#Santa Cup is Coming to Town

[roses-for-rosalyn]

Cowboys

Ellie x reader

Part 1

Part 3

Summary: a trip to the local saloon? With a man?!

Wc: 2.1 k (shorter ik sorry)

For the ao3 girlies

Cw: cowboy! Ellie x fem! reader, drinking, reader gets drunk, Jesse (just a little side character), mentions of domestic violence, reader has trauma!, reader has scars, lesbian touching and yearning, lots of talking

Minors DNI (fr)

Seriously there’s some descriptions of abuse here y’all I tried to keep it vague, but it’s important I promise! I am not the kind of author who gives the reader trauma for literally no reason. That being said if this isn’t your cup of tea I’ll see you in another chapter or different fic!

LINKS TO HELP PALESTINE | DAILY CLICK

You wake up with the sun. The warm light forced its way through your eyelids, refusing to be ignored. You got up and attempted to get dressed as quietly as possible. You use the reflection of a steel pan to pin your hair back.

You liked the mornings, normally you were very alone, but even with company, it was a peaceful time. Golden light filters through your windows, everything and everyone is still beginning to wake up. It’s quiet.

A face appears behind yours in the reflection of the pan.

“Mornin.” Her voice was a bit low and gravelly.

“Mornin, where are you off to today?” You finish flattening out the last little stubborn hairs and turn towards her. Her eyes were still heavy with sleep, and bruises had begun to form on her face, but with the way she carried herself, you would never know what happened last night.

“Was thinking of going to the next town over, I have a few people to talk to.” You grab your boots from the floor and sit in the same wooden chair Ellie had last night. You try not to think about how close you were or how warm she felt against your fingertips as you lace up your shoes.

“You’re lucky you have that bandana.” You stand up and grab the hem of the fabric. “You’re a bit of a mess.” You pinch her chin between your thumb and forefinger and force her to turn to the side, and for some reason she lets you. You turn her the other way, inspecting the intensity of the bruises. “These’ll be gone in a week.” You brush your finger over a particularly deep purple bruise on her jaw, she flinches a bit even at your featherlight touch. “This one maybe two.”

“Whatever you say doc,” she replies with a laugh. You let go of her chin and head towards the door.

“I have to go, but you’ll be back before dark right?” Ellie just nods and you leave, hoping that she does actually come back.

** **

Today when you’re locking up the schoolhouse you hear a different voice, “Hi there, sunshine!”

You turn around and see Jesse. You usually didn’t see him at this time of day. He walks towards you like he has something to say.

“What’re you up to today?” He asks with a charming smile on his face.

“I was just going to head home and have dinner. How about you?” You really didn’t care to hear his plans for the day, but you had to be polite.

“I was hopin’ you might accompany me to a show at Buckhorn tonight?” His eyes are hopeful, he reminded you of a little boy, he hadn’t had the same life you did. You had really hoped you wouldn’t have to deal with him asking to court you, not completely sure you could manage to say no. You didn’t have a good reason for refusing, and who knows what he would say about you if you denied him.

“Um, alright, I suppose I could go. I can’t stay too late though, I don’t like ridin’ in the dark.” You manage a smile. Jesse looks like he is just barely keeping himself from jumping up and down in celebration.

He nods, “I will make sure you get home safe and sound darlin’. Suppose we should head on over then.” You untie your horse and take her by the lead, walking beside Jesse to the saloon.

You didn’t have much to talk about, the conversation was mostly small talk. You let him ramble on about his journeys to Santa Fe, the Apaches he’s encountered, hostile cowboys, thieves. No one ever actually threatened him, just passed by, but with the way he told the stories you would think he would be covered in scars and bruises.

You finally make it to the saloon, Jesse orders you both whiskey. You down it like a shot and Jesse seems surprised, but not appalled like you would have expected. “You want another?” he asks with raised eyebrows and a laugh.

“Yes please.” You smile up at him, a little more genuine. Maybe you could have fun, with enough liquor in your system you could get along with anyone. Drunk you was charming, magnetic, bubbly, men usually tolerated that a little better. Plus the drinks were free.

The band starts playing and you pull Jesse out on the wooden dancefloor. The music pulls at your limbs. As you dance with him you feel smooth as water, the more you drink the smoother you feel. Soon enough you’re leaning into his chest, swaying to the music. The night went by in a blur. You are at the bar getting another round of drinks when you see a familiar set of eyes appear at the entrance.

She makes a beeline towards you, shouldering people out of the way as she approaches. Her eyes look angry, but all she does is brush her hand down your arm like she was making sure you were real.

“I couldn’t find you.” She says, and you swear everything and everyone else melts away as she speaks.

She was looking for you.

“I was here.” You say with a drunk smile, relieved to see her. “With Jesse.” you point over to him. She doesn’t even bother to look. You lean in towards her to whisper, “He’s pretty boring, but he gave me free drinks.” you hold up a glass of whiskey as proof, slightly swaying with the movement.

“I’m gonna take you home.” She says gently.

“That would be very nice, I’m sure Jesse wouldn’t want to take me all the way out there. Just let me go tell him.” You haven’t stopped smiling since you saw her.

“Alright,” she nods, “I’ll be waitin’ for ya by the door.”

You stumble over to him, “Jesse, I gotta head home.”

“Ok let me go get my-”

“No need, my bodyguard over there is takin’ me home.” You point to the masked cowgirl by the door. Jesse looks at you, confused.

“I’ll explain it to you another time, I promise I’m safe with him.” You pat him on the shoulder for reassurance.

“Can I at least talk to him? So I can know you’re safe.” Well at least he seemed to actually care about you, not just the concept of you.

“I don’t see why not,” you grab his hand, it’s large and rough, his palm felt like sandpaper against yours, “follow me.” You lead him towards the cowgirl. She’s standing with her arms crossed, observing the drunkards surrounding her.

“Hi,” her head snaps towards the sound of your voice, her eyes soften.

“Hello darlin’,” she runs her hand alongside your arm again. Goosebumps rise in the wake of her touch. She looks behind you at the man you’ve brought over to her. “Who’s this?”

“This is Jesse,” you pull him so he’s standing alongside you causing him to stumble a bit. You giggle. “He wanted to make sure you were gettin’ me home safe. Said he wanted to talk to you.”

Ellie reaches out her hand to shake his, “M’ Joel,” she says in a gruff voice. Jesse’s eyes widen a bit. You hadn’t heard her man voice yet, it was a little silly. “Why don’t you go wait by my horse darlin’? I’ll be out in a minute.”

“Um, alright.” You didn’t love being booted from a conversation like that, but you were starting to get tired and your feet were starting to ache.

You walked out of the saloon to Ellie’s horse. You feel light and heavy at the same time. Then you remember you brought your own horse here. Your thoughts were so jumbled.

You walk over to grab her, untying her lead after a bit of a struggle. Figuring you would pony her over to the house. You would not ride horseback drunk. Again.

By the time you get back to Ellie’s horse she’s waiting for you. She grabs the lead from your hands and helps you up onto the horse. You were going to try like hell to remember the feeling of her hands on your hips.

“Thank you good sir,” you say with a giggle. She just shakes her head and mounts the horse, grabbing your horses lead before her horse begins to trot away from the saloon towards the quiet desert.

You probably couldn’t help the way you leaned against her back, pressing your body to hers. She was so warm. Your hands wrapped nice and tight around her waist and she hadn’t said anything, hadn’t even moved. She stayed sitting right up staring straight ahead. You couldn’t bring yourself to remember why you shouldn’t be doing this. You only knew that you wanted to and that’s what mattered right now.

“Who’s Joel?” You asked, cheek pressed against her leather coat.

“He’s- he was a friend.” She can barely disguise the sorrow in her voice.

“Was he your husband or somethin’?” Questions tend to just pour out of you in this state with no regard for the person you’re asking.

“No, no he was a good friend.”

“Mm, you’re lucky you never had a husband.”

“Why?”

“Well I don’t know if all husbands are like how mine was, but I wouldn’t try it again, just in case.”

“What happened?” You let the sound of the horses hooves hitting the dirt path fill the silence for a moment. You hadn’t really told anyone what happened in your house on the edge of town, where no one could hear you or see you.

“Well, I’ll start at the beginning I suppose. My daddy got sick, real sick and he wanted me to have a man to take care of me after he was gone. So I married a man he chose for me. I didn’t know him, I barely saw him before we got married. But I wanted to make sure my daddy could die knowing I’d be taken care of, so I did it. I still regret going through with it.” You nuzzle your cheek into her back, trying to get impossibly closer. “I still don’t like to think about our wedding night.”

“I’m sorry darlin’ you don’t have to-”

“No I want to, I haven’t said anything to anyone about this before. Kinda feels nice, I feel lighter. Anyways, we moved into that tiny house. It didn’t take long for him to get mean, real mean. Since we lived so far away, no one could hear the screamin’ and yellin’. I still have some scars from that him, that’s why I had that medical kit for you when you got hurt. I’ve had to clean myself up more times than I’d like to admit.” You let out an empty laugh.

“Where is he now?” Ellie’s voice has an anger in it that was terrifying, the type that was calm and sure. She knew exactly how she would remedy it.

“Well, every time he would hurt me I would threaten to shoot ‘em. He would laugh in my face like I had told some sort of fucked up joke. Here let me show you somethin’.” You hike up your dress, exposing the large scar on your thigh. You grab Ellie’s hand from the reins and place it on the Scar, her fingertips run gently across it, like she would hurt you if she pressed too hard. She traces around the jagged raised skin, it was like she was trying to put a picture of it together in her head. “The night he did that I shot him right in the chest. He was an evil, evil man. No one missed him. He’s buried about 500 feet from the house, his grave is unmarked.”

You feel Ellie’s body relax a bit. “That’s good. You did good.” She’s still absentmindedly running her hand along your thigh. The feeling made your breath hitch. Your whole body grows hot. You hadn’t ever felt anything like that. “He deserved it, I hope you know that.”

“Still doesn’t feel good though, didn’t make me feel any better when he was dead. The only thing that changed was that I was safe again.” You let out a breath you didn’t know you were holding when her hand slowly leaves your thigh, pulling your dress back down for you.

“Yeah, I suppose that makes sense. Sometimes it feels like the only solution though.”

“Yeah it does.”

** **

You’re half asleep by the time the horse stops in front of your house. You barely manage to lift your head up, but somehow you get off the horse.

“Go on inside, I’ll get the horses settled.” She didn’t have to tell you twice.

You were halfway to the house when you remembered, “Ellie,”

“Yes?”

“Come and sleep inside tonight.”

“Yes ma’am.”

Taglist: @elliewilliamgfooc @bready101 @sakiigami @wishbones999 @a-little-bit-of-everybody @ellabssweetheart @lily-fics-11

If ur name is crossed out it wouldn’t let me tag u

Lmk what yall think! Notes, comments and reposts always appreciated! Thank you for all the support!

Ch. 3

[thetriumphantpanda]

i've got my love to keep me warm | joel miller

Summary | Joel agrees to spend Christmas with your family, away from the warmth of Texas, and it takes him a little while to warm up to the idea.

Pairing | Joel Miller x F!reader

Word Count | 1.4K

Warnings | Grumpy x Sunshine vibes, some sweetness, some suggestive thoughts but nothing explicit, mentions of consuming food and alcohol.

Authors note | For @yeollie-plz- It's your @pedrostories secret santa!! I really hope you love this because it was good fun to put together! Happy Christmas to you!

“You know, you could at least pretend to be happy?” You tease, nudging your elbow into Joel’s side.

With the way he’s bundled up in his big coat, you’re not sure he actually feels you do it, but he grumbles all the same. Whatever he says in incoherent, but you can discern the meaning perfectly. What’s the point in being here as grown adults? What’s the point in wandering around, looking at lights and getting excited about Christmas, when, for the first time in years, there won’t be any children around?

“Come on,” You beam, taking his gloved hand in yours, “Maybe a drink with a little something in would make you happier?”

“What would make me happier would be sat indoors outta this snow.”

You roll your eyes, pulling on his hand to get him to follow you. He walks by your side, gloved hand sitting in yours as you weave through the crowds of people. Joel had wanted to stay in Texas for Christmas, something about the familiarity of it, not wanting to spend too much money on travelling at this time of year, but knowing it was his first Christmas without Sarah, now that she was all grown up with her own family, you knew that he’d be miserable, no matter that you’d be there with him, so you’d put your foot down, told him the two of you would spend Christmas with your parents up north, somewhere cooler, more festive.

He’d met them plenty of times before, they loved him, thought the sensible, stoic man was good for you. He had his head on his shoulders, a home of his own - settled, is what they’d called him. A far cry from the other boys you’d chosen in the past few years, and they were overjoyed to have a house full of people this year - your brother and his wife, you and Joel, a real family affair.

The centre of town always reminded you of being a child when you came back at this time of year. The streets filled with small stalls - some selling food, some filled with little trinkets from small businesses, all set around the main square, with its big tree, lit up and sparkling.

There’s one stall you zero in on, a small line that you stand in, still gripping at Joel’s hand as you step further towards the front each time someone walks away. You remember the first time you’d stood in this line - you were eight, and your dad had passed you a cup full of warm hot chocolate, a towering swirl of whipped cream on top. You’d sipped it so slowly, savouring the cream and the sweetness of the chocolate, and anytime you’re here, you have to get it, it’s just that these days, it’s always spiked with something.

Joel, of course, orders an Irish coffee - black, bitter coffee, split with cream and his favourite whiskey. You watch closely as he pulls one of his gloves off with his teeth, slipping it in his pocket so he can feel the warmth of it in his palm. He’s watching you just as closely as the lady hands you the cup of hot chocolate, mixed with Bailey’s, still with that tower of whipped cream too.

You both step away, standing off to the side as Joel takes the first sip of his drink. You can see the slight softening of his expression as he goes in for another sip, this one bigger than the first. He’s watching you as you dart your tongue out, taking some of the sweet cream into your mouth before you sip the drink, hissing when it burns your tongue a little.

“That’ll be hot, baby.” He teases, earning a little glare from you as he drinks his again, seemingly unaffected by the steam that rises from his own cup.

“It’s good,” You muse, holding it out to him, “Try it.”

“I don’t want none a’that,” He shakes his head, “Too sweet.”

“Joel Miller,” You chastise, pushing the cup closer to his face, “It’s Christmas, for the love of God, try the hot chocolate.”

He sighs, shakes his head in that way he always does when he knows he can’t win the battle. He hands you his drink, laughs a little when you wrinkle your nose at how strong it smells, takes yours from you and brings it to his mouth, taking a big sip, and when he pulls it away to hand back to you, you can’t stifle the giggle that falls from your mouth.

“What?” He asks, as your giggle falls into proper laughter, “What the hell’s the matter with you?” He snatches his own drink back sinking his neck down into his coat to keep the biting wind from his skin.

“Y-you’ve,” You choke out, pointing at your own nose, “You’ve g-got something here.”

You bring your hand up to his face, running the pad of your thumb over the tip of his nose, swiping the cream from his face. You go to pull it away, to wipe it away on the leg of your jeans, but Joel has other ideas, gripping your wrist to still you. He brings your hand to his mouth, enveloping your thumb into the heat of his mouth. You suck in a breath, feeling the tip of his tongue dart out against the skin, licking the cream off, before he drags your thumb from his mouth with a soft pop.

He drops your wrist from his hold, but you’re stuck, staring right at him, with the familiar throb of want settling across you.

“Thought it was too sweet for you?” You raise an eyebrow when you’ve composed yourself enough to speak.

He shrugs, takes hold of your hand and starts walking you back towards the tree, “If you’re gonna laugh at me, I ain’t gonna make it easy on you.” That familiar tone of grump is back, but you know he doesn’t mind really as he walks slowly, guiding you both to a bench that looks directly at the tree, dressed in red and gold, icy lights casting that familiar festive glow across everything.

He wipes the snow from the bench, makes sure it dry enough for you both to sit on, draping his arm across the back of it, encouraging you to curl into his side. The two of you sit for a while, watching the people come and go - young children excited to stand in line for the chance to meet Santa in his grotto, men on their own going from stall-to-stall, clearly shopping for last minute gifts, and couples, just like the two of you, wrapped up in nothing but each other as they hold hands, point things out to eat other.

“Thank you for coming,” You speak softly into his shoulder, looking up at him as he looks down at you, “I know it’s not really what you wanted, but I like that you’re here.”

“Of course it’s what I wanted,” He speaks just as softly, leaning down to press a featherlight kiss to the tip of your nose, “I only ever want to be where you are baby,” He motions his head to the scene in front of you, “Even if it is in the freezing cold, surrounded by too many people, wherever I’m with you, I’m happy, okay?”

You smile at him, tilt your head slightly, as his lips come down onto yours, cold and chapped from the winter air, but oh-so familiar as they slant across your own. You open your mouth against his, let your tongue meld with his own, the bitter of his coffee mixing with the sweet of your own drink. It’s soft, gentle, and over far too quickly. He pulls away, places two more soft pecks against your mouth, and then settles back against the bench, his hand now resting on your shoulder.

A shiver settles across your bones, something to do with the fact that even a few years into your relationship, he still sets you on fire without even trying, but mainly because it’s fucking freezing. Leant against Joel’s body, you feel him shiver a little too.

“Home?” You ask.

He looks back down at you, smiling a little with a nod, “Home.”

[dontsh0vethesun]

back in town

part one of home for christmas

natasha romanoff x reader

The hallmark movie inspired Christmas story that nobody asked for.

Natasha Romanoff fell out of love with Christmas, but perhaps a certain someone could help her find the festive magic once again.

Coming home to her small hometown from her life in New York City, the children’s author is reunited with the people of her past; some are happier to see her than others.

But, will rekindled relationships inspire the Christmas story she’s struggling to write? Or will she go home empty handed?

fluff, lots of Christmas, hallmark movie cringe

for the sake of this fic, all characters are the same kind of age; ≈mid 20s

wc: 1.4k | part two

Serving customers their coffee has been an opportunity for a moment of peace lately. Wanda, as well as the remainder of your insufferable friends, had taken it upon themselves to set you up on dates. Somehow, their lack of success so far hasn’t managed to convince them of their matchmaking deficits.

So, during work hours, you’re bombarded with suggestions to which you decline time and time again. Apparently, being the Christmas season and all, it was a matter of extreme importance; the so-called ‘Christmas magic’ had to have a source of focus and, according to them, that was you.

You’d tried; the amount of boring and unsuccessful dates you’ve embarked on is almost embarrassing. You’ve had short lived relationships, fleeting flings, and so many blind dates you can’t even count them with all ten fingers. But none of them were right for you. None of the options were worthy to ‘cuddle up with by the fireplace’ or ‘entwine souls with beside a decorated tree’. Wanda had an optimistic take on your love life - you’d all be lying if you didn’t call her obsessed.

“C’mon, that girl in the bookstore was totally obsessed with you,” she spoke as soon as the customer in front of you had left with a smile and a cup of coffee in their hand.

“Wanda, please,” you groaned, busying yourself with the messed up counter, wiping down the surface hoping it’d will her away.

“She could be the one.”

“You say that about all of them,” you huffed with a laugh. She truly was a hopeless romantic. You hypothosise her obsession with your romantic endeavours is some haphazardly disguised attempt to draw away her own infatuation with a certain bookstore owner. It’s no coincidence you’re both in there so often and it’s definitely not because you have a crush on anybody there.

“Maybe this one’s different.”

“You always say that too,” you laughed. “What about you anyway? How about we get you a date with that woman you ogle, huh?”

“What woman? There isn’t a woman,” she defended, you saw right through her.

“The one that likes to give you discount on all those books you buy and never read. Agatha, is it?”

“Oh, look, you have a customer. I better get more coffee from the back,” she hurried out before rushing away.

Luckily your best friend seemed to have taken the hint for the time being and the next couple of hours passed with you working in your regular harmony.

“That man is always late, I swear,” Wanda spoke with a glance at the clock. Sam was meant to be in for his shift twenty minutes ago, though you find his lack of punctuality to be an endearing trait. And, as though his ears were burning, the man in question burst through the wreath-decorated door with quickened breaths from what you assumed to be a sprint into work.

“You will never guess who I just bumped into,” he shouted to you both as he pulled his coat off to replace it with the coffee shop apron.

“Santa?” Wanda grinned with an excitement an adult likely shouldn’t present herself with at the prospect.

“Better.”

“Nobody’s better than Santa,” she pouted.

“If it wasn’t an old guy in a red hat you’re gonna have a real sad boss to deal with,” you responded with a laugh.

“Well now I don’t wanna say,” he answered with a chuckle of his own.

“You can’t lead with that and not tell us,” Wanda countered with a poke to his arm.

“Natasha Romanoff.”

“You’re kidding.”

The pair of you answered him at the same time, a mirrored disapproval in your tones.

“Nope. She’s here for the holidays.”

“What, New York’s not good enough for her anymore?” you uttered in annoyance, rolling your eyes before plastering on an appeasing smile to the customer that approached.

“I didn’t think the small town Christmas vibe fit her new Scrooge persona,” Wanda added with an equally annoyed voice.

“I dunno, I didn’t talk to her much, I came to tell you two. You know I like the gossip,” Sam answered with a smile, though he wasn’t so pleased with her appearance either.

“You can put your matchmaking shit on hold,” you stated. “All focus is now on ‘operation avoid Romanoff’.”

“Mission accepted as long as you come up with a better title,” Wanda returned. “A Christmas themed one.”

—

“Oh my God, I need to tell you all who I saw in town this afternoon,” Kamala practically squealed as she took her seat in the booth with the rest of the group. A girl’s night out at the local bar was a no brainer after the news.

“Let me guess,” Monica voiced. “Red hair, expensive suit, kinda scary, and a knack for ghosting certain people?” She added, tapping her chin with her face contorted into one of faux musing and a pointed look towards you with her final words.

“Pretty good at breaking poor innocent hearts?” Carol added with a teasing nudge to your shoulder to lighten your mood.

“She didn’t break my heart,” you scoffed.

“Just stomped on it a little,” Kate said with the same joking tone - if there was one thing you adored your friends for it was their way of making even awful situations fell a little less dire.

“Poked at it with her expensive stilettos,” Wanda added.

“Oh, so I’m the last to know,” Kamala sighed. “That’s cool, I guess. Not that I wanted to come in here with big, dramatic news or anything.”

“No, please, go on,” you laughed. “Who was it that you saw?”

“Natasha. Romanoff,” she exclaimed with all the dramatic flare she’d hoped to achieve. And, of course, you all gasped just as you knew she’d enjoy.

“You’re kidding,” you deadpanned.

“I know!”

“I’m gonna get us some more drinks,” Kate spoke as she stood up. “No gossip whilst I’m gone, you know all the drama gets my blood up.”

And so you all talked. And talked. And talked. Every detail of your relationship - or lack thereof - was explored. Her departure and the toll it took on you was examined and you remembered just how grateful you’ve always been for their support, they’re truly the best friendship group you ever could’ve asked for.

“Oh my God.”

The phrase was grumbled out by the three of you positioned in the line of sight of the door, the faces of you, Carol and Wanda all laced with discontent at the sight.

“Alright, look behind you but be subtle,” Carol instructed. “I’m talking to you, Kamala.”

It started off discreetly to begin with, Monica glanced over her shoulder with a scoff at the image behind her. Kate, somehow, was just as discreet but, of course, Kamala being Kamala an obnoxiously loud gasp followed her gawking. It drew the attention of those at the eye of the display you were staring at and two pairs of eyes looked back at you.

“What a surprise,” Yelena grinned as she approached with her sister in tow.

“Yelena, you were literally invited,” you grumbled. “You said you had plans.”

“There’s been a change in plans,” she shrugged, clearly amused at the awkward situation she was dragging you into. “My dear sister and I are joining you.”

“I’ll get more drinks,” Natasha mumbled. The first words you’d heard from her in years and she kept her eyes everywhere but directed towards you; something about the way she still buries her hands in her coat pockets when she’s nervous stirred up a stinging familiarity.

“Lena, what the hell?” Wanda whispered when the blonde smugly took her seat in the already crammed booth.

“What?” she shrugged, feigning obliviousness at her clearly deliberate actions. “It’s Christmas, even the grinch needs a drink.”

Speaking of, the redheaded grinch in question approached with a tray of drinks and an awkward yet fleeting smile gifted to you when she pulled a chair up to the end of the table. To your surprise, she even held your gaze as she slid your glass over to you though you couldn’t muster much more than an almost inaudible thank you.

“So, you’re back,” Carol spoke, leaning forwards with her arms resting on the table.

And that began the awkward evening. There was an obvious tension between the pair of you; Natasha answered any questions she was asked and you pretended not to notice the way she’d steal looks at you over the edge of her glass. You, however, barely spoke.

How do you talk to the woman that left you behind? Especially when she comes back into town looking even more perfect than before; you scold your lustful eyes for tearing your mind apart.

[sourcherryandsprinkles]

can i request a conrad fisher fic with ‘santa doesn’t know you like i do’ by sabrina carpenter? thank u smsm i love ur writing

I've been loving Sabrina Carpenter at the moment, thank you for the idea anon <3 It fits right with an idea I had in my list!

Warnings: mention of losing a parent (Susannah)

my taglists are here + you can send requests here at any time

—

Dressed in a red sweater and sparkly skirt, you were about to head to your aunt’s house for Christmas dinner. But just as you were reaching for your coat, you saw Jeremiah’s name on your phone screen. A frown formed between your eyebrows as you answered. 

‘’Hello?’’

‘’Are you with Conrad?’’ 

He sounded worried through the phone. You could feel the prayer for a positive answer in his voice, which made your frown deepen. 

‘’No. Why?’’ 

‘’He didn’t come home. He said he would. He promised Dad— He’s not answering my texts or picking up my calls.’’  

‘’Maybe he got held back at college because of the snow?’’

Jeremiah denied that supposition. ‘’I don’t think so. I called his roommate at Brown and he said he left last night.’’

‘’Maybe he went to Laurel’s? He’s talked about going to Pennsylvania this winter break.’’ 

‘’I already called her. We don’t know where he is. He hasn’t talked to anyone in the last few weeks. You’re the only one he talks to. That’s why I thought he might have been with you.’’ 

A heavy pause hung in the air as you recalled your and Conrad’s last conversations, trying to find a clue of where he was. He talked about finals and living off coffee and cup-o-noodles and how excited he was to eat a home-cooked meal, even if it was mashed potatoes or chicken that wasn’t in a nugget form. The sweater he got Jeremiah for Christmas. His roommate. His mom and the bike he got her last Christmas. It’s still in the garage, at the exact place she left it. 

‘’I think I might know where he is,’’ you said. 

It was a wild guess, but it was Conrad’s comfort place. 

‘’Where?’’ Jeremiah's urgency echoed through the phone.

You shook your head although he couldn’t see. ‘’I’m sorry Jeremiah, but I think it’s best if I go by myself. I’ll call you when I get there.’’ 

