#anyway watch leverage thanks

[reidmania]

control | spencer reid

summary; reader has a hard time with eating habits due to lack of control, thankfully Spencer notices everything.

warnings; details of eating disorders caused by lack of control, feeling the need to control the amount & what you eat, starvation, reader is avoidant and a little tiny bit mean, hurt x comfort, angst, happish hopeful ending, female reader.

i think this is around 3k?? im not sure tho bc i cbf checking 💯💯 tags; @i-live-in-spite

an; please don’t hate me, thats all i have to say when publishing this. please.

Your pen hit against the wooden desk momentarily— repeatedly as you stared at the paperwork in front of you. Although your mind was focusing on a hundred things other than the paper you we’re supposed to be finishing.

It wasn’t until the sound of your name being called that you were pulled out of your trance, looking up you noticed Penelope Garcia standing in front of you.

She repeated your name when you met her eyes, “Sorry” You muttered softly, bringing your hand up to your face, pushing hair off of your forehead as you leant back against your desk chair. “Whats up?”

“I said your name like ten times honey. Wheres your mind” She asked softly, tilting her head slightly to the side. There was a hint of jokingness in her tone, which gave you the leverage to laugh off the question.

“I brought donuts!!” She said excitedly. Which was when you noticed the pink box in her hands. You also realised that you were insanely out of it — for not noticing sooner.

You raised your eyebrow as a slight frown hesitated over your lips, before you just pulled it back into a smile. “Thats sweet pen!! Im okay though, Thank you.” You said, smiling up at the blonde women.

She hummed, not even half convinced of your dismissal of her offer. She reached into the box pulling out your favourite donut with a wide smile on her face. “Are you sure? I got your favourite!” She said in a singsong voice as she waved it around.

You realised the chances of you getting out of taking the donut were insanely slim, probably close to none.

“Alright.” You gave in, watching her already wide smile grow impossibly wider as she placed your donut on a plain white napkin, leaving it on your desk before she shuffled away to deliver the rest of the donuts before you even got the chance to thank her.

The donut sat untouched over the course of the next few hours as you returned to your work.

“Don’t let Garcia see that you didn’t eat it. She almost assaulted me when I tried to decline” Spencer spoke from behind you, making you jump slightly, before turning your head to face him.

You were confused for a moment, eyebrows furrowed as you looked at him. He seemed to sense your confusion, causing a small chuckle to pass his lips as he nudged his head slightly towards your desk. Your eyes followed where he head nudged towards, eyes landing upon the uneaten donut sitting there.

You sighed. “Its probably no good now anyways” You said, looking back at him for a moment. Pushing a smile to your lips before turning your head back to your work.

Spencer was easily your best friend. Not just inside the BAU but outside as well. You guys had usual outings, going to coffee shops, libraries, little cafe’s, watching doctor who together in his living room which always ended in you staying a little too late and falling asleep in his bed.

Maybe a little more then best friends, but neither of you cared to address it.

“Do you want me to get you a new one?” He asked, a slight frown tugging at his lips as he noticed your unusually dismissive behaviour. Avoiding his gaze, keeping conversation short, the way you were rubbing your temple.

He had been watching you all day, you did minimal work instead spending majority of the day staring at the paper work, then excusing yourself to the bathroom way more often then normal.

It wasn’t just today either, it had been building up slowly for ages. Spencer noticed all of it. Your tired eyes, disoriented mind and how you had grown more and more quiet as the days went on — spending too much time in your own mind.

You shook your head, not looking up at him as you started tapping your pen over and over again. “No thanks, spence. Im alright.” You muttered, your free hand coming to rub your eyes.

His frown deepened as he walked around to the side of your desk to get a clear look at your face — it was much prettier to look at than the back of your head, not that there was anything wrong with the back of your head. Your face just had much more endearing features.

“Have you eaten today?” He asked, but he knew the answer.

There was no point lying — you knew that. Spencer had been around you all day. The only time you left your desk was to go to the bathroom an abnormal amount of times an hour. “No, Ill get something later” You answered, your words falling nothing short of a lie.

He raised his eyebrow as you kept your gaze on the desk. “Did you eat yesterday?” He asked. His tone wasn’t daring or malicious in any sort of way. Pure concern laced every word.

You nodded but the words to confirm never followed, making a the pit in his stomach only deepened when the reality of what he thought was going on felt a little more confirmed.

“Do you want to come over tonight?” He asked, his voice was quiet as if he was scared if he spoke to loud you would break, scatter along the ground into a million little pieces, shards flying, only for them to prick you and leave you bleeding if you tried cleaning them up.

You turned your head slightly at his quiet request, you searched his face for something — anything that may give you any sort of reason to back out of his offer, but how could you say no to him?

“Sure. Ill come after dinner” The pit deepened.

He shook his head “No, no. Let’s cook something.” He suggested, you only laughed at him, eyes widening slightly.

“Me and you cooking? Come on spence be serious” You laughed, he almost wanted to feed into the joke just to continue to see the smile on your face, but he knew it was ingenuine. He couldn’t be upset about it.

“I am being serious.”

Your head tilted to the side as you looked up at him, you could see on his face — he was waiting for an answer. You finally gave in, sighing. “Fine, do you want me go to the shops on the way there?” You asked.

He shook his head, “I’ll go, all you have to do is show up” He said, a smile lacing his lips — it almost made you smile back. “Okay” You agreed once more before.

He smiled, before returning back to his desk.

Normally you would be ecstatic to hang out with Spencer — on any other occasion. The idea of having to cook and then feeling too bad to deny the food after the effort you both put in didn’t exactly strike your fancy all that much.

Your hand knocked on his door and moments later he was opening it with a soft smile on his face. He stepped aside letting you walk in wordlessly as you set your bag down by the door, taking in the warmth of his apartment that soothed the cold of your skin slightly, not enough, nothing seemed to sooth that.

“I got the stuff to make pasta.. I figured it was simple and easy enough for us” He mumbled as he took your hand in his, guiding you to the kitchen, you let out a small laugh, following him.

Although the feeling of discomfort remained in your chest and all over your body, not because of his hand in yours or anything to do with him, but the idea of food make your stomach twist, which the knowledge you’d have to be around it constantly with no chance of an escape or way out, it made your blood run cold.

“Awesome” You mumbled out, much more enthusiastically than you felt. His hand pressed softly against your back as he moved to stand on the side of you before his hand left, instead pressing against the counter as his eyes stayed on your face.

He hummed softly, looking down at the ingredients he had brought after asking rossi for a recipe he could use, the simplest the elder man had was given.

Spencer began by boiling the pasta, although you teased him about buying store brought pasta instead of making it yourselves like the recipe recommended, you had mixed opinions on it.

On one hand, the store brought pasta saved you both a lot of time and energy and probably mess, knowing if the two of you attempted to make it yourselves it would end up being a big mess and probably take about three different tries before you got it close to right.

On the other, heavier hand, your mind seemed clouded with the knowledge of how much sugar and fats were in store brought pasta, how processed it was seemed to take over the space in your mind. It was silly, you knew that deep down it was such a little thing and it didn’t make that much of a difference— to anyone else.

To you it was everything.

“I think the water is boiling” Spencer mumbled as he looked over the water in the pot, a laugh slipped through your lips as his half convinced voice pulled you from your mess of a mind. You walked towards where he was standing to look over the water in the pot that was in fact boiling.

“Well it’s bubbling and extremely hot.. so yes, I think you would be right” You nudged him slightly as he placed the pasta into the pot, your stomach clenched.

The two of you worked to cut vegetables together, in your mind you were working up the math of how many calories was in all of this combined, Spencer noticed your distracted glance, the way your mind seemed to be a hundred different places at once, anywhere but there with him.

He frowned, “What’s going through your head?” He asked softly, dropping his gaze back down to the zucchini he was cutting into thin slices, each one a different size to the other but he figured it didn’t matter.

You turned your head to look at him, aching at his question entirely. You wanted to tell him the thoughts running through your mind, the concern and doubt that had been consuming you for weeks but it all died on your tongue when his hands reached into the bag to bring out a jar sauce.

You hated the way that a stupid jar of sauce was what caused the most reaction from you, instead of answering his question your eyes widened and your head immediately was shaking. “We can’t use that.” You muttered.

He furrowed his eyebrows in confused and concern as he looked between you and the jar of sauce for a moment, wondering if maybe there was something you were allergic too or if this was the chance he had to confirm his idea of what had been going on with you.

“Why not?” He quizzed.

You huffed out, hands stilling on the knife and tomato you were cutting, before the knife was placed on the cutting board and you were reaching out for a tea down to wipe your hands. “We just- We can’t.” You settled on.

He raised his eyebrow, placing the jar on the table. Spencer wasn’t stupid, not in the slightest, although he knew pushing on this was either the smartest or dumbest thing he could possibly do in this situation.

“But why?” He pushed anyways.

You dragged your hands through your hair, “Do you know how much sugar is in that? Thats like so insanely processed and unhealthy..” You muttered out.

It all kind of settled in for Spencer in that moment, he had known you for years, you were never a crazy health freak. He had seen the signs come and go over the last few years but they were always subtle enough, until more recently, they came and they just didn’t seem to go.

“Does that bother you?” He challenged quietly.

You could see it in his eyes and feel it in the air that he exhaled that seemed to fill the space between the two of you, he knew.

“Yes- Spencer. Obviously it bothers me or else I wouldn’t tell you we couldn’t use it.” You stated, obviously growing frustrated. Spencer would normally double down at this point, not wanting to argue but he knew you, he knew this. There was no real other way to get you to break.

If he approached it softly, you’d deny it. He tried that before.

“Why? Why does it bother you?” He asked, raising his eyebrow. His tone was still laced with concern and slight challenge. It made your stomach tense and your arms line with goosebumps.

“Spencer seriously” You mumbled out, looking up at him, “Just drop it.” You sighed out, “Use the sauce- but I’m not eating it.”

He hummed, of course he wasn’t going to use the sauce if you had a real issue with it. He knew you had a real issue with it. Obviously. “Just tell me what’s wrong. Tell me why you aren’t eating” He pushed lightly.

“I am eating.” You huffed out, dragging your hands down your face.

He just hummed again, obviously disinterested in hearing your weak arguments and defence. “I know you’re not, I just don’t know why.” He argued back, he wasn’t going to drop this, not when it was something so concerning to your health.

“Spencer” You tone was a warning he chose to ignore. You could feel the tears burning their way behind your eyes and the tingle in the bridge of your nose which gave you enough of a warning of how this was going to go.

“Talk to me, sweet girl. I want to help you, let me help you.” He said breathlessly, his tone much softer than it had been previously, he stepped close to you, hands reaching out to grab onto your wrists. His fingers dug gently into the pressure point of your wrists, you’d die before you’d admit it helped regulate the emotions coursing through your body, even though it did.

You cursed his beautiful smart brain.

“I just- Cant.. I can’t eat.” You admitted, the tears now blurring your vision as the made way to the waterline of your eyes, your voice was shaky and cracked in every other syllable of your words.

His expression softened, he figured the words he wanted to say could wait. Instead his hands tugged you closer to him gently as he pulled your body flush against his. His hand cradling the back of your head as his fingers threaded through your hair to hold your head in place against his chest, his other hand resting on your upper back as he held you tightly.

Your arms instantly wrapped around his waist as your head found home in the fabric of his shirt over his chest, you chose to focus on the rhythmic beating of his heart rather than the thoughts that swarmed your mind, the doubt and the lack of focus all being forgotten for a moment as you melted in the feeling of Spencer’s arms.

“You’re beautiful, you know that?” He whispered softly into your hair after a moment, as his head rested on top of yours. The words making your heart skip a beat, and a sigh to pass through your lips, the tears continuing to roll down your cheeks.

You pulled back slightly in order to look up at him, voice shaky and quiet as you spoke. “It’s- Its not about that” You admitted. Sure you had days where you didn’t feel the greatest about yourself but that wasn’t the cause of your lack of eating.

He furrowed his eyebrows, leaning down to nudge his forehead against yours softly before leaning his head back, fingertips running gently over your scalp, soothingly. “Then what is it about?” He asked, genuinely wanting to understand.

You sighed, your hands leaving his waist to instead rest against his biceps as you lacked the words to explain your thought process. “I- I just-“ How were you suppose to put the million different thoughts running through your mind into simple words. “I don’t know how to— Say it”

He hummed, understanding. “Word blab, just say anything you feel, everything. It doesn’t have to make sense.. I’ll make sense of it. Im good at puzzles” He mumbled out the slight joke yet his tone was still soft and serious, you had to ignore the way your eyes threatened to roll playfully.

You were silent for a moment before another deep sigh left your parted lips, eyes moving away from his as the words left your mouth in a ramble;

“Its- Everything is so much— Like constantly so much and I feel like everything is moving so fast constantly.. I can’t breathe half the time— And work- god work, everything is happening; people are constantly getting hurt and dying, people are dying and theres nothing we can do about it ever— We can’t save everyone I know but I hate it - everything feels like a mess, im a mess and I just- The amount I eat.. and what I eat is the one thing I have control over; full control.”

The tears were flowing and your voice came out shaky and breathy. Along with a few hiccups that broke through the sobs that ruined the flow of your sentence as you blabbed out everything you couldn’t quite make sense of yourself.

Spencer frowned as he listened to you, taking in every word and every half finished sentence as you just broke down, he took in the way your voice broke and you ended up back against his chest in tears. He didn’t say anything for a moment as he instead held you tightly.

When he did speak, his voice was gentle and warm, like a big hug after a bad day. “I understand — As much as I can. I understand what you are saying. Its normal to want to control things especially when things feel so out of control around you.. But this isn’t a healthy way of coping with that feeling. And i know you know that, sweetheart.” His fingers smoothed out your hair.

You didn’t reply so he continued. “I know you feel like you are making yourself feel better, like you have control over the amount your eating but this is how a cycle starts and I’m pretty sure you also know that, since i am almost positive this isn’t the first time this has happened— Am I right to think that?” he asked softly.

Your breath shook as you nodded into the fabric of his shirt. He hummed in response. He knew that — he had seen it before.

“So you know that when it gets to a certain point you are no longer actually in control of it, instead you actually have the least amount of control. Eating disorders are like an addiction and a disease.. It takes control of you before you even realise it’s happening — and then you actually have less control than you did originally.”

You huffed out as you leant away from his chest to take a deep breath and meet his eyes. You knew he was right, but it made your chest ache to hear aloud. To be told so directly the thought you tried to ignore.

“I just- Everything is a mess.” You mumbled. He nodded.

“Everything is a mess.. But it doesn’t have to stay that way you know? Theres ways to cope with when things feel a little too messy around you, and little too messy up here” He mumbled as his hand came to tap gently against the side of your head. “Theres other things you can control that don’t put your health at risk”

You let a little smile break way onto your lips. It was hard not to smile at the sound of his sweet gentle voice he had reserved for sensitive moments like this. You hummed, shaking your head slightly.

“You’ll help?” You asked softly, looking up at him.

He nodded immediately, “Everyday.” He promised silently, moving down to press his forehead slightly against yours, offering you a small smile.

You returned it, “Thank you.” You breathed out quietly. You knew this wouldn’t be an easy process, you knew it would be a lot of back and forth and take a lot out of you. You would have to rewire the way your brain chose to cope — but—

“Don’t thank me, Sweet girl. Thank you, for trusting me. We can fix this up yeah? Get your pretty mind better, huh?”

— it all seemed a little bit lighter knowing Spencer would be there along the way.

[hightowered]

and you know i gotta say. the vast majority of the people losing their shit this weekend made it very clear that they do not understand the difference between "artists who want a measure of comfort in their lives" and "the billionaires actually being targeted by phrases like eat the rich." that is such a weird thing to be so proud to announce to the whole entire internet.

it's also extremely weird to behave as though any individual is entitled to an artist's work for free. or that the audience should be the final say in determining what an artist creates. there is a major difference between the betrayal of an artist who produces art and then banks on their social capital to engage in harmful, violent, bigoted behavior (like jk rowling) and the "betrayal" of an artist who decides that they should be or need to be compensated for their work. the latter isn't actually a betrayal at all. it's just a shift.

the thing is that the watcher boys didn't invent capitalism, they didn't invent the streaming model, they didn't invent youtube or patreon. they aren't getting 100% of the money from either. their merch doesn't magically appear as if made by elves while they sleep. their videos don't happen out of nowhere and without incurring bills. they have a business which employs people, and sure, you can say they employ too many people, but do they actually? a bunch of randos on the internet don't actually know that. they don't know these job titles, or how necessary it is to have everyone there. it's pure speculation. the entire company exists within a system they did not invent and are trying to stay afloat in said system while a bunch of assholes on the internet berate them for not acquiescing to their every whim at the expense of their artistic integrity, their ability to compensate their staff fairly, and their ability to keep making art.

and jumping from "i want to continue enjoying this artist's work for free" to "i think people should be fired and the remaining employees should be given greater responsibilities and more tasks to complete" is wild to me. there's nothing leftist in that and so trying to leverage leftist jargon to prove some sort of moral superiority is fucking wild, it's disingenuous, and it's sketchy as hell. you're allowed to be disappointed. you're not magically exempt from being told you're being an asshole if you decide your disappointment entitles you to take part in asshole behavior.

"but we don't want something heavily produced and we don't want these shows" then don't watch! that's it! don't watch! you are not being held hostage and forced to engage with this content. you have the choice not to. throwing a tantrum and launching racist vitriol at steven lim and demanding he step down as CEO shows a level of entitlement and childishness that, frankly, i wish they could have ignored, but they're both kinder & more patient than i am.

anyway congratulations to watcher on their new streaming service and their gorgeous new website, congratulations to the boys on a new step in their careers and on achieving something they've made clear they've wanted for ages, thank you to the boys for all their hard work and for sharing their creativity with us. thank you too for taking such a big and genuinely brave step to no longer be beholden to major corporations and advertisers so you can make the art you want to make. thank you to steven lim for taking so many steps back to keep the company running and for doing your best in a shit economy and while being targeted by this kind of nastiness online. and thank you to the entire team at @wearewatcher for continuing to do amazing work despite being treated like shit by the fan community at large on the internet while you're trying to make a living and create art. you all deserve better than you've been shown of late and i hate that such an exciting moment got overshadowed by so many temper tantrums.

because the whole fucking point, the dream, is getting to make the art that matters to them, without being held back. i'm sorry y'all don't want the heavily produced and high quality shit but your preferences as a member of an audience are not the law by which artists should abide. they are artists and they are free to, and deserve to, make the art they want to make.

[tojipie]

BABES i love ur writing sm ugh can i request a how prisoner toji met the love of his life? mwah thank you

prison bf series linked here !

content: (p in v smut, car sex, fluff, angst, fem!reader)

you met toji on a weeknight during the short time you worked as a waiter in the city.

the restaurant was empty, save for him at a table in the corner. it was 30 mins before closing time, and the older man showed no signs of leaving. whether that was to your chagrin or your delight was still unclear.

“so that’s the foie gras and the bottle of La Grande Dame?” you ask sleepily, setting the meal down with a shaky hand.

“that’s right.” the raven haired man tells you, pouring himself a glass of the ridiculously pricey wine. “thanks kid.”

to say that you were nervous would be an understatement, you were terrified. the man in front of you was gorgeous, broad with raven hair and a deep scar running the height of his lips. you’d be blushing if it weren’t for the fatigue that’d settled throughout the length of your body. 9 hour shifts were no joke.

toji glances over at you, taking in the tremble of your hands. you’re a sweet little thing, probably new to the college you attend, working past midnight to pay off whatever you still owe from last semester.

“hey.” he whispers, motioning to the table, “sit down for a little.”

you glance around the restaurant in horror, he’s not talking to you right? he can’t be. you slowly let him lead you into the chair that lies opposite to his, sighing at the relief you feel in your thighs and shoulders.

“thank you.” you mumble, laying your head down on the cool wood of table. he chuckles at that, watching you rub the aches from your neck and shoulders. you don’t care who sees, much less if this interaction costs you your job.

“tired?” he teases, pushing his plate towards you.

“have some, pretty girls need to eat.”

“mm no thank you. i don’t like duck.” you mumble, letting the deep bass of his laughter lull you right to sleep.

you were fired within minutes, that much is obvious. doomed to hand in your little name tag and apron while the raven haired man bickers with your manager at the door.

“you call yourself a businessman? you work her like a fucking dog and you think that makes you a pimp or something? i told her to nap. she fucking needed the sleep!”

you tug on the sleeve of his suit jacket, urging him to follow you out the door. toji sighs, running hand through his hair.

“it’s ok.” you tell him, “i was gonna quit before spring break came anyways.”

sleeping on the job at a Michelin star restaurant probably wasn’t the best course of action. though it wasn’t all bad, you did end up receiving the best fuck of your life that same night.

“oh my god—fuck! oh my god.” you pant, digging your fingernails into the driver’s seat headrest. the raven haired man ruts into you from below, wrapping both hands around your waist to use as leverage.

“shit, you’re a nice piece of ass kid.” he mutters, reaching down to rub your little button with the pad of his thumb. you feel your stomach erupt in flames at the crude compliment. why hadn’t you tried fucking customers before?

you hang onto the back of the seat for dear life, wailing as you drip all over his thighs.

“look, that’s all for me?” he asks, pulling your cheeks apart to see where the two of you connect. the older man leans forward to suck on your neck, voice shaky with the force of his impending climax.

“you’re gonna make me fucking cum, you know that? fuck.” the way he holds you so sweetly deeply contrasts the filth he spews right into your skin. you’ve never been this cock-drunk in your life, babbling nonsense in the back of a horrifyingly spacious bmw while a man you met an hour ago pummels your cunt open.

it’s quiet as the two of you drive back to your place. toji’s suit jacket is draped around your shoulders, shielding you from the frigid night air. the windows are cracked to let the cold in, no doubt to try and get all the glass in the car to unfog.

jesus. you just want to go to bed.

“this is me.” you tell him, gathering your bag from the floor to enter your apartment. the raven haired stranger slips you a card with a number on it. you pocket it and thank him, giddy at his implication of seeing you again.

“i had fun tonight.” you tell him shyly, leaning over to peck the scar on his mouth. he groans, pulling you towards him to kiss your forehead.

“you take care of yourself ok? no more dead end jobs.” you nod, kissing him again.

“here.” he says sternly, slipping a rubber-banded roll of cash through the opening in your purse.

you pause, stomach turning sour at the gesture.

“i’m not a hooker, you don’t need to pay me just because we had sex.” you mutter, digging in your bag to give the money back.

“you know that’s not why i gave it to you.” he tells you plainly. tucking a loose strand of your behind your ear.

“do what you need to do, pay off what you need to pay, and then call me so i can take you out on a real date.”

you pause, looking at the ground shyly.

“ok?” he asks.

you nod, reaching to intertwine your fingers.

“ok.”

tag list ! <3 🏷️

@honeybee54321 @m150-50up @kuryoomi @t4naiis @serendippindots @sillyalo @levixbby @powerrwa @tojishugetiddies

[stararch4ngelqueen]

MY BRAIN IS MELTING BRO

i saw a tiktok with Ghost's hand measurements-

TELL ME WHY HIS HAND IS ALMOST BIGGER THAN MY HEAD HELLO-

the brainrot is brainrotting and im so obsessed with this man

anyways maybe a drabble with a *sprinkle* of size kink with ghost fucking f!reader???

i hope your part of the world is doing well!!

Big hands. Help me. Kinda went off track with request, it’s not the best thing I’ve done, but I hope you like it

thank you for your cervix 🫡🌝

A thick palm slips along your soft, cushiony body, fingers sprawling along your damp abdomen, smooth skin meeting the weathered state of his calloused fingers.

“So wet,” The Lieutenant grumbles over you, feeling your muscles clench around the width of his cock. “Eager, eager little girl.”

You took him in so easily after fucking you with just the tip for a good few moments. The continuous cycle of Ghost watching the head of his cock pop into your eager little soaked hole before you squeezed him out; an erotic torture for you both.

You wanted more, begging for more of what you couldn’t take quite yet, but who was Ghost to say no?

You wanted the challenge. So take it.

Your breasts lightly bounced with every torturous rock, your ass flush against his waist. An electric sting of overstimulation renders you speechless, babbling crooked cries crossing his ears as angelic symphonies.

Those delicious fingers, still damp with your juices, lightly massaged along your skin with gentle intention while rocking his hips painfully slow, drawing your measly little whimpers for as long as possible.

Your body was nothing compared to his stature. Your hips weakly locked around his broad waist, twitching calves trembling along the fat muscles of his thighs. Everything about Ghost was big. Everything.

“Ohh, Y’like that?” Simon leans down over your quivering body, the slow angle squishing the tip of his cock directly against your cervix. The stretch, the pressure of feeling so full in such a short amount of time.

“Tough girl, ain’t ya?” Your Lieutenant rasps, returning his hand along your front once more,

He thrusts once, quite hard in fact, surprised to feel the bluntness faintly bump against his palm. Your back arched, a loud gasp leaving your kiss bitten lips.

He chuckles. Dark, delicious, boldly.

“What’s the matter, love? Can’t take it?”

He leaves no room for answer, skin harshly hitting soaked skin as he bucks again, biting back a rumbled grunt. His gaze falls in love with those sweet, bouncing tits, his spine nearly collapsing from the tight tension of your cunt gripping his shaft.

That blunt blow against his palm was magnificent, making you see bright flashes behind closed eyes. He bucks his hips again, pushing his palm deep just enough to gain a higher pitched whine, reminding you just how deep his big cock was buried inside your pussy. Essentially his now.

“Open ‘em,” Ghost requests, lowering himself just enough to kiss along your forehead. “Open those eyes,”

Your lashes brimmed with tears, peering up at him as if he was a God, clinging to what mercy he could possibly give. Those pretty lips, those watery eyes, apple flushed cheeks, all making his dick throb deliciously.

“S’Alright. Breathe for me, good. That’s good, good girl.” During his words, his hands work on reinforcing his hold on your hips, grasping along your thighs for proper leverage. Be expected to see muddled bruises the size of his fingerprints.

“You’ll get used to it.”

Again, he hopes you never will. It’s not his fault his pretty girl isn’t used to proper cock yet. Good thing you have him around now.

[whatsnewalycat]

SURRENDER

Part Two of Ruthless | Stepdad Joel Miller x f!Reader

Rating: Explicit (18+ ONLY)

Word Count: 6.2k+

Warnings: non-canon, Boston Joel, dub con, step-cest, sneaky sex, use of the word daddy in a sexual context, dad kink (that’s a thing right?), age gap, degradation, praise kink, avoidance, silent treatment, sneaking into bedroom at night, angst, collective grief, mentions of explosions and gunshots (nothing graphic), *it’s about the yearning*, hair pulling, no physical descriptions of reader aside from hair can be pulled, reader is 18-19, Joel being a bad dom and a bad caretaker, hot shower, food mention, mentions of religion, unethical D/s dynamics, dry humping, anal sex, physical restraint, face fucking, sub-space unlocked, dirty talk, dd/lg maybe i think, masochism, like a lick of fluff if u squint 

A/N: Heeeey buddy. As stated above, this is a second part to Ruthless. Big thanks to my love @frannyzooey for the help and hype, you're the best. Please be mindful of the warnings and tell me what cults you think exist in post-outbreak tlou.

