#carved dining table legs

[kosslowski]

Dining Room in San Francisco Photo of a medium-sized transitional great room with a light wood floor and a brown floor, white walls, and a typical fireplace.

[pushpa-exports]

Hand Carved Silver Dining Table with Lion Legs

Hand Carved Silver Dining Table with Lion Legs: Elevate your dining experience with this exquisite handcrafted silver dining table featuring intricately carved lion legs. Crafted with precision and attention to detail, this stunning piece adds elegance and charm to any dining space. The silver finish exudes opulence, making it a statement centerpiece for gatherings and celebrations. Elevate your dining experience to new heights with this masterpiece of artisan craftsmanship.

[kiwisbell]

yellow bird [joel miller]

Taking the weight off your shoulders.

whiskey sour masterlist | my masterlist

pairing: joel miller x f!reader

tags/warnings: 18+ (MDNI), dbf!joel, age gap (20s/40s), sexual frustration, academic-validation-to-praise-kink pipeline, these two are in lurvvvv, thigh riding, joel talks you through it, and maybe reveals a side of him we haven't seen yet, a lil fluid exchange, some sweet sappy talk because it's them what do we expect, pure self-indulgence, that’s about it

word count: ~ 2.7k

a/n: this was mine and @cavillscurls's challenge to myself to write somethin short and sweet, thank you mya for being a cheerleader throughout this whole process. and thank you hugely el @northernbluess for last-minute beta reading and telling me it does not(?), in fact, suck dick n cock. i envision this as part of the whiskey sour-verse, but you don't need to read the series to understand what's going on here! this honestly makes me super fucking nervy to post, but i hope you enjoy. xoxo

read on ao3!

follow @kiwisbellupdates and turn on notifications if you'd like to be notified when i post a fic!

The moon is carving a path through the darkening sky, and you’ve been quiet for hours. 

You sit at the dining table with your cheek in your palm, lidded eyes flitting relentlessly from one side of the page to another. Every couple minutes, you jot down some notes on your cue cards. Your coffee lies untouched next to your textbook. 

Each slash of pen across paper cuts into his chest. You write in bursts of furious energy, the paper sometimes bunching under your fist, black ink smearing—you only ever write in black—one letter into the next. Your jerky looping letters resemble nothing close to your penmanship. Your sentences are punctuated by squiggles rather than dots. The corners of your eyes are moist, your skin glowing gold under a filtered smattering of light from the street lamps outside. 

There's a tight line to the curve of your mouth, a gash of colour where your lipstick has faded. Weariness dulls the shimmer in your eye. You keep writing. 

“Thought you were goin’ out with your friends tonight,” says Joel. 

“Hmm?” You blink slowly, the sound of his voice dragging your gaze toward Joel: dressed in jeans and an olive flannel (a gift from you), he's watching you study, a worried slash between his brows. “Oh,” you say. “No. I bailed.”

A flare of his nostrils as he approaches you from the coffee station is the only indication he gives that he's frustrated. “You’ve been workin’ all day, baby. You haven't eaten.” He slides his coffee mug toward you and switches it with your own. “Here, take mine. Yours is gettin’ cold.”

You start to shake your head. “Joel, it’s—”

“It's either you drink mine,” he says, sliding the milk and sugar toward you, “or you take a break.”

You narrow your eyes. “You hate my coffee.”

“Relationships are sacrifice. C’mere.” He yanks the leg of your chair toward him until you're sitting beside one another. He dips his mouth to your temple, and sleep begins to tug at your eyelids. Still, you keep your books open, if not partially out of spite, as Joel drinks your too-sweet coffee and hides his grimace. 

“You hate it.”

Joel’s eyes slide to you over the rim of his cup, his chest pulling taut at the sight of the unshed tear on the outer corner of your eye, teetering. 

Your bottom lip wobbles, your last Sisyphean effort to hold the droplet of water at bay, and Joel sets down the mug. 

“You hate my coffee,” you whisper, not meeting his eye. 

It's the press of his hand to your lower back that makes your fingers tremble, curled tightly around your pen. “There are worse things I’d do for you than drink shitty coffee.”

“So you admit it's shitty.”

His fingers dance up and down your lower vertebrae. “You’re exhausted,” he says softly, his mouth grazing your shoulder. “Come and take a break. Can feel all that tension, sweetheart. Right—”

The warm press of his palm between your shoulder blades. The simple touch ignites pressure behind your nose. 

“—here,” he finishes with the pinch of his thumb and forefinger around your brain stem. 

Your head lolls gently in his direction. “I know what you're doing.”

An innocent sound pitches out of his throat. “Do you?”

Your lashes flutter as he begins to dig his palm into the tense balls of muscle in your back. The contact, warm and almost gentle, undoes you. The pearl stuck in your lashes shakes free. 

The impact of it carving a path down your cheek strikes his heart true. “C’mere, baby.” 

Pulling you reluctantly away from your workbooks, Joel sits on the couch and guides you on top of him, your thighs hugging his hips. “This sad face,” he says under his breath, brushing the pad of his thumb over your bottom lip. “So pretty when you’re sad.” Your eyes dip when his stubble ghosts across your jaw, his lips warming the shell of your ear. 

You huff, your arms winding around his neck. “You’re wandering into patronising, Miller.”

“Hmm, big words.” His grin carves its shape into your skin. He nips the spot just below your ear and you gasp, your fingers curling in the locks at the nape of his neck. “Told you, baby—such a smart girl.”

You open your mouth to snip at him, but he’s sliding one big, rough hand underneath your silky shorts and pinching your ass. “Tell me what’s wrong,” he says, his pinky finger dipping under your waistband. 

“I’m fine,” you grumble, wriggling on his lap. He hums, the downward curve of his mouth on your skin etched in skepticism, his hands pulling you tighter to him.

“Tell me what’s wrong, baby.” His hand slides up your spine, lifting your little silk shirt, the hardness of him caging you in. “Tell me so I can fix it.”

You're gooey and pliant on top of him, hips flexing to fix your thighs around his waist, your body attuned to him in a way you refuse to fight. Joel Miller is yours. He’s always had your back. 

“I’m tired, Joel. I keep bombing these stupid fucking tests, and the new guy at work is incompetent, and I haven't had an orgasm in a whole week.”

Sometimes, you're surprised by how deeply you envy your Joel for being so fucking right. For knowing, even when you don't, how deeply your wounds sit. 

He frowns up at you, his thumb caressing the curve of your jaw, guilt and understanding pinching his ribs. “And I’ve been workin’ late,” he says. 

Silently, you nod, fisting the hem of his shirt. “But that's okay, Joel. I know you work hard. It's not your job to—”

He shakes his head, trailing his hands up and down your soft thighs. “I’ve been workin’ late,” he repeats, his voice thinning, “and I haven't been treating my girl like she deserves.”

Your cheeks warm at the way his hands reach your inner thighs, thumbs ghosting across your hip bones. “That's not true.”

“Baby, you look at me.” He cups you like warm wax and you're melting just the same, gaze sliding up to meet his. Brown, glinting gold as they catch the orange lamplight, his eyes don't leave you. “You need to come?”

Your mouth drops. You really fucking do. If he notices your slip—the way your hips still on his lap, your arms wound tight around his shoulders—he doesn't say nor soothe. “Joel, I didn’t mean to—”

He quiets you with a loving nip at your chin. “You wanna be a good girl?”

A shudder railroads down your vertebrae. Your core is tight, hot, your little pyjama shorts shifting over your pussy, velvet-soft. “Joel, you really don't have to—”

“You wanna come?” he says again, his teeth scraping the shell of your ear before he takes your lobe between them. You gasp, clutching him tight to you, a buoy bobbing above the torrent. 

“Yes,” you tell him, breathless, letting him play with the waistband of your shorts. “Yes. I need to come so badly. I’ve missed you so much.”

“I know, sweetheart. I’m a bad man, takin’ my girl for granted.” 

It’s not true, he’d never, has not once, and still you whimper at the sound of my girl on his tongue. 

“You are a bad man,” you tell him, halfheartedly shoving him in the chest. 

“And?” he prompts, drawing the poison from the wound. 

“And I need to come.”

Joel’s mouth curves in understanding, the hairs of his moustache bristling in the corners. 

“Take ‘em off,” he says. “Let me be good to you.”

You ease your thighs out of your silk shorts, and Joel’s got his hands on your shirt, lifting it up and over your head. A cool shiver snakes from your cool feet, now on the floor as you stand naked before him, to the scruff of your neck. It longs for the touch of his fingers. 

“God, you're fuckin’ beautiful.” Joel takes your outstretched hand, tugging you toward him. His palms smooth over the planes of your torso, thick fingers fitting to your ribs, the follower at the altar. It's only when he touches the small of your back that his eyes abstain from their reverent path across your body and meet yours. 

“Tell me what you want,” he says plainly, fingers catching at the ends of your hair. 

You crowd him, gaze sweeping down his body at the hard length of his cock down his thick thighs and the utter stillness of him when met with your type-A jitters. 

“To be your good girl,” you say. 

“I know.” It's a whisper in the quiet. Somewhere, distantly, the dishwasher churns through its cycle. A car horn blares. Wind blows. “Sit down.”

You go eagerly to him, your spirit alight with his closeness, the scent of pine and sawdust from a long day’s work, the soft cotton of his flannel, the scrape of his denim along your thighs. Wordlessly, Joel shifts you until you're straddling one of his thighs. 

The jolt of pressure to your clit makes you gasp, clawing for purchase on his chest. Your fists wrap around the lining of his flannel. 

Oh, God is the vague chant that eats at his liver, chewing on the ripe mass, the wound sealing over to deliver himself once again at your feet. It’s tossed into the space between you, maybe a little blasphemous, maybe thoughtless. It’s the glassy film over your eyes, those irises he could trace in the dark, the call of love that never quiets. 

“Feel good?” 

The smug bastard. His hand is still soft and sweet on your spine, climbing high only to drop, no longer meeting the resistance of clothing. The cool air puckers your nipples, your body tightening as you pull in on yourself. 

“You remember that first night?” he says softly, tucking your hair behind your ear. “You were so cold, baby. All alone and needin' a good strong hand.”

He squeezes your ass, forcing your hips to shift over his leg. The slow grind of your wet seam along the coarse denim makes your thighs tremble. “Fuck,” you whisper. “That's… that’s good.”

He hums like he knows. “You remember what you did that night?” he asks. “Climbed on me, just like this, and made yourself feel good. Thought I’d come in my pants then and there.”

Your breathless laugh hitches in your throat as your hips begin to grind down of their own volition. The friction is rough, unkind, nothing like the gentle press of his hands on your bare skin. Sweat begins to glisten in the hollow of your throat as you throw your head back and lose yourself in the rhythmic roll of your body over his thigh. 

“That's it,” he grunts, squeezing your hips, his cock twitching, untouched, in his boxers. You’re smearing your wetness over the denim, washing it dark, letting the light shift over your writhing body. “That's my pretty girl, usin’ me like you need to.”

“Ah, fuck,” you cry out, bearing down the weight of you on his leg, grinding hard against him as you seek your own pleasure. 

“Let's hear it,” he urges, gritting his teeth at the sight of your poor swollen clit, needy and glistening, exposed. “Lemme have it, baby girl, c’mon.”

Your moan is strangled, language muddied in your head as Joel surges upright and latches his mouth around your nipple. Biting and sucking raw, his rapacious mouth is warm nectar that pools hot in your belly, his hands coaxing your hips through their movements, guiding you in the dance nonetheless. 

“I'm your good girl,” you rasp, the coil pulling tight at the base of your stomach, the hollow bowl filling to the brim, keeping him, coveting him. 

“That's right. My good girl.” His hot breath blooms like possessive fingers where his mouth makes contact on your throat, plucking your nerve endings like a bushel of daisies. 

“I can feel you, baby girl,” he groans into your throat. “I can feel your tight fuckin’ cunt gettin’ me all wet. Feel you grabbin’ me like a goddamn cat. You close, huh?”

You whimper, your nails scratching at his chest through the fabric of his shirt, your stomach taut as you approach your high, bucking your hips hard against his leg. “Fuck, Joel, fuck! I’m so close—”

“Tell me who you are.”

“I’m a good girl.” You wind your arms around his neck as you begin to list, your breasts pressing into his chest, closeness sparking to flame as your warmth rubs up against him. 

He’s steadfast, thick arms holding you upright, as he groans your name into your ear like it's something blasphemous. “Who are you?” he repeats. 

“I’m your good girl, Joel! Fuck, I’m yours, your good girl. Oh, God, Joel, please…”

“That's right, sweetheart.” His hand latches around the nape of your neck, slick with sweat, while you bury your face in his throat. “My good girl’s gonna come all over me again, because that's what good girls do, hmm? They make themselves feel good when their bad men go and forget their place.”

You sob his name into the crook of his neck, the friction etching too much into your sore, rubbed-raw flesh. Your thighs hug him tight, hips thrashing hard above him as you come with a shout, your wet mouth dragging along the vein pulsing in his throat and trailing saliva in its wake. Joel doesn’t seem to care, coaxing you through your high when it starts to last a little longer than normal, pulling you so close that you can hardly remember your shape when it’s not slotting into him. 

There's a dark spot spreading over his jeans, and your inner thighs are sticky with release. Joel tilts your chin up with his mouth, littering kisses from your jaw to the hollow of your throat. His tongue darts out playfully as his fingers dip between your bodies and tease through your messy slit. 

“Joel,” you gasp, your face warm. He lifts two soaked fingers to his mouth and cleans them off with a couple swirls of his tongue. 

And he's kissing you before you can retreat into yourself. He turns you inside-out, bares your soul to him, and all you can do is taste the sweet tang of the release you gave yourself. 

Your tongues tangle, languid in your mutual exploration, the push-and-pull you've always known. By the time he pulls away to press his lips to your forehead, you're decently sleepy, your muscles gooey and your body slumping sideways in his lap. 

“Ruined your jeans,” you mumble. 

His fingertips ghost up and down your spine. A cool shudder blooms from each point of contact. He’s still hard, enough that it must ache, but he makes no move to free himself. “I like ‘em this way,” he says. 

You roll your eyes. “Such an idiot.”

Clicking his tongue, Joel says, “You treat your elders this way?”

You nip his nose. “Only when they’re sweet on me.”

He chuckles, brushing your hair behind your ear so he can kiss your temple. “You feel okay?”

Your hands slide up his chest, hooking around his neck, your fingers threading together in his hair. “I feel like a million bucks, baby. But next time, you can come inside me.”

The purr registering in your chest has him preening under the attention, his hands coming to rest just above your ass. “I’m gonna tell you what’s going to happen tonight,” he says, ignoring your apprehensive glare. “You're gonna put away your books, and eat a good dinner, which I’ll make, and you’ll rest.”

Your Joel is stubborn in his own way, and it shows in the tension above his brow, the splaying of his hand over your back. You reach for him and smooth out his frown with your thumb. “I’ll do whatever you say, Joel Miller. As long as you make my favourite.”

You could drown happily in the way he smiles. It always comes on slow, like he isn't quite sure of himself, but it will glow in his eyes. It will sing through him like a light through glass. 

“Yeah,” he says, “I can do that.”

Your blood calls to him. And you could do it all without him, sure—but he won’t let you. 

THE END.

[bahrtofane]

your relationship with jude is something that remains to be seen. and yet you love him, he loves you. will you finally admit it?

Word count - 900+

Watch it - silly over thinking reader, its okay jude is there

—--

“I think you’re one of a kind.” he hums, flicking the hair tie on his wrist-your hair tie-against him. The soft slap it lands on his skin brings you back to reality. 

You don’t look up. Partly afraid, partly ashamed. Who are you to be one of a kind to Jude ? 

He swallows, fidgeting with his hands from his seat across from you. You worry him in more ways than one. Eager to come when he calls, and yet so shy and timid when you get here. It's almost like you're afraid of him- are you? He hopes not. That's not what he wishes this to be.

You sit at the dining table in his home, you don't know why you sat here first. Couch felt too intimate, too real. He didn't oppose, letting you take a seat farthest away from the head of the table. There's a hidden meaning here you wish to bury. But your mind knows it all the same.

You have to face it head on eventually, why not now.

“I’m sorry.” you mumble out, as graceful as a newborn calf. Half the confidence as one. You finally manage to look him in the eye, you want to cry the moment your eyes meet. He sits leaning against the table, afraid of missing a single word from your lips. 

His eye brows furrow, “what for?” soft as ever. 

“I don't know,” you sigh,”for-i guess just-making you deal with me while you have so much going on.”

He frowns, “I wanna show you something,” getting up and motioning for you to follow,

Did he not hear you? What is he up to. 

You follow him through the halls of his house, past doors and hallways till you get to a door at the end of the hall. You look at him, brows raised, puzzled. 

He pushes the door open and you're greeted to a bedroom. Jerseys line the walls, there's a shelf for trophies. And then it dawns on you, this is his room. You've never been here, not yet. A threshold that you haven't let yourself cross. And here you are, here he is, holding the door open for you. It's like he's opening his heart out, carefully carved an incision over his chest where you fit. You blink.

“Come.” is all he says.

So you do, sliping inside and awkwardly standing off in the corner.

He smiles at you, soft, shaking his head. He rests a knee on the edge of his bed, patting the top. So you do, gently sliding on and waiting for his next move. 

He doesn't speak, instead kneeling down and shuffling under his bed. He brings out a shoe box, handing it to you. 

He's giving you a pair of shoes?

You open the box and  find a scattered collection of memories spanning the time you've spent together.

Polaroids if you two, movie tickets, game tickets, little trinkets you hand him on a whim. 

“I was gonna put it in a proper box but I figured you needed to see it today,” he scratches the back of his head, gaze shying away from your own. 

He's scared. You see it in the way his legs bounces next to you on his bed, the way he's chewing his bottom lip, hands balled up in his own comforter. He's scared it's too much, that he'll be giving too much too soon, too much for you and you'll shrink away from him indefinitely. He can't help it, he loves too hard, too soon. Love. he loves you. Do you love him too? He hopes, prays. His right hand picks at his nails, he's picked it til he's bleeding. He pays no mind, he doesn't even notice. Do you love him too? Say something,, anything, he wants to say, yell, scream and shout.

He's Jude Bellingham, and he's afraid of his own love. He's nothing but a boy who years for one the way he yearns for them. He's Jude. And he yearns for you. 

You take a breath in, setting the box down next to you. He panics, eyes going wide and scrambling out of his seat. Oh he's done it again hasn't he. Letting his big stupid dumb heart do the thinking. 

You pull his arm, getting up, and tackling him in a bone crushing hug, sending him back first to his bed,just about knocking the air out of him. 

“I love you,” you mumble, now laying on top of him. And he laughs. He laughs loud and bright. You love him.

“I love you!” he manages to blurt between giggles. 

You smile, but you can't contain your tears. He keeps every memory? In a neat box under his bed? As a reminder of his love? In order to always keep you near? To never forget not even a second?

You didn't know someone could love so much, so hard, so wholly. And here he is. Giving his heart to you. The little incision on his chest now a gash where his hearts been ripped out, handed to you. He trusts you all too much. But you love him. Oh how you love him. If it meant carrying the world you would. 

Oh how sweet jude is. He wipes your tears, gently kissing your forehead. 

“Hey hey, it's okay. I got you.” he mumbles into your neck.

Does he ever.

[lesservillain]

iv. someone like you and all you know and how you speak

summary: old friends and halloween shenanigans cw: we see peen. an: i love joyce byers. also pic of matthew lillard is implied to be reefer rick.

Eddie started having night terrors. 

They didn’t come every night, but their intensity had you concerned.

The first one had you flying over the back of the couch to get to him. His shrieks turned your blood cold, and watching him shake and convulse was terrifying to witness. In your panic, you wrapped your arms around him to try to ground him and ended up getting hit in the face. After that you asked your teacher for advice on what interventions to do when someone has an episode.

But you weren’t the only one to suffer with pain after getting clocked in the jaw. The days after an episode left Eddie’s body sore from the sudden jerking of his muscles in his sleep. It probably didn’t help that he had also started physical therapy twice a week either, leaving him sore even with his pain medication most of the time. 

Needless to say, Eddie was acting like his normal grumpy self most days, even when his friends would come over. Though, he did try and reel it back when he could catch himself or with a subtle nudge from you. By now you’d gotten used to his grumpy attitude and knew it was just coming from a place of hurting. In turn he’s been much more cooperative with you. Progress.

“What the hell are you guys doing?” You ask with a laugh, as you get out of your car. Eddie is sitting on the ground leaning back against his hands with his legs sprawled out. Will and Grant sit on either side of him as Dustin pushes Eddie’s wheelchair on its back wheels, Jeff sitting in it and squealing as Gareth and Mike laugh.

“They’re trying to break Jeff so him and Eddie can get matching chairs,” Grant called, eliciting a laugh from Eddie and Will.

“N’they’re gonna pay for his new one when they break that one,” Wayne calls from the porch, lit cigarette in hand. All around him are pumpkins of all different shapes and sizes, like a little pumpkin patch had grown around him.

“Ah, I see.” You nod.

Grabbing your bag, you walk into the Munson home to get your things settled. Glancing over into the dining room, you expected to see the table already set up for their game night, but were surprised to see it covered in newspaper and knives and spoons. 

“Are you guys carving these pumpkins?” You ask, stepping back out onto the porch and pointing at the Wayne’s posse.

“Yep,” Eddie called back. “My PT said it would be a “fun activity” to work on my hand strength," he said with stiff fingered air quotes.

“Yeah, Eddie’s gonna scoop out all the guts with his bare hands,” Dustin says, setting the wheelchair back down to wiggle his fingers.

“Ew gross,” Mike joins in with Dustin’s antics.

“It’s not gross,” you say with a roll of the eyes. “Save the seeds and I’ll bake them for later.”

“Mmm, some roasted pumpkin seeds sounds real good.” Wayne says, putting his cigarette out and standing from his seat. “Save me some a’them when you make em.”

“Of course!”

“Hey, should we show her what we found earlier?” Your ears twitch when you hear Will lean into Eddie’s side. He looks at you over his shoulder, then back to the group before nodding.

And that’s how you ended up following the boys through the woods around the Munson house. Grant pushed Eddie’s chair through the woods, which wasn’t as terrible of terrain as you had expected. If the slight bounce bothered him, Eddie didn’t say. You stayed steady next to him, only moving to let them go ahead of you when the mostly thinned out trees were too close in some areas. 

After a few minutes and a lot of loud conversation between the boys, you came to a small clearing that dropped off into a cliff. It made you nervous to see the boys get so close to the drop, especially when Grant pushed Eddie almost to the very edge.

“Hey, be careful, please,” you called from behind them. 

“Come on, come see how far down this is!” Jeff called, his toes right on the cliff’s edge. You take a couple steps forward, just enough that you can see the water sloshing at the bottom. 

To see it made you dizzy, so you tried to focus your eyes elsewhere, instead taking in the breathtaking view of the lake below. You could see boats, houses, and even a man fishing off of a dock behind his house. If there was a railing or something to hold on to out here, you could see yourself coming out here to sit with Eddie on a nice day.

“Woah, shit!” Your heart stops beating as you watch Will pull Mike’s stumbling body back from the ledge, and you’re instantly done with this whole adventure.

“Alright, I get the idea. Field trips over,” you say, walking over to Eddie’s chair and pulling him back. “We better go carve those pumpkins before it gets too late and the kids have to go home.”

There’s some groans of protest, but they all follow your lead back to through the woods.

“You have to admit it was pretty cool, though, right?” Eddie says, his head tilting back just a bit to look at you. He was smiling. It was something he started doing more and you couldn’t help the way it made your stomach flip every time he did it.

“Yeah, it was definitely a nice view,” you agreed with a sigh. 

“Maybe when it gets warm out we can try jumping from it.” You hear Gareth say to one of the other boys. You recall the large drop from where you all stood at the top and a shiver went down your spine.

“I wouldn’t...unless you really want to get your own wheelchair to match Eddie's,” you say back. Gareth doesn’t let out another peep for the duration of the walk back.

“Okay, since Eddie is on scooping duty make sure you give him your pumpkins once you’ve got the tops off.”

The boys are sitting in their normal gaming formation, except for where Eddie and Gareth have swapped sides so Eddie can sit next to you. The pumpkin that the boys picked out for Eddie sits in front of you since you offered to carve it for him.

“What are you going to draw on it?” You ask him as you cut into the top of the thick pumpkin with force.

“I’m not sure yet,” he says indecisively. “Something scary for sure.”

“How about Mrs. O’Donnell?” Gareth nudges Eddie’s side, and the boys at the table all grimace.

“Fuck no. As terrifying as she is, I’d rather carve a demoba--”

Eddie catches himself mid sentence, horror written all over his face as he looks directly at Dustin. Mike and Will share similar pale faced expressions as Dustin. The tension at the table could be cut with a knife and you weren’t sure how to defuse the situation.

“Well,” Grant is the first to break the silence, “I think that, whatever we all decide to do, that we could make it into a competition. Let the newbie decide who has the best design.” He was looking straight at you and you were caught off guard by the new label. 

“Oh, come on, that’s not fair,” Gareth chimes in before you can say anything, “Will is like, one of the best artists in the whole town. He’s definitely gonna win.” Will sat up straight in his chair, before shrinking down with a smile.

“Hey, now, let’s not forget who designed these bad ass tee shirts,” Eddie says, gesturing at himself.

“You made those designs?” You ask surprised. Eddie nods with pride.

“Yep, when Hellfire was founded in ‘82. We scrounged up enough money to go to a print shop and have these bad boys made at the beginning of the school year. Wasn’t cheap, so we’ve always tried to be extra careful with them.”

“Awe, that’s so cute,” you giggle.

The table erupts in a defensive roar about how it is apparently not cute that their club has tee shirts that they take very good care of. No one was convincing you otherwise. 

You blew them off and distracted them by having them give Eddie their pumpkins. They all watched with amusement as Eddie reached down into each pumpkin and pulled the slimy, seedy guts out of them. Eddie’s button nose scrunched up with disgust, contrasted by the wide grin that touched his eyes. His tongue poked out in concentration as he swirled around the inside of the pumpkin, plopping the guts into bowls and pots with each one.

By the time he had gutted each pumpkin of their contents, Eddie looked like he was done for the rest of the night. 

“Eddie, do you want to save your pumpkin for another night?” You ask quietly, leaning in so only he could hear. He looks at you, brown orbs darting back and forth between your eyes carefully before smiling at you.

“Yeah, please?”

“Of course.”

“See, I told you that Will was going to win!” Gareth shouted, his hands falling at his side with a huff as the rest of the group laughed at his bitching.

“I’m sorry, it’s really good! That’s the most detailed pumpkin carving of a vampire’s face I’ve ever seen.”

“Thanks,” Will said bashfully. 

“Gareth, I don’t know why you’re bitching. Your jack-o-lanturn’s eyes aren’t even the same size.” Eddie razzed, goading Gareth until he flipped him off.

“Awe, I thought the mismatched eyes were cute,” you said teasingly, and Gareth froze, turning away from your eyes to stand by Will, who gave him a pat on the back.

As you all stood around admiring the hard work of everyone’s carved pumpkins, the sound of loud music playing grabbed all of your attention. It progressively got louder, sounding like it was coming from down the driveway.

“What the hell?” Jeff said with a tilt of his head.

Everyone seemed more confused than anything, but you clocked the look on Eddie’s face as he looked between the trees of the winding driveway. There was a fear there that you’d only seen in his face during his night terrors, and everything in your body was telling you that you needed to get him and everyone else inside.

“Come on guys, lets go—”

The loud revving of the engine drowned out the sound of whatever song the driver was playing. The car came over the bump at an alarming pace before slamming on its breaks once it got up to the clearing. Headlights blinded all of you, and your body moved on its own accord to stand directly in front of Eddie.

The engine cut off abruptly, the lights dimming enough to reveal fire engine red sports car with a black stripe down the middle. You could barely see the fuzzy dice hanging from the rear view mirror through the heavily tinted windows.

“Holy shit,” you hear Eddie say behind you. The fear had left his features, replaced with an elated shock that left you wanting to ask several questions. But before you could question him, Eddie maneuvered around you and the rest of the guys heading straight toward the mysterious car.

Just as Eddie approached the car, the driver side door swung open. A man  only a few years older than you with blond, spiked hair stepped out. The man had to be at least 6’5, his face covered in piercings and he had an over all aura of trouble.

“How the hell did he get this address?” You hear Jeff question Grant and Gareth.

“Rick!” Eddie shouts excitedly.

“Holy fuck, dude,” Rick says, pushing up his sunglasses and slamming his car door shut. He runs up to Eddie and embraces him tightly, bending down to be at his level. Rick pulled back, looking Eddie up and down before bringing his hand down on his shoulder a few times.

“Damn, that dude really did a number on you, huh?”

Eddie visibly shrinks, shrugging his shoulders. “Yeah, you could say that.”

“Who the hell is that?” You ask Jeff quietly, taking a few steps back to be standing next to him.

“That’s Reefer Rick,” he says with an annoyed tone. “He’s Eddie’s friend. Got Eddie into dealing in school.” Your neck almost breaks with how quickly you look at Jeff.

“Dealing? Like, drug dealing?”

Jeff looks at you and nods. “Uh, yeah? You didn’t know about that?”

“Um, no. I didn’t.” 

“It was just weed,” Jeff as an attempt to save face, “Aaaaaand sometimes random pills that Rick would give him to sell. But nothing serious.”

“Oh, okay. Just weed and pills. Which are both totally illegal to sell but it’s cool right?” Your blood was starting to boil with this new information. You don’t know why you’re even upset, it’s not like you really cared if people smoked weed or whatever.

Really it’s the idea of Eddie getting in trouble after everything he’s been through. Drug dealers are notorious for being sneaky and conniving, right? What if this guy thinks Eddie got money in the settlement and is here looking for a handout.

“Hi," you say in a clipped tone to the man as you approach him and Eddie. You give him just your first name, extending a hand out to him with faux pleasantry as you settle next to Eddie in his chair. “Who are you?”

“Oh, hey, this is Rick,” Eddie says to you with excitement. “Rick, this is my…caregiver.”

Rick takes your hand, looking you up and down before giving you a loose handshake. “Well, hello nurse,” Rick smiles, maintains eye contact with you as he continues to hold your hand.. 

After a beat Eddie clears his throat, and Rick retracts his hand from yours. You don’t miss the subtle shift in Eddie’s chair, making him close enough you can feel his arm against yours. You took the hint, and stepped back until you were behind his chair. Rick laughed lowly before looking back to Eddie. 

“Well, I’m glad you have someone who can take care of you,” Rick says with a cheshire smile. “Especially since I’m sure Wayne is back at work. Must be expensive to live all the way out here.”

“Eh, we had it built out here as part of the settlement, so it’s paid for. He still has to pay the bills, though.” Eddie’s voice trails off at the end. “Wish I could do something to help…”

“Yeah, I don’t blame ya,” Rick says as he scans the land, nodding his head to the guys as he does. “I’m sure you’re not interested in getting back into the business with me given…well, everything.”

“Ah, yeah…I owe you an apology…” Eddie looks up to Rick with a guilty expression.

“For what? Oh, you mean my house?” Eddie nods and Rick waves him off. “Nah, don’t sweat it man. I took everything with me when I went to Vegas so if anyone went in there snooping they wouldn’t have found anything anyway. It looked like they had sent someone in to clean though. Looked nicer than the day my parents—I mean, the day I bought it.” Eddie nods, letting out a breath that he was holding as Rick talked.

“Well that’s nice that your house that you bought is all clean,” you say, grabbing onto the handles of Eddie’s wheelchair, “And since he’s isn’t interested in your business endeavors, I guess that means you don’t need anything from Eddie then, right?”

Rick looks down at Eddie, then back up to you with a curious look. His tongue rings peaks out from between his lips as he plays with it, before popping it back in his mouth to speak. 

“Well, I was just coming out here to see a dear old friend of mine. But, there is one thing that I want to speak with him about. In private.” He leans down to eye level, eyes squinting with how tightly he smiles at you.

You open your mouth to protest immediately, but you feel Eddie push against the wheels, his chair moving away from you as he motioned Rick to follow him. 

“Give us just a second.”

You stand in the same spot, speechless as they move far enough away that you can’t hear the conversation between them. A hand on your shoulder pulls your attention, and Dustin motions you back over to where the guys are huddled together.

“He’s an idiot,” Grant whisper yells into the huddle.

“Yeah, but he’s obviously lost his best salesmen for the high school territory,” Mike argues. “Wouldn’t be surprised if he was asking if one of us would want to start dealing for him.”

“He better not. You guys better not,” you say with a pointed finger at the boys who were still in high school.

“Trust us, we won’t,” Dustin said with a firm tone.

“Well, whatever he wants, it’s probably not good.”

“Well…”

“Jeff, no.”

“Hey, he’s the whole reason Eddie even stayed in high school. He probably would have dropped out if Rick hadn’t convinced him to keep trying.”

“He only wanted Eddie to keep trying so he could keep selling drugs to high schoolers!”

“That’s a pretty good point.”

“What’s a good point?”

