#i wonder if its a way for him to get away from it all. the memories perhaps

[ceilidho]

take me home, country road

[ao3]

You have nothing on your person apart from a hastily packed suitcase and the dress you came into town wearing, on the run from trouble back home. Too bad John's missing a bride that matches your description. Or: the 1800s (mistaken) mail order bride au (chapter 16 + 17) tw: violence, injuries, and misogynistic language

first chapter >> last chapter

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Sinking into fear is the body’s natural response. You let it envelope you without putting up a struggle. It wouldn’t be one that you’d win anyway. Resistance already leaks out of you like tar, pooling around your quivering legs.  

It makes you feel lighter than air, almost buoyant; and conversely, heavier than lead. 

You can’t feel the cold metal of the gun through the layers of fabric separating it from the skin of your back, but you can feel its weight. And you can imagine it burning into you, burning a ring into the flesh, the muzzle leaving faint depressions behind, circular indents.

“Don’t feel so clever now, huh?”

Fear chokes as well as it binds. When the man you remember as Graves (appropriately named, you think, the gravity of the situation sinking into you as well) drawls the words into your ear, any moisture in your mouth dries. 

“Well?” he prompts, shoving the gun harder into your back, almost sending you toppling into the shelf still in front of you obscuring you from sight. “Got anythin’ to say?”

You open your mouth but nothing comes out.

“You a mute, girl? I know you ain’t deaf since you heard I’d been sniffin’ around lookin’ for ya. ‘Least I’m guessin’ you did, since you managed to give me the slip for the whole time I was in town.” He sniffs. “Took me a while to find out you were shacked up with the sheriff. Hiding in plain sight. Couldn’t believe I missed ya when Sheriff Price was damn near the first person I met in this two-bit town.”

You finally muster up the nerve to speak. “Y-you’re making a mistake.” 

The furled upper lip is audible in his voice. “I’d try not to piss me off too much, sugar. Lyin’ just rubs me the wrong way is all.”

“No, you—you really don’t—” 

He shoves the gun harder into your back, making you wince. “Now, I know you’re a slippery little bitch, so I’ll level with you, alright?” Graves murmurs, pitching his voice low to ensure that only you hear. “You make so much as a peep—so much as a fuckin’ whisper—and I’ll shoot. Wink and I’ll shoot. I am dyin’ for you to give me a reason to go with the better half of the dead or alive question.”

There’s no point in lying. It might’ve worked had it been anyone but the man holding you hostage; not a man as stubborn and mulish as him. You nod when he asks if you understand.

“Now get to steppin’.”

He doesn’t tarry long, leading you out of the shop with a hand on your shoulder and . You stare at Miles with mounting horror, wordlessly begging him to look up from the ledger open in front of him on the counter. Your prayers go unanswered though; he doesn’t so much as glance towards the door before it’s swinging shut behind you.

“Remember,” Graves says in a low voice as the two of you step out onto the porch, “not a word. I will shoot anyone that tries to interfere.” 

That kills the impulse to shout for help. 

The thought of letting Graves take you away without voicing so much as a single plea fills you with horror, but you can’t see any other way out. He walks you through the streets like an old friend, the pistol still wedged into your back obscured by his coat. No one seems to notice the wild look in your eyes or the strained edge of your smile. 

Your behavior infuriates you. Demural and soft and wretched. You’ve only allowed one man to put you under their thumb; only one has ever earned the right. 

The thought of your husband is an ache in your chest that doesn’t abate. It thumps with the terrified flutter of your heart. You half wonder if he’ll suddenly appear from around a bend and wrench you into his arms, gun already drawn and aimed at the man attempting to take you away from him. 

“My husband—” you start, tripping over your words. Almost tripping over a rock as well since your spine is too stiff to let you look down at the ground while you walk. “—He can—he can pay you.”

He laughs, a nasty, mocking sound. “I’m sure he’d like to, sugar. Jus' ain’t sure he’s got the cash to pay your price.”

“At least let me ask—”

At that, he jams the gun violently into the small of your back, making you wince agaun. Petrified. Sweat sluices off your brow and drips down your face. “What part of shut the fuck up don’t you get?”

That silences you. Hard to muster up the nerve to retaliate with a gun lodged against the base of your spine. Still there’s so much that bears asking. Why did he come back? Why here—why now? 

The town takes on a dull, listless quality as he steers you away from the more crowded areas. It’s almost like looking through muslin; a veil between you and the world. 

Your eyes dart from person to person as they pass by in the opposite direction, but even those that bother to meet your gaze only smile politely, a couple passing gentlemen chirping, “Morning, Mrs. Price” before sweeping by in a hurry. 

None question the wild, frantic glint in your eye, the look of a horse about to bolt. If they paid you more than a moment’s notice, they might, but even the lady who frowns curiously at Graves, his hand still resting gently on your arm as if he were an old, dear friend, abandons her momentary curiosity when her companion says something of interest, pulling her back into their conversation. The flicker of hope in your belly dies a soundless death. 

There’s something almost phantasmagorical about the entire ordeal. Almost like it isn’t quite happening, like you can’t quite make yourself believe that this is, in fact, real. Like you’re watching from outside of yourself. Though you can see the wooden facades of the nearby buildings and smell the scent of hay and manure from the livery stable, it doesn’t resonate within you as real. 

He meanders through town with you stationed in front of him. A meat shield. Collateral damage. Simply by the way he maneuvers you through the crowd, he reduces you to a body, stripping you of any semblance of personhood. You’re less than meat to him, less than human even—no more than a meal ticket. 

When you muster up the courage to open your mouth the next time someone passes you by, Graves’ hand slides up to your shoulder and he digs his fingers into the bone. A warning. 

“If you think I was kiddin’ before, just try me,” he sneers into your ear, thumb pressing into your shoulder blade until you wince. 

Again, his voice dispels any thought of getting someone’s attention. 

He doesn’t lead you towards the train station like you expect. Instead, he heads to an awning beneath the saloon on the periphery of town where a couple horses are leashed to a post, waiting for their riders to come untie them. The roof of the awning is strung with a dense cluster of overlapping cobwebs. A spider scuttles across the web and into the dark inner recesses of the canopy. 

