#and stitch them in place there for structure

[bottmless-pitt]

I'll be right there. 1/2

CONTENT WARNING: Mentions of suicide, talks of self-harm, Reader attempted suicide. Jack Abbot x F!reader, Neighbor!Reader, Medical inaccuracies, blood, car trauma, mentions of Abbot's time in the military, brief descriptions of bruising, blood, and stitches. Angst with an ambiguously happy ending. Summary: Jack Abbot's new neighbor ends up in his Trauma rooms for all the wrong reasons. Can he break through to her before it's too late? Author's Note: Some real self-indulgent angst. I highkey love a reader insert with a tragic backstory to lean into. This is part 1, I'll be posting part 2 later this week! Part 2 will definitely be more fluff and smut than this, so no hard feelings if you'd like to read it later. Let me know your thoughts. All the kindness from the other piece is keeping me upright. Enjoy the self-indulgent angst!!!

The lights were too bright. It was stale in the cavernous halls of the PMTC’s emergency department. The smell of blood and cleaning fluid never fully left your nose, and the sounds of someone’s lowest moments seemed to echo out eternally.

Jack loved the chaos that working in the Pitt brings him, it’s grounding. After spending better part of a decade on the front lines, returning to civilian life was more than monotonous, it was dehumanizing. Jack had understood himself well in the thick of the battlefield, he worked quickly without hesitation or fear. He had a carefully built self-image that hinged on his ability to be useful to someone in crisis.

After losing a portion of his leg, being honorably discharged, and sent back to retire he had lost the only structure he’d ever known. He couldn’t figure out how to be useful in the stillness, where no one was crying out for loved ones or God-like figures to save them. He was aimless without the chaos.

So, he loved The Pitt, and its never-ending line of incoming traumas. He appreciated his role in the machine that cogged overhead, happy to do his part and keep moving. Some days were harder than others, some cases left him feeling threadbare and worn thin, but the silence that greeted him when he walked home left him more haunted than anything he’d seen at work in the past few years.

So, all in all, Jack didn’t complain about the work the way the rest of his team did. He never minded the patients that would kick and scream at him, nor did he care much when there were far too many people packed into the waiting room. Yes, in a perfect world none of this would happen, but he enjoyed that it kept him moving forward. He needed the momentum desperately.

On an off night, however, he can’t seem to get the itch scratched. They had breezed through most of the day-shift’s leftover cases, discharged who they could, and moved onto the next. All of his cases were being monitored, the chairs had slowed down significantly, and it was approaching the Night-shift lull.

He was starting to get antsy, and after the third lap checking in on his team, he collapsed into a chair next to his Charge Nurse, Bridgit.

“Don’t get too comfortable soldier.” She looked down at him from the top rim of her reading glasses. Jack only smirked, she quirked an unimpressed eyebrow back at him.

“Oh, you know me,” He leaned back into the chair, putting the lumbar support to the test. “I’m not comfortable unless I’m elbow deep in traumas.” He passively spun his chair side to side, looking less like the Emergency Department Attending and more like a teenage boy stuck at the family barbeque.

“More like elbow deep in trauma, period.” She shoots back, tapping him with her clipboard the way a teacher would readjust a student. That was Bridgit, she was the one really running this place, and Jack had no issues submitting to her power when she pushed him around a little. She opened her mouth to say something, when the phone behind her lit up. It only took a few hushed words before turning back to him, “Look alive kid, we have incoming, ETA 3 minutes.”

Jack springs up, walking away as she finishes gathering the troops. He’s outside in a flash, prepped and sterile before the sirens could even be heard in the distance. Ellis not more than three steps behind him, already gloving up ready to take on whatever she needs. Jack tilted his head back and gave a calm thumbs up as they see the flashing lights come up and over the horizon.

When the ambulance pulls up and the gurney is wheeled out, he sees a young woman, bloodied, bruised, but semi-conscious. He begins his medical assessment and taking the reins from the EMTs. He doesn’t get a glimpse of her face before he begins spouting orders.

“Let’s get her set up in Trauma 1, I don’t like blood loss here, prep to intubate but let’s see if we can’t assess the head trauma before we sedate her.” He led as Ellis trailed along the other side, following his orders exactly. “Hi there, I’m Doctor Jack Abbot, I’m a doctor at the Pittsburg Trauma Medical Center, we’re going to take good care of you.” He heard a small groan as the patient slowly turned their head towards him.

He saw you then, he’s shocked he hadn’t recognized you sooner, on the gurney laid out before him. His sweet, albeit quiet, neighbor who had never given him any trouble. His breath caught in his throat as your eyes seemed to recognize him, before rolling back in your skull and everything went dark.

--

Pittsburg was a bitch in February. The weather was unrelenting, and frost bitten. No one wanted to be outside for more than five minutes, let alone lug box after box up the small stairwell into the dusty old apartment upstairs.

So, when Jack, who snagged a rare weekend off, noticed his new upstairs neighbor was moving in he had no excuse not to help. That’s just the kind of guy Jack was, he wasn’t going to let a new neighbor move in without at least offering. He was thankful you had sense enough to hire movers, rather than try and do it yourself the way the last tenants had. (He had the pleasure of trying to sleep through three college aged guys try to carry a sectional up the stairs two Septembers ago.)

He didn’t fancy himself too much help, but the next trip he saw you coming down he poked his head out.

“Oh!” you squeaked, nervous to catch one of your new neighbors off guard, “I’m so sorry I didn’t see you come out.” You clarified.

“it’s no worries.” Jack stepped out and extended a hand, “I’m Jack, I’m in 1B.” He pointed his thumb back at the door that was clearly labeled behind him. You only smiled shyly and let out a polite laugh offering your name in return.

“I’m 2B, so I guess I’m right above you.”  You spoke softly. “Is the moving too much noise? I’m so sorry, it was the only time slot the movers had left.”

Jack shrugged, he hadn’t really thought about it, with his sleep schedule being as backwards as it was. This was early for him if he was being honest.

“Not for me, no. I’m night shift at the hospital down the road.” He noticed your fidgeting, trying to keep an eye on the movers without being too rude. You were young, far too young for him, but it didn’t stop him from admiring your face. He especially noticed the crease that developed between your eyebrows when you saw the movers drop a box boldly labeled fragile.

“Sorry, I don’t mean to keep you, just wanted to see if you needed any help.” He conceded. Your head shot back to look at him, wide eyed, and a flush creeped up your spine.

“No, I’m sorry, I’m so distracted. The move’s been pretty chaotic.” Your shoulder slump, letting the weight of the moment hang heavy before taking a deep breath and regaining composure. You shoot him a smile, but he notices how it doesn’t quite reach your eyes. “But I think we’re ok! And I don’t want to steal your night away.” She brushes off the comment.

He doesn’t reasonably believe you, but hey, moving can be tough and he doesn’t want to keep you longer than necessary.  So, he throws a friendly smile, catching your eyes with an open intensity. “No problem, but if you ever need anything I’m down here.” He watches his words land, and you pause a moment before nodding again.

“Thanks Jack, and uh- “you peak back through the open front door to watch the movers for a moment, “same here. If you ever need anything at all.”

And that was the first and last time he’d spoken to you, until now. Until you were wheeled into his trauma room, covered in blood, multiple broken ribs, and an unidentified head trauma.

Jack was a talented doctor, a master at compartmentalizing in high stress environments, and acting fast in situations going south. He was a steady hand in an earthquake, proving his actions time and time again, both in the field and out of it. He was a good doctor, but seeing you laid up before him had his throat dry in an instant.

He couldn’t reconcile the shy neighbor he met only a few months ago is the same girl bleeding out on his table, and the last thing she heard was him promising to take good care of him.

For a moment, half a moment maybe, as your eyes slide shut, he lets the chaos around him rumble away, it couldn’t touch his shock. He let the nurses bark SATs and Ellis call out questions.

For a brief moment he allowed himself to be Jack Abbot, 1B, who just wanted to make sure his new neighbor was safe. Jack Abbot, 1B, who would always take her mail dropped into his box by accident up to her door and ring the bell. Jack Abbot who wanted to get a second chance at a first meeting, because he’s sure that if he could just be slightly more charming, he’d have gotten a chance to carry a box up the stairs and into your new home. That he would have a chance to leave you better than he found it. The Jack Abbot that was selfish, wanting a woman who was younger than him, who’d only ever spoken to him the once, but had never left his mind.

It wasn’t until one of the nurses brushed past him with a bag of O-Neg that he snapped out of it.

“Fuck, we need to get her intubated-“He announced, reaching for the tube, and before he can allow himself to think any further about what could happen to you, his mind shuts and he becomes Dr. Abbot again.

The first thing you feel when you come to, is a dull ache in your left side. Everything hurts, actually, but your left side outranks the rest by far. Your eyes don’t open right away, too heavy to try lifting them. You let the sounds of the monitor to your right keep time, beep… beep… beep. It would be comforting if the sheets didn’t itch, and your feet weren’t so cold, or if there wasn’t the sounds of people dying outside the doorway to your room.

When you opened your eyes, you immediately regretted it, your head blooming in fresh pain from the intensity of the lights. Immediately shutting them closed and letting out a groan. The lights shining overhead had you spinning, sending waves of pain down your body. It was never supposed to end here.

If you told yourself a year ago you ended up in the emergency room tonight, she’d probably laugh in your face.

It all started with your fiancé, or ex-fiancé, who couldn’t seem to decide if they loved you or not. Or at least that’s what they told you last December while you were picking out wedding cake flavors. It wasn’t that they didn’t love you, per-se, the reality is they didn’t love you enough to stop fucking their coworker. So, wedding is called off, which you lament but move on.

It's not until he kicks you out come January, with nothing but enough cash to stay at a shitty motel for a few weeks that things start to weigh you down. The small attic apartment in a townhouse in the heart of Pittsburg is a refuge. It takes most of your paycheck every month, and you have barely enough furniture to call it livable. It’s completely yours, though, and that’s not something you’ve ever had.

So, you keep going through the motions. Then you get fired from your job. Budget cuts, layoffs, restructuring is uttered. You suspect it has more to do with the Senior Manager that’s sporting the engagement ring that was yours just a few months prior. That’s when the spiral really begins.

You reach out to whatever family you have left and are met with cold indifference. They’re not unsupportive, but you aren’t the only one with problems. Any attempts to reach out to old friends lost to time are met with similar tepid support.

The dismissal is enough to keep you firmly bottled up for years.

You’re not really sure what the final straw was but looking up at the steep steps of your apartment building, you can’t bring yourself up the steps. Not when you know the only thing waiting for you is a stuffy apartment devoid of all life. You contemplate, for a moment, knocking on the downstairs neighbor’s door, but decide against it. You’re not sure what kind of doctor he is, but he always looks so tired when you catch him coming up the sidewalk in the mornings.

But after a long shift at your new dead-end job, you just decide it’s not worth it anymore. You couldn’t spend another night thanking your lucky stars to be living a life you despise. For the first time in a long time, you feel nothing at all. No sadness, no pain, just intense clarity. You turn on your heel, walk out into the cold, and hardly flinch when you take a step out into the busy street. The last thing you remember is the bright light of the oncoming traffic consume you.

You were never meant to end up here. You never meant for any of this. You open your eyes again and reach out for the call button.

You were by no means a medical expert, but you thought the button was more for Nurses rather than doctors. You hadn’t expected for Jack to poke his head into your room, but of course he had. Of course, Jack was an ER doctor, and of course he was in your room. Lest we forget what sick karmic luck exists.

“Hey there sleepy head.” He was calm, but you could feel his eyes racking down you with medically trained precision. How mortifying for your neighbor to be your doctor after a night like this. You want to curl up and hide, he reaches out for your hand.

“How are you feeling?” he tilts his head down at you.

“Hurts.” You manage to choke out, throat sore and rough, like sandpaper. He presses his lips in a tight line and nods his head gently.

“Understandable, you were in a car accident.” He reached over, fiddling with the equipment. “I’m adjusting your meds. You should feel less pain here in a minute.” You resist the urge to let out a chuckle, the physical pain was hardly the main concern, and you had a feeling by the unwavering gaze jack was giving you- he already knew that.

“Thank you.”

“No need to thank me.” He takes a seat on your bedside. “I spoke with some of the officers on the scene,” He fiddled with the thin paper sheet below you. “And they’re pretty concerned about you, kid.” He dropped his hand on top of yours, and you felt your whole body react.

His eyes boring holes into your skull as you try to squirm out from under his gaze. The pain meds slowly trickling in your system do little to help as you try to adjust. You cry out in pain when your skin, bruised and swollen, is stretched to its limit along your side.

“Easy there, you’ve got stitches.”  Jack, Dr. Abbot, has his arms around you in an instant. He helps you turn until you’re lying on your side, and you allow yourself the comfort of curling up in protest.

“That better?” He asks, and you only nod. “Good.”

Jack makes no motion to move, he just sits with you, watches you like you’ll disappear any second. He opened his mouth a few times but ultimately spent the next few moments watching you.

It was a shameful feeling, to know your low got that low and now you’re sitting with your neighbor who probably thinks you’re totally insane for walking into oncoming traffic. He was some hotshot ER doctor. You were just some random person who’d come swan diving into his life headfirst and knocked themselves out on the bottom of the pool.

You couldn’t bear the agony of waking up without meaning again, and you don’t understand why this man, who owed you nothing, was sitting here with you. Your body begged you to say something, do something, anything, but your mind was numb.

You burrowed deeper into your own hands, and it wasn’t until you felt Dr. Abbot’s own hands petting your hair, that you realized you were crying. You felt your whole body sink into the thin mattress below you, like a faulty tire finally siphoning the last bit of air. Your body shook and your muscles ache around the constricted breaths.

“I know, let it out.” He encouraged, scooting closer to you.

“I can’t do it anymore. I don’t want to do this anymore.” You finally admit. In a strange way it feels better saying it to someone other than your own reflection. You can’t look at him, you don’t want to see the look in his eyes when he thinks it. You’re completely insane.

You don’t know how long he sits with you, letting your body heave its sobs. He stays, ignoring other patients, to sit with you. One hand on your head the other fiddles with the chain around his neck.

“I lost a leg, in Afghanistan in 2009,” His voice is calm, almost matter of fact, but waivers off like he’s reliving it. “And I thought that would be the hardest thing I ever had to experience.” He moved his hands away from you.

“I moved back home, thought about retiring, thought about working at a college as a professor. I liked teaching enough. I thought, the worst is behind me, just gotta move on.” He clears his throat, and you peak through to look up at him, lost in his own story. “I had a wife, I was going to settle down and figure out how to be there for her, but it wasn’t that simple. I had lost myself completely over there.

“I was a soldier my whole life, I trained to be a soldier first, medic second. I don’t think I remembered what civilian life really was. We used to sit around at base camp, talking about what we’d do when we got home, but once I was there it meant nothing to me anymore.” You took a shuddering breath, and he looked down at you, “I came back, and I had some really dark nights. I couldn’t move, I had no purpose, I was a soldier first, medic second, person third. I couldn’t be a soldier, I wasn’t cleared to be a medic, and I had no idea how to be a person anymore.

“There more than a few nights where I begged for everything to stop. I prayed for there to be an end to that feeling. So, I get it. Hey, I really do, but this is not the way out you think it is kid.” He put his hand on yours, and you felt his fingers curl around yours tightly, like he was holding onto something that was just on the brink of slipping him by.

“I don’t have anything,” You admit to yourself, “It’s not just things, I don’t have a life, I don’t have anything.”

He lets out a shaky breath, “You have me.” He tilts his head again trying to catch your reaction. Your breath gets caught in your throat, and distantly you hear the heartrate monitor increase. He only chuckles and reaches past you to turn the monitor off. “I mean it, I’m here, I’m not going anywhere.”

“You don’t know me at all.” You sound like a petulant child, but he lets you get away with it.

“But I want to.”

And when Jack puts it that way it’s so simple. He makes life sound easy to rebuild, and you want to yell and scream that it isn’t that simple. You want to shake him until he understands the wreckage he’s standing on top of isn’t just a broken-down building, it’s a radioactive wasteland.

“Here’s what I want to do, and you tell me if this is alright.” He stands, crossing his arms, then looking down at you. “I’m going to have a doctor come talk to you, and he’s going to set you up with a therapy program that’ll be a good fit for you. Might even get you on some medicine if they feel like it’s the right fit. I’m also going to give you my phone number, and I’m going to check on you before I leave for work and when I get home for a few weeks. I’m going to give you the number for my charge nurse as well, in case you can’t reach me.” He runs a hand down his face, and you can see the exhaustion pulling him down. You don’t offer an argument.

“I know it’s scary.” He admits to you, “To choose to get better, but you can, and I’ll be right here, alright?” He nods, and you nod with him.

“Okay,” you concede, exhausted form your own emotions.

“It’s rude,” He pats your shoulder, “to end up in a trauma on your friend’s shift you know.”

“Are we friends, Dr. Abbot?” You question.

“We are now.”

[jessesluvr]

A soft place to land was so good I wanna ask for something similar too (pls)

What about... Older sister reader who comes to town having to take care of her little sibling (I envisioned a girl at first because of lilo&stitch, but honestly the request would either fit with a lil girl or lil boy so you choose) because their parents just died, and the little sibling is having a hard phase because they're having a garden time accepting their parents are gone, and reader is just a kid too she doesn't know how to deal with them well right now. And among all the folks in the town who only see and do nothing (some just think "poor thing" to both of you, and the hostile ones just whisper either judging the little sibling with words like "brat" or how reader is dooing a poor job handling things), jesse steps in (and, surprisingly, helps a lot)

the weight of the quiet things | jesse x reader

author's note : he looks so grouchy and cute, and i looooove him. eat well and drink lots of water ! <33

summary : after losing their parents, a 21-year-old girl struggles to raise her grieving little sister in jackson, facing judgment and whispers from a town that only watches. but when jesse steps in with quiet patience and unwavering support, he becomes the anchor they both need—bringing healing, safety, and the first glimpses of love back into their lives.

word count : 3.3k

you didn’t expect the quiet to be so loud.

jackson is safe, they told you. fenced in, warm, full of people, full of structure. they had food, schools, housing. a town. they had something your sister might still grow up in.

you didn’t know how to tell them that none of that would matter if she kept flinching at doors slamming, if she refused to eat unless you sat down beside her and took a bite first, if she kept asking you if it was your fault—if maybe, maybe, mom and dad wouldn’t have died if you hadn’t told them to move faster.

she’s ten. she shouldn’t know how to ask questions like that.

and you’re twenty-one. you shouldn’t be making life decisions like this.

you were lucky, you guess. they gave you a small house on the edge of town. it’s more of a cabin, a one-bedroom, drafty when the wind picks up. the heater doesn’t work well. you let her have the bed. you take the couch. her nightmares wake you up every night anyway.

the people here aren’t unkind, but kindness isn’t always the same as help. they give you soft smiles and call you “sweetheart.” they call her “poor thing.” some of them bring casseroles. others talk behind their hands. you hear them sometimes when you walk past the bar, or when you linger too long near the diner waiting for the school bell to ring.

“that kid’s trouble.” “never seen a girl cry and bite in the same breath.” “you’d think her sister could get her to act normal by now.” “what’s she, twenty? twenty-one? shouldn’t be raising a kid.”

you don’t say anything. you’re so tired. all the time. the kind of tired that no nap or meal or walk can fix. the kind of tired that comes from never knowing if you’re doing the right thing, from carrying grief that doesn’t belong to you alone.

your sister’s name is evie. and she’s all you have left.

evie doesn’t like the school here. she says the kids look at her weird. that the teacher talks to her like she’s glass. that the walls feel like a trap.

you try your best. you try structure. wake her up with time to get ready. try to get her to eat some oatmeal. pack her bag. tell her to be brave.

some days it works. most days she just cries and begs you not to make her go.

it’s a thursday when it all breaks.

you’re walking her to school, hand on her shoulder, guiding her through the path lined with old snow and brown slush. her boots keep sticking to the mud. she keeps muttering that she’s not going. you keep saying “just one more day.”

but then she sees something—maybe a kid that laughed at her last week, or maybe she just hears someone whispering, you don’t know—but she screams. not loud, not sharp, but this guttural, painful sound that stops a couple people on the street. she shoves her bag to the ground, grabs a rock, and throws it.

it hits a wooden fence.

you kneel down in front of her, whispering, “hey. hey, evie, stop, baby, it’s okay, it’s okay—”

but it’s not. she’s sobbing. she’s breathing too fast. and when you try to touch her hand, she jerks back and runs.

you don’t even get a full breath in before you’re sprinting after her, calling her name.

she runs toward the greenhouse. away from the center of town. toward the edge.

people stare. no one moves to help. you hear someone say, “someone needs to do something about that girl.”

and then, suddenly, someone does.

a tall figure cuts across the street, fast and purposeful. someone grabs evie before she hits the slope behind the fence. scoops her up and turns just as you reach them.

you stop, panting, heart in your throat. jesse.

you’ve seen him before. talked once, maybe twice. he’s on patrol with dina, sometimes ellie. always seems to be smiling. warm in a way you don’t know how to trust.

he’s holding evie like she’s not squirming. like she’s not trying to scream her way out of his arms. but he doesn’t flinch. doesn’t tighten his grip too hard. just murmurs, “whoa. hey. it’s alright. not gonna hurt you.”

you reach them and jesse gently passes her over to you.

evie is still crying. but when your hands wrap around her shoulders, she lets her head fall against your chest, a soft, wet hiccup trembling out of her.

you don’t know what to say. jesse doesn’t rush you.

after a long, shaky silence, you look up at him. “thank you.”

he nods once, like it’s not a big deal. “didn’t want her to fall.”

you swallow hard. “she—she’s not usually—”

“you don’t have to explain,” he says, softly. “grief’s a messy thing.”

you stare at him a second longer. he doesn’t look at you like you’re failing. not like most people. there’s no pity in his face. just something calm. steady.

you hate how much that almost makes you cry.

jesse doesn’t disappear after that.

he stops by sometimes. not too much. not overwhelming. he just shows up in little ways.

he drops off extra fruit from the greenhouse. offers to walk evie to school with you, says he’s headed that way anyway. offers to fix your heater one night when he hears it’s been acting up. you let him. he does it fast, doesn’t make it awkward.

evie doesn’t trust him. not right away. she glares. she pouts. she hides behind your leg. but jesse never pushes.

he crouches when he talks to her. calls her “miss evie.” never asks her to smile. never tells her she’s lucky. just listens.

it’s three weeks after the breakdown that she finally lets him braid her hair while you cook dinner.

you don’t even notice until you glance over and she’s sitting cross-legged on the floor, eyes half-lidded as he carefully ties off a little braid behind her ear.

you freeze mid-stir. she hasn’t let anyone touch her but you in months.

jesse just smiles at you like it’s no big deal.

you almost burn the soup.

you learn things about him in small pieces.

he lost people too. not long before he came to jackson. doesn’t talk about it much, but you feel it in the way he treats people. like he knows how fragile everything is.

he doesn’t talk down to you. doesn’t act like you’re a child for being twenty-one and terrified. he asks how you’re doing. actually listens.

you forget what that feels like.

one night, he brings over cards. says evie might like learning a few games. you sit on the floor with them and watch her actually laugh when he tries to cheat and she catches him.

her laugh is small, still scared. but it’s real.

jesse glances over at you and smiles like he knows exactly how big that moment is.

you don’t know what to say. so you just smile back.

the next morning, evie brushes her own hair without you asking.

you pretend you don’t notice. she hates being watched when she’s trying. but your heart swells so full it hurts, and for the first time in weeks, you don’t have to coax her out the door. she puts on her own boots. shrugs her jacket on. waits by the door.

you walk beside her down the street, and jesse’s already there, leaning against the post, two cups of something steaming in his hands.

“figured you’d be cold,” he says with a small smile, handing one to you.

you wrap your fingers around the warm metal thermos. “thanks.”

evie doesn’t say anything, but she glances up at him. doesn’t look away.

jesse notices. “hot chocolate’s in my other hand,” he says casually. “but it might be for someone who beats me to the corner today.”

evie doesn’t move. not at first.

and then—she bolts.

jesse yells, fake-dramatic, and runs after her.

you just stand there, heart aching with something that isn’t sadness for once.

when he jogs back toward you, she’s got the thermos clutched in her hands, proud and grinning and out of breath.

jesse leans down and says, “i let her win.”

you scoff. “she’s ten. you’re old.”

“i’m twenty-three.”

“ancient.”

he bumps your shoulder with his as you walk. you don’t step away.

you try not to lean on him too much.

it’s hard not to.

there’s something about the way he exists in your space—easy, natural, never overstepping. he knows when to talk and when to sit in the silence. knows how to fold into the background when evie’s having a moment. knows how to make a dumb face that gets a laugh out of her when no one else can.

one night, after evie’s asleep and you’re washing dishes, he lingers behind, towel in hand, drying them as you pass.

you’re so tired. you press your elbows against the edge of the sink, let your head drop forward, eyes closing.

jesse’s quiet a long moment, then says softly, “you’re doing a good job.”

you almost drop the plate.

you turn your head, eyes meeting his. “i’m not.”

“you are.”

“i don’t know what the hell i’m doing,” you whisper.

jesse sets the towel down and leans against the counter. “nobody does. especially not when they’re grieving.”

you blink hard. “i should be stronger. more patient. sometimes i get—frustrated. i yell. i scare her. i didn’t mean to, i just—”

“you’re human.”

you look away. his voice is too gentle. it makes your throat tighten.

“you lost them too,” he says. “your parents. and now you’re trying to keep your sister from falling apart while you’re still bleeding.”

you press your hand over your eyes. “don’t.”

“i’m serious. people around here don’t get it. they like to look from the outside. it’s easier that way.”

you nod slowly, unable to find words.

“you need help,” he says. “and not because you’re weak. but because you’ve been carrying this alone.”

you meet his gaze again. there’s no pity in it. just truth.

you whisper, “i don’t know how to let people help.”

jesse shrugs. “then let me be the first.”

after that night, things change in a quiet, steady way.

jesse becomes part of your routine. not all the time. but often enough that evie starts to look for him. when he misses dinner patrol, she asks where he is. when she draws pictures, she makes little stick figures of you, her, and him—your triangle of survival.

he teaches her how to fish one day by the frozen stream. she hates it, but when he pretends to fall in, she laughs so hard she snorts. it becomes her new favorite story to retell at the table.

you start sleeping more.

you still wake up in the middle of the night sometimes, panic crawling up your chest. but it’s not every night. sometimes, you hear evie shift in bed and let herself fall back asleep. sometimes, you hear nothing at all.

jesse helps with the repairs around your cabin. the door that never closed right. the leak near the window. he brings extra blankets when the nights get colder.

you make him soup in return. sometimes bake—though you're not great at it. he eats everything anyway.

you think maybe—maybe—this is what peace looks like.

it’s not all soft.

there are still moments.

evie snaps at a girl in her class and throws a chair. you’re called to the school. you feel your stomach drop as the teacher—gentle, but firm—explains that it can’t happen again.

you apologize. over and over. you cry into your hands the second you’re outside.

jesse’s there. you don’t know how he knew, but he’s waiting by the porch when you get back.

you tell him what happened. that maybe they’ll kick her out. that you don’t know what else to do. that you feel like you’re failing again and again and—

jesse cuts you off with a hug.

not rushed. not uncomfortable. just steady arms around you and warmth that holds all the pieces together.

you don’t cry. not this time.

but you hold on a little longer than you meant to.

evie writes a letter one day.

you find it tucked into your pillow.

it’s messy and scribbled, but her name’s at the bottom, and it says:

“sorry i scream sometimes. it’s not because of you. i miss them too. but you’re trying really hard. and i’m gonna try harder too.”

you sit on the edge of the bed, holding it in your hands, and feel your lungs expand for the first time in weeks.

you don’t show it to jesse.

but you tell him later that she ate her peas without complaining.

he fist-pumps and she laughs at him.

it’s enough.

a storm rolls in mid-month.

the power flickers. the wind howls.

you hear a knock at your door, and when you open it, jesse’s standing there with a bag slung over his shoulder and extra batteries in his hand.

“just in case,” he says, casual.

you let him in.

evie’s already set up the living room with blankets and pillows, like a fort. jesse helps her build it better. you light candles. cook canned soup over the small stove.

that night, the three of you sleep in the same room. storm raging outside. soft breathing inside.

jesse is just a silhouette across from you. you can hear his steady breath.

you whisper, “thank you.”

he doesn’t say anything right away.

then, quietly: “you saved her, you know.”

you turn your head. “what?”

“evie. you saved her. maybe she’s saving you too.”

you don’t respond. not because you don’t believe it.

but because your heart’s too full to speak.

spring tries to arrive in jackson like it’s not sure it’s welcome.

snow clings in patches. the earth softens beneath boots. the air smells like cold woodsmoke and thawing earth. evie starts spending more time outside, riding her bike in uneven circles, hair bouncing behind her in a too-big helmet.

you watch her from the porch, cup of coffee in hand, sun on your face.

jesse comes by like always, toolbox in hand, and drops it on the steps with a groan.

“she’s getting fast,” he says, watching her pedal hard down the path. “you’ll have to start running after her soon.”

you smile. “i’ll make you do it.”

“fair.”

you take a sip. “hey, jesse?”

“hm?”

“thank you for... everything.”

he shrugs, but there’s a flush on his cheeks. “you don’t have to thank me.”

“i do.”

“well,” he says, kicking at the porch with his boot, “you’re welcome.”

but not everyone is kind.

you hear them sometimes. at the market. on the way to the schoolhouse. behind the wall when they think you’ve walked out of earshot.

“that kid still acts like a brat.”

“poor thing, but jesus, they need someone older to step in.”

“she’s too young for that kind of responsibility.”

“he’s only helping because he feels bad. or because he’s got a thing for her.”

“she’s clinging to him. it’s pathetic.”

you pretend you don’t hear.

but the words dig under your skin. stay there.

one day you’re carrying potatoes back from the greenhouse and someone sneers, “maybe if you spent less time with him and more time raising your sister, she’d stop biting people.”

you freeze in place.

slowly turn.

jesse’s not with you today.

you open your mouth to say something—something biting, something harsh, something you shouldn’t—but you stop.

evie’s watching. from behind you. eyes wide.

and you realize she heard it too.

you swallow the fury and walk away.

you cry later, alone, where evie can’t see. you scream into your pillow. you break a cup on the floor and don’t bother cleaning it for hours.

jesse finds you sitting on the floor with your head in your hands and doesn’t say anything. just sinks down beside you and pulls you into his chest. lets you stay there until your shoulders stop shaking.

he says softly, “you don’t owe them anything. let them talk.”

you whisper, “it still hurts.”

he nods. “yeah. it will.”

the next day, he takes you and evie out on a trail ride with dina and ellie. you all pack sandwiches. evie rides behind ellie, laughing the entire way.

jesse rides beside you.

when you stop for lunch, you sit beside him on a fallen log.

he reaches over and brushes something off your shoulder. a leaf, maybe.

his hand lingers a second too long.

your breath catches. you don’t pull away.

“can i ask you something?” you murmur.

“sure.”

“why are you helping?”

jesse’s quiet a long time.

then he says, voice soft, “because i see you. really see you. and because you’re doing something brave every single day. you stayed when you could’ve run. you didn’t give up on her.”

you look at him. really look.

“but why me?”

his smile is lopsided, a little shy. “maybe because i like you.”

your heart thuds.

“like—like me?”

he nods. “yeah. i do. not because i pity you. not because you need help. but because you’re good. and strong. and funny when you let yourself be.”

you don’t say anything.

you lean in and kiss him instead.

it’s soft. hesitant. unsure.

but his hand comes up, gently curling around your neck, steady and warm, and everything slows.

when you pull away, you feel a little like you’re floating.

he smiles. “so... that’s a yes?”

you laugh. actually laugh.

“yeah. that’s a yes.”

evie doesn’t ask about it.

but one night, after dinner, when you’re sitting on the porch and jesse is teaching her how to shuffle cards, she leans over and rests her head on your shoulder.

“he makes it easier,” she says.

you nod. “yeah.”