All heads turned to Eddie, who was just behind you with an amused smile on his face. Rick wasn’t with him, still standing back by his car with a lit cigarette in his hand, eyes watching you carefully.

“Oh, we were just…”

“We were saying that you two should decorate her car for the Trunk r Treat festival. And the point was…that you could wear a mask and no one would know it was you?”

Everyone looks at Dustin like he has two heads. Where he even came up with that…you had no idea.

Eddie’s curls bounce as he shakes his head. “What? Trunk r Treat? What are you guys talking about?”

“Oh, the Trunk r Treat is what the town is doing instead of regular trick r treating since the roads are still pretty messed up. Everyone is gonna pull their cars into the fairgrounds and let the kids trick r treat there.”

“That sounds like fun,” you say, looking at Eddie with a hopeful smile. “It would be nice to get out of the house for a little bit. You said Halloween is your favorite holiday, right? I think it would be fun!”

“You guys are serious, aren’t you?” The mood shifts when Eddie speaks. “You seriously think it would be a good idea for me to go out into public? On Halloween night?”

“That’s why I said you could wear a mask!” Dustin seems to be the only one who isn’t affected by Eddie’s tone. “And no one knows you’re missing part of your leg. It would be perfect.” Dustin gestures to you, “And you’ll have your guardian angel with you. If anyone does give you shit she can pack you up in the car real quick and you can say ‘I told you so’ to us at the next Hellfire meeting.’”

Eddie’s jaw rolls in frustration, a heavy sigh leaving him as he leans forward in his chair.

“Hopper will be there,” Will chimes in. “Him and my mom are going to decorate the back of his old police cruiser. I-I could tell him you’re going and I’m sure he’d keep an eye out on you.” The boys look from Will to Eddie as they wait for his response. 

“I…I…Let—let me think about it. Okay? No promises.”

The boys all perk up at Eddie’s potential compliance. Chatter about costumes and getting together at Mike’s parents house has everyone forgetting about the concerns of Rick’s arrival.

You remember though. You hear Rick laugh to himself from where he’s leaning against his car. Looking over your shoulder, you watch as he flicks his cigarette away and opens the door. Stopping about halfway in, he looks at Eddie then to you. He sends you a wink, then gets in without another word.

After about a week of convincing from all the Hellfire boys, you, and even Wayne, Eddie finally caved in and agreed to go to the Hawkins Trunk r Treat. Wayne talked with Hopper about trying to get your cars parked next to each other during the whole event just in case. And Wayne also promised that him and his friend Ben would stay close by in town if anything happened. Eddie didn’t really have much of a reason to say no.

You on the other hand had to come up with an excuse as to why you wouldn’t be spending Halloween with your best friend.

“We ALWAYS have movie night! You can’t just call in sick or something?” Tonya pleads with you as the two of you split each others Chinese take out. You shrug your shoulders, the feeling of guilt creeping up like bile in your throat. 

“I’m sorry Tonnie, I can’t. Honestly, I’m surprised you haven’t made plans with Charles for the night.”

“He probably would have asked but he knows that we always spend Halloween together.”

“I’m sorry, Tonya, but we’re big girls now. Sometimes things need to change…”

Her lower lip pouts at you, and you can tell by the way her eyes are glassy that she’s genuinely upset. If it were anyone else, you would be spending time with her in a heart beat. Ever since the two of you became friends, Halloween has been your thing. 

You’d always been scared of the holiday after when happened with your parents, but over the years Tonya has been able to slowly tear down your fears and make the holiday enjoyable again. Now that you’ve gotten the chance to potentially to the same with Eddie and his fear of going in public again, you feel obligated to follow in her image. 

“I’m really proud of you, you know?” She miles as you as she dabs the wetness from her eyes. “I can’t believe how much you’ve changed. Your parents, your grandparents…they’d be really happy to see you working so hard. With school, work, and still helping me out here…Oh, come here!”

She stands from her seat and rushed to hug you, which you return with equal adoration. For a split moment you want to tell her everything. About Eddie and everything he’s been through. About how you’re starting to prefer being at the Munson house over anywhere else. About how if anyone has come out of their shell, it’ Eddie. About how you’re not really sure about Sam, and how you don’t want to admit that there might be a reason why you’re feeling that way…

“Weren’t kiddin’ about your trunk being big, huh?” Eddie and Wayne peer into the trunk of your car as you pop it open. “I’m sure you won’t have any issue gettin’ it in and outta here. Want me t’help ya get in, son?”

“Can I try first?”

Wayne nods and Eddie maneuvers himself to the passenger side of your car. You’re already standing there waiting with the door open for him, holding it in place. 

The Trunk r Treat was this coming weekend and the Hellfire boys were going to help decorate your trunk before Friday’s game. All you and Eddie had to do was get the materials and the candy. You saw Wayne hand Eddie some cash thinking that you weren’t looking, but you had no intention of letting Eddie pay for anything. This was for him, so why stress him out when you know that money is a touchy subject for him?

Eddie gets his chair in position and locks the wheels. Grabbing the “oh shit” handle and the side of the door, he lifts himself up from his chair and pauses for a moment. His face is scrunched up from pain after already having physical therapy this morning. It was hard not to get him to over do it now that his mobility has started to improve, but you would rather him learn his limits than go back to being bedridden.

A few deep breaths and a quick shift of his foot puts his ass on the edge of the seat of your car. There’s a loud thump where his head bumps the low slope of your cars door, but he just rolls his eyes and laughs it off, much to your joy. You think about how two months ago when you started caring for him that he probably would have thrown a fit and fell in it if he were to go through this exact scenario now.

“Good job, Eddie,” you praise. He looks away from you bashfully, muttering a small thanks under his breath. Even if he wouldn’t admit it, you know deep down Eddie likes to be told he’s doing good. You’ve noticed it in the ways he reacts to you commenting on all of his achievements; the coy smiles and the way he starts to fidget with his rings when you sing his praises. 

Wayne grabs Eddie’s chair and puts it in the trunk. “You gonna be able to get this thing out when ya get there?” 

“Yep! I’m used to lugging wheelchairs around by now. No biggie!”

Wayne nods and rounds the car to Eddie’s side. As the two men talk, you hop into the passenger seat and start the car.

“Now don’t go and give her any trouble, Eds.”

“I know, I know,” Eddie says, rolling his eyes. “If anything she’s gonna give me trouble. I just know she’s gonna be having me dress up in every costume they have there.”

“That’s not true,” you say defensively. “I actually already know what I want you to go as, so if you don’t fight me on it then you’ll only have to try one costume on.”

“Why does that not make me feel any better?”

Wayne barks out a laugh before closing the car door. He waves the two of you off as you make your way down the driveway until he’s no longer in site.

“Okay, let me make sure I’m understanding you right.” Eddie holds up the large, white, round costume that you handed to him, eyeing it skeptically. “You want me to dress up as…an egg?”

You laugh through your nose involuntarily, trying and failing to keep your composure. In your hand you hold what can only be describe as a “sexy devil” costume that consists of a short red dress, a pair of devil horns, and devil’s spear.

“Yeah, and I’ll be the devil, see? We’d—” you snort again, “We’d be deviled eggs!”

A smile cracks on Eddie’s face, more amused at your inability to contain your own laughter rather than at your poor excuse for a Halloween costume idea. He give you a half serious look as he hands you back the egg costume without another comment.

“Awe, come on,” you say as you take the costume from him, “you have to at least admit it was funny.”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever. What’s the real idea that you have?”

You swap the costumes out from the rack for the ones you really wanted to do. Handing Eddie the long nightgown, you hold up what would be your costume; a long red cape and a plaid blue dress with a ruffle under the skirt. 

“Okay, so obviously that’s red riding hood,” Eddie says pointing to your outfit. “But what exactly is—” You hand him a wolf mask, which he takes from you and examines carefully.

“You’ll be the Big Bad Wolf, disguised as the grandmother,” you explain after a long moment of silence.

“Yeah, I gathered that,” he sasses. He takes a few more moments to think it over, and you watch the way he looks at your costume, then to you. There’s a shift in his demeanor that you can’t quite interpret, and before you can think too much into it he finally speaks.

“Alright, I’ll do it,” he says, placing the costume pieces in his lap. “Better than the deviled egg idea.”

“Well, maybe next year I can sway you into the deviled egg. But I guess this works, too.” Eddie straightens in his chair, and you swear you could see a small blush on his cheeks. 

After you gathered everything for your costumes, you and Eddie did a little more shopping around for some stuff to decorate your trunk with. Streamers, hanging bats, fake spider webs, and enough candy to feed a small village fill your arms and Eddie’s lap all the way to the check out counter.

As the girl behind the counter rings out your items, you notice she keeps taking glances at Eddie. He’s too busy looking at the check out candle to notice, but you keep an eye on her just in case.

“Is that all for you?” She asks with a pop of her gum. You nod and she give you your total. As you reach for your wallet in your purse, Eddie shift in his chair, pulling out his own wallet.

“I got it,” he says, taking a $20 bill from the billfold.

“Nope,” you say, pulling out your own money and handing it to the cashier.

“No, please. I want to pay--”

“It’s okay, Eddie. Save it and buy us a pizza or something sometime when I don’t feel like cooking your dinner.”

The girl behind the counter’s gum popped loudly as she held your change in her hand. Eddie shrank back in his chair, stuffing the $20 back into his wallet. You took your bags from the counter and plopped them in Eddie’s lap, much to his surprise.

“Here, if you want to help, you can carry these.”

As you push his him out of the shop, Eddie asks you to stop before going off the curb.

“What’s up?”

“Can we go into the Goodwill over there?” He nods down the strip of stores where the sign to the second hand shop is displayed in the window.

“Sure,” you say without a second thought, “Lets put these bags in my car and then we can go in there.”

The store is a little busier than you expected. Everyone from kids to adults were checking out the shelves for their last minute home made costumes and accessories to wear this weekend. It made you happy to see so many people excited about the event.

The boys told you that Halloween can be a big deal in Hawkins. But after the earthquake, those who still remained wondered if there would even be a Halloween this year. Apparently the mother of one of their friends, Lucas, joined the city counsel and pitched the idea in a city meeting and most everyone was on board.

“The only person who protested was Mary Cunningham,” Dustin told you in a hushed tone. “She said it wasn’t safe to have all of the towns kids in one spot for ‘easy pickings.’” Mary Cunningham was the mother of Chrissy Cunningham, the girl that was murdered by Victor Creel in Eddie’s trailer before he attempted to kill Eddie himself. Wayne never told you this, but, according to the boys, Mary Cunningham is still convinced Eddie was the one who tried to kill Eddie, despite the evidence that supports that it was Creel. You hoped that she wouldn’t show up to the event this weekend.

“No way!” Eddie pulls a tee shirt from one of the racks. You’re standing next to his chair rather than behind it to make room for people to go around you in the tight, over stuffed isles. You turn your body, hand on his shoulder as you try to let a lady and he kid move behind you.

“What is it?”

“It’s a Black Sabbath tour shirt! This one’s from a tour they did in the 70’s though. Like a tour they did in Europe. I wonder how it ended up in this dump of a Goodwill?”

“Sounds like it ended up here so that you could buy it.”

Eddie looked at the shirt solemnly. Most of his attire that he had consisted of plain tee shirts and pajama pants that had come from packs at the store. All of his clothes and other personal belongings had been swallowed up by the earthquake and destroyed. 

“Well…” he said after a few moments, “It is only 50 cents…”

“Perfect!” You pluck the shirt from his hands and fold it over your arm. “Keep looking. Maybe someone’s metal loving uncle passed away and his family brought his clothes here. I’m gonna go look at some pants for you.”

“There’s that beautiful smile that I love to see,” Sam says as you push the door of his office open. You gave him a small smile, setting his coffee down on his desk. He stood up, rounding the desk to embrace you in a tight hug, his lips meeting the top of your head to leave a kiss there. 

“Morning,” you say, taking a step back from him when he loosens his grip. “Sorry I couldn’t bring you one of these before today. Hopefully you made it through the week without.”

“Barely,” he said with a sarcastic huff. “Have to admit I missed seeing you more, though. Been busy with midterms?”

You give him an exhausted nod. Between getting everything together for this weekend, helping Tonya deep clean the house before her trip with Charles, and dealing with your midterms, you’d been properly worn down to a barely functioning human.

“Awe, poor thing,” Sam cooes at you, his hand cupping your face to rub his thumb against your cheek. “Sounds like you deserve a little fun weekend. My buddy is having a get together at his house weekend and I’d really love for you to come.”

“This weekend?” You ask. Sam nods. “Oh, no I-I can’t. It’s Halloween weekend and…I spend it with Tonya every year. It’s been our tradition since we were kids. Sorry.”

“Oh, that’s okay. I’ve been wanting to meet her and this Charles guy you hate so much. We can do a double date. Maybe some haunted houses or something?”

“No! No—I, um, I don’t do haunted houses.” That wasn’t a lie.

“That’s fine, maybe a movie at the drive in?”

“Sam, I’m sorry. It’s not exactly a tradition where we let other people take part in. Charles wont be there either.”

Sam’s shoulders slump as he sighs, his lips tightening into a straight line. 

“Okay, I get it. I’m not going to step on any toes. But…” Sam looks up at you through his lashes, “make it up to me next weekend?”

You breathe in, then out. It suddenly hits you that…you don’t really want to make it up to him net weekend.

“Sure.”

The Munson household is a busy one this cool, autumn Saturday. Eddie and the guys are in his room getting ready for the night. Their collective laughter and talking over each other is the only thing louder than the volume of the music that they have blaring. Even with the door closed you find it hard to think over the noise.

Wayne and Ben are in the kitchen prepping dinner for everyone before the nights festivities. They were joined by the infamous Hopper and Joyce Byers who brought the food by when they dropped off Will and Jane. The same Jane who was occupying the hall bathroom with you right now.

“They were trying to get you to dress up as one of the guys from Devo?”

Jane nods with an annoyed look. “Yes. They wanted me to wear a stupid red hat. I told them no, and said I wanted to go as Pat Benatar instead. She is my favorite singer.”

“Great choice,” your head bobs in agreement. You take a little more of the blue eye shadow on the tip of your finger and smudge it over her eyelids. “What’s your favorite song?”

“Heartbreaker,” she whispers shyly with a smile. 

“That’s a good one! I think We Belong is mine.”

“That one is a good song, too. It’s a love song.”

“Yeah, I guess you could say I’m a sucker for a good love ballad,” you shrug, washing your hands of the make up that stained your fingers. “Now, where is the wig you said you got?”

Jane helped you zip up the back of your dress just as there was a knock on the bathroom door. You pulled the red cloak over your shoulders as she opened it, her dad standing just on the other side of the doorway.

“Jesus, kid, is that enough make up?” He says, his voice raising a distraught octave. 

“Oh, look at you!” Joyce pushes past the disgruntled Hopper and into the bathroom. She looks Jane up and down, her excitement a clear contrast to Hoppers. 

“You look just like her in those pictures! I’m glad we were able to find this fabric to make this jumper.”

“Joyce, she looks like a—“

“Woah, Pat Benatar!”

Will and Gareth poke their heads around the corner of the door frame, both of them dressed like characters from Star Wars whose names you can’t quite remember. 

“Oh, you boys look adorable!” Joyce squeezes Will's cheeks, much to his dismay. Gareth lets out a snicker at will’s expense, only stopping once he’s caught your eye. Then, like usual, he slinks back out of sight. 

In his place Mike and Dustin pop up. Dustin is dressed like Darth Vader, his helmet in his hand as they barge into the bathroom. “Are you two ladies ready to go yet?”

“I think so,” you say, quickly clearing up the mess that you’ve made in the Munson bathroom. 

“Wow, El, you look badass!” Mike says, putting an arm around her for a side hug. 

“Thank you, Mike. She helped.” Jane says, pointing in your direction. 

“Oooh, I get it,” Dustin suddenly says as if he’s had an epiphany, eyes narrowing as he looks you up and down. 

“Get what?”

“Your’s and Eddie’s couple’s costumes.”

The eye shadow pallet drops from your hands with a loud clutter. “Wh-what are you talking about?”

“What do you mean ‘what am I talking about?’ You and Eddie are going as Little Red Riding Hood and the Big Bad Wolf, right?” 

“Well, yeah, but…”

“That’s, like, a classic couples costume!” 

“Oh, that’s so sweet!” Joyce says, her hand on her heart as she looks up at Hopper. “Didn’t you and Margaret Sanders go as the wolf and Red Riding Hood to John Collins’ Halloween party one year?”

Jim nods with a big, mustached grin. “Yep.” 

“I feel like an asshole.”

Eddie’s voice in the hallway catches your attention. Jim moves out of view, making room for Eddie’s chair as Jeff and Grant follow behind him. 

“You sound like one, too,” Jeff laughs from behind him. 

Eddie was being his normal grumpy self today. Enough that you were worried that he might call the whole thing off and not go. But, he seemed to manage to push through. Although you worried that the amount of people occupying his house was stressing him out a bit. 

As Jeff pushed him past the door, Eddie turned to look inside the overcrowded bathroom. Even with all of the bodies in the way, his eyes were on you in an instant. He didn’t say anything, more so looking at you like a deer caught in headlights until he was completely out of view. 

“Foods ready!” Ben calls from the kitchen. Doesn’t take much more convincing than that for everyone to file out of the bathroom and into the kitchen. You take the opportunity to finish putting everything away before joining in the chaos. 

Loud chattering fills the kitchen as everyone moves around the table to get their food. When you do come out of the bathroom, you see someone’s already put Eddie in the recliner, his tv tray set up in front of him as he patiently waited for everyone to finish getting their plates. 

“Hey stranger,” you say, stealing his attention from whatever daydream he was having.

“Hey,” he said with a tight smile. You eyed him suspiciously. 

“What hurts?”

He’s still for a moment, before he sighs and gives you a more genuine smile. 

“I’m just having those ghost pains or whatever.” His hand rubs over the clothed end of his thigh where his leg was severed.

Ever since he started physical therapy two weeks ago he’s been complaining of pains in his leg where it's not there anymore. You asked your professor about it, and she said it's not uncommon for amputees to have phantom pains. There’s not much you can do about it other than try to distract the person having them. 

“I see. Well, maybe eating something might help. Is anyone getting you a plate?”

Eddie shook his head with a shit eating grin. “I told them that you’d wanna do it.” You rolled your eyes, but he was right.

There was still a weird feeling that resided in you about being there for anything other than being Eddie’s caretaker. Even after two months of Wayne’s warm hospitality, a month of being taken in by the Hellfire boys, and being treated as if you’ve always been around by Joyce and Hopper, you still felt like an outsider looking in.

People on foot walked by as the cars loaded in through the entry gate of the Hawkins fairgrounds. You were sure that just about everyone in this town was showing up tonight. It made you buzz with excitement to see all the costumes and decked out cars. 

“Excited?” Eddie asks you, his eyes darting around at the crowds. There was an indecipherable tone to his voice. 

“Of course,” you say, the car moving up a bit to keep up with Hopper's cruiser in line. “Are you?”

“Is Eddie excited about Halloween?” Dustin’s head pops between yours and Eddie’s from the back seat. He slaps his hand on Eddie’s shoulder and gives him a little shake. “Eddie is probably the biggest fan of Halloween I know. He made a whole one shot campaign based on our party trying to escape from Michael Meyers.”

“What? No way, that sounds awesome. Halloween is probably my favorite Halloween movie.”

“It is a classic,” Eddie says with a grin. “Although, I will say that Friday the Thirteenth did freak me out for a while after I saw it for the first time. Still can’t believe that it was his mom the whole time—”

“His mom the whole time?” The two of you say it in unison. You look at each other for a moment before laughing. Dustin makes an audible gagging sound from the back seat and Eddie wastes no time reaching back to swat at him. You shush the both of them as Hopper pulls ahead, making your car next in line.

“Hi, folks,” the older gentleman says, shining a flashlight into the car and almost blinding you. “Hop took care of your cover charge and told me to make sure you guys get the spot next to him.” The man hands you a paper with the number 66 printed on it. It looks like it’s cut in a way that lets it hang from your rear view mirror, most likely to keep track of the amount of cars coming in to participate in the event.

As the man gives you instructions on how to find your spot inside, you cant help but you notice the subtle way he glances to Eddie in the passenger seat. You’re not sure if the man recognizes Eddie or if he’s trying to, but you don’t stick around long enough to find out. Eddie slips on his wolf mask once you take off inside of the fair grounds. 

It doesn’t take you long to find your spot. The Hopper-Byers group is all helping out to set everything up for Joyce and Hopper to pass out candy. The back of the cruiser is set up to look like a tent, with a fake fire, a stuffed bear, and a blue blanket meant to be a lake side view. 

Dustin pulls Eddie’s chair out from the back seat of your car, helping him out as you pop open your trunk. The effort they put into their theme almost makes you feel self conscious of your trunk, the ‘theme’ looking more like a Halloween store exploded rather than anything cohesive. But then you remember it was put together by Eddie and his friends, and you decide you love it just the way it is.

 “All right!” Joyce calls out once your cars are all set up. She sets a plastic bowl in Eddie’s lap and starts pouring candy into it. “Let’s get this party started!”

“Joyce don’t start getting to crazy before the kids get here,” Hops says teasingly as he pulls on his trapper hat. To go with their theme Hop and Joyce are dressed up like campers, which, in hind site, was probably a good call considering how cold the nights have been getting in Hawkins. You were already starting to regret your costume choice as the breeze hit your legs where your dress didn’t cover.

“Isn’t that the point?” Jane asks. “Is she not supposed to scare the kids?”

“Not enough that they wont come around to get candy,” Will retorts.

He’s half paying attention to the conversation as he looks around. Suddenly his hand shoots up, waving and shouting to the Hellfire guys as they walk through the cars. They all gather together and migrate to stand around Eddie, bags and pillowcases out towards him.

��Trick r treat!” They say in a sing song unison, laughter breaking out among them. Eddie’s head drops in the mask, his body shaking as he joins in with the guffaws of his friends.

As you watch them interact, you wonder what faces Eddie is making under the mask. Recently, you’ve felt like you’ve been able to see the real Eddie slip through the cracks. By now you can tell when one of his smiles is fake or genuine, as well as when his anger is real or just out of pain. But, with the plastic mask to hide behind, will he still feel the need to keep himself so reserved tonight?

It didn’t take long for the night to get going. Spirits were high as children, teens, and adults all made their ways between the cars to fill their bags with candy and other goodies being passed around. 

You could admit you were a little nervous when Joyce gave the bowl of candy to Eddie earlier. But, either no one could tell it was him under the wolf mask, or no one cared enough to say anything.

Eddie seemed to be enjoying himself, too. After a while he started to compliment the different costumes in a scary wolf voice, which the kids that came by loved. He even went out of the way to put candy into the trick r treater’s bags, not caring about the scars on his hands being seen.

“Gonna need another refill,” he says to you as the last group of kids move on down the line.

“Roger that,” you say, jumping up to grab another bag of candy from your trunk, pushing the fake spider webs to the side. 

Some of the bags slid to the back, so you have to really reach in to get your hands on it. Just as you get a grip on the plastic bag, you feel something pulling on the skirt of your dress. You pinch the plastic of the bag, dragging it out with you as you stand up straight. 

Looking over your shoulder, you see that Eddie’s hand is holding on to the hem, pulling it taut over your ass. You’re about to ask what he’s doing when the chuckling from a group of passing boys reaches your ears.

“Thanks,” you say to Eddie, smoothing out the skirt of your dress. His mask looks up at you, and his hand quickly retracts from where it was holding on to you. 

“Y-you’re welcome,” he says, voice muffled by the mask.

As you pour more candy into his bowl, a group of three young girls approaches Eddie.

“Trick r treat,” the girls say, holding their bags out for Eddie.

Eddie is still for a moment, grabbing the candy wordlessly and placing it into the girls candy bags. When he gets to the last girl, he hesitates before letting the candy drop inside.

“Where’s your brother, Lady Applejack?” Eddie suddenly says, still using his wolf voice.

The girl's eyes go wide, shifting between her two confused friends before nodding to the side. The two girls move on to Joyce and Hoppers truck, leaving Lady Applejack behind.

“Munson?” She whispers with bemusement. “Is that you under that creepy mask?”

“The one and only,” he says, his hands gesturing wildly to himself.

The girl looks up and down at you, then back to Eddie. “I didn’t know you had a girlfriend.”

You shuffle in your spot awkwardly. You’d gone the whole night with no one saying anything besides Dustin, and you were hoping that it would stay that way.

“We’re not dating,” Eddie says neutrally. “She’s my caregiver.”

“Caregiver? Is that not the same thing as a girlfriend?”

“Basically.” The words spill out of you like vomit. “It’s all the non fun parts of being a girlfriend without any of the perks.” The girl laughs, but Eddie remains still.

“I like her, Munson. You should keep her around.”

“You know, you never answered my question,” Eddie says, clearly desperate to change the subject.

“Huh? Oh, you mean about Lucas?”

Lucas. That was the friend that the boys bring up a lot. He’s a member of Hellfire but hasn’t been to any of the meetings.

“He’s probably still at the hospital with Max. Our parents tried to get him to come out tonight since my mom was the one who put this whole thing together. But…” The girl trails off, looking down at the ground as her attitude fades away. “You know, he still feels guilty. About…what happened.”

Eddie nods slowly. Max was another victim who got out alive like Eddie, but she’s been in a coma since March. Eddie doesn’t talk about her, even if the boys bring her up when talking about Lucas. 

“Erica, come on!” One of the girls friend’s call, motioning her to join them.

Erica shifts back into her previous demeanor, looking at you and Eddie once again. “I gotta go. Nice seeing you, Munson and Munson’s girlfriend.” Before Eddie could correct her, she was taking off with her friends.

“Sorry,” Eddie says to you, but refusing to look your way.

“It’s fine. If anything I should be apologizing.” You plop back down in your folding chair with a huff. “Dustin said something earlier about our costumes being a couple’s costume and I’ve been cursing myself for over looking that.” 

“Dustin would say something like that,” Eddie grumbles under his breath.

“They’re over here!” Dustin’s voice calls out from a few yards away, his Vader mask in his hand as he motions two people behind him. A guy and a girl dressed as Wham! follow an excited Dustin to your car. 

“Speak of the devil,” Eddie says, slumping down in his chair. “And he’s brought his mommy.” You look at Eddie confused. The pair were definitely not old enough to be Dustin’s parents, maybe older siblings at best.

“Dustin, are you sure we’re at the right car?” The girl asks, shooting you a nervous smile.

“Yes, this is the right car. I literally came here in it,” Dustin shook his head and reached into his bag. After fumbling around a bit, he pulled out a full size milky way and presented it to Eddie. 

“Snagged this for ya from the Martin’s car,” he said with a toothy grin. Eddie grabbed the candy and examined it and you could feel the smile he had from under his mask. 

“Good work, Henderson,” Eddie says, looking up at the boy. Dustin salutes him before standing to the side, looking at the couple behind him with an I told you so expression.

“Holy shit,” the guy says, his law slack.

“Is that really you, M—” The girl cuts herself off before she can finish. The two move closer to Eddie, speaking in hushed tones.

“How’re you doing? Dustin told us that him and Mike have been over to your new place,” the girl asks. You don’t know why, but the way her hand rests on his shoulder irritates you.

“Yeah, he told us the lab set you up with a really nice house. Still not enough after what we all went through in my opinion..”

“Steve,” the girl cuts him off sharply. 

“What? We haven’t seen the guy in six months! Am I not supposed to talk about it?”

“It’s fine, Robin,” Eddie says.

“It’s not fine,” you interject. All eyes are on you now, stunned as if they just noticed you were there.

“S-sorry, we didn’t mean to leave you out,” the girl stutters.

“Yeah, uh…” Steve looks you up and down before straightening his posture. “You must be the caretaker that Dustin’s told us about. Name’s Steve. Steve Harrington.” 

Steve Harrington stands in front of you, offering his hand for you to shake. You take his hand and introduce yourself. Steve Harrington is handsome in a similar way to Sam you think. 

The feeling of eyes on you makes you turn your head. The light catches just right you can sort of make out Eddie’s eyes through the holes of the mask.

“What did you say?” You ask, looking back up to Steve after zoning his question out.

“I just asked if you were free sometime. Maybe we could get a bite to eat before you go over to Eddie’s some time?”

“Oh, sorry,” the words poured out of you again. “But I’m seeing someone.”

You’re not sure if it’s just you, but it suddenly felt like the air got thicker. You could feel Eddie’s eyes bore holes into you, but you couldn’t bring yourself to look at him.

“Shit, my bad,” Steve says, taking a step back. “I thought Dustin said you two weren’t together.”

“We’re not,” Eddie says in a clipped tone.

“Yeah, we’re not, Eddie and I. I’m, uh, I’m seeing a guy from my school. Sam…”

“Ohhhh, okay,” Steve nods, “Gotcha. Well, if things don’t work out—OW!”

“Take a hint, dingus!” Robin whisper yells at Steve. She looks back to Eddie with an apologetic look. “We should probably go, but call one of us some time and we’ll sneak some movies to you, okay?”

Eddie wordlessly nods, his focus on the bowl of candy in his lap now. Steve and Robin give their goodbyes and move along, bickering between themselves as they go. Dustin lingers with you and Eddie for a moment, unsure of what to do with himself.

“Do, uh…"Dustin clears his throat, attempting to lighten the mood. "Do you guys want to go check out the fair at all?” Dustin points with his thumb over his shoulder. “There’s some pretty cool stuff at the back. A haunted house, some games…you know, fun stuff. I’ll, uh, sit and watch the candy.”

You look over to Eddie waiting for his response. After several moments Eddie finally nods, lifting the plastic bowl and handing it to Dustin. You rise from your seat, moving out of the way so Dustin to take your spot.

When you turn to see if Eddie is ready to go, you find that he’s not there. Instant panic sets in, as you look out to the crowd to find him. For a split second, you can see the furry hair on the back of his mask a few cars away. Bobbing and weaving through the clusters of people, you grab the handles of his chair and stop him, making him jerk forward.

He looks back, body tense until he realizes it’s you, his shoulders slumping forward.

“Where did you think you were going?” Anger evident in your tone.

“What do you mean? I thought you were right behind me.” The cutting tone of his voice hits a nerve.

“Eddie, I…” You can feel a whole lecture on the tip of your tongue. But the more you think about it, the more you realize that Eddie is his own person. As much as you’ve grown to want to protect him, he probably knows more about these fairgrounds and all of these people than you’ll ever know. He was a fully functioning person seven months ago, not needing anyone’s assistance just to get through a crowd of people. 

“Do…do you want me to leave you alone?”

The two of you stand in the middle of the moving bodies without a word. It feels like the two of you are in slow motion as people move past you.

Eddie sits up, shaking his head. “No.”

That’s all you needed to hear. Grabbing onto the handles of his chair, you push him through the crowd at a leisurely pace. It takes a few minutes for hm to say something, but the paper mache ghost from Ghost Busters hanging off of a cars trunk catches his attention.

“Woah, that’s awesome!” Eddie points it out to you.

“Do you think they made that?”

“I bet they got it at a Halloween store.”

Conversation flowed like that between you as you both rated the cars out of 10 as you passed. There were more cars like yours that decorated just enough to be passable, but a good majority of the citizens of Hawkins really do mean business when it comes to Halloween. 

“They made their car look like a dragon!” Eddie shouts over his shoulder to you. “How is that not the best car?!”

“It’s totally an awesome car, but, I’m sorry, the literal hearse with a guy dressed as Dracula in a coffin was hands down the best.”

Eddie slumps back in his chair in frustration, his mask looking up at you dramatically while you push him. You smile down at him, happy to see him having so much fun. He jerks forward and clears his throat, mask moving quickly as if he’s looking for something.

“Oh, look they’re selling popcorn,” Eddie nods to a booth set up off to the side of the cars. It looks like a girl scouts group of some kind, all the girls at the booth wearing patch covered sashes over their costumes. The sign on the booth read “Twenty-five cent popcorn. Proceeds go to Hawkins Rebuild Fund.”

“Hmmm,” you hum curiously. “We should get some. I could use something salty to cleanse my palate from all the candy.”

“Yeah, I think I might puke if I even think about a Reese’s Cup right now.”

You grab a bottle of water and a bag of popcorn to split between the two of you. Not wanting to stop your perusing of the cars, you continued on with Eddie popping a piece under his mask for him and then lifting a few pieces up to your mouth for you to much on.

Continuing on, you finally reach the back end of the fairgrounds. A few fires were going with groups of people gathered around. They talked over cider or roasted marshmallows to shove between graham crackers, adding their favorite candy pieces to complete their sweet treats. 

A few games were set up. Kids and tipsy grown men bobbed for apples in a big trough of water. A partially enclosed area was set up for smaller kids and their exhausted parents to take a break away from the older kids. 

But in the very back was a make shift haunted house, it’s entrance painted to look as if you were walking into a large jack o lantern. Around it were several tarps meant to cover whatever the haunted house was put together with, various paper decorations taped to it to make it look more festive.

“We should go in there,” Eddie says excitedly. “Wonder if it’s dark enough I can take this mask off for a bit.”