This far from the center of town, there’s hardly anyone. When you give your surroundings a quick glance, you can’t find a single other soul within earshot, only a single man pushing open the batwing doors on his way into the saloon. Then you’re alone again. 

A tawny gelding chuffs when Graves approaches.  When he suddenly unhands you, it doesn’t click until he’s several paces away from you, running his hand down his horse’s neck and rifling through the saddlebags, emptying the contents of his coat pockets into them. You have to glance down at your shoulder just to be sure. He sheathes his gun as well, tucking it into the holster fixed to his belt. 

“Bought the horse off a drunk three towns back,” Graves explains while loading up the horse.

You don’t respond, still unsettled. It’s the first time since he led you out of the general store that his gun hasn’t been aimed at you. It wouldn’t be practical for him to dress and load the horse one handed. The sun beats down on you, burning the top of your head. This could be your moment—a moment to scream or run away.

But you don’t. You don’t scream and you don’t run because you are, above all else, a coward. Through and through. You’ve been running from your problems for months now, leaving someone else to take care of the mess you left behind. 

Fear paralyzes you; it makes you think too much or not at all. Even now, with Graves giving you the perfect opportunity to turn and run, you can’t stop thinking about the potential consequences. What if he were to shoot you? What if he were to haul you back into town and expose your sins to everyone who gathered around? What if the people in town that have come to see you as one of their own were to gather around your crumpled form and stare at you with vitriol and disgust? 

“How did you—” you start, then pause to breathe, the nausea building again. “I thought you’d left town.”

“You’d’ve liked that, huh?” 

You don’t answer that. You know better than to antagonize a man with a gun. 

He sighs when you don’t rise to the bait, almost pettish. “Wedding announcement. I saw it in the paper—by then, I’d moved on to Lexington, so it took me awhile to backtrack, but I just knew somethin’ about that bit in the paper about the sheriff’s wife hailing from the east coast didn’t sound right. Too big of a coincidence. Had to at least be sure—retrace my footsteps. Lotta money on the line, you know.”

You stare straight ahead at that. You ought to have known. 

(“In the paper. The county sheriff got hitched—of course it’d be a story.”)

“To be honest, that kinda cracked me up. Murderess marrying the county sheriff.” He snorts out a laugh, shaking his head. “Sorta thing you’d read about in a dime novel.”

A new emotion wells up within you. It simmers in your belly, hot and cold at once. Righteous fury. All this time, you’ve been betraying yourself with your silence, allowing men to read your fear as guilt. Complicit in your own ruin. 

“I’m not a murderer.”

The look he gives you is withering. “Sugar, I hate to break it to you, but you did kill a man.”

You open your mouth, but nothing comes out. Nothing ever does, it seems.  But the more you hold it in, the uglier the thought seems, until it erupts from your chest like Vesuvius, lava and tephra shooting out. 

“He deserved it,” you finally spit out, the words coming from deep in your chest. 

Graves doesn’t even pause in his ministrations, back to tightening the saddle straps. 

“He deserved it,” you repeat, spittle flying out of your mouth and landing in the dirt between the two of you. 

“That’s not somethin’ I usually concern myself with,” he finally says, looking distinctly unimpressed when he meets your stare. Bored blue eyes. 

You’re struck by the sense that your life means so little to him that the circumstances surrounding your bounty hardly merit more than a passing thought. If he could spare less, he would. 

It’s the vilest thing in the world to be regarded with such bored contempt. 

“He would’ve—he would’ve raped me otherwise. I didn’t have a choice.” 

At that, Graves pauses. When he looks towards you, his eyes are curiously blank. 

“Better that than what’ll happen now,” he says, the words so perfunctory that it takes a moment for them to sink in.  When they do, you have to swallow back bile.

His glibness shatters whatever hope you’d had left. 

In that moment, you finally acknowledge that appealing to his sense of decency won’t lead you anywhere because it simply doesn’t exist within him. You’ve known men like him before—those more concerned with lining their own pockets than taking care of the vulnerable people around them. The archetype is not uncommon. You should’ve expected it even, especially from a bounty hunter. 

There won’t be any bribing him or talking your way out of the situation you’ve found yourself in. Whatever facinorous end awaits you back east, he’s happy to shepherd you there so long as it earns him his thirty coins. 

How many times do you have to ask yourself if you’re brave enough to do something before you answer? 

When Graves turns to face you again and takes a step towards you, likely to urge you up onto the saddle, you recoil, stumbling away from him. His eyes sharpen at your movement, fulvous wolf eyes narrowing on you. 

“And here I thought you’d stopped pissin’ me off,” he says lightly, a hard edge underlying his words. His hand lifts to rest against the handle of the revolver tucked back in its sheath, thumb flexing over it. 

“What’s the point?” you retort, nostrils flaring. “You either kill me here or I die there.”

You sound braver than you feel, fear making you shake so hard that your knees almost knock together. 

Graves’ smile is all lip, no crinkling around the eyes. “Oh, I won’t kill you, sugar. I’m a better shot than that.”

Your heart pounds against your ribcage, stomach turning over at the thought of him putting a bullet through your shoulder or leg. 

“I’m surprised you won’t just come quietly. You think the sheriff wouldn’t hand you over to me himself if he found out what kinda woman he married?”

That’s been your fear from the very beginning. The one thing that’s kept you awake at night, the nightmare shaking you out of a dead sleep. You’d convinced yourself that him calling the authorities or even escorting you back east himself was an inevitability. That John Price, paragon of virtue, wouldn’t bend the rules for anyone, much less you. 

But the more you think about it, the less sense it seems to make. Every tender word and touch rises to the forefront of your memory. If John has shown you anything, it’s love. He’s proven his devotion a thousand times over, shown you time and again that were you to leave, he’d come running. 

Suddenly, the thought that your husband would let someone take you away from him seems preposterous. It doesn’t align at all with the man you know. He’d go to hell and back for you, would rip out a man’s tongue for speaking to you the way Graves speaks to you now. Hindsight makes that clear. 

You meet his eyes, intention set. “I’d rather just ask him.”

Blue eyes turn to flint, flat. Droll candor shed for ruthlessness. Silence before a storm. 

