudly against the floor as you bolted upright, your body moving before your brain could catch up. You heard him call your name behind you, but the sound was already drowned out by the thudding of your heartbeat and the desperate rush of your footsteps toward the bathroom.

Your knees hit the cold tile just in time.

Everything came up in a rush — sour, bitter. You gagged again, pain wracking your stomach as it emptied itself. The bile scorched your throat, your eyes watering from the force of it. You clutched the edge of the sink with one hand, the other trembling against your abdomen. Pancakes. It had to be the pancakes, right? But… you loved those. You always had.

Everything hurt. Your stomach cramped with each heave, your throat burned, and your head spun like the room had tilted sideways. Every wave of nausea pulled you further under, like drowning in your own body. Everything feels horrible, everything is —

“Hey… breathe, baby. I’ve got you.”

Warm hands on your back. Beomgyu’s touch moved up and down your spine in soft, reassuring strokes. After a second, you felt him gently gather your hair, pulling it away from your face. His free hand found your knee, cupping it softly, a barrier between your trembling body and the cold, unyielding floor. “More?” he said, voice thick with worry.

You didn’t answer, not yet. The nausea had finally passed, but you still felt wrung out, hollowed. You reached blindly for the flush, the mechanical whirl of water echoing louder than it should have in the small room. “Are you okay? Something wrong with the food?”

“I… I don’t know,” you whisper, your voice hoarse, fragile. Your legs feel unsteady as you slowly rise to your feet, and Beomgyu is there in an instant, arms steadying you, eyes never leaving your face.

He follows you to the sink in silence. You grip the cool edges of the porcelain and glance up at your reflection, pale and drawn, but it’s not just your face you’re looking at; it’s his eyes in the mirror, still locked on you.

He looks scared.

You rinse your mouth, trying to rid yourself of the sourness. You reach automatically for the mouthwash but pause when your eyes catch your sealed box of tampons, untouched. Something tugs at your chest. Your breath stills.

When… when was the last time?

“Gyu,” you say softly. He hums in response, giving you space to find your words. You turn just enough to look at him, really look at him. His brows are knit in concern, lips parted like he’s already halfway to asking what’s wrong again. You swallow hard, voice barely a breath.

“You should buy me some pregnancy tests.”

It was the longest three minutes of your life.

You sat on the closed toilet lid, elbows on your knees, hands clutched tightly together. Your heart pounded like a warning bell, loud in your chest, loud in your ears. Across the small bathroom, Beomgyu paced like he couldn’t decide whether to breathe or break down.

"Shit, my heart is about to burst," he muttered, running a hand through his hair for the fifth time. His eyes kept darting toward the sink, where two pregnancy tests sat waiting. “Should we call your parents? My mom? What do we even need to buy, diapers? Vitamins? A crib? Wait, we don’t even know yet — ”

"Beomgyu." You said his name firmly, and he froze. His eyes snapped to yours, wild with thought, but something in your tone reeled him back in. “You’re more frantic than me,” you said softly.

He let out a shaky laugh, barely a breath, then crossed the room in two steps. He knelt in front of you, his hands warm as they cradled your face. His forehead met yours with the gentleness of a promise. "Whatever it is," he said, voice steady now. “Whatever the outcome… we’re okay. You and me.”

You nodded, pressing your eyes closed for a second, to hold the weight of this moment between your bodies. The fear, the hope, the fragile anticipation curling in your chest.

Your alarm goes off, Beomgyu grips your hand.

Two pink lines.

You didn’t know what happened in the next few seconds, it all blurred. You knew it wasn’t final, that a doctor’s confirmation still waited ahead, but none of that mattered, not when Beomgyu looked at you like you’d handed him the universe.

He lifted you with a laugh that cracked, arms wrapped around you like he never wanted to let go. His lips found yours again and again, messy, full of awe. You had to push him back just to breathe, only for him to chase after you, kissing you like his life depended on it. You started painting a picture behind your closed eyes.

A home. A life. Beomgyu. And your... child.

He carried you to the bed in a blur, laying you down, “You're carrying my baby,” he whispered, breath ragged, brushing your hair from your face. “God, I can’t believe, I love you, I love you so much—”

Then his mouth was on you again, trailing from your jaw to your collarbone, down to the curve of your breasts. He cupped them gently, thumbs brushing your nipples until they tightened beneath his fingers. He kissed every inch, like he was memorizing you anew, lips worshipping the swell of your chest, the softness of your stomach. When he slid your panties down, he did it slowly, eyes never leaving yours. His fingers parted you, tender at first, then more firm as you gasped beneath him, the heat of your body answering his touch instantly. “You feel so warm,” he murmured, voice almost breaking. “So perfect. Mine.”

His mouth followed, tongue tasting you slowly. Your back arched. His hands pressed your thighs open wider, and you cried out his name, your hands tangling in his hair. He climbed over you, his cock pressed hard and aching against your entrance, you reached for him. He moved slowly at first, savoring every inch of you, his forehead pressed to yours, both of you whispering between breaths. “I love you.”

His pace quickened as your moans filled the room, his hips snapping forward harder, deeper, one hand cupping your breast, the other finding your clit. But even then, his eyes never left yours, wide and glassy.

He came with your name on his lips, his body trembling above yours. He didn’t pull away. He just held you, panting against your skin, his hand sliding protectively over your stomach.

“I’ll give everything to you,” he whispered, “To both of you.”

It felt like the rest of your life had just opened its doors, and welcomed you home.

“Yeah, I’ll drive safely, I promise,” you say into the phone, balancing it between your shoulder and ear as you push the shopping cart forward. “The weather’s nice today, so I thought I’d swing by and visit Ryujin later too.”

“You should’ve waited for me to come home before going out,” Beomgyu grumbles on the other end, and even though it’s just a call, you can hear the pout in his voice.

You smile to yourself. “I couldn’t wait two more days, hun. Maybe it’s the hormones? I just really needed to get out of the house.”

You bow politely to an elderly couple who step aside for your cart. There’s a flutter in your chest, not just from the grocery run, but from the soft awareness that you’re not alone in your body anymore. He sighs, his voice softer now. “How’s the shopping? You still okay?”

“Yeah,” you reply, reaching for a box of cereal and dropping it into the cart. “I haven’t thrown up all morning, actually.”

“That’s good.” A pause. Then, “Work’s alright. Busy. The relocation is almost done, they’re giving me one more project before I get to be picky again.”

“Picky?”

“Yeah. I’ve got to be.” You hear a faint smile in his voice now. “My wife’s pregnant.”

“Beomgyu… you’ve been boasting about it to everyone, haven’t you?”

“Of course I have,” he says, without an ounce of shame. “I made it.”

You laugh, unable to help it. “Sir, it’s my body.”

“And I’m the co-founder. Are you trying to use science against me now?”

“Well,” you tease, biting back another grin, “if you only think that way…”

“Don’t.” He cuts you off with a playful groan, and you can hear the smile in his voice. “Stop right now or I swear, I’ll drive home just to kiss that pretty mouth of yours.”

Your laugh slips out before you can stop it, light and full of something so easy, so whole. You hear his own laughter follow. For a moment, the world feels small. His voice in your ear. Your hand on your stomach. A swell of joy on your chest.

Everything had felt too perfect.

You turned down another aisle, cart wheels squeaking softly against the floor as you absently listened to Beomgyu's voice through the phone. He was moving around on the other end, probably getting ready to head back to work after spending his whole break talking to you.

Your hand reached for a bottle of ketchup when the ground shifted beneath you. It was so subtle at first you thought you imagined it, but then, another jolt. Harder. A low rumble filled the air, then the shelves trembled.

Screams erupted down the aisle,. Someone dropped a basket. Another shouted. The floor seemed to tilt and shudder, the metallic clatter of falling cans and shattering glass erupting around you like a storm. Your phone slipped from your hand.

“Shit,” you breathed, backing away instinctively, heart lurching to your throat. You let go of the cart and crouched low, one arm bracing against the shaking shelf, the other instinctively cradling your stomach.

You dropped to your knees, trying to stay steady as the floor trembled. Panic rose like bile in your throat. You scanned the store, heart hammering, searching desperately for an exit, but you were deep in the back. Trapped between rows of falling items, far from the doors, far from safety. As soon as the tremors stopped, you scrambled for your phone, fingers fumbling to grab it from where it had fallen. The screen was cracked, but still lit and his voice came through immediately.

“Baby? Are you okay?” Beomgyu’s voice was tight. “There was an earthquake. You need to get out of that store, now. Find open space. Keep me on the phone. Just hurry, but be careful.”

You exhaled shakily, heart pounding in your ears. “Okay,” you whispered, voice trembling. “I’m okay. I’m — ”

Your words froze. A scream ripped through the air, guttural. You turned instinctively toward the sound, but the aisle was empty. Your feet stilled. The grocery store, which had just been chaos, fell into a thick, sudden silence.

Too quiet.

You stepped forward slowly, eyes darting around, and saw a man at the far end of the aisle. He looked confused, his brows furrowed as if he too had heard it but didn’t understand. He looked at you, seeking answers you didn’t have.

You pressed the phone closer to your ear. “Beomgyu…” your voice was barely above a whisper, “something’s wrong.”

There was a beat of silence, then the sharp shuffle of movement on the other end. “Get out of there. Now,” he ordered, voice low but firm. “Don’t wait. Go home. I’m already on my way.”

“HELP! PLEASE, HELP!”

The scream shattered whatever silence was left. It wasn’t fear, it was terror. Pure, bone-deep terror.

Your breath caught in your throat as people started running, shouting over one another, shopping carts abandoned and crashing into shelves. Panic took over like a wave, and you ran with it, feet moving before your mind could catch up, heart hammering so violently you could barely breathe.

“What?” you gasped out loud, the word foreign and unreal in your mouth. “Was it the earthquake? What’s happening?”

You were seconds from reaching the crowd gathering near the store’s front exit when everything stopped.

Because through the tall glass panels, beyond the automatic doors, you saw it.

It wasn’t human. Its body was long, towering, its legs grotesquely jointed and thin like twisted branches. Its skin looked slick and dark, somewhere between rotted brown and black, like it had grown from the earth itself. And its head was massive, lopsided, glistening under the sun.

It was sprinting.

Right toward the entrance. Right toward you.

Your body moved on instinct, run. You turned, bolting in the opposite direction, the air thick with screams and the thundering of feet. Your hands were shaking so hard, your phone slipped from your grasp, hitting the floor without a sound. You didn’t stop. Couldn’t.

You didn’t look back.

Thuds. Cracks. Wet. Tearing.

They're dying. You were moving too fast, too desperate. The screams behind you changed, twisting from fear to agony. It was killing them.

Run.

Your arms wrapped around your stomach like a shield, legs pushing you faster than they ever had before. You turned down an aisle blindly. More screaming. Another crash.

Your ears rang from the sounds. Your hands were shaking so hard you could barely keep yourself upright. The store, once so bright and dull and normal, was now a labyrinth of blood and chaos and shadows and you were running for your life through it. It wasn’t over.

Another one ripped through the grocery store’s left wall like paper, jagged limbs piercing through the broken frame, its massive head twitching unnaturally as it unfolded itself into the store. The sudden eruption sent you stumbling; you hit the floor hard, landing flat on your back, the breath knocked from your lungs. It was already inside. Long legs scraped against tile, too many joints bending in ways that made your stomach turn. It moved with intent, frenzied.

It was running towards a woman, five feet in front of you.

“Mommy!!” A child. No older than six. His tiny voice cut through, making the creature snapped its head around, twisting its body in a full.

You gasped. In less than a second, it lunged.

The boy didn’t even have time to move. One hideous limb lashed out, a blur of motion and then there was blood. His body hit the shelf behind him, crumpling like a doll, small hands twitching once before going still. The mother screamed. A scream that sounded like it broke something in her throat. She ran but not away. Toward him. Toward where her son used to be and the monster met her halfway.

You could only watch. Helpless. Paralyzed. The creature descended on her like a machine — limbs slashing, tearing. Her scream didn’t last long. The sound turned to wet gurgling, bones cracking beneath the weight of its strikes. Her blood painted the tiles in uneven splashes.

You pressed a hand to your mouth. You feel the burn in your eyes.

It should’ve gone for the woman. She was right in front of it —motionless, exposed. The obvious target. The child screamed. He was farther away, barely in its path. He just screamed for his mother, a sharp, panicked sound.

And that was all it took.

It turned. It moved. Not toward the closest body, but toward the sound. The child made a noise, and the monster struck. Then the mother screamed, and it went for her next. You glance at it. It’s not attacking you. Its head is smooth. Perfectly round. No eyes. No mouth. No face at all. It has no eyes. It hears. If your theory’s wrong, if it can see you — you’ll be dead.

You stay still, your body trembling against the cold floor. Every instinct screaming to run, to hide, to cry but you keep your mouth shut.

You don’t make a sound.

You could hear your heartbeat pounding in your ears. Your skin had turned ice-cold, and every hair on your body stood on end like a warning. It moved slowly at first, almost aimlessly, like it was feeling its way through the dark. Then, out of nowhere, a police siren shrieked past outside. The creature recoiled, let out a piercing, guttural scream, as if it had been set on fire. He went out, harsly running towards it's next target, leaving you alone.

Your legs are weak, but you forced yourself to stand. The store was dead silent now. Too silent. The smell hit you. Thick. Coppery. Blood.

Everyone's dead.

You didn’t dare speak. Not even a whisper, the sound might draw it back. Your feet moved on their own; slow, unsteady, barely touching the ground, every creak of the tile felt deafening. You were trying not to breathe too loudly.

You needed to get home. Home. Just get home.

You’d have to drive, but if you drove… they’d hear. They’d come. Just like they did when that police car screamed past, sirens blaring — the car was torn apart like it was nothing.

You swallowed hard. Your throat was dry. Your phone. Where was your phone?

Beomgyu.

His name hit you like a punch to the chest. Choi Beomgyu. He told you to go home. He said he was on his way. No. No no no no. He can’t come here. He can’t. Your breath caught. Panic bloomed sharp and fast, stealing the air from your lungs. You pressed a hand to your chest like it might hold you together.

You were supposed to scream. That’s how the body processes fear, but how do you let it out, when silence is the only thing keeping you alive?

You move through the store like a ghost, each step slow and deliberate as you make your way to the essentials section. Outside, the world is chaos. Screams slice through the air. The guttural shrieks of monsters rattle your bones. You flinch every time. Your hands tremble. But you don’t stop.

You can’t stop.

You have to do this. He’s waiting for you. You need to see your husband, just once more, even if it’s the last time.

You sling the backpack over your shoulder. You trade your shoes for boots — quieter, sturdier. Thank God you wore pants. Beomgyu’s sweatshirt still clings to your frame, carrying the faintest trace of him. You pull gloves over your hands, muffling every touch, every sound. The back door creaks when you open it. You freeze. Wait. Then move. It takes forever.

No matter how long it takes, no matter how many times your heart threatens to shatter, you're going home.

You’ve been walking for almost three hours.

You should’ve been home an hour ago, but your steps are slow, too slow. Every time a monster crosses your path, every time something horrific stares back at you from the shadows, your feet freeze. They root to the ground like they’d rather become stone than move forward.

You kept going. One more turn and you'd be home. You could already feel it. The warmth of your apartment, the way the hallway light flickers, the sound of his voice saying your name. You could almost see his face. You didn’t care what came next. Not the monsters. Not the sky falling. You just wanted to see him again.

You smelled it first. You saw it next.

It's on fire. Your building was on fire.

You almost stumble when you see them, multiple monsters gathered across the street, drawn like moths to the roaring flame consuming your home. The crackling fire must’ve called to them, like some kind of death song. You press yourself against the wall, heart pounding in your ears, eyes scanning the streets with desperate hope.

Is his car here? Is he? He drove. If he drove, he wouldn’t have made it back. Not through this hell. The realization sinks in like a knife twisting in your mind, cruel. You had hoped. Foolishly, stubbornly. Even without a phone, without power, without a single sign, your heart had held on to the idea of seeing him again.

Now you stand in front of a burning building and wonder what’s left to hold on to.

That morning flashes through your memory, so painfully clear now. The way he got up quietly, kissed your cheek, your forehead, your nose, over and over like he couldn’t bear to leave. You let sleep take you, too warm, too safe to stir. You didn’t even say goodbye.

If you had known…

If you had known, you would’ve woken up. You would’ve pulled him back into bed, wrapped yourself around him like it could stop time. You would’ve held him until the sun rose twice.

A piercing screech rips through the air, dragging you violently back to reality. Your breath hitches as your body flinches on instinct. You stagger back a step, your vision swimming, not from fear, but from the tears spilling freely down your cheeks.

You stare at the fire swallowing your building, and the truth finally settles, cold and merciless: He’s not here. He’s not coming back. The chance of finding him… it was impossible.

The fire devours everything you once called home, and in your mind’s eye, it scorches more than walls and furniture. Your college photos, where he smiled like the world was a little softer with you in it. Your wedding day, frozen in frames, dressed in love and laughter. The letters he wrote, the ones he hid in lunch boxes and slipped between pages of your books, always signed with too many hearts. All gone.

You're now a hollow shell with shaking legs and a heart left behind in a home that no longer exists. You start walking because there’s nothing else to do. You don’t know where you’re going. There’s nowhere left to go. No plan. No direction. You dreamed of years with him in that apartment — mornings, chaotic dinners, shared laughter in the kitchen. Your child one day, his eyes, your smile. You dreamed of life.

Everything that was his, everything that was yours, is now reduced to ash.

You’re curled up inside an abandoned house.

It’s not safe, but it’s hidden. You chose it because there’s less chance they’ll hear you here. You sit on the floor, knees pulled to your chest, trying to eat. Your hands move like they belong to someone else, raising food to your lips in slow, mechanical motions. Just two bites and your stomach twists violently, rejecting it. You press a hand to your mouth, fighting the urge to throw up.

And then it comes again, your tears. You don’t even try to stop them now. They slide down your face, soaking into your sleeves. Your throat tightens with a sob you can’t release because crying out loud would kill you.

You cry in silence, your body shaking, your chest heaving like you’re trying to breathe through water. Your heart hurts. Physically hurts. And for what?

What’s your purpose now?

You were supposed to be a doctor. You had plans, you spent years of studying, training, pushing your limits because you wanted to help. You lived with your hands busy, always reaching for someone else. You belonged in the noise, in the rush, in the healing. Now… there’s no one left to help. No one to save. Not even yourself.

The only peace you ever truly knew was in his arms, holding his hand, feeling his heartbeat next to yours. Your breath catches in your throat, and for a moment, you wonder if it would be easier to just stop breathing. Should you give up?

Is this how it ends?

You run your hands over your head, fingers digging into your scalp like you’re trying to wake yourself from this nightmare. It made you feel your bracelet. Still there, wrapped around your wrist. His gift. His promise. A piece of him, holding on.

No. You can’t give up. What would he think if you did? Are you really going to leave him behind? Are you going to take your child with you into nothingness, before they even have a chance to live?

The thought slams into your chest like a hammer. You gasp, and your breath catches on guilt. Your hands fall to your stomach, shaking. Your eyes are dry, swollen, wide open; sleep hasn’t touched you since the last time he held you. The backpack presses into your spine like punishment. It’s heavy with food, with survival, but you refuse to take it off.

It's for you, for Beomgyu, and it’s for the tiny life growing inside you.

You’re going to find him. You have to.

Beomgyu is smart — brilliant in ways that always amazed you. Steady in a storm, the calm to your chaos. He thinks ahead, plans, protects. He wouldn't give up on you. He’s out there right now, searching, heart clenched just like yours, whispering your name.

You won’t let him search in vain. You press your hand over your stomach again, eyes burning with the fire that refused to die with your home. You’re going to find him.

In a world where sound means death, love — no matter what — will find a way to speak.

Your footsteps barely make a sound.

Stay quiet. Stay alive.

The earth bites at your bare feet, the pain is familiar now, it's almost a comfort. A week ago, you watched your home dissolve into flame and smoke, and it’s been a day since you last slept.

You remember those lectures, they taught you about ecosystems; how every life is woven into another, a perfect balance of give and take, but ever since that day, you are a creature of instinct, hiding from the eyes that stalk the dark. You are prey — breathing, moving, breaking beneath the weight of a world that no longer feels like it belongs to you.

Your stomach growls. It's been hours since your last bite, and now more than ever, you know you can't ignore it. You're not just feeding yourself anymore. You're eating for two.

A sharp sting shoots through your foot. You flinch, glancing down just long enough to spot a smear of red blooming beneath a piece of broken glass. You moved to remove it, slowly. You don't look back at it twice.

Up ahead, you see a grocery store, the sign hangs by a single hinge. You scan the street, abandoned cars, shattered windows, silence stretching thick around you. No movement. No monsters. Not yet.

You push the door open.

Inside, dust and decay hang in the air. Inside, two sets of eyes meet yours from across the aisle. Wide, startled. Human. Just like yours.

Just as afraid.

It’s hard; trying to learn names, to meet someone new, when none of you can speak. Everything will take effort, a will. A notebook and a pen.

The first one you came to know was Soobin. Tall, easily over six feet. His eyes are wide and searching, his hair tousled by the wind, and when he smiled, you noticed the dimples tucked into his cheeks, softening everything. Then there’s Yeonjun, the older one. Sharper features, eyes shaped like a fox, always watching. There’s a seriousness to him, still, he welcomed you the best he could, a nod, a shared look, a warmth that didn’t need sound. You learned they were roomates even before all of this happened, and they managed to stay together, something that made your chest ache.

Strangers were supposed to be dangerous, but something about these two…felt like you already knew them.

It’s your turn with the notebook.

You sit at the table, pen trembling slightly in your hand. Soobin and Yeonjun lean in just enough to read over your shoulder. They told you the store had already been picked clean — nothing left but dust and broken shelves.

So you write anyway. It’s all you can offer.

I'm Y/N. You pause, then press the pen harder. I'm looking for my husband, and I'm pregnant.

There it is, laid bare between the lines. You need them to understand that you're a risk. Your hand hesitates before writing the next part, the words scrape against something tender. If you think I'll be a problem, you can walk out that door, and I won't even look.

Your throat tightens, then you add, in a small, hurried scrawl — But… could you please help me get some food first?

You don’t look up. You’re too afraid of what you’ll see on their faces.

A gentle weight settles on your shoulder. You flinch before realizing it’s Soobin. His hand is steady, reassuring. When you look up, he meets your eyes and nods once, firm and certain.

Then he takes the pen. We'll help you find him, he writes.

You feel a solid in a world that’s been crumbling around you.

You turn to Yeonjun. He doesn't say anything but he jerks his chin toward the broken doorway, already slinging a pack over his shoulder. The look in his eyes is clear as daylight.

Come on, it says. We got you.

You’re not alone anymore.

You slipped easily into the space between Soobin and Yeonjun. It was reckless, you knew that. Three people moving together meant more noise, more danger, but being apart felt worse. As if, despite everything, people were meant to stay close.

Your thoughts snapped back to your husband. The ache didn’t just sit in your chest — it clawed at it, hollowing it out. You could still feel his fingers, ghostlike, curling around yours. His last touch. Your hand drifted to your stomach. A reflex. Yeonjun glanced over, catching the movement, but said nothing.

You searched. You searched everywhere. Every street, every shattered doorway, calling his name in your head even when your lips stayed shut. Was he ever here? Is he even alive? In a world this broken, how do two people ever find their way back?

A thought sparked, something like an idea, but it died just as fast. Your body had other priorities, hunger twisted through you like a threat. You needed food, you needed him, but you could only chase one at a time.

You glance over your shoulder, eyes catching the dull lettering of the grocery ahead, the next stop. Soobin raises two fingers, pointing left. A silent signal. He’ll cover that side. Yeonjun peels off toward the center aisles, moving like he’s done this a hundred times.

That leaves you with the right. Your steps are slow. Every possible creak of the old floor sounds too loud in your ears. You scan the shelves like it’s life or death, because it is. Empty. Empty. Crushed box. Broken glass. Then, cans.

Unopened. Untouched. Real food.

A breath nearly escapes your lips. Relief flutters in your chest, fragile and disbelieving. You move toward it, heart pounding. One hand reaches for the cans. The other tugs your backpack open, inch by inch, slow enough that the zipper barely whispers.

Then, a hand. Over your mouth.

It clamps down hard, cutting off your breath before the gasp can even rise. You freeze. Every muscle in your body locks.

“Don’t make a sound, unless you’re ready to die, sweetheart.”

His voice is so small, but it curls around your ear hot and foul. You flinch as his breath hits your skin, as the rough scrape of his beard grazes your neck. Your eyes sting. You could fight him, but deep down, you know what waits beyond the walls, things far worse than this man. You shift, just a fraction, and he feels it. Cold metal bites into your ribs. The blade doesn’t pierce, not yet. It just promises to.

You stop moving. You stop breathing. You surrender, not because you’re weak, but because survival, for now, means silence. If he hurt you, youu know the truth: there’s no hospital. No rescue. No safety coming. If this goes wrong, it ends here. His hand slips from your mouth only when he’s certain you won’t scream but it doesn't mean mercy. His grip just shifts, closing around your throat instead. Tighter. Controlling.

You can’t breathe. He drags you backward like you weigh nothing, your heels scraping the ground, until he throws you down hard. The floor is uneven and you catch yourself with shaking hands, terrified that even a whisper of sound might bring something worse.

Your mind is chaos. Screaming. Do you cry for help? Do you risk it? Do you die now or later?

Beomgyu.

You shut your eyes. Everything in you trembles. You feel him settle over you, heavy, disgusting, his breath rancid and far too close. It coats your skin like oil. You’d rather die than let this happen —

A sickening, wet gurgle cuts through the silence, and the weight on top of you vanishes. You gasp, chest heaving, and force your eyes open. The world swims for a second and then sharpens into something worse.

The man is on the floor now, thrashing. Yeonjun is on top of him. No hesitation. No mercy.

His right hand is clamped around the man’s throat, every tendon and vein in his arm straining with force, crushing down hard, precise, too precise to be chance. His other hand smothers the man’s mouth, muffling the sounds, denying him even the dignity of a scream. Yeonjun uses his entire body like a weapon, knees pinning limbs, muscles taut with pure intent.

You can’t move. You can’t breathe. You can’t stop watching. It's an execution, and he’s doing it for you, because of you.

Tears blur your vision as the man beneath Yeonjun convulses, still clinging to life. You don’t even know what’s happening anymore. Then you see Soobin, he’s moving toward the scene, eyes wide, taking it all in. His gaze lands on you.

He sees the disheveled mess of your hair, the way your pants are undone, your hand trembling where it’s pressed to your stomach. The tear tracks down your cheeks. The blood. And Yeonjun, Yeonjun is killing someone.

Soobin doesn’t hesitate. He rushes over, voice caught in his throat, and reaches for you slowly, carefully, like you might shatter. He pulls you into him, your sobs muffled against his shoulder, arms wrapping tight around you as if to hold the broken pieces together.

Choi Beomgyu gazed at the fading ink scattered across his atlas, a map once full of purpose, now a constellation of lost turns. His eyes wandered the streets around him, searching for a thread to lead him back to the place he used to call home.

He had barely lifted his foot when your face came back again. Your eyes, wide with something between wonder and warning. The way you tilted your head when you were about to say something you knew he’d carry for days. Not even an hour had gone by where you didn’t consume his thoughts, knocking the air from his lungs and paralyzing him for a moment. He missed you. Fuck he missed you terribly and it was enough to render him utterly immobile at points.

Slowly, he drew breath back into his lungs, as if your memory had knocked the wind from him again. Your smile lingered in his mind like a permanent mark, something carved so deeply it could never fade.

He didn’t regret much in his life. Not really. But there was one thing that still clung to him in the quiet: saying yes to this project. It had taken him so far away when everything began to fall apart, when the creatures first touched the earth and turned it into something unrecognizable.

He remembered the shape of you in his arms that morning. You were half-asleep, warm against him, head tucked beneath his chin. He had held you tightly, longer than usual, something in his gut whispering that he shouldn’t go. That he should stay.

You had been tender that week, more emotional than usual, your morning sickness growing worse by the day. You tried to wave it off, brushing his worry aside with a soft laugh, saying you could handle it. But he knew the truth without needing the words. He didn’t want to stay because you were fragile. He wanted to stay because he loved you. Because something in him already knew that those small moments beside you were more precious than anything the world could offer.

And now, as the world burned quietly behind him, all he could think about was how badly he wished he had listened to himself.

You were the one who gave his life direction. The one who turned his quiet ambitions into somewhere full of heart.

He still remembered the first time he really saw you, serious eyes behind the glasses you used to wear, walking across the college grounds like you belonged to another world. He noticed everything. The way you tucked your hair behind your ear. The soft shift in your lip gloss, from peach to plum.

You didn’t even know it, but you changed everything.

He started showing up in places he had no reason to be. Hallways, benches, classrooms that had nothing to do with his schedule. He didn’t care. If there was a chance of crossing your path, that was reason enough. He used to dream about doing big things, things that would make the world remember his name.

With you, he didn’t want to be remembered. He just wanted to matter.

Where is he now, without you by his side?

His chest tightens, another tear threatening to fall questions flash through his mind. Where are you? Are you safe? Are you eating well? How are you holding up? How could he have left you? Alone, pregnant, in the middle of all this ruin?

His body trembles, but he keeps his lips sealed. He wants to scream, to let the pain claw its way out, but he knows — if he does, if he lets himself fall apart, he may never find his way back to you.

He exhales shakily, eyes scanning his atlas again. He traces the route with his finger, committing it to memory, over and over, as if repetition alone might lead him back to you.

He opens his bag and spots the other notebook, the one he had been working on for days. On the nights he couldn’t sleep, he wrote. Plans. Escape routes out of the city. A way to get you out.

He dreamed of getting you onto a boat, finding an island. Somewhere the monsters wouldn’t follow, because he noticed they never touched the water. It became an obsession. He fell deep into it, mapping out every detail. He wrote about how to plant seeds, how to care for them, how to harvest and store food so it would last. He filled pages with water purification methods, survival skills, solar energy setups.

He wrote everything he could; every instruction, every method, every technical detail, even the tender, private things no one ever teaches you to write about. He couldn’t help it. When the nights stretched on too long and sleep wouldn't come, he found himself scribbling through the quiet, as if the act of planning could hold the world together.

He even wrote about how to deliver a child.

You’re going to be a doctor. He knows that. You’ve studied the science, memorized the steps, probably laughed at the outdated textbook he clung to like scripture. Still, he copied it all down, page after page. Not because you needed it. But because he needed it, needed to feel like he was doing something, anything, to be useful to you. To be ready for the moment he might never see.

He wanted so badly to be there. To hold your hand. To keep you steady through the pain. To see the first breath, the first cry. To help you bring life into a world that had done nothing but try to take it.

But he wasn’t sure life would give him that chance.

So he wrote as if he could carve a future into the pages. He planned for a life he might never live, for a child he might never hold, because loving you meant preparing for everything, even the parts he’d never get to share.

He did it because, without question, he would give his life for yours.

He starts walking with heavy heart.

He can't wait to see your face again.

You eat the cereal with your hands. It’s warm, soft on your palms.

"Did you check that spot too?" Soobin asks, his voice low as he takes another bite. "We should mark it before we forget."

"I did," Yeonjun answers, cradling his cup, "We could go further south if we push a little."

Soobin nods slowly, chewing the last of his food. Then he turns to you. "You want seconds?"

They always ask you that. They always wait for your answer, like they won’t take more unless you say no, as if your hunger matters more than theirs.

You shake your head. "No, I’m full. If I eat more, I’ll probably throw up again. Everything’s been... hitting harder lately."

Yeonjun watches you, something flickering in his eyes, he adjusts his backpack, but his attention doesn’t leave you. "You want me to bring you something? Anything?"

It’s been a month since you last saw them. Now, you’re almost three months along. Your belly is still small, but there’s a pressure growing beneath your skin. A heaviness that feels alive.

"I want to go," you say quietly. "I didn’t go yesterday."

Yeonjun lets out a breath and looks at Soobin. "Fine. You're sticking to Soobin."

Soobin reaches for your plate without a word and tosses it into the trash bag. The small gesture is gentle, almost second nature. You watch as the two of them move around the room, gathering what they need like it’s routine now; water, packs, weapons. You quietly sling your own bag over your shoulder, your eyes sweeping over the basement.

You’d only known them for a week when the three of you stumbled on this place. A half-flooded stairwell led you down into silence. Down here, everything is muffled. For a little while, it let you talk without fear. For a little while, it felt safe.

It was here you learned Yeonjun used to be in the military, an intelligence officer. The way he spoke about it was calm, detached, and it explained how he was able to kill the man who hurt you easily. It made sense now, how he moved, how he watched the world like he was still in a war.

Soobin was a journalist, once. You weren’t sure what kind of stories he used to tell, but something in his eyes said he’d seen more than he ever planned to write.

The three of you had your places in the old world. You belonged somewhere, back when society had a shape, but now you’re all pressed together in this dark, breathing basement. No roles, no titles. Three people trying to hold on, and somehow, even the ground feels like it could turn against you.

You tried to explore the city whenever you could. You wanted to believe you were helping, thay you were doing something for find your husband.

Yeonjun once told you, "If Beomgyu’s alive, he���ll come to you. To this city." And that was enough. Enough to keep you here. Enough to make you stay, even when everything in you wanted to run and search every corner of the world.

You still went with them most of the time — on supply runs, short recon trips, but the days were getting harder. Morning sickness hit you like a wave that never let up. Some mornings, you couldn’t even lift your head off the pillow. The room would spin, and your stomach would twist until you were dry heaving into whatever you could reach.

But when Yeonjun and Soobin left without you, and you're all alone, all you could think was; What if he’s out there right now? What if today was the day he came, and you weren’t there? What if he leaves again, thinking you’ve already gone?

It was unbearable.

You feel it rising in your throat again, the nausea curling sharp and bitter, but you force it down. You don’t have a photo of him. Nothing physical to hold onto. All you could offer Yeonjun was a description: long hair, brown eyes, a soft nose. His kind eyes.

You stand. Your body is begging you to rest, but you won’t.

You’re going to find him.

You walk slowly, every step careful. Soobin trails a step behind you, equally silent. Yeonjun moves ahead, eyes scanning the surroundings with his keen eyes. He’s always the first to enter, the first to clear the way. You’re nearing the place now, the one they thought might hold something useful.

You stop at the edge of the road, eyes sweeping the stretch ahead. There’s not a soul in sight. Just the skeletal remains of the world; empty cars rusting in place, glass glittering like ice on cracked pavement. A city caught mid-breath and never exhaled.

Yeonjun gives a signal. One hand raised, sharp and brief. Soobin nods and disappears inside with him. You stay outside.

You stand there alone, heart echoing against your ribs, eyes tracing the silence. You think of your mom. Wonder if she and her husband made it out. If they found shelter. If they’re warm. You think of Taehyun and Kai — how they promised to meet you, how you couldn’t wait to tell them the news. You wanted them to be godfathers. You pictured their stunned smiles, the way they’d tease each other about who the baby would love more.

Now you just hope they’re breathing.

Your throat tightens. Your eyes start to sting, and you blink too fast, hoping the tears will stay where they are. There’s a deep ache rising, slow and thick, like something caught in your chest that won’t move.

Are you giving up?

You turn your head.

To your right, there's a figure. It's still. Watching you.

Your breath snags in your chest. For a second, everything stops. Then your body moves before your mind can catch up, your feet carrying you forward, faster, harder. You feel a jagged stone bite into your heel, but you don’t care. You can’t stop.

You’re not even close yet, but he opens his arms.

That smile —so boyish, so heartbreakingly familiar — spreads across his face like sunlight cracking through storm clouds. His eyes full of disbelief and relief and something so painfully tender, it breaks you.

Choi Beomgyu catches you mid-sprint, arms locking around your body like he’s afraid you’ll vanish. You clutch the fabric of his shirt, gripping it like a lifeline. His hands move over your back, your shoulders, your hair, as if he’s trying to memorize you all over again. His hands protectively settles on your stomach. His worry presses into your skin like a second heartbeat.

You feel him breath.

You’re home.

Two men inside the store stops to watch. In a world so cruel, so damned, there’s something hopeful in the way two lovers find each other again. In the ash of everything lost, something warm still flickers.

Beomgyu can’t stop touching you.

He hasn’t said a single word. None of you have. When Soobin and Yeonjun stepped out of the store and saw you still wrapped in his arms, it was like Beomgyu already knew everything.

He knew you’d been with them. He knew they kept you safe.

Now he walks beside you, never letting go of your hand. His fingers stay wrapped around yours, warm and steady, like he’s afraid you might disappear again if he loosens his grip. Every few steps, he squeezes your hand — three times. You remember what it means. His thumb keeps brushing over your palm. His eyes flick down often, scanning the ground ahead of you, making sure there’s nothing sharp or dangerous in your path. He’s guiding you, gently, without needing to say a thing.

As you neared the entrance to the basement, Yeonjun and Soobin wordlessly veered off toward another path. They didn’t need to say anything, it was clear they were giving you and Beomgyu a moment alone. Your heart swelled with gratitude.

You turned to look at them, eyes wide, a smile breaking across your face as if to say; I found him. It was written in every part of you, in the way your shoulders had softened, in the way your steps felt lighter, in the light blooming behind your eyes.

Soobin smiled back instantly, almost proudly, like he’d been waiting for this moment just as much.

Yeonjun's gaze held yours a second too long. Then it drifted to Beomgyu, to the way you leaned into him, glowing like the sun had finally returned to your skin. Slowly, Yeonjun offered a faint smile —small, almost careful. When you directed your blinding smile to him, he looked away as if he was burned, hands tightening just slightly around the strap of his bag, with one thought in his mind. You were no longer his to worry about.

You never really were.

“Be careful.” You freeze.

It’s the first time you’ve heard his voice again, echoing gently down the narrow stairwell. You’re halfway down, and Beomgyu is just below you, one step lower. His hand is wrapped around yours, steady, guiding, making sure you don’t rush the descent. He watches your footing, not because he doubts you, but because he can’t bear the thought of you falling — even now, even for a second.

When your feet finally reach the floor, your chest tightens and your breath breaks. Before he can say a word, you pull him into your arms, hard, your face burying into the space between his neck and shoulder. Your body clings like it remembers the shape of him better than your mind ever could.

He catches you with a quiet laugh, though you feel the way it shakes in his chest. “What is this?” he murmurs, arms wrapping tight around you. “I’m usually the clingy one.”

“Shut up,” you whisper, already crying. “I missed you so much. I can’t— I can’t believe you found me. I kept hoping but... I didn’t know if hoping was enough.”

You feel him breathe in, shakily, “I looked for you every day,” he says, his voice thick, barely keeping steady. “Every goddamn day. I didn’t care what was out there. I just… needed to find you.”

He pulls back only enough to see your face, to brush your tears away with trembling fingers. “I promised you, didn’t I?” he whispers.

His lips press to the crown of your head. His arms tighten around you like he’s trying to put you back together just by holding you. You close your eyes, and when he kisses you again — your hair, your temple, your cheek, something in you breaks open. The tears come fast and uncontrollable.

Every moment you had suffered alone fades under the warmth of him.

“I told you I’d find you,” his voice cracks. “I told you I’d get to you. I’d get you back.” His hands slide from your shoulders to cradle your face. His thumbs brush your tears.

“How’s my wife?” he continues, “Has it… has it all been too much? I’m so sorry. And the baby — ” his voice falters, eyes glistening. “How’s our baby?”

You guide one of his hands to your stomach. His eyes drop, and when his palm meets the curve of you, he stills. His breath catches like he’s forgotten how to breathe.

“We’re okay,” you whisper. “I’ve managed. Somehow.” You let out a soft laugh through your tears, and he smiles, completely undone.

“I’m here now,” he says, his hand never leaving yours. His eyes find yours and hold there, “I’m not going anywhere. I won’t leave you again. Not ever.”

You look into his eyes, and the world blurs around the edges.

In them, you see a thousand versions of the man you’ve loved. The boy with sleepy eyes and ink-stained fingers, laughing across a college hallway. The groom with trembling hands, choking back tears as he vowed to stay. And now, husband worn by distance, a father held together by hope. A man who found you through ruin because loving you never stopped being his compass.

You nod, and then your body moves on instinct, into his arms, into the only place that’s ever truly felt like home.

He catches you, like he always has.

It doesn’t undo the nights you slept with a hand on your belly and silence as your only lullaby. It doesn’t erase the fear, the ache, the long quiet suffering of missing someone like breath.

But as your tears spill freely, soaking into the space where his heartbeat thuds against yours, you know those days have ended.

You stir the pot with a soft smile, the warm scent of the soup rising around you. Beside you, Beomgyu quietly sets out the plates, his own smile lingering as he watches you in silence. Carefully, you begin to ladle the soup, dividing it evenly between four bowls.

“Perfect timing. I’m starving,” Soobin announces as he steps in from the basement entrance, Yeonjun close behind, dropping his bag with a thud.

Everyone started eating silently.

The fire had burned low, its soft embers glowing red in the center of the dark room. You sat close to Beomgyu, your knee brushing his. His hand hadn’t let go of yours since you all sat down. Beomgyu cleared his throat, making Yeonjun looked up from where he sat. Soobin turned his head slowly, his brows slightly raised.

Beomgyu didn’t look at them right away. His gaze was fixed on the floor, the firelight casting shadows across his face. “I’ve been thinking about this for a long time. What I’d say. How I’d say it. But I don’t think there’s a right way.”

He finally looked up, and when he did, there was something heavy behind his eyes. “Thank you,” he said, voice catching a little. “Yeonjun. Soobin. You didn’t have to take care of her. You didn’t owe me anything. But you did. You kept her safe. You made sure she had something to eat. A place to sleep. You looked out for her when I couldn’t.”

Yeonjun shook his head. “Of course we did.”

Beomgyu shook his head back, more firmly. “No. You don’t understand. You saved my family.” He swallowed hard. “That’s something I’ll never forget.”

Soobin’s jaw flexed, like he wanted to say something, but he didn’t. Beomgyu took a breath. “But I didn’t come here just to say thank you. I found something and I think it’s our only chance.”

You looked at him, heart beginning to pound. His grip on your hand tightened slightly. “I watched the monster,” he said. “I got close enough to learn how it moves. What it wants. And I found out what it’s afraid of.”

Soobin leaned forward. “What?”

“Water,” Beomgyu said. “It won’t cross it. I tried. I led it toward the river. As soon as I stepped in, it stopped chasing me. Like it hit an invisible wall. I waited, and it never came closer.”

Yeonjun sat up straighter. “You’re sure?”

“I’d bet my life on it,” Beomgyu said. “Which is why I’m done hiding. I’m done letting it trap us in basements and shelters and holes in the ground.”

He turned to look at you, and for a second it was like you were the only two people in the room. “I want her to live. Really live. Not in fear. Not underground. I want her to breathe fresh air and feel sunlight without checking over her shoulder. I want a life with her. As my wife, with our child who can laugh freely. On our own terms.” You felt your throat tighten, his words sinking deep into your chest.

Beomgyu turned back to the others. “There’s an island. I found it a while ago in the map. It’s surrounded by water on all sides, and it’s untouched. It's safe, the monster won’t reach it. We could build something and start over.”

Soobin rubbed a hand over his face, thinking hard. “How far?”

“Two or three days’ travel, depending on how we move,” Beomgyu answered. “It’s not easy, but it’s not impossible either.”

“You really believe this’ll work?” It was Yeonjun.

“I have to,” Beomgyu said. “Because I’m not going to lock her in another basement and pretend it’s living. Not when I know there’s more out there.”

There was a silence. A deep, contemplative one. You could feel the shift in the air as the weight of his words landed. Soobin’s voice broke the quiet. “You’re right. We’ve been surviving for so long, I think we forgot what it means to hope for something better.”

Beomgyu looked between them, his chest rising with a shaky breath. “You’ll come?”

“We’re with you,” Soobin said.

“Let’s get out of here,” Yeonjun added, nodding his head.

Beomgyu turned to you again, eyes soft, voice barely above a whisper. “You ready?”

You nodded, your voice caught in your throat, but your hand in his said everything.

To live.

Your bare feet press into the cool earth as you quietly follow Beomgyu. His hands are warm, fingers gently wrapped around yours.

It’s late. When Beomgyu heard there was a river nearby, he didn’t hesitate, he brought you with him. A backpack rests against his back, packed with clothes you’re supposed to change into later. He stops at the riverbank, his hands giving yours a soft squeeze as he takes in the scene. You follow his gaze. The moonlight spills over everything, silver and soft, making the water shimmer.

All you can hear is the steady rush of the river and the beat of your own heart.

Beomgyu drops the bag with a quiet thud that still manages to startle you. You squeeze his hand to catch his attention. He turns to you, a tender, mischievous warmth flickering in his eyes.

I got you.

He helps you change, careful and quiet, his touch reverent like he’s handling something fragile. His eyes never leave you. They stay soft, full of something deeper than want. He watches you like he's trying to remember this forever, like every small shift of your body is something precious. You move, and he watches — not in hunger, but in awe. He leans in and kisses you, a small, delicate thing at first, like he couldn’t help himself. Then again. And again. Each kiss is a little longer, a little deeper, breaking the stillness of the night with something tender and aching.

