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ovaryacted · 2 months

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REPRIEVE

PAIRING: General Marcus Acacius x wife! reader || WC: 3.8k

SYNOPSIS: The General arrives home after his most recent crusade for the Roman Empire. In the hastiness of his arrival, you aid him in his relaxation.

CONTENT/WARNINGS: MDNI/18+. NSFW. SMUT. Rough sex. Manhandling. Marking. Choking. Fingering (f receiving). Barebacking. Breeding Kink. Implied free use kink established (if you squint). Sort of dom/sub elements. Sir/Authority kink. Allusions to loss of virginity. Sex in the bath cause I said so. Mentions of Roman customs & clothing. Marcus pursued & courted reader beforehand. Reader is female and has hair. Ambiguous age gap [Reader is assumed to be younger but early 20s]. No use of y/n.

A/N: This was a pain in the ass to write since I haven't written a full smut piece in a minute and I had to do some research to figure out shit about Ancient Roman society, but I'm glad this is done. This fic wouldn't exist without Ali, @pedgito who practically held my hand during the process and helped with the proofread and aesthetics. Also big shoutout to my other baes for the reassurance and motivation. Anyways, I hope those who read it enjoy it, likes, comments, and reblogs are greatly appreciated as always. <3

NAVIGATION | MASTERLIST | AO3

Some would say the General was more reminiscent of a God than a man; his silent prowess oozed out of him everywhere he went. To the empire, he was respected and admired by many, an irreplaceable asset to the Roman Emperor and the one true leader of the greatest army to exist.

Outside the walls of the great city, he was a different beast entirely. Bloodthirsty and hungry for control, his name whispered through unconquered lands and peninsulas like a plague. Marcus Acacius, the moniker of death.

He commanded his soldiers to pillage and return what they could to the capital: gold, livestock, and new fodder to satiate Rome’s everlasting appetite for power. As he trampled through villages of the unknown, his steel blade cut through human flesh with finesse, his skin stained with the crimson of those who lay dismembered in a heap. Whoever was left of the inhabitants dropped to their knees, vowing servitude to the empire in exchange for their personhood, all while the General reveled in that power.

He was a force to be reckoned with in every sense of the word, dominating every space he invaded with his broad shoulders and fierce eyes. Being at the hands of the Emperor would prove to be a benefit if his sins didn’t fill him with regret. Despite his domineering attitude, he urged to want more, to be understood and accepted with all the faults of being a mortal man.

The Gods seemed to hear his silent prayers, taking pity on Acacius and granting him the opportunity to wed a wife, a pretty thing he had spotted once while patrolling the city with a few other soldiers. He was called upon for a council meeting when you crossed his path, the purple fabric of your palla catching his eye, holding your gaze for mere seconds before you continued to stroll past him.

He sought after you through the crowds in the market and at the Emperor’s banquets, seeking you out any chance he was not shipped out on a campaign, wooing you with his charisma and stories of his conquests. You’ve bewitched him wholeheartedly, pursuing you until he asked for your hand in marriage, and you accepted willingly.

After every battle and bloodbath, you awaited him in the Domus, high in the exclusive Palatine Hill. At first, he didn’t know what being wed would be like and didn’t expect to uphold the standard of a spouse, but all he knew was he wanted you, and he succeeded in his endeavors.

The sun had already set past the horizon when Acacius stepped through the entryway of his domus, the heavy footfalls of his steps echoing through the stone walls. He didn’t address the servants who attempted to welcome him into his home; instead, they bowed and greeted him in kind as he paid them no mind. He strolled past the atrium and the gardens, refusing to turn his head to admire how the moonlight shimmered over the luxurious pool, lotus flowers, and lily pads floating idly over the calm waters.

Taking another turn across the hall and striding through a wide door, he entered a dimly lit room surrounded by candles where the private bath was located, already prepared for his arrival. He didn’t hesitate to strip himself of his armor, the heavy metal of his chest plate clanging to the ground with the rest of its attachments. His undergarments were next, covered in the dirt of his recent crusade and smeared with the blood of his spoils of war, the dirty linen fabric of his red tunic piled up by his feet as he impatiently removed his caligae. He lifted his arms to force an audible crack in his spine, rolling his shoulders and neck to ease the strain he felt wound tight in his body.

Carefully, he sank into the warm water of the bath, groaning as he pressed his back against the sleek tiled edge. Acacius took his first exhale since returning to Rome, closing his eyes and stretching his arms across the bath’s rim. He’d usually sit in the water with a servant aiding him in his cleansing routine or at the careful hands of his wife, who worried more than he would’ve liked. To him, this was a much better alternative than the bustling bathhouses he frequented, no longer seeing the appeal in a stranger’s touch when he could get familiarity elsewhere.

Lost in thought, he was mentally replaying his decisions from the most recent Roman expansion when he heard the faint pitter-patter of footsteps behind him, acquainted with the light heel-to-toe pattern to know that his wife had entered the room to check up on him.

“Acacius. You have returned.” You expressed rather calmly, tone even and cautious as you eyed the back of your husband’s head.

Earlier in this union, before Acacius asked for your hand, you didn’t know how to approach him. A man of his prestige and experience was foreign to anything you’ve ever encountered. Though the gifts he bestowed you during your courting did much to convince you of the type of man he was, it was a learning curve you had to overcome. It took you a while to know how to tame a beast such as Marcus Acacius himself, but you reaped the benefits of your partnership over the months you were given the title of being the General’s wife.

“I have.” He muttered, flexing his toes under the water.

“Did you not call for the servants to aid you in the bath?” You asked him, having received word from your handmaiden of his hasty return.

“I am not interested in their help,” Acacius declared, huffing a breath through his aquiline nose. He finally turned his neck to face you for the first time tonight, his chocolate brown eyes burdened with the Emperor’s expectations to protect the city you both loved, to protect his reputation, and to protect you.

“Join me.” The words slipped out of him without hesitation, and you had half the mind to follow through on his suggestion.

“Are you sure? I can call f-”

“I do not wish for them, I wish for my wife. Now get in.” He wasn’t asking, and like one of his soldiers, you were ready to fulfill his demands without a second thought.

Carefully, you pulled at the soft material of your stola, unclasping it and letting the silk fabric fall to the floor around you. The tunic layered underneath was next, kicking it off alongside your spouse’s armor and unveiling your bare frame. You entered the bath from Acacius’ left side, not missing how he watched you as a predator would stalk their prey. Standing face to face with the man you called your husband, his big hands rashly grabbed at your hips, pulling you towards him and gesturing you to sit on his lap. Both of your legs were on either side of him, knees situated next to his hips and your pelvis hovering over his own.

“You know this is improper.” You often reminded him of societal customs, and though he admired you for upholding Roman values, at the moment, he could care less about what was appropriate.

“You are my wife, are you not? That means I get to do as I please with you in my home.” He eyed you as you sighed and admitted defeat, not that you were complaining.

He was in one of those moods. So be it.

Quietly, you reached for the wooden bowl set off to the side of the bath, filling it with the oil-scented water and pouring it over his chest. Your fingers idly stroked Acacius’ collarbones and pectorals, making a note of the markings left behind from the heavy armor he often sported.

Sinking the bowl into the bath, you carefully streamed the water over his scalp, running your fingertips through the dried blood that settled at his graying temples and hairline. The grime was off-putting initially, but you quickly adjusted to it. Being the wife of a war leader forced you into a lifestyle you knew you had to accept, and making him happy was your burden to carry.

Acacius remained vigilant as you continued your meticulous washing, being extra attentive to his aching limbs. Grabbing the pumice stone with your palm and wetting it with a dip under the water, you began to scrub away at the leftover filth of combat from your husband’s body. You started at his neck, careful not to be too harsh and avoiding any apparent cuts. Moving downward towards his chest, you rubbed at him again as the reminder of his conquest trickled away in cascading ripples.

Many would not be able to stomach the reality of accommodating the General in all of his intensity, but to you, you didn’t mind. After all, you were a natural at servitude, having been shown the expectations of becoming a good wife by your mother since you were a young girl. Indeed, you did not expect to find yourself at the hands of Acacius; your father preferred to marry you off to a Senator and keep you within reach. But the moment your eyes locked on those warm brown irises on your walk, the man fascinated you, and your mind couldn’t let him go.

Being here like this with him caused you to reflect on the life you’ve been given. You were grateful to have a man endowed with such strength who would give you anything you wished for without having to ask. You reminisced about the night you were wed a few months ago, recalling how Acacius showed you what pleasure felt like for the first time. As passionate as he was merciless, his hands ran over your body and made you his in more ways than one, whispering promises of the future in your ear as you prayed for Venus to never cease the numbing feeling between your legs after each crashing wave that washed over you.

Strangely, you would consider yourself crafted for Acacius, to think it was fate to have met him that day to lead you both to where you are now. To Rome, he was a ruthless conqueror with years of expertise, and you honored him as the fighter he was molded to be and the cunning man you loved.

Diverting your attention to his shoulders and arms, you observed Acacius from the corner of your eye, noting his ravenous gaze when you entered the bath to join him. You could feel the texture of his worn palms over your skin under the water, clutching at your thighs and urging you closer on top of him. You permitted him to do what he wanted and touch you how he liked, not daring to tell him no.

He squeezed at your rear, the touch sending an electric pulse down your back and building towards the center of your body. Focusing on cleansing him and finishing your routine, the hardness you felt poking at your inner thigh grew increasingly evident the more he kneaded at your soft flesh. The moment his fingers teased at your entrance from behind, you exhaled shakily above him, meeting his mischievous eyes.

“Acacius…” You started to speak, nearly dropping the pumice stone in the bath as he caressed you more intimately, his whole hand fully cupping your sex with intention.

“Hm?” His hum radiated through you, limbs vibrating with leftover adrenaline. “That is not what you call me dulcissima. Or must I remind you of your place?”

“Carissimus.” Your voice was more airy than you’d like it to be when you replied, but it was worth the toothy grin plastered over your husband’s face.

“There we go. I knew you would give me a proper welcome, just like your cunt always has.”

You were rewarded with two thick fingers plunging deep inside you, a noisy moan tumbling out of your mouth and falling over the General’s lips. His dark eyes devoured every sound you made and encouraged you to shift your hips against his hand. The pumice stone was long forgotten, sunken to the bottom of the bathing pool as you reached for his shoulders and dug your nails into his taut skin to keep yourself grounded.

If others knew of Acacius’s devotion to you, people would consider him a madman. He doesn’t take what the Gods have given him for granted, presenting him with a loyal partner such as yourself. You were always willing to please and welcome the baggage that comes with his title with open arms and open legs. You allowed him to put his energy into something other than killing rebels overseas and being the Emperor’s lap dog. All of his pent-up frustrations were channeled into the abrupt slaps of his hips against yours within the columned walls of your shared home.

You supported him, worshiped him, and preserved the same look of reverence every time he stepped through the front doors with another victory under his belt. His rank and what his duty entails didn’t intimidate you or push you away; rather, they enticed you, a curiosity he’s come to admire. The contrast between your eager softness and his inherent brashness unlocks the most primal parts of him, and more often than not, his urges win the inner battles.

If only you knew just how much you occupied his mind. Out on the battleground, as he plows through groups of people he doesn’t bother to count, the only thing that keeps Acacius going is the remembrance of your scent wafting his nose and your soothing touches over his scarred skin. He was nothing short of obsessed with you, and though he may not confess his fixation outright, you weren’t blind to your effect on him.

The frequent pump of his digits was devastating, with no pause to let you adjust before the tips of his fingers curled into the textured spot that brought stars under your eyelids. The heel of his palm bumped into your throbbing clit with every thrust and drag of his hand, bringing you closer to that delectable edge. Rough kisses were littered across the column of your throat as Acacius’ coarse facial hair marked you, followed by the nipping of his teeth into the crease of your neck and shoulder.

“Please…” You begged him to let you seek release, cried for him to give you what you always craved. Your grip twisted into his thick, graying locks, scratching at the bruised skin of his nape.

“Give it to me.” Acacius instructed, knowing it would only take a few words to have you shaking and arching in his lap, followed by a soothing but stern order. “Come for your General.”

Your vision whitened out, crying for Acacius loud enough for the servants to hear from the other side of the door, though this was far from new for them. Your hips moved on their own accord, pushing and pulling at his fingers as your walls pulsed around them. He didn’t stop his prodding and opted to press his calloused thumb to your sensitive nub, milking your release for all it was worth. Teeth clashed with your lips as he kissed you fervently, seeking to satisfy his craving of devouring you whole from the inside out.

Pressing your chest further into him, your pulsing core grazed his length that touched your leg under the warm water. A whimper departed from you, silently imploring for more, for anything he was willing to give you. He had trained you to take all of him properly without objections or qualms. Since then, you have become greedy for him, for the frequent reminders that you were very much his to claim.

Holding on to the bottom of your thighs, Acacius lifted you in his grasp and stood up straight in the bath. He walked off to the other side of the edge, laying you down with your back to the ground and looming above you. You glanced up at him with hazy eyes, ready for him to finally be inside you when you were manhandled to your front, your breasts pinned to the cold tile underneath, bringing goosebumps to your arms at the disparity in texture.

You turned your head to look over your shoulder, taking in the rapacious expression on your husband’s face. Acacius towered behind you with a twisted grin widening over his aged features as he stalked you down, the corners of his eyes creasing as his lips curled upwards. The lust radiating over him was palpable, pawing at your hips to keep you in place.

The tip of his cock teased your opening, shamelessly grinding into you and feeling every twitch of your wet slit. A breathless whine came from you, instinctively spreading your legs wider to make room for him, standing on your tippy toes and curving your backbone for Acacius’ view.

“I have trained you well. Always ready to take me whenever I like…” He tenderly touched your waist then, affectionately light, juxtaposed to your current positioning.

“Always, sir.” You mumbled, batting your lashes back at him as your body ached from the emptiness you felt.

“My pretty wife. Rendered a needy fucking thing.”

You didn’t have time to come up with a proper response before you felt him splitting you open, burrowing deep inside until he was nestled down to the hilt. A moan settled in the base of your throat, your eyes fluttering closed as the heavy weight of him kept you tethered to the Earth.

A sob passed your lips as Acacius drew his hips back, leaving the very tip of him inside you and thrusting forward, repeating the action again and again until he set a punishing rhythm. You sought for purchase on the tiles in front of you, letting your husband do as he wished with you, his aggressive tempo sending your body jolting forward on the cool ground.

With a broad hand, Acacius ran his touch up your back, reaching the base of your neck to wrap your hair in his fist, dragging you upwards. He held you to his chest, and all you could do was let Acacius take and take and take. Your thighs shook and your walls flexed as your hips remained at the edge of the bath pool, eyes rolling to the back of your head.

The water splashed around you both in time with his forceful bucks, the sounds of skin slapping resonating in the room’s walls. Acacius practically growled in your ear, huffing out praises and sweet nothings that made you clench around him with every brutal drag of his hips. He fucked you like he’d kill out in the field; fierce, quick, and without remorse, just the way you wanted.

The fingers previously holding your hair wrapped around the hollow of your neck, providing a doting squeeze and accepting your dazed nod. He kissed your cheek once and held your hip bone with his other hand, returning to moving against you like his life depended on it, like he’d never get the opportunity to feel your pussy wrapped around him like this again.

“Sweetest thing I have ever felt. You were made for me. Had no need to mold you to my cock, hm?” Acacius sinfully murmured in your ear, forcing another whimper from you as the tip of him hit that textured spot with striking precision.

“Yes, yes, yes.” You couldn’t say anything else, words growing heavy on your tongue the moment your husband’s grip tightened around your throat. Knowing that a man so capable of death had your life in his hands made you throb and crave the carnage that was embedded in his very being. The headiness of it all propelled you to bounce your hips against his, catching every lunge he gave you.

“Is that all you can say when you are full of me?” Acacius whispered in your ear, the degrading chuckle that rumbled from the depths of his chest made your walls quiver around him again.

Sneakily, the hand holding your hip moved between your legs, seeking out your clit to fondle it tight circles the way he learned you liked. Your keens grew in volume, head thrown back on his shoulders and your nails raked over the skin of Acacius’ forearm, losing yourself to the pleasure he was more than willing to provide.

“Please, please…”

“Maybe I should claim you properly. Let my seed take for everyone in Rome to know who you belong to.” You clenched hard at the notion of being bred, gasping under your breath as your body craved something much more than a proper release.

“Carissimus, my body is yours, I am yours.” Though you didn’t need to remind him of what he already knew, the prospect of being blessed with carrying his child was enough to launch you into a violent climax with a sonorous wail of his name. “Claim me. Claim me.”

Mine. Mine. Mine.

“I will, I swear I will.” It was a vow, Acacius’ word being his bond as he continued to fuck you through your orgasm. A couple more diligent jabs of his hips and he spilled into you, filling you to the brim and holding you close to him. The blunt edge of his teeth dug into the side of your neck as he groaned, digging deep enough to tear at your skin. You squealed at the act, slumping towards the floor to catch your breath and attempt to calm your rapidly beating heart.

Soft kisses and caresses slowly brought you back down from your high, your left hand reaching for your husband’s face. He was drawn forward to your touch, bestowing a warm and slower-paced kiss on your plush lips, humming contently.

“Must you treat a lady with such reckless abandon, General?” You jested with a breathless laugh, and Acacius couldn’t help but chuckle back. He was much calmer than before, the tension and adrenaline he carried back to Rome now dissipated and simmered to a minimum.

“Only my lady appeals to such behavior.” You rolled your eyes at that, neck sore from the bite now imprinted on your skin, almost certain it will bruise by morning. If it weren’t your thighs or chest, he leaves his mark visible under your chin for everyone to see, as if the golden ring on your finger wasn’t enough to show that you were wed.

“Do you wish to call for the servants?” Acacius asked, catching the shake of your head.

“Nonsense, this is just fine. You still have to fulfill your promise to me.” The corner of your lips coiled up in a playful smile, and Acacius could feel his blood rushing south again.

You were just as insatiable as he was, and he wouldn’t have it any other way.

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raekensluver · 2 months

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a guarded romance (1)

part two

description: you are a famous billionaire's daughter and your father has hired you a new bodyguard. his name is spencer reid and he used to be a part of the fbi's behavior analysis unit.

pairing: bodyguard!spencer reid x famous!reader

contains: age gap (everyone is 18+), fake relationship, mentions of a stalker, talk of parental death, overprotective father, lmk if i missed anything!

song rec: you don't own me by SAYGRACE ft. g-eazy- "don't tell me what to do, and don't tell me what to say."

w.c: 2.4k

an: i hope you all enjoy!! i feel like there aren't many bodyguard!spencer fics on tumblr. please give me feedback! good or bad, i appreciate it!

in the grandiose study, the scent of aged leather and mahogany filled the air, a silent testament to the wealth and power that had been cultivated within its walls. the room was dimly lit, the setting sun casting a warm glow through the stained glass windows, creating a mosaic of colors on the polished floor. your father's office was a sanctuary, a place where he made decisions that shifted the course of empires, but today, it was where your world was about to be upended once again.

"honey," your father's firm voice called out as you stepped into the room, his eyes never leaving the paperwork scattered across his desk. he looked up, the stern lines on his face softening slightly as he took in your appearance. "this is spencer reid, your new bodyguard."

spencer stood by the door, his posture ramrod straight, and his eyes met yours. there was a flicker of something in them, an intensity that made you pause. he was tall, with a lean build and a sharp jawline that spoke of discipline and experience. his suit was impeccable, but there was a hint of something else beneath the surface, a wildness that the tailored fabric couldn't quite conceal. he looked older than you, maybe thirty-five, if you had to guess.

"daddy, i don't need another babysitter," you protested, crossing your arms over your chest. "i'm twenty-five, not five. i can handle myself."

your father sighed heavily, setting down his pen and folding his hands together. "sweetheart, it's not about that. it's about keeping you safe. with everything that's been happening, i just want to make sure you're protected."

you rolled your eyes, feeling the familiar ache of frustration in your chest. "what's been happening? i've had one stalker in the last year, and that was just some lovesick fan. i can handle myself."

spencer cleared his throat, his gaze shifting between you and your father. "miss carter, if i may, i understand your concerns. i've studied the case files and the potential threats are minimal. but in the line of work i've been in, it's always better to be safe than sorry."

his words hung in the air, and you felt a spark of curiosity. there was something about the way he spoke, a calm confidence that was hard to ignore. maybe he wasn't just another incompetent bodyguard your father had hired.