He’s on you before you even have a chance to whirl around and make a run for it, arm cutting into your windpipe when he wraps it around your neck. He drags you back into the shadows of the awning, out of sight from anyone on the street; your heels score lines in the dirt. You choke, wheezing on your next breath, but his arm tightens, trapping the scream in your throat. 

“Shoulda done this before,” Graves grunts, reaching into his back pocket and pulling out the pair of cuffs he had tucked away. 

When he unhooks his arm from around your neck, you gasp for breath, sucking in deep lungfuls of air. Panic swirls and rises in your chest. 

“Get your hands off—” you hiss, beating his arm with your fist to no avail. He yanks your arms in front of you until your wrists are pressed close together. Your blood curdles at the feeling of cold iron against your skin and the gut-wrenching sound of handcuffs being fixed around your wrists, tightened to the point of pain. You can hardly flex your hands with how tight they’re bound. “Let me go, let ME GO—”

He pulls you in close again. “Don’t think I won’t tape your fuckin’ mouth shut too,” Graves snarls in your ear. Nausea swells in your belly. 

“Please— please don’t do this—” you beg, a sob breaking from your chest now. 

He sighs, long suffering. “Lord knows I tried to warn you.”

Despite the threat, Graves doesn’t tape your mouth shut. Instead, he fastens a rough piece of rope around your head, fitting it between your teeth like a bit. You don’t have it in you to be thankful for small mercies this time. The hemp cord scratches the corners of your mouth when you try to move your lips around it. 

“There,” he says, giving you a rough shake, satisfied. “That’s better. Can finally hear myself think.”

The tears leak out of the corners of your eyes in big, fat droplets, clouding your vision. When he wipes your cheeks with a calloused hand, the nail of his thumb catches on the delicate skin under your eye, leaving a thin cut. The pain makes you flinch, staring daggers at the man in front of you, but he doesn’t apologize for his rough handling. 

Graves heaves himself up onto the saddle first, swinging a leg over with practiced ease. You yelp when he hauls you up after, setting you on the saddle in front of him. Heat crawls up your neck when your skirt billows around your waist, horrified. 

“Save your tears, sugar,” he tells you, gathering the reins in one hand. “You’ll need ‘em for later.”

The horse whinnies when Graves pulls upward and guides him towards the road leading out of town, hooves clopping against the dirt. Your heart shoots up into your throat. 

Galloping out of town, you chance a glance back, head spinning as the world blurs around you. A man stands under the awning you just left, his head cocked as if stupefied. He’s too far away for you to get a proper look at his face though, no way to tell if he’s someone that might recognize you and alert John. You try to scream or wave your hands—anything to get his attention, to let the stranger know that something is wrong. 

You watch until the figure melds into the surrounding town. 

You keep waiting for someone to appear from behind you. A tall figure to darken the horizon, blot it like the moon passing over the sun. 

The last bastion of your hope collapses into rubble the farther away you ride, no man nor horse following you in pursuit. And then a hand grabs a fistful of your hair and wrenches your head back around, cutting off your view.

The plan is to leave the horse in the next town you reach and take a train back east. Graves would’ve done that back in the town you just left, he tells you, but he wanted to put as much distance between you and the sheriff. 

“You never know with men who’ve gotten a taste of married life,” he says when he finally deigns to stop miles from town, sitting on a rock and having a drink while he leaves you tied to the horse by your wrists. You shift from foot to foot, a cramp winding up your legs. “They get themselves a little pussy and lose all sense of dignity or morality. Can’t be trusted to do the right thing.” 

Steam practically billows out of your ears. You have the good sense to keep your mouth shut though, cognizant of the fact that you’re alone out in the middle of nowhere with a man who’d be happy to bring you back dead or alive. Though he hasn’t been quite so explicit, it’s apparent in the way he doesn’t offer to untie you or let you rest as well. The skin under the cuffs on your wrists are rubbed raw from your attempts to free yourself, and from the journey itself, with all the jostling and the persistent cramp in your right shoulder. 

The animal awareness dawns on you during that first rest. He’d taken the rope out when you were far enough outside of town that it didn’t matter if you screamed or not. That’s what stays your tongue now—the creeping notion that you are far from anyone that would be remotely sympathetic to your plight. 

“How much was the bounty?” you ask, more out of morbid curiosity than anything. You balance on one foot to shake the cramp out of the other. 

“Now, I hate to be rude, sugar, but what does it matter to you? It ain’t you collecting the reward.”

Your lips flatten into a taut line, already regretting prying. It’s not like knowing would change anything. 

The break ends sooner than you’d hoped, Graves urging you back onto the horse before taking a seat behind you. It troubles you because you’re not far enough away from town that you couldn’t still be rescued. There’d be more of a chance of John or someone else—one of his deputies, perhaps—coming across you out here. But you don’t have much of a choice. 

Out here, the land stretches on without end. Only the faint blue of a mountain ridge paralleling your route breaks the horizon. The land is flat, sparse apart from the dense shrubbery and trees twisted and bent by the wind. Cottonwood and boxelder. Chokecherry. Dogwood and hawthorn. Lush blooming saltbrush. 

The clear blue sky overhead is almost mocking, the rain from earlier long since abated. There’s hardly a cloud in the sky now. It’d be scenic if you could abstract it from the circumstances. A perfect day for gardening or a brisk walk after being kept indoors because of the rain. You’re still damp from riding through the rain earlier. 

A few bison congregate in a small dip in the terrain, grazing on the wild grass. You stare at them wide-eyed as you gallop along the upper ridge, startled by the sight of so many in one place. 

Despite the sublime beauty of the land, you remain on edge, unable to take anything in or truly enjoy it. Panic and revulsion leave you as gnarled and knotted as the krummholz trees out in the middle of the open plains. Riding with Graves feels nothing like the few times you and John shared a horse. It’s impersonal; transactional. Entirely against your will. 

The sun has only just begun to descend under the horizon when you and Graves approach a ramshackle house situated by itself in the middle of the open plains. Barely more than a barn, and long since abandoned by the looks of it. Age has done the place no favors; wooden slats sag and separate from the exterior of the house, the gaps in between the boards letting in all manner of insects and rot. 

