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#and Jackson ALMOST GOING THERE then backing out at the last second
homerjacksons · 6 months
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RIPPER STREET S02E04
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waitingonher · 9 months
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because i love you — [hoo boys headcanons]
summary: your "thing" with the hoo boys!
author's note: in honor of the pjo series coming out today,,have this rlly rlly short draft from earlier this year! xoxo
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percy jackson — doodling on him
“give me your hand.”
“yes ma’am.”
minutes pass as you doodle gods know what onto percy’s hand. you always resort to this whenever the camp head counselor's meeting begins late—which seems to be every meeting—and giving percy "tattoos" certainly kills time. last meeting, you drew a can of beans and the time before that, was a bouquet of tulips. so honestly his guess being a pair of socks this time isn’t too far of a reach.
“okay, done,” you release his hand, a proud smile gracing your features, “cute right?”
he quirks a brow upon seeing the drawing, “is that…” percy turns his head to the side, gaining better perspective, “is that a flying fish?” 
“wow, you’re good,” you say, giving him a nod of approval, “although, last time you did say that my can of beans looked like a roll of toilet paper…” 
your boyfriend throws his hands in the air, “in my defense, you used a shitty pen so it was hard to tell.” 
“whatever.” 
jason grace — sewing your initials on his clothes
“hi love,” jason says, plopping down beside you on the couch. you give him a bright smile as he places a gentle kiss on your head, “almost done?” 
nodding proudly, you hold up his pair of jeans to show him your work: your initials sewn onto a corner of his back pocket, “yup, just finished actually! what do you think of the color? i think you bought the thread for me on our second date. but i totally forgot i had it until i went digging in my supply box.” 
a grin plasters itself on jason’s face as he nods his head in realization, “i knew the color seemed familiar. i remember wondering why a tiny spool of thread was so expensive. but it’s perfect, i love it,” he kisses your cheek, “all my friends are gonna be so jealous that they don’t have their girlfriends’ initials sewn onto their clothes.” 
you laugh as you imagine jason vehemently bragging about his jeans to all his friends, “tell them i’m charging $50 if they want me to do theirs,” you wink. 
“we’d make more than the stolls’ and their smuggling business if we did that,” he laughs, admiring your work once more. who knew that having your initials on his pants would have such an affect on him, “also, can you do my sweaters and my other jeans?"
you raise a brow, "i might have to start charging you at this point."
leo valdez — impromptu fashion shows
“wow!” you clap enthusiastically, “your outfit even puts paris fashion week outfits to shame!” yes, because a rainbow checkered crop top with a humongous green tutu and a pink boa paired with insanely skinny stilettos beats any and all high fashion runway outfits, “now, leo valdez, can you give us a few words about your new clothing line? and possibly a bit about what it’s like to be so amazingly talented?” you inquire, raising an invisible microphone to his mouth. 
leo oh-so humbly bows and rises with a proud grin, “thank you, thank you, but i honestly must give all credit towards my beautiful muse, y/n, she’s the inspiration behind my new line. and about being so talented, it really is such hard work to be this naturally gifted.”
“ooh, do tell about this ‘y/n.’ i’ve never heard of her but she does sound absolutely gorgeous!” you exclaim, keeping up with the act. 
your boyfriend nods firmly, “oh yes, she’s very, very, very beautiful,” adding a playful wink, “but i must say, she has the worst morning breath i’ve ever encountered!” 
your smile drops and you squint your eyes, “i’m going to choke you with that stupid ugly boa if you don’t take that back right now.” 
“uh ma’am,” leo backs up nervously, clutching his boa, “i’m going to have to call security if you threaten me again.” 
"i'm seriously going to kill you."
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triptuckers · 9 months
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I've got you - percy jackson
Request: yeah! "percy x fem!reader are on an unofficial quest together just before the big titan war (so set just before last olympian). idk what the quest is but basically reader gets injured during a fight w a bunch of monsters and percy goes a little crazy and does everything he can to protect her and once all the monsters are dead he’s super gentle and sweet w her??" Pairing:  Percy Jackson x reader Summary:  you're busy battling a handful of monsters when for a second it looks as if it might be your last fight. luckily, percy is there Warnings:  fighting, mentions of blood, injuries, swearing, angst Word count:  1K A/N: the show creators need to add grover's song from ep3 to spotify because it's been stuck in my head since wednesday. thanks for your request, enjoy!
gods forbid you're ever on a quiet quest.
you can't wait to get this over with so you can go back to camp and actually get a decent amount of undisturbed sleep.
the other kids at camp are probably spending their afternoon relaxing, or polishing their weapons, or sitting by the lake, or literally anything that's peaceful. not you and percy.
you're busy getting rid of at least half a dozen monsters.
percy's is in the distance, fighting his way through a couple of monsters. he's a blur of movement and you occasionally hear him curse or make a sound.
you know percy can handle himself. but it doesn't stop you from looking over your shoulder every once in a while, to check on him.
the second time you try to catch a glimpse of percy, it's a mistake.
you feel something sharp sink into your side.
with one swing of your sword you decapitate the monster, but not before his fang breaks off, still stuck in your leg.
'oh fuck.' you mutter as you see blood start to gush out of the wound around the fang.
but there's no time to rest. another monster lashes out at you, raking his claws through your shoulder.
you yell out in pain, getting percy's attention.
you drive your sword through the monster just as percy starts running toward you.
'fuck.' you mutter, looking at your leg.
well, that doesn't look good. you know demigods don't live long. but you would have liked some more time with percy. preferably when you don't have to fight monsters.
'y/n!' yells percy, who has nearly reached you.
'percy...' you say as he catches you before you fall to the ground.
'shit, hold on.' says percy. he carefully lowers you to the ground in his arms. there's a panicked look in his eyes as he looks at your leg.
he quickly reaches down and tears off a piece of his shirt.
'percy!' you yell, looking at a monster that's running towards the two of you at full speed.
with one swift motion, percy slices through the monster with his sword, then he drops it and turns back to you.
he pulls you towards him and wraps the piece of his shirt around your thigh, above your wound.
'how many behind me?' he says.
you look over his shoulder, quickly counting the monsters that are making their way to you. it doesn't look good. 'seven.'
'sorry.'
'wait, for what-'
you're cut off as percy pulls the knot tight, sending a sharp pain through your leg.
'fuck! percy!' you curse.
'I said sorry. stay here do not pull that out.' says percy, pointing at the fang that's still stuck in your leg. he presses a quick kiss to your forehead before turning around and charging the monsters.
you knew percy could fight but holy shit.
it's like he moves with unnatural speed as he works his way through the monsters, making sure none of them slip past him to you.
even more so, he makes it look easy. almost god-like.
when you overheard someone from your cabin say that he's the most powerful demigod of your generation, you thought "sure he's a poseidon kid, it makes sense". you hadn't really thought much of it.
to you percy had always been, well, percy.
he always makes you laugh with bad jokes and saves you a spot at the campfire. he'll walk with you to your cabin if it's raining so you wouldn't get soaked. he prefers to sleep with you next to him, claiming it's so he won't get nightmares, but you know it's because he just wants to use you as his pillow.
but as you see him fighting off the monsters, lashing out and stabbing them like it's nothing, you realise what others see when they look at him.
suddenly percy is in front of you again, brushing monster dust off of his shoulder like it's no big deal.
'you okay?' he says, kneeling in front of you. he reaches out to gently cup your face.
you're silent as you look at him.
'y/n?' he says, looking you in your eyes, brows furrowed.
'did I mention I'm like, really really in love with you?' you say.
percy smiles briefly. 'yeah you've mentioned it.' he says. 'how are you feeling?'
'lucky to have you on my side.'
'I meant your leg, y/n.' he says, moving so he can inspect your leg.
'still hurts.'
'that shoulder also looks bad.' says percy. 'listen, I'll pull the fang out and give you nectar but it will still hurt, okay? then we'll look at your shoulder.'
'alright, make it quick.'
percy nods, then hands you some nectar.
'want me to count down?' he asks.
you nod, reaching out to take one of his hands in yours.
percy wraps his free hand around the fang.
you take a deep breath and nod at percy.
percy looks you in the eye and gives you an encouraging smile. 'sorry in advance. 3... 2... 1!'
with one swift motion he pulls the fang out. blood gushes out of the wound and the pain is unbearable. you close your eyes and feel how percy gently pushes the nectar to you and you take a sip.
it tastes like the drink sally made for you when you visited percy's home for the first time.
you keep your eyes closed as you wait for the pain to go away. you can feel percy rubbing circles on the back of your hand with his thumb, comforting you.
'it's already helping.' says percy softly.
you reach out and wrap your arms around percy.
'it's okay. I've got you.' says percy, holding you close. 'we can sit here for a while, but then we have to keep moving, okay?'
'okay.' you say, feeling percy press a kiss to your forehead.
you're really glad percy's here with you. if it weren't for him, you're not sure you would have made it back to camp in one piece, or at all.
A/N: If you want to request something, make sure to read my house rulesHere’s the list of characters I write for. Everything that I have written can be found on my masterlist. Please don’t repost my work, as I spend much time and effort on it!! Thank you for reading! Much love, Marit/Max
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joelscoffeemachine · 2 months
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Festival Of Hidden Longings
Joel Miller x f!reader
word count: 2.5k
Summary: After not seeing Joel at the yearly festival, you find him at the stables only to just get caught up in the moment.
Warnings: 18+ mdni, slight smut, softdom!Joel vibes, grinding, slight language, angst (in the end), Jackson era!Joel, lots of kissing. So, so, so sorry if I missed anything.
A/N: pls, don’t hate me after this. hahahah. enjoy please!
part two part three
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You didn’t expect him to be at the stables. You figured he’d be at the festival like everyone else was, but of course, he had to be the odd one out.
He was stuffed in the corner of a box stall, hoof jack planted in front of him as he slouched over, engrossed in his work.
He glanced at you, only for a second, his tongue poking out his mouth as he worked meticulously on the furry foot that sat in between his legs. The rhythmic sound of the rasp against the hoof filled the otherwise quiet barn, a stark contrast to the distant laughter and music from the festival.
He finally finished the particular hoof, leaning up with a sigh of relief, using the skin poking out his black t-shirt to wipe the sweat away from his forehead.
His face was flushed from the effort, and a few strands of hair stuck to his damp skin.
“Howdy.” He huffed, sliding his gloves off and placing them on the open stall door, the rough fabric catching slightly on the splintered wood.
His fingers flexed, revealing calloused knuckles that spoke of hard work and hidden strength, the air thick with unspoken words.
The smell of slight shit and horse lingered in the air, mingling with the earthy scent of his labor.
“You are the last person I expected to skip the best festival in town,” you tease, giggling at your own comment.
He steps out of the box stall, slowly sliding the door shut behind him. The metal latch clicks into place with a satisfying sound. He leans on it, arms crossed with his gaze fixed on you, a small, almost imperceptible smile tugging at the corners of his lips.
You looked down at his light brown chaps, dusty and worn, also noticing the jeans hiding underneath, then glancing back at his face, tilting your head.
“Long day?” you murmur, noticing the dark circles under his eyes and the way his shoulders sag with exhaustion.
He sighs deeply, hanging his head down low, the weight of the day evident in his posture.
You’d assume his old bones are just giving out on him, a reason for his shitty mood. Or maybe he actually doesn’t think that the festival you and Tommy spent days planning is the best one in town. The thought stings a little, but you push it aside, focusing on the way his fingers absentmindedly trace the grain of the wooden stall door.
A scoff escapes him, shaking his head.
The day went by slow, only now nearing the night, but if he said he didn’t have a bad day he’d be lying.
His shoulders slump slightly, the weight of the day's frustrations evident in his posture.
Hell, being here in the stables around these gentle giants was enough to make him feel at peace with the world. The scent of dust and the soft, rhythmic breathing of the horses provided a comforting backdrop. Besides, it allowed him time to himself, to think about a few things that had been weighing on his mind.
“Just needed some time alone,” he responds, his gaze finally locking onto your own.
The intensity in his eyes speaks volumes. “I do plan on going. Just didn’t wanna deal with them damn people.” His voice carries a mix of weariness and resolve, hinting at the internal struggle he’s been facing.
You raise your eyebrows, a small comforting grin creeping onto your face. It went quiet after a few seconds, being left alone with the blowing noises coming from the horses. The gentle rustling of their movements and the occasional snort filled the space, creating a serene atmosphere.
You sigh sharply, pressing your back up against the stall across from the one he leaned on. The earthy aroma of the stables surrounds you, grounding you in the moment.
“You want me to bring you a drink or something? I can stop by your house, get your guitar.” You say, furrowing your eyebrows with concern.
Your voice is soft, hoping to offer some comfort. The thought of him playing his guitar, the familiar chords filling the air, seemed like it might bring him some solace.
He shakes his head, letting out a quick ‘no’.
His refusal is firm but gentle, a clear indication that he just needs this time to himself. His eyes, however, soften slightly, showing his appreciation for the offer even if he can't accept it right now.
Joel was never one for parties or large crowds. The noise, the chatter, the constant need to engage in small talk—it all wore on him. He usually was able to deal with it for the sake of being friendly, putting on a brave face and enduring the social rituals. But tonight, the heaviness of the world seemed to press down on him a little harder, and he wanted to be alone, needed to be alone. The solitude of the stables called to him, offering a quiet refuge from the chaos.
“No, darlin’. I’m fine.” He responds, his voice steady but low.
He watches you lean your back against the stall he stood across from, the dim light casting soft shadows on your face.
He watched the way your eyebrows furrowed, knowing that look, that look of worry and concern that you always had when you saw him like this. He hated to admit it, but he enjoyed that look on you.
There was something comforting about knowing you cared, even if he couldn't bring himself to fully accept your help.
“Well, the least I could do is keep you company.” You suggest, a shrug of your shoulders as you try to lighten the mood. He lets out a quick chuckle, the sound echoing softly in the quiet stables, but you’re not sure if he caught the meaning of the joke, the playful glint in your eyes going unnoticed.
You and Joel were never exactly close. Sure, you had to accept the fact that his brother married your best-friend, and you’d crack a joke with him every now and then, sharing brief moments of levity during gatherings. But you two never had a full conversation.
Until now.
The silence between you was filled with unspoken words and untapped potential, a connection that had yet to be explored.
He doesn't say anything indicating that he had caught on, only taking a deep breath before moving. His eyes seemed distant, lost in thoughts you couldn't quite reach, but there was a subtle shift in his posture, a hint that he appreciated your presence, even if he couldn't fully express it.
A small smile appeared on his face as you mention keeping him some company. Surprisingly, he didn’t turn you away. It was strange, but not unwelcomed. The smile was brief, almost hesitant, but it warmed the space between you, breaking the barrier that had always seemed to exist.
Joel pushes off the stall, stepping a little closer, the scent of his musk and leather filling the air. It was a comforting mix, natural and familiar, grounding you in the moment. He stands a few inches from you, his presence solid and reassuring.
He runs his fingers through his greying hair, letting out a sigh, his gaze lingering on your form. His eyes traced over you, not in a scrutinizing way, but lust almost.
Maybe he had caught onto the joke. Was it even a joke? Were you joking?
The silence stretched, but it was a companionable one, filled with the quiet understanding that sometimes words weren't necessary.
You swallow hard, him being inches away somehow suffocating you. The heat between you is palpable, making it hard to breathe.
You look away anxiously, your heart pounding in your chest.
His hand finds your jaw, tilting your head up just enough so he could see those pretty eyelashes flutter. His touch is firm, sending shivers down your spine.
“Joel..” you whine, and he gives in.
The feeling of his lips against yours makes you want to melt into his touch, the world around you fading away.
You instantly place your hands on his neck, one in his hair, feeling every strand. His hair is soft and slightly damp from the day's sweat, grounding you in the reality of the moment.
His long arm wrapped around your waist, pressing your warm body into his. The pressure is both comforting and electrifying, making your skin tingle with anticipation.
When he pulls back, you gasp for air, your chest heaving. One hand moves to his arm, holding on for dear life as he presses messy kisses on your neck.
His beard grazes your skin, leaving a trail of fire in its wake.
Each kiss is desperate, filled with a hunger that matches your own, and you can't help but arch into him, wanting more.
The moan that escaped you only encouraged him further, a small smirk finding his face as his lips left yours, trailing kisses down your neck, all the way to your collarbone. Each kiss felt like a spark, igniting a fire within you that you couldn't control.
Every time he felt like you weren't close enough, he'd hold you tighter, pulling you flush against him.
The feeling of your body against his nearly sending him into a frenzy, his hands clutching your hips with a possessive grip as he bucked his hips into yours, making you feel how hard you made him. You could feel his heartbeat racing, matching your own.
He let out a deep hum, his facial hair rubbing against your skin just right, eliciting another gasp from you. The sensation was intoxicating, the roughness of his beard contrasting with the softness of his lips.
You could feel the tension building, every touch and kiss pushing you both closer to the edge of doing something you'd both regret.
He sucked on your sensitive skin, earning sharp groans from you that echoed in the quiet room, each sound intensifying the heat between you. Your hands found the plush skin under his shirt, running them up and down, feeling the taut muscles beneath, placing scratches on his lower back that made him shiver and hiss with pleasure.
“Joel, I need you..” You whisper, your voice trembling with desire, he moves his head to look at you, his breath hot against your skin, his eyes dark with longing.
He wanted to give in. The way you looked at him with such pleading eyes, the way your hands felt on his chest, the way your touch set his skin on fire—
“Joel, the hell you doin’ in here?” The familiar voice of Tommy rang through the night as you ran and hid in one of the stalls, trying to control your breathing, your heart pounding in your chest.
A low curse under his breath left Joel as his head perked up. He tensed, knowing that his moment with you was interrupted, his muscles coiling with frustration, his jaw clenching tightly.
“Just takin’ a break from the noise.” He calls back, his voice deep, an underlying growl hiding beneath, betraying his irritation and the raw desire still simmering just below the surface.
His eyes flickered with a mixture of annoyance and longing, the tension in the air was barely visible as he tried to maintain his composure.
“So, you came here?” Tommy questions, eyebrows furrowed.
Joel looks around at the horses, then at his gloves that hung from one of the stall doors. Tommy breaks out into a smile, taking a step closer, close enough to playfully smack Joel on his back.
“Aww, I’m just fuckin’ with you.” Tommy wraps an arm around Joel’s shoulders, forcing him to walk out of the stables with Tommy.
You stay put, finally being able to catch your breath, your heart rate slowly returning to normal.
“Listen, there’s this girl I want you to meet,” Your heart sank, a feeling in your chest you never felt before.
Joel with another girl just five seconds after whatever the fuck that was? A mix of confusion and jealousy churned inside you, your mind racing with thoughts, each one more unsettling than the last. You stood there, rooted to the spot, the weight of the moment pressing down on you as their voices continued to fade into the distance.
Tommy was the same as always, always the one to lighten the mood with humor and jokes. Joel didn’t mind it, but right now, he wished he didn’t have to deal with the jokes. He had more important things, or rather, someone else to deal with.
You could tell Joel shoved Tommy away from him, turning back to the stable as his voice got louder.
“Tommy,” Joel groans, his voice still gruff, “if you’re gonna set me up with another one of these women, it ain’t gon’ work.”
Tommy chuckled, shaking his head, not taking Joel’s words as anything serious. The appreciable heat between the two intensified, as Joel's frustration was evident in every tense muscle and furrowed brow.
“C’mon, Joel. She’s been practically droppin’ her panties for you ever since you came to Jackson. Just—” Tommy stops to take a deep breath, the arm that he used to pull Joel back, falling to his side. “Do it f'me, Please?”
Joel slightly squinted at Tommy, the sound of cicadas and the loud music in the distance filling the air.
The night was warm, the humidity making the air thick and heavy. Joel could feel the sweat trickling down the back of his neck, mixing with the craving of your hands on his skin again.
The corners of Joel’s mouth turn downwards in annoyance, a sigh leaving him. His broad shoulders sagged slightly, the realization that he has no choice here hitting him. Although he knew that he’d eventually give in to his little brother's wishes, the reluctance was clear in the furrow of his brow and the tightness of his jaw.
“God damn it,” he mutters, clenching his fists at his sides since his chaps didn’t have pockets.
The rough leather of the chaps brushed against his legs, grounding him in the moment. He’d humor his brother this once, just to get him off his ass. The flickering lights of the distant bonfire and bright fairy lights stretch long shadows, making the night feel even more oppressive.
“Fine, Tommy. I’ll talk to the damn girl,” Joel grumbles.
His voice was low, almost a growl, as he turned on his heel and began to trudge towards the gathering. He could feel Tommy's eyes on his back, a mix of gratitude and amusement that only fueled Joel's irritation.
It went silent after Tommy’s loud laugh.
You moved slowly and quietly towards the door of the stables, peeking around the corner to find the pair gone. The soft glow of the moonlight filtered through the wooden slats, shadows falling on the hay-strewn floor.
A part of you wanted to sigh in relief, but another part of you ached for Joel. For Joel to finish what was started.
The memory of his touch, the way his beard had brushed against your skin, how his sounds sounded when he humped your clothed entrance, lingered in your mind, making your heart race.
You thought about going back to the festival, but the thought of being in the same room as Joel while he hit on someone else after his tongue was so deep in your throat made you feel stupid.
The festival lights twinkled in the distance, and the sound of laughter and music floated through the air, mocking your inner turmoil.
So, you went home. The walk back was filled with the sounds of hoots from owls and the distant hum of the festival, a reminder of what you were leaving behind.
The night felt brutal, each step heavier than the last, as if the weight of your emotions was dragging you down. You reached your doorstep, the familiar creak of the wooden boards underfoot a small comfort. As you entered, the cool air of the house welcomed you, but it did little to soothe the ache in your heart.
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breadbrobin · 9 months
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jealousy, jealousy
luke castellan x reader - percy jackson and the olympians
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[established relationship, fem!reader]
summary: you weren’t jealous. not at all.
warnings: jealousy, fluff, kissing.
word count: 670
(this is my shortest one yet, but it’s cute and fun so here you go. (yes the brainrot has gotten worse i know))
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it was happening again.
it was always happening, to be fair, but it had been happening a lot more lately.
every time you went to hang out with luke, your boyfriend, he was being hounded by young girls, all asking him for extra help and extra training and batting their eyelashes like broken dolls.
you rolled your eyes and stood off to the side, waiting for the crowd to disperse.
you weren’t jealous, you swore it. like, sure, maybe they annoyed you a little, but you weren’t jealous of them. luke only had eyes for you… right?
your gaze sharpened on him. he hadn’t noticed you yet. he looked a little overwhelmed. stressed even. was that because he was getting too much attention full stop? or because he didn’t know where to look first?
you clenched your jaw and decided to put him out of his misery. you pushed through the girls, ignoring their mumbled complaints.
“will you help me with my sword fighting, lukey?” you cooed from behind him.
you could see his jaw clench as he turned around.
“i’m not giving out—“ his entire expression softened, flipping from irritated to relieved. “y/n.” his voice was a soft breath, murmuring your name like it was the last thing he ever wanted to say. he smiled. “what are you doing here?”
“came to get you. chiron wants to see you. something about counsellor duties?” you raised your eyebrows at him.
he nodded quickly and stepped closer to you and back from the girls around him, who were tittering disappointedly. “sorry, guys. i gotta go.”
they all called various goodbyes after him as you took his arm and pulled him away.
“thank you,” he muttered. “i didn’t know how to get rid of them and i didn’t want to be too mean.”
“that’s your problem, luke castellan. you’re too nice.” you kept pulling him away. not towards the big house like you’d said you would, but around the side of the arena.
he frowned. “where are we going? i thought i needed to see—“
“i haven’t seen chiron all day. and i haven’t seen you all day either,” you said simply.
