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familyvideostevie · 10 months

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steel drum weight of me

joel miller x fem!reader, 18+ mdni

summary: joel comes back from his wall shift with hands in need of some serious tlc. but why stop there? | 3.2k

warnings: fem!reader, fluff turned to smut, a tender blowjob, p in v sex, unprotected sex, riding, creampie

a/n: this could be in the same universe as come care about me and watching you with wonder but who knows. what matters is it's a post-part i jackson au and all is well. this is my first fic in a while and i hammered it out today so hopefully it's coherent. <3 series masterlist here.

Jackson looks its best in the winter.

You've always thought so with its endless skies gone white, blending in with the grey clouds carrying the constant threat of snow. The peaks you never tire of, such ethereal beauty in a world otherwise gone to shit, looming over town with a steadfastness that you can fool yourself into thinking means protection, means safety. In reality, they're just something nice to look at when you have a free moment.

It's also fucking cold.

But you can deal with that. You've spent more winters in the last twenty years than you'd like to remember mostly outside, freezing your ass off, fingers so numb you could barely pull the trigger. But when it counted, you did.

Winter now means a town full of children laughing and having snowball fights. It means big pots of stew and your pick of hats, scarves, and a good pair of boots. It means a warm house to go back to every night, a bed to crawl into, and a man you love to hold you.

Things could be worse.

You're home first today. Joel and Ellie are on the wall and have been since mid-morning. The light is already going, the sun dipping behind the Tetons, sky that winter mix of purple and pink that makes the breath catch in your throat no matter how many times you see it. There's a flu going around and taking people out for a few days at most but it means fewer bodies free for the wall and for patrol. You're pulling a double tomorrow and you're already looking forward to the hot bath you'll take after.

Today, though, you change from your work clothes to something softer, a sweater that travels between your drawer and Joel's, thick socks Dina gave you for your birthday last year. It's hard to heat houses like yours the way you used to but it works well enough to fight the chill so long as you layer. That's the name of the game these days: adapting.

You set the kettle to boil and forgo thinking about dinner for a few hours. Joel won't drink tea with you but if Ellie stops by she'll have some. Maybe you can convince her to watch the movie you pulled from the library this week. You love him, but Joel just doesn't appreciate comedies.

The front door creaks, the bell you have hanging from the doorknob jingling.

"S'me," Joel calls into the house. "You home?"

"Making tea." The kettle isn't steaming yet so you lean against the counter and wait.

The sounds of his return are familiar even though you can't see him. He locks the door with a click, shrugs his jacket off with a sigh. He sits down on the bench you put in the entryway so he can take his boots off. The thunk of one and then the other. He'll tuck them next to yours under the coat rack. When the weather is bad you try to come in the back door so not as to track snow through the house but you don't want his back to get any worse so a bench in front makes sense.

The kettle screams. You pull it off quick and pour the water into your mug -- a chipped green one with a dinosaur holding a cookie that you find endlessly amusing -- and leave it to steep. The floor creaks under your socked feet as you make your way into the hall. Joel still sits on the bench digging into the meat of one palm with his thumb like he's working the feeling back into them.

He looks up and his jaw softens a little. His cheeks are rosy from the cold and his hair a mess from the wind. "Evenin," he says.

"How was the wall?"

"Fine." He stops messing with his hands and rolls his shoulders back with a grunt. "Ellie swears she saw a moose on her last patrol. Said to tell you. I think she's fuckin' with me. How was your shift?"

"Fine," you echo. "Is she coming for dinner?"

He shakes his head. "Game night at Jesse's."

You cross the remaining distance between you and he parts his legs automatically so you can stand between his knees. You run a hand through his hair, pushing the greying fringe back from his eyes. He looks up at you and finally smiles, just a little. You drag your hand down the side of his face and enjoy the feel of his beard on your skin.

"Maybe she did see a moose." He rolls his eyes and brings a hand up to cover yours. You lean down to kiss him but something catches your eye and you pull back, tugging your hand from beneath his to circle his wrist.

"Jesus, Joel." He makes a surprised sound.

"Hey now, what --"

You pull his other hand from his knee and hold them both close to your face, turning them over in the light of the entryway. "You didn't wear gloves, did you?"

He just shrugs. That means someone else on the wall -- probably Ellie -- forgot theirs and he handed his own over.

The skin of his knuckles is dry and cracked, the rest of his palm dry and cold to the touch. You've seen them bloody, broken and bruised, and compared to that, this is tame. Welcome, almost. But you know he won't do a damn thing about it, let himself bleed rather than take a second to make things better.

And you've never minded this part. Taking care of him, making him slow down and rest for even just a little bit. You both know you'd get your hands dirty or worse for him and he for you, but this is the part he has trouble with. So you take the reigns.

It's part of how you fit together -- part of how you look after each other.

"We've got something for this." Joel looks unamused. You press a light kiss to one of his knuckles and his nostrils flare. "Go sit on the couch," you say.

"I'm fine --"

"Joel, they'll bleed if you don't let me --"

"I said I'm --"

"Hey," you say. He hears the finality of your tone and lets you have it, sighing your name in one long breath.

"Alright," he says. "Move, then."

You press a quick kiss to his lips and release his hands to step back. He stands with his usual grunt and you have to stop yourself from leaning into the width of him, from wrapping your arms around him and slotting your nose in his neck and never letting go.

"It's that salve Dina brought over last week," you tell him. "The new one for the winter. Smells nice. Good for this kind of stuff."

Joel makes his way to the couch and you fetch the tin from the kitchen.

"What's it made of?"

"Uh -- oil? And some flowers, I think? Wax, maybe."

He's settled into the cushions when you return, smirking. "It's okay to say you don't fuckin' know."

You sit next to him and unscrew the top, folding your legs so you're facing him. "Well then, I don't fuckin' know." You're sure to imitate his drawl.

"Cute."

"Gimme those hands, big guy."

The salve smells faintly of lavender and it's cold on your fingertips. Joel extends his right hand and you work it into his skin slowly, extra careful around where it's cracked and split. You feel his eyes on you but you let him look.

"Feels good, huh?" He hums. "If you'd wear your gloves then --"

"What was I gonna do, let her freeze?" So it was Ellie, then. You flick your gaze up and find his brow furrowed. If you have a free hand you'd smooth the crease with your thumb.

"No," you say. "Guess it's a damn good thing you have me here, then."

He chuckles, a throaty, rusty sound. "Guess so."

You finish the first hand and motion for his second. He gives it to you and you dig your thumbs into the meat of his palm. Joel lets you touch him whenever you like, for the most part. Pressing into his side when you walk down the street in town, trailing your lips down his neck until he whines just a little in your bedroom. You've worked knots out of his shoulders and cleaned blood from surface wounds. You can never get enough of him, of his warmth, the expanse of his tanned skin all yours for the taking.

And, boy, he touches you back.

So you take your time. You rub the salve between his fingers, over the ridges of knuckles split so many times you don't even know about. His hands are rough even when they're not dry and cracking, callused from years of hard work. From years of violence and playing guitar, shooting a gun and holding the people he loves. Dotted with scars and nicks, hands that have touched every part of you.

Joel's slightly slimy finger taps your chin. "You okay?" You've been stroking the same bit of his hand for who knows how long.

"Yeah," you say and mean it. You rub your own hands together to soak in some of the salve before putting the lid back on the tin and standing. "Need to let it soak in."

"Feels soaked in already," he grumbles.

"Stay there." He purses his lips. "I mean it, Joel."

"Bossy today," he says. "There's wood that needs choppin'." You ignore him since he's just being annoying. The salve goes back in the kitchen and his voice trails after you. "And I told Tommy I'd --"

You turn on the tap. "You gotta let that soak in," you say again from the sink.

"What? Can't hear over the water."

You turn off the tap and dry your hands. Joel is still on the couch when you return. "Sorry," you say. You run your hand through his hair again and settle back down next to him. "I said be patient."

"Don't think that's what you said."

"It's what I meant."

And he looks at you in that way that always makes your face feel hot. Like he's seeing right to the bone of you, like he's laying you bare on the floor in his mind. Like he never wants to stop looking at you, next to him on the couch, leg pressed to yours. Like he loves you.

"Alright," he says.

You get an idea, the flames licking at your belly and your hands itching to touch him again, to touch him differently than before. That idea has you grabbing a pillow and tossing it to the floor, has you getting up and drawing the curtains before you sink to your knees before him.

Joel only looks mildly surprised, eyebrows raised, mouth tugging up at the corner. "Now, I ain't gonna complain but --"

"Then don't," you say. You tug his shirt from his waistband and start working on his belt. "Gotta pass the time somehow. And I don't know what we're doing for dinner yet, so maybe I'm just stalling."

"Hell of a way to stall." He reaches for you to touch your face, maybe, or help you with his belt, when you click your tongue. "We can just go to the community hall--"

"Don't touch," you remind him. "You have to let it--"

"Soak, Jesus, yeah, yeah." Joel tips his head back along the sofa and takes one deep breath. If he really wanted to he could ignore you and you'd let him get away with it, but if there's one thing you and Joel have solidified, it's trust. He trusts you to take care of him, to handle him with hands that love him.

So you do. He lifts his hips just a little so you can tug his jeans down, zipper undone and button popped. You pull out his cock, already half-hard at the promise of what's to come. You spit into your palm and stroke him once root to tip and he hisses. More blood flows and he stiffens in your hand.

"You just gonna look at it?"

You give him a squeeze for being a shit. He laughs but it sounds punched out, on the edge. Frankly it's an effort not to take him in your mouth right away. You've always loved this -- the exchange of power, the trust. You're the one on your knees but you're calling the shots. And he's mouthwatering. The way his cock curves a little, the vein that runs along the underside. The mushroom head a little pinker than the rest, the wiry hair at his base. The hefty weight of his balls in your hand, on your tongue. You know how to make it good for him and it's good for you, too.

Joel opens his mouth to no doubt say something else annoying so you finally drag your tongue along the vein, swirling a little at the top before taking just the tip of him in your mouth. His precome is salty. You work your hand along the rest of him as you start to suck in earnest, hollowing your cheeks and taking a little more each time.

"Look so pretty, baby," Joel says. His voice is gravely, broken in his throat. You manage to take almost all of him and you swallow, just once. Your reward is your name spilling from his mouth in a groan.

It's messy. Spit beads at the corner of your mouth and drips a little as you work him, breathing through your nose when you take him all the way. So good, takin' all of me, keep goin'.

Joel has clearly forgotten your directive as he winds one hand in your hair and pulls just a little, just enough to make you moan around him. You don't scold him for it, instead keeping your eyes on his face. His head is tipped back just a little, lips parted at he gazes down at you. His other arm is stretched along the length of the couch, his fingers digging into the fabric as you bob on his cock.

You know he's close. You can feel how he's trying hard to keep his hips down, trying not to fuck your throat cause usually he asks first. So it's only a little surprising when he pulls you off him, eyes a little glazed and some color high on his cheeks.

He wipes spit from the corner of your mouth with the pad of his thumb. "Why don't you c'mere?" he says. "Let me fill you up."

"Joel." This was supposed to be about making him feel good. You know even if he comes in your mouth he'll ask you let him touch you, so frankly you don't mind if he fucks you or not.

He smirks, presses his fingers into the side of your neck a little. You swallow so he can feel it. "We both know you can take it," he drawls, eyes dark. "Always gets you goin', my cock in your mouth."

You can feel the heat between your legs, the arousal pooling in your gut. He's right but he's also an asshole. "You're annoying," you tell him.

"So is that a no?"

You drag the flat of your tongue up his shaft one last time as punishment before standing, using his knees as leverage to get off your own. He shucks off his jeans the rest of the way as you drag down your pants, letting them pool with your underwear at your feet before stepping out. Joel holds out a hand for you to balance on and you take it, putting your other on his shoulder.

"Feels softer already," you mutter. Joel snickers and you straddle him. He uses one hand to drag his fingers through your cunt and you fail to swallow a gasp.

"Well, look at that," he says. "I was right." He pushes two fingers into you and they go easily, your hips jerking as he pumps them in and out once, twice, and then you're empty again.

"Smug bastard," you manage. He brings his hand to his mouth and takes a long lick before surging forward to kiss you. You can taste yourself on his tongue and it makes you even wetter.

Joel licks into your mouth and you kiss him back sloppily, desperately, in the way you know he likes. You're so busy with that hands on his face, his beard scratching your skin deliciously, that you don't notice what else he's doing. His hand presses into the bare skin of your back under your shirt and you lift up a little on instinct and then --

The head of his cock nudges at your entrance and his hand presses again and you meet the movement of his hips with your own and he fills you with just one stroke.

You moan in unison, Joel's arm wrapping around your back as you curl yours around his neck, mouths not so much pressed together as hovering as you pant, as you adjust. Even with how wet you are Joel is a stretch, a welcome one, but a stretch regardless. You shift your hips, roll them back and forth a little.

"Go on, then," you tell him. "Fuck me."

He laughs.

His lips leave yours and trail down your chin, sucking spots onto your neck and on that spot that makes you keen as he does what you ask. He goes slow at first, letting you meet him thrust for thrust. One hand snakes up your shirt, thumbs at your nipple when he finds no bra in the way. You wing your fingers in his hair and tug, tug until he picks up the pace, until all you can hear is the smack of his flesh against yours.

"Joel -- Joel -- right there --"

"M'not gonna -- I -- fuck --"

"Said you were gonna fill me up, didn't you?" you pant, managing to find a bit of cheek in the haze of your fucking. "C'mon, Miller. Don't keep a lady wait--"

His hips pick up the pace, his hands pressing into you hard enough to bruise. You give up trying to tease him and hang on for dear life, managing to snake a hand between your legs to rub at your clit as he pounds into you. The only thing you can say is his name over and over as you feel the hook pull taught, feel the head of his cock brush against and then pound that spot that makes your vision blur.

Joel comes just before you do, his thrusts stuttering and his name on your lips. You feel it, the heat inside you and it's enough to send you over the edge, your cunt squeezing him as he empties inside you.

You press your forehead to his and catch your breath. He palms your neck, your jaw, slides his thumb lazily under your eye and kisses the corner of your mouth.

"Hell of a salve," he manages.

You slot your lips over his. "Wear your damn gloves." Joel laughs and it shifts him inside you. Even softening it makes you both hiss a little. "Just gimme a second."

His hand drags up and down your back, pressing into your spine. "Take your time," he says. "M'clearly not goin' anywhere."

"You never stop, do you?"

Joel kisses you again. "'fraid not."

You laugh into his neck. "Good."

thank you for reading <3 reblog, send feedback, general masterlist here!

#joel miller x reader #joel miller smut #joel miller x you #joel miller x y/n #the last of us fanfiction #joel miller fanfiction

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ghost-proofbaby · 1 year

Text

twenty four hours (modern!eddie munson x fem!reader)

HOUR TWENTY FOUR

in which you and eddie win the bet.

→ tropes: enemies to lovers, forced proximity, slow burn

→ warnings: strong language, upside down does not exist, minors dni

→ wc: 7k+

→ a/n: oh, holy fuck. holy fucking shit. i have no words, because i know it's not really over yet (we still have an epilogue, friends! don't forget that!) but... i did it. i finished another fic. that's just... insane?

thank you to everyone who has been so very kind and supportive of this fic. i owe you all the world. i'm sure i'll either make a sappy post between now and thursday, or i'll get extra sappy in the a/n on the epilogue, but for now - please know you have all my love. <3

masterlist.

spotify playlist.

◁ previous part, next part▷

24:00 ─────────────── ㅇ 24:00

DINGUS: hey, i facetimed them for last hour’s proof. had to work out when they wanted me to head over and pick her up.

BIRDIE: both still alive? both still well?

DINGUS: so it seemed.

ARGYLE 😎: what a relief! I knew they had it in them

JOHNNY BOY: They still have to last one more hour.

NANCE: They’ll last the hour. Have a little faith, babe.

JOHNNY BOY: Still don’t like the fact we’ve just started calling them instead of requesting the photo proof. I mean, how do we not know they’re lying? Did you talk to both of them when YOU called, Nance?

NANCE: Yes, I told you guys that.

NANCE: Besides, you guys already know that Eddie hates having his picture taken. We’re lucky we ever got picture proof to begin with.

DINGUS: also i JUST facetimed them??? physically saw them?? your lack of trust in me and nance kind of hurts jon

BIRDIE: @NANCE hey can you call ME babe next?

HOUR TWENTY FOUR – 4:00 PM

“Hey there, love birds. Glad to see you didn’t kill each other.”

Steve.

You wait for Eddie’s arm to leave you, for him to put space between the two of you, but he doesn’t. He keeps you pressed flush to his side as if the sudden arrival of a friend doesn’t make the slightest bit of difference.

“Hey, Harrington,” he even casually greets first.

He’s making no move to get up off the floor.

Just a little bit longer. Let me sit here and live in this moment a little bit longer.

“Munson,” Steve nods to Eddie before setting his sights on you, “Doll. Nice to see you, kind of glad I’m not having to fish you out of the canals.”

You feel it — Eddie’s arm tenses behind you ever so slightly at Steve’s nickname. Clearly, it’s still a sore spot for him to work through.

“I was feeling generous,” Eddie shrugs as if he hadn’t just revealed a flash of jealousy to you. You’re not even sure if he knows that you felt it. But it was there, in the slightest tightening of his grip and the flexing of his bicep behind your shoulder.

“Generous? I think you were feeling friendly,” Steve waves his hand between the two of you, as if he thought he was pointing out the obvious.

If he thought this was close, he’d faint at the imagery of you on the kitchen counter, Eddie’s face between your legs as he begged for you to let him touch you.

Just as you had noticed Eddie’s jealousy, he notices the way you suddenly heat up, shifting in your seat ever so slightly. That pull on the corner of his lips tells you all you need to know. You kind of hate how easily the two of you can finally read each other. You kind of love the way he’s looking at you as if he’s thinking the exact same thing.

“Do I get my free punch now?” you finally speak up, tone flat as you muster a glare in Steve’s direction. You’re forgoing all polite and pretend oblivion.

Every single one of you here knows what happened. The bare bones of it, at least.

Eddie looks at you curiously, “Excuse me?”

Steve only grins, holding out his arms as if welcoming you, “Take your best shot.”

You stand quickly, and Steve even flinches. He clearly had thought it was all a bit, but you were deathly serious. After the night you’d had, you wanted to punch something, anything.

“Hold on,” Eddie fumbles to follow you as you stand in front of Steve, your eyebrow cocked as you pause, “Hold on, why are you punching Harrington?”

“Oh, I don’t know. ‘She’d never go for me, why would she go for you?’” you remind him, and fully expect for hurt to flash across his face. Instead, merriment continues to tug on his lips, “That ring a bell?”

“It might,” Eddie drawls, slowing down his movement to stand more casually, no longer in a rush to break up the fight. His eyes flash with something, with some sort of affection as your hand curls into a fist threateningly and you continue to glare daggers at Steve, “‘S cute to see you defending my honor, sweetheart.”

Your knees almost physically wobble. The nickname that once struck such anger and irritation in you has become your favorite thing, something that can so easily elicit such a physical reaction. Any taunting has dissipated from his tone when he falls from his tongue now. Adoration takes its place.

Steve looks between you two for a second before his face twists up, “God, I think I liked it better when you two hated each other.”

“Never really hated each other,” Eddie corrects Steve, but his eyes never leave yours.

“Right, must have slipped my mind.”

One of the questions that had been torturing you has now been answered — Eddie would, in fact, be acting differently around your friends. It’s almost enough that you feel no need to punch Steve.

Almost.

“Where do you want it?” you tear your gaze from Eddie, looking back to Steve now expectantly, “Cheek? Nose? Chin? Jaw?”

Steve’s eyes widen. “My God, have you just been dreaming of this moment for the last hour?”

“I have.”

Eddie leans back against the wall, still watching and still smirking as he crosses his arms.

“I know Eddie’s your boyfriend now but-“

“He’s not my boyfriend,” you correct him quickly, but something inside of you twists at saying that.

He wasn’t your boyfriend. You two had just agreed you’d need time apart before even thinking of exploring what this new chapter will bring you two. So why does it feel so wrong? Why do you suddenly feel like a pathetic teenager, desperate to bestow some cheesy title upon her crush?

Eddie nods when you suddenly look at him, as if he can read your mind, “I’m not her boyfriend. Just… her scary dog.”

Scary dog privilege. And God, does that moment feel light years in the past now. Years ago rather than hours ago. His promise to protect you suddenly rings truer now. If you ever did find yourself in trouble, you knew he’d answer your call. You knew now why his protection only extended to you. You finally, finally understood.

“Scary dog?” Steve squints at Eddie, and his judgmental demeanor has fully returned, “What the fuck does that even mea-“

He doesn’t get to finish the sardonic sentiment. The slap of your palm interrupts him.

“Ow!” he yelps out, head snapping from the force of the hit and hands already coming up defensively.

Eddie pushes off the wall the moment Steve’s hands are up in the air, “Lay a hand on her in retaliation, Harrington, and I’m breaking your arm.”

All the joking, cocky demeanor has faded. Like he had said — scary dog privilege. It applies to more than just pricks at the bar.

“I’m not,” Steve grumbles, rubbing at the red imprint now singing his cheek, “Jesus Christ, I said a punch.”

You fight a smile, “I don’t know how to throw a punch.”

“I can teach you,” Eddie pipes up, now standing beside you, hovering in your orbit.

“Don’t-“ Steve puts out a warning finger, “-encourage her. I only said you could punch me because I knew you couldn’t throw a punch!” he continues to cradle his face, now pouting at you, “Do you feel better now?”

You only answer with a triumphant smile. Because your palm is stinging, and you know violence isn’t the answer, but yeah. You do feel a little bit better.

“I don’t,” Eddie hums. He only has to take one step forward for Steve to back up, throwing out defensive eyes as he narrows his eyes, “Think I deserve to get a slap in, too, Stevie.”

“Fuck that,” Steve spits, eyes wide with genuine fear that makes you want to giggle, “You do know how to throw a punch. If I’m letting you get a free one in, I deserve twenty four hours notice.”

“Then consider this your notice.”

Is this what I had always been missing out on?

You always knew Eddie was playful with everyone, had witnessed how he joked with friends, but you’d never been included. The thought that this was the new normal makes your heart nearly burst. To be on Eddie’s side finally, to be in his good graces properly, makes you feel as if you belong more than any private movie night with Steve or impromptu dinner date with Robin. More than any night out with Nancy. More than any smoke session with Argyle, and more than any literature debate with Jonathan.

It’s as if Eddie was the missing link. You never felt you belonged, because you’d always ached for your rightful spot at his side, not just amongst the group.

The three of you stand in a makeshift circle and every single one of you smiles. Even Steve, through his slipping pout and swollen cheek, is grinning.

Suddenly, it’s not quite as heavy as it once felt.

Everything has changed. Leaving now is not leaving forever.

“I’d pay to see that,” you comment, taking a daring step to bump shoulders with Eddie. His eyes meet yours, his dimples come to life, and suddenly — you’re home, “Think I can get a front row seat to you beating Steve’s ass?”

Steve starts to protest but Eddie only nods eagerly, “I think that can be arranged.”