Graves dismounts his horse about a stone’s throw from the hovel. His brow furrows with dissatisfaction as he surveys the abandoned property. 

“Shit,” he remarks, sucking his teeth. “A local back in town swore a family still lived here. Don’t look like anyone’s lived here since Abraham.”

Part of you wishes the former tenants still resided here, on the off possibility that one might take pity on you, but a much larger part of you is grateful for the dwelling’s vacancy. You’ve heard stories before, of families living out in the middle of nowhere. Rumors. Not all bad, of course; it’s common enough for families migrating west sometimes to stop along the way for a generation or two, building more permanent dwellings than the caravans they began their journey in. Many such families were also known for putting up travelers passing through in exchange for goods or help with chores. 

But you’ve also heard other stories. Like the Riley family out near Cherryvale and their homestead just off the Great Osage Trail. They lived out there for more than two decades before the number of lone travelers vanishing off the trail within walking distance of their property pointed the finger of suspicion at them. When the authorities finally got around to procuring a warrant for their property, they found the house deserted apart from the furniture that couldn’t be loaded into the wagon and an infant boy, dehydrated and petrified. 

You shake the story from your head. “…Are we spending the night here?” you ask tentatively. 

He looks at you from the corner of his eye, nostrils flared. “Don’t go gettin’ any ideas in that head of yours. Jus’ because a man’s gotta rest his eyes, don’t mean I gotta give you a peaceful night’s rest. No, I’m leavin’ those hands of yours tied.”

Your hopes deflate at that.��

He helps you dismount before hobbling his horse with a pair of leather straps around its front legs to keep it from darting off in the middle of the night. You wince sympathetically; you have more in common with a horse now than any man. 

The inside of the cabin is just as derelict as the exterior. At the very least, he feeds you. A couple scoops of pemmican straight from the tin. The fact that he insists on feeding you instead of letting you feed yourself puts you on edge. Your spine is stiff as a board through it all, your mouth barely opening up to receive the spoonful of pemmican, the metal clanking against your teeth. You wince, the sound itself tasting of rust. 

At all times, you are aware of the precarity of your situation. You can’t imagine there were any stipulations in the bounty to bring you back unscathed. Though he hasn’t tried anything untoward so far—not so much as made a licentious remark—you don’t know how long your luck will last. You flinch every time he so much as twitches in your direction, sure at any moment his mood will flip and he’ll drag you across the floor and haul himself over you. 

It’s enough to make your stomach hurt, turning over itself. He doesn’t try anything though, and for that you exhale shakily, the tension running off you in rivulets. 

One hour drags into the next. Night blackens the sky, seeping in through the crumbling walls of the cabin. 

“Well,” Graves says, wiping his hands together to dust off any lingering crumbs. “I’m gonna hit the hay.”

“Do…do I get to sleep as well?”

He cocks a brow. “Not much I can do to stop you.”

“It’s just that…” You lift your hands as you trail off, silently pointing out the handcuffs still secured around your wrists, the implicit assertion being that you won’t be able to sleep with the metal digging into the bones of your wrists. 

Graves scoffs. “You can’t think I’ll just uncuff you ‘cause we ain’t in town no more. I got a little more sense than that, sugar.”

“You could use rope instead?” you suggest. 

The seconds he spends considering it are long. You hold your breath as you watch him weigh the pros and cons. 

Finally, he shrugs. “Alright.”

The relief that washes over you is almost palpable. 

He pulls a blanket out of one of the saddlebags to function as a makeshift pillow, setting it up on the floor in the center of the room. True to his word, Graves uncuffs you and loops a double knotted rope around your wrists instead, fastening the rope tying your hands together around his own wrist. Your stomach sinks as he pulls the knot taut. 

He levels a heavy stare on you after giving the rope one last tug. “I don’t usually repeat myself, sugar, but I will this one time. Don’t go tryin’ anythin’ stupid. I’m gettin’ a good night’s rest and so help me if you wake me up—” his eyes flash, gray going steely “—you won’t like the consequences.”

You nod. Swallow back the phlegm clogging your throat. 

True night plunges the old house into darkness, cricket songs slipping in through the cracks in the walls. The temperature also plunges with the setting sun. It gets cold at night, even in the summer months; the draft makes you shiver, the rotting exterior letting in the elements. 

You keep to the wall with the least amount of rotting boards, as far as the rope tethering you to Graves will allow you to go. It would probably be in your best interest to try and get some sleep, but you’re far too restless to calm down. The atmosphere in the house is far too eerie to settle your nerves either; you can’t help but wonder about the family that must have left this place to rot and fade away into memory. 

It’s all you can do to blink back the tears that spring to your eyes when you think about the memory of you that John will have to carry into the future now that you’re gone. It isn’t fair. After everything you’ve had to endure in this lifetime, you thought maybe that this might have been your reward. That John was your reward. 

Your hands drop from your chin to your knees, hopelessness plaguing you again. The thin, sharp whistle of defeat. High and reedy as a death rattle. 

Then your eyes drop to your wrists.

The cord is fastened in a bowline knot around your wrists, difficult to undo without considerable effort, but the material is softer than the cuffs Graves had you in before, and it gives when you pull one hand down while pushing the other up. Your skin bunches around the cord, but it doesn’t cut into you the way the metal did. 

Graves is still fast asleep when you glance over at him. He doesn’t snore, but the rise and fall of his chest under the blanket is steady. Stable. 

The fatigue dissipates from your body the second you put it together. That there’s a sliver of a possibility of slipping your hands out of the rope tying you to Graves. The exhilaration is almost overwhelming. You have to sit with it a beat before acting, wary of letting your guard down too fast.

Time passes slowly as you fiddle with the knot, reaching your fingers as far as they’ll go and gritting your teeth through the ensuing cramp in your wrist. You nearly groan in frustration when your hand twitches and you accidentally retighten the knot. A near crushing blow. 

Please, you mouth more than whisper, frustrated tears clumped in your lashes. Teeth sinking into the flesh of your bottom lip, pinching off the wail rising up your throat. 

