#alcoholic idiots™ | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

joelscruff · 1 year

Text

feelings on fire (joel miller x f!reader) 18+ PART SEVEN

previous chapters | welp. it's here. this one is a DOOZY, and i'm so sorry. i never expected it to get this long but oh well!!! go grab a snack and get settled cause this one is kinda wild. love u guys sm. i proofread this very quickly so i apologize if there's any mistakes!! and here's my kofi if you'd like to leave a tip 💕 chapter summary: the pressure is building in more ways than one. rating: 18+ explicit warnings: age difference (joel is in his 50s, reader is in her early 20s), innocent/inexperienced reader, praise kink, dirty talk, pet names, mentions of religion, catholic guilt, sexting, n00ds, oral (m receiving), lap-sitting, thigh riding, alcohol, lemme know if i missed any! word count: 15.6k ao3

You're beginning to learn that Joel runs hot and cold.

There have been moments with him, intimate and special and warm, moments that make you feel light on your feet and send butterflies wilding through your stomach. Moments where he's open and present and wants all his attention to be on you, on your body, your pleasure. His touch sets you alight, his words send tingles down your spine.

And then weekdays happen and you start second guessing yourself all over again.

On Sunday you'd attended church with your parents, another attempt at appeasing your mother in lieu of all the lies and deceit. You've only gone to a select few services since you came home, something you know they've been silently judging you for and just waiting to hold above your head. Admittedly you'd been afraid of bumping into people you knew, having to switch on your teenage persona of Good Catholic Girl™ and lie through your teeth about how good it feels to be back home again. Luckily in the few services you'd attended, you'd only run into some elderly family friends, managing to avoid anyone you went to high school with.

Your luck had to run out at some point, though. This service you'd been accosted by none other than Bethany, one of your childhood friends who you'd practically left in the dust when you'd gone away for college. Her friendship was always full of judgement, perfection, and not to mention heaps of Catholic guilt. She'd taken one look at you, appraising you up and down as if assessing you for imperfections, then pulled you into a tight hug.

"It's so good see you," she'd said when she'd pulled back, a wide - and borderline frightening - grin plastered on her face, "My momma told me you were back, thought I woulda heard from you by now!"

Your mother, standing beside you in your pew, had furrowed her brow at this, clearly confused. You hadn't understood her reaction completely until Bethany had headed off to go say hi to someone else.

"I thought you had lunch with her and Alice the other week," she'd murmured softly to you under her breath, giving you an accusatory look, "Said you'd be helping them out over the summer. That's what you told me, anyway."

Fuck.

"O-oh, right," you'd had no idea what else to say other than that, biting down on your lip and staring straight ahead as the service began. She hadn't said anything else about it, but you'd sat in discomfort and anxiety for the next hour.

In a panic, you'd found Bethany after the service and quickly asked if she needed any extra help at Sunday School, to which she'd responded with enthusiasm - a little too much - that they always needed extra hands on Thursdays to help with lesson planning. You'd jumped at the chance, telling her you'd be there.

That night you'd texted Joel. You hadn't heard from him all day despite it being a weekend, and part of you had been hoping you might go over and see him once your parents were asleep.

guess who's volunteering at church now? this idiot.

You'd expected words of comfort, maybe a joke, at least something that would make you feel better about the situation. However, his response to yours had been brief, short, simple:

Rough. Get some sleep x

This trend of short responses has only continued throughout the rest of the week. He's distant when you text him, responds with a few words at best, short and simple and almost like an entirely different person. It's hard to believe it's the same man who whispers good girl in your ear and tells you how well you're doing, how wet you are, how pretty you look. His texts are some ghostly version of him, constantly fading in and out, barely showing interest or desire - that is, if he texts you at all.

It makes your skin itch, sends your insecurities into a tailspin. Why does this always seem to happen? You can't make heads or tails of it - you know he's busy, know that his job takes a lot out of him, and yet you can't help but feel that there's something more he's not telling you. He'd told you on his back deck all about how he wasn't very happy at his job, how he'd prefer to be retired by now, living life on his own terms - so why can't he just do that? It's clearly taking a toll on him, and while part of you feels empathetic and yearns to comfort him, another part feels angry, irritated.

You'd gone to your friends with these concerns, hoping for some sort of answer or solution to the problem. Instead, they'd been more sympathetic to Joel's plight than yours.

you gotta remember you're not in a relationship with him babe

right!! men are v simple creatures. they see things black & white. ur his fuck buddy and he prob doesn't rly want it to go beyond that.

now THAT'S going too far. she's more than his fuck buddy definitely. he wouldn't have told her his whole life story last weekend if that were true.

telling her he had a fucked up childhood isn't necessarily his whole life story. most guys had shitty childhoods lbr

but he opened up!!!!! fuck buddies don't do that.

exactly

i wish you guys were here :(

i'm honestly 5 secs away from booking a flight to texas bestie. gotta use my dad's frequent flier miles somehow.

"My friend Tasha is coming to visit this weekend," you tell your mom on Wednesday evening with a smile, turning your phone toward her to show the Airbnb you'll be staying at, "We're gonna stay at this little bungalow, have a girls' weekend."

Her brow furrows, "Why can't Tasha stay here?"

Because Tasha would terrify you, you want to say, because Tasha doesn't wear pants unless absolutely necessary. Instead you just smile again and say, "I think a change of scenery would be good for me, it'll be like a mini vacation. Plus there's a hot tub."

"Now that's something we need," she turns back to her book with a shake of her head, "I swear, your father is more interested in buying that boat we'll never use instead of something new for the backyard." You hadn't been asking for her permission, but her indifference sends a wave of relief through you; you've still been trying to be on your absolute best behavior lately to make up for the lies.

You head out to the backyard and seat yourself in a lounge chair by the pool, unlocking your phone again and swiping to your last conversation with Joel from last night.

hope you had a good day :)

I'm sure yours was better. Sleep well x

Curt and to the point, not at all what you'd wanted him to reply with. You recall one of your first phone conversations, the one where you'd been experiencing the same lack of interest in his texts, what he'd said to you: Don't think for one second that I don't think about you. But how can you not? How are you supposed to feel desired when he's being like this?

can you call me tonight?

You try not to wait too long before biting the bullet, not wanting to talk yourself out of it, but you do stare at the message with your finger hovering over the send button for longer than you really need to. The sound of the back door sliding open forces you to send it, locking your phone again as your mother walks over and seats herself beside you in another chair.

"It's nice to see you wearing that again," she says with a nod to your chest, referring to your crucifix - after wearing it again last weekend you'd thought that keeping it on might please her. "You're starting to really settle in here again, aren't you?"

You try not to grimace, "Yeah, it's nice being home."

She leans back in her chair, letting the suns rays hit her for a little bit without speaking. You sit there waiting for her to say something else, discomfort flooding through you. You're reminded of how easy it was to sit with Joel in his backyard last weekend, how little pressure there was to put up any kind of front - sitting here with your mother is the exact opposite.

"So, you lied to me," she finally says, voice quiet.

Your eyes widen and you sit up a bit, turning to her with panic already rising in your throat, "Wh-what do you mean?"

She doesn't turn to look at you, continuing to stare at the sky, eyes covered by her comically large sunglasses, "You know what I mean."

You sit there, staring at her with a mix of confusion and fear. There's no way she knows about Joel, how could she know? Who would have told her? You wonder if perhaps one of her neighborhood friends saw you leaving his house, saw you in his car... but the guise of lessons is your cover now, so how would any of that point to your relationship?

Some relationship, you can't help but think to yourself, based entirely on sex and only communication on the weekends.

"Bethany and Alice," your mom finally states, and you feel the panic in the pit of your stomach loosen immediately - oh.

"Mom," you say immediately, shaking your head, "I-I know. I'm sorry. I know I told you we met up but..." you bite your lip, trying to come up with some kind of excuse but coming up empty.

Instead, you do something that surprises you entirely - you tell the truth. Or at least... half of it.

"I really feel like my friendship with them has passed," you admit with a frown, "I'm... I'm different than I was when I left, you know that, don't you? I'm sure you've noticed."

She's still not looking at you but you catch her nodding slowly, thoughtfully.

"I'm sorry I lied but... I didn't want to disappoint you. And I didn't want you to worry about me being alone all the time. I'm actually rarely ever alone at college so it's been nice to have some time to myself," you smile, thinking of the girls in your group chat constantly waiting for new updates, "Having lunch with two people I haven't talked to in years just... didn't seem appealing to me. I have different friends now, you know? I'm older, people outgrow each other."

"Friends like Tasha," your mom states, bitterness in her voice, "Tasha who you don't even want me to meet."

You make a face, "Mom..."

She puts her hands up in defeat, shaking her head, "It's fine. You can do what you want and so can she," the words are drenched in judgement, "But you should remember that there are rules for staying here, young lady. And honesty is one of those rules."

You take a deep breath, swinging your legs around the edge of the chair and placing your arms on your knees, your face in your hands. You're so close to snapping back at her, making a comment that'll surely start an argument, but you shove it back down as best you can, counting to ten in your head.

"I'm sorry," you finally say through gritted teeth, "It won't happen again."

"It better not." She stands up then, disappears from the chair as quickly as she'd settled in it. You watch as she walks to the back door again, reaches for the handle.

Your mouth can't stop itself.

"Have you told Dad about my guitar lessons yet?"

She freezes, turns and stares at you for a moment without saying anything, then opens the door and heads back inside, slamming it behind her.

Checkmate.

I will when I get home.

Your anxiety is through the roof as you pace back and forth in your bedroom after darkness has fallen, freshly showered and pampered and already out of distractions. Without really thinking much about it, you pull Joel's flannel from under your mattress and wrap it around your shoulders, breathing him in as you sit on your bed and try your best not to keep checking your phone. When it finally vibrates you're not even embarrassed when you pick up on the first ring.

"Hey," you murmur, settling into your sheets and closing your eyes, "Is everything okay?"

"With me?" he asks, voice tired and gruff, "Thought it'd be the other way around."

Your brow furrows, "What do you mean?"

"Thought you'd wanna talk about this church volunteerin' stuff," he's moving around as he talks - you hear the sound of a cupboard banging and the clang of a glass against a countertop.

You don't speak for a moment, listening to the sound of liquid being poured into a cup and Joel taking a swig. There's no sound of the tap - you'd be willing to bet that it's not water he's drinking.

"No, I..." you frown, "I was worried about you."

You hear him take another sip, swallowing loudly and then placing the cup back down with a clink. More pouring. You swear you hear the faint sound of a chuckle before he takes another swig.

"Well that's silly," he states, and you suddenly notice there's a strange difference in his voice, a heaviness you're not used to.

"Are you drunk?"

He chuckles again but there's no humor in it, "Nowhere near as drunk as I'd like to be."

You frown, readjusting yourself against the pillows. You hear him take another sip, "Did something happen?"

He sighs then, deep and tired. You hear him put the glass back down on the counter, "No, babygirl, nothin' happened," hearing him say your pet name makes you feel a little better, the anxiety ebbing away a bit, "It's just that my job is the bane of my fuckin' existence."

He sounds genuinely exhausted, words tinged with resentment. You pull his flannel tighter around yourself, breathe him in, pretend you're in the same room as him, "Talk to me," you say softly, "Tell me what's wrong."

He doesn't reply for a moment - you can make out some footsteps on the other end, the creak of his stairs as he goes up to his bedroom, "No, darlin', it's nothin'. Shouldn't be talkin' about this with you."

"Hey, if something's bothering you, I wanna hear about it. I wanna make it better... if I can."

You hear him settle onto his bed, a satisfied little noise emanating from his throat that makes you smile, "That's the thing, babygirl. You can't. This is just the way life works. You do shit you hate and then you die, plain and simple."

"Joel," you admonish quietly - it's the first time you've said his name aloud since last weekend, it feels right on your lips, safe. He sighs but doesn't say anything else, breath evening out in your ear. "What is it? Really? I've been worrying about it all week."

"Oh honey," he murmurs softly. "Shouldn't be worryin' about me, there are more important things."

"Not to me," you admit, closing your eyes and shaking your head even though he can't see you, "First I thought maybe you were just busy, but-"

"Busy," he scoffs, "Right, yeah, busy. That's my middle name at this point. Fuckin' busy."

He really doesn't sound like himself - you know you still don't know him very well at this point, could be wrong about so many things, but part of you just knows that this isn't Joel. You know his softness, his safety, his kind eyes and crooked smile. This version of him sounds so sad; you can't help but wish you were in his bed right now, able to hold him close and run your fingers through his grey curls. You want him to open up to you.

"You don't wanna hear this shit, angel, you don't," he continues, voice gentler this time, "I know you're thinkin' somethin' is wrong, thinkin' somethin' in particular happened to make me feel like this, but the truth is..." he sighs again, deliberates for a moment and then simply states, "Truth is I'm just bein' stupid."

"You're not stupid," you say immediately, and he chuckles.

"God, you're so sweet, babygirl," he murmurs softly, "It's nice to hear your voice."

Your feel your skin heat up at the words, crossing your legs together unconsciously, "It's nice to hear yours too," you whisper with a smile, "I've missed you this week. Every time you've texted me it's felt like it's not really you."

"I'm sorry, baby," you can hear the sincerity in his voice buried underneath the tiredness and alcohol, "I'm just... I'm a mess." You hear him shuffle a bit in bed, like he's turning onto his side, "Work is always puttin' me in a shitty mood lately and I just...I don't want you to see this side of me."

"But why?"

Another sigh, then-

"'Cause I don't want you to look at me differently."

You bring the sleeve of his flannel to your lips, "I could never look at you differently, Joel," you whisper, "Promise."

He's quiet for a moment and you hope you haven't upset him, hope he's just thinking about what to say. You mean your words; it really would take a lot for you to look at him differently. You know you probably shouldn't feel that way considering you've known him less than a month, that the feeling should scare you... but it doesn't.

"I'm tired, angel," he finally says, voice sad and distant, "I'm too old to be doin' this job."

You wait for him to speak again, listening as he takes a shaky breath on the other end of the line, almost like he hasn't told anyone this. And maybe he hasn't.

"But it's hard to admit that to myself," he continues, "And even harder to admit it to you of all people. I don't want you to see some washed up, tired, old geezer, ya know?" he says it with humor but you can tell that he means it, "I mean I used to... god, I used to be able to do shifts like this no problem. Be up at five and home by midnight and able to do it all over again the next day. Now it's like I'm runnin' on a half empty tank of gas. Got no joy in this job anymore and my back is killin' me and-" he cuts himself off suddenly, "And I need to shut the fuck up before I scare you away."

"You're not gonna scare me away," you whisper, and you mean it, "I'm not going anywhere."

He laughs softly to himself; you're not sure if he believes you, but you're choosing to hope that he does, "Ya know, I didn't even wanna tell you my age when we were first together? I wasn't gonna tell you, I really wasn't. But then you were so sweet and vulnerable and honest with me-"

You scoff, "Yeah, lying about knowing how to play guitar, that's certainly honesty."

"That's not what I mean and you know it," he chastises - you can hear the sudden smile in his voice, "No, darlin'... when you told me you hadn't done anythin' before. That's when I knew I had to tell you, 'cause it wouldn't have been right otherwise," he makes an odd noise in his throat and then corrects, "Not that any of this is really right, but..."

"It feels right," you say softly, staring down at the plaid lines on the flannel shirt shrouding your body, reminding you of what it means - that you're his.

"It does," he agrees, voice rough and low, "Right and wrong in all the right ways, huh babygirl?"

You nod to yourself, unable to help the grin that spreads across your face, "Exactly."

The both of you are silent for a few moments but just like last weekend, it isn't uncomfortable or awkward. It's calming and safe, just listening to each other's breathing. You can tell he's tired, can hear it in his slow exhales; again, you can't help but wish you were lying beside him. And you can't help but wonder if a more sober Joel would have even said any of this to you, would have just kept it to himself and continued to deal with it in silence, not bothering to tell anyone how he's been feeling. It breaks your heart a little bit.

"It'll be okay," you whisper gently, soothingly, "It won't be like this forever, Joel."

He sighs, deep and sleepy, "You really are an angel," he murmurs, "So sweet and lovely, babygirl. Love hearin' you say my name like that."

His words send warmth throughout your body - no one has ever spoken to you the way Joel speaks to you, makes you feel the way he makes you feel. You close your eyes and bury your face in the sleeve of his flannel, listen as his breathing gets slow again.

"You should get some sleep," you whisper, even though you really don't want to end the call - but Joel is tired and you want him to feel better, "Text me tomorrow, okay? Even if you're grumpy."

He almost laughs but he's so close to sleep that it comes out slurred and low, "Okay, baby, I will. Promise."

"Goodnight, J-"

"Wait wait wait," he suddenly sounds a bit more alert, rousing himself from sleep, "You didn't tell me 'bout this church thing. You okay with it?"

You giggle at his sudden concern, "It's nothing, really. Just helping an old friend out with lesson plans for Sunday School. Not very exciting."

"Fun," his voice is sleepy and low again, "What're you gonna wear?"

You have to bite down on your lip to stifle another laugh, shaking your head even though he can't see you, "Go to bed, you perv."

He chuckles, "Okay, okay. Goodnight, angel."

"Goodnight, Joel."

You're about to end the call when you hear him murmur one final thing, so soft you're surprised you can even make it out - but you do:

"Hope I dream about you."

You fall asleep with a smile glued to your lips.

You end up wearing the same outfit you'd worn to Joel's last Saturday, though you leave the stockings at home; you doubt the women at church will be offended by your bare legs. You fasten your crucifix around your neck and make sure your mom gets a good look at you before you leave the house; you haven't spoken since yesterday afternoon but you still want her to see you're putting in some effort, as surface level as it may be.

She's in the living room when you come down the stairs, and her expression can't help but turn to one of surprise when she looks up from her book to see you standing there in your Sunday best.

"I'm going to the church," you explain softly, "Gonna help out Bethany with the lesson plan for Sunday School."

She assesses you up and down, eyes fixing on your crucifix for a moment before trailing back down to her book. She doesn't say a word.

Silent treatment. Typical.

Fifteen minutes later you find yourself being greeted by Bethany, blonde hair flowing down her dress as she stands outside the church with a bright smile plastered on her face. You recognize the forced expression immediately, one that you yourself have become an expert in feigning, though for different reasons. You haven't seen her in years but you still know her well enough to tell when she's less than thrilled about something - this time that "something" is you being there.

"I'm so excited you're here!" she tells you, voice shrill as she immediately takes a step forward to envelop you in a haphazard hug that feels neither excited nor genuine.

You should have known it would be like this. When you'd left for college a few years ago you'd promised to keep in touch with both Alice and Bethany, the only "solid" friends you'd managed to keep throughout all the studying, the tutoring, the church services, the extracurriculars, volunteering, etc. It's a miracle in itself that your friendship had even lasted through high school, if you're being honest. You'd begun to distance yourself from them a bit in those final years as you started to lose your faith while theirs only seemed to grow stronger. Leaving for college had been the last nail in the coffin.

"Me too!" you lie, feigning a similar smile as you both pull back from each other.

Though her grin is unrelenting, you can see the distance in her eyes, the sourness and disdain for your presence extremely evident. She doesn't like you. There's an awkward few seconds of silence where she assesses you up and down again, like she had at the service on Sunday.

Why did you even say yes to me coming here? You want to ask as you stand in front of her awkwardly, not really knowing what to say. If you didn't want me here you could have just said there wasn't anything for me to do. But you already know why you'd still been invited despite her obvious disdain for you - keeping up appearances means everything to these people; actually being honest about her feelings would have been disastrous for her reputation.

"Was sure you'd forgotten all about me," she finally says with an edge of malice still shrouded through her smile, "Haven't heard from you in what? Three years? And then you just show up outta the blue, huh?"

You grimace, "Uh, yeah, sorry about that. There was... I mean, I've just had a lot going on, I guess." You kick your feet awkwardly; this is not the conversation you want to be having right now.

"A lot goin' on, huh?" she echoes, eyes still scanning you up and down, "Right. Busy with college?"

You nod quickly, "Yeah, it's been kinda crazy."

She raises an eyebrow, "What are you studyin' again?"

"English Lit."

She snorts then, shaking her head and taking a step back, "Right. Reading. Sure sounds crazy."

Your brow furrows, "It's more than that."

"Oh, I'm sure it is," she puts her hands up in defense, fake laughing and smacking her lips together, "Just find it funny that an English Lit degree takes up so much of your time." She's being pretty bold with the sarcasm but you suppose she has a right to be angry, though you'd never assumed she'd be this pissed about you cutting her off, "Anyway, we should get inside, they're waitin' for us."

"Bethany," you take a step toward her, softening your expression, "I'm really sorry."

She just shakes her head again and turns away from you to reach for the handle on the front door, forced smile finally fading into a natural frown, "Forget it."

Great start.

You don't talk much after that, not after you're led into a side room off the chapel where a few other women are sitting in a circle with binders in their laps. Bethany simply gestures for you sit down in an empty chair and the meeting begins. Everyone immediately begins their rapport, discussing their plans and reading quotes aloud from their binders while you just kind of sit there unsure of what to do or say. A few of the women give you a tentative smile or two, but the way Bethany periodically glares at you is enough to keep them from actually speaking to you directly. You're okay with it though; as awkward as this is, you'd rather sit in silence than have to pretend. Still, if you'd known it would be like this you never would have come - it's not like your mother appreciates it anyway.

Your phone vibrates at one point, a text from Tasha confirming her flight information with lots of !!!!!!'s that make you smile. As if sensing your sudden mood shift, Bethany puts her hands up with another grin that doesn't reach her eyes.

"We keep phones in our purses" she says sweetly, "So we don't get distracted."

You nod and slip it back inside your bag, a gesture that's more of a peace offering than anything else; it seems to appease her.

It's strange being inside this part of the church again after so long. You'd attended your own Sunday School lessons here, prepped for choir and readings, learned your scripture. It certainly doesn't feel as safe or inviting as it once did, though you have to admit that there was always an undercurrent of pressure, of judgement - an energy that still remains today. Bethany watches you closely, quietly assessing you as you nod along to everyone's suggestions and ideas and try to keep up your long-time façade of obedience. You push down the new parts of you that long to take back a bit of control, maybe say something shocking or suggest something ridiculous just to see how they'd react.

You've been sitting in silence for about forty five minutes when Bethany announces its time for a quick phone break. Like clockwork everyone in the room pulls out their devices and starts checking for missed calls from their kids, their husbands. You pull yours out and your eyebrows go up in surprise when you see a text from Joel on your lockscreen:

How's your day going angel?

He didn't forget his promise. A smile plays at your lips as you start typing out your reply, but it quickly fades when you feel Bethany's eyes on you, watching.

"I'm, uh-" you stand up, smoothing out the creases in your dress and gripping your phone tightly, "I'm gonna take a bathroom break."

The bathroom is the same as you remember it, high ceilings and white walls, your footsteps echoing loudly as you walk over to the sinks and lean your back against the countertop. You continue typing out your reply to Joel:

well all the church ladies are giving me the silent treatment til i'm worthy of being here again lol. but jokes on them cause my mom is also giving me the silent treatment so i have training! anyway i miss you. wanna hug you. hope you're feeling a bit better today 💕

You turn around and face the mirror while you wait for his reply. You're still smiling - it's impossible not to when you're thinking about Joel, but this smile is bright and genuine, unlike the forced grins you've been sharing with Bethany for the past hour. God, you can't remember the last time anything made you feel as free and happy as Joel makes you, like nothing else really matters. Your phone buzzes and you tear your eyes away from the mirror to read his reply:

Aw baby I'm sorry. I wanna hug you too. Wanna do a bit more than hug if I'm being honest, but you know that already.

You bring your other hand up to your mouth, smiling even wider into it as his typing bubble pops up again only seconds later:

And I'm sorry about last night. If I said anything stupid please forget it ever happened. Me and alcohol don't mix that well sometimes. I'm alright, don't worry about me x

But I do worry, you want to say, I want to make you feel better. But how can you do that from a church bathroom, miles away from wherever he is right now? You're suddenly reminded of something he'd told you a few weeks ago, something you hadn't quite understood in the moment - You can text me whenever you want, tell me all about what you're doin', brighten up my workday. Maybe send me some pictures.

Oh.

You look at yourself in the mirror again and carefully place your phone down on the edge of the sink. Your hand slowly comes up to push aside the collar of your dress, pull the stretchy material past your shoulder and down your arm. You do the same to the other side, slipping out of your sleeves and tugging down the high neckline of your dress to expose your bare chest to the mirror, putting your cleavage on display. You bite your lip, willing yourself to see what Joel sees, a pretty girl in a pretty dress, bra straps clinging to her skin and a crucifix hanging from her throat. Filthy.

You grab your phone and turn it toward the mirror, opening up your camera app and moving it close enough so he can see only your torso, sleeves hanging limp at your sides while your other arm comes up to squeeze your breasts together a bit, accentuating your cleavage even more. You snap a pic and send it to him before you can talk yourself out of it.

He replies seconds later:

Fuck

A grin spreads across your face and you make quick work of slipping your bra straps down your shoulders as well, just as another text from him comes in:

Send me another baby. Please.

Already one step ahead of you, you think to yourself as your cheeks warm and you pull down the cups of your bra, your breasts spilling out into the cool air of the bathroom. You squeeze them together again, nipples hardening tightly as you take another picture and send it along with a coy message:

better?

He must be staring at his phone, waiting for it, because his typing bubble appears instantaneously. You can't help but feel a sense of pride at the power you're holding right now, a change of pace from your usual naivety.

Oh babygirl. This is just what I needed.

i know :)

You glance at the bathroom door and then at the time - you still have a few minutes before the meeting starts up again and your mind is already racing with what you can do with those few minutes. With barely any hesitation you tug your dress up over your thighs, pulling your panties to the side and aiming your phone underneath. You frown when you pull your phone back up to find that it's dark and blurry.

"Hold on," you whisper to no one, then carefully lift your leg and place your heel on the countertop for support, pulling your dress up again and aiming your phone a little better. You pull back your panties and aren't surprised in the slightest to feel that they're suddenly damp.

This picture comes out much better. Your pussy is bare and a little wet, clit poking out past your lips, panties pulled against your inner thigh. You already know it's gonna make him crazy as you hit send.

Jesus Christ

He's already typing something else when you receive it and you can't help but giggle, covering your mouth and trying to picture where he is right now, what he's doing. Is he in a bathroom too? On a break? Or is he in the middle of a job, surrounded by other people? The latter thought makes you even wetter somehow.

Fuck you have such a pretty pussy baby.

thank you mr. miller :)

Will you hold her open a little for me? Show me that sweet little hole?

Who are you to deny such a request? With heat radiating all over your body you bring your phone down again and scissor your lips apart, exposing the innermost part of yourself to your phone camera. You can feel your own slick on the tips of your fingers, and when you push yourself open you feel a bit of your wetness dribble down onto your palm. Fuck. This is hotter than you'd expected it would be. You'd thought it would be a good way to make him feel better, get him through his work day like he'd said; you never thought you'd enjoy it this much.

Oh sweetheart. Look at that.

You feel another rush of pride as you take your leg down from the counter and tug your dress back down, rubbing your thighs together and doing everything in your power not to touch yourself again even though you want to. A quiet whimper unconsciously tears itself past your lips at his follow-up message:

Who's that perfect pussy belong to babygirl?

You've never typed a message back so fast in your life.

you. it's yours mr. miller.

That's right. Good girl.

Your skin is on fire, body tingling in all the right places. You smooth a hand down your bare chest, cup one of your breasts, gently squeeze. It's impossible for your eyes not to roll back a bit when you imagine Joel's hand on you instead, big and firm and callused and perfect. Your pussy throbs in your underwear and another whimper slips past your lips.

i'm really wet now :(

I know angel. Come over tonight and I'll take care of it, Ok?

Your heart leaps at the invitation, even more wetness pooling in your panties at the thought of what Joel might want to do tonight, if there's another “lesson” he has in mind.

yes please

Eyeing the time again, you bite your lip in disappointment when you realize you should probably be getting back. You wait until Joel has finished typing his final response, a message that makes your skin burn with anticipation:

Don't touch yourself til you see me. Keep that soft little pussy hidden, baby. Promise me.

i promise x

Just as you hit send you suddenly hear the unmistakable sound of footsteps down the hall, quickly approaching the bathroom. Your eyes widen in the mirror, gaze snapping to your bare breasts, sleeves still hanging loosely at your sides. In a panic you hurriedly attempt to stuff yourself back into your bra before you have company – but you're not that lucky.

The bathroom door bangs open and you freeze with one arm halfway through your sleeve, breasts still completely exposed in the mirror as you turn on the spot to see none other than Bethany standing there, frozen in place.

“I-” she looks flabbergasted, expression one of pure horror as she takes a step back from you and grips the knob of the door like she could rip it off at any moment. Your free arm that isn't trapped in a sleeve comes up to cover yourself as best you can, but you know she's already seen everything.

“I'm- I was just-” You're similarly taken aback and at a complete loss for words, unsure how the fuck you can explain what exactly she's just walked in on.

Her eyes fall to the phone in your hand, like she's putting the pieces together, then she shakily takes another step back and leaves without saying another word, the click of her heels echoing back at you loudly until the door finishes closing behind her.

Shit.

You don't have time to stand around thinking up an excuse; you do briefly consider escaping through one of the windows to avoid facing her, but you know it would just delay the inevitable. Instead you hastily finish pulling your dress back on and stare at yourself in the mirror for one final moment.

Your smile is gone. So is the light in your eyes. You suddenly begin to feel that familiar sense of guilt creeping in, the shame, the sin. You blink a few times and find that there are tears welling up in your eyes, a lump in your throat. A tiny voice in the back of your mind, one you've been attempting to mute for years, whispers to you: What have you done?

Bethany doesn't speak to or look at you for the rest of the meeting. It's not much of a change from before you'd gone to the bathroom, but there's something new in her silence now, something you can see in her eyes as she stares down at her binder while the other women talk. Fear. You've known her for most of your life, can sense certain mood changes from a mile away; you've frightened her. And somehow that just adds even more to the guilt building in your stomach.