[ my masterlist ] [ taglist ] [ AO3 ]

———

As the 19-year anniversary of Outbreak Day draws near, unrest festers in the streets of Boston.

Whenever August ticks over into September, residents of the QZ seem to divide into three distinct categories: people who want to forget, people who won’t let them forget, and people who are too young to remember. 

Born post-apocalypse, you fall into this third category. 

Which doesn’t mean the ripples of loss don’t touch you, contrary to what some may think. You still lost something. Everyone did. 

This fact is apparent when you take the scenic route home from your job posting at the distribution center. 

Rubble crunches under your shoes as you walk down the crowded sidewalk, passing by a message spray-painted over the battered brick building: WE’VE BEEN FORSAKEN. 

Graffitied sentiments like these pop up constantly this time of year. Overnight, almost. Your mom and Joel mostly blame Fireflies for the vandalism. The bombs, too. Apparently they stir shit up to make people uneasy, then recruit those who seem susceptible. That’s what your mom thinks, anyway. ‘Leveraging their grief against them,’ she says. 

You think it might be more than that, though. 

Yesterday you saw three separate arguments break out in the streets. When you were taking inventory of k-rations this morning, an explosion went off so close-by that boxes rattled off the shelves. It was the second bombing this week, and you don’t foresee it getting better until October. 

Sure, the Fireflies lay claim to the lion’s share of vandalism and destruction, but their activity is consistent year round. They are the baseline. But this? This is different. 

You attribute the excess chaos to this heavy, static feeling in the air. It clings to your skin and gets stuck under your nails like a thick cloud of invisible dust or spores. Microscopic particles embed themselves in the cracks and creases of each person inside the QZ, fertile ground for clusters of violence to sprout up at every turn. 

If you had to guess, you’d say this phenomenon probably spans the globe. All of you felt the loss of Outbreak Day, the whole human collective. Echoes of what humanity lost will likely still be heard a thousand years from now. 

Some people refuse to accept this. 

Like the guy a few strides ahead of you, who walks by an orange spray-painted message that reads REMEMBER WHAT YOU LOST and sneers, “Almost twenty goddamn years, fuckin’ let it go and move on.” 

You watch him. See his neck get all red as he mutters to himself and clenches his fists at his sides. He looks around like he expects someone to challenge him. Nobody does. 

This doesn’t seem to satisfy him. 

Further up the sidewalk, he encounters a memorial made up of candles and wilting flowers hugging the side of a residential building. He kicks it over and repeats his earlier sentiment, this time louder and directed towards the brick wall. 

“It’s been twenty fucking years, get the fuck over it already!” 

Of course, a passing spectator indulges him. 

“Hey—watch it, asshole!” 

The two men puff up their chests and start yelling back and forth, so you cut right down an alleyway to avoid the situation completely. 

When you arrive home, you find Joel at the dining room table, hunched over a map, holding a glass of whiskey like it’s a lifeline. 

Neither of you say hello, but when you glance up while untying your gritty shoelaces, you catch him staring at you. 

A jolt of electricity shoots through you. 

He corrects himself, returning his eyes to the map as he takes a big swig from his glass. 

“Mom home?” 

“No.” 

Nodding, you rise to your feet and slip out of your shoes, squirming with the excitement that one syllable brings you. 

“When’s she gonna be home?” 

He doesn’t look at you. Just shrugs and takes a sip of whiskey, too engrossed in his project to spare you attention. 

For weeks, he’s been trying his hardest to pretend you don’t exist, which would be typical behavior if he didn’t fuck you dumb a few weeks ago. Sometimes you’re not even sure that what happened between you was real. 

But, then again, sometimes… sometimes you feel him staring at you when he doesn’t think you’ll notice. Sometimes he touches your waist as he passes by. Sometimes at night you hear him pacing the hall outside your bedroom, the faint squeak of the warped floorboards giving him away. 

When this happens, you stare at the door and will him to do it. Aching with something stronger than want, you pray for him to cross the threshold. But he never does. 

You exhale through slack lips and wrinkle your nose at the canned goods. 

“Hungry?”

He grunts in response, which is Joel for ‘I could eat.’

Tilting your head at the handwritten labels, you present the options, “Stew or… meat and beans?” 

Another grunt, roughly translating to ‘Both options are fucking terrible,’ a sentiment with which you wholeheartedly agree. You grab the stew and empty it into a saucepan on the gas stovetop. 

While it heats, you steal glances at Joel, noticing the rigidity in his demeanor. His set jaw and tense muscles. The deep creases in his furrowed brow. 

You’ve coexisted with him long enough to understand he’s not immune to the heady thrum of anguish in the air this time of year. Like you said, nobody is. 

Joel distinctly falls into the “people who want to forget” category of the forsaken, but carries whatever or whoever he lost on Outbreak Day like a ten thousand-pound weight on his broad shoulders. He white-knuckles his way through the season of chaos and mourning and tries to act like it doesn’t affect him, but it does. 

You can tell, not just from the way he holds the grief captive in his body, but also from the obvious indulgence in his favorite coping mechanism: planning. 

Joel is a meticulous planner. 

Between smuggling runs, he comes home after a long day of manual labor at some job site and unwinds by plotting logistics. Drinking, too, but he clearly has a favorite. 

Hours will go by while he pours over reference material, maps or blueprints, making addendums of any notable changes he and your mom discovered. After this, he deliberates. Joel could chew up weeks with this step. He plots out each possible route, taking into consideration all the penciled-in shortcuts and caches they’ve stashed within a 30-mile radius, then determines the most beneficial path for their next big adventure. 

Given FEDRA’s current paranoid state, with the increased patrols and surveillance and whatnot, your mom and Joel won’t be making a trip outside anytime soon. But still, he drinks and plots and winds himself up into a tight obsessive knot. 

You divvy up the simmering stew into two bowls, placing one next to his glass of bootleg booze while you take a seat across the table from him. He ignores your presence, just flicks his eyes around the map like it’s supposed to give him the answers. 

When you’re halfway done with your bowl, you gently prod him, “It’s gonna get cold.” 

Sitting up in his chair, he sighs and scrubs his face with his hands, then folds up the map and sets it aside. 

The two of you eat in silence. Each wordless second twists hot beneath your skin. Your mind wanders to the dig of his fingertips in your soft flesh. The sting of his flattened palm. The stretch of his thick cock. The things he said to you—fuck.  

You’re tempted to tell him to do it again. To tell him that you’re still abiding by his rules. That you don’t sneak out anymore. That you haven’t felt the sweet bliss of release for weeks because you don’t fucking come without his permission. 

Over and over, you rehearse it in your head. You imagine yourself telling him, ‘I’ve been so good for you and you haven’t even noticed.’

The sound of him clearing his throat pulls you from your thoughts. 

He shifts in his seat a little, studying you, “You still seein’ that boy downstairs?” 

Your heart stutters. Heat floods your veins as you shake your head. 

“Why not?” 

All you can do is stare at him while trying to verbalize an answer. For weeks, you ached for his attention. And now that you have it? The words are stuck in your throat. 

You shrug, pushing your empty bowl away to lean your elbows on the table. When you look up at him again, he blinks. Waiting for a response. 

A rush of adrenaline makes the world around you buzz. 

“Why do you care?”

He clenches his jaw for a moment, then parts his lips to respond. 

The apartment door swings open. 

Both of you start at the intrusion. You jump to your feet to collect the dirty dishes while Joel turns to greet your mother. 

“It’s a fucking madhouse out there,” she grumbles, then pulls out the seat adjacent to him and starts telling him about her day. 

———

You step into the shower and hiss in reaction to the scalding hot water. 

The fact that it's warmed at all surprises you. Not an unwelcome surprise, even if it hurts a little. Most days the water comes out tepid at best, and you’d gladly accept a third-degree burn over a lukewarm shower. 

Besides, the sting feels right on your skin, as weird as that sounds. You relish the pain while washing yourself, thinking, ‘this is what I deserve for feeling this way.’ Hell fire, if the sidewalk preachers are right. If there is such a thing. If you’re not there already. 

Only once the water runs cold do you turn it off and go back to your room, leaving the door cracked open behind you. After putting on a big t-shirt and some underwear, you turn off the lights and climb into bed. 

For a while you stare at the water-stained ceiling and listen. You hear the roar of FEDRA’s armed vehicles patrolling the streets. Far away, gunshots ring out into the night. Some kid starts crying next door, then his mother lulls him back to sleep. 

Closing your eyes, you try to tune it all out and focus on the noises within this unit. Concentrate on the drip-drip-drip of the bathtub faucet. The ripping sound of your mom’s snores. 

Then, you hear it. 

A creak from the floorboards. Footsteps. 

Their bedroom door squeaking open. 

Everything goes silent long enough for you hold your breath and scream inside your head, please please please—

It starts again. One careful step, then another. 

His presence hovers there at the door for six restless seconds before he opens it and steps inside, closing it behind him. 

Your pounding heart squeezes your breath ragged. It comes out this shallow, shaky push and pull that broadcasts your consciousness. 

Still, you pretend. 

You keep your eyes pinned shut and listen to the advance of his footsteps to your bedside. 

Down by your feet, the mattress shifts under his weight. He doesn’t touch you for a while, only watches you, his gaze burning into your skin. 

Then, he murmurs, “I know you’re not sleepin’.” 

You blink your eyes open to look at him, in boxers and an undershirt, all hunched over at the foot of your bed. Always carrying that weight on his shoulders. The glow of the street lamp outside your bedroom window casts this perfect golden light on him that makes you kind of hate how good he looks. 

“What are you doing?” you ask in a whisper. 

Over the blanket, he rests his hand on your calf, then takes it back and shakes his head. 

You roll onto your side, swinging one leg over the blanket and tucking it between your thighs, a wordless plea for him to touch your hungry skin. Joel shifts further onto the bed, turning his body to stare down at you with a straight spine. His gaze drifts up your exposed skin, fingers twitching in his lap. 

This faltering self-discipline compels you. 

Joel is nothing if not self-disciplined. That much is true for all the forsaken, yourself included. 

Your working theory is that nobody wants after the world ends, they just need. Need to sleep, need to eat, need to fight. Anything to survive one more fucking day. It’s all any of you can ask for. 

So do you want him, or do you need him? 

And what about him? Joel fucking Miller, with his reinforced concrete walls and heavy heart. Was he ever capable of wanting? 

“Joel,” you reach out to touch him, beckoning him to meet you halfway. 

His eyes flick to your outstretched hand, then back to your face. He shakes his head, as if declining the offer, but you don’t retreat. You sit up and crawl across the bed to him. 

The column of his throat bobs, head rocking back as he watches you come to a stop. He almost lets you touch his cheek when you try again, but snatches your hand away before you can make contact. 

“Don’t,” he warns, the tone of his hushed voice deadly serious. 

He squeezes your fingers while you study his stonewalled expression, tilting your head at him, “Why did you ask me that earlier? If I’m still seeing Bert?”

“I was curious.” 

“Curious why?” 

His lips part, then close, gaze dropping to your mouth. 

Heat pulses through every inch of your body. You drop your voice to a breathy whisper. 

“Were you thinking about what you did to me?” 

Something flickers behind his eyes when they snap onto yours. It draws you in, urging you to scoot so close your knees butt-up against his jackknifed leg. 

“You fucking loved it, didn’t you?” you ask quietly, smirking a little when his stern face twitches, “You loved how it felt to make me surrender—” 

The dull throb of his tightening grip around your hand makes you gasp. A rumble slips from his chest, which could be read as a warning if you had an ounce of self-control left. If you didn’t need him to combust. 

You let your gaze drift from his burning gaze down the slope of his nose to his lips, “Do you think about it every time you see me, like I do with you? How fucking good it felt?” 

“It was wrong—” 

“Then why are you here?”

Your question comes out louder than you expected. It ricochets through the charged space between his body and yours, popping the bubble of awareness around you. 

All the little sounds you picked up on earlier seep back into the foreground. FEDRA patrolling. The whiz-pop of firecrackers going off maybe a block away. A faint murmur of conversation in the upstairs unit. 

He holds your stare, but doesn’t make a sound until a snore rips from your mom’s chest, signaling crisis averted. When he speaks, his words come out hushed and calm. 

“You need to be quiet. Understand?” 

The command liquifies your bones. 

You lick your lips and nod, “I understand.” 

“Good.” He studies you as if deep in thought, finally releasing your hand to pinch your chin and assert, “You know why I’m here. Stop pretendin’ you don’t.” 

It’s hard not to fall in line when he’s looking down at you like this, all hot-blooded and self-assured. Cocky, almost. But you try to push his buttons anyway. 

“I thought it was wrong.”  

“Don’t get cute with me. Yes or no?” 

Your pulse flutters. Tongue goes numb. All you can do is nod. 

He jostles your head a little, “Say it.” 

“Yes.” 

“Say yes please.” 

“Yes please.” 

He works his jaw back and forth, studying you, then tugs your shirt.

“Take this off.” 

While you pull the offending garment over your head and toss it aside, Joel moves further onto the mattress, leaning back against the wall. 

You follow him, swallowing the static buzzing in your throat as he ushers you onto his lap. The scrape of his rough hands on your waist may as well be a live wire crackling across your skin. He pulls you closer and closer until your belly presses into the worn cotton of his shirt. The heat between your legs settles on his stiff length. When he twitches against you, a heady electric current courses through your body and coaxes a whimper from your lips. 

It seems too intimate to look at him, so you cast your gaze downward. Your shaky hands lay flat against his chest, absorbing the rhythmic thud of his heartbeat beneath your palm. 

Being with him like this feels strange. Not strange how it sometimes is with a new partner, that clumsiness before you know how your bodies work together. 

It’s strange in a fucked up out-of-context sort of way. Of course, growing up around him never conditioned you to think of him like this. Joel fucking Miller, with his scarred-up knuckles and unending apathy. The only man who could make big brown eyes like that seem cold. 

All those years, you never considered him anything more than an obstacle. 

Even then, if there was some tiny shimmer of attraction lingering under your skin, a piece of you that wanted more from him, you never thought he could feel so solid and soft and alive. You never dreamed he could make you feel so fucking good.

“This stays between us,” he tells you, more of a command than a request. 

“I won’t tell if you don’t.” 

The tips of his fingers dig into your hips, and he purrs, “You’ve been good for me, haven’t you?”

You preen at the warm timbre of his voice, body arching into him as you breathe, “Yes.”

Under your touch, his muscles tense. He exhales hot against your cheek and guides your hips in a rocking motion, slow and steady, rubbing all those aching nerves hard against him. 

“You liked it, too. Didn’t you? How I fucked you last time?” 

A low-frequency hum throbs deep inside you, amplifying every sensation tenfold. You nod, rolling your hips faster, “I did, I liked it.”

“Yeah, you liked it? Or did you fucking love it?” he hisses, “Dirty little slut like you. Bet you loved getting fucked in the ass, didn’t you?”

“Oh my god, Joel—” 

“Tell me.”

“Yes yes yes I fucking loved it—” 

Too loud. 

He ceases all movement, locking you in place with a steel grip. All ten of his digits bury themselves in your skin. The exquisite pain makes you gasp. 

“Hush.”

You clamp down on your lips in an attempt to stifle yourself. Each heaving breath wiggles down to your core and back. 

“Look at me.” 

If you do, you’ll dissolve at the edges. You know it. You are sugar paper and he is a humid room and you are so incredibly fucked. 

Pinching your eyes shut harder, you shake your head and whisper, “I can’t.”

“Why not?” 

“I’ll come if I do.” 

The confession makes him throb underneath you. He husks, “Do it, look at me.” 

You do. 

Even in the shadows you can make out his features, his parted lips and hooded gaze. The desire etched into his face as he stares at you, looking mystified in a way you’ve never seen before. Heat percolates beneath your skin, sending your heartbeat racing. 

His hips arch into you just so, then he pulls you in and pushes you back, rubbing your body against his, “Do you wanna come? Come for me just like this?” 

“Please—please,” you whine, feeling pleasure branch out from your middle as he slides you back and forth, “Please I wanna come for you it’s been so long—” 

“Will you be quiet?” 

Swallowing a moan, you nod frantically. 

His eyes flicker around your face and he breathes, “Go ahead.”

You’re not sure if it’s the flames in his eyes or the fact that you haven’t had an orgasm in almost two months, but the second he gives you permission, the ecstasy you tried so hard to contain spills over the edges and floods your body. It pulses through you hot and hard and makes your mind go white. You have to clasp your hand over your mouth to muffle the guttural noises that try to escape. 

“That’s it,” he coos from far away, still grinding your twitching body against him, “There we go. That’s my good girl, hmm?” 

“Oh my god—” you whimper at the sharp aftershocks that shoot through you, “It feels so good, Joel, fuck—” 

“Do you wanna come again?” 

Nodding, you link your hands behind his neck and set yourself in motion, rubbing against him a little faster than his set rhythm. His eyelids flutter as he throws his head back, the muscles under his shirt going taught. Beneath the thin fabric of his boxers, he’s hard as a fucking rock. 

Releasing the tight grasp on your hips, he roams up your sensitive skin to your breasts and tests their weight before squeezing. It shoots through you, the pleasure and pain indistinguishable, just a throbbing rush of need. Your breathing comes in heaving gasps and you pinch your eyes shut again, tilting your head towards the ceiling as you once again find yourself struggling to keep quiet. 

“Eyes on me,” he reminds you. 

You snap them open and meet his. 

“Good girl.” 

And—god, the way he looks at you, his gaze hungry and wild. Fucking maddening. Simultaneously, you wish he would stop—the contact too intense, too intimate—and pray that it never fucking ends. 

Heat bubbles up inside you. You bury your fists in his hair and roll your hips faster, chasing the scorching need for more. 

He hisses and pushes back against your thrusts, murmuring, “That’s it, grind that pussy on me, make yourself feel good.” 

“Fuck—fuck yes, it feels so fucking good—” 

“I can feel how fucking wet you are, leakin’ all over me. You do love it, don’t you, baby?”

You start to tremble and nod, trying your hardest to whisper when you tell him, “Yes yes yes I do I fucking love it—I wanna come again, can I please come again, please please—” 

“Listen to you. So good, askin’ for permission.” He brings a hand to your face and brushes his knuckles against your cheek, “Such a quick learner.” 

“Joel—” 

“Do it. Make yourself come again.”

Something untethers inside you. Heartbeat pounding behind your ears, you work your body against him in jerky movements, each one more delicious than the last. His eyes burn into yours, all heavy-lidded and lust-blown in the darkness, watching your face twist up with pleasure as the hot gooey feeling between your legs stretches wider and wider, then overtakes you completely. 

You give in to it with a shattered breath, burying your face against his shoulder to muffle your moans. He holds you down, making sure you smother your cries in the damp cotton of his t-shirt as wave after electric wave washes over you. 

When your spasms start to peter out, and your rolling hips come to a stop, he releases his stronghold to pet your hair. Your heaving chests meld together, breath syncing up into a steady ebb and flow as he smooths his palm up and down your spine. 

For a moment, it’s just this. Just the soothing motion of him rubbing your back, calming your boneless body. Soft and quiet with everything else stripped away. 

Emotion swells in your chest and tingles up your throat, behind your eyes. You try to hide it, the fact that you’re crying, but it becomes obvious when a sob escapes you. 

Joel shifts a little, then tilts your chin up to meet his eyes. He searches your face and frowns, furrowing his brow. 

“I’m sorry,” you wipe your tears and cast your eyes downward, “I—I don’t know why this is happening, I’m sorry. I’m stupid.” 

“No—hey, no,” he assures you, “It’s fine.” 

You shake your head. 

“Look at me,” he commands, and when you do, he cups your cheek and holds your gaze, “It-it’s normal to feel… emotional. Really, it’s ok.” 

The warmth and sincerity of this—his touch, his eyes, his words—makes your heart stutter. It curls up inside you and sedates your jumpy nerves. 

You sniffle and nod, “Ok.” 

His adam’s apple bobs in his throat as he studies you, bringing his hands to your waist. The longer you stare at each other, the more all the subtle signs of his lust come back into focus. How his tongue peaks out to wet his lips when he looks at your mouth. The heavy thudding of his heart. His strained breath and throbbing cock. 

Your gaze drifts to his lips. A needy, aching desire simmers at the base of your spine. It seems wrong to kiss him. More sensual than sexual, rooted in something he will never have for you. But still, you wonder. 

You wonder how soft his plush lips would feel against yours. How he would taste. Whether or not he would use tongue, or teeth, or both. 

Your fingertips twitch hesitantly towards his mouth. He doesn’t pull away or admonish you, even though you give him ample time to protest. When you make contact, smoothing your touch over the pillow of his bottom lip, he murmurs against your fingers, “I’m not your boyfriend. I’m never gonna be, either, I wanna make that clear. That’s not what this is.”  

“I know you’re not my fucking boyfriend, Joel.” You scoff at the thought, “Boyfriend. I don’t want that. I don’t need a boyfriend. What I need…” you watch your touch drift from his mouth to his jawline, where you scrape your nails through his scruff, “What I need is someone to fuck the thoughts out of my head.” 

“Fuck the thoughts outta your head,” he repeats, almost a chuckle, “That’s what you need, huh?”

“That’s what you need, too. Isn’t it?” 

Something smolders behind his gaze as he searches your face. 

“You can use me, you know. Take whatever you need from me. Use me like a fuck toy, Joel, I fucking need it.” 

His whole body reacts to your request, muscles flexing taught as he clenches his jaw.

You bat your lashes at him and pull yourself close enough to feel his breath on yours when you ask, “Don’t you need a little fuck toy like me, daddy?” 

“You’re a sick girl, you know that?” 

“You like it.” 

Neither of you can deny the other’s accusation, resulting in a stand-off that tingles beneath your skin and makes your heart pound in your throat. 

Subconsciously, you rock your hips forward and suck in breath when his cock throbs against your clit. He pushes back, flooding your veins with fire, “Are you gonna keep quiet if I fuck you?” 

“Are you gonna shut me up if I can’t?” 

He lets out one single amused chuckle, then asks, “Are you really tryna test me right now?” 

Suppressing a smile, you shake your head. 

“That’s what I thought.” 

Something in the way he says it blooms heat in your chest. His tone teasing, almost playful. 

He gives your ass a light smack, then tugs at your underwear, “Take these off.” 

You roll off him onto the mattress and slide them down your legs while he stands to strip naked. Seeing his cock makes your body hum. It stands at attention, bobbing a little when Joel catches you staring. 

Sidling up to the bed, he beckons you closer, so you follow his silent guidance and crawl over to him, wrapping your hand around his thick length. You glance up at him, licking your lips as you await further instructions. 

“Get it nice ‘n’ wet for me.”

Nodding, you bring your mouth to the head of his cock, exploring first with your tongue, licking up the salty dribbles of lust. You taste a hint of yourself on him too, arousal that soaked through his boxers and marked him yours. Temporarily, at least. At least for tonight, or at least for right now. 

A pleased rumble erupts from his chest when you wrap your lips around him and start to slide up and down his shaft. He feels solid and warm and fills your mouth completely. The first time he hits the back of your throat, you gag and pull off him, working him with your hands as you catch your breath. 

“Do it again.” 

You take him in your mouth, rutting up and down a few times before sitting up taller to drive him down your throat. He buries his fists in your hair and thrusts his hips forward, “There we go, that’s it—fuck, you’re so fucking good at that.” 

His praise sparks at your core. You whine around his cock and bob against his thrusts. It doesn’t matter that you can’t breathe. You don’t need oxygen, you just need this. The sting of his grip prodding your movements, the raw stretch of him fucking your airway, the wet squelch that fills the room. 

When he yanks your head back and unclogs your throat, you gasp for breath and stroke him with both hands, churning his slick length. Fire roars in his eyes when you look up at him. 

He grabs your chin and husks, “Say thank you.” 

“Thank you.”

He smacks your cheek and grabs your chin again, “Say thank you for fucking my face.” 

“Thank you for fucking my face, I fucking love it—”

“Say please can I have some more.” 

“Please can I have some more, daddy?” 

Stifling a groan, he crams it back in your drooling mouth, down your throat, snapping his hips in sharp, quick thrusts that make you gurgle with pleasure around him. Far away, you hear him panting, “Take it take it take it—”

The chorus makes your body tingle. You think about your mom sleeping in the other room, how there’s just a wall between her and this. How she could wake up at any moment and follow the muffled, hedonistic noises. How she would find Joel balls deep in your mouth and you giving him something she never could: control. 

This time when he pulls you off his cock, he uses his white-knuckle grip on your hair to make you flip over and turn around, ass in the air towards him. 

The head of him nudges up against the tight ring of your asshole. You hear a wet splat, then feel the heat of his spit trickling down between your cheeks. Your body clenches with anticipation as he smears it around. 

“Remember, you gotta relax,” he murmurs, releasing your hair to smooth a palm against your spine. 

You inhale a deep breath and exhale the tension from your muscles, letting your heart melt into the mattress. 

“Good girl,” he arches forward, breaching your entrance. 

The sharp sensation splits you open. It pulls a wanton moan from your lips that rings through the silent apartment like a siren. 

Yanking you up by your hair, Joel secures your back to his humid chest and clasps a hand over your mouth. Stars invade your field of vision as he drives his cock deeper and deeper, only stopping when he can’t go any further. You sob against his palm, so he pulls it down harder, muffling the noise until you stop. 

Everything goes silent and still, but you can’t even bring yourself to worry that you woke her. Not when all you can hear is your thudding heart and his ragged breath, coarse with what you assume is rage or lust or both. Not with his lightning rod cock vibrating hot up your middle. 

It doesn’t matter that she could walk in to find her common-law husband fucking your ass, or that this discovery would burn all your lives to the ground. All you care about is more. More stimulation, more attention, more Joel—more more more—

You try to move your hips in an attempt to create friction, but his vice grip renders you immobile. So you stay in place and try not to make noise as the flames lick at your insides. You squirm and ache and claw at his arms while he muffles your whimpers. 

Then your mom snores in the other room. 

He pulls his hand from your mouth and you gasp for air. 

Thinking you can get ahead of the inevitable scolding, you plead, “I’m sorry—” 

He drags his cock out of your body, then plunges it back inside, all the while hissing, “If you’re gonna be my little fuck toy—” 

“Holy fuck—”

“—You have to be fucking quiet. Do you understand?” 

Nodding, you gasp, “I understand, I’ll do better, I promise—please just fuck me, please please—”

You strangle a moan in your throat when he slips a hand between your legs and draws tedious circles on your clit. 

“Try ‘n’ breathe through it,” he coaches, “I’ll go slow for you this time, ok? Just remember, shut the fuck up and take deep breaths.” 

You suck in air until your chest is full, then release it, restricting its flow through a narrow space between your lips. You do it again. Tension begins to melt from your bones. It has a clarifying effect, allowing you to relish in the heat of his touch. You take another deep breath, only hitting a snag when Joel starts to rock his hips. 

It feels fucking unreal. Rough and raw, the steady drag of his cock fills you with static electricity over and over. 

