#brain skittering is circles

[pestiwit]

Intrigued with how he’s framed this. It’s true and I NEVER thought about it ngl

I have thought a LOT about how stories have endings while real life does not. We get to enjoy our happy ‘endings.’ Or grieve our tragic ones. I haven’t.... thought about every story like RGB says though. That’s interesting.

But

RGB.

you don’t tell a child this.

ESPECIALLY NOT YOUR CHILD WHO IS A HERO sfhjglsfgsf

I wonder how she will respond.

[highvern]

Houdini

Pairing: Kwon Soonyoung x f!reader

Genre: smut, hint of fluff at the end

warnings: drinking, allusion to drug use, sub hoshi likes when reader is mean to him, oral sex (f. receiving), fingering, protected sex, reader calls hoshi a furry more than once, cumshot, hair pulling, reader wears bunny ears

Length: ~5.3k

Note: this started as a prologue to a different fic but i wanted it to become its own fic. danke @gyuswhore for being my torture subject as always as well as @onlyhuis @temptaetions @cheolism

Summary: The guy wearing a tiger onesie and ripping a bong in the corner might not be the most promising prospect of the night. But you've got a point to prove and a bet to win. series m.list: Green Light [s], Yuck [f], Talk [a, s, f]

m.list

This blog is intended for 18+ only! Minors/blank blogs will be blocked.

The cramped living room is hazy with the smell of pot, cut by cheap led strip lights painting everything in violets and blues. Butt numb from the stiff armrest of the couch, you adjust the bunny ears on your head for the fifth time in the twenty minutes you’ve sat there.

Everyone else skitters around, dressed as different animals. More bunnies, a few cats, a guy dressed like a dinosaur hogging a joint. It’s someone’s birthday; a friend of a friend you’ve never met, but the promise of free alcohol before heading downtown isn’t even close to the worst way to spend your time. It’s why you fished out the dumb satin bunny ears from your closet; a relic from Halloweens past when you needed a cheap excuse to wear something scandalous in public with little judgment. 

June disappeared thirty minutes ago to find the birthday boy, leaving your entire group to mingle until she returns. 

You intently listen as Lily vents about her work crush for the nth time. His name is of no relevance, but she’s convinced herself it's love despite the fact he possesses fewer brain cells than a rock. A proven fact since he didn’t know the difference between consonants and vowels despite being well into his twenties.

“Why all the talk about relationships?” you interrupt. “Can we please have one night where we don’t talk about guys.”

“Some of us want boyfriends.” Anna rolls her eyes. 

“And yet, you can find one hundred percent of the benefits of one with zero effort. At least without all the mind games you two go through every week.”

“Easy for you to say.” Anna argues. “You’re like the poster girl for no-commitment sex.”

“I like what I like,” you shrug. “Not guys that say they want a relationship and then claim you're moving too fast when you ask him to treat you like a person.”

Lily gives an exasperated groan to the ceiling. “We get it. You hate romance.”

“I don’t hate it. I just like to be realistic. Most guys are good for one thing and I happen to admire them for that.”

“Do you realistically think you can get any guy here to sleep with you?” Anna asks. 

Any guy is a stretch. You’re easy but not without standards. Taken men are strictly off the menu. Along with weirdos or guys that look like they’ve never seen the inside of a shower. Anyone looking for a relationship typically removes themself from the running after figuring out you aren’t looking to be saved or changed, just a warm body that’s easy on the eyes.

“Pick anyone and if I pull him you owe me breakfast tomorrow.” You challenge them with a smirk. It’s slim pickings so early in the night, but nothing you can’t work with.

“Okay, then.” Lily agrees. “What about him?”

It takes you a moment to decipher who her manicured finger is pointing at. There's a small crowd in the corner of the room, guys too scared to mingle or uninterested in anything beyond their circle jerk. But he’s easy to spot; a tiger onesie and a dark crop of hair are all the details you get from this far away.

He seems to be the main entertainer of the bubble. Hands fly in different directions, chaotic but graceful. Now that you’re locked onto him, the boom of his voice floats under the heavy music. Tiger guy isn't your usual type. He’s lithe and lean; maybe a dancer or something athletic. You like them tall and domineering. It makes it that much sweeter when they try to dominate you, only to be beaten at their own game. Mingyu wasn’t your A-list fuck buddy for no reason. A damn shame he moved away at the end of last year.

But the man Lily’s picked will do what you need him to; prove a point and grant you a free meal. If you get at least one orgasm out of it then that’ll be a bonus. Chugging the last of your drink (which smells like nail polish remover and paint thinner had a very toxic baby), you drop the empty cup into Anna’s hand.

“And we want proof!” Anna calls as you stalk toward the far wall.

One of the other guys he’s talking to sees you approach, and you watch the way his eyes convey your presence, nearly bugging out of his skull. A gentle tap on tiger guy’s shoulder has him turning to greet you.

Confusion clouds his face. He’s cuter than you expected, with furrowed eyebrows and a pout that draws your eyes to his mouth with curiosity. You’ll find out their talents soon enough. 

“Hi,” you smile.

“Hi?” he parrots.

“I’m Y/N.” Eyes round with faux innocence, you make a point to take a few seconds staring at his mouth before meeting his curious gaze.

“Soonyoung.”

Soonyoung. The name rolls along your tongue easily. You light up at the way his eyes follow the curve of your mouth around the sound. It’s too easy.

Pushing forward, chest to chest; raising on your toes. You relish in another shiver at the brush of your mouth against his ear. “Is this your party?”

“Yeah, it’s my roommate’s birthday,” he says.

So that’s who June knows. 

“Cool. Wanna show me your room?”

“What?” You can hear the record scratch in Soonyoung’s brain; see the disbelief in his eyes.

Stepping into his space, your gaze burns a path from his lips to his eyes before you repeat, “your room?”

“Yeah, yeah. I can…definitely do that. This way!”

His own friends, still circled in the corner, gape in their own disbelief. Soonyoung has you charging through the crowded living room and down the hallway. Good. Even more bodies fill the narrow space but he nearly pushes them aside, waving off any grunts of discontent at his roughness.

You pass several doors on each side, all closed from prying eyes but you don’t have an interest anyway. His room is at the end of the long passage. A whiteboard with a crude image of a tiger and a rainbow hangs at eye level, coupled with ‘TamTam + Hoshi 5ever’ but you don’t have time to admire the art before you’re inside.

“So, this is it,” Soonyoung announces, hands wringing in front of his chest nervously. 

The tiger thing isn’t so much a coincidence and more of a theme. A poster of a tiger hangs on the wall above the dresser. But it’s not the worst of it. His bed hosts several plushies, all different sizes and shapes but certainly tigers. 

Whipping around, you eye him with incredulity. “Are you a fucking furry?”

“No!” He shakes like a bobblehead. Like he’s had to explain it dozens of times before. “It’s a joke! From college, with my friends.”

“A joke where you collect tiger memorabilia as a grown man?” You shoot back.

“It’s not that bad.”

Eyebrows flying to your hair line, you make a sweep of the room. “You have a framed picture of a tiger, are wearing a tiger suit, and have a miniature army of stuffed animals.” 

“Okay, maybe it is that bad, but I’m not a furry.”

If he was hiding more of the garish pattern out of sight you wouldn’t be surprised. For good measure, you fold over the blanket of his bed and sigh relief to find navy sheets instead of orange. You’ve slept with weirder guys for less but it’s nice to know he isn’t that weird.

“Whatever you say. But if you ask me to wear a tail, I’ll walk back out there and tell everyone.”

You peel your shirt off without another word. Once your vision is free of the fabric, you’re met with a starstruck man — mouth open, eyes skimming your chest, and what seems to be a half-chub tenting his pants. You revel in the silent awe rolling off him, preening at the attention. So easy.

But Soonyoung seems to come to his senses when you start working on the zipper holding together the back of your skirt shut.

“Woah, okay. We don’t have to go so fast,” he says, taking a step in your direction.

“So I should put my shirt back on?” You make for it like the threat is real.

“Let’s not be too hasty! I’m just saying, maybe we should, like, talk a bit first?”

Your feet carry you until there’s barely a breath between his body and your own. Soonyoung’s shirt brushes against your naked stomach with each stuttered breath as you eye his lips. “Well, do you wanna talk or do you want your dick sucked? Because I can only do one at a time.”

“Definitely the second one,” Soonyoung starts, dipping his hands to your ass for a harsh squeeze while shepherding you to his bed.

His mouth tastes like smoke and need. A disgusting combination if not for your tipsy brain easily ignoring it in favor of focusing on the roughness of his touch.

Soonyoung is eager, to say the least. He can’t touch you fast enough; hands darting from your ass, to your sides, to your breasts, and back down again. If this was happening at your apartment you’d tie him down and refuse to let him feel anything at all just to watch him squirm. 

You manage to flip him under you, pinning him in place with your thighs to rest across his lap like a throne. Taking the change in stride, he uses the new angle to mouth over your bra; sucking harshly at your covered nipples till they stiffen for his fingers to pinch at.

“Condoms?”

Soonyoung shakes his head. 

Digging the heel of your hand into his forehead successfully unlatches the suction around your nipple.  He pouts at the interruption.

“You don’t have condoms?”

“I do, but I’m not about to fuck you after two seconds of making out,” Soonyoung argues. “I‘m not even hard yet.”

Shocked by the sudden attitude, you huff before rolling your hips down. You're met with a familiar lump pressing into the crotch of your pants, and Soonyoung has the nerve to simply return to his previous task as you rock against him again.

“Liar,” you pant after a delicious drag of his teeth on your collarbone and his cock against your ass.

You stay locked like that for a while, writhing against one another as clothes come off without abandon. Your bra first, then the damn tiger onesie. Soonyoung gets you on your back before flipping up your skirt and pulling your panties to the side, revealing your drenched center.

He sucks a bruise on your nipple, tongue messy as he explores what’s between your legs with a gentle stroke of his fingers.

“Can I go down on you? Please say yes.” Soonyoung traces the request across your chest with more nips of his teeth. 

“You have to ask?”

“Consent is sexy.”

“You sound like a PSA,” you comment. “But, yeah go ahead.”

Your hips lift to aid in removing the last scraps of clothing. There’s no shyness as you spread your legs wide, flashing the aftermath of a good make-out session for Soonyoung eyes only.

“Oh my god,” he moans.

The heat of his breath fans across your folds, sending a shiver down your spine. He doesn’t even blink as you clench from the aching need to be filled with whatever he’s ready to offer,

“What?”

“This is gonna make me sound weird again, but you have a really pretty pussy.”

Not something any previous partners have chosen to comment on, but you preen under the compliment. “Thanks.”

“No. Thank you,” Soonyoung says before looking at the ceiling. “God, thank you so much for blessing me like this.” 

“Stop being lame or I'll leave.” 

“Sorry, you’re hot.” He says it like an accusation. “Just wanted to let the universe know I recognize that and appreciate it.” 

“How about you recognize the fact I’m drying up as we speak?” 

“No you aren’t,” Soonyoung argues. “You’re dripping on my sheets.” 

Your hand skates across your front, falling between your thighs. Like hypnosis, he watches with rapt attention as you frame your clit between two fingers, giving a clear target for his attention. 

“Then do something about it.”

With a hand fisted in his hair, he does. An aggressive suck against your clit without warm-up sends a tremor through your core. Your fingers knot in his hair, twisting until he’s forced away from your cunt with a petulant frown. 

“If you keep licking my clit like a scratch off I will make you cry.” A jostle of the bed tells how effective your words are. “Oh my god. Did you just?” 

“I’ve never been threatened in bed before, okay? I'm just as shocked as you.”

He hides the embarrassment by wedging back between your thighs, gentler than before, lapping away the new flood of arousal from his responsiveness. A thrill hums down your spine and settles where Soonyoung’s mouth returns to work. His shoulders burn hot against the underside of your thighs, every surge of muscle rocking you back into the slick of his tongue. 

“Fuck.”

“Better?” he asks around a mouth full of pussy.

There might very well be a crowd at the door listening to every lewd squelch and pathetic whine, but you don’t care. A little direction, a grind of your hips when he does well and the sting of your nails when he gets ahead of himself does wonders. Soonyoung is eager to please and impress. You could probably lay here for an hour without a complaint for him; if anything, he’d actively encourage such indulgence if it meant your approval. 

It makes the temptation to overwhelm him too sweet to ignore. 

One of the hands flat against your stomach falls away easily, knotting his fingers through yours because of course he’d be the type to hold hands during sex. It’s cute, but that fondness is stomped down for something safer. 

Like sucking two fingers between your lips like it's his cock.

Soonyoung grunts frustration straight into your core, refusing to watch you wet his hand even when you moan at the prod against the back of your throat. Another hump against the mattress as an edge of teeth drags over his knuckles. 

You can’t help but laugh as he scrambles to stretch you across them. He curls one slowly, like you’ll object. When you don't, Soonyoung adds the other and resettles your thigh so he can watch them disappear inside. His knuckles return even more soaked and even you can’t pretend it isn’t a turn-on. 

“Fuck, you’re so hot.”

Before you can respond, he’s licking away the fresh wave of wetness from his praise. It isn’t new information, but Soonyoung is impossibly earnest and you’re pretty sure if he came from eating you out he’d be just as satisfied as if you fucked him.

“Gimme a third.”

Soonyoung moans like he’s the one getting off as he does what you ask. 

Your legs lock, sore at the hips from being dragged to the edge so quickly. It bubbles just under the surface. Too far away where you can’t reach it but know Soonyoung can. He knows it too by the way you whisper his name. 

“If you touch yourself right now will you cum?” 

“Probably.” 

“Good.” You're overeager, just like the man between your legs, but the idea he can get off from eating you out can’t be ignored. “Show me.” 

“If you make me cum twice tonight I will talk to my therapist about you, so no.”

You whine a protest. Something that would sound far more responsible falling from his lips in the established dynamic, but you don’t care. One of your feet wedges between the bed and his crotch, toeing along the bulge still hidden behind a pair of thin boxers.

“Is it not enough that I might cum from you insulting me, you have to see it happen?” He asks. 

The picture behind your eyelids is nothing short of demonic; pulling Soonyoung’s boxers down and the inside sticky with cum, but his cock still hard because once is definitely not enough. Or streaks of white coating his chest and thighs, the perfect trail to trace your tongue over. 

You don’t even have a chance to share the fantasy before he splits you on his tongue again. Firmer this time, with a hard press to your knees that has you vulnerable and exposed. He keeps his tongue flat and heavy on your clit. Perfect to grind up against until you shudder.

Since you can’t get Soonyoung to give in, you settle for ruining any future encounter he might have by making a show.

Your fingers tickle up your stomach, nails raising goosebumps at the soft touch. Back and forth and back and forth, a little higher each time until you catch the hill of your chests and circle the hard peaks. There's no reason to ease into it, not when you sneak a glance down and find a pair of brown eyes framed between your legs.

The way he watches makes you feel dirty. Nipples pebbled between your fingers, you arch into his next move. His tongue stays flat for you to use. You curl into it, humping Soonyoung’s face like he’s nothing more than a toy to get off on. 

“Shit, shit, shit.” 

He’s definitely slipped a fourth finger inside. The stretch borders just on the edge of pain but you take it in stride. Soonyoung looks like he might cum before you do. 

“I’m – oh. Just like that.” You groan deep from your core. 

Your clit is throbbing with sensitivity as he continues to coax pleased sounds from your tongue. Heating from the inside out, your hands abandoned the torture on your chest in favor of keeping Soonyoung in place so you can rut against him.

A switch flips with your next moan. Hands on your stomach, your breasts, shoving your thighs out of the way as he digs into your cunt like the best meal the world will know. 

“Cum for me. Please let me see you come,” Soonyoung begs. 

Fizzling out, you do what he asks. Your stomach tenses for a second and then you fly off the mattress from locked muscles. 

Soonyoung doesn’t stop as you twitch, nor when you kick an ankle into his side. Maybe you go a little wet at the eyes as he forces you straight into a second orgasm without an ounce of reprieve but it's probably coincidence.

Soonyoung finally moves away at an inhuman whine. His mouth is stained with the taste of you, but he wears it well. It almost makes you want to push him back down and see if you can survive a third orgasm.

To stop from blindly following temptation, you roll until you’re sat in his lap. You must look as disheveled as you feel; sweaty and strung out. Ready for more.

“Wait,” he sighs with the pain of a man delaying his own gratification. “Wear these.”

The wrinkled satin bunny ears knocked from your head earlier come back into view. Soonyoung doesn’t  even pretend to be ashamed as he plants them back on your head before finding the dip of your waist again.

You hate the idea of giving in so easily, but Soonyoung’s need rolls off him in thick waves feeding straight to your ego.  “Oh, but you’re not a furry?” 

His cock fits well against the curl of your fingers as you stroke him, standing tall and proud from his lap. Oddly enough, you get his earlier sentiment. You’ve never thought of a dick as pretty but Soonyoung’s is nice. Red and leaking at the tip, you’re tempted to duck your chin and get a taste, but Soonyoung drags you up to his mouth before you can even make a good faith try.

“Stop being mean to me or I’ll bust a nut,” he whines.

“Can’t have that,” you snicker. “Condoms?”

“Drawer.”

The door slams open in your haste. It’s a mess of lube, sex toys, and random chargers. Who keeps a phone charger where their lube is? Too eager for the promise of such a pliable partner doesn’t leave with an interest in asking, and the way he continues to suck at your throat isn’t helping. Until you find something that stokes your curiosity even more.

“Soonyoung. What are these?” 

A set of fuzzy tiger print cuffs dangle from your fingers. The jokes write themselves. But you ignore the re-occurrence of orange and black because you really want to know if he likes bondage. (Hopefully it’s a yes. Even more hopeful is he likes to be on the receiving end.)

“Birthday present.”

“Your friends are weird,” you say. “Have you used them?”

He looks shy, like he hasn’t just asked you to don animal ears and ride him into the mattress. Handcuffs are nothing in comparison but you wait out the nerves flashing on his face. “Maybe.”

“On who?”

“Umm…”

“Have you been handcuffed?” 

Do you want to be? The idea is just another fantasy you’ll think about later in the dark of your room when you need a quick way to get off. 

“No.”

“Lame,” you tease before tossing them to the floor and shoving a foil packet into his chest.

Soonyoung’s ability to multitask is nonexistent. Not when your nipping his ear lobe and whispering how bad you want him to fuck you; how you can’t wait to feel him inside you; how big his dick is. Perfect flattery that makes him whine and fumble the condom over and over again until you grant clemency and do it yourself.

His hands are rough against your ass as you slip him inside, slow because you want him to suffer just a little bit. Your thighs scream in protest at the angle but Soonyoung looks at you like he’s watching a miracle unfold and the discomfort is more than worth it.

If there was time, you’d let him fuck you from behind just to see how he’d fair with such a visual, but this is already dragging out too long. Soonyoung looks like he needs more time to adjust to the way he’s digging in your walls than you do. So you keep theme and start bouncing on his cock just to watch him go insane.

“God,” he grunts, neck strained and a vein rising on his forehead. “You’re fucking tight. Shit.”

Your eyelids flutter shut in focus. “Keep talking. Tell me how it feels.”

“Feels amazing, oh my god. You’re so wet.”

Your pelvis tilts so he can meet each stroke from below. The slap of skin on skin drowns out any other noise; the music, the screaming partygoers just outside. If someone walks by his door they’ll figure out what's happening in a second. Makes you want Soonyoung to be louder.

“You’re so hard for me.” 

You sink flat until your ass is cradled against the firmness of his thighs. You use the leverage to sit up and give an uninterrupted view of your front; how your breasts bounce with each movement, where his cock sinks deep into your guts without any resistance.

“All for you,” he nods, eyes wild and unfocused. There’s sweat on his neck and you can’t fight the sick urge to suck against the muscle laying underneath. “Fuck you make me so hard.”

“Should’ve let me suck your dick.”

“I know,” he whines. An arm loops around your waist, crowding you into the sheets from a smooth flip. An open mouth kiss, really just panted breath and tongue, distracts you further. A thumb at your chin keeps you pliant to whatever he wants.

He rocks deeper, as if it's possible. Surges right into that spot that curls your chest tight with rough fluidity. Your thighs fold wide to give him room.

One of your hands rubs at your clit to catch up.

“God, yeah, touch yourself for me.” Soonyoung whines. “Can you come again?”

He’s not just a sub, he’s a sadist.

“I—”

“Please,” he begs with a hard rush. 

“Yeah, okay,” you mumble. “Fuck me harder. Make me cum on your cock.”

You dig your free hand in his hair, tugging until it stings at the roots just the way he likes. The reward is another harsh rut of his hips that leaves you gasping for air. 

“Fuck. Right there, baby,” you moan along with the sloppy noise echoing between your thighs. “Don’t stop.”

You scramble to grab his ass, pulling him flush against you for the perfect angle to batter your insides. Your skins on fire as you tumble closer and closer to that point of no return. 

“Soonyoung!” you gasp. It’s right there. That blissful ending is just a hairwidth away. 

“God, you’re so hot,” he folds in half as he says it, crushing you underneath his body until you're bent in half in his lap with the wet of his tongue at your jaw. “Cum for me, cum on my cock.”

You twist tighter under his insistence, shrinking and shrinking, and then — finally — it splinters. The waves rock through you, head forced back into the pillows from the force of moans wrecking your throat. “Oh— fuck, that—god. Oh.” 

Vision black against the inside of your eyelids, you melt into nothing. Only Soonyoung’s grip keeps you from shaking apart into a million pieces as you whine into his mouth. 

“Holy shit, that was so hot,” he’s rambling the way to his own end, hips shaky from the way you’ve wetted his cock. “You’re so hot. Fuck, fuck, fuck.”

You want to watch him cum. Even if the temptation to lay there and take it is sweet you won’t give in. 

Bangs sticking to his forehead with sweat, Soonyoung is a mess in his own right. Pink at the ears, lips bruised. You can’t get enough. His eyes darken as you suck along his thumb, tongue lashing against the sensitive pad. Soonyoung isn’t the only one that wishes you got to suck his dick. 

“Cum on me,” you whine. 

He pulls out, quickly tossing the condom aside. Your hand is already waiting to jerk him off over your body, the grease of the latex making the strokes smooth as Soonyoung fucks your fist with the same desperation as your pussy. It takes only a few thrusts before you feel the heat of his spend drip across your chest and stomach. You’re careful to stay still, body spread flat as he coats you in pale streaks. 

“Fuck,” he gasps. He twitches when you don’t stop, biting his tongue through the sting of overstimulation until he has to pull away.

Soonyoung collapses to the side. Shoulder to shoulder, you catch your breaths in the dull thump of music.

“That was fun.” You pat his stomach before standing. The floor is a mess of clothes needing to be plucked through. His shirt becomes a cum rag as you wipe away the mess staining your body.

“You aren’t gonna stay?” He calls from the bed. 

“No?” 

Why would I? you think while pulling on your underwear.

Soonyoung watches, splayed across the bed with his dick still wet in his lap. “Then, can I, like, call you sometime?” 

“No thanks.” 

“If you keep being mean to me I’m going to fall in love with you.”

 “Quoting New Girl isn’t giving me much incentive to be nicer,” you snort, untangling your bra. 

“It’s a great fucking show.” 

“Here’s a tip: if you want to fuck me again, stop being such a loser.” 

“You still let me hit so I think you like losers.” 

He’s smiling. You really need to find your underwear so you can get away from it.

“I like hot guys with big dicks,” you shrug. “You happen to be that.” 

“I know you want me,” he sings

“Dead, maybe.” 

“You’d miss my stroke game.” 

“I’d love to stroke you.” You coo. “With a bat. To the head.” 

“I love when you talk dirty to me, baby.” He groans with dramatic flair. “By the way, you have cum on your skirt.” 

You do, on the hem somehow. A mystery to be solved when you’re safely back in the crowded expanse of a party and not alone with the guy with a tiger fetish you might want to fuck again. “Not the first time.” 

“God…. Please give me your number.” 

You can’t swallow the smile blooming at his request. Instead, you turn to leer over him. He’s watching your mouth, licking his lips like he wants to drag you down for another tumble. “Keep begging.” 

He’s got enough humor to get on his knees and clutch his hands to his chest pathetically. You’re still close, watching him down the slope of your nose while hiding a smirk. 

“Queen of my dick, please bestow a crumb of kindness and allow me the pleasure of hitting you up at 3 AM.” 

“That time I almost caved.” You back away just in time for him to stumble over himself. “Too bad I don’t fuck guys into furry shit at 3 AM.” 

“One, not a furry. Two, who do you fuck then?” 

“One, you're not fooling anybody.” You take extra time straightening out your hair in the mirror just so he can stare at your ass. You feel him do it. “Two, myself.” 

“I will pay real money to see that.”

“I know you would. So you’re never gonna.”

He’s watching you like some lovesick fool, glowing in the light with ignorance of what comes next. Part of you doesn’t want to crush someone as earnest as he is but staying the night is out of the question when you can still hear the party rattling through the walls.

“If I give you my number,” you start. “You have to give me this.”

It’s one of the smaller plushies. Soft to the touch and attached to his keys hanging by the door. It’s cute and perfect enough to satisfy your friends’ demands. Also, an excuse to see him again if you really want.

 Maybe you do. 

“TamTam?” Soonyoung asks from your side. You didn’t even hear him approach but he’s got boxers on so it took him a minute.

“You name your stuffed animals?”

“TamTam is special.” 

“Oh, he is?” you ask. “Well, how bad do you want my number?”

“I don’t know…” Soonyoung starts. 

Your face stings at the rejection but you bury it before giving it a chance to fester into something that needs thinking about. Looking back in the mirror to correct the smudges in your make is the only cover you’ve got.

“Okay,” he nods. “But if you do anything to him I will actually cry.”

TamTam is thrust into your hands and you can’t help but smile. It’s cute. Soonyoung is cute. And it actually might make you explode. 

You hate it.

“I pinky promise I will throw myself in front of a bullet for TamTam.”

He locks his pinky around your extended one, “Good.”

And then he’s kissing you again. Every thought melts away under his lips, soft against your own with a new sweetness. The edge of the dresser digs into your spine as he crowds you against it for more leverage but it’s merely an afterthought.

Soonyoung (not a furry): btw i lied [12:15 AM] Soonyoung (not a furry): im not hitting you up at 3am [12:15 AM] Soonyoung (not a furry): what are you doing tomorrow night (pls say me) [12:16 AM] You: tamtam and i are busy [12:33 AM]

Maybe you smile at the string of intelligible letters you receive after sending the picture of you kissing TamTam’s cheek. It’s no one's business if you do anyway.

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© highvern. copying/reuploading/translating my work anywhere is strictly prohibited.

[nanamiscocksleeve]

1. AND 24. FOR NANAMI PLS 🙏🙏💗💗 like im on all fours for him 😣😣

Well you said you're on all fours... 😏😏😏😏

________

You kneel on all fours, whimpering as Kento's fingers slide over your clit, the firm circular motions feeling sinfully good. With a soft growl, he possessively grips the fat of your rounded ass, gripping hard enough to create grooves in your skin where his fingers were. He spreads you apart to get a better look at the way your entrance spasms and puckers, waiting to be filled.

"You're being such a good girl." The fingers on your clit come together before abruptly spanking the little bud, not too hard, but enough to make you gasp in surprise and buck your hips. His deep chuckle cuts through the air.

"So sensitive. This is just the beginning. I want to do so many things to you." The words, said in a seductive drawl, his hot breath tickling your ear sends a delicious skitter of electricity down your spine. You moan as he spanks your cit again, a little harder than last time, the vibrations and tiny nip of pain pushing you closer to the edge.

"I wonder how you'd look if you couldn't move at all," he murmurs, resuming rubbing circles on the swollen nub again. "Maybe later..."

His words carried the hint of a promise, but for now your brain was occupied with the building pleasure coiling in your belly. You moan in delight as he alternates between rubbing and spanking your clit.

"Kento..." your voice becomes shrill and needy and he continues his movements, feeling your body squirm with anticipation. Your hips begin to roll with his fingers, chasing your climax, sobbing softly as he guides you through it, clit and pussy spasming pleasurably as the waves of ecstasy pass through you.

"Raise up. I want to see your pussy suck in my cock while I fuck you."

Send me a prompt!

[johnwickb1tsch]

bittersweet ~ a yandere!John Wick x fem!reader sunshine/grump coffee shop AU... Part 21 all chapters

WARNING: NSFW, SEXUAL CONTENT, YANDERE SH!T. Plz take care. I luv u all. 😘

-You toss and turn, of course, utterly unable to sleep.

Your body does not get the memo that it’s a bad idea to fuck a man like John Wick, who is a killer who is holding you prisoner, and refuses to simmer down. You are uncomfortably swollen between your legs, your pussy aching with frustration, and in the wee hours of the morning you are certain you are about to lose your goddamn fucking mind.

 How is he really going to fucking know?

This is the stupid little thought that plays through your tired brain as you writhe beneath the covers, running hands up over your torso, pretending they are his.

Imagining his touch tweaking the sensitive tips of your nipples, his fingers buried inside you, seeking that sensitive place that drives you wild.

Yours are too soft, too small, not long enough or thick enough by half.

You try to trick yourself that it’s his unrelenting touch circling your clit, furious in his claiming of your pleasure as his own…

It’s not enough by half, and the release that washes over you is a paltry consolation at best, a weak pleasure that you know is a sad facsimile of the real thing. Still, you can’t stop yourself from sighing his name, and how has he mind-fucked you so royally in such a short amount of time?

It pisses you off, and in a last act of defiance for the night you flip off the camera high in the corner.

He’s probably not watching anyway. He’s probably asleep, snug in his bed with Dog, the bastard.

Feeling sad and not really sated at all, you curl into a ball and try to finally get some rest. It’s lonely in this big bed all by yourself, and by the time sleep finally claims you your pillow is damp with tears.

-When finally you wake in the morning, you are cold. The covers are down around your waist, and your shoulders ache, your arms at an odd angle out in front of you.

You never sleep like this.

There’s something on your wrists.

You open your eyes, blinking away the blur of sleep. Your vision focuses on something red.

A very neat line of shibari style knots encircles your wrists and half your forearms. They would have been beautiful, in a different setting. Like, not on your body, without your consent.

They’re not so tight to cut off your circulation, but they’re not exactly comfortable either. You strain against the silk rope, and find you can’t budge them.

You are so fucked.

“I warned you.”

John is sitting in the chair in the corner, watching you. He’s wearing all black again, a button down and slacks this time. Looking his best for you, or does he have somewhere to be? It’s not something you would have paid attention to before, but this morning, you can’t help but fixate on the fact that he’s wearing a leather belt.

Because you’re an idiot, you snipe anyway, “Wow, looks like someone earned his merit badge in macramé.”

He just smirks at you, the beautiful bastard.

“I’ve got more than a badge, honey.”

“Very funny. Untie me.”

“You’ll have to earn it, bad girl.”

Your heart skitters around in your chest as you wonder what that means.

He goes on, “Did you really think I wouldn’t see you last night?”

“Guess I assumed you’d be sleeping. It was way past your bedtime.”

He scoffs at the old man dig, leaning forward on his knees, fixing you with that hawkish gaze. “I found out I only sleep well with you in my arms, darling. Wouldn’t that have been nice last night?”

Yes, it would have. However, you just frown at him.

“So, was it worth it?” he pushes.

You sigh, half tempted to tell him how utterly unsatisfying your little session of self-indulgence had been. Rather than answer him, you look at the knots again. They really are beautiful. It makes you think of the book binding shop you’d visited in Florence, and the complicated stitches and knots they used to affix the signatures of pages together.

This man likes binding all kinds of things, it seems.

“Are you hungry?”

Only then do you notice that he has a plate of breakfast foods on the little table beside him. Eggs, toast, and bacon. A little plastic cup that might be water or juice. Your tummy answers with a rumble. Dog did eat your dinner last night, and John never offered you a replacement sandwich. At the time you’d been too worked up about…everything, to care.  

“Maybe.”

He huffs a little laugh at you. “Come here.” He pats his knee, and you realize he wants you to sit on his lap—so he can feed you. A little growl in the back of your throat escapes you, and it only makes his smirk widen.

“God, you’re adorable when you’re angry.”

“I’m not hungry,” you grouse.

You are starving, and you both know it.

“Come. Here.”