Every time a piece of clothing falls away, his lips find a new place —your mouth, your jaw, the curve of your collarbone. His hands are slow but searching, both greedy and gentle, as though he’s trying to memorize you in the dark. The space around you is filled with breath, the whisper of fabric being pulled away, the quiet gasp of skin meeting night air. He takes his time — not because he has to, but because he wants to. The world has fallen away. There’s no fear.

You should feel exposed. Vulnerable. You should feel small out here, with nothing to hide behind but night and moonlight. Monsters do walk the earth. But right now, with his hands on your skin and his mouth pressed to your shoulder, none of that feels real.

All you feel is him. And all you feel is you're with him.

When you’re both down to your underwear, he laces his fingers with yours and gently pulls you toward the water. Your clothes lie scattered behind you, his backpack nearby, forgotten in the hush of it all.

You let out a quiet gasp the moment the water touches your skin. It’s colder than you expected, sharp enough to steal your breath. Beomgyu hears it and a boyish smile blooms on his face like it’s the best sound he’s ever heard.

You both begin to move, letting the river cling to your bodies. You dip your hands into it, run it through your hair, over your arms. Beomgyu steps in closer and helps you, brushing wet strands from your face, smoothing water over your shoulders with slow, open palms. He never stops smiling.

He's painfully, achingly beautiful.

You can't stop looking at him. Even like this — drenched, flushed, eyes shining, you couldn't believe he's here. With you.

Then, in the hush, his voice cuts through the air. “Do you know how much I love you?”

You freeze. Your heart kicks up, your body reacting before your mind can catch up. You snap your hand over his mouth, eyes wide, panic flooding your chest. He’s not supposed to speak. You both know that. Your breath quickens. His eyes search yours, calm even as yours fill with fear. Then, with both hands, he gently pulls yours away from his mouth. And shouts.

“I FUCKING LOVE YOU.”

You gasp, the sound sharp, almost wounded. It slips out before you can catch it. The fear floods you so fast it feels like drowning — your chest tightens, your eyes flick to every corner of the dark, waiting for something awful to rise from it.

But Beomgyu is already there.

His arms find you, pulling you close, wrapping around your body like he’s trying to shield you from the night itself. His voice is low, calm, pressed right against your ear. “Shh… baby, it’s okay,” he whispers, steady and warm, even as your heart races. “They won’t hear us. Not with the river this loud. I promise.”

You try to believe him, but your body won’t let go of the panic. Your eyes keep searching, flicking past him to the trees, the edges, the places where darkness pools. He sees it — every trace of it. His hands slide up to your face, cradling you gently, and he turns your gaze back to him.

“Look at me,” he says, quiet but firm. “Baby, look at me.”

He holds your face like it’s something breakable. Like you’re something precious. His eyes are full of everything, “I’m here,” he says, and his voice wavers. “You can speak here. With me. It’s safe.”

You didn’t expect those words to undo you.

But they do.

Tears rise fast, burning at the edges of your eyes before you can blink them away. Your chest caves in, your breath catching on a sob that doesn’t quite make it out, because it’s not just the fear — but it's the feel of safety. His lips press to your temple, over and over, slow and steady, like he’s kissing every thought away. Every fear. Every shadow.

“Beomgyu.” Of all the things you could’ve said, it's the only thing that makes out of your lips and he hears it. He holds you tighter, arms locking around you like he can feel the way you’re coming apart. Like he’s the only thing keeping you from collapsing.

“I’ve got you,” he whispers, barely audible. “I’ve always got you.”

And for the first time in a long time, you feel like the old you again.

Not the one shaped by fear. Not the one always looking over their shoulder, waiting for the world to crack open, but the version of you that could breathe without flinching. The one that could laugh without guilt. The one that still believed in softness, in safety, in being held without needing to run.

You think about his plan. You see him on that island. Sunlight in his hair. Laughter in his mouth. His hand still in yours. You see quiet mornings. Salt in the air. Your child running through the sand.

It surprises you — how quickly it comes back. How easily Beomgyu pulls it from wherever it’s been buried. Just by being here. Just by looking at you like you’re still whole. You rest your forehead against his, still trembling, still wet with tears, but lighter, like some part of you had been locked away and he just found the key without even trying.

His thumb brushes your cheek.

You rise onto your toes and kiss him lightly, a whisper against his mouth. He answers with a groan, his hands, already firm around your waist, tighten, drawing you closer. Your bodies press together, water running down your skin.

It all blurs after that.

You don’t remember how he led you out of the river, or when your feet touched dry earth again. All you know is the feeling of his mouth never straying far from yours, his hands guiding you with quiet urgency, his breath tangled with yours. You feel the soft fabric of your clothes beneath your back, a supposed anchor on the ground, but it’s him that keeps you from floating.

His kisses come fast, deep, like he’s afraid to stop. You try to pull back to catch your breath, your lips swollen and wet, but he finds you again instantly, like your mouth is the only place he knows how to go. You breathe through your nose, one hand on his shoulder, the other tangled in his hair, holding him close even as you try to steady yourself. It’s overwhelming — how much he wants you, how much he loves you, how much he means it.

“Beomgyu…” You moaned as you clenched your fist on his dark locks. His tongue was doing to your buds as his fingers part your wet folds. Your legs quivered as his tongue lapped at your entrance.

Beomgyu grunts as he hears your soft moans, sucking on your clit to hear more. Your taste in his mouth got him drunk as he shook his head from side to side, making your moans go higher as you moved your hips to grind your wetness on his tongue. "Hmm?"

He pulled back, replacing his tongue with his thumb, rubbing your wet clit as he kissed and sucked your inner thighs. Your eyes rolled back as your chest rose up and down, glistening with sweat.

You're fucking beautiful. Beomgyu thought as he looked up at you with hooded eyes. Your hooded eyes met his. The sight of your blushing cheeks, eyes asking for more with your lips between your teeth made Beomgyu slightly rut his hips on the bed.

“Out here?” You asked. He pumped a finger inside your pussy, curling it to hit your spot as he put his mouth back to work again, flattening his tongue over your swollen pearl before flicking it with the tip. You cried out in pleasure, throwing your head back. “Shit,”

“I’m so sorry, baby. I just couldn't help myself.” He begged as he doubled the finger inside your soaking cunt, making you cry out in pleasure as your hands gripped his steady shoulders. “I'll take care of you, okay?”

“I missed you.” He kissed your clit, making you whimper at the brief contact. He kissed your skin tracing everything. He kissed around your nipple before taking it into his mouth, moaning at the taste of you. He moved to your other nipple, lightly biting it while staring at your glossy eyes, making your breath hitch. He hummed as he sucked the pebbled flesh into his mouth, nibbling on it. Once satisfied, he pulls back, admiring your body as you panted. Your eyes are glistening, and so is your cunt. He groaned at the sight, pushing his hair back and palms his erected cock.

“Beomgyu, please…” You cried when Beomgyu started to rub his shaft on your slit. You're sensitive. Every time his head hits your bud, you let out a whimper, eyebrows furrowed and eyes wide as you look up at him.

Beomgyu took his time, grunting before pushing the tip inside. You gasped, feeling his length invade you. Your walls fluttered around his cock, making him let out low growls. His other hand began rubbing circles on your clit to ease the burn from the stretch.

Beomgyu kissed your bracelet when he was entirely in. You look gorgeous underneath him. Legs wide open,mouth slightly parted, and body glistening under the dim lights of the moon.

Beomgyu started moving slowly when you nod your head, careful to not give any pressure to your stomach, until your whimpers turned into moans. His name echoed in whispers, as you clawed on the skin of his back, leaving red marks. He was cradling your head, and his lips pressed on your ear. He was whispering the sweetest things to you.

“You’re made for me. You were made for me that I couldn't stop thinking about you everyday we were apart.” Beomgyu growled, kissing your ear lobes.

“Yes, yes, Beomgyu, please… I've missed you so much.” You begged as his hips started to thrust harder into you.

“Fuck, Y/N.” He groaned, feeling your walls clench around him. He could tell that you were both close. Your walls spasmed around him, and his thrust started to stutter.

“I love you. So fucking much.” He stared into your eyes, feeling your orgasm take over your body. His mouth reaches for your sweet lips, your toes curling as your legs wrap around his waist. Beomgyu spilled his load inside you.

The world feels soft.

Beomgyu laughs — just a breath of it, barely a sound. He’s looking at you, eyes warm and shining, hair a mess. There's a smile on your lips, one that you know wouldn't go away anytime soon. “I think we should probably wash again,”

You let out a shaky laugh of your own, nodding slowly. “Yeah… probably.”

He grins and leans over to kiss you again, quick and sweet this time, before pulling himself up and reaching for your hand. You take it, and he helps you stand. The grass sticks to your skin. You both look like a mess.

A beautiful, completely loved mess.

Beomgyu keeps close, brushing his hands over your back, your shoulders, helping you rinse off with the same kind of careful attention he always gives you. Even now, even after everything, he still wants to take care of you. You splash a bit of water at him, half on accident, half on purpose, and the way he laughs makes your chest ache. In the middle of a broken world, you found something that made you forget.

If you had known what the morning would bring, if you had even caught a glimpse of it, you would’ve clawed your way out and screamed for him to stop. You would’ve gripped his face in your hands and told him no.

You would’ve begged him to stay.

You're jolted awake by a rough, urgent shake.

A gasp escapes your lips as your eyes fly open, meeting Beomgyu’s — wide and panicked. He doesn’t say a word, just presses a finger to his mouth. You hear shuffling somewhere nearby, feet scuffing the floor. The sound drags you fully upright as Beomgyu hauls you to your feet.

Yeonjun’s voice cuts through the dark, you don’t catch the words, but the tension in his tone curls around your chest. You feel your heart pounding at your back, thudding like footsteps too close behind.

You’re confused. You’re supposed to be asleep. Supposed to wake up with the sun, gather your things, and head for the island like you planned. So why are you being woken up now?

“Hey,” Beomgyu whispers, leaning in close. “We need to move. Now. Stay right next to me. Don’t let go.” You nod, too scared to speak.

You slip out of the room, makeshift curtains brushing against your arms like ghosts. Your breath catches as your eyes land on a man standing at the entrance to the basement, someone you've never seen before.

An intruder.

His eyes are wide. There's dirt on his clothes, blood maybe, and in his shaking hand, he holds a gun. In one swift movement, Beomgyu steps in front of you, shielding you completely from view. His body becomes a wall.

"Leave now," the man growls. His voice is rough, edged with fear. "Or I’ll fucking shoot."

Soobin’s voice rises from somewhere to your right, “And bring every monster straight to us?” He takes a careful step forward. “We’ll leave. You can have this place, just put the gun down.”

“Where are you going?” the man demands, pointing the gun. “Tell me.” His voice is unsteady, laced with paranoia. His eyes flick from face to face, wild and unfocused. “Do I have to kill you all?” he mutters, almost to himself. “You’ll know I’m here. You’ll all know. Food, food’s making everyone lose their minds. I have to kill you.”

His finger twitches. The click of the gun being cocked cuts through the room like a blade.

“No!” Soobin shouts. In a flash, Yeonjun lunges forward, slamming into the man. They hit the ground hard, bodies twisting, the gun scraping against the floor.

“Fuck — stop it!” someone yells. It might be Beomgyu. It might be you. You don’t know. You’re shaking. Your legs won’t hold steady, all you know is Beomgyu grabbed your hand, pulling you back, pulling you away.

The gun goes off. For a moment, everything stops. The sound still ringing in your ears, but the basement has fallen into a dead, ringing silence.

The door is wide open. You don’t have to be told — they’re coming. They heard it.

You stumble to the side, eyes scanning the room. The stranger lies crumpled on the floor, a pool of blood spreading beneath him. Yeonjun’s hands are still pressed to the man’s neck, trembling. “Fuck,” he breathes. “Soobin—”

You turn and see Soobin clutching his thigh, blood seeping through his fingers. His face is pale, jaw clenched tight as he leans into the wall for support.

“They heard that,” you say. “The monsters. We need to move. Now.”

Beomgyu pulls you forward, stumbling through the basement entrance as the first screech slices through the night. It's not far. It's too close. Your chest feels like it might cave in. Behind you, Soobin’s limping, dragging his leg. Blood streaks down his thigh, every step a raw, gritted miracle. Yeonjun is practically holding him up, jaw clenched.

You turn to Beomgyu. “Help them.” He pauses, eyes locking with yours, hesitation written all over his face. Fear.

"Go," you whisper again, voice cracking. “Please.”

Soobin sees Beomgyu step in to help, “Fuck No,” he growls. “Don’t even fucking think about it. Take her and go.”

“You’re bleeding out,” Beomgyu fires back. “I’m not leaving you like this.”

“You will,” Soobin spits, swaying. “Y/N is the one who matters. You know that. We’re dead weight. If you stay, she dies too. They will die too.”

You want to scream at him. To punch him. To beg him to shut up and run, instead, your voice comes out hollow. “Don’t do this.”

“We’ll find you,” Yeonjun looks at you. “Just—keep going. If we’re not at the docks in thirty minutes…” He doesn’t finish.

The next screech tears through the trees.

Soobin pushes Beomgyu with what strength he has left. “GO! We'll die here.”

You shake your head, barely able to breathe as your body trembles beneath the weight of what’s happening. Beomgyu’s hand wraps around yours, tugging —pulling you away but your feet refuse to move.

Your eyes stay locked on them.

On the two people who’ve saved you more times than you can count. Who shielded you when the world was falling apart. Soobin is barely standing now, blood soaking through his pants, the stain growing darker with every step. You know what that means. Without help, without first aid, without a blood transfusion — he won’t make it.

You know it like a law of nature.

Yeonjun catches your stare. He holds your gaze, and in his eyes, you see no plan but one truth. He’s not letting Soobin die alone.

The tears come faster now, hot and aching, slipping down your face like they’re trying to carve the grief into your skin. You want to hold it in — to bite your tongue, to stay composed, to be the version of yourself they would’ve needed but something in you breaks.

You remember Soobin’s soft, tired smile as he passed you his last piece of bread. The way Yeonjun would nudge you during tense nights just to remind you he was still there. You remember the warmth of their presence when everything else was cold and cruel. You remember laughing with them once.

Would you have been friends if the world hadn’t ended? If you met in some ordinary place with clean air and normal lives? Would Soobin still have been loud and protective, would Yeonjun still have had that steadiness that made you feel safe? Would they still have chosen you?

Would you have been friends?

Your chest crumples, folding inward under the weight of guilt and sorrow you weren’t ready to carry. You hate yourself for it — for moving, for breathing, for leaving when all you want is to run back and hold onto them until the monsters take you too. How do you live with this? How do you keep going when you know the last thing they saw was you, walking away?

Beomgyu’s hand is still in yours. Tight. It was as if he could read your mind. He pulls you forward. You take one last look at the place that held the only people who made you feel safe.

They don't look at you.

The boat rocks beneath you, a fragile cradle adrift in an endless stretch of black water. It creaks softly, as though mourning its own presence in this place. All around, the lake swallows light and sound alike, vast and terrible. The moon hangs overhead; distant, cold, and half-hidden behind slow-moving clouds, offering only the faintest glow, just enough to paint a silver line across the rippling surface.

Beomgyu crouches near the motor, his breath coming in sharp, uneven gasps. His fingers tremble as they fumble with the ignition. You see the way his shoulders curl inward, how his body fights the cold and the fear. Each breath he draws fogs the air like a whisper of everything unsaid between you.

A violent jerk. The motor snarls to life. A metallic scream that shatters the silence, ripping through the night like a wound torn open too fast.

From across the water, something shrieks. It’s high-pitched, keening, filled with something ancient and wrong. The sound claws at your spine, drags your heart into your throat. Beomgyu swears, as he slams the switch off. The motor stutters, dies. Silence crashes back down, heavier than before, suffocating.

He turns to you. His face is pale, eyes wide, wild, but not breaking. There’s something in his expression: an apology, a promise, a plea.

He’s scared.

Your throat closes. You shake your head, violently, as if you can shake away the sound, the cold, the truth. Tears burn hot as they spill down your cheeks, turning everything to watercolor — his face, the sky, the glint of water around you. “No,” you whisper, then louder. “No. No. No.”

He cups your face in both hands. His touch is gentle but urgent, like he’s trying to memorize you through his fingertips. His thumbs brush away the tears even as more fall. He leans in until his forehead rests against yours, his breath shallow, his voice barely a whisper.

“Listen to me,” he says, as if you’re the only thing left in the world worth speaking to. “The lighthouse. If I set off the alarm, they’ll come to it. All of them. It’s the only way.” His voice cracks, but he doesn’t pull back. “I promise I’ll come back to you. As soon as I can. Okay?”

You can’t breathe.

You’re drowning on dry land, lungs stuttering in your chest. Your hand flies to your mouth, stifling a sob that wants to tear its way free. Your shoulders shake, and you’re shaking your head, hard, as if denial could somehow become magic, could rewrite this moment, this choice. Could unmake the dark.

He grabs your shoulders now, steadying you, grounding you. You feel the strength in his grip, but it’s the fear underneath it that nearly undoes you.

“I’ll come back,” he says again, softer now. Like a lullaby meant to soothe a child before the storm hits. “I swear it. I’ll just set the alarm. That’s all. I’ll be fast. It’s only a monster or two, right?” He tries to smile, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. “It’s loud enough — they’ll follow it. They always do.”

You’re gasping, shoulders heaving, eyes wide with terror. You reach for him, mouthing please, please, like a prayer torn from your soul, like the word alone could hold him here with you.

“Turn on the motor,” he says, voice barely above the sound of the water lapping against the boat. “Wait until I set it off. Then you go.”

Your breath catches in your throat, the word scraping out of you like glass. “No.” It’s barely a sound, a whimper with nothing behind it but pain. He leans in again, presses a trembling hand to your chest, right over your heart. You can feel the heat of him, the pulse in his palm, how human he is and how fragile.

“I’ll always come back to you,” he whispers, like it’s a truth that can live beyond this night. “I’ll always be with you.”

Then his voice breaks. Just for a moment. A single crack that shatters everything. “Do it for me. Do it for our child.” he says, eyes glistening now. “Please. Can you promise me that?”

You want to scream. You want to grab him, hold him, drag him back into the boat and never let go. You want to tear the sky open, to rage at whatever gods let this happen, but all you can do is shake.

Tears stream down your face, silent and relentless. Panic floods your lungs, thick and sharp, suffocating you from the inside.

It’s small. Weak. A terrified, shaking nod that you gave him.

It’s enough for him.

Beomgyu leans in, pressing a trembling kiss to your forehead. His hands come to rest on your stomach, fingers splayed, clinging to the shape of a future he’s terrified of losing. His breath stutters as he closes his eyes, trying to hold himself together, trying to find the courage to do what he must.

He thinks of you, every night you held him when the world felt too heavy, every morning he woke to your warmth, your voice, your smile. He thinks of the moment he first saw you, how everything shifted. And now, he thinks of the tiny heartbeat beneath his palms. His baby. The life you made together. His throat burns. He doesn’t want to go.

He doesn’t want to leave.

He doesn’t want to leave you.

When he looks at you again, his eyes are glassy, his jaw clenched like he's fighting something inside himself. For a second, he looks like he might undo it all. Like he might fall to his knees, beg forgiveness for even thinking of leaving. You see it in the way his mouth opens, closes. The way his fingers twitch against your skin.

He exhales, as if he was surrendering.

He runs.

His feet hit the dock, loud and jarring against the soaked wood. You watch his silhouette stretch, then blur, then vanish into the fog, swallowed whole by the night. Your body wanted to run after him.

The motor is silent, the water uncaring. Your sobs fill the space he left behind. You cover your mouth with both hands, curling in on yourself, choking on everything you can’t say.

Grief doesn’t care about survival.

Out in the distance, the lighthouse looms — a black tower against a blacker sky. A smudge of shadow, barely visible through the fog.

The siren starts.

It erupts without warning, a scream of metal and wind, a shriek that splits the night down its spine. It wails — long, unrelenting, merciless. A sound made to summon death.

The monsters answer.

You hear them first — screeches rising from the treeline and the water’s edge, inhuman and furious. Then you see them. Dozens. Maybe more. Crawling from the dark, leaping like shadows pulled by strings, limbs too long. They move toward the sound, toward the light.

Toward him.

Drawn like moths to flame.

You’re frozen. Paralyzed in the center of the rocking boat, breath locked in your lungs. The siren still echoes in your ears, though it's fading now — its afterimage seared into your mind like lightning behind your eyelids.

It stops.

The alarm cuts out mid-wail, a guillotine of silence. The absence of sound is deafening, unnatural. And you know.

You know what it means.

Your body doesn’t move, can’t move. Only your eyes, wide and glassy, locked on the lighthouse in the distance. Come on. Come out now. You can't even speak his name.

Dark shapes twist and writhe around it — shadows crawling over stone, blotting out the structure in violent waves. The creatures consumed. You watch helplessly as they pour over every surface, spilling like oil, thick and writhing, until the tower looks like it's bleeding darkness. Your heart stops.

Do it for me. Do it for our child.

Please. Can you promise me that?

Can you promise me that?

You kick the motor. Hard.

It roars to life with a scream like tearing metal. The boat lurches forward violently, cutting through the water. The fog whips past you, moonlight slicing in thin ribbons across the surface. Your sobs vanish in the sound. Swallowed by the engine, the waves, the night.

Why did you let him go? You knew this wouldn’t save him. You knew. So why? You should’ve held on tighter. You should’ve clung to him like your life depended on it because it did. You should’ve buried your face in his chest. Why did you let him go?

Tears stream down your face, hot and constant, your hands white-knuckled on the controls. You’re not steering toward hope, you’re fleeing from loss. From the truth that’s clawing through your chest like something trying to escape, because you weren’t just leaving the lighthouse. You were leaving your heart behind.

You were leaving him.

“Where were you?” you asked, reaching over to grab the strawberry from the basket on the kitchen table. Beomgyu’s chuckle filled the room. “I went drinking with Taehyun and Kai. Just a light drink,” he said casually, his hand brushing your shoulder as he passed behind you to grab a plate.

“Why? Did you miss your husband?” he teased, carefully plating the food before setting it down in front of you.

You scoffed, rolling your eyes. “You wish.”

He chuckled, handing you a spoon and fork before moving around the kitchen. A tall glass appeared on the table next to your plate and he poured you water.

“Did she miss me too?” Beomgyu’s voice was soft, almost tentative, drawing your gaze upward. His eyes met yours, and for a moment, you were caught in the tenderness there. It made your heart ache in that way only he could.

“She?” You raised an eyebrow, a small smirk tugging at your lips as you swallowed. “What makes you so sure it's a girl?” Your hand instinctively brushed over your stomach as a quiet smile softened your face. The thought of your little one—boy or girl—filled you with a warmth you couldn’t quite put into words.

“I just feel it,” A small smile flickered across his lips, “What if we get twins?”

You looked down, your thoughts wandering to tiny clothes, little shoes scattered across the floor, and pastel-painted walls filled with light and laughter. “That would be… amazing,” you murmured.

Out of the corner of your eye, you noticed Beomgyu pulling out the chair beside you. He sat down at first, but then, almost as if drawn closer by some unseen force, he shifted. You felt his gaze before you saw him—soft, unwavering, and filled with a kind of awe that made your chest tighten.

“That sounds nice, two little you running around.” he breathed, his voice almost a whisper. His hand reached out slowly, brushing against your stomach. You set down your utensils, giving him a soft nod as you shifted slightly, allowing him more access.

Beomgyu lowered himself onto his knees in front of you, his large hands resting gently on either side of your growing belly. He glanced up at you, his eyes searching yours for a brief moment before he let out a long, steady breath. Then, with a tenderness that made your throat tighten, he leaned closer, pressing his forehead gently against your stomach.

“Daddy loves you,” he whispered, his voice so quiet you almost didn’t hear it. He sounded so vulnerable, so small. His lips pressed softly against your stomach. And then, without a word, he wrapped his arms around your waist and buried his face against you.

Your hand moved instinctively, threading through his soft hair with slow, soothing strokes. He pulled you closer, as though being near you could quiet the storm in his heart. Your fingers trailed down the back of his neck, over his shoulders, and down his back.

In your dream, you were cradling a baby to your chest, its tiny body safe in your arms. Beomgyu leaned down, smiling widely as you do.

You sat there, staring at nothing. Your face hollow, your eyes dry. You don’t know how long the boat’s been still, you only know it stopped. You must’ve reached the island, but you don’t care.

He's not here.

You don’t remember standing.

One minute you’re sitting there, still and silent, and the next your feet are moving — stiff, like they don’t belong to you. The dock creaks under you as you step off the boat, but even that sound feels distant, like it’s happening to someone else. Trees sway in the wind.

He’s not here.

The ground feels too solid, like it’s mocking you. You stare at your hands, like maybe they’ll stop shaking. You keep walking, because what else is there to do?

One foot in front of the other. The boat pulls away behind you.

He’s not here.

You spot a cabin ahead. A small, weathered thing nestled between the trees—and suddenly, you remember his hunches. He knew this place. He was right. He was always right.

You push the door open. It creaks under your hand. Inside, it’s cramped, barely furnished, but it’s enough. You exhale. For a moment, the silence almost feels like peace.

He’s not here.

“What am I supposed to do now?” The words escape you in a whisper before panic takes hold. Your breath catches, short and ragged, and soon you're gasping. Your chest convulses with sobs you can't control. A scream tears from your throat. You hurl your backpack to the ground. It thuds against the floor. Rage spills out in curses, flung at the walls, at the stillness, at the unbearable absence. You grip your hair, trembling, and begin to rock, trying to hold yourself together as everything else breaks apart.

“You told me…” The words tore from your throat, ragged and broken. Tears streamed down your cheeks as you screamed into the emptiness, hollowed out by the ache twisting through your chest. “You told me you’d come back.”

You cried, long after your voice gave out and your body folded in on itself. Arms wrapped tight around your ribs, as if holding yourself could keep you from falling apart entirely. Your face was hot and swollen, eyes raw from the endless wave of tears.

Again and again, you called his name.

The only sounds are your own ragged sobs and the shallow breaths you no longer want to take. Each inhale feels like a betrayal, each exhale a reminder that you’re the only one alive.

You curled into a fetal position, lost in the tide of your thoughts, barely noticing as the light fades. At some point, the sun slipped beneath the horizon. Now, darkness presses against the windows, and still, you haven’t stirred. The world outside continues on, but in here, time doesn’t move. You don’t move.

Your stomach growls, a hollow, aching sound that reminds you how long it’s been.

You shift to your right, slow and heavy, and your eyes land on your backpack — the one you threw in a fit of something you couldn’t name. It sits there, slouched and half-open, like it gave up, too.Things spill out from the top. Torn corners, bandages, small bottles rattling inside a plastic pouch.

Your chest tightens.

Beomgyu packed it. Every piece. He had gone over it with you more than once, made sure you understood; this is how you clean a wound, this is what you take when your fever spikes, this is what you plant when there’s nothing left. You swallow hard.

Something else is there. Tucked just beneath the flap, barely visible. Something you don’t remember. Something he never mentioned, and before you can even think about it, your body moves on its own. You’re already pushing yourself up, legs unsteady, heart in your throat. You open it, your hands trembling around the edges of a notebook you don’t remember packing.

The pages fall open easily, worn from use. Every single one is filled.

His handwriting. Small, uneven. Rushed, but careful in the way only Beomgyu could be when he was trying to pretend he wasn’t scared. Instructions. Notes. How to plant seeds. When to water them. How to tell when a crop’s gone bad. How to clean water when there’s nothing clean left. How to fish with a line or with nothing at all. How to start a fire even in the rain.

And then, childbirth.

You stare. The words blur. His cramped, chaotic scrawls turn into something wet and aching in your eyes. You let out a breath, shaky and cracked. “Idiot,” you whisper, choking on the sound. “As if you were waiting to die for me.”

The pages tremble as you turn them, one by one, until you reach the end.

The last page. The words there are scrambled, rushed, overlapping like he couldn’t write them fast enough. Your eyes scan them and then your breath catches.

hi, baby.

this might be stupid. really stupid but i couldn’t sleep and i kept thinking... what if? so i wrote this. not because i want you to read it. god, i hope you never do. but just in case. just in case

i’ve seen this kind of thing in movies. the husband leaves a letter, the wife reads it when he’s gone, and everyone cries. that’s not real, right? that’s just a story. …right? i hated it when the wife is alone and she cries alone.

it’s breaking my heart to even think about you reading this. to imagine you alone, holding this, looking for me and not finding me. but tonight, my hands wouldn’t stop shaking until i wrote it.

maybe you’ll need it. maybe something will happen. maybe i’m already gone.

and if i am, i’m so fucking sorry.

you have to know... it would have taken everything in me to walk away from you. if i left, it wasn’t because i wanted to. it was because i had no choice and even then, i wouldn’t have done it without thinking of you every single step. it's not because of you, it's because i wanted to do it for you. it's all me. it's all me okay?

you’ll cry. i know you will. and it kills me, it kills me to think of you hurting. i know how deeply you love. it’s one of the first things i ever adored about you. but please, don’t let it break you. don’t let it swallow you whole, because if i could see you now, if i could hold you one last time, i’d beg you to keep going.

i love you. i love you so much it hurts. i don’t know how to put it into words that feel big enough.

i hope you never need this letter. i hope this just ends up being some stupid, crumpled piece of paper you find years from now and laugh at. i hope i’m just being overdramatic, writing in the dark, because i miss you too much.

if not, if this is the last thing i ever give you.....

then know this: i have no regrets. you gave me a reason to live, and if i can’t be there anymore, you living will be the only reason i can rest.

i love you, wife. i will always, always love you.

and wherever i am, wherever you are — i’ll always be with you.

i swear it.

ps: don't cry too much, okay?

Your hands tremble as you finish reading the letter your husband left behind. Tears spill down your cheeks, stinging your swollen eyes. You clutch the letter to your chest like it’s the only thing keeping you upright, his words still echoing in your mind, sinking deeper with every breath you take. You can barely breathe. You whisper his name in broken sobs, your voice shaking.

“Beomgyu…” His name falls from your lips like a prayer. The words he wrote — those last, aching pieces of his heart — are now etched into yours, carved so deep they’ll never leave.

Choi Beomgyu had loved you until his very last breath.

“I’m sorry,” you whisper, the words cracking in your throat. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, ‘Gyu…” You say it again and again, as if some god might hear. As if apologies might bend time and undo death.

As if loving him hard enough, hurting deeply enough, could bring him back to you.

You kneel in the dirt with hands blistered from days of digging. The morning sun is sharp, too bright, like it doesn’t know how much you’ve lost. But you let it burn your skin. It’s easier than thinking.

You unfold the notebook beside you, Beomgyu’s handwriting smudged from when your tears fell on it the first time. He had drawn a simple diagram, barely legible, labeled: Keep corn away from potatoes. A small, crooked heart was doodled at the corner. You stare at it a second too long.

Your hands move, almost automatically, scooping soil, pressing the seeds in just like he wrote. Cover. Water. Pray they grow. You do it again, and again. Row by row. Your knees ache. Your back screams. But you keep going, because he made sure you could.

Later, you find the animals.

Two pigs and a limping cow, left behind like forgotten ghosts. You lure them in with scraps, whisper soft apologies when they flinch. You build a pen from broken wood and wire, fingers bleeding, sweat mixing with dirt on your face. You name the cow Cloud. Beomgyu would’ve laughed at that.

The notebook stays tucked in your waistband now, always with you. You read the same page each morning like a prayer. You will make it. You will live.

So you do.

It’s always the same dream.

Beomgyu is humming. The soft kind he used to do when he didn’t know you were listening. His arms are around you. You feel him breathe against your neck, whispering words that don’t quite form.

Then you blink, and he’s not there.

You wake up choking on a sob. The world is pitch black around you, the fire long since burned out. Your chest rises and falls too fast. You curl into yourself, wrapping your arms around your belly, shaking.

“Beomgyu,” you whisper, barely a voice at all. “Please, just one more night.”

But only the wind answers. A bird calls from somewhere in the trees. You press your palm to where he was supposed sleep beside you, and the cold there is unbearable.

You cry until you forget why you started.

The pain starts at dawn.

You’re bent over the table sorting dried herbs when it hits — a sharp, deep wrenching that doubles you over. You gasp, grabbing the edge of the table, your breath coming fast.

You stagger to the bed. The mattress is lumpy, stuffed with straw and old cloth. You lie down, sweat slicking your forehead, trying to remember what Beomgyu wrote.

Breathe. Stay low to the ground. Keep clean towels nearby. Boil water.

You crawl to the pot. Heat the stove. Prepare, just like the notebook said. The hours stretch long and cruel. You scream once, twice. Bite down on cloth. You curse him for leaving you. You beg him to come back. The contractions come like waves, each one pulling you under.

Then, finally, a cry. So small. So soft.

You don’t realize you’re shaking until you hold them in your arms. The baby is warm. Real. Alive. You’re sobbing, loud and wild and cracked open. It's a girl, just like he predicted. Just like what he wanted.

You press your cheek to theirs, whispering over and over: We made it. We made it.

Outside, the sun begins to rise again.

The baby’s cries used to feel like thunder in your skull, loud and jarring, each sound a reminder that Beomgyu wasn’t here to hear them too.

Now, weeks later, you move before she even wakes fully. You don’t think. You just rise, gently lift her into your arms, press your nose into the wisps of hair that smell like earth and warmth and something clean. You hum to her, a tune you don’t remember learning.

You think Beomgyu might’ve hummed it first.

You still cry some nights, quietly. You talk to her, tell her about the day’s weather, the crops coming in slower than you hoped, the time the pig got loose and ran through the garden. Your voice cracks sometimes, but you speak anyway. You plant with her strapped to your chest. You sing while washing her clothes. You braid dried grass into little toys and pretend you're doing it just to pass time — though truthfully, you like watching her fingers wrap around them.

You’re not okay, but you’re not drowning anymore.

She’s almost a year now.

Not walking yet, but strong enough to push herself up and reach for things she shouldn’t. Her eyes are too familiar —s harp and round, framed by lashes that look exactly like Beomgyu’s. Her mouth even curves the same way when she cries.

You avoid looking at her for too long.

There’s a guilt that rises in your chest every time you hold her. Like you’re stealing a future Beomgyu never got to finish. Sometimes you hold her at a distance, like something fragile you don’t know how to care for. She doesn’t notice. Not yet. But you feel it. You feel it deeply.

That night, the dream returns. He’s there — Beomgyu. Sitting beside the old garden, barefoot, smiling like it never hurt. You fall into his arms and start sobbing without saying anything. He doesn’t say much either. Just rubs your back like he used to.

When you pull away, he points at something behind you.

You turn and there she is, your daughter. Looking right at you. Beomgyu kneels beside her and whispers something. You don’t hear the words, but when you look again, her name forms in your mouth.

Beomgyu loved sunlight.

You wake up gasping, cheeks soaked.

You stumble into the next room, where she’s sleeping curled in a blanket. You fall to your knees beside her, trembling. “Your name is… your name is Hayeon,” you whisper, like it’s the first truth you’ve spoken in months. “That’s what your father called you.”

And for the first time since she was born, you really see her. Your hands don’t shake this time when you touched her. You sob into her tiny shoulder, pressing your lips to her skin.

“I’m sorry,” you whisper. “I’m so sorry.”

The next morning, the sky is heavy with clouds, but no rain comes.

You sit on the step outside the cabin, Hayeon nestled in your lap. She babbles nonsense, pressing her palm to your chin and tugging at your collar like she owns you.

You let her.

“I didn’t know how to be your mom,” you say aloud, voice barely audible over the wind. “I didn’t know how to breathe without him. I didn’t know how to… look at you.” She doesn’t understand. Of course she doesn’t. But you say it anyway, because maybe you need to hear it.

“I’m sorry,” you say again, firmer this time. “For not being there. For looking away. You didn’t deserve that.”

You press your cheek to her temple. She laughs at nothing, and for a moment, your chest feels light. “You look just like him,” you whisper. “But I think your soul is yours.”

You started waking up with the will to do so.

“Hayeon, don’t go off too far,” you call, voice light but firm.

She doesn’t answer—at least not in words. Just a bright giggle, shrill and wild, carried on the wind. Her little boots slap against the dirt path as she chases a yellow butterfly between rows of sprouting greens. You see her leap over a patch of tomatoes, arms flailing, hair flying behind her like smoke in sunlight.

You watch her from the bench outside the cabin, your back resting against the worn wood. There’s a basin of laundry beside you, half-finished. The sun’s warm against your face. You let it linger.

You smile, quiet and soft, like it belongs to a version of you that’s finally starting to return.

He would’ve loved it here.

You think that more often these days. Not with the same ache. Not like a wound reopening. But like a truth. A gentle one. Beomgyu would’ve loved the garden coming to life, the way the wind combs through the trees, how the ocean hums just beyond the hills. He would’ve sat here beside you, probably building some dumb little scarecrow with Hayeon and naming it after something ridiculous.

He would’ve made her laugh until she hiccupped.

You imagine him crouched next to her, showing her how to water the seedlings without drowning them. Teaching her to whistle. Drawing shapes in the dirt just to see her copy them. You watch her fall onto her knees, gasping with laughter as the butterfly flutters out of reach. She claps her hands, delighted anyway. You feel your heart stretch with something like peace.

She’s safe. She’s growing. She’s happy.

You remember the first time she asked about him.

The stars are out tonight.

The sky’s painted in deep indigo, scattered with tiny, blinking lights. You’re sitting on the porch steps, your arms wrapped around Hayeon, who’s nestled against your side, thumb resting near her mouth the way she does when she’s tired but too curious to sleep. The wind is gentle, brushing through the trees, stirring the hem of your dress.

She’s quiet for a while. Just breathing, head resting on your shoulder, small chest rising and falling. You think she’s about to fall asleep.

Then softly, barely more than a murmur she says, “Mama… what was my dad like?”

The words land like a pebble in still water. Everything shifts. You don’t move at first. Your breath stills. It’s the question you’ve been waiting for. Slowly, you turn your head to look at her. Her eyes are open, wide and soft, glinting with the starlight.

You take a shaky breath.

“Your dad…” you begin, voice almost breaking. “He was kind. The kind of kind that made you feel safe just by being next to him.”

Hayeon listens silently, thumb dropping from her lips.

“He was funny, too. He used to make me laugh even when I didn’t want to. He’d do the dumbest impressions, or start dancing in the middle of nowhere, just to see me smile.” You close your eyes for a moment. You can see him again — arms flailing in the garden, lips pursed in mock seriousness, Hayeon’s laugh echoing over a memory that never got to exist.

“He was brave,” you whisper. “He stayed brave, even when the world was falling apart.”

A silence settles.

“Did he love me?” she asks.

You look at her fully now, brushing a strand of hair from her cheek.

“More than anything,” you say. “Even before you were born, he loved you. He wrote about you in his notebook. He dreamed about you. He… he wanted so badly to meet you.”

You feel tears rise, but you don’t let them fall. “He didn’t get to stay,” you say gently, “but he left everything he could so we could live. He gave me the strength to raise you. To keep going.”

Hayeon leans in closer, silent. Then, in the smallest voice, she whispers. “I miss him.”

You feel the bracelet around your wrist, worn smooth from time and touch. You don’t have a picture of him. No frame to hold against your chest, no smile captured in ink, but you have this.

And somehow, it’s enough.

You look at your daughter; her face lit by the amber dusk, eyes squinting as she plays in the tall grass, wind tugging at her hair. An image of him. The same jaw. The same shape of her hands. The same spark in her laugh when she runs.

She used to haunt you.

Now, she anchors you — pulls you back to earth when you wake up gasping, when you reach across the bed and feel only emptiness. She pulls you through the dark.

Someday, you’ll pass the bracelet on to her. So she’ll have a piece of him too. So she’ll know that he was real. That he loved so hard, it made life possible even after he was gone.

You're scared of forgetting him.

The sky looks softer now. The air is light. You close your eyes and breathe in deep.

Your voice shakes as you speak, “If you’re out there… are you out there?” You pause, tears catching on your lashes. “Just like you said you would be?”

Your fingers press gently to the bracelet, the metal warm against your skin. “I want you to know, we’re safe. Because of you.” You bite your lip. “Because you made it possible. It was all because of you.”

A long silence. A bird calls in the distance. Your daughter laughs again, far away. You smile, even as your voice breaks.

“I’ll see you again,” you whisper. “I can’t wait to see you again.”

The wind moves through the trees — soft, almost like a hand brushing your shoulder.

Almost like he heard you.

You'll be okay.

epilogue

The morning mist clings to the surface of the sea, curling around the shoreline like a secret not yet spoken. You wake to the sound of waves lapping against the dock but there’s something else, too. A low hum.

A boat.

Still half-asleep, you rise and step outside, the wood cool beneath your feet. The sky is pale, painted in hushed pastels. The sea stretches endlessly, but you spot it. Your breath catches.

There’s a figure on board.

He raises a hand, waving toward you with calm familiarity, as if he’s done it a thousand times before. There’s warmth in it.

Your lips curve into a wide smile. Your eyes burn.

The sea glitters between you, endless and wide.

“You took your time, idiot.”

taglist: @heesmiles , @lovingbeomgyudayone , @virtaideen , @hyukascampfire , @fancypeacepersona , @bamgeutori , @lilbrorufr , @beomieeeeeeeeeeees , @xylatox , @yunverie , @imlonelydontsendhelp , @moagyuu , @immelissaaa , @readinmidnight , @pagelets , @wonderstrucktae , @boba-beom , @seodami , @izzyy-stuff , @gyudollies , @i-am-not-dal , @page-isa , @tyunarisu , @s0urcherry , @lostgirlysstuff , @tinycatharsis , @randomheyl , @beomsdoll , @hanniehq , @run2gyuz , @prettypeachprincesz , @w0nderfulb1iss , @dedandelion , @demidelulu , @usuallyunlikelyfox , @raspberrii , @jellyyjn , @mrsjohnnysuh , @hyukaaa , @neobeomjii , @lumpynoofles , @taelerys , @haowonbins , @strawberryshoujosundae , @whoisgami , @sophiemoloney , @fatbixchwithanopinion , @fairfootedflekk

[mw00nie]

you’ve been quiet all evening.

not your usual soft, thoughtful kind of quiet, either. this is heavy, sulking silence. a quiet born from hurt. you won’t look at him when he walks in, and you don’t meet him at the door like you usually do.

you’re on the couch, legs tucked under you, your face barely illuminated by the glow of the tv you’re not even watching.

kento sees it immediately. the damage he’s done.

he exhales. his tie is loose, his shirt half-unbuttoned from a long day, and he doesn’t even take his shoes off before walking over to you. he drops to one knee in front of the couch, large hands finding your thighs, and you flinch.

just a little. but enough.

he closes his eyes and swears under his breath.

“sweetheart.” his voice is rough, regretful. “look at me.”

you don’t.

“i shouldn’t have snapped at you.”

still, you won’t lift your gaze. he cups your jaw gently, guiding your face toward him.

“i came home and took it out on you. you did nothing wrong.”

you blink, lashes fluttering like you’re holding back something. maybe anger? maybe tears? either way, it twists in his chest like a dagger.

“i’m sorry,” he murmurs. “you can punish me however you want. just don’t shut me out like this. i can’t take it.”

and then he leans in. softly. tentatively. kissing the corner of your mouth like he’s trying not to scare you away.

you don’t push him off.

but you don’t lean in either.

but when his lips brush against yours again, slower this time, his fingers stroking your thigh, he feels you sigh. quiet. resigned. wanting.

he deepens the kiss slowly. like he’s savoring every second. one hand finds your waist, pulling you closer, and the other slides up under your oversized shirt his shirt until his palm is resting just under your breast.

you gasp into his mouth, and he pulls back to look at you.

“let me make it up to you,” he says, voice low and rough. “let me show you how sorry I am.”

and when you whisper, “okay…” it comes out breathy, hesitant. he kisses you again, harder this time. less patient. more desperate.

he carries you to the bedroom, kissing your neck the whole way there, muttering apologies between each press of his lips.

once you’re on the bed, he strips you slow. reverent. like he’s trying to re-memorize your body, like he thinks he’s lost the right to touch it. he undresses himself only after you’re bare before him. flushed and shy but still watching him now, finally.

when he pushes your thighs open and settles between them, he just looks at you.

“you’re the softest thing I’ve ever known,” he murmurs, voice hoarse. “i don’t deserve to be this close to you.”

his mouth trails down your tummy, tongue dipping into your navel, teeth grazing the inside of your thigh. you squirm when he kisses lower, and his large hands wrap around your thighs, holding you in place.

he eats you out like it’s penance.

slow, slow drags of his tongue from your entrance to your clit. then again. then again. he flicks it, circles it, sucks gently until your hips buck, and he doesn’t stop. he flattens his tongue and moans low against you when you whimper his name.

“you taste so fucking sweet,” he breathes, voice strained, like he’s losing his mind. “i could stay here all night.”

two fingers slide into you, thick and slow, curling just right until your back arches off the bed. he doesn’t stop when you come, if anything, he gets hungrier. stays there until your thighs tremble, until you're panting, oversensitive and breathless.

“turn around,” he says softly. then, catching your hesitation, adds: “please.”

you do. on your hands and knees now, cheek pressed to the pillow, thighs still shaky from how hard you came. He kneels behind you, one hand smoothing down your back, then gripping your hip as he lines himself up.