“oh.” he frowned for a second, then it clicked. “oh, okay!”
you still hadn’t let go of his arm, and he was beginning to notice it.
you could hear his smirk in his voice as he spoke. “were you… jealous, y/n?”
you dropped his arm like it burned you and stopped, turning to face him. he stopped too, almost hitting you. he was inches away. “what? no.”
a mischievous smirk grew on his face. “oh, really? i don’t know if i believe you. you know that you’re the only girl i want, right?”
you blushed slightly and looked away, staring at at cloud shaped vaguely like a heart behind his head. “yeah, i know.”
“do you?” he stepped into your line of vision again.
you nodded.
“good. because all of those girls? if they were trying to get with me, they’d have to look like you, talk like you, act like you. and even with all that, i’d still chose you, because you’re you. not them.” he ran his hands gently down your arms, holding your hands in his. “cool?”
“cool,” you said. you slipped your hands from his and looped them over his shoulders, messing with the hairs at the nape of his neck. “very cool.”
“cool.” he leaned in to kiss you.
as you leaned in too, you saw the hoard of girls come around the corner with accusing looks on their faces. and maybe you pulled luke so you were side-on to them and they could see both of you. and maybe you kissed him a little more passionately than the moment really called for. and maybe you had been jealous. maybe. but maybe they needed to learn that he was yours and you were his, and it was time to give up.
in your mind, at least, that was fair.
jealousy, jealousy, you mused. what a weapon.
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lullxby · 9 months
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:・゚✧:・゚ RAY OF SUNSHINE (p.j.)
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summary : in which percy jackson feels attached, in some way, to a girl he just met.
w.c. : 1,023
a/n : this is the first part of what's gonna be a full book! i'm going to post it on wattpad as soon as i write the second chapter! wattpad: poet1cmystery
warning(s) : none!
| riordanverse masterlist | navigation | part 2 |
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*ੈ✩‧₊˚
the last thing percy remembered was the feeling of blood rushing to his head, then darkness. 
now he was lying on a small cot, one of the few empty ones in the infirmary. a thin blanket covered him, one that, no doubt, rested on top of many other wounded half-bloods. the air was brisk, despite the barrier keeping out most of the heavy forms of weather. he moved his hands up to grab the top of the blanket, causing a tingling sensation to run to the tips of his fingers. 
his movement stopped, and his limbs felt normal again after the moment of stillness. confusion ebbed his mind, questions of how long he was out, and what had even happened. those thoughts couldn’t last for long, as he soon heard a girl’s voice exclaim something close to, “you’re finally awake.” 
he nodded, clearing his throat to try to get some of the patchiness away. the boy spoke up, his voice scratchy and still slightly covered in a viel of sleepiness. 
“do you have any water, or something?” he asked, glancing around at the table beside the bed. the only thing sitting on it was a book. he couldn’t quite decipher the words, the letters scrambling and jumbling into words he knew didn’t exist. 
“oh, yeah, let me fetch that. is there anything else?” the girl’s voice was sweet.. her face was completely lost on percy, surprising him with even more confusion. 
“uh, no,” he grunted out, just wanting to fall asleep again. his tone wasn’t rude to her, just overall a tired voice. 
the next he knew, the girl was out of the room, leaving him alone to his thoughts. 
his head fell against the pillow beneath it, the plushness doing nothing to support it. despite his still almost-asleep state of mind, he couldn’t help but be enthralled by the girl. 
soon enough, her smiling face returned to the small room. she came holding a decently sized metal water bottle, along with a small, clear bag of blue candies. "i heard from somebody that you liked these, so i thought i’d grab some, but it’s alright if you aren’t hungry. you just woke up, so no worries,” she assured, placing the items on the wooden table. 
she looked over the boy’s body for a minute, gently peeling back the thin covering to show his bare torso. the wounds that had been littering it just a few hours before were almost completely erased at this point, thanks to the magical properties of ambrosia. She hummed in satisfaction, folding the blanket back over him and taking a step back. 
percy just let her do what she needed to– it wasn’t his first time in the infirmirary, and definitely not his last. even though he had just been knocked out for almost the whole day, he was feeling almost fine. he reached up, his muscles feeling loose from the stillness they had been in. his hand wrapped around the bottle the girl had filled with water for him, bringing the small spout to his lips. to him, the bottle was filled with liquid gold. 
he gulped it down thirstily, quickly finishing it with a sheepish look on his face. the girl across from him didn’t seem to notice, her head buried in paperwork sitting on a clipboard. “hey, what’s your name? i haven’t seen you around.” he didn’t want to interrupt her, but his curiosity had gotten the better of him. 
“y/n. y/n y/l/n,” she answered, looking up from the sheet she was working on. a small smile persisted on her face, just as it had for the entirety of their short interaction that day. 
he noticed that it never left, just merely grew or shrunk. 
like a ray of sunshine, he thought. 
“i like that,” percy admitted, “it suits you, y’know? like, you definitely look like a y/n.”
“well, thank you? i think?” she laughed out, quickly gauging percy’s personality. He just nodded in response, then looked down at his hands, playing mindlessly with the loose thread of the old blanket.
she turned over the paper on the clipboard before sliding it under her arm the wood feeling smooth against her skin. she clapped her hands together, “well, physically, you look great. you can leave whenever you feel good enough to,” she stated, assuming the boy still felt decently tired. 
once again, percy’s only response was a nod, causing the y/n to just stand there, and awkward silence falling over them. 
“well…” the girl trailed off, “i’m gonna go, maybe i’ll see you around.” she added the last bit after, her smile widening. she looked to him for a reaction. he smiled back at her. she took that as a signal to leave, making percy suddenly wish he had asked her to stay longer. he could smell the scent of her perfume as it wanted over him, enveloping him with the fragrance. 
he watched as she passed by the open doorway a couple times, likely attending to other sick or wounded half-bloods. he was never too close with anyone from the apollo cabin, but suddenly he felt himself taking an interest in the group of teens. he was well aware that the conversations with y/n had only lasted mere minutes, but felt a connection with her on some level. he didn’t know why or how, but he did. 
he shortly felt himself growing tired again, a sudden shine of the sun washing over him as it set into the evening. it warmed him enough for him to discard the thin blanket atop his body. the fabric fell to the floor, he’d pick it up later. the boy turned away from the sun, feeling its’ heat against his bare back, causing a smile to grace his pink lips. he tucked his arms under the pillow he was lying on, adding more support beneath his head, letting him drift into a comfortable sleep. 
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loliwrites · 4 months
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I. Tenacity | Edelweiss
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pairing: joel miller x f!reader  rating: explicit, 18+, minors dni  warnings/tags: jackson era!joel, sharpshooter!reader, age difference [joel is mid 50s, reader is early 30s], joel lives forever fight me, canon compliant violence, no infected here just terrible humans, mention of death, blood, and murder, mentions of hunger, diva cup appearance, talk of irregular menstrual cycles [trauma-induced menopause][epigenetics], DUBCON/NONCON [tagging ‘cause reader allows it but true enthusiastic consent is absent], brief SMUT, unprotected p in v sex, female reader, no physical description other than a height difference, slow burn-ish, protective!joel, no use of y/n. word count: 5.6k series masterlist a/n: my first go at writing something tlou-related. be gentle pls.
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Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump.
The steady rhythm. You could count the number of times your hip would be shoved into the wooden table with a high degree of certainty of when it would be over. Michael never lasted too long. Somewhere between thirty-four and thirty-seven thrusts. He was never particularly rough, and though he was never chasing to make you feel good, he was at least better than George and James – both of whom would probably be lining up after Michael was done. George seemed to last forever. Some old fart who’d gained his stamina before the world came to a screeching halt. He usually landed somewhere between sixty-two and sixty-six thrusts. The bruises he left behind always lasted the longest because of the sheer amount of times he slammed your body into whatever you were up against. A table, a railing, an old pool table with torn, dirty felt. And the worst of all was James. He may not last the longest, but he had the uncanny ability of making you feel like some depraved wild animal he was trying to break. He never took his time to make sure it wouldn’t be absolutely painful like Michael did. Nor did he have a pencil dick to make it somewhat manageable like George. He took it how he wanted it – fast, unceremonious, and always left you in a mess you’d have to clean up.
Part of you wondered if this was worth it. If the wolf was only as strong as the pack, then having a pack was supremely necessary. And though, these guys… and the group they led… weren’t the people you would’ve gone with by choice. A pack was a pack. Alone, you were an easy target for almost anything and anyone. Being together afforded you safety in numbers. Relative safety in numbers. Safe enough to have stayed alive with them for the past six years. Years that you likely wouldn’t have gotten if you’d fought them tooth and nail and went off on your own. Solitude could only get you so far. No matter how proficient you were with your rifle.
The one that lay in front of you on the table. Clean, well-oiled, with a scope affixed to the top. As Michael started to moan recklessly behind you, you thought about the meals you’d forfeited in trade for the supplies needed to keep the weapon in the best of shape. Times were tough – had been tough for a couple decades now – and a gun was a gun. It didn’t need to be clean, it just had to work. But this was no ordinary gun.
Michael came inside you with a strangled grunt and pulled out a second later. That was a relatively new twist in the routine. For years the men were careful to never finish inside you… or any of the other women in the group. Food and resources were scarce enough as it was, let alone adding little mouths to feed and take care of. But a few months back, you’d confided in some of the women that your period hadn’t been coming when you expected it to. And when time had passed and neither a baby nor your period came, you came to the conclusion you were suffering from the same fate as some of the other women. A hard life compounded. Trauma induced menopause. You weren’t sure which of the women had ratted you out. But soon enough the men had become aware of your new biological situation, and they stopped the frantic pulling out as they came. Perhaps that was for the best. Who’d want to bring a child into a world like this?
“Was that alright?” Michael asked, buckling his belt back up. His back was turned toward you as he reached for his own rifle, which he’d propped up against the wall.
You glanced over at him and pulled your pants back up your legs. Over the lofted railing, you could hear George and James mumbling to each other. “Fine,”
“Did you…?”
He finally met your eyes. Anxiety-ridden. None of the other men ever asked, but you didn’t have it in you to lie to him. At some point maybe it’d sink in that he should stop partaking in the act just to fit in with the boys. “No,”
His gaze averted to the floor sheepishly and he shouldered his rifle. “Guess we should get back downstairs,”
“I’ll be down in a couple minutes,”
Now you were the one to turn your back on him. Though you hoped he’d come to his senses and start to become a better man. You knew he wouldn’t. He was initiated into the system. The one George and James, and all the other men in the settlement formed. The one that meant they brought girls along on patrols so they could get their kicks and save face with the others that they were doing their due diligence in protecting the group. And you joining the group… well you turned out to be the little guardian angel for the women in the pack. Good with a gun, able to pick off infected and humans alike from a mile out. It only seemed natural that the men going out on patrols would take you with them. For that you inadvertently protected the other women from your fate. 
Michael cleared his throat and started down the stairs from the loft. You bit the inside of your cheek to show yourself you could still feel something, and – BANG! 
Your head flicked around toward the noise. What was left of Michael was splattered against the wall leading up the stairs. You grabbed your gun and held it poised. Looked over the lofted banister and down at the room below. George had backed up into the far corner; his arms raised in non-threatening compliance. Someone must’ve been pointing a weapon at him, but you couldn’t tell from the angle. And James, well… if it didn’t warm your heart a little bit to see him being restrained in a chokehold with a handgun to his temple. The man you could see, holding James, was tall, muscular… he had black, curly, jaw-length hair. A thick mustache. He was in all denim. And it was clean, which was the thing that caught you the most off-guard.
You lifted your gun, disregarding the scope, and looked down the barrel. James may’ve been part of your pack, but you’d thought about putting a bullet in him on a daily basis for the last eight years. And while these guys might kill you afterward, at least you’d have the brief satisfaction of knowing that you’d taken one terrible human off the face of the planet.
So there was no hesitancy when you squeezed the trigger. The round flew by the denim-clad man’s head and went straight into James’. He crumpled to the floor and the man who’d been holding him looked up in your direction, though you’d backed away enough to ensure you weren’t seen.
Your pulse was pounding in your ears. Despite two thirds of your life having been in a post-Cordyceps world, the sound and reverberation of your rifle going off right by your ear didn’t keep it from ringing. An almost concussion-like haziness emphasized by the adrenaline coursing in your veins. From down below, you could just barely hear George pleading for his life. Something about how he had a woman he loved and wanted to go home to. Strange considering he had his dick in you on most days out.
The ringing in your ears started to quiet, just in time for you to hear a footstep behind you. A heavy one. Definitely belonged to a man. But not in time for you to spin around with your rifle before finding the man already pointing his rifle at you.
“Drop it,” he commanded gruffly. A deep, gravelly voice. He was sure of himself. Confident. His tattered jacket bunched up around his shoulders. He wasn’t as clean-looking as his partner currently detaining George. Graying, brown hair, a prominent scar over his nose, a scruffiness… and yet, he still looked too put together to have been living off the land for any amount of time. You should know. God knows what you looked like had you ever taken any time in front of a mirror. If the dirtiness of your hands were any indication, you were a little worse for wear. “I said, drop it,”
Your eyes flicked back up to his face and you slowly bent over and placed your rifle on the floor. No sooner than you’d completed the action, he had another order for you. Kick it here and get on your knees. So you did. Nudged your most prized possession away with your foot when another BANG! rang through the old hunting lodge. Your eyes flinched shut; the nanosecond of thought that this was it. You’re dead. But then… you still felt alive. And you squinted your eyes open to evaluate. Yep, definitely still alive. No bleeding holes coming from your body, and the man still in front of you waiting for you to comply with his last order. Which you did… awkwardly. A grimace stretched over your face when you knelt down and felt your pants sticking to your thighs; Michael’s spend dripping out of you.
The muzzle of the man’s rifle never left you, “got anything else on you?”
“Knife in my front pocket,”
“Slide it over,”
You did. Quickly. Hoping that your quickness and willingness to obey him would mean he’d let you go with your tail tucked between your legs.
“You infected?”
You glared at him, “do I look infected?”
He cocked his gun and held it up in line with your head. You trained your eyes on his index finger around the trigger. Just one twitch. That’s all it’d take.
“Joel,” both you and the man… Joel… looked away from each other, and fixed your eyes on the stairs where the second one – the one you’d disregarded in order to kill James – entered the loft. “Look at her gun,” both men looked at your rifle. “I don’t think she misses very often. If she was gonna kill us, we’d already be dead.”
He went to approach you, and this time Joel spoke up. A cautious step forward, “Tommy.”
But this Tommy… he took another couple steps in your direction and handed off his rifle to Joel when he went to stand in front of you. You kept your eyes on his face, tilting your head back to keep him in your line of vision. Even if he tried something, you weren’t sure what you’d do to stop him, but at least you’d see it coming.
“I don’t think you missed me. I don’t even think you were aiming at me,”
“I wasn’t,”
A victorious smile spread across his face and he twisted around to look back at Joel, “see.” Tommy looked back down at you and set his hands on his hips. “What’s your name?”
You flicked your eyes at Joel quickly before returning them to Tommy to answer his question.
“You’re with the other settlement?”
“I wouldn’t call them a settlement,” your eyes flicked over to Joel when he clicked his tongue on his teeth and rolled his eyes. “Nomads, at best,”
“And at worst?” Joel barked.
Your eyebrows lifted quickly in contemplation before… “a bunch’a assholes,”
Another wide grin broke out over Tommy’s face. “You got a family or a partner in that bunch of assholes?” He waited for a verbal response but you only shook your head. “We’ll take her back with us. She might be able to give us some answers about our friends we’ve been seeing on patrol.”
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They made you walk while they sat easily atop their horses. Some kind of cruel twist of fate that your own gun was turned on you the whole time. Joel made sure of that. Based on the way the sun fell toward the horizon, you figured you’d all been an hour and a half walk south of their settlement. Which as you neared the large wooden gates, seemed to be more like a QZ than some random encampment. And judging by the way the two men bickered, you assumed they were brothers. Only siblings could piss each other off like that and not take it personally. How lucky, you thought, that after all this time, they still had each other.
When you did near the enormous gates, Tommy left you behind with Joel. A precarious position. His face remained stoic the entire time, muzzle of the gun pointed at you… didn’t even answer when you asked if his horse had a name. You thought about goading him into an argument for the fun of it. Maybe he named his horse Princess. Or Spike. But Tommy interrupted again, riding up with a handful of others and even a dog. It growled and snarled in your direction, and you weren’t sure why, but you glanced back up at Joel to see if his expression had changed. Maybe you wouldn’t be so scared if he didn’t look like there was something you should be nervous about.
To your surprise, he was already staring at you. Upon meeting your gaze, he nodded once and jut his chin in the direction of the dog. “S’gonna sniff you. See if you’re infected. If not, like you say, nothin’ll happen.”
“If I am?” You cocked your head back toward the snarling animal.
“It’ll probably just take your leg off or somethin’,”
“Any chance this dog fucks up?”
“Probably not,”
And it didn’t. Thankfully. Hopefully this meant they’d trust explicitly that you indeed weren’t infected. They seemed to trust their trained animal enough to let you inside their settlement. Jackson, they called it. You’d never heard of it. Never heard of any rumblings of a massive commune. And yet…. It was gorgeous. Nice buildings, string lights, stables, a bar, dining hall, and in the distance, what seemed to look like a large, sweeping neighborhood.
Tommy had joined up with a woman: Maria. They kissed and spoke fondly to each other, so you assumed they were partners. Both walked ahead of you, while Joel remained at your rear. You figured with your rifle still pointed at you. Everyone stopped what they were doing when you passed by. All staring to get a glimpse of the newcomer. Would you be joining them permanently? Would they kill you? You asked yourself the same questions.
Your feet had stopped moving but you didn’t notice until you felt the muzzle of your rifle press against your upper back. Joel jabbed the metal against your back again, growing antsier with the fact that your gaze had settled on a teenager in the distance. She was staring at you, too. A fact that seemed to make Joel even more aggravated. He mumbled his annoyance to you and you got moving again, walking up the boarded steps into the dining hall. 
⌾ ⌾ ⌾ ⌾ ⌾
They treated you better than you expected. Hell, better than your group would’ve treated someone they didn’t know. They set a big glass of water in front of you with a heaping plate of vegetables, chicken, and fresh bread. The water was one of the biggest surprises. You couldn’t remember the last time you didn’t have to boil water before drinking it. Maybe when you were still with your parents. That felt like a lifetime ago.
Tommy and Maria shared glances like they weren’t sure what you were going to tell them. Considering no one else joined you, you figured these three (or a combination) held a great deal of power in the settlement. Joel, however, looked pissed that this was even happening at all. That he hadn’t just shot you on sight back at the hunting lodge. It was pretty easy to ignore him. You’d spent the better half of your time on earth ignoring men just like him. But then the questions started coming and you figured all this kindness came at a price. They wanted to know everything. So you didn’t hold back. Maybe if you were open and frank with them, they’d let you stay here. They wouldn’t make you go back to those awful people. 
Told them that you’d been with that group for the last eight years. And in those eight years, they hadn’t really expanded their numbers by any considerable amount. That they hovered somewhere between forty-four and sixty-two people -- including the three that had been killed today – and that about two thirds of them were men. You even told them about how you’d become a sort of fun novelty for the men. That they brought you along on their scouts because you were better than anyone with a rifle. Once they got their rocks off by watching you down game a mile off, they got their rocks off again, fucking you up against anything sturdy enough to withstand the weight and pressure. 
Joel looked down at his lap at that. Avoided your eyes. You took it to mean that he knew what that was like. Maybe he did the same. 
You shrugged and pushed the remnants of food around on your plate. Eight years was a long time to endure that type of treatment. You told them as much.
“You don’t have loyalty to anyone in the other group?” Maria asked, probing. 
“She shot one of her own guys today. Doesn’t have loyalty to anyone,”
Everyone’s heads turned to Joel. He’d since leaned back in his chair, almost nonchalantly. The gun that had been pointed at you now lay on the opposite end of the table. You thought you saw indignance in his eyes. Disdain for you and the plight he perceived you to be on. Scorched earth. Loyal to no one but yourself. Maybe that was true. Maybe you’d evolved to become highly selective in where to lay your loyalty.
“He wasn’t my guy,” you spat in Joel’s direction. It might as well have been just the two of you in the room. “He was the guy that killed my parents. So fuck him,”
It was hard to tell what they thought of you. Tommy was the only one who smiled freely. Maria saved hers for Tommy. And Joel didn’t smile at all. There was no talk of a plan or a future. No conversation about what was to become of you. All they told you as you wandered from the main street and down one cul-de-sac road lined with houses was that they didn’t allow anyone to have weapons in town. All firearms stayed at the armory. 
That conversation ended as they stopped in front of a small one story cottage. It was dark and rickety, and for the life of you, you couldn’t fathom who you were to be put into the arms of. If the house was any indication, probably some horribly untidy mess of a man. Maybe it’d be the type of man you’d wished you’d have your gun around for. 
Maria, Tommy, and Joel led you inside that dark, rickety cottage. Unlocked the door and flicked the lights on as they entered the living room. You kept your eyes and ears alert. Your awareness might be the only upperhand you had in sensing danger here. But you heard nothing. You saw nothing. There wasn’t another soul in this house waiting to attack. It was just you and the three who’d brought you here. They didn’t offer an explanation. Joel just stood back and eyed your every move carefully while Maria handed you a little stack of clean clothes, a toothbrush and a tube toothpaste, and a small cardboard box that held something you’d never heard of before: a diva cup. 
You looked up to give her an apprehensive glance but found that she was already giving you one. It was a look you’d seen before. When you’d talked yourself into joining that other group all those years ago. It was the look the women had given you before they realized you were about to become their saving grace. She turned away from you and gave Tommy a peck on her way out; not even bothering to acknowledge Joel.
There was a part of you that admired her. For the amount of power she clearly wielded over not only these two men, but seemingly the entire commune. And the other part of you was scared of her. She reminded you of your mother. A strong, domineering type who knew how to control the men around her. You figured if the outbreak hadn’t happened and humans didn’t devolve before your very eyes, you might’ve become the same type of woman. The type who could keep her men in line with a look. The type whose men would’ve quivered at the look you’d shot them.
The front door shut behind Maria in the same moment Tommy was handing you a key. You took it in your hand and ran your thumb over the cold, smooth metal. It had been decades since you held one like it. Surely even before the outbreak, people just didn’t hand over keys to houses for nothing.
“You can stay in Jackson for a month on a little trial run–”
“Probation,” Joel interrupted.
Both you and Tommy flicked your eyes at him. While Tommy looked annoyed, you actually smiled. Somehow Joel’s bluntness was growing to be comforting.
“Jesus, Joel,”
He shrugged, “S’call it what it is. Probation to see if she’s a problem and we gotta send ‘er packin’,”
“Appreciate you both not shootin’ me,” you said, you voice sounding hoarse. You cleared your throat and shook your head absently; a small smile passing over your lips, “would’ve put a damper on my day.”
Tommy grinned though his brother looked unamused at your effort of levity. “Someone’ll come ‘round tomorrow morning around seven-thirty to bring you to the greenhouse. Teach you the workflow down there.” Then off your confused look, he smiled again, heading for the door, “if you’re gonna live in the community, you gotta help out.”
Joel turned his back on you to follow his brother, and you were quick on their heels, “what about my gun? I mean, does everyone have their own gun at the armory, or…”
“It’s a commune. We share,” Tommy said over his shoulder as he tugged the front door back open. He and Joel stepped through the threshold, but your voice stopped them.