“I am once again reminding you two that I liked your screaming matches more than whatever this,” his hand flails, motioning to the way you two are standing closer to one another than you are him, “whole teaming-up-against-me bit is.”

“We’re not dating,” you’re reiterating as Eddie laughs out, “Stop being a crybaby.”

You look at one another again. Another foot in the door of your newfound home, another look into your new place to rest your head. It’s as if you’re just now realizing you’ve spent the entire year missing Eddie, even as he was right there in front of you.

“Well, God save us all when you two are finally dating,” Steve mumbles with a shake of his head.

“If-“ Eddie starts to correct, but you stop him.

It’s not an if when it comes to you two dating, you decide. It’s a when.

“I’ll send a gift basket when the day comes,” you snark. The look that Eddie sends you could heal every wound ever left behind, right then and there.

You’re home. When Eddie throws his arm around your shoulders and Steve rolls his eyes at you two (affectionately, even if he’d deny it), you know you’re home.

—

But then, you actually do have to go home.

You try to put it off. The three of you occupy Eddie’s living room for a while, Steve complaining about the way Robin woke him up endlessly throughout the night and how he never did finish that assignment due in his English Literature class. It reminds you that life will continue on; you have to go back to work and school, deal with daily annoyances that should seem bigger than all that’s happened with Eddie tonight, but they don’t. They all seem minuscule now, really.

“Do we still have to send photo proof?” Eddie asks once Steve’s tirade has waned. You’re sat between the two boys, Steve’s body turned almost completely to face the two of you while you and Eddie slowly sink back into the cushions.

You’re sure if Steve knew the activities that had taken place on this couch, he would not be sitting so comfortably. If at all.

Steve sighs at the mention of the bet, “You probably should. Jonathan’s been antsy about it the entire time. Me and Nance tried to cover for you guys, lying about calling and stuff but-“

“Why would you lie?” you inquire, uncurling a bit from your overly comfortable position to stop from falling asleep and actually participate in the conversation.

“Because, unlike the other idiots,” Steve gives a pointed look at you and then Eddie, “We had a hunch about what was going on here. And it’s about time, by the way.”

You think over his words for a second before you look at Eddie with sudden embarrassment, “Have you- Oh my God, have you been telling Nancy what we’ve been doing?”

“What?” Eddie sits up straighter, looking just as panicked, “No. No, absolutely not, I-“

“What have you guys been doing?”

Both of you ignore Steve as Eddie continues on.

“-just spoke to her on the phone once or twice. But I didn’t give her any details. Have you been telling Steve what we did?”

Steve, still being ignored, repeats himself, “What have you guys been doing?”

“Absolutely not,” you scrunch your nose at the thought of being that honest with Steve. You loved him, truly, but not enough to tell him about those kinds of things, “I’d rather sleep in the canals than tell him.”

“What have you guys been doing?”

Eddie’s eyebrows shoot up, and he mockingly stabs himself, “Ouch, sweetheart.”

“Not like that,” you backtrack, but more casually as the worry of Steve and Nancy knowing the truth, “I just meant-“

Eddie interrupts with a hand on your knee and a smile on his face, “I know what you meant. I’m just fucking with you. I feel the same way with Nance.”

“Guys?” Steve grows further impatient, “I- What the fuck did you guys do? Oh my God, is it even safe to sit on this fucking couch right now?”

“You don’t wanna know,” you say.

“No, it isn’t,” Eddie says.

It earns him a slap on his stomach as he leans over in laughter at the way Steve launches out of his seat.

“You guys- No. No fucking way,” Steve brushes at the back of his jeans, as if they’re contaminated, “Nope. No way. You’re just fucking with me, Munson.”

“Am I?”

Another slap lands on Eddie’s shoulder as he laughs harder.

“Steve,” you turn to your friend, trying to smile sweetly, “Sit back down.”

“No.”

“You just said you don’t believe-“

“We should get going,” Steve insists through his blush, “You two should take your final picture and we should get going.”

Eddie finally stops chuckling, leaning back up and against the armrest, his ankle cross in front of your shins as he stretches his legs out and sighs, “God, you should see your face right now, Harrington.”

Steve’s scowl deepens, “It’s not funny. Take the fucking photo so we can go.”

You make no move to dig out your phone, because you know. You know once you take this photo, you’ll be leaving, and this will all be over. Once you step foot back into that hallway, time apart begins. Learning how to navigate this new unknown with Eddie begins. It terrifies you, it saddens you, it exhausts you. You hadn’t been prepared for this part of the night.

Even before the confessions, you hadn’t given much thought to the ending of the twenty four hours. You’d assumed it would end in bloodshed and a larger than life fight, probably before the clock even ran out. You’d never assumed it could end in laughing, inside jokes between you and Eddie, in something not only bitter but also sweet.

“Phone, sweetheart,” Eddie whispers as he leans forward and holds out his hand with the palm up, “Before we traumatize the poor guy any further.”

“I will wait in the car, I swear to God-“ Steve starts to protest as you finally dig your phone out of your pocket.

You’re looking down, unable to meet Eddie’s gaze in fear of him picking up on your faint sadness, as you mumble, “Get your panties out of their twist, Steve. Jesus.”

Eddie snorts at that, right as you pass your phone over.

Steve doesn’t comment when you willingly tell Eddie the code to unlock your phone, or the way you let him hold it rather than you. He doesn’t comment on the arm that Eddie seems to constantly keep around you now.

He’s doing it while he can. Cherishing being able to hold you at any capacity before you leave and the distance begins. The time apart you two agreed upon won’t be for forever, but it still kills a buried part of him that had just begun to sprout roots again. A thing made of hope that he planned to tend to this time around.

“So, how do we wanna do this?” he asks in a strained tone, as if asking that question and throttling you two closer to the finish line physically pains him.

You hope it pains him, selfishly, because it pains you. “No idea.”

“We’ve gotta make it a good one.”

“We do.”

Eddie suddenly lights up with an idea as his thumb sweeps across your screen, opening your photos’ app and scrolling up to the first picture you two had taken at the beginning of this night.

“Up for a trip down nostalgia road?” he teases, wiggling his brows as he holds the phone up for you to get a clearer view of the picture.

Eddie, flipping off the camera and scowling. You, hardly smiling with a pathetic thumbs up.

“Yeah,” you breathe out, nodding slowly.

It’s unspoken, what happens next. The camera app is opened and Eddie returns your phone to your grasp. The two of you resituate to mimic the photo as closely as possible while Steve fiddles with some of the items on Eddie’s entertainment center.

You stretch out your arm, put your thumb up into view, blink away any tears burning the back of your eyes. Eddie’s hand has taken position as well.

You snap the photo before you can think too hard on it.

“Think that’ll be the winner?” Eddie curiously asks as you immediately bring the phone close to your face, swiping to view the snapshot just taken. And when you do, with the refreshed memory of that first photo, your heart physically aches.

Almost an identical image. At a quick glance, it’s the same Eddie and the same you from the first one. But the similarities fade the moment you look closer. Eddie isn’t scowling, not genuinely – those damn dimples are even making an appearance as his eyes were squinted up in a valiant effort to fight off the smile he wears now. And your smile, your smile, is no longer half-assed. It’s something real, something full, something even a bit sad. The same face you wear when saying goodbye to an old friend and trying to hold back any tears until their train has long since left the station. You can almost physically see your vines in this photo wrapping around the two of you, clinging so desperately to avoid any separation. Time apart. You’re regretting suggesting that now.

It’s a cute photo. A photo of two friends, if you could call yourself and Eddie that now.

“All done?” Steve interrupts the moment, both of you and Eddie only staring at the photo. You take a peak at him out of your peripherals, and you can see it written plainly on his face – he’s feeling all the same emotions as you. Something sad, something nostalgic, something reluctant. “Not to rush the process but… I may or may not have a hot date tonight to get ready for.”

Eddie tears his gaze from the photo, “A hot date?”

“A hot date,” Steve nods, a boyish grin gracing his lips, “And I’m picking her up in… t-minus…” he pauses, checking his watch, “Three hours.”

“Smart move. Charm her before I rearrange your face and all.”

Steve throws his head back in a groan, “You two won’t be letting that go any time soon, will you?”

“Nope,” you chime in as you swipe to open up the groupchat, not offering Steve a single glance until you’ve sent off the final addition of photo proof to the rest of your friends. You consider adding some sort of sarcastic comment, some well earned bragging and a boisterous told you so, but you don’t.

It doesn’t feel like you’ve won. Leaving this apartment, this battleground, with all the new bruises and healed wounds you’ve acquired over the span of the twenty four hours doesn’t taste like victory. Really, it tastes like… nothing.

There’s no victory, no solid ending for you to cling to. It’s simply ending and there’s still thousands of words you have to say to Eddie. You need more time, another twenty four hours, to fill with every single thing you never told him. More casual confessions of honesty, more hours wasted in his bed, more insignificant bickering to partake in. It’s all on your tongue and desperate for attention, and yet, you know you can’t succumb to it.

You have to go. It’s the last thing you want to do, but you have to.

Steve checks his phone when it buzzes with the notification of your message you sent and opens his mouth, no doubt about to comment on your lack of words with the message, but you’re already standing. It’s like ripping off a bandaid. You need to get it over with, get out of this apartment before you decide you’d rather sink right into these couch cushions and decay just to ensure you never have to really leave.

Eddie’s quick to follow.

“Let’s go,” you say to Steve, grabbing up your bag, not looking at Eddie at the risk of losing all composure.

Neither boy fights you, following you right up to the front door. Steve leads, opening it back up as reality slams you in the chest. As if there’s an invisible barrier here, and you know that in crossing it, you’ll be leaving a piece of yourself behind in apartment 2C.

Leaving now is not leaving forever.

But it sure does feel like it.

Steve awkwardly looks over your shoulder at Eddie, some silent communication you only see his half of as he shrugs and does a timid wave, turning to leave.

One foot hangs midair, your toes beginning to push through that barrier, when Eddie grabs you.

“Hey,” he breathes as he wraps his fingers around your bicep, forcing you to turn to face him. You let him, your body moving to his accord but your eyes still not meeting his, “You good?”

You take a deep breath in through your nose, “Me? Yeah. Yeah, I’m great. I’m… I’m good.”

“Are you sure?”

“Positive?”

“Will you look at me, then?”

Reluctantly, so very reluctantly, your eyes meet his. Big, brown doe eyes. This close to them, you can see the way they shine to match yours. You both probably look insane to Steve right now, but you don’t care. Between the sleep deprivation and all the emotions you’ve had to experience over the last day, the tears are well earned.

You almost reach out and kiss him. You almost press up onto your toes and put your lips on his, almost pour every emotion you’re feeling in the moment into a far from innocent peck.

But you don’t.

“We did it,” you croak blandly, “We won the bet.”

As if the Universe is screaming in agreement, you can hear a chime in the distance signifying the hour. Probably the church you recall passing in the middle of the night when the two of you had ventured off to the parking garage. It almost feels as if it’s mocking you.

“We did it,” he echoes as his grip on your bicep loosens. You expect him to let it fall back to his side, nearly begging out loud for him to retract his touch from you so you don’t do something stupid like stay.

You swallow down thick emotions, just like molasses, “I guess I’ll see you around, yeah?”

Time. You two needed time apart.

“Yeah,” he sighs, as he does the one thing you had somehow hoped he wouldn’t yet yearned for ardently – the hand that had wrapped around your arm now cups your cheek, thumb stroking your skin so softly, you nearly melt in his doorway, “I’ll see you around, sweetheart.”

It doesn’t taste like victory, yet it doesn’t taste quite like loss. It’s bittersweet.

You still don’t kiss him. And he doesn’t kiss you, even as his touch against your cheek lingers so heavily before he pulls away.

You cross the barrier and find you were right. You feel that piece of you tear off and flutter to the ground, and you begin to wonder when you’ll have the chance to come back and reclaim not just it, but Eddie.

—

Steve didn’t speak much on the drive back to your dorm, and you’re sort of grateful.

If you were a good friend, you’d ask more about his date. You’d get him giddy as he spills the details about this girl and his plans for the night, chastise and tease him all in good fun. You’d be smiling and making plans for coffee tomorrow morning so he could tell you all about how the date went.

But you’re not a good friend.

You sit in your silence the entire drive, and you pick at your nails, and you selfishly stay focused on Eddie. On all of your own qualms and all your own issues, worrying about what comes next and already feeling your chest tighten the moment you start to think about when see you around will come.

The two of you never discussed that, did you? There was no discussion of just how much time was needed apart.

Steve shifts the car into park in the west lot, right outside your building, “Alright, stop making your cuticles bleed for two seconds and tell me what’s wrong.”

Your hands pause exactly as he requests, caught red-handed. “Nothing’s wrong.”

“Something’s obviously wrong. I told you to go get him – and yet, he’s still not your boyfriend.”

“It’s complicated,” your voice finally breaks. There’s no tears this time, just confusion and desperation clawing at your throat.

Because, was it complicated? Was it really?

The last year was what had been complicated. All the pretending and the fights and the tension. All the false beliefs and all the lies overlapping with one another. That was complicated. But this? The feelings you harbored and finally acknowledged for the boy you just left behind?

That wasn’t really complicated.

And Steve knows this, you can hear it in his sigh, “I think that’s the issue.”

“What?” you turn your head towards him, scrunch your brows, even your breathing and try to shoo away the image of Eddie’s wet eyes.

You wish you would have kissed him.

“Look, i just think you two keep making things complicated when they should be simple-”

You didn’t want to hear it. Childish as it might be, you do not want to have to hear this speech. Because you know Steve’s right.

“I’ll see you later, Steve.”

“Wait-”

You don’t wait. You slam the door in his face once you’ve got your footing outside of his car, truly earning your title of bad friend.

Awful. You weren’t just a bad friend, you were an awful friend.

And yet you can’t think on it, leaving it be until you had the time to properly dwell on how you’d apologize later. All you care about now is getting inside your dorm, moping and being miserable on your own. Your strides are longer and faster than they were even when you’d backtracked to Eddie’s apartment, determined to get behind closed doors and to properly mourn all that had been gained and all that had been lost in the last twenty four hours.

Twenty four hours ago, you were reluctant to even step foot in Eddie’s apartment. And now, it’s the only place you really want to be.

Luck refuses to be on your side as you slam into your dorm room, sweaty and tired and just fucking emotional, only to find your roommate there. There will be no dramatic crying, no cinematic scene with your back pressed to the door as you fight back sobs, it seems.

“You look rough,” is all she notes, sparing you a second glance before she returns to whatever she was tasking on at her desk. Her makeup, you think.

Good. Maybe she’ll be heading out, leaving you to suffer alone like you wanted.

“Yeah,” is all you can answer her as the door clicks shut behind you.

Rough’s a good way to put it.

“Think you’ll be here tonight?” she asks, still distracted, “Troy and I are hanging out today – he spent the night here last night, by the way – and if you’re gone again, I was thinking about inviting him back over. Only if you’re cool with it, or already have plans, though. Our RA has this final and I didn’t even have to sneak him in last night-”

She continues on her rambles, never looking your way as you drop your bag onto your bed, and quickly lift yourself to lay right next to it.

Normal. You were having to go back to fucking normal. Your worries were no longer revolving around Eddie or making it through the next hour, no longer preoccupied with keeping your friends up to date in order to ensure a payout of five hundred dollars – now, you just had to worry about boys named Troy and possible room checks by your RA. Finals to be taken, essays to be finished, shifts to be covered at the diner so you’d have enough cash to go out with your friends next weekend.

You should be relieved. But it all just feels impossibly heavy.

Your roommate catches on quickly, and when you only reply to let her know you’ll be here tonight, she stops talking. She focuses on finishing her makeup and gathering her things, hardly even offering you a goodbye as you shift to curl up more comfortably in the center of your mattress.

You should also know better than what you decide to do next. You can’t help it, though, as you tug your phone out of your pocket and unlock it. You don’t listen to the voice inside your head that screams stop as you click on your photos’ app. Ignore the animal inside that whines as you scroll, and you click on the very first photo of you and Eddie.

It’s painful, but you have nothing better to do in your solitude. You don’t linger on the first photo too long, still being fresh in your mind, before quickly swiping along.

The set of matching photos you and Eddie took of one another, black and white socks covering touching toes visible in each one. You nearly laugh at the Darth Vader figurine both of you took turns holding. You nearly cry when you realize you were, in fact, smiling in your photo. A small one, a forced one, but there nonetheless.

The selfie from the bar, your amaretto sour and Eddie’s whiskey & coke lifted towards the camera. The way both of you had tried to look annoyed, over exaggerated and furrowed brows paired with pouting lips. Your thumb swipes subconsciously over the photo for a second too long, and you’re startled when you realized it was a live photo. The moment after the photo was taken, Eddie’s eyes had moved to look at you. And in that live photo, you watched every ounce of annoyance evaporate. Leaving behind something you recognized now. Leaving behind eyes sparkling with a brief glimpse of adoration.

There’s something else you better recognize now in the next photo. The picture you’d taken when Eddie had locked himself into his room, only opening up long enough to insist you took the photo, the one that guaranteed you your money. You had been right – there was a flood of regret on his face. You hadn’t imagined it. But you had also been wrong; he was never looking at your own rotted vines and mourning them; he was looking at his own, tethered and shredded, regretting that he had ever taken an axe to them. You don’t press down to see this live photo. You don’t want to witness that door slamming in your face again.

The two photos taken in his bed. The one in which both your faces are scrunched from the flash, in which you can see the physical wall between you two. And the one in the dark, where you both wear tired smiles, unaware of the night to come.

The photo on the bike, a helmet mostly covering your blushing cheeks, but not Eddie’s.

The photo from the parking garage, meant just for you two.

The photos from Betty’s. You don’t linger on the one of you; you do linger on the one of him.

Each swipe only makes your heart ache more viciously, painful and sharp reminders of the night you had had. You don’t have to press down on another single photo to witness the live outplay of it – each memory is running through your mind in real time as you retrace your steps of the night. Twenty four hours, twenty four steps. With each photo, you watch yourself grow more relaxed, watch smiles come easier without your awareness and finally pinpoint all the care Eddie had been looking at you with the entire time.

You notice the lack of photos from the last few hours. You nearly scorn yourself for it, but there had been no time. There was no time for memories frozen in time amongst all that hard honesty and those sacrilegious revelations.

Except there was one more moment in time frozen for you. You’re quick to exit the photo app finally, leaving behind that picture of Eddie with full cheeks only to open up your text messages.

Your text thread with him. Filled to the brim with bad pastry jokes and underlying need. You remember that urgent want to comfort him, to remind him he was enough. To erase all the hurt and all the old scars caused by a life from before your time with him you still hadn’t become fully privy to.

You’re still rereading the last message, bet you wouldn’t say that to my face, when suddenly a new message appears.

EDDIE: Make it home okay?

Space and time. They are the last things you want, that you need from him right now.

YOU: yep. my roommate just left.

EDDIE: Is your dorm bed as comfortable as you remember?

YOU: like sleeping on a cloud.

You wish you were still in his bed. You wish you were back at the beginning, with him rather than all alone.

EDDIE: Oh shit, you’re trying to sleep? Sorry

EDDIE: I’ll stop bothering you and leave you to it. Sweet dreams.

No, you nearly scream at your phone screen, come back and bother me. Bother me for the rest of my days for all I care.

You’d never sleep another wink if it meant having him. You remember what you told him about starting over, starting fresh. And maybe taking a much needed nap would offer that. Maybe sleeping for more than thirty minutes at a time would be the smart choice, letting you awake with a clearer mind and better intentions.

But you don’t want that. The animal inside still clings to all that has happened.

Something about that makes you brave.

YOU: i never said that, and you’re not bothering me.

EDDIE: Didn’t you say you wanted a nap earlier?

YOU: that was earlier. i’m wide awake now.

An internal battle continues to take place. Your mind whispers liar, knowing damn well that if you put down the phone and turned your cheek to bury into your pillow, you’d be out like a light within seconds.

EDDIE: Ah. I see.

You fiddle with your thumbs for a second, stomach churning as you try to come up with a response to keep the conversation going. Technically, when you had said the two of you needed time apart after all that had happened, it should have meant interactions like this as well. Texting each other was not offering each other space.

But he’d started it. That was on him.

YOU: do you remember what i said about space? and starting over?

EDDIE: I do. I’m not very good with giving you space, it seems.

YOU: well, considering you’re on the other side of town, i’d say we’ve got the physical sense of space down.

There’s a pause in his replies that causes you to sit up. A falter. You curse him for not having a smartphone as well, for not having the privilege of being notified whether he was just taking his time typing or if he had put the phone down. You really hoped it was the former, practically wished upon every star that that was what was happening. You hoped he was glued to his phone as you were yours.

Maybe he still had that photo he’d taken a few hours ago, the one you swore you’d heard him take as you dozed off. Maybe he was still staring at it like you had done with all of your photos.

EDDIE: About that…

You stare at the message, the hidden meaning behind it completely lost on you.

YOU: About what?

EDDIE: I’m not home right now.

Your heart clenches.

YOU: You’re not?

EDDIE: I’m not.

YOU: Eddie, where the hell are you right now?

Your mind reels with all the possible choices. He could be at the bar, at the parking garage, at Nancy’s place. He could be anywhere.

But then he only sends a picture in response, and you know where he is.

You nearly topple into three other students from how you sprint down the hallway. You don’t even grab your key to your dorm room, skipping the elevators and nearly throwing yourself down the few flights of stairs in haste. You don’t care how your lungs cry out, you don’t care how your thighs burn, you don’t care how your shoulder aches from how roughly you slam open that front door of the building. You don’t care about the strange looks you get on your way out. You don’t care about the odd angle you twisted your ankle in on that last step.

The only thing you care about is the boy standing there, helmet off and balanced on the seat of his parked motorcycle that he leans on, arms crossed as his eyes light up at the erratic sight of you.

You don’t even check for any traffic in the parking lot as you make your way to him.

“I’m sorry,” he calls out once you’re close enough to hear him, “I know we said give it time and shit, but you left, and I just-”

He doesn’t get the chance to finish his sentence.

When you make it to Eddie, you’re in no business to carry anymore regret with you. This time, you don’t just yearn to kiss him, to wrap your arms around him, to pour out all those emotions you were feeling across tongues.

You do it. You kiss him, uncaring for all the stares of fellow students. He nearly falls backwards into his bike from the force of you colliding against him, but he’s quick to catch himself as his hands find your waist.

“You-” you pull back, gasping a bit to start to scold him before his lips follow and interrupt you, “Fucking-” Push and pull. You retreat, and he follows, “Idiot.”

His hands squeeze around you, tugging you a stumbling step closer so that your chests are flushed against one another.

“I am,” he mumbles against your lip, the tip of his nose grazing over your cheek as he refuses to let anymore distance be put between the two of you, “I am a fucking idiot. I’m sorry.”

“Stop apologizing.”

His hands cradle your face and he kisses you this time, reaffirming that he felt everything you had. All those words you hadn’t said, all his own admissions he’d withheld, spill between clashing teeth and eager lips. He takes your breath away, shamelessly, greedily. And you let him. You offer all the air that’s left in your lungs up to him on a silver platter.

When the two of you finally pull apart, eyes opening wide and foreheads pressing tightly to one another, he’s grinning like a fool.