⁂

Armed with your double espresso, you braved through the snowy roads and drove to Cousins. It was a wild guess, but you were confident enough that he was there. It was the place he went to every time he wanted to be with his mom again. That house was Susannah all over. She had handpicked everything that was inside, painted all the paintings on the walls, and placed every little trinket just the way she wanted. 

Your family was disappointed that you had to cancel dinner at the last minute, but if Conrad was at the beach house, you couldn’t leave him alone. No one should spend Christmas alone. Especially not after losing a parent. 

Propped and clipped to your car’s air vents, your phone screen showed several texts from Jeremiah, all trying to get more information about Conrad. You ignored them all and focussed on the road and taking the right directions. 

After three hours, you finally arrived to Cousins. The small town was dark. Most small shops were closed — it was almost 11pm —, barely any houses were decorated for Christmas as most residents only came for the summer. 

You pulled in the familiar driveway and parked your car. A light layer of snow coated the grounds, allowing the grass to peek through. The air was crisp, and you could see your breath as you walked up to the porch. 

Using the spare key that was hidden under the doormat, you unlocked the door and let yourself in. It was dark and cold as the power was not turned on outside the summer months. The air was a bit stale too from being inhabited. 

As you ventured further into the entryway, you could see light coming from the living room — the fireplace. Using that light to guide you, you called Conrad’s name. He had to be there. If he wasn’t, someone else was in the Fishers’ beach house.

The tension in your shoulders dropped when you saw him asleep on the couch, a thick plaid over his curled up body. He looked so small like this. You got closer and gently said his name, not wanting to startle him. Conrad was a light sleeper. He stirred, slowly waking, a mixture of surprise and sadness in his eyes when he saw you.

‘’What are you doing here?’’ Conrad asked, noticing your skirt and sheer tights. He knew it was Christmas eve. You should be with your family, not in Cousins.

‘’Jeremiah called me, he was worried,’’ you explained briefly.

‘’How did you know I was here? I didn’t tell anyone...’’

No one knew Conrad like you did. You were there through the good and the bad — and there was a lot of this bad this past year. You were the one who had brushed his tears at his mother’s funerals. You knew all of his favorite songs and picked up every time he called regardless of the time. You always knew just how to make him laugh. 

You sat on the edge of the couch, giving your best friend a soft look. ‘’No one knows you like I do.’’ 

The smallest smile curled on his lips. ‘’I’m glad you’re here,’’ he admitted, a veil of tears in his eyes. ‘’I thought I wanted to be alone, but it makes me miss her more.’’

Your heart broke and you pulled him in your arms.

—

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[jinna-aka-ninja]

Calling of the Souls ~ Poly!LostBoysXFem!Reader

Word Count: 1,082

Just a little fun writing something on my free day, might make a part 2

Part 2 here! - Part 3 - Part 4 - Part 5  Part 6

It ached. Hand clutched to her own chest, unsure how to stop the pain from rushing through for the fourth time in lord knows how long. Y/N had this pain go through her exactly 3 precious times. She knew what it had meant. Her soulmate died... again. How many times would Y/N have to endure this? The chances of finding your soulmate were next to impossible. One would think with a life of eternal youth it would give one more hope, but Y/N thought it was hopeless. It took no longer than a century for her to feel it 4 times. The pain within her chest crashed like violent waves in a storm. Merciless.

The only soothing sensations she felt was when the familiar  that she had born with would start to mutter spells of his own to help her through it. A demon familiar by the name Tyr. Think of the demon and he shall appear. Tyr strode in seeing Y/N grabbing her duffel bag already he knew that this meant she had no intention to stay in this location any longer. "Where to?" He asked her moving to her side. Tyr had been by her side for so long now. Having watched over her, helped her hide, helped her harness her abilities. "You pick." Y/N said shrugging; there was no point in staying in the town. Having grown bored of it, small towns were always the same like that. "How about somewhere exciting?" He asked, eyes shining scarlet red, muttering an incantation as he opened the door to the room they were in. Looking through the door, she glanced back at him with an eyebrow raised. "A carnival?" "It's a boardwalk! Now go through so I can close the portal." He said to her, Y/N obeyed as she walked through, Tyr following after her. Y/N looked at the place bustling with life. It was summer, of course it was packed. She had to admit, it was a great place to hide. No doubt she could blend in with the crowds. The sun was slowly setting. They had to find a place to temporarily call home. How fun, a part of the beach had been closed. This meant something good for Y/N. Abandoned lifeguard buildings. She did happen upon one. Tyr had to help her in harnessing the power to change the small building into what they required. Bigger on the inside. If someone were to enter they would be in the original, she remained in this pocket dimension Tyr built and transported with her from place to place. Sure saved on rent. After she set her things down Y/N wondered if she should travel to the boardwalk. "I'm going exploring, are you coming?" She asked Tyr who lay on the bed. Hands behind his head as one of his long legs bent. "You're on your own. You know how to call me if you need me." He said closing his eyes. Y/N rolled her eyes as she left. Y/N began walking on the beach until she ended up at the boardwalk. The sun had set already. The lights of the rides of the carnival illuminating it up for all to see, like a bug zapper luring in insects, her included. How could anyone avoid the allure of the boardwalk? Y/N walked with a smile on her lips as she passed by the vendors selling trinkets and other things. Glancing at their wares before stopping to purchase a cup of lemonade. It had Santa Carla printed on the cup. It was huge. She was almost regretting buying the cup; seeing as she needed both hands to hold the souvenir. She almost skipped as she made her way to the carousal. This was her first time in a place like this. Her excitement beamed from her as she looked for somewhere to sit. Spotting a unicorn her eyes lit up. However before she made it to the unicorn someone beat her to it. She didn't want to sit on the carriage. It was meant for 2 and she felt bad taking it from some couple who could use it.

The sound of boots and chains reached her ears. Her heart pounded in her chest as her eyes narrowed. She couldn't explain why, maybe it was because her senses picked this up specifically through the loud boardwalk. Quickly she took a seat, not caring if she did take a potential couples spot. All she could focus on was trying to avoid drawing attention to herself. The feeling of someone's leg brushing against her snapped her attention to the formerly empty seat beside her. Her eyes on the leg before making their gaze drift up to the person's face. Piercing blue eyes bore into her own Y/E/C. Y/N's breath caught in her throat. What was this? The platinum blonde smirked at her as he lifted his hand to hold her chin, fingers against her cheek to keep her gaze on him when she started to look away to the laughter so close to them. "What's your name?" The male with platinum blue eyes asked her.

It almost felt like she would tell him anything he wanted to hear. Her mind in a fog as her lips parted to speak, then almost like a shock to her brain, something cleared that fog away.  She knew that she should not feel that way. "Does it matter?" Y/N responded moving her head back and out of his grasp. This answer seemed to surprise the guy, but he only let it show for a second at most. Then he looked like he was accepting a challenge. His "friends' started to laugh again. Enjoying that he seemed to not have as easy of a time as he had clearly expected. "Of course it matters. How about this, I'm David. That's Dwayne, Paul and Marko." David said pointing at each one respectively. Dwayne had the faintest of smiles on his lips, had it not been for the amused and excited look in his eyes Y/N would have thought he was the most calm of the bunch. Paul didn't hide his excitement in the least bit. His smile and his eyes showed just how much fun he was having with this encounter. Marko, he was something, his gloved hand up, biting his thumb, hiding a grin. His eyes showed what Y/N could only describe as him trying to hold himself back from his giddiness. David spoke again, "So... what's your name?"

[gunraekae]

a day in the mansion for you

Santa Rosalia by Roberto Ferri

>ikemen vampire

>mansion residents x reader

>a/n: for context, i'm the sort who enjoys seeing the casual interactions between the residents and the mc, so these are some hcs on what I imagine a day looks like for you. i sorta placed this as being in the first week mc arrives, before anything too serious happens, but you can interpret this whichever way you choose!

also apologies, i wasn't able to write for every single suitor as i haven't played most of their routes yet! I'll do a follow-up post when i finally finish them :))

Napoleon

Restrains Jean when he attacks you in the middle of the night

Comte enlists him to guard you and show you around Paris with Vincent, being the one that you trust the most in the beginning

Accompanies you and Isaac to the école, to help you be more at ease in the town

Part of your morning rounds: you wake him up

Part of your evening rounds: you talk about each other’s days, has dinner with you if you haven’t

Arthur

After asking Sebastian to fetch him Rouge, he prevents you from escaping (sorta does a reverse psychology thing)

Rightfully blaming himself for your dislike, he charms you with his intelligence through the lounge games; he wins a conversation with you and apologises on your date

When you encounter him on your town visit, the two of you are caught with a mysterious case that employs the two of you in your mystery solving adventures. 

Part of coffee addicts: your best customer, kisses you for every cup of coffee you bless him with

Part of breakfast gang: either there because he didn’t sleep or there because he slept too early

Leonardo

Spooked by the first night in the mansion, you lock yourself in your room until lunch, only to realize that Leonardo had stood guard outside your door the whole night

Remains quite protective, he calls himself your companion; finds you cooped up in the library and takes you with him on town visits

Part of coffee addicts: will come later, but will always be there

Part of your afternoon rounds: he magically finds you when you’re sad and will find some random event to cheer you up with

Jean

Starving and not in control, he unknowingly attacks you on your first night and incites you to escape

Overwhelmed, self-conscious, and wary, you spend much of the first week’s evenings in the library. To your shock, Jean is also there, learning how to write. Believing that it may be best for the two of you to reconcile, you teach him how to write. 

Helps you as much as possible with your chores, especially if it’s reaching high places or something that requires strength. 

Joins the residents in meals because of you

Listens to Mozart’s pieces with you

Part of your morning rounds: you have to remind him to eat

Vincent

Sympathetic to your predicament, he comforts you and shows you around Paris with Napoleon, being one of the few that you feel safe around

Invites you to a picnic with Theo

Enjoys your singing in the gardens while he paints and will frequent the outside the more you do it

Part of coffee addicts: might experiment with different roasts and enjoys it, but will like his coffee as black as possible

Part of breakfast gang: really only there to join Theo in the morning

Comte

Like a good sugar daddy, he takes you shopping and constantly spoils you. On the second day, he takes you to the town

Will ask for tea on the daily and constantly checks in on you; a most protective father figure, he keeps the residents in check

You’re his automatic partner any time he has to attend a social event (and of course he takes you shopping before). You’re his rumoured partner, and Comte does not quell those rumours he keeps them up. 

Part of your afternoon rounds: you have tea with him

Dazai

After cooping yourself up in your room, Dazai is the second you confide your troubles to. He’s always attuned to your emotions and understands your mental health struggles; always ready to lend an ear (because he’d rather everyone be happy before himself ahh) He’s almost invasive with how aware he is of you

Another frequent player in the lounge games, he doesn’t play seriously and is only really there to bring everyone’s mood up; don’t include gambling though, because he gets sorta crazy

Part of breakfast gang: horrible sleep schedule has him join the morning

Part of your afternoon rounds: any time you have errands in the garden, he’ll join you 

Theo

Partly due to his brother, and partly out of his own heart, he enlists you as an apprentice and they get to know the town

To bridge the gap between you and Arthur, he invites you to the lounge after dinner to play games

Teaches you the ropes of living in Paris: warns you, keeps you aware of current events, probably even helps you with your finances

Part of coffee addicts: likes your experimental sweet lattes

Part of breakfast gang: always present in the morning because he has to

Isaac

Cooped up in his room as well, Sebastian asks you to deliver his food to his room, believing him the most harmless. Isaac awkwardly welcomes you in his own way, accompanying you and Napoleon to their école

Also a frequenter of the lounge games, he attempts to impress you and win a date against Arthur

Part of breakfast gang: has to be there for his job, but enjoys whatever you make

Part of your evening rounds: sometimes he’ll be outside with his telescope, observing the stars. Once you felt comfortable, he asked you to join him

Mozart

Most intimidated by him, Sebastian forces you to deliver lunch to him. He’s cold, fussy, but would rather spend time with you than anyone else. Whenever he needs feedback or an audience for a piece, he’ll ask you first along with Jean. 

You’re his automatic partner any time he has a performance, partly because you comfort him in carriage rides, partly because he just wants you around

Part of coffee addicts: crawls to get coffee from you

Part of your evening rounds: you have to remind him to sleep

Part of your breakfast gang: organized routine but also terrible sleep schedule

Shakespeare

You met him after he gave you and Vincent tickets for one of his upcoming plays. When he approached the two of you, he gave such good banter and was so amicable, you swear it almost sounded practiced (haha)

He’ll sometimes join the residents for dinner. He’s begun to join a lot more often because having you around made Arthur and Theo much less hostile. After dinner, he makes a practice of talking to you in private, endlessly charming, but oddly invasive—like he’s studying you

Any time he has a new play, you're the first to get invited to watch it. Sometimes, if he's particularly frustrated or uninspired, he'll ask you to come to rehearsals with him.

You and Vincent sometimes visit him in his villa to make sure he's not writing himself to death.

Vlad

A sweet florist you met in town while you were miserable in the first week. He gave you a flower to cheer you up and was the epitome of charming, so charming in fact, that you accidentally revealed you lived in the mansion. Once you’ve revealed that fact, he began seeing you every time you were alone in town (for no ulterior motive at all)

General HCs for All!

Writes you letters daily/weekly; a habit picked up after the first night and seeing how spooked you were

Help you and Sebastian as much as they can; they can obviously clean up for themselves and even cook when they feel inclined

More residents have meals together than ever before; your presence sort of unites them and they’re super grateful for that

You’ve achieved the point where every resident is together during dinner

Birthdays, special occasions, and achievements are celebrated because you organize them for everyone

Since Halloween is your favourite holiday, the residents make an effort to dress up for it

Valentine’s Day is a bit of a mess, with you making a gift for every resident

White Day was used by the residents to give you their gifts, and it’s overwhelming, to say the least

They’re huge gossips, so any and every update on you is spread like wildfire to everyone. Good luck having an off-day

Dazai is the first to notice, being the most emotionally intelligent

Leonardo is the quickest one to take action, quite literally scooping you from whatever you’re doing to cheer you up

Napoleon is also another quick one to constantly check in on you and look for you if you come home too late

Sebastian usually keeps track of who you’re with or where you are if you guys are separated

Buys you random presents, usually connected to something between the two of you, but also sometimes follows current trends

Isaac buys you a hairclip he thinks looks darling on you

Dazai buys you a notebook to use as a diary, especially after noticing your journal’s almost full (and no he totally doesn’t peek in your writing)

Jean will always find something in town to bring to you in your night lessons

Comte… do I even need to say anything

Supports you in anything you pursue (I believe the canon says that you’re starting out as a writer, so I’mma use that)

You keep notes of your every day in your diary, sort of like a vlog and a lot of the snoopy residents read it. Eventually they suggest that you publish some of it

Being a huge fan of literature, the authors organize a writer’s night where you come up with a prompt and they share how they’d write it

If you ever end up writing something, they’re the first to hear and are your biggest fans

You’re a frequent guest teacher in Napoleon’s and Isaac’s école

You always thought you weren’t good with kids, but seeing how much the children like you reassured you

Napoleon teases you on how much you say you dislike children but secretly enjoys the time with them

Isaac is extremely grateful for how much you like organizing his lesson plans

if you've made it this far, thank you so much for reading! i hope you have a wonderful day and leave a like/reblog <3

[yopossum]

HOME

Series Masterlist - Main Masterlist

Summary: Dieter Bravo is sober. For good, this time. He got divorced, got into treatment, and left Hollywood to focus on healing. Moving a couple hours north to the quiet city of Santa Barbara and into a modest recovery group home in the east side of town, where nobody much cared who he was or what he did, brought a calm he’d never known before. It also left him facing down all his demons armed with only pints of ice cream and weepy Murder, She Wrote marathons.

When one of his early-morning walks is interrupted by mysterious (and sexy!) music coming from a street he hasn’t explored before, Dieter stumbles upon a small private pole dance studio, and class is just about to start. He expected, as one does, to find a room full of sweaty, grinding, beautiful people in their underwear - and to be clear, he does. Amazing. What he could not have anticipated was that, inside a random purple strobe-lit garage on a gloomy Sunday morning, he’d find something he’d been searching for all his life — home.

A roommates/besties/platonic soulmates story that honors the journey of coming back to yourself after a very long and painful time away with laughter, chaos, tears, tenderness, sex, and, yes, pole dancing.

Mixed-media fic featuring traditional writing, graphics, and other digital elements, told in non-linear installments. Bravo Bits - images/videos; Dieter Drivel - ficlets.

Rating: M/E 💖🌈🔥⛈️

Pairing(s): Dieter x BFF (I mean, it’s Dieter, there’s gonna be some friendly banging), Dieter x OMC, Dieter x OFC, Dieter x nonbinary OC, Dieter x group, Dieter solo, Dieter x a powerful vision of his younger self, etc etc etc

EXTENSIVE EXHAUSTING YET INTRIGUING LIST OF WARNINGS AFTER THE BREAK 🚨🚨🚨

Warnings: BUCKLE UP I’m gonna do my best to cover everything I currently have completed, in progress, and planned. Inevitably there will be more, because Dieter. Innuendo, exotic dance/pole dance, masturbation, like a LOT of masturbation, pornography references, sexting, PIV, grinding, butt stuff, mouth stuff, hand stuff, boob stuff, you’d be shocked at all the kinds of stuff, toys, group sex, sex work, sobriety, addiction (drugs, alcohol, sex, fame), regret, shame, self-loathing, shitty families, bad relationships, abuse, body image, mental health, trauma responses, loneliness, housing access, friendship, self care AND community care, subby D, voyeurism, exhibitionism, Dieter is still a horny conspiracy theorist and bisexual chaos demon that has nothing to do with substances he’s just Like That, his bff loves him as he is, gratuitous use of 🍆🍑👄👅💦 and literally every possible vaguely sexual emoji, texting with one hand For Reasons, nicknames, good-natured teasing and exasperation, desperate need for little treats, Dieter’s filthy robe needs its own warning, belly worship, kissing, snuggling, jumping on the bed and laughing til you cry and cuddling through a sleepover with your bestie cuz it’s you two against the world, there were actually two beds but Dieter needs to share sometimes anyway, Baby Beluga, emotional breakthrough singing along to Steve Winwood’s ‘Higher Love’ while using an enormous dildo as a makeshift microphone, being banned from Target, pup cups, and Cabot Cove’s prodigal idiot nephew Grady motherfucking Fletcher

Bravo Bits

(all 🔥💖 unless otherwise noted)

Grocery Run - text thread (scrolling video)

Grady Fletcher Night - text thread (scrolling video)

Target Trip - 1 - Impetus - text thread (scrolling video)

Target Trip 2 - Aftermath - text thread (scrolling video)

You up? No. - Roomie’s screen, Dieter’s screen (images)

Dieter Drivel

Dietergesis - M - our introduction to HOME’s Dieter

Dietergesis Part 2 - NEW 9/14

[carolmunson]

wish i had a river (e.m. x reader)

based off this cover of joni mitchell's river.

part two: here a/n: thought about starting a little mini series of one shots based off christmas or wintertime songs -- no part twos, no expansions, just little one shots based off the world the song builds for me. music really influences my writing so i thought this would be fun while i'm stuck in a rut with my WIPs. would really recommend listening to the song before or while reading.

cw: angst, angst, angst. mentions of a bad childhood. established relationship. reader is a first grade teacher. story is set in the early/mid 90s. divider by: @newlips

He sits over the kitchen table, scribbling furiously with a pen that was starting to stutter out of ink. He alternates between scribbling, sniffling, and wiping his eyes. He hadn't meant to yell, hadn't meant to start a fight. Christmas was never an easy time for him, his dad always tried to call him from prison. Wayne would take the photo books out and go through all the photos he had left of Eddie's mom. All the pictures of a younger Eddie seeing Santa: wishing for a new guitar, for a leather jacket, for his mom to come back, for a new daddy. Wayne thought it was nostalgic, but it just made Eddie sad. It made him remember that Christmas wasn't what it was like on TV -- it wasn't what it was like for you.

Now with Wayne getting a little weaker, a little sicker from the chemicals at the plant, he'd been begging Eddie to go through the photo albums with him. To hang up all the pictures of his younger self with Santa. Wayne just couldn't do it this year -- too tired, too couped up in bed. He'd taken a long sick leave with half pay so Eddie had taken up a second job at the mall in the shoe section of Macy's because they made commission. He felt lucky that the 90s were leaning towards a look that called for combat boots -- he was selling them in buckets to moms who thought he was cute and needed a gift for their angry son or daughter.

He had to wear his hair back at Macy's. He fucking hated it.

So he'd do the mechanics in the morning, run home to shower and change, do Thursday through Friday nights in shoes, pulling double shifts on the weekends. Eddie never had a day off and it was starting to strain on the two of you, only being able to see each other on some week nights.

He loved how understanding you'd been, doing your best to drop off dinner for him some nights at the mall. Being okay with doing nights in at your apartment on the otherside of town instead of dates. Letting him fall asleep on the couch while you watched your favorite claymation Christmas movies from the 60s. He'd started leaving and extra pair of coveralls in your closet incase he didn't wake up in time to get home before his shift at the shop.

You wake him up to a cup of coffee and some breakfast that you'd force him to eat because otherwise he wouldn't eat all day. He was getting thin, the stress was getting to him. On his feet all day, cars coming in all the time from the ice on the roads, new tires, the plows coming in every other night. The rush of people doing their holiday shopping, getting screamed at by someone's Reagan voting dad because they didn't have the new Air Force Ones in their son's size. Eddie would get in the van at night and just scream -- guttural, painful, angry.

The pen ran out of ink and he huffed, tossing it on the ground and wrenching away from the table to find a new one in Wayne's junk drawer. He opened the drawer so hard it came loose from the hinge of the wheels and the contents dumped onto the ground. He stood there for a moment, looking at the mess until his vision blurred with another round of fat tears.

"You okay in here, buddy?" Wayne asked, creeping into the kitchen from the back bedroom that Eddie had given back to him. He leaned onto the cane he'd started to use, holding onto the doorframe from support.

"Yeah, s'fine Uncle Wayne, you should just rest," he explains, trying to mask the cry about to fall out of his chest.

"S'it about that girl?" he asks gently.

Eddie nodded, getting to his knees and piling the junk back into the drawer half hazardly. His breath was shaky when he put the drawer back into place, not forgetting to grab a new pen, testing it on a piece of old mail before getting back to his seat at the table.

"You wanna talk about it, son?"

Wayne's soft drawl made Eddie break, shoulders shaking while he hid his face in his hands, "F-fuckin' blew it Wayne, I fuckin' blew it."

He'd gone to your apartment the for your week night 'date' of eating dinner and listening to records or watching TV. You'd been decorating here and there but this time everything was done, the apartment was glittering with holiday spirit. The tree was on the smaller side, but you'd been so proud if it -- all your grandmother's ornaments were shining against the multicolored lights. You'd answered the door with a big smile, sugar cookies on a plate in your hand, blank gingerbread men on the small coffee table in your living room. He saw the candy and frosting laid out and his heart sunk, he didn't have the energy for an activity.

"Hi honey," you smiled and leaned in for a kiss, but he only brushed his lips to your cheek. You knew he was tired and that was fine, he didn't owe you Christmas cheer you guessed.

"Hey," he mumbled, taking off his jacket and tossing it over the arm of the couch.

"Rough day?" you asked, putting the cookies down and grabbing his coat to hang it up.

"Just been fuckin' wild this past week," he shook his head, "Everyone's losing their fuckin' minds at the mall since the holiday's getting closer -- wish they never rebuilt that shithole."

He sat down in your recliner and let out a sigh that only 40 year olds that hate their wives make. You frowned.

"Sorry, baby," you ventured into the kitchen and came out with a cup of hot chocolate. He took it without saying thank you and sipped it bitterly while you took the sugar cookies back to the counter.

"I thought maybe we could decorate gingerbread men," you shrugged, quiet in your suggestion, "Just something fun to take your mind of things."

He looked down at the spread and then back up at you. When his eyes didn't light up, your insides caved in on themselves. So fucking stupid, he just worked 90 hours straight why would he want to decorate fucking cookies?

"S'real nice angel, but I'm not really feeling up to it," he assured, catching your change in demeanor.

"Oh, no, no, I get it," you nodded, quietly picking up the tupperwares full of candy and frosting and organizing them in the fridge. You'd bring them to your classroom the next day to decorate with your first graders and move the Gingerbread Man book up to this week instead of next week.

When you came back into the livingroom Eddie was walking around, observing your decor -- his face furrowed, bordering unhappy. Bored.

"Tree looks good," he said when he noticed you were back in the living room.

"Oh thanks," you smiled, "Steve brought me on Friday to go pick it up."

"Steve, huh?" Eddie asked with edge, not looking at you. You heard him let a soft huff out of his nose, seeing a mild shake of his head while he looked at the ornaments. He took one in his fingers, a crocheted wreath with a photo in the center -- you and your family by the fireplace in matching pajamas. Picture perfect. Your mom and dad call every Sunday after church. They think Eddie's a real hard worker, they admire him despite his taste in music and tattoos, they always pay for lunch when they take you both out when they come to town.

His eyes ventured lower and then he saw them: gifts. Gifts for him. Gifts from you and gifts from Santa. His head whipped around and his mouth was a thin line --

"We said--"

"I know what we said, honey, but you've been doing so much. I just wanted you to have a little something," you pleaded.

"I said no gifts this year and I meant no gifts this year," he gritted out.

"Baby, I know, but I just -- they aren't even fancy gifts! Just stuff you need, like, like -- there's socks in your stocking!" you offered any kind of explanation, "Some of them are even from my parents, they aren't all from me."

"Well that makes me look like a fuckin' asshole, doesn't it?" his voice was gravelly, he crossed his arms to look down at you while he stood at full height, "They're all gonna ask what I got you for Christmas."

"No they're not Ed, I already told them your si--"

"So you're telling your family my business now? Your poor fuckin' boyfriend who can't buy his girl shit because he's broke?" he argues, "Real fuckin' nice. Bet they can't wait to see me again."

"I can -- I can return them, I'm sorry," you sputtered, completely taken aback by his reaction, "I just...I don't know. I wanted you to have a nice Christmas."

"Maybe I didn't want one," he bites, exhaustion turning into unbridled frustration, "God, you think everyone likes this shit? All this holly jolly crap?"

You shake your head no, biting your lip to keep from crying but the tears well up anyway.

"You know you're just -- you're so caught up in the fuckin' magic of it all cause you don't know any different. Was your daddy ever callin' you from jail on Christmas morning? You ever wake up to nothing and wonder why Santa kept missing your uncle's fuckin' trailer?" he kept ranting, the tinsel on the tree shook with every stomp of his black boots. You shook your head no again.

"You have no fuckin' clue! Not everyone wants to be reminded of all the shit they never had," his nostril flared while he spoke, voice raising with every word that came out, "You think you're doing me a fuckin' favor?! Buying me shit, tryn'a get me to do these stupid arts and crafts? I'm not one of your students, Ms. First Grade -- stop treating me like one."

