#because i can take off my glasses and pass decently well as a man

[lillyviarabbit]

if only wishing could change things, but i'm too paralyzed to act

[of-a-chaotic-mind]

Hey Bartender

Summary: Reader thinks it's just another shift of bartending but instead meets a drunk golden retriever that sets her up with his best friend.

TW/CW: Eddie Diaz x Reader, Get Together

Requested?: No 

Word Count: 4,087

A/N: I realized I always write reader as a fellow firefighter and wanted to try my hand at not doing that lol. You know I just had to add a drop of angst in there lmao. Anyways, hope you enjoy the read! Much love to all! Requests are Open!

--- Your POV --- 

    It's another Saturday night, and I'm expecting just as many jackasses as usual... Let me tell you, bartending pays well but damn does it suck ass. If I had a nickel for every time a douche bag hit on me, I wouldn't need to bartend, I could just live on my own private island. If I had a dollar for every decent man that ever hit on me, I'd be living on the streets if it weren’t for my weekly paychecks.  

    I drop my bag in the back office and head to the bar, throwing my hair up into a messy bun on the way. When I round the corner of the hallway out into the main area, I can see my coworkers Tiana and Grayson struggling to keep up. I slide through the swinging door with ease and begin taking orders. Soon, the chaos has died down some and I'm able to send Tiana home.  

    A rowdy bunch of college guys, that I see often, come in as she leaves. I raise my voice, "Hey! Don't come in here acting a fool, y'all know better." They sarcastically salute me or wave dramatically before making their way to their favorite table in the corner.  

    A tall, older, and muscular guy takes a seat on the stool in front of me, "You must be the boss lady around here," he states pointing back toward the college kids. 

    I scoff, "Might as well be but no. Our boss tends to only show up when it's slow. What can I get ya?" 

    The man laughs, "Two Jack and Coke, please." 

    I nod and turn around to reach for the Jack Daniels but find it exactly where I had repeatedly told Grayson not to put it, on the top shelf. Placing my hands on my hips, I turn toward my coworker, "Hey, dickhead!" He looks up immediately but I only point in the direction of the bottle I need. He grins with a laugh as he approaches me, grabs the bottle, and passes it down to me. As he returns to the customer, he was helping I gripe, "I swear you only do that to piss me off." 

    He looks at me, still wearing that stupid grin, "Yup, sure do!" 

    I roll my eyes and proceed to finish making my customer's Jack and Coke. When I set the glasses down in front of him, he admits, "If he wasn't making my gaydar go off, I'd be concerned." 

    I laugh, "Yes, Grayson is gay. He's basically my annoying little brother that enjoys making my life difficult." 

    The man laughs, "I'm Tommy," he points behind him, "The one waving his arms around like a crazy person is my lovely boyfriend, Evan." 

    I watch Evan animatedly tell his story for a beat before responding, "I'm (Y/N). What on earth is he talking about?" 

    Tommy shakes his head, "I don't really know. I love listening to him speak, don't get me wrong, but sometimes I zone out because I'm too focused on how pretty he is." 

    This makes me laugh extra hard, "I could see that." 

    Tommy pulls far more than enough cash out of his wallet to pay for the drinks and hands it to me, "Keep the change. See you around, (Y/N)." 

    I nod and watch him leave before jumping because Grayson speaks right in my ear, "He was cute!" 

    I shake my head, "He's gay and taken." 

    Grayson pouts, "Damn... A loss for us both I guess." I laugh and start cleaning up around the bar. 

    Sometime later, I notice something suspicious out of the corner of my eye. There's a gruff looking man leaning far too close to a girl who looks at least half his age. At first glance, I wouldn't even be sure she's old enough to drink but considering they card everyone at the door, she's at least 21 and this man looks to be in his late 40s or early 50s. She is very obviously uncomfortable and from the way her eyes dart around I can tell she's looking for an escape route. 

    I place my hand on Grayson's shoulder, still keeping an eye on her, "I'll be right back." He follows my line of sight and nods in understanding. As I pass the cooler on my way to her, I blindly grab a bottle of water. I step beside her, opposite the man, and place my hand on her shoulder and the water on the table in front of her, "Here's that water you ordered, sweetie." 

    "Aw, I just brought you a drink, Baby. You haven't even touched it yet. You don't need that water, do ya?" the subtleties his voice makes my skin crawl. 

    She avoids eye contact with him as she opens the water and takes a sip before looking me dead in the eyes, "Thank you. Could you point me to the bathroom, please?" 

    I nod, "Sure, I'll walk you there." She hops down from her stool and I put myself between her and the man.  

    I point in the direction we need to go but as she starts that way, the man grabs my right arm, "I think I can handle walking her to the bathroom. Besides, your coworker looks pretty busy over there." 

    I turn slowly to face him. I look down at where his hand is clamped around my right bicep and then back at his face, "I suggest you remove your hand from my body before I remove it from yours." By now everyone in the bar is zeroed in on us. I even notice Tommy, Evan, and a couple of their friends get up from their table. 

    His grip tightens, "I said," spits flecks across my face as he speaks through gritted teeth and with a menacing smile, "I can show her to the bathroom." 

    I wipe my face with my left hand, "Last chance, pal. You have three seconds." I give him a few seconds as promised before using my right hand to remove his hand from my arm, twisting it outwards with a small crack. Anger now replacing the smile on his face, he lunges at me but I drive the palm of my left hand straight into his nose.  

    He doubles over in pain, holding his nose as blood leaks through his fingers, "You bitch!" 

    I glare down at him, "That shit doesn't fly in my bar," I point to the bouncers, snap my fingers, and point down at the piece of shit at my feet. Already on standby, they immediately make their way through the crowd to collect him. I turn to check on the girl and escort her to the bathroom. 

--- Third Person POV --- 

    Bobby and Athena meet the bouncers at the puddle of filth who is still writhing in pain, "My husband is just gonna make sure he doesn't need a stop at the hospital on his way to the police station," she says, as she flashes her badge. The bouncers take a step back to let Bobby work. Athena turns to speak to (Y/N) but finds her already heading toward the bathrooms with the girl.  

    Bobby stands and wipes his hands on a napkin, "Alright, Athena, to the slammer. As far as I can tell she just broke it. No serious damage."  

    Athena nods and looks toward the door where two officers enter. When they approach her, she explains what happened and gives them instructions. A few feet away, Buck leans toward Tommy, "I wonder where she learned to do that." 

    Wondering the same thing, Eddie looks over as Tommy answers, "She had an Army Sergeant's insignia tattooed on her wrist." 

    Eddie nods, "That'll do it." 

    Buck looks toward the bathrooms, "A badass, former Army Sergeant, who can take down a man twice her size...," he looks at Eddie, whose eyes are locked in the same direction, "You should get her number." Eddie rolls his eyes and soon the three are ushered back to the table by Athena and Bobby. 

--- Your POV --- 

    As we arrive at the bathrooms, I wait with the girl in silence. When the door opens and another lady exits, she moves to enter before looking back at me, "Thank you." 

    I nod, "I'll be at the bar if you need me." She nods before entering the bathroom. I make my way back towards the bar and as soon as I round the corner, the college boys in the corner start whooping and hollering. The rest of the bar erupts to join them. I quickly return to the bar, grinning and shaking my head.  

    When the commotion dies down, one of the college kids loudly slurs out, "That, ladies and gentlemen, is why we don't fuck with (Y/N)." Many in the bar laugh before returning to their friends and drinks. Not too long later, I watch the girl meet a few friends at the door and make their way to a table. She smiles at me as she passes. I smile back. 

    I take and make a few more orders before letting Grayson know I'm taking a few minutes for a smoke break. After what feels like too short of a break, I'm checking notifications on my phone when I pass Grayson who grabs my shirt. I look at him in confusion, "What?" 

    He nods toward the other end of the bar where Evan is sat blowing bubbles into a fresh Jack and Coke, "said he wanted to ask you something." 

    Still bewildered, I make my way over to Evan, "What's up, Buttercup?" 

    He snaps his head up from his drink and grins at me before slurring out, "I was wondering if I could have your number," and is quick to add, "b-but not for me! I have a hot pilot boyfriend," the grin on his face gets even bigger, "I'm gonna give it to my friend Eddie who's been staring at you all night," he thinks for a split second, "He also seemed very disappointed when he saw you leave a little bit ago."  

    I laugh but before I can say a single word he goes on, "I came up here and asked your coworker if you were done for the night but he said you were just on break so I waited until you came back." He keeps rambling on and on as I grab a sticky note pad and pen from under the counter. I jot my name and number down. Normally, I wouldn't do this but these Evan and Tommy dudes seem decent so I figure their friend Eddie can't be too bad.  

    Evan is still going when I remove the note and press the sticky side to his forehead. He stops abruptly mid word, "Sweet! I'm Buck by the way." With that, it seems our conversation has come to an end as he gets up and returns to his table, not even removing the sticky note. 

--- Third Person POV --- 

    Hen giggles, “I think the golden has retrieved something.” 

    Tommy follows her line of sight and notices Buck stumbling back toward the table with something attached to his forehead; question already locked and loaded for when he's in earshot, "Whatcha got there?" Buck stops and attempts to pose heroically which makes everyone giggle. Tommy reaches up with one hand to remove the note and pats the bench beside him with the other, prompting Buck to plop down and lay his head on Tommy's shoulder. Realizing what his boyfriend has done, he looks over to Eddie, "I believe this is for you," and hands him the note. 

    Confused, Eddie takes the paper and reads it before looking at Buck with a facial expression that reads, "Seriously?" 

    Buck grins proudly as Maddie nudges Eddie, "You so should text her." 

    Chimney grins, "Or if you're man enough you can call her." Eddie glares at him, very clearly annoyed. He looks down at the paper in his hands and thinks for a few seconds before nudging Tommy and Buck out of the booth. He ignores the excited gasps and "ooo"s that break out behind him and makes his way to the bar. 

--- Your POV --- 

    I look up from the beer I'm pouring and notice one of Tommy and Buck's friends heading my direction. I top the beer off and hand it to the college kid in front of me just as the newcomer takes a seat to my left. He's staring straight ahead and hasn't said a word. 

    I wipe my hands off on a towel and grab a glass before crossing the short distance between us, "You're either a whiskey guy or a fruity cocktail guy. What'll it be?" 

    He smiles and tilts his head as he looks at me, "Whiskey, please." 

    I nod and turn around, aiming to grab the bottle of Jack I left on the other counter but find it has mysteriously moved back up to the top shelf. I whip my head in Grayson's direction but his back is turned to me. Placing my hands on my hips I glare up at the bottle. "Do you need me to-" Eddie tries to ask but instead I step up onto a shelf under the counter and climb up to stand on the granite, promptly procuring the bottle, "Guess not," I hear Eddie chuckle behind me as I scrunch up the towel on my shoulder and throw it at Grayson.  

    It nails him right in the back of the head, although not all very hard. He turns around grinning until he notices me still standing on the counter. An expression of fear almost crosses his features before he speaks, "Rodney will have your ass for standing on his counter," a teasing hint of humor in his tone. 

    I flip him off, "Rodney can suck a dick. I'd say you should too but you'd enjoy it too much," I punctuate my sentence by jumping down from the counter. Grayson doubles over in laughter as I turn back to my customer, who is also laughing his ass off. 

    As I pour the whiskey, I ask, "So, are you the Eddie that Buck mentioned?" 

    He looks back at the table where his friends are very clearly pretending to not be watching, minus Buck who is staring at us with his chin in his hands. He looks down at his whiskey, "Yeah," and takes a sip. 

    I tilt my head at him, "You don't seem too thrilled." 

    He makes eye contact with me, "To be honest, my heart is racing a mile a minute. I'm not like wasted or anything but uh," he looks back at the table and then at his glass, "I've got enough liquor in my system right now that when Chimney challenged that I wouldn't call you, I was like, 'Oh yeah? Watch this,'" he looks up at me again, "So, here I am with no clue what to say and possibly making a fool of myself." 

    I can't help but laugh, "I've had plenty of men make fools of themselves in front of me. I promise, you sir, are not one of them." 

    He smiles at this and is quiet for a few beats before asking, "Would it- would it be okay if I called you?" 

    I give him an "are you serious?" look, "Eddie, if it wasn't okay for you to call me, I wouldn't have given Buck my number." I swear I see him blush as he looks down at his glass again, nodding. I hear a customer call my name and grimace, "Give me a sec." He nods so I move to serve the customer and when I return to where Eddie was seated, he's back at the table with his friends. He's left cash on a napkin that has a note scribbled on it: 

I'll call you tomorrow when I can actually form coherent sentences :) - Eddie P.S. Keep the change! 

    I smile softly to myself and look up toward their table to find him already looking my way. I wave and he returns the wave before I slip the napkin into my back pocket and move on to take some more orders on Grayson's end of the bar. 

    The next morning, or rather the next afternoon, when I roll out of bed I immediately reach for my phone. I find a text from an unknown number: 

This is Tommy from the bar. Just in case Eddie loses the sticky note, I added your number into his phone. Figured I'd shoot you a text so you have his :) 

    I smile and lay my phone back down on the side table. My excited anticipation dwindles quickly as hours turn into days of not hearing from Eddie. I'm beginning to think he was just drunk that night and wasn't actually interested. One afternoon, as I'm getting ready for work, I glance at my phone for the millionth time hoping to see something from Eddie. No such luck... I open up the text conversation and my fingers hover over the keyboard trying to decide what to say. This isn't the first time I've done this in the past few days. Once again, I finally give up and shove my phone back in my pocket. I head to work with a pit in my stomach and disappointment heavy in my chest. 

    That evening, Grayson and all of my regulars notice how down I am and a few even try to cheer me up or be an ear to listen, including Grayson who hasn't stopped pestering me about it every chance he gets. "So, did things not work out with Lover Boy?" I brush him off and start wiping down the bar. "Come on, (Y/N). Talk to me," he sighs, "I know I'm a dick sometimes but I do care about you and I don't like seeing you so upset." 

    I take a deep breath as I toss the dirty towel into the laundry bin, "He never called. Never even texted either. And it's not because he lost my number, Tommy saved it into his phone for him." I can't hide the disappointment and hurt in my tone. 

    "Are you serious? Dude was absolutely entranced by you but doesn't bother to contact you?" Grayson asks, dumbfounded. 

    I shrug, heading for the cellar door, "I'm gonna restock. Holler if you need me." 

    He lets me go and as the door shuts behind me, I feel tears prickle against my eyes. Why am I about to cry over some dude I've only met once and only shared a few sentences with? Frustrated, I wipe my eyes and grab a few bottles that I know we need. Half way up the stairs, tears threaten to spill again. Sighing in defeat, I descend back down, place the bottles on a table, and drop to the floor against the wall with my head in my hands. This shit is why I don't let myself get hung up on guys anymore. The tears are flowing freely when I hear the cellar door open, "(Y/N)?"  

    Grayson sounds worried so I answer, "Yeah?" but my voice comes out weak and shaky.  

    I hear his footsteps descend the stairs rapidly before he drops to the floor beside me, "Hey, you okay?" 

    I look up from my hands and make eye contact, "I thought this one was different. I let myself hope. Now look at me, crying on the floor of a dusty ass cellar." 

    Grayson rubs my back comfortingly, "It's okay to cry, (Y/N)." 

    I drop my head back in my hands, "No it's not, not over a man I don't even know. I'm an independent woman who don't need no man. I shouldn't be this heart broken." 

    "First of all, yes, it's still okay to cry. Second, you may be independent but everyone needs somebody to love," Grayson says softly. 

    From the top of the stairs, a voice rings out, "Hey Grayson, quite a few people wanting drinks up here." 

    "We'll be up in a minute," he answers before pulling my face to look at him, "Get up, dust yourself off, and let's go have a good time, okay?" 

    I sigh deeply, "Okay," and wipe my tears. On our way up, I grab the bottles I had set down earlier and by the time we reach the top of the stairs, I've promised myself I won't shed another tear over this man unless he earns it. 

    Later that evening, I'm wiping down the bar again after a rush. In my peripheral, I notice someone take a seat and toss the towel away to tend to them. When I finally look over, my heart starts racing. It's Eddie. He's staring at his hands where he interlocked them on the bar top. I look around, hoping to pass him off to Grayson but find him helping other customers. I take a deep breath before smoothing out my shirt and walking over to Eddie. 

    "What can I get for you?" I ask, attempting to keep my tone friendly and even but it still shakes the slightest bit. His head shoots up and he makes direct eye contact with me. There's something in his eyes that makes me tilt my head. 

    He breaks eye contact and breaths deeply, looking back to his hands, "Listen, I- I'm sorry. I know I haven't called or texted. I tried to several times but I didn't know what to say. Buck says I was overthinking it too much but... I don't know, I just- I didn't wanna fuck it up." 

    A small smile touches my lips but I squash down the hope that's trying to breach the surface, "Eddie, a hello would've been sufficient." 

    He looks up at me and grimaces, "That's what Tommy said but I didn't wanna sound so- so casual I guess?" 

    Bewilderment replaces my smile, "What?" 

    He hesitates a second, "I guess what I'm trying to say is, I didn't want to sound so uninterested when you're all I've been able to think about for days. I also didn't want to sound too interested and scare you off... Which I may have just done anyways," he shakes his head in embarrassment as he looks back down at the bar top. 

    The grin on my face kind of hurts as I tuck my finger under his chin and lift it. His eyes have a touch of worry in them when they lock with mine, "I almost texted you several times too but didn't for the same exact reason." For some reason, I let myself get a little vulnerable, "I may or may not have cried a few hours ago because I was so disappointed that I didn't hear from you..." 

    I pull away as shock etches across his features, "I'm so sorry." 

    I shrug, "Forgiven, as long as you take me out on a date at some point and remember that my number exists in your phone." 

    He grins, nodding, "I will. When are you off work this week?" 

    I look up at the ceiling trying to remember, "All day Wednesday and Sunday and then until 3pm every other day." 

    When I look back at him, he smiles, "How does coffee sound Wednesday morning? 10am?" 

    I mirror his expression, "Sounds great!" 

    I can barely contain my excitement over the next few days and wake up before my alarm even goes off Wednesday morning after tossing and turning all night. I jolt up in bed, checking my phone in a panic, thinking I've slept through my alarm going off. Relief courses through my veins when I realize there's still an hour until it will. Excitement quickly floods that relief out of my system and I hop out of bed with a spring in my step. 

    Sometime later, as I enter the small outdoor café early but too excited to wait, I see Eddie threading his fingers through his hair at a table, having beat me there. I smile brightly and approach his table. He stands as soon as he sees me, pulls out my chair for me, and motions to the coffee in front of it, “I wasn’t sure how you like your coffee but if it’s wrong just let me know and I can order you something else.”  

    I giggle, take a sip and grin, “It’s perfect,” and as I look at him sitting across from me, knee bouncing and fingers fidgeting with his coffee cup I can’t help but think he’s perfect too. 

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Main Masterlist

[thewriterg]

♡︎my baby’s day♡︎

Pairing(s): Jess Mariano x gn!reader, Luke Danes x gn!reader, Rory Gilmore x Jess Mariano, Lorelai Gilmore x Jess Mariano

Summary: Traveling to see your boyfriend in the small town of stars hallow for his special day the towns people couldn’t believe there were two of you —flufftober; day 2–

Word count: 2.3k+

Warning(s): PDA, Fluff, Pet names, Taylor, and like two swear word —aren’t you proud 😊🔪—

A/n: —GIF isn’t mine— Jess is literally my baby Dean Sucks :/

The crisp air hit your face while you stepped off the steps of the metro bus as the burnt orange leaves crunched under your feet with a book bag on your back and a duffel bag in your hand you hadn’t had the best ride to the small town the people were… clingy

You had told three people to piss off and five others to watch where they were stepping your New York accent thick and the towns people found your insults ten times more insulting because you cursed heavy and they could barely pick up what you were saying

You decided to take a cab standing on the curb of the street with your hand up in the air until the yellow street car pulled up in front of you before taking the book bag off your back you slid Into the car your hands deep in the pocket of you leather jacket

“Uhh, Luke’s diner or William’s hardware which ever it is” You spoke to the taxi driver who nodded his head with a bright smile on his face as he tapped his fingers against the steering will and began to hum while you couldn’t help but roll your eyes you began to stare out the window watching the scenery pass by before putting the sunglasses that rested on your forehead over your eyes

It wasn’t long before you arrived at what you assumed to be the towns square you looked at the meter in front of you the read $13.50 and you tossed 15 Dollars onto the man’s arm rest before grabbing your bags and letting yourself out the car as you scoped out your surroundings

As you walked across the street you could feel peoples eyes on you and it couldn’t help but irk your nerve’s slightly in New York you have your good chunk of people but for the most part everyone minded their business and went on with their day it were a school of fish you crossed the street together and then left the pod here you already felt cramped like you were in a can of sardines but you wouldn’t let anything ruin your mood for your baby’s day so you let it slide

“Hey Jess, how you doing today?” Lorelai greeted with a small smile as the teen refilled her coffee mug standing over her table

“Well I’m not bleeding or anything so you know” He responded with a shrug moving to Rory’s side of the table repeating his actions not noticing how the girl looked up at him with dreamy eyes tucking a strand of hair behind her ear before averting her attention away from the boy was the bell ringing in the pretty quiet diner at the time in day

There you stood pushing your sun glasses back on your forehead as you looked around the small diner and if it weren’t for Luke the coffee pot that occupied Jess’s hand would’ve shattered on the floor as he charged toward you full speed picking you up and spinning in a circle while you laughed lightly before he sat you down bringing your face closer to his before your lips smashed together pouring your yearning feelings into each other disguised by a kiss

“What the hell are you doing here?” Jess questioned and couldn’t bother to cover up the bright smile on his face while you chuckled at his anticipation

“I couldn’t miss my baby’s special day could I?” You smirked noticing the small audience you both had before giving them a over exaggerated wave before the towns people quickly looked away engaging in their previous activities

“I come bearing gifts” You stated reaching into your bag passing your boyfriend a black gift bag with dark red tissue paper sticking out of it and you made your way over to the table that Luke stood at handing the man a box that had decent wrapping paper around it with a small bow on its top you stood back watching both of the boys open their gifts Luke being a little more hesitant in opening his own Soon enough Luke had unwrapped the box completely looking at it in shock as his eyes switched from you back to the box

“I don’t know who you are but you are heaven sent you understand” Luke pointed a finger at you running behind the counter dramatically swiping his arm against it’s surface knocking his old toaster to the floor with a loud crash opening the box carefully as he revealed a new toaster that seemingly shined in the light

You chuckled softly before walking towards Jess who lied his gifts across the cleanest part of the counter he came across you had got him about three band T-shirts, an iowa slipknot album, a Barnes a noble gift card, and another copy of Pride of prejudice because his was water damaged and when he told you over the phone that seemed like the icing on the cake of his bad day

Jess wouldn’t have cared if it was just some old copy of the book but you both had went on a date around the city when he was back at home you had walked around the park, went to a pizza cart for lunch, picked out some new records, and then you both went to your favorite Barnes and Noble and picked up the same copy’s of book which you both agreed to pride and prejudice you had took both books home and annotated them for each other to exchange the next day

So when Jess was already having a particularly bad day and tried to lift up his mood with the mix of funny, sweet, and the amusing notes of you raging at a character or the cute little doodles You littered some pages with you could imagine his reaction when his uncle had begged him to help with rush and when he came back to read his book to find one of waiters had spilled coffee all over the paperback