“gonna be good for me?” he murmurs, running his leaking tip through your slick folds.

you nod quickly. “yes. please…”

he pushes in slowly. inches at a time.

you both groan when he bottoms out. you’re so tight, warm, wet. he has to close his eyes and grip your hips to keep from losing it immediately.

“fuck,” he grits out. “you always feel like this after i’ve been an asshole to you?”

you whine, half flustered, half desperate. and he leans over you, pressing kisses between your shoulder blades.

“say I’m forgiven,” he rasps. “say it, and i’ll take care of you.”

“i forgive you,” you whisper.

he thrusts once. deep. controlled.

you choke on a moan.

“again.”

“i forgive you– ken– please–”

he sets a rhythm, deep and slow, dragging his dick against every sensitive part of you. one hand slides under your stomach, pressing down right where the bulge forms when he fucks you deep.

“you feel that?” he growls in your ear. “feel me right here?”

you nod helplessly, mouth open, drool slipping down your chin.

he wraps an arm around your waist and pulls you upright, back to his chest, fucking up into you from beneath now. one hand snakes between your thighs to rub your clit while the other grabs your throat, tilting your head back so he can kiss your jaw.

“mine,” he breathes. “my sweet girl. i’m so fucking sorry.”

you clench tight around him, moaning his name again and again until your body tensed, shaking, and you come hard, thighs trembling, hips twitching.

he groans, burying himself deep one last time, spilling inside you with a low, broken curse.

afterward, he doesn't pull out. just keeps holding you close, lips brushing your shoulder, your temple, your hair.

“you’re everything to me,” he whispers. “even when I’m too stupid to act like it.”

you murmur something back, barely audible, and he shifts to kiss your cheek.

“what was that?”

“i said…” You glance at him, eyes soft. “you’re forgiven. but you’re making me sore.”

he chuckles low, pressing a kiss to your temple. “then i guess i’ll just have to rub your thighs and draw you a bath.”

you hum sleepily against his chest.

“…and maybe eat you out again before you fall asleep.”

you chuckled. and he smiles for real this time.

because nothing feels better than being let back in.

[fawnnlvr]

a very purple beginning | spencer reid

pairing: spencer reid x purplehaired!reader

summary: in which a new agent joins the bau as their secretary and her dark purple hair and cold, reserved nature has piqued the interest of the bau, especially a special doctor.

word count: 2.1k (originally more but i decided to turn this into a series ♥︎)

masterlist

author's note: i am in love with this series i created in my head and in my notes app. reader is inspired by captain holt from brooklyn 99 bc i believe he is iconic. maybe adoptive daughter. anyways, hope you enjoy since i am making more parts ♥︎

"Is she even human?" Emily Prentiss asked, her mouth slightly parted in awe as her eyes followed your figure.

Her fellow colleagues shared the same expression as their eyes followed your every move. The way you walked, the way you spoke, the way you fixed a stray strand of your hair that was blocking your vision— it all seemed too perfect.

"It's like watching a robot in the body of a model." Morgan added as he watched you speak to Hotch regarding the matters in the open file the two of you were reading.

Spencer Reid stayed quiet in his seat, listening to the murmurs around him as he too found it hard to tear his eyes away from the new addition to the team. You had joined the Behavioral Analysis Unit only eight days ago as a secretary once their previous communication liason had left. Within those eight days, you were already the talk of the office with many claiming you as their so called 'work crush' and 'hopefully future work wife'. However, most of those dreams quickly fell through when people interacted with you and realized your beauty my only be for looking and not interacting with.

Although your job requires you to work closely with the team, Spencer and you have only interacted three times within that time frame.

The first was when Hotch had introduced you to everybody and Spencer gave you a nervous smile to which you replied back with the same stone expression on your face. The second time was when he apologized for getting in your way when you nearly bumped into him while turning the corner. You simply nodded your head before continuing your stride. The third and hopefully not final time was when you asked him a question about his germaphobia and how you could accommodate him while planning for the trips. You called him into the office that day and he had stammered as he told you that what you were currently doing was fine. Your eyes simply narrowed at his anxious figure before releasing him from your office.

"What hair dye do you think she uses because it hasn't faded not once and that is one of the hardest colors to maintain?" Penelope added, eyebrows furrowed as she knew the question would bug her until she asked. However, even the chirpy, extroverted Penelope could sometimes find certain people a bit scary. Hotch being one for the first few weeks she worked with him, and you being second.

"I know right? It's the perfect dark plum purple shade." Emily commented, shifting her weight to the other side as her eyes trailed from the roots of your hairs to the ends. Then, her dark brown eyes glanced to Spencer, "Hey Reid, your shirt is the same color as her hair. You're matching."

All three agents turned to Spencer who was sitting at his desk, just four feet away. He quickly averted his eyes from you and looked at them. "What's that?"

"Looks like he was staring at Miss Perfect too. I'm sure he loves her hair since it's basically his favorite color." Morgan teased, the same playful smile on his face that appeared whenever he mentions a potential romantic partners for the young prodigy of the FBI.

"I-It's a nice color. I wear it all the time and it's nice to see others appreciate it as well. There was a poll conducted in California that stated that purple was one of the most underappreciated colors when it came to choosing a favorite." Spencer rambled, fidgeting with his fingers.

Your purple hair was really what caught his attention in the beginning. It was this deep, rich shade of purple, the same shade that was littered in the forms of small trinkets or blankets in his home. The same shade that he thought looked the best on him when he looked into the mirror, making him more confident, so he bought more clothing in that shade. The same color that gave him this sense of comfort, as if when he looked at it, he was being embraced by a cold warmth. So in conclusion, he very much did love your hair simply because he already loved the color. At least, that is what he told himself to justify the unusual amounts of time he found his eyes wandering towards you.

"Yeah, cherry red is very in right now so I can't blame them." Penelope agreed.

"She seems so cool. Has anyone here actually spoken to her though?" Emily looked around to see if anyone could give her an answer she wanted to hear about the mysterious enigma that is you.

Morgan stated his experience first, "At the coffee bar, I once told her how I thought it was such a good morning and she told me it was expected to rain at noon. Then she walked off with her coffee."

They looked at Penelope next. "Well, I tried to talk to her— I really did. I was about to knock on her office door then I noticed the door was a tad bit open and I could hear her conversation on the phone. She was being really mean to the guy on the other side of the line so I got scared. Plus, she has that same stone cold look Hotch gives us when we turn in our paperwork late."

"So horror stories so far." the Prentiss girl winced at the thought that the new girl didn't have the warmest reputation.

"I don't think I have ever seen her smile." Rossi stated, joining the conversation and scaring the living life out of Morgan who didn't hear or sense him coming, "Sorry Morgan. Anyways, she is probably the same age as Spencer yet has the attitude of commander chief Hotch. Even I feel scared to talk to her."

"Great. Even the man with the most experience in dealing with psychopath serial killers hasn't even talked to her." Emily sighed as she crossed her arms. Rossi opened his mouth to testify against that statement since he did try to speak to you, but the original story was far too embarassing and he would rather keep that to himself.

"Didn't she call Reid up to her office a few days ago?" Rossi asked and everybody turned to Reid who was trying to finish writing his paperwork so he isn't subjected to the chilling stare of Hotch.

He looked towards them, putting down his pen, "She asked me if there was anything she could do to accommodate my germaphobia while traveling or in general."

The entire group swiftly moved as a whole towards Spencer's desk to interrogate him.

"How did she say it? Was she mean?" Penelope asked.

"Did a crow fly by the window?" Morgan laughed.

"Did she run out of battery and you had to change out her motherboard?" Rossi added, chuckling a little as well.

"No to Morgan and Rossi— Rossi especially since that isn't even technically correct— but she was nice." They looked at him weirdly before he added, "I guess?"

"Nice? You guess? Spencer we need every single detail. How exactly did she say it? What words did she use? I need to now the connotations of her words and how she structured it." The tech analysis was known for making friends with everybody under the roof of Quantico. She couldn't let her streak be broken because she was too scared. She needed to prepare herself before going into war.

"That was basically it. There was nothing too it. She wasn't mean or rude, she just asked a simple question as to how she can make me feel more comfortable— so in my opinion, she was nice." He defended your honor in a way, making it known that you were not a mean person at all.

You had went out of your way in order to ask him how you can improve his comfortability. No one had ever asked him that or acknowledged his needs that may have seemed simple and little to those on the outside, but huge to him. It was an aspect in his life that constantly controlled his every action and it was nice to know that somebody cared enough to help him after reading it in his case file.

"Maybe she's one of those cold people on the outside but a secret sweetheart." Emily suggested and Penelope gasped as if she just realized life-changing information.

"Oh my goodness, if that's true and I have been avoiding her this entire time— I am a terrible person. I, Penelope Garcia, had judged a person by their cover. I need to make it up to her. I need to —"

"She's coming." Spencer warned. This was probably the only time he thanked his eyes' little habit of trying to find you wherever you were in the room because he wouldn't want you to find out they were all huddled together to discuss what type of person you were.

The group all composed themselves as they directed their attention to you and Hotch making your ways to the group. Wow, it was like watching a father and daughter duo. The sharp gazes and the tight lines of the lips that never threatened to curl.

Hotch looked down towards you and you caught his eye before stepping forward, barely an inch. Almost as if you did not want to, but Hotch previously instructed you to do so.

"We have a case." you stated and Hotch nodded from behind your figure. Your voice was quiet yet monotone as you faced the group of people.

"Briefing room in ten. [Surname] will present the case. Garcia, assist her."

"Yes sir." Garcia immediately stepped forward as you took a step back, almost taken aback by her enthusiasm to be near you, an act that only Spencer seemed to notice as Garcia briskly walked to take a place by your side.

You stiffly walked by Penelope's side, almost as if the dark confidence you held in your walk was shaken by the mere presence of a bright individual beside you.

Spencer Reid arrived in the briefing room and sat in his usual seat. This was the first case you would be presenting and joining after Hotch decided that the first week of your job should be spent organizing the work left by the previous communication liason and getting a feel for the work.

Hotch gave you and Penelope a nod, signaling that it was time to start. The tech analysis had passed out files as you stood right beside the projector, prim and poised.

The briefing room was quiet, so quiet that Spencer was sure that you could hear his breathing pattern doing its best to return back to normal after pacing back and forth before he entered due to not wanting to be the first person in the room along with you and Penelope.

Your voice echoed through the room. It wasn't loud and projecting, nor was it soft and quiet, it was just right. Your spoke as if the entire report was memorized and rehearsed, definitely not giving you a chance to beat the robot allegations.

Your eyes really flickered off of either the projector or Hotch, but when it did, Spencer tried to offer a nice smile of support. Whenever he presented in front of large crowds, he was told to try and get a feeling for the crowd and so he thought you would appreciate knowing you were doing good.

Blink. You had blinked at him before averting your gaze someplace else and finishing the report. That was better than no reaction, he reasoned.

"Wheels up in thirty." Hotch stated, gathering the files as he stood up and made his way out. Following closely behind him was you. The clacks of your high heels quietly echoed in the room as the rest of the agents watched as you walked out— more like strutted out.

The door had closed and the remaining agents had turned to Penelope to tell them all that happened while they were alone for approximately eight minutes and ten seconds.

"Oh my goodness. Once you get over the monotone stern voice, she really is nice. Her expression did not change once and she didn't smile, but I can see it in her eyes— I think she likes me." Penelope proudly proclaimed, her nose tilted up as she retold her accomplishment.

"Looks like she's not so scary after all." Rossi stated, content, now that he knows he can have a conversation with you without worrying that you will be mean. He once had to deal with a group of cool teenagers for a case back in the day and you reminded him of them. Somebody who can ruin his self esteem and confidence with a small snicker and comment.

"Slowly but surely, I think she'll open up." Derek stated.

Spencer looked down on his lap. That's what he's been trying to say.

[celestie0]

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

in holy matriphony ch9. counting sheep

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

ᰔ summary. gojo satoru is your extremely annoying next-door-neighbor who you're pretty sure is the most insufferable man you've ever met. given the fact that you exclusively work the night shift at a chaotic emergency department, just got broken up with your boyfriend of 7 years, and have been taking care of your sick mother ever since her multitude of diagnoses, yet somehow your neighbor is the main source of stress in your life should speak volumes. but when your mother's medical bills start to skyrocket to more than you can manage, and you learn that said neighbor of yours has the best private health insurance plan in the country, you ask him to enter a matrimonial agreement with you for the spousal benefits all in the name of saving a few hundred thousand dollars. but you'll have to see if suffering cohabitation with him is worth any amount of money.

ᰔ genre/tags. fluff, smut, angst, enemies to lovers (sort of), annoyances to lovers (that's more like it), small town romance, fake marriage, next door neighbors, lots of bickering, suburban shenanigans, slow burn, mutual pining, gojo likes to play house but you don't, hatred for the american healthcare system, gojo always forgets to mow the lawn, jealousy, an insane amount of profanity, mentions of cigarettes, depression/anxiety; btw slight age gap bc gojo in this fic is 34 n reader is 29

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

ᰔ chapter. 9/x

ᰔ words. 20k

a/n. hellooo my lovely ihm readers!! thank you so much for tuning into another chapter of ihm :'') it means sm to me. as always i don't have much to say here lol but i'll see you at the bottom for some notes!!! hope you enjoyy. apologies for any typos or mistakes i was in a bit of a rush editing this lol

nav. masterlist

Counting sheep.

It was the only thing that helps you sleep now.

For as long as you can remember, it was how you ended every night.

You’re not exactly sure when the habit started. Was it when you graduated nursing school and began to work the night shift? And you were awake at 3am, feeling stranded at sea in your own home on your days off, with 15mg of melatonin in your bloodstream yet it still was never enough to put your thoughts at ease or your bones to rest. 

Or was it ever since your mother was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s? How about cancer? Was that when it became too terrifying to close your eyes at night because you feared you’d miss something that wasn’t meant to be missed?

There are days where you do feel tired. You feel sluggish, wearisome, somewhat feverish. Tonight was one of those nights. Wearing a white lace nightgown, one far too big on you as the hem drags across the fabric of the upstairs loft, you cross your arms across your chest to keep yourself warm as your fingers soothingly rub the taut skin over your elbows. 

It was the dead of night, no light other than the pale moon casting its glow onto the surface beneath your feet through the windows as you put one step in front of the other, meandering towards the master bedroom.

Gojo isn’t home tonight. He’s away for the weekend for some conference for work that his brokerage firm sent him on. Something about new foreign sales techniques and investment strategies. He shared the brochure with you so that you didn’t have to ask too many questions, but you would’ve preferred the conversation with him over lines of text to read. Two months ago, you would’ve preferred the former. It’s funny how fast things can change. 

You almost wish you worked every night. At least when you’re at the emergency department, you’re surrounded by life, even in the face of death. There’s fluorescent lighting above you, the beeping noises of machinery, the airy sound of the overhead announcements at every hospitalist callback, code call, and triage update. Your coworkers were there along with you, that sense of camaraderie making it easier on you.

But on your nights off, you often find yourself wafting around the halls and rooms of the house, almost like a ghost haunting every corner, finally coming out of hiding in the safety of silence. There are nights where you do this for hours. Seriously, hours. Until your calves hurt and you’re starving but can’t bring yourself to do anything other than the routine foot in front of the other. 

You finally push into the master bedroom with a weak palm on the door, the inside air chilly to your senses, and you figure that you’re not truly a ghost if you know what cold feels like. 

The bed is neatly made up, as Gojo had tidied it up before he left, and as it always is in the hours where he’s not resting in it. You wonder if he sets it up right after waking up, if it’s some sort of ritual for him.

Without thinking, without glancing at any other corner of the room as if you’d find something waiting in one of them that would frighten you, you slip into the heavy covers that are foreign to you, but the familiar scent of him envelopes you in its entirety, relaxing every bone in your body.

The warmth is welcome. Head heavy on the pillow, you close your eyes.

You wonder what sort of sights your mother is seeing right now. Is she also asleep? Is she peacefully dreaming? You wonder if she remembers you in her dreams, at the very least.

One sheep, two sheep.

You wonder what sort of sights Choso sees right now. You’re scared to find out. He would always be a phone call away for you on nights like this, where you couldn’t sleep. And on some, he would be right there with you. How does he spend these hours of the night now if not to comfort you? Does he feel it as less of a burden now?

Three sheep, four sheep, five. 

You wonder what sort of sights Gojo is seeing right now. And when you can’t picture anything at all, besides the dusty fan of a hotel room hanging from the ceiling, you realize you don’t know him. Even laying in his bed, surrounded by the ghost of his presence, surrounded by the proof of his life in this room, you realize you don’t even know what his favorite color is or how he likes his eggs in the morning. Or if he ever thinks of you sometimes, too. 

Six sheep, seven. Eight. Nine.

Ten.

Eleven.

Twelve sheep.

You’ll be better tomorrow.

Thirteen.

Fourteen.

Fifteen sheep.

Happier. You’ll be happier.

Sixteen, seventeen, eighteen.

Tomorrow will be better. 

Nineteen, twenty.

Tomorrow, you’ll be a better person.

Twenty one, twenty two.

Someone new.

Someone you’re happy to be.

Twenty three. 

It’s a promise.

.

.

.

.

.

——————

“Hey. Did you sleep in my bed while I was gone?”

You glance up from where you’re leaning your hip against the kitchen island, completing this morning’s crossword puzzle because of course Gojo is the only person in the neighborhood that actually picks the newspaper up from his driveway.

“Five letter word for communications device? Any ideas?”

“Phone. Now answer me.”

“Mmm….nope, starts with an r.” You tap the eraser end of the pencil to your bottom lip, deep in thought.

“Radio.”

“Oh! Thank you,” you say before you set the paper down on the table and scribble in the letters. “And no, I didn’t. It’s the same way you left it, no?”

“I always tuck the corners.”

“Of fucking course you do.”

He sighs, turning around to face you, leaning back on the kitchen island as his espresso machine rumbles quietly before slowly dripping out a shot. “Just be honest with me, y/n. Because if it wasn’t you, I’m going to need to get cameras installed everywhere around the house.”

You sigh. “Yes…I slept in your bed.”

“How come?”

“Change of scenery.”

“Really? That’s it?”

You let out a slow exhale.

You know what sucked about having slept in Gojo’s bed?

Is that you slept like a baby.

For the first time in such a long time, you slept just fine.

And the slightest dusting of a blush brushes across your cheeks when you realize it’s probably because the scent of him on those sheets was in some way comforting to you.

You wish you could write it off as some weird pheromone biological response,

But you had a professor in college who told you that humans have no such thing as pheromonal responses.

You simply like the way he smells. 

You glance up at him again. He’s stirring something into his cup of coffee now. 

“I don’t know. I’ve been having trouble sleeping lately,” you say, and by lately, you mean years, “and just…felt like trying something different would help.”

“And did it?”

“What?”

“Did sleeping in my bed help?”

Your eyes widen, not expecting the direct question.

“I–...” you start, “...yes, actually. It helped a lot.”

He shrugs his shoulders. “Alright. Just sleep in the master then.”

“What–...but–”

“I’ll sleep in the guest bedroom. It’s all the same to me.”

You blink at him, confused because you thought he meant sleep…together. As in, in the same bed. And even if that wasn’t exactly what he meant, he still one-hundred percent would’ve at least tried to tease you about it. So you’re surprised that he didn’t.

You straighten your spine up, narrowing your eyes at him slightly, contemplating his words and his offer, and push your hand into your hair and scratch at your scalp. And scratch. And scratch a little bit more.

Gojo watches you the whole time. 

“Uh,” he starts, “I mean this in the nicest way possible…but don’t you think you should wash your hair? It looks a little…”

“Mm?” you look at him, wide-eyed, “a little what?” You ask with innocence as you continue to scratch your scalp.

“You’re really going to make me say it?”

“Say what?”

He sighs. “It looks a little greasy.”

A soft, offended gasp leaves your lips.

“Wh—......What?!?!?”

You hate him with a burning passion (most of the time), yes, it’s true.

But, and it’s torturous to admit this to yourself, he’s right.

You do have a tendency, and a somewhat misfortunate habit, of neglecting washing your hair when you’re busy.

You’ve worked five night shifts this week, ran back and forth between your mom’s hospice because she had a UTI and became septic again, you’ve been running around trying to get everything in order in your house so that you can sell it as soon as possible, and every night when you get home, you sit down at your desk only to be reminded of how much debt you’re in. You’ve barely had enough time to think about yourself, and although you never neglect a daily shower, it’s possible that you may have forgotten to wash your hair while you’re in there. 

You let out a huff of hair, narrowing a glare at Gojo before crossing your arms across your chest. “I seriously cannot believe you’re insinuating that I look ugly.”

“Woah, woah, woah,” he says, setting his mug down in order to put his hands out in front of him in vindication, “I never said you were ugly.”

“You just said my hair looks greasy.”

“You still look nice, just…. a little greasy. Like a french fry. But who doesn’t love french fries?”

“Satoru!”

“I’m joking,” he laughs, “well, not about your hair being greasy. But, what I’m saying is, you still look hot. In your own…weird way.”

“I seriously want to slap you.”

He crosses the distance between the two of you in one stride to where he’s now standing in front of you, and you blink up at him in a panic when his hands slide across the island countertop on either side of you, caging you into it. 

“Go ahead,” he says with a boyish grin on his face, dangerously close to you as his gaze flickers down to your lips. 

“Has this weird attraction of yours towards me only begun simply because I threaten to physically injure you all the time?” you ask him, narrowing your gaze further as you look up into piercing blue eyes that look darker to you somehow, more dilated.

“No, I’ve always thought you were hot,” he says, his gaze moving up to make eye contact with you, as if he really wants you to know he’s being honest, “since the day I met you.”

Your heart feels like it’s beating a mile a minute in your chest. “Then why do you always roast the hell out of me?”

“Because I like to,” he says, gaze dropping to your lips again, and this time his tongue passes over his own, “and because I know you can take it.” He leans further into you, that scent of his that you like so much sending your head into a dizzy haze to where you can’t even think, the heat from his body felt against your own. “Not a lot of women can.”

Your blush doesn’t just reach your cheeks, it’s a heat that you feel spread across your entire body. “Th–...That’s offensive to women.”

He tilts his head at you, now studying the slight sheen to your lips. “Can we just skip the part where you rant about the patriarchy so I can kiss you already?”

You push your palm up against his chin, entirely swerving the kiss, making sure his face is looking straight up towards the sky so he knows exactly where you’re going to send him if he ever calls you a french fry ever again, and then say, “go fuck yourself.”

“What–”

You duck underneath his arm that was still caging you into the kitchen counter, swiftly moving past him as he stays still in his confining position, blinking at you with dumb blue eyes as you stomp across the living room towards the front entrance.

“I’m leaving,” you shout out, “and I’m taking your car,” you grab his keys, “And I’m–” You see his wallet at the foyer table, flip it open, and pull out some bills, “and I’m taking a hundred-and-twenty bucks. Don’t ask questions.” And before you could even give him a chance to verbally express any confusion, you’re out the door, and slamming it shut behind you. 

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——————

“Hana, please, I’m begging you. I’ll even pay for brunch!” you say into the receiver of your phone as you stroll the ashy paved sidewalks of Dayton county’s downtown during a rather busy Saturday afternoon. “Your French boyfriend’s uncircumcised penis can’t be that fuckin’ good for you to blow me off like this when we’ve had these plans for weeks!”

You hush your voice towards the end of the sentence because you remember that you are quite literally in public.

“I know, I know, I’m so, so, so sorry,” Hana’s voice comes off somewhat distant in the phone, “he just looks so pale, and he’s been running an insane fever, I’d hate to leave him like this.”

“Yeah, okay, whatever happened to hoes before sexy Frenchmen, I’ll never know,” you sigh into the phone and then hang up on her, but right as you pull the phone from your ear, you trip over a crookedly lined cement panel on the ground, gasping as you stumble forward, barely able to steady your feet but at the expense of your phone slipping out of your hand and devastatingly towards the hard, rocky ground–

Before it gets caught about six inches above the surface by a rather large, masculine hand.

You blink at the sight, then trace the hand up into the arm, and eventually up into the face of the person that was sitting at this outdoor cafe’s table, and just so happened to have enough arm wingspan to prevent you from having to sell your kidney in order to buy a new phone.

He blinks at you with deep purple eyes, his lashes splaying over his upper cheeks as he glances down at your phone again, as if he himself is surprised by his own reflexes, before his gaze flickers up to yours again.

You straighten your spine, now looking down at him. He looks painfully familiar. Glossy long black hair underneath a sun high in the sky, half of it tied up and out of his face, but with some strands that have escaped the confinement, tendrils that frame his sharp jaw and complement his complexion. He sits cross-legged, dressed in all black with some sort of sophistication that makes him easily look like an outcast in a run-down town like this, but he doesn’t seem to even remotely hide the fact that he doesn’t belong.

And that’s when you remember.

That he doesn’t belong here.

“Ah! It’s you,” you exclaim.

His eyes widen slightly as the recognition of you flashes across his face as well.

“The mysterious man who drinks pulp-free orange juice made for kids,” you continue.

He blinks a couple times before his face relaxes into an easy smile. “Weren’t you eyeing the same carton?”

“That–” you stutter, “……...it’s very possible.”

He lets out a short exhale through his nose, somewhat reminiscent of a laugh. 

“Here,” the man says, stretching his arm out towards you to hand you your phone, “I would really put a case on that, though.”

You take the device from him somewhat hesitantly, the pads of your fingers brushing against the side of his palm. You notice he doesn’t really let go of the phone until he’s sure that it’s in your hand.

“I know…” you say, assessing your phone for scratches, which you hope he doesn’t take as an insult to the efficacy of his reflexes, “they’re just kind of expensive,” you blurt out, immediately regretting it. Because what kind of cheap-ass do you look like, now?

“More expensive than having to get a new phone?” he questions.

“That’s fair. Although, I don’t enjoy being lectured about the wellbeing of my belongings by strangers,” you say.

“Sit, then,” he offers, gesturing to the chair in front of him across the grated black round cafe table, “let’s get acquainted.” 

Slightly stunned by the proposal, yet weirdly inclined to oblige, you breathe in deeply, and then let the air out slowly as you slip into the chair across from him. Well, your plans got cancelled anyways, might as well take this opportunity to better understand this mysterious entity that has arrived in your town. 

“I’m Suguru,” he says, extending his hand out to shake, and you accept it, “Suguru Geto.” The handshake is firm but you can’t help but notice that his hand feels cold to the touch. 

“I’m y/n,” you say, “it’s nice to meet you. Well, formally, I guess.”

He presses his lips into a thin smile. “Likewise.” He leans forward a little, uncrossing his legs, then points towards the inside of the cafe. “Want a coffee? On me.”

“You know what, yes. I’ll have an iced vanilla latte,” you say.

It was at least somewhat of a courtesy that you ordered a quick drink to make, and one that was cheap. It really shouldn’t matter, since you would’ve just used one of the twenties that you stole out of Gojo’s wallet before you left, but it was merely a polite gesture, anyways.

“So, y/n, do you live nearby?” he asks as he takes a sip of whatever he was drinking, all you know is that he ordered it hot. 

“Yes, just a few miles away,” you say, “I’ve lived here my whole life.”

“Really?”

“Yup! Dayton county, born and raised,” you chirp.

“Hmm,” he hums pleasantly, “don’t tell me you’ve lived in the same house your whole life too.”

“You’re not going to believe this.”

He laughs. “You’ll have to show me around town.”

You tilt your head at him. “You’re just visiting, right? From…” You search your mind for the memory, or if he had ever told you at all. 

“New York,” he says before taking another sip. You entertain a sip from your own coffee too, wanting to match his pace.

“Oh, right, and were you able to visit those old friends you were here for?” you ask him, the memory of the conversation coming back to you somewhat.

“Ah, not really. I’m…well, I guess I’m searching for someone.”

“Searching for someone?” you snort, “what are you, Christopher Columbus? It’s the 21st century, you can’t just call them?”

He laughs again, fuller this time, coming from his chest. It’s a smooth sound, stable and sturdy. “You’re kind of charming. And way too direct.”

“Oh, I–...” you blink at him, your shoulders dropping slightly, “...I just like to get to the point.”

He laughs again, more of a close-mouthed chuckle as he glances down through the grates of the table’s surface towards the ground. 

“What?” you ask, somewhat impatiently. 

He shakes his head, the motion swaying some of the tendrils of dark hair that frame his face, and he brings his cup of coffee to his lips again. “Oh, nothing,” he says softly before taking a sip, “you just remind me of someone I know.”

You swallow gently, the furrow to your brow relaxing slightly. His eyes don’t meet yours, just continue to cast his gaze at the ground, but he has a rather melancholic look on his face. You love to get answers, and you love to be nosey, but you also know when a question shouldn’t be asked.

“As for why I don’t just call them,” he says suddenly, sitting up straighter in his chair, crossing his legs, pushing his shoulders back and settling into his chair more, “I don’t really think they want anything to do with me anymore.” He answers candidly.

“Why look for them then?”

His gaze flickers up towards you. “y/n, can I ask you a question?”

“Sure.”

“Do you think people can change?”

“That’s a rather cryptic question to change the topic of conversation to.”

“Just humor me for now.”

“Well, I think it goes without saying. Of course people can change.”

“Right?” he says, as if he didn’t ask the question out of skepticism, but rather to affirm his own belief. “Well, anyways, let’s just say I’m here to make amends. Tie up loose ends.”

Closure. This man wants closure.

“I don’t necessarily want to bore you with the details,” he says, “but it’s likely I won’t be leaving town until my business here is resolved.”

“What if it takes forever?”

“It won’t,” he says.

“But what if?”

As his eyes bore into you, they look muddy. Less of that purple-ish hue that you see when light reflects off of his pupils, and you notice that it has nothing to do with the light, but rather the yellow that has sunk into the irises of his eyes.

“It won’t,” he says, barely above a whisper, his smile dampening as he sees right through you.

You feel the need to change the subject.

“You know,” you say, “you’re, like, the fourth person I’ve met in the past couple of years that has come here from New York City. What’s up with that?”

“There’s a mass exodus,” he says, “out of there.”

“Really?”

“No. My lame attempt at a joke.”

“Oh,” you say dryly, “let’s, um, let’s not attempt those anymore.”

He smiles at you, like he knew that would be your exact reaction to a sloppy joke thrown into the song and dance of a first-time conversation. You dislike how well he reads you. 

He leans forward on the table, setting his elbows up onto it, gaze boring into yours. “Not a huge fan of pulp-free, by the way. Just thought I’d try it.”

“So you like it with the pulp?” you ask.

He nods his head.

“I knew it. I knew you were a sociopath. Totally have the face for it.”

You find a strange pleasure in your ribs at the genuine laugh that evokes out of him.

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——————

You let out a soft sigh of relief as you stroll down the streets of downtown, swinging the bag you were carrying around with the rather jovial pep to your step. You’ve been needing new shoes for a very long time, especially since being on your feet for twelve hours straight during shifts does hardly anything good for your early onset plantar fasciitis. And with the little pocket change you stole from Gojo, you now had a new pair of New Balances as well as…..four dollars and fifty-two cents left in your pocket.

It’s a bit of a windy but rather sunny day, the breeze rustling the branches of the trees that lace the otherwise nicer part of town. The part that houses all domestic tourism, likely a grand total of fifty people a year if the county was lucky. It was safe to say Dayton Council doesn’t place a lot of emphasis on hospitality towards outsiders, or tax dollars for that matter, but if you were to ever show someone new around the place, it would be to this particular more well-kept street downtown. 

As you walk past a coffee shop, you catch a waft of jalapeno cream cheese bagel, the fresh scent of carbohydrates rousing a grumble from the pit of your stomach, making you aware of the fact that you were hungry. Despite the fact that you just recently parted ways from the mysterious Pulp-Free Orange Juice man hardly an hour ago, and that lemon loaf you ended up getting on your way out was still metabolizing in your bloodstream. But you realized you still wouldn’t be opposed to a cream cheese bagel at the moment.

The jingle of the little bells above the cafe’s entrance ring in your ear as you step inside, the A/C unit blowing a harsh puff down on you as it attempts to keep the heat of late August away from the cool interior. The place didn’t appear busy, but as you approached the register to place an order, a woman who was standing in line caught your eye.

She was dressed in a black suit from head to toe, with a feminine flare at the seams of her sleeves and silver silk lines running down her pants, elongating what was a very flattering figure, making her appear taller than the lift that the three inch heels of her shoes already do. And a closer look has you realize they’re Louboutins. She was easily taller than you, even without the heels. Her shoulders appear angular from the blazer of her suit, but you can tell they’re frail underneath the fabric. She has pin-straight mid-length hair that falls just past the curve of them. The ends of her hair look healthy, as if freshly cut, and she lifts her hand to toss some of it back with a delicate flick of her wrist, the gold-plating of her small watch catching your eyes. Her gaze is set upwards towards the menu, a small crinkle to her brow as she studies the words. Sophisticated and feminine were the words that came to mind as you looked at her. But the more you stare…the more you trace the feline lift of her eyes…the more you notice the slight pout of her lips…you just swear that you know her from somewhere. But–...but where?

“Excuse me, are you waiting in line?” some dude from behind you calls out.

“Ah.” You glance over your shoulder at him, “no, sorry, go ahead.” You step aside for the guy to get into line, directly behind the woman in the suit. 

After taking a couple of seconds to look at the menu, you decide on what you had already decided on before you had even entered the premises–a jalapeno cream cheese bagel. You wonder if you should get something to drink too, but wait patiently in line as the old couple at the register finish ordering.

The guy who had lined up just ahead of you had sparked up a conversation with the woman in the suit. You can tell he’s trying to make friendly, if not flirty, conversation with her, and you roll your eyes. Really? Dude’s ass-crack is peeping out from the low hang of his washed out blue jeans, and his turned-backwards baseball cap on his head makes him look like that creepy middle aged guy that loiters around a skate park to sell some kids some crappy weed. What on God’s Green Earth has given him the bravado to flirt with a woman like that? Out of his league wasn’t enough to admonish the audacity.  But you witness the disaster regardless. 

“You from ‘round here?” you can hear him ask her.

She doesn’t even turn a single degree to look at him, just continues to stare forward with her hands folded in front of her, a chic black clutch dangling from her shoulder. “Ahh, no, just visiting.” Her voice is soothing, a little soft, one that makes it hard to eavesdrop, but you were determined.

The man looks over his shoulder behind himself towards a group of guys seated at one of the tables, and he flashes them a grin, before he turns back forward and takes a step towards the woman. 

“Damn, they’re takin’ kinda long, huh?” he says to her, directly behind her ear.

“I suppose,” she says, shifting her feet forward a little to create distance.

“Well, I always say the wait’s better with a pretty view,” the dude practically purrs, dipping his nose towards the crown of her head, but far enough to where she wouldn’t get a sense of just how close he was to her. “Which is you, by the way. If it wasn’t already obvious.”

You see her shoulders rise and drop with the sigh she releases before she shifts her weight towards her right leg, crossing her left one over the other, balancing on one heel as she attempts to contain her composure. Your blood starts to boil on her behalf.

You hear the table of men off to the side laughing loudly in witness. As if in slow motion, the man’s hand lifts from his side and reaches out to grab her by the waist, “c’mon sweetheart, gimme something to work with here–”

Before you can even step in to yank him off of her, to your surprise, and likely the surprise of everyone else in the cafe, the woman elbows the man in his ribcage, making him recoil with a hurt gasp backwards, and then she swiftly spins on her heel, lifting her leg to kick the dude straight in the face, the pointy toe of her shoe digging straight into his cheek before she sends him flying off towards the left and crashing right into the table of men that had been watching this entire time. 

You blink in awe, staring at the woman who gently places her foot back down onto the ground with a level of balance only a ballerina would possess, and she dusts off her hands with a disappointed look on her face. Then she turns back around to continue looking up at the menu as if the whole cafe wasn’t staring at her.

You hear the growl of one of the other men at the table, offended by the emasculation his buddy just faced, and he lunges towards the woman while her back is facing him, and in a moment of no higher-thinking, you lift your bag of New Balances and swing it so that it smacks the guy right across the face to attempt stopping him from getting any further. But all it does is smack against his cheek rather ungracefully, and then now he’s glaring at you instead.

“Uh-oh,” you say, sheepishly staring up at this tall, burly, bald man that looks like he could powder steel to dust if he wanted to.

He makes a move to grab your shoulder, and you can see the woman in your periphery reach out to try to pull you away from him, but then you remember–

You’re an ED nurse.

How many times have you had to tackle a patient because security wasn’t doing their job?

How many times have you had to roll over a patient by yourself because the techs were too busy playing hooky in the break room?

You pull your fist backwards, winding up a punch with a white-knuckled grip, fingernails digging into the skin of your palm, and it all happens in slow-motion–the moment where you slam your knuckles right into the man’s jaw with all the force you can muster, and it seems enough to where you knock out a tooth and mutilate the cartilage of the bridge of his nose.

“Oh–” you stutter, blinking with wide eyes as the man entirely recoils, hunching over, screaming a strain of profanities to himself as he holds his nose which was now bleeding all over the cafe’s floors. You glance at your hand and see blood on it as well, then up at the woman who was now staring at you with wide eyes too. Along with the rest of the cafe. 

“Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!” the man screams over and over again, and when he lifts his head to look at you, he’s crying. Straight up tears streaming down his face with a quivering lip.

Another one of the men lunges towards you to avenge the second man who was trying to avenge the first man, and this time, you flinch backwards, tripping slightly over your ankle, giving the man enough time to almost grab your arm but in the blink of an eye, you see the woman step in front of you and she knees him straight in the sternum, making him fall backwards.

It’s at this point where the rest of the residents in the cafe finally intervene, grabbing and pinning down all of the men in the midst of this cafe altercation, so that they can’t try to hurt the two of you anymore.

You turn to the woman, eyes wide, ears ringing slightly from the adrenaline, and then you say– “thank you.”

“Gosh, no, thank you,” she says with a small laugh, politely shaking her hand in front of her as if your gratitude was the last thing necessary. 

“No but seriously,” you say to her, blinking with wide eyes in awe as the chaos of pinning the men down in the background continued, hearing people shout threats to call the police, “I mean, your reflexes–...and that crazy kick! That was black-belt level of self defense.”

“Ahhh thank you,” she says, hanging her head a little in modesty before nodding, and you notice not a single one of her hairs is out of place, “I am actually a black belt in Tae Kwon Do.”

“Wow,” you say, “that’s really amazing.”

She smiles at you, then neatly tucks some of her hair behind her ear.

And she still looks so familiar.

So uncannily familiar, and yet you can’t quite place it.

Never someone you’ve met…but just someone you know somehow.

Like you’ve seen her somewhere. 

But the feeling in the pit of your stomach was an unwelcome one, and not a curious one. 

“Is your hand okay?” she asks you, her brows furrowing with worry as she glances down at it. You see the men being carried outside the cafe by a bunch of the other patrons. 

“Oh! Yes. It’s the other guy’s blood, not mine.”

She grins at you. “You’re the cool one.” She glances over to the right at the register where the guy who was manning it was staring at her in awe. “Here, hold on one sec.” She then crosses the distance with flawless balance on her heels and a swaying set of silky hair as she makes her way up to it.

You awkwardly stand where you are before she comes back out with a small cup of water and some napkins. She grabs your hand in hers and gently starts dabbing a wet napkin to your hand to wipe the blood off of it. The gesture is somewhat tender to you with the way that she takes care in doing so. Gentle swipes of wet napkin over the valleys of bone, meticulous enough to where no red pigment dares to threaten the pearly french manicure that adorns her nails. When she’s close to you, you catch a waft of the delicate lavender perfume on her clothes.

“There! Lovely, all better,” she says, then reaches into her purse for some hand sanitizer. “But seriously, thank you,” she says, “I wasn’t expecting that other guy to lunge at me. If it wasn’t for you, that would’ve ended badly.”

“Oh, of course,” you say, “it was actually really satisfying getting to punch the shit out of someone.”

She laughs. It’s contained. “I’m glad.”

“Excuse me, ladies?” a voice towards the right calls out, and you both turn your heads to see a police officer standing there. And when he makes eye contact with you, your eyes widen. “Oh. It’s y/n.”

“Ah,” you say to him, “Leon.”

Leon was Choso’s patrol partner for most shifts, and his right-hand-man more or less. They were good friends, and have been coworkers for the past three years or so. Given you were Choso’s girlfriend for the entirety of his career as a cop so far, you’ve gotten to know a lot of his fellow deputies. From being his plus-one at Christmas parties, and BBQ picnics, and dropping into the Police Department for lunch with him on his grueling weekend shifts. Y’know. The typical girlfriend stuff. 

“You’re the one that punched that guy?” Leon says with disbelief as he points his thumb over this shoulder behind him. You glance through the glass panes of the cafe and see a police car outside and another cop placing those men in handcuffs.

“Yes. What about it?”

“Damn. Would hate to see what the place looked like when Choso dumped you.”

“I’m the one that dumped him!!!!” you shout a little too loudly to vindicate yourself.

He pulls a spiral notebook out of the velcro pocket of his black vest, then clicks the pen to his chest before placing his wrist on the paper. You’re almost surprised he knows how to read and write. 

“I’m going to need some testimony from you two,” he says.

The woman’s phone starts ringing in her pocket, and she says softly, “yes, just excuse me for one moment,” before she steps off to the side to take the call.

Leon glances at her over his shoulder. “Who’s your friend?”

“Huh?

He jerks his chin towards her general direction.

“The woman you’re with. She single?”

You roll your eyes. “Out. Of. Your. League. Seriously! What the fuck is up with you penis-havers?!”

You didn’t understand why you were being particularly protective over this woman against the sloppy men of your hometown, but it was almost like you couldn’t help it. You’ve spent most of your life knowing that you live in one of the most forgettable, unsophisticated, lame and unheard of places in the entire country. You felt it was a duty to at least protect the visitors to this town against any of its regular bullshittery, including its residents, of whom you know very well.

Leon sighs, as if this behavior from you was no surprise, likely because it wasn’t, and then he presses his pen to paper again. “Alright. Just give me the story.”

You finishing recounting the incident to Leon, and when the woman comes back, she finishes telling her side as well, then Leon walks the two of you outside to get assessed for any injuries by the paramedic he brought with him on stand-by, and aside from a small band-aid the paramedic places over your knuckle, the two of you had left unscathed, and then the place becomes vacant of any lawful authorities.

“Um,” the woman says, wincing a little, then points towards the ice cream shop next to the cafe. “Please? As a thanks? I feel bad.”

You give her a soft smile. “Sure.”

The two of you entered the store, and you stand near the back of the store as the man behind the glass scoops together two cones of ice cream for the woman, and even though she tried to pay for them, she ended up getting them for free by the starry-eyed college student working behind the counter. Pretty privilege, you thought to yourself. 

“Here,” she says, “this one is yours.” And she extends her arm out to give you your ice cream cone as the two of you leave the store.

“Ah! Thank you,” you say, graciously accepting it, somewhat awkwardly, but it felt like a reward.

“It’s dripping,” she says, voice soft in a slight panic as she sees that her cone is dripping too.

You both lick off whatever cream was threatening to roll down into your hands, and just as you taste sweet sugar on your tongue, you hear a loud engine rumble next to you, along with the crunch of tires underneath rough road as a man in a truck drives by the curb, rolling his window down to yell, “DAAAAAAAMNNNN SLUTS!!!!! Y’all make that ice cream look gooooooood, fuck!”

Your jaw drops. Pure rage fills your every bone and you start chasing the car down the road, yelling “IT’LL LOOK EVEN BETTER SHOVED UP YOUR FUCKING NOSE YOU DIRTY FUCKING FREAK!!!”, then hurl the ice cream cone at his car, aim perfectly hitting his passenger side mirror, covering it in vanilla, before the cone bounces off, falls to the ground, and you hear the kick of his engine again as he speeds away.

You’re huffing and puffing, panting even, as you stand at the edge of the curb and notice that there are quite a few townsfolk staring at you with amused looks and wide eyes.

The woman in the suit appears in your periphery, and she’s laughing. “You’re so–” she’s hunching over a little now, “you’re so funny, oh my god.” The laugh was hearty, full of spirit, unlike the prim and curated one she has given you so far. 

You exhale a puff of air and stand up straight. “I’m so sorry. Some of the men in this town are so degenerate and fucked in the brain.”

“No, no, no, it’s fine,” she says, letting out some more laughs as she swipes under her eye to collect a laughter-induced tear from the corner of it, and she checks her finger for any smudge of makeup underneath it before she smiles and gleefully swats a hand at you. “I’m used to catcalling.”

You blink at her. 

“Oh! I mean–...because I’m from the city!” she clarifies, suddenly stiffening. “Gosh, not because I’m beautiful. I just realized that was a little self-centered to say…And now I feel self centered again for clarifying that it wasn’t self centered. Oh gosh. I promise that I am not self centered.” She lets out an awkward laugh then tosses her hair over her shoulder rather elegantly.

You awkwardly smile at her. “No, um, I mean, I don’t think it was self-centered to say. And besides, you are very beautiful.”

“Thanks,” she smiles. It’s a pretty one, rounding out her eyes into crescents. “You as well.”

There’s an awkward silence.

“Ah, I just realized I never introduced myself. I’m Sylvie,” she says, stretching her hand out for you to shake it. You’re a little surprised by the gesture but you accept it. She gently squeezes your hand. “And you?”