He took ragged breaths after his schpiel, trying to calm down but he was too riled up with his second wind. He looked at you with hard eyes even after you started to cry.

"I just wanted to do something nice," you shrugged, "Thought maybe this could be the year y'start-started liking Chri-christmas."

His eyes narrowed, "I don't need you to do shit for me. Christmas fucking sucks."

You blubbered, grabbing his coat out of the closet and putting his gifts in your arms, shoving them into his chest, "G-get out."

He held the jacket and gifts loosely against him, processing your request for a moment, his eyes softened.

"Get out, Ed!" you yelled, shoving him towards the door, "Just get the fuck out!"

He stumbled through when you opened the door, but held it open with his boot while you went to close it.

"You're gonna kick me out? Cause I don't wanna play fuckin' pretend with you?" he yelled, "Sorry that some of us have to live in the real world, angel. Wouldn't wanna impede on your fuckin' fairytale."

"Just go!" you yell back, tears staining your cheeks, "And don't fucking come back! You -- you fucking asshole."

He lets out a dark airy chuckle, "Fine, why don't go call up Harrington then? I'm sure he'll buy you somethin' real nice that you can show off to your parents."

With a final shove you were able to shut the door, leaving Eddie on the other side with his arm full of gifts. He clenched his jaw, half thinking to grab your spare key out from your welcome mat to barge right back in but he decided against it. He'd never really lost his temper like that with you before -- but God damn was he so tired. Tired of hearing about the holidays, of Wayne's cold trailer, of working two jobs, of the whole fuckin' season.

He took the van home, speeding over icy roads at first before he was able to finally calm down some. His eyes cast over to the gifts on the passengers seat and he huffed, pulling over into the empty Melvald's parking lot. He could see Joyce Byers restocking boxes of ornaments in the window, the light of the store giving him just enough to look at the wrapped packages next to him. He held one in his hand and took a deep breath, ripping the wrapping paper off slowly to reveal a shirt box.

He opened it slowly, a smile spreading across his face for the first time in weeks. It was a Black Sabbath tour t-shirt from their most recent string of concerts. He hadn't been able to make it to the one in Michigan even though it would've been face melting to see Black Sabbath and Motorhead the same night. Your brother had gone to the show in Pennsylvania and snagged him one as a surprise, but you wanted to save it for Christmas. With it was a framed set list in Ron Keel's writing, your brother's back stage passes had really come to good use. Keeping the gift a secret this long had been so hard for you.

He opened the next one after carefully putting the shirt and setlist in the back seat. Under the paper was a velvet box with a silver chain inside -- it was his chain, one that broke when he took you roller skating a couple months ago. He was just gonna trash it, it was tarnished and old anyway, but it had been Wayne's before he took the dog tags off and let Eddie replaced it with a guitar pick. You got it fixed, cleaned, and shined. It looked new. The original guitar pick was still attatched, with a few new ones nestled in the velvet at the center of the chain. Picks from shows you'd been to together, picks he'd thrown into the crowd when he performed. You 'd been collecting them and he didn't even know.

His lower lip trembled, eyes filling with tears as the guilt set in. You just wanted him to have a good Christmas.

He put the velvet box back in the pile of unopened gifts and pulled out of the parking lot. Before he knew it, he was fully crying, shoulders shaking in his leather jacket while he hopped out of the van and into the trailer. He picked up the phone, dialing your number, begging you to pick up so he could apologize and come back over.

"Hello?"

He was not expecting the voice of Steve Harrington to answer. His heart sunk so far down it might as well have fallen out. Eddie swallowed, trying to hold back another sob.

"Hey man, my girl around?" he asked, blinking back the tears threatening to stream down his face.

"Uh yeah, but her hands are kind of a mess," Steve laughs, Eddie hears you laugh in the background -- he aches at the sound, "We're just finishing up some cookie stuff for our classrooms tomorrow. Can she call you back in a bit?"

He could hear you shuffling in the background, the TV on blasting scenes from Rudolph -- The Island of Misfit Toys song played through the receiver while Steve waited for Eddie's response.

"Yeah, man, that's um -- that's fine. Have her call me," Eddie said softly, hanging up before Steve could reply. He knew you didn't like Steve like that; but something about the way your students would ask when you and Mr. Harrington were gonna 'get mawwied' put a pit in his stomach.

Eddie rifled through the junk drawer before he found what he wanted -- a deck of cards. It was worn and worse for wear, was probably missing some, but that way fine. It would do. If he couldn't buy you a present, he'd make you one instead. He'd seen Gareth do this a hundred times to win girls back and it worked every time.

Fifty-two things he loved about you. About you both together. His favorite memories. He'd doodle on some. You were his queen of hearts after all. So he started, frantic, feverish, writing novels on the first four, intricate drawings of where you met, your first date. A poem about your first kiss. It spilled out of him, just like his tears. He couldn't just lose you now, not on Christmas.

"I think that's a real nice gift," Wayne nods as Eddie finishes explaining, "Very heartfelt, buddy."

"Thanks, Wayne," Eddie's voice became groggy with talking and tears, "I just hope she likes it -- hope it's enough. Can't believe I -- that I made her cry like that -- s'not me."

"Better not be," Wayne barks a laugh, "Didn't raise ya to be a heartbreaker, kid."

Eddie smiles weakly, finishing the last card.

"Think it's too late to bring it over?" Eddie asks. Wayne shrugs and looks at the clock, just past 11 PM.

Wayne stands up from taking a seat, shaky while he does it, "Wouldn't say it's too, too late. 'Specially not if that boy's still there."

Before Eddie knows it, he's back on the road with the cards in an envelope. He'd finessed a bow out of some twine he found in Wayne's tool box, and decorated the outside of the envelope with red and green marker.

He shakily got to your door and could hear you both still manuevering around the kitchen. The clinks and clattered of bowls being cleaned so remeniscent of your after dinner cleanups. Sharing kisses between rinsing and drying.

He leaves the envelope on your welcome mat and knocks on the door, escaping into the stairwell as your apartment door opens.

"Who is it?" Eddie hears Steve ask.

"No one, it's oh -- " your little giggle makes him melt, "Looks like Santa dropped off something early."

"What is it?" Steve's voice sounds closer.

"It's um -- oh," your voice gets sullen.

"Eddie?" you call out. He wants to come out from hiding but he can't bring himself too. Not after how he acted.

"Gift from Ed?" Steve asks, "That's sweet of him."

"Yeah um, yeah, it is," you confirm softly. He waits to hear the door close with a click before walking back downstairs to his van. Maybe he can call out tomorrow and you can both decorate cookies until you get sick.

part two: here

[shadowriel]

Every Sound Your Heart Makes

I’m so excited to share my secret Santa gift for @headcanonheadcase! This fic started with an idea for what I like to call “reverse Gilmore Girls” — with a grumpy single dad and a chatty, diner owner. So you can expect the Gwynriel we know and love in a cozy, heartfelt small town setting. I hope it’s everything you want for Christmas, and more!

Summary: It’s been six years since Azriel came back to his hometown, with his newborn daughter in tow. Six years since Gwyn moved away from whatever heartbreak she’d left behind in her previous life and opened up a diner in Starlight Grove.

Now, unable to resist the urge to help Gwyn, Azriel volunteers to design sets for their town’s Christmas musical. But what happens when the town grump and the woman he’s fallen for can no longer hold back from the inevitable?

Chapter 1: Coffee, Please

Read here on AO3

Read a snippet below:

Even steps lead him to where he finds himself most mornings for the simple reason that his days aren’t quite right without a cup of coffee… and his daily dose of Gwyn. Once he reaches her diner, he pushes the door open with a gentle shove. His gaze briefly lingers on the cursive that spells out her name against frosted glass—four simple letters he wants to trace, followed by an apostrophe and an ‘S’. Then, just as the scent of peppermint and hot cocoa washes over his senses, his attention shifts.

He sees her immediately—the owner herself flitting from table to table, pouring coffee into half-empty mugs. The sight of Gwyn alone is enough to have him transfixed. To leave him frozen right there, in the doorway.

It’s almost unnerving, how still he is, when the diner is packed with townspeople. There’s a distinct liveliness to the place, one Azriel knows is only found at Gwyn’s. He’s come here every day for years, and he has yet to find another place where the warmth of the air envelops him the same way.

It’s in the details—he knows—at least for most people, this feeling of home. As much as the shop belongs to Gwyn, it belongs to their entire town. From initials carved into tables on first dates to small tears in fabric cushions covered with scraps of tape, to the sticky residue to sweet syrup that never seems to be scrubbed away from the tiles.

For him, it’s not the details that make him love this place. Not the coffee, nor the assortment of desserts.

It’s Gwyn.

That’s precisely the reason why he stands where he is, unable to take in the diner he’s been coming to for years. Why he doesn’t even see the rest of the room.

All he sees is her.

And then, her teal eyes flicker up, and she sees him, too.

“Good morning,” he says—croaks really. His voice is rough, perhaps with the lingering effects of his interrupted sleep. The greeting is all he can find in himself to say, but it is a good morning. Very good.

The sentiment only grows when Gwyn bites back a smile.

“You’re letting out all the warm air,” she huffs, playing at being annoyed. It must be the heat of the room, but Azriel swears he sees the slopes of her cheeks flush a lovely shade of red. In response, he can only take a step forward, allowing the gravitational force between them to draw him towards her and leave the door falling closed with a soft whoosh behind him.

“What? You’re not going to say ‘good morning’ back?” He crosses his arms across the expanse of his chest, fixing Gwyn with a look. He’s always found immense pleasure in teasing her, so he continues. “That’s awfully rude. I thought we were better friends than that, Gwyn.”

Now, it’s her turn to cross her arms. She sets her pot of coffee on a nearby table before doing so, then tilts her head back to glare at him. “We are, but you’re not the one paying the electricity bill.”

“You’re worried about your electricity bill?” He almost laughs at the irony.

Purposefully, he drags his gaze from Gwyn, instead turning to study the strings of light she’d put up overnight. At least they’re not the multicoloured variety, but a soft white that makes the interior of the diner glow from where they cover nearly every available surface. Precisely three Christmas trees are decorated in a similar, maximalist fashion, and Azriel can’t help but wonder how the diner hasn’t blown a fuse since she’d put the decorations up.

He arches a brow when he looks at her again, trying to hide his amusement. “Really?”

Taglist (please let me know if you’d like to be added or removed): @foundress0fnothing @captain-of-the-gwynriel-ship @trashforazriel @sv0430 @sunshinebingo @shadowsxgwynriel @thelovelymadone @damedechance

For the @acotargiftexchange

[lizmaximoff]

JIM HOPPER FIC RECS

An official list of Jim Hopper x Reader and Jim Hopper x OC recommendations (an update from this list).

Fics are arranged by one-shot or multi-chapter, then by rating, and then alphabetically. 

This arsenal contains 97 FICS as of 5/14/23.

To see a masterlist of my own Jim Hopper fics, click here.

LIZZIE’S TOP FIVE

Baking for Bang | E ( @daughterofthebrowncoats ) - The reader has been pining after the big, handsome Chief of Police since the day he walked into her bakery.  Using the wiles available to her – namely her baking skills – she sets out to slowly seduce him, culminating on a wintery day in Hopper’s cabin with a box of baked goods and an interesting confession. 

Pain in my Heart | M ( @flamehairedwritings ) - It’s your senior year and your best friend is still a dick. It’s your senior year and your best friend is still an ass. It’s your senior year and your best friend, Jim Hopper, is still trying to get you to help him with his homework.

Popsicles and Water Hoses | E ( @thebackseatofjimsblazer ) - The moment that you had seen what Jim’s shorts looked like with his hard on pressing against his jeans was the moment you realized that Jim could be a friend and a boy. That was also the moment you developed something for Jim you wouldn't be able to describe correctly for a while. Or where you and Jim are spending time together on a summers day after graduation.

Some Legs are Meant to Be Broken | E ( @boogiewrites ) - When Hopper breaks both of his legs, and you’re the newest employee at the station, it means you get recruited to be his babysitter. Would he be as frustratingly difficult to deal with as you imagine?

Hoping for Hopper | E ( @daughterofthebrowncoats ) - The reader runs a bar in town and her favorite customer Hopper comes in for a drink. The evening takes an unpleasant turn when a former classmate comes in and stirs up trouble for the reader, making her doubt herself.  Hopper steps in to help like the gentleman he is…n’t.

AMAZING HOPPER WRITERS

@bitchinsinclair

@boogiewrites

@empresskylo

@flamehairedwritings

@irrelevantwriter

saltedtears via AO3

ONE-SHOT FICS

Caregiver Prompt | K ( @thewintersoldierdisaster ) - N/A

Eggnog and Trees | K ( @darling-i-read-it ) - Request: Since it’s the Christmas season, can you write a Hopper x reader where he’s kinda a grinch and she’s just a little ball of love and light. They’re friends but then on Christmas he confesses or something like that.

At the Lake Prompt | T ( @thewintersoldierdisaster ) - N/A

First Date | T ( @flamehairedwritings ) - N/A

Handyman | T ( generallycynical via AO3 ) - You broke your ankle while chasing someone and now you're stuck on desk duty. You complain about your grass needing mowed and the next day, Hopper shows up at your door.

He Seems | T ( @kilyra ) - Running into an ex is always awkward, but when your ex is Hopper, you fully expect it to be awful.

Home is Where the Shitty Coffee Is | T ( underthenorthstar via AO3 ) - You’ve been tutoring Eleven for the year in between the Demogorgon and the Mind Flayer. You’ve managed to develop a massive crush on her surrogate father, Jim Hopper, in that time. One late night over cups of bad coffee, things finally come to a head.

Just What the Doctor Ordered | T ( underthenorthstar via AO3 ) - You fall and injure yourself. An overprotective but sweet Hopper takes care of you.

Kisses as a Distraction Prompt | T ( @clonecaptains ) - N/A

Ranking | T ( @psychiatristreturning ) - N/A

Sneaky Chief | T ( @hawkins-hoe ) - A parent teacher conference with the handsome Chief of Hawkins leads to a sneaky dinner date.

Sweet on You | T ( xfandomwritingsx via AO3 ) - You make Jim dress up as Santa for the Christmas party.

Weeknight Take Out | T ( pettifogger via AO3 ) - N/A

Without Filters | T ( adkinsmayo via AO3 ) - You and Hopper have been best friends since seventh grade. You can see right through his bullshit and that’s what he liked most about you. Through every relationship and every shitty situation, you were always there for each other. Now the junior prom was just around the corner and you both planned to keep your childhood promise of being each other’s date. That was until Ginger Peterson came into the picture. You tried not to be mad, but you absolutely were and something was telling you it wasn’t just because he had broken his promise.

Candy Hearts | M ( @flamehairedwritings ) - N/A

Cups | M ( @flamehairedwritings ) - Prompt: Character A and Character B, sworn enemies, are chosen to prepare the company Christmas Party.

Kisses on the Back Prompt | M ( @clonecaptains ) - N/A

Long Time Coming | M ( @xfandomwritingsx ) - You and Hopper finally give into each other.

Sunday Stroll | M ( TheOlderDixonBoy via AO3 ) - You enjoy taking walks in the morning by yourself, but when Jim Hopper starts to drive by and say good morning each day, you begin to truly look forward to them. It also doesn’t hurt that you’re pretty sure Chief Hopper enjoys these meetings as well.

A Very Hopper Birthday | M ( @daughterofthebrowncoats ) - It’s the reader’s 21st birthday and while out with her friends, comes across her good friend Chief Hopper.  Riding high on a little bit of liquid courage, she decides to take the bull by the horns, so to speak, with regards to her crush on Hopper.

Am I Tough Enough | E ( kitten_michael via AO3 ) - N/A

An Act of Nature | E ( @boogiewrites ) - You move back to Hawkins, luckily you hit it off with a friend of your step brothers. When Chief Hopper finally gets around to asking you out, what is it going to take for the two of you to find time alone? An act of nature?

Behind Closed Doors | E ( @tricksters-captain ) - You get into some trouble and Hopper hides you away in the cabin until it blows over but isolation isn’t for you.

Bloom | E ( @hoppersmut | DEACTIVATED ) - You trust your friend Jim Hopper completely. You’ve asked him to do something for you that no one else will ever be able to do again. You’ve trusted him to take your virginity.

Boiled Over | E ( adkinsmayo via AO3 ) - Hopper’s dominant side is usually his only side. But it rarely ever comes out in the bedroom, he’s always afraid he’ll hurt you. But when it does, Jim is ruthless. But it usually takes you being just as ruthless to get him to lose control. Or in this case, take control. And you know what they say: the heat can make you do crazy things.

Catch Me if You Can, Chief! | E ( My_Name_Is_Nobody via AO3 ) - It's the 4th of July in Hawkins, and while everybody's having fun at the amusement park, the only one who's catching your attention is Jim Hopper, Chief of Police — and he's looking at you, equally interested.

Caught | E ( @davidharbovr | DEACTIVATED ) - N/A

Chief Who | E ( @daughterofthebrowncoats ) - The reader is new to town and had a mildly awkward first encounter with the local chief of police.  Then, come to find out, his car is the one she’s working on and he needs a ride home.  Hopper wants to know why she’s nervous, is it all cops or just him?  The reader feels obligated to prove she’s not nervous at all and one thing leads to another and somehow they end up against the wall of Hopper’s trailer.  

Cherries a la Mode | E ( @alias-b ) - Summer of ‘83. Jim’s having a bad day at work and Lucy shows up to brighten his life. Only if he allows it. A game blooms when they’re alone in his office.

Christmas Miracle | E ( @flamehairedwritings ) - You know how to make all the hours of Christmas shopping worth it. 

Clodhopper | E ( @daughterofthebrowncoats ) - Hopper gets drunk and horny…and hungry…

Come Away with Me | E ( @halfway-happyyy ) - You had the misfortune of marrying one of Hawkins sleaziest men, but when Jim Hopper enters your life, you realize that everything really does happen for a reason, and every choice has a consequence.

The County Fair | E ( @acciosnapes | DEACTIVATED ) - Barbeque grill outs, pool parties and more- late nights in Hawkins, Indiana was never really that dull, especially if you were the mayors daughter. And, especially fun if you were fucking your dads best friend.

Cuffed Up Chief | E ( saltedtears via AO3 ) - Prompt: There are so many fics out there with Hopper in control but like.. What if there was one where the reader has him in cuffs and is just teasing the ever loving shit outta him?

Dad’s Best Friend | E ( @empresskylo ) - hopper is your dad's best friend. you definitely should not be attracted to him. at the very least, he should definitely not be attracted to you...

Do Not Touch | E ( @flamehairedwritings ) - A visit to Murray’s house of wonders provides a lot more than you bargained for.

Feral | E ( @irrelevantwriter ) - Jim was trapped in the Upside Down. He made it out and back to you. But all that time away without you means it’s only a matter of time before he snaps.

Good Girl, Bad Woman | E ( @flamehairedwritings ) - You’ll get this round.

Golden Thread | E ( Verbo via AO3 ) - It’s New Year’s Eve, 1982, and tonight you might actually have a chance to act on your long-standing crush on Chief Jim Hopper.

Green | E ( mrs_squirrel_chester via AO3 ) - You’ve had your eye on Hopper for a while now.

Handyman | E ( Pnutbladdr via AO3 ) - Hopper stumbles across your private drawer of sex toys, and one in particular catches his eye

Happy Drinking with Hopper | E ( @likedovesinthewnd ) - After a grueling work week, you and Hopper decide to blow off some steam at your local dive bar.

Haunted House Prompt | E ( @chiefhopalong ) - N/A

Home Sweet Home | E ( @bitchinsinclair ) - Reader entices Hopper to fuck her by wearing his Hawkins PD jacket.

Hop to It | E ( @sherrybaby14 ) - Hopper arrests you for protesting.

Hopper BJ Fic | E ( @lucifer-in-leather ) - N/A

Hopper Can Have Nice Things, Too | E ( @irrelevantwriter ) - A funhouse leads to some fun. 

In the Back of the Truck | E ( @crewhonk ) - You and Jim Hopper have some fun in the back of his truck during the Snowball.

Imagine: Riding Jim Hopper | E ( @imagine-fandom-randoms | DEACTIVATED ) - N/A

Late for A Date | E ( @flamehairedwritings ) - N/A

Late Night Talking | E ( @laureliciousdefinition ) - You visit Hop on a slow night at the station. 

Little Girl/Old Man | E ( DeathBecomesNerds via AO3 ) - After an all-too-adventurous day with Eleven and her friends, Chief Hopper and Eleven's new guardian get a little handsy with each other.

Long Day, Longer Night | E ( @boogiewrites ) - A long day turns into an even longer night after you find yourself alone with the Chief…yet again.

New Year’s Eve | E ( @flamehairedwritings ) - Prompt: Character A can’t travel to see their family, so they invite their grumpy loner neighbor Character B.

Next Contestant | E ( TheCharleeMonstah via AO3 ) - Prompt: JIM HOPPER IN A BAR FIGHT AFTER SOMEBODY GRABS HIS GIRL'S ASS, BAD MOON RISING PLAYING IN THE BACKGROUND. SHE IS LIKE 'hopper no-' and he's like 'HOPPER YES' and she ends patching up his cuts and such, maybe a lil smut if you fancy?? ❤️

Not the Fun Kind of Daddy Issues | E ( @boogiewrites ) - Jim Hopper is your ex husband. The fire burned bright but you just aren’t good for each other, you know it. You both try to deal with divorce and trying to raise Jane together despite your differences. Will she end up bringing you back together, or tearing you apart? Or maybe a little of both?

The Main Course | E ( @flames-bring-a-ton-of-ash ) - Hopper gets stood up on his date, so you decide to make a move.

Make Me | E ( @likedovesinthewnd ) - You’re Hawkins’ finest prosecutor, smart and resourceful, beautiful and cunning. With most of your time spent at the station, butting heads with the Chief of police, what happens when all that tension comes to a head?

Memories Made in the Coldest Winter | E ( bluetriangles via AO3 ) - When your car dies during the first blizzard of the season, an unlikely savior appears in the form of Jim Hopper.

Mouthful | E ( @eleanor-gillespie ) - Literally the entire thing is reader is giving Hopper a blow job. Hopper is encouraging and adorable and has a dirtier mouth than you.

Movie Night | E ( @flamehairedwritings ) - N/A

The Outfit | E ( @eleanor-gillespie ) - You work retail at the local JCPenney in the men's section. You catch the Chief of Police flirting with a new look... You help boost his confidence.

The Photo Booth | E ( @flamehairedwritings ) - You and Hop need more… posed pictures together.

Picture Perfect | E ( @ssahotchswifemain ) - Hopper and his girlfriend make lasting memories together through photographs. 

Pursue | E ( @flames-bring-a-ton-of-ash ) - How far can you push Hopper before he loses control?

Reconciliation | E ( @loveberrie ) - In which y/n and Jim Hopper have recently broken up, but when an incident requiring his presence arises, things may just reconcile. 

Role Reversal | E ( @davidharbovr | DEACTIVATED ) - N/A

Roughin’ It | E ( @glitteringroseangel ) - When Hopper takes off the weekend, The Reader convinces him to go on a camping trip together to help clear his head.

Soaked | E ( @hawkinswhores | DEACTIVATED ) - N/A

Slippery Hell | E ( saltedtears via AO3 ) - Prompt: Hopper trying to fit in the bathtub with his sweetheart.

Sweet Summer Lemonade | E ( @eupheme ) - You go to Murray’s for some help, you end up with a little more than you bargained for.

Tequila Sunrise | E ( MissFiction via AO3 ) - Jim Hopper encounters an office assistant he's been interested in at his favourite seedy bar and demands her attentions all to himself.

There’s More to Mornings Besides Coffee and Contemplation | E ( @irrelevantwriter ) - It’s a special wake up call for our Chief of Police. One that doesn’t include coffee and contemplation.

Three in the Morning | E ( @mikahowl ) - Set right at the beginning of season 1. Reader’s back in Hawkins after graduating from college a couple months ago. As she searches for a more permanent job, she works part-time at the police station. She loves the job, despite the... history between her and her boss, Chief Hopper. A troublemaker in high school, she’s had her fair share of run ins with Hop in the past. But, that’s just it: it’s all in the past. Or is it?

“Too” Big | E ( @bitchinsinclair ) - N/A

Truck Stop | E ( saltedtears via AO3 ) - Prompt: Fucking Hawkins' Chief of police in his truck.

The Upper Hand | E ( @ashlybee ) - working at hawkins police department has it’s perks when jim hopper is your boss, but after a day of you teasing him, he forces you to go to the annual picnic. you haven’t learned your lesson and you continue to tease at the event and hopper puts you in your place.

When It Goes Wrong, It Goes Right | E ( duchess_of_brighton via AO3 ) - Prompt: Where reader tries to make a sexy show for Hopper and it doesn’t go right and she gets embarrassed but Hop comforts her and sexy times ensue…

MULTI-CHAPTER FICS

The Boys in Blue | NR ( MB234 via AO3 ) - Police Chief Jim Hopper was not a man who believed in impossible things. In the pale stark light of the horrifying, awe striking things he’d seen last year, truly the stuff of goddamned nightmares, was it really so impossible that a small, graceful, fucking gorgeous woman half his age could want him?

Moonrise Radio | T ( @whirlybirbs ) - You’re Hawkins high’s new science teacher, faculty advisor for the newly reinstated Hawkins AV club, and crazy townie who overhears a Russian comminucae on a broken ham radio. Chief Jim hopper is into it. Joyce is a good wing-woman and the kids just want to listen the the buggles. 

Ours | M ( @alloftheimagines ) - in which the reader saves hopper from the russian prison camp, and after a soft reunion, shares life-changing news: a baby he had no idea existed awaits him in hawkins.

See You Tomorrow | M ( Teadum via AO3 ) - While you’re staying with your sister Karen and her family you meet a certain police chief when he arrives to drop off his daughter.

Slow Hands | E ( @thebackseatofjimsblazer ) - Robin talks you into going out to the bar for drinks and attention, but you meet Hopper & he promises you things no man has been able to give to you.

Coffee and Infatuation | E ( @likedovesinthewnd ) - Hawkins resident grump and messy Chief of police, Jim Hopper makes an unlikely friend on his quest for coffee. His tumultuous past keeps him from pursuing a relationship. But how long before his true feelings can no longer be ignored?

Don’t Call Her Annie | E ( @boogiewrites ) - Annette Horowitz is Joyce’s younger sister. She hasn’t been the perfect sibling or aunt but after she finds out Will is missing, she finds herself crashing back into Hawkins to do everything in her power to help, driven by a need to prove herself. She hasn’t been around much in the past 20 or so years, but when she comes back home she finds old friends, old habits and old feelings she’d thought she’d finally escaped. Can she really change or is she just kidding herself?

