#do me a solid and ignore all the mistakes

[i-like-turkey]

One of the worst parts of the cancellation is that Amy et al will never understand the harm they’ve caused. I’m barely hanging on. Season 4 would have given me something to look forward to. Now I have absolutely nothing 😡

[gutsby]

Benign

Pairing: Mob!Bucky x Reader

Summary: Marrying a former Soviet sleeper agent was your first mistake. Letting curiosity get the better of you and saying his trigger words before sex was your second.

Warnings: 18+. DUBCON - Bucky is partly brainwashed; R is reluctant at first. Reliving past trauma (i.e., grief, prior HYDRA captivity). Rough, unprotected p-in-v.

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 5

Marrying into the mob meant one of two things: turning a blind eye to your husband’s crimes or taking them up as your own. Most of the women who had gone before you chose the former, leading lives of willful ignorance while their spouses cut deals, shed blood, stole guns, and submitted only to the laws of secrecy and discretion.

You, unlike those wives, hadn’t had the luxury of choice.

Your life, unlike theirs, had been sold to a man you didn’t know, by a father you couldn’t stand, and now your dad was dead, and this man—your husband—was to blame.

The least Bucky could do was fuck you hard to say sorry.

But no, ever since the Winter Soldier had reared its ugly head that dreadful night in Madripoor two weeks prior, your husband hadn’t laid one finger on your body that was not soft, sweet, and sickeningly apologetic to you. He seemed almost scared to initiate sex, and when he did, couldn’t help but act like a touch might break you.

After all, one almost had. Those hands he’d hear you beg and plead to put on you now were the very same ones he’d used to kill dozens, if not hundreds, including blood of your own blood. To the world, Bucky’s reputation commanded fear. To his wife, now, he felt duly obliged to prove he was more—that you were safe with him, not from him. He’d carted you off to every GP, hematologist, nutritionist, and grief specialist lauded among Brooklyn’s elite to make that happen. Fast. Frankly, these days, the thought of fucking was the furthest thing from his mind.

Unbeknownst to Bucky, somewhere along the spectrum of grief, you’d already come to settle comfortably at the ‘Need-to-be-fucked-until-I-can-no-longer-think-or-feel’ phase, and every bone in your body was crying out for respite in the form of ruthless, mind-numbing sex. It didn’t make sense. You hardly knew what to do with it. You should have lashed out, shut down, cried rivers and lakes of tears for that integral part of family that had been lost, but for whatever reason, you had to go numb.

You wanted to do something really, really fucking dumb.

Remorseful as he was, Bucky and his explanations for who or what the Winter Soldier was had been sparse. He’d told you that he had once been held in captivity by HYDRA, had his brain re-wired some way to make him a merciless Soviet sleeper agent, and that the night in Madripoor was the first in ages he had been ‘activated.’ How did activation happen? Of course, he wouldn’t tell.

But Steve would.

Steve had told you everything you wanted to know about your soldat, describing in painstaking detail how he worked, trained, operated, and could be called to action. You were almost certain Rogers had said it all as a way to assure you that it wasn’t Bucky who’d killed your father—it was someone inside him. You were more than positive Steve had never intended for you to use his intel like this.

You hadn’t believed him. Couldn’t believe him. How the fuck could someone sever all ties to their conscious mind and just transform anew into a killer? You got to be hell-bent on knowing for certain whether it’d been Bucky or him, it, whatever the hell the Winter Solider was, and on knowing it now. If your husband was faking it all and simply using this persona to justify the killing, that would be it. Trust gone, marriage over. If he wasn’t, well…you hadn’t gotten that far into your own line of thinking.

“Tell me what you want, doll,” Bucky said, pulling you back to the present.

He shifted gently against you, cotton trousers raising the friction a little as he slotted between your legs. He was still dressed head-to-toe from his meeting that morning.

“I want you to fuck me. Make me cum. Please.”

You were bare, save for one small scrap of linen and lace that somehow passed as a nightie. Your gaze was soft.

Bucky didn’t want to say no, but he also felt too guilty to say yes. The way you were watching him now, eyes so helpless and pleading, body writhing for contact, he knew you didn’t want his touch so much as needed it. Desperately. Couldn’t bear to be burdened with grief so you brushed it aside, to the furthest recesses of your mind until all that was left was desire. Starvation, really.

He could satiate you for now, but that hunger might not ever leave. The corners of his lips twitched into a frown.

“Gentle?” he mumbled.

“Rough,” you countered.

“Baby—”

“I really don’t need another fucking lecture on death, Bucky. I know I’m not myself right now, but I can still make these decisions, okay? Don’t talk to me like I can’t.”

Anger flashed in your eyes for a second, then indignation, then nothing. Without much energy left, you pushed him away. Flopped back on the bed and, seeming to sink into yourself, heaved a low, feeble sigh.

“I know. Hey,” Bucky leaned over to press a touch to your tummy, and it made you want to hurl, “I’m sorry.”

You turned onto your side.

“You still don’t remember what happened?”

The question came suddenly, almost from somewhere outside your body, it seemed. For the hundredth time.

“No,” Bucky answered, for what felt like the thousandth.

“This Winter Soldier—”

“He isn’t me.”

“You didn’t know?”

“Couldn’t know. Wasn’t…programmed for it.”

Bucky was watching you now, eyes as contrite as they’d ever been while you rehashed this subject to the brink of tears. He never could stay composed when he saw you cry.

“Baby…” he started, arms reaching out for you.

Eyes still filling with tears, you shook your head and swatted him off. You sat up, and your brows pinched together in a look he couldn’t read. Contemplating.

At last, you made up your mind.

You would try something new—and really, really stupid:

“Zhelaniye.”

“What?”

Bucky’s own expression contorted with uncertainty.

“—semnadtsat, rzhaviy, rasvet—”

He heard that. He immediately wished he hadn’t.

“Wait—”

You were curious. You had no idea what you were doing.

“Baby, baby, stop—”

“—pech, devyat—”

You were speaking so fast, surely it wouldn’t work like that. Either way, he had to stop you. He seized your arms, giving a sharp, deliberate shake, pupils blown to the size of saucers in his eyes. There wasn’t much time.

“Don’t—”

“—adin—”

No time at all.

“—dothisdon’tfuckingdothishoneyplease.”

Losing himself already. Feeling it stir inside his mind.

“—dobroserdechniy—”

‘Kind-hearted.’ ‘Benign’. You truly had no clue what these words were liable to do, much less what they meant.

Having enunciated this last part, you swallowed. Took the tip of your tongue and rolled it left-to-right across the backs of your teeth, waiting for your speech to take effect like some magical performance before your eyes.

It hadn’t, it seemed. You blinked. He blinked. You sat in a protracted silence for what seemed like seventeen years, and presently, your stomach began to churn. Nothing happened—you’d been right about this fuckery all along.

Then you remembered one last word of the sequence.

Faintly, you said:

“Soldat.”

The man above you straightened. Sitting. Stiff. Still perched by your legs at a comfortable distance but regarding you now with a pointed stare. Expectancy made manifest in a simple, sharp glare from his eyes to yours.

“...Bucky?”

The look on his face grew even harder. For a time, he persisted in that strange and silent grimace, and just when you started to suspect he was faking this whole demeanor of deadened stoicism, you heard a voice. Clawing out of his throat but sounding nothing like him:

“Who the hell is Bucky?”

The words drove a fear to the greatest depths of your bones, and you hardly knew why. You stared back at the handsome, barren man still watching you with severity, and you couldn’t seem to find your husband anywhere.

“James?” You weren’t sure why you tried his name again. You just didn’t know what else to say.

The scowl seeped into his mouth, and he frowned.

“James,” he repeated, like the word was foreign to him.

You found yourself shuffling back on the bed just then—to what, you didn’t know. You just felt a gnawing need to put some space between you and this person, this glowering face, however you could. When he grabbed your ankle, you let out a startled sound, and when he followed you up on the bed, you did more than just whimper; you lifted your leg to knee him directly in the stomach. He caught it.

Then he stared again, expression bloodless and wan.

“You’re scaring me, Bucky.” Your voice trembled as you tried to free your leg from his fist—grip unusually strong.

The man paused another moment, if only to soak in your words and let his gaze trail over your face. Your exertions did not register. And, for the very first time, you felt as though you were something more like a plaything in your husband’s eyes—not a full-fledged human being but a system to be gamed. The feeling was so unsettling that you had to turn away.

Or try to, anyway.

Craning your neck just far enough to spy your phone on the nightstand, your first thought was Steve; he would know what to do. But before you could even think to twist and lift your body in that direction, you felt a hand yank you to the bed, flat on your back. You looked up at Bucky and found yourself caged between two arms. He lowered himself to his elbows, shifted his weight to one side, and seemed not to notice your movements at all when you tried to slide away. The man just splayed his hand across your stomach and pressed it firmly. Stay.

You weren’t one to shy away from a challenge—or keep hope alive against the odds. You put your hand over his.

“James—”

“Zhena.”

The abruptness of Bucky’s word stole the rest of yours. You cocked a brow and followed his gaze to your hand.

To the gaps between your fingers, then the touch that fanned across them to settle on one digit in particular.

Bucky thumbed at the diamond and smiled. He smiled.

“Zhena,” he repeated.

You blinked.

“I— you...gave me that, Bucky. You did.”

He hummed in acknowledgment.

Bucky stared at the ring for what could’ve been five seconds or several years, and then he did something unexpected. He shifted his touch to the bodice of your dress—again, if you could even call it that—and he began to tug at the satin bow situated between your breasts.

Of course, this nightie being designed for honeymoons and supremely easy access, it didn’t take much effort at all for the folds of your dress to come apart. Your breasts spilled out of the fabric without so much as a hint of protest, your torso was quick to become fully exposed, and suddenly, shortly, your hands were fumbling at your chest in an effort to regain some smidgen of modesty. Your husband just shook his head, following your hands.

“Moya zhena,” he said, a touch more emphasis and fervor to the first of the two words.

Now it was you who was shaking your head. Trying to pry his touch away as you slid up the bed. When he followed, you saw the icy expression had been supplanted by intrigue and, though you still felt ill at ease, you couldn’t deny you were curious to know what he was thinking. Who was thinking it? Soft, plush lips swiftly replaced his hands, and before you even knew what he was doing, Bucky, or someone, was latching onto your left breast. Using teeth to graze the hardened nub and send a ripple of thick, guilty pleasure coursing through you.

You whimpered. Bucky groaned.

Your fingers slotted through his hair with every intention of pushing him away, but when you tried, he just flicked his tongue and made another delicious sound against you.

You pushed with even more force, and he groaned again.

Not Bucky, not Bucky, not him, you have to—

“Stop!” you cried.

A set of soft, warm baby blues darted up to meet you.

Some flicker of recognition seemed to cross them, too.

“Honey?”

You almost lurched toward the sound. It was Bucky.

Suddenly, your hands were making fists in the collar of his crisp white button-up, and you were trying to yank him up. You murmured his name in disbelief, relief, and gathered him up in your arms to pull him in for a kiss.

The lips that met you were soft for a moment—just one.

Then the teeth reappeared. Harsh, jarring, biting. You jerked back at the sensation, and when you found his face again, it seemed your husband was lost to you all over. The eyes were attentive still—nowhere near as cold and aloof as they had been before—but they did not radiate the same warmth and admiration that Bucky’s always did. You almost couldn’t believe what you were seeing. He was gone, just like that, and there was nothing you could do to stop it from happening.

A broad palm cupped your cheek to bring you in for another kiss, and you weren’t sure if you should indulge. It didn’t seem you had much choice anyway, because the lips that were seeking yours were hungry. Starved. Searing into your mouth with a force you couldn’t refuse.

But something inside you wanted to find Bucky again.

Somewhere inside this stranger was lying dormant a trace of your husband; you’d seen it yourself, if only for a second. It made you curious. Where had he gone? What did he do when forced to retreat into this strange, preprogrammed being, and how could you get him back?

“Bucky,” you mumbled, more of a plea than a moan.

You were kissed harder than you had been in a long time. You didn’t have to think, or do, or breathe one puff of air that this man didn’t account for. His tongue wedged a gaping space in your wet, welcoming mouth for him to fill, and somehow, you didn’t feel the urge to protest. A familiarity in the way he kissed almost put you at ease, and when his body lifted slightly, yours lifted with it.

Before long, Bucky was sitting. Kneeling between your legs with an eye to your soft, shaking torso. You’d barely even come to notice just how hard you were breathing until you felt a palm on your stomach again. There was an oddly calming insinuation in that one simple touch.

And again, he smiled. Brighter than before.

“Nashe?” He sounded eager as he said it.

You peered up at him and raised an eyebrow in question. Perhaps you should’ve felt more exposed; after all, you were sitting half-naked with your husband’s assassin alter ego stroking your stomach and beaming over you, eyeing you expectantly, and you didn’t know what to say. Apart from the short set of words Steve had taught you, you were totally clueless to Russian, and you weren’t quite sure you were in a place to ask Bucky to translate.

When it seemed words might never come, the gleaming teeth above you were shrouded in a tighter, close-lipped smile, and Bucky nodded. Appearing to understand. Instead of forcing a response from you, he just let his hand migrate down your belly, fingers tracing the skin, then settle comfortably—momentarily—at the crest of your pubic bone. Then he pressed the heel of his palm into the place residing right below it, and without really meaning to, you moaned. A quiet maelstrom of pleasure circled low in your abdomen, threatening to draw noises from your throat you weren’t planning to make with every gentle gyration of Bucky’s lower hand.

You had to purse your lips to contain the sounds.

Again, he nodded.

“It’s okay,” he said, so quiet he almost couldn’t be heard.

He let the friction continue for a while like that: just palming you, watching you react to the simplest of motions against your swollen, aching clit and try not to writhe. At length, you squirmed a little bit. Bucky seemed to want to wait for something to happen, and when you bucked your hips, a look in his eye said that was enough.

He lowered himself between your legs. Shoulders bumping your thighs as he spread them apart, chest rising and falling in measured breaths, and lips smiling all the while. You sucked in a breath when his face came to rest just a few inches shy of your bare, aching warmth.

“Bucky?”

The man looked up at you and blinked.

“Yeah, honey?”

One thumb traced over the seam of your cunt, and your back nearly arched off the bed. There he was, again, gaze safe and secure to yours and hands moving in tandem as they always would. His tongue calmly followed suit. When you fisted his hair, he blinked once more and then directed his attention back to your wet, warm, velvety folds with a pointed look and a purpose.

The sound that escaped you next could hardly be classed as anything less than a scream, but the soft and unperturbed demeanor of the man between your legs showed he hadn’t noticed at all. He just sucked diligently—damn near dutifully—on your clit with a vigor you’d never felt, and when you yanked at his hair, he hummed.

It was like his lips had been trained for perfect suction; that was how well and thoroughly he descended upon your swollen little bud. An airtight kiss and a quick flick of his tongue, paired with his hot and heavy breaths fanning over your cunt, sent your senses into overdrive. Your toes curled inward, your throat let loose a gasp, and without fully realizing it, your walls were clamping down, pulsing and leaking out desire for more of this touch.

Then, without warning, Bucky brought a hand to the throbbing and slick cunt that was presently clenching around nothing, and he fed it two fingers. So forceful and deep he nearly buried his knuckles right along with them. Then he started scissoring those two fingers, sharply.

“Open, milaya,” he said. Again, it wasn’t entirely Bucky.

But you felt a faint remembrance there. You didn’t want him to stop. Maybe you were led astray by the gentle laps of his tongue or the prodding of his fingertips, or perhaps there was something stubbornly familiar about the way he was touching you now. You couldn’t tell.

All you knew was that both of your hands were holding tight to his head and begging him, wordlessly, for more.

Your moans rang all the way through the bedroom in your new, far-too-big penthouse apartment in Brooklyn, down the hall, reverberating through every inch of the space until all that could be heard were your sounds and his and the delectable little noises of your bodies working together. Bucky hadn’t even stirred to pleasure himself.

You wanted that part to change.

With your hip pinned to the mattress and Bucky’s tongue laving over your clit in ruthlessly quick movements, you probably would’ve liked to cum all over his mouth and fingers, but you wanted to see him pleased even more.

Just when he’d worked a third finger inside you and was driving you close to your peak, you pushed him away.

Bucky parted from your folds with a glistening chin and two furrowed eyebrows, clearly frustrated to have been torn from his mission before you reached completion, but you wouldn’t let that look linger for long. You used your leverage in his hair—however slight, comparatively, that grip might have been—to pull him up on the bed.

Bucky surprised you with just how swiftly he moved.

His steel-blue gaze was on yours in a second, equally penetrating and soft.

“What’s the matter?” he asked.

“Nothing—”

“My baby okay?”

He surprised you again; this time by how quick his demeanor was to shift the second he sensed something was wrong. Just like Bucky. It had to be him in there.

You nodded, still out of breath from the wonders he’d been working with his tongue. You squeezed his arm and tried to coax him toward you, to help him lower his body some, and when he seemed uncertain, you offered a smile. It’s okay to touch, you won’t break anything.

Bucky eyed you skeptically, but it was clear he was more wary of himself than of you. He glanced over your body, briefly to his, then slowly, apprehensively, sank down.

“Just fine,” you mumbled, hooking your legs around his back the second his chest was close enough to yours.

You felt an uptick in his heartbeat when your heels dug a little more firmly into the waistband of his pants. While your hands started working their way toward the front of that fabric, wedging clumsily between your bodies, his gaze flitted to yours, and his brows drew even tighter together. He didn’t try to stop you, but he certainly seemed confused as to why you wanted to include him so soon. Why you cared to show concern for him at all.

You noticed that then, and in just about every moment preceding, the man was taken aback by kindness.