“Oh fuck—”

“Shhh…”

Your inhale stutters, but you regain control on the exhale. Everything disappears except him. His heated skin sticking to yours. How fucking full he makes you feel with each thrust. The thick swell of pleasure that accumulates every time he flicks his wrist. You surrender to all of it, to Joel, entrusting him with everything except your breath. 

“That’s it, baby, let go.” 

“It feels ssso gooood,” you whisper, head rolling back onto his shoulder, “Nothing’s ever felt this good, holy shit—”

His lips tickle your ear as he purrs, “Such a good little fuck toy, aren’t you, baby?”

You gasp a little when the velvet of his tongue rolls against your pulse. Nodding, you reach back behind his neck to scrape your fingernails through his curls. He does it again, this time sealing his lips to suck on the sensitive skin. Your heart pounds thick and hot through your body. The edges peel back at the corner of your mind. You push back against his thrusts, panting out subdued whimpers as the fire in your belly begins to spread. 

“Do you wanna come?”

“I do, I wanna come—oh my god I wanna come, please make me come, daddy—”

His hand covers your mouth and holds you down so he can fuck you harder, stretching you out wide and filling you deep. He works your clit faster. The bed frame thumps against the wall in a frantic rhythm that matches the wet slap of his thrusts. Tears prick your eyes and heat swells beneath your skin, pressure building more and more until you think you can’t fucking take it anymore—

His palm smothers your moans as you fall apart, breaking into a million pieces and coming back together again with a choked sob. Joel buries his face in the crook of your neck and groans as his hips snap forward, then stutter to a stop. 

The two of you go slack propping each other up, too loose-limbed and lethargic to peel yourselves away at first. He makes the first move to separate, though, uncovering your mouth to brush the damp hair from your forehead, “You ok?” 

“Yeah,” you tell him instinctively, then second-guess yourself and look up to meet his eyes, “I mean, I don’t know. I think so.” 

He studies you, nodding. 

Hesitation buzzes in your chest when you contemplate whether or not to return his question. It seems unlikely he’d cooperate even if you wanted to know the answer.  So instead, you give him his out. 

“Is this goodnight, then?” 

“Suppose it is.” 

A flicker of something passes between your bodies as you stare at each other. It feels so hot to the touch that you chicken out, glancing away as you whisper, “Will you do something for me before you go?” 

“Hmm?” 

“Tuck me in?” 

The noise that comes out of him is half-grunt, half-chuckle. Joel for, ‘You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me.’ But he obliges, pulling his soft cock from your body at a mercifully slow speed before allowing you to make yourself comfortable. He sorts out your blanket and drapes it over your body, then starts fishing his clothes off the floor. 

Tugging his shirt over his head, he asks, “Need anything else, princess?” 

You’re sure it’s a dig, but choose to ignore it as you snuggle into the covers and hint, “Don’t make me wait so long next time.” 

He sits down at the edge of your mattress and threads his legs through the boxers, “I’ll make you wait as long as you need to. What else?”

“Mmm. Goodnight kiss?”

“Goodnight kiss,” he scoffs to himself, then looks back over his shoulder at you, “Fine, then I’m goin’ to bed.” 

He turns to face you more directly, folding a knee onto the bed as he leans in and tilts your head to the side, pressing a gentle kiss into your cheek. Even though you wish he had kissed your lips, you close your eyes and savor the affection while you can. 

After murmuring goodnight, Joel leaves. He crawls back into bed with your mother while you memorize the sound of his retreating footsteps.

[rkiveinmarvel]

upon a different life - james bucky barnes des. barnes never trusted you, not once. but upon a different life, he would. notes. angst/comfort, establishing relationship, slow-burn, enemies-to-lovers, i miss bucky, avengers being siblings (and weak for plot),mentions of violence,

hello! it's my bucky fic! i had a bucky fic back then but I deleted it anyway, this was supposed to be a one part but i got carried away, enjoy barnes knowing you! *i wrote this around 3am so, if i have some mistakes, i'm sorry!!*

(part i) (part ii) | w.c: 3.5k

James Buchanan Barnes is slowly getting used to in living with Avengers and the era he is in, in general, he enjoys the slowly yet steady step to forgive himself and earn forgiveness to those people around him as well familiarizing the more advanced world, but nightmares and remarks of his past action come and go; everyone notices it, especially his friend Steve Rogers, but despite this minor setback, he still move forward because it’s not every day, that you die in the 80s and woke up 75 years later. 

In terms of forgiving, the sergeant doesn’t know if the genius, billionaire, playboy, and philanthropist have forgiven him—it’s not a secret Stark gives the money and sponsor on the compound they live in but despite his hesitation to live with them, Stark still offered him—it might be a silent agreement with Rogers but somehow, Barnes hopes Stark acknowledges how sorry he was. 

But among other things, he wishes he can finally get used to. He finds himself not getting used to you. Even the entire team knows how much James hates you; to you, it’s no secret: you’re his last handler afterall and if the tables are different, you would hate Barnes too. Before Zemo took control of Barnes as Winter Soldier, you were his last boss, a menace actually, you would let him be used. He gets used by someone, you get rich, a simple deal between HYDRA and you. But that changed, when the Winter Soldier regained his memory; with no leverage in making a deal with HYDRA, the Black Widow offered you a place to stay.

It was a nice place, really, a lot nicer than the one you lived in, except, maybe for the fact that you’re still under someone jurisdiction: while the sergeant is able to roam around the city, you keep staring at the wonderful electronic tag in your ankle: in your deduction, you believe that the Avengers are only keeping you alive because of what you know—it’s not even sympathy why the Black Widow offered you stay with them, it’s more of a business. 

From the moment you receive glares from everyone in the room, you know damn well that this is just another business. So, it is indeed a surprise, when the A.I enters your room.

“Ha, did Stark send you to check on me again, Vision?” You asked as the artificial intelligence gave you a look. Despite the team’s lack of enthusiasm with you, Vision, Clint, and Thor are the only ones who seem to talk to you. You have talks with Natasha, Tony, and Bruce as well, but it is more of a business than a talk. 

“No, I was wondering if you wish to join me, Clint, and Wanda to watch Dick Van Dyke, she seems very excited about it.”

“What makes you think she wants me to join you guys?” You asked hypothetically.

Vision nodded as he glanced at your electronic tag. “If it makes you feel better, they don’t really hate you that much. In my defense, I think you only did the things you have done because you want to survive.” You scoffed as you said that. 

“Well, tell that to Sergeant Bar–” but Vision cut you off. “People won’t always use you. The sooner you learn that, the sooner you realize you’re more than just a HYDRA pawn.” You stared at him, as he continued. “At least, that’s what I observed with Sergeant Barnes.”

“Thanks, Vision.” You gave a bland smile, as he left your room. A part of you wants forgiveness, but for someone who learnt life in a hard way, you’re hesitating to give this one a try. Yet for once, a robot was more human than you.

A year after an endless discussion between the Avengers, they decided to remove the electronic tagging and let you roam freely, but still under their jurisdiction. Somehow, Stark and Banner acknowledge your knowledge while the rest give respect to your fighting ways and quick judgment; well, all of them are getting used to you. Well, maybe except for Bucky. Steve told you it takes time, but to your knowledge, it won’t take time because it won’t happen. You accepted the terms that Barnes will not and never forgive you, you don’t blame him though, mostly you blame yourself.

In this scene, you finally learn to adjust, not going out of your room if he was outside, not training–the same time as him, and definitely not talking to him; even a spare glance, felt like a struggling pain of unforgiven lingering. The team respected Barnes more than they respected you, but somehow, it felt like you finally belonged to something. Well, atleast, that’s what you thought.

Their mission to infiltrate HYDRA failed terribly, despite the information you gave them, they weren’t prepared and outnumbered. Despite their failure, they were able to take a hit on HYDRA’s camp, it’s not much but still affected HYDRA. As the quinjet landed on the hangar, the medical team supported those who were injured. A lot of them were, including those who sometimes get out without a scratch.

In the med bay: you saw Clint and Sam—they somehow, took a toll, as you walked further, you saw the entire team taking care of their small cuts, with them helping another, they were able to close the wounds, well, maybe except for the Winter Soldier—or as they call him the White Wolf. On the back of his right shoulder, he was bleeding badly, despite having all the needed things to tend his wounds around him, he sat on the bed feeling out of place, besides it’s only a shoulder wound. 

Due to the lack of people in the med bay, you offered help in the team. As you finished to tend some of the team’s wounds including Rogers’ and Romanoff’s. Your eyes met a struggling Bucky Barnes, grasping his right shoulder with his metal arm. Your footsteps were slow as you walk towards him.

“...Do you need help?” He wanted to say no, everything part of him says no, but as he glanced that there’s no person who can help him in his injury, he nodded. Afterall, you’re also the one who patches him up whenever he gets injured in his missions back then.

You carefully clean his wound as you tend him, you wipe the dirt and the things visible that might infect the wound, as you try to start a talk. “Was it bad out there? In the mission, I mean..” He just let out a grunt, which you expected, but he replied with. “They have three more Super Soldiers and one enhanced, just like Wanda.”

You didn’t respond, just continued stitching his wound. As you finish, you put on some bandages as he asked. “Did you know?” Barnes asked.

“Did you know about the Super Soldiers?” He asked again, for a quick moment, you realized that he is still an assassin, you felt his anger and bloodlust. At that moment, you wish you didn’t work with HYDRA. In truth, you didn’t know where they were but you knew HYDRA didn’t stop making them. But your stuttering left the Sergeant furious even more.

“I–I..” That was the only thing you could say when you suddenly felt his metal hand around your neck, at other times this can be hot and daring, but at this time, you were damn sure that the Sergeant would be able to crack your neck: he could kill you. The team in the med bay immediately sat up. 

“Buck, put her down.” You assumed it was Rogers who was talking to the Sergeant. As it was getting hard to breath, James starts to explain that you knew there were Super Soldiers, in that Rogers asked you. 

“Did you actually know?” Barnes shook you, as you met the Captain’s eyes. “I did.” Before James finally kills, you continue. “I didn’t know they were stationed there.”

If this was a HYDRA facility, they would’ve shot you despite you telling the truth, Wanda nodded, a confirmation that you were telling the truth. Steve asked Bucky to let go of you, with an angered stare, he let go. As you try to catch your breath, you notice some of the bandage of Rogers came off. You reached your hand to help him but a metal hand covered your wrist. 

“Stop pretending to be a good guy, we know you’re глупая игрушка of HYDRA.” He grabs your wrist tighter. “You’re not even part of the team.” That was the last straw, you pulled your wrist away, as you searched for someone to stand with you but all you saw was them looking away from you, even Vision. You nodded as you felt some tears sting. You never actually belonged in the team. Just like Barnes said, a глупая игрушка. 

A stupid toy.

Stark spotted you, making tea in the middle of the night. “So, you’re the one that’s drinking tea.” His voice echoed in the empty kitchen. You nodded as you asked him if he wanted some, as he nodded. “Heard what happened.”

“Of course, you do.” Stark eyed you as you finally sat down and Stark rolled his eyes. “I forgave Terminator a while ago.” You looked at him.

“I know he took everything from me, but, I guess it’s just the way it is…Pepper is really good at convincing , I give her that, well, maybe because we–”

“Are pregnant…?” You asked, in which Stark immediately shook his head and chuckled. “Well, no, but, I just want peace, you know.” 

“That’s a bit out of character.” You commented. “Ah, the secret service have their humor.” The billionaire chuckled. As he glanced at the stair towards the rooms. “You did not know about the soldiers but, the information you gave was really helpful. We can start with that.” As Stark stood up. He added.

“Oh, and next time, make sure you suit up. You can tag along in the mission if you want, secret service.” Stark walked away with a smug smirk. “You sure, they’ll allow me in the field, Mr. Stark?”

“Maybe not. But, we have a higher chance of winning if they don't know what they’re up against.” He said as he left. But, when the morning comes, there’s no trace of you—only the cup of tea you shared with Tony and a room filled with your stuff, as well as, a folder with all of HYDRA’s information and coordinates in sticky notes. As the team assembled, they wondered if you were stolen from them or you were actually planning to betray them a long time ago.

And there’s only one way to find out.

As the Avengers rode the quinjet, Stark drove peacefully as Romanoff shared her side. “Steve, if we do this and see her there, we can’t save them like we did back then.”

“We didn’t save her, Romanoff. We used her…” Steve added. “But, you guys cared for them too.” His eyes fall on Bucky. “Buck, I know this is—”

“It’s a mission. As long as we’re done. I don’t care what happens to them.” James added.

As they reach the base of HYDRA, with the coordinates in the folder, they immediately search for you, but to their mistake, they fall right into a trap. Not even their strongest and the witch was able to see the trap, as they sat and chained in chairs, Natasha cracked a joke.

“This is probably their revenge.” In which none of them find them funny. Especially the guy with a metal arm. As the time passes with the endless blabbering of the man on the computer, lights and warning signs alarmed the area: as the Avengers look for an escape. It was an unfamiliar site, even for Bucky, all of the soldiers on HYDRA are getting deployed, what could possibly be the reason? As the chain, holding the Avengers finally loose, they stood up immediately, they ran in the door meeting you.

“ROGERS?!” You asked breathlessly. They were all confused but much more concerned about the blood painting your entire body. “Oh, it’s not mine.” You said in a smile. “We have to run, quinjet is outside the building.” As the team sprinted outside, surprise to see the number of bodies you took down. 

“You took them all down?” Natasha asked as the quinjet was finally visible. “Ah, yeah. I was raised by them so, nevermind, we have to go.”

It was going so well, but in the escape, a lot of missiles were aimed at the quinjet, as you, Sam, Tony, Wanda, and Sergeant Barnes fought the trailing jet in the back of quinjet, James rode a jet that is about to crash with another, he dodged the explosion but fell unconscious. Without thinking, you jumped out of the quinjet to save his unconscious body, hoping it’s water underneath all the chaos. 

As the cold temperature of water hit you, you swam to get the sergeant’s body. People in quinjet knew what happened, but in the height of the situation, they had no choice but to continue to flee; hope to save the sergeant and you, tomorrow.

The sergeant woke up in a bed made of leaves and an open night-sky. As he familiarize with his surroundings, he saw the heat radiating from a bonfire and you sitting by the shore. It was as if you sensed him.

“You’re finally awake.” You said as you walked towards him; he immediately tensed up. “Oh, right.” you placed the sugarcane on the sand as you sat down. “Tony would probably search for us tomorrow, once the sky is cleared.” You added but he is still weary of your presence. 

“What’re you playing at?” He asked, as you looked at him.

“What do you mean?”

“You being a goody-two-shoes, you know, none of us trust you.” He added finally, grabbing the sugar cane munching it. “And now, you leaving and suddenly appearing at the HYDRA facility, makes you more of a traitor than a help to us, so, what’s really your play?”

“...I want to help—”

“You have a funny way of showing it…” He grumbled as you replied. When you hear him grumble, you grab a swiss knife in your pocket, as you did when he was on guard but then, you place it on the sand and look at him. “I wasn’t there because I wish to betray anyone, I was there because…..” 

You sighed and looked at him. “I wanted to apologize to you. What I did in those years is unforgivable, hell, even I would be angry if I was in your position. I wanted to apologize to you and your family, the one you grew up with. I want to see if HYDRA knows about them, in that way, I can apologize for manipulating Winnifred’s only son and Rebecca’s only brother.” 

Bucky stared at you. “But who am I kidding, it is full of shit..I just really hoped because—I finally felt like I was part of a team. It’s a bit much, right? I was ahead of myself.” You chuckled. As you stare at the sea, you continue. “The swiss knife will be there, do whatever you want with it. Whether you used it for survival or against me, it’s up to you.” You smiled at Bucky.

“This probably will make you hate me even more but it truly means everything, I am really sorry, Bucky.” 

That was the first time he heard you mutter his name. His first time seeing you smile. His first time hearing you say sorry; his first time seeing you.  As the night grew deeper, you fell asleep, except for the guy with a metal arm, he fidgeted with the swiss knife and kept glancing at you. He has you, he can kill you, revenge. With a lot of contemplation; balancing his morals, he stood up, gripping the swiss knife tightly and went to your sleeping body.

He was really thankful that you were asleep.

You watch from upstairs as you see the God of Thunder, the White Wolf, and Captain America struggle with their new phone given by Stark.

“10 Bucks says Barnes will break it.” Sam told you as he stood watching the three as well. “20 Bucks says Odinson will be the one who will break it.” You added; to anyone’s surprise, it was Steve who made the screen crack. 

“Dammit.” Sam muttered as you noticed his suit. “Got a date or something?” Sam just nodded and said something about meeting his sister in the bank, as he left, you called Barnes out. “Sergeant, we’re losing daylight, let’s go.” You said as he ran upstairs, leaving the compound as well, with you next to him. 

He grips the swiss knife tightly, as he walks to your unconscious body as he shakes you awake.  “Hey.” he muttered slowly: “Did you find them? Rebecca, I mean…” In your state, you would have said something random but as you met his eyes, he was just pleading as you nodded, he retracted the knife and handed it to you. 

“Go say your apologies to them then. Bring me to them.” In that he awkwardly smiled but was sincere. “Okay.” As he went to his side on the sand, he then sighed, “It means everything, Thanks for saying that.” With a soft heart, you slept soundly and Barnes did too as the sand felt more like the best bed in town.

As you drive, Barnes asks how you find his family. “It was more of how HYDRA hid it, what surprised me is that—they don’t pick dead bodies up in the 40s?” In that, Bucky eyed you. “What do you mean? I fell of the—”

“If I was like one of the bosses, I would’ve.” Bucky sighed. “It was war back then, it was better to leave them, I guess.” You sighed and acknowledged his explanation. As you two reach Brooklyn, his eyes wander. “First time back in Brooklyn?” he nodded as he explained how different times were. He wasn’t talkative much, but you saw how his eyes lit up when the corners of Brooklyn hit him home. As we reach the cemetery, you glance at the grave.

“This is Rebecca’s and your Mom’s. I couldn’t find anything on your father, I’m sorry.” As Barnes walked out the car with flowers in his hand, you watched him but then he opened your door, “Aren’t you going to apologize to them too?” You smiled and got out of the car, “I did say that.”

We stayed there for a few minutes, as Bucky walked to get something in the car, he heard your voice talking to them as if they were still alive, it felt new to him, this side of you, it’s more warmer than before. He walks cautiously as he slowly hears a bit of your words. “Rebecca and Mrs. Barnes you have an amazing brother and a son.” 

Despite everything and hate lurking in his chest towards you, his painful experience, he was willing to give this forgiveness a shot, because he was a human and not a machine. 

As the two of you drove back to the compound, the silence was now replaced with a calmer one, which Bucky glanced at you. “Something wrong?” He asked you. 

“No, it’s just, I don’t know what we should talk about, I’m still getting used to this too. Food that is warm, going to places that don't require guards, a bit warmer home, and bright home, and a house full of people, still getting used to it, I guess.” You explained.

“Well, me and you are on the same boat.” He added assuring you. The ride back was more of a relaxed one, as you heard Bucky’s stomach growl. “We should eat something.” Before he could protest, you parked the car and you two went inside a diner. 

As you two sat, you kept glancing at the machine on the edge of the table, as you saw Bucky eyeing it as well. “What is it?” You asked him, as he cleared his throat. “A Jukebox.” but your lack of response made him look at you. “You don’t know what—”

You shook your head. “Well, with HYDRA raising me I only know the static radio.” You explained, looking away awkwardly. “Oh, it’s a music box, like a vinyl but you need a quarter to play a song.” He explained as you nodded. “I have a quarter.” As you give him the quarter, he signals you to press a button to play music.  As you two eat a meal in the diner: the low volume of Chet Baker’s I Never Been In Love Before plays, it is safe to say that two people felt more human than before and a lingering warm feeling in their chest. Safe to say, they’ve never been in love before.

⚘ masterlist 1 | 2 | 3

[libraryofgage]

Addams Family B-Side (6)

Part of: Steve Deserves Good Parents, Actually

Debbie and Fester Addams One | Two | Three | Four | Five | Six (you're here!) Rick and Evelyn O'Connell One | Two | Three Harley Quinn One | Two 10th Doctor and Rose One | Two (on the way!) Scooby Gang (there are plans for this one lmao, so plz be patient with me orz) Jedidiah and Octavius (from Night at the Museum) One | Two Queen Clarisse Renaldi One | Two | Three Leverage Crew One

Hi it's been a fucking minute since I updated this one orz thank you so much for your patience, y'all

Anyway, this fic was line-jumped, and it's one of two jumps I received on kofi. If you'd like to learn more about line-jumping your favorite series, you can read this post

There are three memes at the end for you <3

As always, if you see any typos, no you didn't :^)

---

The first time Steve got expelled, his father picked him up from school while his mother stayed to chat with the principal. He was twelve at the time, confused about what he'd done wrong, and feeling validated by his father's ecstatic praise of his initiative.

He'd wound up in Grandmama's kitchen, sitting cross-legged on the island while Wednesday added spider legs to a mixing bowl. Fester had gone off the find Gomez after telling Wednesday to keep an eye on Steve. She'd immediately turned away after Fester left the room.

"So," she said, idly stirring, "you've been expelled. What for?"

"I brought rattlesnakes to class."

"Why?"

"We were learning about snakes. I thought the teacher would appreciate live examples."

"How many?"

"Twenty seven. One for each student."

"Did they bite anyone?"

"No," Steve said, frowning and not bothering to conceal his disappointment at the fact.

"That's a shame."

Steve nodded, watching Wednesday for a few minutes before asking, "What are you making?"

"A cake for Joel."

"Why?"

"He insists on celebrating our anniversary."

"What kind is it?"

"Cinnamon with walnuts."

Steve thought for a moment, trying to figure out why that specific combination sounded familiar. Finally, he said, "I thought Joel was allergic to those."

"He is allergic to many things," Wednesday said, looking over her shoulder to smirk at Steve. "But especially cinnamon and walnuts."

"How come you're making it then?"

"To make sure he remembers how breathless I made him when we first met."

Steve thought that might be one of the most romantic things he's ever heard. He carefully filed the idea away in the back of his mind, hoping he'd one day find someone with an allergy severe enough to use it.

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

Eddie can't stop looking at Steve's parents, his gaze moving between the two as he tries to figure out how the fuck they ended up together. He feels like someone is about to jump out and tell him he's on a prank show. What else could describe the sheer polar opposite natures of Steve's parents?

Debbie looks exactly like the kind of woman who'd live in a Barbie Dream House: blonde, perfect makeup, pastel dress, the refined air that just hovers around her. Fester, however, looks like he belongs next door. Eddie had noticed how pale he was the first time they met, but he's positively corpse-like now that Steve and Debbie are around for comparison.

He'd almost believe Steve wasn't their child if not for the fact that Eddie can see every way he is. Steve might look like Debbie on the outside, but he's undoubtedly an Addams on the inside. He has Debbie's fashion sense and air of elegance. his eyes get the same crazed light sometimes that Fester's do when Debbie speaks, and the words they speak are similar.

"Eddie," Debbie says, snapping him out of his thoughts. At some point, he'd started staring at Steve, and he feels his cheeks flush at getting caught. "Steve tells me you play guitar. Did you recently learn?"

Oh. Eddie feels his shoulders relax some at the familiar topic. "My mom taught me when I was younger. She used to play for me whenever I had nightmares."

"She doesn't play for you anymore?" Debbie asks, spearing a piece of chicken with her fork.

"Oh, uh, she died a few years ago," Eddie says, smiling apologetically for such a downer of a topic. "Cancer, you know."

"That must have been excruciating," Steve says, a soft sigh accompanying his words, and Eddie isn't sure if he's sympathetic or jealous.

Debbie nods as she inspects her chicken closely before putting it in her mouth, her eyes narrowing slightly as she chews. "I said no poisoning the food, dear," she says, looking at Fester with a somewhat strained smile.

"Aww, it's just a nightshade reduction, Mother. We didn't even put any on Eddie's plate," Steve says.

Now that Eddie is actually paying attention, he realizes the dark sauce drizzled across their chicken is missing from his own. "Why don't I have any?" he asks, figuring it can't really be a nightshade sauce.

"You haven't worked your way up to nightshade yet," Fester explains, his eyes lighting up as he adds, "But don't worry! We're getting you started with just a dash of chalk in your rice."

Eddie blinks, glancing down at the half-eaten rice on his plate. He didn't notice anything weird about it, so maybe they're joking. But then he hears Debbie's put-upon sigh. "Fester, dear?"

"Yes, Pumpkin?"

"I'd make you sleep in the doghouse, but you'd just enjoy it."

"Eddie doesn't mind, I'm sure," Steve says, looking at Eddie with a smile that makes his heart speed up and his palms sweat. "It's okay if you do, though. Just be honest."

"I don't mind," Eddie replies, wondering where the words come from. If he'd been anywhere else, with anyone else, he'd definitely be losing his mind over a light poisoning. Somehow, though, he can't bring himself to be that upset about it. Maybe, if he tries hard enough, he'll even build enough of an immunity to kiss Steve when he's wearing that raspberry lip gloss.

The blinding smile he gets in return eases any lingering doubts he might have. Steve leans close enough for their shoulders to brush, Eddie's skin tingling through the fabric of his sleeve. "We Addams are experts at acclimating people to poisons. You'll be enjoying nightshade in no time," he says, his voice light and reassuring like Eddie was somehow impatient.

And then, without thinking, Eddie's eyes glance down at Steve's lips. They have a suspicious sheen to them, and Eddie's only half-certain he's not imagining the artificial raspberry scent. "What, uh, what about raspberries?" he asks, the words tumbling out before he can stop them.

If anything, Steve's smile just gets wider. "I'm sure we can figure something out," he replies, his tongue briefly swiping across his bottom lip.

Eddie looks away and grabs his glass, gulping down half the water inside before he says anything monumentally stupid in front of Steve's parents.

"Steve, stop torturing Eddie. You know that's dessert conversation," Debbie says, her voice light and breezy.

Steve sighs and pulls away. "Sorry," he says, not looking the least bit apologetic at all. In fact, he even glances at Eddie again and smiles, eyebrows raised slightly, and Eddie thinks he's about to die of thirst.

"Eddie," Fester says, mercifully giving him a reason to look away from Steve and try to gain some semblance of chill. "What are your interests?" Fester glances at Debbie, practically preening when she smiles and offers him a subtle, approving nod.

"Well, uh, music. I like heavy metal and play in a band. Dungeons and Dragons, too. I play that with my friends."

"Dungeons, you say?" Fester asks, suddenly looking more invested in the conversation. "What's your favorite kind? I'm partial to the French Revolution era dungeons myself."

"You just like the guillotines, Father," Steve says.

"Now that's an instrument of death. Nothing inspires fear like the glint of the blade in the sun, don't you think, Pumpkin?"

"Yes, dear, but you know I'm partial to electric chairs myself."

Steve leans closer again and says, "Mother nearly killed Father's family with electric chairs, you know."

"A splendid attempt it was," Fester adds, looking over with a bright smile.