For Your Age | E ( @acciosnapes | DEACTIVATED ) - After graduation, you want one thing, and one thing only. And his name is Chief Jim Hopper. [ PART TWO ] 

Homecoming | E ( duchess_of_brighton via AO3 ) - You and Hopper first met when you were both in downward spirals, grieving and lost. For a while, you gave each other solace, but it didn't last. Two years later you return to Hawkins, hoping to make amends and walk away without regrets this time. Funny how life never turns out quite the way you plan it...

Hungry Eyes | E ( adkinsmayo via AO3 ) - You never thought older men were your type. Older men still weren’t really your type. Unless that older man happened to be Jim Hopper. And from the way you two dance around each other in the office, makes you think younger women just might be his type. Or maybe you just happen to be his type.

Looking for the Magic | E ( @alias-b ) - Nothing ever happens in Hawkins. Jim Hopper told himself that when he was drawn back to his hometown after losing everything. Lucy Garland would disagree. The monsters here are just cleverly disguised in fine suits.

Ride Home | E ( @empresskylo ) - you had always thought chief jim hopper was hot. and you knew he thought the same about you, he just tried to hide it because it was wrong–he knew your dad for fuck’s sake… (oh, and you were still in high school.) however, after hopper crashes a house party, you ask him for a ride home. hopper briefly loses his self-control promising to never do it again…

SPECIAL FICS

Santa Baby | E ( @trailerparkgrl ) - N/A (Based on Violent Night)

Three’s Company | E ( @irrelevantwriter ) - our coworkers decide to pop in for a late night visit.

[jimhopperlova]

Jim hopper and reader work together at the station and it is a party then a officer start to sanche with she and jim hopper gets jealous and say enough is enough have to tell my feelings for her and make her only mine . Thank you

- Party Time [18+]

omg!! thank you so much for the request! my first ever, so i’m going to make this special.

18+ MDNI!!

Pairing(s): jealous!hopper + sassy!female reader

Summary: based on s1 hopper, the station hosts a christmas party. reader is all dressed up for the most festive time of the year, and hasn’t realized she’s getting all the attention. hop isn’t fond of the way callahan is ‘innocently’ flirting with reader, and desides to man up and finally tell reader his true feelings.

Warnings: large age gap (hop is 41, reader is 19), degradation (calls reader a slut), light slapping on the face, spanking, unprotected p in v, oral (m receiving), creampie.

once again thank you for this!!

it was the annual christmas party at the station. you had managed to find something sexy, to hopefully get those familiar eyes onto you. it has been way too long on crushing on someone, and if this didn’t work, you were simply giving up. you weren’t blunt, nor were you that honest. especially if he didn’t see you in that light.

you sighed, pulling over the skimpy santa claus outfit. it was simply a small red dress, the details hinting it was meant to be santa. you saw it at the local dollar store and immediately needed it for this party. you giggled to yourself once you put it on. it fit your curves perfectly and you knew this had to play in your favor. normally you didn’t wear things like these, but you would if it meant getting the guy you had your eyes set on ever since you started working at the station.

flo was getting old, and they were hiring for an assistant. thanks to your year experience of working as a server at the local diner, clearly they liked you. flo especially. she thought you were simply adorable, and ‘a great addition to the team’. hopefully this skimpy outfit didn’t teer her away from your adorable ways.

you placed the final touch onto your outfit, which was the santa hat. your hair also helped compliment the outfit, it sparking the desire you needed. now it was time to go and hopefully not get slut shamed.

30 minutes or so you were pulling into the station. you grabbed a 24 pack of sugar cookies on the way, you telling everyone you would bring something sweet to the party. you grabbed the package of cookies and strutted your way into the station, your black tall boots clacking against the pavement.

as soon as you entered the station, it seemed all eyes were on you. you swallowed past the thickness in your throat before dropping off the cookies to where the other desserts were.

“wow. ms. (y/l/n), i didn’t think you could ever dress like that,” flo laughed softly, before your cheeks emitted a deep blush. “i know who you are wearing that for, though.” flo spoke softly in your ear, your heart racing. so it really was that obvious? speaking of which, you couldn’t find the man anywhere near. he probably was in his office, hiding away like he always does.

momentarily, the party started. the music was blaring, and the decorations were set. you smiled at yourself at the ones you put up, before flo laughed softly. not only was it the station’s party, but a lot of people from hawkins decided to come along as well. ted and karen wheeler, benny even, some of the town folk just wanted an excuse to get out of the house.

you smiled at how much it was succeeding so far. meanwhile, you were dancing by yourself with a cup of coke in your hands, humming softly to the music. suddenly, callahan approached in your view. you looked back at the man who was blushing madly, the glasses not doing him any favors.

“wow, uh.. you look really.. nice tonight.” callahan stumbled on his words, a small laugh escaping your throat. you looked back at him with a bright smile, admiring how much he looked nervous to talk to you.

“a little different than what i wear, huh?” you responded back to callahan. he nodded and laughed loudly, almost too awkwardly. he realized he was laughing way too loud, and then he stopped. he looked down awkwardly, and all you could do was laugh back at him. callahan was always too nervous, or too awkward for you to have a straight faced conversation with him. bless his heart, though. he really did try.

“i guess you could say that,” callahan spoke, sipping on his own drink, looking you up and down. it was adorable, almost like a schoolboy crush. and then the song ‘faithfully’ by journey started to play, making callahan all that much more nervous. he looked down and with his free hand and rubbed the back of his neck, only before asking a question. “um.. would you mind dancing with me?” callahan then asked, you looking at him with a smile. you couldn’t say no. he was being really sweet.

“of course, phil. you don’t have to ask me twice,” you replied with a smile. callahan’s eyes lit up and he slowly placed his drink down on the table closest to the two of you, only before hsitantly placing his hands on your waist. he looked really nervous. it made you laugh softly. “i don’t bite.” you responded to the way he was hesitantly holding onto you. you then placed your own drink down and wrapped your arms around his neck. you looked at him, and he could only smile back at you.

little did you know, the grump finally emerged from his office. clad in still his uniform, he waltzed out and looked at all the townfolk. he nodded at them with a straight face and made his way to the coffee maker. he made himself yet another cup of coffee (the 10th one that day, probably), before peering around the station. he noticed you, and your arms around callahan. the officer was looking down at you, laughing at something you said. the chief did his best to ignore the way you flirting with callahan, and instead tried his best to focus on the coffee.

jim was one of those guys that did what he wanted to do. he was an alcoholic, a pill popper. fluttered with the responsibilites of being chief of police. no one called him jim, unless it was his friends. he liked the title, ‘chief’, especially when it rolled off your lips. you really did try to be as innocent as you could, but even jim knew that wasn’t the case. you flirted with him almost everyday, and of course jim would only respond with a nod in response. it was wrong to have any sort of feelings for you, so the thoughts that rummaged through his mind everyday about you were slammed in the back of his mind. that was until you decided to show up today in the sluttiest outfit you could have ever picked out.

“seriously, you look.. really good. i’m sure you have the eyes of every townfolk in here,” jim heard the voice of callahan say to you, the chief trying his best not to easedrop. but he couldn’t help it. it was you for god’s sake. “i mean.. even all the married men! ted is looking at you right now, trying to be happy with his wife.” you laughed at phil’s words, and you rolled your eyes. jim was practically sick to his stomach from the words being exchanged. one more thing, and he swore he was going to rip you out of callahan’s arms-

“you’re too cute, phil.” those were the words you spoke that caused jim to have a small little temper tantrum. jim then immediately stormed over and made his way over to the two of you, a small snicker escaping his throat.

“that’s it, (y/n). i need to see you in my office. right now.” jim spoke up, your eyes going wide at the words of the chief. he looked you up and down, and clearly aggrivated about something. you looked at him, too. he seemed stressed and tired, and maybe something in his mind had finally snapped about you. you finally got the chief’s attnetion.

“what- what did i even do, jim? i mean, uh.. chief.” you spoke back at jim who only rolled his eyes and made his way to his office. you looked back at callahan who sadly nodded at you, going back to his own drink. you let out a drastic sigh and slowly followed jim into his office. you walked in and he was sitting down on his desk, peering up at you with those angry hooded eyes he ever wore. but he was never this angry when he looked at you.

“shut the door,” jim spoke and you did what he asked before looking back at him. you swallowed past the lump in your throat, ready to get yelled at by your boss. “what made you think wearing that slutty outfit was okay?” jim asked you again, his arms crossed against his chest as he leaned back against the chair. you shook your head and laughed, looking back at him.

“there’s not a rule i can wear something sexy, is there?” you asked jim now, actually kind of upset. what gave him the right to tell you what you could wear? oh yea, he’s your boss. but you were right. there wasn’t a rule that said you couldn’t be a slut for christmas.

“there is. my station, my rules,” jim responded to your snappy response. he clearly wasn’t very happy to what he walked out to. “secondly, where the hell is your professionism? you’re flirting with your coworker. that is also not tolerated.” jim shook his head after he stated this, running his hand through his hair.

“i didn’t see that in the employee handbook,” you replied to jim about the rule your ever so loving chief demanded you. “secondly, i wasn’t flirting with callahan. he was flirting with me, and i thought it was adorable. so you can shove it, mr. chief of police.” you finally responded with rage, irritated about the sudden burst of rage coming from jim. it was unfair. he couldn’t tell you who you could or couldn’t flirt with. you were a young and attractive girl, able to flirt with whoever you wanted. especially when your crush that just scolded you wasn’t into you.

“where the fuck did i say you could backsass me?” jim finally spoke only before he stood up. he looked at you with one fell look, your eyes widening slowly. you still believe in everything you said, despite his small temper tantrum. but the way he towered over you, demanding you respect him, was turning you on. you couldn’t lie. this was your crush, and he could do anything he wanted to you and you would still think he was hot. maybe even hotter than before.

jim looked at you again. and this time, it was different. almost like he was trying desperately to not touch you. and that was exactly what he was doing. thoughts of the two of you being alone in his office. the way you wore that skimpy outfit. the way you looked innocent as ever, even with that stupid outfit. he didn’t realize until now, but he had it bad. bad for you, that was.

“well, jim, i don’t about you, but i’d like to get some more attention,” you spoke with a small smirk, hoping to rise more and more anger out of him. he seemed the type to bottle up his feelings until he snapped. especially when you just called him jim. that was a no no. “so enjoy your paperwork, i’m heading back.” you said one last time before you turned your back onto the chief, and jim at this point had enough. he was sick of hiding it. he wanted you for him, and him only.

jim had grabbed your arm before you got out of reach, turning you back to him. he then squeezed your cheeks together, bringing you closer to him. you looked up at him with wide eyes, and jim could only look back down at you with an angry cold stare.

“you’re not fucking going anywhere,” jim stated before he brought your lips to his, kissing you hard and rough. even though he was still behind his desk, he still was close enough to get to your lips in no time. your eyes widened at the sudden reaction. you did it. you had finally gotten the eyes you ever so wanted on you. and you alone. you finally relaxed into the kiss, you kissing him back just as rough. you needed him just as bad as he needed you. he then released the grip he had on you and made sure you looked at him in the eyes. “you want to be dressed like a slut? you get treated like one.” jim then smacked your face, it stinging pretty good but also felt good. it was weird. you flinched softly at the reaction of him slapping you.

jim had then managed to appear from behind his desk, his hand still cupped on your face. before you knew it, he was suddenly behind you, and bending you over his desk. he didn’t care about the god damn paperwork. he was going to punish you while making you his. his and his only.

jim had then managed to fold up your dress right past your ass, your cheeks on full display for him. you let out a surprised gasp at the sudden coldness.

“you really are a slut, aren’t you? no fucking panties. disgusting,” the chief spoke and you could only smirk at the response. jim then grabbed the back of your head and forced it down onto the desk, you struggling slightly. you weren’t expecting quite a reaction like this from him, but you didn’t mind. suddenly, you felt his hand on your bottom. the cold digits of his fingertips rubbing around the soft skin, before there was a ‘smack’. you flinched at the way it hurt, but it felt good. you felt yourself getting even more wet for your boss, and you enjoyed it. “count.” jim had then spoke, the way his voice carried with demand.

“o-one.” you whispered out, before there was another smack onto your bottom. “three!” you yelled out this time, much louder since that smack was much more painful than the last. this kept going until you reached the number 10. “t-ten!” you screamed out, and jim immediately cupped your mouth with his hand.

“shut your fucking mouth. wouldn’t want to get caught, now would we, slut?” jim asked with the same cold and angry stare he had wore before. suddenly, he made you get off the desk and force you onto your knees. “sluts get the ‘on your knees’ treatment. and if you’re good enough, you’ll get rewarded.” jim looked down at you are he unbuckled his uniform pants, letting them drop. he then let his boxers drop, looking down at you with his cock in his hand. he was average size, but it was quite thick. you swallowed past the lump in your throat at the sudden cock in your face.

suddenly, jim’s hips were now thrusting into your face, his cock deep inside your throat. you gagged slightly with the way it hit the back of your throat, your lips parting as wide as they can so he could fuck your face. you looked up at him as innocent as you possibly could. jim contonued to thrust into your mouth as fast as he could, his eyes darting down at you. you looked so fucking good, being so good for him. he couldn’t wait to make you his.

“f-fuck. you keep being good like this, i’m gonna cum way too fucking fast,” jim blurted out, and instantly stopped what he was doing. he looked down at you and held his cock deep inside your throat, watching as you gagged on him. he thrusted out of you, watching as your saliva was hanging off of his cock and off your delicious lips. he then made you stand up, your knees weak from how long you’ve been sitting on them. jim’s lips attacked yours, kissing you hard and passionate again. he then pulled away and made you bend over again. but this time, he was going to make you his. “you’re fucking mine. mine and only mine.”

jim then folded up your dress again, your ass on full display. he playfully rubbed your pussy, making you even more wet for the man above you. you moaned softly at the way his thick fingers played with your folds, a small chuckle escaping jim’s throat. that was probably the first time you heard such a laugh from the chief.

“you’re so desperate to get fucked, huh, slut? or are you that desperate to fuck your chief of police?” jim spoke lowly into your ear, your soft moans escaping your throat. clearly, it had always been him. you wanted nothing more than your chief to fill you up and make you his. you thrusted pathetically into his hand, needing more friction. jim then stopped and slapped your pussy, making you flinch from the way it felt. “nuh-uh. take my cock and i’ll see how good you are to cum.” jim spoke and finally, it came full circle. he spat onto his hand to create some lube and lifted his cock. he slowly thrusted into you, your walls grabbing his, making it a perfect and tight fit.

“oh, fuck- jim!” you moaned out. you then received an ass smack from jim, his tongue clicked against the roof of his tongue. clearly, that was not what he wanted to hear.

“what the fuck did you just call me?” jim hoarsely responded in your ear, grabbing your throat so your face could be closer to his. you flinched and he didn’t pull out or thrust into you. he just stopped everything he was doing alltogether.

“i-i mean~ chief. chief.” you responded back, and you felt his cock twitch inside you. bingo. he let out a relaxed sigh before keeping your face where it was, slowly thrusting up into you.

“that’s a good girl. taking my cock so good,” jim praised you, his thrusts going as slow as ever. for the first couple minutes, it felt good. it felt perfect. the man that you chased after for so long was finally keeping his eye on you, and now he wanted to make you his. before you knew it, he then started to get more excited. his thrusts turned slow and passionate to now faster. and then faster. and then it was at a rapid pace you felt like you were going to explode. “you’re mine. and i’m going to fucking make sure of it.” jim groaned in your ear. he was sweating all over, his palms digging into your ass as his face was rested into the crook of your neck. you felt your own orgasm piling into you, your pussy throbbing with a desire to release.

“ch-chief i’m gonna.. fuck, i’m gonna cum..” you moaned out, your palms gripped onto his desk. all that could be heard in the office was grunts and moans, and the squeakiness of the desk. skin slapping skin was also heard, and you don’t know if the people from the party could hear or not. and honestly you didn’t care. the reason you wore this stupid dress was for jim, and he finally noticed you. you weren’t going to stop because someone heard the two of you fucking.

“not yet, baby. fuck.. not yet. be a good girl and hold on for me.. for just.. one.. moment..” jim wanted the two of you to cum together, symbolizing that you really were going to be his. so you listened, and held off for as long as you could. after a few more minutes, jim was just now starting to realize he was about to cum. he wanted to cum inside you, but he couldn’t risk having a baby with you just yet. “fuck.. you on- you on the pill?” jim asked you, and you quickly nodded. you needed his seed deep inside you.

“yes- fucking.. yes, chief. please, please, cum inside me.. i need- i need you..” you moaned out, and jim was finally at ease. and instead, he didn’t want you calling him chief anymore.

“urgh-it’s jim. now fucking- be a good girl, and-and cum for me. cum on my fucking cock.” jim groaned in your ear, and just from that sentence alone, you came. you felt yourself tighten up and your whole body tensing up.

“fuck, fuck, jim- i-i’m cumming..” you moaned out, feeling the way you came on his cock. jim felt it too, and with that feeling, he felt himself release into you. his seed filled you up and his thrusts came to a slow, riding out both yours and his orgasms.

“holy.. shit..” jim whispered out after the two of you finally slowed down. his body plopped against yours out of exhaustion, and the two of you realized just how much you needed each other. jim was able to finally crawl off of you and pulled himself out you. his cum was spilling outside your pussy, and this he thought was the hottest thing ever. “i’m gonna.. clean you up and then.. you go back out there. with my cum rolling down your leg.” jim panted out before he pulled up his boxers and pants. he clasped the belt back on before finding some tissues on his desk. he then reached down and wiped off some of his cum that ended up rolling down your leg. you hummed softly at the way he cleaned your up, and the comment of his cum rolling down your leg at the party.

“thank.. you.” you whispered before slowly standing from the desk. you realized how weak your knees were just then, the feeling of you just wanting to go to bed was in the air. maybe you’ll just dip out. after all, you had gotten what you wanted.

[cafedanslanuit]

♡   —   pairing: bachira x reader

♡   —   tags/warnings: gn reader + no pronouns but reader does use makeup and a purse, pro football player!bachira, friends with benefits, suggestive because it's me, mutual pining, idiots in love, christmas in summer, fluff

♡   —   words: 1.7k

♡   —   a/n: meguru my beloved. im so obsessed with him rn please i want to kiss him so baaaaaaaaad

♡   —  masterlist

A kiss. His hands cupping your jaw. Another kiss. A chuckle. A small nip on your lower lip. Another laugh, and your fingers running through his hair. Moments like these are where Bachira finds his true bliss, windows open as the summer breeze sets the perfect stage for the only alone time you'll have tonight. Soon enough, Isagi would knock on the door and you'd have to return to your positions, an amicable distance between you too while you went over to Kunigami’s place, for your Secret Santa reunion.

A kiss. If he pays attention, he can listen to his friend's footsteps up the stairs of his building complex, a telltale sign your time together was coming to an end. He squeezes your waist and you let out a small laugh against his lips, making him kiss you again. Bachira isn't sure why you insist on creating a distance when Isagi is around— it's not like he doesn't know about your arrangement. What's the problem if he wants to give you a goodnight kiss in front of him? Or if he wants to have you sitting on his lap like he usually has you when you're all alone? Maybe hold your hand while you walk around town? Still, he respects your boundaries, but as his friend's steps echo down the hallway, he really wishes you'd reconsider.

A kiss. And another one. And one more. He playfully bites down on your lower lip and chuckles when you reciprocate the action. He's entranced by how you always manage to meet his energy halfway, and that may be one of the reasons why he ended up in this position with you in the first place.

Bachira presses your cheeks together with his thumb and index and pecks your puckered lips repeatedly. He does this even when the room is suddenly filled by the sound of his friend knocking on his apartment door, not wanting to let go.

"Isagi's here," you manage to say but Bachira is relentless. He lets your cheeks go only to continue his trail of small and quick kisses all over your face. "Meguru, c'mon," you giggle.

"He can wait," he tries to argue in between playful pecks. He can’t believe how fun it is to watch you laugh and wriggle underneath him, begging him to stop, even if your fingers are still looped around his messy locks.

"You’re such a bad friend," you tease him.

Bachira hums, playing along as he moves his hand to your chin, softly tilting your head from side to side. "You sure?” he asks. “Do bad friends do this?"

Before you can reply, he leans forward and slowly licks the side of your jaw to the spot where it meets your neck. You shudder, tightening the grip on his hair as he does so. Your body instinctively presses to his and you’re instantly rewarded by his hardening bulge poking against your thigh. A curse falls off your lips as you rock your hips against him. Bachira’s low chuckle against your ear shoots a bolt of pleasure straight between your legs and you sigh, picking up the pace of your hips.

Isagi knocks again.

“Shit,” you hiss, coming back down to reality. You gently push Bachira away to sit up on the couch. “Sorry, sorry, coming!” you call out, blindly fixing your hair before you have to meet him.

"Well, not anymore," Bachira mutters, making you laugh at his dejected voice. When you turn to him, you’re met with a childish pout and it takes even more of your resolve not to kiss it away. He stands up and stretches his arms up, his back popping in a way you wish yours would. "Can you get the door, please? 'm gonna take a quick shower before we leave."

When you hum, he leans down again and gives you a quick kiss, filled with the tenderness you were used to. You smile against his lips and watch him disappear inside his bedroom, quickly getting the main door to let Isagi inside.

Both of you are in the know of why you took so long to open and you appreciate he doesn’t tease you about it as he steps inside.

“Bachira’s taking a shower,” you inform him, before guiding him to the kitchen. You grab a water bottle from the fridge and toss it to him. “But you know him, give him ten and he’s ready.”

Isagi chuckles. “Yeah, he’s usually very fast at that.”

“Hope you don’t mind keeping me company while I fix my makeup,” you say, grabbing your purse from the kitchen aisle, right where Bachira had pulled you into his arms and guided you to his couch for your make-out session. You take the seat next to Isagi at the kitchen diner and start placing everything on the table so you could redo your eyeliner and, especially, your lips. “So, who did you get for Secret Santa?”

“Chigiri,” he replies, taking a long swig from his bottle. He takes a Christmas-themed envelope from his pocket and puts it on the table. “He wanted some hair products that I really couldn’t find, so I got him a gift card from that beauty store downtown. Thought it might be better.”

“Yeah, definitely,” you chuckle, popping your lips to smear your lipstick. “I love receiving gift cards, so much better than sticking with something that you really didn’t want.”

“Right? Hope he doesn’t take it the wrong way.”

“I hardly think so, I wouldn’t worry about that,” you shrug. Your eyeliner is doing mostly fine, so you just put a fine layer of setting powder over your cheeks.

“And who did you get?”

“Bachira," you grin mischievously, closing your pocket mirror and putting it back in your purse. With a dramatic twirl of your wrist, you point at the shoebox-sized package sitting on the dining table wrapped in pretty Christmas paper. “Got him a football table! It’s not like, uh— big or like the ones they have in bars,” you laugh. “But it does look cool. Thought he could set it up here, have you guys over and play together or something.”

Isagi raises one of his eyebrows. “That looks very small for a football table.”

“Ah, yeah, I mean, it’s a decoy gift,” you explained. “The box for the football table is way too big, so I left it at Kunigami’s a few days ago. Wanna see what’s in the box?”

“Sure.”

With quick steps, you brought the box back to the kitchen table and opened it for him. When he leans over, Isagi notices a black and yellow knitted bracelet and a Christmas card with a couple of snowmen on the front.

“I knitted it myself,” you mention with a proud smile on your face. “Made it really thin so he can wear it around his ankle during games. And, obviously, I had to give him a card with a cheesy pun.”

You hand it to Isagi and he takes a moment to read the speech bubble next to the snowmen, who are peeking through the living room window and watching a family eat dinner inside. “Oh my God, they’re eating noses!” one of them exclaims and Isagi scoffs, a small chuckle leaving his lips against his better judgement. It was corny, and he knew Bachira would adore it.

“Can I read it?” he asks. At your enthusiastic nod, he opens the card, directing his eyes to the handwritten note inside.

.

I'm truly lucky that my Secret Santa is you, who has made this year a lot better than I ever expected. You’re a beautiful person with an equally beautiful soul and I will forever be thankful that I get to call myself your friend. Every day I'm amazed at your incredible talent but, more than that, I'm in awe of the way you don't let yourself get discouraged, no matter how tough the problem you're facing. You have the ability to make any of my days brighter and better— even when I felt my world was crashing down, you always point to the bright side, and suddenly, my problems don't feel as bad anymore. You give me the courage to face my own trials and tribulations, and even if I falter, I know you'll always have my back.

I don't believe in destiny, but it's hard not to when everything seems so easy with you. Well, I guess it doesn't matter in the end. Let it be fate or chance, as long as it lets us stay together for the years to come. Merry Christmas, Meguru <3

.

Your excited grin disappears the moment Isagi’s lips turn into a fine line. He relaxes them immediately but by then it’s already too late.

“What?”

“Nothing,” he replies a bit too fast. He puts the card back inside the box and closes it. “The card is pretty funny, Bachira’s gonna—”

"Isagi," you insist. “What, is there something wrong with the card? Did it have a typo, or…?”

He shakes his head. “No, there’s nothing wrong with it.”

“Then what? There’s clearly something going on and—”

“Okay, fine, it’s just…” he can feel your eyes over him but he doesn’t think he can hold your gaze at the moment. “Like I said, nothing wrong with it,” he shrugs and scratches the back of his neck. “I just… I don't think that's how people talk about their friend with benefits, you know?"

Your expression falls at his words as the gears start turning inside your head, rapid and unforgiving, thoughts colliding against each other and combusting before leaving a resolution. In that moment, the door of Bachira’s bedroom opens and he appears, fresh out of the shower in the shirt and jeans he had shown you the day before during one of your video calls. You turn to him and notice the tiny particles of water still present on the end of his messy hair. His cheeks are rosy, as they always are after a shower and you can’t stop the smile that forms on your lips. He notices it and smiles back, his boyish grin lighting up the room in an instant. The moment he does so, your heart jumps out of your chest, an action quickly followed by a dreadly feeling.

Oh, fuck.

[blue-disco-lights]

One Year as a Beta!

@gallavich-fic-club said Sprinkle Some Joy on our writers this month, so I thought I'd compile all the incredible stories I've had the chance to help beta over the last year! It's been such a great experience and I've loved meeting and working with all of you!

✨ === ✨ Fics Below! ✨ === ✨

🌟 Miss_SnowWhitePink ~ @look-i-love-u

Puppy Love: People say nothing good happens after two a.m. Mickey's life experiences have told him that this rumour is very much true. At least till now - Enter a cute puppy which turns Mickey's life upside down and changes it for the better...

Sirens: Being an EMT during the holiday season is bad enough without having a TV crew watching his every step, so Ian hates everything about his superior`s new project. Including the members of the crew. At least till he sees the guy manning the huge camera as if it weighs nothing and isn't afraid to speak his mind...

🌟  IanGalagher ~ @ian-galagher

Africa: When Ian lands himself an internship with famous wildlife photographer Mickey Milkovich he can't believe his luck. Spending one month traveling through South Africa with his big hero is a dream come true. The two are off on a wild adventure but there's something mysterious about Mickey who seems to be holding more to his chest than just the tricks of the trade Ian had hoped to learn from him.