“I don’t know Eddie…” you say hesitantly. You weren’t the biggest fan of haunted houses. Being scared from a movie is one thing, but the lack of control you could have in a haunted house made you uncomfortable. 

You also never knew what was going to set you off. The last haunted house you went to with Tonya and some friends in high school was set up to look like an actual house. It didn’t really bother you until one of the actors snuck up behind you, whispering in your ear. It immediately took you back to…

“Awe, come on. Don’t tell me you’re scared?” Eddie teases. “I doubt that Hawkins could make an actually scary haunted house. I bet they have one of those rooms where they make you feel peeled grapes and tell you that it’s eyeballs.”

“I’m not scared,” you say with a level tone, “I’m more worried about you. What if you have a night terror and end up needing me to sit at the end while you sleep tonight?”

Eddie freezes, his eyes wide and looking into yours through the holes in the mask. You feel like you said something wrong, but you’re not sure what.

“I-I’m sorry, I didn’t—”

Eddie starts to laugh, clearly trying to get a rise out of you. It both relieves and pisses you off. 

“Eddie, you’re such an asshole! I thought I hurt your feelings!”

“You did, little red,” he feigns offense, his hands resting over his heart. “I can’t believe you would make fun of me. I’m wounded. How will you ever make it up to me?”

“Oh my god,” you say with exasperation. “I’m so sorry Mr.Wolf. I guess I can be brave and take you through the haunted house if that will suffice.”

Eddie fake sniffled and nods. “Yes, I think I may be able to forgive and forget your offense if you lend me your company inside this estate.”

The two of you get in line, chatting for the few minutes it takes to get to the front. When it’s finally your turn, the lanky teen at the door looked down at Eddie. 

“Uh, be careful with your chair, man. Should be good, but, uh, there might be some bumps between the rooms. That alright?”

Eddie nods and the boy ushers the two of you inside. It looks like the haunted house might be made of several sheds or storage units placed together to make a long string of rooms. A lot of the rooms were more silly than scary, but a few people dressed in costumes were able to get some scares out of you and Eddie.

Well, you more than Eddie.

You hadn’t even realized that you were leaning so close to him. It was a reflex to bury your face against him when you got scared, laughing the whole time as you pushed on to the next room. He didn’t seem to mind, probably too busy laughing at your reactions to care. 

You wondered if the actors were talking with each other, because it felt like more people were trying to scare you the further into the haunt you went. By the end you were practically strangling Eddie, your arms wrapped around his shoulders  with your face against the back of his neck as he guided you both through the exit that exited to the other side of the fairground lot. 

“They were so mean!” The words came out in strained huffs as you tried to catch your breath, still laughing from all the nerves. Eddie probably would have been keeled over with how hard he was cackling. He lifted his mask briefly to wipe the tears from his eyes, his hair sticking to his forehead with how much he was sweating under the plastic.

“Holy shit,” he barks out. “That was sooooo worth it. I want to see how bad you get scared in a haunted house that’s actually scary.”

“I can’t believe you’d want to put me through that after everything I’ve done for you,” you say with faux offense. 

“Can’t help it,” he says with a shrug, “I guess I’m a bit of a sadist.”

“Hmmm why does that not at all surprise me.”

The rest of the night went on without a hitch. The guys showed up again eventually, making base between yours and Hopper’s car to trade candy. Jane told you that she got lots of compliments on her costume and thanked you over and over for helping her with her make up. Joyce took the opportunity to get everyone together to take pictures. Apparently Will’s older brother, Jonathan, left one of his cameras with them to take pictures while he’s off at college and Joyce took that task very seriously. 

“Let me get one with the two of you!” She says to you and Eddie. Eddie looks at you and you shrug.

“Do you want to lean on me?” You ask him.

“What do you mean?”

“So you can have a picture not in your chair. I can hold you up--oh we can make it look like you’re trying to eat me?”

Eddie stands, leaning against you as you have your arms around him in a tight hug. Joyce takes a few steps forward to get his chair out of frame, giving you both the go ahead to make a pose. Eddie lets go of you, posing with his hands as if he was about to grab you, the mouth of his mask about an inch from your face. You hold on to him with one arm, letting him lean into you as you let your other hand fly back with fake terror. 

The bright flash from the camera has you grabbing Eddie fully once again. You were able to feel his leg wobbling, still not used to holding up his whole weight. Eddie plopped back into his chair, letting out the breath he had been holding.

After a while the festivities began to wind down as cars started making their exit. When Eddie’s back started to hurt from being in his chair for so long, you decided to join the rest of the crowd and leave. Dustin helped load Eddie up in the car as you cleaned up any mess that had been made.

“Dustin, why don’t you ride with us?” Joyce calls over from their car. “Eddie’s probably tired and ready to get home. You’re staying at the Wheeler’s anyway, right?”

Dustin looks at Eddie, whose mask was up enough to let his face breathe, to you, who looked like you were ready to climb into bed and pass out. Gears turned under those tight curls. A vision of the two of you “accidentally” falling asleep in each others arms on the couch and waking up all embarrassed, until you inevitably confess your feelings for each other and get married and grow old together was clear as day in his mind. 

“Yeah, sounds good. Thanks Mrs.B.”

“Do you even want to attempt a shower?” You ask Eddie with a yawn, eyeing his devil faced pumpkin that the two of you carved that sits next to the front door.

“I feel gross after sweating in that mask,” he yawns in reaction to your yawn, fumbling to get his keys in the lock. “But, honestly, I’ll probably fall asleep sitting in there.”

Eddie pushed the door open, and wheels inside. You can barely get a foot in the front door when Eddie stops abruptly. You follow his gaze to the couch, and are surprised to see Ben leaning against Wayne. His head rests on Wayne’s shoulder, Wayne’s bald head lays against Ben’s head as the two of them snore intermittently. 

Eddie turns slowly back towards you with wide eyes. You place your finger against your lips, giving him a silent shush as you slowly maneuver his chair to his room. Eddie doesn’t say a word, even after you close the door to his room. He’s as pale as a ghost, still looking as you as if he was waiting for you do to…something.

“What’s wrong?” You ask him, and he flinches. He finally blinks when he realizes that you’re not going to say anything, tension leaving his body until he’s visibly exhausted.

“Nothing, I just…ugh I really need to shower. But I’m so tired.” He sprawls out in his chair, hands running over his face and through his matter hair. The icky feeling of being outside and around people begins to make your skin crawl, too, as you feel a shower calling your name.

“Well, the longer we wait, the more tired you’re going to be. Let’s get you in there so I can go home and take one, too.” Eddie perks up, looking at you with knitted brows.

“You’re not staying the night?” 

“Well, my sleeping spot is currently being occupied,” you say with a cheeky grin, nodding toward the living room. 

Eddie presses his lips together, deep in thought as he tries to come up with an solution so you don’t have to make the 30 minute trek home.

“You could…sleep in my bed? I could sleep in Wayne’s room. If the love birds wake up, they’ll just have to deal with it.”

Thinking about sleeping in Eddie’s bed makes your chest flutter in a way that you hate. Well, rather, you want to hate it. But you really don’t. The idea of being in his bed with him penetrates your mind, and you think of anything else to push it away. Like how you’d finally told him about Sam earlier in the night. You still needed to psycho analyze his reaction to the news, which was how you usually passed the time in the car.

“I’ll think about it.” Eddie nods, accepting that as your answer for now.

You set up the shower for Eddie, hardly a word between the two of you with the combined low energy. You quietly snuck Eddie’s dirty clothes into the laundry room as he showered, taking a few minutes to pick up the kitchen in hopes to lessen the work load for Wayne tomorrow.

When you returned to the shower, Eddie had just turned off the water. He was humming a song to himself, probably to keep himself awake as he went through the motions of his shower. 

He pulled the curtain open, and slowly blinked at you. You understood his message, taking the few steps to stand beside him. You went through your drying routine, getting his back and gently squeezing and scrunching his curls in a towel to dry them. There was no way he would be able to blow dry them tonight so you just took your time getting them as dry as possible. Eddie would start to doze off until the resistance of his hair pulling would wake him again.

The two of you got into position for Eddie to stand and pivot into the chair. You held on to him, and he held onto his towel, waiting for your count to stand. A quiet one, two, three had him pushing off of the shower seat with his leg.

But he was still tired, and he began to lose his balance. One hand shot to hold your arm, and the other grabbed the bar attached to the wall. You felt his body starting to go down and reflexively turned him towards his chair. His grip on the wall threw you off, causing you to fall into him when he finally let go and landed in his chair. 

You braced yourself against the arm rests as the floor was slick under you. The top half of your body was pressed into his, mimicking the closeness of an hug. When you went to pull away, you felt his grip on your arm tighten.

“Don’t move.” He says next to your ear.

“What?”

“My towel fell.”

You snort, resting your forehead against his shoulder, wet curls pressing into your skin. “Why do you have such a hard time keeping a towel on?” 

Ever since the first shower where he almost lost his towel, at least once a week his towel seems to find its way out of Eddie’s hands and onto the floor. 

To Eddie’s defense, it was hard for him to maintain his grip, and you couldn’t hold him up and keep his towel in place, so it was something you’d become accustomed to. If he could feel his towel slipping Eddie would usually give you a heads up so you could keep your eyes above belt level.

After a beat you can feel Eddie’s smile against your cheek. “Only around you,” he says with a sarcastic tone. You suck in a breath, and hope he can’t feel the heat that rises to your cheeks at his playful comment. 

“I’m starting to think you do it on purpose.” 

Eddie shakes his head. “If you close your eyes and move, I can reach the towel myself.”

“Okay,” you say, positioning your feet so you can stand up straight.

As you move your foot back, it bumps against something and catches you off guard. Reflexively, you open your eyes to look back and move your foot accordingly. Once you find your footing again, you shift to face forward once again. But, in your sleepy haze, you forget a crucial move; closing your eyes again.

Still looking down, your eyes manage to land directly where they’re not supposed to. 

It was like a car crash. You knew you shouldn’t gawk, but the site of Eddie’s dick as it lay against his leg had you frozen in place. It was long, reaching half way down his hairy thigh, and thick. What made it worse was that he looked half hard; whether on it’s way to full mast or starting to soften you couldn’t be certain.

Suddenly you became very aware at how revealing your costume was and how close your body had just been against his. Hell, you’d been touching and leaning against each other all night. Was he like this because of you? Surely not. You scold yourself for even thinking about it.

Regaining your composure, you push away from his chair and get your footing. You snap your eyes closed so quickly, hoping that he didn’t notice that you were looking. It felt like you had been staring for an eternity, the image of it seemingly tattooed into your corneas even as your eyes were closed, but in reality it was no more than a second. 

Even if you had seen it, you’d assured him plenty of times before that it wouldn’t be the first dick you’ve ever seen and it wouldn’t be the last with the field of work you were going into. But you also respected his privacy, maybe understanding a little more as to why he didn’t want you to see. If he said anything, you wouldn't make a big deal about it.

“Okay, you’re in the clear,” he says, his voice not giving any hint to if he knows what you saw. You open your eyes as he’s backing away and back into his room to get dressed, leaving you to clean up. Which you do quietly, willing Eddie’s dick out of your mind but failing as you pick up.

By the time you joined him in his bedroom, he was still in his chair, fully dressed and his head nodding forward as he tried to fight off sleep.

“Ready to get in bed?” You ask him in a low voice so not to startle him. 

He looks up at you drowsily, “Are you gonna stay the night?” You shake your head and his pouts up at you. 

“I’m sorry, Eddie. I’ll be okay getting home. I’m…feeling very awake now.”

And you head plenty to think about on the drive home. It didn’t feel long enough to analyze everything, your thoughts spilling over as you stare up at your ceiling fan in bed. 

thank you for reading.

[www-jungwon]

🗝️ marry me . nrk

the one where you carve pumpkins with bsf!niki, but then he kisses you

pairing niki x bsf!reader genre fluff tw a knife , kissing wc 1386 summ fall_ing for your best friend as you carve pumpkins w him

“that doesn’t look like a face.” niki rolls onto his stomach, elbows propped on the wooden living room floor next to you as he stares at your decidedly mutilated pumpkin carving. 

“oh, and you could do better.” you retort, even though niki’s always been amazing as art. 

“how would i know?” his eyebrows raise incredulously, “you won’t give me the knife!” 

“no one with an ounce of intelligence would ever give you a knife.”

niki scoffs, stretching his arm out, and you hurriedly lift it out of his reach, watching as he bats at your arm resignedly, the sleeve of his black hoodie falling down his arm. 

you both know he could easily grab the knife from you if he stood up, but luckily for you, he’s too lazy to move an inch from his spot on the floor.

“look, i’ll carve my own pumpkin, okay?” he runs his hand through his hair, and your eyes track his fingers as you bite your lip. “and i’ll do it far away from you.”

your eyes pull back from his hand, “i can protect myself, it’s you i’m worried about.”

he scoffs, futilely grabbing at the air beneath the knife.you yawn, falling onto the floor next to him, and he catches your shoulder so you won’t bang into the couch. your breath catches at his grasp.

“you won’t trust me with a knife, but you’re just waving it around like that? you could take someone’s eye out!”

you blink, refocusing, and then swat at him with your non-knife holding hand.

and then he’s pushing off the floor and rolling onto you, and your heart squeezes.

he’s propping himself off you with his hand so it’s not him that’s the reason you can’t breathe.

it’s him. the way his fingers are clasped around your’s as he grabs the knife, sparks flying through your hand. the way he grins triumphantly, eyes sparkling infectiously. the way the evening sunlight from your living room window is tinted autumn colors, lighting up his face so it looks even more unfairly pretty. the way he’s so close you can smell his cologne you bought him for his birthday. the way he’s so close you could kiss him, the perfect rose color of his lips softly pressed against your own. you lean up, feeling his breath on your lips, squeezing all your sense away.

his gaze darts down to your lips, and he leans almost imperceptibly closer.

you can almost feel his kiss, your lips parting. you need his kiss, he’s so close, and you lean up again, and then he rolls off of you, the knife clattering onto the floor. 

you collapse back onto the ground, pressing your lips together in a bitter grimace until you remember to breathe, and then you’re inhaling so fast you start to cough.

“woah,” he mumbles, and then he’s suddenly standing. standing? that doesn’t make sense, he would never get up from the floor right now—and then he’s gone, around the doorway.

you push yourself off the floor on your forearms, wondering how he got around the dining table you haphazardly shoved against the wall to make room for pumpkin carving so fast.

he appears in the doorway again, holding a glass of water, pushing the table to the side with his leg. he rushes over in front of you, where he drops to his knees and tips the glass over your lips.

you gulp down water breathlessly, holding up a hand after and he lifts the cup away.

“are you okay? i’m so sorry, i didn’t mean to-”

you blink, inhaling deeply. “i-i’m fine, ki,” you wave your hand at him, handing him the knife off the floor. “here. you can, um, have this.”

he hesitates before taking the knife, still eyeing you uncertainly.

he grabs a pumpkin and you wonder how he lifts it like it weighs nothing as he sets it down on an empty square of newspaper next to your failed one, wrapping his arm around your waist protectively. you’re already too hot, but you don’t push his arm off.

he quickly cuts a circle around the stem, and you watch him lightly drag the knife in a sketch on the edge of the pumpkin. he pushes a hand through his hair and you swallow, lips parting as you see how focused he is.

niki is rarely ever focused, but when he is it’s breathtaking, his eyes going all sparkly as he bites his lip. 

he’s always trying to be carefree, although you know how stressed he gets sometimes and tries to hide it. you wish he wouldn’t. 

you smile absentmindedly as you watch him carve a perfect face into the pumpkin.

“you’re so good at art, ki.”

he ducks his head, and it’s funny, your six foot best friend shy.

he’s just your best friend.

and that’s okay, it’s not like you would want anything else. the way you look at him doesn’t mean you want anything, it just means you’re observant. it’s normal for best friends, to notice things like each other’s little habits when they’re focused, and how sparkly their eyes are, and how pretty their lips are, and—you swallow, heart plummeting. you’re not kidding anyone, you’ve been in love with him since second grade, when you were standing in front of him in line for the ice cream truck at your school fair, and you didn’t have enough money for your orange creamsicle because you hadn’t known what taxes were, and you’d started to cry. but this kid had stepped next to you and paid for your popsicle, his arm wrapped around your waist protectively.you glance at his arm around your waist now.

“my name’s riki, but you can call me ni-ki!” he’d said, smiling, when you asked.

“i’m going to call you ki.”

“why?”

“because,” you’d bent down, picking something up from the ground, “you dropped this,” and you’d handed him his house key.

you blink, your gaze drifting back to his pumpkin, causing you to remember what you were talking about.

“it’s so good, ki!”

“it’s not that good,” he mumbles.

“well, you did forget something.”

“huh?”

“you forgot to take out the the insides.”

he groans, collapsing into your lap. “you do it.”

his hair is brushing over your knee, and you watch him close his eyes, reaching out to brush a strand of hair away from his forehead. 

he opens his eyes at your touch, gaze locking with your’s again.

you swallow and look away, grabbing the ice cream scooper and taking the top off the pumpkin. 

“you’re really pretty.”

you freeze, looking down at niki. he’s looking at you admiringly, and you forget to breathe again.

“i-“ you forget how to speak, too. “i- what?”

he grins serenely. “you’re really pretty.”

“th-thanks.”

he licks his lips, reaching up to push a stray hair behind your ear. his fingertips kiss your face and your breath catches again.

he pushes off his arms up to you, forehead resting on your’s. you inhale shakily, watching him tilt his head, and then his lips are pushed on your’s, and your eyes are closed, and nothing’s ever felt more right to you than kissing your best friend—you’re kissing him, your heart is leaping. you sink into the kiss, pressing against him.

and then you feel his mouth open against yours, losing contact suddenly.

your eyes open and apologies are spilling out of him, “oh my god- i swear i didn’t, like, mean to do that or anything- im so sorry-”

“ki?” he’s fallen back onto his arms, and then he’s scrambling to retreat from you.

“like i just- i wasn’t thinking at all and i didn’t even ask, but i- you would’ve said no, i think, so i-”

“ki?” it’s weird to see him ramble like this, you don’t think he’s ever done that before. you inhale, moving closer to him, and he flinches in surprise, eyes widening.

“like, i just- i’m so sorry, i don’t- you know, think that- i mean- it’s okay if you don’t want to be-”

you sigh, pressing your mouth against his again, hand cupping his cheek softly.

his voice trails off weakly, lips moving against you.

“friends- anymore- oh.”

“i don’t want to be friends with you, ki.” you grin.

“h-huh?”

“i wanna marry you.”

an rikikqjsjxjkajxkowoskxksjak

tl ( comment or send an ask ) @mrchweeee @aureliaxuuu @miyseung @backintomykpopphaseagain @ghostiiess

[hollyhomburg]

Before I Leave You (Pt.58)

(Omegaverse au, Mafia au, Bts x Reader)

Summary: Your nightmares are a troubling development but the pack won't let you drown. They have different ideas on how to help you. Some more damaging than others.

Tags: Angst, Hurt/comfort, Fluff, Cuddling, scent marking, Nightmares, graphic depiction of fake character death, Discussions of past rape, No explicit depictions of past rape/sexual assault, past domestic-abuse, flashbacks, safe-wording during sex (Sorta), unpleasant sexual encounters, under-negotiated kink, mentioned sex toys, crying during sex, Sad blow jobs, small dick jungkook, allusions to past eating disorders, anxiety, implied self-hate, self-esteem issues, non-verbal main character.

W/c: 12.9k

A/N: this chapter was originally supposed to be a lot longer- but i got too in depth with it and had to split it up. This is easily one of the more heavy chapters of bily (and that's saying something), so please be mindful of the tags! For anyone wanting to skip the super triggering parts in the next chapter i've highlighted a sentence in red font both after the first triggering section and before the very triggering ending.

Special thanks to @imperiussexrex for helping me with jk's part <3 they're the bestest <3

Previous Chapter- Masterlist

"Sleep well, my lovely little spy."

Jin’s eyes flutter open, looking up at the beta who's watching him with a gentle but noticeably tense smile. Jin’s mouth is dry, he could pretend he didn’t hear anything but there would be no use. The truth wouldn’t change.

"Holy shit.” Jin’s whole body is ridged. Ready to run. In panic mode. But Yoongi’s hand settles on his shoulder. It’s the same touch as always and just as gentle and kind as it was both this mourning and 6 years ago. Yoongi has always been a kind soul, regardless of every secret Jin's ever learned to love about him.

Letting himself be known in return feels a little bit more perilous. Jin’s heart thuds against his fingertips. He swallows hard.

Yoongi hums, agreeing with Jin’s assessment. He runs a hand gently through Jin’s hair. Tugging away loose a knot. “Holy shit indeed.”

Everything is fine. In the wake of the dead body, everything in the pack is absolutely fine.

(That’s a lie, everything is definitely not fine, everything is in fact- falling apart. Like a butterfly larva worming its way to crystalize. Carving its way towards both womb and tomb. Something that changes you or destroys you.)

Jin and Yoongi can only hope.

It’s only hope after all. How much damage can it really do?

~-~

Your unraveling starts with the Nightmares.

Tonight, it’s a dark tangle of half-forgotten moments. A movie with all of the scariest scenes copied and pasted. Bright punctures of feelings like blood dripping down your chin and the tang of it in your mouth. Geumjae’s scent in your nose as he shoves your mouth against his skin. All of it. Every unhappy memory that your psyche has locked away for later drags you down like the tide would drag a stone to a watery grave.

Until the moments condense like a figure rising through fog and you’re sitting in that house again. The one with the yellow brocade curtains pulled closed across the windows so that no one sees what happens inside.

You're sitting with Geumjae at the dining room table. The elaborate meal in front of you rises with steam and smells divine calling you like a moth to honey. The cutlery is polished so clean that you can see your reflection in it. A million dancing tiny versions of you stare back with vacant doll-like eyes.

You remember this meal; you remember what happened to you on this morning. The soreness between your legs reminds you of that horror. You remember how hard you worked after he left in the morning after leaving you in a bloody heap on the bathroom floor. You remember hoping that if you did everything you absolutely could to prepare this meal, He’d be satisfied and he wouldn’t hurt you again.

But avoiding rape is never quite so easy.

It was foolish to hope back then. Geumjae was a man of routine and he required your body every morning and evening without fail. But hoping is so hard to avoid, like an itch under your skin that demands biting nails, a furious sort of wanting. Hope is nothing more than a chain that drags you through the sludge when you think it might be your buoy.

In this nightmare, the other chairs at the table aren’t empty like they usually are. It’s not just you here.

He must have taken a needle and stitched your mouth shut (like he always threatened) because you feel powerless to scream at Namjoon to get away to stay back. You can do nothing more than watch as he leans over and says something to Geumjae that makes him smile. His smile makes him look like Yoongi; who sits at the head of the table and nurses a glass of wine while scowling.

Jin is on Namjoon's other side, hair combed back from his face in a way that makes Seokjin look absurdly pretty. The picture of delicate omega composure. Each of them eats like they haven't in days, shoveling food into their mouths like it’s their last meal.

Jungkook is by your side and asks if you’re going to eat your dinner roll. Puffy and crusty bread that he never would be able to eat in real life. You watch powerlessly as he scarfs it down like he hasn’t ever eaten anything more delicious. Licking his fingers from the crumbs when he finishes.

Tae is dressed in your jewels this time, not Jimin's. The necklace Geumjae gave you for your second anniversary digs into her collar bones as if it was pinned there. Like a butterfly on a piece of cardboard. Glittering with more diamonds than seem possible. Like one of those Instagram filters, every reflection mark turned glittery. Jimin’s suit is like something out of vogue.

One moment you’re looking at the perfectly edible food and the next you’re watching it rot before your very eyes. The meat greying and melting. The salad wilts gooey and spoiled. The fancy porcelain plates writhing with worms and maggots and creepy crawlies that slither out of nowhere. A spider inches its way up your fork.

No one notices. No one realizes that the bites they bring to their lips are poison. Jin licks his lips, the skin already greying and cracking.

Geumjae looks up at you from his plate, grinning all the while. Collar starched white. You haven’t heard his voice in so long but your mind remembers the exact cadence of it in perfect detail.

“What’s wrong princess? Aren’t you going to eat up?

When you look back at them it's already too late. Namjoon’s slumped in his chair staring blankly forward with bloody eyes. When you look Jin’s got his head half gone. Cut away. Wriggly things curl behind what's left of his eye.

Tae’s collarbones are bleeding where the diamond collar sits. Ribbons drip down her bodice. Jimin’s white shirt is slowly blooming red too. Bullet wounds pepper his chest. One on his shoulder and a cluster of them over his heart.

Jungkook slumps over his plate seizing until he’s still. Still the way that dolls are. Dead. Looking at you with wide vacant eyes that go grey with congealing blood.

Yoongi's hands are burning, fire licking up his clothes and he does nothing to put it out. Burning and bubbling and boiling. Skin peeling up like paint beneath the flames.

Hoseok is the only one not at the table.

Across from you, Geumjae smiles again. Baring his teeth in that animal way of his. “What’s wrong princess? I thought you said you loved them- aren’t you going to try and stop it?”

One moment he’s across the table and the next he’s leaning over you, back in that bedroom that was your hellhole less than a year ago. Pulling you by your hips to the end of the bed when you try to twist away. He fumbles with his belt buckle.

The sheets burn against your skin like its rug burn and although you weakly push at his chest. It feels like you're moving in slow motion. Your strength is nothing compared to his. It never was enough in real life anyway.

“No- no I don’t want- please don’t,” you choke. Trying to get him off of you, when he opens his mouth there are maggots there too.

You never did find out what they did with Geumjae’s body. But now you know as the rotting corpse of your dead husband assaults you. Boney hands grab your wrists as the worms drip out, dangle, and wriggle, falling onto your face and-

One of the terrible things about the big nest upstairs is that it’s really easy to get trapped in the middle with no easy way out.

Hobi finds himself in that position when he wakes. It’s the middle of the night, nearly 3 am probably when he’s roused by the familiar ache in his stomach that tells him he needs to pee.

The shades are pulled across the windows keeping the light out, and what little slips through is kept out by a thin curtain that sections off the nest from the rest of the room. Shielding the familiar lumps of packmates buried beneath the nest slumbering away.

It feels good to have all of you sleeping in one space, the instinctual pleasure flutters and builds on the edge of Hobi’s consciousness as he lifts his head. Barely opening his eyes. It feels homey in the way that Namjoon's rut nest hadn't. It's a true nest, Smelling thick and cakey sweet all of your scents drench it now after a few days of you all sleeping here. After finding the dead body, the decision had been unanimous. No more sleeping separately. No more splitting up between the upstairs nest and the remnants of yours downstairs.

Even though it's a new space some things never change. Jimin still sleeps at the edge near the bottom, guarding the nest from the most logical point of vulnerability. Although that might be because of last week.

The pack has made a few other adjustments in terms of safety since you and Hobi found the dead body. Many a moment has hobi walked into a room with Jin and Yoongi only to have them fall silent. But he doesn't have to ask what new precautions they've agreed upon.

They’ve fallen back into the habit of letting each other know when they get to work safely and when they leave, and when to expect them home (the same habit they had just after yoongi left actually) Phone locations are perpetually turned on just in case. But Hobi knows the only time any of them feel truly settled is when they’re all up here.

The nest is big. Big enough for all of you to sleep comfortably, even all sprawled out. But as thoughtful as Yoongi was when he constructed the space he certainly did not think about how hard it would be to leave for a midnight bathroom break given the walls that close in on three sides.

Now, Hobi is trapped and bound by blankets and fancy pillows and the gently sleeping bodies of his pack all around him. The border is high and fluffed. It’s in an alpha's nature to be careful around his packmates and it goes against something very basic in Hobi to even think about disturbing the carefully placed pillows and blankets, the general purposeful disarray of such a cozy nest. Alphas simply don’t fuck with omega nests.

But on the other hand, he’s seriously stuck.

Namjoon, Jimin, and Jin are at the bottom blocking off the most logical point of egress. Jin’s head rests on Jimin's shoulder, dark hair fanning. Yoongi is tangled up with Tae (her hair in these little puffy rollers). And Jungkook’s star fished and spread out by the top edge, right where Hobi was. His fingers rest under his shirt like he’s been rubbing at his stomach. Snoring softly.

Hobi’s heart swells just looking at them.

The only safe avenue of exit where Hobi won’t be climbing over two people is near the bottom left, close to Jin and Namjoon, where you lie on your side, cheek pillowed. Chest rising up and down a little rapidly in the darkness. It’s so dark that Hobi doesn’t see it at first.

Hobi’s so half-asleep that he doesn’t even realize right away that you’re not as undisturbed as the others. That you occasionally twitch like a puppy.

Hobi is no stranger to maneuvering his lithe body around sleeping packmates, muscles straining as he very gently pulls himself over you. Depressing the mattress by your side. His baggy sleep shirt momentarily brushes your face as he shifts over you.

Your reaction is instinctual, one moment asleep and the next awake. Your scent going sour all at once. Exploding in a rush. You push out with your arms, still in the nightmare.

One second Hobi’s on the bed the next he’s stumbling out of it, Barely keeping himself from falling face-first onto the floor. Bare feet slide on the polished wood when he gets them under him. Cursing out a brief “What the fuck?” looking back, ready to be angry at being shoved.

But then he sees that you're sitting up, trembling so hard that your hands can't grip the blanket to get it off of you. Eyes wide and glassy with panic. You blink and blink, lower lip wobbling.

There is a single moment where he just looks at you, but then you let out a small (and admittedly pathetic) chirp.

There is nothing like a chirp that tugs on an alpha’s hindbrain, that drags Hobi's instincts to the forefront like a hook in a fish's mouth. He's honestly surprised that the sound doesn't wake anyone else. Maybe because it's so quiet, so small.

It’s just a dream, just a very bad dream, and your pack is sleeping softly around you. The next thing you feel is Hobi gently crushing you to his chest. Smelling like caramel and boy. Tenderly whipping back your hair from your face. His warm fingertips press against your tender temples dislodging the last bit of you that can't tell if this is real yet.

“Pup? What’s wrong- what happened?"

Hobi looks about as different from Geumjae as anyone possibly could, his jaw slender where Geumjae was wide, eyes bright where his went dark and hooded. Unthreatening and normal brown in the glow.

But just like the dream, you can’t fucking speak.

“Fuck- it was just a dream, whatever it was- it’s not real- I’m-”

You’re shaking and crying and you can’t respond. Your throat is all tight. All of you that is usually happy and gentle is reduced small and scared and quiet. You can't tell where the shadows end and where reality begins. You can only feel his hands. That's the only thing that feels real beyond the terror.

You can't look around; you can't look around at the others- too scared that they'll be dead.

Thank God for the physical nature of Hobi’s job. Herking bags of soil and 30-gallon trees has honestly done him good because it means he can carry you downstairs with a little effort.

Real panic circles his head like a bunch of buzzards, threatening to pick his heart clean. "Hang on- here we go." He turns on each of the lights one by one by leaning into them. Shoulder hitting the plastic, the two of you safer with each click. "See- there isn't anything to be scared of! There's no one here but us."

Hobi is right, Hobi would never lie to you. This kitchen is not the same one from your nightmares. The blinds are blinds and not curtains, drawn to keep out the streetlights not any prying eyes. The old rickety table where the pack has their meals isn't piled with food at all. Only some tangerines in a wooden bowl in the center.

You’re small and shaky in an extra big shirt of Namjoon’s that pools on your thighs when he places you on gently the countertop with a small 'oof'. You're already a little more lucid, eyes darting from the light to the shadows and still trembling faintly. Hobi knows instantly from the stillness that you’re nonverbal. Mouth uncooperative. Your brain is a mix of misplaced adrenaline and cortisol. You smell terrified.

“It’s okay, it’s just a dream, here-” Hobi fills up a yellow plastic cup with water and tips it against your lips. The cold soothes your throat but not to the point that you can speak. You’re unwilling to detangle yourself from him. Real and warm and there now that you’ve got him. hand tangled in the front of his shirt, clinging to him.

He hums as he dabs a cold dishcloth across on your hot cheeks. “You’re okay- I’ve got you.” You lean into his hands, legs parted so that he can stand between them. You look so sad and so small that Hobi’s heart hurts.

You don’t want to speak, really don’t want to but you force yourself anyways. “Don’t remember them- usually- Or wake up in the middle- sorry- M' sorry.”

Your eyes itch, and your face feels all puffy as he continues to dab at it. The cloth is rough and Cold, but hobi's warm where his skin touches yours.

Alive and safe. you barely want to blink incase you miss it.

“Don’t apologize, it’s okay.” Hobi continues to dab at your cheeks, “You get them often?” You shake your head instead of responding and Hobi’s scent goes thick with upset, burning sugar ever so slightly smokey. You sniffle still sort of crying and Hobi does the only thing he can think of.

Maybe it’s just that he’s half asleep himself, or an expression of his alpha protectiveness. The ringing in his ears says protect packmate, provide for packmate, soothe.