There’s that chilling tone of voice again. It does not fail to fill your veins with ice, your heart skipping a beat before skittering irregularly in your chest. You’ve come to understand that it means playtime is over.

You are so fucked.

It is awkward, getting out of the bed with your wrists tied like this. You almost fall on your face, your foot getting tangled in the sheet. From John’s forbidding expression, you don’t think he would have caught you from hitting the floor this time.

You are still only dressed in the thin nightie, and the air is cold on your skin. Your nipples tighten, forming sharp peaks beneath the fabric, the silk lending agonizing friction that makes you want to press your thighs to relieve some of the sudden ache between them.

Last night so did not help you with this problem, and John’s eyes fixating on them does not help either, and you wonder if you’ll be in trouble when you stain his neat looking pants leg with your slick after sitting on him.

“Come here,” he says again, his tone much gentler this time.

Defeated, you shuffle forward, letting him guide you to perch on his knee with a hand on your hip. You barely manage to suppress a shudder as possessively his hand slides just under your skirt, resting on the warm pillow of your thigh. His long fingers are so close to your center, but he makes no move, letting you stew in it.

Bastard.

Only then do you turn to look at him, finding his gaze fixed on your face. “Good morning.”

When you say nothing in return he lifts one eyebrow, and you swear, this man will be the death of you out of frustration alone.

“Good morning,” you finally return, hating the meek timbre of your tone.

“Do you like scrambled eggs?” You nod, and he scoops up a forkful. You notice the fork is plastic, and you wonder if its for your safety, or for his.

He’s clearly never seen Hot Tub Time Machine.

“I would have taken you to breakfast in Venice, but someone had to run away.”

“Well, someone was an insufferable prig the night before,” you return primly, wondering what punishment this will earn you, unable to stop yourself from saying it anyway. He actually smirks at this, though his grip tightens a bit in warning on your thigh. Not enough to hurt, but oh.

You are definitely leaving a wet spot on his trousers, and you hate yourself a little more for it.

You finish your breakfast bite by bite like the good girl you’re apparently not. It was good, if not the weirdest seating arrangement you’ve ever endured. You tremble inside, as you wonder what he has in mind for you next, now that your energy is up and you are trussed like a holiday goose for his pleasure.

You couldn’t be more surprised, than when he deposits you on the bed, kisses your cheek, and bids you, “Have a nice day, sweetie.”

“Wait!” you exclaim, whirling as he is already halfway to the door, swinging his suit jacket about his broad shoulders. “Where are you going?”

“Out.”

You hate it, that hearing this fills you with panic. “Are you coming back?”

“Do you want me to come back?” There is a dangerous glitter in those dark eyes, and you know that is a question loaded with fourteen in the clip and one in the chamber.

You decide on, “I want you to untie me.” Holding up your wrists as exhibit A.

He shrugs a little, and you know that was not the answer he wanted. “Maybe later.” Then he sweeps out of the room, leaving you staring dumbfounded at the door where he’d just been. The man is like a fucking ghost.  

“Bastard!”

You hope he hears you, but you suspect the epithet falls on deaf ears.

-Your first order of business, of course, is trying to undo these beautiful fucking knots. Unfortunately for you, they are tight, and secure, and John was smart enough to make the finishing hitch with the end tails on the opposite side of your wrist where you cannot easily reach them with your teeth.

Sonofabitch.

If he’d left you Dog for company you could have enlisted the pooch’s formidable chompers, perhaps, but no dice on that one.

Fine.

You sit under the covers for a while, because you’re cold. You try to read, but it is infuriatingly difficult to turn the pages of a book and read comfortably with your hands like this.

You are certain lunch time comes and goes, without a peep out of John.

Did he actually leave you?

You hate it, how the thought makes a trill of panic vibrate in your chest.

Fine. It’s fucking fine.

He thinks he can break you with alone time? You? You are the Queen of Introversion. You can go for days without human interaction, happily, so long as you have a sketchbook or a book. Bring it on, Mr. Wick.

He left you the water cup with the straw, and boy is that an adventure to refill in the bathroom when you’re thirsty.

Going pee without making a mess is no small feat either.

You pace the room, just to get some exercise. You look out the window, watching the birds in the trees.

You laugh to yourself, banging your head against the bulletproof glass. How funny, that you’d once fancied yourself Jane Eyre, when it turned out you were destined to be Mad Bertha locked up in the attic by Rochester all along.  

You hate to admit it, but by the time the sun is starting to set behind the trees you are going stir crazy with wondering where the fuck he is.

It’s definitely not because you miss him.

It’s just…these fucking ropes, of course. It’s not those burning dark eyes, or those large sure hands, or that sturdy long body he likes to press to yours. It’s not that the silence of the room feels empty without his deep voice, even if he’s using it to taunt you.

It is late by the time you hear the locks on the door whir, and you have been sitting in your nest in bed feeling listless and way too sorry for yourself. You are half out of your mind with boredom, and your shoulders and elbows ache at the joints from the restraints at your wrist. You try not to show it, but you are ready to climb up the fucking walls.

Like he might have some inkling of this, John pays you a knowing smile, assuming his seat with the confidence of a king in his throne room. He snaps and pats his thigh, no words this time, expecting you to obey.

Someday, you are going to make him pay for this.

But now…there’s nothing for it but to play his twisted game.

He’s prepared some kind of stir-fry tonight, with vegetables, beef, and rice. You are starving by now, and it smells heavenly.

Again, the food is good, simple but filling. He feeds you forkful by forkful with a careful tenderness that could make you weep. Your time with John is like a game of Russian Roulette. Spin the wheel, which John shall you receive this minute?

It’s easy to hate Mean John. Insufferable Ass Hat John, could drive you to murder. But Sweet John? You would do anything, for Sweet John, and you’re afraid he knows it too.

It’s only been a day, really. Is that right? A day? And already, you feel yourself slipping into the mould he’s fashioned for you.

Perhaps in a knee-jerk attempt to counter this, you ask, “Did you used to play this game with Helen?”

He freezes with the fork halfway to your lips, his hand underneath your skirt with his dead wife’s name in your mouth.  

You meant to throw him off, but as far as you can tell, all it earns you is a scoff. “No.”

“Why not?”

He actually seems to consider your question, toying with the food again, re-loading the fork with a different bite. “I was never afraid she would leave me. Funny, how that worked out.”

You feel like he’s handed you an important piece of information. Emboldened by his quietness, you dare push, “And…what do you think she’d think, about what you’re doing to me now?”

“I’d say she lost her vote, when she left me.” The indifference is gone; this is delivered with a stinging bitterness, and you realize he blames her for leaving him. There’s a clue in this too, and you feel like the solution to all this is an illusive thing hovering just barely out of your grasp. If you can find just the right words, push just the right buttons…maybe you can bring him back to sanity?

“She never would have left you on purpose, John. She got sick. You’ve got to forgive her.”

And accept you can’t control everyone around you. Then preferably, untie me! motherfucker.

The only indication he gives that you’ve upset him is the tightening of his fingers digging into your thigh. You’re going to have bruises, but if he’s actually processing what you’re saying, it’s a price you’ll gladly pay.

He just continues to push the medley of food around on the plate, shaking his head in silence. Disappointed in his nonreaction to your question, you sullenly accept the next bite.

Three seconds later, your mouth is on fire.

You squeal with panic, leaning for the plate to spit it out. But John’s big hand clamps over your mouth, a hard glint in his eyes, and you know you’re going to have to swallow it. It takes three tries, but you manage, tears streaming from the corner of your eyes.

You can do moderately spicy food, but that was just fucking diabolical.

“What the fuck?” you hiss between coughs.

“I knew you’d have something smart to say tonight.”

You try to reach for the water cup with its stupid little straw and your stupidly bound-together hands, but John sets it out of reach. “Oh my god, please?”

He speaks calmly, as though the lining of your mouth is not being eaten away like you took a bite of rice laced with battery acid. “You keep speaking about Helen like you knew her. I suggest you cut it out. Unless you would like all your meals seasoned like this.”

You blow a long breath of air over your tongue. It only sort of helps.

Mother. Fucker.

You glare daggers, but for now, you’re wise enough (broken enough?) to keep your epithets to yourself.

He sits back in the chair to regard you, tossing the fork into what’s left on the plate. You’re still hungry, but you’ll be damned if you eat anymore from that dish. You flinch as he reaches for you, though he is not cruel as he grips your hair at the base of your head. Just…exacting, and he guides you to perch on the edge of the chair between his legs, your bare ass fitted against his crotch.

It feels good as he starts to braid your hair, a jarring contrast to the pain still simmering in your mouth. You whimper a little, despite yourself, arching into him behind you. You didn’t even mean to, really, but it wins you a low groan that fills you with forbidden warmth.

This is so fucked.

Nothing you’ve experienced in your life has prepared you for handling this.

When he finishes he wraps the new handle of your plaited hair in his fist, pulling you back against his chest. He is warm, and solid, and you fail royally as you try not to enjoy this contact. It’s ridiculous, but all you really want is for him to hold you.

He speaks against the shell of your ear, his other hand lightly encircling your throat. “I’ll never let you leave me.”

Your heart drums frantically in your chest; he means business. You can just tell, there is an unyielding hardness in his tone that somehow wasn’t quite there before. You thought you could reason with this man, but maybe you were wrong, or maybe you only succeeded in pushing his sanity the other way, further into the red.

Maybe there’s nothing left to reason with, and that is the thing that finally, truly scares you.

“Maybe you need something else to fill up that sassy mouth.”

With his improvised handle he guides you down to sit between his splayed legs. Your eyes are drawn to the newly erected tent in his pants, that formidable bulge that should be the stuff of your nightmares, but still inspires a maddening longing inside you.

Why do you have to feel so empty, when he’s near?

Frustrated by the unfairness of it all, you glare daggers up at him. You know what he’s angling to extort out of you, of course. It makes you sad, but not for the reason he might have expected. It makes you sad, because you would have rubbed your knees raw sucking him off, if he’d just asked you nicely.

“Thanks, but I’m full.”

He snorts at that. “Yeah? Someone doesn’t want her hands untied that badly.”

Now, that is something you want, and maybe you’re willing to play with that on the table. You’ve never thought of yourself as someone who is easily led, but he is good at manipulating you. It makes you wonder if any of it was ever real, or if this is just a game he’s been playing with you from day one.

The thought makes you sigh, and you rest your cheek on his lean thigh, closing your eyes.

He looks down at you like you’re a puzzle he’s not quite sure how to solve.

Welcome to the club, Mr. Wick.

“Were you planning this all along?” you ask. “When you were so sweet to me? Am I that fucking stupid that I didn’t see this coming?” Obviously, from the clothes in the closet, he’d hoped you’d come stay with him at some point, but all the rest? It feels spontaneous, like the way something hard can suddenly crack with too much pressure. But then again, maybe just because it took you by such fucking surprise.

He strokes your hair, and that gentle touch just makes it worse somehow. You feel the sting of tears in the corners of your eyes, because that gentleness is all you wanted from him. The ironic part is that he wouldn’t have had to do any of this shit, just to keep you.

You do not love easily, but once you do…it is a total, and all-consuming thing.

“I don’t know,” he answers begrudgingly. “I just…couldn’t let you leave me.”

You think about how he’d been an orphan. He’d lost his parents. He’d lost his wife. He’d lost his dog. He’d gone on a rampage and slaughtered an entire Russian Bratva…for the loss of a dog.

In perspective you guess he’d actually behaved rather tamely, at the threat of losing you. This man does nothing by halves, and the only thing John Wick fears, it seems, is losing those he loves.

Is that what he’d meant, when he said his love was a curse?

It doesn’t excuse it, but there is a key somewhere in that, you reason. A key to freedom, or the gates of Hell, you’re not really sure.

You do your best to blink away your tears. Maybe it’s stupid, because you’re not half as tough as he is, but you don’t really want him to see you cry.

He lets you sit like that for as long as you want, stroking your hair. It’s almost sweet, and it gives you time to collect yourself.

Someday, he’s going to figure out it’s best not to give you a chance to plot your next move. It occurs to you that maybe you have one last card to play.

You sit up slowly on your knees between his legs, and you can feel the intensity of his gaze weighing upon your skin. You reach for his belt, brushing his erection through his pants, his manhood twitching in anticipation. For just a second, he allows himself to close his eyes.  

Maybe you have power too. You just have to figure out how to use it here, and maybe not lose you mind over how thick and wonderful he just felt beneath your hand. That unhelpful pulsing between your legs casts its vote. You try to unobtrusively squeeze your thighs for some relief, but you fear this man sees everything.  

Good for you, that your voice sounds almost steady. “I have to say, you’re a brave man, Mr. Wick.”

It is not easy to work the buckle of his belt with your hands bound like this, but somehow you manage, even pulling it from its loops. You fight the urge to throw the damn thing across the room, but settle for resting it at his feet.

“How do you figure?”

“Well...” You flip open the top button of his pants, your fingers shaking slightly. “If we are engaging in that time-honored exchange of a favor for a blowjob... and you just essentially carpet bombed my mouth with napalm...wow, you do like to live dangerously.”

He sits still as a statue for a good few moments, weighing what you’re telling him, gauging if the capsaicin would transfer through your saliva to what is arguably the most sensitive area of his body. You’re 98 percent certain they would, and a part of you hopes he’ll opt to try it even after you warn him.

It would make for a neat little slice of revenge.

But then, what you really want is out of these ropes, and you hope your honesty will win you some points with him.

In the end he catches your hands, as you are awkwardly trying to work his zipper.

“Maybe we'll skip that for now.”

“You sure? Where’s your sense of adventure?”

He narrows his eyes down at you, and you wonder if you’re inventing it, or is there a glimmer of amusement in his dark eyes?

“In my other pants.” 

In the end he pulls you back up into his lap with a grumble.

You suspect you’ve only delayed the inevitable, but you feel some satisfaction for your little coup.

“I’ll be back,” he tells you, (threatens you?), depositing you on the bed, gathering the dishes and sweeping out of the room. You have a feeling this interaction was not half as satisfying as he’d hoped it would be.

Well, good.

Bastard.

-When he returns, he brings you a cup of milk. Though most of the pain from the chilis has already subsided by now, you accept it for the calorie count if anything.

“Are you alright?” he asks with a hand on your cheek, looking you over appraisingly.

Thinking this might be your best moment, you lift your bound hands with a pitiful pout, blinking your eyelashes innocently.

“Will you untie me now?” you ask in your sweetest tone, words loaded with contrition.  

“You think you’ve earned it?” he asks, and you sense this is a perilous path you’re approaching.

“I’ve been good.”

“Hmm.”

“Come on. I mouthed off. You punished me. You had your fun. And rather than give in to my initial vindictive impulses, I saved you from a very uncomfortable evening. It’s the least you can do.”

He actually chuckles at this, stroking your cheek with his thumb. He seems softened by your bright little tirade, but then this man’s mood can change on a dime.

“And, it’s starting to hurt,” you add.

It’s not a lie, and it seems that is the thing that makes him pause.

“You don’t like my knot work?”

Your heart lodges in your throat, and you know you must proceed with caution, or you’ll be wearing this shit for a week at least.

“Your knots are very fine, Mr. Wick.”

Your captor practically purrs at hearing that, a low rumbling sound from deep in his chest, his hand burying in your hair. It sends a tingling thrill all across your scalp.

You’ve come to reluctantly love his fixation with grabbing your mane.

You really are losing your mind.

“I’ll make you a deal, kitten.”

“Yeah?”

“I’ll untie you…if you will take a bath with me.” His tone is the low rumble of a jungle cat, and your heart leaps into your throat. You knew this was coming, eventually. Maybe you just didn’t expect it tonight.

Looking back, you’re not sure why.

“NowI get to see you?”

You are still puzzling over the way he’d outright prevented you from undressing him, in Venice. It was almost like he’d been afraid, and you don’t understand at all. He’s fucking gorgeous, and you’re pretty sure he knows it. So…why?

“I told you, you weren’t ready then.”

You suspect the real answer is that he wasn’t ready, but for once, you don’t contradict him.

He runs a finger down the line of his neat knots that are starting to bite into your flesh. It’s starting to affect the feeling in your fingers, and you know that can’t be good.

“So? What do you say?”

You crane your neck to look up at him, drinking in the lines of his handsome face, his straight nose and proud lips, and the delicately drawn sweep of his eyes. Even with the shadow of a black eye, courtesy of you, he’s still the most handsome man you’ve ever seen. You shouldn’t want him, after everything he’s done to you. You shouldn’t, but you feel yourself inevitably drawn to him, like the moon pulls the tide.

You feel like you’re signing a piece of your soul away to the devil on the dotted line, when at last you nod.

He puts a hand to his ear with a smirk. “What was that?”

Your groan comes out like a growl.

“You have a deal, Mr. Wick, sir.”

His low rumble of approval gives you chills, and when he turns your face up to kiss you sweetly you utterly melt beneath his hands, jarred by the contrast from earlier, but not questioning it. You bask in the press of his soft lips, greedy for his tenderness, hoping stupidly that this is the way things will be from now on. Then you yelp with surprise as suddenly he scoops you up with his hands on your thighs, carrying you into the bathroom.  

[shadowqueenjude]

Azris again because apparently that's what my brain decided to think about

For my fucked up weirdos @fell-in-luvs @achaotichuman @sonics-atelier "Come crawling back to me, Shadowsinger? Night Court faeries didn't cut it for you?" Eris lounged with preternatural ease on a couch in his secret home in the Night Court. He gave Azriel that infuriating smirk that made Azriel want to carve out his organs and also pin him down and rail him till he screamed. Yet every time they had sex, Eris always came up on top. "They did just fine, actually," Azriel said smugly. It made Azriel very happy that for once, it was him who was being unfaithful. Not like they were in a committed relationship, but Azriel was obsessive; a dangerous trait when flirting with the unreliable Eris Vanserra. "Then what are you doing here?" Eris asked coolly. His voice as aloof and unbothered as ever, yet something in the way he held himself was...stiff. His shadows confirmed it. "Eris Vanserra, are you jealous?" The word was incredulous, given how in-stride he took everything. Indeed, Eris leaned forward, elbow on knee, chin on hand. "What in the world gave you that ridiculous assumption?" Azriel found himself doubting the shadows that had guided him his whole life. "My shadows told me." Eris stood up, stalking towards him like a predator circling prey. "Oh? Did your shadows tell you that Mor is queer? Did they tell you who your mate is? Who my mate is?" He was inches from him now. "Your shadows didn't do you much good when you came to ensure my ignorance, now, did they?" He tsked. "So unreliable." Then he dragged his lips to Azriel's ear. "Although, maybe I am a little jealous. If only because someone else dared to touch what's mine. Because make no mistake, I may do what I please as a High Lord's son, but you may not." Eris traced a finger around Azriel's neck, a slim red collar trailing in its wake. "I have twelve dogs, you know. You're the first bat I've owned, yet you're the prettiest of them all." Azriel couldn't help the blush that he felt skitter across his skin. What were they talking about again? He tried to recall but when Eris's lips met his neck, his mind scattered. "You've been a very bad bat, though," Eris purred. "Please," Azriel gasped. "Punish me." Eris laughed against the skin of his collarbone. "But I already did." Abruptly, he pulled away and pulled out a flower, dancing the stem of it between his long fingers. "I knew what you were doing-sensed it through our mating bond, actually, so I decided to pay a visit." The words mating bond hit Azriel like a punch to the gut, but Eris didn't give him time to digest it. "Recognize this flower, little bat? It grows in a certain Illyrian's garden. And she was getting so lonely these days, you know. Her son never visited, apparently. So when she offered her wonderful company," Eris said, emphasizing the word in a way that let Azriel know it wasn't mere company she had offered, "well, I'm a generous male, Azriel. So how could I refuse?" Horror and rage surged through Azriel's veins. "You fucked my mother?"

[solarisensun]

Picture Perfect (1)

yandere Gojo Satoru + Geto Suguru x f!reader

-guess who’s back 😗 (sorry for the odd spacing again ugh)

For some odd reason, you always feel like you are being watched

Warnings: yandere themes, implied drugging +photography, alcohol consumption, NSFW

It’s bright.

Even with your eyelids stuttered close, the harsh blinding light shines through them until your head pounds painfully.

Is the room spinning? Or is it just your head that’s tilting on its own axis?

You open your mouth to say something but nothing comes out of your mouth. It feels as if someone had stuffed your brain with cotton. Why is it so bright? You want to ask. Everything seems distorted and muffled. It almost feels as if you are sinking underwater.

The final thing you manage to register is a slow, deep chuckle like warm velvet and the gentle brush of fingertips against your cheek before your head lolls to the side and…

nothing.

You almost feel glad that the light is gone.

—

You always feel like you’re being watched whenever you step into the building.

Both figuratively and literally.

There’s always people bustling about within the building. And familiar smiles are thrown your way when you make your way past the glass sliding doors. “Morning, Miss,” the security guard nods at you from his post and you return his greeting with one of your own. The pretty receptionist at the table gives you a wiggle of her hands before her attention is drawn back to her phone, presumably entertaining another client.

Things are never really quiet here in Tokyo’s largest modeling agency.

And in every corner of this sleek, modern building, the sight of security cameras were not uncommon.

Still, there is this unshakable feeling that lingers on the nape of your neck every single time you step foot within this vicinity. Almost unconsciously, your left hand finds its way to your neck whilst your right hand tightens its grip around your iced coffee. It almost feels as if there is a ghostly presence breathing down your back as a shudder skitters down your spine.

It isn’t until the other staff give you an odd look for loitering in the lobby whilst stock-still when you take a deep inhale to regain your senses.

Perhaps you need to take a break to fix your sleep schedule.

Last night had been another oddly restless night. Oftentimes, you’ve woken up with a pounding headache and constant nightmares that left you feeling disorientated. Even your makeup artist had commented on the increased amount of concealer she needed to use recently to cover up your dark eye circles.

It doesn’t help that you’ve had butterflies fluttering around your stomach ever since your manager informed you of the shoot that you were having today with none other than Gojo Satoru, arguably the man that has the entirety of Japan falling over their feet with a mere glimpse of his picture-perfect face on magazine covers. Though there was no doubt that his beauty was as notorious as his reputation as a bachelor. It wasn’t him that you were worried about. It was the sheer size of the project, probably one of your agency’s biggest projects to date. Unlike Gojo, who had his name already firmly cemented in the modeling industry, this project would give you the chance to do the same too.

And to make matters worse, the photographer for today’s shoot-

Too caught up in your own thoughts, you nearly run face-first into someone else, barely avoiding getting your coffee all over his black shirt.

“Oh,” you blurt out in panic, “I’m so sorry! Please forgive me for not paying attention to my-”

“It’s all right.” His voice, albeit low and cordial, has not an inch of warmth in them. Dark eyes meet yours when you lift your head. Smooth obsidians greet your gaze, and almost immediately, prickles of fear explode across your skin. There’s something, something in his empty eyes that makes you take a step back like a startled rabbit.

Maybe it’s the way his figure looms over your hunched figure.

Before you can take another step away, the feeling of a large hand propped on your waist has you coming to an abrupt halt. All five of his fingers are curled around your waist; it almost feels as if he might break you in two if he squeezed too hard.

“Geto-san,” you mumble when realization crashes across your shoulders. You’ve never seen him in real life before. Though his photography works were renowned, the reclusive photographer has never once accepted interviews nor allowed for his picture to be taken. The only reason you recognize him is the fact that you’ve caught a glimpse of his face once or twice when he had projects occurring in this building. Nevertheless, his face is not one that many would forget. Up close, you can see the clean, unbroken lines of his haughty cheekbones and a strong jaw. His hair is pulled up into a messy bun; there’s something elegantly unsettling about the way he carries himself.

And a small part of you feels almost bad for judging this man but for some reason, it almost feels difficult to breathe in his presence alone.

The ghost of a smile touches his lips, curling them barely upwards. Though it doesn’t exactly look genuine. “I believe we are well-acquainted.” The darkness in his eyes is stark against his pale skin. “You must be the model having a shoot with me later.” He withdraws his hand. “Do be careful the next time you are walking around. You wouldn’t want to get some nasty bruises.”

“Ah,” you breathe out, proud that your voice doesn’t waver. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Geto-san. Please take good care of me later.”

Now that the initial shock has worn off, your fraying nerves have somewhat cooled down enough that you can look him in the eye without being overcome by the feeling that you want to bolt and get as far away from him as possible.

Geto blinks slowly, his face is as impassive as smooth marble.

“Of course.”

—

Your arched brows draw together, the studio lights, glints off the silver headband wound in your hair to hold the elaborate braids in place. Once again, your stylist has outdone herself with her choice of styling today. Yet, the longer you linger under the harsh lights, the pounding in your head seems to worsen with each passing second. It’s gotten to the point where you can almost feel your migraine splitting your poor head in half. s

A heavy sigh escapes your lips as you rest your cheek against the cool table, careful not to mess up the hours that your stylist had put into your hair.

Maybe if you close your eyes for a moment everything will calm down.

Even with your eyes shut, the sensation that something, someone is watching you never really dissipates. God, it almost feels like the omnipresent presence is practically looming over your shoulder. You could almost imagine it’s ghostly hands wrapped around your neck, tightening with each slow thud of your heart

Though you knew that if you turned around, there was nothing more but a lone security camera in the far corner.

You really need a break after this.

Preferably, somewhere quiet, and peaceful, and where it isn't so bloody bright.

“Are you all right?”

You jerk up so fast that your head nearly collides against Gojo’s.

“Gojo-san,” you gasp, trying to calm the thunderous heartbeat in your chest. “Don’t sneak up on me like that, please.” You hadn’t even heard him open the door.

“My bad.” He raises his arms up in defeat. “But I was genuinely worried. You know you looked like you died? Laying on the table all lifeless like that.” For once, your mischievous co-worker looks genuinely concerned, and it almost takes you by surprise. You've gotten too used to never taking his words seriously due to the mirth that glistens in his eyes.

You give him a weak smile, massaging your temples as you reply, “I’m all right. It’s just that I’ve been having trouble sleeping recently. All those sleepless nights are really taking a toll on me.”

He clicks his tongue in response. “After this, we are going for drinks, all right? The three of us, together. You need to loosen up.”

“The three of us?” A frown pinches your brows together.

“Me, you and Suguru of course!” he replies.

“Geto-san?”

“Who else?” Gojo gives you a funny look. You’ve always known that the duo had a history that went way back, but why would he ask you along? To say that you and Gojo were friends would be a stretch. Your conversation with him had never extended past your work life, and you aren’t exactly sure you want him into your personal life as well. After all, you’ve always prided yourself in keeping your reputation squeaky clean.

Gojo, on the other hand, seemed to take delight in gracing the tabloid covers with his extravagant spending and many sexual exploits.

“I don’t think-”

“Come on now,” Gojo whines as he stands over you, both his arms boxing you in perfectly. “When are you going to see me as more than your co-worker?” The sheer intensity burning in his bright crystalline blues make you avert your gaze. “I’m an excellent friend. You know that?”

You level him with an even stare, utterly unfazed by his close proximity. Gojo had always been handsier than most. “We both know you’re a horrible drinker. I don’t want to be hauling your ass back home when you can barely walk.”

Instead of denying, Gojo merely grins as he lowers his head even closer to your face. “I won’t drink.” A thoughtful look flickers over his pristine features before he adds, “And I’m not letting you out of this room until you say yes.”

“Gojo-san!”

“Come on. I promise you, you’ll sleep like the dead if you just go out with me- us, tonight.”

You knock his arm away from the side of your head and step away. “Fine. But only just this once.”

The wide smirk that grows on Gojo’s face almost makes you regret your reply.

“But I’m not exactly acquainted with Geto-san,” you confess, “I wouldn’t want to make things awkward. I know how close the two of you are.” The mere mention of his name and the way his bottomless gaze studied you makes the hair on the back of your neck stand up.

Gojo waves his hand airily. “Nonsense! Suguru warms up fast when you get to know him.” He gives you a wink as he slings his arm around your shoulders, nearly knocking you forward in the process. “Trust me, he’s all bark and no bite.”

The moment the weight of his arm is around your shoulder, the room seems to blur before your eyes.

White light.

The click of a camera.

Fingers brushing your hair away from your cheek.

A warm body, pressed against yours.

You stumble, pitching forward bonelessly and your face nearly hits the floor until Gojo wraps his hand around your arm and yanks you back to your feet.

“Woah.” In a smooth motion, he pulls you into his embrace. The smell of expensive cologne muddles your senses even further.

“You all right?”

“I-“ Words seem to fail you. So, you brace your palms against his chest and take a shuddering breath in. “I-I’m sorry. I don’t know what happened. Just give me a moment please.”

You squeeze your eyes shut until the room doesn’t feel like it’s rotating in dizzying circles anymore. And finally, you open your eyes to see Gojo’s worried-filled face swimming in your blurry vision.

“Are you sure? I don’t think you should work in this state,” Gojo tells you in earnest. “I can always inform Geto and we can reschedule our shoot for another day.”

“No!” You cry out a little too loudly. “I- I mean, it’s all right. I don’t want to mess things up. It’s just my sleepless nights catching up to me.” You parrot again in a calmer tone.

Suddenly, Gojo’s invitation to drink appears much more tempting. It did sound good to drink yourself wasted and crash out for the night. Plus, both Gojo and geto seemed like friends whom you could rely on. Earlier, Gojo’s warm enthusiasm about Geto suddenly sends a stab of guilt into you. Truthfully, he did seem like a nice man.

The lack of sleep must be getting to you. Combined with the fact that it’s making you utterly paranoid out of your mind.

Your reply earns you a dubious look. “Anything you say. But the moment you show signs of doing that again, we are ending the shoot.”

“Thanks, Gojo-san.” You give him an earnest smile. “Maybe you aren’t so bad after all” you joke.

“Nah. Don’t let your guard down so fast. I’m not as much of a saint as you paint me out to be.”

—

“Satoru, I told you to look at the camera, not at her.” The sheer annoyance laced in Geto’s statement almost makes you flinch.

On the contrary, Gojo merely gives an annoyed Geto a lazy smile. Upon spotting the grimace on your face, his devilishly rogue smile widens. It’s easy to see why this man had everyone tripping over their feet.

His snowy hair tickles your cheek when he brings his forehead close to yours. A puff of warm breath grazes your ear as Gojo chuckles. “Don’t look so scared. Suguru’s, all bark and no bite.”

Against your better judgment, you feel your cheeks heat up at the way Gojo is talking to you. You blame it on the position that the two of you are in. With both his hands propped on either sides of your face and one of his thighs between your legs. The strap of your dress has slid off, and Gojo’s suit is unbuttoned to reveal the smooth planes of his chiseled chest.

It’s the image of every fan’s wet dream. To have the Gojo Satoru pressed above you.

But the abrupt snap of the shutter yanks you back to reality. All of a sudden, things don’t exactly seem as perfect as they do.

Already, there’s a headache pounding at the back of your head.

“You too.” Geto’s clipped voice calls out amidst the clicks. “Camera. Not each other.”

Reluctantly, you yank your eyes off Gojo’s toothy grin and onto the raven-haired man with half of his face obscured by the camera. When did he get so close? A strand of his hair has fallen out of his bun, but Geto pays it no mind as he continues to angle the camera at the both of you.

You force your tensed body to relax as you peer into the lens, you can see a little reflection of yourself reflected in those dark shutters. It’s taking everything in you not to wince when the repeated click, click, click, echoes mutedly in the air. Picture after picture, your image is imprinted into the film like little notches frozen in time. Bile rises up like a wave in your clogged up throat.

“Look here.” With a jolt, you realize your attention has begun drifting away from the camera. Geto sounds annoyed, almost frustrated, and the tone of his voice sends your already frazzled nerves fraying even more. The last thing you want is to make him annoyed. You don’t want to lose this project before it has even started. Geto readjusts his position. Without warning, he strides over to you and grabs your wrist. The sensation of his cold fingers on your skin makes you gasp like a startled rabbit and you would have scuttled backwards if it weren’t for the fact that Gojo still has you pinned underneath him. You are sure he can feel the way your breath has hitched the moment Geto gripped you.

“You need to put your arm on his shoulder.” With a breathtaking gentleness that one wouldn’t have expected, Geto guides your arm to loop it around Gojo’s shoulder. Yet, his gentleness doesn’t exactly make you feel any better. The look on Gojo’s face is unreadable, almost as if he’s studying you.