“he makes you smile.”

you glance over. she’s staring at the deck in her hands.

you say quietly, “does it bother you?”

she shakes her head. “no. i like when he’s here.”

you press your lips together, eyes burning.

you wrap an arm around her and hold her close.

people keep whispering. not as much. but enough.

jesse doesn’t care. makes a point to hold your hand in front of them now. asks you to the spring festival. kisses you at the end of the night in full view of the town square.

evie wears a flower crown the whole night and wins a sack race.

you dance once. maybe twice.

you still grieve. always will.

you still wake up some nights to the ghost of your mom’s laugh in your ears. still fold evie’s laundry and think, she should’ve had help doing this. still hear the little girl cry sometimes when no one’s watching, when she’s trying to be strong like you.

but now you’re not alone.

and little by little, the world becomes soft again.

you find your footing.

you keep going.

you love him. eventually, when it feels right, you tell him that.

he tells you first.

and when evie says it too, casually, one afternoon when jesse helps her with math homework, he nearly drops the pencil in his hand.

he grins so wide it almost hurts to look at.

he whispers to you later that night, holding your hand against his chest, “this is the best thing i’ve ever done.”

and for the first time in your life, you believe someone when they say that about you.

[tj-crochets]

I know I said it might be poofy dress time again but I think instead it is time to make a bag!

My favorite uncle’s favorite color is BRIGHT orange (he’s been known to dress head to toe in orange) and he has a lifelong quest to visit every national park in the US, so when my dad saw this fabric he asked me to turn it into a bag for my uncle. Since neither my dad nor I knew what we were doing when it came to “how much fabric does a bag use”, it might be two or three bags? I’m not sure yet lol

[kedreeva]

Today in measuring your peahen, Bug is casually 2 foot, 3 inches tall (she can stretch a little taller when she REALLY wants a treat). This is just tall enough to see over a tray table and pull things off of nightstands and end cabinets.

Bug is also a little over 3 feet long from tail tip to beak tip. Most of Bug is made up of tail and neck. There is a 6lb dead weight in the middle somewhere that she knows how to directly place onto the ball of one foot while standing on you.

Bug's wingspan is around 3.5 feet, thought I didn't get a measurement. It will be over 4 feet as an adult.

Bug is growing in her spurs. As a Spalding (hybrid) hen, Bug will likely have one inch bone knives conveniently attached to her tarsometatarsus. This is technically fused foot bones, not a leg bone. Curiously, pure Pavo cristatus hens have spurs, and pure Pavo muticus hens have spurs, but many domestic Pavo cristatus and low-percent Spalding hens lack them. This is one of the indications of domestication in the cristatus species. As I prefer the wild type, I prefer my hens spurred, so this is a good sign!

Bug's toes measure a smidge over 5 inches from the tip of her rear-facing to to the tip of her longest front facing toe. Try measuring that on your hand.

Bug's nails measure 1/2-3/4 an inch long, depending on the toe. That's almost as long as one finger section for most people.

When I had snakes, I got asked all the time if I was afraid of them biting me. The answer is no. I have been bitten by a 6 foot long, 20lb boa constrictor, and have no scars to prove it. Meanwhile I have so many scars from peafowl sitting on me, particularly on my forearms, that I have had to reassure people I am not a danger to myself.

I post these photos as a reference, but also as a precaution. This is a BABY peafowl, and a female at that. She is only 6 months old and weighs a little over 6lbs, which means she's about 2/3 of the way grown, and adult hens are typically 3/4 the size of an adult male. These are BIG birds that can do a LOT of damage, even accidentally. When they become aggressive, as in the case of hand-raised males or poorly bred birds, they become a potentially fatal threat to any other fowl you have. Unlike chickens, they are more than capable of (and prone to!) jumping to human face level before they flog (kick with their feet in a way that allows their spurs to hit home), which means they could easily take out an eye or cause other serious facial injury if they get a lucky strike. I have seen more than a few people end up with stitches, and more than a few birds end up euthanized because people think they are gonna be cute cuddly friends.

I know that Bug is a cute bird, but I also want to stress that a) she has an outstanding personality as a result of breeding choices and socialization b) she hasn't hit maturity, and won't do so for another 2+ years, so her personality could change considerably still and c) I have been raising peafowl one way or another for my entire adult life, which has been structured around keeping them. I love my birds, and I would love for more people to keep peafowl as they are great animals, but they are not casual animals. They are large and potentially dangerous farm fowl that take a lot of space, care, and knowledge to keep.

[damneddamsy]

falling | joel miller x fem!oc (part xiii)

HEURISTIC BLOOM—Intuition blossoms where logic fails.

summary: What is a chore chart but structure in the Miller family that was falling out of line?

a/n: this turned into such a Daddy Joel chapter, so much fluff and angst, I think I just miss my dad so much these days, and this new episode was so difficult to watch. also, this is the daddiest that Joel has dad-ied in this entire series. I love every second of it; Maya and Joel just wreck my sanity. I hope you love it, too :)

word count: 13,000+

Time was the one thing Joel always hoped he’d have more of.

Not in the poetic sense, or to chase silly dreams or put things right. Back then, it was time he’d wanted only so he could spend it hating himself a little longer—then die. Quick, quiet, out of the way, forgotten. That was all he figured he deserved. One more day to survive. One more step closer to nothing.

Only now did time reveal its discretions. Each ageing moment handed to him like a sovereign of gold—finite, dear, and impossible to reclaim once lost.

Mornings came with the sweet dread of culminating, that soon waned by the closure of evenings, and so the circuit went. When everything felt too still, too good to be real. It was as if he’d wandered into someone else’s dream by mistake—some softer version of the world where the coffee stayed warm and the silence wasn’t empty. And he'd be jolted awake to cold floors and open doors any second now.

But the days kept coming. They folded into months, and somehow, a whole year had passed.

A year of birthdays, of sprinting forward, and arguments and mended fences. Of holidays cobbled together with whatever they could find—new twinkling lights held up by fishing wire, cakes made from rationed sugar and fruits born in their backyard. A year of reasons to celebrate. A year of dinners that rarely started on time because Maya needed to show everyone around the table her crayon-covered invention.

A whole year of learning what a family can be—awkward, noisy, unfinished—even when it was messy.

It was a lopsided tapestry that you stitched together with mismatched thread and too-thin patience, patched over with stubborn love and quiet apologies that never quite reached the lips. But it held, even when it creaked under the grief, betrayal, or someone slamming the door too hard.

One thread on that tapestry spiralled forward.

His baby girl, Maya, had turned two over the winter, all curls and wild energy, her tiny voice echoing through the house like birdsong—bright, persistent, impossible to overlook. She ran now—fucking bolted, really—zigzagging through the halls with the chaos of a wind-up toy, often with a sock missing, making him exhausted in ways he never wanted to recover from.

Leela cycled little chores for her on that chore chart that was pinned on the refrigerator, with pretty butterflies and yellow-red-green boxes, all of which were mostly ceremonial, but Maya took to them with solemn, almost comical seriousness. Joel had rolled his eyes then at how excessive it seemed, but these days? He saw what it did and meant.

Structure. Ownership. A sense that Maya belonged here and that this home worked because she helped it.

Setting the table for dinner became a ritual: “One for Daddy, one for me,” she’d whisper in account, carefully placing each plate and all the cutlery with two hands, and god help you if you moved one out of place. She watered a particular rosemary bush in the garden more than the rest, peering into its green leaves like it might talk back. She’d pluck weeds with exaggerated grunts of “Gotcha,” and announced with great urgency to him when the firewood pile looked “low-ish. You gotta make more.”

He’d smile and roll up his sleeves. “Yes, ma’am.”

And when he'd come down right after his shower—steam still curling in the upstairs hallway, wood floors cool under his bare feet, shirt sticking to his back as he came down the stairs, fingers combing through hair that was still wet at the nape—and there she’d be, every damn time.

On the little step-stool in front of the fridge, staring solemnly at her chore chart like it might change if she concentrated hard enough. Her brows were furrowed, sleep-crushed and intent. One hand clutching her stuffed horse, the other hovering near the velcro stars like she was solving a military strategy.

She tapped a box with her finger. “Gaw-den day.”

“Gaw-den. Close enough,” Joel murmured, halfway to the counter.

Maya whipped her head around.

He turned just in time to catch the full force of her grin. Just joy in its rawest, brightest form.

Still in that too-small pyjama set with the little stitched deer on the knees, one sleeve riding up her forearm and the other twisted under her arm where she’d probably slept on it. Her hair hung wild and crooked around her face, half-out of the two ponytails he’d wrestled in the night before, looking like she’d fought a windstorm in her dreams and won.

“Mornin’, daddy,” she chirped, teeth flashing, brown eyes scrunching into perfect little half-moons.

Joel quirked up a smile, like he always did. Like her voice stunned something in him still—every single morning.

Still not rolling her Rs properly, and goddamn if that Texas drawl didn’t hit him straight in the heart every time. That was him in there, bleeding out in the twang of her vowels. She was picking it all up—his dumb phrases, his slow way of leaning against a wall when he got tired, his dry little “hmm”s when he didn’t feel like answering a question. She was mirroring it all, not on purpose—just by being around him too often.

Joel was rubbing off on her. And it was cute as hell. Terrifying, too, in the way love always was when you had something to lose.

“Hi, darlin’,” he triumphed. “Workin’ hard or hardly working’?”

She focused back on her chart again. “Mhm.”

“Hey, where's your mama?”

“Mmmm-downstairs.”

He sighed. “As usual.”

She nodded seriously. “Okay. I gotta count firepile, too. 'Cause I didn’t yestah-day. Was busy.”

“Oh yeah?” He leaned on the counter beside her, letting one hand drop down to rub her back. “Real busy yestah-day, huh?”

Maya nodded again. “Uh-huh. I was eatin’ jam-toast. I coloured.”

Joel chuckled low in his throat. “Well. That’s mighty important.”

“Hmph. I know,” she whispered, already hopping down from the stool. “Shoes, shoes, shoes...”

“Alright, busybee, you come right back and wash your stinky tush,” Joel informed, watching her leave with her horse bouncing under one arm and determination in every stomp of her feet.

Her giggles faded out the door. “Ee, daddy, not my toosh!”

And it was the same way when she fought with Tommy. Even now.

Not the kicking, screaming kind anymore—those had been toddler tantrums. These were verbal scraps now. Loud as hell, sure, but laced with theatricality and the kind of absurd logic that only a two-year-old could weaponise. Always over something stupid, too. A missing biscuit. A cheating accusation in Go Fish. Once, Tommy bragged he’d launched a rock clean over the river, claiming it had “cleared the bend, swear to God.” Maya narrowed her eyes, tiny fists balled on her hips.

“Uncle, you liar,” she declared at the table.

Tommy, ever the instigator, leaned into it with the earnest of a man falsely accused. “Now hold up. Who you callin’ a liar?”

“’S too far... throw.”

“Maybe you just got short arms, squirt.”

Her eyes went wide, affronted. “Not squirt!” she yelped. “Ma-ya. Maa-yaa.”

“Whatever, squirt.”

Then came the stomp—always the stomp—little boot heels pounding off to file a formal complaint with Maria, who didn’t intervene unless something got broken, or someone cried.

Joel just watched it all unfold with quiet amusement, biting the inside of his cheek to keep from grinning. That was his kid, through and through. Fire in her chest, loyalty to a fault, bullshit radar honed to lethal precision. He couldn’t decide if he was proud or worried. Probably both.

Maria handled it better than he did. She had a knack for plucking Maya up mid-meltdown, nestling her against a hip, and talking her down with soft logic and firm affection. No nonsense. No coddling.

Maya, all indignant, fists balled at her sides, came up to her. “He did it again! You gotta beat him, auntie—just pow, pow. Go.”

“Strong-armed by a munchkin,” Tommy mumbled to Joel.

Maria crouched, scooping Maya into her arms with a practised sigh. “Even wild things gotta learn when to walk away, baby.”

There was this maternal gravity there that Maya orbited around without quite realising it. Joel watched the way Maya always crept to Maria’s side when they walked together, or how she listened to her in that unusually still, owl-eyed way she reserved for her mother.

Ellie, on the other hand, was chaos incarnate.

Despite all her grumbling—I’m not babysitting, Joel, I got shit to do—she’d somehow slipped into the role of older sister with barely a stutter. Maya idolised her. Trailed after her like a shadow. Happily took to her when she gave her piggybacks every other evening. Ellie taught her how to whistle through her fingers, and how to spit (which Joel outlawed immediately), and how to sneak treats from the back of the pantry without anyone knowing, especially as Joel, the sucker he was, always fell for those delighting Bambi-eyes routine of hers.

“You distract Joel,” Ellie would whisper, squatted low like they were plotting a heist. “I’ll go for the loot.”

Sometimes Maya clung to her like ivy, curling up beside her on the porch while Ellie fiddled with her switchblade, asking questions about patrol, or hummed tunelessly on her guitar. Other times, she’d give Ellie the boot with all the ceremony of a royal dismissal.

“You go home now,” she’d say, small hand making a shooing gesture toward the door. “You go. Go back.”

Ellie never took it personally. Just smirked and ruffled her curls. “Fine, little shit. I’ll tell Dina you said no to those crayons you wanted so bad.”

Maya would hesitate. Glare. Cross her arms. “Fine.”

It was all ridiculous. It was all perfect. She was perfect.

And Joel couldn’t help but marvel at how she navigated them all—Tommy’s loudmouth energy, Maria’s constant warmth, Ellie’s storm-bright orbit. She was learning how to hold her own. How to give and take. How to love.

And through it all, Joel was utterly wrapped around her finger, watching his little girl fold herself into the arms of a world he used to think was too broken to offer her anything good. She could get away with just about anything if she smiled at him just right, even now.

He pretended to be stern, sure—“Put that back, trouble,” he’d grumble, trying not to grin his face off as she paraded around the house in his muddy boots, dragging his big-ass guitar behind her by the tuning pegs, impersonating him—“That ain’t a toy.”

“My guitar!” she’d giggle, shooting off.

And that would be that. Even Maya knew the truth: she had him beat.

Nowadays, he never really played that damn guitar for himself anymore. Not in the way he once had, back when music was the only place he could put his grief without it looking him in the face. These days, the strings still held sorrow, sure, but it wasn’t a wound he was nursing in secret. It was a tether.

These days, the strings answered to her. To Maya.

And most evenings, without fail, she’d find him out on the porch. Joel would settle there with a quiet grunt, sinking into the porch swing, guitar propped across his knee.

And she’d come, right on schedule—like a moth to the low twang of a G chord.

He’d barely get through tuning when he’d hear the soft little thump-thump-thump of bare feet coming up behind him.

And there she’d be. All two-foot-nothing of her. Wearing that flannel dress that was cut from his old shirts, a nappy that probably needed changing, curls stuck to her forehead, big, brown eyes shining, and she’d let out a huffy sigh, like she was bone-tired from a long day of being two years old.

“Play f’me,” she’d demand simply, climbing onto the swing with zero grace and a lot of conviction.

Joel would glance down at her. One of the shoulder-bows to the dress undone, one sock rolled halfway off, fingers idly picking at a tear on his jeans.

“Am I your jukebox now?” he’d ask, squinting at her with mock suspicion.

She’d giggle a 'hee-hee' sound, not even looking at him. She tapped her chest twice with a little closed fist. “Daddy, my song. Sing Maya song.”

“You ain’t got no song,” he said—always said, every time, even though he already knew what was coming.

“Comma comma song,” she insisted, nodding so hard her curls bounced. “My song.”

The same fucking Handyman song.

He'd lost count of how many times he’d played it—possibly near a thousand by now, judging by the muscle memory in his fingers. But it never got old, not once, not even when he was tired. Not even when his hands ached. Not even on days when he’d spent the morning scrubbing infected blood from under his nails or patching up a busted wall in the town’s greenhouse.

He exhaled, long-suffering, and booped her nose. “Fine. Only ‘cause you’re so damn cute.”

“Cute,” she echoed with a proud little nod, like it was her idea.

Sometimes, on good days—on golden ones like this—he’d plop her into his lap, seating the big, old guitar across both of them. She’d giggle every time like it was a surprise that it was so heavy, the guitar’s body practically swallowed her, tiny legs kicking out with the effort of balancing it. Joel would guide her tiny hand to the strings, his own fingers still holding the chords steady on the frets.

“Easy, baby girl,” he’d murmur, soft at her ear. “Right there. Ready?”

She bounced a little on his leg. “Th-wee-too-one,” she whispered.

And then she’d strum with those baby fingertips, turning red. A phantom pain radiated from his own at the sight.

The tune was always offbeat, too hard or too soft, a mess of squeaky rhythm and muddled chords—but she sang. Loud and proud. Off-key. Adorable. It didn’t matter if she got the words wrong; if she forgot them halfway through, then she made up new ones.

He'd sing with her, a smile in his voice. “Here is the main thing that I wanna say, I'm busy 24 hours a day—”

“Come-a, come-a, come-a, come-a, come, come!” she squealed, kicking her heels.

“Goin’ way too fast,” Joel laughed under his breath, trying not to lose rhythm. “You’re worse than your uncle.”

“I good,” she insisted, pushing her little hands against the strings with all the wrong pressure.

“You loud.”

“Comma, me-hee-ee!” she shouted.

Joel looked down at her—at that messy head, those little shoulders leaning back against the chest she’d lived all her life—this was the same girl who, not that long ago, couldn’t even sit up on her own. The wobbly little thing who used to clap wildly just because he’d hit a clean chord, laughing like it was magic. Now she wanted to sing with him. Be part of his music, even if her sweet songbird voice cracked mid-line because she got distracted by the callouses on his knuckles or the breeze.

His baby was growing up. Too soon for his liking, but so beautifully, too.

Although Joel thought he knew her. He knew everything about his little girl. Knew how she liked her toast slathered with jam, which socks were the “slide-y” ones, the exact pitch her voice hit when she was about to cry, or lie. He knew her world like a worn trail—knew how to keep her on her feet, fed, clean, and loved.

But some things she did still knocked the wind out of him.

It was late one evening, the fire burning low on the hearth, dinner cleaned up, when Joel had settled into the armchair with Maya curled up in his lap, the way she always did, back pressed to his chest, her fingers idly tracing that old scar on his forearm. He picked up the same book they’d been reading for weeks—The Three Pigs—half asleep himself, his voice a gravelly drone more than anything else.

But Maya pushed it aside.

“No,” she declared, already sliding off his lap. She padded across the rug, tugged at the bookshelf with both hands, and wrestled out a hardcover that had seen better days—corners frayed, spine puffed out from water damage.

She carried it over like it weighed five pounds and dropped it with a proud thud in his lap.

“This one,” she huffed.

Joel managed a quiet laugh. “Feelin’ turtles tonight, huh?” he muttered, shifting as she climbed back up his lap, settling in between like a cat.

He reached for the book—One Tiny Turtle—but she didn’t hand it over.

Instead, she squinted at the cover, nose scrunching in that comically serious toddler way. Then she looked up at him, one hand on the book, the other already halfway to his face.

“Daddy, glasses,” she said, tapping his neck like she was reminding him of something important. “I need ‘em. Gimme.”

Joel blinked, caught off guard—and then smiled. It wasn’t the first time she’d asked. Ever since he’d started needing the damn things—fixing small screws had turned into a guessing match more than a skill—Ellie and Dina had teased him mercilessly. Maya, on the other hand, had become fascinated. She treated the glasses like mystical antiques, often pulling them from his shirt pocket with the solemnity of a librarian.

“You wanna wear ‘em?” he asked, playing along. “Ain’t gonna help you. Your pretty eyes are fine.”

“Gimme ‘em,” she insisted, already snatching them up and jamming them on her tiny face, where they slipped halfway down her nose, looking exactly like an overworked professor three grades deep into bedtime.

“Wow,” she gasped. “I see you. I see turtles now!”

Joel bit the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing. Goddamn if she wasn’t the most adorable thing he’d ever seen. “Alright, careful with those,” he warned, settling his hands around her middle again to keep her from toppling off his leg.

She cracked the book open herself. Thumbed through a few pages with the consideration of someone handling sacred text. Then stopped. Planted a tiny finger on the first line.

And she started reading. Not guessing. Not parroting back his voice.

Maya was reading out loud.

“The moon was hi-guh... and the... wa-wa-ter was cold. But the ly-tuh-lee... little... tur-tuh-le... turtle... swam fah-st. Fast... lick-ee the ti-dee.”

Her voice was light, soft and lilting—like the story was a secret she was sharing with herself first, him second.

Joel stared at her, heart thudding like someone had snuck up on him.

Maya turned the page, tracing the next words carefully. Eyes squinting. “...pa-st the fish. And fa-w, fa-w aw-ay.”

Then she looked up, glasses sliding down, all earnest pride, like she expected to be graded. “I read’d it, Daddy.”

And for a second, Joel couldn’t find his breath because all he could think was: what in the everloving fuck?

He’d thought she was just memorizing the damn thing—he’d read it enough times to her, he’d been the one to guide Maya’s little finger across sentences these past months after all. But this wasn’t that. She was making sense of letters. Decoding. Connecting shapes to sound, sound to story. Stringing together syllables. Her lips moved just slightly before each word, like she was solving a fucking puzzle on the fly.

She wasn’t even three. And somehow—she was reading.

He didn’t show it. His face didn’t know how to do that kind of surprise anymore, not without breaking something open. Instead, he cleared his throat and gave her a quiet nod.

“You sure as hell did, sweetheart,” he said, low, a little hoarse. “You’re my little miracle, aren’t you?”

Maya lit up, her whole body beaming, and turned back to the book with purpose, flipping the page with the flourish of a person on a mission.

“Yeah. I read more for you. See. I named this turtle Marco, Marco Turtle...”

He only watched her, one arm wrapped loosely around her, the other hand resting at the edge of the paper, not quite knowing what to do with it. Her teeny heartbeat raced against his ribs.

And his mind was rushing ahead.

He should’ve been overjoyed. And in some ways, he was. But beneath the pride—deep in the gut, where old instincts still lived—a darker, ancient feeling bloomed. Fear. The same kind that gripped him when Leela stayed up too late with equations in the margins of tear-stained notebooks.

Because Maya was clever. Leela-clever. That quiet, effortless sort of brilliance that didn’t ask permission to exist.

And he knew what being brilliant cost. He’d seen it grind Leela down, chewed through her sleep, her peace, her joy. Seen how the world didn’t know what the hell to do with someone like her. How it tried to shrink her, dull her, use her up.

His Maya... she was still so little. She was supposed to have more time. She was supposed to play in the dirt, throw tantrums, and mispronounce things until she was five or six. Not sit here with a picture book and read like the words had always belonged in her little mouth.

A new grief in him began, a grief for a childhood barely started, already being outpaced by her mind.

And that was when the other things—the more obvious things, the ones he’d been too honeyed by daily bliss to see clearly—began to needle at him.

The future was closing in faster than he thought it would.

Their non-literal home was beautiful. A little too beautiful. Big, white, built from the creation of what once had been someone’s dream—stained glass in the sidelites and transom, a clawfoot tub in their oceanic bedroom, floorboards worn soft in the middle. It had charm. Soul.

But to Joel, nowadays, it had also started to feel like a keep.

Because Leela didn’t leave it until absolutely necessary. She stepped out onto the porch now and then, took Maya to the berry brambles, and walked to Tommy's occasionally. But she never involved herself. Not in the way Maria did, with her council meetings and community firepit nights. Not like Ellie, loud and cursing with her mess of teenage friends at the bar counter.

No 'friends.' No card games. No loitering on porches just to gossip. She was polite, moved through the town like a ghost too gentle to haunt, present when she had to be—but Jackson never really got to know her beyond her genius.

And in the beginning, Joel hadn’t pushed it. He’d respect that, protect her space with the quiet, dogged devotion he always had.

Trauma didn’t heal like a cut for his girl. It festered. Seeped into the walls. Made a home in the bones. He, of all people, knew what it was to be gutted by life and left walking around in your own ruin. Leela needed the quiet, needed to rebuild the walls around herself brick by careful brick, and if she’d found peace inside the four corners of their home, who was he to challenge that?

But then came Maya. Changing everything by just growing.

And with it came the slow, unsettling realisation that Leela’s fear was becoming an inheritance.

It hit him hardest one bright afternoon when Maya, who tagged along with him to run a quick errand—sticking to his leg like a barnacle—flat-out shrieked at the entrance of the general store.

“No, no. We go back, Daddy,” she'd begun from the street.

She’d been unusually clingy that day, and instead of nudging her to stay behind with Leela, he’d bundled her up and brought her along. Figured it’d be like before, when she used to ride tucked under his arm or babble at him from his hip. These days, she was brave. Intelligent. She liked counting fruit, pointing out colours, proudly telling him which apples were “juicy.”

But the second they stepped inside, she broke down. She wanted the fuck out of there.

She’d sobbed it over and over, tears wetting her little dungarees and boots, fists balled to her face, breath hitching, while Joel knelt beside her, stunned. His girl never reacted like this. Not to stores. Not to anything. So why now?

“Maya, hey, hey—look at me,” he’d tried to talk her down softly, rubbing her tiny arms, “we’re just getting fruit. Then we’ll go back, baby girl. You like apples, don’t you?”

But she’d kept wailing. Deep, frantic. Panicked. Like something invisible had reached into her and flipped a switch labelled hazard.

Joel could feel the eyes now. People watching from behind shelves and crates, faces folding into awkward sympathy, some barely disguising the discomfort. He barely registered any of it.

All he could think was—Goddamn, my baby's scared. Not because the prospect of the store was frightening, but because home was all she knew. Because her world had been drawn in close, little, familiar, tight, and any step outside of it was an immediate danger.

Still in a daze, he took Maya home soon enough. Held her, fed her favourite berries while she calmed down. Didn't say anything to a blank-faced Leela, not then. Just watched the way Maya wrapped herself around her mother’s neck and didn’t let go. Like they were still one body, one breath.

“I like here, Mama,” Maya had whispered to her.

“Then we stay here, okay? As long as you want,” Leela had assured, stroking Maya's hair.

And Joel lay awake that night, staring at the ceiling with a bitter pill stuck in his throat. A knot he couldn’t swallow down.

It wasn’t Leela’s fault. It wasn’t. But it wasn’t fair either—not to Maya. She deserved to hear laughter from kids near her age, sing rhymes with her friends, and go on playdates.

Because he’d seen these kids now. The world had made a lot of them—survivors, ghosts, raised in silence and scarcity, oriented by conditions that safety meant solitude. That hiding meant living.

He didn’t want that for his little girl. Didn’t want Maya to inherit the isolation. The fear. The belief that outside meant trouble and inside meant control.

So Joel started trying. Small things. Subtle at first.

Long, frequent walks to the grocery store with Maya. More dinners at the barbecue restaurant with Tommy and Maria. He’d sidle up to the couples gathered near the café, folks trading gossip and laughter, and being the stone-faced bastard he was, he would grumble something half-funny, trying to wedge himself—and by extension, Leela—into the rhythm of the town. It wasn’t natural for him—this mingling shit, but he he did it for his family.

And Leela came, most times, only for Maya.

At the playground, where the older kids laughed too loudly in a game of tag, he would squat beside Maya, pointing out. “You wanna play with them? Go on, baby girl. Say hi. Ain’t nothin’ wrong with trying.”

But every time, he’d see the same thing.

The exact moment Leela would freeze beside him, hands tightening around the strap of the canvas grocery bag she carried like armour. The subtle tension in her jaw, her mouth a thin line, standing there in hurt.

And Maya, watching her mama, would duck behind Leela’s legs like clockwork. Her caution. Her withdrawal. A mimicry that cut Joel deeper than any outburst could.

“I want home,” she’d parrot, deadpan, robotic. Already backing up.

Joel felt it like a slap.

And later, in the kitchen, he’d let it out. Not yelling, he didn’t yell much anymore, but his voice would scrape low, pressure building in the seams. Snaps over nothing. A dish not rinsed. A cabinet left open. Laundry left out on the clothesline. The wrong kind of silence. Long nights standing in their bedroom corridor, arguing too quietly for Maya to overhear.

“She’s starting to copy you,” he’d say, jaw working.

“She’s two,” Leela would shoot back.

“Exactly, darlin’. She needs to know the world ain’t all gonna hurt her.”

“The hell it isn’t. She’s with her mother. She feels safe. What’s wrong with that?”

He’d go still. Always did, at that line. Because he understood it, on a level few others would. But that didn’t make it right.

He’d exhale through his nose, run a hand through his hair like it could scrub the ache out of his scalp, fighting the impulse to strike the wall. He fucking hated this.

“She’s brave because her mother is braver,” Joel would mutter finally, eyes on the floor. “She’s gotta know there’s more than just closed doors—”

“How do you know, Joel!” she interrupted with a hiss.

He shut his eyes on instinct, “—and being safe. There’s living, Leela. Not just staying alive.”

Leela would go quiet then, in sorrow. Quiet, aching sorrow leaking shame, and didn’t ask for forgiveness because it didn’t believe it deserved it.

And sometimes—rarely—Leela would cry, just a little. He’d see it in the shimmer at the edge of her lashes, the way she turned away to hide her face in the crook of her arm. And he would stand there, fists clenched uselessly at his sides, hating the way his love kept crashing into her fear. Hated himself for adding to it, even as he knew he had to.

Joel knew it wouldn’t be quick or easy. Fear never lets go without a fight. But he also knew this: he loved Leela and Maya too much to let them stay inside forever.

In that quiet, stubborn tapestry Joel kept tucked away in the back of his mind—the one stitched from all the things he didn’t say aloud—plenty of threads held it together.

Two stretched, bounding forward: Maya, Ellie, both new, young and wide-eyed, full of questions and sunlight, weaving joy into every corner of the future he still dared to imagine.

The other ran deeper, coloured red as blood: Leela—tired, brilliant, proud. Fraying at the edges, pulled too tight in places, but still threaded through every part of him. She was the pattern he couldn’t unpick, no matter how much it hurt. Woven into the very fabric of him, even as she came undone.

But things between Joel and Leela lately have been... rocky. Worse than that.

And if you’ve followed it this far, you probably know by now—Leela was never really around to know what was happening, and she never really forgave Joel. Not for that.

Even though he told himself he did it for her—for them—the price he paid was her trust, and once broken, it didn’t come back easily. He couldn't even blame her.

Because he’d done this. He’d done the one thing she couldn’t forgive—not yet.

Took her work, the mammoth of a legacy she built with trembling hands, in the dark, decimal by decimal, proof by proof, pouring herself into it like it was the only piece of hers that mattered. And he took it, slipped out in the middle of the night like a goddamn thief with her notebook stuffed into his pack and headed south without a word.

Caltech. The Fireflies. Fucking death of good.

He went thinking he was doing it for her, for all of them, trying to scrape some meaning out of this wreck of a world, trying to give her back the future that had been stolen. But in the end, what he gave her was another theft.

He hadn’t trusted her enough to tell her. Hadn’t believed she could survive the heartbreak of hope, not after everything.

But she’d survived worse, hadn’t she?

And now—she was surviving him.

She didn’t scream or accuse him. No, that wasn’t her way. Just looked at him afterwards like he was a stranger with her blood on his hands. And in some way, he was.

She withdrew, inch by silent inch, until the space between them felt like a raging ocean. Her life shrank down to two absolutes: the work and Maya. And Joel went past it, a bad, breathing memory.

At first, it was small. She missed family dinners to entertain her workshop, tolerated his touches, his little kisses, his stupid jokes, his try-hard conversations at night before they fell asleep. She still kissed him goodnight—light brushes of the mouth, like habit, like politeness. He tried to meet her there, tried harder than he had in months.

But something in her had already begun to turn inward. Soon, she stopped laughing. Stopped touching back. And the kisses stopped, too. Not abruptly—just faded, like colour bleeding from cloth.

She began to stay up late, diving headfirst into that goddamned hard drive, pouring over its files until her eyes were red and raw from the blue light.

One night, after he had put Maya to bed and the house fell into its accustomed hush, Joel found Leela in the kitchen, hunched over her notebook at the island, bathed in the amber lights above the stove. Her pencil moved in relentless bursts—fast, jittery, like it was chasing her thoughts before they escaped.