Whether it was pulling him closer to you, tugging his pants down with a tender touch, running your fingers across the bulge in his boxers, or simply nodding your head and letting him know it was okay to touch you back, Bucky seemed unaccustomed to any care in this area.

When your fingers made it around his cock and started stroking him, gently, he just might’ve come apart.

His chest shuddered with the inhale of a short, strained breath, and his eyelids fluttered, as if meaning to close.

Bucky’s jaw clenched, and he started to shake his head.

“No, let me—”

“Let me,” you finished for him, wrist flicking back and forth quietly. You paused just to rub a quick touch between your folds, collect some arousal, then return to touching him when he met your eyes again and allowed you to continue. You skimmed his sensitive underside with your palm and let the warmth of him bleed into your fingertips as you worked him up to a comfortable pace.

Bucky rutted into your touch, probably harder than he meant to. Then he planted a hand beside your head and anchored his weight above you so that he was close enough to reach your lips—but he didn’t kiss you.

His expression hardened again, and he forcibly removed himself from the pulse of your fingers. He frowned.

“You want me to fuck you, no? Make you cum?”

He sounded irritated again.

Briefly, you recalled your words from earlier and nodded. It was true, you’d said it to him like that, and you’d meant it. You just couldn’t make sense of what he wanted now.

It seemed Bucky couldn’t wait to indulge you any longer. He fisted his cock in one hand, angled the head just outside of your cunt, and burst in with one thrust.

“Then let me,” he muttered, plunging down to the hilt.

The first go was rough, and the second was no kinder. Bucky’s face screwed up with indifference again, like he wanted to get something out of his brain and just do.

Like there was a task at hand that needed to be finished.

You couldn’t deny it felt fine at first. Fucking edifying after all those horrific thoughts had been eating away at your mind and rousing your own hunger for numbness. The drive of Bucky’s thick girth in and out, in and out repeatedly was no doubt capable of rendering you dumb. But being slammed into and taken so roughly was only good for you when you knew he was feeling good too.

This Bucky was back to being entirely flinty and lifeless—practically devoid of all emotion as he railed into you.

The back of your head was forced into the pillow with the weight of each thrust and Bucky’s thumb pushing into your chin—‘Better, milaya? Is this better for you?’—and frankly, you wanted to push him back and ask the same.

But you couldn’t. The pace he’d set was suffocating, and the stretch of his cock inside you was unusually tough.

Instead, you sank your nails into his arm and mumbled:

“Bucky.”

The man’s thrusts were both stabbing and rhythmic, sending a welt of pleasure blossoming up in your chest. You tried again:

“Bucky.”

He blinked.

And slowed.

“Bucky,” he mumbled back.

Seemingly mindless and mechanical, he snaked a hand behind your head to lift your face and tilt it toward the sight below: his cock splitting you open before him, parting your insides with an easy, welcome glide through the slick of your folds. You watched as your arousal enveloped him fully. Not a single inch of his rock-hard, throbbing shaft was spared; even his balls were soaked. They felt even heavier slapping your ass with each thrust.

“You remember?” you asked, hating how small you sounded.

The man’s nostrils flared, but he gave a curt nod. Expression taut and vigilant, as though anticipating something going wrong at any second. Still, he nodded.

“Years,” he answered.

“Years?”

Since he’d done this? Felt good? Become this way?

No, Bucky was activated in Madripoor just weeks ago. He didn’t look like he was ready to indulge in any ‘feel-good’ pleasure, and you weren’t sure when he’d last been with anyone else before you. Years could mean anything.

You chanced a few soft fingertips up to his cheeks, cupping either side of his clean-shaven face in an effort to anchor you both to one place. The pit of your stomach was reeling with warmth, and friction, and fullness. It took everything in you just to pull him in for a quick, grounding kiss before the feeling gave way to even more.

Bucky’s teeth nicked your bottom lip. He flinched back.

You ignored the sting and repeated his name, murmuring it carefully up to the seal of his mouth as if requesting entry with that word alone.

It seemed to work. Bucky kissed you back with a gentle, albeit guarded, sort of tenderness that made him soften. His thrusts weren’t as rough and punishing as they were before. The dull, throbbing ache between your legs transformed into something sweeter, and your body no longer had to brace itself against strokes that, to you, were nearly bruising and, to Bucky, were just necessary.

For once, your husband let out a soft grunt of pleasure.

“They never let us,” Bucky said as his teeth grit together, “It’s been years.”

“Since what?”

The face above you tempered more—this time with a trace of sadness behind it. He continued to rut into you, but now his thrusts were sloppy, and it seemed as though he were battling against his own pleasure with every motion. He lowered one hand between your legs and began to thumb at your clit, gaze torn from yours.

“Close now?” he muttered.

Ignoring the question you’d asked.

“Years since what?” you pressed anyway. The tiny ripples preceding bliss had already begun to stir inside you, maddeningly, with every flick of his thumb, but your curiosity to know the whole truth was stronger still.

Bucky’s hips were moving at a feverish pace now; his free hand made a fist in the sheets beside your head, and his chest heaved with a series of short, ragged breaths that were no doubt meant to mask his moans as well. Notwithstanding the burn you felt between your legs—he really was much rougher and stronger now, you saw—you cupped his cheek again to tilt his face toward yours.

What you saw made your stomach drop.

Your heart clenched like a fist within the confines of your ribcage, and there it was—that terrible ache you felt each time you saw something awful materialize before you.

Bucky’s eyes were wet with tears. He wouldn’t blink.

He tilted his head into your touch, as if for support, but really, the weight of it signaled to you that he just wanted to feel you. Be assured that you were there. His big, broad arms seemed suddenly unable to hold his weight, and then he sank into your frame with a grunt and another stuttered breath. Like he was ready to collapse.

“Don’t leave again,” he said quietly.

The pain in your chest elevated, in bloom.

“Bucky I didn’t— wasn’t—” you started to say.

The friction between your bodies was almost too much to bear. You couldn’t be sure if you were talking to your husband, soldat, or some strange, inconceivable mixture of the two, but you could tell that this one was desperate.

Pleading.

“I can’t lose you again.”

The head of his cock grazed your most sensitive spot inside, and a whine seeped out through your teeth. Bucky’s whole body was blanketing yours, torso flush with your front and hips working an erratic cadence as he got a glimpse of release himself. He groaned out in pleasure and begged you to stay. You promised that you would. Your legs were still wound around his sides, but both of your bodies were slick with a sheen of sweat; it was hard to hang on. Bucky’s hair was wild and pushed back from his face, but his eyes were clear when they finally met yours, and you heard him mumble again, ‘Please stay.’

You didn’t know what else to say but okay, baby, I will.

You swore you would stay, and in between oaths, your mouth was consumed by a barrage of kisses—Bucky got to feast with a full set of teeth again, primal as ever—and then your climax hit. Euphoria washed over you whole with a force you weren’t expecting to feel, and you couldn’t help but cry out and whine as waves of pleasure coursed straight from the innermost depths of your core.

Bucky’s hips collided with yours in two more stuttered thrusts, and when he bottomed out at the last, you felt a heavy spurt of warmth. A groan coiling out of his chest. Muscles growing lax and two sturdy arms coming to bracket your head as your husband’s whole body weight went folding into yours. You kissed some more, in between frenzied intakes of breaths and steadying moments where you were simply trying to ground your body and get your heart to slow down to a normal rate.

You held each other in silence for a while. Bucky’s head fell next to yours on the pillow when the last of his spend had been emptied, but otherwise, he didn’t stir. At some point, his hands slid behind your back, and the second he hugged you to him, you felt secure in that embrace.

You were probably as far as you’d ever been from understanding who the fuck your husband was, but all it seemed you were capable of feeling for now was pity.

Pity for the years he’d lost to captivity; pity for what was little more than mere existence under HYDRA’s thumb; pity for all the things you still didn’t know about his past.

You held Bucky tighter, and, flooded with this strange, grating emotion and an overwhelming sense of powerlessness, you wished you could protect him, too.

“James?” you mumbled into his hair.

Bucky didn’t respond.

You squeezed his shoulder. Still nothing.

Against your better judgment, you tried to shift yourself underneath his body. You figured you wouldn’t make it far at all, but at least he would be aware that you were trying to get up. Maybe even start to move with you.

He didn’t.

It took everything in you just to wedge an elbow back, struggle to prop yourself up against his weight, and when you were about to let out a huff of an exasperated laugh and tell him, Bucky, you’re crushing me, honey, could you please ease up a little, your request was answered before the words could even leave your mouth.

At the sound of two new muffled voices carrying up from the living room and what appeared to be noises from shuffling feet, Bucky rose straight from the bed, off you.

Your gaze trailed his to the door, and you reached for him.

“Baby, it’s just—”

Bucky was back on his feet. Yanking his boxers and pants up his legs and buckling his belt in no time at all.

The movers. It’s just the movers bringing in furniture—

You moved your hand closer to your husband in the hopes of stalling his movements for half a second, but then a set of ruthless blue eyes had you pinned, quick:

“Stay.”

Your outstretched arm was taken up in a much stronger, stiffer one, and you were suddenly pulled over to Bucky.

But you knew from the eyes it wasn’t him at all.

And you weren’t so much being tugged toward him as you were being hauled to the floor. Thrown on your knees beside the bed, next to Bucky. He was about to leave.

Without thinking, you reached for one of the legs of his trousers and sank your nails into the fabric to hold him in place, to tell him again that there was nothing to see out there but the people you knew, no threat outside at all. But Bucky was deaf to your pleas, it seemed. He shrugged you off easily and made a move for his gun, expression blank, stolid, calm, hardened. Decided.

You tried to rise to your feet but were stopped.

“STAY,” Bucky boomed again, this time an order that he didn’t even deign to complete with a look your way.

If he had—if he even possessed the ability to consider anything but the immediate task at hand—he would’ve seen his own hand knock you to the floor to keep you from standing. Might’ve caught a glimpse of the instant your head struck the edge of the nightstand before you hit the ground. Could’ve even made out the first traces of blood that came trickling out from above your temple. Would’ve seen you cower back, viscerally, out of fear.

But holding the side of your head and watching him leave, grim realization twisted at the pit of your stomach, and you knew the man wouldn’t have stopped if he had.

If your soldat’s objective was to protect you from any harm lurking outside that door, real or illusory, nothing you were capable of doing now could stop that. At expense to yourself, at expense to him, at expense to whatever lives stood between the Winter Soldier and that unwavering, hardwired goal, he still would not ever stop.

Thinking of new, innocent lives in the balance, now, you scrambled for your phone the next second to call Steve.

You tried him once. Twice. A third time crawling on your knees, then standing, then staggering over to the door and pulling the phone from your ear just to send a string of texts to your friend while the thing continued to ring.

SOS

Need help

Pick up please

Bucky’s stuck and he’s

About to hurt people here

A crash sounded outside. You hurried to the door. Your hand closed around the knob and tried to turn it. The handle turned freely, but something behind it was refusing to let you leave the room. You pressed again.

“Bucky!”

Your cry was useless in the face of the barricade outside.

You pushed your shoulder and, behind it, the whole force of your weight against it anyway, trying to get out.

The line went dead. You tried again.

Now with your phone to one ear and the bedroom door taking the brunt of your hits from the other, bleeding side of your body, you scarcely heard much of anything else. The ring started. Stopped. Began again when you pressed a shaky finger to Steve’s contact name, and continued in a cycle for some time while you tried to force whatever was on the other side of the door away.

The second a voice broke through the haze of your frantic, half-crazed state of consciousness, you cried:

“STEVE!”

“Mrs. Barnes?”

You were shocked to hear a woman on the other end. Your pulse was still racing, shoulder aching from the impact of each desperate push you’d been forcing against the door, and then you stopped. Another loud something sounded down the hallway, further away, but you were too startled and unnerved to take any note of it.

You started to ask, ‘Where’s Steve?’ when the voice continued:

“This is Mrs. Barnes?”

“Yes,” you answered woodenly.

You held the phone as close to your ear as you could, but still, the woman’s words were coming in and out in bursts. You must’ve mistakenly accepted the call when trying to reach Steve—you couldn’t think right now; could barely retract the phone far enough to see a strange number displayed on the screen. You swallowed.

“—from Lenox Hill Hospital at Northwell Health—”

The high-rise medical center on the Upper East Side you’d visited that week. Bucky had wanted you tested for nutritional deficiencies and anemia, of all fucking things.

“—if you had a moment or two to chat and maybe—”

No, you needed Steve, not this outpatient courtesy call.

You would’ve liked to hang up. Should’ve hung up. In fact, your fingers were practically itching to hit the button the whole time the nurse was speaking to you, but something in you just couldn’t be persuaded to do it. It took several more seconds before your senses began to creep back, and by then, when you were about to drop the call, you heard a phrase that stopped you on a dime.

“—but the doctor advises prenatal vitamins—”

“What?” you snapped, far more harshly than you meant.

The nurse paused a beat, whether from incredulity at how rude you’d just sounded or to consider something. When she resumed, she sounded a little more guarded.

“Yes…Dr. Watkins did reach out to you about your bloodwork from your last visit, didn’t she? I thought—”

“No,” you said, rushed and painfully brusque, again. You tried to rein in your tone some before continuing, “She didn’t—didn’t reach out about anything. What vitamins?”

Another pause.

“Prenatals.”

You hated that she gave you another second to chew on that word before taking a breath and pressing on.

“I’m terribly, terribly sorry to be the one to spring that on you, Mrs. Barnes—I thought you knew…um—” The nurse was sheepish now, almost embarrassed to be speaking, “—you’re about…three weeks along in your pregnancy.”

Three weeks along.

Advised prenatal vitamins.

For the child growing inside of you.

A rivulet of blood trickled into your left eye.

Your whole body was apt to convulse, but it didn’t.

You hung up.

—

Taglist: (please lmk if I missed anyone! I can only tag 50 at a time so will continue in a separate post) @vicmc624 @she-could-never @mcira @kentokaze @identity2212 @unaxv, @buchi91, @ordelixx @stinkerbelle007 @opibarnes @wilsons-striped-ties @desigirlxx @pono-pura-vida @geminiflanagansblog @buggy14 @sky-full-0f-fl0wers @buckysdoll1520 @armystay89 @minimarvelingmarvel @kunakizen @ghostiebby06 @blackhawkfanatic @dameron-grantspector @sushiseoks @deansapplepie @mrsjoequinn @gyokujyn @lunaroserites @first-edition @kaybaby2494, @jaggedsi @excusememrbarnes @daisychainsoflove @mostlymarvelgirl @diannana @shawnberry @yujyujj @urmomsalex @mrs-bucky-barnes-73 @athenabarnes @christinabae @sluttylittlewaistenthusiast @wintrsoldrluvr @bethbunnyy @i-heart-smut @aagn360 @dahliawolfe @fantasyfootballchampion @lilyevanstan1325 @kandis-mom @thealyrs

[trulyumai]

To Honor Your Husband

pairing: emperor geta, reader

word count: 1.2k

warnings: violence, mention of blood.

synopsis: Through it all, it was you who remained by Geta's side. Even he couldn't ignore such an obvious act of devotion.

Enjoy!

The marble floors lit up in flashing waves. The hanging torches ignited the chambers with astute precision, cascading the emperor's eyes in a sheen, orange glow. 

He was upset; veins popped up angrily upon the man’s pale head, winding their way across the expansion of his temple. 

You sat there, precariously upon the bed, unable to move, to say a word of comfort. 

For the emperor was furious; what was to ease his ever rising temper? 

Certainly not you. You learned from your mistakes. Still feeling the tingle and scratch his rings made on your cheekbone. 

The last attempt you made— a month ago?  You couldn’t tell, Time was ever lost on you as of late. 

You remembered Reaching out a hand,  wanting to shush his worries, the incessant scratching of his knuckles. 

But he had turned too quick— too fast.  you could do nothing but watch and wait. 

Watch as the maroon ring crashes down upon the side of your face. Head swinging to the side, cold blood ran down your cheek, dribbling just past your chin. Staining the white and gold lace that had adorned your frame comfortably. 

It was your favorite piece

It lay in ashes now. Burnt just the night after, permanently ruined by the invasion of blood that seeped into its cloth.

He had said nothing. No apology, no look of remorse. 

He only spit in your direction, yelled at how foolish—useless you were to the crown. To him. 

“To think I married such a whore.” He sneered, shaking off the blood that dotted across the back of his hand. 

Tears stuck upon your lashes, until they sank down, wetting the pink and bloody patches with ease. 

Noticing the tears the emperor let out a cruel laugh. His lips twisted back in a way that scared you; unable to recognize such a hateful display upon your husband. 

Blatantly laughing at your very being. 

His hand grabbed your cheeks, squishing them together with a terrible force until the bones in your jaw popped with the pressure. 

“Look at you,” he tutted. His darkened eyes seeped across your trembling form, watching as your hands came up to his flexed one, weakly pushing at his jeweled fingers. 

“Tell me to stop.” Crazed eyes looked into your scared ones, unable to procure the man from houlting his assault on your cheeks, your smaller hands gave up their hold, and swung down back at the sides. 

“Tell me!” The emperor demanded. 

It was a trap, you knew it was. For no one could tell Emperor Geta what he would do. 

What he couldn’t do. 

So you said nothing. You let the man squeeze and pull at your face— scratching it here and there with the beds of his nails. 

“Pathetic.” Shoving you away, the bottom of your  dress caught between your feet, sweeping your form off the ground in a solid, single moment. 

You remembered looking up at him— vision blurry and wobbly from the vast amount of liquid pouring down your eyes. 

He looked monstrous— truly the epitome of a villainous emperor. You wished for different tidings. Different outcomes. 

Not to be here, sullying your reputation in some grandiose temple, with a man who could care less about your health. 

Suddenly— movement dashed across your sight. Breaking you from the past thoughts that plagued your mind. 

“Wife,” Geta called out. His form slack, sitting by the edge of the bed with his head slumped between his shoulders. 

