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shybunnie20 · 1 month

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BFF!Eddie Munson x Fem!Reader

friends to lovers

★Locations ★My Masterlist

Summary: Eddie calls on you to help him plan his first date, and you wish that you were the one going on it with him.

Author's Note: This isn't quite as polished as I'd like it to be. But, I'm pushing through my last few weeks of college, so I'm working with the few brain cells I've got left lol. I still love how it turned out and the ending is worth all of the self-loathing, I promise.

No use of Y/N, est. friendship, ages aren’t specified but E & R are approx. in their early twenties & it’s an early 90s AU, Reader has never been asked on a date before. Mild angst with happy ending!

Word count: 8.9k

Warnings: Reader dwells on poor self-worth & feels undesirable, acts of eating and multiple mentions of food, includes swearing.

Nestled in the quaint corner of Campbell Ave and 2nd Street, you’re engrossed in a call with a customer, jotting down an order for two bouquets consisting of pink-white lilies and snapdragons. Your eyes follow the effortless glide of your glitter gel pen across the paper, detailing their contact information.

Similarly to Goldilocks, you’ve found a place of employment where the pace is just right. You can handle whatever tasks Joan, the owner, asks of you. Sweeping the wood floors with a stiff-bristled broom, tending to the plants, and arranging flowers adorned with decorative ribbon and crisp paper are all within your grasp.

This place gets steady business, but the concept of a lunch or dinner rush is nonexistent. However, you do face a unique kind of rush occasionally. Now and then, a frantic lover bursts through the doors, bug-eyed, having realized they’ve forgotten a special anniversary or birthday at the very last minute.

As you recite the customer’s order and callback number into the phone’s receiver, their confirmational “uh huhs” cut through the buzz of the line. Suddenly, your attention is diverted by the sight of a van pulling into the parking spot out front, slightly askew. A small smile teases the corners of your mouth as you make a conscious effort to refocus on closing the conversation at hand.

The plastic shell of the phone clacks as you hang up, and you watch Eddie hop out of his van, and round the front of it with an unusual pep in his step—more than you’d see his best days.

“What’s up, buttercup?” Eddie’s voice carries across the room, accompanied by a genuine smile that lights up his face. He strides to the register counter you’re currently manning, wearing a vermillion polo shirt embellished with the neatly embroidered String and Strum shop logo on the breast. His hair is pushed back from his face with a black bandana, resembling a biker-like edge, tied firmly to ensure no stray curls disrupt his work as he repairs guitars and sells instruments for commission.

In seconds flat, he’s already scrunching his nose like a bunny, sensing a sneeze on the horizon. Being in a room packed with fresh plants is nothing short of hell, but he’s willing to endure it for the sake of seeing you. While he can handle flowers in small quantities, the confined space never fails to tickle his system like nobody’s business.

Vision blurring with mild irritation, Eddie blinks hard to disperse it. “Hey, how’s today going?”

You shrug, suppressing a giggle at the wiggle of his nose. “As good as it can, I guess. To what do I owe this unexpected visit?”

Eddie sets a grease-stained paper bag on the counter that separates you, along with a cup of soda. “Figured you could use a midday pick-me-up.”

“Must be my lucky day because I overslept and didn’t have time to pack a lunch. Well, that and I found a penny on the sidewalk.”

Eddie crosses his arms and tilts his head. “Don’t give luck all the credit. I have instinctual powers, y’know. My Munson senses were tingling and I knew you were in need.”

“My hero,” You exclaim, clasping your hands and swinging them to the side like a swooning princess.

Eddie chuckles with you, watching as you wipe your palms on your apron and eagerly dig into the bag, pulling out a foam to-go box. As you promptly open it and take a bite of your lunch, you can’t help but groan and throw your head back in satisfaction. Your eyes meet his thereafter, causing him to twist his mouth to the side and momentarily look away.

“How much do I owe you?” You ask, your words slightly muffled as you continue to chew.

Minnie, Joan’s cat, gracefully leaps onto the counter to greet Eddie. She perches herself beside the cash register, allowing him to scratch under her chin. “Nothin, consider it a favor,” He says with a wet sniffle, the tingling in his nose unrelenting.

The silence that falls is comfortable for you, but he’s seemingly lost in his thoughts as he continues to pet Minnie. Then, he looks at you with a mischievous twinkle in his eyes. “Speaking of which, I just so happen to know a way that you can return the favor.”

Having taken a sip from your drink and another bite of your food, the inflection of Eddie’s voice causes you to slow your chewing. “And what might that be?”

“Come over later to find out.”

Your shoulders slump, eyes widened with mock defeat. “No! I can’t stand here and wonder all day. I'll die. The suspense will kill me.”

Eddie pouts mockingly, his sweet honey eyes betraying his faux-frown. “Then I'll be sure to have the prettiest floral arrangement for your funeral. Only the best for you.”

Your brows knit together in an authentic pouting. The irony of needing to meet an untimely demise to receive flowers from a guy isn’t lost on you.

He motions toward the untrimmed bundle of carnations on the workbench behind you. “Actually, if you’re not too busy,” Eddie smirks. “Could you string those up for me quick so they’re ready to go for your wake?”

“Ha-ha,” you leer, taking the next bite of your food rather aggressively. “You’re cruel, you know that?”

“I beg to differ since I surprised you with your favorite from Val’s and all,” Eddie retorts, biting the inside of his cheek.

You grumble, “Yeah, and it’s fucking delicious.”

Eddie checks his watch and huffs, “Alright, I’ve gotta get goin’,” he says, rapping his knuckles on the countertop and beginning to walk backward. “See you later tonight,” He points at you before spinning on his heel and exiting the shop.

The bulky keyring on Eddie’s jeans jingles loudly as he steps onto the sidewalk. Abruptly, he stops in his tracks. For a moment he’s frozen, and then he braces himself against the nearby lamppost. It hits him like a brick wall and he sneezes mightily.

Heads of nearby passersby turn in his direction, startled by the noise. As he straightens his posture, Eddie remains still, trying to find his center of gravity and regain his composure.

“You good?” You call out, your voice just barely reaching him through the propped-open doors. Taking a casual sip of your drink, you watch as Eddie steadies himself. Still clutching the street lamp with one hand, he manages to stick his other arm out and give a thumbs-up.

True to your word, you arrive at Eddie’s place straight after work. The sun is setting, casting a warm glow through the patio door onto the walls of the living room. The apartment is in its usual state of disarray, expectedly so, since it’s home to three guys who aren’t particularly concerned with tidiness.

Toeing off your shoes, you’re unphased by the subtle smell of dust in the air. What strikes you as odd is how quiet it is. Typically, at least one roommate is home, blasting the TV in the living room or music from their respective bedrooms. But the only sound permeating the silence is the erratic thumping and screech of the water pipes behind the paper-thin walls of the bathroom.

As you snoop around the kitchen, hoping to find a box of saltine crackers or really anything to stop the gurgling in your belly. Having come up empty-handed, you turn your attention to the resilient plant that you challenged Eddie to care for—Keanu Leaves, as he so proudly named it.

Finished with your fruitless search of the kitchen, you make your way into Eddie’s bedroom to settle comfortably into the chair that only you sit in; it’s your spot. While you get cozy, the beans rattle as they perfectly mold to your figure. You knock on the wall beside you, signaling your arrival to Eddie.

You resume the magazine left sitting open on the page you stopped on. You occupy yourself in the article about predicted spring fashion trends as you wait. After a minute or two, the pipes go quiet from the shower being turned off.

Eddie strolls into the room wearing nothing more than a clean pair of boxers. Droplets of water trickle down his toned and tatted chest. Harshly ruffling his curls with a bath towel, he smirks at you. “If it isn’t Little Miss Zombie, back from the dead.”

“Less than alive and in the flesh,” you reply, your annoyance at being made to wait all day still evident. You hold grudges better than anyone he knows, and Eddie is well aware that he’s not immune to being subject to it.

Your tummy rumbles loudly, the discomfort only emphasizing the sharpness of your tone. “When was the last time you got groceries? I didn’t see any preserved brains I could help myself to.”

“I’m definitely due for a restock,” Eddie says as he drapes his wet towel over the back of his desk chair. Then, he grabs the bottle of mousse from his dresser and dispenses a foamy dollop into his palm. “Funny you should ask, though. That’s sorta why you’re here.”

You flip the page of your magazine, not pulling your eyes from the glossy print. “You told me to come over to go grocery shopping?”

Eddie rubs his palms together to spread the product and then runs his fingers through his curls. “Not quite,” he starts, his tone cryptic. “I’ve been tasked with providing a meal, of sorts.”

Finally, you look up at him. Watching him scrunch his damp hair with the remainder of the product that’s making his palms go tacky, you wait for him to elaborate.

Eddie’s eyes flit to the other side of the room, rather than meeting your awaiting gaze. “I have a date.”

You stare blankly at the back of his head, as still as a statue while your blinking intensifies. Dumbfounded, you struggle to survive the bombshell he just dropped on you. It’s as if a nuclear explosion has shattered your eardrums, leaving his continued words to sound muffled through the high-pitched ringing.

A million and one questions swirl in your mind, only adding to the disorienting whirlwind of emotions. Since when is he dating? Why all of a sudden? As you try to piece everything together, you note that he hasn’t had any recent romantic interactions, at least none that you’re aware of.

You always thought he’d confide in you if he was seeing someone, but now you’re not so sure; especially since you’re only finding out about this now. Without a doubt, Eddie has never had trouble attracting attention. But he’s always seemed so content with the ways things are. So why now?

Eddie turns to face you, a splash of desperation in his eyes. “I feel like doing this is the best way to know if she likes me back.”

Your mouth has gone dry, and you try to sound more curious than interrogative, but it doesn’t quite come off that way. “Who is this mystery woman, anyway?” A couple of names come to mind, some of the most beautiful girls in town—none of whom you hold a candle to.

His side of the room falls quiet when he’s hit with your question. Eddie’s eyes drop to the carpet. While it might seem like he’s lost in thought, it’s actually a glaring sign of evasion. You can’t help but feel a little hurt by his reluctance to tell you who it is.

A small smile forms as he leans back against his dresser, as though he can’t keep himself upright during his current daydream. Folding his arms across his pecs and rubbing his jaw, eyes still downcast, Eddie begins to gush about her. “She’s just- god, she’s something else. The way she laughs, it’s like... the sun coming out after a storm.”

“Sounds like quite the catch,” you mutter, trying to keep your tone neutral. You watch closely as blush tints Eddie’s cheeks and his smile threatens to grow. Without saying another word, Eddie walks out and returns to the bathroom.

You’re quick to follow, hopping up from your chair. “Do I know her?”

“Technically, yeah,” Eddie answers. Standing in front of the foggy mirror, he wipes it with the back of his forearm. Then, he starts rummaging through the counter drawer for his pair of shears.

You stand just outside the open door, the lingering humidity from his scorching hot shower kissing your skin as it disperses into the hallway. Leaning back against the wall, you cross your arms like he did moments ago, albeit far more tensely. Technically? It must be one of your ex-friends, then. That would explain why he’s been keeping you in the dark.

It’s your duty to be supportive, but right now, you could hurl. The thick nausea swirling deep in your gut is a storm raging within, overpowering your ability to stay present.

While trimming his bangs over the basin, the shears glint in the hushed light of the wall sconce. Eddie steals a glance in your direction, but his eyes dart back to his reflection too quickly to catch the discomfort etched on your face. “So you’ll help me, right?”

As you watch yourself anxiously wiggling your toes inside your sock, you mumble, “I can't if you won’t tell me who it is.“

“Sure you can, you’re a girl. You know how this stuff works.”

You scoff, your brows shooting up as your head jerks back. You open your mouth to object, but he promptly cuts you off.

“Ah, ah! Slow your roll,” Eddie cautions, pointing the shears in your direction. “I’m not saying you’re all the same, but there’s gotta be some common ground of expectations, right?”

You don’t have the strength to argue, so you reluctantly allow for his generalization. “I guess so.”

“Like yeah, I could just study one of those lady magazines you’re always reading. But then I wouldn’t have a way of knowing what is and isn’t bullshit,” Eddie explains, his tone half-joking. “That’s why I’m going straight to the source, oh, wise one.”

Far too consumed with trying to narrow down who the chick could possibly be, you can’t be bothered to give him a huff of amusement through your nose. “Can I at least have a hint?”

“Nope,” The shears hit the countertop, their metallic resonance echoing against the porcelain. He pivots to face you, hands resting on his hips. “Alright, Sherlock. How about you quit trying to crack the case and help me pick out a tie.”

“A what now?” You squawk, eyes widening in disbelief.

Eddie chuckles softly and rinses the hair trimmings down the drain, then flicks off the bathroom light. “I have to dress for the occasion. This is a big deal for me,” he elaborates as he strides back into his room. “For her and me.”

Once again, you find yourself on his tail, trailing close behind back into his bedroom. You unfold your arms and instead, start to rub the inside of your wrist with your opposite thumb. “Yeah, I get that. Just seems a bit out of character for you.”

Rifling through his closet, Eddie pulls out a hanger with a navy button-up shirt and nonchalantly tosses it onto the end of his bed. “Maybe, but at least she’ll know I’m taking this seriously,” Eddie says while reaching for the high shelf to retrieve a tattered shoebox. Lifting the lid, he presents it to you. “Here’s what we’re working with.”

You step closer, your fingers deftly plucking out the rolled ties one by one, laying them flat beside the slightly wrinkled shirt. Side by side, your shoulders nearly brush. Meticulously comparing the patterns and colors, neither of you seems drawn to any particular one.

“Here, maybe it’s better to do it this way,” Eddie suggests, picking up and beginning to slip into the shirt. His thick fingers falter as he attempts to maneuver each small white button through its corresponding hole. Once halfway dressed—having tastefully paired his plaid boxers with a dress shirt—he smooths out the material from his chest to his belly.

Eddie reaches for the nearest tie and lays it against his shoulder. He faces you expectantly, anticipation evident in his gaze, awaiting your feedback.

Your eyes flit between the tie he’s holding, the array laid out on the bed, and the hopefulness in his round eyes. “These are easily the three ugliest ties I've ever seen. No offense.”

He blows a playful raspberry at your harsh criticism and shakes his head. “None taken, they’re not mine. But Wayne might be a little hurt when I call him next and tell him you said that.”

Shooting him a pointed look, your brows furrow in skepticism. “You wouldn’t dare.”

“I just might,” Eddie teases with a smile before turning his attention back to the bed. He tosses the first tie aside and reaches for the mustard paisley one. “What about this one, does it compliment my eyes?” He bats his dark brown lashes.

You clutch your chin in contemplation, carefully assessing the combination of hues. However, the richness of his chocolate irises captures you. You wade in their depths. The hot flash that envelops your body is enough to break the trance he inadvertently put you under. With a disapproving shake of your head, you dismiss this tie as well. “Nope, next.”

Eddie looks at you for a moment longer, even though you’re not doing the same. A faint frown creases his features as he tosses the vetoed tie aside, forming a rejection pile.

You pick up the remaining tie and drape it over his shoulder, admiring the harmonious pairing of the navy in the tie with the shirt, accentuated by its white and black diagonal stripes. While you ponder, Eddie watches your face intently, holding his breath.

You nod, a trace of delighted approval in your expression. “We have a winner.”

“Hell yeah, blue on blue it is,” Eddie exclaims. He wraps the tie around the back of his neck but struggles to recall the proper technique for tying it. Attempting a few different nonsensical loopings, he groans, his determination waning. “Stupid son of a bitch, wouldya just-”

“Don’t hurt yourself. Let me do it," You offer. Not receiving protest, you step closer to him.

Eddie uses one hand to gather his product-enhanced curls into a makeshift ball, allowing you to access the collar of his shirt. He juts out his freshly shaved chin, granting you ample room to work. Standing this closely, you catch the clean scent of shaving cream lingering on his skin.

You begin to effortlessly tie the knot. Without pausing to consider what you’re about to say, the words spill from your lips, “Why’re you asking for my opinion on stuff like this, anyway? You should be doing what you think she’ll like, not me.”

“You always know best,” Eddie’s expression softens to something more vulnerable. “When you’re taking the next step in a relationship, you want everything to be as perfect as it can be, y’know?”

It’s common sense to him. No one understands him like you do, making you the perfect person for navigating this nerve-wracking experience. But for you, it’s perplexing. You’ve never been on a proper, formal date. The idea of one remains an unfulfilled pipe dream. Yet, here you are, agreeing to help Eddie plan his.

Your only frame of reference comes from romance movies and horror stories of dates gone wrong recounted by your girlfriends. Of all the things you could be in the world, you find yourself an unassuming tree. Sturdy and dependable, sure. You serve your purpose. But you don’t captivate onlookers with blooming petals like flowers do. Instead, you take pride in your intricately branched personality, valuing it as your true strength that often goes overlooked.

Even so, it feels as though your traits fail to enchant others regardless; nobody seems willing. You go unnoticed, and you’ve come to terms with that.

Beautiful wildflowers get plucked from the ground and carried away to be cherished. Meanwhile, you simply exist, rooted in no man’s land, devoid of admirers. You may stand tall, but you’re easily overshadowed by what other women have to offer.

Perhaps this is why you like working at the flower shop. It’s somewhat cathartic to witness the delicate petals fall from time to time. It brings you a strange sense of satisfaction to hack away at their stems. The best part, though? While it’s a little twisted, you know that those flowers that dazzle in their pristine state are destined to wilt. They’ll shrivel and brown.

Whilst among your shared group of friends in public, you’ve witnessed Eddie getting nudged by one of the guys to direct his attention to a smoke show walking by. You watched as they bit their knuckles and exaggeratedly gawked. You don’t compare, it’s not even apples to oranges. It’s like… apples to rocks. A delicious, shiny fruit compared to you, mere clunky chunks of earth.

If life were an album, you’re the track that everyone skips within seconds of hearing the intro. Except for those rare moments when someone half-listens by accident and they resonate with you—that’s how you and Eddie became friends. He’d stumbled upon his new favorite song, one worth revisiting. What he sees in you is what everyone else overlooks.

Eddie is the only man on the face of the earth who treats you like you’re worth being around. Only an oddball would prefer to spend time lounging beneath the shade of a crooked tree instead of homing a rose in a crystal vase. That’s one thing you love about your best friend; he doesn’t make you feel like you fade into the background.

All fairytale cliché bullshit included, you want to be sought out in a crowd. You want to light up the room for someone. Much to your dismay, that can happen platonically too, and it has in this case.

If Eddie only knew how much the little moments matter to you—the ones where he makes you feel prioritized and valued. You know you’re not anything close to special or remarkable, but he always made you second guess that thought.

Obviously, you hadn’t meant to fall for him. It was kind of like catching a cold; one day, there was a tickle in the back of your throat that you didn’t usually feel. Unsuspecting, the days went on, and that sensation only worsened. You started to panic a little but ultimately continued to deny your worst thoughts.

Before you knew it, you were bedridden, bitten by the love bug. You didn’t go down without a fight. You thought that you could be strong and deny it access to your heart, but it had already invaded. So, all you could do was wait it out.

You tried to distance yourself, hoping to recover and act like nothing ever changed inside of you. But Eddie didn’t let you get too far away.

It wasn’t love at first sight, rather, a creeping plague. There was no swooning and giggling, no struggling to keep your hands to yourself. The change was undetectable. You were a frog in boiling water, unaware of the gradually rising temperature until it was far too late.

It wasn’t until your chest started to ache every time you said goodbye at the end of spending time together that you realized you were in too deep. You genuinely debated going to the doctor to get the pang checked out, but luckily you didn’t. Otherwise, you’d have wasted a good chunk of money to find out that you’re a lovesick idiot.

Unfortunately, this is an illness you’ve been stuck with since, and you’ve at least learned how to distract yourself from it. But when you fail to do so, your imagination wanders. Naturally, you’ve wondered if pressing a mere kiss to his cheek would burn everything to the ground.

The forbidden territory beckons, tempting you to envision breaking those unspoken agreed-upon rules that forbid things like hand-holding and cuddling. The two of you uphold mutual respect, adhering to the expectations of friendship. Both of you reserve that level of touch for expressions of romantic affection. Actions such as those have no place in a true friendship.

That’s the most confusing part of this for you. How did you manage to catch such strong feelings for him when you’ve not crossed any lines? Sure, he’s a tactile person; maybe that has something to do with it. Eddie makes physical contact with those he trusts, but it’s not like he’s hanging off of you at any given moment. You receive the same treatment as the others in his inner circle: a hand on the shoulder, a pat on the back, and a brief gripping of the forearm to get your attention.

You’re not supposed to want the touches to be more frequent, much less of a different nature. The line has to be drawn somewhere, and it’s been plainly drawn in the sand. You understand and accept that. But why, of all lines in the world, does it have to be this one that you want to cross so badly?

Most of your days aren’t all that miserable. But there are those days that are more difficult than the rest, though it’s not his fault. Last weekend, the two of you were at a mall, and some chick waved at him flirtily. He returned it immediately, though playfully enough that it was almost mocking. He was fucking around and had no intention of entertaining the idea of approaching her. Regardless, it was humbling for you, to say the least.

In that moment, the world reminded you that there’s a reason you walk at his side at a respectable distance, not tucked under his arm. If anything, it’s for the best. There’s a sense of liberation in admiring him without the burden of articulating your feelings. There’s no pressure to meet a girlfriend quota or live up to a higher standard. What Eddie expects of you now is what you’re capable of, and clearly, all that you’re good for. You’re good for filling the void, but apparently not so much anymore.

You’re not lustrous and aching to jump his bones, and you’re certainly not desperate enough to kiss him on a whim by not allowing yourself to overthink it. But perhaps you are just desperate enough that a man simply paying your emotions, interests, and existence of any mind can shackle you to him. That has to be what’s done you in; Eddie gives a shit about you.

In reality, there’s more to it than that. Eddie is selective about who and what he lets in. He doesn’t care for conformity and lack of individuality. The idea of blending in with the majority of society repulses him. You find the flawed aspects of the Munson doctrine fascinating and raw. He’s not perfect and Eddie doesn’t care what others think of him, to a degree.

Not unlike you, he’s complex. Eddie is anti-establishment but still prefers a bit of structure over chaos in his day-to-day life. He’s independent and cynical as hell, but he’s also appreciative of his support systems and isn’t ashamed to rely on them. He’s not much of a rule breaker nor is he rebellious, but he’ll happily stir up a little trouble in good fun if given the opportunity.

Eddie is a hypocrite in some ways and a walking contradiction in others. You love that he’s unapologetic about being that way. He owns it for the most part, and you admire that.

His presence overstays its welcome in your thoughts. You’ve often yearned for him to call you in the dead of night, admitting that he can’t sleep without the sound of your voice. Many times, you’ve fought the urge to do that. He owes you sleep, countless nights of it. It’s a debt that will never be repaid, an outstanding balance.

Despite the attempts at trying to talk yourself out of it, you still can’t bring yourself to stop loving him. Even as he’s actively pursuing someone else, you’re unable to shake this. You could be paralyzed from head to toe, and you’d still feel the love you have for him in your bones.

Once Eddie is officially with someone, he won’t have much time or energy left for you. The anticipation of being thrown aside for something new and far prettier has shattered your heart before any changes have occurred. Yet, any fragment of his presence surpasses total absence. The greed isn’t worth it, and you know you should be grateful for getting any piece of him at all.

The phrase fizzles on the tip of your tongue like a smoldering ember, threatening to sear through the muscle… I’m happy for you.

You should say it, but you can’t. Because if you did, that would be a blatant lie. It’s not even possessiveness that has you so bitter, it’s envy. You wish you were in her place.

“There,” you adjust the knot with a delicate tug, ensuring its tightness before letting the material slip through your fingers. Unable to meet his appreciative gaze, you offer a sad smile and take a half-step backward.

Your sigh, cleverly concealed as a deep breath, escapes as you settle back into your chair with a plop. “So, um,” you begin, picking at your cuticles absentmindedly. “Where are you taking her? Somewhere fancy?”

“Nah,” Eddie meticulously revamps his curls one final time in the mirror, wanting them to fall just right. Then, with great care, he tames his bangs to lay perfectly in place. “She’s gonna come over here. I thought it’d be more intimate. Besides, I can’t exactly swing a reservation right now. I’ve been tight on cash this week.”

Your fingers come to a halt, the stinging sensation apparent. Looking over at him, your eyes meet his in the reflection. “Ya big dummy, you shouldn’t have bought me lunch when that money could’ve gone toward buying her a nice dinner.”

“Don’t start with that shit,” Eddie warns as he digs through his dresser in search of pants to wear. “I’m happy to do that for you,” He adds, pulling a pair of dark jeans from the bottom drawer.

“It really did make my day, thank you.”

“Don’t mention it,” Having donned his pants, he nears his desk where his black grommet belt lies on the floor. Eddie threads his belt through the loops of his jeans, the buckle jingling before he secures it in place. “I felt better knowing you were taken care of.”

It’s only now occurring to you what he’s implied, and you think how absurd it is for him to host a dinner when he’s culinarily challenged. “Wait, since when do you cook?”

“Oh, I don’t. But you do.”

“Hardly,” you scoff, downplaying your abilities. Placing your magazine back in your lap, you flip the page despite not having read it. Unexpectedly, you feel the urge to quell his enthusiasm, to set him up for failure by trying to poke holes in his plan. “I mean, food is one thing, but atmosphere is another. Aren’t the guys going to be here?”

Eddie moves the clutter on his desk around in a quest to find something. “I kicked them out for the night.”

Like a spear plunged into your chest, you swallow hard. Not only is he having a girl over for dinner, but he’s gone out of his way to guarantee privacy because he’s hoping to get lucky too. More than likely right there, on that very bed, feet away from you. The cramped twin-sized mattress, where they’ll inevitably be body to body.

He turns to you after locating what he was searching for, fastening the slightly fancier watch around his wrist; it only supersedes his casio due to it being analog, as opposed to digital. “I’ve been wanting to try that dish you keep raving about. You can teach me how to make it. Two birds, one stone.”

“It’s not difficult, you could handle the recipe,” You shrug away the opportunity to cook with him because the domesticity of it would more than likely kill you.

“I wanna do it together,” his voice softens, genuinely asking as nicely as he’s capable. “Please.”

“Sure, yeah,” you maintain your downcast gaze and slump back in the chair, wishing for a black hole to open and swallow you up. “What if she doesn’t like it, or what if you don’t?”

“If you like it then it has to be good.”

Eddie’s seemingly endless compliments cause no sense of flattery. Instead, you’re consumed with persisting nausea as you envision a stunning girl seated across from him while they share laughter and partake in unspeakable activities in this very room.

Abruptly, a wave of heat washes over you, causing the soles of your feet and your palms to grow clammy. The scent of newly sprayed Old Spice floods the room and you’re overwhelmed by it, struggling to draw a breath. “I’ll be right back,” You all but choke on your words, swiftly rising to your feet and hastily leaving. Eddie watches curiously as you do.

In the living room, you push the heavy sliding door aside, stepping out onto the balcony to catch your breath. You inhale as deep as physically possible, and the stirring evening breeze cools the hot tears gathered along your lash line. Cars pass by, and you distract yourself by watching a person leisurely walking their dog. You do everything in your power to divert your thoughts away from him and the impending date.

A few minutes later, Eddie emerges from his room and slides open the door to the balcony, poking his head out to check on you. “Y’ready to go?” The shift in your energy is immediately evident to him, though he can’t quite pinpoint what’s amiss. He figures you’ve had a long day and you’re tired from your shift. Maybe you’re a little hangry, too.

With your arms folded on the balcony rail, you continue to look out into the neighborhood. “Go where?”

“The store, duh. We’ve gotta get ingredients, do we not?” He says to the back of your head.

You nod meekly before turning to face him. “Right. Yeah, I’m ready.”

Eddie flashes a warm smile before sliding the door open wide enough for you to pass through. “Let’s blow this popsicle stand then, hot stuff. We’re losing daylight,” He says, striding toward the front door.

Arguably, you’re not losing daylight fast enough. You wish the sun would fall from the sky. That way, it would always be dark and you could hide in the shadows forever. You follow him inside and slide the closed with a subdued thud.

His car keys drag and jingle while he swipes them off of the counter. Once he reaches the entryway, Eddie drops the keys on the floor beside him as he kneels to put on his sneakers. A few seconds later, you’ve joined him to do the same. Eddie glances at you as he feels the evening breeze that slipped in finally reaching this side of the room. “It’s a little chilly out, wanna borrow a hoodie or something?”

Quickly tying your shoes to avoid prolonged eye contact, you get to your feet, hugging yourself as you do. “No, I’ll be fine.”

Eddie snorts and stands, his shoes now tied as well. “I’m getting you one,” He insists and heads to his room, gesturing for you to follow.

“I said I’ll be fine without one,” You opt not to follow, instead calling out to him to compensate for the distance and his half-open door.

“Shut up, I’m getting you one and you’re gonna wear it ‘cause I said so,” his tone drips with feigned amusement at your stubbornness. “Come in here.”

As you step into the room, Eddie offers you the hoodie, watching as you just stare at it. “Sweetheart, put it on. You’re gonna freeze to death if you don’t. Then, I’ll have no choice but to cancel my super hot date because I’ll be too busy defrosting my ice sculpture of a best friend with a blow drier. You want me to blow you all night? I know you-”

“Okay, okay! I’ll put the damn thing on,” you say, begrudgingly taking it from him. “Happy?”

“Try elated,” Eddie smiles from ear to ear and winks at you, content that you’re allowing him to do what he deems best for you, knowing you’re too stubborn to do so for yourself. He’s got your back, always. Even if it means enduring a bit of attitude in the process. Eddie likes that about you, he always has. With a final glance, he leaves the room, flicking off the light switch.

Left standing in the dark bedroom, you blindly navigate the article of clothing to locate the opening. However, as soon as you go to put it on, it occurs to you that this hoodie is not fresh out of the wash.

The distant floral scent left behind by dryer sheets mingles with his natural aroma, enveloping you as you pull the sweatshirt over your head. He grabbed whatever was at hand, inadvertently submerging you back into the very sensory experience you fled from. The spicy notes from his cologne turn you into a human lava lamp, effectively melting you on the inside.

The mingling of Old Spice, tobacco smoke, his unique essence, and a hint of spring meadow flood your mind. You consider the idea of keeping the hoodie. You could tell him that you forgot to return it, and he’ll forget about it. Eddie can afford to lose one hoodie, he’d survive.

“Let’s go!” He barks, impatience peaking as nerves gnaw at him with each passing minute bringing him closer to the dinner.

Exiting his bedroom, you find Eddie stationed at the front door, propping it open with his foot. Once within his view, you extend your arms and twist your expression to emphasize your annoyed compliance.

“One last thing,” Eddie withdraws his foot, causing the door to slam shut, its latch clanging twice against the wood from the force. He reaches out and pulls the hood up, adjusting it to cover most of your head. “There.”

You stick your tongue out at him, your grin eliciting one from him in return. “Alright, let’s-” He begins, but instead of turning, he fakes you out and grabs both drawstrings. Eddie tugs them, causing the hood to cinch tightly around your face.

“You’re an ass,” You whine.

“Yeah, well,” Eddie turns around to leave this time and holds the front door open for you. “You’re stuck with me.”

With a narrowed glare, you fix the hood and your hair on your way out of the apartment. Eddie is close behind, closing the door and locking it. You take the opportunity to collect yourself and adopt a supportive, cheerful demeanor.

These are gonna be the longest two hours of your life.

You can’t fucking believe it. You’re preparing a meal for another woman, and doing so willingly. You tried to guide him through the prep process, but he grew frustrated. Now, he’s on dish duty, conquering the mountain of dirty dishes piled up on the counter.

She may be getting a delicious and intimate dinner, but at least you get moments like these. But soon enough, she’ll have them too. If everything goes to plan, the memories of these moments will be all you have left of Eddie. As you lose yourself in the sound of his voice, the ramblings about a sale he made at work eventually circle back to the topic of his evening.

As he excitedly goes on, his voice carries a boyish enthusiasm. Unseen by you, Eddie bounces on the balls of his feet while standing at the sink. Ten minutes seem to fly by unnoticed as you both focus on your tasks.

After taking the food out of the oven, his demeanor flips like a switch. “Oh, it’s time for me to leave apparently,” you acknowledge, barely having the chance to take off the oven mitt all the way before he’s practically pushing you out of the apartment. “Be sure to heat it up at 375 degrees,” You suggest as you struggle to put on your shoes fast enough.

“Sure thing,” Eddie confirms, “I’ll let you know how it goes!”

“Looking forward to it,” You lie. Eddie waves you off before closing the front door. Left standing alone in the eerily quiet hallway, you feel foolish.

Finally arriving home, you crawl onto your bed. The weight of reality crashes down upon you, and you physically collapse under the weight of your emotions. The pain in your chest burns up the back of your throat as you sob. This was a harsh wake-up call, but it’s what you needed to finally confront yourself.

It’s better this way. Not having to reject you outright or politely turn you down, Eddie doesn’t have to hurt simply because you are. This is best because Eddie doesn’t have to feel guilty or pity you. Just as you’ve loved him in silence, you can grieve the loss of him in it too.

Ten minutes pass and just as you’re starting to drift asleep from exhaustion, your telephone rings. The ringing in the kitchen pulls you from your room. You drag your feet on the way there, clearing your throat and taking a deep breath before answering the phone.

“Hey, uh,” Eddie sounds panicked, “Can you come back over? I forgot the most important fucking thing and-”

You cut him off, “Relax, I’ll be there in twelve,” Abruptly ending the call without another word, you rub your sore eyes, blow your stuffy nose, and splash your face with warm water. The last thing he needs is for his night to be ruined because he notices how hard you’ve been crying. If your feelings get in the way of him having a good time with the girl he’s head over heels for, then you don’t deserve his friendship.

Entering the building and letting yourself back into his apartment, you’re caught off guard by how different the space looks. He worked his butt off to tidy the living room and make certain that everything is presentable. Besides being notably neater, you also notice the faint smell of air freshener.

The apartment is blanketed in darkness, illuminated only by the flickering flames of candles and the light from the table lamp in the living room. Hushed music emanates from the record player in his room. It’s a genre you wouldn’t have expected him to own, because of how slow and romantic it sounds. You wonder whether he bought it specifically for this occasion.

Upon hearing the front door creak open, Eddie halts his pacing in the living room. “Thank god, you’re here.”

You teeter on the heels of your feet, feeling out of place in the carefully arranged setting that isn’t meant for you. “I really shouldn’t be. It’s quarter to seven, she’ll show up any minute now.”

Eddie makes his way over to you, rounding the dinner table and draping his arm along the back of the dining chair farthest from where you stand. “No, no. Don’t worry about that, she’s already here.”

Your eyes flit towards the bathroom, expecting to see a sliver of light escaping from beneath the door, yet the hallway is pitch black. There’s no dolled-up gal standing in his room either. You look back at him with a furrowed brow, confusion etched on your face. “Where, exactly?”

He can’t think of a time he’s ever had to remind himself how to breathe correctly. Eddie holds his hand out to you, his anxiety mounting. With hesitation, you extend your hand and place it in his. He wraps his trembling fingers around yours.

Rarely have you been in this position, and in those instances, it was never an act with deeper meaning. It’s only ever happened in urgent moments, like darting across a bustling street to avoid being separated—a mere safety measure.

Eddie’s attention fixates on your hands, willing them to respond to his touch. Then he notices your puffy, reddened eyes. “What’s the matter?” He asks, instinctively squeezing your joined hands.

“It’s stupid,” You pull away from him, retracting your hand to wipe away the smeared mascara beneath your eyes.

Rather than forcibly turning you to face him, Eddie gracefully moves around to stand in front of you once more. “I bet it’s not,” he says softly, his compassionate expression tinged with concern. He reaches for both of your hands this time, praying you can’t feel his pounding pulse through the contact.

Eddie delicately lifts your hands and peppers velvety kisses across the tops of your knuckles. The warmth of your skin against his lips sends a shiver shooting through his core, goosebumps rising across his body.

You emit a wet giggle from the shock, uncertainty, and embarrassment bubbling within you. “What the hell are you doing?”