“It’s just that… I’d rather not be here and have my gun, than be here and have someone else usin’ it. I appreciate what you’re doin’, and your helping me out, but… to me, staying in Jackson isn’t worth havin’ someone else use my weapon,”
“It’ll be safe,”
Tommy’s voice rang clear and sure, trying to reassure you of something. What, you weren’t certain. But he continued on his way, and only once he stepped off the small porch, did you realize that Joel had momentarily kept himself frozen in place. By your front door, staring you down. You started to shrink back beneath his gaze, unable to discern what it was trying to convey to you. Anger. Resentment. Disappointment. The door nearly concealed you entirely before Joel got his bearings again and descended the porch steps and jogged to keep pace with Tommy again.
⌾ ⌾ ⌾ ⌾ ⌾
The whole thing was weird. All of it. Jackson was an anomaly and the more you tried to make yourself at home, the weirder it got. The house they’d just given you was definitely a pre-outbreak build. It was obvious. Some of the other houses on the block looked new. You imagined they’d smell new. Not your cottage. Scuffed up wood floors. Cracks in the paint and drywall. Even the wood-burning stove. And when you looked out the front window, out at the street, you saw children. Walking by themselves. Joking around. Not nearly on edge or high alert. In fact, you dared to say that they looked like they were having fun. 
You’d only been ten when the world came crashing down around you. Fun ripped out from right under your feet. The homestead you’d grown up on – climbing trees, playing hide and seek, shooting down Coke cans – once a safe place to be a kid, had quickly become something to be defended. As you found out many moons later, to the death.
At ten, there wasn’t anything to rebuild in the new world. You hadn’t had any worldly possessions to hang onto. When money became obsolete, it didn’t matter because you’d never had any. Perhaps in a bank somewhere, stuffed away in a savings account that no longer held any weight. Nor did you need the money to get by in life these days. You’d heard tales of the QZ’s from people who’d come from them. Escaped from them. They had a new type of currency. Not the kind you used to have. The green paper money with a bunch of old dudes on the front. The kind your family burned sometime in the winter of 2006 when the first freeze took over and you were sure you’d never get back to the old normal.
And that was what made Jackson the weirdest. It was the closest to ‘old normal’ you’d seen in over two decades. A whole town. Village. Commune, they’d called it. A formal education had stopped young, so the only awareness of anything commune related came from a book your father had about the Bolshevik’s October Revolution. And if you were being honest, it didn’t sound too good. But on top of that, how were you supposed to rebuild now? Maria had been kind enough to give you a few things, but there wasn’t wood for the wood-burning stove. And the electricity might’ve been working, but there wasn’t any food in the fridge. No sides of deer cut up and stored in a chest freezer. How were you supposed to get that in a commune? Did they have money? Did they barter? And either way, you had no money to give and nothing to barter. So how exactly were you supposed to get on in life?
Face up, staring at the ceiling, you laid in bed willing yourself to go to sleep. You’d gone to bed hungry before. More times than you could count. But usually those nights were accompanied by a dirt floor, extreme cold, the threat of being hunted. A million other things to keep your mind off of the fact that your stomach was growling. There wasn’t any of that in Jackson. Everything was quiet, almost eerily so. You were warm. And even though the mattress wasn’t the comfiest of things, it sure as hell beat the floor. With all these little luxuries, it was hard to ignore the hunger.
But even if you had been asleep, you’re sure you would’ve been woken by the footsteps on your old, rickety porch. None of the wood planks laid exactly right. All creaking with age and rot. Much like the world, you thought. Plus you couldn’t remember a night’s sleep that wasn’t disturbed by panic or anxiety, or just plain fear. Probably hadn’t had a peaceful night like that since before the outbreak. Now that creaking on your porch made you jump up and scurry into the corner of your bedroom. Into the shadows. Praying you’d had your rifle. Cursing the idea that you’d stay here without it. 
The creaking came and went in a steady procession. Four footsteps. A pause. Another four footsteps. On and on for a few minutes. Long enough for you to have gained your courage again. Long enough for you to have crawled to the front room and peek through the window. Long enough for you to see Joel Miller ambling back and forth on the porch, stacking pieces of wood, conveniently chopped to fit the size of your wood burning stove. What a stark difference from the Joel Miller who’d been pointing a gun at your head this morning. You went to the door and unlatched it, slowly pulling it open so as to not startle him. He came to an abrupt stop. An armful of wood. Staring at you.
He blinked a couple times in quick procession, gaining the wherewithal to move again. “M’sorry if I woke ya’,”
You shook your head, “I don’t sleep much.”
Joel nodded and set the armful of wood on top of the rest. He wiped his hands on the back of his jeans, almost sheepishly. “Winter comes up on us pretty quick here. Insulation in this place is for the birds. Figured you’d need some wood for the stove.”
“Oh,”
“I cleaned out the flue a couple months back so you shouldn’t smoke yourself out,”
Lips pursed together, you pondered the stack of wood nestled up against the cottage. “I don’t think I’m gonna stay. Doesn’t seem like this is the right place for me,”
Joel didn’t have a response for you, just looked down at his feet and kicked at a nonexistent something on the porch.
“That gun–my gun. My dad gave it to me in 2003. September 26th,”
Joel’s eyes flicked back to yours. Pain riddled in his gaze as if he remembered that date all too well. And when it vanished, the coldness you’d first noticed in the hunting cabin returned.
“It’s all I have left. And as ridiculous as it sounds to be so attached to a rifle, I am. And I–”
“It doesn’t sound ridiculous,” he interrupted. Just when you thought he’d continue on and show a little more softness, kindness… he kept speaking, “Look, I don’t care if you stay or go. Don’t need stragglers hangin’ ‘round. So I’d love to give you your gun back and dump ya’ out past the gate. But Tommy’s always been a little stupid. Takes chances on people,”
“What an idiot,” you smirked.
A smile flashed over Joel’s face. It was gone in a second. And he turned away from you, descending the porch steps. “He’ll bring you to the greenhouse. Teach’ya how things operate, and…” he took a deep breath. Something almost like fondness erupted in his tone, “you might not wanna stay, but don’t fuck things up there for the rest of us. We got families here. And we’ll need the resources to get through the winter.”
“You think I’d fuck things up on purpose?”
Joel looked over his shoulder and nodded, “yeah. ‘Cause I’ve been in your spot before and I did.”
He continued on and you stayed put on your porch, watching him until he was out of sight. Wondering where the house he was given was. If he was alone, or if he had some sort of partner living with him. But also figured you’d never get the chance to know. 
⌾ ⌾ ⌾ ⌾ ⌾
“We get most of our roughage and root vegetables in the colder months. There’s a constant harvest to keep up with the community’s needs, but some of these aren’t hearty enough to withstand the winter. Even inside the greenhouse,”
You nodded dutifully behind Wendy. At least you think that was the name Tommy mumbled as he was being dragged out of the greenhouse by Joel. Something about being late for patrol and not wanting to spend all day on some godforsaken cliffside. She’d just got done showing you the strawberry vines. The lifeless things that she assured you would spring to life when the warmer weather came back.
The work was easy enough. Boring. Nothing you hadn’t already done on your family’s land as a teenager. Only this was on a much smaller scale. Maybe most of these people had come from QZs. And maybe before that they came from big cities. Places where they never knew where their food came from. That it just somehow appeared in their groceries. Yet, by current standards… of canned things from yesteryear, the greenhouse was a bit of a spectacle. Something beautiful.
Wendy continued on her well-practiced lecture about potatoes as you got lost roaming the rows of plants. Up and down each long, leafed path. Fingers gliding over them, not taking the time to stop and acknowledge any plant in particular. Until, in the absence of your thought, your fingers brushed over something woolly. Pulling your hand back, you focused in. There, just beyond your fingertips, a tray of small white flowers. The petals, less like blossoms, but more like leaves. And woolly. Fuzzy. Unlike anything you’d ever seen.
“What’re these?” Eyes still locked onto your discovery, you hadn’t fully comprehended that you’d interrupted Wendy’s spiel.
And yet when she came upon you, there was no ill will or annoyance from her. Just her gentle hand on your shoulder. “It’s edelweiss,” she smiled and shrugged her shoulders when her answer had you giving her a questioning glance. “It’s usually up in the Alps. In the middle of nowhere. Jesse came back from patrol one day ‘bout a year ago with a handful of these plucked up from the root. No idea how they ended up in Wyoming.” Wendy brushed her fingers over the fuzzy leaves.
“How’d you know what they were?”
“Call it coincidence or divine intervention, my grandfather had an oil painting of them above his fireplace in the eighties. When he was stationed in Germany during the war, he’d heard all these stories about this little star-shaped flower. Soldiers would climb high up into the mountains to find them. They grow in the harshest places, sometimes even right on rocks. The journey to get them was hard. A lot of guys didn’t finish the trip, but if they did, they got to pin one of these to their uniforms. A symbol of true bravery,”
You admired the flowers again. Now even a smile crossed your face.
Wendy let out an exasperated sigh, “and I figured, hell… if they can survive on the top of the Alps and in this nightmare of an apocalypse, Jesse finding ‘em wasn’t no mistake. Maybe we’re lucky here in Jackson.”
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pumpkinbxtch · 4 months
Note
Can you plzz do a percy smut where he only rubs the readers clit bc the reader is too scared to finger herself, but then she gets the courage to finger herself and charles shows her how to do it??
confidence
— percy jackson x fem!reader
warnings; recommended for +18, smut and nsfw things happening.
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tags; fingering, language, the reader is inexperienced, angst if you squint, A little dom!percy but he's really sweet a/n; so yeah, it had to being percy the first smut request ever, thanks it's the first time so please forgive me if i failed, lol. I will improve, I swear
"You're doing so well..." he murmured a few inches from your ear, sending a shiver down your spine that made you press even closer to his chest.
The room was filled only with the dim light of the setting sun and the sweet sounds Percy coaxed from you as his fingers massaged your clit under your already soaked panties. The constant movement of his fingertips on that sweet spot had you lifting your hips, seeking more, but he kept you in check, placing his free hand on your tummy and planting wet kisses on your neck.
"Such an impatient girl," your boyfriend whispered playfully, and you felt his smile on your cheek as he gathered your juices. That brief moment near your entrance made your pussy clench painfully around nothing, increasing your desperation. You squirmed on his lap, eliciting a growl from him due to the hard bulge pressing against your lower back. Yet, what you desired didn't happen.
"Uh, Percy... please."
The dark-haired man clicked his tongue repeatedly in disapproval and deliberately slowed his movements. Your whines became audible as you lifted your hips again, trying to find relief on your own. Instead, your boyfriend pressed you back against him, making you whimper softly.
"I know, I know," he said apologetically while nibbling on your ear, his own hips grinding against you, trying to alleviate some of the growing pain. Percy loved hearing you, especially when you seemed so needy. "But this is the only way, sweetheart..."
And you knew it. You knew what game you were playing, but your sensation-clouded mind was working against—or maybe for—you. It was something you wanted, and he was helping you with it, as you'd never been able to touch yourself more than superficially.
Percy's fingers brushed toward your entrance, and he chastely dipped his fingertips in. A moan began to form in your throat, and your heartbeat quickened.
"Please," you mewled pathetically, and he kissed your cheek warmly. Taking your hand, which had been clutching the sheets, he placed it on your pussy.
"If you want it so badly, you'll have to do it yourself, princess."
Those were the words you had hoped deep down would never be said, but you were so worked up you didn't know if you could resist trying. In a second, with his hand still guiding you, your fingers replaced Percy's, which had moved to your top to play with your breasts.
"Need some help, sweetheart?" he asked while tightening his grip on your hips. You nodded slightly, your heart about to burst.
"Words."
"Yes," you breathed.
Not long after his hips encouraged you to do so, your fingers finally entered, and stars filled your vision. It was the first time you could feel yourself, becoming a mess of moans and babbles as your boyfriend continued to touch you elsewhere, making the tension in your stomach grow, threatening to explode.
"Oh, now you know, huh?" Percy whispered in your ear, breathless, his eyes fixed on the spectacle you provided. "You know why I go crazy every time I'm inside you, because you're so damn tight."
At his words, it was inevitable that your walls clenched again, this time around your fingers, and you let out a loud moan that almost made your boyfriend come just from watching you. You whimpered and pumped your fingers, knowing you wouldn't last long with the new sensation. When you finally closed your eyes tightly, your body tensing completely, Percy knew you had succeeded.
He helped you handle the overwhelming emotion, hugging you tightly and whispering sweet things in your ear.
"That's right, Angel," he said before giving you another kiss on the cheek, your weight now almost entirely on his chest. "You just had to have a little confidence."
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thetriumphantpanda · 1 year
Text
she a bad lil bitch, she a rebel | joel miller
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Summary | Joel has to teach you a damn lesson, just like always.
Pairing | Brat Tamer!Joel x F!Reader
Word Count | 4K
Warnings | brat tamer!Joel, softdom!Joel, praise kink, implied age gap, spanking, use of rope restraints, hair-pulling, edging, orgasm denial, squirting, (1) singular pussy slap, unprotected PiV sex, rough sex, oral sex (M&F receiving), face-fucking, fingering, dirty talk, breath play, biting, cum play/cum eating, reader is a bratty menace, aftercare(!), no use of y/n.
Authors Note | All I'm going to say is this came to me in a dream and I had to get it down on paper. Mostly written on my phone with very little proofreading, so any mistakes are my own and I will live and die by them. This is basically just pure filth. Enjoy, and happy birthday to that old man. I love him but I would give him the hardest time, just like reader.
Main Masterlist | Ko-Fi
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If there was one thing that you lived for, it was pushing Joel Miller’s patience. The poor man had wandered into Jackson, little girl in tow, looking worn and weary almost a year ago, and from the moment you set eyes on him, you just knew you had to give this old man a run for his money. 
You’d started subtle, flirting with him on patrol, taking his distaste at your attempt to talk to him at every second as a personal challenge to break him, to work him down just enough to make your move. After a couple of weeks, he’s started talking, mainly in single word answers, but you’d managed to slowly chip him down. 
Then came the weekly drinks at The Tipsy Bison, everyone on patrol usually went, apart from those scheduled to be out that day, but he’d started laughing at your jokes and had even opted to sit next to you on occasion. Then one night, he’d walked you home, you’d had one too many glasses of whiskey, kissed him on the porch but agreed it wasn’t right to fuck right then, but he’d come back, that next night, both of you sober, and you’d kissed him again, and the rest really was history. 
It’s late afternoon when he comes through his front door, toeing his boots off as the door slams behind him. You’ve been led on his couch for most of the afternoon, reading a book you’d plucked from his shelf – some nonsense Western that did nothing to keep your attention, but was enough to keep you occupied whilst you waited for him to come home. 
“Afternoon,” You sing to him as he shrugs his jacket off, hanging it on the coat stand near the door, “Good patrol?” 
“Was fine,” He grumbles, just like he always does, he swats at your legs to get you to move them enough for him to sit down, “Scoot,” You lift them up just long enough for him to ease himself onto the couch, before you put them back down on his lap, abandoning the book on the coffee table, “You sort the stuff in the kitchen like I asked?” 
“No.” You say simply, shaking your head, subtly digging the heel of your foot into the front of his jeans. 
His big palm circles your ankle, gripping in warning, “What about the sheets, you wash ‘em?”
“Did you see them pegged out when you came home?” You ask, sweetly, using your other foot now to dig into his jeans. 
“Will you fuckin’ quit it?” He seethes a little, other hand gripping your other ankle to still you, “What have you done all day, huh?” He implores, “I don’t keep ya around to lounge about lookin’ pretty.” 
You chuckle, “That’s exactly why you keep me around, old man.” 
“Shut up,” He squeezes at your ankles, “I asked you a question, you gonna answer me?” 
You shrug, “Woke up late,” You hold up one finger, “Felt horny so I got myself off,” Another finger, “Had a shower, used the last of that nice soap,” Another finger, “Made lunch,” Another finger, “And then led here reading one of your stupid books until you came home.” A final finger raised so you’re holding up and entire hand, palm facing towards him. 
You’re looking at him, all scowling face and dark eyes as his fingers wrap even tighter around your ankles. If you didn’t know him like you did, you’d be frightened, but you know he’s just thinking about the best way to deal with you. You wonder which of his lessons he’s going to bring out today as the look he’s giving you shoots straight down to your core. 
“I ask you to do two things,” He sighs, like he’s tired, “I ain’t exactly expectin’ slave labour from you, and you sit here and treat it like the Hilton?” 
“What’s the Hilton?” You ask, genuinely curious, thinking it must have been something from the times before all this, the times you were too young to remember. 
“Forget it.” He growls, and you think any minute now he’s gonna move to drag you off and show you just how bad you’ve been, but he doesn’t move, just sits with your ankles clasped in his hands, staring at the wall in front of him. 
“I’ve been so bad Joel,” You goad, trying to wriggle your ankles free, “Aren’t you going to teach me a lesson?” 
“No,” He spits, “I ain’t, because you like it too damn much, ain’t teachin’ you anythin’ because you never learn.” 
You pout a little, looking up at him through your eyelashes, “Promise to listen real hard this time Joel,” You promise, “Try and learn and much as possible.” 
“No,” He speaks, stern tone, with a warning squeeze to your ankles again, “Been a long day, don’t have the energy to bring you into line.” 
“Ah, I see,” You muse, “You’re feeling too old today.” 
“What did you just say t’me?” He’s incredulous now, good, you’ve got him just where you want him. 
“Oh, nothing,” You giggle, “Don’t worry.” 
It seems to do the trick though, because he’s pushing himself up from the couch, gripping at your wrist now to pull you up as well. He pushes you gently by the small of your back to get you to walk in front of him, “Upstairs.” Is the only instruction he gives, along with a playful swat to your bottom as you start up the stairs. 
He’s crowding behind you, always following just one step behind as you make your way to his bedroom, suddenly aware that you didn’t make the bed when you rolled out of this morning. That’s surely another black mark to your name, you think, as he sits down on the edge of the bed. 
“Get undressed.” 
This is new, normally Joel liked to be the one to unwrap you, but you start working on the buttons of your shirt, undoing it and dropping it to the floor, followed closely behind by your jeans, leaving you standing in front of him in your underwear, “All of it.” He demands. 
Your hands shakily reach behind you to unclasp your bra, dragging it from your body to land with the rest of your clothes. You drag your panties down your legs and step out of them, wrapping your arms across your chest to try and cover yourself a little. Joel reaches out a hand to you, which you take timidly, expecting him to pull you into him so he could put his mouth on you, anywhere, but instead, you find yourself pulled to him and folded over his lap so quickly you let out a surprised yelp. 
“So fuckin’ naughty, all the damn time baby,” He speaks softly, running his fingers down the length of your spine, “Don’t ever think you’ll learn how to be good.” 
His hand trails down to your bare ass, gripping the skin with his hands, using his other arm to press you down into his lap, rough material of his jeans rubbing against the sensitive peaks of your tits and the soft skin of your tummy. He rubs his rough palm over the globes of your ass, anticipation building in your body. Then, he pulls away, bringing his palm down onto your ass with a satisfying ‘smack’ ringing through the air. It takes a while for your brain to catch up with what’s just happened, but then the stinging sensation settles across your skin and has you wriggling to get away. 
“Keep still,” Joel chastises, free hand digging further into the small of your back to keep you from moving, “That’s one, how many do you think you deserve baby?” He muses, “Fifty?” 
“W-what?!” You exclaim, “N-no Joel, that’s too much.” 
“Forty then?” His palm is cradling at the skin he’s just spanked. 
“T-ten?” You offer feebly. 
“Oh baby girl,” He tuts at you, “Aim higher.” 
“Fifteen?” 
“How about we settle for twenty, baby?” He asks, all soft and sweet, “Twenty seems reasonable to me.” 
He doesn’t give you time to agree, it would seem the bargaining time is over, as he brings his palm back down onto your ass, harder than before, but in the same exact place. It jolts you on his lap, makes you cry out. The front of your body dragging against his denim. 
“How many?” He asks, rubbing his hand over the skin he’s just spanked. 
“Two.” You reply quietly, trying to keep the whimper you want to let out to yourself. 
“Good girl,” He praises, raising his hand again, “Keep count for me, okay?” 
Smack.
“Three!” You shriek, as his palm yet again connects with that same patch of skin. 
Smack.
“F-four.” 
Smack.
“Oh fuck,” You groan, trying to wriggle away unsuccessfully, it’s already too much, “Five!”
Smack.
This one doesn’t hurt as much; Joel’s shifted the assault of his palm onto the virgin side of your ass for you. You suck in a deep breath, try and blink away the tears that have formed in your eyes, as his hand massages where it’s just struck. He gives you another four on that cheek, and then switches back to the original, bringing his palm back down onto the skin that you’re sure is reddening by now. 
“Joel!” You cry out, tears dropping from your eyes now, but your body betrays you and arches your back for him, pushing your ass up like you’re asking for it, “E-eleven.” 
It carries on like that, five spanks to each cheek until you’re practically sobbing over his lap. You count the twentieth spank and a feeling of relief washes over you as he bends over you to press a light kiss to the sore skin he’s left. It makes you hiss, the contact, no matter how gentle he is with it. Then, he’s shifting you off his lap and onto the bed, letting you scurry away to the top of the mattress as he stands. 
The stinging of the skin of your ass is still making you sniffle as Joel shuffles to the bedside table, digging around in it. You’re not quite sure what he’s looking for, focusing mainly on trying to keep the red raw skin of your ass off the sheets, when he stands, throwing what he was looking for onto the sheets next to you. You turn your head and see the length of rope that he keeps in his drawer just for moments like this. 
“Arms up.” He short with you, sitting on his knees next to you. 
You do as you’re told, raising your arms above your head, still pushing your ass off the bed, but knowing soon enough you’ll be focused on something else that isn’t the stinging sensation of your ass. He takes your wrists and binds them together deftly, like it’s a walk in the park for him, like it’s something he does all the time. Then, once he’s sure your wrists are safely encased in rope, he takes the other end and ties it to his bed frame. He tugs slightly to make sure the way he’ll have you thrashing soon means that you won’t be able to pull yourself free. 
“That okay?” He asks gruffly, to which you nod, “Words, baby.” 
“Y-yes,” You stammer, “It’s okay.” 
“Remember your word?” He asks, stepping off the bed to partially undress, shucking his jeans and flannel off, but keeping his t-shirt and boxers on. 
“I remember.” 
He hums in approval, settling himself on the bed between your thighs, using wide palms to spread you open for him. You’re absolutely soaked, pussy dripping with slick from his palms and the way he’s trussed you up to his bed. 
Joel lets out a low whistle, letting his thumb rub up the length of your folds, “See,” He murmurs, using his thumb to gently spread the lips of your pussy to reveal your clit, already swollen and begging for attention, “Told ya that ya liked being punished too much,” He lets his thumb make a single swipe over that bundle of nerves, chuckling as you cry out, hips bucking to try and follow his finger, “She’s already fuckin’ soaked for me, baby.” 
You let out a high-pitched mewl, a begging sound that you hope tells him that you need him to touch you, you need to feel the pleasure you know he’s capable of after the pain he’s just inflicted. Mercifully he obliges, pressing the calloused pad of his thumb back to your clit, slick gathered there from before, as he starts rubbing in fast, precise circles. You’ve been so worked up that you can already feel the coil tightening in your tummy, and you know Joel can sense it as well, the way your hips are moving in time to his movements and the way you’re arching your back off the bed are a dead giveaway. 
You can feel yourself reaching that peak, so fucking close to tipping over the edge when he tears his hand away from your core and sits back, watching as you try and move back towards him, moaning in frustration at being left high and dry. You’re wriggling about, trying to close your thighs to rub them together to get yourself off, when he pushes a wide palm into your belly. He’s so powerful in the best way, stilling your movements immediately as you look up at him, face serious. 