You hummed back, not wanting to displease him so early in the night. 

“Am I not… worthy?” 

You stared. 

“Worthy… of what, dear husband?” 

Confusion etched upon your brow, a crease formed between them. 

Geta’s hand came up, idly swinging and gesturing to the expansion of the room. 

“Everything. Anything.” 

“You’re the emperor. Of course you-” 

“No! Without my title, without my wealth, am I worthy?”

His fist gripped onto the porcelain sheets, tightly winding them into his hold until blue veins sprouted out upon the pale flesh. 

You didn't understand- was this another trick, another ruse? 

“You… Are an honorable man, a husband-

“Just a husband?” a deep chuckle left the man's lips, it was harsh and short. 

“Not just a husband. My husband, my emperor.” His gaze lifted to meet yours, form now stiff and straightened from the tensing muscles. 

“I've abused you, belittled you.”

A shuddering breath escaped you, a bead of sweat formed upon the side of your head. 

“Yes,” 

“I've ashamed you.” 

A pause. The tension was thick, it molded across the room in waves like a pulsing heat. 

“You’ve hurt me, shut me out, made me look like a fool in front of the people.”

What were you doing, shut up, shut up, shut- 

“And have made me question my intentions… my life.” 

His eyes never left your form, he watched as your fingers shook, how they absentmindedly played with the loose strings upon the cotton covers. 

“But,” 

“But?” he jutted in. You realized then just how desperate he looked. How the look of longing passed between the cover of anger and contempt. 

“But, you're my husband. I have sworn my body, my soul to you. Through it all, even if the senate- the citizens were to turn their back upon you, I would be there- here, with you.” 

He wanted to burst out laughing at such a loving display. In a way, he despised how easily his wife could ease him so, just by letting out a few poetic lines to scrape by his mind. 

But another part of him wanted, no, needed to hear such prattling over his being. 

He wanted to be loved, not just for being an emperor. 

But for being him. 

He wanted to be honored.

To be worthy. 

Like you. 

He despised it, envied it. 

Loved it. 

You saw how his eyes lit up once more, a fiery auburn rose inside the retna’s and you knew then it was time for silence. His walls were lifted up again, shoving you as far as he possibly could. 

“Seek slumber, dear wife.” His armor clattered with his sudden movement. He walked towards the stone walkway, leading out towards the chambers. 

You were so close, so close to getting to him. You saw how he slackened with each sweetened word. How his eyes relaxed on your form with comfortability. It wouldn't end like this, not when you were near a new level with him. 

“Geta?” 

 The words fluttered from your mouth. A desperate chill ran across your body, crawling up your spine until it met with the back of your neck. 

The emperor stood still, his armor rang out no more as his movement halted with the desperation seized upon your voice. 

The way you spoke his name. 

Gods.

The man began tightening his fist, over and over so his fingers tensed with pressure. 

“What?” 

“I love you.” 

The man hadn’t meant to flinch, back bending with a subconscious twitch of surprise. He wanted to make you eat those words- shove his ringed fingers down your throat until bile burned the tips of his flesh. 

But,

In a way, it was nice hearing those words fall effortlessly from someone as loving as you. Without forcing, demanding them to spill from your pretty pink lips. 

A groan spilled from his mouth- low and barely audible. He turned quickly to drown it out. 

“Of course you do,” a teasing, mean smile lit up his face. His lips raised, white teeth gleamed against the light. 

Wasting no more time, the emperor resumed his exit, leaving you alone, to mull over the affections of a broken lord. 

[sanguineterrain]

okay i've had this thought brewing for a while and i think you're the only writer who would do it justice!

reader meets jason again post-lazarus pit and he's amazed by how different reader is look-wise. reader was a teenager the last time they saw jason and now as an adult they've gotten a more "adult" body. reader is curvier, fleshier, no longer as lean as they were as a teen and is a bit self conscious about their body. but it drives jason wild to see his old crush all grown up into this mature body, hell he's changed a lot too. but yeah i feel like jason would be so body positive and full of praise 🩷

decided to combine this with a request i got for this prompt: 8) we share the bed because this is what we’ve done since we were kids, regardless of the adult implications now. i so agree with you anon, i think jason would be simultaneously body positive and absolutely FERAL for his old/current crush ;)

jason todd x gn!plus-sized!reader. reader used to work with the bats and is best friends with jayjay. reader is insecure and speaks poorly about their body. jason does NOT like that and desires you carnally! wahoo! suggestive content but no outright smut.

****

You haven't been in Jason's room in five years.

Alfred's kept it pretty much the same. Same books on the shelves, same Gotham Knights sweatshirt Dick gave Jason for his birthday. The curtains are the same shade of maroon, and the left one has a tear from when you played with a batarang. Jason had covered for you and was grounded for a week.

You flip through a dog-eared copy of The Three Musketeers. A few of the pages have underlining in pencil. You trace them with your finger.

The door creaks open. You look up.

Jason freezes in the threshold. His wrist is bandaged and you can see stitches on his forehead. You frown.

"Hey." You set down the book and go to him, offering your shoulder for him to lean on. "You okay?"

Jason sighs, ignoring your shoulder. "Who called you?"

"What d'you mean? We're psychically linked, Jay-Jay. I sensed that there was trouble afoot in Gotham City."

"Uh-huh. That didn't work when you tried to convince the old man I needed a puppy because you psychically divined that it knew me in a previous life."

"You and that Terrier were soulmates and I'll hear nothing of the contrary."

You take Jason's arm, despite his protests that he can make it two feet to the bed. He lays down, trying to hide how his arm twinges in pain. You frown and slip in beside him.

Jason's a lot bigger than he was the last time you shared a bed. Well. You both are. You roll over so you're facing him, squished against his side. You pull your leg up, suddenly self-conscious about everything Jason might be able to see.

Jason is warm. He's warm and big and solid and good God, you've missed him.

Your best friend is also fucking gorgeous and you really want to kiss him, but, uh. Ignoring that. You're very practiced at ignoring the urge to kiss Jason.

"Thanks for comin'."

The light is still on, casting a soft orange glow across Jason's features. He glances at you, lashes casting shadows on his cheeks. You can count all the freckles on his nose, this close.

"I'll always come when you call, Jay," you say. "Well, when Dickie calls. Said you got a concussion."

He turns his head, sighing at the ceiling. "'S not a big deal. Mild concussion. Leslie said I'll be fine in a week, but we all know that's code for two days."

"Yeah, I don't think so. You bats really are birds of a feather."

"How dare you. 'M nothing like those wackos."

"Sure, buddy. Keep lying to yourself. You brought me in all those years ago for a little normalcy."

"My mistake," Jason says.

He gets thwacked with a pillow for that. It fluffs his curls. He grins at you.

You tuck in closer, resting your chin on his shoulder. Jason turns his head so his cheek rests on the top of your head.

"You can have the bed," he says.

"Don't be a silly goose."

"'M gonna go home anyway."

You scoff. "Not like this, you're not."

"Been worse for wear."

You roll your eyes. "How are you gonna ride your bike with a hurt wrist and a concussion, genius?"

"Please, babe. The real question is how will I sneak past Alfred?"

"I'm a babe, now?"

Jason half-smiles. "Always were."

"Liar. Can you imagine me in a Batsuit again? Exactly, you can't. I simply don't have the bod for it."

"Hey." Jason reaches down and gently pinches your thigh. "Why ya doin' that?"

"Doing what?"

"Talkin' bad about yourself. Don't do that. 'Sides, it ain't true."

"Jaybird." You level him with a look. "Be serious. I know you're my best friend and you have to say that, but c'mon. I've seen the hotties you work with. Hell, I've seen Bruce and Dickie."

Jason's face twists in disgust. "Do not call my dad and brother hot."

"Okay, fine. I've seen you."

His brows rise. "What?"

"What, what?"

"Are you... callin' me..."

You snort. "Duh. Have you seen yourself? You've always been cute, Jason. If you didn't have the demeanor of a honey badger, you'd be fending off marriage proposals left and right from the Gotham public. You've always been the prettier one of us, Jay-Jay."

Jason's quiet. You keep going.

"Anyway, neon's never been my color, and it seems like that's a pretty immovable requirement these days. Like, I get Clark's trying to be seen from space but he doesn't get bloated. And the Spandex? Goodness gracious—"

"Y'really see yourself like that?"

Jason's staring at you with a wrinkled brow, mouth set.

"Like what?"

"Like you're not pretty? Like I'm too good for ya?"

You prop your head up on your arm. "You've always been too good for me, Jason Todd."

"That's just not true. And you're fuckin' beautiful, so stop sayin' that shit."

You blink. "Jay, c'mon—"

"No. It's true, so stop. You're the most beautiful person I've ever had the pleasure to know, and if anybody's gettin' proposed to, it's you."

"Jason." Your face is on fire. Why did you open your mouth? "Stop. It's fine. So I'm different; my body's changed and shit. I'm not an athletic vigilante anymore. My thighs have, like, their own zip code. It's my own fault. I didn't keep up the training and whaa—!"

In one fluid motion, Jason's rolled you onto him. Your legs straddle his waist. You catch yourself on his shoulders, then begin to scramble off, burning with embarrassment.

"Sorry, I'm heavy, you're injured—" you babble, picking up your leg.

"Will you quit?" Jason keeps your leg exactly where it is, tenderly stroking your ankle with his thumb. "Actin' like I'm made of whipped cream."

"You're concussed."

"Mildly."

"Stop, Jason. Please. You don't have to do this to-to prove a point. I get it, I won't talk bad about myself."

Bit hypocritical, considering some of the stuff you know for a fact Jason believes about himself.

But this is humiliating, your extremely attractive, crime-fighting best friend pretending that you haven't totally let yourself go all to bolster your ego.

"Nah, I don't think you get it," Jason says conversationally. His hand creeps under your shirt. You squirm. "I really, really don't think you get how fuckin' gone I am for ya."

"Huh?"

"Oh, yeah. Now, that's my fault, never sayin' anything. I was being cowardly. So lemme make it clear for ya, sweetheart."

His hand leaves your ankle and pulls your face to his. And then Jason kisses you.

"You're concussed," you whimper against his mouth. "Jason, you're—"

Jason laughs, low and sweet. He strokes the side of your face. "I could have amnesia and I wouldn't forget the fact that I've been in love with my best friend since I was fourteen."

"Are you sure you don't want me to move? I can—"

"No way. Y'know how long I've wanted you on me? Shit, I sound like a creep, thinking 'bout you like that, but—"

Jason rolls you both onto your sides. He hefts your leg over his, so you're slotted between each other. Then he kisses your neck, mouth hot and desperate. You gasp, belly swooping.

How long have you wanted this? How long did you believe you'd never feel this way about another person after Jason?

"I can promise you," Jason says, breathing hard against your skin. "You're a knockout. You knock me out. And I'll knock out anyone who says otherwise."

You huff and get a little braver, kissing Jason and returning him onto his back. He grins, sharp and hungry. He wants you. There's no doubt.

"I still think you're concussed," you murmur, letting him feel up your shirt. "But lucky for you, I have the utmost sympathy for poor, bedridden bats."

Jason hums, grunting when your teeth scrape his ear. "Oh, I've always known I was the lucky one, having you."

[borderlinereminders]

Examples of Irrational Thoughts/Cognitive Distortions:

These are common errors in thinking. And sometimes these distortions can cause us distress or other strong emotions.

Black and White Thinking: This is all or nothing thinking. For example, if you see yourself as failing at one thing, you think it makes you a failure at everything. "I didn't pass my driver's test. I can't ever do anything right."

Overgeneralization: This is where if one thing happens that is bad, you assume all things will be bad. For example, "I woke up late this morning. This day is doomed to be terrible."

Ignoring the Positive: You disqualify any positive and focus on the negative. Maybe you got an A on a test, but are disregarding that because you messed up somewhere else.

Jumping to Conclusions: You ignore facts in favour of your own interpretations. You may assume your friend hates you despite them inviting you to the movies the day before because they gave you a short response.

Mind Reading: This is making a conclusion about how someone else is feeling. "My friend hates me. I can tell."

Possibilities to Cope with Irrational Thoughts / Cognitive Distortions

Check the Facts: Here’s a post I wrote on this.

Challenging Irrational Thoughts: Here’s a post I wrote about this.

Examine the Evidence: Here’s a post on this.

You’ll likely find that most of these possibilities are very similar. One of the more common ways to deal with thoughts like the above is to use evidence and logic because it gives our brain something solid to use. Just telling ourselves that our thoughts aren’t real isn’t often helpful enough whereas evidence can help make it more convincing.

I’m going to include a couple other links I think may be helpful:

Emotional Permanence: Here’s a post on it. This one I think is important to understand because if we lack emotional permanence then it makes it that much easier to forget about anything other than the feelings in the current moment which make reinforce any negative thoughts.

Needing Reassurance: Sometimes our distorted thoughts lead us to second guessing our loved ones. Here’s a post about that, how to cope with it, and how to get reassurance in a healthy way if needed.

Some General Tips:

Learn about the different types of irrational thinking and cognitive distortions. (I don’t have them all listed). Being able to recognize them can be helpful itself. I find when I’m able to realize it’s a cognitive distortion, I’m able to move beyond it easier.

Keep a list of our accomplishments that you add to. This can be helpful in times we need reminders if we often have thoughts about us being a failure anytime we make a mistake.

Keep screenshots of loved ones and/or lists of things they’ve done that make you feel cared for. This can be helpful if we often have doubting thoughts about loved ones as a result of our cognitive distortions.

Think about what you’d tell a friend. If a friend failed a test, would I think they were a failure?

Sit with the discomfort. Sometimes, we know a thought is irrational and all we can do is get through it. Telling myself “it’s an irrational thought. I can sit with it. I don’t need to act on it” can be helpful. Acting on my feelings to irrational thoughts often damages my relationships or has other negative effects. But as uncomfortable as the thoughts are, learning to just sit with them instead of acting on them prevents some negative consequences.

Journaling. You can journal about your thoughts and feelings for a set amount of time a day and then mark the irrational thoughts. This can help us learn to recognize them when we’re having them.

Focus on something else. Sometimes the thoughts are too distressing and the best thing we can do is distract ourselves. You could reach out to a friend, watch a favourite show, enjoy an activity, etc.

[leviismybby]

Brat

Levi Ackerman x fem!reader

Nsfw 18+, mdni, just Levi rearranging your guts

Talking back to Captain Levi was a mistake, you didn't really think that giving him attitude would get you here. Your hands dig into his scalp, his tongue running up and down your folds, he wasn't being gentle. This was a punishment after all, you didn't deavre a better treatment. You knew it and he knew it too....

Earlier, you were having a smart mouth on you when you talked to him. "I don't like your attitude, brat." Levi's face frowns as he scolds you, he wasn't going to let some solider disrespect him during training and ignore his commands. "Fuck it out of me then." You talk back again, of course when you said that line you didn't think it through, which is how you ended up here in his office. Your body spread on his desk as he makes you cum on his tongue again.

"Levi I can't-mhh!" He slaps your pussy. "That's Captain to you, brat." His eyes looked straight through you, your attitude was wrong and he was going to make sure you would respect him after he was done with you. You gasp as he closes his mouth around your clit again, your head gripped on his hair tightly. Levi growls against your wetness before sucking on your clit, a king your back arch off of his wooden desk.

He was so into it, so into eating you out and he hates it, he hates that a brat like you tastes this good. "The luck you had that this sweet cunt of your tastes like this...fuck.." Levi spits on your pussy and resumes back to lapping on you. You have had boyfriends and one night stand before but none of them made your body react like this.

"I'll cum again..Mhh! I have to cum!" Levi looks up at you as he continues to nibble at your folds. He doesn't slow down making sure that you cum on his tongue again. Your thighs close around his head as pleasure washes over you, he has overstimulated you so much yet, you still want to be a brat.

Levi pulls back from you and licks his lips. His eyes follow your half-naked body, your sweaty skin and parted lips. "Had enough yet?" He asks knowing that the answer is no because even before he asked you that, you started to smirk. "I have had better." A lie, Levi didn't like lies.

"You did huh? Well if that's so, turn around and bend over the desk." For probably the first time ever, you do as he says without talking back to him. You get off his desk and bend over it, Levi doesn't give you time to think, he grabs won't your hips and slams into you. "Ahhh fuuuck!" You moan, gripping the edges of his desk, he didn't even give you time to adjust.

He groans when he enters you. "Of course you're a tight one, fucking brat.." His thrusts are hard and ruthless, the grip he has on your hips will surely leave bruises on your skin. Trying your best to keep your voice down, you bite into your lip but that doesn't do much. Levi keeps snapping his hips into yours, he will not admit it but he is obsessesed with the way you feel, your pussy is perfectly warm.

If someone were to tell you this morning that this is where you would be right now, you would've laughed at their face. You stop biting on your lip, the monas that escape your lips are lewd. "Look at you, moaning like a fucking whore aren't you?" One of his hands travels up to your hair and he pulls on it, pulling your body back so he can fuck you deeper.

"Giving me all that shitty attitude earlier. Did you think I wasn't going to punish this pretty body of yours?" The way he is pulling back your hair would be painful anywhere else but you're too focused on his cock sliding roughly in and out of you. "Mhh mhhh! Ahh! Levi!"

A rough spank is landed on your ass. "Captain. I'll fuck you until you get in that thick head of yours." You yelp as he lands another one on your ass, his cock hitting deep inside of you. Your pussy starts to clench on him, you want to last as much as you can, you can't give him that satisfaction of making you cum fast but as his grip on you tightens and his brutal pace gets even harsher, he will succeed.

"You want to cum? Yeah? How embarrassing you are.." He lets go of your hair and you fall on his desk. His hips slam into you repeatedly, you start to move your hips, meeting his hard thrusts. "Oh that's it, brat. Fuck yourself on my cock." He stops moving and holds your hips as you move your hips back on him. Levi watches as his length slides in and out of your wet cunt. "Faster, brat!"