🌟 Pink_Ink ~ @palepinkgoat

The Ink is a Witness to This: six chapters about the stories tattoos can hold and hide.

🌟 tooschoolforcool95 ~ @too-schoolforcool

Ghosts of a South Side Christmas: After a fight on Christmas Eve, Mickey and Ian spend some time apart. Mickey gets a little hope and learns to be brave while Ian learns more about his crush.

🌟 sam_writes_fics ~ @sam-loves-seb

you make my dreams come true: post-canon: ian and mickey host their first thanksgiving

🌟 sweetbee78 ~ @sweetbee78

The Reunion: ... The ski resort that the reunion is held at looses power, Ian and Mickey are then sharing close quarters. Ian does tell him what had happened after high school; they agree to start over. Mickey finds out Ian was originally planning on hooking up with someone else...

Not So Secret Santa: Ian and Mickey are co-workers and are each other’s Secret Santa. Mickey is a manager at a financial company while Ian is a temp who was hired to work in the call centre.

🌟 NotAWriterButITry

What If?: What if Mickey was released from prison in season 7 instead of escaped? What if Ian found out because he got a call to the Milkovich house and Mickey turned out to be their patient? What if Ian has to choose between his new life with Trevor, or his old life with Mickey?

🌟 commonthugs ~ @stocious

lava java: He's being really unprofessional. Mickey might not even be gay. He might be hitting on a straight man through takeout cups.

🌟 MaySunshine ~ @honeyvanillin

Apple Tart and Salted Caramel: Stoneridge is a small but very picturesque town on the edge of the state. Surrounded by majestic mountains to the north, icy ocean waters to the west and impenetrable forests to the east, it is safely sheltered from tourists and GPS....

All Roads Lead to Rome: This story is about the breath of life with the berry aftertaste of Passito di Pantelleria wine, about the transience of time with lemon notes of magnolia blossoms, about the thrill of first kisses with the cool sweetness of creamy Gelato.

Lead the Way, Jedi: "Me?" the mechanic exhaled, mostly surprised that the Jedi had chosen to entrust him, a throwback from the filthy depths, with his droid buddy. "I'm sure you, proud droid dad, can handle it just fine. It's no big deal."

🌟 Itsuki59 ~ @shinygalaxyperson

Where is my Jell-O?: A conversation about the past makes our boys horny.

On His knees: Day 11 - “Open your mouth.” Ian definitely wants to try the glory hole. (Gallavich Kinktober 2022) Home at last: Day 29 - punishment X “Suck on my fingers and get them nice and wet for me"Ian wants to spend some quality time with his husband (Gallavich Kinktober 2022)

You are Mine: Usually, I don’t care about humans. I hunt them, bite them, kill them and throw them away in some sordid place. But not him. I don’t know what makes Mickey Milkovich so special.

🌟 roseapothecarys ~ @babygirlmickey

Designs on You: At twenty-four, Ian has just moved out of his family home to live on his own for the first time. Working as a paramedic, he’s finally happy, stable, and moving forward with his life. But first, there’s one last remnant of his past self that he needs to let go of: his accidental porn tattoo of his late mother. It’s nothing but a reminder of all the bad decisions he’s made. At his best friend Mandy’s behest, he makes an appointment with her brother who has just opened a tattoo shop nearby. Upon arriving for his consultation, he meets Mickey: intimidating, foul-mouthed, overall living up to the Milkovich name, yet somehow running a clean, professional, and legal business.

[sluttyten]

UNHOLY - Chapter Seven

full masterlist || UNHOLY chapter index

genre: supernatural au

characters: fem reader, yuta, ten, winwin, mark, others mentioned

tags: polyamory, smut, knotting, mentions of breeding, threesome, double penetration, angst

length: 18,094

<-previous || next–>

There aren’t truly seasons here in this place, you realize as time goes on. Days flicker by like nothing; time doesn’t truly pass here. The immutable twilight hour hangs forever over this city. But you do begin to notice the way the weather changes, shifting to a minor degree, growing cooler as you dive into the time that would be the true start of winter if you were at home. 

Both Yuta and Ten are more than happy to spend those cool days in bed with you or wandering the city and treating you to warm drinks and hot meals. 

The noticeable shift in the weather does make you long for late autumn and early winter at home. Those early mornings when the world would be covered in frost, each blade of grass shimmering in the rising sunlight, your breath clouding in front of your face as you walked to work. You miss the first good, solid freeze of the year when the ponds would freeze completely and packs of kids would gather around the ponds to skate on their smooth surfaces. 

You find yourself missing Christmas music and decorations, the excitement of the season, the snowfall and celebration of it all. 

Yuta wrinkles his nose a little when you mention it to him one day. 

You’re sitting out on your small balcony together. You’re drinking a hot tea, cupping the mug in your hands and using just a little bit of your flame to keep it from cooling down in the sharp, bitter wind that licks against your balcony. Yuta sits behind you, limbs wrapped around you, his chin tucked over your shoulder. 

“What is there to celebrate about winter?” He asks. “It’s cold, dark, everything dies. Why would humans want to celebrate?”

“It’s a religion thing, mostly.” You sigh, the steam coming off the top of your mug blows out towards the city. Beneath you, it doesn’t look like winter, and you sink into memories of proper winter. “It’s so lovely this time of year back at home. All the snow and the Christmas lights, the smell of pine trees and peppermint. All the stores are packed this time of year, and toy stores go a little overboard, to an almost fantastic degree. I remember when I was a kid, there was one year the big toy store in town had a gorgeous dollhouse on display that I wanted more than anything else, and any time I misbehaved even slightly my dad would threaten to tell Santa.”

“Santa?” Yuta asks, lowering his mouth to your shoulder, skin so warm where his cheek touches your neck. “Who is that?”

“A magical myth. He watches all the children of the world,” you explain, “And he brings presents to the good kids and punishes the bad.” 

Yuta makes a strange noise, lifting his head again. “So parents tell kids that there are men watching over you? Policing your behavior?”

“Just the one man. Well, Santa has his little elf helpers as well as mall Santas and parents to spy on kids. But it’s all fake. He’s not real, and he’s probably an allegory for God or something. Parents, family, kind-hearted neighbors are really the ones the presents come from.” 

Still, when you twist away from Yuta to look at him over your shoulder, his eyebrows are furrowed a little. 

“What?” You laugh, lifting a hand to smooth the lines between his eyebrows. Yuta just shakes his head and takes your hand in his, bringing it to his lips. “Are you trying to figure out if you’d be on the naughty or nice list?”

At that, Yuta cracks a smile. “Well that depends, my love. Which list would land me with you as my gift?”

You shriek with laughter as Yuta leans in to attack your throat with kisses, wrapping his arms around your waist to draw your back against his chest again. 

Your hand drops to the side, your mug of warm tea falling and cracking, spilling across the balcony floor, completely forgotten as Yuta peels the edges of your fluffy robe away, unwrapping you like his present. He takes his time in kissing your shoulders and your back as every new inch of skin is exposed. The robe slips from your shoulders and down your arms, the chill of the breezy day is irrelevant when all you can feel is Yuta’s lips and his hands as he spreads your legs to brush his fingers between your thighs, all gentle and teasing. 

A shiver runs down your spine that has nothing to do with the chill but rather with the way that Yuta’s tongue darts out to trace the shell of your ear, the way his teeth graze your ear lobe. And then there’s his voice as he sinks his touch into your heated core. “I think you’ve landed on the naughty list, if we’re being honest,” Yuta says, his voice low, and he continues, “For numerous reasons. Letting me do this right now. For being here in this city. Mostly for the relationship you have with Ten and I, letting your base urges overwhelm you with lust.”

You can’t argue with that. All you can do is melt into his touch, moaning softly as he thumbs at your clit and slowly strokes two of his fingers inside you.

The robe pools around your waist and Yuta’s lap, leaving your chest fully bared to the hazy orange glow of Hell City. 

Never, in your old life, would you have done something like this. Out in the open where anyone in a building across from you could look up or down or directly over and see you like this. But Yuta and Ten have both brought out the side of you that never would have seen the light of day in your old life.

Because never once, when you were still a good Church-going girl, had you ever sat on a balcony getting fingered to orgasm by your partner. Never had you felt the cool lick of wind on your skin while feeling the hot press of a mouth to your throat, fingers sticky with your cum sliding over your belly and up to your tits. Never had you slid off your partner’s lap and knelt naked on the floor of a balcony between his spread legs while he looked down at you in a way that could be described as nothing less than devilishly handsome.

Yuta’s fingers, still damp with your wetness, nudge beneath your chin. His thumb drags at your bottom lip. “Gonna suck me off, pretty girl?”

You don’t nod or answer in any way other than to reach for the zip of Yuta’s pants. He only smiles, eyes burning with satisfaction as you pull his cock out into the daylight. Yuta relaxes back into the chair, watching you as you start working your hand over his length. You know he’s watching, but you’re not looking at his face; you’re too busy focusing on how quickly his cock is filling out in your hand, how the pink tip is already weeping a shiny droplet. And when you can’t take it any longer, you finally lean in and place a kiss to the tip, swiping your tongue along the slit of his cock.

Yuta hums, pleased, his fingers knotting through your hair as you part your lips and take him in. 

Losing yourself in the taste of Yuta is always easy. The way that he curls his hands in your hair, the sounds he makes low in his throat, the eager way that Yuta can’t quite keep still and succumbs to the urge to buck his hips off the seat to drive deeper into your throat.  You like the way his hips twitch when you kiss down the length of his cock and suck a mark on his inner thigh, or when his hands tug a little too hard at your hair because you’ve just swallowed his cock all the way to the base. 

“Oh, my love,” Yuta groans. He traces a thumb around your lips where they’re stretched around his cock. “You’re so pretty like this, just a sweet girl sucking me off. Gonna make me cum too soon, if you’re not careful, and then what satisfaction will you get from all this, hmm?”

You don’t want that. Not right now. Where’s the fun in just letting Yuta cum? You want to feel him inside you, out here in the open on the balcony. 

As you pull yourself up and clamber into his lap, Yuta snickers, his nose crinkling up and he wraps his arms around you. 

“Needy baby,” he teases.

“You’re needy,” you retort, but your hands are already stroking his cock, you’re already adjusting yourself into his lap to make it easier for you to just sit right on his cock. You slowly sink down, and Yuta’s head rolls back, a lazy grin spreading on his lips as he feels you wet and soft around him. His hands settle on your hips, urging you to move. You press your fingertips against his chest. “See? Needy. Needy for my pussy, Yuta?”

He laughs. “Always.”

Yuta lets you be on top a lot of the time when you’re with him. You think he must just like seeing you at this angle, or maybe it’s that he likes how blissed out you get on taking it at your own pace. Or it could very well be that he just likes how your tits move or feel pressed against his chest when you ride him. Either way, he drags your mouth to his now, content to let you ride him at your own pace.

You’re desperate enough for it that you're moving pretty quickly, bouncing in his lap with your nails clawing at Yuta’s shoulders. His hands slide from your hips up your sides, one rests against your belly, applying a little pressure, and his thumb extends down to leave light, teasing circles on your clit. 

“Fuck,” Yuta moans against your lips. “You’re lucky that demon seed takes hold so rarely, with how much Ten and I fuck you, your belly should be swollen by now.” His hand presses a little more intently on your belly. 

An unintentional whimper falls from your lips at the thought. It’s like the night you first met WinWin, and Yuta had mentioned werewolves almost always knocking up their partners. In the moment, you’d found that a turn on even though pregnancy was absolutely not something you were necessarily planning on experiencing any time soon. And again, now, as Yuta mentions you with a swollen belly, carrying a demon brood in your womb, you find your pulse quickening, and a new wave of arousal takes over. 

“You like that?” Yuta pulls back, and his hand that isn’t against your belly drifts to your chest just long enough to tweak a nipple before his hand is curling at the base of your throat. Loosely at first, but when you slowly open your eyes to meet his gaze, Yuta’s grip squeezes slightly. Another curl of lust in the ever-tightening knot of your arousal. Your heart pounds. 

This shouldn’t be something you like this much. But you can’t deny that as Yuta begins to lightly choke you and rub circles on your clit while he talks to you about how fucking pretty you’d look with your belly swollen from he and Ten, you start to fuck yourself on his cock a little more desperately. Just the idea of it is so incredibly hot to you for some inexplicable reason. 

His hand curls a little tighter and you lean into it, your hips moving in circles and rocking forward against the sweet friction of Yuta’s thumb on your clit. 

“You’re definitely on the naughty list,” Yuta says, pulling your face closer to his by his grip on your neck. His lips meet your ear, voice jaunty as he says, “Gonna cum for me, pretty girl? Cum for me and maybe I’ll just lean you back against that railing there, lift you up so I can clean you up. Or maybe I should let you ride my face,” Yuta says, his hand leaving your throat to snap against your ass. “Bet you’d fucking love that wouldn’t you? Getting to ride my face while I eat you out, licking up all that cum I put in you?” 

You moan, your eyes rolling back as you feel your orgasm so close, nearly within reach. 

“Next time I share you with Ten,” Yuta says, “I’m gonna sit you on my face and not let you up until you’ve made Ten cum across your perfect lips while you ride my tongue, how’s that sound?”

All you can do is moan and fight the urge to immediately burst into flame.

You’re so fucking close. Your belly is tight, your hips slipping out of rhythm. Your orgasm is just there, right there with your flames itching just barely contained beneath your skin. 

“Hello?” A voice suddenly breaks through the pleasure, the sound carrying out through the open doorway of the balcony. 

“Shit!” You moan, immediately trying to push yourself free of Yuta’s lap, but he’s holding tight. 

You’re only capable of bending down and dragging your robe up from the ground, only just able to pull it back up over you. You manage to cover yourself up just in time to hear footsteps approaching the balcony door.

 Yuta laughs, pressing his lips to your shoulder, but still not letting you up. 

WinWin appears, peering out the open balcony door, looking first out at the view, and then he spots you sitting to the left of the door. You thank… someone out there (God, maybe?) that the curtains were still mostly drawn over the window, so WinWin hadn’t been able to see the two of you until just now. 

“Oh, hey,” he says, offering up a loose, easy grin.

You’re brutally aware of Yuta’s cock inside you. The way you’re sitting isn’t exactly super obvious as to say you’re doing, and especially with the robe covering you up, there’s no way that WinWin can tell. But when you notice his nostrils flare and his gaze narrows slightly, you almost wonder if he somehow does know. 

Your pussy pulses anew with that thought. 

You drop your head forward against Yuta’s shoulder on the side away from WinWin. The werewolf can’t see the way that you bite down on Yuta's shoulder. As you pray that if he notices the way that you rock your hips, he doesn’t think too much of it. 

“Uh, didn’t we have plans today?” WinWin asks. 

Shit, that’s right. You forgot you and WinWin were going to a shop a witchy friend of his had mentioned when you were introduced. 

You sit up, biting your lip now as you look over at WinWin. “I forgot,” you gasp, and you wonder if you look at all feverish, if the heat in your belly is showing outwardly. The struggle to not openly rock yourself on Yuta’s cock is serious right then. You don’t care that WinWin is looking right at you. You don’t care, not really, but at the same time the thought turns you on more than ever. 

WinWin blinks at you, glancing briefly at Yuta. “If you forgot, we can reschedule. Or I could, uh, come back later.”

“No, don’t go!” You involuntarily (to some degree) slip up and roll your hips. Yuta, unhelpfully, still has his thumb on your clit, like a little happy button that makes your insides go a little too fuzzy and your mind all melty.

Yuta’s eyes flash curiously, watching you closely. As if he expects to see you cum for him right then, but you manage to get yourself under control again. Without looking away from you, Yuta addresses the werewolf in the room, “Yeah, stay, WinWin. We’ll be there in a second.”

You know that you’ve got a careful hold on your flames, but still, you feel like you’re burning up right now. As soon as WinWin walks back inside, closing the balcony door hard enough that the whole wall of windows rattles, you move to quickly climb off of Yuta’s lap, but his hands on your hips beneath the robe hold a little tighter, keeping you right where you are, still seated on his cock.

Yuta cocks his head to the side a little. There’s something animalistic in his gaze. “Was it being caught that you liked?” He pinches your clit between his fingers. “Or the one that caught us?”

Not that you have the ability to answer in that second. 

Your world explodes in a fantastic burst of colors. A supernova of feelings and fire that flickers around you and off your skin. Your orgasm sears through you, and Yuta urges it on with that finger on your clit and his arm suddenly tight around your waist that he uses to keep you moving on his cock. 

You’re still mid-orgasm when Yuta follows. He drags your mouth to his, kissing you passionately through the intense throes of ecstasy. 

You long to bask in the afterglow — almost literally, your flames take a little bit to die down — but you know WinWin is waiting. Still. You allow yourself a moment, getting your flames back under control, and you tuck your face into the warm curve between Yuta’s neck and shoulder. 

“So,” Yuta says quietly. “It was the fact that WinWin caught us, right?”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” you mumble, refusing to lift your face from the crook of his neck. 

“I think we definitely should.” Yuta combs his fingers through your hair. “After what just happened, and after how into that roleplay we did—“

You lift your head to glare at him. “We don’t talk about that.”

“No, but maybe we should.” 

He could be right. But right now? When the man in question is waiting for you inside the apartment, only a few feet away. 

“Later,” Yuta says, and he dips in to kiss the corner of your mouth. “Not right now, my love, but later.”

You nod. Later you can talk about it, but for now you have to do a miniature walk of shame through your apartment to the bathroom.

Days later find you gathered in the apartment with your two demons and the other two members of your group. The orange haze of Hell City’s sky has taken on a gray, somewhat faded quality today in addition to the growing chill in the air. But inside the apartment, you’ve manifested a warm, festive atmosphere.

Christmas in Hell City.

Yuta begrudgingly helps you hang Christmas lights around the apartment. Ten delights in helping you hang ornaments on a Christmas tree. Both of them had been surprised when you climbed out of bed earlier and began manifesting a whole variety of Christmas items, declaring that Mark and WinWin were coming over this evening and you were celebrating Christmas all together like a little family. You do your best to recreate the Christmassy festive atmosphere that you remember from childhood, complete with unmelting snow that you manifest to cover your balcony. 

“Snow?” Ten asks when he sees it appearing in fluffy white mounds outside the windows. “You’re manifesting snow right now?”

Yuta folds his arms across his chest, stepping down from the ladder he’d been on to hang the lights around the room. He steps up beside Ten to look out at the snow too. You wonder if this city ever sees weather like this. If there’s ever rain or snow or sleet or ice, incredibly windy days, or hot days of summer when the heat just sits as thick and humid. Judging by the way both of them are looking out at the snow, you think they probably don’t get to see much of the weather.

“For me, Christmas needs snow.” You go back to hanging ornaments on the tree. “And besides, when I was talking to Mark about Christmas, he told me he wants to build a snowman. We have to have snow for that.”

Mark had seemed excited to celebrate Christmas when you first brought it up to him the previous day. 

Recently, you’d been spending more time with him, trying to avoid both of the demons and the conversation that they clearly wanted to have that you absolutely did not want to have right now. At some point after WinWin walked out onto the balcony while you and Yuta were having sex, Yuta had talked to Ten, telling him about the way you’d reacted. You hadn’t taken part in that conversation, but it was very obvious to you that it had happened. You didn’t want to know how it had gone. 

You’d decided that even though WinWin had admitted his feelings to you, you were happy with your present situation. Two partners was already enough for you. On top of that, Ten was incredibly jealous, and Yuta was also known to display jealousies from time to time. So no matter how that conversation between them went, you didn’t care what the result was. Yes, you still found WinWin attractive, and, yes, there were still snippets of dreams featuring him. But you weren’t going to act on it, so it didn’t matter what they thought. Still, you didn’t want to have that talk. 

Mark had been plenty happy to accept your company. Hanging out with him meant that you were there for boring coven meetings, but also for more interesting things like hanging out with the other vampires in his coven or when you’d gone up to the brunch spot that Mark ran – Heaven’s Nest – and gotten drunk together. That’s when the invitation to Christmas had come spilling out, the idea born up there among the hazy clouds of Hell City between Bloody Sunrises and unbloody mimosas. 

“Maybe he should be here helping set up,” Yuta says, turning away from the snow. “Or he can clean up. When is he going to be here?” He eyes all the lights and other decorations you’ve put up over the last few hours. 

“And when is WinWin coming over?” Ten asks, his voice suddenly stilted, not looking at you. 

You hang the last ornament on the tree, and with a meager amount of concentration, you manifest fully wrapped presents beneath the tree for each of them. “Soon. They should both be here soon. I promised dinner, so we should probably start working on that too.” 

You’ve done your best to keep both of them preoccupied, too busy to even attempt to broach the subject of your obvious physical reaction to WinWin catching you with Yuta. But as you attempt to walk by Yuta to reach the kitchen, his hand shoots out, taking your arm. His touch is gentle, but still you stop and turn to look at him.

“Dinner can just be manifested. You don’t have to actually cook.” His gaze drops briefly to your lips, and you watch the way that Yuta’s throat bobs. “Then we can talk before they show up. All three of us need to talk.”

You pull away from Yuta. “I don’t think we really do need to talk.”

Ten sighs from somewhere behind you. “Don’t be difficult, darling.”

“Can’t you tell that I really don’t want to talk about whatever.” You hurry over to the kitchen, but both of the demons possess a speed that you don’t, and they both somehow beat you there. Ten wraps you in the cage of his arms, a cheeky smile appearing when you hiss a curse at him, but he only holds you tighter. “Let me go.”

“No, I don’t think I will.” Ten’s fingers curl around your wrists, pinning them both to your lower back. “See, when I’ve got you like this, you’re not going anywhere. You have to listen to us talk.” Yuta stands shoulder-to-shoulder with Ten, and you hate the presented front of solidarity and determination to have this conversation.

Fate, it seems, is on your side.

There’s a knock on the door of the apartment, and a moment later, it opens to allow in Mark and WinWin together. Both the vampire and the werewolf stare unblinking at the position you’re in. Yuta steps away, but Ten doesn’t let go, he doesn’t look away from you. 

He holds your gaze, and in a low voice that borders on sexy and threatening, he says, “Either you can vow that we’ll talk later after they’re gone, or we can have this conversation right now with both of them listening. And I don’t think you want that, do you?”

You squirm. There’s no way out of this. “I promise we’ll talk later after they leave.”

Ten smiles and says, “Perfect.”

As soon as he loosens his arms from around you, Ten gently brings your arms around front, and he lifts your wrists to his lips. “Look, I’m sorry about that.” His lips are warm and tender on your wrists that still feel his fingers like shackles around them. “But I think it’s important, and you avoiding it isn’t going to make the need to talk go away.”

“I know.” Because, as much as you don’t want to talk, you know that it’s important. You need to make it clear to both of them that you don’t have any intention of allowing anything to happen with WinWin. You need to give them the chance to communicate to you what they think about it. 

You lean in, looping your arms over Ten’s shoulders, pecking him quickly on the lips. “Let’s get to Christmas.”

Mark and WinWin ignore the odd mood they walked into. 

Mark brought presents, and he adds those to the ones you’ve got beneath the tree already. WinWin didn’t realize presents were a thing to be brought to Christmas, which begins a conversation about how neither he nor the demons have any experience with Christmas. But you and Mark, who lived human lives in the human world before coming here, had that experience. 

You all sit around the table first, enjoying the quickly manifested dinner. After that is you and Mark getting everyone out onto the small balcony to make snowmen, which just turns into a snowball fight when Ten lobs a densely packed snowball right at WinWin’s face. 

For a brief moment you think you’re about to witness WinWin transform for the first time, based on the pure look of annoyance he sends Ten, but Ten is shooting daggers right back at him. 

Unfortunately for WinWin, he doesn’t know why Ten is glaring at him so harshly. You hope he doesn’t notice that throughout the rest of the Christmas celebration, Ten and Yuta both watch him closely, particularly any time that he’s looking at or talking with you. 

You think both Ten and Yuta are about to burst out of their skins or explode into flame when WinWin pulls you in for a hug after he opens the gift from you. But WinWin probably notices because he holds onto you a little bit longer than actually necessary, and after you pull away, he does wink at you and tell you he’ll give you a present another time. 

Mark is potentially oblivious to all of that going on, just happy to be celebrating and spending time with all four of you. He’s excited to have you all open presents from him, which he proudly declares, “I bought them myself. They’re not just, like, manifested. Not that there’s anything wrong with that! But open them!”

You play games together, you eat some more. Mark bursts out into Christmas carols after a while. You turn on Christmas movies to play in the background, and all five of you just sit around and talk for a long time until Mark suddenly remembers his obligation to get to one of his coven’s ventures underground. WinWin makes an excuse to leave too, though you suspect it's just that he doesn’t want to be alone with you, Yuta, and Ten.

But once he’s gone, now it’s your turn to face them.

You still really don’t want to talk about it.

For a little while at least, the subject remains avoided.

The three of you clean up the mess of dinner and of unwrapping presents and the last remnants of the unmelting snow that had been tracked inside. Then the curtains are drawn over the balcony to make it darker inside the room, left illuminated at this point only by the TV which is stuck playing the menu screen of an old Christmas movie DVD. Ten sits down on one end of the sofa, Yuta takes the other end, and after a moment of dithering, you settle down in between them.

Ten fidgets with the remote for a moment. Switching through the different options on the DVD menu, changing the language of the movie’s audio. He skips through the different scenes, finally settling on one a quarter of the way into the movie, selecting it to start playing from there. The only thing is that the volume is so quiet, you can barely hear it and he put it in a language that you don’t know.

Yuta clears his throat.

“So are we going to talk about it now?” 

Ten straightens up in his seat and turns sideways, drawing his feet onto the cushion and his knees up to his chest. “Yes. Let’s talk about how you want WinWin to fuck you.”

“Oh my God,” you groan, dropping your face into your hands. “I would like to point out that I haven’t said that.”

“But you haven’t not said it,” Ten argues back. 

“Do I have to tell you every person that I don’t want to fuck Ten?” You fold your arms across your chest to stare at him. “Because we’ll be here for a very, very long time if that’s the case.”

Ten rolls his eyes, and you look over at Yuta who just sighs. “Ten, you said you were going to be mature and open-minded about this conversation. Remember?” After a moment with no response, Yuta prods again, “Remember?”

“Yeah.” Ten grunts. “I remember.”

“My love,” Yuta says as he takes your hand. “How do you feel?”

You squirm, uncomfortable. Emotions aren’t really all that big of a subject of conversation between the three of you. Especially not with both of them only focusing on you and your answer. Yuta continues to hold your hand, and Ten stretches one of his feet over the few inches between you and him to just have the small point of contact where his toes curl against the side of your leg. 