You'll apologize to her after the meeting, it's all you can do. You genuinely feel horrible that she'd walked in on something so private, seen something she never intended or desired to ever see. You wonder if there's anything you can use to pass off as an excuse; maybe you spilled something on your dress and were cleaning it off? Maybe it was too tight and you needed a breather? Anything is better than the alternative – the truth – but you somehow doubt she'll believe anything you say at this point. That bridge was broken the second you left for college; there's no repairing it now.

The meeting ends with a few pleasantries exchanged and several comments about picking kids up from school, getting home to cook something for dinner, normal things that remind you how abnormal your own situation is in comparison. Half an hour ago you'd felt on top of the world, in control, had power in the tips of your fingers. Now you just feel small again, inconsequential.

You wait until the other ladies have left before taking a step toward Bethany, ready to unload your apologies and beg for forgiveness. She surprises you by speaking first.

"I'd think twice before wearing that again,” she hisses at you, venomous and pointed. Your eyes widen.

"Excuse me?"

"I said,” her words are slow and full of bitter intention, eyes glaring daggers at you, “I'd think twice before wearing that again" she gestures to the crucifix around your neck and you unconsciously reach up to take it between your fingers, glancing down at it before looking back up to meet her angry gaze.

“I'm...” you feel overwhelmed, tears pricking in your eyes again at the sudden burst of rage being directed at you, “I don't...”

"You might not understand this,” she practically spits through her teeth, “but that symbol actually means something to the people here."

"I know what it means.” It comes out as barely a whisper, voice shaky as she takes an intimidating step toward you with nothing but malice in her expression.

"So that's why you've got your breasts out in a public bathroom? A church bathroom?”

“Bethany, I-”

“You're not welcome here anymore, understand?” her voice is full of finality, “You can come to church with your parents-” The mention of your parents sends your anxiety into a tailspin, heart beating frantically in your chest as she continues to step closer and closer toward you, “And you can pretend you're their good little girl. But I know the truth. And it's not welcome in my Sunday School ever again. Got it?”

My Sunday school. The superiority complex is strong and you know deep down that this is all completely rooted in her own fears, her own desires, her pride, but none of that seems to matter when she's staring you down like this, holding you captive with her hostile words.

"Got it,” you whisper, nodding shakily.

"Good. Now go home and take," she points toward the crucifix, the tip of her finger close enough to faintly brush against the shape of it, “that,” she suddenly prods it, giving you one final sneer, “off.”

It takes you twenty minutes to leave the parking lot after that, tears blurring your vision as you cry in your car and try not to let the shame completely envelop you.

Going to Joel's that night carries none of the anticipation you'd felt earlier this afternoon; instead you feel nothing but shame as you steal your mother's house key from its dish in the hallway, closing the front door behind you as softly as you can and hurrying out into the night. There's no excitement or rush like the last time you'd done this. You feel like you could cry at any moment as you approach Joel's house, climbing his front steps with a heavy weight on your shoulders that wasn't there before, that hasn't been there in weeks.

The door opens before you can even turn the knob – he must have been watching from his window, waiting for you in anticipation for tonight's “lesson”. Your stomach lurches.

“There's my little Sunday School girl,” he murmurs, taking your hand and tugging you gently inside.

“Please don't call me that,” you say quietly, head down.

He shuts the door behind you and takes your hands in his – you can feel his eyes on you but you're unsure of the look on his face, what expression is on it. Does he sense there's something wrong? Or is he waiting for you to jump his bones?

“Hey,” his voice is soft, concerned, “Hey, look at me, sweetheart.”

You shake your head, still staring at the floor.

“What happened, babygirl?” he murmurs, one of his hands releasing yours to come up and stroke your cheek gently, thumb grazing the wetness beneath your eyes, “Why're you cryin', darlin'? C'mere.” His finger travels down to your chin, pushes your face up to look at him.

His expression is worried, brow furrowed and forehead creased, a frown playing at his lips. You feel your heartbeat slow, the weight on your shoulders decreasing just a little bit as safety settles in your bones. He cares.

“I had a horrible day,” you whisper, feeling tears trickle down into the corners of your mouth, “I know you want to...want to...” you shake your head, “Whatever we were gonna do. But I don't think I can tonight, Joel. I don't feel good.”

“Oh, babygirl,” he breathes, releasing your chin and immediately wrapping you up in his embrace, arms tightening around you as he pulls you against his chest, “We don't have to do anythin', don't even worry about that.”

You bury your face in his chest, breathe him in. His flannel underneath your mattress is nothing compared to the real thing, the real smell of him overtaking your senses and filling you with a true feeling of warmth and safety. His arms are so big – he's so big – and without meaning to you find yourself going completely limp in his arms, bones turning to jelly. It's like finally breathing in the fresh air after holding your breath underwater, a natural reaction to finally being where you belong.

He doesn't question your body's response, almost seems to understand completely as he pulls you up from the floor and adjusts you slightly to cradle you in his arms, carrying you past the living room, past the kitchen, up the stairs and to his bedroom. You just close your eyes and bury your face in his shirt, inhale the scent of sawdust and sweat and cedar and Joel.

He tips you gently onto his bed, presses a gentle kiss to your forehead before settling in beside you without saying anything. You feel his arm wrap around you, tug you in closer beside him as he noses your hair and lets you just exist.

Minutes pass before you finally break the comfortable silence, voice quiet and small - “I feel so ashamed.”

You feel his brow furrow in your hair and you turn around to face him, bringing your arm up around his torso and pressing your hand firmly against his back. He looks at you with confusion, concern.

You tell him everything. About Bethany, your friendship with her and Alice before you left for college, the way you'd already begun to lose your faith even then. You tell him about your mom, about the silent treatment and her reaction to the white lie, the lie that's practically nothing in the grand scheme of deceit you've been weaving these past few weeks. You talk about church and Sunday School and all the guilt you'd felt in that little room growing up, how being there again felt wrong and uncomfortable. You tell him how free you'd felt in the bathroom with your camera, the power you'd felt, reclaimed, and how all of it had been snatched away from you the second Bethany had entered. How she'd destroyed any semblance of confidence you'd been able to find today, how she'd shamed you for the crucifix that you don't even want to be wearing. It's the most you've ever told him, the most you've ever talked to him about anything.

And he listens.

He doesn't seem put out by your venting, annoyed or irritated or ready to send you home at any minute. He just nods, frowns at the right moments, strokes your arm and your cheek, kisses your forehead when you start to cry. Wipes the tears away when you apologize for crying. He stays with you and remains present and attentive, lets you talk and talk until you start to apologize for how much you've been talking.

“I know this isn't even what you signed up for,” you blubber, shaking your head and bringing your hands up to cover your face, “I'm sorry I keep bringing so much- so many complications into your life.”

“Shh,” he soothes, placing his large hands on yours and pulling them away from your tired eyes, leaning in to brush his nose against yours, “Stop apologizin', baby. Stop. You've got nothin' to be sorry for.”

You suddenly sit up in bed, leaning back against the headboard and bringing a hand up to touch the crucifix still clasped around your neck. You hadn't taken it off like she'd told you to do; you'd felt like doing so would have made you weak, would have been like giving up, even though you'd never wanted to even wear it again in the first place.

“Why does this little thing have so much fucking power over me?” you ask aloud, not directed at Joel but more-so to yourself, “My whole life, no one has ever seen me, they've just seen this.” You shake your head, squeezing the tiny cross in your hand. “And wearing it again has just brought all that shit back, it's done absolutely nothing good. Wore it for my mom and she still gives me the silent treatment. Wore it for Bethany and she still treats me like garbage, tells me to take it off. It's just a fucking necklace.”

Joel sits up beside you, places a warm hand on your thigh and peers at you with those soft brown eyes, lulling you back into a sense of calm, of serenity.

“Give it to me,” he says quietly.

Your brow furrows in confusion. You stare at him for a moment, then watch as he carefully brings his hands up to graze his callused fingertips against your neck, brushing the chain.

“I'll take it off your hands for a bit,” he murmurs, “Outta sight, outta mind. And if you want it back, I'll have it ready for you. How's that sound?”

You nod slowly to yourself, feeling your eyes begin to sting again at his words, “...Good. Th-that sounds good.”

Without saying anything else you hear the sound of the clasp being undone, feel the chain slip away from your skin as Joel takes it from you. You turn your head to watch as he fists it in his palm for a moment, gaze thoughtful and faraway as he traces the shape of the cross with his thumb. A few seconds later he opens his bedside table and carefully places it inside, then shuts the drawer.

And just like that, the weight is gone.

You take a shower in his bathroom again, wanting to wash this day off you and start over, clean slate. You could have had one when you got home from the meeting earlier but you'd instead opted to just lay in bed feeling sorry for yourself for much longer than you'd needed to. Now you close your eyes and let the hot water envelop you, wash yourself with Joel's body wash and allow yourself to become his again, picturing him laying in his bed in the other room, waiting for you. This is what matters. This moment. Right now.

You enter his bedroom wrapped in one of his towels, drops of water still spilling down your skin onto the hardwood floor. He's sitting up in bed, shirtless with his legs hidden under the covers. He's seemingly deep in thought as he stares at his phone screen, brows scrunched together. You watch as he pulls the phone away from himself, eyes squinting and lips parting a bit, then pulls it back, like he can't see what he's looking at properly. You realize that's probably the case.

“You need glasses,” you say with a soft giggle, and his expression relaxes when he sees you standing there, phone going back on his nightstand.

“I have glasses,” he admits sheepishly, giving you a tender smile, “Just hate wearin' 'em.”

“Of course,” you roll your eyes and take a few steps forward, still gripping the towel around yourself. His eyes fall to the parts of you that are bare, revelling in the way the lamplight reflects on your wet skin. You feel tingles erupt through your senses under his gaze.

“Are you naked?” you ask softly.

He shakes his head, “Wearin' pants, don't worry.”

You stand there for a moment, staring. He just stares back, eyebrows going up a bit while he waits for you to say something else. When you don't, he tilts his head slightly, appraising you.

“Do you want me to be naked, babygirl?”

You're answering before you even really know what you want, "Yes."

Without needing to be told twice he reaches under the covers with both hands and shimmies his way out of his pajama bottoms, staying hidden under the sheets as he tosses them out onto the floor. You bite your lip, still just standing there staring at him without moving. You're still dripping everywhere, a little puddle of water forming at your feet the longer you stay frozen.

He raises his finger and playfully curls it toward himself with a smile, "C'mere, baby," he murmurs, "Be naked with me."

You don't need telling twice either.

The towel drops from your body, landing in the puddle of water on the floor - easy cleanup. You feel heat radiating through every inch of your bare skin as you walk toward the bed, avoiding Joel's eyes and quickly slipping in beside him. You really don't know what you're doing - you'd said when you got here that you didn't want to do anything, not tonight, and it's still true. But part of you just aches to be close to Joel, to feel his warm heat, his rough skin, be connected to him somehow. It's what you've wanted all week.

You inch in beside him, back against the headboard, your bare thigh touching his lightly beneath the sheets, and you find yourself tensing up unconsciously. He clocks your reaction immediately.

"You don't gotta be nervous, angel," he tells you softly, soothingly.

You swallow and take a deep breath, "It's hard not to be," you whisper, though there's no reason to, "I'm just... I'm so..."

"What?" he asks, brown eyes seeking yours in the dim light. His hand comes up to cradle your face, thumb swiping beneath your eye again like he's checking for more tears - luckily you're feeling much better in that department.

You sigh, shrugging slightly, "I don't know what I'm doing," your eyes fall down to the duvet, knowing that if you pulled it back you'd see your bodies touching underneath, his rough and tan skin pressed against yours, soft and untouched, "I mean, I don't even know why I came tonight. I knew I didn't- that I didn't want to-" you sigh again in frustration, unable to find the right words, "I just... I missed you," your eyes travel back up to meet his, "I just wanted to be near you."

His expression softens, still stroking your cheek as he peers into your eyes, "You feel safe with me, don't you?" You nod. "You know I won't do anythin' you don't want me to do, right?" Another nod. "So it's okay to just relax when you're with me."

You grimace, "How can I relax when we're naked in bed together?"

He chuckles, dropping his hand from your face and shuffling down into the bed a bit, away from the headboard, "Okay, time for another lesson."

You feel your heart sink again, worried that he's not understanding - probably because you can't explain it right - but he smiles reassuringly at you and curls his finger slightly, urging you to follow him downwards. With a quiet inhale you slowly inch away from the headboard and further down into the bed, beneath the duvet. You both stop moving when your heads hit the pillows, laying down fully beside each other.

"Gettin' naked doesn't always mean there has to be sex," he says softly, and you watch as he very slowly brings his hand down beneath the duvet; you know where it's going before it touches you, but you still shiver when you feel his fingers brush lightly against your bare arm, "Us bein' naked in bed together doesn't mean anythin' has to happen."

"But earlier today I said..." you trail off, shaking your head, "I promised that-"

"Earlier is earlier," he brushes your arm again, tender and comforting, "Circumstances change, your day got shitty. Mine was no better. It happens."

His hand travels downward, toward the skin of your hip. He curls his palm around your bare flesh and gently massages it, thumb stroking the edge of your tummy. It's intimate and new, but somehow it feels more safe and comforting than sexual, like he's simply doing something casual, normal.

"Sometimes you just wanna lay in bed with someone" he murmurs, still touching you tenderly, "No expectations, no pressure. No nothin'. Sure, it's fun to touch each other and be together like that, but if you just wanna sleep..." his fingertips brush your back gently, then press firmly into your skin as he pulls you a bit closer toward him, "If you just wanna lay here with me, that's okay too."

You're not sure what to think, staring at him with a million different thoughts flooding your mind. Your interpretation of what men want has always been a bit of a grey area, but you've heard enough from both your family and your friends to know that most of them are just after one thing. You'd heard it from your parents your whole life who always warned about non-Christian boys and their sinful thoughts, then from the girls at college who dealt with disrespect and catcalls, men who turned on them in an instant the second they realized they weren't getting any.

Joel isn't like that. Sure, he wants sex - that's been obvious since day one, when he'd invited you inside his house within minutes of meeting you. He'd only had one thing on his mind, just like your parents had always said. But he hadn't thrown a fit when you'd said no, and up until this point he's made it abundantly clear that the ball is in your court, that it's up to you what happens between the two of you.

"I know all this stuff can be scary," he continues softly when you don't reply, "I know you're embarrassed about bein' so inexperienced, but you don't need to be. I'm here to make it easier for you; I want you to be comfortable."

He nudges forward a bit and slowly begins to wrap his arms around you, warm and inviting. You let him, body going loose and comfortable in his grasp as you feel your eyes close; safe. You feel so safe.

"You're so warm," is all you can think to say, loving the way it feels to have his broad and hairy chest pressed up against your bare breasts, his big and strong arms winding around your smaller form.

He chuckles softly and you feel him press a gentle kiss to your cheek, beard scratching your skin in your favorite way. You bring your arms up and hug him back beneath the blankets, feeling your naked thighs press firmly against his. You're aware of his cock - it's hard not to be, not when it's pressed gently against the base of your tummy, soft against your skin - but he doesn't rub himself against you or do anything to initiate more than this, more than just being together like he'd said.

He really means it, you know he does.

"I can't wait to have sex with you," you hear yourself whisper in his ear; it sounds dirty but you don't mean it to be, "I just...I'm really glad it's gonna be you."

And I'm pretty sure I'm falling for you.

You wake up the next morning to a firm and solid presence at your back, bare and warm and comfy. You're surprised you're awake before Joel's alarm, wondering what exactly woke you up in the first place - and then you feel it. Something wet and sticky against your lower back, something pulsing and twitching every so often against your skin.

Good morning.

He hadn't pressed his cock against you like this last night when you were cuddling, hadn't asked you to touch it or even acknowledged its presence. But sleeping Joel is an entirely different person, his big arms wrapped around you tightly, one splayed across your belly while the other holds your right breast, cups it like it's meant to fit there. He holds you in place firmly, breath at your neck, nose in your hair.

You're not sure how much time you have left before his alarm goes off. The sun is only barely starting to come up outside the window, so it could start ringing at any time now. All you know is that the sensation of having him so close to you like this, his most intimate part so close to yours, so wet and warm, it's making you all wet and warm. Your skin almost feels itchy, especially at your neck where his warm breath leaves a damp spot beneath your ear, a spot you're suddenly longing for him to kiss, to lick.

"Joel," you breathe, unable to wait any longer, scared that at any moment he'll have to leave the bed and start getting ready for work.

No response.

"Joel," you repeat, a bit louder this time, and with his name you carefully grind back against him a little bit, the wet head of his cock trailing back and forth against your warm skin. He makes a grumbling noise in his chest, pulls you in a bit closer, "Joel, wake up," you moan, painfully aware of the shape of his balls against your ass, big and heavy and suddenly the hottest thing you've ever felt in your life.

"What?" he groans, rousing from sleep, "What is it?"

It's all the confirmation of awareness you need to suddenly turn in the sheets, bring the duvet down to expose your naked bodies to the both of you. His eyes are bleary and tired as he watches you from beneath heavy eyelids, sees where your gaze has settled.

His cock lays long and thick and loose against his tummy, round tip drooling precum into the hair smattered above his belly button. God, he's so big. Your lips part, saliva filling your mouth like it had the last time you saw it, like somehow your body knows exactly what the next step is.

"I wanna put my mouth on it," you whisper, pushing your hair back behind your ears and turning your gaze back to Joel's face, "Please."

His eyebrows go up in surprise, eyelashes fluttering with sleep. He's probably wondering where this is coming from, how the girl in his bed right now is the same one who just wanted to be held last night, but he doesn't seem to be complaining. He nods quickly, stretches his arms above his head and tries to rouse himself even more from sleep.

"Of course you can, baby," he mutters huskily, voice deep and dripping with arousal, "Go ahead."

"Tell me if I'm doing something wrong," you murmur softly, and before you can even fully process what you're doing or question if you'll even be good at it, your lips are pressing against the warm heat of his wet tip.

He hisses immediately and you pull back, frightened for a moment that you've already fucked up somehow. He shakes his head quickly at you, "No, no, you're good baby, that's good," one of his hands comes down to settle against the back of your head, fingers tangling gently in your hair, "Give it a kiss, just like that."

And you do. Time is already not on your side - you feel like there's a countdown clock hanging over your head as you press another kiss in the same spot, his precum sticky on your lips. You'd thought it might be gross, had heard lots about blowjobs from your friends and how unpleasant they can be, but when your tongue darts out to carefully prod against where he's leaking, you find that it doesn't bother you that much at all.

"Tastes funny," you murmur softly, peppering a few more kisses around the wide head and then down to his shaft, thumbing the prominent vein on the underside as you do it.

"Kinda gross, huh?" you hear him say softly above you, a strained edge to his voice that makes you smile against him.

"I think I like it, actually," you admit softly, tongue darting out once again to slowly lap up a bead at the tip. You're not lying; there's something masculine and sexy and inherently Joel about it, something you hadn't been expecting.

"That's good, sweetheart," he murmurs, stroking the back of your head gently, "That's so good, angel." You don't know whether he means your opinion on the taste or simply a reaction to the things you're doing with your tongue, but either way you keep going, hoping that the alarm doesn't interrupt you.

You wrap your lips around the tip carefully, pulling it into your mouth and sucking it gently - very gently. He makes a breathless sound above you and you can't help but bring your gaze up to his face, your eyes meeting his as you swallow him down.

"That's it, that's a good girl," he breathes, thumbing a strand of hair at your temple and pushing it behind your ear, eyes dark, "Look at you."

You swirl your tongue around the tip, still making sure to keep eye contact with him as you carefully slip more of him inside your mouth. He's so big, there's absolutely no way you'll be able to fit all of him inside, at least not without some practice. He doesn't seem to mind that you can only take a little bit of him, his thumb coming downward to stroke gently at the corner of your mouth. He wipes away a bit of drool pooling there, brows furrowing.

"You're doin' so good, angel," he whispers, nodding slowly to you in reassurance as you very slowly begin to lift your head up and down, up and down, eyes going hazy, "Takin' that cock so well."

His words spur you on, encourage you to take a little bit more. You've got about half of him in your mouth and you already know you won't be able to take anymore, the spongey tip pushing dangerously close to your gag reflex. You absolutely do not want to choke, don't want to ruin this in any way. You want him to feel good. Feel better.

"Oh, honey," he groans softly when you begin to palm his balls, rolling them gently and feeling their fullness, round and heavy, "This mouth," he touches the corner of your lips again, a bit harder this time, trails his fingers downward to grip your chin, "Made to have my cock in there, huh?" his eyes are boring into yours, pupils blown wide, "You like havin' your mouth full like that, babygirl?"

You nod and whimper around his length, speeding up a little bit and never breaking eye contact with him, obsessed with watching his eyes get darker and darker, filling more and more with lust as he watches you pleasure him.

"Yeah, you do," he murmurs, voice soothing again like last night, calm and safe, "What a good girl you are, wakin' me up to suck my cock. Couldn't wait, could ya, baby?" you shake your head and the head of his cock slips past your throat a little too far, so much that you have to pull off him quickly to be sure you don't gag, "Aw, baby, that's okay," he reassures you gently, "It's a lot, I know."

Your eyes are hooded and your jaw is already starting to ache - you're not used to doing something like this and he knows it, strokes your cheek gently as he takes his cock in his hand and carefully pushes the tip against your lips.

"You just kiss it, baby," he whispers, dark and deep, "Kiss that cock 'til I come, okay?"

You do as you're told, lips parting slightly as he rubs the head of his cock against your lips and strokes himself a few more times, bringing himself close to the edge. He's so gorgeous like this, so rugged and almost animalistic as his chest heaves, groans escaping his mouth as he watches your lips. His hand is still in your hair, grip getting tighter and tighter as you lean down a bit so he can gently fuck the tip of his cock back into your mouth. Your eyes close involuntarily and you can feel your pussy throbbing against the mattress with every thrust, lips tight around him.

"Ah, fuck," he grits out suddenly, then pulls his cock away from your mouth and releases all over his chest and stomach, thighs tensing up as you watch his eyes practically roll back into his head. Your eyes are wide and attentive, locked onto the white ropes of come that spurt against his bare skin. You find yourself wondering what it would feel like at the back of your throat instead, on your tongue, what it would taste like...

Your thoughts are interrupted by Joel's alarm going off, loud and obnoxious. Before he can pull himself up to turn it off, you lean over to the nightstand and do it yourself, swiping it off and turning back to his blissed out form. He lies there panting for a moment, eyes closed. You can't help but smile, feeling pride swell in your chest again at the knowledge that you made him feel like this.

"Don't go back to sleep," you whisper softly, "You gotta go to work."

He groans then, but opens his eyes and gives you a crooked smile and a wink, expression still sleepy and satisfied, "Who needs an alarm clock when I got you, huh?" He gestures with his finger for you to move closer and you do, leaning down to press a soft kiss to his lips, "Mornin', darlin'," he murmurs against your mouth.

"Morning," you whisper back, and you revel in the smile on his face when you pull away, "Sorry for jumping your bones so early."

He just shakes his head with a wide smile, "Never apologize for jumpin' my bones, baby." His eyes fall to your naked body, settling on your pussy, still wet and aching against the sheets, "Aw, sweetheart, lemme take care of that for you."

You shake your head, pointing to his phone, "We don't have time, you gotta get to work and I gotta get home before my parents wake up," you slip out of bed and reach down to pick up the clothes you'd stripped yourself of last night before your shower. He starts to protest but you put your hand up with a soft laugh, "It's okay, Joel. I wanted to do this for you, start your day out right. Give you a chance at a good day."

He peers up at you from the bed, face smooshed into the pillow as he watches you get dressed, "Doesn't seem fair."

You just roll your eyes, pulling on your panties and shorts and pointing to his phone again, "Really, we need to hurry," you bite your lip as you slip your t-shirt over your head, "I have keys this time but I still don't wanna risk it."

"Okay, okay," he grumbles softly, "I'm goin'."

He slips out of bed and stretches, tilting his body back and forth. You both hear the way his bones crack, the noise that emits from his throat when he bends his back a certain way. You watch his expression change, going from content and sated to embarrassed and grumpy in seconds.

"And just like that, the illusion is gone," he mutters to himself, limping away from the bed and toward the door without so much as a side glance to you, clearly upset by the sudden reminder of his age. You frown, watching him go and feeling an ache in your chest that makes a home there for the rest of the morning.

He'd made you breakfast last time, so it's only fair that you make something for him today. Unfortunately cooking has never been your forte, so about fifteen minutes later you're waving a dish rag at the fire alarm while the sausages you'd managed to burn are smoking in the sink. Joel comes running down the stairs after his shower with a look of concern on his face, only for it to fade into one of amusement when he sees the situation.

"Now why am I teachin' you guitar when you clearly don't know how to even use a stove?"

"Oh, shut up," you can't even pretend to be mad at him, grin spreading across your face as you shake your head and breathe a sigh of relief when the alarm stops going off, "Help me clean this up."

You end up making toast instead.

"You know, we've still got about ten minutes," he says across from you at the table as you eat, peering down at his watch quickly.

"Yeah, 'cause I fail as a cook," you mutter, making a face at your slice of toast, "I was gonna do eggs too, you know."

"Let's not reach for the stars too quickly now," he says with a sly smile, putting his hand up quickly when you prepare to retort, "Anyway, that's not what I meant."

"What did you-" you look up from your toast and see him beckoning you toward him again like he had last night, finger curling toward himself with a sly smile on his face.

You look at the clock on the oven, biting your lip.

"It'll take five minutes tops," he says, and you raise your eyebrow at him.

"Really?" you challenge, "Five minutes?"

"Five minutes."

That, you'd like to see. Dropping your toast back onto the plate, you stand up and walk to the other side of the table, unsure what exactly he wants you to do. He spreads his legs a bit, points to his thigh.

"Sit here, babygirl," he says, voice low and hypnotic, "Wanna show you somethin' new."

Yes please.

You situate yourself on his lap, one leg going between his thighs while the other dangles carefully off the other side of the chair. He pulls you down, big hands coming up to palm your hips and hold you there firmly. You swallow tightly, unsure exactly what he has in mind.

"You know what feels really good?" he murmurs, thumbs slowly stroking the bare skin between your shirt and your shorts.

"What?" you whisper, peering down into his eyes with intrigue.

"This," he says softly, then very slowly begins to move your hips, dragging you carefully back and forth along his thigh. Your eyebrows shoot up, lips parting as you feel the ache in your core immediately return, the pressure of his thigh and the movement of his hands setting your nerves alight.

He looks down at his own handiwork, watches as he moves you back and forth, back and forth, rocking you over and over again until you're whimpering in his lap, your hands coming up to grip his shoulders. He just smiles up at you, doesn't stop his movements.

"Yeah, that feels good, doesn't it?" he breathes, watching your expression closely, "Feels good to finally have somethin' touchin' that pussy, huh baby?"

You moan at his words, hands slipping from his shoulders to wrap around him as you lean forward to bury your face in his neck. He just starts to move you faster, chuckling softly to himself when your hips buck against him. It's amazing how such a simple action can feel so fucking good, the constant stimulation against your clit through layers of material making you writhe and whimper.

He removes one of his hands from your hips and slips it inside the leg of your shorts, fingertips tickling your inner thigh gently. You grapple onto him even tighter, hugging him like a koala as his thumb slowly begins to stroke you through the wet spot of your panties.

"Couldn't stop thinkin' about this pussy yesterday," he murmurs, thumb rubbing your clit over and over in little circles, "Those pictures were so filthy, baby."

You moan against his shoulder, gripping him tighter as his thumb begins to pick up speed. He presses a kiss to your neck, wet and hot; it makes your eyes roll back.

"And this little hole," he murmurs in your ear, suddenly adding a finger inside your shorts to circle your entrance slowly, "Kept thinkin' about this tiny little hole, all open for me."

God, when he talks like that you can't even fucking think, brain running on autopilot as he pulls you impossibly closer and lets you bare down on his thigh, his finger and thumb trapped under your weight, pressed firmly against your core.

"Who's gonna fill up that hole, babygirl?" he whispers in your ear, soft and secret, "Huh? Who's that hole belong to?"

"You," you whimper into his shoulder, eyes shut tight as he strokes his finger up and down through the fabric, adding even more pressure to the overwhelming sensations you're already feeling "It's yours, Mr. Miller."

"And what's gonna go inside it, sweetheart?"

"Hnhng," you can't speak, inhaling shakily as Joel's other hand presses harder against your hip and continues to guide you, fucking you back and forth against his thigh. He just watches you, eyes dark, lips parted, brow furrowed.

"Words, babygirl," he reminds you softly, "Use your words. What's gonna go inside that tight little hole? Huh? Tell me."

"Y-your cock."

"That's right," he murmurs, the tip of his finger prodding inside you gently, taking the damp material of your panties with it, "Gonna fill you up so deep with my cock, honey. You're gonna feel it right here," he moves his hand up and places it at the base of your belly, pushes against it softly, "Gonna be so big inside you, sweet girl."

Oh fuck.

"I want it so bad," you groan, wrapping your arms even tighter around him, "I need it Mr. Miller."

"You do need it," he agrees softly as he kisses the top of your head, bringing his hand back down from your belly to guide you again, moving you back and forth "Need to be fucked so bad, don't you baby? Til you can't even think straight."

You nod frantically, continuing to grind yourself down against his thigh over and over and over, "Please," you whimper, almost a squeak, "Please, Mr. Miller."

"Shh," he soothes, pulling you in closer and moving your hips against him, looking at you with those big brown eyes full of lust and safety, "I will, babygirl. Soon. I'll fuck you so good, honey. I promise." Your body hitches in his lap as you near the edge, eyes going wide and mouth popping open as your orgasm starts to hit you, "Yeah? You like thinkin' about that, huh? Me fuckin' this soaked little pussy into my mattress? Fillin' you up so deep you can feel me in your stomach?"

You can't hold on anymore, eyes shutting tight and high pitched whimpers flowing past your lips as you start to come. He pins you against his thigh, holds you there tight and firm as your pussy pulses and throbs through his pants. You lean forward to bury your face in his neck as you ride it out, feel his hand press against your back.

"Oh, good girl, that's it, baby," he murmurs, kissing your temple gently and stroking your back in little circles, "Come all over my lap, sweetheart. Show me how wet she can get, there you go. Good girl."

After a moment of catching your breath and willing yourself to pull your face away from his neck, you both bring your attention to the clock on the stove - five minutes have passed.