His voice is commanding and you do as he says again, fucking yourself faster on him. "Good girl." It's the first time he has ever praised you for something and you never thought this would be the reason why. You feel his cock twitch inside of your depths making you whine against the wooden surface of his table. "Cum, now." You cum again, coating his cock in your juices, Levi fucks into you a few more times before he pulls out and cums all over your back.

You try to at least catch your breath but Levi takes your body and sits you on top of his lap on his office couch. You still didn't call him captain, he has to fix that. "Ride me." It's not like you can tell him no and you doesn't want to. Taking the base of his hard cock, you position it at your entrance and lower yourself down on his cock. Whining, you put your hands on his shoulder, Levi's hands are on your waist.

"So now you're listening to orders huh? Was this all it takes for you to listen?" You move your hips at a passionate pace, he feels so good inside of you. Your eyes lock with his as you move on top of him, You don't want to admit it but he looks so hot like this, his cravat undone, his blouse unbuttoned slightly, you're starting to think that this won't be a one time thing.

Levi gently rubs your sides, his cock making it hard for you to keep quiet. Your pussy feels sore, you almost don't have the energy to move. "Levi....I can't anymore.." He scoffs. "Tch too bad, I can." He is quick to switch the positions, he plays you down on his couch and kisses your lips. "You're going to beg for me to stop, brat."

He puts your legs over his shoulder and enters you again, your head falls back aging the cushion, a loud moan leaving your lips. Levi starts to move, his thruths are rude, really rude. "Fuck fuck! Yes!" You scream making Levi grip your legs tighter as he fucks you.

"Yeah? Am I deep inside of you?" You nod, unable to from words anymore as he hits every right spot inside of you. If this will he your punishment, he better punish you like this everytime. Levi kisses your calf, slamming his hips against your heat, he is slowly getting addicted.

Your hand grip the fabric under you, eyes rolling at back of your head when your warm walls squeeze tightly around your cock. "Mhh keep clenching like that, good girl." His hair is messy and wet, his grey eyes piercing through you.

He starts to fuck you harder, his cock hitting your cervix. "Ahh captain! Too much! Too much!" Levi smirks, You finally called him captain. "There you go, brat. Was that so hard?" He slows his strokes but still makes sure that he is hitting all the spots that make you crazy.

But that's only for a few seconds before his hips starts to slam against your relentlessly. "Call me captain again and I'll let you cum." He growls, his eyes roll back when your pussy tightens around him again, his words make you feel hotter. A shiver runs down your spine. "Please captain...i want to cum!"

Your voice is in a pitch he has never heard before and he loves it. "There we go, brat. Cum for me, cum all over my cock." And you do just as you're told, cumming all over him and his cock, he fucks you through your orgasm and pulls out shortly after, his seed wetting your shirt.

Both of you pant, Levi kisses your leg and let's them fall as they shake. "Well, I'd say I fucked the attitude out of you. Look at you..." He admired you for a little while. You smile. "You definitely did, captain."

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

Taglist: @youre-ackermine @the-milk-anon @humanitys-strongest-bamf @romantichomicide95 @mrsackermannx @sixpennydame @svftackerman @hhighkey @cometlevi @notgoodforlife @levisbrat25 @randomlevithoughts @ackermendick @saenora @loveackermannn @levismylover @laurenzitaa @missyasma @sad-darksoul @thebobaprincess @la-undercover-latina

[yankpop]

Yandere BTS OT7 - Mistake

DISCLAIMER: This is a FICTION work only made for entertainment purposes that includes yandere/dark. I do not support or encourage any type of abusive behaviour. 

SUMMARY: You make a big mistake and now you deal with the consequences.

Check more: Masterlist.

OT7 x Female reader

WARNINGS: Implied Kidnapping.

AN: I really made Jimin the bad guy here, but I hope you guys like it 💖

--

You hold your breath for a solid minute, staring at the door as it shakes.

The banging on the door progressively gets more violent as the loud commotion outside of the bathroom you just locked yourself in increases. 

The realization of what you did slowly starts to hit you. 

But you know very clearly how badly you’ve messed up. 

“Y/n! Open this door right now!” Hoseok and Jimin yell, angry voices mixing in. 

“Open it right fucking now!” 

“Don’t you dare ignore us!” 

You wince as a hard punch is thrown at the poor door, silently thanking the strong wood for withstanding the boys’s wrath. 

It’s the only thing keeping you safe from a horrible punishment, although you’re not stupid enough to think you can spend the rest of your life hidden in the bathroom.  

“What is going on here?” a new voice joins, overlapping over the rest of the angry voices, and you guess it’s Namjoon from the deep timbre. 

“Look at this, hyung! Y/n tried pushing Jimin down the stairs and now she’s locked herself in the bathroom.” 

You can practically see Namjoon’s brows rising in disbelief. 

The handle moves and upon realizing that the door is indeed locked shut, there’s a new knock on the door, although this one is much softer than the previous ones. 

“Y/n? Is this true?” he questions you, voice laced with disappointment. “Did you try to hurt Jimin?” 

Hot tears prickle your eyes as the struggle to hold them back proves itself to be worthless.

They’re gonna get so mad at you. They’re gonna hurt you.

“N-No.” 

“Liar!” Jimin cuts you off, and you jump at an unexpected fierce bang to the door. “I was trying to be nice and you fucking pushed me away!”

His explanation is twisted and it awakens flames of annoyance inside you. 

Jimin is not someone you would rank highly when it came to the boys, despite having no clear favorites amongst them.

You hate them all.

They’re all kidnappers, for all you care. But Jimin is particularly pushy when it comes to you and you hate him dearly for that. 

“You’re the liar!” you scream back, still maintaining a safe distance from the door. “You…Why don’t you tell the truth, you asshole?” 

You don’t wait for him to reply before continuing. 

“Namjoon, he tried slipping his hands underneath my shirt.” you sniff, cringing at the fresh memory of Jimin’s cold hands sneaking around your belly, starved to touch any inch of your skin. “He touched me, so I pushed him. He- I didn’t realize the stairs were so close, okay?” 

There’s a moment of silence. 

“Jimin-ah, why would you do that?” 

The muffled question from Jin has a light spark of hope igniting in you. Jin is one of the nicest, he’ll surely understand your situation. 

“I didn’t grope her! It was barely a touch!” 

“Jimin…” Namjoon sighs, clearly having doubts over the younger boy’s dubious explanation.  

“Hyung, I’m telling the truth! Y/n is the one lying!” Jimin argued back, his heated temper making his voice rise. “She’s just making excuses for the fact that she tried hurting me. She’s the one who went crazy on me and tried to shove me down the stairs.” 

“I didn’t-”

“She was probably hoping that I’d break my neck or something.” The malicious tone that Jimin uses upsets you. 

“I already said it was an accident!” you try to defend yourself.

“It didn’t look much like an accident.” Yoongi contradicts you. 

“Yeah, it really didn’t.” You shake your head at Jungkook’s words, feeling yourself getting slightly hysterical. 

You want to scream and shout. Of course they’re gonna take Jimin’s side. 

“It was an accident!” your voice is considerably aggravated, and it shows. “I didn’t mean to!” 

“Then come out.” Jimin challenges you. “What are you hiding for, if it was an accident?” 

You ignore him. 

The boys argue back and forth, with Jimin vehemently insisting it's all your fault against Jin and Taehyung, who try their best to minimize your actions. 

Finally, when the argument threatens to escalate into a fight, Namjoon intervenes.

“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, guys. There’s no point in fighting like this. Let’s solve the situation like adults.”

There’s a softer knock on the door. 

“Y/n? Can you please come out?” 

You don’t even think before throwing a loud no. 

“Sweetheart, please, we’re not gonna hurt you.” Jin tries.

“Speak for yourself.” Jimin’s voice isn’t low enough to go unheard, and the hair on your arms rises at the implicit threat.

“Jimin!” several boys hiss. 

“Baby, please, just come out!” Taehyung begs. "We can talk things out."

“Y/n, we just want to clear up the situation, okay?” Namjoon tries again, using a pacific tone. “No one is punishing you without having the whole story, I promise.” 

You shake your head, heart pounding in your ears as you walk further away from the door. You don’t believe him.

In the end, they’ll hurt you. You know that. 

Curling yourself into the small space next to the bathtub, you bury your face in your arms.

Any previous anger and energy you had is now fully drained, the seriousness of your situation making you dwell into a light depression. 

You’re tired. So fucking tired of them. 

They’ve turned you into a captive, took away all of your life choices, stripped you away from your freedom. All for a poor excuse of love, as they claimed it. 

Obsessed freaks, that’s what they truly are. 

You cover your ears with your hands, blocking away their circus of begging, threatening and bribing. 

You’re not opening the door. 

It takes less than an hour for them to finally get inside the bathroom. 

By then, you’re slightly more anxious, having cried all the tears you had and yet new ones are ready to spill when Jungkook and Jin’s combined strength finally breaks the door down. 

As already expected, Jimin is the first one to stride in, closely followed by the rest of the boys. 

But what scares you the most is the terrifyingly sly smirk that he dedicates you as he bends down. One of his hands grips your hair, aggressively pulling your head back as he leans down to whisper on your ear. 

“I don’t care what Namjoon hyung said before.” he says, “But you’re getting punished. We’ll see if you can even walk after what I’m about to do to you.”

[accio-sriracha]

Lethal

A Jegulus One-Shot

⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘

James stood, ignoring the way the rain made his boots sink into the mud beneath him. He was waiting for Regulus.

The Slytherin team walked past him, each shooting him odd looks as they did. But he wasn't here for them.

Regulus paused a short ways in front of him, his arms crossed over his chest. Their eyes met and held there, he could see Regulus' fingers twitch towards his wand,

"Get out of my way, Potter."

James couldn't help but stare, warm brown captured by misty silver. The rain made his hair wet and messy in a way that was entirely too attractive to be legal. Regulus' eyebrows furrowed,

"Potter." His voice was sharp, "The hell's the matter with you?"

James focused then, finally snapping out of it. He kept his voice quiet as he spoke,

"Can I talk to you for a second?"

It was obvious this wasn't what he'd been expecting,

"You're talking to me now." He pointed out. James shook his head,

"No, I mean-" He cleared his throat and shot a look towards the players that had stopped and began watching them in interest, "I mean somewhere private."

"Why?" Another twitch towards his wand.

"It'll just be a second. I need to ask you something."

"Is here not good enough for you?" His eyes narrowed further, James could tell he didn't trust him. James didn't exactly blame him either. Gryffindor just won the quidditch cup, surely it would be odd for James to spend his usual celebration time having a casual discussion with the other team's seeker.

He let his eyes fall, big mistake, they caught on the way his quidditch uniform clung to him in the rain.

"I haven't got all day, you know?" Regulus pressed when all James could do was stare.

"Right. Sorry." He shook his head, trying to clear it.

Merlin, it was so hard to focus when he looked like this.

If looks could kill, Regulus in his uniform was bloody lethal.

"Well... I was just wondering if you'd want to go out some time?" He asked, taking a step closer, "Like to hogsmeade or something."

Now it was Regulus' turn to stare, "You're asking me to hang out with you?"

James lifted a shoulder, "If that's what you want to call it, sure."

It was clear Regulus wasn't getting the message, so James took another step, handing his broom to one of the other Gryffindor chasers, who accepted it with a mystified expression.

"I'm asking you on a date."

It took a solid three minutes for Regulus' quiet reply to come,

"Why?"

"Because I fancy you." James was smiling now that he could see Regulus' face clearly, the water clung to his eyelashes, and gods was he a sight to see.

"Why?" Regulus asked again. James would have used the term 'dumbly' but nothing about Regulus could ever be described this way.

"Because you're you."

Regulus blinked a couple times, "You... like me?" He whispered. James nodded,

"I really do." He leaned in just a little more, just enough to feel Regulus' warm breath contrast the freezing air, "Though, I'd like you better if you said yes."

"Yes." Regulus blurted out without hesitation, his cheeks turned a pale shade of pink and he looked away, "Yes, I would love to go on a date with you."

And it was the single greatest moment of James' life. He could feel his smile pulling at his lips.

"Tomorrow then. I'll pick you up at twelve."

Feeling bold, he pressed a careful kiss to Regulus' cheek before taking his broom back and walking to the changing rooms.

James sighed and leaned his head back against the lockers,

"I did it." He whispered, unable to hide the awe in his voice, "I asked him out." He looked over at Sirius, smiling like an idiot, "He said yes."

"Congrats mate, but if you don't hurry up I will actually leave you here." Sirius rose an eyebrow threateningly. James nodded and stood from the bench,

"Fine. Fine. I'm hurrying."

⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘

[darkficsyouneveraskedfor]

Called to Duty 3

Warnings: non/dubcon, pregnancy, abandonment, and other dark elements. My username actually says you never asked for any of this.

My warnings are not exhaustive but be aware this is a dark fic and may include potentially triggering topics. Please use your common sense when consuming content. I am not responsible for your decisions.

Characters: Captain Syverson

Summary: You struggle to move on from the biggest mistake of your life but find it hard to forget among the whispers of a small town.

Part of the Backwoods AU

As usual, I would appreciate any and all feedback. I’m happy to once more go on this adventure with all of you! Thank you in advance for your comments and for reblogging.

You’re tired. You’re always tired these days, but you gotta do what you gotta do. That’s going to be your life from now on. Not what you want, but what you need.  

You wait in line at the grocery store. Their in-store sourdough isn’t as good as the bakery but you can’t spare the extra dollars. You have your essentials; chicken, rice, some broth for those days when you can’t quite keep solid food down. Some fruits too for the mornings, and a sneaky pack of cookies. 

The woman behind the counter packs up here bag. She rubs her hip as you swipe your card, as if she can feel your pain. You suppose she has few aches and pains from years of standing behind that till. She hands you your receipt and asks if you need help. It’s two bags, nothing too heavy. You slide them into the rolling bag you dragged down with you and head out. 

You’re almost breathless as you get through the front doors. You get dizzy spells but the doctor says it’s just a dip in your blood pressure. You sit on a bench outside the grocery store and rub your stomach as you wait for it to pass. 

As you close your eyes against the springtime sunlight, a familiar tone nestles behind your ear. The timbre sends a shiver up your spine and your hug your middle out of instinct. You don’t look over as Thor’s rolling baritone wafts through the air. 

You stand and pull your bag in the other direction, as fast as you can. The wheels hit a line in the pavement and twists, the handle falling from your hand. It clatters to the ground and you hurried scramble to pick it back up as an apple rolls close to the top. You squat halfway and lift the handle, glancing over as silence pervades. 

Your eyes meet his and you cringe. You quickly turn away as he pulls the phone away from his ear and tilts his head. You touch your stomach again. Did he notice? Did he care? He hadn’t before. 

“Eh, been a while, kitten,” he purrs after you as his footfalls quickly descend, “where are you off to?” 

You ignore him, turning towards the curb as you look up and down the street. You need to get out of here. He stands beside you and you flinch as he puts his hand on your lower back. 

“Why’re you running away?” He says. 

You scoff, “don’t tell me I’m the one running away.” 

You drop your arm and drag the bag off the curb and across the street, as quickly as you can move yourself. You know he’s following. You know him better than he thinks you do. You turn down towards the pharmacy. 

“You look good. Healthy,” he remarks, “you’ve... filled out.” 

“Get away from me,” you hiss. 

“Don’t be rude. I’m just checking in on you, as any good person should.” 

You stop short and face him defiantly. His cheek dimples and reflects a memory back at you. The day you told him. The day he asked who you thought the father was. The day he shrugged off his responsibility on the back of rumours. 

‘Couldn’t possibly be mine. How could you know for sure? How could anyone?’ 

That grin. That taunting grin. 

“You shouldn’t be worried about being a good person, you should be a good father,” you sneer, a crack in your voice. “And you are neither.” 

He laughs, “you always were dramatic, kitten, but the way you meow for me... I hear the hormones make you wild--” 

He reaches to touch your cheek and you swat him away, “don’t.” 

“One last time, for old time’s sake,” he coaxes. 

“You are so gross,” you snip. 

“You can’t be mad at me because you opened your legs--” 

You push him. Stupidly. You shove him in the stomach with one hand. He barely reacts as you turn and stomp away with your groceries rolling at your heels. 

Your eyes sear hotly as you swallow back the protest. It was only him. There was no other possibility. No one believes. Who knows who she slept with? She was always down at the bar, wasn’t she? 

“I miss those claws, kitten,” he calls after you. 

You grit your teeth and storm towards the brick facade of the pharmacy. You shake as you try to fish out your keys. You let go of the rolling bag in frustrating as you dig down in your purse. The cart falls over again and your keyring jangles out onto the pavement with it. 

You let out a grunt and stand, staring at the catastrophe as the apple rolls out of the bag. You lower your head and steel yourself for the reach. Even at four months, with just a bit of belly, everything is so uncomfortable. 

A thick hand scoops up the keys then the apple. Sy hooks two fingers around the handle of the bag and stands. You look at him, lip quivering, and quickly bat away your tears. You dab your eyes with your knuckles. 

“Here,” he stands the bag up and drop the apple inside, then holds out your keys. 

You sigh, “you.” 

He frowns as you take the keyring, “me? I was only helping--” 

“Yeah, because you feel bad for me. Please,” you shove your keys in the door, “don’t.” 

“Feel bad? No. That’s not why... I... people should help each other. Especially those in need.” 

“Yeah, yeah, I need to close my legs. I need to figure it out,” you huff and pull the bag through the door and shove it through, “thanks. I’m good.” You take a step inside and stop, angling back to him, “you forgot your stuff at the pharmacy. They’re holding it at customer service--” 

“It’s yours--” 

“Stop,” you put a hand up, “okay? Just stop. You can go get your money back then.” 