So to see his face light up like a kid on Christmas or a puppy meeting’s it’s new family as he flipped through the pages to see highlighted phrases, small words written in black ink and your hand writing in the margin along the white space, and your doodles scattering different pages what caught his eye most was one of his favorite parts of the book you had wrote his and your initial with a big dark red heart around it

“I love you” Jess had sat his book down before bringing you into another embrace kissing your hairline while for the first time in six months without him you smiled

“I love you more baby” You sighed softly breathing in his his scent of coffee, old books and pine wood laying your head on his shoulder you could at least see half of the towns people peering into the windows blinds

“Are they always like that” You blatantly pointed out to your boyfriend who followed your eyes to at least 30 people staring back at him as he signed heavily

“Would you believe me if I said yes” Jess responded before the both of your attention landed on the ringing bell stormed in a angry Taylor while Jess tried to figure out what the man could be mad about now and as he felt the weight of your head on his shoulder he wondered if you had caused in any havoc

“Taylor what do you want from me” Luke questioned the man not taking his eyes away from toasted he had been setting up and admiring for the last ten minutes

“Well Luke I have you know that you have a great percentage of PDA going on in your store and it is distracting my customers” The man said matter of factly pointed a strong finger at the two of which you barely raised your eyebrows at

“Listen it’s not anyone’s fault your customers are nosey the kids are in love something I’m sure you know all about” Luke sarcastically stated before walking to the back as Taylor called out for him You and Jess both watched in amusement as the man tightened his light tan cardigan before giving you the most disgusted look he could muster before leaving with another ring of the bell

“You wanna get out of here? I’ll show you around town” Jess questioned muttering into your ear as you nodded your head with small sigh that quickly turned into a yawned

“I have to drop my bags of at the inn but after that I’m all yours for the day” You responded reaching to pick up your bags bit before you could grace your fingers over the handle Jess beat you to it

“How about we cuddle, get some takeout, and take a nap instead.. Then I’ll show you around and we can do whatever you want” Jess offered he hadn’t missed you small yawn and Connecticut from New York on the metro was at least four hours and it was early noon so he couldn’t imagine of what ungodly hour you woke up in the morning to be there

“Are you sure Bambi?” You question as you tried to stiffen another yawn while Jess could help but feel heat rush to his face as he tried to brush it away with a chuckle ever since you had found out Jess’s favorite movie was Bambi until he was twelve you hadn’t let him live it down and it became a pet name for your boyfriend In your dictionary

Luke Danes has seen a lot of things in life but his nephew blushing to the bone was a first and as he watched wide eye his mouth slightly agape before Lorelai slightly pushed it back closed with the pad of her finger tips

“Hey Luke we’re heading out”Jess called to his uncle who could just give him a nod and slight wave before he left while Luke continued staring at the spot in the diner where he saw his nephew who wore gory band shirts and has never seen smile unless he was on the phone running up his bill blushed

Like didn’t know who you were but god was he starting to like you

༄༄༄

You were all checked in and Jess sat your luggage in corner of the room before flopping down on the mattress while you chuckled softly sitting the Chinese take out down onto the wooden desk before taking each steaming box and container of food out the plastic ‘thank you’ bag

Not being able to wait you took the disposable chopsticks out the bottom of the bag bringing them down with a harsh impact on the table causing them to stick out of there paper packaging You then begin to crack open the small white container of wonton soup with rice noodles picking up a dumpling with the chopsticks you held in your right hand sighing in content at the taste

You could hear Jess stand from his position residing on the bed before he stood on the side of you opening his own box of chicken fried rice and vegetables

“I don’t know how the hell you eat with those” Jess chuckled lightly as you looked up at him you were in the middle of biting a dumplings and the broth of the soup had made a mini mustache above your top lip

“I don’t know how you can’t” You smirked at the the thought of Jess struggling to bring noodles Into his mouth the last time you both had the food

You hummed alerting Jess before bringing the pair of chopsticks in front of his mouth before he opened relentlessly taking the dumpling from the wooden stick Into his mouth before he did the same with his rice and spoon which you ate without a second thought

You both continue eating and sharing food and as you begin to finish up there’s at least two containers of sweet sesame chicken, broccoli, and rice in result of over ordering you put the container back in the bag they came from and shoved them into the little black mini fridge

Jess began to take of his boots along with his band T-shirt while you did the same revealing a bra|tank top you choose

You and Jess were under the soft bed sheets in no time While Jess lied on your chest you ran your nails through his hair before curling it back to its original state while Jess drew patterns on the side of your hip

You were both asleep In no time bathing in each others embrace

༄༄༄

It was around 11 at night and you and Jess had been out since about three or four he was showing you around town and you both picked up a couple books at the small bookshop

You were now in the park just taking small laps while the gazebo‘s dim fairy lights illuminated the dark empty streets

Jess took a hold of your hand leading up the gazebo’s steps as the two of you sat on the wooden bench you leaned you head against Jess’s shoulders while you both sit in a comfortable silence

“Thank you for coming here.. for me” Jess stated suddenly while you looked up at him with a small gleam of admiration in your eye

“I’ll always be there for you Jess no matter what, I promise ” You Held out your pinky finger as to state just how serious you were before Jess smiled genuinely and wrapping his pinky around yours

The town’s clock tower began to ring alerting that it was 12am you looked up at your boyfriend face with a soft smile

“Happy birthday baby” You rested a hand against Jess’s jaw line bringing him Into a kiss which he deepened

You don’t know how long you both sat there kissing and cuddling on a park bench but deemed your baby’s special day as one for the books

Definitely one for the books.

[ladykailitha]

Ser Stephan of Harring’s Town Part 5

Tag limit is 20 (which we haven’t hit yet)

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4

This was fun because it is based a on actual one-shot I DM’ed. Yeah, the barbarian knew what was up in that one, too.

*

Eddie was having fun. He had devised the most heinous, hideous, horrifyingly good murder house. Essentially the party had been drugged at the local tavern and locked up inside this house where everything was trap that could (and if he was honest, probably would) kill them.

Everyone started off separately and finally got together to try to escape this house once and for all.

“The room you are in has three winged-back chairs, a side table filled with all sorts of liquor in various bottles and containers. There is a beautiful dwarfish rug on the hardwood floor. There is a small round table with two glasses one filled, the other empty. There are many paintings decorating the room, all of them of the same man in different stages of life. Some young, some of his handsome youth and distinguished middle age, but only one of him in his advancing years.”

“I step into the room,” Mike said.

“Do the rest of you follow?” Eddie asked.

Everyone nodded.

“Everybody make reflex saves!”

The party groaned but did as they were told. Thankfully they all passed. Erica and Steve by the skin of their teeth, but they passed.

“The door slammed shut behind you with a large gate dropping down in front of the door, sealing you in. A beautiful crystal hour glass with green sand slowly lowers from the ceiling. The sand barely beginning its decent to the bottom. A voice rings out: ‘You have one hour to escape this room and my mansion for good,’” Eddie said the last part with a rich, posh accent aged up and worn. “Roll spot checks!”

They all roll but only Will and Lucas succeeded. He pulled them aside (Steve hasn’t quite learned how to not meta game yet) and whispered to them. They walk back to the table.

“I tell the party–” Lucas began.

Eddie tutted. “Ah-ah-ah,” he said wagging his finger. “Role play it.”

Lucas sighed. “You don’t make Steve role play it.”

“That’s because we’re still teaching him the game mechanics,” Dustin defended. “We’ll make him role play next time.”

“Yeah,” Will agreed. “You’ve been playing long enough to be able to.”

Steve flashed Lucas a reassuring smile. “Plus, I’m supposed to be a fantasy version of me, doesn’t take much role playing that. Come on, you can do it.”

Lucas took a deep breath. “It’s not just the hour glass that’s filling with sand, if you look at the walls, you’ll see that they have sand pouring down them.”

Eddie grinned. “Everyone now can see that the ranger is indeed correct yellow sand is sliding down the walls and will fill the room in the hour allotted.”

“Can I blast our way out?” Will asked.

Eddie shrugged. “You could try, but a fireball in a small room like this, is more likely to kill the party.”

Will nodded.

“Well,” Dustin said. “Most of the traps have been puzzles, so there is probably a puzzle here we need to solve.”

Steve frowned. He didn’t want to ask his question out loud in case they made fun of him. So he pulled out a piece of paper from his bag and jotted down a note and handed it to Eddie.

Everyone else was talking over each other trying to find the puzzle.

Eddie looked up from the note and smiled softly. “Make a spot check, Steve.”

Mike whipped his head to face them. “What?”

Steve rolled the dice. “I got a seventeen.”

Eddie nodded and wrote something on the paper that Steve had handed him.

Steve read it and then folded it up. “I just had a question.”

“About what?” Erica asked.

“I don’t wanna say,” Steve said, ducking his head. “You’ll think it’s dumb.”

“You don’t have to tell them, Steve,” Eddie said. “You can keep what you learned to yourself.”

Steve shrugged. “The room just felt off.”

Mike rolled his eyes. “How can an imaginary room feel off?”

Steve blushed. “You don’t have three chairs in a sitting room,” he whispered.

“Are you serious right now?” Dustin said. “That has got to be the most bullshit thing I’ve ever heard.”

“That’s why I didn’t want to say,” Steve said.

Eddie eyed him for a moment. “Let’s take a break. Don’t worry, I’ll pause your time so that you don’t die.”

They grumbled and filed out to use the bathroom and stretch their legs.

“You okay, man?” he asked Steve once most of them had gone. “You usually snap back them when they get like this.”

Steve sighed. “I just don’t have the confidence with this game. I want to bitch back, but they have years of knowledge and experience of this shit and I know that Dustin or Mike is going to pull up some rule from Rangers Fifth Guide or whatever proving me wrong.”

Eddie nodded. “You’re right about Mike, but it will probably be Erica instead of Dustin. They’re what are colloquially referred to as rules lawyers. Players that have studied the every rule and every book front and back and can quote it back to you ad nauseum.”

“Great,” Steve muttered.

“Except that they know that with me,” Eddie said with a grin, “that I don’t follow the rules.”

Steve looked up. “You can do that?”

“It’s what’s called a homebrew game,” Eddie explained. “I set the rules and they are expected to follow them. Because here’s the thing, Steve. Will could blast his way out of the room and as long as the squishy ones are in the back, you’d probably all survive. But I told him no, because I wanted everyone to solve a puzzle and not use violence to get their way.”

Steve blinked. “Oh. So I don’t need to know all the rules to play?”

“Yup!” Eddie smiled. “So don’t let the little shits get to you, okay?”

Steve nodded and he straightened up.

They came back and started arguing about the puzzle again. And every time they suggested something Steve would shoot it down, only to be backed up by Eddie.

Finally Mike snapped when they only had nine minutes left. “If you’re so god damn clever, you figure it out.”

Steve smiled, smug. “The largest painting in the room is of the old man that locked us up in here. So I asked Eddie to describe the painting.”

Dustin frowned. “What’s so important about a damn painting?”

“It’s the only one of him as old and Eddie told me that it shows the whole room,” Steve explained.

“The whole room?” Lucas asked incredulous.

“Yup,” Steve said, popping the P.

“Everybody make spot checks,” Eddie said with a grin.

This time because they had information from Steve all but Mike’s paladin succeeded.

“The painting shows the old man sitting in a green winged-back chair with a glass of wine at his side on the round table,” he filled them in.

“Okay...” Will said, an idea brewing in his head. “You know what that means, don’t you, Sir Stephan?”

Steve grinned. “Match the room to the painting.”

Suddenly the room erupted in dissent.

“There’s no way it’s that simple!” Dustin protested.

“Five minutes, my intrepid heroes,” Eddie said, pointing at his watch.

Mike rolled his eyes. “What choice have we got?”

They remove the full glass from the table and fill the empty one with wine from the side table. The pull the yellow and red winged-back chairs off the side so they can put the green one in the middle.

One minute remaining.

“It didn’t work!” Erica screamed as the room was nearly at the top of the walls, within seconds it would fill the room killing them all.

Steve grinned. “I go over and sit on the chair.”

Eddie grinned back. “As soon as Sir Stephan sat down the hourglass stopped spilling into the bottom and the sand in the room vanished. The iron grate rose and the door opened.

“A voice rang out: It appears you have beaten me this time, but always keep a wary eye over your shoulder’,” Eddie said in the same voice from before. And then he stood up and bowed.

Everyone started cheering and jumping on Steve congratulating him. Steve looked over at Eddie who winked.

Part 6 Part 7

Tag List: @gregre369 @idea-less-author @xtkxkrzrizir @azure-and-gold @flanbott @garden-of-gay @tauntedperfume @marvelousforlife @itsfreakingbats

[hannahssimblr]

Chapter Seven (Part 3)

The sun has already begun its descent behind the horizon when we all sit down to eat at three o’clock. These later December days are so short that sometimes I wonder why the sun bothers to show up at all, and why not just give up its teasing and go away altogether until it’s ready to stay and commit to a decent amount of daylight. 

The candles in the centre of the table flicker and dance in the fading light and the lights on the christmas tree twinkle, and the sight is so cosy and festive that I suppose I don’t really mind all that much about the dusk. Uncle Sean sails out of the kitchen carrying the huge roasted turkey fit for ten, and everyone applauds with delight as he smiles as though he’s the one who slaved over it all morning. He places it right in the middle of the table surrounded by the roasted carrot batons and the crispy roast potatoes, parsnips, mash, brussels sprouts, homemade yorkshire puddings, ham studded with cloves, gallons of gravy and bread sauce, so much food that one might think it’ll last for days, but it will be gone in an hour.

Granny makes us say a prayer in thanks for the food, and the minute we’ve finished Conor and Decky start lunging for it, taking heaping spoonfuls of mashed potatoes, great big hacks of meat and drowning it all in gravy while Aunty Catriona stares at them like they’re wild animals at the zoo. 

“Leave some for the rest of us, please.” she says to them and Uncle Sean laughs. “Sure they’re growing boys, Cat, leave them at it.”

“They’re gone past growing, sure they’re twenty six and twenty three.”

“G’way, Catriona.” Says Conor with a mouthful of honey roasted ham. “There’s plenty for us all.”

Sean turns to Fabiana next to him as the food makes the rounds of the table. “Bread sauce, love?” He says, holding up the jug, and she pulls a disgusted face and shakes her head, and as he passes it over her to granny, Fabiana looks over at me with a little, secretive smile. I grin back, pleased that she’s chosen me as an ally among the chaos of this family dinner. 

Somebody opens a bottle of red wine and she reaches for it and then bends over the table and starts pouring it into my crystal glass, the ones that only come out of the cabinet on Christmas day. I feel my mam’s eyes on me as I have a drink from it. 

It’s a while before anyone tries to speak, our mouths all full of food as we ravage what’s on the table. I’m so hungry now that I can’t think of anything else, the food tasting a thousand times more delicious because of how long I’ve waited for it. 

“So Michael, how’s the new job going?” Catriona says to my dad eventually, once her plate is about three quarters of the way finished. “I know you were let go from your previous one recently.”

“Going grand.” He says, patting the corners of his mouth with a cloth napkin, his movement a little bit slow and sloppy. “I work nights now in the factory, worse conditions, I suppose, but better money. No big change from the last place to be honest… we make catheters now.”

“Ah, I suppose you’ll take what you can get. That’s how the economy is these days.”

A pause. “And how’s the love life, Cat?”

“Well actually I amn’t seeing anyone at the moment.”

“Oh right. What happened to yer man?”

“Who?” Says Sean, and my dad waves his fork around at aunty Catriona, searching for the right name. 

“The fella from accounting at her work.” He settles on eventually, and she rolls her eyes and goes back to her food. 

“Not seeing anyone.” She repeats. I take a large glug of the red wine. 

“That’s a pity, sure we were all hoping for some news about more grandkids.” My mam elbows him in the arm, and he looks at her in surprise. “What?” 

“Dad and Fabiana are already having another baby, did you not know that?” Says Decky. “She’s seven months pregnant, like.” 

“Ah yeah but sure like…” He trails off, and I feel hot with embarrassment of him already, as clearly he’s already had a few drinks too many. His eyes are watery and heavy. I drain the end of my wine glass and Fabiana immediately fills it again. 

“Anyone tried the brussels sprouts?” Says granny. “They’re especially delicious this year.” 

“No, brussels sprouts are sick.” Says Conor. 

“They’re very healthy for you.” Attempts Fabiana and he immediately rolls his eyes at her. 

“Yeah, alright. Can we talk about something else?” I stiffen and look from Conor to Decky, Fabiola to Sean. Clearly something is not right in their family this Christmas, and I wonder how the boys really feel about their father dating a woman young enough to be their sister. I watch her face fall and the way that she goes back to picking at her food with a bent head. 

“Tell your granny about school.” Sean says to his youngest son then, and Conor regards him with total incredulity.

“I’m graduated, dad.” 

“Are you? Weren’t we at that yoke in your university only last month?”

“Yeah. My graduation ceremony.”

“Oh right, yeah.” 

“I’m working with the county council now.”

“Forgot about that.”

The only sounds at the table are the scraping of silverware against the plates. I take another long drink from my glass and instantly Fabiana is wielding the bottle again. I have a feeling she’s going to have me drink the whole thing, wishing it could be her instead. 

“Fabiana.” I say softly. “You’ve got to slow down. I have a hard time saying no to people.” 

“Just a bit.” She says, and then to my horror, all eyes are on me as my mam starts a fresh tirade. 

“Since when do you drink?” She says accusingly into the silence. 

“Um. I don’t know.” I say feebly, feeling like a child caught rotten doing something against the rules. 

“She’s drank for years.” Decky pipes up unhelpfully. “Remember I saw you drinking cans of cider outside Kennedy’s pub in town after you and your friends weren’t allowed in. What age were you then? Must have been fifteen.” He’s laughing because he thinks he’s told a funny anecdote, but he has no idea how tone deaf it is. I stare at him in disbelief. What is going on at this dinner table? How did he think that was an okay thing to say? My mother’s eyes narrow at me. 

“I’m eighteen.” I squeak. “I can drink if I want to.”

“Is this what you’re doing up there in Dublin?” She demands. “Up in those pubs drinking away all of your money?”

“No, mam. I’m not like that.”

“I’m disappointed.” She says, and then looks from me to my father with a resigned look on her face, and I know what she’s thinking. That I’m going to end up just like him, stuck to the bar in some pub all weekend until I get carried out by the bouncers and tossed into a taxi only to crash into the house at two in the morning and fall asleep on the couch until noon. Going from work to the drink and then back again in this endless, drunken spiral. 

“There’s something about women who drink.” She announces to the table. “I think there’s nothing worse, nothing less attractive than that. You know, when you see a man, messy drunk, stumbling on the streets, it’s bad enough, but when it’s a woman it’s a hundred times worse.”

“That’s sexist.” I say to her. 

“It isn’t.”

“Why?”

“Because it isn’t the same, and I don’t appreciate this new bolshy attitude you have. Where are you picking up all these notions?”

“You can’t just say ‘it isn’t’ and then not have any reason why. That’s the definition of a double standard.”

“Well it’s my opinion. What do you lads think when you see drunk women out on the street on a Saturday night?” She closes in on my cousins who look at each other and shrug, mumbling incoherencies. 

“You wouldn’t go out with someone who did that, would you?” 

“Uh I dunno.” Decky says. “Depends.” 

I feel a horrible lump in my throat and my chest hurts. I hurt. I take a steadying breath before I speak in case I cry. “Are you saying that’s the reason you think that I…” I trail off, too humiliated to finish my sentence. 

She looks into my face then, wavering slightly but not backing down. “Boys don’t like girls who drink.”

I look at my father, drunk at three in the afternoon, lazily eating his dinner without bothering to close his mouth all the way. “So they like girls who enable their drinking instead, right?” I say and when her face falls I realise it’s too late to take the words back. They’re out there, filling the room with this dreadful, grim weight, but I continue anyway, throwing my hand up in the direction of my dad. “Is this what you want for me?” I ask her. There isn’t a sound from anyone at the table, not even a clink of glass against the delft, and my mother just opens her mouth and closes it again. I get up from the table in a hurry, the chair scraping against the floor. I throw my napkin onto my plate and rush out of the room and up the stairs towards the bedroom that granny has made up for me. 

“Does anyone want the Christmas pudding?” I hear her murmur to the table, before I shut the door behind me. 

Prev // Next

[zemkzone]

I don't normally vent, but... TLDR: I was mugged in a city, a country, where I am a foreigner and the supposed friends who were helping me told another friend I was acting "entitled" to their help. It was heavily implied I had to APOLOGIZE to them. AITA or not AITA? I now have much bigger trust issues than I had last week.

Long version:

I've been living in the UK for almost 2 years, and I went down to London on Friday for a break from a stressful work-week. The first night went well, dinner and a show, and I fell asleep at a decent enough time to wake up early on Saturday for 9:30AM yoga with, for lack of a better term, friends of a friend. It was a relatively nice morning, so I decided to take one of the buses instead of schlepping my way down to the Tube (which I still call the subway most days coz, can you blame the proverbial Yankee visiting King Charles' Court?). I got off the bus in the City, what they call the business area in London as a whole, I have been made to understand. Google Maps told me it was an easy walk from the bus stop to the hotel where the yoga class was, but there were several alley/side road closures where the app wanted me to go. I was still on a nice, wide sidewalk, with few cars on the street and few people around me too. I paused at what felt like a safe intersection on that wide sidewalk, right by a modern glass building with CCTV hanging off it and CCTVs on the crosswalk traffic lights a few meters away. I was as far from the roadside as possible, and out of precautionary habit, I had my back turned to the road a little to protect the phone I had out in my hand. I was texting those sort-of friends that I was a few minutes out, and trying to get Google Maps to reroute me.

Suddenly, a black glove appeared in front of my face and my phone was snatched away by what looked like a man in an electric blue puffer hoodie, riding a bicycle on the sidewalk. I tried to chase him, but between the coffee I had to let go of and the duffle bag on my shoulder, it was hopeless. He disappeared around the corner I had been considering walking along myself, and I was left to ask for help from the four passersby at the crosswalk. Two of them happened to be a father and daughter (Brits, but also just visitors in London). The father wrote down my exact location and the time so I could report it to the police. When I said I had friends at a nearby hotel, he and his daughter helped me find my way to it. They didn't have to walk me in, but they did. "We'll wait here," he said at the top of an escalator, "and wait for you to give us a thumbs up if the receptionist has located your friends". The receptionist did, I signaled the two perfect strangers that all was well, and we waved goodbye as they headed off to continue their day.

What followed should have been an exercise in practicality. The boyfriend of one of those sort-of friends (let's call him M) and a hotel staffer helped me contact the police and cancel my debit card (which had been in my snatched cellphone's case). Two officers came to the hotel so I could give them my statement, etc. All the while, M sat with me, updating his girlfriend and the others who still continued on with their yoga session. The police asked me to take them to the spot where the crime occurred. M was still with me, and as we walked out of the hotel, his girlfriend (T) and more people than I expected (I'd only though I was meeting T and another friend I'll call W) came out to join us. I hadn't realized that a whole hour had passed since I'd arrived at the hotel. Their yoga session was over.