“I’m not a cheater,” are the first words you manage after a few quiet moments. “I’m, like, attracted to him, but the same is true with Mark, if we’re being honest. WinWin, Mark, Hansol from back home.” Ten all but growls, and when you look at him his eyes are narrowed yellow cat eyes. You continue regardless, “There are a lot of people I think are attractive in this place; you’ve all got this supernatural beauty that makes you very attractive. But I don’t feel the same about any of them as I do with you two. So I don’t get why you’re so jealous about it, Ten, or why you think we need to talk about it so much, Yuta. I’m only doing this with you two, which already is a stretch from normal for me. But being with you two together has been this way from the start, sharing everything between you two. I’m not just going to bring someone else into this, especially not someone that you clearly don’t like, Ten.”

“It’s not that I don’t like him,” Trn quickly clarifies. “WinWin is nice. He’s good. But he’s been trying to fuck you since you first met him, and he’s a werewolf.”

“And you’re a demon! Get over your prejudices, dumb ass.” You push off the sofa, standing and turning to look at the two of them. Yuta watches you calmly, curious. Ten’s eyes are hot, his jaw clenched. “I don’t care that he’s a werewolf. I don’t care that you two are demons or that Mark’s a vampire or that anyone I’ve met here in Hell City is something that a few short months ago I never would have believed existed. I got over all of my deeply ingrained prejudices, so when will you?

“And, about how he’s wanted to fuck me from the start? I will admit to you that I’ve thought about him many times since the night I first met him. When I was back in my hometown, all I did was dream about the two of you, him, and even Mark.” You’ll admit that now, in the sake of full honesty. “I dreamed of having sex with all of you, and even when I was fucking Hansol —“ Now both of them bare their teeth in disgusted anger. “—Even then I thought of the four of you. I can’t help who I’m attracted to. I can’t help it that when he walked out there and caught me and Yuta together, I found it hot. But I’m not just going to go fuck WinWin behind your back, so stop being a jealous dick about it!” 

“Where are you going?” Ten calls from the sofa. 

“Out!” Shoes manifest right onto your feet, a jacket onto your shoulders. The apartment door slams shut behind you   

You’re at the lift, jamming your finger against the button when you hear the door open and close behind you. And then Yuta’s soft, careful voice. “Can I come with you?”

“No. I want to be alone.” You jab your finger against the button and hold it there, as if that’s going to make the rickety lift rise any faster. You can hear its rattles echoing up through the floors beneath you now. “Just let me be alone, Yuta. Please.”

“You know I don’t mind, right?” He says to fill the silence while he waits with you. “About WinWin? Like, the roleplay, which, I know, we don’t talk about, but let’s just pretend for a moment that we do talk about it.” You glance sidelong at him, and he cracks a grin. “I’m open to anything. I’ve shared you with Ten, I’ve fucked you while wearing the look of a different man. Pretty girl, you’re the best thing that’s happened to Ten and I in a long time. I’m not going to let something little like this mess that up. But Ten, he’s scared, not that he’ll let you see it. Scared that you’ll disappear, so he holds on tighter, scared to let you go for fear that you won’t come back.” 

As the lift finally comes rattling and shaking to a stop in front of you, you look over at Yuta. “Well, he can’t hold on too tightly. I’ll suffocate.”

Yuta nods. “I know.”

“Talk to him.” You say as you step inside and reach for the sliding gate. “I feel like he’ll listen to you if you just explain to him that I’m here for both of you. I came here with you and because of you, I stayed for you when WinWin made me want to leave, and the intensity of my feelings for just you and him are what scared me away. But I came back for him, for you. I only wanted you two, and I made him promise when we were waiting for you to come back and save the day that he wouldn’t leave me alone. Does he think I’ve said anything like that to WinWin or anyone else? I’m here for you two. I love you two.”

The words feel electric on your tongue. Your heart beats double time. You’ve never said that before. Those three words. Not to Ten, not to Yuta. And you can see from the slowly growing smile and the light in his eyes, that Yuta is surprised and excited to hear them from you. 

Before anything more can be said, the lift is moving, dropping you a lot faster than it had risen. But when you look up, you can see through the ceiling of this contraption Yuta leaning out into the shaft, watching you go. 

You love them. 

Both of them. 

Once you’re out in the street you’re not entirely sure where to go. You don’t want to go to the underground. You’re not feeling particularly social at the moment. You just needed to be away from all that going on up there. 

If you look up at your building, if you squint and look really hard, you think you can see which balcony is yours. You can see the fake snow piled on it, and even a few large icicles dripping over the edge of it. Maybe it’s wishful thinking or delusion, but you might even see Ten up there leaning against the railing to look down. 

You walk away. Not toward the city center, and not toward the entrance to the underground city. You wander wherever your feet take you. 

You haven’t wandered the streets of Hell City alone very often. Only on a few rare occasions, usually when you were meeting either of the demons or Mark or WinWin somewhere else. But right now, there’s no destination, there’s no one waiting for you anywhere except right back there in the apartment. 

You sigh. 

You love Ten. So much that it makes your heart ache. But he can be so… annoying, for lack of a better word. His jealousy when all you’ve done is shown him and Yuta affection and love. When you’ve opened yourself up with him and drawn a bond between you that you’ve never had with anyone else, not even Yuta, if you’re being honest. How can he not see it?

You hope Yuta’s talking to him, trying to help him see the light of reason. 

As you walk down the streets, passing storefronts and restaurants, passing clusters of supernatural creatures who choose to spend their time above ground rather than below, you just think. You barely register your surroundings, which leads to you nearly trampling over a young Nagi that slithers across your path. 

After a little while though you finally come to a quiet square in the northern part of the city. It reminds you of the section of your hometown that’s been around since the 1800s with narrow cobbled streets and gas lamps. The fog that has settled over this part of the city helps give it a timeless kind of vibe, muting even the usual orange out of the sky. A fountain sits in the middle of the square, crowned by a statue swathed in the dense fog. 

You wander toward the fountain, looking around at this quiet little pocket of the city. The buildings lining the square look old too, and light glows through their square windows. One door opens and shuts, letting out a beam of light that gets muddled through the fog. You sit on the edge of the fountain, and you just breathe, feeling a knot loosen in your chest. 

The fountain trickles and tinkles behind you, small ripples moving across the dark surface of the pool at its base. You trail your fingers across the surface, catching a glimpse of coins sparkling on the bottom. A wishing fountain. 

“I wish that we could all just get along,” you murmur. But you don’t have a coin on you to drop in, and you’ve never believed in wishing fountains anyway. Even now they don’t seem plausible. 

Footsteps echo across the foggy square, and you lift your head to look around. Someone carrying a lantern passes at the far end of the square, slipping back through the door someone had exited through earlier. 

You feel a sudden chill. 

This square is very quiet. The fog gives it an ominous feeling. And the fountain water, you suddenly realize, is bitterly cold and strange, freezing your fingertips and almost sucking at them, magnetically drawing you to sink the rest of your hand in. 

You stand, shaking your hand and then attempting to dry it on your coat. 

You no longer want to be by yourself. 

Pacing back through the streets, you hope you can find your way home. You’ve never been on these streets this far north by yourself before, and they’re winding and narrow, getting you all turned around, and the fog doesn’t help. It blocks the view of the tall buildings closer to downtown, making it even more difficult to navigate. 

And maybe it’s the fog, maybe it’s the way that you’ve never seen Hell City in such a dim, blurry way, but there’s a lurch of panic in your belly. A sense of urgency to get back home to your apartment. The oddest feeling like you’re being watched. 

The logical, unpanicked side of you tells you that it’s probably Yuta. He probably disregarded your request to leave you alone, and he’s probably been following you to keep an eye on you. Or you could just be imagining the feeling of eyes on you, the sense that there’s someone prowling through the fog behind you. 

You’re not running, but your heart is racing and you’re walking more quickly than normal. 

The winding streets finally spit you out onto a main street, wide and open, populated. There is still a gray fog hovering over the street, but you disregard it as you hurry along the sidewalk, brushing by a variety of Hell City’s citizens. There’s still the lingering feeling of being watched, and it grows more intense to the point where your breath is coming fast and your spine feels stiff, panic knotting your muscles and making your mind swirl as you look for the offshoring street that will lead you back to your apartment. 

In your semi-blind panic, you run headlong into someone. 

“I’m so sorry!” You apologize, turning quickly to look behind you. 

There are plenty of people milling along the sidewalk. None look particularly like they’re watching or following you. No one looks suspicious at all really. 

“Are you okay?” 

There’s a hand on your shoulder, a familiar voice ringing in your ears. 

WinWin. 

You twist around to face him. 

“Where were you running to?” WinWin asks, glancing behind you too. “Or what were you running away from? Are you hurt?”

There’s a damp spot on the front of his shirt, and when WinWin lifts his hand from your shoulder to your cheek, you realize you’ve been crying. 

You take a step back, wiping at your cheeks. 

“Where are Ten and Yuta?” WinWin asks, and he reaches again for you, but he draws his hand back when you lean away. “Did something happen?”

“We argued a little bit after you and Mark left. I wanted to get out of the apartment, so I was wandering around. I just… got a little lost and freaked myself out a bit.” You suck in a deep breath, trying to steady the shaky beating of your heart. “Thought someone was following me.”

WinWin’s eyes narrow, nostrils flaring, and he lifts his gaze from your face to scan the city street behind you. “I can walk you home. Would that be okay?” 

You want to say yes and you want to say no. Yes, it would make you feel better. No, because imagine if after fighting with Ten about WinWin, you show back up at the apartment accompanied or at least smelling like WinWin. That will solve nothing. Plus, a slightly paranoid voice in the back of your mind whispers how strange it is that you bumped into WinWin like this, that he appeared right as you felt the intensity of being watched was at its highest. Maybe it’s nothing. Probably it’s nothing, just a coincidence, but you shouldn’t be around him right now anyway. 

“No.” You shake your head, taking a wide step around WinWin. “I know the way from here.”

He sighs, a little defeated, then says, “Plus, Ten would be jealous, right?” 

You freeze. 

“I’m not blind. I know he’s jealous. I saw the way he was with me all day. Yuta’s only slightly better. Did you tell them how I feel about you?” He asks, and he keeps that distance of a couple feet between you, which you’re grateful for. “Is that why I suddenly feel like I’m getting the cold shoulder? I’m not, like, gonna make a move on you, if that’s what you or they are worried about. I respect them. I respect you. I’m not just a fucking dog.” He runs a hand down the side of his face, then looks around the street. “I know you’re with them, and I don’t want to do anything to jeopardize your relationship or your happiness with them.”

“I’ll make sure they know that,” you say softly. “I’ll see you around, WinWin. But I’d better get home.”

“Be safe.”

Five minutes later, you’re riding the lift up through your building. The lingering feeling of being watched had continued up until you reached your building, and you settle on the idea that it’s a combination of paranoia brought on by the fog and of WinWin probably kindly trailing you to make sure you made it home safely. 

Yuta and Ten are still sitting on the sofa, facing each other and speaking in low voices when you step inside. They break off as you walk over, and Ten makes a small sound of surprise when you just clamber into his lap, and wrap your arms around him. 

“I’m sorry,” you apologize, tucking your face against his shoulder. 

Ten holds you just as tightly, pressing his nose into your hair. “I’m sorry, darling. I am a jealous ass, and I’m going to do my best to let it go. I trust you. It’s him I don’t trust, but, Yuta and I have talked about a lot while you were gone. I’m working on it.”

You can accept that. 

“Aw,” Yuta coos, getting up on his knees to come closer and wrap both of you in a hug, his chin resting atop Ten’s head as he says, “Look at all of us getting along.”

The cool bite beginning to take up residence in the air outside grows over the next week or so. It feels more like the memory of cold than the actual feeling of it, but it’s undeniable. Like winter is truly setting in. 

The thaw between Ten and WinWin has however begun to take effect. 

More and more over the last week, your little family has been spending time together in your apartment. This has given Ten and WinWin plenty of time to warm up to each other, and although it’s only been a few days, you would definitely say that they appear more friendly now than they have in weeks. It could be the semi-forced proximity, but you choose to think that it’s actual progress. 

The unnatural cold of Hell City has driven many of the citizens underground, increasing Mark’s profits for his various businesses, including a hot spring where he’d met up with you, Yuta, and Ten yesterday. But today he’s shirking his responsibilities as coven leader and mogul of Hell City, and he (along with WinWin) are here in your apartment to relax. 

“I’m cold.” You complain as you wrap yourself in a blanket and settle onto your sofa. “It’s a good thing, you guys run so warm.”

Ten opens his arms for you to snuggle into, letting you sink in and make yourself comfortable against his chest. Ten, in turn, wraps himself around you, blanketing you in his heat. He waits until you’re settled, and then says, “Maybe if you were wearing more clothes, you wouldn’t be so cold.”

You’re dressed comfortably. Maybe it’s not entirely appropriate wear for when you have guests over, but an oversized shirt and your panties and some fuzzy socks are just what you’d put on when you emerged from a nice, steamy shower earlier. It’s not your fault that guests showed up afterwards. 

Ten’s hand dips beneath your blanket to run his hand up your bare thigh. 

Mark watches from the other end of the sofa, his gaze torn away from the game he, Yuta, and WinWin had been playing. There’s a flicker of something in his eyes, and before you can get a good read on it (or make an attempt to read his thoughts, because as it turns out, that is a demon trick you’ve been receiving lessons on for the week), Mark clears his throat. 

“I wish I ran warm.” His gaze darts over the points of contact Ten has with you. “Being undead really fucking sucks sometimes.”

WinWin makes a sound of disagreement from where he’s stretched out on his belly on the floor, his chin resting on his hands. “I run way too hot sometimes. Like, right now, I’m burning up.” 

He is. You can see from here the way his hairline has dampened to his skin. He’s sweating. 

“Are you okay?” You ask, sitting up a little bit, though Ten keeps his arms locked around your hips. “Not sick, right?”

“Wolves don’t get sick,” Yuta explains, studying the game in front of him. 

WinWin shakes his head. “I’m fine. I, just, uh, think my rut is coming up.” His face colors slightly, and he looks down at the floor, refusing to look up when the others start teasing him. 

You retreat to your spot leaning against Ten’s chest. 

His rut? You read about it in the supernatural encyclopedia. Much like actual wolves and other wildlife, werewolves experience heats and ruts—the overwhelming urge to breed or be bred. For WinWin, as a male, his will be the urge to breed, endlessly horny for anywhere from hours to days, needing to cum as many times as possible. 

You don’t even realize how deep into your thoughts about it you’ve sunk until Ten brushes a finger over your cheek. 

“Well, you’re certainly warm now, darling.” Ten teases, “What are you thinking about?”

You can’t tell him you’re thinking about WinWin, picturing him looking the same as Yuta-as-WinWin had looked when he orgasmed during your shape-shifting roleplay. As far as you’re aware, Ten still doesn’t know about that. Yuta has kept it just a secret between you and him. You can’t admit aloud to the room that that was a roleplay you and Yuta engaged in, and especially you won’t tell them that you’re growing aroused right now just thinking of it. 

It’s like the night you met WinWin, the night Yuta claimed wolves only want to breed and knock up women with a whole litter of wolf pups. It had turned you on a little back then, it had turned you on the other day when Yuta mentioned it while you were riding him, but now the thought of it is working you up even more. Your imagination is moving into hyperdrive, steering you right into the depths of a fantasy involving WinWin fucking you six ways from Sunday, in every possible position and configuration until you’re both exhausted and his rut has ended.

But you definitely don’t say any of that. 

“Nothing.” You brush Ten’s hand away, and you sit up. “I’m just getting warm, that's all.”

You move away from Ten, kicking off your blanket, and avoiding looking down at WinWin. But as the blanket falls to the floor beside WinWin’s head, as you drop your feet to the floor as well, WinWin’s head shoots up from where he’s been resting. 

He looks right at you. He cocks his head to the side. 

Everyone notices at once that WinWin’s eyes are changing fast from his human-brown to the wolf-yellow. 

“Fuck,” WinWin growls, squeezing his eyes shut and dropping his head back to his hands. You watch as he bites at the back of his hand for a moment before he’s pushing up to his knees, struggling to his feet. “I need to leave.”

When he gets to his feet, when you see the prominent bulge of his erection in the front of his pants, you feel another surge of arousal. 

“What? Now?” Ten teases. “Dude, I thought you just said your rut was soon, not like right now. How’re you gonna come over here knowing that you’re about to need to lock yourself away, horny doggy?”

WinWin growls, the sound a genuinely animalistic sound. “It triggered early. It’s not my fault.”

“Triggered early?” Ten continues to tease. “How does that happen?”

WinWin prowls forward until he’s standing right in front of you and Ten. “It happens because your girlfriend is turned on right now, and I can smell her like she’s the wettest, most breedable bitch in a ten mile radius.”

You squeeze your legs together and try not to whimper. This. This is exactly what you’ve been trying to avoid. 

On the floor, Yuta leans back on his hands, looking up at the drama, an amused look on his face. 

“Horny, baby girl?” Yuta calls. “Thinking about WinWin? About how good he could knot you and breed you? I know you’re into that.”

Your face feels hot, being called out like that. You glance at Ten to see him watching you, looking curious. You bite your lip, unable to deny Yuta’s accusatory question because you’re actually dripping wet right now. It’s come over you so quickly, getting worse the longer WinWin stands here right in front of you. 

“Ten?” Your voice is a whimper, and you can’t help it. 

“Yes, darling?”

You search his face for any of those tell-tale signs of his jealousy. You’re relieved to find, miraculously, none. 

And then WinWin touches his fingers beneath your chin, tipping your head so he can see your face. 

“Are you actually into that? Being knotted and bred?” WinWin teases you. 

Mark scrambles from his spot on the end of the sofa. “I’m gonna go ahead and leave, whatever’s happening here.”

“What, you don’t want to stay and watch? His wolf rut pheromones are gonna put all of us in the mood!” Ten jokes as Mark all but flies from the apartment, calling out his goodbyes over his shoulder. As the apartment door slams shut behind Mark’s fleeing back, Ten laughs. “He really needs to get laid; it’s not good to keep it all pent up like this.” 

WinWin’s still holding your chin, his thumb sweeping over your bottom lip. “I’m sorry. If I’d known it was going to trigger, I wouldn’t have come over. Ten’s right. My pheromones are what’s probably hitting you so hard right now.” 

Is it? You had aroused yourself with the fantasies that came to mind as soon as his rut was mentioned. But you have to admit that the way your body is reacting right now, how hot and wet you suddenly feel, that is out of the ordinary. Could it be that WinWin is putting off some wolfy rut scent that is affecting you? 

“I can still leave. I’ll hurry home and just get myself off until my rut ends.” But all you hear is the unspoken question: “Do you want me?” 

You can’t see either Ten or Yuta right now. All of your focus is on WinWin, the intoxicating heat of his skin against yours, the slick feeling growing between your legs. But Ten reaches over, touching your hand. 

“Do you want to help WinWin through his rut?” Ten asks, and he’s taking a softer tone with you, no longer joking about this whole situation.  

Is he actually asking, like offering it as an actual option to you? Because there’s no question in your mind right now that it’s what you want. Helping WinWin through his rut seems like the only thing you can possibly do right now in this sudden lust-drunk state you’re sinking into. 

You nod. “I really, really do. Please don’t be angry, Ten.” 

You feel guilty even saying it aloud. After all the progress of the last week, after the fight just before that, all of you and Yuta’s reassurances. And this is happening so quickly too. Just minutes ago everything was perfectly normal. Now the careful walls of restraint you’ve built are crumbling. 

You search Ten’s eyes again for any sign of anger. 

“He’s not angry, my love,” Yuta speaks up from his spot on the floor. “We discussed it. He’s just not used to sharing, but we can get used to it. Play nice with our friends and you. If he can share you with me, he can share you with WinWin, if that’s what you want.”

“I do want it,” you all but moan. 

You feel Ten pull himself off the sofa. “We’ll leave you to it, darling.”

“Are you sure about this?” WinWin asks. You’re not sure if he’s asking you or Ten. He flicks his gaze quickly towards Ten, back towards Yuta, and then he’s looking right at you again. 

He’s still got you by the chin, and you’re enchanted by the light in his eyes, prisoner to the hunger he’s awakened in you. “I want it, WinWin.” 

He nods and swallows, and you can see the way he’s controlling himself, holding back. His nose flares as he breathes you in again, tipping his face down towards you, losing his control bit by bit as more of your scent invades his senses. 

You can feel Yuta and Ten watching, but the hunger inside you reaches out for WinWin, pushing away all thoughts of anything but consuming him. 

At the same moment as you lurch forward, WinWin makes his final move. 

WinWin’s kiss is absolutely intoxicating, overwhelming, all-encompassing. The heat of his skin against yours, the unidentifiable scent radiating from him that just makes you want to pull him in closer and closer. 

So that’s what you do. 

The moment that his tongue touches yours, you feel a new heat pouring through you, and you need him now.

It’s all-consuming, deeper than just hunger or lust. This is an innate need that pulls you into WinWin, that draws his hands down to your bare thighs, pressing up beneath your shirt to your panties. It’s like he simply shreds them away; fingers catch at the sides of your panties and then the fabric falls away, exposing your pussy to the cool air. 

“Uh, yeah, we’re leaving,” Ten says. “If you need anything, just shout!”

The part of you that isn’t totally drowning in wolf rut (or this strange heat that’s come over you even though you’re not a werewolf), wants to ask Ten to stay. Yo I want to cling to him and let him feel involved in this so he doesn’t return to his all-consuming jealousy knowing that you’re doing exactly what you’d just told him you wouldn’t last week. 

But you can’t help it. Right now, the hunger you feel for WinWin is unchecked, running rampant through you as you cling to him and kiss him deeper. 

“We’ll check in on you later, my love,” Yuta sounds intensely amused as you and WinWin draw each other closer, as he climbs over you on the sofa and hikes your legs around his hips. “You need to stay hydrated, don’t forget that!”

They keep talking, you think, but you’re not even listening because at that moment, WinWin reaches down and unfastens the front of his pants. You feel the heat and the presence of his cock as soon as he releases it from his pants. You haven’t broken away from kissing WinWin yet, so you can’t see his cock, but you have a feeling that the version of it that Yuta wore when you roleplayed with him wasn’t quite a life-size representation.

WinWin feels big. Girthy, heavy, long. And when he pulls back from you, you finally get a glimpse of his dick.

“Oh my God,” you giggle. Hands over your mouth, full-on let out a little giggle. 

WinWin growls a little, his hands on your legs, pushing them up, folding your body in half until your knees are up at your shoulders. “What’s so funny?”

You shake your head. “Not funny. Your dick is just really big.”

The kind of big that makes you feel like it should be impossible for your body to take it, but not quite as impossible as Yuta’s version. But your body also feels ready for him. Wet enough, loose enough, like just the pheromones he’s putting off have done enough to prepare you for him. You don’t know how to explain the feeling going on inside you right now, like something’s been triggered in you in response to him.

Another giggle forces its way out. 

To put it mildly, WinWin’s cock looks to be the width of your forearm. Wide enough around that your thumb and middle finger would only just barely miss touching each other if you tried to circle your hand around him. Long enough that you’re halfway expecting him to be hitting your cervix with each thrust. But he’s wet at the tip, a few prominent veins pulse along his length, and despite the rational part of your brain telling you that his cock is too fucking big, you want him inside you this moment.

There’s no holding back. 

You don’t want him to hold back, the way that your body craves right now nothing more than WinWin fucking you as fast and deep and hard as possible, cumming inside you like you’re his own personal cumdump. 

And you can tell that the last vestiges of WinWin’s control are slipping away, the animalistic urges taking over. His fingernails bite at your thighs, and he moves back over you, sinking his thick cock smoothly into your ready pussy.

There’s no intimacy or passion to this. It’s nothing more than hungry fucking, taking cock and feeling like he’s fucking the very breath from your lungs. You can’t catch your breath to moan. You can feel him in your belly. It’s all just a blur of lust and hungrily getting fucked, sucking in the pleasure as WinWin fucks you to cum.

He fucks you there on your back on the sofa, cumming inside you while you’re still folded up like a pretzel beneath him. He doesn’t pull out, but immediately picks up fucking you again, pulling you on top of him as he leans back. This time he pulls an orgasm from you, and he cums again before turning you around, bending you against the back of the sofa, fucking you so intensely still that you’re sweating–your bodies still together with the sweat and the stickiness of his semen leaking down your thighs. 

When you begin to slide over the back of the sofa from the force of his thrusts, WinWin holds tightly to your hips, repositioning you facedown on the sofa, holding your hips up at the perfect angle for him to thrust into. Again, he cums, stuffing you so full, and still you crave more from him.

WinWin pants and moans against your shoulder, shallowly thrusting, rivulets of his cum leak down your thighs onto the sofa. 

“Fuck,” WinWin groans, his teeth grazing your shoulder. He’s still pressing into you, still hard and feeding into your own endless lust. “I’m sorry, I’m still….”

You roll your hips back, silently hoping he’ll stay inside you, that he’ll plant himself so deep inside you that you won’t feel empty for a week. And you know what he needs too, what he’s not asking you for, what he keeps denying himself. 

“Just knot me,” you cry out, “You’re just letting it all leak out, WinWin.”

He pauses then, as if caught off guard by your request. He actually pulls back out of you, and you cry, trying to lift your hips and clench your pussy tight enough to hold his cum inside you. As WinWin sits back, his cock still heavy and standing tall, he stares at you. “I can’t knot you.”

But as you look back at him, you can see that he absolutely can knot you. He just doesn’t want to. 

You can see his knot swelling toward the base of his cock. This was what you’d read about in that book, learning about knotting right there alongside learning about werewolf ruts and heats. There’d been a diagram. And now you see it in front of your eyes: the swelling shape toward the base of his cock that would plug you up nicely and keep his cum inside you. 

WinWin shakes his head. “I can’t do it. You’re human, you’re not a werewolf. You’re not made to take knots, princess.”

“But I’m not just human either!” You whine, again shifting around trying to keep your hips elevated to keep his multiple loads of cum from leaking out of you, which leads to you looking back at him from under your arm. A very odd angle. 

“You’re basically human,” WinWin argues, his hand drifting down to massage his knot. “Yuta and Ten would probably actually kill me if I hurt you in any way, and I’m afraid that knotting you would just split you open.”

That’s a violent image, but you quickly brush it away. “I burst into flames when I have sex with them, I don’t think that’s something humans do. I can take it, WinWin. I know I can. I want it. You’ve got me all horny and feeling breedable, so I need you to knot me and stop wasting all this cum. Isn’t the whole point of your rut to cum in me, to breed me and knot me as many times as possible? I’m pretty sure I read that if you don’t knot a partner, your rut can—“

“Alright, shit, if I knot you will you stop talking?” WinWin moves quickly, suddenly fitting his cock back inside you. “God, dammit, I don’t want to hurt you.”

“You won’t hurt me. I promise.” 

You’ve been practicing your shapeshifting with Yuta. You’ve altered your appearance some, but as it turns out, the whole thing about perfectly mimicking others isn’t something that’s within your wheelhouse. But you’ve successfully made small adjustments to your appearance. Just a day or two ago you were messing around with shape-shifting while Ten and Yuta briefly had to go take care of some demon business, and when they returned they discovered you’d turned your nose into a miniature version of an elephant trunk, and you couldn’t turn it back without their help. 