Eddie glances between all of them, taking in their expressions and trying to figure out if they're being serious. He watches Debbie drag a carrot through dark sauce on her plate; he briefly looks into Fester's eyes and sees the manic joy lying in them; his heart speeds up at Steve's soft and contented smile. Eddie then glances around the dining room. He notes the shotgun placed on the wall with a little plaque beneath that reads "Attempt 12" in flourishing cursive. He looks at the window and sees the black, molded wood of the house next door. He thinks of Nox the spider and Kas the taxidermy rat and the ornate dagger and everything else he's found in his locker.

And he realizes something.

They're serious. They're all completely serious about everything. Steve and Fester weren't joking that first time he came over and they talked about the oven being big enough to fit him and a roast. Steve really has fought all of his siblings and was gifted a trident at his bar mitzvah. Pubert doesn't protect his kidneys.

Okay that last one maybe isn't as important, but it's one Eddie savors nonetheless.

He has two options here. One, he gets the hell out of dodge, makes some strained excuse to leave after dinner and avoids Steve in the hallways and hopes he doesn't wake up buried alive. Two, he embraces it, starts eating a little chalk with every meal, and lets Steve introduce him to whatever freaky shit will earn him another blinding smile.

"So, how did you two meet?" Eddie asks, looking at Fester and Debbie with a smile as he shovels more rice onto his fork.

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

"I approve."

Steve blinks, and then his mother's words process, and he stands a little straighter. "That's good. Though, I would've been happy to follow in Romeo and Juliet's footsteps if you hadn't."

"You wouldn't even need poison," Fester says, his voice ringing from the kitchen as Steve helps his mother gather up dessert plates. "Just wear the raspberry stuff."

"No star-crossed suicides for you, mister," Debbie says, playfully tapping her finger against Steve's forehead. "Anyway, he's a very nice young man, and he adapted rather quick, don't you think?"

"He thought it was a joke before, but he doesn't think that now. And he didn't run away screaming!"

"Not that you would've minded, I suspect."

"Well, no," Steve agrees, flashing a grin as he puts the plates on the counter next to his father. He then pulls down Tupperware, ready to pack up the leftover chicken and rice.

"He seems like a tough nut to crack, but he's nearly there," Debbie says, leaning against the island with a thoughtful look. "I mean, he seemed ready to do whatever you said at the dinner table."

"Then why hasn't he done anything? Am I being too obvious? Should I play hot and cold?"

"No, I don't think that would work here."

"Just tell him," Fester suddenly says, looking at Steve as he washes a plate. "Wouldn't that be best?"

"Would it?" Steve asks.

Before Debbie can do more than snort derisively, Fester nods. "Just think about it, son. You tell him, but leave it all up to Eddie after that. He'll torture himself trying to build up the courage to even hold your hand, especially if you catch him when he's midway."

Steve can't help the way he lights up at the thought. "That's a great idea! Thanks, Father. I'm gonna go plan my confession right now," he says, disappearing from the kitchen not a moment later.

"When did you get so good at this?" Debbie asks, a little pride tinging her words. When Fester lights up, she decides to reward him that night with an extra ten minutes of cuddling before bed.

----------

Tag List (there's no more room on the list, so please follow the addams family b-side tag to see updates!)

@estrellami-1, @itsall-taken, @mugloversonly, @fandomcartographer, @hippielittlemetalhead, @agree2disagre-kicks, @ledleaf, @just-a-tiny-void, @goodolefashionedloverboi, @ink1177, @maya-custodios-dionach, @littlebluejane, @steddieonbigboy, @ravenpainter, @read-write-thrive, @deadontheinside20, @yeahhhh-suga, @nectandra, @mogami13, @mx-jinxous, @thoughtfulbreadpolice, @anne-bennett-cosplayer, @xoxoladyclara

@zaddipax, @dycte, @breealtair, @geekymagicalpotato, @janea-grill, @juliasthename-adhdismygame, @yikes-a-bee, @wayward-people, @st-fics, @disrespectedgoatman, @bipusssy, @cottagecorebutnaturescaresme, @nightowl14028018, @that-binchh, @your-confused-friend, @irethsune, @goosesister, @strawberryyyenthusiast, @irregular-child, @theverywest

@jinx-nanami, @solene1324, @nailbatwielder, @y4r3luv, @happylittletrees3, @croatoan-like-its-hot, @itcanbepalped,

And now, some memes:

[leclsrc]

has yet to pass ✴︎ cs55

centre image by tony belobrajdic

genre: exes to lovers, slow burn, fluff, humor, slight angst, yearning, some sexual tension

word count: 12.5k

Four years after an angry breakup, the universe is bored enough to nominate Carlos Sainz for GQ Sports’ Man of the Year and assign you to be the writer of his profile.

notes... internet translated spanish lol

auds here... requested, this fic is long! i hope you all like it apologies for the inactivity </3 exes to lovers we have a very love/hate relationship but this was a pleasure to write

You’re half sure your head is about to pop out from how annoyed you are.

At the office, mornings move slowly in the very corporate-desk-job kind of way, but today is notably slower. Your boss had called you in an hour earlier to discuss important matters, and this is your third hour waiting already. Either your boss is a dumbass, or you got the wrong email, which both essentially mean the same thing anyway.

The time on your Panthère tells you you’re curving into the three-and-a-half hour territory, and right as you’re about to get up to get a glass of water, the large wooden door swings open and your name is called through the crack in it. Suddenly the irritation dissipates into nerves, and because Jonathan didn’t specify anything in the email, you realize you could be wading into anything right now. Termination. Promotion. A brick to the head.

“Morning,” you offer once the door’s been shut behind you. 

“Sorry for the wait,” he says politely. “We’ve been in discussions with GQ Sports all day. All night last night, too. It’s all proper boring.”

You nod, remaining fairly quiet and waiting for him to break the news to you. He clears his throat, places his hands on his hips and exhales.

“Right, so this is all related to GQ, actually. They’re doing a Men of Sports segment and they asked us to assign one of our writers to an athlete. You’re our best right now, really—your article turnout last year was absolutely stellar. So, there’s, ah… there’s tennis, yeah, there’s footie, obviously, and—under usual circumstances, you’d get to choose one of either. But we actually really wanted to cover racing this year.”

The cloud above your head carrying the dreams of interviewing Leo Messi or Roger Federer pops dismally.

“Racing.” You repeat curtly.

“It’s gotten proper viral this year!” He smiles, gestures to nothing to prove his point. “Every teenage girl’s got a crush or other on a driver. Anyway, we set you up with the racing category, and the segment comes out in around six months.”

“I’ve got a tiny bit of a qualm about th—”

“So it’s decided. GQ’s going to pick out the driver for you, and you’ll be introduced at a gala next week.”

“Wait—” you laugh uncomfortably. “I’m thankful for the opportunity, and wow, thank you for choosing me, really, but do I not get to pick my own driver?” You clear your throat. “I mean, I’m spinning the story.”

“I know,” he sighs. “But this deal moved pretty quick, so a majority of the leverage goes to them. Don’t worry, though—a lot of the drivers will have great stories, I’m sure. You’ve got Lewis, you’ve got the Verstappen guy, you’ve got the Rosberg fellow…”

“Rosberg retired in 2016.”

“Oh, fuck, seriously? Well. Hit me with a brick then.”

—

The gala is a fundraiser to celebrate the season kicking off, you realize when you step outside the car and read the navy blue banner across the entrance to the carpet. It’s all fancy fonts and table placements, but One look at the watches and earrings in this place will tell you there’s more than enough funds already. You digress, anyway, walking inside to find the only one person you’re familiar with in the world of racing.

“Lewis,” you mutter when you locate him, voice dry with dread (and lack of alcohol), “kill me now.”

“On the off chance you’re serious—I’m actually willing to do so.” You slap his arm and he scowls.

“I’m supposed to meet the driver I’m writing about tonight, but the GQ guy hasn’t texted me. Christ, I hope it’s you. At least I have years’ worth of blackmail on you to really sell the profile.”

He only laughs, guiding the both of you to a champagne tower and offering you one. You down it in seconds, suffocated by nerves and the curiosity blooming inside you. “You don’t think it’s…?”

“I think they keep track of those things,” he replies, but his voice is only half-sure. “Conflict of interest and that. But Jonathan did say it was a quick deal?” You nod. “So it’s not impossible, I suppose.”

Big help, you chirp sarcastically, eyes perusing the large room. There are tables populated by celebrities, by politicians, and of course, by drivers. You keep scanning, squinting to chisel your search further, but it’s cut off by a tap of two fingers on your shoulder. 

“Hi. I’m Nick, the GQ rep, and I believe you and I have a meeting,” says the man behind you with an excited smile. “Why don’t we…?”

He gestures to the expanse of the room and you nod, falling into step beside him. He introduces the article, the concept of shadowing the athlete to achieve a more immersive piece of work as a result, something novel and innovative.

He’s right in the middle of talking about Jonathan when he stops at one of the cocktail tables and stations the two of you there. “Okay. You’re one of the biggest names in sports journalism right now, so it means a lot for you to want to represent racing. Especially because both Neymar Jr. and Nadal expressed bids to get you to write their segments!”

“They wh—”

“Right, here we are. Meet your shadow—or, subject—for the next six-ish months.” He places two hands atop your shoulders and wheels you around, so your eyes meet those of, “…Carlos Sainz Jr.!”

Yeah. This is fucking rich. 

Nick is talking but none of it falls right on your ears. Everywhere in your mind, alarm bells ring at full volume, alerting you to the danger present, almost. You plaster on a fake smile to acknowledge his presence, but his outstretched hand goes unnoticed. Clearly picking up on the tension, Nick gives a sheepish giggle and ducks out of the exchange, leaving the two of you woefully alone.

“Carlos,” you say politely. “What a nice surprise.”

There is a limited amount of phrases that are considered acceptable to say to an estranged ex of four years. There’s oh, what a surprise!, didn’t expect to see you here, you look well. It’s limited because nobody ever thinks to run into their estranged ex of four years, and even then, any sane person would do well to avoid interaction at all costs. So you’re really the luckiest son of a bitch in the world to be situated with a stuffy public interaction, under the guise of professionalism, with your ex-boyfriend.

Your history is heavy in the air. The last time you saw each other, things had been a lot different, but now you’re two professionals. Really. You really are professional.

“I refuse to be within ten metres of the guy,” you say, on your third martini. Lewis faces you with poorly hidden concern, and beside him, roped into your lovelorn matters, so does Sebastian Vettel. “Ten metres. Actually, no. Make it twenty. How can I be arsed to write an all-over-him feature about a guy I absolutely hate and haven’t seen in four years?! I had it all sussed—get assigned to Lewis, write the best feature, then restore his eighth world title.”

“—She’s joking,” coughs Lewis.

“Oh, but now? Now, it’s get assigned to my ex, write like shit, never get recognized for a good piece, and die hungry and alone on the streets of London. You know, I should just call Jonathan and tell him I don’t want this. I’d rather go back to writing normal articles.” You pry your clutch open but a hand stops you before you can.

“Don’t.” Sebastian’s voice is gentle, but firm. “This is a test of character, don’t you think? More than that—it’s a test of how good you are as a writer.”

“True,” interjects Lewis, chewing on a quiche. “If you can write a stellar profile about an ex, I mean—you’re just proper talented. But it’s also about how strong you are now, morally. Emotionally.”

“I’m perfectly fine emotions-wise, thanks,” you retort. Both men shrug, backing off, and you feel like you should be smug about it—but your mind is stuck on the topic even as the night passes.

You end up deciding when you’re kicking your heels off in your flat a few hours later, giving Jonathan a ring despite the late hour. It takes a while for the man to pick up, but he does eventually, with an excited tone colouring his voice—“How’s my star writer? Sainz, huh? Real eye candy.”

“About that…” you start, walking over to your bookshelf and chewing your lip, trying to think of the right way to decline the offer. Your eyes land on one of the several awards you’ve garnered in your profession—in fact, the very first one. Most Promising Journalist, it reads, embedded into the front’s frosty surface. 

Four years ago. And you’ve proven it since, if the crowd of glass around it is anything to go by. Why let a petty ex destroy what could potentially be one of your biggest gigs yet? Your segue outside of sports journalism?

“Earth to—yeah, hello? About what?” Jonathan’s voice breaks you out of your thought train.

“… I just, uh,” you say, nodding, “I wanted to say I’m really excited.”

— 

Carlos Sainz Jr., 27, is on the rise as one of Formula One’s most talented drivers… (add more info…) His smooth driving style and charm has led him to become one of the most popular figures in the sport, both on and off the paddock. He is also a huge, absolutely irritating, cannot for the life of him be humble!!!, SON OF A BITCH, PRICK, ASSHOLE—AND THE BIGGEST WANKER ON PLANET EAR

“The team will be here in just a minute,” says the lady who’d ushered you into this meeting room in Maranello. You half-shut your laptop in fear she’ll catch sight of your brief Word document meltdown, but she doesn’t seem to notice, setting a glass of water beside you and you stare idly at it while waiting for the rest of the room to enter. You’re expecting Nick, Carlos, Mattia—the boss—and Charles, his teammate. Jonathan’s already beside you playing Candy Crush on his phone, as per boomer law.

This meeting is pointless. You’ve already exchanged the bare minimum pleasantries with Carlos, anyway, and you cannot for the life of you decipher why there needs to be a whole new corporate clash just for this. But here you are anyway, awaiting your ex-boyfriend’s arrival into the room and back into your sweet life.

He enters with everybody else, his hair half-damp and his eyes meeting yours almost immediately. You clear your throat and turn away, standing to shake hands with Mattia. He’s pleasant about it, expressing excitement for the final output and commending your earlier work as a writer. You offer the polite small talk back, discussing plans for the article and the release date.

“Over at GQ Sports, we’re really trying to make this concept as immersive as possible. That requires the writer to shadow the athlete at almost all times, maybe taking a couple days off if needed. That might mean she gets a paddock pass, and things like that.”

“That’s no problem,” Mattia says. “Anything for the article.”

You end up being introduced to Charles, too—Charles Leclerc, who wears a contagious smile and won’t stop letting his eyes frolic in between you and Carlos, like he can sense the history. You suspect Carlos brought him up to speed, anyway, but it’s still a bit amusing. While the meeting carries on, Charles chips in with a joke. “Hey, if you find this guy irritating, you and I are going to get along.”

You laugh a bit, but remain mostly quiet for the sake of being professional. You miss the way Carlos’ eyes linger on you a second too long, focusing on the tail-end of the meeting so you can, for lack of better word, get the fuck out of here.

Of course, though, you’re stopped in the middle of the parking lot by Carlos himself, whose apologetic face is the first thing you see when you turn around with a huff. You’d already known it was him—he was calling your name loudly as he jogged over to you—but it’s still a sour surprise.

“What?”

“Let’s”—he pauses to take a breath—“talk. Listen, I know it must be an imposition for you to write about this, about me. Let me make it clear that I’m 100% okay if you choose to switch athletes. And if you needed any background information, I’ll be willing to give you that.”

“I don’t care what you’re okay with,” you say blankly. “And I’ve got Google.”

“Right.” He stares. “Um. Okay, well, let’s—can we agree, then? To be civil, for the period of time this article will be written?”

You consider the truce. As much as you’d like to be snarky with him and make your disdain all the more clear, you’re also not interested in making a scene or causing any type of fuss around his—and your—colleagues. The glass awards on your shelf flash through your mind, and you inhale softly. “Okay.”

He smiles. This seems a bit more difficult than you thought, for reasons you didn’t even consider.

“Forget anything ever happened,” he says when your hands meet. Something jolts through you.

Yeah, you’re fucked.

—

Your introduction to the actual sports part of the profile goes well, with a flurry of chaos in Bahrain.

Despite Jonathan’s texted reminder from Friday morning (Stick to Sainz the whole time), you find yourself staying in your comfort zone, ergo following Lewis around nearly the entire weekend. Granted, you are itnroduced to a few more drivers—Mick, Esteban, Alex—but also Lando, one of Carlos’ closest friends on the paddock, who makes dirty jokes from the get go.

Still, even Lewis has to remind you you have another driver to actually cover, so you reluctantly detach from him on the race day and begin your search for—

“Carlos,” you utter, breathless from exhaustion when you finally locate him inside his room at the motorhome, which you swear you checked twenty minutes ago. Either he’s avoiding you or he’s truly impossible to find. He adjusts his suit and looks at you with an unreadable expression.

“Yes?”

“I need a couple of words from you.” You smile politely, taking a seat on the couch armrest. “Like, pre-race nerves, jitters, routine. Anything?”

“I have a playlist,” he says, humming. “I like to call family, have a talk with the engineers.” He says it like en-yi-neers, but you already anticipated it. You’ve known en-yi-neers for years. You know how he talks, pronounces everything. “And I say a prayer, trust the car.”

“Trust the car?” You type the last few words onto your laptop, which you’d been toting around all day. It balances on your lap. “Any follow-ups to that, considering there’s been some chatter around the car this year and its supposed faultiness?”

“I just do what I do best,” he replies, steadfast. “The rest is a gamble I’m willing to take.”

“Perfect.” You finish. “That was a great line. Thanks so much, really.” It’s your reporter voice, the one you use for just about everyone else on the paddock. He nods in response, and the room ebbs into silence again. It’s awkward, when you excuse yourself and exit, already planning exactly how you’re going to tell this to Lewis. Halfway out the door, you purse your lips, turn, and then:

“Good luck, by the way.” Your voice falls soft. 

He looks up, momentarily surprised. “Thank you.”

You nod a little, smiling as you shut the door.

Carlos ends up getting second place—you’re beside a zealous Ferrari engineer when it happens, walking along the pit lane. Compared to your stoic smile, their reaction looks like the pinnacle of human emotion. Your turmoil is all inward, a melting pot of emotion for the driver. Would it be weird, you think, to feel proud? To feel happy? When things have ended?

Much later, when you’re wrestling for comfort in the throng of cheering Ferrari engineers, you squint to find Carlos on the podium.

You’re aware there are photographers everywhere, with high-def cameras that rival your natural eyesight, even, but still you tug your phone out and snap a few shitty zoomed-in pictures of him in second place, smiling and sprayed with champagne. You think of the profile, of the words you’ll use to capture this moment, the season kickoff. But most of all you think of the way his eyes seem to search for something specific in the mass of people, or the way you wished for them to meet yours.

—

Sainz, a self-proclaimed music lover, loads a pre-race playlist that changes every few locations. He names some of his favorite artists and songs as sources of motivation.

You climb into the passenger seat of his Golf when you finally find him, after a half hour of asking around everywhere. First, it was “in the motorhome,” then it was “in a meeting,” then it was “hanging out with Charles”—none of which ended up being true, anyway. He doesn’t question your presence (he hasn’t much, lately), just lets his eyes wander over to you briefly before you begin asking questions.

“Favorite song?” You get straight to it, stressed over the article. Jonathan has been on your ass about missing a deadline and causing the third world war in the process, or something or other. You sigh when you settle into the seat.

“Not even a hello or a buenas noches,” he says as he pulls out of the parking lot to drive the both of you to your hotel. “What’s this for?”

“You already know,” you say, humming as you sift through notes. “Listen. You did an interview before with Toro Rosso, right? Where you said your favorite artists were Muse, Kings of Leon, and The Killers. Right?”

“What the—you are a serious stalker.” He laughs out loud, eyes still on the road ahead.

“It’s kind of my job, Carlos,” you say, smiling and gritting your teeth. “Just answer.”

“Sí, sí. Yeah, I like that genre. I like rock, I guess… rock, indie, 80’s. You’d be surprised how little of an effect music has on my pre-race routine, though, even if I have a playlist.”

“Tell me more,” you muse. Your laziness to retrieve your laptop results in you scribbling soundbites onto your notebook instead. 

“Music is an escape for me, you know? I like it a lot. So as long as something gets me going, I’m good with it. It doesn’t have to be by a favorite artist, or a famous one, or a Spanish one. Though I have been listening to Shakira a lot lately.” Obsessively listens to Shakira, you write. “It’s just release. Lately, I’ve been listening to the same few ones on loop.”

“Care to share?” Music = release. Same songs looped.

He presses something onto the centre console, and music flows throughout the car right after. “This.”

Baby I’m Yours by Arctic Monkeys, you write, and then, all at once, you slowly realize exactly what you’re writing. You stare at the scrawled-on words, the song bleeding into your ears and saturating your brain. You’ve always thought of this song with a weird feeling, one in between nostalgia and hurt, and now it’s on full blast. In Carlos’ Golf, no less, which happened to be the venue for many of your listening parties back then.

Back then—when nobody knew much of this song and it hadn’t yet become an indie anthem. It was just another cover by your favorite band in 2015. It became your song, the song for kitchen dances, the song for long car rides, the song for the red lights, the song for the morning routine.

But now it’s just a song.

“Carlos,” you say. It’s supposed to sound strict, firm, even a little angry. But you’re so affected, it leaves you quietly instead, weakly almost. “Come on.”

“Do you remember when you first showed me this song?” He responds instead, the volume still loud. You allow yourself to smile a little, leaning your head back and watching the cityscape of Bahrain whir past. In a foreign city, you think, you feel more at home than ever.

“Yeah,” you profess. “On my iPhone—what was it then? iPhone 5, or something.” You both laugh a little. The dam has broken, it seems, and topics of your past relationship seem to now be open to discussion. But it doesn’t feel alien, or weird, or uncomfortable. Carlos laughs, makes fun of your old lockscreen, and all is well.

A lot of memories have unwittingly attached themselves to this song. It’s the kind of song where, even in the opening notes, you’re already stunned with the myriad of them. There are the obvious ones: first finding the song, first dancing to it. But it trickles down into the smaller, more niche ones.

The time you got a busker in London to perform it for you both, and danced like idiots at ten-thirty in the evening, while some onlooking geriatric couple watched with mild entertainment. The time you got him a vinyl record of this EP, and left it in the cab before you were supposed to give it to him, leading to you crying on his sofa while he cuddled you and fed reassurance into your ear. The time he attempted to learn the chords to it and broke the string of your decorative guitar.

Like always, Carlos drives one-handed. He’s usually responsible, but if he’s cruising, or driving at a relatively slow pace, he likes to lean back and use his left. His right lays, unmanned, on the centre console of the Golf. You don’t notice it’s there until you finish writing a sample line on your notebook and you lower your left hand absentmindedly, brushing a finger against his in the process.

Your instinct is to jerk away, but Carlos is calm, humming to the song and reading road signs. So you let it rest there, in part to show yourself you’re capable of relaxing, but—and it feels like a heavy thing to admit—also because you like the feeling.

So your hands are there, just shy of each other, barely touching. His pointer finger twitches, almost like he’s trying to hold it back from inviting yours to wrap around it. You let yours brush over them a little bit, pulling away. Then he coughs, and lifts his hand to make a right turn, so you resume writing, eyes downcast. 

—

You’d spent the Saudi weekend less with Lewis (in a bid to follow his advice) and socialized a bit more with Lando and Charles, who both proved to be pleasant company. They played table tennis with you and even shared a good chunk of grid gossip.

“Pierre and Yuki have soooo done it,” whispers Charles, scandalized, sipping a G&T from a decorative polka dot straw.

“Shut up!” You clap a hand over your mouth. “I mean, I had my suspicions. But really? They’ve shagged?”

“Oh.” He pauses dumbly, scratching his head. “I meant they’ve done marijuana.”

“Damn it, Charles,” bemoans Lando. “You’re a sodding buzzkill. We’ve all done weed, this is not news. The gay sex would’ve been.”

The afternoon progresses into night, and you seem to be on a roll with the sports component—Carlos gets to P3 in Saudi Arabia. You travel to his motorhome room after the debrief, where you hope he’ll be, and find him packing shit up inside.

“Good work out there,” you say, and when he looks up he finds himself meeting your eyes in the mirror. He fumbles with the zip of his suit and you walk a little closer.

He huffs out a polite thanks, tugging on the zipper harder. The cloth’s eaten it, a problem that’s been plaguing his race suits as of late—a problem, according to his engineer, easily solvable if he’d just be more patient with tugging it downward to loosen. A problem you’re familiar with as well, from his Toro Rosso days of ranting to you about zippers and sewing.

You lean against the wall and maintain safe distance. “I’m going to ask you about the race later.”

“Alright. What specifically?” He begins the mental Spanish-English translation in advance. 

“Whatever you can give,” you reply, nonchalant. “Maybe more on the feeling while racing. The different perspectives of P3? Sort of like—yeah, you’re on the podium, but it’s not P1.”

“Thanks for the reminder,” he laughs a little, a bit embarrassed he hasn’t fully undone the zipper yet. “Um, sure. I’ll meet you outside afterward.”

“Thanks. And—” You stop yourself in your tracks, still facing him in the mirror. His eyes find yours again, eyebrows raised from the unfinished sentence. “—Be patient with the zip.”

He chuckles, memories surfacing like bubbling lava. “Right. Bueno.” He turns and throws his hands up, looks like he’s surrendering almost. “Help me out?”

You’re incredulous—it’s a highly compromising position.

But he’s not really smiling, and he seems to be seriously asking you to please help zip him up, so you nod. Nod once then twice, walking slowly over to him and placing two fingers on the zipper. You don’t notice how shaky your grip is until you see the way your hand trembles.

Slowly, you tug. Upward, then downward, then upward again, to loosen the stubborn thing. Your eyes move until they meet his, and you realize how close together you are. From here you can see the faint pink indents on his face from the balaclava, and you wonder almost how it’d feel to stroke over it with your thumb. It twitches on the zip and you remember to yank it again.

“Just give me a second,” you say, but you’re not even paying attention to the zipper.

Just him. Just the proximity. The thoughts of what if—what if you leaned closer, right now? Closed the gap, shut your eyes, let your finger trace over the shape left behind by his balaclava, zip forgotten?

“Take your time.” His voice is deep, gentle. 

His eyes pierce yours, the tension growing in between you until you can barely breathe.

You pull and finally, it gives, unzipping the whole way. You blink, breaking eye contact and stepping backwards so fast you almost trip. “I’ll be outside.” The door is shut, the noise damning behind you as you finish an entire cup of water in what you genuinely think to be record time. 

—

“Fine. Fifty euros.”

“Fifty?! Cheap trick. Make it two hundred.” 

“If you’re in the hundred territory, might as well make it five hundred. Turn this into a serious thing.” 

“Deal.” The Brit and the Monegasque clap their hands together in a firm handshake. “Let’s talk terms.”

Charles recites his end of the bet, as clearly as he did when this was first wagered just ten minutes ago. “She and Carlos will start dating before the article is even published.”

“They’re exes, innit?” Lando laughs. “You’re wrong, Charl-ito. They will never date, ever again. Exes don’t date.”

“Unless they’re soulmates,” he reasons.

“Psh, what do you know about soulmates?” The younger raises a condescending brow. “You dated a girl and then her best friend.”

“Back off,” insists Charles petulantly, watching Lando messily write down the evidence of their wager on a small slip of paper. For proof, he’d said, before slipping it into the back of his opaque phone case. He waves it around. “We shall see.”

“You will definitely be paying me up,” Charles says proudly. “Just you wait.”

—

“Care to listen to me?” You hoist yourself onto the stool of this hotel bar, ordering yourself a martini.