"Told ya," he murmurs, pulling you into one more hug, hitching his chin over your shoulder and rubbing your back gently as your head lolls against him.

You're too blissed out to tease him back.

The arrivals gate isn't as busy as you'd expected, thankfully. You lean against your car a few hours later, still reeling from your morning with Joel as you wait for Tasha to show up. You'd told him about your weekend plans before you'd left, insisting that despite spending time with Tasha you'd still be attending your Saturday lesson.

"Can't wait," he'd murmured to you, low and deep in your ear after giving you one final kiss at the door, "Got somethin' real special planned, babygirl."

You'd practically melted down his front steps.

"THERE'S MY FAVORITE SLUT!!" you suddenly hear someone shout, and you look up to see Tasha at the sliding doors, bags dropping to the ground as she sprints at you head on and collides with you seconds later, wrapping her arms around you tightly.

She's just the same as she was the last time you saw her, high spirited and excitable and sweet, practically vibrating in your arms with joy. Only she could rock a bright purple cowboy hat and sweatpants, not to mention the lime green flip flops.

"Oh my god," you gasp in her ear, hugging her back and spinning on the spot, "You're insane."

"I'M EXCITED!" she squeals, pulling away from you and clapping her hands together, "We're going out tonight!!! Together!!! For the first time ever!" She brings her hands up and places one on either side of your face, lips turning down into a pout, "My baby bird is leaving the nest," she sighs dreamily, shaking her head, "I never thought this day would come."

"Please get in the car," you laugh, popping the trunk and gesturing to her bags, "before I change my mind and send you back."

You give Tasha the complete run-down on Joel as you get ready at the Airbnb, updating her on everything that's happened since you'd last checked in. It feels so good to actually talk about it, not text or simply mull it over and over in your head. She gasps at all the right spots, makes ridiculous faces in the mirror as she curls her hair, nearly drops the curling iron on the floor when you tell her about this morning.

"AND YOU LIKED HOW IT TASTED?" she practically screams, running out of the room and then running back in like she has no idea what to do with herself, "Oh my god, you are down bad. Jesus Christ," she makes a face, "Sorry, I mean- uh, fuck."

"Tasha," you roll your eyes, "You can say Jesus Christ."

"I can?" her eyes widen and she sighs in relief, picking up the curling iron from the floor, "Thank god."

You're going clubbing tonight for the very first time; a night of dancing and cocktails and flirting and living out all the college dreams you still have yet to experience. You're a bit tentative about the flirting part though, a concept that floors Tasha immediately.

"You can't go clubbing and not flirt," she says with faux shock, spinning in front of you as she assesses her dress in the mirror, "It's the best part!"

"I have a-" you cut yourself off, making a face at your reflection.

"You do not have a boyfriend," Tasha says immediately, "There has been no definition, babe. You need to keep reminding yourself of that."

"But it's not just fucking," you argue with a grimace, "I mean, it's not even fucking at all, we still haven't taken that step yet."

"I know, I just don't want you to get your heart hurt, honey," she frowns, leaning toward the mirror and applying some lipstick, "Boys are mean."

"Well, Joel's not a boy," you say quietly, fingering the hem of your own dress, a short and cute pink number that Tasha had brought specifically for you to wear, "He's a man."

"Mmhm, so you keep telling me," she raises an eyebrow, "I think I need to see this man for myself. Give you my honest opinion, see if he's really this gorgeous, perfect hunk you make him out to be."

You bite your lip, trying not to smile as you think back to this morning, how he'd looked in the early morning light, naked and sleepy and beautiful. And all yours.

"He is," you murmur softly.

You're supposed to be going clubbing, supposed to be out dancing and drinking cocktails and living out all your college dreams for once in your life. But where are you instead?

"O'Neil's!!" Tasha says excitedly, pointing to the red neon sign outside the bar you've just arrived at, throwing you a shit-eating grin that just makes you playfully roll your eyes.

You never should have told her the name of the bar Joel frequents, because she's now made it her mission to find him, get a good look at him and judge for herself if he's really all you're making him out to be. It's your own fault, you suppose, considering that you don't have any pictures of him or any frame of reference to articulate exactly the way he looks. For Tasha he's shrouded in mystery, but not for much longer.

Your ears are already ringing when you get inside the bar, the chatter and buzz of other people's conversations flooding your thoughts. You're not used to being out like this, being around drunk people or high people or literally anyone whose ideal night out is spending time at a bar. It's nerve-wracking and you instantly feel like a fish out of water, gripping onto Tasha's arm after showing your ID to a man who ogled both of you way more than he needed to.

"So this is where he hangs out," Tasha says, assessing her surroundings and leading you towards the bar where most people seem to be gathered, "Quaint. Little divey. Definitely not for our crowd but hey, we're learning new things tonight." She taps the counter and tilts her head toward the bartender with a smile, "Watcha got on tap?"

You wrinkle your nose, "I thought we'd be having cocktails."

"Oh we will at the club, don't you worry. But if we want the authentic dive bar experience, beer is necessary," the bartender lists the options and Tasha orders, though you barely hear what either of them are saying over the loud music and conversations. Your eyes scan the bar for any sign of Joel, but people are packed so tightly in here that it's hard to really see anybody, faces and bodies melding together.

The bartender hands Tasha the drinks and she throws him a wink, "Thank you, darling."

You envy how easily she navigates a situation like this, so natural and graceful despite her surroundings that are anything but. She hands your beer to you with a smile and holds hers up in front of her, tilting it toward yours until they clink.

"To you finally coming out with me," she toasts with a grin, "It's about damn time."

You smile back and take a sip, trying your hardest not to wince at the bitter flavor. It's not like you've never tried alcohol before, you just already know that you hate beer.

"Delicious," you lie, and Tasha just laughs and gestures toward a suddenly empty booth in the corner of the room.

"Let's sit there while we suss him out," she mutters to you, pulling you along with her and slipping inside, "Now, what's he look like? You've been pretty vague about those details." She waggles her eyebrows, "Be honest, is he bald?"

You almost spit out your second sip, shaking your head furiously, "No, he's not bald. Full head of hair."

She puts her hands up in defense, "Hey, it's not that crazy to assume!"

You just shake your head and laugh, turning back toward the bar and the people and trying to get a gage on where he might be. You know he usually comes here with his contracting crew, but what the hell does a contracting crew even look like?

"Help me out, gimme a description!" Tasha says eagerly, wiggling in her seat a bit and following your gaze, "He has facial hair, right?"

"Yes, it's kinda messy and scruffy," you bite your lip, squinting a bit as if that'll help you.

"And what's his hair color?"

You don't look at her as you reply, "Um.. grey."

Tasha's hand slaps down on the table and you jump, eyes going wide as you turn back to her, "What?"

"Grey? Girl, how old is he?" she doesn't sound angry or judgmental - she sounds intrigued. And almost... impressed? You gnaw on your lip, scrunching your eyebrows together as you look back toward the crowd of people.

"Um... he's..." you stop short, freezing when your eyes land on a familiar shirt near the bar, a red and black plaid button down that you'd seen only hours ago, "There! He's there!" You point at him quickly, ducking your head a bit and motioning for Tasha to lean in closer to get a good look.

"Oh... my god," she breathes, and you feel a rush of pride at her response, unable to stop the grin from plastering itself to your face as you peer at him.

There's something different about him that you can't place - maybe it's just because you haven't seen him in a public place like this, aren't used to what he looks like when it's not just the two of you. You try to put your finger on it, and while you're doing so he does something that makes your heart positively swell in your chest.

He smiles. That beautiful crooked smile that pulled you in the day you met him, set your skin on fire and brought you to the point of no return. Those crinkly eyes, the grey in his beard, the softness of his eyes, they send that familiar feeling of safety rushing through your bones. And you realize there's nothing different about him at all. That's your Joel, sitting on a bar stool after a long day of work, nursing a glass of whisky and chatting about his day. He's the same Joel who you'd woken up with this morning, just in a different setting.

You're so distracted by his rugged beauty out in the open like this - overwhelmed by his charm and his smile - that it takes you a few seconds to see who exactly he's smiling at.

You feel your heart in your throat.

There's a woman sitting beside him. Not just beside him, but so close their stools are touching, so close her legs - long and lean and beautiful - are brushing his. It's not subtle the way her ankle moves against his calf, up and down, up and down. She's wearing jean shorts and a halter top, skin dark and gorgeous and exposed in all the right places, beautiful brown braids cascading down her back and shoulders. You can't see her face but you already know she could be a model. She probably is.

No. No, something isn't right.

Maybe it's not him.

Time feels like it's frozen, like everyone in the bar has stopped moving except the two of them, like a giant spotlight is shining directly on where they sit, where they touch, where they smile at each other. Because it is him. It's him in all his gorgeous Joel glory, peering into the eyes of a woman who isn't you, a woman who's probably more his type, closer to his age, a woman who's somehow making him smile like that when she shouldn't. That's how he smiles at you. That's your smile.

A woman who's now leaning in for a kiss.

No. Please no.

A woman who he kisses back.

This isn't happening. This isn't real. This is just some sick and twisted nightmare you're about to wake up from at any second.

His hand comes up to cup her face.

"I'm gonna throw up," is all you manage to gasp out to Tasha as you yank yourself from the booth and sprint out of the bar, hand splaying across your belly as you bend over and release the contents of your stomach all over the sidewalk.

You feel Tasha's hand on your back, pulling your hair behind your ears. She's saying something but you don't understand it, ears continuing to ring despite being outside in the cool air, away from the loud music and chatty conversations, away from them.

"Oh honey," you finally hear her say, soft and kind as she rubs circles into your back, a comforting action that brings no comfort to you, not now, not after what you've just seen. "I'm so sorry."

#joel miller x reader #joel miller smut #fic: feelings on fire #*

2K notes · View notes

keqism · 2 years

Text

⎯⎯ 𝐒𝐎 𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐒 𝐈𝐒 𝐋𝐎𝐕𝐄 ⊰

.࿔ feat. childe, xiao, scaramouche, diluc, heizou, tighnari

.࿔ premise. L-O-V-E doesn't always have to be vocalized

.࿔ cw. fluff, gn!reader, modern au, mentions of alcohol, two swear words, pet names, use of childe's real name

.࿔ notes. reposting because this app hates me and i accidentally deleted the original post.

𝐀 𝐌𝐈𝐋𝐋𝐈𝐎𝐍 𝐌𝐈𝐋𝐄𝐒 𝐀𝐖𝐀𝐘 (𝐁𝐔𝐓 𝐘𝐎𝐔'𝐑𝐄 𝐒𝐓𝐈𝐋𝐋 𝐈𝐍 𝐌𝐘 𝐇𝐄𝐀𝐑𝐓) ≀ feat. childe

childe always makes time to call you when he’s away on his business trips. regardless of the time difference, he'll facetime you from his hotel room. some days he's rowdy, loudly chattering about his shady fatui dealings; other times, he's quieter, a little sadder. he'll softly ask you about your day, perfectly content with listening to your sweet voice while tracing the pixels of your face on his phone. he'll never admit it but he can't sleep well without you, sometimes tucking a pillow into his side and pretending that it's your body.

"ajax you should go to sleep." your frowning face peers at him through the screen, examining his droopy eyes.

"but i wanna hear your voice," he slurs, his words muffled by the blankets drawn up to his chin. "i miss you so much."

"you're such a baby," you tease, although your bittersweet smile tells him that you miss him as well. "alright, i'll stay on call until you fall asleep."

childe offers you a drowsy grin in response, nestling deeper into his blankets. the hotel bed is a little too cold for his liking, but your voice fills the room, warming his body and lulling him further into his dreams.

𝐒𝐋𝐎𝐖 𝐃𝐀𝐍𝐂𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐈𝐍 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐃𝐀𝐑𝐊 ≀ feat. xiao

it's a running joke among your friends that xiao is like a cat: aloof and stubborn with a hidden curious side. you would have to disagree though because xiao protects you like a vigilant guard dog. he'll switch places with you so that he's walking on the outside of the sidewalk, an arm timidly wrapped around your waist. at parties, he'll clutch your drink to his chest like it's a newborn baby, one hand firmly planted over the top. you can always feel his gaze from across the room, warding off any bold individuals who have the nerve to approach you.

"xiao, dance with me!" you're a little tipsy, wobbling as you turn to face your boyfriend.

xiao's breath catches in his throat. you're beautiful, hair messy and lips curving up into a shy grin. it drives him crazy, the way you cling to his arm for balance and gaze at him with those mesmerizing eyes.

i'm whipped, he sighs as you tug him through the crowd of people, wrapping your hands around his neck as a slower song plays through the speakers. he pulls you into him protectively, swaying to the beat of the music. for a moment, the sweaty bodies around you disappear; it's just you and him, slow dancing in the dark.

𝐏𝐎𝐑𝐂𝐄𝐋𝐀𝐈𝐍 ≀ feat. scaramouche

scaramouche—unwillingly—lets you include him in your self-care days. every friday night, you'll sit him down on your living room floor and lay out ten different face masks for him to choose. he'll begrudgingly rest his head in your lap while you apply the face mask (play with his hair and he'll fall asleep). if you're lucky, he might let you tweeze his eyebrows, although he'll complain loudly about the pain and grumble about how you tweezed one brow higher than the other.

you plop down onto the couch with a groan, feeling the ache in your muscles. absentmindedly scrolling through your phone, you feel a pair of eyes burn into the side of your head.

"yes, scara?" you hum, intrigued by a video of the latest celebrity scandal.

suddenly, your phone is snatched from your hand and you find yourself pinned under a body. scaramouche hovers over you, glowering at your figure underneath him.

"scara, what the fuck?"

his scowl deepens. "it's friday, idiot, you're forgetting something."

𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐂𝐎𝐀𝐓™ ≀ feat. diluc

some say you're in it for the money, that you're only dating diluc for the ragnvindr clan's wealth. others claim that it's a fake relationship. diluc must have hired you to date him to maintain his status as mondstadt's number one bachelor. but what they don't know, is that you're in it for the coat. diluc ragnvindr's coat is what you would describe as heaven on earth: warm with a comforting weight and a lingering scent of your favorite pyro vision holder. you love wearing it and he loves to see you wearing it. the weather outside is slightly chilly? coat. you accidentally forgot an umbrella during a date? coat. fuck the rumors; you're not a gold digger, you're just very much in love with diluc—and his coat.

the loud thud of the dawn winery doors announces diluc's entrance. it's evening by the time he returns from his duties; he's exhausted and would rather be in bed with you tucked into his side.

quietly, diluc enters your shared bedroom, only to find an empty, cold bed waiting for him. he frowns. you should have been in bed by now. his footsteps echo as he hastily makes his way down the hallway, panic rising in his throat. flinging the doors to his study open, diluc's eyes land on your sleeping figure, curled up in the armchair by his desk.

diluc slowly approaches you, brushing a hand against your cheek. you must have tried to stay up, he muses. he sheds his coat, carefully wrapping the thick fabric around your shoulders. despite his efforts to stay quiet, you startle awake.

"diluc?" you blink the sleep from your eyes, leaning into his warmth.

"shh, i'm here now, love," he reassures you, gathering you in his arms.

𝐂𝐇𝐈𝐕𝐀𝐋𝐑𝐘 𝐈𝐒𝐍'𝐓 𝐃𝐄𝐀𝐃! ≀ feat. heizou

heizou holds your bag for you. yes, because he's a gentleman but also because he likes to store his things in there too. it started off with his jitte and spare headband laid neatly next to your belongings. gradually, a green pebble was added and then a law book (courtesy of yanfei) was shoved in. you're slowly running out of room for your items, but heizou flaunts your bag with such pride that you don't have the heart to tell him off.

you lean against the brick wall of the library, scanning your surroundings for a familiar auburn-haired individual. the autumn breeze stirs your hair, sending a chill through your bones as you burrowed into your scarf.

a distant shout of your name brings your attention to the library's entrance. heizou runs towards you, sporting a tawny cardigan and a matching scarf.

"sorry i'm a little late!" he beams, hands automatically reaching for your backpack. you allow him to slip the straps off of your shoulders and onto his, leaning in to peck his icy cheek.

"let's head home," you smile, slinging an arm around his hip and sliding a hand into his pocket. "it's cold today, do you want to stop by the café for a drink?"

his laugh rings through the chilly air. "you read my mind!"

𝐈 𝐋𝐎𝐕𝐄 𝐘𝐎𝐔 𝐒𝐎 𝐌𝐔𝐒𝐇 ≀ feat. tighnari

as a forest watcher, tighnari spends most of his time out patrolling sumeru's rainforest and examining the surrounding fauna. he does get a little distracted, though. it's hard to stay focused when everything reminds him of you. zaytun peach, your favorite fruit; the purple sumeru rose that would look so lovely tucked behind your ear. tighnari pockets each of these trinkets to take back to you, carefully tucking them into his duffle bag.

"welcome home, nari," you greet him with a brief kiss as he enters your shared home.

"it's good to be back," he replies, cupping your face in his hands. "i brought you some things—they reminded me of you."

you eagerly watch as he digs through his bag, gloved hands pulling out different flowers and pebbles. his previous gifts already litter your house, but you still appreciate them nonetheless.

you pluck a misshapen mushroom up, raising an eyebrow at him. "a mushroom, tighnari? do explain how this reminds you of me."

a sly smirk makes its way onto his face. "well, it's cute like you," he teases, pinching the skin of your cheek. "and it's a fun-gi. get it?"

you slap his hands away, pointing an accusing finger at him. "you met up with cyno today, didn't you?"

#yaepublishinghouse #genshin impact fluff #childe x reader #xiao x reader #scaramouche x reader #diluc x reader #heizou x reader #tighnari x reader #genshin impact childe #genshin impact xiao #genshin impact scaramouche #genshin impact diluc #genshin impact heizou #genshin impact tighnari #genshin x reader #genshin impact #genshin impact x reader

4K notes · View notes

jimilter · 2 years

Text

the odds on us | k.th. (m)

It would all be easier if you just believed in fate; you could say meeting him was destiny and the odds of fate were just against your union. Too bad you don't. Too bad it was Taehyung that wasn't serious about your future. Too bad he won't leave you alone even a year after your break-up. Too bad you want to kiss him when you have a date with someone else tonight. Too bad you're still in love with him.

pairing: taehyung x reader

rating: m (18+)

genre: angst | smut | fluff | exes to lovers!au | slice of life!au

word count: 15.5 k

— warnings: swearing + mentions of: alcohol, gambling, criminal associations + a lil emotional breakdown + some crying + some toxic behavior from their past + kim tae’s duality :] + explicit sexual situations (dom!tae, sub!reader, thigh riding, oral (f.&m.), vaginal fingering, hand kink, fingers kink? (yn is obsessed w his fingers and want to swallows them 🧍‍♀️), size kink, breast play, cum play, creampie, marking, overstimulation, forced orgasm, choking, dirty talk, endless teasing, restraints, unprotected penetrative sex, spit kink (???), Monster Cock Tae™) + they’re both idiots if you squint :)

— note: so ash decided we shall all cry on tae's birthday, everyone good with that? good. (: lmaO there’s way too much smut in this to make up for it, dw! :>

this fic started off for the ny22 fest i and @knjsnoona hosted last year, but i dropped the idea bec it wasn’t angsty enuff. this was at 5k tho, so i decided to finish it up for tae day instead of scrapping it <3 also, she might not even remember it, but the credits for naming this baby go to my precious soybean, @missgeniality thanks a bunch, honeybunch 🥺

hope you guys like this! pls leave me some feedback~💜

submission for the December Games hosted by House Taeros.

❂ Nightmare Before Christmas ⁂ Hosted by: Professor Bee @inkedtae through @bangtansorciere

⤐ AU Type: Spiral Hills - Exes to Lovers ⤐ Themes: New Beginnings | Slice of Life ⤐ Kinks: Breath Play, Bondage, Hand Kink, Thigh Riding, Oral Fixation, Finger Sucking, Cum Play, Overstimulation

— masterlist | taglist | feedback?

It’s a Saturday night, this New Year’s eve – stepping into the new year with a lazy Sunday feels symbolic of the kind of year you’re gonna have, to be honest – which has caused traffic to be moving at a snail’s pace, tonight, because crowds of regular partygoers are combined with New Year’s partygoers and literally the entire city is on the streets. Which would suck a normal amount on a normal night when you returned from work, but it sucks especially bad tonight, because you’re in a hurry to get home.

You have to get ready for a date. Something you haven’t done in a really long while and are half afraid you’ve forgotten how to.

It is with struggle that you get off the bus on the corner of your street, given how many people want to push in through every door to board the transport, and you stumble a few steps until you have righted yourself and are walking down the couple of houses that separate you from your apartment building. Your handbag is heavy with a gorgeous necklace that your date gifted you when you were leaving work, having adorably run two floors down his department to say goodbye to you, alongwith the promise of your first official date, tonight.

A part of you feels hopeful about the prospect of you finally stepping into the world of romancing again. But another part…

You stop yourself from thinking too much. Nothing good can come out of reminiscing the bygones. Your past experiences bear no impact on what will become of your future. You have been very happy – and then you have been very sad. You're mostly numb now, aware of both the highs and lows of love.

Shaking your head at yourself, you instead focus on thinking up accessories to pair with your burgundy, plunging neckline wrap dress, now that you already have a necklace to accompany it. You also have a gorgeous black velvet coat that would pair up great with it.

A sense of foreboding suddenly rushes your way out of nowhere, but you push it away. No room for second thoughts, now. This date is a good idea – you’re gonna feel great once you’re at the restaurant.

Quickly stepping in and out of shower, you’re still in your bathrobe, blow-drying your hair, when your doorbell rings.

A mini heart-attack renders you immobile for a moment, but then you look at the clock to find it minutes past seven o’clock. You are to leave at eight. Your date cannot possibly be this early.

Your breath of relief is very, very quickly stolen from you, though, when you realize two things at once – one, it’s the fourth Saturday of the month; and two, your earlier sense of foreboding has its roots in muscle memory.

Even when your mind was far removed from the thought, your anxiety knew to kick in right on time. God.

"Good evening!" The wide, boxy grin that meets your scowl when you open the front door is as shameless as it is every month.

Your groan follows like clockwork, too, just as your eyes ignore the waves of his soft hair that have grown and the way his shoulders fill out the black and white Fila sweatshirt he wears with practiced ease as well. Kim Taehyung can force his way into the room where he's left his stuff behind, but you forbid him any access to your heart anymore.

You give the guy a disappointed shake of your head. "It’s literally packed out there tonight, couldn’t you skip this nuisance for once, Kim?"

“Uh, this isn’t a nuisance, hello?” He has the audacity to sound offended. “Besides, I needed something urgently, so…” He trails off, looking you up and down with a curious stare. “Why are you in a… robe? Were you showering? At this hour? Why? Going somewhere? What—”

“None of it is any of your business.” You purse your lips. “I came back from work, I’m showering. Maybe I have engagements, maybe not. None of it involves you.”

His eyebrows shift and forehead tightens, and you resolutely ignore the way his worried eyes still manage to soften your glare. “Only asking as a concerned friend.”

“You’re not—”

“You shouldn't be opening the door in a bathrobe,” he speaks over you, gaze changing shades as it trails down to your collarbones and then runs down your exposed legs. “What if someone came here with malicious intent?”

The sudden sizzling heat that melts his brown irises is a declaration of his own malicious intent enough. Your eyes catch his elegant fingers braced on the doorjamb and it takes a very strong effort by your willpower to not imagine them touching you in the most intimate ways. It's harder because you don't really have to imagine, only just recall.

Swallowing past your suddenly dry throat, you rip your gaze off of your arguably most favorite part of his anatomy and stifle your bodily reactions by reminding yourself of how wrong it is for you to feel this way especially today. Channeling the frustration you feel, you shoot him a glare.

“You’re literally the only person that bothers me on the last Saturdays of the month, religiously ruining my weekend.”

His cheek ticks up, annoyingly attractive, tongue escaping to flick at his lower lip, admitting distracting. “So you do wait for me. Knew it.”

“Did you not hear the ruining my weekend part?”

“Your weekend nights consist of eating Rocky-Road from the tub and re-watching dumb Marvel TV series.” He gives a snort. “I’m hardly ruining anything, here.”

You kinda wanna slap him for being a smartass. You kinda wanna kiss him because it is so hot. You also kinda wanna go back in time and undo some of your actions that led him to find these things out about you. Because he is not wrong and you hate that all the more.

You also hate yourself for how naively you handled things after your breakup, too. You should have talked to your landlady about redoing your lease deed for the rest of the eighteen months with just your name. She is a nice lady, she might have understood. And you should have thrown all of Taehyung’s boxes out, the week after he left. What were you thinking telling him it was okay if it took him a while to get all his stuff? His definition of ‘a while’ has extended up to a year, this visit being a week after the one-year mark of your separation that happened last Christmas.

You’re pretty sure he realizes that you aren’t wholly unaffected by his monthly visits to your place, and exploits the knowledge to its full potential by sending you unnecessarily dark and lingering glances when he knows you can catch him looking. You don't even wanna think about what he would do if he knew you still think of the mind-blowing orgasms he used to give you, when you curl up with your hands between your legs; your hands that are so much less rewarding than his, with your shorter fingers and softer palm. He has been trying to woo you since literally a month after you kicked him out. Resisting him is physically and emotionally painful.

It's pitiful how a part of you fills you up with guilt upon having Taehyung grin at you with all of his teeth right as you’re about to get ready and go have dinner with a man that is not him.

It leaves you with an unsteady feeling inside of your head. Even though it has been a year. Even though it was you that ended things with Taehyung. But then, maybe it is the fact that you were the one to end things that bothers you so much. You essentially broke the guy’s heart even if he broke your trust first.

You wonder if he is affected by these visits at all, or if this is just a game for him.

You blink, realizing you have brought on a pounding headache by thinking the exact thoughts you always want to hide away from. Sighing, you shake your head in a very late response to his quip about how you spend your weekends.

He doesn’t wait for you to let him in, as per usual, and shoves his way into your apartment with those broad shoulders of his.

You still try to put up a weak protest, "Listen, I am busy tonight, so make a quick work of—"

"I won’t take long, babe, I never take long!" he sing-songs, throwing a grin at you over his shoulder. "Do I?"

Why do you come at all? Why not take your forty-seven boxes and leave me the fuck alone? You wanna ask, but you don’t.

You never do.

What you do is grudgingly shut the door, and thump your forehead against its hardwood.

This is gonna be hard. Because Taehyung has been in your apartment for all of three minutes, and you’re already starting to dread tonight’s date more than you’re looking forward to it. Maybe it is because you really don’t wanna tell your ex about it but will be forced to if he eats up more of your time and you have to rush him. Or maybe, it is because of reasons that shouldn’t even be there, with the anger you still hold in your heart for him even after more than a year.

You hate yourself for feeling this way, too, because it is unfair. Daniel from HR is a handsome, kind and decent guy – it is so unfair for you to dread spending an evening with him when he has been a gentleman to you for months. Even your supervisor flashed you a thumbs-up when she witnessed Daniel giving you that necklace and your responding blush. You should be happy you are going on a date with such a nice guy, dammit!

But some hidden, despicable part of you doesn’t even want to think of the events that await you tonight when you look at Taehyung. And it's horrible – pathetic, embarrassing, ugly – for you to have such thoughts after everything you’ve done to the two of you. If it wasn’t for you, you and him would still be together. You decided you were not good for each other. You kicked him out of your heart and your house.

You don’t get to look at him with any hope anymore.

Parting ways from him was important, right? He wasn’t unfaithful in his commitment, after all, he had just lied to you about his professional affiliations. Maybe "professional affiliations" is too light a term to use for the hole of gambling he fell into, lying to your face when you would ask him about it. Parting ways from him was important. It was. Furthermore, it has been a year. You should have already made peace with it.

So why haven’t you?

Well, you sort of have. For the most part, if you ignore your desperate calls for his name while you're chasing a high.

It is only when Taehyung shows up and forces you to interact with his gorgeous eyes and sultry voice and sexy hands and…and all his quirks that you had taken your time memorizing, that your resolve falters and you are sent back into contemplation of whether you did the right thing.

God.

What a mess.

Drudging in after him, you lean against your kitchen counter while he walks into the room that used to be your shared bedroom when he lived here. You've long since moved into the spare room that used to be his studio where he practiced scenes for his acting auditions, or when he got a gig, every once in a blue moon. Heavy sounds of the cardboard boxes being dragged around and packing tape being ripped open echo about the otherwise empty room, grating on your braincells and making you want to tear your own hair out.

Kim Taehyung is a real pain in your ass. He makes you wish you could physically block people in real life.

God. If only you’d known what you thought was beautiful happenstance will one day come to this.

You met him two years back when the two of you were stood up by your respective dates at a restaurant. It felt like a lucky coincidence at that time, and you both believed your meet-cute to be fate and spent the rest of the night together, roaming around the city, sharing milkshakes and talking. You came to know he was an acting school graduate who had just quit his team at a local theatre and was going through auditions for cinema and ad films. You were intrigued, amazed, and to be honest, more than a little enchanted by his beauty. A nine-to-five worker yourself, his eccentric choice of career felt like a breath of fresh air to you, turning your boring days bright and springy once you two started dating.

Until – it was a year later and he was still going through auditions with no permanent source of an income. If he ever earned anything, at all. With the both of you crossing your mid-twenties and soon to be of the age where you would start to plan your future, family and other things, his instability worried you very much. When you eventually brought it up with him, he ambiguously told you he would get more small-term contracts and change things around.

That was when, out of nowhere, notes started to roll in. And you foolishly believed all the lies Taehyung would tell you when he would bring home money, every other week. It was cash and it wasn't even regular, but you took his explanation about it coming from small acting gigs as sensible.

How did you not suspect something was off? Still escapes you. Maybe you were so desperate for a trace of stability and insurance in your rickety life that you just took whatever you got without a second thought.

God, you were so right to not believe in fate. Look where an accidental meet-up had landed you in three years.

“Is this my t-shirt?”

Taehyung’s shrill call jolts you out of your regretful thoughts from the past, and you roll your eyes, walking into the room he is in.

The sight that greets you has you momentarily freezing in your spot, before you gather your wits and rake up enough confidence to level your gaze with him.

“What?” you enunciate blandly, despite having full knowledge of the what – along with the why, the how, and the since when that he may follow with.