Hobi’s scent gland brushes against yours with an electric zing. Pushing you from shaky to boneless nearly instantaneously. He drags his throat and chin across your left shoulder, and then your right.

it takes real effort for him to keep his palms pressed flat against the kitchen counter while he does it but at least it has the desired effect of banishing the last bit of sogginess from your cakey scent. Your instincts purr alphas here, alphas going to keep you safe, keep the shadows at bay.

Your scent goes sweeter and your half-asleep body goes mailable as you lean into him. Resting your cheek on his shoulder, Hobi huffs a soft laugh. It feels sort of nice, having you close like this. He knows how omega's get, Jungkook goes sleepy puppet soft when he's scent marked this close to sleep too.

Yoongi would want Hobi to do this right? Yoongi would want Hobi to comfort his mate. He’d do it himself if he was awake. Hobi’s just being a good packmate. Right?

The hair on the back of your neck stands on end as he pulls away. Is it just your imagination or is he a little reluctant?

A startled chirp bursts from your lips, and you clamp your hand back over your mouth. but hobi's laugh echoes loud off the high ceilings, "It's alright pup." You try to speak again but Hobi shushes you, there’s no need for you to push yourself. Not with him. Not right now.

The slant of the light across Hoseok’s face isn’t right. Too grey and yellow from the light in the hall. It’s too late for it to be morning yet and too dark for you to quiet your heartbeat. Hobi can feel it, jackrabbit fast against his throat.

If he's here, that means the nightmare really was only that. A nightmare. Hobi wouldn't be wrapped around you if the rest of the pack were dead. You don't need to go back upstairs and double-check.

Now if you could only stop crying.

“Here,” Hobi starts to pull away and you make a panicked sound, fingers tangling in his shirt. “I’m not going anywhere, let me just get my bag-” You shake while he’s gone, sitting on the countertop, stumbling when you get off of it, knees weak. Holding the edge until he comes and gets you with an arm under your shoulders, transferring you effortlessly to the couch.

When did Hobi get so good at this? You’d be inclined to think this was just another dream (one of those shameful ones that you don’t even mention to Yoongi) but you’re not sure you could have dreamed this up.

“Lights off or on?” You shiver so he goes one by one turning on the overhead lights and then the lamps, the ones under the cabinets in the kitchen too. There’s not a hint of shadow here, no monster that he couldn’t guard you from.

You can still see the light behind your eyes when you close them. Blinking slowly like a cat would. Hobi has his headphones in his hand, not his usual earbuds but the dilapidated black over-the-ear headphones with peeling stickers on the sides that have been his almost as long as Yoongi has (they might have been stolen from the record store- back when Yoongi's rebellious streak ran a little wider).

The second they go around your ears the world dampens and your heartbeat slows.

“I’ve got you.” Hobi mouths, reaching to pull your head to lie against his shoulder, the blue light flicker of his phone screen hurts your eyes as he scrolls through some songs and puts one on. It’s slow and soft, mostly instrumental except for faint vocals. You can’t hear what Hobi says but he pulls you to rest against his side. Settling.

He doesn’t make you talk about the nightmare. Doesn’t make you talk at all. You melt, pressing your face into his shoulder as hard as you can, your shaking relaxing with every word. Every soft hum. It’s working, your trembling is only skin-deep now. In a few minutes, you won't be shaking at all.

“Go to bed,” he asks, even though you can't hear him. Pillowed against him. The songs shift quietly. Your hand somehow gets under Hobi’s shirt and presses against the skin of his hip. Holding it softly so that he doesn’t go anywhere, it feels like a bit of a thank you.

You cling to him and he lets you. You probably can’t hear him but he still repeats, “I’ve got you.”

I’ve got you.

~-~

Yoongi’s never shot up faster in his life, leaving part of himself in the dream. He can feel the panic down the bond as he stumbles. The nest is too empty. Yoongi’s sleep-sluggish brain counts the number of bodies and he goes cold when he counts five and not seven. Pure shuddering terror bleeding down his back like he's just been doused with cold water.

Where are you? Where is Hobi? There is something wrong- something seriously wrong. Yoongi can feel it on the back of his tongue, the taste of your despair acidic. Once a familiar feeling, now lashing him like lightning.

Communicating directly through the mating mark isn’t something that happens often anymore for the two of you. It did when the bond was fresher, but now that it’s settled the connection has dulled. In the way that clothes go worn and comfortable. It’s not usually a stabbing pain like this. Such a visceral feeling that it wakes Yoongi up from it.

Yoongi stumbles to the door following your scent like a man possessed. The way it shifts from the nest. Panicked to not alone. Hobi’s panic too saturates the air. Yours is rainy wet and Hobi’s is burnt and over-sweet, faintly medicinal.

There are sounds on the stairs. Footsteps rouse Hobi just as he’s finally fallen asleep. His neck aches from how he’s been leaned back against the couch And he winces as it cracks.

“Hobi?” Yoongi calls cautiously. At his waist, your fingers tangle loosely in his shirt holding onto him like he’s a lighthouse in a storm, clinging to him even as you sleep. Hobi realizes he’s got a bit of your hair stuck to his lips. Spitting it out.

“Over here.“ Hobi’s jaw pops when he yawns. Yoongi stumbles to you because he can’t stay away when you’re like this. When you need him. You don’t rouse when Yoongi touches you, cupping your cheeks. Eyes feasting on the crusty salt around your eyes, the faint silvery shimmer of dried tear tracks across your cheeks.

“She had a nightmare- couldn’t sleep with the lights off so- thank god you're here I have to pee like so fucking bad-” Hobi says quietly.

Yoongi definitely does not eye the way that your hand stays loosely knotted in the front of his shirt, or note verbally the way that you smell like him. Drenched in hobi's scent and clinging to him.

“Daisy,” Yoongi says, sounding a bit surprised and alot in love, tucking his Hobi’s hair behind his ear. Standing over the two of you looking a little shaken. Yoongi is an expert at moving you softly detangling your hand from Hobi's shirt without waking you and freeing Hobi from his self-imposed prison.

He's still shaken when Hobi comes back from the bathroom. Hobi can’t blame him. You don’t really have the best track record when it comes to disappearing together. First the car crash last month, and now the dead body. It’s understandable why Yoongi’s panicked a bit.

But now he just looks at Hobi. Eyes scanning his face, a small smile beveling the edge of his lips.

“Stop looking at me like that,” Hobi says. The faint murmur of music is barely there, you're still asleep with his headphones on. Hobi had panic made a playlist on his phone after you’d fallen asleep. Putting only the most gentle instrumentals on it.

So what if he’d saved it with a cat emoji and a purple heart? Yoongi can’t possibly know that just by looking at him.

Yoongi doesn’t respond and Hobi tucks his chin, looking down at you, sleeping soundly still. The nightmare must have really tired you out because you're out like a light. His voice goes softer, like the emotion in his throat is constraining his vocal cords.

“What was I supposed to do? Let her panic? That wouldn’t have been kind.”

Yoongi's hand falls onto Hobi's head, rubbing through his hair. the touch feels like a reward. Hobi's not sure what for. “No- it wouldn’t have been Daisy.”

“Like it when you call me that,” Hobi says. Eyelashes flutter as yoongi scratched at the nape of his neck, head bowed. and he can hear the laugh in Yoongi’s voice. Hobi’s not really awake either.

“You don’t have to worry,” Hobi says “I’m not gonna like- freak out and run away if she needs something, like the first time.”

Hobi feels embarrassed about that when he thinks about it. Embarrassed and a little bit fond of the memory every time he sees the train ticket still in his wallet. The top edge is so chewed up that you can hardly tell it’s a ticket anymore.

“Sure,” Yoongi says and Hobi knows he hasn't fooled anyone, least of all your mate. hobi stands up properly, and when his hand falls, yoongi just tugs at his wrist, the callouses on his hands comfortably rough against hobi's skin. “Come on.”

You wake bleary for a handful of seconds when Yoongi puppets you, moving to sprawl out while Hobi discards the back cushions. Yoongi slips Hobi’s headphones off your ears and puts them safely to the side. wordless and publish while yoongi gets one of the blankets to tug it over your form.

Yoongi tuts and doesn't let hobi avoid the same predicament. although it's Infinitely more comfortable than his prior half-crunched position. If Yoongi’s being honest, it sort of looked like Hobi was guarding you. body curled over in a protective stance.

Alpha's are so funny.

Hobi ends up face-to-face with you. His flannel pj set un-buttoned to the middle tugged loose from your tugging earlier. the triangle of his bare chest presses against the bare skin of your collarbone as he shuffles away from the edge of the couch. Your own pj set pulled off one shoulder. Yoongi’s sitting up, his thigh warm against the top of Hobi’s head.

You’re running a fever maybe, worming your way closer to Hobi like you need it. Your nose presses into Hobi’s chest, a little cold at the tip and ticklish. Hobi squirms and Yoongi huffs. Overly fond.

“She does that to me in her sleep too sometimes. Means she likes your scent.” Hobi feels warm, and it’s no secret that his scent fluffs up sweeter, as if encouraging you to enjoy it. You re-settle. falling asleep with your nose tucked into Hobi's sternum.

Fuck you’re both so cute, your hair mixing colors on the pillow- sharing the same one because even being that far apart is too much. Hobi falls asleep with Yoongi combing gentle touches down his back. His favorite way to fall asleep- being touched so casually and consistently. You breathe against his skin, cradled to his chest. Sleeping soundly. Finally soothed.

Hobi watches you until sleep takes him.

~-~

Unfortunately, that’s not the last time you’re woken by a nightmare in the coming weeks

Over the next few days, it seems like more often than not Yoongi and Hobi wake to the scent of your terror in the air. Quieting your little sobs with soothing touches in the bathroom. Blankets are brought into the space so that you can curl up in the bathtub, darkness kept at bay by the overhead lights, its lingering shadow curling underneath the doorway trying to drag you down.

They don’t mind, at least they tell you they don’t mind when it eventually comes time to wake in the morning and your words are barely intact. Soft and rough in a way they haven’t been in months.

For you, it feels infuriating. Your non-verbalness might only be a temporary state but that doesn’t mean that overcoming it isn’t tiring. It’s frustrating. Working so hard each day to speak only to have it wrenched away again at night.

Always.

Always you wake up from your nightmares non-verbal. Guided to somewhere light by Hobi so that your fear of the dark won't rouse the rest of the pack. Soothed back to sleep by his music and some scenting. Waking up sometime after sunrise, struggling but better. A routine.

As for the pack…

“It feels like she’s going backward,” you hear Jin confess one morning while he brushes his teeth in the upstairs bathroom. he sounds afraid (he is afraid after waking up to you gone from the nest yet again for the 5th time this week- and it's only thursday). It's obvious Jin doesn't know you're within earshot but the double doors that lead to the bathroom are wide open.

Hobi sends you a fraught look. You’ve just come back upstairs after spending a few hours in the Living Room. You're only able to risk a few more hours of sleep because the sun is turning the sky all grey-blue.

“Do you think-” What he says next is jumbled by the sound of someone turning on the shower, Jungkook or jimin maybe (the upstairs shower is large enough that honestly- all eight of you might be able to fit given you where willing to risk any soap related injuries).

Namjoon’s answering hum is all dark thunder. jin's proposed solution a mystery. “No, I don’t think that would help.”

Sometimes it’s not just Hobi and Yoongi who wake up with you.

Sometimes it’s Jimin. Holding your shoulder with that firm touch looking like he’s about to snap his teeth at any incoming shadows. Sometimes you wake and he’s already sitting at the edge of the bed watching the stairs and the windows. Shirtless, legs splayed with his handgun balanced across his knees.

Or is it just your imagination? Is that just another dream because you certainly don’t see any weapons when he and Hobi pull you from the bed a few seconds later?

They take shifts. Jin and Namjoon blanket you on both sides, soft rumbles soothing you, their quiet banter a welcome melody in your private nest downstairs. Jungkook the next night- who admittedly just wraps his body around you and goes back to sleep so quick it makes you jealous, curled around your spine while you listen to Tae read you a late-night story.

Tae’s delicate murmur does all the character's voices just right. Her lips are both mystery and familiarity. She always seems to crack open the world with the first line.

“Look, I didn’t want to be a half-blood.”

They never make you speak; never treat you like they’re too tired even though you know they are. You can see it on their faces, on Hobi’s eyebags getting greyer by the day. Hobi’s the only one who's there every time a nightmare drags you awake. Even Yoongi doesn’t wake up every time.

(Although you confess it's more because you develop a routine. You and Hobi sleep by the side of the nesting nook, where it’s easy to get out without moving around too much. Close enough to each other that he often wakes smelling like you and you always wake smelling like him).

You try to talk with him about it. Guilt makes your heart feel all stuffy. Is it possible to get a heart cold?

“You know, you could just leave your headphones out-"

“No- don’t worry about it, I’ll just make it up later.”

Always. Always Hobi wakes and plops his headphones on your ears. Sometimes he seems awfully lively, grinning and cracking jokes when you burrow into his chest and wipe your tears on his shirt.

“I am like- among the top 10 worst sponges in history you know?”

Sometimes he wakes you from the nightmares before you’ve had the chance to jerk awake. He recognizes the tell-tale stillness, the quick breaths. He never lets you suffer for long. Waking you with a hand on your shoulder. Allowing you to shove him just a little because he knows you're just reacting to your dream and him bleeding together.

"It's just me- you're okay, I've got you."

Sometimes, you wonder if you’re not the only one who can’t sleep lately.

During the day you spend a lot of time in the nesting pod, catching up on sleep while it's still light outside. dreading the afternoons and evenings when the shadows linger like a looming storm. Alone and safe and quiet.

Occasionally you're joined by noodle, purring up against your stomach. Meowing at you until you lift your arm and he can cuddle close. Sometimes you feel like he knows you’re sadder than you say you are. That when the others aren’t there to watch you, you’re stiller, less mobile than normal. You don't even click away at your phone, half the time you forget to charge it anyway.

Hobi would never tell you- but a few afternoons ago he’d come home to Noodle waiting for him on the front step. He’d lead Hobi inside, little kitty face glaring back at him every few steps. Circling his curled form and yowling when he dared to take a second to take his shoes. off. Panicked and nervous, all but biting on his ankles before he led Hobi into the sunroom. His bushy tail held high.

There he’d meowed woefully at your nesting pod where you slept soundly. So loud that Hobi was worried it would wake you. As if he was trying to say “Aren’t you going to do something?”

Hobi had just quieted the cat with a soft shush and picked him up. Closing the door behind both of them. “Let her sleep nu,” he’d gotten nothing but a tearful meow in response. Some squirming, but no claws. “What do you expect me to do? I’m trying my hardest.”

Noodle keeps his secrets. Hobi’s question goes unanswered by the cat- who’d simply squirmed out of his hold and gone to wait by the door to be let back in. Glaring at Hobi’s retreating figure like he’d been betrayed.

Noodle seems to know something that the pack doesn't. He's sat in your lap during dinner and breakfast every single night this week, especially on the days you’ve slept more.

Hobi continues to try his hardest. He brings home flowers from the shop. He says they’re for Jin but puts them by the nesting pod and no one even bothers to tease him. He makes sure that you don’t fall out of the habit of going on late-night drives. Even though you don’t go back to the beach again quite yet. The memories there are too prescient.

Hobi takes you to the winding mountain road again. Drag racing one night with Jimin, because what good is trying to squeeze in a few hours of sleep before sunrise when you’ll just wake anyway? You might as do something fun until you’d wake up normally.

You leave that night a little more wobbly-legged than Hobi will admit to Namjoon when he asks later. "I'm never getting into a car with you again Minnie- what the fuck."

But sometimes the alphas do use the sunroom when you’re there.

It’s kind of nice to hear them on the other edge of your senses. When you’re dozing and Tae and Jimin want to play video games. their shouts of happiness and false outrage better than their screams of terror.

When Hobi and Jungkook want to do some stretching before they take an afternoon run, their giggles push out the memories of cruel words that ring in your ears. Yoga mats all stretched out and noodle perched on the edge of Hobi's multicolored one. Watching you, tail flicking back and forth.

They'll never know how much they help just by being there.

Or when they work on rearranging Hobi’s plants around. Fitting them into different spots like a jigsaw puzzle and moving them from room to room. He doesn’t mean to be indecisive about it, he’s just trying to find the best home for each of them.

They take the big banana tree upstairs to put it in the nesting room because that honestly has really good light and Hobi’s baby can’t be compromised. They move the monstera there too and switch the string of pearls for three big ferns hanging above your nesting nook. Shifting A big fig tree that honestly looks kinda pretty from the entryway to the corner, hanging part of the way over the small sectional.

A leggy orchid that someone bought Namjoon as a “thank you for not letting me go braindead” present is the wimpiest and smallest of the bunch. Hobi's in the process of rehabilitating it. For now, it sits on the window sill growing a single pathetic leaf.

Hobi tries to spend a lot of time nearby when you’re trying to sleep, he always seems to show up when you're having the hardest time ignoring your thoughts.

They're getting tired of you being a goddamn mess every time. Why can't you just get better? It's pathetic, Hobi is fine. Why are making such a big deal over this? But deep down you know it's not just the dead body that caused all of this.

Things are slow at the flower shop in the fall with only the occasional wedding until the Christmas season starts up. Hobi talks to you about it while he waters his plants and trims up some leaves that are dying. He’s definitely not looking forward to making bows for the whole month of December and wrestling with wreaths. He’d much rather talk to you about his ferns. The big stag leaf one that’s in the corner by the tv. And the big fluffy ones that hang above the nesting pod.

“I know they're messy but If I overwinter them we can hang them back on the porch next year, They looked so nice!”

You hum from the pod, turning your cheek to look up at him. he's got his flannel rolled up to his elbows, a shirt underneath that looks homey and warm. Hobi’s scent grows sweet. “They did look really cool this year, kind of like big green soot sprites.”

“We should watch spirited away again.”

“We should.”

You stretch out in the nesting pod while he fiddles with one of the fronds, pulling off the dead leaves with a crumple. You stretch your curled-up legs, toes brushing the ratan sides of the pod.

“If I was a plant where would you put me?”

“Probably where it’s sunniest.”

You can hear his smile on the words, you hum and go back to sleep while he works. Hobi checks your breathing every few minutes, just to make sure you don’t need to be woken up again.

Hobi never talks about the nightmares and never asks what they’re about. Which is something you’re thankful for as the days go on and they get worse and worse. You don’t know how many more nights you can wake up gasping without telling them what you're dreaming about. That it's the idea of them dying that has you so panicked. not to mention the nightly revision of the worst parts of your abuse.

Yoongi doesn't always let you escape without a bit of interrogation. Badgering you until you tell him that he needs to stop.

Jin’s just as bad, constantly hovering. You found your sleep schedule, an estimated hours of sleep you’ve gotten scrawled on the edge of a newspaper in Namjoon's handwriting. He's a little generous with his calculation- You know you haven't slept 13 hours in the last 4 days. You’d crumpled up the page and thrown it in the garbage.

In the morning you find out their motive behind it. Blinking down at your cereal and at the red raspberries bobbing in the milk. You can't help but get defensive about this; because really when you go non-verbal so often about this- what good would talking do?

“Jin, I’m not going to therapy.”

Jin looks a little bit less like his usually put-together form, button-up shirt a little looser than it might have been a few weeks back. Yoongi rubs down his shoulders as he passes. Work has been keeping Jin later and later- anytime someone asks he says something about a problem child at the home for forgotten pups that needs Jin's full attention.

It's so very like him to suggest therapy.

He pulls his fingers through his hair, trying to comb it into something orderly. Abandoning his usual routine of gel and mouse. “I’m not saying you have to go consistently- just once or twice, you went through something-“ he breaks off when Yoongi taps his hip, shaking his head.

You’re twisting your hands over your lap, again and again. But the word lands even though it was unsaid. Whereas before you and Hobi had a smart retort- now- the word feels less hollow, more heavy.

And Jin's not just talking about the body.

Jin doesn’t want to be frank, but you don’t look the best. Maybe it’s because you’d been so steadily getting better that they hardly remembered what sadness looks like on you. But now it looks like this; you sitting at the island counter, looking at your food, too nauseous to eat. Actually worried you're going to vomit if you try.

Any other morning, Jin would sit by you and coach you through it, would sit and wait for you and move you somewhere safe, somewhere softer to prod. He'd chase this worry with gentle touches. maybe he'd give you a gentle settling if you were feeling like you needed to reach that happy hazy head space to eat.

Any other morning Jin wouldn’t leave you.

But this morning, the clock says that Jin has exactly 20 minutes before he has to leave for work or else he’ll be late and miss the debriefing on the latest string of murders and drug-related reports. including a very well worded anonymous tip. it's important that jin's there for that.

It’s not enough time to drag you to some corner of the house and scent you happy. Or better- scruff you down into omegaspace where you’d be mailable and more agreeable under his touch.

Yoongi's eyes say, go I've got this, and Jin has never been more thankful for lovely enemies and a partner in crime.

But Jin simply does not have enough time to love you as he should. If Jin has to choose between making you feel loved and making you more physically safe he'll choose the latter every single time.

Baby steps. Rome wasn’t built in a day, and criminal empires won’t fall that quickly either.

“They’ll go away, I know they’ll go away because they did last time,” you reaffirm, only half believing it. You and Yoongi don’t talk about when you first moved into this house, but the truth is these nightmares aren’t really anything new for either of you.

At least this time they don’t come with you hurling your guts up every night. At least this time your words return in the middle of the day. At least you feel somewhat human right now.

Jin sends a fraught look in Hoseok ’s direction. Clearly requesting backup. He holds his hands up, straw in his mouth and ice coffee in his hand. “I’ll go if she goes.” Is all he says backing away. Clearly not ready to take Jin’s side with this. Late for work himself.

Jin almost misses when you guys were adversarial, rather than banded together as a unified front.

I never expected the pups to unionize

He sends Namjoon in a text a few hours later, After no less than 3 separate meetings that have him feeling more than a little tired himself.

Joonie (1:18): Really? I’d thought you would have been ready, no plans to destabilize the monarchy up your sleeve?

Jin can’t stop his smile, he’s conscious of who might be watching, so he hides it with his palm. Flirting on the FBI’s time has never felt so good.

What would you recommend?

Joonie (1:23): Spanking and sweets probably.

That at least had made Jin feel a little bit more at ease. But he knows what Namjoon really means, that he’s saying they should talk about this later face to face. Or worse there isn’t an easy solution. Namjoon had warned him that a request for therapy, however gentle and well-worded it was, might not go over well.

But what else can you do when someone won’t accept your concern? When love falls short? For the first time ever Jin is unsure what you need.

Over the next few weeks, you can tell that they’re being overly gentle with you. Treating you with velvet gloves.

Namjoon barks an order at Jungkook and Hobi when they rough house too close to you. jostling you where you stand unsteady in the bathroom. Tae lets loose a sleepy growl when Jungkook back hugs you one morning- something ordinarily innocuous but now makes you flinch hard. hand pressed over your heart to stop its thundering. Both times Jungkook tucks his tail smelling sour at being scolded even though it's really not his fault.

Everyone's instincts are running on high. Your scent is so off these days. Something about it muted and only getting duller. Jin didn't realize until the other day when he tried to find a pillow that smelled like you while nesting and couldn't.

The head of the FBI's largest organized crime task force, brought to sniffles over not being able to find the right pillow. What would Jin's enemies think?

Yoongi had only sighed, and relinquished his shirt to Jin's nesting. At least that was the next best thing.

but it's not only the little things that they're holding off from; it's sex too. You can clearly tell that they want to instigate something when you come upstairs one night after spending a few minutes with Tae in the library room.

Jungkook sat's tight across Namjoon’s lap. Moving his hips in a way that's sensual clinging to the pack alphas bare chest and licking into his mouth like an omega starved.

You know what they want to do- christen the nest in a way, truly break it in and make it smell like the pack.

But they'd stilled at your appearance and you'd made yourself scarce, clearly not ready to be asked to stay (or scarier- asked to leave). When you'd come back after showering the room had smelled of sour unhappy arousal and Jungkook had been pouting on the other side of the nest from Jin and Namjoon.

You hadn't heard the whispered argument. "You're treating her the exact same way you treated me when my seizures went bad."

"That was a different circumstance Koo and you know it."

"Still- it doesn't change the fact that you're making the decision for her instead of making a place that's safe enough for her to decide what she wants."

The idea that Jungkook and the others are holding off for your sake has you feeling even more guilty.

Even Tae- once insatiable, now hardly lifts her head from her computer when you walk into the library room wearing next to nothing. You know it’s just that. Just busyness that she's been spending every available second writing her new story.

But you can’t help but feel odd about it. Half guilty and half extra. Unwelcome.

Neglected isn’t the right word. Neglected is the word that Hobi would use for his orchid or the cactus that he accidentally forgot about outside. Two plants that are equally as finicky, opposites but maybe not in terms of difficulty. One praised for being beautiful, the other coveted for being hard to take care of.

It feels like that a lot of the time, that you're just hard to take care of. you're an adult you shouldn't even need to be taken care of at all.

That night- you toss and turn in the bed. Unable to sleep because you can't help but think about it, your thoughts a rushing torrent of you're such a bother. Maybe they're just trying to let you down easily. Maybe all of the love is a lie. You should try harder, if you try harder to overcome this then maybe they won't ask you to leave.

Sadness has rotted your brain a little, you don't know how to get back, how to stop the spiral. Until your hands are so tight that your nails dig into your palms. Leaving bloody little crescents.

The next day you try to catch up on sleep. In the nesting pod. A dark spot. Out of sight and out of mind, where all broken things go when it's clear they can't be fixed in a way that makes them useful. But it feels like you've only slept a few minutes when you're roused- not from a nightmare, but because someone gets into your nesting pod with you.

You smile in your sleep at the scent of honey, rich and golden. So nice and sweet that it makes you get goosebumps. Jungkook noses at them, dragging his cheek along the hair on your arms, soft and pleasant in that sensory sort of way.

Even though the nesting pod was a gift from Namjoon you'd been clear to Jungkook and Jin that they could use it whenever they wanted to. They're always a little bit more inclined to nest upstairs.

You sleepily hold out your arms for Jungkook, only cracking your eyes a little. You're not prepared for the sight of him in a crop top. blinking as you register it. Your pulse climbing higher. Jungkook doesn't say anything, doesn't say anything at all as he pulls his body along yours, settling mostly on top of you. quiet until you query "Kookie?"

He smells a little like the gym, but more like he'd showered there and then come home. You don't remember what day it is, what his schedule was. But the house is quiet around you, it must be one of his early days then?

His nose rubs smooth little circles along your neck, and when you pull back his eyes are a little glassy. "I miss you," he says, voice cracking a tiny bit. You don't have to ask why he misses you when you're right here. You know and your heart clenches painfully.

you laugh, "you just saw me this morning." but his lower lip wobbles, and you know thats not what he meant. it's frightfully easy to knot your fingers in his hair and pull him down to eye level. "c'm here."

You can tell by the way that Jungkook kisses you that he wants you, his arousal burning skin deep as his tongue laves against your lower lip and his hand slides down your chin to cup your scent gland, fingers pressing over the sensitive skin delicately.

You're so fucking tired.

Jungkook’s sex drive is honestly the highest in the pack, and you know that they usually keep him well tended to. But you also know that because of your predicament, no one’s tended to his needs in the last few days. You can smell it on the edge of his scent. Sweet but overly sweet, like a hovering cloud of settling perfume, unable to settle. Just getting stronger.

It’s not your job, and it shouldn’t be anyone’s job per se, but the idea of turning him down is so displeasing that you won’t even if you’re not really in the mood right now. You're so fucking tired. There isn't room for anything else. you don't have the energy to want this, you don't have the energy to want anything but sleep.

You kiss back, a little gentler than he wants, the soft needy noise he makes against the seam of your mouth tells you just how welcome it is. Your arms are sluggish as they go around his shoulders. He grins happy, and you grin too- because Jungkook’s joy is honestly so infectious. You let him tug you up, tug you out of the nesting pod even though your heart lurches.

This is your use to the pack, isn't it? The youngest omega, the lowest one in the hierarchy. You shouldn't say no and deny Jungkook what he wants. This is the way that he feels free, the way that he makes himself better.

After the pack's sleeping quarters had changed, there’d been a whole debate over where exactly to put the pack's sex toy collection and what to do with their old bedroom on the first floor. The side closet is no longer big enough or in use.

Installing some shelves in the bedroom had been the easiest solution. now they frame either side of the windows, holding Tae's overspill of books at the top and a few display cases. You remember the first day you'd wandered in here in search of your mate and found some suspicious-looking brackets installed along the ceiling studs, sawdust piles sweeper up on the floor.

“It’s totally not a sex dungeon.”

“Babe, you’re making a display for Jungkook’s dildo collection with a built-in sex bench.” At least you can still tease your mate when you're sad like this. Every little semi-normal comment you make feels like seeing the sun during a break from the storm. Even Yoongi's pout is half a smile.

“Just because I want there to be a bench doesn’t mean It’s a sex bench. It could be for like- watching tiktok and stuff. You know Hobi likes to find a spot where he won't bother us.”

“It’s totally a sex bench.”

“Is not.”

Yoongi is too fun to rile up. You'd watched him blush as you and Jungkook had playfully grabbed and swung on the ropes Yoongi was hanging, the heavy thick cotton ones soft to the touch that won’t irritate his loves sensitive skin. testing out the brackets meant for suspension.

Jungkook’s just as giggly and happy when he drags you there now, and your smile is very real pressed to his shoulder. The farthest thing from fake. it might be the first time you've smiled today. Jungkook always makes you feel this way; a little younger, a little bit like you’re sneaking around. That at least feels right.

You're very good at concentrating on the parts of sex that feel good, the parts that you want and not the ones that you don't.

(This morning the others had talked about it with Jungkook. Jimin and Tae had cuddled close to brainstorm. The way they often talk about sex things and pack things. Jimin's snorted honesty still stings.

"I don't know if Yoongi could literally fuck the sadness out of her, but at least it's a suggestion."

Jungkook had felt petulant and whiney, "But why doesn't he just try- if anyone's got a magic just right dick it's him-" Tae had chased Jungkook's disappointment with a kiss.

The truth is; the pack is mostly at a loss with how to help you this time. The most they can do is just stay close and make sure you have everything you need. But lately, not even that has felt like enough. Tae had scrapped her nails down Jungkook's abs, soothing him, with a bit of tingly pain pleasure.

"You're the only one whose bad mood can literally be cured with a good fuck bunny.”)

Yes, Jungkook is trying to make you feel lighter in the only way he knows how right now. But there are different medicines for different hurts for a reason.

Jungkook guides you down to the sex bench, tugging at your shirt a little. Still kissing you. Up close you realize it's actually more of a daybed, styled very attractively with a few throw pillows. One that's more memory foam and sturdy for propping bodies up.

It's no secret how sweet turned on happy Jungkook smells from just a little kissing, just the bare minimum. Jungkook moans- a crocked needy sound, scent pulsing richer in the air. He squirms a little bit, reaching over to one of those shelves. Rummaging in one of the frosted acrylic buckets.

“I’ve had this idea for weeks now that you've taken Joonie’s- fuck- I just- I didn’t know when you’d want to try it but I saw this video online with two omegas and Jin said no but- ha! Here it is!”

You gulp.

The big purple thing is a veritable monster, glittery and double-ended, ridged not like a regular dildo but more like a tentacle. It's about as thick around as your wrist. Namjoon’s a little thicker but still-

it makes fear trickle down your spine, warm and almost bleeding.

Jungkook reads your expression. And the disappointment crests his cheeks, his bunny smile falls, and you feel like you’ve failed already.

At the thought of being filled right now. You feel like you might want to vomit. You try not to have any sort of expression, just a small smile- but fall abysmally short. You’re too tired, too sore, too tight to properly enjoy that.

The idea that your sadness is enough to get in the way of this, what Jungkook so clearly needs is suddenly too much for you to bare. Jungkook needs sex, doesn't he? He needs it to make the seizures feel not quite so damning. He'd told you once- how much he required sex to feel loved. It's his love language right? Isn't this what people always say when they want physical touch?

Who are you to say that your needs are more important than his? You certainly do not love yourself as much as you love him.

Jungkook’s frown is heartbreaking and you easily kiss it away. Making your kisses more eager. You’re a good kisser and a good actor. Your kisses make Jungkook feel all fluttery and hot in the chest, quickly forgetting about the dildo and whatever plans he might have had.

"Just want you- don't want-" words get in the way of kissing, sucking, you mouth at Jungkook's lower lip, making him groan.

Jungkook’s scent gland is a semi-swollen little lump under your teeth as you nibble on it, making him part his legs, grinding up into nothing and letting out a breathless whine. You set yourself across his lap and his big hands quickly fist on your waist pulling you snugly.

You don’t mind this, you really don’t.

It's too routine for you, the first thing that you reach for to avoid saying no. His belt buckle is warm against your palm as you shift so that you can slide to the floor. Pulling your body away from him. he lets out a needy bereft sound. stopping you as you start to tugg at his waistband.

his cheeks are pink, lips red from kisses when you pull back. "I-"

"Let me kiss you here Koo." Let me at least do something. Let me stop feeling so guilty, I know how to fix the guilt even if you don't.