“Always,” says Lewis, immediately facing you. He’s always been one of the kindest, most genuine people in your life. He’s known you forever, and he’s the only person here who really knows the extent of your history with Carlos, all the layers, all the fights, all of it.

You sigh and lean against the backrest, deflated. “Carlos and I… I don’t know if this is going to work.”

“The article?”

“Being with him.” You pause to reword it. “Around him.”

“I see. Hasn’t it been, what—four years now, though?”

“Yeah, but…” But why does it feel like you both want those four years gone? The car ride with the song, the eye contact, zip situation after Saudi. You lick over your lips and sit a little straighter.

“Lew, it’s just—and you should know this—when you break up with someone, you’re forced to unlearn all the things you knew about them.” You sigh. “All the… just all of it. The habits, the quirks, the favorite words, the way they like their toast and eggs. And if you can’t, then fine, it’s still okay, because why would you ever need it again? But I haven’t forgotten anything, and now he’s back in my life.”

Lewis stares, with eyes that convey solemnity and a little sadness. He seems to understand, watching you intently, the way your eyes are glassy with unshed tears.

“So now I see him, and it feels like he’s like”—you inhale—“this sounds… bad, but like… I’m… like he’s a lover, kind of. In disguise, a little bit. I don’t know. Like, I have to pretend I know nothing about him, like every little fun fact is a new thing for the profile… but I know everything.” And what a heavy burden it is.

“I’m sorry,” he says quietly. 

“No, don’t be. I’m pretty sure this is all one-sided.” You take a long sip. “That’s the price to pay for ending on bad terms, I suppose.”

“Just think,” he muses out loud. “When this is all over and you’re accepting your Pulitzer, you won’t even be thinking of him one bit.”

“Right,” you say. Carlos, Carlos, Carlos. He’s the only thing on your mind. “Right.”

You find a working title for the article later. Carlos Sainz, it reads on your Word document. On racing, gracious defeat, and life’s driving forces.

—

Like every other sport, Formula One drivers have their share of bad competition days. Sainz recalls a time his car failed and caused him to DNF—racing vernacular for “Did Not Finish,” a damning phrase for any driver on the grid.

A double kill vibrates through Carlos.

It’s a consecutive hit that’s both professional and personal, and greatly affects the momentum of the profile you’re busy writing. In Australia he’d been reserved, eyes stormy, walking alone but not angry. He’d congratulated Charles and everything, even offered a few words for the article. The last you saw of him was with a beer, brows knitted together.

Tonight you’re in Imola. He’d been okay after the race, the usual silence that comes with a bad result.

No hard feelings, he’d said. This is the business. Hugged Danny, excused himself; nobody said anything. It’s a normal response to a shit day. You spend the post-race buzz with Lewis and Sebastian this time, but you manage to congratulate Lando on the podium finish when you catch sight of him.

“Maaate!” He cries gleefully when he sees you. “Where’s the muppet?”

“Mourning,” you drone. “Reasonably so, I guess.”

“Tough crowd,” he says, kissing his teeth. “But, yeah. Hey—shots on me!”

“Tempting offer.” You eye the bunch of tequila on the table. “But I think I’ll retire early. I need to send a draft pretty early tonight.”

“All good. Have fun being a loser,” he says, watching you leave.  

The hotel, it turns out, is not nearly as fun as the party. Which is common sense.

You spend time writing and rewriting a few paragraphs of the article, stuck on the title of it and honestly wishing you were with Cuervo and vodka right now. You suppose you don’t need one just yet—they usually come to you late, anyways. Jonathan sends you three follow-up emails regarding a draft, so you send him the latest version and read over the file, reciting favorite lines under your breath.

In the middle of reading on the Bahrain P2 and a little segment on Sainz’s favorite Ferrari moments, somebody knocks on your door.

It’s a surprise—you don’t spend much time with people on the paddock, and only few of them know your room number, which leads you to narrow down the person on the other side to a select group. There’s Lewis, most likely of them all. Charles, who you’d grown much closer to as of late. Level with him is Lando. Then maybe, just maybe, Sebastian, to offer late night advice.

It could’ve been any of them, but it’s not. It’s somebody else.

“I’m sorry.” His voice threatens to break. “I didn’t know who else I could talk to.”

“Carlos?” You blink. 

You usher him in after, and you hope his mind is anxious enough that it doesn’t pay much attention to your hideous pajama situation (old hoodie, souvenir L.A. pajama pants). You end up on your balcony, both of you facing the frigid nighttime air. It freezes your cheeks, casts your hair backwards. Your eyes slide to his stoic figure, the way even his hair is blown back by the wind.

He’s quiet, but more relaxed, less stiff. “Sorry, again.”

“S’okay.”

You duck back inside and return with two cigarettes and a lighter. “Wanna?”

“Awful habit.” But he accepts it anyway, sticking it in between his lips. It bobs as he speaks, still unlit. “I need this, though.”

“I don’t do it regularly,” you defend, pressing the flame to the cig. He exhales. “Some situations call for them.”

“This definitely does. Bit of a slap to the face, you know?” You nod. “I’m sorry.” The apology carries more weight than it should, and you know why. 

Like it’s the most difficult thing in the world, you breathe a few times before you respond in a hushed tone. With your words comes a huff of smoke. “Don’t beat yourself up over it. You gave it your all, took a risk, it went to shit. But you gave it your all is what matters in the end. You put heart into it, which is something not everyone does in sports these days.”

“I feel… complimented.” You both laugh at the lack of good phrasing, so he rewords it. “I meant, I feel, how you say? Touched. It means a lot to be praised by you.”

“Does it?” Smoke again, another whiff of it.

“They only ever want to praise the podium finish, the P1, the title holder.” He lets the words fizzle. “But here you are praising a driver who finished like shit twice in a row. More people should be like you, paying thanks to the underdogs.”

It’s not the underdogs, you think. It’s just because of you. 

“More like the shit drivers,” you say instead, in a low rumbling voice. He laughs, calls you stupid in Spanish, and it’s a dead issue.

Later, before he leaves, when the room’s much darker and less bathed in moonlight, you whisper goodbye to him through a small crack in the door. He smiles a bit, and you catch it even with the lack of lighting.

“Thank you.” He says. He means it. You catch his perfume when the door swings closed. It smells like wood.

—

Sainz has off-grid hobbies, one of the most notable of which is cooking. He claims to have a good hold over the kitchen, and cooks several of his favorite dishes on the rare weekend off. Blah blaaahhhh, cooks well. Usually wears funky apron. WRITE THIS PROFILE ALREADY STOP EATING PASTA YOU DIPSHIT

Lando had invited you all to an Airbnb owned by a friend in Umbria, a two-ish hour drive from Imola.

With two free days, you’d followed a small group of drivers—Carlos included—to soak in the rest of Tuscany. Charles and Lando, however, left as soon as you arrived, to check out the last few hours of the farmer’s market. Alex had met Lily at the Eurostar station and they’d gone biking together.

This effectively left you and Carlos alone, which was not an unusual occurrence, but still proved to be a bit tense. With the kitchen free and the fridge stocked, Carlos suggested he cook for you both. Despite your best efforts, you ended up at the island writing and taste testing sauce, chicken, anything he slid over to you on a saucer with a tiny fork beside it.

“You’re going to give me cholesterol problems,” you quip. “This pasta is too good.”

“Cacio e pepe.” He twirls some onto a fork, straight off the pan, and shoves it into his mouth, a low mmmm leaving him once he gets to chewing. You laugh, a stifled sound through the noodles in your mouth at the exaggerated show of delicious food.

“Any favourite food you think is notable enough for the profile?” You type again, backspacing your harsh reminder. Makes a mean cacio e pepe (look up translation later). “Like, food you cook yourself, or even other recipes.”

“This,” he says, pointing to the pan. “This is fuel.”

“Amen.” Loves cacio e pepe.

“And it’s good with chicken.” He points to the oven, where he’s been baking chicken for a bit now. The kitchen smells of it, of the rosemary and oregano and pepper. “Oh, and put that I cook with music on. Let me connect my phone.”

Cooks w/ music. “Why do you need to mention that?”

“Ladies love a chef,” he says simply, letting a familiar song thrum into the woody kitchen. “And I love ladies.”

“Okay, slag.”

“Fuck off!” He begins shimmying all across the kitchen island, cranking open the oven mid-dance to check on the chicken, then continuing to clean the counter. Still he dances, and not very well, either—he always claimed singing was a stronger suit of his, so you allow the fool to be a fool.

Back when you two were still together, Carlos already had a preference for 70’s disco in the kitchen, saying it brought out the dancer in him. Nothing seems to have changed in that department, and you smile with mild embarrassment and amusement watching him dance across the kitchen, using the kitchen towel as a prop and swinging it around.

Loves dancing to The Communards while baking rosemary chicken. “Let me taste the chicken, by the way,” you ask when you finish typing, hopping off the stool and walking to the oven. He continues dancing, hips cocking poorly from side to side to the old song. He retrieves a fork and cuts a piece of chicken, reviewing its doneness briefly before turning with a piece of it stabbed into the utensil.

“Open,” he says. “It’s hot.”

It’s too natural, the way he slowly feeds you the piece. You don’t even realize it until you’re chewing, and by then he’s back to dancing to the song that’s now reaching its end. “It, uh,” you stutter, a bit nervous, “it’s really good.”

“Of course, I cooked it,” he says smugly. You grab a lime from the fruit bowl and throw it, hitting him in the back of the head in retaliation. He turns slowly, still dancing, lips stretched into a challenging smile.

Lando and Charles walk in ten minutes later to Carlos and you, yelping and chasing each other around the wide counter, chicken left atop it and forgotten in favor of the tag game. Charles, toting bags of fruit, faces Lando with a victorious expression. Pay up, he mouths, cocky.

—

It’s much too hot in Miami, but you appreciate the heavy beach culture and the even heavier nightlife.

You work on the profile until your fingers hurt from typing, sending Jonathan another draft for approval. Charles joins you on a cocktail taste test at the open bar until your tongue tastes like gin and your head is a bit spinny. Both Ferrari drivers end up having a shitload of pictures of you sleeping on the leather couch, enough that Lewis ends up getting ahold of them, too.

It’s a 2-3, in the end, with P1 going to Max. The latter throws a party at some place along the beach strip, invites you in one of the only conversations you’ve ever shared with the guy so far. He seems a bit unfriendly, but when you walk into the exclusive club later that night, you find him doing a handstand in front of a beer keg, so that’s that.

FUCK YEAH! Max hollers, following it with a howl so happy it reverbrates in your ears. It’s crowded everywhere, and you’re pretty sure Lewis isn’t here, so you spend a few minutes roaming around, getting a good grip on the vibe of the place.

It’s Carlos who finds you in the middle of the dance floor, nursing yet another drink to aid your lack of social skills. His voice is rough in your ear and it smells like a Jägerbomb, a low laugh escaping it right after. “All alone?”

“Unfortunately,” you tease, turning to face him. “Man, I thought guys were confident in Florida.”

“Cuidado,” he warns, smiling. “This dress is pretty difficult to resist.” His tongue’s definitely been loosened by shots, his eyes half-lidded and looking you up and down. You laugh, raising one eyebrow at the sudden flirty tone, but welcoming it nonetheless, depositing your now empty glass on whatever cocktail table is nearest. Who said you were sober? 

“Nobody’s inviting me, so why don’t you and I dance instead?”

He licks over his lips—he never seems to keep his tongue in his mouth—and winks, nodding.

And here in Miami, through the strobing purple lights of this ridiculously expensive club, you wrap your arms around his neck and dance to whatever Calvin Harris song is blaring through the bass.

His hands are all over you, loosening your stiff stature; they wring into the fabric of your obejctively too-short dress, raking it up a bit. You lean back and he leans forward, following you, drawn into you, your noses pressed together and your eyes meeting. Your breath heightens, holds, your fingers moving to his long hair and holding him close to you.

His hand moves over your ass, pulling you in. He smiles, pokes his tongue into his cheek, and you giggle, almost causing your lips to touch. Your mind is haywire from the alcohol, but you can’t really bring yourself to care. The warmth grows between you, closer and closer, the dynamic easy—

And then someone spills their drink on both your feet, causing you two to break apart and laugh off the tension instead. You’d almost fucking kissed. However you’re going to tell this to Lewis, you don’t even know.

And you’re not entirely sure, you think as you rinse whiskey and bile off the tip of your heel in the bathroom, how it sounds like to write Sainz and I almost made out in public on the GQ profile.

—

Nick emails you directly to ask if Carlos can do some test shoots in Miami for the profile cover.

You convince him to agree, even if he thinks he’s no good in front of a camera, and you two show up to a mostly empty warehouse studio. There’s a white backdrop situated toward the back and a tiny-sized crew of people working.

“Hi. Is this for GQ?” You ask the photographer. “Test shots?”

“Oh, hi.” He stands and shakes your hand. “I’m Luke. Big fan of your work, by the way. So the concept today is just plain shirt, long hair, gorgeous face, white background. Good?”

“Bueno,” Carlos says behind you with a smile.

You sit on a chair a few metres behind Luke while he works, watching the shots pop up on his screen every time the shutter clicks. As it turns out, Carlos is a brilliant liar, because every single shot—even one where he was fixing a wrinkle in his tee—looks perfectly usable anyway. Sainz is a natural stunner, you jot down.

It’s a bit awkward to admit you can’t help but stare, but his face is undeniably handsome, especially when he’s in front of the camera. Thankfully for you, and heavily owed to Carlos’ natural skill for modeling, the ordeal’s over in less than thirty minutes, and you begin preparing your stuff to leave.

“Oh, crap. I forgot I had to do a test bridal shoot for R&B’s wedding anniversary in September.” Luke sighs, clicking through the photos rapidly.

“R&B. The… music genre?” You ask, confused and toting your bag on your shoulder.

“Silly! Ryan and Blake. As in, Reynolds and Lively? They plan their photoshoots way in advance, and they always need sample poses to choose from.”

“Oh, I get it.” You smile. “Well, we’re sorry for keeping you.”

“You”—he stops both you and Carlos, pacing in front—“you two wouldn’t… mind, would you?”

“Mind… mind what, now?” Your eyes flit toward Carlos’ and you both laugh nervously.

“Being my mannequins for the bridal shoot!”

Both of you balk, making up all kinds of excuses, but as fate would have it, Luke is very convincing and you’re against the backdrop after five minutes of persuasion. He directs you into different silly, quirky poses—a piggyback ride both ways, smiling goofily, the like. Carlos can’t stop laughing every time the shutter clicks, at how silly the two of you must look. 

Luke plays some music to get you both looser, and directs you into a few mocking dance poses. Then he directs you in a partners-in-crime pose, which you love the outcome of. Okay, last one, newlyweds, he says. Carlos, why don’t you get behind her and wrap your arms around her waist?

You clear your throat, letting him do so anyway, his hands big around your frame. “Careful,” you whisper when he’s right behind you. Luke raises an inquisitive brow behind the camera, watches your chemistry unfold through the viewfinder. Your breath hitches a little, but you swallow the nerves.

Look into his eyes, Luke says. So you do, meet them, force yourself not to look away for once and just stare. It’d been easy to do this, because you could just as easily break the stare, but now it’s different. Your eyes flutter, and his stay unblinking. 

It’s like that for a minute, just staring, like all the things you want to say can communicate themselves through eye contact alone. Another twenty seconds pass before Luke coughs, breaking the moment.

“I said we were good like a minute ago, guys,” he says knowingly, packing up with a smirk.

—

Lewis advises you to avert your pent up “romantic” tension to another boy. It’s difficult, but you challenge yourself to find somebody anyway, maybe outside of racing, to use your extra paddock pass (courtesy of Mattia) on. The guys in your DMs are all skeevy, or you’ve unfortunately ghosted them, so they’re all out.

After some searching, you end up using your extra pass in Spain, and for James, a Sky Sports sound editor for streamed football games. He’s British and a huge Tottenham fan who you met during drinks with a few reporters the month prior. Not bad, but not necessarily your type; at this point, though, you’ll take anybody above the bare minimum. And James is above it—a gentleman, kind, funny in the quaint English way. He could be taller, but you find him charming enough.

Noise flows through the paddock, chatter and cheering and interviews. “This is so cool,” says James animatedly. “I feel like a regular Schumacher.”

You give a phony, flirty laugh and enter the Ferrari hospitality, raking your hair backwards. “I’m going to get something real quick, okay? Stay put…” You point at a lone chair. “Over there.”

“Alright,” he says with a smile. “I can’t roam arou—?”

“No!” You say, a tad too quickly. “I mean, sorry. Don’t. Just. I’ll be back really quickly.” Before you can even retrieve your phone charger from Carlos’ room, the owner himself walks into the area, squirting water into his mouth and furrowing his eyebrows together when he sees you standing beside a stranger.

“Hi,” Carlos says, a bit bluntly. His eyes are darting everywhere but at you, lingering a bit too distastefully on James’ timid figure. “You are?”

“Her date,” James says with a nervous laugh, pointing a thumb towards you. “James. Huge fan of you. Of the team.”

“Sure.” He offers a tight-lipped smile, hand meeting James’ outstretched one to form a polite handshake.

It’s awkward, is what it is—awkward and stuffy and Carlos won’t look at you. He clenches his jaw a little, smiles, looks up and down. “You, uh… how long have you guys been…?” He waves a finger in between the both of you, almost fearfully, like the answer will cast him into ashes.

“Not—not long, really.” James laughs again to relieve the tension that seeps across the room. “A month?”

“A month?” Carlos repeats, arms crossed.

“We haven’t even, like, had se—”

“That’s—” you cut in, sharp and apologetic, “wow, that’s plenty. Thanks, James. Could you get us some drinks? I’ll have a beer.”

“It’s one-thirty,” he says.

“Yeah,” you respond. “A beer.”

He leaves you both alone sheepishly, and you turn to face Carlos’ intense expression.

His arms are crossed and he rakes a hand through his hair—but he doesn’t say anything. Why should he, anyway, he thinks to himself, staring at you. You wore your hair in a ponytail today, so he sees more of your pretty face. Oh and so does James. Pendejo.

“Are you okay?” You ask, even if he knows you know what’s up.

“Totally. Muy bien.” He shrugs, drinking water again. “Should I not be?”

“Never said that,” you say, raising both eyebrows. 

“Okay. Well enjoy the beer.”

So he’s jealous. Fine, sue him. He’s jealous of the British gangly guy you thought was good enough to invite onto the paddock. Barely even made a lasting impression. He gives a small, phony smile and walks back, meeting Charles along the way.

“You look like you’ve just seen a ghost, mate,” says the younger, slinging an arm over his shoulder. “Maybe the ghost of James?” He flicks the guy’s forehead, laughing.

P4, it ends up being. Not nearly good enough. But James is the first to say, “Congratulations, hombre!” in a God awful accent, so it becomes ten times worse, really.

—

“Alright guys, Carlos and I here today with some members of our team, and we’re going to play some fun trivia games.” Charles’ eyes read from the signboard behind the camera, his amusement wholly unscripted as he looks from you to Andrea and back to Carlos.

You honestly don’t know why you agreed to this. It might have been Lewis’ gentle persuasion or your boss’ overenthusiastic persistent voice, or the sleepiness that’s been wearing you down and boggling your mind lately, or—and it’s probably this—the fact that James ghosted you after Spain, because you “clearly have a thing with Sainz, and I don’t wanna be a homewrecker.” Whatever it is, you’re apparently a guest on the C² Challenge segment. 

Today is a trivia game against Charles and Andrea, and you’ve all been given a general guide to what the questions entail—math, music, general knowledge, and one scripted Ferrari question at the end. The structure is fairly basic; each team member gets to answer one at a time, both contributing to overall points—and no coaching allowed, for some odd reason.

Charles is a little shit, so he’s made an off-camera bet: loser should treat winner to a round of shots at the next afterparty/get-together. And—who are you kidding, really—Carlos is also a little shit, so he’s game for the bet and has fired you both up to win, spouting Ferrari trivia in your ear should it come up.

“I got it,” you say snappily when he hasn’t stopped pestering you for five straight minutes. “I got it.”

“Oh, did you got it?” He asks sassily. “Okay. When did Ferra—”

“We’re starting in three,” says the cameraman in Spanish, Italian, then finally English.

He holds three fingers up and you hug your tiny dry erase board closer to your torso, readying your camera smile. The video—and the game—start off well enough, a quickfire competition developing between the two teams that infects you and Andrea quickly. 

“Stay calm and collected,” Carlos proclaims, lips stretched into a proud smile. “Our team motto.” He elbows your side and you roll your eyes with a smile, teasing. 

“I think it’s, ah, always—always cheat, mate,” Charles protests, pointing an accusatory finger. 

“You are soooo—tch, I propose we kick Charles for poor sportsmanship,” retorts your teammate, laughing. The force of his laughter shakes the stool he sits on and you bite back a smile, remaining relatively quiet like you’ve been since the start of the video.

The remainder of the game passes with Carlos and Charles neck and neck, you and Andrea working overtime to make sure your teams don’t lose the bet. Eventually it boils down to one question, which Carlos is in charge of answering. Behind the camera, the producer raises a signboard and reads it out: We all know C². What is eight squared?

What a relief, you think. They’ve basically handed the win to you and Carlos on a silver platter. You wait, bumbling in your seat and raising an L sign toward Charles, who sticks his tongue out in response. Excitedly, you watch Carlos cheer for himself and finish writing, turning the board inch by inch until you all see the answer he has written on it.

Everyone stares. Then: “Team Charles wins!”

“Que?!” Carlos blinks, scandalized and a bit amused. He stares at the question then at his answer then, as if dreading the laser eyes, at you. Your eyes narrow, disappointed.

“Carlos. What is eight squared?”

“Eight squared. Eight, and you take another eight, and—it’s right here.” A tan finger points firmly at the number written messily, square in the middle of the whiteboard.

16

“Eres un tonto,” you quip, remembering bits of teasing you’d used on him years before. “Carlos, it’s 64. Eight times eight, not eight times two.”

“Ay, puta—” He shuts his eyes and laughs. “Lo siento! Sorry, sorry. Sorry! I cost us the win.”

Across you, Charles is coaxing a much more begrudged Andrea into a childish victory dance, pulling his arms up and down to convey the joy of winning. You sigh exasperatedly, but smile . For what it was worth, you had a great game anyway. The noise grows, and you watch the producers pack up, the cameraman parting from the camera for a moment to converse with one of them.

Left alone with you for a bit, Carlos lets his voice slip into a quieter one. “Sorry again. I forgot.”

“Forgot?” Your brows furrow, confused. “What?”

“That, you know”—he points at the lonely 16 on the whiteboard he holds—“it’s supposed to be 64.”

 “Oh.” You laugh, a light sound. “Whaaat?! It’s not that deep, Carlos. Seriously, don’t worry about it. It was all fun.”

“Well, I’m glad you had fun,” he says softly, smiling.

“Yeah, me too,” you say, unable to hide your smile. You stay like that for a bit, something blooming in the pit of your stomach you can’t—and refuse to—name.

—

You get two days off, and Charles had suggested you all go to Paris before you go to Cannes, where the Ferrari team is apparently expected for a meeting before Monaco. You’re the one who’d said yes first, even if Carlos seemed to hesitate; he had asked why, to which you responded you’d never been before.

You’d read about it, watched about it, and like every other human on Earth, seen pictures of it. But you’d never been to Paris; work placed you mostly in London, sometimes South America, other times Italy. But Paris was never a destination. So Carlos allowed the greenlight and you flew, with Lando, Pierre, and Esteban tagging along for shits and giggles.

“I’ve waited my whole life for my Eiffel Tower moment,” you say, not even trying to hide your wonder. Carlos got the best room for himself, but invited you in, for the view. He doesn’t tell you he went through hell and back to get precisely this room, so you could peek inside and see the tower.

“Well, you’re here now.” He wedges the hotel balcony door open and walks toward the railing. You follow suit, arms crossed over your torso, eyes stuck on the view. “How is it?”

“It’s as beautiful as I imagined it to be,” you confess honestly, eyes still stuck on the tower, the way it stands alone and glittering against the black of night. Cliché as it is, you feel like you’ve checked one huge box off your bucket list, staring at the landmark like it’s going to evaporate into thin air. 

Beside you, Carlos hums in agreement, but his gaze is stuck on something else. “I know.”

“Oh, do you?” You laugh. “Are you in the business of admiring beautiful things?” You tease, looking up at the stars.

Sensing his eyes on you, you slowly avert your gaze until your eyes meet. The light reflects in his eyes, and they meet yours blindingly, beautiful, luring you closer. The joking tone of your words is caught in your throat, desert dry, your lips parted to spout words you’ve now forgotten, lost track of.

Your silhouettes dance against the lights of the city below, two figures admiring the other. His eyes flicker down to your lips, linger there a second too long. You stumble closer, your foot touching his.  “…Paris.” The words struggle to leave but they do, quietly, an admission of guilt. “It’s always reminded me of you.”

 “Not Spain?” He asks, leveling your volume. You’re closer, so close you feel his breath fan soft against your own face. His voice is deep, accented so thickly, the way it is when he talks with you because he falls into a familiar rhythm of knowing you’ll decipher whatever he has to say.

You giggle, a low, breathy sound. A barely there shake of your head. “I… love it so much, is why. Always have.”

Had there been a pedestrian across the street who looked just a few floors upward, they would’ve found the both of you there, smiling foolishly, blanketed by the night sparkles of the Eiffel Tower and the rest of the city. They would’ve seen the way Carlos leaned in, his eyes on yours and then on your lips, the way you nodded in silent, warm invitation. Come closer, you seem to say. Don’t stray any further.

A lock of your hair touches his jaw, from how close you two are. So close. Everything smells like him, like the musky woody perfume he wears, the detergent he uses. All of that, and everything underneath. The scent of him. Just him. 

You hold your breath when you both lean in, eyes fluttering shut and waiting, waiting for his lips to meet yours.

The door shakes with several knocks, Lando’s voice seeping from the other side of it. “Mate, we’re gonna be late for dinner!” He says boredly, letting his fist collide with it a few more times for good measure.

Instantly, you and Carlos separate, both of you clearing your throats, rushed flimsy excuses escaping your mouths at the same time. You’re warm all over, the excitement, the nerves, tapering off into nothing as you walk back inside the room, busying yourselves with anything. Oh, I need to check if Jonathan’s emailed me. Oh, let me go answer the door.

Lando is waiting, expectant, on the other side when Carlos pries the door open. “Mate! Dinner! I texted you like twenty minutes ago and y—oh.” He spots you sitting at one of the lounge chairs in the room, and immediately his brows raise. “Hey, dude. You’re here?”

“Yeah, to, uh—to get Carlos to OK some edits,” you say with a smile, hoping your nonchalance isn’t too shaky. “I needed to get a draft in by three hours ago, so.”

“Oh. Right, obviously.” His eyes narrow a little, but he doesn’t relax much, gaze suspicious and a bit beguiled. “Well, if you’re not busy, we’re having dinner?”

“I’m good,” you decline, a touch too quickly. “It’s getting late.”