“So, I had a better idea than time apart,” he murmurs, “What if we just… start over?”

“Start over?” you question wearily.

He nods, “Yeah. Just… Just pretend this last year and all our bullshit didn’t happen. Start fresh. Let me not be a massive dick this time.”

His hands drop from your face as he takes a step back, taking you in fully. You want to shy under his gaze, but instead you can only melt. His fondness is a warmth like no other, capturing you by the crown of your head and pouring down over you in waves.

“Okay,” you finally agree, feeling your own cheeks spread and ache in a lovesick smile. Coming home, that’s what this felt like. “Okay, we can start over.”

“Great,” the homecoming warmth only spreads as he straightens up his posture. A very serious look overcomes his face, laced with determination for a brief second until he relaxes it into a friendly smile, doleful eyes meeting yours as every single flower he had ever planted in your chest blooms like a spring morning. He sticks his hand out, nearly making you snort, “Hi, I’m Eddie.”

You can’t help it. His front door is open, a warm glow within welcoming you.

You ignore his hand entirely as you impulsively reach up and interlock your fingers at the nape of his neck, tugging him into you for another kiss.

He pulls back far too soon for your liking, but his hands have also found their spot against the small of your back, “Do you greet all the new strangers you meet like this?”

You roll your eyes, “Shut up.”

He pulls you back in for a chaste peck, and it tastes like home.

“I like you,” you whisper into the limited space between the two of you, “I mean it. I like you so fucking much, Edward Munson.”

He grins, cracking your chest wide open with hope, “The feeling’s mutual.”

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#my writing #twenty four hours #eddie munson #eddie munson x reader #eddie munson x you #eddie munson x y/n #eddie munson fic #eddie munson fanfic #this feels so surreal to post jesus christ #thank you guys genuinely for all the love #i will be making a sappy post before i post the epilogue on thursday #i just #wow #yeah #i did it #again #i finished a fucking fic

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thetriumphantpanda · 9 months

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Delicate - Chapter Two: Maroon

3.7k / pairing: joel miller x f!reader

Series Masterlist | Previous Chapter | Next Chapter

summary: despite some last minute reservations about meeting Joel, you throw yourself into the date, but it doesn't go according to plan.

A/N: Ahhhhh oh my God - @hellishjoel and I are so excited to bring you the second chapter of Delicate! We're having the best time with this little pairing already and we hope they manage to worm their way into your hearts just like they have with us! We're taking turns in posting the chapters of this - so please make sure you're following both of us to keep up to date!

warnings: mentions of being a single parents, rom-com vibes, foul language, a bestie who is nothing but trouble, Joel being terrible at dating in general, a lil smattering of angst, mentions of food & alcohol consumption.

There’s a flow of peace that settles across you when the door to Noah’s room clicks shut. You love him, he’s the best thing that ever happened to you, and he keeps you afloat every day, but these moments, when he’s finally asleep and you can stop thinking for a minute, are the moments you crave each day.

You settle down on the couch, mug of tea in hand, with the TV playing quietly, just for background noise more than anything, as you pick up your phone for the first time that evening. There’s a few emails, mainly about shopping sales and holidays that you think you should book but never do - those are quickly deleted to stop any temptation of spending money on something that isn’t essential. There are a few messages from your mom, just confirming that she’ll pick Noah up from school tomorrow, what she’s planned for them to do and what she’ll feed him. You shoot a message off in reply that it all sounds good and that he’s excited for some quality time with his grandparents, because it’s true, and then you set your phone down on the coffee table and try to ignore it for a while.

You finish your tea and queue up a few episodes of a show you’ve been meaning to catch up on - something mindless that people at work always seem to talk about. So mindless that it actually sends you to sleep. You wake with a jolt a few hours later. The house is still quiet, which means Noah hasn’t decided he’s still got too much energy and needs to burn it off by jumping on the bed or pulling some of his toys out. You sigh, checking the time to see it’s almost midnight.

You gather your stuff, put the mug in the sink to deal with in the morning before trudging up to bed. There’s a moment at the top of the stairs, where you think it would be so easy to flop down on the bed and forgo the rest of your responsibilities, but you’ve got your mother’s voice in the back of your mind, something about wrinkles and pores and how bad it is to sleep in your makeup, so you turn left into the bathroom, cover your skin in serums and creams and then finally, just after midnight, you fall into bed.

Knowing it’s bad to look at your phone this late at night, once you’ve set your alarm, you click open the godforsaken Hinge app that Dixie had insisted on setting you up on. So far, after six months, you’d been on a fair few first dates, three second dates and had a God awful one night stand, but nothing had been sticking, no-one seemed to be exactly what you were looking for. You’d promised her that you’d try though, so as had become a nightly ritual for you, you set about giving away your daily likes, not really paying a huge amount of attention until he pops up for you. Joel. 45. From his first profile picture, the exact kind of man you’d been searching for. Rugged, handsome,

Of the few photos he had on his profile, he was often donning a flannel or a simple short-sleeved shirt that curved around his biceps and broad shoulders. He always wore the same tilted smile, with dazzling eyes and dark hair with licks of silver. He was a handsome lumberjack of sorts.

He looked to be an outdoorsman, at least two of Joel’s pictures were of him hiking a trail accompanied by a young girl, surrounded by greenery and tall rocks with the sunshine peeking through the branches. His face was glowing and tan from the light, his handsomeness so natural. Beautiful, even.

Joel’s “Typical Sunday” consisted of a black coffee in the morning, followed by making burgers on the grill for him and his family before settling down to watch a Dallas Cowboys football game. That was a typical Sunday for a man, but it showed how he liked to unwind and that he was a family man.

First, the mention of a family, plus that beautiful young woman in almost all of Joel’s pictures - a daughter, perhaps? Older than your own boy by quite a few years. He must have been on the younger side of having children if any of these assumptions were even correct. But there was something about knowing he also had a baby to be thinking of felt familiar, comforting, as they would always come first.

And it turns out that talking to him is pretty easy too. He’s charming, a slight insomniac like you, and from what you can tell from the slight back and forth you managed to have before you go to sleep, able to flirt a little with you too. It’s why when he asks to take you out you say yes without hesitation, it could be fun, he could be the one, who knows?

Mornings are always chaos. Half-eaten bowls of cereal on the table, a mug of coffee made with the best of intentions but sat to go cold, a rush of getting Noah dressed and in the car with everything he needed for school and then the annoyance of getting stuck in traffic on the way to drop him off, all coalesce to make you stressed as you help Noah out of the backseat.

“Remember granny is picking you up this afternoon okay?” You ask, bending down to kiss his cheek as he fiddles with the straps of his backpack.

“I know, mom.” He groans, using the back of his hand to wipe the kiss off his cheek.

You smile, ruffle his hair a bit, because no matter how much he might protest, he will always be your baby, “Behave for her, okay?” You warn lightly with a smile, “She’ll bring you back home tomorrow.”

Noah spots some of his friends across the playground and steps around you to make his way into school. You turn, hold your hand up in a wave and shout at him to have a good day. Noah turns, walking backwards to look at you, waving right back.

“Have a good day, mom!”

Underneath the way he’s growing up, he’s still the sweet little boy you knew you could raise on your own. You sit back in your car, picking your phone up to make sure you’ve got enough time to go to the store and stock up on some groceries, when you notice a notification from Hinge. It’s Joel.

Just checking you’re still okay for tonight?

For some reason, you sit and stare at it for a few minutes, fingers itching to type something, to confirm, but there’s that usual seed of doubt that appears after all this time that makes you want to tell him something’s come up, you’ll have to reschedule. After months and months of trying to find someone, to failed first date after failed first date, you wonder if it really is worth it, no matter how good of a match Joel Miller seems on paper. Is he really going to be worth getting dressed up for? You sigh, type out your usual message of I’m sorry, I think I might have to reschedule, when the screen is filled with the face of your best friend, trying to call you.

“Hello?”

“Hello sexy mama!” Dixie’s voice immediately soothes you, “How are you this fine morning?”

“I’m okay,” You speak softly, plugging the phone into the car so you can speak to her as you drive, “Just dropped Noah off at school.”

“How is my favourite man?” She asks.

“Yeah, he’s good, he’s staying with my mom tonight so I think he’s just pleased to be away from me for a while.”

“It’s like the universe read my mind!” Dixie exclaims on the other end of the phone, “Do you want to go out and get wine drunk tonight?”

You stutter for a second, because you could, you could cancel with Joel, go out and drink cheap wine and dance with your friend, but before you can say anything, Dixie picks up on your hesitation.

“OH MY GOD!” She all but screeches, “Do you have a hot date tonight?!”

You grumble a little, because how is she always so attuned to you like this?

“Yeah, although I don’t know if I’m gonna go.”

“Why not?”

You sigh again, “I don’t know if it’s worth it anymore?” You offer.

“Girl, get outta here with that attitude!” She chastises, “Is he hot?”

You grumble a little again, but you can’t deny it, Joel is hot, “Yes.”

“Well then,” You can hear her clap her hands in the background, clearly having you on speaker so she can go about her business, “If he’s hot, then there’s no harm in it, forget me and my wine, go out, drink wine with your hot mystery stranger and get fucked, girl!”

“Dixie!” You screech, “I’m not fucking him.”

“Whatever you say, girl!” She shouts down the phone, “If you cancel, I’m kicking your ass, okay?” You sigh, once again, something you’re getting more and more used to these days, “Have fun and be safe!”

And then all you can hear is the dial tone from where she’s hung up on you. You think about it all the way around the grocery store, she wouldn’t know if you did cancel, would she? But you’ve known her long enough to know she’d sniff a lie out of you in seconds. So, when you settle down at your desk, you pull out your phone and send Joel a reply to confirm the plans you made last night, and then spend the rest of the work day trying not to work yourself up about the whole thing.

You don’t think that the anxiety of waiting for a date to show up will ever get easier. Stood just inside the doorway of the restaurant Joel had chosen, you’re chewing at the skin around your thumbnail. Did you dress right? Do you look okay? When he turns up will he look like his pictures or not? Will he lean in for a kiss on the cheek? Do you give him a hug? You’d like to think of yourself as a seasoned pro at this now, but those first few awkward moments always made you anxious - there was no second chance at first impressions.

You needn’t have worried about Joel though. When the door opens and he stands in front of you, he is exactly the man you’d studied on that app. Taller than you, broad and big. Scruff, peppered with gray across his face, though it’s neatly kept, just like this hair, although more unruly, it’s still peppered with grays and it suits him. He’s wearing dark jeans, and a flannel that you think must be saved for best. You step closer, open your arms. Joel leans down, and does indeed press a kiss to your cheek, one of his wide palms pressed lightly on your lower back as he hugs you back a little.

“Nice to meet you, Joel.” You smile when he pulls away.

“You too, ma’am.” He smiles back at you, and you can tell he’s nervous.

“What have I told you about that?” You tease as you step towards the hostess, Joel giving her his name, you hope the slight teasing will put him at ease, you remember just what it was like when you started dating for the first time, and as much as you want to have a good time, you want to make sure Joel is having a good time too.

She picks up two menus, leads the two of you to a table at the edge of the restaurant. Joel pulls your chair out for you, pushing it gently under you as you sit down. The light is low, and there’s a thrum of chatter across the whole restaurant as you open the menu, glancing your eyes over the choices.

“Do you want to share a bottle of wine?” You ask, finger skimming the list of wines available.

Joel nods, “Sure thing, darlin’.”

You smile, looking down at the menu, deciding you much prefer darling to ma’am, especially in that sweet southern drawl of his. When the waitress returns, you both order food and a bottle of wine, which is quickly brought to the table, uncorked, with the dark red liquid poured into two glasses. The waitress leaves the bottle on the table as you raise your glass, Joel following suit, clinking them together before you take a sip.

You’re watching as he does the same, a smaller sip than you, and then watch as his nose crinkles and he coughs a little. It makes you laugh, putting your glass down to cover your mouth a little.

“Dunno why I said yes,” He shakes his head, “Fuckin’ hate wine.”

You can’t help but properly laugh now, hoping that it puts him a little at ease. You reach over the table, lay your hand on his wrist just a touch, “What would you prefer to drink?”

You don’t miss the way he subtly drags his wrist back from your touch, covering it by scratching at the skin on the side of his hand, but you don’t let it bother you. You’re a touchy person, it’s what makes you feel at ease mostly, but that doesn’t mean it works for Joel, so you fold your hands back in your lap.

“Usually beer,” He mumbles, flagging down the waitress as she walks past to ask for just that, “Or whiskey.”

“I don’t mind a beer,” You offer, trying to make light conversation, “But whiskey makes my throat burn.”

He doesn’t offer much of a reply apart from a short hum from his mouth, his attention moving from you to the room around you, letting the table fall into silence. You look down at your lap, trying to think of things to say whilst you wait for your food.

“So, Sarah, right?” You ask after his daughter, it’s something the two of you have in common at least, “You must be super proud of her, medical school is incredible.”

“Yeah,” He says simply, “She’s a very smart girl.”

You expect him to ask after Noah, ask him a little about what he’s like, maybe what his favourite subjects are at school or whether he’s in any sports clubs or anything, but he doesn’t offer anything else to you, doesn’t ask any questions.

There’s a lull in the conversation, saved by the waitress dropping your meals in front of you, fresh tomato pasta with chicken for you and steak and mashed potatoes with asparagus for Joel. You swirl your fork through the pasta, scooping some into your mouth as Joel cuts into his steak. Your eyes are trained on him, watching how he eats - it’s one of your big tests, table manners, and to be fair to him, he passes with flying colours - sure he eats a bit fast, but it’s nothing off-putting, and he seems to be able to use a knife and fork properly and chew with his mouth closed, which is a far cry from the last person you’d been out with.

“You look really good tonight,” You offer, setting your fork down for a moment, “The flannel is very Texas.”

You think in the dim light you can see him flush a little, and you’ve not said anything that isn’t true, he does look good. Fucking great actually. Joel finishes swallowing, takes a swig of his beer.

“Thank you,” He tips his head towards you, “You look nice too,” He brings his hand up to his face to motion, “Rosy cheeks.”

You try not to let your disappointment show, it is a compliment after all, so you put all your focus back down into your meal, the two of you finishing your food in a rather awkward silence - you willing Joel to ask you something, to start a conversation, anything really. You watch as Joel pushes the asparagus around his plate after eating two of the spears, finishing off his steak and potatoes but leaving the rest of the greens.

When the waitress comes back to clear your plates, she asks if you’d like the dessert menu. You look to Joel, who tips his head in a way to say it’s up to you, but this has quite possibly been the most excruciating few hours of your life, so you drain your glass of wine, tip the last of the bottle into the glass and sit to wait for the bill.

“Listen,” Joel starts, dragging your attention from the bottom of your glass to him, a look of slight regret on his face, “I ain’t too good at all this,” He tries to explain, “It’s been a long time and I’m a little rusty.”

You kind of want to wring his ass for it a little, but underneath his apparent disinterest, you can still see the nerves of the guy who first walked through the door, and you get it, you think you’d been similar when you first started dating again, but you don’t think you’d completely lost the ability to think of a single question.

Joel insists on paying the bill and you don’t fight him for the privilege of splitting it - you think it might upset some of that southern chivalry he has and for someone else they’ll love that. It’s a silent affair as you both stand up, gather your things.

“How are you getting home?” Joel asks, holding the front door open for you.

“I can just grab a cab,” You smile, “How about you?”

He points to a truck, “Only had one so I can drive home,” He explains, “Do you mind if I wait with you for your cab?” He asks, “I’d feel better knowing you get in one safe.”

“Of course,” You smile, “The hostess called one for me, so it shouldn’t be long.”

There’s another lull in conversation, thankfully your cab arrives quickly, saving the silence from falling into awkwardness again. Joel beats you to the door, opening it for you.

“I would say it’s been nice meeting you,” He speaks, “But I feel like I made this real difficult, and I’m sorry for that.”

Going to step into the cab, you stop, leaning down to put your bag in the back seat, pausing a little before you turn back around to him, meeting his eyes. They’re striking, dark brown and beautiful, and trying to tell you just how much he knows he’s messed up. It makes your heart sink because you feel that sadness too, knowing he had so much promise, that he understood you in a way you thought other people didn’t, without even needing to talk to you, he’s a single parent, he gets it, like other people don’t. It frustrates you, makes your breath catch in your throat and your eyes glass over.

You bring a comforting hand to his shoulder, “It’s okay,” You add a smile at the end, “It takes some time to get used to this all again, I was the same,” You look down at your shoes, “It’ll get easier each time you do it, I promise.”

His head dips, regret flashed across his face, like he wishes he could go back and do it all over but better this time.

“M’sorry, again,” His tone is low, morose even, then he dips, presses a soft kiss to your cheek, “Get home safe.”

You flop down on your bed, hand running over your face, wondering at what point it had gone wrong. He’d had so much potential, had seemed like he could be so right for you, so what went wrong?

No sooner have you sent the ‘home safe’ message to Dixie, do you feel the soft vibrating of your phone. You answer, put the phone on loudspeaker and set it by your head.

“So, how did it go?”

You groan, “He had so much potential Dix,” You let out a pained noise, “I don’t know where it went wrong?!”

“Oh honey,” She coos down the phone, aware more than anyone how much you wanted to be done with dating and finally have someone you could spend time with, “What happened?”

“I don’t even know!” You exclaim, “Like, I could tell he was nervous, and this was his first date in years, but it was like he’d never spoken to a woman in his life, it was so hard!”

You can hear her sucking on her teeth on the other end of the phone, “Are you being too hard on him?” She asks, “You always say the cocky men are no good because they’re rehearsed, maybe he just needs time to warm up?”

“Dixie, I’d need a flamethrower to warm him up!”

That gets a giggle out of her, “Mama, listen to me,” She goes into serious mode now, “Not everyone is as seasoned as you at this, and if this was his first date in years and he comes face to face with you? Of course he’s going to be nervous, you can’t write him off just for that honey.”

That’s when your truth really hits out, “But what if I spend all that time warming him up and it’s a waste of time? He could turn out to be no good for me and then I’ve wasted so much time instead of trying to find the right person.”

“Honey, respectfully, you’re forty, not at the end of your life, I promise that maybe spending some time trying to unravel someone a little instead of writing them off immediately might actually be worth it.”

“I don’t know, Dix…” You trail off.

“Just sleep on it, okay?” She offers, “See how you feel when you wake up before you send him the ‘thanks but no thanks’ message.”

“Okay, I promise.”

The two of your say goodbye to each other, you stay led on the bed for a while before you push yourself up, plug your phone into the charger, noticing the notification from Hinge when your screen lights up. You can see it’s Joel’s name that sits on the front screen. You sigh, sitting on the edge of the bed, weighing up whether to read it or not. Deciding that if you do read it, you’re likely to make a decision against what Dixie told you, so you leave the notification sitting there, get yourself ready for bed and then will yourself to sleep without going over every second of the date wondering what you could have done differently.

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dottybot · 1 year

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Lost housing and almost killed by our landlords

(Twice)

C*sh app: $dottybot

V*nmo: @dottybot

@translesbo's Paypal: [email protected]

My partner, @translesbo, and I after signing a lease, were put through 2 big gas leaks during times we had planned on and had been close to sleeping in the apartment. The entire time the place made us sick and was hard to breathe in with a strong awful smell and remained unihabitable, causing us to be without a home since July 3rd, 2023 due to it.

We are a brown latine lesbian couple and both trans (her transfem and myself tme cafab) and autistic along with other disabilities, and have 2 esa cats.

The whole time during the lease, the landlord would excuse the lack of cleanliness and poor maintenance of the building with that it was an old building, deny things she once acknowledge, and imply that we were just lying or causing the problems and even giving us trouble with getting out of the lease. But before that it led up to 2 big gas leaks.

To not make the post appear too lengthy, the rest is under a cut.

So the 1st gas leak, we were earlier sure about taking and about to load up the cats with us to all attempt sleeping there for the night, only last minute getting the feeling like we should not bring them and then deciding not to. Once in the apartment, we were there, windows shut the entire time, for 3+ hours. I went from the regular struggle to breath, head pain, and sickly feel to escalating much more and becoming very out of it, struggling to stay awake to beginning to feel so out of control, and I never would have guess we were being poisoned due to the state it had already put me in. Kat only noticed by chance, the smell of gas by the oven, when she was just starting to feel more off, which we otherwise wouldn't have spotted with how strong the place smelled. We were so close to not noticing it at all.

Kat had been barely able to drive but got us to the nearby ER, and doctors confirmed the gas poisoning, and kept us there for 3 or 4 hours through the night until recovered enough, fortunately due to it being short term, we had no lasting damage on our bodies, just both felt very ill the next day, and myself barely able to move I remained sick from it for 3 days.

That morning, Kat had contacted the gas company as the doctors suggested, though they could not do anything as we followed the leases direction and were not notified during the event, so no one but the apartment maintenance would be able to even confirm it happening. However, the fire departmen came with a firetruck, since it was also recommended by the doctor to get the place checked out by them.

The landlord later called, after us updating her of current apartment issues promptly as per lease requirements, and this call she went too far. She kept up with her same tactics but worse. She tried implying either we made up that there was a leak or we intentionally gave ourselves gas poisoning (like we were still very sick from the previous night) and was then many times claiming everything is fine with the maintenance man the landlord insists "he knows what he's doing" and "no one has ever had a problem with him", because we had included our concerns with him-- this guy had tried making kat sound like she overreacted and didn't know anything, kept claiming that "Gas does Not spread" so we should have been fine, not having any effects of poisoning, along with other contrary claims.

Anyways, the landlord lady was very clearly implying she thinks we are liars about there even being a gas leak, implying we didnt contact the gas and fire department which she claimed to "work closely with so they wouldn't lie, because she contacted the places and no one had documentation since maintenance was the only one to witness, it was her word against ours. This is when we realize due to the lease instructions to forgo contact to a third party professional to fix gas leaks, we would not be able to have paper documentation against her to prove it. She even "randomly" asked the name of our previous apartment place, and mentioned threatening like "didnt you have a gas leak there too?" As even more reason to accuse us, and saying she may have to contact our previous apartment place and saying how odd she thinks it was to have another leak, though this one worse,

On the 3rd day, after the 1st leak I was still feeling ill only starting to recover, the 2nd leak happened. this time we had to bring our cats with us, since we had no where else to stay with our previous lease over, and the apartment still uninhabitable and made us both more sickly, and still feared being there.

Earlier in that day, we were reassured multiple times that it was fixed and that "the stove SHOULD be putting out a gas smell for the next hour or 2", and that it means it's "Fixed, working" the maintenance man kept insisting, even the landlord lady was there strongly confirming multiple times it was true because "he Knows what he is doing" again, even confirming therepair was checked later in the day to make sure there was no leak and that it was safe.

We were afraid to go back after the 1st leak after how badly to us at least it seemed to be pouring out earlier in the day and their claim that it was supposed to be that way, but it was the only option we had.

We were unsure if we were just overreacting for a while and imagining the smell, it was several hours laters with all windows having been left open, though eventually calling our gas company this time to get proper documentation and a professional, since the smell had not diminished.