Taehyung’s elegant fingers have, hanging from their pinched grasp, a t-shirt – one of his t-shirts. One of his t-shirts that you use as a night shirt, to be very specific.

In spite of having known him for as a friend and as a lover, you still cannot fully read the clouded look in his questioning eyes when he asks, “Why do you have my t-shirt?” without preamble, voice low and gaze a little bit lost.

Your fingers bunch up into a fist, disguising as an anchor to ground you. "I… wear it?" Wow, are you questioning him? You reiterate with more conviction, and emphasise, “I wear it.”

His eyebrows hike up. "You wear…" He looks down at the nearly tattered piece of fabric, twirling it around to grimace at its withered condition. "You wear this rag?"

Your ears, already warm at this entire confrontational conversation, feel like they've been set on fire at the confession you have been forced to make.

"I…" You look away and cross your arms against your chest to put forward a composed front. Your fingers are trembling and sweat droplets are running down your neck. "I wear it to bed."

Taehyung gives an audible gasp at this, and now you just want the ground to swallow you up. Embarrassment colors your face red hot.

"You wear… you still wear my t-shirt to bed?" he confirms, looking at you in awe.

He looks nothing short of a lost puppy, gazing at you with big, sparkling eyes and rounded lips. Your earlier embarrassment is immediately replaced by unbridled affection that bleeds from your heart and is pumped into your body with a melancholic thrum.

You swallow the lump that rapidly forms in your throat, pursing your lips to not let yourself be lost in a world of nostalgia.

No.

You left him for a reason. And he never even fought for you, did he? No.

He lied to your face when you talked to him about settling into a stable job. He never even intended to come clean, did he? No.

He got into gambling when you needed him to get serious about your future together.

Did he even want a future with you?

You don't know.

"Right now I kinda wish I'd burnt all the stuff you left behind," you mutter, twisting your lips in a sneer, and release a subtle breath of relief when Taehyung's expressions morph from adoration to mischief – you can take him being a shameless flirt; you can't deal with the guy whose heart you broke. "If only," you continue, "to save myself from you knocking at my door every damn month."

He raises a teasing eyebrow, rolling back on his heels to scoff at you. "That doesn't answer my quest—"

"It's comfy, okay?" You roll your eyes and look away from his cocky smirk. "And threadbare. And really cosy, so shut up. Can you stop snooping and grab whatever you want, already?"

“You’re really in a rush today,” he observes, head tilted back and eyes slightly narrowed at you. “Where did you say you were going, again?”

“I didn’t.”

Your blank stare is unwavered even when his slowly deepening smirk sears the lining of your stomach. You are willing to throw up the butterflies in your stomach, if it comes to that, but you won’t let him have the upper hand with all his damn seduction tactics. You already know this sight is going to haunt your sleepless nights for weeks.

“What the heck are you looking for today, anyway?” you challenge him with a ticked eyebrow, surprised when his smug face turns startled in a flash. This time, you are the one that smirks. “What? Didn’t think this through, for once?”

His eyelids flutter and irises jump around the sclera – as if he’s looking for an escape in his surroundings. “Um. It’s… uh… My – my Zippo..."

"Your what?" You blink, clueless.

"My Zippo." He makes a gesture with his hand, closing the fist with a thumbs-up at you and then knocks the thumb over the top of his closed knuckles twice. "A windproof pocket lighter... my grandmother got me... from America?"

...what?

He’s got to be fucking kidding you.

You stare at him. “A pocket lighter.”

He nods.

“That your grandmother gifted you.”

He audibly and visibly swallows, but nods again. Your eye twitches.

“And she bought it from America.”

“Uh…” He looks up at the ceiling. “Yes?”

“Are you asking me?”

“No?”

“Kim Taehyung, I swear to God—”

“Hey, help me find it and I’ll be out of your hair!”

“What the—how? It's not even real, you obviously just made it up!”

He looks appalled at your hiss, bracing both his arms on his waist. “It very much is real.”

“No, it’s not!” You brace your arms on your own waist to mirror him. “Your grandmother’s never been to America!”

“Well…” He scratches the back of his head and finally loosens his shoulders in a shrug. "Yeah no, she hasn't."

“I’m going to kill you,” you declare, ready to launch an attack on him, only stopping when he raises both his palms up in surrender.

“Wait, wait! Maybe she got someone else to buy it, come on!” He actually, physically, stomps his feet. “At least let me look for it?”

You have no idea why an old woman would give her grandson an expensive, imported windproof lighter when he doesn't even smoke. But that, apparently, won't deter Taehyung from ripping your spare room and then the living room apart to look for it. As if you would open his boxes to thieve off a damn lighter, even if it actually existed.

It has been more than half an hour of him jumping around the entire space when he finally returns to your curled up self on the living room couch. Good thing he does, too, because you've only got twenty minutes to spare to dress up.

“I can't find it,” is his declaration.

You groan in mental pain. “Obviously you can’t because it doesn't exist. But now that you’ve overstayed your welcome and nearly ruined my plans for the evening, would you mind leaving? Or would you rather be a huger asshole and stay for dinner?”

Taehyung’s eyes are lined with mirth when you look at him, only becoming clearer and calmer when your deadpan doesn’t deter.

He finally gives a sigh, running a hand through his gorgeous turf of dark hair and sits on the couch a few feet away from you.

“Did I really ruin your evening plans? I’m sorry, I didn't intend to…”

His concerned frown makes it look like he really didn't and that confuses you. Because where was this concern and understanding when you kept telling him that your overtime was draining you but you couldn't stop because you needed to make savings if you were gonna move into a bigger apartment together? When you hoped he would take your life together more seriously and contribute to it with more than just his dick?

It shouldn't be surprising how quickly disdain and anger fills you.

Looking at him with nothing short of embers raining from your angry glare, you scoff loudly with a humourless chuckle. "You didn't intend to? Please. Why pretend you care now, when you didn't when it mattered? When it was about our future? About the life we could've had together?"

A thousand shades wash over his face – ranging from shock to anger until he finally settles with something that looks a lot like the pain you have felt in his absence every single day, but refuse to let yourself admit to.

His voice is quiet and timid when he mumbles, “I didn't… It wasn't my intention to make it seem like I didn't care about our future… I always cared."

"As if I'm gonna believe that.” You shake your head.

He is about to say something when your phone rings on the seat between the two of you. Both of your pairs of eyes catch Daniel's name at the same time, and you can almost physically feel the air around you turning crispy with tension.

"Da-ni-el," Taehyung enunciates, throwing the syllables out as if they taste sour in his mouth. "Is this your evening plan that I almost ruined?"

You ignore his remark and receive the call, putting your phone close to your ear and subtly lowering the speaker's volume.

“Hey,” you greet your date that you just texted about possibly being a bit late because of an emergency at home. "I'm really sorry—"

“Hey, please," Daniel interrupts you with a very worried call of your name, followed by, "is everything okay? Please tell me if you need my help with the emergency! Are you okay?"

Your heart weighs down with guilt and your eyes shoot poisonous arrows at the emergency sitting next to you on your couch. "No, Dan, everything is under control now. I just…need a little more time. Can you please pick me at eight-thirty instead, please?"

Your attention is admittedly more on the fury that takes over your ex's face rather than the hurried, stumbling agreement poured into your ears. But you can't help it when anger looks so hot on him. The sharp edge of his jaw, the tensed muscles in his neck – and the visible veins on his clenched fist…fuck.

You subtly press your thighs together, looking down into your lap to escape Taehyung's sharp gaze.

"Of course!" Daniel jovially exclaims and as you bite back a wince, you hope Taehyung can't hear how high pitched and borderline shrill his voice is compared to Taehyung's own sultry one. "I'll be there at eight-thirty, don't worry about it!"

You hum and say goodbyes.

"You are going on dates now?" Taehyung’s face is unreadable again which makes you slightly nervous about what he could be thinking.

But you still stare right into his eyes and move your head in slow nods. "Of course, I am," you say it as if it's obvious, when in reality it has been a long and difficult journey that you are still not done reaching the destination of. When it is still his name you cry out when you have your fingers buried deep inside of you. But you don’t want him to know that, so you shrug your shoulders. "Aren't you?"

“Obviously not. You are it for me," he says without missing a beat, simply and calmly as if the words aren't meant to have any affect on you. "Since that fateful day in that coffee shop? You have been it for me."

The confession is so raw and so unexpected, it makes you catch your breath. There's no modulation in his voice, no expression on his face, but his eyes? You haven't seen them look any sadder than they do right now.

"Why the hell would I even try when my heart's always been yours?" He doesn't stop though, sliding closer to you on the couch as he looks deep into your eyes with liquid pain collected on his lids. “But I guess you've been trying to return it for a while, huh. I can see I'm no longer welcome here.”

You find yourself at a loss.

The broken emptiness in his eyes and the tears clinging to his long lashes crumble your heart to dust. He is here, he still loves you – you want nothing more than to capture his lips in a kiss and never let go.

But at the same time, you also know all the reasons why you shouldn't.

You've seen this happen before way too many times. You know the pattern. The gambling was just the last straw that broke the camel's back, Taehyung's insincerity towards your relationship had started right about the time when you started to plan your upcoming life together. After every fight you two would have, he would come begging for another chance and you would give it to him again – putting your trust in his palms, asking him if he was serious about your future, and believing him every time he said he was. And each time, he would prove you to be a fool in love, breaking your trust.

But no more.

So despite the way his forlorn gaze tears at you, you put on a brave face and shake your head.

“No, you’re not,” you simply tell him, putting up protective walls around yourself as you go, forcing yourself to not give a second’s thought to the look on his face that mirrors the one you put there when you broke up with him. “And you haven’t been, since the very day I asked you to leave.”

A lone tear rolls down his cheek, which he tries to hide by quickly moving his head to face the other direction.

It takes everything in you to not reach out to cup his face and wipe it. Because no. This is the right thing to do. It may hurt the two of you now, but you’ll be grateful in the long run. You convince yourself that you’d rather have a messy break-up now than an irreparable divorce five years later. Because that is what the two of you were headed to – an uncertain future that would crash and burn.

“I know you have been trying to make your way back to me by all these excuses of needing some or the other imaginary object, but you really need to stop, Tae, and…” You falter at your slip of his name – the name you have pointedly avoided for a year.

Taehyung notices, too, red eyes looking at you again. “You think,” he begins in a throaty, choked murmur, “I come here to win you back?”

You falter. Isn’t that why he comes to you? You’re sure he’s about to throw another excuse at you, until he releases a low, self-deprecating chuckle.

“I come here because I know I can’t win you back,” he slowly says, confusing you and making tears lodge into your throat at the same time. “I come here because I miss you and I don’t know how else to see you…”

The back of your eyes start to burn with the urge to cry, but you repress it.

You try to think of something to say, but come up blank. You're stumped. He doesn't know that he doesn't even need to win you back because of how much he still has you. If he'd tell you he wants to try again – really try – you'd welcome him back with open arms. If he'd tell you he doesn't wanna dabble around with criminal activities anymore and wants to settle down with you…God, you would drop everything and run to him.

Telling him any of that wouldn't be the best action to take when you're trying to move on. So you keep shut, looking at him in silent longing that he reflects.

“But I get it,” he continues, clearing his throat and nodding with his lips pulled in tight. “This – this is wrong of me. You’ve made it clear, time and again, that you don’t wanna see me. I have no right to force you.”

It hits you then that Taehyung has definitely assumed you have been dating for a while. As he should, because that is how you intentionally worded it. But now, you just want to tell him the truth. That it has been extremely difficult accepting the fact that you can’t be with him and have to move on. That it was very very difficult saying yes to Daniel. That you haven’t even wanted to actually go with him ever since Taehyung showed up, tonight.

You don’t get the chance to say anything out loud, though, because Taehyung gives you a small smile – it is full of so much pain and longing and despair, that it just pierces your heart and makes you choke on held back tears.

“You deserve this,” he simply tells you. “Someone taking you out on New Year’s eve… calling beforehand to check up on you simply because you told him you had an emergency come up… I bet he drives a Merc.”

Your cheeks pink at the thought of him having eavesdropped, but you bite your lip to contain your reaction, forcing yourself to chuckle at the last remark. “Please. He works in the same company as me. Literally drives a Toyota.”

Taehyung’s gaze fixates on a point in space. “So he has a corporate job, then. He’s… stable in life…”

You could not have predicted the searing pain that shakes your whole body upon hearing those words. Your wide, surprised eyes look at him, bewildered.

He gives you another slow, pained smile. “It’s what you always wanted. It's what you deserve.”

No, you vehemently reject in your head. What you deserved, at some point at least, was for Taehyung to clean up his act and try for you. Try for the both of you. Unable to contain the sudden helplessness and grief his words fill you with, you shake your head in response.

When he looks at you in confusion, you explain, “I deserved to have you listening to me, Tae. I deserved to have you taking us and our future seriously. I deserved to have you finally prioritizing me above your Bookmaking and – and betting and gambling. I deserved you picking our future over a life of uncertainty and petty crimes that could land you in jail anytime. I deserved…” Your breath stutters and you grit your teeth against the tears that flow down Taehyung’s face. “I deserved a real chance with the man I loved.”

“The man you loved,” Taehyung stresses the final consonant, eyes dark and now dry. Your usage of past tense is accidental, but seems to hit Taehyung in the wrong places. Sudden anger tightens his jaw. “Well. I'll have you know that the man you loved had cleaned up his act less than a week after moving out from this house.”

The words glide past you without making any sense. You gape at him. "What?"

“I quit. The day after you broke up with me, I cut myself out of everything,” he elaborates, sounding tired and weary for the first time ever since you’ve been having conversations with him since your break up. He's always been full of energy. Now he just sounds… defeated. “It was quick money but so much shady dealings and sneaking around… I had to get out. And after you left me… I took my anger out on that lifestyle and got out.”

“Taehyung… what the fuck are you saying?” Your voice sounds as hollow as your chest feels, your heart once again having landed in his hands.

He really quit a year ago? Why the heck didn’t he come to see you, then?

Your earlier thoughts return to you – if he says the word, gives one single indication that he wants you, you will forget the world and run to his arms. It's close to impossible to put logic over emotion when it comes to Taehyung. Breaking up with him was the strongest you'd been all your life.

All your life, you hadn't ever known the kind of love you so easily gave Taehyung. He can destroy you so easily, it's scary.

“I had some money stashed away for down payments and stuff for when we moved. Used them to pay off what I owed my Bookie. And quit,” Taehyung repeats his confirmation and your stomach twists. “Went back to the theater to get them to take me back, but… yeah, they didn’t let me in full-time because I’d lost their trust by dropping out unannounced. But they noted my name down pretty high up on the roll call for performances. I’ve done eight plays since, and got one more tomorrow. First night of the year at the Town Center. It's a full house.”

Your brain refuses to accept this new piece of information. You have to hold your forehead in a palm and massage your temples with your fingers to make sense of what Taaehyung is saying.

It feels like a sick joke.

He's dangling what you wanted in front of you, but he's holding it just out of your reach.

“You’re telling me… you quit everything a year ago?” At his nod, you sigh. “Tae. Why didn't you tell me? You got rid of the very reason we broke up and just didn’t tell me about it? Did you not…" Your voice breaks and eyes water. "Did you not miss me?”

Instead of looking guilty the way you’d expected him to, Taehyung looks more defeated. “I missed you more than I can ever put into words. I didn't tell you because you didn't need to know.” At your confused frown, he shakes his head and softly calls your name. “You deserve a beautiful life of abundance built up with hard earned money. You deserve happiness accumulated by creating a family. With people who can afford to love you. Not a struggling artist who doesn't know if he'd have to go without dinner tonight…" He quietly whispers your name, and your jaw trembles with the emotion it carries. "You are so much better off without me. I don't deserve you."

You thought your heart broke with his heartbreak, but you were apparently wrong because something hurts very bad in your chest. And it’s got to be your heart – or whatever’s left of it – because you can barely breathe over the unbearable pressure that suffocates your lungs.

“I’m sorry I made the decision for you, but…” Taehyung gives you a small shrug. “You wouldn't have agreed with me. And look, good things are happening again, aren’t they?"

You force yourself to give a nod, suddenly recalling the date you are supposed to get ready for. This is what you've wanted – moving on and ahead, eliminating Taehyung from your life.

“Good luck for your… date,” he says, and even though it seems like rolling his tongue around the word is a task for him, you find no anger in his gaze, only resignation and sadness. “I hope it’s good for you. The guy… he sounds like a caring guy,” Taehyung’s voice comes out gruff, very reluctant but still ringing with honesty.

He stands up, brushing both palms down the front of his sweatshirt to plop them into its pockets. His eyes run all over your face, a terse look on his own which he seems to be attempting to soften with a weird pull to his lips that you think he is trying to sell for a smile.

“I’m gonna take my leave… for good, this time,” he slowly declares, taking a step back from the couch, and as you feel your heart lurch to your throat. You have to physically tuck your feet in to stop yourself from rushing after him to stop him. “Kind of a downer staying to watch him pick you up in a Tessie or some shit.”

You meet his attempt at lightening the atmosphere with the ghost of a smile. “A Toyota, I promise.”

“Happy New Year,” he breathes, already at the door, watching you through watery eyes. “I hope this next one is so beautiful, it makes up for all that I put you through this year. And – and the year before…"

Your lips woodenly part into a smile you don’t mean, to express happiness you don’t feel. “You, too. I hope the coming year helps you be kinder to yourself and…” You pause to inhale. “And honest with the things you love.”

Taehyung seems to understand the meaning behind your words, given the subtle clenching of his fist, but says nothing as he moves out of the apartment.

You stare after him, rooted to your spot like a marble statue.

He really did the one thing you had wanted him to. And then – he never told you about it, didn’t make any attempts at a reconciliation because of his own messed up theories about you and himself. His words play in your head, weighing your heart down with sadness and despair.

You deserve a beautiful life of abundance built up with hard earned money. You deserve happiness accumulated by creating a family. With people who can afford to love you.

Afford to love you – as if you are an expensive commodity and not a flawed human being.

Despite all the anger, pain and disappointment you have been living with due to his ways, the picture of the future his words paint for you still features Taehyung by your side, holding your hand through it all.

You wonder how he can know you so well and yet be so clueless about you at the same time.

It shouldn’t come as a surprise to you that you have the worst time with your date.

You spent the entire dinner thinking about your ex that you’re supposed to have finally severed things with and the few times you tried to engage in a conversation with Daniel, you almost slipped and called him ‘Tae.’

You feel like shit, drowning in heartache and two different kinds of guilt. Because Daniel definitely didn’t deserve this. And at the same time… maybe Taehyung also didn’t deserve the way you cut him out of your life, last Christmas. Maybe there’s a reason why he drew all the conclusions about being undeserving to be with you.

Did he think you valued stability over him and not with him?

Your feet are heavy and heart heavier when you get to your apartment – only to stumble to a startled stop when you come face to face with the man you desperately wish to stop thinking about.

He stands near your front door, the porch of your place housing a bundle of cardboard boxes that you can recognize even from a distance. You packed them. Is he taking his stuff away?

While you are still focused on him, a familiar elderly woman exits the house and steps up next to Taehyung, looking at him with a smile as she hands him some kind of paperwork. This is your landlady. And there is only one kind of paperwork she could be handing over to Taehyung.

Your legs move before you have even established it in your head that you will intervene in this situation, carrying you up to the duo within seconds.

“Taehyung,” you call out, wide eyes focused on the file in his hands. “What’s… what’s all this?”

His eyes double in size when they meet yours. And then they travel down your body, taking in the maroon dress beneath your coat, before coming back up and pausing at the vast amount of skin your dress' plunging neckline exposes.

You didn't end up wearing Daniel's gift, after all, feeling like a fraud.

Taehyung clears his throat, a distant look in his eyes when they meet yours. "Wha… You're… Why are you here?"

"I live here." You blink at him. "What are you doing?"

"Oh, he was just here to request a removal of his name from your lease," the landlady butts in with a saccharine smile. "I told him it is a complicated process. He has a copy of the deed which he can talk to his lawyer about. And, ah – hope you don't mind that I used the master key to get to your spare room." She casts an affectionate glance at Taehyung. "Tae was waiting so long to collect his things in the freezing temperatures, it started to worry me."

A cold sweat breaks out on the back of your neck, your grip loosening on your handbag. On yourself.

He is leaving.

He is finally leaving – removing himself from your life for good. Like you wanted him to.

You…wanted him to. Didn't you?

You were tired of his unannounced visits that messed with your head. He was never gonna be yours so you wanted him to not be around you at all. You wanted him gone.

You have wanted him gone for a year.

Haven’t you?

So then what is this bone-chilling fear that travels up and down your spine? Why are your hands shaking? Why is your throat dry, your eyes watering, shit, why do you feel like throwing up?

You don't know why your body reacts so viscerally to the news you have been awaiting. You don’t know the reason, but you recognise the signs.

This is exactly how you felt when you put your foot down about Taehyung's casual treatment of the two of you, last Christmas.

This is exactly how you felt when you broke up with him.

Fuck.

"Yeah." He bites down on his bottom lip, conflict and worry visibly swirling in his dark irises even in the dimness of the evening. "Was about to book a cab. Didn't… expect you to be back… so early."

Fists tightening and eyelids fluttering, you will yourself to hold on for just a little more time.

That is when your mind catches up with Taehyung's vague statements. You're back before midnight – way before midnight, it's barely even eleven – from your damn dinner. Taehyung probably expected you to celebrate the beginning of the next year with your date. Which you should've done, ideally. Tomorrow's a Sunday, anyway. Hell, maybe Taehyung expected you to go home with Dan instead of coming back here at all. Which, again, you should've done. Ideally.

But Taehyung doesn't know your date was far from ideal. You're a bad person for treating amazing and kind and sweet Dan like shit. You're an even worse person for wanting nothing more than to kiss your ex-boyfriend till you asphyxiate and then sob into his chest until you pass out.

Fuck.

You don't want him to leave.

Fuck fuck fuck, you will go insanely out of your fucking mind if he leaves.

He can't leave.

"You look pale… How was your date? Nothing – nothing went wrong, did it? Are—"

"Everything," you mumble, uncaring of the obvious concern that blooms across Taehyung’s face. "Everything went wrong, Tae… Everything went to hell, and you let it. You made it. Everything crashed and burned and you didn't even fucking care. And—"

And now you're leaving…for good.

You choke on a sob.

Taehyung steps towards you. "What? Hey, are you—"

"Why didn't you care, Taehyung?" Your voice breaks – as does your poise, knees buckling to make you stumble and nearly fall, tears trickling down your face. "Why didn't you love me enough to care?"

A pair of arms instantly surrounds you and a warm chest presses in your shoulder. "Shh, shh, breathe."

You peer up at him to find Taehyung’s face pinched in distraught agony, eyes clouded with doubt and fear. "Tae…"

"I'm here, I'm here."

"No… You're leaving…"

He pulls away to look at your tear-stricken face with a bewildered frown. "Yes, but I'm not gonna leave you like this."

"What if I'm like this forever? After you're gone?"

His lips part and eyes soften. "No, you won't be. You—"

"I love you, Tae."

His entire being freezes right there against you.

And for a moment, so does yours.

But then a calm acceptance unfurls in your chest, assuring you that you are finally being honest with yourself. With him. You're not noble enough to protect him by lying to him.

You break out of Taehyung's grasp, causing him to stumble a few feet away from you as if he was leaning into you for support and not the other way round. His gaze never strays from yours, though. And it never stops being haunted.

This haunting resounds in your very soul, reminding you of the emptiness you've carried around with yourself ever since you pushed the love of your life out of it. The pain in your heart reaches its pinnacle and a tremor wracks through you.

Arms shaking, you reach forth with both your palms to delicately cup his face and bring it closer to yours. "I'm in love with you, Taehyung. I haven't stopped being in love with you, not for a moment. And I cannot live without you in my life. I thought I could… I thought I needed you out of my life to get better, but… That was a lie. I needyou. All your monthly visits that I thought were a problem – they were all that was holding me together… I was surviving off of them, not in spite of them.” You gulp to clear your throat of tears, squeezing your fingers around Taehyung’s cheeks that are getting warmer just as his eyes are getting redder and shiner. “Tae, the thought of you going away for good breaks me. There’s this – there’s this crack that forms in my heart, in my soul, at the thought of not having you around anymore, and I feel like it will never heal. Like I will collapse and never recover."

Exhaling, you step closer and brush your nose against his, watching how his eyes fall shut with the action, allowing tears to escape. Your own eyelids lower to match his.

"Tell me what to do… Please."

His shaky exhale brushes warmly against your lips. Slowly, his arms come up to cradle your waist, locking your form against his chest. And then, in a barely there whisper, he says: "Kiss me?"

A tiny sob escapes you, the pain in your heart diluting and the pressure on your chest alleviating. You wouldn't have known what to do with yourself if he pushed you away.

But he didn't. He asked you to kiss him – the way you have been wanting to for hours, now.

So without another word, you close the gap between your lips and his.

A shuddered breath leaves you at the first contact, loaded with relief as well as desire. Taehyung responds immediately, deepening the kiss, allowing his fingers to greedily dig into your waist and his throat to release a pleased hum. Shivers dance through your body at the familiar sound. And then he runs his tongue to part your lips, and the shivers transform into spasming shudders, prompting you to wind your arms around his neck and shoulders to hold yourself steady.

Your body slowly familiarizes itself with his motions again, reconnecting with the woodsy but mild cologne he wears that is only perceptible when you're pressed up so close to him. One of your hands finds the curls on the base of his neck, and your nails card through them the way you know he loves. His appreciative grunt is delivered with a bite to your bottom lip, and with your own whimper of need, you open your mouth against his.

The kiss moves from a teary mess of emotions to something more passionate – something driven by the hunger you two feel for each other.

Lightheadedness starts to crawl over you because Taehyung's intense kisses leave no room for you to catch a single breath, and his own lung capacity bypasses yours. But now that you have his mouth slotted against yours after so long, you would rather pass out in his embrace than be the first one to pull away.

When Taehyung finally runs out of oxygen, he separates from you with a wet gasp. Your body scrambles to regulate your breathing, but you find yourself suspended in delirium, so out of it that you nearly sway in his arms.

But Taehyung's hold on you is firm and secure, the large span of one of his hands pressing between your shoulder blades to support you. His forehead tips against yours and labored breath mingles with your own.

"I love you, too," he manages to whisper between the audible gulps of air he's taking in. “Never stopped.”

Neither did you.

You open your mouth to tell him just that, when a gust of freezing wind blows through your street, rolling over the exposed skin of your calves beneath your dress, and your teeth chatter in a gasping exhale.

Taehyung's eyebrows squeeze together. "Fuck, it's freezing out here and you're in a dress. Let's get you inside," he says with a quick glance towards your legs, and you don't miss the flare that sparks through his eyes.

Getting inside your house together is going to entail more than just escaping the cold winds.

He quickly bends to pick up the file he must have dropped earlier, and then looks at you with a small smile as you step closer to him. Folding your form into his side, he walks up the stairs of your porch, passing by the pile of his boxes, and knocks at your landlady's door. The woman opens up so quickly, you wonder if she's been standing right there all this time, trying to eavesdrop on you and Taehyung. You wouldn’t put it past her, to be honest.

“Oh!” She acts surprised. “Are you both going somewhere?”

“Yeah. Back in.” Taehyung grins at you and hands the file of the lease papers to her. "For good."

Tilting her head to the side, she presses a hand to her chest and coos. "Oh my God. I can't express how happy this makes me. I wish you two nothing but happiness!" But she's just looking at Taehyung. Ugh.

"Yeah, thanks – hey, can we talk some time later?" you interrupt in a rush. "Kinda freezing here."

With wide eyes, she gestures the two of you away.

Taehyung is chuckling when he unlocks the door to your house. "I can't tell if she is just that dramatic or if she has a crush on me. I mean, she's probably my aunt's age if not my mom's. It's a little embarrassing, but it's also cute."

What's cute is the way he can't stop rambling.

Taehyung has always had a very distinctively overpowering persona when it comes to sex. He has never fooled around when it came to this part of your relationship, making up for the sincerity he lacked elsewhere in bed. Which is why you know it’s only a matter of time before that switch is flipped and he starts to elude that intensity which renders your brain useless.

So you take advantage of his present distraction. You know he doesn’t realize what you are planning, which gives you the perfect opportunity to wait for him in the foyer while he locks the door – and pounce upon him immediately as he turns to face you.

Your lips connect with his surprised ones in a clumsy clash, making his body fall back against the shut door from the force. The surprised laugh that escapes his mouth in a huff is swallowed by your tongue licking up his bottom lip. One of his arms wraps tight against your waist and the other palm cradles your jaw. Heat surrounds you with his possessive touch.

Your tongue slides past the edge of his mouth to curl around his teeth, until he opens his mouth wider and wraps his own around yours. His throaty groan that accompanies the action travels down to your center, stoking the fire that is building up between your legs.

In the months you have spent away from him, you have had just your fingers and the memories of your time together to support you through your self-imposed celibacy. And this abstaining has built up into an infernal need now – a need for him. Having his mouth on you isn’t enough. You need him all over you, fused together with you, you need him in you.

“Tae,” comes your breathless call.

Humming, he pulls away from the kiss to drag his lips down your face, pressing hot kisses down your chin, and settling against your pulsepoint, sucking a bruise into your tender flesh and stealing all the air from your lungs. “Yes, baby?”

Fuck, his voice keeps getting deeper with every passing moment. Desperate for more contact, your hands tug his sweatshirt up, one fist bunching in the fabric over his back, and the other reaching for the warm skin beneath. While his lips descend to your collar bones, fervently pressing kisses to the exposed flesh of your chest, pushing your coat off your shoulders, the nails of both your hands rake up his back, tugging at the article of clothing in their wake.

Taehyung takes that moment to gain the upper hand – ending your fun with him barely five minutes into it. Separating himself from the door to walk you backwards into your apartment, he begins to easily maneuver the two of you towards your bedroom. You manage to work his sweatshirt off his abdomen, causing him to lift his head to allow you to swipe it off him completely. While he runs a hand through his hair to tame them, you take his taut, solidly built body in, and sag against the wall behind you with a dreamy sigh.

His chest is heaving with breathless pants, pecs hard and dewy with sweat. You scan down the rest of his firm torso, down to the waistband of his jeans, and then your gaze settles upon the sizable bulge in them. It’s not like you ever forgot how freaking massive Taehyung is, but the visual evidence still makes your tongue feel heavy in your dry mouth.