He chuckles a little too, his eyes sparkling as they reflect the dancing flames behind you. “What’s it look like? This is all for you,” Eddie presses one more featherlight kiss to your hands before lowering them, but he doesn’t let go, keeping them securely in his own. “It’s our first date.”

You’re the prettiest little package of unusual. From the moment he first heard your song, he couldn’t shake you. Eddie couldn’t get your tune out of his system, but it’s not like he wanted to. Never before had anyone shown him such unconditional care; no one had ever gone out of their way to get to know him like you did. You’re the safest thing he’s ever known, but you’re also the scariest, in the best ways possible.

The thought of confessing how you make him complete, unlike anything he’s ever experienced, is nothing short of terrifying. Yet, the fear of not seizing the opportunity to love you outweighs the fear of rejection. There’s no turning back now.

Your eyes wander to the table, taking in the details: the thoughtfully arranged mismatched plates and silverware, the glasses filled with expensive wine. At the end of the kitchen island sits a teddy bear beside a bouquet. In addition to the flower petals, there are red, white, and pink balloons scattered across the floor.

You turn away before he can see your face contort, biting your lip harshly to suppress the sob rising in your throat. It’s all useless, though. A broken cry escapes your lips.

Eddie’s stomach lurches and pressure builds behind his own eyes. The change he just caused is palpable, the damage has been done. He releases both of your hands and plants his on the sides of his head, stepping away. “Shit, shit, shit. I’m such a fucking idiot. I read this all wrong, I thought-”

“You’re not and you didn’t,” you choke out. “They’re happy tears now.”

His frantic expression mellows out, his arms drop to his sides, and the tension in his body gradually dissipates. “Happy tears?”

You respond with a soft hum and nod, a grin forming as you admire the table setting and gifts once more before looking back at Eddie.

“Oh,” he chirps, wearing a cheek-splitting smile as he brings his palms to your face. He wipes away your fallen tears with his thumbs. Eddie studies your expression intently. “I didn’t mean to make you cry sad ones.”

“It’s not your fault,” You close your eyes, relishing the sensation of his fingers calmingly swiping along the apples of your cheeks.

“It is and I’m sorry,” Eddie inches closer, his toes now touching yours. “I wanted it to be a surprise ‘cause I thought spontaneity would make it more memorable.”

You look at him questioningly. “It’s not exactly spontaneous when you had me cook my own dinner.”

“Fair enough. You’ve got me there,” Eddie thought it was a foolproof plan. If you made the food, there was no chance that you’d hate it. “I went about this all wrong, huh? I should scrap the whole thing and start from scratch,” He becomes distracted, his train of thought shifting to how he’s going to clean this up and figure out a different approach.

“Don’t do that. Just ask me,” you grasp his forearm to regain his attention. “Ask me out and maybe I'll say yes.”

“Maybe?” Eddie scoffs airily, unsure if you’re teasing or genuinely undecided. He clears his throat and theatrically composes himself, gesturing with a downward motion of his hand in front of his face. “Okay, uh, would you like to have dinner with me?”

“No.”

Eddie’s mouth falls open.

“I’m fucking with you,” You smile devilishly and wrap your arms around his middle.

Finally, he can hug you the way he’s always wanted. Eddie brings you in close and tight, his arms encircling your head. “You think you’re so funny, don’t you?” He murmurs into your hair, inhaling deeply to indulge in every aspect of you he can.

“A little,” You laugh. You remain in each other’s embrace for a moment longer before easing apart, though still connected by your pairs of lassoed arms.

Eddie’s laughter melds with yours, the relief in his tone evident. “Now that the cat's outta the bag, I can finally tell you that I absolutely love when you’re a crybaby.”

You pull a comical expression, raising your eyebrows and widening your eyes. “What, why?” You take in the scattering of freckles across his T-zone while he responds.

“Honest to god, it’s mesmerizing to watch you experience things so intensely. It’s fucking beautiful,” With nothing but adoration in his eyes, Eddie strokes your hair, relishing the way it feels against his skin. “Can I call you my crybaby?”

“No, you cannot!” You swat at his chest and attempt to push him away, but he laughs smugly and brings you back in close. Your hands find purchase on his biceps, surrendering to him entirely. Locked in each other’s gaze, time seems to crawl.

Eddie’s hands, having made their way down to caress your hips, settle on the small of your back. “How about just baby?” he nudges the tip of his nose against yours, his voice taking on an almost sultry tone. “You like the way that sounds?”

All you can do is nod dumbly, watching his eyes fall to your lips.

Eddie mumbles, “Me too,” His hands flex where they lay, tugging you slightly so that your bodies are flush and you have no choice but to lean against him. “Would it be okay if I kissed you?” Eddie licks his lips, his eyes finding yours again, the chocolate pools of his irises swirling.

You nod, slide your hands up his shoulders, and wrap them around his neck. The air was stolen from your lungs, rendering your voice a ghost. Eddie leans in and his lips hover over yours, your eyes fluttering closed in time with his. Then, you feel the gentle pressure of his lips against your own.

For a few moments, you’re out of sync, a mere beat behind due to nerves. But after taking a brief breath, you find each other without trouble. When you slot your lip between his, it’s as though there’s a sunrise in his veins; a new dawn spreads through his body. You tug a fistful of curls at the nape of his neck, your lips clicking wetly with one another, chests heaving in unison.

When the two of you finally have to part to breathe, Eddie whispers, “Holy shit.”

“You can say that again,” You exhale, releasing the grip you have on his hair and soothingly scratching the area with your nails.

“I mean I could,” Eddie borderline purrs, tightening his arms around your waist. “But I’d much rather keep kissing you.”

“Hard to argue with that,” you smile against his lips and give him a quick peck, which he happily returns. Then, your mind begins to wander. “You got me flowers?”

He can’t discern if there’s a trace of disdain or disbelief in your tone. Eddie knows that you consider flowers cliché and overrated; after all, you deal with them all day. But just because you see them that way doesn’t mean he does.

Eddie pulls away slightly to get a good look at you, “Yeah, of course I got flowers for my flower. How could I not?”

Truthfully, he’s bummed about not being able to find a bouquet as exceptional as you. You’re unlike anything from this world, resembling something from his cherished sci-fi novels. You’re resilient, showing up any old rose or daisy. You unfurled your petals solely for Eddie and allowed him to see you bloom. Nothing on earth compares to you. So, a regular bouquet would have to do.

You comment with a slightly teasing tone, “I had no idea you’re a hopeless romantic.”

“Too much?” Eddie bites his lower lip, afraid that you’re offended.

“No, not too much,” you remove your one hand from his hair and rest it on his chest, drawing mindless shapes while you avoid eye contact. “Far more than I deserve though,” You’re slightly taken aback when Eddie cups your face without hesitation, forcing you to look at him. Despite his assertiveness, his touch is tender.

“Sweetheart,” Eddie’s eyes carry an intensity you’ve never seen, brimming with affection and sincerity. “You deserve everything good that this world has to offer. I can’t give you that, but I can give you all of me. That much I can promise.”

Reblogs are greatly encouraged and appreciated! ♡

★My Masterlist

tags:@nj01@tlclick73

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sonic-fankid-showdown · 11 days

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The Sonic Fankid Showdown: Round 1!

These are the match ups for the first round of the tournament! The polls will go up this Wednesday, April 24th and will be active until May 1st for you all to vote for your favorite fankids!

Image transcript under the cut.

Blair Acorn Rose (@icednebula) v/s Comet the Hedgehog (@sonicanon)

Gina (@meetje-rotyourbrainhere) v/s Cipher (@altairsarts)

Comet the Hedgehog (@sonic-polis) v/s Sunny the Chao (@wereh0gz)

Wafer the Chao (@pokeypoqi) v/s Leonid the Cyborg Hedgehog (@deimostes)

Sakura (@estellardreams) v/s Leo the Hedgehog (@aexonn)

Nova Rose (@spicychimera) v/s Blur the Hedgehog (@muffin-gods)

Spike the Hedgehog (@valerytheweirdo) v/s Spark the Sable (@sci-twi)

Flicker Prower (@burning-stars98) v/s Scrap the Hedgehog (@the-gay-ghost-king)

Fletcher the Fox (@susahnasomething) v/s Amelia Solaral (@lethalbreadkills)

Violet the Hedgehog (@t4tsurge) v/s Horizon the Jackal (@scorpiolight-madd)

Mordred (@mephiles-the-jester) v/s Lapis (@time-of-your-life-au)

Stellar the Hedgehog (@emthimofnight) v/s Rapidfire-Harley Davidson (@confused-bagel)

Nymph the Cat (@einelitas) v/s Sasha the Hedgehog (@sapphanimates)

Star (@sonicgetsrawed) v/s Punchline (@iihavenomouth)

Pegasus (@transzsonix) v/s Chroma Prower (@m3tr0n0m333)

Saydee (@kuroshirae) v/s Echo (@a-crow-with-a-pen)

Neso the Hedgehog (@foolnamedjoey) v/s Aryan (@totaleclipse573)

Dill Picke (@sonilver-yuri) v/s Smith (@koreyeet)

Winter the Lemur (@sonicrewrittenau) v/s Alice (@invisableartist)

Whistle the Wolf (@khalewren) v/s Calamity (@alex-chullin)

Splotch the Hedgehog (@thefakehedgehogaroundhere) v/s Tom the Hedgehog (@ShadowAndSonic96)

Twitch the Child (@colorfulplasma) v/s Mav the Hedgehog (@val-va2)

Vallerie the Hedgehog (@so-called-egg) v/s Aurora (@adhd-sonic-the-hedgehog)

Ebony (@idrptr3) v/s Castor Niclaw (@spiritofrainbursts

Emmie the Hedgehog (@head---ache) v/s Silhouette Rose (@galacticghoste)

Tulip (@silvers-starrway) v/s Sunshine the Hedgehog (@yellowvixen)

Pacífica the Cat (@saku0115) v/s Midnight the Android (@kristhesheep)

Aster (@afuntimepartyy) v/s Beau D'Coolette (@mischeva)

Blitz (@jestopolis) v/s Juice the Hedgehog (@sonlc)

Jade the Hybrid (@carnation-damnation) v/s Autumn (@artist-fan146)

Kaiko (@somemismatchedsocks) v/s Gigi (@w0lp3rtinger)

Ember Robotnik (@the-sky-queen) v/s Sprout "Sept" the Jackal (@snowpearart)

See you on wednesday, everyone! And good luck!

#sonic fanchild #sonic fankid #sonic oc #sonic fankid showdown #also!!! sorry there were some people it wouldnt let me tag properly #please let me know if i misspelled your url or something so i can fix it

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softlyspector · 10 months

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Honeyed

Summary: You hate being touched, but you might be willing to put aside your discomfort for a tattoo from Joel.

Pairing: tattoo artist!Joel Miller x f!Reader

Word count: ~11.7k

Warnings: slow build, no outbreak tattoo!au, reader has issues with touch and is mostly touch adverse, tattoos and getting tattooed (the reader only has one tattoo that is described in any detail), description of a past abusive relationship and a bad experience getting tattooed, insecurity, anxiety, loneliness, implied undefined past trauma with men, Joel gets to have both his daughters in this

A/N: We're ignoring canon and pretending like Joel can draw for this fic, thank you. I love this fic with everything I am and hope you all like it too. I'm trying something new with this header because none of the gif were giving me what I wanted, so I hope its not too cringe as I am not an aesthetic girlie. Thank you for reading! As always, I would love to know your thoughts! Please please please, be sure to leave feedback!

Summer is at its peak when you first happen by Joel Miller's tattoo studio.

The sky is a jewel bright, cerulean blue, the shining yellow saturation of the sun blurring the air around you in a washed out haze that reminds you of childhood summers past.

Main Street’s sidewalk is hot enough to fry an egg, hot enough to boil soup. It sends shimmering waves up from the asphalt. Blinding sunshine pierces through the tired trees that line the road, undulating waves of emerald green and twinkling golden light shifting over the pavement. The leaves wilt in the heat. A single cloud floats on the sky’s horizon.

The sun feels nice, maybe a little like you’re baking alive, but you don’t mind it. When you suck in a deep breath of that sun warmed air, you feel at home—it tastes like dust and heat and the slightly floral desert bloom.

The town, just a couple hours outside Austin, already feels more like home to you than the city ever did. It’s idyllic, lush with shaded parks, an ice cream parlor and a coffee shop, plenty of restaurants and food trucks, a walkable little main thoroughfare not far from your apartment above a bookstore.

It’s more than idyllic; it feels like a town straight out of a novel. Quiet and quaint and safe.

And, apparently, it has a tiny tattoo studio that you’d somehow missed on all your walks through town.

The shop looks a bit rustic—all raw wood tones and metal—but the art that hangs in the front windows is beautiful. Paintings that seem to be for sale hang next to artfully taken photos of healed tattoos.

You step closer, pressing a hand over your brow to block out part of the glare that rains down from the sky in glimmering waves.

The lone cloud in the sky slides over the sun in what feels like a moment of divine intervention, just for you, so you can see the displayed art properly.

It’s lovely, and your skin begins to itch and tingle with a need you know well. You know exactly what you’d ask for, from the hand of the person who’d created that which hangs in the front window.

You want—need—another tattoo. You need this person’s art to live on your skin, to make a home there.

You step back from the glass as the cloud drifts on and the sun reveals itself again, perfect golden rays slipping over your exposed skin. The world seems to filter back in to you then. The heat of the day, the hush of the breeze that does nothing to cool the air, the sweat gathering at the base of your throat.

Children shriek at the park a block over, splashing in the fountain at the center of it all, parents reclined on benches in the sun, cold lemonade close at hand. The scent of sugar and sun and fried food burns through the air.

The buzzing need only increases as you note the name of the shop and move on to the record store and then the clothing boutique, your mind still hovering in front of the studio.

As much as you would have liked to just burst in, you want more than what a walk-in appointment could probably get you. That, and you needed to do some research about the place before you decided, no matter how much your skin itched with want.

To your dismay, the tattoo shop seems to only have one artist, though it shouldn’t have surprised you, considering the size of the shop. It’s tiny and you doubt there was room for more than one artist to comfortably work there.

A fairly new instagram account lists his name as Joel Miller, owner of, and soul artist at, the studio you had passed. The shop doesn’t seem to have a website, but the few google reviews that it does have are all glowingly positive.

Bookings appear to be wide open according to the instagram bio, but a different kind of itch crawls under your skin at the thought of being tattooed by another man. Your stomach goes foamy, gives an uncomfortable lurch, at the thought of any man at all having to touch you.

You scroll through the few posts that have made their way onto the account, the last dated two days ago. And, for the first time in years, you feel the need for this person’s art on your skin begin to outweigh your aversion to touch.

There are no pictures of Joel Miller, just his art, though some of the posts give glimpses of strong hands and thick forearms. Despite yourself, arousal pools in your belly at the sight. A few scars run beneath the wiry black hair on his arms, thick veins snake beneath his skin to collect in rough, strong hands that speak to hard labor. It makes you wonder if he’d always been a tattoo artist or if he’d made a career change at some point.

Some of the captions on the posts make you snort and you have to wonder if he runs the account himself. You somehow can’t picture the owner of those hands typing out the cheesy, often pun filled, lines.

You ruminate on it for weeks, passing by the shop anytime you have to walk through town to admire the ever changing line up of photos and art pieces hung in the windows. The second week a drawing of a doe appears among the photos and paintings—big eyes wide, ears alert as she looks over her shoulder, surrounded by a thick forest bright with sun and shadow. Bumblebees hover around her alert ears.

She looks familiar but you can’t quite place why.

Sometimes you go out of your way to pass by, just to check out the new photos, even making a day of it, buying yourself an expensive iced coffee and lingering far too long in front of the window, just looking, pretending like the small shop doesn’t take up your every thought.

You spend each evening hoping for a new post to the shop’s instagram page, hoping, too, that the new post contains glimpses of more than Joel Miller’s hands.

The man remains an enigma, a mystery, and if he’s ever in the shop when you stand in the window, you never see him. You convince yourself that if you could just get a glance at him, you’d know. You’d know if you could handle being tattooed by him.

You find yourself rolling your eyes at yourself often. You avoid hugs with friends, cringe your way through having anyone unfamiliar do your hair, tense at casual accidental touch. Phantom echoes of pain and want twin themselves around your heart, slide thick and cloying around your chest, breaking your breath from your body.

It’s inexplicable, how much you crave touch and fear it. It’s terrifying, how you wonder what Joel’s hands would feel like.

Probably it would feel like everyone else’s touch always has. Like your skin is too tight, like your heart might stop beating, like there’s something wrong with you for feeling like prey near capture, like the soft press of another person's hand might start burning.

One hot afternoon, you finally find out what Joel looks like.

The heat is relentless that day as it has been for weeks, the ice cream you’d stopped for at the local parlor rapidly melting as you completed your, now weekly, routine of stopping by the tattoo studio. As unbearable as the heat is, you somehow still find it blissful. On this day, a young woman stands outside the shop cleaning the front window. The door is propped open, frigidly cold air swirling out onto the street.

“Sarah?” A voice calls from within, graveled and gruff and warm. “You ‘bout finished up out there? We need to get goin’. Tommy’s waitin’.”

The girl, who could only be Sarah, turns away from the window, swiping a few errant strands of her hair away from her forehead, her opposite hand anchoring on her hip as she answers back.

You don’t catch her response, too distracted trying to glimpse the man just inside the door.

All you’re able to see for a moment is a crop of dark hair laced with a fine sprinkling of gray before his broad shoulders that test the strength of the t-shirt he wears comes into view. Dark wash jeans fit snugly around his thighs and narrow hips, worn but well kept boots on his feet. He’s certainly handsome and looks rugged, and that both scares you and thrills you.

When you glance back up to his face, you meet his eyes. The slash of sun, a spinning shard of light falls over his gaze when he pokes his head out the door. In the warmth of the Texas sun, his eyes are cast in honeyed tones. The man you know must be Joel Miller smiles at you, one forearm lifting to brace against the doorway, the lines by his eyes crinkling up. His beard is threaded with that attractive gray too.

“Howdy,” he says and he looks like he means to say more, but something seizes your throat and you avert your eyes and keep walking, barely managing to nod back politely. You don’t dare to breathe until you’re well past his shop.

It takes you two blocks to realize the ice cream in your fist had melted over the edge of the cup and dripped over your fingers and that the man whose art you’ve been lusting over for weeks is just as pretty as his hands.

Joel noticed you the first day you lingered outside his studio.

He’d watched you cup a hand over your eyes, squinting against the glare of the sun. Your nose had scrunched up too as you gazed in at what was hung in the window.

A curl of nervousness that he couldn’t exactly place had settled hard in his gut. But you just looked, eyes filled with wonder as honeyed sunshine fell in drafts around you. He half expected a colony of bees to buzz around you, like some long forgotten god.

You’d reminded him then of a deer caught by surprise, big eyes and searching gaze pulling him in, something skittish and troublesome looming around you.

It wasn’t in Joel’s nature to bother folks on the street anyway, but he suspected if he even cracked the door open you’d go flying down the street in a cloud of warmed sun, just like a deer that hears the first snap of a branch under a hunter’s foot.

Eventually you’d moved on, and he’d tried not to feel too bad about it, not that he had any real reason to.

His hand had itched as you walked away, to pick up a paint brush or a pencil or a whittling knife.

To his surprise, you start coming back all the time. A least once a week, and sometimes it seemed like you came by just to come by, like you didn’t have any other reason to be out.

His girls notice, too, when they visit because of course they do.

Sarah is kinder about it than Ellie who tells him to man up and talk to you.

He just tells her to mind her own business, watching you look at the things he’d created with wonder and reverence. It flatters him, really, makes an embarrassing blush he’ll never admit to heat his chest. He considers himself a pretty average artist.

But each time he thinks about following Ellie’s advice, he sees your doe eyes and knows he’d frighten you.

There’s a drawing that hangs in the window now—several actually—of a doe with wide, curious eyes, not necessarily afraid but cautious. He can’t seem to stop painting, drawing, whittling deer.

One deer really, a very particular doe that bees seemed to want to follow.

He wonders if you know that that painting in the front window is of you, if you recognize yourself. You surely don’t, because you keep coming by.

“Since when are you so obsessed with deer?” Sarah asks one evening. The light has faded from the sky in an orange and red blaze, the close blanket of night wreathing the street outside, street lamps buzzing haloing yellow light in patches down the sidewalk.

“Always liked deer,” he comments, mumbling it more than anything.

Sarah rolls her eyes. “Sure.”

He’s right not to disturb you though. The day he finally gets the chance to say hello to you, when Sarah had insisted on washing the front window free of the accumulated summer dust despite his protests that he would do it, fear darts behind your eyes, nervousness seizing your shoulders. You don’t so much as look at him, head ducked, feet carrying you swiftly down the road away from him.

A thread of worry that you’d stop coming by wrapped around his chest until the next week when you’d again lodged yourself in the window, peering in at the ever rotating catalog of his work.

He figures that’s fine for now.

He’d rather you be there, unreachable on the other side of the glass, than have you disappear entirely.

You are a creature of distrust. Of longing and starved skin, of loneliness and want. You aren’t sure where those things begin and you end, you aren’t sure where it started. Maybe you had been born that way, shoved onto the Earth and into existence with a mistrust of the world that shaped you into an infinitely lonely thing, an incredibly wary thing.

There’s always been something missing inside you, that might let you bridge that chasm inside you, climb to the other side and put yourself in someone else’s hands and hope they didn’t burn the path behind you.

Maybe you are skittish and adverse to touch by nature. Maybe it started when you were a kid, with your parents who have never been tactile, not even when you were a child, not even when you were hurt or in pain.

But you aren’t sure, you have never been sure.

What you do know is that it's left behind a raw hole, aching with a loneliness you can't figure out how to battle.

The times you had slipped your heart into someone else’s palm, wet and sticky with blood, the viscera of who you are, admitting to the pain that vibrated always at a low level frequency below your skin, you regretted it.

Mostly because you’re never able to explain it. It just is. You just are.

It’s who you’ve always been, and sometimes one step forward necessitated two steps back with how much you could handle.

Touch wasn’t even always bad, sometimes it was just too much. And no one wanted or tried to understand that sometimes it just felt too good, overwhelmed you to the point of exhaustion, and sometimes to pain.

You’ve always wondered if there would ever be anyone who’s touch felt safe, felt like it belonged.

The aversion you have to touch and the deepening trust issues that grew wilder every year were only solidified by your last boyfriend, by the tattoo he carved into your skin. He confirmed everything you ever needed to know about yourself, that you were not worth cracking the code on, that no one would ever be willing to try to handle you with care, to expose you slowly, to meet you halfway. To know when you asked not to be touched that you weren’t mad or punishing them.

If he wasn’t willing to put up with you, he’d said, to figure it out, then no one else would be.

You swore off having a relationship, content in the loneliness that you were destined to have claw at your heart, at least in that way.

But with that tattoo came too a deep mistrust, an aversion to anyone getting too close to you, a swearing off, a final nail in the coffin of trying for things to be thrown back in your face. He’s the reason you moved to this tiny town, away from Austin and all the memories that he’d left in you like jagged shards of mirror, reflecting everything you didn’t want to see.

Before he tattooed you, you’d been tattooed several times before. The experience had always been good, one of the few ways you didn’t mind being touched. It had always been the making of a happy memory for you. And he had taken that from you.

He hadn’t just stolen something you loved from you, but shut the door on vulnerability or intimacy with almost anyone.

Joel Miller’s tattoo studio, his stupidly attractive hands, the deep drawl of his howdy, and most of all the beauty of his art in the front window of the shop, captures your mind, ensnares your every thought. It’s woven a net around all the thoughts and worries that normally flutter around your head and calls for them to be silent.

“All I do is think about this damn tattoo,” you say to a friend back in Austin one evening, phone squished between your shoulder and your face as you cook dinner. “Is that normal? Like, I can’t just go get one somewhere else, by anyone else.”

No one knew about the sharp fanged demons that lingered in your past. The distrust and loneliness that ate out parts of your heart, bite by bite, year by year. But Leah does know about your ex, about the tattoo on your shoulder that still aches with long healed pain.

“You said it looks like he does walk-ins, right?” She asks, not unkindly. “Why not just go talk to him for a bit,” she eases you into it. “See if it might be the right fit. I know. . .things in your past haven’t been easy. But he might be alright. I can go with you, if you think that might help.”

And that doesn’t seem so bad. Just talking to him doesn’t seem so bad. You find that you want to. Then you would know if you couldn’t be tattooed by him, no matter how much you admired his art. Leah reminds you again of the nice google reviews, the funny little captions on his instagram posts, that he is not your ex even if he is a stranger.

“He’s running a business,” she says gently. “It isn’t like then.”

She’s right, you know she is, and you miss the experience, you miss getting tattooed.

So, the next morning you brace yourself and make the now familiar walk to the little studio, picking up an iced coffee to sip on the way so you hopefully won’t be too sweaty in the early morning sun that blooms rose pink on the horizon. It gives your hands something to do too, and you fidget with the rim of the plastic lid as you walk.

When you push the door open, Joel is standing at the counter. He has glasses perched on the end of his nose and is paging through a leather bound appointment book that sits next to an ancient computer that looks as though it hasn’t been switched on in a decade.

Something about the sight makes your shoulders loosen just a bit. You certainly hadn’t expected him to look like that, domestic and relaxed and calm. His pen scratches across the paper, a landline phone slotted against his ear.

He glances up at you in the still open doorway, surprise pulling over his features for a brief moment before he makes a hasty end to the call. It makes heat crawl up your body, the way his attention latches onto you and sticks. “Hey,” he greets when he sits the phone back into the cradle, sliding the glasses off. “I’ve been wonderin’ when you’d finally come in.”

There’s something light in the rough, drawling timber of his voice, like he’s trying not to startle you, like he’s inexplicably glad you’re there.

You stiffen and he chuckles, cold air pulsing around you in the doorway before you finally step fully into the shop and let it swing closed behind you. You remain there, just inside the door, trying not to feel like a fish in a barrel, easily caught, even more easily killed. “Caught me, huh?” You try to keep your voice light, waiting for a striking arrow that would never come.

“S’alright. Thought maybe you just walked this way a lot but you always stop to look,” he gestures at the front window. “My daughter is the one that’s always changin’ it around.”

“I appreciate her efforts,” you say, taking a hesitant step forward. “I look forward to seeing the changes. Best part of my week.”

He nods, looking just a tad embarrassed, and then closes the appointment book, giving you his undivided attention. “Lookin’ to get tattooed?” His eyes trace over your exposed skin, noting the few you already have.

“Maybe,” you answer, giving a half-shrug that you hope comes across as nonchalant. “I saw on instagram that you’re, uh, taking appointments.”

“That I am,” he answers easily.

You swallow and glance around the studio. It’s as tiny as it seemed from the outside, but homely and comfortable. The walls are a deep green that remind you of forests you’ve never seen. The walls are covered in photos and art, both created and bought, the styles too different to have been made by the same person.

When you squint closer, you see that a few of them have tiny plaques beneath them, etched with names and dates. Shelves line the walls filled with knick knacks and children’s drawings in frames, and what appear to be family photos. One shelf is stacked with records and coffee table books, an ancient turntable perched precariously on top. A door is propped open behind the dark wooden counter, through which you can see the actual tattooing space, clean and sterile looking.

A lone guitar is hung on the wall, and you wonder if he plays. Your imagination conjures up hands that you’ve been studying for weeks softly plucking at the strings, curling around the bridge.

It’s shameful, the way your body flushes at the thought, the ghost of strummed notes floating in the air around you.

“Darlin’?”

Joel’s voice pulls your eyes away from the guitar and back to his face. Embarrassment drops like hot coal into the pit of your belly. You like the shape of that word in his mouth.

“I just wanted to stop in and see if maybe we’d be a good fit,” you explain hastily, not thinking about the words before they fall like broken promises from your lips. “If you’d be interested in tattooing me.” Before he can open his mouth to respond, you continue, “That wasn’t what I—I don’t mean to take up any of your time. Just if you have a moment. I should have messaged maybe—”

Joel waves you down and gestures around at the empty space. “No, it’s alright, hardly got anyone comin’ through here. Next appointment ain’t ‘til this afternoon.” He reaches below the counter, callused fingers catching on another notebook which he sets on the counter with care.

You follow the motion of his hands, your eyes snapping back to his when he continues, “What are you lookin’ to get done?” The knot of anxiety in your chest loosens a little when he seems to take your nerves for concern over the piece you want done.

Joel’s hands are ones that are familiar to you now after all the times you’d spent looking at the spare pictures of them online. That want, the heat, crawls back up inside your lungs and curls up to stay, making a home among the throbbing tendon and muscle. Though you’d glimpsed him that day on the street, it's a very different experience to stand for an extended period in front of him. His voice paired with the broad set of his shoulders, the cut of his brown eyes focused on you, all adds up to something devastating.

Another vinegary squirm of nerves in your gut is accompanied by your treacherous heart squeezing tight in your chest, battering something long abused, long closed off.

“You can show me reference pictures if you’ve got ‘em,” he offers when you don’t respond again, instead just looking at him, his presence calming in a way you can’t really explain. You blink and pull out your phone, approaching the counter slowly. The ice in your half finished coffee rattles as you set it on the counter, away from the appointment book so the condensation won’t accidentally get on it.

Joel unsettles you, but not in a way that people usually unsettle you. Not in the way your ex-boyfriend had from the very beginning. Instead of feeling the need to flee, you feel the urge to stay.

You show Joel the inspiration pictures you’ve been collecting the last few weeks, swiping slowly through what you have saved in your camera roll and describing what you imagine as best you can. When you lean closer to show him, the scent of clove and cinnamon and leather washes over you. The smell makes you a little dizzy, runs circles around your head.

His brow is furrowed, concentration etched into his features. “I’ll need some time to work out some designs for ya.”

“That’s alright,” you nod, watching those rough fingers sketch broad lines in the notebook he’d pulled out.

“Sorry, sweetheart, don’t know where my manners went. I didn’t get your name,” he says, and glances up at you. “I’m Joel,” he holds out a hand.

Sweetheart. You’ll be hearing the low timber of his voice whispering that and darlin’ in your dreams, you’re sure of it.

You find yourself smiling, your mouth involuntarily pulling up at the corners. You take his hand without thinking. His hand is warm and firm; his fingers engulf yours.

He hums as he takes his hand back, pencil already between his fingers again, and you’re left feeling chilled, like there’s an empty space in the middle of your hand that needs filled. “Real pretty name y’got.”

Oh. You like the hum of pleasure in your chest that chases the nerves below your skin. It’s a pleasant kind of warm.

“You can send ‘em on to me on that. . .app,” he grumbles. And you have to laugh. Between the landline phone, the physical calendar book, and that app he sounds just like the kind of cranky that you find endearing. “Uh, just so you know if you get a reply that don’t sound like me, it’s because my daughter runs it for me.”

“Sarah,” you guess, thinking of the young woman you’d seen cleaning the window.

“Ellie, actually. She thinks she’s a goddamn comedian.” He rolls his eyes, but you don’t miss the affection lodged in his gaze. He gestures at one of the pictures framed on a shelf where two teenage girls are slotted on either side of him. “Got two of ‘em,” he clarifies. “Sarah—she does the window. You saw her that day you passed by, the taller one there in the picture.”

You tilt your head, Joel’s eyes following the motion. “They help you run this place.”

“They’re my marketing team,” he grumbles. “Self-appointed, if you couldn’t guess.”

You find yourself leaning on the counter, watching Joel’s pretty hands sketch absentmindedly. “That actually sounds like fun.”

“They seem to think so,” he agrees, glancing up at the same time you do. A touch of pink colors the high points of his cheeks. The delicate little shading makes something warm curl into your gut. “Anyway,” he clears his throat. “We don’t get a lot of foot traffic around here, you might have noticed. Ellie’s thinkin’ that account might lure people up from Austin.”

You nod. “It’s a good idea. People have traveled further for tattoos. And we aren’t too out of the way up here.”

“I take it you live around here,” he glances down again, like he finds looking at you hard.

“Not far,” you confirm. “That’s how I found you.”

He goes silent for a moment, fingers continuing to twitch around the pencil before he looks back at you. “I’ll, uh, have somethin’ to ya in a couple a’ days. You can let me know if you want any changes and we’ll set a date.”

You straighten, feeling only slightly dismissed. “Oh, yeah, sure. Thank you.” You start to turn when you remember yourself. That’s not really what you came here for. “Actually, listen, I don’t want to waste your time. You don’t need to start on anything. Not yet. I’m not sure just yet, I just wanted to meet you. I really admire your art.”

You leave it at that. Pouring out all your other issues would just make you look insane.

Joel raises a curious brow at you, waiting, a question in his eyes that he doesn’t ask as you take a step back. “Alright,” he agrees. “I won’t start on anythin’ just yet.”

“Okay,” you back further away, trying desperately not to turn and run, aware you must look odd. “I’ll see you around.”

“I hope so, honey.”

Though the tattoo shop is cold, heat that rivals the temperature outside dissolves the bones in your chest from the way his eyes linger on you.

But that want—need—is within reach now, and something tells you that you can trust him.

At least with this.

Joel sees you more often after the first day you actually come into the shop.

Well—

He supposes he sees you about the same amount, but now you actually come inside. You always pause in the doorway for half a second, those watchful doe eyes going wide, like your instincts always kick in a second too late.

But once you make it inside, you talk to him, share snippets of your life as you watch him draw, eyes focused on his hands.

You breakup the monotony of his days, those times between appointments and the few walk-ins that he does see.

Sometimes, most times, you bring him coffee from the shop at the end of the road, and he hates that you feel obligated to bring something for him. “For letting me hang around,” you always say.

Most times he feels like he’s trying not to scare you away, like one wrong move will send you bolting right back out the door. But he comes to rely on your presence, the sunshine earthy smell you bring inside with you, the cautious questions and wide eyes, the way you dart to your feet and disappear the second a sign of work for him appears, even if he wouldn’t mind you waiting, taking up room in the tiny front room.

Joel has to wonder what happened to you, if anything, or if you’re just a nervous person. Maybe it’s just in your nature to be distrustful. He doesn’t mind you coming in all the time, in fact he likes it, hates the empty spaces you now leave behind. The studio seems impossibly empty and cavernous without you around now, asking about the guitar on the wall, about where he learned to draw, about his girls.

Still, summer passes by slowly, like a jar of molasses catching sun in a window. He watches you come and go, watches you get to know him through tiny encounters that loosen your shoulders more each time you stop in.

He doesn’t tell you that he spends most evenings working on a design for that tattoo you may or may not get, that he has a dozen different versions of it clogging up his notebook.

He figures if you don’t end up getting it tattooed then he can just give you some of the sketches to keep.

Like he’d ever find a damn way to do that without feeling like a fool.

Toward the end of summer, with heat still burning up all the air in Texas and showing no signs of abating, you push the door open with your chin lifted and a smile on your face. Heat, like the rush of burning air from an oven, whips around you and into the shop.

He tells himself the heat is why his mouth suddenly feels dry. He tells himself it has nothing to do with how your ass looks in those jeans you always wear or the curve of your hips in the snug fit or the tank top that shows off your shoulders and arms and chest. All topped off with you smiling at him.

“Hey Joel,” you greet, crossing the studio in a couple strides where you deposit a cup of coffee onto the counter next to his hand. He likes the way you say his name, breathy and quick. “I think I’m ready.”

“Ready?” He questions, bewildered.

His mind takes a moment to catch up to what you mean. The tattoo. You’re ready to get your tattoo.

And Joel becomes aware that he is distinctly not ready for that. Because then what excuse will you have to stop by so often? “Right now?” He asks.

You smile. “Not at this exact moment, obviously,” you say with a roll of your eyes. “Just…generally. Whenever you have time for me. I know you’ll need time to work on a design. I’ll send the inspiration photos to the instagram account so you can look at them again.”

“Yeah,” he agrees, the notebook with your designs tucked under the counter burning a hole in the corner of his vision. “Shouldn’t take too long.”

Your smile widens. “Thanks. I can’t hang around today.” You wave a hand back in the direction of the front window, “Errands to run. I just wanted to say that I really love the new painting.”

“The—”

“The new deer. She’s beautiful. More confident than the other ones. I think, or maybe it’s the same. I really like the new one though. You’ve been doing a lot of deer lately.”

He swallows and nods. “Yep.”