His thick brows draw together and he grazes his hand over his buzzed hair, “I saw you talking to Thor.” 

You snort, “yeah, I ran into your buddy. So what?” 

He crosses his arms and shifts his stance, his works boots dragging loudly, “you’re mad at him.” 

You close your eyes and suck in a breath, “I don’t want to talk about this, especially with you. Fine, go back to him, tell him how pathetic I am--” 

“Why would I do that?” He sounds genuinely confused. 

“I’m not stupid. You were always down at The Horn together. Whatever this is, I’m not falling for it.” 

He squints then looks past you. Your turn and inch the door towards the frame. He steps forward and slaps a hand against the other side, holding it open. 

“He is not a man or a friend if he’s done this to you,” he says. You arch a brow as his blue eyes meet yours, “you deserve better.” 

He eases the tension in his arm as you lean on the door. He lets it snap shut and you wince at the click. You grasp the latch but don’t turn it as you listen through the wood. The friction of his hand drags down the wood. 

“I will give you better,” you barely make out his mutters as the tread of his boot scrapes on the pavement. You twist the lock and fall back against the wall. What is he doing? It has to be a trick. It has to.

[midnightfantasiez]

[00:50AM] Taste Of You - Lee Sangyeon

SUMMARY: your boyfriend was convinced that he absolutely nailed the performance for the night, and he was also going to make sure that his partner was fully aware of every single detail he had shown on stage and finally indulge in his little reward after the show.

PAIRING: idol!Sangyeon x afab!reader

GENRE: smut (18+ MDNI!!)

WARNINGS: possessive bf Sangyeon hihi 😃, TONS of kissing, hickeys, pretty much a hot yet soft steaming kissing scene in the hotel room and under the sheets 😀, teasing, mentions of oral (reader receiving), mentions of alcohol, Sangyeon is tipsy, dirty talk, Hyunjae makes a little cameo, petnames (baby, babe), a little spoiler on the zeneration 2 concert so beware, proofread once

WORD COUNT: 930

A/N: greetings🧍🏻‍♀️i apologise for being gone for so long irl has just been a total mess 😭 here's a little short one to make up for it; pls bear with me i haven't written in months so this ain't my best work 😭 but thanks to my precious sister wives @daisyvisions @aimeecarreros @snowflakewhispers for encouraging me & convinced me that this idea i had was doable ily 💗

Sangyeon isn’t a possessive guy. Well, at least when he isn’t tipsy or drunk. 

Sure, he is the best boyfriend one could ever ask for—caring, gentle, and the most affectionate golden retriever-like guy stuck in a big muscular man’s body. He was someone you always craved for attention, obviously because you knew he always gave the best cuddles and hugs after an exhausting day. 

It didn’t matter to him if he had the absolute worst or tiring day—he would always make sure that you were his number one priority, and taking care of you was always high up on his to-do list on a daily basis. 

Many people would think that after a show, let alone a 4-hour concert, your idol boyfriend would be exhausted and crash straight to his hotel room to sleep in until the next morning. Instead, he would bring you to the best izakaya in town, having a little romantic late dinner while chatting away until midnight before returning to the hotel room to rest.

But not this time. 

You couldn’t exactly pinpoint what made him snap because for one you were certain that he was in this tip-top condition today—he made no mistake on stage, had a solid one-minute solo performance during one of the songs, and hell even hit every single one of his high notes perfectly. 

The moment he was done packing up and saying goodnight to all of the staff and managers, he quickly came to look for you and grabbed your wrist before dragging you away while conversing with one of the members. You’ll have to treat them to a meal as an apology because Hyunjae always ensured he was getting all the attention and would get sulky whenever he got ignored. (You will be blaming Sangyeon for this later on). 

There weren’t many words exchanged before the both of you were back in your hotel room, and your boyfriend immediately slammed the door shut behind you before pining you against it, staring straight into your eyes before moving his vision down to your lips.

Without warning, he instantly closes the distance between you two, kissing you feverishly as if he were tasting your soft sweet lips for the very first time. A smile formed between the kisses as he tasted his absolute favourite mango lip balm he gave you on your birthday. Taking the scent from your lips, he moves them to your neck, earlobe, and eventually your collarbone—his favourite part to suck on. 

Little by little, he began stripping you down and did the same for himself before transferring to the bed and under the sheets, kissing you nonstop and making sure that you too were devouring his scent and tongue as he wrapped his around yours.

He finally breaks the kiss off since you both entered the hotel room and spoke for the first time after meeting him backstage at the concert hall. “Tell me, how did you find the show tonight?” 

“You never fail to impress me every single time,” you panted, trying your best to catch your breath before his lips connected back to yours and pushing them deeper each second. 

“Did you like the new hair, babe?” 

“You know that black hair just brings out the devil within you- It makes me go insane every time you tease me like that-” 

He chuckled. “So my plan succeeded. Next, tell me about my solo performance. Walk it through with me, baby.”

“You’re so-” 

Sangyeon pushes his tongue into your mouth hushing you for a second. “Nuh-uh, not the right answer. Come on, you can do better than that.” 

“I- You’re insanely captivating to the point that I’m jealous that everyone else gets to see it…”

“So you’d rather I just put on a one-man show for you? Is that what I’m hearing, babe?” He now moves his kisses back to your neck, sucking them gently with the intention of leaving hickeys that will appear very visibly in a couple of hours. 

Trying your best to not dive too deep into this particular topic because you know that Sangyeon wasn’t going to let you off the hook easily—hell, he’s going to tease you about it for god knows how long if you gave in to his indulgence. 

The next time he moves his lips back up to meet yours, you quickly place your fingers onto his, stopping him from planting another kiss before you decide to turn the tables against him for a second. “Your breath stinks of whiskey.” 

It took him off guard for a second as his eyes widened with your response, but you should’ve known that your boyfriend isn’t gullible and he’s quick to catch on, and within seconds he intertwined his fingers with yours, pushing them away before going in to seal his lips again with yours.

“Not like you haven’t tasted it before anyway. Besides, you’re going to taste so much better with that hint of alcohol on you,” he smacked his lips, and he quickly gave you a little peck before he finally decided to travel down in between your thighs. 

“W-What are you doing, babe?” 

Lifting his head up for one final look, a smirk was plastered across his face, and he gave you a silent warning—whispering softly about what he was going to do next.

One that you knew that you were going to be doomed as hell. 

“Your little pussy is going to taste heavenly with the hint of whiskey on them, and I’ll make sure that you’re going to moan as loud as you can for me tonight.”

A/N: btw i am unwell after what he did during the concert....iykyk (which is also why i got inspired to write this the brainrot is horrible 😔)

masterlist

taglist: @deoboyznet @kflixnet @flwoie @mamuljji @synthwxve @j4edo @serinebsblog @daisyvisions @aimeecarreros @snowflakewhispers (join my perm taglist here!)

[mari-lair]

Kou's perception of Mitsuba, and how it changes, is fascinating to me.

(Quick note: I’ll be calling the human ‘Sousuke’ and the supernatural ‘Mitsuba’ to make it less confusing)

Let’s rewind to Mitsuba’s introduction in Hell of Mirrors: Kou leaped at the idea that Sousuke was back. Even after Tsukasa told him this isn’t the same person he used to know, merely an "artificial ghost with part of Sousuke's soul", Kou subconsciously rejected the idea.

Mitsuba’s existence brought his grief back full force, and while he could sense that Sousuke’s memory doesn’t perfectly match reality, logic was never his strongest motivator in hell of mirrors, he is so full of hope and desperation: He wants Mitsuba to be Sousuke so bad.

He can’t let go of the past, he is not seeing Mitsuba, just shadows of Sousuke.

Kou wasn’t able to tell this is not his old friend, simply perceiving Mitsuba as an amnesic Sousuke.

Kou wants Mitsuba to 'remember' him when we know from Mitsuba's empty mirror that he has no life to remember. Kou calls him what he had called Sousuke and gives him Sousuke’s photos, visibly desperate to get his friend back.

Even when they get out, Kou did not allow himself to face reality, talking about Mitsuba as if he was Sousuke, pushing what Tsukasa had said away.

“I thought he was gone for good” “I didn’t think I’ll ever see him again” “Because I couldn’t save him” Is all about Sousuke, which, as Tsukasa explained, “Sousuke doesn’t exist anywhere in this world anymore”

Kou only starts to realize what he has been doing and face reality in picture perfect, when Mitsuba shows him Sousuke’s life on the windows, calling Kou out for only focusing on his dead friend, ignoring Mitsuba, and using him for his own selfish reasons.

Kou is reminded of his trauma when Mitsuba breaks the window with Sousuke’s memories in it, but it does serve as an efficient wake up call.

Kou actually looks at Mitsuba here. He is dazed and shocked but he pays attention to what Mitsuba is saying: he is able to sees him as his own person. 

Mitsuba is confident no one cares about him, so after venting, completely breaking this world's facade, he sucks up his tears and goes back to his human form, offering Kou his dreams.

This time Sousuke’s image isn’t overwhelming. Kou doesn’t want to believe in this fake world now that he can see through it: Now that he can see Mitsuba.

He understands this is his own wish, not Mitsuba’s.

He can see that this lie is hurting Mitsuba.

Kou understands that there is truth to Mitsuba’s words. During all the fun times they spent together, he had been picturing Sousuke by his side, he wanted to have Sousuke back so badly that he never considered Mitsuba’s feelings, or how his wish to replace him would be hurtful.

Kou is a selfish person full of genuine kindness: He still wishes Mitsuba was Sousuke and he feels guilt for ignoring Mitsuba.

“You can’t find happiness in a fake world” is a message to both Mitsuba and himself. Once Kou snaps out of his dream, he realizes it would only lead to ruin and tries to drag Mitsuba out of his own delusions, and while he has some points, he doesn’t understand that promising a better reality, giving him hope, is cruel.

Kou genuinely wants to understand Mitsuba, so he hears him out, and pays full attention to his distress.

There is still the solid weight of his failure with Sousuke in Mitsuba’s very essence, but despite them looking the same and being very tied together, Kou is determined to focus on Mitsuba, he doesn’t want to do the same mistake again.

I won’t go in depth on Kou’s lack of care about his own life in this analysis, but I think it is worth noticing this offer was for Mitsuba, not Sousuke, and Mitsuba could see that.

Mitsuba doesn't believe Kou can make him human, but he understands that he is serious, and that Kou will try.

He gets the feeling that maybe, hopefully, Kou cares about him too, not just Sousuke, so it freaks him out that his possible friend throws himself out of the fucking building.

The last thing Kou wants is to hurt him, so he apologizes for being reckless and trying to sort out his own feelings without considering how Mitsuba would feel.

Despite this determination to be closer to Mitsuba, he subconsciously puts a distance between himself and the supernatural. He accidentally keeps ignoring him.

Remember this:

It’s about Kou’s wish, but it shows one of Mitsuba's own wishes, one weaker than his burning desire to be human, but no less real: The wish for friends.

Friends are one of the reasons he went along with faking to be Sousuke, friends are one of the many reasons he wants to be human in the first place.

But unfortunately, this is a wish he shares with Sousuke, so Kou blocked it out, not wanting to overlap the two, even if wanting to be friends is a part of Mitsuba too.

It’s complicated.

Being friends meant so much for Sousuke, and Kou doesn’t want to be reminded of him.

Kou understands seeing Mitsuba as Sousuke is an insecurity of Mitsuba and truly believes that the supernatural deserves better, he should be his own person instead of a shadow of Sousuke. Kou recognizes this difficulty separating the two is his issue, not Mitsuba's, so he is determined to make sure it doesn't become a problem again.

This need to separate the two makes it so he can’t see Mitsuba as a friend, or if he does, he can’t voice it. He has never called Mitsuba a friend unless he was thinking of Sousuke or mistaking him for Sousuke, whose friendship he treasures. Even when Mitsuba had expressed he want Kou to stay in this world as his friend, the wish didn't register, and Kou focused instead on the far less achievable, but completely detached from Sousuke, dream of turning him into a human.

Mitsuba’s dream is important to Kou, and Mitsuba noticed that, since his vent was a moment were he had Kou full attention on him instead of Sousuke, so Mitsuba eventually used his dream to distract Kou from Nene’s lifespan and their dilemma in Mei’s world.

Unfortunately, this is, at its core, just a distraction: Mitsuba may believe in Kou’s determination, but he doesn’t believe Kou has the power to grant his wish, he isn’t expecting Kou to find a solution, and he never pressures Kou about it after, he only said this because he doesn’t like to see Kou in distress, it makes him uncomfortable, and so he needs him to snap out of it.

Mitsuba has no idea how huge this is for Kou, how important it feels, cause Kou feels as if no one had ever expected anything from him before.

Even when Hanako expected him to save Nene, Kou had no idea so much trust was put on him, because Hanako only told him this:

And Kou was frozen in time, unable to hear a thing, when Hanako added this:

So in Kou’s point of view, Mitsuba is the only one that expects something from him, the only one that depends on him. (which is diferent from people depending on his role: like his siblings needing a housekeeper)

Kou talks big but in the end, he is just an overwhelmed 14 year old: while he is determined to make Mitsuba’s dream come true and fully separate him from Sousuke, he has no way to help him, and it is hard for him to not see Mitsuba as Sousuke. It’s incredibly hard.

It may have been presented in a comedic manner, but we know this haunts him all the way to his dreams.

Add in all the romantic undertones of his interactions with both Mitsuba and Sousuke, and Kou really has a big crisis.

He only fully comes to terms that Sousuke is gone when he visits his mom and sees first hand the impact of his death.

He processed and mourned Sousuke's death, he can truly separate them now, but things are still far from simple.

What exactly is his relationship with Mitsuba? It isn’t as easy to understand as his relationship with Sousuke.

Let’s see how his wishes manifest to illustrate it. This is his wish with Sousuke:

It's the wish to have been a good friend to Sousuke while he was alive. Depending on where you read, the translations may be ‘you were my friend’ or you ‘are my friend’ but regardless, it has Sousuke wearing his death clothes and thanking Kou, which shows that Kou has moved on. He has accepted his death, no longer wishing for Sousuke to come back to life.

His wish with Mitsuba may start simple enough: Kou wants to be missed, to be wanted.

But grows out of control very quickly.

It’s strange. Dangerous.

It’s important that when the Fake shows up in the red house he is a supernatural, not a human like Mitsuba wishes to be. The fake also wants Kou to fulfill his promise from picture perfect and die so they can be together, which is something Mitsuba rejected, angry with Kou for his reckless behavior.

This wish to stay by his side forever is purely Kou, though it's not as simple as Kou wanting to die: Keep in mind that many of the house wishes are merely things Kou subconsciously wants because it would give him an easy answer to a dilemma he is being troubled by: Like when the house materialized an evil Hanako telling him to “exorcise me before I kill everyone” because all his problems would have been easier to solve if the world was more black and white.

If dying, ending it all, really was a deep wish of his the house would have shown him an easy way to die: For better or worst, the house is very straight to the point with its temptations, when Kou wished for a legendary weapon that would ‘save senpai in a flash’ the house gave him exactly what he asked for, when he got hungry it showed him food, so if he seeked death itself, even if subconsciously, the house would offer him a noose or a drop as high as a school building, not something so tied to the idea of being wanted, to Mitsuba trusting and believing in Kou.

Kou has very little self-worth and sees his own life as a disposable tool for others, but I do not believe being willing to die and wanting to die are the same. He mostly wants an answer about what to do with Mitsuba, he wants to be the one with the solution to his problems more than he wants to make Mitsuba human, and the only solution he can come up with is to become a supernatural, so the red house gave him exactly what he wants: a solution of his own making.

Kou is very self-centered, the Fake may be twisted, but Kou had always accidentally distorted his relationship with Mitsuba, the unease he felt facing the fake is likely because it isn’t what he expected to see, but it isn’t alien either, it’s similar to things Kou has thought before:

Now, Kou doesn’t want Mitsuba to be helpless, to consume his life, he have no malicious intentions whatsoever, but he does want to be needed. Kou is desperate to be needed.

He feels like he is never seen as reliable: He had bonding moments with Nene on many occasions but she has Hanako, whose actions are morally questionable at times but he does get results, unlike Kou. Teru loves him but kept him in the dark about the exorcist world for his whole life, Tiara loves him but Kou seems to be under the impression her favorite bro is clearly Teru, and anyone else wouldn’t pick him as their first choice.

In contrast, Mitsuba is very attached to him, Mitsuba has a wish that he had asked Kou to grant him, and Kou had attached himself to Mitsuba just as much as he has grown attached to the idea that Mitsuba needs him.

Kou’s wish to be with Mitsuba and his deep wish to be needed are interconnected, Kou wants so so much to help him, to not be a disappointment again, that he became obsessed. Ironically, while Kou wants to be trusted, he doesn’t trust himself, and this determination to grant his wish blinds Kou from bonding and granting Mitsuba's wish for friends. Kou does have good intentions but he is doing what he wants, he is not paying attention to Mitsuba.

Kou doesn’t want Mitsuba to worry, Kou wants to help, and he can’t see his lack of self preservation hit Mitsuba too. I personally think Kou is aware his selflessness is inherently selfish but he hates that part of himself, because he rejected all his wishes in the red house but was able to admit to himself later they are his wishes.

He seem to acknowladge this but still reject it, cause he keeps doing the same mistakes: He may have apologized for jumping in picture perfect but he keeps missing Mitsuba’s intentions.

He is at his most selfish with Mitsuba and yet, I have no doubts he genuinely cares about him.

When he does see Mitsuba again, he is happy he is ‘good’ and he has both a heavy romantic energy and a noticeable distance. In hindsight, I’m not surprised he called him an acquaintance.