“y/n,” you say.

As a group of men walk by down the street, you notice that a few of them glance Sylvie’s way, gazes lingering for a moment, but she doesn’t seem privy to it at all, even when those gazes turn into blatant staring before they’re no longer in proximity to stare for any longer. And you can see why. She’s insanely pretty, and in that way where it’s something she was simply born with and never taught to question. Classically beautiful, rather than the trendy or posed kind. And the men in this town aren’t exactly used to seeing a woman like her in a place like this. Like locals who can sniff an outsider from a mile away. Or a vintage birkin. Like the one hung over her shoulder. 

“Would you like to sit down?” she asks.

You blink at her. “Sure.”

For the second time today, you find yourself sitting across a stranger in outdoor shop seating on a rather sunny Saturday afternoon. The person that is seated across from you also feels familiar to you in the same way that Mysterious Pulp-Free OJ man did to you as well, but you still can’t quite place where you’ve seen her before. 

She uses a spoon to scoop up the ice cream from her cone, bringing it to her lips, somewhat dainty when she pulls the spoon out of her mouth, now clean of any cream. “So, y/n, what do you do for work?” she asks you, eyes flitting up to yours. 

“I’m a nurse,” you tell her simply, “what about you?”

“I’m in investment property management for high-profile clients.”

You blink at her, gently scooping up some ice cream from your cup. “Oh.” It sounded like an elevator pitch that rolls off her tongue with the ease of a million past recitations. “Kinda like real estate?”

“Yes, I mean, my line of work is a little adjacent to that, but yeah! I started off in general real estate and then moved into more of the investment property space as opposed to primary residence.”

You nod slowly, wondering if she always speaks about her job with buzz words like she’s constantly at a job interview. “My husb–...uh, my neighbor is a realtor,” you say in an attempt to connect.

“Oh!” she chirps, tilting her head at you, “that’s interesting.”

“Mhm.”

“I’m actually here because I heard there was a bit of a realtor shortage in the area.”

“Oh? So you’re looking to move here?”

“Ahh, maybe.”

“I see. Just a heads up, you won’t find any high-profile clients here. The last celebrity that visited this town was Adam Sandler, and he was only here because he got lost on his way to Seattle.” You wave your spoon around in the air. “I only know that because the local news covered it for like a week.”

She laughs. “Yeah, I’m…I’m still thinking. Still deciding. It’s nice being in New York, but…” She glances off towards the street in thought, her eyes lidding ever so slightly, lashes briefly dusting her high cheeks, “there’s a future for me here in this town.”

“Mm,” you hum before placing your spoon on your tongue, briefly questioning why someone would choose a small town like this over one of the biggest metropolitan cities in the country, especially when she looks and acts and talks like a city girl through and through, but you suppose to each their own. “You know, you’re the second person I’ve met today that’s visiting here from New York. Strange phenomenon.” Maybe there really is a mass exodus as Mr. Pulp-Free OJ so poorly joked about. 

Her interest is piqued. “Oh, really? Who was the other person?”

“Well, I originally met the guy at a grocery store. But I ran into him again today and actually had a chat with him, but now he’s only become even more mysterious to me than the first time I met him.” You sigh. “He’s kinda hot, though. And by ‘kinda’, I mean really.”

“Ohhh,” she coos, setting her napkin down on the table and setting her chin in the palm of her hand held up by her elbow, “if you’re single, you should ask him out the next time you see him.”

You let out a girlish laugh, shaking your head somewhat bashfully as your gaze flits downward, like you’re a teenager talking about boys with your friends at a sleepover. Sylvie’s eyes twinkle at hearing the sound. “Maybe I will.”

Your eyes flit up to the sky briefly.

Are you single? I mean, you are fake-married. But what does that mean if you were to hit it off with someone while you were in this diplomatic arrangement? Is there exclusivity in this situation? Or was there room to see other people? You have no idea. And you don’t really know how Gojo would feel about it, either. 

You two continue to chat, suddenly moving into a conversation about how shitty of an ex-boyfriend Choso was, and Sylvie is entirely enthralled by all the drama, but you realize she doesn’t really give up much info of her own. Nothing above the surface level & vague “one of my friends” this or “hahaha same” that. But either way, you kind of feel like you’ve made a new friend today, and the feeling is nice.

As you listen to Sylvie talk about what the weather's like in New York City, you twirl your hair around your finger, and then Gojo’s words from earlier this morning flash through your mind, making you instantly grimace with anger.

Sylvie blinks at you. “Oh, sorry, did I say something wrong?”

“No!” you quickly clarify, “sorry, I was just thinking about my hair.”

“Your…hair?”

You sigh. “Yes.”

“What about it?” She tilts her head. “Looking to get it cut?”

“Well, yes, that too, but also–” You pause. She’s a woman. Surely she could at least relate to the feeling of forgetting to wash your hair every now and then, and then feeling somewhat embarrassed by it. But given that her own hair looks like she just stepped out of a salon, along with every other inch of her body looking prim and perfect, you become more and more doubtful as the seconds pass that she could relate to you on that front at all. But you decide to give it a shot, anyways. Friendships are built on vulnerability, are they not? “I’m just a bit bothered by something my…neighbor said to me this morning.”

“Oh? What was it?”

“He said my hair looks greasy. Like a french fry.”

“Seriously?” she says with disbelief, “what a jerk!”

Your face lights up and you lean forwards towards her, delighted in for once finally sharing in the same distaste for Gojo that no one else seem to have. “I know, right?! Like, what the actual fuck.”

She shakes her head. “Men.”

“Tell me about it.”

“Well, what do you think?”

“What?”

“Shall we go get you that haircut?”

You blink at her. “R…Right now?”

“Yes!” she chirps. “What better thing to do on a Saturday than a haircut and a fresh blowout?”

There’s a feeling that swells in your chest. It’s a mixture of excitement and a mixture of fear. Where you’re thrilled to indulge in some of the finer things in life, but also worried that you’ve never come to deserve any of it.

“Come onnnnn, y/n,” Sylvie says as she leans further onto the table, both of her elbows on the surface with her hand folded over the knuckles of the other, both holding her chin up as she narrows those sharp eyes at you. “I can tell that you want to.”

You breathe in deep, then let it out slowly.

“Sure. Let’s go.”

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——————

The golf course was the kind of place that almost felt sterile in its perfection. One thing about a small semi-suburban town bordered by rural farmland properties was that they got their golf courses right. Lush green rolled out onto the hills in laminar waves, trimmed and tamed along its borders. Instead of metal fences that gate the area, there were pine trees that lined the edges, and made the place feel more natural.

Gojo adjusted the glove on his left hand, more for performance than any real need, and he squinted his eyes out into the green hilly distance. The visor of his hat was barely sufficient to block the rays of sunshine, and he tucks the handle of his golf club under his arm so that he can lift his hat off and push back some of his hair that had escaped from it.

Choso stood a few feet away, watching him. His posture was rigid, entirely contrary to Gojo’s lax state, and he had his arms crossed, hands tucked underneath his armpits as if he was still on duty and in uniform. Gojo shifts a glance his way, and he’s not sure what sort of intel Choso intends to collect with a glare like that.

Gojo steps up to the ball, exhales a puff of air, draws his club back, and swings. The ball shoots off in a clean arc, and he watches its trajectory, but barely looks where it lands before he turns his back to it and stretches his neck from side to side.

“You always swing like you’re tryna impress someone?” Choso asks.

“Am I? That felt pretty relaxed to me.”

“Explains the finish.”

“Bummer. Still ahead, though.”

Choso grumbles something underneath his breath that Gojo doesn’t quite catch, then steps up to his ball, his shoulders stiff as he lets out some disgruntled noise as if the ball personally offended him by its existence. 

He tightens his grip around the club, flexing his hands open and close a few times, shuffles his feet as he gets into stance, and takes a deep breath in through his nose. Definitely more practiced and curated than whatever Gojo was used to seeing out on the field, and a lot less leisurely chatty. He lines his shot up in silence, head down, eyes forward, and then swings.

The ball takes off, high and fast, but veers slightly right on the descent. It lands with a solid thud in the rough, not far off the fairway, but certainly further than Choso probably wanted.

Gojo doesn’t say anything, at least not at first. He’s still watching the ball settle into the grass, arms folded, a sorely pleased smile at the corner of his mouth.

“Not bad but,” he says, “a little stiff.”

“Shut up.”

“You wanna drive this time?” Gojo asks, but is tossing the keys to Choso before he can even respond with—

“Fine.”

As the game goes on, and the heat starts to get to the both of them, conversation begins to fray open a bit more than it was at the beginning. A lot of it was just Choso quizzing the hell out of Gojo regarding his new wife, as if him not knowing what your favorite color is would be anything intensely incriminating in court. But even if it was, it’s fine, because he did end up knowing what your favorite color was. And also when your birthday is. And, surprisingly, which middle school you went to (your mother once showed him your 7th grade portrait on the fridge when he went over to fix the A/C).

“I just don’t get it. I mean, she hated you,” Choso says as Gojo walks up to his ball, “seriously. You know how many times I heard her cuss out your entire ancestry over that boat you leave out on your driveway? Like, I’m pretty sure she’s cast some nasty ass spell on you by now.” Gojo tightens his glove with his teeth and then grips the handle before drawing his club back in preparation to swing as Choso keeps talking. “She told me that she thinks you’re pretentious, and obnoxious, and self-absorbed, and difficult, and entitled, and sleazy, and—”

“Okay, man, I get it,” Gojo grumbles, trying to sound detached from the insults and your poor opinion of him, but when he swings, it’s way too flat.

“Damn, what the hell was that?” Choso asks, raising a hand up over his eyes to watch the arc of Gojo’s ball in disappointment. About a half hour ago, the two men would’ve taken great satisfaction in seeing the other completely shank a shot. But now, they’re rooting for at least some good competition. 

Gojo sighs with irritation, then makes an excuse. “Something in my eye.”

He wonders for a moment if he should just fess up. Tell Choso, yes, the marriage is a scam. Was it not incredibly obvious for all the aforementioned reasons? But also, to urge Choso to just leave it alone. To not let some blinded rage get in the way of this little marriage scheme because, ultimately, it really benefited your financial situation. There’s no way Choso would be that petty about your alleged and swift moving on from him to where he’d genuinely put you in any real legal danger, right? 

But he keeps his mouth shut, as his gut instinct insists. 

“We—” He starts, unsure of how to continue, but he felt like he needed to at least address it. “We’ve got that whole, you know, opposites attract thing.”

Choso squints his eyes at Gojo, then his shoulders slump before walking up to his ball. 

“What?” Gojo asks.

“Nothing,” Choso says, his tone even as he shuffles his feet apart to get into a swinging stance. “Opposites attract.” He echoes Gojo’s words. “She always used to tell me she hated that kinda stuff.”

Gojo doesn’t say anything in response, just watches as Choso’s eyes flicker with something heavy, maybe confusion or regret or irritation, but he shakes his head like he’s trying to get rid of it. Gojo clears his throat, a question formulating in his head that he wants to ask so bad, but tries to stall it by poking his tongue to the inside of his cheek, until Choso draws the club back to swing, and there’s this weird strain he feels in his chest when he finally decides to just blurt it out and ask the guy—

“Are you still in love with her?”

The choke in Choso’s form would’ve been visible from a mile away, but he carries through the swing on pure momentum alone, hurling the ball up into the air along with a stunted patch of dirt and grass which cuts the trajectory short by about half of what he was likely aiming for it to be, and he watches with a frozen frame as it lands disgracefully on sand.

Gojo blinks ahead at it.

“Damn,” he says, “that’s gotta be one of the worst shots I’ve ever seen.”

Choso huffs an exhale, his shoulders sulking as he stares ahead into the grassy hills. Gojo glances at the back of his head, and lets out a sigh after a voice in his head tells him to just drop it.

He ruffles in his pocket for the golf cart keys, but then stares up at the distance between them and their rather disappointing shots. “Let’s just walk this one.”

Choso nods.

The heat is borderline sweltering, evident in the way Choso’s wiping the sweat off his forehead with the ball of his shoulder and Gojo’s tugging at the collar of his polo to get a bit of breeze onto his chest. And there was a weird sense of solidarity in their decision to torture themselves with eachother’s company over a game of golf. It was a bit humbling, too.

“How did the two of you meet?” Gojo asks Choso as they make their way up a hill.

“She didn’t tell you?” Choso asks, offended, as if he’s surprised that he wasn’t a topic of their pillow talk.

“Nope,” Gojo says, probably because there was no real pillow talk. You two quite literally sleep in different bedrooms.

Choso sighs, a little out of breath when he responds. “We met in college. I was also a nursing major, until I flunked out of organic chemistry. So I dropped out and went to the Police Academy. We stayed together, though.”

“Ah,” Gojo responds.

“Y’know,” Choso randomly speaks up, “I would think she cheated on me.” He wipes at a bead of sweat that perspirates on his chin. “With the way the two of you got married so fast after we broke up.”

Gojo’s brow furrows as he just stares straight ahead, despite Choso layering a testing glance his way, to see his reaction to that statement, and see if it was in any way incriminating. “Nah,” Gojo says, “she’s not the type to do something like that.”

He can see in his periphery that Choso raised a brow at that. “That’s the testament? A personality trait? And not a first-hand account from you?” 

It irritates Gojo. The assumption that you would do something like that. And he knows Choso wants to hear it from Gojo himself—the reassurance that he wasn’t messing around with his girlfriend while they were still together, ironically as if they were in some alternate universe where this marriage was anything other than business…but instead, he doubles down. 

“Yeah,” he says, “she’s just not that kind of person.”

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——————

“Alrighty,” the hairstylist behind your chair says to you as he drags the wet ends of your hair to the front of your shoulders, eyeing them in the mirror. He ruffles up some of the overgrown layers in the back, the scent of sweet apple arousing your senses as you revel in the pleasure of the cleanest your scalp has ever felt in probably ever given the intensity in which the hairstylist scrubbed it out when he was washing it.

You have never been to a wet salon. Ever. You had always just resorted to SuperCuts or anything that was less than a twenty-minute wait and a twenty-dollar bill. But when Sylvie told you she did a drive-by of this place on her way to Dayton County from the SeaTac airport, she had sworn one of her high-class celebrity clients had endorsed it to her once and so she really wanted to go. You were reluctant, probably because just stepping inside the place already made you feel like you owed them some money, given the sheer luxury that surrounded you, but it was okay. I mean, how much could a single haircut cost?

“So, what are we doing today?” the hairstylist asks as he continues to pointlessly ruffle up your wet hair. He had silver grey hair and was wearing a rather tight grey vest with a turtle neck snug to his skin layered underneath, with matching grey trousers. He smelled just as expensive as the products he put in your hair to get the oil out of it. You no longer felt like a French Fry. You felt like some crisp iceberg lettuce. 

You open your mouth to answer him, but Sylvie cuts you off first.

“Ray, if you could just fix up the layers,” she says, speaking to him as if he were a lifelong friend despite the fact that she had also just met him, but the man seems to be thrilled by the friendliness from her, “and maybe some curtain bangs? Have them end here though, I think that would flatter her face.” She pulls some of your strands forward onto your face, and they tickle your nose.

You’ve never known what specifically flatters your face shape. You have been getting the same exact haircut since you were just a wee little lad. It was the one your mother used to do for you out in the backyard as you sat on a stool and felt the crunch of her scissors behind you while locks fell to the concrete of the patio. There was no further style or personality you asked of any of the hairdressers in your adulthood life, but only the small desire that they wouldn’t change too much about the shape your mother always left your hair in. It was just another small way that you felt you could cling onto the happy memories you have of her.

But you couldn’t even dwell on the sentiment for longer than two seconds before Ray was taking Sylvie’s suggestions and instruction to heart, immediately snipping away at your hair. He was sectioning your hair out into such small layers, almost microscopic, as if he didn’t want more than 100 strands in each before he made them all subject to his shears, and the process felt like hours. You couldn’t always see Sylvie in the mirror because Ray would often flip your hair over and into your face, but when you could peak at her through the strands of your hair, you could see she was watching Ray’s every move with her arms crossed over her chest as if you were some sculpture she couldn’t bear to see ruined. 

By the time Ray gets around to cutting your curtain bangs, you feel like an entirely different person. Your hair was still a little damp from the wash, but you could already see the gorgeous shape in which your hair was sitting in. The layers were stunning. And you could only imagine what it would look like once he–

“Alrighty, let’s blow this out,” Ray says, grabbing a round brush and a precision hair dryer. 

You could’ve fallen asleep in the chair, despite the loud volume of the hair dryer, from how lovely the gentle tug of each section of your hair against the brush felt as Ray continued to create tension throughout the strands of your freshly-cut hair. He curled the ends gently, slightly inwards, setting them with spray, all the way up to the fringe of your hair which he corrected with a hair straightener so that it all sits smoothly. And then, he turns you in the chair to face the mirror, and you’re shocked.

You seriously could not have imagined yourself looking the way you do right now. Your hair was stunning, each layer had personality, with the soft curls that have now gently fallen out but in a way that felt intentional, voluminous and alluring. You touch the ends of your hair and they feel so ridiculously soft, and pillowy, and smell so nice. And Sylvie was right. The curtain bangs at that specific length entirely flattered your face, and it almost made you look more youthful. After years and years and years of working nights, stressing out over bills, taking care of your sick mother, and having hardly any time to take care of yourself, you didn’t even know you still had the capacity to look this…pretty?

“Wow, stunning,” Sylvie says with a smile, clapping her hands together with satisfaction. “You’re a wizard, Ray.”

Ray helps you out of your seat, the three of you making smalltalk as he walks you over to the lady running the register. She asks Ray some questions about which tools he used and which products he applied, and then Ray leaves the three of you to it as he goes to clean up his station. You’re staring at the lady at the register in slight anticipation, but it was hard to stay anxious about the bill when you catch sight of your reflection in the mirror hung up on the wall behind the register.

“Alright, that’ll be three-hundred-and-seventy-two dollars,” the lady says, not even lifting her eyes once to tell you the damage as she continues to type away with long acrylics on the keyboard in front of her.

Your gaze is RIPPED away from your reflection in front of you,

And you guffaw at the register lady.

“I–...I’m–…excuse me?!” you exclaim.

Sylvie tilts her head at you, as if the cost was no surprise to her. 

“T-Three-hundred-and-seventy-two dollars for a haircut?” you exhale in disbelief, “I–oh my god, I cannot afford that!”

The lady behind the register nods her head slowly. “No worries! We have a six month financing plan with a low APR.”

You cannot fathom that there are people out there who would finance a haircut.

“That…I can’t do that, I’m sorry.” God knows what your credit score looks like right now with all of your unpaid debt. And you don’t want to face the humiliation of getting rejected from a three-hundred-dollar loan in front of Sylvie. “I, um, you know what? I’ll pay it back with hard work. I’ll—um, I actually make for a really great receptionist, and social media advertiser, and I used to cut a little bit of hair in college, and I could—”

Sylvie lets out a laugh from beside you. “Oh my gosh, y/n, you’re hilarious. It’s fine. I’ll pay for it!”

You blink at her. “I–...I’m sorry, what?”

She takes a step towards the register and pulls her black credit card out of her wallet. “I said that I’ll pay for it.” She inserts her chip into the machine.

“But–...I can’t accept that–”

“Seriously, it’s fine,” she says, “I have a feeling we’ll be friends, so, we’ll just open up a friendship tab!”

You look at her with an equal amount of worry because you’re not going to be able to pay it forward anytime in the near future.

She smiles at you. “Or…just let me do something nice for you. No questions asked. As a thanks for what you did back in the cafe.” She pulls her credit card out from the machine. “And in fairness, I am the one who dragged you to this salon.” She tucks her card back in her wallet. “Let’s leave now? I’m starving.”

“I–...” you almost feel like you could cry from the kindness, “...sure.”

She gives you a smile, hooks her arm around yours, and pulls you towards her, and then you both head out onto the street with in-tune gleeful laughter in the air.

“Any good patisseries in the area?” Sylvie asks, stumbling a little, taking you along with the sway of her body as she continues to anchor you to her by her hold of your arm, but she continues to strut forward down the street as you attempt to catch up. And you realize maybe there’s a bit of strategy to a stride like this, given the speed is just enough to cause a gentle breeze to tousle the curls of your hair, making you feel like a supermodel with a fan pointed right at you. Walk at this speed more often, you make a mental note to yourself. 

You glance up at the sky. Patisserie was quite the word, like something Hana would say to pretend she knows a lick of French after two months of her little fling with Jean Pierre, of whom is currently white with a fever back at her place. Normally, you would offer a belittling snort at the pretentious noun, but you find yourself matching Sylvie’s level. “There’s a suuuuuper cute one on Wisteria Street. Doucers de France!” you exclaim, and Sylvie laughs, picking up the pep to her walk as you do the same.

As you two stroll down the streets of downtown, engaging in nonsensical chatter, you’ve noticed you’re getting stared at a lot, mostly by men, and it’s starting to make you suspicious.

You turn to Sylvie, “Do I have something on my face?”

“Hm?” She tilts her head at you. “No?”

“Weird, I feel like a lot of people have been staring at me.”

“Because you look gorgeous with your new hair, silly!”

“Hmnnn???” you furrow your brow at her, but lift your gaze up to glance at two men who were walking by, both of whom had their gazes locked directly on you, even as you stared them down, all the way down the curb until they both ran into a trashcan.

Sylvie laughs, covering her mouth with a hand. “See?”

“Interesting…” you say, tucking soft strands behind your ear, “hm.” You push your shoulders back a little and toss some hair over your shoulders in a new-found confidence. 

Sylvie is privy to the attitude shift, and squeezes your arm tighter, “shall we continue to Doucers de France?”

“Why yes. Yes we shall.”

The power you felt you held, courtesy of the hair on your head, was unmatched. You haven’t felt this hunted down by stares since you were in your early twenties club era. In a sense, you felt you had gained your novelty back. And you were eating it up. Well, eating up the opportunity to glare down men who stare with no shame. But at least you had quite a substantial amount of them to indignantly dissolve with a well-practiced glare. Like some game of pacman strolling down 183rd Street. 

As you two approach the cafe, you nearly run into a cop that circles around the alleyway in front of the block, and the two of you come to an abrupt halt. When you glance at the cop’s face, you realize it’s Leon again, except this time he has a coffee and a sourdough donut in his hand.

“Hello again, ladies,” he says with a gaze towards Sylvie, and when his gaze shifts to you, he says, “woah.”

“What?”

“You look real nice, y/n. How come you don’t wear your hair like that more often?”

“Time and resources, mainly.”

“I see,” he says as he one-ups you with his eyes, makes some linear conclusion in his head by the state of your appearance, then leans against the brick wall. “Hey, listen, so, I know you and Choso have some crazy history, but,” he runs a hand through his hair in a way that he clearly thinks is enticing, “do you think he’d be okay if we…” He points back and forth to gesture between the two of you.

Sylvie lets out a short exhale of a laugh through her nose and glances down towards the ground, and you narrow your eyes at the cop in front of you with disgust before you hold up a hand in front of his face. “Your desperation to get laid is so very entirely unsexy to me, so shut it.” And at your words, Sylvie lets out a more audible laugh, and it’s your turn to wrap your arm around hers and pull her towards you as you two strut past a wide-eyed, indignant Leon who seems more confused than offended by your words.

Once Sylvie’s giggling fit has calmed down, she manages to say, “seriously, you’re so funny, y/n.”

“Mm?” you hum, slowing down in pace a little when you see she’s having a hard time keeping up, either because of her heels or the laughter-induced intoxication she seems to possess now, a type of giddiness that was starting to rub off on you too.

“Ahh, I don’t know, I just love the way you say exactly what you’re thinking,” she smiles, “I wish I could do that.”

Your mind flashes back to what Pulp-Free OJ man said to you earlier today. You’re kind of charming. And way too direct.

“Is…” you start, suddenly feeling slightly self conscious, and you gently tuck some strands behind your ear as if to preserve some femininity in the face of this so-called brazenness of yours, “is that a bad thing?”

“Nooooo,” she coos, like she can tell you’re taking it the wrong way, “it’s fun! It’s entertaining. It’s refreshing.” She pulls you along with her to start walking. “Makes you seem kinda foxy. Which is an attractive thing.”

“Oh.”

She smiles, something that looks a little foxy herself, and glances at you as her sleek hair flares with the wind of her pace, “Maybe we should go see if we can find that hot mysterious New York man and you can ask him out on a daaaaaaateee.” She nudges your arm with her elbow teasingly. 

Your cheeks feel slightly flush at her words, and you blink at her a couple of times in consideration, but seeing how round her face is from pure glee, you’d feel awkward to show too much hesitation towards the idea of a good time, and so your shoulders settle down and your expression softens, before you return her smile and say, “mm, maybe.”

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——————

“I’ve learned,” Gojo says, sitting back in his chair as he sets his feet up on the cushion in front of him, picking his bottle of beer up off the outdoor patio table in front of the country club’s recreational bar, “in my experience with women, that’s it’s better to just be honest about where you’re going or what you’re doing and let her be mad,” he sloshes the beer around by the bottleneck, “than to lie to her about it and then she finds out later and she gets pissed off more reasons than one.”

“Reaaaalllyyyyy???” Choso slurs from next to him, leaning over the frosty glass surface underneath the overhead umbrella tent of the table, “I dunno man. I’ve lied to a lot of past girlfriends and I hev–nev–... ‘scuse me, have never gotten in trouble for it.”

“Seriously?” Gojo’s eyes flit up towards the blue sky in thought. “Shit. Maybe I’m just a bad liar then.”

Choso snorts and tips the top of his bottle towards Gojo like a salute. “Yeah, I think that’s it.” And then he takes a swig.

Something bothers Gojo, and his brow furrows before glancing over to the man next to him. “Wait. Why’d you lie to them so much anyway? Is it pathological?”

Choso shakes his head, tendrils of his hair that were stuck to his forehead still slick by the sweat from the earlier sun out in the grass. His head tilts off to the side a little in a daze before he casts his gaze off towards the golf course. “Nah, nah, nah. Just the usual stuff, yaknow? ‘Cause, like, she doesn’t need to know I blew off going to brunch with her and her mom on a Sunday because I wanted to go check out McClarens at the auto strip instead. ‘Cause who’s that gonna help?” He swipes the back of his hand across his upper lip. “Instead I just tell her I took her car to get a much needed oil change. And then bam. She thinks I’m a man who knows my priorities, I'm living within my means, and I’m helpful.” Choso snaps his fingers at Gojo. “She wins, I win.”

Gojo narrows his eyes at him. “A McClaren? You’ve gotta be kidding me.”

Choso groans, slumping in his chair, his arms dangling over the rests as he peers up at the sky past the visor of his hat, bottle of beer threatening to slip down the loose grip of his hand. “When I was twenty, I thought I’d be rich by the time I was twenty-five. I’m thirty-one now, and I still drive a Honda Civic.”

“There’s nothing wrong with a Honda Civic, man.”

Choso sits up suddenly in his chair, leaning to the side towards Gojo as he squints at him. Gojo keeps his gaze set forward, taking a reasonable drink of burnt amber as he anticipates being asked some sort of intrusive question.

“Well, what about you?” Choso asks. “You’ve got a boat, a couple of nice cars. I’ve seen the suits you wear–they’re not off-the-rack. What are you doing out here in bumfuck nowhere?”

The convoluted question starts to weigh heavy on Gojo’s tipsy mind, and he’s running out of the ability to navigate it, even though he’s the one that suggested three bottles of beer at 1pm on a Saturday on an empty stomach after two hours of golfing out in the sun, as if heat-soaked lethargy wasn’t enough. Sometimes he forgets he’s not twenty-two anymore, and there are certain things his body just can’t seem to handle at this age.

“I used to work in downtown Manhattan,” Gojo says, slightly deflecting the question, “I moved here about a year ago.”

“Yeahhhhhh, I remember when you moved here,” Choso says, slumping back into his lawn chair, “I fuckin’ hated you.”

Gojo glances over at him and quirks a brow. “Huh? Why?”

“Good-lookin’ guy moving in right next door to my girlfriend?” Choso says, “terrifying. But at least she hated you, too. Well, until she married you. And I still don’t know what the fuck you did to accomplish that, but fuck you anyways.” He holds a middle finger up at him, and then sets his bottle of beer down onto the glass tablet to hold the other one up as well. As if he at least still had the decency to know he wouldn’t have the dexterity to multi-task a grip and a flip-off at the same time. 

Gojo’s gaze dampens slightly, even at the hostility from Choso. It dips to where he’s glancing at the hot pavement in front of the two of them, right where the grass is pristinely cut at the border. He wonders if Choso truly believes that this whole marriage thing is real, or if he was just pretending. But why? Why would he pretend to this extent? It doesn’t make sense. But it has to look strange from the outside, right? He breaks up with his girlfriend of seven years, and then three weeks later, she gets married to her next-door-neighbor? Someone who she allegedly hates. At least Gojo hopes it’s only alleged. But that’s a discussion for another time.

Point is, there’s no way that Choso believes all of this. There’s just no way. But at the same time, he acts the part so convincingly like he does. Like he’s really distraught over his ex-girlfriend moving on with the guy sitting next to him. And if he really was distraught about it, then why the hell is Gojo the one that is sitting right next to him? Choso’s a cop. He could easily shoot Gojo if he wanted to. At the very least, that would make things a bit more interesting. 

Gojo opens his mouth to speak, but Choso cuts him off,

“Why did you move out here, though?”

Gojo glances down at his hand that’s been turning the glass bottle of beer at the base as it sits on the table. He breathes in deep, catching the scent of lavender in the distance, a fragrance he finds a little too familiar, then exhales slowly. 

Not a great liar, but he can manage a half-truth. 

“To be closer to my family,” he says.

The heat begins to slowly dwindle in the late afternoon in passing, despite the fact that it was still a ridiculously sunny day, and it only takes one more beer from Choso before he’s got an even looser mouth and is practically trauma dumping all of the absolutely insane cop cases he’s had to deal with within the past few years, ranging from having to track down the hyena that escaped from the local zoo, to closing out a twenty year cold kidnapping case. There’s a comfort at the base of Gojo’s ribs when he realizes the biggest emergency he’ll ever face at his job is…running out of Open House flyers.

“That’s something I—” Choso takes a pause to make sure he doesn’t slur his words, “loved about dating y/n. I ever had a crazy story? Oh trrruuussttt me she had a crazier one from the hospital.” He shakes his head in disbelief, like he’s reminiscing on all of them. “And y’know, she’s stone cold emotionally so she would share it all without a bat of an eye, too.” He pretends to shiver. “She scares the shit out of me sometimes.”

“Really? I thought all of that was a defense tactic or something.” Gojo feels strange talking about you in the absence of you but he wasn’t above the buzz of a few beers either.

Choso raises an eyebrow at him mid-sip. “Huh?”

“Like, you know, she’s got a lot of stuff going on…but has a hard time talking about it…so she deflects. Or acts tough to get through it.”

Choso’s eyes widen briefly, but then he starts to shake his head vehemently in denial. “Nahhh that’s just her personality. She just doesn’t really care about most things, especially the sappy and sentimental stuff. She’s very practical. That’s why dating her was so easy when things were right between us. I didn’t have to overthink things. Like flowers or spontaneous dates or cheesy compliments and whatnot.” Choso shudders at the thought. “Because I guarantee you she’d just be bored by it.”

Gojo shifts uncomfortably in his seat, a little concerned about the derailment of this conversation, and he wonders if Choso’s had a few too many from how detached he seems to speak about you. Didn’t you guys date for seven years? He doesn’t exactly know the details since you refused to tell him, and he wouldn’t feel right getting that story from Choso instead, but his curiosity is really starting to itch at him. He barely knows you in comparison to Choso, but he knows that everything Choso is saying about you is just plain wrong. Sure, you seem to be generally irritated and weary by most things in life, but he knows it’s not because that’s just how you are as a person. It’s because of what you’ve been through as a person. 

He thinks about the look on your face when you ran out of your mother’s hospice room, tears streaming dow your cheeks, at the mere mention of someone promising to look after you. And he’s supposed to believe that you don’t care about sentiments? Or that you aren’t hoping to have a shoulder to lean on?

But, who knows, maybe Gojo is overestimating how well he thinks he knows you. At least, that sounds like something you’d say to him with a look of irritation across your face if you heard what he was thinking right now.

But he hates that Choso’s making him question it—this idea he has of you. It’s that same I know her…don’t I? dilemma he feels the entire time he’s talking to your ex. He's not thrilled by the idea that he could be projecting a softer version of you that doesn��t exist just because he hopes that it does.

“Wait, hold up, you’re married to her. And you don’t know this about her?” Choso remarks as he sits up in his chair.

Gojo brings his bottle of beer to his mouth. “Just doesn’t sound like the version of her that I know.”

“That’s suspicious,” Choso says, swirling around the bottle in his hand as he stares out onto the grass.

Gojo sighs. “People can change in short periods of time. I’ve always been surprised by it, too.”

“Yeah?” Choso responds, intrigued by the statement. “You’ve got any insane emotional baggage you’d like to share?”

Gojo sets his bottle of beer down on the table, and watches as a cold droplet of water makes its way down the condensing surface. “Can’t say I want to share any of it.”

“That’s fair. I’m just glad I know that you do have some. Makes me feel better.”

“Hm,” Gojo hums the acknowledgement.

“You know a lot of these guys?” Choso asks, pointing his index finger to a group of men walking to their golf cart in the distance, his other four fingers wrapped around his drink. “You kept getting stopped between shots.”

Gojo nods. “Yeah. A lot of them are clients of mine. Or their ex-wives are.”

Choso rolls his eyes. “Self-important pricks. I don’t know how you deal.”

“My client base in New York was way worse than this.”

“Really?” Choso asks, turning his torso to look at Gojo. 

“Mhm,” Gojo affirms before taking a swig, “I made better money out there, though.” Not that it bothered him much. He’d rather be homeless in Dayton County than spend another day in that city.

“Huh,” Choso huffs in consideration, “I still think it’s really strange you moved to Dayton County from New York City.”

“What’s that phrase?” Gojo says, glancing up towards the blue sky. “You’ve gotta leave the city to love the city, or something like that.”

“Well go back to the fuckin’ city and leave my girl while you’re at it,” Choso drawls, unable to fight the drag of his words this time, or keep his head up straight, really. And it occurs to Gojo that Choso’s not a very responsible drinker.

“If anything, I’d take her with me,” Gojo says, almost like he can’t help pissing Choso off.

“Fuck you. Hope that spell she cast on you bites you when you least expect it.”

“Shit. I hope so too.”

Choso is decent enough to nod a salute at that, and the two move to clink the neck of their beer bottles together, but just before contact, Choso says—

“May divorce be with you, dude.”

And Gojo curves his bottle away from contact at the last second, leaving Choso hanging, then brings it to his mouth to tip it back until it’s empty.

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——————

By the time you come home from your many morning escapades, it’s close to late afternoon, and you notice your car is parked inside Gojo’s garage, as opposed to parked out on the street where you had left it earlier.

You walk inside the house to find Gojo standing at the foyer table, looking through piles of mail. It mildly annoys you that he doesn’t even so much as lift his gaze from all the paper to look at you when you close the front door behind you. 

“Hey, why did you move my car into your garage?” you asked.

“I just washed it, and it’s supposed to rain overnight,” he says, ripping up one of the bills before tossing it into a pile of other shredded paper. 

Your eyes widen slightly. You had been wanting to get around to washing your car for weeks, it had been, admittedly, quite dirty on the outside. But it was just one of those things that kept getting away from you…and away from you…and away from you…

“You didn’t have to do that…” you mumble, slipping your shoes off at the door. 

“Yeah, I know, but–” He finally lifts his gaze off of light blue paper and drifts it over to you, and when he doesn’t finish his sentence, you glance up at him too, only to find he’s staring at you with wide eyes.

You blink back at him, wiping your cheek gently with your hand as some reflex, and then pet down the hair at the top of your head with self consciousness. “W-What?” Forgive yourself for being fussy with your appearance around him now given he literally called you a French Fry this morning.

He’s still staring at you, big blue eyes blinking with no particular rhythm, just pure surprise, and his mouth is even slightly agape. 

“What?” You practically snap at him.

You see his chest sink with the exhale he releases. “Nice hair,” he says finally.

“Oh.” You totally forgot about that. “Thank you,” you say, scooping all of it to the front of one of your shoulders, twirling the delicately curled ends around a finger, “just, uh…took a quick trip to the salon today…” you continue to twirl it, “in which they gave me a quick little style…of which costed a very reasonable amount.”

He snorts. “I’m not even gonna ask.”

“Three-hundred-and-seventy-two bucks.”

“What. The. Fuck?”

“Mhm,” you cross your arms over your chest.

“Where did you even get that kinda money?” he asks with disbelief.

“That’s irrelevant,” you quickly deflect, and even though you weren’t the one that paid for it, you were still going to give him hell for it, “this should teach you not to comment about people’s appearances. I was so distraught by your rude comment this morning that I ran to the nearest wet salon and ended up being scammed into this hairstyle because of you.”

“Okay well you look hot as fuck so the only thing I’ve learned from this is that bullying works.”

“You will not be getting out of this by complimenting me, mister!!!”

The corner of Gojo’s mouth ticks up slightly, and to provide some insight into his perspective, he was simply too distracted by how nice you looked and your choice to call him mister to really focus on anything else. As much as he should probably repent for admitting it, he liked pissing you off sometimes, purely because he likes how prissy and most of all hot you were when you looked at him like you wanted to choke him to death. But he’s also not sure if you really would strangle him in his sleep, and since he can’t necessarily put you above it, a shiver runs down his spine to where he figures he probably shouldn’t push it.

“Understood. No more calling you greasy,” he says, and holds his palm up to swear on it. 

You roll your eyes, but it still feels like an acceptance of the promise, until your gaze hardens with a different type of annoyance. “And where have you been all day?” you ask, trying to suppress the irritation in your voice, tapping your foot on the wood with impatience, “with Choso, I presume?”

He had half hoped you forgot about his admission to you about his plans for this weekend. 

“Yes,” he sighs, “I was.” And with the same demeanor of a dog guilty of tearing up a couch while its owner was away from home, he continues, “we went golfing.”

You breathe in deep, and exhale with shaky rage. 

You can be mature about this. You can be mature about this. You can be mature about this. You can be mature about this. You can be mature about this. You can be mature about this. You can be mature about this. You can be mature about this. You can be mature about this. You can be mature about this. You can be mature about this. You can be mature about this. You can be mature about this. You can be mature about this. You can be mature about this. You can be mature about this. You can be mature about this. You can be mature about this. You can be mature about this. You can be mature about this. You can be mature about this. You can be mature about this. You can be mature about this. You can be mature about this. You can be mature about this. You can be mature about this. You can be mature about this. You can be mature about this. You can be mature about this. You can be mature about this. You can be mature about this. You can be mature about this. You can be mature about this. You can be mature about this. You can be mature about this. You can be mature about this. You can be mature about this. You can be mature about this. You can be mature about this. You can be mature about this. You can be mature about this. You can be mature about this. You can be mature about this. You can be mature about this. You can be mature about this. You can be mature about this. You can be mature about this. You can be mature about this. You can be mature about this. You can be mature about this. You can be mature about this. You can be mature about this. You can be mature about this. You can be mature about this. You can be mature about this. You can be mature about this. You can be mature about this. You can be mature about this. You can be mature about this. You can be mature about this. You can be mature about this. You can be mature about this. You can be mature about this. You can be mature about this. You can be mature about this. You can be mature about this. You can be mature about this. You can be mature about this. You can be mature about this. You can be mature about this. You can be mature about this. You can be mature about this. You can be mature about this. You can be mature about this. You can be mature about this. You can be mature about this. You can be mature about this. You can be mature about this. You can be mature about this. You can be mature about this. You can be mature about this. You can be mature about this. You can be mature about this. You can be mature about this. You can be mature about this. You can be mature about this. You can be mature about this. You can be mature about this. You can be mature about this. You can be mature about this. You can be mature about this. You can be mature about this. You can be mature about this. You can be mature about this. You can be mature about this. You can be mature about this. You can be mature about this. You can be mature about this. You can be mature about this. You can be mature about this. You can be mature about this. You can be mature about this. You can be mature about this. You can be mature about this. You can be mature about this. You can be mature about this. You can be mature about this. You can be mature about this. You can be mature about this. You can be mature about this. You can be mature about this. You can be mature about this. You can be mature about this. You can be mature about this. You can be mature about this. You can be mature about this. You can be mature about this. You can be mature about this. You can be mature about this. You can be mature about this. 

“Screw you,” you say, and then brush past him, storm up the stairs to the master bedroom, and then slam the door behind you.

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——————

It’s rare that Gojo will go for a late night run. He really prefers the mornings—rise of dawn, that crisp fresh air, sparkle of dew in the front of his lawn from the sprinkler spray of the night before, bonus points if he got around to mowing the lawn and it ends up looking neater because of it. There’s also just the right amount of people out on the sidewalks, and they’re usually elderly couples or other fellow morning runners like him, and in his experience, those sorts of people tend to be the friendliest. The weather’s best at that time, too. Feel a little bit of heat on your back to help warm you up but it’s not any sort of abrasive kind that would have you itching to get rid of layers that you don’t have. And maybe, as with most things in life, the ego was involved. Waking up at 5am to go for a run? It just screamed put-together, and more often than not, tended to set the day up for success.

But instead, tonight, he finds himself outside in the pitch black, past 10pm actually, for his second jog of the day. Clad in black sweatpants, a black sweatshirt with the hood pulled over his head, it felt unnecessarily incognito but he can’t lie that it felt nice to run without feeling like a single soul is around you.

And also, it was strange. This feeling that something was calling him into the night. He’s not incredibly superstitious, but he definitely felt thickness in the air.

About a mile into his run, he turns a corner of the park, onto a slimmer brick-laid road surrounded by hundreds of trees that cut visibility of the parameters to a fraction, and slows down to a stop. He checks his Apple watch for the time, but when the small screen of it doesn’t light up, he’s annoyed.

Through barely bated breath, he grumbles as he pulls on the strap and says, “did I not charge this thing?”

After a few more seconds of messing with it, he sighs and shrugs, figures he’ll just run laps around the park and head back the same way he came, but when he jogs forward for less than three seconds, his feet come to a halt.

But it’s a quicker one, a more alarmed stop.

Because he sees a figure looming off to the side within the trees.

He huffs a breath, cranes his neck towards what almost looks like a statue in his periphery, until he confirms that it’s a person, and the recognition of who it is draws all the color out from his face, and rounds his eyes wide with pure shock.

He isn’t even given the courtesy of a few moments before he hears the most painfully familiar voice say—

“Hey.”

Gojo nearly feels his heart stop—no, sink—he feels his heart sink in his chest with a feeling he can’t discern. It’s a mixture of a lot of feelings, actually. Surprise, anger, confusion, disbelief. He just stands there, his chest swelling with faster breaths than when he was running, as he stares at the brooding figure in front of him.

Eventually the shock tapers off, and his shoulders drop, and he presses his lips into a thin line before exhaling slowly through his nose. His brow furrows, eyes squinting slightly to verify once and for all that the person in front of him is really who he thinks it is, and he finds that he’s not mistaken.

The figure steps out from near the trees and into the light, and Gojo acknowledges him with a simple say of his name.

“Suguru.”

The dark-haired man smiles in response to his name, it’s a forced one, one that Gojo would argue is borderline sinister but he knows that it’s not. It’s just the way he’s learned to see it now.

“It’s been a while,” Suguru says, stopping his movements to get closer when he’s satisfied with the distance.

Gojo swallows hard. “What the hell are you doing here?”

Suguru nods. “Thought I’d go for a late night stroll.”

“Don’t fuck with me right now.”

Suguru’s smile drops into a frown, acknowledging the hostility, and Gojo finds that he’s clenching fists at his sides.

Suguru sighs. “I understand the last time we saw each other, it was under unsavory circumstances, but I hope you’ll forgive me for showing up like th—”

“Just tell me what you want.”

To justify Gojo’s short temper towards the man across from him to any spectator witnessing this would require a hell of an explanation, one that doesn’t just date back to a year ago, or a few years ago, a decade ago or even two. It wouldn’t be enough, not unless he started from the beginning. But he doesn’t want to give it the time of day. He doesn’t even want to give it any more than the short-tempered rage he’s been offering so far.

Suguru hangs his head a little, studying the brick underneath him, then glances up again. “I’m here to make amends.”

“Make amends?” Gojo finds himself mocking those words the second he hears them. “Who the fuck asked for that?” 

“I knew you wouldn’t be happy that I showed up like this—”

“You’re right. I’m not.”

“But—” Suguru sighs again, and it makes Gojo’s skin crawl. The way he acts like the inconvenience of him showing up was anything other than his own fault. “I mean it. I really am here to make things right.”

“What makes you think flying all the way here and showing your face to me was going to make things right?” Gojo snarled.

“When you left,” he says, “it was so abrupt. I had expected you to be angry. To cuss me out, yell at me, punch me in the face, I wouldn’t even be surprised if you pulled out a gun.”

It wasn’t like the thought hadn’t occurred to him at the time.

“I’m not saying that I know what you need to move on from this,” Suguru continues, and Gojo narrows his eyes at the man even further, “but I thought I’d at least give you the chance. The chance to get your frustrations out.”