Kat was told by the gas man that gas was shooting out, and he's seen fires breakout from similar.. so we had to get Out.

Which led to us being homeless and having to sleep in the car and soon after, we were fortunately able to stay at Kat's parents house though they do not have space for us, keeping us and our cats in her nephew's small cramped room, with Kat sleeping on a broken bed that is messing with her scoliosis, and me havung to sleep on the floor for over a month now really taking a toll on me. And our cats have been under constant stress, making them require more care and expense.

This whole thing has made me lose my job, has been traumatic for us both, and lose easily over $2,500 into cost of the apartment and our repairs alone, and $250 on an attourney that did not try to help much but was able to get us out of the lease. On top of kat recently being wrongfully stopped by a cop for a made up reason, giving her a $135 ticket, along with having to take a 5 week un paid leave of absence to be able to help deal with our situation. And we can no longer put off car repairs, we have put off this whole year since it sputters most of the time instead of starting now along with other concerning issues.

We have currently been trying to find better jobs and a place to live, though due to the unstable living situation and and loss of income it has been more difficult to find a place.

So, any mutua*aid if you have the means and any reblogs would really help and be appreciated a ton

#so this has been going on lately #hoped it wouldn't get as bad as is but it is and still is #and broke my laptop charger again last night

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bakuslove · 1 year

Text

OUR LITTLE SECRET

﹒ॱ˖ 🖇️ FEATURING. pro hero!bakugo x f!reader

﹒ॱ˖ ☆ CONTENT. fluff, sfw, established relationship, pro hero!bakugo, fem pronouns are used for reader themes of marriage ahead WC. 1.096

﹒ॱ˖ 💬 SYNOPSIS. privacy's hard to come by nowadays, all thanks to social media. luckily, you and your darling have found a way cheat the system. at least... a little bit.

It’s not easy being the girlfriend of one of the highest ranking pro heroes in the world but you’d gotten used to a majority of the daily inconveniences.

Paparazzi somehow finding you no matter how many layers you wore to cover your face that day, crazy fans who were just a little too friendly following you from a distance as you made your way to and from the supermarket, the constant, and I do mean constant, private message requests and comments and responses on posts from fans and haters alike on every form of social media you own. It was hard to keep track of, to say the least.

Sometimes you’d forgo using your phone entirely just to avoid the snarky comments or prying eyes and questions of loyal fans. And that was just from those who wanted to know about you. Bakugo’s fans were far more insatiable.

However, there were moments you two were able to bask in your solitude together. Peace and quiet filled your dining room and Katsuki stood over the stove, keeping an eye on a frying pan filled with vegetables as he seasoned a bit of pork you laid out earlier for dinner.

You sat by his side as you always did, phone in your hand as you snacked on whatever he handed you in the midst of his cooking. Your phone was buzzing with notifications just as always, but you did your best to ignore them as usual. At least, until a certain headline caught your eye.

You tapped on it, waiting as anticipation caused your knee to bounce. There’s no way they saw it... right?

Your last trip out with Katsuki had been two nights ago when he had planned an extravagant dinner just for the two of you at that new expensive place that opened up just down the street. It was the best night you two had spent together in a very long time, no thanks to his ever-changing, bustling hero schedule.

Your eyes widen as the page finally loads and you zoom in on the little detail everyone seemed to be talking about.

It was blurry to say the least and you had to really be looking for it to make it out, but it definitely difficult to ignore now with the bright red circle photoshopped over your hand.

Fans had noticed the little silver band conveniently placed on the ring finger of your left hand and seem to have been going insane about its implications since the last time you and Katsuki had been out in public. Which you were sure had to be about... three days ago.

A groan leaves your lips as you scroll through the comments of fans and haters alike wondering if you and Katsuki were finally planning on tying the knot or if it was all just a coincidence. Either way, many of the comments further down the line seemed to speculate more, pointing out that your boyfriend hadn’t been seen wearing anything on his hand, and while many pointed out that he probably wouldn’t be so careless with an engagement ring while on the job, various pictures of him in casual dress since then proved that he still wasn’t wearing a ring.

Too bad they didn’t spark conversation about the new black chain he frequently sported around his neck. Katsuki was rather proud of it, seeing as it was the newest addition to his daily wardrobe.

“What’s wrong?” Katsuki calls from the foot of your bed, and you’re blessed with the sight of him fresh from the shower, a fresh towel hanging low on his hips as he drys his hair with a smaller towel that drapes across his broad shoulders.

How was this man, your man, so breathtakingly beautiful.

“Nothing, just... the media,” you huff, opting to let your screen grow dark before placing it on the nightstand to your left.

Bakugo only raises an eyebrow as his eyes trail along your exposed legs, a common indicator you’ve learned to mean he wants you to continue.

“They saw,” you sigh, crossing your arms across your chest as you gauge his reaction. But, instead of him rolling his eyes in annoyance or grumbling about ‘never getting any goddamn privacy these days’, he simply runs the towel over his damp hair one last time before hanging it back onto its rack. As if he’d ever leave even a towel out of place.

“They were gonna find out anyway, not let’s just make sure we don’t give ‘em any more than they need, yeah?”

The bed shifts as he crawls onto the sheets next to you, his large hands finding the soft plush of your thighs as he pulls you against him. You’ll never get over just how perfectly you fit against him. The way his arms could so easily wrap you in his embrace, keeping you safe and warm each and every time.

“Well, at least we don’t have to hide the fact that we’re engaged,” you smile, making a quite note about how all of your fans will probably want to know the details of just how you got engaged.

“That’s why it’s our little secret,” he muses, a smirk morphing onto his soft, pink lips before they meld against your own.

You hum against him as his hands move to rest on your hips, the rough pads of your thumbs sliding along your sides as he effortlessly clears your mind of everything and everyone else in existence. Just as he always does.

“Let ‘em wonder, those nosy ass extras,” he breaths once you pull away, and you hum again in agreement, watching as Bakugo finally slips off his black chain over his head- he only ever took it off while sleeping -and you smile giddily as you spot the wedding ring it sports.

It’s a simple thing, a black band without a lot of shine or sparkle, but it fit him perfectly in your eyes. If there was one thing your fans got right, it's that his ring was a little harder to spot since it usually hid underneath the neck of his t-shirt and hero costume. Bakugo would be damned if he entered the field without your ring somewhere on his body, and with his quirk being so dependent on his hands, it only seemed logical to keep it on a chain around his neck.

“Sweet dreams, Mr. Bakugo,” you smile as he places a kiss to your temple before pressing his body against yours under the sheets.

“G’night, Mrs. Bakugo.”

If only your fans knew...

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filmtv2022 · 1 year

Text

Ineffable Agony

Pairing: Aziraphale x Platonic!Reader x Crowley

Synopsis: One quiet night, Aziraphale and Crowley's world is rocked. A fallen angel is dropped on their doorstep. Their very presence shoves the reality of their Earthly partnership back into view and calls into question the very stability of Heaven and Hell. Aziraphale and Crowley struggle not only to understand the depth of the situation they've found themselves in but also to save the reader.

Warning: bleeding/blood loss + death.

A/N: I tried my best to use gender-neutral language in this one. The reader does have hair, but other than that, I think their physicality is fairly nondescript. As always, I apologize for any mistakes. It's getting late & I'm super tired.

-----------------------------

Warm light spilled out of the wide windows of A.Z. Fell and Co: Antiquarian and Unusual Books. Inside, surrounded by unruly shelves and half-empty bottles of red wine sat the oddest and most right pair in celestial history. Aziraphale had long since set aside his glass of wine, forgoing further intoxication for a steaming cup of hot chocolate. Crowley on the other hand had continued to sip away, which glass or bottle he was on remained a bit unclear.

Feeling his head turning fuzzy, the demon slowed his pace of consumption, his eyelids heavy with exhaustion and inebriation. In the days post averting the apocalypse, Aziraphale and Crowley found themselves settling into this new life. One free from apparent oversight from both Heaven and Hell. The two indulged in human luxury wherever and whenever they liked, unencumbered by the pull from their respective head offices. For the first time in millennia, they felt truly free to live as they liked, and what a life it was.

“How does breakfast at the Ritz sound, Angel? I think I could do with a nice morning out, feeding the ducks, fancy tea… or perhaps we'll pop over to France for some crepes?”

“That sounds lovely. ” Smiling sweetly at Crowley, he swallowed the last bit of his drink before standing to return the dirty cup to the sink in the back.

A sudden burst of white light flashed like the sun, flooding the space before being replaced by the wretched orange and red of hell fire, stopping him in his tracks. Inky darkness replaced the flare as fast as it happened. Snapping his attention to the entrance, Aziraphale stood in observation waiting in anticipation for something more to happen. Having seen, the display from his seat, Crowley stood and joined the Angel.

“What’s going on?”

“I…I don’t know. There was a…”

A sudden thump of something heavy smacking into the door forced him to stop speaking. To the human senses, nothing seemed out of place, the world continued to move just as it always had, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. The air began to thrum with energy, the waves pouring into the store erratically, their intensity growing stronger the longer it went on. Crowley hissed, a guttural reaction to the feel of pain that roared through them both. Fighting to stay upright, Aziraphle gripped the demon’s shoulders as he doubled over in pain.

“Are you all right?” Pushing aside the ache that filled his own head, Aziraphale struggled to focus on the present, caught between concern for Crowley and whatever… or whoever was causing this to happen.

“I’m fine, just dandy, but I’d be better if my insides weren’t twisting around knots.”

“Yes, of course.”

Closing his eyes, the angel searched for a miracle, one strong enough to put an end to the horrific suffering that flowed freely into the room. Celestial magic hummed over his skin but died as he worked to make it so. Trying again, and failing, dread bubbled hot in in Zira’s chest.

“It’s not working!”

“Obviously!”

Groaning, Crowley clutched at his stomach as Aziraphale whimpered next to him. The angel’s head was full to the bursting point as if his mind was being ripped apart at the seams.

“I… I don’t know what to do!”

Forcing himself to stand to his full height, Crowley removed himself from the angel’s hold, “Fine, I’ll finish this myself.”

He too searched for a miracle. The darkness of his own magic flooded over his senses as he worked, but nothing happened. The lick of heat that always accompanied his miracles ran cold, leaving a chill over his skin in its absence. Aziraphale’s knees buckled as the pressure in his skull intensified. Dropping to the ground with him, Crowley held onto his angel.

Then as quickly as it started, the vibrations ceased to exist. Panting hard, the pair stood up on shaky legs. Crowley’s hand stayed firm on Aizraphale’s back, helping the Angel along as well as grounding himself. Stumbling toward the door, Zirh’s fingers trembled as he reached for the handle. Glancing at Crowley, he waited for some sign of reassurance, which was freely given in the form of a nearly imperceptible nod. Opening the door, their eyes immediately fell on the torn figure slumped face down on the ground before them. Slashes cut through their jacket and pants, the flesh below ripped to shreds and bleeding heavily. Ichor coated the surface of the stoop, pooling in a wide swath before spilling down the step. Kneeling down to see things more clearly, Aziraphale gently rolled over the stranger, the gore staining his hands red.

“They’re an angel.” Laying them on their back, his fingers felt for a pulse. It was weak, barely more than a flutter, but it was there.

“Not anymore.” Crowley gritted his teeth as he spoke, the realization of what had happened hitting too close to home, “They’ve been cast down.”

“Cast down? But Heaven they’ve… they’ve taken…”

“Taken their wings, yes.”

“That’s not supposed to happen?”

“And yet it did.”

“Why?”

“Why not? It certainly makes a statement.” Reaching for their hand, Crowley slowly unfurled their fist, removing the gore-soaked paper from within.

“A statement for who?”

“Us.” Peeling apart the folds, Crowley read the smeared words aloud, “To the attention of one A.Z. Fell & Anthony J. Crowley. Your actions have consequences that reach far behind the realms of Heaven and Hell. You’ve set something in motion that must be stopped.”

Locking eyes with the demon, Zira struggles to find words, “What does this mean?”

“I’m sure we’ll find out soon enough.”

Scooping the fallen angel into his arms, Crowley deftly made his way toward the second floor of the bookshop. Finding the first door on the right partially open, he pushed it open with his foot. A couple of strong strides had him standing next to the bed, scanning over their face for any sign of familiarity. Finding nothing, he placed them down on the mattress on their side before turning his attention to the wounds. Trying yet again to use his magic, Crowley reached out in search of a way to staunch the flow. The stream slowed slightly, but not nearly enough.

“The bleeding won’t stop.” Waiting for an answer, he pushed his palms into the worst of the gashes, but when no response came, he shouted for assistance, “Angel, a little help here!”

“Oh, yes!” knocked back into reality, Aziraphale made his way to the bed, his stained hands once again reaching for the being before him. Using what little magic he could muster, he managed to lessen the bleeding to a trickle.

Feeling it still running between his fingers, Crowley’s head dropped between his shoulders, a deep exhale releasing as he tried to let go of the panic coursing through his system. It was an unnatural state for the demon, one that he’d only felt a few other times in his 6,000 years of life. He’d done a keen job of compartmentalizing the memory of his own fall, relegating it to the deepest depths of his mind. This, however, hit too close to home. While he’d been lucky enough to keep his wings, the transition from Heavinly Being to a Demon of Hell was horrific at best. The darkness, the pain… the loneliness. It was all too much to think about even now, all these years later.

Letting go of his hold on their wounds, Crowley gingerly placed them on their back, hoping the pressure who stop the rest of the bleeding. Sinking down beside the bed, he rested his head back on the mattress and closed his eyes tightly.

“What could they possibly have done to deserve this?” Aziraphale’s voice cracked as he spoke, his eyes never leaving their face. Brushing his fingers over their hair, he pushed the blood-coated strands out of the way.

“We better hope they wake up so we can find out.” Standing up, Crowley stalked out of the room, pounding down the hall toward the bathroom.

Turning on the water, he let it pour from the faucet until steam rolled from the stream. Hot enough to scald, he scrubbed vigorously at his hands. The red of the gore was replaced by the angry color of his skin beneath as he fought to rid himself of the stains. Standing in the doorway to the bathroom, Aziraphale watched in concern, his brows furrowed at the sight before. Losing control of himself, Crowley snapped off the water, slamming his fists down upon the porcelain and letting loose a rage-filled growl. Pushing his way past the angel, he pounded down the stairs toward the front door.

Following in his wake, Zira called to his demon, “Where are you going?”

“To find out what in the hell is going on?”

“But what if something happens… I-I should come with you.”

Snapping around, Crowley’s yellow eyes stopped Aziraphale in his tracks, “Stay here, take care of the angel… demon… thing. I’ll be back, I promise.”

Nodding in agreement, Aziraphale watched Crowley drive away, the Bentley tires screaming along the pavement.

--------------------------------------------------------

Agonizing flashes of pain radiated from the jagged wounds as cold sweat coated your skin turning into a slick mess of drying blood and perspiration. Spasms racked your body, each one more powerful than the last. You were dying, or so you thought. But what did that really mean for angel turned demon? You were even really alive to begin with? Where would your ‘death’ leave you? Certainly not in Heaven, they’d made it quite clear you were no longer welcome amongst their kind. So that left two other options. One being an eternity in Hell, rotting away with the other demons. The other was much more frightening… nothingness, your soul relegated to the black void somewhere between the realms. Alone. Cold. Unneeded… Unwanted. Stuck in purgatory for all time.

Time ceased to exist, and all sounds and feelings apart from the physical and mental torment fell away as you were trapped in the endless cycle of pain. Giving into it all, you allowed yourself to fall further away from the light. The beacons of Heaven were only a dim glow on the horizon. Their cool white was replaced by the furious red of the gates below. It was warm, welcoming even. It would have been so easy to let go, to surrender, and yet some small part of you keep a firm hold on the life you’d had before. Unable, or perhaps unwilling, to relinquish it fully.

The gentle press of a hand against your cheek pulled a quiet whimper from you, the touch kind and comforting. A tender voice spoke in a low mumble, their words unclear, but their intentions certain. There was something familiar about it as if a long-lost friend had come to visit.

“I’m so sorry, but this is going to hurt.”

Undoing the buttons of your shirt, the person gingerly pulled you into their chest, your forehead resting on their shoulder as they removed your top. A strangled groan fell from your lips at their ministrations.

“I know, I know.” Smoothing over your hair, they laid you back on the bed, this time on your side so they could access your body.

Walking around to the other side of the bed, they began the delicate work of cleaning the wounds. Rag and after rag came away crimson, and the cloths were discarded nearby on the floor. Slowly, but surely, the gashes were stitched and covered. Finished closing the wounds, they began to wash away the rest of the blood as best they could. The task was slow and tedious.

“There, that’s better. Now. let’s get you some fresh clothes.”

Standing from the bed, Aziraphale sought out a pair of his pajamas. Returning to your side, he slipped the jumper over your head and shoulders, taking great care to not bump your most tender spots. Moving on, he carefully peeled away your trousers, the white was splotched with darkening red. Dropping them on the pile of used rags, he then shimmied the plaid bottoms over your frame. His hands were unsure and timid as he moved.

Once again laying flat on your back, Zira pulled a blanket over you. Taking a moment to adjust the pillows, he sank back down into the spot next to you, his hands wrapping warmly around your own.

“Who are you?”

The previous question was barely more than a whisper, making the utterance of a name from your lips even more surprising. With eyes closed tight, and no other signs of consciousness, a singular word tumbled out for him to hear.

“Aziraphale…”

Zira was left speechless. What about him? Why were saying his name?

In a measure of cosmic timing, the telephone downstairs began to ring. It’s incessant trill bounding off the walls, calling to the angel. Leaving his spot, he was forced to let go of your hands. The loss of his touch caused a pained look to contort your features.

“I’ll be right back, don’t you worry.”

Silence fell over the room, as Aziraphale quietly closed the door behind himself, leaving you alone. It was as if in his absence the darkness began to creep back in, closing the distance between you and the void. Black hands reached for you, threatening to drag you away from the world of the living. Fighting against their searing grip, your body twitched and thrashed on the bed. Soon the motions were followed by gasping screams, the sounds shrill and bloodcurdling flew down the stairs toward Aziraphale. The pounding of footfalls was masked by the blistering screeches from Hell that rang in your ears. Soft hands gripped your shoulders, calling to you through the panic.

“I’m here, I’m…” Placing his palm on the side of your head, the heat rolling off your skin nearly burned him. Knowing he needed to act quickly, he flooded your mind with celestial light. Instantly, your body began to relax and your temperature dropped.

Falling limp against the pillows, your chest rose and fell in rapid succession. Sweat had soaked through the collar of the shirt, staining it darker than the rest. Aziraphale’s fingertips ran in soft arcs down your face as he continued to murmur words of comfort. Fearful of leaving your side again, he yanked the chair from the corner of the room to the side of the bed. Clasping your hand in his, he took a seat and waited. Crowley would be back soon enough, he’d promised.

------------------------------------------------

Hours passed and eventually, sleep overtook Aziraphale. Slumping back in the chair, he managed to keep a hold of your hand. Returning to the bookshop with little to no information in hand, Crowley made his way upstairs in search of his Angel. The door to the first guest room was flung wide open, and he was greeted with the image of Zira fast asleep, the lines of worry still creased between his brows. With his promise to return in mind, Crowley softly shook the angel awake.

“You’re back.”

“I promised, didn’t I.”

“Of course, What did you find out?”

“Not much. Nothing seems out of place, and the lines between Hell and Earth are quiet. Whatever this is, it’s either from Heaven alone or somebody’s going to dangerous lengths to keep it hidden.”

“Hidden? They were dropped on our front porch! How is that hidden?”

“You’ve got a point, but it doesn’t change the fact that there's nothing on the radar.” Turning to look at the stranger on the bed, Crowley’s tone softened as he spoke again, “How are they doing?”

“As best as can be expected… there was so much blood.” Shifting forward, Aziraphale adjusted his grip on your hand, “They spoke in their sleep while you were away. It didn’t make sense, but they spoke.”

“What did they say?”

“My name…”

“You name? As in Aziraphale, Angel of the Eastern Gate, giver of the flaming sword and forestaller of the end of days”

“That’s what I’ve said isn’t it?” Impatience touching the edge of the question.

“Yes, but how would they know your name?”

“I haven’t the slightest idea…”

Crowley’s thoughts raced at the realization of what that could mean for Heaven. If they had fallen so far as to mutilate those they cast down then things were much worse off than he’d ever expected.

“Perhaps Heaven’s become more like Hell than they’d ever care to admit.”

Stunned into silence, the pair sat quietly for a while, observing the rise and fall of your chest. The steady movement was just enough to ease some of the worries that festered.

“There was one other thing they said while you were gone?”

“Yes?”

“The phone rang while you were out, when I left to answer, they… they started to scream—terrible screeching wails, as if… as if Hell itself was coming for them. And when I returned, their skin… it was burning like fire. Between the screams, they were calling for you.”

“Me?”

Nodding yes, he continued on, “Over and over, begging… pleading for you. They know us Crowley, and yet I’m sure I’ve never seen this face before.”

“Neither have I.”

----------------------------------------------------------

Morning broke over the quaint yet busy street, and the rumble of cars and voices floated in from outside. Your eyes fluttered open, and the unchecked sunlight beaming into the room assaulted your sensitive eyes. Hissing at the daggers of light, your whole body recoiled. Slamming your lids shut again, you scrambled back to retreat from the intrusive light. The mangled flesh of your back crashed against the headboard in your attempt to flee from the light. The sudden movement sent shockwaves through your body as the stitches in your wounds tugged sharply. Hearing and feeling your stir, Aziraphale and Crowley sat bolt upright in their respective positions. Zira in the same chair as the night before, and Crowley in the vanity chair across the room.

Catching your attempt to flee from the overwhelming sensations, Aizraphale reached for your shoulders and tried his best to push you back down into the pillows. His sure hands were commanding and gentle as they kept you from hurting yourself further.

“You’re all right. Careful now or you’ll rip your stitches.”

Simultaneously, Crowley was up out of his chair, his own hand coming up to grip your chin, holding your face in his direction. Your eyes flew open again as if called to look by some hell-born bond. And what he saw brought a moment of hesitation. The whites of your eyes were flooded with a sickening crimson as if every blood vessel had burst. While your pupils were blown large, covering nearly the entirety of your eyes. Shaking off the unsettling nature of your appearance, the demon deftly removed his sunglasses and placed them on your face.

“It’s their eyes, they’re not used to the light.” Stepping back, Crowley reached out a hand to Aziraphale, pushing him away from you, “Careful, Angel, emotions can be a bit unsteady.”

“It’s all right, Crowley. As you said, they’re in pain, why don’t you let me help.”

“I’m not sure that’s a good idea.”

“Nonsense!” stepping back to your side, Aziraphale’s fingertips aligned with your temples as a gentle light filled the room.

Your breathing began to slow as the ache faded both mentally and physically. Slowly, you opened your eyes, finding that the dark lenses made the world around you much more bearable to view. Weakness replaced the pain leaving you incapable of moving, your power sat dormant, but hot beneath your skin. The heady mix of emotions melded together in what was certain to become an explosive combination.

Pushing down the flames, you spoke as if greeting old friends, “Crowley… Aziraphale… finally.”

“How do you know our names?” Zira’s question was far from accusatory.