You wonder if you’d be able to convince him to let you taste him.

He is on you, the next second, lips re-attaching themselves to the top curves your breasts. God, his body feels warmer without the barrier of his clothes, heating you up with the contact just as much as he is by his ministrations. While you are thinking of getting rid of your dress, Taehyung seems to get the same idea. Running down your thighs over the garment and then climbing back up under it, his large hands mold over the globes of your ass, digging into your flesh.

“Fuck, Tae,” you breathe into his hair, both hands marking up his shoulders with the death grip you have on them

He responds by obscenely pulling your ass cheeks apart and then pressing them together. Whimpering with want, you desperately lift one of your legs up to his waist. He invites it by hooking one of his hands beneath your knee to properly wrap your limb around him, before pushing you harder against the wall, he takes the liberty to pick up and lock your other leg in place around him as well.

The damp cloth of your panties rubs down the zipper of his jeans, and both of you gasp at the contact, eyes meeting in wordless wonder.

You wordlessly raise your arms up to express what you want, meeting his heated stare with your bottom lip pulled into your mouth when he looks at you from beneath his brows.

Cursing under his breath, Taehyung quickly tugs your dress off of you, attaching his lips to the soft flesh of your ribs beneath your right immediately. The heat of his mouth as he works his way down to your belly button and licks his way down to the edge of your panties has you soaking through them.

“Tae, please,” you gasp, “bed.”

He obliges immediately, rising up to hold you to him as he carries you into your bedroom. His eyes are dark and dangerous when he catches your stare, and up close, it becomes really hard for you to maintain eye contact with him.

But as soon as you lower your lashes, one of his hands comes up to grip your jaw, his motions not bruising, but definitely not soft either. His jaw is clenched and nostrils flared when you look at him again. With a gulp, you feel your arousal drip down your thigh.

“Do not take your eyes off of me,” he grunts against your mouth, planting a tight kiss on it. “Understood?”

“Yes,” your agreement comes hoarse and a glint of satisfaction sparkles in his eyes at the sound.

The lethal dominance Taehyung exudes right now completely removes him from the guy you kissed against your door, minutes ago. He gets off to the power he holds over you, evident with the way his eyes always shine when he has you needy and whiny for him. And that just makes you needier and whinier.

Walking up to your bed, he sits on the edge and arranges you in his lap with an arm wrapped around your waist, giving you barely any time to settle before his free hand flicks your bra open. Tugging it down your arms, he forgoes fully removing it in favor of pressing his thumb against one of your nipples and swirling it around. A gasp rips through you, making your body arch into him and eyes roll into the back of your head.

You expect a reprimand for looking away from him, but he instead uses that moment to lower his head and replace his thumb, engulfing the taut peak of your breast into the fiery cavern of his mouth.

“Feels so fucking good…”

While his tongue plays around with your nub, making a mess on you the way he loves to, his hands don’t sit idle either, busying themselves in ridding you of your panties. You brace your knees on the mattress outside of his thighs and rise up to aid him. But his impatience gets the better of him and he leaves the scarp of clothing hanging on your ankle to quickly bring his hands back to your bare body, touching, squeezing and kneading his way around your ass, your back and your shoulders, and finally looping his arms around you to focus on your boobs again. He switches sides, suckling and nibbling on the neglected peak.

Pleasure starts to coil up tightly in you, making you all the more aware of the emptiness in your pussy. Looking for some sort of relief, you readjust yourself on his lap, sliding sideways to straddle one of his legs.

"Oh, fuck—" You cut yourself off with a breath hissed in through your teeth.

Your new position has made your heated, needy center press up strongly against Taehyung's buffed thigh, and the pressure has flares of arousal shooting through your veins, circling through your entire body. Your knee brushes his crotch, and the stiffness it encounters makes all semblance of self-control slip right through your grasp.

"Taehyung," you breathe, clawing at his shoulders with both hands, and he just hums against your chest, around a mouthful of your boob. "I need you…"

He hums again, never letting your flesh out of his mouth. "You have me."

Fuck, is he trying to be witty right now? You release a desperate whine, dreading the thought of having to convince him to touch you how and where you need him to because Taehyung plays a long game when it comes to edging you. Your wound up body cannot deal with that right now – you fear you'll say the wrong thing in your state and he will just use that to prolong your pleasure all the more.

His hands go back to your ass and the feel of those sinfully long fingers on you makes you wish they were in you, and—

Shit.

The bruising grasp he has on your butt makes your body slide against him, and fuck, the way his thigh muscles flex against your bare pussy has you seeing stars for a moment.

You want more of it.

Tentatively but eagerly, you grind down against the coarse fabric of his jeans harder, immediately throwing your head back in groan when a feverish wave of arousal runs through you at the motion.

Fuck, this is so lewd and you are so gonna leave a wet mess on his clothes, but you can’t stop yourself from moving again. And again. Grinding down, rolling your body towards Taehyung, and allowing the side of your knee to brush against the bulge that you would have begged for, had you not gotten so impatient.

Within the next few moments, Taehyung lifts his head off of your chest and meets your dazed gaze with his dark one. His eyes scan the length of your torso to connect to his thigh. You roughly swallow at his perusal, already getting closer to the edge because of its increasing darkness. And then he releases a shuddering breath, the slight surprise on his face being taken over by fascination.

“Are you fucking yourself on my leg, baby?”

His bluntly dirty question comes in a voice so guttural and low, the vibrations make your body temperature turn a few degrees up, pushing another groan out of you. One more filthy word out of his mouth, and you will explode.

You nod in response, attempting to pull yourself together enough to open your eyes wider to take him in better. His bottom lip is tucked between his teeth and his pupils have expanded dangerously. A bead of sweat travels down the side of his neck, collecting over the hollow of his collarbone. The fact that he is so turned on that he is sweating in this freezing December weather drives you insane. Unable to resist him, you press your lips against his throat, opening your mouth to let the salty taste of skin unravel against your tastebuds.

His grip on your waist tightens to a squeeze, until he lets go and leans back, supporting his weight on his palms that he plants on the mattress behind him. Your hips continue their roll on his thigh and your mouth works its way down his torso, tongue swiping at his nipple and eliciting a muted curse from him. Looking up, you’re treated to the breathtaking sight of his flushed face with his eyes closed and lips parted. His chest pulses with every gush of breath he takes, urging you to move on his thigh in a rhythm to match.

Bleary eyes open to connect with yours down his nose from beneath a curtain of dark hair, just as his upper lip curls away to bare his teeth in a fatally sexy grin.

“You look so fucking gorgeous, you know?”

You do?

You don't have any words to describe to him how delicious he looks in this moment – not that you'd be able to articulate them if you even had them – so you just let his thick and breathy voice wrap around you. When your motions falter, you bring both hands up to mold over his muscly shoulders for support. But your thighs are starting to feel the burn of exhaustion zipping through them.

And the grinding alone isn't enough anymore. Your pussy is still empty, trying to clench around nothing.

"T–Tae…" you whimper as a last resort, hoping he's turned on enough by the sight of your deranged self to comply without teasing you. "I need more…"

"Oh, yeah?" comes his breathy lilt and you nearly sob in frustration because nope, no chance – he's gonna tease you to death. "My thigh's not enough for my horny little baby?

You shake your head, slowing down as your leg muscles fully give up.

"What do you need, baby?"

His dark eyes are sincere despite the humor in his tone, and the small smile he sports has more adoration than hunger. So you take your chances.

"Your fingers," you boldly express, biting down your lip as you quietly add, "and your mouth."

You feel the jerk his length gives at your words, but Taehyung doesn't say a word about it, lazily smiling at you as he sits up to grope at your body. An eyebrow rises up.

"And not my cock?"

Your eyes dip down to his crotch again, and he chuckles.

"Although I'm not going to give it to you yet," he adds, confirming his plans that you already had an inkling of, “but wouldn’t you even ask?”

Pouting at him, you grind your hips down against his leg again, and wrap your arms around his shoulders. Fuck, he is so broad. This is why his shirt sleeves become sweater paws for you.

"Why won’t you give it to me yet?" you coyly murmur, trying to capture his lips in a kiss but failing when he tips his head away.

"Because you seem to have forgotten your manners," he informs you with a tiny, mocking smirk. "Not listening when I tell you to keep your eyes on me, grinding yourself on my leg like a slut without my permission, and demanding my fingers and my mouth without a single polite word."

His eyes slowly solidify into unforgiving pools of disappointment and you shiver. “P–p–please. Please give me your mouth, Tae,” you quickly amend, causing amusement to twitch his eyebrows into arches.

“Now wasn’t that so much better?”

With a nipple pinched between his fingers and your earlobe between his teeth, he fluidly flips the two of you over, so that you're laying on the bed with your feet planted on the ground, and he is hovering above you. Pressing kisses down your sternum, he descends your body to kneel between your parted legs You follow his dark eyes, barely breathing, and then rise up on your elbows when his hot breath brushes against your extremely sensitive center.

"Look at this poor pussy,” he coos, nudging at the wet mess of your lips with his nose. “All messy and tired… Do you need to come, baby?”

You nod like a bobblehead doll, wide eyes not daring to leave his now.

Much to your surprise, he doesn’t play around at all, and dives in with his tongue immediately. Your moan of his name makes your body wring out tightly, hands fisting in the sheets next to you, and hips almost lifting off the bed.

Taehyung growls against your sensitive flesh, opening his eyes to glare at you. “Are you trying to test me?”

Your shiver at his hissed question, but quickly shake your head. “It just… it’s been a while.”

His face drops for a quick moment, before a vicious look enters his eyes again. “Not like anyone could ever eat you out like I do.”

Not like you even let anyone do that, but not to get too sappy. “N–no one, Tae! Only you do!”

He gets back to work, pressing his mouth against you and letting his tongue lash into your channel, before he moves his mouth higher up and takes your hypersensitive clit between his lips. You have barely had a moment to absorb the shock of pleasure that rips through you at that, when you feel two of his fingers running up and down your entrance – coating in your wetness, before they slip into you. And they go deep, driving right up against the sensitive spot in you that they know the route to better than your own fingers, pressing down and rubbing at it in circles.

It’s all downhill from there – your body thrashing around the bed, hands fisting his hair and eyes screwing shut as you reach your peak in record time. White noise muffles your ears and fire explodes in you. All thoughts leave your brain blank for what feels like whole minutes.

Your orgasm lasts almost longer than the time it took for you to get there.

When you come back down from your embarrassingly quick but blindingly amazing high, your eyes open to the sight of Taehyung’s fingers, coated with your juices, sliding past his swollen lips. You thickly swallow. Admiring the way he tongue comes out to lick over a manicured nail, a tiny moan escapes you.

His eyes connect with yours, the heat in them giving way to amusement. “Want a taste?”

Mesmerized, you nod, mouth watering at the sight of his endlessly long, elegant fingers. God, is it weird of you to want to swallow someone’s fingers? Because as soon as Taehyung straddles you, you grab his palm with both hands and push his index, middle and ring fingers into your gaping mouth. And as soon as the taste of your release mixed in with the taste of his spit meets your tongue, you make a seal around them, and suck.

A sharp breath is drawn in by Taehyung at your action, his eyes now pitch black as they look down at you.

Your tongue plays around with the edges of his nails, before you suck more of his digits in to push them towards your throat, essentially swallowing them.

“Fuck, fuck, are you kidding me,” Taehyung moans out, making more of a statement than a question, followed by your name. “Love my fingers that much?”

You obediently nod your head, looking at him with wide eyes, and his own turn heavy. His hips are in your direct line of sight, which makes it easy for you to actually see the way your response causes the tent in his jeans to become bigger.

When he pulls his pruned fingers out of your mouth, your eager hands make a grab for his waistband to quickly unbutton and unzip him. He surprises you for the second time tonight by letting you get away with it. You tug the denim past his ass and wrangle his tight shorts off similarly, hissing in delight when his fully hard cock springs free to smack against his tight abdomen.

The head is angry and coated with precum, so fucking irresistible, it beckons you towards it. But this time you do not forget your manners, looking up into Taehyung’s eyes through your lashes.

His stare is already on you, though, and it is heavier than it has been all night.

“Stick your tongue out,” he murmurs in a voice that has gone down another few octaves.

And you do, properly sitting on your haunches as he kneels on the bed before you.

“You can suck it for one minute and one minute only. I don’t want to come before I’ve felt your pussy.”

Fuck, why does that bring heat to your cheeks?

“Okay,” you whisper, reaching ahead with a hand to wrap around his thick length and placing the fat head on your extended tongue.

He grunts when you wrap your tongue around him. Knowing you don’t have much time, you let the spit accumulated in your mouth to act as lubricant over his cock, and open your mouth wide to take him in. He hits your throat when half of his length hasn’t even made it into your mouth, and you relax yourself to let him slide in.

But Taehyung brings his hand down to clutch at your hair, shaking his head when your eyes meet his in surprise. “J–just your tongue.”

FUck, did he stutter? You’re so fucking proud of yourself.

With renewed vigor, you draw slightly back and hollow your cheeks around his tip, rolling your tongue over it like a lollipop, you firmly suckle it. Spit mixed with his precum dribbles down the side of your jaw, which causes Taehyung to bite down on his lip.

Before you can really get into it, though, he pulls himself out of your mouth and grabs you by the shoulders, breathing hard above you. “Enough. Wanna fuck your pussy, now…”

Using the leverage on your shoulders, he pushes you back on the bed and throws a leg across your torso to straddle you. His other hand cards his hair away from his face. Some strands have gotten stuck to his forehead, which he scrapes away with the back of his nails, and you are struck by the elegant beauty of his finger once more.

It is not weird to want to swallow someone’s fingers, okay? Not when that someone is Kim Taehyung.

Out of nowhere, you notice how the rings he wears are thin, silver bands instead of the huge chunky rocks he used to. The hand on your shoulder is devoid of them too, with similar bands looping through his index and ring fingers. It could very easily be a style choice, but something tells you it is a choice brought on by the change in his lifestyle.

Sucking in a sharp breath, you reprimand yourself for never catching any signs. So much wasted time because you really thought he wouldn’t change and he was being a dumbass with all that poetic don’t deserve you shit.

“Where’s your head at?” He smirks at you, having gotten rid of his disheveled clothes properly, and situates himself between your legs again. “Don’t go all pillow princess on me, now—”

“Choke me.”

His eyes boggle out at your sudden words. “Wha…?”

“I was thinking of your fingers.” It isn’t a lie, only a partial truth. “How fucking gorgeous they are. And how fucking badly I want them on me. I want them to bruise me, Tae… Please?”

His cock smacks against your thigh and he hisses a deep breath in through his teeth, letting his tongue rest against his upper lip as he regards you. “You sure?”

Elated, you eagerly nod. “Absolutely.”

“Do we, uh, need a safe word?”

“No, we don’t,” you confidently reassure him with a smile.

“And can I do it bareback?”

“Ye—uh, what?” You gape at him.

His smirk turns into a sheepish smile, body leaning down to cage you between a hand that is planted next to your head, and the other one which is playing with your boobs and slowly climbing its way up towards your neck.

“I haven’t slept with anyone since you,” he says it simply, easily, as if he is telling you what he had for dinner.

But you notice how he doesn’t meet your gaze and you also notice how the veins in his neck look a little too strained.

Sighing fondly, you bring your hands up to brush through his hair. “Neither have I.”

His stance relaxes and rounded eyes run to meet yours. “Are you still—”

“On the pill? Yes.” At his confused look, you roll your eyes. “It helps with my period, okay? Now will you get on wi—ack!”

The hand roaming your throat suddenly tightens over it, thumb digging into your pulsepoint while his fingers curl around your windpipe to restrict your breathing. Through wide eyes you see him wet his lips and lean over yours. The flat of his tongue sweeps across your mouth.

“Not a word from you unless it is about how good I’m making you feel,” he whispers and you leak an ocean of arousal, shivers running up and down your spine at the low-pitched threat. “Understood?”

You quickly nod, swallowing against his fingers. With another lick of your trembling lips, Taehyung straightens to sit up and use his free hand to smear your arousal around your slit.

“You have made a mess, baby…”

You can hear the mess he is talking about, his fingers squelching away as they separate your pussy lips and toy with your clit. Just when you feel tears gathering in your eyes at the overwhelming sensations that are still not enough, Taehyung decides to finally line the head of his cock up against your entrance.

The initial push feels harsh, not particularly stinging, but definitely feeling foreign after the long abstinence you’ve had. But as he gradually eases himself in, your pussy seems to recall the feeling of pleasure associated with the thickness of Taehyung’s massive cock. He can never make it into you in a single slide, always having to make repetitive pumps to fit all of him in.

“Tiny fucking pussy,” he rasps through clenched teeth, lips parted and eyebrows furrowed, gaze zeroed in at the place you are joined. “So greedy but can’t even take me properly…”

Indignant, you want to tell him there is no one but you that can take him ‘properly.’ No one but you who tirelessly braves through his tendency to overstimulate you because he’s a fucking stallion who takes forever to come and has to have you clenching around him to trigger an orgasm.

But you keep your mouth shut, writhing a little as you make tiny noises of pleasure, because he literally has your vocal chords in his hand.

Hips moving away, he pistons back in, pushing further inside you. This is when he finally looks up at you. But this time you have been looking at just his sexily scrunched up face, nearly unblinking, so a proud grin splits his lips.

“Almost there, baby,” he reassures you unnecessarily, because you are having a fucking blast either way.

He pulls out and plows back in again, reaching deeper – and deeper – and deeper, until you feel the base of his pelvis meet your clit. Your jaw drops in surprised pleasure when he grinds against you, and your hips chase after him when he pulls back. Chuckling, Taehyung leans over you, removing the hand from your throat to bring it up to your face and cup your cheek.

“You okay?”

No, not really. You need him to move. But you know he’s asking about your throat, so you bite your lip and give him a small nod. “Never better.”

At first he smiles, but then something dark enters his gaze. “Never better?”

Shit, why does he have to spin every word out of your mouth into something to tease you with? His hips pull back and snap against yours to make a point, an eyebrow rising up.

"You better now?"

Whining, half in embarrassment and half because his length reaches insane depths in you, you shake your head. "N–not yet—"

He repeats the motion, this time harder and faster. "Now?"

You are pushed up the bed by the force of his thrusts, but still collect enough willpower to shake your head, teeth gnawing at your bottom lip. "M–more…"

This time, Taehyung hooks an arm beneath one of your knees, pulling your legs apart wide, and situates your calf on his shoulder, next to his face. Turning, he presses a soft kiss to your ankle, and then grits his teeth to continue with the pounding that is rapidly gaining momentum.

He doesn't say a word, after that, just stares at you through quiet and calculative eyes and you know he means business. God, the way his head brushes against the bundle of nerves in you with every powerful thrust is bringing you closer to your release. You wanna shut your eyes and rub at your clit. He has barely started, but you have been so wound up, you just want to come.

But as soon as a single hand of yours leaves his shoulders to travel to your body, Taehyung takes the hand he has around your boob, to smack the back of yours with. You gape at him in surprise, which turns into a moan of his name when he presses deep into you and gyrates his hips.

"Don't even think of touching yourself," he hisses at you, teeth bared and eyes narrowed. His hair hangs above them, but they manage to do nothing to cut the intensity of his stare. "You've had enough time to do that in a year. Now it's my turn to touch you…"

And fuck, that is so fucking hot of him, your mouth drools and some spit leaks down the side of it. He rubs it off with a thumb and then leans down to kiss you. Your leg stretched to its maximum elasticity, but Taehyung sucking on your tongue gets your mind off of it.

This time when he separates from your body, your fingers subconsciously reach for the tips of your breasts, tweaking at your nipples.

Taehyung's eyes flash with fury. "Are you doing this on purpose? If you needed me to tie you up so bad, you should've just asked.”

The words float over you, not really getting to you through the haze of pleasure that every single of his sharp thrusts into your pussy has you suspended in. Until, that is, Taehyung is gripping both your wrists and holding them with a single hand, above your head. A lacy but soft touch meets your wrists while you're still gaping at Taehyung's sharp jaw with a confused face.

And then it registers – he is tying your fucking hands…with your fucking bra.

Gasping, mostly out of shock but also out of the bout of arousal that his action sends through you, you begin to protest, "Tae, I wasn't—'

"Shh," comes his crisp admonition, accompanied by a glare through his eyebrows that makes you shake in place. "You will keep your mouth shut if you don't want it full of your wet panties."

You're not as opposed to the idea as you would've thought, but you do not dare to challenge Taehyung into doing it. Because he won't end it there – he will deny your release as punishment, too, and that is something you are absolutely in no shape to bear right now.

So you pull your lips in and allow him to send your body jostling up the bed in time with his strokes. One of his hands comes up to squeeze at your boobs, while the other reaches down, thumb pressing into your clit, rubbing tight circles over it.

“This want you wanted?” His tone is light, contradicting the darkness in his eyes. At your shaky nod, his hand climbs up your chest to grip at your jaw, thumb dipping into your mouth, which you waste no time in sucking on. Hissing, he narrows his eyes. “So fucking needy… You’d take anything I gave you, won’t you?”

With his thumb pressing down on your tongue and hips pinning you to the bed, you’re as much at his mercy as you can be. There is no point trying to put up a fight. So you admit in a barely coherent mutter of, “Everything.”

His eyes flash with heat, and he charges into you at a renewed pace, going harder and faster. You momentarily wonder why he hasn't attempted to flip you on your stomach when that is his most favorite position to have you in, but all thoughts are soon wiped off your brain when Taehyung’s digits on your clit get rougher, harsher, until you can feel yourself beginning to tighten around him. The crash comes unexpectedly, catching you so unawares your mouth drops open in a silent scream, eyes widening and then rolling back.

Waves after waves of pleasure hit you, running through your veins like molten fire. You can feel Taehyung fuck you through it, groaning into your neck as he peppers kisses over your sweaty skin.

By the time you open your eyes, he is close to his own completion, body tensing and stuttering above you.

“Whe…where do you want me,” he moans into your neck, “to come?”

It takes you less than two seconds to decide: “Inside.”

Taehyung’s surprised eyes find you as he immediately lifts his head to rest his chin on your collarbones. “Are you su—”

“Please,” you breathe, locking your tired legs around his waist. “Wanna feel you fill me up, Tae, please…”

A different shade colors his face at your words, motions getting stronger but also sloppier. “Yeah? You w–want my cum, baby?”

His jaw is clenched and broad body looms over you, his dominance never weakening despite the way his words are beginning to stutter and slur. Your pussy feels worn out, battered, slightly overstimulated – but when Taehyung’s breath starts to break into gasps, you feel a fire ignite in you again.

Nodding, you push your breasts against his chest and meet his heavy lidded gaze with your wide-eyed one. “I’ve missed it s–so much,” you hoarsely tell him, biting down on your lip. “Love the way you make a mess in me… And when it dr–drips out—”

“Fu~ck,” Taehyung groans low in his throat, forehead resting against your chest and teeth biting down into the soft flesh. His hips stray from yours, jerking back twice before finally fusing together with yours, just as warm spurts of his cum shoot up in you.

The sensation is foreign but so fucking familiar at the same time, you lose your breath, matching Taehyung’s heaving breathing, both your fists clenched in their restraint and eyes screwed shut to absorb the sensations bursting across your body.

It takes him a while to pull out of you, and you almost want him to stay in longer, whining when he sits up between your legs with a dazed grin. “You’re really fucking unbelievable, you know?”

Again – you are?

Your legs are jelly, your brain has turned to marshmallow goo, and your throat is too raw for speech stronger than a raspy whisper. You don’t even wanna think of the state of your pussy; everything’s kinda numb down there, and you wonder if the overstimulation has actually muted your nerve endings to—

“Ah, shit!”

Nope, you definitely still have all your nerve endings very much alert and sensitive – so sensitive, they make you flinch with your whole body when Taehyung’s tongue travels through your nether lips.

“Wh–what are you doing, Tae—fuck!”

“You looked so fucking good,” he murmurs into your pussy, and you feel like you will fall off the bed with how much you are twisting and arching up – to get closer or away from him, you’re not sure. But then his teeth grazes your thoroughly sensitized clit and now you’re definitely pulling away. “Tiny fucking hole,” he continues, seemingly lost in his head, “leaking so much cum…”

Oh, God. It is now that you realize Taehyung is eating what is the mixture of his cum with yours. And having the time of his life doing it, if the moans he pours into you are any indication.

His comfort with tasting his cum isn’t new to you, but the reminder still zings your body with a thrill – and to your utter shock and slight dread, you feel your stomach bunching up with a fresh wave of desire. Taehyung seems to catch the subtle way your hips undulate towards him, and with a groan, presses his tongue farther in you, curling it up as if to collect all the liquid he can.

It doesn’t take much after that. The depraved imagery of Taehyung enjoying the taste of his own release does half the job, and his skilled tongue that doesn’t sit still for a second is more than enough to bring you to another earth-shattering orgasm, one that is so strong, it’s borderline painful.

“Fuck, baby, the way you clench on my tongue…”

Your foggy eyes look at Taehyung’s wet and shiny lips that are spread in a delighted smile. He cups your face with a palm and pulls you into a soft kiss when you sniffle, untying your hands with the other. He tastes like you and him combined, and the only reason your moan comes out breathy is because your vocal chords have given up on you.

“Maybe I should’ve paced this,” he softly brushes against your lips, pulling away to peck your cheeks and wipe your eyes, “and not raw-dogged you in one night.”

Laughter blubbers at your lips, turning into a fond smile when Taehyung situates himself next to you and brings your face to rest against his unfairly thick bicep. “I wouldn’t have let you,” you whisper in your embarrassingly papery voice. “Missed you too much.”

“I’ll draw you a warm bath later.” He plants a kiss on your forehead, and then looks at you with hesitant eyes. “You really, uh… didn’t have sex in a whole year?”

The almost nervous look on his face reminds you of what he said to you this evening, about you being the only one for him – about his heart being yours ever since your first accidental date. You release a breath and confess, “I haven’t even dated, Tae. The – the one tonight was the first one I was trying…”

Awe bleeds to understanding, and eventually to offense on his face. “You made it sound like you’d been dating for a while! You asked me if I wasn’t dating, as if it should be obvious!”

You shut your eyes with a wince. “I felt like a fool. Felt like I was contradicting myself by telling you I didn’t need you and then also admitting how lonely I’d been since you.”

His gaze is sincere when he looks at you again. “And now? How do you feel now?"

"In love," you honestly confess, feeling your cheeks heat up when adoration overtakes his face. "Happy. And you?"

"Hopeful," he immediately says, like he doesn't even have to think about it. "Determined to make this work, dead set on making you happy." He brushes a thumb against your cheek. "Eager to build a future with you."

Your chest fills up with too many emotions at once, making it hard for you to breathe. He wants to make an effort. He really wants to do it the right way.

Although you had concluded his intentions by the conversation you had in the evening, it is unbelievably gratifying to hear him put it in words. By declaring that you were better off without him, he had basically proved to you that he truly understood how you saw your future and the fact that he did not fall on the same page as you, a year ago. And so now, hearing him tell you he wants to make it work, you know that he is finally on the same page as you about the two of you.

You have never been a fan of fairytales or a believer of magic. You never considered fate to be a thing until you met Taehyung due to a twist of it, and then in your separation with him, you found yourself going back to your earlier beliefs about its non-existence.

Nothing happens because it's meant to be. Nothing happens unless you make it happen.

Tears collected on your waterline, you purse your lips to stifle a sob. "Building a future with you is what will make me happy, Tae."

He gives you a soft smile. "I love you."

"And I love you." Grin matching his own giddy one, you close the distance between your mouths.

“First date at the Town Center after my performance?” he murmurs between kisses, and you nod.

“Yes, please!”

Just then, loud fireworks shoot off somewhere in the distance.

You both separate with matching surprised looks on your faces. Taehyung’s eyes travel past your shoulder to your nightstand, and his lips part with a small smile. “It’s midnight.”

“Happy new year, Tae-bear,” you murmur, teary-eyed.

“Happy new year, my love.”

He looks at you with a light brighter than all the world’s fireworks sparkling in his eyes. You lose yourself in them .

And this time – it’s forever.

— note #2: sooo the v first time i’m actually posting a birthday fic on the correct date! yay! =D wish you the happiest birthday ever, tae-bear 🥺 your giggles have gotten me through the worst of days, i love you so much <3

links to be updated later!

1K notes · View notes

tr0p1cal · 1 year

Text

buy me a drink first

The Star series master list

Paring: performer!Changbin x reader

Synopsis: after asking and asking, Changbin finally gets to perform at the local cafes “underground”, a bar and hot spot for the college kids in The Stars basement. After his performance a stranger brings him a drink and they continue to after every show going forward. Little did they know what that kind gesture would get them in to.

Genre: non idol au, coffee shop au, slice of life, college au, strangers to lovers, fluff, angst

Warnings: sexual themes and language, cussing, mentions and consumption of alcohol

Note: this is strictly a work of fiction and not meant to portray a realistic version on the idol in any way. It is simply fantasy and meant purely for entertainment.

Any and all feedback is always very welcome <3

Start: 13/7/23

End: 23/9/23

Status: completed

Updates: every Saturday + whenever I want to

🖍 = written portion within the update

introductions

one - yall hear summ?

two - in sync bby

three - too late to get a refund

four - going to fail

five - what in the cinnamon toast fuck

six - I said what I said

seven - a threat or a promise

eight - someone spill the tea pls

nine - no, no you do not 🖍

ten - wanted you to be different

eleven - god of clownery

twelve - of course you’d be there

thirteen - miss you

fourteen - stop simping on main

fifteen - share with the class

sixteen - claim citizenship

seventeen - listen here you little shit

eighteen - sus

nineteen - lix cookies >>>

twenty - throuple

twenty one - maybe don’t do that

twenty two - fuck you for that 🖍

twenty three - lil bitch boy™

twenty four - no return policy

twenty five - yet

twenty six - happy🖍

twenty seven - idiots

Epilogue

Tag list is open!

175 notes · View notes

piastrinorris · 2 years

Text

busy streets and busy lives • ralph penbury x reader

A strange day at work gets even stranger when you meet a man who claims he's from 1926. With no certainty as to when he can get back, you decide to take him in until that time arrives.