Kou likes him but he isn’t sure if is because of Mitsuba or because Mitsuba reminds him of Sousuke, so Kou had put a mental block on the idea of them being friends. Mitsuba very existence was born out of his failure with Sousuke, and have a big tie with Kou’s self worth. Any romantic feelings he has are being suppressed, and yet they do have a connection outside Sousuke. Kou is so focused on not disappointing Mitsuba he sabotages a lot of chances of connecting with him.

So what are they? It’s not as simple as ‘not quite friends and not quite lovers’, they are deeply affected by each other but know so little of the other they are basically strangers. They put their wishes on each other (”I want friends” “I want to be needed”) and yet misread what they are expected to give. They want connection and are afraid of not being as important to the other as the other is for them: They are a loving and tragic mess.

I am not surprised Kou had a breakdown when Mitsuba told him to exorcise him.

At this point, Kou is able to see Mitsuba as his own person/monster, so I feel like the request to be exorcised doesn’t make him remember Sousuke’s death, but it does bring back Severance trauma: We haven’t seen a Sousuke flashback in ages, but we got plenty of little panels of Mitsuba in the severance from Kou’s pov.

Outside the distress of Mitsuba wanting to die after Kou just got him back, it’s important that Kou focuses on how he needs to eat to survive after the severance, and instead of being disgusted as Mitsuba expected, Kou takes it as a personal attack, as a declaration Mitsuba also has Tsukasa to rely on.

Kou doesn’t care that Mitsuba is a monster, it was one of the main things he used to differentiate him from Sousuke, is old news, but he does care that Mitsuba still wants to be human but have gave up on ever being one. By doing so, Mitsuba indirectly admits that he doesn’t believe Kou can grant his wish, which is a promise that Kou had put a lot of his self-worth in, so it feels like Mitsuba doesn’t need Kou.

The only thing Mitsuba seems to need Kou for is to exorcise him.

Kou needs to handle both the realization Mitsuba wants to die and that he doesn’t believe in him, that’s more than enough to break him. Add in all the repressed feeling he have, both of friendship and romance, and dear lord, please help this kid.

These two have so many communication problems I hope they talk in the next chapter.

[soulprompts]

THE SURPRISING HERO ( A PROMPT LIST! )

hello my beloveds!!! an absolutely incredible nonnie sent in a request for prompts based on the idea of someone becoming a vital part of saving the world through unanticipated events, and i hope i managed to achieve what they wanted in this list! basically i got a tonne of inspiration from comic book movies and the more fantastical vibes of high fantasy franchises, and i was going to make these more amusing, but i think there's something so hard-hitting about the concept of being thrust into greatness and heroism when you feel you aren't ready for it! anyway! enjoy, and as always: DO NOT ADD TO OR EDIT THIS LIST, AND DO NOT CLAIM AS YOUR OWN!

FROM THE UNEXPECTED HERO:

“ i’m not supposed to be here. i’m not like the rest of you; i’m not special, or blessed, or gifted. i’m just… me. “

“ you’ve got to be joking! i can’t save the world! i’m just an ordinary person! “

“ it’s funny. all these years, i’ve wanted so badly to see the world. now… i think i’ve never wanted anything so much as to go back home. “

“ so that’s it, then? i’m just supposed to sacrifice everything to save the world, all because some ancient prophecy says so? “

“ i still can’t quite believe we were doing laundry yesterday. now our biggest chore is traveling across the world to save it. “

“ i miss home. i miss how safe and boring and fine it all was. i never would’ve wanted adventures if i thought they’d be as scary and dangerous as this. “

“ they’re right to be angry, you know. everyone has a purpose here; i’m only joining you all because of some insane twist of fate. “

“ surprised? don’t worry, so was i. i don’t think it’s a normal occurrence for people like me to be part of massive quests like this. “

“ look. i’m not the chosen one, alright? i don’t want any part in any prophecy or ancient dictation. i just want to live an ordinary, safe, boring life. “

“ you think i don’t acknowledge what’s happening?! every mistake i make has costs, and those costs are often the lives of innocent people! “

“ you know, last year my idea of a grand adventure was going up the mountains for a picnic with my friends. funny how fast things change, isn’t it? “

“ i’m not a hero! i don’t know how to fight! heroes are special and unique and trained, and i’m none of those things. “

“ everyone looks at me like i’ve got the answers, but i don’t. i was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. “

“ you ever stop to question the solidity of this prophecy? because if the wording is that vague that it could name me as the savior of the world, then maybe we ought to revise it. “

“ this is stupid! putting the fate of the universe on some million-year-old prophecy! “

“ i’m not what you think i am. i’m not a hero. i’m sorry, i know you want me to be one, but… i’m just not. “

“ so you’re telling me, because i happened to overhear some weird out of context conversation, that the safety of the world relies entirely on me? “

“ don’t you see how daft this whole thing is?! i’ve got to save the world now because i happened to take a wrong turn on my way home! “

“ why can’t i just give you guys what i found, and you can go and rescue the world yourselves? “

“ i want to clarify that i’m not a coward. okay? i’m not running away from this. but i’m not exactly save-the-world material. so thank you for the opportunity, but… i think i’ll stay at home. “

TO THE UNEXPECTED HERO:

“ i get it, you know. it’s a huge responsibility for someone who’s only just realized what’s at stake. “

“ the others think i’m utterly mad for even considering you for this task. but the fact is, you’re the only person i genuinely believe to be capable of fixing this mess. “

“ would you like to know the mark of a true hero? it’s courage. not an absence of fear, not an ignorance of it, but rather, the choice to persevere in spite of it. you’re still here. that makes you one of the bravest people on the planet. “

“ don’t let anyone else tell you what you are and aren’t capable of. everything happens for a reason, and it wasn’t dumb luck that put you in our path. “

“ i don’t believe in prophecies, personally. i think the universe is far too chaotic for them to survive thousands of years. but i do believe that you being here is not a coincidence. “

“ fate only accounts for part of what happens in our lives. the rest of it is all choices. and despite how scared and inexperienced you are… you’ve chosen to stay. that tells me an awful lot about you. “

“ how selfish can you be?! running away from this destiny, this task! the world will fall into darkness if you don’t step up, and here you are, hiding from your fate like a coward! “

“ you need to learn to ignore the opinions of others if you’re going to stand a chance at doing this. this is the cost of being a hero. people will judge, not based on truth, but on a limited perspective. “

“ don’t be stupid. we’re not special or talented either; i was trained from childhood, i can fight men twice my size, but that’s not the mark of a hero. “

“ if you like, i could teach you how to fight? you may find it useful. even if it’s just to comfort yourself against these ridiculous self-doubts. “

“ heroes aren’t always massive muscle types. the inventor of new defense measures against attacks, or someone who discovered a cure for a disease, or perhaps someone clever enough to use new fuel sources in the winter… heroism isn’t always found in warzones, you know. “

“ fine. don’t do it for the fate of the world. do it for your family. your friends. do it for the ones you’ll return to once we settle this for good. save this world, not for the world itself, but for the ones you love, so that they may live on. “

“ you should know some things. most people, if you somehow perform outside of the very specific expectations they have for you, will be very quick and harsh in their judgment. it’s not something one can avoid. but you can learn to rise above those critics. remember. they don’t know the real you. “

" fear is normal. okay? we all fear things. the real killer is when you try to fight that fear. you're no lesser a hero for fearing things. expect it. accept it. embrace it. and once it's with you, work with it to fight even more. "

" you keep saying you're not a hero. tell me. what exactly is it that you believe a hero to be? "

" people make the error of assuming heroes to be golden, flawless, immaculate in both thought and strategy. it's never the case. heroes are the most flawed of all. that's what makes us admire them so. "

[the-californicationist]

Guile & Guilt (Ch. 09)

Soap/Reader - MDNI/18+ AO3 Link

WEDNESDAY — Evening: 2 days until the wedding

The worst part was the pretending. You thought that you’d be in the most pain when you were alone, sobbing in your room, clutching Marlowe like a comfort stuffie, but that wasn’t it. The hardest thing, actually, was smiling when you should be smiling. 

No, the hardest thing was staring down at his bed and knowing you had to sleep in it because why shouldn’t you sleep in it? What reason could you tell her that you weren’t able to climb into his sheets and smell his scent in your nose again?

You couldn’t tell her that the softness of his Rangers jersey felt like thorns to you now. You couldn’t tell her why you’d prefer to sleep on the couch, the floor, outside — anywhere but his bed. No. You had to smile, and it needed to be believable. It couldn’t be a masked grimace through tears like you’d been using to get back and forth from the coffee shop and your bed, unable to even make yourself a boiled egg. 

You’d come down, as planned, for the rehearsal dinner tomorrow night, and the real kicker — the stake that just twisted right into your heart — was that Johnny and his whole team would be down, too. Of course all the hotels (of which there were one) and the bed and breakfasts were booked solid. So, they’d all just crash here, as usual. Nothing out of the ordinary. Nothing except for you. 

You were anything but ordinary. You were desperate for some sort of relief from the pain in your chest. Every time you looked down at your phone, you felt it. You ignored the 47 missed calls and the countless text messages, keeping it on silent no matter what. You’d gotten calls from him, from all of his friends, even one from Ghost. You didn’t return them. You thought he had even come to your door one night, but you didn’t answer it. You couldn’t. All you could do was tell yourself to breathe, to eat, to shower, and to make it to the next hour in one piece so you could get through this wedding without falling the fuck apart. 

“You all set in here, babe?” Pidge asked behind you, watching you stare down at the empty bed, “Johnny’ll be here in just a bit so be sure to claim the good side before he does.”

She laughed. You laughed. You sounded crazy. 

“Makin’ your favorite tonight. Chicken tikka,” she was talking to you like a parent talks to a child when they know something is wrong but are determined not to pry. 

“Thanks, Pidge. I’ll come help in a moment.”

“Alright,” she smiled again and shut the door. 

You dropped your bag and waited what you assumed was a normal amount of time before heading out into the kitchen, a brave mask on in place of your face.

She set you to work after you washed your hands, and you were grateful for it. Pidge was talking for you, retracing her steps from her hen do, telling you the parts she couldn’t remember. It was as if everything she’d said to Johnny had just disappeared into thin air, and you wondered how much of that was by choice or by accident. She didn’t even remember you getting a cab. 

Now, she was gushing about how amazing her photographer was, and how he was coming down for the walkthrough. You nodded when you needed to nod; you smiled when you needed to smile. 

“...told him you’d stand in for me at the altar.”

“What?” You’d missed something important. 

“The photographer needs to shoot Hamish and I, but we cannae be at the altar until our wedding, obvi, so I told him you and Lachlan would be the stag and hen for that practice shoot. Is that alright?” She was looking at you like she’d made a mistake. 

You shook your head,

“Yeah, yeah. That’s fine. No problem. Whatever you need me to do.”

The front door creaked open and you almost dropped the saucepan onto the floor. 

“Pidge?” His voice called through the house. 

“In the kitchen!” She called back. 

You stirred the sauce. 

He must have been staring at you because Pidge made a comment,

“We’re doing chicken tikka. It’s her fav, and I thought she deserved it after what I put her through last weekend.”

“Aye,” his tone was odd, “I’ll go drop my bag. The lads are on their way in.”

You could tell he left the room. It was as if your body could sense it somehow. You wondered if he was staring at the bed. You wondered if it would feel like thorns for him, too. 

Why would it? 

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. You screamed inside of your mind. Get it together. 

You stirred the sauce. It was the only thing you could do. If someone had tried to take the pan from you, you might have smacked them with it. 

Hamish came up beside you with the cream,

“Ready for me?”

“Sure,” you held your spoon away so he could pour it in. 

“Smells great. Go sit, lass. I poured you a wine. I’ll make your wee plate.”

You smiled at Hamish and marched yourself over to the table. Price came in and saw you sitting there, and after he said hello to Ham and Pidge, he sat next to you in some sort of act of mercy. Hamish poured him a wine as well and they caught up. Small talk. Just the weather. You performed your vanishing act, becoming invisible. 

Until you weren’t. 

His eyes bored into you from the hallway as he made his way into the kitchen. He was forced to sit all the way at the other end of the table, as far from you as he could be, next to Gaz and Ghost. 

Everyone was chatting, drinking, eating. And you worked hard to be unseen. But, he just kept staring. You felt his eyes when you took a bite, when you dropped your fork, when you wiped your mouth… he may as well have been pinning you down with his huge hands; you were so scrutinized. You felt like you were being dissected, a frog on a student’s desk, your heart plucked out for examination. 

What was he looking for? Forgiveness? Wrath? You didn’t know, and you didn’t want to guess. You wanted to melt into the carpet like a fallen ice cube, to evaporate into nothingness so you didn’t have to feel his eyes on you anymore. 

Suddenly, you looked up at him, catching him. Only then did he look away. He must have seen something inside of you that answered his question. 

You cleaned up the plates, making an excuse to do the dishes while everyone else lounged in the den. 

Then, disaster. Hamish cut himself while putting away his knives. Blood rushed out of the cut and down his elbow, dripping onto the counter and the tile. You rushed over with a towel,

“Here, put some pressure.”

Pidge took over for you, and she told you,

“Go check Johnny’s bag. He’s got a wee first aid kit in there, I know he does.”

You looked around for Johnny to make him do it instead, but he’d gone outside to smoke with Price, so you jogged off to his room alone. His bag was on the bed, and you took a deep breath before unzipping it, staying tight to your mission. Then, you spotted the little red kit near the bottom. You pulled it out in a hurry, and the rucksack dropped to the floor, spilling its contents. 

“Shit,” you muttered, bending to clean it up. 

You tossed all the clothes back in, but you noticed a journal that had fallen out. It was splayed open, its spine facing you. Your hands shook a bit as you went to pick it up. Then, you saw the one thing you hadn’t expected to see: you. 

Your face was sketched out in careful detail. There were little scratches of pen for the shadows, and negative space for the highlights. Your eyes were looking off in the distance, and your smile was soft, almost like it wasn’t even there. You looked beautiful. 

You couldn’t help yourself. You flipped the page. You found a map, and a sketch with some attack dogs, but in the margin you saw Sonnet 91. You turned the page again. Your face was everywhere. Your body, your eyes, your hands… you were scattered across the paper in bright blue ink. Then, Sonnet 145. Coffee stains and what may have been blood marred the masterpieces he had left behind. You flipped again, and it was you. Pieces of Sonnet 29. Then you. You were on every page. All of the images of war and maps and guns disappeared and now it was just you, you, you.

Your heart slammed into your mouth and you couldn’t breathe. You thought of golden sunrises across the Urzikstani desert half a world away, imagining him sitting on the open tailgate of a Humvee with this book open in front of him. You thought of how closely he had watched you for months; how his hands had traced the curves of your body so beautifully sketched before you. How he had noticed the three freckles on the side of your eye, the ones you thought no one could see. 

You shoved the book back in the bag and ran back into the kitchen, first aid kit in hand. 

Pidge noticed something was wrong.

“You alright, hen?”

“Just squeamish,” you feigned nausea, pointing to Hamish’s blood. 

Johnny came back in from the porch, looking at you, distress creasing his brow,

“What’s happened?”

“Hamish…” You gestured at the injured man, pointedly avoiding looking at Johnny. 

“Don’t like the sight of blood, thief?” Price asked, using your nickname. In your periphery you could see Johnny stiffen at the comment, but no one else seemed to notice. Price continued, suggesting, “Why don’t we go for a walk.”

“Thanks, John,” Pidge smiled at him, glad that he could tend to you as she was tending to her fiance. 

You let yourself be led out of the house through the front door. Price had you by the arm, none too gently, you thought, and walked you into the cool night air, wrapping his jacket around you and shutting the door. 

He was relighting a fat cigar, letting the smoke linger in his mouth, walking slowly, aimlessly down the path, without a destination in mind, leading you nowhere. 

“Are you alright?” He asked, knowing the answer. 

“No.”

You weren’t sure why you told him the truth. He was just going to run back and report to Johnny. But, there was something in his eyes that made you think he genuinely cared, and you so desperately needed someone to care. 

“Have you listened to his side of it?” 

“No.”

“Do you want to?”

You didn’t answer. You wanted to say no, but something stopped you. 

Price stopped walking, his boots scraping in the gravel of the path, his bright blue eyes icy and a little sad. 

“Listen,” he frowned, “I’ve known Johnny a lot longer than you. I’ve seen him broken. I’ve seen him scared. I’ve seen him mad, and drunk, and happy, and beaten… but I’ve never seen him like this.”

You crossed your arms in his jacket, trying to find some warmth. Suddenly, you felt Price’s finger dig inside of the neckline of your shirt. You almost knocked his hand away, but he put up his other in a sign of peace. And when he found what he was looking for, he smiled. 

He’d pulled out Johnny’s dog tag from beneath your shirt, and you knew you’d been caught. Price held the coin up to you like the sacrament, discovering your shame, bringing your sin out into the open. In that moment, you wanted to bend down on both knees and take it into your mouth, and you wanted him to make you whole again with it. 

“This isn’t like him,” he said, the porch light made the silver gleam, and it blinded you for a moment, “He’s generous enough with his smiles and compliments, but he doesn’t give freely of himself. Not like this. Would’ve thought you’d known. He’s kept himself hidden all this time. But, not from you.” 

You cried. You didn’t want to. You bit your lip and furrowed your brow. You swallowed your spit and tried to breathe through the tears, but they came anyway. He held you to his chest, and you knew his tee shirt would be wet from your weakness, but he kept a steady hand on your back, regardless. 

He tucked the tag back into your shirt and it lay cold against that spot between your breasts; the same spot Johnny had kissed you when he’d taken your guilt from you the first night you’d been together, there, in his bed. You thought Price would make some sort of face, some judgment. But, he didn’t. He simply walked you back inside and held the door for you. 