Gojo quirks an irritated brow. 

“A pass to punch the shit out of me with no consequence or witness,” Suguru says, and the words made Gojo feel like he was some pity project.

“You…” Gojo trails off, more with confusion this time rather than anger, “…want me to punch you?”

“It’s what you want, isn’t it?” Suguru says, “ever since that night. But you held back.”

“What I want is for you to never show your face to me ever again.”

“And I won’t,” he says, “I promise. I promise that after today, it’s done.” He takes a step forward. “But that’s why I offer this closure to you. Because—” He hesitates. “It’ll be the last time you have the chance.”

Gojo’s eyes widen slightly when Suguru steps into the light, illuminating some of his features, and it’s the first time he sees his old best friend fully in the flesh ever since that night. He noticed what used to be evenly toned olive skin now has a sandalwood tint, a hue that matches the dull one in the whites of his eyes, yet the bloodshot to them still shows through. He’s lost weight, with sunken cheekbones, there’s exhaustion visible all over his face. It was like Gojo was cognitively cleansed of the memory he had retained of him since the last time he saw him, now replaced with the version in front of him.

It’ll be the last time you have the chance.

All this nonsense about finally honoring Gojo’s wish to stay the fuck away from him,

It felt like a red herring to that statement.

What kind of cryptic bullshit was he alluding to?

“I don’t know what the fuck you’re on about,” Gojo says, “but I’m not going to punch you. We’re not teenagers anymore.”

Suguru’s eyes widen slightly, as if surprised by the restraint, before he relaxes and a small smile tugs at the corners of his mouth. It was too pleased of an expression for Gojo’s liking, that is until it morphs into something eerily fake when that smile only widens and he takes a step towards him.

“And if I told you I don’t regret any of it?” Suguru says, and Gojo can physically feel the muscle in his jaw tic with rage, “if I told you I stand here in front of you with no remorse at all?” He continues to take steps towards Gojo in provocation, less than three feet away now, and Gojo’s hands further condense into white-knuckled fists when Suguru makes his final stride and is now right in front of Gojo, “if I told you that I enjoyed every,” he sneeringly enunciates each word, “Single. Second of it?”

The sound of knuckle harshly colliding with bone reverberates down through the echoing pavement of the park, which was the medium for the sting of Gojo’s fist released through his best friend’s jaw, cracked so hard that the dark-haired man entirely recoils from the blow, hurled off to the side out onto an out-stretched hand to brace fall onto brick ground.

Gojo’s breathing heavy, fast, stuck still in the aftermath, his vision almost spotted white with pure rage, and yet of all the feelings coursing through his body, the most physical one of all—the one centered to the rounded bones of his knuckles—only felt numb. And soon, every other emotion followed.

Suguru exhales a shaky laugh, stumbling slightly on the ground before he pushes himself up and back onto his feet. “Wow,” he breathes out, brushing tendrils of his hair out from his face, rubbing the back of his hand down the line of his red jaw, dabbing at the blood dripping from his nose and the top gums of his mouth, and he pulls his hand away to take a look at the red pigment dipping into the valleys of his trembling hand. “Honestly, I thought I could handle provoking a couple more out of you, but,” he lets out a half-stunned laugh, “I think we’ll have to leave it at one.”

Gojo watches as Suguru tips his head back and shakes his head, that same borderline amused smirk tugging at the corner of his lips, and his shoulders slump. There was no glory in the sight, nor the feeling. No satisfaction. No release or closure. For fucks sake, he just felt worse. He felt even worse now than he did a minute ago when he wasn’t staring at Suguru’s bloody face.

He just felt numb.

“I really am sorry, Satoru,” Suguru breathes out as he tips his head back, sniffles viscous blood, and wipes away whatever had already dried above his lip, “for everything. And I hope that—” He takes a deep breath, “whatever life you build for yourself from here on out is better than the one I took from you.” He tightly shuts his eyes close. “That’s the only thing that will bring me peace in all of this.”

Gojo hears the words, but he doesn’t feel them. It’s that same dull ache throughout his body, the same one that haunts him in those moments when the nights are too still, and the mornings are too quiet. Mostly numbness, with the slightest tracing of pain as if to remind him that he was still alive.

“Whatever, man,” Gojo mutters, not even able to lift his gaze to look at the person he once called his best friend as he wipes his chin with the back of his hand, and his voice is a broken shudder when he speaks again, “whatever.”

He turns on his heel, away from this scene he can’t bear witness to anymore, and he feels as if there are anchors tied to his ankles as he drags his feet away. And away. And away. And away. And away. He couldn’t tell you for how long or how far he just dragged the soles of his shoes across brick, then concrete, then gravel, then grass. It could’ve been two minutes, it could’ve been two hours, but it couldn’t have felt any more torturous. And the whole time, he feels that enigma that he left behind at the park behind him, somewhere in the distance.

The same one he desperately tries to ignore,

One he desperately wants to hate,

One he desperately wants to despise with all his being,

But he just can’t.

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——————

The clock strikes midnight as you pace around the floor of the master bedroom, the hem of your floor-length satin nightgown brushing across the flooring with each back-and-forth pivot and stride that you make, and you switch between irritatingly tucking your hair behind your ears and crossing your arms across your chest and letting out annoyed puffs of air at every other minute as your mind races an hour a minute.

You’ve been trapped up here (by your own doing) like some princess in a tower ever since Gojo admitted to you that he hung out with Choso today, just bubbling with a sense of rage that you so badly want to unleash on him but when you stepped out of the room a couple hours ago, you realized he wasn’t home, and his Apple watch was missing from the little paper crochet bowl on the foyer table, so you assumed he had went for a run. As for why he still isn’t home, you don’t know, but you feel like you simply cannot be put to rest until you tell his ear off about something as a way to release your frustration.

You know that Gojo is a social whore. And that he likes to be liked. Perhaps you just can’t relate, because you’ve never extended yourself so far to be liked by the likes of strangers. Sure, when you’re committed to having a person in your life, you do what you can to make them pleased by you, but people who you don’t even really know? Why on Earth would you choose them over yourself?

And so your lack of sympathy towards Gojo’s desire to be buddy-buddy, friendly-friendly, and innately curious about the people around him is foundational to your rage at the moment. 

Why does he need to be friends with your freakin’ ex??? Is his desire to be liked by everyone he comes across really THAT large??? 

And, in a thought that makes you a little sad, you ask yourself—

Why can’t he add you to that list of people to please?

You stop pacing the room with the sobering thought, and glance over at the reflection of yourself in the window. You hate how defeated you look. 

You know that you give him a hard time. You’re snarky and defensive and lose your temper with him perhaps a little too fast. And also fail to show any real gratitude for most things he has done for you. But it was almost like you couldn’t help it. You couldn’t help acting that way around him. And maybe it’s because you know, you just know, that if you ever harbor any semblance of affection for him, and he decides to never return any of it at all, you would be ruined. It would ruin you.

He just has that effect on people,

And you just didn’t want to admit that you wouldn’t be any sort of exception.

You let out a frustrated noise from your throat and plop down on the bed.

Ew, gross. Feelings? Were you trying to gaslight yourself into thinking that you would have feelings for him if your stubborn heart gave you the chance?

As if.

It’s so silly to even picture.

…Or was it?

You don’t know.

You just don’t know.

It’s too many emotions, all at once, and as per usual, the anger is the one that decides to stick around, and you hop back up onto your feet.

“Frickin’ golfing…” You mumble to yourself, “they went golfing together…” You pace to the foot of the bed and then up to the headboard, “I bet they talked shit about me too…”

You hear some noises downstairs, gasp a little and run out into the hallway and peer over the staircase railing to see some mysteriously dressed man at the front entrance close the door behind him. You can’t see his face since he was dressed in a black hoodie with the hood pulled over his head, but when the man pulls his sleeve back and releases the strap of his watch, you realize it’s Gojo.

Well, that was a relief. But also, eye roll, it’s Gojo. Perhaps a serial killer would’ve been more preferable.

You quickly run back into the master bedroom, push the door wide open in the process, turn on your heel so that you have a perfect view of the entrance, and cross your arms over your chest. Tapping your foot impatiently, you try to display the most annoyed expression you can manage, and you hear the third to last creak of the stairs as you see Gojo make it to the second floor and into the loft, then approaches the master bedroom.

“Good, you’re home,” you say to him with your gaze narrow in a glare, and you try to think of ways to chastise him for his actions but the best punishment you can come up with is a list of annoying housekeeping tasks, “as soon as possible, I’m going to need you to mow the lawn,” you list them off with the fingers of your hand, “fix the leaking fridge again, install that shelf in the kitchen that you promised me you’d do over two weeks ago, fix the tilted leg of the dining table, finish the—”

You didn’t notice in your yapping that he was closing distance towards you, his expression hard to read under his hood and the fringe of his hair, but before you could tell him about the unfinished paint job in the bathroom, you feel his arms slip past your waist, crossing behind you, and he pulls you in towards him.

“Eh?” you squeak out in surprise, tripping slightly over the hem of your nightgown and straight towards his chest, your cheek pressing against the soft cotton of his hoodie, and you feel him tuck your head underneath his chin in an embrace.

There’s just a brief moment of silence as you stand still in his arms amid moonlight shining through the windows of the room, and when he seems to realize that you aren’t going to push him away, he breathes a sigh of relief and pulls you in tighter, pressing his cheek to the crown of your head. 

“Satoru—” you try to protest. 

“You can hate me in the morning,” he says into your hair, his voice deep near your ear as you feel the rumble of it in his chest, “but just let me hold you for now.”

Your arms, that had been otherwise stiffly raised as if to not want to make contact with him, relax slowly as they drop, and a small puff of air leaves your lips.

He sounds exhausted, numb, drained. There was no mirth, or ignorance, or sarcasm or amusement in his voice like you were so used to hearing.

You lift your arms once again, meekly swallowing, and this time, you gently wrap them around his torso, and press your cheek against his chest even more as you settle yourself into him. He smelled so nice, that same scent of his that was so comforting to you, one that could soothe you to sleep. And you feel his heartbeat in his chest, and how it seems to be faster now than it was just one second before.

He shakily releases a breath when you hug him back, and if you thought he was holding onto you tighter before, you realize that it wasn’t enough for him. He holds you to him so closely to where you can’t even move, like you were a real life teddy bear for him, and the warmth of his body makes you realize how painfully human he is.

You lift your cheek away from his chest, the movement making him pull his chin away from the top of yours, and you crane your neck up to look at him, and he looks down at you too. Beautiful blue eyes meet your gaze, dull in the nighttime compared to the daylight, but still sparkling. You swear there were constellations in those eyes, millions of stars, and gazing into them was enough to take your breath away.

You can see that his chest is heaving slightly as he looks at you, and your eyes lid gently, maybe in a daze or maybe it was the softness of the moment that was gently lulling you closer to sleep. He releases an arm from your waist, his hand lifting to your forehead where he gently brushes some of your hair out of your face in a movement so tender it sends a shiver through your body, and with a strong arm still anchoring your waist, he slowly walks you backwards, until the backs of your knees hit the edge of the bed, and you fall onto it together in a clumsy tangle. His hands catch himself on either side of you as he holds himself up, hovering over you, and you bring your balled up hands to your heart to see if you can quiet the pace in which it’s beating.

Gojo’s eyes dart across your face, his brow furrowing deeply as if he’s caught in a thought—or maybe a million. It flickers across his expression, whatever the emotion was. Considering…questioning…maybe even afraid. You feel as if you can’t breathe under the weight of his thoughts.

But then he exhales. Runs a hand down his face. Whatever thought he was mulling over, he just lets it go. Drags it away with the rough of his palm and the tight shut of his eyes, before he disappears from your sight when he falls onto his back on the bed with a small grunt next to you, then stares up at the ceiling.

You blink at the ceiling now, too, a little stunned to even move or think or breathe or exist. And you feel like this moment, whatever it was, was over.

But then his hand finds your waist, palm smoothing over satin before you feel his arm curl around you, the weight of his muscle against your skin as he gently pulls you toward him and nestled up against him, your back to his chest on soft linen sheets. Firm and certain, that was the way he held you to him, and his nose nuzzles at the soft hair tucked behind your ear.

He says nothing. He almost doesn’t need to. Because you understand.

You’ll hate him in the morning. The anger tax is what you’ll call it. He’ll pay interest. But for now, you just let him hold you.

And for once, you don’t have to count sheep to fall asleep.

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[end of ch9. 'counting sheep']

song of the chapter: 'quiet, the winter harbor' by mazzy star

a/n. ahhhh thank u so very much for reading :'') i truly hope you enjoyed this chapter!! it was kind of intense to write bc of all the split scenes and also all the character dynamics being explored. lot of hmm i guess nuances to juggle?? also this is the longest chapter of anything i've ever posted...so much for trying to make these chapters smaller hahah. but i loved writing the little scene in the end……….i just wanna be held by gojo until i fall sleep how hard is that to ask big shout out to my ihm beta readers leni n josie for helping me out with parts of this chapter n giving me some wonderful suggestions <3 i really appreciate and adore you guys. ahhhh ihm is 100k+ words now!!! that’s crazy!!! yippeeeeeeee also, i did mention this briefly in another post, but because of the length of ihm, i'm planning to split it into "seasons"! so the next chapter (ch10) will be the last chapter for this first part of the series, where i'll put the fic on a bit of a break as i focus more on kinda wrapping up kickoff, before i start the second part of ihm. i anticipate there will be three total parts! and i'll make a new masterlist for each of the new seasons. idk i just feel like it's kinda better to consolidate the chapters like this, so yea! hope to see you in the next oneee!! tysm to everyone who supports my fics w likes, reblogs, n comments <3 it truly means a lot to me

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[mywritersmind]

BAD FOR BOTH - KA12

summary : Kimi is sweet and considerate and media trained… you however, are on a path to corrupt the boy with yacht trespassing and late night make outs.

listen up : russell!reader. this was SO much fun to write i love it so much. a quick make out scene! mutual pining!! banter!

words : 3273

⋆｡‧˚⋆

I’ve heard it a million times. Seen the headlines, too.

‘LITTLE RUSELL : the rebel opposite of her pretty boy brother’.

To be honest, I'd probably be more angry if it said I was just like him.

George walks back into the garage, his hair pushed back and a defeated look on his face. Everyone says Monaco qualifying is the real race; for Mercedes, theirs just ended.

George getting rescued from the tunnel. Kimi in the wall. P14 and P15. My boys.

“That was shitty.” I say to my brother, pulling my headphones off as he lets out a breath.

He runs his hands through his hair, “Tell me how you really feel.” We have the same last name and eyes. That’s where our similarities end.

George is nine years older and nine inches taller. He’s posh and polite, a glaring difference from my overall attitude which comes off a bit… rougher.

Kimi walks up to us, patting George’s back in an act of understanding. His usual bright eyes are distant, his cheeks still red.

He doesn’t even look at me, not surprising too much because I know how he gets after something like this. Still a bit hurtful though.

“Just stay focused…” I hear George say to Kimi, “Keep your head down. It’s just like any other race- things happen.” Safety cars happen, Is what he wants to say but he’s too media trained to even bring up a crash.

Kimi mumbles a, “Thanks mate.” Before disappearing around the corner and while I watch him go, I get an idea.

“No. No- I see that look.” George snaps his fingers in front of my face, “Don’t do it, Y/n.”

“You don’t even know what I'm thinking.” I roll my eyes at my brother, dramatic as always.

“If it involves Kimi, get it out of your head.” I start walking away before he even finishes. “Y/n!”

I wave my hand in the air without turning around, “I’ll see you tomorrow, Georgie!”

I find Kimi talking to his race engineer, his eyes catching on mine just as their conversation ends and the older man leaves. “Don’t pity me.” He says softly, busying himself with the straw of his water bottle.

“When have I ever pitied you?” I scoff, wondering if he knows me as well as he claims.

“Imola.” His head tilts a bit, my mind rushing back to the night of his home race. The image of me sitting on his bed, his grandmother's cake between us while my fingers drift over his hand.

“Come to the marina tonight.” I say, switching the conversation back to why I came to talk to him, “Clear your mind.”

The way his nose scrunches, how he steps forward, I swear I could prove all the rumors right then and there. “If you’re there, my mind won’t be clear.”

I play into his words, “Then come and think about something except for racing for once.”

“What, like you?” He’s quick. Too quick. I feel the student has become the master, especially with the way his tongue darts over his lips and his eyes stray from mine in a calculated glance to my lips.

I’m bad for him. I know it. He knows it.

Neither of us really care.

I swallow, “When did you become such a big talker, Antonelli?”

“About the time when I realized I need to actually stand up to you.” Someone walks by us, mumbling an apology and making Kimi step back. “I have to focus tonight.”

“You don’t want to hang out with me?” I slip my hands behind my back, pouting a bit and leaning against the wall.

He scrunches up his face again, “I can’t.”

“Didn’t know Merc ran your social life.” He shakes his head and I'm a bit proud of myself that he’s smiling and not frowning anymore. “I’ll be there if you change your mind.”

⋆༺

He does- change his mind, I mean.

I watched the sun dip behind the water a while ago, the pink and blue sky morphing into darkness. I was fully prepared to have a night to myself, no text, no call. But there he is, walking up to me in jeans and a hoodie while looking so effortlessly attractive.

We walk along the harbor, maybe a little bit too close together. He has his hood on, his curls peeking out of the front. “Would you ever move here?” He asks out of the blue.

“If someone else paid for it.” I shrug, making Kimi smile in the heartbreaking way he does, “Would you?”

“Yeah. Ollie and I are planning to get a place.” I can’t help but grin at this, turning towards Kimi while we walk.

“Oh so that’s why you asked. You want me close?”

He bites back a smile and I swear to god- even in the dark, he blushes. He doesn’t answer my question, but the look he gives me tells me all I need to know.

“If I move here, would you buy me a yacht?”

His jaw drops, “Why me!?”

I laugh, “You’re the one who wants me here! Might as well make it as Monaco coded as possible”

He rolls his eyes, “Monaco coded while you’re in Monaco is crazy. Ask your brother for the boat.”

I shake my head, turning to the boats that line the water, “Let’s just steal one of these.” We probably know half the people who own them.

“Just find Max’s…” Kimi grins, eyeing each extravagant boat, “I’m already convinced that I should get one, honestly.”

“Holy fuck.” I mumble, standing in front of the nicest boat I've ever seen. The back is all I can see and even that is beautiful. It’s lit up only by the street lights but something in me needs to see more.

Kimi almost runs into me, clearly not expecting me to be frozen in place because of a boat. “Woah…” He looks up at it with big eyes, making me double take from the yacht for a second.

I drag my eyes back to the boat, “Now this- I could get used to.”

He walks to the side, checking it out more. He's gone full teenage boy, looking like fucking peter parker and nerding out.

“What’s it named?” I ask, walking over towards him with my arms crossed, starting to get cold.

He actually giggles, putting his hand over my eyes quickly, “Guess.”

“Um… Unleash the lion?” I hear him let out a laugh, his hand warm over my eyes, “Twelve? Andrea? Beautiful girl named Y/n?”

He moves his hand and my jaw actually drops at the name, “Silver apex?” I grab Kimi’s arm, “Andrea. This is a sign.”

“For what!?” He laughs.

“We’re going on it.” I grip his arm harder but he doesn’t move.

“No we are not!” I grin, holding onto him with both my hands now, “No fucking way, Russell!”

“Come on! No one’s even out here- Kimi. We’re in Monaco!”

“Yeah, for my job!” He lets me pull him closer, but stops when I step on the back. “I’m not trespassing with you.”

I sigh dramatically, letting go of him and walking father onto the boat, “I’m not gonna go inside or anything- just the front!”

“These things probably have cameras!”

“Live a little, drea!” He groans at the nickname, “It’s too dark to see anything.”

He mumbles, “Night vision.” But I keep walking without looking back.

“Come on, K… I'm doing it with or without you! Maybe I'll do it topless.” I mumble the last part but I'm pretty sure he hears because I hear footsteps behind me.

The smile on my face grows, even when we both know I'm keeping my top on.

The front is even bigger, multiple spaces to sit, a net to lay out on, but I lead him to the very front, sitting with my legs crossed.

He sits next to me with a grumble. “You’re horrible for me.”

I hum, leaning back on my arms, “Yet you keep coming back.” His leg is touching mine and when he turns to smirk at me, I stop breathing for a second.

“If we get arrested, I'm taking off without you.”

I shove his arm with a scoff, “Better bail me out, rich boy.”

“Not if I'm saving for a yacht.” I laugh again, “I think it’d be worth it, maybe in a couple of years.”

“To get me to sneak onto a boat legally?”

He nods, the wind blowing both of our hair, his getting in his eyes a bit. I bring my hands to his face, my fingers running through his hair as he watches me. Whoever said that brown eyes are boring clearly has not met Kimi Antonelli.

I tug a particularly stubborn piece, the curl bouncing back into place as he just lets me. I pull my legs to my chest, dropping my hands away from Kimi to hold myself.

It’s like he can hear my thoughts because without me saying or honestly doing anything, he tugs his hoodie off and pulls it over my head. “Kimi!” I laugh as the neck gets stuck on my hair. “You’re going to get cold.” I say after I happily put my arms through and the warmth from the fabric and his body heat make me smile.

“Don’t act like you don’t want it.” He shakes his head, “I’ll be fine.”

“You’re way too nice to me.” I tug at his hair again, his eyes soft as I play with his curls.

“For all the shit you give me, definitely.” He jokes, his head leaning towards me in the teasing way it often does. Sitting closer, His hand going to the broken hem of my jean shorts, his fingers absently tugging at the frayed edges. “You know… your brother talked to me about you.”

I’m immediately scared, “What did he say?”

“Just that I should stay away.” He shrugs like it’s nothing, “Said that my rookie year should be spent… single.”

I am going to kill George Russell. “Why would he even-”

“I told him we’re just friends!” He hurries to explain while I have to physically fight a frown, “But I get what he meant.”

“You think I'm a distraction?”

“I think we’re on someone else’s boat right now and I don’t give a shit because you’re fucking beautiful.” His words cut into me like a knife.

I know a lot of things about Kimi Antonelli. Him thinking I'm beautiful was not one I was aware of.

“You’re a good distraction…” He reasons, “A dangerous one, sure, but oddly enough… I think you help me.”

“George said the same thing to me- except it was more about getting in trouble in general.”

“Why do you?” He asks.

I shrug, “It’s not always on purpose! Honestly, shit just happens to me.”

His hand stops on my thigh, eyeing me with a smirk, “Because of your own actions.”

I bite my lip, nodding. He knows me too well. “Consequences suck.”

“What about right now? You think we’ll have consequences?”

“For the boat? No. Me taking you on the boat… yes. I swear Toto has eyes everywhere.”

“He won’t find out about this.” I can’t tell if he’s trying to convince me or himself, “People always know when I've been with you, though. It’s like when you just know someone had sex.”

I laugh out loud, “We’re not having sex.”

I make him blush. “I didn’t say that! I’m just saying- everyone at Merc always pulls the ‘hang out with Y/n yesterday?’ or ‘Y/n is over there if you’re looking for her’.” He rolls his eyes as I laugh.

“And they’re wrong to think that?”

He shakes his head, his laugh fading and his eyes back on mine, “I’m always looking for you.”

“I look for you too.” I say quietly, shifting the mood as if it’s my job, “When you’re in the garage, or in the wall…”

He groans, dropping his forehead to my shoulder for a second, “Don’t remind me!”

“You couldn’t even look at me when you came in.” I have to mention.

He sighs like it actually pains him, “It’s embarrassing. It was my fault.”

“Why would I ever care about that?” I ask.

“It’s Monaco.” Kimi reminds me as if I don’t know where we currently are.

“Yeah and every other driver is probably up right now, thinking about that.” I nudge his arm, “To beat them, you have to be different from them.”

He narrows his eyes, “Very professional of you.”

It’s too perfect of an opportunity to not flirt with him, “Be different and think about me instead.”

“There she is.” The way he says it makes my stomach flip, “Not really hard to convince me otherwise- even with the race tomorrow, you’re all I can think about.”

“Is that why you came out here tonight?”

He shrugs, quiet for a minute, like he can’t find the words. “Everytime im stressed, I just want to be with you. You’re so effortless, in everything you do.”

“I’m really not.”

His brow quirks, “How?”

“I’m putting a lot of effort into flirting with you.” I say, “Although, you do kind of make it easy.”

His head falls to his hand, a slight groan escaping from his lips as his curls move side to side, “Christ…”

“What!?” I laugh.

“I’m really trying to respect George’s wishes right now.” He looks back up at me, his hand dropping back to my leg as his heated gaze bores into me.

“You’ve already got the trespassing thing down… maybe it’s time you adopt my lifestyle in other ways.” He’s leaning in.

“Like?” His eyes flick to my lips just as the air is stolen from me.

“Like I never listen to George. Especially when it comes to something I really want.”

“Smart… cause I really want you.”

I can’t breathe. Can’t move. I can only stare at him and watch the space between us shrink. I can feel his breath against mine, his hand hot against my skin.

His lips are hovering over mine, teasing me… controlling me. “I really want you too.” I say it just before his lips crash into mine.

It feels like every moment, every lingering touch or whispered promise, has led to this moment. He’s quick at first, like he can’t wait to feel me against him… but it turns slow the second his hand drags up my side and holds my waist, like he’s savoring me.

I lean back on the boat, taking Kimi with me. I slide my hand into his hair, pulling him closer as he leans over me, his tongue slipping into my mouth.

His hand grips my waist tighter, the reminder of his hoodie on me making me kiss him harder. His lips are soft, my lipgloss transferring onto him between breathless kisses and airy smiles.

He's perfect, I think. At least, he’s perfect for me.

“Hey!” A voice makes us both jump, a bright red light flashing down onto us as a man walks closer to us, remarkably fast for how unstable he looks.

As Kimi and I hurry to our feet, the light washes over us before shutting off with a click. When the light goes out, the man’s face comes into view.

We are so utterly fucked.

⋆༺

I’ve been lectured plenty of times. Never in my life did I expect to be yelled at by my big brother and his fucking team manager, with his teammate by my side.

“You got caught having sex on Sir Jackie Stewart’s yacht!” George yells, apparently confident no one is around Toto’s office.

“We were not having sex! It was a kiss!” I’m not afraid to fight back but Kimi, poor Kimi… looks like he’s about to pass out.

George groans, waving his hands around like a maniac while Toto pinches the bridge of his nose, “Jackie said he was on top of you-”

Kimi shakes his head, “Yeah, I'm out.” but when he starts to stand, his chair scraping the floor in an uncomfortable screech, Toto points at him.

“Sit down.” The man, awfully quiet for being the one who called us all in here, finally speaks, “Listen- I don’t want to hear the details. What I care about is the fact that you both could have gotten arrested!”

Kimi leans into his hand, eyeing me as a rush of remorse washes over me. I feel horrible because, as much as I hate to admit it…

“You’re right.” Toto looks surprised when I speak up, “It was reckless and stupid and not worth it.” I look at Kimi when I say the last part, hoping he knows I’m lying. “And it was my fault- Kimi didn’t want to go.”

“I have free will, you know.” Kimi mumbles as I scoff.

“I’m trying to help you here-”

He doesn’t look at me, staring at Toto with his hands gripping the arms of his chair, “I knew what could happen and didn’t care.”

“I don’t really give a shit about what you think you knew.” Toto looks between both of us, George pacing behind him. “You’re lucky. Both of you- that Sir Jackie let you off without anything but a warning.”

We leave his office with George’s hand clamping down on both of our shoulders. “George!” Toto yells from his chair, “Stay back for a second.”

My brother freezes and I wonder how he likes it, being the one who will sit across Toto and likely get yelled at.

When the door shuts, Kimi doesn’t stop walking. It’s horrible, agonizing silence, that leads us to a dead end in the maze that is the Mercedes hospitality.

“I’m so fucking sorry, Kimi.” I’m quick to say, “I knew it was a bad idea and you didn’t want to go but- shit. I don’t know when to stop sometimes.”

“Y/n, it’s fine.” His words make my eyes dart to his. He’s… smiling? “Free will, remember?”

“We could have been arrested.”

Kimi rolls his eyes playfully, “Sir Jackie laughed when he realized it was me, then even harder when you said your last name, I wasn’t that worried.” His hand goes to mine, his thumb smoothing over my skin.

“We got yelled at.”

“And I'm sure it won’t be the last time we do.” He shrugs, “I think it was worth it.”

My eyes widen, “I do too! Fuck, of course I do- you’re a great kisser.” I blush the longer I talk, only inflating Kimi’s ego and making him laugh.

“The only thing is… George has a big mouth.” I groan, knowing what he’s going to say, “So don’t be surprised if the guys say anything.”

“Me!?” I let out a laugh, “They’re gonna roast you alive.” His nose scrunches, like he’s already anticipating the jokes.

Kimi squeezes my hand, pulling me into a hug. I’m still in the hoodie that smells like salt air and his cologne, his arms around me so tight that I hope he never lets go.

He does, unfortunately, about the same time that footsteps come pounding down the hallway.

It’s Ollie and Lando, they’re both out of breath and grinning like maniacs. “You two-” Ollie gasps, his hands on his knees, “Almost got arrested while making out!?”

Lando laughs harder now, not making it any easier for him to breathe, “This is the best news… I've ever heard!”

I groan, looking at the boys, “Fucking George! How did he get out of Toto’s office so fast?”

Lando laughs in our faces, “George? Sir Jackie Stewart told us!”

[purplecoffee13]

Miss Possessive*

Summary: “You’ve been dating the ice hockey team captain for a while now, and while you’ve gotten used to his popularity, you can’t keep yourself from getting jealous at all the attention he’s getting at his house party…”

Tropes: ice hockey player!harry x medical student!y/n

Wc: 5k

Warnings: SMUT, possessiveness (surprise surprise), chok!ng, dirty talk, exh!bitionism (if you squint), overst!mulation and some angst and then some fluff at the end😊

A/N: hi y’all! I got two things to say!

1. I wrote this one-shot based off the song miss possessive by Tate McRae and this tiktok I saw of the hottest things guys can say in bed, and I incorporated all of them😈. Screenshot of the tiktok below:

LMAO, anyways…

2. I’m thinking of making more parts to this, like how they met and stuff, so let me know if that’s something you’d like!

Okay happy reading!!!

Oh here’s my general masterlist

Harry has been your boyfriend for almost two months now. It's so nerve wracking, but also the most fun you think you've ever had.

God... to think you found him such a pain in the ads when you first met him. The version of yourself that you were five months ago would be straight up laughing at you if she'd see you now. But then again, that version doesn't know what you know now.

Life works in miraculous ways. If Harry hadn't been one of the athletes you'd been paired up with for your assignment, you probably would've never talked to him. And if his physical exam results hadn't forced you to check up on him afterwards, you probably would've never ended up dating him.

So, despite the result being a bit negative, the positive thing is that you had to talk to him one more time, otherwise you would've never fallen in love the way you have now.

You also never would've been at a house party off campus organized by the ice hockey team.

You'd never been before, but Harry really wanted you to experience it at least once. Besides, it was his last year playing for this team, and as captain he had to be present for team bonding activities.

It wasn't like you didn't like to party, you just ran in different crowds before. It just so happened to be that you didn't attend the same parties as the student athletes. You usually found yourself more with the IT and Engineering people, who seemed to have a very strong opinion on the people who were more athletically inclined. You never shared that same opinion, not liking judgment all too much. Besides, any analyzing of athletes on your part usually involved a lot of gawking and not a lot of talking. You couldn't help it, you've always liked muscles.

Lucky for you, Harry is not short of them. Something you have found other people also tend to notice.

You're not entirely sure if it's your insecurities or the result of being an only child, but you've never particularly liked sharing what's yours. Harry had a blast with that fact when he found out, stating it was 'hot as fuck' that you were so possessive of him. While that's all fun and games, it's a little less nice when your boyfriend happens to look like he was shaped by a skilled group of greek gods.

It's why you were hesitant about this party tonight. Harry warned you that there's always puck bunnies at their parties, mostly because the single guys like to invite them.

The other day, you kind of had an argument about your possessiveness when you glared down a girl from his class that he had to do an assignment with. He ended up having to switch partners because the girl suddenly didn't want to work with him anymore. He got mad at you, telling you that you needed to get it in your head that he was yours, and that he didn't want anyone else.

You felt incredibly guilty, more towards him than to towards the girl, which was something you would unpack in therapy a week from now. You apologized and he forgave you immediately, because Harry hates to fight. But it does make you feel a bit queasy about tonight, because if there's going to be girls staring at him all night, you'll have to put a damper on your temper, which might be impossible if you've consumed alcohol. It always gets worse after a few drinks.

Doing some final touch ups in front of Harry's bathroom mirror, you give yourself a silent pep-talk. You won't do anything, unless they actively flirt with him. That'll give you enough grounds to play the jealous girlfriend card without it resulting in a huge fight.

The first hour of the party goes by pretty fast, and you've done surprisingly well so far. About five girls have walked up to Harry and struck up a conversation with him—not acting doesn't mean not observing—but he's handled it perfectly so far. You've talked about boundaries in the months that you've been dating, and he respects every single one of them.

You have to admit that you're a bit bummed out that you don't know many people here. Sure, you know Harry's teammates, but they're busy with other friends or people they're trying to hook up with. You're not going to be the annoying girlfriend and bother them while they're trying to get laid.

To be honest, you kind of miss Harry, despite the fact that he's in the same house. Then again, you knew he was going to know a lot of people here. You decide you'll find him and stick by his side as soon as you finish your drink.

You're still assuring yourself you're going to be fine tonight when a blonde girl with bright blue eyes appears from behind Harry and grabs onto his arm. You lean towards Connor, Harry's teammate, who's sitting next to you on the couch.

"Who's that?" You ask. Connor looks over at the pair and lets out an exasperated sigh.

"Sydney." He answers. "Why doesn't she ever talk to me..."

You look at the boy next to you who is now slumped in his seat and staring over at the blonde girl with the tiny figure with wide eyes, and suddenly your stomach turns.

"Hey." Dan, Harry's other teammate suddenly appears in front of you. "You okay?"

You don't answer, your eyes traveling to Harry who— isn't there anymore. Seeing red, you down your drink in one go. Dan is about to say something, but you push him to the side and walk towards the spot where your boyfriend was five seconds ago. Frantically looking around, you feel some sort of relief when you spot your boyfriend, but it quickly burns to rage when you see he's still talking to that girl.

Your blood is close to boiling as you march over to where Harry and that girl are talking. He doesn't seem to notice you nearing, and your organs twist when you see him chuckle at whatever the girl in front of him said. You can see she's reaching for his arm, stepping closer to him. You're next to him in a millisecond.

"Hi." You say, announcing your presence to your boyfriend as if he didn't already feel it two seconds before. The girl has retracted her arm by now, which is good because if she didn't you would've cut it off with the nearest kitchen knife.

Harry senses your mood, because he immediately wraps his arm around your waist to calm you down.

"Hey babe."

"You two having fun?" You quirk up an eyebrow, crossing your arms, not even glancing at the girl once. You swear you see a hint of a smirk on Harry's face before it fades away.

"I'm gonna go to the bathroom." The girl announces, clearly sensing an awkward situation on the horizon.

"Bye!" You chirp, still not taking your eyes off your boyfriend. He doesn't seem all too pleased with you, but you don't care because it's not like you can't say the same thing for him.

"What are you doing?" Harry asks once the girl has left the kitchen. He looks genuinely confused and somehow it pisses you off even more.

"I don't know, what are you doing?"

"Are you jealous or something?" He asks, taking a sip of his coke and bacardi. You let your eyes wander down his body, his gaze suddenly feeling quite heavy.

"She was hitting on you."

"We hadn't even started a conversation!" He responds.

"Well— she was trying to hit on you." You huff, because it's true. You know body language and you know girls, and you guess it's fine she couldn't have known that Harry isn't single, but that didn't mean you wouldn't just let her find that out herself.

Harry scoffs, and you're quick to look up at him. Your brow creases as you watch him shake his head in what appears to be disbelief.

"You know you don't have to do all of that." He says, and you can tell he's irritated. You try to control your breathing, trying not to let it waver from the turbulence you're feeling in your body. "Thought we agreed to talk about it."

That sends you over the edge for some reason. Partly, you know he's right. There is nothing for you to worry about. But for him to say it in this way, at this moment? It's so hypocritical.

"Talk? How? I thought I was going to have fun at a party with my boyfriend, but you've ditched me from the moment we stepped into this party." You bite back, and you can tell he didn't expect it, nor does he agree with what you're saying.

"What are you talking about? I told you I would probably run into a lot of people tonight."

"Yeah but you could've at least taken me along with you, couldn't you?" You frown at him. Harry stays silent, but when you try to slide past him to walk away, he grips your arm and stops you in your tracks.

"So, this is about you not getting enough attention?" He growls so lowly that it's almost a whisper, his eyes checking his surroundings to see if no one can tell that you're fighting. It rubs you the wrong way that he's annoyed with you right now, so you decide to get your claws out.

"Oh don't worry about me getting attention." You say slowly before shaking loose of his arm and walking back to the couch.

"Hey." Dan greets you when you appear again, standing up and gesturing for you to sit on the couch again. You thank him and sit down, letting out a sigh.

"What happened? Are you okay?" He asks again, and this time you answer.

"I'm fine." You brush it off because you don't want him to know the content of you and Harry's disagreements. You're a private person, and it's none of his business anyway.

"Is it because of Sydney?" Dan questions anyway. You look up at the guy next to you, a frown on your face. He shakes his head, throwing his hands up. "No, I'm just saying— if it is about her, I get it. Not the first relationship she's tried to fuck up."

Your eyes go wide, and your throat clamps up. Was your gut feeling right?

No.

You slowly shake your head, ridding yourself of that intrusive thought because just thinking it felt unfair and wrong. Harry would never do that to you, nor did he ever give you a reason to.

"That's a shitty thing of you to say." You say, getting up from your seat and heading for the stairs. This party suddenly has a bitter taste to it, and it's frustrating that you have yourself to blame for that.

You quickly do your business, but you stay in the bathroom unnecessarily long, fixing some of your make-up and your hair as a way to stall going back downstairs. After ten minutes of procrastinating you figure you've officially been here too long and it's time to get back to the party. You swing the door open and enter Harry's room.

You shriek when you see your boyfriend sitting on his bed. With your hand clutched to your chest, you let out a deep breath.

"Jesus fuck! You scared me. I didn't see—"

But Harry's already charging towards you, and before you can finish your sentence he's got you with your back against the bathroom door and his hand wrapped around your neck. You're stunned to silence.

"Is this what you wanted?" Harry asks, tightening his grip. Your mouth is going dry, and your heart rate picks up even more when you see his dark, lust-filled eyes. To the untrained eye you would think he was possessed by some feral animal, but you knew this is how Harry gets, and it's especially how you like him to get; unapologetically rough.

A slight smirk grows on Harry's face when you don't answer his question, just bucking your hips forward instead.

"What happened to all that attitude, sweet girl?" He asks as he strokes your neck with his thumb. Your eyes flutter shut as you feel his free hand roaming down your stomach and towards your inner thighs. When his fingers suddenly stop tracing, your eyes shoot back open again. He acts surprised, his brows a bit raised and his eyes slightly widened, but you know he's enjoying the hell out of this.

You whine incoherently, easily giving into to the role he wants you to play. You have no problem doing it, especially knowing what's going to follow when he gets like this.

"Hm?" He hums innocently, his hand traveling to your ass and squeezing it before he pushes your heat against his crotch. "Use your words."

You gasp at the contact with his body. Even after being together for a year, you're still so hungry for his touch every time. In fact, it feels like it's only magnified since you've been in a relationship. "Please..."

"Please what? Tell me what you want." He tuts you, his hand loosening on your neck and sliding over your chest a bit.

"Please touch me." You say in hushed tone, pushing yourself against him again. You can feel he's hard as well, but he's actually composed. You never understand how he doesn't fall apart in these kinds of situations, his self control is astonishing.

"Where?"

"W— what?" You breathe out. Why is he making this so unnecessarily hard?

"Take my hand where you want it." He demands, although the way he brings it might lead one to think it's a suggestion. Then again, you know your boyfriend; it's an order.

So, you do as he says and lead his hand from your ass to your pussy, pressing his finger against your clit. It's all Harry needs, the gentle direction, before he goes to work with his fingers. He rubs them over your panties, soaking them with each movement. You let out an impatient whine, the friction bringing so much stimulation and still it’s not enough. Harry laughs.

"So wet for me baby. Is this what I've been neglecting all night?" He asks sweetly, pulling down your panties until they fall to your ankles. The sounds of your drenched pussy filling the room is almost embarrassing, would it not be so fucking hot.

"Yes..." you say stubbornly, biting your lip to prevent yourself from moaning too loudly, which miserably fails when he slides one of his long fingers into you. "Oh..!"

"Could've just said you wanted me to take care of this." He goes on, a certain nonchalance to his tone that makes you go weak in the knees. His tone makes it seem like he isn't currently bringing his girlfriend dangerously close to an orgasm in a minimum amount of time. "Didn't have to run t'my teammates, now did you?"

You shake your head at his question when he slips in another finger. You've gotten used to the size of his fingers, but the harsh way he's thrusting them into you right now does somewhat hurt. He is punishing you by going rougher than usual, and the sole thought of that makes the pain melt away.

"Think I deserve an apology for that, don't you?" He says, slowing down his movements on purpose to get you riled up. He knows you want to come.

"I deserve an apology too." You say breathlessly, standing your ground despite the weak position he has you in. Harry raises a brow.

"Well I'm making it up to you now, aren't I?"

You're about to respond to that when Harry silences you by increasing the speed with which his fingers drive into you. Your jaw is slack as you feel the bubble in your lower stomach growing, especially as the heel of his palm continuously slaps against your clit. Your eyes are closed, so you don't notice Harry leaning in until you feel his hot breath fan against your ear.

"Apologize, and I'll let you come." He says, not slowing himself down in any way whatsoever. But you know your traitorous body by now, and you know how it always waits for Harry's permission to explode. It's as if he's in possession of a red button, and only when he presses it, it goes off.

"S—sorry..." you say, but it's barely comprehensible. You're beginning to fall apart.

"What was that, baby?" Harry's condescending tone matches his wicked grin as he waits for you to articulate yourself better.

"I'm sorry!" You sputter out, that explosion feeling awfully close by now. You throw your head back, holding onto the door knob for a bit of support.

"For?" He goes the extra mile, and you could kill him would you not be on the brink of death right now yourself.

"F—for being jealous." You cry out, your other hand quickly grabbing onto Harry's arm before your knees can buckle. He is quick to wrap his free arm around your waist to keep you upright.

"Good girl." He breathes out, his fingers soaked as they pound into you. You finally begin to explode. "You can come now. There you go, nothing to be jealous of. I'll always make you come baby... no one else."

Your cries are downright pathetic as you come around Harry's fingers, and as you ride out your release, you realize your mind is all foggy. You can't really comprehend Harry leading you to his bed and laying you down on it. The only thing you know is that he hasn't stopped moving his fingers.

"Harry..!" You croak out before you cut yourself off with a loud moan the moment that his tongue starts to suck at your clit. You begin to squirm, trying to get away from the sensitivity, but your boyfriend won't let you.

"N—no...oh!" It's hard to get a word out with him working on you so roughly. The sounds of his mouth and his fingers are extremely vulgar and equally the most arousing thing you've ever heard. "Harry I'm too— no!"

Your boyfriend keeps his pace despite your attempts to make him stop. You gasp when he takes his tongue off your clit for a split second. You look down at him, his chin glistening in your arousal.

"Beg for it." He commands, and attaches his tongue to your clit again.

Like a mindless fool, something switches inside you, and despite the uncomfortable sensitivity of your pussy, you find yourself begging for it, for him.

"Please, please, make me come!" You shout, and Harry really takes your begging to heart, because he adds even more pressure to your clit. And just like that, you explode again.

Despite having your eyes shut, you swear you're seeing the light as you convulse around your boyfriend's fingers. You can't control anything. The volume of your moans, the way your body spasms, or the amount of liquid that releases from your pussy.

Your cheeks are flushed and your ears are ringing by the time you open your eyes again. You look at Harry with tired shock in your eyes, but he just looks amazed.

"Fuck, I've never made you squirt before." He says, eyes flicking from you to the mess you made under him. He looks incredibly proud, which nicely compensates for the sheer embarrassment that has washed over your body.

He leans over you, whispering for you to look at him. You obey him sheepishly. The hint of a smile on his face is gentle now, and as soft as the thumb that sweep the lingering tear from your cheeks. He places a kiss on your nose, telling you you did good without saying anything at all.

"D'you need a minute baby?" He asks sweetly, but you're sure he must know you well enough by now to know what your answer is to that. You immediately shake your head. He smiles, fully this time. "No? You're ready to take me already?"

You nod frantically, and Harry chuckles as he unbuckles his pants and pulls out his cock. The sole sight of him makes your cunt ache to be filled up, and you find yourself moving towards him to hurry up the process.

"Aw, look how needy you are... already squirming and I haven't even been inside you yet." He tilts his head like the mean guy he is. You frown at your sadistic boyfriend, not saying anything. Instead, you buck your hips and hope your glistening pussy will speak for you.