Tags: Timewasters (series), modern!au, slow burn, mutual pining, idiots in love™, fluff, some angst, swearing and mentions of adult themes throughout, eventual adult content, alcohol content, drug use, penbury is a fanon surname

Total word count: 107.6k

Main story:

• prologue •

• chapter 1 •

• chapter 2 •

• chapter 3 •

• chapter 4 •

• chapter 5 •

• chapter 6 •

• chapter 7 •

• chapter 8 •

• chapter 9 •

• chapter 10 •

• chapter 11 • *mature content label active

• chapter 12 •

Extras:

new blog dedicated to all things busy streets and busy lives, run by me. including blurbs, fics, moodboards and "ask ralph" interactions

• epilogue 1 •

#bsbl #it's Happening #fic: bsbl #Spotify

471 notes · View notes

kaceymiller · 8 days

Text

[KACEY MILLER. 25. CIS FEMALE. SHE/HER] is here! They’ve lived in Asbury Park for [25 YEARS] and are originally from [ASBURY PARK, NEW JERSEY]. They are a [BARTENDER AT SANDOVAL BAR/WAITRESS AT SUNSET DINER] and in their downtime love [SINGING TO THE RADIO] and [TRUE CRIME SHOWS]. They look a lot like [SYDNEY SWEENEY] and live in [MEADOWLARK APARTMENTS]. The song that makes people think of them the most is [DANCING WITH YOUR GHOST BY SASHA SLOAN].

hello frens!!!!! i bring to you the first of two of these little idiots' intros today. before we get into it i'll give you a quick content warning for this character dealing heavily with death & drug/addiction mentions. if that's not your jam, no worries, i've got good boi™ danny comin' up right after. but !! without further ado!!

meet KACEY.

born as kacey marie cooper to two church-going middle class parents, she and her siblings have been raised in asbury park their entire life. they were never well off to the extent that some of her friends were, but her family didn't struggle, either. as a teenager she was well-liked by classmates and teachers alike, earning top grades, class president, and co-captain of the cheer squad along with her best friend. the world and life was hers to make whatever she wanted of it. she was going places.

the summer after junior year, after she'd already aced her SATs and begun early applying to colleges — she had a fully mapped out plan for her dream school, top 3 alternatives, and a list of fall-backs — one of her friends on the squad was having a party. there were people everywhere, new and old faces alike. the perfect night to blow off some steam.

that was the night she met him. james miller. the rest, as they say, is history... but when they say that, it's never quite that simple, is it?

she was smitten instantly. they got along like a house on fire, despite the fact that they could not appear to be from more different worlds. her friends didn't understand it. her family didn't support it. while the people that cared about her could clearly see they were in love, there were... other concerns. james had been in trouble with the law a few times, and it was no secret around town. he'd steal to get what he wanted, and that usually meant drugs and alcohol. it wasn't thrill seeking. he just couldn't stop himself. his dad had been an alcoholic and that addictive personality had seemed to transfer to james. even his friends, known partiers and stoners alike, knew that james had an issue. they all knew when to stop. james... didn't.

but kacey loved him. and despite his issues, his background, his history, he'd never done anything to her but love her right back. she, to the strong protest of her family, decided to forgo her other college options and decided to stay nearby at a community college. it was cheaper, she'd reasoned. it would help to have less student debt. but of course that wasn't the real reason. it was always james.

and she'd managed to keep her grades above board. her resume wasn't as stellar as it used to be, but she was still a model student. when it got really bad with james, and he had to go away for a few days — rehab, the hospital to detox, church retreats — she would visit him and sit with him with her laptop open to do schoolwork. it wasn't perfect, he wasn't perfect, they weren't perfect. but it was her choice.

what wasn't necessarily a choice, and was also much worse of a distraction was what came next. two little pink lines on a stick. two silly little pink lines was all it took to change her life from difficult-but-managed dysfunction into complete and total chaos. she knew it would be hard, but she never knew it would be this hard. fatherhood seemed to bring up a lot of new and returning issues for james, which made his addiction worsen. the absences became longer and more serious, but he always came back. a few times he'd really scared her, disappearing with her not knowing where he went or what to do, but he always came back. they even got married, and while kacey had dropped out of college to try and help james get his act together, for good this time, it seemed to be working. he was more present, more stable, more... there. it was never perfect, of course, they still weren't perfect — he relapsed, and things would get worse again. there would be ups and downs. he would be good for a while and something would happen and they'd be back at square one, but when things were good, they were really good. despite all their issues she still loved him just as much as she did from the first time they met.

it was only a year ago she found out she was pregnant again, and james decided to try something new. he'd been prescribed an anti-addictive medication to help with his stress, to curb the appetite for harder substances, but there were other drawbacks. he had low energy, his attitude was different. he wasn't spinning out all the time anymore but it still wasn't what he wanted. he wanted to be clean clean for her, for their family, off everything. he thought that was what she deserved — someone normal.

it was harder than he thought to get off the prescription. he started having withdrawals worse than he could deal with. he should've gone to the hospital. he should've. he sent their daughter off to school that morning and while he was home alone, kacey at work... he slipped. he thought a small something would help the withdrawals, but his body had lost all tolerance it had built up over the years. and the drugs he reached for to tide him over, unbeknownst to him, were mixed with fentanyl.

when a few hours had gone by and kacey still hadn't heard him check in during her shift, she called the neighbor to check on him. they found him in the kitchen on the floor with narcan in his hands. it was loose, but unopened. he hadn't gotten to it in time. james was gone.

the months since have seemed to pass in slow motion for kacey. her mother is as overbearing as ever, even though kacey knows she's only trying to help and just doesn't know how. her friends reached out a lot at first, but once they realized there was no band-aid fix the awkwardness of not knowing how to help kept them at a distance. she gave birth to their son. moved out of their house into an apartment, and she had to pick up a second job to pay the bills. her family and neighbors help out with the kids when she has to work, but moving back home is something she refuses to do. she still holds resentment against her parents for the way they treated him for not fitting into their dream for her, and she's not sure she fits into that dream either, anymore. she's not sure she'd even know how to dream anymore.

but. she tries not to think like that. she keeps pushing on, because she has to. she has little ones to take care of, and for them she'll keep trying to find little silver linings in every day just to survive. even if sometimes it feels a little like trying to enjoy the mustard in a shit sandwich.

CONNECTION IDEAS;

former friends and people who knew her from high school

her former cheer friends, especially the best friend who was co-captain with her (might put this up as a wc)

the neighbor(s) that sometimes help with babysitting, or neighbors in general (maybe they're antagonistic towards her because her unit is always noisy with the kids around)

the neighbor from her old neighborhood who found james. she still feels incredibly guilty about this. probably would've been in either sunset or pine street area

new friends or coworkers that might not have known her at her "golden age" (and honestly she probably appreciates that fact about them) that check in on her and try to get her to be an actual person with hobbies once in a while. activities include bingeing shows on the couch and going out for drinks

while she's changed quite a bit, she still knows how to get along with people exceptionally well, so i'd love to have some connections of regulars at her job that always ask to sit in her section or for her to make their drinks because i think that'd be cute idk

as for romantic plots??? she definitely has other exes from before james even if they might not have been serious, and she's probably tried to go out on dates or talked to people on apps since he passed so i'd love some messiness there

always down for family connections, cousins etc and i'll put some wcs up for siblings and stuff like that and maybe even some of james' family just bc i always think having connections and plots and options with ppl is rad ok ok

#asburyintro #// so much of this time was spent just formatting omg i hate new tumblr ;_;

14 notes · View notes

blubushie · 7 months

Note

Is there a reason you're so open about your sex life?

Yeah actually. I've had a lot of shit happen to me in my life.

The first person I ever had a crush on was another boy, and my best mate. We'll call him Nate. I knew I liked boys before I knew I liked girls, cuz up until I was 12 I'd never really spent time with girls at all—I didn't even know any girls my age—but I did have Nate. I met him when I was 10, and he taught me to ride horses and work stock. So growing up that was one helluva secret to hold. And he knew that I liked boys, and he jokingly called me a faggot and a queer and we laughed about it. And when other kids would hang shit on me at school, he didn't. In private, sure, with love. But in public, he stuck up for me. Cuz I was one of the Good Ones™, and his friend.

When I was 12 I was abused by a man in his 40s. And I heavily repressed my feelings towards other boys because I figured that that was the path it led down. "Gays are paedophiles. Queers wanna touch kids. They're dangerous." And I figured that if I just ignored it, I'd never end up a monster like he was. And when I told Nate about this, he said the same thing. "They're all like that. They're dangerous. You need to be careful or people will think you'll do the same. And I know you won't, cuz you're one of the Good Ones™. But you have to be careful." Nate was the first and only person I told about my abuse until it went public. He kept my secret for 3 years. He held me and I cried.

Nate was the last man outside of family who's held me. I haven't been held by another man since I was 12. I haven't been hugged by another man outside my family since I was 15.

At 14, I met another kid we'll call Lake. He was fun, and cheerful, and bubbly. And he was also gay. Very very openly gay. The feminine kinda gay. Talks like a girl kinda gay. Not my type, but I admired him. And I envied his bravery in being so out and not caring about what people thought of him.

Or the risk.

At 15, Nate got me drunk. We'd been working calves all day on the local station where his parents lived as hired hands. He snuck a slab from his parents' outshed on the station and we took our horses out and sat in the shade of a gum and drank. I'd never had alcohol before except at Mass, and I got pretty tipsy. And the sun was setting and it struck these orange streaks through his hair, and reflected real pretty off those eyes, and I decided he was very very handsome in that moment and in drunk brain, I should kiss him. So I leant over and pecked his cheek.

He went off on me.

It turns out that it's ok to be gay, as long as you're gay for the right people. And the right people is anyone who isn't the person you're talking to. Cuz he turned to me and I saw a rage in his eyes that I knew meant whatever kinda friendship we'd formed over 5 years, it was dead in the water the moment I kissed him. He looked at me the same way he looked at all the other queers, same way he looked at Lake, with that "I don't mind gays but I wish they'd be a little quieter about it" face. And then he slogged me.

We scrapped. And at first I thought he was just being an idiot, cuz I was 15 and he was 17 and we were both teenage boys and we biffed sometimes. But after a few seconds he got on top of me and stopped pulling his punches, and I was trying to tell him to stop and that I was sorry and he didn't. He kept hitting me. And he called me a faggot, and a queer, and a freak, and that there was something wrong with me and he had to beat the faggotry outta me cuz I had a skull too thick for my own good and if he didn't teach me a lesson now I'd do it again and the next bloke might just kill me for it.

He gave me a good slog to the side of the head and rung my bell real good, and then he kicked me in the stomach and got on his horse and rode back to the station. I laid there maybe ten minutes trying to breathe through all the blood in my nose and making sure he didn't knock any teeth out. That was the first time I really genuinely got a bashing.

I never talked to him again. I saw him once on station, and tried to talk to him and apologise, but he just walked away. I stopped visiting the station after that.

I made friends with Lake. We both went to Catholic school, so he got picked on a lot for being gay. But he never let it get him down. And I started standing up for him when I saw kids treat him like shit. Because he was my friend, and he was one of the Good Ones™. But deep down I envied him. I wanted to be him. I wanted to be able to walk with my chin high and strut like a fucken peacock knowing I'm hot shit and that nobody could touch me. But internalised homophobia is a hell of a thing, and deep down I also knew I'd never be like him. Because my issue isn't just me being attracted to men, but also being intersex and a dozen other different little things. But to Lake, that didn't matter. To Lake I was cut of the same cloth. We were confidants.

Eventually with time I realised that there's no such thing as "one of the Good Ones™." Being attracted to someone the same sex or gender as you isn't a fault. It doesn't mean there's something wrong with you. But I still hid it. I wasn't brave enough to be open about it, I was scared of judgement, I was scared of punishment for something I couldn't control, so I kept it a secret.

The third person I told was my girlfriend. She took it in stride. I thought she was afraid that I'd made her my beard when I was definitely attracted to her too, but she was actually the one who explained bisexuality to me. And everything clicked. But she was also aware that I was squashing down my attraction to men because I was afraid, so she made me watch Brokeback Mountain, and that's actually how I ended up genuinely coming to terms with my sexuality. I didn't want to be so afraid of loving that I'd never loved at all.

I never acted on my attraction, cuz I'm a loyal bastard, but when she and I split I stopped trying to hide what I am. I am a man who happens to be attracted to men. I am also attracted to women. And that's ok. That's not something to be ashamed of, it's not something I need to hide, it's not something I have to keep secret.

I'll never be the loudly out gay man. I'll never be the loudly out bisexual. I don't wear pride pins, I don't flaunt my sexuality, I don't wear rainbows. If anyone looked at me they wouldn't assume I like men, let alone immediately know.

I'll never be like Lake. But I don't have to be like Lake. I just have to be me. And through talking about my experiences, maybe some other young man who's in the same shoes I used to be in will look at me and realise that all he has to be is himself. And if that man likes men, then so be it.

#blu whos #bisexual #gay #mlm #tw homophobia #tw csa

19 notes · View notes

withlovewriting · 1 year

Text

All I Ever Knew, Only You 3: There's Something In The Walls

Chapter Three.

I awoke, only to find my lungs empty, And through the night, so it seems I'm not breathing, And now my dreams are nothing like they were meant to be, And I'm breaking down, I think I'm breaking down, And I'm afraid to sleep because of what haunts me, Such as living with the uncertainty, That I'll never find the words to say, which would completely explain, Just how I'm breaking down

Summary: Hawkins was your typical quaint, mid-western town where nothing ever happened. People were born here, lived their entire lives within the town limits, and eventually died here, peacefully in their sleep. But one cold November evening in 1983 would change everything.

Despite a child with psychokinetic abilities and ravenous monsters that lacked faces, stranger things had definitely happened in the small town in Indiana. One of them being your reluctant and slightly imposed friendship with Hawkins High’s own King Bee, Steve Harrington.

Characters: Steve Harrington x Non-descriptive F!Reader (eventual)

Words: 6,301

Chapter Warnings: Explicit language, a little debut of a certain curly-haired metalhead, mentions of child death, outdated conversations about mental health disorders, mentions of alcohol abuse/addiction, Carol Perkins is a bitch™.

Series Warnings: Strong language, mentions of underage drinking, mentions of drug use, canon-typical violence, mentions of alcohol abuse, mentions of possible mental health disorders, child abuse, slow burn, kinda enemies-to-friends-to-lovers, I like to call it ‘two idiots who begrudgingly befriend each other only to realize… ‘wait a damn minute…’, eventual sexual content, canon-typical time-period bullshit. 18+. Minors DNI.

Previous Chapter

Next Chapter

Masterlist

Chapter Three: There's Something In The Walls

Deciding that there was absolutely no point in heading to work late, despite knowing it would bite you in the ass once payday came, you wandered home still feeling a little unsettled about Nancy’s sudden fright, the girl unable to explain to you what spooked her so much that she’d nearly tore your arm right out of its socket as she dragged you along behind her.

A part of you was still angry that she had told Barb to leave the previous night, especially when she didn’t even want to attend the stupid party in the first place, and you couldn’t help the guilt that seeped in, chilling you down to the bone as you wished you could go back 12 hours and convince Barb to leave with you. Or to have stayed with her. Then, this whole thing might not have happened.

The more you thought about it, the guiltier you felt. About Barb, about losing it with Nancy. About Jonathan. Deciding that you’d had enough of your brain rattling around for some kind of conclusion as to why Jonathan had taken pictures from the previous night, and deciding that you would demand an explanation for the one of Nancy, reaffirming that it wasn’t okay and that he’d need to apologize to her and make it right, you turned your frustration outwards and stormed off towards the Byers household.

Knocking once, twice, three times before you’d heard a response, the door soon whipped open, a slightly disarrayed and majorly sleep-deprived Joyce answered the door, tired, red eyes wide as recognition flashed in front of them, her deep frown lifting considerably.

Before you could get a word out, she pulled you into the house, words tumbling from her mouth, “You need to see this. I need someone else other than me to see this.”

Once she let go of your arm, you furrowed your brows watching as she fumbled around the room, “I was just looking for Jonathan. Is he home yet?”

“I knew it was him. I just knew it. A mother always knows. It’s our intuition. I feel it in my gut. In my heart. It’s Will, I know it.”

Taking a second, you finally looked around the living space, realizing that Joyce had spent part of her afternoon redecorating.

The alphabet was spelled out in black paint across the wall behind the sofa, Christmas lights hung above the letters and strewn throughout the room from the ceiling. Sure, it was November, but nobody in town had their decorations up yet.

“Okay, baby, talk to me. Talk to me, where are you?”

Joyce rubbed her hands together for a second, distress clear as day in her wide, doe eyes. Before you could question her, maybe make a quick exit and wait outside for Jonathan so he could deal with his mother, the lights across the wall lit up, one by one, as if spelling something out.

R I G H T H E R E

“Joyce, I don’t understand what’s-”

Ignoring you completely, Joyce only became more perturbed, “How do I get to you? How do I find you? What should I do?”

“Joyce, this is insane. You’re talking to a wall-”

R U N

The lights began to flash, colored strings lighting the entire room in an uneasy hue that didn’t quite feel so jolly. Joyce grabbed onto your arm as she spun around, both of you watching as her wallpaper seemed to twist and turn as if something behind it was trying to crawl its way out.

A large, clawed hand finally ripped through, sharp nails dragging along the yellow wallpaper and ripping it to shred almost instantly. Backing up slightly, you pulled the woman with you by the sleeve of her shirt. Whatever was coming out of the wall definitely wasn’t human, and it definitely wasn’t Will.

Finally, after hearing the creature's screeches, Joyce followed you, both of you desperately making your way outside as the lights continued to flicker.

Letting go of Joyce’s sleeve, you ran in opposite directions as you tried your best to flee towards your own home, adrenaline pumping through your veins and somehow allowing your feet to carry you the entirety of the way without stopping. If only your Physical Ed teacher could see you now.

Arriving home, you locked the door and made sure to pull the thick bolt across before maneuvering silently through the house, doing the same to the backdoor. Thankfully, your mother was home, her snores could be heard from down the hallway meaning she hadn’t drank herself into such a drunken stupor this evening that she managed to get herself to bed before crashing, and a part of you craved crawling into bed with her, telling her everything you saw and having her explain it all away as she stroked your hair, just like she used to once upon a time when you were a little girl scared of nothing more than the pretend monsters under your bed.

Instead, you crawled into your bed still in your clothes and hid under the blankets, deciding that whilst keeping the bedroom light on would most likely drive up the electric bill, you couldn’t bear to turn it off, too scared and worried about what lurked in the darkness of this small, quaint town.

Thursday morning somehow came all too soon, and not soon enough.

You had seen every hour, felt it too. Waiting for the early November sun to rise and paint your room in the soft sky blue that brought you so much comfort and what was most likely a false sense of security. Things couldn’t hurt you in the light, could they?

Somehow, the daylight didn’t make you feel any less disquieted, an uneasy feeling of dread turning your blood to ice, struggling to flow through your veins as goosebumps puckered your skin.

Deciding that the only thing worse than heading to school today would’ve been staying at home in a basically empty house, you pulled yourself from the warm confines of your bed and changed out of your stiff clothing.

A warm shower did absolutely nothing to relax your tense muscles, only managing to wipe away the sweat that had accumulated from your cocoon of a bed, a child-like belief that if you couldn’t see the monster, the monster couldn’t see you.

Forgoing your usual coffee — you were jittery enough without the added caffeine — it took you a minute to realize you must’ve left your school bag at the Byers, dropping it when you saw… whatever it was you saw.

Feeling your hands begin to shake at the reminder, you shoved them into the pocket of your denim jacket before leaving, ignoring both your bike and your mother's car as you made your way to school, knowing that whether it was two wheels or four, it definitely wouldn’t end well.

You’d managed to make it through most of your lessons, biting down on your bottom lip hard enough to draw blood as you found yourself staring off into space.

Completely dissociating, you almost flew out of your seat when your name was called, much too loudly to be the first time. Ignoring the barely stifled laughs and stares from the other students in your chemistry class, you followed Principal Higgins toward the cafeteria.

Making your way into the hall, you swallowed a lump that had formed in your throat, watching as officers Callahan and Powell sat opposite your disheveled mother, her arms crossed over her body as she tried to make herself as small as possible. You knew that feeling all too well.

Shame.

Her head snapped up as your sneakers squeaked on the linoleum floor, and suddenly you felt much smaller yourself. Sure, she was she angry that whatever you’d involved yourself in had reached police levels, but she was even more mad that it had also involved her. Dragging her to the school when she was so clearly hung over.

“Is this gonna be long? I got a shift soon.”

It wasn't a lie, technically. Your mother's shift wasn’t until 5pm, and you hadn’t even had lunch yet, the empty cafeteria being a stark reminder that made your stomach gurgle, somehow both hungry, but too anxious to eat.

“It’s just a few standard questions. Depending on your daughter’s answers, we’ll be out of your hair in no time.”

Pressing her lips together in annoyance, eyes squeezed shut, you tried to force the realization that you shared certain habits with your mother out of your mind, “I don’t see why you need me here just to ask her a couple of questions. They say wasting police time is a crime, what about wasting our time, huh? One rule for one, I suppose.”

Powell lent forward slightly, hands clasped together as his eyes narrowed towards your mother, “Your daughter is still a minor, ma’am.”

His tone didn’t evade you, the man forcing his lips into a firm line as he sent your mother a less than impressed once over. You could smell the stale beer on her from here. Callahan, however, didn’t quite have the tact to keep his opinions from his face, his nose wrinkled slightly as he fiddled with the pen in his hand, hoping to get this over with already. They’d found Will’s body the night before in the quarry — which was most likely going to be the most exciting part of his career — and he didn’t see the point in wasting time talking to you when you claimed you had no answers, Nancy’s previous statement backing that up.

“Tuesday 8th of November, you attended a friends house, correct? A Mr. Steve Harrington?”

Rubbing your palms along your thighs, the coarse denim fabric kept you grounded slightly as you sent the officer a small nod.

“Uh, yeah. It was just a few of us.”

“And Barbara Holland was in attendance, correct?”

“Yeah, she drove me and Nancy there.”

Callahan continued to jot things down in his notebook, eyes barely leaving it, “And how long were you there for? Was Miss Holland still there upon your departure?”

Feeling your mother’s stare bore into the side of your face, you willed yourself to remain calm, praying that your leg wouldn’t start bouncing.

You felt stupid, really. You had left before Barb did, and you weren’t the last person to see her. You had no stakes in this, and yet somehow, you still felt like her disappearance could’ve been avoided if you’d just-

“Miss?”

Shaking your head in an attempt to clear your cluttered mind, you returned your attention toward the officers, “I stayed until 9.30, maybe? It wasn’t too late. Barb... Barbara was still there when I left.”

“And you haven’t seen, or heard from her since?” Powell asked, his gentle, dark eyes watching you from the other side of the table.

Shaking your head, you forced yourself to swallow down the guilt, “No. Nothing at all.”

The silence between yourself and your mother could’ve filled the empty hallways a hundred times over, the tension between you almost palpable as you walked further away from the cafeteria and the officers that sat inside.

Once she had deemed the distance far enough, she swiveled on you quick enough to make you flinch, eyes full of annoyance and disapproval, “What the hell was that about? Do you know how embarrassing it is to be called to the school like this? And by the cops of all people… Seriously, what the hell have you been getting up to this time?”

The bitter acid stained your tongue, begging and pleading before threatening to release itself from your mouth, but as usual, you kept your lips firmly pressed together, even if it meant the acidity burned you from the inside out.

Because, as the officers had stated, you were a minor. Your mother should’ve known what was going on, where you were, who you were with, and what you were doing. Maybe if she could make it through one evening without getting blackout drunk or ending up in whatever man happened to visit The Hideout that nights bed, she’d of known that you were out at a party on a Tuesday night, or about Will. Or Benny. Or Barb.

Or about whatever had happened yesterday.

Adrenaline began to pulse through your veins, turning the blood into red-hot lava you squeezed your eyes closed for only a moment, almost too scared of seeing that creature in the darkness behind your eyelids.

“I’m sorry,” you whispered pathetically as you finally met her gaze.

Softening slightly, your mother exhaled deeply, scrubbing her hand over her face as her eyes lost some of their fire, “This better not happen again. I’m exhausted and I have a shift later. I need the sleep.”

She needed to sleep off her hangover, you wanted to say, the woman’s years of excessive drinking written all over her too-lean body and etched into the dark circles under her eyes that sat a little too sunken on her face. You assumed that at some point, you’d get used to your mother's disheveled appearance, and sure, you were slightly jolted whenever she had a moment where she’d pull herself together, a little too short that week to buy cigarettes and alcohol and instead having to forgo one of them. You knew the bottle of pills she had on her bedside dresser didn’t help much, either, prescribed or not.

But the shot of pain, the ache in your heart that you were certain was another small crack appearing whenever you saw her stumble around, trying to get her bearings as the alcohol slowly dissipated from her blood but irreversibly scarring her mind and leaving her nothing more than a shell of her former self. It hurt to see her that way, no matter how normal it had grown to be over the years.

The sounds of her heels clicking against the floor echoed through your ears long after she’d left.

Squeezing your eyes shut one last time, you inhaled deeply before forcing yourself out of the hallway, making your way back to your history class. A tight grip on your elbow, however, caused a small yelp to fall from your lips as you were dragged into another hallway with a dead end, the large window looking out toward the football field,

“What the hell is wrong you with, Harrington?”

Your voice had jumped an octave, annoyance evident as you shrugged off his hand and looked towards the boy whose honey-colored eyes seemed too wide with worry, “What did you tell the cops? Did you tell them about the party? About the beer?”

Scoffing, you shook your head in disbelief before leaning against the locker at your back, “Do you think I’m an idiot? Of course, I didn’t tell them about a handful of beer that Barb didn’t even drink. Jesus Christ…”

Seeming to calm down a little, the boy ran his hand through his brunette locks a few times before leaning against the opposite wall, the hallway too narrow to fit in an opposite row of lockers, “Okay, alright. Shit. I’m sorry, okay? I just… Jesus, I don’t need my parents knowing about it.”

“Holy shit, do you literally only think about yourself? Barb is missing and all you care about is your dad taking away your car, or cutting your allowance? You’re worse than I thought-”

“You don’t get it,” Steve shook his head, pushing his back off the wall as you began to walk away, his fingers around your elbow once more, only this time his grip was much softer, “My Dad is a grade-A asshole at the best of times. I know your Mom’s too loaded to notice what you’re doing, but it isn’t a joke to my Dad, alright? He’s-”

“Everything alright here?”

The voice was familiar enough, belonging to another classmate who you’d often bus with at The Hideout whenever you’d have to cover a shift for your mother. His tone was clipped as his dark eyes roamed over you and where Steve’s hand was still lightly gripping your arm, an eyebrow raised under his fringe when he finally settled on the boy.

“It’s got nothing to do with you, Munson. Back off-”

A short, insolent laugh forced its way from his lips, “I wasn’t talking to you, Harrington.”

His dark eyes turned towards you once more making it all the more obvious that he was asking you, face a little more relaxed now Steve had released his grip, despite remaining close to you, “Everything okay?”

Wrapping your arms over your chest, you nodded, sending the boy a tight smile, “Everything’s fine, Eddie. Don’t sweat it.”

“This is ridiculous,” Steve huffed dramatically, running his hands through his hair once more when he realized Eddie wasn’t leaving any time soon, “Look, I’m sorry about Barb. Really, I am. I just… Forget it.”

Shoulder checking Eddie as he pushed by, you heard Steve grumbling under his breath in agitation as he stormed off. Waiting for him to be far enough away, Eddie turned towards you and sent you a soft smile, the dimples in his cheeks making an appearance, “C’mon, I’ll walk you back to class.”

You both remained quiet for a moment, neither too bothered about being caught outside of class despite the guaranteed detention it would inevitably end in. Once his nosiness had hit its breaking point, Eddie couldn’t keep the questions in any longer,

“Want me to block his exhaust?”

Unable to hold in the small laugh, you shook your head, “Yeah, that’s really not necessary. But thanks for the offer.”

“Didn’t realize you were friends with the enemy.”

Rolling your eyes at the boy's dramatics, you continued on your lazy walk, “I’m absolutely not, thank you very much. Harrington’s an asshole.”

“Yeah, preaching to the choir, sweetheart.” Eddie’s hands remained in his jacket, brows furrowed slightly, “Where are we heading, anyway?”

“History, with Click,” you sighed, hoping that if you just walked a little slower, the bell would ring before you got back. It took a few moments for you to realize Steve was also meant to be in that class, not that he didn’t get away with murder when it came to his female teachers. You’d seen the Harrington charm on enough of them to know he was untouchable.

“Ouch. Surprised you’re not ditching.”

“Like you are? You’re not gonna graduate if you don’t put in the work, Eddie.”

Shaking his mane of frizzy hair, Eddie scoffed and held a hand over his chest, as if your words had caused him physical harm, “I didn’t ditch, thank you very much… I overslept. I’ve only just got here.”

“Oh my god, that’s even worse,” you stressed, lips pulling up in the corners slightly, “and right in time for lunch, too? What a coincidence.”

“What can I say? I have impeccable timing.” He smirked, ignoring the fact he’d only just told you he was actually almost half a day late.

“You know, maybe if you got a tutor-”

Waving his hand in the air, Eddie released a non-committal noise through his mouth, “Ah, as if I have the money for that. Plus, I’m not gonna give two shits about a high school diploma when I’m touring around the world making sweet music. But if you ever wanted to lend me your homework, let me cheat off a couple of tests every now and then-”

Your sharp glare was enough to cut him off, “Cheating on a couple of pop quizzes won’t help you pass the actual exams, Munson.”

“Then you tutor me. I know you’re getting A’s on those papers you let me copy from.”

“You literally just told me you don’t have any money, and my services don’t come for free.”

“I can pay you back in other ways,” the boy’s eyebrows wiggled suggestively, causing your elbow to dig deep into his ribs, “Ow! I meant like, discounted weed or some shit. Get your head out of the gutter.”

Releasing an exasperated sigh, you stopped just short of your classroom door, “Somehow, I don’t think you’d even show.”

“You’re right, I probably wouldn’t,” he shrugged, continuing his walk, only now backwards to continue his conversation with you.