“Alright, well it was a courtesy invite, you dipshit,” Lando teases, and everything feels a bit more normal. You just flip him off, and Carlos retrieves his coat, eyes still not meeting yours when you all exit at the same time. Lando makes up for the hole in the conversation, droning on and on about the restaurant they’re going to, and how good it seems to be.

The elevator ride is equally charged, and you spend it humming and interjecting Lando’s words to come across as unfazed, even if you’re so totally not. Once you’re alone you finally let big exhales leave you. You don’t know if it’s from the anxiety of almost being caught, or the anxiety from the kiss unfinished.

—

LOVE the latest draft, Nick & I both. Could we get a deeper angle? Something re: regrets? Would really tie it together! Best, J

“Huh. Do you have any regrets?” You ask, tearing your eyes away from the short email. Next to you, Carlos nods his head slowly. You’re on the beach in Cannes, taking time off before the meeting and people-watching. Charles had joined you for a good half hour before leaving to sleep in the hotel instead, leaving you two to bask in the now setting sun.

“Everyone does, no?” He stretches a bit. The topic is tense. “But yes, I have some specific ones.”

“Like?” You ask weakly.

“I was stupid when I was younger. More immature, more forgetful. You grow older and you think of all the things you could’ve done right, years too late. There’s a proverb I heard once that goes—camarón que se duerme se lo lleva la corriente. It means to—to stay alert. Don’t let things pass you by.”

“And do you think you followed that advice?”

His eyes meet yours. “Do you?”

—

It’s quiet when Carlos walks inside your flat, and already his heart begins to drain, filling with guilt.

He steps over the creaky floorboard, notices your car keys on the table, your jacket haphazardly slung over the rack, your Chanel bag half-open on the dinner table beside an empty wine glass and a sweaty bottle of Cheval Blanc. The bedroom door’s half-open, light bleeding into the dark rest-of-the-place, and when he gently pushes the door to get in, the sight he faces is crushing.

“…Estás bien?”

You face the window, your back to him, in a beautiful, beautiful black dress. Your hair had been up, but it’s unpinned now, falling in loose, messy waves. You hiccup, and then tense. Feigning nonchalance, you croak out, “Yeah, yeah.”

“I’m sorry,” he says honestly. “I didn’t know the thing was earlier.” His eyes hover to the glass award on the bed, one you’d hoped he would watch you receive tonight.

“I said I’m fine,” you say. “Just”—you sniffle—“it’s fine, Carlos, just get out.”

You’re standoffish, and cold, but Carlos knows you’re incredibly hurt. In an attempt to try and coerce a conversation, he stays. “Let’s have dinner tomorrow,” he suggests in a low voice. “On me. Right? To celebrate.”

“Leave me alone, Carlos.”

“I wanted to go,” he insists. “I had a meeting that ended late, and—”

“It doesn’t fucking matter,” you assert, turning. You’ve clearly been crying hard, your face flushed and shiny, a few rogue tears still on your chin. “Just go.”

“I know how much this mattered to you.”

“And yet you didn’t go.” You sniff, wiping fruitlessly at your face. “Carlos, just…” Your voice sounds thin, heartbroken, worn with pain and real tiredness. 

“Cut me some slack.” Carlos argues softly.

“No, I just… I don’t even know how things got to this point, Carlos. We used to be so much happier. But now, it’s like I have to demand for your time like everyone else does. Now, I—I cook, I plan dinner, I put my own career on the back burner so I can spend more time with you even if I’ve gotten calls, promotions that you don’t even ever… ever ask about, just everything. I don’t think… I don’t feel you love me that way. Care for me, that way. You’ve never shown it, not lately especially.”

“You should’ve told me,” he says, hurt.

“This kind of thing, it…” you shake your head, wiping your clammy hands on the black silk. “It doesn’t need to be said.”

“Let me make it up to you.” He steps closer but you’re quicker, almost stumbling in your rush to avoid him.

“No,” you protest, “just go, Carlos, just go. Get out and close the door.”

“Cariño—”

“Go,” you say, voice hard with contempt. You refuse to meet his pleading eyes. “Go, Carlos.”

So he does.

He passes by, again, your handbag, with the sleek travel-sized bottle of Santal 33 you keep with you always peeking out, and the Cheval Blanc he’d bought you a few months prior, and the jacket you’d bought with his approval almost a year ago. He lingers in his car for a minute, the rain pelting the Golf noisily. 

He drives off, wiping tears from his own face.

And maybe, had he stayed a little longer, he would’ve seen you tearfully emerge from the elevator, into the lobby, then out into the rain, still in your black dress, and let yourself get soaked waiting for him to come back, refusing to believe he’d even let himself leave you so broken.

—

You play Uno to pass the time, your last night in Cannes.

He’s won two games in a row at this point, and you’re almost 100% sure he has a plus four card in his hand, so you play a bit more deliberately, eyeing him with a challenging glint in your eyes. You’re a bit watered down by your earlier conversation, but you feign nonchalance anyway.

Blue 2. Blue 5. Green 5. Then finally, he slaps it onto the deck—a plus four card. “Oh, come on, Carlos,” you say, almost actually irritated.

“I’ll kiss it better,” he says. Suddenly overwhelmed, you push yourself off the counter and storm out.

He follows you, stumbling into the empty balcony and softly shutting the door, voice still colored with laughter. “I’m sorry! I didn’t know you’d be so upset about the—”

You barely hear the rest of his clearly half-hearted, humorous apology. It doesn’t matter to you.

What does matter is everything from the years past crashing on your shoulders like debris, like rain, finally giving under the weight of being so close to him again. Everything. The tangled fog of your relationship, the start, the middle, the terrible end neither of you wanted. You pulsed with want, with yearning, with sadness.

So you ask yourself why? Why? Why? Why couldn’t he have come back? More importantly—why did he let you go so easily?

The truth is, you’ve drowned yourself in work so long you’ve forgotten what it’s like to feel, to be felt. And if Carlos is doing this, all this, all the touching and the tension and the debris and the rain that crash on you like a bruising, torrential storm, for his own pleasure, like this is all a game, then you’ve yearned for nothing.

“This isn’t about the game, Carlos!” It heaves itself out of you in a half-sob, carried by the wind.

He stops—stops walking, stops smiling. Just stops and stares, brows knitted with concern. You refuse to look at him, staring instead at the skyline, arms crossed. The view blurs with tears, lights meshing together prettily.

He stutters your name out in a feeble response. It’s mortifying, the way you start to cry when it leaves his mouth.

You turn then, willing your lips to stop quivering. “Good for you,” you say shakily, “you can—you can fool around, kiss me like it’s nothing, pretend like we never even mattered so you can make jokes about how we’ve ended up here again, back, together.” You inhale, but it’s no use; you’re crying even as you speak. “And I’ll laugh, because it can be funny, you know, fuck it. But… I’m so—”

The wanting shows, in moments like this. Wanting love, wanting comfort, wanting warmth, an escape from work and stress and life. You know how it feels, to be loved. You’d been familiar with it, at some point. You want it again, the ache, the kiss, the pain of it all. More than that, you want him. For just a moment. But all this wanting is so exhausting.

You want this profile to be over. You want to pull him close and tell him how proud you are, but also how hurt you are. You want Spain. You miss Paris. Everything, everything, every memory, every single painful loving thing bursts inside you.

“—tired.” You nod your head, licking tears that have perched on your lip, smiling humorlessly, shrugging. “I’m—I’m tired, and lonely, and being around you makes it worse. Being around you hurts me. It hurts you. This profile was a bad idea, and I should’ve trashed this the moment I learned I’d be covering you. Because I knew then it would’ve turned to shit, and I was right.”

He stares, unmoving. He remembers, too. He’d tell you everything if the words clicked just right. But they never do; they tangle like cotton balls in his throat before he can kneel and name everything he remembers, everything he loved about the two of you. Cariño. Just be mine, tell me everything, tell me you love me.

You wipe a hand over your face. “Let’s just let this go already. You know, we really were good for a while. This… this is maybe just one of those things where we made it in another life, but not this one.”

At his returned silence, you nod, then walk quietly past him and back into the room.

It’s just as empty as you’d left it, dim and lit only by the warm light above the kitchen counter. Your forgotten Uno game lies on the same spot, beside the two empty wine glasses. You stare for a second. Life had been different when he’d lay down his cards just minutes ago.

A coat is tugged from in between couch cushions, your heels from by the door hastily pulled on. Every movement feels heavy, like sandbags are tied to your limbs, your tongue, your eyelids. You turn, one last time, to see the moment suspended in time—and you meet his eyes. Even across the room you feel like you’re drowning in them, dark and solemn. 

“Wait,” he says, and even with just one syllable he’s managed to stop your world from turning again. “You’re right. Everything you said. When I’m around you, I hurt. I’m reminded of how awful I was then. It’s painful to be together.”

Eyes meet, eyes blink, eyes close.

“But you didn’t trash the feature. And I still enjoy your company. You could be covering Rafael Nadal or whoever right now. I could be in a jet to Japan. But you and I are here, are we not?”

Only you. It’s only you.

“I’ve missed you.” It rips through him. “I want to be here with you. I want to make the pain go away, so let me.”

“It’s useless,” you protest, tearily. “This won’t work. I’ll get mad, you’ll get fed up, I’ll get bored, you’ll put work before us.”

“Okay.” He paces toward you, nearer and nearer, closing the distance between you both. “I’ll make it work.”

“Carlos,” you weep, “I don’t know why you don’t get it. Life sucks. And all we get are little moments where things are… are good. So don’t waste the moments like this. Let’s not waste the moments on this.”

“You’re not a waste,” he says—and you crumple into his arms, worn, exhausted.

A knot in your heart is slowly unraveling itself. You’ve waited, yearned for so long, and finally you’re in his arms again, with the kind of quiet resolution only he would understand. You left the lights on for him. You’d do it again, but you don’t have to.

You bury your head in his chest, a chorus of apologies leaving him. I’m sorry, he says. I’m sorry, I love you. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Everything.

I love you, you say weakly. I love you, that’s enough. I waited for this to leave, but all it did was hide. The love has yet to pass. It never will.

—

“Yours really is the best selling one!” Nick pulls you in for a hug. “We have Nadal and CR7 on the roster, but Sainz’s is selling like crazy. Your writing is just—” He kisses his fingers. “You are amazing.”

“You flatter me,” you reply gracefully, letting him pull you into another embrace but prying him off a bit faster. You don’t need another Jonathan-esque freakout in the middle of the room.

The GQ party, six months later, almost a mirror of the fundraiser just a few months ago. Only this time, you’re not tacked onto Lewis, and you’re not buzzing with nerves (as much). You had run into Lewis when you entered, and Charles too, and Lando when he spotted you, but none of them are your plus ones to this event.

Your profile is the talk of the journalism scene. Nobody can shut up about it, and it thrills you, excites you, to be witnessing your work be recognized beside Carlos himself. He brings you a glass of champagne and presses a kiss to your cheekbone, smiling against it.

Neither of you notice Lando and Charles behind you, watching like hawks. The elder cackles, presents his hand like a sacrifice and turns to the Brit. “Aha.What did I tell you, chat?”

“Five hundred euros,” moans Lando, slapping a bunch of bills onto it. “You’re an intuitive prick.”

“Those two are soulmates.” They stare at your foolish figures, smiling like idiots, high-fiving even. “The kind that’ll always, always find their way back to each other. Always.”

Lando shrugs. “Hey, honestly, for once, I’m glad I lost a bet.”

“I look great on the cover,” Carlos says, both of you staring at the screen’s display of it. 

“Shut up,” you smile, interlocking your fingers. “Well, my writing looks great inside.”

“Really does,” he says. “I’m so, so proud of you, cariño.”

“Proud of me?” You tease, staring up at him. “You made the last minute title change that caused fans to go crazy.” You both turn to stare at it displayed on the screen, smiling fondly.

Carlos Sainz—on racing, gracious defeat, and refinding love.

[dulcewrites]

Fool Me Once (pt 2)

Pairing: Aemond targaryen x reader (wc: 3.6k)

Summary: Despite learning about Aemond cheating on you, life has never been sweeter. Who knew being so bad could be so good.

Warnings: manipulation, mentions/allusions to pregnancy issues, mentions of self harm

A/N: first, I just have to say thank you for the response to part 1. I truly had no idea it would get the reception it would. Thank you to everyone who followed me as well. I hope I can continue to produce stuff y’all like. I’m hoping to write more hotd stuff, Aemond and non Aemond related. I plan on taking a small hiatus but will be back around thanksgiving weekend. I will be writing on/off during that time but just away for a trip/the holiday. If you have any hotd requests my inbox is always open. I would try to get them out either before my hiatus next week (11/16) or after it ends (11/26). I’m pretty open to writing any character, though I will warn you I’m way more fascinated by the greens so they just come easier to me. Anyway please reblog, like, and follow if you read anything you enjoy 🫶🏽🫶🏽. And some housekeeping: in this Aegon is not r*pist who enjoys watching children fight (the hotd are truly…. not right for the cartoonishly evil way they wrote Aegon). He’s just petty and neglected. Also the timing of this is different from the books bc Aemond meets Alys pre dance.

Fmo masterlist

Blog Masterlist

A bastard Strong. The irony is not lost on you. Your straight-laced husband fucking someone who is the complete opposite you. Older, no kids, no title, and no duty to uphold. At this point, it doesn’t hurt anymore. Instead, it makes your blood boil in the most delicious way. Aemond’s betrayal made you realize how you’ve been going through the motions; endlessly sleepwalking, hoping one day Aemond would come around. It woke you up to how much he’s taken advantage of you. He sees your kindness, and aversion to standing out as a weakness. Something he can manipulate and twist like one of his daggers.

The both of you must have forgetten where you came from. A rich, well respected house. The only daughter of smart, albeit conniving, family that knows how to get what they want. Your family didn’t have dragons or absurd ideas of exceptionalism to help you gain power. You’ve learned that inflated egos and prideful indulges can cloud Targaryen judgment. A trait you hope skips your children.

Shame on you for thinking Aemond would be different. Shame on him for the carefully curated facade.

All you do after Larys Strong comes to you the first time is think. You can’t remember the last time you’ve had this many options in front of you. Your mother’s words about patience run through your head. Keeping your wits is key. Play your hand too quickly, and you lose all leverage. You have Daella and the babe in your belly to think about. You stood pat in the beginning; Lord Strong simply relaying messages to you. You make sure Alys gets the letter Aemond wrote, and the ones after that. Lord Larys makes sure you get the details of each letter exchanged.

When the days grew lonely, and your body aches because of the babe in your stomach, you think about the letters. The declarations of love and recounts of lust filled meetups simmer in your head, but it’s the mentions of you that makes the anger sizzle and crackle. It makes the guilt you feel wash away.

You question if the rumor is true. That his Alys is a witch. Does her magic allow her to see the way Helaena can? Fuzzy premonitions and dreams that only make sense after they happen; a gift and a curse. A part of you wishes it to be true. You hope while your stomach stirs with untold truths, hers stirs with regret. Maybe the pain that runs through you leaves an unfamiliar taste in her mouth. That she can’t quite put her finger on it, but she feels you.

You wonder if when Aemond prays, he asks the Father to protect him… to protect her. The same way when you pray, you ask the Warrior to help you find the courage to destroy him.

It started with a bruise. A bruise that you don’t even remember how you got. Maybe one of those things you just wake up with. But it’s there, on the inside part of your left arm. It’s starting to fade but an otherwise noticeable bruise that stands out when you wear something with shorter sleeves.

The idea doesn’t come to you till you see the curiosity in Alicent’s eyes when you absentmindedly rub the bruise while asking if she’s seen Aemond. It’s only you two in the walkway; an unusually quiet day at the Red Keep. Her eyes go from it to the far away look in your eyes. It makes her tilt her head in thought.

“No dear, I haven’t,” her eyes go back to the scratch. “Are you doing alright? I know for some, the second babe can be even harder than the first.”

You look down at your arm, and something just clicks.

“I’m fine,” you start, then you make your voice tremble a bit. “I will be fine. I think I’m just tired.”

You give her a strained smile, and she returns one that tells you she doesn’t believe you. You can feel her big brown eyes burning into your back when you walk past her towards your chambers. There could be two thoughts in her head: you did this yourself or someone else did it to you. Either way, her son’s sweet pregnant lady wife is not doing well, and her son is nowhere to be found. Queen Alicent is one of the smartest, if not the smartest, person you know. She sees the change in her son; the change in the dynamic between Aemond and you.

It hits you. It would be too easy to physically harm Aemond. Though the idea of taking the blade that hangs from his hips and putting it to his throat has crossed your mind more times than you’re proud of. It would be too easy to get Larys to kill Alys. You don’t want to give Aemond the satisfaction of having his whore’s blood on your hands.

Where’s the fun in killing when your rage could be channeled into something more… methodical.

Under all that false bravado is the little boy who got picked on for not having a dragon. To break the man means bringing out that little boy. A truly broken man can’t love anyone. Isolation, and self hatred. What a gorgeous combination for your dear husband.

If this is going to work you need to up the ante.

So, you write. If Aemond and Alys can document their love, you can document your pain. You sent your lady in waiting out to get a blank book from one of the maesters. The color dyed cow skin feels smooth under your hands. There needs to be a slow build. Each day you grow closer and closer to shattering. Whoever reads it needs to know Aemond brought you to this place. He is the villain in the story of the poor, innocent wife that did nothing but carry his children and try to love him.

It will read like a diary, but to you it is a creation. A mixture of truth and imagination. A manifestation of pent up feelings. Purging and revenge all rolled up into one. You make sure to mention how terrified you are for your safety, and for you children’s safety. How an angry or disenchanted Aemond is nothing to toy with, especially if he has a bastard witch on his side. How maybe life would be better for Aemond if you just weren’t around.

But this fading bruise isn’t enough. Neither is just having a diary that will be discovered in due time. A deep cut, a dark bruise, half hazardously placed hand prints.. now that could work.

There’s something cathartic about the pain you feel when the dagger slices through your skin. The blood is so red and warm. It smears so smoothly on the page. Blood on your dress, cloth pressed to the wound, and wandering the halls is how Ser Criston finds you. You notice the worried, confused look in his eyes when you stutter out an ‘I don’t know’ when he asks what happened.

As the maester tends to your wound, you notice how Alicent and Criston stand in the corner of Alicent’s quarters. They occasionally glance at you while they whisper to each other. You recognize the familiar crinkle she gets in her forehead when she’s upset. All her children do it too.

“Sweetling, we both think it might be a good idea to give you your own knight of the kingsguard,” she sits next you. “Just to help you and… keep an eye on you during this vulnerable time.”

You blink. Not one mention of her son. But it’s clear to see how Ser Criston is with his queen. Submissive, and utterly devoted. Having someone like that is an asset. So, you smile weakly and nod. The more people who see you in this way, the better.

Ser Quinton Throne was quiet in the beginning. As if he was scared to be in your space. A far cry from the rambunctious knight his brother, Rickard, is. Moving past the initial shyness, he is attentive and even indulges Daella’s fascination with him. Despite you telling her not to, she would always run up to him, tugging on his white cloak to get his attention. She likes having someone around just as much as you.

The distance between Aemond and you had started to carry over into his relationship with Daella. Kids are more intuitive than adults give them credit for. Your throat felt tight when you daughter finally asks where father goes. You lie; it comes easy to you, easier than you thought it would. It makes you think if this is how easy it is for Aemond to lie to you. Or for everyone to not gloss over the clear problems in your life.

You would lying if you said it wasn’t nice having a man around, even if it was his job. It was Aemond’s job to do right by you, and he couldn’t do that. A man carrying out his orders with a warm smile was welcomed. The comfort of having someone who sweared his allegiances to you, and only you, and intended on keeping them.

You look from your embroidery loop to see Daella and Ser Quinton sword fighting with wooden swords. It’s an uncharacteristically sunny day. Perfect to get much needed fresh air, and apparently going to battle.

“She’s gotten quite good.”

Like a storm rolling in to ruin a sunny day, your husband’s tone is ever cold and distant. You hate the uncomfortable energy that radiates when he sits next to you.

“Yes, she has,” you stare at the Lysene lilac flower starting to come to life on your loop. “He’s good with her as well.”

You know he won’t like you saying that. He hates Quinton being around, and he especially hates how Daella taken a liking to him. Aemond scoffs and mumbles something under his breath you can’t make out.

“It’s just lovely having real protector around,” you continue to push your luck. “Someone so attentive and… strong.“

You look at with his a sickening sweet smile. He opens his mouth to say something, a complaint or rude comment since those seem to be the only reasons he talks to you, but he is interrupted by Daella yelling out for him.

“We’ll talk about this later,” he mutters to you, getting up.

“Oh you’ll actually be here long enough for that?”

The words slip out your mouth and it makes him turn to glare at you. It reminds you of the gossip you heard about him when you first arrived at court. How cold the king’s second son can be. It should’ve been a warning to you.

Quinton takes it as his cue to leave them be; you know he can sense how much Aemond doesn’t appreciate his presence. You watch as Daella clings to her father. As selfish as it sounds, you patiently wait for the day she too realizes he can’t be depended on.

“My mother used to make me embroider,” your knight’s voice breaks you out of looking on. “Something about being dangerous with a needle is just as great as being dangerous with a sword.”

You take a good look at him. If Aemond is the moon - ethereal, mysterious, and always changing, then Quinton is the sun. Bright, forward facing, and shines brighter with time. His choppy black hair, beard, and warm standing in contrast to your husband’s Targaryen features.

“Sounds like a smart woman,” you smile as he sits next to you.

His eyes linger on your embroidery work before traveling to you right arm. The blade wound was just starting to scab and scar over. His first day on duty was marked by seeing your husband give a long lecture on safety and ‘using your brain’ after Aemond saw your wound. The blade cut wasn’t under pure circumstances, but the look of resentment on your face was real. He saw that. He’s never asked what really happened to your arm.

“How are you my lady,” he whispers. You told him he can address you by your name, but he still insist on the formal names especially around others. “Is the babe giving you trouble.”

Ser Quinton, Helaena, and Alicent are the only people that seem to care about your well being, on top of the babe’s. Aemond concern went making sure the babe was fine to just not asking all together. It’s better that way, you think. You don’t think you’d be able to take fake concern about your little ‘mistake’.

“My bladder is being pushed on, I’m finding clumps of my hair on my pillow, and Maester Oliver told me this baby will weigh more than Daella did,” you reply lightly. “But other than that I’m doing fine.”

This pregnancy had knocked you on your ass. You’re sure the stress and thoughts that consume you don’t help. You know how it feels to come into a fracture family; it makes you feel awful for the babe in your stomach. Your parents tried hard, frankly too hard, to pretend things were good between them. Trying to prove their union was more than a duty for their houses. Till this day, you don’t know what’s worse: knowing they didn’t share that love or the years you watched them fake everything. They had ambitions, and to carry them out there needed to be an appearance of an united front. You took your father’s lead, knowing he always tried to have your best interest. The relationship you have with your mother often ebbing and flowing, especially since your marriage.

When you ravened your mother about your pregnancy troubles, she tells you that this is your responsibility to your husband. Harsh and utterly true. You don’t know if your father ever had indiscretions like Aemond, but you know she’d never plot the way you do. Her calculating nature showing up in different ways. Instead of going after him, she chose to focus on elevating you.

Her and Queen Alicent remind you of each other. Devoted to a fault. A victim who had no other choice but to fall in line.You pray for the both of them. Pray that they find peace with the sacrifices they’ve made. Pray that you never get that far. A shell of yourself. Duty, responsibility, cleaning up others’ messes - what a dull way to live.

“Once he’s out, I’m sure it will all be worth it,” says Ser Quinton, voice not wavering.

He’s trying to be kind, mentioning the working theory in the castle that you’re having a boy. You try to smile at the thought. It’s hard to believe that. Plan or not, you still have to know the truth about the father of your children. There is hole left in your heart about that. Him disrespecting you is one thing, but his words pertaining to your unborn child is another. A sudden spurt of anger rushes over you thinking about everything. It makes you stand abruptly.

“I’m feeling tired,” you watch as Daella pretend to stab her father with her sword. Her giggles ringing out when he reaches to pick her up. The dichotomy of Aemond Targaryen will always fascinate you as much as it terrifies you. How he manages to smile in her face, and lie to yours is quite a sight to watch. “I’ll send Margret out to get Daella.”

Waiting for the perfect moment is not going to work. There no time like the present.

The stiff upper lip of this family is something you noticed the moment you stepped into their presence. It’s seeped into the way they gatekeep a dying Viserys. Alicent is cold and collected in the most beautiful way. A sharp glittering icicle. A pretty rose littered with thorns to keep you admiring from a distance. Even Helaena, who you consider a friend, keeps certain things close to the chest. It’s better to keep the full truth away from her.

But there’s Aegon.

Pitiful, and lonely Prince Aegon. A drunk with a bad attitude. But he’s also the most painfully self-aware person you know. There will be times that you and him exchange looks, as you are in on the joke. That everything is a farce. One day someone will just come up and say it’s all been a bad dream. You think it’s the reason why he frustrates Aemond so much. The teasing on top of him never taking the Targaryen name seriously. Aegon spends his days trying to drink and fuck his way out of thinking about his life. Stuck in a royal cuckold. The first born son of a king with nothing to show for it.

He’s messy, nosy, and so openly brash. He’s your missing chess piece. The perfect pawn.

You leave the diary around places in the castle you know he will be. It’s not until you conveniently leave it in the play room where all Daella, Jaehaera, and Jaehaerys all frequent that you know he’s taken the bait. His lilac eyes seem to follow you whenever you two are in the same room. It takes days for him to confront you; book in hand and wry look on his face.

“Is it true? Everything you wrote?”

You stroke your belly while looking at him, a small smile on your face.

“Does it matter that if it is,” you tilt your head, and his eyes glitter with something you’re not used to seeing.

He mirrors your head tilt with a full blown smile on his face this time. It’s like a bright light after weeks of darkness. A person who also sees through the bullshit that enraptures once you call yourself a Targaryen.

“I greatly underestimated you my good sister,” he whispers. You know he’s thinking about his own words. ‘Pretty but horribly dull’.

“That’s fine,” you motion to the seat next to you. “You can make it up to me.”

Queen Alicent stands facing the fire. Aegon, Helaena, and Ser Quinton off to the side. All of them standing across from where you sit. Aegon gives you a knowing look while Quinton’s eyes are filled with pity and anger. Pity for his princess, anger towards his prince. Helaena looks like she wants to say something.

“I… do not know what to say,” her voice is strained with pain. You know this hurts for her. The image of the perfect son being destroyed. The pedestal she put him on crumbling before him.

You’ve gotten better at crying after Aegon told you tears will be necessary to sell it. It’s an automatic response now. The perfectly timed emotion that breaks like flood gates when Alicent holds out the diary. You say you’re embarrassed. That you never meant for anyone to read it, especially not anyone in the family. Aegon gets to be the concerned good brother. He rubbed your back, while his mother called for Helaena. She needed to know who else knew about this.

“I can say what everyone is thinking,” Aegon pipes up. “He’s a fucking cunt.”

“Aegon.”

His mother turns to glare at him, but it doesn’t deter him.