You have an idea that maybe if your body can’t really take WinWin’s knot you can just alter your shape enough to make it a little more comfortable, making it so you don’t cause any damage to your person. 

“Take me to the bed,” you moan as WinWin pushes in deeper, his hands firmly at your hips.you feel the swell of his knot against you, and your belly leaps at the thought of him forcing it into you. “If you’re gonna knot me, do it there at least.”

“You’re bossy,” he teases, but he pulls away again, lifting you into his arms, and you happily let him manhandle you. WinWin tucks his face into the crook of your neck, and he breathes in, inhaling your scent. “Smell so good, sweet.” 

His cock rubs against you with each step he takes, and no sooner has he dropped you onto the bed than he’s stuffing his cock back inside your waiting pussy. All his previous cum as well as your body’s overwhelming reaction to his rut makes it more than easy for WinWin to enter you again. 

Again, he folds your knees up to your shoulders, his body pressing you in two, but it allows him to sink deeper, and your body accommodates. Although, even with you making your slight shape-shifting alterations to yourself, WinWin’s big cock is a tight fit. 

His hands drift to your tits, cupping them, palming them, pinching at your nipples. 

“God, your boobs would look so amazing if you were carrying my babies,” WinWin moans, “Heavy with milk, your nipples so sensitive.”

You barely even have to think about it; the part of your mind that’s grown used to accessing your shapeshifting abilities moves to make WinWin’s fantasy a reality. Your tits swell in his hands, growing heavier, the nipples gently swollen. There’s nothing you can do to lactate, but this seems to be enough for him. 

His knot slaps against your pussy with each of WinWin’s deep thrusts, and you want to reach down, slip your fingers inside yourself along with his cock to show him that you can take his knot. How badly you need it, how it’s more than just a want now. 

“Give it to me,” you beg. “Please, I need to feel you, WinWin.”

He swears under his breath, his eyes flashing a dangerous shade of amber gold. 

You brace yourself for how it’s going to feel, doing your best to relax to let him in as WinWin thrusts in deep and then grinds forward even more, pressing in and circling his hips, trying to work the bulge of his knot through your entrance. 

There’s a stretch, a burn, a breathless feeling that speaks to the fire inside you. You have to suppress the urge to call your flames to the surface, shoving it down even as you feel your orgasm racing forward as WinWin’s knot slowly sinks inside you, stretching you beyond belief, making you feel so fucking full. 

Your eyes roll and WinWin curses in delight at the feeling of your pussy squeezing around him, closing tight around the base of his knot as he fully buries himself inside you, plugging you up. 

“Fucking hot,” he groans, and it takes you a moment to realize he doesn’t just mean that you successfully taking his knot is hot. You’re physically hot—sweat steaming off the surface of your skin as you barely contain the flames. 

He starts moving, rocking in deeper, and you close your eyes, nothing more than gurgling moans leaving you as he hits so deep that it almost hurts. Another wave of pleasure rises to meet the last, your body spending itself in squeezing around the girth of WinWin.

And at last, the pressure of your cunt massaging around his knot sets WinWin off. 

His knot swells even more, fully plugging your pussy as his cock twitches and a steady flow of hot cum spills into you. 

You only have time to push at his shoulders, to force WinWin to at least kneel up so he’s not fully covering you as you at last lose your hold on your flames. 

They burst from you, as hot as his cum filling you. The flames explode from your head and shoulders, arms and hands, flashing down the rest of your body for just long enough to lick heat against WinWin’a skin before they immediately die out again, all of your strength gone out of you with that last orgasm. 

But WinWin’s still cumming, huge gushes of it settling in your belly. You can feel your belly expanding to take it all. Your bodies are locked together with nowhere for all this cum to go but into your womb, and you feel blissed out, the sex-driven hunger gone for the first time since he first mentioned his rut. It feels like hours or minutes; you’re truly not sure how long it’s been. 

He pets your hair when at last his orgasm ends or he runs out of cum. You notice that the amber color of his eyes has softened back towards brown, and there’s no intense animalistic lustful energy in the air anymore. 

“That was intense, I’m sorry. It’s been, uh, a long time since I knotted inside someone,” WinWin apologizes and brushes a kiss to your brow.

“What do you normally do?” You ask, trying to not show just how exhausted you are now. “Don’t you have to knot to get through your rut?”

WinWin nods. “Yeah, but like, it doesn’t have to be inside someone. Usually I just use my hand or like fleshlight, the fleshlight kinda can trick my body into thinking I’m knotting someone. My rut lasts longer when I’m not with someone, usually it’s worse for me. But if I am with someone but I don’t knot inside them, it still sucks, but fucking someone warm at least takes the edge off a lot better than using my hand or a toy.”

“How long does it last?” You squirm. It feels peculiar, the stretch and full, heavy feeling of him and all of his cum inside you. 

“My rut? Uh, it’s between two and three days.” He looks away from you, “So, like, if you get tired, you don’t have to let me keep fucking you. I promise, I can just get myself off. Just tell me to fuck off.” 

“I meant your knot,” you squirm again. “Like, it goes down, right? How long does that take? And how long before you need to do it again?”

His cheeks color slightly. “An hour or two is how long it lasts, longer probably if you keep squeezing around me.” 

You realize that you have been unintentionally clenching and unclenching around him. “Sorry,” you smile. 

“And as for how long until I need to knot again, I’m not really sure. A couple hours, it really changes all the time. I’ll be fine until I’m just… not. It comes in waves, so I never really know. I usually just get sleep and eat and drink water when I can.”

You didn’t plan ahead at all. You should’ve put water within reach of the bed. Your kitchen is too many steps away to reach easily when you’re connected like this. 

“You should get some sleep, princess,” WinWin pets your hair again, leaving another kiss on your brow. “I’ll wake you if I need to.”

Carefully, WinWin rearranges the pair of you. He gently helps you lower your legs to a good position (though your muscles ache and scream in protest at moving), and he rolls over onto his back, settling you on top of him with his knot still snug inside you. He draws the blankets up over your bodies, and then he wraps his arms around you, tucking his face again into the crook of your shoulder to breathe in the smell of you. 

“You really do smell good,” he murmurs. 

“What do I smell like?” You’re curious. Ten and Yuta have both told you that you smell delicious. Mark has mentioned it in an offhand way several times, usually when he’s hungry, and the words are always paired with a bloodthirsty red glint in his eyes. 

WinWin is quiet for a moment. You can feel his heartbeat against your chest, and a second heartbeat throbs dully deep inside you, like you’re feeling his pulse through his cock and his knot. He just breathes and you do too, letting it relax you. 

You’re tipping on the brink of sleep when WinWin finally answers. 

“Caramel. A little spice. Maybe cloves or cinnamon.” He answers softly, his breath tickling lightly over your skin. “Like a candy, maybe, or a warm drink, something that hits right in your belly and you can just feel it warming you from the inside out when the weather’s cold.” His arms hold you a little tighter. “Reminds me of home.”

You doze off. 

Vaguely, you dream (possibly) of Yuta. His hands light on your face, his hushed voice and WinWin’s in reply. You think you dream that WinWin carefully sits up with his arms holding you to his chest, his deflating knot still seated inside you as Yuta tips a glass of water to your lips, and you swallow down every drop, far more thirsty than you’d thought. 

You dream of Ten, his voice careful yet affectionate as he wraps his arms around you and lifts you from WinWin’s softening cock. 

It feels slightly less dreamlike and more real as he carries you to the bathroom, presses another glass of water into your hands to drink, and he helps you shower. You possibly cry actual tears when he helps wash away the cum that’s leaked and dried on your thighs, as Ten scoops WinWin’s cum out of you with his fingers—gently and cautiously as you’re sensitive to any contact at the moment. 

You hate to see it all go, and that inspires a few more lighthearted teasing words from Ten, and scattered kisses paired with promises that WinWin is sure to have more cum for you. 

“Do you hate me?” You cry even as he’s kissing every freckle on your cheeks. “You probably hate me. I broke a promise.”

“No, you didn’t,” Ten reassures you. He plants his hands on your cheeks, making you look at him. “I don’t hate you. Quite the opposite actually. I told you I’m working on my jealousy. I’m being open-minded. This…. This has just been a test for me, and I think I’m doing quite well.” He leans in to kiss your forehead, and then he stays there, lips against your damp skin while the water rushes over both of you. After a few moments he murmurs, “It’s all quite complicated, but I’ve known that since the night we met you. You’re too lovely to not make everyone you meet fall in love with you. And I think, if it’s only us, just these few of us that are so closely knotted — no pun intended — then I can be happy with that. No one’s going to steal you away. I won’t let it happen.”

“I wouldn’t go anyway,” you promise. 

Ten makes sure you’re clean, hydrated, and even fed before he deposits you back into bed with a kiss. WinWin is passed out on the other side of the bed, holding a long pillow that you don’t recognize. 

“Sleep, darling. Yuta and I are here to take care of you. And WinWin, that dog.” He throws a look over at the werewolf in your bed. “Like I said earlier, shout if you need anything. Water. A break. Anything.”

“Got it,” you mumble, already sleepily turning over. 

And the next time you wake, there’s no sign of Ten or Yuta. Only you and WinWin, both of you undressed in the bed, a glass of water on the bedside table for each of you. 

You’re not really sure what woke you, not until you hear it again. A low panting sound, a short whine, the repetitive sound of something moving. 

You look at WinWin. 

He looks like he’s still sleeping; his eyes are closed though his eyebrows scrunch together. But his body is moving. His hips flex forward, grinding against the long pillow he’s still hugging. 

You can feel it again, the heat pouring off of his skin, the answering tug in your belly to his call of need. 

But you don’t touch him, you just watch. 

You watch him hump the pillow, his bare cock sliding against the slick precum that’s already dripping from his tip. You watch his mouth fall open, a slight glimpse at his teeth elongating into fangs as he bites at the corner of the pillow, his hips moving faster. You witness his orgasm, cum spurting from his angry red cock. 

And he doesn’t stop there. WinWin keeps moving, chasing the eternal need to cum, to breed, to knot someone. 

You can’t look away or bring yourself to reach out and wake him so you can spread your legs and let him use you as his little fucktoy instead of the pillow. You just watch as WinWin shifts, still dreaming as he mounts the pillow, pressing his body over top of it, rolling his hips to smoothly thrust against the softness of the pillow, but you can tell by the frustrated growl he lets out that it’s not enough. The pillow can’t give him the sweet, tight, warm friction that his rut requires. 

He moves, shifting in frustration, repositioning atop the pillow multiple times as he continues trying to fuck it, growing harder and more irritated as the pillow fails to please him. 

So finally you reach over. 

The moment that your hand makes contact with his feverishly hot skin, WinWin rolls toward you, abandoning his pillow. He spoons up behind you, his cock slotting against your ass. He sighs in relief at the warm feeling of you. 

His arms twist around you, hugging you to him like he’d been hugging that pillow. His nose buried in your hair against your shoulder, breathing in. 

Something about the way you smell drives him on harder. WinWin twists his hips against you, pinning your hips down beneath his against the bed, and you suppress a moan as he moves uncontrollably, rutting against your ass, his legs nudging yours apart slowly until at last his cock slips down between your thighs, moving on a mission like he can scent out your pussy, and his cock dives right in. 

You finally moan his name aloud as he sinks your sensitive pussy around his big dick again. 

“Wuh—?” A rut-drunk half asleep WinWin stirs, fucking you on his cock before he’s even fully aware of his surroundings. He doesn’t slow down, even once he realizes, most probably because you moan “keep going” and “don’t stop, WinWin! Fuck, right there!” because at this angle, he’s aimed perfectly against your G spot, and your first orgasm of today hits with very little warning. 

WinWin buries himself against you, his knot slipping inside you, every inch of you is touching him, your face pressed into the pillow as WinWin fully plows you. You can feel his knot swelling, his breath panting against your neck, and you’re just vibrating with pleasure.

This time when he knots you, you know what to expect. There’s the hot swell of his knot followed immediately by the equally hot burst of his cum, your body answering with your own orgasm. 

You can’t help yourself, twisting your head to the side, reaching back to tangle your fingers in WinWin’s hair, dragging his face from your neck to bring his lips to yours. 

It’s a messy, sideways kiss, but it’s what you need. You need to feel entirely encapsulated by WinWin, his body over yours and inside you and beneath you as his hands slide between your body and the mattress. 

You’re still in the middle of kissing him when you hear something that draws you out of the heated bubble of pleasure you’re knotted in with WinWin. And then when you feel the mattress shift, you actually pull away from WinWin. 

Yuta is sitting on the edge of the bed, his eyes fixed on where WinWin has lowered his head back to your throat, just inhaling your sweet scent while he slowly flexes his hips forward. 

“Can I help you?” You ask, just looking at Yuta. 

He shakes his head, smoothing his hand over a series of wrinkles in the bedsheets. “Just checking on you. Looks like you’re doing just fine.”

When Yuta reaches over to just touch you, WinWin growls. You watch Yuta make a face and then he detours to tug lightly at WinWin’s hair, chastising him with, “Hey, don’t be that way. I’m not stealing her away, puppy. And besides that, we share.”

“Couldn’t go anywhere, even if I wanted to,” you mumble. 

Yuta brushes a finger tenderly along your cheek. “I know, my love. He’s got you knotted good on his cock. You won’t forget about Ten and I, will you?”

You lean into his touch. “You can both join in, if WinWin will let you.”

“Ten had to go away on business,” Yuta says, “but I wouldn’t mind joining.” 

WinWin makes a slightly possessive growling sound again, but that ends when he lifts his head from your neck and looks up at Yuta. 

Specifically, it ends the moment WinWin notices that Yuta has shapeshifted to possess the amber-gold eyes of a wolf, and his teeth are bared in his own demonic version of a growl, saying, “I’m the alpha here, WinWin.”

WinWin’s knot is still swollen inside you, unlikely to come loose any time soon. He’s still doing his best to fuck you, to breed you until your belly is round with his cum again. His skin sticks to yours with sweat, and the heat only grows when Yuta suddenly vanishes all of his clothes and moves closer. 

Basking in the radiant heat of a werewolf in his rut and a demon feeling excited has you swimming in sweat, yet deeply aroused. 

“We can make this work. It’ll be a little different than with Ten and I,” Yuta says, “Since you’re quite literally joined to Win right now.” 

You don’t mind it being a little different. 

WinWin does his best to sit up, pulling you up with him, his cock and his knot still snuggly plugging you full of his cum. Yuta slides up in front of you, and you tip your head towards him, eagerly searching for a kiss from him. 

“So needy, my love.” He nuzzles against the side of your head for a moment before acquiescing to your nonverbal request for a kiss. Yuta is tender with you in this moment, like he’s fully aware of what your body has been through since they left you alone with WinWin yesterday. You’re not feeling the aches yet, but you know that once all of this dick fever brought on by WinWin’s rut ends, you’re going to be feeling it. 

Yuta slides a hand along the front of your body, taking a moment to touch your tits, to caress your sides, trailing his fingertips over your belly, his fingers lastly dipping down to your clit, which has been almost entirely neglected with WinWin. Yuta circles his finger against your clit, his mouth against yours as the heat builds higher and higher. WinWin is casually thrusting into you from behind, pushing out broken pants and moans from your lips. 

Yuta bites at your bottom lip as he pulls away, his teeth sharp enough to draw blood. You hiss in pain as Yuta sinks back on his heels, his finger still circling at your clit, and he licks his lips. 

“You taste sweet, baby girl. But you smell like our WinWin, if I’m being honest.” Yuta’s eyes flick over your shoulder to WinWin who begins to thrust into you with renewed vigor. “Ten and I are going to have to dip you in holy water or something to get rid of that smell. We already have been hunting down an herb for you to take after WinWin’s rut, to make sure nothing comes of it.”

“Guess I’ll just have to try harder, won’t I?” WinWin moans, and you feel his knot pulse inside you. “She wants it, Yuta. Who am I to deny your pretty girlfriend?”

Your eyes roll in ecstasy as the two of them bicker over you, WinWin dicking you down a little harder, Yuta distractedly massaging your clit at the exact rhythm to complement WinWin’s thrusts. 

Your orgasm is a slow, syrupy spread through you, beginning at your toes and then it’s just everywhere all at once. Your body threatens to collapse forward or sway back and rest against WinWin as your pussy milks around his knot. 

WinWin bites down at your shoulder, teeth digging against your skin, his body crushed against yours from behind, and you feel fit to burst with how full he makes you feel then, especially as you clench tight around him. 

Yuta’s hands move to your belly, pressing a hand low over your abdomen. 

“You’re swollen, baby girl. Happy?” Yuta strokes his fingers in a line from your navel down to just above your clit. 

“Happier if I had you too,” you manage to say. 

WinWin shakes his head behind you. “There’s no room for him.” 

“But there will be,” Yuta says. “Once your knot goes down some, just pop that knot out, that’ll free up some room. Your cock is big, Win, but it’s not so big that she can’t take us both at the same time.”

Oh, you feel like it might be. Your pussy’s being stretched to the limit, and it feels great right now, but that little worried voice in the back of your head won’t let you forget about how you’re going to feel after this is over. 

“It’ll be alright.” Yuta notices the worried look on your face. He touches your hair, kisses your forehead. “If you don’t want it, let us know. You can be honest.”

Your pussy keeps fluttering around WinWin, wanting more, but wanting a break as well, but also needing to have Yuta inside you as well. There’s nothing you can do about it until WinWin’s knot goes down. 

“I want it, want to have both.” You lean into Yuta’s touch. 

WinWin whines softly behind you, his needy rut making it difficult for him to even attempt giving you a little break now. But he tries his best to not try fucking you at the moment, like maybe if he doesn’t move his knot will go down quicker. 

Yuta curls his hand against your neck, and he brings your mouth to his kissing you gently and distractingly, helping you forget at least momentarily about how full and stretched you feel around WinWin. As Yuta sinks down into his back on the bed you follow, supporting yourself in your hands and knees to keep kissing him. His hands run smoothly over your back and down to your hips; the other hand touches your tits and your belly. 

It seems to be simultaneous when Yuta begins touching your clit and also dips his fingers over your unused asshole. Your core throbs, and WinWin unintentionally jolts forward. 

Yuta’s fingers deep further, brushing against where you and WinWin are joined. He gathers your wetness on his fingers, bringing them back up to swirl and prod against your ass. 

At the moment, you marvel at how far you’ve come over the last few months. You went from being a faithful girl, a young woman certain about her faith and the difference between good and evil, and also you were truly rather vanilla in terms of the sex you’d had with partners. But look at you now. Being knotted by a werewolf while one of the two demons you’re regularly having sex with plays with your ass, presumably to get you ready for anal. 

“If you keep that up,” WinWin groans, “I’m not going to be able to pull out.”

You’re reacting well to Yuta’s touches. The arousal always tucked just there beneath the surface readily rising to his call. 

He slips a finger through the tight ring of your ass, and you drop your head forward against his chest, pressing back on his finger and WinWin’s cock. WinWin rocks forward, Yuta massages your clit. 

“Shit,” you gasp. 

“Good girl,” Yuta coos. “Relax for us.”

You automatically obey, taking a deep breath to help relax yourself. Just press your lips to Yuta’s chest as he begins to finger you slowly while WinWin keeps moving in equally as slow motions, keeping you constantly stimulated. That’s even without factoring in the way Yuta continues teasing your clit. 

You succumb to a haze of lust, just laying there and receiving pleasure from the two of them. You don’t even let out moans, not really. You just zone out, your cheek pressed to Yuta’s shoulder, hums of quiet pleasure vibrating in your chest as WinWin’s rut haze takes over completely, pushed into effect by the gentle heat of your pussy around him also being stimulated via your ass.

WinWin cums and keeps going, groaning out an, “I’m sorry, I know you’ve got to be sensitive, but I need it,” as he pumps you full to the point of a weak cry spilling from your lips. He folds over you, humping into you like a dog with his favorite toy, and you possibly black out for a second, overwhelmed by a sudden confusing mix of pain, pleasure, and sensitivity. 

When you come back to, your face is sticking to Yuta’s chest with your tears, and you realize what caused your black out. 

WinWin’s readjusting. He pulled out of you,  knot and all, to position himself to fuck your newly opened ass. 

“You okay?” He asks when you look back over your shoulder at him. He’s stroking his cock, and you see his knot again for the first time since last night, swollen and darker colored than the rest of his cock. 

“Good,” you mumble. 

Yuta’s fingers are stretching your asshole open, and that too makes you want to roll your eyes into the back of your head. Everything feels so good right now, pleasure with an edge of pain, so high on pheromones and your body loose right now.

“You sure, baby?” Yuta kisses the top of your head. “You can tell him no. Tell us no.”

“Want it,” you roll your head on his chest until the point of your chin digs against his skin. “Yuta, I want both of you.”

His face is right there in front of yours, so close that his features are blurry and unfocused. “He can’t knot you again. I won’t allow that. You need some rest. Proper rest, my love. One orgasm for each of us, and I’m putting you in a timeout.”

You smile a little goofy at that comment, but WinWin makes his agreement behind you, so you nod as well. 

It’s so familiar by this point, the way that Yuta touches you, his hands running smoothly over your belly and your hips, reaching your thighs as he pulls you forward into his lap. You know that you’re leaking WinWin’s cum to a disgusting degree, but it doesn’t seem to bother Yuta. He pulls you into his lap, watching you with that deep fiery hunger in his eyes as they blossom with darkness, and he guides you to sink down around his erection. 

It’s such a difference from WinWin stretching you open with his giant knot. Yuta’s a perfect size, even though you can tell that he’s altered himself to more closely resemble the cock he’d worn when he fucked you as WinWin. 

Yuta softens you up with his kiss, with his hands on your hips, his cock rocking slowly up into you. And then you feel WinWin, his fingers slicking up through the leaked cum, pressing them inside your back entrance to stretch you just a little more even after Yuta’s ministrations. 

“Good girl,” Yuta keeps praising you. “You’re so good for WinWin, my love. Doing so well.” He kisses your cheeks, licking away the overwhelmed tears that drip from your eyes, and he lowers his kisses until he lands at your lips. “My perfect girl. You can handle this?”

You nod, full of desire to take them both at once even as the uncertainty of it floods through your veins. WinWin’s cock alone is a lot to take, add taking Yuta’s altered cock in at the same time, and you’re just nervous about it. 

With your final confirmation and consent to this, you feel WinWin push his fat tip against your entrance, moving slow even though you can feel the tension tight in his muscles, the want to just bury himself inside your heat radiating from him. But he eases slowly, getting the tip in while Yuta holds you still in his arms, kissing your cries away in an attempt to soothe you. 

WinWin pushes in a little more and a little more, rocking his hips forward shallowly, not trying to stuff you too full of his cock when you’ve got Yuta in there as well. And he keeps his swollen knot away from the tight pucker of your ass. He gives you the chance to adjust, and Yuta does as well, both of them kissing you, touching you, and then beginning to move again. 

It’s a very intense feeling to have two men penetrating you at once. To have both of them moving in alternating but complementary ways, big cocks touching everywhere inside you, nearly touching through the thin wall between your ass and vagina. 

Yuta’s hands run repeatedly over your arms and back and shoulders, pulling you down closer, kissing you desperately, his hands flickering with heat like invisible flames. 

WinWin’s touch doesn’t stray from your hips, determinedly fucking into you, and when you get the spare moment to look back at him, he’s just watching his cock disappear inside your ass, or maybe watching Yuta’s be consumed by your pussy. 

You do your best to move, too. Bouncing back on their cocks, feeling yourself stuffed so full if they time it just right to both be fully inside of you at the same moment. That’s just a feeling beyond your wildest dreams, indescribably good. Something so absolutely explicit about having both of your holes stretched to the max, feeling WinWin’s knot right there—swollen and pressing against your asshole, but he doesn’t push it in, though there’s a part of you that wishes he would, and that Yuta would alter his cock to have a knot too, for them both push all the way in, double-knotting you. 

You cum with that thought consuming your mind, being double-knotted by your werewolf and your demon pretending to be a wolf, pumped full with their cum. 

“Filthy,” Yuta moans, as your body tries to pull them both in deeper and to hold them inside you. His fingers are on your face, against your temple, gentle down your cheek. “What you’re thinking about my love, it’s pure filth.”

In your demon lessons, he and Ten have been teaching you to block others out of your thoughts, and for the most part you’re excellent at it. But right now, you have no strength to hold those walls up. They’ve come tumbling down, and Yuta’s slipped himself right through the gaps, reading your thoughts as plainly as if you were speaking them aloud. 

“You want us both to knot you, pretty girl?” Yuta voices aloud, probably for WinWin’s benefit. “What a dirty knotslut.” 

WinWin moans behind you, his hands holding tighter to your hips, his thrusts more powerful, rocking you on Yuta’s cock as well. 

Yuta smirks. “You want it, baby? I’ll make an exception to my rules. We can each knot you one last time before your timeout.” 

Your eyes feel wet, body aching with need, teetering on the edge of another orgasm as WinWin loses control of himself and begins to just take what he needs, using you as a fucktoy, his knot squeezing up against your entrance. 

“Please!” You beg, and your voice sounds hoarse to your own ears. “Please, please, knot me again. Both of you. I need it. I need—“

Yuta leans up, silencing you with a kiss, his hand curled against the back of your head. 

You feel Yuta’s cock swelling inside you, the change subtle but noticeable after a moment as he begins to let his control slip. You feel a bulge at the base of his cock, feel the way he thrusts in right before the bulge inflates. Your orgasm is instantaneous. 

And then WinWin’s fingers press against your asshole, slipping in gently, stretching you open just a little bit more, and it feels so good. You feel like your body is leaking arousal, everywhere down there so slick from your wetness and their precum and cum, that WinWin easily gets a couple more fingers in alongside his cock, making room for his knot to fit in. 

He thrusts in, sliding his knot past the tight grip of your hole, and you genuinely think you black out. 

It’s too much. So much. This feeling. 

You experience it through a fog, hazy recollections later.

They cum inside you at the same time.

Both of them pressed in fully, all the way inside you, knots swelling to close you off, to keep their cum in as it pulses in hot waves inside you. 

Your limbs give out completely, all of your weight resting on Yuta beneath you, but you don’t think anyone cares in that moment. All floating away, lost in the bliss of being wrapped tight in your heat, their cocks being milked by your body for all they’ve got. 

You don’t know how long it is that you’re in that state of semi-consciousness, but eventually you’re back. One moment everything’s a haze, and the next you’re blinking your eyes open, feeling Yuta tenderly playing with your hair. 

“You’re definitely being forced into a timeout now,” Yuta whispers. “That was more than we should’ve given you.”

WinWin murmurs in agreement. 

Slowly you realize that their knots must have gone down. You’re empty, gaping and leaking. You’re on your side in between Yuta and WinWin, and when you shift your legs to attempt to get more comfortable you find that’s an impossibility because everything aches. Your body feels sticky all over, not just between your legs, but your belly and shoulders and face, everything damp from sweat and tears and coming in contact with the sheets that are likely ruined (again).