“Remind me what the second thing on your list was this mornin’, baby?” He asks, voice as innocent as pie. 
You’re wracking your brain, lust making you more confused about what the fuck he’s even talking about. Then it dawns on you, what you’d told him downstairs. Felt horny so I got myself off. 
“You’ve got a big brain baby,” He coos, one palm squeezing your thigh, “I know you remember, so go on, tell me what you did.” 
“I g-got myself off.” 
“And is that what good girls do?” He asks, hand ghosting back to your pussy, knuckles of his hand brushing over your skin there. 
“N-no?” You question. 
“That’s right,” He hums, fingers slipping between your folds once more to gather some of the insane amount of slick that’s pooling at your aching entrance, “And besides, gettin’ to come is a reward, and I ain’t sure you deserve that right now.” 
His thumb is back on your clit now, moving in exactly the same way as before, with just the right amount of pressure to be building you back up. It feels so fucking good already and you know the way it feels when he tips you over the edge, you know how delicious it is and God, you want it so bad. 
“Please Joel,” You beg, all throaty and lust-filled, “I’ll be so good, I promise.” 
“Maybe ya should’a thought about that earlier,” He growls, “Before you came without me, thought you could do it better than me, huh?” 
“No!” You exclaim, because that’s definitely not true, you could never make yourself feel the way he does, “Oh God, please Joel.” You’re so fucking close, just a few more passes of his thumb and you could do it, you know you could, but so does he, which is why he’s tearing his thumb away from you again. 
You actually cry now, tears of frustration building in the corner of your eyes, threatening to spill over as you thrash around on the bed, hissing when the rope around your wrist digs in but not caring all that much. 
“Quit your cryin’.” He chastises, hand on your hip to keep you still. 
You whimper, lip wobbling, trying to keep your cool. All you want is to reach out to him. You think if you could touch him, he would give you what you want, so you’re pretty sure that’s why he’s got you tied to the damn bed, to keep himself in check, to see this through, because Joel Miller always folds to you when you put your hands on him, weak man that he is. 
“You’re being so mean.” You cry out as he shifts, lying flat on his stomach so you can feel his breath on your aching pussy. 
“You were the one beggin’ to get punished baby,” And it smarts because it’s true, “I’m only givin’ you what you wanted.” 
He leans forward, tongue licking a stripe through your pussy, all the way up to your clit where he sucks the little bud into his mouth, rolls it between his lips and then lets it pop from his mouth like an ice-pop. He flicks it with the tip of his tongue a few times and you suck in a breath, your fingernails digging painfully into the palm of your hands as you focus on trying to reach the cliff edge and fall over it this time. 
You’re holding your breath, hips working in time with the movements of his mouth, eyes screwed shut just trying to focus on how good it feels. You can hear the rustling of sheets, which means if you were to open your eyes and look down at him, you’d find him grinding himself into the bedsheets for his own relief. He pulls off you, and you’re about to curse him out when he speaks. 
“You wanna come, baby?” He asks, punctuating it with a flick of his tongue. 
“Oh please Joel,” You beg, and even to your ears it sounds wrecked and pathetic, “Please let me come.” 
Then, you’re shrieking because the palm that has dealt so much damage to your ass this evening, has now swatted your aching cunt, “No.” He says simply, pushing himself back up and onto his knees. 
He pulls his t-shirt over his head, throwing it somewhere behind him. You’re squirming as he shucks off his boxers, moving awkwardly to kick them off, before he’s mounting your body, those strong thighs straddling your chest as his throbbing cock rests just millimetres from your mouth. He reaches down, let’s his fingers tangle in your hair as he pulls your head forward roughly. Your mouth, like muscle-memory takes over, opens, and the head of his cock slips over your tongue. You can already taste the salty beads of pre-cum as he shuffles forward a little, easing his cock into your mouth until it’s hitting the back of your throat. 
He holds your head steady with the fingers tangled in your hair as he fucks your throat. The sound is obscene, practically pornographic, the wet sounds that come as the head of his cock meets the back of your throat on every thrust. He pulls out of your mouth every now and then, when he’s thrust too hard and makes you gag on him, but fucking hell it’s turning you on so much. You can feel yourself literally dripping onto the sheets, you don’t think anything has ever made you this wet before. 
He pulls his cock out of your mouth one last time, a string of saliva connecting him to your mouth until he pulls away enough for it break, laying wet across your chin and down your neck. Joel shuffles back down your body and you think finally, you’re going to get some relief. 
He hooks your knees over his arms, pushing them forward to your chest as his throbbing cock slips through your folds. He rocks his hips a few times, the bulbous head of him swiping over your clit, before he unexpectedly buries himself into your soaked cunt in one go. 
You actually sob at the feeling. You’ve been so empty all night, and now you’re so full of him, so crowded by his body, that you finally feel some kind of relief. He’s still for a moment – once it would have been to get you used to the heft of him inside you, but right now, you know it’s because he’s just as fucked as you are, and he wants to make sure you’ve truly learnt your lesson. 
Once he’s collected himself, he sets a bruising pace. Cock dragging out of your slick heat and slamming back into you. He revels in the way your tits bounce with every thrust, so much so that he leans forward and bites at the flesh, sucking bruises into your skin as he pounds himself right into the very depth of you. 
“Doin’ so good for me baby,” He groans out against your skin, sucking your nipple into his mouth, letting it go with a wet pop as he pushes himself back up for me, “Takin’ your punishment so well.” 
The angle he’s got you folded into means the head of his cock is brushing against the spongy spot inside you every time. Your pussy is clenched so tightly around him that it’s a miracle he’s held on for this long. He finally brings his thumb back to your clit and you’re begging this time that he’ll let you finish, because if he doesn’t you’re pretty sure you might actually die. 
“Joel,” You mewl, “I’m g-gonna – holy shit – m’gonna come.” 
“Go on baby,” He finally relents, you let out a sob of relief, “Come on my cock for me, like a good girl.” 
It’s so overwhelming when it finally happens. Your vision blurs and blood rushes to your ears, blocking out any sound that isn’t the beating of your pulse. Your pussy clenches impossibly tight around him as pleasure finally floods through every inch of your body. You feel yourself literally gush on his cock, soaking his skin, your skin, the bedsheets beneath you. You think you might even scream his name as your body convulses and shakes, arches up into him. 
You’re slightly aware of him pulling his cock from inside you, letting your knees drop. You can hear the slap of his fist on his skin as he fists his cock, and then he’s growling out your name, his cum spattering over your tummy, lying hot and thick on your sticky skin. It’s silent for a good few moments, the only thing you can focus on is the sound of you both sucking in breath to your lungs and the burn of the rope around your wrists. 
“Look at me.” Joel demands, and you do, your eyes meeting his, which are almost black with lust, his face flushed, sweat pooling at his hairline. 
He drags a finger through the pools of his cum, bringing his fingers to your mouth. He presses them into the flat of your tongue, letting you swallow, which continues until you’ve cleaned every inch of him from your skin. He then works quickly to untie the knots that have you bound to the bed, freeing your skin from the burning feeling that’s settled there. 
“Stay still,” It’s still demanding, but it’s softer now, as he gets off the bed, dropping the rope to the floor, “I’ll be right back.” 
He comes back moments later with a glass of water and a cool cloth. He rolls you over onto your tummy, pressing the cool material to your ass, trying to soothe the red welts of his handprints that have already started to form. He presses soothing, open-mouth kisses to the skin before he rolls you back over onto your back. 
He moves you because you’re pliant now, to rest against the pillows, handing you the water to drink as he runs the last of the cooling cloth over your lower tummy and through the folds of your spent cunt, then it’s discarded to the floor with everything else, and you’re being pulled to his chest, kiss pressed to your forehead. 
“Too much?” He asks quietly, checking to make sure he hasn’t crossed some line with you. 
“Just perfect.” You reply, eye-lids heavy with sleep. 
He brings one of your wrists to his mouth, letting his tongue lick soothing stripes along the reddened skin there, kissing every now and then, but keeping you pressed tightly to his chest, you own arm draped around his waist.
“You learn your lesson?” He asks then. 
“Probably not,” You hum against the sweaty skin of his chest, “I don’t think you’re ever going to fuck the attitude outta me, Miller.” 
1K notes · View notes
starflirts · 2 months
Note
HOW MUCH IS WEED with percy and the prompt “i couldn’t stop missing you even if i tried” <33 requesting for a bit angst hurt/comfort with a happy ending..congrats on a 100!!
here you go anon!! <3
percy jackson x reader
You didn’t think it’d go this far. A simple disagreement about something mundane led to an almost screaming match as you stood in front of your boyfriend, arms crossed.
“No, this isn’t how it works Percy and you know it !”
he scoffs. “Yeah right, because you know me so well don’t you ?”
It takes you a couple of seconds to retaliate. Without another word, you pick up your bag and your coat laying on the back of Percy’s couch.
“I’m out. I don’t want to deal with this anymore.”
As you storm through his hallway, your boyfriend is still in his living room, rubbing his temples. “go ahead!” he bites
With your hand on the knob, you turn back one last time.
“Don’t call me for a while. I think we need some space.”
Still blinded by his own anger, Percy snaps. “Fine by me!”
The last thing he hears is the slam of his front door. Falling back on the couch, Percy holds his head into his hands, his harsh words running through his mind.
You’re no better, angrily wiping tears as you head home.
You kept your word and stubbornly avoided any contact with Percy, yet a small part of you still looked for him in your notifications.
After a couple weeks without seeing the two of you hanging out, your friends started to plan something to get the two of you in the same room again. “You used to be practically joined at the hip! This can’t go on!” was what they all said.
And unbeknownst to you, they did plan to get the two of you together again. You were all supposed to meet up at the cafe on the corner of your street but no one was there when you arrived. Guessing they were late, you pulled out your phone when you suddenly heard a voice you haven’t heard in what felt like ages.
“Sorry I’m la- Y/N ?” snapping your head up, you’re face to face with a disheveled Percy, cheeks red from the probable run from his block to yours.
“Hi. I don’t think the others are coming.” you tell him blankly, already gathering your stuff to leave.
“Wait!” Percy starts as he sits in the chair across from you, laying a hand on your wrist. “Can we… talk ?” his eyes are almost pleading and you nod.
“Listen, I- I can't stop thinking about our argument, and about us. I messed up. I know you said you didn’t want me to call you so I didn’t but it was so hard trying not to look through all my notifications thinking about you.”
You smile at that, glad he felt the same way you did. Shaking your head, your hand reaches for his.
“It’s okay. I’m at fault here too. I shouldn’t have stormed off like that. I should’ve talked it out,” you pause “we both should’ve talked it out.”
“This won’t happen again.” he answers earnestly.
You laugh, “I hope so! It was so hard trying not to miss you.”
His hand squeezes yours. “I couldn’t stop missing you even if I tried.”
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lady-ashfade · 7 months
Text
Blood And Pressure
Part three
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Yandere!Pjo × Fem!Grisha!reader. (Platonic Yandere gods) (romantic!various characters)
-♡ Chapters: Previous // Next
-♡ characters: Percy Jackson, Luke Castellan, Clarisse La Rue, Annabeth Chase, Grover Underwood
-♡ this is a shadow & bone slight crossover. Reader is a heartrender and that's all really (maybe more in the future!)
-♡ Please note that all characters are aged appropriately, so all characters are older versions of the book characters. So 17-19 characters for these, you can choose any of them really. Just that they are older teens. (Except for Clarisse and Luke at pjo show actors)
-♡ warnings: short, yandere behaviors, obsession, stalking, slightly sick love, possessive, manipulative, gaslighting, platonic yandere too, blood powers, powerful powers but not godly, and future warnings when more chapters come out. (Luke will be back don’t worry)
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“Well,” you sigh and look at Percy with sadness but tried to not show it. In this short time you had someone who dispute just meeting you, gave you something you wanted for as long as you have been here. A friend.
“You’ll be great here. Luke will take care of you.” Percy gripped the straps of his backpack at his name on your lips.
“Yeah, he seems nice..” he looked past your shoulder at the boy that must have been a year older then him. But he was much larger then he was..more muscular and a few inches taller.
“It’s hard to be in a new place, trust me I know that.” You paused for a second and he could see you running over your thoughts. Before he could piece together anything you wrapped your arms around him and embraced him.
He was stunned in place as his chest become breathless at being close to you. This was his chance, so he wrapped his arms around you and smiled at how your hair smelled sweet.
“Thank you Percy,” you whispered while still holding so tightly onto him. You cared little about anything else.
“For what?”
“Giving me a friend for as long as I can.” You pulled back from him and stepped away with a embarrassed expression. Before percy could reply, Chiron called your name and you gave him one last look and walked away.
You walked out the cabin beside the centaur with your legs practically dragging.
You felt sick to your stomach while thinking of being back in the house and being stuck there again with no one your age to hang out with. You stared at the ground while waking and you could feel Chirons gaze on you but you didn’t bother looking up.
Deep down you knew you weren’t supposed to be here. It didn’t make sense to you but you blacked out everything before this “camp” and only pieces came back to you. You remember someone training you…you remembered your powers and how to use them. And, you remember the book you had- the only thing of your old life. But not what you are.
“It’s just a silly little story,” you overheard the first night in the big house. “Just let her keep it.” Chiron convinced the god.
Now you got a taste of freedom you didn’t want to go back. You wanted to be with people your own age, you wanted friends. You think i’d go insane to spend another week trapped in that place.
“So,” a new voice creeped up in your ears. You both come to a stop and you find yourself looking up. A new girl. She was beautiful but her harsh glare and muscles set a shiver down your spine. Her eyes looked you up and down causing you to shift uncomfortably.
“She’s finally out of her cage.” Her teeth poked out from her smile and for some reason it reminded you of a shark or a lion…like she hunted pray for fun, and you were her next kill.
“Clarisse, lovely to see you.” The man smiled softly but his voice sounded different like a warning of some sort. “We are just going back, is there anything you need?” You throat goes dry when she starts to step closer to you.
“What is she? No one at camp knows but you guys seem to,” you play with your fingers under her almost threatening gaze. You remember one glare like that…Ares had one.
Not that you ever met him really but there was a dream. You were in a place with thrones around you and people sat amongst them and screamed at each other. Not much did you catch or remember of what was said, almost like you were meant to. But the subject did revolve around you.
“Tell me, what are you?” That’s when things clicked in your mind. Someone had asked that before.
“That’s enough. Go back to your cabin—”
“I’m a heartrender.”
The pair stare at you before moving their wide eyes up. You feel your blood pump faster and a growing confidence and remember who you were. Slowly coming down from high you felt, you notice their gaze wasn’t on you anymore but just above you.
“What?” You asked before taking a glance above you and see something shining bright above you. Stepping back you found yourself confused…no god was your parent, you weren’t a half blood. So why was one claiming you…
Thunder could be heard and rumbled underneath your feet. This couldn’t be right.
“That’s impossible..”
A peacock feather hung above your head in all its glory.
Taglist @maria699669 @gorgeourrific-nerd @alliriseabove @targaryenluvs @theaaeht @dabalyuteeeftia @weepingwitchofthewest @iris1587 @tulipmagnoliaisme @ameliashideout @purplerose291 @poppyflower-22 @riaaavm
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leaawrites · 7 months
Text
It's nice to have a friend
Percy Jackson x mortal fem!reader
Warnings: use of Y/n, mentions of almost dying, Percy's stupid at some points, friends to lovers
Summary: Percy can't let your hands freeze to death, only because he had to make you lose yours in the first place.
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Looking out the window Y/n saw the frozen water falling down from above. Their heritage, the clouds, were a dark color of white, however the snow didn’t make the scene dark, it made it comfortable. It gave her a type of warm hug, a feeling she couldn’t forget. A feeling she wanted to save for the warm summer days, the same as she saves the sun for rainy days, and the rain for when the flowers bloom.
The bell rang, signaling that the lesson, and the school day therefor, was over. Y/n sighned, she did want to walk through the streets covered in snow, but her hands would freeze to death in the meantime, since she lost her gloves a year before.
With her hands in the pockets of her coat and her gaze on the floor, watching the snow squish under her boots, while new one fell onto them, she concentrated on the music in her ears. Only looking up when she heard child’s laughter. On the other side of the sidewalk, 4 kids were having a snowball fight, laughing together when one gets hit by the snow. Y/n stopped, admiring the fun in their eyes.
“You wanna join them?” A voice beside her asked.Turning around, she saw her best friend, Percy.
She would still concider him her best friend, even when he started to ditch her every summer for some summer camp he couldn't tell her too much about. She liked the boy, she really did. But something about his behavior when she asked him about it didn't sit right with her. It was like he didn’t want her to know. Before this, Percy would've told her everything. No matter what, she used to always be the first to know. Whether it be about a new school he was sent to or someone that bullied him on that day. It was always her. Now it were his new friends.
She tried to tell herself that it was because Percy wanted to leave some of his old life behind whenever he went to summer camp. Like it were two seperate worlds. But she knew that Grover, another friend of Percy's, was also there.
"I can’t," she answered. "I lost my gloves last year, after you had to take me to one of those." She pointed to the kids, smilling at the memory of back then.
“Oh, yeah.” He remembered, laughing at the memory as well.
Both of them were prepared to make the other go down and suffer in the snow that day a year ago. It was a simple and nice idea, until Percy decided he had to help a duck on the lake. At that time he hadn’t had snow gloves himself, so he borrowed Y/n’s.
Long story short, the duck ended up almost drowning, together with Percy, but could rescue itself, while the gloves were sliding from Percy’s hands and fell into the freezing water. He hadn’t bought her new one’s, he insisted on doing so, but she refused to accept them when he got them for her. She didn’t want him to spent his money on her, so she said she would buy new one’s herself. Since it was technically her own fault for giving them to him, when she knew they wouldn’t end up on her own pair of hands anyway. However, she forgot until it was too late.
"You almost died that day, how can you laugh about it?" She asked the pale boy. With the white snow surrounding him he fit right into it.
"t was a fun day, you can’t deny it, can you?" He asked her, searching for the comformation he always craved from her. He wanted her to agree with him in everything, so that he knew that they were still balancing on the same thin line like before all the sudden changes in his life.
Spending time with her always kind of made him feel more at ease. She was his home. She was who he was so used to, he could tell her everything. Besides about camp and his now second life. It was too dangerous. So, he keot it to himself. Rather have her angry than dead, right?
"It was a fun day," she agreed, stuffing her hands further into her pockets from the cold temperatures.
"Have mine," Percy said, holding his gloves into her direction, after seeing her shaking body.
"No, thanks,” she said, continuing walking home. "I’m not even that cold."
But the chattering of her teeth betrayed her and Percy looked at her with a dumbfounded expression.
"Then have one at least," he tried to compromise, looking into her eyes with that certain look. Raising his eyebrows, Percy moved the glove more to her body, until she couldn’t refuse to take it anymore. Rolling her eyes in annoyance, she put the black glove over her freezing hand. Feeling the warm of his hand from before, made an slight blush creep up on her face. Which she played off from the cold.
"What is with the other, genuis?" she asked. She didn’t want a second glove but a conversation.
He only took her hand into his, beginning to walk again, not looking at her once. Her face grew even hotter and her body was filling with warmth as their bare freezing skin touched and exchanged body heat. Both were burning from the desire of this being more than a friendly encounter.
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psychesalcove · 17 days
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congrats on 100 followers!!! you deserve it🩷🩷
can i request percy with "no, mom, don't tell them I said that about them!"?? i can just see sally telling percy’s s/o just how much he talks about them😭
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✧.* percy jackson x gn reader
my blog is completely race & body type friendly!
part of psyches, 'in memory of those who chose the sea' event
-> want to participate?
an: thank you soo so much for the request love!! i definitely think this prompt fits percy really well:) love ya 🩷 ps. i'm sososo sorry about how inactive i've been. I've been having a massive writing block and I've been needing to write for English lately:((
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the smell of pancakes pulled you into the kitchen of sallys apartment even more than the warm light shining through the balcony window. sally immediately sensed you walked in, as she turned to you with a soft grin. 'hi, dear.' she said, sleep nowhere in her voice; even though it was 7 on a saturday morning.
'hi, sally,' you smiled. you couldn't count the amount of times you tried to call her ms. jackson only for her to correct you and say 'just call me sally, i'm basically your second mom already' with a wave of her hand.
sally was standing over the oven, making pancakes as you suspected. a couple of bunched up paper towels were on the counter, the blue food dye stains evident on them. 'im just finishing up breakfast, so feel free to have a seat,' she explained, tilting her head twords the small island counter with stools.
you nodded your head and walked over, sitting down in the comfy barstool. as you got rid of the rest of the sleepiness in your system, sally finished up breakfast. as she placed the last of the blue pancakes onto the stack, she turned to you and leaned on the opposite side of the counter you sat at.
'i know i've said this time and time again,' she said; your attention shifting from the tiled counter to sally. 'but, i'm so, so glad percy met you. you help him so much, and i can see, and even feel, how much that boy loves and lives for you.'
you heart melted, even though sally says that almost every time you see her. 'the amount of things he says about you whenever he comes home,' she scoffed playfully. 'it's insane.'
you giggled. 'what does he even say?' you asked.
sally scoffed jokingly again. 'well, last week, he came home all blushing and giggling. i asked what happened. he just started rambling about how—'
sally was interrupted by percys dramatic entrance into the kitchen. he stumbled a little as he corrected his footing, his eyes darting between you and his mom. 'no mom,' he started, pointing a finger at sally. 'don't tell them i said that about them,' he said, his hands moving to rub at his eyes; he probably stumbled out of bed in record time.
you laughed as sally rolled her eyes at percy. 'personally, your partner should know how much you love them,' sally said, moving to clean up the blue-stained paper towels.
percy simply gasped at her. 'mom! do you not see how much i love them?' he asked, hand coming up to clench the fabric of his shirt where his heart is. drama king. when sally didn't respond, he countined. 'here, ill even show you the love i give them at 7 in the morning,' he said, walking over to you and pressing extremely loud and wet kisses to your cheek and nose.
'percy!' you gasped, playfully shoving him off of you. 'that's gross,' percy simply moved behind you, arms going around your waist to hug you. 'and you have awful morning breath,' you said as you leaned back into him.
'you see how i get treated when i show them the love they deserve mom?' percy asked while sally simply laughed.
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ireadwithmyears · 1 year
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Absent mindedly making me want you
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Pairing: Ellie Williams / female reader
Word count : 12 K 💀 I swear it’s worth it I just really wanted a well rounded story even if this is just a one shot
Summary : 
Due to her first-hand experience when it comes to drowning, Ellie takes it upon herself to teach you how to swim. Something that neither of you had anticipated, however, was how intimate this endeavour would be, resulting in a day filled with unresolved sexual tension, that, unsurprisingly and inevitably comes to ahead
Tags/warnings : established relationship, soo much sexual tension, smut (18+, MDNI), porn with minor plot, dom/sub undertones, soft dom Ellie, submissive reader, inexperienced reader (first time), light hair pulling, unsafe lesbian sex, fingering, oral (F receiving), face sitting, lots of dirty talk(bc you cannot convince me that Ellie doesn’t have an absolutely filthy mouth), praise kink, overstimulation, forced orgasm, multiple orgasms, pussy slapping (just once), aftercare, fluff, no use of Y/N
“I’m sorry, wait, hold on. You’re telling me you’ve never learned how to swim?”