You went through it on your own accord, and Johnny’s eyes were the first thing to greet you. He raked them over you like a forest fire, burning you from roots to boughs, seeing Price’s jacket over your shoulders and lingering on it for a while until you handed it back to his captain. 

“All covered!” Hamish chuckled, holding up his bandaged finger to you, “Sorry, babes.”

You smiled, 

“No worries. I think I’m just tired from the ride in. Gonna lay down early.”

Pidge caught your attention, 

“Don’t forget, you and Johnny have to make it before two. Pictures are at two.”

You nodded, retreating to what used to be a sanctuary. Now, it felt more like a cell. 

Your goal was to get to sleep before he could join you. You knew it would be too suspicious for him to follow you into his room, so you had the advantage of time. How strange it was to avoid what you had been craving. 

You climbed into the sheets, and you did your best to ignore all of the memories that kept rushing back. The smear of her purple lipstick across his soft earlobe haunted you like a ghost. 

THURSDAY — Midnight: 1 day until the wedding

He came in as quietly as he could, but you woke up anyway. You tried your best to pretend to be asleep, keeping your breathing heavy and long. It was pitch black, and when he sat on the bed, you heard the familiar creak of the coils. 

He pulled the covers back, he fluffed the pillow, he took off his watch, and then he just… laid there. 

You weren’t sure what you were expecting he would do. Wake you up? Demand your attention? You’d shut him out completely. He knew his company was unwanted. 

The dark voice laughed at you in your head. It knew the truth. It wanted him to fight for you. It wanted him to beg for your mercy. It wanted him to take you in his arms anyway, despite your protests. It wanted him to ignore your wishes. It wanted the animal in him to claim the animal in you, to remind you that you were his woman and that he could do with you as he wished. 

But, he wasn’t an animal. He was a man, and he respected you enough to stay on his side of the line. 

It was only when he thought you were well and truly asleep that you felt his finger graze the metal chain of his dog tags on the back of your neck, not heavily enough to wake you, but enough to feel that they were real. You wondered if Price had ratted you out or if Johnny had noticed himself. You thought it was the latter, knowing him.  

You passed out eventually, listening to the sound of his quiet snoring, your pillow soaked from tears that had spilled out across the bridge of your nose. Tears he wouldn’t be able to touch. 

THURSDAY — 2:00PM: 1 day until the wedding

Saint Patrick’s church was quaint, and the interior was minimalistic compared to other Catholic churches you’d visited before. There was something sort of liminal about the space, as if it were unfinished. You wondered what it would look like when it was full of people. 

You were standing at the altar, fake bouquet in hand, pretending to be a blushing bride. The photographer was very much in charge of this ordeal, and he was as outspoken as he was confident. 

“Okay, perfect. See? She’s perfect. Can you be perfect, too, Mr….?”

“It’s Lachlan. Lachlan Black,” he reminded him for the third time. 

“Ugh, okay. Lachlan. If only you were a little more memorable, but my brain just — whoosh!” The photographer, Gary, made a little noise and a motion with his hand like a bird flying through a window. 

“And you’re just too damn tall, you know that?” Gary sighed. 

He looked around the room, appraising all of the bridal party like a dealer at an auction, looking for the solution amongst the chaff. Then, he waved Hamish up from the front pew, getting him to stand. Gary looked him up and down, and motioned for him to sit again. With a snap of his fingers, he said,

“Hey! You. Mohawk. What’s your name again? You know what — that’s enough names actually. Mohawk will be groom instead. Nice and tall, but not too tall. Yes, yes… okay, thank you, Lachlan… buh-bye.”

You were face to face with Johnny at the altar. 

You felt the panic make your blood rush into your cheeks. It was hard to catch your breath. 

Of all the times you’d imagine being at the altar with Johnny, this was certainly not it.

You stared at your fake, paper bouquet and prayed in your mind, loudly, for a sudden plague. Toads, rivers of blood — whatever you’ve got, Heaven! Throw it down here, please. You begged for a miracle or a smiting. Either would do. 

The Lord did not oblige you. 

“Okay… better! Yes, this is much better. Cute. Can you scooch in a bit, mohawk? She doesn’t bite, I don’t think.” Gary winked.

Mohawk scooched in. You dared to look up into his eyes, and when you did, you knew you made a mistake. You were trapped in him and he was trapped in you. You felt like you were frozen in place, unable to breathe or speak or scream, no matter how badly you wanted to. 

You had a whole conversation with him in the span of those few seconds. You asked him why he’d been covered in someone else at the bar. You begged him to give you some evidence that you hadn’t seen what you saw. You told him about all the nights you’d lay awake, about all the times you’d thrown his tag into the corner of your room, only to crawl on your hands and knees to retrieve it, clutching it to you and feeling sorry that you’d done so. 

He was telling you something as well, but you couldn’t hear him. He was screaming it, you knew that much, but it wasn’t loud enough. 

Gary interrupted you,

“Okay, hold hands around the bouquet, pretty please…”

He grasped your hands, and it was so familiar, you almost melted into him. By some magical power, you held yourself together, but as the camera clicked and flashed, with every moment you lost a little more control.

“...annnnnnnd now the kiss? C’mon. We’re all adults here. This lighting is shit — forgive me, Father — and I can’t deal with the actual money shot being trash. Today, people!”

You hesitated. But, Johnny didn’t. He seemed to set himself, his mouth in a tight, resigned line, and then he held your face in his hands, just as gently as he always did. When he kissed you, he really kissed you. He didn’t fake it for the cameras, and he didn’t hide his passion from Pidge or any of the others. You couldn’t help but kiss him back, letting him guide you as he liked, his big jaw shaking a bit as he let go. 

“Perfect! Okay, and now the happy couple is smiling at the crowd…”

Gary took a step back into the aisle, and Johnny held up your hand in the air in mock triumph, posing for a gleeful moment that didn’t exist. You looked right at Pidge, but she was laughing at something Hamish had said, fully oblivious to the war raging right in front of her face. 

“Alright… well, I don’t know if I’d call that smiling, necessarily, but here we are. Okay. Mohawk, you’re done.”

The way Johnny dropped your hand made you feel like you were on fire, as if he could no longer stand to hold you, or like he had been burned. It was sharp, and you weren’t sure what you were expecting. Did you want him to linger? To profess his undying love in front of his sister and ruin her one special day? You didn’t. So you let his absence cut you like a blade, severing you like a limb from a tree. 

THURSDAY — 7:00PM: 1 day until the wedding

The rehearsal dinner venue, the Auchentoshan Distillery, was gorgeous. Johnny had spared no expense on the stylings, and there was food everywhere you looked. The cakes were elegantly plated, the roast hung shining, its drippings making the shank glitter, and even the boiled potatoes made your mouth water. 

Johnny had obviously arranged the table settings a few weeks ago, because you were sat right next to him and Price, across from Gaz and Ghost. Pidge was two seats down, and the rest of the girls were across from her and Hamish. Lachlan and the other groomsmen were on the opposite side. But, other than for the initial dinner, you hadn’t been made to sit by him much at all. He mingled around the room, talking to everyone except for you, making sure all of the cups were filled and all of the faces were smiling. 

He was an impeccable host. His charisma was electric. And he looked upsettingly handsome. He wore a kilt tonight, one of his hunting tartans, with a sharp button down embellished with gleaming pearl buttons. His shoulders were bursting through the fabric, pulling it taut against his wide back. If you looked carefully enough, you could imagine where his tattoo peeked through.

Gaz cleared his throat, whispering low,

“Have you talked to him, then?”

Your eyes tore themselves away from Johnny to stare at Gaz. You checked over your shoulder to see if Pidge had heard him, and he glanced at her, too. 

“No.”

Ghost spoke at full volume, not caring who heard him,

“Are you going to?”

Price dropped his fork so that it clattered on the plate, giving Ghost a chastising glare. 

“She’ll talk to him when she’s ready to talk to him, and it’s none of our bloody business.”

You didn’t hear much else out of Gaz or Ghost, but as they chewed their food, you could tell that they didn’t believe Price for one damn second. It very much was their bloody business.

And maybe it was. Price had certainly made it his business on your walk last night, and it seemed like your relationship with Johnny was slowly becoming everyone’s business. You had tried your best to return to that same old invisibility you were used to, but it wasn’t enough now. You felt like you were on full display.

“Excuse me,” you got up and fled to the bathroom.

When you opened the door, you saw Bekah and Anjali inside, freshening up their makeup. 

“Hey!” They said in high-pitched unison.

“Hey,” you replied, inching by them to get into the stall. 

“Where’d you disappear to the other night, babe?” Anjali called out to you through the door. 

“Just got too drunk. Took a cab,” you told her, hoping that would end the conversation. 

“Fuck,” Bekah laughed, “That was me, too. Did Cherise tell you about that bloke at Max’s?”

“No,” you said, captivated like a prisoner.

“Arsehole thought he could put something in my drink. Soap saw him and beat him within an inch of his fuckin’ life! You should’ve seen the man. Needed a damn doctor, so he did,” Bekah confessed.

“Oh, I’m so sorry,” you said, genuinely. Bekah was not your friend, but she didn’t deserve to be assaulted. 

Anjali laughed,

“Soap had to carry her out! She was stumblin’ all over the road.”

“Wasnae my fault!” Bekah protested, “But, he was a gentleman. Drove me home. Him and Gaz.”

“Oh, that Gaz is fine, no?” Anjali interrupted. 

“Aye. I thought Johnny might kiss me back, just this once, but he still didn’t. That lad is harder to wear down than the goddamn Pope, I swear. I’ve given up.”

“Didn’t you sleep together?” You asked, torturing yourself. 

“God, no! He won’t have any of us. Pidge thinks he has, but I’ve never slept with him. Definitely would though,” Bekah gushed. 

“Hasn’t Cherise?” Anjali asked.

“No! Cannae believe it. All this talk for being a big slut and he’s a choir boy,” you could hear Bekah’s voice get louder with her disbelief.

“Shame,” Anjali lamented.

“Aye, a shame,” Bekah agreed, “Was he a good kisser? He looked it. You were quite a pair up at the altar. Maybe he’d go for you, hen.”

You pulled open the stall door and joined them at the sink. Your hands were trembling. 

“Babes,” Bekah noticed, “Are you alright? You havnae seemed well since the hen do. You’re working too hard for this wedding.”

“I’m alright. I think I just need some fresh air,” you smiled, pushing your way out of the door.

When you walked back into the main hall, everyone was standing. A waitress with a tray found you and handed you a glass of champagne. You moved to the side around the crowd to see what all the commotion was, and it was Johnny. He was standing next to Pidge with his glass raised high, clinking it delicately with the side of his fork. 

“Alright, alright. Settle down,” he smiled at his sister, “I know Lachlan is the one supposed to be up here haverin’ about Hamish, but he was kind enough to give me his go because I needed to talk to my sister.”

His eyes found you and settled there, no longer scanning the crowd. You watched him take a breath before he continued,

“If you dinnae ken me, I am Johnny MacTavish, Sergeant of His Majesty’s Special Air Service —” he was interrupted by proud applause, “Uh, thank you. And I am the younger brother of our darling Brigette here. While I was away, Pidge has taken care of my life for me. She took care of our ma when she was ill, and she buried our da without me. She managed to keep the wee house from fallin’ into the river, and still she has time to volunteer at Saint Mary’s children’s ward on the odd weekend.”

More applause. He paused and went on,

“All that to say, my sister doesnae need anyone. But, love isnae about need. It’s about choosin’ to be with a person who makes you feel like you can be yourself, that you can confess to all the desires and the wants and the hopes and the fears that you have inside of you, and you know that they understand you. They see you for who you are, and they love you for it anyway. 

Love isnae patient, and it certainly isnae bloody kind. It loves to boast! And it falls prey to envy. Love is in a rush, and it eats you alive from the inside out. Love isnae about needing. It’s want, pure and simple. To Hammie and Pidge, may you live a hundred years, and may you want each other endlessly in each of them. Slàinte mhath.” 

“Slàinte mhath!”

You drank your champagne, numb and panicking.

Someone shoved a small microphone onto the strap of your dress, clicking it in place, and you stared down at it while everyone else stared at you, waiting.

You breathed into the mic, listening to your breath come through the speakers. You wanted to talk to him, to tell him you’d learned the truth. But, you were surrounded, literally, by all of his friends and family. There was no worse time for your truth-telling. So, you tried to lean on the speech you remember preparing, mashing it together with words that kept pouring from your heart.

“Hello,” you tried out a smile, “I’ve known Brigette for years, and she is the only real family I have. I’m not Scottish. I know the accent gives it away,” some polite laughter, “But, I’m wearing the MacTavish boar around my neck because Pidge welcomed me here with open arms and took me in as if I had been here the whole time. Like it was the most natural thing to do. She’s selfless in all the ways you should be, and she always promised that I would have a home with her. And I love her dearly for that.”

You spoke directly to Johnny, just as he did to you, 

“I’ve been thinking about selflessness, and about making promises. I’ve been thinking about the type of man who does the right thing, even when it’s hard. I’ve been thinking about the type of man who breaks a promise when he needs to break one, and I’ve been thinking about the consequences of our actions. But, when you love someone, the consequence is just… more love. There’s really nothing else, is there? You could get a shovel and dig until you reach the bottom of the earth looking for them, but there are no real consequences when you’re in love. It trumps… everything.” 

You paused for a long time. Johnny was captivated by your eyes, hanging on every word, and you’d been silent for too long. You said, directly to Pidge,

“So, I hope, when you’re wondering if you’ve done the right thing or not, and you’re digging around for the consequences of that, I hope you just keep pulling out more and more love. Just love all the way down. Forever. Cheers, to Hamish and Pidge.”

“Cheers!”

You finished your champagne and walked over to Pidge. Everyone was applauding and talking loudly again, laughing and sharing their own joys about the happy couple. You were overwhelmed, but you wanted to see her. 

Pidge held out her arms and folded them around you, clutching you tightly to her chest, whispering I love yous and thank yous into your skin. You kissed her on the cheek, whispering to her,

“I’m gonna step outside for a moment, are you alright for now?”

“Yes! Go. Take Johnny with you. When he gets sappy, he starts to hover,” she swatted Johnny away as he leaned in to kiss her, fighting through her protests. 

She gave in, melting into him and smiling as he planted a kiss to her cheek. 

“I love you, Pidge,” he said to her, not letting her go.

“I love you, too, Johnny-boy. And I’m sorry for all the mean things I’ve said. You’ve changed. I dinnae ken what’s gotten into you, but all this…” She looked around at the reception hall, “All this has made me realize that you finally see me, you finally see what I’ve been going through, and I’ve been unfair. Thank you, brother.”

He kissed her forehead, trying to blink away tears as he did so, lingering with his lips on her skin before removing himself from her embrace. 

“C’mon,” he nodded at you and took you by the hand, right in front of her, leading you out to the back courtyard. 

The distillery was situated right next to its water source, north of the River Clyde, and the waters churned from a pump run by the whisky makers. The flow of the water was invigorating and challenging, but the calmness of the lake itself was still and quiet; a dichotomy. It was the same within you, a roiling, tumbling sea of glass, ready to shatter.

Johnny turned and looked at you like he knew what you would say. As he approached you, slowly, he held up his hands, trying to hide that they were shaking, offering peace, carrying no weapon, for once. You unfolded your arms, still clutching yourself around your waist, waiting for him to prove you wrong, for him to confirm the truth you’d overheard from Bekah. 

“Are you willing to hear me now, thief?”

“I already heard,” you said, “From Bekah. And I saw your journal.”

He was speechless. All of the things he’d planned to say to you had dried up, and now he was left chewing on their remains. He put his hands on his hips and looked out at the water,

“I’m so goddamn in love with you, it hurts.”

He pinned you with his gaze, then. Watching you take in his confession. He continued,

“It hurts when I wake up, and it hurts when I go to bed. I dinnae ken how to stop it from hurtin’ like this. Feels like I’m burnin’ up, like I’m on fire inside of me. And when you left me, I…” he had trouble forming the words, “I wasnae… I couldnae ken how bad it would be. It was worse, somehow, and I was prayin’ to whatever god that would hear me for some sort of mercy. And I had none. Until I saw, or I thought I saw…”

He came closer to you, reaching around your neck and pulling out his tags just like Price had done. His eyes shone with unshed tears. 

“You made me hope.”

He took your hand in his and held it tightly, as tightly as he dared, and looked you right in the face, 

“I didnae sleep with Bekah, nor Cherise, nor Anjali.”

“I know.”

“I didnae want to, either.”

“I know.”

“I’m in love with you, mèirleach.”

“I’m in love with you, too.”

Johnny used his tags around your neck to pull you into him, kissing you harshly, not allowing you to let go. You kissed him back, pressing at him with your tongue, tasting the champagne in his mouth, feeling his shaven face bristle against your smooth cheek. He moaned into you, speaking to you in a low whisper,

“Please, mèirleach, forgive me.”

“Johnny, there’s nothing to forgive.”

He hugged you to him and you rested your head against his neck, finally able to relax into him after days of being on a knife’s edge. 

But, you were distracted by the sound of a loud knocking against glass. You turned back toward the distillery and saw Ghost tapping on the huge floor to ceiling window and pointing to a microphone in his hand. You looked down and realized you never handed them back the mic from your speech. You were still wearing it, and the red light was on. 

You showed it to Johnny, stunned by your own idiocy. He spun to see Ghost waving slightly, and the rest of the wedding party — hell, the whole distillery — standing behind him in shock

+=+=+=+=+=+=+

Chapter 10 (Ending)

[milliesfishes]

hello your writing is so beautiful and has deadass made me cry i love you so much !

could you write one about billy accidentally snapping you and feeling really bad about it when you get upset about it?

again i love you so much thank you for being my favorite writer!!

thank you lovey!! <3 (this took an angsty turn) 𝜗𝜚 ࣪˖ ִ𐙚𝓫𝓲𝓵𝓵𝔂 𝓼𝓷𝓪𝓹𝓼 𝓪𝓽 𝔂𝓸𝓾𝜗𝜚 ࣪˖ ִ𐙚 𝓯𝓮𝓶 𝓻𝓮𝓪𝓭𝓮𝓻 𝔁 𝓫𝓲𝓵𝓵𝔂 𝓽𝓱𝓮 𝓴𝓲𝓭

Silence stretched out across the room, doing a lap and settling back on top of you and Billy, sitting on the bed side by side.