At that point, I was torn between (1) feeling marginally better because I had company who knew the city and (2) trying to keep it together in the face of everything that losing a smartphone in 2024 implies. After the police took down the added details at the incident site, T and co. asked me if I wanted to still go to brunch. I agreed since I needed to sit, was shaken, and, though I didn't feel it at the time, did need more than half a cup of coffee in my stomach. At the restaurant, I tried to stay in good spirits. Aside from T, M, and W, there were two people in the group I had never met before, and we were joined by yet another person. I managed to shovel down most of an avocado toast and an Irish coffee (I effing needed the boost). T and her friends had moved on from the usual "sorry that happened to you" and were playing catch up while I asked M where I could find my phone carrier and a place I could get a new phone. I'd come to the UK with the phone that had been snatched, and had only gotten a SIM-only plan with the carrier. I thought the practical thing, since I don't know how many more months/years I'd be in the UK, would be to buy a new phone, then have my carrier block the stolen phone's SIM and issue me a new one. M and I Google Mapped my options, added in my own hotel location so I could grab my passport on the way. I admitted that, considering everything, I (1) needed help getting navigating to those places from where we were and that (2) I didn't feel good enough to be alone just yet. We paid (I still thankfully have working credit cards) for our food and finally left the restaurant.

This is where, to my mind, the uncomfortable part started. Two of the extra 3 people (remember, I was only supposed to have been with T, W, and M, but they had a total of 3 other friends there too), and somehow what should have been a quick 20-30 minutes to get my passport from my hotel and then drop me off on the street with the phone and carrier store became 6 nerve-wracking hours with a too-large group. I said nothing when they started doing "for the gram" picture stops along the way. M went up to my hotel room with me when I got my passport. He took a photo of some passwords on my laptop that I might need when the phone or carrier store staff helped me with my phone. (In hindsight, we should have used pen and paper.) Then our group of 5 all went in what I assume was the direction of the two stores. W was navigating, and at that point, the streets were so crowded and I was getting very tense that I just trusted she knew what she was doing. In my mind, I kept replaying the mugging over and over, what I could have done differently, etc, etc. (I know what happened wasn't my fault, but at the time, I couldn't help it) and listing what I'd have to do first when I got the replacement phone and SIM. I didn't know T and co. well enough to tell them I was internally seeing red and trying not to spiral. Then, suddenly, we stopped walking... at a bubble tea place. I'd only vaguely heard what the group had been talking about as we walked along, since it seemed to be more Instagram/YOLO, etc stuff and no one was asking my input anyway. I smiled tightly and declined an offer for them to buy my bubble tea, opting to stand outside the store to work on staying calm. I didn't realize (hadn't been told) they wanted a break or anything, but I couldnt complain since I was literally dependent on them until I could get a new phone. We eventually got to the phone store, the last remaining extra person left, and I had to pay full price for a phone because as a foreigner I couldn't get on the monthly payment plans. T, M, and W, instead of just pointing me to the carrier store three shops down, came in with me and waited while I talked to the staff. At some point, W or T asked if I wanted coffee, and, while I thanked them for still being there, I declined the drink again. I thought they'd go off to a nearby café or something since I had paperwork, etc to fill. They and M never left. By the time I got the new SIM in the phone and the staff had advised me to go back to the store where I'd bought the phone to get help setting it up, M, T, and W were still there. They went back to the phone store with me, and T told me to stop being so anxious and sit down while we waited in the queue for assistance.

By then, it was almost 5 in the afternoon. The tech assistant helped as much as he could, since I was basically setting up my phone from scratch, but said I could do the rest with my tablet back at my hotel... or come back to the store with it before closing time so he could walk me through that part. T gave me a card with some of the friend-group's phone numbers, and she, M, and W still walked me to my hotel (I'm pretty sure it was unpromted, but my head was so foggy at that point from all I had done and still had to do). It turned out the hotel was a 10-min walk in a straight line from the phone shop. We got to the entrance to my hotel, I said thanks to them for being there the whole time, and they left. I handled grabbing my tablet and walking right back (in 5 min) to the phone shop to finish setup alone. The day ended with me exhausted, having a semi-functional phone that I'd have to wait to fully fix still when I got to my apartment (in a place I jokingly nickname the Shire) after the weekend, and crying to friends back in the States in a call over a lousy room-service dinner. I told them what happened, including my misgivings over all the YOLO stops, and they calmed me down and helped me a little more with fixing my phone.

I got at most two hours of sleep by the time the sun rose on Sunday morning... and then made myself presentable enough to meet A, the original London friend who had introduced me to T, W, and M where I first arrived in the country. I told him that while I was grateful for his friends' help the previous day, I didn't think I could go through that again. (I didn't exactly want to say "they're good-time people, but I don't know if I'd want the...awkward stops all over the place again if I were ever in another crisis around them.") What A said... upset me. T, M, and W had apparently complained to him that, while they still thought I was a lovely person (ah, Britishisms!) I acted "entitled" to their company the whole afternoon and was scowling too much. They didn't regret canceling plans for me, but I seemed "ungrateful in my human interactions with them". A all but said I had to APOLOGIZE to his friends.

I'm in my early 30s, with a no-nonsense, get-shit-done North American mentality and I'm aware my default expression, especially when I'm too tired, is RBF (resting bitch face, for those too young to know), and I feel terrible if I need to drag anyone at all into my messes. They're energetic and bubbly Brits in their late 20s. But they really could have left me at any point, just given me directions and left, and I would not at all have held it against them. Just like I was grateful and held nothing against that father with the kid who initially helped me after the mugging. Is this an AITA situation? Did I miss anything? Is this a subtle cultural/age/millennial-GenZ divide?

I'm still tired as FUCK, trying to get used to this new phone, and have a LOT of life admin to do suddenly after this whole weekend. If you have any thoughts or comments, whoever and wherever you are, feel free to say something.

[hiraeth-ink]

Rhyngom (Between Us) - Chapter One

Chapter one - Rhoi Ffidil yn y Tô.

Pairing - Frankie Morales x reader.

Series summary - Dipping your toes in the dating pool again after taking a break, you find yourself disappointed once again. What happens when you meet the perfect man in Francisco Morales? Can two people, scarred by their pasts, work through their issues together?

Warnings - swearing, sexist/misogynistic comments, mention of Andrew Tate (ew I'm sorry), mention of cheating.

Four dates. Four failed dates in the last month. Four failed FIRST dates, none of them were decent enough to want to see again. One failed date a month. Four men. Four boys? Whatever they were, they were not worth the time spent on them this last month. 

One of these failed dates was happening right now. He was handsome, tall with dark hair and dark eyes; he was your type. Well, he was your type physically, his personality was very quickly turning you off, he was talking incessantly at you, not even bothering to ask you anything about yourself, clearly his life was way too interesting for him to want to hear even a tiny morsel of information about yours. 

“....yeah but it’s really not worth it you know, especially if I can’t have a beer afterwards,” Jack(?) continues to ramble on and you force a chuckle, which you doubt actually convinced him that you thought what he said was funny, or even that you were listening to anything he was saying. 

Jesus Christ, what a boring guy. 

So boring that you had already mapped out the exits in the dimly lit restaurant. There was the main entrance, only a few tables away, all you would have to do is walk to the bar, maybe pretend to ask the bartender for a drink, wait for your date to pick up his phone, no doubt to text one of his friends to boast about trying to take you to bed tonight (not happening), and then rush passed the happy couples sat at the candlelit tables, bright smiles adorning their lovestruck faces. Unfortunately, that was the only exit in sight, but your date’s rambling was tempting you to get up and leave without an explanation. Regret was quickly travelling through you, as if it was seeping into your pores, covering your whole body, entering you seamlessly and asking the question, why the fuck did you agree to this? 

     You were trying. Trying so hard to take your therapist's advice about putting yourself out there again, Dr Williams had said it would be productive for you to go on dates, dust off the high heels or whatever she’d said. You had been taking a break from dating, a long one, from men in general, dubbing them not worth the trouble, the pain, the time. But apparently, avoiding dating, intimacy and men in general isn’t just being independent or a ‘boss bitch who doesn't need a man’ as you’ve chanted in the mirror countless times, it’s just deep intimacy issues. Apparently, you're scared of intimacy, of opening up to people, of showing yourself too closely, just in case they change their mind, no longer like what they see and leave. 

       “...and you know what, if I’m paying for all the dates, then yeah I expect the woman to do my laundry and the dishes and all that, you know? Because it’s not even about the money, it’s…,”

     These last four dates were enough to take you right back into a long break from men, or this time maybe you would just give up. This guy, Jack, or was it Jake? Anyway, this guy’s blatant misogyny was too much to listen to so you chugged your glass of wine and, cutting him off from expressing his riveting opinion on so-called 50/50 while dating, mumbled a half-assed excuse to leave halfway through the meal. Ignoring the shocked look on his face, you rise from your chair, ignore his protests and leave the restaurant, not feeling one ounce of guilt for leaving him with the bill. If you had more energy, maybe you would have lectured him on his obvious sexism, tell him to skip the Andrew Tate videos on his feed, but you needed to get out, distance yourself from him, from his voice, from his gaze that shamelessly wandered down to your cleavage at the end of every sentence. 

Back at your apartment, you’re in your comfiest clothes in bed, with a glass of wine, determined to at least try and enjoy what is left of your Friday night. After sending your best friend Ava a text, filling her in on the abrupt ending of the date with the self absorbed asshole, you turn on a crappy dating show and half listen to what they’re saying. A loud knock at the door interrupts your trash tv session. You push back the duvet and, with great confusion, make your way to the door. You glance at the clock on the oven on the way, which reads 20:45. You definitely weren’t expecting company tonight, your mind races with possibilities as to who could be standing on the other side of the door as you cast a glance into the peephole. Your mind is silenced when you see the familiar dark curls of your closest friend, Ava. Her dark hair, unruly but graceful, elegant in the way it falls down her back and frames her face. Her eyes, also dark, are kind and honest, you know them as the eyes that always searched you out in the parties she’d drag you to back in college, the eyes that no matter what she told you; good news or bad, would gaze softly into yours, with enough compassion to soften any blow. Ava has been there for you through it all; when the sunny sky disappears and you're alone in the rain, Ava shelters you, so really it’s no surprise that she heard about your shitty night and came straight over, bottle of wine clutched in her right hand and a bright smile on her face when you open the door. 

“Couldn’t leave you all alone after you just got up and left a date. I can’t believe you did that, before you would have just sat there all quiet, waiting for it to be over,” she says to you over her shoulder, after pushing into your apartment and taking off her coat, the ease with which she does this evidencing the amount of times she’s burst through the door, treating the space as if it was her own. 

“I’m so proud of you Fig! I mean you just, you weren’t happy so you left! That's how you need to be in this game, don’t waste any time,” she continues as she grabs two glasses from the cupboard and begins generously pouring the wine.

“Yeah well, thought I might as well end my last date with a bang,” you say through a half hearted chuckle, and immediately regret it when she looks at you, eyes full of pity as she raises her glass to her mouth, mumbling a you don't mean that. 

“I do Ava, I really do,” you sigh, frustration evident in your tone. You gulp from your glass and continue, “I would rather be single forever than go on another date with some guy who calls himself a high value man, who’s actually just a raging sexist hiding behind traditional values,” you exclaimed, voice straining with annoyance and hands flying up to mimic air quotes. You were truly exhausted. Exhausted of trying to find someone you were compatible with, someone you could enjoy the simple things with. Exhausted of only finding men with no feminist bone in their body, no emotional intelligence, no empathy, not even basic conversation skills. You were just looking for love. At your core, you wanted to be loved. Sure, you’d had relationships in the past, you’d been in love, but you hadn’t received the love you wanted. You gave the love you wanted to receive, but it was never reciprocated. Or if it was, it was taken away just as quickly as it was given, handed to you and then snatched back to its rightful owner. You wanted laughter, soft kisses in bed at night, you wanted to let someone in, allow them to see the deepest parts of you and be loved all the more for it. You wanted tight embraces in the morning, you wanted to feel their grasp loosening reluctantly, accompanied with whispers of just five more minutes. More importantly, you wanted this consistently, not just for the first few months of the relationship, not just until they show their true colours. Not just until they find someone new and give them the love you craved.

 It’s what you want, but how can you even look for it? How can you look for such light when the darkness is so overbearing? It seemed easier to give up all hope. 

“Ok, look,” Ava cuts in, as if reading your mind, “you can’t give up because I know a guy that I think you might really like. Nothing like the guys you’ve been on dates with lately. He’s respectful, kind, and actually, doesn't really talk all that much. I can guarantee he wouldn’t fill an entire date with constant jabbering about himself.”

“I don’t know Ava,”

“Did I mention he’s cute?” She hurriedly exclaims before you can fully shut her down. “Curly dark hair, dark eyes, broad shoulders, he’s very strong looking. And… I have it on good authority that he’s good in bed. It’s always the quiet ones, you know?”

You watch her as she tries to hide the smirk growing on her lips, bringing her wine up to her mouth and taking a long sip. She’s obviously proud of herself, her convincing nature once again swaying you into saying yes. 

“He sounds nice Ava but I can’t do another blind date, I don’t have it in me.”

“That’s ok, babe. Just come to the little get together Benny’s hosting on Saturday. He’ll be there. You should wear that purple dress you look good in, you know, the one with the flowers under the boobs,” she says while gesturing to her underboob aggressively. “You never know, you might get lucky. Finally break that dry spell you’ve got goin’ on.” 

You ignore her dry spell comment, there's nothing you can say to combat it, she’s right. It’s been a while, a very dry while since you’ve even met a guy that made you want to have sex. So instead you ask how she knows the guy she’s planning on setting you up with. 

“He’s been friends with Benny for years, they served together.”

This new piece of information steered you towards saying yes, you knew Benny well. He was an amazing partner to Ava, treated her well. You liked Benny, you trusted him. He wouldn’t be friends with anyone you’d want to stay away from, right? 

You sighed and asked, “What’s this guy’s name?”, and drank the last of your wine. You were about to hear the name of the man who would effortlessly weave his way into your life. You were strangers at that point in time, as you stood in your kitchen, ready to completely close yourself off. But you would soon walk the paths at which strangers cross, and this path turned into the path you walked together. No longer strangers, lives intertwining. 

“Francisco Morales.”

[scapegrace74-blog]

The Man from Black Water, Chapter 16

A/N  Alright, we’re moving into the home stretch, but first, someone really needs to give Murtagh a bath.  Plus, Hamlet needs to be found.  Whoever is up to the task? Previous chapters are available on my AO3 page.

“It isna bad, a goistidh.  A far cry from the gutrot ye usually make.”

Jamie and Murtagh sat in the shelter of the older man’s wagon, three booted legs extended towards a blazing fire.  Nearby, the River Ericht burbled ceaselessly.  The night was cold enough to see one’s breath, but the peaty whisky Murtagh poured into their tin cups more than compensated.

“Do ye still have the bottles I gave ye?” Murtagh inquired.

“Aye.  I havena had the chance tae see about selling them.”

Murtagh rose stiffly and hopped to the cart, sliding out a wooden crate that clanked as he made his way back to the fire.

“Take them wi’ ye tae Dundee,” he advised, pushing the crate of bottles against Jamie’s thigh.  “They willna be enough fer the lass’ dowry, but t’will give ye a good beginning.”

“Now hold on…” Jamie began to protest, knowing his godfather lived on next to nothing and had worked most of his life to produce this first batch of decent whisky.  Murtagh held up a hand to forestall Jamie’s protests.

“Yer father and I built tha’ still t’gether.  Twas he that brought the copper pot o’er the pass from Braemar. As his only heir, that makes ye a full partner.”

Jamie shook his head, moved once again by his godfather’s practical but heartfelt generosity.  He knew from experience that there was no point in further protest, so he simply took another drink, enjoying the smoky burn in the back of his throat.  It really was quite tolerable stuff.

“Ye reckon there’s enough profit tae split twa ways?” he teased, leaning over the crate and counting nine bottles of various sizes.

“Better drink up,” the old man advised.  “Could be all yet get from the partnership.”

The next morning the two men rolled into Dundee, having decided to sell the whisky together so Murtagh could stock up on provisions before the winter.   Instead of steering the cart towards the nearest tavern, Jamie guided them instead to a filthy alley that smelled of piss.

“What are ye up tae, lad?  We need tae sell this liquor afore the law gets wind o’ what we’re about and locks us both up.”

Jamie asked for five minutes of forebearance, dismounted Donas and trotted away.  Not three minutes later he was back with second wooden crate, this one full of clean glass containers, identical and empty.

“Are ye daft, boy?” Murtagh lamented.  “We already had jars an’ now ye’ve gone and spent profits we dinna have…”

Murtagh broke off as he watched Jamie carefully decant the whisky into the new bottles.  Because of their uniform size, they now had twelve bottles, not nine.  The old man grunted in acknowledgement.  Not quite done with surprising his godfather, Jamie then brandished a pen.  Lips pursed in concentration, his bold cursive soon adorned the plain label on each bottle.  Murtagh picked up the nearest bottle and examined it.  Watching his godfather out of the corner of his eye, Jamie saw his face go slack.  

Sassenach Whisky

Glen Isla, Perthshire

1885

 The dual meaning of the name had come to Jamie the previous night as they sat in quiet companionship beneath the stars.  A Sassenach woman had inspired Murtagh’s foray into spirit making.  God willing, her Sassenach daughter would benefit from the result.

“Now we dinna have tae hide from the excisemen,” Jamie said once he had returned the pen to the owner of the mercantile store.  “An’ we can charge more fer each bottle.”

“We may make a whisky smuggler o’ ye yet, lad,” Murtagh said with pride.

***

The following night the two men once again sat at their camp by the Ericht, considerably cleaner and well-fed.  The whisky enterprise had netted them five pounds each, more money than Jamie made in a month as a labourer.  He’d insisted they spend one night in a hotel, where Murtagh had been introduced to the unaccounted joy of indoor plumbing with heated water.  Jamie had been concerned he might have to forcibly remove the old man from the tub, so intense was his delight.  With a trimmed beard and freshly laundered clothes, he was barely recognizable.

“Ye’ll be awright?” he asked for the third time, concerned for his godfather’s welfare all alone during a Highland winter.  Normally Henry or Jamie would look in on him every few weeks, always disguising their purpose with a semi-plausible excuse of needing the old man’s advice or some implement from his assortment of tools.

“I’ve been lookin’ after myself since afore ye were in nappies, lad.  Dinna fash,” Murtagh repeated his standard answer.

Jamie opened his mouth to retort, but a snapping branch sent him to his feet, eyes peering into the darkness.

“Dinna listen tae him, lad,” the darkness spoke.  “He loves it when folk fuss o’er him.  Fair glories in it.”

The lean form of Hugh Munro stepped out from between the trees, his features menacing as they caught the firelight and at odds with his hearty laugh.

“Thought I would find ye here,” he spoke as he shook Jamie’s hand. “Lookin’ up at yon mountains.”

“The only hame I’ll e’er ken,” Jamie confirmed, feeling the twist of homesickness in his gut.  If it weren’t for Claire and his promise to make Lallybroch suitable for her, he’d be up in the vales and glens already.

“Shouldna ye be leagues from here, Munro?” Murtagh groused as he slid over to make room next to the fire.  “There’s no cattle here for ye tae drove.”

“I’m headin’ back tae Netherton,” the wayfarer confirmed. Jamie leaned forward, suddenly much more interested in what the man had to say.  “An’ tis no’ cattle I’ll be searching fer, but a horse.”

“What?” the two other men spoke as one.   Hugh explained that Beauchamp’s prized colt had been set free, and now a call had gone out across the county for men willing to ride out and recover him.

“I reckoned ye might want tae join us,” he directed at Jamie.

The young Scot scoffed.  “I’m no’ sucker fer punishment.”

“Tis a shame,” Munro said philosophically.  “Beauchamp is sayin’ twas ye that set the horse free.”

“What!” Murtagh exclaimed.

“Me?  An’ ye expect me tae come tae his aid?  Tis askin’ too much o’ a man.”

Murtagh and Munro exchanged a significant look over the young man’s copper curls.

“Man, ye say?” Murtagh questioned.

“Tis what my faither raised me tae be,” Jamie replied petulantly.

“They say ye’re good wi’ a horse,” Munro interjected.  “What do ye do when one bucks ye off.”

“Ye dinna let it get the better o’ ye,” Jamie retorted with no little heat.  “Ye get right back on.”

Hugh Munro nodded sagely.  Jamie sighed, realizing he’d been beaten by his own words.

“Beauchamp willna want me anywhere near his… property,” he voiced one last feeble objection, not happy with the prospect of seeing Claire again before he had made good on his promise.

“Let me worry about that, lad,” Munro reassured him.

***

The Netherton stableyard was abuzz with the bodies of several dozen men and their horses, all milling about and speaking in raised voices. Into the centre of the crowd rode Henry Beauchamp.

“Gentlemen, I thank you for answering my summons.  As you know, my two-year old colt, Hamlet out of Masquerade, was nefariously freed the night before last.  Tracks show him fleeing into the hills.  Now, I’ve sent out scouts who will signal at the first sign…”

Henry tapered off as Hugh Munro cantered up.

“Munro, thank you for coming.”  The Highlander acknowledged the Englishman with a nod, but Henry Beauchamp’s attention was drawn by another figure approaching on horseback.

“What the devil is that outlaw doing here.  Come to inspect his handiwork, I suppose,” Henry muttered.   “Dougal!  I want that man off my property!”

Before the foreman could dispatch his orders, Hugh Munro spoke up.

“If he had done it, he wouldna be here.”

“You don’t really believe that…”

“I asked him along.”

“You did what?” the landlord asked in shock.

“I want him along,” Munro insisted.

Henry Beauchamp shook his head in disbelief.  “Have it your way, Munro.  He’ll dig his own grave.”

Without wasting any more time, the Englishman rose up on his stirrups and shouted to the crowd.

“There will be a reward, to be distributed amongst you as you see fit, once the colt has been recovered.  One hundred pounds!”

A roar went up from the assembled riders.  They turned as one and rushed to be the first down the narrow lane.

Jamie held Donas back, knowing there was no point in exhausting him this early in the chase.  A slight figure in a simple daydress made her way across the yard to where they stood.

“You’ll be careful?” Claire asked, one hand resting on his knee.

“Aye, Sassenach.  Dinna fash. I ken my way around the Highlands blindfolded,” he reassured her with a smile.

“It’s not the Highlands I’m worried about.  Dougal and his crew would do anything my father asked, without question.”

Jamie realized she had a point, but he felt confident in his ability to avoid sabotage.  He glanced towards the road, where the cloud of dust kicked up by so many horses was moving steadily away.

“Here,” Claire urged.  “Take these.”  Into his outstretched palm, she dropped three sugar cubes.

“Rollo, guard yer mistress,” he commanded his dog, and with a cheeky smile he cantered down the lane.

[magic-is-something-we-create]

Whispers Snippet - (6/?)

The complete sex scene, because I desperately need to know if it's decent,,, Word count: 2000 Content warnings: Explicit sex/smut (that would probably count as hatesex? but it's entirely consensual), brief reference to past death threats. M/TF pairing, if that matters/if you're reading this without the wider story context POV: Marika

“Then there’s no need to break up a good pair for the night, hm?” I down the last of my water like a shot, toy with the empty glass for a moment, chew my lip. Stand abruptly and bring it to the sink myself, where [Ivan] only moves enough to not be in my way, and no more.

His warmth next to me is tantalizing, the sensation of his eyes on me even more so. And suddenly, the need to interrupt, to blindside, to surprise, overwhelms all else as I run the glass under the faucet.

“You still keep your watch in the same pocket?” I ask, hopefully too fast for him to notice the new husk in my own voice.

He hesitates a moment, unfolding his arms to reach for it. “Uh--yes?”

Before the word has even left his mouth, I’ve darted my hand into the front pocket of his pants and plucked out the little brass watch. His breath hitches and holds, as I click it open standing just inches away from him and check the time--seven, how is it only seven, that is no time to pretend to go to bed--and only releases in a tentative burst when I slip it back into place, letting my hand linger for just a heartbeat longer than I need to.