The settlement of Jackson has been dealing with, hopefully, the last of its winter storms for the year. Spring had crept its way around the corner, shining its promisingly hopeful rays of warm sunlight for a few, blissfully beautiful, but in the end, all two short days
But then, in what must be mother nature’s idea of a harmless joke, it was crudely snatched away and replaced with icy winds that seemed to settle within your very core, leaving you shivering long after you went inside to get warm. Wyoming had been hit with a blizzard that had caught everyone so off guard, that Jackson was ill-equipped and unprepared to handle it, leaving most of the community snowed in; workloads being much reduced and limited to essential services for the time being, until the snow abated.
This is how you and a group of friends found yourselves in Jesse’s living room, cradling mugs of hot chocolate, enjoying the warmth that seeped into your fingertips, and making a blanket fort as if you were still school children at a sleepover. The snowy days and lack of work seemed to bring out a childish side to everyone, which is how you found yourself engaged in a game of never have I ever, sitting in a tight circle with your friends and girlfriend who, up until a few seconds ago, had been absent mindedly playing with your hair, your head resting against her shoulder, where you had been quite content to stay.
But, she had now pulled back, looking at you with her eyebrows raised, lips quirked down quizzically, as if in thought. You look around at your friends, taking note of everyone else who’s never learned. You’re relieved to find that you’re not alone in this. As expected, the Jackson old-timers, the few of you who have been settled here almost your whole lives, or at least, as long as you could remember, had never encountered an environment that required the ability to swim.
“Nope, it’s never been necessary.” You shrug. 
She tilts her head, thinking, a few wisps of auburn hair escaping her ponytail as she regards you, teeth lightly grazing the bottom of her lip as she appears to be calculating an idea in her mind.
“As soon as it gets warm enough, I’m taking you out, and I'm gonna teach you. Joel taught me because he said that I would never know when it was a skill that would become necessary for me to have until it’s too late,” she says, nodding to herself decisively.
“Ah, I see your dad‘s passed off his overprotectiveness onto you,” you smirk, rolling your eyes fondly.
She hits you with a pillow for that. 
“Quiet, you,” she says in mock offense.
She pokes your belly lightly and you instinctively jump back with a surprised squeal. You hear the quiet amusement of your friends, Jesse barely containing a snort as he watches. You’re about to utter a retort when she reaches out, pulling you against her, settling you on her lap, where you happily go. 
When she presses a chaste kiss to your lips, hand settling at the back of your neck, fingers brushing against your skin, leaving goosebumps to form beneath their eager caresses, any kind of argument dies on your lips. Resistance melts as if it hadn’t been there in the first place, and all thoughts scatter like butterflies, only landing on the one thing that you care to focus on. 
It’s her, with her teasing lips and wandering hands, that explore and touch you as if she wants to know you, to memorize you, like you’re her well-kept and cherished secret. She is the only thing that surrounds your mind, the only one who holds your attention so easily, and it takes you a moment to shake yourself free of this haze. It’s strange, and euphoric, a kind of feeling that you’ve never felt before, and you find that you like it – instantly craving more the second that her lips leave yours.
She's kissed you plenty of times before, and though it’s always been an enjoyable experience for you, it’s never felt like that. You decide to file that information away for now; you’ll sort out whatever the fuck these new feelings are later. 
When you do come back to yourself, your head nestled against her shoulder, her arms wrapped around you as she looks down at you with warm, soft eyes, you think, yeah, you’ll let her teach you how to swim. You’ll let her do whatever she goddamn pleases, as long as it means that she’ll keep kissing you like that, and bringing out those good kind of butterflies that flutter in your stomach whenever she’s close to you.
*
To your surprise, Ellie makes good on her promise at the earliest opportunity.
In your experience, life is full of making plans and dreams that, more often than not, fall through. Even here, even in Jackson, where the walls are fortified and everyone is protected, the act of planning future endeavours is a luxury.
Spring finally comes , for real this time, with its customary blend of warmer weather that makes everyone instinctively turn their faces towards the sun, tentatively brushing its heat against their skin. And then, in complete juxtaposition, rain that starts in a slight drizzle that quickly descends into a downpour that sends those who’d ventured outside to appreciate the sunlight running back inside, scrambling to find cover, while quietly grumbling that they wish it was summer already, if only so that they could be freed from this topsy-turvy weather. 
Humans are funny like that, you suppose. Never fully able to live in the moment, always wishing for the next season the second spring reveals its more wild side. They forget that the scorching heat of summer will have them complaining and wishing for autumn to come faster in a few months.
Nonetheless, it’s early summer, and you find yourself riding astride Ellie’s mare, Hazel, whose step is light and carefree, tale gently swishing in the warm breeze as you make your way to a clearing with a lake, a few miles out from Jackson’s gates. You’ve taken up the rear position, head resting against your girlfriend's back, arms wrapped around her waist.
From her position, she can’t see the expression on your face, the way you worry. Your bottom lip is between your teeth until it starts to bleed, because quite honestly, you’re nervous. Your instinct is to hide your feelings from her, because it feels silly.  “A tough girl like you all freaked out over a little water?” You can almost hear her snark in your head. Logically, you know she wouldn’t say that, not to you, at least. But you can’t help but wonder if she’d think it. 
You also know, however, that the minute you’re off this horse and she turns to look at you, she’ll read right through any bullshit or lies you come up with in an instant. Ellie’s just that kind of person; able to read right through people without them even having to say a word. So, as the bird chatter accompanies the beat of Hazel’s hooves against the ground, you speak, softly, tentatively, half-wishing that she won’t hear, almost hoping that your words will be carried off in the slight breeze that ruffles the braid against your back, delicately freeing strands of your hair.
“You know, I’m actually kinda fucking scared to do this,” you figure if you’re going to admit this, it’s just best to rip the Band-Aid off. 
She holds the reins one-handed as her other comes to squeeze your wrist gently. 
“Can you tell me why?”
You sigh, feeling your cheeks heat with embarrassment as you rest your chin against her shoulder. She’s so warm and steady, confident and self-assured in a way that you couldn’t even attempt to replicate. 
She senses your unease, moving her thumb beneath the thin material of your sweater, stroking against the skin of your inner wrist. She lets it rest at the point where she feels your pulse lightly fluttering beneath her. 
“Hey.” Her voice is soft, encouraging, “Talk to me, Sweetheart, you’ve got absolutely nothing to be embarrassed about.” 
Her thumb resumes its movement, stroking back-and-forth along the inside of your wrist, soothing away the knot that’s begun to tie itself in your stomach.
“It’s stupid, I know. It’s just, I’m scared that I’m gonna drown, or something dumb like that,” you roll your eyes, feeling a little bit pathetic. 
“It’s not stupid,” you’re not surprised that she’s come to your defence so quickly, but the conviction in her voice gives you pause.
She continues, “I almost drowned, once. Well, I guess it wasn’t almost, I did drown, though I don’t remember the details. It was before Joel had taught me how to swim, probably what made him decide that he had to. But, when he did, it took me the longest time to get over my fear. Every time I so much as touched the water, my mind would bring me back to that moment where I thought I was about to die.”
Her voice is sheepish, nonchalant, but you scoot closer to her on the saddle nonetheless, wrapping your arms just a little tighter around her waist.
“My point is, if you would have seen me when I was fourteen, the way Joel would have to coax me into the water bit by bit, you wouldn’t believe I’m the same person now. Now, I can be assured that whenever I go into the water, nothing’s going to happen to me that I can’t handle.” 
She takes your hand in hers, and her voice is completely serious when she speaks now.
“Baby, you know I’m not gonna let anything happen to you, right?” 
In spite of your nerves, you know the answer to this question immediately. It’s not even a question, really, you know without even having to think about it that she’ll keep you safe, protect you with her life if necessary, and you nod aggressively, even before she finishes speaking.
“I know, Elles.”
She gives your hand a squeeze. 
“Good, because if my 14-year-old freshly traumatized from actually drowning ass can learn how to swim, I am fully confident in your abilities.”
Hazel trots on, and for the first time since you headed out today, you feel a genuine smile pulling the corners of your lips upward, your laughter accompanying the birdsong as you ride on.
*
“That’s it, just lean back into me, I gotcha.”
She’s teaching you how to float on your back, first, and as you lean against her and lower yourself into the water, you swear you feel the peak of one of her nipples, hardened from the cold, poking through the flimsy material of her tank top, brushing against your back as you submerge yourself. You have to fight to keep your expression neutral, trying not to betray anything on your face. If she asks why you’re blushing, you’ll just say it’s because of the heat.
Her hand holds you up, pressing into the small of your back as she instructs you, and it’s nice, the heat that radiates from the warmth of her skin. You feel it through your tank top, and maybe it’s because the water is cold and it’s heightening all of your senses, or maybe it’s because you’re in a pair of underwear and a tank top, feeling very exposed to your girlfriend in a way that you’ve never been with anyone, but you’re getting goosebumps, and you know for a fact that it has nothing to do with you being cold.
You hope to yourself that the feeling of having her hands on you will get easier throughout the day, because for some inexplicable reason, the feeling of her hand pressing against you like this is making it hard to focus on what she’s actually saying.
*
You quickly discover that it does not get easier as the day goes on. 
It actually gets so much fucking harder to bear as the sun begins to sail higher in the sky.
When she’s about to teach you how to kick, her hands ghost over your hips, making you jump. 
“Sorry, hun, I should’ve asked,” she apologizes softly.
You can’t bring yourself to look at her, and have to temper your voice to not sound eager as you respond. “No, you’re good, go ahead, I'm just cold, that’s all.”
When her hands caress your sides before settling against your hips, your teeth sink into the inside of your cheek, trying to contain the gasp that wants to escape. 
Is she truly that fucking unaware of what she’s doing to you? 
The skin where her fingers had trailed over tingles, and you have to give your head a slight shake to clear it, because that touch, regardless of how innocently meant it might’ve been to her, suddenly makes you want to get on your knees and beg her to touch you like that again.
You want more.
*
You learn the mechanics of how to propel yourself through the water, arms and legs separately. When it comes time to put the two together, Ellie eases you onto your stomach. The water is still shallow, your toes can still touch the ground. This was as deep as you’d be going today, she had told you, making you feel relieved.
“I’m just gonna put a hand on your stomach to hold you up. You’re still gonna have my help, I’m right here,” you’re stomach muscles tense when her hand lightly presses against it. She must think you’re nervous, because she gently strokes her thumb up and down between your rib cage, in a way that should be reassuring, but in reality, makes heat radiate from between your legs. You’re grateful that she can’t see your face, because the small pool of wetness that blossoms against your panties is undeniable now, and it makes your cheeks heat.
Okay, so you have to admit it now. You’re horny. In spite of the fact that you’ve never had sex and you haven’t been ready to take that step before today, as you slowly move through the water, feeling her hand pressing against your stomach, so close but so, so far from where you want her to be, you know that you want her, in a way that you’ve never wanted anyone before. 
“At a girl, just like that,” she says encouragingly, and you swear you can feel your thigh muscles clenching involuntarily, thoughts drifting to a very different scenario in which she’d utter those words.
*
It’s late afternoon, the sun is high in the sky, warming your shoulders as you stand in the water. You’ve long ago adjusted to its cool, murky depths, and you’re not on edge anymore. 
At least you weren’t, until Ellie suggests that to finish off the day, you try moving a little bit on your own. Your eyebrows raise, in obvious alarm, and her hands settle on your shoulders, quick to reassure you.
“You won’t have to go far, I’ll be right in front of you, I promise, all you need to do is just keep coming towards me.” 
You tilt your head, considering. Yes, you’ve grown accustomed to the water, but whenever you’ve been moving, she’s always had a hold on you, and you felt safe, knowing that there wasn’t even a chance that you would go under. 
Seeing your still evident hesitation, Ellie steps closer, a hand grazing against your waist as she presses her lips to your forehead briefly, before she speaks, her voice low and teasing against your ear.
“Can you do it for me?” She says softly. Her fingers are tracing slow, enticing circles over your waist, soothing you, but making you feel all worked up at the same time. 
She’s so close that you can feel her lips brush against your ear when she speaks, and you can’t hide the shiver that runs down your spine. You’ve lost the ability to form coherent thought, for the moment, and you have to mentally kick yourself to push your mind back into any semblance of reality. God, if she asks you like that, you’ll do anything.
You don’t say that, though. You only nod meekly, not trusting your voice to be controlled when you speak. 
When her hand gives your hip an appreciative squeeze, you feel her breath ghost against the curve of your neck as she speaks. “Good girl,” she practically purrs, a quiet, low hum against your ear that makes your knees buckle so hard that you have to dig your feet into the sand beneath you so that you don’t faceplant into the water.
When she pulls back, taking slow, tentative steps away from you, she knows that you’re watching her every move. She can feel your eyes burning into her, the further she moves away, nerves making you fidget with the hem of your top. When she’s several metres away, she reaches out a hand, beckoning.
“Okay, c’mere, Baby Girl.” 
Her voice is low, persuasive, encouraging you forward. But it still takes you a solid 30 seconds of anxiously staring at her before you actually begin to move. She stands, arms folded, patiently waiting for you to give in, because she knows that sooner or later, you will.
She’s not that far away, not really. She still would easily be able to reach her arms out, steadying you if somehow, even in this shallow water, you managed to bring yourself under. Still, when you kick back, and you no longer feel the assurance of the soft sand against your feet, or Ellie‘s arm wrapped securely around your stomach to hold you up, you freeze. She notices instantly, and her voice is quick to call you back, bringing your racing heart back down with a few, gentle words.
“Hey, eyes on me.” 
You swim forward, it’s unsure and hesitant, but at least you’re moving. You can’t always keep your eyes on her, but when your head is lowered to the water, you can always hear her voice, which she uses to get you to keep going. 
“That’s it, almost there.” 
She eggs you on, making your limbs instinctively move faster, cutting through the water with an almost desperate urge to get to her. You’re reaching for her, arms ready to wrap around her waist when she meets you halfway, scooping you up into her arms.
“That’s my girl,” she whispers against your lips, cradling the back of your head as she pulls you in. Your eyes flutter shut, and you can’t help the small sigh that she elicits from you as she lowers her head to kiss you. Her lips meet yours in a slow, soft caress, searing as her touch sets your skin alight with heat. Instinctively, only half aware of what you’re doing, your legs wrap around her waist, desperately pulling yourself against her with a sudden need that is too strong to be contained.
When her hand, tangled in your hair, gently pulls, forcing your head back as she deepens the kiss, your mouth falling open as her tongue teases past your lips, you are unable to hold back the little moan that escapes you, scalp tingling at the sensation of her fingers, curled against strands of your wet hair, holding tight, keeping you exactly where she wants you. 
She’s so close, you realize. Your legs wrapped around her like this, your heat pressed so near to hers. It’s enough to send your thoughts reeling. Every nerve ending in your body is alive with want and need. 
Her hand makes a slow path, warm, delicate fingers journeying from your waist all the way up to the peak of your breast, leaving a trail of goosebumps to form in their wake. Her hand rests against you, leaving you warm and wanting, and just when you think that you can’t handle any more, she moves her thumb in a slow, deliberate caress over your perked, hardened nipple, which, at this point, your tank top, with its thin, soaked through material that clings to your every curve, leaves little up to her imagination. She can see you, she can see all of you. Your breath shutters, the smallest sound of want, of need, of desperation escaping your throat in a choked, pleading moan that has your back arching.
And that’s when Hazel makes her displeasure and boredom known, letting out a loud, displeased nay of indignation as she stamps her hooves against the ground.
The noise is so sudden, so out of the blue, disrupting the sounds of the water gently lapping around you, and the ambiance of nature that you’ve grown quite accustomed to hearing over the past few hours, that it makes you both jump. You startle so hard that you nearly fall into the waters below, jolting back as your head whips around to discover the source of the noise. Ellie’s arms are secure, though, you feel her adjusting her hold on you, wrapping them around you tighter. She too frantically searches the area around you for signs of trouble.
When you realize that you’re in no imminent danger, and that it’s just Hazel being her typical, dramatic self, you both look at each other, and simultaneously, slow smiles creep across your faces. She can feel you begin to shake with laughter. All the adrenaline leaves your body in a relieved, sudden rush that escapes with the quiet, barely contained snort that you desperately try to hold back. After that, it’s over. Ellie’s face buries against your hair as you both begin to laugh uncontrollably.
You feel her breathy, relieved sigh ruffle your hair. “We should probably go see what her problem is – knowing Hazel, a mosquito probably landed on her and she freaked the fuck out. God, that horse is such a drama queen.” 
She rolls her eyes, but there’s an underlying affection that she can’t keep out of her voice, even if she tries.
“Probably saw us kissing and was offended. Maybe she’s homophobic,” you quip, chuckling. 
Ellie gasps in mock horror. “I practically raised that horse, there’s no fucking way,” you both laugh as she begins to move towards the shore, you cradled against her with your head on her shoulder.
*
Riding back to Jackson when you’re extremely sexually worked up, it turns out, is no fun. 
Your girlfriend, as much as you love her, is doing nothing to help the situation. 
In general, Ellie prefers to ride horses that are the most chaotic, and that carry attitudes that make them almost borderline untrainable. She says it’s because she can empathize with them, she listens to them in a way that no one else does. 
You think, privately, that it’s because it scares the shit out of Joel. He lives in constant fear that Hazel is going to throw Ellie off, sending his already accident prone daughter home with a broken leg and a concussion. You swear, Ellie enjoys getting a rise out of him, making his heart race with all of the reckless shit that she does.
Hazel has been sitting still for too long, and is now thoroughly enjoying the freedom of being able to trot about; she tries to take advantage of it regardless of the cargo on her back, making for a bumpy ride. 
You’re riding in front, this time, and every time you hit an unavoidable bump, Ellie rests her hands on your hips. She claims that she’s doing it to keep you steady, make sure that you don’t fall off the horse. but, you know better. You know an ulterior motive when you see one. The way that her hands linger, fingers slowly teasing At the edge of your still damp top, drawing slow, light circles against the exposed skin she finds beneath, suggesting that she has other plans in mind. It makes you shiver.
“You cold, baby?” Her voice is low against your ear, the unexpected proximity making you jump. She cannot be serious. Even though it’s late afternoon, evening fast approaching, the day is still scorching, hence why you’ve opted out of wearing your sweater on the way back. You didn’t even want to put on shorts over your damp underwear, but alas, you still had some shred of modesty left, not wanting to make whoever was stationed to guard Jackson’s gates uncomfortable.
When her arms wrap around your waist, pulling you flush against her, you swear that you can feel her hips slowly moving as she grinds against you suggestively. Her lips brush against the bare skin of your shoulder, lingering as her warm breath ghosts against your skin, caressing against your neck with its heat. You can’t hold back your gasp at the feeling.
One of her hands travels down, settling against your knee with a gentle squeeze. 
“How’s that, Baby Girl, is that better?”
God! 
If she doesn’t fuck you soon, you swear you’re gonna kill her. Or, at this rate, she’s gonna kill you first with the way she’s sending your heart racing like that.
*
If you had thought that getting home, changing into a fresh pair of clothes, and giving yourself the chance to calm your racing heart would magically put an end to whatever was stirring up inside of you, you were sadly incorrect in your assumptions.
You’re sitting on the couch in your living room, wearing a sundress that falls to your knees because it’s light and you enjoy the slight breeze that it creates when you move. It flutters around your legs gently in the humid air. It might provide next to no relief at all, but it’s still better than nothing. 
Ellie sits across from you in an armchair. Without even looking, you can feel her staring at you, eyes burning into you with a restrained and tempered want. You suspect that she’s holding it back, now wondering if she’s crossed a boundary today and made you uncomfortable. 
That couldn’t be further from the truth, but Ellie is the type of person who acts on impulse, then completely over analyzes and over thinks her actions later, until she’s convinced herself that she’s fucked something up. She’s so bold, so confident in the things she does in the moment. But, in the end, she’s still someone who sometimes needs you to explicitly communicate and validate what she does after the fact. Regardless of how her confidence is so vast, and can sometimes be mistaken for being cocky, on the inside, she’s deeply insecure and needs reassurance.
Glancing up at her through your lashes, seeing the way that she twists and fidgets with the hair elastic on her wrist, the slight frown on her face, the almost guilty way her eyes flit away from you when she sees you looking, you know that she needs that right now, and you fully intend to not just give that to her, but encourage her forward. 
Setting down the book that you weren’t actually reading, just trying to distract yourself with and completely failing, you rise to your feet, and as you move to her, she looks up at you with a smile, slipping back into its place effortlessly.
“Hey, baby, what’s up?” 
Her voice is low and soft, and the way her eyes skim over you, pausing at where your dress falls, the hem barely skimming your knees, makes heat flush at the back of your neck.
“Want somethin’.” 
You admit, crawling into her lap, bracing your hands on her shoulders.
“Yeah? What’s that?” 
She quirks a brow, and the way her eyes smoulder as she looks at you makes you nervous, stomach fluttering with anxious butterflies as she looks intently at you. 
You’ve got her full attention, and now that you do, you don’t know what to do with it. You were fully ready to take the lead on this, but at the end of the day, you’re still shy and inexperienced, and she’s everything that you’re not. To be honest, it’s intimidating, knowing her wealth of experience that you couldn’t even attempt to match. 
The insistent butterflies take flight in your stomach; you decide that the only way forward is by pure instinct, and the blind hope that you won’t embarrass yourself too much.
You lean forward slowly, hesitating slightly until, with understanding, Ellie’s hand comes up to cradle the back of your head, encouraging you the rest of the way forward until your lips meet hers, and suddenly, you forget exactly what your plan originally was, if you even really had one in the first place. It easily slips out of your mind as you melt against her, effortlessly letting her take the lead. 
Her fingers brush against your lower back, holding you securely against her. This isn’t like your usual, every day kiss, one that starts off slow and gentle. Her lips are insistent, pressing against yours with a desperate, persistent need. Her fingers absently brush against your scalp, running through your hair before cupping the back of your neck, the pressure just firm enough.
All you know is her. Her lips, claiming your mouth with a possessiveness that makes you ache for her inside. Her tongue, swiping over your lips, making you gasp slightly. As your lips part for her, you hear the low, satisfied sound she breathes against you as her tongue pushes past your lips, exploring your mouth with a hunger that you’ve never sensed in her before.
Her thigh pushes between your legs, parting them with ease and settling between them, grazing against your clothed heat. When her hand schemes down your lower back, caressing over your ass, before pressing against it with a firm squeeze, you can’t resist the way your hips buck against her, desperately chasing the friction, unable to hold back the small whimper when you’re clit presses against the rough denim of her cut-offs. 
The sound seems to startle you so much that you still your movements, eyes going wide as Ellie pulls back to look at you. She doesn’t even bother holding back the smirk that overtakes her features.
“Oh, so that’s what you want.” 
Her green eyes darken with want, voice low and gravelly with desire as she studies you, perched on her lap with a needy expression behind your innocent eyes.  Her fingers brush against your hips, teasing over your skin.
Heat flushes against your collarbone, spreading to warm your cheeks as you try to look down, wanting to escape the scrutiny of her piercing gaze. She anticipates your movement, and stops you with a hand coming to curl beneath your chin, making a soft noise of disapproval.
“Look at me, pretty girl, and tell me what you want,” 
Her voice is still soft, still gentle, but there’s a warning edge that’s crept into it, an effortless authority, that sends a jolt straight through you, making your already throbbing clit pulse with anticipation. Her fingers nudge your chin upwards, holding firmly as she directs your eyes to meet hers, smouldering with uncontained lust as she watches you. 
“You.” 
Your answer comes out in barely a breath, barely a whisper. 
“I want you.” 
You feel like your response sounds ridiculous.
It sounds small.
It sounds completely inadequate.
And yet, when Ellie’s hand snakes beneath your dress, fingers toying with the waistband of your panties, her lips brushing against your ear as she says low, “that, sweet girl, I would be happy to oblige.” 