“Oh Aziraphale, I’ve known you for thousands of years… the same goes for you, Crowley.”

“Who are you? Why do you know us?” Crowley on the other hand couldn’t help the accusation that threaded over his words.

Tilting your head to the side, you focused on him. The yellow of his snake-like eyes glinted in the sun, strong and fierce in demeanor.

“It was my job, to know you, to follow your biddings here on Earth. Like a celestial watchdog, I suppose.”

“Watchdog?” Crowley tensed at the very thought of Heaven having watched him for millennia after his fall.

“Yes. It was my job to track your movements, particularly in the years since your delivery of the AntiChrist. Well, you and Aziraphale. There was some… hesitation regarding the pair of you, given your shared history of questionable decision-making. Need I mention your flaming sword and apple debacles?” Your voice was weak and breathy as if speaking drained you of what little energy you’d recouped.

“All right, no need to rub it in. Enough about us, you’ve yet to answer our other question, demon. Who are you?”

“Well, I don’t know how this works exactly, but I suppose my angelic name will do for now. I’m Y/N.”

“And why are you here… Y/N?” Aziraphale uttered your name sweetly as if to encourage you to continue.

“It’s simple really, I’m the same as you, Crowley. I asked too many questions… I doubted the ineffable plan.” Sinking further back into the pillows, you turned your head to look at the demon.

“You what? Why?” Aziraphaled asked in shock.

“Because… you were happy.” Shifting your body slightly so that you could gaze at him, you felt a warm hand wrap around your own, “And the more I watched you here on Earth enjoying your lives together, the humanity … it made me think. Why were we going to end it all? And after such a short time as well? I saw how you looked at the world and couldn’t imagine it ceasing to exist. But even more than that… I couldn’t bear the thought of…”

Your voice caught in your throat as a fresh spasm racked your frame. The tightening of the muscles along the expanse of your back ripped the air from your lungs causing you to gasp and groan. Folding forward at the waist, the glasses slipped down your nose exposing your eyes to the blinding rays once again. Desperate to block it out, you pressed the heel of your palms into your eyes knocking the sunglasses onto the blanket covering your lap. Steady vibrations rolled through the space around you as your power spilled out unchecked. A blood-curdling wail tore from your lips as your skin flushed hot from the touch of Hell once more. Shocked by the sounds, Aziraphale took a few steps back, putting some distance between the two of you.

Crowley had returned to your side, his strong hands holding tightly to your biceps. The heat of your skin burned and blistered his palms, and yet he remained unfazed.

“Y/N, Y/N, listen to- listen to me. You’ve got to push away, you’ve got to fight against it!”

Gripping you tightly, he watched as your body spasmed beneath his touch. Blood soon tinged the light cream of the jumper you were wearing, the sudden movements having torn the stitches from your flesh. Furthermore, the heat radiating from within you singed the fabric, leaving behind blackened holes in its wake. A wet gurgle accompanied your labored breathing as if you were drowning on dry land. Coughing and choking, a blackish liquid oozed out the corners of your mouth, the scene grew more horrific as the substances ran down the exposed column of your neck. Crowley’s palms smoothed over it, wiping away the mess as best he could, but it just kept coming. Every wet hack brought more of it flooding out to replace what he’d tried to clean up.

“Crowley! Crowley, what’s happening?” Stammering, Aziraphale was frozen to his spot.

“They’re dying, the transition is consuming them.”

“But I thought-”

“Whatever you thought about this was wrong, Angel. This is the reality.”

“But I… what we can do?”

“There’s nothing we can do except ease their pain and hope for the best. It’s up to them now. Either they find the strength to fight against the darkness or it consumes them.”

Trembling, Zira moved to your side and eased himself down onto the bed. Cautiously, he reached out to touch you, his hand brushing over Crowley’s as he sought out your temples.

Turning his head to look at the demon, Aziraphale whispered one simple word, “Together.”

Understanding what he meant, Crowley nodded his head silently. Placing the pads of their fingers along your hairline, the two worked to rid you of the pain. A calming wash of peace flooded over you, chasing out the panic and terror. Your hot skin now sat cool to the touch, and the blisters covering Crowley’s hands began to heal. Slowly, your breathing regulated and the crackling wetness ceased to hinder your lungs. Serene peace settled over your features as they untwisted from the pain. Sensing that the limit of help and available miracles for this situation had been reached, both Crowley and Aziraphale sat back. Their eyes never left you as they watched for signs that their magic had failed. Zira was the first to speak

“What do we do now?”

“We wait.”

“For how long?”

“Not long now I think.” Crowley’s voice was thick with emotion.

Tracking the rise and fall of your chest, the pair watched as the movement became more erratic. The time between inhales turned more inconsistent and further apart the longer time went on. Eventually, it stopped altogether, and the last vestiges of pain fell from your features leaving behind a mask of perfect peace.

“What do we do now?” Zira asked in shock.

“We find out who the hell is responsible and we make them bleed” Looking Aziraphle in the eyes, Crowley's own brimmed with emotion, “But more importantly, we live, we live for them.

#aziraphale fanfiction #crowley x reader x aziraphale #aziraphale x reader x crowley #good omens fanfiction #good omens #crowley x reader #aziraphale x reader #crowley fanfiction #whumptober #whumptober 2023

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daylightdabbles · 8 months

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Teyvat Omegaverse Headcanons (Act 1)

This is apart of a collection of headcanons for the genshin characters in my Teyvat Omegaverse AU. I would recommend reading this to add some context to this post. I do use some personal headcanons and ideas for omegaverse. SFW Feat: Faruzan, Heizou , Venti, and Xiao

Faruzan, The Enigmatic Machinist

In a country that values betas over omegas or alphas, praising their ability to not be effected by pheromones that may get in the way of the pursuit of knowledge, Faruzan applied scent blockers diligently to show she was different from other omegas. 100 years ago, being an omega or an alpha meant banging on a glass ceiling in order to be heard the Akademiya. Faruzan has had to adjust to a lot of things in her homeland. From losing her place in time, her research no longer being the jewel of Haravatat and everything else that changed, one uncomfortable idea she had to shed was that her outdated views on being an omega.

In the past, Faruzan felt the need to hide her status as an omega in order to advance her research. The Akademiya was crueler than, often passing over funding requests made by alphas and omegas, citing their natural responses to pheromones leaving it likely they would have to 'pause their research in order to engaged in debased behaviors.' This attitude shifted over the last 100 years, the Akademiya becoming less prejudice towards non-betas. When Nahida formally claimed her place as the Dendro Archon, the Akademiya started working extra hard to remove these bias from their practices and regulations. A joyous moment, but one that left Faruzan having to reconcile her past with the present.

It is well known Madam Faruzan does not like being treated like an omega. When Kshahrewar students seek her help, they make extra sure to treat her like a beta, often forgoing gifts they would normally bring to try and ply omega researchers for a crumb of advice. Her standards for respect is well known and she will not hesitate to fight tooth and nail for it, honed from years of having her work discounted because of her secondary sex.

Faruzan is also oddly protective over the alpha and omega students in the Akademiya, offering often unsolicited advice to them on how to get grants and other resources. Her advice is a little dated, and she can be overbearing at times, but it all comes from a place of kindness. She is dismayed by the current standing of Haravatat and struggles to get students who appreciate her teachings, but she is thankful that they don't have to struggle with the same barriers she had.

Her writings also have an interesting history around them. The book made from her writings was used to establish Kshahrewar and caused quite a stir in the Akademiya. Her work was brilliant and was a key point in the arguments against funding discrimination against omegas and alphas, citing that their work was just as impactful as their beta peers.

Madam Faruzan doesn't like to be touched. She spent 100 years locked in a ruin away from others, so shes extra sensitive to touch even for an omega. While most omegas find cuddling and hugs very calming, its way too much stimuli for Faruzan. This tends to be something that makes it hard for her when socializing. She used to be very touchy with the people she held closest to her, relaxing her guard around them, but now they are gone. She thinks about the last time she had a hug that didn't hurt during late nights in her office.

She does secretly partake in things like nesting, even if they are hidden. Her nest is small, tucked away in what used to be an office. Unlike most omegas, Faruzan keeps puzzles near her nest. The blankets are soft and help her stay calm in heat, but she needs some sort of mental stimuli else she gets nervous. It provides her with a sense of a control during a time when her hormones are making her disoriented. She also doesn't cover the windows and her nest is rather open, preferring to avoid dark or tight spaces during her heat.

As an omega, Faruzan doesn't have an identifying scent, or a scent unique to her. Instead, omegas adopt the scent of places they feel safe or of their home. Faruzan's scent is old parchment and metal, mining the scents of her workspace.

Shikanoin Heizou, The Analytical Harmony

Shikanoin Heizou, the number 1 detective in the Tenryou Commission, is an alpha. It's not unexpected: he's confident, smart and plays by his own rules. Despite the fact he doesn't adhere to the expectations of him being a proper Tenryou Commission Doushin or an alpha, Heizou's work speaks volumes about him.

Being an alpha something Heizou take any particular pride in. Inazuma favors alphas, with them traditionally carrying on the family line . Inazuman culture expects omegas to be strong, powerful, dominant leaders of their 'pack' who guide through example, commanding respect from betas and omegas. Heizou gets frustrated when its commented upon that he should be more responsible or and how he should be taking on a leadership position amongst the Doushin. He's happy as he is and doesn't see a reason why he should be considered superior over betas and omegas according to older Inazumans.

He is, however, protective like a stereotypical alpha. Its not uncommon for him to check in on his friends through out the week to see how they are doing. He makes sure to walk people home late at night, in particular omegas. This stems not from a place of viewing omegas as weak, but from knowing just how often they are targeted by criminals.

While Heizou does use his enhanced sense of smell to help in track down criminals and link evidence to certain individuals who touched it, he's content to pursue justice his way and thumb his nose at the expectations for alphas in Inazuma. The only time he takes advantage of Inazuma placing alphas on top of the social hierarchy is when its needed to get information on a case.

Beyond its use in detective work, he's cheeky about being able to pick up on an omega's emotions through scent or tracking someone down. Heizou loves to tease people, popping up by them to see if he guessed where they would be right based on other clues, or poking fun at serious individuals when he catches them being flustered even though their face is stoic.

Heizou really dislikes how the Tenryou Commission building smells. Its part of the reason he spends as much time away from the headquarters as possible. As an alpha, he can smell just how thick with fear, desperation and grief the air is in there. Even the very walls of his office, which he stopped letting people into, is soaked in these scents. It makes it hard for Heizou to focus, even if other alphas in the Tenryou Commission don't seem to be affected by it. He cares about the people he arrests, having empathy for them and the people they leave behind. To be surrounded by such fear makes him feel sick to his stomach.

Heizou is needy when he is in rut. He is almost inseparable from his omega, only leaving their side when its absolutely necessary for the comfort of his S/O. It is the only thing that can cause Heizou to stay in one place for an extended length of time that doesn't relate to his casework. He's soft, fulfilling any need to ensure that his partner's heat cycle passes safely. His rut also makes him more defensive as his hormones make him more anxious, searching for any threats to him or his omega. If he's forced to be separated from his omega, he'll dreams of a familiar alley with two people leaning against the wall, hand in decayed hand.

Heizou's scent smells like vanilla, black pepper and patchouli. Its a complex scent with sweet and spicy layers to it.

Venti, The Windborne Bard

As the Anemo Archon and a wind spirit, Venti doesn't have a secondary sex. This does not stop people from assuming he is an omega, seeing him as a gentle if mischievous traveling bard. Venti leans into this, playing up the act of a simple omega bard here to play music and offer advice at just the right moment.

Mondstadt doesn't place an emphasis on one's secondary sex, instead treating all as equal. Ultimately, it doesn't affect Venti too much to be seen as an omega vs. a beta or an alpha, so he lets people have their assumptions about him. If anything, it tends to help him charm people into giving him more money for his songs.

Venti does find it amusing to see how alphas, betas and omegas act around each other. He chuckles when he sees the bafflement betas sometimes have when an alpha tracks them down or when an omega curses Celestia for making them extra sensitive to Dragonspine's chill. Kaeya, in particular, has the most colorful curses whenever he has to track up the mountain to get Klee from Albedo

Venti's scent helps let people assume he's an omega. Omega's adopt the scent of their home as their personal scent and Venti smells like Mondstadt. He smells like the apples growing in Starfall Valley, the windwheel asters in Bright crown mountains and every other scent the winds of Mondstadt carry. He carries the scent the wind picks up as it travels through Mondtstadt, which makes his scent actually the closest to a real identifying scent of all the archons.

His favorite game to play when he has way too much time on is hands is 'mess with alphas'. He smells like a omega, but he doesn't produce the range of pheromones an omega would. This confuses alphas who try to key in on his emotions through his scent, often leading to them making guesses that are wildly off. All it takes is a pout or a misleading smile to make them flustered. Diluc has taken revenge for this a few times by purposely luring a cat into Angel's Share.

Most of the Church of Barbatos assumes he would be an alpha based on how protective he is of people in the scripture, so pretending to be an omega helps Venti avoid detection. It also made his attempts to gain access to the Holy Lyre Der Himmel harder because people didn't believe that the tiny omega bard could be Barbatos. Every time he is forced to reveal his identity, he has to deal with the double take. He knows he's short, but come on? He doesn't need to be a big scary alpha to care for his people!

Xiao, The Vigilant Yaksha

Despite being a Yaksha and not having a secondary sex, Xiao has been referred to as an omega by humans for centuries at this point. It developed through a combination of stereotypes, mistranslated of stories and his protective nature that led to this. Early art showed that Xiao was smaller than other Yaksha and his zeal in protecting Liyue has lead people to believe he's an omega who has claimed the whole of Liyue as his nest, his area to protect.

Xiao had mixed feelings once he caught on to this happening. He figured it out when he started to notice pilgrims leaving soft blankets, pleasantly scented balms and even gifts usually associated with alphas courting omegas in Liyue. After some investigation, Xiao was a little miffed that Liyuens assumed he was someone who didn't spend every night of his life fighting to keep them safe, mostly because omegas in Liyue tend to be stereotyped as fragile, delicate humans who shouldn't see the battlefield. Poets wrote lamentations on the Conqueror of Demons, forced to defend Liyue after his pack died as there was no alternative.

Xiao stewed over this for a while. He did lose his fellow Yaksha and mourns in his quiet way, but felt like this view of him was reductive. He defends Liyue to uphold his contract to Morax, dedicating his life to fighting demons to honor how the Geo Archon saved him. It wasn't done out of grief, nor something he was saddled with. It was a choice he doesn't regret, even as his karmic debt hangs over him.

After meeting the Traveler and spending more time around Liyue Harbor, Xiao starts to learn the nuances of this view of him. He originally only knew about secondary sexs through flowery poetry or hearsay, so it was pleasantly surprising to learn more about why people associate him with omegas. He doesn't discriminate over those he protects, guarding Liyue as an omega guards their nest. Its a softer view of him that most people actually hold, one of a caring protector. There are even people who invoke his image in telling stories of hurt omegas, claiming him as their protector in stories.

The Vigilant Yaksha is still mostly confused by secondary sexs, such as why omegas are viewed as 'emotional' and alphas get pushed into roles of leadership, often being pressured into ignoring their own emotions. Its a little silly to Xiao, to treat humans differently based on something given to them as birth, but he's content to be seen as an omega, the guardian of their homes and a figure they can draw strength from in dark moments.

Xiao doesn't have an identifying scent, but he smells like qingxin and almonds to most people. However, alphas can detect the nearly invisible scent of blood that clings to him like a leech.

#teyvat omegaverse au #genshin x reader #genshin impact #shikanoin heizou #xiao #genshin xiao #genshin venti #venti x reader #xiao x reader #heizou shikanoin x reader #heizou x reader #faruzan x reader #genshin headcanons #omegaverse headcanons #omegaverse

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who-knew-a-sheep-can-write · 3 months

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The Kids Aren't Alright: Werewolf!Cole Cassidy x Reader

I will never say no to werewolf cassidy/mccree, and if I do, kill me

Contains: Light werewolf transformation, blood, violence, drinking, self-deprecation, gunshot wounds

He had been so careful.

He’s sat at the edge of the base, back braced up against a rock, legs spread wide in front of him, his face settled in a pained scowl. He stared into nothingness, eyes trained somewhere on the waves that crashed onto the rocky shore just beneath him, the cliffside blocking his view of the darkness below.

God, he just wanted to sink into that darkness. He prayed for demonic hands to come up the cliff and drag him down, preferably to a cold chamber in hell.

The winds are chilly for a mid-summer night. Maybe it was the alcohol buzzing in his system, sitting in his stomach that was void of any food. His tanned skin was covered in goosebumps, but he made no effort in slugging his serape over his body to protect himself from the winds. A half-empty bottle of whiskey sat next to him, having been full when he cracked the seal with his teeth and started drinking from it like that drunkard he is maybe an hour ago. The first sip always burned, but it was becoming less painful as the years went by, now really just drawing a bit of a tingle on the tip of his tongue whenever he drank.

Forgoing a glass, Cole wrapped his fingers around the cheaply designed glass neck, human fingers trembling ever so slightly in a mixture of unstable emotions as he rose the bottle to his lips. Tilting his head back, he allowed nearly half of a mouth full of bitter whiskey before he swallowed, nearly dropping the bottle to the rock beneath him. The glass still made a sharp clinking noise, nearly shattering the glass bottom.

But he didn’t care.

He fucked up. He royally fucked up and now he was paying the price.

He could feel it inside of him, the damn thing never dying no matter how much he tries to drown it with cheap alcohol that could wash paint and rust off of metals. It was like it was pacing inside of him, dragging its horrid claws along a stony wall, its eyes piercing through the dark. He could make out very little of the beast, but he knew it was him right down to the bloodied hands flexing and waiting to dig into something alive. Even now in his drunken state, he could still smell the blood from last night. It was like it had just been spilled right under his nose, the scent of copper stinging his nostrils as the flared when he took deep breaths to calm himself down.

His mind was fucking with him, had been all day, had been all night last night. It kept him up, anytime he would try to close his eyes it would just replay all that happened just hours before like some sick snuff film. It got so bad that every time he blinked his mind would show him stills and images from when he was still lucid.

He can still remember the sight of you; On your back, scrambling away from him, bloodied and bruised, and utterly afraid of him as he towered over you. The love of his life is now terrified of him.

He took another swig from the whiskey bottle, nearly choking as a sob shook his shoulders. Tears stabbed at his eyes, burning at the corners as he forced himself to swallow. His shoulders shook, his back tightened, his ribs felt heavy.

He felt like he was going to throw up.

He had been so careful up until last night.

‘Be careful out there, yeah cowboy?’ your voice echoed in the back of his mind.

‘Always am, darlin’.’

A heavy sob forced its way out of him, dropping the bottle back down to the rocks as he pressed his back closer to the boulder. He felt bile creeping up in the back of his throat as it tightened.

It was a complete shitshow. Everything started off eerie and quiet, your team cautiously entering what was supposed to be an abandoned hotel that Talon had been using as a makeshift hideout after having been drawn out by previous missions. You as well as a few others went ahead of him, having been posted towards the front of the hotel in the trashed and very dilapidated lobby as a lookout.

He had a horrible feeling brewing in the pit of his stomach the entire time he was up front, uneasily rocking back and forth, placing weight on one leg and shifting it to the other as he fiddled with his armor and gun belt. Every noise made him jump a bit, his eyes constantly scanning around for any movement that didn’t belong to Overwatch agents. Straining his ears, he could hear you going deeper and deeper inside the hotel, going up creaking stairs that threatened to give out under the slightest weight. He focused on your heartbeat.

At the slightest hike in its rhythm, he would book it from his position.

He didn’t like this place, didn’t trust it with any fiber of his being. Even the monster inside of him was starting to go nuts, gnawing at the bars of its cage, clawing at his ribs and tearing at his guts inside of him. He could feel icy claws trace along his spine.

The agents around him gave him an odd look out of the corners of their eyes, eyebrows all knit with slight concern at how he was acting. He didn’t care, though, he just wanted to get you and get the hell out of here. His throat burned for a cigarette, his nose crying from the overstimulation this place brought with all of its horrible smells of rot and mold.

Just as he was idly rolling a finger over the carton of cigarettes in his pocket, he heard your heartbeat hike,

And then came the gunfire.

He was the first to peel out of the lobby and into the crowded stairwell, taking the aged steps three at a time. Peacekeep felt as though it weighed a thousand pounds as he pulled the hammer back. He could barely make out the shouting over the gunfire, his voice barely loud enough to call out over it as he climbed the steps toward hell.

He broke through the door like a bat out of hell and shot dead the first Talon agent he saw. He called out for you, dodging bullets and bracing against walls and busted down doors, taking out whatever he could from the flood of Talon agents.

There were so many of them. How did he not smell them? How did he not hear them? If he had just focused hard enough, this all could’ve been avoided.

And then he heard it.

Your shrill scream cut through the chaos like a hot knife through butter. It felt as though he had been shot in the back with a silver round. He barreled through the hallways as though he had been suddenly possessed. He felt himself slipping and there was nothing he could do to stop it.

As he neared the room your scream came from, blood suddenly splattered out from the open doorway as the Talon agent fell backward. Peeling inside with Peacekeeper drawn, he nearly dropped his precious gun at the sight of you collapsed on the dusty floor nursing a nasty looking bullet wound in your side. Your gun clattered to the ground as you clasped both hands on the wound, wincing and crying, applying whatever pressure you could. Cole was at your side, kneeling beside you, encasing your hands with one of his own and applying more pressure as blood leaked between your fingers. You looked up at him with weary eyes, a faint smile ghosting over your lips.

‘Guess I shoulda took my own advice, Cass?’

He shot you a look before calling out behind him for a medic.

‘Yer gonna be just fine darlin’. You took a lot worse than this before. Yer gonna pull right through,’ he crooned.

You nodded, wincing as he applied more pressure. Seconds passed by like hours. His nerves were sparking like he was hopped up on adrenaline. Where was that fucking medic?

As he turned to yell louder, he instead got the same treatment as you did; A bullet, this time getting him right in the lower back, barely missing his spine by a few hairs.

Everything happened so fast. Colors faded together, his body felt like it was doused with icy cold water all while being lit on fire, there was a horrid ringing in his head. He didn’t even feel the pain it all brought on, just the feeling of his clothes suddenly becoming tight before tearing as brawny muscles flexed and covered with fur.

He should’ve known better. He always kept it under control.

The only other thing he remembered was the sight of you, face painted with pure fear, crawling backwards away from him into the dusty corner, blood seeping from in between your fingers.

Cole wiped his face with his metal hand, the plates were cool and strung a bit when he pinched around his eyes to stop the rest of the tears from falling. His body wracked with a harsh hiccup, hunching in on himself slightly. His serape fell forward, hiding his exposed skin from the chilly air.

“Cole?” It was like he had been shot all over again. Fear struck him right in the gut like an icy pike. He could suddenly smell them, he could even taste their worry it was that thick. “Cole?” the small voice repeated.

It was soft, barely audible, almost drowned out by the wind and the waves crashing. He could feel the warmth their body radiated, their smell lingered in his nose. It had started to calm him down without even doing anything. He couldn’t turn his head to face them, instead tucking his head down and allowing the brim of his hat to obscure his eyes.