Finally, Geto seems satisfied. He brings the camera up again. You don’t point out the fact that he still has his fingers clamped around your wrist and that it would be visible in the photo that he takes. “Look here,” he murmurs under his breath. You don’t point out the fact that Gojo is still looking at you with some sort of burning fervor in his pretty blues. Weren’t you both supposed to look at the camera?

You see a flash of pearly white when Geto smiles. “Perfect.”

Just when you feel like you can’t take it anymore, Geto finally puts his camera aside as he runs a hand through his loose hair. “Let’s take a break.” His empty stare meets yours, and you look away. “We will continue later.”

Gojo helps you to your feet and you continue to intently ignore the weight of Geto’s heavy stare that pins you across your back. Save for the three of you, the studio is empty after Geto insisted for everyone to leave so that he could work in peace. He’d always been particularly meticulous and stubborn with his shoots. And his renowned reputation as a photographer lets him get away with the most bizzare of requests. For some reason, there’s something oddly and unsettling familiar about both their presences lingering just so close to you.

A soft knock on the door has you scurrying over to open it and you almost heave out a relieved sigh at the sight of a familiar face. “Nanami.” A bright smile tugs the corners of your lips upwards when your manager steps into the studio. “I thought you left.”

Nanami, ever the reliable person, hands you a small towel and a cup of warm water, “I’m here to check up on you before I leave.”

Immediately, your brilliant smile fades from the bright glow of a burning sun to nothing more but a flickering candlelight. It doesn’t go unnoticed by your manager. “I can stay if you want. I’ll drop you off after your shoot is done,” Nanami adds gently.

Just as you open your mouth to reply, Gojo cuts in, “Come on now, there’s no need for that. Besides, she’s joining us for drinks after.”

Nanami doesn’t even bother concealing the disapproving look that fleets across his face. “You are?”

Faced with your manager’s stern questioning, you can’t help but fidget anxiously. “Just for a few drinks.” A lightbulb lights up on your head. “Nanami, why don’t you join us?” You hope your voice doesn’t sound too pleading.

“It’s late.” Geto’s velvety voice drifts over. “I’m sure we wouldn’t want to trouble your manager for staying up so late. I’m unsure how long this shoot will last. After all, we aren’t even halfway done yet. Photography is an art that cannot be rushed. I promise you that I’ll be there to keep Satoru in check. You need not worry for her safety.”

All hope that was blossoming in you shrivels up like dried petals.

Seemingly satisfied by Geto’s responsible answer, Nanami nods his head. “All right. Remember to text me when you get home.”

At the doorway, something in your fuzzy gaze seems to stop Nanami in his tracks. But when Geto gives him a firm yet polite smile, he decides that maybe you deserve a night out. After all, he’d always been too strict with you recently. You deserve to have some fun without him constantly breathing your neck. Without another thought, Nanami shuts the door behind him.

——

You’re so perfect that he almost feels like a depraved pervert for even looking at you up close like this.

Being so close, he could almost count each lash that fans across your cheekbones, the tiny pores on your skin, the minty toothpaste that you use. It makes his heart leap to his throat.

Judging by the slow rise and fall of your chest, you must have drifted off into the darkness by now. It's a shame, he did prefer it when you were at least able to remain aware of his touches. Your cute mumbles and attempt to bat his hand away never failed to amuse him to no end.

Nevertheless, he hums to himself, tucking a stray hair of yours behind your ear as he raises the camera to his face.

Click.

Another picture to add to his ever growing collection.

Click.

He almost blushes at the way your shorts have ridden up to expose your thighs. And the camera has certainly captured each dip and contour of your body well.

Click.

Unable to help himself, he angles the camera lower until your lovely face isn’t the only thing in frame. Maybe he really is nothing more than a pervert.

Click.

The abrupt flashes make you stir, making your cheek grazes his outstretched finger, and he shudders at the warmth. Though your delicate softness beckons to him like a flower waiting to be plucked and lovingly pressed against the pages of a book to preserve for an eternity. He resists the temptation.

Instead, he lets his finger trace your collarbones before moving down your limp shoulders. No matter how hard the tent in his pants has begun to strain, he does not give in to that sick little voice that chimes in his head.

No. Instead, he smiles at your motionless figure with nothing but sick adoration and love in his eyes. Gently, he leans down and presses a kiss against your cheek. You mumble incoherently in response.

Even unconscious, your beauty shines ever as brilliantly.

He raises the camera again with a shaky exhale.

Click.

You think that you might be going crazy. Or perhaps, you were being pushed to the brink of insanity. Because even amongst the crowded bar, with the incessant drone of loud chatter echoing your ears, the dreaded sound of the camera’s shutter somehow makes its way to grab your attention.

It can’t be… Wildly, you whip your head from side to side as you scan the crowded room. Everywhere you turn, you are greeted with nothing but flashing neon lights and not a single camera in sight. Were you really starting to hear things now?

Gojo steps into your line of sight with his megawatt smile glinting against the strobe flashes, snagging your attention. He raises two glasses. “Free drinks from the owner.”

From your side, you can hear Geto chuckle. He’s standing a little too close for your liking, but you ignore it in favor of the drink which Gojo sets in your hand. “What is it?” you ask. The heavy bass of the song must have drowned out your answer because Gojo motions you closer with a quizzical look on his face.

Instinctively, you step closer to him, practically balancing on the tip of your toes in order to reach his ear. With one hand still clutching the drink, which was now precariously sloshing around from all your movement, you lean forward and yell into Gojo’s ear, “What is it?”

It takes you another moment before you realize that there’s another body pressed behind yours and Geto’s voice resonates besides you. “Don’t worry about what’s the drink. I can promise you it's good,” he murmurs. “Try it,” Geto urges, his hand closing around your fingers around the metal, folding his fingers into your own as he pushes the cup to coax your lips open. Vaguely, you are aware that his- both their breaths smell like the drink, coy, tantalizing honey paired with hints of fresh lime undertones that paint a sharp contrast to the sugary syrup.

All of a sudden, you are also hyper aware of the fact that both men now have you sandwiched between them without escape. And maybe it’s the drink, or the atmosphere, or the fact that despite your uncomfortableness around them, there’s no denying that they were both ridiculously attractive men.

You want to bat Geto’s hand away, you really do. But he’s being so gentle, and a part of you thinks that you deserve this. You deserve to let loose a little and have fun. Geto’s breath ghosts over the shell of your ear. “I promise. It’s really good.” In front of you, Gojo is looking at you like the three of you are sharing some intimate moment that just makes everything else melt away.

Without another word, you open your mouth and let Geto tip the drink into your parted lips. He’s practically holding the cup at this point, with his other hand curled lightly around the nape of your neck. True to his word, it tastes better than you’d expected. Though the sharp bite of the alcohol makes you wince, it’s quickly replaced by a sweet aftertaste that mingles pleasantly with the alcohol. Unconsciously, you swipe your tongue across your bottom lip to catch the remaining remnants.

It’s dangerous, the way you already feel slightly light, and you know that you wouldn’t think twice to knock back another drink if any of them offered you seconds.

“It’s good, isn’t it?” Gojo asks you with a grin a little too wide for your liking.

You nod. Gojo responds by handing the other drink to Geto, who downs the entire thing with a neat flip of his wrist.

The hand on your neck shifts to your waist as Geto gently spins you around until you are facing him. “Come.” He smiles down at you, his black linen shirt is already unbuttoned at the top and his hair has been let loose from its bun, causing it to fall in tousled waves across his broad shoulders. Outside of work, Geto appeared to be much more approachable and carefree. Maybe you’d judged him too quickly. Dimly, you are rather surprised that Gojo hadn’t been the one to approach you first.

His pretty smile widens when you don’t pull away as he entwines the fingers of his large hand with your daintier ones. “Let’s dance.” The warmth of his rough palm licks against your smaller one as Geto gently leads you away towards the centre of the floor.

The moment his hands find their way around your hips and the alcohol sings in your veins, it almost feels as if everything around you has melted into a wondrous blur of musical giddiness.

One moment Geto’s long locks are tickling the nape of your neck as he whispers something into your ear. You can’t quite seem to concentrate on what he’s murmuring; all too aware of this way his fingers are splayed mere inches away from the hem of your dress. But this time, the nauseating feeling doesn’t arise..

When Geto’s low timbre reaches your ears again, you merely smile and laugh, too busy swaying your hips to the throbbing bass, too lost in your sweet bubble to notice how the photographer is looming over you, akin to a second shadow. Nor do you notice his dark, dark gaze as he watches you through half-lidded eyes that burn with a startlingly feverish intensity.

From a distance, a bright gaze tracks your figure.

Gojo was right. Tonight was going to be a good night’s sleep.

[curiositydooropened]

Group Therapy

Steve’s friends encouraged him to attend group therapy, to push past the nightmares and insomnia. In such a small community of sufferers, he didn’t expect to meet you.

Pairing: Steve Harrington x female!Reader

Wordcount: 15,461

Warnings: group therapy, trauma, PTSD, nudity, recreational drug use, minor character death (not canon characters). It's therapy, guys. There's a lot of angst, guilt, speaking of dead loved ones, etc.

This fic is incomplete. This is just part one, but I was dying to get it out, so here it is. There's a bit of a cliffhanger/questions unanswered, but those will be answered in the next part! xo

Navigation • Masterlist

---

Joyce suggested group therapy. She knew of a group that met weekly in the old DMV building. Steve wasn’t one to sit in chairs and talk about his feelings (although he pressured the kids to do as much every time he saw them), but he wasn’t one to deny the advice of a woman that cared for him like he hoped a mother would. 

Joyce Byers often surprised him with those sentiments, dragging him from his car by the scruff of his neck to partake in family dinners with the kids or asking about the various dates with various girls she’d seen him on and with around town. She worried over his headaches, offering tried-and-true remedies, and all-but drove him to the optometrist to get his eyes checked. 

Much to his chagrin, he had needed glasses, and much to Robin’s chagrin, he only wore them around Mrs. Byers or the kids, who would tattle on him if he didn’t. 

So, when Joyce cornered him on Labor Day, after watching the skittered reactions of each sound effect the kids made during their weekly DnD game, Steve couldn’t argue with her logic. 

“I found this flyer. I’ve gone a few times, but it’s on Thursdays and Thursdays are difficult with work,” she explained, placing the leaflet into his hand. “But it’s a good group of people, and I’ve seen a few young people go. I do really think it’d be nice to be able to talk to kids your own age, you know?” 

He shrugged and offered a weak smile, and if anyone else had recommended it, he probably would have shrugged it off, crumpled the paper and tossed it into the bin at the end of the McDonald’s drive through. But it was Joyce, and she wouldn’t have mentioned it if she wasn’t genuinely concerned. 

So on Thursday night, when the sad streets of Hawkins cleared of construction workers and the few loyal townsfolk driving home from their 9-to-5s, Steve gripped 10-and-2 and inched his way to the old DMV parking lot. He pulled into the same spot he did when he got his license three years ago, and he was surprised to see the lot littered with vehicles from all sorts of residents from Hawkins and the surrounding county. It took him a shaky breath or two to muster the courage to go inside, but he figured this couldn’t be worse than killing a few inter dimension monsters. 

Before he exited his car, he pulled his glasses from their case in the center console and slipped them up the bridge of his nose, hooking them over his ears, and as the dimly lit concrete building got a little sharper, and his headache began to alleviate, he left the car and walked toward the front doors.

The collection of chairs made a perfect circle in the center of the room, but only two people sat, the rest mingling near a coffee carafe and a giant box of doughnuts. Steve found himself jittery enough, and jelly doughnuts still reminded him too much of the gaping hole in Eddie’s ceiling, so he opted to skip refreshments and find himself a seat in the circle.

His hand shook against the cool metal of the chair, from nerves or excessive damage to his nervous system, he was never quite sure anymore. He clenched his fist to squeeze past the tremor and seat himself, glancing down at the watch on his wrist to avoid the gaze of the others around the circle. He had to check the time three more times before his brain registered what time it actually was, and by then, the others had started to find seats around the circle. 

He shifted uncomfortably in his seat and offered a shy smile to the woman who sat beside him. She seemed wary of his presence, but smiled politely in return. And because that exchange felt safe enough, he ventured a glance around the circle. He was surprised to see about twenty people, in various stages of life and dress, mostly cheerful, swapping mumbled greetings and shuffling into their seats to get comfortable. 

The slam of door closing startled everyone to silence though, mood shifting to static as a woman in a tight-fitting skirt suit clacked across the linoleum toward the circle, waving the legal pad in her hand. “Sorry, sorry! Just me.” She explained, finding her seat directly at Steve’s eleven. She glanced up from wire-rimmed glasses, similar to Steve’s and flashed him the brightest smile he’d seen in a long time.

“I see we have a few new faces this evening,” she glanced around to avoid Steve the embarrassment, but he felt heat fan at his face as attention drew his direction. 

“That’s great. Let’s all be sure to welcome them warmly.” She continued. “For those of you who don’t know, this is a group therapy session. We talk about our feelings here. This is a judgement-free zone, and we would really appreciate it if the things shared didn’t leave this room. What happens in group therapy stays in group therapy, right?” 

The group around him let out a chorus of tired agreement, as though they’d heard the spiel week after week. 

“Great. Now I do feel the need to preface that we talk a lot about loss during these sessions. Loss of loved ones, loss of homes, loss of control. If it gets to be too much for anyone, I encourage you bow out. You know your own boundaries better than the rest of us, but we also want you to know that some of us have found a real community here, and we’re here to welcome you with open arms.” This time, she spoke directly to Steve.

He offered a tight-lipped smile, but suddenly found his hands interesting to look at, the crags of scarring across his knuckles, the callouses that littered his palm over the last few months. 

“Let’s start with an ice-breaker, shall we? We’ll go around the circle and share our name and say a hobby we’ve picked up recently! We haven’t done hobbies in a few weeks, right?” A chorus of no’s filtered through the circle. She clapped her hands together. “Perfect. I’ll start. Hi, I’m Cheryl, and a few weeks ago, my friends got me hooked on couponing. Have you heard of that? Where you cut coupons out of the Sunday morning paper? I got my groceries for half the price!” 

“Half the price?” The woman beside Steve startled him. She seemed genuinely intrigued. 

Cheryl grinned, winked. “I’ll tell you all about it after this. Go ahead, dear.” 

And then beside Cheryl, voice raspy yet calm, you spoke your name and Steve’s attention was drawn to you like gravity. Joyce had mentioned people his age, but at first glance around the circle, no one here was younger than their 30s, no one but you. Your hair was shoved under a knit cap, and buttons of your denim jacket clacked against one another as you adjusted in your seat, tucking one sneakered foot up on the chair with you. Steve leaned a little closer on his knees to hear what you had to say. 

“I’ve picked up cooking, mostly out of necessity,” you tucked your chin to your knee and finally ventured a glance Steve’s direction. “Learned how to put out a grease fire on Friday.” Your eyes flared a challenge, a rebellious streak that sent something through Steve as he watched your eyes observe his frame. He sat up a little straighter under your scrutiny, and you turned to hear the comments being made in regards to your answer to the prompt. “I might be able to manage a casserole. Give me a month.” 

And it went that way down the line, various people with boring, small-town names talking about crochet and mountain biking. Steve watched them politely, anxiety curdling his stomach the closer around the circle it got to him. Occasionally, he’d glance your direction, as though you’d offer a lifeline, an out. Cheryl smiled encouragingly and every hobby he’d had flew from his memory. 

“And what’s your name?”

“Uh…” His throat was dry. “Steve. I’m Steve.” 

“Hi, Steve,” the room echoed, led by your conducting arms. The call startled him, and the room was reduced to chuckles at the apparent inside joke. Steve noticed the way you hid your laughs behind a hand, cuff of your sleeve pulled up over your knuckles.

“Ignore them,” Cheryl reprimanded, rolling her eyes. “Tell us one of your hobbies.”

Hobbies, hobbies. He swallowed, glanced around the room, trying to recall the pastimes of the others’. He definitely didn’t cook or coupon. He scratch a particular grading itch at the back of his neck and shrugged. “I swam in high school.” 

“Okay, swimming’s cool,” Cheryl encouraged, smile too bright, blinding. “What about now? Do you still swim?” 

He winced. Swimming and him hadn’t gotten along in recent years, what with Barb and Water Gate. “Yeah, not really.” 

“Well what do you like to do for fun?” 

Joyce hadn’t prepared him for the questions he’d be asked. Once again, head-empty, he wracked for something he did in his free time. Chauffeur little shits to the arcade and back? Watch them play their nerd game? None of those really constituted as fun, and he couldn’t exactly let a group of total strangers know that his most relaxed moments were spent at Hopper’s old cabin sharing a joint between co-trauma-victims.

He licked his lips and considered dates he’d been on recently. Out of habit, his eyes flickered to you. Your head was tilted to one side, expression expectant, and he realized he’d taken too long. 

He blinked and shifted uncomfortably in his chair. “Um, driving? I really enjoy just going for long drives. Does that count?” 

“Of course it does. Driving is a great way to let off steam.” Cheryl expressed with too bouncy of a nod. 

“Kind of car you got, kid?” A grumpy old man asked off to the right. 

Steve turned to face him. “BMW 733i. It’s an ’83.” 

The man whistled, nodded. “German-mades are good cars.”

“Got a good sound system?” A man asked from the opposite side of the circle.

Steve shrugged, nodded, ran a hand through his hair, nearly knocking his glasses off. He still wasn’t used to them. “It’s pretty good. Bass doesn’t blow me out.”

When that man offered a hum of approval, he felt himself warm a little, like that little hum was the acceptance of the group. He relaxed a bit further into his chair and the woman beside him, Mina, took over, discussing her doll collection at length. 

It continued this way around the circle, people discussing their interests like this wasn’t a group therapy session, like you weren’t all here to discuss what had happened to you or who Vecna had removed from your lives. You were just a circle of humans getting to know one another and talking about your passions, and Steve felt a bit soft about it. He even pitched in the conversation at one point when Carl, the sound system specialist, spoke about building his record collection. Steve offered a signed copy of a Kenny Rogers album he knew his dad wouldn’t miss. Carl seemed elated. Steve felt proud to be useful. 

When he looked away, your gaze caught him, eyes narrowed in suspicion at his gesture, and he felt his face heat and he looked away. He didn’t recognize you, didn’t think he’d seen you before, but that insecurity lingered, the fear that you’d gone to school with him and King Steve had been a total dick to you.

“Alright,” Cheryl clapped her hands together. “That was fun. Shall we talk about the tough stuff now? Who wants to go first?” 

—

No one made him talk, and for that he was grateful. He sat in silence, just soaking up the stories and the heartache, driving that ceaseless guilt a little further. He caught emotion in his throat at one point, during a particularly heartfelt story about Mina missing her niece and nephew for Labor Day, and he had to force himself to think about something else, anything else while he wiped the sting from his nostrils. 

When you all stood, at the end of the session, he had half a mind to bolt, to leave and never return, to never mention it to Joyce. He prayed the rest of you would forget his existence, although he’d never forget all of you, your stories, the waver in voices as stories were passed around. He wanted to run, but Carl stopped him with a sturdy hand clapped to his shoulder, and then Elmer approached and the two men asked him questions about his car, eased him back from the anxiety tightening the collar of his shirt. 

The older men argued about BMW versus Saab, and Steve found his attention straying from the conversation, as it often did when his dad and his uncle got into similar arguments over holiday dinners. He found you, pinching the edge of a glazed doughnut. You seemed unimpressed and unengaged in the conversations starting to pitter out as one-by-one, people started to leave. 

Elmer shook Steve’s hand, excuse himself, and Carl did the same. Steve pulled his keys from his jacket pocket and followed them out, a crisp chill falling over the lot. He breathed fog and glanced upward at a cloudless sky.

“Stars look weird, huh? After all that smoke.” A voice from below startled him, and he looked to find you sidled up next to him, hands shoved into your jacket pockets. 

“Really weird,” he agreed, but he couldn’t turn back to the twinkling night sky, not when you were standing beside him, staring up at the cosmos in wonderment, moonlight painting your skin a pale blue. “I’m sorry, but do I know you from somewhere?” He didn’t feel the sting of familiarity, but he figured the question was good to cover his bases. 

You tilted your head to face his and a smile tugged at the corners of your lips. “Don’t think so.” You pulled a hand from your pocket to offer it his direction, reintroducing yourself. 

He took your hand, small and warm from the insulation of your jacket. “Steve.” 

“Steve who swam in high school and drives now.” You affirmed with a nod, placing your hand back in your pocket.

He chuckled and nodded. “That’s me.” He gestured to the car.

You offered a whistle to mimic Elmer’s, as though his car was something to marvel at, and that made a laugh bubble from his lips again. He liked the way you smiled at his laugh, as though you were proud you pulled it from him. He thought of Joyce always trying to cheer him up, of her placing the flyer in his hands. 

“Can I ask you a question?”

You quirked an eyebrow, but shrugged. “Shoot.” 

“Is this…” He glanced backward at the building, now void of light, doors locked, quiet. “Is this group therapy thing helping you at all?” 

“Honestly?” You brought a thumb to your lips to chew at the corner of your nail, and you waited for him to nod before you shrugged. “Kind of. It’s nice to have people to talk to. Better than letting it stew.”

He knew what you meant, the guilt that bubbled there, just under the surface. He nodded. Then felt a little braver. “Do you come every week?” 

You shrugged again, nodded. “Nothing better to do.” 

“Except putting out grease fires,” he pointed out, tested the water with a tease, let you know he was listening. He didn’t know why he felt so desperate for your validation now, felt pride when his joked pulled a smile from your lips, your eyes rolling. 

“Uh huh.” You took a few steps away from him. “Have a good night, Steve. See you next week.” 

“See you.” He waited until you were in your car with the ignition on before he pulled out of the lot.

—

The following Thursday took twice the courage. Steve considered dragging Robin along, or even Eddie, but Robin had to work and Eddie still wasn’t widely accepted in the greater Roane County area. So, with a few steady breaths, he entered the little concrete building with a Kenny Rogers album under his arm. Carl stood from the circle to greet him, taking the vinyl to admire it, and Elmer met them near the snacks table to discuss a model BMW he found in his catalog, wanted to know if Steve would like him to buy it with his next order.

The men were much older than Steve, and gruff with their greetings, stiff upper-lip and all that, and Steve felt himself shy under their attention, shifting uncomfortably on the balls of his feet, searching the room for a familiar face. Well, if he was being honest, he was searching for you.

“Or not, saves me a few bucks that I could use on a Thunderbird I was looking at,” Elmer grumbled under his breath when Steve hadn’t responded, and the younger boy shook his hair from his eyes.

“No, no. It’d be really cool if you ordered the model for me,” he offered a smile. “I have a friend that paints models.” 

It took ages to be allowed into Erica’s room, only permitted to babysit her from the doorway with crossed arms and a frown, but one day she finally asked for his opinion on a paint job she’d done on a model dragon. Eddie had commissioned her, paid her extra to keep the Big Bad a secret from the boys, but she wasn’t sure about the gold. So when she called him in with an “okay, shithead, you can come in”, Steve made sure to really admire her handiwork. He’d never forget the proud smile etched into her sweet little face.

“It’s a fine art,” he continued. “I’d love to try.” 

Elmer puffed his chest the way Erica did, grumbled in agreement.

 This time, Steve felt brave enough to pour himself a Styrofoam cup of coffee. It thawed his cold fingers and scalded the roof of his mouth. The doughnuts had been swapped for deli sandwiches, but all of the non-veggie ones had been taken by the time he got there. He stuck with the coffee and found his way to his seat, the same as last week, semi-in hopes that you’d find your same seat across from him. 

He’d dressed to impress, after all. A newly purchased green sweater warmed him, hugged his biceps how he liked, and his favorite pair of Levis. Well, not his favorites, those still held a few blood stains, but these were similar and new. He didn’t wear his glasses either, still self-conscious that they made his nose too square and his eyes too round. At least, that’s what Mom said when he showed her. She reprimanded him for not taking her to pick them out. 

He looked around the circle at mostly blurred faces, a few familiar, like Mina beside him, Carl and Elmer. Cheryl clacked her way to her seat at his eleven once more, repeated the spiel from last week. Your chair, along with about five others, remained empty. 

Steve couldn’t stop himself from glancing at the door every few minutes, between ice-breaker introductions. He sputtered “uh… tiger?” for his favorite animal because again, caught in the moment, he couldn’t think of a single other animal save a Demodog or Demobat, and in this crowd, a joke like that wouldn’t go over so well. 

A woman named Dolores, who he recalled from last week, spoke about her struggles at the grocery store this week, staring at her husband’s favorite box of cereal. A man named Jeffrey started to speak about hearing his daughter’s voice everywhere he went, when the door slammed open, startling them all. 

Steve spun in his chair to see you enter, bleary eyed and sniffle nosed. You didn’t flinch to find all eyes on you, just turned your attention to the coffee table and picked up a sandwich to take a bite from. 

“Keep going, Jeffrey,” Cheryl encouraged, and the group turned back around to face the man speaking his tragic tale. 

Steve had lost all focus. He side-eyed you, watch your hand tremble around the carafe handle, ached to stand up and assist you. He glanced to Cheryl to confirm her eyes were on him. She sent him a pointed look and pointed a well-manicured fingernail Jeffrey’s direction, like a school teacher during a guest lecturer.

“And just this morning,” Jeffrey continued, voice wavering, “as I opened up the garage door, I heard her say - “

“Fuck!” Your voice rang out, followed by the ruckus of the carafe and your cup and sandwich crashing to the ground. Coffee and vegetables littered the linoleum, painting the yellowed tiles a deep brown. 

The entire circle flinched. Steve leapt from his seat to help you, but Mina pulled him down by the cuff of his sleeve, which she used to help herself from her seated position. “You sit, honey. I’ll help her.” 

Steve ventured another glance your direction. You were nursing the edge of your hand with your lips, skin likely scalded, and tears were now cascading over your florescent-kissed cheekbones. You sucked in a sob and pulled a fistful of napkins off the table to start to soak up the mess when Mina met you and placed a hand on your shoulder to stop you. She mumbled something, and you nodded, turning to leave. Just before you did, you glanced up at the circle and met Steve’s gaze, and when he found the sorrow there, he realized he’d do anything to will it away, to bring back that half-cocked smile from the week before.

“Keep going, Jeffrey. What did you hear her say when you opened the garage door?” Cheryl pressed on, as though your interruption hadn’t occurred, as though Steve would be able to focus on anything else.

—

The tangy sweet scent of marijuana wafted from the patchwork furniture set all the way through boarded-up rafters. The chill of autumn set in, and Steve’s teeth chattered between each hit of the joint, and he huddled tighter into Robin’s tiny frame under the crochet quilt they pulled from the back of Eddie’s van. He felt tired and cold and hungry, and a mystery substance on the quilt was far too close to his face, but he was too cold to move it. With a groan, he settled further into the poorly stuffed cushions and the warm vanilla of Robin’s perfume. 

“No groaning, man. You’re harshing my mellow,” Eddie swatted at him from the other side of Robin. He was farther gone, one joint in when they got there. Steve was sure the ceiling danced for him, and his leather jacket was probably a whole hell of a lot warmer than Steve’s puffer vest. 

“Steve’s in love,” Robin explained the bad attitude. Ever the linguist, she often translated Steve’s wordless tantrums. She was never right.

He groaned again. “I’m not in love.” He plucked the joint from her ice cold fingers and took another hit, grateful for the deep burn in his chest until it sputtered out of him in a big cloud that rose with the heat through the hole in the roof. 

“Dude, fourteen hot, hot women came into work over the last two days, and you didn’t even say hi. To any of them.” 

He didn’t recall fourteen, maybe one or two. Beside, he was busy stacking shelves and searching the database for all of the Hawkins residents with your name. 

“Jesus,” Eddie giggled. “You are in love. So who’s the broad? Is she hot?” 

Steve groaned and warmed the tip of his nose on Robin’s shoulder, lest it freeze and fall off. Robin squeaked when it brushed her skin, and she sent a punch to his ribs. “Ow, fuck,” he whined, rubbing at the growing bruise, but something about the grin on Robin’s face made him chuckle. 

This made Robin sputter a laugh, and Eddie chimed in with his voracious little giggle, and soon they were a mess of laughter, clutching at their sides to catch their breaths, tears in their eyes, the chill of autumn almost forgotten. 

“I’m hungry,” Eddie sighed, pushing himself up off the couch with minor difficulty. He drug his feet to the cupboards. The cabin hadn’t been properly stocked in months, maybe a year. They ate the last bag of popcorn last time, and Steve forgot to pick up supplies on his way in from work. “Either of you know how to cook?” 

“Steve’s girlfriend’s a chef.” Robin snickered, eyes squeezed tight to avoid the spin of the stars. 

“She’s not my girlfriend,” Steve huffed. That’s not even what he wanted, not even the point of asking Robin if she knew anyone with your name, anyone that looked like you. He wasn’t interested in dating you. He wanted to make sure you were okay. 

“You met her at a restaurant?” Eddie tried to piece together the story. “Do they deliver?” 

“I met her at group therapy,” Steve ran a tired hand down his face, completely knocking his glasses free. When had he put those on? 

“So she’s a nutter like you then,” Eddie grinned, and Robin burst back into that raspy laugh that would normally send Steve into his own giggle fit if he wasn’t so irritated by the accusation. 

“She’s not a nutter. She’s been through some hard shit. We all fucking have,” he snapped, stirring his attention to a loose strand of red polyester near his sightline on the cushion. 

His smoking buddies quieted their laughs. Robin sunk into him, curling her head into the crook of his neck. She was cuddly high and flirty drunk, and Steve hated the melt of his heart when she did this. She was like a cat, obnoxiously free-willed and too smart for her own damn good. And she knew when to turn on the charm to avoid a confrontation. 

“Hey, Steve,” Eddie called from the kitchen.

Steve hummed a response, annoyance temporarily tampered. 

“Mellow harshed.” Eddie flipped him the bird. 

Robin’s head bobbed under his chin, setting him off, and the three of them started to chuckle again.

—

Week three, Steve arrived early, snatched a maple bar and found his seat, sneaker tapping linoleum subconsciously while he stared at the entrance. Everyone else mingled, and Carl and Elmer offered friendly waves from their place in line for coffee, but Steve was waiting for you. An entire week he spent searching for you. Henderson even made a few fake sales calls from the phone directory, but all searches had come up void. You were like a ghost. And after day six, he thought maybe he had imagined you. 

It would be the next logical step. Head trauma could lead to migraines, tremors, poor eye-sight, bad hearing, why not add hallucinations to the list? If he made you up, his brain did a really good job with the fine details. He could still see the frayed edges at the cuffs of your denim jacket, could still hear the click of metal buttons against one another as you repositioned yourself in your chair.

You cleared your throat, and he realized you’d come and sat across from him, and he was staring. 

He swallowed, nearly choked when he realized he had a bite of doughnut in his mouth. It went down too large, unchewed. He felt it roll down his esophagus into an empty stomach and he winced, coughed. “Hi,” he managed finally, throat dry. 

“Y’okay?” You bit back a laugh, smiling forming at the corners of your lips, wrinkling your eyes, and Steve thought he could fly. It was an excellent improvement from last week. 

He nodded. “Are you?”

You caught the subtext in his question and he watched your expression pinch as you found the frayed edge of your jacket with your fingers. He wanted to stand, to sit beside you, to make you smile again, to laugh. 

But the doors slammed shut and everyone not seated had moseyed to their seats. The room was emptier than last week, and Steve felt a twinge of panic that people were leaving, that they felt healed and no longer needed to come, and he wondered if you felt that way too. Cheryl sat in royal blue and spoke her spiel like she hadn’t rehearsed it, and once again, to her left, you started the ice-breaker round with your name and your favorite book, Peter Pan.

Steve’s heart thumped in his chest at the odd bit of information. A boy who collected kids, who was too pressured by the adults in his life to grow up, a boy at odds with his own shadow, intrigued by a girl from a far-off land. He realized he was staring again when you offered him wide-eyes, mockingly telling him off, but the smile edged on your pink lips again, and he settled into his chair, satisfied once more.

Once the ice-breaker round had finished (Steve muttered something about Sherlock Holmes, running a hand through is hair. He knew the gist, and he thought you seemed impressed, maybe intrigued? You cocked an eyebrow at his answer.), he felt a little less comfortable in his chair. If was being totally honest, he’d hoped you’d open up about last week, about what made you so sad, so helpless. It had been eating him up inside. So, he focused his gaze on you when Cheryl asked who wanted to start, and you kept your eyes on the squeak of your sneakers against the floor. 