“Hey, aren’t you heading to class?”

“Nah, gonna go sign up for The Battle of the Bands at the end of the month. You should come check it out.”

Crossing your arms over your chest, you tried not to raise your voice too loudly in case Mrs. Click heard and came out, “Seriously, Munson? What’s wrong with you?”

Sending you a wide, radiant smile that seemed to light up his whole face, Eddie chuckled, “Haven’t you heard? I’m the freak of Hawkins, baby.”

And with that, Eddie rounded the corner, making his way towards the music room.

You couldn’t have been happier to have gym class for your last lesson of the day. Being cramped inside a stuffy classroom felt almost as suffocating as being stuck in your own overcrowded head. So, despite your desire to never partake in any sport ever, running track today wasn’t the worst thing that could happen.

Your thighs were burning as you pushed yourself harder than you ever had, as if you could physically outrun all of your problems, and for once your coach hadn’t had to reprimand you for slowing down into a walk as soon as his eyes were off you.

Your heart was hammering against your chest, ready to crack through your ribs and rip out of your skin as everything that had happened this previous week swirled around in your mind in a messy entanglement of vines. Was it really only a few days since everything in Hawkins had seemingly hit the fan? Jesus, it felt like a lifetime.

Your eyes darted toward the trees that lined the edge of the field, an uneasy feeling settling deep in your gut.

Was whatever spooked Nancy the other day the same thing that had spooked Joyce? If so, what even was it?

Maybe it was a hairless bear… But since when did they peel through from the outside of a house? Plus, last time you checked, bears had faces.

Maybe-

Before you could finish the thought, the world seemed to turn upside down for a second, your feet not touching the floor as a yelp slipped from your lips. Once you’d realized what had happened — the realization that you had, in fact, tripped in the middle of gym class — you squeezed your eyes shut in embarrassment, committed to lying on the dirt track for the rest of your sad existence.

When you heard the giggling, you realized you hadn’t tripped. You’d been tripped.

Sucking in the air as if you’d been held under water for too long, your chest burned both with discomfiture and the need for oxygen. Crumpled in a pile, you groaned as you rolled onto your back, staring up at the powder blue sky, trying to swallow down your chagrin when a pair of light blue eyes peered over you, “Enjoy your trip, loser?”

You could hear the Coach’s whistle blow when they finally noticed you sprawled out on the floor, eyes darting between the group of kids who were barely holding in their laughter,

“Perkins, what’s going on here?” Coach asked, his eyes narrowing on the brunette.

Shrugging her shoulders, Carol raised her brows, looking down on you with faux concern, “I was just checking she was ok. Looked like she hit the ground pretty hard.”

Turning his attention to you, the Coach raised a skeptical brow, awaiting your confirmation as he held out a hand to help you up.

Once upright, you avoided the girl’s piercing stare, almost daring you to rebut her story, knowing damn well that you didn’t quite have the guts.

“Tripped over my lace, Coach.”

Sighing when you wouldn’t meet his eyes, he just waved you on, “Head on down to the Nurse’s station. I don’t want any blood on the track.”

“But I was almost-”

“Now. Nurse’s station. Go.”

A weak sigh fell from your lips as you turned, making your way toward the school, passing Carol’s idiot friends who were chuckling between themselves. If the Coach had noticed your very much still tied shoelaces, he didn’t bother to comment on it.

Deciding to veto the nurse's office altogether, you grabbed your bag from your locker and took an early exit from school, still in your track kit, ignoring the cool November chill on your bare legs.

Your knees had taken the brunt of your fall, skin grazed and bleeding, loose stones from the asphalt still lodged in them. You were sure it wasn’t anything you couldn’t wash out at home.

Pushing through the large school doors, the voice of Steve Harrington stopped you mid-step.

“Hey, wait up!”

Feeling uncomfortably warm at your previous embarrassment, you released a deep sigh as you turned to watch the boy approach you, “What do you want, Harrington?”

His cheeks were a dusty rose, the cold Autumn air had whipped at them as he’d speed walked after you, “I’m uh, I’m sorry. For Carol tripping you. That wasn’t cool.”

Rubbing the back of his neck, as if he was awaiting you to blow up on him, he remained silent as his eyes bore into your own, “It’s fine. Whatever.”

Beginning to walk out of the building, Steve continued to follow you, “I’m sorry for earlier, too. I didn’t mean to be so…”

“Insensitive?”

“Yeah. That.”

You weren’t sure why he was still following you, nor why you were allowing this conversation to continue, but you’d yet to hear of Steve Harrington genuinely apologizing for anything.

“And I do care about Barb. I mean, we weren’t exactly friends or anything but… I mean, nobody deserves to go missing, right?”

“Well done, Harrington. You have a conscious. Do you want an award or something?”

“Can you-” Steve grabbed at your wrist, gently holding you in place as he hung his head, eyes now focused on his trainers for a moment before exhaling and finally meeting your gaze once more, “I wanted to apologize for earlier, for how I spoke to you. But I also wanted to thank you. You know, for not saying anything that could get me in trouble.”

You wanted to call him out once more, ask why he was so obsessed with getting away scott free with his stupid, boring party when a girl was missing. But his downcast eyes remained solemn, the soft Autumn sun casting them in a hazel-hue that you’d never quite cared to notice before.

And for once, you wanted to ask Steve what he was so scared of. Why he was so worried. Why his father would be more concerned with his teenage son drinking the odd beer, more so than the teenage girl who’d disappeared from his yard.

Looking down to where you connected, you pulled your wrist out of his hand slowly, as if he were a scared animal and one sudden movement would pop the bubble turning him back into an absolute asshole again out of nothing more than self-defense.

His eyes were still on you when you peeked a look back in his direction, a small shake of your head as you sighed, “It’s fine, Steve. And you don’t need to apologize on Carol’s behalf. She’s a bitch, it’s really nothing new.”

Placing his hands inside of his jean pockets, he released his own pent-up sigh, as if the world was no longer placed upon his shoulders, “I do, uh… I do have a question, though.”

“If it’s about the pictures Jonathan-”

“No, no it’s not that,” his brows furrowed, still evidently annoyed at the boy, “It’s just… Nancy said that you two went back to my house looking for Barb, and something spooked her. Did you see what it was?”

“I didn’t see anything,” you answered just a little too quickly, despite it being the truth. When Steve’s eyes narrowed ever so slightly, you swallowed down the lump that seemed to crawl up your throat whenever you thought of whatever monster seemed to be lurking in Hawkins, “She grabbed me and ran. I didn’t see anything. I don’t know what it was. You should really ask Nance-”

Running a hand through his hair, a displeased sigh escaped his mouth, “Yeah, she uh… She isn’t really talking to me right now.”

“I’m not here to fix your relationship problems, Steve.”

“No, I know. It’s fine, I just… She didn’t seem to know what it was, either.” Rocking back on the balls of his feet for a moment, he looked up towards the sky. “You need a lift home? Probably shouldn’t walk with that knee.”

“It’s a graze, it’s fine. But no. I’m good. I think I need the fresh air.”

“You heard about Byers brother, I take it?”

Your head shot up, brows pinched together as you asked the boy to repeat himself.

“I mean… It was on the news this morning. He was found in the quarry and… Shit, you didn’t know, did you?”

The blood in your veins turned to ice, leaving nothing but a cold shiver in its wake. Will Byers had been found. Rather, Will’s body had been found. And you’d spent the whole day trapped in your own head, worried about if what you had seen was real.

When Jonathan’s baby brother had been found dead.

“I, uh… I need to go.”

Rushing home, you didn’t think twice when you cut through the woods that led toward your house, a path you’d taken plenty of times before.

You weren’t more than 10 minutes out when the woods somehow seemed darker, despite the sun still high enough in the sky. Stopping, you felt dread fill your every limb, the inexplicable sense that someone, or something, was watching you.

Spinning on the spot, you realized that you could no longer hear the rustling of the trees as if all of the wind had been sucked out of the woodlands. And something that unsettled you so much more, was the sudden absence of sound.

No birds singing in the trees. No grasshoppers chirping. Nothing.

You were unsure whether your heart was going to lurch in your throat or drop out of your ass. All you knew was that you needed to get out of there as fast as possible.

Your once casual pace had turned into something just under a jog, the leaves crunching under your feet as you panted, sucking in too much air which only left you with a shooting pain in your chest.

Coming to an immediate halt, you spun on the spot again, kicking up dirt from the usual path, man-made from how many times people had stomped along it.

You wanted to call out, to confront whoever was there in hopes to spook them, but every fiber in your body begged you to just remain quiet as if your life depended on it.

A dark shadow darted just outside of your peripheral, causing a loud gasp to fall from your lips, barely covered by the hand that you’d clamped over your mouth. Spinning in that direction, you almost felt as if you couldn’t keep up, the tall, dark figure was always just a little too out of range as it circled you like prey. Stepping backward, the crunch of a twig seemingly echoed around the space, bouncing off the trees that surrounded you, followed only by an ungodly screech.

Flying into action, you darted down the long path, weaving between trees in an attempt to lose whatever had made the sickly sound. It wasn’t human, you knew that much. You could hear what sounded like trees being smashed into, roaring that made the hair on the back of your neck stand to attention and goosebumps prickle every inch of your skin.

You’d never been so happy to see the road out in front of you, the treeline finally coming to an end as a small cry slipped from your mouth. But the road was only met by more of the woods, lining the other side and essentially surrounding it.

Trapped. You were completely trapped.

Your feet hit the tarmac of the road and no sooner did you hear the screech of a truck’s breaks, the light bump to the side of your body forcing you sideways slightly, not quite enough to knock you over.

“What the hell are you doing out here? I could’ve killed you-”

Your head whipped around, and Hopper finally saw your face, tears streaming silently down your cheeks that even you hadn’t noticed as you heaved in deep breaths of air. His steel blue eyes traced your shaking body, your bloody knees stained with a thin line of blood, back up towards your trembling hands and eyes, dark with pools of fear.

“Get in.”

You felt too warm, sweat beading at your hairline as your chest racked in an attempt to force the silent sobs away, but you were unable to ask Jim to turn down the heater. Hopper remained silent for a moment, eyes darting towards you every now and then as he made his way along the long road, watching as you sat ramrod straight like your body was still uncertain about your safety.

“What happened, kid?”

Flinching at the sudden break of silence, your lip trembled, causing you to bite it harshly. It took a few more moments of silence before you found your voice, as broken and wavering as it was,

“I saw something.”

Jim’s hand pushed back his hat slightly, the man shuffling in his seat involuntarily as he cleared his throat. He’d spent most of the evening before comforting Joyce after telling her that her youngest child was dead. And he’d also spent most of the time listening to her babble on about how Will couldn’t have been dead. How he’d been speaking to her through the lights. How she’d seen something. Something that wasn’t Will, trying to force its way through her wall.

She’d also told him you’d witnessed it, too.

And despite his uncertainty around the case, he wasn’t sure he could handle another story that seemed so far out of this world. Unable to hide the skepticism in his voice, he kept his eyes on the road ahead of him,

“Was it the same thing you thought you saw at the Byers house?”

“How did you know about that?” Your eyes were wide and bloodshot as they turned to him, and he couldn’t help but wonder how little sleep you’d had the past few nights.

“Joyce told me. She was… adamant that she’d spoken to Will. That you’d both seen something tear through her wall.” Remaining quiet, you eyed him carefully, not quite appreciative of his tone, “I get you’re under a lot of stress right now. Between finding Benny and Barbara Holland’s disappearance, I get that it can be nerve-racking, that it can make you feel a little…”

“Crazy?” You swallowed, voice tremulous as you pulled your eyes away from him.

“I didn’t say that-”

“But you’re thinking it, right? You think that just because Joyce lost her kid that she’s lost her mind too? That I’m a ticking time bomb, waiting for me to start wandering around town talking to myself like my Grandma? Or drinking myself into oblivion like my Mom, right? Or, worst case scenario, end up in Pennhurst? Or dead? Can’t hurt anyone then, can I-”

“Hey! Hey… C’mon, I never said that-”

But you didn’t want to hear it. You couldn’t hear it. Especially not from him.

“I know what people think of my family in this town, Hop. I’m not stupid-”

“And you’re not crazy either, alright. Just tell me what you saw.”

Tears trailed down your cheeks as you sucked in a deep breath, “It was a… I don’t even know. It had sharp claws-”

“A bear?”

Shaking your head, you wiped your sweaty palms against your track shorts, “No it… It didn’t have fur. It didn’t even have a face.”

That stopped Hopper in his tracks, eyebrows almost pulling together as his lips pressed tightly against one another, “It didn’t have a face?”

“No, it didn’t have a face, Hopper. Alright?”

A pregnant pause passed between you both before Hopper finally asked his next question, “Was that why you were running? Why I almost sent you flying over my truck?”

“I don’t know-”

“You don’t know?”

Slamming your eyes shut, your jaw began to hurt from how harshly you clenched it. Turning your attention toward the man once more, more tears lined your eyes as realization hit you,

“You don’t believe me.”

Rubbing a large hand over the facial hair that covered half his face, he couldn’t help but look guilty, “It’s just a little hard to believe in general.”

“Stop the car.”

“What-”

“I said, stop the car, Hopper. Or I swear to God, I’ll duck and roll.”

Pulling over, Hopper watched as you tugged off your seat belt and clambered out of the car, ignoring his desperate calls of your name. Stopping before shutting the door, your lip wobbled slightly as you tried to swallow down the hurt,

“I don’t care what people here think of me, alright? But I didn’t think I’d have to include you in that group.”

Slamming his car door hard enough to make the entire vehicle shake, Hopper watched as you began your short walk home. Hitting his steering wheel, he knew he fucked up.

And whilst he didn’t quite know how to fix things with you, he knew he had to get to the bottom of whatever was going on in this shitty little town.

#steve harrington fanfic #steve harrington fanfiction #steve harrington x reader #stranger things fanfiction #steve harrington x you #stranger things fanfic #stranger things fic #steve harrington fic #steve harrington smut

41 notes · View notes

marimayscarlett · 1 year

Text

Rereading Flake's "Heute hat die Welt Geburtstag" ('It's the world's birthday today') and like. They were so chaotic back then.

Practicing in a run down basement filled with old beer, which they happily drank even though it was expired for years probably. Threatening each other with having to eat a Kebap from the dingy and shady shop next door as a punishment if someone's late to the rehearsal. Still wondering how they came this far where they are now

#i love them #i loooove them #rammstein #the first punishment if someone's late would have been bringing a bottle of wine but because they loved to drink #and were so happy if someone brought alcohol that didn't really showed any effect #idiots™#richard kruspe #paul landers #till lindemann #christoph schneider #flake lorenz #oliver riedel

54 notes · View notes

yutasbellybuttonpiercing · 2 years

Text

strangers to lovers Renjun collection

I love Renjun. No, I mean it. And though I'm slowly starting to fill this hole of missing Renjun fics on this app, there can never be too many existing Renjun fics. I've also noticed a pattern in my writings for him, so please look forward to this little collection!

*drum rolls*

Yutasbellybuttonpiercing presents: a triology of Renjun fics that have nothing in common but the idol and their very, very rough theme!

Taglist: @she-is-dreaming @nctzennikki09

1. Love Station

pairing: Huang Renjun x reader

AU/genre: smut, humor, fluff, angst, comfort, strangers to roommates to friends to lovers...?, non-idol!AU, idiot(s) in love

estimated word count: 13.978 words

warnings: smoking cigarettes, alcohol consumption, making out under the influence, descriptions of toxic relationships, implied domestic violence, overthinking, mentions of masturbation, reader has nipple piercings, fingering (f receiving), mentions of squirting and free use, lowkey heartbreak, everyone is dramatic, mentioned past mxm oral, Haechan flirts too much

synopsis: Trying to heal wounds that an ex left can be hard on someone, especially when they're still trying to suppress their crush and be a good friend. It's especially hard when you're such a damn tease.

release date: posted!

————————————————————————

2. What's x in the equation of love?

pairing: Huang Renjun x reader

AU/genre: humor, fluff, a tiny bit of angst, college!AU, roommate!YangYang

word count: 7053 words

warnings: cursing ☝🏻, yangyang, bad jokes, i really have no idea what this is, but i find it funny, personally, maths, sex jokes, yangyang is... a bit of an ick, one (1) smooch, fast paced ending because i don't know how to finish stories

synopsis: YangYang decides that you need a tutor, he can't take your whining anymore. Hence, you're set up to meet the most perfect man you've ever seen. Things tend to become more complicated than they have to be.

release date: posted!

————————————————————————

3. Soulmatch™ — App-grade your love life!

pairing: Huang Renjun x reader

AU/genre: smut, humor, fluff, angst, strangers to enemies to lovers...?, non-idol!AU

characters: huang renjun, fIreader, best friend!jaemin, best friend!haechan, friend!chenle, renjun's parents

word count: 24.807 words (oh my god)

general warnings: mentions of cheating, men being dudes and dudes being bros, lack of communication, haechan is a milf hunter, trust issues, insecurities regarding relationships, hook ups, smoking, alcohol, mentions of vomit (nothing graphic or detailed, literally just the word), mentions of erectile dysfunction (???), emotional manipulation..? past na jaemin x reader, implied past huang renjun x wong yukhei / lucas, toxic masculinity, daddy issues, haechan and jaemin talk very vulgarly and do not know boundaries, mentions of virginity, crying, heartbreak, author makes use of their limited knowledge of tarot.

smut warnings: ..hate sex...?, unprotected sex (nuh-uh!), fingering and brief oral (f receiving), face-fucking, switch! renjun, switch!reader (?), pet names, a lot of imagining sex, brief choking, mentions of anal, creampie.

synopsis: Renjun is a hopeless romantic, his goal is to meet his perfect match by the end of the year, maybe even his soulmate. The perfect solution: an experiment for finding love through an app. Renjun doesn't care who it is, as long as they're a perfect match, he thinks. But then you show up...

release date: posted!

202 notes · View notes

strawhatsoraya · 2 years

Note

Hiii! <3 So.. I wanna preface this by saying: OMG, I love your writing and I love reading your reblogged posts and quotes and I really hope that at some point I manage to write as beautifully as you do! The language just flows and.. .sighs I wish I'd say I was better at writing in my native language but I feel like that would be a lie. ANYHOW… may I request something…? Ace with a female reader, who feels bad for being a bit chubby? Just, like, you know, not the typical One Piece-hot-woman-figure, but perhaps (in her mind) a bit too much booty, too thick thighs, a too soft belly and (the only thing she's a bit happy with) quite decent breasts? But, baseline, is convinced that a hottie such as Ace would never ever consider her to be attractive. (What? Me? Self-inserting? Noooo. I'd NEVER. I totally don't think my PhD studies ruined my body worse than I'd like to admit. *coughs*) Could be fluffy. Or NSFW... which would make me especially happy. <3 If you feel up for it, of course!

Either way, I needed to tell you that I love scrolling through your new posts :D

I keep meaning to ask you what's your native language? I speak and write Spanish as well but my spelling, and grammar in Spanish is muy terrible. So I'm sure you're just fine lol. Anyway, so I know this was supposed to be a "reader doesn't think ace will find her attractive" and somehow it became a "two idiots don't know what they're doing or talking about" slow burn. I promise you I wrote it with my whole heart though. *does silly dance* AND IT'S NSFW. This fic consumed my mind for this whole day and I needed it to be done ASAP because otherwise I couldn't live. I hope you enjoy it!! Also you are absolutely the sweetest person ever. I'm so so so SO happy you love my writing. Your kind words and feedback are the best. Plus you're just so fun to talk to. BUT LET ME STOP BABBLING. HERE'S YOUR FIC.

ACE X CHUBBY FEM!READER | NSFW, Soft Smut ™, Slow Burn Babeyyy WORD COUNT: 9k (i have nothing to say for myself) CONTENT WARNING: alcohol consumption (because I am sora and I am a grown woman who likes to write about alcohol), profanity (not a lot but enough), angst galore, a sprinkle of fluff because it's cute decorations, unprotected sex (when will they learn???), groping, sloppy kisses because ace is passionate and means well but he is also eager, that being said oral female receiving with some sloppy head, nipple play, plenty of ass grabbing, biting, ace talks way too much for his own good, he is silly and just says things, and it might be embarrassing but that's just how he is, you know i love my repeating themes so if you hate that please stay away!!, is a hurricane/storm a warning? then yes, i guess dangerous time to be partying and having sexy but these are pirates, handjob, what else?, oh jealous ace is amazing, also flirty marco because i love marco sue me A SUMMARY: Ace comes aboard the Moby Dick, fire in his fists, fire in his eyes. Y/N wants to know his reason for fighting, but curiosity is a beast of a burden, and when feelings get swept up in the heat of his storm, Ace has to make a choice between reason and his heart.

I - A Disturbance : Wind & Fire

You were born in summer heat. Your mother's arms welcomed you into her world, sticky with sweat but full to the brim with love. Her plush lips against your temple, baptize you with a kiss. You grow, not like a palm tree all spindly trunk and leafy green top, but like a wild hibiscus tree; small and closely rooted to the ground with bushy branches covered in small leaves reaching out to the horizon. Like the Hibiscus, you dance in the wind, laughter trailing behind you. In your hair, its red flower entangles in curls. The sparkling water of the beach is always warm when you swim it. Your mother grows weary of warning you about the currents, and the treacherous waves. Eventually she gives up, names you her little mermaid, and braids beads into your hair that sparkle in the sun. Despite your mother's warnings you always find yourself there, at the cliff by the sea.

He is born in secret. He's born because there's nothing left. A mother's dying wish whispered into the soft spot on his head, to a dark curl who can't remember the words. In time, he runs as fast as his legs can carry him, through forests, creeks and mud. On the creak of the branches under his feet he tries to find that elusive promise; words he had sworn he never heard but somehow left a gaping hole. Sometimes he thinks he hears them in the howling wind. Sometimes he only feels it on the heat of his skin, when the sun is blistering hot above him. Heart torn in two, he always finds himself there, on a cliff looking out at the sea.

Like a Siren, it calls to them. On the horizon, the sun blinks as it sinks under the water, a fading beacon. The wind whips around their shoulders, tussling their hair with heated fingers. In their ears it whispers: come find me, I've been waiting.

You leave to the sea, as your mother always feared. She's inconsolable at the dock. You laugh to keep from crying, and wipe away her tears with the back of a small hand. She makes you promise to look out for yourself. Don't dive into the sea, she warns you with furrowed brows. Don't be impulsive. Don't head straight into storms. They forgive no one. You brush her worries aside with a kiss on her temple, before you bolt aboard the ship.

Several adventures later, you're aboard the Whitebeard Pirates ship. You offer your knowledge and skills in medicine; pair it with a big bright smile and hope for the best. Lady Luck favors you, beckons you with curling fingers. Another nurse is just what their ship needed—at least for now. Marco takes good care of you. He is patient, and kind. He is also easy on the eyes. It doesn't take long before you're being saddled with responsibilities.

You try your best, thinking your experience in wound care is your strongest skill among a ship of pirates. You did not share their strength, and undying courage but you did have wit, and you have a sharp tongue. You wielded them when necessary, the edge of your words a sharp scalpel. If you throw your words out fast enough, hard enough to kick up some dust they might not call you on your bluff. Compared to them, you couldn't help but feel like a soothing passing wind; barely noticed before you were gone, no impact, no trace left behind.

His entrance is violent, and eruptive. His presence disturbs the way of things, sending invisible critters scattering to seek refuge. You think you feel suffocating heat when you first see him. Portgas D. Ace is a forest fire at full flame, determined to devour everything, before you even noticed a spark. His eyes incinerate everything he glares at, thick brows furrowed together for so long you fear they are glued that way. Where his crew seemed agreeable even, accepting of their fates, he grew more restless by the day. You had to admire his tenacity. The sheer force of destruction his willpower possessed was alluring; dangerously seductive.

When he tries to take Whitebeard down for the 11th time, Marco is sick of it, and delegates you to the task. You swallow thickly, avoiding his gaze. You think Ace must not be a man of many words, as conversation is clipped and forced. It was just as well. The task was distracting enough. You try to remind yourself to keep your fingers moving as they brush over his skin when you apply antiseptic to gashes on his chest. He hisses, forcing your eyes up and away from the freckles you had been counting. His eye are dark pools that pull you into their depths, so deep you think they're bottomless. In your mind, your mother's warning echoes.

Don't dive into the sea.

You blink, and look away, feeling heat spread across your cheek; splotches of shame kept in secret. You try to focus instead, on the gauze on your hand, the warmth of his body under your fingers when you press it against his open wounds. You look up through your lashes when you apply pressure, wondering if a day would come when he didn't seem so closed off—so intriguingly unavailable. His jaw is set, teeth clenched so tightly all the time, you had half a mind to inspect his molars for cracks. His eyes flicker towards you and you pretend to inspect the bruise on his temple. You press a tentative finger against it, wondering if you could dip your fingertips into his thoughts that way. When he flinches, you move back to the gauze, wrap his wounds with soft bandage.

Your hands on his chest, you feel heat radiate from him, feel his heart beating steadily underneath. A heart never lied, each beat a tell tale sign. You try to listen closely to each secret told in a pulse against your palm.

Don't be impulsive.

You were never good at listening to your mother. Your mouth was quicker than your mind; traitorous and vile.

“Why do you keep fighting, if you can't win?” you ask him, slapping the bandages for good measure; assuring they stick, and assuring your message goes through. Ace flinches, and reaches for your wrist. His grip is strong, thick fingers wrapping around the width of your wrist. For a fleeting moment, you know you should fear him. You have seen what he's capable of, but the heat from his hand melts away all preconceived notions.

“Sometimes,” he says blinking down at you. His brows are furrowed together—they always are. You see his adam's apple bob up and down as he swallows. His thumb brushes once against the inside of your wrist. You think you hear a call—someone shouting from the sea. “Sometimes, you fight anyway. If it means protecting people you care about.” He lets you go, and you instinctively pull back, bringing your arm to your chest. He watches you fuss over your wrist momentarily before closing his eyes. He looks pained, and before you can offer him painkillers he's speaking again: “Maybe it's all I know how to do.”

II – The Depression : A Flickering Flame

He didn't mind at first, but now it felt like he shouldn't be there.

He shouldn't be sitting on the edge of the thin mattress of the nurses station. He shouldn't stand still when your short fingers tentatively palpated his injuries. He shouldn't watch you, like a seagull over water, searching—praying, as your teeth sank into the plushness of your bottom lip.

There was so much he should and shouldn't do, he no longer could keep it together. Ignoring you seemed like the right decision. It should have been easy. You were the enemy, if he wanted to be fastidious about it. A member of the Whitebeards Pirate was just someone else standing in the way of his goal. Most of all, his pride couldn't stand it. It couldn't stand the disappointed look in your dark eyes, and the way your mouth would twist into a little smirk when he would walk in. It couldn't stand the way you would immediately retract from him at the slightest hint of discomfort, how you would look at him like he was a wounded bird, wings teared at the joints, unable to fly again, sentenced to death.

It was pride that kept his mouth sealed shut. It was pride that stapled his tongue to the roof of his mouth. He wished pride would leave him blind instead. He wished to not notice how soft your hands are, how small and cute your hands were against his chest. He wished to not notice how he becomes disgustingly interested in your short chubby fingers, and wonders what kind of reaction he'd get if he could nibble on one or two. He wished to not notice how obsessive his thoughts are over the appearance of your skin; golden, and glowing on the apples of your cheek—how soft they looked. He wished he didn't think about it at night, when darkness wrapped her arms around him tightly. He wished he didn't think about your lashes, the look you give him through them that fills his mind with smoke.

Racing thoughts, and a racing mind. It took everything in him to keep them quiet. Your voice is soft when you speak, and his lips part, a beating heart trying to scream but no sound comes out. His cheeks feel hot, and he swallows awkward conversation prompts down. He chooses, instead, to fix his thoughts on something else, something more urgent: like how to defeat Whitebeard.

He simply couldn't afford to dawdle with you. Ace never thought twice on taking on a challenge, but you were a chasm he couldn't bring himself to jump across. If he missed, the fall could be deadly. He blinks when you speak again, your eyes fixated on his face. Ace quirks his left brow, and thinks he's offended you. He wants to speak quickly, heart beating against the sinew and bone keeping it prisoner, but the words tangle in his throat.

The door creaks open, and Marco walks in. You look away from Ace and smile at Marco, before forcing two round white pills into the crook of Ace's palm.

“Make sure you take those,” you tell him, as you force his fist closed. “You hit your head pretty good.” You reach up to rap your knuckles against the side of Ace's head lightly. “Gotta try to save whatever brain cell's are left fighting for their lives in there.”

Marco laughs as you stand up. Ace hears you chuckling lightly, as it grows into laughter. He takes a sharp breath through an open mouth, watches you as you turn to look at him over a shoulder.

He wishes pride would hurry the fuck up and blind him. He wishes it so bad, he crushes the pills in his fist into dust.

The sight of your ass stretching the nurse's uniform fills him with a heat he's not very familiar with. It settles at the pit of his stomach, and he stares at the door even after you leave. It isn't until Marco speaks that he brings himself back to the present.

“Why don't you join, Ace?” Marco asks, as he settles on the stool you were sitting on moments prior. Ace frowns down at it, annoyed at his thoughts—he wondered if it was still warm, and he hated that Marco would know the answer. “You know, it's not a bad deal. He treats us like his sons. We're all a little lost out here, kid. You don't have to be alone.”

Ace scoffs, mouth twisted into a crooked smile. He tilts his head as he watches Marco, trying to swallow the bitterness in the back of his mouth. His heart lurches, and he shuts his eyes. If he closes them tightly enough, perhaps the hopeless dream will go away. He never had a father figure, and never needed one. It was a lie he recited at night; a prayer to a faceless God.

“I don't need a father,” he mumbles at last, picking at a string on one leg of his shorts. Marco laughs. Ace looks up, frown back in place.

“Maybe, maybe not,” Marco agrees, reaching up to rub the back of his head. “But why don't you try? What do you got to lose? It's not like you have any manners.” Ace begins to protest but Marco's laughter caught him off again. “And you might learn how to properly talk to a lady.”

Ace thinks his head might start catching fire. He pats his hair quickly.

“I don't need any help with that!” he says loudly, an elbow digging into a thigh as he leans forward to scowl at Marco.