Your heart skips a beat when the rope loosens around one of your wrists, enough for you to wiggle a pinkie underneath and slowly shimmy it up the length of your hand. A cramp makes your pinkie spasm, almost causing you to lose your grip. Sweat pools in the cup of your palm. 

When your wrists are finally free, the rope clutched in trembling hands and the basal joint of your thumb scrapped raw from the fibrous rope, you can only sit there, heart beating wildly in your chest. You have to force yourself to remain calm, wary of waking Graves up after all that effort. His eyelids quiver only with his dreams though. 

You glance towards the door on the other side of the cabin. It seems either farther away now that you know it’s within reach. You know better than to just run straight for it though. Weeks of being on the run before finding John have taught you to pace yourself, to push down the fluttering evocation in your chest to make a mad dash for the closest way out. 

Instead, you take a deep breath out, closing your eyes until you’ve calmed down. Then you rise slowly to your feet. 

Your eyes, having long since adjusted to the darkness, scan the room for any loose floorboards. Aside from one obvious corner of the house which has begun to rot away and collapse, it’s hard for you to discern at a glance which boards will groan under the weight of your feet. You have no choice but to guess.

Each step has you on edge, heart in your throat. Your focus shifts quicksilver between the floor and Graves. Waiting for any sudden movement. 

Halfway to the door, you take another cautious step forward and the floorboard creaks under your foot. Your heart stops, eyes flitting instantly over to Graves’ sleeping form. He doesn’t so much as shift. It’s another beat before you’re able to move again, confidence shaken by the noise. You keep imagining him suddenly shooting up from the floor, pistol in hand, the hammer striking the primer, the hiss of gas escaping the barrel. 

The door gives a faint creak when you push it open, so you open it only enough for your body to slip through, wincing when you twitch and accidentally push it open another inch, dragging out the creak. Still, he doesn't wake. You slip past the door, shutting it quietly behind you.  

The moon glows cornsilk gold in the sky. A vast, uncharted land stretches out around you, untouched by human hands, or so changed over the years that any human presence has long since been buried beneath the loam. But when you stare out into the distance, you realize that you have no idea where you came from. Everything looks the same in each direction, no landmark familiar enough for you to orient yourself. You’re out in the middle of nowhere and nothing looks right. 

If you had less strength, you’d fall to your knees. The despair is so immense that you hardly have the strength to hold it all at once. 

The silence lulls you into a false sense of security. You linger for too long, stuck contemplating your options. Coyotes yip in distant packs, their barks carrying across the plains. You shiver at the sound. It reminds you again that you’re on your own now. No husband to come chasing after you if things get sticky. 

Your first few steps away from the cabin are tentative, gliding your legs through the grass and staring up at the cornsilk moon. A combination of indulgence and bewilderment. If you knew the right way home, you wouldn’t waver, but these days, you have no faith in your instincts. They’ve only ever led you off course. 

The gelding that Graves rode in on sits in the grass with its hind legs folded underneath it. With its legs still hobbled, you know removing the leather will take more time than you'd like, but you figure it'll be easier to make your way across the plains on horseback, with the added bonus of leaving Graves stranded. If God were just, he’d starve out here and leave his corpse for the coyotes to feast on. 

You approach the horse cautiously, conscious not to make any sudden movements. Its ears angle towards you as you draw near. Attentive to your presence. 

“Hey there, honey,” you whisper, reaching out a hand and trying to show that you aren’t a threat. Its nose twitches.

Another step forward. Easy does it. One leg in front of the other.

“I won’t hurt you. I promise.” You try to mirror your memory of John in your voice, honeysuckle soft words. 

You aren’t John though. Not even close. You take another step towards it.

It brays when you get too close, skittish. The sound pierces through the night, louder than the coyotes in the distance. Louder even than the creaking door.  

The hair on the back of your neck raises, lips numb. Then the prickling awareness of movement in the house, like an itch on a phantom limb. 

Behind you, the door to the cabin bursts open with a bang, slamming off the wall and ricocheting back. You whip your head around to look only to find Graves’ towering form under the shadow of the doorway, his hair mused and clothes askew. And he looks enraged. 

“Hey!” Graves bellows from the doorway, breaking into a run towards you. “Get back here!”

There’s no time to sit with the regret, no time to bemoan the fact that you didn’t exercise enough caution, that for some reason without a gun leveled at your head, you allowed yourself to forget the very real danger this man posed to you. 

All you can do is run.

The grass whistles around you. You run so hard that your lungs burn, your arms pumping furiously beside you, dress swishing between your legs. You don’t have to look behind you to know that Graves is gaining on you. His body is built for pursuit. Still, you push yourself past your breaking point, not stopping even when you taste blood in your mouth. Mindless; directionless. No idea where you’re going—just away from him. You’d jump off a cliff if you came across one. 

He’s close enough for you to hear now, heavy breathing right behind you. But by then it’s too late. A heavy body rams into you, sending you careening towards the earth, the ground rushing up to meet you halfway. The dirt hardly cushions the blow. 

You hit the ground hard. Head knocked loose of thought, agony ripping across your face. The double blow of a body heavier than yours forcing you into the dirt, so solid that it crushes the breath from your lungs. 

Blood leaks from your lip, most likely split. When you breathe in to fill your lungs, you taste dirt and rust and earth. 

“Insufferable bitch,” Graves snarls, putrid breath wafting under your nose and making your eyes water. He grabs a handful of your hair and wrenches your head up before slamming it back down. Something crunches. Distantly, you wonder if your nose is broken. 

Your ears ring, the rest of his words drowned out by the blood rushing to your face. 

“Please—” you beg, blood dripping from your split lip. 

“Knew I shouldn’ta trusted you—conniving little cunt—c’mere now, get up—”

He rises to his feet over your body, big hand curling around your wrist. You hear your shoulder pop when he yanks your arm behind your back. A rush of cold. A sweat breaks on the nape of your neck. Shock sets in the moment after, adrenaline flooding your body. 

Then a sharp, focused surge of pain. It radiates from your shoulder outward, so intense that you can’t believe it at first. Your whole world reduces down to it. Feathering out down your back; irradiating waves of it. Thoughts scattering and then coming back together around the pain. If you scream, it comes out unbidden. 