Joel lingered at the doorway for a second, cracking his knuckles nervously, just watching her. Then he padded in quietly and slid behind her chair. He rested his hands lightly on her shoulders, thumbs pressing into the knots he knew so well.

She stiffened for half a second worth of instinct—then relaxed, but only just. Her pen didn’t stop. Her eyes didn’t leave the page.

“You eat anything yet?” he asked, his voice barely more than a murmur against the crown of her head.

“Mhm,” she hummed, not really answering.

“What was it?”

“Um. Bread.” A shrug. A scratch at her nape. “Leftovers, I think. Bread.”

He didn't know whether to laugh or yell at her.

He dipped lower, pressing a kiss to her temple. Another at the corner of her jaw. “Been thinkin’,” he murmured, “tomorrow, maybe we take a walk. Just us. Creek trail’s thawed out. Might even find some of those frogs Maya keeps talkin’ about.”

She nodded absently, shifting forward so his lips barely brushed her skin. “Mhm. We’ll see.”

Joel lingered. He let his hand trail from her shoulder down her arm, fingers curling around her wrist. Then, almost shyly, he leaned in again, tried for her mouth, the edge then the soft bow of it—a gentle, building kiss, just enough to say I miss you. Come upstairs with me.

But she barely turned her head when his fingers traced down her chin and throat. Her lips caught the edge of his, then returned to her notes like nothing had happened.

“Joel,” she refused quietly, nearly apologetic. “I’m... I need to get this down before I lose my train of thought.”

Joel pulled back. Swallowed. “Got it,” he said.

His hand drifted off her wrist.

Sooner than later, the bed went cold. Her pillow stayed smooth. Her scent disappeared from the sheets. No creak of the mattress at midnight. No rustle of her turning toward him, murmuring, half-asleep. He waited a week. Then three months. Told himself she was just tired. Overworked. He even left the light on for her on most nights. But her side stayed untouched for weeks. And then it wasn’t her side anymore. Just empty space.

She made no scenes, but she made no room either. Joel became a fixture—like the porch railing, the boots by the door. Something that used to belong but now just takes up space. Just empty space.

Because he knew he deserved it. Knew it wasn’t just one thing, or one mistake. It was the thousand small betrayals: the silences, the avoidance, the cowardice of a man who thought keeping the truth buried would keep the peace. And now there was this quiet, unbearable nothing between them. A stillness too loud to ignore.

Back to square one, he guessed. Back to being the man who didn’t know how to fix a goddamn thing he loved without wrecking it first.

Even Maria had started to notice, asking questions with too-soft eyes when Leela's silence crossed into the summer. The quiet between them was too loud not to.

“She’s not talking to you,” she had stated to him earlier, before he left for patrol, her tone too casual on the surface.

Joel shook his head. “Ain’t her fault. Just let her be.”

“You’re not talkin’ either.”

He gave a humourless exhale, more through his nose than his mouth. “Not much left to say.”

Maria was quiet for a beat, then added, softer, “That’s not true. You just think it’ll hurt more if you say it.”

Joel finally looked at her, eyes shadowed under the brim of his hat. “What do you want to hear, Maria? That I fucked up? That I’d give my goddamn right hand to take it back?”

Maria didn’t blink. “I want you to stop pretending everything’s fine.”

He looked away again, the line of his shoulders rigid, like holding back a landslide. That one landed hard.

“I just… I don't know how to fix it without breakin’ more of her. Or losin’ what I have.”

Maria sighed. “You lived too long, Joel,” she said. “You think that makes you harder, but really… it just made you scared.”

Yes, she was right, but damn if he knew what else to do when every word he spoke just seemed to push her further away.

So, Joel didn’t bother explaining. How could he? How could he put into words the way he'd tried to buy redemption with silence? How could he justify betraying the one woman who had ever truly seen him—not just the survivor, not the killer—but the father, the man?

So he didn’t. He just tried like a goddamn fool, and wedge himself back into the corners of her world.

He started learning to cook on his own, fumbling through her spice rack like a man disarming a bomb, holding tiny jars of sumac, baharat and saffron. He burned rice more than he cared to admit, sliced his knuckle on a dull knife trying to dice onions the way she did, and measured out cumin in those labelled spoons. All of it for the smallest chance that maybe—she’d sit beside him again. That she’d taste what he made and remember the man she used to love.

Most nights, he got nothing more than a nod. Other nights, not even that.

He started taking early patrols, slipping out before the sun had even begun to crack over the mountains—just so he could be back in time for dinner, hoping that his presence might feel less like a shadow. He tried being quieter, helpful than usual, and patient. Cleaned up after Maya’s tantrums without a word, patched the leaky faucet no one had asked him to touch, restocked the pantry with the dried apricots that Leela loved. He’d traded two .44s and a good knife for them. Worth every bullet.

One long, back-breaking afternoon, he planted sunflowers beneath the kitchen window—tall, defiant things, yellow like August heat—so they’d be the first thing she saw when she came down for her morning coffee.

The next day, he stood leaning against the counter when she ambled in, silent as always. She poured her tea like it was a chore, staring out the window.

He tried again. “Sunflowers’re yours,” he said, voice quiet, encouraging. “Figured they’d like it there. Morning light looks good on them, right?”

She didn’t look at him or say a thing. Just took her cup and left.

He stayed where he was for a while, jaw working, hand flexing against the edge of the counter like he could squeeze the silence into something that didn’t feel like regret.

Still, it wasn’t enough. And he blamed every bit of himself. He did this, now he had to face the music.

Another promising evening, he stood by the stove with his heart in his throat, ladling out bowls of a chickpea stew he knew she couldn't go a week without. It smelled right—he was sure of it. That same sweet earthiness she used to hum over. He had Maya set a plate for her and sat her on his hip, fresh out of a nap and giggling, pointing at the pot and declaring it “orange soup.”

When Leela emerged from the hallway, hair hanging in knots, picking dirt off her fingernails, he looked up too quickly. Hope gave him away every time.

“Hey. I made us an early dinner,” he said, soft, stupid and hopeful. “Figured you'd get hungry soon. Come, sit.”

She paused, eyes drifting from the table to his hand, then to him.

“Thank you,” she said, and took the bowl from his hands without sitting down. Bent over and kissed Maya’s temple, her voice dipping into a gentle whisper for their daughter. “Maybe give her a bath tonight. Wash her hair, too.”

“Yeah, thought as much,” he hummed.

Maya was the only glue, a scared hope that all wasn't lost, and the one place Leela hadn’t drawn a line in the sand. She didn’t keep Maya from him or poison her against him. The one harness in this well-oiled rope he balanced on.

Then Leela turned, bowl still in hand, and headed straight for the basement door.

Joel stood there, hand still hovering over the back of her empty chair, feeling like he’d just been left out in the cold.

“Leela,” he tried, just once, not loud. “You don’t have to eat down there.”

She didn’t look back, just kept walking. And the door closed behind her.

He sank into the chair anyway, across from the spot she'd left bare, with all that love bottled inside him, rattling like a storm in a glass jar, praying for a crack. A fissure. Anything.

He hadn’t expected a goddamn earthquake to bring it all down.

Not a fight. Not another bout of silence. Not even the slow, invisible corrosion that had been eating away at their days, their hours, the quiet spaces between words.

It happened deep into August, nearly three months since they last spoke to each other past monosyllables, on a night so thick with heat it felt like the world itself was holding its breath. No wind, no clouds, no moon. Just stillness. Then, from beneath the floorboards, a low, aching groan—ancient, half-buried stirring in its grave.

Joel heard the first crash a moment later—metallic, jagged, unnerving. Then another. And then a sound he felt in his spine more than his ears: a raw, feral wail echoing up from the workshop. Hers.

He stilled where he sat, his back against the headboard, Maya's small body rising and falling steadily on his chest. She didn’t wake. Just sighed in her sleep, lips parted, her tiny fist knotted in his shirt.

He held still, listening, hoping it would pass. He lay perfectly still, willing it to be nothing. He definitely imagined it. Maybe a cabinet door slamming in the draft. But he knew better; the house didn’t make sounds like that on its own.

The noise came again—sharper this time, something being slammed into oblivion, beaten past recognition.

Joel exhaled and moved gently, untangling himself from Maya’s grip. He laid her into the centre of the bed and ringed her with pillows, a soft, uneven wall meant to keep her safe in the night.

Maya stirred, a little sigh hitching, eyes fluttering open with a blink.

He rubbed her back gently, managing a smile for her. “Hi. Go back to sleep,” he murmured.

But she didn’t. Instead, she looked up at him, her lashes damp, her voice tiny and confused. “Mama’s mad ‛gain.”

Joel couldn't even hide his dejection anymore, he simply let it run rampant on his face as she watched. He soothed a hand over her curls, pressing a kiss to her crown. “Mama doesn’t mean to be. Her heart’s real loud sometimes, that’s all.”

Maya flinched when another crash echoed. Joel felt it through her whole little body.

“Scary mama,” she whispered.

“Oh, baby girl,” he sighed, stroking her tiny cheek, swallowing hard. “Just close your eyes, okay? Daddy’s gonna help her out, and I'll be right back.”

She reached out to him blearily, tiny palm patting at the slope of his nose before she returned the fist beneath her head. Her eyes drooped shut, and she was snoring away in moments.

For a moment, he just stood there, watching her, making sure. Listening.

Another crash came from below.

What the fuck was this twisted part of his good life? He rubbed a hand over his face and turned toward the door, limbs heavy with sleep—or maybe it was dread. Probably both. He moved barefoot down the stairs, each step dragging him toward something he already knew he couldn’t fix.

The basement light glared beneath the doorframe, a thin blade of gold effusing onto the floor from a room already burning. He opened the door with a huff and descended the stairs, the wood creaking beneath.

The stale air hit him first—dense, electric, scorched, metallic. Burned circuits, hot solder, and beneath all that: the sour, unmistakable scent of grief when it’s been left to smoulder too long.

And then he saw her.

Leela was surrounded by wreckage—tools flung wide, cracked motherboards strewn across the concrete like broken bones. He counted at least three, maybe more. One was still beneath her boot, the delicate circuitry crunching under the force of her heel. Her hands were trembling. Her cheeks streaked with silent, unrelenting tears she hadn’t wiped away—like her body was crying without permission, leaking sorrow that had nowhere else to go.

She didn’t look at him. Didn’t even acknowledge the sound of the door or his footfalls.

Joel stood there, rooted. For a moment, he didn’t know whether to speak or retreat. His mind scrambled for anything useful to say, but everything in him stilled as he watched her unravel.

It wasn’t the outburst that gutted him. It was the restraint.

This wasn’t rage. Deeper. Exhausted. A woman clawing at the walls of her own brilliance, trying to outrun the weight of everything she knew and everything she couldn’t fix. Trying to make sense of a world that refused to make sense back then. Performing an autopsy on their own dreams.

She brought her boot down again. Another snap. Another grunt. Another piece of her pursuit fractured beyond repair.

He had come down here expecting a storm. But what he found was the wreckage left in its wake.

Joel cleared his throat softly, the sound awkward in the charged silence. “Leela, honey.”

She didn’t look up. Just stood there, staring at the crushed remnants of the board beneath her foot. Her shoulders were tight, her breathing uneven—quiet, little gasps like someone trying to stay underwater.

Then finally—she grunted. “What do you want?”

It wasn’t a challenge. Or even anger.

Just... hollow.

Joel stood there, caught on the threshold, hands clenched at his sides like restraint might anchor him. The question hit harder than any destruction. He hated how she said it—like he was an interruption. A ghost. A reminder.

“What do I want?” he echoed. He stepped inside the room fully. “I want you to be done with this shit. Christ, baby. Look at yourself.”

She didn’t answer. Just swiped the back of her wrist across her face. The tears smeared into skin already marked by sleeplessness, a black bruise of exhaustion under each eye. Her lip trembled—not rage, but from how close she was to shattering. She was holding herself together with splinters.

“This ain’t just about bein’ tired. Or obsessed,” he said, low and hoarse. “This is—you’re gone. I don’t know where you went.”

The silence after that was like stepping into a vacuum. Thick, suffocating, vast. She didn’t argue. Just turned to a statue mid-collapse, crumbling from the inside out.

Joel scanned the room—the half-burned schematics, the warped breadboards, the soldering station with a fresh burn mark across its edge. This wasn’t tinkering anymore. This wasn’t research. This was a crash-out. A gradual collapse with no bottom.

And then he said it. The thing he’d been building toward for days.

“You’re gonna pack all this up,” he gestured at the blown circuits, the melted boards, the scribbled chalk math on the blackboards and ruin, “and give it to the folks at the dam who know what the hell to do with it. Then you’re comin’ home. You’re gonna focus on—us. On our family.”

Her head turned, slowly, like rusted hinges catching. That word—family—cracked her open. Her eyes, rimmed in red, shadowed and hollow, fixed on him like a dagger pressed to skin.

“And that’s all I am to you now?” she asked, brittle. “Maya’s mom?”

Joel’s jaw clenched. “Don’t be twistin’ what I said.”

She let out a sound—a laugh, but it bent at the edges, twisted bitter, hollow.

“I’m a dead loss with what I want, so now I've got to be your pretty little wife?” Her voice sharpened, cracked. “Raise a kid, cook dinner, smile at the table, be grateful you stayed?”

“What the hell are you talkin’ about?” Joel’s voice rose before he could stop it. “I’ve been patient with you. You won’t talk to me. You won’t let me close. And every day I keep thinking—maybe today’s the day she comes back to me. And every day, I get a little more scared that you won’t. Because I've been holdin’ this goddamn house together with sweat and prayer for months, Leela. It’s almost a year, know that? A whole fuckin’—and I’ve been raising your daughter—”

“Oh, she’s mine now?” she snapped, hot and fast.

Joel put his hands on his hips, defeated. “Look, I ain’t doin’ this with you. Let’s go.”

“Then what are we doing? What is this?”

“Just come upstairs,” he pleaded. “You need sleep. You need a bath. You need somethin’ besides this... fuckin’ hole.”

That should’ve been the simplest thing. An ask. A mercy.

But her stare didn’t budge. She looked at him like she didn’t recognise him anymore. And then, breathing hard from exertion, she lashed out:

“She is mine, Joel. You’re not even her dad. So, stop trying.”

It hit like a punch. No—worse. Like a betrayal he hadn’t earned but somehow always feared. He stood there, breath gone, the echo of her words stretching long and cruel between them. Because she’d reached for the thing that would cut deepest, and used it.

He swallowed. His jaw clenched. Leela didn’t push, and good call on her part.

So he stepped forward, one step, daring. “Say it again.”

She looked at him, eyes wet but infuriated. “Why? So you can tell me how much you’ve lost? How you stayed? How you tried? How my daughter loves some bitter, traitorous nobody more than she loves her own mother?”

He didn’t flinch. Didn’t rise to the bait, however painful it seemed. “This is where you apologise.”

Leela scoffed, a sharp, bitter sound scraping from the back of her throat. “Go to hell.”

Joel didn’t budge. “I’m still here, Leela. Enough.”

Her head jerked up, eyes flashing. “For what!” Her voice splintered and rebounded off the walls.

Joel ran a hand down his face. He didn’t even know where to put the pain anymore, even his heart began to hurt from pounding for him.

He sighed, and the words slipped out, even if he didn't mean a word. “I can't fuckin’ stand you sometimes, you know that? Because you're so hung up on this idea of some crazy mended future, and you can't even see what it's becoming anymore.”

“Yes,” she whispered. “My crazy future. So why are you still here?”

He opened his mouth. Nothing came out. I still love you. Hurt me, and I still love you so much.

She sniffled. “I don't have to need you either. Get out.”

Joel’s eyes flicked to the floor, the ruined circuit boards, the mess of her mind made physical. Her body, thin and drawn, stood there like she was being held together by stubbornness and string.

“No,” he stated. “I’ll do whatever the hell I want.”

Her face twisted like that hurt more than anything he’d said.

“What do you want from me, Joel?” she asked again, quieter this time. But it wasn’t resignation—it was panic. Like she’d realised she didn’t have anything left to give. Her voice frayed at the edges, folding in on itself.

“I can’t even breathe in here. You do everything. You try for me. You wait outside the basement like that’s gonna fix something. But it won’t. None of this will.”

Joel took a step forward. Hands half-raised, like he wanted to touch her but didn’t know how. Didn’t know if he was allowed anymore.

“I don’t know what else to do, Leela,” he said. His voice cracked, thick with helplessness. “I feel like I’m losing you every goddamn day.”

She sobbed—sharp and sudden—and turned away like the sound embarrassed her. Her head dipped, and she laughed. Or maybe cried. It came out strangled, twisted. Like both, like neither.

“I look at you,” Joel said, quieter now, like the words had been sitting in his chest too long, wearing grooves in his ribs, “and I see everything I failed. And everything I want back.”

For a moment, nothing moved. And then a sound cracked from her—ugly, half-choked, something between a laugh and a sob that scraped up from too deep to name. She shook her head with a sharp, miserable little twist, like she already knew how this ended. It had ended before it began.

“This ain’t home without you, Leela.”

Her hands clawed into her hair, fingers curling tight like she wanted to rip it out by the roots. Like she could shed the skin of who she’d become—strip it away until there was nothing left but bone and breath and silence. Something that didn’t feel like a complete failure.

He watched her like a man witnessing an earthquake from the inside out.

“I’ll keep sayin’ sorry, or whatever you want to hear,” Joel said, thick-voiced. “I don’t care how long it takes. I’ll say it quiet, I’ll say it loud. You don’t owe me a damn thing, baby. But I’m still here.”

He didn't want to, but he did. He saw her fall.

Her knees buckled. No grace in it, no dignity. She just crumpled like her body finally gave up the lie of holding it all together. Her spine curved, arms wrapped around her stomach like she was trying to hold in everything that had been spilling out for months—grief, frustration, exhaustion. Rage she never let herself feel because there wasn’t time. Because someone had to keep going.

Joel crouched but didn’t reach for her. He knew better. Knew how to read this language. Knew what pain looked like when it didn’t want an audience. He simply knelt there, watching. Helpless. Waiting. The woman he loved, the mother of his child, was falling apart, and all he could do was bear witness. He hated every nerve in his body that stayed up.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, barely more than a breath. “I’m sorry, Joel. I don’t know what I’m doing anymore.”

He shifted, careful not to crowd her, just enough so his knee brushed against hers—a tether, a promise. He didn’t dare reach out. Not yet.

Her face was a mess—blotched, red, tears carving lines through grime and sweat, her hair damp with sweat or maybe the shower, maybe the storm inside her. His girl looked like she’d fought through hell and come out burned.

“I’m not like this,” she rasped. “I’m not. I’m good. I didn’t mean it—I didn’t—”

He shook his head. “I know, baby. It’s okay.”

She made a noise, somewhere between disbelief and pain. Her hands lifted again, trembling, gesturing weakly at the walls around them. At the chaos. The notes, the sketches, the scrawled equations bleeding across paper like veins, all bent and burned and ruined. Months of work, ruined in a flash of fury. Her own hand, the one that had once traced formulas, had torn it down.

“I just—” Her voice cracked again. “It’s so loud. I don’t know where to start. Every time I try, something else falls apart. I can’t get one thing right. There’s so much... I can’t do it.”

Joel’s eyes followed hers. The room was wrecked. But more than that—she was. She had been holding too much for too long, and he hadn’t seen it. Not the way he should’ve.

And now he saw it all.

She wasn’t just trying to solve some goddamn problem.

She was trying to stitch back a world that didn’t exist anymore. Trying to take her guilt and her grief and her brilliance and turn it into salvation. Trying to prove she was still worth something. That what she carried still mattered.

Alone.

And he'd let her.

He’d been here in body, sure. Since Jackson. Since he crawled back into her life with guilt in his throat and calloused hands holding sorry after sorry. But he hadn’t been here. Not the way she’d needed. Not in the way a man shows up for someone he calls his wife. The kind of presence that steadies and shoulders some of the burden without being asked.

Penitent rather than a partner.

Joel looked around the room. At the wreckage. At the math and madness scribbled across the boards and torn pages like she’d tried to write her way out of grief.

Honestly, what had this world ever done for her? Fuck all. So, why was she killing herself to save it anyway?

And suddenly, he hated every second he hadn’t noticed. Hated how long she must’ve been screaming in silence while he’d been too careful, too sceptical, too wrapped up in his own guilt to see hers unravelling.

Trying to hold up the whole damn sky on her own—had been doing it so long, so quietly, he’d convinced himself she could. And she was failing. Of course, she was failing. Because no one could do what she was trying to do, not alone.

She needed help, and she didn’t know how to ask for it. And he—a goddamn idiot—had waited for her to say it instead of just stepping in.

Joel reached, then, slowly, intentionally, and touched her hand. Just enough to let her feel him—his warmth, his presence, the endurance in his callused palm.

She didn’t flinch.

He didn’t move for a beat and let the moment breathe.

Soon, gently—like easing a spooked animal out of hiding—he curled his hand around hers, not rushing to fix anything. Her skin was cold, fingers limp and damp with tears, and trembling just beneath the surface.

He eventually moved, pulling—guiding. “C’mon. I got you.”

One hand to her elbow, the other soft against her back, bracing her like a beam might brace a house half-fallen in. She didn’t resist. Her body rose with his, hesitantly, hovering, breathing as if testing the air after too long underground.

She stood as if she were shaking off rubble.

Joel balanced her the whole way. No words, only the grounding pressure of touch.

“There you go, you’re okay,” he murmured.

He led her carefully out of the wreckage—out of the tangle of torn-up notes and shredded pages, burnt edges curling like dead leaves, formulas smeared with ash and ink and tears. The broken pieces of her mind lay bare.

He brushed her hair behind her ears and eased her down onto the bench, where the tubelight came through, flickering, pale and overcast, gentle on her skin. She looked so little there. Infinitesimal enough to vanish with the atoms.

Joel crouched back down again, joints complaining. He was too old for this shit, but he wasn’t leaving the floor until she could sit still without falling apart.

He reached for the circuit board—the one she’d spent so many nights with. It was cracked down the centre, the soldering that had once been meticulous now dangled loose and broken, thin as veins, blackened at the ends.

He turned it over in his hands. Felt the story in it—weeks of effort, nights of silence, calculations done under flickering lamplight while the world slept around her. And still, she kept chasing the answer, even when it broke her.

His thumb ran along the fracture like he was tracing a scar.

Then he looked at her.

Her cheeks were blotched, streaked with tears. Her lip was trembling, bitten raw. Her dark eyes met his—wide, watery, tired—and she didn’t look through him.

“You don’t need to prove anything,” he said quietly. His voice was low, rasping from disuse. “Not to me. Not to the goddamn world.”

She turned her face away, jaw clenched. But she didn’t stop crying.

Good. Let her cry. Let it out, all of it. He’d take it if she couldn’t anymore.

He gathered another piece of the circuit board. Laid it next to the first.

“You’re not a machine,” he murmured. “You ain’t some miracle factory. You’re a human being. And I’ve been sittin’ back… watchin’ you wear yourself raw, tryin’ to fix what the whole world broke. And I let you.”

His voice cracked, rough at the edges. He swallowed it down.

“I should’ve seen it. I should’ve known. Done something.”

He picked up a scorched page of calculations, the edges curling inward like a dying leaf. Rubbed a thumb over a still-visible string of symbols. Her handwriting. Her mind.

“You wanna know the truth, Leela?” he said. “I didn’t leave you back then ‘cause I didn’t care about what you thought. I left ‘cause I couldn’t stand the way you looked at me. Like I was supposed to be strong enough to carry what you were carrying. I wanted to prove I was.”

He placed the page gently beside the board.

“That ain’t your fault. That’s mine, I was a fuckin’ idiot. I should’ve stayed anyway.”

He looked at her again, this time not hiding the hurt in his eyes. When the silence stretched, there was a shift���pain passing between bodies like breath.

“I don’t know the first thing about this stuff. These numbers. Science. But I know what it’s doin’ to you.”

He held up one of the broken pieces. The metal glinted faintly in the light.

“I know the woman who built this. And I know she doesn’t deserve to be carrying this weight with no one in her corner.”

He looked at her again. Straight on.

“I’m here now. I ain’t goin’ anywhere. And I don’t give a fuck if all I can do is sweep up the mess and sit there while you do your thinkin’. If that’s what help looks like—I’ll do it.” His voice dropped, full of quiet conviction. “Every damn day.”

Again, Leela stayed quiet, but her breath caught—just once—like something had snagged inside her chest, when the ache had gone too deep to speak.

Her shoulders eased, fraction by fraction, like a muscle learning it didn’t have to brace anymore.

And in her eyes, there was an immense fragility—believing and flickering and terribly human. An apostate remembering the taste of faith.

Instead of reaching back for her, Joel kept gathering her work, careful as a man piecing back the bones of something once living and sacred. As if, by putting it all back together, he could stitch her back together too.

He finished stacking the last of her notebooks, aligning the bent corners, smoothing the wrinkled pages. He reached for a pencil that had rolled to the floor—held it in his palm like it was something precious.

Leela moved, quiet as a mouse, stepped forward and folded herself into him—arms around his shoulders, forehead tucked into the crook of his neck as if she were collapsing into the only shelter left in the world.

Joel let it happen, felt her chest heave once, twice—then the sobs came. Raw, desperate things that shattered out of her like she'd been holding her breath for months and finally let go.

“I'm failing everyone,” she cried, “I can't do it.”

Her fingers fisted in the back of his shirt, pulling him closer. She clung to him, trembling, too small, as if the second she let go, she’d come apart entirely.

Joel gathered her in because he really was made to do it.

“Shh,” he whispered, one hand cradling the back of her head, the other rubbing slow circles along her spine. “No, you're not. I got you, baby. You’re good.”

And Joel finally made up his mind: he'd hate every unreliable finer feeling of his that had prompted him to wait for her to speak first, to break, and to ask for help. When all she needed was to hold the line when she could not, to stay and witness her break without turning away.

Because if she was going to fall again, then he’d be the one beneath her.

X

“Wait, what the heck am I looking at?”

Leela’s voice cut through the quiet like a scalpel—sharp, precise, more bewildered than anything. Tired, wary, somewhere between mildly offended and uncertain if this was a joke she was supposed to laugh at.

Joel didn’t answer right away. Just kept blowing on his coffee, like it might scald him if he tried too hard to drink it.

He had learned quickly how to deal with Leela, a long time ago: don’t rush her, don’t explain too much, and definitely don’t pretend you had it all figured out. She hated that most of all—when people acted like her confusion was an inconvenience. When they filled the silence with noise instead of letting her sit with the unknown.

She moved across the kitchen—slow, stiff—and stopped short in front of the fridge. He didn’t have to look. He knew what she was staring at. Had stood there late last night, hunched over the table with a ruler and a stub of pencil, scratching things out and rewriting them again, until it looked more like a high school science project than an act of love.

Under Maya's bright little chore chart, there, crooked, solemn and idiotic, pinned under two rusty Eiffel Tower magnets, was another chore chart. Handwritten. Across the top in Joel’s blunt, slanted handwriting: “LEELA’S WEEKLY—” something; it was smudged. He’d started with “Schedule,” crossed it out, and written “Plan.” And added in block letters, “/BATTLE STRATEGY.” The paper hung a little too long at the bottom—he’d used lined notebook paper and scotch tape to extend the grid—and one corner curled like it was already losing patience with the idea.

And under “Wednesday,” in Joel’s square, uneven handwriting again, the words: “Eat lunch (real food). Take a nap. Go outside. No work after 10pm.” Under that, in tiny script: “NON-NEGOTIABLE.”

Joel sipped his coffee.

Leela squinted. “Are these colour-coded?”

He shrugged. “Tried to make it easy to read.”

She pointed at a particularly crowded column. “You wrote ‘Eat lunch’ three times.”

“One’s for emphasis.”

She kept scanning, her movements more cautious now, like this whole thing might be a trap.

“‘No work after 10pm,’” she read aloud. She turned toward him, arms folding across her chest with that trademark expression he’d come to know: equal parts disbelief and interrogation.

“You seriously put that under the ‘Basic Humaning’ column?”

He met her gaze square-on. “Sure did.”

Her eyebrows twitched upward. She looked back at the paper. “‘Sanity hygiene’? ‘Minimum viable joy’? What does that even mean?”

Joel cleared his throat. “That’s the Maria column. Kicked me for calling it ‘mental maintenance.’”

Leela’s brows knit. “This one says ‘fun thing on purpose.’ As an actual task.”

“People do that,” Joel said. “Fun. For fun. Apparently.”

She didn’t reply right away. Only kept reading. Slower now. Her voice dipped, softer, touched with suspicion—less ‘you idiot’ and more ‘what are you doing? What the hell are you up to?’

Then her finger slid to the bottom row. “‘Sleep with Joel’, ‘hug Joel’, incentive column,” she read aloud.

There was a pause. She turned to him again, arms still folded, head tilted—not quite menacing, but enough to imply a threat. “Open to debate.”

“Open and shut.”

She shook her head, amused. “I don’t see your name anywhere in these boxes.”

“Wasn’t writin’ it for me.”

Her lips twitched. Just a flicker of a smile in incredulity, like something forgotten trying to remember itself. “You made me a sticker chart.”

Joel took another slow sip, felt the heat on his tongue. “Sticker chart’s comin’ next week. Gold stars for consistent dinner and makin’ it to bed before midnight.”

Leela stared at the sheet like it was an alien relic. An artefact dug up from some long-dead civilisation. Structure. Routine. Care. Absurd.

“Joel…” Her voice was quieter. Not mocking now—dampened, like she was trying not to wring it out too fast. She looked at the chart again. The attempt. “Do you really think this is gonna work?”

Instead, he set the mug down gently, both palms pressing flat against the counter. His back ached. His knees popped when he shifted. His jaw felt raw from a night of clenching—his whole body a roadmap of sleepless desperation, of wanting to fix something with his hands when it had never been about his hands at all.

“I think you’ll ignore half of it,” he said quietly. “And I’ll spend every day reminding you not to.”

He paused. Swallowed. “I think I should've done this months ago. Shoulda pushed harder. Or softer. I dunno. But I sat on my ass for too long waiting for things to fix themselves.”

A silence fell, full of old grief and new beginnings.

He scratched his jaw. “So I’m tryin’ different.”

Leela stood still. Her arms had dropped. Her posture wasn’t so tight now, her shoulders less guarded. She was staring at the chart like it might disappear if she blinked. Or like it had teeth and she couldn’t decide whether to pet it or run.

Joel followed her gaze. The damn thing was crooked. One of the magnets had slipped. The ink was too dark in some places, almost illegible in others. He’d written “Tuesday” twice.

But it was tangible. A stupid little map of care and the system. His way of saying I see you without breaking open and bleeding all over the floor.

The truth was, he hadn’t made it just for her.

He’d made it for them. For mornings that felt too long and nights that never really ended. A shape to help her stay upright when the days got too abstract to touch.

Because Joel didn’t have the words for what he wanted to say—but he knew how to build things. Structure was the only language he trusted when words didn’t cut it.

And sometimes, Joel's love looked like a dumb, dorky timetable on printer paper.

She reached up slowly, fingers brushing the paper, and tapped the Wednesday box. “Guess I'd better find some real lunch.”

Joel nodded, watching her. Heart caught somewhere between relief and disbelief. “And sleep with Joel.”

She turned to him, that crooked smile threatening again. “You know if you wanted to get me into bed, you could’ve just said so. This is a lot of paperwork.”

Joel snorted. “Shit. All this trouble for nothin’.”

Her lips finally gave in, curling into something half-amused, half-amazed, like she couldn’t quite believe he’d done this. That he’d thought this far ahead.

“I mean, you wrote ‘kiss Daddy’ in two places, every day. Were you hoping I’d never kiss you past twice a day?”

He clucked his tongue. “Daddy ain’t above beggin’ if it gets him lucky.”

Leela let out a breath—almost a laugh. Joel didn’t say anything, just reached for his mug again like it was the only way to keep from doing something dumb, like touching her.

Instead, she leaned in. Just enough for her lips to brush the curve of his shoulder. “Sticker chart seduction,” she murmured. “Real subtle.”

Then, softly: “Even cowboys need structure now, hm?”