She flexes her thigh up against your heat, rubbing over your swollen clit, making you cry out in surprise.
*
Her shirt hits the floor with a dull thump, pulled off by your eager and curious hands. You want to see her. You want to touch her. You want...
But now that it’s off and she’s looking down at you like that, your brain catches up to your body. What are you doing? What are you supposed to do? You don’t know how to do this. You don’t know where to put your hands, and the idea of fumbling around and embarrassing yourself is enough to make you nervous.
She sees the moment you begin to question yourself and overthink it, in the way that you catch your bottom lip between your teeth, the way your hand flexes, curling into itself with anxiety.  
“Hey,” she says softly, waiting for your eyes to meet hers. Her hands caress up and down the sides of your arms, pulling you from the spiral that your mind was going in, bringing you back to earth with a soothing touch. 
“I know that this is your first time, and I just want you to know that I don’t expect anything of you tonight. The only thing I want is to make you feel good. So just, let me do that, okay?” 
When she leans in, arms wrapping around you, and her lips press against your neck in a slow, seductive kiss, she can feel the shiver that runs down your spine, and she makes a note to remember that you’re sensitive there.
You feel her lips close to your ear as she speaks. 
“Just let me take care of my girl tonight.” 
Her hand schemes down your side, fingers drawing teasing circles over your hip. Your eyes close and your breath comes in a sharp, unsteady inhale and all you can do is look at her, eyes hooded, and say in a shaky voice, “please.”
You feel her low chuckle against your neck. 
“Such pretty manners,” she hums against your skin, before you feel the gentle graze of teeth join her lips, delivering a small, sharp sting that you imagine will leave a mark. 
This thought doesn’t scare you in the way that you thought it would. Your first thought isn’t of how on earth you’re going to cover this up tomorrow. The idea that there will be physical evidence of her, of what she’s doing to you, that there will be a reminder of it in the morning turns you on, sending a thrill through you. 
Her tongue replaces where her teeth had just been, gently soothing over the sting. “Good girl,” she breathes, hand coming up to fiddle with the spaghetti strap of your dress. “I want this off,”
She waits for you to nod your consent, and then she’s sliding the straps off your shoulders, letting it fall. It pools around your waist in a soft brush of its material.
Fingers brush over your stomach, and you shiver with anticipation, already knowing the path they intend to travel over your skin. Her hands graze over your ribs, before she curls them around the curves of your breasts. She looks down at them, cradled in her hands, and her lips curl upward. 
Warm, experienced hands massage and knead your breasts, gentle caresses and squeezes encouraging, coaxing your nipples to harden beneath her touch. Her thumb brushes over one of the hardening buds, and you gasp at even the slightest attention. She seems to relish in drawing sounds from you, her index finger joining her thumb, as she rolls your perked nipple between her fingers, adding the slightest pinch. 
“You’re so fuckin pretty, you know that? The site of these,” she tweaks your other nipple, making your breath stutter, “peeking through your shirt at the lake was teasing me all day.” 
Her face buries against your neck, she becomes rougher, more insistent. Still slow and attentive, but there’s a possessive edge to it as she leaves a trail of marks down your throat, your collarbone. 
You love every second of getting to see this new side of Ellie, one that you haven’t seen before. The way that she’s intently listening to your body, finding out exactly how to touch you in a way  that brings out those little gasps and mules that are like music to her ears, you want to see this side of her more often.
She’s enjoying the sight of her marks on you just as much as you are; a thrill runs through her, knowing that everyone will see that you belong to her.
She pauses toying with your nipple as her hand falls to your thigh, letting her breath graze against your skin, before she leans in, lips encircling the pebbled bud with a gentle suck. You whimper as her teeth barely graze your skin, tongue swirling over the small bud teasingly. She makes an appreciative sound against you while her fingers brush the bare skin of your inner thigh. 
Her thumb teases over the seam of your panties, and you swear that you can feel her lips pull into a smirk as she feels the evident wetness pooling there. When she grazes a knuckle over your clothed clit, using a featherlight touch, your hips instinctively buck, you’re so worked up. 
“Ellie,” your cheeks flush at the way that she’s got you whining for her with just one touch to wear you’ve been craving her to be. “Please, I, I need you to touch me there.” 
“Aww, you’re so pretty when you beg for me,” she coos, two fingers caressing over your heat. 
Your head falls back, eyes closing as you try to suppress the whimper that fights to escape at her teasing.
“Ellie, please,” and if you weren’t trying to beg before, you definitely are now.
She tilts her head, a slightly pleased expression crossing her kiss swollen lips as she looks at you, thoroughly unravelled before she’s even fully gotten you undressed.
“That’s all you had to say, Princess.”
Her voice is low and smooth, calm and effortless, in complete juxtaposition to her next actions, because suddenly, your dress is being yanked the rest of the way down, Ellie tossing it to the floor in a careless heap. She lifts you with ease, flipping you around so that your back is pressed against her bare chest. Her arms curl around you, holding you close to her, fingers trailing down your stomach, scheming over the waistband of your panties. One finger hooks under, and she pauses, voice suddenly soft.
“Can I take these off, baby girl?” Her finger strokes along the bare skin that she’s found beneath your panties, just above your mound, inviting, but not moving lower. 
“Ellie,” you say with growing desperation. She’s teased you all day, and you can’t take much more of it. You’ve reached the end of your rope, and you can tell, without even having to look at her, that she’s fully aware of it, she’s just enjoying teasing you a little longer, dragging out the moment for even just a few seconds more. She’s so close to where you need her, but not close enough, and you need her to bridge the distance. “You can do whatever you want,” your head falls back against her shoulder, auburn hair tickling against your face as she leans down to whisper.
“Don’t give me any ideas, princess. You might regret it.” 
Her words make you shutter, but, nonetheless, she pulls, and in a matter of seconds, she’s sending your panties to join your dress on the floor, with a practiced flick of her wrist.
She doesn’t waste much time now; her hands gently part your thighs. 
“Spread your legs for me, Pretty Girl, I want to see all of you.” 
She coaxes, not that you need much urging. You feel her legs cage over yours, wrapping around them, holding them open for her. Fingers ghost over your curls, dipping between your lips. She collects your wetness, fingers gliding effortlessly up to your clit, coating it in your own arousal. 
“Barely touched you, and you’re already soaked for me,” two fingers press against your swollen clit, drawing slow, easy circles over your heat, already making your walls clench around nothing.
Her other hand moves, pausing to give an affectionate pinch to one of your perked breasts, making you gasp in surprise, your hips instinctively jolting forward, pushing against the hand that continues to massage, tease, and press against your clit. It continues its path downward, caressing over your hip, your inner thigh. 
Long, tapered fingers dip between your folds, tentatively swirling around your entrance, gathering the wetness that’s collected there. You don’t realize you’re begging until, achingly slowly, one of her fingers brushes over your tight, glistening hole. She doesn’t push it forward, only curling it slightly to pet at your entrance. 
“F-fuck, please,” your head falls back against her shoulder, and your hips push forward, trying to take her inside, but to no avail.
“Such a needy girl,” she murmurs, smirking at the way that you nod. 
She’s got you so desperate that you’ll agree to anything she says; you won’t even try to deny it. It would be pointless, anyways. All she has to do is look down and see the way that your hips are bucking against her to know that you would be lying through your teeth. Nonetheless, she gently eases a finger inside you and you let out a long, tremulous breath as she pushes her finger, easing it all the way inside until she’s down to her knuckle.
She’s watching carefully for your reactions and she can feel how tight you are around her; she doesn’t want to cause you any pain. But when she tentatively, curiously, crooks her finger slightly upward, searching, a jolt runs through you, your body trembling and hips jerking forward, chasing the contact. It’s too much, and it’s not enough, and you need more. 
“Fuck, I, Ellie, I I want,” your hands grip onto her thighs tightly. 
She presses a soft kiss to the side of your neck before whispering,“That’s it, baby, use your words. Tell me what you need,” her finger pumps in and out at an unhurried, languid pace, barely grazing over that spot that you so desperately need her to touch. 
“Need more of you inside me,” you whimper, unable to keep the desperate edge from creeping into your voice. A second finger joins the first, slowly pushing through your entrance. You immediately feel the stretch, unfamiliar to having someone else’s fingers there, but you’re quickly distracted, because as soon as both fingers are pushing into you, she increases the pressure against your throbbing clit, fingers drawing rough, tight circles over your swollen bud. 
The sound you make is high and uncontained.
Calloused fingers brush against your inner walls, clenching around them as Ellie stretches you out. Her fingers curl, a slight beckoning motion as she easily finds that spot inside of you. The pads of her fingers press firmly against it, fingers insistently petting at your center with small, precise strokes against your sweet spot. She's hitting that spot in a way that you’ve never been able to accomplish on your own. 
You’re seeing stars, because she’s everywhere you want and need her to be, and now, the only thing you can do is grind your hips down against her fingers that are so effortlessly toying with you. 
It comes out of nowhere, the coil that eagerly begins to tighten in your stomach. Your toes curl with anticipation, and your hands are gripping onto her so tightly. You’re pretty sure that you’re the one who’s going to be leaving bruises now. Her fingers continue to thrust in and out of your weeping cunt, and maintain the relentless pressure against your clit.
Ellie’s chin rests against your shoulder, watching attentively, and if you could see her, you’d see how utterly enthralled she is at how much of a mess she’s made you, eyes heavy as she watches her fingers plunge in and out of your cunt. Her voice is low against your ear, rough, commanding when she speaks.
“That’s it, Baby Girl, I want you to fuck yourself on my fingers and cum for me.” 
You’ve always experienced orgasms as a gradual build, a wave, gently cresting against the shore. So, the way the coil in your stomach abruptly snaps, almost an instant after Ellie finishes speaking, has you taken completely by surprise. She’s attached her lips back onto your neck, sucking a mark just against your pulse point, which she feels fluttering rapidly beneath her tongue. 
There’s the stuttering of hips accompanied by a sharp cry and Ellie feels your walls tighten around her fingers, unceasing in her ministrations even as your orgasm barrels through you. 
“Good girl, fucking give it to me,” she nearly growls, as her fingers continue to fuck you through your orgasm. All you can do is whimper uselessly, rocking your hips against her hand, as thrills ignite every inch of your body, making you tremble all over. 
When you come down from your high, you’re collapsed against her chest, and she’s slowly easing off the pressure. 
The first thing you notice is that you don’t feel the same as you usually would if you had just done this by yourself. For some reason, you thought that you were a one and done kind of girl. Usually you orgasm once, and then you take a nap, feeling for the most part satisfied. But as her fingers slide out of you, leaving you feeling empty, all you can think is that you want more.
Then, Ellie’s holding up her glistening fingers, slick with your arousal, in front of her face. You turn to watch her, curious, as she slides them into her mouth, licking them clean. She hums, and you raise a brow questioningly as she looks down at you, her eyes bearing an expression that is almost predatory in its intensity.
“What?” you ask, already feeling goosebumps rising along your skin.
“Nothing,” she shrugs, shaking her head slightly. “It’s just, now that I’ve had a taste of you, I want more.” You turn fully to face her, lips curving into a smirk. Your hand trails over her breasts, and she looks at you with interest.
“Please,” you’re still breathless, and your voice is still unsteady.
“I want you too.”
*
“Atta girl, just like that.” 
Admittedly, as much as you’ve had countless fantasies involving sitting on Ellie’s face, the prospect of actually doing it, as much as you want to, gives you pause. She’s carried you up to the bed, at some point along the way, the rest of her clothes came off, you’ll probably find them scattered along the hallway later. But that doesn’t matter right now.
What matters is that you’re hovering over her face, looking down at her while trying not to look nervous and out of your comfort zone, which you totally are, and she obviously isn’t buying it. Gentle hands reach for you, holding your hips and pulling you against her easily. 
“All the way down, Honey, that’s it,” she coaxes, easing you down onto her. “You’re good, you’re not gonna kill me,” her hand caresses up and down your side, soothing, even as you feel her warm breath ghosting over your heat, making your cheeks flush, as you look down at how close she is to you.
“I gotcha’, Pretty Girl, just relax,” her voice is smooth, assured, confident, in a way that makes your muscles relax in spite of yourself.
That’s when you feel her tongue, warm and wet, brushing through your folds. The sensation is so new, so unfamiliar to you, that for a second, you freeze, your breath catching in your throat. 
Then, her tongue flattens, pressing over your clit and applying a slight pressure that has you arching against her. Her tongue curls over your swollen nub, gently drawing it towards her lips, an almost imperceptible pulling motion that has your hands scrambling for something to hold onto, finding a grip against the headboard of the bed.
She makes a contented hum as her lips wrap around your center, the sound vibrating against you making your hips jolt. Her hands curl around the undersides of your thighs, holding you in place. Your hands hold onto the headboard of the bed for dear life, feeling like it’s the only solid thing that you have to hold onto, keeping you from toppling over the edge and out of control. 
You’ve never felt like this before. Each swipe of her tongue over your heat, the gentle pulse of her lips as she sucks, enveloping you in her warm, wet mouth, brings a new sensation thrumming through your veins, almost akin to fire as it shoots through you, pleasure licking over every inch of your skin like flames. It’s overwhelming, in such a way that you don’t know what to do with it, how to express it. 
All you can do, at this point, is roll your hips against her mouth, hold onto the headboard, and let small, desperate whimpers escape your lips. You’re trying to hold onto some semblance of containing yourself, because you don’t know what would happen if you let yourself unravel completely. You’re terrified of what Ellie might see if you fell apart like that.
She seems to be doing everything she can to break away at your composure though. Her tongue is alternating between dragging slow, tender circles over your clit, and firm, quick strokes, that has your head falling against your hands, braced against the headboard. She flicks her tongue against you, her lips surrounding your clit in a particularly firm suck, and before you know it, you’re spilling over the edge, eyes shut tightly, and breath releasing in a long, shuttering moan that seems to run from the top of your head to the tips of your tightly curled toes, her tongue continuing to caress you over your peak.
She moans into you, and it all becomes too much. Your head is thrown back and your hands are reaching down, tangling in her hair, to push her away or pull her closer; it’s unclear in your fuzzy mind. All the while, her insistent tongue continues to swirl over your increasingly oversensitive bundle of nerves, the relentless and inescapable pleasure making you shiver all over, while a light sweat breaks out on your bare skin.
You only drift back into yourself when you become aware of a shift. It’s so fast, you barely have time to even blink, before Ellie manoeuvres you, flipping you onto your back and roughly parting your thighs with her hands. Her fingers run through your glistening folds, calloused thumb pressing against your aching, overstimulated clit. The sensation has you gasping, crying out, and trying to close your legs, buck your hips, move away.
Frantically, you try to jam your legs shut, trying to escape her mercilessly teasing fingers. Rough hands force your thighs apart, putting you on display for her as she holds you open. 
“Uh uh, not this time, Baby,” she tuts disapprovingly. “No more holding back on me, Sweet Girl,” listening to the low, dominant tone of her voice is like a drug to you, and your eyes roll back into your head as she speaks. 
“I want everyone to know how good I fuck this pretty little pussy.” Two fingers circle your clit and you jolt, trying to move away. But a strong arm pushes your hips down, pinning you against the bed easily.
Faster than you can process, her fingers retreat, and you don’t even have time to feel relieved, because a split second later, her hand comes down against your cunt with a smack, delivering a stinging, rough spank that has you crying out, clit throbbing and pulsing with the agonizingly delicious mix of pain and pleasure. 
“Now, you’re gonna be a good girl, and you’re gonna take everything I give you.” 
Two fingers notch at your entrance, but she waits, looking at you, a silent question, an invitation for you to tell her that this is too much and that you need to stop. You know she would in a heartbeat if you told her that this was too much or too rough for you right now, and that’s what makes you feel safe enough to continue.
So, when you respond by attempting to push your hips forward against her, a soft whimper falling from your lips, she smirks, and with the slightest movement of her wrist, her fingers thrust into you. Seconds later, her face is buried in between your legs, tongue gently lapping at your sensitive clit. After two orgasms, you’re hyper aware of every movement; every swirl of her tongue is sweet, hot agony that undoes you in seconds.
At the same moment her lips take your clit into her mouth, holding it as her tongue swipes a tight, rough circle over your heat, her fingers curl, and she finds that spot inside you that makes your legs begin to shake, pressing against it with each punishing thrust of her fingers. 
Your moans are loud, unrestrained, sounds that you would be embarrassed to make if you were in any way capable of controlling them. But you’re not, because your mind is only filled with her, her and her tongue on your clit, and her strong fingers pumping in and out of your wet cunt, playing with you as easily and as effortlessly as she plays the guitar. 
She’s clearly enjoying the sounds that fall from your lips, every beg and plea and moan of her name making her feel quite smug that she’s undone you so easily…she encourages you to continue, making a contented hum against your clit. She only looks up long enough to say:
“That’s it, I want to hear you being such a dirty little girl for me.”
A third finger slowly, carefully, pushes in; the stretch makes you feel so full, so good, it nearly takes your breath away. Her fingers thrust in and out slowly, testing the waters, wanting to make sure that you’ve adjusted – but you are having absolutely none of it.
Your head is thrown back and your hips are thrusting forward, or trying to, but her arm is so fucking strong that she doesn’t even have to try that hard to keep you pinned against the mattress, exactly where she wants you to be.  You don’t even realize you’re begging until you see her smirking up at you.
“Please, Ellie, please, fuck, I-I want,” it’s a challenge to even string coherent words together, but you’re distracted by her face, now looking up at you as her thumb takes over, stroking against your clit. 
“Come on, Baby girl, tell me what you want,” she presses her thumb a little harder into you, making you gasp brokenly. 
You take a breath to steady yourself, and your words still come out stuttered, but you say them, blushing in a way that she finds absolutely endearing considering you’re already spread out on her bed with three of her fingers buried inside of you.
“I-I want it harder,” you admit, your cheeks burning. “Want you to fuck me.”
“You’re so fuckin pretty when you use your words like that, Baby,” she praises. “Such a good fuckin girl,” then, her fingers are thrusting in and out, setting a rough pace, hitting that spot in a way that feels so much stronger than it already was. 
When she lowers her head, tongue dipping between your folds, returning to feast at your clit rough, persistent swirls and flicks over your swollen center, any slight ability to contain yourself is lost. You’re not aware of the sounds that you’re making, or the way that your hands scramble to find a hold on something, anything solid, eventually coming to clutch the soft bed sheets, holding them tightly in between your fingers.
You’re only aware that your orgasm is approaching, and that Ellie, little by little, is nudging you towards a peak that once you make it over, you think might absolutely wreck you, in the best possible way. All you know is that you want this, you want her. You need her.
God.
You really fucking need her. 
She feels your walls beginning to flutter around her, her free hand shifts down, coming to grip your thigh, opening you even wider for her.
 “Come on, baby, wanna hear all those pretty sounds you make for me when you cum.” 
She says against you, adjusting her wrist to fuck you with her fingers deeper. The new angle has you keening, hips desperately thrusting to chase the friction of whatever new spot she’s hitting. 
Her tongue flattening against you as she draws firm, tight circles over your bundle of nerves, The way that your back is arching, hips uselessly trying to grind down against her and her relentless fingers, fucking into your weeping cunt mercilessly.  She’s guiding you exactly to where she wants you to go, straight up towards that peak. Your vision blurs. 
“Fucking give it to me, Pretty Girl, want you to cum for me, all over my fingers and my mouth.” 
Your back arches off the bed, and suddenly, all you know is wave after wave of ecstasy that crashes through your body, electric shocks that pulse through you, making you jolt and flail uselessly combined with the rhythmic pumping of her fingers, and the dipping and swirling of her tongue against you. 
She works you through your orgasm, never slowing the movements of her tongue or her fingers that continue to drag in and out of you, sustaining your pleasure for as long as she can possibly hold it. Her lips wrap around your clit, as her tongue swipes through your folds, collecting all the wetness that she can find. She hums against you, encouraging your loud moans, and by the time it’s over, you’re a shaking, completely fucked out mess on her bed, 
If you happened to see the expression on her face as she watches you writhing beneath her, your hands twisting the sheets into knots and broken, unrestrained whimpers fall from your lips, she’s taking in the sight with immense appreciation, as if you’re the work of art she’s just created.
*
Turns out, the only thing that you have the ability to do post-three orgasms is roll over onto your stomach, shaking and trembling, and try, desperately, to regain your breath. 
Ellie, for her part, crawls up the bed beside you, hand coming up to tenderly stroke back the hair that sticks to your forehead, before gently rubbing your back.
“Easy, baby, that’s it, just breathe for me.” 
You’re eventually able to regain your breath, but your body feels floppy and light, and you can’t even begin to comprehend the slightest of movements. Ellie tucks a piece of hair behind your ear, saying softly, “I’ll be right back, I’m just gonna get something to clean you up, okay?”  
You nod in slight acknowledgement of her words, but your mind is still fuzzy, and the only thing that you’re really aware of right now is the sudden sleepiness that comes over you in a soft, comforting wave. You feel her stroke your hair once more before she rises from the bed, briefly pausing to look at how fucked out you are, stretched out across her bed, bare skin glistening with sweat that makes your hair stick to your forehead, eyes heavy and cheeks flushed.
“So pretty,” she breathes, before exiting.
She isn’t gone long, and when she returns your eyes are closed, head buried against a pillow. She kneels between your legs, hand reaching out to gently rub your back as you turn your head to look at her. 
“Just need to clean you up, pretty,” she whispers, and you realize how sticky you are in between your legs. 
“Okay,” you mumble, your voice sounding slightly hoarse, similar to the way it does when you first wake up in the morning. Were you really moaning that much?
You feel a warm, damp washcloth brushing against your inner thigh. It’s nice, soothing, but as Ellie moves towards the place in between your legs, you instinctively flinch, overstimulated and slightly sore. 
A large hand splays out over your back gently. “I know, Honey, it’s okay, I've got you,” Ellie soothes. 
She runs the cloth over your folds. “There we go, sweet girl, almost done.” Its brush against your clit makes you cry out, leg kicking out instinctively. Ellie shushes you gently, pressing chased, featherlight kisses against your spine, the curve of your hip, effectively distracting you while she finishes cleaning you up. 
When she’s done, she throws the cloth to the side, coming to sit beside you. “Okay, Baby, I just need you to get up and go for a quick pee.” You turn your head to look at her in bewilderment, staring up at her with your eyebrows raised.
“Why?” You ask, confused. She chuckles softly at your expression. 
“Because, nowadays there isn’t much to protect ourselves from any infections that we could pick up while doing this,” she gestures vaguely. “And this is the one thing that we can do to at least try to help prevent something from coming up,”
“Buuut Elliee, I don’t wanna get up,” you grumble, burying your face back into the pillow.
She sighs softly, “come on, it’ll be fast, and then we can get back into bed and cuddle for as long as you want.” 
That idea is tempting, but she could just get into bed with you right now and cuddle. Plus, you want to know who gave her this information, because it sounds pretty fucking stupid to you. 
“I don’t want to,” you grumble.
Ellie playfully hits you with a pillow. “Come on, Lazy Ass,” she’s guiding you to sit up now, in spite of how much you’re resisting, because the bed is so warm and soft. 
“Besides,” she reasons, “we both go out on patrol in three days, and I am not dealing with you having to dismount your horse every five minutes because you got a urinary tract infection and now you need to pee every time we hit a bump on the path.” 
You dramatically sigh in defeat. “Okay, okay, I get it, Jesus Christ,” you roll your eyes in mock exasperation, but the smile pulling at your lips betrays your true feelings. “On one condition,” you say, folding your arms across your chest.
“What?” Ellie is fighting to restrain a smile, because you’re just too goddamn cute when you’re like this.