“Ah, hell, I didn’t mean to do that,” he grumbles from behind you, likely staring at the unnatural jut of your shoulder. “Alright, sugar, one second—I’ll pop that back in.”

“Nononono—” you gasp, panic lancing through you, but he pays no attention to your words. 

The pain of popping your shoulder back in is excruciating. Relief follows shortly after, but the time between dislocating and relocating your shoulder is so short that it hardly comes as a balm to the pain.

“You…bastard…” you gasp. 

“Wouldn’ta had to do that if you hadn’t run,” he sighs, the sight of your pain subduing his rage. 

It doesn’t stop him from grabbing you roughly by the arm he just dislocated when he finally gets you on your feet though, steering you back towards the house. The pain that radiates up your arm is almost blinding. 

He drags you back to the cabin with a punishing grip. There’s no sympathy when you stumble. Moonlight illuminates the path back to the cabin and shows you the trenches in the wild grass made by your feet. Hardly more than a couple rods. 

The defeat that courses through you upon being dragged through the ramshackle front door is ten times that of earlier. When he lets go of your arm, you collapse in a heap on the floor, aching and sweating. A bag of bones and blood. You’d rattle if someone shook you. 

“I hate you,” you mumble from your spot on the floor, shaking through the pain. “Rot in hell.”

Graves doesn’t respond, but you can almost hear the way he grins.  

No rest for the wicked or the good this time. Graves wakes intermittently throughout the night to check up on you, wary now that you’ve tried to run. Your regret is palpable. You should’ve waited. Bided your time. There won't be another chance now, not after you played your hand so soon. 

The ache in your shoulder keeps you from finding sleep. Every time you get close to it, the pain radiates down your arm and it slips from your grasp, your hand closing around the empty space it leaves behind. Teeth grit, breathing through the pain. Loosening your jaw and panting because the pain overwhelms you when you so much as shift onto your side, the hard floor digging into your elbow. 

Right on the edge of sleep, just as you're about to latch on, a boot catches you in the ribs, jostling you back into the realm of pain. You wheeze, breaking into a coughing fit. 

“Get up,” a hoarse voice grunts above you, empty of sympathy. “We got places to be.”

He has the two of you back on the horse as soon as dawn breaks. Your escape attempt the night before must have spooked him, and you regret it now in the light of day because you know he won’t let you out of his sight again. The metal handcuffs digging into your wrists assures you of that. 

There’s no time for breakfast or time to wash up. Graves makes it a point to be back on the road as fast as possible, repacking his bedroll and stuffing it back in the saddlebag before dragging you up with him. 

The pain is a dull throb after sleeping most of the agony away. It comes back when you move too quickly though, which is hard to avoid on horseback when each gallop echoes through your sore bones and joints. 

The arching sun immixes with the heavens above, rising higher as the hours pass. You ache for a hat; something to keep the heat of the sun off your head. On the horizon, the mountain ridge sits like a spine bursting out from the earth. It’s all wastelands and portents. Evil omens. 

Your heart feels swollen and bruised, like something trampled under elk hooves. 

“Cheer up,” Graves says, tipping your chin up when the sun reaches its peak around midday, the gesture making you so uncomfortable that you almost shudder out of your skin. Your face still throbs with pain. “You should be glad I didn’t jus’ shoot you.”

Your lips pull back, baring your teeth to nothing. 

A shot rips through the air at that, his words commanding it into being. Your head instinctively ducks and even the horse under you staggers, spooked by the sound. Graves curses, tensing up behind you.

"What in the hell—"

You whip your head around to stare behind you, looking for the source of the gunfire. When you find it, your eyes widen.

[reshinless]

Hi hi! Ive read some of ur work and literally salvating rn for kinich stuff GAUGH!

So im here to post in a request for gn (or fem) afab reader x Kinich

Basically kinks you think kinich would have and asking reader to let him indulge in those kinks of his <333 (pls let it end with reader being fucked outta their mind)

If ur not comfortable / not open for request feel free to ignore this!

Much love,

Kichi

──── take your shirt off!!

⠀ ۪ ⠀✧ synopsis. honestly, he himself can't decide what he likes more.. fucking your hole more, or lapping up what he can from it!

⠀ ۪ ⠀✧ pairings. kinich x gn!afab!reader/fem!reader (i use a lot of fem terms here, so sorry :(

⠀ ۪ ⠀✧ director's notice. millionares <3333

in a sense, he didn't really have a favorite. i mean he liked whatever you did. he just observed while you both fucked and experimented to see what you liked the most.. but it seems like you don't really know yourself. you arch your back all the same, doesn't seem like you have a favorite either!

oh but in all honesty, you could say his kink was you. he never thought about making love with anyone else, and you're the only one he's ever thought of getting dumb on his dick. so much for that!

kinich is and has always been a straightforward man. if there's something he wants- he'll take it. and that attitude didn't change even in intimate times. in times where he thinks you're about to cream on his fingers, something tells him to slow the tempo of his fingers.

"m- mmf ffuck, kin i'm g'na-" or maybe he favored the sounds you made when he ate you out. entangling the taste of your cunt on his tongue to mix with his saliva, you could feel the grasp on your thighs tighten more. rolling his tongue into your folds, he could hear the way you'd whimper, and groan, pushing his head further into the junction of your thighs.

kinich loves giving nicknames, and having them. hearing you call him 'kin' on its own was already one of his biggest turn-ons. please keep calling him that!!

loving the way his tongue dipped into your sex, you could feel your body instinctively arching your back. you tried to close your legs, but he just as easily pried them back open again, his gloved palm kept your inner thighs squished against his face.