It does, because Harry is quick to line up his cock with your entrance. However, instead of just entering you, he drags his tip over your slick folds, wetting his tip even more. You move your hips a couple of times, hoping it'll make his cock slide in by accident or something, but you have no luck.

"Harry!" You whine. "Please..."

The smirk on his face has turned evil once again as he drags his tip from your clit to your entrance.

"Poor baby..." He says in the most condescending tone that you clench around nothing. You swear you could come solely from that specific tone of his voice. "You getting frustrated?"

"Yes." You're swift to answer. "Please, I need it so bad..."

"Oh yeah?" He teases, pushing into you, but just the tip. You gasp at the crumbs you're getting, moaning in agreement.

"Yes! Please, more Harry, give me more." You try to convince him. He is painfully hard right now, so you know he's bound to give in sooner or later. It appears to be sooner, because with a moan, he pushes himself entirely into you.

You lose your breath as he fills you up all the way, getting more and more knocked out of you as he starts to set a pace. You can do nothing but cry out as he drives himself into your tight cunt, the sound of his groans making you even wetter.

He leans back a bit, observing you from above as he fucks you. Your tits are nearly bouncing out of your bra from all the movement, and your mouth doesn't do anything other than let out desperate moans as you let your boyfriend wreck your pussy. He relishes the sight.

"Taking it so well, baby." He breathes, pressing down on your lower stomach. "Can you feel that? Can you feel me?"

"Y—yeah! Oh my god..." Your eyes roll into the back of your head at the added pressure. Harry curses under his breath.

"God, if you could see yourself... You look so pretty for me right now." He mutters, his thrusts slowing slightly. You're lost in your pleasure, but you immediately notice when Harry's pulled out. Your head snaps towards him, confused as he pulls at your arm.

He doesn't say anything, just leads you to the bathroom. You're still a bit lost as to what is happening when he places your hands on the counter and forces you to bend over. You know what you're in for by the time he stands behind you.

"Watch yourself." He demands before pushing right back into and continuing the speedy pace he had before. Your strangled moans are hardly louder than the sound of skin slapping that echoes the bathroom. You do as he says, observing how your body moves in reaction to his actions.

A quiet gasp escapes your throat when Harry leans forward and tugs down the top of your bandeau dress, along with your strapless bra, causing your tits to recoil more heavily while he slams into you. Your knuckles go white from how hard you're holding onto the sink.

"F—fuck! I'm close!" You tell him, like he couldn't tell already by the way you're pathetically clenching around his cock.

"I know baby." He shushes your cries, but not slowing down in the slightest. In fact, his finger finds your clit, and when he starts to rub it, you realize just how sensitive you are.

"O—oh..! Wait, I don't know if I can—" You sob out, your head falling forward. You shut your eyes tightly, your orgasm starting to feel so incredibly big that you don't know if you can handle it.

"You can take it baby, c'mon..." He encourages you, and it takes everything in you to lift your head to look at him through the mirror. You don't want to miss his face when you come.

It's then that there's a knock on Harry's bedroom door.

"Fuck off!" Harry shouts, vigorously ramming into you like the interruption fueled him to stay focused.

You would've been thrown off by the door opening if you hadn't been so close to coming. That doesn't mean you're not slightly thrown off by the girl from earlier locking eyes with you through the mirror. You look back at Harry, who frowns and slams the bathroom door shut.

"I said fuck off!" He shouts angrily before his voice goes softer. "Come for me, baby."

That's all you need to climax around him for the third time tonight. The whole ordeal is too hot not to come like crazy around him, and your orgasm fuels his as he stills inside you with a loud groan.

"Fuck... So. Fucking. Good." He says, each word accompanied with a thrust as he spills his cum inside you.

Both of your breathing is still heavy as Harry collapses next to you. You lay there in silence for a couple of seconds, staring at the ceiling.

You slowly get up and enter the bathroom to pee and just clean yourself off a bit in general. Harry doesn’t come in, you think he doesn’t know if you would like that. You did just have a fight, and that girl barging into Harry’s room unprompted did kind of prove your point that she was trying to flirt with him.

When you walk back into the room, Harry is fully dressed again, sitting on the edge of the bed like he was when you came out of the bathroom the first time. The air is thick with unresolved tension. You take a deep breath.

“I’m sorry.”

“I’m sorry.”

Your eyes widen at the identical words that are coming out of Harry’s mouth. You didn’t expect him to say that at all.

“I shouldn’t have left you alone so much.” Harry says, standing up and walking over to you. “I got caught up in talking to everyone and I saw you sitting with the guys so I foolishly figured you were having a good time.”

“Harry—”

“No, wait. I swear, at every person I talked to I thought, after this one I’m gonna go to Y/N, and then I kept getting interrupted. But intending to do something and then not doing it is just bullshit. I didn’t mean to be a bullshit boyfriend, I’m sorry.” He adds before you can try to intercept him. You sigh, a weak smile slowly appearing on your face.

“I love you.”

Somehow it’s the only thing your mind manages to come up with. You haven’t told each other that yet, so your ears immediately go red. Harry looks shocked, you can tell, but his eyes are beaming and in a matter of seconds he is smiling from ear to ear.

“And I’m sorry.” You continue. “I trust you, I swear, I do. I just saw the way she was looking at you and I mean— I get it, but it also made me sick because I feel I look at you like that. And if she can look at you that way, then maybe— I don’t know… my point is I’m sorry.”

“Maybe she can what?” Harry asks, suddenly frowning. When you don’t immediately answer, he grabs your face, forcing you to look at him. Your eyes go a little misty.

“Nothing, I’m being overdramatic.” You try to wave it off, but Harry doesn’t let you. His single raised eyebrow tells you to spill it, and so, naturally you do.

You sigh. “If she can look at you like I do, then she might be able to love you like I do, maybe even better.”

“No one can love me like you do.” Harry answers, determined. Your brows crease.

“How do you know that?” Your voice is trembling, and by the way Harry winces, you know you’ve just cracked a piece of his heart.

“You want to know why I’m sure no one can love me like you do?”

You nod, wondering how he can be so certain about this, about you.

“Because I’m letting you love me like no one else can.” He says it like it’s a fact. “I know there’s this narrative that love is this uncontrollable force, but it’s not, not for me. I let you love me, because I wanted you to. You let me in too, didn’t you? Because I love you.”

“Yes.” You croak.

“Right, I need you to understand that I didn’t fall in love with you. I walked into this with my eyes wide open, and I didn’t even fucking blink once. I still haven’t, and I’m pretty sure I never will.” He tells you, and you swallow, your throat burning from his heavy words. “I choose you, this, us, every day, and it’s the easiest and most natural decision I’ve ever made and will ever make.”

You smile at him, a tear rolling down your face.

“And no random girl at a party or whoever the fuck else can come between that, because I don’t want them to.”

You let out a small sob, and even though it’s a happy cry, it still weighs a ton on your chest. Harry pulls you into an embrace.

“Don’t keep those thoughts from me. I understand your anger way better now that I know this.” He tells you, rubbing your back. “I promise I’ll be more considerate of it.”

“I don’t know what I did to deserve such an emotionally mature boyfriend.” You say, your words a bit muffled because your face is buried in his neck. Harry chuckles. You pull out of the hug.

“But I also need to figure out a way to prevent those thoughts from occurring, because I know they’re not true.” You say, sniffing a laugh. “I mean, I knew it when I thought it tonight as well. I was so mad it even popped up, but I guess what Dan said just kind of pushed me over the edge—”

“What Dan said?” Harry interrupts you. “What did he say?”

You bite your lip, afraid you might have said too much. “Just— that I was right to be jealous because it wouldn’t be the first relationship that girl has ‘ruined’.”

Harry’s jaw is clenched, and his eyes travel to the door. “I’m gonna have a word with him.”

You grab Harry’s arm, but he keeps heading for the door.

“Harry— stop!” You push the door shut when he opens it. He turns to you, and when you see the look on his face, you realize what’s happening.

“…Are you jealous?” You question carefully, and when he breathes out through his nose and looks away instead of answering you straight away, it’s only more confirmation that he is. “Oh my god… you’re jealous!”

“He’s been after you since that fucking assignment. I already reminded him you’re mine once, I have no problem reminding him again.”

The corner of your mouth lifts, and you cross your arms. “What happened to choosing to love each other? Don’t you trust that I’m choosing you— wait, what do you mean you already reminded him once?”

Harry rolls his eyes, but he doesn’t respond.

“When?” You urge.

“Couple months ago.”

You think back on a couple months ago, trying to figure out if anything was off, and then, suddenly you remember.

“You gave him that black eye?” You gasp, and he nods in confirmation. “Oh my god, he said it was from a game!”

Harry shrugs. “It was during practice.”

“That’s why you got benched?” You finally put the pieces together. “You little liar!”

There is not one ounce of regret on Harry’s face as he takes your small slaps to his chest. You’re not mad, in fact you’re amused. You’re so getting a free pass from now on.

“So what? You’re gonna beat him up because you want him to know I belong to you?” You tilt your head, and Harry winces, probably realizing how old-dated that sounds. You smirk.

“That’s so fucking hot.” You confess in a whisper. That catches Harry’s attention. You back up towards the bed, and he follows you like a puppy.

“D’you think you could put that on hold, though, and remind me who I belong to first?” You ask, sitting down and leaning back on the bed. The sight of Harry being so primal about you has fired your whole body up again for a round two, despite the three orgasms you’ve had already. Harry grins.

“You know I’ll never say no to you…”

[leriexoxo]

SKZ HEADCANONS

Stray Kids And Their Styles Of Dominance (OT8)

SUBMISSION>>

••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

🔥 Chan – The Overwhelming One

Type: Control freak in the bedroom. He’s the type to whisper “Don’t hold back, baby. Let me hear everything.”

Kinks: Praise, edging, light bondage (especially with your wrists tied above your head), overstimulation, heavy eye contact.

Energy: Sweaty, breathy, emotional sex. Will ruin you gently over hours and then apologize with a kiss and go again.

Power Move: Pulls your legs over his shoulders and says, “You can take one more for me, right?”—even when you’re already shaking.

🔥 Lee Know – The Mean Tease

Type: Sarcastic, controlled, cruel with love. He likes seeing you squirm, blush, beg.

Kinks: Degradation (light to medium), orgasm denial, spanking, mirror sex, pet names used mockingly —“Good girl? You think that was good?”.

Energy: Slow and precise. The kind of man who’ll edge you for an hour and finish in 5 minutes just to make a point.

Power Move: Makes you say exactly what you want, in humiliating detail, before giving it to you—if at all.

🔥 Changbin – The Powerhouse

Type: Cocky and physical. Wants to wreck you but also make you feel worshipped while doing it.

Kinks: Breeding kink, hair pulling, size kink (he knows), possessive dirty talk.

Energy: Grunts in your ear and pins your wrists above your head while whispering, “Who’s making you feel this good, huh?”

Power Move: Picking you up mid-thrust and fucking you against a wall like it’s nothing.

🔥 Hyunjin – The Sensual Sadist

Type: Loves slow, passionate teasing—then suddenly flips the switch. Touch-starved, but dangerous.

Kinks: Sensory play (ice, silk, blindfolds), choking, begging, body worship (both ways).

Energy: Eye contact that makes you melt. He’ll cry during sex and still wreck your soul.

Power Move: Makes you cry from a mix of pleasure and overstimulation, then kisses your tears away while still inside you.

🔥 Han Jisung – The Filthy Flirt

Type: Playful, chaotic, dangerously quick to turn serious. Always ready. Talks dirty like he was born for it.

Kinks: Exhibitionism, roleplay, oral fixation, mutual masturbation, audio/phone sex.

Energy: Gets off on how loud you get, how messy it becomes. Laughs while fucking you like a demon.

Power Move: Makes you come in public—without touching you—by whispering exactly what he’ll do later.

🔥 Felix – The Quiet Menace

Type: Soft voice, not soft in bed. Looks sweet while being filthy. Low-voiced dirty talk will destroy you.

Kinks: Voice kink (his and yours), praise, cockwarming, thigh riding, lowkey dom aftercare.

Energy: Says “You’re doing so well for me, sweetheart” while ruining you from behind, hand in your hair.

Power Move: Makes you ride him while he leans back, hands behind his head, smirking like the devil.

🔥 Seungmin – The Sarcastic Threat

Type: Cold, slow-burning dominance. Mean, dry humor during sex. Gets meaner when he’s horny.

Kinks: Brat taming, overstimulation, verbal degradation, rough missionary, hand over your mouth.

Energy: “Were you this needy earlier when you were pretending not to care?” before fucking the attitude out of you.

Power Move: Laughs at how loud you’re getting, then says “Guess I’ll have to go deeper, huh?”

🔥 Jeongin – The Hidden Weapon

Type: Sweet-smiling menace. Doesn’t seem dangerous—until he’s got you pinned and crying.

Kinks: Power play, teasing dom, face fucking, manhandling, thigh grabbing, jealousy sex.

Energy: The kind of guy who’ll gently push your head down, say “You wanted this, right?” then wreck your throat.

Power Move: Pulls out halfway just to watch you beg for it again—and laughs while doing it.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A/N: Requests for ONLY headcanons are open for now. Please note that I prefer to respond to non anonymous requests, cause I’m pretty serious about minors not interacting with me 🧡

Taglist: @tsunderelino @innieandsungielover @inlovewithstraykids @reignessance @jeonismm @sttnficrecs @herejusttemporary @krssliu @kenia4 @miilquetoast @thackery-blinks @leeminho-hall @suga-is-bae @butterflydemons @inejghafawifesblog @malunar28replies @minchanlimbo @mal-lunar-28 @breakmeofftbr @itvenorica124 @slut4junho @deepblueocean97 @thequibbie @yaorzu-blog @imagine-all-the-imagines @just-bria @mischievousleeknow @ifyxu @melanctton @thelostprincessofasgard @binniebb @sillylittlecat1 @darkwitchoferie @m-325 @headfirstfortoro @imseungminsgf @ihrtlix @vernorica123 @hwangjoanna @swordswallower2000 @niki007 @yxna-bliss @firelordtsuki @justwonder113 @mbioooo0000 @sammhisphere @nebugalaxy @cutecucumberkimberly @chancloud8 @sunflwerstar

[fic-girlie]

Would you write something about Joel and reader (established relationship) having a big fight, like, raising their voice at each other and reader holding back tears and all that. Ellie comes home to it and stops them. Reader leaves and Ellie gives Joel shit for screaming at her. Happy ending please!!

After the storm

Pairing: jackson!Joel Miller x f!reader Summary: A late-night fight leaves you in tears and walking out. Ellie steps in, forcing Joel to face what really matters—and fight to fix it. Warnings: established relationship, argument, shouting, crying, make-up, slight angst

The front door slams harder than it needs to.

It rattles through the quiet house, a sharp clap of wood and metal that startles the dog off the rug and leaves a bitter silence hanging in its wake. You pause halfway through drying the dishes, towel clutched between your damp hands, fingers curling into it like it might anchor you.

You already know it’s him.

Joel.

He’s late. Again.

You count the seconds it takes him to hang up his coat, to toe off his boots, to toss his rifle somewhere you’ll have to remind him to clean later. Each sound from the entryway feeds the weight pressing behind your ribs — not worry anymore, but frustration. Sharp. Heavy. Exhausting.

When he rounds the corner, he doesn’t look at you.

And that’s what does it.

"You're late," you say, trying to keep your voice even. Not accusatory. Just... saying it. But it comes out brittle.

He grunts, shrugging off the last of his flannel. "Ran into Tommy. Needed help movin’ somethin’. Wasn't plannin’ on bein' out that long."

No apology. No explanation beyond that.

You dry your hands on the towel slowly, methodically. “I waited for you. Dinner’s cold.”

Joel runs a hand through his hair, rubbing the back of his neck like he’s already tired of this. “Didn’t ask you to wait.”

And there it is.

That familiar, subtle sting. Like a match struck too close to your skin.

“You never ask me to wait,” you say, quieter now. “I just do. Because I care.”

He doesn’t answer. Just walks over to the plate you left out and starts eating, cold potatoes and overcooked venison, like it’s nothing. Like your disappointment doesn’t even register.

Your throat tightens.

You cross your arms. “This is the third time this week.”

Joel’s jaw ticks as he chews, but he still doesn’t look at you. “Why’re you makin’ this a thing?”

“Because I’m tired of pretending it’s not a thing, Joel,” you snap, voice rising despite yourself. “You disappear for hours, you barely talk when you’re home, and I’m just supposed to smile and say nothing?”

He sets the fork down too hard on the plate. “I told you—I was helpin’ Tommy.”

“Today you were. What about the other days?”

Joel stands slowly, arms folding across his chest as he looks at you, finally. His eyes are dark and stormy and full of something heavy you can’t name.

“What’re you sayin’? That you don’t trust me now?”

You blink. “No—Jesus, Joel, this isn’t about trust—”

“Then what the hell is it?” His voice cuts through the room like a blade. “You mad I’m not sittin’ at your side every minute of the day? You mad I got other responsibilities?”

Your mouth falls open.

“That’s not fair,” you whisper. “I never asked you to stay glued to me. I just—Joel, I want to feel like I matter to you. Like I’m not just some afterthought.”

“You think I treat you like that?” His voice is louder now. “After everythin’? After all we’ve been through?”

“You’re treating me like that right now!”

The silence that follows is razor-sharp.

Your chest is heaving. You didn’t mean to shout. Didn’t mean to let your voice crack like that. But he just stands there, mouth a hard line, like he doesn’t even see you.

You turn away, blinking fast. “I—I’m not doing this with you, Joel. Not like this.”

But he’s already speaking, words hot and bitter. “Maybe you shouldn’t, if this is how it’s gonna be every damn time I come home.”

Your breath catches.

There it is. The thing you didn’t think he’d say.

You don’t even realize you’re crying until the first tear hits your knuckle. You turn your head away, jaw trembling as you force yourself to breathe.

The front door opens again.

“Uh...what the hell is going on?”

Ellie.

You both freeze.

She’s still half-in her coat, backpack slung over one shoulder, brow furrowed as she stares between the two of you. Her voice slices through the tension like a gust of cold wind, and suddenly you feel stupid. Small. Embarrassed to be crying in front of her.

“I was just leaving,” you mumble, grabbing your coat off the hook. Your hands fumble the zipper. “I’ll be back later.”

Joel takes a step toward you. “Wait—”

But Ellie puts a hand on his chest, blocking him.

“No.” Her eyes flash. “You don’t get to yell at her and then stop her.”

“Ellie, this ain’t your—”

“The fuck it isn’t.” Her voice is sharp, furious. “You think I didn’t hear you from halfway down the street? You think she deserves that?”

You’re already halfway out the door.

——

The cold hits your cheeks like punishment.

You walk fast, trying to ignore the burning behind your eyes, the throbbing in your chest. Jackson glows warm behind you, windows full of firelight and laughter and comfort, but you feel like a ghost drifting past it all.

You end up near the stables. Alone.

You sit on a wooden bench, pull your knees up to your chest, and let yourself cry for real.

You’re not mad that he came home late. Not really.

You’re mad because he shut you out. Because you let yourself believe that he had room for you in the fortress of grief and guilt he keeps around his heart. Because he made you feel like you were asking for too much just by wanting him to see you.

You sniff, wiping at your face. The wind bites harder now.

You don’t know how long you sit there before you hear footsteps.

And a soft voice behind you.

“Hey.”

Ellie.

You quickly try to clean your face with your sleeve, but it’s useless. She plops down beside you anyway, setting a thermos between you.

“He’s not good at this shit, you know,” she says after a moment.

You say nothing.

She sighs, resting her elbows on her knees. “He’s got this...broken wiring. Like, when he’s scared or sad or overwhelmed, it comes out as angry. Like it’s the only way he knows how to feel.”

You stare at the dark sky.

“I know,” you whisper. “But it still hurts.”

“I know.”

You glance at her. She looks older tonight. Not just tired, but worn-down in the way only people who’ve been hurt too many times can be.

“I gave him shit,” she adds casually. “In case you were wondering.”

A huff of air escapes you. Almost a laugh. “Thanks.”

Ellie nudges the thermos toward you. “It’s hot cider. Maria’s stash.”

You take it. Warmth seeps into your fingers. Into your throat.

“I care about you too, you know,” she says. “You’re good to him. Good to me. We’d be stupid to lose you.”

You blink hard. “Thanks, Ellie.”

She shrugs, but her face is soft. “You gonna go back?”

You hesitate.

Then nod.

——

When you return, the house is quiet.

No lights except the lamp in the living room, where Joel sits on the couch with his elbows on his knees, hands clasped like he’s been sitting there for hours.

He looks up when you walk in.

You don’t speak.

Just look at him.

And he...looks wrecked.

“Hey,” he says softly. He stands. “You warm enough?”

That’s the first thing he says.

Are you warm enough.

You nod. "Ellie gave me cider."

“She’s got a hell of a glare when she’s pissed,” he murmurs. “Might’ve yelled at me more than you did.”

You manage a small smile. But it fades.

Joel steps closer, his voice tight.

“I’m sorry.”

You look at him.

“I shouldn’t’ve yelled,” he says. “Shouldn’t’ve made you feel like you don’t matter. You do. You do, more than I can ever say. That’s the damn problem. I get so scared of losin’ you that I shut down. Get mean. Push people away before they can leave on their own.”

Your throat tightens.

“I’m not trying to leave you, Joel.”

“I know,” he whispers. “But sometimes my brain...it don’t catch up to what I know. Just what I’m afraid of.”

You step closer.

He reaches for your hands.

“I’m sorry I made you cry.”

Your eyes sting again. You wrap your arms around his middle, press your face to his chest.

Joel exhales shakily and holds you like he means it.

Not like he’s afraid you’ll leave.

But like he wants you to stay.

“I don’t wanna fight like that again,” you whisper.

“Neither do I.”

“I just want to be let in. That’s all.”

He nods against your hair. “I’ll try. I promise.”

You stay there for a long time, wrapped in his arms in the quiet glow of your shared home.

And when you finally pull back to kiss him — slow, tender, trembling with forgiveness — it feels like the start of something stronger.

Not perfect.

But real.

And worth it.

[wingfleur]

# — calling mark grayson "small."

got fried as fuck and this shit came to me like a prophecy. a dream. i know i have my to-do list, but it’s hard for me to write stuff i’m no longer in the exact headspace for. like, i need to wait until i can get into it enough to feel it the way i did when i first thought of it. anyways, this is set in a universe that’s pretty canon-compliant: mark and amber broke up, but he hasn’t dropped out of college (yet) or ended up with eve. you also have no clue he’s invincible, just that he’s had a glow up and your cute, dorky friend from high school is now fine as shit. i also listened to “party favors” by leon thomas and big sean the entire time i worked on this.

lastly, i'd like to give a humongous shoutout to @omniphilic for beta-reading this monster for me! much love, sunshine, and godspeed, my children. enjoy! | wc: 7.9k words.

cw: nsfw mdni (18+), afab!reader, a lot of porn with a lot of plot, light angst, confessions, banter, friends-to-lovers, mentions of amber (i love you girl but it’s so easy to use you as a plot device </3), oral sex (f!recieving), explicit sex (p in v), missionary, squirting, dirty talk, praise, soft!dom mark, consider this my apology for the hurt/very little comfort v!card mark x reader fic <3

thinking about you joking around with mark grayson and calling him… small. you know where.

it sounds like such a silly scenario, but walk w/ me: you and mark have an… odd friendship. looking back on it, you two were an unlikelier pair than winning the lottery. you’re from completely different worlds– you were more on the straight and narrow: the academic side of things. all you did was bust your ass, and you had plenty to show for it– friends, awards, this air of recognition that followed you from classroom to classroom.

and mark? well, he fell more into the category of incredibly average. average grades, average social life, even an average reputation amongst the student body– the kind that makes you easy to remember and always gets you labeled as a “pretty cool guy,” but keeps you out of any real trouble. maybe that’s part of his charm– the fact that everything about him is initially so unassuming, so run of the mill that you don’t even think twice. not until you start to get to know him.

there’s plenty that sticks out once you get to know him.

then, somehow, at the start of your senior year, you two ended up partnered together for a project in the same upper-level english class. y’know, the college freshman one everyone takes because it’s a cheap credit, regardless of if they’re going to harvard to study law, or to the local community college to save a bit of money. neither of you had many expectations, but you and mark became fast friends. mark’s awkward charm grew on you, and he already had a decent opinion of you from seeing you around, but finally being in a situation where he could talk to you and not feel like a nuisance only made him think of you more highly than before. you were cool as shit; he has no idea how you two hadn’t spoken sooner.

but it’s no surprise that you two absolutely nailed the project. with your smarts and mark’s willingness to learn, the grade on it ended up being so good that it made you jump into mark’s arms out of pure excitement. mark caught you effortlessly, spinning you around and giggling alongside you without a second thought. the intimacy of such a reaction didn’t dawn on you two until long after he set you down, you grinning giddily in his face, while he could do nothing but grin back.

that’s how you ended up here– lying in mark’s bed, long after graduation, and visiting home from campus on a long weekend. you’re wearing one of his t-shirts and reading one of his copies of seance dog as he works on a paper. when you found out you two would be attending the same university, you were more than stoked. mark was stoked too, but he was so sure you could’ve gotten into one of chicago’s finest, or, better yet, move away from illinois entirely, rather than attend upstate university. he gave you a hesitant look when you said you were more than content with your choice, saying that a degree is a degree no matter where you went and that as long as you could be with mark, it would be worth it. deep down, though, mark swore something bloomed in his chest that day. he doesn’t really know what that feeling was– is, to be more accurate, because he still feels it sometimes– but that’s the least of his worries. 

his main worry is getting this paper in by 11:59 pm tonight. 

and just like that, the rhythmic clacking of mark’s fingers against the keyboard fills the silence and leaves you to bask in this comforting sensation of warmth. you’re so relaxed that you can’t bring yourself to move. not that you would have wanted to, anyway.

it’s peaceful. so, of course, you have to ruin it. 

“you ever want to fuck a cartoon character?” you suddenly say, the copy of seance dog in your hand and your foot crossed over your knee. you hear the way mark’s typing pauses for a moment, and imagining his reaction forces you to bite back a snicker. a pregnant silence fills the room before the typing begins again, just as rhythmic and hypnotic as before.

“i know you’re not saying that about seance dog,” mark finally quips back, his voice dripping with an absurd amount of mirth. you can hear his smile in his voice– you always can, because mark rarely doesn’t smile. it’s one of your favorite things about him.

you can’t help but take the bait.

“you think i could be?” you ask, tone scandalized and brows raised. neither of you move to face each other just yet– you don’t need to. you can tell exactly what face mark’s making from the sound of his voice, and mark can do the same for you. it’s how he knows that you’ve stopped biting back that smug smile of yours– the one that creeps across your face when you’re clearly up to something, but he doesn’t know what. you’re a troublemaker; it’s one of his favorite things about you.

“yeah,” he replies without missing a beat, “i clearly know nothing about you. i was once dumb enough to think you were intimidating.”

“i’m still intimidating!”

“yeah, maybe on occasion,” mark teases, his typing ceasing completely so that he can spin around in his chair. he leans against it with his head tossed back and his arms on the armrests, eying you gleefully as you put the comic face down on the bed. “most of the time i forget because you’re too busy saying shit that’s uncomfortably close to ‘i wanna fuck seance dog.’”

“eat shit and die, mark.”

“i don’t wanna.”

“then shut the fuck up and answer the question!”

“fine, fine!” mark laughs and lifts his hands up lazily off the chair in mock-surrender. “‘course i’ve wanted to fuck a cartoon character. who hasn’t? i’m not a nun.”

something flashes in your eyes, and you shift to lean forward towards where mark’s sitting, propping up on your elbows on the bed. you grin mischievously; it’s clear you’re up to nothing remotely good. 

“who?” you ask.

mark replies immediately. “koriand’r.”

“wha– from the titans?”

“no, from the avengers. yes, from the titans. who else would i be talking about?”

“alright, down, boy,” you say amusedly, making mark roll his eyes. “i was just checking. but you obviously can’t handle that.”

mark raises an eyebrow. “says who?”

“uhh, says me?"

the two of you are still for a moment, and you start to fear you said something wrong until you see mark’s eyes darken in that telltale way they do when he starts to feel challenged. then, as if that wasn’t enough to give you goosebumps, he does that stupid, mindless thing he does with his tongue, where he runs it along the inside of his cheek. your breath stills in your chest when mark pushes up off the back of his chair and leans forward towards where you lie on the bed, elbows resting on his knees and hands clasped between his thighs. 

it’s hard to keep your gaze from dropping to the veins in his hands.

“oh yeah?” mark asks incredulously, tilting his head. you were joking about being the intimidating one earlier, but the real intimidator is mark. when he gets serious, you swear you can feel something in the air shift. maybe that’s why it feels like the hairs on the back of your neck are standing up right now.

“why not?”

the question, in its simple nature, catches you off guard, and in a brief moment of confusion, you tilt your head. “why not what?” “why couldn’t i handle her?”

you stare at mark as if he��s joking, but instead of him laughing and waving you off, mark stares back at you expectantly, brow arched and lips quirked up at the corners. it’s like he wants to smile, but he can’t. won’t. 

this dickhead must have a death wish.

“what do you mean ‘why couldn’t you handle her?’” you say casually– like what you’re saying is most obvious thing in the world. “it’s koriand’r, mark. she’d chew you up and spit you out before you even had time to undo your belt.”

you swipe up your copy of seance dog and busy yourself with trying to find where on the page you last left off. honestly, it doesn’t matter where you start reading. you’re willing to do anything to help get your mind off the weight of mark’s eyes boring into you.

“besides,” you huff, trying to sound as nonchalant as possible, “koriand’r has standards, and you probably have a small dick, anyway.”

the second those words leave your mouth, the room falls deathly silent, and you swear it’s as if the air has been sucked out of the room. you fall still where you’re at, hoping that somehow, someway, you not moving will make mark want to kill you less. you really don’t know what possessed you to say that– it was a poor attempt at deflection, considering the growing amount of tension you began feeling in that room– but you don’t mean it. didn’t mean it. not one bit. 

you’re doing mental gymnastics to figure out how you can take it back without sounding like a total loser before mark starts laughing, and the joyous and boisterous sound gives you pause.

he couldn’t have found that funny… could he? 

okay, yeah, after a little bit of consideration, he very well could have. this is mark grayson, you’re talking about– not one of the insecure guys you were used to dealing with, who were more likely to blow a blood vessel than a load at the idea of being perceived as “unmanly.” mark’s the type of guy to wear one of your crop tops because he knows you’ll whine about him stretching them out, or wear a maid dress as a punishment for losing a bet, masking his embarrassment with quips about how good his legs look. you also know mark enough to know he’s not a virgin, nor is he a prude, but not well enough to know intimate details about his sex life. sure, jokes are fine, but a play-by-play on how he screwed his ex feels… invasive. beyond the scope of your shared comfort. it was just something you never thought of asking.

well, more like something you could never bring yourself to ask.

you set the comic back down on the bed just in time to watch mark wipe some tears from his eyes, twisting around to face his laptop with a smile on his face. he resumes typing like nothing happened, like you didn’t just obliterate his manhood and leave it in pieces for him to pick up off the floor. it’s hard not to gawk at him in disbelief, blinking rapidly for a few moments before speaking.

“that– didn’t upset you?” you say tentatively, voice a lot meeker than initially intended. mark huffs out a laugh and spins around, hands back to resting on the armrests.

“why would it have?” he says bemusedly, still smiling from before. “we joke like that all the time. honestly, i’m surprised you hadn’t said something like that sooner.”

you can only stare at him blankly, brows knitting in confusion as mark continues to regard you patiently. then, you sit up, pushing up off your elbows to swing around and upright, one leg dangling off the bed while the other stays bent in front of you. 

“why didn’t you get mad?”

mark pauses, eyes narrowing as he tilts his head. “...is this a trick question? why would i? you were joking around.”

“most guys would’ve gotten mad about me saying something like that.”

“yeah, well, most guys aren’t exactly confident about what they’re packing downstairs.”

“and you are?”

mark’s lips part for a second, but no words come out. he quickly shuts his mouth and stares at you, but you stare back, ignoring the way your cheeks start to burn with red-hot embarrassment. 

“well, yeah,” mark finally says, eyes flickering nervously to the side. he looks everywhere– the alarm clock on the dresser, his posters on the wall, everywhere but where you are, sitting prettily on his bed– but his eyes have no choice but to finally lock back onto yours, teeth gnawing at the inside of his cheek. “‘course i’m confident about it.”

“...‘cause it’s not small.”

he pauses. “yeah. ‘cause it’s not small.”

your brain short-circuits right then and there.

you aren’t sure why you’re so surprised by this. it wouldn’t have taken a rocket scientist to arrive to this conclusion. you were around when mark started dating his ex-girlfriend, amber– around long enough to have seen the exact point in their relationship where they shed the last of their inhibitions and began interacting with each other much more comfortably. you were also around long enough to watch mark come into himself– to lose that dweebish, unsure aura around him and become more confident. muscled. tall. even if he was still pretty dorky most of the time.

perhaps that’s when the thoughts started: when you started to think of mark less as a boy, and more as a man. when you began wondering things about him that you desperately wanted to know, but were much too scared to ask.

at least you have an answer to one of them now.

“hey,” mark says suddenly, voice sharp enough to cut through all your overthinking and analyses. mark’s closer to you now– right next to you, actually, the scent of his cologne filling your nose– and he has your hand in his, thumb rubbing soothing circles into the back. “you okay? should i not have said that–?”

you frantically shake your head. “no–! i mean, yes– god, fuck, no, mark, it’s okay.” you take a deep breath, letting your eyes fall shut. “i’m the one who asked. you just answered.”

you take in a shaky breath and let your eyes flutter open to find mark watching you adeptly, his eyes trained on your face. the expression he’s wearing is one of worry, those dark brows of his pinched in the middle to form a wrinkle you so desperately want to smooth out with your thumb. his plush, pink lips are parted, and in an attempt not to stare at them, your eyes fall to the floor, but not before momentarily catching on how his biceps strain against his sleeves.

for fuck’s sake, this is not the time to be focusing on how attractive you find your best friend.

“i wanted to know,” you finally say, voice soft and a little frayed around the edges. your eyes flutter shut again– something to give you a bit of extra courage to say what you need to say, and not cave under the pressure of your nerves. “i wanted the answer to that question. it sounds weird as fuck, and i totally understand if you want me to leave and never show my face around here again, but i’d be lying if i said i didn’t want to know.”

you open your eyes again to find mark still staring at you, eyes jumping all over your face, while sporting an unreadable expression. you find yourself swallowing hard as you steel yourself for what you want to say next, adjusting to sit and face mark completely. “i wanna know a lot of things about you, actually. and none of them are all that appropriate for two people who are supposed to be ‘best friends.’”

it’s mark’s turn to short-circuit.

“w–what?” mark stutters out, staring at you with a dumbfounded expression as his eyebrows shoot up in suprise. his mouth falls agape, opening and closing fruitlessly as he tries to figure out what to say. “i– jesus christ, i don’t think you understand what you’re saying–”

“i know exactly what i’m saying.” your interjection is quick and firm, your expression void of your previous nervousness and now completely serious. “and you know it. don’t insult me like that again.”

mark’s protests die in his throat.

“i want to know you,” you start. “honestly. intimately. fuck, to be honest, i want to see you– naked, in my bed– but i didn’t wanna make things weird, and then you had that whole thing with amber, and then i thought you were gonna date eve, so i kinda just kept it to myself, but–”

“you can know me.” 

you freeze. “what–?”

“you can know me,” mark says again, his hand squeezing the one that he has wrapped in his. “you can know me. and see me. and i’ll answer every other question you’ve had about me, ‘cause i wanna know you too.”

you can’t help but stare at mark , absolutely and completely dumbfounded. if he notices, he doesn’t judge. doesn’t acknowledge it at all, actually. he just continues to steamroll ahead.

“god, fuck, i really wanna know you like that, too,” he sighs. “always have– like, all the way back in high school. i’d see you in the halls with your friends and think, ‘man, they’re hot,’ then move on with my life because i thought there was no way i’d ever have a chance with you. then, we got partnered up for that project, and i learned that you were so much cooler and more approachable than i had ever imagined, and i wanted to make a move on you so bad, but i still thought there was no way you could ever like me. william can testify to this– i was talking his ear off about you 24/7. still do. he is seriously getting sick of it.” 

the way mark talks is fast– so much so that all his words bleed together, voice full of excitement and sincerity. it make your eyes sting. after he finishes, his quick way of talking tapers off into a hefty bout of silence, his beautiful brown eyes flickering down to your joint hands. 

“and then came amber.”

the quiet that follows drapes over the two of you like a blanket, heavy with the weight of everything you two are thinking, but ultimately remains unsaid. the fact of the matter is that it doesn’t need to be said. you and mark just… know– understand– that amber was the first person, aside from you, to treat mark as less of an expendable, and more like somebody worth knowing. she took the opportunities you were too afraid to– penciled her name in where yours was meant to be and slipped right on into that “partner” position, wearing it as if it was custom-fitted. it may as well have been, because it sure looked good on her. 

he looked good on her. that’s why you couldn’t bring yourself to be mad.

“i never would’ve gone out with her if i knew you wanted me even half as much as i wanted you,” mark says quietly, reaching up to rub a tear from your cheek that you didn’t even know you shed. “but i didn’t. and we dated, and i slept with her, and i loved her, but i feel all of that for you too, y’know.” he cradles your face delicately as he climbs up onto his knees, his movements slow, as if moving too quickly would scare you off. moving too quickly would remind you that this is real; remind you that you probably shouldn’t be doing this, causing you to hop off the bed and run down the hall, flying down the stairs, past debbie, and out the front door.

but you don’t have to worry. never have, actually, because the way mark treats you is careful. cautious. he’s kneeling on the bed and easing you onto your back with such rapt attention that it makes your cheeks warm, head turning to the side to shield it from him before he turns your head right back to where it was.

“i want you to ask your questions,” mark says slowly, large hands pushing your knees apart to make room for him between your legs. you can’t help but stare at him helplessly, any and all words dying in your throat, but mark moves with a confidence that makes it clear you don’t need to speak. not when he’s hovering over you like this. 

“i want to answer your questions, and i want you to do the same for mine. ‘cause i’ve thought about you. a lot. and not all of it was decent. actually, most of it probably wasn’t.”

mark lets himself laugh softly at the admission, but you can only look up at him in awe, the muscles of your brows twitching from the urge to knit in confusion. mark’s eyes catch this, and he reaches down to smooth his thumb over the spot right between your eyebrows– the same way you wanted to do for him earlier.

“so tell me that this is okay.”

mark trails his fingers across your skin, skimming over your cheek, then your neck, then your shoulder, and all the way down your arm until reaching your hand. he tangles your fingers together and brings your wrist to his lips, a soft kiss being pressed to your pulse, which makes your heart stutter in your chest. mark doesn’t tease you for how vulnerably you stare at him, or for how red his actions make your face. he only looks down at you with a soft smile, peppering kisses to your palm.

“holy shit, mark, this is more than okay.”

mark’s grin is blinding when you surge forward to kiss him.

the thing that surprises you most about it isn’t how good of a kisser mark is, or how nice it feels for his big hands to come up and cradle your jaw. it’s how easy all of this is– how uncomplicated it is to be making out with mark, how your lips slot together as if it’s always meant to be this way, how raw his groan is when you tangle your fingers into his hair and tug. he has you pressed against the bed in seconds, one hand slowly slipping beneath your t-shirt as the other squeezes at your outer thigh. you feel dizzy when your lips part and he ducks his head down into your neck, sucking bruises into the skin with a fervor that makes you squirm.

“i– fuck, mark, not where people can see–!”

“does it matter if it’s visible? ‘s not like you’re fucking anyone else right now besides me.”

you hit mark hard against his back, but it only makes him chuckle, sitting up to look at you with messy hair and blown pupils. “what? you haven’t slept with anybody in a while, and you’re about to sleep with me. i didn’t say anything wrong.”

“how do you even know that, asshole?”

mark grins, sitting back on his haunches as he hooks the hem of your shirt on his index finger. he tugs it up enough to reveal your stomach. “‘cause you’re lying here in my bed, wearing my shirt, with me sitting between your legs. if i was the person you’ve been fucking, i’d definitely feel some type of way about that.”

you scoff, moving one of your legs to try and kick at mark’s chest. like the little shit he is, he catches it easily and presses a kiss to your ankle, setting it on one of his shoulders. “that doesn’t mean anything. i could have casual sex if i wanted to.”

“yeah,” mark agrees, both hands coming to smooth his shirt up the expanse of your body, “you could. if you wanted to. but you don’t, ‘cause you’re not like that.”

“bullshit.”

“is not. here, open your mouth for me.”

“wh–?”

“shut up and open it for a second, would you?”

you shoot mark a withering glare, but he just grins back, pushing your shirt up under your chin and offering the hem for you to bite down on.

“thank you,” he says gleefully, his words a little too airy and sing-songy for you to let slide. you try and kick him again, but he blocks your leg without much of a second thought, eyes laser focused on the sight of your tits in front of him.

“wow, you are so fucking pretty.”

the way he says it is so full of awe– so genuine– that it makes your mouth fall open. the t-shirt in your mouth gets stuck on your bottom lip in the process, and the sight makes mark chuckle, a boyish grin settling on his face. he reaches up to adjust it and pulls it back up so you can bite down on it again.

“i didn’t even say anything crazy yet,” he teases, laughing as you do your best to swear at him from around the fabric. mark ignores it to focus on the sight in front of him instead, though, fingers tracing up your rib cage before cupping the underside of each of your breasts.

your mind goes blank when he takes one of your nipples into his mouth.

“oh, fuck,” you gasp out, back arching off the bed and into his mouth. the t-shirt slips from between your teeth again, and you can feel mark grin around where his tongue swirls around your skin, popping off to look at you and chastise you softly.

“jeez, you really suck at following instructions,” mark playfully says. “and did you forget that my mom is downstairs? i’ve had her knock on the door during sex before, and trust me, it does not help to sustain the mood.”

“god, you sound like such a dork. ‘it does not help to sustain–’”

mark cuts you off with a groan, fingers curling into the waistband of your shorts and panties. “shut up and lift your hips already.”

you giggle. “fine, fine.”

you plant your feet and lift your hips off the bed enough for mark to tug your clothes off, separating your shorts from your underwear so he can tuck the garment into his pocket. You look at him with a flustered expression, mouth dropping open in bewilderment, but mark simply sticks his tongue out at you and flings your shorts to the floor, panties nowhere in sight. you hardly have enough time to process him keeping them for himself before he’s wrapping his hands around your thighs and tugging them onto his shoulders, putting him face to face with your cunt and lifting your lower back completely off the bed.

you knew mark was strong, but you never thought of him using his strength like this.

mark holds you firmly as he busies himself with eating you out like a man starved. those big, brown doe eyes of his look down at you, sometimes lingering on the rise and fall of your chest, and sometimes taking in the sight of your knitted brows and parted lips, both your hands tangled in the pillow behind your head. his eyes do fall shut every once in a while as if he’s savoring the taste of you on his tongue, and he probably is, knowing mark, but you don’t have the wherewithal to tease him. not now, at least. not when he’s got his lips wrapped around your clit, sucking in these sporadic little bursts that make your stomach burn with molten need.

“oh, f-uck,” you gasp, voice cracking on the expletive. in your defense, it’s the only word you currently feel like you know how to say, but mark doesn’t laugh or tease you for it. he just presses a messy kiss to your clit, then slides his tongue down through your folds to circle your hole, slowly and messily pressing inside of you. he pumps it in and out for a few moments, as if he’s trying to fuck you with his tongue, then flattens the muscle and drags it back up to your clit to press into it firmly. you untangle your fingers from the sheets and reach up to swat at mark’s thigh, twisting and turning frantically in his hold.

“oh my fucking god, mark, let go!” your whines are urgent, thighs beginning to quiver on either side of mark’s head. his eyes flutter open enough to look at you through his long, thick lashes, but his firm grip on your waist doesn’t let up in the slightest. his arms tighten around you, keeping your pussy to his lips and your body off the bed as he continues to ravage you like it’s the one thing he was born to do. “mark! ‘m fuckin’ serious– i’m gonna squirt if you don’t let go of m– oh, fuck!”

you realize your warning is a bit late as you feel that knot tighten and snap in your belly, but it would’ve fallen on deaf ears regardless of whether you said it earlier or not. your cunt gushes all over mark’s nose, lips, and chin, soaking the top of his t-shirt and dribbling a bit down onto the bed below. you’d think he’d have a concern of drowning, but mark’s tongue keeps moving as you cum, legs squeezing against his ears so tight that you’re sure he can hear absolutely nothing but his own heartbeat. you know you sure can’t– all you can hear is the distant sound of your own voice, and the way your breathing stutters in your chest, a series of tremors wracking your body so brutally that you’d liken them to an earthquake. 

“shit,” you gasp softly, limbs tingling once they regain sensation. you wriggle in mark’s grasp and he pulls back from your pussy with a pop!, lowering your hips down to the bed as he runs his tongue along his lower lip.