Jungkook catches your chin before you sink to the floor. Jungkook has a hickey on his abs glimmering there just along his hipline. The crop top pulled up to right under his pectorals in a way you know would have the alphas growling and mouthing at his stomach. That's probably how he got the hickey in the first place.

“But you don’t like it.” He says, not quite understanding. Catching your hand as you slide it across his knee.

“I want to try.” You lie, "I-I feel like I’ve lost practice, need to be taught how-” You bat your eyes, looking down and away like you're embarrassed. Just let me do this and make you cum. Just let me get this over with so that we can go back to cuddling and I can feel safer. Jungkook always gets especially cuddly after he's cum too. “I don’t- I don’t do it for the alphas like at all." Your stuttering isn't all faked. You’ve lost practice in a lot of things, but lying clearly isn’t one of them.

“Or Yoongi” Jungkook notes. A little too quickly.

Your heart pulses, Bruised a bit at that. You've never explicitly discussed the abuse you underwent with anyone but Yoongi and Namjoon. You didn't think anyone really noticed how much you don't like giving blowjobs. It's not that you don't want to reciprocate or touch- it's just that once with Geumjae, the choice to reciprocate was taken away from you. The choice to get anything at all was always taken away. It's hard to forget that, to want it again.

You remember his words. He'd always been violent with words before he'd ever gotten violent physically with you. Coercion doesn't feel like it has the same weight compared to that (Hobi would probably argue with you- but his case was different wasn't it?)

"You're so fucking selfish, you could help me in like- 10 minutes but you're choosing not too. We could go back to having a normal fucking evening. I do so much for you and even now when I can't fucking sleep you won't just do this one fucking thing- it's not like I'm asking for much. You're too young, I should have known you wouldn't know how normal relationships function."

It's foolish of you to think that you could be selfish forever. You should get used to this with Jungkook so that it's not so bad with the others later. In case they ever realize how selfish you've been.

“Yeah,” you swallow back a lump in your throat. “But can I? I want to-” You make your eyes wide, biting your tongue hard so that your scent doesn’t go sour.

Jungkook looks like he’s warring with himself for a second but then the hornyness wins out. He pulls his pants down his thighs and you help him, big and muscular as he stands, you on the floor before him. It feels right in a twisted way. See I know my place, see I'm not trying to get away with anything.

Jungkook almost trips when he moves to get a pillow for your knees because he’s not a monster. Namjoon and Jin have taught him well.

Jungkook is not a monster.

If you said no, if you said that you wanted to stop you know he wouldn’t hold it against you. At least not at first, at least not this time. After the 4th or 5th or 10th attempt you know that wouldn't be the case.

Jungkook doesn't even have large enough of a cock for it to feel like a real blowjob. His bunny eyes are wide and eager as you give it a first little kiss. Tentative. You kiss the head again, focusing, dragging your lips up the sides and nuzzling into the skin of his hip, indulging in his scent because at least Jungkook smells nice, smells clean, before you take him into your mouth

Geumjae always smelled a bit like piss. Tasted like it too. At least Jungkook's not like that.

He can be forgiven maybe, for not noticing right away. For not asking if you want this twice. A muted curse falls from his lips instead and he carefully cradles your head. A little startled.

"Fuck- ah-" The muscles of his abdomen tense beneath your touch, startled by the sudden influx of pleasure and the wet tight hot heat of your mouth. "I don't think you need any practice- fuck-"

Omega cock tastes less bitter than alpha cock does. And Jungkook’s dick is honestly so small you can’t even choke on it properly. He doesn’t hit the back of your throat when he rocks it into your mouth. Eking pleasure from the tight seam of your lips.

He doesn’t even hit the back of your throat or engage your gag reflex. So, you wonder why your eyes start watering. One of his hands fists (albeit a little bit too sloppy to be totally gentle) in your hair, using it to keep you stationary while he fucks your mouth. Little rolls of his hips that end in cute, "ah-ah-ah" sounds leaving his lips.

Good, you're doing good. Your nose is buried in his skin. With the little tuft of hair there, Jungkook must have showered at the gym because it doesn't smell like anything. Just breathe.

You know Jungkook doesn't get stimulation to his cock often. The others much prefer to fuck his hole rather than pay attention to it and that works in your favor now because Jungkook's so sensitive. You feel his cock jerk a little, tensing as his abdomen does, flexing up against the pallet of your mouth. Especially when your tongue teases at the head. Finding the ridge of his frenulum and pressing up.

Your lungs sting but you keep your tongue flat, lapping up at the underside, keeping your mouth wet and messy and not swallowing yet. Jungkook's precum tastes a little salty, not as salty as alpha cum would taste like but still not bad. Just a little bit like sweat and a little bit like honey.

Jungkook looks down at you, sweaty hair sticking to his forehead his lips falling slack in pleasure. Hips twitching up, looking debauched and lovely from it already. Pride swells, even as you have to fight back the urge to gag. Quieting the revulsion in your stomach through force of will alone.

You can do this, you don't have to make a big deal over it-

Jungkook tips his head back, closing his eyes, and you're free to shudder unwatched. "Fuck- just like that- you're so good at it, fuck-" You wonder if you get this same wide-eyed subspace look when you’re sad if that’s why he doesn't notice. Your knees burn, hands tighten. One on his hips the other digging into your thigh.

You hear someone outside in the hall and before you have the chance to even think about pulling off they're opening the door. Jimin almost trips, Clearly not expecting to see you on your knees or Jungkook with his legs splayed and shirt rucked up to show his tummy.

You pop off Jungkook’s cock easily, jaw aching already (you really are out of practice) Jimin’s look is all predatory, alpha pheromones bubbling up. One second startled, the next prowling in your direction like a jungle cat.

“Ah pups, getting into trouble? Pups having a treat?”

Jungkook giggles, spreading his knees wider, fingers stroking down your cheek as you catch your breath. Wiping the spit from your lips. “We’re not done yet,” he huffs. You blink up at Jimin and the touch he drops on your head is everything. Soothing your frantic panting. You push up into it, eager for a casually loving touch.

"Wanna make some trouble with us?"

“maybe, think i'd much rather watch" He teases, jutting his chin at Jungkook and settling down next to him, leaning on his chin to watch you as you're urged back to it. You kiss Jungkook's cock again as the alpha guides him into a kiss. Settling his happy-turned-on pheromones into a thick bubble that bursts.

You lap at Jungkook’s cock head, making it messy. Watching the two of them get distracted by kissing, licking into each other’s mouths. Jungkook's hand falls from your hair in favor of cupping Jimin's thigh.

And you below them, an afterthought.

You ignore the longing in your chest and go back to sucking Jungkook off. After a minute or two, Jimin's hand returns to your head, his knuckles rub against your cheek in lazy circles.

It would feel loving any other time but not right now. Not when you're trying to ignore the voice that whispers in the back of your mind that this is all you're good for. On your knees, mouth open. Finally useful. Finally worth the bother of loving. A voice that doesn’t come from any of them but sounds suspiciously like Geumjae's occupying your thoughts.

Jimin's hands are on your head too, rubbing against your cheek. Wiping away a little bit of spit on the corner of your lips. He clearly thinks you're deep in omegaspace. Interpreting your quiet softness for that sweetness and not this devastation. there is always a moment of quiet before a disaster, an intake of breath where everyone braces for impact.

“My good little princess, making your packmate happy, look at you pup,” Jimin croons. Clearly enjoying the pretty picture that you and Jungkook paint.

If anything, it's hearing that old pet name that makes you break. You're fine until you're not.

You're just so tired.

There is wetness on your face and it’s not spit or slobber or cum just tears. Little sniffles. your first one goes un-noticed by them, but not the second or the third. Jungkook freezes. And suddenly the fingers on your cheeks aren’t pulling you closer to Jungkook’s hips but off. Tilting your face. Jimin's hands quickly push Jungkooks away.

Jimin has stoney eyes, his mouth hard and discerning, lips parting. “Pup?” Jungkook’s already got his hand on your arm bunny eyes the soft opposite to Jimin’s. Jimin effortlessly transfers you from the floor to the couch. "Oh pup."

You wipe at your tears stubbornly. “Just one second, just give me a second and then I can keep going I promise, I’m fine- I’m fine” you keep repeating it, keep saying it but you smell so sour-sad. Your pout wobbles hot tears welling up threatening to spill over renewed.

But in what world would they ever let you cry during sex without pre-negotiating? In what world would they let you cry without comforting you?

“I don’t even know why I’m crying but I can't stop-”

No sooner have the words slipped past your lips are they pulling you up from the floor and into their laps, manhandled and small. You fight it a little. but Jimin crushes you to his chest and you sag. t

Jungkook has never gotten less turned on quicker, a packmate's distress takes so much precedence over this. Pulling up his pants. His pleasure isn't even a thought in the back of his mind. You take precedent.

Jungkook thought you knew that.

He feels helpless, helpless as you scrub angrily at your mouth, he uses his sweatshirt sleeve to wipe the saliva and spit from your mouth, then your tears from your cheeks. "Oh fuck- I'm so sorry- fuck I-"

And oh, you're crying into Jimin's chest now, real tears. Sobbing harder.

Jimin glances up and for a second he looks a little angry. He has every right to be angry at Jungkook for this. He's barely been here for like, a minute and a half. But the anger isn't welcome, you're too close to Jimin's scent gland, flinching when he starts to smell sour. Pulling back, so so so terrified, quivering in his lap.

"I'm sorry alpha, just give me a second and I'll get to you too-"

Now Jimin's angry for a whole new reason, angry at people he can't punish, people who are already dead. Jimin feels his anger in his hands. Struggling to stay gentle on you.

Oh fuck that.

Jimin’s fingers pinch at the back of your neck, scruffing you until your scent mellows out a little. "None of that now." He snaps, sharp shifting from concerned packmate to commanding dom effortlessly. "You'll do no such thing. You're going to stay right here until I tell you I'm done holding you."

Jimin's firmness is exactly what you need. You feel his power in his arms, crushing you, restraining you. Jungkook is not a dom, and that has never been clearer than right now. if he was than you would have never gotten into this predicament. "Can't you be good and do what Alpha asks?"

"Yes Alpha" you sob.

Jungkook looks at you guilty, eyes swimming with tears too. He's always been a sympathetic crier but he doesn’t let them spill. Even if Jimin spies them. His lower lip wobbles as he looks at you. Reaching out to hold you too and then snatching his hands back at the last second. If Jimin's touch is your remedy then Jungkook's is surely poison. “Why didn’t you-”

“I just- I just didn’t want to be bad.” You know what they’re about to say, that saying no wouldn’t have been bad but your brain is all terrified of it.

“M’sorry” Jungkook wants to say that there’s nothing you’ve got to apologize for that it’s him that should, but it’s difficult. It’s so difficult when you’re crying so hard it kinda feels like you might pass out. hyperventilating a little. He can do little more than loop his arms around Jimin's waist and trap you between the two of them, sandwiching you. Applying pressure. Holding you tight. In a way that has you instantly plummeting. Down past subspace, past omegaspace, where everything is dark and bland and nothing. Where you're nothing.

“M’sorry Koo-” He doesn’t trust his wobbly voice to speak as you sob out, “Don’t tell them, don’t tell Namjoon and Jin or Yoongi please- don't want them to worry. It’s not Koo's fault it's mine. I’m fine. m' just feeling off. I’ll be better alpha I promise.”

Luckily there is no one home. No one is home to hear any of this. Jimin has always been perilously unable to deny his girls their silly wishes. And if the idea of Namjoon or Jin knowing has you panicking anew then Jimin will take this secret to the grave.

Jimin soothes you with a happy alpha rumble, feeling exactly the opposite- wishing there was Namjoon or Jin to call for backup. This is clearly not normal crying. Jungkook surely couldn't have put you into subspace but somehow you're dropping. Leaning in to every word that graces Jimin's lips like you need the absolution he brings.

“But you’re already so good for us pup- already so good for saying no even though it was hard. Here. Lie out so we can hold you. Here.” It's what you wanted from the beginning someone close by enough to touch enough to cuddle.

Only this time it feels even less like you deserve it.

You make yourself as small as you can. Jungkook and Jimin alternate, kissing off your cheeks. Until you stop crying and fall asleep. Crying yourself back to sleep. You really were just sleep-deprived.

Jimin's got one arm around your waist, another cradling the back of your head. And only once he's absolutely sure that you are completely asleep does he hiss over the top of your head.

"Jungkook What the hell-"

"I asked, you know I asked. She said she was okay I swear-"

A whispered argument ensues, drawn out until the others come home. Their anger quieting at the sound of them, Yoongi softly calls your name. Mindful of the fact you could be sleeping.

When you wake up around dinner time you're non-verbal and pupish. There are too many people around for Jungkook to be able to pull you to the side and ask, to just talk this out. He watches you close at dinner, watches and waits for a chance to talk to you that won't come. You'll pretend you're asleep tomorrow when he wakes, just to avoid it for a little while longer.

If the others notice anything strange with you at dinner time no one broaches it. Of course, you don't speak at all. Answering their questions with shaken heads and careful nuzzles under Tae’s chin where you sit side by side with her. Your chairs pulled together so that they’re more of a bench. She smells so good- so Rosey that you press your face into her shoulder to avoid the other's eyes.

Never mind the fact that you don't smell like anything at all. Maybe you're dissociating too bad to smell like anything. So disconnected from your emotions that you can't feel them let alone smell like them.

After dinner you take an extra long in the shower so that by the time you exit the bathroom Jin has already scruffed Jungkook sleepy. He looks cute too. Pouting in his sleep, restless.

There's an extra soft nesting space carved out just beside him that he made special for you with a few pillows and his favorite nesting things. It will go unused.

That night, you don't bother trying to sleep.

~-~

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Upstairs floor plan:

Chapter playlist:

Noah Kahan - Call your mom

Coldplay - Sparks

nick cave and the bad seeds - O' children

Pine Grove- Need too

[resi4skz]

Title: Breakfast & Pancakes

Pairing: Chan x chubbyReader

Words: ~3k+

Warnings: slight nsfw, slight fluff, kitchen s*x

Placing the last plate on the table and arranged the flowers in the vase, I stand back to review my work. Will she like this? Satisfied, I walk into my room when I'm struck by the beauty sleeping on my bed. God, I want to take this picture and forever carve it in my mind. It had been 6 months into our relationship and last night, I made her mine. Officially anyway.

I take a few steps closer and stop just as she turns in her sleep, exposing her pretty face to me. My eyes travel down to her arm and hand. Smiling, I gently grab it and start drawing small circles on the back of her hand. It makes her stir in her sleep but opens her eyes and gives me a sleepy smile. "Morning."

"Morning baby," I say as I lean down, planting a kiss on her forehead. "Sleep well?"

She nods her head, smiling. "Yes."

"Hungry?"

"Starving."

When she's a bit more awake, I lead her to the dining table. She gasps and blinks at me. "Channie, did you make all this?!"

I chuckled, pinching her cheek. "Yes. Now come. Let's eat."

We eat in peace. But mostly, it was me watching her eat as her eyes sparkled when she saw her favorite breakfast. Pancakes. She told me they were the best pancakes she's had. We talked about our work and friends, you know the usual. And when it came to clean up, she stood up with her hand waving at me as if to dismiss it.

"You cooked. I clean."

Fuck.

I'm absolutely entirely and over the mountains and hills full time fucked.

Each day she gives me a reason to fall for her more and more. I sit back and watch her start to wash the dishes while humming a song.

God. If time were to stop now, I wouldn't even complain.

Standing up, I slowly walk over to her till I'm standing behind her. I give her a look from head to toe, stopping at her mid-riff. I inwardly groan as I make my presence known because she freezes mid-wash and stops singing. "Channie?"

I hum in response as I move closer and change the position of her hair, completely moving to the left side. Next, my lips attach to her shoulder then her neck as I feel her shiver. "You know you're mine, right?" I whisper-ask.

She nods, letting out a whimper.

"Use your words, babygirl."

"Yes."

"Good," I lean over her ear. "You're fucking mine."

"Channie, why do you find me attr- ah!" She yelps when I smack her plump ass cheek.

"Baby, you don't know what you do to me. What these," I grab her ass and squeeze. "What these do to me, fuck, you're perfect."

"But I'm fat."

I stop everything and she whimpers at the loss of my touch. But I place my hands on her hips and buck my hips against her ass, letting her feel the evidence. "This, this is your fault. Feel what you do to me. I'll fuck this, YOU, everyday if I have to so you know you're beautiful."

"Channie," she moans.

"I'll remind you every day and night, that you're the only one that makes me crazy for you," I frantically lower her panties and find her ready for me. "Fuck, baby. You're so good to me."

Then she turns the tap off and turns around. I blink down at her as she jumps, my arms going around her curvy thighs and hips curving around her ass. "Chris."

I groan as I clear off the kitchen island before setting her on top of it. I waste no time as I dive right for her lips. Taking off my sweats, I settle between her legs. Fuck, my cock was hard and leaking. I pepper kiss my way down to her chest when I push in making her silently cry out in pleasure.

That day, I showed her just how much she meant to me, how much her curves made me feral. I couldn't get enough. I don't think I will ever get enough of her. Because she's mine.

"You're mine," I whisper, kissing the back of her head before wrapping my arm around her, spooning her from behind under the blankets as we soon fell into a deep slumber.

A/N: a little drabble but i hope it's okay? Lol enjoy ^_^

[sturniozo]

Savage Love Part Ten

Matt Sturniolo x reader Mafia AU

masterlist

“What happened at work, dollface?” He asked me.

“I… I kinda… got fired.” I mumble.

“Why?” He asks as his hand caresses my cheek.

“There was something my editor wanted me to do and I told him I couldn’t and-“

“Did he try to sleep with you?” Matt asks sternly. “I swear to god I’ll-“

“What? No it was an article I didn’t want to do.”

“Oh.”

“I don’t want to do the article and he said without that article I contribute nothing of substance to the paper so he fired me…”

Matt kisses my forehead and wraps his arms around me. “What was the piece about?” He asks as he nuzzles his face against my hair.

I bite my lip. I can’t tell him the article was about him, he’d think our whole relationship is a lie. “He wanted me to do an exposure piece. I just don’t feel comfortable ruining people for no good reason. I think there’s a difference between exposing actual bad people and just plain outing people’s personal lives.”

Matt kisses my head once again. “I bet you were the best writer they had. That papers gonna go to shit now. No one will read it anymore.”

I laugh softly and cuddle closer to him. “My pieces barely made it into that paper anyways.”

“I’ll find you a better paper to work at, okay babydoll?”

“You don’t need to find me a job Matt, I can do that myself.”

“I’d rather you have a job you can work from home from though, that way I can keep an eye on you.”

“Matt, no offense, but that was creepy.” I turn to him and laugh softly. My smile fades when I see the serious look on Matt’s face.

“I’d just prefer it if I knew where you were and that you were safe.” Matt shrugs and kisses my temple again. “I have some things to take care of here in a bit baby, so I’m gonna order you some lunch.”

“What do you have to take care of?” I ask. I bite my lip as I realize I don’t need to ask these questions for my job anymore. I just want to know him.

Matt sighs. “There’s a shipment coming in from Italy and I need to make sure they brought everything I paid for so that I can distribute it to my consumers.”

I blink. “What’s the shipment of?”

Matt shakes his head. “I’m sorry dollface but that’s need to know.” He kisses my head. “Let’s order you food now.” He pulls out his phone to order food online.

“It’ll be here soon. I have to go babydoll, I have to be at the airport in an hour.” Matt gets up from the couch. “Make sure you eat. And feel free to explore and look around. You’re gonna be here for a little while you might as well get used to the place.” Matt gives me a quick kiss on the lips before leaving.

I sit on the couch for a minute pondering what to do. I hear Matt’s car leave and I shrink back against the couch. It feels so uncomfortable to be alone is his big home. I look around the living room. Behind the couch is one of multiple pool tables in the house, and near the corner of the room is a poker table.

The tv is huge, like one from a theater. It sits above a beautiful mantel that looks like hand chiseled stone. The beautiful creation had carved roses and thorn filled vines that line the edges.

I must have been admiring the mantel for a long time since I hear the doorbell ring. It catches me off guard and I flinch and my leg slips off the couch.

I get up and head towards the front door. I open it to see a delivery man holding a bag.

“Delivery for Sturniolo?” He says and I nod. He hands me the bag and the receipt before turning around and leaving without a word.

I close the door and go to the dining room to set the bag of food down in the table. The interaction itself was weird, not like any one I’ve had with a delivery man. I look at the receipt to see what Matt had ordered and see the special instruction.

‘Don’t mess with the girl.’

I roll my eyes and set the receipt down on the table.

After eating a bit of the lunch I decided to walk around. I’m mostly curious what I could find. Even though I’m not on the piece about him anymore I’m still interested to know if he really is the Mafia boss or if this is all just misconstrued information.

I walk up the stairs and through the hallway. Most of the doors have been locked, the only one I’m able to get into is Matt’s bedroom. So I start there.

I have already seen most there is to see in Matt’s bedroom. But the door that leads to his office is still unseen by my eyes. I turn the knob, a little surprised it isn’t locked. I open the door just a bit and bite my lip.

Should I be doing this? Would Matt know? I swallow the saliva building up in my mouth from nerves and I enter the office. I turn in the light to see everything, but there’s almost nothing to see. Just a desk and a seat. There’s no papers or a computer, do extra storage drawers, no decorations of any kind. Just a desk and a chair.

The desk and chair looks like the ones you’d think your rich uncle would have. Beautiful maroon wood desk and a matching color leather desk chair.

I go to close the door when something catches my eye. Something under the desk. I walk closer and look under the desk and pick up the small metal key. I look around for a lock of some sort, something that the key must open.

Why would this be in the floor? I look through the drawers of the desk, all of them empty, except when I get to the bottom one. I open it and a gun slides around the drawer from the force of me opening it. I gasp slightly and immediately close the drawer.

I stand up and look around. Where did the key go? And where did it come from? There’s no way he just left it on the floor, is there? And why would he have an empty office with nothing but a gun?

Maybe Emma was right, I was being naive, and I shouldn’t have trusted Matt. Things do add up to him being in the Mafia.

But that’s not how you gather information, you can’t start with your conclusion and work backwards to prove it. No, I need proof of it.

But I don’t need proof anymore. I keep forgetting I stopped with that piece. I turn around and look over the walls. I trace my fingers over the wallpaper until I feel a dent in the wall covered by the wallpaper.

I take a breath. I can’t cut through the paper, Matt will notice and know I snooped. I bite my lip and trace along the dent, just to get an idea of how big the dent it.

I trace it up above my head and then back down to the floor. It seemed to be the outline of a door. Maybe that’s what the key unlocked?

But why would the key be on the floor? And why would the door be covered with the wallpaper? I shake my head. I shouldn’t do this. I set the key back down under the desk where I found it and leave the office, shutting the light off behind me.

I sit on the bed still unsure what to do. After a moment of thinking I walk out of his bedroom and walk along the hallway to where his office wall would be. I go to open a door that should lead to the room next to his office, but it’s locked.

I immediately go back through his bedroom and to his office, grabbing the key and going back out to the door. I take a deep breath before I slip the key into the lock.

I turn the key and the lock click. I turn the knob and open the door. The room is dark so I reach around the wall feeling for a light switch. When I finally find it I flick it on, and gasp at what I see.

I quickly close the door behind me and run down the hall and down the stairs. I rush to the front door and open it, just in time to see a car pull up. My breath hitches and I shut the door, hoping whoever it was didn’t see me.

I go back to the living room but remember how I left the room. I quickly go back up the stairs and go back to the room, shut off the light, then close and lock the door. I run to put the key back under his desk where I found it. By the time I’m leaving Matt’s bedroom I hear the front door open.

From upstairs I can hear the sound of two guys talking to each other, sounding like they’re bickering. My feet stay planted in place in Matt’s bedroom, unable to move.

Neither voice sounds like Matt’s which makes my heart race in my chest. I swallow the saliva building up in my mouth and slowly creep tears the door of the bedroom. I hear the guys make their way up the stairs and I see their faces.

They look just like Matt. Then I remember Matt telling me he was a triplet and lived with his brothers when we were on a date once.

I step backwards and the floor creaks. The guys stop talking and I stand paralyzed in fear. Do they know I’m here? Did Matt tell them anything?

My questions are answered when I hear one of them say “I bet it’s that girl Matt’s been with.” And then the footsteps get closer to the door. I sit down on the bed, now unable to stand as the anxiety builds up inside me. The door opens and I see the two guys fully.

They really do look almost just like Matt. I stare up at them and my heart races. “Matt said you’d be here.” One of them says. “I’m Chris, this is Nick,” he nods his head towards the other guy “we’re Matt’s brothers. You must be y/n then?”

I nod slowly.

“Matt’s told us about you. He said you’re staying here while he has your place checked for- ow!”

Nick interrupts Chris by kicking his leg. “Dude,” Nick motions to me. He mouths something to Chris and Chris seems to have a moment of realization.

“Just make yourself at home and… Nick and I will be in the living room if you need anything.” Chris says before leaving.

I let out a breath and stare at the ground. How am I supposed to leave with those two here? And how am I supposed to stay after what was in that room?

Tags: @stargirlsturniololover @sturniolobessed @eyelessdemon00 @sturnioloenthusiast @sturniolopookie @urmommysbathroom @qwertytit @whatever1021 @chrisfavoritepepsi @stramboli4life @sturniolosreads @timmyscomputer @iloveneilperry @chrisloyalgf @xxsadlovexx @bernardenjoyer @mbbsgf @nickmillersn1gf

[wmarximoff]

Reader being Pietro’s bestfriend and Wanda having a crush on them but is too shy to say anything because she is popular and reader is apart of the unpopular dirtbags kind of group. The n reader confronts Wanda and it leads to Wanda’s first time. Pretty please with a cherry on top🥺🥺

freaks | w. maximoff

summary: high school isn't easy at all, especially for a kid as misfit as you. but just being in the wrong place at the wrong time, a bomb is dropped in your lap; because Wanda Maximoff, the popular, perfect girl with the kindest heart of all, actually has a crush on you. and she just happens to be your best friend's twin sister.

warnings (18+): underage characters, smoking, secondary characters using illicit drugs (weed), cursing, first time, smut, oral sex (Wanda receiving), penetration (Wanda receiving).

pairing: Wanda x fem!reader

word count: 12k

A/N: sorry for the delay anon but i'm lazy as heck kjsfkjfs

anyway, this was fun to write (and actually pretty cute too). it's practically a romcom, really. hope you enjoy it!

|masterlist|

༺ᱬ༻

The cushions of the narrow couch you were sitting on felt cozy and comfortable under your thighs clad inside the material of a beat-up denim. But perhaps it wasn't for the furniture itself, which, although distinctly well maintained by a taste of carefully carved work, in no way appeared to be an expensive or even onerous piece in its cheap springs and foam.

It turns out that ever since your presence became something made frequent inside the Maximoff residence, you had found between those walls an air of coziness and reception that, like a warm maternal hug, dissipated the tense weight that was usual to fall on the muscles of your shoulders and your back.

The house of the family of four (just a mother and her three children, two teenagers and a child) was situated in one of the areas inhabited by the low-income citizens of the small town of Westview, beyond the gas station and the railroad tracks, a few blocks up from that trailer park that everyone knows from bad legends, but it's not like you need more than that to snuggle into the blandishments of that dark brown fabric sofa.

After all, it was enough to be accompanied by the presence of Pietro Maximoff, the eldest son (for twelve minutes, his sister occasionally reminded him of the fact in front of you), for you to know that the upheavals of the world would disappear inside your chest and, immersed in a bubble of comfort being with your best friend for about nine or ten months, there would be nothing that could hold you back for so long.

Pietro just had that effect on people; he was a good guy, a receptive young man of your age who used to be an esteemed figure by those who came in contact with the recurring good humor that guided him – but, like a typical misfit high school kid, there was nothing about him that pleased everyone at all. Not like his sister did so masterfully, at least.

The boy, dressed in khaki shorts and a long blue blouse as thin as a sapphire stone that showed off his similarly colored irises, was thus sitting half sprawled with his legs spread as if he had fallen there and not gotten up for a long time, parallel to you, in a small dark armchair that was only distanced from the sofa by a scrawny coffee table set there, of cheap pale wood that he used to prop his heels put into a pair of worn out running shoes.

To your right and to his left, perched in a chair pulled out from under the dining table, Darcy Lewis was the girl with long brown hair who had her upper back leaning against the back of her chair. Her clear, intent eyes so solemnly bound to the phone screen she kept blinking close to the tip of her nose, behind the thin glass lenses of a pair of dark plastic-framed prescription glasses.

Pietro and Darcy, then friends almost out of convenience because no one else was close to them (she being a weird amalgamation of a know-it-all geek and a half-inconvenient sarcastic little shit, he just an immigrant kid with a weird accent who slipped up at times and a sense of humor doubtful), they took you in because the others didn't seem all that interested in keeping you close – not when you were the only new kid around with a tattoo hidden somewhere on your body and a few more pairs of piercings than was acceptable for your neighbors dangling stylishly from your ears.

The boy dressed in the blue shirt, then seated opposite you, was expertly rolling a thin weed cigarette with his fingertips curled towards his athletic pecs in an intent gaze at the action exerted on his digits.

He then stuck his tongue out, sliding it down through the crack in his parted lips, using his saliva to glue the loose end of the rolling paper against the skinny little body of the cigarette which, when it was finally ready to be smoked, he tried to tuck it into the corner where his lips ended as if he wanted to perform a mobster from the height of the twentieth century.

But he was only sixteen-almost-seventeen, as young as he could be, and that was why Pietro only appeared to be what he was at that moment; a disheveled kid with poorly homemade bleached hair done with the help of his grumpy sister (the brown roots were showing in the crook of his head, giving him an air of sloppiness) with a long joint lying in the corner of his mouth.

He then leaned with his spine forward so his right hand went for the small pale blue plastic lighter set on the coffee table, before pouring his thumb across the stone so that the spark ignited the flame that lighted the end of the weed cigarette, from which he drew a long, lingering drag to spread the thick smoke through his nostrils in a state of mind imbued with a zealous tranquility, leaning his back against the armchair.

Behind your own red-filtered cigarette dangling between your lips, you raised an amused brow at your friend's slouched figure.

“Fucking stoner, man,” you mussed, albeit in airs of morose jocularity that inferred a little chuckle on Darcy's part, “That shit gonna fry all your brain cells someday, you know that? Make you dumber than you already are.”

He took another swig of the joint before fixing you with a pair of droopy blue eyes, since this was the second or third of the day he'd smoked – around his firm chin, the tiniest fuzz of an occasional dark beard was already threatening to arise with the emergence of age, each day closer to adulthood. One day, he would be a handsome man, because for now he was just a boy who promised to be a good-looking adult.

“And that shit gonna kill you someday,” with a little finger movement, waving his limp left hand, he pointed to the nicotine cigarette that was blistered between the index and middle fingers of yours, raised right at your face.

You smiled and so did he, half on his side, still lying on the armchair cushions like a misplaced decoration.

“At least I won't die stupid like you.”

“Just kiss him already man, for Christ's sake,” Darcy grumbled in a tone of shared humor, before reaching for the joint from Pietro's hand and bringing the small cylindrical body to her to draw a swig of weed for herself.

“Nah,” you expressed a small smile flanked by smoke, “As much as I know Piet wants it so much, he's not really my type, sorry.”

“What do you mean he's not your type, huh?” Darcy gave you a funny look from behind the glasses placed in front of her sharp blue eyes, as if she wanted to poke a small lump hidden inside you.

“I thought his last name was Maximoff. That sure is your type, sister.”

There was a second puff of smoke until the boy, then already in a somewhat lethargic action when clouded by the cognitive effect of the cannabis he was smoking, lifted the back of his head from the backrest and lowered his chin, squeezing with his eyelids that wandered from Darcy's smile to your brow furrowed in a bewildered slant, only to redo the act once again a little more confused, cinching a flash of fur from his forehead with the thick, dark-haired brows above the blue eyes sort of gleaming with a curious blaze.

“Y/n, what’s she talking about…?”

“Your mom, duh,” was your immediate response, a mock-masked deliverance dripping from your throat, a smirk taut in the unnaturally twitching muscles on your face, “Ms. Maximoff's got it going on, right? I mean, gosh, she really looks hot in her waitress uniform.”

“Dude, I always knew MILFs were your type, you totally look like you would do a MILF.”

Darcy looked back at you with an air of laughter as her chin tipped in your direction, the lack of sobriety evident in her airy actions, which in no way complied with the implications of the first comment bestowed on you.

“Well, and who doesn’t like MILFs?” you smiled burlesquely, to which Darcy readily acquiesced with a sharp nod.

“But yeah Pietro, your mom is like, hot. The hottest MILF among all MILFs. So hot.”

“So hot,” you repeated in a profuse drag of a cigarette, pointing to the girl sitting next to your right knee that showed a beam of skin through a long slit in the fabric of your pants.

“Very, very hot.”

“Like, super hot.”