Joel exhaled, half-laugh, half-sigh. “Damn right.”

The sight of her up close was too much and not enough at once, especially after all this time. And when he finally did move, it wasn’t rushed—it was devout. One hand rising to her face, the rough pad of his thumb brushing the hollow beneath her eye.

“You don’t have to fix anything for me,” she told him, certain. Her eyes were on the chart still. Like she couldn’t look at him. “I know that’s what this is. You see a loose hinge, you grab a hammer.”

“It’s not a hammer,” he said. “It’s a piece of paper and a few dumb rules.”

Her hand brushed his chest, then stilled, curled into the fabric of his shirt. “So,” she sighed, barely above a whisper, “nothing has changed, right?”

A second passed. Maybe two.

He leaned in, dipped his head, and caught her lips between his. No warning, no easing. There was nothing neat left to care about.

It was a low, breaking thing—his mouth against hers with months of silence behind it. Months of sleeping back-to-back. Of not reaching. Of pretending not to care when he was drowning. Of hurtful words, hissed arguments. Enough of all that.

And he needed her now—hungry, desperate, clumsy. Been too fucking long.

His palm slid to her soft nape, drawing her in, anchoring her there like he’d never let her drift again. His other hand found her hip, then her waist, then lower still, grabbing a fistful of her ass to pull her flush against him. He groaned into her mouth when she didn't resist, when she pressed back with the same aching urgency, and it was as if she’d been drowning in the same quiet.

She tasted like sleep-deprived mornings and bitter coffee, and made a soft sound—half-shocked, half-something deeper—as Joel swallowed it down.

His kiss deepened, jaw flexing, tongue brushing hers. He wasn’t thinking anymore. It was instinct, need, hers. All of it. The years in his hands, the apology in his grip. The want.

And it would’ve gone further. Would’ve tipped into something messier, deeper—right there in the kitchen, barefoot and half-dressed—if not for—

Smack.

A tiny palm struck the back of Joel’s knee. Right below the old joint that always stiffened in the mornings.

“Ha!” Maya squealed, triumphant. “Too slow!”

He jerked ike he’d been hit with a cattle prod, buckled, slammed his hand against the counter for balance, breaking the kiss with a grunt. Leela let out a startled breath, stumbled back, eyes wide, lips kiss-bitten.

Joel spun around, dazed and blinking, to face the pint-sized homewrecker now grinning up at him. She’d just won a game of ambush tag today, a stupid fucking idea he knew would bite him in the ass eventually.

“Maya—Jesus, baby girl—terrible timing—”

“Eee, you’re kissin’ Mama!” she announced, gleeful and scandalised, jabbing a finger toward him. “Onna mouf!”

Leela moaned, buried her face in her hands, looking like a teenager caught necking behind the school gym, red-eared and stupid with guilt.

Joel, though, had it in himself to roll up his sleeves with exaggerated slowness, already grinning down at the little terror despite himself. “That’s it, trouble. You’re gonna get it now. C'mere.”

Leela had just enough sense to step aside as Joel lunged, catching nothing but Maya’s gleeful squeal as she darted around the kitchen island. He made a slow, clumsy swipe—missed her on purpose.

“Missed me!”

Joel leaned back against the counter with a sigh of theatrical defeat. “To fast for your old man.”

Unfazed, Maya rounded back and dragged the wooden stool across the kitchen with the stubborn determination of a forklift.

“Y'all wee-d,” she declared, puffing as she pushed.

“You're wee-d,” Joel grumbled.

“I check my chores now.”

Maya climbed up like she was scaling Everest, grunted once with effort, and slapped her chubby hand against the chart taped to the fridge. She studied it with a serious frown before she noticed the bigger, uglier chart that hung above hers.

“This one,” she muttered, pointing to the new addition.

Joel nodded, still trying to calm the leftover heat pounding in his chest. “Mama's chart. You like it?”

Maya’s eyes widened, scandalised all over again. “Mama has chores?”

Leela exhaled, shoulders slowly dropping from her ears. “Apparently.”

Maya tilted her head, squinting at the columns as if trying to decode their secret adult language. Then, thoughtfully, she asked, “Do I get stahs for kissin’ Mama, too?”

Leela made a choking sound—not quite a laugh, not quite a protest. Joel grinned, crooked, and shot her a look over Maya’s head.

“Y’know,” he drawled, “that depends.”

Leela narrowed her eyes. “On what?”

Joel leaned a hand on the counter, going all casual. “On whether the kiss has a happy ending.”

Leela made a strangled noise, and with the stiff dignity of someone backing away from a live grenade, she turned to the sink and pretended to be very invested in rinsing out a clean mug.

“Oh, Joel,” she murmured under her breath, restraining laughter, without looking at him.

But he just picked his coffee back up for a sip, smug as shit.

Maya, meanwhile, was undeterred. “I can do a big kiss with a happy end,” she announced. “I can kiss Mama wight onna mouf!”

Joel coughed a laugh.

Leela gave him a warning glare, but it was ruined by the way she was biting her lip to keep from smiling.

“I think Mama’s gonna need a new reward system,” Joel murmured for her ears only. “Stahs, kisses onna mouf, maybe somethin’ extra for makin’ Daddy real happy.”

Leela turned just enough to look at him sidelong. Her mouth twitched. “Careful,” she said softly, “Daddy’s dangerously close to incarceration.”

Joel leaned in until his lips brushed the shell of Leela’s ear, his breath warm and ragged.

“Kinky,” he said.

And just like that, they were toeing the line again—right there in the kitchen, and before Leela could answer—before she could react to the slow-burn hellfire that was Joel’s mouth near her ear—there was a clatter behind them.

Maya had knocked over the stool.

She stood it, blinking innocently, hands still mid-air like she hadn’t decided whether to be surprised or proud. Then she calmly declared—

“Shit.”

X

Safe to say, the shitty chore chart actually worked.

Joel wasn’t sure what he’d expected. Maybe another few weeks of silence. A slow thaw, if they were lucky. A note left somewhere in her tight, efficient handwriting, letting him know Leela was still breathing, still eating, still surviving—but nothing more. He wasn’t prepared for this.

He closed Maya’s bedroom door quietly behind him, catching the latch with his thumb so it wouldn’t click, walking out of there more like a man escaping a sweltering sauna—shirt damp at the collar, temples sweating, back sore from leaning over her crib for too long. Her little body was finally limp with sleep after a thirty-minute campaign of bribery, back rubs, and whispered negotiations that made hostage diplomacy look easy.

Earlier, she’d kicked the blanket off for the third time and rolled over with a defiant grunt. “Not sleepy. Turtle time. Westin’ my eyes.”

Joel had sighed, rubbing her back in slow circles. “Westin’ them? That’s what people say before they start sno-win’.”

She giggled, a hand over her eye. “You snore, Daddy.”

Joel paused. “No comment.”

That earned him another sleepy giggle. She yawned right after, one of those full-body ones that made her fists curl and her toes point, and he knew he had her.

“Westin’,” she sniffed, “my...”

He kept patting, kissing her palms, both her eyes, her tummy, humming nonsense—old country songs, half-remembered ballads—until her breathing evened out and her fist crept toward her mouth, an old habit she pretended she’d outgrown.

Now, on the other side of the door, he stood in the hallway and let out a breath he hadn’t realised he’d been holding. His knees cracked when he straightened fully. Christ. The things he did for that kid.

But when he stepped into the bedroom, every quiet ache evaporated.

Leela was there.

Not just drifting in and out to grab fresh clothes or the bathroom. She was in bed. Seeing her there, in their bed, the bed that had been so empty without her, it knocked a gear loose in his chest.

Her back rested against the headboard, duvet tucked around her like a neat envelope, knees tented, lamp casting a warm golden pool across her lap. Her long, thick braid was falling apart, little wisps of hair framing her face, and she was bent forward over a small embroidery hoop, working her needle through one of Maya’s little shirts—some new animal she had taken a shine to, if he had to guess. Turtles, definitely turtles.

Her nightstand—the one he still stocked with water every evening out of sheer habit—held her voice recorder and a few stray hair ribbons. For a moment, he just stood there like a dumb fuck who had forgotten how doors worked, caught somewhere between stunned and stunned stupid.

Then she looked up.

And smiled. “Hi, Joel.”

That single smile cracked across her face like sunlight breaking through the overcast sky, and he felt the ridiculous urge to cover his face just to keep from weeping like some idiot.

His peace and home had staggered back to him in that stretch. It wasn’t fair, the way he obsequiously ached for her even now. After all they’d been through. After the walls, the silence, the weeks she’d spent sleeping in the guest room, or nodding off at her desk, avoiding the bed like it burned.

He’d lived with the distance for a vicious while—so, the sight of her again, curled into the space they used to share, made him want to drop to his knees and thank whatever cruel world they lived in for giving her back.

“Huh?” she said, holding up the little alarm clock on her nightstand. “No work after ten?” Her voice had a tease to it. “Check.”

Joel blinked, then scratched the back of his neck. “Yeah.”

“Chore chart actually works,” she murmured his exact thoughts, almost to herself, with a half-smile.

He huffed a breath through his nose and stepped inside slowly, the way you would approach a miracle. If he moved too fast, it might vanish.

Something about the way she said it—it should’ve felt easy, but it landed heavy in his chest. She hadn’t slept next to him in months, and the few times she did, she stayed curled on the far edge, as if gravity pulled her toward the wall instead of him.

And now here she was—like this wasn’t strange at all. Like she didn’t feel the difference in his bones.

He sat on the edge of the bed, hands resting on his knees, wooden. “Good to know it helps.”

She must’ve sensed it, too, because her hands slowed. She held the shirt loosely, the thread caught mid-pull. She finished her stitch eventually, snipped the thread, and set the shirt and hoop aside on the nightstand.

“I’ve been a difficult mess,” she said. Quiet. Unapologetic. Not defensive, not dramatic—just… true. “I haven’t been fair to you either.”

He rubbed at his jaw. His default. That old, worn-out gesture for when he didn’t know what to say. He wasn’t good at this kind of talk. Not the naming of feelings. Not the raw stuff. He could fight for her, kill for her, track every goddamn change in her breathing—but when it came to this kind of truth, he always faltered.

So instead, he shrugged. “Nah. You were gettin’ through it. However you had to.”

Her eyes flickered, her gaze drifting sideways. “I wasn’t with you,” she said. “I was in the same house, and it might as well have been a whole other continent.”

Joel breathed in through his nose, slow, as if that might anchor something inside him. He wasn’t angry. God, how could he be? He was just tired. Tired of the ache that came from not being able to fix it. From hearing her cry and standing on the other side of the door with his fists clenched and heart breaking.

“Look,” he mumbled. “I ain’t interested in tallyin’ up who gave what when. You needed space. I gave it. It happened, we move on.”

“I know,” she said, so painfully soft. Almost shy. “Sorry, Joel.”

“Don't have to say it,” he sighed.

“Alright. Sorry.”

“Jesus.”

Leela’s lips suddenly curled as her eyes slid back to him, and there it was—that spark. Mischief, restrained and warm. The part of her that used to tease him in the mornings just to see if she could make him smile before coffee. The part he hadn’t seen in weeks.

“I believe one of the incentives,” she began lightly, “was... ‘sleep with Joel’ today.”

He stared.

Not out of lust—though his body certainly answered with a long, slow, hardening ache—but out of disbelief. Wonder. The cautious kind. Like seeing a wild animal approach the palm of your hand. She hadn’t touched him in weeks. Months. He’d gone to sleep with a ghost every night. And now she was here, playful and real and warm.

Still her. Still bruised around the edges. But her.

“You keepin' track of that bullshit?”

She tilted her head, braid sliding off her shoulder. “Maybe?”

“And you checkin’ it off?” he asked, rougher than he meant to.

She leaned in slightly, voice a little huskier now. “Depends. Are you still available for incentive-based tasks?”

His heart gave a full, aching thump. He let a slow grin tug at the corners of his mouth. “Hell,” he said, “I’ll fill out the whole damn chart if it gets you in this bed again.”

She huffed a laugh. “I starve you too much. Never realised how important... it is.”

He turned toward her, one knee pressing deeper into the mattress. She smelled like soap, clean cotton, hot showers, and something that might’ve been bergamot. Just all woman. She slid her legs toward him, tentative, and he leaned in, bringing his hand up to fold the hair from her face.

“Beautiful girl,” he muttered.

She leaned into his palm, kissing it, hand finding his wrist, slender, sure. She touched him like she remembered everything about him—like she hadn’t forgotten a single inch. The way his pulse jumped when she got too close. The way his mouth parted slightly when she brushed the base of his hand.

“I missed this. You, all of you. Even when I couldn’t say it,” she confessed.

Joel felt a crack, right there in the middle of his chest. Like someone had reached in and twisted the muscle until it remembered how to hurt.

He bent forward, careful, his forehead touched hers, and he closed his eyes.

“I’m right here,” he murmured. “Ain’t going anywhere.”

Her breath caught faintly—and then she leaned in, nose stroking his, dark eyes fluttering shut. The distance between them collapsed without ceremony. A quiet fall back into place.

“Do you wanna sleep with me?”

Joel leaned back half an inch, eyes finding hers in the low light. “Gonna have to be more specific, darlin’.”

Leela huffed softly through her nose, and her eyes—God, her eyes—held that glimmer of mischief again. “Just lie down, Joel.”

He let out a breath that was half a laugh, half surrender. He eased back into the bed, boots off, shirt shed, the mattress dipping under his weight as he slid beside her.

“Alright, get in here,” he grunted, opening his arms for her. “Mother and daughter, all the same. Y’all only want Daddy when the night comes creepin’.”

Her snicker was muffled into him. “Would be wrong if she weren't.”

His arm curled around her waist, pulling her in until she was well-accommodated against him, her back to his chest, his large hand splayed against her belly, thumb sweeping slow arcs under the hem of her shirt.

Later, much later, the house lay in silence, only the soft ticking of the old clock in the hall marked time, and moonlight filtered through the bedroom window in silver strokes.

Joel stayed awake long after her breathing softened. Her body stayed in his warmth, bare skin wrapped in linen and Joel, and her cheek pressed into his bicep like she’d always belonged there.

“Beautiful girl,” he whispered again. She really was, he really meant it. She was the prettiest girl out there, someone who definitely would have hung off a billionaire's arm on the cover of gossip mags had it not been for the hand of fate.

He hadn’t learned how much he missed Leela until she was this close, and still not close enough.

His hand drifted slowly, tucking a loose strand of hair back into her braid. Then the tip of his finger traced the soft line of her nose, down to the curve of her lips. They parted with her breath, unguarded in sleep.

He swallowed down a laugh when he realised that someday, Maya would grow into this face. He saw it now—the angular set of her dusky jaw when she got adamant, the exact shape of her scowl, the way her lashes swept her cheek when she napped against his chest. It was all Leela. She’d been stamped onto their girl like an echo.

He touched her hand next—her pretty hand, bare on the pillow beside her, half-curled in sleep, how it looked so much smaller when she wasn’t holding a pen.

Long, lonely fingers. Wide, neat nails. The faintest veins surfacing under honey-brown skin. He counted the lean tendons, the way they ridged delicately over the bones. And there—a small scar just above her knuckle, the origin of which she’d never explained. He ran his thumb over it, like smoothing an old memory.

How they were always doing—fussing with Maya’s collar, knotting her own braid, attempting to patch up his worn boots again—and yet, they slept empty now.

His eyes caught on the curve of her ring finger. Bare. Waiting.

He imagined it full. A gold band resting, maybe a tiny diamond tucked into the metal like a secret, a ring that maybe had his name engraved on the inside, hidden against her skin, a ring she never had to take off, even to shower. And when they walked through town together, it would glint in the sun, and people would know.

That was Joel Miller’s wife.

That was Joel—with his home, his someplace where a warm hand waited for his.

He kissed that very knuckle, then laid their joined hands between them on the sheets, her fingers still lax in sleep, but his closed tight, as if to hold what he'd almost let slip away.

Not again. Not ever.

X

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[alive-gh0st]

❝Hearts Don’t Miss❞

Omni!Mark Grayson x Cupid!Reader➶

•♡🤍♡🤍♡🤍♡˚₊‧ ꒰ა 💗 ໒꒱ ‧₊˚♡🤍♡🤍♡🤍♡•

﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌

❤︎ summary: after defying a divine directive and choosing mercy over order, you—a cupid built not to feel—fall from the realm and crash into a world you don’t belong to. wingless and exiled, you land on a planet bruised by war, grief, and something worse: apathy. but one figure watches your descent. he’s not a hero. not a god. just a man turned monster, carrying the weight of a planet he helped destroy. you were made to spark love. he was made to conquer. so why can’t he walk away?

❤︎ contains: sfw. celestial mythology. lonely immortals. slow-burn dynamics. post-war emotional fallout. deconstruction of love as a weapon/tool. and a wingless cupid with a cracked heart and a crooked smile.

❤︎ warnings: emotional manipulation (brief). themes of exile and identity loss. canon-typical violence references (omni-mark’s past). light blood/injury mentions. quiet existential grief. soft heartbreak. and the inconvenient ache of wanting to be wanted.

‪❤︎ wc: 4455

prologue, part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4

﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌a/n: i wanted to write something aching. something soft and sharp and too pink in all the wrong places. this is my love letter to the ones who were built to help others but never expected to be helped. to the hopeless romantics. to the heartsworn. if you’ve ever looked for your own thread and found nothing but empty space—i see you. let’s fall together.

﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌

﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌

Before time had a name, there was love.

And before love had rules, there were those who enforced them.

You were one of them.

Cupids were never born in the way humans or any other beings are.

There was no crying, no clutching warmth, no heartbeat against heartbeat. You weren’t given to anyone—because in your world, nothing is ever truly given. It’s assigned.

And you were assigned to love.

Long before your first breath—or what could even be counted as a breath—your existence was stitched together with rose-gold thread and spun into something soft.

Something radiant. Something shaped to serve.

The Realm of Threads didn’t believe in accidents. It believed in connection.

Harmony. Devotion.

These were your first lessons—woven not from stories, but from structure. From a place built not to feel love, but to uphold it.

Cupids, as humans might call them, are not gods. They are not angels. They are not the chubby, winged caricatures drawn on glossy cards each February.

They are constructs.

Beings built from emotion itself, shaped by the pulse of the universe and tasked with one divine, inescapable truth—make them fall in love.

All of them.

Every soul in every world is marked by a thread—red, golden, soft, or shining. Invisible to most. Tangible only to your kind. And where those threads exist, your kind follows.

Weaving. Binding. Mending.

You never asked why. You were taught never to ask why.

｡ﾟ•┈୨♡୧┈• ｡ﾟ

In your realm, the sky is made of lace.

Not literal lace—but that’s what it looks like, with its rippling tapestry of lights and longing.

You drifted through it as a child, surrounded by other Cupids—silent, graceful, unwavering. They didn’t speak unless they had to. Words wasted time. Emotion was observed, not expressed.

You were the odd one out almost immediately.

You giggled when you shouldn’t have. You sang with no rhythm. You watched humans too closely, too curiously. You wondered what it felt like to be kissed—not as a target, not as a mission—but as something wanted.

The Supervisors said your strings were too tight.

They meant your emotions.

You cared too much. Thought too hard. Dreamed in colors that didn’t belong to you.

But you were a prodigy, so they didn’t clip your wings. Not then. They praised your precision, your instincts. You’d never missed a target. Not once.

But love, you would learn, is only beautiful when it behaves.

｡ﾟ•┈୨♡୧┈• ｡ﾟ

You were trained before you ever knew what training meant.

In the Realm of Threads, there is no childhood. Not in the way humans define it. There are no lullabies, no scraped knees, no tumbling laughter in the grass. There is structure. There is schooling.

There is silence.

You were given a pod—not a room, not a bed. A pod. Sterile and softly lit, humming faintly with emotional frequency.

It pulsed with the echoes of distant connections: engagements, kisses, heartbreak, soulmates colliding on foreign soil.

It was meant to teach you. Not to feel—but to understand what feeling looks like.

Your first lessons weren’t in numbers or words. They were in observation.

Screens stretched across your wall like windows into other realms. Every second of every day, you watched humans love each other. Fumble and flourish. Make mistakes. Fix them. You learned the cadence of confession, the stillness before a first kiss, the ache of waiting by a phone that wouldn’t ring.

You took notes.

You practiced on simulations. Shadow versions of real people, constructed for training. They were emotion puppets—coded to respond, to mimic the human condition, but never feel it.

You pulled their strings like a composer, conducting the perfect crescendo of a meet-cute or a second chance.

And you were so good at it.

Even the elder Cupids, old as planetary rotations, took notice.

They called you “Silken.”

They called you “True-Handed.”

They said your instincts were woven with clarity few possessed.

But even then—you knew something was wrong.

Because love wasn’t clean. It wasn’t predictable. It wasn’t math.

You saw it in the gaps between the simulations—in the real footage, in the stolen glances and unsent letters.

Love was messy.

And you weren’t allowed to say that.

So instead, you smiled. You bowed your head. You aced your assignments. And when it was finally time to receive your bow—the instrument that would mark you as a field Cupid, ready to enter the human realm—you let them place it in your hands like a crown.

Ceremonial. Divine. Cold.

Your wings fluttered for the first time that day. Not from pride. From something else.

Restlessness.

Because you weren’t sure you wanted to be part of this system.

But you’d been shaped for it. And in the Realm of Threads, shape is everything.

｡ﾟ•┈୨♡୧┈• ｡ﾟ

They say Cupids don’t feel the way humans do. But if that were true—why did it ache?

You never had a red string.

That was the first thing you noticed.

You saw them everywhere—thread-thin, glowing like veins of fire across the fabric of reality. Around wrists, through hearts, tied in impossible loops from continent to continent, galaxy to galaxy.

Red. Gold. Silver.

Some pulsed softly. Some burned bright. Some frayed at the ends—doomed to break.

But you?

You had none.

You looked. Every year. Every cycle. Every mirror.

And there was never one waiting for you.

The instructors said it was proof of your purpose.

You were meant to love, not to be loved.

Cupids didn’t need soulmates. You were the threads—not what they tied together.

But still, when you were alone in your pod—your crown-glass screen humming with soft simulations—you sometimes wrapped a ribbon around your own finger and pretended.

Just for a moment. Just to feel what it might be like to belong to someone.

To be chosen.

To be someone’s reason.

You told no one.

Cupids weren’t supposed to pretend.

Not about that.

You always grinned too brightly. Talked too much. Got too close to the humans you helped.

You asked too many questions.

Why this couple? Why that connection? Why did heartbreak sometimes look so much like love?

You weren’t supposed to wonder. You were supposed to execute. Deliver arrows. Create outcomes. Adjust the threads.

But you liked watching after the mission was done.

You stayed longer than you should have. Saw the way people clung to one another. Fought. Forgave. Grieved. Moved on. Sometimes, even when the threads said they wouldn’t.

And worse—you started to feel happy for them.

Genuinely.

Not in the approved, detached sense of “mission accomplished,” but like… something warm bloomed in your chest just watching two people choose each other.

One day you told another Cupid—casually, as if it was no big thing—that it must feel nice to be loved like that.

She looked at you like you were malfunctioning.

Reported you. Quietly.

You were summoned for evaluation.

They used soft words. Nothing cruel—just… firm.

“Attachment undermines your clarity.”

“You’ve been too immersed in lower realms.”

“Emotional mimicry is a known side effect. You’ll adjust.”

You didn’t adjust.

You just learned how to lie better.

You laughed louder. You perfected your posture. You earned the nickname Heartsworn, and everyone said it with admiration.

But you felt empty most days.

Like a thread that had never been tied.

And it gnawed at you, that emptiness—because you were built to help others find connection.

So why did it feel like you’d never have your own?

｡ﾟ•┈୨♡୧┈• ｡ﾟ

It happened on a world not so different from Earth.

Small. Blue. Quiet in the way only dying stars can make a planet feel.

The threads there were thin. Brittle. Nearly broken.

It needed love desperately. That’s why they sent you.

Because you never missed. Because your aim was perfect. Because you were the shining example—the “Heartsworn,” the favorite, the infallible.

And at first, it was routine.

Two beings. Two threads. One frayed at the end, knotted tight around grief. The other hesitant, flickering. Their paths crossed in a way that felt almost poetic—a shared umbrella. An open bookstore. A laugh like recognition.

You hovered above them, bow pulsing in your palm. A clean shot. Two arrows. One for each.

But then something shifted.

The woman—your target—she looked up at the man, eyes tired but tender. And the way he looked back… like he was remembering how to breathe.

And you saw it.

She had already loved him.

It hadn’t been forced. It hadn’t been orchestrated. No divine architecture. No thread pulling them forward.

Just… choice.

Human, messy, miraculous choice.

You hesitated.

And that’s all it took.

Your bow trembled in your hands. Not from error—but from resistance.

Because for the first time—you didn’t want to interfere. You didn’t want to force it.

You wanted to let them be.

You lowered your weapon.

And then—because you were soft, and reckless, and maybe stupid in the eyes of the Supervisors—you spoke to her.

She didn’t see you. Not clearly. Just a shimmer in the corner of her eye. But you whispered anyway.

“You don’t need help. You already chose him.”

The words weren’t authorized. Your presence was meant to be undetectable. You were not allowed to alter the script.

But you did.

And for a moment—nothing happened.

Then the red thread between them sparked.

Bright. Violent. Uncontrolled.

It burned itself into existence. Without your arrow. Without divine sanction.

And they kissed.

Not because you told them to.

Because they wanted to.

Your lips curled into a soft smile.

You didn’t regret it.

But the moment you returned to the Realm of Threads, you knew something was wrong.

The lights were dimmed. The supervisors were waiting. No lectures. No trials.

Just one sentence.

“You interfered.”

You opened your mouth to defend yourself—but the guards were already reaching for your wings.

You’d heard what it sounded like.

The sound of ripping. The way it cuts deeper than bone.

But you’d never imagined it would hurt like this.

Your knees hit the lace-floor. Your mouth stayed silent.

You didn’t scream.

Not because it didn’t hurt—but because they wanted you to.

And maybe, just maybe, you wanted to take that from them.

Dignity, you told yourself.

Dignity is all I have left.

You were told you would not be recycled. You were too “contaminated.” Too unstable. A bad example.

So instead—they exiled you.

You didn’t get to ask where.

Just a flash of cold light—

And then the sound of wind.

Falling.

Alone.

｡ﾟ•┈୨♡୧┈• ｡ﾟ

You hit the ground hard.

Not like a leaf drifting. Not with grace. Not with poise. Not like the Cupids in the stories.

Like a comet.

A streak of light through an unfamiliar sky, dragging heat and ache in your wake.

You didn’t black out right away—but you almost wished you had.

Because the first thing you felt wasn’t the crash. Wasn’t the way your ribs seized or the way your shoulder twisted beneath your fall.

It was the space between your wings.

The hollow.

The absence.

You gasped.

Air—not laced with threadlight, not humming with frequency, just air—rushed into your lungs like punishment.

You curled onto your side, dirt grinding into the soft parts of you. Wet grass clung to your skin. The sky above was wrong—blue, yes, but so still. No shimmering frequencies. No glowing red filaments. Just clouds, soft and slow.

You were somewhere real.

Somewhere unmarked.

Somewhere alone.

It wasn’t the pain that made you want to cry.

It was the quiet.

Because back home—even when you were alone in your pod, even when no one looked at you—there was always something.

The buzz of love blooming. The echo of longing. The soft, constant pull of other people’s threads, humming just outside your senses.

But now?

Nothing.

It was gone.

You sat up slowly.

And then immediately flopped back down with a tiny, theatrical groan.

“Ouchie,” you mumbled to no one, voice breathy and soft and definitely not pained—because no, you were totally fine. Just a bit… stunned. And mildly bleeding. And definitely wingless.

But you were smiling. Kind of. Maybe.

Okay, so it trembled a little at the edges.

“I’ve had worse landings,” you said aloud—which was a lie. You’d never landed before. You’d always floated.

You tried again, slowly, every nerve screaming. Your knees trembled. Your arms buckled. You caught yourself on the soft slope of a hill, hands sinking into wildflowers and moss.

You blinked down at them.

Yellow, pink, violet. Stubbornly bright.

They looked like something out of a simulation.

They weren’t.

They were real.

Your mouth twisted.

Of course you landed in a field of flowers. Of course.

You laughed.

It came out cracked and hoarse. Almost a sob.

Because everything hurt, and everything was still spinning, and you had no idea where you were, and no one was coming for you, and—

No.

No, you weren’t going to cry. You weren’t.

Cupids didn’t cry.

Even clipped ones.

Even broken ones.

Even ones bleeding into someone else’s sky.

Still, you tried to push yourself up, wobbling on legs that hadn’t had to support you since your designation. It felt wrong. Heavy. Like gravity had teeth and it didn’t trust you. You teetered. Fell to your knees again.

And giggled.

Which also trembled a little.

“I meant to do that.”

You dusted imaginary dirt from your imaginary uniform and gave an exaggerated little curtsy to the empty air.

No one clapped. Rude.

You dragged yourself to your feet.

Shaky. Awkward. Wobbly in a way you hadn’t felt in cycles. The Realm of Threads taught you to float everywhere. Gliding was cleaner. More efficient. Less emotional.

You hadn’t really walked since childhood simulations.

The ground felt weird under your feet. Solid. Gritty.

Your bow was still intact. Miraculously. You hugged it close like a stuffed toy, curling in on yourself for a moment, letting the quiet press into your bones.

You could still feel it.

That place between your shoulders—where your wings had been. Like a ghost limb. Like something sacred had been carved out of you and left a silence behind.

You hated it.

But you kept moving.

Maybe—if you helped someone on this world—they would come back for you. Maybe if you just kept doing your job, proved you were still useful, still good, they’d rewind the exile.

Reattach what they’d taken.

Please.

You stumbled once. Then again. Then face-planted into a patch of daisies with a grunt so undignified you groaned into the soil.

“Get it together,” you mumbled into the grass.

You pushed yourself back up. Sat on your knees for a second. Took a breath.

You didn’t know how long you wandered after that.

Minutes? Hours? You lost time in the way only the heartbroken can.

It got dark fast.

The sky burned gold, then violet, then black. Stars blinked overhead—foreign constellations, wrong patterns.

You were still limping through the field when the noise came.

A whoosh.

Sharp. Cutting. Like something splitting the air in half.

You froze.

Turned slowly.

And then—saw him.

Not a blur. A shape. Coming toward you like a storm with legs.

You only had a second to register what was coming at you: tall, fast, red and white—a storm in the shape of a man. And a scowl, carved from thunderclouds.

Flying.

He was flying.

You squinted.

Not a Cupid. Definitely not a Cupid.

A human?

No.

No, he felt… too much.

You didn’t have your thread-sight anymore, but you could still feel.

Emotions. Echoes.

He felt like gravity.

Like something that had no business coming closer—and was doing it anyway.

He landed hard. Just a few feet away.

Harder than you had. The ground splintered beneath his feet, shockwaves rippling out in a perfect ring. Dust and wildflowers burst upward like a gasp. He stood there for a beat—motionless.

And you… just stared.

Red suit. White accents. Red cape. Black goggles like midnight slicing across his face. He didn’t glow. He didn’t shine. He loomed.

His presence felt like gravity doubled—like the world bowed to his weight and dared not rise again.

You blinked at him slowly. Then offered a tiny wave.

“Hi.”

Silence.

He didn’t move.

You glanced behind you like maybe he was staring at someone else, but no—those mirrored goggles were fixed on you.

“Hiii,” you tried again, voice cheerier. “Okay, so I know this looks weird. But I promise I’m not here to hurt anyone! Unless, um. You count your planet’s gravitational field. Which did kinda kick my butt—ow.”

No reaction. His posture didn’t shift. You had a sudden, vivid mental image of being vaporized.

“I’m just passing through!” you rushed, hands up. “A… a tourist! On a very involuntary vacation!”

Still nothing.

Well, maybe not nothing—he was breathing.

Barley.

His voice, when it came, was sharp enough to slice open a planet.

“You’re not human.”

Your grin faltered for a second before rebounding, like a rubber band that’s been snapped too many times.