Your head tilts to the side before you take a step back, anxiety pulling at your face. “Okay,” you say, your voice noticeably smaller. “Well, I’ll see you around. I’ll message Ellie.”

Before he can stop you, you’ve bolted out the door.

He sighs and rolls his shoulders back as he watches you walk down the street in the honeyed sunshine. When you’re finally out of sight, he pulls the sketchpad out and starts on yet another design.

“Dude, you’ve got it baaaaaad,” Ellie accuses as she sets a platter of fried chicken on the dining room table. “He didn’t even ask for a fucking deposit!”

“No deposit?” Sarah asks, adding a bowl of salad next to the plate. “That’s just bad business practice, dad.”

Joel rolls his eyes. “Not everyone takes deposits.”

The girls glance at each other. “Yeah, but you usually do. You told me not to ask for one!”

He grumbles under his breath, settling at the table, just glad that his girls were there at all. He’d half expected the standing weekly dinner to fizzle out once he moved out of Austin, but they always made the drive up, or he went down to them each Friday.

His girls had their own lives, Sarah still in college, Ellie still trying to find her footing as an apprentice at a tattoo studio in the city.

“Did she seem interested?”

Joel assumes Sarah is asking about the tattoo.

You seemed exactly as he’d thought. A little nervous and wary, but mostly curious and eager. He’d been blushing like a kid, the warmth you always tugged along with you into the shop no match for the air conditioning.

“Yeah,” he answers, shrugging. “Ellie’d know more than me—”

“I mean does she seem interested in you?”

Joel glances sharply up to find both his kids grinning at him. “I’m talkin’ about the damn tattoo,” he says, exhaling sharply through his nose before he reaches for a plate.

“Well, that’s obvious,” Sarah mutters with a roll of her eyes.

“Yeah, c’mon, man,” Ellie leans back in her chair. “Isn’t she there, like, every fucking day?”

Joel frowns at her. “Manners,” he reminds her.

He gets an eye roll from her too, before she tilts her chair back down onto all four legs.

“Watch it,” he says, “Your eyes are gonna get stuck like that.”

“Joel—”

“She’s nervous enough as it is,” he grumbles. “Never met someone s’damn skittish.”

“What, like a horse?”

“Like a deer,” he corrects. “She don’t need me makin’ passes at her. I think she’s just now comin’ around to the idea of trustin’ me so don’t say something stupid to her.” He directs the last bit to Ellie. “Clear?”

She spears a piece of chicken. “Clear,” she grumbles.

“I think she likes you dad,” Sarah says, primly cutting into the chicken on her own plate. “I don’t think she’d mind it.”

Ellie sends you scans of a couple designs two days after you abruptly tell Joel you’re ready to get tattooed. It’s accompanied by a message that makes something in you squirm in such a pleasant way that you worry there might be wrong with you.

the old man told me you know i manage the account for him. he’s really excited about this one and can’t wait to tattoo you. he worked on the design for weeks - ellie

Another message pops up almost immediately after the first.

don’t tell him i told you that

A warmth that has nothing to do with your open balcony door and the heat pouring into your apartment floods your veins. He’d said he’d need to work something out for you.

The two designs she sends are beautiful, and it's easy to see not only the talent but the time he put into them. Clearly he’d been working on a design since you first talked to him all those weeks ago.

Your whole body goes awash with heat, warming you pleasantly from the inside out.

You message her back to figure out the day and time, before flopping your phone face down on the couch, a nervous thrumming centering in your body. It folds your veins up into anxious little knots. The phantom echo of his low, drawling voice reverberates around your brain, the casual little sweethearts and darlin’s he throws your way kicking your heart into overdrive, a skittering pounding knocking against your ribs.

A thrill goes up your spine. At the prospect of a new tattoo, at the thought of spending so much uninterrupted time with Joel, of his hands on you.

The last thought jolts you a little.

That that’s something you’re looking forward to.

You aren’t expecting another message, not after finalizing a date only a few days in the future. But your phone buzzes again, yet another message waiting for you.

just a heads up - joel said you’ll have to sit for two or three sessions. he doesn’t want to wear you out.

Well, at the very least he was more considerate than the last man to tattoo you.

A rare rain splashes down the morning of your appointment, driving away the humidity that had curled in the air like a choking wraith the last few days and cooling the temperature down to something mild. It’s the first false start of what will always turn out to be a warm fall.

You take your time getting ready just to ease your nerves, hydrating and eating a bigger breakfast than you normally do.

In the afternoon, the walk to the studio is dreary. The street smells like petrichor and summers long gone. The gloom only makes the interior of the shop feel more cozy.

And more intimate.

When you push the door open, Joel’s daughter, Ellie, is standing at the counter complaining loudly about how old fashioned Joel is as she slowly pages through the leather bound appointment book that seems to never leave the side of the ancient computer you suspect is rarely, if ever, switched on. She seems to be logging appointments from her phone into the book.

Her eyes snap to you the moment the door swings shut, then glances at the clock. “Early,” she says. “Joel is still setting up.”

“That’s okay,” you say, pointedly sitting down on the leather sofa that takes up most of the floor space of the front room. “I can wait.”

You snap your mouth shut to avoid the waterfall of words that want to cascade from your lips. Nerves tingle under your skin, buzz lowly just beneath the surface.

Waiting makes you hot, makes heat rise from your skin in painful waves, as your anxiety continues to crest.

At the counter Ellie snaps the appointment book shut, now grumbling about Joel’s chicken scratch, when you peel off your sweatshirt. “Oh,” she says, surprised. “I didn’t know you had tattoos already.”

You jump a little, eyes flashing to the woman leaning on the dark wooden counter. Her chin is propped in her hand. You aren’t quite sure what to make of that, that she thought you didn’t have any.

“Yeah,” you stand and move closer to the counter. Maybe she’s just trying to distract you. “Why is that such a surprise?” You smile and offer her your arm. “I not look like the type?”

“Joel just said you were nervous,” she says, turning your arm in her hand, inspecting the tattoo on the top of your shoulder, and then the one that wraps around your bicep. “So I figured it was your first.”

Joel had talked to his daughter about you.

Maybe he talked to her about all his clients; she did manage the instagram account for the shop after all.

“I’m always a little uneasy beforehand.”

Your excuse is weak but Ellie doesn’t call you on it. Her eyes are latched onto the tattoo over your shoulder, the one your ex had done. You know what she’s seeing, how a few of the lines are blown out, how it healed badly.

She releases your wrist with a nod, her eyes more knowing than you would like. “Scared of the pain?”

“No,” you shake your head. “It doesn't hurt much, usually. It's relaxing more than anything.” You nod to the tattoo on your shoulder. “But, that one was the last and it did hurt and, uh, it put me off getting more for awhile.”

She looks it over for a minute, brows furrowing at what you know is shoddy work. Your gaze slides to the tattoo on Ellie’s forearm. “You don’t have to worry about that with the old man,” she informs you and releases your arm, her tone serious. “He might not look it, but he’s got a light touch.”

Before you can respond, Joel emerges from the back, rubbing his hands together as he glances between the two of you, his eyes wary. “Ellie,” he says, his voice that low gravel. “You stickin’ around, kiddo?”

“Nope.” She stabs a finger into the top of the appointment book, “Get fucking rid of this.” She grabs her jacket and hops up onto the counter, swinging herself over it, as Joel snaps at her not to. “Too late,” she chirps already out the door. “See you Friday.”

When you turn back to Joel, those splotches of pink and cresting red are back in his cheeks and neck and you have to wonder if he heard what Ellie had said. “That girl,” he grumbles. “Come on around here, darlin’,” he gestures with a roll of his eyes. “You don’t have to climb over the counter like a wild animal.”

You round the end of the counter and follow Joel into the back room where he’s already meticulously prepped everything. He sits on a rolling stool and gestures you in front of him. “I take it you already know the drill?” He asks.

You hum in affirmation and try not to jump when his hand brushes yours. “Easy,” he mumbles, almost to himself. It doesn’t stop a flare of heat from spiking in your blood. “You already decided on your left forearm, right?”

“Yeah,” you answer, holding your arm out to him.

You wonder what it is about Joel that makes him so magnetic, that makes him feel so safe. His hand, already in a sterile glove, slides around your wrist to hold you steady while he cleans your skin thoroughly. The sharp scent of antiseptic blooms around you, chasing away the clove and leather scent that usually lingers around Joel. “You alright?” He asks, glancing up at you to watch your face.

“Yep,” you answer tightly.

“Alright,” he agrees warily, like he doesn’t quite believe you. “I’m gonna haveta shave the area.”

You nod, you already knew that, and watch him pick up a disposable pink bic razor from the tray to his left. Despite having gone through this whole thing more than a few times before, this feels different, it feels more intimate and reserved.

He drags the razor over your skin slowly, carefully, then sanitizes your skin again when he’s finished, the cool flush of the moisture against your skin almost shocking. You go back and forth about the placement of the stencil. Your body tenses when you waffle for what feels like too long. You expect him to get frustrated with you but he doesn’t. His voice remains unbothered and patient.

Maybe your standards are in hell, maybe he’s just being a proper tattoo artist like all the others that had tattooed you before your ex, but it still makes a knot form in the back of your throat.

Eventually Joel presses the stencil into your skin when you give the go ahead. He rubs at it gently, warming your chilled skin, before he peels it away. The warmth of his touch is surprisingly soothing, the loss of it leaving you cold. “If it ain’t right, we can do it again,” he says, jerking his chin at the mirror in the corner, the picture of calm. “Go on and take a look and let me know.”

You both agree the placement looks good, and then comes the moment when you have to climb onto the table and put yourself in his hands. You will have to lie there and let another person touch you, albeit professionally. It doesn’t make it any better, any easier.

Your skin is so empty, so hungry, and Joel’s attention makes you feel like wax held too close to heat.

It already feels like too much and he’s barely touched you.

A cold prickle of fear slides down your spine too, pulling your shoulders in tight. The last time you did this you—

“You comfortable?” Joel is watching you, his eyes shaded and attentive.

You nod, aware that you are the picture of uncomfortable as Joel changes his gloves. Your hands are in fists, your spine hard and tense. All the air seems to have been sucked out of the room, cold and sterile and icy in your lungs.

“I ain’t touchin’ you until you relax,” he says when he turns back to you, settling next to you on a stool, hand hovering over the tattoo gun on the tray by his elbow. “You don’t gotta—”

“I am relaxed,” you interrupt in a bite, harsher than you mean to. You grit your teeth, your hand only curling into a tighter fist.

“Sweetheart you’re as taut as a bowstring,” he says gently. “Take a couple breaths.”

You do and your heart rate slows. Now isn’t like then. Now is different. “Good,” he says and the praise slides warm against you. “I’m gonna touch you now.”

You nod and the buzz of the tattoo gun starts, his free hand curls over your fist, warm and reassuring and so present it makes tears sting at the backs of your eyes. You realize then that Joel has been touching you quite a lot, and that you haven’t exactly minded.

“Relax, I got you,” he reassures. “You’ll tell me if you need a break,” he says and it’s not a question.

You nod anyway, not sure which part you’re agreeing with.

Joel talks while he tattoos you, mainly about his kids, his two daughters who are clearly his entire world, the point that his life hinges on.

The pride in his voice, the love there, makes you smile.

Joel is much chattier than usual.

Normally you talk his ear off while he works as he silently listens and nods along. Joel is the gruff quiet type, not that you much mind. You’d expected to sit in relative silence, to listen to the rain still drumming against the roof and the low hum of the tattoo gun.

Listening to his voice is a welcome change. You would listen to him read from a dictionary.

Sarah is from his first marriage, Ellie adopted. Sarah is going to college— “Gonna be a doctor someday,” he says proudly. “For kids. Pediatrician.” Ellie is following in Joel’s footsteps, apprenticing as a tattoo artist. “Hope it's what she wants to do,” he says, equally as proud. “She’s got some art out there on the wall—well, I’ll point it out later, much better than mine—it took me long enough to make this switch.”

“What did you do before?” You ask as Joel swipes a damp paper towel across your skin. Ellie had been right, he does have a light touch, a gentle touch.

“Carpenter,” he answers, and you can’t decide if the way he squeezes your wrist is conscious or not. “Long hours, hard work.”

So you’d been right about the look of his hands. Hands that so carefully held yours as his other drew over your skin. “Mm,” you hum distractedly. “What convinced you to take the jump?”

“My girls convinced me. Gettin’ outta Austin helped. Havin’ the money to finally slow down.” He chuckles to himself. “That’s why the marketin’ is a little ridiculous. Moved all the way out here just to complain about the foot traffic.”

You find yourself smiling, watching the flex of tendon in his forearms as he works. His mouth is set in a concentrated line, a divot between his brows. “Looks like you’re doing alright.”

“We manage,” he says with a groan, straightening from his position hunched over your arm. Something in his back creaks and then cracks before he goes back to work. “Although I regret not startin’ a little younger. My brother, Tommy, manages our business now.”

“Carpentry business?”

“That’s right,” he hums, leaning in closer to your arm, his breath ghosts over your arm, goosebumps racing across your skin. You swallow and your hand clenches reflexively beneath his. “You doin’ alright?”

You wonder if he knows his hand is still cupped over yours, if he can feel the racing of your heart beneath his fingers. Maybe he did that with all his clients, just a way to steady himself and you.

You don’t expect him to be looking at you when you lift your eyes back to his face.

Heat blooms in your chest, the flutter of wings beating against your ribs. “Mhm,” you give a nervous hum, trying not to show the feathering thoughts that float like down through your mind, swirling and impossible to bat down.

“Y’have to tell me if you need to take a break.”

“I don’t,” you say quickly, wondering if you should explain yourself a little, if it would be better or worse for Joel to know exactly how fucking nerotic you are.

It shouldn’t matter if he thinks you’re crazy or not.

But it does.

“Just…I’m not so good with touch,” you admit. “I never have been and my last tattoo was…”

You aren’t sure how to phrase it, so you stop and look at his hands again. His hand swallows yours, barely any of your skin visible beneath his touch. You wait for your skin to prickle, for the urge to rip your hand away to swim up the back of your throat, but it never comes. “I’m fine, really. I’d tell you if I needed to stop.”

“I know it,” he says, not blinking, watching you carefully. “I’m just checkin’.” He looks back down, adjusting his grip before he continues, his thumb sweeping over your wrist. “Was it the one on your shoulder?”

“What?”

“The tattoo that was a bad experience?”

You suck in a deep breath through your nose and look away from the top of his head, away from the graying brown that makes your belly clench and the butterflies that live permanently in your chest swing back to life.

The breath you pull in does nothing to steady you, instead flooding your senses with the clean woodsy smell of him. It’s dizzying. “That easy to tell?” You sigh.

“Just a few of the lines are blown out,” he says, not unkindly. “Thought maybe an apprentice did it or somethin’.” Joel’s voice is mild, only lightly prying, an extended hand that you could lie a pearl truth in if you wanted to.

The nerves subside a little. “Apprentices aren’t usually that bad,” you joke.

“No,” he agrees. “Ellie’d never get ya like that. Shouldn’t be tattooing on people yet if you’re gettin’ ‘em like that.”

He doesn’t ask what actually happened, but you find yourself answering anyway. You find that his hand still securely over yours acts like an anchor rather than a weight.

“I had bruises for a couple weeks after,” you admit. “It hurt. He wanted it to hurt. And it healed really badly.”

Joel’s hand pauses, the needle lifting away from your skin, but he doesn’t look up. A long moment passes, and his voice comes out in a forced calm. “Who wanted it to hurt, honey?”

“My ex,” you say and Joel leans back, dark eyes flashing to yours. “He wasn’t my ex then, obviously. He wanted to tattoo me, but he wanted it to be his name. I wasn’t going to do that. He wanted to compromise for initials but I just…couldn’t. Something about it felt wrong. I let him—” you wave your free hand at your shoulder. “—do that. And…I don’t know what happened,” you say. “I think he wanted to brand me. He wanted to leave a piece of himself on me, whether I wanted it or not.”

Joel doesn’t say anything for a while, just blinks away from you and slowly leans over your arm again to continue working.

The tattoo your ex did is the only one that ever hurt, but Joel is gentler than you remember. Or, maybe you simply can’t remember the other times as well, pain of the most recent one blotting out the memory.

“I don’t want you to think about this like that,” Joel says eventually, not looking up. “I don’t.”

“What do you mean, Joel?”

His hand stills, his fingers flexing around your wrist, thumb subconsciously sliding against the side of your wrist. “I mean—I’m not puttin’ something of mine on you,” he says. You frown and open your mouth to protest. “I made it for you. This is yours,” he says adamantly.

You watch him for a long moment, not sure what to say, an emotion you can’t name welling up into the back of your mouth, swollen and trembling.

“I want you to think about it like that,” he says, looking up at you from beneath his lashes, his mouth a hard line. “I’m not markin’ you, because it's not mine. It’s yours. It’s for you.”

You just nod, not trusting yourself to speak.

You avert your eyes, blinking away the water that crests against the edges of your lash line.

Though you’ve been bothering Joel for the better part of the summer, you don’t really know much about him. Today is the most he’s talked, about himself or otherwise. All you know is that he makes you feel oddly safe, that he has gone out of his way to try to make you feel comfortable. You can hear the words he doesn’t say, the quiet anger that vibrates under the surface of it. What happened to you was wrong, I would not do that to you.

He wants you to believe he’s gifting you something, and you suppose he is.

You remember Ellie’s message, how she’d said he’d been working on the design for weeks. You think of every moment you spent hanging around his shop for the last few weeks while he worked on a design for you, never saying a word about it, knowing you might decide not to get tattooed.

“Joel,” you murmur, carefully lying your free hand on his shoulder. Muscle flexes beneath your hand, thick and warm. “I know you wouldn’t do that. And you know I wanted to do this, right?”

Joel’s hand squeezes yours again. “I know it,” he shrugs and leaves it at that.

Something unspoken passes between you though. He would not do that to you, but you also sense he would never let anyone else hurt you like that again either.

You watch the feathering of his lashes against his cheeks, the firm set of his mouth, the way he keeps sliding his thumb over your wrist. You study his nose, the line of scar on the bridge, the hard ridge of his brow, the wrinkle that pulls at the skin of his forehead.

“You don’t have to be mad about it,” you say. “I already have that covered. I think I’ve been angry for a long time.”

The room is quiet, the sound of rain on the roof having abated in the hours you’d been there. Joel doesn’t say anything for another long moment, the only sound his breathing and yours, the sound of the tattoo gun buzzing its familiar tune. “I could, uh, fix some of it for ya,” he offers, eventually, leaning back to study the progress he’s made on your arm. “The lines where they’re blown out, we could think of somethin’ to blend it into.”

You look away again, not able to answer around the thick knot braided into your chest. You try swallowing around it, trying desperately to think of something to say. His hand is starting to feel a little heavy on yours. The aching clawing that is two steps back begins to threaten you.

This time, unlike the others, you aren’t quite sure if you want him to stop touching you or for the feeling of his hand to melt into yours, if you’d just rather he became a part of you instead.

You decide to try to ignore it, to focus on the nice parts of it all — how warm his skin is, the calluses you can feel, the scent of his skin and hair, so close you could press your nose into him if you leaned forward a little.

“You have really nice hands,” you comment, entranced by the flex of muscle and vein and sinew even through the black nitrile gloves.

Joel glances up, his face close to yours. You can see the threads of honeyed gold and warm hazel in his eyes, almost sun-spotted “That so?” He asks with a quirk of his brow, fingers tightening over your hand.

You swallow, glancing away from his eyes to focus on anything else, and give a nervous hum.

“You still alright?” He asks, his thumb slipping back and forth over the back of your hand. “Still comfortable?” When you just nod, suddenly too anxious and warm to do anything else, he leans back and releases your hand to strip off his gloves. “Let’s take a break.”

The loss of his touch is—you aren’t sure what it is.

You just know you hate it, and that has never happened before.

“I’m alright,” you protest.

“You’re startin’ to shake, which means you’re goin’ into shock. I’m sure Ellie told you this’d take more than one session,” he says, matter of fact about it.

“She did,” you breathe.

He grunts and offers you a hand down from the table. “Let’s get you wrapped up and then I’ll take you to get somethin’ to eat.”

“Oh,” you say, surprise and that spark of warmth flooding you again. “And you do that for all your clients?”

“Just the ones I like,” he deadpans, fitting a second skin over your tattoo before giving you the usual spiel about how to care for it once the second skin was removed. You hardly listen, thinking only about how Joel said he likes you. “But I assume you know all a’ that,” he says, twisting your arm. “And ya know where to find me if somethin’ ain’t right.”

“Mhm,” you hum, trying not to let the disappointment show when he releases you again. “I’m something of an expert with tattoo care, I think.”

“Three tattoos makes you an expert?” He asks, not looking at you as he meticulously cleans up.

“Well, three that you can see.”

He turns, eyes sliding over you. You’re awash in that warm feeling again, the one that is an anchor and not a weight. “You got more than three, honey?”

You just smile and make a show of looking over the work he’d done on your arm, ignoring his question.

Joel chuckles, “What else do you have?”

“If I told you I’d have to kill you.”

He laughs again and herds you out the back room when he’s finished cleaning up, keys jangling in his fist. “Shouldn’t I pay—”

“Nope. You’ll do that when it’s done. Should just need one more session.”

“Joel really—”

But you’re already out on the street, the door firmly closed behind you. You watch him lock up and then gesture you down the street with a jerk of his head. It’s dark outside, the sky still tinged with dark blue on the horizon. The road smells like heat and rain, like damp dust and lightning.

“You really ain’t gonna tell me what other tattoos you got?”

“You really ain’t gonna let me pay?” You ask, imitating the gruff cut of his voice.

He rolls his eyes. “Alright, fine.” He walks away, leading you down the street, light from the streetlamps cartwheeling over his face, throwing his jaw and eyes into sharp relief and then plunging him into shadow. “C’mon now. You need somethin’ in you.”

You’ve never ventured into the center of town after dark. You’re always at home long before that, curled on your balcony with something to read.

Cicadas light the air with sound, the crisscross of wired lights spear butter yellow onto the pavement below where a bar is serving drinks and a local food truck still idles.

Someone has set up a speaker that folks twirl each other around to, old country music, the good kind. Others park themselves on benches, chatting and eating. It’s nice.

It makes you feel incredibly lonely, reminded of all the gaps in your life, all the places people should be, all the places love and familiarity should be.

Before you can sink into that mire, Joel’s guiding you into line with a careful hand against your back.

His palm is broad and warm, heating you from the inside out. It rivals the warmth pulsing around you, the leftover heat of the day leaching into you.

“What d’ya want?”

“Shouldn’t I get you something?” You offer. “You worked all day, I just laid there.”

“I drew a nice picture,” he retorts. “You lost blood. Pick somethin’ sugary.”

“Bossy,” you comment, feeling alight with nerves as his fingers flex against your spine.

“Mhm, that’s what Sarah and Ellie are always sayin’.”

You glance at him—at the rough cut of his jaw, the thick tendon in his throat—and swallow, nerves pinching at your belly in a way you haven’t felt in a very long time. You press back, so his hand rests more firmly against your back and hope he doesn’t notice. If he does, he doesn’t say anything, just humors you by tracing his hand up and down your spine. “Maybe they’re onto something then.”

“Definitely are.” He glances back down at you, “Pick somethin’ yet?”

You look over the menu as the line inches forward, and pick something to drink. Something sugary, as Joel had demanded.

But when he orders he makes a show of not letting you pay and ordering something for you to eat too.

“You should after sittin’ for as long as you did,” he argues when you settle at one of the picnic tables. “You don’t gotta, just thought I’d offer it.”

You and Joel face each other, one leg on either side of the bench, knees brushing. With each tiny touch, lightning zings up your spine, settles in amongst your bones and blood. You have a feeling you could lie all the bones and blood and viscera of yourself right at Joel’s feet and he wouldn’t so much as flinch.

“Right,” you say, picking at one of the tacos he’d ordered. “I can see why you have such nice reviews on google if you’re taking your clients out on your dime after tattooing them.”

“I wouldn’t say you’re that,” he scoffs.

“Mm,” you nod, not sure exactly what he means by that. “What does that make me then?”

You glance up at him and Joel just stares at you for a long moment, something unreadable passing behind his eyes. “You really not gonna tell me about your other tattoos?” He ignores your question to go back to his own.

“Nope,” you take a sip of the lemonade you’d ordered. Despite what you said to Joel, you are exhausted, muscles still trembling in little starts, and the sugar does help. “But you can guess.”

You know he won’t try to guess. He’s too gentlemanly, too mindful of his manners to go around pointing at body parts and guessing if there might be something inked there.

Joel raises a brow, taking a bite of his own taco. “Are you using my manners against me?”

You shrug, smiling. “Maybe.”

“That ain’t playin’ fair,” he accuses, leaning in, the inside of his jean clad thigh brushing against the outside of yours. Your belly clenches, the center of you suddenly aching.

“Who said anything about fair?” You manage. “Do you have any hidden tattoos?”

He shakes his head and glances briefly up, like he’s asking for patience from the stars. But he doesn’t answer your question.

It makes you smile. “Fine, you can keep yours a secret. I won’t pry,” you tease.

“Mhm,” he grumbles again, ignoring your jibe. “You’re mighty brave tonight.”

And suddenly your teasing feels dangerous, falls flat against the stone shore of Joel. The air seems to go frosty, a shiver raking down your spine as you shuffle back a little, suddenly aware of how close you are, how very brave you’ve been. You aren’t sure when Joel started to feel familiar to you.

Since you first met him, you suppose. You’ve carved out a place on that rocky shore whether he wanted you to or not.

“Sorry,” you say, starting to stand, thinking of how annoying you must have been all evening, all day, every single day you’ve taken up his time. You let him comfort you, plied him with trauma you’ve barely touched yourself, let him buy you something to eat against your better judgment when clearly it’s his manners that made him do so. “Don’t know what’s gotten into me. I’ll message Ellie to figure out the second session. Thanks for everything. You didn’t have to—”

“Your hip,” Joel says, curling his hand around your wrist so you can’t move any further away than you already have. You pause, your mind spinning as he clutches you gently.

His voice is steady, like you’re a spooked animal that might dart away at any moment.

“What?”

“I bet you one of your other tattoos is on your hip,” he drawls.

He squeezes your wrist again, now familiar and comforting. You fight the urge to pull your hand away, and instead let the feeling of his skin sink into yours, no cheap plastic gloves separating you now. You can properly feel the calluses on his fingertips, the catch of them against your skin, the soft center of his palm and the lines carved into his skin.

“No,” you lower yourself to the bench again, a tentative smile tugging at the corner of your mouth. “None on my hip.”

“How many other one’s you got?” His hand stays around yours.

“Two, not including my new one,” you say, laying a hand over the ink, your skin warm under your hand. “That’s my prettiest one, for sure. And it’s not even done.”

Joel ignores your compliment entirely, like he always seems to. His eyes rove over you, trying to guess the places you were inked, trying to picture it you would guess. It makes you squirm, the thought of him trying to imagine your bare skin, all the hidden places you might be tattooed.

He nods, his gaze heavy on you.

“I’ll just have to keep guessin’ then,” he says, taking a long sip from your cup of lemonade.

You glance away and bite the inside of your cheek. “You’ll be guessing a long time, I think.”

“I’ve got time.” He releases your arm when you start to squirm under his attention, chest burning, lungs compressed into too small a space. Your chest doesn’t seem large enough to contain the feelings beating to life in your heart. “So long as you keep comin’ by.”

A smile pulls at your mouth again, feeling unreasonably charmed. “Okay, fine, I’ll tell you what they are, but not where they are.”

“I ain’t askin’ you to,” he says, even as a smile tugs at the corners of his lips, mustache twitching, like this concession is the only thing he’s ever wanted for.

“One is a honeybee,” you answer. “The other is antlers.”

Joel goes still and doesn’t say anything for a moment. “A bee?” He asks, like he’s never heard of the creature before. “And…antlers. Like a deer?”

“Yeah, like a deer. With flowers and vines and moss all tangled around it.”

“Huh.”

“What? Don’t like deer?” You smile. “Funny isn't it? You’ve been drawing them a lot the past few months.”

He eyes you and then shakes his head, “Don’t like ‘em? Jesus Christ, no. I think I’m gettin’ to be real partial to deer.”

💞 Thank you for reading! Comments and feedback are so appreciated. 💞

#joel miller x reader #joel miller x you #tlou fanfiction #the last of us #the last of us fanfiction #joel miller #pedro pascal #pedro pascal characters

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captainfern · 6 months

Text

141Rugby!au [18+]

• Part Two - Crush •

Johnny "Soap" MacTavish x fem!reader

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You've recently started a new job as a physiotherapist for an English Rugby Union team. It's your job to ensure that all the players are in top shape for upcoming games against other strong teams. This job is absolutely perfect for you: good pay, good hours, a fun and exciting atmosphere to be apart of. But there's just one thing you can't seem to understand– the same four players seem to need more attention than the rest.

chapter summary - you're getting used to your new job now, and have a knowledge of player's injuries. but the scrum-half insists it's more than just his leg that needs attention lol.

rating - 18+

wordcount - 5.5k

chapter warnings - fem!reader, slow-ish burn [but not really cause ik you're here for the porn], soap's an absolute menace, mutual masturbation, guided masturbation?, brief discussion of oral [m!receiving], light degradation/dumbification but only if you squint tbh, praise, strong language

disclaimer - physiotherapist, or staff x player sexual relations are not allowed in the real world. but please keep in mind this is fanfiction. it's fake. if you have an issue with inappropriate relations with faculty, blurred morals [etc], then please do not read. additionally, reader be fucking in this series. all four. separately, and at once. it's not cheating, i promise. it's consensual sharing <3

Soap is a scrum-half, or half-back – has a wide set of skills, kicks and passes well, and is generally the smallest on the team. this position tends to work the best under pressure.

see my rugby union introductory for definitions of rugby words

<- part one | part three ->

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You wake bright an early the next morning, the sunlight streaming through your window and bathing you in warm golden light. You stretch, joints popping, back shifting out of sleep-mode.

You ready yourself for the day, manage to eat a small amount of breakfast, and then you're out the door– the sun hovering above the horizon and reflecting onto the city below.

You're one of the first to arrive at work, as per usual. It's unusually quiet. The players usually bring the noise once they all start arriving a few hours later. So you hum to yourself as you walk down the award-lined hallway, passing by the coaches door and seeing light peeking out from beneath it. He's the first at work, before you.

You round the slight corner, juggling the files and your lunchbox in your hands, as well as your favourite choice of beverage for that time in the morning, while you wriggle your keys out of your pocket. You look up at your door, and almost drop your things in fright.

The scrum-half of the team leans against the wall beside your door, scrolling absent-mindedly through his phone. He looks up when he hears you approaching, a broad smile passing over his face. He pockets his phone and kicks himself off the wall as you walk over, your heart still beating a bit faster than normal after that unexpected fright.

"Mornin', doc," he smiled, then held out his hands. "You need a hand."

"Oh!" You hand your files and your lunch over to him, now finding it significantly easier to slot your key into the keyhole. "Thanks, Johnny."

When you twist the key, it unlocks, and Johnny beats you to it– pushing the door open for you and sliding his hand inside to flick on the light. He then stood aside, allowing you to walk in as the lights beamed on.

"After you." He smiled, and you smiled back, walking into your office. It was cold and dark, so after placing your keys and your travel cup on your desk, you moved to open the curtains and then turn on the heater in the corner of the room. Johnny followed in behind you, placing your files and lunch neatly on your desk, before looking around your office with a small quirk in his lips.

You pulled the curtains and allowed golden sunlight to stream in. You then passed a look over your shoulder. "You know... your appointment’s not for another forty minutes, Johnny."

"I know," he shrugged as you moved to the heater to turn it on. "I just figured you'd probably want to get it out of the way, right?"

You laughed. "Not necessarily. It is my job."

Johnny smiled. "Well, I'm glad you don't want to get it over and done with then, eh?"

You turned from the heater, catching his sly grin and the flirtatious tone in his voice. You ignore it with a roll of your eyes, before pointing to the medical table on the other side of your office. Johnny got the memo, hobbling across the room and scooting himself back up onto the table.

You grabbed his file from your desk and walked over to him, thumbing through the pages.

"Right, so you've pulled a muscle in your calf, correct?"

"Yes ma'am," Johnny said, twisting to lie on his stomach, but looking over his shoulder so he could see you. "My right one."

"And you did it at training the day before yesterday?" You questioned him again, placing your files to the side and opening one of the cabinets, pulling out a bottle of cool, muscle rub gel.

You approached the table and unscrewed the cap as he continued speaking. "Yeah, pulled it coming out of a ruck."

"What's the pain like?"

"Not too bad, but still unpleasant."

"So it's definitely not a tear then, which is good." You said, squeezing a generous amount of the gel onto Johnny's calf. He flinched at the cold.

"So that means... it's probably just a strain?" Johnny asked, no longer looking over his shoulder. Instead, he had folded his arms and was now resting his head over them.

You began to smooth the gel over the surface of his calf, gently at first. "Most likely. They're very common."

Johnny grunted when your grip hardened– a firm massage into the skin, feeling for the muscles that were causing him the most discomfort.

"Does that mean, you know, because it isn't a serious injury, that I won't be able to come in here as much?"

You rolled your eyes. "Very funny." Your thumb then pressed down on an inflamed patch of skin, feeling a particularly tender strain of muscle beneath the thin layer of flesh. Johnny let out a low groan, and you quickly apologised as you lightened your touch.

You spent a couple of minutes working your fingers and thumb around the injury. Not too hard, like a proper massage, as the injury was still fresh. But you got a feel of the strain on the muscles, and you moved away to wash the gel from your hands.

"What's the diagnosis, doc?" Soap asked as you scrubbed the gel from your hands.

"Oh my god," you shook your head in disbelief. "What is with you boys and calling me doc?"

Soap cracked a smile, though you couldn't see him do it. "It's 'cause you're our doc."

"I'm a physiotherapist, Johnny."

"Same thing."

You shook your head in disbelief again, drying your hands and moving to scribble down a few things on Johnny's file. Your eyes lingered on the top for a moment, and you laughed behind closed lips. Johnny heard you, turning around and sitting up, his head cocked to the side like a curious puppy.

"What're you laughing at?" He asked, trying to get a peek at your files.

You tapped the tip of your pen to the top of the page you were writing on. "How'd you get a nickname like Soap?"

Johnny smiled. "Oh, that! S'cause I'm slippery like that, doc. Hard to catch on the field."

You blew out an unimpressed sigh, moving back to your cabinets and taking out a new tube of gel– this time, Voltarol. You spoke to him as you unscrewed the cap and walked back towards the table. "That's a stupid nickname and– turn back onto your stomach for me, thanks– I find it hard to believe everyone calls you that."

Johnny twisted himself back around to offer you his calf. He laughed. "It's a popular name 'round here, doc. Not many of the lads call me Johnny."

You piped a small amount of the Voltarol gel onto the back of Johnny's calf, screwing the cap back on and placing the tube to the side. You then slowly began to smooth the gel into the skin, which was now bright red from where your hands had been moving against it.

"Am I the only one that calls you Johnny, then?" You asked, carefully rolling his calf beneath your fingers and palm.

He grunted, lost in the feeling for a second, and then cleared his throat in an attempt to re-centre himself. "Uh, yeah, pretty much."

"Do you like it?" You asked.

You said it innocently enough, but Johnny's brain was in a slight haze. Your hands on him, the slight twinge of pain, the smell of the gel and of your perfume. He blinked rapidly where his head was tucked against his folded arms.

"Huh?"

"Do you like it?" You repeated, fingers rubbing gently across Johnny's burning-hot skin. "Do you like when I call you Johnny?"

"Uh–" Johnny was praying that he didn't get a fucking boner.

"Or would you prefer it if I called you Soap like everyone else?" You asked, this sentence sounding more sweet and sincere than seductive like the last few.

Johnny cleared his throat again. "Oh, I mean, it's up to you, doc. I don't... you know, I don't really mind–"

"No, seriously," you assured him, the palm of your hand pressing down on his calf, making his breath hitch. "What would you prefer? Don't worry about what I prefer. What do you prefer?"

Anything. Fucking anything. You could call him whatever name you wanted to, even if it wasn't his, and he'd still love it. He'd still love the way it sounded falling from your lips. Call him whatever you want, doc.