The platinum-haired boy, meanwhile, only let out a loathsome grunt as his drunken face contorted in repulsive distaste for the idea you and Darcy offered him about his own mother, shaking his head firmly as if he wanted to shake off these thoughts as if they were really mosquitoes pestering him to sleep at night—something that brought on you, of a good-natured nature, and on Darcy, just too stoned for her own good, a long round of loud, juicy laughter that caused the muscles in you abdomen to ache in hot cramping.

“Dude, gross! That's disgusting, she's my mom! What the fuck!"

Though a little unsteadily, his left fingers hooked against the fabric of a red pillow that was brought up and then hurled toward him with just a flick of the tendons of the young man's strong shoulder, which depended on minor physical labor to add a little more on the household income.

It was a quick if somewhat lingering half second, when your gaze only caught a glittering blur pouring air to shatter against your face.

The fluffy object then collided with a soft thud against the top of your left cheekbone, pushing the muscle of your neck back against the back of the sofa, as your senseless fingers detached from the still-lit half-smoked cigarette, whose butt fell against the pillow that soon had its fabric sprinkled in a small hole with burnt and blackened edges.

“Shit, Pietro–!”

Darcy, with cheeks as rosy as a pair of ripe tomatoes against her usually pale, lifeless alabaster countenance, seemed a second away from writhing into a convulsive laugh that would soon take the form of a fit of choking vomit, and you soon treated catching the remains of the cigarette between your right index finger and thumb, before pressing the tip against the pale porcelain pot that was the makeshift ashtray to then stand on your knees, scrutinizing the damage done to the mobile.

“Shit,” you repeated, albeit in a slightly lowered tone, the palms of your hands resting on your bent and exposed knees, “Shit, see what you did, dickhead? You ripped a goddamn hole in the pillow, you jerk!”

“What–?!” the boy then scrambled to his feet in exasperation, suddenly slipping into a layer of momentary sobriety, rounding the coffee table to walk over to your side in rather worried steps, “What the– oh my God, oh my God, my mom’s going to kill me—”

The sound of the front door being opened so close and then being closed as it was before, was what spread throughout the house of close rooms, succinct and with a small and short square footage composition.

The walls of your stomach collapsed in on you as Pietro shot you an alarmed look that flickered a troubled blue, turning pale as if the blood was suddenly draining from his cheeks. For a second he looked like a deer caught in the headlights of a car on the road.

“We're fucked.”

“I know.”

But desperation didn't rage among the three of you for as long as it would have; like a bucket of water dispersed in a still-igniting spark, putting out a coming fire, who came into the living room was not the figure of Ms. Maximoff dressed in her signature red and white ketchup-stained waitress uniform, but only a young Wanda Maximoff, Pietro's younger twin sister, who had a pair of headphones screwed into both her ears, under the profuse bundles of her dark-brown hair.

“Pietro…?” the low voice came from far away, as footsteps approached the room with heavy combat boots high-laced on her ankles, “What are you…?”

Wanda's irises wandered from Pietro to then you and Darcy, as her index and middle fingers, with extensions adorned in a series of silver rings, hooked onto the long wires of her headphones to pull them down from inside her ears.

“Wanda!” you muttered under your breath, because your unconscious was taken over by the image of her standing there, and there was nothing else to say but call her to you, “Wanda. H-hey, Wanda. Hi.”

“…Hi, Y/n.”

You gasped for a bit as you opened and closed with your lips, saliva hardening in the back of your throat at the pretty figure of the girl dressed in dark clothes and chains dangling from the belt that threaded around the waistband of her black skirt and around her milk-white neck, with pointy pendants that alluded to the mysticism she held dear.

And she just brought out something inside you. After all, Wanda Maximoff was affable, soft, beautiful and gentle as a bouquet of red roses, the prettiest of them all.

At Westview High, everyone knew who she was when she walked through the halls, the only girl who could walk shoulder to shoulder with the cool kids clique even if she hadn't gotten out of her Evanescence listening phase – even if her wealth was not as capital as theirs. Everyone wanted a little bit of her, from the kind, generous, gorgeous girl, essential member of the academic decathlon team and debate group.

A keen library goer, consumer of thick, hard-to-read books, who kept high grades as well as the good will of the people like it was second nature to her. A school prodigy. A popular necessity.

And Wanda went out of her way to be extremely considerate of her requirements. It just so happens that she was never quite able to share that said kindheartedness with you, something that has always given you doses of discontent inside your chest – after all, even after almost a whole year of seasons all past since your permanent installation in the small-town blandices, Wanda never bothered to look you straight in the eye for more than three or so seconds.

“This–this isn’t what it looks like, Wanda,” cried Pietro, who raised a hand to his sister across the room.

“We’re just,” you tried, “Well, we were—”

“Of course we sure as hell weren't smoking pot in your living room,” Darcy muttered to the ceiling, still sitting in her chair, “I mean minus Y/n, because she's such a boring bitch,” there was a snort on the part of the bespectacled girl.

“Darcy, shut up!”

“C’mon, what a fucking surprise Piet, everybody knows you smoke pot!”

And then when Wanda's gaze woven in a curious green latched onto yours, an air-tied knot whose ends met between you and her, you pressed your lips together in a single line, because a thin layer of blush turned pink on her high cheeks, which flushed like a little porcelain doll.

You straightened your posture, but the girl with the long, silky dark hair only looked away, aiming for the dirty porcelain bowl set on the cheap wooden table.

“I,” she whispered, like a shy little mouse with rosy cheeks, “I won't… I won’t say anything to mom, don't worry about it. Just… just clean this mess up before she gets home.”

There was a flash of green gaze that flashed into your eyes like a beacon on the horizon, but then it faded in less than a second because Wanda seemed to relinquish eye contact with you, again lowering her gaze away from your face, hiding her pretty pale eyes behind a thick curtain of dark hair.

She suppressed her lips in a thin, rosy line, seeming to shrink into her blackish-brown, long-sleeved blouse. Wanda opened her mouth as if to say something, but then clasped her lips together again in a sign of resignation.

“I–I'm going to my room.”

And the girl barely waited for an answer from any of the three parties before she left for the house, leaving like a deserting spirit. You blinked once, and then turned your nose towards Darcy.

“Dude, did I do something wrong…?”

“She’s probably just scared of you,” teased the girl with the glasses, “You know, she dresses all edgy and stuff but she's just so sweet and kind like this little black bunny and you... well, man, you spilled cigarette ash all over her mother's couch, what the heck.”

When she laughed at her own joke, something in you faltered for half a second.

“Yeah, that makes sense,” you mussed awkwardly, screwing the palm of your right hand against the skin of the back of your neck, “I… I guess.”

“Whatever, Wanda’s a weirdo,” Pietro's voice came from your side, even if half muttering to himself, “Just–just please help me clean this up, dammit. My mom’s going to kill me, I swear...”

ᗢ

A gust of annoyed air had left the gap between your lips open for what was perhaps the tenth time in a row allotted to that meager period of time that spanned a lengthy fifteen minutes of a rather dull morning – at least that's what you was, when your weary gaze sagged across the raised square screen of your phone, towards the upper right corner, and there you were faced with the digital clock marking the scorching hour of nine thirty-seven on a hot morning in Wednesday.

You sighed slowly, warm air draining from your lungs and your chest deflating into your unbuttoned flannel shirt, through the straps of your thin tank top, because there was nothing to do other than that.

You might as well proclaim your notes in your notebook as Miss Harkness, who was standing right in front of long rows of other bustling teenagers who, like you, huffed bored air out of their mouths into their faces, dictated to her history class to all the school kids in their seats.

However, as much as you were interested in the class (as, in fact, you were), it turns out that Miss Harkness just had a habit of getting quite carried away in her classical prose, and even though the middle-aged woman in the lilac waistcoat was one of your favorite teachers, nothing there was enough to capture your diverted attention.

Because you, moreover, barely had any thoughts floating around in your head that weren't entirely focused on Wanda Maximoff and the esoteric wonder that came along with her, as if it were her own shadow.

And, given the situation similar to yours in which Wanda found herself in that same class, it was she who was sitting there next to you, taking note of everything the teacher said about that historical event that honed the details of the modern country founding; Wanda was just a pretty smart type of student, it's true. The girl urged you on in a superhuman way.

Yet, at that morning and like every other morning before, the two of you hadn't even exchanged enough sentences for you to actually engage in a conversation with the other girl. In fact, you hadn't even spoken to her at all.

You knew she was deep enough in her notes to having someone to piss her off. With the chin supported by the hand supplanted by the left elbow raised to the face of your table, your gaze headed towards Wanda, who was seated to your right and attracted you like a damn lodestone, in an inevitable magnetic dazzle; in the same room in the company of several people, Wanda was always the one who caught your attention under her fingertips to keep.

Just the appeal, the idea, the unknown, they were enough to find you rambling about your classmate – Wanda interspersing her diligent attention between Agatha and her own dark-covered notebook where the digits of her fingers, lined with rings, wrote so cunningly in a black ink pen, one opalescent knee crossed by the other under the table, the miniskirt exposing her pale, firm thighs that were suddenly engulfed by high dark stockings that rose above the confines of her knees.

And it admired you, how her brown hair seemed to modulate accentuated shades of honey color when laid out by the rays of sunlight that entered the room through the thick glass windows that adorned the walls adjacent to the tables you occupied respectively. How her irises looked like two sparkling emerald stones when highlighted by a profuse smoky dark eyeliner liner around her waterline – her naturally thick, long lashes adorning her stylish, heavy makeup.

There was the leaf-shaped pendant in dark silver dangling from a thin chain that flowed across her attractive bosom, between the sharp collarbones that poked out of her thin black blouse, adorned with strands of long, silky light brown hair; the necklace between her breasts, the exposed skin there looking so soft, a tiny mole situated high on her right breast that you just wanted to know what it would feel like to kiss and feel through your tongue.

“Miss Y/l/n.”

The teacher's voice called out of your thoughts between the heads of young people, which caused a sea of eyes to all turn to you, like creatures from another world, a pack of animals in the forest looking to a flashlight.

Even Wanda's gaze got caught, which for half a broken second turned to you only for when, upon catching your face already turned towards her, she only turned to the filled pages of the notebook placed between her forearms, like if you really were just an eminent pest. She doesn't know who I am and yet she doesn't give a damn about me, huh.

“Can you answer the question, Miss Y/l/n?”

Miss Harkness's tight, dark curls swayed in your direction when you look at her, standing there on the other side of the classroom and in front of the blackboard cluttered with notes made all in powdered white chalk.

“Eh,” you mussed, somewhat unimpressed by the teasing smirks that were beginning to form on unfriendly faces, containing in your grunt a sudden roll of disinterested eyes.

“What's the question again, please?”

“Pff, sucker.”

A voice pierced the veil of silence that had fallen over the other youngsters, the voice of that smug boy Tony Stark, which soon erupted into group giggles that spilled back and forth into the classroom like a flock of flustered parrots.

“Alright, alright, cut it off for Christ's sake!” Miss Agatha Harkness cried out somewhat aggravated, waving both her hands in front of her body in a rather weary way.

“None of you here is in position to laugh and you all know it very well! Would any of you like to answer the question for Miss Y/l/n instead, huh? Somebody? Nobody? Well, that’s what I thought.”

The teacher's simple, elaborate tone sounded an octave higher than usual, drawing your attention towards the woman in question. You looked at her, but Wanda's gaze burned to the flesh of your right cheek, before glancing at Miss Harkness another time.

And then, a hand with nails tinted in dark polish rose above the others' heads, not at all hesitant in her actions as she did so. Wanda, of course, was willing to speak up when no one else did. You looked at her with an air of interest, straightening your posture against your hard, clear plastic chair.

“Yes, Miss Maximoff?” Agatha nodded, to which the young girl immediately lowered her right arm.

“The Church created the Court of the Holy Office in the thirteenth century, and it was supposed to prevent people who had deviated from Christianity from leaving. They used various mechanisms of persecution and punishment for that,” narrated Wanda with exquisite mastery.

“That's what led to the Inquisition and, after some time, the Salem witch hunt, which actually started in France in the fifteenth century.”

You focused your eyes on her for a couple of seconds longer than what would be considered healthy for the habit to do. It was because of looking at her so intently, however, that you found the other girl giving you a single, chaste glance out of the corner of her eye, which then retreated away, as if in an internal game with both parts of her brain; one wanted to look at you, and the other didn't.

“Finally, great,” Agatha brandished.

“At least someone here is paying attention in class. You are correct indeed, Miss Maximoff. See, Miss Y/l/n, this is what happens when you actually listen to your teacher and not just daydream looking at your classmates all morning.”

"I– what?! I didn't—!” A heat spread from the tips of your ears, all the way down to your cheekbones, your neck, and your shoulders inside your unbuttoned shirt.

Someone stifled a laugh on a cough from behind your seat. Fuck.

Wanda remained silent, and you wouldn't even dare look to the side, at her, who so relentlessly strayed her curious gaze in your direction, her chin slightly tilted at a broken angle to the side of her left shoulder. Mortification in bright crimson still burned the flushed skin of your cheeks at the pretty girl's gaze.

“That's what you heard, heartbreaker,” the teacher waved her witch-like hand, “Now, please, everyone pay attention here for another fifteen minutes until class is over, will you? I swear I want to be here as much as you kids do.”

And then there was another bout of chatter from Miss Harkness in a waistcoat buttoned over a white shirt printed with corny light blue flowers. Perhaps, if you hadn't covered your eyes with the open palms of both your hands, you would have caught the tiny fond smile that tugged at the corner of Wanda's peachy lips.

ᗢ

It didn't take long, with some minutes passed right after lunch time, for you to sneak into the four closed walls of a second-floor women's bathroom stall so that, in such a way, you could give yourself the courtesy of blowing smoke from your cigarette, scorching in peace. With your back resting peacefully against the laminated plastic of the scrawny cabin wall, you leaned your back, staring sluggishly at the pale plaster ceiling. It’s not like the time and space around your miserable existence matters all that much.

The cigarette that appeared between your parted lips had a flickering tip like a firefly in the night flickering in the dark night, and the smoke that just sailed up to the ceiling was thin and wavering, fading from reality like a utopian idea.

Near the flush valve, painted onto the white tile, an elaborate graffiti in black marker pen penned two names joined by a mathematical plus sign – something like “KATE + YELENA” etched near your right elbow, a promise perpetuated in the inerasable act of a young heart lacerated by a still budding idea of what warm love would be pulsing inside someone’s chest.

Behind an opaque veil of cigarette smoke, you considered doing the same with your own name and Wanda Maximoff's, until you suddenly gave up on the idea as it was supposed to be an impulsive lapse in need.

So you just sighed, shaking your head from side to side, getting rid of those silly thoughts as if you had quaked them out of your brain. The only sound that erupted through the silence encrusted in the cabins was that of the avid drip of a poorly closed sink. Dripping. And dripping. And stopping. Until a trio of female voices burst through the front door.

“Shit–!”

In an act of open desperation, you just dropped your still lit, half-smoked cigarette down into the open toilet, into the still water.

“I swear, that's what she said,” the evident tone of voice that reached your ear was distinctly that of Pepper Potts, the girl a year older than you who was the head of the cheerleading squad.

“Rogers dumped her because he's dating Barnes!”

“That's weird, I thought it was Wilson this time.”

Just behind her, the second voice couldn't be anyone other than Monica, the only child of principal Rambeau and that, like her friend, everyone knew who she was; a genuinely nice girl from the lacrosse team who turned out to be Pietro's crush for as long as you knew him.

“No, Wilson used to date Barnes who now dates Rogers. It’s hard to keep up, I know.”

Pepper clarified it to her friend, and for a second it sounded like she was planning to start a new sentence about the ups and downs of her peers' social-love life when, after a broken half lapse of silence within those with walls, the strawberry-blonde girl’s voice was then charged with a queasy tone, which indicated a nose twisted in repugnance that you couldn’t see behind the cabin’s closed red door.

“Ugh, what is that smell…?”

“Cigarette smoke, I guess.”

Your heart slammed and disarmed inside the middle of your chest, because the answer was based on Wanda Maximoff's delightfully low voice. She was there, in the company of her friends who reapplied makeup to their faces. Well, fuck. You gulped like a criminal in trial.

You scarcely dared to breathe accurately between your nostrils, but it's not like your lungs, at the sound of her melodic voice, know how to do anything but just inflate and deflate sparingly like a pair of flat tires.

“That’s disgusting,” Pepper clicked with her tongue on the roof of her mouth.

“It must have been Y/l/n, everyone knows she comes here to smoke after lunch,” said Monica, who seemed to have a crooked joyful smile in her voice.

“I swear, Wanda, she was practically drooling on you earlier today. Heart eyes and all, totally head over heels. It was actually kinda cute to watch.”

“She… she was?” it was small, almost inaudible from your listening hiding position, away from the eyes of those who spoke.

There was something shy that could be pointed out in Wanda's voice, but there was something also glistening with the tiniest glimmer of hope that you couldn't help but notice. Something that lulled your senses and made you ponder about the direction of this conversation so intimate that, for a second, you felt like you were crossing an invisible line of common sense. Maybe it was wrong. A mistake. Or perhaps it was just a weird type of unconventional luck, even.

It was like you couldn’t be there at all. Because you, in the wrong place at the wrong time, were just invading Wanda’s privacy; that’s how it felt, at least. It was as if the walls of the cabin were going to swallow you and squash you to death like the stomach of a dark creature.

“I really don't understand what you see in that girl, Wands,” it's Pepper's turn to say, “You should just give Jarvis a chance. He asked you out to eat Indian food, didn't he? You love Indian food.”

“I hate Indian food,” Wanda reiterated to the other girl, “And he doesn’t give a damn about me, anyways. He just likes hanging out with people who have high grades. And you just want me to date him because he's Tony's brother, and if I do date him you'll have someone to go on a stupid double date with.”

“It's not that, geez,” was the head cheerleader's reply, “It's just that he's on the decathlon team like you and he's graduating this year, so you can date a college boy in your senior year. Damn, I'd like to date a college boy my senior year."

“You're already in your senior year,” Monica reminds her, “And you’re dating Tony.”

“Yes, for that very reason.”

Something about that suggestion didn't appeal to your taste at all, still tucked inside the cabin as you were. Just the thought of Wanda dangling from Jarvis Stark's arm, a known prick among the students other than those who made up his intimate circle of handpicked relationships, was enough to ignite an acrimonious revulsion in you, which even seemed to want to devour your muscle cells from the inside out.

That bitter feeling running down the side of your tongue, pouring out between your teeth, was nothing to do with your half-smoked cigarette which then floated down the toilet like a sunken ship. And you just didn’t want to think so hard about why the slightest mention of the idea of Wanda dating Jarvis fueled such a revolting feeling within your ribcage.

“Besides,” the Potts girl continues her own line, oblivious to your deep displeasure.

“Unlike that Y/l/n girl, Jarvis has a guaranteed future in his father's company for when he finishes his graduation. And look, don't get me wrong, but that girl is either going to end up in jail or dead or both, and that's probably before she even turns thirty. Ugh, c’mon Wanda, she's just another freak. You can do way better than that. I mean, you even have a shot to be prom queen this year if you start dating Jarvis.”

“I don't wanna be prom queen, Pepper. Everyone already knows it's going to be you and Tony, anyways,” said Wanda, in a tone that emulated lapses of discomfort towards the other young woman, “And don't say that about Y/n, that's not true.”

And it surprised you, in fact, because you had never heard Wanda be so incisive with her words before. Or even someone using such a tone of voice when addressing Pepper Potts.

“She's not… a freak, she’s funny. And smart. And she’s actually pretty sweet when you really get to know her. I... I never talk to her much when she comes over to my house because she's always hanging with Pietro and Darcy, but... she just... she just seems nice to have around, you know? Something about her is… soft. She once made me laugh until juice almost came out of my nose.”

Your heart skipped a beat as your memory traveled back to that day, at a dinner night guided by the traditional house stroganoff, were Ms. Maximoff made sure that your presence was there, at the dinning table with her and her children. The tips of your ears and the skin of your shoulder burned to embers that carried the ashes of that night, but it was as if that heat itself soothed the anxious twinges in your bristling veins.

It was the first time your eyes were ever pleased to witness a sincere laugh burst from within Wanda’s lungs.

And no one had ever looked as stunning in front of you as she did back in that day so many weeks ago, with her head thrown back and her eyes squinted, cheeks flushed in such a lovely rosy layer of flesh, shoulders swaying inside an ancient rock band shirt, peach mouth open only to reveal the two front teeth partially larger than the rest, like a scrunched nose bunny.

So genuine and so pure that your heart turned on itself – and if you dared to do so, you would say it was that day she usurped the rights of your feelings.

“And, uh...” Wanda's voice was small this time, in a timid, measured edge, “She's... she... she's pretty. Like, really… really pretty.”

It was like an electric current that ran from your ribs to the flesh of your cheek, heating the tops of your cheekbones. The saliva in your mouth, still vicious like a full-bodied drink, only evaporated and disappeared, making the wetness pooling in the palms of both of your sweaty hands even more evident. It was as if fireworks erupted in a hot red roar inside the walls of your stomach.

“She’s hot! I once heard that she had a hidden tattoo somewhere,” it was Monica's turn to cry out in an air of laughter.

“She’s a freak,” growled the Potts girl again, in an eye roll, “And you two are just too squeamish for your own good. She’s not the only person with earrings out there, Jesus.”

“Seriously, Pep, look at Wanda, her type is obviously not those preppy boys like that Stark douche. Girl, her type is delinquents. Bad girls. You know, just girls as a whole. Someone to listen to, I don’t know, Iron Maiden with her or whatever emo shit she listens to.”

“Yeah, got it, geez,” muttered the older girl in a bad way, “It's just what I think.”

“Well, you thought wrong then.”

“Really, Monica, just shut up–”

A few more frivolous conversations drifted over the trio of girls, who took off out of the bathroom minutes later, striding farther and farther away when the subject in question strayed into something that was of no interest to you at all. You blinked once, and then twice. It was like being at the bottom of the ocean and coming back to the surface abruptly.

You breathed. You just breathed. Soundlessly, your right hand slipped to the latch of the laminated plastic door, which opened out in a continuous squeak.

You gulped down the saliva sitting on the back of your tongue. Meeting your eyes in the quadrangular mirror placed in front of the cabin from which you exited, the air still reeking of the remnants of your cigarette mixed with Wanda's perfume, it did not surprise you at all that your cheeks reflected in the glass were like two reddish cherries burning over your boiling flesh.

“…Fuck.”

ᗢ

A few succinct days were passed one after another in front of your secret incident in the girl's bathroom stall (there was no more dignified labeling for such an occurrence than an incident as pleasant as it was also uncomfortable, it's true).

The entire seventy-two hours that followed were then grounded in several thoughtful cigarettes burning between your aching lips, the lighter's flame flickering in the ashes of broken reasonings, considerations and daydreams taking puffs of smoke, all which circled in your brain as if it were the moon that gravitates around the planet, as if space itself had usurped the oxygen from your bloodstream and changed it to Wanda’s name.

Wanda. Your cigarette smoke burned Wanda's name in your lungs. Your eyelids blinked Wanda's emerald gaze out of your sleepy eyes. Just Wanda. Only Wanda. Wanda Maximoff, red, green and black, a dream and a doom.

Your everyday contemplations then became the shelter of the other girl's tender jadish irises blooming in shades of a cordial green, like the green of spring pastures, and only the Maximoff girl could have been able to capture your attention even when you were within the walls of your own room, away from her piercing vision.

You couldn’t help but glance so assiduously at her when she was wearing nothing but partially buttoned black shirts on her chest and increasingly revealing miniskirts, whose fabric didn't even bother to cover the hollow of her soft, pale thighs worn down in tall, dark stockings.

Like a delightful reverie, she came in a spectral crimson form at night, only to disappear early in the morning sun. Four days were enough for you to bury your face in the middle of your pillow and let out a cavernous and frustrated yell vanish there, in vain trying to engage in a battle already lost since its beginnings against something that.

 Like the addictive nicotine contained in the extensions of your countless smoked cigarettes, every cell in your body clamored for more of her. It was as if your lips would bleed if you lacked the taste of her kiss for even one more day.

If Wanda were a witch endowed with mystical gifts, you would sure be bewitched by her addictive charms with an intangible scarlet grip around the outline of your neck – for the length of the halls between class periods, the cafeteria packed with students heads at lunchtime (campaigns for prom royalty were starting to brew little by little) or even on the bleachers smeared out of the faculty buildings by the warm sun, you searched with intent eyes for the slightest trace of her stunning presence, like a hungry dog hunting something down to satisfy its starvation.

And you could barely be sure in your own limping functions of what it was that led you there when it was that your feet, in untied shoes, marched under a stifling blanket of the scorching spring sun, even if the excuse paramount was that you just wanted her brother's company by your side to smoke a cigarette – even if Pietro wasn't into smoking conventional cigarettes at all, just like you also weren’t into smoking what he had to offer either.

 Stepping hard on the concrete of the sidewalk without a definite purpose at the heart of your rash actions, like a maze with only one exit, your feet instinctively led you up the two entry steps of the Maximoff residence – the newly painted one storey house that contained within its structures two bedrooms and only one bathroom.

That's where your right index finger, so accurate, searched for the bell to press with the tip of your digit and, after the miserable seconds that followed the act, who came to meet you was that same brunette girl who stole the gift of sleep during the nighttime.

Wanda looked a little different on that scorching Sunday afternoon of sunny skies and wispy clouds sprinkled around the cerulean sky dome, without any hint of dark makeup to adorn the moss-colored puddles that flanked her sharp pupils to be found in her natural beauty, albeit the long coffee-colored strands that were tucked behind the contours of her ears, in the usual casual way she liked to stylish them.

“Y/n?” it was a stunned tone at your offered smile as her chin tilted toward her left collarbone, one corner of a dark brow cocked in an expression nothing short of stupefied, her eyes enlarged in size.

“Hey, hi Wanda. How’re you doing?"

“I–I,” she huffed for a bit, “I'm fine... I'm fine, thank you. You?”

“Oh,” you smiled, “I’m great, thanks.”

Wanda's rosy mouth tightened into a line at your sight, and you couldn't help but notice the fact that the way she shifted her weight from one bare leg to the other beneath the dark material of her front-buttoned skirt, as if she wasn't quite sure what to do there at the door of her own home – surely you weren't a face she expected to find there.

Seconds passed in a slow swoop when a bird hummed in a nearby tree. Wanda just played fidget with the handfuls of rings that adorned the pale extensions of her right fingers, twisting, pulling and touching them with her left fingernails carpeted in dark nail polish chipped at the tips. There was a cigarette leaning behind your right ear.

“So,” you then began rather casually, and your voice drew her attention from her own clean shoes, as the other girl saw herself as being imbued with a somewhat restless silence, “Is Pietro at home? I sent him some texts, but he hasn't replied for a while.”

“No, he… he left a while ago,” she hissed a little too quickly, like a hamster's squeak, “He's grounded. You know, from burning a hole in the pillow that day.”

You cinched a flash of fur between your brows in a funny way, breaking a curious little smirk at the corner of your lips.

“He's grounded,” it was echoed slowly, as if to get your bearings, “But he left...?”

“Yeah,” Wanda shrugged into her plain blouse, “My mom took the afternoon shift at the diner and Lorna went out to play at her friend's house, and he's been bugging me for ages about setting up a date with Monica... and she agreed to go out with him today, so… he went out with her.”

“Huh,” you mumbled thoughtfully, “That's cool, I guess. I mean, he talks about her all the damn time… it’s kinda annoying actually. Even if it’s cute.”

“Yeah,” she half-chuckled, not moving her lips that much, “I know.”

There was a silence that bordered the two of you for a few more seconds as in an intangible fence made of mutual discomposure, a view a bit awkward to witness from afar, almost like a lighthearted conversation taken disinterestedly between two strangers inside a crowded bus or in a long bank line just to pass the time.

Wanda was still fidgeting with her own fingers, soundless in a dull quietness as if a lump stuck in her throat forbade her to speak words to you, and you just unpretentiously shoved the palms of both your hands into the back pockets of your baggy jeans, your side teeth nibbling the flesh on the inside of your cheeks as you did.

“I,” you muttered under your breath, nodding your head at an unasked question, filling the gap of silence between you and Wanda, “I think I'm gonna go home then—”

“You–you can wait for him here if you want!”

You blinked for a second, lifting your eyebrows to the middle of your forehead, almost touching your hairline. Wanda's pink lower lip was pressed between a wall of her upper teeth, and her cheeks flushed with a remarkable heat. Cute, you thought with yourself. So goddamn cute, oh my God... you wanted to hold her in your arms just to place a warm kiss in the middle of her forehead skin.

“Fine,” was a casual agreement, “I'd like to stay, then. If that doesn't bother you, of course.”

She then shrugged, “No, being alone at home is kinda boring sometimes. And, well,” her right fingertips swept behind her ear a strand of hair that had come loose from its previous spot there, “You… you're cool, Y/n.”

Your lips tightened when, even with her head aiming halfway down the floor, Wanda looked at you in a flash of moss green that flowered between her dark, thick, heavy doll-like lashes. Into the crop top you wore over your shoulders, your chest heaved and deflated severely against your ribs.

“Right. You're cool too, Wanda.”

She smiled in a singularly kind way because you did too, before closing the door behind you as you entered your newfound hostess's house together. As you passed close to her shoulder, there was the scent of strawberry shampoo and a cheap, lightly woody perfume like cinnamon that intoxicated your bloodstream as the scent wafted through your nostrils.

There was at you core the stimulating temptation of your perceptions to stick the tip of your nose through her long locks, only to further indulge your senses with her scent, but you held back your actions before skidding into a lapse of daring to definitely do it.

“You... You want something to eat?” Wanda spoke a little tenderly, half-cumbersomely even, not sneaking a glance at your face as you followed her into the walls of the small house, “I baked a cake.”

“Wait, wait, you cook?” you turned your gaze to the girl next to your left shoulder, who let a chaste smile crack between her lips.

“Well,” she muttered, “Sometimes, yeah. Not as often as I would like to, though. It's usually only when Lorna asks me to do it.”

“Cool,” you reciprocated her small grin, “I'd like a slice, if it's not too much trouble.”

When you went to sit on the springs of the dark sofa, out of the way of Wanda, who in turn headed for the nearby kitchen, your eyes proceeded to a small square television set in the corner of the room, above a somewhat rustic wooden furniture with silver handles, which on its monochromatic screen flashed a reprised episode of some old sitcom in shades of an artificially colored image like in one of those advertising flyers from sixty years ago.

Wanda came over to you a few minutes later all filled with a corny, fun-to-watch script between a blonde actress and a tall actor wearing a suit, in rather quick strides in her converse sneakers, carrying with her, in her right hand, a glass plate that contained a generous slice of white cake that looked like a feather-flavored pastry.

“Here,” she then handed you the utensil that was gladly accepted by your hands along with a grateful smile on your face, before sitting in the sofa to your right, with her bare knees joined together like a pair of magnets.

“Thanks, really. But hey, Bewitched, huh?” With a jerk of your chin, you pointed at the television in the corner of the room, under the open glass window that let aureate glimmers of a cozy sunlight take over the room.

Wanda acquiesced with a nod that shuddered her soft, dark locks, her lips twisted into a shy little smile. The rehearsed laughter of an unseen audience cluttered the four walls of the living room.

“Yeah, my mom always liked all that old American stuff when I was a kid, so I guess it got passed on to me somehow,” she finally looked at you, sounding even a little more undisturbed when engaged in narration about her most intimate tastes.

“I mean, Pietro doesn't like it very much… he says it's boring. And Lorna is just too small to pay attention to anything that lasts longer than five minutes, so… someone had to keep my mom company when she got home late from work. But it never bothered me, really. I... I like sitcoms.”

When a chuckle escaped between your parted lips at her own revelation, Wanda soon tried to justify herself in a quick, slurred speech, like a sinner validating her confessions in the eyes of the Lord.

“I–I mean, I, I know it's silly, but–”

“Hey, who said it's silly?” you offer her a succinct, complacent look that has her reaching for a sip of oxygen, “That's actually pretty sweet of you, Wanda.”

“You… You really think so…?” she looked at you, waiting for a hesitant answer.

“Well, yeah,” you shrugged, “My mom used to watch these old sitcoms all the time too when I was younger. So I think it's cool. It's really nice of you, Wanda.”

“Right,” there was a blistering twinge that brushed her pale cheeks, as her lips echoed a “Cool,” rather pleased with herself.

The tines of the tip of the aluminum fork in your possession, then pressed between the face of your right index finger and thumb, made to dip and break the loose dough of the plump cake placed right on top of the small plate that was supported by your left hand, before taking a significant amount of the sweet dessert so that it could be taken all the way up to your half-open mouth.

You hummed fortunately against the softly sweet taste on the face of your tongue. It was delicious on the palate, in fact, still warm as if fresh from the oven, with a comforting touch of nostalgia for something you had never experienced before – it was as if Wanda was sharing a tiny fraction of her Sokovian childhood with you. It tasted of sunny country afternoons and homemade desserts dotted with a coat of maternal affability. Tasted like pure, simple happiness of old infantile days to the sharpest feeling of the sentence.