"ahhn- kin' don' stop pleasef.." you felt yourself shriek to the man in between your legs. maybe he liked it better when you begged him to overstimulate your hole while he licked your clit.

your hands were buried in the messy locks of his hair. chasing your high as you felt it pool in your stomach, building up faster than you expect.

you arch your back against his digits, letting it curl against your velvety walls. huh, you looked so pretty like that. a little too pretty for his own liking. wonder what caused the tent in his pants..

flopping you onto your chest against the mattress, he blindfolds you with his headband from earlier, rough palms scatter to the opposite sides of your hips, bringing it up to his shaft.

you could only imagine from the feeling, his tip pressing against your folds. pushing himself faster than usual nights, it felt like he was ramming into you.

oh it was that necklace he bought you with his initial on it. you could even see it from behind, his chest presses against yours as he leans down to fit his head in the crook of your neck just to watch it bounce on your chest.

gosh you were so adorable like this, your eyebrows forever furrowed as he plunged it deep inside you. "npmh- kin- ahhn- wan' haah- more!"

kinich who gladly obliges, each time he penetrates you, he makes sure to really grind into your cunt. make sure you feel everything you want to. he just wants you to feel good; his orgasm is a bonus!

it could be the cute little look you gave him, pleading with your eyes as he took off the blindfold away from your view. now instead- tying your hands together, and gently flipping you over onto your back- putting you in some kind of.. mating press?!

he pinned your tied hands above your head, merciless thrusts, even deeper penetration from earlier. damn how big was it really?! it almost felt like you were getting impaled with the way he hit your g-spot so well.

kinich who loved to make eye contact with you during moments like this. even if you can't keep up the consistency; he knows he can, as long as he gets to observe such a pretty face. getting soo corrupted from his cock <33

"that's right baby, moan as much as you want.. tell the neighbors how much you love this cock inside you." he cooed into your ear, only hurrying his thrusts inside you. before you can feel it, you've already creamed onto his base. making it all the more easier for kinich to penetrate you better!

kinich loves to praise! loves praising how well you take his dick, cuz he knows how big it really is. and seeing your hole swallow it hole in one go? if that isn't deserving of his words of acknowledgement, what is?

he grunted through his words, working through each thrust surprisingly rough. continuously switches paces unconsciously, accidently goes really fast then slow to grind into your precious spot. "s'good.. taking me like royalty.." praise whispered from a low raspy voice from your lover's throat exits as he leans in to get a better angle of your pretty face.

"ah.. uh.. ffuck.. s'tight.. this pussy's mine right?" you felt yourself cumming again, squirting. to kinich though; this was his own sign to continue till he came (asked you for consent first cuz this is all for you anyway.)

"f- fuuuckk g'na cum inside you, sweetheart- ahh sshit..!!"

kinich loves getting to know the fact that you're his, and he's yours. he'll say it as many times as you want; his cock was for your pleasure!

but kinich's aftercare game is insanely good, not something you'd expect if this was a hookup- but it wasn't. he made sure you were okay afterwards, asking you if you ever felt uncomfortable throughout any of it.

let him know if you didn't like some of the stuff he did; this was your first time with him after all, and only the best should come if ever after you'll make love again (which will most likely happen.)

he'll clean you up himself, and make sure you're well rested for the next day. will not accept any argument, will cuddle with you all night- hugging you from behind, and scattering plentiful of kisses every now and then on your shoulders.

[reidsbabyhoney]

hi love!

saw that you write for hozier, and was wondering if you could write something fluffy. maybe since the tour is ending soon, maybe him coming home for the first time in a while?

xx

in which andrew is finally back from tour and you couldn't be happier.

pairing: hoizer x fem!reader category: fluff cw: tiniest bit of angst if you squint. he walks out in a towel and reader has some interesting thoughts. no use of y/n. wc: 1.3k a/n: thank you so much for requesting! this was so much fun to write, I was listening to 'unknown' when this request came in so it is very lightly inspired by that. and by very lightly I mean I took inspiration from the line 'you know the distance never made a difference to me'. this is my first time writing in a while so please be kind. lots of love!! (also he looks so cute in this picture, I can't get over it.)

You were basically buzzing with anticipation. Having to stay in Wicklow for work had its up and downs. One of the most notable downs was that when Andrew went away for tour, there were long gaps you would go without seeing each other.

You had seen him two months ago when he had the smallest break from tour, and you called almost every night updating each other on your days. Usually, you'd fell asleep on the phone due to the time difference, but he had the habit of carrying his phone with your sleeping face covering the screen until you woke up. Recalling the time you woke up when he was in the middle of a concert, his phone being propped up on a stand off to the side of the stage.

But today Andrew was finally coming home. No more music festivals to perform at, no more concerts to hold, no more award shows to attend. He would finally be all yours.

You felt a bit guilty, knowing how much he loved performing and seeing his fans, but you were counting down the seconds until he walked through the door of your shared home.

The clock was inching closer to 6pm, which was the time Andrew said he would be home. Never being someone who had patience for much, you were sat outside on the porch swing you insisted he install a few years ago.

Finally a black car pulled into the driveway and Andrew stepped out. Sprinting to him like there was an Olympic medal to be won at the end of your journey you jumped into his arms once you reach him.

"Missed you so much love." he says into your hair as he holds you up, making sure you don't fall from his tight grip around your waist.

"Oh, I'm so glad you're finally home." you say as hugging him tightly as if he would disappear from your hold.

Letting go, you get good look at him and see his hair seemed to grow a bit longer in the two months you were apart. Though, he also seemed to have given up on the routine you've tried to have him stick to since you started dating.

"You're hairs grown." you say admiring how beautiful he looks, but that might just because your boyfriend is a 6'6 Irish man that looks like he came from the woodlands of a fairy tale.

"Hm, you like it?" he questions looking into your eyes for a second before putting you down onto solid ground.

"I love it." With that, you make your way up the steps of the house, one of his lighter bags in hand.

Andrew follows close behind you into the house, not missing how every inch spotless and nearly reflective.

Andrew knew you well, too well sometimes. He knew that you got anxious when he was away, and that made him feel both relieved and guilty. Relieved because he was finally home and could hold you in his arms. Guilty because he was away for so long.

Sneaking up behind you, he rests his head on your shoulder as he wraps his arm around you.

"Y'know I'm home for good right. Got my studio right here and the label already knows I won't release a new album for a few years. I'm all yours angel."

At his words you melt into him. "I know, but you know how I get when you're away. Especially when you're flying. Was just worried is all."

He plants a soft kiss at the top of your head at your response. Turning around in his arms you look up at him and see how tired he really is.

"Y'know I love you with my whole heart, but you really should get in the shower so we can eat."