“Nope. Not even a little bit! But I’m very human adjacent in a lot of ways! I’ve watched a lot of rom-coms and I know how to do a proper hug—although full disclosure, I might fall over during it because of the whole… clipped wings situation.”

His jaw tightened. His eyes—hidden though they were—felt like twin drills boring into the softest parts of you.

“Why are you here?”

You opened your mouth. Closed it. Then plastered on a sheepish smile.

“That’s kind of a long story,” you admitted, voice dipping softer now. “The short version is… I got kicked out of my hom—my realm. For caring too much.”

Something flickered across his face. Brief. Gone before you could catch it.

“And now,” you continued, tone brightening again as you gestured to the wildflower field like a very proud but slightly concussed game show host, “I’m here! In… wherever here is. Honestly, it’s pretty. Good flowers. Ten out of ten. Bit of a rough welcome, but I’ve had worse.”

“You’re bleeding.”

Your hand drifted unconsciously to your back, fingertips brushing the jagged place where wings used to rise.

You shrugged. “It’s mostly cosmetic.”

He said nothing. Just stared.

You took a step forward—then immediately lost your balance and fell face-first into a patch of daisies.

There was a beat of silence. Then two. Then three.

And then—so faint you thought you imagined it—you heard the faintest exhale of breath from the man in red and white.

Not a laugh.

But maybe the ghost of one.

You rolled onto your back and grinned up at the stars.

“See?” you said, voice light. “I’m great at making first impressions.”

｡ﾟ•┈୨♡୧┈• ｡ﾟ

The second he saw you, he didn’t trust you.

Not because you looked dangerous. No—you didn’t. You were crumpled in a bed of wildflowers, wobbling like a broken marionette and smiling like someone had painted joy over grief and hoped no one would notice the cracks.

But that was exactly why he didn’t trust you.

People didn’t fall from the sky and grin. Not here. Not anywhere. Not anymore.

So he hovered, silent, watching you crawl upright like you didn’t know how to use your own legs. Like the planet was something foreign. Like gravity was something new.

That wasn’t normal.

Mark had seen a lot of things in a lot of universes—false gods, black holes, men split into fractions of themselves—but this? A girl with stardust on her skin and nothing in her hands but a bow? That was new.

He landed hard. On purpose. Let the ground feel him.

You flinched. Not at the sound—at the silence that followed it.

And then you looked up.

Big eyes. Bare feet. Mouth bleeding at the corner, but curved like you hadn’t noticed. Or didn’t care.

And then—

“Hi.”

Like you hadn’t just fallen from orbit.

He didn’t speak.

“Hiii,” you tried again, softer. “Okay, so I know this looks weird. But I promise I’m not here to hurt anyone! Unless, um. You count your planet’s gravitational field. Which did kinda kick my butt—ow.”

Still he said nothing.

He didn’t move.

Mark watched.

Measured.

Assessed.

You were glowing at the edges—not visibly—but in some low, stubborn frequency. Like the kind of candle you couldn’t blow out even after you’d shattered the holder.

It irritated him.

He spoke without meaning to.

“You’re not human.”

You beamed, wounded and bright. “Nope! Not even a little bit!”

You kept talking. Rambling. Fumbling your way through some patchwork lie about tourism and rom-coms and wings—clipped, apparently.

He didn’t interrupt.

Didn’t need to.

He was looking for something. A tell. A crack.

“Why are you here?”

That stopped you.

Just a second. Barely.

But it was enough.

Your grin shrank. Eyes dipped. Voice turned soft.

“That’s kind of a long story. The short version is… I got kicked out of my hom—my realm. For caring too much.”

That flickered something inside him.

He crushed it before it could breathe.

Mark didn’t do soft. He didn’t do “caring.” That was the problem with the others. They hesitated. Thought. He didn’t. That’s why he survived.

So why was he still here?

Why wasn’t he flying away?

Why hadn’t he broken you in half the moment you lied?

You stepped forward. Tripped. Fell face-first into a clump of flowers like a deer learning how to walk for the first time.

He didn’t flinch, but he exhaled—just once. Quiet. Almost amused.

You rolled onto your back and smiled at the stars.

“See? I’m great at making first impressions.”

He hated how you said it.

Like it mattered.

Like someone out here was still capable of being good.

He walked toward you.

You didn’t run. You didn’t crawl away. You sat there, hands splayed out behind you, watching him like you weren’t sure if he was going to help you up or crush your skull.

Smart.

He stopped in front of you.

Tilted his head.

“I should kill you.”

Your eyes widened, but you didn’t move. “You could. You really could. But I’d prefer we didn’t start there?”

“Then give me one reason not to.”

You opened your mouth. Closed it. Looked up at him like you were weighing the clouds.

“I don’t have one.”

Mark stared.

You continued.

“I mean—I don’t know if I’m important. I don’t have a secret code or an army or even a sandwich right now. But…”

You reached up, touching your back—where the blood had dried, sticky and shimmering.

“But I used to be someone. I used to help people fall in love. And maybe that doesn’t matter to you—but it mattered to them.”

There was a silence.

He wasn’t sure what he expected you to say.

But it wasn’t that.

He should leave.

He should fly away and chalk you up to another anomaly.

Instead, he said:

“Can you still do it?”

You blinked. “Do what?”

“Make people love.”

Your lips curled up. Slowly. Sadly. “I don’t know.”

Another pause.

You were watching him too closely now. Like you were trying to read a string that wasn’t there.

“You’re not really from here either,” you said softly. “Are you?”

He didn’t answer.

Didn’t have to.

You already knew.

“Are you gonna hurt me?” you asked.

He looked at you, at the way your voice didn’t tremble, even though your body did.

And for once—he told the truth.

“I don’t know.”

You nodded.

“Fair.”

Then you reached up and offered your hand.

Not in fear. Not in desperation.

Just… like someone who was used to offering something and not getting it taken.

Mark didn’t take it.

But he didn’t crush it either.

He looked past you—at the dark hills, the useless stars, the broken silence.

After conquering this place and killing his father—he didn’t know what this planet was anymore.

Didn’t care.

But he had nowhere else to be. Not anymore.

He turned.

Walked.

And when he didn’t tell you to stay—

You followed.

Not too close.

Just… close enough.

﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌

˗ˏˋ 𝓴𝓲𝓼𝓼 𝓶𝒆 ˎˊ˗

﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌

Once, you were small. Once, you believed everything they told you.

Your first robe was the color of a peach blossom.

It shimmered when you turned, sleeves brushing the floor, too big for your arms and still perfect in every way. You’d never worn something so soft.

You twirled three times in front of the mirror, arms out like wings, giggling because everything felt light.

“You look very neat,” said one of the elder Cupids, gliding past with a clipboard. “Remember to keep your posture upright when you’re selected for observation.”

“I will!” you promised, standing taller.

The robe swished when you walked. You liked that. It made you feel important. Like you were finally what they said you would be—purposeful.

Part of something big.

You didn’t understand everything yet, but that didn’t matter.

You were going to be a Cupid.

And Cupids were good.

“Today,” said another instructor, voice warm and practiced, “you’ll learn about threads.”

You beamed. Sat up straighter. Listened with all your heart.

“Every being has a thread,” they explained, conjuring a floating hologram that flickered softly through the training chamber. “They wrap around us, tie us to our people. See?”

The threads shimmered—red, gold, silver, glowing like starlight.

You gasped. It was so pretty. It made your chest feel warm.

“You’ll help people find each other,” the instructor went on. “You’ll guide their steps. Fix what’s frayed. Strengthen what’s fragile.”

“I can do that!” you blurted.

A few other young Cupids turned to look at you, but you didn’t care. Your legs were swinging off the floating bench and your hands were already up.

“I wanna do the red ones,” you said proudly. “Those are the soulmate ones, right?”

The instructor smiled. So gently. Like they were talking to someone a little slow, but very sweet.

“Oh, darling,” they said. “You don’t get one.”

You blinked.

“Huh?”

“You won’t have a red thread,” they said again, same caring voice, same soft smile. “Cupids don’t get them.”

You frowned. “But… we’re people too?”

“No,” they said kindly. “You’re not.”

Another Cupid, older, came to kneel beside you. Their hair was smooth. Their smile too perfect.

“You’re something better,” they told you. “You were made for love. You don’t need to be in it.”

“But—” you started.

“We give it,” the first instructor interrupted gently. “That’s your gift.”

You hesitated.

“But doesn’t anyone ever want us back?” you asked in a small voice.

The instructor’s smile didn’t change.

“No one has ever asked that before.”

You blinked. Sat very still.

They stood again.

“Alright, little hearts,” the elder said, clapping once. “Time for simulation prep. Let’s learn how to listen when a thread hums.”

Everyone got up.

You did too.

You smiled. Because they smiled. Because everyone around you looked so sure, so peaceful, so right.

You didn’t want to be the wrong one.

﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌

ᯓ❤︎ requested by: @lycheee-jelly

taglist sign up: 𓊆ྀིhere𓊇ྀི

﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌With Love, @alive-gh0st

[renai-fr]

Perler Flight Banners!

Made the first of these when I made the flight flags a bit back (my flight, Light), and figured it was a good time to make the rest of the flight banners and share the designs! To the best of my ability, they're also to scale with each other, so I think they'd look pretty good if you wanted to make the whole set and put 'em on your wall or something.

Sort of also for Dergtober's first prompt ("Flight"), but uh, ran into that thing with trad media where sometimes you run out of materials, ha! This is also why they're mostly not fused (Ice and Water share most of their mid/light blue beads, for example).

(Crafting info after the break!)

First off, all of these are either 17x34 or 19x34 (these squares are 17x17 on their own). They fit fine on the larger squares, but my big squares happen to all be either bright red or bright yellow, and don't show off the colors very well. They almost all use transparent beads for structural reasons- if you want to cross-stitch these, the transparent beads are fine to ignore! I was just making them so they could theoretically hang on a wall.

Colors used (my best guess, not gospel! I get most of my beads from kits/mixed bags, and they don't always list the color names :/ )

Light: Cream/Créme, Yellow, Cheddar, Transparent

Lightning: Copper (metallic), Robin's Egg, Parrot Green, Glitter Blue, Turquoise, Transparent

Fire: Black, Cherry, Orange, Cheddar, Neon Orange, Transparent

Arcane: Pearl Pink, Cheddar, Raspberry, Pink, Light Pink

Plague: Red, Cherry, Raspberry*, Pewter, Brown, Kiwi Lime

Earth: Brown, Light Brown, Pewter, Dark Gray

Ice: Robin's Egg, Pastel Blue, Gray, Dark Gray, Toothpaste, Light Blue

Shadow: Pastel Lavender, Purple, Dark Gray, Pewter, Toothpaste, Transparent

Wind: Kiwi Lime, Dark Green, Bright Green, Yellow, Rust, Red, Transparent

Water: Denim, Turquoise, Pastel Blue, Parrot Green, Teal, White, Marshmallow, Pastel Yellow, Transparent

Nature: Olive, Bright Green, Kiwi Lime, Dark Green, Marshmallow, Cream/Créme, Transparent

(* I used Raspberry on Plague's flag because I ran out of Cranberry. Cranberry looks WAY better, but like... mismatched didn't work at all. I highly suggest using Cranberry in place of Raspberry in all places it occurs on the design!)

Another color note- when you fuse metallic beads, the shiny stuff makes a lil halo around the bead's center hole. For Lightning, since they have wires/chains on their banner/support, I figured it would work fine, but you could swap the Copper beads out for Rust and it would look good enough, I think. You do lose the shiny factor doing that, though.

A couple of these extend off of the side of the boards; better to use a bigger board for them if you have one (or like, if you have a third 17x17, sticking it to the side of the others and scooting the entire design over a peg would also work!)

As is very visible on the Light banner, it's really easy to get a faulty fuse where the boards meet. The trick where you put masking tape/painter's tape on the back of the beads before ironing (the OTHER side, and then take the tape off to iron its side, to be clear) helps a lot on multi-board fuses. You don't have to poke holes in the tape, but I find that doing so with a ballpoint pen or what have you can help a lot with keeping the beads from moving around, etc.

Happy crafting- if you end up making any of these, please ping me (or um, whatever I'm supposed to call it... still don't quite know how this site works) so I can see!

[queenofmorningstar]

Caught Between the Vees

The Vees x f! Intern Reader

Summary: You're having one hell of a day, with the social media and fashion Overlord sweeps you off to her runaway show which you know nothing about.

CW: MDNI, WLW, oral sex, strap-on, modeling with no body shaming (reader's body is not described), Vel is first for the win against the boys, reader is a fucking genius when she wants to be, Vox & Val are mentioned. Foursome treat will be given in the last part (I'm evil like that)

Notes: At the end of post

Word Count: 3K

Chapter Two: Style Icon

Part 1| Part 2| Part 3| Part 4| Part 5

Your day was going great. Woke up with well rested sleep (which was a rarity), and prepared some good appetizing breakfast.

As you scrolled through some posts, you saw an email from Voxtek.

Huh? You didn’t pay much attention to your emails. As you tapped on it, your eyes were wide as saucers as you read the contents.

Was this bitch crazy? You looked at the time, 7:45.

Shit. You’re so fucked.

You quickly put on the first clothes you could find, and raced to the V tower. You bumped through the crazy crowds, some yelling slurs at you. You put up your middle-finger because you did not have the energy for these useless fucks.

The elevator was packed, the kind of tight that made breathing feel optional. The coffee swayed ominously in its tray.

Floor after floor, people left, until finally, the number you dreaded lit up.

You barely made it three steps into the office before you took in the rush of all kinds of sinners sprinting to and fro. Employees moved with the kind of urgency usually reserved for natural disasters.

Papers were being shuffled at inhuman speeds. Mannequins were being wheeled across the floor at breakneck speed, narrowly avoiding collisions. Seamstresses stitched with frantic precision, their fingers moving so fast they were a blur, while stylists yanked clothing racks into position, sweat beading on their brows.

A designer shrieked as a beaded bodice slipped off a hanger, and three people lunged to catch it before it hit the floor. Everyone moved like their lives depended on perfection. Because, in a way, they did.

You navigated through the stressful employees until you found Velvette. She was in her usual style, a mix of navy blue and dark burgundy, like her hair.

She didn’t notice you at first, but as you come closer, breathing heavily and sweating, Vel’s face scrunches up in disgust. “What the fuck are you wearing? Take that abomination out of my sight, and you know what? Get the fuck out as well, your attire is giving me a migraine.”

Your mouth opened. Then closed. She has the nerve to just –

You wanted to scream in a void. Guess what? Maybe you have been too lenient, not taking your real job seriously. You couldn’t wait to root out their weaknesses, and give it to Charlie, and maybe just accidently let it slip to Alastor, so he would come demolish this stupid neon building.

Velvette sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose. “You’re still here? You’ve the nerve to look like you took fashion advice from a sad librarian.”

There’s only so much a person could take.

You swallowed the hundred replies that sprang to mind and instead took a careful step forward, placing her coffee on the desk, speaking calmly with a fake smile on your face. “Give me ten minutes,” You said, voice steady, heart screaming. “I’ll create something new. Right now. From what’s around me.”

Vel’s brow arched. She looked amused—perhaps even entertained by your audacity. “Ten minutes?”

“Yes.”

Her lips curled in something that wasn’t quite a smile. “Fine. But it turns out you’re wasting my time, you’re a dead bitch.”

You saw her put on a timer on her phone. “Chop, chop, darling.”

You scanned the room. Fabrics draped over chairs, half-finished gowns slumped on mannequins, a pile of discarded clothes lay near the sewing stations. You rushed toward them, fingers brushing over textures, colors, weights.

First—structure. You grabbed a stiff black brocade fabric from a chair and threw it over a dress form. It had just enough rigidity to hold shape but enough give to move. You yanked a pink-stitched jacket from another table, quickly cutting away its sleeves with a pair of shears. The clean lines of the remaining fabric would serve as the bodice.

Next—bring out the colours. A dark pink organza sash lay abandoned near the window. Perfect. You twisted it into an exaggerated bow, layering and pleating it over the shoulder.

You worked fast, pinning and draping, using nothing but sheer instinct and the rush of adrenaline. Your hands were a blur, fingers threading, shaping, twisting.

Nine minutes in.

You took a step back, panting. The outfit was bold. Avant-garde. A fusion of gothic elegance and high-fashion edge. It wasn’t perfect, but it was alive.

All the models and designers gawked in complete silence.

Vel stepped forward, her calculating gaze raking over the creation. You braced yourself. She walked around the dress, fingers trailing over the textures.

You could hear the blood pounding in your ears.

“This,” she said, her voice quieter, measured, “is quite something.”

I exhaled, the weight in my chest lifting just slightly.

Her eyes met yours. “I have a fashion show tonight, and I was missing a piece. You’re coming with me, darlin’.”

Wait, what?!

___________________________________

Backstage at the show, your stomach twisted in knots. Stylists rushed around, models adjusting their outfits, the sharp scent of hairspray and fabric glue lingering in every breath.

The runway beyond the curtain felt like another world entirely.

Velvette stood near the entrance, watching the lineup. You swallowed hard and took a step closer to her, hoping for a word of guidance, a flicker of encouragement—anything to ground you in this moment.

Instead, she glanced at you, unimpressed. “You’re resourceful,” she said simply. “And observant. Use that. Watch the others. You’re going last, so use it to your advantage, sweetheart.”

That was it? No reassuring nod, no words of wisdom, no acknowledgment of how you were barely keeping your hands from shaking?

You tried to calm yourself, breathing in and out.

You were last in the lineup. You had time. Time to observe.

Vel side-eyed you again, and smirked. You were too nervous to realise as her fingers lifted your jaw, and leaned forward. “If you’re such a nervous wreck, how about I fuck ya?”

Your eyes widened in utter shock, as if your body couldn't register her words. “I – uh, right now…? I’m too full of anxiety for that.” You let out a nervous laugh, trying to make it less awkward.

“Hmmm…so, not a rejection then. Anyways, you’re the type of woman I’d take my time to worship.” Vel leaned in close, her lips brushing your ear as she whispered in a sultry murmur.

You involuntarily clenched your thighs, a shiver running down your spine. Heat pooled low in your belly as her breath tickles your skin.

But before you could say anything, Velvette smirked, having won some silent victory, and then turned away to step out on-stage as she was called by the host.

Somehow, that had distracted you; your fingers were no longer trembling.

You peered through the velvet curtain, your gaze fixed on the runway. Sharp lights illuminated the sleek, polished wood beneath a sea of camera flashes and clamoring voices of paparazzi.

Models moved with a practiced fluidity. You studied them intently, taking notes in your mind, evaluating their performances.

The way they paused at the end of the runway—slight but deliberate—was calculated, allowing the photographers to capture the moment and the audience to absorb their essence.

Soon, your moment arrived. You stepped into the spotlight that cascaded down from above, with all eyes on you.

Your stomach felt queasy.

You moved onto the runway with a calculated grace, the dress you wore fluttered delicately around you. The walk seemed like a never ending path.

Pausing at the end of the runway, you struck a pose, your body angled just right to showcase the dress. You felt the cameras, a thousand flashing lights.

But you froze like a block of ice when you saw VIP guests sitting right in front — the Vees. You got the look of the final third Vee, Valentino, in usual pimp-like garments, with his heart-shaped golden rimmed glasses on. Even with the glasses, you could tell, his eyes were on you.

Is this where he chooses new sinners for his porn films? You had seen various sinners working for all of them. Do they share souls? Interesting.

All the three Vees held your gaze. Vel’s eyes were full of promises, Vox’s gaze was assessing, and Val’s was steady, unwavering, drinking in every detail as if memorizing, as if savoring.

The moment you turned away for the walk back, you felt it—the weight of their eyes, lingering, burning, tracing every inch of you with a heat that sent shivers down your spine.

You were in a lot of trouble.

___________________________________

Vox chuckled. “So, she’s a multitasker.”

His grin was spread across his screen, his excitement bleeding into static in his voice.

Vel grinned as she tapped on her phone. “Her art really brings out her mind. I think I’m keeping this one, boys.”

Val hummed. “Do you think she will do a little show for me?”

Both Vox and Vel shouted. “Fuck no!”

Val frowned. “Why not?”

Vox’s left eye formed black and red spirals. “How many times I’ve said NOT to FUCK THIS UP?”

Velvette flicked his hat back. “What he said. I gotta go.”

Val grumbled. “You’re going early? On your show? What, got a hot date?”

She flipped him off as she walked back. “Exactly.”

After the show, Vel’s assistant showed you the way back. You were glad that the Vees were not in the limousine with you. You were surprised when the driver dropped you back at the V tower. He said that Velvette would wait for you in her private room.

You quickly made your way, since you knew her room was adjoined to her private office. Vel would come late, right? What a perfect opportunity.

You made your way to her desk, scanning the surface. Nothing incriminating—just a sleek computer, a few pens, and a single leather-bound planner. It was locked. Expected.

The real secrets wouldn’t be there either way.

You went to the vision board with red strings holding many different designer sketches. On closer look, you realised that the dates on the sketches were far too old.

Something was odd.

You tugged on the strings randomly, and a faint click sounded. A hidden compartment in the wall slid open just a fraction—enough for you to wedge your fingers in and pull it wider.

Inside, neatly stacked folders lay atop a sleek silver tablet. You grabbed both, flicking through the files. Before you could read it though, you heard the click of Velvette’s heels.

Too close yet so far.

You quickly put everything in place, just in time for the door to burst open. Rage burned in her eyes. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing in my office?”

You scrambled for any excuse, but nothing came up, so you panicked.

You rushed forward, wrapping your hands around her neck, and before she could speak again, captured her lips with yours.

For a moment, time seemed to stand still.

Fuck fuck fuck. This is the most stupid decision you've ever made.

She froze as your lips suddenly met hers, completely unprepared. Your nose bumped uncomfortably against hers as you fumble to adjust, while Vel let out a startled sound.

You pull back as she gently pushes you away with a teasing smirk on her face. “You’re quite bold, you cheeky little minx.”

Before you could respond, Velvette closed the distance again, pulling you into a ferocious kiss, claiming you, leaving you breathless and wanting more.

Her hands cupped both your cheeks, titling it up to deepen the kiss. Your hands instinctively gripped her hips. Every moment of her lips was deliberate and calculated – leaving you dizzy with want.

You’re so lost in the intensity of her kiss, you didn’t realise she had moved you until the back of your knees hit the edge of her queen-sized bed, with dark pink silk sheets. With a gentle but firm push, she guides you down on the mattress.

Velvette smirked, licking her lips. “You’ve never looked more perfect than you do right here in my bed.”

She takes in your rumpled appearance, hair disheveled, lips swollen slightly from her kisses.

Strandling your hips, her mouth moves to your neck, sucking, biting, leaving black lipstick marks behind as she makes quick work of removing your clothes, tugging and pulling until you’re bare beneath her.

Her eyes hungrily take in every inch of your body as she discards her own garments.

Fuck, you’re going to completely ruined, weren’t you?

Vel’s hands hooked beneath my thighs, pulling your legs further apart. Her face was mere inches from your pussy. She looks up to you, her eyes glinting with something so all-consuming. “You’re even prettier down here.”

You blushed slightly. “You don’t have to –”

“Oh, I need to.”

She dives in without warning, her tongue parting your lower lips as she explores your wet heat. Her mouth works steadfastly, sucking and licking as her fingers spread you wide, allowing her better access.

Her tongue circles your clit, flicking and teasing the sensitive nub before she closes her lips around it, sucking hard. One finger, then another, slides inside your pussy, pumping in and out in a steady rhythm that matches the movements of her tongue.

The sensation is overwhelming – her tongue feels impossibly good, knowing exactly where to lick, exactly how much pressure to use. You can’t stop the whimpers from escaping as her fingers move inside you, curling perfectly… “Vel….ahhh, oh god, fuck.”

Your thighs tremble as you grip the sheets tighter. Her fingers curl deeper, moving faster, matching the frantic pace of her tongue on your clit.

“Ngggghhh….” You panted, losing all coherent words. Your hips started to move as well, chasing the feeling that would soon come.

Velvette seemed to enjoy your enthusiasm, her hands cupping your bottom as your back arches off the bed. You feel the knot of pleasure forming, your body instinctively trying to pull away, but she doesn’t let you go anywhere.

You could hear the wet sounds of her fingers sliding in and out of your pussy, combined with the obscene noises she makes while eating you out.

Vel could feel your muscles tightening around her fingers, your breathing becoming shallow and rapid. She increases her pace, until you shatter.

You scream out in pleasure, your body shaking uncontrollably as you cum hard against her mouth. She continued to lick and suck as you rode out your orgasm.

Once you’re finally finished, she slowly pulls back, her face glistening with your wetness. “The real thing is so much better than I dreamed of.”

Your chest heaves as you try to catch your breath. Vel got up and walked away.

Wait, is she fucking leaving you like this –

Vel returned as she slipped on a strap-on, the buckles clicking into place, with a pink silicone dildo.

Your face flushed with heat. To your surprise, as she sits down casually, the pink dildo sticking out lewdly between her legs. She leans back on her hands, her eyes meeting yours with a challenge. “Come on, babe. Ride me.”

She spoke in a way that provoked you. You locked eyes with her, refusing to back down. The defiance in your gaze seemed to excite her ever more. You could see the corners of her mouth twitch into a smirk.

You lean forward as she takes you in her lap, your hands gripping her shoulders firmly. You start to grind slowly, deliberately, against its head.

You grasped it and slowly guided it towards your entrance, slowly lowering yourself on it. The sensation is intense, stretching you as you take inch after inch into your body. “F-Fuck…”

Velvette watched your face intently, enjoying every expression that flickers across your face – that cute gasp that escaped your lips as you took it in fully, the flush on your cheeks. Her breath hitched slightly at how beautifully your body stretches around it.

You tried to bounce slowly, hoping to ease the thick toy inside you. Each slow, deliberate bounce pressed the dildo deeper, hitting new spots that make your body clench. She bites her lip, savoring the sight of your bouncing curves, taking one nipple in her mouth.

You were already sensitive from your previous orgasm, so soft whimpers were coming uncontrollably from your lips, which snapped something in her. Suddenly, she laid you on the bed beside her, facing her, her pace becoming relentless.

With a mischievous grin, Vel started to thrust upward at a far rougher pace. Your whimpers turn into full-blown moans.

She crushed her mouth to yours, kissing you deeply, almost punishingly, matching the rough rhythm of her hips.

Her free hand roamed your body – squeezing your breast, then sliding down to your clit, rubbing it vigorously in tight circles. The dual stimulation quickly overwhelmed you. “That’s it, darling, cum for me like the good girl you are.”

“Vel – mmmm, Nghhhh, gonna…!” You cry out into her shoulder as the powerful release hits you. As your orgasm begins to subside, she gradually slowed her thrusts, drawing out the sensation until she finally pulled out with a wet pop.

You were in a daze, breathing heavily. The exhaustion of the entire day taking you under.

Can’t believe you designed a dress out of nowhere, wore it in high-strung show, did a short modelling career (you’re never doing that ever again) and fucked one of the Vees.

Could it be any crazier?

You felt Velvette kiss your forehead, but that can’t be right.

The next morning, you quickly dressed, intending to slip out before any awkward conservations. You were surprisingly clean, Vel must have cleaned you. You dashed out of her room, feeling like you left something behind. Whatever, you need to leave right now. You saw a message ding on your phone.

Charlie : Hey, just checking in. Are you okay? How’s it going?

How were you supposed to tell her you had royally fucked up?

___________________________________

Meanwhile, after Vel woke up, she sent a message to Val:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Notes: The dress the reader has created is inspired from this image.

I’ve not studied any fashion, so please spare me

Btw, I imagine Vel and the reader are fucking here 🥵

To me, Vel is more practical in achieving her goal, being “backbone of the Vees” and thus being the first that gets time with reader

The title of the chap is from the lyrics of Fashion by Britney Manson

Can you guess who will get some alone time with the reader in the next part? 😏

Next>>>

[mopslusher]

COME BACK TO ME

Hamzah was yearning. He was tired. All he could do was question himself. Why. Why did he let such a rare gem like you go, why did he let you trickle right through his fingers like grains of sand which were once a sturdy castle. He was consumed by guilt. Anger. Grief.

He grieved your living form so badly he was occasionally reminded of your touch when the bitter biting wind touched upon his skin in the same way you used to, whispering in his ears the same way you used to, snaking through the layers of clothes he had on that were supposed to protect him from the cold, but it seemed he never wore enough layers to keep warm during the harsh Canadian winters.

All the memories of the good times seemed to fade, a dark mist clouding them. Were they really good times? He would ask himself, or was he just blinded by his love for you. Love. He loved you, you had claimed a piece of him he had sworn nobody could ever take, or even touch. You gave him a new purpose, a new mindset, just to strip it away from him without the grace of a warning.

How could you do something like that to him?

You snipped and tore apart every stitch he had keeping himself together, keeping him sane. And now he was here, lying alone in his bed night after night, the rhythmic ticking of the clock holding him hostage to the dark demons that only emerged at night, his thoughts. It was torturous, it kept him up for hours.

He used to have a schedule, he used to have energy to get up and live. Now, he was a shell of a man. He forced himself to get up, running off the three hours of sleep he had managed to get without the reoccurring pain of your face, your voice, the lack of your presence shooting a bullet through his skull.

You are much more than a memory to him , you are much more than the monster Hamzah wants to paint you as so badly in the vulgar words he uses when talking about you, like he’s trying to convince everyone around him he didn’t deserve what happened to him, he’s searching for someone who feels the same crippling hatred he posses for you, perhaps it would make him feel better to know that version of you exists in someone else’s mind.

But he can’t hate you. He could never hate you.

He can’t because he knows someone like you would never do that to him for no reason. You were too sweet, caring, humble. No matter how many cherished hours of sleep you deprive him of, no matter how his eyes seem to never dry, his soul weeping, everyday he wishes you’d appear again, like an old childhood show he thought he had imagined. He wants to feel the joy of rediscovering you again, hoping he’ll stumble upon you once more and resume the journey of love you once shared.

And that was the worst part.

He knew reality was too cruel and barbarous to treat him with such hopes. He knew you were now an unreachable figure that only existed in every crevice of his mind and the words he would speak of you now. He would never get you back, but that was all he really wanted. It was all he yearned for.

You would only come back to him in his fabricated dreams where he could mould and a shape you into whatever he wanted. It was perfect, until it wasn’t.

It was his escape from the viscous jaws of reality until he opened his tired eyes to be faced with another painful day, the conversation he had structured with only the memory of you lingering on his mind as he navigated his way through time and space. But it wasn’t real. He was spending more and more time alone, within his solitary mind fortress is where he could daydream the perfect version of you, where he could touch and hold you, speak to you about everything and anything.

It was the only place on earth where you would come back to him once again.

Sorry guys my period must be coming soon idk

[bellesdomain]

Starlight Express Costume Ramblings

So I've been talking about various Starlight costumes, looking at details of specific characters, but there's some things that come up over and over and I thought it might be valuable to talk about some techniques they use, not specific to one character. I'm also totally going to miss really obvious things out on this post because... yeah...

Fabrics - most of the Starlight costumes are hand-painted, hand-printed, and custom dyed spandex fabrics. A lot of what I've seen is supershine heavy stretch satin spandex, the fabric that is known by some combination of those words! It's a good stretch, nylon blend - nylon takes dyes beautifully, polyester does not! The majority of body suits in the show are stretch fabrics, and a lot of the detailing is as well - maybe more for convenience that there's offcuts of the right colour to hand, than the details need to be made from stretch fabric.

Padding - "foam" gets mentioned a lot! But there's different types of foam for different uses.

So, Starlight is a sweaty show. Costumes need to be washed after every performance - which is a challenge with the three dimensional padded suits. The solution is filter foam - the pic here of blue fabric being stitched into rows, we can see the filter foam at the edge. This stuff is great because it's a very open structure compared to other foam, water passes right through it. It is literally meant for aquatic filters, it just happens to be very useful for costuming!

We can see the hanging samples here, of Poppa's overalls (the green speckled fabric) that it's been layered with the foam, then quilted - the costume will also have a lining of the sports mesh we can see in the other photo. This stuff is also great for quick drying, low friction so easy to pull on - important for a lining - and a strong liner. I think the white we see here is Dustin's underbody.