“Steve, how about you?”

Steve blinked at the sound of his name, sat at attention. 

“You’re our newest member of the group. How are you feeling about it? Would you like to share maybe what brought you to us?” Cheryl’s voice was the softest he’d heard it, a sweet lull that reminded him achingly of Joyce, like a soft hand brushing hair from his forehead. 

He swallowed, felt all eyes on him, all except yours. He took a deep breath and looked at Cheryl. She offered the most understanding of smiles. He licked his lips. 

“I don’t um… I don’t really know how to start.” His hands were trembling, and he shoved them under his ass, but that caused the chain reaction of his knee bobbing wildly, heel lifted from the ground. 

“How did you find out about the group?” Cheryl asked. 

“Oh, a friend’s mom gave me the flyer. Told me I should check it out.” 

Cheryl nodded. “She was worried about you?” 

It hurt to hear someone else say it. “I guess so.” 

“It was sweet of her to think of you,” she smiled. “What do you think worries her?” 

He thought about it too often, harbored too much guilt for being a burden on Mrs. Byers, on them all. He swallowed back the lump in his throat, probably the doughnut still lodged there somewhere. “I don’t sleep much, and um… I guess I startle too easily.” 

Proving his point, a chorus of agreements from the circle scared him back to reality, and he realized there was a room full of people listening intently, a room full of people that encountered the same problems. 

“What’s keeping you from sleeping?” 

He shifted in his seat again, hands red and creased, pulsing as the blood returned to the tips of his fingers. “Nightmares, mostly. I have this horrible recurring dream.” He shuddered to think of it.

“Tell us about it.” 

He swallowed, ventured a glance your direction. You had your thumbnail to your lips again, but you offered a nod of encouragement. He ran a hand through his hair. “Okay, um…” He’d have to censor it. These people knew about the monsters, the horror, but not the specifics. They didn’t know the metallic tang of Demobat blood. They didn’t know the din of a Grandfather clock chiming Max’s death, the downfall of their town. He squeezed his eyes shut to quell the echoing, ground himself in a room that wasn’t shaking from seismic activity. 

“I have dreams about my grandma,” you chimed in, and Steve’s eyes slammed open to watch you pull the attention away. You sat up straight in your seat. “They’re always the same. We’re in her kitchen, and she’s making a beef stew. So I’m cutting the celery for her. And she tells me I’m doing a great job.” Your voice wavers on the last weird, and Steve watches the sorrow slip over your features again. You went somewhere else, far off, somewhere painful, for a split second. 

“But you feel like you’re disappointing her?” Steve braved his question, and to his surprise, and yours, you nodded, wiping a tear from your cheek before it could slip down your soft skin. He nodded. “Mine too. All of my dreams are about my friends, and in all of them, I just…” He shrugged. “Let them down.” 

“I have this dream that I’m dancing with my wife,” Carl pitched in. “We’re swaying to Miles Davis, and she’s laughing. It’s so real, I can smell her perfume. That one’s almost worse than the dreams about monsters.”

The group mutters in agreement. “I have a dream about my niece playing in the back yard,” Mina agrees. 

Steve doesn’t pull his gaze from you as people continue to share their dream stories. You offer a sad smile, and bring your knee up to your chest before turning your attention to the next speaker. He continued to watch you, the soft cough of a laugh, the upturn of your lips. Maybe Robin was right. 

—

Week Four brought on scarves and gloves, the squeak of wet shoes against linoleum. Elmer brought a large box with a model and paints and brushes, which he shoved under Steve’s chair with furrowed brows and gruff instructions. Carl was humming The Gambler. Steve felt warm, and when he shrugged out of his puffy vest, draping it on the back of his chair, the warmth didn’t cease. It was the same warmth he felt on DnD nights, when he sat on the sofa and read the latest issue of Sport’s Illustrated and Dustin shot spitballs at him from across the table. It was the same warmth he felt when Robin got high and tucked herself into the crook of his neck and gushed about Vickie’s perfect face. 

He pushed the sleeves of his sweater up to the crooks of his elbows and waited for the rest of the group to file in when a voice from Mina’s chair startled him.

“Hey.” It was you.

He blinked your direction, picking out the lines of your face from this close, a soft twinkle in your eye. You looked flushed, a bit out of breath, and that set a screw loose inside of him somewhere. He could feel it tinkering around, bouncing off his gears. “Hey,” he breathed.

The door slammed closed, eliciting a communal gasp like it did every week, and you straightened yourself beside him, shrugging out of your denim jacket to expose an oversized sweatshirt, forest green with torn cuffs and a screen printed watercolor of a national park, Yellowstone, maybe? He couldn’t make out the scrawl that had been eaten away by the washing machine. Cheryl clacked her way across from you both.

“Listen,” you hissed, catching his attention again. “I need to talk to Cheryl for a second after this is over, but I want to give you something. Will you wait for me?” You spoke under your breath, out of the side of your mouth, like a secret, and Steve couldn’t help the laugh that caught on his tongue. 

“Yeah, I can probably do that.” 

“Good,” again, you didn’t look at him, facing the group, but he watched your front teeth catch on your bottom lip, fighting back a smile. He liked that he could appreciate the details of you from this close, the wisps of hair on your temples, poking out from beneath that same, grey knit cap, the soft blue gems of your earrings, barely noticeable if it weren’t for this angle, the soft gold chain that lay on your neck, its pendant falling somewhere beyond the collar of your shirt.

“Shall we break some ice?” Cheryl clapped her hands together, yanking him out of the daze that was all you. The woman leading the group sent him a knowing look, eyebrow cocked over her glasses, and Steve cursed under his breath. This was going to be a long night.

This session had been the worst of them so far. Carl kicked it off by voicing his frustrations about the aches he felt in his shoulder when the weather got cold. It’d always been bad. He blew his shoulder out when he was much younger, playing baseball. The injury reinstated after his third row of buckshot in the direction of one of those things.

Mina felt it too. She called it a shift in seismic pressure. Her arthritis had never been worse. Along with the nightmares, she suffered severe migraines, not to mention the hospital bills. 

Don’t get Jeffrey started on hospital bills. His daughter was kept on life support for just over a month before she passed. He’d been paying for the rest of his life, which was about four times the life amount of time she got. 

Elmer broke his arm in three places. Colleen busted her ankle tripping over a leyline or rubble, something of the sort. With each talk, Steve felt himself growing more and more anxious. He was hot, too hot, and the guilt he felt for his friends just compacted, knowing his mistakes affected so many more people. So many more than Joyce liked to remind him he saved.

He felt sick, the coffee twisting in a mostly empty stomach. His temple throbbed, eyes winced under the buzz of the florescents. His own body ached, where ribs healed and shoulders popped back into place. His teeth hurt, feeling all of those punches all over again, and he was just a fucking kid. He couldn’t imagine what everyone else felt, was feeling. 

When the meeting ended, he shuffled upright in silence, sliding his vest back on and stuffing the box of paint under one arm to scurry out of there with the rest of the group. He’d tossed the box in the trunk, with the bat, hands itching to round the handle, to poke holes in something meaty and fleshy and horrifying. He slammed the trunk and hopped into the driver’s side to start the ignition and warm himself up. He needed a stiff drink and a hot shower, or maybe he just needed a drive.

He cranked the heater until the windshield fogged and massaged the leather of his steering wheel into the pads of his palms. He popped the clutch in and shifted into reverse, throwing his hand over the headrest of the passenger’s seat until he noticed your car behind him. The lights were off and it sat cold. Shit. He almost forgot. 

He took the car out of gear and tried to relax his shoulders, tried to excite himself about what you could possibly have to talk to him about. He couldn’t imagine past the pain, the guilt. You were probably going to condemn him for the shit he put you through, complain about some stab to the back that would never, could never fully heal. 

He screamed and gripped the steering wheel, shaking it as much as he could in its locked position along the column. Mostly, he shook himself. Just when he thought he was getting better. Fuck.

His lungs felt tight when you exited, Cheryl in tow, locking up behind you. The two of you muttered, making eyes his direction, and Cheryl offered him a wave before walking to her car, and you separated to walk to the passenger side of his car. He leaned over to unlock the door for you, moving his scarf from the seat so you could sit down. 

You sunk into the seat with a sigh, breath fogged, and closed the door behind you. “It’s nice and warm in here,” you shivered, holding small hands to the vents of his heater. 

He didn’t know what to say, so he said nothing, waiting on you.

You glanced at him from under your lashes and shoved your hands into the pockets of your denim jacket. “I thought you ditched me.” 

“I uh…” He swallowed. He couldn’t lie to you, but he didn’t want you to know he forgot. “Nope.” Smooth.

He could just make you out in the reflection of his headlights against the wall, a splash of warm yellow across your features, and you seemed to be watching him the same way he watched you, a bit timid, unsure. 

“So,” you spoke simultaneously, followed by nervous laughter. 

“You go,” Steve gestured, chewing the inside of his cheek. 

You breathed, relaxed into the seat beside him. “Okay, I feel stupid. This is maybe kind of stupid.” 

“What?” He smiled. He could never find you stupid. 

“I just don’t have many friends here that are my age.” You sputtered around the words, taking time with them, but your face scrunched up as though you weren’t pleased with the way the sentence played out. 

“You want to be my friend?” He could have flown. 

“God, no,” you rolled your eyes, but your smile gave away the sarcasm. “I just figured you might be a bigger loser than me and would want to be my friend.” You explained, releasing a dry laugh in case he couldn’t pick up the joking tone. 

“Oooh, I don’t know. Two losers being friends? Isn’t that against the rules?” He teased back.

You scrunched up your nose. “You’re probably right.” 

“Hey, so,” he ran a hand through his hair before stretching it to your headrest. Your knit cap brushed against his thumb as you turned to look at him. “Do you want to hang out sometime?” 

You rolled your eyes and pulled a rolled piece of paper from your pocket. “Don’t get ahead of yourself. I wanted to give you this, and now it feels like forty times more lame.”

You handed it to him, and he looked from the paper to you and back before starting to unfurl it from one end. You slapped your hands to his to stop him, yours slender and freezing. 

“Don’t look at it now! For Christ’s sake, wait until I’m in my car!”

Steve laughed at the frantic tone of your voice. You were genuinely embarrassed about whatever this was, and that was beyond endearing. You bit back a smile of your own, and Steve rolled it back into the fist of one hand. 

“Whatever I’m leaving.” You pulled the handle and your door popped open, a gust of cold air fanned Steve’s face. “Oh, and I’m not going to be here next week.”

“What? Why?” He frowned. 

You shrugged, turned away from him and exited the car. “Personal stuff. I’ll talk to you soon though maybe?”

He leaned over to see your waggled fingers, watched you pull your keys from your jacket pocket. “Okay, sure.” 

“Bye, Steve,” you smiled, and he waved before you closed the door.

—

“I thought I was having a stroke,” Steve sighed, passing the note you’d given him to Robin. She unfurled it, eyebrows furrowed as she looked at the scattered page of numbers and letters you’d scrawled between the blue rule of notebook paper. 

“Looks like a pretty standard cypher to me,” Erica pointed out, connecting the dots with her finger to the page. “Letters are numbers, numbers are letters.” 

“Nerd,” Dustin took glee in the nickname, and Erica flipped him the bird. 

“She’s right, Steve. This is low level shit.” Robin pulled the phone along the counter, the ringer dinging over the split in sections. “C’mere.” She tugged at the crook of Steve’s elbow until he stood over her and the note, pointing out exactly how you’d created the cypher. “It’s like the numbers on a phone, see? So B would be 2, K is 5, O is 6, get it?” 

Dustin handed her a pen from the cup near the register, and Robin began to translate all of the letters until she had a seven digit number. “Holy shit, dude. She gave you her number.” Dustin held his hand up for a high-five, and Steve resisted. Though his heart did an odd rhythm against his ribs. 

“Okay, okay, what does the rest of it say?” He chewed on the inside of his cheek, knee bouncing as he leaned on the counter. 

“This part says ‘Call Me.’” Erica tilted her head, pointing to a series of numbers in the middle of the page. 2255 63. 

“How the hell did you get that?” Steve felt a headache pulling between his eyes. He pinched the bridge of his nose. 

“Context clues, dumbass.” 

“‘The game’s afoot.’” Dustin read in that British accent he was annoyingly good at. 

“What?” Steve sighed, watching Robin scribble in the rest of the code. 

“It’s Sherlock Holmes.”

Steve was starting to get really irritated with their tone. He sighed, so confused, and waited for Robin to finish her scribbling before she stepped out of his way and handed him the receiver to the phone. He frowned, but took it from her and leaned over the counter to read the translated version of your note. 

The game’s afoot. Call me, Sherlock. Followed by your name and number. He blinked down at it a few times before Robin slammed her fingers down on the phone to spark the dial tone loud and clear. Steve felt his mouth go dry, but he held the phone to his ear and started slamming in numbers. 

It rang once, twice, three times. He glanced up at the clock on the wall. It was nearly 5pm. Maybe you were on your way home from work. Should he leave a message? Did they get the numbers right? 

“Hello?” 

He breathed your name. “Hi, it’s Steve.” 

“Steve, oh my God, hey. You solved it that fast, huh? That’s so embarrassing.” The sound of your laughter from the other end made his stomach knot. 

Erica made kissy faces from the other side of the counter, and he shooed her away. Dustin and Robin followed up the kissy faces, and he flipped the three of them off. They backed away with snickers. He turned his back to them and picked up the phone, walking across the check out station for a more private corner. 

“So… now that you’ve called,” you pressed on. He heard bangs from your end, like maybe you were putting away your dishes or groceries, the creak of cupboard hinges. “Are you busy tonight?” 

“Tonight?” He stood up straight, glancing sideways at his friends eavesdropping in a nearby aisle. Robin flashed him a knowing smirk. “I think I’m free tonight.” 

“Great,” he could hear the smile in your voice. “Would you maybe like to go for a drive?” 

“A drive sounds… great.” 

“I’ll give you my address. Got a pen?” 

—

Steve promised Robin a quarter of a week’s pay and that he would ‘get laid’ (which made him incredibly sweaty) to get her to entertain the hooligans for the evening without him. He promised Erica a day’s pay, plus tax, to allow him to bail, and she begrudgingly agreed to paint his model for him. Her eyes lit up when he unveiled the expensive paint and brushes. Dustin didn’t care so much, as long as Steve promised to take care of himself, which always made Steve a little itchy, but he did.

So, with his friends on the back burner for one more evening, he raced in the direction of your house. He recognized the area as you spoke it. You lived off Cherry, very close to where Max lived before her and her mom moved to the trailer park. He always dreaded dropping her home if he saw that blue Camaro looming in the driveway. Billy had left him alone after that night at the Byers, but the sight of him still made Steve a little gun-shy. 

Cherry was dimly lit this time of night, this time of year, a cascade of warmth across a desolate neighborhood. To be fair, most neighborhoods in Hawkins were void of cars or residents anymore, a ghost town. He slipped past Max’s old place, for sale sign still swinging in the yard, and pulled up three doors down at your house. 

It was small, cozy, blue with white trim and the glow of life from inside sheer curtained windows. Steve pulled into a little divot in carved in front of your yard and turned off the ignition. His mom taught him at a young age that it was always polite to pick a girl up at the door. All of the girls he dated seemed impressed so far. 

But for you, when he pitched open the door, you startled him with a “Hello!”, already halfway down the drive. 

“Hey,” Steve smiled over the roof. You hadn’t dressed up for him, which he appreciated, but you no longer wore your knit cap, hair neat and tucked behind your ears. He faltered for a moment, wondering if he should open your door for you, but you were already there and climbing in, so he followed you back into the warmth of his little car. 

“You look nice,” he said. Always good to start with a compliment. 

You flashed a smile and turned to look him over as you buckled your seatbelt. “Thanks, you too. I do like those glasses on you.” 

He felt his smile widen, turning the ignition. “You do?” 

“Yeah, they make you look smart.”

Thank God for that. Steve flipped the headlights back on and pulled himself out of the rut and back onto the road. The pavement was a bit rocky out here, the Earthquake having mixed everything up. Hawkins had prioritized the roadwork through the center of town and less so in the lower income areas. Not that you were lower income. He swallowed. “So, where to?” 

“The Lake?” You asked like he didn’t have a choice, and he felt itchy under the collar. 

“Why the Lake?” He was afraid of your answer.

You shrugged beside him, face illuminated by each passing streetlamp. “I’ve never been.” 

He smiled at that. “It’s a lot nicer in the daytime.” 

“I’m sure it is,” you agreed. “But if we go in the daytime, we’re more likely to get caught.” 

“Get caught?” His adrenaline prickled then. He couldn’t decide if he was more intrigued or terrified, but either way, he stepped on the gas a little harder. 

You ignored his question. “So, Steve who enjoys Sherlock Holmes and driving and Family Ties, tell me about yourself.” You sunk into your chair, lifting your hands to warm on the heater vents like you had the night before. Despite his warmth, Steve leaned to turn up the flow for you. 

“Sounds like you pretty much know it all.” 

You laughed. “Come on, there’s gotta be some dirt in there, right? Everyone has to have at least one fatal flaw.” 

“Sure,” he nodded. “Everyone does. I just don’t. That’s my curse.” 

You threw your head back in a barked laugh this time. He enjoyed the raw sound of it, the curve of your throat under lamplight. 

He shrugged, turned onto the main road, shifting into third. “No, I don’t know. What do you want to know?” 

“What do you really like to do for fun?” You challenged. 

He risked a glance your direction again, and you were turned on the console to watch him, eyes careful, scrutinizing. “Answer for answer?” 

You rolled your eyes and faced front again. “Fine.” 

He slowed down, turned south onto Curly. “I like spending time with my friends. We watch too many movies. Smoke a lot of weed.” 

“Steve, I’m a cop!” You blurted, incredulous, and he might have been alarmed if he didn’t have insider knowledge. You took a moment to gage his reaction before following up with a, “Not intimidated by the 5-0. A bad boy.” 

He snorted. “My friend’s Dad is the Chief of Police.” And the shit he’s seen is way scarier.

“Shit,” you laughed. “You don’t strike me as a stoner, but I’ll accept it as your answer.” 

“Good,” he tutted. “Your turn.” 

“No, no, no. Ask me something new. I don’t want to be the only one coming up with questions here.” 

Steve chuckled at your point and thought for a moment. There were so many things he wanted to ask you. He hoped he’d have all night. He glanced sideways at you, watched you stare out at the trees and fields as they rolled by, truly like you were seeing everything for the first time. Maybe he’d softball you your first one. “What brought you to Hawkins?” 

“Needed a fresh start.” Your tone was a bit clipped, a bit far-off. 

Steve felt the tension twang between you, and tried to alleviate it. “Jesus. Where were you coming from, super max prison?” 

You snorted, quiet for a moment longer before you turned back to face him. “One question at a time. Do you have any pets?”

You two carried on like this for a while. He learned you preferred savory to sweet foods. You didn’t go to college. You had a myriad of pets growing up: dogs, rabbits, lizards. You didn’t play any instruments. You were more of a night owl these days. You didn’t sleep much. 

That, you had in common. Steve slipped into a parking spot a few feet from the boat ramp. This area of the lake was used for campsites in the summer months, boat parties, barbecues. This year had been void of any sort of celebration. No campers pitched tents or parked RVs. And now, nearing November, the shores were sticky with disuse, water bobbing buoys a hundred yards or so in.

“Here she is,” Steve sighed, gripping the steering wheel with clammy palms. His headlights illuminated the dull waves in front of them, cast a warmth on a clear evening. He was thankful not to see past the surface, to the gate below, the tear in dimensions, the gaping maw that swallowed him whole and spat him back out the other side, bruised and bloodied. “Lovers Lake.” 

“Why is it called Lovers Lake?” You asked, your voice more playful than the horrors tickling his spine. He wished he could focus on you, wished he could match your energy. Maybe this was a mistake.

“It’s uh…” He scratched at the base of his neck. “It’s shaped like a heart. From an aerial view.” He made a heart in the air with two pointer fingers, a demonstration in shadows and silhouette. Freddie Mercury crooned softly on the radio. 

“You like to swim, right?” You unclipped your seat belt to get comfortable. 

He shrugged. “I used to. Swim team captain, head lifeguard.” Accolades he used to brag about, still helped him get girls. Now it felt like ash in his mouth. 

“Ever been skinny dipping?” You reached down and were slipping out of your sneakers, your socks. 

“I… wh-what?” He swallowed, suddenly zoned in on your fingers undoing the buttons to your denim jacket. 

“You know… naked, swimming, usually late at night as to not get caught…” You slipped your jacket off your shoulders and made to shuck off your jeans. 

“It’s freezing,” he argued, mouth dry from the curve of your thighs against his car seat.

“You don’t have to join me,” you teased, pulling your sweater over your head. Your hair caught on the wool, creating a static charge. Flyaways stuck up to touch the felted ceiling. 

“You, uh…” He blinked again, tried not to stare at the cups of your bra or the swell of your breasts spilling from it. “You’re going to catch a cold.” 

You shrugged. “I’ve had worse.” You reached behind you to pull at the tab holding your bra together, but as you did so, you leaned fully into his space, warm body against his. He could smell the floral scent of your shampoo. He opened his mouth to ask what you were doing, when you reached past the steering wheel to flick off the headlights, flooding the car and area surround in darkness. 

“No peeking.” You whispered and opened the car door. The dome light turned on, and Steve watched your bra fall to your discarded seat before the door closed and the silhouette of your frame went springing down the ramp toward the water. 

Cursing under his breath, Steve made sure the car was in park and wouldn’t roll, before he got out and followed you. He kept his clothes on, sneakers slipping a little on the ramp, but made his way down a dilapidated wood dock near where he saw the curve of your back disappear into the dark waves. He peered into the water, eyes adjusting to the moonlight cresting too far off, and called your name.

You shushed him from the edge of the dock, fingers holding you afloat, hair slicked back to your head, cheesy smile lighting your features. “This water’s freezing,” your teeth chattered through a laugh.

“I bet,” he winced, remembering the prickle of needles that was ice cold water. “Ever heard of pneumonia?” 

“Ever heard of a rush?” You countered, kicking off from the dock to dunk back under the water and swim a few feet off. He watched the swells of your body as you did so, lumps that rose and fell like waves, soft, unbothered. He wished he had that freedom, wished he didn’t have the knowledge he did, the trauma. 

You popped up a few feet away, gasping for a breath, and Steve felt himself tense. He looked around, wondering how deep it was. If you needed rescuing, he could springboard off the edge of this dock and reach you in seconds. He kicked off the heel of one sneaker.

“Steve!” You called, taking a few breast strokes his direction. “Can I borrow your jacket?” 

He had a blanket tucked into the backseat, which you teased him about. You made him turn around so you could get out of the water, and you let him look again when you’d wrapped yourself in it. You let him swing an arm around you to walk you back to the car, and he cranked the heat. The volume of the vents rivaled the chattering of your teeth, but you laughed louder and went on and on about how great the water felt, how Steve was missing out.

Per your request, Steve drove out of city limits to find a fast food restaurant, somewhere with greasy French fries and a drive-up window, and you pulled a wad of bills from your jacket pocket to buy him a hamburger that he enjoyed on his drive home. You discussed music taste and your lack of involvement in high school clubs or sports, and things remained fairly surface level until you were back on the looping hills of Curly.

“You seemed really upset yesterday,” you started, the softest he’d heard your voice all night.

Steve clenched his jaw around the straw of his Coke, slurped the last syrupy goodness from the icy base. He glanced your direction, your expression of concern cast yellow in lamplight. With a sigh, he placed his cup back into the cupholder. “You could tell, huh?” 

You smiled at that, nodded, hair still damp around your ears. “I’ve got a knack for reading people.” 

“That so?” He felt a smirk tugging as he rounded a particular sharp corner, the one that curved down into Merrill’s. He downshifted a gear. “What am I thinking about now?” 

You didn’t waste a beat. “You’re being flirtatious. Our night’s coming to a close. You saw a boob.” 

He felt warmth lick at his earlobes from the collar of his sweater. He swallowed. “I did not.” He didn’t really. He saw the swell, a curve, under-boob at best, and he knew he’d be thinking about it for days. 

“And,” you interrupted, slender finger prodding at his bicep, “you’re deflecting.”

He deflated a little, mind dragged back to the guilt he’d felt in that room. 

“Hey, I’m not going to make you talk about it, or whatever.” You sounded so casual, like it all rolled off of you, shoving your feet back into socks and shoes. “I just wanted to let you know I picked up on it, and I’m here if you do want to talk.”

Steve licked his lips and waited for a straight-away to watch you, knee to your chest to tie your laces, two bunny ears into a double knot. The pavement sloped downward, into suburbia, and he could already feel you slipping out of his grasp. 

He cleared his throat, turned down Cherry, the long way. “I just feel bad, you know? Guilty. I don’t like seeing all of those nice people hurting.” The honesty felt raw in his throat, like it did every session, like this gas leaking out of him.

You glanced at him then, brows knit in contemplation, and you shrugged. “Everyone hurts sometimes. It’s not your fault.”

“Why are you there?” He asked, tried to sound as casual as you had, but he wanted more, needed more sweet morsels of you to savor for the week ahead. 

You wrapped your fingers tightly around the seatbelt at the center of your chest, thumb playing with a bit of fray there, but your gaze remained on the horizon, on the houses and lights that illuminated your cheekbones in flashes. “I mean, you went because your friend’s mom asked you too, right?” 

Steve shrugged, slowed to a crawl as your little house came into view. 

“Right. And Dolores is there for her husband, and Jeffrey goes for his daughter, and I think maybe we all started going for someone else and ended up showing up for each other.” The way you said it was so resolute, and Steve couldn’t shake off the implication that you were showing up for him. Was he reading too much into that? 

The click of your seatbelt alerted him that he’d stopped, somehow managed to halt just in front of the walkway that led up to your stoop. He scrambled with the buckle of his own belt, ready to walk you up, but paused when he felt a cold hand against his wrist. He looked up to meet your gaze.

“I can walk myself inside.” Again, with the confidence of a different woman, someone he’d only caught glimpses of, out of the conference room and away from metal chairs scraped against linoleum floors.

“When can I see you again?” He was desperate for it, far from calm and collected, missed the grip of your slender fingers when you released him to open the passenger door. The dome light flicked on, bathing you in warmth. He could see a smudge of mascara beneath your eye, the collar of your jacket dipped dark and damp. The corners of your lips turned up into a smile. “Thursday?” 

With one word, your smile was washed away, confidence replaced by timid shoulders, licked lips. You shook your head. “No, I’ll be out Thursday, remember?”

He vaguely remembered, hoped it was a nightmare, some passing fear that you were slipping away from him. “Can I call you?” 

Again, you shook your head, eyebrows folded. “I’ll be out. I’ll call you.” 

He swallowed, that familiar panic crawling up his chest, though he wasn’t sure why. Maybe because he couldn’t wait that long, didn’t want to wait that long. He let out a shaky breath, offered a smile. “Cool.” Smooth.

You chuckled at that, released a breath of a laugh that he wanted to catch and shove into his pocket for safe keeping. You must have noticed his joy at the sound, because your eyes lit with something mischievous, and you rolled them. “God, one look at my tits and you’re like a lost puppy.” 

His face heated, jaw fell open at the mention of them again, and he ran a hand over his face and through his hair, stammering some sort of defense. “I didn’t see them!” He fucking squeaked. 

Your laugh was louder now, back to that groove of comfort and warmth, head thrown back, white teeth sparkling in lamplight. “Goodnight, Steve.” He liked the way his name sounded on your tongue, liked the way your eyes sparkled, the stretch and pout of your lips.

Then you were leaning in, too close, all encompassing. You smelled Earthy, like lake water, and sticky sweet like Coca-Cola, and before Steve had a second to register what was happening, your lips pressed to the corner of his mouth, and you were pulling away. He chased you across the center console, hoping for the sweet taste again, the plush of your lips against his, the warmth of the crook of your elbow, a fingertip, but you were quicker. 

A gust of winter air fanned his face, and he dipped low to see you grinning back from outside the car, fingers waggled his direction. “Thanks for the drive.” 

“I’ll call you,” he promised.

You shook your head, but the smile didn’t falter. “I’ll call you.” You closed the door with a click, dome lamp turning off, and he watched the length of your legs carry you up the walkway to the front porch, light on your feet and bathed in moonlight. 

—

Steve called you the next day, from work, hunched over the counter to hide himself behind a stack of tapes while Robin scrambled to help everyone in the store. You hadn’t answered, voicemail flat and unfriendly. He panicked and hung up before the beep. 

Sunday, Robin convinced him to quit being a stalker, explained that breathing into the receiver was something a serial killer did, and that he didn’t need to come off so clingy, and she was right. So he didn’t try you again.

By Thursday, you still hadn’t called him, and he felt uneasy, like he’d done something entirely wrong. Some stupid Steve Harrington bullshit that had upset you, something he wouldn’t understand until you were in a bathroom, drunk, calling him bullshit. He winced, rolling into the DMV parking lot, headlights sparkling on the thin layer of frost that spread across the grass this week.

The little conference room echoed with chatter, weekly catch-ups, as the smell of burnt coffee coated the air. Steve accepted an M&M cookie from Mina with warmth tickling under his collar. The woman had crumbs on the corner of her lips, but something about her presence reminded him of Joyce and of Claudia, and of all the surrogate mothers that had taken him in when his own was too busy to nurse his wounds and feed him something not cooked in a microwave. 

He considered not showing up, holing himself in his big, empty house, with nothing but the whirring of the microwave. He’d been that way all week, eyes unfocused on the fireplace while his mind grasped to remember the image of your shape in the water, the feel of your lips against his, the sound of your laughter. Your voice echoed around his skull though, the only clarity his mind offered him over the last week. “We all started going for someone else and ended up showing up for each other.”

So, with Carl and Elmer, and even sweet Mina, on the brain, he wrestled into his puffer jacket and grit his teeth past the chill of winter while he scraped the windshield of his car. If he tried, he could imagine them as his friends, adult versions of the little shits that tormented (and enriched) his life, but he wasn’t sure if that would make things easier or harder, especially after the heartache he felt the week before. He slumped into his seat and split his cookie in half, soft and gooey. He’d just have to wait and see how today’s session went. 

Cheryl clacked in with a bright smile, clipboard on her hip like a well-loved toddler, gazing around the group over the rim of her glasses. She poured herself a cup of coffee as the group calmed, though with the look on her face, Steve wasn’t sure she needed more caffeine. “Hello, everyone!” She greeted in a sing-song.

“What’s got you so chipper today, missy?” Dolores asked, her own eyes sparkling behind bejeweled spectacles. 

Cheryl sucked in her smile and took a sip of her coffee before she settled into her seat across from Steve. His heart ached at the blank space beside her. 

“She’s chipper because of that rock on her finger,” Elmer commented. “Jesus Christ, Cheryl, that thing must weigh a ton.” 

Steve’s eyes went to the engagement ring on her finger, hand holding her cup aloft for all to see. The room erupted in a buzz of excitement and congratulations and questions, and even Steve himself felt the corners of his lips tug into a proud smile. 

She just looked so happy, skin flushing, hair bouncing in agreement as she hid smiles behind waved hands, trying to calm the crowd. “Thank you, thank you. I know, very exciting.” She scolded, but the smile could not be swept from her face. “Shush!”

Showing up for each other. Steve glanced once more to your empty seat and wondered how you’d react to the news. A shiver wracked through him at the thought of your own elation, of the smile playing at pink lips while your eyes flashed to his with mischief. 

“Yes, yes, the rumors are true. Thomas finally proposed. And I refuse to waste any more time on the details, so if you’re really interested, ask me after group.” She flashed a timid wink Mina’s direction before setting her coffee on your empty chair and adjusting her knees in her pencil skirt. She wrapped fingernails to her clipboard, pausing to watch the sparkle of her diamond before she clapped her dainty hands together. “I’m glad to see all of you in good spirits today. I know this time of year can be especially difficult, with the holidays coming up.” 

Steve shuffled in his own seat, ventured a bite of cookie. It was soft and sweet, and he nearly choked when he noticed Mina was watching him. He gave her a thumbs up and a smile, and she seemed delighted at the praise. 