"You can call me Johnny." He said quietly.

"Yeah?" You smiled. "I'm not cool enough to call you Soap?"

Johnny bristled. "What? No! No, doc. It's not that–"

You laughed, and the sound alone made Johnny's heart start beating a hundred times faster. "I'm just kidding, Johnny. Don't worry."

Johnny sighed into his arms, shaking his head, which made you laugh. Soon, you finished applying the Voltarol gel, and were washing your hands at the sink while Johnny gingerly put his feet to the ground, sliding off the table.

"Okay, so I've just put some Voltarol on your calf, which should help reduce the swelling and inflammation. It'll also help soothe the muscles a bit and hopefully reduce the risk of you cramping up in the near future," you said, double-checking your files once more before turning your full attention to the scrum-half. "Don't shower or put water on the area for at least an hour, and try to avoid direct sunlight if you can. It works better in the first hour if you do that."

Johnny was nodding along to everything you said.

"Oh, and don't touch it and then touch your eyes, that'll sting like hell," You finished with a smile, clasping your hands together. "Any questions?"

Johnny looked out the window briefly, and then back at you. "Yeah, uh, do I need to do anything else?"

"Well, no training for thirteen days at least. Which means no game this weekend."

He gaped at you. "What? Doc, come on–"

"If you want it to get better, Johnny, then you need to rest it," you told him sternly, and he shut his mouth immediately. You smiled. "Any other questions?"

"Am... Am I coming back?"

You laughed. "To me?"

"Yeah. I mean, you know, as a physio–"

"Yes, you'll come back to me, Johnny. Give it about a week, but if it's still feeling as though it's a fresh injury before then, make an earlier appointment. Oh! And don't let me forget–" You hurried over to your cabinets and grabbed a spare tube of Voltarol gel, handing it to him. "You can use it up to four times a day, but your injury isn't too swollen anymore, so just put it on after your shower, maybe once in the morning and again at night if it's bad."

"Okay. Okay, cool, thanks doc." Johnny said, looking down at the gel and nodding.

You smiled, heading back towards your desk. "I'll see you in a week's time then, okay?"

"Yeah, sounds good," Johnny told you, pocketing the gel. "Thanks for that, doc. Have a good day, yeah?"

"You too, Johnny."

Johnny left your office, closing the door gently behind him. His calf was already feeling so much better, but he had another problem.

He adjusted himself in his shorts, placing his hands in front of his hardening cock.

Fucking hell.

•º•º•

He felt like an absolute perv the way he would take any opportunity just to look at you.

Over the next week, Johnny wasn't allowed to take part in any of the trainings, but he played water-boy pretty well. That meant he was still limping around the training grounds, wandering through the halls, and annoying his teammates by just being himself.

But, one of the main reasons he was so happy to play water-boy for the next week or so was because he could see you.

He watched the way you hurried down the hall, files tucked beneath your arm, humming to yourself. He admired the way you smiled and greeted all of the players and staff, always so happy to be talking with any of them. He noticed how sometimes you'd absent-mindedly watch the training from your window, and Johnny got to steal glances of your pretty face behind the glass.

It was some high-school type crush. It had to be it.

Or maybe not. When Johnny saw the way Gaz looked at you, just for a split second, a fleeting moment passing each other in the halls, he felt his stomach drop. Would he have to compete with Gaz for your attention now? The way the winger smiled at you; all bright white, absolutely perfect fucking teeth. So charismatic, and charming, and Johnny saw the way it melted you. The way you hid half of your face behind your clipboard of files, and the way you averted those pretty eyes of yours.

Johnny had no reason to feel like this. But something about you... something about you had him feeling so... different.

So he did feel as though he was competing with Gaz sometimes. Subtly, of course. Gaz was still his teammate and one of his closest friends, so the Scotsman had to ensure his strategy was invisible.

For example. Walking down the hall on the way out to the field, and you'd pop your head of your office to wish everyone good morning. Johnny found it easy to just push Gaz ahead, jostling him around with false excitability that everyone predicted of the scrum-half, anyway.

Or at night, one time Johnny caught Gaz lingering near your door, waiting for you to finish up your shift and then, like the gentleman he was, walk you to your car. Johnny found it slightly less easy to tell Gaz he had a last minute appointment, and so Gaz didn't need to wait around. It was just a little white lie. Nothing major. And then, when you'd finish with your work, Johnny would walk you to your car, opening the door for you, leaning against it as he spoke to you. He'd wish you goodnight, and a safe drive home.

And then–

"Did you need a ride, Johnny?" You asked at the end of the week, looking around the empty carpark.

Johnny drove sometimes. But as of late, to keep himself moving– and occupied– he'd walk from home to the station and then take the train. If he really wanted to, he could probably walk all the way home in less than thirty minutes.

But, how could he say no?

Not with the way you were offering him such a warm, comforting smile. The night was cold, too.

"Are you sure, doc? I don't want to keep you from heading home..." Johnny said, drumming his fingers against the car door.

You smiled, starting the ignition. "Don't be silly. Hop in, it's cold out tonight."

Johnny tried and failed to hide his smile as he walked around to the other side of the car, sliding into the passenger seat. After giving you his address, he thanked you while he put his seatbelt on, and then thanked you again when you rolled out of the parking spot. He thanked you a third time when the car merged out onto the main road.

You released a small, bashful laugh, glancing at him momentarily. "You don't need to thank me. I'm sure you would've done the same for me."

Of course he would have. He'd do anything you asked of him, you know that, right? Hell, if you wanted him too, he'd let you drive him home and get you splayed out on his sofa and, because you'd probably ask so nicely, he'd press his face between your legs and make you come in his mouth. Or, or, if you let him, if you granted him even the slightest chance, he'd be so fucking happy for you to drop to your knees in front of him, pump his cock in those soft, skilled hands of yours, and then wrap your lips around him. Good god—

"Yeah, o'course I would doc." Johnny mumbled, screwing his eyes shut and trying not to focus on the image he just put in his head.

You shot him a look. "Are you alright?"

Johnny's eyes snapped open, and he realised, with heat forming in his cheeks, that he'd made a pained face and released a soft groan. How fucking embarrassing.

"Yeah, m'fine... s'just, you know, my calf." He lied.

At that time, you pulled up outside his flat. Johnny took a deep breath.

"It's still sore?" You asked with a frown.

Johnny felt guilty now.

"No..." He admitted. "It's actually feeling a lot better. I should probably thank you for that too, eh?"

You smiled. "That's okay. It's my–"

"Your job, yeah..." Johnny trailed off, looking down the dark street through the windshield. He turned back to you and found you were already looking at him. He furrowed his brows. "What?"

You squinted at him, as though trying to see him better. "What has been going on with you lately? You've been acting... different."

Johnny looked around sheepishly. "S'nothing, doc."

You hummed, skeptical, but didn't question him further. Instead, he thanked you again for the ride, wished you goodnight, and exited the car. You watched him disappear through the door of his flat before driving away.

•º•º•

Of course you had a crush on Johnny. Who wouldn't?

It was hard to ignore his charm, his infectious smile and his flirtatious compliments. It was hard to ignore the looks he gave you across the hall, or the way he always seemed to run into you after the end of your shift.

He was a handsome man. An absolute menace, mind you, but he was nice. Really nice. And you wondered whether it was a ploy to get you to actually like him.

Thirteen days after your initial appointment with Johnny, and a couple of days after you had dropped him home, he sauntered into your office, chirping out a "morning, doc!" before automatically laying himself down on the medical table.

You smiled, shaking your head ruefully, getting up from your desk and walking over to him. He was rolling up the leg of his grey sweatpants, exposing his calf to you.

"Morning to you too," you said. "Your calf looks good. The swelling's gone down significantly, hasn't it?"

He nodded. "Yeah, and it feels good too. No pain."

"No pain?" You questioned, gently prodding the target area on the back of his calf. "None at all?"

"Yep," Johnny said, popping the p. "I'm all good."

"Good," you told him, patting his calf a couple of times before walking away to write up a final statement on your computer. "Then I suppose we're all done."

Johnny jolted up, his head snapping over to look at you as he quickly lifted himself off of the medical table. He began rolling down the leg of his sweatpants. "Oh, well, I mean– are you sure? Like, did you want to check it again?"

"No, it's alright," you said without looking at him, eyes on your computer as your fingers flew across the keyboard, the clacking filling the room. "Swelling's gone down, pain is gone. You're all good to go."

Johnny frowned. "Right... okay... Do I need to, I dunno, like, come back for a follow-up appointment?"

"No." You shook your head, still typing.

"So that's it?" He was almost pouting now.

You smiled at your screen, hearing the slight sadness in his tone. "Yes, Johnny, that's it. Until you get hurt again, you don't have to come back and see me."

Johnny's frown was deep now. "But what if I want to see you again without being hurt?"

"Well, I work here, so you'll see me–"

"No, I mean, what if I want to spend time with you without you– you know– checking me for injuries."

You finally looked away from your computer, cocking your head to the side in confusion. You stared at him for a moment, and then laughed. "God, at least take me out to dinner first, MacTavish."

The way you said his last name had his cock twitching within the confines of his sweats. He cleared his throat, fidgeting with the elastic of his waistband. "Yeah, actually, I mean, if you wanted, you could come 'round to mine for dinner."

You smiled at him. "You cook?"

He shrugged. "I try."

You laughed. "Okay, sure. When–?"

"Tonight," Johnny said a bit too quickly, then slowed himself down to repeat; "Tonight. Six o'clock."

Your smile didn't fade. "Okay, Johnny. I'll see you at six."

•º•º•

"For the record, this is not a date. It's just dinner, okay?" You reiterated as you walked into Johnny's flat at a few minutes to six that evening. He took your coat from you, and showed you into his flat.

"I know, doc. Don't worry," He said, and then led you into the living room. "Dinner's in the oven, but we can wait here if you'd like."

You sat down on the couch and Johnny took the armchair directly opposite. You were presently surprised, too. The flat smelt amazing, savoury smells of rendering fat and frying potatoes– a good roast, by the smell of it. And the flat was tidy, well decorated too. Not something you expected from a rugby union player.

"Your place is really nice, Johnny." You remarked, looking around the room.

"Oh, that's all Simon. He likes keeping the place clean."

"Oh, you flat with Ghost?"

Johnny nodded. "Yeah, but he's out for the evening. Gym, I think. Probably with Price and Gaz, too."

After looking around the room, you turned your attention back to him. He was already looking at you, and it was like a wave of heat passed over you– the way he was looking, his soft dark eyes and the slight pinch in his brow, made you grow hot. It was like he was studying you, an unwaveringly warm appraisal that had you shifting in your seat. The only other person that had ever looked at you like that with such admiration was Gaz.

"What're you staring at, Johnny?" You asked accusingly, trying to play it off like a joke. Something flippant. Anything to conceal the fact your heart was beginning to hammer in your throat.

He sighed through his nose, lips quirking as he looked at you. "You're a smart girl, doc. I think you can figure it out."

Your stomach fluttered at that. What the hell.

You forced yourself to roll your eyes and sigh and act the complete fucking opposite of the way you were feeling. You shook your head, a mocking smile on your face as you broke eye-contact, looking anywhere else but him. "Don't do this to me, Soap."

"Oh, no Johnny?" Johnny teased. "You're nickname-zoning me now?"

You huffed, finally looking at him. "No, that's not what I–"

"I'm not trying to make you uncomfortable," Johnny quickly said. "And you're more than welcome to leave, seriously, no hard feelings. But... but I have a huge crush on you, doc."

Oh. Well… it’s not like you weren't expecting it. But you still felt your mouth drop open a bit.

You tried to play it cool. "Crush? What are we, thirteen–?"

"Don't shoot me while I'm down, doll," Johnny grimaced. "My heart's beating out of my fucking chest."

Doll. That's new. You didn't know how to feel about that.

But your pussy certainly liked it. [LMAO]

That pulsing heartbeat in your chest seemed to move down your body and into your underwear, pleasure pinching at the base of your tummy, making you feel giddy. Maybe it was because it was Johnny saying it...

"Johnny..." You whined, flopping back further onto the couch.

Johnny groaned in response, his legs spreading as he lifted his hips, adjusting the way he was sitting in the armchair. Your eyes followed the movement unabashedly, causing a wicked grin to split across the Scots face.

"God, I've imagined you saying my name like that since you walked into the team room on your very first day," Johnny muttered, and you watched him with bated breath as he palmed himself over his sweatpants. You could see the hard outline of his cock, and you squeezed your thighs together.

"Johnny..." You whispered to him and he groaned again.

There was a prominent tent in the front of his sweats now. He groaned again, watching the way your eyes never left his body. "Tell me to stop doc, and I will. I'll stop. I'll... I'll stop for you."

You didn't want him to stop. Maybe you did– I mean, hello! You're job? But, just like with Gaz, all thoughts of your job seemed to fly out the window. The way Johnny was looking at you, the way his cock hardened just by you whining his name like that, had heat flooding your body and arousal dripping from your cunt.

"I... I don't want you to stop," you told him and you could see the visible relief on his face. You bit your lip to hide your smile. "I want you to touch yourself, Johnny."

"Oh, fuck yes–" he literally growled, pulling his cock out of his boxers and sweats. He hissed out a low groan when he squeezed his cock at the base, the tip already flushed red and pearling with pre-cum.

You bit back a whimper at the sight. The way he fisted his cock a couple of times, before holding it at the base; the way his cheeks burned red, eyes darting across your face; the soft grunts and groans that elicited from his chest; the light pinch in his brows as more pre leaked from his slit.

You released a shaky breath, teetering on a whimper. "You're so pretty, Johnny."

"Ah, fucking hell, doll–" He groaned, using the pre-cum rolling down his length to slick his grip, pumping his cock while his eyelids fluttered. But he willed them open, eyes finding yours. He noticed the way you were squeezing your thighs together, moving in your seat. God, he loved it.

"Come on, doc. Let me see you touch that pretty cunt, eh?" Johnny uttered, a sparkle in his eyes as you wasted no time pulling your trousers down, followed by your underwear. He noticed the damp spot on the fabric, and groaned again. "God, s'this what you wanted the whole time? Naughty fucking girl, doc. Look how soaked you are."

You spread your legs slowly, parting your thighs for him to see your glistening core. He moaned out, the pace of his hand increasing as you dragged your own fingers along your inner-thighs, dancing across your bikini-line but not quite going further. That made Johnny grunt, movements slowing.

You blinked lazily at him, pleasure stirring in your stomach at just watching him. Your clit was throbbing.

"Tell me how to touch myself, Johnny." You basically begged, and Johnny almost came right then and there.

"Fuck, fuck–" He gripped his cock hard at the base, trying to slow the building of his orgasm. But you looked so good, sounded so good. You were perfect. He slowly began his movements again, the sounds of his pre-cum alone sending soft squelches through the living room. "Play with your clit, doll, come on. Show me how you like it."

You moaned, finally dragging your fingers over your core. The pads skimmed across your wet folds, gathering your slick, before circling your puffy clit. Johnny's eyes were burning you whole.

You moaned out, a breathless "oh my god, Johnny–" following, bracketed by another long moan at the end of your sentence. You were so sensitive, your bundle of nerves throbbing beneath the tight circles of your fingers. Johnny jerked himself off to the sights and sounds of you, his cock twitching in his hand, rigid velvet beneath his fingers. His eyes flitted from your blissed-out facial expressions, to the way your fingers toyed with your clit. Your cunt squeezed around nothing, and Johnny groaned when another dribble of slick leaked out down the lower curve of your arse.

"You're so wet, fucking hell," Johnny muttered, more to himself than you. "Want you to fuck yourself now, doc. Want you to stuff that wet cunt with your fingers," he said louder this time, wetting his lips as he quickened his hand movements, hips twitching upwards to meet each thrust. "Go on."

You whined at his words, reluctantly dragging your fingers away. Your clit was buzzing with your unreleased orgasm. So fucking close. But you listened. Like a good girl, you listened and trailed two fingers down your folds to your dripping hole. You waited for him, fingers circling the opening.

Johnny cursed, then groaned. "Waiting for my permission? Really, doc?"

You whined. "Please, Johnny–"

He chuckled darkly, still pumping his cock. "Go on then, doll. Two fingers, yeah? S'that it?"

You whined again, two fingers smearing your arousal across your dripping core, heat fizzling in your lower tummy. Your hips twitched, body warming against the couch.

"I know that wet cunt can take more than that," Johnny said. "Fuck yourself with three fingers. Go on doc, you can count. Three fingers. Make yourself come thinking they're my cock."

Listening to him, you added a third finger and then slowly pushed inside. The stretch was there, of course– the light twinge of pain somewhere deep inside you, but you ignored it. The gummy walls of your cunt sucked your fingers in, wet and warm, until your knuckles were brushing up against you.

"Steamin' Jesus–" Johnny whispered, cock twitching in his hand, leaking pre. "That's it... now fuck yourself, doc. You can do that, can't you? Be good– fuck– be good and fuck yourself."

You did. In and out, you dragged your fingers, fucking yourself like he said and imagining they were his cock. His cock filling you up, pulling moans and whimpers from your throat, building that bubbling hot pressure in the base of your gut. You knew he'd feel so good inside you. Warm and hard and thick inside you. You were almost salivating, whimpering out to him as you neared your orgasm.

Your legs shook against the couch, trembling. You tried your best to keep your eyes on him, but the heat of his stare was making you dizzy. You whimpered "Johnny, Johnny, please–" and he grunted in response, praising you through it, uttering deep "that's it, doll, that's it" with each thrust of your hand.

"M'gonna come, fuck, m'so close–" You gasped out, eyes rolling.

Johnny was close to, grunting as he fucked his fist, eyes on you the entire time.

"Eyes on me when you come, doc. Open those pretty eyes." Johnny told you. You wrenched your eyes open, head falling forward slightly and your lips parting, a string of breathless whimpers emerging.

Johnny moaned. "You can come, doll, go on. Come 'round your fingers and tell me– fuck– tell me who you’re thinking about. Who’s on that pretty mind of yours while you’re being a good girl and coming ‘round your fingers, hm?"

Your orgasm crashed over you like a wave, and you did as you were told– keeping your eyes on him for as long as possible before the weight of your pleasure forced them shut, moaning his name in a long, loud "Johnny–!"

He came too, moaning your name into the living room. No doc, or doll; it was your first name– moaning it as he came across his knuckles, his cum splattering up his abdomen and dripping onto his lap. He pumped himself through it, slowly softening, muttering your name over and over, eyes finally closing.

"Next time..." He breathed, chest rising and falling rapidly. Yours was much the same. "Next time, I'm coming down your throat."

You smiled, fucked-out, taking a deep breath as you relaxed against the couch, the pair of you basking in each other's company as your highs waned. When you breathed in again, you smelt food. Burning–?

"Oh, fuck! Fuck–!" Johnny was tucking himself back into his cum-stained sweatpants and sprinting out of the living room and into the kitchen. "Fuck! My fucking roast!"

You couldn't help but giggle, moving to slip your pants back on. "Make sure to wash your hands first!" You called, and immediately heard the water running. You laughed again.

As you got dressed, you looked back down at the couch, embarrassment flooding you. A wet stain on the fabric. Oh, fuck no.

"Uh, Johnny? Do you have anything I could, uh, clean the couch with?"

"Check the bathroom! First door on the right!" Johnny called.

Thank god for that, you thought. You didn't exactly want Ghost wondering why his perfectly clean couch had a fucking stain on it. And, knowing Johnny, he wouldn't exactly have a good excuse for it.

Speaking of Ghost...

"Oh, by the way, I forgot to ask, what has Ghost done to himself? He's got an appointment before the game tomorrow, and it only says he's hurt his hand." You asked after exiting the bathroom with an arms full of cleaning supplies.

"Yeah, something wrong with his fingers, I think. I dunno. He hurt himself sparring with Price on Monday," you heard Johnny reply. "Price made him book an appointment. He usually doesn't."

"Huh..." You pondered. "Why's he at the gym if he's hurt?"

Johnny poked his head in the doorway. "He's Ghost. It'll take more than a couple'a sore fingers to knock him down... and, by the way, dinner's ready."

You smiled. "It's not too burnt, is it?"

Johnny rolled his eyes. "Shut up."

•º•º•º•º•º•º•º•º•º•º•º•º•º•º•º•º•º•º•º•º•º•º•º•º•

#captainfern #call of duty #call of duty mw2 #fem reader #141rugby!au #johnny soap mactavish #soap smut #soap x reader #soap call of duty #cod smut

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papiliotao · 8 months

Text

꒰ 𝒂 𝒇𝒂𝒊𝒓𝒚𝒕𝒂𝒍𝒆 𝒆𝒏𝒅𝒊𝒏𝒈 ✩࿐

pairing: lyney x gn!reader

content: fluff, modern au, high school au, friends to (almost) lovers, mutual pining, theatre kids, lyney and the reader rehearse a kissing scene

summary: playing the role of his lover in a drama production is easier said than done, especially when you’re just beginning to realize the nature of your feelings for him.

a/n: i had no inspiration for a while but then lyney came along. i’m so normal about him. anyway, i hope you enjoy reading!

When you were told that you had to kiss your best friend for a school play, you were in shock and disbelief — not because you were repulsed by the thought of playing the part of a couple, but because you realized that you didn’t mind the idea of his lips pressed against yours.

You’re not quite sure when the feelings crept up on you, dawning in your heart like the hazes of peach and azure that dust the horizon at sunrise. It feels like it’s been an eternity since you started loving Lyney, but you’ve just never noticed that your adoration was beyond platonic.

However, after experiencing your epiphany, you’ve been wondering if he shares your rose-tinted sentiments. Slowly but surely, you observe that the lines between friendship and romance have become blurred, fusing together in a myriad of watercolour hues.

Every once in a while, Lyney will hold your hand for no reason, the softness of his skin akin to the caress of gilded threads of sunlight. There are also instances where he’ll hug you for just a little too long, clinging onto you as if he never wants to let go. And of course, you’ll never be able to forget the sentimental nights spent gazing up at murals of sparkling constellations dotting pristine navy skies, where you cuddle with your best friend in an attempt to stay warm.

In these instances, a simple question lingers in the short silences, an untold inquiry that neither of you care to utter in fear of shattering the status quo.

What are we?

So now, as you sit across from Lyney atop the velvety cushions of his living room couch, ready to rehearse very kiss that sent you spiraling into a bout of infatuated hysteria in the first place, your heart can’t help but race. The melody it sings is one that speaks of perplexing feelings and a hope for fairytale endings, and it only amplifies as you look into pale violet eyes that sparkle as iridescent petals flutter about in their depths.

“I’m ready whenever you are,” Lyney whispers, smiling at you reassuringly. There’s something soothing about the expression on his face, embodying the serenity of a marine zephyr in the midst of a cruel summer.

“How can you be so calm when we’re about to practice a kiss?” you ask, voicing your thoughts out loud. “What if we’re not good enough?”

Truthfully, you’re a nervous wreck. Your fingers tremble, and your mind feels blank. You’ve always known that Lyney was born to be on stage, but you didn’t think he’d be so nonchalant in a situation like this. His disposition is completely composed, not a single spark of anxiety shining through his tranquil demeanour.

On the other hand, you’re constantly pondering the what ifs.

What if you mess the scene up? What if it turns out looking awkward? What if it’s so horrendous that it makes the audience uncomfortable.

However, in total contrast to you, Lyney simply chuckles, his voice ringing out in a clear and soothing fantasia.

“Don’t worry,” he reassures you, keeping his gaze fixated on you. “I’m sure our chemistry will be absolutely perfect. After all, even Lynette has mistaken us for a couple.”

“She has?” you blurt out, both shocked and embarrassed that Lyney’s twin has had her misconceptions about your relationship. The two are practically telepathically linked, so the tall order of fooling Lynette would more or less be akin to deceiving the heavens above.

“She has,” Lyney confirms, a mischievous spark of violet electricity blazing through his irises, “and that’s why I’m certain we’ll be able to pull this off flawlessly.”

He gently laces his fingers around your hand, bringing it up to his chest.

“Besides, it’s not like I’m not nervous at all.” From beneath the soft fabric of Lyney’s clothes, you can feel a gentle thrumming, a beat that resounds at a tempo matching that of your very own heart. “You know, even the greatest of performers get stage fright sometimes.”

In a mystifying twist, you feel more comfortable now that Lyney has told you that you’re not alone in your anxiousness. Your relief defies all logic, but perhaps it’s the knowledge that your feelings aren’t entirely unreasonable that soothes your nerves.

“I see,” you whisper. “Well I’m sure you’ll do great. We’ll get through this together.”

Lyney nods.

“I’m just glad it’s you,” he says, pausing for a moment as if deep in thought. “Actually, ‘glad’ would be an understatement. ‘Beyond overjoyed’ is more accurate.”

Your breath hitches, and for a second, the world seems to still, suspended in a momentary utopia. But despite your giddiness and the euphoric feelings that arise in your heart, you shrug Lyney’s words off, trying your best not to get your hopes up. After all, if you expect too much, you might find yourself disappointed in the end.

“The feeling is mutual. Although maybe we should get to rehearsing now. I think I’m ready,” you tell him, pulling your hand out of his grasp in a light motion, clinging on to the last of his warmth as his skin grazes yours. It’s reminiscent of fading sunlight comforting you with the dazzling radiance of a dying crepuscule, lulling you into a daze as it causes shades of twilight to waltz in a dance of fantastical wonders.

“Your wish is my command,” Lyney responds playfully.

However, after only a few seconds, his features shift into a more serious expression. Although the same smile adorning his lips, it’s softer now, more sincere.

Is this all part of an act, or is it real?

Additionally, an unidentifiable emotion now glints in a display of diamond lights, illuminating the seas of amethyst contained within Lyney’s eyes. Locks of platinum hair, composed of starlight essence, frame his face in a way that makes him look undeniably handsome. Once again, your heart, which had just barely stilled, begins to beat in a frenzy.

You want nothing more than to freeze time, stay in this ephemeral moment, relish in the sensation of his breath gently tickling your skin and engrave the ethereal sight before you into archives stored deep within your memories. But unfortunately, it’s impossible to pause the scene before you. Reality, unlike the countless movies and videos you’ve watched to study your part, stops for no one.

And before you know it, the divide between your lips and Lyney’s is diminishing, the blank space fading at a pace that feels both far too rapid yet far too prolonged at the same time.

Closer.

And closer.

Until your lips meet in a clash of opalescent sparks, shedding light and embellishing the magical moment with an atmosphere worthy of any stage. The lilac butterflies that dance in the pit of your stomach prompt sensations of glee to arise within your heart.

His skin is soft and warm, and the feeling of his lips against yours is just so right. There’s no one else you’d rather kiss. There’s no one else you’ll ever long for. There’s no one in the world you’ll ever love more.

No matter how much you deny it, your relationship has crossed the line from platonic to romantic, gradually edging closer and closer to a thin border before finally falling over onto the other side. Your kiss with Lyney confirms everything. There’s far too much passion, far too much care and longing exchanged in a single act of affection.

Best friends don’t kiss each other like this.

At this point you’re certain the feeling is mutual. Now, all you have to do is wait until one of you inevitably confesses, and you’ll both be able to finally live happily ever after, basking in the splendor of true love.

thank you for reading <3 if you enjoyed this fic, i would really appreciate it if you could comment or reblog!

#r.archives *ೃ༄#favoniuslibrary #astronetwrk #lyney x reader #lyney x you #lyney fluff #genshin impact x reader #genshin imagines #genshin x reader #genshin headcanons #genshin impact #genshin #genshin fanfic #genshin lyney

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taurusdaylight · 3 months

Text

our rendezvous

summary. being lost in the horizon sounds scary, but not when you're hand in hand with your lover.

pairing. boyfriend! jaehyun x implied fem! reader

genre. established relationship! au, fluff

word count. 4,021

warnings/tags. as far as i know, nothing :) it's only a little angsty because of uncertainty about the future, but nothing too intense! very very fluffy,,,, maybe a lil pda (oh?)

a/n. ur resident valentine is back! i'm so sorry for going off the grid, my life has been a blur over the past few months… i did nothing and everything. anyway, this is inspired by none other than horizon (soty!) and i was very lucky to have had the opportunity to visit florence, where the horizon mv was filmed, so i knew i had to write this! after finishing it, i realised it's rather similar to my first fic but what can i say, i love jaehyun travel! aus, plus, jaehyun and forever just go together. <3 hope the new year is treating everyone kindly, and as always, have fun reading~

–

Navigating life after graduation was akin to walking through a maze, struggling to find a way out. Growing up, you always thought that everyone’s life had already been nicely written out since there were only two things that truly mattered: school and work. The adults always preached about how good academic records would land you a great job. All your life, you never failed to achieve and maintain stellar grades so you never doubted that you would get a job. Yet, as the day of your graduation approached, you started to worry that you might not end up finding a job. Or at least, one that was to your liking.

The thought of working for the rest of your life sounded… boring. Perhaps an oversimplification, but you always made sure to put a hundred percent into your studies, so you felt like you never really had the chance to live your life the way you wanted to. You weren’t a party animal per se, but you wouldn’t hesitate to skip a night out with your friends if you had an important deadline to meet. It was always academics over everything else. Apart from meeting expectations that others had on you, the fear of failure haunted you too. More often than not, the urge of wanting to disappear creeped into your mind. It didn’t seem like a bad idea, running away to some random part of the world where no one knew you. Once you’ve spent enough time there, you could easily travel to another city and explore till your heart’s content. That was the dream. Unfortunately, this particular dream of yours never came true.

That was, until now.

Treading the path of adulthood was admittedly scary, you could slip and fall at any given moment and not know how to pick yourself up. But, you weren’t on your own.

Jeong Jaehyun, your boyfriend of two years, shared the same sentiment. Sure, he was ambitious and had his goals set out. Like you, however, working himself to death wasn’t one of the things on his list. Jaehyun believed that it was important to strike a balance, to not throw yourself into something so deep that you would get lost in it. Working may be important but it would never hurt to have a little fun whenever time called for it.

You first met Jaehyun in Introduction to Film Studies. Both second-year students, you and Jaehyun clicked extremely well with each other as you bonded over your shared love for films. What started as study sessions to help each other with assignments eventually progressed to warm, cosy movie date nights that also involved cuddling under a fluffy blanket on Jaehyun’s couch.

While there have been minor arguments over those two years, you and Jaehyun always made sure to communicate. After all, a couple is supposed to fight the problem, not each other. The both of you understood that. These disagreements never bothered you that much because you believed that they were part and parcel of every relationship. Instead, you wondered more about how lucky you are to have found someone like Jaehyun. As you liked to put it, Jaehyun was your twin flame. He spoke to your soul in a way that no one else could.

Instead of taking the conventional route of starting a full-time job after graduating, you and Jaehyun booked one-way tickets to Rome the week after your final exams. How long the both of you were going to stay there for, that was a question for another time. The plan was to have no plan, going wherever your feet took you. Both of your parents weren’t exactly agreeable about this idea, nagging about how irresponsible and irrational it was. But what could they do? It’s not as if they could physically stop two grown adults from going. Eventually, they were able to come to terms with it and simply asked the both of you to stay safe.

It’s been about three weeks or so since you two arrived in Rome. Tranquil mornings without a blaring alarm was something that you could really get used to. The icing on the cake would be waking up to the sight of Jaehyun sleeping peacefully next to you, an arm securely draped around your waist. His lips would slightly jut out, you would sometimes sneak a kiss or two because he simply looked too adorable to resist.

A day out together would look something like sitting by an artwork in a museum, coming up with various interpretations or hopping from café to café to try out different desserts (which were often, gelato), you couldn’t count with your fingers the number of times the staff had to chase the both of you out because they were closing. Time is said to fly past when you’re having fun, but even more so when you’re spending it with the love of your life. At least, that’s what you think.

The both of you woke up earlier than usual today because you’d turned in early the previous night, probably exhausted from all the walking. The sun wasn’t up yet, which meant that there were limited stores that were operating during this time too. It felt like a waste to sleep in and laze around in the apartment, so came the impulse decision of buying last-minute train tickets to Florence.

“C’mon baby,” Jaehyun half-shouted, his gaze flickering between you and the platform located at the other end of the station.

Hands intertwined, you and Jaehyun were sprinting as fast as your legs could carry you in order to catch your train that leaves in approximately two minutes. Or rather, you were doing everything in your power to match Jaehyun’s speed because why was he running like he was competing in the Olympics? So much for wanting an athletic boyfriend.

You were almost out of breath from running, you didn’t even have the energy to give Jaehyun a verbal answer. Instead, you tried to speed up like he told you to. After what felt like a hundred miles, the both of you finally reached the platform, boarded the train, and settled down into your allocated seats.

“Oh my goodness. We are never doing that again,” you said, panting.

Jaehyun shot you a wide grin. “Now that’s what I call an intense leg day.”

You were rendered speechless. Here you were, thinking that he was going to agree with you. But you also remembered that Jaehyun was a gym rat first, your boyfriend second. Jaehyun goes a little over the top with exercising, you could tell that much just by looking at his physique. Though, you wouldn’t say that it was exactly a bad thing. In fact, what a sight for sore eyes he was…

Before you had a chance to respond, Jaehyun used his other hand to push your head towards his shoulder. “Go to sleep, doll. Don’t want you feeling cranky in the middle of the day because you didn’t get to take your daily nap. I’ll wake you up when we’re reaching.”

Despite not being able to see him, you could hear the smile in Jaehyun’s voice, which caused you to grin too. Perhaps it was Jaehyun’s shoulder that made you comfy, but you could feel the sleepiness slowly start to envelop you, so you snuggled even closer to him.

“Good night, Jay,” you said before falling into slumber.

–

The train ride took faster than expected, probably because you were asleep throughout the journey. Upon alighting, you and Jaehyun walked aimlessly along Via Faenza. You stopped in your tracks when you caught the pleasant aroma of coffee beans coming from a café, it was so inviting that the both of you had no choice but to enter.

Save for the long line of people in office-wear queuing to get their morning coffee fix, there was no one else occupying the seats in the café. Wanting to be away from the crowd, you and Jaehyun made your way to the corner booth seat situated all the way inside after getting your order. You sat next to each other, with Jaehyun's arm wrapped around your waist. Your torso was slightly exposed because of the cropped top that you wore, and Jaehyun’s fingertips easily found purchase on your skin. Soft traces all over, which oddly enough, made you feel tingly and warm simultaneously.

“Jaehyun,” you called out.

He turned to look at you. “Hmm?”

“Do you regret being here with me? Don’t you feel like you’re wasting your life away?”

Jaehyun halted his movements, but he did not loosen his grip on your waist. His answer was written all over his face, from his creased eyebrows to his frowning lips.

“Of course not, baby. Did I do or say something to make you think that way? I’m sorry if I did,” he said sincerely.

“No, you didn’t do or say anything of that sort!” you quickly clarified. “I think I’m just worried about the future, you know? Once all of this is over…”

A small smile played on Jaehyun’s lips as he removed his arm from your waist. He cupped your face in his hand, sighing. “I wish you could see yourself the way I saw you, because then you’d have nothing to worry about at all. You’re going to do great things, ____. I’m sure of that. But for now, just let loose and enjoy yourself, okay? You deserve to have a break.”

Jaehyun’s words could bring you to tears. He radiated so much positivity that it naturally rubbed off onto you, especially with the amount of time that you spend with each other. However, there were still moments of weakness, like now, where you’d inevitably think about how things could possibly go wrong. Before you could spiral into a whirlpool of negative thoughts, however, Jaehyun would pull you right out of it by telling you exactly what you need to hear in order to help get you through these times.

“Thank you,” you whispered, leaning in to place a gentle kiss on Jaehyun’s cheek.

Jaehyun made a sound, as if to signal that he was pondering. He pointed at his cheek and tapped on it with his index finger several times. “One more?”

You couldn’t help but giggle at his request, but who were you to deny him? Since you were feeling generous and grateful to your boyfriend, you quickly moved closer to give him two more kisses. One on his cheek, and the other on his lips. The best part was seeing the Cheshire cat smile appear on his face after he’d received his well-deserved kisses.