Realizing that you were indeed eating something she had so selflessly prepared just a few minutes earlier, an emerald spotlight with an expectant green gaze engaged your facial expressions, as in an analysis project by Wanda, whose subject matter of study was none other than yourself.

“Man, this is really, really good!” it was a cry bordered by a half-child affinity, before you went back to reaching for more of the cake with the tines of your fork.

“You liked it?” Wanda's face glowed with exultant euphoria, shimmering a veil of pale green on her pretty irises, “It’s ptichye moloko, my mom used to bake it all the time when Pietro and I were kids back in Novi Grad.”

“Right, don't tell her I said that but I'm sure yours is better.”

“What?!” Wanda smiled a little dumbfounded, as her left shoulder bumped against your right bicep in a light-hearted way, witty in her comfortable good-humor that was slowly unfolding in front of you, “You haven't even tasted hers, Y/n!”

“Yeah, sorry, but as much as I’d be willing to literally die for your mom's cooking, you baked it, so I'm automatically sure yours is better.”

The high flesh of her cheeks burned in deep shades of rosy-crimson at your utterly sincere statement.

After a few episodes of the old television series (no less than five, but certainly more than two and a half), with the walls of your stomach already satisfied in your abdomen with that generous piece of cake made with a strictly followed recipe in the traditional Sokovian style, Wanda's gaze, who was then chuckling softly at some harmless silly joke made by the main character, dropped to your right profile, burning the bone in your jaw in scheming thoughts.

“When did you start smoking?”

Sweeping your eyes away from the colorful figures on the television, you glanced at the girl sitting next to you, finding a pretty face brightening before your gaze, “Sorry, what?”

“Your cigarette,” her index finger pointed at the small cylindrical object blistered behind your ear, skimming against your silver earrings, “When did you start smoking? If... if you don't mind talking about it, of course. Sorry if I'm being invasive."

“Oh, that,” you recalled suddenly from the presence of your addiction, bringing your right fingers to pick it up between your digits.

“It’s okay, I don't mind talking about it. But... I think it's been a while, actually. When my mom left my dad started smoking again and, well... I wanted to sneak some from him to see what it was like. About two years ago or so, I guess. Something like that."

You shrugged it off, because the matter had been over for longer than you cared to remember, and there wasn't much you could do if your mom just didn't want to stay anymore. But a warm grip slid across your skin as Wanda's right hand settled over the bare skin of your forearm, and there the tip of her thumb gave a cordial caress in affectionate circular motions, when her eyelids flicker so courteously into your face.

She was just a sweet girl after all, albeit under dark, torn clothes and dangling chains. Such a virtuous soul in the face of the oppressions of such an overwhelming world. When your eyes locked in midair, one trying to understand the glimmering behind the other, even the rehearsed lines coming from the television in the corner weren't enough to loosen the knot that was tied between you and Wanda.

“I… I get it, Y/n,” she mussed, leaning a little closer to your body, “I mean… it was hard when my dad left as soon as we arrived in the country. Quite hard, actually. My mom, she... she bought wine, for a while. Lots of wine bottles. I mean, she's better now, but I think that's when Pietro started doing... those things he does.”

The girl nibbled on her lower lip, and you, up close, just followed her with your eyes as she did.

“I didn't mean to bring you bad memories, it's just that...” her voice trailed off, getting smaller and smaller, as the tips of her ears reddened like two ripe peppers, “You... you look pretty when... when you smoke.”

Your heart missed a beat, and the oxygen just became unpalatable there inside that scrawny room filled with some disembodied laughter chuckled by the television set long forgotten in its sunny corner.

Setting the unsmoked cigarette aside, your right hand then dared to reach up on your forearm to search for what you've been searching for in the last few months, just snuggling your open palm against Wanda's soft cheek where, like the caresses bestowed by her finger, your own thumb tried to stroke a tiny freckle high up on her sharp cheekbone.

“Hey, look at me,” you asked in a tone bathed in tenderness, which she matched in a trace of pale green in her flickering irises, “It's okay Wanda, you didn't do anything wrong, don't worry about it. And on top of that," you half-giggled, “I think you're pretty too, you know.”

The thick dark lashes flickered out of her eyes, a half-formed mantilla of limping anguish, setting the stage for a color imbued with traces of what would be dizzying hope, flushing bright red on the pale alabaster skin of her accentuated face.

“You think I'm pretty...?”

“Of course I think so,” you nodded, your pupils dilated in close juncture with hers.

“You're the most beautiful girl I've ever seen, Wanda. I wish I could make you laugh every day of my life just to see you smiling. Your... your smile is beautiful. And the way you sit and fiddle with your hair, or the way you care so much about everyone… everything about you is beautiful. Not a single day goes by that I don't notice how beautiful you are.”

She swallowed when you did too; an abyssal gaze that slanted magnetically down your face, to the outline of your lips as close to hers as they were.

“Can I…” she breathed beneath her ruffled voice, “Can I kiss you, Y/n? I really want to kiss you...”

What happened next, on the initiative of a Wanda who didn't even wait for half a second when you nodded in restraint, was a needy kiss that tasted like cake, cinnamon, cigarettes and, at the end, a hint of crystalline need not contained. Your upper teeth kind of clashed with each other at first, though that didn't stop you or Wanda, who just hooked her gentle fingers into the outline of the skin on your neck. Your brain needed oxygen, but your chest just needed her; her touch, her tongue, her red.

“Please,” Wanda mussed with her swollen lip against your, her eyes heavy, warm air caressing the pulp of the commission in your mouth, “Please tell me this is as important to you as it is to me.”

“It is,” you muttered, going back to more of the taste of her tongue, “God, Wanda, you don't know how long I've been wanting to do this…”

The girl kissed you again with excruciating need, as if she really wanted to keep your soul tied to hers between the flicks of your tongues, as you felt the commission of her lips against yours twitch in a goofy smile, both hands roaming in search of the strands of your hair to hold them between her fingers, as if she wanted to breathe in from them the scent of cigarettes that so soothed her heart.

Wanda ran her hands down the length of your back, the roll of frigid rings feeling icy against your warm, bristly skin, hugging you around the waist as you wrapped your arms around her waist, your noses touching, mirrored smiles on your lips broken by kisses that were increasingly equipped with a mutual meaning that pointed to a need pulsing in your veins. 

“Can I...?” she understood the meaning behind your little question when your left palm brushed lightly against her enclosed breast, covered by the thin material of her dark blouse.

“Yes...” was a breathy sigh, “P–please, yes...”

There was consent in a tiny nod of the head, and a tiny groan breathed out from the back of her throat that reverberated through your bones as you pressed your palm lightly against her mound, one erect nipple protruding behind the fabric for, there, you've found her lacking the material of a bra to slip between your skin and hers, massaging the warm, soft flesh between the lengths of your cunning fingers.

“Fuck Wanda,” you groaned because she did too, “You're so beautiful…”

You just can't help but do it when your teeth came into contact with the pale sensitive skin of Wanda's throat, where you captured between your lips a pinkish lump of flesh glistening with a thin layer of sweat and buffed it with the tip of your tongue as if it were just a sweet dessert, feeling the burning saccharinity of the girl's naked skin as the caresses aimed at her breast became somewhat more continuous and erratic in the movements of your left forearm.

But you caught yourself surprised, when you felt a gentle grip on both your shoulders and saw that Wanda, with care as if handling the most fragile of flowers, was pulling you to fit over her, guiding you to the top.

She laid the length of her spine against the inconvenient length of the sofa, causing your wandering eyes to land on the piece of alabaster skin that had become exposed as the hem of her blouse rose, revealing, there, a band of abs marked by tiny dots sprinkled here and there, like a particular galaxy.

“You're so fucking beautiful, Wanda” was said between kisses and strokes of tongue over Wanda's abdomen, when you writhed inside the clothes that seemed too stuffy for her there, laying under your body.

“Y/n...” she moaned, but there was no word that could complement your own name whispered through her peachy lips.

Blood burned hot on the sharp red cheeks of Wanda's ivory face, her lids closed as if to hold back the tears of arousal that threatened to slip down her doll face. The rosebud mouth with the brief traces of your lustrous saliva was, every now and then, moaning in the form of a shy, smothered request.

Her lips were apparently forming delusional words, but your conscience no longer registered them, because you were too busy just watching her. Wanda was rosy, dusted with droplets of sweat, covered by the veil of ardor without realizing she was surrounded by a red haze of lust. Perfect, really. Your fingers hooked on the hem of her dark blouse, and in a slow flick of your wrist you pulled it over as you tucked the garment under Wanda's bared collarbones, revealing a pair of bare breasts there.

Watching with delight the flushed girl's unrestricted enjoyment of her satisfying freedom from the pieces of cloth that covered her silhouette, you propped yourself up on your elbows for a voluptuous view of full breasts partially covered by cascades of dark hair, blushing breasts in its perfect contours, of clear and erect nipples which you found yourself seized by a desire to squeeze between your lips and encircle it between your tongue.

However, as you threatened to resume the posture so that he could have those desirable breasts between your teeth, Wanda put a hand on your collarbone, preventing you before you even completed the act. You blinked at her face, lifting your head.

“Are you okay…?" you whispered, to which Wanda only looked away with her dark green gaze to the side, “Wanda, what is it…?”

“It's just that I've never,” she stifled, but at your encouraging gaze, something in her compelled to continue her speech, “I've never done… you know, that… with anyone… before.”

You bit your bottom lip. Well, fuck.

“It… It's all right. I've only done it once or twice, too, and I don't think one of them even counted properly,” and then, a hesitant half second passed, as you looked at her again, “You… do you want me to stop here? I don't mind stopping if you want me to. I want this to be pleasurable for you, not that you feel pressured to do it.”

“No, it's just that,” Wanda looked at you with two dark pools outlined in earnest green, pink eyelids and puffy lips, “Could this… not be a one time thing? I… I don't want to do it if it's just a one time thing.”

Your heart rose high in your chest as the idea dawned on you that Wanda wanted more than you did because you were willing to do what she wanted.

You just smiled small as you brought your face close to hers; you studied her carefully in a brief sunny moment (your crush, half-naked and fragile, had a lock of dark hair falling over her forehead and her brows furrowed, but her eyes were simple and sincere), drinking in her radiant red beauty like a drug addict – the feminine silhouette splashed with sun and, in a way, even with a synoptic veil of purity that accompanied your muse in the utopian world of dreams, like a poor helpless girl.

Gently, you kissed the corner of her rosy mouth.

“It was never intended for this to be a one time thing, Wanda,” you kissed her again, and then again and again, “I… I really like you, you know? I... I care about you. Much more than you can imagine, I promise.”

“I like you too, Y/n,” she mussed in a low voice, her forehead pressed against yours, “Really like you.”

But then, your touch approached the hollow of her groin.

“Y/n...” Wanda's tone softened, as if she was slightly embarrassed, “Y/n, please...”

“You touched yourself before, Wanda?”

The middle of her legs fluttered as it was that, even if in a partially measured way, Wanda just nodded shyly, her warm forehead still touching yours.

“Damn, you're so hot… so hot, pretty girl…”

Mouth wide and swollen, you let out a knowing smile, and gently lowered your head in a languid, lingering action, a withdrawn ecstasy making you feel compelled to bring your full lips to Wanda's soft mouth, who returned you in a wavering and sloppy kiss.

Making yourself helpful, you dipped your fingers towards the legs not completely closed under the hem of the other girl's skirt, locating between them, shrouded by the thin silk of an underwear, the fragile and swollen aroused clit, inciting a delicious moan that popped out of the girl's mouth to crash into your parted lips.

Your mouth throbbed at the sight of her like this, the gloomy, empty pupils doubling in size at the work of art that was born out of Wanda's orgasmic experience – her dark hair swept back in a purely sensual gesture, the tight mouth swallowing desperately sucking in a hiss of air, the length of her pale neck completely exposed. Her round, perfect breasts with erect nipples of a strong rosy hue, her eyelids closed and her dark brows furrowed. So desirable. So intoxicating.

You wanted to have her right there, on that little couch that would be the witness of your willingness to give her everything you had in you. You increased the pressure on Wanda's little bundle of nerves through the rising damp garment, almost even torturing her at your whim, only to see her writhe beneath your own body and groan indecently and disconnected.

A yelp was raised as your mouth closed around her right nipple, which you pampered for a while, still lingering in your low caresses, until you migrated to the other to lick and suck it into the hollow of flesh inside your cheeks. But something in you wanted more; you wanted to taste her, feel her run down your throat. And she shivered in anticipation as your mouth sailed south of her body, fitting your nose beneath her dark skirt.

“Red, huh,” you thought aloud, at the tiny wet wedge of clothing that was the only barrier erected between you and Wanda's source of pleasure; a thin lacy panty of crimson fabric, whose middle gained wet tones that made it darker at that specific point, “It suits you.”

Fingers tightened in a firm grip on the ridge of your scalp as you placed a chaste kiss on Wanda's clit, albeit over the fabric of her panties, who choked on a sudden loud yelp.

“Y/n, fuck–!”

“I don't think I've ever heard you curse like this before,” you mussed, licking the skin of your own lips, “This is new. I'll take them off, okay? Wanna taste you.”

You threaded your fingers around the inside of Wanda's black skirt, and bringing the straps of the red underwear to you, you had the girl completely naked, exposed, desirable, as soon as you moved your elbows and made your way towards what you were looking for.

From that intimate region flowed a honey of pleasure, exhaling a bittersweet odor, pink as the inside of a strawberry, bringing water to your predatory mouth. Wanda's fidgety pale legs were spread apart, and her partially shaved pussy was on display. You took your index and middle fingers to the sensitive area, and dragging the tip against the entire pink and wet extension of the inside of Wanda's labias, you collected the viscous liquid with strong flavor, drawing a strangled moan from the other girl.

You brought your smeared middle finger to your lips, fervently sucking Wanda's nectar, tasting just as you supposed it would be on the tip of your tongue; as addictive as the nicotine in your cigarette. You took them out of your mouth with a violent pop, only to then unroll your tongue to slide it into the other girl's untouched hole, which pulsed and throbbed, rubbing against the purest nothingness.

Wanda moaned, dripping against your chin. Your pace was slow at first, but you searched for more of her, and Wanda gave you what you wanted. She squirmed and grunted and squeezed your hair between her fisted hands, tangling them in the circulation of her silver rings. And your tongue wasn't very experienced indeed, but you knew what to do. The tip of your right index finger pressed against the rosy entrance as your head came out from under her skirt.

“Can I put in…?”

You felt her cunt pulse against your digit.

“Y-yes,” she yelped, “Please–!”

You kissed the inside of her thigh before carefully dipping your finger into that warm grip. And there was some resistance at first, her furrowed brow glistening in a layer of sweat, and you kept your wrist steady when it was when you again got on top of Wanda, who buried her head in your chest as you did.

“It hurts?” you asked against her ear, and she just shook her head in a hesitant move.

“N–no, but it's... it's weird,” she sighed, “I never... when–when I did, I never...”

“It's okay, pretty girl” you kissed her hair, “Gonna move now, okay? Let me know if it hurts or if you want me to stop.”

A cunning finger reached across Wanda's intimate region, reaching for what you begged to be reached, making its way towards what it sought, and, as an inevitable consequence, penetrated her through her point of entry.

In the face of the action, Wanda arched her entire spine, splitting a visceral groan from her vocal cords – for she had barely become familiar with the finger when the movement began, giving her something new to feel.

You skimmed her, filled her and understood her as nothing more than a girl with needs (needs that only yours could supply). Then Wanda squeaked; the hungry hands for something to keep within themselves searched for your shoulder blades tucked inside your crop top, and there, over your back muscles, the nails dyed in black dug breaking into the skin. Your foreheads supported each other, because during the carnal act, each other was just what you both had and what you both were.

Your forearm pumped down Wanda's skirt towards a hot, dripping grip, and as you hooked your single finger inside her tight walls, there was a moan from the other girl as you kissed it back down the inside of her throat. You kissed her sweaty forehead, then the prominent cheekbone of her flushed cheek, and a sliver of skin down the tip of her jawbone.

“Here?” touching her on a specific spot that caused a dizzying reaction, that's what you asked.

“Y–yes, please don't stop Y/n, please don't stop, please... I–I, I'll–”

“Fuck, come for me, pretty girl.”

“Y/n!”

Her velvety walls squeezed your finger before Wanda came in a loud weeping moan against your ear, pressing you against her body as if this were the last day on Earth, and she would never see you again. Silently, you just held her back, inhaling her scent from the shirt balled up over her exposed chest. You just stayed there, drinking from the moment, because you belonged to her.

The serenity that came from the unspoken heartbeats coming from Wanda's breastplate was enough to establish, at your core, the most complete and genuine feeling of latent rest that you could bear.

With your eyes closed, the room immersed in a pool of accentuated silence, you were able to hear her breathing for much longer than you could count, as she brought you unparalleled peace and immeasurable calm as nothing else had done before. She was there, and she was yours.

With your head resting on the girl's chest, lying on top of Wanda was like basking in a ray of sunlight – tender and cordial like coming home after a long journey.

The unclothed skin superimposed over the open palms of both your hands was warm and sunny, as smooth as the finest silk, and your hips were hitched in a precise, if not perfect fit—the remnants of the apex ascended in a moment of pleasure smeared the inner sides of her thighs, like a ghost of what had once been the height of the carnal act in which you were so vividly engaged minutes before.

The austere digits of your fingers amused themselves with ruffling the ends of her dark hair, cradling them around your index and middle fingers, until finally Wanda descended from her apex, her chest heavy beneath your face.

“Y/n,” she called out to you, as the seconds ticked by and the minutes settled in, “I think I wanna date you.”

Because you couldn't help but smile at such a modest return, bordering the ethereal innocence of a legitimate child, you brought your mouths together so that you could press, to the pearly lips of Wanda, a long, tongueless kiss. You ended it only to laugh, the tip of your own nose brushing the other girl's.

“You think?”

“I-I’m sure of it,” she blushed.

“I wanna date you too, Wanda,” you confessed, even though it wasn't a secret, “Is that okay with you?”

 “Yeah...” she smiled – weakly and languorously when in a wave of post-orgasm fatigue, but still a genuine and sincere smile, “Yeah, it is. You’re cute.”

“Nah, pretty girl,” you shrugged, “You’re cute. I’m… something else. I’m a freak.”

“No, no, don’t say that. You’re the most beautiful girl that I’ve ever seen, Y/n,” she whispered, “And I wanna kiss you again.”

“Well, then,” you smiled towards her jadish irises, “Let me do the honors, pretty girl.”

In such a way, you approached Wanda so that you could kiss her jaw, while your hands, clasped between the sofa and the shoulder blades of your beloved, held her in a soft and pleasant embrace. Then you kissed Wanda on the patch of skin that joined her neck to her shoulder, her collarbone and her throat. And on her lips, over and over again.

And neither of you, in that newly found little bubble of love in each other's arms, even heard the front door open.

[moonmaiden1996]

Claiming his Queen Part 6

Masterlist

This might be a bit of a filler chapter but let me tell you Part 7 is where shit is going down! So stay tuned----As always please leave comments and likes- 

Waking up once again in the strange palace, you found yourself tucked into a giant plush bed. The deep blue silk sheets cradled your body as you pulled yourself from the clutches of sleep. Despite your grogginess, a rush of heat coarse through your body, and you feel light, almost weightless, as you move. Flashes of last night passed through your mind, the feeling of his fingers, the touch of his mouth on you. Your throat plunged into your stomach, mouth hanging wide open in horror. Even with the distinct lack of coldness that clung to your bones for the first time in almost a decade, it didn't make up for the utter mortification that boomed within you.

Oh god! You screamed into a pillow.

Gnawing on your bottom lip, you recalled every sinful detail. Your toes still curled at the mere thought. Even in your wildest dream, could you have imagined how fucked your life would be? But you didn't know what else you expected after that fateful night in the basement of the Burgess Manor.

Taking several deep breaths, you draw the sheets to your chest, glancing around the room. Surprisingly it was kidnapper free. Was he even a kidnapper? It’s not like you tried to get away, but there wasn’t much point. It wasn't like you could shimmy down the drainpipe, burst out the gates and bump into a police officer. Casting your eyes around the room, you realise despite the setting sky, it was brighter now. In the light, the room took on a majestic hue.

You did not doubt that this was Morpheus’s room. It was a mix of light and dark; the clincher was the chiselled headboard. The sigil bared down at you, the same carved into your palm and forearm. It was the only proof needed that you were his. It doesn’t mean you understood it, but it’s proof of whatever this was.

"Oh, your awake." Matthew called, swooping down onto the bedpost, “my Lord, requests your presence for dinner. Your garments are in the wardrobe."

"Is there now.“

Xxxxxxxxxx

You shouldn’t have been surprised by the sheer size of the wardrobe; however, what did shock you was the single dress that hung invitingly in the middle of the room. Only Morpheus would want you to wear such an over-the-top gown. The colour suited your skin, and it was simple but gorgeous. Nothing you would ever dare to wear before, and unsurprisingly the neckline framed the spread of bruises that littered your throat.

Matthew guided you through the corridors, people bowing and scraping to you as you went. The dining room was more of a banquet room, a long-elongated table decorated in filigree and gold.

‘You look beautiful.’ Morpheus purred from the side.

You almost had to do a double take. He looked relaxed, his billowing jacket dancing around his legs as he cocked a glass of wine at you before taking your hand; he kissed your mark before guiding you towards the table. Despite his relaxed body, you saw the fire in his eyes and how his tongue drew against his bottom lip hungrily as he gently tucked your chair beneath you.

"I take it you had the liberty of creating my dress?"

‘’I had that honour. The neckline is very becoming,’ he eyed the mark with pride. "I am sorry not to wake with you, but I thought it would ease you into the day.’

For that, you were thankful. If you had woken up to Morpheus in your bed after everything, it would have pushed you over the edge. An edge that you were already dangling precariously off.

"You need to eat...you can have anything you wish...’ Morpheus purred, sliding into the seat at the head of the table next to you.

You sit wearily, eyeing the man cautiously while he fills your goblet with the same wine he sipped. Having a candle-lit meal was not your current idea of a pleasant evening. You wanted to bury yourself under a mountain of blankets and eat an extraordinary amount of junk food. Yet you were sitting in an elegant dining room poured into a tight dress.

‘What does your heart desire?’ His eyes burnt into you while he sat at the head of the table as he slowly sipped at his wine.

You squirmed under his gaze, your thighs rubbing together, desperate for friction. The answer rose in your throat, but you swallowed it.

‘’Mango milkshake with roast chicken’ ’you squeaked. It was the first thing that came into your head; every Sunday, your mother would make the best tangy mango milkshakes for you while your father roasted a chicken. It was your favourite memory of the three of you, before the basement, before the manor, and before you parent decent into witchcraft.

With a short nod, a small army of staff emerged out of nowhere, fluttering around the table in a flurry of activity, arranging the platters of food.

Steam rolled off the plates and curled into the air, permeating the surroundings with the mouth-watering scent of roasted chicken and spices. You couldn’t remember the last time you were this hungry, and the pit in your stomach won against the bone-crushing anxiety.

You layered your plate, practically inhaling the mountain of food, eyes looking everywhere but the intense god.

"You don't have to avoid your gaze; you are one of few who may look me in the eyes without fear. Perhaps you don't want to look in my eyes for another reason?’’ You didn't need to see his face because the voice carried his smirk, '’Or perhaps you find it hard because of what they remind you of." The velvet voice broke through the silence.

A deep blush across your face crept down your neck, training your stare onto your half-eaten plate. The hunger for food transforming into a hunger for something else.

‘I wish to follow your blush...’ Morpheus purred, curling his body over the table, lips stained a hearty red, pressing his hand into his.

"Please don’t.“ You whined, squirming back in your chair.

Swiftly he removed his hand and settled back into his chair. Your eyes darted across his form as he carefully decanted the wine into his glass, filling it to the brim.

‘’That's it? That’s all I have to say?”Your eyes flitted across his dark features, waiting, but nothing came, just the adoring smile as he lounged again on the dark wood, glass twirling in his hand.

"Of course.’’ The wine only enhanced his rich voice. '’You will be my queen, wife, partner, advisor, lover, and future mother to my children. Your word carries as much power here as mine.’’

'Children?’ your face scowled deeply at the man.

“We talked about this.” Matthew half whispered, wings flapping frantically as he settled on the back of his master's chair in a fluster.

What. The. Fuck.

“She is my soulmate; of course, she will be. She will rule the dreaming along my side; I will be her king, husband, and devoted follower.’’ Morpheus said it as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. Even uttered with a small smile lingering on his lips.

This. Fucking. Guy. A rage simmered within you.

"So if I said take me home, you would obey." You snapped, grabbing at your goblet and gulping down two mouthfuls of wine, the bitter taste burning your tongue.

The god's eyes glistened in glee.” Then I would have to prove to you why you must stay. Or perhaps that's what you want..." His feature darkened in the soft candlelight.

"Am I ever going to leave this place?” You choked, tears welling up in your eyes.

His face softened, taking your hand in his "you are not a captive. You will be free to wander the universe; my heart, it is just till our bond is completed, and no one can keep us apart. Especially my siblings" he growled, "my other siblings may seek you out to hurt me or steal you for themselves."

"Cool it. You're scaring her.” Matthew gritted out from a clenched beak.

For a moment, there was silence. For the first time, you realised you felt fear that you might be in danger. You were insignificant, human and brittle compared to him, caught as playthings amongst beings you would never comprehend.

"Is that chicken? Thank god I'm starved….chicken me.’ He flapped his wings, propping open his mouth.

You couldn’t help but laugh through watery eyes, tossing a chuck of chicken at the bird that gulped it down merrily. ’Morpheus has a big family, a very big eccentric family. Do you have any siblings...?’ Matthew guided through a mouth full of chicken.

"Matthew…" Morpheus glowered.

‘What it's polite to ask, and you were making her uncomfortable, you need to connect with her…so do you?’

Your eye softened at the barmy bird, guzzling down thick chunks of meat.

"No... my parents only had me...’

"Are your parents still alive? They aren't going to be worried about you, are they?" You saw him through a quick scowl at his master, or at least how you thought a bird scowl might look like.

"No, they died..." Your voice sounded hollow; your eyes were still thick with tears.

"That's rough. I know when my mum died, I was broken. Were you close?" Matthew softly spoke.

"No, not really. Not in the end... I think... In the end, we all began resenting each other..." It was weird to say it out loud, but almost a relief.

‘How could they resent you?’ Morpheus's low voice was soft and tender. It was the first tie he had taken in the exchange; the hunger in his eyes was gone, replaced by something akin to concern

‘’For lying to each other. Them gaslighting about what happened in the basement., me telling them I was fine. I think I started hating them... they made me have all these skin drafts’’ your hand subconsciously moving to shield your mark. ‘’... but each time, the mark would still be there. I think we just stopped talking, and then they were just gone one day.’

Outside, a thick streak of red lightning cut through the sky, with a sickening crack pulling your attention. Beyond the window, the setting sky was clouded black, the low rumble ripping through the heavens. Your focus tore from the window to Morpheus. He was shaking with rage, eyes black with no trace of beautiful silver left.

Morpheus rose to full height earning a terrified squawk from Matthew as he flapped into your lap. You waited, body rigid under his gaze, but he didn't make a move, glaring at your tiny figure. You left with a shriek of fright as he tore through the room out of the door.

You let out a shaky sob as your felt Matthew nudge a comforting head into your side.

Xxx

Lucienne eyed the sky in hesitation. Her Lord stood on the steps of his realm, dominating it. In the millennia she had inhabited this plane, never had she seen the sky so black, the angry flashes of lighting blanketing the kingdom in a sinister shade of red.

‘She is still scared of me.’ Morpheus gritted out, sending another flash of lightning crashing down from the skies.

‘My lord, a little understanding may be required with all due respect. She has been taken from her home. Modern women are much more complex than those you have experienced. A lot has changed in the last 100 years.’ She explained.

‘This is her home.’ Morpheus rounded, spitting at his librarian.

‘It is a lot of Lord she is a human...’

‘She is not. She is mine.’

‘As may be, she is or at least was human, and this world and everything in it is complex and alien to her. You must be patient and compassionate. She is vulnerable now and needs you to show understanding.’

Lucienne watched as Morpheus fell silent, her shoulder falling in defeat, retreating into the safety of the library.

xxxxxxxx

You didn't see Morpheus for the rest of the day or what seemed like a day; time moved strangely in this place. Matthew guided you around the wing, settling you into a small sitting room, a fire roaring through the fire but not loud enough to cover the howl of the thunder outside. But the constant nattering from the raven was comforting.

‘I am just saying Morpheus will give you anything, and Netflix would go down well. Do you know how long it has been since I have seen Friends? Ohhhhh, and maybe Disney Plus, I could go for some sexy Black Widow action if you know what I mean; I am wiggling my eyebrows if you didn’t notice. Ohhhh, eyebrows, add that to the list too.’

You smiled, stroking your fingers over the head of the bird, content with his babbling, yet you couldn’t help but feel the discomfort as the coldness began to creep into your bones again. Your little sanctuary was disturbed as you heard the clear click of familiar shoes on the marble floor.

‘Matthew leave us…’ came the deep command of Morpheus. Matthew wavered on his talons for a moment before inclining his head and flapping away.

‘I…have come to apologise for my conduct earlier. I was angry.’’ Morpheus started, standing in front of you, head low and palms out towards you.

“At me?" your brow creased.

"At your parents for trying to hide my mark from the world...trying to hide you from me.’ His voice was soft as his fingers pulled a stray lock of hair from your face and tucked it behind your ear. ‘I cannot blame them; I haven’t always been a good man, but I can be with you beside me. Forgive me.’’

Outside, the storm's fury had begun to die; only the barest glimpse of black and red remained. Turning your gaze back to him, you scrutinised him for the longest moment. His face was strained into a weird contortion of emotion, hair wild, and that was when it hit you, a revelation that shook you to the core.

You nodded, and with a beam of a smile, he swept to sit next to you, dragging you onto his lap, burying his head in your neck. You gazed down into your palm, the sigil carved into your palm, letting your eyes fall shut as he caressed you.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

So reality has hit me, and school starts back up in less than a week, along with the usual rubbish that comes with it. But I will try and update at least once a week. But on the flip side, I have lots of NSFW Alphabets comings.

Question- what do you think Morpheus's favourite sex position is? My answer – Cowgirl as he gets to plough into you while getting an amazing view, but Morpheus secretly loves doggy- all control, and who doesn't like their face pressed down into a pillow while he goes to town behind you?

Challenge ALERT-The first three people to get where the Mango Milkshake reference is from (its my favourite movie) wins the chance to be a character in the dreaming featured in the next chapter and say something to the character! Because why not :P

@daydreamin1220  @jesllianaquilesrolon @ultimatreality @musemaniac42 @duhitzdae  @songbirdcannabe  @wt-fxckk @quillycrow @lemontails-blog @zafirina12 @alastorhazbin @witchybitch @thegreatestsandwich @buckys-pillow @sunscreenfeverdream @lu123sworld @asianfrustration13 @leighs-posts @elraeeee @intothesoul @sparklinglilac @lustreader69 @thraetor @fate-huntress @itshamleth @beautifulsoulsublime @bookohocolicsstuff @aurorarevenclaw1927 @winxschester @gingermous @scarlettmoon98 @nushy @nanadesudesu @sinisterandfun @the-whispering-mountain.  @ellie-xoxox @xixxala @theraggedygirl11 @poemfreak306 @sugarstone1999 @depressooexxpressoo @lovesickollie @andy-rocks @reallystressedhoneybee @theoddballinyourcloset @zaflrina12 @dangerousdreamkitty @chadekelevra @wandas-soulmate @yor72 @sugarstone1999​ @heartyhope @thecrazytealady @louslous @minetticatinwonderland @thecrazytealady@deafeningnightmarecrown @kiki13522 @fantasylover-92 @weirddominatrixpop @majestyjade @electric-cabaret @littlewhitefairy7777 @acdassenza @immaturedinosaur @juniebugg @theamuz @itsbqueenthings @thedepthsoffandomminds @nightly-polaris @pinkcyclewitch @kuchokitty @asgardiandeadpoetsociety @humongousgalaxycoffee @arim0895  @kuchokitty @inannamoon @true-queen-of-mischief @tyelikesbees @one-loud-mind @hoefortonks @notabotiswear @cynic-spirit @mamamidnight60 @18crazybutcutealsopsycho @thedepthsoffandomminds @minetticatinwonderland @blossomedfloweroflove @bluebear142077 @ladychibi @sinisterandfun @itsbqueenthings @hagofyourdreams @sugarstone1999 @44capybara @tortilla-chips-and-allioli @loverofallgoodboys @dilf-of-the-endless @aiko-uzumaki @kipoturtle

[leclerced]

Hellooo

Spend my whole day today in the forest chopping wood and now i can’t think about anything else than lumber jack max.