“Walking around with that self righteousness just to fuck a Strong,” he scoffs. “Calling his child a mistake?”

The words makes Alicent sigh, and squeeze her eyes shut. Helaena continues to play with her fingers with a quizzical look in her eye. If Aegon of all people can judge, the actions must be bad.

“This all my fault,” you decide to take it up a notch. Your breath catches. “I must’ve done something to deserve this.”

“Oh my sweet girl,” Alicent walks over and sits next to you, pulling you into her chest. “None of this is your fault.

“I just don’t know what I did to deserve this,” you continue. That part is true; what the seven hells did you do to deserve this marriage? “This, and the baby, and missing my family. I’m just so unhappy here.”

Alicent strokes your hair. You can feel her heart thumping in her chest. You can tell she’s upset and scared. Scared for what your unhappiness means. You’re a risk now.

“Maybe… my father can come and visit. He hasn’t been here since Daella was born.”

After you got married, your parents left court to tend to your house. They felt their work was done. That the marriage was as far as their political ambitions can go. They visit from time to time to see their granddaughter but normally you’re the one who has to make the trip.

“Of course,” you can see the wheels turning in her head. “I’m sure the Hand would love to pick his brain on some things. Your father has always been so kind and helpful”

Queen Alicent is as predictable as she is smart. Your dad thought your marriage would help him get a seat in the small council. When no offer came, his ego was bruised. If your marriage couldn’t, maybe a desperate Alicent can. The idea of sending a raven about the news makes you have to bite back a smile. An ally in an castle full of strangers.

“I’ll speak to Aemond about this,” she nods to herself. “You don’t need to be worrying about this in your condition.”

The disappointment is clear in smooth voice. Before you can reply with a thank you, Helaena finally piped up.

“A baby’s green eyes spurs brighter skies.”

She mutters it before looks at you curious. You look down at your swollen belly, feeling confused. Neither Aemond or you have green eyes. You try to push the sinking feeling out of your stomach. Even Aegon, who normally ignores Helaena’s cryptic language, has perked up a little.

You take a look at Ser Quinton… his eyes as green as spring grass.

Ok this is my first one doing a tag list, so I’m sorry for those I’ve missed. It only let me do 50??? Idk it’s it’s different on desktop or I’m doing something wrong. Hopefully I can find a more conducive way for this. I also only tagged people who specifically asked: @afro-hispwriter @crispmarshmallow @unabashedlyswimmingtimemachine @its-sam-allgood @lol-im-done @grey-water-colors @sassysaxsolo @justsumstufff @lilithskywalker @dc-marvel-girl96 @bekky06 @claudie-080102 @cloudroomblog @shelbythequeen @crazylokonugget @solacestyles @instantpeachpeace @katyadenauer @nsainmoonchild @deeeeexx @iwanttohitmyself @rosa-berberifolia @noisyinfluencerstrawberry @princessmiaelicia @bregarc @castellomargot @thesadvampire @chaosmagiq @icarusignite @happinessinthebeing @flavorofsalt @wishfulwithwine @slut-for-eddie-munson @rosaryos @mistalli @inana-mm @winxschester @papery-maniac @nolongereviliwantlove @fultimefangirl @missusnora @skinmittensgoblin @duckworthbean @b00kdiary @chiyausu @alexandra-001 @tachibubu @juneisreading @mariaelizabeth21-blog1 @verycollectivecreator

[velvateen]

Can i request a reader x luffy fic where luffy is the shy one? 🥺 i loved your sleeptalking fic!

anything for you teehee 🤭

say what you want - shy!luffy x gn reader

warnings: gn reader, making out (AHHHH 🫣)

It wasn’t hard to tell when Luffy wanted something. He was always vocal, about being hungry, about being happy or sad, anything really. It was part of his charm, being so open and authentic, inspiring to everyone that his physical strength came paired with such an sincerely bared soul. Leaning against the side of the deck with him tonight, as stars shone brightly above the clear ocean night sky, you think you’ve found his one exception. Your sides recovered from breathless laughter as a sense of quiet filled the air between you and Luffy, the smile that lingered on your lips directed its way towards him. His cheeks slightly tinted with pink, his dark brown eyes, the salt spray putting slight wave in his hair, he looked radiant in the blue light that bounced off the deep sea. His eyes met yours, locked in and focused, a smile still ghosting his features.

“What?” you asked, running a hand through your hair, pushing it away from your face. You were almost starting to get self conscious with the way he was looking at you. He didn’t seem to hear you. “What is it, Luffy?”

He looked away for a second before turning back to you, “Oh, I. I don’t know, nothing, don’t worry about it..” he stuttered, the pink hue returning to his face. Your eyebrows scrunched.

“Nothing? Seems like something to me,” you sang, nudging his shoulder. Your hand dropped to rest on his knee and you pat it, urging him to talk. His eyes flickered between your lips and your eyes, and he was leaning closer, not with any intent in mind, just following the gravity that emitted from you and seemed to pull him closer every time. Your eyes softened as your hand pushed his knee down, leveraging him closer to you suddenly, his lips seconds away from yours.

“C’mon, Luffy, what did you wanna say?” Your eyes were half-lidded as you tried not to close the gap, his quick shallow breaths fanning across your lips. He gulped, nervously licking his lips, and you smiled, finally pressing your lips against his in a chaste kiss. Pulling away quickly to look at him, you watched as he leaned after you, eyes closed and mouth searching for your warmth again. You giggled as he slowly opened his eyes, brows furrowed and begging for more, not wanting to speak, forgetting how to.

You smiled, still leaning back, teasing. “Come on Luffy, you gotta tell me.” He licked his lips again, this time just to taste the ghost of where you had been.

He whispered your name, “can you please do that again?” You leaned forwards, cupping a hand around his ear as you crawled into his lap, keeping him pushed sitting against the ship’s walls as you straddled him. Bringing your fingers up to lace in his hair, his surprised moans were lost in your mouth, his kisses uncoordinated and lacking rhythm, his enthusiasm making up for it, his smile tangible in the way he searched for you. His hands laced in your hair, scrunching and gently pushing you forwards, chasing the feeling he had been scared to vocalize all this time. His rhythm gradually improving to match the one you set, he pulled away, opting to kiss down your jaw, your neck, the peak of your collarbone under your shirt. His hands rested under your shirt and against your lower back, all he wanted to do was feel now that he had you in his arms, where he knew you belonged. You pulled away after he pressed a final, deep, searching kiss to your lips, your lungs starved of air. You thread your fingers through his dark hair as you laughed in astonished disbelief. Luffy finally smiled that big, face-splitting grin of his.

“That’s what I wanted to say!”

A/N: omg so cute i love shy shy shy luffy i actually do need him asap. anyways thanks for the request @kingofthe-egirls it was sooooo fun to write!!! guys please send me requests if you want me to write anything specific next time! okay bye bye kitties meow (cat saying ciao) .*•

[cerise-on-top]

FREE PASS!!

This request is a open book! Use it to write about what ever characters, headcanons or general ideas that you want to! Your choice!

You’re amazing!

Thank you <3

Makarov as a Father

I feel like he’d be a lot stricter with a younger child than, say, Nikolai. He’s not particularly a fan of young children in the first place. I’d go as far as to say that he hates children, aside from you. You’re the only one, who he could ever love. When you’re young, you’ll probably be scolded fairly often. You likely have to adhere to a strict routine as well or else he’ll be fairly unhappy. The older you get, the more lenient he becomes, though. Once you’re 14 you’re likely allowed to do as you please, as long as you tell him what you’re doing. You wanna stay out past midnight? Yeah, sure, just tell him. If he can, he’ll pick you up himself. However, you’re only allowed to stay out that long if you’re carrying a weapon with you. You likely won’t be going out without a gun.

Makarov will likely have you learn some form of martial art. It’s not that unlikely that you’d get attacked due to his status as a terrorist, so he’d rather have you be able to defend yourself. You can choose which martial art you want to learn, but you will be learning one. He’ll actually go out of his way to test you on what you know. Yes, he’ll fight you. While he won’t seriously hurt you, he will give you tips on how to perform better. Makarov can put up a good fight himself when it comes down to it. You’ll likely be really good at the martial arts you do, if just because your father won’t leave you alone. And if you don’t wanna fight him for some reason? No problem, you also have someone like Andrei to fight. But you will be fighting someone like your life depends on it.

He’s not as absent as Nikolai. Makarov doesn’t mind taking you along from time to time. Yes, it’s a high risk either way, but at least he can protect you himself when you’re with him. He won’t take you on the more dangerous missions along with him, but you’ll likely be allowed to stroll around nearby. There will always be someone watching over you, though, so you won’t ever be left alone. You pose a great risk either way, regardless of whether he brings you along or not. If someone were to capture you as leverage against him? It’s not that unlikely that he’d pretend to fold for some time, if just to keep you safe. He won’t ever give up, he’s just persistent like that, but he’ll only have you once in his life, he’s well aware of that fact. Besides, if he wants a job done right, then he’ll have to do it himself anyway. So yeah, it’s not that unlikely for you to be spending time with Konni.

Speaking of Konni: If you ever wanna work alongside him, he’ll make it happen. Depending on your skillset he can make you a high ranking member as well. He won’t be nearly as fussy as Nikolai when it comes to you wanting to work in a field like that. If you really wanna be a mercenary, then he’d much rather have you work for him, though. He’s your father, he can give you many opportunities, so why not work for him? That way he can always keep a close eye on you as well.

If you wanna work a more ordinary job, then he won’t stop you, though. Once you move out and away from him, you likely won’t see him nearly as often anymore. He’ll come visit you, though. Even if you never tell him where you live, he’ll come find you. He has his connections. Will sometimes try to convince you to work for him, though. He knows you’re easy bait. You’re one of his, if not the biggest, weaknesses. But he won’t force you to.

For as rough as he may be as a father, he does try to be nice to you. Yes, he can be a rather charming character towards the people he wants to manipulate, but he’s genuinely nice towards you. Will never forget your birthday and will always try to get you something big that you might enjoy. He has the monetary means to do so. You want a video game console? It’s yours, but what else do you want? Is not above paying for an entire vacation for you either. He knows you need to get away from your job from time to time. Tries to spend your birthday with you whenever he can. It’s not always possible, especially when he’s on a mission, but he never forgets about congratulating you. Makes it up to you eventually, though.

Surprisingly, he’s not that bad at comforting people. He can be patient when he wants to be. Besides, he knows how to move an entire group of people to get them to do his bidding, so it’s not that unlikely that he knows just the right words to say to cheer you up. He’s great at manipulating people, so why wouldn’t he use his social abilities to cheer you up? Not usually that touchy, but if you spontaneously hug him, he’ll hug back. Usually he doesn’t go beyond a side-hug, but if it’s you? Yeah, he’s willing to make exceptions. If you’re sad because of someone else, then it’s not that unlikely that he’ll just kill the bastard himself. He’s killed people for far less than making his child sad.

If you’re LGBT, then I can tell you there’s a good chance you’ll need to be patient with him. Especially when it comes to gender stuff. Yes, he understands boy and girl, but you’ll need to explain anything beyond that to him. Give him some time, tell him what you want him to do, he’ll try to be supportive. Makarov isn’t heterosexual either, so he won’t treat you as lesser. Besides, he made a vow to himself that he’d always love you when you called him your father for the first time. He intends to not break it over something like that. He was treated harshly for not being heterosexual, so he won’t let you go through the same thing. If you’re transmasc, then he’ll teach you all he knows about being a man. Anyone, who misgenders you, will have their tongue ripped out. If you’re transfem? Well, that’s a bit more difficult. He could ask Milena for advice. As weird as it might seem, he’ll do it for you.

I think once you’re a bit older, he’ll ask you about your favorite animal. He doesn’t want to get your initials tattooed on him. But your favorite animal? That’s fairly inconspicuous, no one will be able to guess who you are. Besides, he could always try to come up with a cool motive as well. He’ll secretly hope you’ll say that you love snakes, it would make the most sense for Konni, but he’ll get creative, even if your answer is something as non-threatening as a butterfly. He wants to keep you in his heart at all times and wants something that reminds him of you.

Overall, he’s not that bad as a father. A bit strict at times, yes, but he’ll loosen up eventually. Tries to give you whatever you may want or need and tries to spend time with you too while keeping you safe. All things considered, he could be a much worse father.

[hitomisuzuya]

Hiiiii now, before I request anything I just wanted to say that I love your writing, it’s so good and Scara somehow almost always feels in character despite yk it being smut lol and it’s hard to keep characters in character when doing that (from what I’ve seen at least)

Alr now for the actual request, literally just anything with stepbrother Scara, I don’t know why I like that idea so much, but I think that it’s like a taboo topic but also that it’s like akdhdkdjdid anyways-

I hope this ask or whatever you wanna call it finds you well :3

Stepcest. DNI if it makes you uncomfortable. Scaramouche x fem!reader. Smut. Face sitting. Squirting. Cunnilingus. Degradation. Pussy drunk Scara.

Happy Easter to everyone who celebrates. And thank you, anon❤️ Writing Scara in character is important to me, and I constantly worry whether I am or not.

A rush of aroused pride went straight to Scaramouche's pulsing cock feeling your hole clench around just the tip of his tongue. The long, husky groan that vibrated on your cunt as his tongue lapped, prodded at your entrance was enough to say that he was enjoying himself, and enjoying you.

His precious delicate stepsister deserved to be spoiled. He was going to enjoy breaking you. Reducing you to a dumb and moaning mess with his tongue, your thighs tightening on either side of his head as he fucked his tongue into you was what you deserved.

Your fingers tightened on the headboard, your other hand reaching down to tangle your fingers in his hair. It gave you leverage to grind down into his mouth.

You threw your head back, grateful that there wasn't anyone else home to hear you. You couldn't hold back your loud moans that bordered sounding pornographic that spilled from your mouth as Scaramouche latched his lips on your clit.

He watched your body twitch in pleasure above him, struggling to hold yourself up as your back arched. His mouth felt insatiable sucking on your clit, making your legs shake and broken sobs softly sound behind your moans.

"That's right, slut. Cry about how you are about to squirt on your stepbrother's tongue," Scaramouche moaned, releasing your clit with a wet pop as he caressed your thighs. His thumbs skimmed lovingly on the insides, damp with his drool and your slick.

Drunk on the taste on the taste of you, he reached around to roughly grope your ass. You yelped in bliss as he smacked it once. He moaned muffled into your cunt, his nose brushing against your sensitive clit, "You taste so fucking good."

You could barely even beg coherently for him to let you cum. You saw stars as pleasure burst white hot behind your eyes, his tongue sweeping to swirl inside of you as deep as it could go.

"I'll..I'll--" You stumbled on your words, making him laugh dark with delight. "I'll be a good girl, I promise. Make me cum, please!" You pleaded, feeling your orgasm ready to break over you any moment now.

"Aww, don't worry, kitten. You'll get your permission to cum. When I have had my fill, of course," He snickered. He smirked hearing you cry out as he slowly prodded his tongue against your clit.

Your hand tightened in his hair, grinding needily into his mouth. "You said you would be a good girl, right?" He purred, enjoying seeing a few tears fall from your pretty eyes.

You lasted as long as you could, and Scaramouche relished watching you fall apart and cum suddenly. His tongue lapped and slurped greedily as your release soaked onto his tongue.

Scaramouche nursed you through your orgasm for a few minutes before patting your thighs. No sooner had you rolled off and onto your back, not even having come down from your orgasm he was spreading your legs again.

Your hips automatically jerked up to grind into his mouth, his tongue going right back onto your cunt. He wasn't going to let you get away with cumming without his permission.

[papiliotao]

・❥・DICTIONARY OF LOVE

♡ — Reader: GN

♡ — Characters: Albedo, Ayaka, Kazuha, Tartaglia, Wanderer (Scaramouche), Xiao

♡ — Synopsis: love through their eyes.

♡ — Content: fluff, very very light angst(?)

♡ — Warnings: spoilers for some characters' backstories

♡ — A/N: honestly, I'm kind of proud of the fact that I was able to keep each part relatively concise. Also, one of these parts is just me being down bad for one of the characters (I'll leave who it is to your imagination hehe). Anyway, as always, I hope you enjoy the fic!!

To ALBEDO, love means patience. He's well aware that he's not the most energetic or expressive person. There are moments where his social battery is low, and he needs to immerse himself in his own world more than anything. Whenever this happens, you sit in the snowy landscape of Dragonspine, watching Albedo as he drags a brush across a canvas, causing inky strokes to bleed across the intricate composition. You wait in silence, intently peering at him, observing every movement of his arm and flick of his wrist. The frigid air stings your cheeks, but Albedo's presence is enough to cease the chills that threaten to wrack your body. Once he finishes, he turns to you and smiles softly. Albedo thanks you for waiting for him. Your understanding means the world to him, and despite the fact that you insist you need nothing in return, he still feels the need to reimburse you by taking you back to his camp in Dragonspine where he cuddles you until you feel warm again.

To AYAKA, love means acceptance. After long days of being surrounded by people who idolize her instead of seeing her as a friend, your presence makes her feel like a human being instead of some faultless goddess. Although she appreciates the individuals who think highly of her, she loves how spending time with you feels so easy in comparison. With you, she has no image to maintain. Formalities and etiquette are thrown out the window when she is with the one she adores. Despite the fact that you know she's not a perfect person, you're still hers, and that makes her feel secure. You're special to her because you accept all her flaws instead of ignoring them, yet you love her nonetheless.

To KAZUHA, love means tranquility. After all the storms he has encountered in his lifetime, he needs someone who can help him calm the raging tempests in his heart, and that someone is you. Peace — it's a feeling reminiscent of the serenity that courses through his veins when he basks in the last ephemeral rays of sunlight with you by his side. It’s a sentiment that is evoked by the gentle lapping of waves on sand as the two of you walk along a pristine shoreline, hand-in-hand as the sun sinks below the horizon. And most importantly of all, it's found in the sense of stillness that settles over him each night as he falls asleep with you in his arms. The moon acts as a witness to your love, curiously glancing down at the two of you as Kazuha holds you close and whispers sweet nothings into your ear until you drift off into slumber. When he is finally left alone with his thoughts, Kazuha wistfully gazes overhead and thanks every star in his sight for leading him to you.

To TARTAGLIA, love means war. He is a fighter by nature, so needless to say, he will fight as many battles as it takes to protect you. He knows it's not easy nor safe being romantically involved with one of the Fatui Harbingers. Numerous foes have tried to take you hostage and use you as leverage against him. However, Tartaglia is always there to protect you whenever his enemies try to strike from the shadows. His love for you and his contempt for those who attempt to hurt you fuel a fiery rage that urges him to show no mercy. By the time he is finished with them, he is certain that they will never try to harm you again. In Tartaglia's eyes, loving you is like fighting a war, and although the prospect is unappealing to many, Tartaglia is different. The thrill of battle fills him with adrenaline, and at the end of the day, he finds that it is all worth it because you're still by his side.

To the WANDERER, love means eternity. It is a concept he is all too familiar with — after all, the deity who embodies the principle is the one who created him just to cast him aside, initiating the first of several betrayals to come. All the fleeting moments of warmth he has experienced in his lifetime have left him raring for more, but no one ever quite quenches his thirst for intimacy before they abandon him. He wants something lasting, but he's too afraid to voice his desires due to the dubious thoughts that riddle his mind. If the God of Eternity’s affection for him was as transient as the vibrant maple leaves that adorned his birthplace, then who would ever be willing to love him indefinitely? His burning questions are all answered when he meets you. You are able to look past his harsh exterior and see him for who he truly is: someone afraid of the impermanence of tenderness, so when you finally confess your true feelings to him, you make it clear that you plan on staying by his side forevermore. When you make your vow to the Wanderer, he feels a gentle heartbeat thrumming to life in his once-empty chest. Perhaps this time, eternity will last forever.

To XIAO, love means subtlety. It is difficult for Xiao to verbally convey his admiration for you, so instead of expressing his infatuation in a straightforward manner, it is instead a sentiment he administers through lingering touches and shy acts of service. His love is quiet. Subdued, yet passionate all the same, and he will forever be grateful that you never fail to pick up on what he is discreetly trying to say to you. A heartfelt "I love you" is hidden in every small moment, no matter how insignificant it seems. And the way you reciprocate his gestures by preparing his favourite dish, shyly taking his hand while you're sitting together on Wangshu Inn's roof, and inspecting his body for any injuries in what you think is an inconspicuous manner makes his heart race time and time again. To Xiao, love is not something that needs to be in-your-face; it is found when you read between the lines.

Au revoir, mes amis. Also, all of these were supposed to be wholesome, and then Childe came along, and I just said VIOLENCE. I wonder if anyone can tell which one of these characters is my favourite. (Any guesses? /hj)

[angel-eyes05]

What's In A Name

pairing: roronoa zoro x fem!reader

summary: as a master thief, you pride yourself on never getting caught. that is until you're caught by the straw hats as you try stealing from their ship. unable to turn you in to the authorities just yet, they'll have to make due with storing you on the going merry in the meantime. but, your time in confinement has allowed you to get particularly close to a certain swordsman. how close the two of you get is to be decided though.

warnings/info: nsfw mdni, oral sex (fem receiving), alcohol consumption, drunk/tipsy sex, face riding, my own sex headcanons for zoro are VERY clear here lmao ,takes place in between jaya and skypiea (please pretend theres more time at sea in between those arcs cause this will not work otherwise OK THANKS), this is for the pre-time skip zoro girlies (he's 19 pre-time skip dont come for me), no use of y/n, the first half of this is just cute shenanigans between reader and the straw hats. its a lot of character building stuff but i like it.

word count: 6.3k

notes: HI GUYS IM BACK IVE MADE MY RETURN I FOUND SOMETHING TO WRITE ABOUT!!!! and its the longest fic ive ever written too god damn what a comeback lmao. ok so i started watching one piece and im head over heels in love with this man...but i'm only up to water 7 rn so i only know how to properly write for pre-time skip zoro so thats how this is gonna go. i was looking for zoro/one piece fics to read but theyre literally all established relationship ones which aren't my cup of tea so im doing it myself lmao. also i didnt proofread i got too lazy sorry if some stuff doesnt make sense sorry sorry sorry but im a simple lazy tired girlie lmao enjoy!!

dividers by: @cafekitsune

You didn’t know any of their names.

You had been aboard the Going Merry for about three weeks now, and you still hadn’t learned anyone’s names. Granted, your reason for being there wasn’t to make friends anyway. That wasn’t particularly easy to do, being tied up in some storage closet and all. 

Being one of the few residents who actually lived on Jaya had allowed you to pick up a skill or two when it came to stealing. Pirates with big bounties and even bigger treasures left their ships unattended at the docks, leaving you with some perfect quick heists from time to time. Some steals were easier than others. As much as you believed in your talents, most of the time your ability to get out unscathed was based purely on the luck of the draw. It wasn’t an easy life, many recent nights leaving you with more injuries than berries and gold pieces, but it was all you knew having lived here for so long. 

After having taken a break from heists for a bit, you finally laid your eyes on a ship worth stealing from. A pirate ship with a goat out in front and seemingly orange trees next to the helm. Most of the ships at the dock had been there for a while, leaving the pirates on board used to your tricks already. Being low on cash was another factor. So, after a bit of planning, you made your way onto the ship.

Earlier, you had found that one of the windows to a cabin had been left open, so you decided to make your entrance through there. You gathered your things and dove into the crystal blue water by the dock. Once you made it to the back of the ship, you took your rope, with your own handmade grappling hook at the end, and swung it to hook on the window sill. Luckily for you, it stuck the landing on the first try. You smirked to yourself and used the hook as leverage to climb up onto the ship. Unfortunately, this seemed to be the ship’s bathroom. Not super ideal. You’d have to venture more out into the ship. But with this came the risk of getting caught. Given your dire circumstances though, it was a risk you were willing to take.

With an attempt to make as little creak as possible, you slightly opened the door into the rest of the interior. Coast was clear so far. Suddenly, a shake rattled throughout the interior. You tumbled onto the floor, pushing open a door due to your unbalance. What the fuck was that, you thought to yourself. It quickly became no matter though, when you noticed the door had opened up to a room with a treasure chest tucked away in the back. Jackpot. You slyly made your way into the room and shut the door behind you. 

The room was neatly kept, with bookshelves, a couch, two sleeping hammocks, and a desk with navigation tools on it. There was even a bar. Though temptation pursued at you, you had to stay on task. While making your way over to the chest, you heard different creaks vibrating across the walls of the ship. You prayed to yourself that it was just the wood’s reaction to the waves. As you had predicted, the chest was locked, so you searched your bag for anything that could key the lock. 

Time became of the essence quickly as the thuds and creaks on the ship grew louder and louder. Finally, the lock to the chest made a perfect click, as the chest unlocked. You lifted the roof of the chest to find a sight for sore eyes: jewels and gold galore. This was it, you were set. You were so in awe with the vision before you, that you had failed to notice the woman standing behind you. The image you saw in one of the emeralds was a tall figure, with jet-black hair just below her shoulders, and dazzling blue eyes. “Looking for something?” the woman questioned, almost sarcastically. You seemed to have forgotten rule number one of thieving. Remember to lock the door behind you.

Quick on your feet, you whip around to throw a punch in her face, but her reflexes seem to be quicker than yours by the way she catches your fist. You then attempt to kick out her legs. The image you see next shakes you to your core. A hand, seeming to appear out of thin air, attaches itself to your calf. The hand then slowly raises your fear-frozen body into the air, dangling you upside down like a party toy. You attempt to throw more hits at her, all seeming to be in vain though. You kick and scream, like a child throwing a tantrum, in an attempt to get out. The woman looks out into the hallway and signals over another one of her companions. Fuck, this is turning sour fast. Before you can make out any other features of the man, besides his cartoonishly long nose, he uses his slingshot to pelt a rock towards your forehead. Your vision goes black as the rest of the pirates rush into the room.

The rough fibers of the rope tying your wrists together were the first thing you felt as you woke up. This was quickly followed by the underlying nausea from the waves rocking the boat, reminding you why you preferred to stay on land. You attempted to stand up, but your dizziness and the rope tying you to the floor weren’t letting you get very far. Suddenly, the door to whatever room you were in swung open, and the group of 7 pirates living on board entered the room. You slinked yourself along the back wall, attempting to disappear into your skin. You weren’t sure what felt worse: The fear of what they were going to do to you, or the embarrassment that you had been doing this for so long and still got caught.

Nope, definitely the embarrassment.

The man, no boy was a better word to describe him, standing in the middle of them attempted to speak to you before a woman with short orange hair cut him off. “If you think we’re gonna let you get off easily just because we’re also pirates, you’d be sorely mistaken!” she spoke, fiery anger lacing her words. The tall woman from earlier put her hand on her shoulder, calming her down, and walked out towards you. You tried to scoot away as much as you could as she crouched down to your level. 

“Listen, we want this to be over as much as you do. We would love nothing more than to get you off our ship and drop you off at the nearest island. But unfortunately for us, that would mean having to find a group of marines to hand you over to, who we aren’t the best of friends with right now. And we can’t drop you back off at Jaya since we’re too far by this point. So, for now, we’ll just have to keep you tied down here if that works out with you.” You began to speak before the woman cut you off. “You don’t have much of a choice in the matter by the way.”