“Since we won’t be here next week, let’s practice gratitude. Our ice breaker will be something we’re thankful for.” 

The concept of an ice breaker always sent a bit of anxiety through him, that stutter of a heartbeat that he’d say the wrong thing, something stupid or embarrassing. He couldn’t decide if your absence made it easier or more difficult. On one hand, he couldn’t say anything to deter you, on the other, he couldn’t tell you he was thankful for your presence in this group, for the smiles of encouragement. He couldn’t tell you he was thankful for the night you’d had on Friday. He couldn’t tell you he’d been thinking about you all week. 

His hands clammed up as the answers formed from around the circle, a wide range of gratitude from time spent with Jeffrey’s daughter while she was still alive to the Colts latest season. His brain wracked for an answer of his own, and his mouth felt a little dry.

“Steve, what are you thankful for?” Cheryl offered an encouraging smile. 

He floundered a bit, licking his lips, staring at your open seat. He swallowed, and opened his mouth to speak, but was cut off from a stern voice to his left. 

“May I?” Carl was leaned forward, elbows on his knees.

Steve nodded, thankful for the distraction. Mina also seemed unbothered by the skip, a knowing smile playing across her lips. 

“I’m thankful for this young man, right here.” Carl pointed, long arms and gnarled finger almost reaching Steve’s chest. 

Steve felt himself blinking, felt his mouth bob open again. 

“Because his bravery showing up to this group every week, with all of us old folks, gave me the courage to talk to my grandson about his feelings with all of this.” He twisted his finger in the air to demonstrate the world around them. “He’s a tough kid, my Joel, but I knew he was taking this really hard. He’s only fourteen, and he lost a few friends. He just started high school, made the basketball team, and I could tell he’s nervous. So I chatted with him, and we had a real good talk.” 

Steve could feel the emotion swell in his chest, that familiar bubble of pride that tightened his ribcage. 

The older man’s jaw was tight, hands clamped into fists, as though he was uncertain of Steve’s response, maybe slightly uncomfortable with all of the attention on him. 

“What position does he play?” 

Carl’s eyes lit at that, his mouth twisted into a smirk. “Post.” 

Steve nodded. “Cool. I’m friends with Lucas Sinclair. He’s on the team too. Maybe we could get together and do a pick-up.” 

The old man nodded, released the tension in his shoulders. His chair squeaked as he sat back into it. “I think we’d really like that.” Showing up for each other.

—

Decorative plates clattered on their displays a few feet above Steve’s head. He was elbow deep in sudsy water, and breathless grunting and the whoosh of air had him rutted up against the countertop, soaking the front of his sweater in sink water. He grit his teeth and glanced over his shoulder to see Eddie take a swipe at Dustin, easily dodged, curled hair and red faces everywhere. 

“Will you two quit horsing around?” He snapped, glasses falling down the bridge of his nose and right eyebrow itching only because his hands were coated in bubbles and grease. 

“Yeah, Dustin, quit picking on me. Daddy Steve’s going to ground you,” Eddie grinned, opening the refrigerator to pull a bright red can of Redi Whip from beside a milk carton. He tilted his head backwards, aerosol making a choked sound before Steve watched a dollop of whipped cream spill upwards from between Eddie’s lips.

“Gross, dude,” Steve grumbled, grabbing around for another dish to clean. “This isn’t even your house.” 

“Joyce?” Eddie yelled, mouth full, all of the gumption of a school kid calling for his Mom. Dustin snickered and took the canister from the older boy’s hands. “Is it okay if Dustin and I have some whipped cream?” 

Joyce appeared around the corner with her hands full of serving platters. “Of course, sweetheart.” She offered Steve a knowing smile, blowing dark hair from her eyes before setting the plates near a stack of Tupperware containers ready to be filled. “But when you’re done contaminating my Redi whip, think you guys can head outside and quit horsing around in my kitchen?” 

Dustin coughed on his whipped cream, earning a rough slap on the back before the two boys chuckled their way out of the room to harass Will and El and Max into a game of touch football.

“Sorry about them,” Steve sighed, scrubbing dried gravy and trying not to think about how the sink reminded him of the Upside Down. 

“Boys will be boys,” Joyce chuckled, and not a consonant was mean. He’d seen Joyce mean, hackles up, defending her cubs, defending him. It was terrifying. 

“Joyce,” the name always felt weird on his tongue. He’d been raised to be respectful.

She looked up with that same twinkle in her eye, slopping stuffing into separate containers. 

“I just uh…” The back of his neck itched. He pushed his glasses up his nose with his forearm, splattering soapy water across a lens. He wiped it off to procure a smudge. He sighed. “I just wanted to thank you for suggesting that group therapy thing.” 

“Yeah?” She grinned. 

He shrugged, avoided her gaze by picking cranberry sauce off a plate with his nail. “Yeah, it’s a really nice group of people. I’m actually going to play basketball with one guy and his grandkid.” 

“Oh, Steve, that’s so great!” Joyce cheered, soft-spoken and kind. “I had a feeling you’d get something from it. And what about that girl?” 

His heart stuttered at the mention of you, stomach sinking. It had been two weeks since he heard from you, two weeks since the drive, two weeks since your dip in the lake. You still hadn’t called, and he hadn’t wanted to clog your voicemail. He’d been hung out to dry, clinging to the line in some hopes you didn’t totally hate him. “What about her?” He swallowed.

Joyce shrugged, preoccupied with the mashed potatoes. “She seemed really sweet, and your age. I wondered if you two were friends. She seemed so lonely after losing her husband, and I just really hoped she could find some friends here in Hawkins.”

The plate slid out of Steve’s fingers, crashing against the bottom of the tin sink, and he cursed under his breath, chasing it to pull from the water and check for cracks. It seemed fine. Rinsing it in hot water, he chewed over Joyce’s words. When the plate was safely deposited on the drying rack and the sink stop had been pulled to drain the suds, he turned back to the woman spooning mashed potatoes as though she hadn’t said anything Earth-shattering. 

He said your name to get her attention, asked it, really. “The girl with the denim jacket?” 

Joyce smiled, eyes sparkling with the same mischief he found in your own eyes, and she described you to a T. “Very pretty girl, isn’t she?”

He swallowed, dried his knuckles with a damp hand towel.

—

Carl and Elmer were bickering about the NBA, voices gruff, arms crossed. Steve felt warm, despite the couple of inches of snow Hawkins got in the last few days, coffee in hand, fluorescents flickering a steady beat in the corner. Just over Elmer’s thin shoulder, one of the heavy steel doors popped open, and you slipped inside, shaking snow off your knit cap, and pulling gloves from your fingers, one fingertip at a time. 

Steve’s breath caught in his chest, released only in a wheeze when you met his gaze and he watched every beautiful feature light up, cheeks plump and teeth white. If he wasn’t warm before, he was flooded with it now, collar hot and itchy around his neck. He raked his fingers through his hair, unsure where to put his hands, sneakers squeaked against linoleum as he shifted his stance. 

You waggled your fingers in a greeting and shuffled your shoes against the damp floor mat.

Steve’s mind raced with conflict. On the one hand, you hadn’t called. For three weeks, radio silence on your end. The only comfort he’d gained was from driving past your house late Monday night to find your lights on. You hadn’t answered any of his calls. On the other hand, you were real and alive, and your warm smile drew him like a magnet. He excused himself from the present argument and met you at the snack table.

“Hi,” he managed. Smooth. 

“Hey,” you didn’t look up at him, eyelashes long against your cheeks. You tucked a napkin into one hand and pulled the pen from the sign-up sheet on a clipboard. “Can you do me a favor and please give me your number?” 

Steve felt his entire body heat from embarrassment. Of course you hadn’t called. You didn’t have his fucking number. “I’m such an idiot.” He sputtered, pulling the utensil from your hand to scribble his digits on the soft ply of a napkin. 

“No, I’m an idiot,” you assured, squeezing his bicep with slender fingers. “I’m the one who promised to call without even asking for your number. You probably thought I hated you.” 

Steve smiled, shrugged. “I was overthinking everything I said.” The confession spilled out before he could stop it, and he hoped it sounded a lot more suave, sarcastic, flirtatious. But then he froze, immediately question whether or not you wanted him to flirt. You had said you wanted more friends, and if Joyce was right, and you’d recently lost your husband, maybe Steve was in over his head. “I mean…” He stammered, carding his hand through his hair again. 

But you smiled, eyes still cast downward as you poured coffee from the carafe into a styrofoam cup. He thought back to the time you’d spilled, the time you’d come in entirely too distraught. He wondered if it was somehow related to your Husband’s death. He swallowed. 

“On second thought, maybe it was your fault.” You glanced up then, eyes sparkling. He bristled. “You never told me your parents’ names. Are you related to every Harrington in the phone book?” You took a sip, glancing around the room. Your energy was a bit frenetic, flitting back and forth over the faces of your group, an unease tensing your shoulders.

Whereas he relaxed, endeared that you’d thumbed through the white pages to find him. “John and Linda,” he offered, tipping the rim of his cup to yours to bring your attention back to him.

You took another sip, but held his gaze, holding the coffee in the pockets of your cheeks for a moment, chewing a thought before the corners of your lips turned up into that world-ending smile. “Steven John Harrington?” 

He felt his nose wrinkle in disgust. Though maybe, if he had been named after his dad, the old man might have taken him more seriously. He shook his head. “Francis. After my mom’s dad.”

You ignited at that, that spark he yearned to spill out of you. He wanted to bathe in it. He could feel the rumble of your chuckle in your throat, the tease he’d been used to since childhood, but felt sticky sweet from you, if only he could push you over-the-edge, procure a full-out laugh.

The closing of heavy double doors broke the spell. You looked away first, to Cheryl, and Steve watched the smile and cheer wipe from your features and replace with creased concern. He followed your gaze to the slender woman, hair perfectly coifed and eyes red beneath her spectacles. 

“Can I have everyone sit please?” She croaked, almost a whisper, the softest Steve had ever witnessed. A chill settled at the base of his skull. 

Chatter turned to grumbled concern as everyone made their way to their seats. Steve felt your hand grip his tightly, just for a moment, before you left him to sit at his twelve, your frame curved at attention toward Cheryl. You pulled a leg up, rested your head on your knee, a defense mechanism, he supposed, body-armor. He glanced sideways to offer Mina a reassuring smile, and she returned it, tight-lipped. 

“Hello, everyone. I come bearing grave news.” Cheryl wrung her fingers against the top of her clipboard, diamond sparkling beneath the fluorescents. She glanced upward, making eye contact with each person in the circle. Almost a full group, Steve noted. “I just learned that Jeffrey passed away over Thanksgiving.”

A flutter of gasps circulated, and everyone’s eyes settled on that empty chair, a little cock-eyed, cast in shadow at an awkward post between two banks of lights. Steve’s heart sank. He wracked his brain for every fact he knew about the man with red hair and mousy eyes, who spoke so highly of the daughter he missed so dearly. 

He felt his hand start to tremble, knee bouncing with anxiety. Glancing across the circle, he noticed you’d pulled your other leg up, barricaded, eyes glazed over, chin trembling just beyond your fingertips.

“I just want to reiterate to you all how important this group is, and how much you all mean to me, and to each other,” Cheryl spoke, slow and self-assured, almost stern. “I understand how this might be too much for some of you, and if you wish to go, by all means, do what you think is best for you, but I do encourage you to push through, to stay, for your fellow group members. Some of us have no one to lean on but each other.” 

Steve watched your shoulders slump, and you stared directly at the ground, arms coming to link around your knees. 

—

Steve’s throat burned, raw, and his eyes stung, and his God damn hand wouldn’t stop trembling. He wanted to pulverize something, to build up the callouses in his palms and wind up to swing his bat through something fleshy and disgusting. He said polite goodbyes with gritted teeth and a clenched fists, held in his emotion to give Carl and Elmer manly smiles and nods. He tossed battered styrofoam into a bin and tore out of there to suck in fresh, frigid air.

Ice cold hit his face like a ton of bricks, stinging at his nostrils and catching the air in his lungs, but it felt so refreshing. It was so much better than the muggy, stale air of a conference room filled with so much grief, so much loss, so much pain.

“Steve!” Your voice called, reeling him back to reality, and he turned to see you. You were bleary eyed, red-nosed, pulling your gloves from your pockets. 

He took a calming breath, nodded for you to follow him around the corner and out of earshot. When he got you close enough to feel the warmth of your knit hat, he mumbled. “How are you holding up?” As though it weren’t obvious, as though everyone wasn’t a wreck.

You looked up from your gloves, face half-shadowed in exterior lamplight. Your breath fogged at the bottom of his lenses, and your bottom lip trembled with a swallow. “I just…” You glanced around the parking lot before tucking your hand into his own. Your gloves were scratchy, but warm. “I just don’t want to be alone.” 

He gave a curt nod and tugged you toward his car. When you got in, closed the door, he threw his arm over the back of your seat and got the Hell out of there, away from the sadness, away from the memories.

You didn’t ask, didn’t say a thing, just buckled and sat with your hands in your lap, tears staining your cheeks as the lights from Suburbia rolled by. 

Instinct carried him to the junkyard, a lead foot on the accelerator and this itching under his skin to hit something. You didn’t question it when he pulled in between the bodies and engines. He pulled right up beside Hargrove’s Camaro, blue-paint charred and covered in snow. “Wait here?” It wasn’t a question. He set his glasses on the dash.

He left the car running to keep you warm, and bitter wind nipped at his ears and his cheeks. He rounded to the trunk to pull out his bat. The handle was warm and chipped in places. The nails were rusted and stained with the blood of monsters, the blood of civilians. He slammed the trunk closed and steadied his grip.

His shoulders were hunched, but he rolled them. Hargrove’s car still held a side-mirror, mirror long shattered, remnants of glass frozen over, but the appendage remained attached to the body, and with a guttural growl and a swing, it was gone. 

That’s all it took, one hit and Steve was no longer in the junkyard, but on the battle field. He was surrounded by bats and demo-creatures and Vecna himself, and he was swinging and screaming, metal dragging against metal, throat raw, until his palms tore and he stumbled to his knees. 

Eyes slammed shut, shallow breaths dragging from between his lips, he tried to wane the dizziness, tried to pull himself back to reality, back to a place where he was forgiven for his sins, for unleashing those creatures on his Home, his People. 

“Steve?” 

Everything flooded back with pounding in his ears at the sound of your voice, the soft warmth of your hand to his cheek. Your face was blurred from tears he wasn’t aware he’d shed, and he ducked himself into your lithe touch. “I’m so sorry,” he croaked. 

“Come on,” you tugged at his shoulder. “Come on, let’s get you warmed up.”

His teeth were chattering. His shoulders wracked with a shiver. He let you pull him upright, let you set him into the backseat, let you pulled the spare blanket up and over his shoulders. The heater whooshed in his ears, and he heard the slam of the trunk before you were crawling in the other side, sidling up beside him, all warm hands and body tucked into his side. 

“What day is it?” 

Steve blinked at the headrest in front of him, tried to process your words. “Wh-what?” 

“Tell me the day of the week, Steve.” Your voice was so calm, so self-assured, wise beyond your years. 

He swallowed. “Thursday.” 

“Good. And what’s my name?” 

He tried to take a few deep breaths, noticed the pressure of your palm against his sternum, focused on it. 

“Say my name, baby,” you cooed, and when Steve’s eyes slammed open, you were over him, all encompassing, hand to his chest, nose brushing his nose. 

He released your name in a breath, like a prayer, and at once, you were swallowing it, warm lips pressed to his own, cupping his cheek, climbing onto his lap. Steve groaned at the weight of you, perfect, grounding, and gripped both of your hips, worshiped your thighs, dragged you into him until no part of his middle had room for the breeze.

“Say it again,” you rasped, head turned skyward. He murmured it into the heat of your throat, vowels meeting your pulse like pressed-palms, but the sound it pulled from your lips was sinful. 

He thought of your curves, cast in moonlight, and now he felt them, desperately digging beneath denim and jersey until frigid fingers met scorching skin. 

You yelped at the touch, but it pulled that throaty laugh from you and Steve realized nothing could ever be wrong again. 

He spoke your name into the junction of you shoulder, where your clavicle dipped, and back to steal your breath from your plump lips. Kissing you was a balm, slow and sweet and soothing, chamomile and honey, a lullaby. 

Your body was a weapon, the steady roll of your hips had him seeing stars. Nimble fingers worked the knots in his shoulders. Your back arched beneath his hand. You seethed his name, nipped at his lips, spread saliva down his throat with expert bites. 

And then your hands found the hem of his shirt, crawled upward to trace puckered flesh, and he felt himself seize up, all at once slammed back into reality. Leather squeaked beneath him. He removed you to favor the seat behind you, squirmed under you, suffocated. 

“It’s okay,” you placated against his earlobe, removed your hands from his shirt to place on his chest once more. 

“No,” he struggled, throat aching, and he gripped your biceps until you released him, pulling back to look at him, pupils blown, brows knit in confusion. He ran a hand through his hair, winced at the sweat that had gathered on his neck. He shook his head. “I can’t. I’m sorry.” 

“Oh,” you swallowed, slid off his lap, the space between you was stale and hot, windows fogged.

“No, I just mean - fuck,” he gasped for air, cranked the window down an inch to alleviate some of the warmth, pressed his skull to the glass. He took a moment to catch his breath before turning back to face you. 

You were adjusting your shirt, your jacket, staring out the windshield, glazed over.

“Hey,” he trailed his fingers across the bench seat to find your own. Yours were too warm, clammy. “I’m sorry.” 

“It’s fine, really,” the corners of your lips turned up, but you weren’t there, weren’t facing him. “I shouldn’t have assumed…” 

“No, God, no,” Steve jumped to remedy the miscommunication. “No, I want this. I want you. Really. I’m like… it scares me how much I’m into you.” He ducked into your line of vision.

Still, you shied. “Yeah?” 

“Yeah,” he chuckled. “That’s why I want to take this slow.” He hoped you heard the subtext. Not here, not tonight, not after today. “Okay?” 

You looked up at him then, that far-off look in your eye, but you managed a shy smile, tucked your bottom lip between your teeth, and you nodded. 

---

A/N: End of part one! Like I said, I've been working on this for absolute ages, and I just wanted to get it out, so I'm splitting it into several parts! It's an angsty one, but I hope you've enjoyed part one. Thanks so much for reading xo xo xo -Amanda

[tickletastic]

Somersweet

Fandom: DC/Young Justice

Ship: Birdflash <333

Summary: A glimpse into Wally and Dick's teenage years; the first time Wally realizes why, even as a billionaire, Bruce refuses to give his son candy. Day sixteen of Miya and Mia’s Tickletober: sweets!

Wally has never really used his height against Dick. He’s always been taller, but he is also older, and speed was always more of his thing anyways. He was fine with Dick flipping through the air, cartwheeling down the halls of the Young Justice headquarters.

When Dick had suggested they go to Wayne Manor and steal some of the Halloween candy that Bruce had started stockpiling for the trick-or-treaters, Wally thought it was a great idea. Free candy and he gets to chill in a mansion? It was a done deal for him. 

It was all fun and games when he thought he and Dick would just steal some candy and watch a movie, before he realized that Dick rarely, if ever, eats candy. It seems like the Dark Knight goes all out for Halloween, but rarely lets his own kid have any sweets. Wally can see why.

Dick is practically bouncing off the walls, running around in circles in the screening room, begging Wally to let him put his costume on so he can fight crime, saying he feels it’s time to “break bones and take names.” 

Wally, despite really wanting to see what happens, tells Dick no, he is absolutely not leaving the room in the state he’s in. Dick pouts, and he does puppy dog eyes, and he begs, but Wally stands his ground. He finds it incredibly difficult, of course, he’s had a crush on his best friend for like three entire years, but his worry for Dick’s safety outweighs the cuteness of his puppy dog eyes. 

Dick instead takes to jumping across the room’s chairs and couches, doing somersaults and cartwheels, doing triple backflips and handsprings. Wally, with his ability to practically watch seconds tick by in front of him, is having difficulty keeping up with how quick Dick is moving around the room. 

“Walls, I am totally whelmed right now,” Dick says in the middle of a front flip off the couch, “like, absolutely, completely whelmed.”

Wally laughs, speeding over to stand next to Dick, “even if that were a word, I don’t think that's how you’d use it.”

“No, no,” Dick says, shaking his head while running towards another couch, “it totally would be. I made it up so I get to choose how it’s used. 

“That’s totally not how language works, dude,” Wally says before finally deciding it might be time to reel Dick in. His flips and tricks are cool, but Wally is seriously worried that the sugar rush is going to cause him to trip over himself, which would be bad news for both of them. 

Wally runs and grabs a blanket, wrapping it around Dick and bringing him over to one of the couches, all within the blink of an eye. Dick attempts to wrestle out of the blanket, but Wally continues to tangle him up in it. Eventually Dick manages to get completely covered, his body disappearing under the Superman themed throw blanket. 

“Wally, let me out!” Dick laughs, muffled by the fabric.

“No can do, bird brain, not until you’ve got a little less pep in your step.” 

Dick continues to struggle, arms flailing and poking out as he tries to reach for Wally to push him away. Wally, of course, has the benefit of sight, and decides to start grabbing Dick back. The two of them engage in this awkward, partially blind wrestling match for a minute or two before Wally grabs Dick and Dick recoils with a squawk, squirming under the blanket. 

Wally does it again, and this time it produces a giggle, Dick’s hands coming up to produce a barrier, though he still can’t see Wally’s next move. 

Wally makes a grab for Dick and manages to wrangle him into a hug, the human burrito now trapped in his arms, and he makes quick work of skittering his fingers wherever he can reach, getting a wheeze and high-pitched giggles from his best friend. 

“Wahahally nohoho!” Dick squeals, unable to struggle due to both the blanket and Wally’s arms trapping him. 

“Aww, does that tickle?” Wally asks when he starts rubbing his head into the crevice of Dick’s neck and shoulder, “Is someone’s neck ticklish? What about your ribs? Does this tickle?”

Dick shrieks, going limp against Wally and trying to figure out any possible way of escape. He hears when Wally decides to count his ribs, and he desperately tries to get out of the redhead’s grasp.

“Dickie, you gotta hold still,” Wally teases, “counting them from under the blanket is hard enough, if I lose count I’ll have to start over!”

Of course, Wally loses count about five times, each time starting a new round of tickling on Dick’s upper ribs, which gets him crying out through hysterics. 

“Aww, where does it tickle?” Wally asks when he’s ‘forced’ to restart again, “Does it tickle here?”

He goes back in to get Dick’s top rib, and Dick shrieks, begging for Wally to stop, promising that he’ll finally calm down.

When Wally feels as though Dick has been positively tickled silly, he finally stops, releasing his grasp on Dick, allowing him to fully reveal himself from under the blanket. 

Dick comes out with his hair a mess, curls falling in his eyes. His face is red and he has a huge smile plastered on his face, tears trickling from the corner of his eyes. He looks happy, and Wally thinks that he wants this to be the last thing he ever sees, Dick smiling at him, joy written across his face. 

Dick pants, throwing a fake glare Wally’s way, “you’re-”

Dick is interrupted when Wally leans in for a kiss, soft and timid, and it takes him a second before he even realizes, before he’s kissing back. 

When they pull away they’re both smiling, sharing identical, smitten looks. The fondness in Wally’s eyes, Dick realizes now, had always been there, he had just never taken notice. 

“Dude, I’m-”

“You’re whelmed, aren’t you?” Dick asks with a little smirk on his face.

Wally just rolls his eyes, going in for another kiss. 

[arcade-chaos]

Day 3: Chill

Subnautica au! Mer sun and Moon, they/them for insert, cuddles

I've been reading not enough subnautica aus, so i went a little feral. you know what thing where someone puts their cold feet or hands on their partner? Ya thats Moon. Anywhos

The base was frozen. That was the only explanation that came to mind as they groggily slipped into awareness, some logical part in the back of their brain knew they should get up and find whatever faulty wire had let the temperature drop so low, but they would be damned if they crawled out of the warm bubble of their blankets. Groggily they poked their head out, snatching up their datapad before diving back under to ignore the freeze that nipped their ears. 

It didn’t give them anything helpful, chiming off that they needed to conserve heat while looking through the paneling with their scanner. That sounded like an activity for someone not in their undersuit, preferably one with thick slippers. And maybe a hat. 

With what could only be described as the world's most tortured groan they rose, stumbling towards their wetsuit as they clung to the blankets last bit of warmth. Their feet were already frozen by the time they slipped it on, going as far as to wear the flippers to avoid frostbite. 

“I knew I should’ve stayed in the shallows.” They grumbled halfheartedly. They knew they needed to get deeper, and the rocky cliff they were clinging to was the easiest way down to the river, but hell if they didn’t miss the warm waters of the shallows. Something distant splashed up in the moonpool, a quiet rumble soothing their concerns. They frowned and shivered as they scanned the bedroom, moving down the hall to meet Moon who was, as usual, tracking water through the base. 

“Rude.” They grumbled, ignoring his purr that turned into a little coo. He shuffled in front of their scanner as it buzzed, looming up to stare at their face. “Ya stinker?” He frowned and stuck out his tongue, though it didn’t last long. Instead he placed his hand over their head, which made them pull back from the chill of the water that clung to his skin. 

“Hurt?” He whined, beginning to nose under their blanket cape for a wound. 

“No, not hurt. Just cold.” He frowned, clicking over the word a few times as he circled them. “Cold, like not warm. Shallows are warm, down here is cold.” He chuffed, his tail wetly slapping the floor as he stared at them. “You’re also cold.” 

“Cold… Bad?” He frowned.

“Not necessarily. It’s only bad if it's too cold.” They gestured to the room, scanning the wall again. “I gotta find whatevers making my base cold and fix it.” Moon hummed, following them for a bit before piping back up. 

“I’ll be back. Get Sun.” They hummed a goodbye, sighing as the scan came up clean yet again. It wasn’t life threatening by any means, they were dry enough, but the combination of flippers and blanket cape made getting around the space difficult. They managed to get through the green house, after fretting over all the plants, and into the moonpool by the time their companions came back. Sun skittered towards them immediately, stopped only by Moon tugging his tail back.

“Wet.” He chided, pulling up to the opposite wall to shake off.

“Oh NOW you respect my wishes.” They snorted, teeth chattering as they shook. It was even worse in here. The scan relieved their greatest worries, the insulation in the left wall was soaked. They pulled off their blanket and prepared to dive in to patch the hull, stopped by Sunny’s warm hands on their neck.

“Cold??” He fretted, purring as they leaned into his hands. Despite the dampness they could feel the heat coming back to his skin. 

“Ya, I gotta fix the outside before it’ll warm up again.” They hummed, content to just stay there in Sun’s grasp to soak up the heat. Sun seemed pretty content with that plan too, pulling them back as Moon snatched up their scanner.

“I'll fix.” He grumbled, clicking the button repeatedly and staring at the little laser grid it lit on the floor. 

“You don’t know how.” He rolled his eyes. 

“Get rock, point, fix.” Okay, maybe he did know. Props to Alterra for making tech so easy they supposed. 

“Only because you’re so nice.” They taunted, trying to tighten their jaw to keep their teeth from clacking. Sun quickly scooped them and the blanket up, carrying them deeper into the base as Moon sank below the water. They didn’t protest when he removed their flippers, wrapping them both in the blanket to lay on the bed. They could feel his heartbeat under his scales, coursing warmth through his limbs as he rubbed little circles on their back.

“Better?” They sighed, snuggling a bit closer to warm their nose.

“Mmhm…” They mumbled, suddenly much sleepier. Their datapad beeped as Moon resurfaced, clamoring into the room with a wet shake.

“Fix. When warm?” 

“Mm…” They squinted at the pad. “An hour or two.” Moon seemed annoyed with the answer, Sun chose to snuggle closer instead. 

“I'm warm.” He purred, seemingly pleased with the situation at hand.

“Yep, very warm.” They snorted, giggling as Moon whined at the foot of the bed. “Why are you pouting?” They taunted, pulling away to get a better look. Moon growled softly, his lure wagging. 

“... Cold.” He mumbled, eyeing the bed and Sun with clear jealousy. Sun clicked something and pulled them a little tighter, eyeing his still damp skin. 

“You can come warm up if you dry off-” They didn’t get to finish their request before he was scampering off and rubbing himself on the towels. He returned even quicker, leaping into bed rough enough to make it bounce. They were glad they opted for the two person size, even then it was squished with two mers around them. At least the blanket stopped Moon’s chill from leaching their heat. Moon purred quietly, curling his tail around their form and over Sun’s back, wiggling down into the blankets quickly.

“Cold!!” Sun squeaked, pressing even closer to the human sandwich in the middle as Moon cackled. 

“Warm.”

[dollygirl808]

Ch. 4 of A Helping Paw

Obsessive! Werewolf/Weredog 141(+extra) x Chubby! OC Freya

Masterlist

The drive into town didn't take long, and when she parked just a little ways away from the front door, she could spot the dark outline of a dog laying off in a corner, likely chewing on something. He was too far away to really get a good look at him, but she'd get to meet him soon enough.

Soap behaved well enough as she clipped his leash on, getting her things as she stepped out of the car, the brown fluffy dog following after her, nose twitching as he scented the air.

"Is that your friend?" She asked, smiling when his tail started wagging faster, likely smelling someone familiar.

The doorbell jingled as she approached, Nikolai standing just inside his shop and holding the door for her, thick, hairy arms on display as he wore just a dark t-shirt that clung to his form, his soft stomach and pronounced pecs.

"Come in," He ushered, hand low against her back as he guided her past him into the shop, the bell chiming as it closed. She let go of Soap's leash, and he wasted no time racing over to the pretty, black gray and brown dog laying in the corner, barreling into him and making him yelp in surprise.

"Soap, be gentle!" Freya chastised, although it was no use right now.

Gaz, an absolutely stunning black gray and brown dog that sort of resembled a doberman to her, didn't seem to mind the roughhousing much, rolling over onto his feet and popping up on his paws in a play bow, the bone forgotten.

The two hopped back and forth for a second, then Soap enticed a game of play by dashing away, headed directly for her.

"Ah- no!" She yelled when Soap bumped into her leg, then Gaz ran underfoot just a few seconds later. Luckily, Nikolai caught her as they circled around the pair then ran back to the other side of the shop, Gaz tackling the fluffier dog where they then engaged in a fun game of bitey face on the floor, sharp canines on display as they rumbled and huffed at each other playfully.

"Thanks," She said, looking up into Nikolai's eyes as he looked down at her, thick fingers splayed over her waist.

"Of course, detka," He told her smoothly, lifting her back up to stand up straight. How embarrassing! Knocked over by a dog into the Russians thick, strong arms. If she didn't know any better she'd almost think that the dogs did it on purpose. When she realized she was still holding onto his plush bicep, she hastily let go and took a half-step out of his personal space, face feeling heated.

They both stood there for a moment, watching the two dogs play together. They're both very happy to be reunited, even though it's only presumably been a few days.

Soap play growled at the other dog, nipping at his triangular cropped ear, hopping over him from one side to the other, and Gaz opened his muzzle, chasing him with his teeth. Before he can get in a nip, Soap runs away and he gives chase.

The two zip around the open floor space, staying in the front area of the shop. At one point, Soap attempted to barrel into him again, but Gaz darted out of the way and the brown dog ran face-first into a shelf instead, knocking a heavy looking metal pan off, and getting hit in the head with it.

Nikolai clicked his tongue to his teeth and sighed out, shaking his head. "All brawn and no brains, that one," He told her.

Soap let out a small yelp and pinned his ears, nails skittering across the tile floor as he ran away from the shelf and back to her, nearly knocking her over with how he bullied his way between her thighs.

Gaz did a thorough shake off on the other side of the shop before padding his way over to the three just as Nikolai headed to pick the pan pack up.

"D'aww, poor baby, did you get bonked good?" Freya cooed out in a slightly teasing tone, scritching his flank.

In response, Soap whined in a drawn out, complaining 'aarrraruu!' At her backside, long muzzle tilted upwards against her ass. She chuckled, giving his fluffy butt a little dad pat before walking forward so he was no longer between her legs.

"He will live, I'm sure," Nikolai mused, watching from next to the shelf.

Gaz took this time to properly introduce himself, pushing into her space, chest and neck pressed against her thigh as he looked up at her, beautiful hazel brown eyes staring into her soul.