“Oh, yeah?” Marco says trying to keep his laughter at bay. His smile is crooked, and insufferable. “Is that why you looked like a fish gaping for air when I walked in? Very convincing.”

Just when Ace thinks there is no way he could be more embarrassed, he feels his blush deepening, freckles almost obfuscated. He promises Marco to think about it, and he does his best, but thoughts of you plague him afterward. Your laughter that carried in the wind to him, the way it felt like it sank into his scars, the way it burned and made new ones in return.

III – A Simmering Storm

The needle on his back, sinks into his skin time and time again, embedding ink to stay forever. It is liberating, in a sense, marking himself with a brand of his own choosing. So much unlike the one stamped upon him at the time of his birth; the son of a monster, a nuisance, someone not worthy of the space they took up in the world. No longer did he have to search for reason, or an excuse. Ace could simply be, and he welcomed his newfound drop of happiness with a toothy grin.

A celebration at him joining the ranks, and being able to be commander of the second division seemed a bit over the top but he liked merriment—and the food and alcohol was too enticing. The darkening clouds in the distance threatened to dampen his mood, and the crowd on the deck of Moby Dick. Murmurs spread the word of an oncoming storm but nobody seems particularly worried. The only thing on their mind is how fast they could drink and eat before they got rained out.

The only thing on your mind was the blooming ache in your chest. You try to soothe it with a hand, smearing your palm against your voluminous chest. The crop top is soft under your skin. You try to memorize this, instead of the radiant smile on Ace's face. He had never seemed so undoubtedly happy as he did now. A different feeling settled between your ribs, a pang so bitter it causes you to hiss. Jealousy was a monster you squashed down with angry fists every time you saw one of the nurses place a hand on Ace's bicep. You never thought you would have to beat it down into submission while picturing the face of your own captain.

You're happy for him, truly. You mutter to yourself, over and over, drink after drink. You're elated, even, that he has finally come to accept the bright side of things. You're happy that he has been given a position that you feel is well earned, one that you hope he can excel at.

You're happy for him. You really are.

You're so fucking happy it hurts to breathe. You force another deep breath into your lungs, the air is humid and the scent of rain floods your senses. You blink back the wetness in your eyes, and when Marco asks if you are okay you blame pollen. Marco tilts his head, but chooses not to pursue the subject. Instead, he swaps your empty cup with his. You barely notice. You're too busy thinking about where the sea will take Ace next.

Something in your chest seizes—panic, or fear. It rises like heat from the ground, a crackling electricity flying up through the stale air that keeps you trapped on the ground. You try not to move too much, you fear jostling your thoughts, fear that if they move too much—touch a certain way, sparks would fly, singing you to a crisp; charred and useless.

He is happy, truly.

It wasn't something he could have ever dreamed of or imagined. He smiles as people congratulate him. Alcohol tastes sweet on his heavy tongue. He barely tastes his food as he pummels it into his mouth. He pictures what it would be like, sailing away from this ship, to complete tasks he would be responsible for. He pictures what it would be like to tend to his own wounds, what it would be like to sit at whatever island he found, and not hear your laugh.

He is happy. He really is.

He's so fucking happy, he thinks he feels sick. It's not anxiety. Ace could never admit that. Anxiety over what? He did not fear death. He never had a good reason for living anyway. You could only fear death if you were bound to the living. Then what was binding him to this ship? It felt like a vortex, a cone ensnaring him and trapping him to his spot; a gust of wind that kept bringing him back to you, no matter how many times he moved around this damned ship.

He tries moving again, taking his mug of beer with him. You bump into him with your ass against his. He turns around, ready to pick a fight but sees your heated cheeks instead. You mumble an apology that he laughs off. His hand moves before he controls it, and he ruffles your hair—something he knows you loathe.

“I'm not a puppy,” you hiss, pursing your lips. Ace drinks quickly from his mug, to refrain from sighing.

“Then why do you look like one?” he asks you, and leaves through the crowd. You lose track of him quickly, and decide to stomp around on the spot. It was easier than to think about the way he had looked at you, and how it had set your face on fire.

You do your best to mingle. You notice he does the same, but you're never far from each other. It feels comical in a strangely annoyingly tragic way. When you squeeze between Thatch and Izou to refill your cup, your hand brushes against something warm. You follow the hand to see Ace's tattooed bicep. When your eyes meet, thunder splits the sky. You move quickly, wordlessly, determined not to see his face against for the rest of the night.

The sea has other plans. The ship begins to move more than usual, and your legs still not quite so strong, threaten to have you rolling over. You blame the alcohol of course, when you land on Izou's back. He steadies you with a tight smile as you giggle, and spins you in place trying to send you in the opposite direction but your eyes meet Ace's again. The ship lurches, and you stumble forward. His body is warm, and inviting, you giggle at the ridiculous situation—as people continue to bump into each other mid-party. You try to move again, but your legs betray you. His arms hold you up, and brings you closer to him. Your body is soft against his, plush and delightful. You look up at him with a tiny small, eyes hazy from the alcohol, and Ace swears he hears the sky split open.

You're on your way again before he can say anything else. It was probably for the best. He loses track of how much he drinks. He could still feel his face, could still keep track of his thoughts—filled to the brim with you, and concludes he clearly hasn't drunk enough. He holds on to this as he grips the railing so tight, it cracks under his fingers at the sight of you with Marco.

Marco was so kind, and so friendly. His hands were soft around your waist. You know it was shameful, to giggle at all his silly little jokes, but the alcohol has you feeling weightless—for once. You almost don't feel the wind against your cheeks, you don't feel it whipping your hair around. You let Marco pull you closer, his hand pressed against the small of your back. It was better this way. It was better Marco than a ship sailing to a destination unknown.

He drops the mug of beer. It splashes on the deck, and he feels liquid splash against his knee. Ace clenches a fist as he moves, fire erupting from his knuckles before it swallows his hand whole. Drops from the sky grow heavier. They sizzle as they reach his wrist, little wispy vapor rising from the flames like warning flags. Ace breathes through his nose and wills himself to smother the flames. They die out by the time he reaches you, but there's a fire in his chest, flames behind his eyes he can't control.

The sight of Marco's hand very comfortable in the small of your back almost threatens to set him on fire again. Marco's mouth is so close to your ear, Ace thinks he must smell the lotion off your skin the same way he smelled it off you so many times before; the one that always drove him mad, who forced him to imagine tropical islands, to dream of coconuts and beaches, of you and sandy dunes. Your smile takes his breath away, and when he sees it's aimed at Marco it fills his lungs with lead instead. Your lashes flutter, and Ace sees a drop of water fall and cling to the apple of one your cheeks. He follows its path until it rolls off from your jaw.

As the last rays of light glints on the surface of it, a spark goes off.

His hand is around your wrist. Marco moves away slightly, only pulling away to look at Ace with a quizzical expression. His smile is frozen in place as he tries to assess the situation. He laughs, and naturally Ace feels like he should punch him in the mouth for it. Marco looks over to you, to pull a response from you when he begins to talk but your eyes are nowhere near on him. You are too focused on Ace's face instead.

You zone in on the arch of his left eyebrow, the narrowing of his dark eyes, the slight curl of his top lip. Rain starts pouring down. You watch rivulets of water streak down the side of his face. You try to breathe as he watches you, try not to think about his fingers wrapped around your wrist but you can't stop yourself from wanting to know. You want to know what it means. You want to decipher that look in his eyes, the dark clouds forming, the way you think you see lightning.

Your mother's words ring one more time. Don't head straight into storms.

A gust sweeps you off your feet, a dream so airy and full of promises you think you can fall forever if it meant he'd look at you this way for another breath, and another.

IV – The Hurricane

It wasn't enough.

He could consume every drop of alcohol aboard the Moby Dick, pour into his mouth ounce after ounce like his life depended on it, and it still wouldn't be enough.

There's nothing, not a sobering thought, not the lightning in the sky, not the dark clouds in the distance, that could free him from the hold you have on him. Your eyes are so big and round you remind him of the softness he hated in himself, the same he tried to strangle with his own hands. In you, it only made him want to kiss you. Right there. Right now. Ace swallows down the last of his apprehensions. He tightens his grip around your wrist, and thinks everyone and everything could go to hell and stay there. If he caused a scene by dragging you away, he simply did not care.

Nature had other plans. The wind picks up, the sea fights back. Waves rise, and rock the Moby Dick—a feat that's not as easy as it sounds. Marco gives you one last look before he scrambles away, shouting orders to the crew. They desperately climb to close the sails, but you can't finish watching them work. Ace drags you away from the deck, down a path you're ashamed to be familiar with.

In his room, he finally lets you go and you stumble forward with momentum. You hear the door close, and a lock click. You spin around belatedly, trying to keep your arms from swinging too much and losing your balance to see Ace's back pressed against the door.

He watches you from where he stood, hair soaked through. His raven curls are slicked against his forehead, so he runs a large hand through his hair, pushing it back and away from his face. He can't be bothered to find his hair a nuisance. Not when you're standing in front of him, wet from head to toe. You're out of your nurses' uniform, something he is not used to seeing. Your hair is lose and partially wet, wavy tendrils sticking to your cheeks and shoulders. Your round face looks precious, he swallows as he fights the urge to cradle it in his hands. Your wide eyed expression forces a chuckle out of him, one he tries to hide on the back of one hand.

He notices belatedly, and with a little remorse, the slight blue tint on your bottom lip and the redness on your cheeks. Your eyes are hazy, heavy lidded, and he tilts his head at you, dopey smile on his face.

“You were having fun,” he mentions, eyes trailing away from your cheeks to your torso, the dips on your sides that make your waist. The soft rolls that settle there make him want to touch you. He raps his knuckles on the door behind him instead, fingers tapping without rhythm; anything, and everything to keep himself controlled, especially at the sight of your wide hips, the thickness of your thighs.

“Yeah, I was actually,” you finally find your voice to speak. You swallow with difficulty, slapping a hand against a thigh, over your wet jeans. “Anyway,” you mumble, pinching the bridge of your nose. You should stay focused. You do your best, but the sight of Ace's bare chest reminds you of how warm he is and how frigid your fingers currently are. You'd love to warm them up right now, skim them over his toned abs. “Why did you do it?”

“Do what?” he asks you quietly.

“Drag me here. Can't you see?” you start, licking your lips, feeling very very parched when you follow the small trail of hair beginning at the bottom of Ace's belly button, and disappearing underneath his shorts. “I have working legs!” You make a show of lifting each one, one at a time, and pointing obnoxiously. “See? Perfectly healthy.”

“Yeah,” he agrees, pushing away from the door. He walks slowly towards you, steps hesitant and careful. His eyes roam over your body. You watch him drag his gaze from the top of your head, to your feet, and back up again at an excruciatingly slow pace. Your heart accelerates, and it thunders in your ears. “You're perfectly healthy,” his voices comes in softer now that he's standing in front of you. “I can see that.” Ace hands wrap around the roundness of your shoulders. He slides them down slowly from the short sleeves of your crop top, thick callused fingers skimming along the back of your plush and soft biceps. Your skin is soft, tantalizing. It feels as if he shouldn't touch you. It feels sinful, something he has no privilege to but he continues anyway, down to your wrists until his fingers grip yours gently. Ace tightens his hold on your hands and pulls you closer to him.

He wraps your arms around his waist. You don't fight him. You move; a leaf carried in the wind. Your fingers grip around his belt loops, as he dips his face to the crook of your neck. His hot breath fans against your skin, when he drops the softest kiss—his lips, or the wind, you're not sure. He nuzzles the exposed skin, using his nose to move the neckline of your crop top as much as he can to drop more soft kisses. You're colder than he expected, so he holds you tighter, until your softness fills all his hard edges and gaps. Your curves are a pleasant surprise. He had expected some of it from the way you filled the skirt of your uniform but seeing you out of it had been a vision he shouldn't be worthy of.

He shouldn't be worthy of any of it. He shouldn't enjoy the way your hips feel under his hands, but he still runs them over them up and down, over and over again. He shouldn't enjoy their width, the way the flesh caves under his grip, how his fingers dig deep and it still isn't enough to touch all of you. He shouldn't enjoy the way your skin feels so impossibly soft against his lips, as if it melts under his heat; snow under a sunny sky. He shouldn't enjoy the scent of your skin, the scent of your lotion that brings him to the brink of madness. He shouldn't enjoy the way you sigh his name when he sucks on your pulse, and grabs your ass. He shouldn't tell you the way he thinks no matter how much alcohol swims in his veins. He shouldn't tell you the way he feels, but words bubble up his throat and out his mouth—a freshwater brook whose source he can't define.

“You feel so good,” he moans against your ear, when he pushes his hips forward. Your eyes flutter at the feel of his erection against the softness of your belly. “I love touching you, Mermaid.” The nickname usually bothers you; given in passing because you loved swimming in the sea despite the dangers, but from his lips it feels like a spoken song; a poem only for you. “You smell so good,” he licks the shell of your ear, bites on the sensitive cartilage on top. You gasp, and dig your nails into his back, desperately holding on to whatever was left of your self preservation. “Do you know how sick I was?” He thinks he should punish you, and so he does, nipping at the sensitive skin of your neck. You yelp, and slap his back but it doesn't deter him. He smiles against your skin, licks the blooming bruise with a flat and sloppy tongue. “When Marco's hands were all over you. I thought I was going to burn. I couldn't stand it. I couldn't stand a second of it.”

His words sound desperate. You try to stay present by drawings circles on his back with your fingertips. The storm screams outside the room. You hear the wind pick up its shrill song, tinny and distant. Water pelts against the small circular window on the door, a drumming sound that soon grows deafening.

“Ace,” you try to interrupt his rambling, but his hands are tangled in your hair. His lips brush against your temple, before he speaks against your head.

“I felt sick watching you. It felt like I was in pain,” he groans into your hair. His hips press against you again. You bite down on your lip hard enough to inflict pain. You rub circles on his back, and force yourself to focus once more. His words come in belatedly, sound traveling a long distance in the air. You press your small hands against his chest.

“Where does it hurt?” you ask him, brows furrowing together. Leave it to Ace, to be injured in a moment like this. You shake your head, not sure to trust yourself or his words. You should have drank less. You should have stayed away from Ace. You should have left with Marco instead. Ace presses his forehead against yours. His breath tickles your nose. He moves his hand over yours. His fingers clutches your hand, and warmth seeps from him to you. You feel it sink it, seep into the rest of your arm and down to your elbow leaving a tingling sensation.

“Here,” he breathes out in a whisper. He squeezes your hand, presses it closer to his chest. “In here.” He pats your hand once, and again, repeatedly in a rhythm that matches his heart beating under your palm. Ace moves slowly, and gently brushes his nose against yours. His heart beats faster under your hand. Your eyes are tethered to his mouth. You can't look away from the sight of his lips parting, as if he couldn't catch his breath. You feel your mouth do the same, feel the air in your lungs run out; breathing is not enough, nothing is enough. His head tilts, and you follow his lead; reflections on still water.

“Idiot,” you finally whisper, a breathy laugh bouncing away from your mouth. He feels it reach his lips, and he swallows it whole in his mouth. “You mean your heart?”

“Yeah,” he admits fighting a smile, his lips brushing against yours. “My heart.”

You should laugh it off. You shouldn't take him seriously. A drunken confession would be forgotten the moment the sun rose again but there is a screaming in the back of her mind—distant and ancient like Sirens on rocky shores. The storm grows louder outside. You had always thought you were a serene passing wind, something to soothe and lick old wounds better; something to be forgotten once you left, but the heat of Ace's breath against your mouth, spun around you in circles. It transformed you into something bigger than you thought you could be. You wanted to be bigger. You wanted to be something destructive, something that would tear him from limb to limb, leave him with the wreckage of your path so he could have something to remember you by when he was gone.

You reach out, hands seeking a target. You clasp his face as you smash your mouth against his. He hums into the kiss. It's clumsy and forceful. You leave him no room to push back, no gap to slip his tongue past your defenses. It isn't until he is grabbing fistfuls of your ass to pull you closer to him, to rub his bulge against your belly once more that you concede. You gasp, and it's the only weakness he needs to exploit. His tongue strokes against yours, hunger forcing him to be overzealous. He is sloppy, and imprecise, kisses so wet saliva coats your lips, making them shiny under the yellow sconce's lights of the room. Ace knows he should slow down, show a little finesse but your ass feels divine in his hands. He had been watching it the whole time during the party, watched you saunter back and forth, hips swaying; teasing him.

He moves against you, and you step backwards, the ship swaying enough to make you forget your route. You land against the wall with a thud, your plush ass making you bounce slightly in Ace's embrace. He laughs against your mouth, nipping at your bottom lip. “Nice,” he mumbles before he takes your bottom lip for a long and noisy suck. “It's like a safeguard.”

You groan, hands traveling down the wideness of his back, and over his shorts. They settle over his ass, and you return the favor, digging your fingers into the muscle. He groans loudly, pushes his hips immediately against yours and grinds against your lower belly. The smell of wine on your mouth threatens to intoxicate him further. He closes his eyes as he pushes against you, feeling precum starting to soak through his underwear. Your tongue feels perfect in his mouth. He sucks on it time and time again, taken in by the sheer softness of it. How it doesn't feel unfamiliar at all, as if he had kissed you thousands of times before.

He wished he had kissed you that many times already. He wished he could tuck away those memories somewhere no one could take them away from him.

Every time he kisses you, it feels like dying, and it feels like coming back to life. You've died hundreds of times already, hundreds of little deaths by his hands and by every stroke of his tongue. You think you smell smoke in his hair when he holds you close, when he whispers sweet things in your ear before biting down your neck, leaving a trail of bruises in his wake. His hands are weapons he uses to tear your down. Their heat eviscerates all your defenses. It kills you how they feel so hot, even over your clothes. How when he drags his palms over your belly, you want to feel them lower, towards the center of your legs. Your belly is soft, and pliable, he squeezes and kneads until he memorizes it. His hands move to your sides, where he grips the soft flesh, the rolls that are tender in his hold.

Your cheeks color, and your heart flutters. Embarrassed, you swat his hands, and move them away from your waist.

“Don't push my hands away,” he says annoyed, going back to grab your sides. “Before I--”

You cut him off with a kiss, pressing your mouth hotly against his. You wrap your arms around his neck. “Shut up,” you say breaking the kiss. You kiss the corner of his mouth, and up his jawline. “If you say it—I'll leave.” You press your mouth against his pulse, and a soft spot behind his head. “I'll walk out right now. Don't even say it.”

He kisses you, and you crumple under the weight of it. It feels like a last desperate attempt at silencing you, at keeping you here with him. His heart is in tatters. He tries to ignore the debris of it, the way it splinters off into pieces. Ace deepens his kisses, crushes you against his chest, and traps you tightly between him and the wall. He knows the truth. He knows the more he kisses you, the more he'll discover all the things he wondered about you, the more he'll become familiar with your softness—the more he'll miss you. A feeling of unworthiness crawls out of a well. He tries to smother it with another kiss, one you moan into. You bring a leg up and he holds on to it, hooks it around a hip and pushes against you, his cock feeling painfully hard. He thrusts his hips, and he tries to forget every touch of your fingers on his back, how your trail them along his muscles, leaving memories in them he could never forget, memories you shouldn't give him so willingly.

He should be the one to walk out without a further word. If it hurt you, it would mean you'd never look at him again. That was the right thing to do. He should let you go immediately. He should stop craving the heat of your body. He should stop pushing against you, and moaning into the crook of your neck, giving into every desire and fantasy that had filled his body since he met you.

He should. But he couldn't stop himself from being selfish. Just this once. For once, he wants to seize a semblance of happiness by his own hands without needing a reason for it—without needing a reason to simply exist.

Ace brings you to his bed, pushes you down until you're seated on the edge of his mattress. He kneels before you. You blink, mouth surprisingly dry considering all the wet sloppy kisses Ace had been giving you. You lick your swollen lips, and think you taste beer in the corner of your mouth; residual of Ace's conquest. Ace kisses your cheeks—one at a time. He reaches around you to the bow holding your crop top together. He unties it easily, and just as easily pulls it over your head. You don't know where it lands, and it honestly doesn't matter. The only thing that matters is the way Ace's eyes land on your breasts, the way he licks his lips as if he's gearing up for a feast.

He wasn't expecting you to not a have a bra, but he couldn't complain either way. Once again, he is amazed at his sheer stupidity. How he had never noticed the size of your breasts, how large they were and how beautifully they hanged from your frame. He swallows thickly, wishing he had done this sooner. He presses his mouth against the middle of your chest, hands tentatively taking in the weight of your breasts. He palms them gently, cupping and lifting as he moves his fingers. His intentions are well meant. Ace would love to take his time with you, but you react so deliciously when he flicks his thumbs over your hardened nipples, mewling against the top of his head that he felt like he had no choice.

If his hand felt like furnaces, his mouth is incomparably vicious. The heat of his tongue is paralyzing. When he sucks on a nipple, his free hand twisting the other one between thumb and index finger, your toes curl. Your panties cling to your folds, covered in your slick since earlier. You whimper, embarrassed and aroused as Ace continues his streamlined assault. His teeth leave marks over the swell of your breasts. You respond to every lick and nibble he gives. Your soft moans leave goosebumps on his skin, reminding him that this is him making you moan, him who has you scraping your nails against his scalp.

He shouldn't—but he smiles—thinking Marco can go kick rocks. He bites down on a nipple, a bit too hard, at the thought. He should mark you more, lest anyone get any ideas.

And like that, his heart aches. Ace sighs against the side of your breast, licks over a bruise in apology. He shakes his head, trying to dislodge thoughts that had no business polluting his mind. He wonders what would happen if he leaves you for too long. Would you move on? His fingers stumble to unbutton your jeans so he tries again. Of course, you would. Who wouldn't? Marco seems to like you, and what's not to like about Marco?

Desperate, he finally unhooks the button. You fall back on the mattress with a surprised squeak when he pushes you. Ace tugs your jeans off. You see him standing between your legs, as he unbuckles his belt, and drops his shorts. You hear the thud on the ground, the creak of the mattress as he joins you.

He cages you in, and you immediately reach out. Your fingers splay against his broad chest. His shoulders are wide, and strong, muscles rippling with every movement he makes. The yellow lighting of the sconces compliment the golden tone of his skin. You bite your lip, and rub your legs together, deeply aroused when you brush your fingertips against his muscular abs. Lightning strikes, and bathes him in a flashing white light. You see for a moment, every freckle on his shoulder, and chest. You run your fingers over them, connecting the dots, making up little galaxies on his chest and shoulders and committing them to memory. You'd remember these later, on lonely nights, and hold your hand to the ceiling, pretending that if you trace over the memory of them you could bring Ace back to you like a spell; like a wish.

His kisses scatter your thoughts, little stars clouding your vision. His mouth is on your neck, and on your chest. Heated, and wet. He leaves hot wet trails of saliva wherever he goes, coating you with his smell. He kisses your belly, and nibbles on the soft flesh underneath your belly button. His fingers dancing over your thighs. Ace moves lower as you hum, parts your legs to drop kisses on the inside of your thighs. For a split second, you consider being embarrassed at the state of your arousal but you are past the point of caring. Soaked right through your panties, all you want is for Ace to keep kissing you.

He smells you before he sees it—before he sees the big wet spot in your underwear. Ace chuckles, and you reach out to swat at his head but he is faster than you—as usual. He grabs your wrist and kisses the inside of your palm.

“Don't be like that, Mermaid,” he says in a good mood, smile wide and crooked. He looks up at you through black lashes, a faint flush over his cheeks. “I know how much you love being wet.”

You think about screaming, and beating him senseless for saying something so embarrassing but when he pulls your panties down in one quick move you are left speechless. Just as quickly, his mouth is on your pussy. He gives long, meticulous licks; ones he uses to slurp up every drop of your arousal. He uses his fingers to part your folds, and traces your slit with the flat of his tongue. Your back arches, and you moan loudly, hands flying to tangle in his black curls. He is noisy, but he does not miss a spot. He slurps up a lip, sucks on it gently. He flicks his tongue around your sensitive nub, making you shiver and tremble.

Just when you think you can't take the heat of his mouth any longer, Ace pulls your lips apart again, and slips his tongue inside your aching pussy. He thrusts it in and out, upping the pace the more you moan. He slurps up, wet and noisy to suck on your clit. His fingers tease your entrance before he slips two inside you. He scissors his fingers inside, the squelching so loud and lewd, you're forced to slap a hand to cover your mouth. It is sinful, and you wonder if you should worry when you grow hornier the louder the wet sounds get. He curves his fingers, seeking out that spot that makes your toes curl. His moans against your clit as he sucks vibrates against you, and you cry out as you cum. Your pussy flutters around his fingers as you reach your peak, little tremors running their course throughout your body.

The way you look so disheveled makes him want to stay down there longer. He'd love nothing more than to feast on your pussy all night long, but his throbbing cock is becoming increasingly harder to ignore. He moves to climb over you, but the ship tilts when a particularly large wave comes. Ace sways, but you reach out to grab him by the arm before he rolls off the bed. You pull him towards you, and laugh at Ace's shocked expression. He laughs with you for a moment, before it dies out. Your eyes captivate him—their sparkle too bright to be dimmed by the yellow lighting of the room, or even by the darkness of the storm outside the room. Ace kisses your cheek, and licks your ear. He laughs into your hair when you yelp, and hit his shoulder with a tiny fist, your own laughter overtaking his.

“Your laughs always carries so easily,” he says quietly, a hand brushing hair away from your face. You wrinkle your nose up at him. “You know that? I always hear you wherever I go.”

There's a breath that refuses to come back to you. It stays there behind Ace's smile. You swallow, following the path of his trail of dark hair that starts at his belly button. You grip the tip of his cock gently, and watch his brows knit together, teeth clenching to keep from moaning. You brush a thumb against his slit. His lips part, eyes fluttering close, and as you squeeze your hand down his shaft, he lets go; a moan flying past the front of his teeth. He is thick in your hands. You move them gently at first, taking in the sight of him above you. His dark hair spilled around him like a curtain.

His eyes that he fights so hard to keep open but flutter close every time you squeeze his pink tip just right. He cusses under his breath, upset he can't watch you jerk him off, how he can't keep the sight of your white teeth sinking into your berry colored bottom lip in his vision.

You are mesmerized by the sight of him. You try your best to commit to memory the planes of his face, the sharpness of his jawline. You rub your legs together as you stroke, enjoying the way your slick slides down your thighs. You love how vulnerable he looks, how soft his expressions is as he gives in to you, his dark lashes that flutter open and close, the freckles on the bridge of his nose; everything leaves their residue behind like sticky fingers on glass.

You feel his hand swat yours away from his cock. “Stop,” he whines in a hiss, eyes opening partially. He frowns down at you, cheeks bright red, mouth hanging open. “I don't want to cum like that. I want to cum inside you. With you.” There's no time to think, you feel him shift your legs, and feel the tip of his cock pressing against your entrance. He pushes inside you, slowly, inch by inch. Your mouth drops open, a sound that refuses to leave your body. When he bottoms out, you moan gently, wrapping your arms around his shoulders.

Your thighs are thick and plush as they tighten around his strong hips. Ace feels as he would be swallowed whole—like a small vessel in a raging sea. If you wanted to drown him, he'd let you, if that's what you really wanted. He grunts with every slow thrust of his hips, wanting to feel you first, let you adjust around him. He's only begun, but he feels you fluttering around his cock, senses the tightening of your grasp around his shoulders.

He picks up the pace, as the storm rages. You're panting against his hear, so loud that even the thunder can't drown you out when you moan. Lightning splits the sky, over and over, bathing your sweaty body underneath him in bright white. He tries to remember the pieces of you, the soft breasts pressed against his chest, the sight of his cock disappearing into your soaking pussy. He tries to remember the sound of the rain, how it compliments your voice when you sigh into his neck. He pushes against you faster, deeper, your moans grow closer and louder. The scent of rain and wet wood floods the room along with the scent of your arousal. Ace can almost taste it on his tongue all over again, as he breathes through his mouth, panting loudly—moaning when you clench around his cock again.

His cologne makes you delirious—mahogany, and sweet blossoms, or it's the thickness of his cock or both. You bite his neck, scream into the crook of his neck when he picks you up slightly by the hips, when he angles his thrusts and slaps his hips against yours viciously enough to bruise. His cock pushes against your gummy walls, stretching you out until it's almost painful. He is so hot and warm inside you, you feel like you're melting, as if your body is built by nothing but pleasure and pleasure alone. You bite his shoulders, leaving marks behind. Your attack is as relentless as his thrusts. You continue to sink your teeth into his shoulders, and his neck, you nibble at his jawline.

He loves it. He loves the pain you leave behind. Ace digs his fingers into your hair, and he tilts his neck to give you more access—anything to keep you going. He groans with every thrust into your pussy, his heavy balls slapping against your thick and plush ass so noisily he worries for a second someone might hear.

“Go ahead,” he whispers to you when you nibble on his neck once more, groaning right after. “Make it hurt.” It is a fitting punishment, he thinks. Pain always left the deepest scars. If it was you, he'd take the scars with him.

The wind picks up more, the shrill tinny scream rises, banging against the round window on his door. It pounds at the glass, demanding tribute. Ace cries out when your pussy clenches around his cock, his body tensing before it relaxes at his climax. He releases, spilling into you, hot cum that oozes slightly out of your cunt. You stay tangled with him in his bed sheets, lightning coloring your bodies in bright white every now and then. Heat envelops the room, a humidity so thick it feels suffocating; muggy. Your bodies covered in sweat, are slippery, almost uncomfortable but you don't care.

You don't care about the incessant heat beaming off his body, you don't care how his hair sticks to your skin when he nuzzles in your neck, you don't care bout the storm outside the door, the angry sea. You bring your hand to Ace's chest, feel his heart thumping against your palm. What you care about is there, under skin and bone, just out of reach.

You shut your eyes when he kisses your lips, when he holds your face in his hands.

Your mother's words cut through the screams of the hurricane outside. Don't head straight into storms. They forgive no one.

But who was the storm? Was it him? Was it you? Who's to forgive if there's no one left in the wake of the storm?

#ace x y/n #ace x reader #ace x you #portgas ace x reader #portgas d. ace x reader #portgas d ace x reader #one piece x y/n #one piece x you #one piece x reader #ace smut #fic request #for the cummunity!

170 notes · View notes