She stood back up and began to exit the room, the other pirates following her except for two. The boy with the straw hat and another man, with striking green hair and three swords lying in a holster on his belt. The boy looked somberly at you as if he was against this whole idea. But the green-haired one just stared at you. As uncomfortable as it made you feel, you couldn’t help staring back into his piercingly soft eyes. “Come on, let’s go,” the green-haired man said to the boy, finally breaking eye contact and turning his back to leave. The boy followed him shortly after. As he closed the door, you had nothing left to focus on except for the itchiness of the rope, the empty stuffiness surrounding the storage room, and your worsening seasickness.

The following weeks had the same routine. Each of the pirates on board took individual shifts watching you during the day when they were just out at sea. The strange reindeer creature would watch you when they were out on islands. The first shift was taken by the tall black-haired woman. She would come in at the break of dawn to make sure you didn’t find some way to escape at night. You two would sit in silence for a little more than two hours, asking and answering some questions before switching spots with the blonde one. His company was strange, with him hitting on you at random points in your conversations, but he always brought you breakfast in the morning. As much as he made you uncomfortable sometimes, you couldn’t deny that his cooking was the best you’d had in years. He’d even let you take a hit off his cigarettes if you ever asked, so his visits had its perks. 

The next shift was taken by the orange-haired one. The first thing she would always do when walking into the room was ask you how creepy the blonde one was. The answer varied on the day. Once she warmed up to you, she would bring you tangerines from the trees out on the deck. As the days passed, she eventually explained that the treasure you attempted to steal belonged to her, which you begrudgingly apologized for. On some level, you felt bad. These seemed to be small-time pirates, just trying to get by like you were. The more you learned about each of them, the worse you felt about your actions towards them. 

Around lunchtime, the long-nosed one would bring you your meal, cooked again by the blonde man. This member would go into detail about his next invention he was working on in his workshop. You admired his passion and energy towards his craft. His rants and rambles were normally interrupted by the reindeer creature coming in for his shift, causing intense, yet entertaining, arguments to break out between the two of them. The reindeer was the sweetest of all the crew members, always checking in on your health and helping you with your seasickness. He would talk about his home and his experiences there. You developed a pity for the creature. His presence was calming, and you felt as if you could let your guard down around him. That would change as soon as the straw hat boy would come bouncing into the room, scaring both you and the animal. You would soon come to learn the energetic boy was the captain of the ship, which shocked you. But you soon came to understand why. His crew had a massive respect for him, even if he was the root of half their problems.

Being on the ship, you got extremely close to all the pirates. Even the tall woman from before seemed to respect you in some way. You enjoyed all of their company. There was something strange about them though. One morning early in your stay on the ship, you could’ve sworn you’d heard the tall woman say something to the rest of the crew. 

“Whatever you do, don’t tell her your name. Your name is your biggest secret.”

You didn’t know any of their names. You had thought you heard some of them speak it to each other in passing conversations, but not enough to remember who was who. You had bonded with them, but if someone put a gun to your head and told you to name your prison guard pirates, you’d be dead in seconds.

Except for one.

Zoro seemed to be his name. He would come in for the last shift. His presence didn’t frighten you, but it slightly intimidated you. His habit of carrying his swords everywhere he went wasn’t helping. He was silent his entire shift, normally dosing off halfway through after spending around an hour sharpening his swords You didn’t even attempt to make conversation with him. You found out his name when the captain would yell for him to get back to his sleeping quarters. “Zoro! Your shift’s done, you can sleep for real now!” he shouted across the hall the first time it happened. Zoro almost bounced up from his sleep and gave you one look before bolting out of the room to catch up to the captain. You could hear the echoes of their bickering from down the hall as you giggled to yourself. At least he didn’t seem to always be that stern.

It seemed crazy to you. His name was the only one you knew, yet you knew the least about him. He had hardly said 5 sentences to you in the three weeks you had been on the boat. His stoicism was one of the things that drew you into him though. Something about his demeanor, how intensely he would sharpen his swords, how his worries seemed to melt away the minute he escaped into a slumber, and how alive he seemed when he was with his crew. It was enticing. You wanted to know more. You attempted asking him questions about himself, but the most you would get were one to two-word answers. The most you got from him was when your seasickness finally got to you, causing you to puke up the dinner the blonde one made for you. “Woah, are you okay?” he asked concernedly, shooting up from his seat. When your only response was a cough and more puke, he ran out of the room to go get the reindeer. One thing he failed to do was close the door behind him. 

You speculated your options. You had no idea where you were. You could be out in the middle of the ocean. Or you could be right about to dock at land. If you managed to scrape yourself about the ever-loosening rope and sneak out, you’d be free. You’d never have to worry about these pirates again. 

At this point though, did you want to?

You took too long to decide, the reindeer rushing into the room with his medical kit, the blonde one short behind him. As the reindeer gave you a dose of medicine and cleaned up your mess and the blonde one held your hand and consoled you, your attention stayed by the doorframe. Zoro leaned against the wood, watching the work from afar. What shocked you most of all was his face. For a man who seemed so disinterested in you and your existence, his brows were furrowed, his cheeks had a light pink stain on them, and a slight frown invaded his face. He was concerned. Maybe even a little nervous. But why? He’d never shown any sort of emotion towards you before other than sleepiness. Once the reindeer and the blonde one left, he continued with his shift. You noticed something though. He sat closer to you than he normally did. 

You couldn’t tell, but you were blushing the rest of his shift.

Once he left, you sat in silence, thoughts racing through your mind, until you finally fell asleep.

You noticed a change in his behavior in the next few days. When you would ask him a question, he would respond now. And with more than just a “yes” or “no” too. He had more energy around you and wouldn’t spend his whole shift asleep. He would even let out a chuckle now and then. You didn’t know what you had done differently to get him like this, but you liked him like this. He was sweeter than he let on. 

Something had changed in you too though. On the occasions, you would catch yourself looking over his appearance. The more you observed, the more you realized how handsome he was. His clear, warm skin, his hypnotic eyes, his striking hair. You caught his appearance giving you butterflies when he would walk into your storage room. Your heart skipping a beat when he would give you even the smallest smile. You would stare even more when he would nap during his shift. Noticing certain things. The way his breath would hitch sometimes. How he always slept with his mouth open and would wake himself up sometimes with his dry mouth coughs. How his chest rose and fell with his soft breaths. How fighting with a sword in his mouth probably made his tongue stronger than other men you’ve met. You felt weird about it sometimes. Almost like some freakish stalker. But you would feel better about yourself whenever you would catch him staring at you out of the corner of your eye. 

As time went on, the crew began to give you some more freedom. The tall woman began leaving some of her archeology books in the storage room to keep you entertained. The orange-haired one would show you all her marked-up maps. The long-nosed one would even let you out of the rope to test his inventions from time to time. With the door locked of course. And then, the big display came. One day, during everyone’s shift, they told you their names. The blonde one was Sanji. The orange-haired one was Nami. The reindeer was Chopper. The long-nosed one was Usopp. Their captain was Luffy. And the tall woman, who initiated your imprisonment, was Robin. It was a small gesture, but it meant the world to you. With each passing shift, you grew more excited for the next. To learn the next pirate’s name, and with that, their story. Until the last shift of the day came. And you realized.

You already knew his name.

“My name’s Zoro,” he said quietly. “I know,” you replied, bluntly. 

Something felt different about this shift. You didn’t feel the same excitement you normally felt when seeing him. Without your connection to him before, his being the only name you knew, something about him just didn’t excite you as much. Now he noticed your behavior change. “You okay?” he inquired. “Mhm,” you responded in monotony. The rest of his time there was spent in silence. 

You felt bad about what you were doing. This wasn’t his fault. Yet you were acting like this. It was almost as if the two of you swapped places. He was now the one trying to dig information out of you. And you gave him nothing more than blank faces and empty words. You wished you could figure out why you were acting like this, but you had no clue.

Today though, the crew was going to take an extra step towards including you. Throughout your time on the Going Merry, you had only left your little storage room prison a few times. To go to the bathroom and visit the kitchen on special occasions. But you hadn’t seen the sun in weeks. After proving to the crew you had changed, they planned a little surprise for you.

Robin woke you up earlier than usual. “Is everything ok?” you asked, still half asleep. Robin just smiled at you. “Come on, get up.” You looked at her confused, as she walked over to your restraints, untying you from the hook keeping the rope down. She took you by your restraints and walked you out to the room. The mix of drowsiness and confusion left you slightly panicked as you realized she was walking you out to the deck. She opened the door to a still-dark morning. 

The rest of the Straw Hats were sitting out on the deck, just conversing and eating an extra early breakfast, courtesy of Sanji. They all turned to you once you and Robin walked out. “What’s going on,” you asked, still very confused. “On Thursdays, we all like to get up early and sit out and watch the sunrise. And we were talking about it, and we felt like you should join us this time,” Nami smiled. She stood up and pranced over to you, mouth slightly agape and speechless, and took you over to sit in between her and Zoro. You turned to Zoro, overwhelmed with emotions. 

It had been so long since you felt a part of a community of people. You never exactly fit in with the ruthless bands of pirates coming and going on Jaya. Finally feeling connected to people, especially after you wronged them so horribly, brought you happiness you hadn’t felt in ages. 

A singular “I-” was all you could manage to get out, a tear trickling down your cheek. “Just enjoy it. They’ll be at each other’s throats again in a minute,” he joked, getting a soft laugh out of you. He smiled gently, brushing the tear off your cheek. His finger lingered there longer than expected. You blushed. The butterflies were back and you caught yourself staring again.

“What’s that supposed to mean!” Nami interrupted. “Well, it’s true!” Zoro retorted, leaning over you to yell at Nami. The two began arguing as you noticed the sun starting to peak out over the horizon. “Shut up you two, you’re gonna make her miss it!” Usopp and Luffy yelled. They stopped bickering once they also noticed the sky begin to turn orange. 

The pinks and oranges mixed together in a beautiful watercolor painting as the sun reflected its image on the ocean. The soft waves bobbed the ship up and down in a calming hypnotic motion, almost putting you back to sleep. The beauty of it all was so serene. Against popular opinion, you always preferred sunrises to sunsets. The representation of a new day beginning. It gave you hope in your most dire situations. 

You lifted your head back to see the colors slowly spreading to the rest of the sky. Everyone to your right was in the same headspace you were like they were in some sort of trance. They were all cuddling against each other, Robin holding Chopper in her lap, Luffy and Usopp mimicking each other’s smiles, and Nami resting her head on Sanji’s shoulder. They all seemed so close to each other. Like a little family. Connected. You turned to Zoro to see if he was doing the same as the others, but all you found was his eyes softly gazing into yours, and his hand slowly inching towards yours. The minute he snapped out of it, he sharply turned his head and hand away and cleared his throat. You couldn't help but laugh at his schoolboy behavior. With your ego controlling your actions, you took his hand and slowly intertwined his fingers with yours. You could see a smile float onto his face out of the corner of your eye. You did the same.

The rest of the day was spent out on the deck. The feeling of the sun on your skin for the first time in weeks was euphoric. All you wanted to do was soak it all in. The Straw Hats must have been in a good mood today, because, with some extra convincing, you got them to finally take off your shackles. You spent most of the day sunbathing out on the deck with Nami. She had let you borrow one of your bikinis. You two were slightly different sizes though, so the suit was a little tight on you. You didn’t mind very much. You were just happy to be out of the same clothes you had worn for 3 weeks. Sanji didn’t mind either, ogling both you and Nami and basically worshipping the two of you. “It’s ok, he’ll get over it in a few hours,” Nami consoled. You circled the deck a few times to see if Zoro was anywhere in sight, but you couldn’t seem to find him. He probably went inside to nap away from the heat. Part of you wanted him to get the rest he deserved. The other really wanted him to see you in your outfit. 

The day really took a turn when Usopp brought out the liquor from the kitchen. “I was saving that asshole!” Sanji yelled. “Oh come on, this is a special occasion!” Usopp pleaded. With some more convincing, Sanji finally gave in. You and the crew got increasingly drunk throughout the evening, Zoro eventually coming out from wherever he was napping to join the party. You all had even decided to jump into the ocean and swim around for a little bit. All except for Chopper, very sober and very nervous for any incoming sea monsters. He had managed to get you all back onto the ship with some very convincing pleading.

You and Zoro caught each other catching glimpses of one another throughout the rest of the day. Zoro admiring your figure in the swimsuit, and you ogling at the way his damp shirt hugged at his muscles. One by one, as day grew into night, crew members began to pass out on the deck, deciding to sleep outside for the night. You and the other members who wanted to go back into the cabin, Zoro and Robin, made your way back down into the ship. “Make sure you tie her back up. No hard feelings but we can’t be too careful.” Even slightly tipsy, she was still her stern old self. “Yeah whatever whatever, goodnight to you too,” Zoro drunkenly pushed off. You giggled and blushed as he took your hand and led you down the stairs into the cabin. Robin sighed to herself as she watched the two of you scamper off.

You felt your heartbeat get increasingly faster as he led you to your room. For some reason, the air in the hallway got thicker as you got closer. You blamed it on your tipsiness. But your heart slowly sank as you got to the door, realizing you had to say goodbye to Zoro for the day. He opened the door and stumbled into your room, leading you in behind him. He closed the door behind him, hesitating for a moment before going to wrap the rope back around your wrists. 

He seems distressed for some reason, breathing heavily and avoiding eye contact. You look down at your hands, as he so gently maneuvers the rope around them. The butterflies begin to well up in your stomach again, the alcohol fueling their ferocity. His hands. So calloused yet so gentle. You can smell the remnants of sake exuding from Zoro’s heavy breaths. You looked back up at him. Were you two always standing this close together? You the butterflies keep rising and rising. You don’t know what to do with yourself. You’re not sure if you should run, kiss him, punch him, but you have to do something before you implode. Until. He stops.

The rope undoes itself in his hands as he freezes. His hands are shaking, his breath is heavy, and his eyes avoid yours like the plague. You were just getting antsy but Zoro seemed in distress. “Hey?” you ask, lowering your hands and dropping the rope to the floor. “Zoro?” You take your hand under his chin and lift his eyes to yours. You might throw up at any second. His eyes are so softly intense. 

He brushed his thumb against your cheek, sending chills down your spine. You both want the same thing. Both of you are just too scared to take the chance. “It’s ok. You’re okay,” you reassure him, placing your hand over his heart. His heart, which happens to be underneath his bare chest, him having taken off his wet shirt earlier. His breathing slows, and his eyes move down ever so smoothly from your eyes to your plump lips. You catch yourself doing the same to him, and you inching closer to him. “You’re fine.” Closer. “We’re gonna be…fine.” Your lips barely brush each other. The gentleness of the kiss is calming though, as you notice Zoro’s breath slowing. 

You brush again. And again. And again. Lips touching a little more with each meet. Until they fully interlock. The two of you melt into each other as Zoro wanders your back into a wall for support. Your kisses are structured, made to get the most out of each meeting. You’re both ravenous for each other, but you know if you go at each other like mad dogs, you won’t get what you want. So you both take your time getting to know the feeling of the other person’s mouth. You slip a moan out as Zoro’s tongue seeps between your lips. His kisses get slightly more sloppy as he runs his hands down your body. He feels the underneath of your breasts, the curves of your waist and hips, and finds a nice resting place under your ass. Your hands roam his cheeks and jaw, making their way to tug slightly on his moss-colored hair. 

“Needed this,” Zoro whispers in between kisses. “Needed you so badly. But I didn’t know how.” He separates his lips from yours and plants kisses and hickeys along your jaw and neck. “I was always just too nervous for some reason. You make me so nervous.” His hands find their way into your bikini bottom and fondle your asscheeks, getting a low moan out of you. The alcohol must’ve given him a confidence boost. “Good to see you found your footing now,” you whisper in his ear. He chuckles, the butterflies speeding up in your stomach. 

The two of you stay here for a little bit. Hell, you could stay like this for hours. Just soaking each other in. Feeling his warmth brought a fire into your soul. You could tell Zoro was getting a little antsy though, one of his hands moving from your back to your front, beginning to slowly circle your clit. The other hand went to your bikini, untying the back and letting it fall to the floor as his mouth moved to your breast. Waves of pleasure crashed through your body as you let him do his work. “God, you sure this is your first time?” you moaned out. He removed his mouth from your nipple to talk. “Never said it was, sweetheart. You just assumed it.” “Well from the loner vibe you got going on mixed with being on this ship 24/7, you can’t blame me for thinking that.” “Well the loner vibe worked on you, so who’s to say it hasn’t worked on others?” he smirked. You laughed to yourself as he got down on his knees.

Zoro slipped off your bikini bottom, completing the set on the floor. He kissed your v-line with the same softness he treated your lips to. He sat back on his knees for a moment to catch his breath, looking up at you, as if to ask for permission. You held your hand out to his cheek and rubbed it with your thumb. His eyes closed as he placed his hand over yours, as if you would ever take it away from him. God now this was a sight you could get used to. He was so infatuated with you it made your heart ache. He was right here at your disposal, yet you wanted more of him. So you bent down and gave him a sloppy forehead kiss. Once you were back up, he decided to go in. 

Like most things he does, he started slow and controlled. He kissed and sucked on your inner thighs. Once his hand finally left your clit, you knew he was ready. He kissed your cunt, using his tongue to lick up your wetness. You could pass out right now if you had less self-control. Whimpers and moans left your lips, your hips naturally starting to grind against his nose, relieving the ache in your clit. You let him know what felt good by the tugs and yanks you put in his hair. He was a natural. Your guess about his tongue earlier was right too. “You taste so good, just as I imagined,” Zoro breathed onto your lips. You could tell he was starting to lose his composure with the way he continued to bury his face into your pussy. Your cunt naturally tightened around his tongue as he tasted you. Your hips began to buck into his face as your grinding pace increased, the butterflies turning into a white heat you felt getting stronger and stronger. Your bud was becoming more swollen by the second. Your grip on his hair tightened to make up for your failing knees. 

You wouldn’t be able to take much more. Zoro wouldn’t either, his hand making its way into his pants to relieve his own bulge. His pace got faster to match your grinds. The smack of your lips against his tongue, mixed with both of your moans, was pornographically loud. Suddenly, the situation of Robin or another crew member hearing became an apparent one to you. That worry quickly left your mind once one of Zoro’s hands made its way to fondle your nipple. If he asked you to follow him anywhere right now, you might just do it if it meant this every other night. You felt he knew your body better than you did. “So pretty. So good for me. You make this so easy,” Zoro groaned between licks. “Zoro god fuck me please!” Your final whimper sent you over the edge as you wailed and came all over his perfect face. He licked up your juices as he finished his own job as well. Your knees finally gave out as you fell on top of him, into his arms.

He brought you down gently, straddling you on his lap as you wrapped your arms around him. He traced his cum soaked hand across your back and kissed your nape. You were more exhausted than expected, almost passing out in the crook of his neck. Even now, he was so gentle with you. “You did so good, darling,” he praised, kissing your earlobe. “Want…more…want you…inside me,” you managed to get out. He just laughed and pushed you up to look at you. “If you took me right now, I don’t think you’d wake up tomorrow morning. Look at you, you can barely keep your eyes open, sweetheart,” he teased. You pouted. “Oh, you feel that proud of yourself?” your drunkenness fueling your frustration. “No no no, sweetheart,” he chuckled. Once your frown didn’t change, he stopped laughing and pressed a kiss deep into your forehead. “I’m sorry. What I meant was, if I fucked you with everything I have left right now, which is the only way I would want to do it, this floor would leave us with sore backs for weeks.” You stayed frowning. “I want to fuck you right, the way you deserve. And I can’t do it for you right now.” You pouted more at him. He smiled up at you and leaned in closer to your ear. “If you trust me, I promise I’ll make it worth your while. You’ll be walking funny for weeks.” God, you almost came again just now. You didn’t notice how much your jaw dropped until Zoro laughed at you. You couldn’t help but laugh back in tune with his infectious laughter. 

He kissed you with a fever behind his lips, then scanned the room around the two of you. “What’s wrong?” you drowsily asked. The exhaustion from you coming, the sleepiness brought by the alcohol, and how late it was getting was starting to overpower you. Zoro didn’t respond. He just grabbed your swimsuit and helped you put it back on, tightened your legs around his hips, and hoisted you up as he stood. You decided to ask questions once you had a clearer idea of what was happening. He opened the door and walked with you down the hallway, passing the girl’s quarters and into the men’s room. He checked inside quickly before bringing you in and signaling you to bring your legs down. You confusedly followed him to his bed as he groaned, rubbed his back, and sat down on the edge of the bunk. “Wanna explain to me what you’re doing?” you asked, slightly more awake. “If you think I’m just gonna leave you to sleep alone, tied up, on that dirty floor after what we just did, then you must think I’m a really shitty guy,” Zoro quipped before getting under the covers and trying to pull you down. You put some resistance towards him though. 

“B-but Zoro, I’m not supposed to be in here.”

“I know.”

“If someone catches me in here we’re both fucked.”

“They won’t catch you.”

“How do you know that?”

“I’ll wake up before Robin starts her shift.”

“Are you sure, I mean I just don’t kn-.”

“Hey.”

You stop your nervous rabbling and look at him as he sits back up. “Do you want to go back and sleep on the cold, dirty, hard floor?” You really didn’t. “No.” “Then stay here with me.” “But what if-.” “Do you trust me?”

You sure hope you did after all of that. His kind eyes reassured you in the darkness surrounding the two of you. You took a deep breath and nodded. “Do you trust me?” he asked again. “I trust you, Zoro,” you confirmed. He smiled kindly at you. “You’re fine. We’re gonna be fine.” He steadied you by placing his hands on your hips, running his hands along your waist, and pressing his lips into your tummy. You loved the way he looked at you. Like you were his whole world. It was comforting.

He took your hand and helped you into bed. You bundled yourself under the covers and wrapped yourself around his frame. He kissed your temples one more time before slipping into sleep, his light snores hypnotizing you into a slumber of your own.

The last thing you remember before dozing off was the feeling of his hands on your waist.

Everything you wanted was right here. In front of you. Straight out of a dream. Your only fear was that it would be gone once you woke up.

a/n: THIS TOOK FOREVER GOOD LORD. anyways thanks for being here for my comeback era lol. my upload schedule is NOT going to be consistent this is just a little splurge i wanted to write lol. thank you for reading i really appreciate it (i also really appreciate engagement lol please like repost comment etc im greedy). i love one piece and i love zoro. once i meet law expect all hell to break loose im gonna write so much fanfiction about him its concerning hes so fine im so excited. anyways lol thanks love you bye.

[ariieeesworld]

Shhh!——K.P.

warnings: smut, rough sex, public sex, p in v

pairings: Keith Powers x reader

lowercase intended

——————————

“oh f-fuck!” you yelped as Keith pounded into you in the bathroom of a restaurant that you really didn’t care about in the moment. you guys were here with a couple of friends, when you started teasing Keith under the table. to be honest, you have been teasing him since you guys left the house.

now you’re here in the women’s bathroom, getting your back blown out by your fiancé. “s-shitt!” you cried as his thick shaft hit your g-spot. he groaned as he put his hand over your mouth to muffle your cries and whimpers as his dick explores your warm, wet, pussy. pulling you back into his chest, making you watch him in the mirror. as he speeds up his thrusts, his spare hand grabs onto your waist for leverage, and your eyes begin to roll to the back of your head. your braids moving with his thrusts.

your wetness allowing him to get deeper into your gummy walls, his tip hitting all the right spots, making you whine even louder. “d-daddy!” you whined as he fucked you senseless. “shh, baby. you’re gonna get us caught.” Keith groans, as if the erotic sounds coming from you two wasn’t enough. the skin slapping, the sounds of your pussy, your cries. the chefs could probably hear you guys right now, at this point, you didn’t care. you started to clench around him as you felt the orgasm bubbling in your stomach.

“i feel you, baby,” he groaned, slowing down the pace of his movements, you watch as he looks down at the mess you created then back to your fucked out expression. “cum!—daddy! i-ouu!” you moaned as you feel your body get hot, and your legs shake against him. your juices dripping down your thighs, as your hips push back into his.

he smirks at your incomplete sentence, “yeah?” he asked in a condescending tone. “you think i should let you cum, huh?” you whined at his question, “pleaseee baby, please— fuck! i’m sorry!” your breath hitched as you felt his hand creep down to your puffy clit and matched the pace of his thrust, as you bucked into him and your knees buckled. if this counter wasn’t here, you would’ve busted your head on the floor.

“you wanna go back out there with my cum dripping out of your pretty pussy?” he groaned as he was close to cumming, you nodded frantically as your moans were caught in your throat, feeling his dick twitch inside of you.

“cum with me baby- fuck!” Keith moaned as he held her hips and started moving faster in to her. his moans echoing in the empty bathroom. “there you go, good girl.” he groaned as you came all over him and filled you with his seed.

———————-

Thanks for reading! Sorry for the rushed ending! This man does wonders for me like how can you not think this man is FOINEEEE—-anyways that’s not the point ummm😭 hope you enjoy.

@harmshake 💕

[murdrdocs]

Hear me out

Step brother Chad taking readers V card and then lowkey Dark Ethan walks in and you can choose how it goes after that!!

ALSO I LOVE YOUR WRITING LIKE OMFG

THANKS POOK

ethan has never been that perceptive as a person. he can choose blame this current mishap on his obliviousness, and the fact that he had his nose buried in an article on his phone, but it wasn't truly a mishap as he heard your moans coming from chad's bedroom, and he was just a little curious.

he was just going to grab his phone charger from chad's room as an excuse, already putting the words on the tip of his tongue whenever his hand wraps around the door knob. he expects to see tara, or that girl who lives a floor beneath them, or maybe that one guy chad was flirting with last week. anyway but you.

ethan freezes, he blinks, he tries to make sure that it's you he's seeing and not some lookalike.

and then he smiles.

"didn't peg you for the type, chad," he says, tilting his head and watching the way you're still lost in it, not even trying to cover yourself or push chad off of you. which, ethan's roommate is just as bad, his hips still pushing into yours languidly, not making any effort to get out of the situation.

"it's not what it looks like," chad says, voice breathy, hips coming to a stop, but your ankles hook at his back and you pull him forward with the leverage and chad doesn't protest against your movements.

"you're not fucking your stepsister?"

chad accidentally hits a spot that has you whining, his cock twitching inside your walls when you squeeze around him.

"fuck," he mumbles, both in relation to the brown haired boy behind him, and the way you're making him feel. "then it is what it looks like."

ethan hums, takes a step further into the room, and closes the door behind him. your eyes are open now and you're looking at him, gaze a little distracted. you're clearly fucked out.

that's why ethan chooses to speak to you instead. he continues his way into the room, kneeling beside the bed, stroking your cheek with his thumb. "tell you what, if you let me join, i won't tell anyone about this dirty little secret. okay?"

he doesn't even know if you're processing anything other than your stepbrothers dick inside of you, but you're nodding quickly, lips parted with ragged breaths coming out of them.

"okay, ethan."