“You have to carry me there and back,” you say, reaching your arms up like a child who wants to be picked up. 
She sighs, feigning annoyance, but she’s already positioning an arm beneath your knees. “You’re such a fucking brat,” she mutters against your hair as she cradles you against her chest. 
You snuggle into her, smile growing wide as she moves towards the door, holding you in her arms. “Don’t lie, you love it.”
“Shut up ,” she says, hand sneaking around to give your ass an affectionate squeeze, making you gasp and giggle in surprise, instinctively kicking, nearly falling out of her arms in the process. But her hold is secure, arms tightening around you as your cheek presses against her shoulder.
“Don’t worry, babe, I got you.”
*
After gently setting you back in bed, once you’ve finally gone to the bathroom, grumbling the whole way there and back, Ellie went to get you a glass of water. She’s been gone for less than 30 seconds, and you already miss the feeling of her body, Strong and warm and steady, pressed against you. While she’s gone though, you entertain yourself by letting your eyes roam over your body, finding the evidence of her, left behind on your skin. You discover each new mark, each trace of her presence imprinted on you with the anticipation and joy of a child finding Easter eggs. 
Your hand runs over your inner thigh, Lips pulling into a smile as you take in the sight of the finger shaped bruises that she left from where she gripped onto you so tightly. The site makes a warm, tingling feeling settle in your stomach.
You don’t hear her approach from behind you, and she must not see the expression on your face.
“Did I hurt you? Was it, was it too much?”
You turn, eyebrows raised and already shaking your head with vehemence, to find her watching you, biting her lip, concerned frown on her face. 
“What, no, no, Ells, it’s just,” you avert your eyes, the blush creeping onto your face is mortifying, and in spite of everything you too just did, and how you had expected talking about things like this would be easier now, it’s still hard to admit it out loud. 
She catches your chin in her hand, gently redirecting your eyes back up to meet hers. Seeing her so close to you, you don’t have to look hard to see the anxieties, trying to be contained and hidden, but dancing behind her eyes nonetheless. 
You feel your heart clench. She’s opened up to you about her past on a few occasions, but when she has, it was easy to sense how fearful she was of her own inclinations towards violence, regardless of how necessary and imperative it might have been for her survival. She’s like a fire, impulsive and easy to set off, her flames all-consuming without a second thought. But after, even now, even when all this is small bruises marking your skin in the heated passion of lust, that will fade and be gone within a few days, she’ll still twist herself into knots, thinking and overthinking until she’s convinced herself that she’s ruined you.
“Please, Babe, tell me the truth,” her voice is soft, barely a whisper, but you hate the way that there’s a slight tremble in it, so uncharacteristic of Ellie. It breaks what’s left of your embarrassment, and the words fall from your lips without hesitation now.
“It wasn’t too much. It’s just, I-I liked it...the marks... I think it’s kind of hot.” 
You wonder, in the back of your mind, if she can feel the way your cheek heats beneath her hand, resting against it ever so lightly. Her breath comes out in a soft, surprised laugh, and you’re relieved to see the concerned edges fade from her expression, a smirk instead overtaking her lips. “
“I’ll keep that in mind,” she whispers, fingers coming to trace over the scattered marks, littered across your neck and collarbone. 
“You’re cold,” she observes, hands running up and down your arms, goosebumps beginning to form there. You hadn’t even noticed that you had begun to shiver.
When she crawls into bed behind you, wrapping her arms around you, Holding you against her, her warmth settles into your bones, running through you like melted chocolate. She brings the glass of water to your lips, insisting that you drink, and refusing to back down, in spite of your protests that you’ll need to get up to go pee in the middle of the night and does she realize how annoying that is? 
She does, but she still coaxes you to drink half the glass.
You hold the glass up to her, pouting slightly. “Now you drink some, I feel like you should, too, because you were doing a lot of work, you know, with your mouth,” you say suggestively. 
“Oh my God, shut up,” she groans. She gives you a playful shove that nearly makes the glass tumble from your hand. But she has quick reflexes, and her hand is steady against yours as she gently grabs your wrist, preventing the spill.
“Careful, Hun,” she cautions, plucking the glass out of your hand easily. “If only to appease you,” she sighs dramatically, before tipping it back and draining the glass.
The inevitable crash that you hadn’t, but probably should’ve, anticipated hits you all at once. It starts with a sigh that quickly turns into a yawn that seems to take all of your energy with it. You move to shrug your shoulders, brush it off like it’s nothing, because honestly, it’s only just starting to get dark outside, you can’t go to sleep right now, it’s just too early.
Your bones feel oddly heavy, sore in a way that shouldn’t surprise you, but it does. Adrenaline, and passion have temporarily blinded you to trivial things, like being a human and having a body that can get physically exhausted, especially after trying so many new things at once. You wince because fuck, you hadn’t realized how tense you had been holding yourself today until now, and the consequences are quickly setting in. 
She’s watching you, observing you closely as she always does. She doesn’t say a word, but she intuitively understands.
She brushes your hair off to one side, and you shiver as your bare neck and shoulders are exposed to her. Warm hands settle over your shoulders, there’s a gentle squeeze, an unspoken question, an offering. The way your head falls forward, the low, contented noise that falls from your lips is all the ascent that she needs.
Her thumbs gingerly press into the tense muscles beneath them. She hums sympathetically, feeling how tender you are beneath her. She keeps her movements slow and precise as she presses her thumbs against you, applying a slight pressure, running them over the backs of your shoulders, gently encouraging the tension to release. She’s ceaselessly patient, only continuing her path upward when she can feel your muscles relax, giving into her ministrations.  
She continues to massage across your shoulders and your upper back, seeming to find and undo tension in places that you didn’t even realize you were carrying. It makes you sleepy, the gentle caress of her hands gliding over your skin, paired with the firm press of her knuckles, exactly where you need it.
One of her hands slowly runs up the back of your neck, gently cupping you at the base of your skull.  Her fingers smooth over your temples, stress easing away as your eyes flutter shut.  Her other hand continues to press and massage in between your shoulder blades, firm and insistent as she smooths her thumbs over the tight knot that’s gathered there, with patient persistence, making it unravel at her touch, and forcing the tension to leave your body. 
“Relax, Pretty Girl, I’m not going anywhere,” her voice is a low rumble against your ear. 
Her lips brush over one of the bruises she’s left on the side of your neck, and suddenly, it’s like all the tension bleeds out of you, draining so quickly that you don’t have time to catch yourself.
She laughs softly as you try to contain the yawn that tears through you as she eases you back towards the pillows. She wraps a soft blanket around both of you, covering your bodies and making sure you’re tucked in securely. 
She settles in behind you, warm, bare skin pressing against yours as she curls herself around you. A strong arm wraps around your waist, gently tugging you close to her as her leg hooks over yours. 
You’re barely awake, only aware enough to snuggle into her, saying sleepily, “if this is the treatment I’m going to get after one swimming lesson, what are you gonna do when I’ve mastered it?”
There’s a soft chuckle, low against your ear as she whispers, “don’t worry about that, pretty girl, I’m sure you’ll find out soon enough.” 
She kisses the top of your head, lingering for a moment as she adoringly watches your eyes flutter. You sigh with contentment, letting a sleepy smile graze over your lips. Maybe she doesn’t realize what she’s doing, maybe she isn’t even aware…but, in this moment, you’re surrounded by her. 
Her safety.
Her warmth .
Her unconditional and unwavering love is curled around your heart as closely as she’s curled herself around you. She’s here, she’s safety, she’s love,and right now, she is all that you could ever want.
-
this was actually my first attempt at writing smut, and in spite of how nervous I am to share it, I’m actually really happy with how it turned out. So if you enjoyed it, please let me know, notes, comments, and re-blogs are so appreciated. Thank you so much for reading
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zomboys-blog · 8 months
Text
i only want you to want me.
summary: clarisse refuses to accept the fact that she likes you until her siblings push her to admit it by setting you up on a date with the one and only percy jackson.
pairings: clarisse la rue x fem aphrodite!reader
spoiler: fluff, semi slow burn?, super cute
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it was around 5pm, clarisse sat at the dining hall scraping away after a massive food fight started by luke, it was punishment for the stunt she had pulled at the capture the flag game today, clarisse thought that getting her spear broken was punishment enough but chiron thought differently.
“need any help?” a voice spoke from behind clarisse, scaring her due to the fact clarisse had no clue there was someone behind her, she quickly turned around only to find possibly the most beautiful women she’s ever seen, clarisse felt a weird sensation in her chest.
“who are you?” clarisse spoke softly for once in her life, almost scared that nothing would come out. Oddly enough she felt weird around this mysterious person almost as if she were in a trance.
“im Y/N, from the aphrodite cabin. You must be clarisse? chiron told me, well forced me actually to come out here and help you.” Y/N? a beautiful name was the only thought going through clarisses mind, the next words that came out of clarisses mouth were hoarse, her mouth felt dry but her hands felt sweaty, she knew what this was, ‘charms speak’ the ability only gained if you were a child of aphrodite.
“what’d you do?” clarisse refused to let this power take hold of her and took slow and calm breaths to ease her racing heart.
“to put it simply some kid ran into me back there and i did kind of use my charms speak to get him to steal from chiron..” this surprised clarisse as you had seemed so innocent but she out of all people knew how looks could deceive.
“well are you just going to stand there or pick up a mop and a bucket?” clarisse spoke harshly as she continued to scrub the food on the walls
•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~
“hey is that clari i see?!” Y/N spoke whole heartedly as she ran up to give clarisse a hug, which she quickly put a stop to.
“first don’t call me that and secondly lower your voice.” clarisse had barked out, you knew clarisse had meant her words with the way she chewed the inside of her cheek, since that day, months ago spent cleaning the mess hall, you and clarisse had spent a lot of time together which lead to a lot of things, one a new found hatred for percy jackson and two a new found crush for the one and only clarisse la rue.
“why, what are we doing?” Y/N spoke in a hasty whisper while looking around childishly.
“i wanted to watch percy jackson practice archery, i’m trying to figure out who his father is. There’s no way someone with hermes as there father could beat a minotaur, it’s either he’s lying! or his father is someone of great power and i want to know who.” clarisse spoke as she walked into the archery practice grounds making eye contact with Y/N taking in all her beautiful features until a wild arrow came flying towards Y/N’s eye.
“holy shit Y/N look out!-“ it was mere seconds before the arrow was inches away from Y/N’s face, clarisse reached a hand out to grab it, but her reaction time wasn’t quick enough.
Y/N shut her eyes as quickly as possible waiting to feel a sharp pain on the side of her face but after a minute of pure deafening silence Y/N opened her eyes to see an arrow inches away from her face and a hand gripping it, holding it in place, immediately Y/N looked over to make sure clarisse was undamaged. Clarisse was perfectly fine except for the scowl plastered on her face as she looked at the person holding the arrow.
You looked up to get a good look at the person and to your surprise it’s percy jackson himself, “percy? how the hell did you do that” Y/N quickly forgot about her hatred toward percy and gave him a firm hug, glad to keep both of her eyes.
clarisse glared at this hug that lasted way to long for her liking, she watched as her enemy and her Y/N got chummy with eachother, she watched until she couldn’t take it anymore and stormed off to her cabin.
Y/N now engulfed in her conversation with percy hadn’t noticed that clarisse left.
•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~
“god clarisse just admit it, no one gets upset that much at their ‘friend’ for talking with their enemy, you obviously have feelings for her.” clarisses sibling spoke, annoyed that clarisse had just talked her ear off for hours on end about your conversation with percy, all her sibling wanted was sleep.
“ugh i don’t fucking like Y/N!” clarisse groaned and threw herself onto her bed, wallowing in self pity, it had been months since you first met clarisse and ever since that day she had done nothing but talk on and on about you and her siblings had ENOUGH. They had to put a stop to this absolute bullshit and they knew just how to do it.
•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~
“listen i’ve liked you for a really long time and i know i haven’t communicated it well but i just want you to know that since the day we met i’ve always had my eye on you”
silence filled the room.
“what.” Y/N spoke whilst still in her pajamas as her door was slightly creaked open she had a blank stare while looking at percy jackson.
“just go on a date with me is what i’m asking.” percy sighed and handed her a note.
Y/N read it before doing anything else and immediately said yes upon reading the note. “Just give me an hour or two to get ready”
Y/N welcomed percy into her shared dorm and told him to wait on her bed while she took a shower, soon the water started running and about 20 minutes into her shower there was a knock at the cabin door.
“percy do you mind getting it?” she didn’t hear a response back but did hear the door opening.
“Y/N do you want to come with me to the mess hall for breakfast?” clarisse spoke not making eye contact until she smelt the faint scent of cologne, her eyes darted to the door way as her eyes landed on percy jackson, what the hell was he doing in her Y/N’s dorm?
“oh sorry clarisse she’s in the shower right now.” percy spoke softly. The moment clarisse heard this she almost fucking bursted right there, right before she could start screaming obscenities at him, he shut the door, right in her face. If he wasn’t dead before he surely was now.
percy waited patiently for you to get ready and once you did, you looked like the most beautiful girl in the world, he was very lucky to be taking you on a date, and he had it all planned out too, he was going to take you through the flower fields where a picnic was set up, then hand you over a necklace he had bought you and give you a bouquet of flowers, but of course since he had wronged clarisse in every which way possible this wasn’t going to go as planned.
The walk to the picnic, clarisse followed a few feet behind. As they ate on a picnic blanket, three snakes had came up to them. The necklace percy had bought, stolen. The final straw was when the flowers percy had hand picked all morning were found in the bushes, cut up and tossed. Percy was in fact pissed and knew it was all due to clarisse, he also knew she was watching close by so in an attempt to get back at her he grabbed Y/N by the waste and kissed her passionately.
A loud thud was all that could be heard as percy suffered a blow to the stomach and a firm hand yanked your wrist in the opposite direction towards the cabins.
a part of you was worried for percy but the other was also worried about your own safety as due to the darkness you couldn’t see who had grabbed you.
That was until you were forcefully shoved into a cabin and placed on a bunk bed where the light was then turned on, the tension from your body eased up as you saw the curly hair you grew to love so much.
“clarisse whyd you do that?” Y/N spoke in a sweet tone to tell clarisse she wasn’t mad. Clarisse took a seat next to Y/N on her bed and turned to make eye contact with Y/N
“i know my siblings put percy up to this as a way to get back at me and make me realize i have a crush on you or something, i’m not saying i do have a crush on you but it’s not like i wanted to see you date my enemy especially when your the only person i want to myself, well not in a possessive girlfriends way but also in that way? so i guess i do have a crush on you, all i know is i’m really confused and i want nothing more than for you to kiss me inste-“ clarisse was cut off with a pair of lips smashing against hers.
“better? you were rambling so now it’s my turn, i know that they put percy up to this, it was in a note that percy have to me and i had agreed to go on that date knowing that you’d find out and ruin it, my hope was that you’d come out and confess to me but i didn’t think you’d actually punch percy, i guess it doesn’t matter because that was really hot clari” Y/N smiled.
clarisse felt her face heat up as she chose her next words carefully. “this means we can date now right?” clarisse was surprised she wasn’t stuttering as she really didn’t know how to word this, she hadn’t been all that good at expressing how she felt.
“of course we can clarisse” Y/N gave an innocent look before speaking again. “this also means i can do this”
Y/N leaned in to kiss clarisse again, catching clarisse by surprise and then pulling away only a couple inches so clarisse could speak.
“please do that again”
“i’ll do it as many times as you want pretty girl”
•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~
The end yaysysyysysy my hands hurt
bye<3
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pedrospatch · 1 year
Text
a safe haven | three
Jackson! Joel Miller x Female Reader
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series masterlist
summary: You and Joel get to know each other better and the two of you share a private moment out behind the barn under the stars; an unexpected guest shows up to the party; Tommy gives Joel a second and final warning about you.
warnings/tags: 18+ ONLY, MINORS DNI. (TW) MENTIONS AND IMPLICATIONS OF DOMESTIC VIOLENCE/ABUSE. PLEASE HEED THE WARNINGS. alcohol consumption, mutual pining and yearning, Joel sings to reader a bit (that is its own warning), soft Joel, overprotective Joel, and a slight hint of jealous Joel. Tommy seems like kind of an asshole but he’s just trying to look out for his brother, okay?
word count 6.6k
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About an hour later, after tossing back about three or four bottles of Seth’s crappy beer, you’d started feeling a lot livelier and a lot more like yourself. It was a glass of his delicious, oak-barrel aged whiskey that you had wanted more than anything, but with Esther over at the bar openly flirting up a storm with Joel Miller, you pushed down the desire for scotch and settled for the bitter lager instead.
It tasted awful, but it did the job well enough. The best part was that the bottles of beer were all readily available in coolers all around the barn, and you didn’t need to go up to the bar to get one. 
The last thing you’d wanted was to find out what was going on between Esther and Joel.
“And the next thing you know, poor John is being chased all around the chicken coop by a bunch of broody hens!” Martha finishes her story, throwing her hands up in the air. “God, I wish I would’ve had a camcorder in hand. It was the funniest thing I ever did see in almost two damn decades.”
Everyone sitting around the table bursts into a fit of loud, hearty laughter.
“Oh okay, so then that would probably explain why there weren’t many eggs in stock at the market the other morning,” you tease, only fueling the commotion.
John glares at you, and you shrug innocently, fighting back another laugh. Six foot two with big, broad shoulders and arms, you found it both very difficult and very amusing to picture the bulky blond man being chased around by a flock of pissed off chickens.
“I’d really like to see any of you guys try and take a broody hen’s eggs away from her with ease!” John huffs out before taking a gulp of his beer. He’s red in the face, and it’s hard to tell if it’s from the alcohol or the embarrassment. “Assholes.”
Martha leans over, whispering, “See? I told you it would make him mad.”
You giggle, lightly shaking your head at her. “Talk about ruffling some feathers, huh?”
She snorts into her plate of potatoes, jabbing her elbow into your side. “Let’s stop before he really gets all riled up, or else we’re going to get an earful.”
“Oh come on, John. Lighten up,” you grin over at him from across the table. “I know what’ll make you feel better. You guys want to hear a really, and I mean really embarrassing story?” You pause for a second or two, just long enough for everyone to nod eagerly. “Let me tell you about what Stella did to me the other day in her stall when I tried to take her temperature, it was absolutely awful. Okay, so there I am about to—”
“Sorry to interrupt you folks, but do you all mind if we steal this sweet little lady here for just a minute or two?” The sound of Tommy Miller’s smooth, deep voice causes you to stop abruptly mid-sentence. You glance over your shoulder only to see him approaching the table. He’s closely followed by Maria, who had traded her usual patrol duty attire for a light blue denim dress that sat off of her shoulders, the flowing skirt falling just above knees. Her white cowboy hat matches her husband’s.
“Aw c’mon, Miller! She was just about to tell us a story!” Peter, Martha’s husband, exclaims as he drapes his arm around his wife’s shoulders
Tommy chuckles, shaking his head. “I promise we won’t keep her too long, alright?”
You immediately notice that he’s holding a drink in each hand, each glass filled almost to the rim with a bold, rich amber liquor over ice. The only reason that you’d immediately known one of the two drinks was meant for you was because Maria had just discovered that she was pregnant. It was still a secret that very few people knew about, but the minute she confirmed it with a pregnancy test earlier that month, she’d come running to your door to tell you. It’s the reason she’s been avoiding booze all evening—she’s been sipping on lemonade all night instead. 
“Excuse me,” you nod politely to the group of friends you’d been sitting with and stand up from the table. You follow Tommy and Maria over to a far corner of the barn where the three of you could talk somewhat privately. Accepting the glass from Tommy, you offer him a grateful smile, pleased that you’d gotten the drink you had wanted after all. “Thank you.”
“‘Course.” He nods and tips the brim of his cowboy hat to you in his typical, gentleman-like manner. He’d never lost an ounce of those Texas manners.
Maria loops her arm through his. “Well, it looks like tonight was a real success,” she states as she glances around the room, her pride written clearly across her face. “Wouldn’t you say so?”
“Absolutely,” you agree, enthusiastically. You smile again and lift your glass to the couple as you toast, “Another year and another success. Here’s to many, many more to come.”
“Cheers to that, little lady,” Tommy grins and lifts up his glass, clinking the rim of it to yours before taking a generous drink, nearly draining it in one single gulp. “Thanks for stoppin’ by earlier and helpin’ set the place up, by the way. We really appreciate it.”
You wave your free hand at him. “Oh, no need to thank me at all. You already know that I was more than happy to help out,” you tell him as you take a careful sip of whiskey. The hard liquor burns its way down your throat in the sweetest way. Taking another sip, you turn to look at Maria, unable to help yourself from admiring her gorgeous, natural glow. “How are you feeling?”
“Not too bad,” Maria replies with a smile, placing her free hand over her flat stomach. At only a few weeks along, she still had quite a long way to go before she began to show. “Just a little bit of morning sickness here and there, but so far, so good.” She pauses and leans her body into Tommy’s side. “I never thought I’d be having a baby in my forties,” she muses with a laugh. “I thought that train had left the station a long time ago. But I guess life had something else planned for me.”
“For us,” Tommy corrects, playfully nudging her.
“For us,” Maria echoes, giving him a loving kiss on his cheek. “Luke calls it a geriatric pregnancy. He told me I’m automatically considered high risk, due to my age and all. But we’re hoping it’ll go smoothly.”
You detect the genuine concern behind her optimistic smile and reach out, gently touching her arm. “I’m sure it will all turn out fine. You just have to make sure that you’re taking good care of yourself and getting plenty of rest.” You point a finger at her, wagging it back and forth. “So, that means no more patrol duties for you, Mrs. Miller.”
“Oh I know,” she laughs again. “I’m on light work duties starting next week and in a few months, it’ll be strict bed rest for me. At least, that’s what Luke recommended, but I’m hoping to stay on my feet for a little bit longer than that.” She tilts her head curiously to the side as she looks at you. “Speaking of Luke, is he around? We haven’t seen him at all tonight.”
Throat bobbing, you grip your glass tightly in your hand. The corners of your mouth threaten to turn downward, but you manage to hold your smile well enough.
At this point, you had pretty much lost track of the number times you’d been asked about Luke.
Where is he? Why isn’t he here with you? Do you think there’s a chance he’ll show up tonight? Can’t you go home and convince him to join us? 
You just about loathed the way he was considered to be a hero in Jackson. The way that every single person in the community adored the man to pieces made you sick to your stomach—Luke was anything but a hero, but nobody knew that. Not a single soul knew the real him, the monster that emerged behind closed doors, the terrible things he did when no one was around.
There had been an occasion or two where you had considered going to Tommy and Maria about it, to tell them all about the horrors that went on within the walls of your home. But even when they’d point out a bruise on your arm or a scrape on your cheek, you would lose the courage and chalk it up to a clumsy accident or injuries sustained while on the job—hell, just a few months ago, you’d blamed an injured shoulder on Ranger, telling Tommy that his beloved stallion had accidentally kicked you during one of your routine examinations. You wanted nothing more than to tell him that it hadn’t been his horse who put you in a sling for three weeks, it had been Luke. But how the hell could you do that?
Luke is the commune’s physician. The commune’s only physician. 
Besides the two older nurses who worked in the clinic along with him, he was the only medically trained professional who knew how to treat severe injuries, perform minor surgeries, and diagnose illnesses—as much as you hated to admit it, Jackson needed him. If you told Tommy and Maria about everything that he’d done to you over the last two years, then you’d risk getting Luke locked up in the town jail, or possibly even thrown out and exiled from the settlement. What would that mean for the people in the community who fell ill or became injured and needed a doctor?