For the rest of the time at the café, you and Jaehyun were people-watching through the glass window while sipping on coffee and feeding each other small spoonfuls of pastries. At some point, random passer-bys became a part of a guessing game that started out of nowhere. Dating or siblings? What would their coffee order be if they came in here? The both of you had a lot of fun making up stories to back up your answer, boisterous laughter sounding through the place.

Afterwards, you and Jaehyun continued wandering through the streets now that more stores have opened. An apparel store selling headwear caught Jaehyun’s eye, and he spent about twenty minutes or so looking through the bucket hats. Taking one in his hand, he tried it on and started making silly faces at you while dancing.

“Stop it, you’re embarrassing me.” You reached a hand out in an attempt to remove the hat from Jaehyun’s head, but he swiftly avoided you.

He held on tightly to the hat. “I think this was made for me. I’m definitely getting it.”

The hat didn’t look bad on him, but it was still… questionable. A helpless sigh escaped your lips when you knew that nothing you say would change his mind. “Okay… as long as you’re happy.”

Fortunately, Jaehyun didn’t have thoughts of wearing the hat there and then. Because if not, you would think twice about walking next to him.

The next few stores mostly sold vintage items and souvenirs. You and Jaehyun ended up getting matching gnomes that had the initials of your first names carved into it. While checking out at the counter, the cashier made a comment about how cute the two of you look together and that the gnomes were such fitting choices, so much so that they looked like mini versions of you two. With shy smiles, the both of you thanked her before exiting the store. You also noticed the tinge of red on Jaehyun’s ears, but kept quiet about it since you were most likely a blushing mess yourself.

Then, it was time for lunch.

You and Jaehyun had previously crafted a mini bucket list, and one of the things on the list was to try the various types of pasta while you were in Italy, so that’s what the both of you had for lunch. It appeared that all the shopping must have taken up a great deal of your energy because the both of you still had an appetite for dessert afterwards, or, rather, gelato was considered a staple so there was no way that dessert could be skipped.

Although it was sunny, the summer heat wasn’t unbearable so you two were at the outdoor seating area of the gelato café. Within the vicinity of the café, there was a group of children playing catch with one another. After finishing the gelato, Jaehyun dragged you along to them.

“Ciao! I’m Jay,” he introduced with a friendly smile.

You introduced yourself to them too and stood behind Jaehyun, hiding slightly. You didn’t have anything against children, but you still considered them to be strangers, and you always had a hard time talking to strangers due to your reserved nature. You barely had any experience with children too so this was still foreign to you.

On the flipside, Jaehyun adores children. You could see it in the way his eyes would light up whenever he interacted with him. Not to mention, he was great with children (an understatement, if you had to be truthful). Seeing Jaehyun with children always made your heart swell, in a good or bad way, you weren’t sure… The only thing you were certain of was that you definitely wanted to have his children.

While you were spacing out, Jaehyun was quick to ask and memorise the names of the children. He played around with them for a bit and made sure to include you as well, the game of catch was never so fun before. However, it wasn’t long before you got tired, so you opted to sit at one corner to watch them. You whipped out your phone to capture this moment, giggling at how precious Jaehyun looked. Happiness looked great on Jaehyun, and you hoped that it would stay on him for a long, long time.

All of them grew tired after a few rounds too, putting an end to the game. While they were busy running around, you discreetly returned back to the café and told the cashier that you would be paying for the children to get gelato. You also grabbed a bottle of water and gave it to Jaehyun, who was perspiring profusely; indeed, an intense leg day it was for him.

Through body language and very poorly spoken Italian, you tried to tell the children that they could go pick out the flavours that they wanted at the café. You were far too preoccupied with communicating that to them, the endearing look that Jaehyun had on his face went unnoticed by you. Thankfully, the cashier was there to bridge the language barrier and they managed to get their gelato without any hiccups. Before leaving, each of the children gave you and Jaehyun a hi-five, a word of thanks echoing after one another.

Having spent almost the entire day in that area, you and Jaehyun decided to explore another part of the city before catching your train back to Rome. Long before this trip, you happened to stumble upon a website about the top spots that offered a picturesque view of the city. One of which was a twenty minute bus ride away from where you and Jaehyun were currently at.

When the bus arrived, you and Jaehyun entered by the back door and sat down. You were busy admiring the old architecture of the buildings outside until you felt Jaehyun’s hand touching the side of your face. You realised that he was trying to put one side of his wired earpiece in your ear, which caused you to turn and face him, and you saw that he already had the other side of the earpiece in. Jaehyun was smiling so widely that his dimples were showing. You brought a hand up to poke it, feeling a sense of victory because you were one of the very few people in the world whom he allowed to touch his dimples.

Shyly, you took Jaehyun’s hand and interlocked your fingers together. No words were exchanged between the both of you, but there was a mutual feeling that this exact moment perfectly encapsulated the love you and Jaehyun have for each other. Tender, somewhat otherworldly in a way where everything, like the chatter of the other passengers on the bus, seemed to fade out in the background.

As Can’t Take My Eyes Off You started playing through the earphones, you took it as an opportunity to mouth to Jaehyun, “I love you.”

Jaehyun’s dimples became more prominent at your sudden declaration. He made sure not to break eye contact with you before he mouthed back, “I love you.”

–

“Look!” you exclaimed, pointing toward the replica statue of David. It was the first thing that you saw after alighting from the bus.

Jaehyun turned his head to look at what you were pointing at. “Wow, it’s stunning."

The both of you hurriedly walked over to take some photos, which ended up in you and Jaehyun bursting into fits of laughter because he was imitating the statue and posing in the same way. It definitely earned you a few stares from the other visitors, but you and Jaehyun were too busy laughing to even notice that you two were getting judged.

After snapping a few more photos, you and Jaehyun went to the other side of the square where you could see an overview of the city. It was breathtaking, to say the least, the both of you concurrently marvelled in awe at how it looked like a scene straight out of a movie. You could even spot the street that you two were at earlier in the day, as well as many other famous landmarks. Not to forget, the surrounding trees and mountains made it feel more complete, it was a perfect getaway from the bustling city for some peace and quiet.

The both of you were standing at the top of the stairs, and you saw that there was a walking trail below. Due to time constraints, however, it seemed more logical to sit and admire the view, since neither of you knew how long the walking trail was and where it led to. Besides, it was a perfect spot to catch the sunset before you had to leave for the train station, so you two sat on one of the steps near the top where you had an unobstructed view of the city.

Like before, you and Jaehyun were listening to music together while holding hands. Other than humming along to the song, Jaehyun would also sing some of the lyrics to you, especially if it was a sweet or cheesy line.

“Can’t believe I get to be here with you.” Even after some time had passed, you were still greatly impressed by the scenic view, in disbelief about how you could share this moment with your lover. The bright orange hues of the sun added more colour to the backdrop, it felt surreal watching it slowly go down.

“Me too,” Jaehyun replied almost immediately. “It feels like a dream…”

“If this is a dream, I don’t want to wake up from it,” you said while shifting closer to Jaehyun’s side. “Like, ever.”

“I want to stay here with you forever.” Your voice came out as a whisper, because deep down, a part of you was afraid that this happiness would be taken away from you abruptly.

Yet again, Jaehyun made one of those sounds to indicate that he was thinking, which made you gasp in response.

“You don’t want to be with me?” you questioned, a look of betrayal on your face.

“No, silly,” Jaehyun chuckled. “Of course I want to be with you.”

Jaehyun let out a deep breath, as though he had to brace himself for what he was going to say next. “The thought of eternity feels scary. But if I know that you’ll be there with me, then… there’s nothing to be scared of. I think, for me… forever is where you are, wherever that may be.”

Silence ensued, music playing through the shared earphones being the only source of sound. Jaehyun gulped awkwardly when he noticed that your gaze was fixed on him, but you weren’t saying anything. “Did that come out wrong? I don’t even know what I’m saying sometimes. But I guess I was trying to say that–”

You cut Jaehyun off with a kiss. He smiled against your lips, causing you to do the same. Jaehyun’s hand travelled to the small of your back to pull you in before he tilted his head to the side for better access, going straight for your upper lip to return the kiss. It was slow, delicate, and everything you could ever ask for. You sighed when you felt Jaehyun’s hand running over your skin; he knew exactly what he was doing. Every kiss that you shared with Jaehyun never fell short of being exhilarating, which was one of the great things about love… or Jaehyun. Perhaps, both.

He was the first to pull away, staring intently at you with a cheeky smile on his face. Jaehyun leaned in closer until he could bury his head into the crook of your neck, leaving another kiss on your collarbone. You wrapped your arms around his frame, hugging him as tightly as possible. You and Jaehyun stayed like this for a while until you heard a lady yelp from a distance away, her loud voice grabbing your attention.

As you looked up to find out what the commotion was about, tears immediately filled your eyes and you had to do everything that you could to hold them back.

The said lady was standing by the railing, both hands covering her mouth. In front of her was a man, down on one knee, holding out a box with a diamond ring. You tapped Jaehyun’s shoulder so that he’d sit back up, and he turned to see what you were looking at. All of the other visitors were also invested, as everyone patiently for the lady's answer.

Everything happened so quickly. The lady nodding and getting pulled into a hug by her fiancé, the crowd erupting in cheers and applause–a truly sweet moment to witness. Without thinking much, you blurted out, “that’s going to be us.”

Jaehyun diverted his attention back to you, shaking his head. Seemingly biting back a smile as his lips formed a thin line, Jaehyun jerked his head to motion at something behind you. “That’s us.”

You were about to protest, pop another question that was something along the lines of whether or not he was planning to marry you. However, you remained quiet and decided to take a look at what he was referring to first.

Well, it looks like the urge to complain has completely disappeared. How could it not? Rather than dissatisfaction, your heart leapt with joy when your eyes landed on a couple standing hand in hand at the other end of the steps from where you and Jaehyun sat; they were having their pre-wedding photoshoot.

#jaehyun imagines #jaehyun scenarios #jaehyun fluff #jaehyun x reader #nct imagines #nct scenarios #nct fluff #nct #nct 127 #nct jaehyun #jaehyun #horizon

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pippytmi · 2 months

Text

kacy + a break-up AU based on this prompt list: "you’re my emergency contact and i’ve been in an accident so you drop everything to come to the hospital"

———————————————————————

The thing no one says about breakups is that they're an utter inconvenience.

Kate tries to rationalize it; she was dating Lucy Tara for twelve months and thirteen days, it's only natural to have established a routine that will take some time to unlearn. So when she wakes up and reaches for a warm body that isn't there, it still takes a while to remember why. And when she makes her morning coffee, maybe sometimes she will pour the creamer that Lucy likes by accident. (By the end of the week, she will have to pour the whole container down the drain). That’s normal too. Mostly.

Lucy’s absence hits the most in the morning, but Kate goes through the motions anyway. Before Lucy she would always take her coffee outside and sit on the balcony to watch the sunrise, so she still does it. Of course now there’s no Lucy wrapped up in a blanket and insistently making her way onto Kate’s lap to sleep while she does it, but. Kate sips from her mug and watches the clouds roll in over the gloomy horizon and pretends nothing has changed.

The drive to work is quiet save for the gentle patter of rain against her windows. Her radio is still set to the station Lucy likes, and Kate hasn’t managed to change it. Baby steps—that’s all it takes. Maybe tomorrow Kate might have the courage to switch it back to her own.

And when everything at home is too loud and simultaneously too empty, there’s work. Kate gets to her desk and finds a mountain of files with new assignments, and she welcomes them with open arms; her work has always been separate from Lucy, and it's the one constant she doesn't need to readjust to.

For a blissful hour and a half, Kate is in her own world. She argues with a client about what confidentiality means (and what it doesn't). She reschedules the deposition of a plaintiff on a particularly high-profile case because opposing counsel has accidentally double-booked. She creates an Excel spreadsheet to keep track of her new cases but organizes the clients by market value.

By all accounts, her morning is shaping up considerably. That is, until her cell phone starts buzzing.

She ignores the first call from the unknown number flashing on the screen. Instead, she gets coffee from the awful machine in the break room. The second call comes thirty minutes later, and Kate ignores it again, spends her time politely explaining how to use the fax machine to her confused new paralegal.

When her phone rings a third time—just as Kate has gotten out of a grueling meeting with the senior attorneys which should've been an email—she answers it solely for peace of mind: “This is Kate.”

There's a brief shuffle on the other end. “Hi, I'm calling from St. Joseph Hospital for a Katherine Whistler?”

“Speaking,” Kate says curtly, prepared to give a spiel about how she won't donate at this time when the caller continues,

“Oh—good morning.” More shuffling. “Is this a good time? I have a sensitive matter to discuss.”

Kate frowns even if the person on the other line can't see it. “Yes, it's fine,” she says, and watches as her work phone lights up with another call that she will just have to return later.

“I'm calling on behalf of a patient: Lucy Tara. She has you listed as her emergency contact. She is unresponsive and we were wondering if you could come in to discuss the particulars of her care…”

The rest of the call is static. Kate almost drops her phone entirely, only grasping onto select words like they're a lifeline. Lucy is alive. Lucy is hurt. Lucy was found unconscious. Lucy has yet to wake up. Lucy is alive.

Kate doesn't even tell anyone she's leaving; she just goes. Later, senior attorney Michael Curtis will tell Kate that she looked extremely pale and sickly when rushing out of the office, but Kate will only remember a vague blur from that phone call to actually arriving at the hospital. It might be the most reckless thing she’s ever done, come to think of it.

Dr. Carla Chase is the physician assigned to Lucy’s care, and she takes one look at Kate and blinks as if surprised to see her. “Forget an umbrella?”

“I'm sorry?” Kate says, heart caught dangerously high in her throat. She's literally choking on worry—Dr. Chase’s words don't sink in until she takes a step forward and realizes she is currently dripping all over the linoleum floor.

Dr. Chase gives her a small, sympathetic smile. “Let me ease your mind,” she says. “Ms. Tara woke up. Our timeline is good, she was not unconscious for long. Has a concussion and a nasty bump, but she's going to be just fine.”

Kate breathes. “Oh,” she says shakily, and embarrassingly, hot tears spring to her eyes at the confirmation. “That's…great. Thank you.”

“You can come inside, see her. I'll go find you a towel.” Even though Kate is a sopping mess, Dr. Chase still pauses to place a hand on her shoulder and squeeze reassuringly.

Even with the worst over, the hardest part is still walking into the room—harder still is watching as Lucy looks up with those wide, curious eyes that become expressionless the instant she sees Kate.

“Kate? What are you doing here?” Lucy asks, voice not quite harsh but definitely not welcoming.

Kate opens her mouth, but is unable to form words. She's too stuck just staring at Lucy: at the bruise that colors the entirety of the swell of her cheek, at the large bandage over her jaw, at the purpling of her black eye. Any relief at knowing that Lucy is awake sinks into horror at the state of Lucy’s injuries.

“Kate,” Lucy repeats, frowning. “Why do you look like someone died?” A beat. “And why are you wet?”

“The—the hospital called me,” Kate manages. “Are you okay? How are you…how are you feeling?”

“I'm fine. I just fell down a stupid mountain.” Lucy smooths down her blanket, twisting the corner between her fingertips the way she does when she's uncomfortable.

“A mountain?”

“It's not as dramatic as it sounds,” Lucy says. “Kai and I were searching for a missing kid and we got separated, and with the rain it was muddy and foggy and…well, you get it.”

“And he left you there? Unconscious?” Kate has met Kai Holman once or twice, and knows very little about him except that just like Lucy, he volunteers for search and rescue missions to escape his normal job. Beyond that, Kate’s opinion of him is quickly going downhill.

“He wasn't there when it happened,” Lucy argues. “I already texted him and explained, but, I told him he didn't have to come see me or anything.” She stops. “So why did you come?”

“Because the hospital called,” Kate says again, which is pretty self-explanatory.

Apparently, Lucy does not feel the same way. “But you didn't have to answer the phone,” she points out. “We’re not together. You could've just said ‘sorry, she’s my ex’ and called it a day.”

Kate stiffens. “You're the one who has me as your emergency contact. It was the…decent thing to do,” she says.

Lucy rolls her eyes. “Okay, congratulations,” she says, “you have done your civic duty of not being an asshole. But I’m alright, so you can go back to deep-sea diving in your pantsuit or whatever you were up to before this.”

“Hold on,” Kate says, a flare of panic overtaking any objection she might have to Lucy’s disdain (which is completely unwarranted, by the way). “How are you getting home?”

“They’ve invented a modern miracle called an Uber, not sure if you heard.” Lucy waves her phone exaggeratedly. “I’ll survive.”

It's an out, and Kate should take it. She should walk out that door and never look back, let all the unsaid issues between them continue to morph and mutate into something ugly and irreversible. But she can’t.

“I’ll drive you home,” Kate says at last.

Lucy immediately shakes her head. “That’s not necessary,” she says. “Seriously. If you’re that against Ubers, I can call Kai and get him here in two seconds. He’d be more than happy to take me home.”

“That would be unnecessary. I’m already here.”

“And you don’t have to be,” Lucy reiterates, staring Kate down like she expects her to cave.

If it were any other situation, Kate would. She's soaked head to toe from the rain, she has no obligation to be here, and by all accounts either reason would be a rational excuse to extradite herself from this hospital. Especially the former—the chill of her wet clothes is finally beginning to catch up to her, and she blindly brushes back her damp hair while resisting the urge to shiver. It would be the rational decision to go home and change into warm clothes (and explain to her boss why she left without as much as a text explaining why).

But for once in her life, Kate isn't being rational. “I'm not leaving,” she says, crossing her arms in an attempt to look firm.

Lucy sighs, sagging backwards against her pillow. “Come on, Kate,” she says. “This is awkward enough. I don't need a babysitter after one tiny little fall.”

“Down a mountain,” Kate says, unable to let that fact go. “What do your parents think about this?”

“I…might've not told them. Exactly.” Lucy bites her lip in an obvious effort not to wince. “I asked for the day off when I woke up, so.”

Kate blinks. “You woke up after a traumatic fall,” she says slowly, “and…asked your parents for PTO.”

“I wouldn't call it traumatic. That's such an ugly word. Limiting, even,” Lucy says. “It would've been a total badass move if it hadn't been, you know, raining.”

A knock against the wall announces Dr. Chase’s arrival, who has thankfully brought Kate that towel. “How are we doing?” she asks.

“Ready to get out of here,” Lucy says, sitting up eagerly. “Whenever you say so, doc.”

“Well, I really would recommend a CT scan to be on the safe side,” Dr. Chase says. “But given that you've passed all our cognitive tests and your vision is good, I can consider a discharge…as long as you have someone at home to monitor you today and make sure no further symptoms arise. And no sleeping until your normal bedtime.”

“I’ll be with her,” Kate interjects as she towels off her hair. Lucy looks like she might argue, but her desire to leave must win out, because she doesn't speak up.

“Fantastic. Let me get your discharge paperwork and a prescription for some painkillers—all over the counter. Then we're going to have a serious discussion about what you should and should not do, okay?”

“Got it. Thanks, Dr. Chase,” Lucy says cheerfully, but the instant the doctor leaves, so does her smile. “What was that? You obviously can't stay with me.”

“I know,” Kate says defensively, even if—for a second—she had been completely prepared to. “I'm sure Ernie or Jane can monitor your symptoms just fine.”

“...yeah,” Lucy agrees slowly, as if she had been expecting Kate to argue. Then, “Oh, shit. I actually forgot to tell Jane I'm here.” She frantically opens her phone and starts texting up a flurry, her brow crinkling as she concentrates on her screen, and Kate is brought back to movie nights spent scouring Wikipedia articles and faux-arguing over date night picks and it's…too much.

This is the opposite of unlearning; this is an all too painful reminder that Lucy Tara is no longer in her life. Kate wrings the damp towel between her hands and takes a deep breath to save face. At the very least, Lucy doesn't seem to have caught on to Kate’s internal turmoil, because when she looks up again all the cheerfulness from before is back.

Kate knows in that instant she never wants Lucy to lose that cheer again. “Everything okay?” she asks, aiming for just-polite-enough interest, and Lucy is gracious enough to allow it.

“They found the missing girl,” Lucy says, sagging backwards in obvious relief. “Thank God.” When she smiles, even if it’s down at her phone, Kate nearly tears up all over again.

“That’s great.” Kate clears her throat, places her hands in her (wet) pockets, and tries very hard to act casual. “So is Jane going to stay with you, then?”

“No—she’s the one who found the kid, she has to stay and give the police a statement,” Lucy mutters, biting her lip distractedly as she types out another message. “I’ll see what Ernie’s up to.”

By the time Dr. Chase comes back with discharge paperwork and a spiel about avoiding screens (during which Lucy noticeably peeks at Kate, like she might rat her out), Kate has already resolved herself to zero interference. Obviously it’s not what she wants, but she listens to Dr. Chase and nods along at all the right times while in her head she is already drafting a very long message to Ernie with all the relevant information. Then she drives Lucy home to that bleak apartment that Lucy lives in mostly as a general “fuck you” to her parents, which Kate swears is either haunted or infested by very spirited roaches.

The entire ride there, Lucy doesn’t say anything about the car’s radio being set to her favorite station (and which Kate would always complain about), which is just as well. Kate isn’t sure how she would’ve explained it.

“This not sleeping thing sucks, I’m honestly dead tired with our without a concussion,” Lucy groans as she exits the vehicle, stretching her arms overhead.

Kate follows her outside, and when Lucy gives her a questioning look, she says, “Ernie’s not here yet, is he? I can at least wait with you until he does.”

“I’m sure I can survive thirty minutes alone, Kate,” Lucy says. “I won’t pass out the instant you walk away or anything.”

“I’d really rather wait,” Kate says, and Lucy sighs.

“Fine. God, I would’ve changed my emergency contact ASAP if I’d known you would be such a stickler for lame hospital rules.” Lucy wraps herself up in a large black hoodie which Kate recognizes as her own, still muddy from the fall but otherwise intact.

“Why did you?” Kate finds herself asking, mouth three steps ahead of her head, and Lucy pauses outside her apartment door.

“You mean why didn’t I change it? Because I forgot, I wasn’t exactly expecting to land in the hospital.”

“No, why…why did you make me your emergency contact in the first place?” Kate clarifies, her voice strangely quiet even to her own ears.

Lucy methodically unlocks her door, but her hands falter. “Just because,” she says at last. “You know how it is. Anything was better than my parents. Sorry I didn’t…ask you first.”

“Well, I mean,” Kate shrugs, “I didn’t ask you either.”

At that, Lucy whirls around, mouth agape. “You made me your emergency contact?”

Kate hesitates. “Yes? After like six months. It was a practical decision, we spent pretty much all our time together and I assumed…”

Somehow, she’s said the wrong thing, because Lucy’s eyes darken. “Right.” She moves away, digging through her fridge in search of something to drink, and Kate awkwardly leans against the kitchen counter and tries to make sense of what’s going on.

“Did you eat anything today?” Kate attempts to change the subject. “I can make you something before Ernie gets here.”

Lucy takes a gulp of a water bottle and doesn’t respond, just eyes Kate from across the kitchen with a sharp, unyielding glare. Finally, the words seem to burst out: “I wish you weren’t so—fucking—” She shakes her head. “Do you even know how you sound, sometimes? No girl wants to hear that they’re the practical choice. Just once, I wish you’ve would picked me because you wanted me.”

Kate feels her entire body prickle, partly in shock and partly in indignation. “What are you talking about? I did pick you.”

“Did you?” Lucy tilts her head. “”Cause it kind of feels like you picked the idea of me. At least, that’s how Cara tells it.”

“Seriously? Cara? She—” Kate pauses to exhale, swallows back a frustrated sob. “She’s wrong. I’ve never trusted anyone like I trust you. Fuck, I’ve never loved anyone like I love you.” This time, her voice quivers like the sob might escape, and some of the steel in Lucy’s gaze softens.

“Then why did you leave?”

“I thought that was what you wanted,” Kate says. “You were pushing me away, Lucy. What was I supposed to think?”

“You should’ve fought harder for me,” Lucy says. “You could have talked to me. Jesus, Kate, I don’t—I can’t have this conversation right now. I’m basically a prisoner in my house, this is the last thing I need.”

Kate’s shoulders fall. “I know,” she says. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t do that either,” Lucy snaps, and she chugs the remainder of her water before she stalks out of the room. “No apologies. Okay?”

“Okay.” Kate waits to see if Lucy will come back to the kitchen, but she doesn’t. Instead, she hears the tell-tale sound of Lucy banging around through her board game drawer, because the chess set Ernie gave her rattles and gives it away. Kate tentatively enters the living room, finds Lucy sorting through a Monopoly box, but doesn’t try to say anything else.

Lucy breaks the silence all on her own, eventually. “I have nothing to cook,” she says. “But I asked Ernie to bring food with him.”

“Alright.” Kate doesn’t sit down because her clothes are still damp, but she does wait by the couch. “Can I help with anything?”

“No.” Lucy is sitting cross-legged on the floor and carefully stacking Monopoly money into piles by color, her muddy hoodie occasionally smearing against the carpet. “I’m fine.” She obviously isn’t; her jaw is clenched, her back stiff, her entire demeanor still a perfect mirror of her anger.

Kate wisely doesn’t push. And when Ernie arrives carrying Thai food and a thick stack of books which Lucy is outwardly horrified at, Kate doesn’t try to stay.

“I’m going to send you the doctor’s discharge instructions,” she tells Ernie instead, as Lucy gingerly pokes through one of the books Ernie has handed off. “Make sure Lucy eats something before she takes her meds.”

“On it, Dr. Whistler,” Ernie says seriously, his voice going low so Lucy can’t hear afterward. “And thanks, for being there. Even if you two aren’t…”

Kate casts one final look at Lucy Tara, bundled up in her clothes and adorably pouting at the prospect of reading all night instead of playing board games, and feels her heart beat so hard it hurts. “Take care of her,” she says, but it’s not a request.

Ernie gives her a small, sad smile. “I will.”

Lucy doesn’t say goodbye, but she does spare Kate one brief, sorrowful once-over like she wants to. Kate memorizes that look—lets it linger in the back of her mind—and doesn’t cry until the first cheery pop song from Lucy’s favorite station starts playing on the drive home.

She hits the button to turn off the radio altogether, but her finger slips and she accidentally switches stations instead. Kate eases the car to a stop at a red light, watches as rain begins to drizzle once more, and then she makes the executive decision to switch it back.

Baby steps.

#something about these two & their exes era....they have me in a chokehold im ngl #kacy #kate x lucy #ncis hawaii #i listened to 'emergency contact' by PTV a million times writing this btw. song of all time #i need a fic tag

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doumadono · 5 months

Note

(Sinful Sunday)

Sekido having reader as a maid au in his own mansion so he haves fun with her whenever he wants. When he sees a guest flirt with reader he so enraged when the guest leaves he whips reader and claims her as his own and then he demand she no longer wear any underwear around him whenever they are alone

Warnings: non/con elements, fem!Reader, Sekido lives in a mansion

SINFUL SUNDAY

In the opulent halls of Sekido's mansion, you found yourself in the unique position of serving as his maid. The lavish setting was a stark contrast to the modesty of your uniform, but you navigated the opulence with grace. Days were spent attending to the needs of the grand estate, ensuring every corner sparkled with pristine cleanliness. Little did you know that your routine was about to take an unexpected turn.

One evening, as the sun dipped below the horizon, casting a warm glow over the mansion, a distinguished guest arrived. Sekido, known for his stoicism, greeted them with a reserved nod. The air was thick with an unspoken tension as the guest's eyes lingered on you. Your every move seemed to captivate them, and Sekido, though normally composed, felt a pang of unease.

As the night unfolded, the guest's flirtatious remarks became more pronounced. You, bound by the duties of your position, maintained a professional demeanor, but the tension was palpable.

Sekido, observing from a distance, felt an unfamiliar emotion bubbling within him — an unsettling mixture of anger and possessiveness.

The guest's advances became increasingly brazen, each word a provocation that fueled the growing fire within Sekido. He watched, jaw clenched, as the line between propriety and audacity blurred. It wasn't long before he could no longer contain his simmering rage.

Finally, unable to bear witness any longer, Sekido stepped forward, his voice sharp and cutting like a blade. "That's enough," he declared, his eyes ablaze with an intensity that could melt steel. "Leave now or I'll end your pathetic life."

The guest, taken aback by the sudden eruption of Sekido's wrath, excused themselves, leaving a trail of unease in their wake.

Alone in the aftermath, Sekido turned to you, his usual composure shattered. "You are mine," he declared, his tone possessive and raw as he walked closer to you. The anger in his eyes was replaced by a vulnerability that betrayed the depth of his emotions. "No one else's."

Before you could summon any resistance, the sensation of your clothing being forcefully torn enveloped you, and you found yourself hastily thrown onto the nearest couch. The immediate aftermath was the intense heat and unyielding pressure of Sekido's firm cock entering your most intimate space. Your own body, initially unprepared and tense, required Sekido to withdraw and engage in a purposeful rhythm to gradually navigate his way within. Your surrender was swift, your compliance apparent, creating an ideal scenario for him, knowing well that your adaptability would lead to swift comprehension and acquiescence.

The commanding shaft persistently sought entry, its forceful attempts at penetration your cunny not yet reaching completion but ceaselessly endeavoring to do so. The amalgamation of unexpected astonishment and unfiltered discomfort melded, overpowering nearly every other sensory experience. Your entire focus became consumed by the singular thought of his powerful dick pushing into you, eclipsing all else in your awareness. Despite his fully clothed state, the only exception being his hakama pants draped at his ankles, the intensity of the encounter heightened, leaving you entranced by the relentless pursuit of connection.

In a physical sense, he exuded a commanding and imposing presence, his silhouette casting a towering shadow over you. Your pussy tensed around him, a struggle for control that seemed almost beyond your grasp. His dominance was all-encompassing, every action executed with meticulous precision, as if he had orchestrated this encounter before, anticipating your every move and thought well in advance. It was a display of mastery that left you feeling entirely at his mercy, as if he had an innate understanding of you that surpassed even your own awareness.

"If you're good…" he grunted as he thrust, "and let me have what I want, everything will be fine. I don't have to hurt you if you just do as I say. I'll break you in."

With an additional grunt, he ultimately bottomed out in you. The friction ignited a searing sensation along the walls of your startled intimacy, stretching you wide with a perceived girth that seemed almost unbelievable. The awareness of his heavy balls against your ass only intensified the overwhelming intensity of the moment.

Terrified and still too stunned to speak, you whimpered.

Sekido's hand slapped you hard on the ass, and he commanded, "Now, just do as I say and everything will be fine. Milk me. Come on, squeeze me with that tight, sweet little cunt. I want to feel you working hard under me."

You wriggled uncomfortably, the struggle to maintain concentration evident as your mind clouded with apprehension; the understanding that crossing Sekido was ill-advised lingered heavily. In that moment, the paramount concern became his satisfaction, eclipsing all else. A peculiar facet of your psyche, a shadowy inclination, found a perverse liking in the punishment he meted out, adding a complex layer to the dichotomy of emotions coursing through you.

Another smack rattled your face this time, leaving a sting. He grunted. "You be good like I told you to."

Nodding, you bore down, trying to relax your muscles.

"There you go," Sekido said in an almost soothing voice, "that's it."

He proceeded to discipline you with a successive barrage of thrusts, each one more forceful than the last, easily overwhelming your feeble attempts to resist. A scream involuntarily escaped your lips. His dick, seemingly swelling and hardening within you, administered a punishing roughness that intensified the ordeal. The intricate dance between pleasure and pain ensued — every clench around him brought waves of pleasure, only to be swiftly replaced by a jolt of pain as you relaxed.

"Good girl," Sekido grunted, leaning further to drill you deeper, "You do that some more, just be quiet now, that's it. That's it, pathetic weakling."

The thrusts somehow became deeper, more earnest, and both his hands roughly tilted your hips up towards him, opening your legs as wide as they would go.

His hand remained steadfast, skillfully directing his dick in and occasionally introducing a finger or two to join in the rhythmic stroking within your drenched cunny. This deliberate manipulation elicited frantic little cries from you, your body writhing in a helpless manner, legs splayed beneath him in a submissive display.

"You can scream all you want to now, woman, nobody can hear you out here."

His cock was now nudging against your cervix, driving you insane with fear and pleasure. At first you did scream, half pain - half pleasure, as fingers and cock swirled into you, probing and retreating.

Then, almost miraculously, Sekido tensed for a final time, and in a merciful culmination, he explosively released his seed within your abused pussy. His warm cum flowed deliciously deep, whether welcomed or not. The auditory backdrop revealed his exhales, not in the sighs of a lover reveling in pleasure, but rather in the quiet satisfaction akin to a man indulging in a secret, illicit pleasure. As he withdrew, muttered words escaped his lips, "If you dare to don underwear in my presence again, I'll make sure the consequences are even more severe for you, feeble one. Keep that in mind, woman."

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staytheword · 1 year

Text

falling rain

falling rain — one shot [ back to general masterlist ]

this series (and this blog) are 18+ !! minors, please do not interact!!

• bang chan x female reader, other stray kids members are mentioned/featured, as well as other idols (itzy’s yeji, ateez’s san, nmixx's lily).

• non idol au, friends to lovers. angst, fluff, post breakup sadness and melancholia. drinking. explicit language. smut, oral sex (f receiving), protected sex.

• word count: 11k (11,199)

You fell out of love. It happens. All you need is time to piece yourself back together. But as you and your friends meet for a movie night, you don’t expect your ex to be there - yet he is, and it looks like he’s doing much better than you do. Luckily, your friends are there for you - especially Chan.

• permanent taglist: @ughbehavior ; @upallnight-s ; @changbinluvr ; @rosexjimin ; @nasiaisan

• story taglist: @tanyas97 ; @hyynee ; @moonlightcandy00 ; @drhsthl ; @flakeisthebest

• author’s note: Here it is! Thank you for your support on the preview, I am so glad you guys liked it and were excited for the full story. I hope you enjoy it! Take care <3

The rain is cold against your skin.

You look up at the sky through your transparent umbrella. Swirls of pale gray cover the horizon, blurred by drops of rain sliding down the plastic material. It was darker earlier - the rain will stop soon.

The bus stops in front of you, its brakes squeaking. You close your umbrella and get on, sitting where you usually do, at the back, next to the window. Placed between your legs, your umbrella is getting your jeans wet, but you don’t care. You close your eyes, letting the music in your ears soothe you. You’ve been taking the same bus route everyday for years, so you know exactly how much time you have before your stop. It’s not like you’re afraid of falling asleep, anyway. You never sleep in transportation, and it’s not like your mind has been able to rest easy recently.

Your playlist transports you through melancholic melodies, pianos and violins lulling your senses. Your favorite songs do not let you forget the ache - they remind you of it, softly, tenderly. That’s what you want, anyway.

You’re not interested in forgetting. You just want to heal.

When you open your eyes, your stop is a minute away. You press the button and get up, ignoring the inevitable looks of the other passengers on the bus. People are always staring. Always judging. Often, you care. These days, not so much. You can’t control them, what they do, what they think. They’ll see the shadows under your eyes, the pale skin, the chapped lips, and they’ll tell yourselves, she isn’t sleeping much. She looks terrible. She must be going through something.

So what if I am, you want to tell them? Aren’t we all?

When you step off the bus, it’s barely raining anymore and you decide not to open your umbrella. You let the rain slide through your hair, against your hands. You’re so cold but you’re used to it. You haven’t been able to warm up in a while. The rain feels good, actually. It makes you aware of your body, of your skin. As you walk towards your apartment building, you tilt your head backwards and let the rain fall down your cheeks like tears.

Daylight has almost vanished when you unlock your apartment door, and you step inside with a sigh. You’ve grown to hate this place so much, but there is nowhere else to go. You should look for another apartment, but moving seems like an insurmountable amount of shit to go through and you just don’t have the energy. Maybe in a few weeks. Maybe in a few months. Maybe.

You start by taking a shower, the boiling hot water contrasting with your icy cold skin. You wash your hair, apply lotion. Your movements are slow but you get there eventually. Wrapped in your bathrobe, you open your closet and stare at your clothes. It’s not that you hate them, you just have no idea what to choose. You’re not going someplace fancy, so you end up slipping on a simple pair of jeans and a warm sweater.

You should probably eat something, but your stomach is in a tight knot. There will be food at Yeji’s place, anyway.