“you said you were about to squirt as if that was going to deter me,” mark says breathlessly, a soft laugh punctuating his sentence. his face is covered with your slick all over his lips and chin, the sun from the window catching on it in a way that makes it glisten. you’re embarrassed by his nonchalance, but it’s hard to be mad when mark looks this good. you did this to him– made his perfectly slicked-back hair disheveled, and soaked his lower face and chest in your cum. normally, you would reply to his quip right away, but right now, you don’t. you’re much too focused on watching how mark leans down to reach behind his head and grab at his shirt, shucking it off in one smooth motion to join your discarded shorts on the floor.

“it was supposed to,” you finally say, voice sounding just as breathless as mark’s. his lips quirk up at the corners, but he doesn’t meet your eyes. instead, he leans over you to open his bedside drawer, and you take that as an opportunity to continue. “didn’t realize i was sleeping with superfreak, over here.”

mark snorts. “i’m just a guy who prioritizes my partner’s pleasure over mine.”

“that’s a roundabout way to say you like to eat pussy. and ass. oh god, mark, you don’t eat ass, do you?”

mark wiggles his eyebrows in response, and you look at him with such a horrified expression that a giggle can’t help but escape from his chest. he shuts the bedside table with a soft thud and leans back over you with a strip of two condoms hanging from his mouth. your brows shoot up at the sight, but mark doesn’t see it. he’s much too focused on pushing his sweatpants and boxers down to his thighs, cock slapping lightly against his abs.

oh. you always knew mark looked good, but this? this is something else entirely.

“you’re staring,” mark says wryly, tearing one of the condoms from the strip, then opening up the wrapper with his teeth. you watch as he pinches the tip and rolls the condom onto himself with a level of precision that screams of practice. if you hadn’t just cum your brains out, you might’ve found yourself feeling a little bit jealous.

“‘course i am.” your reply is shameless, and it makes mark bark out a startled laugh. “you said it was big, not that you were carrying a weapon. now here you are, looking like asian adonis with my jizz on your face, rolling a condom on with the ease of a common whore. not to mention that you grabbed two of them.”

a giddy smile spreads across mark’s face in reply, but it’s not one of his usual ones: it’s bashful. it’s the kind of smile where he bites his lip to force it down, but it doesn’t work, so his bottom lip slowly unfurls from between his teeth. your ears burn bright red at the sight, but mark doesn’t comment on it. mark’s never been good at multitasking, and he’s much too focused on tossing the unopened condom to the side, then tugging you against him by your thighs.

“we don’t have to use them both,” mark says softly, the sweetness of his smile bleeding into his voice. it’s a bit jarring for him to be acting so adorably, like he’s not running his cock along the seam of your folds. the tip catches on your clit every so often, making your breath catch in the back of your throat.

“i like how that’s what you chose to comment on.” 

he shrugs. “didn’t have much else to say.”

“you’re a dog, you know that, mark?”

mark grins at you wickedly, leaning down to lick a stripe up your cheek.

“mm, yeah. ‘m guilty as charged.”

and just like that, he sinks into you, bottoming out in one smooth thrust that knocks the air from your lungs. your eyes screw shut, but you latch onto him immediately, hand shooting out in search of his. he takes it wordlessly, bringing your hand up so he can kiss your knuckles.

“you okay?” he asks tenderly, lips pressed to the back of your hand. you open your eyes, tears pricking at the corners, then nod slowly as a deep breath leaves your nose.

“yeah,” you say shakily. “just been a while. warn me next time.”

mark nods, doing his best not to get caught up on the fact that you want there to be a next time. “sure,” he answers. “sorry. here– put your legs on my shoulder.”

you lift your legs for mark to take, and he settles both of your feet on one of his shoulders like they belong there. then, he shifts forward, shuffling up so that his thighs bracket your hips, which slots him deeper into you than he has any business being.

it makes you feel crazy. you fucking love it.

once mark feels stable in his position, and any remnants of discomfort bleed from your expression, he starts rocking his hips in and out of you at a pace too quick to be languid, but too slow to be considered harsh. whatever rhythm he’s fallen into, it feels good. you’re clawing at the sheets at your sides and behind your head like a madman, that copy of seance dog he lent you long forgotten on the floor, along with everything else you two have taken off. 

“does this answer one of your questions?” mark asks lowly, eyes half-lidded and jaw tight. he’s got your legs pressed to his chest with one hand, the other splayed across your stomach to hold you in place. you can tell it’s not that simple, though; the firmness with which he presses down against your stomach is as if he’s feeling for something, and the realization makes you clench, cunt squelching lewdly around his cock inside you. “did you wonder how i fuck? if i liked it fast? or did it slow?”

in your day-to-day conversations, mark doesn’t swear all that often– at least, not compared to you– but the mouth he’s got on him in bed is a surprise that makes you flush down to your chest. you look up to see mark gazing at you with eyes that are almost black, a bright blush fanning across his freckled cheeks and nose. when he sees you struggle to answer, the gears clearly turning, but no words coming out, he grips your legs tighter and quickens the snap of his hips. mark’s lips fall open with a breathy moan as he watches the way your eyes roll back, and his abdomen clenches with the need to keep his own pleasure at bay. “c’mon, baby. tell me. tell me how you want it, ‘n’ i promise i’ll do whatever you say.”

“i– god, fuck, mark, yes, i wondered how you fucked!” your reply comes out breathy, whiny, and and rushed– a result of you making an actual effort to focus so it didn’t come out as a jumbled, inaudible mess. “i w-wondered if you’d treat me like glass, or fuck me like i had no self-respect. i don’t care what you do right now– swear t’god i don’t– ‘cause i just wanna cum. don’t fucking stop.”

mark huffs out a laugh at how desperate you sound, lips quirking up in a lopsided smile that shows off the cute little fangs he has in the corners of his mouth. he turns his head to kiss one of your ankles, then takes one to put it on the opposite side, making it so you have one leg on each of his shoulders. large, calloused hands slide down your legs and smooth over your thighs before taking your hands into each of his. you’re about to ask what he’s doing, but there’s no time for the words to come out. he’s already gripping both your wrists and tuging you forward, forcing your ass to smack against his thighs with every brutal snap of his hips.

your brain is about to melt out of your fucking ears.

“did you touch yourself?” mark’s asks breathlessly, dark eyes focused on your face. you try desperately to free your hands from his grasp, but your attempts are pathetically uncoordinated. the way his cock is rearranging your guts makes it impossibly difficult to focus. but despite your lack of success, your writhing makes mark tut at you disapprovingly, and he leans forward to keep you in place by resting a fraction of his body weight on your chest. “quit trying to run ‘n’ tell me. did you touch yourself thinking about me fucking you? imagining how it would be?”

mark leans down to lick a stripe up the side of your neck, voice dropping to a filthy, sultry whisper. “‘cause i did. thought about this all the time, what you’d feel like around me. it’s so much fuckin’ better than i imagined.”

you nod your head frantically, hands clenched into fists, and your nails dig so roughly into your palms that it’s a miracle it hasn’t drawn blood. mark isn’t completely satisfied with your response, but he takes it for what it is and releases both of your wrists in favor of grabbing onto your hips.

“if you touched yourself while thinking of me, then show me. play with it for me, hm?”

you don’t need much more coaxing than that.

your fingers fly to your clit at lightening speed, middle and ring finger rubbing in quick, tight circles that mark finds absolutely hypnotizing. your other hand comes up to palm at your breasts, pinching and tweaking at your nipples in a way that makes you whine. mark damn near growls at the sight, a string of expletives you’ve never heard from him before being let out into the ether as he doubles his efforts to fuck you into the mattress.

“open your eyes,” mark demands, his words oozing with a tone you’re very much not used to being addressed with. his voice is low, gravely, and deeply affected by the way your walls squeeze around him, and you find that you quite like having him like this: wrapped around your finger, barely hanging on, lost in everything pertaining to you. the sentiment is definitely shared, because as you force your eyes open, you feel your features pinch the way they do when you’re trying not to cry. it’s nothing bad– far from it, actually. it’s just that mark is fucking you so good that you feel like you’re losing your mind, and the pleasure is so mindboggling that it makes you wanna sob. 

“there y’go, baby,” mark sighs, “just keep lookin’ at me. i wanna see your face when you cum.”

his honest admission shoots straight through you and right to your core, pussy clenching around him tightly, your clit throbbing beneath your fingers. mark moans low and long at the feeling, adam’s apple bobbing in his throat as he swallows hard.

“fuck, i like when y’do that– when you like what i say and you get all tight around me. just– keep touching yourself, pretty. look at me and let it happen.”

all you can do is nod helplessly. mark ducks down to press a kiss to your cheek, fingers pressing what will definitely be bruises tomorrow morning into the skin of your hips. his cock splits you open in a mindbending way, your fingers flicking at your clit so frantically that your hand has become nothing but a blur. 

then, the bubble bursts. your orgasm hits you like a truck, your head flying back, and the muscles in your jaw and neck pulling taut. the same goes for your legs– your knees lock up and your thighs pull tight, shaking with violent tremors as you gush again, this time, around mark’s cock. you do your best to keep your eyes open as you cum, but it’s hard. from what you can see, though, mark’s mouth drops open and his eyes flash with something bright– yellow, even– as he takes in the sight of you falling apart. whatever it is, you don’t give it much thought. your brain is much too fried to be trusting everything you see right now.

“you’re a fucking dream like this,” mark mutters, his tone oozing with awe and disbelief. dutifully, he fucks you through your second orgasm– all the squirming, pulsing, and wetness that’s stained his sheets twice in one night– and holds your unfocused gaze all throughout it before he feels you coming down and abruptly pulls out. your twitching legs drop unceremoniously to the bed, and mark swings his thighs over you to settle over your chest, fingers peeling off the condom and tossing it lamely to the side. all you can see past your wet lashes and teary eyes is mark’s fist moving in an urgent blur before he cums all over your chest, the orgasm hitting him so hard that he has to grip the headboard to stabilize himself. his super strength causes it to splinter just slightly as his legs shake, so much so that he can hardly hold himself up.

his cum paints your tits in hot, thick, pearly white strands, and mark clambers up from over you to lay down on the other side of the bed. you find it unfair, the way that he’s panting and shaking much less than you, but you don’t comment. you just stare up at the ceiling, the sound of your breathing filling the air.

“i hope that was good,” mark says earnestly, rolling lazily onto his side to look at you. you take another deep, grounding breath, then turn your head to look at him. your arm comes out too weakly to swat at his chest.

“there’s no way you just asked me that when your cum is drying on my chest.”

mark stares at you for a moment, then busts out into a fit of laughter, reaching behind his head to take the pillow so he can drop it casually onto your face. you can’t help but laugh too, arms coming up to shield yourself from the pillow, and you toss it back to mark where he catches it, then tucks it back under his head. “fuck me for trying to make sure you’re okay, i guess,” he says dramatically, rolling his eyes.

you flip over onto your stomach and bunch the pillow up under your chin, careful to ignore the wet parts of your chest as you widely grin and quip back. “i just did.”

“more like the other way around. this was me fucking you. into the mattress, might i add.” mark grins mischievously and reaches out to place his hand on your lower back, smoothing over your ass before dipping between your legs to find your folds. he trails his fingers up and down your wet and puffy slit, tongue darting out to wet his lips when he feels you shiver in reply. “but we can go again with you on top if you wanna fuck me. not like i’d ever say no to that. plus, it’d answer one of my questions.”

you’re part your lips to reply, but the sound of feet padding up the stairs, partnered with a soft call of mark’s name, makes you both freeze exactly where you’re at. you look at each other in panic, then scramble to get rid of the proof of what you two just did. mark leaps off the bed and onto his feet with impressive athleticism, tossing you your discarded copy of seance dog that you catch effortlessly with one hand. you tug your t-shirt down over your chest, ignoring the fact that there’s still cum on it you’ve hardly wiped off, and he busies himself with pulling his pants back up and slipping his t-shirt on. the fact that it’s still damp around the collar doesn’t matter– not when there’s much more incriminating evidence like his used condom on the bed, alongside the wrapper and the new one he was about to use on you again ten seconds ago.

you barely manage to get under the covers to hide your lower half by the time debbie opens the door, your shorts haphazardly kicked under the bed, and your panties in mark’s pocket. you double-check to make sure your comic isn’t upside down and open it to a random page, holding it as inconspicuously as possible, right in front of your face. mark’s hands are stuffed into his pants, the condoms and the wrapper fisted tightly in his hands.

“hey, you two,” debbie says sweetly, eyes flickering back and forth between the two of you. you swear, even if you two didn’t look suspicious as hell, debbie would still be looking at you two like she knows you did something wrong. “just came to let you know that dinner is ready. and that you two shouldn’t stay up too late tonight. i’m driving you two back to campus early, so i can get to work on time.”

mark smiles tightly. “okay, mom, thanks,” he says, pulling a hand out of his pocket to wave at her goodbye. debbie eyes him amusedly, taking in both of your disheveled appearances one more time before nodding and moving to close the door.

“oh, and mark? it’s been a long time coming, so i don’t mind if you two are having sex, as long as it’s safe and i don’t have to worry about becoming a grandma.”

the color drains from both of your faces, but debbie only laughs, a smile as sweet as her son’s spreading across her face. “but next time, if you’re gonna try and hide it, make sure the panties are tucked all the way into your pocket. i’m not judging what you’re into, but it’s kind of a dead giveaway when blue lace is halfway hanging out of your sweatpants.”

# — navigation

[thetetra]

I remember showing up to a relative 's house and I apologized that while I could have dinner and spend the night I had to get my homework done.

"Oh how much do you have to do?"

"I need to read 80 pages from 3 different books"

"oh great Ill see you in a bit.

They came and checked on me every 20 minutes . Afterwards they said "I was wondering what the deal was and if you were avoid us but then I saw the pile of notes you had next to you! what was all that?!

"Im reading from 3 sources. If you're doing your due diligence you will check the facts, sort them from analysis and sort out the suppositions. It takes some time up front but it makes writing the paper a lot easier "

Like I don't think a lot of people do anything remotely like that in their entire lives.

Possible unpopular opinion: treating having a special interest as equivalent to being an expert on the topic is another form of the savant stereotype.

[kinky-cas]

Jack should have tattled about the empty deal because the huge blowout fight Dean and Cas would have had about it would have been SO fun to watch for me personally.

Jack lets something slip (accidentally? on purpose? idk) when they're all in the library and Dean slowly turns to look at Cas.

"And when, exactly, were you planning on telling me—us about this?"

*Cas, jaw tensed* "I wasn't."

(at this point, Sam grabs Jack by the arm and starts backing out of the room)

"You weren't. Of course you weren't. Because secrets and deals always end so well for us."

"We have more important things to worry about right now, Dean. This isn't exactly pressing."

"A deal that could get you taken by an ancient eldritch force at any time isn't pressing?! "

*bitchy sigh* "At any time is a flagrant exaggeration. I wasn't exactly concerned about triggering it accidentally, or soon. It's hardly any of your business, anyways."

"None of my business? None of my business that you made a deal with some eldritch entity that has a personal grudge against you. A deal for your life, Cas!"

"I have full confidence in my ability to manage it, as I have been managing it, and the terms aren't impacting anyone else."

"Oh, because you think you keeping yourself miserable all the time is just a you problem, huh?"

"Definitionally, yes, it is a "me problem", Dean."

"Right, because you don't think the rest of us are at all impacted by knowing that if you're happy it'll literally kill you?"

"Well if things had gone as planned you wouldn't have had to know, would you?"

"Not knowing is worse! And besides, Jack still knew! You were going to let him carry that by himself? Did you ever consider what that kind of knowledge can do to a kid? What it would have done to him when the Empty did eventually take you? Because it sure doesn't seem like you had any plan to get out of the deal eventually!"

"Don't you dare make your issues with this about Jack. I won't apologize to you for saving his life, and frankly I don't understand why we're discussing this. The deal is already made, and I am not going to risk Jack's life by interfering with it now. I've been perfectly fine so far. This discussion is pointless."

"Pointless. Pointless? A discussion about the deal that's apparently just waiting to kill you is pointless?"

"I don't see what arguing about this will accomplish. It was my choice to offer my life in exchange for Jack's, and my "happiness" is certainly a more than worthwhile trade for his life and safety. Are you implying otherwise?"

"That is not what I meant and you know it. Of course I'm glad we have Jack back, that's not my point!"

"Then pray, tell, Dean, what is your point? Because as far as I can see it, the only purpose this discussion is serving is as totally unnecessary additional insurance against the Empty showing up right now."

"And what's that supposed to mean??"

*audible eyeroll* "I don't know, Dean, clearly I'm thrilled to be arguing with you right now—"

(this goes on for another 20 minutes, and ends with neither of them talking to each other for at least 3 days. and then we get to see dean being paranoid about cas being happy and guilty about cas NOT feeling happy all at once, and tying himself up into knots about it.)

[rivalsispunk]

20 Cigarettes pt. II (DBF!Joel Miller x reader)

pt. I here

summary: you and Joel both war with the aftermath of your night in his truck, and it isn't long until the real world comes knocking and leaves you questioning everything.

tags/warning: +18, mdni. Joel is in his 40s, reader is in her 20s. age gap. f!reader. unprotected piv. creampie. SMUTT. angst. slow burn. jealous Joel. jealous reader. drinking, swearing. bondage if you squint, (if I've missed anything let me know and I'll amend),. no outbreak, non canon, mention of TLOU characters but nothing is in line with the show/game aside from the fact Joel is the dilf to end all dilfs

w/c: 9.7k

a/n: not edited really, just wanted to get it out! so if any mistakes, my apologies x

It’s been a week.

Seven full days since Dina’s bachelorette party. Since the storm. Since Joel’s mouth was on your throat, his hands on your hips, and his voice in your ear telling you to come for him. A week since his weight pressed you into the worn leather of his truck’s bench seat like he was trying to carve himself into your skin.

And then he drove you home.

The ride was quiet. Awkward. Joel tried to make it normal. Failed.

“Storm cleared up nice,” he said as he turned into your neighborhood. It might’ve sounded casual—if not for the fact that you’d had your hands all over each other less than ten minutes earlier. If not for the way his come was still warm between your thighs.

You didn’t respond. Just gave a tight-lipped nod, even though Joel hadn’t looked at you since he merged back onto the highway, not even to check for oncoming traffic when it was time to pull off it. He didn’t say anything else until the truck rolled to a stop in the middle of the street—parked between your dad’s house and his, the engine ticking in the quiet.

“That was—” he started, then broke off, scrubbing a hand over his face with a ragged sigh. “We shouldn’t have… Sorry. That was—”

You cut in before he could unravel it further. “It’s fine. Really.” Then, with a strained chuckle: “You never had a one-night stand before?”

He finally looked at you. Briefly. He’d had his fair share. Wanted this thing between you two to be just that—just two people getting their fix and moving on.

He nodded slowly. Hit unlock on the door.

“Right,” he said. “See you around, kid.”

Kid.

Not darlin', like in the truck when his voice sank as low as his hands on your body. Not your name. Just kid. 

The moniker hit hard. Lodged behind your ribs painfully. You smiled halfheartedly like it was fine—just like you’d told him. Like you hadn’t been waiting, stupidly, for something. A look. A word. Anything that hinted at him knowing this wasn’t as simple as a one night stand.

But he just watched you go, shoulders tense, hands still on the wheel like they had nowhere else to be—no apology. No wait. No darlin’.

The morning after, Dina called. Too early, too chipper considering her state when she left The Rusty Antler—wanting to know every messy detail.

“So, you fucked him, right? Please tell me you fucked him,” she probed down the line.

You lied to her. Maybe for the first time in your whole friendship. Said Joel just dropped you off. That nothing happened.

“He’s my dad’s best friend,” you reiterated. “That would be…weird.”

She bought it. Or let you have it, at least. And still, through everything else—through final bridesmaid dress fittings, venue walkthroughs, and seating chart hell—you’ve been spiraling quietly, secretly. 

You’ve tried to shove it down. But your body still remembers, more than you’d like. Your thoughts keep circling back to him without permission at the most inconvenient of moments—at the checkout at the grocery store, when you’re sitting down for breakfast with your dad, while you’re showering. When you see the bruises on your thigh when he hooked you around him as he pummelled into you. The marks are fading now, from dark purple fingerprints to yellow smudges you keep hidden under jeans or sports leggings. You can’t help but relive the rasp of his voice, the look on his face when you came apart in his hands. The guilt and wonder that warred behind his eyes like you were something he never should’ve toyed with.

Maybe that’s why you haven’t seen him since. No appearance for Sunday football. No midweek drop-ins for an after-work beer. Just…nothing. You’d half expected your father to be suspicious—he and Joel are each other’s lifelines, even more so since Sarah headed off to college—but he didn’t seem phased. Passed it off as Joel being busy with construction jobs or seeing Tess. The latter made your gut churn.

***

Joel’s been keeping to himself.

Outside of work—which, as the director of a contracting business, keeps his days full enough—he doesn’t usually do much but hang out with your dad, drink a couple beers, shoot the shit. But now he’s avoiding that routine like it’s laced with tripwires. Avoiding your dad’s calls, replying only by text. Busy this week. Catch you soon. Which isn’t a total lie. Work’s been steady, there’s a leaky pipe in the basement he’s been meaning to fix. But mostly, he’s been doing everything he can to stay out of sight, to keep temptation at arm’s length.

He’s been heating up microwave dinners he barely tastes. Spoke on the phone with his younger brother Tommy longer than he usually would, pretending the catch-up wasn’t just a way to fill the silence. One night he even rearranged the den furniture, despite the fact he almost never goes in there—always prefers the kitchen counter for his paperwork, within reach of the fridge and the back door light.

He tells himself it’s temporary. Just until Dina’s wedding is over. Just until you pack up and head back to Charlotte. Then he can go back to being your dad’s best friend, the guy who’s always around, always reliable. Not the guy who had you spread out in his truck with your panties shoved halfway down your thighs. He keeps hearing your voice telling him that you don’t care.

Want you.Your legs bracketing his hips. Your breath in his ear. And God help him—he wants more. Which is exactly why he’s staying away.

He almost gets away with it, too. But then your dad calls again. A longer ring this time. Joel lets it go to voicemail, but the message that pings through a minute later hits harder than it should.

Hey, jackass. Don’t wanna hang out with me anymore? You find yourself a new best buddy or somethin’? 

The message is left with a chuckle, but Joel knows him too well. There’s a note of something else underneath. Hurt, maybe. Confusion. That unspoken what did I do wrong?.

Joel swears under his breath. Guilt rises like bile, up his chest, stings at the back of his throat.

So he gives in. Which is why he’s standing at your dad’s front door—your front door—on a Friday night, two six-packs in one hand, sweat prickling at the back of his neck even though there’s a crisp breeze rifling through the fallen leaves along the street.

His heart thunders. Rakes a hand through his hair, trying to steel himself. This isn’t just dinner. Not really.

Not when all he can think about is how you looked half-naked in his truck, tits illuminated by sporadic cracks of lightning.

Not when all he wants to see if that fire’s still burning.

Not when he’s terrified that it is.

Joel pitches a hand up and raps his knuckles on the sage green wood, sucking in a shaky breath. You’re probably not even in. Probably out with your friends. Maybe back at The Rusty Antler. Or perhaps holed up at Dina’s while you help out with final wedding preparations.

But then the door swings open—and you’re standing there. Barefoot, hair tied up in a messy knot, wearing an oversized Volunteers t-shirt and black leggings. He hates that he thinks you look just as good entirely covered up as you did with your skirt around your waist and your tank pulled down.

You freeze when you see him. Thought it was the delivery driver bringing over the Thai food your dad had ordered. Joel shifts his weight, muttering a hey while holding up the six-packs like they’re peace offering. 

You almost laugh. Yeah, alcohol would be good right about now.

“Your dad—he invited me for dinner.”

“Right,” you say, blinking. “I just... I didn’t think—”

“Since when do you knock?” your dad interrupts, voice teasing as he appears behind you. Then, to you: “You gonna stand there and let all the heat out, or you gonna let the man in?”

You step aside, shrinking away from the threshold to give Joel the room to enter. His large frame fills out the doorway, broad shoulders nearly brushing the frame as he passes you, almost sheepish. He's in his Carhartt jacket again. The one he loaned to you that night outside the bar. The one you left in the footwell of his truck. The sight of it has your body wracking with a shiver, one your dad catches as he takes the beers from Joel, sliding two bottles out for the pair of them.

"You cold, sweetheart?"

You shake your head and hold your hand out to him. "Nope, all good. Let me put those in the fridge." Anything to put some space between you and Joel—let your nervous system calm down after the shock of his arrival. You can't seem to shake him though, feeling his gaze hot through the material of your t-shirt while him and your dad trail you to the kitchen, his boots heavy against the floorboards.

"So, where the hell have you been?" your dad wants to know as the three of you walk into the open-plan living area—a renovation Joel and your dad had carried out a few years back.

Joel gives a noncommittal grunt, scratches as his beard. “Like I said, busy week. Spent half the week waitin’ on drywall that never showed, and the other half explainin’ to a twenty-year-old apprentice why you don’t use a nail gun like a damn paintbrush. Y’know it is.”

He sounds normal—too normal—and it grates. The easy rhythm of his voice, the way he jokes with your dad. It’s infuriating, even though you’re doing the exact same thing—plastering on a smile, acting like nothing happened. But the more effortless he makes it seem, the more it needles under your skin. Because if he can brush it off that easily, what does that say about you? That you’re festering in the details—replaying every sound, every touch—while he probably went home, took a shower, and let the night rinse off him without a second thought. Didn’t even look back as it all sluiced down the drain.

You stay quiet as you slide the packs of Bud into the fridge, trying to keep your face neutral. When you turn back, your brow furrows at the number of settings your dad’s placed on the table.

“Four bowls?” You cock your head. “I know you’re getting older but you’re still a few years short of going senile.”

“Ha-a. You think you’re so clever,” he replies, reaching over to pinch the back of your neck like he used to when you were ten. “No, we’ve got another one joining us.”

You narrow your eyes. “You invite yourself a date over?”

“Not a date for me—a date for Joel.”

That stopped everything cold.

“What?” you and Joel say at the same time.

Your dad grins, oblivious, takes a sip of his drink. “I invited Tess. Figured it was time she came by for a proper family dinner.”

You blink, hard, like maybe you misheard him. “Tess?” you repeat. “As in Tess Tess?”

Your dad nods like it’s nothing. You run your tongue along the inside of your lower lip.

Tess. A proper family dinner. 

That didn’t sound casual. That sounded like a step. A step well on the way to relationship territory.

Your stomach flips. Was that all you’d been? Something Joel needed to get out of his system before going all in with Tess? Maybe it was never about you at all. Maybe it was just because you were there.

Was he lying when he said it wasn’t serious? Was he lying when he kissed you like that?

The doorbell echoes through the house and you feel Joel’s eyes on you as your dad ambles towards the front door, whistling like he didn’t just drop a bomb. When you dare to glance his way, his mouth is parted like he wants to say something. To object. To explain.

But you shake your head, once—firm. Don’t.

Then you’re turning your back, focusing on the fridge as if it’s the most interesting thing in the house. A breath shudders out of you just as the front door swings open and Tess’s voice floats in as she tells your dad she intercepted the delivery driver at the letterbox. Her voice is bright, familiar. Like she belongs here.

And so, you steel your spine and paste on a smile that feels like splinters.

***

Dinner is…dinner.

Your dad and Tess hold up most of the conversation: chit-chatting about work—Tess owned the florist beside the local grocer—rehashing some rumour that was doing the rounds among the neighbours. You add your two cents when necessary—try not to roll your eyes when your dad compliments Tess’s blouse and she tells him she chose it because green’s Joel’s favourite colour—but mainly stick to sipping your drink and picking at your food. Joel isn’t much better. He gives the occasional grunt or dry one-liner. Sometimes he goes all in with a chuckle that doesn’t quite sink into the lines at the corners of his eyes.

Tess, in all honesty, is perfectly lovely. You haven’t spent much time with her outside the occasional neighbourhood barbecue over the years, but she’s easygoing, certainly not hard to get along with. The kind of woman who laughs with her whole chest and doesn’t take herself too seriously. You can see why your dad likes her for Joel. Why Joel might like her for Joel.

She fills the silence naturally, poking fun at Joel’s quietness with a nudge of her elbow. “This one,” Tess grins, eyes sparkly as she peers up at him. “Man of few words. So very Joel.” 

You observe quietly as she leans in a little too close when she laughs, and rests her hand on Joel’s forearm whenever she made a point. You notice that Joel doesn’t respond, not really. No touches returned. No lingering looks to match her’s.

But then again, that was just Joel. A little rigid. Not touchy-feely. Except for—

“So, anyone special back in Charlotte?” Tess is asking you now, smiling over her wine glass.

You blink, caught off guard. “I just got out of a relationship, actually.”

“Oh,” she says, her voice soft with sympathy. She means it, too. “Well, I’m sure you’ll be back on the horse in no time. Gorgeous thing like you. Right, Joel?”

Joel looks up from his empty plate like he wasn’t listening. “Hm, what’s that?”

Tess lets out a small laugh, rolling her eyes with endearment before nudging her chin towards you. “I’m just saying she won’t have any trouble dating again.”

Joel’s eyes flick to yours for the first time since you all sat down. The glance licks fire at the base of your belly. He shifts in his seat, scratches his thick fingers behind his ear. “Oh, right. Yeah.”

And you take that as your cure.

You slide your chair back with a soft scrape on the timber floors. “I think I’m going to head up to my room. Lie down. Headache’s starting to kick in.

“That’s not good,” Tess says. “You know what I swear by? Peppermint oil, right at the base of your neck. Should clear it right up!”

You nod, already moving away from the table. “Yeah, I’ll, uh… give it a try.”

As if I just have peppermint oil just laying about, you think as you walk out of the room, but you stop under the archway that leads to the stairs when Tess trills, light and airy, “See you tomorrow!”

You turn back to face your guests. “What’s tomorrow?”

“The barbeque, sweetheart,” your dad clarifies. “Remember? Like old times. Sarah’s even coming down from UT to see you.”

Shit.

You’d totally forgotten. Your dad had mentioned it when you first got in from Charlotte, but with everything going on—with Joel—it had completely slipped your mind.

Your stomach twists. One look at Joel, eyes now back on his plate, and you know it’s going to be one fucking long weekend.

***

The dinner at your dad’s hung over Joel’s head like a bad hangover—pressing, hard to shake. Not to mention, it made him feel a little sick—you sitting across from him with a tight smile. Tess, beside him, chatting like she knew him better than she did, filling in the silences he was more than comfortable sharing with just your dad. The air between you both felt like a live wire as soon  as Tess was drawn into the situation, and he hadn’t known what the hell to say.

He still didn’t.

Now, he pulls his front door closed with a soft click and steps out onto the porch, ready—well, not ready, but willing—to head across the street. Afternoon sun illuminates his face, a warm welcome among the crisp fall air. Wind chimes clink lazily in the distance, oak leaves swirl by on a breeze that carries the smoke already curling from your dad’s backyard grill. It was a perfect October day for a barbecue.

He trudges down his front steps, six-pack swinging in one hand, the other shoved deep in the pocket of his Carhartt. 

It’s gonna be fine, he repeats to himself like a mantra, as if churning it over will somehow make it true. 

Then came the “Hey, Joel!” Tess. “Good timing.”

She’s walking up from the end of the block, a grin breaking across her face so fiercely her eyes devolve into slits. Joel hesitates for half a second, then nods with a smile a fraction of the size of her’s.

“I brought dessert,” she says cheerfully, holding up a paper bag adorned with the logo of a local bakery. “You boys always have the meat sorted but never anything to satisfy a sweet tooth.”

“Great,” Joel mumbles, then stiffens, when Tess loops her arm through his like it’s the most natural thing in the world. His heart lurches when he realises what this looks like.

Something. 

He felt a cold prickle at the base of his neck as he and Tess crossed the street, her wound around his bicep like it was nothing out of the ordinary. He wanted to pull away when he approached your dad’s side gate. Didn’t know how without offending Tess.

Shit. What if you saw? Hopefully you were inside. Hopefully you didn’t see. But gate’s rusted hinge screeched loud and sharp like it always did, announcing their arrival like a fucking parade float to the already bustling party.

Joel winced.

You were already outside, standing near the cooler, mid-laugh with Sarah who’d headed over about an hour earlier. Your head snapped around at the noise, but you didn’t feel like you had whiplash until your eyes locked straight on Joel, then Tess, hanging off him like an accessory.

Your smile faded, and Joel felt the loss of it like a blow to the chest. He dropped Tess’s arm as casually as he could manage, stepping a few feet ahead like that might somehow make it clear that they’re not together. Didn’t matter though. Not when you’d turned back to Sarah a bit too quickly, telling her something that’s swallowed by the music pumping through your dad’s old stereo setup. Then you’re off, crossing the yard to the house, green sundress swaying at your thighs, hair catching in the breeze that was nearing on being too chilly for you to be in such an outfit.

Joel’s gaze locks on you, on the dress that has no business clinging to you like that. Soft cotton stretches across your back, dipping low enough to show off the fading tan line from a summer bikini, the bow of it cinched tight at your waist, accentuating your curves. Every step you take has the hem flicking higher over the back of your thighs, just enough to make his mouth dry. And those legs—Christ. They’d been locked around his hips just over a week ago.

Fucking hell, he thinks, shaking his head like that might unlodge the image from his head. It doesn’t. Not even close. Which might be why he’s suddenly possessed to go after you, before the sense seeps back into his bones.

“Joel,” Tess calls before he’s stepped too far away, drifting over from where she’d been greeting some friends to press the bakery bag into his chest. “Can you pop this in the fridge? Don’t want the cream to melt.”

He misses the sickly smile she tosses up at him when he mutters back a distracted yeah, eyes still locked on the screen door you’d just slipped through. Then, bag in hand, heart somewhere near his throat, he followed you like gravity made the rules.

You’re in the kitchen, back to the party with your hands pitched against the lip of the farm-style sink, telling yourself to get your shit together after the sight of Joel and Tess walking into your yard like a long-term couple drained the colour out of your face. Sarah didn’t notice your sudden change in demeanour, thankfully, too engrossed in a story about a messy love triangle that’s unfolding on the floor of her dorm. Behind you, the screen door shuddered quietly before the floorboards groaned under the weight of someone—him—the static of his presence like a current riding just under your skin.

“Bit cool out for a dress like that, don’t you think?”

You don’t turn around, but Joel can see your shoulders wrack with a huff. “Bit out of your jurisdiction, telling me what I should or shouldn’t be wearing, don’t you think?” You pause, then: “Y’know… especially since you’re here with your girlfriend.”

“Tess ain’t my girlfriend.”

“That’s not what it looks like.” “I know what it looks like. I’m telling you it’s not that.”

“Could’ve fooled me,” you mutter, yanking the fridge door open with more force than it’s made for, the seal breaking with a loud hiss. Bottles rattle on the shelves from the impact, a carton of juice sloshing from left to right.

Joel exhales, the sound harsh, tired—partially frustration at you, part at himself. Because your bratiness, your sharp tongue and narrowed eyes, have a way of stirring something up in him that makes his pulse gallop just that little bit faster. Makes him feel wired and restless in a way he hasn’t felt in a long fucking time.

So he bites. “You always get this pissed off after a one night stand?”

You freeze, knuckles whitening around the necks of two beers—one for you, one for Sarah. One night stand. He throws it back at you like a weapon. It stings. Maybe because you’d said it first when you were trying to play it cool. Now it just feels like a slap.

You straighten, shut the drudge with your hip and finally come to face Joel with your chin tipped high. “Nope. But I usually don’t have to sit across from my one night stands at the dinner table with their—” your eyes slice to Tess in the backyard, laughing with your dad while he flips burgers on the grill, “—whatever-you-want-to-call-her, and play happy families.”

Joel crosses the room until you’re both standing behind the kitchen counter, his voice low, urgent, when he tells you, “I didn’t know she was gonna be there. I swear.”

“Yeah, well.” You stare up at him, already feeling a little weak at the knees when the haze of his cologne hits you. “You sure know how to pick your surprises.”

His eyes dip slow, shamelessly, taking in the swell of your breasts where they rise over the fitted cups of your sundress. He doesn’t even try to disguise it. Just looks, jaw fluttering faintly under his scruff of facial hair before reaching past you for the bottle opener. Joel takes the two beers from your hands and pops them open with an effortless flick. Slides one of them onto the counter and takes a long pull from the other like you’d got it out for him.

You don’t say anything, just watch as he licks a drop of Bud from his bottom lip, leaning a hip against the counter, gaze sweeping lazily over you again.

“”S a nice dress, though,” he tells you, voice low. “I like the colour.”

You’d like to say it wasn’t intentional, that it was just the first thing you’d grabbed out of your wardrobe and thrown on, but it wouldn’t be the truth. You’d sat on your bed that morning in a towel, freshly-washed hair dropping onto your shoulders, starting at your open wardrobe. The doors were ajar, only just, enough to see the familiar chaos of reds and blacks, a hint of soft blue. But no green. Nothing in Joel’s favourite colour. Your stomach coiled. Out of nowhere came this pathetic, sharp urge to donate everything you owned. Burn it all down and start again. Build your closet back up in nothing but shades of moss and sage and pine. 

It was stupid. You knew it was stupid, but the memory had surfaced anyway—Tess at the dinner table, laughing, casually mentioning how she’d started wearing more green because it was his favourite. 

And now here you were, doing the same damn thing. Or wanting to. You never felt like that with Jesse. Never once thought about buying out the denim aisle to appease him, to drown yourself in blue to match him like some second skin.

You look down at your dress, the one you’d yanked out of donation bags that sat in your dad’s spare room, the garment just a smidge too tight on you compared to when you last wore it, probably back in high school.

I like the colour, Joel had said.

I know you do, you think—at least, you think you think it—but the words form aloud. The space between Joel’s eyebrows pinch and a shadow of a smile is gone before he reaches its full potential. The silence in the room sucks the walls inward, so instead of a kitchen, it feels like the pair of you have been shoved into a cardboard box. You watch as he drains the beer until there’s barely two mouthfuls left, throat working in quick swallows like whatever he’s about to do next needs a lick of liquid courage, his other hand hooking a thumb through the loop on his jeans. He takes one last swig, the weight of his arm tugging the faded blue waist down a notch so it exposes the waistband of his grey underwear.

Your quiet confession was like silk and barbed wire all at once. He shouldn’t want this. Not here, not like this, not ever, really. But fuck, if the idea didn’t sink its teeth in: you choosing that dress. That fit. That neckline. All of it with him in mind. It lights a slow burn in his chest that works its way lower, heat pooling behind his belt.

The muscles in Joel’s arm flex like an elastic band as he twists to put the empty bottle next to the sink, and your eyes train all the way up his neck to where the tendons pinch there, too.

“Did you wear that dress for me?” His tone dips with the question, thick with something you can’t quite put your finger on.

Your response rouses as a scoff at the back of your throat—yeah right—but it comes out as a strangled sort of whine, giving away that whatever excuse it was preceding would’ve been a blatant lie. “Get over yourself,” you tell him anyway, shoving back towards the fridge to grab a beer to replace the one he’d stolen from you. Joel follows suit to retrieve another, too, rivers of condensation running down its sides. He doesn’t move to clean the droplets that plummet to the floor. The galley in your dad’s kitchen isn’t that wide, so you and Joel are just about flush against each other when he turns back to face you. He doesn’t attempt to dissect your response to his question, just lilts the hem of your sundress with the bottom of his bottle.

A sharp breath shoots past your lips when it hits the inside of your thigh, the path of skin beside your knee igniting despite the bottle’s icy exterior.

“Don’t react. People are watching,” he tells you, eyes catching something over your shoulder. The kitchen counter is high enough to hide anything below the waist, so anyone looking on from the backyard would just see Joel and you in what would appear to be a casual conversation.

The idea that this is casual splits your nerves.

“When I ask you something, I want a simple answer.” He’s slow. Precise. The kind of voice that leaves no room for argument. “Yes or no, got it?”

You nod, your attention stuck on the rivulet of condensation tracking a glistening line down your calf. The room is suffocating, all the walls pressing inward under the weight of his stare.

Joel doesn’t let your silence slide. He lifts the cold bottle just a fraction, pressing it higher on your thigh, and the jolt of sensation is instant—your hips flinch, back hitting the edge of the counter as the bottle skims closer to heat. His voice slices through the static buzzing in your head.

“Yes or no?” It’s not a question anymore. It’s a command.

“I…Yes.” The word breaks out after several aching beats. And like a switch flipped, the tension in his shoulders unwinds. You watch the muscles above his collarbones loosen, the sharp edge of his jaw unclench.

“Good girl.”

The praise slams into you, pumps your chest with something dangerously close to pride, and you’re filled with the urge to please him, succumb to him, whatever him, so long as he’s this close.

Good girl.

His good girl.

A sudden laugh explodes from outside, a burst of normalcy that cuts through the fog. The reminder that you’re mere feet from the gathering—your dad, Tess, Sarah—has you instinctively pulling back, but Joel’s hand is already there, his fingers locking firm around your friend, calloused and warm and unyielding.

“I said,” he growls, voice molten and ragged, “Don’t. Move.”

The barrel of his bottle lands again—harder this time on your opposite thigh with a wet clink. Your legs almost betray you at the shock of the cold glass, but it’s the suggestion of what could come next that undoes you. The backyard fades into background noise again, muffled like you’re submerged underwater. Your heart pounds frantically, the only thing anchoring you now is Joel’s body on yours.

His stare on you like a weight, and the sear of his hand where he holds you.

“I’m going to ask you again,” he says, more frayed this time. “Did you wear this dress for me?” 

You both know you did. It’d be easy to admit. But the way his pupils have swallowed the colour from his eyes—wide, dark, hungry—tells you you’ve got him. And you’re not giving that up so easily.

A smirk threatens to crack across your face but you wrangle it down before telling Joel: “Not everything I put on is for your benefit, you know.” The sass has his dick kicking against his thigh, and you catch the flare of his nostrils just before he takes your wrist and guides your hand down, pressing your palm to the heat straining behind his zipper. “That benefit, you mean?”

Your breathing stutters and you swallow thickly at the weight of him, the barely-restrained hardness, how he feels hot and solid and real beneath your fingers. A flush shoots through you, fast and unrelenting, before Joel peels your hand away. The loss of him under your palm feels like a punishment, but for Joel, it’s his only line of defense against blowing his load in his pants like some touch-starved teenager. 

A light sweat pricks at your heaving chest and you cast your sight down, inviting Joel to follow. If he does, you don’t notice, because the beat blocking his next movement is almost non-existent as he jerks his beer upwards so it’s pressing against your centre, the thin material of your panties the only thing keeping your last shed of control in.

You both know how wrong this is—family feet away, a house full of noise—but neither of you moves to stop it. The thrill is the point. The push and pull, the control, the loss of it.

Joel dips close, his mouth nearly brushing your cheek. And then, he whispers his trump card, soft and lethal.

“Darlin’. Come on, you can tell me. You wore this dress just for me, hm?”

You press your tongue to the inside of your cheek. Each second that ticks by without a response earns you a fresh surge of pressure between your thighs. The icy bottle finally catches the swollen nub of your clit. You buck your hips forward, chasing the feeling. If Joel were to peel your dress up now, you’re certain he wouldn’t be able to tell where the condensation ended and your arousal began. Your breaths are jagged, fingers curling tight against the edge of the counter to keep you from melting into a heap at his feet. The kitchen stretches quiet and thick with tension as your gazes remained locked, challenging each other.

He wants submission.

You offer defiance. 

And he gets off on it.

Joel nudges the bottle up again, insistent. Daring. You dig your heels in, refusing to let up. Until—

“God, I was wondering where you went,” Sarah says from behind you, her voice slicing the moment in half. Joel yanks the bottle back so fast it tinkers against the counter, backing away from you like he’s been shot. Annoyance at Sarah’s interruption flares through you for a brief moment, then it’s chased by shame as you avoid looking at her out of fear that you have your dad just hand his hands up my dress written on your forehead in red ink.

She snags the original beer off the counter and sucks down a sip. 

You and Joel don’t speak. Just exchange a tight glance. Relief. Guilt. Something worse.

“Shit, this stuff’s good,” Sarah says with a dramatic lip smack, none the wiser.

A beat passes. Two.

Then she glances at her father with a raised brow. “Hey, what’s going on with you and Tess, anyway? Are you like… together now?”

The words hit you square in the gut. You blink, the haze of heat and touch and Joel’s voice still echoing inside you—Darlin’. But it fades fast. Like a splash of cold water, Sarah’s question brings it all back. The way Tess had walked in with her arm looped through Joel’s. The way she’d touched him like she had every right. Laughed at things only a couple could laugh about. The way you’d let yourself forget. You grind your teeth together.

What the hell are you doing? He’s not yours. And you’re not some girl who loses her sense over a little touching and a good girl. You’re smarter than this. You’ve got better boundaries than this. Or at least, you used to. Now, all you feel is a hot flush of shame—not just at Joel, but at yourself. 

For giving him the power. For liking how it felt.

You reach for your own beer with a forced smile and take a long, bracing sip. Joel still hasn’t answered his daughter’s question, so she looks to you, like you have some sort of in on the situation.

“No idea,” you tell her, voice clipped. “Not my business.”

But it is. It was. It shouldn’t be.