She scritched between his ears, "Why hello handsome, aren't you a pretty boy?"

Suddenly, Soap gave the other dog a not-so friendly growl, body language tense and mouth closed. She retracted her hand, taking a sideways step away from both dogs.

Gaz mimicked the other, posturing with his chest out and tail high, a deeper growl ruminating in his throat. The two had a tense stare down until Nikolai spoke up, accent thick with his annoyance as he called out, "Boys!" That made Soap finally give in, pinning his ears and ducking his head with a low whine, looking down as he flicked his tongue in an appeasing gesture.

Proudly, the beauceron trotted over to her, tail giving big, sweeping happy wags side to side as he pressed close for pets. Apprehensively, she scratched under his chin while throwing sideways glances at the shepherd who just sat off to the side, watching with big, begging puppy eyes.

"Sorry about them. Soap gets jealous easily and forgets that he is under Gaz in the pack, even if only by a little."

Freya nodded, still petting Gaz as she looked up at him. She isn't entirely sure what he meant by the pack, but he knew these dogs for longer than her, so surely he must know what he's talking about.

"If you agree to watch them both, they'll behave better, promise." He said suddenly, walking closer with cash folded between his fingers as he held it out.

"Oh, no- I couldn't," She shook her head, intending to push his offering hand away, but he just pushed it further into her palm.

"John insists. It was payment for the sitter, and they've now bailed, and you're watching Soap already. If you don't want to take Gaz too, you can take half and I will watch him." Gaz whined at that, like he knew he was about to be left behind by the pretty lady that scratched just right against his skin with her nails, and poked her in the stomach with his nose.

"I- " She looked down at the pup licking at her wrist, pretty hazel brown eyes flicking back and forth between her and Nikolai standing over him, "Ok, I'll watch Gaz too. And accept the money, even though I don't need it." She conceded not too long after, taking the cash from his hand and quickly tucking it away in her wallet.

Gaz let out a happy yip, play bowing at her before turning and initiating a much lower energy, friendly play fight with Soap, who happily engaged with the other.

"I will put his food in your trunk, watch them for me, detka?" He told her, even though it was posed as a question as he quickly disappointed behind a doorway, only to quickly re-appear and walk out the door, heavy red cooler held in one hand.

She watched from behind the glass door as he loaded the cooler into her trunk, and the dogs danced around her, actually being careful to not knock her over now, only bumping her with their tails occasionally.

After he came back inside, Freya called the dogs to her and leashed up Soap, then stood up and looked down at Gaz, not sure what to do.

"Well.. I have to go get another set of bowls anyways, so I guess I'll leave one of you in the car while I buy another leash," She told the dogs, mostly just speaking her thoughts out loud.

"Ah, don't be silly kukolka, here," Nikolai walked around the counter and grabbed something from underneath, and held out a nice, brown and gray biothane leash with a gold clasp, "For Gaz," He told her, and she took the leash. He then bent down and picked up two stainless steel bowls, setting them on the counter.

"Those are his as well. Take them for now," he told her, nudging them closer to the edge. She nodded, and hooked Gaz's leash to him before grabbing their bowls.

"Ok, well I guess I'll see you in a few days. By Nikolai!" He held the door for her, and the two dogs walked outside first as she followed, waving bye to him as the bell chimed a second time when it closed.

They both hopped into the passenger seat, Gaz sitting half on top of Soap and half on the seat as the brown dog lay partially in her lap. Gaz seemed really interested in the view outside the window as they drove back to her house, so she rolled it down and let him stick his head out. He really enjoyed it, as evident by his black-spotted tongue lolling out to the side.

By the time they got back, it was 2pm and her car, and her boyfriend by association, were finally back, parked somewhat hastily in the gravel parking space despite not having anything to rush to.

After pulling up to the side of her car farthest from the house, she tied both dogs to the passenger seat headrest so they couldn't escape and possibly maul Jake, then left the car running as she stepped out and locked it.

She forgot to ask how Gaz was with men and strangers.. she'll have to call Nikolai back and ask.

"Hey babe," Freya smiled at the man as he got out of her silver car. He only frowned at her, crossing his arms.

"I've been waiting in the car for the past thirty minutes," Jake told her in a condescending tone, staring down his nose at her despite only being a few inches taller than her.

"Well, if you had been here at 10 like you said, you wouldn't have had to wait," She told him, barely restraining herself from rolling her eyes.

"Well, I overslept!" He huffed, getting unusually defensive.

"Do you expect me to wait for you all day? I had things to do," She told him, motioning to her car where both dogs were staring intently at them, "If you had bothered to check your phone you would have seen that I found a dog and he'll be staying with us until we leave."

The man looked over at the dogs, one of them already mean-mugging him through the windows of both cars, and the other just tilting his head as he watched them curiously.

"That's two dogs," Jake pointed out unhelpfully, narrowing his eyes at her.

"Yes... congratulations you can count," Freya deadpanned, putting her hand on her hip and cocking it to the side.

He scoffed and rolled his eyes, throwing his hands up as he went to storm off. "Wait! Wait, I'm sorry. I just got annoyed with you for being late. Will you get the cooler in the trunk and put it in the big box freezer for me?" She asked with a sigh, motioning to the car.

"Yeah, sure," He agreed, not particularly happy but still doing it. As he got closer to the red truck, Soap started barking at him, brown paws up on the center console as he growled, making Jake hesitate for more than just a few moments at the truck bed covering before rolling it back and picking up the cooler.

While he was putting that away, she got the two out of her dad's car and let them sniff and smell her boyfriend's scent by her car. Gaz stuck his nose to the gravel driveway, and Soap peed on the front tire.

Just as he was coming back outside, Soap found something interesting and hot pink stuck in the driver's side door and began tugging at it with his front teeth. Gaz became curious and started sniffing at the thin lacy fabric as well.

"What the fuck?" She spat out indignantly, snatching up the fabric from the door, only tearing them a little as she held them up to the sun.

Jake's face went white as he saw what she was holding, a hot pink, lacey pair of crotchless panties that clearly didn't belong to his girlfriend, considering they were way too small to fit over her ass or even on her thighs. "I-I can explain!" He stuttered out quickly, stumbling down the stairs in his rush to get to her.

Freya threw the offending fabric down on the gravel, and before it hit the ground Gaz snapped it up in his maw and gave it an aggressive shake, whipping it back and forth. Soap sank his fangs into the panties as well, snarling as they quickly ripped it into lacy pieces.

"Babe, wait, look- she was flirting with me, like she was a total whore and-"

"And- and- do you ever shut up?" She snapped, mocking him, "And if she was a whore what does that make you, hm? Just get the fuck out of my face. I'm breaking up with you." She sighed, her anger dissipating almost immediately as she realized.. she really wasn't in love with him. And this vacation had really proved to her what kind of person he was.

"Babe please, we can still make this work, yeah? Where- where would I even go?" He asked in a pathetic voice.

"Just- take my car and get a hotel for all I care. Or drive back to our apartment. I don't care, but you can't stay here. Go pack your stuff, Jake."

Thankfully, the man conceded without much more fanfare, solemnly packing up all his clothes and hauling his suitcase to her silver car. The three of them watched as he drove away, the only evidence of his cheating laying in tatters in the gravel.

Freya didn't even cry as she picked up the hot pink scraps, only throwing them away in the trash with a heavy sigh. Soap and Gaz hovered around her the entire time as she absent-mindedly cut up their lunch and served it to them, curling up on the couch with a bowl of cereal when she was done.

(Break)

Gaz approached her slowly, still licking the up juices from his maw as he stepped forward. He stared at her with his pretty hazel eyes as he set his head on the edge of the couch, tail giving full, slow wags side to side.

"Hi pretty boy," She reached out from her spot lying on her side, petting between his ears, "Do you wanna join me on the couch?"

Carefully, he climbed onto the couch next to her and curled up, just barely fitting all of him onto the space left between her torso and the edge of the couch, brown paws tucked between his body and her soft tummy. His gray-tipped black tail thumped calmly against the couch cushion next to them

"Your fur pattern is beautiful," She thought aloud, smoothing her palm over his side, and the pretty mix of black and gray, the short coat like pebbled stone against a black silky void. He had two brown dotted rottweiler eyebrows and the upper half of his top jaw and his wet nose are black, but the lower half of his top jaw, along with his bottom jaw is brown, outlined by black down the side of his neck.

Her fingers brushed over his ear, causing it to flick. The inside is completely brown while the edge and outside is black. There are a couple of gray spots above his left eyebrow, but other than that his forehead is mostly black.

Soap whined, fluffy ears lowered slightly as he begged to be let up on the couch too, with his striking blue eyes.

"Ok, c'mere you big baby," She called, patting the cushion next to her legs.

He hopped up, letting out a happy little vocalization as he did so, turning in tight circles between the back of the couch and her bent calves before settling with his chin resting over her plush hip. The slightly smaller dog let out a long, exasperated sigh from his nose as if the other's presence was a massive inconvenience for him, but settled his head over the armrest nonetheless, like he was settling in for a nap.

Soap huffed, tucking his front paws tighter against the back of her thighs as his eyes closed. Apparently, she was now having dog-mandated group cuddles and nap time.

---

Taglist: @cringeycookies @sleepydang

[saradika]

— WASTELAND, BABY

v. you are unbreaking, though quaking

[masterlist] | [part iv]

boba fett x f!reader

rated E - 4.2k

tags: fallout au, post-apocalyptic, canon-typical themes, mentions of violence & wounds, guns & weapon training, flirting during said training, mild body horror (descriptions of Fennec’s injury and modifications)

The meeting of a new friend, a very interesting lesson, and an afternoon spent lending a hand.

It's not long before you're taking Boba up on his offer.

A chance meeting in the marketplace - a dip of your head from across an aisle as you pass by. He's deep in conversation with a shop owner, a glint from the sun catching on the dark visor as his head tilts in your direction.

All it takes is two beckoning fingers for you to abandon your plans, veering off the path to wait quizzically next to him. Wondering if he had some task for you, something you needed to run to the Mandalorian, or Fennec.

"I was going to see her." He tells you, cryptically - as the conversation quickly wraps up, "I was hoping to run into you. Would you like to come?"

Your brain trips helplessly over his words - a little jolt as you remember, “Oh! Yes, please.”

With a nod, you're following after him. Back through the streets, though you circle around the tall set of stairs to an entrance in the back.

Entering the Palace at the ground level - winding your way inside an refurbished underground parking garage, until you're arriving at a set of metal double-doors, tightly bolted shut.

Boba pauses then, as you hover at his shoulder.

Removing his helmet to clip it to his belt, his gaze shifting your way. Thinking for a moment, before he retrieves a bundle of cloth from the bag that hangs from a shoulder - passing it to you.

You frown, as it unfolds. A soft and worn black shirt - long sleeves and fraying at the edges.

"Put this on. I thought perhaps, if your smell was familiar, she might be more comfortable." He explains.

Understanding dawns, and you resist the urge to bring the shirt - his shirt - to your nose and inhale.

"Of course." You murmur - slipping it over your head, pushing the sleeves up your arms.

"You ready?" He asks, and you just miss the slow sweep of his eyes as you tuck the edge of the shirt into the waistband of your trousers.

The nerves are still rattling around in your chest, but you nod, "Yes."

He unlocks the doors with a key from one of his pouches, a press of a bare thumb to the pad bolted on the wall. The doors are thick - grinding and loud as they open inwards, gradually letting in light.

Walking in confidently, as you trail just behind. Shoulders hunched, your heartbeat skyrocketing as you see the swish of something large and shadowed. A skittering of stones and sand shifting with the weight of a heavy foot.

One step, and then another. The arc of light from the opened door spilling out, slowly revealing the creature as she moves closer. A rumble of a deep growl that has your chest pressing into his arm, the sound of a nose snuffling.

The growl pitches up, and then it's moving. Covering the ground faster than you thought possible, as your fingers dig into the canvas covering his bicep.

Your breath catches in your throat as it lopes forward on four legs. Thrusting itself into that light - and all you can see is the snarl of sharp teeth, curling horns, it's gray, leathery skin.

You can't help it - your head presses into his shoulder as your eyes shut. Reading about them wasn't the same as seeing. Even though time has passed in the now, there were just some things your mind hasn't managed to wrap around.

Like 9-foot tall beasts that could almost swallow you whole.

Hot breath washes over you, an inhale as she sniffs both you and Boba. He coos at her, his body shifting as his other arm raises, stroking the bridge of her nose.

Your eyes peek open, then. Seeing the way her eyes shut, the low rumble as she pushes into his touch. They way he smiles like a proud father has your grip loosing, and then he's curling an arm around your waist, pulling you close to him.

"Muchi, I've brought a friend today." His voice is low and soothing, "She wanted to meet you."

His head tilts towards you, taking on a quieter tone, "Are you doing alright?"

Heat rises in your neck, curling up to your cheeks as you squeak, "Just fine."

He laughs, that grip around you tightening. The touch on her nose changes to a scratching at her jaw, as she rumbles again.

"You’re a good girl. Aren't you?"

You never thought you'd be jealous of a deathclaw, but his praise does something to you. Suddenly aware of how he's holding you, how your hand splays across the armor covering his chest.

It takes all your strength to drag your eyes away from him. Up to her, to actually take her in under the flickering bulb above.

She's fascinating, something like awe settling over you now - like the time you had seen the life-like model of a tyrannosaurus rex at the museum. Marveling over her size, even as she crouches to lower her head to his level.

A shift of her feet brings you down to her claws - each one long, deadly sharp.

Still an apex predator, even here.

"Would you like to touch her?" He asks, and your eyes are widening.

"Do you think she will let me?"

"She will." His head cocks to the side, "Do you trust me?"

You do. You nod.

Boba's hand takes yours, mapping your fingers. Carefully and slowly bring it up to her muzzle, patting your fingers against her cheek - just under a bright, golden eye.

Muchi makes another noise at that. It sounds almost happy, and you find yourself smiling. Fingers gently petting the rough skin, her eyes shutting in what you think is contentedness.

Your opinion of her swift rises.

"She's beautiful." You breathe, your smile widening, "Is she... is she happy, here?"

The room extends into darkness. Transformed from a storage space for machinery into something akin to outside. Large boulders, a scattering of small shrubs.

When you look at him, he's always watching you. A flicker of his expression as he masks the hint of tenderness, but it still lingers with his smile.

"She is. They prefer darkness and quiet for their nests." He explains, "Sometimes at night I take her out to roam. She takes direction well enough."

The arm stays carefully wrapped around you. Keeping you close, selfishly, protectively. Only stepping away from when she becomes restless, a swishing of her tail as she noses at his bag - smelling the food tucked inside.

Chasing after the pieces he throws, as his rumbling laugh brightens the space.

Yours, soon joining.

Time ticks away - and when you finally leave, you don't think to offer to give his shirt back.

And he doesn't ask, either.

Your days in Mos Espa continue to pass - each one bleeding into the next. You have been feeling a little more grounded each day, getting used to the routines.

More familiar faces, acquaintances that inch into something more.

You learn the Mandalorian's name. Din. It's gifted to you close to two months after that first walk around the city. Fennec's odd jobs often included ones for him - collecting and pieces that he could use on his own Power Armor set. Trading for fusion cores to power it.

Part of you wondered whether he just grew tired of you calling him Mando all the time, thought he was called that often enough. But eventually, you decided that maybe - just maybe, you were friends.

Perhaps because you bring him snacks, or because you ask him about his foundling. He's opened up a little, since the beginning - sentences growing longer. You can recognize the tilt of his helmet to mean one thing, now. The cock of his hip as he leans, as another.

You pick up things about Fennec, as well.

Right now, you're tying not to look at her hands too often, where they drift to press against her abdomen. The way she seems distracted, her answers coming a little more slowly.

Lingering, after you had dropped off what she had asked for - a small crate of copper, from Goodneighbor - to repair the generators that went down during the last big storm. The first of the shipments exchanged with the new supply line, their courier meeting you just outside Mos Espa.

It had been strange to step outside, through the line of barbed wire and tall, stone walls. Not that you couldn't see it from the windows of the Palace, but just the vastness sprawling in front of you - a reminder that you don't know what the world looks like, anymore.

Eventually, you can't help but ask.

"Are you alright?"

Her face is a swirl of emotions - the briefest flicker of appreciation. Quickly covered with annoyance, not wanting to be fussed over.

Not her style.

"I will be, later." She brushes the question off, but it's half-hearted. A glance outside, checking the angle of the sun for time, as she hands you a stained slip of paper, "I have one last thing. Can you give this to Din? He has something for me, and you're supposed to start training with him."

"Training?" You frown.

"Yes, training." Her smile is small, the slightest curve of your lips, "We all know you don't know how to use that."

The toe of her boot extends, to the holster around your waist. Where the gun from the farmhouse remains, never removed.

You don't even know if it's loaded - you just know that the safety is on, and it's stayed that way. More to blend in, than anything else.

"I think I've been managing okay," You hedge, resisting the urge to fidget with the brass buckle at your waist.

"Mm, well this comes from the boss," Her grin turns sharp, "So you'll have to take it up with him."

Your stomach flips at the reference. It had been hard not to think about him - the night he came to your room. His questions, something about them feeling more pointed than just merely "checking in".

Daydreaming about that stolen moment of time, tucked against him when you had met Muchi. Your brain twisting the moment late at night - making you unsure whether that touch - his shirt - had just been his attempt at comfort and safety, or whether it had something more.

The occasional run-ins after had left you feeling the same. Leaving you wondering if his gaze really did seem more intense, lately. If he had been closing the polite gap that most people held, standing a little closer than you remember he did before.

Each time, you decide that it's just your imagination.

Wishful thinking.

Fennec mistakes your silence for sullenness, her tone softening.

"I think it would be good for you. To know you can defend yourself, if you ever need to."

She's right - you still have dreams about the farmhouse. Waking up with a gasp, brow dotted with sweat. So different than the old dreams - those slow loops you had been stuck in, day after day.

Year after year, more like.

So, you find yourself agreeing - trotting off to the edge of town. Where the group of houses break apart and then fade, where the cobblestone turns to dirt roads. Off to find Din, or so you've been told.

You find him, the sun glinting off the shining silver of his armor. A row of crates lines up to make a barrier, a handful of younglings in the mid to late teens taking turns at the makeshift range, under closer supervision.

A wash of emotions come over you - a sadness that those at such a young an age are learning this. Unable to help the small smile at the way they turn their heads for approval as they hit a target - looking for Din. His soft "good job, kid" that leaves them beaming.

A curl of embarrassment - at having to practice with them, worrying you'll make a fool of yourself.

He sees you coming, a tilt to his head and his hip as he keeps watch. Taking the paper, reading it quickly before tucking it into his bags.

"Was wondering when you'd be sent my way." Din greets you, helmet tilting down as his gloves ghost over the guns resting on the makeshift table. Halting on a long rifle, before passing it over to you.

It's heavy and solid in your arms, as he walks you to the end. Fishing a few bullets out the pouches at his waist, carefully conserved. Scarce in the Wasteland - a reminder to take this seriously.

"This is uh-, a lot bigger than I was expecting," You trail behind him, as he guides you down to the end of the range.

Showing you the basics - where the safety is, how to hold it in your arms, nudging your feet into position.

Your first shot going so far wide that it disappears into the Wasteland. Fingers fumbling as you copy how he ejected the old casing, replacing it with a new one.

Wanting desperately to do well, but it’s hard with him standing at your shoulder. Silent as a statute, but it doesn’t make you feel any less pathetic.

The next round goes just as poorly.

“I’m making you nervous.” He observes, stepping back. Placing a few more bullets on the barrier, “Take some time, get comfortable with the weight, and try again.”

You can breathe again, when he leaves. Hoisting it back into place, peering down the sights.

Barely grazing the upper right corner of the target, but at least you’re hitting something now.

When you look up again, there’s no glint of silver. Replaced with a swatch of green instead, your eyes drawn so easily to it as Boba moves down the line, as Din had.

The younglings settle, with their new teacher. The idle teasing and chatter disappearing as they begin to concentrate.

Rewarded with solemn nods of his head, that they eagerly soak up. Advice taken with wide eyes, their attention transfixed as he crouches - pointing down at the targets.

A clap on the shoulder as their stance is adjusted, something murmured that makes them beam.

When he finally reaches you, you’re realizing you’re been staring this whole time - the rifle dipping down towards the ground, brushing against the grass.

There’s the quirk of his lips as his eyes meet yours, as you smile at him in greeting. But then he’s gesturing with two fingers that point towards you, then flick towards the target.

“Show me.”

Your smile fades, already anticipating missing. Taking your time to line everything up like you did the last time.

The careful pull of a finger, followed by the loud bang - a wince as the stock kicks back against your shoulder.

A mark appears, a clean hole showing just outside the largest red ring.

Your grin appearing again, as his head tilts.

“Not bad,” He says, as he steps closer, “A lucky shot, but you made it.”

Your eyebrows raise, “Lucky?”

“I could see you flinch from here,” His arms cross, as he leans on the barrier. “You closed your eyes, anticipating the recoil.”

You hadn’t even realized you had. Firing was part you disliked the most - the rumble in your hands, the thud of pressure against your shoulder.

“And you’re twisting too much. Here.”

His hands are at your elbows, as he steps behind you. Tucking them closer to you, then gently adjusting your fingers.

So close that it’s hard to concentrate fully, your attention split as his armor presses against your back. Wanting him to stay like that - mourning when he takes a step back to give you room.

“Again.”

You fire. This time it’s lower, closer. The impact not as harsh - and he’s there again, stepping into your space as you both look down to see you’ve hit the third ring from the center.

“I hit it!” You exclaim - missing his smile, as you point excitedly.

“You did.” He nods with approval, “Good girl.”

And god, it’s so different when it’s directed at you.

Before, it had felt like a little jolt to your brain, as silly as that was. Now, goosebumps threaten to prickle down your arms, in spite of the heat. A little hitch of your breath as your heart pounds.

There’s a tug, as he takes the rifle from you. A ghost of his fingers against your hip, the thigh. The sound of a button snapping as he works your pistol from holster, pressing it into your hands, instead.

“Now, this one.”

You look down at it as the flutters in your belly start to wane - your companion from the beginning. One that you know nothing about.

“This one?” You echo.

It’s so much lighter. Stocky, a short barrel and a thick handle - heavy in your hand.

“This is what you’re carrying. You should learn to know it.” He advises, as you look down.

“I don’t even know if it works.” You admit, “I just took it, like you told me to.”

Before you can blink he’s plucking it from your open palm. A quick inspection before his arm extends - the briefest moment before he’s putting a hole through the dead center.

It sends a different kind of thrill through you. Something breathless as you remember just how skilled he is, how this is nothing.

Your eyes are wide as he presses it back into your hands. Fingers lingering, his chest so close to yours as he leans - as all you’re able to do is blink dumbly up at him.

Din appears at his shoulder then, and your eyes drop - stepping back, as you nudge the safety on. Cheeks warming at getting caught, though you remind yourself that there was nothing to catch - he was just helping you.

He passes a small, golden cylinder to Boba, "Just came in, had to go pick it up. Thank you for keeping an eye on things."

"Think nothing of it," The cell is turned around in his hands, checking either side for wear or damage, "She's not happy, we've cut it too close."

There's a sigh, Din folding his arms as you reholster your pistol.

His voice low, not wanting to be overheard, "My contact said there's some Gunners making trouble. Out towards that settlement to the east. They didn't want to move the product until I sent an armed escort.”

A look passes between them, before Boba turns his attention to you, "Do me a favor, sen’ika. Take this to Fennec, she’s in her quarters."

You take the cell from him automatically, a quick look thrown his way for confirmation. Never once have you been in Fennec’s room - she was too private of a person.

But he’s already turned back to Din, and by now you’re used to such a dismissal. Not taking offense - actually appreciating the interruption because it meant that you could breath again.

Trying not to think too much about how his arms fit around you - the “good girl” he had murmured. Curling sweetly on his tongue and making something in your lower belly ache.

The door is shut when you arrive, as you knock on the wooden door. Her room was on the second floor, down the wing from where you’ve heard Boba’s is.

Trying not to think about that, as well - as you wait for her answer. Her voice sounding weaker than usual, as you enter - having to use your shoulder to nudge the heavy door open.

“Was hoping he’d send you,” Fennec grimaces, half-slumped on a couch, tucked off to the side.

The small gun in her hand clattering to the table as you cross the room quickly, lowering to your knees in front of her.

“Stars, are you okay?” The worry is back in full force, catching the sweat on her brow, her pinched expression.

“Yes,” She huffs, her grin grim, “Well, fine enough.”

Growing serious for a moment, “I need you to help me with something, bluebird.”

“Anything.”

There’s a twitch to her lips, at how quickly and genuinely you answer, “Usually Boba does this. But I think you’ll be better suited.”

Her eyes drop to your hands, where they press into the worn fabric of the couch.

Another long moment, and for some reason - you think she might be nervous. Which is laughable, considering everything you know about the assassin.

Never seeming afraid or ruffled by anything.

It makes you want to comfort her. Your voice going low and soothing, like it had years ago - helping your family with their scrapes and bruises, “What can I do?”

“Easier to show you, I think.”

Her eyes flick up to yours, before she pushes herself up to a seated position. Fingers hovering at the dark, thick band at her waist - before she’s tugging it back.

You’re unable to help the small gasp.

Where soft skin should be, there’s a cavern. Filled with bundles of wires and tubes, metal replacing flesh.

“Who did this to you?” You breathe, looking up at her.

Where’s she’s watching, the apprehension more evident. But at your question it eases - a small, rueful smile replacing it.

“Boba did.”

Your heart plummets, fingers curling into fists.

“Easy, bluebird.” She soothes - though you still can’t draw your eyes away, “He saved me.”

That catches your attention, gaze finally lifting to yours.

“I was shot and left to die.” Fennec tells you - her words automatic, practiced. Softening, just a bit, “Boba found me in the Wastelands, and fixed me. Some things had to be replaced, but it was a while ago.”

A pause, as she reiterates, “I’m fine.”

You settle then, the fear and distress easing. Risking another quick glance down, and then away - not wanting to stare.

Realizing your tight grip on the fusion cell, holding it out to her.

“Does this… go in there?” You ask meekly, not sure how else to word it.

She laughs at that - a sigh, as if she’s been holding her breath, “Smart girl.”

Taking it from you, angling some wires out of the way - to where to can see another cell fitted against the metal side.

“The one I have is low. Almost out. It powers a lot of the pieces in here. If it runs out, it will be very painful.” She lets the words hang.

You’re sure it would be more than that. She’s been moving slowly all day, the discomfort evident in her typically-easy tone. One last question works it’s way into your mind.

“Will it hurt you?”

Her jaw grits, “I’ll be fine.”

“Okay.” You shift on your knees, focusing on the fitted cell - holding out your hand for the new one.

It’s cool in your grip. You can do this - you’ve gotten good at tinkering since you’ve woken up. Just don’t think about this cell powering the stomach of your boss and friend.

A moment, as you take a breath.

“You can do this.” She tells you.

You nod, “You can, too.”

Trying not to think too deeply about it - about fucking it up - as you reach in. Fingers brushing the curved edge of the cell before they wrap around, gently tugging.

There's sharp hiss of breath through clenched teeth, her body tensing as you tug it free. As the small green bulb attached to the casing dims down to nothing.

Quickly and carefully, you fit the new piece in, nudging it until it clicks back into place.

Both of you taking a breath then, relieved. The cover fitting back into place, as you move to sit on the other edge of the couch instead.

"Fuck, that’s better." She sighs, rubbing at her abdomen. Some of the color coming back into her cheeks, her expression less pained.

But there's something that settles in your heart after - a small ache.

"Fennec." You ask, as her head turns your way, "Were you worried to tell me? About your-"

You search for the words, "…cybernetics?"

She sighs then, easing back against the couch a little more, "Yes, and no. It's not easy, being part synth. There's a lot of distrust in the world, now. Especially if you are... different."

You nod slowly, an edge to your words, "Unfortunately, that sort of thinking isn’t new."

"Then I'm sure you can understand where I was coming from." Fennec answers grimly.

Another silence settling for a moment. Giving you a moment to take in her room - the table just off to the side. The wide bed, set in the middle of the connection room.

Bits of her collections scattered throughout the rooms, her rifle sitting on a long worktable next to the tall windows.

You've come a long way, since you first arrived.

"Well, anytime you need help - you're welcome to my nimble fingers," You smile, holding them up, wiggling them towards her.

She scoffs, hiding the bit of smile. Pushing up then, as you follow. Taking her lead, knowing that if you were in her place, you'd want to rest.

Her voice, halting your steps in the doorway.

"Glad you stuck around, kid."

It's kind, genuine. The unspoken understood - and not just for this. A small offering, something that is not extended often.

The gesture tugs at you.

Making you think about your time here. About Din - his gruff kindness - slowly coaxed out his shell.

The way Boba had looked at you, those weeks before - eyes intense, as if trying to read your mind. The almost vulnerable way he had asked if you were going to leave.

How you hadn't wanted to. Not at all.

You smile.

"I am, too."

sen'ika - little bird

ahh more 👀 feelings 👀 this week (with more to come!) thank you for reading 💚 part v will be out thursday, the 6th! and if you’d like to get tagged, please fill out the series taglist here!

(0-pressure tags 💕: @spaceydragons, @luladoll, @obiknights, @wingofshadow, @bobathirstaccount, @reluctant-mandalore, @ohheyitsokay, @floral-force, @valentine-tx, @ri-a-rose, @dreamlandcreations, @vellichormybeloved, @writeforfandoms, @winchestershiresauce, @monada43, @rescuethewretched, @thegalaxys-edge, @honeydjarin, @ray-rook, @dumfanting, @bedky, @thirsty-boba-fett-posts, @dukeoftheblackstar)

[darklydeliciousdesires]

London Will Burn - Chapter Six.

Your continued enthusiasm for the story is so exciting for me to read, besties! Thank you so much :)

Previous chapters - One Two Three Four Five

Tag list - In the comments, please DM to be added/removed

Words - 3,507

Warnings - 18+ content throughout. Minors DNI.

It was the sunshine finally making an appearance across London that awoke Sean the following morning, the bright beams streaming in through the thin fabric of Rin’s curtains. He could hear the bells of Westminster Abbey sounding softly in the distance, birdsong in the nearby trees, and the soft breaths of the girl still sleeping in his arms.  

This posed a dilemma for him. Not because he wasn’t content lying there in a large, soft bed with a beautiful young woman, but more because he had a very full bladder, and didn’t want to disturb her by entangling himself to go and empty it. Two careful manoeuvres to free his arms later, and he was able to slide from the bed, Rin sleeping on.  

Returning to the warm soft of her nudity, he thought he’d gotten away with being stealthy, even heading for the bathroom a little way down the corridor rather than using her ensuite so the flush didn’t wake her.  

“Morning.” That smile, god. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d awoken to a smile so pretty. It was something he could definitely get used to seeing.  

“Shit,” he mumbled, wrapping an arm around her as she turned to him. “I was trying not to wake you.” 

“No matter,” she spoke on a yawn, turning to reach for her watch. “Mm, it’s only ten past eight. We can sleep in, unless you have somewhere to be?” 

He smiled, stroking her hair. “The only place I have to be is right here.” His usual Sunday would involve a trip to the gym, coffee on the way back and then an afternoon working from home. While Rin dozed against his chest, it was work that he had firmly upon his mind; namely how he could wash the amount of cash for the Kurdish and Albanian outfits needed through any other of the Wallace Corporation’s current projects, without having to secure the bid on the new complex.  

Laundering had to be done very, very carefully. There was only so many zeros one could tack onto legitimate expenditures without falling under the ever-watchful eye of accountants and HMRC, who would of course come down hard and involve the police, should anything even look slightly amiss with the company finances.  

He wracked his brains until he felt exhausted by it, eyes growing heavy again. He was stuck. Turning over, he wrapped Rin in a tight embrace, falling back into slumber. It took him by surprise, that he managed to doze for a further hour, finding the girl he had wound himself around so tightly still sleeping. Oh no. That would not do.  

Rin awoke with a bit of a start at feeling her legs splayed wide beneath the bed covers, her sleepy brain wondering what was going on until she felt Sean’s tongue take a slow swipe at her folds, the haze of sleep clearing rapidly. Well, if anything was going to act as an efficient wake up call, it was the sublimity of waking to feel her clit being licked.  