"fine," you relented, unable to argue with his logic. "but i don't need you following me around like a shadow."

spencer nodded, a slight smile playing on his lips. "i understand, miss. i'll do my best to respect your privacy while ensuring your safety."

the week flew by in a whirlwind of meetings and social engagements, with spencer a constant presence at your side. your father had informed you of the annual gala in a week's time, a grand affair where the crème de la crème of society mingled and networked. "you need to make an appearance," he'd said, his tone brooking no argument. "and i expect you to look the part."

"spencer," your father announced, his voice carrying a hint of finality, "you will accompany my daughter to select a suitable gown for the gala. it's an important event, and i want her to be dressed to the nines."

you felt a pang of annoyance at the thought of being dragged around by a bodyguard to pick out a dress, but the idea of escaping your father's scrutiny was tempting. "fine," you said with a resigned sigh, "but i can't believe you're making me go to this thing."

spencer's eyes met yours for a brief moment before he nodded. "i'll be there to ensure nothing goes wrong, miss."

the shopping trip was a delicate dance of wills. you wove through the racks of haute couture, your mind racing with thoughts of the gala and the dreaded encounter with the man your father insisted on setting you up with. spencer remained a silent sentinel, his eyes scanning the room, his presence both comforting and stifling.

you slid a sleek, black dress from its hanger, the fabric whispering against the others as it glided through the air. it was perfect for the gala, elegant yet understated, a stark contrast to the flashy outfits you knew the other attendees would be wearing. you held it up to your body, the soft fabric brushing against your fingertips. "what do you think?" you asked, not bothering to hide the challenge in your voice.

spencer's gaze flicked over the dress and then back to your face, his expression unreadable. "it's… appropriate," he said, his voice measured. "but i suspect you're looking for something more than just appropriate."

you couldn't argue with that. you wanted to make a statement, to show the world that you weren't just a billionaire's daughter to be bartered off to the highest bidder. you wanted to be seen as a woman of substance, not just a pretty face in a sea of designer labels. "i need something that says 'hands off'," you murmured, your eyes searching the racks for the perfect dress.

spencer's gaze sharpened. "you worried about someone in particular?"

you nodded, your thoughts drifting to the smug grin of the man your father was so keen on setting you up with. "his name is alexander. he's… persistent."

spencer's eyebrows shot up, the first real sign of emotion you'd seen from him. "oh, i know the type," he said, his voice tight. "well, let's make sure you're dressed to make him understand that you're not interested."

you felt a strange thrill at his sudden protectiveness, and you found yourself smiling slightly. "okay, let's do this."

as the gala night approached, the tension in the air grew thick. your father had been dropping hints about alexander, reminding you of his wealth and status, and his potential as a suitable match. you, on the other hand, had been preparing your speech, rehearsing the perfect way to tell alexander that you had no interest in him without causing a scene.

the evening of the gala arrived, and you found yourself in a whirlwind of hair and makeup artists, turning you into the picture of sophistication. the dress spencer had helped you choose was a stunning blood red that made your eyes pop and your skin glow. it hugged your curves in all the right places and had just the right amount of flair to make you feel powerful.

as you descended the grand staircase, your father's eyes widened with approval. "you look… incredible," he said, his voice filled with pride. "exactly what a future lady of the house should look like."

you bit back a retort, choosing instead to smile sweetly. "thank you, daddy. i'm sure reid will make sure i'm well protected tonight."

your father nodded, his gaze flicking to your bodyguard, who was standing a respectful distance away, watching the exchange. "he better," he said, his tone leaving no room for argument.

the gala was a dizzying array of lights and sounds, the chatter of the elite echoing through the opulent ballroom. spencer was a silent shadow at your side, his eyes never still as they swept the room, looking for any sign of trouble. you felt a strange comfort in his vigilance, his presence a buffer between you and the world that so often felt suffocating.

as the evening progressed, you spotted alexander cutting through the crowd, his eyes locked on you like a hawk on its prey. your heart sank, but spencer was there, his hand lightly on your elbow, guiding you through the throng of people with an ease that belied his size. "just keep walking," he murmured in your ear, his breath warm against your skin. "ignore him."

but alexander was not so easily deterred. he reached you before you could escape, his smile as plastic as the flowers adorning the tables around you. "so, the elusive miss carter," he said, his voice oozing with false charm. "how are you enjoying the gala?"

you felt your heart race, his presence setting your nerves on edge. "i'm enjoying it," you replied, your voice cool and even. "thank you for asking."

alexander's gaze slid to spencer, a hint of suspicion in his eyes. "and who is this charming man at your side?"

your heart pounded in your chest, your mind racing for a way to shake alexander off. without missing a beat, you reached for spencer's hand, squeezing it tightly. "this is my fiancé, spencer reid," you blurted out, the words surprising even you.

spencer's eyes widened slightly, but he recovered quickly, his hand closing around yours. "hello, alexander," he said smoothly, a polite smile playing on his lips. "i've heard so much about you."

alexander's gaze darted between the two of you, his confusion clear. "fiancé?" he repeated, his voice skeptical. "i had no idea, your father said nothing about this."

you felt your cheeks heat up, but you held your ground, flashing spencer a desperate look. "it's a recent development," you said, your voice surprisingly steady. "we wanted to keep it private for a bit."

alexander's smile faltered, his eyes narrowing slightly. "recent?" he echoed, his grip on his champagne flute tightening. "how recent?"

you swallowed hard, your mind racing. "very recent," you said, the lie slipping off your tongue with surprising ease. "we just got engaged."

spencer squeezed your hand in reassurance, his eyes never leaving alexander's. "yes, it was quite a whirlwind," he said, playing along flawlessly. "we didn't want to make a big deal out of it."

alexander's expression shifted from skepticism to something darker, his grip on his drink tightening. "well, congratulations," he said, his voice tight. "i wish you both the best."

you felt a wave of relief wash over you as he turned and disappeared into the crowd. you looked up at spencer, your heart still racing. "thank you," you murmured, your voice shaky. "i can't believe that worked."

spencer's smile was tight, his eyes still scanning the room. "it's not over yet," he said, his grip on your hand still firm. "let's get you somewhere quieter, away from prying eyes."

you allowed him to lead you to a secluded corner of the mansion, the music and chatter of the gala fading into a distant buzz. the walls were lined with floor-to-ceiling windows, the moon casting a soft silver light over the manicured gardens outside. it was a stark contrast to the bright, flashy lights of the ballroom, and the calmness of the night seeped into your bones.

spencer's hand was still wrapped around yours, his eyes never leaving the partygoers as he scanned for any sign of danger or unwanted attention. "are you okay?" he asked, his voice low and concerned.

you nodded, trying to compose yourself. "yeah, i just… i didn't expect to lie like that." the words felt heavy on your tongue, but the truth was, you had no intention of letting alexander near you again.

spencer's gaze softened, his grip on your hand loosening slightly. "it's alright," he said gently. "i've seen worse at these types of events."

you couldn't help but feel a pang of guilt for dragging him into your personal drama. "i'm sorry," you whispered. "i didn't mean to get you involved."

spencer's gaze finally left the crowd, his eyes meeting yours. "it's part of the job," he said, his voice gentle. "and i'd rather be involved than see you miserable."

you looked down at your hand in his, feeling the warmth of his skin. "thank you," you said again, the words feeling inadequate. "i just… i don't know why my father can't see that i'm not a little girl anymore."

spencer's eyes searched yours, filled with understanding. "he's just trying to protect you," he said. "it's hard for parents to let go, especially when they've lost someone as important as your mother."

his words hit you like a ton of bricks, and you felt the familiar ache in your chest. your mother's death had left a void in your life that no one had ever truly filled, not even your father's overbearing attention. "i know," you said softly, "but it's like he doesn't trust me to make my own decisions."

spencer's expression grew serious. "it's his way of dealing with his fear," he said. "but you're more than capable of taking care of yourself, and i'm here to support you in any way i can."

his words resonated with you, and for the first time in a long while, you felt seen. "really?" you asked, hope flickering in your eyes.

spencer nodded. "really," he said, his voice firm. "you're a strong, independent woman. and if your father won't give you the space you need, i'll do my best to make sure you have it."

his words echoed in the quiet corner of the mansion, and you felt a sudden urge to get out of the suffocating atmosphere of the gala. "can we leave?" you asked, your voice small. "i don't think i can handle much more of this."

spencer's eyes searched yours for a moment before he nodded. "of course," he said, his voice calm. "let's go."

you felt a wave of relief as he led you through the throng of people, his hand at the small of your back a reassuring presence. the cool night air hit you like a slap in the face after the stifling heat of the gala, sending a shiver down your spine. the stars twinkled overhead, a stark contrast to the artificial lights of the mansion.

spencer opened the door to the sleek black sedan waiting outside, his hand on the small of your back as you slid into the passenger seat. you felt his eyes on you as he took his place beside you, the leather seats sighing beneath your weight. "are you okay?" he asked again, his voice low and concerned.

you took a deep breath, the cool leather calming your frazzled nerves. "i'm fine," you said, your voice shaky. "i just… i hate those kinds of events."

spencer's eyes searched yours, and without a word, he reached over and gently took your hand that was resting on your lap. "i promise," he said, his voice filled with a quiet resolve, "i will talk to your father. you're an adult, and you deserve to make your own choices."

his hand was warm and comforting, and you felt a sudden surge of gratitude towards him. "thank you," you whispered, your eyes welling up with unshed tears. "i just want to live my life without feeling like i'm under a microscope."

spencer squeezed your hand gently before releasing it to start the car. the engine purred to life, the smooth vibrations of the vehicle a stark contrast to the chaos of the evening. as you pulled away from the mansion, the lights of the gala grew smaller in the rearview mirror, and you felt a weight lift from your shoulders.

edited 8.21.24

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featherandferns · 4 months

Text

risk (fic)

jj maybank x fem!kook!reader | partly inspired by this incredible scene

content warnings: sexual content; physical violence

word count: 18k.

blurb: after a hurricane, a Labrador shows up at JJ's house. After some posters go up around the country, JJ begrudgingly returns the dog to you on Figure Eight. Little did he know that his life was about to change forever.

This is actually insane.

JJ has no idea how everything went to shit faster than a penny falling from the top of the Empire State Building. It seems to be the crux of his life.

One minute Rafe is beating the shit out of JJ’s face, Kelce holding him tight in a headlock, with Pope being strangled to his right by Topper, and the next everyone is still like rock.

There you stand, holding up a gun, safety unlatched, with the aim set directly at the centre of Rafe’s forehead. He’s already called your bluff once. It’s a classic Mexican stand-off. Nobody knows what you’re going to do next, not even JJ. Hell, he’s not even sure if you know what you’ll do next.

And it’s crazy to think that all of this started because of a dog.

Two Months Earlier

It always sucks when JJ admits to himself that Kiara was right. She was right about most things, in fairness, but just this once – just for a change – he had hoped that she wasn’t.

The blonde-haired boy stands in the middle of the sidewalk, staring at a poster taped to a streetlamp. His teeth gnaw on his lower lip in thought as he tugs the poster free, as if gaining a closer look might change what he sees.

MISSING DOG

IF FOUND PLEASE RETURN TO 12 SILVER CANOE WAY, FIGURE EIGHT

REWARD AVAILABLE

The picture is an uncanny reflection of the dog currently sat by JJ’s feet. He’s panting in the sun, blissfully unaware of the curveball tossed at his temporary owner. As JJ looks from the black-and-white poster to the middle-aged dog, he has to begrudgingly admit to himself that Kiara was right. This dog wasn’t a stray. Instead, he was the pet of some bratty, spoilt Kook.

“Whose dog is that?” Kiara asks.

JJ follows her gaze to the labrador cosied up on the porch, soaking up the sun like it was his God-given right.

“Mine,” he says.

“Yours?”

“Yeah, he just showed up after the hurricane."

It was true. The morning after the hurricane, JJ ventured out of his house to assess the damage only to hear a rustling and whimper from under the porch. Getting down on his hands and knees, expecting to find some beaten racoon, JJ came face to face with a petrified, middle-aged labrador. No collar. His cream coat was covered in dirt and dust and a small cut near his eye told JJ he’d found his way to his house during the hurricane, likely seeking shelter. After he coaxed him out with some fresh fish, the dog seemed to take a liking to the seventeen-year-old. JJ took it as the dog distribution system shining the light on him but Kiara didn’t seem so sure.

“And you’re just gonna claim him?”

“He’s a stray,” JJ tells her.

She looks to the dog again, then back to JJ. Her face essentially says, ‘seriously, dude?’

“He is!”

“A dog that well-groomed and that well fed is not a stray, and you know it.”

JJ’s stomach twists. He’d thought the same thing once he’d given the dog a wipe down. A full stomach, trimmed fur, trained to do more than just sit…Strays don’t come like that in Kildare County. But JJ liked the company the dog brought. He’d always wanted one, ever since he was a kid, but his dad would never allow it. Waste of money and food, he’d say. But so far, JJ had managed to keep the dog’s existence on the downlow. He wasn’t very loud or yappy. In fact, he was as calm as sea turtle. JJ liked the bond that had so quickly grown between them. So, swallowing the faint feeling of guilt of keeping someone’s dog, he tells Kiara:

“Well, until someone puts a poster up, I’m sticking to my gut. He’s a stray and he belongs with me.”

It’s like the universe was calling his bluff or something.

JJ crumples the poster in his fist, litters it on the street, and gently tugs on the leash.

“Come on, boy,” he mutters.

The dog gets to its feet and follows JJ down the street, back to the Chateau. He seems rather drained from the brief walk around the cut. Curls up by the front door in a patch of shade, yawning before nestling his head between his large paws for a nap. JJ watches him from the kitchen as he sips on a cold cider. His mind is in battle between right and wrong (as it usually is) as he contemplates the poster.

Kiara nearly falls over the dog as she walks into the Chateau. Then, she shoots a deadly glare to JJ.

“You didn’t go to the vet, did you?”

“Who actually microchips their pets, anyway?”

“Most people, JJ. It’s a clever way to make sure you get your dog back if, let’s say, it runs off in a hurricane without a collar,” Kie returns.

JJ rolls his eyes and takes another swig of his drink. “I’ll take him tomorrow.”

“Actually, there’s no need,” Kiara says. She walks across the room to him and pulls something from her back pocket. As she unfolds the rectangle of paper, JJ comes face to face with the very poster that had been occupying his mind for the past half hour. She holds it out to him.

“See? This is someone’s dog.”

“That could be any dog,” JJ lies.

Kiara quirks a brow. JJ breaks easily, sighing.

“Look, can we just consider the possibility that this dog would be happier with me?” JJ argues. He ditches his cider and makes his way over to the animal. “I mean, he likes me, Kie. And he listens to me. And I like having him around.”

Lowering to his knees, he pets the dog awake from his slumber. He makes an adorable grumbling-whine as he rouses from his sleep. Looking over to Kiara, JJ must resemble an eight-year-old begging their parents for candy at the grocery store.

“I’ll take good care of him,” he promises.

Kiara sighs. Her icy exterior softens, features overcome with sympathy. She joins him and the dog on the floor, scratching at the pet’s back.

“I know you will, JJ,” she says. “But this is someone’s pet. And they clearly want him back. It’s the right thing to do.”

“Since when do I ever do the right thing?” JJ mumbles. He looks down to meet the chocolate brown eyes of his new best friend.

“Since today, hopefully.”

JJ holds the dog’s gaze. There’s such tenderness in his eyes, as the dog stares up at him. Makes JJ feel as though he is the most important thing on this earth. Dogs don’t care about money or mind: you treat them right and give them a good stick, and they’ll be happy forever. Unconditional love like that is rare to find in humans. It seems to JJ like it’s almost impossible, really. But then he thinks of the dog looking at a little girl or boy like that, and how (as spoilt as they may be) the child feels nothing but love for the dog in return. It seems cruel to take that away. He knows deep down what the right thing is. The moral thing.

“Tomorrow,” JJ quietly says. Looking up, meeting Kiara’s eyes, he nods reluctantly. “I’ll take him to the house tomorrow.”

She smiles smally, nodding to herself. Getting to her feet, she leaves JJ alone with the dog to enjoy the last few hours of time together. He ends up falling asleep on the pull-out couch with the dog, face buried in the scruff of his neck, as he unconsciously counts down the hours left until he gives him back.

~*~*~*~*~*~*

JJ stretches out the walk to the house for as long as possible. He lets the dog sniff at every scent and even tries to coax a million pee breaks out of him. He lingers by the sea, stroking the dog’s fur, and shares a hot dog as they pass a gas station. Eventually, they arrive at Figure Eight. The hurricane left the cell towers down on The Cut, so he didn’t bother with his phone. That leaves him to follow street signs until he’s making his way up Silver Canoe Way.

The houses are insane. Marvels of architecture and money. Bright green hedges trimmed into the most obscure shapes; useless statutes standing pretty in front gardens, protected by walls and security cameras. Fountains on almost every property, and a pool probably found in every back garden. Lucky sons of bitches.

House 12 is gorgeous: cream stone bricks and oak-style wood accents. There isn’t a gate, which is curious considering all the others down the road have one. JJ feels as though he’s trespassing as he makes his way up the driveway. There's not a single weed sprouting between paving slabs. There’re two cars in the driveway, each probably cost more than his life insurance pay-out. He imagines birds that dare shit on them get taxed: it’s the only way to explain their cleanliness. God, living like this and he can half understand why Kooks are as obnoxious as they are. What appear to be marble steps lead to a huge front door. The dog seems to know where he is, tugging excitedly on the leash as he guides JJ up the stairs.

JJ stands for a long moment. He looks down at the dog, takes in its wagging tail, and sighs. As he lifts his fist to rap against the door, it swings open. JJ is just as stunned as you. He doesn’t have time to apologise for startling you, because your eyes drop from JJ to the barking dog. You sink to the floor, mouth falling open, and willingly let your dog tackle you in a hug. His leash slips from JJ’s hold. You scruff the dog’s neck, press kisses all over his face, and giggle tearfully as your dog greets you after almost a week apart.

“Oh my God! Ranger! Oh my God!” you happily cry over and over again.

JJ immediately feels evil for even contemplating keeping your dog, Ranger, to himself.

The moment Ranger seems to gain some composure, you remember JJ’s existence. Looking up, you quickly wipe away your tears from under your eyes and clamber back to your feet.

“Oh my God, I’m so sorry! I’m so rude!” you laugh, sticking out a hand. He shakes it as you introduce yourself.

“JJ,” he replies.

There’s a moment of recognition that passes over your face but it’s gone as soon as it comes, like the flash of green at sunset on the horizon.

“Thank you so much,” you say. One of your hands reaches down to ruffle at Ranger’s neck. JJ takes in how happy he is, staring up at you, grinning and panting, tongue out with exertion. “Where did you find him?”

“He kinda found me,” JJ replies, scratching the back of his neck. “Showed up under my house just after the hurricane. Guessing he got spooked or something.”

“That’s what we think happened,” you say. “I woke up to find the backdoor open. He must have jumped and bolted; he frightens easy, you see. I felt awful when I realised he was gone.”

As JJ listens to you speak, he’s partly distracted. It’s hard to follow along to what you say when you’re standing gorgeous like the first day of June.

“Well, like I said, it’s no trouble,” JJ repeats.

You smile brighter than a brand-new penny, teeth pearly white and perfect aligned. JJ doubts you ever needed braces. Probably born with a set of veneers. It’s with that bitter thought that he reminds himself what he’s dealing with here. A kook who lives in nothing short of a mansion, who can’t even keep her dog inside during a hurricane.

“The, uh, poster said something about a reward…” JJ awkwardly mentions.

Your face dawns with realisation and he momentarily feels guilty, but then you’re nodding fervently. “Of course! God, I can’t believe I forgot!”