Underwear - the performers wear a full body unitard under the costume. Clearly this isn't hugely popular with the cast, but it's got a vital function - that layer catches all the damaging oils and skincare products, deodorant stains go on the unitard not the costume! We also see Dustin has a harness to take the weight of the big costume.

Straps and Snaps - a very common method of connecting pieces which is so simple when you know - straps that pass through D rings, and snap back onto themselves. Caboose has them particularly exposed connecting his jacket to his belt, but they're used in much more subtle places. Generally the straps will be sewn to the body suit with D rings attached to the panel when it's a matter of attaching solid to fabric, but it can go the other way it seems. The straps seem to be elastic - the stitching on them is always a stretch stitch.

Velcro and Other Fastenings - Buffy here has a big patch of soft velcro that holds her chest box central. The trouble with velcro, you can see here around the velcro patch - the rough velcro EATS spandex! Nylon/spandex fabric won't pill and go fuzzy without a lot of damage - but velcro is enough to do that damage. We can also see some damage around the patches on Ashley's knees, but in both cases, the costume piece being attached more than covers the damaged area, and sometimes velcro is just the exact connection you need and nothing else will do the job!

Kneepads - the kneepads start off with a foundation made of EVA foam. This is covered with the decorative fabrics, then a clear vacuum-formed top layer that is stitched on - that's the thread visible on the edges. Those bowls get scratched up quickly and need replacing quite frequently. The kneepads are held on with three straps - the central strap seems to be fixed, the top and bottom are adjustable to tighten properly to stay in place.

Moulded Decorations - there's a lot of wheels and buffers involved in these trains! They seem to be foam latex - although there is a relatively new mouldable eva foam product that they might well be using now, it seems to last as well as latex and no risk of allergies.

EVA Foam - I'm old, ok? I'm still reeling at the materials that used to be so hard to come by are now actively marketed at cosplayers! One of those things is EVA foam. Back in my day you had to search far and wide to get EVA foam, and cut your own bevels!

But here is the secret to the slinkies - the springs, the sharp profile ridged details. EVA foam in a triangular profile sewn into the fabric gives you the structural shapes, that are still washable. The EVA foam isn't quick drying like filter foam, but it's much stronger and holds its shape. If you were making a one-off cosplay and didn't want to make a mould for the buffers, the cones and spheres cut in half would do you well as a base...

EVA foam is also the base for most of the big costume pieces - either covered in vinyl and painted and decorated, or as the solid inside the vacuum-formed pieces.

I've not covered the skates, or wigs and helmets, what else have I missed? hopefully I've covered some useful details that might satisfy curiosity, or help with cosplay planning!

[doumadono]

IV - THE BUTCHER OF THE DEADLANDS

Summary: Shigaraki and All For One sought answers from the ruthless Overhaul, whose dark experiments and growing influence might threaten Sangreal’s reign, and might hold the key to unraveling the mysteries of the human girl Dabi spared as well. Meanwhile, Hawks, a Sangreal Hunter, suggested a deeper connection between you and Dabi’s potential plans, sparking a new wave of uncertainty within you

Warnings: mentions of blood & experiments, vampires, mentions of vampire Dabi, vampire Shigaraki, vampire AFO, vampire Overhaul, vampire Hawks, Shigaraki despises Overhaul and vice versa

WCT: circa 2.6k

𖥸 SANGREAL - previous chapter 𖥸 chapter V 𖥸 SANGREAL - playlist 𖥸 MY HERO ACADEMIA MASTERLIST - PART II

The Deadlands stretched endlessly beyond the shattered ruins of Musutafu, a wasteland of ashen soil and skeletal remains, where the land itself had been scarred beyond repair. The last nuclear blasts had left this place twisted, grotesque, a place where the air was thick with the stench of decay and scorched metal.

The sky, choked by ash, hung low over the ruins, casting everything in an eerie sepia glow. 

Nothing lived here. Nothing human, at least. What was left had been claimed by monsters. And some of those monsters built kingdoms in the dark.

Somewhere within this desolation, carved into the ruins of an abandoned research complex, was a place that Overhaul had carved out his dominion.

The facility was a fortress of steel and suffering, built deep into the husk of an old underground medical research center. The original structure had been swallowed by time, but Overhaul had repurposed it, expanding its depths, reinforcing its walls, and filling its corridors with horrors that should have never existed.

The moment AFO and Shigaraki arrived, the stench of sterilization chemicals, blood, and rotting flesh assaulted their senses.

Tomura’s nose curled. He already wanted to disintegrate this place to the ground. He hated this place. It stank of sterilized, unneeded cruelty, of rotting flesh and antiseptic, of Chisaki’s disgusting attempt at godhood.

The walls were lined with metal pipes, steam hissing through the cracks, condensation pooling beneath flickering overhead lights. The corridors were tight, clinical, but everything here felt wrong. A laboratory built on corpses.

The doors hissed open.

The man waiting for them stood perfectly still, flanked by two masked enforcers, his posture straight, pristine — calculated.

Chisaki Kai. Overhaul.

His golden eyes gleamed with clinical detachment as he stepped forward, his black gloves flexing against the sleeves of his meticulously kept coat. “Welcome,” he said smoothly, though there was no warmth in it. “I wasn’t expecting a personal visit.” His golden eyes flicked toward Shigaraki, lips curling slightly behind his plague mask. “Oh. And you brought your heir.”

Shigaraki’s fingers twitched violently — he already wanted to tear Overhaul’s face off.

Overhaul’s lips twitched slightly, but he ignored him, turning to AFO instead. “To what do I owe the honor, my lord?”

All For One sighed. “Must you always waste time with empty pleasantries, Chisaki?”

Overhaul gave a shallow bow. “Only with those who deserve it.”

Tomura bristled immediately, but All For One raised a hand. Not yet.

They were led inside, deeper into the labyrinthine halls, past observation rooms filled with creatures that barely resembled vampires anymore.

Tomura’s fingers itched to decay the place.

As they moved through the corridors, the creatures imprisoned behind tanks made of glass convulsed, their twisted forms a nightmarish patchwork of flesh — warped, stitched together as if Overhaul had played god with whatever shattered remnants he could salvage. Mutated limbs sprouted where they didn’t belong, some grotesquely fused, others jutting at unnatural angles. Jagged bones pierced through their skin like cruel, organic armor.

No wonder they call him the Butcher of the Deadlands, Tomura thought to himself.

Overhaul walked ahead, hands clasped behind his back. “I take it you’re here for something important.”

“You tell me,” All For One said.

Overhaul paused, turning slightly. His golden eyes were calculating. “I assume this is about the incident in Musutafu.”

Shigaraki clicked his tongue. “Tsk. You mean the mess Dabi left behind?”

Overhaul arched a brow, amused. “A traitor burning some street filth? That’s hardly news.”

Overhaul’s minions pushed a massive iron door open, and Kai shifted aside to let his master and his heir into the chamber.

Tomura stepped through the massive iron doors with utter disdain, heavy boots clicking against the bloodstained floor. All For One, his father, walked beside him.

Overhaul stood at the far end of the chamber, hands clasped behind his back, his golden irises gleaming dully in the dim light.

Shigaraki clicked his tongue, stepping forward with a lazy, slouched stride, his claws dragging over the rusted railing of an abandoned operating table.

“Dabi spared a human female,” All For One stated. “Have you heard of this?”

“Well,” Overhaul mused, “that is interesting.”

Shigaraki rolled his eyes. “Spare us the dramatics.”

Overhaul ignored him. “A former Sangreal Hunter saves a human?” He exhaled, tilting his head. “If it were anyone else, I’d assume he was making a pet out of her, but Dabi?” His voice dipped in something almost thoughtful. “That’s not his style.”

“Do you think she’s of value?” All For One asked. "I had hoped you'd tell me she was one of your little projects — one that somehow defied the odds, slipping through your grasp before you had the chance to tear her apart."

Overhaul exhaled slowly, tilting his head as if considering the possibility. "Sadly, she’s not one of mine," he admitted, his tone laced with a quiet disappointment. "It’s been quite some time since I last had the luxury of a human subject in my laboratory. But I think it would be wise to retrieve her,” Overhaul continued, stepping closer. “If she was spared by Dabi, then there must be a reason. She must be an anomaly,” Overhaul continued, golden eyes gleaming. “And anomalies are meant to be studied.” He straightened, his confidence absolute. “I need that girl. I’ll find out why she was spared.”

Shigaraki didn’t miss the way Overhaul’s fingers flexed slightly, as if anticipation was curling through him like a drug. Tomura bristled. He knew what that meant. Stripped down. Drained. Torn apart. Kai's research didn’t birth miracles — it gave rise to abominations that could one day become a devastating threat to Sangreal.

“This facility has grown,” All For One noted, his voice smooth as silk, yet laced with quiet menace. 

“Indeed,” Kai replied, bowing his head slightly.

“You’re making an army,” Shigaraki muttered, voice low, dark.

“Let’s say I’m preparing for the unexpected future.”

Shigaraki scoffed. “The future?” His fingers twitched. “You mean the one where you stab us all in the back and play king?”

AFO, however, remained neutral. “I do not tolerate insubordination, Kai,” the vampire king reminded.

“Oh, I wouldn’t dream of it, my Lord.”

Shigaraki hated him. He hated the calm, collected way Overhaul spoke, as if he wasn’t standing in a mausoleum of his own twisted creations. “Careful,” Shigaraki sneered, voice thick with mockery. “Wouldn’t want you to choke on all that self-importance.”

Kai gave Tomura a brief glance, scoffing under his breath.

AFO was unmoved. “So, what do you propose, Chisaki?”

Overhaul’s voice remained calm. “I’ve been working on a new batch of enhanced hunters. They are stronger, faster, and unshackled by the limitations of lower-class filth.” He gestured to the cages lining the walls. “I will send them into the Dregs. They will retrieve her. Alive.”

Shigaraki exhaled sharply, rolling his shoulders as he turned his gaze toward AFO. “This is a bad idea,” he stated, his tone edged with frustration. “Dabi shall be our main priority now. He’s unpredictable, and he’s had too much time to get comfortable. He should have been eliminated already.” His crimson eyes cut toward Overhaul, filled with disgust. “Going after the girl first gives him leverage — it gives him time. And if we’ve learned anything, it’s that he thrives when he's backed into a corner.”

“The difference between you and me, Tomura,” he said smoothly, “is that I think strategically. I plan every move, carefully considering the outcome before I act.”

Tomura grinned, sharp and jagged. “The difference between us, Chisaki,” he murmured, stepping closer, “is that I don’t need to play god to be dangerous.”

AFO simply raised a hand, silencing them both. “Do what you must,” he looked at Overhaul, his voice final. “And do not fail me.”

Overhaul bowed his head. “I won’t, my lord.”

Two days passed before the results arrived.

Aizawa sat with Recovery Girl in one of the makeshift med-bays, fingers tapping against the surface of the old desk.

The results lay before them.

The girl’s blood was unlike anything they had ever seen. Quirk-carrying. Pure. Unchanged.

And, most importantly — it resisted the infection.

A cure. Possibly.

The Recovery Girl sighed, setting the document down. “Her blood is unlike anything I’ve seen. It’s resisting the virus.”

Aizawa exhaled, rubbing his temples. “We need to keep her safe.”

“Further testing could lead to a cure.” The Recovery Girl nodded. “If Sangreal finds out…”

Aizawa didn’t need to say what would happen. 

Because if they had figured this out — sooner or later — so would Sangreal.

The rebellion’s safe zone was a hollowed-out metro station, its tunnels stretching deep beneath the ruins, carved into a labyrinth of survival. Makeshift shacks, supply stations, and dimly lit corridors breathed with life, filled with refugees, fighters, and those who had nowhere else to go. The air smelled of damp stone, of rusted metal and burning oil, of too many bodies packed into too small a space.

You wandered the tunnels of the rebellion’s hideout. 

You weren’t supposed to leave the infirmary. But you needed to walk to clear your mind. And you needed answers.

That was when you saw him.

And every instinct screamed at you to run.

The scent reached you first. That faint, unmistakable trace of death. It wasn’t the overwhelming, suffocating stench of low-class vampires — or feral ones who reeked of rotting flesh, dried blood, and decay. No, this was something different. Fainter. Sharper. Cleaner.

But unmistakably, it was a vampire’s scent.

You had learned to recognize it. The knowledge had saved you more than once.

Your body locked up, muscles winding tight, your heartbeat kicking against your ribs. Your gaze snapped to the winged man lounging lazily against a stack of crates.

He was handsome. Too handsome. But not in the way that made people comfortable. His features were sharp, lined with an unnatural, effortless beauty that felt almost designed to be disarming. His golden eyes, half-lidded in amusement, glinted like a predator watching its prey.

But it was the details that gave him away.

The massive red wings shifting lazily behind him. The long, clawed fingers, tapping idly against the hilt of a sword that was one of his large, red feathers. And when he smirked — pristine white fangs, sharp and gleaming, flashed on the people that were passing him by. 

A vampire. Undoubtedly. One of them.

And yet — no one reacted. The rebels passing by didn’t scream, didn’t run, didn’t even flinch. Some even greeted him. One woman tossed him an orange — the most luxurious of all goods, which he caught without looking, flashing her a cocky grin.

Your fingers curled into your sleeves, stomach twisting in confusion.

What the hell was a vampire doing here?

More importantly — why wasn’t anyone afraid?

His golden gaze slid toward you. And he grinned. “Well, well.” His voice was smooth, light, laced with amusement as he raised his tone to make sure you could hear him. “Look who finally decided to crawl out of hiding. You’re the girl Aizawa took care of?”

You swallowed hard, forcing yourself to step forward, even though every instinct begged you to stay the hell away. “You’re a vampire,” you pointed out flatly, not bothering to mask your suspicion as you skipped replying to his question.

He let out a soft, breathy laugh. “Yeah, I am.” He tilted his head slightly, flashing his fangs in a mocking little show. “But don’t worry — I don’t drink human blood. Anymore.”

That didn’t make you feel any better. 

Your fingers clenched at your sides. “You must have been a Hunter. What are you even doing here?”

His grin widened. Too sharp. Too knowing. “Still am,” he corrected lazily. "Let’s just say I’m deeply loyal to Aizawa so I am helping around from time to time, and that’s all you need to know for now.”

You swallowed hard. His name clicked in your head. “You're Hawks.”

The vampire gave a slow, mocking bow. “In the flesh.”

A thousand stories surfaced in your mind.

Sangreal’s fastest, deadliest Hunter. The one who could track anything, anywhere. A shadow with wings, a death with golden eyes, as survivors used to call him.

And now, he was standing in front of you, alive, laughing like this was all some kind of joke.

You had no desire to prolong this conversation — exhaustion weighed heavy on you, and the last thing you wanted was to linger in the presence of a vampire who, under different circumstances, wouldn’t hesitate to sink his teeth into your throat. But he was the only one who might have answers you desperately sought. The only one who could tell you about the vampire who had saved you.

The words slipped past your lips before you could stop them. “What do you know about Dabi?”

The shift in Hawks was immediate.

The amusement in his gaze didn’t fade, but something changed beneath it. A flicker of something deeper. 

There was a long pause. Then, a slow chuckle came.

“I know he’s not who he used to be,” Hawks uttered. “But I don’t think even he knows who he is anymore.”

Your brows furrowed. “What does that mean?”

Hawks exhaled, tilting his head as if debating how much he wanted to say. “He was the most dangerous of all Sangreal’s Hunters,” he began, his voice low and steady. “Every order from All For One was carried out swiftly, with no room for hesitation or mercy. He was promising. Whispers among the vampires suggested he could one day take the lead of the Court of Obsidian, overthrowing Kurogiri, who had held the position for years. But then, he started to defy Sangreal’s rules. To question their orders.”

He paused, his gaze sharpening as he studied you. “You heard what he did?” He let the silence hang for a moment, then spoke again, his voice a quiet hiss. “He left Sangreal.”

You shook your head, disbelief tightening around your throat. That was impossible.

“And you need to understand that’s like a death sentence.”

A cold dread slithered through your veins, sinking deep into your bones.

Hawks leaned back, stretching with a casual ease, a yawn escaping his lips as his wings shifted behind him, the feathers rustling faintly. “It happened nearly twenty years ago, before the sky was permanently smothered by clouds after the Night of Ash,” he stated, his voice smooth yet cold. “Sangreal passed the death sentence on him. They wanted to make an example of him, to show the other vampires the price of disloyalty. They executed their plan, tying him down on the rooftop of the highest skyscraper in Tokyo, leaving him there to burn under the sun. And yet,” the winged vampire continued, a sly amusement creeping into his tone, “he’s still alive, somehow. Still out there. Stirring up mayhem whenever it suits him. Thumbing his nose at the Sangreal regime like he’s untouchable.” 

Your breath hitched. “You think he has a plan?”

A slow smirk crossed Takami’s face. “I think he’s waiting.”

“For what?”

Another pause.

"No idea. But I start to think—" Hawks flicked his feather sword into the air, the blade spinning, catching the dim light as it tumbled effortlessly before landing back in his grip, snug and sure. His fingers curled around the hilt with unnerving ease, his smirk lazy, his eyes anything but. "—that you might be exactly what he’s been waiting for all this time, girl."

The weight of his words didn’t just settle— it sank, deep and leaden, pressing against your ribs, squeezing the breath from your lungs.

And for the first time since waking in the rebellion’s safe zone, a familiar, icy grip of fear coiled in your gut — sharp, cold, and undeniable.

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[pomegranatelifethis]

Father

I don't like it but let it stay here anyway

The summer of your sixteenth year was a golden cage, its bars forged from endless days and suffocating solitude. The city hummed with life—children shrieking in the streets, ice cream trucks chiming their siren songs, the air thick with the scent of blooming jasmine and sun-baked asphalt. But for you, it was a season of shadows, each day stretching into the next with a relentless, aching emptiness. You were Miguel O’Hara’s daughter, a fact that should have tethered you to something solid, something real. Instead, it left you adrift, a ghost in a world that refused to see you.

Home was a fortress of silence, its walls lined with your father’s absence. Miguel was a titan, a Spider-Man whose life was a tapestry of dimensions and dangers, his mind a labyrinth of anomalies and multiversal threads. To him, you were a faint outline, a quiet presence he barely registered. You’d watch him in his lab, the glow of holographic displays casting sharp angles across his face, his voice clipped as he barked orders to Lyla, his AI assistant. You’d sit at the dinner table, your fork scraping against the plate, waiting for him to look at you, to ask about your day, to notice the way your shoulders slumped under an invisible weight. But his eyes were always elsewhere—on screens, on missions, on a universe that didn’t include you.

“Dad,” you’d ventured once, your voice a fragile thread as you stood in the doorway of his lab. “Can we talk? Just for a minute?”

He’d barely glanced up, his fingers flying over a console, his brow furrowed with the weight of a collapsing dimension. “Not now, mija,” he’d said, his tone sharp with distraction. “I’m in the middle of something critical.”

The words stung, a quiet rejection that settled into your bones. You’d nodded, swallowing the lump in your throat, and backed away, the door clicking shut between you. That was the pattern—your attempts to reach him met with a wall of preoccupation, his focus always on the next crisis, the next world to save. You were his daughter, his flesh and blood, but you were also a stranger, a shadow he didn’t see.

Your room was your sanctuary, a small corner of the world where you could breathe. The walls were plastered with sketches—cityscapes of towering spires and neon-lit streets, places you’d conjured from the fragments of your imagination. You’d spend hours hunched over your sketchbook, your pencil scratching out dreams of freedom, of swinging through the air like the heroes your father spoke of. You’d hum old songs, ones your mother used to sing before she was gone, your voice soft and trembling, as if afraid to disturb the stillness. Your bed was a nest of blankets, a place where you could curl up and pretend the world didn’t exist. But even there, the loneliness crept in, a cold hand wrapping around your heart.

Summer stripped away the structure of school, leaving you to wander the city alone. Your sneakers scuffed against cracked sidewalks, your backpack slung over one shoulder, a sketchbook and a half-empty water bottle your only companions. The other kids your age moved in bright, noisy packs, their laughter a blade that cut through the air. You weren’t one of them. You never had been. They didn’t shove you or steal your money anymore—summer had dissolved the daily rituals of cruelty—but their indifference was its own kind of violence. They looked through you, their eyes sliding past as if you were a smudge on the world’s canvas. You were invisible, and it hurt worse than any bruise.

You tried to fill the days, to stitch together a life from the scraps of your solitude. You’d sit in the park, sketching the way sunlight dappled through the trees, the shadows shifting like your own restless thoughts. You’d linger in the library, losing yourself in stories of heroes who saved the day, their courage a stark contrast to the fragility you carried. But the stories always ended, and the heroes never looked like you. They were bold, bright, unbreakable—everything you weren’t. You were a girl who flinched at sudden noises, who checked the locks on her door twice, who felt like she was drowning in her own skin.

The weight of your worthlessness grew heavier with each passing day. You’d lie awake at night, staring at the ceiling, the darkness pressing against your chest like a living thing. *Why am I here?* you’d wonder, the question a knife twisting in your gut. You wanted to be someone—someone who mattered, someone who was seen. But the world seemed to conspire against you, whispering that you were nothing, that you’d always be nothing. You’d trace the scars on your heart—not physical, but just as real—each one a memory of a moment when you’d reached out and found no one there.

You tried to bridge the chasm between you and your father, clinging to the hope that he’d see you if you just tried harder. One evening, you found him in his lab, the air humming with the glow of his tech. You clutched a sketch you’d poured your heart into—a cityscape with a figure swinging between buildings, a tribute to him, to the hero he was. “Dad, I drew something,” you said, your voice small but trembling with hope. “Can you look? Please?”

He didn’t turn around. “Later,” he muttered, his fingers flying over a console. “I’m dealing with a collapse in Sector 7. It’s urgent.”

The sketch crumpled in your hands as you backed away, the rejection a physical ache that radiated through your chest. You’d stood there for a moment, waiting for him to change his mind, to glance back and see the hurt in your eyes. But he didn’t. You slipped out of the lab, the door hissing shut behind you, and the sketch found its way to the bottom of your drawer, buried like so many of your dreams. After that, you stopped trying. The hope that he’d notice you withered, leaving only a hollow ache in its place.

The summer wore on, each day a mirror of the last. You’d walk to the cliffs at the edge of the city, where the ocean roared below, its waves a symphony of chaos that matched the storm in your heart. You’d stand there for hours, the wind tugging at your hair, your toes curling over the rocky edge. The vastness of the sea called to you, its endless expanse a promise of escape. You imagined stepping off, letting the air carry you away—not to die, not exactly, but to be free, to shed the weight of a life that felt like a punishment. You wanted to be weightless, like the heroes in your father’s stories, like the girl you dreamed of being.

You’d close your eyes and picture her: a version of you who laughed without fear, who swung through the sky with grace and power, who was enough. She had your face but none of your pain. She was the person you’d never be, the one no one would ever know. You’d whisper her name to the wind, a secret you kept even from yourself, and the ocean would answer with its ceaseless roar.

The loneliness became a living thing, a shadow that followed you everywhere. You’d see families in the park, parents laughing with their children, and the sight would twist something deep inside you. You’d hear your neighbors call out to each other, their voices warm with connection, and you’d wonder why you were so easy to overlook. You’d pass by shop windows, catching your reflection—a girl with hollow eyes, a smile that never reached them—and you’d wonder who she was, this stranger wearing your face.

You stopped singing. The songs that had once been your solace felt like lies, their melodies mocking the emptiness of your days. You stopped sketching as much, the cities in your mind growing dim, their spires crumbling under the weight of your despair. You felt like a husk, a shell of a person, your insides scooped out and replaced with a void that grew larger with every breath.

One night, the sky was a bruise of crimson and violet, the horizon swallowing the last of the sun in a blaze of color. You stood at the cliff’s edge, your sketchbook tucked under your arm, its pages filled with dreams you’d never shared—cities that didn’t exist, heroes who didn’t save you. Your hair whipped across your face, tangled by the wind, and for a moment, you felt like you were part of the world, not apart from it. The ocean roared below, its voice a call you couldn’t ignore.

You thought of your father, his broad shoulders hunched over his work, unaware of the daughter slipping through his fingers. You thought of the kids who never invited you to their games, the neighbors who never asked your name, the world that had turned its back on you. You thought of the songs you’d sung, the stories you’d told yourself, the quiet strength you’d carried alone. You thought of the girl you’d wanted to be, the one who swung through the sky, who laughed and loved and lived.

You closed your eyes, and the wind was gentle, like a hand guiding you forward. The world would spin on without you, but in that moment, you were free. Your dreams, unspoken and unseen, floated with you, a constellation of what might have been. The ocean’s roar swallowed the sound of your final breath, and the sky held you as you let go.

---

Days later, Miguel O’Hara stood in your room, the silence a weight he couldn’t bear. Your bed was neatly made, your sketchbook open on the desk, its pages fluttering in a breeze from an open window. He picked it up, his hands trembling as he traced the lines of a city he didn’t recognize, a figure swinging through its heart with a grace he’d never seen in you. His chest tightened, a grief too vast to name, its edges sharp with the realization of all he’d missed.

He found your other sketches, tucked away in drawers and under books—hundreds of them, each one a piece of a world you’d built alone. Cities that soared, heroes who flew, a girl who looked like you but shone with a light he hadn’t noticed. He found notes in the margins, fragments of your thoughts: *I want to be enough. I want to be seen. I want to fly.* His knees buckled, and he sank to the floor, the sketchbook clutched to his chest, his sobs breaking the silence he’d let fester for too long.

The cliffs stood silent, the ocean’s roar a requiem for a girl no one had truly known. Miguel would carry the weight of his neglect for the rest of his days, a scar that no mission, no dimension, could erase. He’d saved countless worlds, but he hadn’t saved you.

Somewhere, in a universe he couldn’t reach, you were swinging through a city of your own making, weightless and free. Your laughter echoed in the wind, your sketches came to life, and you were everything you’d dreamed of being. But the cost of that freedom was a truth no one had heard in time: you had been enough, all along, and the world had failed to see it.

[iamyourdailydoseofbi]

AND HE LOVED HER LIKE HE LOVED NO ONE. ( HOTD x READER )

AUTHOR NOTE! missing Hotd and my sexy war criminals Targaryen's during this 2 year gap between seasons / filming <3 pairing: Aegon ii Targaryen x Lady Tully! Reader prompt : It pains you to see the aftermath of Rook's Rest on Aegon. word count: 500+ words ( yep, a short one.. )

You were never supposed to meet Aegon Targaryen. You were never meant to be picked as one of Helaena's Lady-in-waiting's. None of this was supposed to happen. Lord Lannister's daughter was supposed to be in your place. She was supposed to be the one tending to Helaena, to be pestered by Aegon, to offer support and kind words to Alicent. Not you. If she hadn't been ill, if she hadn't caught sweating fever. None of this would happen. The war, maybe always would happen. But, everything else wouldn't.

You would not trapped in King's Landing, as a prisoner of war. You would not pity an Upsurger. You would be able to hate them. You would be able to known where to stand in this war, clear and confident. You would not spend every night hating yourself for not being able to look at them and hate them, for finding pity in the roles forced upon them. You would be able to live without feeling a noose tightening around your throat at any slight mistake you made.

You tried to live through it, to endure as you had been taught young y Septa's. But, this was a burden to dark and heavy for you to bear. War. Death. Betrayal. Greed. Lust. It was not meant for you. You were supposed to live a simple life, marry a simple man and die a simple death. Though, the Gods or mayhaps it was just Aegon that would not allow it. He was..strange.

He did not treat you as most would do to a prisoner of war. He was kind, speaking to you as if the war had never happened and you two were still the two people you were before it. It was unnerving. Uncomfortable a little. But, there was almost something nice about it. The structure of living as you normally would, not allowing things to change too much. A tiny part of you wished to keep it that way, but another part of you knew that it would not last.

Staring down at him, you holds back the urge to turn away at the sight of his burns, almost as if this was to be your punishment for enjoying his presence. The skin of his left side of his body had chunks of flesh peeling back to reveal the muscle and bone underneath. Vile thick pockets of tinted green and yellow puss filled the infected wounds. It was as if someone had taken a hot coal and pressed it against his skin until it blistered and charred, then had left him in the sun to bake for days.

Covering your nose with the handkerchief, you shuts your eyes tightly, now able to understand why Alicent always looked ill after leaving his chambers. The pungent stench of singed hair and burnt flesh filled the air, sticking to him like a second skin. The sandalwood and rosemary incense sticks did little to mask the stench. Aegon was a burnt and charred shell of his former self. But, it did not feel as good as you thought it would seeing him in such a state. He was meant to be your enemy. But, you were never strong enough to wish this fate upon someone so willingly.

"I.." You try to find your voice, "I am meant to hate you, to be happy at the state of you, as you are my enemy."

Silence, just pure deafening silence.

"I am your prisoner after all." You ramble, "And, I cannot help but I cannot help but think that this, having to endure living, is a far worse fate for you."

A soft chirping of birds fills the air, a gentle breeze brushing against the curtains, cooling the air within his chambers. It was peaceful. Or at least, it was meant to be. Lowering your eyes down to the brace on his broken leg, you could see the thick stitches, black and crusted with dried blood. The hair on his legs singed from the dragon flames he had endured. You could only imagine what it was like for him in Rook's Rest, battling on dragonback. Was he scared? Confident? Did he know of the risks beforehand?

"I am sorry, Aegon." You whisper, "Sorry for the pain you feel, that you must live instead of having relief."

Painful silence. You wished that he'd croak, wheeze, grunt, moan in pain. Something to keep the words from spilling out more and more.

"I do not why.." You pause, lowering your eyes to the ground. "I do not know why I feel so guilty, I wasn't the cause of this. But, I feel guilt, towards you."

Feeling your gut churn the more the silence fills the room, you blink back the tears that started to brew in your eyes. You hated him, you were supposed to. You hated him for all that he had done and hadn't. But, you did care for him in a pathetic way. His soul was twisted and mangled, full of the worst sins. But, there was good. For just as he was rotten, he was kind to you when he shouldn't have been.

"It's a nice thing, no?" You chuckle bitterly, "For feel so much towards you when we are meant to be enemies. But, I cannot forget the good and kindness you have done towards me."

Swallowing the lump in your throat, you gently take his hand into your own, giving it a gentle squeeze. Not to wake him, or for your own selfish reasons, just to let him know that you were there. You wouldn't want to be alone if your places were reversed. You'd want someone at your side, waiting.

"I..I do not really know what else to say." You mumble, "Just..I am here."

Silence greets you once again. The hope of him showing some sign of acknowledgement crumbling inside of you. Pulling your hand away from his, you turn around to grab a stool to sit at his bedside. His chest rises slowly, a wheeze escaping his parted lips. Then, his hand twitches, as if it felt empty without yours in it.

---

[goblinontour]

L.A. Is In Flames, It’s Getting Hot

divorce babe, divorce. 

warnings: fingers, mouths, and main parts, all meeting in public (kind of)

word count: 9.1k

He was not the chosen one, it seemed.  

And perhaps, all along, in the quiet of those nights thick with pathos, he had known — somewhere beneath the weight of fleeting euphoria, in the hollow of his chest and the sharp ache of his solitude — that she would leave, sooner or later. It was written into the fabric of their arrangement, into the way they always parted with the morning, with the sun spilling in unwelcome through half-drawn curtains. And yet, every night, they found each other again, bound not by words but by some unspoken agreement, some quiet resignation. Shy limbs tangled beneath the sheets, bodies whispering what lips refused to say, only the hush of breath and hesitancy. 

A cycle, a ritual, a love story with missing pages.  

He would have loved her for as long as she had life in her, if only she had let him be hers. But it just wasn’t meant to be, like some things were, no matter how much longing pressed against the bones. He needed to let go. The inevitability of it was something he had made peace with in theory, though not in practice. It could have been different. It wasn’t. 

His stubbornness was not the dignified, noble kind. It was self-sabotage wrapped in a thin veil of restraint, an excessive self-repression born of a lack of confidence so ingrained it had become a second skin disguised as indifference, wrapped in layers of detachment. Or so he’d been told. Oppositions, paradoxically, helped in mapping out the meaning of that — strength against fragility, certainty against doubt, love against longing. They were what defined him, the push and pull of things shaping the jagged edges of who he was.  