‘If I don’t see ‘em, they’ll go away,’ he thought painfully.

“I’m not going anywhere, cowboy,” your voice was firm. He could feel your eyes rolling over him, taking in all of the torture he put onto himself. The wrinkled and messy flannel shirt stained with sweat and a bit of bile, the dirty jeans that hadn’t been washed in a while, the boots that had be scuffed with spurs all bent out of shape. Even his arm had lacked care and upkeep, the once shiny metal was dull from not keeping it clean. “Oh, Cass,” you doted, “don’t torture yourself.”

He finally spared you a glance. You were in very loose clothes, the sweatpants you wore barely clung to your waist, dipping a bit. He narrowed his eyes at the sight of the sterile white bandages wrapping around your waist from where the bullet had been dug out of you. Your sweatshirt was unzipped, one of his worn shirts from long ago covered your front under it. You looked exhausted, not a single trace of shame or anger or even fear lingered on your person.

“You shouldn’ be up,” he slurred, turning to look away from you. “Shouldn’ even be ‘round a thing like me.”

He felt you step closer to him before slowly getting on the ground beside him. You didn’t dare sit, fearing the pull of your stitched up wound, instead you kneeled right next to him and kept your hands on your thighs. You both sat in uncomfortable silence for God knows how long before he felt you ever so gently place your hand on his outstretched leg. He stared at your hand, noting the small cuts and odd bruises you had, even staring at the nasty looking bruise in your inner elbow all wrapped up from where they drew blood and let the IV flow. He didn’t look up higher, though.

“I love you,” your words were soft but firm. “Nothing’s ever gonna change that, you know.” He still didn’t spare you a look. He heard you swallow thickly, your hand squeezed his leg a little tighter. “I understand why you never told me about… that. I’m not afraid of you, Cass.”

He broke down, startling you when a dry sob heaved his shoulders. You scooted closer, wrapping your arms around his trembling shoulders, holding him as he sobbed quietly in the mid-summer night. You pressed your lips to his shoulder, holding yourself firm against him as he crumbled with the sounds of the waves crashing beneath you both.

#overwatch #cole cassidy #cole cassidy x reader #cassidy x reader #jesse mccree #mccree x reader #werewolf!cole cassidy #werewolf!jesse mccree

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wilhelmina-tepes · 1 year

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This man makes me think and write things I've never written about before. Praise kink, sorta kinda breeding kink if you squint your eyes, female receiving oral sex, mentions of other sexual positions, reader insert. I haven't posted smutty fanfic in a long time so please forgive me.

You had never considered it. As Adrian had spoken about wanting a family you initially dismissed the idea. Having children was not something you had wanted, ever. The vague idea had been there but never with other lovers, more the fact that everyone expected you to have children because you had the parts for it. But after spending months with Adrian and the way he talked to the children of the village, your body deeply imagined it, pressing your consciousness to not dismiss the idea and the blossoming desire in you.

“ Do you want to have a baby with me? His deep voice was soothing and gentle, as his golden eyes peered into your soul pleading while he sipped his wine at dinner.

The question was honest. His eyes said it all. He loved you and for him, that love surpassed all else but he would always wonder what life would be like were you carrying his seed in your womb.

“I’m sorry.” He looked as if you had already denied him yet you hadn’t said a thing. “ But I would love to make you a mother but if you don’t want….I know the world we live in is not safe but I dare to imagine it so with you.”

Your body reacted in a surprising way. It warmed to the idea of a child…his child… growing inside you. You interrupted his clearly practiced request with a kiss and begged him to breed you right there on the spot. Why did it feel so right with him? He was so eager that the dinner dishes were thrown into the floor as he laid you out on the dinner table and fucked you properly all while resisting the urge to nip at your neck but you encouraged him to… if you were going to have his child you wanted all of him.

Lovemaking for the next few months had become a passionate endeavor not just to fuck and be satisfied with one another, though there was plenty of that evident in the bite marks that covered your body, especially the ones on the insides of your thighs. He enjoyed devouring you regardless of who took the lead that night. Promises to take care of you, give you whatever you needed, to ensure that you were safe and happy carrying the life inside you were daily prayers from him.

So it shouldn’t have surprised you that when penetration became uncomfortable in the last months of your pregnancy he was more than happy to forgo his own pleasure just to see you unravel. He would take his time exploring your body. Slowly parting your folds, fingers, and tongue working so diligently to please you. Adrian would kiss you and tease you until you were begging him. His sharp teeth running across your skin but never sinking into you, the fear of hurting you while with child was a hard rule for him so you forwent love bites for the time being. But his mouth made up for it in so many other ways, kissing down your chest slowing only to suck at your nipples even when your breasts had become full with milk. He wouldn’t drink but he was not concerned if a little dribbled out on his tongue. The look in his eyes said he enjoyed it but would never ask.

Long elegant fingers slid across the tight skin of your swollen belly followed by his soft lips and a gentle drag of his sharp nails. A tiny reminder of how your days of animalistic sex weren’t over. Just on pause.

“ God I love watching you come.” Golden eyes praising you in his loving gaze. His warm breath across your mound, a delicate kiss right above the places aching for him the most.

“You’re so beautiful. The way your back arches as if you are possessed by pleasure. I love knowing that I am the cause of that possession….”

He would stop and resume his attention across your thighs until you melted. Which was part of the plan. He loved the taste of you. You were now very aware of his desire to pleasure you, you opened to him and let him drink his fill not of your blood but your nectar. He would run his tongue slowly across the most inner and intimate folds before dipping inside you to lap at your core. His name would echo through the halls of the castle as you cried out clutching his hand as he reached for yours knowing that you wanted to touch him in some small way.

“ The way you look splayed out for me, your skin blushing down your face and neck to those delicious plump breasts.” He would urge you toward oblivion with the sound of his voice.

Pulling away from where he had been tonguing your clit to speak his words of encouragement. His fingers would replace his lips as he pulled you against his lean naked form to sit in his lap while he slowly and reverently finger fucked you. But he was always gentle, never too deep, and if it was too much to bear he would run loving circles around your clit until you cried out his name.

“Be a good girl and come for me, that’s it.” He would pull you up until you stared into his eyes. “ Let me watch.” He would whisper as if he wasn’t the one causing you the most intense pleasure. His hard cock would be against your ass, the tip covered in his arousal and still he would beg you. “I want to feel you spasm on my fingers.”

And as you climaxed pulling at his long, pale hair he would continue.

“ My god you are ravishing like this, absolutely undone. I don’t want to stop.”

Sometimes he would finish himself while you watched, occasionally you would licking the tip, but once again though he was afraid that any undo stress would be bad for you and the baby. Other times he seemed content just to see you climax in his arms. His last words were always the same as you drifted off to sleep in orgasmic bliss.

“ I promise to kiss away the pain whenever you wish…. even after you have given birth.”

You knew he meant it too. He would wait patiently until he you were ready but did not want to miss the opportunity to pleasure you with his mouth.

“ I love making you come. I think it might be my favorite thing.”

As your daughter was asleep in his childhood room, he would lay you out in front of the fireplace in your bedroom, eager to lick the soreness away until he could be inside you again.

#adrian tepes #alucard tepes #castlevania #adrian tepes x reader

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briyourmotherdown · 1 year

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cool water ★ part I

James Hetfield x fem!reader

★ everyone is running from something ★

Words: 6.7k

Warnings: i know nothing about arizona and it shows. VERY incorrect timeline. mentions of rehab and alcoholism. james is a moody prick. 18+ in the future but part I is PG minus some swearing.

A/N: so i'm asking you all, please, PLEASE be kind to me because this is the first fic i've written in well over a year and the first metallica one I've ever posted. this is so unbelievably self indulgent it's insane. title named after a marty robbins song because that's where this whole idea stemmed from. i tried not to use y/n because i know some people hate that jhskjfhkjhfthftdhftkj. also i really really hope the fact that rehab is in here isn't a trigger or upsetting to anyone!!! it just makes sense for the plot. it's also very inspired by the some kind of monster documentary. this will probably be a shorter fit made up of a few parts but it may take a while since i'm literally about to graduate uni and i'm drawing in assignments. anyways i hope you enjoy <3

parts: (1), (2)

★

A few states over, a little over a thousand miles and a few days long trek away, lies a life– packed crudely into a beat up Subaru with too many miles on the metre to go about adding another thousand. The air conditioning unit cracked out one state back, leaving only the rolled down windows to offer any sort of reprieve against the Western American summer heat. The unknown lies in the interstate ahead, yellow lines and road signs guiding you closer to your next destination. Only the front windows are open, the rear windows obstructed by precariously stacked belongings in unsealed cardboard boxes and garbage bags balanced against the glass. To roll them down would mean losing a good chunk of your clothing.

A map is sprawled out open on the passenger seat, red lines and circles marking the last stretch of your journey into Yuma County, Arizona. Golden light pours over countless acres of sprawling farmland ahead of you, the setting sun glaring into your eyes beneath your sin visor as you drive with one hand on the wheel and the other propping your head up against the open window. Your yellow Subaru is the only vehicle for miles, alone on the barren road as the sky fades into an inky blue. It’s eerie, being this alone. Eerie as you turn down yet another country lane, rolling the windows up. Eerie as you make sure the doors are locked and the gas tank full. Eerie for a girl who’d only left the city twenty-four hours prior, where such silence and solitude was such a rarity that you never stopped to consider what it felt like to actually be completely alone.

The night is still when you reach a stop sign, the hiss of crickets and cicadas audible even from inside the car. There’s no breeze that rustles the trees, nor a cloud to taint the clarity of the starry night sky. You feel as though you should be quiet and hold your breath, goosebumps raising on your skin. They only begin to subside when your headlights illuminate a sign reading Palo Verde Ranch.

Tires kick up dust as you roll down the tree-lined passage, inching closer and closer to where you will spend the next summer, checking the map one more time and breathing a sigh of relief when the trees part way to an opening. The ranch and lodgings look the same as the pictures in the brochure you were given, apart from being shrouded in a heavy darkness from the night. The porch lights are on, along with a few lamp posts circled by moths and mosquitoes. Pulling into an empty space next to a pick-up, you kill the engine and rest your head back against the headrest. The roar of the crickets seem even louder as you sit silently in the driver’s seat.

With a few final taps on your steering wheel with your fingers, you heave yourself from sitting position and stretch your aching legs, lifting your arms above your head before grabbing your suitcase from the backseat and forgoing the rest until tomorrow. It’s far too dark to go about it now. Boots crunch on gravelly dirt as you make your way to the lodging house, reading the brochure once more to check where the key is kept. It lays underneath a small terracotta pot, placed upside down and completely indiscrete. It makes you smile to yourself when you lift it up to examine it against the porch light– a small, metal cactus keychain hanging from it. You smack a mosquito from your arm as you unlock the door.

With a creak, the door opens up into the lodging house, though to you it seems more like a bungalow that had been converted into some sort of bed and breakfast. There’s a small kitchen to your left, under-cabinet lights casting an amber glow over the linoleum countertop and laminate floors. You take note of the humming refrigerator before turning to your right to examine a quaint sitting area, equipped with a floral printed sofa straight from the 1970s and a chestnut bookshelf housing a sparse assortment of books and magazines. It reminds you slightly of a waiting room– pretending to be lived in as to put you at ease.

Straight ahead lies the hallway, two doors on the left-hand side and three on the right, one of which has been left ajar. Upon further inspection, with slow, easy steps, you come to realise that it’s the bathroom, nose scrunching up slightly at the prospect of having to share one bathroom with multiple other people. On every door is a hand painted number, accented by flowers painted on in pastel colours. Very Bohemian, you note, eyeing the beaded curtain that hangs in the windowsill of the window at the end of the hall. Dim light spills from underneath doors three and four, but the other two remain dark.

Your room number is two.

Opening the door, you flick the light switch on before closing it behind you, a small puff of air escaping from between your lips as you take in the room. It’s cozy– genuinely, unlike the sitting room from before. It nearly reminds you of the room you’d grown up in, or, at least spent the earliest years of your childhood in. A golden oak bed sits against the wall in one corner of the room next to the window, fitted in cream and pale green floral patterned sheets. There’s a dresser-vanity and a wardrobe of the same golden oak, and a small nightstand next to the bed. On it beneath the small tiffany lamp lies an unopened note and a small plush teddy bear.

Tears fog your eyes as you sit on the edge of the bed and drop your suitcase at your feet. It feels so familiar– like a distant memory of a time in your life where things weren’t so turned upside down. A time when you weren’t running from something. Clutching the teddy bear against your chest, you open the note– a sweet, handwritten one from the owner of the land, welcoming you to your home for the summer. It tells you of breakfast in the main house at 10am, that there are fresh towels in the wardrobe, and that the vanity drawers tend to be a bit fiddly.

With a watery sigh, you blink up at the ceiling to clear your cloudy vision, flopping backwards onto the bed.

★

James knew that he needed a distraction.

He knew better than to be around all the same people and places from how he was before. Breathing the same California air he knew and once loved now feels too thick in his lungs, like some sort of poisonous gas.

He knew better than to be around reminders.

Due to his therapist’s orders, James was to go somewhere different for a little while. In his words, to “relax, be at one with nature”. He had spread a pile of pamphlets across his desk, closing his eyes and laying his pointer finger down on the first one it came in contact with. Arizona didn’t seem to appeal to James’ bandmates as much as it did to his therapist. They had a hard enough time communicating as is, too many alcohol-fueled yelling matches only worsened by the unmade upcoming album that loomed over their shoulders. James wasn’t sure how he could make the album to begin with, not while he was walking this tightrope. If he was constantly teetering on the edge, how could he be a productive member of the band?

Part of him didn’t want to go. Running away from it all felt cowardly, as though he’s weak for not being able to handle what once was so normal. A few drinks at the bar with friends turned into something else, something monumental. Gigs, rehearsals, afterparties, bar to bar to bar to bar. People who once gave him comfort now only serve as reminders of how he has ended up.

His PA booked his flight and had his truck sent to meet him at the airport. His intentions were clear– he would spend a few months working on the ranch away from anything that might tempt him, and then he would return home in autumn and attempt to clean up the mess he had left behind. The mess in question haunted him on his flight, tension aching behind his eyes as he rubbed at them. Divorce papers. A band that might hate him, left hanging and waiting for him to get his shit together so that they can release another album. Loose ends, after loose ends. Mouth set in a straight line, he realises he’s clenching his fists, blunt nails pressing into his palms.

Settling in was fairly easy. There was only one suitcase to unpack, clothes folded neatly into the dresser and notebook placed haphazardly on the nightstand– blank paged and unopened. For a few days it was only him in the lodging house, resting and rising in silence, eating a bowl of cereal by the kitchen window before heading out to work on the ranch with Wayne, the owner’s husband. Wayne is a shorter man, or at least much shorter than James, with salt and pepper hair he keeps hidden beneath a straw hat, and a laugh that often turns into a smoker’s cough if your joke is good enough. Wayne is friendly and a hard-worker, unafraid to put James to work too.

A few days later, a couple more lodgers began filtering in, two men who based on their accents, come from the south. They didn't spare James a second glance, and James gratefully did the same in return. There was no need for making friends.

When you arrived it shook up his routine. He now had to wait for his morning showers, entering only after you had spent far longer than he would’ve liked, only to be met with fogged up mirrors and the scent of vanilla and jasmine. He could hear music playing gently through the thin walls, some shit from the 70s that he wasn’t into, and he’d have to put up with the way you’d softly hum along. Truthfully, he avoided bumping into you at all costs. There was no concern of seeing you at breakfast or dinner– he skipped them in favour of some cheap crappy microwave meal– and he worked more on the ranch with Wayne while you settled into tending the vegetable garden.

Avoiding you seemed like a waste of time, however, because you didn’t notice him anyway. You always seemed too lost in your own head, focussed entirely on pulling weeds to notice him walking back and forth by you, carrying bags of feed. He didn’t offer a greeting, or even his name, but then again neither did you, and he was more than happy to keep his distance.

Your name only came up one day as James was sitting with Wayne. They’d both spent hours of the morning tending to the stables in the intense heat, James doing most of the heavy-lifting, and took refuge under the shade of a large tree. After collecting a few random chopped logs and sticks, James took out his pocketknife and began carving. Wayne spoke of plans to make his wife a wooden sculpture of a cactus for their front porch, with James silently shucking away at the wood to bring it to a sharp point.

In the distance you’re harvesting crops from the vegetable garden, wearing denim cutoffs and a t-shirt with the sleeves torn off. From here James thinks he can spot the image of Garfield printed on the front. He stares for longer than he should, eyes trailing down the expanse of your bare legs, and admittedly, over your behind when you turn and lean down to grab a shovel.

Wayne breaks through the intensity of his gaze by saying a name, the glass shattering when James averts his eyes and returns to sharpening the wooden shiv with care. His finger slips against the grain and he winces, plucking the splinter from his thumb, “That girl. She’s here from Seattle.”

He remains silent, lip twitching with a hint of annoyance at the older man’s intrusion. Yet he lets your name settle in his mouth, silently testing the way it feels on his tongue. Aware that he was caught, he keeps his eyes trained intensely on his craft to avoid Wayne’s gaze.

“Pretty, ain’t she?” Wayne muses, stripping bark from an ash log and looking at you in the distance as you pick weeds from the cauliflower beds, “We don’t usually get people like her out here,” he turns to James, simpering, “Don’t usually get rockstars ‘neither.”

He turns away to continue stripping the log and James uses the moment to steal another look at you. The sun beats down on your back and you wipe sweat from your brow with your bare forearm, pushing a few loose hairs back that had fallen from your ponytail. There’s a half empty sack of compost on the ground by your feet that stains the tips of your gloved hands. You look tired, standing back from the garden bed to study your handiwork before tilting your head all the way back to soak up the sun, hands on your hips. When you turn and glance in James’ direction, squinting your eyes through the heat mirage, he averts his gaze, once again all too aware of Wayne and the way the man lifts his hand to wave dramatically at you.

He doesn’t look up to see if you wave back.

He sees you again that late afternoon, in the same way he always sees you— in small vignettes, in short scenes that make him think momentarily that you might just be a figment of his imagination. He sees you walking past him with a crate full of lettuce, too focused on not dropping any from the heaped pile to pay him any notice. He sees you when he walks by the wire fence, where you’re being walked through the steps of feeding the chickens in the coop. He sees you now, entering the same house he’s staying in, the same one he’s walking to, only a few paces behind.

But still, you seem to pay him no mind, as if he’s a ghost. He thinks he might be one if it weren’t for the acknowledgment of Wayne and his wife, Marie. The other workers don’t much like him, interpreting his silence as him being a stuck up rockstar. He wonders if it’s for any reason that you don’t notice him. Does he skulk around too quietly? Sure, he’s not been the most conversational since he’s been here, but he’s sure you would’ve at least noticed him.

It really bugs him.

For a man whose profession is to be seen and to be heard, he typically really likes fading into the shadows in his everyday life. There had been too many days of butting heads with Lars, too many arguments with his ex, too many paparazzi, too many expectations of him. He was only one man, and he knew he was too fucked up to be a role model for anyones kids. Before he entered rehab, he enjoyed the anonymity of a small town bar and the way no one knew who he was there. If they did, they didn’t care, clinking pints with him over the bar as if he was just another one of them. And even though Wayne and Marie do talk to him and put him to work, they still treat him like all the others staying on the farm for the season. And he does enjoy the fact that Wayne and Marie seem to pay him no mind, as well as the other workers.

But when he really thinks about it, he doesn’t like slipping into the shadows as much as he thought he did. Perhaps it’s his ego talking, but he at least likes being acknowledged.

It was as if you didn’t even know he was there.

It bugs him as he opens the door behind you after you’d let it close, watching you saunter down the hall and into the room only a door away from his own, not offering a glance as you shut it behind you. It bugs him as he makes his way into his own room, sitting at the edge of the bed and rubbing his hands over his tired face. It bugs him even more when he hears your door open and close again, squeaking on its hinges, followed by the click of the bathroom door and the rush of the shower turning on.

You claimed the shower before he could, as you always seem to do. Only today he had worked hard, back sore and legs aching with strain. Annoyance twitches at his lip but he tries to brush it off, taking deep breaths, groaning lowly as he lays back onto the bed. The day's work sits heavily in his bones and he shifts uncomfortably. He feels grimy, a layer of sweat having dried on his skin, sticking the Arizona desert sand to the hairs on his arms. He grimaces and tries to brush some off.

Minutes pass while he waits for you to finish in the bathroom, then more, and after thirty minutes he’s grown more and more impatient with you, rising from the bed and storming into the hallway. He doesn’t take any time to notice that the shower has stopped running, the blood rushing too loudly through his ears, and as he’s about to aggressively rap his knuckles against the door, it swings open. You jump back with a start when you see him, his fist raised and face twisted in irritation.

Momentarily, he’s stunned, face contorting into an expression that matches your own as his eyes trail over your form– wet hair against your shoulders and fresh skin dewey with what he assumes is lotion. You’re gripping your towel tightly in one hand, the other clutching a toiletry bag.

As he lowers his hand, he realises that this is the first time you’re noticing his existence. Wide eyes glimmer up at him shyly, lips parted from the shock of opening the door to a man standing angrily directly on the other side.

With that realisation comes another—actually, two realisations that took him possibly too long to register– the fact that you’re almost naked, and he’s blocking your way out of the bathroom. Embarrassment nips viciously at the back of his neck, tinting the tips of his ears pink as he takes a step back.

James has never been good with embarrassment. His ego always gets in the way or gets him into trouble. Sure, it has won him many arguments, much to the chagrin of his opponents, but it has also gained him the title of an egotistical asshole to many people. Whenever James becomes embarrassed, the outcome is always the same– confrontational, cruel, unnecessary words he doesn’t really intend to say bubble up in his throat before he has any chance to stop them.

“Knowing that there’s only one bathroom, you should be more aware of how fucking long you take.”

He snaps his mouth shut the second the words are out, lips pressing together in a firm line. You raise your eyebrows at him, taken aback at the gruff rudeness of his tone.

You want to say something. Some witty comeback or even something to match his hostility, but your tongue struggles to find any words. Words have never come easily to you in the first place, always choosing to be quiet unless you’re around people you know, but they especially don’t come when you’re half naked and an angry, 6’1” man is towering over you.

All you can muster is a small, “I’m sorry.” as you push past him and retreat to your room.

James is paralysed in his spot, the increasingly familiar scent of vanilla and jasmine wafting over him from the bathroom as you walk away, listening to the door slam behind you. He’s not sure how long he stays standing in place, fists clenched at his sides with frustration directed at both you and himself. With a defeated sigh, he locks himself into the bathroom, turning on the shower. Once he’s stepped in he wastes no time in pressing his forehead against the cool tile, cursing himself for not being able to hold his tongue.

James really wants to spend the evening the same way he’d been doing, skipping dinner and smoking a cigar out on the front steps, but Marie had taken notice and when she bumped into him earlier in the day, had all but forced him into promising to come to dinner tonight. It didn’t sound appealing at all. It felt like fucking summer camp, having to sit around a big table with everyone staying at the ranch and talk about your day and the work everyones’ been doing. He’d quite honestly rather starve.