“I mean, I would have brought him back anyway,” JJ bold face lies.

“No, don’t be silly, it’s the least I owe.” You pull your door open. “Come in, please,” you say, heading into your home.

JJ falters in the doorway. It feels as though even stepping into your home might put him short of a few hundred bucks, just from breathing the air. He follows the route you took into the house, closing the door behind him. The minute he’s out of the entryway and in the main corridor, his eyes widen like he’s witnessing a supernova.

“Holy super kook,” he mutters, gaping at the interior.

Marble everything. Expensive obnoxious artwork that must only be interpretable once you reach a certain tax bracket. Framed photos of yourself and your family on the wall at various vacation spots: France, Italy, Mexico, China. There are others, too, of dance recitals. A shelf of trophies and awards. Ornaments and figurines standing on podiums like he’s in a museum. JJ’s terrified to walk, as if one step might send everything falling off the walls.

He finds himself blindly following you into the kitchen. It’s crystal clean and white. Granite counter tops beautifully cluttered with every appliance you can imagine. You head to the fridge.

“You want a drink?”

“Uh, sure. Water’s fine, thanks,” JJ replies.

You nod and grab a glass that probably costs JJ’s entire monthly wage. Then you go to your fridge (it has a touchscreen for Christ’s sake) and dispense ice cold water. Holding it out to him, you smile, sweet like buttercream.

JJ sips and watches as you reach for a bag that lies on the kitchen counter, retrieving a wallet. Holding out two fifties, you wait for him to take them. His eyes stare at the unwrinkled notes. JJ’s momentary pause makes you frown.

“Sorry, that’s a bit tight of me, isn’t it?” you say. You dip into the bottomless wallet and retrieve another fifty. “Is that enough?”

“Uh, I couldn’t…” He clears his throat and finally snaps out of his stupor. Taking the money, he passes two fifties back, saying, “I can’t take all of this.”

You shake your head and push the money back towards him.

“I insist. You brought my dog back! I should be giving you more,” you say.

JJ holds back his laugh.

More? It’s a fucking dog! You’re about to give him $150 for a Goddamn seven-year-old labrador? God, Kooks really do just think different.

He looks up from the money and takes you in, properly this time. JJ recognises you. Not from keggers or house parties – he’s seen you at neither of those things – but from church. He used to be subjected to Sunday school in a desperate bid to ‘send him on the right life path’, and he could remember seeing you there. You’d attend the service, sat safe in your father’s shadow. Even though JJ stopped going, he’d still see people heading in the direction of the county church if he were in the area. You were a regular. Dressed in the prettiest dresses, hair perfect and proper, jewellery to the nines, always sandwiched between your mother and father. You didn’t indulge in the debauchery that most teenagers on the island did. JJ would know if he’d spotted you at one of the many hangs; you had the kind of beauty that demanded to be seen, like a rare bird on the marsh. No, girls like you didn’t partake in those things. You spent time with your parents and a small circle of Church friends, probably just as sheltered and saintly as yourself, and was in bed before sunset and awake before sunrise.

And yet, you never rubbed JJ the wrong way like all the other Kooks did. He didn’t know you from Adam – in fact, the first time he’d ever shared a word with you was today – but something about you…You seemed different. Genuine. Rich, no doubt, but not exactly snobbish.

An idea suddenly comes to JJ. It’s stupid, and rather out of character given his prejudices, but for some reason, it’s miles more appealing than $150. A part of him wonders where his sudden charity is coming from. Maybe it’s something about your personality and his underlying infatuation he’s had with you since Sunday school. Maybe it’s your dog and how doting he appears to be of you. Hell, maybe it’s because you’re pretty. JJ’s always been a sucker for pretty girls – Kook or not – and he’s always wanted the things that he can’t have.

All these thoughts race through his head at a hundred miles an hour, and there’s only half a minute that passes before JJ speaks.

“How ‘bout this?” he says. “I take a fifty, and you let me take you out.”

You blink once, then twice. “Take me out? Like…on a date?”

“Yeah,” JJ nods. The fact that your whole face didn’t immediately shrivel up like a prune at the suggestion gives JJ hope that he might have a chance. “What’d you say?”

There’s a moment where your eyes dip down to Ranger. He’s sat at your feet, watching the two of you interact with his tongue hanging out, mouth in a seeming smile. The second your eyes lock with your dog's, you look back to JJ with new-found confidence.

“Depends,” you say, correcting your posture, chin held high. “What did you have in mind?”

JJ’s never had to pitch a date to a girl before in his life. Usually he asks and they’re there: hook, line and sinker. His brain thinks hard and fast. “I can pick you up. Go for a drive, grab a bite maybe. Get to know one another,” he says.

You quirk a brow. “Is that all?”

Of course, you have standards. Hell, the guys that court you probably dine you at The Ritz and gift you a Rolex. JJ isn’t deterred though. Instead, he’s rather amused.

With a boyish grin, he says, “princess, I promise one date with me and I’ll change your life forever.”

Your eyebrows raise. “Bold statement to make, Maybank.”

JJ takes note of how you know his last name and thinks back to when he introduced himself; that strange flash of recognition on your face. You know who he is and yet, you’re entertaining the idea of letting him take you out. Curiouser and curiouser.

JJ doesn’t beg or barter. Instead, he just stares you down, waiting for your response as you visibly contemplate his offer. There’s a hint of a smile on your face, the type that might come when you’re trying to suss someone out. It’s barely there but JJ’s sure he can see it. He knows that look all too well.

“When would this be?”

JJ’s painfully aware of how desperate he may sound as he says, “Tomorrow night?”

“I have ballet practice tomorrow.”

“Thursday then.”

“Piano recital.”

“Jesus, woman,” he can’t help but mutter. It makes you smile.

“I’m free Friday,” you offer.

And, holy shit, no way you’re actually agreeing to this. JJ hopes the shock doesn't show on his face.

“Friday works. The, uh, cell towers are down on The Cut so how ‘bout I just pick you up? Seven thirty sound good?”

“Sure.”

You speak in a manner that tries to give the impression that this whole conversation is rather mundane to you. That you have Pogues asking you out every other hour, almost like a nine-to-five job.

“But pick me up on the street outside, not in the driveway.”

JJ doesn’t question it. He’s not going to argue to your terms when he’s somehow landed a date with the hottest, goody-two-shoes kook in Kildare.

“Alright. On the street, Friday at seven thirty. Wear something pretty, yeah?”

Your brows quirk. “Any other demands?”

“Yeah. Give me a fair chance?” JJ wonders, half-joking.

Your eyes flit from JJ’s face, down his body, right to his toes, and back again. Smiling, sweet like cotton candy, you reply, “I think I can do that.”

His body goes ice cold. JJ nods, cementing the dates and times in his memory like he’s remembering nuclear launch codes.

“Then, I guess I’ll see you soon, princess."

“I guess so,” you say, returning the leftover fifties to your wallet. JJ pockets his fifty, gives one last pet to Ranger in farewell, and shows himself to the front door. As it shuts behind him, JJ leans against it. He closes his eyes and tilts his head back. Then, he laughs. He laughs and laughs, mouth upturned in an astounded smile, and shakes his head.

“No fucking way,” he mumbles to himself.

John B is not going to believe this. None of the Pogues are.

Rubbing at his face in disbelief, JJ repeats, “no fucking way” one last time before walking down the driveway. He spares one last glance at the house. Friday. Seven-thirty.

~*~*~*~*~*~*

JJ has never been one to care all that much about his appearance. Half of his clothes have a hole in them somewhere, whether it be on the collar or in a pocket, and his hair is constantly tousled with salt-water from the sea. He isn’t unclean though. He showers and shaves and washes his clothes (though perhaps not as much as he should). He doesn’t think he’s bad looking, either. Lived experience shows that to be true, as he’s never struggled to land a date or hook-up. But there’s something about you, something about this particular meeting, that has him turfing through his chest of drawers.

He’s pretty sure he’s settled on an outfit. It’s ironic that it looks almost thrown together when JJ’s spent fifteen minutes obsessing over it. He washed his hair with shampoo and conditioner (that he stole from Kiara) and even used some hair wax to try and style it. Again, it probably looks the same as usual, but he feels better for it.

All the faffing leaves him running late. It’s closer to 7:45 than 7:30 by the time JJ pulls up your road on his bike. He’s aware of how loud the engine is in this area, rumbling as he slows to a stop. You’re stood in the sidewalk, arms crossed anxiously over your chest, glancing up and down the street. As JJ approaches, your eyes fall on him and a nervous smile sparks to life. JJ bullshits himself by labelling his hammering heart as adrenaline from riding a dirt bike on Figure Eight. You push some of your hair behind your ear as you walk up to meet him halfway. You’re practically glowing under the sunset sky, skin shiny with body butter like you’ve been bathed in glitter. He shuts off the engine and sits back in the seat.

“You’re late."

JJ cringes playfully. “My bad?”

“Mhm.”

You step over to him and linger by his bike. He quirks a brow. “You hopping on?”

As your eyes survey the vehicle, JJ starts to grin, smug. “You ever been on a bike before?”

“Course,” you say, almost too quickly. “Just…Not one like this.”

JJ offers out a hand and you hesitate for a second before taking it. Grasping your hand in his, you climb onto the back of his bike. Your summer dress rides up as you do and you nervously tug it down. Then, your arms gently loop around his waist. Laughing, JJ shakes his head. He tightens your grip on him.

“Gotta hold on tight or you’ll fly off,” JJ remarks.

“Promise not to do anything stupid?” you say, voice thick with nerves.

JJ starts up the engine. “Princess, I can’t promise anything like that,” he grins. Looking over his shoulder, meeting your terrified eyes, he softens his smile. “But I promise you’re safe.”

Your own smile battles through the queasy nervousness. JJ revs the engine and turns his head back to the road, and then he sets off. Your arms immediately latch tighter like a vice. It makes him laugh, and you mutter a meek ‘shut up’ in reply. Having you close like this; he can smell your perfume. It’s expensive, encapsulating you like you’ve been doused in it. Several bangle style bracelets lining your wrists press into his skin through his t-shirt, only slightly uncomfortable, and when he turns a corner, they shift and jangle melodically together.

Zipping down the roads of Figure Eight, JJ drags out the journey the same way he did walking Ranger back to your house. Gradually, mansions turn to shacks and quaint homes, and well-kept children’s parks into overgrown yards surrounded with chain-link fence.

He pulls down a dirt track, heading nearer to the marshland, and eventually comes to a stop. You catch your breath as he turns off the engine.

“Feeling alright?” he checks, glancing over his shoulder at you.

“Yeah, I’m alright,” you reply.

You look a little windswept. Instinctively, JJ reaches out a hand to brush some hair from your face. Embarrassed, you help, calming down your hair and fixing your appearance. Then you use JJ’s shoulders as an anchor, climbing off his bike.

“So…You brought me out to middle of nowhere…” you say, looking around.

JJ kicks on the stand and pulls the keys form the ignition. “Scared?”

“Should I be?”

JJ chuckles, shaking his head. “Come on. I got something planned.”

He takes your hand, smiling to himself as you intertwine your fingers with his, and guides the two of you through the shrubs towards the water side. The P.M.S. Pogue sits moored in the marsh. A loan, if he helps John B clean out the chicken hut next week.

“Now, I know this probably ain’t like all the fancy yachts you and your folks have,” JJ starts, walking up to the boat side. “But I promise it runs like a dream.”

As he looks back to you, JJ’s eyes shamelessly sweep along your figure. The dress you’re wearing is pastel green adorned with dainty flowers of white and ivy. It ends just past the point of tortuous on your legs. You’re pretty as a vine and sweet like a grape, decorated with expensive jewellery. Pearl earrings and a Tiffany necklace. On your wrist, though, JJ finds a series of handmade friendship bracelets amongst your bangles. They’re made with shells and beads and tiny pendants of silver. Several rings sit pretty on your fingers.

Looking back to the boat, JJ pulls the ladder free with a grunt. It creaks from want of use: himself and the Pogues usually just climb inside or jump on from the jetty. “Ladies first,” he says, offering out a hand.

You look between his hand and the ladder, and then something deterministic overcomes your face as you place your hands on lip of the boat. With a huff, you use whatever upper body strength you have to climb up. JJ stands, taken aback, and his eyes falls to your bare legs. Your toes are pointed, calve muscles tense and strong, and he can almost picture you in pointe ballet slippers. Amused, JJ lets you clamber up into the boat. Sighing, you correct your dress and jewellery before looking down at him.

“Well? You coming?”

JJ gives a small laugh before nodding. “Yes, ma’am.”

He climbs with significantly less difficulty than yourself, proudly flexing his muscles as he does, shameless in his peacocking. When he gets to his feet, he finds you staring. “Like what you see?”

Your face flushes. You try and play it off though. “Just checking if you needed a hand.”

JJ grins, playing along, and you roll your eyes and walk to the wheel of the boat. He follows, pulling the keys from his short pockets, and turns on the engine which sputters to life. You hold onto the side of the steering hold as JJ guides the two of you into the marsh.

“You wanna steer?” he asks once you’re in wider waters.

You wordlessly step up and take the wheel. It’s easy, guiding the boat along. JJ hovers behind you, testing the waters by placing a hand on your waist. You don’t shrug him off. Soon enough, JJ’s placing a hand back on the wheel and guiding you to a certain spot.

“I found this place a while ago,” he says over your shoulder as he steers. He can feel your gaze on him. It’s terrifying, having you so close to him. God, he hopes it doesn’t show. “Best stargazing spot in the whole county.”

He slows the engine to a shuddering stop and steps away to toss the anchor down. It’s silent out in the water, asides from sea birds and marsh-side insects. Fish that break to the surface for a split-second disturb the water every now and then. Crickets and distant hooting owls. It’s dark now, too. Everything painted in a dusky blue. JJ grabs the old blanket that he stole from the twinkie and lies it down on the nose of the boat.

“Here,” he calls.

You make your way over, accepting his hand as you step up. The two of you settle to lay side by side. JJ tucks his arms behind his head as a makeshift pillow. You stare at the sky, eyes falling open at the endless expanse.

“Woah.”

“Pretty sick, right?”

“Yeah,” you say, laughing quietly. “It’s awesome.”

JJ grins. Nailed it.

For a while, the two of you just stargaze. He can hear your breathing, steady and calm, and once more your perfume invades his senses. A bottle of the stuff probably cost more than his bike. That thought prompts him to break the silence. Sitting up, he looks down at you.

“Alright, I gotta ask,” he says.

You sit up on your elbows, curiosity piqued. It takes everything in JJ to keep his eyes trained on your face and not your chest.

“Why’d you agree to go out with me?”

You smile, somewhat amused. It’s like you’ve been waiting for him to ask. “Well, that’s an easy question.”

“Oh, is it now?”

“Mhm,” you grin, teeth sinking into your lower lip. Christ, you’re angelic. “Ranger.”

“Your dog?”

“Yep.”

“What? You kooks manage to translate what they bark about or something? He give you some words of wisdom?”

You laugh, shaking your head. Sitting up fully, your bracelets chime together. “He liked you.”

“Yeah?” JJ says, brows tugging together in confusion.

“Ranger doesn’t trust easy. He’s a rescue and he practically chose me. The shelter people said he hadn’t let anyone near him since arriving, but with me, he came running over, like he knew me or something. He likes men even less. He won’t let my daddy within five yards of him without barking and cowering. He wouldn’t hurt you, but he gets scared and jumpy. But he seemed to like you. Seemed to trust you.”

“So, that made you agree to go out with me?” JJ checks.

Shrugging, you simply reply, “dogs are the best judge of character, after all.”

Humming in thought, JJ looks out to the marsh as he considers what you’ve said. It’s a little hilarious that a runaway dog is the reason that he’s got you here, alone, on the P.M.S. Pogue.

“My turn,” you say, seemingly initiating a game of twenty-one questions. JJ looks back to you. “Why’d you ask me out?”

“Pretty obvious. You’re fucking gorgeous,” JJ replies.

Whilst your smile turns to mush, you roll your eyes and act as if you’re unaffected by his words. “Seriously, though. I didn’t think I was your type.”

“Smoking hot girls? Nah, you’re pretty much my type to a T,” JJ goes on, charming smile in full view.

“What about Kiara?”

JJ gives a bemused smile. “What about Kie?”

“I know she hangs out with you guys. We’re pretty different people, me and her.”

It’s obvious that you’re far from low maintenance. You're proud of being a kook. You don’t shy away from it: happy to show off your money and beauty. JJ doesn’t get the sense that you’re haughty but it seems rather clear that you live your life to a certain standard.

JJ shrugs. “Guess that’s why I’m not dating her.”

“I know your reputation, you know. About all the girls you hook-up with and stuff.”

“Oh. You jealous or something?”

“No,” you say. Voice turning softer, you continue. “But I feel like I should to tell you that I’m not the kind of girl who has a lot of hook-ups. Or the kind who puts out on the first date.” When JJ doesn’t say anything, you feel the need to add, “just, before you get your hopes up.”

Pursing his lips, JJ nods slowly. He had a feeling that was going to be the case. You weren’t exactly known in the community for being particularly flirtatious. Hell, he wasn’t sure he’d ever known any guy to date you. From the way you spoke, careful with your words, and the way you acted, you were almost made of solid gold: pure through and through. So, having you take sex off the table for the foreseeable future didn’t exactly blind-side JJ. That to say, if you had offered it up, he would have jumped at the opportunity. God, he’s half sure he’d die if he ever saw you naked.

He could be a gentleman, though. He could. Something about you had JJ entranced outside of just the physical. So, if a hook-up wasn’t in the cards, maybe getting to know you might be all the better.

He’ll just have to learn to keep his eyes and his dick to himself.

Sighing, JJ lowers himself to lay down again. This time, he only tucks one arm behind his head. The other, he outstretches into your expanse of the blanket.

“Alright, princess. I think I can live with that,” he says.

Seemingly content with his reply, you lay back down, resting your head in the nook of his arm.

“It’s your turn,” you quietly say after a moment’s quiet.

“To do what?”

“Ask a question.”

JJ filters through the many in his mind, tucking the inappropriate ones away for a later date, and finally settles. “Alright. Was Ranger the only reason you agreed to go on a date with me?”

You let out a small tuneful hum of contemplation. “No. I wanted to see what you were like.”

“Oh?”

“I mean, I’ve seen you around the island and heard the stories. I suppose I wanted to know for myself,” you say. “Plus, I always do what I’m supposed to do. I guess I wanted to do the opposite, for a change.”

“Rebelling against your dear old daddy with the derelict from the Cut?” JJ jokingly asks.

“Hmm. Something like that,” you say, playing along. You turn your head to the side and meet JJ's eyes. “You’re just a pawn in my game, Maybank.”

JJ’s too sucker-punched from that to come up with something witty in reply. There’s a foreign thump in his chest and a selcouth feeling in the back of his throat as you look at him. JJ swallows it away, returning his attention to the star-lit sky.

~*~*~*~*~*~*

JJ revels in the miracle that he landed a second date with you as he fixes his hair in John B’s bathroom mirror. His best friend sits on the closed toilet lid, watching him.

“I can’t believe you’re seeing her again,” John B says for the millionth time.

JJ grins at his reflection. “I know.”

“I mean, what do you guys even talk about?” JB continues, face contorted in confusion.

JJ shrugs. “I don’t know. We just spent the other night talking about all sorts, really.”

“And you’re sure she isn’t being paid to go out with you?”

“Maybe the first time, but not this time, no,” JJ replies. He stops messing with his hair. Licks over his teeth, checking for trapped food, and dusts of his t-shirt. Looking to his friend, JJ asks, “how do I look?”

John B barely takes his appearance in before saying, “like she’s out of your league.”

“Come on, man,” JJ groans, shoving his best friend’s shoulder. He leaves the bathroom, John B hot on his tail. “You’re just jealous.”

“Jealous?”

“Yeah. That I’m macking on a kook and you ain’t,” JJ tells him. Opening the fridge, he tosses a beer to John B before taking one for himself. “I know you’ve had a thing for Sarah Cameron since we were kids.”