She virtually whimpered, feeling his tongue flatten and drag her again, her hands sinking into his hair and tugging gently. Trembling against each keenly delivered lick, her back arched, her body urging him to press closer. He read her need faultlessly.  

“Fuck, you’re too bloody good!” That firmer contact of wet heat pressed firmly upon her clit sent sparks skittering through her, a warm flush reaching her cheeks as she gasped and cried out softly. She could feel him smile against her, and she wanted to call him out for his smugness, but he had every right to be so. The tip of his tongue traced a series of circles down to her gently fluttering hole, Rin hissing a breath as he pushed within, the honey of her cunt bathing his mouth.   

He grunted against her, hands flexing at her thighs as he felt her streaming against his mouth, licking slowly through her folds again, plump lips wrapping her clit in a warm, sumptuous hug. The pleasure poured over her, like the gild from the sunlight steaming through the curtains, pushing the covers off them to beam a smile at him. His returned it, winking, his pupils lust blown already. 

The steel blue of his irises was only concealed by enviably long, golden eyelashes closing, lips still sucking at her, a little more pressure, the tip of his tongue rolling over her bud adding to the shocks that roared up her spine. Pleasure pooled golden in her very marrow, her hips shaking against his face, thighs closing around his head as she panted hard, feeling the heat begin to swirl and snap.   

Teetering on it, she felt bereft when he suddenly moved, but the slide of his cock arrowing deep into her soaking core as his body pressed to hers took her there, nirvana swirling, her cries of release muted by his mouth. She expected to the pleasure to begin ebbing away, but as she clutched his shoulders, the blaze burned forth again, Rin experiencing her first multiple orgasm as she bloomed beneath him.  

Her shudders reverberated over his muscles, her cries rending the air as he gently laid soft bites along her jaw, looking down at her with a smirk. “You just came again, didn’t you?” 

“Mmhmm.” Her hum was so dreamy and blissed-out, Sean couldn’t help but chuckle softly.  

“Shall we see if we can make that happen a third time?”  

She met his mouth with sweet kisses, her hands smoothing over his scratched-up back. “You’d better.” Something shifted, and they both felt it, Sean laughing softly as he continued to fuck her slow, stroking one another, sharing kisses, the tempo lazy and rolling. “This isn’t just casual anymore, is it?”  

What a question, because no, it wasn’t, but the impossibility of what he had to achieve made it just that. It was impossible for him to attain what he needed to keep his father pleased, while ensuring that hers fell in line, without her becoming hurt in it all.  

 Looking down at her, he stroked her face, his stare unblinking. She felt his heart quickening against her breast, his arms weaving to clasp her tighter, sinking into a long kiss. Therein was her answer. 

And for Sean? He knew that the video was getting deleted. He’d find another way. He had to find another way.  

Rutting into her deeply, he felt the pleasure fizzing over his bones, his release like the gentle patter of warm hail prickling upon his nerves, taking her with him into the blossom of release. They lay breathless and entwined after, Sean eventually moving to lie next to her, his chest fluttering at her smile as he reached to tuck her hair behind her ear.  

“You're bloody lovely, you know." 

That smile did nothing but widen. “I have my moments, when I'm not being a gobby twat." 

Laughing quietly, he pulled her close. “I like the gobby twat in you, though.”  

They lay there talking and dozing until the need for food drove them out of the bed, Rin opening the door to find a fresh pile of laundry that included Sean’s clothes she’d left outside the previous night. Their housekeeper Maisie was nothing if not entirely proficient in the speed she would return clean garments.  

The staff usually had the weekend off, especially if not many of the family were in residence, but that particular Sunday they were bustling around, readying the house for Kevin and Diane’s return.  

“I’m bloody famished, Roger!” Rin called, entering the kitchen to find their chef at the island, peeling potatoes ready for the roast dinner that night. “Would you mind so much if I came in and caused a bit of chaos in cooking?” 

His face pinched, slicing the potato in his grasp before plonking it into the large iron pot in front of him. “Your brand of kitchen chaos is barely tolerable. What would you like? I’ll make it.” 

“Full English, times two please. I’ll make the coffee, though.” She then paused, turning to Sean. “You eat meat, right? I noticed you only ordered fish things last night.” 

“I do, yes.” 

“Thank the lord,” Roger snorted, drying his hands on a tea towel. “I never enjoy trying to make a palatable breakfast for vegetarians. One of her little besties is a vegan, and it always throws me, having to go and order tofu and attempt to bloody scramble it.” 

Sean raised an eyebrow, his mouth thinning. “Scrambled tofu? That sounds utterly dreadful.” 

Oh, how right he was, the chef remembering well how it was perhaps the only thing he’d ever cooked that he did not enjoy trying. “I do not recommend it.” 

Reaching for the cupboard, Rin then quickly found herself knocked out of the way by a hip bump, Roger laughing softly. “Oi! I’m just trying not to be a spoilt little rich girl who can’t do things for herself!” 

“And I like my kitchen to remain tidy, without the bloody coffee grinds going everywhere! You and your chap can go and make yourselves comfortable and I’ll sort it. Go on, shoo!”  

Picking up an orange, she rolled it down her arm and popped it off her inner elbow, catching it neatly. “Fine, we’ll be in the conservatory.” They left the kitchen, taking a long walk down to the centre of the house, turning left at the roped off section, Rin giving a little wave to a few tourists who were being shown around the part open to the public.  

The conservatory itself had been a Victorian era add on. In truth, it had originally intended as a massive greenhouse, and still somewhat served such a purpose. Some botany still existed in there, plants edging the perimeters, comfortable furniture dotted around, she and Sean taking a seat at the table. Looking around, his eye was caught by a set of framed photographs upon a small bookshelf, reaching to grasp it.  

“You’re brave,” he spoke, looking up from the image of Rin sitting in the middle of an arid landscape, with a young lioness lazing on her back before her.  

“Yeah, I can’t act like that with her any longer now she’s grown, we don’t go to the reserve often enough for her to recognise me,” she lamented, looking over at the picture of her and Mya. 

Sean wouldn’t even have trusted her at the size she was, although the beast did look very content, flopped down receiving belly rubs. “Is it one of those places where they allow you to play with the cubs until they reach a certain age? I’ve heard of those holidays, frightfully expensive affairs.” 

“No, the reserve belongs to dad. Animals are where his heart lies, and he fucking hates trophy hunting, so he always said he wanted to do something about it. That something was buying up a gigantic reserve in the middle of nowhere in Kenya and dedicating it to a safe space for them. I bloody love it there. Our closest neighbours are a tribe about eight miles away, it’s so remote.” 

It was a softness Sean didn’t expect to learn about his business nemesis, the man having an obvious affinity for African wildlife – as well as plenty of money to spare in funding the preservation of it. It made a wave of bitter bile roll through his stomach, remembering being haggled with when in truth, Kevin was short of nothing and did not need to whatsoever. He did it purely because he could, and now was going to get away with it, all because Sean had softened towards his target of blackmail.  

It began to gnaw at him again, meaning that once their breakfast arrived, he only managed to successfully eat two thirds of it, pushing the rest around the plate.  

“You’ve got quiet on me,” Rin noted, sipping her coffee. “Is that because I’m likely talking way too much?” 

He shook his head, the corner of his mouth tilting up. “Just tired, darling. I’m listening, so you carry on.” She did, telling him more about their vast African property, how she loved being out there more than anywhere else in the world, purely for how remote it was.  

It was while she was taking the plates back to the kitchen and going upstairs to retrieve her phone that he took his out and checked it, seeing he had an abundance of missed calls from it being on silent mode.  

“Oh, you are alive, then?” His father answered on the fourth ring. “Where’ve you been?” 

“I am,” he confirmed, sweeping toast crumbs into a pile with his index finger. “Just spending a weekend off the grid. Does a man good, to unplug from life for a couple of days.” 

Finn sighed. His son could be very impulsive like that, hence why he hadn’t worried too much about his vanishing act. “Well, you better be plugging yourself back in sharpish, boyo. The deadline for that bid is midnight tonight, unless you’re going to give me the news I’ve been waiting for, that you’ve secured the contract with Kevin?” 

“And if I can’t get it?” he broached, pinching his bridge of his nose. “Is there a way around all of this that would mean we can still invest in another project to facilitate the same long-term goal?”  

“This isn’t about finding other ways around it, Sean.” His tone was stern, biting, leaving his son under no illusion over his feelings, should he not secure the deal. “You either win, or you fail. I want that money, I want that port and I want that fucking bid. If it doesn’t happen then trust me, it’ll reflect upon anything I trust you with, going forward.”  

“Okay, but...” 

“No fucking buts!” Finn was emphatic, Sean closing his eyes as he swallowed back a sigh. “Do whatever the fuck you have to do in order for him to comply. That’s the fucking end of it. Bye.”  

He wanted to pick up the chair he was sitting in and hurl it through the glass of the structure he was presently in, a display of his fiery temper he knew he had to quell again. God, the fucking position he was in.  

The fucking position he’d put himself in.  

Sean realised that truly, he could blame his father all he liked, but it wouldn’t stop this mess from being his problem. If he was a better negotiator, he would have secured the contract already. If he was more like his father, he wouldn’t have faced the disrespect he had in the first place. If he was any less like his father, he wouldn’t have done something duplicitous in order to find a way through this mess, a way he now knew there was a very real chance he actually had to take.  

Or, just admit defeat and tell his father to fuck off. Not because he’d fallen desperately in love or anything, Sean was not that kind of person. It had more to do with his sense of morality, and wondering how little he’d truly have left if he did go ahead as planned. But then, if he didn’t... 

It was no small number, two hundred million. They needed it desperately to keep the money laundering racket continuing, but at what cost to him? He would never again witness Rin looking at him the way she had on that morning, when he’d reached across the bed and tucked her hair behind her ear. He could have something real with her, with perhaps the one person in his world capable of understanding him truly, for her reality near enough matched his own. 

Whatever the path, he knew he couldn’t stay there within the bubble of Mulford Hall with Rin while he came to that decision, though.  

“I’m afraid I have to leave, darling,” he spoke when she entered again. Immediately, she looked disappointed.  

“Oh, okay. Business calling, yeah?” 

He nodded, dropping a kiss atop her head. After grabbing his jacket, she saw him down to the side door, unlocking it, noting how warm the spring sun was as it illuminated that particular patch of the courtyard. “So, I’ll see you soon, yeah? Call me when you’re free and we can try and arrange something.” 

She noticed it right away, the discomfort in him, Sean rolling his shoulders up as he stuffed his hand into his pocket to retrieve his keys. “I’d say yes, but...” He shook his head, reaching to stroke her cheek. “You deserve better than me.”  

“What the bloody hell is that supposed to mean?” she spluttered, baffled at the sudden frigidness of his cold shoulder.  

“It means exactly what it’s meant to, Catherine.”  

He turned to leave, not uttering another word, and Rin certainly having more pride than to chase after him and demand he give her an explanation. It bothered her for the rest of the day, though, spending a good forty minutes on a FaceTime call to Rashida in order to rant about it.  

The explanation found its way into the ether seven hours later, the chain of events that would lead to her having Sean’s intentions revealed as her mum and dad were whisked from Gatwick in the back of a limousine later that evening.  

“Are you golfing on Thursday, love?” Diane asked, pulling her attention away from her phone. “We’ve received quite the last-minute invite to one of Sissy Hansen – Whiteman's lunches. Why we’re such an afterthought, goodness bloody knows, but I’d like to be politer than she is being in extending the invite so late.” 

“No, babe. I’m playing Wednesday morning before my meetings. Tell her we’ll be there,” he spoke. He could do with bending her husband’s ear about a few business deals, Harry Wiseman being very suggestable to further ways he could coin a profit.  

While his wife went about sending a reply, he heard his own phone beep, pulling it from his pocket to see he had a Whatsapp message from none other than Sean Wallace. A last-ditch attempt to gain his business, he wagered, opening it up to find a video file.  

Waiting for a few moments for the 5G coverage to pick up, the video began to play, Kevin frowning bemusedly before snorting a laugh. “Oh, lad. I don’t think I was the intended recipient of that.” he chuckled, shaking his head as he looked away from the screen, the video playing a filming of Sean going down on who he assumed to be his girlfriend or suchlike.  

“Are you watching porn?” Diane shouted at him from the other side of the car, hearing the moans of a woman in utter ecstasy.  

“Not of my own volition, sweetheart. I think Sean Wallace has got his contacts mixed up.” He was just about send a message back stating such, when the video changed shot. A pit the size of the limo they rode in dropped into his stomach at witnessing the girl whose face had so far been hidden was, Sean yanking her head back by her hair as he railed her from behind. A voice note message then followed. 

“Sign the contract, Kevin, or this gets released to the internet. I am done playing your games, now it’s time for you to bend to my will. Just like your daughter quite literally did. You have until midnight. As soon as the contract is signed and the funds transferred, the video will be deleted. You have my word.”  

Immediately, his phone was hurled in a fit of undiluted rage, the cold discomfort of what he’d just witnessed engulfing him entirely. “You little fucking cunt, Wallace! You fucking...”  

All that followed were growls of agitation, Kevin experiencing the bite of an icy freeze chill his veins, his wife attempting to get what had happened out of him but failing as his verbal tirade of utter fury did nothing but escalate. He was puce and sweating as he reached for his phone again, knowing he had no choice. His daughter’s dignity was non-negotiable. As any father knew, his duty was to protect his children.  

Still, it was with a tidal wave of bile licking his insides, putting his signature to that contract and organising for the release of funds, telephoning Sean as soon as it was done.  

“It’s done. Funds and docks are yours, but I swear to Christ above, if you ever fucking come near my daughter again, I will gut you. Heed my warning, because it’ll fucking happen.”  

Sean hung up, feeling what remained of the glowing buzz his weekend with Rin had left him with die off completely, leaving nothing but a stinging feeling behind that persisted right into the next day.  

Arriving at The Strand a few hours after his meeting, he exited the car to see his father just about to head in through the sleek glass doors, quickening his stride to catch him. He wasn’t the only one to exit a car and stride to catch up, though... 

[dreamingticklee]

Squealing Santa 2023

Happy Holidays @hexalianrebel-blackfeathers !!! I hope you enjoy your gift and that I fulfilled your prompt to your liking! Hope you have had a wonderful holiday season and I wish you the happiest new year! Enjoy! 🎄

And big thank you to my dear @hypahticklish for another year of hosting @squealing-santa ✨️

Fandom: Supernatural

Pairing: Ler!Gabriel/Lee!Sam

Words: 829

******************************************

"So, Sammy boy, what'll it be?"

The devious voice of the archangel teased it's way into Sam's brain, causing a bright blush to rise to the surface of his skin. Limbs spread apart towards all four corners of the bed by an invisible force, Sam knew he was in for it. (And maybe he wanted to be.)

"I, um...mhmhmhm...don't know."

Gabriel feigned surprise. "You don't know? Well, now, that just won't do!" He slowly sauntered closer to Sam's prone, vulnerable position on the bed and his expression grew into a tantalizing smirk. "Here, tell ya what, I'll be nice and help you figure it out. Now, let's see..."

Gabriel reached out and let his hand hover over Sam's unprotected armpit. He took one finger and tauntingly circled it around, just merely an inch above contact, to which Sam sucked in a breath trying to hold in his creeping laughter, the anticipation already too great to handle.

"Hmm, how about here?" The archangel landed a few ticklish pokes in the stretched hollow.

Sam gasped with a squeak. "No!"

"No? Not there? Then should I try..." Gabriel moved his eager hand to the side of Sam's ribs with a sudden quickness and squeezed in a pulsing succession. "...here? Is this what you want?"

Jolting up with a startled laugh, Sam balked at the tazering zips that shocked his ribcage. It wasn't fair that just a few accurately pinpointed squeezes already had him squirming like bait on a hook. "Stop it!"

"Okay, okay." Gabe took his hand away...only for it to come back seconds later for one more taste and Sam squealed.

"Aww, how adorable."

"Gabe!"

"Yes?"

"I-"

"You want me to tickle you so bad? All you had to do was ask!"

Not wasting another second, Gabriel's fingers started making quick work to skitter all over Sam's stomach. Sam's body began to dance with uncontrollable giggles brightly shimmering out of his chest, sounding like music to Gabriel's ears and fueling his fire. The tips of his practiced fingers knew just the right amount of speed and pressure to effectively dismantle his prey.

"This is one of your favorite spots isn't it?"

"Shut uhuhup!" Sam felt a wave of heat rush to his cheeks. Gabe wasn't wrong, it was just rude of him to say that out loud.

"You know what I think would make this even more fun though?" With a flick of the wrist, Gabriel tossed the hem of Sam's shirt up, exposing a strip of skin. Taking a big, dramatic breath, the archangel leaned down and connected his lips to Sam's quivering tummy and blew.

Sam busted out into loud laughter, arching his back.

Gabriel smirked against Sam's skin. "Aha, that's the ticket, huh?" He blew again. And again. And again.

The tingling vibrated into Sam's veins and sent a thrill rushing through his system. It seemed like with each raspberry blown onto his sensitive skin, the ticklish feeling grew and grew, radiating from his glowing core.

"Ahahahaa!! Stop it!"

"No can do, Bucko." Gabriel continued blowing raspberries all over Sam's middle while also deciding to bring his fingers back into play, scribbling them up and down Sam's sides. He relished in the growing changes of pitch of Sam's laughter with each new raspberry placed.

A few moments had passed when, without warning, Gabe came to a sudden stop. "You know what? I think we're missing something." And just like magic, four hovering feathers appeared, two by each of Sam's feet. Under the Trickster's control, the feathers were put into position and made contact, two feathers stroking the sole of each foot while the other two feathers began sawing through both sets of toes.

The soft, yet torturous tickles sent a new wave of sensation through Sam's affected body. "NoooOOOHOHOHO!"

Gabriel let out a smug, contented sigh. "Ahhh, that's much better! Now, where was I?...Oh, yeah!" Pfffft.

Sam screamed. The combination of Gabriel's playful raspberries and nimble fingers attacking his torso with the new addition of the teasing feathers having their way with his feet was absolutely lethal. His nerves were alight with ticklish demise and he couldn't do anything but writhe around on the bed and laugh his heart out. But that's what was so thrilling of it all. Sam was used to being the hunter, not the hunted. And now here he was under the playful, silly control of his "predator" and it was always an exciting feeling.

Suddenly, a new voice coming from the doorway broke him from his thoughts.

"Need an extra set of hands?"

Sam gasped. "Dean, NO!"

Gabriel laughed as his tickling came to a pause. "Well, hey there, Deano! I think Sam would definitely love some help with his armpits."

"No problem." Dean made his way over to the head of the bed.

"Nonono NO! Stop this isn't fair!"

Gabe scoffed. "Since when do I ever care about being fair?"

Pffffft.

Renewed screams and laughter filled the room once again.

[lilpunkrock]

Devour

Pairing: Jack Russell x Fem!Reader

AN: @diamond-punk2003 thought we needed a reverse of "Primal," and I wholeheartedly agreed. So, I hope you all enjoy yet another post-Halloween, Halloween-themed drabble!

Read "Primal" here.

. . .

“Jack, these are the same costumes as last year.”

Your puzzled gaze shifts from the Little Red Riding Hood costume lying on the couch to the wide, self-satisfied grin on your boyfriend’s face. Olive eyes dancing with delight, he scoops up the hooded cape and sets to work tying it around your shoulders. “Ay, that’s where you’re wrong, mi amor. Because this year, we are switching. This year, I am the Wolf.” 

You cock your eyebrow at him in a challenge. “What, you weren’t pleased with my performance last year?” you inquire with a narrowly-suppressed grin. 

Jack smiles widely as he finishes tying his knot and slips the hood over your hair. He leans in to place a quick kiss on the tip of your nose, a gesture that sends your stomach scattering with butterflies. “Of course you did, mi amor. You were perfect. But passing up the chance to show you my Wolf would be a shame.” 

Laughter draws your lips into a grin as you watch him walk toward the lightswitch on the living room wall. “Where’s your costume, then?” you ask. 

Jack poises one finger on the lightswitch, ready to flick. When he turns to gaze at you from across the living room, the smug curve of his pink lips and the spark of mischief in his eyes are downright devilish. Static skitters down your spine as the breath slips from your lungs. He holds your gaze until the lightswitch gives a soft click. “This is a little different from the story you’ve heard before.”

Darkness. 

Immediately, you turn in a circle, disoriented. With the lights off and the curtains closed, you’ve been plunged into pure, unabashed darkness. When Jack’s honey-sweet voice whispers to you from within the inky black, it sounds as if it’s coming from everywhere, all at once. “When I was growing up, mi familia would tell me a tale that had been passed down for generations. It was the story of a young, beautiful woman who went to visit her abuela in the woods. She was as sweet as could be, bringing her abuela wine and cake. However, when the woman lingered too long, she found herself walking home through the woods in complete darkness. It was then that she encountered el hombre lobo.”

When you feel something warm and solid press against your back, you nearly jump out of your skin. Only the familiar rumble of laughter in Jack’s chest keeps your heart from flying out of your throat. “Shit! You scared me.” You turn around, reaching for him blindly in the darkness. When your fingers find the familiar sturdiness of his shoulders and the curved grin of his lips, your heartbeat slows. “So, this wolfman…was he handsome?”

In spite of the darkness, you can picture the amusement dancing in his eyes, the adorable crinkle that surfaces between his dark brows as he whispers, “Oh, yes, mi cariño. Devilishly so. Muy guapo.”

You chuckle, rapping your knuckles against his chest affectionately. “Well, maybe Little Red was lucky, then. How does the rest of the story go?”

Jack’s breath is warm against your face. “How do you think it went?” he murmurs softly. 

Your lips part in surprise at his words. Though you give no immediate reply, Jack remains silent. Expectation and anticipation hang heavy in the air. Slowly, a small smile works onto your lips. So, he wanted to play coy? You could give him coy. 

Slowly, you trace a feather-light touch up Jack’s arm, across his shoulder, to the nape of his neck. When you curl your fingers in his salt-and-pepper hair and give a gentle tug, a delicious rumble purrs in his throat. Electricity crackles through you at the sound, scattering logical thought from your brain as something primal in your soul responds in kind. “Sir, what thick hair you have,” you murmur, relishing in the feel of the soft strands between your fingers.

That soft hair brushes your cheek as Jack dips his head into the hollow of your throat. When he places a soft, warm kiss to your collarbone, you swear the darkness glimmers with stars. “The better to keep you warm with, mi cariño,” he breathes into your skin. 

Narrowly suppressing a shudder, you cup his face in your hands. Though you can’t see his features, your thumbs trace the familiar pads under his eyes, the strong curve of his brow. “But sir, what beautiful eyes you have.” 

Jack presses his forehead to yours, placing a gentle kiss to your nose, below your eyes, along your cheekbones, the corners of your lips. You couldn’t suppress the hum of approval that escapes you if you tried. “The better to drink you in with, mi cariño.”

Your heart flutters at the warmth in his tone, a heat that seeps through your skin and settles in your gut. You draw in a deep, slow breath, seeking to calm your hammering heart. Even in the darkness, you feel his lips pull into a grin at the sound of it, each beat a vow, a prayer, a devotion. “What a strong nose you have, sir,” you whisper, tracing the outline of his prominent nose with the tip of your thumb. 

The speed with which Jack spins you around is admittedly inhuman. In the space between heartbeats, you find your back pressed flush against his torso, his sturdy arms wrapped around you with a gentleness that makes your heart ache. Jack nestles his nose past the hooded cape you wear, burrowing into the hollow of your throat. The way his chest swells against your back as he draws your scent in deeper, deeper, deeper, feels sinful. The way he holds the air in his lungs like a treasure he never wants to part with feels like worship. Your eyelashes flutter shut as you lean into him, submitting to the storm of sensation raging in you. “The better to savor you with, mi cariño,” he growls against your skin. 

A gentle pressure surfaces at the back of your neck as Jack presses his thumbs along either side of your spine. He kneads purposefully with a rhythm that seems agonizingly slow compared to the dizzying rush of thoughts and sensations within you. Displeased with the barrier of the cape between you, you tilt your head back, allowing it to slip from your crown so that his touch can press against your skin, instead.

Jack’s lips smile against the shell of your ear as he places a kiss to the soft flesh there. “Eager, are we?” he murmurs, his tone lilting slightly with amusement. 

You give only a quiet hum of resignation in response. Sure, you were always up for a challenge. But maybe, just this once, you could wave your white flag early, accept your defeat with grace and gratitude. If it made you feel like this, it was a victory worth losing. “What big bands you have,” you breathe as he kneads down your neck and along your shoulders, your defiance slipping away with every stroke of his touch.

“The better to hold you with,” Jack murmurs as his hands venture down, down, down. His fingers caress each curve and dip and swell as if it’s for the first time, as if he’s making a map of you by touch alone. His fingers trace constellations over you in the darkness, the soft whisper of sweet endearments in every language he knows a beloved lullaby in your ear. 

You’re not sure how you muster the strength to speak, but when you do, the sentence slips over your lips like a prayer. “What a wickedly beautiful mouth you have.” 

Jack’s exploratory touch slows. A whine nearly tears from your throat as he draws his mouth from your ear. However, you can’t suppress the primal sound that escapes you when he sweeps your hair aside and presses his lips to that sacred spot on the back of your neck, just below your hairline. 

It’s the killing blow, the spot that only he knows. Your soul sings at the glide of his lips against your skin. Warm, adoring, reverent. Your mind short-circuits as he trails kisses from your hairline to the tip of your spine. When his fingertips dig into the flesh of your hips, wanting and insistent, every nerve ending under your skin fires instantaneously. So much love, so much need, so much feeling, and nowhere for it to go. 

You’re going to spontaneously combust. You’re sure of it. It’s the only option. The air is so thick with intimacy that you can scarcely breathe. 

Some distant part of your mind where your last semblance of coherent thought lies reminds you of last Halloween. Of the scarlet flush of Jack’s cheeks when he’d seen his costume, the honey-sweet song of his laughter as you’d played the part of the Wolf, the overwhelming feeling of adoration and rightness that had filled your soul to the brim as his lips melted against yours. Once, you had thought the only thing in this world that might truly satisfy you would be to open up your soul and swallow him whole. Now, you realize the only destiny that could rival such a fate is to be swallowed whole.  To bear every fragment of your being to him and have him love you anyway. To crawl inside his heart and make your home there, to spend the rest of your days basking in the brilliant, all-consuming radiance that was him. 

“The better to eat you with,” he whispers against your skin.

For a long moment, all is silent. It takes you several breaths and a desperate attempt to wrangle your thoughts to realize that he’s waiting for you. Waiting to hear what you’ll say next. “I—I don’t know what comes next,” you stammer. 

The finger that Jack presses to the underside of your chin is gentle, his touch affectionate. Slowly, he turns you to face him. Though you can’t see his expression in the opaque darkness, when you shift one hand to rest over his heart, you feel the eager thrum of his heartbeat jump into your palm. Ba-bum, ba-bum, ba-bum. 

That familiar song doesn’t lie. It tells you exactly what’s coming next.  

As Jack lowers his lips to your ear, a grin of anticipation pulls at your own. “This is the part where I devour you.”

. . .

Translations:

"Mi amor" — "My love"

"Mi familia" — "My family"

"Abuela" — "Grandmother"

"El hombre lobo" — "The Wolf Man"

"Mi cariño" — "Sweetheart," "my darling"

"Muy guapo" — "Very handsome"

. . .

Taglist: @h0wv3ry @the-ginger-draws @howlingco @ratisshortforratalia @safeikik @russell-ed @emilynightshade89 @mobiusismyfav @thepjofanqueen @couldnt-come-up-with-a-username @girlymusiclover09 @vigilantefucks @starfirette @scarletghost22 @biggetywitch

[fandomfluffandfuck]

consider 🤭🤭🤭 choking seb and calling him a good boy 😳

I-

I am considering it.

And I think we have two options for this delicious idea. Are you on top of Sebastian, calling him a good boy and choking him? Or are you underneath him, calling him a good boy and choking him-? Let's explore 😏

Both ideas here have bottom-yet-dom!gender-neutral!reader because I am feeling™️ subby and useless toppy Sebastian Stan today

On top:

You're sitting on top of Sebastian, thighs spread around his bare waist, his cock throbbing inside of you. You're not moving though. Not right now. Earlier you were moving... moving- riding, actually.

Riding him not with the purpose of getting him off, but riding Seb to help yourself along- making your own toes curl, your own head fall back between your shoulders, and stretch you out. His hot, hard cock filling you full. Hitting all those places inside you that feel so good. Pleasure throbbing through you, all achy and hot. And that heavy, full feeling of him in combination with a hand on yourself...

Oh, God.

You've gone a few fucking rounds yourself. Pleasure frying your brain the longer you go. More and more intense. For you...

Although-

You've not let Sebastain cum.

You haven't let Seb cum not even after a few long hours of teasing and allowing yourself to cum again and again and again. Until you arrived where you sit now- on top but with your legs quivering, muscles used too well, and your body impossibly sensitive. Even just the slightest brush against you sends feverish shivers skittering down your spine, pooling heavily in your gut.

Sebastian is in much the same position as you are.

Sensitive.

He's just sensitive for the opposite reason.

Sensitive because he hasn't been allowed to orgasm so now he's on razor's edge- sweaty and shaking as he stares up at you with glassy, desperate, and wide eyes. Strung the fuck out.

He looks at you like there is nothing else. All his focus put to whatever you want from him, he wants to be good for you. He wants to please you, please. Can he? Please! But he has pleased you and he's being thriving with it. Glowing and blushing and squirming under you as you ride him, bouncing in his lap and collapsing over the finish again and again, gasping his name, telling him how good he is for you, telling him he feels so good, all of it... filthy praise and moans falling from your lips, yet, now he's gotten to the breaking point... he's tongue-tied while wanting nothing more than to beg.

He wants to beg to be allowed to cum! He wants your permission. He needs your permission.

Please.

You can see it in his eyes. He's desperate. He swallows thickly, stifling another whimper. Head lolled back on the messy sheets, a bead of sweat rolling down his temple. His hands curl into tighter fists in the restraints tying his hands to the headboard where you put them when this began. Leaving him helpless. Exposed to your every whim...

And your whim includes, grinding hard against him, shoving his cock as deep into you as possible and-

Fitting your hand around his throat, watching his watering eyes shut extra tight with hungry eyes. It's as if he's savoring it. Loving the way his head spins, oxygen lacking. You feel his cock twitch inside you as you start to make clumsy little circles on his dick, too tired to bounce but moving enough for it to feel good. Anything feels good when you're so overestimated and he's been edged for so long.

Those pretty eyes fly open the second you ask, voice rough, "who's my good boy?"

The feeling of his throat contracting under your hand explodes another ball of heat inside you, swallowing needily. Then, Seb struggles to get out, "m-me." At first he can't. He opens his mouth. He shuts it. He opens his mouth. Speechless. His face turns redder and it's not from the choking. Embarrassment. He doesnt want to accept the praise even though it lights everything up inside him. Devastating him. You let up for a moment, letting him breath but raising an eyebrow as he stares into your eyes, gasping for air.

You re-tighten your grip. His sound cuts out, falling back into oxygen deprivation beautifully.

You clear your throat, "who's my good boy?"

"M-me," he finally pushes out, struggling still even as he says it. His voice hoarse and shy.

You revel in it- in watching him struggle. Struggle to breath. Struggle to speak. Struggle to admit the praise to even himself, let alone to you. It makes the worst best part of you grin like a predator, ready to sink your teeth into him. He's so pretty. You could eat him up... and you just might.

You keep your hand tight on his vulnerable throat for juuust long enough, he struggles depsite how much he craves it. How much he needs it. Then-

"Yeahhh," you finally let go of him, letting him breathe again, breathing in big, heaving gasps, "you're a good boy," you pet a line down his throat the center of his chest, stopping just above his naval.

He moans sharply. Violently. Twitching under your fingers.

"Such a good boy for me."

His cock throbs inside of you.

The incredible fucking feeling has you shutting your eyes, processing the lust raging through you, and it gives you just enough strength to stop circling your hips and start bouncing again in his lap instead. For the first second Seb bites his swollen, glistening lower lip. He tugs hard at the handcuffs. Then he gives in. He cries out high and loud.

He sobs, "pl-please! Please! Please! Ah! Wanna, unngh, wanna cum! Please-!"