As you check your phone and realize you still have some time before you have to leave, you let out a long sigh and sit on your bed. You’re not sure you really want to go, but your friends organized this movie night a while ago and they are excited for it. Yeji’s place is perfect for it - she has a projector, which allows the movies to play as wide as the wall. Everyone has been tasked to bring their favorite snacks and drinks. It’s going to be a chill night, and you’ll be happy to see your friends, but everything feels exhausting.

You promised you were going to be there. So you will go.

It’s not like they will bother you, anyway. They all know you pretty well, although some more than others, but they are all aware of what is going on with you. No secrets to have. Still you don’t want to be a bore, and you know you’ll do your best to smile throughout. It’s not that they want you to - but you’ll still do it. It’s just who you are.

At least he won’t be there. Yeji said he wouldn’t - had plans already, apparently. It would be okay if your ex was there - actually, you’ve seen him a couple of times already since your breakup. But you need to be in the right mindset - and today you aren’t, so it’s good he’ll be absent.

You let out a long sigh and stand up to dry your hair.

You apply simple makeup, a bit of eyeliner, some mascara. You put on your favorite necklace. You decide to wear perfume. Little things to make you feel better, like you aren’t crippled inside, like you don’t have a decaying organ in your chest. It’s recent, that you’re able to do that. A week ago you would’ve showed up in sweatpants and messy hair.

Little steps.

As you grab a tote bag to fill it with the snacks you bought yesterday, you get a text from Yeji.

Everything okay?

Come anytime <3

She’s checking up on you and you’re grateful for it. Not a lot of people do, not even your closest friends. You don’t blame them - you haven’t been good company and sometimes it’s hard to find the right words. Some of them have been anxious that your breakup with San will mess up their friend group, and in fear of seeming like they’re taking sides, they just decided not to say anything. They take care of you differently - but sometimes you hate that they can’t talk about it with you.

Yeji doesn’t do that. She’s been there for you at every step - and it’s not because she blames or dislikes San. It’s just different for you and her, because your friendship not only goes way back when your friend group got together, but also way beyond.

Leaving in 5, you text back, and she sends a heart emoji.

Once you’re ready, you slip on your jacket and stare at your reflection in the hallway mirror. You look your normal self, except for the obvious exhaustion on your face, and the slightly vacant look in your eyes.

You can do this.

You won’t let your stupid, broken heart define you or your life.

When you get to Yeji’s, she pulls you into a tight hug. A few people are already there - Jeongin is already snacking on a huge bowl of popcorn, talking to Lily, who’s on her phone scrolling down Pinterest boards. Changbin and his girlfriend, the newest addition to your friend group, are bundled up under a blanket on the couch and wave at you.

You follow Yeji to the kitchen, putting the cans of soda you brought in the fridge, adding your snacks to the pile on the counter.

“You look really pretty,” Yeji tells you with a smile. “Is that the sweater we got together the other day?”

“Yeah,” you nod. “I’m still not sure about the color, though.”

“No, it suits you. I promise.”

You give her a sincere smile as she empties a bag of potato chips in a bowl. It’s quiet in the apartment, but you know it won’t last very long - except for Changbin, the loudest people have yet to arrive.

“How was work today?” Yeji asks.

“Fine,” you shrug. “Boring.”

She gives you a long look.

“You know you don’t have to stay there, right? You can find something else. With your skills it would be easy -”

“I know, Yeji,” you say in a low voice. “But not right now.”

You play with your nail polish, chipping a small piece from your thumb.

“Right now boring is good,” you nod, your voice a little more firm. “When I can focus more, I’ll look for something else. Promise.”

She smiles, taking your hand to give it a squeeze. “I just don’t want you to waste away where you don’t belong. You’re worth so much more.”

“I appreciate it.”

You put your head on her shoulder for a second as Jeongin’s laugh resonates through the apartment. It’s a sweet and familiar sound, and you start to believe it was a good idea to come.

Grabbing the filled bowls of potato chips, you and Yeji join the others in the living room. You sit down next to Jeongin, who quickly shows you the funny puppy video Lily has shown him, and you giggle at the screen. As Yeji starts to set up the projector, the door opens on a few more of your friends and you know it won’t be quiet anymore.

Chan, Jisung and Minho are yelling about something, raising the volume of the conversation a million dozen decibels, and you shake your head at the sight of them. Chaotic and loud as they are, even in your state you are grateful for them, because whatever the circumstances they can always make you smile, or, at least, provide welcome distractions.

They drop down in the remaining spots, either on the couch or the floor, Minho diving his hand down Jeongin’s popcorn bowl and Jisung arguing with Changbin about the type of beer he bought - of course, as usual, Jisung’s only answer to Changbin’s complaint is a simple traitor.

“THIS AGAIN…” Changbin yells at the top of his lungs.

You can’t help but smile. That game has been going on since Changbin moved out of his apartment with Jisung and Chan to move in with his girlfriend - Minho took his spot since, and there really isn’t any bad blood between them, but Jisung loves to remind Changbin how he abandoned them.

“Hey, Y/N,” Minho says, sitting down between you and Jeongin. You took the spot at the end of the couch, a blanket covering your legs. “How’s it going?”

“I’m okay,” you say with a smile. “What about you?”

“Fantastic. Did you check out that link I sent you?”

You start to talk a little - you and Minho work in a similar domain and it’s always nice to exchange ideas and anecdotes. You find yourself immersed in the conversation, the noise of all your friends chatting and laughing mixing into a background noise you can’t get enough of - it definitely helps the black hole inside your chest. You don’t feel so cold, you don’t feel so empty. You know it won’t last, and reality will catch up to you quickly, but for now you allow yourself to relax.

“Y/N.”

You turn towards Chan, who has stopped at your level. He’s smiling kindly at you, looking a little tired - but that’s nothing out of the ordinary. Like you, Chan barely sleeps. Neither of you can stop the ceaseless train of thought in your heads - while you stare at the ceiling, Chan works.

“Hey, Channie.”

“You want something to drink?”

“Yeah, maybe a soda.”

“Cool, coming right up.”

“Oiiiii, what about me?” Minho whines.

He asks for a can of beer, followed by Lily who has finished her previous one, and soon everyone is yelling at Chan to bring them something to drink. He closes his eyes, taking a deep breath, and you chuckle.

“Let me help you,” you say, standing up. “Y’all are lazy,” you add, squinting your eyes at your friends.

Their protests all tangle together and you laugh, following Chan to the kitchen.

Your friends.

They are all precious to you, all in their own way.

But Chan. Chan.

The first time you met him you felt your heartbeat accelerate because he looked so damn charming. A kind smile, eyes like stars, and an energy that immediately soothed you. It did not take long for you to develop a crush on him. How could you not? He was kind, funny, talented, and smart. He truly cared for the people in his life and never broke a promise. Handsome, too, of course. The kind of guy that made you weak in the knees, that sent your thoughts reeling whenever he touched you.

Your crush had always been one-sided though, which was fine. You had quickly worked to overcome your physical attraction to him and made it a priority to develop your friendship. Because Chan understood you. You found yourselves exchanging looks and agreeing on similar things often enough so that one day, you sat down next to him during a party to ask for advice and you ended up talking for hours, forgetting to get drunk like everyone else.

You are not particularly close. You don’t know everything about each other. You mostly see each other with the rest of your friend group - rarely alone. You don’t text each other everyday - in fact, you barely do. But he’s a steady presence in your life, a friend you rely on, and you know it’s the same for him.

Tonight, you’re especially grateful for him.

Chan gives you a smile as he opens the fridge.

“I like your sweater,” he says, handing you a pack of sodas.

You put it on the kitchen island, smiling.

“Thank you. I like your earrings. Are they new?”

You’re used to Chan wearing his silver hoops, but today he’s sporting a simple black dot on one ear, a small lightning bolt on the other.

“Yeah, I felt like a change,” he nods. “They say it’s good for us, right?”

“I guess,” you answer simply. “It suits you.”

“Thanks.”

You exchange smiles, gathering all the desired drinks slowly. You glance at him sometimes, at the angle of his nose, at the dark curls that brush his ears. Your crush on Chan eventually faded away, although never entirely. You have just buried it so deep inside you sometimes you forget it is there - you haven’t thought about it for a long time.

Then again, your heart has been entirely occupied by San.

Heart.

Body.

Soul.

All of which lay in pieces, now.

Chan must see the shadows in your eyes, because he frowns a little, looking intently at you.

“Is something wrong?”

You shake your head, trying to shake the bad thoughts away at the same time.

“No, no, don’t worry.”

Chan gives you a smile and a short nod, although he’s still frowning. He can feel you don’t want to linger on it - you hope he knows it’s not that you don’t trust him. Besides Yeji, Chan is perhaps the friend you trust the most.

You remember every single hug he’s given you.

Always so warm.

Always at the right time.

He probably doesn’t know some of them gave you the strength to hold on. The most recent one, about two weeks ago.

“Can I have another one, please?”

The barman gives you a nod and turns to prepare you another beer.

Besides you, Yeji gives you a long look. “Don’t you think you’ve had enough?”

“Just one more,” you tell her, lifting an index.

She smiles, throwing an arm around your neck. She keeps a close eye on you - that’s why you feel comfortable to indulge in another drink. You need it, after all. Since your breakup with San, you’ve barely touched alcohol, choosing instead to drown in snacks and utter isolation.

So for your friend, it’s a step forward that you’ve agreed to come tonight.

It’s just you, Yeji, Chan and Jisung. A quiet night at the local pub.

A few beers, a board game.

When you have a new full pint, you and Yeji head back to the table and sit down. All of you decide to play another game, and Jisung starts shuffling the cards, telling you some dumb joke. You know he’s doing that to make you feel better, and it works. You find yourself smiling so much your cheeks hurt a little.

You place your head on his shoulder, affectionately, and cross Chan’s gaze. He’s smiling, too, fondly.

Your friends are talking and your heart hurts so fucking much.

You miss San. You’ve fallen out of love a long time ago, you now realize, but it’s still painful. You have to start over. You have to find yourself again. It’ll be long work - but you’ll do it. And as you look at your friends, you think to yourself they will make it easier. You’ve been drinking a little, and the emotion swells in your chest.

“Y/N, don’t cry!” Yeji cries out, noticing the tears on your cheeks.

You have not even realized you are crying. You touch your skin in surprise, letting out a giggle.

“Awwww, no, honey,” Jisung says, drawing you in his arms.

He rocks you like a child and you laugh as more tears drip down your eyes.

“I’m sorry,” you say. “I love you guys so much.”

“Nooo, you’re gonna make me cry too,” Yeji cries out, taking your hand.

“I know it’s not… Not easy for you, because San is your friend, and…” You sniffle. “I don’t want this to be difficult for you.”

“Don’t say that, Y/N,” Jisung whispers. “We’re your friends, too.”

“We’re here for you,” Chan nods.

Crying and laughing at the same time, your friends decide to keep playing to get your mind off of things. You’re grateful.

Yeji wins, of course. She always does. Once all your beers are finished, you agree to go. Chan will drive Yeji home - he’s only had one pint. Jisung lives close to you, so you decide to walk together.

You say goodnight to Yeji. She places a kiss on your cheek, squeezes your hand. Chan draws you into a hug.

It’s so loving. So steady.

It takes the breath out of your lungs.

“I love you, Y/N,” he says in your ear. “I’m here if you need me.”

You’re too dumbstruck to reply. But you know you’ll remember those words for a long time.

You do.

You still remember the words - you can still hear them.

He’s here.

He loves you.

Like a friend, of course.

But that is more than enough.

“Y/N?”

Chan’s voice brings you back to the present. You shake your head and chuckle.

“Sorry. I was just lost in thought.”

He nods, biting his lip nervously. “By the way, I wanted to ask. There’s this concert next -”

That’s when you hear the door open - followed by a voice.

His voice.

Your blood freezes in your veins, and you stare dumbly at Chan, unable to move.

You feel like bursting out in tears. No, no, no.

Not him, not tonight.

You feel Chan’s eyes on you. Yet, you don’t really see him. He delicately puts a hand on your wrist.

“Y/N…”

You try to gather your thoughts. You should’ve prepared, just in case. You feel so stupid. Of course it was all going too well.

You’re startled when Yeji bursts in the kitchen, puts her hands on your shoulders and seeks your eyes.

“Y/N, I’m so sorry, honey -”

“What the hell?” you hear Chan mutter next to you. “I thought he wasn’t supposed to come.”

“He wasn’t,” Yeji hisses. “I swear, he told me he couldn’t.”

“Fuck’s sake, this dude…”

You close your eyes and take a deep breath.

Slowly, you look up at your friends, gathering a smile.

“It’s okay,” you say, your voice clear. You take Yeji’s hands in yours, nod at her. “I’m fine.”

“Y/N…”

“I’m fine,” you repeat. “I’ll be fine.”

You look at Chan next, and you feel like your heart will burst out of your chest. There’s something in his eyes you can’t identify, a spark that is also a shadow. He’s frowning, his body slightly bent towards you, like he’s about to pull you into a hug. You clear your throat and nod, praying to all you can not to let your voice tremble.

“It’s all right,” you say. “He’s our friend. He should be here.”

And to some degree, you mean it.

Yeji gives you a tight hug, and you can hear Chan let out a long sigh from behind you. You can’t linger on it - you have to focus on yourself.

Stay calm. Breathe.

You can do this.

The breakup was hard for the both of you, you remind yourself. You loved each other, you really did, that much you’re sure of. San was never that good of a liar. You have a much more vulnerable nature than him, which was always a source of conflict between you, but you know your breakup affected him. You remember the tears in his eyes. The vein in his neck, pulsing, as he held them back. You remember the way his hand clenched yours. The way his words came out broken from between his teeth.

It’s over, isn’t it?

You fell out of love.

It happens.

You take a deep breath. You still want San to be your friend. You’ve agreed that you would try, and you intend to follow through on your words.

You take a step to follow Yeji back to the living room, but Chan puts a delicate hand on your shoulder. You turn around, plunge your eyes in his. You’ve always thought of them as a haven, a night sky full of stars, both deep and bright.

He stares at you with a clenched jaw and a furrowed brow. He smells as he always has, a smell you’ve wanted on your pillow for so long - and it still makes you slightly dizzy although you know there’s no chance with him.

“If at any moment you want to go home, tell me, yeah?” he whispers to you. “I’ll drive you.”

You’re a little entranced by the soft lines on his full lips and the way his low voice scrapes - but you manage a nod, after what feels like a long second.

“Thank you.”

He nods, gives your shoulder a squeeze and lets you go. The warmth of his hand lingers there, and it gives you courage to move forward.

San has already taken a seat next to Jisung and glances at you when you walk into the room. Your friends are kind enough to keep the conversation going, so the room doesn’t fall silent, but your heart sinks at the bottom of your chest.

Because San doesn’t look tired. He doesn’t look sad.

In fact, he beams.

Eyes sparkling.

New clothes, new watch.

A smile so wide it slices right through your heart.

Fuck, he looks so happy.

You have to bite your tongue so you burst out crying. You stagger a little bit, but Chan is right behind you and it prevents you from falling back. His warmth, the voices of your friends, everything makes it better.

“Hey,” you manage to say, although you’re not sure how. “You look good.”

“Thanks, you too,” he tells you, but his voice is distant. His eyes are too, like he doesn’t even see you anymore. Not like he did before.

It’s abundantly clear - your ex has moved on.

It’s not that you still have feelings for him - you just need time to grieve what you had. San was a huge part of your life for a long time, and suddenly he isn’t there anymore. That absence, that void, that’s what is difficult to deal with. Being so goddamn alone all the time. No one to make you feel loved. No one to love, either.

You’re still putting yourself back together.

You’re still healing.

Not him. He’s done it.

You should be happy for him, and in a way, you are. You’re not mad he’s moved on. But it happened so quickly. It hasn’t even been two months. You were together for more than a year. Maybe you’re jealous, maybe you’re bitter. But mostly it hurts.

How long is it going to take you? Why are you so goddamn sensitive?

You breathe out and help Chan bring everyone their drinks. San’s laughter is a haunting melody and you can’t wait for the movie to start so you can think about something else. You take your previous seat, and Jeongin rubs your back affectionately, offering you the bowl of popcorn.

Chan sits at the opposite side of the room. Pathetically, you wish he was still next to you. Instead you focus on the images that start playing, projected on the white wall in front of you. It’s a movie you’ve already seen, but that’s ok. It’s not like you can really focus, anyway.

Because all you can see is San. Funny, clever, happy. You know him, you’d know if he was pretending, but he isn’t. He’s liberated. It’s the only word that comes to mind. You wonder for how long you’ve been bringing him down. If he realized it and hated you for it. If he couldn’t wait to get rid of you. If he was just looking for an excuse and -

You close your eyes and put a stop to the intruding thoughts.

No. It wasn’t like that.

Was it?

You don’t know anymore.

You barely follow the movie because your thoughts keep spiraling. Around you, your friends are chatting, making jokes, and commenting on the movie. Jisung’s laugh is so loud it takes over sometimes and you take refuge in it. But your heart feels frozen in place, in the middle of two beats, unable to go forward. You stare into nothing. You don’t even touch your soda. The popcorn, either - so you hand it back to Jeongin. His presence feels good, too.

You hate yourself for being unable to live in the moment. For letting your mind wander like it is, dizzy and unkind.

In the movie, people say what they think.

In the movie, loving doesn’t seem so hard.

In the movie, it doesn’t rain.

It’s a blessing and a curse that everyone is watching the movie, and that you’re sitting in the corner, in the dark. Your eyes are filled with tears and suddenly one escapes and slides down your cheek. You fidget in your seat, faking a yawn to wipe it away. You pull the blanket over your trembling body. You laugh when the others do, although it’s heartless. Nobody notices - or so you think - and it’s a good thing.

You try to focus on the movie. It’s entertaining, it’s funny, and for a minute, maybe, you succeed in feeling better. Then you see, from the corner of your eye, San pulling out his phone. He stares at the screen, and in the dark, its blue light illuminates his face. He smiles at it and types a few words. You know that smile. Fuck, you were that smile, once.

You clench your jaw, hard, and wanting to look away you accidentally fall into Chan’s eyes. He’s looking at you, and although you can’t see his face very well in the darkness, you notice the worry in his eyes. He doesn’t smile, he doesn’t say anything - but you hear his silent question. You need to go?

You shake your head slowly, forcing a smile. I’m fine. I’m fine.

He nods. He doesn’t believe you.

You stand up on shaky legs and head to the bathroom. Once you close the door, you don’t even open the light. You wouldn’t be able to stand the sight of your own reflection. You just breathe out, breathe in, and then breathe out again. The tears fall down your cheeks, warm. They taste bitter on your lips.

Why can’t you be like him? Why can’t you move on, be happy?

You take a few minutes to collect yourself. It’s fine - you don’t mind seeing San. It’s good, if, unlike you, he’s able to rebuild himself. It’s all you wish for him, and you know it’s all he wishes for you, too. He’d probably be honestly sad to know you aren’t doing well. You can never tell him, of course. You’ll pretend as well as you can - you can’t allow yourself to be vulnerable with him for now. You’ll keep it for yourself, shamefully, selfishly.

It will be fine.

You’ll get over it. He did, so why not you?

Once you feel ready, you head out the bathroom, and Chan is there, leaning against the wall.

“Oh, shit, sorry,” you chuckle. “I didn’t realize someone was waiting. Did you -”

You stop as Chan puts his hands on your shoulders and pulls you to him. You fall into his arms, and you’re a little shocked so you don’t move at first. Still, Chan holds you there. You stammer.

“C-Chan, I’m okay, you don’t have to -”

“Y/N,” he says, and there’s something about the way he whispers your name that makes your heart ache. “I saw you crying. Please. You don’t have to hide.”

Gently, you let your head fall against his chest. He hugs you a little tighter.

“We’re friends, aren’t we?” he whispers. “You don’t have to hide.”

You nod. He said it in such a way, you don’t know what it is.

You are friends.

You’ve been for a long time.

Despite your crush on him, despite the awkward period where he was aware of it but didn’t say anything, despite all of that, you are friends.

But Chan has always been more than that for you.

Chan is a pillar, Chan is a mess.

Chan is both the lighthouse and the storm.

You like the feel of his arms around you. The way his chest moves as he breathes. The texture of his t-shirt.

Oh, God. Not again.

You can’t let your crush come back running. You’re just sad. You’re just lonely. It wouldn’t be fair to Chan, would it? He’s your friend. He’s not a pretty face you can choose to lust over whenever you’re lonely.

Don’t do that to yourself, Y/N.

Don’t do that to him.

Chan is your friend and he is only trying to be here for you.

“Do you want to go home?” he whispers in your hair.

You take a deep breath and nod. Chan takes a step back, smiling kindly at you. You do the same, although it’s a little faint. He bends his knees slightly to be at your height, gently rubs your cheeks to remove the tears and replace your hair.

“Let’s go, then, love.”

You don’t have time to gawk at him for using a nickname he’s never said before, because he turns and waves at you to follow him.

He tells your friends you’re feeling a little sick and he’ll drive you home. You say there’s the flu going around at the office, and you hate lying to your friends, because you know some of you will believe you and some won’t. Right now you don’t really care - even if they all knew it was a lie, they wouldn’t judge you. You make sure to not avoid San’s eyes and smile at him. You don’t want him to start asking questions.

You get your things. Yeji gives you a quick hug and a kiss on the cheek, making you promise you’ll text tomorrow. You nod, squeezing her hand and glancing at your friends. There will come a day when you’ll be yourself again.

You just need time.

Time and a lot of courage.

When you step outside, with Chan right behind you, you realize it’s raining again. You look up at the sky, now a profound black painted by hints of grey clouds. You run to his car, the rain heavy and cold.

The car is clean and smells nice. Chan pulls back his hoodie, starts the engine and drives away as you look back at the apartment building. You wish you were stronger.

“I know what you’re thinking,” Chan says, one hand on the wheel, the other tapping on his thigh to the rhythm of the song on the radio.

“Do you?” you tell him with a smile.

“I do,” he nods, matching your smile. “You’re telling yourself you should be stronger.”

You gawk at him, feeling both embarrassed and scandalized. He shrugs.

“Didn’t I ever tell you I can read you like an open book?”

“Tsk,” you retort. “Wasn’t that when we played Mafia?”

“Whatever applies to Mafia applies to real life.”

“Not sure that’s true.”

“This is.”

You glare at him and he does the same, playfully. You feel much more relaxed now that you’re here. It was always easy to talk to Chan - never does that change, whatever the circumstances. You are much alike in that you tend to put others before yourselves, often at the sacrifice of your own feelings. For some reason, though, that didn’t work between you. The walls immediately fall apart.

“So I’m an open book, huh?” you say, staring at your hands.

“To me, yes. When I have my eyes on you.”

“And you had your eyes on me tonight?” you ask without thinking.

“Of course,” he answers, stopping the car at a red light. “I stayed sober, kept a close eye on you. Just in case.”

You wince. “Just in case I started crying hysterically or made a scene?”

He shakes his head, looking at you. The red light reflects on his face, enveloping the car in its hue. The rain thumps on the car in soft sounds. Chan’s dark hair is messy on his head, charmingly curled at the tips.

“More like in case he did something,” he eventually says.

“Why would he?” you ask with a frown, assuming he’s talking about San.

“Well…” Chan sighs. “He can be a dick sometimes.”

You’re surprised by his words - you never would’ve thought that Chan disliked San. On all accounts, they are good friends. Chan chuckles nervously at your look, rubbing the back of his neck.

“Sorry. I know you were a thing for a long time, but… It’s just what I think.”

“Did he do something?”

Chan shrugs. “It’s just a feeling. Never really did anything. Except breaking up with you, of course.”

You scoff. “He’s an asshole for breaking up with me?”

“Yeah,” Chan stammers. “Just - like - who would ever let a girl like you go?”

His words don’t make a lot of sense to you. They come to you muffled, as if you are plunged in a dream or in a drunken state. You honestly can’t believe your ears.

“What are you -”

He quickly waves his hand, looks away from you to the road ahead - and fortunately for him, the light turns green, so he has a good excuse to change the subject.

“Don’t mind me. I’m just rambling.”

You really don’t want to let this go. Your heart is racing, and you honestly wouldn’t know San’s name if someone was to yell it in your ear right now. All you can see is Chan, his tightened jaw, gripping the wheel of his car, driving you home. His words echo in your head, and you’re trying to put everything together.

Did you miss something? Clearly, Chan has something on his mind, an itch he can’t scratch. Have you been so intoxicated by your grief and sadness that you blacked out? You haven’t been a good friend, that much you know. You just wanted to feel better, first. You were of use to no one feeling this sad and broken. But Chan’s agitation has clearly been there for a while. How long have you been this blind?

You open your mouth, trying to find the right words. Chan, what is going on?

Chan, are you angry at me?

Chan, please, tell me what’s on your mind.

You sigh in frustration. You’re silent for a while, your thoughts spiraling, and just when you’re just about ready to ask, your phone rings. You glance at the screen instinctively, and San’s name is like a slap on the face.

Are you okay? he asks in a text. Tell me when you get home.

Hints of your boyfriend. Remnants of the past. The text feels like a ghost is speaking to you. It makes you angry. It makes you ache.

You might not love San anymore, but you miss him.

“Are you okay?” Chan asks.

“Yeah,” you nod.

You’re about to say you’re fine, which has become an automatic response, but you remember what Chan said. I can read you like an open book. So instead, you take a deep breath.

“It’s San,” you explain. “He’s asking me if I’m okay and to text him when I’m home.”

Chan scoffs, and there is nothing amiable in the sound. “The guts on this guy,” he mutters. “I’m literally driving you and he knows that.”

You frown, sensing the anger in his voice.

“Seriously, Chan, did something happen between your two?”

Chan shakes his head. He doesn’t want to look at you.

“Chan,” you insist. “Tell me, please.”

He lets out a sigh, gripping the wheel tighter.

“We might’ve had… an altercation.”

“An altercation?” you repeat. “Like a fight?!”

“Not a fight,” Chan sighs. “Not a physical one, anyway.”

“What the fuck happened?”

The words escape your mouth. An uneasy feeling washes over you. Nobody has told you about this. Nobody has said a word.

“When did this happen?” you ask when Chan doesn’t answer.

“Like… a week ago, I think.”

“Why didn’t no one -”

You interrupt yourself and close your eyes. Looking out the car window, you realize you’re already parked in front of your apartment building. How did it go so fast?

For how much longer are you going to keep losing track of time?

“Chan,” you say, your voice shaking. “Please tell me what’s going on.”

He looks at you with timid eyes. They shimmer in the darkness but you can’t focus on them. You are trembling and you can’t hold on to a single clear thought. Your mind is a blurry mess.

Chan looks out through the window before he takes a deep breath.

“I didn’t want to do this tonight. You need to rest, you -”

“If you don’t tell me now, I’ll never be able to sleep, so it will be worse.”

You feel your hands shaking, so you clench your fists. Outside, the rain accelerates, pounds loudly on the car. The sound is almost unbearable but you don’t care.

“If you’re trying to protect me, I’m grateful,” you add, when you see he’s still hesitating. “But I can take it. I’d rather know.”

“I don’t want to hurt you,” he whispers, his voice quivering.

“We’re friends, right?” you tell him. “That’s what you said. Be my friend, Chan.”

He sighs and rubs his eyes. You’re scared, and yet a part of you feels perfectly calm. You hate the fact that something was hidden from you, but you’re so ready to withstand whatever storm is heading your way.

You’d rather stand in chaos than into nothingness.

At least the chaos makes a little sense.

“Before I say anything…” Chan sighs. “I don’t want you to take any of this on you, yeah? I know you’ll feel bad, but please, just remember -”

“For fuck’s sake, Chan,” you say with a nervous laugh. “Get to the point.”

“He has a girlfriend.”

You stare back at him.

“What?”

“San. He has a girlfriend. I thought it was too soon, that it was disrespectful of you, so I told him and it got heated, but… Yeah. Shit. I’m sorry, Y/N.”

It’s like the rain suddenly got quiet.

A girlfriend.

You should’ve known. You saw it, after all. The phone, the text, the smile. The happiness in his eyes. The trendy clothes, the new watch. All the hints were there.

He has moved on.

More than you expected.

Everything happens quickly. Your body acts before your brain registers it, and in the blink of an eye you’re outside in the pouring rain. You slam the passenger door behind you, you forget your bag, you don’t even think about it. You just walk forward.

It’s bitter cold.

In seconds, you’re drenched.

Your knees feel weak and you’re sure you are going to fall.

A sob escapes your throat.

It shouldn’t hurt that much.

You hate your heart.

You hate how vulnerable it is.

You want to move on, too.

“Y/N!”

You turn around, halfway to the door of your apartment, to find Chan running towards you. You raise your hand slowly. It’s shaking like a leaf.

“It’s fine, Chan. I’m f-”

“Stop saying that!”

You’re a bit surprised at the sudden anguish in his voice. He stops inches away from you, getting soaked by the heavy rain. It slides down his cheeks like tears, strands of dark hair sticking to his forehead. He looks at you fiercely, his eyes blazing with light.

“I’m sorry, I just - I see you’re hurting and it’s killing me.”

You don’t know what to tell him. You wish he would go away. You wish he would hug you. You wish the pain would just stop.

“Y/N -”

“I don’t care!” you scream, the sound getting lost in the rain.

Chan frowns.

“I don’t care if he has a girlfriend,” you cry out. “I just…” You shrug, your eyes lost in Chan’s. “I just want to heal, too. I want to move on, too. I’m sick of being sad. I’m sick of hurting.”

There is such despair in Chan’s face you can hardly bear it. You wish you could tell him not to take the weight of your pain on his shoulders, but you know him better than that. He can’t help it. That’s why he’s here with you.

“You just have to give me time,” you say, your voice falling apart. “I’ll be fine eventually.”

He lets out a sigh, slides a hand through his drenched hair. A raindrop slides down his face, gets caught on his lips.

“Please, let’s go inside,” he pleads. “Let me be here for you.”

You hesitate, but the cold rain keeps you on your toes. You want to be home, in your own space, but you also don’t want to be alone. So you nod, and Chan lets out a sigh, thanking you in a whisper.

When you step inside your apartment you’re a little shy to turn on the lights because it’s messy, but you can’t really be bothered about that right now. Chan waits on the other side of the door, a hesitant look on his face.

“Come in,” you tell him.

He nods, closing the door behind him. Your place is modest, just big enough for one person, situated in the semi-basement of the building. It does not get much light, but it feels cozy and it is cheap.

The first thing you do is get a towel for Chan so he can dry his hair and his clothes. He hangs his hoodie on a hook near the door; luckily the t-shirt underneath is only damp. His dark blue jeans took the worst of the rain. You suggest giving him some dry clothes, but he insists he’ll be fine.

You tell him to get comfortable and go to change in your room. Your limbs feel weak as you slip on a pair of sweatpants and a crewneck. You cannot stop thinking about Chan's words.

San has a girlfriend.

He has opened his heart to love again.

The rain keeps falling.

It’s time you heal.

When you come back to the living room, Chan is anxiously staring at his phone. He puts it away when he sees you, smiling a little timidly.

“Feel better?”

“Yeah,” you nod. “Want a drink?”

“Sounds good.”

You give him a gentle smile and you both head to the kitchen, where you fill two glasses of soju. He takes one, clinking it against yours. You drink it in one go.

“Now that feels better,” you sigh.

Chan smiles at you fondly, and you nudge his arm.

“Chan. It’s all right. It had to happen.”

“So quickly, though?” he winces.

“We all heal at different paces,” you say softly. “Or maybe it’s his way of healing. Either way I’m happy for him.”

Chan leans one elbow on the kitchen counter, giving you a long look. You hold his gaze, confused at the sudden calmness you feel.

“You said you can read me like an open book,” you remind him, pouring yourself another drink. “Am I lying?”

He smiles briefly. “No.”

“Cheers.”

He takes another sip, and you imitate him.

“How about we sit down?” you propose.

Once in the living room, you sink into the couch. Chan sits at a comfortable distance, twirling his glass between his fingers. It’s strange to see him at your place - because of the size of your apartment, you rarely have friends over. You remember him driving you home a couple of times, but he must have been inside only once or twice in the three years you’ve lived here.

You talk a little, about everything and nothing. You drink some more, perhaps a little too much, but the soju warms your body. Chan relaxes, too. The bottle is quickly empty.

You both fall silent, and you stare at the bottom of your empty glass. The tears come back too easily.

“Chan?”

“Yeah, love?”

You peck your lips. Hearing him say that feels too good. It’s so new, but you already don’t want him to ever stop.

“Is she pretty?” you utter.

“Y/N…”

“She must be. Pretty and smart.”

“Don’t say that.”

“Do you know her?”

You look up, and Chan shakes his head. His hair is untidy, his cheeks a little red, his full lips as inviting as ever.

“I don’t. Ji told me they met at a party.”

You let out a shaky sigh. “So everyone knows?”

You hate the way your voice shudders, but you can’t help it. Chan shuffles closer to you, gently taking your hand in his. It’s warm and familiar.

“No,” he answers in a soft voice. “Just a few. We wanted to wait for the right moment - well, actually, I thought San should be the one to tell you.”

You laugh, wiping your tears. “No offense, but that would’ve been worse.”

Chan snorts amusingly. “Oh. Good thing it didn’t happen, then. I thought it’d be a good idea.”

“It’s a terrible idea.”

You both end up giggling, and Chan doesn’t let go of your hand. You sniffle. You don’t let go either.

“Don’t take this the wrong way,” you say. But why are you so invested in this?”

“In your breakup?”

“Yeah.”

“I’m not invested in your breakup,” he shrugs. “I’m invested in you, you’re my friend.”

“But it’s - you don’t have to, you can just be like the others, not take a side, you don’t have to fight anyone.”

“Why wouldn’t I speak out? It bothers me, you know me, I don’t shut up when it comes to people I care about.”

“But San is your friend, too.”

“But you’re -”

You frown. “I’m what?”

“You’re Y/N.”

The tenderness in his voice takes you by surprise. It seeps through his lips, echoes in his eyes. You feel your heart twist and turn - and just like that, his fingers slip away from yours.

“Sorry, I…” He closes his eyes, shakes his head. “Hell, I’m doing it all wrong tonight. And I should really stop drinking. How the fuck am I supposed to drive back home?”

“Chan, wait,” you say, ignoring him. “What are you trying to say?”

He sighs heavily. His face falls in his hand, and he breathes there for a second before he looks back up at you. He looks so tired.

“I know you had a crush on me,” he breathes.

You smile nervously. “Why are you bringing this up?”

“Because I have a crush on you, too,” he says.

You blink, and it’s like the world tilts. You haven’t been drinking that much, it can’t be the soju. Still, you feel dizzy and warm. Chan is looking at you with fondness and anguish.

He didn’t say had.

He said have.

His words are right there, still on the tip of his tongue.

In his eyes.

So damn bright.

No - he’s here because he’s your friend. That’s it.

Isn’t it?

“I don’t understand,” you breathe out.

“I never acted on it because San had wanted to ask you out for a while,” Chan explains with a shrug. “And you know me. I never put myself before others. And although I sorta knew you had a crush on me, I convinced myself San was better for you.”

You look down at your hands, feeling completely overwhelmed.

“Why didn’t you ever tell me?” you whisper.

“Because you were so happy with him,” Chan says, his voice shaking. “You found each other and it was good, and who was I to say anything? At one point it didn’t even matter anymore, and I buried it deep inside of me, told myself I was over you. You were over me, after all. It was just a crush, anyway. I was so sure you’d be in this with San for the long run.”

So did I, you want to say. Your throat feels so dry, however, you can’t say anything. You can just stare at Chan. He smiles at you almost carefully.

“When I heard about your breakup… Everything came rushing back. The other night, after we got drinks, and I saw you crying… I was just so worried about you. So gutted to see you hurt, it was almost unbearable. And then he said he found someone else and I couldn’t understand, and we argued. It was heated, but it’s fine now. We’re good.”

You close your eyes because the world can’t stop spinning. You were so cold earlier, but now you’re almost sweating. You’re too warm. The world is ablaze.

Chan is your fire.

“I’m not saying I’m in love with you. I can’t say I am. But if I let myself go…” He stumbles on his words. “I just might.”

Time has stopped. You can barely breathe.

You feel the sting of shame.