It didn’t help that he assumed you would be there.

He had made up his mind that he disliked you. The annoyance of the way you’d practically ignored him for a week seems to only have increased with the duration of your shower. It was like you had no consideration for anyone else and didn’t look past the tip of your nose. He didn’t want to eat at the same table as you for that reason, is what he told himself. Not because he saw you in your towel and was so unnecessarily rude to you, no– James doesn’t do embarrassed.

He’s taken a nap directly after his shower, waking up even groggier and in an even worse mood, throwing on clean clothes and making his way down to the main house where Marie would be making dinner. The front door is already open when he gets there, and he takes an already exasperated breath before entering,

The smell that meets him is already mouthwatering, as much as he hates to admit it, and for a moment it makes him question why he’d skipped out on dinner for the past week. Wayne greets him as he walks in, already sitting around a large wooden table with a few men he recognises from around the ranch. Wayne has a cigar attached to his mouth, bobbing as he talks.

“James!” He exclaims, raising his hands in the air to greet him warmly, “Come on in, you should meet my guys.”

James nods curtly, having already met them in passing and discovered they didn’t much like him. But he puts up with it for Wayne’s sake, standing over the table but not sitting down, nodding in acknowledgment as he introduces everybody. They seem nice enough, greeting him with smiles, apart from two men at the end of the table who don’t so much as return James’ nod. They’re Dylan and Wes, the other two lodgers in the house. They offer him forced smiles, but James can see that the second Wayne turns his head to speak to someone else, they narrow their eyes in his direction. For a moment he wonders if you’d met them– if they treated you in the same way or if you hadn’t even noticed them in the same way you did him.

With that thought, Marie comes bounding in, wielding a wooden spoon in one hand, “James!” she grins, “I’m so pleased you came,”

She diverts her attention to Wayne, smacking him on the shoulder with the wooden spoon and scolding him in Spanish. The cigar between the man’s lips threatens to fall, but miraculously remains sturdy as he says something back, a sheepish expression on his face.

Marie rolls her eyes and turns back to James, “You, help me in the kitchen because my bum of a husband apparently has better things to do.”

Any other time James may have cringed at the idea– he’s not the best chef– but now, as he turns to glance at Dylan and Wes who stare at him with a look of contempt, he takes the out and follows Marie into the kitchen.

The moment he enters, his eyes land on you where you stand chopping vegetables at the butcher’s block island. You’re not looking at him yet, too focussed on dicing a tomato, and he takes a second to look at you. Your hair has dried, thrown back into a ponytail while you’re cooking, and you wear a white cotton sundress with thin straps that contrast against your skin. It’s different to how he’s seen you dressed, in denim cut-offs and cowboy boots, and for a moment he’s halted in the doorway to watch you.

“Could you shuck this corn?” Marie asks James, and your eyes finally snap up to look at him, trailing over his attire before you quickly go back to chopping.

He clears his throat with a small sure, taking his place across from you at the butcher’s block. You don’t dare to look up at him again, hoping that he doesn’t see the blush that tints the tops of your cheeks.

“You’re both very quiet, you know that?” Marie laughs, stirring a pot both metaphorically and literally, “Come on! Talk to each other.”

A short silence follows, painful and uncomfortable and it makes your skin crawl, clearing your throat and daring to glance at James. You break the silence by offering your name, extending some sort of peace offering.

He doesn’t seem to extend the olive branch in return. uttering a gruff, “James,” as he shucks another ear of corn.

You nod, You’d hoped that he’d say more to make you feel less nervous, hands shaking slightly as you hold the knife. You knew his name already– Marie had told you a few days ago when she caught you staring at him while he repaired the broken gate near the stables– shirtless. He had been sweating, lugging planks of wood from the shed on the other side of the lot, tattoos and bare skin glowing. Marie had snorted at your pink cheeks and made a smart comment about how he could fix your gate– whatever that meant. You’d been stealing glances at him since, averting your gaze quickly whenever he would begin to turn his head.

You soon became aware of his dislike for you, and other than the earlier shower incident, you can’t think of why. You tried to stay out of his way as much as possible, which wasn't hard considering he hadn’t showed up to dinners so far, and always kept to himself except for when he was working with Wayne.

It really bugs you.

You sigh when he doesn’t say anything else, glancing at Marie who’s back is to you as she leans over a large pot of stew, hoping that the heat of your gaze might burn just enough for her to turn around and save you. No dice.

“I–” You begin, “The gate looks really good.”

Instant regret rushes over you as a look of confusion paints his features, brows furrowed. You rush to explain, “The- the one by the stables, I saw you fixing it. It looks really good. I haven’t had to scale the fence to get through since.”

You embellish your compliment with a breathy laugh, audibly nervous, cursing yourself at your ability to make things so much worse. He didn’t return the laugh, and in fact, it seems that somehow your compliment had soured his expression even further.

“Thanks.” He deadpans, averting his gaze from yours and back to the corn.

You sigh, chopping another tomato.

Meanwhile James is internally kicking his own ass, unsure of why he can’t be fucking normal, intending to say one thing and actually saying another. He watches you from his place across the counter, the concerned furrow of your brow, pinched in the middle, to your nimble fingers diligently doing what Marie had instructed you to do. He feels a flash of guilt in the pit of his stomach. Maybe he misunderstood you. After all, you had noticed him– the gate was proof of that. Maybe he wasn’t as invisible to you as he thought he was. But that still leaves one question unanswered– if you noticed him, why did you intentionally ignore him? It’s silly and it’s childish, but it’s enough for him to continue on with his negative opinion of you.

Time goes by wordlessly between you both, Marie instead taking the time to explain everything she was doing in detail, sure to send both of you home at the end of the night with the recipe for Birria engraved in your brains. Time passes this way until the table has been set and the food is ready, Marie ushering you both out of the kitchen and to the dining table.

The only three empty seats are lumped together, one of which is at Wayne’s side. It would be rude to sit where you know his wife would be sitting, so you take the next one with a small frown, waiting for James to take the one next to you. You’re aware that he’s not happy with the arrangement, and for a moment you wonder if he would take Marie’s chair, but he doesn’t and instead fills the vacant spot on your other side. The table is tightly packed, and due to James’ frame, he has to keep his shoulders pinched together slightly to avoid rubbing them against yours. It’s nearly insulting, watching the amount of effort the man puts into not touching you, rolling your eyes to yourself as you eat the food Marie (and you and James, but mostly Marie) had prepared.

“So…,”

The mention of your name has your head snapping up, paused with your fork halfway raised to your mouth to look around at who had said your name. Your eyes fall on Dylan, who’s sat at the table directly across from you. You’d only met him once before and hadn’t really been able to form much of an opinion on him. He’s around your age, maybe a bit younger around twenty-three, with shaggy brown hair he let fall over his blue eyes and a smile that had a tinge of something you couldn’t quite put your finger on. He had helped you reach a pair of garden shears from the top shelf of the shed, and all you’d talked about within that span of two minutes was your names and where you were from.

“Hm?” You hum in acknowledgment.

“You mentioned you’d stayed in Europe for a while, what was that like?”

You recognise the invitation of small talk, and you’d be thankful for it if it were just the two of you, but as everyone’s eyes settle on you for your response, you feel a little put on the spot.

“Uh, yeah, it was really cool,” you swallow, “Beautiful architecture.”

It’s a lame comment, and you're aware of it, but you're not sure of what else to say at the moment. Dylan nods slowly, eying you up and down in a way that makes you squirm nervously.

Wayne comes to your rescue, “James, have you been to Europe? I imagine y’have.”

The man beside you freezes, and he’s close enough that you can feel the tension, shifting in his chair. His bicep rubs against yours for the first time and you inhale quietly.

“Yeah,” he sniffs, “Been a few times.”

“You been there on tour, I imagine?”

This piques your interest, eyes flitting to look at James profile. His jaw is clenched as he nods, “That’s correct.”

“On tour?” You ask.

He turns to you, and the intensity of his eyes this close up almost makes you regret asking. He nods, “My band tours here and there.”

“Ha! Understatement,” Wes snorts from across the table, southern accent strong through his laugh, “Mr. Big Shot over here has toured a whole lot more than just ‘here n’ there.”

He holds his fingers up in air quotes to emphasise his words, and you’re left confused. Mr. Big Shot? You thought James looked slightly familiar, but couldn’t place from where, so you’d just brushed it off as nothing. You turn to look at him again, studying his face and racking your brain to think of where you might have seen him before. It would make sense for him to be in a famous band, but which one? And why would someone in said famous band be out here in the middle of nowhere?

“What band?” You ask, ignoring Wes.

James looks uncomfortable, “Uh, Metallica.”

It’s as if bells go off in your head, piecing it all together and finally realising where you've seen him before. It wasn’t just one place you’d seen his face, but many. He’d been everywhere, on MTV, on the front covers of magazines on the newsstands back home, on billboards– dare you say Wes wasn’t too far off by calling him a Big Shot.

“Oh,” is all that comes out despite the revelation– despite the fact that you’re now painfully aware of how famous he is. Your pre-existing nerves have only worsened with this newfound information, struggling to get a bite of your food down, wincing.

James, however, takes your lack of response and pained expression the wrong way and gets on the defensive, scoffing into his glass of water before slamming it down. The entire table goes quiet, and he doesn’t miss the way you flinch at his action, momentarily pausing to meet your gaze. Your eyes are wide as they lock with his, confusion written all over your face.

He pushes his chair back from the table and stands up, “If you’ll excuse me.”

You watch his back as he retreats through the front door, letting it slam behind him. You flinch again and turn to look at Marie, who’s sitting next to her husband with a distraught look on her face. Sighing, you stand up and place your napkin on the table.

“Dinner was absolutely wonderful, Marie, please excuse me.”

Marie flashes you a sympathetic glance as you walk to the door, and despite their chittering you don’t care to look at the expressions worn by Dylan and Wes. Instead, you make your way out of the house and down the front steps. The evening has finally matured into darkness, the pathway to the lodge lit only by lamp posts and strings of fairy lights that Marie had just put up earlier today. You’re not sure where to look for James, or even if you should be looking in the first place. If you truly are the cause of his bad mood, surely you’d be the last person able to talk some sense into him; but curiosity eats away at you, the need to fix whatever you’ve done gnawing at your stomach.

It doesn't take too long to find him, sitting on the front steps of the lodge, mostly shrouded in shadows except for the orange cast of the fairy lights.

“Hey,” you offer carefully, slowing your pace as you near him.

You debate whether or not to sit next to him on the stairs, thinking it might piss him off if you do, but awkwardly rocking on your heels feels even worse. You take a seat next to him with a light huff, making sure to keep your arms from brushing against his like at the dinner table. He’s smoking a cigar, the burning tobacco lighting up his face ever so slightly on each inhale. Though he doesn’t verbally acknowledge your greeting, he doesn't leave either. As if he’s waiting for you to say something worth his while.

“I’m sorry, you know,” you offer softly, “I’m not quite sure what I did to upset you, but whatever it was, I’m sorry.”

He remains quiet, the sounds of the crickets and cicadas deafening. You exhale a sigh of defeat, tilting your head up to glance at the vast array of stars in the clear sky, counting the brightest stars until you lose your place.

James isn’t quite sure what to say. The longer he’s left to sit with his thoughts, the more he doesn’t understand what you’ve done to bug him so much. There’s been an explanation for every misunderstanding so far, leaving no reasons for his disdain, yet for some reason he just feels immensely frustrated by you. It’s something he feels under his skin, fizzing in his blood uncomfortably. He’s starting to wonder if it’s even got anything to do with you to begin with, or if this entire trip out to the desert has backfired and he’s got too much time and space to think about his life. Stress eats away at him, bubbling up slowly.

“I’m sorry about hogging the shower,” you ramble, “I didn’t realise you were waiting for it and I just got kinda…kinda lost in thought, I’ll hurry up next time.”

Nothing. It’s radio silence on his end, the air so thick that you feel it clouding your lungs along with the smoke from his cigar. You can’t stop your mouth from running, ”And it’s really cool that you’re in Metallica, I um, I don’t really know much about you guys but-”

“You can stop,” he interrupts, the stress bubbling over, your face flaring with heat you’re glad he can’t see in the lighting. ”I don’t really care, honestly.”

He looks at you for the first time in the last five minutes, emotions flat and guarded, and for the first time since you’d met him, you feel your own anger rise up in your stomach instead of nerves– frustration, annoyance, fatigued with his attitude.

“Look,” you stand up, “I don’t know what I did to deserve this, but I’d appreciate it if you'd stop being a total dick.”

He puts out his cigar, standing up to tower over you, not letting you have the upperhand of being taller than him. He opens his mouth to speak but you don’t let him.

“All day, you’ve been awful to me, and we just met. I don’t get it, what’s your problem?”

He scoffs, “I have a whole fuckin’ list of problems, sweetheart, don’t feel special.”

You stare, dumbfounded, arms crossed over your chest, “Yeah? And what about it?” you challenge, eyes narrowed, “Why do you think I’m here, huh? We’ve all got our shit, we’ve all got things we’re running away from, what makes you think you can treat me like shit for no reason? Because if this is how it’s going to be all summer then I’m already real fucking tired of it.”

Cicadas are the only thing you receieve in return, the chirping filling the empty space between you and James. There’s nothing. There’s no apology to speak of, not even any retaliation. His face is void of emotion, hands dug into his pockets as he stands and stares.

His stare is intense and unmoving, but there’s something hidden behind it. It’s almost a sort of hollowness, as if this is something he’s been through a billion times before. It almost makes you falter, trying your hardest to search his eyes for any clues as to what he may be thinking. But his eyes are still those of a stranger’s, and you can’t place exactly what it is that he’s thinking. Shaking your head, you finally back down, taking a step back.

“I came here to apologise, and I did. I have nothing else to say,” you turn to the lodge and step towards the stairs, “But Marie didn’t deserve that shit you pulled tonight. I think she at least deserves an apology.”

The words hang between you in the night, heavy and oppressive. There’s a moment where your fingertips hesitate over the doorknob, casting one last look in James’ direction in hopes that he would say something. But he’s remained stoic, gaze set hard towards where you’re standing, hands shoved into his pockets. Shaking your head again, you step inside, leaving him in the dark.

Only when you’re gone does he rub his hands over his face and swear under his breath. With a sigh that holds the weight of the world, he takes begrudging steps back towards Marie and Wayne’s house.

★

A/N: god pls bear with how slow and badly written this felt. anyways i hope you enjoyed jsdhgkjshdkjhgsdjg

#james hetfield x reader #james hetfield #metallica #metallica x reader #reader #x reader #fic #metallica fanfiction #i was supposed to be writing an essay #i did this instead #anyways stream marty robbins gunfighter ballads and trail songs

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giantchasm · 8 months

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Y’know… I was thinking about the “previously nice people who fucked around, found out, went various degrees of insane, and started being not so nice to their once beloved underlings, who still refused to give up on them” quartet last night (as per usual) and I came to an interesting realization.

I’ve…. Always portrayed Sectonia and Leon specifically as parallels, then Haltmann and Hyness specifically as parallels because of the type of relationship they once had with their underlings, but giving it some further thought…

Once you toss out the father & daughter(s) element, and the ruler & loyal servant element for a moment……..

It’s. Actually kind of Sectonia and Hyness, and Haltmann and Leon who have more similarities in some ways?

Sectonia and Hyness:

-Were seemingly actively cruel, if not outright abusive to their beguiled underlings

-Went mad because of something presumably related to Dark Matter in a game themed around magic

-Didn’t really have a single puppetmaster pulling the strings. They were more corrupted by conceptual forces seemingly than individual people

In contrast, Haltmann and Leon:

-Uh….. weren’t actually that mean to their underlings? At least not in comparison. The worst thing we saw Haltmann do was tell Susie to stand down, then we didn’t see Leon interact with Carol or the others at all. Their damage to their underlings was more a form of emotional neglect than outright mistreatment

-Went mad because of something seemingly related to Dream magic in a game themed around tech

-Had specific individuals pulling the strings behind their descent into cruelty— Star Dream in Haltmann’s case, Forgo in Leon’s

Although thinking about it even further this morning, I did realize one way Sectonia and Leon, and Haltmann and Hyness are similar to one another specifically other than the type of relationship they once had with their mistreated underlings:

Their relationship with their madness.

Recently, my cool mutual @/fecto-forgo made a post about how it seems, to a certain extent, Hyness was aware he was descending into madness, but instead of accepting a peaceful life with his daughters, he continued to seek revenge anyways. And I agree with that assessment! There’s a Star Allies pause screen featuring dialogue from him where he apologizes for forgetting Zan’s name, then starts to reflect on how it seems his “heart is going crazy,” before shaking the thought. This, to me, implies a certain awareness of him losing his grip on reality.

Similarly, it’s implied Haltmann knew he was losing himself. In a pause screen of his, he describes “not even knowing why he reactivated that terrible machine,” before remembering it was all a desperate attempt to see Susanna again.

Meanwhile, I get the impression… Sectonia and Leon had little to no idea they were losing it? Leon seems to think his plan is his own and that Fecto Forgo is just an asset he’s willingly serving for his own benefit. And while in the Soul of Sectonia fight pause screen Sectonia begs for death, there’s no implication she understood what was happening to her as it was happening. Instead, she was consumed by egomania.

I… do think it’s interesting the way their motives contrast each other, too. It’s most obvious with Haltmann and Hyness, who take a different approach when it comes to the importance of their children. Hyness quite literally allows himself to lose it even knowing it may hurt his daughters, whereas Haltmann loses it in an attempt just to see his daughter again.

It’s… less obvious with Sectonia and Leon, but I do think there’s something interesting to be said about the way Leon’s goal seems to be for all of the Beast Pack to thrive in the new world whereas Sectonia, obviously, is only concerned with herself, rather than her people. There’s an element of selflessness vs selfishness there, too.

I’m not quite sure what to actually DO with any of this analysis, but it’s at least an interesting thought to chew on when it comes to setting the four of them, as well as the people they’ve hurt, up as parallels.

It potentially gives their underlings the ability to empathize with each other in different ways, and I think that’s Neat. Susie and the Mage Sisters can bond over their fathers going mad, while Taranza and The Mage Sisters can bond over getting thrown under the bus, and so on and so on! Lots of interesting angles to explore there.

#kirby #kirby meta #sectonia #haltmann kirby #max profitt haltmann #hyness #leon kirby

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ask-the-totally-real-peppino · 7 months

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(I have been trying to write this post for a while, but it keeps coming out like a sob story, and it is really not that deep jkfdgkj

So I am just going to say it, bc you guys know I love to ramble for ages, and I need some opinions

1 year of this blog is tomorrow (or today depending on how long I take to write this kjldfg), and I really do appreciate you all being here - if you have been here since the beginning, or just followed recently - if you've sent an ask, liked, reblogged, shared with a friend, theorised, made fanart, or followed me to my art blog and watched me make (and continue to make) a billion clones, anything; thank you

I made this blog on a whim, only like a week after getting into Pizza Tower, and I had no idea it would turn into what it is now

Of course, in the beginning there were a lot of actual posts, like with backgrounds and multiple characters, and I'd post several times a day if I could - and while I was having fun, it was not ideal - I'd frequently post at 7am after spending all night working on a post then I'd pass out, I'd forgo eating or showering just to draw, and I had wrecked my wrist several times, and continue to push pass the pain just to post

It wasn't just hyperfixation, it was obsession - much easier to realise that in retrospect

I was also medicated at the time, I had been on antidepressants for 3 years, so around April (I think) I ran out of meds and was unable to get more due too third party issues/unable to get in contact with my doctor/etc (and unbeknownst to me at the time, the last two packs I had were expired) - so I am sure you can imagine the sort of affect suddenly going cold turkey on the med that make you not wanna die has on a person - I was not doing great to put it lightly

But I still wanted to continue - so many people had praised me on the frequency of posts, and how excited they were and all this validation - I couldn't let people down! (Also I was, and still am, a disabled shut-in loser with no friends, posting is like the only social interaction I had/have kdfgkgfd)

But I think I did - I intimidated myself out of drawing main posts with how much work they were, started the intermission even though I said I shouldn't, had no script or direction and that I was not 100% invested in to try to motivate myself back into main posts, and it was just easier to draw silly ooc posts than do the thing I really wanted to do instead

Of course, this is not any of you guys' fault - I have always had this issue of starting something, it getting way bigger than I can manage, crashing and then just unable to get going again - I have so many unfinished comics, half-done projects and abandoned askblogs it's not even funny - but it's also like, not the end of the world, if I don't finish things I start for fun - sure, I'll feel guilty as hell for a while, but life moves on

So that being said, I would still very much like to continue the story here - I have been working on some stuff in the background (I even updated Pep's reference in the last few days, with a ton of new stuff), but I still don't think it's gonna be soon - I am doing somewhat better than I was, and I actually have an appointment for with my doctor finally (I will probably have to do some reassessments since they can't just put me back on the meds, after not having them for almost a year, and then I'd have to probably get reaccustomed to side effects etc), so despite it all I am still here

I am not sure if I want to continue the intermission with Bean and Fiend at this time - I know a few folks enjoyed it (mostly bc Fiend kjsdfkj) - but as mentioned previously it was unplanned, unscripted, and I was quickly not feeling it, as I am sure some of you guys were too - the intention was for Fiend to give you guys another hint to the main story, but getting to that point was not fun - I might do a poll on this in a separate post

I also mentioned a while back that I would be cutting down the Big Post into smaller posts, and posting as and when parts were done - but once again, do not expect these soon - (although there is a very late Valentines post coming hopefully soon)

And I think that should hopefully be it for now - I know this is a huge post, and probably still a bit sob story-ish, but oh well - I also know that the hype for Pizza Tower had unfortunately died down significantly, but I'm still working on PT stuff on my art blog @smalltimidbean if you wanna see more silly things (and maybe some lore for here hehe)

It is also the first now, so happy birthday Pep

Okay, thank you, and see you later)

#ooc post

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homeofatlas · 8 months

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Brunch In Bed

Authors note: Pretend the english is french and enjoy your sunday! also Y/F/B stands for your favourite breakfast

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It’s rare that Elisa has a sunday off from practice or a game which is why when you two found out she didn’t have to do anything this sunday you two jumped at the chance to do absolutely nothing. All you two wanted to do was sleep in and have a slow morning the way regular people did on weekends. From the moment you woke up on Sunday, with the sun shining through the sliver of the curtains and Elisa asleep beside you, you knew it was going to be a good day. Burrowing back under the covers, you scooch over to fit yourself back over to elisa to fit into her arms. Her front against your back, you feel her unconsciously throw her arm over you and pull you closer to her, you lace your fingers together and fall back asleep.

A little while later you wake up again, a little sweaty from being wrapped in the blankets and your space heater of a girlfriend. You lay still for a few moments seeing whether or not she's awake yet. Her soft breathing and relaxed form tells you she’s still asleep. Probably exhausted from her game last night. You wait to see if you’ll fall asleep again but after rustling around for a couple minutes you figure you’re probably awake for the day. You unplug your phone from the side table and decide to scroll until you feel like actually getting out of bed. While you scroll you stumble across you see a post of someone's delicious breakfast. You notice your stomach begin to hurt at the sight of it. That’s it! You’ll make breakfast or brunch you guess looking at the time and it’ll be ready by the time Elisa wakes up so you can surprise her. Bunch in bed it was!