“No,” John B quickly says, shaking his head. “No, no, I do not have ‘a thing’ for Sarah Cameron.”

“JB, you’re a terrible liar,” JJ sighs. He takes a sip of his drink. Liquid confidence. Eyes glancing up to the clock hung on the chateau’s kitchen wall, he reckons he has about five minutes before he should leave for your house.

“So, seriously: what is this? Why this new flavour of the month?” John B grills.

JJ shrugs. “I dunno man. She’s just…She’s cute. And hot. And rich, and easy to talk to, and kinda funny, and, oh did I mention, rich as fuck. I don’t see any downsides, really.”

“Mhm, well, I do,” John B gladly counters. “She’s a kook.”

“Yeah, but she’s not like a kook kook. Kinda like how Kiara’s a kook,” JJ argues.

John B looks bewildered. “She is nothing like Kiara.”

“Alright, not in personality or looks or actual money, but in general kook-ness.”

“All I’m saying is that if you think this thing has a long shelf-life, you’re way more crazy than I thought you were,” John B says.

JJ doesn’t reply. Downing the rest of his can, he tosses it at the trash can (dismally misses) and heads for the front door. As he goes, he taps John B on the shoulder in a brotherly fashion.

“Nice to know you’re rooting for me, man,” he jovially says in farewell.

Then, he’s heading down the porch steps, climbing onto his bike, and setting sights for your house for the fourth time in his life.

Your house stands like a castle in the streets. JJ practically sees the driveway as a crocodile infested moat. He waits on the street at the foot of the driveway for you, arriving in time to see you make your way down the drive. You’re dressed in Levi shorts and a Tommy Hilfiger shirt, designer sandals on your decorated feet with anklets and toe rings. JJ sits back on his seat, engine running, and finds himself grinning as you smile at him. When did that start to happen?

“Not late this time, huh?” you playfully say.

“Learnt my lesson.”

You don’t hesitate as you climb on the back of his bike. You wrap your arms around his stomach, fingers splaying out across his chest over his t-shirt. JJ revs the engine.

“Ready?”

“Hell yeah.”

Grinning, JJ sets off down the street.

Once again, you’d left the plans in JJ’s hands. It was a little surreal to him, how trusting you were of him. Might be a place of concern, even. But, hey, JJ will take the win.

It’s still light when you get to the cliffside. From here, the view is incredible. An orange-pink sky that looks like it might taste of tangerine and peach hangs above a rolling sea. The view stretches on for miles, with the mainland off along the horizon.

JJ admires you as you stand in breeze, looking out at the view. You turn to face him.

“Why does every place I let you take me get more and more concerning every time?”

“We’re going cliff jumping,” is JJ’s reply.

Your eyebrows nearly shoot off your head. “That’s called suicide, JJ.”

“Nah, not here,” he says, shaking his head. He grabs your hand and tries to coax you nearer to the edge so you can see the drop. “Water’s plenty deep and cliff’s plenty high. It’s fun.”

You catch on that he’s not joking. Laughing nervously, you shake your head and take several large steps back to safety. “No, no, no.”

“Come on! It’s fun!” JJ swears.

Your smile begins to fade and your head shakes faster. “No way. I don’t do…That. And I’ll ruin my hair. And what about my jewellery?”

“You can take off your jewellery,” JJ argues, walking towards you, “and your hair’ll look good either way.”

“Easy for you to say,” you snort, eyeing him up as your arms cross over your chest. “You’re a guy.”

“First of all: rude.”

JJ tugs his shirt over his head, tossing it to the ground. Your eyes instinctively glance down at his chest. JJ doesn’t bother hiding his smirk.

“Second of all: live a little, princess.”

You scoff. “I live plenty, thank you.”

“Oh really?”

“Yes. Really. Have you ever been to Paris? Seen the Eiffel tower? Been in the catacombs? Or gone to Italy and tasted wine fresh from a vineyard?”

JJ raises a brow, sarcastic as he says, “yeah, every Tuesday. Now come on.”

He grabs for your wrist, tugging you towards him. You don’t push him away as he lifts his fingers to the clasp of your necklace, only momentarily struggling to get it loose. He gently places it on top of his t-shirt, and soon your many rings follow. You lean down and take off your toe rings and anklets, and then your earrings. The handmade bracelets stay, though. Standing upright, you take a shaky breath.

“Look, you don’t have to,” JJ quietly says. He can see the fear clear as day on your face. But you shake your head, newly determined by his offer of an out. Clearly you don’t like having your bluff called.

JJ’s eyes nearly fall out of his head as you pull your shirt off. He doesn’t even have time to recover before your wriggling out of your shorts, stepping out of them and carelessly tossing them onto the pile of clothes and accessories like you got them from a bargain bin at a thrift store. Stepping out of your sandals, standing proud in matching Calvin Klein underwear, you grab his hand and interlock your fingers, guiding the two of you to the cliffside. As you pull him into motion, JJ comes out of his filthy thoughts, mouth dry.

You come to a sudden stop a safe three feet away from the edge. JJ’s done this too many times to count but the adrenaline that floods the system before the first jump shocks him every time like a cold plunge. You gnaw on your lower lip in trepidation. JJ squeezes your fingers, mutters your name, and captures your attention.

“You trust me?”

Your beautiful eyes dance across his face. JJ almost sees you go calm, like a baby soothed by its favourite nursery rhyme. It seems that his question, as simple as it is, made something click in your mind.

“Yeah,” you breathe, as if realising it in the moment. “I do.”

With that, JJ gives one last squeeze to your hand and a fleeting smile, and then he starts running towards the cliffside. You run too, only a step behind, and the two of you hurl yourselves off the edge at the same time. Your scream echoes in the wind as air rushes past JJ’s ears. He whoops on his way down. The two of you pummel down towards the water, your hand never leaving his until you reach the surface. His eyes press shut and he prepares for impact as he crashes into the depths. The water is cold but not icy – it cools his skin comfortably. Everything goes quiet in the water, mellowed out and muted. JJ pushes to the surface and takes a breath of air, shoving wet hair off his face. As he looks around, treading water in the currents, he feels the adrenaline rise once more when he can’t find you.

JJ starts calling out your name, looking left and right and left again. Just as he’s about to dive under, you break. He gasps out in relief.

The minute your eyes open, they land on him. Then, the biggest smile he’s ever seen comes over your face. It etches itself on his brain with permanent marker. JJ could be senile and decrepit and still remember that look on your face.

“That was amazing!” you scream, throwing your hands up, spraying water everywhere. “Oh my God! We have to do that again!”

JJ laughs, soaking in your joy.

It’s weird seeing you, wet and without all your dressings. It’s like seeing a priceless painting outside of its frame: it makes it somehow even more beautiful. The setting sun warms your wet skin as you throw your head back, eyes shut, grinning like a mad man. JJ wants to seal this moment in resin and place it on his mantle as a keepsake.

You make JJ climb up that cliff and jump into the ocean about five times over, until the sun has almost fully set and you can’t risk the dark. As it slowly inches down and down towards the horizon, you and JJ sit side by side on the grass. Your hand is so close to his, fingers reaching out like growing ivy, teasing at making contact. The moment the jumping was done, you’d returned all your jewellery to your body. It sparkles with the damp. As his eyes drift down from your profile to your figure, he picks up on those handmade bracelets again.

“What’s with the friendship bracelets?” JJ asks.

You look down at them then up at JJ. “I make them.”

“Why?”

Laughing, you shrug. “I don’t know. Why does anyone do anything?”

“Do you sell them?”

“No,” you say, messing with one. “I just enjoy doing it. I make them for my friends.”

“That’s sweet,” JJ hums, looking back out to the view.

“What about your shark tooth necklace? Someone make that for you?” you ask.

JJ glances down at it. “My ma. She used to collect shark teeth that washed up on the beach.”

“Well, she’s pretty talented,” you smile. “Maybe she can make one for me, one day.”

JJ swallows thickly, jaw ticking tight. “She, uh, ain't around anymore.”

“Oh…I'm sorry.”

“It’s alright. You didn’t know.”

The awkward quiet that comes passes like a summer breeze. Sighing contentedly, the two of you watch as the world gets darker and darker, and the sun gets lower and lower.

“So, how are you finding it?”

“Finding what?” you ask.

JJ gestures to himself, to everything around him. “This. Pogue-life. Rebelling against your dad. Not doing as you’re told.”

You laugh, shaking your head. JJ watches as you pull your knees up to your chest, sitting dainty as a robin balanced on a branch. Tucking some hair behind your ears, you look out to the horizon as if caught in a daydream. A solemn look threatens to cross your face as you say, “it’s making me realise just how much I’ve been missing out on.”

And that…JJ wasn’t expecting that. He was expecting one of your usual playful jabs, soaked in sarcasm. Not that. It makes you more human and less Kook. More real. More attainable, even, for JJ. It’s like with every minute he spends in your orbit, he gets closer and closer to you. But everyone knows the story of Icarus, and what happens when you fly too close to the sun.

~*~*~*~*~*~*

By the fourth date, JJ’s practically foaming at the mouth, feral from restraint.

He still hadn’t kissed you. Hadn’t had the opportunity. You’d kept teasing him with it, temporarily placing it on the table before taking it away. He knew he had to go about this carefully. One wrong move and he could screw up all his hard work and send you off running.

What surprised JJ more than most was the fact that feeling your body under him was one of the lowest ranking motivators to spend time with you. Don’t get it twisted – it was still a pretty bloody strong motivator – but JJ wanted to know you and be known by you. You were interesting and captivating, and caring and kind. You were funny and had this sweet sense of humour that glimmered through from time to time, like a kaleidoscope hanging from a window-frame. With every minute in your company, his prejudice of Kooks was dismantled piece by piece. One run in with Rafe or Topper and it would probably be rekindled ten-fold, but for now, JJ learnt to see past it. You were a little out of touch but you didn’t act like you were better than him. Then again, he hadn’t taken you to his house or the Chateau yet. He kept the dates on common ground, where he never felt out of his depths or wallowing within them.

You hit like a crisp, ice-cold beer on the hottest day of summer. More intoxicating than any blunt he’s ever smoked, or any line he’s ever snorted. Light like a feather in how you move, soft like rain and driven like fresh laid snow. You had hijacked nearly all of JJ’s thoughts, in one way or another, and it fucking terrified him.

“So, I went for white and pastel blue. I think they’re cute. What do you think?”

You hold your fingers out for JJ to inspect your nails. JJ couldn’t care less about nails – half the time, his are dirtied with mud and oil – but you care an awful lot, so he can pretend. To be honest, he had only been half-listening to your story. His eyes had been fixated on your lips, daydreaming about how they’d feed against his own, how soft they might be as he nips at them with his teeth, how wet they might be if he were to slip his dick between them…

“JJ?”

He blinks out of his gutter-brain and takes in your nails.

“They’re pretty. I like the, uh, sheen on them,” he says.

You practically become alight with the comment. It feels like another brownie point that he can tally. Bringing them to your gaze, you nod fervently. “Right? I’ve never gotten metallic powder on them but I think I like it.”

With that, you sigh and lay back on your towel. The two of you are at the beach and have been since two in the afternoon. It’s now nearly seven in the evening. JJ thinks you’re at your prettiest in the golden hour. It’s like God himself is shining a spotlight on you, highlighting every perfection of your features. The way your designer jewellery twinkles in the rays, the sun-kissed sheen of your cheeks, the ethereal-like glow of your eyes…It’s taking everything not to look at your body, proudly displayed in a bikini. It’s blue. It seems you like blue an awful lot.

JJ distracts himself from your figure and his tightening swim shorts by petting Ranger. He’d tagged along for the day and is currently napping in the sun. You’d brought plenty of water and dog snacks to keep him going. JJ had supplied the seltzers and bag of chips for the two of you. He’d noted how you’d been making one can last for about two hours. He wondered if you’d been tipsy before, or drunk even.

When he looks back to you, eyes sweeping up your sand-scattered stomach, he finds you threading the seashells you’d been collecting throughout the day on string. You’d brought a little kit with you in your bag and had spent the last three hours making jewellery on and off whilst talking to JJ. You lay in a sea of designer accessories – Ray Ban sunglasses, Dior lip-gloss, Clinique sunscreen – as you craft.

“That’s coming together nice,” he comments.

You glance up to meet his eyes, smiling. “It’s for you.”

“Me?”

“Mhm. Need to check if it fits, actually,” you mumble, shifting onto your knees.

JJ willingly holds out a wrist for you as you coil it around. It looks hilariously dainty on his built form. Seashells and blue and white and silver beads. Then he notices the small letters you’d interwoven into the design. JJ. His heart makes that awful, jarring tug again. JJ can’t decide he likes this effect you have on him.

“Perfect,” you say.

You tie it off and fasten it around his wrist. He shakes his arm out a little to check its fit. You’re right: it’s perfect.

The moment your eyes glance up from his arm, meeting his, JJ forgets all his manners. He takes your face in one hand and presses his lips to yours. You let out a gasp as he does, hands coming up to press at his shoulders, pushing him off.

“What are you doing?” you gasp, fingers flying up to your lips.

His heart is loud in his ears, hammering like he’s thirteen and having his first kiss all over again. In the deafening beat of it, he dumbly replies, “kissing you?”

“Well, you can’t just kiss me,” you say, almost offended. “You have to ask first.”

“Alright…Can I kiss you?”

Your eyes are like raging storms as you stare at him. Anyone would have thought from your expression that he just asked to take you roughly in the streets. Trying to calm yourself with a drawn-out breath, you cock your head.

“Why should you?”

JJ frowns. “What?”

“Why should I let you kiss me?”

Now usually, JJ would be pissed. Annoyed and impatient, and would get up and leave and never look back. But for you, he can’t find it in him. No, it’s all offset by that same damn curiosity that got him here in the first place. You’re like an enigma. A blackhole. He wants desperately to know more, to understand, but is terrified of being sucked in completely. Terrified of what it might all mean.

So, JJ deliberates your question. “Cause you like me?”

“I do?” you ask, quirking your brows.

You must. You wouldn’t have stuck around for this long if you didn’t. Wouldn’t have handmade a bracelet. So, he nods, feeling his confidence grow like the swell of a wave.

“Yeah, you do. I think you like what I bring out of you.”

“Making a lot of assumptions here, Maybank,” you practically warn. But the anger is gone. Gives him hope that he’s on the right track. JJ tries and fails to bite back his smile.

“Maybe,” he says. “But it’s only cause I feel the same way.”

When you don’t speak, he takes it as a cue to continue. As he goes on, his heart shudders with the anxiety that vulnerability brings.

“I like the way I am around you. I like how you make me feel. I like talking to you, and I like hearing you talk. You just have this way of speaking that’s…It just makes everything feel like it’s good. Everything’ll be good.”

Something in what he’s said seems to take you aback. You blink a few times, lips parting as you sit, looking at him all the while. He hopes that if your thoughts are still set on the idea that he’s in this for nothing more than a lay, he’s just proved that wrong. He supposes with his reputation on the island amongst the youngsters, he can’t be all that surprised if that was what you had thought. But surely, after spending so many hours in your company, doing nothing asides from talking and innocently touching, you had seen past that. Didn’t you say that you wanted to get to know him, to see him for yourself?

“Do you mean that?” you quietly ask. It’s almost sad, the tone of your voice and the look on your face, like nobody’s ever said something like that to you before. JJ swallows the sick feeling that it brings.

He nods. “Yeah. I do.”

Slowly, a smile blossoms on your face like the first budding flower of spring. With a small, slight nod, you tell him, barely louder than a whisper, “you can kiss me now.”

JJ does so gladly. But he’s careful with it this time, makes it count. He sweeps one hand from your shoulder, up against your collarbones, until it cups your jaw gently. Tilting your head just-so, he leans forward and pauses just a breadth before your lips. And then, he kisses you. It’s soft and sweet and different to the usual blind-haze rush that JJ finds himself in when making out. The pacing to it makes it almost sensual. The feeling the kiss brings is alien to JJ; he can’t quite place a name to it.

One of your hands finds home on his jaw, exploring his skin, fingers looping into the hair on the back of his neck. When he coaxes your mouth open with his tongue, you sigh gently against his lips.

As the two of you kiss on the beach, that new-found sensation in JJ’s chest intensifies, and then it dawns upon him - this new feeling that your kiss brings. Different from lust and libido.

His eyes fly open. Stomach plummets through the sand.

JJ Maybank is falling in love with you.

~*~*~*~*~*~*

As the summer stretched on, JJ realised he’d spent most of June in your company, growing closer and closer. It felt natural now to have your hand intertwined with his. JJ can hardly remember a time when wasn’t talking to you, or talking about you, or thinking of you, or organising his days around meeting you. He knew what it meant, what all of it meant, and this impending feeling of something grew with every word passed and every kiss shared. It almost felt like he was watching a sand-timer. Seeing each grain slip by, counting down until the inevitable end, just like most things in his life did.

He'd introduced you to the Pogues upon everyone’s insistence, including your own. John B was still in disbelief that JJ had managed to keep you around for as long as he had. Pope, on the other hand, was practically suspicious of it. It was as if he needed the cold, hard evidence for proof that JJ wasn’t spinning yarns. Kiara had of course jumped at the opportunity to gloat about the ‘good karma’ she’d bestowed upon JJ, by encouraging him to return Ranger to you. When she’d met you, she’d be apprehensive. Distrusting of your Kook status, having known you more than the others from attending Kook Academy with you. But JJ was sure she’d warm up, bit by bit. It helped that you wanted to try new things. You wanted to try the whole Pogue lifestyle. You let JJ take you surfing and begged to try his bike out. You let John B teach you to fish and wrestled Pope on nights spent around the campfire. You’d share seltzers with Kiara and sang along whenever she played the uke. And, oh, of course you could sing. You’d had lessons, you see, as you had with practically every other extra circular on earth. Piano, violin, ballet, tap…Shit, it was like you were collecting Pokémon or something.

In fact, it scared JJ how easy it was to pick up on the little details about you. It was like collecting stones on the beach: before you know it, your pockets are weighing you down, filled with tiny little pebbles. You were a fruity girl: cocktails and sangria and wine and seltzers – never beer. You weren’t a heavy drinker. Didn’t partake in shots apart from Cherry Bombs. You preferred sweet over salty; always took creamer and syrup in your coffee, in that order; rom coms from the nineties and noughties were your kryptonite, and you loathed fast and furious; skirts before shorts; Tiffany before Pandora; lip gloss over lip stick. God, the tingly sensation from plumping lip gloss was all too familiar to JJ now, from having it smear off your mouth to his.

After the kiss on the beach, mouths and hands had only continued to wander. It’s like JJ’s admission that this was more than just trying to score you for sex was the passcode to open you up. You weren’t prudish. In fact, when JJ met you, he was half certain that maybe you were a virgin. But no…now he found that very hard to believe.

Saying all that, it still felt bizarre to be seen out in public with you. It wasn’t a secret, had never been really, but JJ remained surprised at how willing you were to take his hand in public. To be seen with him by everyone in the County. It was like you wanted to show him off, parade him around like he was something special, like one of your many Prada purses. It almost made JJ want to question if you had ulterior motives.

“You wanna just split a portion of fries?” JJ asks, looking at The Wreck’s menu. You were there for lunch.

You hum in thought. “Maybe. I want mac and cheese though.”

“We can get that, too. I mean, you’re paying, right?”

You prod him under the table with your foot. He gives a playful laugh, grinning childishly. He’d started calling you his sugar mommy since you had to pay for gas when his card got declined. It softened the sting of embarrassment that came with being broke, especially when compared to you. I mean, even now, he sits in a thrifted t-shirt, the decal on the chest nearly faded with how much it had been worn and washed, whilst you’re in your new threads. Dior threads, for that matter.

“Hiya. You guys ready to order?” the waitress asks.

JJ glances up from the menu and shit. Shit shit shit. The minute his eyes meet hers, recognition dawns upon her. It’s weird seeing this girl – Lily, he thinks her name is – from this angle. Last time they’d seen each other, she’d been laying underneath him…

You’re thankfully blissfully unaware, eyes trained on the menu.