The delightful warmth of Chan’s confession.

You’ve been so blind.

“You just mean so much to me,” he says, his voice both low and soft. “I just want you to be happy. I just want you to be loved as you should be loved.”

When you open your eyes, it feels like he’s sitting closer to you although he hasn’t moved. He’s not touching you, but his smell overwhelms your senses. You can’t look away, and he watches you back.

“How I wish I could,” he breathes, his eyes drilling into yours. “Fall into you. Show you how you could be loved. ”

You drink his words like they’re the essence of life. You feel, in each one, a wish, a hope, a possibility. Ropes that were drawn and never knotted together. Lifelines, waiting to be grasped.

“I never was,” you breathe.

He frowns. “What?”

“Over you,” you explain. “I never was over you. I’m not.”

He closes his eyes.

“Fuck, Y/N, don’t tell me that.”

“It’s true,” you say, voice trembling. “I loved San, of course I did. But you were always in my heart and you will never not be.”

Chan’s eyes drip down your eyes to your lips. You feel an ache inside your chest. It’s like it’s starting to rain indoors. What an odd feeling.

“You don’t love him anymore?” he asks carefully, weighing every word.

“No.”

Your voice comes in a whisper, but it’s full of certainty.

“But Chan, I…” You swallow. “I can’t - I can’t listen to what my heart says about you, it’s not fair, you’re not… You’re not a stand-in, you’re not - you’re more important than that, and…”

“Can I kiss you?”

The question catches you off guard.

“Just once,” Chan smiles. “I want to taste your lips. Just once.”

What could you say to that? How many times did you dream about Chan’s lips on yours, wondering what they felt like? Were his kisses kind, delicate, hungry? You’d see him drink whiskey and wonder if the taste would linger on them. You’d see him kiss another girl and picture yourself in her place.

And now he was offering you a kiss.

Hell, he wanted to kiss you.

So you find yourself nodding, and Chan takes a long look at you, as if he’s waiting for you to change your mind. You remain immobile, lips parted, awaiting his. Slowly, he plucks them, grazing them against his - and they sink into yours, soft, like a cloud, deep, like the ocean.

You collapse in his arms, wrapping yours around his neck. He slides his fingers through your hair, his other hand embracing your waist to pull you closer. You can’t hold back a sigh from escaping your lips, and Chan responds by kissing you deeper, the movements of his lips getting almost feverish.

“Chan,” you moan when you gasp for breath.

“Fuck, I can’t stop,” he growls, placing small kisses on your lips.

His fingers dig in your skin, and you desperately want to disappear against him, so you move your leg so you can straddle him. Chan wraps himself around you, and you feel the dampness of his clothes but you don’t care. You take his face in your hands, plunging back into a needy kiss. Chan’s hands wander on your back, on your hips, on the back of your neck. You can only lean into him. His tongue teases your lips and you open your mouth to let it in. It plays with yours, and you can feel walls tighten.

By now you are fully making out, your hips grinding against his. You can feel him getting hard, and it sends your mind reeling.

“God, you’re so perfect,” he moans around your lips.

“I’ve thought about this so often, Chan,” you admit.

“Same,” he grins. “I… Fuck, I can’t tell you this.”

“Tell me,” you insist, trailing kisses alongside his jaw, on the delicate skin of his neck. It makes him shudder, and can almost feel his cock pulsating under you.

“I thought about your lips,” he breathes out. “Your body. How you would sound moaning against me…”

“Fuck, Channie…”

You clench at his words, pressing your core on his erection. He grunts, his fingers slowly making their way under your shirt. You tug at his, and suddenly, like a flash of lightning, you realize what you are doing. Your heart skips a beat, and your mouth dries. Everything rushes back. You stop, and he does the same, leaning back.

He looks more attractive than ever with his hair tousled by your fingers, his full lips red and wet from your kisses.

“I’m sorry, I just -”

“Is this going too fast?” he asks you gently.

You hesitate. “It’s not that. I just - I don’t want to give the wrong impression.”

Chan frowns. “What do you mean?”

“Like you’re just a rebound or something,” you shrug.

Chan smiles - that cheeky grin of his, his eyes sparkling at the same time. It toys with your heartstrings. How could anyone not adore this man?

“I don’t care,” he answers. “I’ll be your rebound.”

“Chan, I’m serious,” you sigh.

“So am I,” he says, twirling a strand of your hair around his index. “If it’s something you want, then I’m here. I want to. And it doesn’t have to mean anything tomorrow, or ever. We’ll always be friends.”

You breathe out, briefly closing your eyes. All you want is to keep kissing him, to forget the world in his arms. To be desired, to be loved.

It’s all you want.

But your heart still aches.

So much has happened tonight - you feel so heavy.

You sigh again. “I just… Fuck, I’m sorry.”

Chan cups your cheek.

“It’s okay, love,” he says, placing a kiss on your forehead. “It’s all so fresh. I can leave if you -”

“No,” you quickly interrupt him, pushing a finger against his plush lips. “Please. Stay with me.”

Chan nods, his eyes not leaving yours. You should move. You should get going - get a glass of water, sleep it all off. But you can’t move, lost in Chan’s gaze, your body a bundle of nerves. You lean forward, settling your forehead against his.

“It’s killing me,” you chuckle nervously.

Chan giggles, and the sound is delightful. “We have time, love. I won’t let you go, now. I got you.”

He places a soft kiss on your lips.

“If you’ll have me.”

As an answer, you give him another kiss. You slide your fingers through his humid hair, inhaling his scent.

“Will you sleep here tonight?”

“I’m here, baby.”

The word makes something melt inside of you. You shiver, and instinctively, he sprawls his warm hands on your back.

You’re overwhelmed by the tenderness and the hurt.

You feel so loved.

So abandoned.

So alone.

So supported.

So seen.

Your lips find him again like a magnet. You kiss him deeper than before. You’re losing your mind.

“Y/N,” he breathes in your mouth.

The words escape your lips. “Fuck it, I want you.”

He groans, his fingers diving in your skin. His cock twitches under you, making you lose all sense.

“I want this, Chan,” you sigh, biting his lip. “But I don’t - I don’t want you to think I’m using you, all right? You’re my friend, I care about you, I -”

He laughs. “You can use me all you want.”

He starts kissing you again, feverishly, as if it hasn’t just been a few seconds since he last did it. You arch your back, closing all distance between your bodies. Chan starts placing kisses down your neck, his tongue teasing your thin skin.

“I’ll make you feel good, baby girl,” he whispers. “I’ll make you forget for a little while. Do you trust me?”

“Yes.”

“It’s just you and me tonight. Let the rest fade away.”

He puts his strong hands on your ass, and slowly moves it. You sway your hips, and the friction of his erection against you makes you moan softly. You plunge your face in the crook of his neck, kissing his shoulder blades.

“Just you and me, yeah?” he whispers.

“Just you and me,” you nod.

In a swift move he removes your shirt, groaning at the sight of your bralette. It’s made of a thin lacy material, so he can perfectly see your nipples, and immediately leans in to brush his lips against them. You shudder, your nails digging in the back of his neck.

He removes your bra to gain access to your breasts, gently massaging them in his hands and sliding his tongue around them. Meanwhile, you caress his cock above his jeans, loving the way he tenses at your touch.

“Hold on to me,” he tells you in a breath.

You wrap your arms around his neck and he lifts you up, only to gently lay you down on the couch so he’s on top of you.

“Let me see you,” you breathe, grabbing his t-shirt.

He obliges, removing the piece of clothing so you revel in the sight of his toned chest. You take off your sweatpants and stare as he removes his jeans as well, giving you a better sight of his athletic body. His boxers do nothing to hide his erection.

“Before this goes any further,” he says, and his voice sounds so raw it sends shivers down your spine. “Do you have -”

“Bathroom,” you say with a nod.

He smiles, bends to steal a kiss and disappears. You look up at the ceiling, suddenly very aware of your nakedness, of what you are about to do.

It feels like you’ve been through ten days in one.

This morning you woke up with dread.

Now you are filled with hope.

Is this going too fast? Should you wait?

Maybe.

You don’t want to.

This feeling in your chest, that Chan helps surge, that threatens to burst - all this light, all this love. It’s been a while since you’ve felt that. From someone else, from yourself.

So what if it’s too fast? You want to live.

And if there’s a person you trust, it’s Chan.

“Got it,” you hear him say as he reappears.

You don’t really know what to say because you have all this love and light inside your chest and words would not feel enough, so you stay silent, only pull him back into a kiss. He lays on top of you, warm and a little unsteady. You can feel he’s a little nervous, just like you, but you don’t mind. You need his softness. You need his realness.

You push his boxers down, feeling his cock touch your stomach. The sensation is enough to clear your mind, and you bite Chan’s lower lip a little. He answers with a slight chuckle.

You want to tell him how crazy he makes you. How nice it is to feel him so warm and hard. How much this means to you. But for some reason, you can bring yourself to say anything, and neither does he. You just breathe together, febrile and eager. His fingers graze your wetness, and you shiver. Sensing your pleasure, Chan applies some pressure on your folds, leaning two fingers on your clit. You arch your back, moaning a little louder than you expected. Your hands reach for him, palming his cock, your own fingers brushing his tip.

“Fuck,” Chan grunts. “Y/N…”

“Channie, please,” you whisper.

“Wait,” he answers. “I want to do something first, if this is my only chance.”

You frown, opening your eyes as you feel him move. You quickly understand what he means, however, as his lips trace a path of wet kisses on your stomach and your thighs. Soon his breath is against your core, and you forget how to breathe.

When his tongue touches you, it’s like a hundred sensations at once, and you can’t hold back a shaky moan. Your fingers grab the couch as Chan pushes your legs further apart. He kisses you, pressing his tongue into you, attentive to your reactions.

“You’re gorgeous, you know?” he says, although you barely hear him. “Keep moaning for me, baby girl.”

A surge of pleasure goes through your body, enveloping you in silk, and you grab Chan’s hair, instinctively pushing him against your clit as his tongue encloses it.

“Fuck, fuck, Chan, I’m…” you whimper.

“Are you coming?”

You nod, and he buries his nose in you, embracing your sensitive spots. Your orgasm makes your whole body tremble against him, and he holds your legs as you do, making sure to accompany you throughout.

As you come down, slowly, you blink back into reality. You look at him a little timidly, realizing your fingers are still tangled in his hair. You place your palm against his head, caressing it tenderly.

“I’m so sorry,” you mutter. “Did I hurt you?”

“Not at all,” he chuckles. “It was beautiful.”

You bite your lip and he moves so he can kiss you. Your taste is on his lips and his tongue and it’s making you a little dizzy.

It’s been a while since you’ve felt as good as this.

Not that the sex with San was bad - but it faded at the same time your love did. When you broke up you had not touched each other like that - barely kissed, even - for weeks.

Although you’re sensitive, you really want to make Chan feel good. You need him inside you, stretching you, making you whole. You align your legs so his cock falls between them, and you grind slowly. His breath hitches against your lips, and you take it as a hint he likes it.

“You made me feel so good, Channie,” you tell him in between kisses. “I want to do the same for you.”

“Fuck, you’re so warm,” he lets out.

“I want you inside me,” you say.

He nods fervently, puts on the condom he got from the bathroom and aligns himself with your entrance. You feel so relaxed and tense at the same time, tucked in his arms on the couch, the rest of the world faded away. He enters you slowly, letting you time to adjust to his size, and you breathe out slowly.

He feels so different. He feels so right. You are a bundle of nerves he unmakes.

He thrusts his hips at a measured, exquisite pace. Each time he goes deeper, and you cry out in pleasure, your fingers digging in the skin of his muscled back. You feel the fever, you feel the want. He breathes heavily against your neck, holding you tight.

“You okay?” he asks in a whisper.

“Don’t stop,” you tell him, arching a little to facilitate his movements.

Chan doesn’t stop. As he makes love to you - because it is what he is doing - you sense his thrusts getting a little more erratic. In the quiet of the living room you hear nothing but the sound of him plunging inside you, his cock smeared by your wetness, his breathing mingling with yours. It is so erotic, so loving, your second orgasm is building quickly and deliciously.

Chan accelerates. You pant, moaning nonsense.

“Come with me,” he breathes, and that is the last thing you need to come undone.

It’s enthralling how your soul escapes you and yet stays right there, against Chan, around him, with him. As you clench around his cock, you hear a delightful moan escape his throat, rough and hoarse, and it keeps you right above the clouds with him as he comes inside of you. You feel him twitch before he relaxes slowly.

His lips find your forehead and he plants the softest of kisses there.

As you sink into the couch, he removes himself from you, and lays down on top of your body. You don’t mind the weight - in fact, it feels just right. His nose is in your neck, his breath tickling your sweat-covered skin. Your fingers slide in his hair, and you close your eyes.

You give yourselves time to recover. As the high fades, you feel Chan’s breathing relax and get more steady.

“Channie,” you whisper with a smile. “Don’t fall asleep.”

“Hm?” he groans, lifting his head to look at you.

With his hair all over the place, his small eyes and swollen lips, he looks ready to pass out. It elicits a large smile from you, and you tenderly caress his cheek.

“Let’s get to bed,” you tell him.

He nods. You stand up on shaky legs, and help him on his feet. Together you close the lights in the apartment, and then you take his hand to guide him towards the bathroom. You take the time to clean up and head to the bedroom. The lights are off except for the fairy lights hanging above your bed. Once you’re there, you open a drawer, take out a t-shirt that will fit him.

You slip under the sheets, Chan next to you. He pulls you into his arms, and you put your head on his shoulder.

The rain has slowed to a drizzle.

Who knows what the sky will look like tomorrow?

For now you just want to sleep against Charm’s warmth.

“Get some rest, love,” he whispers to you.

“Goodnight, Channie.”

“Goodnight.”

Thank you so much for reading! Please leave a comment or reblog with a word in the tags if you can. It's truly appreciated ♡

#bang chan smut #bang chan x y/n #bang chan x you #bang chan x reader #chan smut #chan x you #chan x reader #chan x y/n #stray kids smut #stray kids x y/n #stray kids x reader #skz smut #skz x reader #skz x you #skz x y/n

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luvendiary · 2 months

Text

of moons and gowns / r. lupin

remus lupin x reader; royal!au

part 1

a/n: here´s part 2!!!! this is the end of this specific storyline, but if you're interested in deeing specific scenarios in this au, send in a request! i hope you enjoy this! i had a lot of fun writing.

tw: mentions of abuse and torture.

summary: the life of a servant in the palace was hectic. the life of a servant in the palace who so happened to get along with the princes, was even more so.

In the days that followed your encounter with Prince Remus in the palace corridors, life took an unexpected turn. The upcoming royal ball was now tinged with the prospect of attending as Prince Remus's guest. You tried not to dwell on it however, as you knew it was probably an attempt to get on your nerves or play a light joke on you as James and Sirius often did.

Still, not much energy was left to dwell on the invitation as the palace was a hive of activity and you were at the center of it. Chores multiplied, and you found yourself engulfed in a whirlwind of tasks, leaving little room for leisure or the company of your royal friends.

The days blended together in a blur of scrubbing, polishing, and arranging, all under the watchful eyes of strict supervisors ensuring perfection for the impending event.

As the sun dipped below the horizon, casting long shadows across the palace grounds, you finally trudged back to your modest chambers. Your limbs ached, and weariness clung to every step, but the promise of rest spurred you forward.

Upon entering your room the crowd of maids gathered near one of the beds caught your attention. And as you started to unpin your hair you approached them.

“What are you lot staring at?”

Your presence took them by surprise, as they all rapidly turned their heads toward you with huge grins.

“You may not want to settle down just yet”, Lucy said with a mischievous tone,

You raised an eyebrow as you realized they were all huddled around your bed, and that there was something laying on top.

“It looks like you’ve caught the attention of yet another prince”, she said as you inspected the beautiful blue, silk dress that had been left extended neatly on your bed.

Your mind was racing at a thousand miles per minute as you reached for the small piece of paper that sat neatly next to the dress.

You opened it and felt as the rest of the girls peered over your shoulder.

In the chaos of these hectic days, I thought a respite might be in order. Please consider this an invitation (rather than a command) to join me for dinner. I promise not to bore you with tedious tales of courtly affairs or James and Sirius’ latest plan (unless, of course, you insist).

I’ll wait for you at the gardens at 8.

Yours sincerely,

Remus

You could feel your cheeks warm up. Dinner with Remus Lupin had been the furthest thing from your mind when you started your day of chores. Yet, as you slipped into the dress laid out on your bed and your hair was once again tamed into soft waves by your fellow maids, you couldn't suppress the flutter of excitement in your chest.

The evening air was crisp and scented with the fragrance of blooming flowers as you strolled through the garden. The soft glow of lanterns illuminated the way, casting dancing shadows on the cobblestone walkways.

You fiddled with your fingers as you made your way towards the center of the garden where you found a picnic set up, and sitting on a nearby stone bench was Prince Remus with a book in his hand.

You didn’t know what you were expecting, but it definitely wasn’t this. A picnic seemed almost too mundane for a prince. But in a strange way it made you feel comforted. You would rather have this than a big elaborate dinner.

As if on cue, Remus seemed to notice you. He closed his book and set it down quickly as he stood up. He was wearing a loose white shirt underneath a blue waistcoat along with some trousers and boots. He looked terribly handsome.

“There you are”, he said as he approached you with a gentle smile. “I must admit, I wasn’t sure if you were going to come”.

You said nothing and offered him a sheepish smile instead. You still weren’t sure how you were supposed to behave with him.

“You look beautiful,” he said as he offered you a hand, which you took and allowed yourself to be led to the blanket laid out on the ground.

“Thank you, your majesty. I must say that I’ve never worn a dress like this”, you replied. “Besides, if I may be so bold, you look rather dashing yourself”.

He sat next to you and smiled. “Please, just call me Remus”.

You remained quiet for a second before daring to look up at him with the smallest of smirks. “Is that an order?”

He bit his tongue, trying to suppress the smile that crept onto his face, but failing. “It’s a request.”

“As you wish then…Remus,” you said as you tried to suppress a teasing smile of your own.

With that settled, a satisfied Remus reached out for the basket as he began unpacking.

You sat down along with him; your flowy dress falling around you.

"I hope you like strawberry tarts," Remus said, holding one out to you on a small plate. "They're my favorite."

You accepted the tart graciously, taking a small bite and savoring the burst of flavor. "They're delicious," you remarked, genuinely impressed.

Remus smiled warmly, pleased by your reaction. "I'm glad you think so. I had to ask Euphemia for her recipe. But, I must admit, I had a bit of help from the palace chefs. They insisted after seeing me covered in flour."

His revelation made you laugh. It was endearing to think about the crown prince of Crescenwatch flustered in the kitchen while covered in flour.

“While I do appreciate the intention, next time let me stick to the baking”, you said amidst a fit of giggles.

He lowered his head slightly and with a soft smirk peered over his lashes. “So there will be a next time?”

You worried at your lip and stared at him contemplatively. “That’s not really up to me”, you replied with a soft smile while raising your eyebrows.

He made a soft sound of understanding before changing the topic once again. The conversation flowed effortlessly as both of you made your way through the food Remus had prepared, and exchanged stories about your respective days. His down-to-earth demeanor put you at ease. In no time you were as comfortable with him as you were with James or Sirius. And as the night passed, you found yourself laughing freely at Remus's witty remarks. The initial awkwardness between you, now gone.

Remus joined in on your laughter, and he tried to suppress the pride he relished in whenever he managed to make you smile and giggle. Still, the twinkle in his eyes was not easily hidden.

The sound of chirping birds brought you back to reality after a long while. It was then that you realized that you had spent all night out with Remus. What was supposed to be a small dinner, had turned into a full evening with the prince.

You looked at him, lying down on his side, supported by his elbow as he stared at you. You couldn’t help but laugh with slight delirium. The lack of sleep had started to get to you, and the situation you were in (which in normal circumstances would have frustrated you with the thoughts of the day ahead), humored you.

He seemed to share your amusement as he laughed along with you.

“I have to get going,” you said finally as you stood up and patted down your wrinkled dress.

Remus hurriedly stood up. He tried to fix himself up, his waistcoat had long been discarded and his white shirt had been untucked.”Let me walk you back”.

You smiled as you slipped your slippers back on. “That’s alright my prince. You don’t need to do that.”

Remus tilted his head and gently tucked a strand of hair behind your ear. “Don’t tell me you’re going back to formalities now. Besides, I insist”.

You chuckled. “Sorry, force of habit. If it makes you feel better, I still call James and Sirius by their titles sometimes”.

He chuckled. “But I’m not Sirius, or James, am I?”, he said, trying to get you to look at him.

Your cheeks warmed up. And in your flustered state, you could not muster up a witty answer. Butterflies fluttered around in your stomach, making you feel all tingly inside.

He seemed to relish in this small victory. Whilst in your flustered state, he offered you his arm, which you took, and with the picnic basket in his other hand, he walked you back to your chambers.

The path to your chambers had seemed to become shorter than you remembered it. On a usual day, they seemed to be impossibly far from where you needed them, but as of right now, they couldn’t have been far enough.

“I had a great night, thank you for inviting me,” you said as you stared up at him.

“Thank you for coming,” he replied.

A brief moment of silence passed between the two of you , trying to make this moment linger as long as possible. Still, you knew it couldn’t.

“I should…go…” you breathed out with a sad smile. You turned to open the door and walked in with one final smile. However the calling of your name made you stop in your tracks.

“I…I just-”, it was the first time you had seen Remus this nervous. His usual calm and composed demeanor was what you’ve grown accustomed to, and to a certain extent, it seemed weird for a prince like him to become this speechless, especially with a servant such as yourself.

“I don’t mind being called a prince…”, a small pause. “Your prince.”

A smile broke out through your features, it seemed that you couldn’t stop yourself when you were around him. You stood on your tiptoes and lightly kissed his cheek.

“Thank you for such a wonderful evening, my prince”. And with that, you turned on your heels and walked into your chambers.

✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦

Unfortunately, your dream-like evening had to remain on the back of your mind the next few days. With the ball approaching, the bustling around the palace had increased. Young yourself running around more than usual, so much so that you barely had any time left for meals or even alone time. You were currently occupied with the flower arrangements in the main ballroom. A calming chore like this was a nice change of pace from the usual, more strenuous things you had to attend to.

You were lost in your thoughts as your fingers danced along the stems of various sorts of flowers. Either cutting leaves or thorns. Despite the enjoyment of preparing the flower arrangements, you had to make them with certain speed and agility, which is why various small cuts littered your hands.

“Ah, here she is,” a voice echoed through the room, followed by the sound of tumultuous footsteps.

“Good morning Sirius”, you said without taking your eyes off of your task. “Good morning James”.

“And a good morning to you too!” James yelled back, as if he was saying something threatening.

“Is there something I can help you with?”

“Yes actually,” said Sirius. “You can start by telling us what enchantment you have placed on our Moony”.

You chuckled, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Maybe this will ring a bell. Tall, charming, handsome, dorky man with a lovesick smile that was previously not there?” James said as he peeked over your shoulder looking at the arrangement of flowers.

“He is quite handsome”.

“Yes well, we all know that already. What we want to know is why is he acting like a teenager all of a sudden?” Sirius pressed.

“He is?”

“Well, if talking all day long about the pretty girl he asked to ball, and how he loves how she rebukes every flirty commentary he throws at her isn’t acting like a lovesick teenager, I don’t know what is”, James replied.

“He thinks I’m pretty?”

Sirius sighed in exasperation. “They’re both hopeless”.

“Yes yes, you’re pretty, I’m impossibly charming,” James jumped in. “Setting the obvious aside. Will you tell us what has been going on between the two of you?”

With a nervous smile you finished with the arrangement and finally turned to face them. You realized that this was uncharted territory for you. Sure, your friendship with the princes was very close and you could tell each other almost everything (they surely took advantage of that). However, you had never talked about other boys with them.

With trembling hands you lowered your gaze and twisted your fingers before supplying them with the answer they had been bugging you about. “We sort of went on a date. At least, that’s what I think it was”.

Silence.

And then raucous, ear-splitting screams of what you hoped was joy.

James was jumping up and down while Sirius ran his hands through his hair and paced around.

“And?” James said with a huge grin as he approached you like a madman.

“And what?”

“And how did it go?”

With a grin of your own, you explained how your date had gone. However, you kept the specifics to yourself, relishing in those hidden moments that no one had been witness to.

As you spoke of your date with the prince, you couldn't help but notice the eager anticipation in James's eyes and the barely contained excitement in Sirius's demeanor. Their enthusiasm was infectious, but you knew better than to let it sway you. After all, you were just a servant, and the idea of something more with someone like Remus was not in the cards for you.

“So you’re coming right?” James asked. You could practically see the cogs working in his brain.

“What do you mean?”

“To the ball, of course”,Sirius replied.

Your heart sank. The prospect of attending such an event seemed like a cruel joke, a reminder of the gaping divide between your world and theirs. You knew they meant well. They often ignored the blatant divide between you, how scandalous it would be for someone like you to be seen with someone like them in an event of that magnitude. Their words were a painful reminder of the barriers that stood between you.

You looked at them with a sad smile. “You know I can’t. For all I know that night was a one time thing. I’m a servant, we don’t get to mingle amongst royalty”.

As Sirius's expression soured and he began to voice his objections, you felt a pang of frustration building within you. Him out of all people should understand. His anger only served to fuel your own, and before you could stop yourself, you interrupted him, your voice tinged with a hint of desperation.

"Please don't," you pleaded, your words a whispered plea. "I've made my peace with it. It's been hard enough."

With a heavy heart, you gathered the discarded stems and leaves in your basket, your movements automatic as you sought solace in the familiar routine of your duties.

Leaving behind a perplexed James and an angry Sirius, you made your escape, the weight of your conflicting emotions pressing down on you like a burden too heavy to bear. As you walked away, the echoes of their voices faded into the distance, leaving you alone with your thoughts and the ever-present reminder of your place amongst their world.

✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦

It had been a couple days now since your small fight with the royals. You had been avoiding them -all of them.

You had asked one of your fellow maids to take your turns in tending to their fireplace or taking the breakfast, in exchange for other duties. She had happily done so, despite her brief worry for what must have caused such a request.

You could not say that you did not miss your friends. Your life at the palace was made fun by their antics -even if they did stress you out sometimes-. But the thought of facing them, of being reminded of your place in the hierarchy, was enough to keep you away.

As the night of the ball arrived, you found yourself busy with other chores, anything to keep your mind off the lavish event taking place in the ballroom. You scrubbed floors, dusted shelves, and tended to the gardens, the rhythmic motions a comforting distraction from the festivities happening just a few corridors away.

It would be a lie to say that you hadn’t specifically requested to not attend the ball, and instead you had taken on double the amount of chores you usually did to compensate for that.

So, after a long day of work, you sought refuge at the library. A place you were sure no one would come in, especially not tonight, when everyone wanted to mingle amongst the princes. You, on the other hand, had decided that it was better for you if you maintained your distance.

However, a certain chocolate-eyed man did not think so.

“You’re avoiding me”, a voice came from behind you, making you freeze in your steps. The pile of books on your hands seemed impossibly heavy now.

You remained in silence, hoping -praying-, he would leave. But luck was not on your side today.

“Why?” he continued. This time his voice was impossibly soft. Your heart sank, hearing the sadness it carried.

You turned to face him then, and you thought that you could be strong enough to tell him the truth. But as you looked at him, you realized that you couldn’t.

“Shouldn’t you be at the ball?”, you said in an effort to avoid the topic as you set down the pile of books and pretended to skim through one of them. “I’m sure there’s a lot of disappointed girls out there right now.”

“Maybe. But the one girl I’m interested in decided not to show up”.

You had to remind yourself that to him, you were probably just a fun time. Someone he might never see again. But to you…

“I’m certain that you have a bunch of beautiful girls lining up to take her place”, you replied.

If you weren't so busy trying to avoid his gaze, you might have noticed how his expression seemed to morph into that of disappointment. And quickly into one of frustration.

“I talked with James and Sirius”, he said. His voice is now much more sharp.

“Well, Sirius has a lot of experience in that department. James might not be that helpful, he’s pretty hung up on Princess Lily-”

“They told me that you had made ‘peace with it’”, he said, cutting sharply into your sentence as he took a step towards you.

You faltered for a moment, before trying to hold on to the unbothered front you had been trying to put on. However, he didn’t give you time to recover.

“That you don’t get to ‘mingle with royalty’”, he continued as he approached you, making you take some steps back. “And that it was a ‘one time thing’”.

Your back hit a shelf, and before you knew it, Remus was looming over you. His hand reached for your book before setting it on a higher shelf. He then gently took a hold of your chin, and he forced you to look up at him. “You’re a smart girl. Don’t tell me you actually believe that”.

You caught how his eyes softened for a fraction of a second. Still, that wasn’t enough to stop the small burst of anger that bubbled up inside you.

“You’re a smart prince,” you said, your words now had an edge to them. “Don’t tell me you’re unaware of the repercussions this might have”.

“To hell with the repercussions-”

“That’s because you can afford to do that Remus!” you retaliated. He seemed surprised by your outburst, as he took the smallest of steps backward. “I’m a servant, and if they were to see us, do you know what they’ll say about me?” you continued as you jabbed your finger in his chest.

“Do you have any idea how I was treated back on Blackhaven?” you debated for a moment if this was really worth telling, but you quickly decided that if he wanted to know about the repercussions, you would tell him about them.

“After enduring Orion’s punishments, befriending Sirius was the most wonderful thing that happened to me. But rumors started spreading on how I was his slut. On how I ‘kept him satisfied’ in exchange for protection!”

Remus kept silent. His hand held on your arm gently, trying to keep you close.

You slumped against bookshelves, and looked up, trying to keep the tears at bay. It wasn’t like you had forgotten it. It plagued your nightmares. But it had been years since you had to purposefully remember the punishment that made Sirius decide to get you out of his kingdom.

“Orion found out,” you continued, this time your voice much softer. “So he decided that his normal branding wasn’t enough this time. He said that I would not taint his bloodline -that a servant would not ruin his bloodline.”

Remus’ eyes searched for yours, trying to find a hint that it wasn’t true. That somehow you got saved from being punished. He was familiar with the king’s punishments. He remembered a particular night in which Sirius had not been able to handle it anymore, and he broke down in James’ room.

“So he branded me in the usual place…and then on my hip. And then, he had me lashed…while Sirius watched.”

You could feel how his fingers tightened around your wrist, but you avoided his eyes. In a brief moment he pulled on your wrist and dragged you to a dark corner of the library where he pulled on a book and a part of the wall popped open, revealing a small room the size of a maintenance closet.

The sound of a click brought you back to reality. And the small warm light that followed it revealed that the ‘maintenance closet’ was not that at all, but rather a really small study.

You sighed and turned to face him. He dragged you a few paces up until you were next to the desk. He took you by the waist and hoisted you upwards, so you were sitting on it, before prompting you to continue.

With a shaky breath you went on.

“I tried not to make any noise for Sirius’ sake. But Orion decided that he wouldn’t be satisfied until I screamed my throat raw,” you had started untying your apron. “ So he didn’t stop, not even when I passed out. Sirius’ pleads and screams kept waking me up, until Orion got tired.”

Remus watched you carefully, his heart heavy with the weight of your pain. He could see the turmoil in your eyes as you struggled to find the courage to speak, and his own words felt inadequate.

As you untied your apron, he noticed the tension in your shoulders, the way your hands trembled slightly. Without a word, he moved closer, his movements slow and deliberate as he reached out to help you.

His fingers brushed against the fabric of your dress, the gentle touch a silent reassurance of his presence. With practiced ease, he located the ribbons at the back of your dress, his touch feather-light as he began to untangle them. You tensed at his touch, a shiver running down your spine as the faint outline of the lash scars hidden beneath your dress were revealed.

But he didn't look away. Instead, he continued to untie your dress, his movements slow and deliberate as he revealed more and more of your scars to him. With each inch of exposed skin, his heart broke a little more, but he refused to let his own emotions show.

Finally, the ribbons completely untangled from your corset, and your dress hung loose around your shoulders, the scars on your back fully revealed to him. Remus felt a lump form in his throat as he took in the sight, the raw brutality of your old life laid bare before him.

But he didn't turn away. Instead, he reached out, his fingers tracing the contours of your scars with a tenderness that brought tears to your eyes.

He had tried to avoid it at first, but the Blackhaven crest that was engraved into your skin screamed at him for attention. The crest was jagged and uneven, the lines distorted from where you had thrashed in pain during your punishment. It was a brutal symbol of the cruelty of the Blackhaven royals, and a mark that would forever brand you as a victim of their tyranny.

Remus felt a surge of anger rise within him as he looked upon the crest. You felt as his gentle fingers made its way up to it. His touch was feather-light as he traced the outline of the crest. He could feel the heat of your skin beneath his fingertips, the scars rough and raised against his touch.

“That was what he was most proud of,” you said, breaking the heavy silence that had settled between you. “It made me his property. He tried to make the lash marks disappear later. He said they would just ruin a pretty thing. So they mostly healed. But I guess my body wasn’t able to erase that memory completely.”

More silence.

“The crest on my hip was a final gift. Something about how if I wanted to be a slut, people should know who I belong to. I woke up in the infirmary days later, to the news that Sirius had ‘gifted me’ to Noblehaven”.

For a moment, neither of you spoke, the weight of the moment hanging heavy in the air. But then, without a word, Remus leaned in and pressed the softest of kisses to your back. And then another. And another.

His lips moved reverently over the scars. As he trailed kisses along the jagged lines of the crest, you felt a rush of emotions wash over you—pain, sorrow, but also something else. Tears pricked at the corners of your eyes as you felt his lips press against the scars.

The contrast of the tender action amidst a place that had been ravaged by brutality and cruelty was devastating.

His hands slowly snaked their way to your cheeks, and as they softly made you turn to look at him they wiped the tears that had escaped your eyes. Without a word, Remus pulled you into his arms, holding you close as though trying to shield you.

“Be my queen,” he whispered tenderly, out of the blue. His pain-stricken eyes reaching for yours.

“Remus-”

“No harm will ever come to you”.

Your words caught in your throat as you gazed into his earnest eyes, the depth of emotion swirling within them almost overwhelming. The vulnerability in his voice tugged at your heartstrings, and for a moment, you were lost in the intensity of his plea.

"Be my queen," he repeated, his voice barely a whisper, yet it echoed loudly in the silence between you. His fingers brushed against your cheek, his touch gentle and reassuring.

Your breath hitched as you searched his gaze, seeing the raw sincerity etched in every line of his face. The weight of his request hung heavy in the air, the gravity of his words sinking deep.

"Remus..." you began, your voice trembling with uncertainty. "I'm just a servant."

He whispered your name, but his gaze seemed to be undecided on whether it wanted to fixate on your eyes or your lips. “Please…” he begged as he leaned in closer, his breath fanning your lips.

“Please,” he whispered again. This time the plea seemed to weigh so much more.

Ever so slowly, you pressed your lips to his.

His arms encircled you, pulling you closer until there was no space left between you, and you melted into his embrace. His lips moved against yours with a gentle urgency, a silent plea for you to say yes, to choose him, to become his queen.

When you finally pulled away, a soft smile graced Remus' lips. “Is that a yes?”

You smiled up at him, and tilted your head slightly. “It depends. Was that a command?”

Remus chuckled and cupped your face with his hand as he pressed your lips to his once again. It was soft and desperate at the same time. So much longing in one single action.

“I think you know I’m in no place to give commands when it comes to you,” he whispered as he trailed his kisses up to your ear.

Remus’ hands snaked in between your dress, softly caressing the scars on his way down. The piece of fabric now pulling at your waist.

“Say it,” he pleaded as he trailed kisses down your neck and back to your mouth. “Say you will.”

“I will,” you breathed out.