The thrill of his surprised, hungry gaze, of his almost imperceptible shift closer to me, of his heavy breath as he catches up, all adds to a rather inconvenient stir in me as well.

“Tell them I’m going to bed early,” I breathe, as I reach around him to grab the towel and dry the glass. “And you don’t have to knock.”

I leave him there to flounder, darting upstairs as quietly as I can before I have the chance to think for too long.

The landing is big enough for the door into the bedroom and nothing else. In the half-second it takes me to barrel through it and get a lay of the room before me, everything I’ve done in the last ten minutes finally hits the rational side of my mind, knocking the wind out of me in the same swift motion as I close the door with my back.

Fuck.

The still-there, still-growing desire between my legs refuses to back down, even as I fight to remind myself of every reason I have to hate him. Every chance he had to tell me what I was getting myself into by staying with him, many of which were instead spent panting, naked, clutched in each other’s arms at the hearthside, his hands cupping my body and his mouth on my neck and my legs quivering and--

No. I hate him. I hate him.

My foot was already out the door when he finally let go of my hand, finally broke, finally told me he couldn’t disappear with me. And though my rage burned white-hot and fast as ever, I still waited for him, still watched every man who passed through Birma’s tavern for years, and he never came, he never returned, and of course he didn’t, I threatened to kill him.

I threatened to kill him for a reason.

He called me [the wrong name] all this time.

But I chose what I did because of the reverence in his voice every time he called me Marika, from the moment we saw it in his little book of names to the moment he first gasped it in my ear.

“Fuck,” I breathe, eyes squeezed shut as I lean against the door, head lolled back and breath heaving from Fury-knows-what, at this point. Bracing one hand on the doorknob and the other on the wall, letting my heels skid over the floor even as I try to hold myself upright.

After several minutes of trying and failing to collect myself, I am at once both grateful for and immeasurably frustrated with Ivan’s need to think everything through too many times over. Because even after I manage to pull myself off the floor I’ve sunken all the way to, after I shed my cloak and boots and poke about the small, bare room, he still has not followed me. Still has not taken me up on the implicit offer. Still has not responded.

And in so doing, he’s managed to inadvertently make me question whether I need to march down there and spell it out for him letter by letter.

There is little else than the bed in the room. The ceiling pitches with the roof, the peak directly above the headboard, which is shoved up against the chimney to keep it warm. On one side, a nightstand with a single oil lamp that he must have lit when he dropped his pack onto the bed; on the other, a door that I open to a small, utilitarian half-bathroom.

My introspection after the exploration is interrupted by a timid knock on the door after several too-long minutes. I leap to answer it before the still-kicking whispers of I hate him can lock me into inaction again.

I open the door to find him holding my pack, presenting it like a gift as he shuffles awkwardly on the landing.

When he takes a breath to speak, I reach not for the bag, but for the wrist of the hand holding it out, and tug him into the room with me.

“I told you you didn’t have to knock,” I say as I slam the door behind him, not caring what Dakarsa and Vik hear, at this point, as I toss the bag aside without a care.

“I know,” he gasps, as I back him up against the wall with my hands pinned to his shoulders. Whatever words he was going to form next are lost to his hitching breath, wide eyes, and apparent nerves as I stop myself with my lips just barely a finger’s breadth away from his.

My heart stutters when he licks his lips, clearly restraining himself just as much as I am.

“Do you want this?” I breathe, slipping my hands down to tug at the collar of his sweater.

“Yes,” he says, hands alighting gently on my hips before he has to wet his lips again, a slight whine in his voice as I keep myself just out of reach. “Please.”

I hesitate, pressing a finger to his lips to hold him back just a little longer.

“This changes nothing,” I whisper. “I still hate you in the morning.”

His breath shakes. “I know.”

And with that, the last of my inhibitions disappear.

We are a mess of locked lips and tangled tongues, of my fingers tugging on his hair and his hands clutching me to him at the waist for several blissful, breathless minutes, his desire rising to meet my own as I grind against him. When I arc my neck to take a breath for the first time, he trails his lips across my jaw and under my ear. His hot breath tickles as much as his beard as I cling to him, pant for him, biting back my moans if only because I know that if I don’t now, they will become screams in time.

But I can only hold myself back for so long, after the years spent remembering, the hours spent debating, the minutes spent waiting.

I nearly rip his sweater in my haste to get it off, and steer him to fall back onto the bed while it’s still over his head. While he finishes shedding it to the floor, I slip out of mine, too, a more delicate motion than that of this morning in the snow.

And then I am bare from the waist up, and so is he, and I have straddled his hips and traced the new scars on his deliciously hairy, soft stomach before I’ve finally remembered to kiss him like I’ve wanted to for the last ten years.

Our hard breathing fills the room in tandem, warming us better than the hearth ever could. My fingers tangle in his hair when I slip off the tie holding it out of his face as his trace down my spine and press into my lower back, calloused fingertips dipping below my waistband.

He is stronger now than he was when first we met, arms thicker and more toned at the shoulders than I would have guessed underneath the sweater, the cloak, the way he holds himself to be smaller. His chest, too, gives less easily under my hands as I squeeze at him, exploring every inch that has changed since I last laid my eyes on his bareness.

But his rough hands are just as gentle as they always were, undoing the buckle on my belt and slipping the rest of my clothes off my hips with the ease and grace of the wind itself.

I have always been the impatient one, though, and that impatience makes me fumble fruitlessly at his belt for too many painful breaths to count as he runs his fingertips down the backs of my bare thighs and kisses the length of my collarbone.

When we are finally both free of our clothes, everything begins to blur into a long-winded ecstasy. One moment, I am straddling him, thighs clamped around his as we grind against each other and I shut myself up by biting his shoulder; the next, I am on my back, legs wrapped around his waist and gasping into the air by his ear as he bucks against me, moaning into the crook of my neck. We move away from the edge of the bed and solidly into the center, knocking his bag to the floor in our carelessness as we put the sheets through a maelstrom in our wrestling back and forth between who grinds, who lays, who whispers in the other’s ear and nips at their lobe as the other caresses their chest and dips their hand down to stroke them.

It is a better reunion than I ever could have dreamed.

It does not last forever, though, no matter how much I wish it would.

I orgasm first, the pent up heat finally unraveling in one fell swoop that forces me to clap a hand to my mouth as I shudder, lest I scream his name loud enough for the Shadow to hear across the Motherfrost. He follows swiftly after, groaning as his release joins mine on my stomach, fingers digging into my shoulder blades as he clutches me close and buries his face in my shoulder.

The quiet of the world is almost abyssal in the wake of it, our heavy breaths the only sound, the only thing that matters.

When he rolls off of me, it is an instant war not to mount him again.

I lay basking in the warm afterglow atop the sheets, one of his arms still around me, slipped under the arc of my lower back. When I finally will myself to open my eyes, to look at him, I find him watching me openly, a dazed, loving light etched into every line of his face.

It makes my gut twist, when my mind starts to come back to me.

He gets up after a moment, disappearing into the bathroom for breath before returning with a cloth in hand to dab away our combined mess on my stomach. I have yet to soften fully, and the accidental brush of his hand against me as he wipes away the last of it only reignites the heat that was finally beginning to dissipate.

He settles in next to me after tossing the cloth away, hesitating to hold me only until I fold myself into his arms. His contented sigh releases the tension in the muscles beneath my roving fingers as they trace up his back, and for a moment, I think he might cry as he nuzzles at the skin below my ear.

Instead, he breathes a quiet, “Thank you,” and presses a light kiss to my pulse.

[hot-for-rock]

Blackrose’s and Rockstars

Part:I

Glenn Tipton X OC {Isabella Blackrose}

Warning(s): None.

Plot: Isabella “Izzy” Blackrose is the co owner of a pub in a small town in the worcestershire country side. One day a rockstar walks in and her whole life changes.

Please feel free to like, reblog and comment on it, it’s much appreciated, enjoy! <3

Isabella’s POV

Today sucked, yesterday sucked, this whole week sucked, hell this whole month and year sucked. Yet I power on. I power on for my mum and my family legacy if not for that I would have given up a long time ago.

Two years ago, my dad passed away and when he did I abandoned school in Birmingham to come home. I knew I needed to be here for my mum, to help her run the pub in his absence. I don’t regret my choice, because I know it’s the right one, still doesn’t mean I don’t wish I didn’t some days and today is one of them.

Nothing went right for me today. I slept through my alarm and I had to rush off to get here in time, in the process I managed to spill my tea all over myself, staining my shirt.

Then once I got here one of my bartenders was fighting with another over some bloke,and I had to break it up. Then my third bartender, the one who also runs food and drinks to the tables, called in sick and I had to fill in for her. Not to mention the order I got delivered was all wrong.

I haven’t had a second today to catch my breath, and the day is far from over for me. After all, in about two hours the after work and supper rush will come through. It’s a weeknight so the evening and night should be all to bad, since it’s a small down and everyone here is pretty working class meaning they can’t afford to fuck around on a week night. It will get dead at about eight o’clock and that’s why during the week we close my eleven.

I tuck that one annoying strand of my ginger hair behind my ear. It fell out of my messy bun ages ago. I just haven’t had the time or bothered to fix it. Just then I hear the bell on the door ring, signifying someone has entered the pub. I look up, with a smile on my face expecting to see someone I know or recognize. After all, this is a small village and I grew up here my whole life. I’ve seen every person who lives here at least once, especially considering this is the only decent place to eat or get a drink in the whole village.

Yet I don’t know this man. He’s got long hair that is heavily highlighted with blond, so much so you can barely see the darker colour underneath. He definitely stands out. You never see a bloke with long hair around here, and definitely not one of his age. He’s not young, he’s Middle aged I’d guess. Though time has definitely been kind to him.

He’s wearing a simple outfit though, not something you’d expect from someone with hair like that. He’s wearing an oversized plain black t-shirt, some jeans and a pair of trainers. He’s not wearing much accessory wise, except a sliver watch, a silver pinky ring and a pair of round sunglasses.

Despite not being able to see his eyes, he’s very handsome and intriguing. I wonder what his story is, did he just move here or is he just a passer through?

He takes a seat at the bar and I take my opportunity to see if I can solve any of this mystery as I serve him.

“Hello, welcome. What can I get you?” I greet him with my usual smile.

“Hello. Just a pint of whatever’s popular.” He replies, returning my smile and man does he have a beautiful smile.

“It’s a lovely place here.” He comments as I begin filling up a pint glass with our best seller.

“Thank you, I own the place. Well, I co-own it.” I tell him as I set the pint in front of him. “That will be £3.”

“Oh really? Well you’ve done a great job.” He says, reaching into his back pocket and pulling out his wallet, before pulling out a £5 pound note and handing it to me.

“It was all my dad really.” I admit as I ring him up and pull out two one pound coins to give him as change.

“Keep the change, love.” He says waving me off, “In that case you’ve done a great job preserving it.”

“Oh- Okay, thank you.” I say taken slightly aback, no one in this town has exposable income, so that never happens here. I mean yes it’s only two pounds but still.

“Are you new in town?”

“Yes actually. I moved into the big Georgian estate house nearby.” He tells me and I must admit I wasn’t expecting that from him. He doesn’t strike me as someone with a lot of money. He certainly doesn’t look the part with the long hair and rather plain clothes. Then it hits me. The long hair.

He’s most likely a rockstar. It would explain how he can afford to live in such a big house, you can make a lot of money doing that if you’re in one of the bigger bands. I'm trying to rack my brain. Is he familiar to me?

I happen to be a fan of rock, but I'm mostly a fan of the 70’s stuff like, Deep Purple, Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin. In fact those are my three favourite bands. I do enjoy a bit of 80s metal as well but more like the glam metal stuff then the true metal. So it’s possible he’s in a band I’m not a big fan of there for I didn’t recognize him.

“Oh, well I guess I’ll be seeing more of you then. I’m Isabella, or Izzy Blackrose by the way.” I say introducing myself to him hoping he does the same and his name seems familiar to me.

“It’s nice meeting you, I’m Glenn Tipton.” He says back.

Glenn Tipton. I sit and ponder that name for a second in my mind to see if I recognize it, then it hits me. He’s the guitarist of Judas Priest.

“You’re the guitarist of Judas Priest then?” I ask just to confirm though im sure it comes off like me being a fangirl or something similar.

“Well I was, I'm not sure there really is a Judas Priest anymore though.” Glenn tells me sounding rather not happy about the last bit, and in a way I feel for him. I’m sure the band was his life, and must be an adjustment for it to be over.

“Are you a fan?” He asks, looking at me curiously.

“Honestly? Not really. I like rock and metal, that's how I know. I'm more of a 70’s gal then an 80’s gal though, unless it's glam.” i tell him, feeling a bit bad about that he seems like a nice bloke. “I'm sorry.”

“Don’t worry about it, love.” He laughs, “I was just going to offer an autograph, is all.”

“Oh, well thank you.” I say, feeling relieved he's okay with that, not that he'd really necessarily care as i said before he seems really nice and chill. He didn't walk in here with some rockstar attitude or saying im so and so, and he has my respect for it.

Then an idea hits me. Since he's offering anyway, why don't I take him up on it for the bar? I mean I could always use some new decor and would it be cooler than a signed photo of a famous customer?

“Actually if you wouldn’t mind I'd like a signed photo, for the pub. The decor is lacking a bit.”

“I'd be happy to love.” He smiles at me, “we can do it now if you have a camera, and I can come by and sign it whenever it’s developed.”

“I’ll just go get my camera real quick, it’s in the back.” I tell him to disappear into the back room where the office is and nicking my camera making sure it has film, which it does.

“Smile.” I tell him as I aim the camera, giving him a second to compose himself which he does rather fast. Something I’m sure he’s learned from years of having his photo taken as a rockstar.

He smiles at me and lifts his half gone pint in one hand, and I think that’s a pretty fitting pose for the wall of the pub. I snap a couple for good measure then lower the camera.

“I’ll give you a ring when they are developed?” I ask, I’m sure he’ll come back. This is the only restaurant or pub for miles, but I just want to make sure I don’t forget the photos or something when he does come around again. Also he’s cute, I’m not saying I’d go after him because why would someone like him want me when he could get a model or something, but it’s still nice to have a cute blokes number.

“I’ll give you my number.” He tells me, as I reach text to the till where I Keep a couple extra pens in case my waitresses lose one and grab a napkin handing it to him.

I watch as his long fingers grip the pen and he gracefully writes his number on the napkin. His handwriting is oddly neat for a man.

“Here you are love.” He says, handing me back the pen and napkin containing his number.

“Thank you.” I say taking it and gently folding the napkin pocketing it.

“Well I best be going.” He says looking down at his watch, then downing what’s left of his pint. “My ex should be dropping off my son soon.”

Oh so he’s single, is the first thing that comes to my mind as he says that statement. It’s only natural, he is very cute and nice. Not that he’d ever be interested in me, but a girl can dream.

“It was nice to meet you.” He smiles as he gets up, “I’ll be looking forward to your call.”

“It was nice meeting you too, please feel free to come by whenever.” I say with a smile, as he turns to leave. I must admit, I’m rather looking forward to seeing him again soon.

[evelyne-am]

16 March 2023–3. Another day that I had not slept much , Had an emotional night in my personal life too, (it wasn’t a coincidence) and no I didn’t finish my homewor though I knew exactly which part I needed to focus on from the script.

I did reach sort of at the time. it was a very different kind of day it was really hot. Today the lack of sleep got to me in the first round as well. The bane of my existence ever since I started sirs workshop a month ago has been this exercise that pushes all my buttons; it’s a running exercise with full surroundings awareness both things that I lack horribly in. Ever since these rehearsals have started I’ve realised that despite the fact that I can walk for miles and miles my pace is very slow, my stamina is very little and I don’t run well at all. Add to that my absolute lack of awareness of my surroundings, and very bad concentration. Today with the heat and the third day of lack of sleep I could not keep up much. I was really struggling. During the break I did go up to the roof. The others don’t really go out, they hang around with their lines and their Tiffins, one of the boys open Sir’s picnic basket and cuts a guava for all of us every day, another person brings a box of boiled eggs. But I need my fresh air. I have to go out Despite the fact that I do wanna stay connected to the gang. So I spend a few minutes of the break upstairs and then come back down to say hi hello to everyone, I was actually ravenous that day and ended up having bread and jelly from Sir’s picnic basket as well as my orange and boiled egg. Today Sir had a long chat with us and told us that he is aware that he is a man and may not understand a woman’s story as well as we would, and he told us that he invites us to be part of creating this narrative in theatre, he has told him to take our’questions that we cannot ask him (Possibly about bodies of rape,) but he has very implied he has succumbed to the fact that men will never understand this crime or the way a woman feels about this crime during and after the fact. M and us bonded later on the fact that no matter who came from where me, it is yes all women.

Our second half was pretty decent, despite the fact that We are definitely not at Audition level,however we were given a lot of pointers and we worked on them and he and M were very happy that we started to take his notes and apply them during rehearsal. When we HurselMI take a small detour in the festival downstairs and bought myself a little basket and an orna. I was in a good mood as those of you on instagram saw. Though I feel like I know nothing, I do feel like I am learning.

I had to pop out of my 71 world and do some “AM” stuff- had a circle singing session tho, (not doing concerts anymore) - so more of a healing situation. Also spent a little time with my family. i’m still super behind admin work for other things, and I just want to have a little space for myself, but it’s not going to happen for awhile due to the circumstances. Maybe after Ramadan I will. As I was settling in to sleep early because I was absolutely knackered, I knocked over a very expensive Candle I bought a few months ago and I wanted to light today and cut my right thumb on the glass almost half intentionally when I was Pulling with a candle from the glass. A second bandage comes on me, and I laugh it off as I pass out, more of that on day four.

[leviiattacks]

May I request a Levi x Reader angst fic? Just barely any fluff, mostly angst going on lol. The reader is a traitor, formaly working for Marley, but betraying them in secret and putting their loyalty on Paradis. The reader is also a shifter and married to Levi for a couple of years. That love and care however is gone once readers identity is found. He truly despises them, insults them, maybe a bit violent with them, and outright tells them that they mean nothing to him anymore and hate them to bits. Readers punishment is to hand over her titan to Erwin, and they agree instantly, broken over everything, believing its all their fault. Once Erwin inherits Readers titan, he breaks down and screams, crying, because Reader was innocent the whole time. They never betrayed Paradis. Never killed anyone, never harmed anyone. They finaly know why they betrayed Marley, the abuse being to much for them, enough to just leave them behind for Paradis. Just... loving and caring as they all saw them. But now the damage is done. They wont come back, they're dead, believing that they died, hated and despised, with no one to mourn their death. Everyone regrets everything.

author note :: i was thinking of leaving this in my drafts but i already wrote it and may as well post it. it didn’t end up going the way i hoped but yeah i hope it’s ok anon. anyways ANGST. ANGST, ANGST. as always i love feed back :-) ⟹ all of the headings with the years are just meant to mean it’s a different moment from that year so those moments don’t happen right after each other i hope that makes sense!! word count :: 7.2k warnings :: canon typical violence, death

845, i.

Everything is falling in place when it shouldn't.

Sun never makes itself known in Liberio yet here it is shining down onto the bustling streets. You half expect for it to crash down and burn into the hundreds of civilians going about their daily business yet nothing of the sort happens. It's typical sunlight and you curse yourself silently for your sinister thoughts.

Secretly the voice at the back of your mind still whispers frantically but you don't wish to hear what it has to say. Instead you choose to drown it out with the sound of Zeke's voice. Finally deciding to pay attention to what it is he's been droning on about for the past ten minutes.

"Soon, soon, soon." He sighs dreamily looking a little delirious.

"Soon?"

Your question catches him off guard, he lightly shoves you with his elbow scoffing in annoyance.

"Did you sit here to not even listen to me?" He turns to take a sip of whisky and the hearty gulp he chugs shows his mild irritation. You assume he's been rambling on about Marley's plan to infiltrate Paradis. You have to admit that the idea of destroying those demons from the inside is amazingly well thought out. However it's all he's been able to discuss for the entire week now and frankly you're getting a little exhausted of it.

"I zoned out..." Quietly placing your glass back down onto the wooden counter you sigh closing your eyes. It's too early to be drinking and you don't trust Zeke enough to slip into ignorance and leave yourself vulnerable. Men are to not be trusted, especially Eldian men. The thought of Eldians triggers your flight of fight response, you want to shrivel up into a cocoon and never come out until the world is rid of the monsters. The lowest of the low, the dirt in between the crevices of Marleyan soldier's boots. That is what Eldian's are.

It's ironic coming from you, your entire family labelled as undesirable Eldians yourself but you, you know you're different. An honorary Marleyan is what you will become. What you are. The treacherous imps who are but an ocean away are the true evil.

Eyes flicking to Zeke he's lighting a cigar. Old habits die hard and he's yet to quit this self destructive custom of his. You couldn't care less if he chooses to cut his lifespan short by ten years, it's his own choice to make. A disgusting cowardly choice but it's a choice fit for an untamed man like him.

The Island Devils are said to be the bad apples but you can't help but stare at your fellow citizens from time to time and wonder what it is they could be hiding. If a demon slipped through the cracks you wouldn't be surprised. Sly in nature, persuasive in tone, that is how devils go about their daily lives alone The hymns they drilled into you all the way through elementary school echo and rebound in your mind.

Locking your bitter thoughts away you have to push yourself to not punt Zeke in the mouth when he teasingly blows a puff of hot smoke into your face.

Fingertips grazing with his he freezes at the sudden contact giving you the perfect opportunity to slip his cigar away and take it in between your lips. You allow for it to linger there but you aren't foolish enough to inhale its contents.

"Zeke, my dear friend. We shall soon be met with the fruits of our own labour but I assure you that discussing Marley's plan constantly will be of no benefit for you nor I."

The day you and Zeke had met had been at warrior training camp. Zeke was a miserable, unmotivated oaf. Always tripping and falling behind the rest of the warrior cadets. You felt rather bad for him, if you were born as unskilled as him you don't know what you would have made of yourself. Zeke, the only child of his parents ironically only ever ended up rising through the ranks after handing them over to the Marleyan government. His father and mother had been conspiring an escape plan but were executed immediately alongside their fellow team members once Zeke had outted them. Unexpectedly he was spared, the fact he turned on his own parents showed where his loyalties were. To his surprise, he was even allowed to continue his training with the other warriors - only this time everyone kept an increased distance away from him. The warriors weren't informed of what he had actually done but everyone had a gut feeling. Everyone apart from you stuck with that feeling. You thought strategically, If he were to become an enemy in the future you knew being close would come at your advantage.

The day you and Zeke had met your mother died, his mother passed away the same day. At least that's what he had told you.

The two of you bonded over the little things, told each other stories about your life at home. Reminisced about what it was you missed.

Then it all came crashing down the day Zeke confessed. The day he told you he killed his mother and father by handing them over to Marley. Your knees buckled underneath you, crashing the floor he tried to grab at you but you thrashed around in retaliation kicking and screaming not understanding why he did what he did. Yes, they were traitors but they were his parents and if the monster had the nerve to turn on the people who gave birth to him who's to say he wouldn't do the same to you or to Marley.

Zeke doesn't know it but ever since then you take the opportunity to sneak the occasional glance at him. Every single time you narrow your eyes in malice. If there's a man in Liberio who you don't trust in the slightest it's him, he must think the feud between the two of you from childhood has been put at rest but it hasn't.

Zeke takes another swig of his alcohol. On this occasion he downs it entirely slamming the glass down with vigour.

"ONE MORE GLASS BARTENDER!"

846, i.