You feel like you should rest. They’re right about that. Your body, much as that little fire that’s still burning in your belly at the feel of WinWin behind you and Yuta’s bare body laid out in front of your hungry eyes, you know it can’t take much (if any) more.

But you’re not tired is the only problem. Yes, physically you feel like your body needs to just take some time to recover, but you don’t feel like sleeping. Sleeping, recently here in this city, has become less of a requirement than it did when you believed yourself to just be a human living in the mortal world. 

“I think I need a shower.” You sigh, lifting your thighs apart from each other, feeling the sticky pull of your skin. “And some water.”

Yuta snaps his fingers, manifesting three glasses of water instantly, passing one off to WinWin, to you. The three of you drink them down in silence, following the first up with a second, and as you dribble some down your chin and WinWin teases you about it, wiping at your chin with his fingers, you’re reminded suddenly of the night before. Of Ten cleaning you up and helping you rehydrate. 

“Where’s Ten at?” You ask, looking to Yuta for an answer. 

“Demon business, my love.” Yuta takes the empty water glasses and sits them aside. 

“Ten’s going to be jealous,” WinWin says delightedly, moving up closer behind you, his lips against your shoulder, nose buried in the crook of your neck. “When he comes home and finds you smelling like me and Yuta.”

Yuta laughs. “Ten’s a possessive little cat. He’s probably going to be pissed at me for joining in, then he’s gonna rub all over you, my love. Gonna mark you with his scent all over again, beg you for love and cuddles.”

And you’re going to give it all to him. You can hardly ever deny him anything, except when you’re angry with him. When he gets home, as long as all he wants are cuddles, you’ll give it to him. As for him restating his claim on you through sex, that’s going to have to wait. 

“I feel disgusting.” You turn over onto your belly, wrinkling your nose as you feel the slow leak between your legs. “I don’t know what I expected when I agreed to help you through your rut, WinWin, but it wasn’t this.”

It’s obscene. You can’t even attempt to look; you don’t even want to think about the amount of sticky cum your body has held over the past twenty-four hours. 

He laughs quietly, another press of his lips to your skin in apology. “I’ll make it up to you with a million thank yous,” WinWin promises. “Give you everything, whatever you want, princess.”

 - - -

WinWin’s rut lasts another two days. Yuta stays there through most of it, drawing the line when he can see you reaching your limit. WinWin knots you a few more times, Yuta joins in on that at least once more. Ten makes an appearance briefly in between rounds, returning to check in, but then he’s gone again by the time that WinWin’s lust rises again. 

By the end of it all, you were exhausted, sleeping for what must have been an entire day. 

And when you woke, you weren’t in the bed any longer, but on the sofa. Sitting up in Ten’s arms, leaning back against his chest. 

“Missed you,” he mumbles when you twist a little in his arms, trying to readjust to look at his face. His arms are tight around you, holding you against his chest, his head resting against the top of yours. Ten is so wrapped around you, with a blanket of his snug around you as well, that you can tell he’s doing exactly what Yuta and WinWin had said he’d be doing—making you smell less like WinWin. 

“Ten,” you hum happily. “Where were you? I wanted you to be there too.”

He’s quiet for a moment, and in that you think you get your answer a little bit. 

Ten couldn’t be there. He’s possessive, like you’re all aware of. Though he gave you up to WinWin’s rut, he didn’t want to linger here and watch. He accepted it, but he didn’t want to play witness to you getting fucked a dozen plus times.

“I’m here now.” He moves his head, leaving a kiss against your hair. “You’ve been asleep for a while, darling, so I moved you over here while they fixed the bed.”

Oh, right. You forgot that other than just ruining the sheets, during the midst of all of that, towards the end of the second day or perhaps it was the beginning of the third, you’d broken the bed. You’d left it, as the bed wasn’t broken enough to really disturb all the sex you had going on, but the break did get worse, falling apart more with each round. 

“We cleaned you up, too,” Ten says. “And he did a number on you. Your hips and bottom are bruised.”

“Worth it, honestly.” You shift around to get a little more comfortable. “I know you might not want to hear that, but it really was, Ten.” 

He nods. “Yuta told me all about it. Also, you drank some of the tea we made for you while you were sleeping. So, you don’t have to worry about, like, actually getting knocked up with a litter of werewolf cubs.”

There’s a bloom of relief inside you. While all of that idea about being bred was hot in the moment, you don’t actually want that. Werewolf cubs might be a little too much to wrap your mind around. 

You and Ten lapse into comfortable silence, just wrapped up in each other for a little while. The curtains are drawn over the big windows, making the apartment quite dim, but as you lie there in Ten’s arms, you begin to want a little light. So, you manifest it. Slowly. 

You tip your head back on Ten’s shoulder, and slowly, you see the lights begin to appear, popping into existence on the ceiling. 

First one star. Then another. A constellation, the pale arm of the Milky Way. A bigger sparkle that could be Venus or Saturn in the imitation of the night sky on your ceiling. 

Ten kisses the top of your head again when the moon appears, a narrow crescent in the corner of the room. “You’re incredible,” Ten’s voice is soft with awe and wonder.

You lie there and stargaze at the universe you created, relaxing with Ten until Yuta appears. He slides right onto the sofa with you, slotting himself between your legs and leaning back against your chest. 

“It’s beautiful. I told you that you could do it.” His hand covers your knee, a comforting heat. “You’re like a god all on your own now, my love. Painting the universe, able to shapeshift and summon fire.” 

You’re not a god. Gods are holy and above everything and everyone else. You’re a part-demon thing of unholiness in love with two demons. 

But you don’t feel like speaking, your body still exhausted to your core from the marathon of rigors it's been through over the past few days. So you just lie there in the quiet with your lovers, and enjoy the sight of the stars.

<-previous || next–>

a/n: *big sigh of relief* that was a long one, like in the document, that whole WinWin rut was like 30 pages long 😂😂 I hope you enjoyed this! There was a tiny bit of plot development in here, and I’m hoping going forward in the next few chapters you’ll actually be able to see the plot instead of just the smut because we’re reaching the point where when I was writing this I decided to make it more than just smut

As always! Thank you so much for reading! Comments, reblogs, likes, all of that stuff is forever and always appreciated!

(ps, if at any point you notice any inconsistencies please let me know! Because half of this story was written like a month and a half ago, and half of it I’m writing on the days in between posting, so there might be some things that I accidentally mess up and don’t catch when I do an edit)

[all-the-things-2020]

Late Night Talking - Chapter Four

Summary: Things are moving along. The G word is used. Emily spends the night at Dieter’s place.

Rating: PG-13 (implied sex but nothing graphic)

Tagging @rhoorl @gwendibleywrites @avastrasposts

Notes: The Cheech is a real art museum in Riverside.

Dieter and I had been seeing each other for about a month. We’d managed to go out at least once a week and talked on the phone almost every night. Things were still low key. We’d visited the Cheech (Dieter was really into art; his mother had been an artist and he dabbled in painting now and then), gone for a hike in the Santa Monica Mountains, had a picnic at the Citrus Park. Nothing fancy, nothing that would attract attention.

Tonight, we were hanging out at his place, snuggling on the couch and watching random shows on Netflix. I had to go back to work in a few weeks, and I hoped that once I wasn’t available on weekdays, we wouldn’t drift apart. His schedule was different all the time, and I knew he had a project coming up that would require him to be out of town for several weeks.

We hadn’t slept together yet. I was wary of taking that step when I wasn’t sure exactly how things were going to work out, and he hadn’t put any pressure on me, even though he’d made more than a few hints. For now, I was content to keep things as they were. We’d had a few heavy make out sessions, one in the back seat of his car that had led to an embarrassing incident with a police officer who seemed surprised to find two middle-aged people steaming up a car’s windows.

I wasn’t even sure what we were watching anymore, since I was so comfortable in Dieter’s arms that I was ready to doze off. I jumped when his phone rang on the coffee table. He chuckled and rubbed his hands up and down my arms. “Easy there,” he said, leaning forward to look at the phone screen. “Oh, it’s my agent. I’ve got to take this.” He snatched up the phone and answered the call.

“Hey,” he said. “No, no, it’s fine. Just hanging out with my girlfriend. So what’s up?”

He wriggled out from under me and walked into the other room, away from the noise of the television. I sat on the couch, stunned. Had he just referred to me as his girlfriend? We hadn’t talked about where this thing was going, hadn’t discussed whether we were exclusive or how serious either of us was.

He disappeared for a while, leaving me to stare at the TV until Netflix asked “Are you still there?” I stirred enough to press the button on the remote, and it started playing the next episode of whatever we’d been watching. Dieter came back in and tossed his phone back on the table. He flopped down on the couch and pulled me into his lap.

“He’s got me an audition for a rom-com,” he said. “Finally, something that isn’t an action flick. Keep your fingers crossed.”

“That’s great news,” I said. I wasn’t sure how to bring it up, but I knew I wouldn’t be able to relax until I knew for sure. “Um, did you mean what you said?”

“What did I say?,” he asked distractedly, busy with the remote looking through the Netflix menu.

“You … you told him you were hanging out with your girlfriend,” I said carefully. “Did you mean that? Am I your girlfriend?”

He dropped the remote. “Shit,” he said. He ran one hand through his hair, making it even messier than usual. “Um, yeah, I know we haven’t really talked about things, but … yeah, I do think of you as my girlfriend.”

I turned around in his lap to face him. “So does that make you my boyfriend?” I asked, cupping his face with one hand.

He smiled. “I guess it does,” he said. I leaned forward and kissed him. He wrapped his arms around me and pulled me closer. “Oh, yeah, definitely your boyfriend,” he said between kisses.

I sat back. “We should probably talk about this,” I said. “I mean, I’m going back to work soon, and I don’t know how often we’ll be able to see each other. This is kind of going to be a long-distance relationship, you know.”

He nodded. “Yeah, I know, but I’m cool with that. It’s not ideal, but we’ll make it work. We can spend the weekends together, maybe I can come out during the week sometimes … we’ll manage.”

“About that,” I said. “If we’re going to be spending the weekends together, maybe it’s time we … um, take the next step? I mean, if we’re serious about each other.”

“Oh, I’m very serious,” he said, his hands sliding down to my hips. “So very, very serious about you.” He kissed me fiercely and I wrapped my arms around his neck, running my fingers through his hair, messing it up even more. After a few minutes, he reached onto the coffee table for the remote and clicked the television off.

“Let’s move this into the bedroom,” he murmured.

“Sounds good to me,” I replied, feeling giddy. He stood up and held out his hand. I took it and he led me off to bed.

***********************************

I woke up long before the sun came up. As I crawled out of bed, Dieter stirred. “Where you goin’?” He mumbled.

“Have to pee,” I whispered back. He grunted and buried his face in the pillow. I stumbled through the darkened house to the bathroom, still half asleep myself. I flicked on the light and immediately regretted it. I had to screw my eyes shut against the blinding glare, and fumbled for the switch. Of course, that meant I was effectively blind until my eyes readjusted and I nearly missed the toilet.

I was laughing as I made my way back to the bedroom. “What's so funny?” Dieter said, his voice muffled through the pillow. “Are you looking at my ass?”

“No,” I said, slipping back under the covers. “I just blinded myself with the bathroom light and almost killed myself.”

“Oh, okay, then,” he said. He pulled me close and pressed a kiss against my forehead. “Now shut up and let me sleep.”

“You’re grumpy when you’re sleepy,” I replied.

“Less talk, more sleep,” he said, pulling his pillow over his head.

************************************

The sun was high by the time we finally got up the next morning. Dieter was definitely not a morning person. He was not talkative at all, pulling on an old t-shirt and a pair of shorts before stumbling to the kitchen to turn on the coffee maker. I picked my clothes up off the bedroom floor, got dressed, and followed him.

“Want some breakfast?” I asked, opening the refrigerator to see what he had. I always wake up starving, for some reason.

“Um,” he grunted, slumped on a stool at the kitchen island.

“Is that a yes or a no?,” I laughed. I smoothed his messy hair back from his face and kissed his forehead.

“Yes,” he said. “Coffee first, though.”

I found some eggs, butter, and a loaf of bread on the counter. “How do you like your eggs?” I asked, not expecting much of an answer. He was busy preparing his coffee and didn’t hear me at first. “I said … how do you like your eggs?”

“Hmm, oh, runny, please,” he said before taking a deep gulp of coffee. He sighed and sank back down onto his seat.

“Sunny side up, coming right up,” I said brightly, as I put the frying pan on the stove. He flipped me off.

“Gee, I’d think you’d be nicer to me after what I let you do to me last night,” I teased.

“You loved it,” he retorted, clearly starting to react to the caffeine.

“Yeah, I did,” I admitted. I tossed a pat of butter into the hot frying pan. “How many eggs?”

“Two,” he said, standing up, carrying his coffee mug with him. He stood right behind me, putting his chin on my shoulder.

“Back off,” I said. “I can’t cook if you’re on top of me like that.”

“Oh, sorry, thought you liked that,” he teased. I elbowed him in the stomach and he stepped back with an “oof.”

I cracked a couple of eggs into the pan, then popped some toast into the toaster while they started to fry. “Make yourself useful and get some plates,” I told him.

“I’d think you’d be nicer to me after what I did to you last night,” he replied. I flipped him off and he laughed. He was definitely responding to the caffeine.

I finished his eggs, plated them, and started on my own. His toast popped up and I slathered it with butter for him. “Go ahead,” I said. “Don’t let it get cold.”

He broke the yolks on his eggs, dipped in his toast and took a big bite. “Mmm, you’re definitely a keeper,” he said after he’d swallowed.

“Eggs and toast aren’t that difficult,” I said. “Don’t get any grand ideas about me being a good cook or anything.” I pointed the spatula at him.

He held his hands up. “I would never assume,” he said. “Traditional gender roles have no place in this house.” He took another bite and pointed at the stove with his fork. “Your eggs are burning.”

“Oh, shit,” I said, quickly pulling the pan off the burner, narrowly saving my breakfast from ruin. Fortunately, my toast came out perfectly.

After breakfast (and two more cups of coffee for Dieter), he did the dishes and retired to the shower. When he returned, he was dressed in a nicer t-shirt and a clean pair of shorts. “You actually look alive now,” I told him.

“It takes me a while,” he admitted. “Hope that’s not going to be a problem.”

“No,” I said. “Lazy mornings are just fine by me, when I can get away with it.” I pulled him down onto the couch next to me. “During the week, I’m in such a rush … this is nice.” I snuggled up next to him.

“So, what do you want to do today?,” he asked. “Go to the movies, take a hike, hit a museum?”

“Just hang out with my boyfriend,” I replied.

“Sounds good to me.”

********************************************************

As I drove home that afternoon, it hit me. I’d slept with a movie star. It hadn’t felt like that at the time. It was just me and Dieter, the guy I was crazy about, who called me every night and talked about stupid stuff until we were both tired enough to call it a night. It had felt natural, easy. But as I steered through traffic on the 10 I realized the implications of our actions.

I was Dieter’s girlfriend. He’d said it. That meant we were exclusive. Things were serious. And now I was part of his story. A story that was plastered all over the Internet and social media and magazines any time he did anything remotely news worthy. A story I would be featured in if we went somewhere public, if he mentioned me in an interview. Part of me — the part that had always told herself it didn’t matter that she hadn’t been asked to the dance because she didn’t want to go anyway — wanted to flaunt it to the world.

A bigger part of me was scared shitless. I hated having my picture taken. I always volunteered to be the photographer on outings, feeling safer behind the camera than in front of it. I offered to help in the kitchen at parties, help clear up after meetings. I liked being in the background, part of something but never the focus. Dieter lived in a huge spotlight. He was the main character of not only his own life, but most events around him. I wasn’t sure I could handle that amount of attention.

But then I thought of him when we were alone, just the two of us together. He felt right. We felt right. My head fit against his shoulder like we were two puzzle pieces. He’d told me bits and pieces about his life, things I suspected he hadn’t told anyone else besides his therapist. I told him stuff, too, surprising myself with my candor. It wasn’t just physical intimacy between us. It was emotional, mental, intellectual.

I tried to concentrate on the traffic. I knew Sam would tell me I was still in the infatuation stage, and tease me that the man must be good in bed if I was so discombobulated by being dicked down for the first time. But I knew it wasn’t that. Or at least not just that.

It scared me. Because for the first time in my life, I felt like the main character of my own story, and I wasn’t sure if I was ready to be a star.

By the time I got home, I had a raging tension headache from driving. I flipped through my mail, took some ibuprofen and settled down on the couch to text Sam.

ME: Hey

SAM: Oh, you’re still alive. Starting to wonder.

ME: Ha ha very funny. I just got home.

SAM: From yesterday’s date? No way. I want details!

ME: It was good.

SAM: You fucked a celebrity and all you tell me is it was good? That’s bs.

ME: I slept with my boyfriend for the first time. It was good but awkward. You know how it is.

SAM: Excuse me, BOYFRIEND? When did this go from ‘we’re kind of seeing each other’ to ‘he’s my BOYFRIEND’? You skipped a big chunk.

ME: Last night. Look, are you going to be serious about this?

SAM: Of course. Sorry. Go on.

I wasn’t sure what to tell her. What had happened between me and Dieter was private. I wanted to keep it that way, but at the same time, Sam had always been my safe person, the one I could tell just about anything to because she lived so far away and wasn’t part of my day to day life.

ME: He got a phone call from his agent. He told the guy he was just ‘hanging out with his girlfriend.’ I asked him if he meant it. He said yes.

SAM: So this is serious.

ME: Very serious. Sam, I don’t know what I’m doing! Dieter is amazing. He’s funny and smart and he just gets me.

SAM: And he’s hot.

ME: Yeah, and he’s hot. But it’s summer and I have all this free time and I feel like a kid on vacation. What’s going to happen once I’m back at work and we’re both busy and he’s off filming something and we hardly see each other? How long can we keep this up?

SAM: If it’s meant to be, you’ll figure it out. But you won’t know unless you try. And sweetie, even if it doesn’t work out, you’ll have a hell of a story to tell when we’re in the retirement community knitting socks.

(We had a long standing joke that even though we lived so far apart, we’d eventually end up living in the same senior center and spend our days knitting socks and drinking mimosas between bingo games.)

ME: It doesn’t feel like a fling. But it can’t be the real thing, can it? I mean, he’s got a fucking Oscar on his bookshelf, Sam. I saw it. Just sitting there like a knickknack.

SAM: So what? Thom’s got a degree from Harvard hanging on the wall. Doesn’t make him better than me. Look, Em, loosen up. Enjoy yourself. You always look for the crash that might be coming instead of enjoying the ride. Maybe he’s the One. Maybe he isn’t. But right now, he’s yours. No one else’s. Just yours.

ME: You’re right. You’re always right. I should let you go. Give Thom and the kids a hug from me.

SAM: Only if you give Dieter one from me! Can’t wait to let that name drop next time I have to see that bitch Lana, ha ha!

I always felt better after chatting with Sam. She had a way of taking the blinders off of me, letting me see more than just the narrow path ahead that I imagined, strewn with rocks and danger. She’d helped me through losing both my parents, layoffs and furlough days at work, and various other bumps in the road, keeping me focused on the silver lining of even the darkest cloud.

Dieter wasn’t a dark cloud. He was sunlight and moonbeams and starshine. All I had to do was step out into the light.

[ladye-zelda]

@merriclo Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! From, your Secret Santa!

I am so sorry it has taken me this long to get to you 😭 but hi! I'm you're secret santa! I hope you're okay with some modern au Linked Universe -- if it's not to you're liking then I am more than willing to redo it for you! (I hope that's not wrong of me to say that)

A little bit of hurt/comfort; did my best to convey a found family

---

Of all of the things, Legend had least expected a letter to go through his mailbox. Spiders and dust were to be expected, as anything that was delivered to his house were the packages he ordered from Malozon. Notice of his bills were emailed to him directly, and Legend had long since made sure that no one sent him any junk mail. Besides, he was hardly at home anyways, having leased his house to Ravio while he lived in his van, occasionally visiting to make sure the house was still in his name. He thought he would take a break and spend the holiday at home for once, but found only a note saying Ravio had left to be with his family in Lorule. Alone for the holidays once more.

Except, during the one time he decided to check his mailbox, he found the letter. Curious, he took it and opened it immediately. An invitation.

It was written professionally enough. Holiday get-together at Time’s ranch. 6 pm. Scribbled on the bottom, however, there was a handwritten note.

Hey Legend – heard you were in town for the holidays. That’s great! We know that you love to stay alone during this time, but we would like for you to come. If not, then that’s okay! Enjoy the holidays!

Your Pal, Twilight.

Twilight was right, Legend did enjoy spending the holidays by himself, but…

… maybe he could go to this party just once.

It was very busy in the Lon household. The main house was crowded head to toe with Links scurrying everywhere. Wild and Twilight were helping Malon in the kitchen, while Wind, Hyrule, and Four were on decorating duty with the tree. Wars wandered trying to help out the best he can, but he ended up joining Sky in helping decorate the rest of the house. Time avoided the chaos and stayed on the couch, sipping a nice warm cup of hot chocolate. He was no good at baking, and never had an eye (pun intended) for decorating, so staying out of things was probably the best decision he had ever made.

Besides, it was not like he could really focus on those kinds of things anyways. He was worried for the missing member of their group. Legend.

None of the Links had heard from their friend in a long time. They weren’t sure why he would pack up and leave his house all of a sudden, or go totally silent. Although they texted him from time to time to make sure he was okay, they decided that he would probably still need some space. They didn’t have high hopes that he would come over for this party, but that didn’t mean that they still couldn’t try.

Time didn’t hear the knock on the door, but soon he found Four hopping down from the ladder he had gotten, yelling “I got it!” then rushing to open the front door.

“Legend?”

The house suddenly became quiet. Malon, Wild, and Twilight rushed out of the kitchen, their mouths gaping as they saw who was at the doorway. Time looked up, immediately standing, both his eyes open in disbelief.

It really was Legend standing in the doorway, rubbing his neck uncertainly as he stared at some spot on the floor. Four immediately hugged him, only to have Wind run up beside him saying “Hey! I want a hug too!”

Everyone gathered around Legend, laughing, crying, all trying to talk over one another. Sky and Wars came back from whatever part of the house to check what was the commotion about, and broke down in emotional messes seeing their long-lost friend. Sky, who was half-crying, half-smiling, cut his way through the crowd to give Legend a big hug. Wars, on the other hand, was trying not to laugh hysterically seeing Legend’s choice of hair color. “You do know you’re supposed to drink red juice, right?” he teased, rubbing his friend’s hair.

Instead of scowling like Legend did whenever Wars teased him, he was smiling. In fact, it was probably the most their hermit (as many of the boys said Legend was) had ever smiled in his life. He was grinning from ear to ear, his buck-teeth that he was usually insecure about shining in their glory, trying to weave in “I missed you too”s in the “I miss you”s. 

Time smiled as well. The kid was going to be okay.

After everyone had had their fill of Legend hugs, they sat him down on the couch. Wild went to go make him a batch of hot cocoa, Malon took Legend’s coat and boots and switched them out for a warm blanket. Wind and Four went to finish decorating the tree, while Hyrule, Wars, Sky, Time, and Twilight sat down with him, Twilight and Hyrule sitting on either side of their friend. Malon went back to the kitchen to help bake the rest of the party’s treats. Hyrule volunteered in place of Twilight, but everyone knew Hyrule was worse of a disaster than Time was. Sky went in his place instead, despite the closest he had ever got into any sort of food preparation was the one time he had to volunteer in a soup kitchen for a misdemeanor he had done as a minor (quite a surprise to all of the Links when they had found out).

While everyone tended back to their duties, Legend listened intently as they updated him on all of the things that he had missed. A few birthdays, a wedding. Time began to worry that Legend would start feeling sorry for himself, but Legend stayed surprisingly positive throughout the whole exchange. But that didn’t mean he wasn’t hurting on the inside.

“Cookies are done!” Malon called from the kitchen. She brought out a plate of gingerbread cookies, offering them to each of the boys. “They’ve cooled down too.”

Everyone took a cookie, giving their thanks and complementing her as they took a bite. “Well, don’ thank me fully,” she giggled. “Gotta give a lil’ credit to Wild too!”

“Thank you Wild!” the boys called. They received a thumbs-up from him in return.

“So, what ‘bout you?” Malon asked, turning to Legend. “What’r all the cool things you’ve seen on your adventure?”

The boys looked at Legend with wide eyes, unsure if the question had struck a chord with him or not. Legend, however, just stared deeply into the cup of hot chocolate cupped between his hands. His expression looked a lot like Wild’s whenever he was remembering something. Unpleasant or not, only Legend could tell them.

Eventually, Legend broke his stare with a big sigh. “It was quite the adventure.”

He told them all that had happened in the last year. His van broke down more than a couple of times, he was chased by a tornado, and spent a season working at a renaissance fair. Working at the fair was his favorite part, as he met all sorts of people. “But…” he says, with a sad sort of expression. “They’re not like you guys.”

He realized what he had said, his cheeks flaring up in embarrassment as his brothers started to “Awwww” and tease him.

Wild finally came into the living room, chuckling. “Well, I guess it’s time that we celebrate the moment that Legend, our one and only king of sass, admits that he likes us.” From behind his back, Wild brings out a giant chocolate cake, decorated with frosting and already lit candles. Written on it was, Happy Birthday Legend!

Legend squinted at the words. “But… My birthday was last month.”

“We know,” Malon said. “But, well, we weren’t sure if you celebrated your birthday already or not, but we missed your birthday and wanted to make it up to you.”

“I… I don’t know what to say…” Legend stammered. His lip started to quiver, and before anyone could blink tears began rolling down his eyes. Hyrule and Twilight pulled him into a hug, before each of the rest made their way to him. Wild stood off to the side, confused as to what he had done wrong, but Time placed a hand on the younger’s shoulder and shook his head. Nothing that Wild had done was wrong.

Legend was full-on sobbing now, spilling how it had been so lonely ever since he left. He regretted leaving, that he was stupid for feeling all cooped up and instead of staying, missed out on all sorts of lives and events he wanted to be a part of, but didn’t.

“I’m sorry,” he choked. “I am so sorry.”

Time waited until Legend’s cries had quieted down before saying something.

“You have no reason to apologize, Legend,” Time said. “To laugh, to love, to hurt, to regret. Every single one is a step forward. While you may look back and see all of the things that you wish you have done or wish you have changed, the point is you’re looking back. Look how far you’ve come.” Time placed a hand on Legend’s shoulder. “We’re all here for you. We all care for you. No matter where you go, or when you come back, we’ll be here for you.”

“Aye aye!” Wind said. “We love you Legend!”

“Oh… guys…” Legend said, making a wet chuckle. The boys gave Legend one last hug before breaking into the chocolate cake Wild had prepared. For the first time in what felt like forever, Time’s family felt complete.