And so he had learned not to force a narrative where there was none.

He had long since given up on imposing any kind of linear structure to his life. It was not a seamless arc. His days and nights unfolded in fragments, in fleeting vignettes loosely stitched together by what, at best, could be described as moments that felt significant at the time but, in retrospect, were merely a bunch of personal recollections. A diary of observations and impressions rather than events. Traces caught though never quite forming a whole. He lived not through grand happenings but through the fragments that lingered — turns of phrase, echoes of his own experiences, quoting them to himself like lines from a half-forgotten script he’d learned to follow.  

He needed to leave. He needed to get out.  

The places that had once formed his world had grown too small, too familiar, pressing in on him with a kind of claustrophobic nostalgia. In the sprawl of concrete, in the jungle of cities that he had to choose from, he chose to go back in time. He chose Los Angeles, a place where everything stretched out endlessly, where time felt less like a rigid sequence and more like something fluid, dissolving beneath the unrelenting sun. 

His solicitors back home could handle the practicalities. He had no patience for all the technicalities, for paperwork and signatures and logistics, and no interest in the intricacies of transition. 

What he longed for was escape, the slow, unhurried languor of a place where heat settled into your skin and never quite let go. There was something indulgent, almost luxurious, about this phase he was in — a season of slowness, of drifting. Tiredness and inactivity were no longer states to be resisted but to be embraced. These things suited him now. And seemed especially pleasurable as a particular kind of exhaustion had settled into his bones, the kind that made stillness feel like relief rather than restlessness. 

He couldn’t say, with any real conviction, that he thought himself immune to the sum of statistics working against him. He didn’t fool himself into thinking he’d be the exception to the rule, the sole outlier. But still, for some inexplicable reason — some foolish, persistent shred of hope he held onto — a small part of him believed that maybe, just maybe, things could have been different. Looking back, it seemed almost laughable. Redundant, even, to have hoped at all. Especially now, with this new status attached to his name and no one left to warm the other side of the bed. 

But this was moving on, wasn’t it? That’s what he told himself, at least. Moving on, drifting forward. 

His whole being was penetrated by this uninterrupted universe composed of oppressive stillness floating all around, a hush that pressed against his skin and slowed his thoughts to a crawl. Palm-lined streets, the hazy glow of twilight settling over the hills, everything felt like a dream he wasn’t fully awake for. It was different from the quiet he had known before. It wasn’t the absence of noise but the presence of something being there in ways he couldn’t articulate.  

Moving on. That’s what he was doing. Yes, moving on.  

The afternoons here were hot, and quiet, and unbearably heavy, thick with a kind of peace that made his brain sluggish and his blood run thinner on nights when he sought solace in substances or found himself under the influence of some narcotic draft or another. Even the air itself was intoxicating, laced with the kind of languid indifference that made it easy to surrender to one’s vices. Some nights, he let himself sink into it. Other nights, he chased oblivion. The walls of his existence blurred, the ache of his existence softened, dissolved in the haze.  

Maybe it was different. Maybe he was different. Or maybe this was what it had always been like, and he was only now beginning to notice.

Perhaps it all depended on the moment. His mood. His state of mind. Or whatever was left of it.

This day, too, was lethal. The heat gnawed at the edges of consciousness, thick and shimmering. No sunglasses, no matter how dark the lenses, could cut back on the glare. The light ricocheted off every surface, searing into his skull, making his temples pulse. Sweat pooled at the base of his spine, dampened the collar of his shirt, and rolled down his back in slow streaks that tickled. He thought he heard a fly circling near his forehead, its insistent buzzing drilling into his ears. When it finally dipped into his field of vision, he noticed that even the fly seemed tired, its wings slicing the air in lazy arcs.  

That was the tranquility he had been chasing — the slow-motion existence, the unhurried drift towards superfluity that he had stumbled into without even meaning to. The balance between presence and detachment was something he had spent years trying to cultivate, but here, it was seemingly forced upon him. The keys to that narrow corridor of not too much, but just enough, weren’t always attainable — certainly not easily — but now they had been unceremoniously thrust into his hand, slammed there without him even asking, without him even opening his palm to catch them.  

Alex had a sick sixth sense that he might have turned into a ghost, a pawn aimlessly wandering the land of the living. Just another transparent figure slipping through the heatwaves, unnoticed except for the brief, confused glances of strangers. But that had to be a stupid thought. Just dumb. This was simply how things felt when the sun burned this fiercely, when the day was this hot and golden, when there was no fog or drizzle to dampen the edges of his anxiety. 

He had grown so accustomed to the perpetually gray cold across the ocean that this brightness, this exposed, relentless clarity, left him unguarded and maybe even the slightest bit vulnerable.  

He was wearing swimsuit bottoms under his linen pants, though he wasn’t quite sure why he had even bothered with the latter. People here walked around shirtless, parading their sun-bronzed shoulders and sweat-slicked skin with the kind of easy confidence that still felt foreign to him. Short-shorts, sunglasses, nothing else — no one batted an eye. He couldn’t bring himself to fully adopt that kind of effortlessness. There was something reluctant ingrained in him that made him cover up even when there was no need.  

When he stepped out of his car the heat pressed against him like a living thing, wrapping around his limbs, making the fabric of his shirt feel even more suffocating. 

A boy — no, a young man, though nowhere near his own age — stood a short distance away, watching him. Recognition flickered across the kid’s face, a spark of excitement that made his posture shift, his movements quicken. He approached with a kind of nervous energy, eyes bright with the thrill of proximity to someone he’d only seen through screens and speakers.  

“Can I get a picture?”  

Alex felt his face tighten before he could stop it, an involuntary grimace passing over his features. He wasn’t in the mood for this. He barely even remembered what being in the mood for this felt like. But still, some residual politeness lingered in him, enough to form a half-hearted apology as he declined. The boy’s disappointment was instant and poorly disguised. The fake “Sorry” that followed was laced with irritation, the enthusiasm bleeding out of him in real time, right before his eyes. “No worries.” Alex offered, forcing a small smile, a weak peace offering.  

He stepped away, deflated, retreating back into the anonymity of the street.  

He was trying to be good, Alex realised. Just trying to be good. As if it would matter whether or not he smiled at some kid he would likely never see again, hopefully. As if this small act of civility could somehow tip the cosmic scales in his favor, inch him closer to whatever quiet redemption he was hoping for.  

He still felt preposterous, caught in the surreal loop of his own making, trapped in this strange, psychedelic orbit where everything was both too real and not real at all.

Alex needed to sit in one place and try — really try — to think. To figure out what to do, or how to exist, or at the very least, how to pass the next few hours without feeling like a ghost in broad daylight. That’s what he had come to the beach for.  

He walked barefoot through the scorching sand, every step a sharp, fleeting pain as the heat licked at the soles of his feet. He didn’t hurry, though. Maybe he liked the burn a little. Or maybe he just didn’t care enough to avoid it. When he found a patch of unclaimed land, he laid his towel down, then let himself drop onto it, the sun instantly pressing down on him like a blanket made of light. 

He took his pants off then, kicking them aside, leaving just the trunks. Of course, he kept the trunks. The salt-sticky fabric clung to his thighs as he let his shirt slip from his shoulders. His skin, slick with sweat, caught the sunlight and shimmered faintly before the heat began to dry it, the salt tightening over him in an invisible film. 

For a moment, it was almost pleasant — this exposure, the surrender to the elements.

He stretched out, legs extended, holding himself up on his elbows just enough to keep his head raised, staring ahead at the horizon. That lasted all of two minutes before the restlessness kicked in, crawling under his skin, making him ache for something to touch, to turn over in his hands, to handle.  

He dug through his bag, fingers brushing past tangled wires and loose receipts before closing around the stiff fabric of his baseball cap — the one with the big L.A. embroidered across the front, a souvenir of sorts, or maybe just an unspoken agreement to go with the flow, to blend in with the passions of the people here — he pulled it onto his head, adjusting the brim low over his eyes. It helped against the glare, a little. At the very least, it gave his hair a break from getting fried and frayed, more than it already was.  

Still restless, he reached back into the tote and pulled out the one book he had brought with him on the flight out here. A slim thing, no more than 150 pages, give or take. He had read half of it on the plane, in between bouts of staring out the window, fidgeting, and drifting in and out of sleep. Since landing, though, he hadn’t read much of anything other than road signs and menus.  

He flipped it open and found his place, his eyes scanning over the same paragraph three times before the words actually registered. He slapped at an unidentifiable pest that landed on his stomach, turned the page, shifted onto his side. God, his skin already felt too hot, the heat sinking into him with an almost predatory impatience. It was starting to burn. He rummaged through his bag again, searching for some kind of relief, and came up empty-handed. Who forgets sunscreen at the beach?  

Something to read was useful, if nothing else was. A visible, obvious task, something to make his presence here feel less strange. Like he had some kind of purpose and wasn’t just drifting through someone else’s landscape.  

He abandoned it the moment a rare breeze ghosted over him, a brief mercy in the stifling heat. Better than nothing.  

He had assumed there would be more to do here, for some reason. A stupid assumption, considering he had come here to do nothing. But now, lying there, the sand clinging to his arms and the sun blurring the edges of his thoughts, he realised how little there really was.  

That’s when he saw you.  

It took a second for his brain to catch up with his eyes. A figure like you, here, alone — it didn’t quite compute. Something about it didn’t look right, or at least, didn’t fit. You seemed too cultivated, too old-fashioned for this place, like you had been plucked from a different story and dropped into this one by accident, his.  

Or maybe that was just him projecting.

You saw him staring long before he realised it.  

Maybe it was the hat, tilted just so, or the oversized blocky sunglasses that made him think you couldn’t see him nodding his head slightly, or maybe just a little bit of wishful thinking on his part �� like if he moved slow enough, casual enough, his staring at you would just pass through you, unnoticed. Of course you noticed. His motion was small, barely more than a twitch of his chin, but it was there. The up-and-down, the once-over. Not leering, not obvious, just…surveying. Testing the waters, casually enough that his gaze could slip past you like sunlight through the gaps in a straw hat.  

Foolish, foolish men. 

You sat on one of the loungers, no towel like he had, legs stretched out, languid, lazy. It just so happened to be angled in his direction—more or less. 

You didn’t have a towel like he did. Just sat back on one of the loungers, stretched out, legs crossed at the ankle, comfortably at ease. Languid and lazy. The lounger just so happened to be angled in his general direction, more or less. Could be a coincidence. Could not be. Either way, it didn’t matter now. It was coincidental enough to maintain plausible deniability, but intentional enough to make things interesting.  

He was wearing striped shorts — white and blue, or green, it was hard to tell through the glare of the heat. Classic boater stripes, nonetheless. Like something torn from the pages of an old Riviera holiday catalogue. A salmon-coloured shirt lay thrown next to him, carelessly abandoned and wrinkled in the sand, like he’d shrugged it off mid-thought. And then, of course, there was the hat — the obvious one, the one that screamed yeah, I get it, I live here now, see? I belong, don’t I? — and the sunglasses that swallowed half his face. But you caught glimpses beneath them. Pieces of dark hair curling out from under the brim, damp with sweat, stuck to his forehead in the places the sun had already started working on him. 

There were a lot of older men here. The beach was full of them. Weathered, sun-baked pieces of meat, their skin burnt to the same rust color as their baggy, oversized swim trunks. Men who had spent too many years in too many places like this, drinking something cold and expensive on terraces that smelled like salt and citrus. 

He wasn’t like them. 

Slim, lean in the way that wasn’t intentionally forced but just…happened. Enough that the lines and shapes of him pressed faintly against the surface of his skin when he moved — on his arms, his forearms especially, strained just a smidge from the way he held himself up, and lower, just above the waistband of his shorts, where you caught the soft definition of his abdomen when he stretched out, ridges and valleys, catching the light just right. And a faint line of hair, an invitation, a suggestion. Dark and narrow, pointing downward, heading you to look south. 

Interesting.

He saw you look. You saw him look. He saw that you saw him look.  

He didn’t look away. Neither did you.  

How old were you? Mid-twenties? Maybe younger. Maybe older. Hard to say. Hard to tell. Hard to gauge women’s ages these days. Wouldn’t be polite to ask, even if he wanted to. That was a question he wouldn’t dare to mess with, because, regardless if he could get away with it or not, there was something inelegant about trying to pin a number to a woman like you. Some things were better left unknown.  

Love, lust, integrity, deceit.

The four horsemen of his own personal apocalypse.

A recipe for disaster or a hell of a good time, depending on how you mixed them. He was laundered by nostalgia looking at you, though he couldn’t quite put a name to the memory. Just a feeling. A sense of, hmm…before.  

He could come up to you. Could walk across the sand, close the distance, say something. Anything. He used to be good at that. Used to know what to do with himself in situations like this. But lately, the idea of committing to anything — even something as small as a conversation — felt impossible. His newly found unwillingness to put faith into things kept him anchored in place, stretched out on his towel like a relic waiting to be uncovered. And so he stayed where he was, stuck in the stillness of the moment. 

Somehow, despite the distance, despite everything — here, now — unconscious fantasy began.  

You were cast in shadow beneath your umbrella, untouched by the sun’s brutal attention. That alone made him jealous. Was it insane to think he could already taste you on his tongue? Like salt and sweat and the faintest trace of something sweet. The thought sat heavy in his mouth, something slow and melting, something indulgent. Thick like honey. 

You knew what he was thinking by the way his breathing shifted — nothing dramatic, just a change in rhythm, a fraction of a second faster, his belly rising and falling a smidge more than before but in a way that no longer matched the rest of the world. A sharp inhale, a heavy exhale. His shorts grew tighter. Barely. Just enough to notice, if you were paying attention, which you were.  

Were you perverted for wanting it? For wanting to feel the heat of his breath against you, to let his lips press against the places where the sun had burned, to cool you down in the slowest way possible with the wet drag of his mouth? Would he be hotter than the sun itself?  

Reality bent.

The two of you were in your own realm. The sand, the sky, the waves…Get gone! You were in a private orbit. A closed circuit humming.

You waved your fingers at him, a flick of your hand, casual, easy. But it wasn’t just that. It was the way you moved your features. He saw it, registered it, but wasn’t sure how to interpret it — was it a greeting? A beckon? A tease? You spoke to him without a single word, through the minute shifts in your expression, through the way your lips twitched — not quite a smirk, not quite a smile. Just…something. Too subtle for most, but not for him. 

Okay, maybe for him too, because you did it so subtly that you got him doubting himself and wondering if he was imagining things.  

He got flustered. You could see it, the way he stiffened, then tried to cover it up, shifting where he lay as if adjusting for comfort. His fingers twitched briefly at his side, digging lightly into the towel beneath him. He was trying to follow along, trying to make sense of whatever was happening between you, trying to grasp at some solid ground in the shifting, unpredictable landscape you’d laid out for him. 

Any glitch in the usual order of things, any deviation from the expected social script, tended to make people uneasy. Knock them off balance. And he was off balance, no doubt about it. 

But it made you amused.  

Even the barest touch — a glancing brush at his elbow, a whisper of a squeeze on his arm — could short-circuit any lingering wariness right out of him. But you didn’t even need to touch him. You did it with your eyes. A look with just enough weight to it, enough gravity, and suddenly, just like that, he was newly suggestible, eager to find steady footing in whatever story you were about to offer him.  

You had come to learn that men, as it turned out, did not mind being approached by a young woman — at least, not usually. And he certainly didn’t. He wasn’t the type to second-guess a situation like this, wasn’t immediately suspicious of your motives, didn’t consider that anything about this moment might be murky or unclear. His own vanity — whether he acknowledged it or not — likely allowed for the possibility that you had simply been drawn to him, swept in by the sheer force of his…his everything.  

He leaned back on the towel, stretching out like some chiseled, sun-drenched idol, relaxed but still thrumming with something like anticipation beneath his carefully nonchalant exterior. He was watching you approach, watching the way you moved, the way your gaze didn’t waver and you let him see the hunger in your eyes. He liked that. It was irresistible.  

Your imperturbability impressed the hell out of him.  

“Hot out here,” he said, voice slow, low, a little lazy. “isn’t it?”  

How many times had he already said that today? A useless thing to say, obviously, a space-filler meant to keep his mouth moving while the rest of him tried to figure you out.  

“Very exciting, right?” You humored him, dryly amused.  

He laughed, soft, breathy. “Oh, yes.”  

Always interesting, this moment of possibility, this moment right before things changed. You smiled at him without looking away, despite the fact that his own smile shone brighter than the sun itself — and now you really suspected he’d be hotter than it too.  

That was often all it took. 

“You’re in trouble, sir.” you teased, tilting your head to let the words drip slow and sweet from your tongue.  

He played into it easily. “Am I?” He had nothing more to lose.  

And then — his skin. He noticed it when you touched him. And then, the moment broke — just a smidge — when he noticed, fuck, my skin hurts. A sharp sting ghosted over him when you touched a spot. You grabbed his poor, sunburnt shoulder and it screamed at him. He tried not to flinch. He kept his mouth shut.  

“No swimming, or…laying, without sunscreen. Don’t you know?”  

He exhaled a laugh, twiddling grains of sand between his fingers. He avoided eye contact at times, for a second here and there, which only made you crave it more — to see those dark lashes flutter beneath his dark lenses, to make him look at you and stay there.  

“Forgot it in my car.” he admitted, almost sheepishly. “Too eager to get out here ‘n all. You have any?”  

“As it just so happened,” you said, “I ran out.” Then, without much thought, you planted your hands on either side of him, leaning over slightly. He felt the heat of your skin through there and its effect through the thin fabric of his shorts. “I could ask around for some.” you offered. 

He took a quick gander around, scanning the beach — mostly strangers, half of them probably carrying what he needed, but none of them nearly as interesting as you.  

“Let’s actually go to my car,” he suggested, “if you don’t mind.” Then he glanced up for you to catch the look in his eyes through the slant of his sunglasses.  

You nodded. He nodded.  

That was that.  

Without much else to say, he shoved his things into his bag, slung his shirt over his shoulder, then the tote, keeping the fabric pinned under the strap so it wouldn’t fly away in the occasional breeze.  

You followed him through the sand, your feet sinking slightly with every step, then onto the hot concrete of the parking lot. The sun-baked ground burned the soles of your feet, but you didn’t make a sound. Not yet, anyway. 

The parking lot was quiet. Empty, almost. 

He pushed open the door to his car while you lingered outside, waiting, watching him. Nice vehicle he’s got. Nice ass, too.  

He glanced at you over his shoulder. “Sorry, I didn’t think…” He trailed off as he swept his arm across the passenger seat, clearing it like some flustered host who hadn’t expected company. A handful of empty plastic water bottles crinkled under his grip as he tossed them into the backseat.

You leaned against the frame of the car, stretching your arms above your head for the hell of it, feeling the way the heat rolled off the pavement and onto your skin. The inside of his car, though, was blissfully cool — the air conditioner humming lured you in. A promising relief. And you both knew where this was going. Might as well get on with it.  

“Wanna fix me in your car?” you mused. The hunger hurt somewhere low in your belly, too insistent to ignore. You were past the point of subtlety. “Mister mechanic…”  

Alex glanced at you, brow slightly lifted, a slow grin curling at the corner of his lips. “You want me to, huh?”  

Was he attractive? Attractive enough, you thought. Maybe more than that, considering the way you shifted on your feet, the way your tongue darted out to wet your lips without thinking and how your fingers brushed against your collarbone absentmindedly. He noticed everything.  

“Sure, I have time.” you giggled, and he gave you a once-over.  

Twice-over.  

And another one.  

“You’re legal, right?” he asked.  

You huffed, rolling your eyes. “Do I look like-”  

“Just making sure, honey.” he cut in, that teasing drawl back in his voice. “Can never be too safe, can you?”  

He could see it written all over your face, the deep longing to touch, to taste, to claim every inch of him. And he let you see his, too.  

You grinned at him, stepping just a little closer. “Not too safe.” you agreed, your voice dropping just slightly.  

He slid into the passenger seat, adjusting himself. You climbed in after him, your legs draped over his, your body folding into place. A moment later, he was rolling the seat back as far as it would go, his bare back pressing against the warm leather with a quiet hiss of discomfort. He almost wished he had it now, his shirt, except he didn’t, not really. Not when you were here, caging him in with the heat of your skin.  

The door shut behind you. No one in, no one out.  

The tinted windows kept the sun from pouring in, and in turn kept the two of you hidden from the world. He felt you up and you felt him down, his hands gripping your waist, thumbs pressing lightly into the curve of your hip bones. You turned, reaching for the air-con dials, twisting them cooler. Because God, things were bound to get hot in here.  

His fingers traced the hem of your swimsuit, then tugged at the ties, fumbling slightly in his impatience, like he wanted to take his time but didn’t want to waste it. His hands were warm, a little rough, and when he finally moved them lower, you gasped, the sound soft, barely there.  

The first press of his fingers startled you, but it was good — good enough to make you move against his hand, chasing the feeling. His lips parted slightly, eyes flicking up to yours. 

“You’re all wet.” he murmured.  

You leaned in, let your skin slide against his, the sheen of sweat on his chest meeting yours. “You’re all sweaty.” you countered, voice light, teasing, even though the fact was only making you more aware of him.  

You reached up and ruffled his hair. He softened instantly beneath your touch, eyes fluttering briefly closed. The gesture was so simple, so genuine, that it caught him off guard. He knew, in that moment, that he was yours for the taking.  

And you took.  

His hand moved over you, mapping you out, learning you. You gasped when he found the right spot, and his smirk deepened, pleased with himself. The movement continued both on the outside and on the inside. His fingers flexed, pressed deeper, worked against the rhythm of your hips. He moved with intention and instinct. His free hand drifted up, found your chest, pushed the fabric of your swimsuit aside. He grabbed a boob, pinched the special spot. You gasped again, jerking against his touch.

“Booze doesn’t grow your bones.” you mused, your fingers tracing idle patterns on his skin. “Or your boner. Did you know that?”  

A breathy chuckle, laced with arousal. “Nope, it doesn’t.”  

“Have you been drinking?” You played with his hair, twisting small sections between your fingers, tugging just slightly.  

His hands faltered for the briefest moment before resuming. He hesitated, then whispered, “Maybe.”  

You pulled away just enough to watch his expression, sliding lower between his parted legs. He widened them instinctively, a response as old as time.  

“Maybe?” you echoed, eyebrows raised.  

He swallowed, shaking his head slightly. “No, no- I don’t know why I said that.” he admitted quickly with a quiet laugh, more at himself than anything. “I haven’t. I’m driving.” He gestured vaguely to the car, as if to say duh.  

Fair point.  

Your hair was already up, pinned back with a clip he hadn’t even noticed before, but now? Now, he was grateful for it. Less work for him. Less distractions. He had nothing else to hold up but himself — whatever that meant these days.  

You ran your hands slowly up his thighs. The hair on his legs stood up, prickling against your fingertips as you went up, from the sharp angles of his knees to the hem of his shorts, dragging your nails lightly through the soft, sparse strands before slipping just a little farther, your fingers teasing at the edge of his waistband. The contrast was intoxicating — soft there, warm and damp with heat everywhere else.

His breath stuttered for just a second. Barely noticeable. You noticed.  

Drifting higher, you felt it — hard, twitching beneath the thin fabric. He was already straining against the material, barely containing him. You pressed your palm flat against him, feeling the rigid length beneath your touch, the way he twitched again at even the lightest pressure.  

You tilted your head. “Are you nervous?”  

Another slow, teasing stroke over his shorts, feeling the heat of him. His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed, and his voice came out quieter than before.  

“Maybe.”

His cock gave another twitch.

“You are nervous.” you teased, voice just above a whisper, dipping your head closer, letting your breath ghost over his skin.

Alex let out a quiet, shaky laugh, but there was no real amusement in it — just anticipation, tension wound so tight it was a wonder he hadn’t already come apart at the seams.

“Yeah, yeah…maybe.” 

His hips shifted beneath you, an instinctual, seeking movement. You felt the shape of him more clearly now, the way he throbbed, begging for relief. You hummed, dragging your nails lightly up his thighs again, just to feel the way he twitched in response.

“Maybe…” you echoed, letting your fingers slip inside. “We should do something about that.”

You followed that up by pulling his shorts down, fingers brushing the warmth of his skin as you exposed him. And — damn. It wasn’t just the size of him that caught your attention, though yeah, that was impressive. It was how he twitched in your hand, like he was waving hello or something, how he pulsed against your palm like he had his own heartbeat, he was as eager for this as you were.  

“Jesus…” you muttered under your breath, giving him a testing squeeze, eyes still glued to the way he filled your hand, the way his cock sat heavy and full, almost impossibly so. “Look at the size of that thing.”  

Alex let out this breathy little laugh. “What’s that supposed to mean?” he asked, shifting slightly, adjusting himself in his seat like he wasn’t entirely sure where to put his hands now.  

You let go just to watch it bounce up against his stomach, stiff and so ready. His body had made up its mind before his brain even had a chance to catch up. “Means your dick’s big.” you said, not even pretending to be shy about it. He was so hard, it made your mouth water. 

He grinned, resting his head back against the seat and giving you an almost appreciative look. “Too big?” he asked, his voice dropping a little, wishing you would say it, to confirm his own sense of self-importance. 

You bit your lip, fingers trailing along the length of him. “Not too big. Just right.”  

“Good, good. Would hate to disappoint.”  

You grinned, wrapping your fingers around him properly this time. “Yeah,” you mused, “don’t think that’s gonna be a problem, baby.” You leaned forward, lips brushing over him, a soft touch at first, just enough to make him shiver.

His hands stayed planted by his sides, he was giving himself to you fully. There was no guard in his posture, no effort to hide his eagerness. His jaw tightened, but there was a quiet confidence in the way he let you do whatever you wanted. His legs spread slightly, daring you to do more, take that next step, whatever that next step might be. You could feel the heat radiating off him, his body practically burning under your touch. You couldn’t help but look up at him through your lashes, letting that connection linger for a moment longer than necessary. 

“Go ahead.” he said, “Show me what you want to do with me.”

Still gripping nothing but the hot leather of the seat, he was patient, but as your mouth worked him over, he started to falter. His breath hitched, a muscle in his jaw jumping as he bit his lip. Holding back was something he had trained himself to do. His knuckles went white against the upholstery when you took him down again and his thighs tensed when you swallowed around him.

You sucked him however you wanted, and that was deep and slow. He tasted like sweat, and sweat had never tasted better than in this moment. You weren’t in any rush. You took your time, savouring the weight of him in your mouth, the way the tip of him pulsed. He was leaking somewhere in the back of your throat, faint and warm, and you knew, just knew, he was fighting a losing battle. He was struggling not to let out too many sounds. His lip was caught between his teeth. Every once in a while, the smallest sound would slip past his lips — half a groan, half a whimper, barely there, but enough to make your core tighten in response.  

You could feel him getting close from the way he was swelling inside your mouth, how his hips started to lift ever so slightly, like he was trying not to fuck into the heat of you. And in an embarrassingly short amount of time — which he was painfully aware of — he reached his limit. 

“Shit-” he ground out, brows furrowing as he pushed at your shoulder, pulling you off him before he could lose it completely. 

Your lips left him with a wet pop, a thin string of saliva still connecting you for a second before it broke. His cock slipped, flushed, slick, still twitching against his stomach as he tried to regain some semblance of control. You wiped your mouth with the back of your hand, watching him as he exhaled sharply, running a shaky hand through his damp hair. His head fell back against the seat, chest rising and falling, a dazed expression overtaking his face as he exhaled hard through his nose. His sunglasses had slid down a little, and through the gap between them and his flushed cheeks, you could see his eyes — dark, blown-out, watching you like he was trying to figure out what the fuck had just happened to him.

“Fuck.”

He squeezed himself at the base, groaning softly as he tried to regain control, blinking down at you.  

“Are you okay, uh…?” You didn’t even ask for his name, you now realised.   

“Alex.” A bit late, considering you’d both been familiarised with each other’s bits already, but better late than never. He cleared his throat. “I’m fine. You’re…you’re very good at that.”  

“I’ve been told.” You soothed the poor guy by rubbing his thighs, still warm under your palms, still trembling just a smidge. He was stroking himself, or more like squeezing the fuck out of his dick so he didn’t come on the spot.  

“Have you?” he asked, breathless. You nodded. “I’m not surprised, hun.” 

“I don’t think you were ready for this.” you whispered.  

He smirked wider. “I think I’ll survive.” 

The next move was obvious.

You were back to having him in your mouth, lips stretching around him, your tongue gliding over every inch with an unhurried sort of devotion. His hands twitched at his sides, fingers curling into fists against the seat like he was fighting the instinct to grab onto you, to guide you deeper, but he didn’t. He let you have control, let you take him the way you wanted.  

Despite his best efforts — his held breath, his bitten lip, his quiet curses muttered into the humid air — Alex still finished inside your mouth. A shudder rolled up his spine as his cock pulsed against your tongue. You felt him unravel, tasted the salt of him as you swallowed.  

You didn’t stop.  

You kept your lips wrapped around the flushed, sensitive tip, swirling your tongue in lazy circles, coaxing the aftershocks from him. His stomach tensed, a strained noise escaping the back of his throat. It was almost too much.  

Almost.  

But this was like your own scoop of ice cream. Just like one, it started dripping, and you didn’t seem in any rush to pull away. You licked a slow stripe up his length, dragging the flat of your tongue across the underside. 

When you looked up, you saw Alex watching you.  

“Is it too much? Do you want me to stop?”

Did he?  

He didn’t seem too concerned either way, his chest rising and falling in uneven breaths, his hand running absently over his stomach, smearing the sheen of sweat that had gathered there. He exhaled through his nose, blinking down at you.  

“I’m…it’s fine.” he said. His hand drifted lazily to his cock, giving it a slow stroke, seeing just how much he had left in him. “I’m still hard, if you wanna…”

His words trailed off, but his meaning was obvious.  

You lifted a brow. “How was the blowjob?”

Alex let out a breathless laugh, rubbing his thumb over his swollen tip. “Come sit on me?” 

He’d just discovered he wanted something more and wasn’t sure how to ask for it. You stretched up, wiping the traces of spit and everything else from your face, smirking when you saw the way his eyes followed your every movement. He was rubbing his crotch with one hand, the other gathering the strands of your hair that had fallen loose in the heat of it all. Somewhere in the middle of this, he’d found a confidence he hadn’t had before, something in him clicking into place. Maybe it was the way you looked at him. 

Or maybe it was just the fact that he wanted more.  

“Please?”

You didn’t hesitate any longer. Why would you? The heat between you had already sunk deep into your bones, made a home in the space between your breaths, in the places where your skin had already met his. This was inevitable.  

Alex was still holding himself, fingers wrapped tight around his own restraint, and it made you smile. A man like him, all sharp wit and careless charm, reduced to this — gritting his teeth like he was afraid he’d spill again before you even got to the good part.  

“You sure about that?” you teased. “You’re looking a little…overwhelmed.”

“Get on top of it. You think I can’t handle you?”

“I think,” you leaned in close, lips brushing the corner of his jaw as your hand ghosted up his stomach, fingers tracing the sweat-damp lines of muscle, “you’re holding back.”

And you were right. His whole body was humming with it, with that careful self-control, with the way he was teetering on the edge, trying so fucking hard not to let go just yet.  

But you weren’t interested in patience.  

You reached between your bodies, wrapping your hand around his length, prying his own fingers away from the base. He let you. Let you take over, let you guide the next move, let his head tip back against the seat with a deep, shuddering breath when you pressed him against the heat between your legs.  

His hands finally found your hips, fingers digging in like he needed something to anchor himself to. “Jesus.” he muttered.  

“Shh…” you soothed, pressing a finger against his lips, watching as his eyes darkened, as his tongue flicked out to taste your fingertip, as his resolve finally started to crack. “You’re all sticky.”

“Instead of sticky, how about…” He swallowed, exhaling sharply through his nose because he trying really hard to act normal about this. 

“Lubed up?” you offered.  

“Greased up.” he corrected. “I’m a well-oiled machine.”