“JJ. Long time no see.”

With that, your head darts up. Great.

“Hey…Lily. How are you?”

At least luck is partly on his side: he got her name right. She places a hand on his waist. “Fine, thanks. Been a while since I’ve seen you around.”

“I’ve been busy,” JJ says.

“I bet. Remember a time when you were busy with other things…”

Her tone speaks volumes, as do her eyes as she surveys his body, smiling flirtatiously.

Suddenly, your hand is extending across the table, towards Lily. JJ looks to you to find a sickly, sweet smile on your face.

“I don’t think we’ve met before,” you say, voice honied. She shakes your hand as you introduce yourself. “You know JJ?”

“We have a…history, of sorts,” Lily replies.

“Oh. Well, any friend of JJ’s is a friend of mine.”

Looking to JJ, there’s an emotion in your eyes that he’s never seen before. It’s terrifying and sexy as hell. Raising a hand, your fingers leisurely splay across the expanse of JJ’s shoulder, manicured nails digging-in only so. Not enough to cause damage but enough to make a point. Enough to mark your territory.

“Babe? Can you order for me?”

“Uh, course,” JJ says, clearing his throat.

Looking down at the menu, eyes not even fixating on any of the words, JJ reals of an order. Lily scribbles it down, takes the menus, and leaves without another word. The minute she’s out of sight, you drop the act, hand unlatching from his body. JJ raises his brows, holding back his laugh as he turns to you.

"What a bitch," you mutter. You wash away your words with a sip of your water.

“Didn’t take you as the jealous type.”

“Yeah, well, some girls need to learn when to shut their traps,” you lowly return. Sighing, you close your eyes and shake your head. “Sorry. That wasn’t very girls-girl of me.”

“Mm. If only your daddy could hear you now,” JJ adds, sighing disapprovingly.

You shoot him an unimpressed glare. JJ brings his glass to his lips, having a sip of his water.

“You sleep with her?”

JJ chokes and coughs. “Jesus. Straight shooter."

“Better not be talking about yourself there, Maybank.”

JJ laughs, putting his cup down. Looking to you, he shrugs. “Yeah. Like…three months ago, alright? It was before we met.”

“Mhm. You sleep with anyone since we met?” you wonder.

JJ can’t place your tone but something tells him that this question will make or break him. Thankfully, there isn’t even a need to lie. “No.”

“You swear?”

“Scout’s honour,” he says, lifting three fingers whilst simultaneously marking his heart with a cross. “Shit, I don’t want you to claw my eyes out. Or any other girls, for that matter.”

You shove his shoulder gently, smile creeping back to your lips. “Shut up. Like I’d ever. The Bible frowns upon it.”

“What about ‘an eye for an eye’?”

“Ooh. Somebody went to Sunday School,” you tease.

“Yeah, just so I could gawk at you,” he smoothly returns, winking for good measure. With that, JJ knows he’s back in your good books.

When Lily brings the food over, she doesn’t try to strike up any conversation. Dare JJ say, she looks terrified to be within a foot of the table. JJ knew you had an edge but this is different. This possessiveness, this proprietorial energy that came over you…Fuck, he knows what’s the newest addition to his wank-bank.

The two of you eat, talking about what you should do tomorrow (because, of course, he’ll spend tomorrow with you) and then JJ desperately tries to give constructive feedback to your latest Pinterest board of hairstyle inspiration. He gets up to pay. It’ll probably cost half his wage but it’s worth it. I mean, this meal is pretty dismal compared to the feasts you’re used to, but you never complain. Saying that, it doesn’t go unnoticed that when it’s on your dime, you’re far more willing to get a lemonade and a dessert. When it’s JJ paying, you say you’re happy with tap water and splitting a side. It’s mildly mortifying.

Lily is stood at the counter. “Ready to pay?”

“Tell me the damage,” is JJ’s reply.

“Twenty dollars thirty,” she says, punching buttons on the register.

JJ’s stomach twists. Fuck, he hopes his card doesn’t decline. She holds out the machine for him and he swipes his card.

“How long has that been going on then?” Lily asks.

JJ follows her gaze to you. You’re sat at the table, reapplying Dior lip gloss with an Armani compact mirror. He’s half convinced that if anything bought from Target touched your skin you might implode.

“Bout a month,” he says.

“Hm. Never took her as one to venture out of Figure Eight.”

“Never took you as one to judge random people,” JJ counters, anger ticking with her unneeded commentary.

“I’m just saying. She’s a Kook, JJ.”

“Did it go through?” he asks, cutting the conversation short.

Lily sighs, looking down at the card machine. Nodding, she goes to get his receipt. But before she hands it over, she feels the need to add, “just…maybe ask yourself what she’s getting out of this? Girls like that…They’re sneaky. Just, watch your back.”

JJ takes the receipt hastily and walks off before he can’t bite his tongue any longer. As much as it pisses him off to hear someone who doesn’t even know you talk like that, there was a sincerity to Lily’s voice that speaks to JJ’s insecurities. Massages them. It certainly doesn’t help that the minute JJ arrives back at the table, you ask, “did you have enough?”

JJ hates how the rest of the day, that one interaction – that one moment – at the Wreck keeps him disconnected from you. Anytime you ask what’s wrong, it’s the same excuse: ‘I’m just tired, s’all.’ But whenever there’s a second for thought, Lily’s voice echoes around his head.

Ask yourself what she’s getting out of this.

~*~*~*~*~*~*

“How in the hell do you not get lost in this place?” JJ asks you as you wander through your house.

“I don’t know,” you shrug. “I grew up here.”

It’s laughable, the difference of JJ’s house to yours. He’s never taken you to his home; kept your dates and hangouts to the Chateau or the Twinkie, or anywhere but his house. He’s half-certain that you might just dip if you saw the state that he lives in. Plus, he can’t risk his dad showing up and meeting you. He’d hate you – the same way he hated most people – and again, you’d be gone in a second. In fact, as more time passes, JJ realises more and more that he’s got an eye on the door, waiting for you to walk through it without a second glance.

“You want some tea?” you ask. JJ shrugs his yes. He’s never tried it before but no time like the present, right?

You guide the two of you to the kitchen. As you pass by room after room, JJ nervously glances around. “So, uh…Your dad or mom home, or?”

“Relax, Maybank,” you grin. “They’re on a cruise. They don’t get back until Tuesday.”

“Oh, cool, cool. I mean, I ain't have been bothered if they were home.”

You bark out a laugh. Opening a kitchen cupboard, you talk as you retrieve two mugs. “Oh really? So you haven’t been avoiding my house like the plague because of my parents?”

JJ rolls his eyes. Busted. You go to heat up the water, grabbing two fruit tea bags and depositing them in each mug. JJ looks around the kitchen, searching for a certain dog. As if you can hear his thoughts, you say, “Ranger’s in the sunroom. If you call him, he’ll probably come.”

So, JJ does just that. Sure enough, Ranger trudges through the house and into the kitchen, tail wagging. He looks as if he’s just woken up from a nap. JJ grins, watching as his energy returns the moment he sets eyes on yourself and JJ, and the blonde-haired boy falls to his knees, arms outstretched. God, he missed this old fart of a dog.

“Why don’t you bring him along to the Chateau more?”

“Where would he ride? We always take your bike,” you laugh.

“Probably for the best, anyway. John B would definitely try and steal him,” JJ mumbles.

“Oh, and you wouldn’t?”

Insecurity picks at JJ like a scab. “What does that mean?”

You quirk a brow, unaware of the almost offence caused. “JJ, you would pick that dog over me in a heartbeat, if it came down to it.”

Of course. Of course you were talking about the dog, and not making some dig about his family reputation, or his sticky fingers. Shit, it’s like ever since that day at the Wreck, his insecurities had tripled in size and volume. Every time you looked at him, JJ wasn’t sure if you were passing judgement and he hated himself for it: for becoming so suspicious of you, when you’d done nothing to warrant it. But he couldn’t help it. It was like a reflex.

Once the tea is made and Ranger’s retired back in another sunny patch to sleep, the two of you head upstairs to your bedroom. JJ began to recount the story of the Grady White discovery and the Motel Room after the last hurricane’s end. He’s half certain that you don’t fully believe him.

“So, what did you find in the motel room?” you ask, pushing open your bedroom door.

“It was fucking crazy! Like a shit ton of money and this weird map. Oh, yeah, and…” JJ ditches his backpack by the foot of your bed and unzips it. Proud as a Superbowl jock, he presents the gun he stole. “This.”

Your mouth drops open. You place the two mugs of tea on your desk (on coasters, because of course) and reach out for it. JJ frowns and holds it out of your reach.

“Let me hold it.”

This reaction, out of all the reactions, was the one he expected the least. “No way.”

“Come on!”

“Nu-uh. You’ll shoot my dick off."

Rolling your eyes, you quip, “wouldn’t that be a gift for mankind? Come on!”

Sighing, he relents. Double checks the safety is on before passing the gun to you. You hold it like it’s a priceless artefact or a Louboutin heel (both as equal in value to yourself).

“It’s heavier than I thought,” you mumble, inspecting it.

Is it bad that JJ thinks you look unbelievably hot holding a gun right now? Probably. He can address that later in life when he eventually winds up in therapy.

“Yeah, these things are the shit,” JJ boasts, taking it back. He pretends to aim with it, gun pointed directly at one of your bears. At your scolding he puts it away again. “Anyway, now we got this dumb ass compass. JB thinks it’s got a clue in it, but I’m not so sure.”

JJ accepts the tea that you offer him as the two of you take perch on your bed, you at the foot and him at the head. You sit cross legged, nodding along to his tale, interested. JJ’s not entirely sure why he’s telling you this, especially when he was so adamant that the Pogues keep it on the down low, but something in him tells him that it’s okay for you to know. Useful, even, though he has no idea how. When he wraps up the story, he takes in your room. It’s just as he pictured it to be. Immaculately clean, psychopath level organised, decorated with brand after brand, China-white and pastel blue detailing every turn of the head. Looking back to you, he sniggers.

“You look like a witch right now.”

You take in the way you’re sitting and laugh, making a point to cradle your mug of tea between two hands. God, you’re adorable. The years of ballet have paid off: your back is straight as an arrow. The two of you sit in comfortable silence as you sip your tea. Outside, you can hear the sounds of nature pass by. There’s something understated and special about spending time with someone without feeling the need to fill the gaps. Just…existing. As JJ finishes his tea, you nod to his empty mug.

“Want me to read your tea leaves?” you ask.

JJ eyes you up, entertained. “No way you know how to do that.”

“Course I do. Here.”

You put your mug down on the windowsill and hold out a hand out for his. He passes you the empty mug and leans back against the cushioned headboard. Hell, if he had a bed like this, he’d never leave. You hum in deep contemplative thought as you look into the mug. Eyebrows knitting together, lips pursing, you study the scraps of tea leaves intently. JJ tries to stifle his laughs. It’s clearly a ploy. He can see right through the act.

“Ah, well…These are very good leaves,” you suddenly announce.

JJ plays along. “Oh, really?”

“Mhm. Yeah, yeah, I see a great fortune in your future,” you tell him. A glance up to his face, stupid grin on your lips, and then back to the mug. “Mhm. Yep, I see a…A boat.”

“Oh yeah? A Grady White by any chance?” JJ jests.

“Oh, no. This thing…It’s like the titanic. Big ship.”

“You have a way with words, princess.”

“And! A rainforest! And stones!”

“Alright, this tea’s gone to your head,” JJ laughs, reaching over for his mug.

You giggle as he takes it back, ditching it half-arsed on the bedside table so he can drag you to him by your forearms. Half tumbling forward, your hands ungainly catch yourself on his sturdy frame. You’re still laughing as he kisses you. JJ smiles against your mouth.

“I’m telling you,” you manage out through kisses and giggles. “You’re gonna be very fortunate in your future.”

“Mm, I’m fortunate now,” JJ replies, chasing your lips.

He uses a hand to hoist you further into his lap. You finally find purchase, a hand sliding along his neck, tantalisingly slow and smooth. As JJ’s lips creep along your jaw and inch down your neck, you lean your head, giving him more and more canvas to work with.

“I’m very lucky, you know,” you say, sounding short of breath.

JJ just hums. He continues his tapestry of love bites and kisses as you ramble on. He loves how soft it is with you; how there’s time for pause, for thought, for laughter. It’s the polar opposite to what he knows. Frenzied hands and sex in a timeframe. The patience of sex with you isn’t without heat, though. It isn’t like a married couple who can hardly remember what they liked about one another, chasing a high before drifting off to sleep. No, it’s like how people take time to pray. Like how musicians fawn over their music for hours, bit by bit, until perfection. So, JJ revels in your half-meaningful speech, slurred like you’re drunk despite being stone-cold sober, as he gently eases your cardigan off your shoulders.

“Every dance team I’ve been on, we’ve won…”

As JJ’s lips descend to your chest, you sigh. Fingers tightening just-so in his hair, spurring him on. One of his hands stays placed on your hip, a thumb rubbing circles on your exposed waist.

“Probably just ‘cause you’re a good dancer,” JJ mumbles against your skin.

“Not just that, though,” you muse. “I’m a good luck charm, I’m telling you. Nothing bad ever happens to the people around me. I’m lucky.”

Whatever you say, JJ thinks as he unhooks your bra. You help guide it off, sitting back against JJ’s thighs and lifting a perfectly manicured hand to his jaw. Your skin is soft like Mother of Pearl. Not a single cut or nick. Guiding his face up until his gaze meets yours, you lean down and press your lips to his. There’s no more laughter and no more silly stories. There’s no room in JJ’s brain to conjure anything other than thoughts of you. Your hair and your skin and your perfume and your nails and you. God, he wants to consume you. Breathe you in like vapour, soak you up like sunlight, feel you like the weather, all over him.

Nobody’s prettier than you.

Nobody prettier from this view, nestled between your thighs, almost suffocating as he swallows you up. More and more – insatiable. The distinct taste of you sits heavy on his tongue. It spurs him on like cocaine, energy unrelenting as he goes down on you. The sounds you make, the way you grab at him, grasp at the sheets, writhe and wriggle like it’s too much, like you can’t take it. But you can. Have before. Will again.

Your body bends to JJ’s will like water. You’re so trusting of him; have been ever since you met him. Let him take you how he wants, faithful in the pleasure he’ll give you. Usually JJ didn’t care much if girls thought him selfish in bed, but you? No, he needed you to give the mark of approval. He needed your praise, your validation, like his sex wouldn’t have meaning if you didn’t think it worthwhile. The way you fit around him; JJ swears to God it’s like you were made for him. He has you on your front, fucking you into the mountain of throw pillows that make up the head of your bed. He keeps your hips and ass angled upwards, holding you steady as he ruts into you over and over again. You’re a drooling, moaning mess underneath him. One of your hands is clenching and releasing the sheets much like your walls are to him. Having you like this – Christ, it makes JJ feel like a young God.

When you fall apart, it pushes JJ over the edge too, almost like a suicide pact. He’s not sure heroin could touch ecstasy quite like it. Drifting away on dopamine, JJ pulls out of you and flops onto his back, chest heaving. You shuffle atop of your sheets, curling up as you let the afterglow take over. JJ knows he should dote on you but he’s so tired and spent. After tying off and tossing the condom out in your bedroom trash, and tugging on his boxers, JJ lays back down on the bed beside you, flat on his back. One of your hands rests on his chest – damp with sweat. Just for a minute, JJ thinks. I’ll just close my eyes for one minute.

JJ tunes into the sensation of you stroking the bare skin of his back. It rouses him from sleep. Somehow, in his tiredness, he’d rolled over onto his front. Your sheets smell of fabric conditioner and safety. Goose feather pillows and Egyptian cotton sheets; a memory foam mattress that mimics what JJ might imagine falling asleep on a marshmallow to feel like.

“JJ?” You continue to run the side of your hand up and down his skin. "Are you awake?"

"No," he mumbles into the sheets.

“I want us to make this official.”

JJ groans sleepily. “Wha’dya mean?”

“I mean, I want us to put a label on this thing. I want to be your girlfriend, and I want you to be my boyfriend.”

It’s like the mattress has become a gaping wormhole and it’s sucking him in. That very thing that he was drawn to, entranced with, that very thing that he was learning and dreading to be true, every little insecurity and anxiety that had built and built since the second date…It’s all arriving at once, hitting him hard and fast like a meteor strike.

JJ turns his head, looking up at you. You’re watching him patient, a giddy-type smile on your face, slightly disquieted with nerves.

“Well…How do you know that?”

Brows furrowing, your smile doesn’t move. Shrugging, you say, “I don’t know…I just know. I…I know it because I feel it.”

Those words do nothing to ease the panic that’s building up JJ’s body. He shuffles until he’s sat upright, staring you down like you’re something dangerous. For some reason, your innocent request feels like a trap to him. A con. A joke that he’ll be the unwilling punchline of if he agrees. And he realises what that impending feeling was, all this time. It was him waiting for the other shoe to drop. For Lucy’s point to come true and for the curtains to be pulled. To find out what the hell you wanted with him.

“You can’t just say things like that. That’s a really messed up thing to say to someone,” JJ mutters, moving away from you.

You’re frowning now, befuddled. “Why is it? It’s true, and it’s how I feel. I want to make us official. I want us to be together.”

“Well, you’re saying that now but what about if we do get together, and I meet your parents and your friends, and you realise how different we are but you feel like you’re stuck with me, and then all of it was for nothing.”

Face the picture of perplexed, your mouth contorts into something ugly. “Where is all of this coming from? What did you think we were doing? I mean, we’ve been fine this past month and I know that there’s something between us.”

“How do you?”

“Because I’m not stupid, JJ,” you sharply reply.

Good, JJ thinks. You’re getting angry. You’ll lose your temper and you’ll let something slip that you weren’t supposed to, and he can bolt without a muddied conscience. He moves away from the bed and starts grabbing his strewn-about clothes in a frenzy to bolt.

“If there’s something between us, why haven’t I met any of your friends yet?”

You stare at him. He takes your hesitation as confirmation to his doubts. Pointing accusingly at you, he snarls, “because you’re embarrassed of me. You’re embarrassed to be seen with a Pogue-nobody from the Cut, in front of your Kook friends.”

“What is your obsession with me being a Kook!?” you exclaim. “Have you ever noticed how I never bring it up? How it’s always you, JJ, talking about it.”

“Well, I feel like I ought'a!”

“Why!?” you vociferate.

“Because what the hell do you want with me anyway!? You’re going to mess around with me for the summer, and get your kicks, and rebel against dear-old daddy, and then ditch me for some Kook jackass, who you’ll marry and he’ll take you on ski trips and summer’s in the Hamptons, and send your snotty children to expensive summer camps, and then you’ll laugh with all your trust-fund friends about how you went slumming once too.”

With that narrative, you laugh in disbelief, mystified. “What kind of fucking story are you spinning?”

“One that’s based on nothing but the facts,” JJ shouts. He’s shaking and angry, but it’s just his panic in disguise. He saw a glimpse of happiness with you and instinctively wanted to smash it up, like a psychopath child and a harmless butterfly. “I mean, you said it yourself - you wanted to do what you’re not supposed to do, for a change. Have a taste of rebellion and then go back to your rich-ass bubble wrap.”

JJ’s seen you possessive before. He’s seen you jealous, and scared, and snippy. But he’s never seen you angry. It’s horrifying.

“Did it ever occur to you that all of that has nothing to do with you? Has nothing to do with you being a Pogue, or me being a Kook?” you yell. Hands flying up to your chest, holding on like your heart might fall out of your skeleton, your voice turns thick. “I was miserable JJ! I was never allowed to do anything; never allowed to go anywhere. I did what my parents told me to do. I went to bed by nine every night. I was wasting my time with all these fucking after-school extra-circulars which I don’t even care about! I hate ballet! I hate piano! Christ, I hate all of it! And my friends are fake as anything. They say one thing to my face, and come to my house for pool parties, and then bitch about me behind my back! They’re assholes, JJ! So, yeah, I didn’t want to waste my time introducing you to them because I don’t actually like them!”