"Do it," you groan, "good boy, c'mon, baby, cum for me. I want you to. Wanna feel it inside me, c'mon," you rasp, collaring his throat with your hand again.

Underneath:

Sebastian's weight is pinning you to your bed, his dick working in and out of you exquisitely. Your bodies pressed together with Sebastian's forearms bracing his weight by your head and shoulders. He's not fucking into you fast at all right now, he's fucking in hard and deep though. Tight and deep and hard in a way that keeps fucking sounds out of you, ah, ah, ahs that undercut whatever order to have for him. Punched out of your lungs. The little noises soften those orders whether they be to grab my leg and put it over your shoulder, go faster, go slower, stop for a second, youre close and I don't want you to cum yet, etc. Not that it matters if your orders don't sound concrete and steady because Sebastian follows them anyway. The perfect little submissive. Mmm-hmm.

Either way, everytime you open your mouth to talk, those sounds make their way out of you. Moans and gasps. His dick game is just so fucking good. And everytime you open your mouth to tell him something, he obeys.

He obeys beautifully.

Just thinking about his submissive obedience and witnessing some of it now leaves you clenching down on his dick like you'll die if he slips out. And... you might. You might die if this heat is taken from you. It's so tight and heavy in your core. Orgasm building and building.

Sebastian whines in response to feeling you tighten around him, burying his blushing face in your neck and shoulder as he keeps thrusting but... it gets unsteady. In and out and- stutter. In. In. Out a little. In. He keeps whining, babbling out something that sounds like "you'resowetandsotightohgod-"

Pleasure sparks in your gut and low in your spine, coiling tight. He's so desperate; so fucking hot but also so cute. So submissive and fucking biteable. It's incredible- incredibly arousing.

But you can't have him going soft on you. As much as you love having him melt on top of you like this, going stupid and boneless, whining and whimpering- useless with how much he enjoys being inside of you, you really, really have been in the mood for a good, hard fucking recently. So...

You sink your fingers into all that pretty, thick hair - he's growing it out again - and pull his head up to say, face-to-face with both of you out of breath, "c'mon, baby, ffuck me like you m-mean it, be, ah, good."

Sebastian whines needily. Nodding clumsily- frantically. He wants to be good. Always.

"Be good," you moan it again, unable to resist brushing his longer hair out of his gorgeous, pleasure-slackened face. Then, you tug on his hair to make him follow your hand. Arching his neck, head back.

And how are you supposed to resist an invitation like that? Nevermind the fact that you initiated the invitation. You can't.

So, you quickly untangle your fingers from his hair to wrap them instead around his throat.

You squeeze.

Sebastian moans hoarsely, his hips jerking forward hard. Baby always has loved being choked.

"Fuck!" You moan, squeezing harder to get him to do it again. His dick hitting you just right, pleasure lighting up you from the inside out. Boiling over.

Again.

Again he thrusts hard into you.

"G-good, you're so, oh, God, so good, Seb."

And that's when you see it. It's fucking gorgeous-

The way Sebastian melts that last impossible little bit. Melting entirely. All he wants is to be told he's good. All he wants is your hand decorating his throat, owning everything about him, including whether or not he gets to breathe. All he wants is to cum inside you. It's all he wants. And all of him is yours. All of him is yours to order-

"Do it, yes! Yes! Good boy, ohgod, c'mon, baby, do it, cum for me, sub. Ah-!"

gif credit @/flysafepapi

[the-east-art]

Fantail Pigeons and Mourning Doves - Part 4 (END)

There are five pigeons bobbing their heads back and forth, prowling the lot for forgotten chips. Pigeons are generally considered a nuisance. Back at the seminary Uncle Boaz would actively harass them away from the feeders they left out for the birds. They don’t contribute birdsong and they’re ugly. That’s what Uncle Boaz would say, at least. Mel liked pigeons plumage, the way that they glimmered iridescendantly in light, like oil. You would almost think that pigeons had adapted to live at the gas station pumps with that kind of matching coloring. 

At the hospital there had been a public use phone, and Mel had used that to call Fatima and explain what had happened. His urgency to get Wren to a hospital had been overshadowed by his horror at the idea of leaving the bloody mess for his coworker to find. Wren hadn’t seemed to care about waiting for Mel to quickly clean up, sitting in Mels’, head leaned back and focusing on his breathing.

A car came up to pump 3 and the five pigeons skittered to the other end of the lot, away from small children that may come out of the car and give chase, but close enough to watch the cars’ family like it was a spectator sport, hoping for a scrap. The car rolled down the windows, the designated responsible adult got to work filling the tank, and the cavalry descended upon the store. 

Fatima had been understanding and passed on the information to his three other coworkers. According to Fatima - who from what little Mel had gleamed has dabbled in any job you can think of - blood is a biohazard that needs to be cleaned up to a specific degree, which she would double check when she arrive at the store. An hour early to her shift. Mel desperately for once wished he had formed any kind of a connection with his coworkers, something that could justify how nicely she was treating him. It was… kind. And it made his heart feel heavy. 

Three children burst into the store, followed by an adult. She tells them they each have 2 missions: one being to use the bathroom, the other to select a snack. They take the instructions very seriously, bouncing on their feet with excitement. The woman begins to mill around the store, looking with mild interest at the shelves and waiting for the children to finish their business, purse and wallet handy. 

Mel had to drive back to the gas station with Wren. The hour distance from town, for the first time, feeling something like a curse. If there had been a way for Mel to drive both their cars down originally, he would have. Wren was too tired to fill the air with small talk, and Mel didn’t have the emotional capacity for it. He spent an hour wondering if the doctors had unstitched his amateur stitches and the idea that what he had put so much effort and concentration into sewing those little lines into another man only for them to be unpicked… it made him feel a funny sort of way. An emotion that was not easy to unspool. In the nothingness of 3am, Mel didn’t care to put the effort into untangling the snaggle. When Mel asked if the doctors had cleared Wren to drive, he had just waved the idea off with one of his hands. That had been that. 

The children emerge out of the bathrooms and begin to circle the store noisily, arguing over the pros and cons of seemingly every single snack within the store. Mel tries to watch their interactions, appreciate the ways that the smallest child displays its’ frustrations with larger gestures than the older sibling. Children are easier to read, not learning subtlety yet. Yet, as Mel looked on at the scene before him, it morphed. The light from the windows dimmed, the people disappeared, and in the theatre that was his brain, Mel saw Wren staggering across the store. In his minds eye the few drops of blood that had slipped through his compressed hand were exaggerated, staining the cheap tile floor a permanent red in large streaks. 

Mel rings the small family up as a new car parks. As two more set up next to pumps. As pigeons bob their heads. The day flows slowly through the cracks, dripping from day to night to Mel driving home in darkness alone with the his head playing games that Wren is in the passenger seat. 

oOo

When Wren reappears, dusty green car easing into the lot and parking gingerly into a space, Mel digs resolves to ignore him. To treat him just like any customer. Wren doesn’t even give him a chance.

“Melchior!” He enters the store like a hurricane, eyes bright and face illuminated with enthusiasm. It’s almost like he’s purposefully trying to shatter the previous image of himself that repeatedly walks through the store like a ghost - tense and quiet. This time, Wren walks in so full of life that it fills the room around him like Uncle Haniels’ cologne. 

Mel grips his detached anger tightly with both hands, somewhat literally as they dig into surplus of fabric that make up his jacket sleeves. There are three other people in the store right now. Two at pumps, four cars parked. It’s busy, not exactly the time to chat. 

“Wren.” Mel nods at the man and watches half of the muscles in Wrens’ smiling face go slack for half a second. In that fraction of a moment Wren must rally himself, and the expression appears with a reinforced gusto. 

“How are you doing? Are you okay?” Wren looks Mel up and down, like Mel was the one that had to get sewed up my an amateur two weeks ago. Mel chews on his lips and on the thought in tandem - two weeks ago. 15 days, technically. 

“I’m fine.” He clips out. Wren laughs and adjusts him ballcap.

“Your voice says otherwise.” Oh haha, Wren can read tone and facial expressions and body language easily. Mel doesn’t even know what Wren gleans from his answer, because Mel doesn’t know if its true or not. One of Wrens hands - calloused and scarred - rubs at his face, and he seems to sober up from the enthusiasm a bit. The muscles in his face relax a little more, but do not sag down into neutrality. “Look, Melchior, I needed to take a bit. To heal. I really shouldn’t have driven home in the first place. I’m sorry it took me so long to come back.” 

The words shock Mel. He mentally rewinds the tape and plays it again. Have you ever heard something said out loud, and then realized once the words are gone there is no proof that what you heard had actually existed? Sounds don’t leave evidence in the air. Mel wonders if Wren said anything at all, for a moment. It seems more likely, somehow, that he had projected this entire interaction (a lie to himself, his projections were always such a thin layer over reality that they could never be mistaken as real) than that Wren was just… being honest with him.

“I…” Mel swishes the words around his mouth. The lonely ‘I’ could vanish into nothingness in the air, never having existed, if Wren wasn’t looking at him so intently. Behind Wren, a customer is shifting around nervously, holding two family bags of chips and a six pack of beers. “I think we can talk later.” 

Wrens’ face crashes, and adrenaline pumps through Mels’ veins unbidden. Shit shit shit. He pounds his fist into his leg three time to accentuate each thought. He said something wrong. This is not the reaction he had anticipated to his words. But was it the words that were wrong, or the tone? 

“Sorry, yeah, you’re at work. I, uh, I’m sure I’ve already put your job enough at risk huh?” Wren scratches the back of his head, and his face shifts into a new expression. He starts to make a motion to leave, and something in Mels’ head clicks into place. 

“I get off my shift at 5.” Mel clarifies. “Come back then.” Wrens’ face clears up, bursts back into the expression he makes the most often, the once Mel actually knows. A smile. 

“I’ll be here.”

oOo

There isn’t really anywhere for them to go, not when the empty desert stretches for miles in either direction. The gas station is a waypoint, not a destination. So Wren and Mel sit down on the bench in front of the window. Mel counts cars. 

“I’ve been thinking.” Wren is, of course, the one to break the silence. Mel feels like an intrepid explorer in uncharted territory, except the uncharted territory is the concept of hanging out with a person that isn’t family when he isn’t actively at work. Mel tilts his head sideways and looks at Wren, waits for Wren to decide what he’s going to say, he thinks that somethigns Wren just starts sentences without planning where he’s going with them. “20 stitches. Did you space them out just so you could get an even number?” 

Mels’ face is heating up traitorously. 

“It- I- The number-” Wren lets out a boisterous laugh and leans back on the bench comfortably. It soothes Mels’ embarrassment, despite the fact that had it been Zeph doing that it would have riled him up more. 

“The hospital kept them in, thank god. Imagine if they had done an awkward number, like 37.” He leans his head back and complains to the sky and the gas stations tin roof. “That would not have helped my moral healing up.” 

Mel almost lets out a small laugh at that. Almost. It gets caught halfway in his throat, like it doesn’t know what to do with the sound. Wren laughs too. 

“I really appreciate what you did for me, back there. I’m really sorry, I wasn’t thinking when I got here. I just needed somewhere safe and well lit to take care of myself. Not a lot of options, clear out here.” Wren sighs and adjusts how he’s sitting. Now that they’re outside, the sun shining and reflecting off the window, Mels’ jacket is stifling. He shrugs it off and places it in his lap, where he can knead his fingers into the fabric.  

“Do you actually do handyman stuff?” Mels’ been wondering for a while now. Another bark of laughter - Wren seems to be made up of smiles and laughs and the twinkle that lights up in his eyes - the color of freshly tilled earth. 

“My, uh, hobby doesn’t pay, so yeah, I do. And yeah, it really does take me all over the area.”

“Are you going to tell me your hobby?” Wren clicks his tongue at the question, purses his lips. 

“I kind of want to, which is weird. I usually don’t give a shit, but I mean, you definitely helped me out of a shitty situation there. But you’re really better off not knowing.” 

A decade ago Mel stands flush against a wall, not daring to breath, and listens to a conversation between a handful of his aunts and uncles. Discussing Melchior. He recalls hearing Uncle Boaz insist that ‘His mother told us to never reveal the truth to the boy’ and Aunt Esther following it with ‘Melchior is better off not knowing.’ 

Mel is turning the words over in his mind, thinking. Wren must find some kind of meaning or message in his silence a he pushes himself to talk more. 

“The stuff I deal with… I mean it’s not good stuff. It’s pretty freaky, sometimes. Obviously it gets me hurt.” Wren pats his knee. “Don’t want other people getting hurt.” He rises to his feet, fumbling a bit with something in his pocket. How Wren can still be wearing his signature jacket, Mel doesn’t know. Must be sweating like a pig under the layers. “I have some work down east, for a bit. Probably be stuck on that side of the mountains for a few weeks, but I - well -” He pulls his fist out of his pocket and holds it out to Mel, wrist bent slightly. Mel obediently cups his palms under the fist, understanding the gesture. When Wren opens his fist a grumbled piece of paper falls into Mels’ open hands. “My number, just in case you wanna keep in touch. Or something like that.”

oOo

Mel buys a phone. He doesn’t have a lot of fluid money - the paychecks he gets are pretty much just enough to cover the cost of rent, gas, and the cheapest food he can find. In the back of his head he knows that the income of two people would make this all easier, but back then running had seemed like the only choice. Mel thinks that the phone is very fancy - the front face of it has a square screen, below which are the standard buttons for a phone much like the landline at the Seminary. It had a hidden keyboard that could be slid out, which was easier and faster to type with. 

It was difficult to describe it accurately through text, and three weeks later when Wren returned to the stations side of the mountains and swung by he had taken one look at it and laughed for a solid minute. 

“I think my grandpa has that exact phone.” Wrens’ knuckles are red and raw. He holds the phone in his hand like it is an ancient artifact, marveling at the ‘shk’ and tactile feel of the keyboard. It’s Mel’s favorite part - while he’s at work he finds himself opening and closing the keyboard as he stares out the window and counts the cars. 

Wren leaves Mel large blocks of texts at a time. He talks through the problems with the house he’s currenlty working on - Mel never really understands exactly what Wren is talking about when he does that but enjoys reading it nevertheless. Wren talks about types of electrical currents and types of water heaters. Other times Wren discusses the most inane topics - what’s the best kind of apple, why he hates Douglas Pear trees, the pros and cons of Hawaiian pizza. Wren isn’t rude when Mel doesn’t seems to know what he’s talking about, just seems excited to share. Leaves new paragraphs about apple textures and about invasive plant species. 

Wren must know there’s something wrong with Mel. About the way he doesn’t know anything about pop culture or commonalities of the world. If he wonders, he never asks, and it’s a relief. 

Mel is a lamppost, figuratively, stuck in one place. He is a cactus out on the desert, unmoving. Wren takes jobs all over the state and neighboring ones, and once or twice even beyond that, but he always seems to end up passing through Mels’ ‘neck of the woods’ and staying for a day. Chatting at the register becomes talking on the bench outside becomes Wren meeting up with Mel in town on one of his days off and exposing him to the world of a pizza buffet. The next time they text Mel is able to give his own informed opinion on Hawaiian pizza. 

He isn’t sure why Wren puts in the effort to constantly return here. 

A darker part of Mel, hidden inside of himself, starts to develop a theory. 

Perhaps the answer is something that Mel would be better off not knowing. 

“You got a new jacket.” Mel remarks as Wren takes a seat on the booth opposite of him. The town Mel stays in is small, and yet every time Wren drops by he seems to have found a new cafe or restaurant for them to try. 

“Winter isn’t the time for that threadbare thing.” Wrens’ eyes rove around Mels’ figure. “I see you’re still floating the church boy look.” Mel looks down at himself. A short sleeve shirt buttoned up to the collar - he may need to start pulling out the long sleeves soon - tucked into a pair of slacks, worn with his scuffed loafers. The oversized red jacket. Mel shrugs in response and fiddles with the little jelly packets that sit complementary at the table. Whoever was here previously mixed up the piles so Mel lays them out on the table and sorts them. Wren looks at the jellies and wrinkles his nose. 

“Apple jelly? I don’t know if I’ve ever heard of that. Isn’t grape kind of the standard?” Wren invents a topic to gnaw on, like a dog with a bone. 

“Grape jelly is new to me.” Mel says, stacking the four different options into piles. Strawberry, Apple, Grape, and Raspberry. 4, 6, 2, and 3. His brain begins to consider possible patterns. Wren doesn’t seem surprised by the insight. 

“It’s kind of the archetypical jelly. Peanut butter and grape jelly sandwiches are what I ate for pretty much every lunch elementary school.” Wren comments. “My sister would get fancy with her lunches at shit - my parents never packed us lunches - but I’d do the bare minimum.” Mel hums in acknowledgement at the anecdote and Wren watches at Mel starts to make a pyramid of the jellies, apples on the bottom row. “What kind of jelly did you usually have back where you grew up.” 

‘Back where you grew up’ was the very versatile phrase that Wren used to encapsulate all of Mels’ backstory. He obviously knew that Mel didn’t have the typical Americana suburbia middle class upbringing, and rather than pry into the details, he asked questions about jelly. 

“We didn’t have jelly.” Mel said. “We had jam.” 

“There’s a difference?” Wren asks. Mels’ head titls to the side and looks at Wren. He wonders if Wren genuinely didn’t know - he;s fairly certain that sometimes Wren would fake ignorance for the sake of letting Mel talk more. Whether this was a common behavior for people outside the Seminary or just a Wren thing, Mel has yet to determine. 

“Jelly doesn’t have the…” Mel frowned, trying to find the right words. “Jelly is smooth and uniform.” That felt a bit better. “Jam has the viscera of the fruit.” Wren wrinkled his nose at Mels’ word choice. “The seeds and skin and pulp.”

“Viscera makes it sound way nastier.” 

“Apples were usually dehydrated, and grapes were made into juices and wines. Usually our jams were made out of our peaches. They get extremely soft when ripe and therefore are well suited for jam making. Berries too, but there’s a larger required haul of berries for jam. Our ratio of peach jam to berry jam always highly favored peach.” 

“You know, I don’t know if I’ve ever heard of peach jam. Is it any good?” 

The waitress returns with waters and takes their orders as the conversations continues to spill out easily between them. Wrens’ topic today is about his sister - she lives up in Oregon where the rains are plenty. She does the same job that Wren does up there, handiwork across the east coast and even over into Montana. Occasionally there’ll be a job up in Idaho that’s just far enough and close enough for both of them to meet and tackle it. Mel does not ask if the job is fixing pipes or Wrens’ hobby that leaves him with bruises and black eyes. 

Wren picks at the cranberry chicken sandwich and looks out the window. The parking lot has 9 cars currently parked. Someone is rolling up the drive through line. Wrens’ commentary rolls over him, a background as Wren sees himself outside. There are no pigeons here, instead three starlings hop around the lot. 

“Something outside?” Wren is angling his head out the window too, now, trying to figure out what has Mels’ attention. Mel flushes. 

“No.” A pause. “Starlings. And some cars.” Wren nods and does not pry. It takes Wren longer to eat that Mel, because he runs his mouth so much and has to remember to take pauses between his thoughts to snag a bite or two. Mel used to do this kind of thing, with some of his siblings, at the Seminary. Eat and listen, be in good company and good food. Then Raguel and Zephaniah and Astrophel and all the lot turned 12 and left him behind. Started to be trained and do research in the portion of the library that Mel wasn’t allowed in, have conversations that would halt whenever they realized Mel was in earshot. 

Mel got used to sitting alone, looking out the window, watching, or otherwise gazing up at the stained glass. 

Wren talked about his sisters’ current girlfriend. Mel smiles and turns his gaze back inside to watch the movements of Wrens’ facial muscles as he recounts a story, hands moving animatedly. 

oOo

“How was the shift?” Crickets somewhere in the desert called out as if to give their opinions to the question. The night has cold nip to it, and it colors Wrens’ cheeks and ears red. 

“The same.” Mel shoves his hands into his pockets, surveys the lot. The only cars are the expected three, all parked. He still lacked the words to describe that his shifts were not boring - though they seldom created the elaborate stories that Wren would share from his own work. 

“Usually I find the venues.” Wren commented. 3 am. The gas station as always had become what was left of the entire world. Wren smiled at Mel, and Mel sucked in a deep breath of the cold air, allowing it to fill his lungs. It felt sharp. 

“Follow me.” With confident steps Mel crossed the parking lot, Wren falling into rhythm beside him. 

“It’s within walking distance?” Mel nodded. “I’ll be honest, I almost thought your ‘favorite spot’ was going to be letting me stand behind the counter.” Wren smiled as he said the words as they passed the stations pumps, and Mel let out a small puff of air, the lightest version of a laugh. 

“I think it was a safe assumption. I’m not really known for exploring.” Mel admitted. The pair approached the edge of the parking lot, the edge of the ring of light, the edge of the world. Mel hesitated for a moment, as he always did. And then took a step into the darkness of primordial space.

In the safety of the dark, of things not yet created or born, Mel felt an recklessness begin to burn in his chest. Impulsively Mel grabbed Wrens’ hand and began to run. 

They crossed the lonely two lanes of middle-of-nowhere highway to the plot of land that sat opposite the gas station. It was empty - dirt and squat shrubs - and Mel ran the disappointingly small distance it took for his lungs to begin to object to the movement and then stopped all at once. Wren did not let go of his hand even as the Mel jerked to a standstill. He tilted his head up to the sky. There was no moon tonight, and the blood pumping through his body and his head made the view even more dizzying and dazzling. 

“Oh.” Wrens’ voice, singing through the darkness. 

“Yeah.” Mel, breathless. 

They stood there for a moment, several moments, out where time had no meaning where the world did not exist yet in the dark of the night, and looked at the stars. Out here, far enough away from any proper towns, a distance from the lights of the gas station, they were beautiful diamond scattered across navy velvet. Candles pitched into the air. Lightning bugs held in a perfect formation. 

For eight solid breaths, each one marked by a puff of condensation from Mel’s mouth, the two of them just stand there and look up in awe. At breath nine Wren leaves for the parking lot, and at breath 15 he returns with two camping chairs. 

“I got the job here before I got my apartment.” Mel could sit out here for hours, looking at the stars, and not say a word. But he doesn’t want to. “I stole his car and drove until I realized that there was nothing I could do without some source of income. So I stopped here and begged for a job.” 

“Ran away from your family.” A statement from Wren, steady and unjudgemental. 

“It’s more complicated than that.” 

“You don’t have to tell me, Melchior.” Wren always uses his full name. Mel never corrects him. Wren never demands more than Mel is willing to give. In the darkness of the unreal world that is night beyond the gas station lot, Mel wants to give it all. 

“I grew up away from civilization. A farm - they called it the Seminary - in the middle of nowhere. Somewhere out east. I had…” Mel lets out a puff of air, and looks at the stars. “...a couple dozen siblings. And more aunts and uncles. Sometimes if one of my siblings got old enough and I wasn’t close enough to them, they’d kinda become more like an aunt or uncle.” 

“That’s…” Wren cleared his throat. “...a big family.” Wren has talked at length about his family - just him and his sister, really. Their parents lived up in Canada somewhere, moved when they got old enough. 

“My dad was never in the picture, and my mom died when I was a baby. Living at the Seminary we were off the grid, and when you got old enough, you were trained.” Mel left a gap of air, for Wren to ask:

“Trained for what?” 

“I never found out. I was kept out of the loop. Did the chores and some of the text translations.” 

“I know this is your family, Melchior, but that,” Wren took off his hat and pushed at his hair for a moment. “...I mean maybe it isn’t my place but this sounds like a cult.” 

“I’ve started to think it was.” Mel traced patterns in the stars with his eyes. 

Quiet settles between them for a moment. Curiosity wafts off Wren, and Mel can feel his eyes returning time and time again to his face. 

“If you were there for your entire life, and you weren’t allowed to leave, why are you here?” Wren finally asks, when can’t stand it any longer and gives in. Mel knew he would. 

“Somthing happened, I’m not sure what. I remember,” Mel closes his eyes and the images flash behind his eyelids. “...I remember gunshots. And screams, and blood. My brother, Raguel, came for me, grabbed me by my wrist, and took me away. Got me out of there.” He takes a deep, steadying breath. “Through anything that stood in our way.” 

“Anything?” 

Mel mulls the words over in his mouth, trying to decide if he is really going to say this. Really going to expose this out into the world. The world that is just him and Wren. It feels like confessional, under the blanket of stars. It feels like something he needs to say, before what he think is coming happens. 

“I watched Raguel kill. Zephaniah. One of my other brothers. Took a knife and stabbed him, slit his throat. The knife was already bloody when he grabbed me, so I, he must have. You know. And the only one I saw was Zeph. But he got me out - took one of the only cars the Seminary had and got me out of there. Whatever was going down, I was probably a sitting duck.”

“He took us to a motel and told me about his plans to keep me safe. That he was gonna get a job, protect me. Tell me the truth. But I was a afraid of him. Every time I looked at Raguel I thought of how quickly he had killed Zeph, how easily.” Mels’ voice is shaking, as if saying this is physically exhausting. It feels like it is. He can’t stop the words that come out now, like he’s expelling a poison from his body. Mel wants someone to know this before it ends. “I stole his car and I ran away. Until I ended up here.” 

“Melchior…” Mel didn’t need to look, didn’t need to decipher any of that from facial expressions and body language.

Pity.

oOo

The end of Mels’ world, the crashing in of the darkness beyond the gas station, comes in mid November. Almost exactly a year after the night he ran away. Mel had felt it approaching him for month, like a persistence hunter. He thinks that he had known it’s approach since that first time he had talked to Wren. This was poetic, symmetrical. Mel was glad it was almost exactly a year. 

His apartment is a mess, objects tossed around. Not that he had that many possessions in the first place. It’s a little insulting that it happens when he was previously sleeping, just wearing his boxers. An unnatural chill fills the air, and it makes his breath visible like it had been a month ago when he had talked to Wren under the stars. A supernatural force pushes him up against the wall, and he can feel the bruises forming on his arms. 

The vague image of a human appears in the middle of the room, empty eyes and a decaying skull and the copper scent of blood. If Mel squints he can see Zephs’ jawline, maybe. 

“Fuck off!” The door to the apartment is kicked open and Wren emerges into the room. He wields a firepit stoker and swings it through the ghost without hesitation. The image scatters, and Mel drops to the floor as the force against him disappears. Wren is at his side before he can even slump against the wall. His hands are where the specters had been, slightly misaligned from it’s handprints. 

“Melchior, Mel, are you okay?” He doesn’t quite register the question, looks at the place where the ghost had been. 

“I knew it.” The words are vindicating to say. “You hunt monsters.” Wren freezes. 

“I, this is,” Wren is taught for a moment, and then his shoulders slump. “Yeah.” 

“You’re hunting me.” Mel follows up. Wrens’ facial muscles move drastically at his assertion.

“No I’m - Melchior I’m sorry. I thought I took care of this ghost but it hopped from me to you when I swung by last week. That’s all.” 

“You know about me.” Mel insists. Wren isn’t understanding that it’s okay, what Mel knows.

“Is this about… about your family?” Mel shakes his head so violently it might fall off his shoulders. It might in a second anyway. 

“No I’m - Wren it’s okay I know I’m not human. I’m wrong.” He explains, looking eagerly at Wren. He knows he knows he knows. “That’s why - I’m not right. I don’t think things right. Why they kept me separate. Maybe even why Raguel killed Zeph.” Mel tilts his head up. “You hunt monsters, you must have known from the start. That’s why you keep hanging out with me, so that you can figure out what I am and kill me. I’m ready.” Maybe the eye contact is scaring him off. Mel closes his eyes. 

All Wren has is the poker, but he must know how to use it. Hopefully he can make it fast. Maybe he has some concealed weapons. Those could help. They were protecting him, at the Seminary. And out here he is so tired of trying so hard to be human.

The poker clatters to the floor. 

Mel opens his eyes just in time to see Wren raise both of his hands, cradling Mel’s face. 

“Mel…” He shakes his head and his voice hitches. When Wren looks back at Mel there are tears in his eyes. “...Yeah Mel, I hunt monsters, but you aren’t one. You had a shitty upbringing, and you’re - hell I mean I doubt it was a thing where you grew up but you’re probably autistic or have ocd or something  - but you’re human Mel.” Wren sighs and runs a hand through Mels’ hair. Fuck. When was the last time someone did that? Raguel, when Mel had been pretending to sleep, before he stole the car. 

“I hang out with you because I like you, Mel.” 

“I’m not…” Mel slumps forward, rests his forehead against Wrens’ shoulder. “Are you sure?” 

“Yeah, I’m sure.” Wren murmurs into Mels’ curly hair. “I’m sure.” 

Mel sits like that for a while, to the rising and falling of Wrens’ chest. He feels more than hears when the breath hitches, preparing to speak. 

“I gotta - that ghost is going to come back if I don’t take care of it.” Wren shits and Mel leans back against the wall. Wren scans Mels’ face, seems to find something there. “Come on.” He rises to his feet, and a gentle hand on Mels’ arm assists him in following suit. “You can tag along. I think we need to talk.” 

oOo

Even the desert gets it snow, even if it waits to come until early January. The gas station has a new kind of quiet so soon after the holidays. Late December was marked with a flurry of travelers, but now that the fesitivies have passed everyone seems content to stay home for the foreseeable weeks. The people that stop by the gas station are mostly truck drivers.

And Wren. 

Mel feels strange to be standing in the new year. He had thought - no - he had known that he would die before January. That the thing that he had felt breathing down his neck his entire life, this dread that had swallowed him, would finally reach him before then. And it did. Only to appear and reveal that it was just himself. Just Mel. 

Wren talks him through a lot of it - survivors guilt, abuse, ptsd, anxiety. A laundry list of reasons why he probably had felt that way. In February he’s going to help Mel find a therapist. 

Ghost are real. And werewolves and witches and everything that goes bump in the night. Mel can’t find it in himself to be surprised. It just makes sense. It must have been what the Seminary had trained to do, and were sent out take care of. Kept it a secret from Mel, because of his dying mothers request. Learning monsters are real is easy to take in stride, realizing that he isn’t one is something Mel is still trying to figure out how to deal with. 

Wrens’ green car putters up the station and parks. 2 cars parked - 3, Mel adjusts his count as a beat up red truck slides into view, turning off the highway to the station and ignoring the pumps. 

Barely even looking, Wren snags a pack of gum and slams it on the counter, paired with a five dollar bill. 

“Play me my favorite song?” He beseeches, and with a smile Mel rings it up, letting the register fly open and call out it’s hedgehog chime. Mel still has to remind himself to lower his head, to lot look up at some unreachable thing constantly, but it’s getting easier. 

“How was the hunt?” Mel asks, absentmindedly flapping the oversized sleeves of his sweatshirt back and forth. 

“Pffft, a bitch.” Wren says, hands already moving in a flurry. “You ever try to find an unmarked grave in the snow?”

“I had to help break the ice on the irrigation canals a couple winters.” 

“Fucking miserable.” Wren agrees. “But luckily I had some help on this one.” He breaks eye contact with Mel when he says that, and Mel tilts his head to the side. Odd, unlike Wren. 

“It’s a long way for your sister to come.” Mel states. Wren nods and pushes his hand around on his stubble. 

“They, uh, he, well-”

“Mel.” 

The door chimes in tune with the sound of a new voice - of a familiar voice - and Mel looks past Wren to the door of the gas station. The voice is easy to identify, but the figure that stands before him takes longer to match with the image in his head. 

Raguel looks different. His hair has been grown out from the Seminarys’ standard cut into the beginning of dreads, and he wears a sweater instead of the button ups, and glasses, and he has a bit of a beard growing. Cargo pants and thick hiking boots and he’s filled out more and its Raguel. 

“I’m gonna go fill up my tank.” And Wren leaves the two of them, facing each other without any words to say. 

Raguel sighs, something sad and something soft, and smiles. He’s already crying. 

“Mel.” He repeats, and opens his arms wide. Mel runs out from behind the counter into the arms of the brother he ran away from. 

“Are you mad?” Mel asks voice hoarse, and Raguel kisses the top of his head. 

“I’m just happy you’re okay.” Raguel holds his out and scans him up and down, smiles. Raguel never used to smile like that at the Seminary. “I was wondering where my jacket went.” Mel coughs out a wet laugh.

It’s the middle of winter, but it feels like the new cycle of life is already beginning.