Another day of extensive training is about to end, your back is layered in uncomfortable layers of sweat and the same can be said for your forehead. Kneeling down in the under layer of the forest you're hidden waiting to strike. Going up against the elites is nerve-wracking but you're sure you can pull it off so long as you stay calm during this game of hunters against prey.

It's simple enough if you can conceal yourself and stay out of sight. The robust trees that surround you act as decent enough camouflage and your green cape paired with them lets you veil yourself, keeping you further into the foreground, blending into the environment.

No one will be able to catch you if they can't see you.

All of a sudden your previous thoughts are thrown away when you sense something in the atmosphere has changed, the hissing of the wind behind you isn't natural.

Turning to your side you don't bother to cover up the sound of leaves rustling and branches cracking, your priority is slipping away fast enough to hide again, a tug can be felt at your cloak and your reaction time barely covers for you, your gear fastens itself to a low enough tree branch and the descent is mind numbing. Your breakfast churns in your stomach but you ignore the uneasy feeling, leaping and diving wherever you find a small enough gap. You believe you can outrun your huntsman.

That is until you sneak a glance back and your muscles nearly tense up in pure astonishment, you've been kicked in the teeth just by the man's presence. Captain, Levi slinks behind you weaving through the gaps with increasing speed, he's gaining momentum and all the while his face stays relaxed, this isn't even his full effort.

Terrified you dart upwards and then left, a corner comes into view - Levi should assume you've turned into it and so you rashly choose to dart back down. Much to your hard luck you find that his senses are well adapted, the direction of the wind is enough for him to trace your whereabouts.

The pursuit resumes, and he stays disturbingly relentless.

Arm shooting to the right you think perhaps making it look like you're aiming to fly somewhere else again will completely catch him off guard, he can't expect for you to pull the same trick twice.

Setting your plan into motion your finger pulls at the trigger but you startle when the cable doesn't come out, it's jammed. Panic seeps into you and to make matters worse your gas is running out.

Without warning you're thrust into the body of a nearby tree, the bark scrapes against you and scratches begin to form anywhere you've made contact with the jagged surface, you want to admit defeat but the warrior inside of you denies Levi the pleasure of seeing you beg. In its place you deliver a harsh kick to his thigh, you're aware he's injured it and you're certain there are no rules to say you can't play dirty. Your boots hammer against leg hard enough for him to give out and let go of your body, but then you realize you lost this game from the very moment your grapple hooks broke, you have nowhere to hold onto.

Before you can even let out a shriek of horror Levi's shot back to you, he frantically accelerates and by a miracle humanity's strongest is able to grab a hold of you again. This time you don't dig your heels into his leg and you allow for him to clutch you by the torso.

Within a minute the two of you descend towards the forest floor and Levi throws you into the dirt furiously.

"You could have died. Being foolhardy will only lead to an early death." He barks as he directs his blade towards your neck.

"Am I dead yet?" Whispering back your gaze isn't trained on the blade but right up at him.

His nostrils flare up, his hair sticks to his forehead haphazardly and the knuckles that hold his pointed blades are white in tangled dissatisfaction.

Grabbing you by the hips he flings you over his shoulder choosing to not continue with the confrontation.

"I know what you're up to." His voice is still rugged from the pursuit and it takes you a split second to register what he's said.

Your eyes widen and your breath hitches in your throat, no way, there's no way in hell he knows. He's sharp but he's not a mind reader.

Your position means he can't read your face seeing as you're facing his back, instantly steeling your features you let out a breathy laugh.

"And what may that be?" Silently you pray he's worded himself ambiguously to catch a slip up.

"Being gutsy, you think that makes you a good soldier. It doesn't."

Relief floods you. He doesn't know.

"Soldiers need to be brave." Your retort makes him grumble.

"If  you die with no meaning by being reckless what's the purpose of being a soldier?" His question has you stopping and thinking on what the correct answer is.

Unable to think of an answer you ask another question.

"Are you saying your previous comrades died without meaning?"

"No. Their deaths fueled me slay more titans."

"So if I died back there who wou-" He swiftly cuts you off showing no inclination of wanting to hear what it is you have to say.

"I'll cut your tongue off if it's stupid." He clearly isn't serious about the threat but he does mean it when he warns you to not overstep.

Despite the consequences you say what's on your mind. "I just wanted to ask who would give my life meaning if I ever died. I don't have siblings and my parents died long ago."

Silence follows and the crunch of his boots against the muddy leaves tells you he probably doesn't wish to answer your question.

"Sorry-"

"I would. I would give meaning to your life." He says it with such ease you almost want to admire the enemy but you know he's said it because he feels he has to.

"You barely know me but I hope one day you can stop thinking everyone has to rely on you." You say it with taunting understanding.

Another bout of silence follows. Only this time the two of you feel warmly comforted, he doesn't understand how you've seen through his facade but it's easy for you to spot another liar.

846, ii.

Brows drawn back you observe your surroundings attempting to mask your scrutiny. The place is running amok with uncontrollable Eldian folk. The stench of unadulterated sin makes itself known but you seem to be the only person able to smell it. Eren bumps against the table you're sat at and your face twitches a little but you say nothing. You're yet to get used to these people's lack of manners.

At least that's how you force yourself to think. To be truthful, you don't quite understand what it is these people have done wrong. Ever since you've arrived you've been nitpicking at every single minor inconvenience or possible issue. A girl stole a potato and broke it into uneven pieces to share and you attempted to twist the story in your head to make her look like an unfair, greedy voracious demon but... you found yourself finding very little to actually be angry at. These people are essentially normal in every way of the word, they aren't demons and you can't help but feel yourself slip away from everything you once knew as reality. You're finding it difficult to believe what years of Marleyan education taught you, the hymns that were once drilled into your brain permanently are but a vague memory.

You feel disgustingly under-dressed and out of place, you don't belong here not when you're meant to hate these people, not when you're meant to despise them. You should be fighting the urge to shove their heads onto pitchforks or to skin them alive and feed them to pigs. Everyone back in Marley told you to control your impulses but now you're here and you've settled down even having the opportunity to converse with these individuals, share their pain, share their loss, share their suffering, you wonder why you have no impulses to control. Have they brainwashed you? Or is it that you're the real demon in this situation?

Fingers mingling with each other on your lap you sit hopelessly alone. Interacting with the so called enemy is much harder than you expect. Worry consistently bubbles in the pit of your stomach and every night is spent tossing and turning evaluating then reevaluating who the bad guy really is. At first the task of daily interaction isn't a big deal, you find it easy enough to approach members of the team and fake interest in their lives until the original plan falls through. You do become invested in your team members lives and stories that it comes to the point where you don't have to force yourself to smile at their jokes or to sympathize with their tales of grief. You become one of them and you swear you're meant to feel like a traitor but eerily you feel like you belong.

Nevertheless you try your best to stick with what you know. You're nothing like Zeke, you're loyal, capable, faithful and trustworthy. Never will you turn your back on Marley.

Rising to excuse yourself from dinner you think you've just about made it and escaped finally able to hide away in the confines of your bedroom but your lips form into a straight uncomfortable line at the feeling of someone's hand latching at your wrist. You're halfway down the hallway just a few more steps away from your bedroom. You hope it's one of the rookies.

"Oi, come here."

Head shooting backwards your eyes land on Levi, his dark curtains fall in front of his eyes - you note that he hasn't trimmed them as he usually does. Despite his size his grip is firm and your wrist squirms around a little trying to manoeuvre out of his bruising grasp. He seems to notice he's underestimated his strength once again and loosens his hold on you. Narrowed eyes analyse your anxious form, they're grey and in this lighting almost glow appearing silver. For a brief second your mouth is left ajar by the delicate but rough manner of his face.

"Everything Okay?" He doesn't typically seem to care very much about anyone, the question activates your senses and you're on full alert but the eye contact you make with him seconds later slows down the gears in your mind, they only whir and hum in anticipation completely coming to a halt.

"Yes, yes everything is okay." You're playing around with the hem of your shirt and you silently question when you were ever this nervous around anyone. You're a Marleyan soldier for heaven's sake not an unrestrained, unsupervised child left to play in a park.

Despite your clear inability to cushion and shield yourself from your Levi's stabbing gaze you attempt to appear as nonchalant as possible.

"I'll be going I just feel a little —" At first you had thought to fake you were ill but at the feeling of a sudden strike of pain you hold onto your stomach, the ache burns into your abdomen and without permission it travels higher up towards your ribs. "A little unwell." You manage to wheeze out. Hand placed onto a nearby cement wall your thought process is hasty speeding up by the second. Have they figured you out and had you poisoned? No, you barely ate anything today.

You hunch over feeling the bile crawl up your throat, on reflex you clamp your eyes shut not wishing to anger a superior by acting insolent and disposing of your dinner in the hallway. Shaky palms reach hesitantly for your lips and you force yourself to keep it in. Levi would commit a murder if you heaved and gagged letting it all out in front of him.

You motion towards the door trying to emphasize that you can handle yourself in the privacy of your room. Tears bite at the sides of your eyes and your vision is so blurred you can only make out the faint outline of the man who was just in front of you.

"Relax. I'll clean it." Your hair is brushed away from your face securely held back and you can't hold it in any longer, the acrid storm surges through your throat, you retch at the harsh sting it leaves behind. Breathing heavy, perturbed and anxious you gasp in all the air you can get.

"I knew you looked ill." His hands hold your jaw gently, the pads of his fingers are calloused but his touch remains soft. A tissue dabs at your mouth wiping away the excess untouched sick.

Just like the sick which surged through you less than a minute ago you feel something else entirely tear into you. You can't put a finger on it but it's dangerous for you to not feel contempt.

847, i.

Your heart accepts what your mind has been ignoring for months on end when Levi looks you square in the eyes after a heart wrenching expedition. The vacant look on his face is enough for the guilt to consume you whole but he doesn't know that. He doesn't know of your sins.

The wagon of corpses reeks of death and desperation. It's rotten and the smell is sickening. Forcibly you  stop yourself from feeling any more grief. The despair isn't yours to go through.

Your first ever personal loss outside of the walls and you've learnt Paradis is not home to demons. Cheeks burning in mortification you can't formulate any thoughts on your own accord, instead they continuously emerge in bursts and finally a single thought sticks out from the rest - Are you aiding in the destruction of innocent human life?

The both of you are sat on guard duty with the corpses, half of the team has been wiped out in one sweep. Your trembling hands don't seem to want to steady any time soon and you sit there with your guilty conscience strangling you slowly, your airflow is getting shallower. Shorter, quicker breaths leave you. The imaginary gash in your chest is bottomless, and your lungs push and pull in a power struggle.

Levi's coarse hands abruptly hold onto yours and the floodgates open again, he doesn't know what you've done to him, done to his soldiers, done to his people. If he knew who you really were, would things be different?

"This was out of your control."

Do you tell him?

The question sits in your mind for a while until you shake your head. He takes it the wrong way and think you're responding to him.

"This was not your fault." For the first time in months you've heard his voice crack under pressure.

"Pe- Petra she- I could have taken one for the team and died instead of her." All that remains of your dear friend is her blood soaked cloak. Her body was one of the few that had to be hauled away earlier to decrease the carriage's load.

The fabric still smells of Petra, smells of honey and chamomile and the simple soap offered at the base, but it still smells of her.

Firm hands grab your shoulders and Levi's fingers dig sorely into your flesh.

"Don't."

"But I- I didn't contribute as much as her and she has family who are alive." Hiccuping you try to bare with the fact that you'll wake up tomorrow and not see her preparing breakfast for everyone else. You know you could have propelled her out of the way just in time if you hadn't been so taken aback by the entire situation.

"You were her comrade. She made the choice to die for you."

You want to reach out, sob into his chest and yell that you regret it all, scream and tell him about the secret you've been hiding. A sorry excuse of a comrade you are to let her die on the battlefield not knowing your true identity. The tears roll down your cheeks and Levi feels his heart constrict and squeeze as he comprehends the lack of regard you have for your life. "It should have been me." Is repeated over and over again, your eyes are raw and bloodshot, the vicious wind sinks its teeth into you.

"Then die."

"If you're willing for her life to have no meaning. Die." The words he spits out are as cutting as the bitter wind. He feels cheated and you're finally able to come to your senses.

He's faired much worse but you doubt he's ever acted out the way you have in front of another person. In this never-ending void of darkness locking away the dull ache caused by deafening loss is the best choice for everyone.

Much like the night you had been sick he takes a grip of your jaw and directs your face towards his, this time he's not as gentle as before but you conclude that it's because he's drained, completely exhausted from the battle. The eyes are the windows to the soul but Levi's window panes are shattered, completely crushed by the weight of the constant burden he has to carry.

"I'm sorry." You croak out the apology. He grits his teeth because he doesn't want you to apologize but he doesn't voice out his opinion. As a substitute he presses his arms against you, the terribly raw panic is murdering you. Levi's gruff voice is a mixture of faux irritation but mutual understanding.

"Cry." He allows for your head to loll against his shoulder.

As the dark envelopes both you and him the scent of the dead only becomes more and more pungent, recalling fond memories of Petra and the others you know your heart settles on a decision before your mind does. You're a two timing back stabbing traitor for this. What you hated Zeke for you have become yourself.

Disloyal, unfaithful and fickle.

That day you place your loyalties with Paradis.

847, ii.

Levi's wiping down one of the kitchen tables, you're kneeled on the floor scrubbing vigorously. The others have already given up, panting they've left using the excuse of fetching water from a nearby well. Your back aches but you find cleaning reassuring and somewhat of a decent distraction.

"Why do you like to clean?" You're used to Levi asking you abrupt questions by now, after all the two of you have been acquainted for well over a year now. Through that year he's learnt about you and you about him. When in the midst of what looks to be humanity's final year's, twelve simple months is enough to form a bond worth a decade.

"I'm not good at a lot but I am good at cleaning."

"You know that's not true idiot." The tone of his voice indicates that your answer doesn't please him.

"But I do think I'm good at cleaning? Maybe not as good as you but I am half decent."

"Not that. You're good at much more than half the people I've ever met." He sneers, his footsteps edge towards you. "Purely being a good person is a talent these days."

You suppress a flinch because you aren't a good person at all. Neither are you that middle ground between good and bad. Rough around the edges and uneven, you're shards of glass ready to slash and hack away at him if Marley somehow lures you back.

The confession, if you could even call it that catches you by surprise and anger fills you. You almost want for him to not trust you and call out your bluff. It's a little unnatural how badly you want for him to realize the truth.

Your head turns up to stare at the man who's a few steps away from you. "Or am I just good at acting genuine?"

You don't even mean to snap at him and you don't even realize you have until you see his eyes widen and mouth part in imperceptible surprise. Biting your tongue your attention is diverted back to the wooden floor. Driving your washcloth into the crevices and dips of the floorboards you ignore Levi's leather shoes which now stand right in front of you.

"Are you questioning my judgement of character?"

Be born in Marley, That's what you had done, trained to destroy people you thought to be devilish entities, foolishly chose to grow attached to the so called enemy. Your mind lingers onto a specific thought and you're deathly afraid to be thinking it in the first place but there's no more avoiding it.

Falling deeply in love with Levi is your worst mistake to date.

"What I did. It was out of my control." you reply, voice hard.

"Not disclosing what it was?" He asks.

Your silence is his answer. Kneeling down to where you are he disarms you, the washcloth is taken out of your hands and he places it onto a table.

"You are a good person." His voice is brusque and he states it like it's a fact, something you should know. Hot tears threaten to spill over, he's stupidly naive for not rethinking that opinion of his. Lips thinned and eyes watering you don't know how to feel.

"Levi. I'm sure you'd like to think that but I am not."

"You love the members of the corps unconditionally I can see it in the way you look at them."

"Sometimes you look a little sad when you stare." The last sentence he adds in has your pulse racing. He's right, you often feel miserable thinking about how everyone would react knowing who you really are.

"I'm not interested in bad people." He sounds distant saying such warm words and it takes a moment for them to actually sink in. You don't quite believe you've heard him correctly. The dread sinks to the bottom of your stomach and the feelings you've buried at the back of your mind hit you like a tsunami. The thought of him feeling the same way for you, is agonizing.

"Stop being ridiculous." The uncertainty is killing the both of you.

"Loving you is not ridiculous, if you don't feel the same way you can say that and I'll step away. We'll be back to normal."

"No, no, no. You don't get it. You're just saying that." Your voice quivers and the intensity of this new revelation is too large for you to cope with.

"Why would, you," He begins, voice just above a whisper, "ever think that way?"

"Why would you even look twice at me?" You reply.

"Because I worry for you."

"You worry for everyone."

"I worry for you the most."

Instead of letting you respond to him this time he carries on speaking.

"We both know we feel the same."

You already knew you were in love with Levi, you didn’t need for him to tell you. You knew you were in love when you tried to memorize his facial features, you knew you were in love when his laughter was the cause of your laughter, you knew you were in love when you threw yourself in front of that abnormal for him.

That's when you begin to understand what all his signals meant. You now knew why he'd let you stare so intently, you now knew why he laughed particularly hard when it was you who had made a joke, you now knew why he scolded you and nearly broke down at the sight of your injured arm after that specific expedition.

You know it. He knows it. You both know what this will lead to.

But you still lunge onto his lap, you still press your wobbly lips against his. You still choose to surrender yourself to him and he still reacts by taking a hold of your shaky hands which lay on his chest. He envelopes them in his warm grasp. Slowly but gradually the ice thaws and dissolves. Heartbreak, anguish and suffering when one of you loses the other will be the end of your romance, you're sure of it. Hell, the both of you are in the middle of a war but your heart flames up thinking of all of the possibilities.

Perhaps it'll play out the one way you wish for it not to.

Could your ending be in betrayal?

848, i.

"Do you take this man to be your lawfully wedded hus-"

"Cut the crap and kiss me." Levi's crude interruption isn't appreciated by Erwin but everyone knows Levi doesn't care all that much for formalities and hates being in the spotlight for too long.

Gripping him by the collar of his suit your lips are a centimetre away, he stops you tightening the hold he has on your waist. His lips gently press against your collarbone and his breath meanders towards the shell of your ear.

"Swear you won't die on me."

Gulping you look away apprehensively. You know you can't promise that.

“Oi, I’m expecting an answer.” His voice flickers slightly.

Forefinger holding your chin up you see your soon to be husband close to tears, he valiantly blinks them away. Levi has never been one to make his pain public and your heart twists in your chest as you realize just how much of a hold his feelings for you have over him.

"I can't promise that, you know it'll only hurt more." The strange bitter taste in your mouth won't let you comply with his request and by measuring his reaction you see his eyes cloud in an unidentifiable emotion, you're sure it's nothing positive.

"We may not have a happy ending Levi but we'll always have a happy middle."

Levi scoffs in derision, he has to think your attempt at being meaningful is ridiculous.

You lean into him and it's all so heart-wrenchingly familiar yet foreign. His body sags comprehending that not everything will go the way he wants it to. One of you is guaranteed to leave first.

Hands finding purchase in the cloth of his white dress shirt Levi doesn't cringe at you creasing the fabric as he usually does. He allows for you to call the shots this time, your lips brush faintly against his before you nosedive into him. No resistance is felt and he replies almost immediately. Everyone applauds as his fingertips press into the back of your skull and you find that this is all incredibly hideous. The innate disloyalty you feel, you throwing your entire life away for this man but you find yourself not caring. To hell with that miserable life crammed with sin.

Levi smiles against your mouth, you assume you're meant to magically smile back but you can't make yourself. It's uncomfortable relishing in the undeserved happiness knowing it won't last forever.

The world you live in isn't ideal nor is it forgiving.

Momentary joy is all an antagonist can hope for.

849, i.

Jean can’t take his eyes off the newly weds.

You’re cooing into your Levi’s ear gently, his cheeks flush scarlet at the feeling of your hot breath against his skin and he scolds you for having the gall to rile him up in public.

Jean sniggers finding some sort of odd delight from the interaction - he’s never seen the Captain this content and at ease.

849, ii.

You don't know why you've dragged yourself out of bed just to stare at your husband's face but you have, despite the toll life has had on him he seems sound for once. His breathing peaceful yours is anything but that. When it's dark the weight becomes heavier, your skin tingles and your throat burns aching for release.

Eyes blurring your hands shake reaching out for him but you can't find the courage to make contact. Nothing will ever warrant plaguing him even more with your existence.

The memories become increasingly bitter.

"If we make it out of this alive we'll have children and they'll look just like you."

"I want them to look like you." had been your reply.

Levi winced not seeming to like the idea.

"No, I want them to look like you. You're beautiful."

How wrong he was for thinking that.

You, beautiful? He'd stab himself ten times over if he knew just who exactly he had said those words to.

850, i.

Zeke had betrayed you after finding out who you were to Levi but you half expected that he would tell him the truth at some point regardless of that fact.

Tear stains travel through the mud and grime on your face, Levi's eyes are indifferent as he twists his wedding ring off his finger flinging it into the surrounding rubble.

Without your permission he yanks your arm forwards intending to take your matching ring away but you hold on digging your heels into the dirt beneath you.

"You disgusting bitch. Give me it."

You scream, high and awful, he continues jerking at your arm the muscle throbs crying out for him to stop but he doesn't and no one steps in to put a halt to any of it. Levi having had enough grabs at your neck ruthlessly. In any other circumstance he'd be labelled callous or cruel but everyone on the battle field shares a similar empathy for their Captain. Neither they or Levi had expected your disloyalty.

"I said give me the ring if you know what's good for you." His fingers slide around your neck, his seemingly low words cling onto the little respect he has left for you.

"No." Your defiance has his eyes hardening in and posture tensing. "I'm not handing it over."

Levi says nothing, he only holds onto your throat tighter, if he really keeps at  it your windpipe will be crushed in no time. You know he's holding out on purpose, he's still giving you a chance. He expects for you to stand your ground, say you never deceived Paradis, say something, anything to make him let go of you.  

"Marrying you... It just happened somehow. I know it was selfish of me." He squeezes harder. "I know it was. I'm sorry Levi." Gasping and breathless you clench and unclench your fists finding it too difficult to explain.

Your mouth opens, you want to tell him you haven't seduced him like he thinks you have, tell him you dropped that plan of yours long ago but then you falter at the last second.  It's typically hard to tell when Erwin's infuriated but it's painfully obvious when you make eye contact with him over Levi's trembling shoulders. It's enough to tell you to give up. Enough to tell you that you're beyond redemption, you've ran and hid long enough.

"Hand over your titan." Levi says nothing to Erwin's proposition, the hold he has on your neck loosens but his silence is sickening. It means he agrees.

This is fate's idea of a cruel joke.

But you agree, on the basis of one condition.

"Fine but-"

Levi cuts in, all regard for you devoid from his system.

"You're in no place to be making demands." He snarls, his patience quickly running thin.

However Erwin urges you to continue speaking taking you aback.

"If it's not too much maybe we can accommodate your final wish." Erwin had always been thoughtful in nature and you thank him for even bothering to show you a sliver of benevolence.

Everyone's looking, all eyes are on you. Some are blinking away tears, others are disgusted unable to stare at you for more than a few seconds at a time. Levi falls into the latter.

Brazen with not an ounce of shame you mention the ring again. "Let me keep it." Your left hand covers your right and underneath the flesh is the last symbol left of your union with Levi.

Whispers and murmurs orbit you, none of them are kind and Levi loses it.

His reflexes are paralyzing, he's back at it clawing your neck mercilessly but you don't scream or shriek as you did previously. You take it, you let him unload his frustration.