His lips start to quiver uncomfortably as he watches you unravel. It’s like JJ was pulling and pulling on a spring, and now he has to stand and watch it snap.

Make-up free, hair still tousled from earlier, oversized t-shirt half hanging off your frame: there’s no Kook defining thing about you here. It’s just you - just as it always had been.

JJ’s heart cracks as a tear falls down your cheek. With a shaky breath, in a quiet, defeated voice, you tell him, “I wanted to go out with you because I wanted to live. Because most of the time, I feel so useless and so alone that I wonder if I’m even here at all.”

And hearing you say that finally allows the curtain to fall. Only, it revealed to JJ something entirely different to what he expected. To what he’d told himself time and time again. Seeing you cry on your bed because of him…JJ’s made some real big mistakes in his life, but this one surpasses them all.

“So don’t put your shit on me because you’re the one that’s afraid,” you say, stealing yourself as you aggressively wipe your eyes. JJ’s narrow. It’s like poking a searing hot skewer into his most tender of wounds.

“Afraid? What do I have to be afraid of?”

“You’re afraid of me! You’re afraid that I won’t love you back! You’re afraid of what all the shallow people in the County will think! You know what, JJ? I’m afraid too! But fuck it - I want to give a try!”

It feels as exposing as having you peel back his skin. JJ pulls on his t-shirt and shakes his head, turning for the bedroom door, mumbling something about ‘I’m not doing this right now.’

You dart from the bed and grab at his arm, stopping him. “No. No, you’re not leaving,” you blubber.

JJ yanks out of your grip, turning around, lashing out like a stray animal approached all too quick. “What do you wanna know!” He yells. You recoil. “What? That I don’t have a great life? That I’m jealous of how you live compared to me! That I don’t want you to see how I really live because I’m ashamed shitless of it!”

You’re crying, hard, but JJ can’t find it in himself to stop. Why won’t he stop? The butterfly is dead, wings torn from the body, antenas shattered from the beating: but it’s like he doesn’t even want dust to remain.

“That my dad beats the shit out of me, so I sleep at John B’s house!? That I’ll probably end up in a prison cell or an early grave!? You ain't wanna hear that shit! Don’t tell me you want to hear that shit!”

“I do want to hear that stuff! I do want to hear it!” you argue through your sobs. You lift your hands as if you might try and cup his face. “I just want to help you.”

He retracts from your almost-there hold. “Help me! What the fuck! What, do I got a fucking sign on my back that says Save Me?”

“No!”

“Do I look like I need that!?”

Reaching for him again, tears streaming, you wail, “no! God, I just want to be with you because I love you!”

JJ grabs at your wrists, driving you away from him, driving you towards the door until your back presses against it, all the while yelling at you. Don’t bullshit me! Don’t fucking bullshit me!

JJ’s never been lucky to have good things. He waits for his friends to get up and leave. Knows his dad will too, one day, just like his ma. He’ll end up alone, drunk, high, and not long after, dead. You? You’re just a glitch in his programming. A girl who saw a project - yeah, that’s it. A girl who saw a project, a thing to fix, and the moment you have will be the moment that you get bored, and leave him broken hearted and alone. JJ knows more than anyone: you’ve got to leave before you get left.

But as you’re standing with your back against the wall, you don’t cower from him. Don’t wait for him to land a hit on you. Always so trusting. And seeing you, crying, sobbing, begging for him to listen to you, repeating that you love him over and over…JJ knows you’re not the malicious enemy he’s created in his mind. He knows you’re not.

“I want you to tell me that you don’t love me." A shuddering breath, trying to calm your quivering voice. “Because, if you do, I won’t call you anymore. And I won’t be in your life…”

And JJ’s never been good at admitting when he’s wrong. Maybe he learnt it from his dad. Maybe it’s a defensive mechanism. Maybe it’s dumb, childish youth that he never outgrew. So, as you sob, waiting for him to say something - to say you love him - JJ feels his face turn to stone. Cold, emotionless stone.

“I don’t love you.”

He grabs the rest of his shit in one quick sweep and he leaves your bedroom before he has to see the long-lasting damage he once again inflicted on someone. Slams the door. Rushes down the stairs. Passes the barking Ranger, alarmed by all the yelling, and dresses as he stumbles to the front door. In the air of the driveway, he takes a gasping breath, cringing with melancholic agony. Panic rises in his chest like a fist is clenching around his heart, over and over. He raises a hand, rubbing at the uncomfortable pain. JJ knows this feeling well. Knows it from childhood and from adolescence. Knows it almost as much as he knows breathing.

Heartbreak.

~*~*~*~*~*~*

JJ distracted himself with drinking, smoking and treasure hunting. Indulged at night and diverted throughout the day to avoid any thoughts of you. He was lucky, in a way, that his friends were there to keep him busy. They only asked once why he wasn’t seeing you anymore, wondering why you were never around, and learnt their lesson never to ask again. He tried to hide behind the lie that he’d so easily told himself: that you were a spoilt-bitch Kook who would have ditched him soon anyway. But he remembers your voice and your face clear as day, begging for him to tell you that he loved you. He can picture all too easily your reaction the minute he stepped away from you, after telling the worst lie of his life.

Throwing himself into work was a good distraction. It’s hard to think about you when he’s thinking about how heavy the motor is that he’s lugging, or how close he’s cutting it on time to deliver groceries with Pope. His hurt made him wreckless, like he deserved whatever bad thing might come. You were good karma for returning Ranger and his mistreatment was bound to be paid back to him by the universe. Maybe that was why he’d been so eager to exact revenge on Topper and Rafe. Their attack on Pope certainly made it easier for JJ to handle his hurt when he was reminded of how awful most Kooks are. It was almost possible to group you in with them, to help mitigate the sting of guilt that came whenever your name crossed his mind. Almost.

But, like always, the consequences of his actions were bound to catch up to him. So, as JJ sits beside Pope and Kiara watching the outdoor movie play under the watchful gaze of Topper, Rafe and Kelce, he knows bad things are coming.

“JJ,” Pope says, nudging his leg.

“What?”

“Gotta take a piss.”

JJ’s leg is quivering with building adrenaline. “Hold it.”

“I can’t hold it. I drank too much soda.”

“It’s too exposed, they’ll totally see us,” JJ argues.

“I gotta go,” Pope insists.

JJ purses his lips and glances back over his shoulder the same time Pope turns around. Their eyes land on the three pissed off Kooks, sat like mob bosses, biding their time. They might as well be smoking a pipe and stroking their one-eyed cat like some '50s Bond villain.

“They’re blocking the bathrooms,” Pope observes.

Yeah, no shit. JJ looks around, noticing the woodland behind the giant projection screen. “Alright, come here. I know where.”

The two of them get to their feet, hunching over as they go to move. When Kiara asks where they’re going, JJ shrugs and tells her, ‘we gotta ring it out.’ With that, they venture to the screen and relieve themselves just behind it, out of view, into the shrubs. As they piss, Pope and JJ banter. JJ finishes first, zipping up his fly and turning around to keep watch.

“You bring the peacemaker?” Pope asks, referring to JJ’s beloved gun.

His stomach drops. “Oh, shit, I forgot it.”

“You forgot it?”

“Hurry up! Hurry up!”

“Dude, you had one job. That’s all I asked you to do, man,” Pope complains as he finishes up.

“I know, let’s go,” JJ quickly replies. The moment he turns, JJ comes face to face with Rafe. Fuck.

“What’s up Pogues?”

“What’s up, Rafe?” JJ casually replies, walking backwards with Pope as Rafe approaches steadfast. He won’t let on that he’s scared - learnt that from his dad. “Isn’t it past your bedtime?”

As Pope tries to make a run for it, Topper emerges, Kelce in tow. “Hey that was some nice work you did on my boat!”

“I don’t know what you mean,” Pope fumbles.

JJ assesses the situation. Three on two. Pope isn’t the strongest fighter. No gun. Yeah, the odds are not stacked in their favour.

“Not so burly without a gun now, are you?” Rafe taunts.

JJ’s jaw ticks, his anger rising with his annoyance. The adrenaline is pumping and working its usual magic. Bring it on, pussy. I can take a few licks - it’s my birth-right.

“Take one more step and I’ll rip that prepubescent face off,” JJ warns through clenched teeth. He watches as Topper approaches Pope leisurely.

“Hey Pope, do you feel good about yourself, stealing shit? Is your mom proud of you? Is your dad proud of you?”

Pope slams his head into Topper’s upper chest and pride swills through JJ. “Attaboy! Attaboy!” He grabs his friend’s shoulder, lifting his clenched fist. “Now with your fist, see?”

With that, Rafe claims him. They begin to get in a dust-up. JJ takes the first few punches; each one that lands on his cheek brings searing hot pain that quickly vanishes with shock. Adrenaline is a hell of a drug. He taps into the pit inside of him, deep and angry and bitter. His self-hatred, for all the shit he put you through, for all the shit his dad and mom pegged on him…Throws his own punches, then. Wrestles too. Blood begins to draw. Lips crack open. Eyebrows split. But then it’s two on one: Kelce grabbing at him, holding him steady so Rafe can just lay into him. JJ’s winded as Rafe’s fist meets his stomach. He collapses in Kelce’s hold as Rafe right hooks him. And every hit, JJ takes like it’s his earnt punishment.

“Come on, Rafe,” JJ provokes through the agonising pain. “That all you got?”

“Let go of him Topper! You fascist asshole!”

Kiara. She helps Pope first, hitting Topper with JJ’s backpack. At least, that’s what JJ sees through the double vision. The backpack. The gun. Topper grabs it off her and tosses it, and then JJ’s too busy getting the shit beaten out of him to see what follows. It’s all just noise. Blends almost cinematically with the sound of the old-timey movie playing. At some point, it even sounds like there’s a dog barking. Blood fills his mouth like he’s at some sadistic dentist surgery. Pain numbs his nerve endings and softens his muscles. Air becomes a rarity as he’s held in a headlock, half-strangled.

“Let go of them right now!”

Everyone goes still. JJ only notices because he finally has a second to catch his breath, gasping as the arm around his throat loosens just slightly. He opens his eyes, desperate to get his vision steady, and…no fucking way.

There you stand like some designer vigilante heroine. Hair perfect, as always, with not a strand out of place; jewellery to the nines; make-up enhancing your gorgeous features. In your hand, clasped between perfectly manicured nails, is JJ’s gun. It’s pointed directly at Rafe’s forehead.

Rafe laughs. “What? That supposed to scare me or something?”

You grit your teeth, harden your stare, and remain stoic and strong in your stance. Rafe just quirks a brow, a sick smile twisting upwards.

“Oh, what, you’re gonna be the hero here? Why don’t you just run back to your daddy and mind your own fucking business?”

“Let. Them. Go.”

JJ realises then that Ranger is standing by your side. He’s growling, looking feral like Cujo, salivating at the mouth, death-glare set on Kelce who still holds JJ in a headlock. Your command and Kelce might lose a leg.

“What’s it to you?” Topper snaps.

“They’re my friends.”

Okay, no, JJ must have fucking blacked out or something. In the brain damage caused by Rafe, he’s seeing things. You’re his own guardian angel that his dying brain has conjured - that is the only explanation.

All of the Kooks laugh. “Your friends?”

“I won’t ask you again,” you darkly warn, not a spit of humour in your voice.

Rafe whistles lowly. He mockingly raises his hands to his head in surrender. Shares a laugh with Topper and Kelce. It vanishes the minute you unclip the safety.

“You wouldn’t,” Rafe tells you.

Slowly, maleficently, the faintest shadow of a smirk forms on your lip-glossed mouth. “You really want to test that theory?”

And that, ladies and gentleman, is how JJ Maybank ended up in the most insane predicament of his life. Nobody knows what you’re going to do next: not JJ, and probably not even you. As JJ waits, his eyes dart down to Ranger. The very thing that started all of this.

Rafe sniffs. He juts his head at Kelce. When Kelce finally lets JJ go, Topper does the same with Pope. Kiara helps Pope up. JJ leans over, hands on his knees, coughing and gasping in air.

“You’re gonna regret this, you know that? Better keep a fucking eye out, princess,” Rafe warns you as he saunters away with his posse. If JJ wasn’t on the brink of passing out, he’d lay him out for even looking at you.

The minute the three Kooks round the screen, acting as if nothing even happened, you drop the gun on the backpack and race over to JJ. It’s hard not to flinch after his moments-before assault when you clutch his shoulders. He realises that you’re shaking. Hears in the quiver of your voice how shit-scared you are.

“Oh my God! Are you okay? Can you breathe?”

No and no.

“Do you need to sit down? What should I–”

No, definitely don’t sit down.

“Come on - we need to go,” Kiara tells you. She has Pope’s weight on her.

You seem to copy, taking her guidance from her years of experience with hanging with the guys, and guide JJ away from the scene of the crime. You grab the backpack as you go, the gun shoved inside (safety now on). Ranger licks anxiously at JJ’s hand, whining in worry.

“I’m alright, boy,” JJ lies to the dog in a slur.

swirling, becoming blacker and blacker with every step. His body is screaming for rest and reprieve. He vaguely overhears you tell Kie where you’re parked. Lets you half-drag him to your ride. The minute JJ’s helped into the backseat, safe in the smell of you, he blacks out.

~*~*~*~*~*~*

The first thing JJ notices when he wakes up is how much his head hurts. There’s a headache above his brows, similar to that which you get when hungover. It feels like his brain was a ping pong ball, rattled around in there for hours on end. Sniffing, he groans as he tries to sit up. There’s a hand pushing him back down to the bed gently.

“Just lie still, for now,” you say softly. “No sudden movements, okay?”

JJ groans again, eyes pressed shut. At the sensation of a straw pressing against his lips, he drinks.

“Open your mouth,” you say after he swallows. JJ does as he’s told, in too much pain to argue. You give him a few pills - presumably painkillers - and help him chase them with water. “I’ll be right back.”

JJ must fall back asleep. When he comes to for the second time, the pain in his head is significantly lessened, as are all the general aches and pains of his body. He dreads the idea of looking in a mirror: he’s probably black and blue. Saying that, it’s not like it’s an unfamiliar state to him. Opening his eyes, he immediately recognises your bedroom. As if on cue, you walk through the door, a mug of what must be steaming hot tea in hand. When your eyes meet his, a relieved smile comes to your face.

“Hey.”

“Hey,” he rasps.

Making your way over, tea deposited on the bedside table, you take the seat next to him. Shit, no wonder he was sleeping so well. Your bed is like sponge cake.

“How you feeling?”

“Like shit,” JJ grunts. You stifle a laugh. Shifting to sit up, his brows furrow as last night comes back to him, piece by piece. “Did I…Was I hallucinating, or did you save our ass?”

“Mmm, I might have maybe just saved your ass,” you innocently reply.

Shaking his head, JJ rubs tiredly at his face.

“I’m not even going to ask what Rafe and his gang of fairies were angry about.”

“Yeah, that’s probably the best idea,” JJ cringes.

He finally braves holding your gaze. There’s a distance there - a reluctance to be fully present - and JJ knows it’s because of him.

“That was really ballsy, what you did,” he tells you.

“It's nothing,” you quietly reply.

“You’re probably going to lose your Kook card now.”

“Never liked it that much in the first place,” you say with a half-smile.

JJ silently laughs, shaking his head, mesmerised. He was so wrong about you. About all of it. “I was, uh...kind of a dick to you.”

“Yeah…”

“And…you were right,” he mumbles.

Brows lifting slightly, a small, amused smile teases your lips. “What was that sorry?”

“You were right,” he repeats, no louder.

Leaning in, a finger to your ear, you say, “one more time, I didn't quite catch it.”

“Fuck off,” JJ groans, shoving you away with hardly any force.

You snort out a laugh. The moment the humour passes, you look back to him. He feels as though he can hear your thoughts. Your anger and annoyance and insecurity and pain. He hears it all in the emotion swimming through your eyes. So, he nods.

“I’m sorry.”

“I know you are, JJ,” you whisper.

One of his hairs falls into his face. Before he can react, you’re leaning forward, brushing it out the way. JJ captures your wrist quickly, keeping you near, almost panicked that if you move even a millimetre away, he’ll lose you forever. In that same frenzy, desperate to have you close, he forces out the three words he’s never let himself say to anyone. Ever.

“I love you.”

Face an exact replica of the one you made that day on the beach, you blink at him. Once, then twice. JJ nods again.

“I just…I can’t…It doesn’t…”

“I know,” you say, forehead bumping against his own as you lean down. Then, in a whisper, you add, “I know. It’s okay.”

JJ sniffs, suddenly overcome with emotion, and nods against you. As his eyes press shut, you kiss him. It’s slightly salty with tears but no less welcome. He winces as your hand cups his jaw. Kisses you through your mumbled apology against his lips.

And as the two of you kiss, JJ realises that this was all it ever had to be. It was never that complicated, never that layered, because all that mattered was you. Wonderfully, princess-perfect, Kook-turned-Pogue you.

#jj x reader #jj maybank x reader #jj maybank #jj #obx #outer banks #obx fic #jj x kook!reader #kook!reader #jj maybank x kook!reader #obx kook #kook x pogue

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pretentiouswreckingball · 1 year

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loops' pin thingy :D

fics

completed

As warm as the Calabrian sun [jegulus] (2/2, 8.4k)

Sometimes, when the planets are misaligned and the odds are not in his favor, James Potter gets sick. But even when all seems lost, James hasn’t run out of luck because, when he least expects it, said luck knocks on his door, taking the shape of someone very dear to him. James only has to let him in. *** Featuring a sick James, a cheeky little Harry, an orange cat named mandarina and an unexpected —but not unrequited— feverish confession under the stars. And love, so much love wrapped between white linen sheets and soft summer breeze.

light as a feather, soft as a kiss [drarry] (1/1, 1.7k)

Draco never thought Harry’s face could ever look this soft, every time he has laid eyes upon Harry over the years, his jaw has always been too tight, his entire face set like stone, defiant. And no matter what he did to avoid it, Draco has always been mesmerized by it, even when he was not supposed to be. So now, as he’s tracing the golden skin that seems to glow under the light of the sun pouring from outside, Draco realizes looks can be deceiving and he’s never been more glad to be in the wrong.

slow dancing in the dark [jegulus, wolfstar] (1/1, 2.5k)

James is gone. But that’s not quite right now, is it? Because to Regulus, James is always only one dance away.

some sunny day [jegulus, wolfstar, pandalily] (1/1, 3.7k)

A beach AU with an insane amount of seawater, sand castles, threesome jokes, number two's and grandparents absolutely besotted with the grandkids.

When it rains [jegulus, wolfstar, pandalily] (1/1, 17.1k)

In the last week of November, a storm takes place. Certainly, three days of intense rain would make everyone stay at home. It seems that six people don't get the memo, instead, they decide to take shelter at a random bus stop. Not at the same time and not the same pair each time, though. What are the odds this particular group of people know each other? And in what way are they all connected?

Don't threaten me with a good time [jegulus] (3/3, 7.6k)

No, that doesn't make sense. James' boyfriend can't be an animagus, can he? Besides, a black cat animagus can't actually bring bad luck... right? --- Or: when Regulus messed up with his boyfriend just for the fun of it and they almost die. A few times.

archenemies (or so he thought) [jegulus, wolfstar] (1/1, 3.2k)

Sirius doesn't like cats. He's an animagus dog for Godric's sake, it's in his very magical nature to despise such sneaky little shits. He particularly doesn't like cats who tend to steal his best friend's attention, leaving him alone in pursuing mischief. So when he confronted his best friend about it, the last thing he's expecting is for the black cat next to him, to turn into his brother.

*in rewrite*

About time, scars and the brightest stars [wolfstar, background jegulus/pandalily] (4/24, long)

About Time AU where Remus discovers he can travel through time and while he tries to navigate through his life with this newfound discovery, he learns about life, loss, love and what it means to be alive.