He pulled away slightly, admiring you for a second before wrapping his arms around you once again.

tags:

@lovelyygirl8

#remus lupin x reader #marauders #remus lupin #x reader #remus john lupin #sirius black #remus x reader #remus john lupin x reader #marauders royal!au #marauders au #marauders royal au

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neo-shitty · 10 months

Text

and i would like you to love me — l.mk

excerpt. “i loved her hard and at a distance, which made it easier to do, experienced brief but powerful compulsions to hug her and almost never did.” - our wives under the sea, julia armfield.

pairings. mark lee x gender-neutral reader, (slight) na jaemin x gender-neutral reader

genre. angst, slight fluff, best friends!au, one-sided pining

warnings. swearing. mark is so...whipped...it’s almost pathetic.

word count. 4.6k

notes. i haven’t written much this year and if i did get around to writing, it was either self-indulgent (read as written to appease my delusions) or nothing good. | taglist. @mosviqu @by-moonflower @lovesuhng @emvrd

Your name was but a whisper in the wind; minute against the rustling of crisp dry leaves as the breeze picked up and blew down the sidewalk, but he spoke it loud enough to be heard over the distant bustling of the city night, half a world away from where they were.

“______,” he called out, the name spilling out of his mouth long before he could think of what to say afterwards. The impulse trigger had left him, just as suddenly as it came and by the time his mind had caught up, she’d already stopped and turned to him.

“What?” Your eyes met his and all the words he’d bottled up inside him fizzled up right when he needed them most.

“Leaving?” Mark watched as a blur crossed the room, moving past him on the way somewhere he—in his sorry state of insobriety—couldn’t quite figure out just yet. The blur is you, on your merry way to take the unconventional route to the kitchen to fetch more drinks or heading for the backyard to take a dip in the pool.

Or leaving, because you stop by the doorway, picking up the sneakers you came in with as you bid you goodbyes to the others around you. “Already?”

The room Mark was in was a clockless one and with his phone dead, he had no way of knowing how late the night had gotten. Was it late enough to warrant heading home or just another one of the days you were up for hanging out until you weren’t? Either way, he still pushed himself off the couch, anticipating the nauseating world-spin that came with the sudden jerk of motion and waited for it to pass. Then he was fine—the world stilling momentarily—and he’s saying his ‘goodbye’s and ‘see you next time’s until he was out the door.

You hadn’t gotten that far yet, less than a house away when he stumbled down the front porch steps and trampled the front lawns of the Lees. He was debating calling out to you to wait when he noticed you slowed your steps to match his, waiting until you walked side by side on the sidewalk.

He wasn’t sure how far down on the way home his thoughts shifted from keeping his walking straight to the rabbit hole he’d fallen into. Ever since the seed sprouted in the depths of his mind, he never was able to get away from it—tangled in its grasp and dragged down every time he was reminded of it. It was hard not to think of it when he saw you almost everyday, your image ingrained into his eyelids with the permanence of all those years of friendship.

Tonight, the thoughts loomed just beyond the horizon; from the moment you ran out the front door waving to your parents by the doorway, to the bus ride you spent standing together and trying their best not to fall over, to enjoying the party all the while looking out for where the other had gone.

It was always like this between you, a seemingly mismatched compatibility outlasting the average lifetime of a pair with a dynamic like theirs. People like you grew into something more or diminished into nothing, unable to withstand the test of time. Not you, though. Your friendship mirrored the way the tides shifted through the months, reaching far into the shore only to pull far back later on. He was the static sand of the shoreline and you were the tide, moving with the push and pull of lunar gravity; growing closer to each other until you overlapped then backing away but never entirely apart. Nothing more, nothing less and Mark was content with that.

Until one night—mid-summer—in a drunken haze he wondered if it would be wrong to want something more than just this and nothing had been able to quell the thought ever since.

It spread through his mind like a plague, an obsessive fascination of this possibility happening because it wasn’t off the table. They might work. And he would think of what it would be like to call you more than just a friend, to hold you closer than their current unsaid boundaries allowed, to feel your warmth against his—chest to chest with your hearts beating in sync.

The thoughts led him here, verbalized in the form of your name for the first time since its inception in the recesses of his mind.

You were still looking at him, arms finding their ways back to your side after pretending to keep your balance on levelled ground. It took one glance at your face, your curiosity warping into impatience, for him to remember what he was really up against. Every con listed itself in bullets in his mind, matching up against his established list of delusion-fuelled pros. What if you didn’t feel the same way? He’d thought about it before. People have taken bullets to the chest and lived to tell the tale, so why couldn’t he? But he knows it wasn’t just about the ache of the potential rejection, it was about every ripple and repercussion following the confession because...

What if he lost her?

And somehow that was enough to snap him out of the deluded trance, every inch of mustered courage dwindling as he weighed the possibilities—his losses always heavier than the probable benefits. Certainties, such as your being a part of his life, would remain as such until factors that could potentially affect it would surface, and uncertainties will, well, remain uncertain until further evidence would prove it closer to certainty than the former.

So, Mark shook his head. “Nothing,” he said. “Just be careful.” It was a stupid excuse but he knew you’d never look into it more than the fact that a man just tried to dictate your actions.

“How about you be careful and start minding your own business?” you answered, keeping a feisty fit until you broke into a laugh, filling the air of the silent evening. When he didn’t laugh along with you, you stuck out your tongue, leaping onto the next square on the pattern across the sidewalk with your arms stretched out.

You were right though. Between you and him, he had more chances of falling over even if he wasn’t hopping around. And if that happened, he’d be more than happy to lie there gazing at the semi-starry night sky—the road not taken lingering as a daydream in his mind.

In the same way recent thoughts sometimes slip into dreams in the form of ridiculous symbolism, anything the senses pick up in sleep have the chance of transcending reality and making itself known in dreams in some wild interpretation the mind comes up with unconsciously. In Mark’s case, it was the crescendo of banging on his bedroom door that intruded the peace of his slumber and turned its peaceful air into a full-blown apocalyptic nightmare.

In the dream, he was making his way down the sidewalk of a busy highway, still in a filler part of his dream. He had no recollection of where he was or how he got there, just that he was headed somewhere and that events would pick up from there. Unfortunately for him, he won’t be asleep long enough to find out what awaited him.

The first of the crashes was faint, loud enough to draw his attention but far enough to not worry him. It sounded like a bomb exploding from underground, muffled but powerful. and as his mind registered the connections he made, the second boom came—louder and closer now—shaking the ground where he stood.

Fear surged through his system, adrenaline pumping into his veins as he broke into a sprint. Then the crashes came first, as if seemingly sensing his fear and coming for him. There was a third, a fourth, and a fifth, all barrelling closer and closer towards him until one detonated behind him, finally knocking him out.

Mark Lee woke up with a start. He's alive, breathless right on his first waking minute. A thin layer of sweat glazed the skin of his upper torso, the dream vivid enough to leave remnants in reality. He turned to his side, reaching over to his bedside table when he heard it, the same loud crash that killed him in his dreams and it was right outside his door. He sat up, startled, slowly realizing that it wasn’t a bomb but knocking loud enough that it might as well be.

“I'll be down in 10, mom!”

Bthe knocking persisted. what it diminished in volume it made up for in its frequency, coming in half-beats.

He groaned, throwing the covers off of him to walk over to the door. “I said I’ll be there in 10!”

The door swung open. It wasn’t his mom knocking dents into the wood.

“Happy birthday!” The candle goes out with a concentrated exhale, a thin line of smoke being only its remnant that it was ever lit up.

The cake was simple; store-bought chocolate with a Happy Birthday, Mark! scribbled in red icing, held up by someone who looked up at him expectantly. What were you expecting?

“Oh shit, sorry.” Mark fought the urge to laugh at your little fuck up, leaning against the doorway as you fumbled your pocket for the lighter. You found it eventually, striking it twice until a steady flame relit the candle. “Happy birthday, Mark! Make a wish,” you greeted again, holding the cake out further from your face and closer to Mark’s.

He doesn’t tell you that his wish had already been granted. “Thank you,” he took the cake from your palm, killing the candle’s light a second time. “You really woke up early for this?”

“I did,” you answered, hands on your waist like a superhero; proud. Mark could tell from the shadows beneath your eyes that you’d probably forgotten the date and panicked the second you realized it was his birthday, bought the cake right as the bakery was closing and somehow forgot to bring a lighter on your way here.

But there was always plus points for effort.

He could feel the corners of his mouth twitch up, the telltales of a smile making its way to his face no matter how hard he tried to keep it down. “Thank you, ______.”

He’d done this a hundred times before but this one felt different. Pulling you closer, he wrapped you in a half-embrace to which you melted into. Your own arms curled languidly around his frame, slowly enclosing him in your own squeeze. Pressed chest to chest, he was conscious of every muscle twitch. He felt as if his arms would lock and keep you there, where his lips could brush your temple if you wanted him to, where your perfume was too strong it was all he could inhale.

“You’re old.” You mumbled and he felt the vibrations on his chest as you spoke.

“Your birthday’s in a few weeks too, idiot.” Did you feel it in your chest too?

He opened his mouth to speak, but stopped himself, the moment too fragile in his hands. So he left it in yours even when he knew you’d be quick to drop it, pulling away from him right before he could beg you to stay a little longer.

You stood at a fair distance away from him again. “Get changed and come down. Breakfast’s ready.”

Breakfast was omelettes and a mug of coffee. Before him were two plates of the same meal, one more overcooked than the other. It was easy to point out but he opted to keep his mouth shut, glancing over at you.

“Go on, try it!” you said, beaming at him with an air of confidence.

So he does, slicing a portion with his fork before shoving it into his mouth. Surprisingly, it’s better than he expected it to be, but judging from the few too many egg shells on the kitchen counter, it took a few tries. “Good, but not as good as my mom’s.”

His mom’s hearty laughter filled the room, warmth spreading where the sunlight couldn’t reach. “You’ll get the hang of it someday, _____.”

It wasn’t the first time you tried it but this was the closest you’d ever gotten to getting it right. Across all his birthdays and the mornings you dropped by, this was the first time you didn’t burn the eggs completely. Just slightly, just enough for Mark to notice the difference. But his mom had the edge, what was 20-something consecutive years of practice to several tries months apart?

The rest of breakfast is spent in small talk, filling in the gaps between the last time they’d been huddled together and today. Mark spent most of his time listening, the information exchanged no longer anything new. But he’d speak in the silences, when his mother attended to other things or when you had your head down, smiling at something but telling him nothing when he asked.

Oh. That.

Mark knew for a while now, he was just waiting for you to admit it. The gradual shift was subtle but enough for him to notice; this wasn’t the first time this had happened, the last time being a lifetime ago. Shortened, occasional replies and half-distracted responses meant you were hiding something or budgeting time across people and failing to keep up. He would know, because he’d done it before. But unlike you, his temporary fixes proved to be temporary and he’d somehow find his way back, retracing his steps and ending up on your doorstep with a story of a lifetime you’d be willing to hear out on the front porch. But he was rarely on the receiving end of these stories, never the one to keep the friendship alive despite the growing distance.

He first noticed it on a weeknight mid-semester, when he was staying up late to finish something. He camped in a server with a bot playing music in the background when he heard the ding, an intruder entering his safe space, but it’s you so he doesn’t bother. It’s half-past 3AM and,

“You never sleep do you?” you asked.

“Why aren’t you asleep?” he asked.

Mark answered work and you answered nothing. Nothing was an avenue for a lot of things, just not something you wanted to say out loud. Just not something you wanted to say to him.

Your camera blinked on, the same old familiar face greeting him—the dim light of your laptop screen reflecting on your skin. The pixels that made up your eyes stared back at him, which meant you were staring at the black orb of your camera just to look at him directly. Then you turned away, laughing.

“Something funny about my face?”

He expected some sarcastic reply. But you only shook your head, looking elsewhere. He could hear the keys clicking as you typed, your eyes scanning across the screen that, as Mark realized, isn’t just composed of him.

“Are you talking to someone?” Mark asked, even if he wouldn’t like either response. No, I’m not talking to someone—a blatant lie. Yes, I’m talking to someone—the truth he didn’t want to hear. But he asked anyway, getting a firm answer would be better than mere speculation. He just didn’t get why the thought of it stung.

On his screen, you cocked your head, your heads now side by side as if they were leaning against each other. At least, that was how it was on his end. He noticed your lips, the way the edges curled when you fought hard not to smile. Mark heard about Na Jaemin for the first time that night.

Mark got out of his shift a little past midnight, bursting out the door in a frantic rush straight into the empty streets of the city. His mind had been locked onto one thing since he got the voicemail: to get to the pub as soon as he could. Hi Mark, your best friend’s voice came through the speaker. I know you’re working, But could you pick _____ up after your shift? I would drive them home but I came with Jeno and I don't think they’re in the right state of mind to be riding a motorcycle right now so... The line goes silent for a while, the talking distant before he overhears ‘Is _____ here? Are they ok?’. I know, I’m sorry, it’s so late. You don’t have to do it, I’ll just call up their dad.

No, he replied, not even thinking of how he’ll get there. I'll come get them. Because they both knew calling your dad was the last of all last resorts. Your best friend replied with an okay and an address that was on the other side of the city.

Mark walked into an unforgiving downpour, raindrops thick enough to blur the rest of the avenue. His jacket wasn’t enough to shield him from it, the thick denim soaking in not even seconds in. It offered some form of protection but it wasn’t a coat nor an umbrella and the closest bus stop was still a block away. He dashed head first into the pouring rain, down the sidewalk and across the street, straight into the bus shed.

The few people who rode the bus along with him cast glances of disgust, keeping an unrespectful distance away from him as if the rainwater that drenched him was some vile toxic liquid. He stood the whole way, not wanting to dampen dry bus seats and risk getting ejected off the bus. His bus card was declined thrice and he ended up paying in cash before hopping off, only to find himself on the wrong street. His phone shut down somewhere along the way and he spent a few minutes walking in the wrong direction before he eventually turned around and found the pub.

For a pub, it wasn’t crowded enough for him to get more lost than he already had been. In fact, it was relatively empty. He spotted familiar faces close to the back, Jeno specifically who had a beer can in hand—ready to offer it to him. They welcomed him as he approached, asking where he was, why he only arrived now and why the fuck he was drenched. He ignored everyone, though he would soon regret not taking the can of beer from Jeno’s hand. “Where’s ______?” he asked.

“Mark, you’re here!” Your best friend came up from behind him, eyes running over his figure. “Oh my God, what happened? Didn’t you get my text?”

Mark fished his phone out of his pocket, showing the black screen and the useless effort of trying to turn it back on. Whether it was drained or drenched beyond repair, he wasn’t sure.

Your best friend chewed the inside of their cheeks before speaking. “_____’s fine now,” they said and he noted the hesitance in their tone, as if they knew something he didn’t. After a quick sigh she resigned and continued, “Jaemin came. They’re still here, I think, down the hall by the comfort rooms.”

He wished your best friend didn’t notice when his expression hardened from worry to a stoicism meant to keep his emotions in check. But their lingered, pity and concern dancing across the glossy surface of their eyes. He thanks them as he excused himself, thanking them a second time for saying the truth instead of shielding him from the truth he’d uncover on his own eventually.

A cue stick hits a cue ball, scattering the multi-colored balls across the table. The crowd erupts into cheers, the music playing in the background drowned out by the amused laughter. It’s a lucky shot because a few make it into the holes, the player earns another opportunity to strike. One of their friends called him over and he glanced, suddenly torn between stalling or confronting what was waiting for him.

He holds a hand up, opting to come back for them later. He'd need the distraction, anyway. The short walk to the bathroom ends at the mouth of another hallway, a narrow one that led to the lavatory and the comfort room doors that stood side by side to each other.

You sat with your back against the wall, somewhere at the end of the hallway. And across you sat Jaemin, cross-legged on the same floor, mirroring the way you were curled up against the corner because it made you laugh. Mark feels like he’s interrupting something, feels that his presence—though not yet acknowledged—was not welcome in their little space.

“_____?”

Jaemin is the first to look over, dark eyes bearing down on Mark’s. and though the man was seated on the floor, Mark suddenly felt small. When he searched the blonde’s face for a sign of hostility, he found nothing but mere indifference, nothing beyond how someone would treat a stranger. Jaemin leans forward, closing the distance between you. Only then do you glance over at Mark—head spinning instantly, eyes wide like a doe in headlights. You always moved that way when the alcohol overtook your system. Where others found their actions dulled, yours became sharper. Mark found it comforting that you weren’t too far gone yet to lose the snappy movements.

The blonde man rose up to his full height and they finally saw each other eye to eye. Then he turned to reach a hand to you to help you pull yourself up with a firm grip on the other man’s wrist.

In that moment, Mark slipped out of the hallway and into the recesses of his mind, revisiting the last time he’d seen you—that night in his room, the altercation. He remembers the way you beamed at him when you walked in, the brightness of your presence permeating the thick air of his room. Whatever reasons he had, he could no longer remember. Why was he that irritable that day? At what point could he no longer bear to listen to you? And why did he have to say what he did?

You talked about your day, at first, and just like every conversation since you introduced Jaemin, the topic inevitably steered to him. How you went from passing glances at each other, to exchanging socials, to talking all night, to hanging out in person—and Mark listened on for the justification as to why his own messages had gone unanswered for longer periods until he couldn’t bear it any longer.

He shouldn’t have scoffed but he did. “Are you even sure that he likes you?” he said, cutting you off as you spoke. He regrets it the second it rendered you silent. You didn’t look hurt, no, it was disappointment and the weight of your gaze that made the guilt surge within him.

“_____,” he tried but you were already slipping off the bed, passing behind him as you picked up your things and slamming the door without even looking back. He should’ve stood up right then, ran after you before you could leave the house and apologize. Say that he didn’t mean it that way, say that he didn’t mean it at all. But he just sat there, his guilt gobbling him whole and his pride keeping him rooted there.

Like clockwork, he eventually apologized and you eventually told him it was fine, even when it wasn’t for the sake of dismissing it. Nothing was the same ever since; the rift evident, as if you hadn’t drifted far enough already.

But there were times like this when pride was an easy thing to overlook. You had done it for him once or twice before. He recalled running late one too many times for a class you had together; and you, despite not being on speaking terms with him, took the blame for it. And your friendship was always fixed that way, non-verbal ways, as if to prove that actions spoke louder than words if they failed.

“What the fuck happened, Mark?” you asked, slurring through your words before bursting out in laughter.

Mark raised an eyebrow, “What the fuck happened to me? What the fuck happened to you?” he watched as you stumbled over, wobbly as you stepped.

Behind you, Jaemin leans to mumble something in your ear. Something about letting him know if you were ready to leave. Mark didn’t mean to eavesdrop on it, nor could he help butting in.

“It’s fine,” he says, to the blonde’s surprise and his own. “I’ll take her home. Sorry for bothering you.”

“Not a bother at all,” Jaemin replied. “I don’t mind. I’ll take her home. Besides, it’s raining. Glad I brought the car instead.”

And Mark debates whether it would be worth sparking an argument with the man. Didn’t he know that the rain had stopped? Maybe he would’ve known if he wasn’t busy flirting in a pub bathroom. And did he really have to shove it in his face that he had a ride after seeing him drenched?

But Mark noticed you looking and he bites his tongue. You were no longer looking over with eyes glinting with both worry and amusement at the same time. You looked at him imploringly, as if begging for him to take the hint. If he was honest, Mark didn’t want to. And it wasn’t because he tread through a storm just to get here but because it was an opportunity to make things up to you, to finally apologize and break the ice. But it seemed you were taking apologies in other ways today and it didn’t necessarily involve him.

Mark sighed and hoped that his voice wouldn’t betray him as he spoke. “Alright, be careful both of you. Her dad’s kinda strict.” He even mustered up the courage to wink at the blonde man.

Jaemin chuckled lightly and he watched as your face flared up in a blush. Mark stepped aside to let the pair pass, looking away when he noticed the blonde resting an arm over your shoulders—like he used to. But he sees you through the mirror hanging over the lavatory and that’s how he noticed that you looked over a final time. Your eyes met on the glass and for the first time since your little quarrel. You looked at him warmly; he missed this. You mouthed a little thank you before you turned back, walking away and disappearing into the main room.

By the time Mark joined the others, you had long left the place for a night out on your own. Everyone knew better than to bring it up. Beer bottles were passed, along with cue sticks and unlit cigarettes. He hoped the alcohol would dampen out how he felt even just for that night.

They were at the pub until it closed in the early AM, saying their goodbyes when they were out on the street. Mark’s house was far from everyone else’s, close only to yours, but because you were no longer around, he ended up alone. He would’ve sent you a text to ask if you got home safely, to tell you that he walked all the way home again, to say what he’d been meaning to say for years now. Good thing his phone was dead long before he could do so.

#was supposed to proofread this a final time didn't even realize it was out #mark fluff #mark angst #mark x reader #kwritersworldnet #nct angst #nct fluff #mark lee angst #mark lee fluff #mark imagines #mark scenarios #mark fics #nct x reader #nct scenarios #nct imagines #mark lee x reader #toff.writes

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m1d-45 · 1 year

Text

the wind knows

summary: a series of haikus to ‘imposter’ reader, wherein kazuha knows the truth

word count: ~600

-> warnings: spoilers for inazuma archon quest / kazuha lore? implied violence? imposter au things- it’s implied reader dies, so……

taglist: @samarill || @thenyxsky || @valeriele3 || @shizunxie || @boba-is-a-soup || @yum1x

< masterlist >

many letters were scrapped, left to sit in the trash. when pen finally meets proper page, the sun has long since set. still, the motions are careful and sure, as if it hadn’t taken hours of preparation to bear fruit.

the world has waited

for the brightest star to fall

i have waited too

the faint scent of the sea stains the poem, the wax seal dusted with salt. contained within the envelope is the product of boredom at the docks, impatience vented onto paper.

an ocean between

the trip is bound by man’s speed

you are worth the wait

the high point of the crow’s nest allows for far sight, land appearing on the horizon a precious few moments before anybody below notices. words seem to appear in the mind, bandages staining with ink in the hasty retrieval of paper. once down, it would be transferred to something neater, but that is not the priority.

the geo-filled spires

meet together with crashing water

i hope we meet soon.

words are heard, names are called. even after a day of searching, of following the wind that has never led astray, nothing is found. nobody is found. the captain of the fleet makes a comment that goes unheard, thoughts caught up in new lines. a hand traces them out, even if there’s only air below; it’s never meant to be sent, after all.

liyue is empty

of nothing but what’s needed

where could you have gone?

the next day is just as fruitless, nobody at the docks reporting anything new. the wind brings him a small cluster of torn up pages, the familiar writing of lady ningguang scrawled across them. he can’t catch full phrases, the paper scraps too small, but the very fact that the shredded snow had fallen scares him in a way it shouldn’t. the wind warns, but of what?

rumors cross the streets

the air is taught with tension

please let it rest soon

the harbor bustles with more life than normal. people shout and cry, everybody slowly moving away from the docks and deeper into the city. sailors are confused, having only barely returned, but a flyer hastily shoved into their hands by a vendor makes everything clear. the sharp, commanding voice of the captain reads it out, the letter of execution snatched from her hands as red eyes hope and pray it’s fake.

i hope it’s not you

even as i know it is

how could this happen?

white hair shoves through a crowd, his mind blurred with both the aura of the divine and panic from the jeering people around. bodies press in around him but he forces his way though, managing to catch glimpses of the stage. the tianquan, lazily flipping the pages of her catalyst. the funeral director, star-filled eyes now blank and empty with hatred. and him, him, the one who bears an impossible amount of geo, him who stains the air with ancient names and archaic rituals, him with a spear that shines like pure gold in the sun.

kazuha finally bursts through the crowd, the eyes of the millelith snapping to him as he stumbles on the bricks below. it doesn’t matter. he’s too late.

for the second time, somebody he loved dies at the hands of an unfeeling god.

heretical sin

the world itself cries in pain

how could you leave me?

#genshin impact sagau #sagau #genshin sagau #sagau impostor au #genshin imposter au #sagau kazuha #kazuha x you #sagau x reader #genshin x reader #genshin x you #kazuha #kazuha x reader #angst #sagau angst #kazuha angst #man this was so much fun to write. wholeheartedly enjoyed myself during this one lads #mmm being cryptic on a friday night (it’s monday)#gonna be so embarrassed if i find out i miscounted syllables on one of these. it’s supposed to be 5-7-5 and i’m only 83% confident i did it

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dearsnow · 1 year

Text

CUDDLES AND CONFESSIONS

- jacaerys has hidden his feelings for you, his childhood friend, but everything unravels during a midnight confession. (jacaerys velaryon x gn!reader, modern au, pining into fluff, luke definitely turned down the heater so the events of the story could take place but we ignore that)

word count: 2,692

a/n - this was inspired by the very incredible @valeskafics’s modern au stories :) i love love their fics so definitely check them out ^^ this is a lot longer than most of the stuff i’ve written recently because it came straight out of my heart. please enjoy <3

Sunlight filters through Jace’s window as he repeats vocab words for you to study. The shadow he casts is long and warm toned on his carpeted floor, stretching just enough to reach the base of the chair you’re sitting in. He shifts his position from cross-legged to lying flat on the floor, fingers holding an index card. You rattle off the word you know connects to the definition in his hands.

You slump forward a little bit, arms wrapped around your knees. “God, Jace, we’ve been going at this for hours. It’s gotta be time for a break.”

“Well, I wouldn’t phrase it like that,” he all but laughs, “but sure. I think we’re well-prepared. I mean, as well as we could ever be.” He lifts his hand to his mouth to yawn.

In actuality, his mind has been elsewhere for a while now. He helped you study like a good friend while his eyes gazed over your form lightly, imagining how soft your hand would feel in his. How you could hold the stars in your palms and love in your eyes, shining as bright as the burn he felt for you. How nice it would be to graze over your face with his fingers, feather-light touches roaming the expanse he longs to kiss. It would be nice, he thinks, to see your eyes crinkle in a smile as he kisses the corner of your mouth.

He shakes his head, breaking the immersion. He can’t let himself get hopeful. You’re just a friend. A best friend. His best friend. A friend who he dreams of loving, a friend who makes the tips of his ears turn red when he looks at you too long. And that’s all you ever will be, he reckons. He’s far too invested in your happiness to risk it with a silly move like asking you on a date.

“Let’s get a snack, yeah? I’m hungry.”

“You’re always hungry.” You look down, happiness on the curve of your lips. It’s surprising how much he can eat, really- he could put an elephant to shame. It’s just one more thing you’ve noticed about him, one more thing you’ve grown to love.

He scoffs lightly. “Like I haven’t been hearing your stomach growl for the last ten minutes. I literally offered you a snack and you said ‘no, I’m okay’.”

“Shush,” You say, stretching your legs. “I was focused.”

He scrunches his nose. He would drop anything to give you what you want. He’d find a way to bottle the moon in a jar if you said the word and give you the sun if you asked. “Sure.”

He gets up, and you follow.

The sun disappears below the horizon, wind whispering softly through his open window. His room is illuminated with the soft light of a lamp, and you sit on his floor partially covered by a blanket.

It’s not unusual for you to spend the night at his house. His mother and stepfather treat you like their own (when they’re home at least), and his brother and half-sisters are as dear to you as any siblings would be. A warm feeling erupts in your heart when Rhaenyra ruffles your hair and Luke bursts into Jace’s room to spend time with you. In some ways, you feel more at home with him than you do in your own house.

You’ve known him for forever, so the line between his family and yours blurs sometimes. It all really started when the Targaryen/Velaryon family moved in to the house right next door to yours.

Why they did it is a question that you don’t think will ever be answered, though you think it has something to do with the odd circumstances surrounding Jace and Luke’s dubious parentage. They needed a fresh start, they told you one time. They wanted to give their kids a chance at a normal life despite their riches was another excuse. In any case, you’re glad they did.

Jace became a quick friend of yours. You first met when he was playing outside your window- you looked down on him like a royal stuck in a tower while your prince teetered on a little blue bike with training wheels below you. You called down to him, and he answered.

You often pretended to ride on dragonback with him, cruising through the streets on his bike. His stepdad put some little steps on the back of it so you could ride at the same time, though you’re not sure his mother approved. You would hold on to his waist as he peddled; he never seemed to let his exhaustion show, even when you were sure his legs were sore and aching. He only let you ride on the front a handful of times, insisting that he was stronger, so it was only right that he should carry you.

In his mind, he was flying. Nothing seemed to matter except the feeling of your arms around your midsection and the wind in his hair. It was freeing, giving him the first glimpse of life he had ever felt. In that moment, he was a prince of old, written into a thick book of fairytales, and you were right there with him.

He started noticing that warm emotion and how it was always present when you were in the room. How you started to make him feel things he had never felt before. He became excited when he got paired with you for group projects and when his hand brushed yours while you were playing in your room. These feelings, the love (and whatever else he might have felt) built up inside of him until this moment, this night, when you were snuggled up in his clothes on his floor talking to him.

“…and he was saying that it wasn’t important at all! It’s totally important. I don’t understand how people can be so dense.” You shiver.

“Yeah, seriously.” He hesitates, swinging his legs over the edge of his bed. His room is unusually cold. Even with the window open, it never gets cold enough to give him bumps on the flesh of his arms. For some reason, tonight is different. “Do you want to come up here? It’s kinda cold, and I have thicker blankets.” He reasons. You glance up at him. Sometimes, when you look in his direction, your heart gives a funny little twist.

“Are you sure that’s okay?”

“Totally. It’s not like we haven’t done things like this before,” he chuckles. A strange mix of anxiety and anticipation is boiling in his stomach. It’s true: you have slept in the same bed before, though that was a long time ago with far less feelings attached. He figures it doesn’t matter as much to you as it does to him.

It does matter to you, though. Your heart pounds at the thought of something so quietly intimate. You’ve liked him since the moment you laid eyes on him all those years ago. He is your fairytale prince, even when there’s no hope of him ever reciprocating your feelings.

He’s strong, kind, and bold in an endearing way. You’re sure you would follow him to the ends of the earth if he asked. So you hop onto his bed and give your heart a sad stroke of pity when he wraps his blankets around you.

You shuffle a little closer to him, hoping to feel his body heat a little more. The goosebumps on your arms begin to fade, but you shiver still when his hand brushes your side.

Jace clears his throat, hesitantly putting his arm around your form. “We’re uh… we’re getting pretty comfy, huh? I hope you’re not cold still.”

“God, that’s how you break the tension?” You laugh. Your nose is almost touching his chest, he realizes with a foolish hope.

“What? I was just saying.” He snorts. The pleasant warmth of another body next to his is something he thinks he will never get tired of. The fact that it’s you out of anyone else brings a different sort of heat to him, but he tries to push that away.

You feel a touch lightly brush your bare back, where your shirt has lifted up. It sends a little shudder up your spine, but it feels as natural as sunlight.

“Sorry.” He whispers, eyes staring down at you. You don’t seem to notice his gaze.

“It’s okay.” You whisper back, cheeks as hot as dragonfire. You wouldn’t mind if he kept his hand there. You wouldn’t mind a lot of things, really, but you’re afraid he would.

It’s silent for a moment, a moment that seems to stretch for an eternity. It breaks with the quiet movement of your head finally turning to look at him.

“Jace, um, I…” there’s a brief pause.

“You what?”

“Nothing. It’s a stupid question anyway.”

“There are no stupid questions, unless it’s about Luke’s macaroni project.” He quips. You laugh at a joke you created so long ago it feels like a lifetime in the past. A joke made of love and fluff and just the slightest little bit of teasing. That’s how you know it, right then and there. You’ve fallen in love with Jacaerys Velaryon. “Seriously though, what is it?”

You hesitate, trying to bring up the topic in an inconspicuous manner (which is hard in the middle of the night while his arm is absentmindedly wrapped around your waist, which you desperately try to ignore). “Do you like anyone?”

He sucks in a breath, letting a beat of awkward silence pass. “Where’s this coming from?”

God, how he longs to say “you”. How he longs to tell you that his heart beats for you, fast and desperate and aching in the cold nights when you’re apart. It’s almost unbearable to keep it inside, shoved in a little corner of his consciousness so he doesn’t ruin what you’ve already built.

He decides, then, that he can’t hold on to comfort forever. As awkward as it may be, as terrible as the most likely outcome is, he needs to say something.

“I just want to know. I’m interested in your love life.” You try to play it off as a joke when you know full well it’s not. The question has been scraping your mind raw and dull for months now.

“I do.” He croaks, voice hesitant. Your heart drops.

It could be that girl he was staring at in math class, you think. The one with pretty bleached hair and a smile so bright it could kill the gods. Or maybe the person he was talking about after school; his friend, he said. A friend that made his nose scrunch up cutely when he talked about them. It could never really be you. It’s wishful thinking, you tell yourself.

A million thoughts race through your head, but one screams its purpose above the others: who is it?

You tap his chest lightly with your fist. “I can’t believe you’ve been hiding that from me. Who is it this time?” You’ve had this conversation a few times in the past. He’s attractive and kind and smart, he was bound to have a few significant others over the years. You’ve met both of them. You figure this is another one of his crushes, as fleeting as they usually are.

He takes a deep gulp of air, blood pounding in his ears. He hopes you can’t hear his heart beating. It’s time, he decides.

“You.”

Your brain almost doesn’t register his words. You… you? Really? Is there anyone in your school named You, or is he really saying what you’ve wanted him to say for years and years?

“Me?”

“Yup.”

You can’t say anything. You feel lightheaded and like you’re about to explode at the same time.

“Why?” You ask. There’s a giddy edge to your voice, bordering on disbelief. You can’t fathom why the hell your best friend likes you, when he started liking you, and what is going on in his mind.

He smiles in the dark, where you can’t see him; his lamp was silent and lightless. “Y’know my last girlfriend? She broke up with me because I didn’t want to kiss her. I was saving my first kiss for something special, someone special. Then I knew I wanted it to be with you.” Your heart all but explodes. “I’ve been in love with you since before then. Since before I even really knew what love was. I just… god, I was just a coward. But here I am, and here you are, and if you want I can drop you off at home and we can never speak of this again.”

He feels like he’s about to cry and laugh at the same time. Of course you don’t love him. It was foolish to believe you could ever like him as anything more than the boy next door.

“No, I don’t want that. I like you too. I love you.” You blurt out, burying yourself further into his sheets. “I just never thought you would like me back. I mean, I never thought I could be your type. Or that I could date you or anything. I just didn’t want to confess because I thought you would hate me for it.” The lilt of your little speech makes tears well up in his eyes. He wipes them away furiously.

“Of course I like you. You’re my everything.” He huffs. He can scarcely believe that you feel the exact same way, that you had the exact same worries.

He slides down to lie face-to-face with you, breath fanning across your face. You hold his face in your hands, and he whispers, “I’ve really thought about this a lot and I just wanted to ask you before I did it, so here I go. Can I kiss you?” It takes every last drop of your respect to not let a giggle slip in the face of his very vulnerable confession.

A sliver of moonlight shines on your face, illuminating your wide grin with a sort of halo-like effect. When you nod, the glimmer bounces off your teeth.

He presses his lips to yours. Finally, finally, he kisses you. You run your finger along his jawline, eyes closed and heart full. Your touch brands his skin in a way he knows he won’t ever forget.

That one kiss holds all your feelings and more. When you finally pull away to take a breath, he traces the outline of your lips with his thumb. You’re breathless and panting and so very alive; it’s better than pretending to fly on a dragon, you think. Much, much better.

It’s a while before you can speak again. You’re so giddy you think you could run a lap around his house if you weren’t so tired. Jace feels the same, like all of his worries have been gently plucked from his mind and discarded. You could get used to this, you both think.

“So, can I be your boyfriend? Officially at least.” He sounds so serious that you can’t help but laugh. The events of the night have been so incredible that everything has a little twinge of humor to it.

“But of course, my prince.” You tease. He scrunches his nose like he always does and gives you a peck on the cheek. You’re sure he can feel how hard you’re blushing just by grazing your warm face.

“I’ll choose to ignore that.” He says. He wraps his arms around you more securely, also choosing to ignore how red his own cheeks are.

You give a small “mm” in reply, snuggling closer to him. Your faces are so close together you can almost imagine they’re kissing without touching at all.

You almost don’t realize you’re falling asleep before it happens. Jace’s arms are just so comfortable, and you’re just so tired, and the night is just so perfectly dark and the outside noises are just so perfectly droll.

You slip away into a good dream as Jace draws hearts on your back with the tip of his finger.

Reblogs and comments are greatly appreciated!!

#solar eclipse.#house of the dragon #jacaerys velaryon x reader #jacaerys velaryon #jace velaryon x reader #jacaerys x reader #hotd x reader #hotd fic #hotd #jacaerys strong #jacaerys imagine #hotd fanfic

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