"Levi. Let it go for the sake of humanity." Erwin says pointedly. Irritation pricks him, he wants this over and done with and your rebelliousness doesn't look as if it'll be tamed any time soon unless you're given what you want.

Levi's face is crimson, the fresh blood from the expedition still steaming. "Y/N, I'll saw your arm off if I have to." But, you know he's already given into Erwin's orders when he throws you to the ground letting you crash and wheeze for breath.

850, ii.

Levi's been appointed to guard you for your final night alive. The room feels wistful as you think back wondering if the life you lived was respectable.

"Why did you stare at me when I slept? Did you think of killing me?" Half commanding and half pleading his voice cracks. He coughs attempting to cover it up.

You jolt not expecting the interaction at all and you're not the slightest bit surprised that he had seen you all those nights staring so deeply. He'd always been a light sleeper. You turn your head up hoping he's looking at you.

He isn't.

"I wanted our children to look like you. I think you're beautiful."

It's now his turn to recoil, only he does so in repulsion remembering the familiarity of those words. They had left his own lips not too long ago.

"I'd never have children with the likes of you." He sounds tense then.

You understand. No one would want to have children with someone as hated and as despicable as you.

"I know." You whisper faintly.

850, iii.

When Erwin's eyes glaze over unable to focus on anything in particular Levi assumes it's him growing used to the titan powers. What he doesn't expect is for his Commander to bang his head against the floor unrelenting screaming your name.

Pairs of hands move to stop him but he thrusts them aside wailing. Levi stresses trying to figure out what it is you could have done in the wake of your death.

But Erwin Smith. Courageous, brave Erwin Smith, who never cracked at loss of life for the sake of humanity, who always eloquently spoke to everyone around him at all times, finds himself slumping down to his knees and weeping for you.

The warm blood from his self inflicted assault still trickles down his nose, a tremor shakes through his entire body when he thinks of breaking the news to Levi.

The edge in Erwin’s voice grows dangerous.

"We made the wrong choice."

Erwin can't word it any better than that.

But Levi understands right away, he wishes he didn’t, he wishes he was ignorant enough not to.

Hange sticks an arm out aiming for his shoulder but he stumbles away nearly falling back into the floor not wanting to be touched by anyone.

He finds that he is not human enough to cry. It’s that or he’s not human at all without your presence.

854, i.

Levi has grown old without you, lived to see months and new seasons without you by his side. Over time his eyelids have become heavier, the corners of his mouth naturally droop and he remains perpetually somber.

Sometimes you visit him in his dreams, each time you make a silly comment about how his grey eye bags make him look like he’s been punched in the face. “Levi Ackerman, I swear if you don’t sleep soon!” You cushion the blow by whispering sweet nothings, reassuring him that you still think he’s beautiful. 

Occasionally you add in that you don’t blame him for the past, but those conversations only last for a few seconds at a time.

“I don’t blame you.” It always starts off with the exact same phrase. 

“I should have listened to you.” Levi’s tone is stern and uncompromising .

“Lev, I was never going to tell you to spare my life. You tried to listen to me, I could tell you wanted me to deny it.”

Levi refuses to answer you, he still thinks he’s at fault.

Not a day goes by where he doesn’t think of that ring. He regrets throwing it away recklessly into the rubble.

Some day he’ll return to Shiganshina to find it. The idea sounds laughable but he has to find a reason to smile as he fights for his life.

That is what Levi thinks as two set’s of jaws snap shut onto his legs, a flurry of red surrounds him. His throat constricts at the feeling of his thighs being ripped away from the rest of him.

“I tried.” He whimpers to no one in particular, eyes blank and losing meaning.

“I know Levi, I know.” The same voice from his dreams soothes him.

“Do not despair. Find me again in another world.” The biting wind adds in.

Levi’s eyelids flutter shut unable to do much else.

He’s unsure if he has the courage to face you again in another lifetime.

[kaermorhenatnight]

Maybe I just convinced myself it's love

18+ MDI!! NSFW

lambert x bard!reader, reader is fem, she/her pronouns, no “y/n” used

word count | 3.8k

warnings | smut, oral (f receiving), fingering, unprotected p in v, spell-vibrator,

A/N | The song used is partly translation of song “Luna Srebrnooka” by Magda Umer (second verse) and partly just inspired by it, can be sang to the tune of that song. I had game Lambert in mind but I don’t specify. Still not very confident about my writing I will accept all feedback!! 

.

You don’t really like the crowd today. They seem to be a bit too prude to enjoy your more spicy lyrics and somehow obscene enough to send you disgustingly lewd looks during the more decent ones. One man even tries to pull up your skirt as you’re passing by, but, fortunately, The Kingfisher Inn is a respectable tavern, where acts like this are punished by a broken nose and a toss into the mud outside.

One last song and you can go upstairs, take a well-deserved bath that is being prepared just now and then fall asleep with a wine glass in your hand. You go through the list of songs in your head, thinking about what you could perform to properly frame your entire performance. You take a sip of mead that's a little bit too weak.

‘Do you take song requests, lass?’ a voice from behind you asks. 

‘I’m afraid not, love, I—’ you start, turning around before your mind registers the familiarity of that voice. You can’t withhold a small, happy whimper, when you see Lambert, looking, as always, a little scruffy, his armor covered in dark spots of dried blood. He’s leaning on a table nonchalantly. ‘Good to see you, Wolf.’ You walk up to him, a bit too fast to pretend you’re at least a little bit indifferent to seeing him. You wrap your arms around his neck and feel his big hand cupping your buttcheek. ‘If I knew you were in Novigrad I would have worn a sluttier shirt,’ you whisper in his ear, firmly guiding his hand from your ass to your lower back. You back away a bit to look at his face, but still can’t find it in yourself to take your hands off his shoulders.

‘Yes, this one is hideous, you should definitely take it off,’ Lambert teases, very obviously looking at your breasts, gorgeously accentuated by your favorite corset. 

‘I will. Right after this song. In my room.’ You take a step back and take your lute from the table. ‘And you're welcome to join me there,’ you add, smiling seductively at him over your shoulder.

Even though you both traveled a lot, fate always seemed to bring the two of you together at least once a year. 

The first time it happened, a few years back in Oxenfurt, you didn't like him very much. He was impolite, self-centered, grouchy and, to be honest, smelled terrible. But he was also handsome and seemed to be impressed by your performance and weirdly infatuated with you, just showing it in his own, rude way. You were bored with sleeping with bards, other artists, and boring nobles and decided to spend a night with Lambert. You feared this might be a mistake. He was a witcher after all. A brute, barely human anymore, and on top of all that, an arsehole. You thought he might just unceremoniously throw you on the bed, screw you and then fall asleep within seconds, never giving a thought to whether you are enjoying it or not. To your surprise, the first thing he did was order a bath in his room because he knew it probably bothered you that he “smells like a fiend's shit”. You spent a long time in the warm water together, him covering your neck and breast with open-mouthed kisses and constantly complimenting your body in an awkward but oddly endearing way. He didn’t let you sleep that night. 

The second time it was in a small inn in the middle of nowhere, Nilfgard. You were the last person he expected to meet there and seemed sincerely happy to see you. On that evening, he ate you out like his life depended on it and made you cum four times before he even took his pants off. And then a few more times after he did. The innkeeper knew both of your first names by the morning even though neither of you introduced yourselves when you checked in.

At some point, your body started adding butterflies fluttering in your stomach to the hot yearning in your abdomen you felt every time you saw him. It might have been because of this warm spark in his eyes that welcomed you in the morning or maybe the way he had to adjust to small gestures of gentleness you offered him. Whether it was delicate scratching on the back, scalp massage, or small kisses you littered his chest with, for a long time he seemed startled by them, like no one ever treated him with such tenderness. Maybe it was the way his face lightened up when you wanted to talk to him about poetry or music instead of monsters and death. You even gifted him a small notebook, where you have written down all of your favorite poems and the next time you met, he knew most of them by heart. You couldn't know that he tried real hard to learn them quickly, opening the notebook only for short periods of time, to preserve the smell of your perfume that soaked into the pages. You also couldn't know he searched for you at each inn he stayed at. And felt you in every song he heard. You couldn't know that.

So your romantic soul was regularly being tempered by your pretty practical mind. You knew better than to expect some kind of exclusivity or stability from him.

After all, he was still a witcher.

‘Break a leg!’ he yells as you walk back on the stage. A few guests send him a disapproving look and you can’t help but smile at their discontent. Lambert leans against the wall in the corner and smiles softly at you. You know what song you’re going to sing. 

Silver moon slides through the night sky, hearing my voice cry here,

We’re alone between the clouds, still yearning for the dawn

Lay your head down on my lap and let the sleep come, my dear

Both so grateful and so sorry we were ever born

It seems like you finally found a common language with your audience. For a moment you see how many of them are just as tired as you are and just as lonely. A group of men in the corner stopped loudly talking like they did during the entirety of your performance until now, and now sit quietly, aggressively silencing other people who might be as much as whispering something too loud.

Hear a laughter in the darkness, quiet, strange and brittle

Smell the mint and marjoram, smell lilac and wild clove

You can't resist the urge to look at Lambert, feeling that humiliating softness you have for him overflowing you.

On a night like this we all love somebody a little

Or we just convince ourselves that it is in fact love

One lady who kept making comments to her friend while peeking at you and laughing with a mean smirk on her face now stares yearningly at her friend’s red lips and her eyes water a little. 

Head already spinning even though it's really early

Fluttering heartbeat loud like a heavy iron bell

Taste of vodka, blood, regret between our two tongues twirling 

All the reasons to die, to live, to go or to stay

Your eyes wander between guests. Most of them stare into the distance or lean against each other, a melancholically romantic mood spreading throughout the entire tavern. 

The old fountain whispers lies, makes me blush through the curtain

Bit too sure about this or maybe not sure enough

Wonder if that smile is honest, I am not so certain

But I certainly don't want to risk and call your bluff.

Applause is not very loud but it’s okay. Most guests start closing their tabs and preparing to leave. If they’re lucky, with someone. You slowly walk off the stage, not saying anything to officially finish off. No words seem appropriate now.

You look around while slowly walking towards the staircase. Lambert approaches you, a bag on his shoulder.

‘That was a new one, wasn’t it?’ he asks, pointing vaguely in the direction of the stage.

‘Yes, I wrote it last winter.’ Right after our last time together, you don’t dare to say out loud.

‘I like it.’ He puts his arm around you and you both start walking up the stairs towards your room. ‘But I must admit, not as much as I like the way you are all hot and bothered now,’ he adds quietly and then inhales sharply. ‘Fuck, is all that excitement I can smell for me?’

‘Actually,’ you smile mischievously, ‘it was for a lady at the table by the window, but since she left, you will suffice.’

‘Well, I hoped Essi Daven would be performing tonight, but I guess you will do.’

You both chuckle as you reach your room. You got it as a part of your payment for performing so it was not the best room in The Kingfisher Inn but it was enough. The bed was big, a view from the window acceptable and the water in the bath you ordered was warm and nice.

‘Make yourself at home,’ you say and immediately hear a thump of a bag hitting the floor and feel two big hands digging into your hips and pulling you into a hug from behind.

‘I missed you,’ Lambert mumbles already kissing your neck ‘and those delicious thighs of yours.’ His fingers dig deeper into your warm flesh through your skirt and he presses himself against your back more firmly. You can feel his erection against your butt. ‘You make me so hard’ he groans against the skin on your shoulder, pushing your shirt out of the way. His hands start untying your corset to get you naked as soon as possible. As it falls on the floor, you turn around and start working on removing his clothes.

He got a few new scars since the last time you saw him. One really big one right under his collarbone. You trace it with your fingers. He trembles a little.

‘Actually, I think it is a bit too small for both of us to fit in there,’ you say, as Lambert slowly guides you towards the tub. 

‘Oh we’ll fit, don’t worry.’

You do, in fact, fit. You have to sit astride on Lamber’s lap but that is one of your favorite ways to enjoy a bath in anyway. His hands explore your chest, massaging your breasts gently, as you wash his hair, trying really hard not to get soap in his eyes. He strokes your breasts, his calloused, hard fingers scraping a little bit against your skin. 

‘How come each time I look at you, you get prettier?’

You blush and let out an embarrassingly honest giggle. Drops of water shine on Lambert's muscular shoulders, glistering with the light of candles on the walls. His dick is throbbing at your core, his hands all over you. But sex in the tub this small wouldn't really be comfortable. You both finish washing yourselves and get out, drying yourselves with towels. You keep peeking at him, his muscles tense under the mosaic of scars, the lovely path of coarse hair from his belly button down to his hard cock, the unhinged expression in his cat-like eyes. You can't resist the urge to touch his dick. He moans quietly as you curl your fingers around the shaft. 

‘Fuck yes, touch me,’ he mutters, tangling his hand into your hair. ‘Do you want it inside of you?’

‘Yes, so badly.’ You can barely control your lust. Everything about this man makes your insides burn, empty of him. You give him a firm jerk, he closes his eyes and licks his lips. You press your body against his, enjoying every square inch of skin to skin contact. He pulls your face up by the hair, pressing your lips to his, sighing heavily as you smear precum on the tip of his cock. He throbs in your hand.

‘You’re so gorgeous,’ Lambert mumbles. ‘And you smell so fucking good.’ He nudges your hand away and picks you up by your waist. He places you gently on the bed, and leans over you, placing a trail of kisses gently along your leg, covering it with goosebumps. He stops right over your pussy. ‘Do you know what you're doing to me?’ he almost growls, leaving sloppy kisses on the insides of your thighs, pushing your legs wider apart. ‘A mere thought of tasting you on my tongue drives me insane. I can’t focus on anything. All I want is your cunt on my face.’ His mouth gets closer to your pussy but then moves away right before he reaches it, teasing you ruthlessly.

‘Lambert… Lambert, please,’ you whimper, trying to move your pussy closer to him, but he puts his hand on your pelvis and firmly pins you in place. 

‘So eager. So needy…’ he mumbles and you feel his hot breath between your legs. ‘Gods, I missed you so much,’ the words leave his mouth right before he dives down into you, going straight for your clit, sucking on it. The intensity of sensations attacking you flashes in white before your eyes. A litany of broken moans and whimpers tumbles from your lips. You mindlessly run your fingers through his hair and push his head even closer to you. He licks down along your slit and thrusts his tongue into your entrance. “Fuck”s and “Gods”s escape your mouth like a heretic prayer.

Suddenly Lambert pulls away but before you lift your head to see what happened, a pleasure you never even imagined strikes you. A vibration travels from your abdomen through your entire body, touching even the tips of your fingers. Your legs shake uncontrollably, your back arches, head digs into the mattress. Before the lingering feeling fully fades away, another wave hits you, vibration absolutely shattering every nerve in your body. Orgasm takes you by surprise, the usually slow build-up happens in a fraction of a second, shaking you to the core. You let out a shriek, one that you would never suspect could be born in your throat. A warm ball of pleasure pulsates in your abdomen, then slowly starts to weaken. You breath heavily, your muscles relaxing after the climax. Vibrations stop. You slowly rise, leaning on your forearms, and see Lambert between your legs with a giant smirk on his face, his chest moving a bit faster than usual.

‘What was that?’ you whisper, trying hard to calm your breath. 

‘You like it?’. The question is rude as if he didn't just see you have the most intense orgasm in your life. He strokes your leg lazily. 

‘I loved it, but what was it?’

‘I told you about the Signs? Igni, Quen, Aard, y'know?’ He looks at you waiting for confirmation. You nod your head impatiently. ‘So, if I do Aard a few times in a row, very fast, it creates a vibration. And if I'm doing it very lightly, I can not only actually do it a few times in a row and not pass out, but also use it for much more pleasurable activities than fighting.’ He leans down and places a gentle kiss on your thigh. ‘It is still a bit fatiguing since it's a spell and all, but fuck… the way you looked, the way you sounded… it's worth it.’

Before you manage to say something in response, you hear knocking.

‘Um— Miss? Is everything alright?’ a voice from behind the door asks, seems sincerely worried. You recognize the innkeeper. You try to get up, but your body is still processing what just happened to it. ‘Miss? The guests informed me there was a scream—’ 

‘Yes, I’m alright!’ you say loudly. ‘I just, uh, fell!’ Lambert chokes on a laugh at your ridiculously bad lie.

‘Alright then, miss. Do you need anything?’

‘Nothing, thank you! And sorry for the noise, I will make sure to keep it down.’

‘Thank you, miss.’ You hear footsteps going away from the door.

‘You need to be more careful, miss,’ Lambert giggles, climbing up the bed to level his body with yours and laying next to you. ‘Next time you fall, I might not be there to catch you.’

You cut off his laughter by pulling him closer by his medallion into a sloppy kiss. You can taste yourself on his lips and moan at the memory of the pleasure he gave you. 

His hands lazily wander around your body. He tenderly traces stretch marks on your breasts and butt with his fingers. You told him once you don't like them and now he makes sure to always let you know that he absolutely adores them.

‘Lambert?’ you whisper, cupping his cheek and pulling back from the kiss. He smiles. 

‘What?’ A strand of his hair tickles his forehead. ‘What does my goddess have to say to her humble yet very handsome servant?’ He smiles at you, enjoying the way you blush at his words.

But you can't say it, can you? I think I love you? That's ridiculous! Or maybe I just convinced myself it's love? ‘Did you really like my song?’ you ask, stroking the scar on his cheek. Maybe he will understand you without needing to say it?

‘I wouldn't be here fucking a bad bard into tomorrow, would I?’ He didn't.

You just smile and pull him into a kiss again. His hand slides down to your pussy and he thrusts a finger into you. Your inside offers no resistance to him, slick dripping from you.

‘Lambert,’ you moan, any melancholic and sad thoughts sinking into oblivion, as the hot ball of excitement fills you again. ‘Your cock. Please.’ He pulls his fingers out. You caress his cheekbones with your thumbs, pulling yourself closer to him, feeling his hard dick against your abdomen. ‘Please—’

‘Since you asked so nicely…’ the witcher grins proudly, his ego boosted by you begging for him, guiding himself to your entrance. He slides into you, forcing a sharp breath out of your lungs, and then firmly grabs your thighs. ‘Hold on,’ he commands as he's rolling onto his back, with you still on his cock, now straddling him. 

He tries to pick you up by your hips, but you push his hands away. He obediently puts them behind his head, accidentally – or actually pretty purposefully – showing off the amazing muscles in his arms. He smirks as you start rolling your pelvis, your body like a wave. It makes his hard cock press against your walls in a gentle, yet very satisfying way, both his and your pubic hair tingling the area around your clit lightly. 

‘My pretty girl,’ he whispers, reaching to you with one hand and caressing your thigh. ‘I dream about fucking you every night. You're taking me so well.’ He closes his eyes and his hand moves up to your clit. ‘I fucking love you so much and I want you to cum on my cock.’ 

Before your brain manages to realize what he just said, his fingers form the Aard sign, relax and form Aard again and again. Vibrations hit you, another climax starts building up. You tilt your head back and start moving faster, chasing your high, your mind overflowing with hot waves of pleasure. 

‘I am so close, Lambert,’ you whisper, leaning forward, placing your hands on his chest, trying hard with everything you have to last longer, to let this pleasure continue, but you can't. You clench around him as you orgasm, moaning, biting down on your hand to muffle sounds falling from your mouth. He follows just behind you, his hot cum starts dripping from you.

As your muscles relax, you lie down on Lambert's chest. He strokes your back and kisses your forehead. He’s still inside you, sperm slowly drips on your abdomen.

‘Aard just became my favorite sign,’ he says, smirking.

‘Mine too.’

You slowly get up and clean yourselves up. You can't stop thinking about this small sentence he said, trying to convince yourself he didn't really mean that, and your heart beating so fast because of that is, to be honest, a bit pathetic.

‘Your stamina is getting worse, dove,’ Lambert giggles as he pulls up his small clothes. ‘It's been a few minutes and your pulse is still through the roof. You're growing old.’

A burst of drunken laughter, high pitched and soft, slides into the room from the outside.

‘Someone's having a fun night,’ you comment, walking up to the window, pulling your shirt on. You try to change the subject and calm your heart a little. You can't see anyone, the owner of the voice you heard, must have already walked out of view. 

You feel a heavy hand on your shoulder and immediately after that Lambert's body heat right behind you. Your heart doesn't even consider beating slower.

‘I like Novigrad,’ Lambert says, stroking your arm lazily. ‘It's so… raw. And honest. And doesn't even stink that much.’

‘You should see Beauclair,’ you sigh and lean on the window frame. ‘It's beautiful. So colorful. So lively.’

‘Maybe we can go there.’ You are pretty sure he looks at you, but you don’t dare to check. ‘You could show me every back alley we can hide in to make love.’ This time you turn. A mischievous smile crosses his face as you blush under his lewd sight.

‘And then we could even make love in prison after we get arrested for public indecency,’ you laugh, trying to not sink into this warm feeling of safety and stability that his presence imitates.

‘I’m serious.’ Lambert gently strokes your jaw with two fingers, turning your face towards him lightly. ‘I just finished a really good contract. I have a lot of money to spend I want to spend it with you. Let’s go to Beauclair. I promise I will try to limit sleeping on the ground on our way there to a minimum.

Oh, I could sleep on the ground all winter if only you were next to me, you think to yourself.  

‘Since you asked so nicely… Alright,’ you say after a few moments of silence. ‘Let’s go to Toussaint.’

‘Great!’ Lambert puts his arms around your waist and picks you up, spinning you around a little too excitedly. ‘That’s really great, dove.’ He puts you down and crashes his lips on yours. ‘I can’t believe,’ he mumbles between kisses ‘that I will be able to do this every day.’

‘You will be able to do much more.’ You smile against his mouth, cupping his cock with your hand through the thin fabric of underwear. It is hard again.

Neither of you got any sleep that night. The next few nights didn't really bring you any rest either. Sleeping on the ground turns out to be pretty romantic when you have the right company.

[deliriousgeek]

Thomas Shelby x Wife Reader

Summary: A quiet evening meant for celebration is thrown into chaos. Y/n wills herself to play into the daunting role that comes with being Thomas Shelby’s wife, because it might be the only thing keeping her alive. 

Masterlist

Tommy lowkey feels very oc so idk how to feel about that. im not good at writing suspense...its also very long. ha :,)

Warning: blood, guns, knives, fights, usual peaky blinder violence

If anyone knew Y/n Shelby, then they would know that she can’t stand seeing dead bodies. Although in her case, having that reaction would seem ironic, considering her husband was Thomas Shelby. 

It was around 9pm when Y/n slipped her night robe off and lay back on her bed. Her night was just winding down and she was waiting for Thomas to get back. He said he would try to be home around midnight, and to not wait up. He and his brothers would be at the Garrison, celebrating Arthur’s return from prison and discussing what was to be done with the Jews and Italians next. 

Y/n knew it would be a couple hours for Tommy to be home, so she settled onto their bed and grabbed a book off her night stand. 

The room was bathed in a warm, orange and yellow light— the type of light candles can give. When she was home alone, Y/n liked to use candle light. It reminded her of a time before the war and before this gang business, when all she and Tommy had to worry about was getting enough candles to light up the dinner table. 

Half an hour had passed and Y/n had gotten through a decent number of pages in her book. She felt her eyes drooping and decided it was time to call it a night. She stretched and cracked her neck before turning to place her book on the nightstand. Just as she was about to place the book down, she heard a creak downstairs. 

She froze.

Tommy wasn’t supposed to be back until midnight and none of the Shelby family would come over this late without a call, that was their safety protocol. 

She listened for more creaking. 