All the innuendos you could tell him

🫀

HELLOO!!!!!!! oh my fucking god lumberjack max would be so hot tbh??

thinking ab living out in the middle of nowhere with him, surrounded by woods n nature. he def built the house for you, like halfway through your relationship he started designing it and creating the blueprints. took you out to the land to go camping a few times to see how you liked the area, showed you his favorite spots that he’d discovered after securing the property. or maybe it’s land that’s been in his family’s for a few generations so he knows it like the back of his hand and shows her the spots he played growing up, all the trails through the woods that have been worn through by past generations and the new trails max and his siblings created as kids, the little ponds scattered across the property. she loves it all, falls in love with it instantly and has no idea max has such a grand gesture in mind until the house is fully built and he takes her back under the guise of camping again. she’s so confused when she sees the little house and he starts telling her he hopes it’s not too much but he sees a future with her. shows her around the unfurnished house and points out all the fixtures he designed for her, from sourcing stained glass from an old church being torn down, to the cabinets he hand carved in the kitchen.

and if you ever mention wanting something he just.. makes it. you show him a pretty dining table on pinterest and barely see him for the next two weeks and then you wake up from a nap to him fussing because he attached the legs in his shop and now he can’t fit it through the door to the house and has to take the legs off and put them back on inside. you didn’t even know what he’d been spending all the time in his shop for, you never question him on what project he’s working on because you know he’ll show you when he’s ready. he’d be a little upset he woke you up and you came to see what the scuffling sounds were and found him with two legs undone and the table sitting awkwardly in the doorway, he’d tell you it was supposed to be a surprise and that he was going to cook dinner and wake you up with it served on the dinner table 🥺

or during the winter, you wake up to the sound of his boots on the wood floors bc he’s gone out as the sun comes up to chop firewood so it’s warm and cozy when you wake up. you have to beg him to strip back down and crawl into bed with you, mostly because he says there’s mood wood to be chopped and he doesn’t want it getting buried in the fresh snow that’s falling, but he gives in when you whine that you’re too cold without him.

she loves watching him split wood year round but prefers the warmer months when he’s not wearing his winter garb so she gets to see his muscles flexing each time he swings the axe. definitely makes soo many dirty jokes about how he could be splitting her in half instead, or just complimenting him on how good he looks in general.

[hellowoolf]

on strawberries and masonry: chapter ii

series summary: you atone for your sins, now, in a jackson garden, learning to care for soft things and yourself. joel miller is a lethal sort of similar, and misery loves company

OR

you live in jackson and meet joel and you’re both damaged little babies and fall in love (but i’m drawing this shit out🫶🫶)

warnings: angst, age gap (reader late 20s/early 30s, joel 50s), a little bit of blood/gore (at the very end), scars (NOT self inflicted), knives, mention of stitches, mention of masturbation (if i left out any, let me know!)

word count: 2.9k

authors note: thank you guys SO MUCH for all your kindness on chapter i. writing this story thus far has been cathartic and challenging and wonderful. i hope you enjoy this next chapter🤍

series masterlist | masterlist

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

you don’t think of the people you worked with before jackson. out of self preservation or self suffocation or some amalgamation of the two, you let the whole of them go, frozen over and pieced off into nothing by the town and your garden and the little house you took up. on your path to the stables, wind curling about your torso and squeezing there, you can admit that you loved them, and this was your greatest concession. still, with trembling fingers you’d let the thing go, out a half-open window somewhere within you, and starved yourself the satisfaction of the remembering. now, though, coming up on the stables and knowing joel waits for you there, you think of the softness of them, which survived in spite of the killing, and suddenly you’re reeling in the line you cast when you hauled the memory of them over. 

you walk through the great doorway of the barn. the line of joel’s back shakes a little as he tightens something on his horse’s saddle, and the hardness of it makes you quiet and hot between your legs, a wanton thing that reaches for him, but you are certain it would be the reaching that scares him from you forever. his hulking figure casts a long shadow, and you feel it grazing your ankles as you saddle your own horse, but still he is as terrified as he was when you first met him, perhaps now more so in the face of his residence here. by his gait and the jerk of his movements you determine the permanence of jackson disquiets him some. it’s your first patrol with him, and so in the early morning light you allow his terror to consume you to make no room for your own.

the patrol is silent, save for the give of snow under your horses, though this is unsurprising to you. you seek out silence, or have sought it, at least, but you find the quiet unbearably difficult with him, what with the warm wood of his eyes and the carving of his silhouette. the fire of him, which he wraps his arms around in a frantic sort of way, catches on you when your horses drift together, and so you mind the gap between your paths and time your glances towards him.

despite yourself and all the rest, the time passes quickly. you return your horses to the stables, again in silence (forever in silence, it seems) and walk together in a staggered sort of synchronization towards the dining hall. 

but he sits with you, here.

surely, he’s no less comfortable with you than the rest of the town, who have filled the tables now, and so you figure he resigns to your company in favor of the unthinking of it. the weight of him next to you presses at your stomach and you constrict with it, your mouth swallowing around your tongue, and your thighs make to wrap around one another because still, you want him to touch you. you do your best, at his shoulder while you both eat, to pull the sweetness of your wanting from around your neck and wrists, but it refuses to extract itself. you suppose if joel can yield to your closeness, you can do as much for the lust, but immediately regret drawing any sort of comparison between you. you think again of the group before jackson, and your heaving of the creature of them into an ocean like blurriness and a faint sort of penitence, but the line of yourself has run out, and so the wanting of joel stays ashore with you.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

you haunt the garden later in the evenings, now that your mornings are spent in the cold, looking silence of joel, and the soil is cooler in your palms then. your strawberry came and went, the vines of it flowering and fruiting into sugar and seed, and perhaps it’s the chilled hands of the twilight along your sides, but you can’t help a selfishness with them. you’d left a basket of them in your kitchen before stalking back to the planter boxes tonight, and even in the dirt that touches you like a baptism you are glad for this sweet little monopoly. all the rest of your garden you’d given, nearly willingly, to the dining hall for eating; a thankless sacrifice you took sated pleasure in, believing only the soft and good could be capable of such a donation. but the strawberries are yours, you decide, to eat or let rot or preserve in resin like flowers.

as you scoop in the last palmful of new soil into the planter box, you sense joel’s little creature, in all her skittishness, contemplating coming into the greenhouse. she watches your fruits in the daytime, you know, with or without you, inspecting how the greens and reds of things come along. like joel she is silent, and like you she measures her distance. you turn your head, and she’s watching her reflection in the door.

“you can come in, ellie, i’m almost done,” you call through the glass, shifting back to your cucumbers. she moves only when you aren’t looking. 

“that one’s fucking ugly.”

your spine stiffens and locks in place. it’s the first full sentence she’s ever given, and the sound grabs right below your collarbone. the profanity of it, and the mundanity, too, unspools something within you. ellie came back to jackson even more vicious than when you’d first met her, though her face was made new with a sort of vacantness now, and the whole of it resembles the youth of you from years ago. but she’s talking to you, suddenly, about the cucumber by your left hand, which hangs hideously misshapen, and your fingers tremble in the dirt with the leadened weight of her effort.

“yeah, yeah,” and you smile a little, but keep your head turned, “it’s pretty grisly.” you hear her swishing responses on her tongue, and from your shoulders down to your forearms drips the yawning need to make her a vegetable and protect her in mulch. the sins of your adolescence, done by and to you, remain a plague to you, and you feel as though ellie is your chance to mend them (a selfish thought, a selfish thought). you know that to indict her as your adolescent self is an accusation too unfair to voice, but all the same you find yourself looking for forgiveness in her in a gasping kind of way. the gasping pushes the words out.

“you can help me in here, if you want. i could show you how i take care of everything.” and you do look at her, now, a leaf standing at your back, but her eyes are probing over the soil along your fingers. it strikes you that she’s smart enough to figure you wear the dirt to be cleansed, and you think it’s in this figuring that she steps closer to you.

“yeah.” but she doesn’t kneel, yet. “but not tonight.”

you nod. “okay, not tonight.”

and you don’t say it with any resemblance of conclusiveness, but nonetheless she takes it like goodbye, backing out the greenhouse doors and absorbing again into the night.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

weeks go by like this. you brave the snow, unprotected and newly fallen, with joel at daybreak, and let him follow you into the dining hall like you don’t think about how his cock would feel. the brutish quiet of him eases none, but in the evenings you help ellie (coarse as anything, but a tender thing) care for the things growing in your garden. this you do in silence, too, but it’s a filling sort of stillness that strikes you as a gift. 

you feel less venomous than you used to. joel, the selfish violence of whom bares itself in his posture, makes you something soft and yielding. even against the rushing water of your wanting of him and his neglect of you, you return to the stables every morning like a pull upstream for the knowing that you aren’t doomed for hell alone. and ellie, now, has become a harbinger of your caring, and you’re reminded of the ease with which you used to love. you loved, once, and to be faced again with this loving is a sanitizing pain you relish in. walking home from the greenhouse in what must’ve been the very early hours of the morning, you brush your dirtied hands down your jeans and drop your brutality to hang loosely at your side.

you’re a few yards from your porch when you see him standing there, hands warming in his pockets and his shoulders strung up by his ears. the night clings to joel, dark accumulating on his shoulders and broadening him further, but he’s scuffing the toe of his boot back and forth against the wood of the deck and you have half a thought to hold him. it’s a horrific thing you slice through immediately.

“can i help you?” and it comes out a little unkind, pained as you are to speak with him, but you find you mean it sincerely.

“uh,” pause, “yeah.” the cold snaps at you, but you know if you see him inside your home you’ll never sleep again, so you do not invite him in. “i was…well,” pause, he’s pausing, “well, i was noticin’ ellie comes by to your greenhouse.”

sometime in the last few seconds you’ve found your way in front of him, the bass and scratch of his voice tugging desperately at you. you nod a little. his eyes will kill you, surely. “mhm. she’s not…” and you let a breath of a laugh out through your nose, “she’s not a natural, really. but i like having her there.” and then, “she seems to enjoy it.”

he nods back at you, the swing of his head cautious while he keeps his eyes tilted down to yours. the moon peeks through his curls in silver pillars. “and she’s been okay?”

there’s a worry in it, in him, that startles you, an unknowing you’re unused to. you hum to comfort the both of you. “yeah, i think so. she doesn’t really speak to me, but i don’t mind it.” 

you know you’ve made a mistake as soon as you say it in the way his eyebrows pull together. you see, through and across his eyeline, his own refusal to speak on your patrol rounds; it stands in the space between you now, and he crosses his arms over his chest to push it further off him. 

“you don’t mind it.” and he’s only parroting you, really, but his question sinks to the ground at your feet. what about my silence? do you mind that?

“no, i guess i don’t.”

a pocket of silence passes through the both of you, rigid, and then he sucks on his front teeth, jerking like he’s made a decision and walking past you, back down your porch steps. “i’ll see you tomorrow, then,” he mumbles out as he goes, but you’re choking on the leathered scent of him, and so you offer nothing in return.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“why d’you work in the garden?” 

daybreak had come as a surprise to you, the dawn reaching through your curtains to paw at your floorboards. still, the habit of your days lets you float unmindful through the morning, and so you’d mounted your horse and slipped out the gates with joel with little pomp and circumstance. but now you’re squeezing your horse’s reins through the lines of your palms and willing yourself not to tip off the saddle. you’re shuddering, now, because he is talking to you, he is talking to you. and the flames of him, of that voice and of those hands (you aren’t religious but you pray about the hands) are released from the hold he’s kept on them, extending to lick down your spine. and you want him, desperately and unrecognizably. 

“i don’t really know.” your own answer disappoints you, for how much you’re affected by the asking. the squeak of his gloves scratches behind your eyeline. he’s never ridden next to you; the rhythm of his horse stays behind the line of your shoulder, always.

“did you…” and you can hear he’s considering scrapping the whole thing, defaulting again to the quiet, “did you garden? before?”

“i didn’t do much of anything before.” you run your fingers through your horse’s mane. “i was eight on outbreak day.” you don’t know why you add this part.

“jesus.”

you can only nod. “what did you do?”

he considers your question and kicks into his horse a little, finally, mercifully, lining you up side by side so you can see his face. he doesn’t look at you, but the side of him devastates you just as much. “i was a contractor.” he grunts, at you or the memory of it you’re unsure. “y’know, fixin’ houses and la-”

“i know what a contractor is.”

he’s hardening and you’re watching it happen, but you don’t think you can help it. “christ, you were a kid,” and he starts gesturing with his hand now, “i figured…” but you never find out what he figures; he lets the end of the sentence brush away with the wave of his hands. you think of him, last night on your porch, and the way he’d searched so earnestly in you for pieces of his little creature, who might not be as much his as you had thought.

“you’re welcome in the greenhouse, too. you can see how ellie trims the plants and things.” he turns his face fully to you then, examining you, you think for the first time. joel’s eyes bump around and poke at the space you take up, noting where you end and begin, and though he lets you watch him think, he takes great care to tuck the thoughts away from you. even still, it makes your cunt throb beneath you and you look for your own embarrassment, but it slips between your fingers. you grin at him a little, instead. again you cannot help it, you cannot help yourself with him. “you can always help out, too, if you want.” and then, “but if you manhandle any of the plants i won’t let you back.”

he lets out a breath that sounds like amusement, but only just. regardless, it fogs in front of his face. “manhandle?”

and he’s giving you something here, by entertaining your jab at him, but you don’t know what to name it. your little grin grows curious; he’s surprising you. “yeah, they’re delicate. you have to be gentle or i’ll kick you out.”

he turns back from you to the road in front of him, but you make out the slight pull of his cheek into what could almost be the twitch of a smile. it’s gone in an instant. “alright. no manhandlin’.” and then, mostly to himself, “scouts honor.”

“okay then.”

he hums, low and stilted, and that’s the end of it. and, really, it shouldn’t shock you as it does that joel drawls like tommy, but still you bask in how he sips on his words, all honey and southern heat. the rest of your patrol falls into silence again, the elastic of the moment snapped back into place, but you remain tacky with the stick of the accent and the shapes of his voice. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

everything is muted around you, and you’re halfway shocked to find yourself running. your mark focuses ahead of you. someone is screeching your name behind your head, but you don’t dare look.

the thing you’re chasing is human. it moves like it’s new, but the size of it slugs ahead in the whole expanse of your vision. your father’s knife tethers you to its handle and you ready it in your hand.

and the killing is easy, your body suddenly pressed against the back of this poor creature, who gurgles its life out as you twist your knife in its neck. it should disgust you, and it does not, and there is nothing else to say about it.

the world falls away, then. you’re alone and the knife has been kicked from you. a deep gash traces down your bicep. the wound begins to grow, stretching from your arm to the whole of your chest, and your body is consumed, gone, gone, gone, eaten up by the hurt and the blood and the unseemly edge of skin, and

you’re awake. a bead of sweat drips a line down your neck as you heave in place. you look down, the scar covered by your right hand, which claws at it and holds it still. you go long stretches without thinking of this mark, what with the cold of jackson and the sleeves you wear; the forgetting is blissful, and the remembering nearly reopens it. you unlock the vice grip of your hand on your arm to inspect the stitching, still jagged all these years later, the seam of you raised into something like healed. and yes, the mark of your stitches remembers that someone had attempted to put you back together. but the bulk of the tissue, which healed over by way of pure spite and refusal to die, feels a lot like an indictment. alone in your bed, you clasp your hands together, and plead that god is as cruel as you have been, so she may take pity on you.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

chapter ii !! i KNOW these conversations between our little gardener and joel are tense but she’s trying and he’s trying and it will all come to a head soon i PROMISE ! hope you liked it :)🍓🤍

taglist: @koshkaj-blog (if anyone wants to be added let me know!!)

[watatsumiis]

Patching You Up series (Capitano Edition)

(looks at all the other series I want/need to write more for)

(looks away)

(starts writing a new one)

Content: Capitano helps out a mildly injured reader! Gender neutral, injury is scraped knees and hands from tripping over. Light mentions of wounds, blood, etc. Reader is described as physically smaller than Capitano simply because he's a bear of a man. Reader and Capitano have an established relationship (can be read as platonic, romantic or anything in between!)

Capitano warned you, he really did. He'd informed you that the ground outside was slippery, that you should be careful and not run, but you simply couldn't help yourself upon spotting something that piqued your interest a few paces off the path.

Now, here you are, reeling as you recover from the shock of having slipped over. The pain hasn't quite begun to set in just yet, but you can see the rough scrapes and mud on your arms and legs already, and your clothing is wet from half-melted snow mush.

Capitano sighs - it's less of an annoyed sigh, and more of a pitying one. He's too kind to remind you that he told you so, and instead just walks up behind you. "Are you alright?" His voice is deep and slow, and rasps out of his helmet like slivers of wood being carved off of a branch.

"I...I..." you trail off as the pain suddenly seems to hit you all at once and you sit back on your haunches, looking down at your hands, beading with bright red blood. "I fell." You tell him in a soft voice, as if he hadn't just seen you tumble over.

Capitano makes a soft tutting noise, walking around beside you and extending his arm out, tilting his head to the side in a silent question of whether you'd like his help or not.

You reach out for him, and he's there within moments, wrapping his big, broad arms around you as he helps you up. You choke back a noise of pain as you stand and your scraped knees ache in protest, the scraped sensation feeling as if it's burning you.

To your surprise, Capitano doesn't stop once you're steady on your feet. Instead, he scoops you up, holding you bridal-style up against his chest. You shy away slightly to prevent his hard plate armour from touching your wounds and cradle your hands close to your chest.

Capitano adjusts his grip on you until you're as comfortable as possible, then turns a slow circle, observing your surroundings. When he sets off once more, it is most certainly not in the direction that you came from.

"Where are we...?" You trail off, blinking slowly up at Capitano, though you can't make out any features through the pitch darkness under his mask.

"Hunters cabin." He explains simply, and you can feel his voice reverberating in his chest.

The steady pace he walks at is soothing and repetitive, giving you something to focus on other than the pain you're in. The snow crunches beneath Capitano's heavy feet in a rather satisfying way.

It doesn't take you long to arrive at the cabin - it seems like it was once indeed someone's hunting cabin, but had since been repurposed for the Fatui to use on field operations. The door is unlocked, and Capitano lets himself in, ducking down slightly to get through the door.

The cabin is quaint and cosy, though it seems like it's been a while since anyone stayed here. Capitano sets you down on a rickety wooden seat by the small, round dining table (haphazardly adorned with a dusty, checker-patterned cloth), lighting some lanterns with flickers of some kind of pyro-magic infused device as he scrounges around for what he's looking for.

There's not really much for you to do except watch him as he bustles about, surprisingly quiet for such a large, heavily armoured man. You can feel the pain in your hands and knees throbbing, but force yourself to keep up a brave face.

By the time Capitano returns, he has a few items in hand. You open your mouth to ask a question, but the man before you is already tending to your wounds before you can get the words out.

He's shockingly gentle and careful, attentive to detail despite his thick gloves. He cleans up your hands first, applying antiseptic and bandaging them with a sort of tenderness that you rarely recall having seen in him before.

Capitano kneels down in front of you, then looks up and waits silently for your affirmative nod before rolling up your trouser legs to patch up your grazed knees - the sideways tilt to his head is almost reminiscent of a sad puppy.

"There." He hums, once the last bandage is secured around your right knee. Though it still stings, it feels better knowing your injuries are clean, and there's something about the careful attentivess he displayed when looking after you that makes you feel warm inside.

"What are we gonna do now?" You ask him, dreading his answer a little.

Capitano straightens up to his full height (so tall his head almost brushes the roof of the rather little cabin), gaze lingering on your for a few moments before he looks around the cabin slowly.

"I..." He reaches up to brush back a tightly coiled lock of his pitch black hair. "Suppose it wouldn't hurt to... Stay a while." He concedes, gaze travelling over to the food rations sitting in the small kitchenette before finally landing on you once again.

You feel small and exposed sitting here while Capitano pins you with his invisible gaze, but the gradual slope of his shoulders tells you that he's relaxing, which isn't something you often see him do. "Stay there." He tells you, his voice a little softer than usual. "I'll go see if there's any firewood."

Please don't repost, copy, plagiarise or otherwise steal my writing!!

[sareeen]

The Deal

Pairing: Eris Vanserra x fem!reader

Summary: There is only one way to make a deal, especially for old lovers.

Warnings: Smut, smut and a little bit more smut. Please read only if you are not disturbed by the sexual content.

A/N: I would like to thank everyone who is patiently waiting for the chapters. I'm sorry for the slow progress, but I hope to have more time to write in the future.

English is not my first language so I apologize for any mistake. :)

Part 1: And we meet again

Part 2: The Pair Choice

Present:

Y/N was painfully aware that there was no way out. She had already started and must finish it.

The butler opened the solid oak door that led into the dimly lit room. The fairy light and candles gave the dining room an intimate atmosphere and Y/N knew exactly that this was Eris's plan. After their meet at that club a few days ago, her life had been turned upside down once again. That night Eris suggested they meet again, but at the castle. They made a deal, that would benefit both of them. No emotion, just sex. Violent, destructive intercourse.

But Y/N knew that he wanted to break her just to tell her what she wanted from him, because he knew she wouldn't come back to him without a reason.

Eris was now sitting in one of the neatly carved chairs at the table, one leg draped over the other and his chin resting on his strong fingers as he watched her. The loose, white linen let his golden brown skin and the elaborate muscles that lay flat beneath the fabric show. Y/N, if she closed her eyes, knew exactly how his skin would feel, how she could feel the steely muscles tighten beneath her fingers and where they would be rougher from the scars he'd acquired over the years. Goose bumps fluttered over her body, that she would soon experience these things again.

"I didn't think you'd actually come" Eris said as Y/N took a seat next to him. His amber eyes followed her movements as he sipped from the glass in his hand.

"Then it seems you don't know me as well as you pretend to" Y/N replied. It used to be common for them to have dinner or breakfast together, which usually involved laughter and light conversation. However, instead of joy, there was now a tense atmosphere and Y/N felt that it was only going to get worse and that one of them was likely to start an argument.

"Yes, apparently not anymore" Eris whispered softly more to himself than to her, then motioned the servants to leave. They did as he ordered, and the sound of the door closing sounded in Y/N's ears.

"Are we not having dinner?" Y/N asked as she felt her throat tighten. It wasn't that she was afraid of the man, but she was undoubtedly nervous.

"If I remember correctly dinner was not part of our deal" Eris said in a mocking tone and put his glass down on the table. "But enlighten me if it was."

"Oh, I was only asking out of kindness, since I know how upsetting it is for an old man like you to get out of your routine."

Y/N was overcome with gloating joy when she saw Eris' eyes flash. After a moment, however, the man leaned back in his chair and spread his arms wide, then grinned.

"Well, come over here and let's settle this quickly so I can get back into my routine as soon as possible" he offered in a honeyed tone.

The dim light and the teasing made Eris so attractive at this moment that Y/N was breathless. Suddenly she couldn't move from the emotions that were overwhelming her and Eris seemed to be aware of this as a mocking smile came to his face. This jerked Y/N back to reality and she looked around in disbelief.

"Here? Really?" The huge dining room may have been empty, but she knew that the servants were probably waiting outside the door. She had no desire to hear them together and then have them the gossip of the week in the Courts.

"In the past, it was not an obstacle, as I remember." Eris reminded her in a disingenuous tone. "You had spread your legs for me anywhere, willingly and gladly."

Y/N's blood froze at the comment.

"You son of a bitch!" she whispered with clenched fists as she was overcome with venom and jumped up.

If he's playing like that, so am I, Y/N thought to herself.

Eris grabbed her the moment she got close and pulled her into his lap. Y/N took no time and kissed him, hard. She could taste the blood and hear Eris cry out in pain, but he kissed her back. His hand wandered over her body and everywhere he touched there was heat left behind, making Y/N even more aroused. Years of repressed desire and the lack of a man had her on the edge of madness at this moment and all she wanted was to have Eris inside her. However, she had a plan and so she pulled away from his lips and peeled herself out of his grip.

She gasped violently as she stood up and looked down at Eris. The man's chest heaved heavily beneath him and his tongue emerged from his swollen lips to touch the slightly bleeding wound on his mouth. His shirt was missing a few buttons that she must have ripped off in the heat of the last few minutes. Now he was watching Y/N with fiery eyes and knew he was about to grab her to continue, so she spoke quickly.

"I came back because I need your help" Y/N was dizzy, so she leaned against the table behind her and put her hand on her chest, as if that would soothe her racing heart.

Surprise flashed across Eris's face, but was gone in an instant.

"And what makes you think I'm helping you?"

Y/N pushed herself away from the table and stepped over to him. She cupped his face in her hands and Eris looked up at her.

"Because you can't say no to me." Y/N whispered. "You still like me too much for that."

Eris smiled wryly and his hot hand covered hers, still resting on his cheek.

"I don't like you" he said with a look so intense it made Y/N's legs tremble. "I love you."

Y/N swallowed hard.

"Even after what happened? After all this time?"

"Always," Eris murmured. "I can't stop loving you, even when I want to hate you. So that's why I'll help you. Let that be part of our deal."

"Eris," Y/N whispered with tears in her eyes, but he stood up and picked her up, laying her on the table.

Eris leaned over her and pressed a gentle, soft kiss to her lips.

"However, that doesn't mean I'm letting you back into my life" he grabbed her thigh and pulled her roughly against him. "You hurt me too much for that. Just sex, Y/N and don't you forget it."

"It's not like I want to be a part of your life again" The lie left a bitter taste in her mouth after it slipped out of Y/N's lip.

Eris's movements stalled for a moment, then Y/N found herself back on her feet as he held her to his chest. For a moment they just looked at each other and the look in their eyes said it all. They wanted to hurt each other, in word and deed. Their past still haunted them and Y/N had the feeling that this time she might come out of it worse off. Eris was too driven to take revenge on her and feel the soul-crushing pain he had felt back then. If only he knew that Y/N had suffered the same way he had.

Eris turned her over in a single motion and flipped her hard, pushing Y/N down onto the cool surface of the table with one hand. Y/N gasped in surprise as Eris reached roughly under her skirt and yanked it up violently to her waist. His hot palm brushed along Y/N's thigh and reached between her legs wordlessly to touch her.

Y/N whimpered as Eris stroked her swollen clit, trying to find something to hold on to as she felt herself about to collapse from the sensations. As if sensing this, he snuggled closer and leaned over her to whisper in her ear.

"I can see you still love my touch" Eris' tongue ran playfully over the soft skin of her neck and trailed tiny kisses back to her ear. "You still burn for me, just like you did all those years ago."

Y/N was unable to squeeze any words out, so she just reached up blindly and grabbed his short locks to kiss him. Eris leaned into her obediently, pressed her lips to his, slid her tongue into his mouth and gave him a fierce, sweeping kiss that made him groan. His desire strained against Y/N's butt and even the material of his pants couldn't hide how hard he was. She squirmed and with great difficulty she managed to slip her hand between the two of them, smoothing it through the fabric. The sound Eris made was almost animalistic and he grabbed Y/N's arm.

"What?" teased Y/N, panting. "Is that enough to make you come?"

The man laughed hoarsely, then pulled Y/N's hand back and slid it down his pants so she could touch him without any hindrance.

"No, honey" His manhood throbbed in her grip as she touched him. "I just prefer it when you stroke my cock and not my pants."

Eris's laughter quickly died away, when Y/N gently squeezed and began to stroke him. She watched with amusement as his amber eyes narrowed and closed as he involuntarily thrust his hips towards Y/N.

"I see you love my touch as much as you did all those years ago" Y/N repeated Eris' words.

"Fuck, yes."

Eris's response burst out of him as a tiny hoarse moan and his shifting fingers began to caress Y/N's heated body again. Y/N couldn't believe that they were actually standing at the dining room table where they had eaten so many times before, doing just that. It was all so surreal after all these years, but she didn't have much time to think because Eris let go and pushed her away a little.

A frustrated growl erupted from Y/N, wanting to feel him. She wanted him to finally bring her to the climax she'd been craving for years. She wanted to cry at the thought that Eris might not keep their bargain and leave her hanging.

But Eris had no intention of doing such a thing, because a minute later she felt his manhood at her entrance. She didn't even have time to react, he had already penetrated her without warning and Y/N felt like she was about to faint from the pleasure that washed over her. Her palms slapped loudly against the tabletop as she braced herself and lowered her head, unable to hold herself up at that moment. Eris didn't move and all Y/N could hear behind her was him gasping loudly for breath and he was probably trying to overcome his emotions as well.

Y/N pushed herself back, used to the feeling of being filled by a man, and was overcome with a wonderful, boundless joy as he finally moved. At first he made a small, shallow movement, as if venturing into unfamiliar territory and not yet knowing what to do.

But for Y/N, that was enough to drive her completely mad, and she let out an ecstatic moan. He then, as if awakened from some trance, grabbed her waist hard and began to lash her with harder, deeper thrusts.

"You can't imagine how long I've been craving for this" Eris hissed as he fucked her harder and harder. "To be inside you again and feel you."

Tears welled in Y/N's eyes, both from finally feeling him inside her and from the aching pleasure that flooded her at his words.

I missed you too, Y/N screamed in her mind, but in reality she didn't say a word, just put her head down on the table. Her elbows and forearms ached as she leaned on them, and kept slipping from the violent thrusts, but if it had been her life she wouldn't have moved a single foot. She began to push against Eris's movements, causing a groan to escape from them both. Y/N could sense from the tensing muscles in the man's muscles and the hands squeezing her that this was going to be quick, but she didn't mind. She also noticed her groin tightening and the familiar warmth in her lower belly spreading. Eris reached under her with one hand and began stroking her clit as if he knew exactly what she wanted. And it was enough. The two together brought her to the edge of the precipice so fast that when she climaxed she shuddered and squeezed him so hard that he came inside her and collapsed on her back, pinning her to the hard wood.

They panted for a minute, Eris's lips softly touching Y/N's naked back over and over again. She couldn't even remember him tearing her dress away.

"Good heavens," Y/N said in disbelief. A chuckle erupted from her, for it had been so long since she had felt so careless as she did at this moment. "I feel like my brain is fried."

She felt Eris' grin on her skin.

"Don't worry, you're going to feel this a lot more in the following time"

The deal was officially sealed.

[cvlutos]

MUNDANE!!

♰ | Apr.17th.2023 | —K |

♰ | Epel Felmier | Gn!Reader

♰ | Romantic | Tooth-Rotting Fluff | Established Relationship | Epel really loves you | Marriage |

♰ | Synopsis: This is your life with him. It's utter bliss.

His hands do so much for you...

Light-blue eyes focused solely on your face, dancing across your skin, drinking in your features, forgetting about the multiple papers scattered across the old wooden hand carved table, a old wedding gift passed down generation to generation. That now rests in your dining room with a wobbly leg that needs to be replaced, yet always brushed off until the table tilts and knocks over his morning apple tasted coffee. A old table covered in scratches and cuts, yet hidden beneath both you and his work.

His hands gently cup your face, thumbs slowly dragging along the fullness of your cheeks, dragging along your nose and lips that taste slightly sweet. Your heart beats fast in your chest as you smile. Watching his eyes practically light up at the subtle motion, he fights back a widening grin, yet his sun redden cheeks flush with subtle color.

No matter how many times you sit in front of him, facing each other as your knees touch, as you gently press your palms against the back of his hands. No matter how many evenings after a long day of picking apples and managing the numerous jobs that come with running an apple orchard. From fighting off pesky crows or nosy children hungry for ripe fruit. It's a mundane life. One of routine yet freedom.

You watch his lips curl upwards, his nose slowly rubbing against yours. Earning a soft laugh, as he promises the entirety of your and his lifetime to this. To this simplicity.

From busy hot days, to carrying heavy apple crates, that he demands he carries, or chatting with neighboring farmers, sharing their fresh vegetables for a delicious apple pie.

To simply ending the day by sitting on the porch and watching the sunset. With mugs of tea. Or coffee. Or of whatever it is you fancy, growing cold and forgotten as you sit in silence. Comfortable silence. While he holds your hand in his tight, silently promising that this and yet to come, would be alright, and that he'd be here for you. Always.

He do so much for you...

Holding his hands, your fingers grazing over his knuckles and you pull them from your face. Squeezing them tightly, before pressing your lips against his skin. His hands littered in the tiniest scars from working, from splinters to accident cutting himself with a knife cause of his impatient, that he simply laughed as you rinsed his hand under cool water. Hands that have changed from his school years, hands that he feels slight shame for. Hands that you love and kiss, that has him sucking in a breath.

"..."

His voice above a whisper as he stares at you with wide eyes. No matter how old he grows, he's never once lost his pretty features, his long lashes and pink lips. Light-blue eyes that never change, that's filled with such love and adoration. With admiration. And as you pull away, entwining his hands in yours and pressing them against your knees, your eyes lock onto Epel's.

I love you...

It's like a whisper of wind, one that makes you laugh as flurry of kisses graze your face. Laughing between each kiss, practically lunging onto you, forcing you further into the back of the dining chair, still clinging onto your hands. While a silver ring band, bumps against yours.

ⓒ 2023 cvlutos — all rights reserved. Any sort of plagiarizing, copying, modifying, translating, editing of my works are strictly prohibited.