***

The fire pit crackles in the dark, casting long shadows across the yard, flames snapping at the logs like hungry mouths. Joel sits in a camping chair, one ankle hooked over his knee, a half-finished beer in hand. Tommy had rocked up a little while ago and dropped into the seat beside him, laughing about something Joel didn’t entirely hear. His thoughts kept drifting.

You.

He hasn’t looked your way since the kitchen. Not properly. Not when Sarah reappeared beside you, not when everyone lined up to serve themselves up for dinner, not even now, when you’re stretched out on a blanket across the yard, head tilted back as you talk quietly with his daughter. Joel’s still half-hard in his jeans. Still feels like a fucking idiot. 

“Someone forgot to put these in the fridge,” Tess’s voice chimes from behind him before appearing at his side, holding up the bakery bag he’d completely forgotten on the kitchen counter earlier.

Joel stands automatically, rubs the back of his neck. “Shit. Sorry, Tess.”

“You’re lucky you’re so handsome,” she jokes, nudging his arm lightly, but Joel doesn’t laugh. He stiffens instead, setting his beer in the mesh cup holder in his chair. “Hey,” he says quietly, jerking his chin towards the edge of the yard. “Mind if we talk for a sec?”

Tess studies him, something flashes behind her eyes. Then she nods. “Sure.” 

His hands are in his pockets, shoulders set tight by the time they’re standing by the oak tree by the fence. “Look, I ain’t good at this kinda thing,” he tells her. “So, I’ll just say it plain.”

Tess waits, arms crossed. Her brow’s already lifted when Joel tells her, “I think we’re better off as friends.”

You clock it all from across the yard. Joel and Tess are locked in a quiet conversation, voices swallowed by the rest of the noise rousing from the party. Tess isn’t touching him, for a change. She’s touched him in some way every moment she’s been near him tonight. A hand on his arm. A shoulder pressed too close. A whisper with a hand curling around his elbow.

Not that you’d been paying that keen attention. No.

Now Tess is still. Arms folded. Her posture shifts slightly before she lets out an awkward laugh, the kind people use to save face. She reaches out, pulls Joel into a hug. It’s brief. Polite, measured, and when she pulls back, Joel doesn’t follow. You watch him track her retreating figure back into the throng of guests, to where she sits down gingerly to join a conversation with Tommy’s wife, Maria, and a couple of other neighbours. Meanwhile, Joel is unmoving under that tree, like its roots have grown right over his feet, keeping him stuck in the shadows beside the tyre swing.

Then his eyes find you. 

Half-lit by the flicker of the fire. Blanket pulled over your legs. Your face giving nothing away while you watch him suck in a deep breath. There’s a slight tilt of his head, the damn furrow in his brow that he gets when he’s working something out. You expect him to look away. But he doesn’t.

For the first time all night, Joel doesn’t look away. And neither do you, until your dad shouts your name from where he’s sat beside Tommy, hand pitched in the air to grab your attention.

“Mind getting some more wood for the fire, sweetheart?” he asks. “We’re gettin’ a little low over ‘ere.”

You throw him a thumbs up back, message received. You flip the blanket off your lap and head around the side of the house, firelight fading behind you.

The shed waits at the back fence line, its grey tin frame pretty much black in the shadows. You make your way down the gravel path, cold nipping at where your bare skin meets the air. 

Fucking stupid outfit for this weather, you decide, chastising yourself.

You’re reaching for the she’d latch when you hear the slow crunch of boots behind you. You don’t turn. Don’t need to.

“Fuck off, Joel.”

There’s a pause. Then his voice, that same rough rasp that somehow always manages to find the softest part of your spine. “Just seein’ if you need a hand.”

“Don’t need anything from you.”

You yank the shed door open and pull the dangling chain connected to the old bulb that flickers then hums to life, casting everything in a jaundiced yellow. You step inside and crouch by the woodpile, blowing a sheet of cobwebs off it. Joel lingers in the doorway, one shoulder leaned into the frame. The night breathes between you as you reach for a small shaft of timber at the top of the pile. 

“Told Tess we’re better off as friends,” he says. It makes you pause, even though you’d gauged as much from the awkward interaction you’d witnessed just minutes ago. 

“Congratulations,” you mutter, grabbing at the log harder than necessary. A sharp sting punches into your forefinger. You his through your teeth and yank your hand back, sucking at the blood already welling around a splinter lodged into the supple skin there.

Joel is on you in two strides.

“Let me see.”

“No.

“Darlin’—”

“I said I’m fine.”

But then his hand wraps around your wrist in a maddingly gentle way, the heat from his palm warm, sure. You try to shake free from his grip but it’s a half-hearted attempt that Joel clocks, but doesn’t make a deal of. “Just gimme a look.” There’s less grit in his voice now. More gravity, and you don’t fight it again.

Joel steps into the shed fully now, easing the door half-closed behind him, shutting out the party, the noise. It’s just you two now, with the hum of the lightbulb and the thud of your heart trilling at your ribcage. He brings your hand up under the light, turning your finger delicately between his own as he inspects the wound. Then—without warning—he brings it to his lips. Your lungs blaze somewhere high in your chest.

Joel’s mouth parts around your fingertip, warm, wet, and he sucks. It’s methodical. Deliberate. A few pulls of his lips and the splinter unlodges from your finger, tongue brushing your skin with a softness that doesn’t match the hungry way he looks at you.

You’re frozen. Breaths shallow. Joel picks the miniscule shard of timber off his tongue, which then darts out to flick the taste of your blood from his lips, eyes steady on yours. He hasn’t let go of your hand. Not yet. Just allow his thumb to drag slowly over the pad of your finger for a moment until he says, just as gravelly as the stones stuck in the tread of his boots: “You gotta do a favour for me now.” You cock your head, suspicious. “Yeah?”

His eyes, looking more amber than brown in the dingy light, stay fixed on yours, voice thick with whatever the result is of defeat and desire combined. “Tell me you wore that dress for me.”

You let his words hang there, let him stew, before your defiant side claws up in a soft whisper. “And what if I did?”

“Then, darlin’—” he shakes his head, jaw flexing in that incredulous way. “Then I’m fucked.” He steps in closer, crowding your space like he had back in the kitchen, your bodies nearly touching. The shed should feel cold, but the air is hot and heavy around you. “You’re drivin’ me outta my damn mind,” Joel mutters. His fingers graze your hip now, fingers trilling the tie at your waist. “Can’t stop thinkin’ about you. Hate how much I want you. It—it feels sick, needin’ you like this. Can’t shake it.”

The confession slops out like it’s been waiting in his throat for days. You don’t even have the time to answer before his mouth is on yours, starved while he pulls you to him like he’s afraid you’ll vanish. The shed door groans on its hinges as Joel reaches back and slams it shut behind him, muting the party completely. You taste blood—yours, from the splinter—and beer, cold and bitter on his tongue, and it makes your knees give out.

Joel doesn’t let you fall.

His hands are everywhere—palming your hips, sliding between your thighs, pawing at your tits—and in one clean, hungry movement, he lifts you up. Your legs wind around his waist like a habit as he carries you to the other side of the shed, never breaking the kiss. Joel sets you down on your dad’s workbench with a thud, and guides himself between your thighs as they hang off the edge. His large hands splay across the tops of your legs as he pulls back just enough to drink you in, pupils blown wide, lips red and raw, the makeup under your nose scrubbed clean off thanks to his facial hair.

“Say it,” he rasps, chest heaving. “Tell me you wore that dress for me.” You nod before the words even form, of course I did, slipping out on a sigh. It’s barely a whisper, barely a confession. But it’s all Joel needs to start kissing you again, rougher now, deeper. One hand buries in your hair, the other grips your thigh where it’s hooked around his waist, fingers digging in like his grounding himself in the feel of you.

“Christ,” he moans into your mouth. “Knew it. Knew it the second I saw you.” Your head tips back as he licks down your throat, beard scraping against the sensitive skin just right, just enough to make you whimper. The bench creaks under your weight, shifting with every movement. 

“Joel,” you breathe, hands tangling in his dusty waves as he trails brandishing kisses to your breasts, yanking the cups of your dress down. Free in the air, your nipples draw to impossibly hard peaks, flushed and aching to be taken into Joel’s mouth. Like he can read your mind, he licks at one, then the other, tongue working in circles over the pebbled flesh. His fingers pay attention to whatever one he’s not suckling at, twisting and tugging at them like it’s his expertise. And with the way a strangled moan yanks from your throat, it just might be.

Your fingers tighten in his hair, hips rolling forward for more friction. Joel hums in approval, the buzz of his lips on your breast zipping under your skin there. His mouth trails lower, kissing over the thin material of your dress on your stomach, hands swiping up your thighs to push the fabric of the skirt to your hips as he sinks to his knees in front of you like it’s the most natural thing in the world.

Your breath catches as his fingers hook into your white panties—lace with a floral pattern—dragging them away from your centre achingly slow. His dark eyes stay locked to yours the entire time like he’s daring you to look away. You don’t.

And then his gaze dips, a growl wracking his body when he finally sees you bare. “Jesus Christ.”

You’re already so wet, slick and aching, residual arousal lingering from the encounter in the kitchen. Your thighs instinctively spread for Joel, allowing him to lean in and press a kiss just above your clit. Then another, lower. His breath is hot. You twitch under it, again when his tongue parts you, slowly, sinful. You press a palm into the benchtop, steading yourself while a strangled moan escapes you. “Fuck.” Joel licks into you with a flat tongue and rapid pace, groaning deep when your thighs clamp around his head. He’s quick to correct that though, gripping your knees without losing tempo, shoving them wide so your calves dangle over his shoulders, your sneakers leaving damp dirt on the back of his jacket. He continues working you open with his mouth, broad strokes turning precise as he zeroes in on your clit. You writhe on the bench, every nerve ending alight, skin flushed, jaw slack.

“Tase so fuckin’ good,” Joel groans into your cunt. “So sweet. Could stay right here all night.

You believe him, and God help you, you want him to.

You sink your teeth into your bottom lip, eyes squeezing shut as you try to keep quiet—but then Joel sucks your clit into his mouth and the cry that leaves you in anything but subtle. 

He doesn’t stop. Doesn’t even pause, just grins against you and keeps going while sliding a thick finger into your hot, aching center. The stretch makes you jolt, eyes rolling as he curls it just right—then another joins it, pumping in tandem with the slow, deliberate strokes of his tongue over your clit.

“Oh, God,” you whine, holding Joel’s head to you as his tongue drags messy patterns over your swollen bundle of nerves. Very swipe, every thrust, every graze of his scruff against your inner thighs sends sparks licking up your spine. Your breath comes in broken gasps, the heat curling tighter and tighter. Joel pulls back for just a second, lips glistening, to drink in the sight of you—chest heaving, tits bouncing slightly with each sharp pump of his hand, back arched, head tipped back in abandon. But when he doesn’t return his mouth to you right away, you blink down at him all wide-eyed and wrecked, a painful ache in your voice as you grit, “Joel—please—I’m gonna come.”

Your thighs quake around his shoulders while he stares at you a beat longer, eyes burning with hunger and something just shy of worship. “Yeah?” he murmurs, thumb brushing featherlight over your clit. “Then give it to me, darlin’. Show me how much you wanna come on my tongue.”

And just like that, he dives back in with feverish speed, trilling over your clit relentlessly, fingers pulsing deep into your cunt in perfect rhythm—again, again—until you shatter into a million pieces, pleasure crashing through you as you yelp Joel’s name, the sound bouncing off the tin walls of the shed while you come hard against his mouth. Your body trembles uncontrollably, but Joel doesn’t let up, just keeps working at you until the aftershocks roll through you like thunder and your hand pushes lazily through his hair with something between desperation and praise.

Eventually, Joel pushes up from the dusty floor, his middle-aged knees screaming in protest, but he doesn’t care—not when his mouth is still wet with you. The glow of the low-hanging bulb glints off the slick coating his lips and chin. He doesn’t wipe it away. Just leans in and kisses you, your taste between your tongues making you mean into his mouth. Hips shifting like they’re already searching for him again.

You suck in a shaky inhale. You don’t know how long you’ve been gone from the party. Minutes? Longer? The crackle of fire feels a hundred miles away now. You pray it’s still burning, that your dad hasn’t sent Sarah or anyone else to find you. That no one’s wandered down the side of the house, curious or looking to help. There’s a pang in your chest where heat blooms.

The thought of being caught tangled up with Joel Miller should terrify you. But it doesn’t. The idea sends a fresh, dangerous thrill through your body. 

He’s all you can think about. All you can feel.

His hands find your waist, grip tight enough to bruise. Fuck, you hope it does.

“That wasn’t enough,” he rasps against your lips. His buckle rattles as he wrestles with it between your bodies. “Need more. Need to fill your hot cunt with my cock again. Been thinkin’ about it every damn day. How tight you are. How good you take me.” 

You’re still trying to breathe properly when he hooks his arm around you and lifts you down from the bench like you weigh nothing at all. You hardly have time to find your balance before he turns you, palms heavy at your hips. Then your back. One hand anchors itself at the nape of your neck, folding you down until your bare chest meets the cold, splintered surface of the workbench. You gasp at the sudden change in temperature, in texture—soft skin against worn wood. Blink as your eyes fall in line with scattered tools. A screwdriver. A roll of duct tape. Cracked plastic box of nails. All of it blurs as Joel steps in behind you, and your body flexes to meet him. Rising on your tiptoes, arching, pressing yourself back, desperate and unthinking.

Joel groans low in his chest, the sound almost feral as he watches the bare bulbs of your ass keen towards him. With his jeans and underwear shoved down to his knees, his veiny cock stands flat against his stomach, rock hard and begging to sink inside you. He skims one hand over your ass and down to your thigh, hitching it higher so you slot against him just right while the other hand drags his weeping head through your folds. And you—body flushed, mouth open against the bench, can’t find words anymore. Just want. Just him.

“I know, baby,” he mutters when his tip meets your entrance, already pulsating, trying to grip onto him, onto anything to chase what you’re needing. “Don’t know if I can go slow this time,” he says, hoarse, near your ear. “Need t’ feel you. That okay?”

You nod frantically, offering a choked sound that barely resembles anything but Joel understands. Takes it for what it is: permission.

He hands slaps against your ass once, the sharp sting left in its place already forgotten when Joel pushes into you with such force that your knees nearly buckle. You gasp, half a sob, reaching your arms backwards to anchor yourself at his thighs. But he quickly gathers your hands in one of his own and holds them there at the base of your back, locking you there. The rhythm he sets is punishing and relentless—like he’s making up for every second he couldn’t have you. The shed trembles around you. At least, it feels like it does, the world narrowing to the scrape of wood, the faint swing of a chain overhead, the shudder of breath between you and—

Shouting. Your dad. Distant, but approaching. Joel stills for only a beat, working fast to reach up and yank the light’s chain. The bulb flickers out, plunging you both into darkness.

“Be quiet f’me,” Joel breathes, barely audible even though his lips brush the shell of your ear. You nod again, frozen in place. He doesn’t pull out, try and shove his cock back into his pants. No, he doesn’t even slow, just shifts his grip to your waist, his pace so deep, so steady. All you can hear now is the thud of your heartbeat and the near-silent rasp of Joel’s breath on your cheek.

Your dad’s voice rings out again, closer this time, Gravel crunches under boots on the other side of the tin wall. You bristle. So does Joel. But you still clench around him, unable to help it. 

A quiet laugh puffs against your skin. “My filthy girl,” he whispers, affection and wickedness blurring together in his words. “You like the risk, don’t you? Like the idea of bein’ caught.” Your eyes roll back, mouth slack with a soundless plea. 

Footsteps pause just outside the shed. You brace for the rattle of the door. For the blinding flood of light and the horror of being caught with his best friend buried deep inside you. But the moment never comes. You hear him mutter something you don’t catch under his breath before the sound of retreating steps. Back down the gravel. Back towards the fire pit.

You’re not sure why he doesn’t open the shed. Why he doesn’t grab the firewood he’d asked for. Maybe he forgot. Maybe he got distracted. But you don’t let yourself question it too much. You’re just thankful. Grateful for the silence. For the reprieve. And Joel, his body pressed against yours, his breath at your neck, takes that silence and fills it with the slap of skin on skin. Continues hammering into you, worshipping you with every motion, like he couldn’t stop now if he tried. 

Your hands are back bracing against the bench, palms damp with sweat when Joel leans forward, clothed chest warm at your back when he tells you he’s getting close. “You gonna come with me, darlin’?”

You nod, helpless, leaning into the pressure curling tight inside your belly. Every movement he makes coils it tighter. You gasp his name again, and Joel moans like it wrecks him. Like his name on your tongue undoes him the most. Legs shaking, you’re right there on the edge. The sound of Joel’s breath, the feel of his hands, his body completely too much and not enough at once.

“Almost there, baby,” he whispers, teeth nipping at your skin. “Just give it to me. Let go.”

And you do. The orgasm tears through you in waves, silent at first before a sharp gasp as your body tightens around him. Joel follows, groaning one long low sound, surrendering as he falls apart with you. Hips stuttering, arms wrapped around your waist as he buries himself to the hilt at stills.

For a long moment, there’s only breathing. Your own, sharp and uneven. His, rasping against your skin. Joel’s the first to move. He presses a line of slow, reverent kisses down your spine, gently pulling out with his hands holding your hips steady. Wordlessly, he tugs the light back on and you turn to face him, taking in the lax look on his face, the way sweat gleans in the aging divots of his face. You watch him while he repositions your dress on your torso with care, smoothing the fabric down over your legs. It’s more tender than you were expecting, especially when you consider the cold and distant aftermath when you’d finished up that time in his truck. You’re still catching your breath when Joel bends to retrieve the small scrap of fabric that had been discarded earlier. 

Your panties.

He holds them up between two fingers, eyes glimmer in the low light as he meets your gaze.

“Here,” you say, reaching for them, but Joel just shakes his head. Smirks.

“Nah. These are mine now.”

“Is that right?” “Mmhmm,” he hums. Tucks them into his back pocket. “Means you’ll have to come find me if you want ‘em back.”

You shake your head with a snort as you smooth down your hair. “You’re such an asshole.”

Joel grins, grabs your hand before you can push past him, presses a soft kiss to your knuckles like he’s sealing some kind of deal. “Yeah, but I guess that makes me your asshole, right?”

The words hang there—teasing, sweet if you squint—but his eyes are serious when they meet yours. They dance with a promise. A question. A start.

And this time, he doesn’t turn away.

***

a/n: okayyyy so i'm sweatinggggg after writing this one!! it's the last planned part for this fic, but I'm not opposed to jumping in at a later date with a drabble or two for this duo. as always, let me know what you think!!!!!!

taglist: @hotmess-x @callmeknife @leesromanova @brinapedroswife @joelmillersgffff @lilasskicker2 @yslgreen @akah565

[petitprincess1]

Bro.....who said anything about infantilizing???? I didn't do anything like that. All I said was that Husk won't be able to do the things that Angel did BECAUSE OF ALASTOR! I know the difference between the chains and their personalities. That's why I brought it up!

Please do not make such assumptions. I would never infantilize any of the characters. I don't even see where you would get this from my POV. If you have questions about my post, DMs are open.

I really do not like you making this seem like I was babying anyone. I know the situations are incredibly different and I know neither had their choice. Please just ask me instead of making it seem like I don't know what I am talking about.

I apologize for my harshness in the beginning. That just was really shocking to me

Y'all wanna talk about chains? You wanna talk about how much firmer and detailed Alastor’s are compared to Valentino? You wanna talk about how Husk isn't even able to get an inch away from Alastor, while Angel is easily able to tug away at any point? Wanna even discuss how Angel's chains seem to be becoming less former the bolder he becomes?

Wanna talk about how Husk was proud of Angel doing something that he'll possibly never will be able to do?

No? Oh, okay. That's fair.

[yelenasbraid]

JOE BURROW — the cure to your poison

summary — he will do anything to get her back

warnings — fem!reader, angst, fluff, sub!joe, smut

note — it’s long. oops 😀 also it’s part two of this fic

tags — @ebsmind @willowsnook @starsinthesky5 @hannahjessica113 @softburrow @joecoolburrow @joeyburrrow @joeyfranchise @joeyb1989 @irishmanwhore @hotburreaux @sportyphile @wickedfun9 @burrowdarling @jburrgf @blairsworld22

IT WAS LATE when she heard her phone buzz. Three days passed since the gala and she cursed herself for thinking about Joe. She didn’t want to. She didn’t want to think about his laugh or his muscles. Or how she knew exactly what was underneath his clothes.

Maybe a tad bigger, but still there.

She picked up her phone, the screen illuminating her face in the darkness of her bedroom. It was a text. From Joe.

‘Hey, can we talk?’

Joe only had her number for professional purposes. He rarely ever texted her. So her heart dropped to her feet. Her stomach churned. Her whole body froze.

He wanted to talk.

‘About what?’

A reply came nearly instantly. ‘You know what about.’

Her fingers hovered over the keyboard. She sat up, her heart racing inside of her chest. She didn’t want to talk about it, but at the same time, she did. The time spent apart, throwing hateful or confused gazes at one another, got old. She wanted connection, and the girl inside of her wanted to know if he wanted it too.

‘Fine.’ She replied, following with her apartment address.

Silence followed. Her blood roared in her ears. Her nerves dented the walls of her stomach. She placed her phone on the nightstand before she stood up.

She needed to at least put a bra on.

She brushed her hair, brushed her teeth. The routine. The things she did when she expected sex. She didn’t expect it this time, but the routine was comforting. Natural. A good luck charm.

It wasn’t long before a knock sounded at her apartment door. Her heart jumped, eyes screwed in on her shut bedroom door. She opened it, padding out to the entrance door.

“Hey,” he breathed as she opened the door. He was comfortable. Sweats hung on his hips, a t-shirt hung around his shoulders. Golden retriever.

“Hi,”

“Can I come in?” he asked. He was nervous. His eyes scanned her features, the bags under her eyes and the shorts she sported. Her arms were crossed over her chest; she never liked being woken up.

“Yeah,” she murmured. The air around them thickened as he walked in, sensing the tension. The door shut behind them, lock clicking in place. Silence stood with them, hanging around their necks. It wasn’t the lack of words that choked them, it was the abundance of them.

“I don’t wanna be long,” he started, shoving his hands into his pockets, “I just…want to clear the air,”

“Clear the air about what?” she was still defensive. Still sure he was going to compare her to someone else.

“About what happened that night, the night we…stopped seeing each other,” he admitted. He shouldn’t have been that caught up in it all, but he was. Paige was a cover up, a raggedy blanket to attempt to soothe his weary soul. She didn’t do it for him. Not like Y/N did.

“I don’t think there’s anything we need to clear,” she sighed, “everything was said then,”

“I know I know, but I just…” he ran a hand through his damp curls, fingers shaky. He didn’t know how to formulate the words. He didn’t know how form a sentence.

“I just wanted to apologize,”

“For what? Comparing me to another girl?” she could feel her anger flare, the sheer volume of her irritation filling her chest. She didn’t want it to get that far, but every word he said was a scar reopening.

“I don’t want to argue,” he exhaled, the weight of this conversation bearing down on him, “I just wanted to apologize,”

“That’s not enough,” she scoffed, “an apology? That’s all? I mean, yeah, thanks, but that’s not going to fix it,”

“I know that,” his voice is raising, magma slowly building in his stomach, “but I don’t know what else you want from me,”

“I want you to want me!” she shouted, her eyes burning with the the familiar sting of tears. It was sudden, the air of the room sucked out with a single phrase. This wasn’t the first time he’d made her cry, it wasn’t the first time he’d punched her in the chest.

“I do want you!” he shouted back, his eyes pleading with her. The blue depths of his eyes threatened to pull her in, a black hole that she’d try to claw her way out of but inevitably be destroyed in.

“Then why didn’t you say anything? Why did you let me stand there like a fucking moron?” she shouted back, her eyes staring into the wide blue eyes of the man in front of her. His pupils dilated, pulsing as he watched her. The answer to her question was simple.

He was stupid. Moronic. Selfish.

“Because I was a kid,” he breathed, “I wanted more than I could, and I didn’t realize that everything I needed was right in front of me,”

Her arms loosened. Her chest heaved. The words he spoke was a balm, seeping into the scars he’d caused. The sincerity behind them was easy to believe. Joe wasn’t one to beg for things. He wasn’t one to be vulnerable. She wanted to believe him on that sole fact, but time had changed them, hadn’t it? She’d become more closed off. He’d grabbed ahold of the fame.

His lifeline shifted.

“And what was right in front of you?” she asked, a charge. She wanted him to say it. She wanted him to own it. The room they were in became thick, the air sucked from their lungs. She watched Joe, watched as he stepped forwards.

“You,” he breathed. His blue eyes flickered, focusing on her features. It was a simple answer. No hesitation. He’d been missing her this whole time. She’d been his missing piece. His chest rose and fell with his breaths, the tightness in his body choking him.

“Let me fix it,” he whispered, desperation laced between every syllable. His body was close to hers now, his haunting scent wafting over her senses. His presence pushed her back, guiding her into her bedroom, the door flicking shut behind them. Her body remembered how he felt. How he kissed her and how he’d touched her.

But it didn’t matter then. It was just for fun.

“How can you fix it?” she trailed off, shaking her head.

“Let me show you,” he whispered, kneeling down in front of her. Her world tipped, her heart skipping a beat. His eyes were round, his body relaxed. He wasn’t trying to dominate her, to take control. His hands reached out, brushing down the curve of her thighs.

“Joe,” she warned, even if her body was electrified. The charge in the air zipped down her spine, her fingers curling at her sides. The flutter in her stomach was familiar, it was foreign all at the same time.

“Sh,” he hushed, his fingers looping under the hem of her cotton shorts, “please,”

She watched him, her eyes capturing his blown expression. His breath fanned against her skin, growing goosebumps across her skin. His fingers didn’t budge, just stayed warm against the skin of her hips.

He was asking permission.

“Okay,” she whispered. In that moment, the room exploded. His fingers tugged the shorts off of her hips. She stepped out of them. Her legs laid bare for him, soft and perfumed. His head dipped, kissing her inner thighs. The sensation caused her to inhale sharply. The plush of his lips against the skin of her thighs made her body tense.

Joe’s heart raced. His eyes never left hers, even as his fingers peeled her panties from her hips. He peeled them down her body, the slick of her pussy sticking to the crotch of her panties. His cock jumped in his sweats. He eyes fluttered, the scent of her arousal making him hold back a moan.

It was so familiar. The scent of home. Of her.

“Can I?” he asked her. He could practically taste her, the scent of her staining his nervous system. His brain lit up, memories swarming back into his brains. Her sounds. Her quivers. Everything.

“Yes,” she breathed, and the second she gave him permission, his mouth was on her. She gasped, stumbling with the sheer force of her pleasure. Her back hit the wall of her bedroom, one of her hands tangled in his beautiful, blonde curls.

His tongue attached to her cunt, the bitter taste of her arousal making him moan. His fingers dug into her thighs, keeping her against the wall and him from stumbling. Her moans and her breaths were a melody, a sensual song that he wanted to play on repeat. He wanted to wake up to it every morning.

Her eyes fluttered, her mouth hanging open with silent moans. Her free hand braced against the wall, her back arched off of the wall. The ache he stirred, the way her pussy fluttered around his tongue, it clouded her mind. Her body squirmed over him, her body moved on its own as she remembered just how he felt.

“Am I doing good?” he asked her, and she peaked down at him. Submissive. She’s never seen him like this before. Joe always took control. His hands were always demanding and starving for control.

Not now.

She moved her hand from his hair, tracing his jawline. His heart skipped a beat, his lungs squeezed with anticipation. Blood drained from his body, all collecting in his already rock hard cock.

“Get on the bed,” she hummed. The simplicity of the command, the softness of her voice, it sent ripples through his ocean of desire. He stood, his erection evident in the grey sweats he sported. He did as he was told, positioning himself on the bed.

Back against the headboard. His hands fisting the sheets.

She followed. She tore her shirt off, leaving her in a maroon, satin bra. She grabbed her discarded panties, a matching maroon color. Her breasts wiggled in their cups as she straddled his hips. She peeled his shirt off, tossing it onto the floor.

“Hands above your head,” she continued. Joe’s eyes widened, but held did as he was told. His biceps bulged as he did so, and using the fabric of her panties, she tied his wrists to the headboard. His breath hitched, the warmth of her arousal meeting the skin of his wrist. He shuddered, squirming under her.

“Y/N-”

“Sh,” she pressed a manicured finger to his lips, her eyes meeting his. The air between them was hot, thick with a lust that’s fermented like a fine wine. It was potent, alcoholic. Joe wanted her injected into his DNA, he wanted her to be apart of him.

She dragged her finger down his chin, down his throat, and down his chest. Her finger traced the underside of one of his pecs, making him flinch. Her face stayed inches from his, teasing him. He didn’t get to kiss her on his own terms. He’d have to earn the privilege of kissing her.

“Gonna be a good boy for me?” she hummed, her lips brushing over his jaw. Her fingers looped around to her back, unclamping her bra. She slid it off of her shoulders, flinging it to the floor.

His heart slammed against his chest, his ribcage vibrating with every beat of his heart. The way her finger traced under his pec, how her lips softly met his neck, his hips arched in response.

“Y/N,” he breathed, his breath ragged and uneven. Her lips trailed down his chest, delicately pressing kisses to his hot skin. She was in control here, she held the reins in her hands. Her hands slid down his sides, resting on his hips.

“I’m gonna prove to you I’m better,” she promised, her lips meeting the meat of his pec, “I know I’m better, but you have to believe it,”

Her words, a silky promise on the waves of need, sent blood straight to his cock. He felt it twitch in his sweats, the ache pulsing deep within his body. He fought his body, tensing as her tongue flicked over his nipple.

“Fuckin’ hell, Y/N,” he groaned, his hands straining in his hold. She’d managed to tie him tight, and even though he could get out if he really tried, he didn’t want to. Seeing the possession of her vengeance, how it took root in her brain and spread through her nerves, it was sexy.

Her tongue swirled around his nipple, his chest heaving as he swallowed the moans that threatened to spill. His skin prickled, tingles of his pleasure reaching down to his toes. She moved to kiss down his chest, her lips kissing a trail down to his v-line.

He met her eyes, the depth of them magnetizing. He had no choice but to draw in, to lose himself in whatever she had swirling in that beautiful mind of hers. His body remembered her touch, that the pads of her fingers held fire and her tongue held the flood. Her fingers peeled off his sweats, the bulge in his boxers growing with each passing second. His stomach fluttered, his throat closed with the threat of a noise he hadn’t made. Ever.

A whimper.

She kissed under his belly button, purposely teasing him. He was rock hard, probably aching so much it hurt, but she’d let it ride. Her fingers were dainty, they were torches as they peeled the waistband of his boxers back.

“What are you doing?” Joe grunted, his hands straining against the restraints. His muscles bulged, his abs constricted and she felt saliva collect in her mouth.

“Teasing you,” she answered simply, slowly freeing him from his boxers, “though I think you’d classify this as torture,”

It was torture. His body was tied up in knots, her fingers tying him tighter. His cock twitched as he felt the cool air of her bedroom kiss his skin, the heat of her breath added in didn’t help him.

He gritted his teeth. He bit it back. He couldn’t give her that satisfaction.

“Come on, Joey,” she hummed, her eyes dark with control. Dominance flared in her body, rippling through her blood stream. Her heart danced in her chest, her lungs leading her in her arousing state of mind.

The second he made a sound she’d lose it.

The silence was deafening. His cock was painfully hard, pre-cum slipping down his red, sensitive tip. His teeth were gritted together, his eyes avoiding hers.

But his own desire betrayed him. A small, quiet whimper left his throat. It echoed in the room, but once he started he couldn’t stop. His mind crumbled, his body slumping against the plush mattress. She consumed him, controlled him like a puppet master. Her eyes were home, where he’d find himself pleasured and safe.

“There you go,” she murmured. Her eyes flicked down to his cock, salivating at the sight of him. He was thick, his tip pulsing with the arousal that leaked from his slit. It laid against his stomach, throbbing with need.

But his eyes. They were blown with an ache that she spun herself. His lips were parted with small breaths, his head spinning. She was in control; she had him on a leash and he wasn’t complaining.

“Y/N,” he whispered, his hips arching towards her body. The throbs in his cock made his muscles shake, it made his world spin. It was nearly painful; he needed her.

“Tell me,” she whispered, collecting saliva in her mouth, “what do you want?”

She lets her saliva drip from her lips, dripping down onto the sensitive and swollen tip of his cock. His hips bucked, a gasp leaving his lips. It was fire to his veins, his nerves the underbrush to her flame.

“God,” he groaned, taking deep and ragged breaths. His words were tangled, clawing at his throat as he attempted to shove them down. But the way she was looking at him, the way her body glowed in the light, he couldn’t help himself.

“Touch me,” he whimpered, his words barely audible over the sound of his breathing, “please,”

And she did.

She grabbed ahold of him with her hand, the heat of his skin making her shudder. Her hand stroked, slowly, drawing out gasps and moans from Joe. She squeezed, the tiniest bit, flexing her wrist as she touched him. Her other hand raked down his thigh, reveling in the shivers she drew from his nerves.

“Fuck,” he cursed, squirming underneath her touch, “Y/N,”

She didn’t answer his moans. She dipped her head, licking around the underside of the head of his cock. He tasted bitter, salty with arousal, but she didn’t care. All that mattered was that he was whimpering, that he was squirming underneath her touch.

With how she was making him feel, he wasn’t going to last long.

“Don’t cum until I tell you,” she hummed, her hand wringing him in a faster pattern, squeezing ever so slightly at his tip. It left a burning sensation in his body, an ache that he fought so hard to keep under control.

She stroked him, feeling him twitch in her hands. He was so sensitive, so hard for her, and she wanted him to feel it. She wanted him to drown in the aches she drew, and based off of the look on his face, she was.

“I-I can’t,” he whined. The walls around his heart crumbled, allowing her to have full control. Joe didn’t often find himself in this position, but it was different with her. He’d willingly let himself be under her.

She removed her hand. He choked back a moan.

His cock twitched, his tip pooling with pre-cum. He sat on the edge of the knife, his body twitching. It was torture.

She moved up his body, her face right above his. His eyes, round with submission, blinked up at her. Soft, gentle whimpers fell from his lips as the throbbing in his body only intensified. He couldn’t even think straight.

“You’re doing so good for me,” she whispered, tracing his jaw with her fingers, “my pretty boy,”

The possession, the way she said it, he whined. His cock jumped, making his toes curl. He needed her.

“Please,” he whispered, his chest heaving with his breaths, “please, let me cum,”

She smirked, dipping her head, tasting his skin. Having this power, this control, it was an addiction she didn’t know existed. His skin was sweet, twinged with the flavor of his sweat. She settled her hips down on his, her sopping pussy meeting his shaft.

“You wanna cum, pretty boy?” she whispered in his ear, her teeth grazing his skin.

“Please,” he begged. His eyes closed, his lips parted. His body craved hers, his skin crawling with the promise of what was to come. His arms tugged at the fabric of her panties, his fingers flexing in their hold.

“You’re so pretty when you beg,” she whispered. She lost the point now, the revenge she was supposed to be getting. Now, it was all lust. It was a cigarette that once she got a drag of, she’d always come back.

Her face hovered over his, their breaths mingling together. One of her hands reached between them, aligning his cock with her entrance. Her touch sent electricity through his body, eliciting a gasp from his pink lips.

She pushed him inside of her, her hips sitting back on his cock. A gasp left her lips, her hand planting on one of his pecs, squeezing. The girth, the way he pulsed inside of her, it threatened to split her in two. Her walls, gummy and sensitive, were alive as she took him to the hilt.

Joe felt numb and alive all at the same time. His eyes watered, the intensity of her pussy around his cock building the ache deep within him. He clenched his hands into fists as he held himself back, whimpers breathing through clenched teeth.

“Fuck,” she breathed, her lips inches from his. He wanted to kiss her, his lips tingling for just a single taste.

He hadn’t earned it. Yet.

“Y/N,” he moaned, whiny and silky. Her hips scooped against his, the burn of their friction making Joe’s jaw slack and his back arch. His stomach fluttered, letting go of the restrain he had on his vocal cords.

The sweet, plushy spot within her pulsed, and with every drag of his cock, her mind was higher in the clouds. Her hands gripped his pecs, her fingers leaving pretty little indents in the muscle. Her thighs hugged his hips, strong and soft. Her movements were slow, but they were deep, meant to tear Joe apart piece by piece.

And it was working.

“Feel how wet I am for you?” she whispered, her lips ghosting over his jaw. His breath hitched, his hips bucking up into hers. The sudden friction, the bolt of electricity that ran down his veins, caused a whimper to fall from his lips.

He could only nod.

“Meet my pace,” she whispered in his ear, and it was like a dam breaking. His hips snap, fucking up into her like it was all he could ever need. His moans filled the room, mingling with hers to create a sweet cocktail. She moved with him, the heat of their skin adding to the pleasure.

She was losing it.

She moaned, her hands going to cup his jaw, roaming down to his shoulders. The sounds of skin hitting skin, wet and sticky, filled the room. Their bodies were soaked, a mixture of arousal and sweat slicking their skin.

“There ya go,” she breathed into his ear, the side of her head rested against his, “good boy,”

That about did him over. Praise. Confirmation.

“S-say that again,” he rasped, his hips still bucking into hers. He felt the knife of his orgasm, the way it stabbed him, threatening to bleed him dry. His eyes squeezed shut, his muscles taut, working with her and her pace.

She smirked at his words.

“You’re my good boy,” she hummed, moaning in his ear. She felt the growing sensitivity of her coming orgasm. Her self control, the desire to be in this position of control all the way through, it slipped. Her moans filled the room, her hips stuttering as she neared that edge.

One of her hands reached up, ripping her panties from his wrists. His reaction was instant; hands on her hips, guiding her movements, slamming his hips into her so hard and so fast they both saw stars. She moaned, throwing her head back, tits bouncing with every movement.

“Oh fuck,” she moaned, “fuck fuck fuck,”

Her lips hovered over his, and he couldn’t take it. He kissed her. She let him. The taste of his kiss was sweet, seasoned with a primal desire to share in the passion she was giving him. His hand danced up her spine, splaying across her lower back.

One final thrust, one final hip swivel, and they came undone. His cum warmed her walls, her body convulsed around his. Her gasp filled his mouth, but he kept kissing her. He kept his lips firmly attached to hers, sucking at her skin.

She pulled herself off, feeling the dam break, squirting all over his lower abdomen. Between that and her orgasm, she was a shaking and slick mess.

Joe finally pulled from her lips, soft, shaky breaths leaving his lips. His curls were sweaty, slick and damp. He pressed her forehead to hers, their hearts slamming against their ribcage. But he lived in the moment. He drank in the peace after the intensity.

She kissed him again, slow. Sensual. She slid her tongue along his bottom lip, dipping it into his mouth. He sighed into her kiss, pouring out his heart into her lips. His hands ran up and down her sides, smoothing over her blown nerves.

“Y/N,” he groaned as he pulled away, peeling open his bleary blue eyes. No words formed, even if his mind was running a thousand miles an hour.

He had so much to say.

“I’m sorry,” he panted, “I’m sorry for being an ass, for…for leaving you like that,”

The sincerity in his words made her heart soar. She kept her body close, letting their skin mix, letting their passion mingle. She ran her hand through his sweaty, knotted curls, kissing his cheek.

“I forgive you,” she whispered, “but you have to tell me something,”

“What?” he asked. Her eyes were barely open, a mixture of exhaustion and satisfaction painted in her eyes.

“Why did you run?” she asked. He had no reason to hide from her. He didn’t want to.

“I was scared,” he admitted, “I…I thought that if I pushed you away I could push away my own feelings,”

“But why would you want to do that?” she asked. A valid question. One she’d been asking for years.

“Because look at you,” he breathed, “poised to perfection, a fucking goddess. I don’t compare to you,”

His words shocked her. Her eyes flickered, her heart skipping a beat in her chest. His words were raw, unshielded and unguarded. His eyes were wide, brow creased as he sat in the ecstasy of his pleasure and his feelings.

“Joe-”

“No, please, hear me out,” he interrupted, adjusting himself on the bed. His hands cupped her face, eyes boring into hers. She was beautiful, always was and always will be. Her skin was soft, warm under his touch.

“I was selfish,” he admitted, shaking his head, “you’re everything to me. You did more for me than Paige did, than anyone did. You…God, Y/N,” he breathed, unable to form the intense weight of his emotions into words.

She understood. She could read him like a book.

She leaned in, capturing his lips in a slow, tender kiss. He whined, his hand cupping the back of her head. He wanted her to feel the weight of his feelings, the way his heart beat for her. He slowly laid her down on the bed, his body pressing against hers.

“Can we do this again?” he asked, pulling from her lips, “I don’t want it to be a friends with benefits,”

“So like, dating?” she asked. Her heart raced, hope filling the cavity of her chest. Her head buzzed, thrumming with more.

“Yes,” he nodded, sweaty curls bouncing, “yes, I want everything. I want more. If you’ll have me,”

She answered with a kiss. Hungry. Desperate. Her arms looped around his neck, legs hooked around his waist as she pulled him closer to her body. Warm skin to warm skin, connected at the most intimate level, she felt at home.

“I’ll have you,” she whispered, “I’ll have all of you,”

Joe’s chest relaxed. He released a breath, his hands roaming her body. She fit against him perfectly, the piece to finish his puzzle. She was his muse, his reason for living. She was the cure to his curse, the poison he nearly killed himself with.

And he was never letting go.

[scarlethexelove]

Printsessa

Pairing: Natasha Romanoff x Reader

Word Count: 722

Summary: After sex reader struggles with her feelings about being a pillow princess.

Warning: Smut, Strap-on, Smut turned to comfort, Reader struggling with accepting herself, a little self-hatred

A/n: Ok so long time no post. Sorry about that. I'm not fully back but I kind of needed this one. This isn't meant for everyone I know that. This was to help me with my own emotions. I've had similar conversations with My Girl and it's still hard. I hope writing it out helps and maybe could help someone else.

NO ONE IS PERMITTED TO STEAL, COPY, OR REBLOG MY WORK AS THEIR OWN

“You're taking me so well printsessa. Fuck.” Natasha grunts as she drives her hips into yours. You moan as your legs wrap around her waist. Your fingernails digging into her back.

You've cum three times already. You're overstimulated and close to falling over the edge again. “Da-Daddy mmm fuck please." You whine, letting your nails drag down Nat's back.

Nat watches as her strap disappears into your wet hole. “Cum all over my cock printsessa. Making a mess for me.” She commands, which sends you over the edge.

Your body shakes beneath Nat as she continues to drive her strap into you. Helping you ride out your orgasm. Your juices coat the silicone toy attached to your girlfriend's hips.

The sight of you falling apart and your nails digging in that much deeper sends Nat over the edge right behind you. Her hips stutter as she cums, but never falters in their pace. She makes sure to drag out both of your orgasms until her hips finally slow to a stop.

Both of you are panting, bodies slick with sweat. Nat gently pulls out of your abused hole which causes you to whimper. “I'm sorry detka.” She strips herself of the harness and tosses it to the side to be cleaned later. She's quick to slide back into bed and pull you into her arms. She'll help to get you both cleaned up a little later.

You lay your head on her naked chest, both of you still breathing a bit heavy. Nat's heart beating a bit faster, and you close your eyes to the sound. This is your favorite place to be. A closeness that only skin-to-skin can give you. But there is a thought that creeps into your mind. You don't deserve this. You don't deserve this care and attention after the fact. How could you when you can't please your own girlfriend.

It's a battle between wanting to and not wanting to. You want to because you feel like you have to. There is some sort of obligation to reciprocate when in reality it makes you feel slightly uncomfortable. And it makes you hate yourself.

A hand cups your cheek and has you look up. “Detka what's going on in that pretty little head of yours?” All you can manage is to shake your head. You see as Nat's features soften, a hint of worry. “Please talk to me detka.”

It's not like this conversation is new to the two of you but it's something you struggle with. Something you wish you could change about yourself.

“M'sorry.” You mumble. Tears start to shine in your eyes.

“Sorry for what detka?” Nat asks you. She has an idea but she wants to hear more.

You take a shaky breath. “For being like this. For being selfish.”

Nat shakes her head at your words knowing exactly what you're talking about. “Detka you don't need to apologize for being who you are. You're my printsessa.” She kisses your forehead. “My pillow princess. I love you the way you are. You aren't selfish for that.”

Some tears slip down your cheek with a small shake of your head. “I'm not enough. I'm not good enough for you. I-I-I can't give you anything back. I hate myself for being like this. I'm broken.”

“You are not broken Y/n.” Nat wipes the falling tears with pads of her thumb. “I have everything I could ever want right here with you. I want you. I love you.”

“You could find better. Someone who will give you pleasure.” You mumble, your eyes looking down.

“Detka look at me.” You hesitate. “Look at me.” Nat repeats. You slowly look up, meeting piercing green eyes. “I just came from watching you come undone on my cock. That's my pleasure. Detka I get all the pleasure I could ever need from you. I get off just on seeing you get off. You are perfect for me. Made for me.”

You let her words sink in for a moment. “M'sorry I'm like this.”

Nat is the one shaking her head this time. “Detka I will spend my life reminding you. You are more than enough for me. You are my printsessa. I love you.” She leans in softly kissing you.

“I love you... and thank you.” You mumble against Nat's lips.

“Always detka.”