After Tommy had bought their house he had insisted on replacing the creaky floor boards, but decided to keep a few. In certain spots, that could be easily avoided if one knew where to walk, the floor would still creak. It was a safety thing that Tommy and Y/n agreed would be good to have. If the floorboards downstairs still creaked after the first step, it wasn’t one of them. 

Creak...creak...creak...

That wasn’t Tommy. 

Y/n took in a deep breath as she put herself back into a sitting position on the bed. An intruder was in her house. At the moment, the Peaky Blinders had a lot of enemies. It could be anyone. Mostly, someone with a gun. 

She listened as the person made their way upstairs. She could hear them passing Tommy’s office, and the guest bedroom. This person knew where their room was, and she could only deduce from their movement’s that they were coming for her. 

Y/n was scared. She knew how to defend herself, but didn’t like doing it if she didn’t have to. Rolling her shoulders, she prepared herself for the inevitable. She’d have to fight tonight. 

To be clear, Y/n Shelby wasn’t unable to fight. She was a pro at throwing knives, which she preferred to guns; much to Tommy’s dismay. She knew how to shoot a gun and could decently fare in hand to hand combat, but she was still scared. Her heart beat in her chest quickly and anxiety bubbled to the surface. A normal reaction to knowing someone broke into your house to hurt you, or worse. Y/n assumed it was the latter. However, instead of letting her fear show, she turned on her fake calmness. A trick she forced herself to learn as Thomas Shelby’s wife. The alarm that was spread across her face vanished, instead being replaced with an eerily calm facade.

There was no point in locking the door. The person knew how to get past those if he made it into their living room. She heard their steps stop at the front of her door, she raised her book to her face, pretending like she was reading.

Act calm. She told herself.

Then, the door burst open.

Back at the pub, the Shelby brothers  were sitting around the table in the snug. Sharing laughs and taking on their third round of Whiskey.

“Alright boys,” Tommy began, placing his glass down and looking around the table. “We’ve had our fun, business begins now.” His content expression turned serious. 

His other brothers, and cousin Michael, cleared their throats and straightened up. 

“As you know, taking Arthur out of prison is a direct threat to the Sabini’s. It shows that even in London we have enough influence to get our own men out, if needed.”

The brothers nodded, and shared looks.

Tommy continued, “Getting Arthur out was our first move. Now it’s the Italian’s and the Jew’s turn but we don’t know when their next strike will be. So, from this moment on we have to be aware, alert, and ready for every—”

The door flew open.

Sir!” Out of breath, Isaiah stood with one hand on the door knob, looking at Tommy. 

“Oi!” Arthur shouted. “You know better than to interrupt!” 

Tommy nodded his head at Arthur, then turned to Isaiah. “What is it, lad.”

“Better be important,” John added. 

“Sir, the Italians are here. My dad spotted them making their way down the lane. They got a group with guns and a car. We best hurry.” Isaiah said in a rushed voice.

With that all the Shelby men stood and placed their caps on, rushing out of the snug. 

Upon noticing the urgency in which the brothers exited, the rest of the Peaky Blinders in the pub were at full alert, waiting for Tom’s next words. The crowd silenced as the brothers stood at the snug doors, facing the onlookers. 

“If you aren’t a Peaky Blinder,” Tom eyed the crowd, “leave.” 

Noise filled the bar again as chairs shuffled, cups were placed on tables, and the front doors opened and closed.

Tom didn’t speak again until there were only Peaky Blinders left. He pulled out his revolver and checked it, making sure there were bullets, before looking up again. 

“Battle formation, men. The Italians are here.” 

Then in a flurry of peaky hats and over coats, the rest of the men got into their positions. Some ran up the stairs to get the extra cases of shotguns and revolvers. Others pulled out their own handguns and checked them as well. The Shelby boys looked at each other, a silent way of saying ‘good luck’. 

Once Tommy deemed every one armed, he nodded to Arthur, who shouted to move out. 

The Shelbies were at the front, while everyone fell behind them in triangle formation. As they marched outside, they could see the group of Italians rounding the corner. 

It was rather intimidating. An outline of men and guns on shoulders, a rather sizable group at that, illuminated by the truck headlights that followed behind. It was a sight to see.

Darby Sabini stood at the front, a shotgun slung over his shoulder.

As the groups marched towards each other and came to a stop, a man behind Thomas called out to the front. “At your command Sergeant Major.”

A hushed tone of agreement spread throughout the group.

Darby stepped forward. “Thought you could come on our turf and get away with it, aye?” 

Tommy stepped forward as well, hands in his pockets. “It was meant as a friendly gesture, but I don’t think you have enough friends to know what that means.”

A small smirk made its way onto Tommy’s face as he stared Darby down. 

Darby narrowed his eyes, irritated at that remark. “I’ll show you what friendly means. Now!”

A hail of gunfire began and the sound of shots being fired filled the lane. It was chaos. Bullets flew and body’s fell. Punches were thrown and blood was spread. More men jumped out of the covered truck and ran to beat down the men on the other side. 

Tommy ducked and punched, kicked and shot. In the middle of punching a man in the gut he yelled, “Leave Darby for me!”

His men did just that. 

Thomas fought his way to the center of the fight, where Darby had just knocked out a Peaky Blinder. Tommy aimed his gun and walked forward, aiming at Darby. The fighting on both sides ceased.

“I didn’t bring a battalion to your town.” Tommy spoke clearly, in a raised voice. 

Darby aimed his gun as well. The two circled each other as men on both sides stopped to observe the interaction. They watched Tommy and Darby tread carefully, like two tentative predators waiting for their opposer to falter.

“You still showed up. That was enough.”

The two men were breathing heavily, a result from the brawls they just finished.

“What’s your purpose for being here, Sabini?” Thomas stopped pacing, his gun still firmly held up. 

Darby stopped as well. An obnoxious laugh left his lips. “Isn’t it obvious?”

Tommy didn’t move. He held a blank face, but his eyes still watched Darby with intensity. 

Not waiting for a response Darby continued, “I’m reminding you that I can take away everything you have in an instant. I already put your brother in jail, which it seems wasn’t a good enough warning for you, since you stupidly had him released so quickly.”

Darby took a couple steps toward Thomas, gun raised. 

“Killing me won’t do anything. I got people in place to still ruin you.” Thomas stated, his tone flat. 

Darby lowered his gun, a sickly calm smile spread across his face. It was an unsettling sight that made Tommy begin to think something was off.

“Oh Tommy boy, I’m just the distraction,” Darby’s eyes noticeably darkened, “How’s your wife these days?”

Tommy’s eyes widened and his finger pulled the trigger.

Darby fell to the ground dead, a bullet was lodged in the center of his forehead. 

Then like a wave, the fighting began again.

As soon as the gunshot rang, Tommy saw red. He shot, punched, kicked or swung at anyone in his way as he fought to get out of the crowd. He didn’t bother shouting an explanation to his brothers as he ran to his car. 

Tommy shoved his keys into the ignition and started the car. Tommy slammed his foot on the gas as soon as the engine roared to life. The car’s lights illuminated the carnage left from the battle. The Peaky Blinders were the last ones standing, as Tommy expected, but paid no mind to. His thoughts too consumed with conjuring the hundreds of horrible possibilities he might see upon arriving home, all ending with a bloodied image of Y/n.

John and Arthur ran towards the car, causing Thomas to slam on the breaks. 

“Where are you going?” John asked urgently. 

“They’re going for Y/n.” Thomas hastily replied.

John and Arthur jumped on the side of the car just in time before Tommy could speed up again. 

Michael and Finn watched as the older Shelby boys passed them. 

“Great. So we’re left to clean up the mess.”

At the house, Y/n held her book to her face as the door burst open. She turned her head and was met with the sight of a man pointing a gun at her. His clothes were clean and he looked very young. Her eyes flitted from the gun to his shoes, then to his eyes, then back to the gun. 

“On your feet.” He demanded. 

“What?” Y/n feigned innocence, despite her struggle to keep calm.

The man, gun still held towards her, trudged over and ripped the book from her hands, throwing it onto the floor. 

“I said on your feet!” He yelled in her face, backing away so he was a few feet from the bed.

She stared into his eyes, an impassive look on her face. Y/n looked back down at the gun. 

With a purse of her lips and a shrug she stated, “I’d rather not.”

The man’s soldier esc demeanor nearly slipped at her blatant defiance of his orders. “It’s not an option lady! Get up.”

She chuckled. “Y’see, lad. I’ve been on my feet all day. Have you ever worn heels for over six hours? Rather painful you know.”

Her cocky attitude betrayed her quickly beating heart that was full of adrenaline.

In an effort to scare her, he menacingly stepped forward. “I ain’t afraid to hurt you lady, but the boss wants you alive. If you keep disobeying me, I'm allowed to use force.”

She rolled her eyes. “Oh really, and who is your boss? I must thank him for not wanting me dead.” 

She knew she was playing with her life, but if this boy was as inexperienced as he looked, she would get the information she needed to warn Tommy. Granted, if she got out of this situation. 

“Sabini.” The man bluntly answered. 

Y/n swallowed. This wasn’t good. If Sabini’s men were here and not in London, she needed to warn Thomas immediately. Her heart pumped faster than she thought possible and every nerve in her body was on the verge of trembling from fear.

“I see.” Y/n turned her head to the foot of the bed. “Well, like I said, I’d rather not get up. Matter of fact, I’d rather keep reading. So be a dear and hand me my book, would ya?” She was stalling.

“C’mon lady, stop being stubborn. You don't even got a weapon to be making these demands.” The man sneered.

Y/n slowly adjusted herself so that she scooted away from the pillows that propped her up. She straightened her legs on the bed, her left crossed over her right. Then she leaned back on her arms, purposely pushing up her chest to show off her unbinded chest. Hopefully, he’d be dumb enough to look at her distraction, and he was. 

“Ah, well. It was worth a shot. I can tell that you're new to this whole— kidnapping thing. If you want to get better at it then you should learn this.” She paused before looking back at the man, “Always do research on your target.”

The young man’s brows furrowed, obviously confused. 

“If you did your research, like a good little gangster,” She began as she slid her left leg up off her right, causing her silk nightgown to slowly expose her leg. The man’s eyes roamed her leg once she stopped moving, leaving her left leg in a bent position. She reached for the hem of the dress and raised it further up her left leg, stopping until it got to her mid thigh, “Then you would know, that I’m always armed.”

In a swift and well practiced motion, Y/n grabbed the sharp, throwing knife from her thigh holster, and threw. The knife landed in the man’s chest, in his heart. Looking down at the knife, the man stumbled backwards, tripping over his own feet and falling onto his back. Blood quickly formed a growing splotch of red on his shirt. Y/n quickly stood from the bed to remove the gun from the man’s hand, she then crouched over him. 

She placed her hand on the knife handle, “It was a shame you didn’t do your research.” Then she pushed the knife forward, until she felt through the blade that it had really punctured his heart.

Y/n stood over the man’s body, gun in her hand, and watched the blood puddle grow. She backed away until her knees hit the bed and gave way. Letting out a shaky breath, she sat with the gun in her lap. In an attempt to avoid looking at the body laid in front of her, Y/n stared at the ceiling. 

The adrenaline began to wear off, and the reality of the situation dawned on her. She could have died, quite easily too. If her attacker had not been so inexperienced and if she wasn’t wanted brought back alive, she could have died. Then, she thought of her husband.

Tommy. 

Had the man lying dead on her carpet opened the door and shot, Tommy would have had to come home to her dead body instead. The thought of Tommy finding her body, cold and bloody, scared her more than death. She couldn’t imagine the pain of him being alone. He would blame himself for her death. He would say he couldn’t protect her, and he would loathe himself for the rest of his life. Tears began to prick her eyes and her throat tightened. She squeezed her eyes shut, willing the tears to go away and for her erratic heart beat to calm down. 

She killed a man.

That’s the only thought she could process. Her emotions muddled her thinking. Never before had she used her knives to kill. She used guns, from far away. She used punches to knock people out. She used her knives to injure, but never before had she needed them to kill. She was slightly glad for the memory of Tommy coming back home from an errand, returning with the thin knife holster that he insisted she wear when he wasn’t home. She was also glad that she made it a rule for herself to never take it off unless Tommy was home with her. 

Then, the silence of the house was broken again. She flinched. This time, the sound came from the front door slamming open and muffled shouts that she could only register as her name. 

“Y/n! Y/n where are you?” The voice shouted.

She couldn’t pinpoint who it was, not in her boggled state of mind, but she knew it was safe. So she answered. 

“In the bedroom.” 

Her eyes were still shut and her head faced the ceiling when Tommy rushed in.

“Y/n.” His voice was slightly breathless as he took in the sight before him. 

The room was covered in warm, candle light, giving a complete opposite tone to the tense atmosphere. His wife sat on the bed with a gun in her lap. A man, with his wife’s knife in his chest, laid dead on the ground and a puddle of blood surrounded his wound. 

Y/n opened her eyes and looked at her husband. She could see the fear and worry that filled his eyes, his face in slight shock.

Thomas was relieved to see his wife unharmed, but he could see the tears that were threatening to fall. Her slumped shoulders were signs of exhaustion. The way her chest moved up and down with heavy breathes told him she was on the verge of holding herself together. 

Arthur and John came bounding up the stairs next, and found their places on either side of Thomas. 

Y/n’s voice came out void of emotion, but her teary eyes said it all. “One of Sabini’s men.” She stated before turning her eyes to the ceiling once more, trying to blink away tears. “Please get him out of my sight.” The growing puddle of blood made her want to throw up. 

“You heard her,” Thomas said in a low tone, staring at his wife with concerned eyes. “Get rid of ‘em.” His voice was just above a whisper.

Arthur and John stepped forward, grabbing the man by his arms and lugged him out of the room. Only once the man had been removed did Thomas walk towards his wife. Only when he wrapped his arms around her did she let herself cry. She let herself sob and express how truly scared she was when the man burst into her room, and pointed a gun to her head. 

Thomas held her close and kissed her head. He whispered in her ear that she was okay, and that she did what she needed to do. Holding her close, he told her he loved her, and promised to never let anything like that happen to her again. 

Masterlist

well I tried

Edit: Bro this blew up in less than a day with 41 notes. Thank you♡

[tuiccim]

Almost Had Me Believing It - Part 4

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Reader    

Word Count: 1569

Warnings: Mutual pining, smut

Summary: An undercover operation playing Bucky Barnes’ wife is a dream come true. Playing house in the suburbs while trying to take down a drug ring brings you and Bucky closer but a nosy neighbor causes trouble in paradise.

A/N: Divider by @whimsicalrogers​

Almost Had Me Believing It Series Masterlist

A few days later you and Bucky sit at breakfast discussing how to get more information about Frank. 

“Well, we know one way I could get in his house but I’d rather chew glass.” You grouse.

“You, uh, you don’t find him attractive?” Bucky stutters.

“No. I mean, Frank’s a good looking guy, but he’s not a good person. He gives me the creeps, honestly.” You shudder. 

Bucky reins in his smile at hearing that. He hated the idea of you liking any other man. At some point while running through the meadow yesterday, he realized you weren’t afraid of him. He was chasing you and you had this glorious smile on your face. There was no fear or anxiety about you as he tackled you to the ground. You had laughed as he did it and held onto him during the ride as if you felt safe with him. It was nothing short of a miracle in Bucky’s eyes. Very few people in his life watched him approach them without some apprehension in their eyes or tension in their body and nobody looked to him as a refuge of safety but you had. He still didn’t think he deserved it but he was determined to be a safe place and friend to you. 

“He’s not like you.” You say the sentence, pulling Bucky out of his thoughts, while causing butterflies to erupt in your stomach. 

“Like me?” Bucky says in surprise. 

“You’re a good looking guy but you’re also good and sweet and kind. You want to help people, not destroy them, not hurt them. And you don’t give me the creeps.” You laugh lightly hoping to cover the emotions you feel towards the man in front of you. 

Bucky chuckles, “I’m glad I don’t give you the creeps.”

“Not at all.” You smile at him. 

“You’re a peach.” 

You smile at him and then the light bulb goes on over your head, “I have an idea.” You grab a large cup from the cabinet. 

“What are you doing?” Bucky asks. 

“Well, we are out of sugar.”

“No, we’re not. It’s right there on the counter.”

You take the container and dump it out in the trash, “Oops. As I was saying, we’re out of sugar. I’m gonna go borrow a cup from our neighbor.”

“How does that get us more information about him?”

“He’ll invite me in and I’ll plant a bug.” You say as you pull one of the devices out of your pocket.

“I’ll go with you.” Bucky says. 

“That’d look a little strange. Maybe he’ll let his guard down if I’m alone.”

“I don’t like you being alone with him.”

“I’ll be fine, Bucky. If I can take you to the mat I don't think I’ll have a problem with Frank.” You smirk at the supersoldier. Bucky gives you a nod and crosses his arms looking unhappy. “I’ll be back.” You say as you head for the door. 

Frank answers his front door within a couple of minutes and smiles, “Hey. What’s up?”

“I’ve come to beg a favor of a benevolent neighbor.” You repeat the phrase Frank had used a few days ago. 

Frank laughs, “Are you in need of coffee?”

“Sugar. I knocked the container over and lost it all on the floor. Do you have some to spare?” You keep your expression self-deprecating and sweet. 

“Of course. Come on in. I have all kinds of sugar you can have, gorgeous.” 

“I just need the white granulated kind,” you giggle as you slip past him into the house.

You follow Frank to the kitchen. He takes the cup from your hand and goes to the pantry to retrieve the sugar for you. Taking a quick assessment of the available real estate for a bug, you attach it to a space where you hope it can pick up sound in both the kitchen and living room. 

“So, I’ve actually been meaning to talk to you.” Frank says as he emerges. 

“Yeah?” 

“About a job.”

“Oh! Great. Where?” You ask. 

“Do you have any bookkeeping experience?” Frank asks. 

“Yes. I worked for a couple of small offices where I doubled as the office manager as well as nurse. I’m pretty decent at that kind of thing. Where’s the job?”

“Here.”

“What?” You look at him utterly confused. 

“You know I’m a landlord and I have several properties. I need someone to do billing, take the payments, handle utilities, deal with the tenant requests. The accounting side has never been my strong suit and I added three more properties in the past year. It would just be part-time. If you're interested…”

“Part-time is exactly what I’m looking for right now. Do you want me to bring you a resume?”

“I’ll take you at your word.” Frank winks. “Why don’t you come back after lunch and I’ll have everything together for us to look at?”

“Are you sure about this? I don’t want to take advantage of our friendship, Frank.”

“I’m sure, gorgeous.” Frank puts an arm around your shoulders as he walks you to the door. “I’ll see you this afternoon, right?”

“Okay. Thanks, Frank.” You smile as you head back to your house. You find Bucky in the office messing with the receiver. “Is it working?”

“As soon as you attached it, I could hear everything. A job offer, huh?” Bucky raises an eyebrow. 

“Yeah. A lot of access that way.” You smile. 

“A lot of time alone with you.” Bucky grouses. 

“I’ll be okay, Bucky. This is good.” 

--

You had spent the afternoon with Frank going over everything with him touching you nearly constantly. Your skin crawled but you managed to play him off. His books really were a mess and you arranged to work with him for the next few afternoons to get things in order. This would afford you the opportunity to plant more bugs. Hopefully, this would also help you gain Frank’s trust and get him to eventually reveal his not so legal dealings. Bucky was unhappy with your report of the afternoon. He did not like you spending so much time alone with Frank. 

“Come here, Doll.” Bucky beckons to you from the living room.

“What’s up?” You ask. 

Bucky puts his arms around you and his hands grab your ass, “Jump.”

You wrap your arms around Bucky’s neck and jump wrapping your legs around him. Bucky presses you against the wall and you whisper, “Frank watching us?”

“Yup.” Bucky says as he presses his lips to the side of your neck. You arch your neck to give him better access. “Thought he might need another show. Don’t want him getting any ideas that you working for him is gonna get him anywhere.”

“I appreciate that.” You are desperately trying to hold in your moans as Bucky kisses your neck and your hands grasp his hair. Giving in to your own impulse, you pull his head back and meet his lips with your own. Bucky melds his mouth to yours and you feel his hands flex their grasp on your ass. His tongue slides into your mouth and the moan you had been holding in slips out. Your hips shift of their own accord and you can feel Bucky’s erection pressed against you. Bucky pushes away from the wall and carries you down the hallway. He pulls his lips away from yours and gently lowers you to the floor outside your room.

“You okay?” He asks.

“Yeah, you?” 

“Yeah.” He looks at you for a moment. “I hope you didn’t mind. I know I was touching-”

“Bucky. It’s fine. You’re just trying to keep Frank off me. I appreciate that. Plus, you're my husband, right?” You smile. 

“Yeah. I just, I don’t want to take advantage of the situation.” Bucky says. 

“I know you wouldn’t do that, Bucky. Don’t worry, okay? Good night.” You hug him around his torso and scurry into your room. 

Bucky retreats to his room and flops down on the bed. You had reassured him that you knew he wouldn’t take advantage, but that’s exactly what he was doing. He saw an opportunity to touch you again and he couldn’t pass it up. You had felt and tasted just as sweet as the first time he’d touched you a few nights ago. You were the one who’d kissed him though. For a minute, he allowed himself to indulge in the thought that you had wanted it, that you had enjoyed it. That your moan had been real. The kiss had been real. The way you rolled your hips against him was because you wanted him, too. 

Bucky’s hand moved of their own volition and pushed down his sweats. His cock was painfully hard and he had to relieve the pressure. Fisting himself he remembers your sweet whimpers when he had rutted against you the other night, the moans you released as the two of you kissed tonight, and he imagines his hand is you wrapped around him. He thinks of how wet you would be as he presses into you and the breathy little sounds you’d make as he bottomed out inside you. “Fuck.” Bucky whispers as he imagined your face scrunched up in ecstasy. His hand speeds up as he pictures you riding him and he bucks up into his hand. “Fuck.” he whispers one more time as he comes all over his stomach.

Part 5

Masterlist

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Strikethroughs could not be tagged.

[spencersawkward]

*house call // wes (Dollface)*

ssummary: when her pet cat gives her a scare, Reader decides to call the vet to make sure everything is going to be okay. 

pairing: Fem!Reader x Wes

word count: 5.4k

content warnings: discussion of cannabis/cannabis consumption, unprotected penetrative sex, use of nicknames (baby, sweetheart), SoftDom!Wes, breeding kink, creampie. 

request: can you do a wes smutty one shot if you’re down?! 

A/N: to be fair, i haven’t watched Dollface in a minute, but i’m obsessed with the domestic vibes that Matthew gives off when he plays Wes and i just thought it would be super cute. anyway, this was super fun also i wanna fuck Wes. ok enjoy!

masterlist

the absolute best part of your day is when the package arrives at your doorstep. you impulse-purchased it about two weeks ago while you were hanging out with one of your close friends, and you've been looking forward to trying it every day since. 

or, really, for your cat to try it. 

you've read reviews and been extremely diligent to make sure the stuff is completely safe, and everything you've seen or read was singing the praises of this cat weed (which isn't actually cannabis at all, but catnip made to look like it).

as you take the cardboard box to the kitchen table and pry open the top with the help of a Swiss army knife, you're grinning. Klimt comes scampering into the room to see what all the fuss is about, sitting at your feet with his tail curled around his legs. 

"no peeking." you scold him gently. your kitten, the friendliest little rescue tabby around, simply stares blankly back. when you remove the wrapping from the glass jar and stare at it up close, you're impressed by how realistic it looks. the label shows cat-friendly ingredients only, but you unscrew the top and get a whiff of catnip. 