Slowly removing Elisas arm from around you and easing out of bed, your feet hit the cold floor. You grab Elisas hoodie she threw off at some point in the night before padding into the kitchen. Trying to be as quiet as you can, you gather the ingredients for Y/F/B and turn on the stove. Glancing behind you, you can still see Elisa asleep in bed. Good, you think, I want to surprise her. Throughout your relationship, though she has a more hectic schedule, Elisa is typically the one making romantic gestures like this. You prefer to show her love by making sure the flat is clean when she comes home tired from training and texting her throughout the day to show you’re thinking of her. But when it comes to cooking because Elisa needs more protein and is on a specific diet she’s usually the one cooking meals and planning dates.

It feels nice being the one doing a romantic gesture this time. You should really do this more, you think to yourself. Beginning to plan other things you could do to work around what Elisa needs, you zone out while watching the food. That is until you feel two arms wrap around your waist and a head pushing in between your shoulder blades. Sighing you curse yourself for thinking she would have stayed asleep long enough for you to get this done.

“You should come back to bed.” She murmurs half asleep.

“You should go back to bed.” You retort.

“But you aren't there and i want to be where you are so if you could come back to bed so i can go back to bed that would be great.” She replies.

“I’m doing something right now, and you’ve ruined your own surprise.”

“I will forgo breakfast and order us something if you come back to bed.”

“Technically it’s brunch and I’m almost done, so there's no reason to do that.” You say.

“If you turn off the stove right now and come back to bed I’ll let you put your cold feet on me and I won’t even complain.”

“Ha very tempting.” You have to admit that one almost gets you. Elisa hates it when you put your cold feet on her to warm up. So for her to offer means she really wants it.

You feel warm fingers creep under your hoodie and begin to rub up and down your sides. No doubt a part of her seduction plan to get you back into bed. Rolling your eyes, you feel the weight remove itself from your back and warm breath falling down the slope of your neck. A small lingering kiss behind your ear, down your neck. Her left hand comes up to move the neck of the sweater to get more skin on your shoulder. Her right hand travels down to rub soothing circles on your right hip. Relaxing back into her you feel her catch your weight and smile against the skin of your shoulder. She traces the line of your neck with her lips, barely a kiss. You have to admit the girl is good, she knows how to get you to come back to bed. But you started this and you want to give her brunch in bed so she can try but you won’t get back in bed until the food is done and plated.

Straightening up you put down the fork you’re using to push Y/F/B around and turn to face Elisa. Her arms wrap around you and you wrap your arms around her neck so you can gaze at her. Leaning in you kiss her lightly, lingering long enough to have her chase you once you pull away. After some small kisses you tilt your head further up to trail your nose along hers and kiss each side of the bridge of her nose. This had been something that when you first got together you’d done all the time. Not sexual but incredibly intimate. A small shudder ripples through her and she pulls you closer, tucking her head into your neck. You stroke the back of her neck for a couple moments before you register it’s probably time to plate the food. Pulling away from her you move to grab the plates from the cupboard. Elisa trails behind you reaching around you to grab cutlery.

You don’t speak as you plate the food together and carry it back into the bedroom and crawl into bed. Getting back under the covers as you adjust to make yourselves comfortable you put your cold feet against Elisa.

“Get your cold feet off me!” She laughs.

“You said if I came back to bed I could put my cold feet on you!”

“That was a conditional offer for a limited time only.”

You pout and pull your feet back in under yourself. Looking down at your plate you begin to pick at your food and play with it. Glancing up to see if Elisas is looking, she's giving you a look that says “really?” and you sniffle slightly to signify how absolutely wounded you are.

“Oh my god, fine.” she says.

“Yay!” you cry and wiggle your legs between hers.

“Better?” she asks.

You look at her, the apartment you share, the food, and back at her smiling face before replying,

“Perfect.”

#elisa de almeida #elisa de almeida x reader #woso x reader #woso fanfics #starving for elisa content #élisa de almeida #wlw

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faegoddessog · 5 months

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Woman in Red Ch 13/17

Chapter 13: ‘Yes Sir’

Series Summary: She's a very successful woman who can't seem to find a partner that can keep up with her. He is just wanting to find someone who likes him for HIM, not his fame. Neither of them are prepared for what hits them when she walks into that coffee shop.

Chapter Warnings: 18+ only, Dom/Sub play, collaring, restraint, paddling, cunnilingus, temporary marking, just a little bit of ass licking.

A/N: In this story, I make no mention of birth control or condoms or STI's. Please, darlings, please love yourself enough to protect yourself appropriately when you have sex. <3

Darlings, as promised here is Chapter 13. It ended up being SO big (like Austin) that I had to make it two chapters. I hope you enjoy! As ALWAYS, I love your feedback. Hearing from readers, either openly or DM is a great, great joy. So, if I've brought you anything like giddy reprieve from RL with my writing, feel OH so free to hit me up. Hugs!

Message me or leave in a comment if you'd like to be added or removed from my tagged list!

@purejasmine, @slowsweetlove, @richardslady121, @austinbutlerslovers, @tadpoleteef, @allittakesisoneflight

Here is the Woman in Red Masterlist

Here is the link to all my posted work: My Dirty Little, and not so little Stories.

Chapter 13: "Yes Sir"

Inside the box, organized neatly, he sees four fur-lined dark red leather cuffs that buckle and are connected with D rings and small-linked chains, a couple hanks of dark red rope, and a dark red leather collar with a matching leash. He is both shocked and not at all. He carries the box to the dining table, laying the items out one by one. The chains clink as they pool on the black table top. Looking in again, he finds a familiar looking black cloth. Unfurling the black wrapping along the smooth surface, a small assortment of toys in varying sizes roll out; vibrators, dildos, and cockrings. On the bottom he finds a round, red leather paddle, lube, a butt plug with a ring on the end and body butter. He is astonishingly aroused as he lines up everything.

“Aya,” he turns to her, his face serious.”You’re sure that all this is ok? Everything here?”

He is willing to play tie-me-up, tie-me-down games. Has one or five books on the subject in his personal library.

She looks at everything laid out and puts the butt plug back in the box, she isn’t quite in the mood for that tonight.

“There. I do have one caveat though, I don’t like to be demeaned and put down. You can call me a whore, or a slut or something, but only if you are praising me for it.”

“Alright then,” he agrees and reaches for the collar. “May I?”

She just nods and pulls her hair up, offering her neck to him. It was the last time that night that he asked her permission.

*************

He steps back to look at her. Each limb adorned with a red cuff and a matching stripe around her neck. He had decided to forgo the chains as he was far more of a rope guy.

He liked the artistry of rope; the meditation of tying the knots, the beauty of skin pressed with criss-crossing lines, the contrasting colors of hemp. Her bra and panties make him think of a full harness. Someday, he would do a full karada on her with a sukaranbo. The idea of rope running between her legs makes his cock twitch. It’s been a while and he definitely needs a refresher before he pulls those skills on out her.

As he buckles the collar around her neck, a little shivery sigh rolls down her spine. She hadn’t thought they would get to this so soon, if at all. She had a bare handful of other lovers who liked to play this way. She figured he’d be like them, wanting her to dom. She enjoyed it, make no mistake. But she hadn’t realized just how much she was yearning to be collared, just for a night. Not until his gentle fingers pulled her hands forward and fastened the cuffs had she felt that internal slackening of not being in charge. It showed her just how much she really trusted Austin.

“Mmm, you look good enough to eat, Pet. Let’s just-” he picks up the red leather leash and snaps it onto the matching collar with a click, “there now.”

He takes a big breath to control himself. She looks gorgeous in front of him. Only the shadows of the hickies he gave her remain on her tits. He’ll have to mark her again. Just the idea that she was his if only for tonight; it made him burn. He backs up step by step, the leash an ever widening parabola between them. Desire simmers in his eyes.

She makes no move to follow until she feels the tug on the taut leash at her neck. Austin leads her across the room to the bar height chairs of the kitchen island. He uses his foot to push two of them apart.

“One knee here and one here,” he points to the two chairs in turn. She clambors up, her legs apart. He saunters around to the kitchen side of the island.

“C’mere,” he crooks his finger at her. She leans over, hands on the cold marble. He captures her mouth in a gentle kiss. His tongue brushes hers, his teeth nibble at her lower lip. It lasts longer than she expected, this sweet kiss. Her mouth just starts to get insistent, wanting more when she feels the pull. Steadily forward and down, he pulls on the leash, breaking her lips from his. She bends, like a vassal to her lord, bowing close to the counter.

“Ah-ah, all the way,” he gives the leash a little yank at the end and she is stretched forward. The cold marble against her nipples and belly makes her gasp as the leash forces her to lay fully down.

“There you go,” he says, kissing the top of her head as he squats down, securing the leash tightly to the nearest drawer pull with a makeshift highwayman’s hitch.

“Since this is the kitchen, I think I’ll feast on you,” he kisses her cheek. His fingers drag from her neck, over the back and to her ass as he walks around the end of the island. She hears the dragging of a dining chair closer. His hands run up her hamstrings, thumbs digging in at the gluteal fold and peeling her cheeks apart.

“Stick that pretty ass out,” he pulls back lightly at her hip crease, “let me see that pussy.”

She arches as best she can, but is limited due to her secured leash.

“Oh hoh, what is this?” his fingers run lightly over the crotch of her panties, or the lack thereof. The slit in them frames her lips perfectly.

“Spread those legs so I can see,” his voice is deep and soft and insistent.

He sits down on the lower chair and hooks his feet around a leg each of her chairs, steadying them for her. She spreads her legs wide, feeling her wet lips pull gently apart.

His thumbs pull gently at her little pink petals, his fingers dalying at her opening.

“Oh you are such a good Pet, to have yourself on display for me like this,” he kisses one cheek then the other.

Then his lips are nibbling down to the juncture of her thighs and ass. He pulls her flesh into his mouth, biting gently but sucking hard. Again and again, on both sides, he growls the bruises onto her skin.

His fingers are squeezing the globes of her ass, a cat kneading with his claws.

The sucking, the soft throated growls, the pulling apart of her cheeks, the illusion of no control over it happening; all this only serves to slide Aya further down the slippery slope of submission. She can’t stop the slight pumping of her hips as he administers his marks.

Austin pulls back, watching the red/purple of crushed capillaries rise to the surface.

“Keep still, Pet,” he grabs her hips.

He pulls her cheeks apart and plants kisses on the sensitive skin between her asshole and her vagina, then down each of her labia. Finally he extends his tongue to taste her. Oh lord, she tasted so good. The way she moans has his cock nodding agreement in his loose linen pants. He had foregone underwear when he dressed after his shower.

On his second pass, he pushes his face farther into her, the flat of his tongue rubbing back and forth over her pussy lips. His senses are filled with her. He growls as he buries himself aggressively in her the third time. His nose wet, his tongue reaches to skim her clit.

Aya is vibrating with desire as he plays with pussy. His obvious sounds of appreciation make it that much better. She moans as her ass shakes on his face.

Her sounds spur him on. His hands pull the flesh of her ass apart, moaning with her, as he gives himself over to his oral infatuation.

He rubs at her hard pea sized nub with the tip of his tongue. His lips mouthe at each separate outer labia, pulling them in and pulsing them with light suction. His tongue licks up, along her lips and over the puckered flesh of her asshole. Her soft moans turn into a whine as his fingertips find her clit and his tongue plays at her ass.

“Oh fuck that’s good,” she moans, feeling herself click tighter.

“Oh fuck that’s good, what?” he pulls away from her entirely, licking his lips and wiping his face.

“Oh fuck that’s good, Sir,” her emphasis on the Sir. The sudden lack of touch leaves her hanging.

“Do you want to cum, Pet?” he asks, lightly stroking her. He is still not sure if he is going to deny her all night, or make her cum over and over instead.

“Uh huh,” she moans, hips rocking back and forth, desperate for more.

“Oh no no, that just won’t do,” he says, reaching for the paddle. He rubs it against her backside in a circle. He administers her a series of light taps around one cheek that cascade gradually into harder ones. He ends with a moderately hard glancing blow. She sucks air in through her teeth.

“That’s what you are going to get anytime you forget my honorific, understand?”

“Uh huh,” she looks back over her shoulder with a wicked smile.

“Oh you are so naughty,” his upper lip curls into a wry grin. He repeats his tapping, soft to hard, over her other cheek. When he ends with a hard smack, it garners a moan from her lips and jerk from her hips. He loves that she is so clearly enjoying this heightening of her senses.

“Now, say it right,” a hard edge creeps into his voice. He leans over her, fingers rubbing up and down on her inner thighs.

“Yes Sir,” she breathes out. She had no idea he would be so good. His initial paddling of her was making her tingle for more.

“Do you want to cum?” he pointedly asks again.

“Yes Sir,” her voice betrays the level of her desire.

“Good girl,” he strokes her hair. It’s now that Austin decides on a course of action for the night. “You are to tell me when you are getting close to cumming. If you cum before I know it, I’ll be cross with you. Tell me you understand.”

“I understand…” her voice is nearly rebellious as she balks at being called ‘girl’. If she is going to be ‘girl’ to him, he has to make her behave.

“Oh Pet, I think you just want me to paddle you red,” he proclaims.

Her only answer is to squirm her ass around with a little moan.

“Say it,” he cajoles softly, rubbing the back of the paddle against her skin.

“Please,” she waggles her ass against the paddle, pouting like a brat.

“No,” he takes a step away, but somehow leans low to her ear at the same time. “If you want it, little Pet, you have to say it.”

His voice is like hot butter dripping off his tongue and over her neck with an edge of command. It melts her rising defiance.

“Please, please paddle me, Sir,” she is only mildly surprised at her begging tone.

“Hmmm, do you think you need it to be good for me?” his tone is calm, a patient teacher asking leading questions of a student. “Or are you just being a little glutton for the punishment?” His words dip into threat as he runs the paddle down her back and over the round curve of her rump.

“Please, yes Sir, I need it, show me how to be good,” no filter, no thoughts, just need coming out of her mouth.

“Mmmm, that’s better,” he rumbles so low. He balances the paddle on her ass and steps close between her legs, the fabric of his shirt rough on the soft skin of her inner thighs. His hands run up her spine, over her shoulders and down her arms in a mock massage. His fingers close over her wrists, squeezing tight and he pulls them behind her back, clicking the cuffs together with a snap.

He picks up the paddle.

Aya is holding on to her mental precipice with one hand. The feel of his hands on her body, smooth and soft is a juxtaposition to the paddle she knows is coming. The oscillation between hard and soft in both his voice and action makes her slip to just her fingertips on the proverbial ledge.

Gone is the pretense of warming her up with taps. Austin peppers her ass with smacks in a steady beat, moving around her skin so that one spot doesn't get too much all at once.

Little whimpering moans lilt from her chest with each strike. Her hands restrained behind her back and her leash holding her fast to the front gives her a delicious sense of relinquishment. She surrenders to the sting, to the rising heat on her ass, to his will. She will serve as his plaything, his fucktoy, his pet, his fucking girl… ‘just for tonight’ she tells herself as her mental fingers slip the ledge.

When he had decided to be a little relentless in his spanking of her, he hadn't expected the emerging red between the black diamonds on her ass to turn him on so much. He tortures his bottom lip with his teeth as he watches impact after impact jiggle her flesh. The only sounds are the smack of the leather and her mewling. He pauses now and then to rub her ass in circles, feeling the heat of her skin. He finds that his hips are thrusting gently into the ether of their own volition.

‘Soon,’ he thinks to himself, ‘soon I’ll bury my cock between those two red globes and fuck her senseless.’

He moves to her side, threading his free arm under her belly, reaching to her pussy. He leans down, sowing a series of soft, soothing kisses along her back and down her ass. His fingers start working shapes around her clit, little polygons of pleasure. He waits until she is moaning open vowel sounds, then brings the paddle down a handful times before immediately starting up with his fingers again.

“You better fucking tell me, Pet,” her reminds her, his voice rumbles low, borderline threatening.

Over and over he marries the pain of the paddle with the pleasure of his fingers.

Aya is in overdrive. Every stinging strike of the paddle is forcing her to cry out. Every genius stroke of his long delicate fingers winds her tighter, moans free flowing from her throat. Her mind is whirling and she is just a ball of nerve endings, a ball with which he is proving his expertise. It is mind bending. Finally she whinges out,“I’ma cum”.

Austin whips around behind her and buries his face voraciously in her cunt. He can feel the red heat radiating off her skin as he dives deeper and deeper into her, lashing her with his tongue. He ends up nearly bowing down under her before he pulls her clit into his mouth, sucking hard. Even though he is supposed to be in charge here, he feels like an oral supplicant at devotion. He is worshiping at the oldest altar.

The change in stimulation reroutes Aya’s orgasm. It’s only a moment's reprieve though, as the cacophony of sensations start aggregating together as her nervous system catches up. His sudden suction on her causes her to flood over his face.

The hot buzzing of her ass and the suction on her clit is just too much. She is pitched hard into her orgasm. Screaming, she strains the leash tight, her hips grinding into his face. Her frantically seizing pussy feels empty. God with his perfect fucking cock in her, she’d go wild.

Her juices trickle over Austin’s nose and down his cheeks. His long tongue lapping, lapping, drinking her in. His primal need to be inside her, to claim her, rises. He stands with it and kicks his chair back. Pulling his cock out and over the waistband of his pants, he holds himself, aiming for that portal to the promised land. His dick reaches, trying to get to her, like Icarus for the sun. Indeed he can feel that she is all heat and soft, swollen wetness, enticing him to come further. It’s all he wants right now, to submerge himself in her and fuckall if he can’t quite reach her on those high stools. What the hell were his long damn legs and cock good for anyway? Desperate to get his dick wet with her, he rises onto his tiptoes. Tantalizingly, he gets as far as rubbing the tip of his cock against her wet lips. If only she would bend her knees, he could at least dip his head in. He tries pulling her hips lower, but the fucking leash!

Aya registers him standing but doesn't hear the chair scratch on the stone floor. His cock merely tickles her lips and he curses behind her. She strains against her collar towards him, wanting nothing more in this moment than to have him inside her.

Austin’s chest rumbles with a snarl as he pushes her forward forcibly, slackening the leash in order to release the catch from the collar. Freed, she sinks back deep, spreading wide, open and desperate for his penetration.

It’s pure hedonistic bliss when splits her to the hilt. She barely registers the ‘oh my god’ that rumbles in his chest. Her lungs empty with an ‘ahhhh’ and she vibrates, his big cock stretching her. She almost tips over backwards into him in her eagerness to be fucked. His tip brushes against her g-spot.

He undoes her wrists quickly and she is immediately moving up and down on his hard cock using the counter for leverage and balance. Her moans sound otherworldly as she rides him. All he has to do is stand there, guiding her hips with his hands and flexing his glutes, jutting his cock towards her. Her ass bouncing so fervently on his cock is possibly one of the most salacious things he’s ever witnessed.

“Mmm hmmm,” he moans out. “That’s it Pet, ride that big cock,” his breath sucks in through his teeth. She feels so divine he can’t stop the words. “Fuck that pretty red ass up and down ‘till you cum on me. Oh god you are too fucking hot,” he says, his brows furrowed.

Her pitch rises, “I’m gonna… ohhh ohhhh! I’m cumming, I’m cumming.” Her fist pounds the hard marble. Her body tries to jerk away from him as she climaxes. His arms clamp like steel around her, forcing her back to him.

“Oh no you don’t, get back here” he growls, fucking up into her. The sound of the slap of her ass against his hips a harmony of sorts with her continued vocalizations.

“You’re- fucking- mine,” he barks as he thrusts into her with every word. On the last, he pushes so deep and hard, it makes her scream out the last of her orgasm as it hits her just right inside.

Later she’ll swear she could feel it in her pancreas.

He shakes with the effort of both restraining her thrashing, and not cumming himself.

“That’s my girl,” he breathes, “such a good cockwhore.” He presses her up to her knees and off his cock when she finally starts to droop.

She lays there shaking and whimpering for a long minute. Her mind gone in the pleasure. Then Austin’s hands are gently on her, pulling her down onto his lap on the dining chair. He hushes at her, holding her to him. She lets him, his possessive declarations dangle in the back of her mind, just beyond her reach.

“Thank you Aus, that was… you were… wow.” she nuzzles into his shoulder, patting his chest with her hand.

“Oh sweet little Pet,” his voice still edged with dominance and amusement, “I’m not done with you yet, not by a long shot.”

He takes her hand and presses it to his still hard cock, the tip peeking out from his waistband. She has no idea how he didn’t cum.

A shaky ‘oh’ courses through her mouth. “Don’t worry Pet, I’ll give that pussy a little break,” he glides his thumb over her bottom lip and chin. He tilts her head up, “Now what do you say?”

What she had been expecting to see, she couldn’t articulate. What she found in those gorgeous damn eyes was a man unsated and unwilling to let her go until he was.

That look scares her just a little. Aya finds herself, without warning, poised on the edge of using her safeword. Oh, not for the physical aspect. No, she could slake his need, without a doubt. It's the swirling well of emotions that bubble up, threatening to break her carefully laid seal. As she looks into his exquisite face, she practically melts. His mannerisms; his surety of movement; his mastery of the paddle and her pussy; the way his voice plays at the edges of her sanity; it all adds up and she isn’t sure her heart can afford the sum. She waits for a heartbeat not breathing.

Austin, watching her like a hawk, sees her vacillation. He isn’t sure why she is hesitating, or what caused the widening look in her eyes. His control has been on point so far, so he mentally braces himself for her safeword to come tumbling out of that beautiful mouth. Apparently though, the memo got lost on the way to his cock. His hips thrust gently forward pushing his cock into her hand.

“Say it,” his hot breath is a whisper on her ear as he leans forward, “You have to tell me.”

Her whole body lights up and pure hot desire courses through her. Her inner conflict soars. She is usually a pro at making these difficult choices in both her professional and personal lives. But it’s never been this tempting to lay herself so bare, be so very open.

Waiting for a response, Austin reaches out with the leash he’d pocketed while she was shaking on the counter. Thumb on the catch, he pushes it to the D-ring of the collar with a click.

The sharp sound jerks her out of her trepidation.

Oh. The leash. It suddenly strikes her that like what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, whatever she is feeling when the leash is on can stay with the leash. She can’t be responsible for the maelstrom, it can’t possibly be her fault if she isn’t in charge. The feeling of release floods her.

“Yes. Sir,” her answer comes out in a rushed breath, “I want-”

Her thumb glides over his tip. She turns her head into his hand, her eyes catching his. Her tongue sneaks out to lightly lick the pad of his thumb.

What she wants, she doesn't say, but the look she gives him as she lets her sentence dissipate tells him all he needs to know. He lets out a breath didn’t know he was holding and thoughts of her safeword disintegrate in his mind. It isn’t until he feels the combination of the thumb gliding over his glans and her tongue on his digit that dark, devilish Austin roars forth. It threatens to rip his control to shreds. Oh holy hell, they may both be in trouble now.

#austin butler #austin butler smut #austin butler fanfic #austin butler fic #smut #dom/sub

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