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kneelingshadowsalome · 1 year

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FATUM NOS IUNGEBIT 2/4

König x F!Reader

Summary: You have seen him in your dreams. The seer has divined his coming. But nothing has prepared you for witnessing him in the flesh. (Historical AU where König fights for the Roman Empire in an auxiliary unit, finds a cute barbarian woman and decides to keep her as his own.) Part 1 here. Word count: 5.1 k Tags/warnings: 18+ ONLY. Spoils of war/enemies to lovers trope, graphic depictions of violence, historical gruesomeness, pining, odd banter, mixed feelings, romantic fluff, dubcon cuddling, eventual smut. Captor/captive dynamic. König is a brutal warrior... and a gentle giant. A/N: Part two! I don't usually rec music for my fics but if this fic was a song, it would be Dead can Dance’s In Power we Entrust the Love Advocated.

You wake up with a giant plastered on your back.

His bed is far more comfortable than your own, soft and cushy, and there must be flowers somewhere in the hay because there is a surprisingly pleasant odour lingering in the air as you come to. The mattress overall doesn’t reek of too much sweat: some poor slave must change the fillings often enough for König’s stench not to settle on the bed. Actually, you’ve slept quite nicely, despite being embraced by an ogre the whole night.

König has slept like a stone, too, but stirs when you start to shift. You turn on your back and find his drowsy stare on you: it’s generous and warm as he pulls you closer to him. You could roll your eyes when you notice he’s hard down there again – he’s probably hard all the time, whether in bed with a woman or raging on the battlefield, sticking his swords into some poor man’s gut.

“Gut geschlafen?” He asks, and you reckon he’s trying to ask if you’ve slept well – in his domain, in his embrace, after he just slaughtered half of your village.

You give him another pout, which is starting to become your signature expression now. He replies to your grumpiness with a smile, his own trademark move, the one that threatens to strip you from all your arms. He squeezes you fondly against his chest, and then his hand starts to wander: he plays with your tits again, then slinks further down to brush your navel. When he crosses the border and heads straight toward your womanhood, you seize his arm.

He whines softly at your refusal, but to your surprise, he actually stops. You let him go as he moves back up and stay immobile under his touch, amidst the flowery scent and the faint stench of dirt and man sweat, sighing as he cups your breast again. He doesn’t seem to get enough of them, and they’re beginning to feel sore: he gave them so much attention last night already and is now at them again.

You pull his hand away, but this time, he doesn’t respect your wishes but resists you. Trying to hinder a man who’s as strong as a bull is futile, but you have an attempt at it anyway. It turns into a play fight: you wrench his hand down, he drags it back up. Up and down and up and down, as if your breast is a hill he needs to conquer at all costs. But he’s the only one who finds any amusement in your silly game: eyes narrowing again with a smile, a few soft chuckles under that hood telling you he enjoys it when you fight him a little.

It all ends when you finally slap him.

It’s neither a good nor a hard slap, and his mask muffles whatever sound was supposed to give you at least some measure of satisfaction.

But he stops... And laughs.

“Ja, ich weiß. Ich habe deine Leute getötet. Ich verdiene eine Ohrfeige.”

His language is harsh and throaty, abrupt, and you tell him that, safe with the knowledge that he can’t understand a word you say either.

“You talk ugly,” you complain and watch him up and down, searching for a clue that would tell you that he somehow understands your insult. König simply thunders with another mirthful laugh at your morning crank.

“Es ist schön, mit dir zu reden. Aber jetzt muss ich weg.”

He looks down at you like he’s the Sun God now, thoroughly life-giving and kind. Then he dares to bend forward and press a kiss on your forehead.

“Go away,” you try to push him back with your hands - the hood prevents you from feeling his skin and breath and lips, but the… intimacy is still too much.

“Brute,” you want to spit the word out but end up sounding like a child attempting to quarrel instead. And he’s laughing at you again, both with his eyes and his mouth, covered by that darned hood. You don’t know why on earth you would think that such a charming laugh must come from an equally charming mouth.

He finally retreats and rises from the bed, stretching out his arms. The broad muscles on his back are exposed to the frigid air and his cock is jutting out, long and veined, completely unaffected by the cold. This beast is ripe and ready for another day, and you swallow when you see him in his full glory again, tall and wide and strong, looking like he’s about to eat an entire boar and fuck ten women in the process.

“Schön,” he comments as he turns to look down at you, lying naked and sweet there in his bed. He looks at you like you are the most lovely, adorable, difficult little thing. He even gives his horse cock a few good strokes while taking your sleepy little pouts in.

“Ugly,” you slur back, and he winks at you.

Gods… You’re too hot and riled to even speak.

You choose to vehemently stay in bed as König starts his day: eats some fruit from the table - still naked - pours himself some wine and washes his mouth with it, tears a handful of bread from a loaf and starts to eat with his mouth open, munching loudly under that hood, walking around without bothering to cover himself and that ungodly erection that is bouncing in the air without a care in the world.

You, on the other hand, escape back under the warm covers of the furs, but your eyes never leave König. He draws the draping flap of his tent aside - still naked - giving his soldiers a good view of his morning wood, a lovely chance to get a look at their champion. Perhaps it’s his way of saying good morning, you think bitterly. Then he leaves, probably to take a piss, and you’re more and more convinced that this man is the worst beast that has ever walked this earth.

You’re still under the furs when he returns and finally gives you the grace of clothing himself. It’s stupid that you mourn losing the sight of those shoulders and feel a bit disappointed when his cock disappears under the red tunic. His manhood doesn’t look any less intimidating even when growing soft; it’s still long and veiny and thick, and you find yourself… curious. Just curious.

He doesn’t put his armour on this time, chooses to wear only his tunic and sandals and a pair of hard-boiled leather cuffs to protect the vital veins on the wrists. He does take one Gladius with him, though - a sign of distrust in his own men or a Roman custom, you can’t tell.

He’s already at the mouth of the tent when he turns and points at you, now with a good amount of sternness in his voice.

“Du. Bleibst.”

…

He’s away the whole day. Probably drawing plans at some field war council, eating and drinking and bouncing some poor girl on his knee.

Even the thought makes your nose wrinkle and your stomach churn. Of course there are other trophies, and of course men want to show them off, pass them around, give their commanders a chance to give each woman a good squeeze. König has probably stuck that cock into a few women by now. Moaning, screaming women.

Or then he just settles for annoying their poor senses out of them…

You can’t deny that you’re relieved he hasn’t thrown you to the wolves yet, not even after you denied him. Wondering why on earth he would even want to listen to your wishes gives you an awful headache, and the image of him laughing at - or with - some other shy captive girl is making you uncomfortable. So uncomfortable that you throw the skins away after noon, and decide you’re not going to just succumb to your fate, least of all give in to sadness and apathy.

You eat this and that from his table like you’re not a slave girl but an honoured guest, a queen. You eat his figs and his bread and some smoked meat; you even drink some of his wine, as sour as it is. You’re a bit tipsy when you go through all his belongings, which are not as abundant or exciting as you thought they would be.

You thought you’d find tiny chests filled with gold coins and rings. You thought you’d come by dried body parts taken as trophies, perhaps the crown of some long-forgotten Hibernian king. But there are only a few trinkets under his bed, a huge bow and some arrows, his armour and the second Gladius, perfectly stored above the ground so that rust and mould wouldn’t bite them. There are jugs of wine and some firewood and oil for the braziers, there’s water and benches and the table and lots and lots of candles in different shapes and sizes… But that’s it. There’s no hoard, no treasure, nothing to prove to you that this brute is just another Roman soldier trying to gather a fortune by raping and pillaging so that he can go and retire early from all the bloodshed.

And it makes you shiver. Does he do this just for the sake of it, only because he enjoys killing so much? What is his reason to fight?

The only item that sends an odd sting in your heart is a small wooden statue. You feel like a thief when you rummage through a small satchel you find next to his breastplate, the only place you didn’t feel like peeking into because it looked so… personal.

Proving to yourself that you don’t care about his privacy or feelings, you end up pushing your fingers inside it anyway, meeting this peculiar carved piece of wood. There is nothing else there in the satchel, just the statue, and you feel yourself swallow a lump in your throat as you see it depicts a lush, buxom woman. Her breasts are nearly the size of her belly, larger than her head, and you realize that it is clearly the statue of the Great Mother this brute carries with him.

You put it back quickly, feeling a tingling in your fingers and a rapid flutter in your heart, as if you had just poked into something quite sacred. And it is sacred, the Mother. You wonder why, for the love of all the gods, this man would keep such a divine and fertile amulet near him. The statue is supposed to be a vessel for wishes and fortune; it is an idol of worship. König seems like the last man on earth to take up worshipping women.

You just want to get out of this place but can’t. There’s no one to go back to: your chief is dead, the people have fled, the rest of the warriors are scattered across the land. You have no idea where your brother might even be.

You have no wish to escape this tent; you have no desire whatsoever to step a foot outside and show yourself to his hungry men.

König comes back after nightfall and is not surprised at all to find you haven’t escaped. He’s not surprised that you have eaten some of his food either; he doesn’t even scold you. But then the eternal groping starts again as he gets undressed and lays himself down next to you.

You don’t even know why you allow him to touch you. Perhaps it’s because you know it’s better to just let him caress you if he wants; it’s better to suffer the weight of his hands on you if it means he won’t rape you with that cock. If you don’t complain, perhaps he will settle for squeezing and petting and stroking you.

But your body is a traitor: it’s hungry for him, for some ungodly reason, and always craves for more. You say to yourself that you only allow this to happen because it’s a condition, a compromise, a meeting in the middle. You never acknowledge the way your nether lips puff up like a fat flower every time he fondles your breasts. You pay no attention to how wet you get when he caresses your face, your waist, even your thighs, every part of you except the place between your legs, the place you kind of want him to touch... If only he would be gentle and didn’t get too excited, you’d let him touch you there, too, as sick and accursed as it is.

And it’s all good until he starts to hum.

It may be some song from his homeland, the land of ugly brutes, but it’s not a crude giant song… In fact, it’s a rather beautiful, melancholy tune. Your body is relaxed and your pussy is wet; your nipples are tight and pleased as he pets you slowly, lovingly - but that song is too much. You don’t want him to see you cry, not even a single tear, and now there’s an entire flood about to occur.

“Don’t touch me,” you whisper, trying not to choke on your sorrow. He doesn’t stop - of course he doesn’t. He gets bolder by the day, and he can see that you’re enjoying yourself. In a way.

"Magst du es gestreichelt zu werden?" He asks, soft and tender, so incredibly gentle that the tears are about to burst forth at any given moment now.

“Ich glaube das tust du,” he rumbles when you don’t answer him. His hand is heavy and broad on your hip as he finally stops caressing you. You squeeze your eyes shut, and it causes the glimmer in your eyes to fall. Tears roll down your cheeks and into your hair, as you lie there next to a titan, about to shatter into a million pieces.

“Wurdest du schon einmal berührt…?”

You want to shout at him to shut up already, to stop talking so gently, asking you questions you don’t understand, to stop trying to find a way to communicate with you through song and hum and touch. The hand on your hip moves, slowly, with devastating cunning towards your core. He’s about to touch you there, to try and feel if you’re wet... If you’d like it that he pounded you a little. You wonder if he would do that gently too, and almost laugh through your tears. It will be your undoing if he finds out that you’re soaked all the way to your thighs, aching to feel him inside you, even a finger, just something…

“No… Nein,” you rule out sternly, opening a new way of communication. You don’t know if the word is correct, but he catches it immediately and stops.

“Nein?”

He sounds both happy and sad; happy that you try to use his language, sad that you use it to give him such a disappointing command.

“No touching,” you repeat and open your eyes, finding his hazy figure hovering above you. You barely discern the gulf of sadness in his eyes, but it is there: undisguised, trying to reach out and join with yours. Gods… How strangely appropriate it is that you are both so very alive, wanting to be devoured by each other’s hunger and lust, only to find yourselves on the brink of tears and hollow loss.

“No... No touching…”

“Verstanden.”

He takes his hand away from you and turns, not even joining you under the fur tonight.

…

The next morning, you wake up attached to him.

Somehow you’ve managed to wriggle under his furs and, on top of that, crawled to hug his side like this. You blame the spring cold for it, of course. Your heart bangs against your ribs as you notice how tightly you’re squeezing him, breasts pressed flush against his hard middle, belly fluttering against his hip. You’ve even draped your leg across his so that your poor, lonely cunt is resting right there over his thigh.

You swear in your mind with all the words and terms you know and can think of.

How the hell are you supposed to detach from a giant without waking him up? His arm is around you, holding you loosely in a warm, pleasing shackle. He feels so, so good - blazing, big and safe, so incredibly nice. You never knew sleeping next to a man could feel so nice. You’re half asleep still, mainly because his body and scent make you feel like you’ve had too much wine again.

You allow yourself a few more moments before you rip yourself off him. Or at least, try to: the arm snares you the instant you attempt to move. It prevents you from leaving him, and you end up hovering awkwardly there, almost on top of him, tits pointing straight at his face, panicked, doe-eyed stare guided to his unwavering blue eyes, open, and regarding you with warm love.

And the damned man smirks again.

“No touching?” He inquires with silly, completely feigned shyness.

“Shut up,” you breathe and try to get off of him, but his other hand comes to brush your cheek next, and you freeze.

“Schön… Pretty,” he tries, and you nearly whimper at the sound of your native tongue in his mouth.

Pretty… Is that what the word means, the odd ugly word he has repeated ever since he stole you?

His eyes are warm and his hand is gentle as he caresses your cheek, and the snare around your waist tightens. Softly… Invitingly.

“Stop it,” you whisper, on the brink of tears again, because this time, your shields and armour and weapons are gone. You just woke up to a feeling of odd contentment, fulfilment, even joy.

And it’s not right.

He has no right to be this gentle with you.

You sniffle and sigh, and cast your eyes down to the chest that belongs to a giant. But you can’t deny that there must be a heart under there. A human heart under your palm. Your hand is right there over the strong beat because you’ve tried to push yourself away, and he won’t let you go. Another tear falls somewhere in the hair of his chest, and he rumbles with such compassion that you want to slap him again, hit his chest with your tiny little fists and bawl.

What you do instead is break down and let the ocean take you. You cry and sob and wail, right there in front of him, until he turns you on your stomach and comes to rest halfway on top of you. Through your tears, you understand that he’s trying to soothe you with his weight. It’s pure insanity how well it works. It releases a whole well of grief, and you start to shake with the cries; your whole body shudders with the sorrow as you retch it all out while König continues to caress you like a pet. He strokes your hair, pets your back, he even pats your ass as if you’re just a baby.

You cry long and hard, so long that he eventually lets out a long, deep sigh. When you’ve calmed down a bit and remain still, sniffling occasionally while squeezing the furs in your fist, trying to remember what it is to be an animal with feelings other than just sorrow, he leaves you.

He simply rises, and gets dressed, and leaves.

That is very much what you don’t need right now, much to your surprise. He was good at consoling you, as odd as it sounds.

Cold starts to creep in when there is no warm body next to you, and your skin misses the calloused gentleness of his palms. You wouldn’t mind if he wanted to hum that song to you now. But the darned bastard had to leave just when you were about to turn and cup his hooded face in return...

König comes back after a short while, but he’s not alone. You gather the furs against your chest, horrified and angry when you notice he returns to the tent with a short old man, vigorous and busy, but so tiny in stature that you doubt he was ever a warrior. You wonder if this is another foreigner or if you have the dubious pleasure of meeting your first genuine Roman.

They both stare at you, quite nonchalantly, while you sit there on the bed and try to cover your nakedness with animal skins while having red eyes and a pair of uninviting, quivering, puffed-up lips.

The short fellow looks you up and down, then turns to talk to König in what appears to be this giant’s mother tongue. It’s a curt suggestion, muttered under his breath, and you realize König must’ve fetched a translator for you.

Oh, good Mother... Great Mother.

You watch these two men before you in a state of stunned shock, as König looks at you, then back at the old man, and nods. The Roman looks slightly vexed as if he just got up too. Then he starts to speak.

“Excuse our manners... We are men at war. If you wish to get dressed, we will wait outside.”

You blink at your own language being spoken to you, perfectly discernable but accompanied by a thick accent. You nod, and the men leave, returning only after you’ve dressed and cleared your throat in the tent.

“He asks if he killed your husband,” the translator starts immediately while König goes to sit on his favourite Roman bench. You’re wide awake now, and the nauseating feeling of being suddenly in the middle of an interrogation rises to your throat with a clot.

“He… What? No,” your eyes dart to König, who is looking at you with his undying ardour. For a man with so much sadness in his soul, he’s surprisingly carefree when he wants to.

“Do you have a husband?”

You gulp at the questions levelled at you. König keeps watching you intently, and you choose to look at the old translator instead, shaking your head slowly. The men exchange a few words, and the Roman turns to scold you with his stare.

“Master reminds you that it is wrong to lie,” he says, putting a lot more weight on his words this time. Roman or not, he calls this giant master, which means that he is just another slave in this camp. You swallow again and try to think, think, think; all the while König’s stare strips you of all your pretences, garments and words.

He thinks you’re trying to hide some imaginary husband, you understand and consider whether you should say that you have a husband: if there is any benefit you could gain from such a lie. König would only probably try to hunt him down… But what if he found out you were telling him tales? Would he feed you to his horny war dogs then?

“I’m not lying,” you say through slightly gritted teeth.

There is another exchange of words before the translator turns to you again.

“Are you untouched?”

“What…?”

“Master asks if you are a virgin.”

The translator is utterly unfazed, and mainly looks like he has better things to do than get to the bottom of whether there has been a cock inside you yet.

“That’s none of his business,” you hiss. The old man turns and starts to translate your words with a dull look.

“Wait—don’t tell him that,” you take a panicked step forward.

Oh good Father in the Sky… Strike these men down so that I may be freed from them.

They pay you no attention; a few sentences pass from mouth to mouth, and the old man nods.

“Master says you are clearly a maiden,” he declares. You peek a glance at König, who is looking at you with hunger, and not the kind of hunger people look at their breakfasts with. Your breathing is getting out of hand, and when he opens his legs wider, clearly making more room for a rising cock, you decide to throw caution in the wind.

“You know what? Your master can go fuck himself with a stick for all I care…!”

The old man turns. He doesn’t even care to sigh; he merely opens his mouth to give your words to König.

“Don’t you dare translate that!”

Finally, the old man sighs. He looks at the ceiling as if begging his gods to take him away from this tent. König’s stare flashes between you two, and he is evidently curious. Clearly, this is the most exciting conversation he’s ever had.

“Was sagt sie?”

“Tell him that I want to be freed,” you hurry to say before the translator can tell your insults to König. After a brief conversation, König leans forward in his chair to see the effect his words have on you.

“He says he can’t do that,” the Roman informs. “His soldiers will find you and take you.”

You close your mouth and try to even your breaths. No one says, You don’t want that. Everybody in this tent knows you don’t want that.

“He asks if he killed your brother or your father.”

You sniffle, quite involuntarily.

“No. He didn’t.”

“Then why are you angry and sad?”

There is a hint of genuine interest in the man’s voice. Both of these men are confused as to why you would bawl your eyes out after the massacre of your people.

"Because… Because he…"

“He says it is a man’s duty to die in battle. You should be proud of your fallen ones, not cry and feel sorry for them.”

“Tell him that he can go fuck himself,” you shout, not giving a single shit anymore about whether he translates the words or not.

To no one’s surprise, he does.

“He says he’d rather fuck you,” he returns to you with König’s message.

You can’t bear to look your captor’s way, and still, that’s exactly what you do. You look at the giant as he stares at you, keen and hard and patient. But you know his patience has its limits. It’s almost like a promise, the way he leans forward in that chair and looks at you from under the hood, shameless and challenging.

“Never,” you guide your words to König now. It’s a brave little whisper, but you know that it’s a lie. Even the Great Mother knows you’re lying. You almost hear the cackle of the old woman rising from the earthen ground, from the chthonic depths, to mock you and your vows.

You hear the old man’s words from somewhere far away, from underwater, as König’s stare wrestles you down and takes away your little knife. He subdues you even when he’s sitting, and shares a string of words: a harsh promise. You hold your breath as his cock gives a pulse under that tunic, and your eyes fall, fall, fall onto it, because there’s no escape…

“He says he can make you feel good,” the voice says, and you can’t even hear who speaks. Your mouth is full of water, but you swallow it down, then shoot your way up to the surface, up, up, up into the sunlight, until you can breathe again.