Maybe he wasn’t a hero to you, but to everybody else, he was. People could die without him and his medical knowledge. Hell, Maria would need Luke now more than ever now that she was pregnant.
For as much as you wanted to tell them the truth about him, you just couldn’t find the guts to do it, not when the decision would impact every single person in Jackson.It would be too selfish.
So, you kept quiet and continued to let it happen because what else could you do? 
Nothing. 
There wasn’t a goddamn thing you could do about it.
Tommy says your name, snapping you back out of your thoughts. “Hey, you alright?” he asks you as he gingerly touches your shoulder. “You zoned out on us for a minute there.”
You blink. “Yeah sorry, I’m alright. Um, Luke decided to stay at home and get some rest,” you reply as you shift awkwardly from boot to boot, feeling a sudden heat flood your face. “He’s been working a lot of hours at the clinic and making house calls as well, so he’s just been really tired, you know?”
“Oh, well that’s too bad,” Maria frowns. “Tommy and I were hoping we could say this to the both of you together, but I suppose you’ll have to give him the message on our behalf when you get home to him later tonight.”
You shoot her a puzzled look. “What is it?”
“We know we don’t say this as often as we should, but you and Luke do so much for us. So much for Jackson,” Tommy says, sincere gratitude dripping from his tone. “We’re damn lucky to have the two of you here. Me and Maria, and everyone in this community, we’re all deeply indebted to both of you for all you do.”
You stare at him. “Everyone here works very hard, Tommy—”
“Now, I ain’t saying they don’t,” he interrupts you by holding up his hand. “But let’s be honest here. Luke, he takes good care of all of our people, you take good care of all of our horses—people and horses, that’s what keeps this place runnin’ like a well oiled machine and you know it just as well as we do. Without the both of you lookin’ after our two most important resources, I ain’t all too sure where the hell this place would be.”
Maria nods in agreement with her husband and squeezes his arm. “Oh, don’t be so modest,” she remarks upon seeing the bewildered expression on your face. “He’s right. And we need you to know how much we appreciate everything the two of you do for this community.”
Tommy grins, raising his glass in a toast. “To you and Luke.”
Stomach churning, you flash them your very best smile and lift your own glass, clinking it against his and then to Maria’s bottle of lemonade. “Well, I will certainly give him the kind message when I get home tonight. Thank you.” You take a quick sip of your drink, suddenly feeling overwhelmed. The room feels hot, like it had been lit on fire and you were standing too close to the flames. “It’s starting to feel a bit warm in here. I’m going to go outside for a minute to get some fresh air. Excuse me.”
Before either of them can utter another word, you spin around on your heel and hastily make your way across the barn towards the exit, being careful not to bump into the dancing couples on the dance floor along the way. Even as you hurried out, you’d caught sight of Ellie sitting with Dina at one of the tables, digging into her plate full of barbecue. Dina had leaned over and whispered something into Ellie’s ear and Ellie let out a loud, obnoxious cackle through a mouthful of food.
Despite the circumstances, you can’t help but smile—an actual, genuine smile this time around.
At least Ellie seemed to be having a good time.
That’s more than enough for you.
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Joel glimpses over Esther’s shoulder. 
His eyebrows pull together in a mixture of confusion and concern as he watches you practically run out of the barn alone with a drink clutched in your hand and a strange expression on your face—you appear to be upset over something.
The blonde in front of him had been going on and on about where she was from, although he hadn’t quite been listening to her the entire time she had been talking—or at all. 
Had Esther said Vermont? Or maybe it had been Virginia?
Joel wasn’t all too sure, but he didn’t care enough to ask her to clarify. Besides, his thoughts were far too busy preoccupied with someone else. Someone he needed to make sure was alright.
“Listen Esther, s’been real nice talkin’ to you,” he states as he offers the woman the most polite smile he can possibly muster up for her. He tries to ignore the awkward way she’d pouted her lips at him, a sad, disappointed look flashing in her eyes. “But I’ve gotta go and take care of somethin’ for a minute. Will you excuse me?”
He doesn’t even give Esther the chance to respond. Setting his drink down on the counter, he gives her a quick nod goodbye and steps around her. He starts towards the barn’s exit, but before leaving, he tosses a quick glance in Ellie’s direction just to make sure she’s still doing okay without him. He had been keeping a close and watchful eye on her from the bar the entire time. After a while, it soon became apparent to Joel that Ellie had been doing just fine. She’s scarfing down another heaping helping of bison and potatoes, grinning from ear to ear as she talks with Dina, who seems to be enjoying her company despite her poor table manners.
Joel steps outside into the night and he takes a look around, searching for you among the small, scattered groups of people who stood mingling with one another. Gossiping women, drunk and rowdy patrolmen, children running around—he jumps slightly as a giggling little redheaded girl who can’t be older than five circles around his legs with a curly haired boy who is about the same age chasing after her. He lightly shoos them away from him and they take off running in another direction.
He scans his surroundings once more.
You’re nowhere to be found.
Humming, Joel glances down.
He notices a long trail of footprints left behind by what had to be a pair of cowboy boots, similar to the ones you’d been wearing. The strange way in which they veered off in a random direction away from the rest of the crowd tips him off almost a bit too easily—he knows they belong to you. Without giving it a second thought, he starts to follow your tracks and they lead him all the way around to the back of the barn.
That’s where Joel finds you, leaning against the wooden paddock fence. You’re back is to him, your head tilted upwards. Your gaze seems to be lost somewhere up in the velvet, purple night sky and you’re swaying along to the pretty country melody that, even outside, can still be heard coming from inside the barn.
Turn around, a sound voice in the back of his mind tries to reason with him. Go go back inside.
He ignores it, his legs moving forward, eager to close the distance between the two of you.
The sound of his heavy boots crunching on the rocks in the dirt as he draws closer to you causes you to jump. Whirling around, you gasp and your free hand flies to your chest.
“M’sorry,” Joel quickly apologizes, holding up both his hands to show you he’s not a threat. “Didn’t mean to startle you.”
“Joel?” You’re surprised to see him.  “What are you doing out here?”
The area out behind the barn is just as dark as it is secluded, however, the moon is full, big, and bright, its silvery glow illuminating each and every single one of your features in such a beautiful way that it makes his throat go dry, just like it had earlier that evening when he’d first seen you in that dress.
“Well ain’t that funny. I was actually just ‘bout to ask you the same exact question, darlin’.” He falls into step beside you, leaning back against the fence. “What are you doin’ out here all by your lonesome?”
“Oh, I just needed some fresh air, that’s all,” you reply with a small, light shrug of your shoulders. You turn back around, leaning your forearms on top of the wooden fence, both hands wrapped firmly around your glass of whiskey. You’re standing so close to Joel that your shoulder touches his, though neither of you make a move to put space in between your bodies. “What’s your excuse?”
“Needed a breather from Esther,” he confesses. 
It was partially the truth. 
He couldn’t tell you he’d really come outside to check on you.
“What do you mean? Didn’t you like her?”
“Don’t get me wrong, she’s nice and all,” Joel says, letting out a chuckle. He shakes his head. “She just ain’t the kind of company I’m lookin’ for tonight, y’know?” He pauses for just a brief second and crosses his arms over his chest, his sudden change in position causing his shoulder to press even closer against your own. “Tommy mentioned her to me when we were havin’ lunch together yesterday. Said he’d be willin’ to set us up, but I didn’t think his dumbass would actually follow through with it.”
Confused, you shoot him a strange look.
“I’d told him I wasn’t interested in meetin’ her, but Tommy’s always had a real habit of not listenin’ to me,” he remarks, shaking his head once again.
The question falls from your lips before you can even think about trying to stop it. “Why aren’t you interested in her?” you blurt. Awkwardly, you clear your throat and add in a nonchalant tone, “Esther’s gorgeous, Joel. Most guys around here would jump at the chance to be with her.”
“S’like I told you. She just ain’t the kind of company I’m lookin’ for tonight.”
“So then, what kind of company are you looking for?”
Joel hesitates, then answers honestly. “Yours.”
“Oh,” you breathe out, your heart skipping a nervous beat.
He tests the waters. “That alright to say?”
“Mhm,” is all you’re able to utter.
Fighting to take a steady, even breath, you clutch at your glass even harder. 
“Y’know, when I was on my way out here, I saw Ellie and Dina still sittin’ together,” Joel finally says after a minute or two, breaking the silence. “She honestly seems to be havin’ a real good time with her.” He nudges your shoulder with his own, a hint of amusement in his voice as he turns to you and asks, “Now tell me why I’ve got this strange little feelin’ that you had somethin’ to do with that?”
Your immediate expression of guilt prompts his grin. 
You’d been caught red handed.
“Okay, so I may or may not have talked to Dina earlier today while we were setting up the barn for the party. I asked if she could do me a favor and at least try and talk to Ellie tonight,” you admit, sheepishly. “I told her about how much Ellie reminds me of her, and how I thought they would get along.” You feel his dark eyes fix themselves intently on you and the heat creeps to your cheeks as you continue to explain yourself to him. It’s only just now occurred to you that perhaps you should have ran the idea by Joel—he’s her guardian and the last thing you want to do is cross his boundaries. “It took a little convincing, but she agreed. Dina can still be quite shy sometimes, but she’s a really good girl, Joel. I promise.”
Joel raises an eyebrow at you, letting his arms fall down to his sides. “Really? You did that?”
“Yeah. I did.” Anxiously, you take a long sip of liquor before adding, “I hope that’s okay.”
“‘Course it is, darlin’. I really appreciate you doin’ that for Ellie.” Joel’s gaze softens and meets yours with genuine sincerity. “I appreciate everythin’ that you’ve done for her. It means a lot to me. More than I can probably even explain.”
“I can tell how important she is to you.”
Joel nods. “Ellie’s the most important thing in the world to me.” He stops, exhaling a long, heavy sigh. “She’s been through a whole lot—a hell of a lot more than anyone her age should have to go through.” Once again, he pauses momentarily, trying to keep his emotions in check. He swallows harshly and subconsciously leans closer towards you without realizing it. “Ellie, she ain’t my blood, but she’s my daughter. For a long time, I thought I couldn’t take care of her. I thought that I didn’t have what it takes to protect her.”
“And what about now?”
“Now that we’re here, I feel real different ‘bout it all. I finally feel like I can keep Ellie safe, y’know? Give her the life she deserves,” Joel states, sounding a bit relieved, almost like he’s only just now made the realization that things are different now—it’s not like it was while they’d been out on the road. Each day isn’t a fight for survival, a game of trying to stay alive long enough just to see the next. Sleeping in the dirt, watching her go hungry, seeing her have to wear the same dirty clothes for weeks at a time, those were all now things of the past.
Pulling yourself back from the fence, you glance up at him with a curious expression. 
“Ellie hasn’t told me all that much about what she’s gone through—about what either of you have gone through.” You catch sight of the worry that flashes in his eyes and reassure him, “And I don’t plan on asking because it isn’t any of my business. But in the short time I’ve gotten to know Ellie, I’ve already seen it in her eyes, Joel. It’s all there.”
“What’s there?”
“Every bad thing that’s ever happened to her.”
Joel hangs his head. “Jesus.”
And just like that, he somehow feels like a fucking failure all over again.
“I know that you’re worried about her, Joel. I don’t blame you, but you’re doing all that you can do,” you remind him, the kindness in your voice bringing him the warmth and comfort he’s been needing for far too long. “You’re here in the community now and she’s safe. That’s what matters—all the rest is going to fall right into place soon enough. Just give her a bit of time and don’t put so much pressure on yourself.”
Joel sighs. “I just want what’s best for her, y’know? Just like any normal parent would want for their kid.”
“And you are doing the best that you can, just like any normal parent would.” You reach out, gently placing your hand on his bare forearm, your thumb brushing his warm skin. Your mere touch sends a tingle up his spine, and he can’t help but wonder if the connection had done the same for you. “It’s easy to see how much you care about her. How much you love her.”
“I do love her,” he murmurs. It feels odd, almost foreign for him to say it out loud. Of course he loves Ellie, and although he’s fairly certain she knew that and she loved him too, those three specific words had never been exchanged between them, and he had a hunch they never would be. “All I want is to do right by her. After everythin’ she’s been through—I just want her to finally be happy.”
“That says a lot about the kind of man you are.”
Biting back a scoff, Joel shakes his head. He doesn’t want you thinking he’s a good person—you’d be horrified if you knew about all the blood that stained his hands, about all of the things he’d done in the last two decades to survive. He’d stolen, he’d destroyed, he’d murdered. He’d lied.
He was not a good man. 
Your hand drops away from his arm, a lot sooner than either of you would have liked.
“So, what’s your story?” he asks, deciding to switch the focus of the conversation onto you. “How’d you end up in good ol’ Jackson, Wyoming?” 
“You take another sip of your drink, which is now completely watered down by the melted ice in your glass. “Well, like I told you, I grew up in New Mexico on a horse ranch. It was me, my parents, and my little brother,” you start to explain. “After the outbreak happened, me and my family ended up in the Albuquerque QZ. We were there for quite some time, until there was a breach at one of the gates and the zone was overrun with infected.” You pause briefly as the memories of that night come flooding back. By now, you’ve repressed them enough that they don’t bring you to your knees the way they used to when you had been younger. “Me and my dad made it out alive, but my mom and my brother didn’t.”
Joel frowns. “Shit. M’real sorry, darlin’. I shouldn’t have asked—”
“It’s okay,” you assure him with a tiny nod. “After me and my dad made it out of the zone, we found this group of people who were heading east, trying to get to Boston. It wasn’t long before everyone started to get picked off one by one—by infected, raiders, and even slavers. Somehow, me and my dad survived all that, but we found ourselves alone again. We were starving, had no shelter, and winter was just around the corner. We honestly didn’t know what we were going to do, and even though neither of us ever said it to each other, we were both so sure we were going to die. But then Tommy and his patrol group came across us one night. Once we proved that neither of us were infected, he brought us in.”
“You’ve been through a lot,” Joel states. He never would have even guessed.
You just seemed so well put together.
“Haven’t we all?” You let out a humorless laugh.
A silence falls like a curtain over both of you, but it’s comfortable.
Tranquil. 
Although it had been a warmer night, it was now much later into the evening, and a chilly breeze whips its way through the settlement, whisking its cool and crisp fingers through your hair. It causes the white daisy you’d been wearing to fall, and the flower flutters to the ground, landing right in between Joel’s boots. Without giving it a second thought, he reaches down and picks it up, being careful as he gingerly dusts the dirt off of the delicate petals. He turns to you, tucking the flower back behind your ear. As his hand falls away from you, his index finger accidentally grazes the soft skin of your cheek, and every part of him floods with the burning desire to feel more of you.
“M’sorry ‘bout that,” he mumbles sheepishly.
“It’s quite alright,” you say—and you mean it. You can’t even remember the last time someone’s touch set you on fire like this. You’d been feeling cold and empty and numb for so long, and while all of the things that Joel’s making you feel had become almost foreign to you, they’re starting to reignite that spark of life inside of you that you thought you’d lost a long time ago.
From the inside of the barn, you and Joel hear the band begin to play their cover of Can’t Help Falling in Love. 
“Elvis, huh?” Joel muses with a hum. He sounds impressed.
You’re not sure if all the alcohol you’d been consuming throughout the evening has only now just decided to kick into full gear in your system or whether you really do just lack any kind of common sense, but you find yourself looking up at him shyly through your eyelashes. “How about another dance?”
His lips part slightly in surprise. “To this song?”
Every inch of your skin burns hot with embarrassment and your fingers curl tighter around your glass. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have asked. It’s just that I really love to dance,” you sputter out nervously, wishing you had kept your mouth shut. You only dig yourself further into the hole as you continue to ramble. “Luke doesn’t like to dance. He never wants to dance with me—”
That’s all Joel had needed to hear.
He reaches for your glass, prying it out of your grasp. He sets it down on top of the fence and holds his hand out to you. “I’ll dance with you, darlin’.”
Looking up at him in surprise, you accept and place your hand in his. His other hand finds your waist and the two of you begin swaying along to the music—a smile that could light up the entire town breaks out across your face. 
Joel didn’t know Luke, but he couldn’t fathom how the man you were married to wouldn’t do just about anything to see that smile.
“Wait, I thought you couldn’t dance,” you tease, noticing that he’s leading you.
Flashing you a cocky grin, he shrugs. “Guess the kid was right. I ain’t so bad for fifty six with creakin’ knees.”
Remembering Ellie’s words from earlier, you throw your head back and laugh.
His stomach turns, twisting in a tangle of desire and nerves.
You’re married.
But that does nothing to stop the want, the need. 
For either of you.
Being in his arms, it’s wrong.
It’s more than an innocent dance—it’s the beginning of something that’s bound to lead to nothing but trouble and you both know it.
Joel continues to lead you and begins singing along to the familiar lyrics, quietly, but just loud enough for you to hear the sultry richness of his voice. “Like a river flows, surely to the sea,” he sings, subconsciously giving your hand a gentle squeeze. “Darlin’ so it goes, some things are meant to be.”
Impressed, you raise an eyebrow at him. “You’ve got a nice voice, Joel.”
“Y’think so?”
You nod. “I do. What, were you a singer in your first life or something?”
“Close.”
“Really? What did you do?”
“I was a contractor,” Joel replies, grinning as he elicits another sweet laugh from you. “Owned my own construction business with Tommy. I did enjoy singin’ though—and playin’ the guitar too. But it was a hobby more than anythin’ since I don’t think music would’ve paid the bills.”
You smile up at him. “Oh, well now you’re going to have to play the guitar for me sometime. Maybe even treat me to a whole song?”
“I still owe Ellie a song,” he remembers, shaking his head. “But I don’t have a guitar, so it gets me out of it.”
“Well then, we’re going to have to find you one and when we do, you’ll have to play something for us,” you tell him. “Deal?”
“Deal.” Joel agrees without thinking. He starts singing along to the lyrics again. “Take my hand, take my whole life too—” 
“But I can’t help falling in love with you.” You try not to laugh again at the shock on his face as you finished the lyric for him.
“Hey now, you’ve got a real nice voice yourself, darlin’.”
Darlin’. 
You shouldn’t let him call you that.
Out of respect for your husband, you should tell him it’s not okay. None of this is okay.
But it is okay. 
“Oh, now you’re just trying to flatter me, Miller,” you accuse him, playfully. 
The song ends and neither of you make a move to let go of one another.
Joel’s eyes fall to your pretty, plush lips and it takes every ounce of strength he has inside of him not to lean down and press his own lips against them.
Finally, he forces himself to let you go and takes a step backward, clearing his throat. “I should, uh—I should go and find Ellie so I can get her home. S’gettin’ kinda late.”
You nod, your heart slamming painfully against your sternum. “Of course,” you say, slightly breathless. “I’ll come along with you so I can say goodnight to her.”
As the two of you make your way around the barn and back towards the entrance, Joel sees a tall, slender man with short dark hair approaching. He’d called out your name and something inside Joel’s mind just clicks together—he knows exactly who the man is before you’ve even had a chance to open your mouth and say his name.
“Luke?” Stopping abruptly in your tracks, you stiffen and squeak out his name. “What—what are you doing here?”
“There you are, honey.” He comes up to you and immediately takes your arm, pulling you from Joel’s side and over to his. “Tommy told me you might be out here. I was just coming to look for you.”
It takes thirty seconds for Joel to size him up. Luke’s younger than himself, definitely closer in age to Tommy—somewhere around his mid to late forties. He’s a lot more clean cut than most of the other rugged men in the commune with his short, neatly kept dark hair and a clean shaven face. Though he’s on the thinner side, he’s in decent shape, but Joel’s wider, broader and far, far more intimidating.
“What are you doing here?” you ask again.
“Now, is that really how a loving wife should greet her husband?” Luke laughs, pulling you even closer into his side. 
Joel isn’t all too fond of the way he’s holding you. 
He’s rough, harsh.
“I decided to come and check it out. See what all the fuss is about,” Luke says. He glances at Joel, his green eyes giving him a once over—sizing him up, just like Joel had done to him. “Don’t be rude, honey. Aren’t you going to introduce me to your new friend here?”
You speak softly, almost too softly.
“Luke, this is Joel Miller.”
“Ah. You’re Tommy’s brother, right?”
Joel tries not to sound too curt, but fails. “That’s right.”
“Joel, this is Luke.” You can’t even look him in the eye as you introduce your spouse. “He’s my husband.”
Luke extends a courteous hand. “It is a pleasure to meet you, Joel.” His other hand finds and takes yours. “I do hope that my wife here hasn’t been bothering you tonight. She can be quite the little chatterbox. Makes me wish she came with a mute button sometimes.”
Joel’s dark eyes briefly flit to Luke’s hand holding yours, taking note of the way he’s gripping it so tightly that his knuckles had gone white. Between that and the comment he’d just made about you, Joel had every fucking desire to connect his fist to the side of Luke’s face.
“Luke, please,” you whisper, throwing him a tiny glare. 
“Oh come on now, honey. Where did your sense of humor go? You know I’m only joking,” Luke states, squeezing your hand a little harder, causing you to squirm.
Something tells Joel he’s not kidding around.
He’d meant what he had said.
“She hasn’t been a bother at all,” Joel speaks in your defense. “Actually, I came out here to talk to her and to thank her for bein’ so kind to my kid, Ellie. Your wife here, she’s been nothin’ but good to her since we arrived.”
“Well, as long as she wasn’t being a bother.” Luke glances down at you. “If you’ll excuse us, there’s a few people that I still need to see and say hello to inside. Come along, honey.” He glances at Joel, a strange glint in his eye as he tells him, “Welcome to Jackson, Joel.”
His jaw clenches as he watches him drag you into the barn.
Nothing about Luke sat right with him.
The way he’d spoken to you, touched you, treated you.
And then there was you.
The light had instantly left your eyes the second he’d come around. 
Something wasn’t right.
A rough hand on his shoulder startles him out of his thoughts.
“Really, Joel? Really? Jesus, what the fuck is wrong with you?” Tommy hisses, yanking him over to the side of the barn where nobody would overhear him. “What the fuck did I tell you yesterday in the mess hall?”
“The hell are you fuckin’ talkin’ ‘bout?”
His brother glares at him. “I know that you ain’t as fuckin’ dumb as you look, Joel. What the fuck were you doin’ out here alone with her? Huh?”
Joel purses his lips together tightly in silence.
What had he seen?
Having read his mind, Tommy shoves his shoulder. “You were dancin’ with her you fuckin’ asshole? Did you fuckin’ forget that she’s a married woman?”
Joel rolls his eyes at him and aggressively shoves his hand off of his shoulder. “We were just dancin’ together, alright? Ain’t like we were makin’ out, Tommy. Can you fuckin’ relax?”
“I don’t give a fuck, Joel! If I saw any man that wasn’t me dancin’ with Maria like that, I’d be fuckin’ pissed. I’d kick his fuckin’ ass,” he spits. “Her husband just showed up to the goddamn party. You’re fuckin’ lucky that it was me who saw you out there with her and not him. What if he’d seen you two? Then what?”
“Christ, Tommy. Relax,” Joel tries again to calm him. “It was just a dance, alright? It was nothin’ more than that. Okay?”
“You listen to me and you listen to me good, ‘cause I ain’t fuckin’ gonna say it again, big brother. Don’t go gettin’ any ideas ‘bout her. I don’t need you to go around stirrin’ up any kind of trouble,” Tommy says, his voice firm. “We can’t have that kinda shit here. Maria won’t tolerate it, and y’know what, I won’t either. Don’t fuckin’ cause problems. Got it?”
“Didn’t plan on it,” Joel mutters, bitterly.
Tommy narrows his eyes at him.
“Just fuckin’ watch yourself, Joel,” he warns. “I fuckin’ mean it.”
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