Klimt begins to weave in between your legs, nudging them affectionately and beginning to purr. you giggle and bend down to give him a few pets. his nose twitches; he tries to sniff at the foreign object, but you put it back on the table. 

"don't be greedy, babe." you scratch between his pointed ears and he lets out a whiny meow. 

it's about his dinner time, and you were hoping to give him his treat tonight after he finishes his dry food. so you make yourself something simple with the leftovers in your fridge and do some more work on your laptop while you two eat together. 

you've had Klimt for a while, now. you call him a kitten even though he's a full-grown cat-- he's just as playful and enthusiastic as any newborn. his eyes are the color of meadow grass, and his nose is scattered with tiny freckles. it makes him look like he's just come from digging around the backyard, but it really just adds to his charm. 

not to mention his ceaselessly social tendencies: Klimt is always around when your friends come over, worming his way in between you or sitting on one of the free chair cushions to listen. you wonder if he knows what you're saying sometimes, because when you talk about the embarrassing things you've done that day or the failed interactions you've had, he always lifts his head to give you something of a judgmental stare. 

once you've settled down for the evening and turned on the TV, you decide that now is the time. Klimt is aimlessly poking at a few of his toys. he bats at a fake mouse between his paws.

"kitten," you click your tongue and get up to grab the jar. "are you ready to try this stuff?" 

as if he's going to answer. he hears your footsteps coming back his way and watches patiently. it's only when you pour out a little bit in front of him that he gets curious about the stuff. you admire his movements as he bends down and examines. 

although you keep an eye on him while watching your show, you don't notice much of a change in him. he starts to roll about on the floor, which is to be expected, but it's only when he starts to chase around his fake mouse that things get interesting. 

you laugh as Klimt goes nuts, jumping back and attacking the thing like he's ready to come in for the kill. it's really funny, but you're interrupted by your phone buzzing. you told your friend that you were doing this tonight. 

"hi!" you answer the FaceTime call right away. 

"how is he?" you can hear the smile in Andi's voice as you turn the camera. 

"he's loving it." 

"oh my god," she laughs. Klimt arches his back, leaping so highly in the air, you raise your eyebrows. "I wonder how long it'll last." she muses. 

"I'm guessing we'll get about an hour more of this before he passes out for the next two days." you joke. he gets strong bursts of energy usually, but they only last so long until he's curled up on the window sill or in your bed. 

Andi and you talk for a while as Klimt tires himself out and plays with all of his favorite toys. you dangle a string in front of him for a decent amount of time, too, just to make him get up on his hindquarters. he's a natural entertainer, a lithe little thing who lets out a few irritated meows to demonstrate his impertinence. 

after about forty-five minutes, however, you notice your cat's behavior change. he keeps raising his hackles and rolling about, and something about it makes you nervous. he doesn't usually act like this, not even when he plays with the other catnip toys he's accumulated. 

"what's wrong?" Andi notes your furrowed brow as you look past the camera of your phone and at your pet. 

"he's just acting really weird," you pat the couch cushion to call him over, but he doesn't even glance up. "I don't know why." 

"maybe it's the cat weed." she suggests. you purse your lips and try to think. 

"yeah, but nobody in the reviews ever mentioned anything like this."

"I'm sure he's fine, Y/N."  

"yeah, I know..." but you're worried. Klimt is your pal, your cuddle buddy. as he rubs his cheek against the wooden floor, you feel guilt pool in your stomach. if he's hurt because of some dumb online purchase, you're never going to forgive yourself. "I'm gonna call the vet just to be sure."  

"oh, okay," she sounds surprised, but doesn't try to stop you. "let me know what they say." 

"I will." you hang up the phone and stare at your companion for a few seconds. he leaps into the air and does a somersault before letting out some deeply disturbing whine that reminds you to call the vet. better safe than sorry.  

...

when the doorbell rings, you're practically twiddling your thumbs anxiously. Klimt hasn't settled at all, and you haven't even bothered to change out of your lounging ensemble. you're pretty sure you look a mess, but hopefully the person won't care too much. 

you don't know who to expect-- your usual vet is an older woman who is friends with your mom, but her receptionist said she was out tonight and would send over another vet to check it out. 

when you swing open the door, you immediately regret the decision to stay in sweatpants. 

"hi, I'm Wes." the guy gives you a friendly smile and holds up his bag. it's almost comically old-fashioned, something out of an old movie, and you half-expect him to be wearing a stethoscope around his neck. 

he's gorgeous, though. definitely a good amount older than you, tall with brown curls and stubble. his features stand out to you even under the porch light, and your mouth guppies idiotically. 

"hi," you manage. his eyes flicker to your hand, which is seemingly blocking him from coming inside the house, and you jolt back a little to let him in. you clear your throat. "sorry." 

as he steps inside and you close the door behind him, getting one tiny moment to yourself, your eyes widen. way to make yourself look like a bumbling fool. 

"I heard that there's a tabby who got into some catnip?" you catch him looking around the front of your house, eyes catching on the framed photos before finding yours again. you can feel the heat creeping up your cheeks, but nod confidently.  

"yeah, Klimt. he should still be in the living room." 

"Klimt? like the artist?" he chuckles and follows you into the rest of the home. his voice has a nice timbre to it, something low and gentle that fits well with his occupation.  

"yeah, exactly." you turn to smile at him. 

you hear the cat before you see him. he's climbed to the top of his cat tree and leaps down onto the ground, paws hitting the surface in a way that can't have been comfortable. he chirps and looks up at Wes, whose lips are turned up with amusement.    

"are you the man of the hour?" he asks, approaching the cat. Klimt's pupils get enormous and he prepares to pounce on the newcomer. 

"careful--" you start to warn him, but the cat launches himself right into Wes' arms. the vet turns to you, holding him to his chest, and grins. warmth spreads over your skin with embarrassment. "sorry." 

"no need to apologize," he starts to pet Klimt, who is only slightly struggling to escape. he wants to go wild again, but Wes isn't going to let go. "they call me the Cat Wrangler at the office." 

"really?" you snort. he brings your pet over to the couch and sets him on the cushions, careful to keep him in place. 

"no way." he shoots you a dazzling smile. the joke makes you giggle, and you feel yourself become even more self-conscious about the outfit you're wearing. this is just your luck, having hot guys come over when you distinctly look your worst. 

Wes scratches between Klimt's ears and glances up at you again. "is there any reason in particular you're worried about the catnip?" 

"yeah, actually," you nod, brought back to reality. "I know it's supposed to make them more playful, but he's just been acting weird and I got worried that there was something in it that messed with his head." 

"can I see the container for it?" he asks. you go to grab the jar, only to remember that it proudly announces itself as cannabis for cats. profound embarrassment causes you to hesitate with the stuff in your hands. 

it's not like he's here for you to flirt with, but you're still thinking about how stupid and young you're going to look with this stuff in front of him, a hot older guy who seems to have his life under control. you peek at him once more from the kitchen, at the way he smiles and starts to talk softly to Klimt as if he were a peer. 

he's kinda crazy, and it makes you smile. 

"it's cat weed." you hand him the glass container, and Wes breaks into a grin as he looks at the front. 

"oh my gosh, I've heard about this!" his eyes move quickly over the label. you're in shock. 

"really?"

"yeah, it's hilarious. here, can you make sure our friend here doesn't move while I read the ingredients?" he gestures. the knot of anxiety within you loosens a bit. you nod obediently, going to scoop up your pet and sit him on your lap. he's still squirmy, but he doesn't look ready to attack either of you, thankfully. 

"hey, you." you greet your pal affectionately. his tail is wagging impatiently while Wes kneels on the ground beside the couch. there's a silver ring on his finger, but you notice with relief that it's not on his fourth one. 

when he sets the jar down on the coffee table with the kind of smile that hints at some secret amusement, you frown. "what?"

"nothing," he shakes his head. "Klimt is gonna be totally fine."

"are you sure?" you pet the feline's smooth coat. 

"definitely. you know how drugs affect people differently?" he asks. you want to say no, you don't know that because why would you, but then you remember that there is quite literally a glass-blown bowl sitting on your kitchen table. 

"sure." you reply honestly. 

"it's the same with cats: some just feel the effects a little more." he shrugs. you think this over for a second. 

"that makes sense." 

"yeah, I'd estimate about an hour more of this wildcat behavior before he takes a ten-hour nap." he cracks another joke and you find yourself totally charmed by him. something about the way he talks just makes your heart beat like crazy.  

"that's a relief." 

he chuckles and stands up, grabbing the bag (which he never even had to use) and starting to walk out of the living room. you can smell his delicious cologne as he moves past you.  

"sorry for making you come out here so late." you apologize from the couch. Wes turns to look at you with an easygoing expression. his free hand is tucked into his pocket.  

"no worries. you have a lovely home." he gestures to the kitchen, and then at the bowl sitting there in the open. you have to fight the smile on your face.  

"thanks." you're smirking. right before he's about to head back out, you ask a question that's been wriggling around in your mind since he arrived. "why no title?" 

"you mean, like, Doctor or something?" he stops in the threshold. one hand leans against it while he answers your question. you still can't get over how tall he is. 

"sure. I mean, you are a doctor, right?" it comes out more dubious than you intended, but he doesn't get offended, only smiles. 

"yes, I'm a doctor. I went to Davis." he points like the school is right outside your door. you nod.  

"cool." 

there's a silence where you just look at each other, and you forget that you look like you just rolled out of bed. he clears his throat. 

"to answer your question, I just go by Wes because you're not my patient-- Klimt is." he points to the kitten, who is now chasing his own tail like a dog. you snort at the sight. 

"how humble of you." 

"I know, right?" he's joking. you find yourself not wanting him to leave, even though you've really just met. he's so sweet and funny and handsome... your stomach is flipping over and over like a schoolgirl. 

and it's stupid that you can't think of one plausible reason for him to stay, but every step he takes shortens your time to think. so you just blurt, instead. 

"would you want a beer?" 

Wes pauses and looks at you, an unreadable expression on his face. "a beer?" 

"yeah, I mean... you came all the way out here and I just feel bad for causing a fuss over nothing." you scramble slightly to justify your words. you don't ever drink beer-- do you even have any? god, this is embarrassing.  

the vet checks the watch on his wrist, then smiles at you with a halting kind of enjoyment, before nodding. "sure." 

"okay, great." you turn on your heel to hide the grin on your face. he follows you again to the kitchen area and leans against the counter while you open the fridge. the best form of flirting you can manage right now is bending over shamelessly and taking your time to poke around. 

thankfully, there are three cold bottles left towards the back. you take out two and use the tool in one of your drawers to pop the tops off. he watches patiently, takes a sip when you hand the drink to him. your eyes meet. 

"so, what prompted the cat weed purchase?" he starts the conversation effortlessly, and you try to keep your eyes from wandering over the shape of him. now that he's just standing in front of you, you're noticing the way his sweater sits against his frame, his long legs and the way his head rests on an elegantly-proportioned neck. 

"I just saw it and thought it would be fun." you shrug honestly. he smiles.  

"do you think you're gonna let him try it again another time?"  

"I don't know," you cross your arms over your chest. "I'm a little nervous, but he also was having a lot of fun until I made him sit still." 

"fair enough." you both turn your gazes to the cat. he's nudging a little toy ball with his nose and watching it roll across the floor. there are tiny bells inside that jingle. Wes turns back to you. "what do you do?"

"graphic designer." 

"an artist." he raises his brows, impressed. 

"not exactly saving animal lives, but I get by." you take another sip of your drink. 

"it's not like that, mostly." he rolls his eyes playfully. 

"then what's it like?"

"I just see and talk to people's pets all day. it's a pretty great job, even when it's not. you know?" he's optimistic about it. you're drawn to his positive energy, to the way he smiles when he speaks like he's preparing to deliver a witty joke. 

 you're hopelessly attracted to him, and the space between you is becoming unbearable. even though he's a guy you just met, you can feel in your gut that something about this is just right. you want his body against yours. 

 "you okay?" he breaks what you only now realize is a silence, and you blink to clear the dirty images from your mind. 

"yeah." only thinking about you fucking me against a countertop. it must be the fact that you haven't gotten laid in a while or something, because you usually aren't this attracted to people within the first hour. it takes longer for you to even want to kiss them.  

"what kind of stuff do you design?" he seems genuinely interested as he shifts and continues to nurse his drink.  

"I work for a tech startup downtown, so it's a lot of website work to make sure it's navigable and pretty." you try to sum up your duties, but it's hard when his hazel eyes are so intent. he listens to every word.  

"do you do personal work, too? like, just for you?" 

"actually, yeah!" this sparks your excitement. 

"can I see?" his smile widens. "only if you're comfortable, of course."  

"sure." you're beaming.  

he stays put as you start to go out of the kitchen, but then you smile. "you can come with." 

"oh." he sets his beer down on the counter and follows you, slightly surprised. but you don't care; you were nervous before, but he's stayed for this long. maybe he wants you, too. 

once you get to your bedroom, you're grateful that it's been freshly cleaned. there's even a bouquet from the flower's market sitting on your dresser, and you head over to the desk to sift through the drawers for what you want. 

"cool room." he compliments from the threshold. he's careful not to make you uncomfortable, but also can't resist the curiosity that draws his gaze from wall to wall. you find the stack of papers and smile. 

"thanks," you place the folder in his hands. "these are some printed versions of stuff I did last year." 

Wes immediately begins to flip through the art. him seeing your stuff makes you nervous, so you pretend to focus on straightening up the few items that sit on your desk. you wipe your fingertip over a nonexistent film of dust. 

"these are amazing," he says, holding a card stock copy in between his index and middle fingers. "holy shit."

"thank you." you're trying to keep from smiling too hard. you can tell that he's being genuine with his compliments, and it makes your heart swell. 

"definitely. are you showing anywhere?" 

"at an exhibit downtown a couple months back, but I've been so busy with work that personal stuff hasn't really been on the table, you know?"

he nods in understanding and continues to go through until the end. when he's finished, he looks up and sees you, his eyes concentrated. he doesn't speak at first, and an undercurrent ripples across the room. there are about three feet between you, and you have no excuse to lessen it. 

he licks his lips slowly. you purse yours, unsure of what to say. 

"I'm glad you called tonight." his voice is lower, slightly uncertain, like he's testing the boundaries. except you don't want boundaries right now. you want to go wild on him. 

"me, too." you reply. it's in your eyes, that begging for him to do what you're scared to initiate. 

your tongue is pressed to the back of your teeth in anticipation. and when he sets the art back on your desk and comes closer, you feel yourself give in. bubbles of excitement travel up your body as he grabs your face and bends down to kiss you. 

it's full, passionate, not the kind of kiss you give someone you've just met. laced with desire and longing, you respond immediately. hands immediately run to his forearms, over his shoulders as he imposes beautifully on your form. it's so hard, you lean back slightly. your torso presses against his until he pushes you against the wall. 

the slight gasp that escapes your lips causes him to smile, followed by your moan and clutching fingers. the material of his sweater, the taste of him mingled with that sophisticated, gentle smell of cologne that you want printed all over your skin. 

"come here." he murmurs against your mouth and reaches down to the back of your thigh so you can hook your leg around his waist. you whine at the easy access he has to grind against your core, both of you desperate. 

"Wes." you pant into his open mouth. he sucks on your bottom lip before finding your cheek and jaw. his fingertips tighten around your flesh. 

"this feel good, sweetheart?" he checks in. coincidentally, his jeans grind against your panties at exactly the right spot and your hips jump. you release a pleasured yelp. 

"mhmm." 

"sounds like it." he latches onto your throat with a possessive excitement. you can feel him sucking and biting at the skin until you're positive there'll be marks tomorrow. you hope there are; purpled evidence of his touch. he digs his nails into your thighs. "you like it when older men touch you, baby?" 

he blows over your tender throat before attacking it again. you sigh contentedly at the way he mingles sensations for your pleasure. "yes." 

he grunts and nips at your collarbone, sliding the strap of your top down your shoulder so that he can effortlessly flutter his lips over the skin. you grip at him and toss your head back against the wall. his weight on yours is divine. it makes you weak, but that doesn't matter. he's practically holding you up at this point. 

when his hand pushes under the hem of your shirt and dances over your stomach, you arch your back for more. he's gentle yet firm, pulling you close like he wants to breathe your oxygen. he's tracing over your ribcage, all the way up to the valley of your breasts, before cupping one and moaning into your shoulder. 

he kisses you again with an aching hunger that can't be satiated. your tongues meet and Wes finds your hardened nipples beneath the thin fabric of your bralette. you sigh while he starts to circle one with his thumb.  

"you're perfect." he breathes. 

you want to bask in this moment, to enjoy the shock across your skin when he reaches his hand back down between your bodies to dip below the waistband of your sweatpants, but you're just so greedy. he could make you cum over and over and it would never be enough. 

"what do you want me to do to you?" Wes is hovering over your lower stomach, dangerously close to where you need him most. he's teasing. the warmth of his skin drives you mad. his breath brushes over the shell of your ear. 

"fuck me." it's the only response you can fathom. every other instinct in your body flies out the window and is replaced by a craving to sink your proverbial (and literal) teeth into him.

but he loves it, apparently, because he pushes you back against the wall with a nearly bruising force. "I can do that." 

with those words, he quickly grabs your other leg and lifts you into his arms, bringing you to the bed and laying you delicately on the mattress while you giggle. you stare up at him with an almost daydreamy lust. his cheeks are flushed. 

you only get a second of that heavenly sight, though, before he dips down and pushes your shirt up to see your tits and kiss up the chasm between your ribs. his stubble tickles your skin, which causes you to smile. 

by the time he's pulled your sweatpants off and tossed them to the side, you're whining for him to strip down as well. 

"what is it, pretty girl?" he murmurs against your tummy. when you try to squeeze your thighs, he pushes them apart. 

"I wanna see you." your fingertips touch at his sweater. he chuckles and pulls the garment over his head. it messes up his perfect hair even more and you love it, tangling your fingers in it. he bites his lip. 

"do you want me to taste you first?" he keeps stroking the inside of your thighs and staring down at the skimpy lace that you're positive that you've already soaked. you're making him crazy with the way you roll your hips against air, against nothing, seeking any kind of stimulation. 

"I can't wait." you shake your head. as nice as it would be, you're going to implode if he doesn't fill you up soon. he drags his fingers down your clothed slit and groans when he feels just how ready you are for him. 

"let's take these off then, okay, sweetheart?" he hooks his fingers in the panties and waits for you to nod before tugging them down your legs. you whimper at the cool air that hits your core, soaked and needy. Wes stares at your body on display for him. 

as he gets back up from the floor to kiss you again, you both work to remove the rest of his clothes. his skin is perfect under your hands. his chest is warm, solid, and when he climbs on top of you, his arms rest on either side of your head.

one hand comes down to grab his own cock and stroke it a few times before lowering himself to rub it against your throbbing clit. you whimper at the pressure; he's mindless when he feels how easily you cover him in your essence. 

"so fucking wet..." he groans while rutting against you. 

"Wes, please--" your breath hitches. "put it in." 

"begging?" he teases your entrance with the head and smirks. "good girl." 

"mhmm." you're smiling, but your mouth drops open when he pushes himself inside. 

it's a heavy feeling, him filling you up. he's thick and the stretching of your walls makes him groan and rest his head on your shoulder. he kisses the skin there while diving deeper into your body. 

you're shaking slightly from the mixture of pain and pleasure, his size forcing your body to work quickly to accommodate. your eyes are squeezed shut, but you run your hands over his back and shoulders to stay grounded. it feels like a dream. 

he starts to pull out, coated in your wetness while you whimper below him, and he grabs your face with one hand in a dominant, soft gesture. "okay?"

"yeah." 

he pushes back in. the air in your lungs is practically gone at this point, he's so deep inside. your eyes roll back and push your hips up to take him at a new angle. Wes finds his pace easily, rocking into your body at a manageable pace to let you get used to the sensation. 

every time his hips roll down and he buries himself in you, he presses on your clit and sends a new shock through your body. he leans on his elbows to get closer and feel every undulation of your body. you love how his thrusts force your legs apart, how he moans your name and causes the headboard to repeatedly hit the wall while maintaining eye contact. hazel irises that rake over your features with lust. 

"you feel so good." he speeds up a little when he hits a certain spot. you can feel him deep and hard, causing a small bump to rise in your stomach with each stroke. his voice is husky and dark. like a man starved. 

"fuck..." you drag your nails down his back. he groans at the red marks that you will no doubt leave for him. 

"clingy thing, huh?" he sucks at your throat affectionately. "I come over for one thing and you can't help yourself." 

hearing Wes speak through his own panting is like listening to a secret, and you never want it to stop. he's reveling in the sordid crush of his own wants, and the way he shoves into you shows you that he has no intention of slowing down for a while. 

"I'm impatient." you smirk. he pulls away to admire your expression. 

"so am I." he kisses your lips and starts to pound into you. the juxtaposition of his tenderness and the sharp snap of his hips to yours fills you with butterflies. you love how much he wants to ruin you. 

"Wes-- oh my god!" you whimper. he grabs your hips and yanks them closer to him so he can go as deep as possible, so he can hit your cervix. 

"that's right, sweetheart," he pants. you can tell that he's starting to lose control. "say my name. I want everyone to know what a good little slut you are for me." 

the commanding tone makes your body shake. "I- I'm cumming, Wes, please--"

"please what, baby?" he taunts. his index finger is tracing over your jaw. 

you don't know what it is that you're wanting, except more. as your form shudders and tightens, walls fluttering around his cock, you lose the capacity to speak. you grind your hips against him and cry out pathetically while he pushes you back down and slams ruthlessly into your pussy. 

"cum inside-- please, I need it--" you writhe. he groans at the request. 

"fuck, yes..." he sheathes himself. "take it."

you gasp as he repeatedly hits your weakest point and spills hot ropes of his cum inside you, still thrusting in and out and whimpering into your shoulder at the clenching sensation you give his cock. it's warm, strangely delightful, nearly sending you into another orgasm sheerly from the sight. 

he mutters unintelligibly as he empties himself in your pussy, but you catch a growled "so needy," between deep moans. you're clinging to him like you'll never have it again. you might not. 

he slows down, giving shallower thrusts while riding out his high and shoving his cum deeper inside. it turns lazy and messy, both of you panting, before he finally pulls out and rolls over next to you. 

you press the back of your hand to your forehead. it's sweaty from all the work he just put you through, but you feel amazing at the same time. your eyes keep flickering from the ceiling above to his rising and falling chest beside you. his nose twitches; he turns his head to look at your face. 

although you expect him to say something, he doesn't. instead, you just stare at each other. the air conditioner rattles gently in the background. you're not sure how long this lasts, this soaking in, but he's the first to break it. 

"hey." 

you find the corners of your lips turning up. "hi." 

"do you mind if I go get something to clean you up?" he asks softly, his fingertips finding your forearm with ease and drifting over it.

"sure. bathroom is the first door on the left." 

he gets up and you watch him gather his clothes, eyes glued to his perfect form. you can't believe you just had sex with your veterinarian. you don't regret it at all. 

he wanders out of the room and your eyes follow, only to see Klimt sitting patiently by the door. 

"what are you doing, perv?" you tease as he comes over and leaps up onto the bed. his kitten paws pad over the blankets and settle into the crook of your arm. you smile to yourself, recalling how sweet the vet was with him. "hey, Wes?" you call out. 

"yeah?" he comes back into the room with a warm washcloth and a small smile on his face. 

"would you wanna get coffee or something sometime?" you bite your lip. maybe he doesn't want to go on a date, but it's worth a shot.

"sure." he breaks into a grin that makes you giddy. thank god, because you really were hoping to see him again. 

you can't wait.  

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