You rip your eyes from König and look at the Roman translator with loathing and contempt.

“You can leave now. This conversation is over.”

Then you turn, trying not to pay any attention to the hushed conversation that proceeds behind your back. The man leaves the tent: you can hear it, and you can also hear how König rises from the chair and walks right behind you.

“No… afraid,” his hands come to rest on your shoulders, but you don’t even flinch. You knew he was going to touch you again. Perhaps you were even looking forward to it.

“I’m not afraid of you,” you start to argue, but he doesn’t take the bait.

“You like trees?”

He speaks your words, not good, but he speaks them. You wonder if he has known parts of your tongue all along and has simply concealed it. Has he understood what you’ve said to him…? All the slurs and stupid things? Mother, grant mercy…

“Why would I like—What kind of question is that?”

“Climbed a tree,” he explains cheerfully behind you. You turn and look up, yet again rendered weak. Giants are supposed to be stupid. They’re not supposed to know the language of faeries…

“Nosy,” he brushes your cheek with a smile in his eyes.

“Nosy?”

You huff - as if you wanted to be there and witness him.

As if you had a choice after the seer pushed you on this insane, cruel path.

“Wanted to see me so bad?” König tilts his head playfully.

Gods… You can only look at him with brows curling with helpless frustration, lip trembling from how he seems to know your every little secret. He nods when you don’t say yes or no. He’s perfectly happy to read all the answers from your eyes.

“Ich wusste, dass es so war,” he changes into his own language, and you don’t need to understand the words he says.

You know he knows. He knows you, he knows you to your core, and it doesn’t really matter in which circumstances you two met. He knows far more than you, something about souls and how they’re supposed to meet, how little squirrels and giants belong together, as crazy as it is. That there is no chance in life: no, it was meant that you two meet. To him, it was no coincidence that you practically dropped into his lap from that tree.

“Did you like what you see?”

He holds your shoulders gently as you quiver and shake inside.

“No,” you peep.

“I like what I see,” he declares; a benevolent god.

…

A/N:. Thank you so much for your love and interest in this fic! As you may have noticed the fic now has 4 parts, which is because the 3rd chapter got too chunky and I had to split it 😇 Next part might take a while because I'm moving soon, but let me tell you... These guys will be put into *situations*. Oh, and a reminder that I don't have a taglist for this so please check any future updates from my pinned masterlist post 🩷

Translations:

Gut geschlafen? - Sleep well?

Ja, ich weiß. Ich habe deine Leute getötet. Ich verdiene eine Ohrfeige. - Yes, I know. I killed your people. I deserve a slap.

Es ist schön, mit dir zu reden. Aber jetzt muss ich weg. - It is lovely to talk to you. But now I have to go.

Du. Bleibst. - You. Stay.

Magst du es gestreichelt zu werden? - Do you like being petted?

Ich glaube das tust du. - I think you do.

Wurdest du schon einmal berührt…? - Have you ever been touched…?

Verstanden. - Understood.

Was sagt sie? - What does she say?

Ich wusste dass es so war - I knew it was so.

#könig fanfiction #könig x reader #könig x you #konig x reader #konig x you #könig x fem reader #könig x female reader #könig cod #cod x reader #könig fluff #könig smut #historical au #Roman soldier!König

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ahhhwomen · 7 months

Text

I don’t know why I bite.

Vampire Empire

Part 1

Pairing: DarkVamp!Wanda Maximoff x DarkVamp!Natasha Romanoff x Fem!Reader

A/N: We are going to ignore how long I disappeared, okay thank you. Also, y/n will not be in a proper relationship with the girls, she will very much be viewed and treated like a pet not a partner, but she will obvi still get the love.

Disclaimer: English is not my first language. All mistakes are my own.

AU Warnings: Human pets, abuse, violence, possessiveness, probably incorrect vampire lore, angst, panic attacks, hurt/comfort, kitten play (?), also this is not a Carol positive fic (I have nothing against her, but I needed a villain), death (later on)Minors DNI 18+

Summary: Your Master is a cruel woman, but you would never stand a chance against her, but what if they can?

Word Count: 3.5k

The keys jingle in a pattern.

With each step, the clash of metal calls out. It changes tune, depending on the day. If she’s tired, she drags her feet, it’s a slower melody. When she’s angry, there is a harshness to the smashing of the chain against her belt and a thud to her heavy boots.

You don’t know what her happy steps are, you think the sound would be smooth. Maybe, like she´s floating?

You wonder if you are ever going to hear it? If you are being honest with yourself, you don’t really know if you want to. At least her other behaviors are predictable, you can handle predictable, uncertainty however, that is an entirely different game. Not one you are very keen on playing.

Today, her steps boom like thunder, and her keys shriek like lighting.

Chills run down your spine; you press against the cold concrete wall. It scratches your skin. You press harder and cower closer.

You are shaking as she sweeps around the corner of your prison; she’s frowning today.

But…?

It hurts.

From yesterday. It still hurts.

She always gives you a day.

It still hurts.

You need a day.

It doesn't matter. You know you can’t stop it.

You close your eyes and submerge yourself in the void. You don’t like the dark, but she doesn't like it when you see.

Your cage opens with a shriek. You flinch as she touches your face, she is breathing down your neck and you feel yourself panic as she struggles with your collar.

It's never good when she takes away your collar.

Before you do something stupid, like fight back, a soothing voice guides you. It’s a whisper, that only you can hear. Drag in slow breaths, in for four, hold for seven, out for eight. Rinse and repeat. You do as they tell you.

You're in a sunflower field.

The heavy feeling in your stomach is from the big dinner you had, half an hour earlier.

The sun is setting, and you are smiling and laughing as you run through the field of flowers. They're ginormous, almost bigger than you. There is a weight to them as you push past. They scratch and irritate, but it's only temporary, so you keep laughing to yourself.

There is a whip to the wind, the sound loud and frightening. The flowers are louder, so you pretend not to hear. They rustle and dance in the harsh wind.

It's dark, but the yellow glow of plant life guides you. You don’t know where you are running to, maybe home, maybe the ocean. It matters not. You are happy, just you and the flowers.

When the wind calms and the sun peaks over the horizon you know it’s time to leave.

You trek through the soil and ignore the sharp stones that prick your pale skin, you wish you could stay, but it’s time to return.

You open your eyes when she leaves. She almost killed you today.

It's okay.

You deserved it.

Tomorrow, you rest.

Maybe.

Natasha smirks over the rim of her whisky glass. One would think the blonde would be professional after almost a century of doing business, yet she still stomps around like a child throwing a tantrum when she doesn't get it her way. The redhead almost feels bad for the poor pet that was going to be at the end of Carol's rath tonight, almost.

“Knock, knock.” Wanda stands in the doorway, her knuckles lightly tapping against the dark oak.

She’s dressed modern today. Her suit is fitted to perfection, it hugs her waist and expands her hips. She also went for a smokey makeup look, her eyeshadow a mix of dark brown and black, her lips a deep amber, just like her suit.

If attraction could kill Natasha would be one dead woman.

She smiles at her wife before signaling her in with a wave. She’s surprised to see Wanda, her wife comes by occasionally, and she has always dressed nicely, but this is new. Due to her desk stealing her view, Natasha can't see, but she can hear her wife's high heels as she passes through the threshold. Same color as the suit she imagines.

“What brings you here?” Natasha questions as she pours her wife a drink.

Wanda settles herself in the plush chair in front of her wife before bothering to answer. “Do I need a reason lovely? Maybe I just want to see my beautiful wife in her place of work.” Wanda grins while the other redhead hands her a glass of whiskey. Neat, just how she likes it.

Natasha scans her wife with suspicion, she wants something. She can tell by the way Wanda leans her body slightly to the left while her lips lift into a flirtatious half-smirk.

The shorter redhead lifts her eyebrow. “As nice as that may be, why are you really here?”

Wanda deflates slightly at her wife’s accusatory tone. She is right, of course, but Wanda was hoping she could butter her up a little before getting to that. Wanda will have to ask her out on a date soon and make herself a little less predictable.

She is ashamed to say it's been a while since their last dinner date, or movie night for that matter. However, it's hard to find the time when you have been married since the eighteen hundreds, and you both work more than any human would be capable of.

Which brings her to her point.

Wanda pulls in a breath, “I want a pet.”

Before Natasha can get a word in Wanda continues to ramble all in the same breath, “And I know, I know, we have already gone over this. But I'm lonely. The business has been slow since the Stark clan agreed to our peace offering. And while you are busy here, I want someone to come home too.” Wanda keeps her tone open and light.

She wasn’t here to accuse her wife of not giving her enough attention, they both knew that their different work would keep them apart, but while Wanda would spend long nights in her home office, Natasha would spend them in her company office on the other side of the city.

Natasha drums her fingers sharply against her desk, she wants to shut the idea down immediately.

Having a frail human pet would mean having a weakness. Natasha knows her wife well. She knows her wife will get attached, and she knows it will never end well for either of them.

On the other hand, she understands her wife's needs. Natasha spends most of her days in the office, working to uphold their cover, while Wanda spends her days all over the city settling their other business. Their schedules never align either, Natasha works days, Wanda nights. She has to admit, it doesn't sound half bad to have someone to come home to the few nights she can afford it.

Wanda is waiting with bated breath as her wife concludes.

“You have already set up the meet, haven’t you?”

Wanda gapes slightly but conceals it before her wife sees. She knows her too well indeed.

She slumps into her chair, “Yes.” She lifts her finger to stop Natasha from commenting, “In my defense, I was coming here to get your approval.” Natasha chuckles to herself.

“And if you didn’t get it your way?”

Wanda smiles bashfully, “Then I would go without you.” Natasha has to blink away tears from how hard she laughs, she is gripping her stomach, wheezing while answering, “I would expect nothing less my love.” She rights her posture and wipes a tear from the corner of her eye. She glances at her wife hiding her blush behind luscious red locks.

She can never say no to her.

Clapping her hands together, she responds. “Fine, you win.”

Wanda practically shines with mirth and joy, “But,” her companion eyes her carefully, nodding to confirm she´s listening. “I get to pick the name that goes on her collar.”

The other redhead huffs, “Fine, but it better not be something stupid.”

Natasha shrugs and her wife leans over the table to slap her shoulder in warning. Natasha smiles all the same and shakes her head, “Yeah, yeah, nothing dumb.” As much fun as she is having with this, she is a busy woman.

She runs her hands down her black suit, thinks of what paperwork to finish, and mumbles a question about when they need to leave while sorting through the latest update about their progress on Project X. Wanda, without missing a beat, states a simple, “Now.”

Nat drops her pen and pinches the skin between her eyebrows. Wanda shrugs half apologetically as Natasha fixes her with a hard glare.

Rolling her eyes, Natasha grumbles a short, “Right, we better get going then.”

It's been almost a decade since she has set foot in one of these shitholes. Nothing has changed, the cages are just as small, and the odor stinks the same, alcohol, blood, and fear.

Wanda shifts uncomfortably as they wait for the salesman to get his spreadsheet, Natasha silently watches from the sideline as he sorts through a mess of paper and fast-food containers to find what he is looking for. She chastises Wanda for not finding a better establishment. Back in their time, this was the usual, but nowadays they have far better alternatives.

Wanda leans against Natasha to whisper, “It was the only place by a few miles Tash, and it’s the only place we have time for.” Natasha stays unimpressed. Wanda smirks at her wife and tucks a strand of loose hair behind the other redhead's ear before discreetly licking the shell of it and whispering sweetly, “I will make it up to you.” Natasha shivers under the attention and the salesman grunts a weak, “found it” before leading them into the main hall.

The ocean swishes in the background as you lie on your blue, shark-themed blanket in your modern bikini. The sun gleams over your head. Your skin stings and you shift onto your stomach, you must have forgotten sunscreen again.

Nonetheless, you purr under the shine of good weather; you wish you had taken a book with you. Maybe next time. For now, you stretch out and lay your bare arms against the warm sand. It will be stuck in every crevice, but it's nice.

A light breeze passes you.

You suck in a big breath, it burns, but you ignore it. It smells of salt and….. salt… and….?

Ice-cream.

It smells of salt and ice cream.

You think you may stay for a while today. You might visit tomorrow, but you would rather not.

If it doesn't burn too much, you hope to sleep tomorrow through. After all, if you are really lucky, you may not wake up again.

This place is even more depressing than Wanda had anticipated.

She and the other redhead had been to a similar place a few decades ago, but this was just sad. Not even the potent scent of blood can get her to ignore the uncomfortable sound of churning, empty, stomachs.

If they lived in a different city she would have taken her wife to a more humane operation, but with limited time comes limited opportunity.

The male and female sections are separate, in the left hall she can smell the odor of young men eager to please, while in this hall she can see the curious and smell the fearful. The gruff man showing them around had introduced them to a few pets by now, but she had to admit they were not what she was hoping for.

There had been one pet she took a slight liking to; a young woman, in her mid-twenties, she was in the puppy section, an enthusiastic little thing. But in the end, she was a little too pushy for Wanda’s liking, Natasha hadn’t seemed too keen either, so they left it there.

The kitten section wasn’t too bad, but every time she thought she was building a connection, Natasha would step into the pet's line of sight and they would cower away one by one. She knows her wife is putting on a stern face to test the poor little things, but it was starting to piss her off big time.

Wanda rolls her eyes as the feeble man struggles with yet another lock, she lifts her suit jacket and checks the expensive gold watch ticking away, fifteen more minutes or they will have to come back another time. Given that this was the only available time she and Nat had had in a few weeks the dire truth of not getting a pet today was settling in.

“Here she is, now she's not much to look at, but since you wanted to see them all,” the man shrugs and Wanda has half the mind to bite his head off. Before she can do anything of the sort Natasha takes her by surprise by stepping into the cage before her.

Nat ignores her wife as she steps into your cage, she has seen you before.

You were Carol's pet, or at least she thought you were. But it seems you were a less permanent part of the blonde’s life. Your cage was different, it was slightly bigger, the poorly dressed man had said something earlier about you being a leased pet.

You look horrible. She is studying you from a few feet away and she can still see the horrors you must have been through.

She knows Carol is violent, it's why she has spent so long trying to negotiate with blondie. Their clans were never on the same page and yes, threats were constantly made, but this was something else. Natasha would never think the pathetic woman would do this just because she could.

She hears Wanda step in and gasp at the sight of you.

You are lying on the hard floor with your back turned to them, a rag the size of a hand towel barely covering your bottom. Your hands are stretched out under the lamp, the only heat source you have, you have been beaten to a pulp. There are deep lacerations covering you, your entire body is one big bruise, and dried blood covers every crevice of both your skin and even part of the walls. But that was not what caught either of their attention, no, it was the lack of life they could sense from you.

Natasha kneels a few feet away from you and studies you carefully. Her hand rests against her cheek as she tries to focus on your heartbeat. It beats, but there was something off about it. It's slow like you are asleep, but she can hear in your breathing that you are still conscious.

She tilts her head and talks off-handedly at the man behind her.

“Is she sick?” She hears him scoff but ignores it in favor of closing her eyes and trying to feel you.

“Of course not-“ He waves his hand, “all that,” he gestures at your body, “was her own fault.”

Before Natasha has time to reprimand the pig, she hears a crunch behind her followed by a heavy thud.

She huffs and raises herself slowly before opening her eyes and looking at her wife with her peripheral vision. “I thought we agreed to not kill anyone today.”

Wanda stares at her with empty eyes. “No. We agreed on not killing any innocent people tonight. As far as I am concerned, I am just following his logic, after all this was all his fault.” Wanda gestures at the dead man's body.

Natasha turns to her wife while rolling her eyes.

Wanda ignores her wife's sass and looks past her to take you in once more. “Who is she?”

Natasha shrugs and gazes at you over her shoulder. “She was Carol´s plaything, but I guess Carol never owned her like I thought.” Wanda raised her eyebrows in surprise and stared at Nat, “That’s y/n?”. Her eyes move down to you again, “last time I saw her she sure as hell didn’t look like that.”

Natasha nods and crosses her arms in thought, “well it seems Carol is an even worse owner than she is a negotiator.”

The last time Wanda had seen you was when she joined one of Natasha’s meetings a few months ago, you were a new thing back then. You had scars, but they were pink and healed, you were a skittish little thing, but you ate, you had some color to you, and you sure as hell didn’t feel like this.

You could feel their eyes all over your body. You hated it, you never liked it when people looked too hard or thought too long, it always meant the same thing. They were assessing whether or not you are a feasible option as a pet. You know you aren’t, you know they will scoff and turn their backs to you as if you disgust them, like you don’t deserve to breathe the same air as them.

You get it though, they are probably right.

Usually, such a thing wouldn’t bother you, you are used to it by now, but there was something about their scents that put you off, you felt out of place even more than usual, and you hated it.

You were too focused on pretending to be asleep to assess what the heavy thud against the concrete could have been.

Whatever it was, must have had something breakable inside of it as you could hear a clear crack as something bounced off the floor. You decided you didn’t care, you only cared about the sudden voice that took over all the space of your enclosure. Powerful enough to command any and every room, you know this voice. It belongs to one Natasha Romanoff, and suddenly the voice behind her made sense too. You had only seen the redhead once, but you would remember her anywhere, just as commanding as her wife, and even more scary, Wanda Maximoff.

If you weren’t scared before, you were positively shitting your nonexistent pants now.

You try to keep your breathing even so as to not show any hint of awareness, you have no idea what they could be doing here. Had Master sent them? Were these the last moments you would have, were you going to die in this tiny, claustrophobic hellhole?

You were panicking, and you know they can sense it. Feel it. No matter how many times Master called you such, you weren’t an idiot. You know what they are, you know what they can do, what they will do.

As you hear one of them take a step closer you turn into a stiff board. You stay completely still as you feel your lungs start resisting the air you desperately try to force into them, you have this sudden need to flee or to bear your neck and beg for them to finish it quickly. Right after the thought passes your mind you shrink in shame, Master will kill you for ever thinking of bearing your neck to another.

You can hear them pause for a moment as you feel their eyes on you again. You have been made.

You don’t know what comes over you, you don’t know where you suddenly find the strength, but before you even know what you are doing you are leaping towards the women, your hands ready to claw out their eyes if need be.

You know they are stronger, faster, and smarter than you could ever wish to be, but this is a survival instinct, nothing makes sense, nothing matters. And as you collide into a warm body and start ripping into it, to the best of your ability, you realize, you have no idea what you are doing.

Natasha knew what you were about to do, possibly before you, and as you crashed into her and started scratching and ripping at anything you could get your hands on, she realized that maybe you still have a chance at this life. For the first time during their little visit, she can feel something in you, it’s small, scared, abused, but there is a will there, a will to live, a will to fight. That is more than most in this bleak city.

She holds you gently as you rip apart her coat, tear at her skin, and bite her hands. She hears Wanda take an uncertain step toward the both of you, unsure of what to do. But Natasha waves her hands nonchalantly and asks Wanda with a calm voice to stay back.

Natasha understands that to her wife you must look positively rabid. You were in the kitten class, but you were fighting Natasha as if you were a fighter dog. All teeth and claws. However, compared to Natasha, you might as well have been a mite.

No matter how hard you try, you can’t pierce her skin, can’t topple her balance, you can’t win.

Your fingers dig into the soft skin, your nails gripping and tearing, but nothing happens. There is no skin underneath your nails, no blood, no sight of damage against pale skin. You bite the hands that hold you, and you can hear your jaw creek as you strain your weak body, but the skin doesn't break, the only blood you taste is your own.

You are scared, you don’t know what to do, there is no sunflower field to hide behind, no sea to drown in, you feel powerless, even more so than she makes you feel.

You don’t know what they want, you don’t want to die like this.

Even after all your effort goes to waste you can’t give up, you have to keep trying, you have to-

“Stop.”

Wanda looks at you with an unreadable expression, you look up in terror as you realize you can’t move your body. One simple word, in one simple tone, has made you paralyzed.

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