You were staring at your lap, eyes wide and filled with tears. All you could focus on right now was not letting them fall. And you knew with one look at him they would come pouring down.

The thoughts swirling through your mind were panicked, and worst of all, uncharted. How could you have ever been ready for this? At your age, with your lack of experience, how could you have known love and new lust would lead to this result?

Your hand twitched, wanting to cover your tummy, but you resisted. The new life inside you was daunting, terrifying. You feared it, even though it was already coming to fruition. With this new knowledge had come improved vision apparently, because now the slight curve of your stomach was visible, your body having made room for the forming baby inside you without your knowing consent.

The news had stiffened you. It stitched a line between you and Billy, one that would leave your lives changed forever. Who knew one night could have such an impact on you? Suddenly you felt a thousand years older. Yesterday you had been so foolish, so naive.

Finally, Billy broke the silence. He shifted in his spot, turning his head to look at you. "Honey...this ain't your fault."

You looked at him somberly. "Right."

"I mean it, baby," he said quietly, reaching out for your hand. Grasping it in his, Billy squeezed your fingers. "I know you. I know you'll find a way to blame yourself whether it's really you or not."

It was almost scary how well he knew you. The only thought that turned the corners of your head and came back around had been that single one of guilt. You had made a choice, one that had lasting consequences. And now here you were, unmarried and pregnant at nineteen. You could practically hear your mother's voice in your head scolding you.

Putting your head in your hands, your fingers curled around your eyes as if wanting to tear them out. “What have I done?” Your words were dry and self-loathing, cursing yourself for what had happened.

“It isn’t ideal,” he agreed, the hand you’d dropped reaching up to rub your back. “But I don’t wantcha blamin’ yourself.”

“I was so stupid Billy,” your words tumbled out of your mouth like dominoes, a decrescendo nearly into tears, though you held back. “I was so stupid-“

“Wasn’t just you, baby,” he said, words bordering on firm. He hated it when you blamed yourself for anything. “I was there too.”

“But you didn’t-“ you cut yourself off, shaking your head. “It was my job to make sure this didn’t happen.”

Billy exhaled once sharply, shaking his head right back. “Sweetheart. Ya can’t shoulder all the blame for this. I’m as much at fault ‘s you are.”

“I could have prevented it, could have stopped it…” you mumbled, ignoring his words. Anxiety coursed through your veins as you thought of what you could have done, inevitably leading to more anger at yourself for not thinking of it at the time. "It was a mistake."

Billy cupped your face in his hands, eyes solid, voice unyielding. "A mistake? Was it a mistake to love each other like we've always done?"

Devastation crept into your voice. "We weren't careful."

"And what do you want me to do? Regret it?" His words were a boy's but his promise was a man's. "I'll never regret makin' love to you. Never."

"But now we have this," you gestured at your stomach. "Billy...we're not even married. I'll be the town pariah if anybody finds out. I made a choice and now look where it's gotten me." Clenching your fists, your nails dug into your palms. "I failed you. I got too caught up in the moment and I wasn't thinking-"

Billy clenched his jaw. "You weren't the only one makin' a choice. I coulda stopped. Coulda pulled out. But I didn't. I know what it takes to not get you pregnant and I didn't do it that night. I didn't take care of you."

A chasm of sadness opened up in your chest. "It wasn't your job-"

"It was my job to protect you!" he snapped, face firmly set. "It was my job to make sure you were safe. If anyone's failed, it's me."

Your face faltered at that, and you drew back, eyes wide. He'd never used a tone with you before, always been gentle and kind. Fear flickered in your irises, and you could see that he noticed, because his face softened, and he ran a hand over his face, head bowed for just a second. Then he looked up, eyes subdued.

In all the time you'd known him, Billy had been nothing but gentle. He was dangerous to the rest of the world, but a haven for you. Aware of this, he'd separated the worlds of his work and his love with steady arms, making sure you never had to see a whisper of the way he made a living. But now something had slipped through the cracks. The rope of his patience had been pulled taut until it unraveled at your degradation of yourself.

You felt your lower lip trembling, and you folded your arms around yourself, his apparent anger the final straw. Hot, salty tears rolled down your cheeks, and you sniffled to yourself, turning away from him.

Billy had always been self-aware, and you could practically hear him realize what he'd done. A hand touched your shoulder, and smooth, soft words drew from his lips. "Oh, sweetheart...angel, 'm so sorry. I didn't mean to snap...'m sorry my love. I didn't mean for it to come out that way..."

You lifted your head slowly to look at him, the tension of the day and the suddenness of his snap weighing on you. It had broken you down into pieces at Billy's feet. But looking into his earnest blue eyes, he knew he'd stop at nothing to put you back together.

Holding out his arms, he whispered, "C'mere," and you fell into him, tears silently soaking his neck. He buried his nose in your hair, laying gentle kisses there. "'m sorry angel. I know better than to snap at m' girl."

You looked up at him tearfully, the other reason for your crying coming to light. "I didn't realize...I didn't even realize you felt guilty too..."

"I wanna protect you," he whispered, and you could see, hear and feel his sincerity. "And this...this puts you at risk. I don't wanna risk my baby for nothin'. 'Specially somethin' that coulda been prevented..."

Sighing softly, you clutched at his shirt, tears slowing down. And as you took in his words, you began to look at the situation from a new angle. A baby. Half of him, whom your soul was drawn to like a magnet, who you loved with all your heart, and half of you. And it was born of something so pure and wonderful, out of your shared love.

Now you didn't see a mistake. No longer was the child in your stomach a red tally marking an error, but a gift.

You reached up for Billy, kissing both his cheeks, and framing his face with your hands. Pressing your forehead to his, you murmured, "Billy..." You kissed his lips once, gently. "It's gonna be okay."

His eyes stayed open as you kissed him, a lost little confused look in them. "Honey?"

Picking up his hand, you put it on your belly, and something in his face changed. He hesitated, then splayed his fingers out over the space, rubbing it softly. The look in his eyes was tender, loving. He whispered, "You...?"

"I'm scared," you murmured, and he nodded, searching your eyes. "But...this is part of you, Billy. I..." An influx of love overwhelmed you, and you smiled softly.

In that moment you knew he understood. He knew you inside and out, and he could read you like a book. Billy's expression grew tender, and he leaned in, kissing you fervently. You melted into it like you always did, and his hand on your tummy slid to your waist, pulling you right into him.

He pulled back, resting his forehead to yours again. "It's you 'n me, sweetheart. You 'n me always." Now his eyes trailed down to look at your tummy, as if he couldn't believe there was a new life inside. "You 'n me 'n the little one."

You threw your arms around his neck, burying yourself into him. He kissed your forehead, murmuring, "We're gonna be okay angel. We're gonna be okay."

[she-walks-on-starlight]

You Ruined Me (Do it Again)

a/n: this is my first time posting fic to Tumblr so if I've made any mistakes please let me know so I can learn how to fix them 💖 this was also my first attempt at sevika x reader, I hope y'all enjoy! There are more parts that I can upload if y'all end up liking it

Warnings: drinking alcohol, referenced cheating, smoking, gambling, possessive!sevika, referenced sex (explicit!), sexually explicit teasing.

Summary: Your first night out in a while after leaving your cheating ex does not end how you expected it to...but then what did you expect, going to her club?

Word Count: 1.4k

Read on AO3

18+ | MEN AND MINORS DNI | 18+

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Final

You needed this. It had been too long since you hit up a club and just danced the night away. Work had been a bitch, your last breakup still lingered in the back of your mind, and it was high time that you simply had some fun.

Now, after several way too sugary cocktails that probably had enough booze to kill a small human, you were letting loose on the dance floor. You’d always been able to move your body just right, whenever a beat made you feel a certain way, it was guaranteed to have eyes on you as you swayed your hips and moved your feet.

You were twirling around with your best friend, Jinx, laughing and singing along to the tunes that blared loudly on the speakers all around you. You were having such a good time that you almost didn’t notice the door to the club swing open, an entourage of people swarming in being led by an imposing, hulking woman you knew all too well. Sevika.

Her short hair was tied back into the little ponytail she normally wore, that you used to love to tease her about. She still stuck to her favourite outfits, loose fitting pants with a chunky belt, a tight fitting tank top and the cloak that covered her mechanical arm to stop people from staring. She was all muscle, large hands with thick, talented fingers, solid arms with toned biceps.

Strong thighs that you knew were just perfect for lifting you high in the air and fucking you silly. Shaking your head, you focus on the beat of the song, the vibration of the dancefloor, the heat of the bodies moving wildly all around you. Now was so not the time to be staring at your ex.

Jinx groaned. “Is that who I think it is?”

You shrugged. “You know she has shares in the club. She practically owns it. Just ignore her and keep having a good time!”

Jinx giggled, throwing herself into your arms. “Amen to that, sister!”

You dance some more, for 20 minutes or so, completely ignoring the corner of the club reserved for gambling tables, knowing that’s where Sevika would be. It was getting hotter in the club as it got busier and busier.

You leaned into Jinx. “I’m gonna get a drink, you want one?”

Jinx shook her head, eyeing up a cute blonde girl who was also dancing with her friends. “Nah, I’m good, sparky.”

You giggled at her. “Okay! Happy hunting!”

She shot you a playful glare as you headed to the bar. It was pretty busy, but the bartender here was good, and he made his way through orders quickly. You felt someone sidle up next to you, feeling a pang of annoyance as her order was taken first.

“Whiskey, top shelf. 2 ice cubes.”

You pinched the bridge of your nose. Of course, it was her. You should’ve known from her size and the sheer heat that was radiating from her. You clamped your thighs together as your body responded automatically to her closeness. Now was not the time to let your pussy do your thinking for you. You stay quiet, hoping she won’t notice you.

Naturally, you’re not that lucky. She double-takes when she realises it’s you. “Y/n? What’re you doing here?”

You huff out an irritated sigh. “Just clubbing, like everyone else.”

The bartender hands Sevika her whiskey but she doesn’t move as you place your order. You hear her snicker when you order a sweet cocktail.

“Some things never change, huh? You still like your drinks to taste like juice.”

You glare at her coolly. “Yet my tastes in other areas have definitely changed.”

Her smile falters, but she soon masks it with a shit-eating smirk. “Oh yeah? So, you’re not totally down bad for me anymore?”

Your hands ball into fists, frustrated that she’d use your pillow talk against you, in such a public setting. You know reacting in any way will just add to her satisfaction, so you breathe deeply and relax your hands, grabbing your drink.

“I was a fool to be ‘down bad’ for you at all. You’re a real asshole, Sevika.”

You’ve lost sight of Jinx, so you find somewhere to sit and sip at your drink, your muscles thanking you for the break. You don’t bother trying to look for Sevika, your eyes find her at the poker tables out of habit. Judging by the large pile of coins at her end of the table, she’s winning. Nothing new there. You finish your drink, pushing your complicated feelings aside. She’d never have a chance again at winning you, that’s for sure.

You’re in the bathroom, applying a new layer of lipstick when she comes in. You stiffen as she enters, brushing past you to go into one of the stalls. Her hand lingers at the small of your back as she passes you. The gesture would seem innocent to most, but you felt the undeniable flutter of your pulse as the heat of her touch tore through you. You focus on the task at hand, steadily applying the dark shade as she comes out of the stall and washes her hand. You feel her eyes on you, roaming over your body in the tight, black dress you decided to wear tonight. It hugged your curves perfectly, kept eyes on your ass and your tits, made you feel powerful when people drooled over you. Just like she used to. There was a time where you would never have made it to the club at all wearing a dress like this. Sevika used to just quite literally tear them off you.

“It’s a beautiful dress.”

Her voice is low and husky. You try not to think about it, or let it replay in your head. “Thank you.”

You put your lipstick back in your purse. She smirks at you. “It’d look better on my bedroom fl-”

Without thinking, you turn and put a hand against her mouth. “Do not finish that sentence, dear god.”

You’ve made your first mistake. She reaches towards your face, and you stupidly let her, transfixed by her as you always have been, like a moth to a flame. A moth that really, really likes the feeling of being burnt.

That was your second mistake.

She steps into your space, her hand caressing your jaw. Your knees feel like they could buckle any second.

“Oh, princess, having trouble colouring within the lines again? Here, let me help…”

Her fingers trace your bottom lip, wiping away a smudge of lipstick. Your eyes flutter close, and your lips part, wanting, waiting…then you feel her.

She crashes into you like a starved animal, her lips devouring yours as she kisses you like you’re her oxygen. You can’t help yourself, you know you shouldn’t let this happen, after everything that happened between you, but it just feels so damn good.

It’s rough, it’s messy and it’s just so…Sevika.

Her body presses into you, and you moan as her thigh brushes against your core. She doesn’t waste the opportunity, her tongue invading your mouth, tasting you. She moans into your mouth when she does, which sets your cunt alight. Your need is growing, you know that you’ll be ruining your panties with how slick your pussy is getting but you care less and less the more Sevika kisses you, nipping roughly at your lower lip, her thigh rubbing against you. She knows how to work you up, after all she used to be the expert. Her hands are everywhere, gripping your waist, your face, your neck, and your ass. She loves your firm, little ass, palming it roughly, admiring how it fits perfectly in her hands. She tries not to think about how it almost belongs in her hands.

Sevika breathes out a soft “Huh” then you’re left in the cold as she moves her warm body away from you. A needy whine escapes your throat, and Sevika chuckles but you see no laughter in her sharp, grey eyes. You reach for her, but she dodges away, smirking at your confused, searching eyes.

“Not down bad for me at all, huh princess?”

Then she’s gone, leaving you panting and pissed out of your goddamn mind. She was playing with you, because that’s what she does best. You bruised her ego earlier at the bar, and that was her taking her revenge. Because why else would she kiss you like that, unless she wanted to prove that she could still make you squirm?

[seravphs]

ੈ♡˳·˖✶ — MIYA ATSUMU x FEM READER

When you started dating Atsumu, you swore to never be the annoying gym couple, and yet here you are. 

wc — 700

tags — fluff, most unserious relationship ever 

The soft grunts from the other side of the gym were really getting to you. Don’t look, don’t look, don’t look, you repeat to yourself - until another bitten off curse draws your attention to the man determined to be the death of you. 

Across the row of barbells, Miya Atsumu brings the hem of his shirt to his face to swipe off the drop of sweat clinging to his chin. In the mirror behind him, the muscles of his back ripple with each movement, causing your throat dry up.

As soon as you register what you’re doing, your brain stutters and you immediately whip around, trying to ignore the low chuckle behind you. 

Oh, he knew exactly what he was doing and he was enjoying it, eating up every second of attention you were giving him. 

Gritting your teeth, you focus on another set of push ups, keeping your core tight. It’s working, for a bit, your mind clearing as all your energy goes to keeping you in the proper form. All of that effort goes to shit when he walks past you. 

Legs.

That’s the first, and for several minutes, only thought in your head.

Thighs.

You want him to crush you between them.

His muscles could have been sculpted by the gods, and the effect it has on you - well. You had to check if you were still breathing.  He laughs again, and you try to discreetly draw the back of your hand against your face in case you were drooling. 

In front of you, Atsumu, the bastard, purposefully lowers himself to the floor in an effortless split.

Oh, god.

He was flexible. You tear your eyes away from his broad chest, ignoring his Cheshire cat smirk. He got you again, but you were determined not to let it happen a third time. 

This was a competition, and you were going to win. Two could play at that game.  

Running sucks. It gets you sweaty and hot and tired faster than any other exercise, and you swear the treadmill has it out for you. It never works quite right when you’re on it, but damn if you don’t look good with your hair bouncing. You’re well aware of how amazing you look in the glow of runner’s high. 

Someone else is, too. Behind you, Atsumu trips over his own feet and crashes into the rack of barbells, earning him the ire of multiple frat boys. Even as he’s being scolded, he looks love struck and dazed, eyes only for you.

It’s incredibly gratifying. You waste the entire session flirting with Atsumu while he continues to be horrifying, distractingly hot in your general direction.

The audacity of him.

 Of course, someone has to ruin it. Atsumu isn’t the only one noticing how good you look running. 

As you’re checking the miles, a hand shoots out to hit the off button. At first, you turn with a smile, expecting it to be a mistake, but it slides off your face instantly at the condescending next words. You slow to a stop with the treadmill. 

“Hey, sweetheart. Need a few tips?” 

“No, thank you.” 

“Come on, babe-“ 

“Not your babe.” 

“Don’t be like that. Why don’t you give me your number?” 

“She said no, dude.” Atsumu comes up behind you, heat radiating off him. He’s not close enough to touch, and yet, his solid presence is more than enough to make you feel more secure. 

“I didn’t ask you,” the random gym rat snaps.

Atsumu rolls his eyes. “She wouldn’t be interested in ya anyway. Word of advice, buddy? Ya should just give up now.” 

“How do you know that?” 

“Because-“ He yells in surprise as you, sick of this conversation, pull him down for a kiss. Initially shocked, he melts into you as he always does, bringing his hands up to your face to cradle your cheeks tenderly. For a minute after you break away, you just lean your foreheads together, staring into his eyes. 

Then you wrinkle your nose. “Ugh, you’re sweaty.” 

“Babe!” 

You turn back to the man with a grin. “I’m not interested because he’s my boyfriend.” 

Atsumu smirks behind you, arms crossed.