You snorted, pressing your palms into his shoulders as you shifted, feeling the way his fingers tightened on your thighs. “Is that what they used to tell you in your prime, old man?”

“Sorry?” His eyes flicked open fully, smirk twitching at the corner of his lips. “I’m very much in my prime, sweetheart. I got plenty left in the tank. You wanna test that theory?”

“Already am.” you shot back, rolling your hips. 

Alex wished he would have kept his hands to himself. If he touched you more, he might beg. His fingers twitched against your thighs, aching to grab hold, to squeeze, to pull you closer. He chewed his tongue until it swelled, swallowing down every word before it could betray him.  

You rode him slowly at first, moving your hips, adjusting to the tight space, feeling every inch of him stretching you, filling you. His head hit the back of the seat with a soft thud, his jaw going slack, a broken curse escaping his lips as you took him all the way in, again and again. He bit your shoulder mid-thrust, a desperate attempt to muffle the groan that built in his throat. You felt the warmth of his mouth, the sharpness of his teeth sinking in just enough to leave a mark. He pulled out slow, teasing, before pushing back in just to hear you gasp, just to feel you tighten around him.  

The pace didn’t last.  

It never did.  

It was slow until it wasn’t, until you were colliding aggressively, until the small space around you was filled with the sound of skin meeting skin, of breathy moans and quiet curses. The car rocked with your movements, the air thick and humid, sticking to your skin, making everything feel even more desperate.  

Vehement shivers ran through your bodies, waves of pleasure cresting higher and higher, building into something unbearable, something that neither of you could stop even if you wanted to.

“Jesus- fuck, okay, wait, wait-”

Alex’s voice broke around the words, hands flexing uselessly on your hips like he couldn’t decide whether to slow you down or pull you down harder. His cock twitched inside you, and the way his face was screwed up in something dangerously close to defeat had you grinning.  

“Wait?” You rolled your hips deliberately slow, just to make him squirm, to watch the way his brows furrowed and his mouth parted like he was about to say something but forgot how to form words. “For what, exactly?”

“For me to process what the fuck is happening.” he groaned, blinking up at you with those hazy eyes, half-lidded and barely holding onto focus. “Jesus Christ, you- I don’t even-”  

You leaned down, brushing your lips against his ear. “Spit it out, honey.”

Alex exhaled, his breath stuttering when you clenched around him. “You’re evil.”

You grinned. “And you’re still hard.”

“Yeah, no shit, you’re on top of me.” he shot back, then sucked in a sharp breath as you lifted yourself up and sank back down with purpose, making him jolt beneath you. “Oh, fuck- okay, okay, shit, I take it back- you’re, uh, really fucking nice, actually.”

“That so?”

“Yeah, so nice.” His voice cracked, and he let out a choked laugh while his brain was busy going back and forth between God, this is amazing and Holy fuck, I’m gonna die here.  

“You look like you’re struggling a bit, mister well-oiled machine.” You dragged your nails lightly over his chest.  

“I’m not struggling. I’m- I’m just, uh- managing expectations.”  

You cocked your head. “Oh yeah?”

“Yeah. ‘Cause, uh-” He swallowed thickly, then grinned, lopsided and cocky but nervous all the same. “If you keep that up, I’m gonna embarrass myself real quick, sweetheart.”

“Yeah? That a promise?”

Alex squeezed his eyes shut, cursing under his breath before tipping his head forward, pressing his forehead against your collarbone as you moved quicker.  

“You are evil.” he groaned.  

“Shut up and touch me.” you told him.  

He snuck a hand between you and cupped you, fingers pressing in, he already knew how you wanted it. “Here, baby?”

“Yeah, baby.” you teased, lips curling at the way his breath caught.  

He knew where to touch anyway. He wasn’t married for nothing. His fingers found the spot, rubbing slow and nice, testing, adjusting to the sounds you made. You clenched around him, and his hips jerked up too.  

“That’s good.” you let him know.  

“Yeah? You gonna come? Make a mess on me?”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah, me too.”

The rhythm got messy, all desperation and no restraint, and Alex wasn’t even trying to hold back anymore. His breath hitched, then turned into these low, wrecked noises against your shoulder, muttering, “Shit- fuck- yeah, yeah, just like that, baby, just like that.” His words came out choked, like he was talking more to himself than to you, like he couldn’t believe how good this felt.  

His fingers dug into your ass, gripping tight, probably leaving marks — not that you minded. He thrust up, almost frantic now, like he was chasing something he was barely holding onto. And then you clenched around him, hard, squeezing him in just the right way, and that was it.  

“Ah- fuck.” he groaned, voice cracking somewhere in the middle, his whole body shuddering beneath you. His hips stuttered, jerking up one last time as he finally lost it, falling apart completely.

He stayed inside you after, cum running out of you and sweat running down the both of you. Breathing heavily, his forehead rested against yours, like he needed a second to come back to earth, just like you did. Everything was connected. Your breaths, your purposes, your spirits. The more present you were, the more you understood that…there was something so sacrilegious about pounding.  

“You have any tissues in here?” you asked.  

Alex let out a breathy, almost disbelieving chuckle, his hands smoothing over your thighs. “I don’t even care if we’re making a mess in here. That was- Jesus.” His head tipped back against the seat, chest still rising and falling, skin still sticking to the leather in a way that made him grimace slightly. “Fucking hell.”

You smirked, rolling your hips just a fraction, feeling him still inside you, still thick, twitching slightly even in his post-orgasm haze. His hands gripped your waist on instinct, a breath whistling through his teeth.

“Fuck- don’t do that, unless you wanna go again.” he warned, though it didn’t sound he was entirely against the idea.

You just hummed, stretching lazily, making a show of reaching for the little strap of your bikini top that had slid off your shoulder. His eyes tracked the movement, dark and greedy despite the fucked-out exhaustion creeping over his face.

“You’re still inside me, y’know.” you murmured, tilting your head, watching for his reaction.

Alex blinked, then gave you this slow, lopsided grin, hands flexing slightly where they rested on your hips. “Yeah.” he rasped, voice rougher now, like he’d been talking too much, or maybe just moaning too much. “I noticed.”

“You really don’t have any tissues?” you asked, giving him a look.

His grin faltered. “Shit.” he muttered, suddenly looking a little more awake. “Yeah, I think. I mean- I thought I did, but- fuck.” He groaned, glancing around like he could manifest some out of thin air. “Can’t you just like, uh, pull this little thing back over?” He nodded towards your bikini bottoms, his voice a little hopeful.  

You stared at him. “Unbelievable. That’s your solution? Just trap it in there?”

He grinned, completely unashamed. “What, you’ve never done that before?”

You rolled your eyes, smacking his chest lightly. “Fucking men.”

“Hey, don’t act like it’s not a solid backup plan.” he argued, still grinning. “I mean, what else are we gonna do? Air dry?”

“I could air dry. You, on the other hand…” You reached between you, brushing over the mess still leaking out of you, and dragged your fingers down his stomach.  

“Fuck, warn a guy next time.”

You smirked, licking the remnants of your touch off your fingers. “Mm. Salty.”

“God.” he groaned, letting his head fall back dramatically. “You’re the type to ruin a man’s life, aren’t you?”

You just smirked. “You wish I’d ruin your life.”

He huffed. “I might.” Then, more to himself, he muttered, “I definitely should’ve cleaned my car before this.” Alex let out a breathy laugh, shaking his head as he rubbed a hand over his face.

“You didn’t think you’d be getting laid in here today?”

“Not really.” he snorted. “I didn’t think I’d be getting wrecked in here today.” he corrected himself, glancing down at where you still straddled him before meeting your gaze again. He let out another breathless laugh. “Fuck, I’m not even embarrassed to tell you any of this.”

“You should be.”

“Yeah, well.” He grinned, stretching his arms behind his head. “Too late for that.”

You laughed, resting your forehead against his. “Okay, but seriously, you don’t have anything to clean up with?”

“Uh…hold on.” He reached over, fumbling around in the center console. “I got, like fuckin’…napkins from a drive-thru, maybe?” He pulled out a crumpled stack and held them up with a triumphant little smirk. “Jackpot.” You raised a brow. “Hey, don’t knock it. These things are practically currency.”

You rolled your eyes but took them anyway, shifting off of him with a wince and using one to clean yourself up while he tucked himself back into his shorts. He groaned softly, resting back against the seat, still looking at you like he couldn’t believe what had just happened.  

“I’ve never had sex in a car before.”

You blinked, then let out a sharp laugh. “Seriously?”

He lifted his head, giving you an amused look. “Why do you sound so shocked?”

“I mean, look at you.” you said, gesturing vaguely to his still-flushed skin, the way he was sprawled out like he’d just had the life fucked out of him. “You had me fooled.”

He laughed, warm and breathy. “Guess I’m a natural, huh?”

“You…kept up. I’ll give you that.”

“Kept up?” he repeated, scoffing. “Sweetheart, I did more than keep up-”

“Mhmm.” 

“That was amazing. Fuck.” He looked you over again. “I should’ve had car sex way sooner.”

“You needed me to show you how it’s done.” 

“Mhm…you know, I’m subscribing to the notion that the most unpredictable or unlikely moments are probably the most entertaining.” he said. 

“Big dick, big words.” you joked, but there was a softness in your voice, a playful lilt that told him you weren’t brushing it off entirely.  

And he felt good. Wrecked, sure, like he’d just been steamrolled in the best possible way, but beneath that, something deeper had settled in his chest. Like a window had been cracked open inside him, letting in some fresh air he hadn’t even realised he needed. He looked at you, taking you in, the way you stretched, rolling your shoulders, lazily adjusting your bikini like nothing had happened and you hadn’t just pulled him apart and put him back together again from a simple look. 

He didn’t know what to do with that yet. But fuck, he liked it.

The afternoon would be no more than a ripple in the tide of pleasure that awaited him, a hazy memory soaked in sweat and sun and the lingering press of your hands. But still — it would be something. Something carved into the space between one breath and the next, something he could feel in the ache of his muscles, the rawness of his throat. 

A small hiccup.

But wasn’t that where the real fun lived? In the fleeting, the unplanned, the moments that slipped through your fingers even as they left their mark?

a/n: Inspired by this ask. Don’t wanna talk about it. I think I was borderline asleep when I wrote the second half of it and it’s…I don’t know, feels kinda half-assed, but I can’t be bothered to fix it. I like the start though. Anyway, bye.

[ladyantiheroine]

Mr. Barridge

Summary: Nasha comes home from work and has a moment alone with Mickey. Read on AO3.

Pairing: Nasha Barrides/Mickey Barnes

Warnings: Explicit sexual content.

Word Count: 3.3k words

Tags: Househusband!Mickey Barnes, femdom, pegging, dom/sub, domestic bliss, married life, strip tease, hair-pulling, finger sucking, lipstick & lip gloss, jealousy, possessive, sex, post-canon.

“Come on, little guy,” Mickey said. “Just a little more.”

After weeks of practice, Mickey managed to learn how to cradle a baby creeper in just the right way. In the earlier days, he couldn’t quite find the right way to position his arms that didn’t result in the little thing crying, but he seemed to figure it out now. He cushioned the pillbug-like creature in one arm, and with the other, fed it a bottle of creeper milk.

The baby was called Zekei, according to the others. He’d lost his mama when a falling ice rock landed on top of her in the underground caves. The other creeps had taken care of him, but as an act of peace between species, allowed Mickey and Nasha to adopt him. It seemed like the kind or extraordinary next step—interspecies adoption. What better sign that things between humans and creepers were going well?

Of course, learning to take care of a creeper baby came with plenty of learning curves. The scientists back at the station had spoken to the creepers and interacted with the babies enough to gauge their needs, but there were still plenty of adjustments. Thankfully, with Nasha now a council member, she could arrange for her and Mickey to have a whole house structure on Niflheim to raise Zekei on.

And since the Expendable program ended, Mickey was out of work. Which left him plenty of time to raise the little one.

Zekei was nice and quiet today, likely a bit sleepy after playing out in the snow. He serenely suckled the bottle until every drop was gone and Mickey set it aside. At that moment, he heard the front door open. Nasha was home.

Mickey glanced down at Zekei.

“Mommy’s home,” he said.

At that moment, the kettle Mickey had placed on the stove started to sing. He set Zekei down in his high chair and rushed over to turn the stove off.

“Looks like I’m just in time to see you burn the house down.”

Mickey glanced over his shoulder. Nasha stood at the kitchen doorway, still dressed in her council uniform. Those red, billowing robes that always reminded Mickey of rose petals.

“Would help keep the cold out, wouldn’t it?” Mickey said.

He moved the kettle over and grabbed two mugs from the cupboard.

“How was the council meeting today?” he asked.

“The usual,” Nasha said. She sauntered over to the kitchen table and took a seat. “Bickering and arguing, followed by more bickering and arguing.”

She leaned close to Zekei and rubbed the top of his head. He nuzzled into her touch.

“How has the little one been?” she asked.

“Better,” Mickey said. He plucked two teabags from a jar and plopped them each into the mugs, then poured the steaming water inside. “He finished a whole bottle today.”

“Wonderful,” Nasha said. “That explains why he’s so sleepy.”

It was true. Zekei was curled over in his little chair and released a sleepy little sneeze. Nasha gave him a kiss on top of his head.

“Chicken is cooking in the oven,” Mickey said. He stirred a silver spoon in both mugs before bringing them over to the table. “Should be ready for dinner in half an hour.”

Nasha smiled, and looked Mickey up and down.

“I can tell someone’s been busy in the kitchen,” she said.

Mickey glanced down at his clothes. Nasha had jokingly gifted him an apron with KISS THE CLONE stitched into the front, and it was now covered in sauce and grease from the late afternoon of cooking. Mickey chuckled.

“New recipe,” he said. He placed one of the tea mugs in front of Nasha. “Made you some tea in the meantime. I know summers on Niflheim aren’t exactly warm like they are on earth.”

“No kidding,” Nasha said. “It’s freezing out there.”

She brought the mug to her lips and took a sip. There was a stratified hum in her throat.

“Mm, this is good,” she said. “I’ve never had this before.”

“Yeah, I found some old tea leaves in the back of the cabinet,” Mickey said. “I’ve had them for a while and forgot.”

“Where’d you get them?” Nasha asked.

Mickey opened his mouth to answer but then paused, and cold dread flooded his stomach. Along with forgetting he had the tea, he completely forgot who had given it to him…and he wished he remembered before making it for Nasha.

“It’s…um…” Mickey licked his lips. Nasha was looking at him expectantly. “It’s…I got it from Kai.”

Immediately, Nasha’s eyes darkened.

“Kai Katz?” she said.

Mickey swallowed.

“After Kai and I first met, she took me to her room,” he said. “Nothing happened but…she did make me some tea. And she let me keep some of the bags she had…”

Nasha knew this story, but the reminder of it made the temperature in the room drop. The agent-turned-councilwoman was known for being…a bit of the jealous type. Blame it on the limited potential partners on Niflheim, or blame on just who she was. But Nasha never hesitated to remind anyone that Mickey Barnes belonged to her, including Mickey himself.

Once, after she saw two women flirting with him in the mess hall, she’d kissed him on the cheek with fresh lipstick, and Mickey hadn’t realized she left a stain until Timo pointed it out. When he asked her why she didn’t say anything, she simply told him, “I like to mark my territory.”

And from what Mickey heard, Nasha had spoken to Kai after their post-Marshall encounter, and it…was not cordial.

It was something about Nasha that scared Mickey a little. And also made his heart flush.

Mickey was sweating down the back of his neck as Nasha bore her eyes into him. He quickly moved over to Zekei’s chair and picked him up.

“I should put him to bed,” he said. “Don’t want him falling asleep in his chair.”

Mickey cradled the sleeping bug all the way upstairs to the nursery. He placed Zekei gently down on the pillow in his crib. The little pillbug was already making noises that Mickey deduced was creeper snoring.

He gently and quietly closed the nursery door. As soon as he did, he heard Nasha call him from their bedroom.

“Mickey,” she said.

Heart knocking in his chest, Mickey slowly approached the bedroom door that hung open. Inside, Nasha was sitting on the edge of the bed, taking off her shoes.

“Did I tell you got some new lipstick?” she asked.

Mickey shook his head. 

“I don’t think so,” he said.

“One of the other girls on the council smuggled it for me,” Nasha said. She slipped her hand into the pocket of her robe and pulled out a small, crimson tube.

Nasha didn’t get a chance to wear makeup often, due to her old work dress code (Marshall hated red lipstick, and made it everyone’s problem). But since she took over the council, she’d laxed the rules and Mickey found her more than once dabbing various colors onto her face. He watched her uncap the tube and smear it onto her perfect mouth.

“This one is new,” Nasha said, then popped her lips. “I want to see if it smudges.”

She stood up and sauntered over to Mickey. The hair on the back of his neck stood for reasons he couldn’t articulate.

Nasha gave him a sweet smile.

“Can you help me see if it smudges?” she asked innocuously. 

Mickey looked at the lipstick, the one in her hand and on her lips.

“Sure,” he said. “What do you want me to—”

In a split second, Nasha dropped the tube to the floor and pulled Mickey by his shirt into a hungry kiss. Mickey made a surprised sound against her mouth, but then surrendered onto her touch. Nasha pushed him back, closing the bedroom door behind her husband with one hand, and shoved his back against it.

Nasha began at his mouth, then pressed thick, scarlet kisses along his cheek, his jawline, and down his neck. Bloody stains bloomed like his pale flesh and Mickey tipped his head back against the door, his fluttering shut in mindless pleasure.

“Nasha,” he whimpered.

Oh, the sound of her name in his mouth made Nasha’s blood rush. She pressed his hands to the door behind him, her fingers entwining with him, while she continued to paint him red with her lips. Mickey’s brain felt like hot candle wax, melting down his whole body in a heat wave.

At one point, after Nasha’s mouth found Mickey’s again, her hand spider-crawled down his body and between his legs. Mickey moaned as her hand clenched the hard erection bulging between his thighs. With her free hand, she hooked two fingers into Mickey’s mouth.

“This is mine, remember?” she muttered against her lips. “All of this. Mine.”

She clawed a possessive hand over his crotch and Mickey felt a wet spot trickling right at her palm. He was still fully dressed, but he never felt so naked and vulnerable.

And it was like Nasha had read his mind, because using her impressive strength, she spun him around and pressed him chest-first to the door. She kissed along the back of his neck, one hand still to his bulge and the other firmly gripping his ass.

“Say it,” she whispered in his ear.

She pulled her fingers out of his mouth. Mickey tried to find the shape of the words on his tongue.

“I’m yours,” he said breathlessly against the door. His brain was a mess and his voice was a helpless, thoughtless whimper. “I’ve always been yours…”

He tried to keep himself standing on both feet as Nasha kissed his neck and her hands explored him all over. Her fingers found the trim of his shirt and pinched to lift it up over his head. Then she took the seam of his pants, and dropped them to the floor.

Despite their home’s heating, the icy Niflheim cold still bled through the walls. Mickey, down to his boxers, shivered like a wet cat. The only warmth came from Nasha’s red velvet robe against his body. But then she stepped back for a moment, she when she touched him again, he felt her bare stomach and legs.

“I wanna show you something,” she whispered in his ear, softer this time.

Mickey could barely scramble his thoughts together enough to respond.

“More lipstick?” he asked.

Nasha giggled, then stepped away from him. Mickey dared to turn around, and saw Nasha open the drawer next to their bed. The bottom drawer. The one Mickey thought neither of them ever used.

He watched, wide-eyed, as she pulled out a black leather harness studded with silver buckles, like the kind he used to wear on his climbing missions on Niflheim’s small mountain range. But Mickey realized it wasn’t climbing gear when he saw what was strapped to the front: A dark blue, plastic phallus. 

Nasha, stripped down to her gray bra and underwear, turned to look at Mickey. She dangled the harness by one crooked finger, to make sure he got a good look at it.

“Do you know what this is?” she asked.

Though Mickey never admitted it, he nodded.

“Do you want to help me put it on?”

Mickey nodded even harder, and rushed over to her. He dropped his knee to the floor in front of her and she handed him the harness. It took a moment for him to figure out which hole was what, but once he did, he felt it open so Nasha could stick each leg inside. He loved dressing her. He did it all the time when she was an agent, and he still did now that she was a councilwoman. Adjusting her gun holster, her shoes, zipping up the back of her robes. It felt right, like he was watching her come together.

He pulled the harness up to her waist and tugged the straps into the buckles. She ruffled his hair.

“Not too tight,” Nasha said.

Mickey nodded. When he finished, his eyes were on the phallus. He mentally compared it to his own cock, which was starting to ache in his underwear.

“One of the girls lent it to me,” Nasha said. “She snuck it with her off of earth. A backup, so she’d never used it.”

Mickey didn’t care much if it had been used, because he was too busy drooling over how Nasha’s legs looked in the harness, and his asshole clenched at the sigh of the long shape. Nasha gently took his chin under her fingers, and forced him to look up at her. 

She smiled down at him. Mickey had dark blue eyes that gleamed big and wide in the light, like a poor kicked puppy. She caressed his cheek with her hand, and Mickey nuzzled into her tough. Her fingertips brushed against his lips, and without having to tell him, Mickey opened his lips and let her press two fingers inside him.

“God, you’re so cute,” Nasha cooed.

She finger-fucked his mouth for a moment. Mickey, as if remembering their brief time with 18, sucked at her finger like he could get her off that way. He moaned with his eyes closed and savored the taste, holding her wrist in his hand so he could take in more of her.

Then, Nasha glanced at the door. Between Mickey’s thighs, his precome had started to drip dangerously close to the carpet.

“You’re gonna make a mess,” she said.

Mickey opened his eyes and looked at her.

“Do you want me inside you?” Nasha asked.

Mickey nodded. Nasha pulled her fingers out of his mouth, a long strain of saliva connecting her fingertips to his lips. 

“Then lose the underwear,” she said.

Mickey swallowed and rose to his feet. Nasha sat on the edge of the bed again and forced him to stand in front of her in the middle of the room.

“Go ahead,” she said, crossing one lovely leg over the other. “Strip for me, baby.”

Mickey was cherry-red in the face, but did as he was told. He took the seam of his boxers and pulled them down, letting them drop to the floor. It wasn’t exactly the sexiest striptease. In their brief time alone, Mickey 18 had put on one hell of a show for Nasha, including a full lap dance with his ass curled into her lap.

But that was a different Mickey. This Mickey, who’s awkwardness and flustered expression only endeared him more to her. Sexy in a way that made her want to eat him alive.

He kicked his boxers to the side. His cock was burning red and hard, and Mickey resisted the temptation to cover it with his hands. Nasha looked him up and down with a gaze that felt like a tongue on Mickey’s body.

Then, she crooked a finger at him.

“Come here,” she said.

Mickey, trembling like a cornered deer, took a few steps closer to her. When he was close enough, Nasha took his hand in hers. She turned it over, playing with his fingers.

“You have nice hands,” she said.

“Thank you,” Mickey said.

“They’re my second favorite thing about you.”

Before Mickey could ask what Nasha meant by that, she looked him in the eyes, and with one impressively strong tug, pulled him down onto the bed. Mickey’s face hit the duvet and Nasha mounted behind him.

“You’re mine, Mickey Barnes,” she said. 

Nasha pressed one hand up his rectum, and Mickey let out a mangled moan. 

“Not Kai’s…not Marshall’s…all mine.”

Mickey’s legs instinctively spread and his ass perked up. He’d never felt this before, but somehow Nasha knew just which way to press one finger—and then two—to make him whine.

“Yours,” he whimpered. “I’m all yours.”

Nasha, her fingers wet from Mickey’s spit, pressed a third finger inside of him before finally readying herself at his entrance. She started slowly, giving Mickey a moment to moan and whine against the new sensation filling him from behind. She pushed deeper, then a little, slowly began swerving her hips.

At this point, Mickey and Nasha had fucked each other in just about every way it was possible for two people to fuck each other. But not once had he taken her up his ass like this, and waves of pleasure were intense enough to bring tears to his eyes. It was like she had found a key to a secret room in his body that even he never knew about.

He moaned with each thrust she pounded into him. The springs in the mattress sang beneath their eight. The harness put pressure on Nasha’s clit, and the sounds Mickey made below her were enough to get her sweating.

“You like that?” she said between labored breaths.

Mickey couldn’t even respond anymore. All he could do was mutter out a euphoric sound as she fucked him deeper and deeper. Nasha stroked her hands down his back. One hand smoothed down to his ass, and she gave him a firm, red smack. Mickey cried out in pleasured pain and felt the burning outline of her hand on his cheek.

Nasha’s haggard breaths turned to moans and Mickey could see she was getting close. Despite his painful cock, he tried to hold it in, let her come first. Nasha snatched Mickey by his hair and tugged his head back, making his back arch. Mickey could have finished right there, but he hissed between his teeth as he edged himself.

“That’s it, baby,” Nasha said. She was thrusting so hard the bed frame shook beneath them, and Mickey thought it would break. “Take it…take all of it… you’re fucking mine .”

And with that, Nasha tipped her head back. Her eyes closed and she licked her lips as an intense orgasm climbed up her body like a wildfire. She let Mickey’s face fall back down onto the mattress.

Now, freshly satisfied, Nasha turned an evil smile back down to her husband. She gripped his hips in her hands, her nails digging into his flesh, and fucked him so hard that he started squeal.

“Fuck me,” Mickey moaned as he grew closer and closer to the edge. “Fuck, please, I’m yours, I’m—”

It was hot and sharp like a fire poker. Mickey came on Nasha’s strap with an intensity he hadn’t felt before. Even after every drop of him had been drained out, Nasha kept fucking him, and fucking him, and fucking him, until finally her hips slowed to a stop.

Both of them were dripping with sweat. Nasha was smirking and Mickey was trembling. She pulled out of him and rubbed his back.

“You okay, baby?” she whispered in his ear. Her tone was soft, sweet, like she hadn’t just finished obliterating him from behind. All Mickey could do was press his blushing face into the bed and clutch the duvet in his hands.

Nasha swiped the lipstick tube off the floor and leaned over her husband’s sweaty back. Mickey flinched as she started writing on his left shoulder with the lipstick. In her elegant cursive, she wrote “NASHA BARRIDGE” across his back.

When she was done, she capped the lipstick and pressed one more kiss to Mickey’s shoulder. She whispered in his ear.

“The chicken’s probably burning downstairs,” she said. “I’ll go pull it out the oven and we can have dinner. You can bring Zekei down to join us.”

With that, Nasha grabbed her robe off the floor and disappeared out the door. It would take a few minutes for Mickey to pull himself off the bed, put his clothes back on, and gather Zekei up in his arms to take him downstairs.

And when he would, Nasha would see him descend the steps, covered in her lipstick, a flustered smile on his face.

[archivofliv]

꒷꒦꒷꒦꒷꒦꒷꒦꒷ » ℍ𝕠𝕞𝕚𝕔𝕚𝕡𝕙𝕖𝕣 ℍ𝕖𝕒𝕕𝕔𝕒𝕟𝕠𝕟𝕤 . . . ♡ˎˊ˗

contains hcs for characters and the world homicipher takes place

may contain spoilers for the game

a lot of character lore and world building (if you have different interpretations than me please let me know !!)

yes most of these are angsty asf i am SORRY okay

I'd like to make it clear that only the creator knows the truth of these characters and the world they're in, this is just my interpretation of it

» 𝚃𝙷𝙴 '𝙰𝙽𝙾𝚃𝙷𝙴𝚁 𝚆𝙾𝚁𝙻𝙳' . . .

Most of the characters were originally human—except Mr. Scarletetta, who I believe created this entire world. He designed it as a trap and exists as an almost godlike glitch entity

The other characters went through the same thing as MC and fell into his trap, and the more monstrous they appear, the longer they've been trapped there

I believe Scarletetta—considering most characters and assuming my headcanon is correct—lures in individuals who are either deeply damaged or repressing their true selves to conform to society

Given that the story is set in Japan, where social norms emphasize politeness, humility, and cleanliness, these types of people would make ideal targets. Those who are damaged often have low self-worth, making them easier to manipulate, while those who suppress their true selves in such a structured society might be drawn to something raw and chaotic—like the decayed ruins surrounding the elevator and Mr. Scarletella’s striking red color scheme (as red represents violence and is psychologically an enticing color to the brain)

The characters were certainly in a better state when they first fell into the underworld. However, I headcanon that the longer someone remains there, it not only alters them physically but also affects them mentally, bringing out their most primal, repressed instincts and scrambling their memories

» 𝙲𝙷𝙰𝚁𝙰𝙲𝚃𝙴𝚁𝚂 . . .

(Just Mr. Crawling and Scarletella because they're my favs and I have the most thoughts about them, but there are other characters in the next section !!)

Mr. Crawling:

Mr. Crawling is so unique because, at his core, he is genuinely a good person. Even as the underworld strips him down to his rawest instincts, thoughts, and emotions, his inherent goodness remains

However, he does kill—like when he takes the life of Mr. Stitch—showing that even he isn’t free from violence. But that brutality isn’t necessarily bloodlust or anything of the sort, but rather to protect MC out of the goodness in his heart

I believe Mr. Crawling descended into the other world more recently than some other characters— along with Mr. Hood, MC, and The Bride. While the other characters retain only a spark of their humanity, if you were to place him in a normal human body and remove his monstrous traits, he would still feel entirely human even as he is now

Mr. Crawling has very low self worth— he endures so much pain from MC: she nearly kills him, strikes him in the head with a crowbar, and dodges a flying chair, letting it hit him instead. And that’s not even counting the emotional pain she inflicts. She terrifies him, manipulates his emotions, and, despite everything he’s done for her, ultimately abandons him in multiple storylines. She makes him believe he is loved, only to leave him behind

Mr. Crawling protects MC and makes it his goal to get her home because he doesn't want her to transform into a monster the longer he stays down there

Mr. Scarletella:

Mr. Scarletella was never meant to be good—I don’t think there’s any reality where he is, even if he weren’t a glitch, a monster, or even if he were human

His nature is inherently selfish; he doesn’t truly care about the MC—he only wants her identity because he’s desperately grasping at anything he can

The reason Mr. Scarletella created the other world is the first place is because he just wants something to hold onto that even slightly resembles an identity and/or human connection but he doesn't understand those things so he does it all wrong

Mr. Scarletella is deeply lonely, as he never interacts with the other monsters (except for Mr. Crawling, but that’s not a positive interaction—Mr. Crawling just saves the MC from him)

In the Scarlet Rain ending, MC exploits Mr. Scarletella's obsession and isolation, making him her servant under the guise of giving him an identity—she names him

Mr. Scareletta, desperate for something to cling to, accepts it, misinterpreting it as love, because he doesn’t truly understand what love is—he just needs something to hold onto

(fine i'll give you a break from the angst, i guess, so have some random headcanons)

» 𝚂𝙸𝙻𝙻𝚈 & 𝙻𝙸𝙶𝙷𝚃𝙷𝙴𝙰𝚁𝚃𝙴𝙳 . . .

Mr. Silvair gets his root touch up at the hairdresser and actually isn’t a natural platinum, he's a natural dirty blond

When Mr. Machete was human he used to bully kids on Roblox

Mr. Crawling loves when MC braids his hair or plays with it

Love Languages:

☆ Mr. Crawling- Physical touch and words of affirmation ☆ Mr. Scarletella- Quality time and words of affirmation ☆ Mr. Hood- Acts of service ☆ Mr. Machete- Acts of service ☆ Mr. Gap- Gift giving ☆ Mr. Silvair- Physical touch

Ms. Blue-Clad and The Bride were friends when they were human and shared a fashion Tumblr blog

Mr. Crawling would love taking bubble baths if they had bathtubs in the other world; he can stand for a short amount of time, but it's painful for him so showers don't work well for him

Mr. Hood is the oldest of all the characters and Mr. Chopped is the youngest (except for Hooded Child, of course)

ALL of the other characters know about the Mr. Crawling and Mr. Scarletella beef they all see it

Mr. Stitch finds it entertaining and Mr. Hood wants them to just shut the fuck up because he's sick of it (real)

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i'll be adding more to this as i think of more headcanons, i just like rambling on about this game :)