He lets out a playful huff, releasing you from his grip. Turning to make his way upstairs you pull out the ingredients to make a simple pasta dish. Something you know will be filling for you both.

You're nearly done with dinner, the sauce being the only thing that needs to be seasoned and you realized Andrew still hasn't come from your bedroom. He isn't one to take long in the shower so you begin to worry. Quickly throwing in the final seasoning of oregano and thyme into the sauce, you lower the heat on both burners being used, and make your way up the stairs to look for your boyfriend.

Stepping into your shared bedroom, your met with a cloud of mist as the connecting door to the bathroom opens. Seeing your boyfriend walk out in nothing but a towel wrapped around his waist made your two months of celibacy very known throughout your body.

"I see some drool slipping past your lips love, best wipe it away before whoever it is you're lusting after knows." he teases lightly, before he walks to the dresser to grab some clothes to change into.

Shaking the thoughts out of your head as an embarrassed blush grows over your face, you clear your throat quickly as a recovery.

"The foods done downstairs whenever you're ready?" It comes out as more a question than a statement, still flustered over your boyfriends appearance.

Andrew turns his head slightly and gives you a knowing smirk, "I'll be down right after I change."

With that you leave him to change a quickly make your way downstairs.

Still a bit flushed once you get to the kitchen, you make a plate for each of you, putting them down in your designated spots at the dining room table, sitting next to each other.

You hear Andrew before you see him, softly humming the tune of ‘Unknown/Nth’.

Taking a seat next to you, he rests his hand on your thigh before digging into the food.

Acting like a man starved, he basically inhales his food before you've even finished half of yours.

"Do they not feed you properly in America or what." you ask, eyes basically popping out of your head, surprised he's already finished his plate

"Nothing could beat a home cooked meal of yours." he says giving you a brief kiss on the cheek before getting up to rinse his dish.

Finishing your own plate, you walk over to the sink where Andrew stands.

"Leave your plate angel. I'll clean the kitchen, you can go get ready for bed. Know your tired." he says as a yawn slips from his mouth.

Going up on your tiptoes, you leave a sloppy kiss on his cheek with a smile and head towards the bathroom to take a quick shower.

Nearly falling asleep while rinsing out your hair, you quickly wash your body and finish your shower. Stepping out, you cover yourself in a towel before opening the door to grab some pajamas to wear. Pajamas that consist of one of Andrew's shirts and a pair of sleep shorts.

Climbing into bed you wait for Andrew to come up to bed.

Closing your eyes for what you think is just a second, your woken up when he crawls into bed, obviously trying not to disturb you and failing.

"Sorry love, was just coming to sleep."

Rolling over so you were facing him, you wait for him to get comfortable in the bed before crawling into his arms. If you could crawl into his skin that's what you would be doing right now.

"Missed you so much, 'm so glad your finally home."

Releasing a small breath, he brings you closer to him, -if that was even physically possible- and plants another kiss on your forehead. "Me too, angel, me too. Next time I'm dragging you on tour with me."

With a small laugh, you let your body rest against his and sleep consumes you.

Feeling the exhaustion finally hit him, Andrew gets a good night's rest for the first time in what felt like years. His love in his arms. He's sure that not even oceans away preforming in arenas he would dream of selling out as a child, could beat the feeling of having you fast asleep in his arms.

—————————

all notes and reposts are appreciated!! loving you always xx

[thrashkink-coven]

There’s something very comforting about when you finally settle into your witchy routines and rituals to the point where you don’t have to think about them very much anymore. They just become another part of my every day. Gotta brush my teeth, take the garbage out, give offerings to the old Gods, wash dishes etc.

And sometimes my magical routines feel less “magical”. Like these aren’t “special activities“ they’re just chores, routines, things I gotta do just cause. Not in the bad way where I don’t enjoy it anymore, just in the way that it’s extremely normalized.

and then randomly the whimsy and magic will just get turned back on and I’ll be like damn I really am a witch huh. Like ooohh my crystals look so pretty. Gathering apples for my demon friends, sweeping my altar, aha I’m such a witchy guy. Might say some magic words ooh might draw some sigils and light some candles lol. so fun!

A couple weeks or so will go by and I won’t have very much contact or conversation with Lucifer at all, like I’ll still give my daily offerings and whatnot but I just won’t *feel* him around very much, which is totally okay. I’m just like hm, wonder what he’s up to. Hope he comes back soon. Miss you ❤️❤️ and I don’t feel like one of his disciples really, I’m just a guy that likes Lucifer. Just a normal lad with a little crush. Ain’t nothing special ain’t no thang

and then randomly at 4:25pm on a Wednesday afternoon the wind will hit me just right and the sunset will twinkle in a certain way and I’m just SLAMMED with SO MANY feelings and vibes and become absolutely overwhelmed with how much I adore him and how happy I am to be in his presence. and I’m like YES i am A PATRONED CHILD OF LUCIFER FFFFUCCK YEAHHH this is so fuckin cool. My king? My king is here? with me!!!??!! WWOOOWWW i am an on my hands and knees 🙏

This always happens during this time of year. Near the end of Summer I’ll feel him going further and further away from me and then as soon as early autumn starts to hit he’s SO present and dominating

and I’m like !!!! yippee!!! You’re back!!!! I missed you sm!!!! 💕💖

and it’s multiplied by 1000x whenever he’s like “yes I am back, and I have so many more things to show you ☺️” LIKE YES!!!!!! ITS WORK TIME AGAIN !!! YYYEAASSSS!!!!

It’s spooky season, the leaves are yellowing, The Death Gods are taking back their dominance. The shadows are growing larger. Oh boy oh boy. WE ARE SO BACK.

[rotthepoet]

Can you do a Draco smut where him and f!reader are getting it on his room and Blaise wakes up to see them about to fuck and he asks to watch. Reader is surprisingly down for it and Draco’s ego is bigger than a fucking elephant so he fucks you in front of Blaise. Not a threesome with Blaise, just him being a perv lmao

BABES IM SO SORRY THIS TOOK A MONTH TO GET OUT!!! I WASNT IGNORING YOU TRUST. I made a few changes to your request because @2dloveshp and I have been talking about Stalker!Blaise and im about to start dropping content for him 😻

Let me set the scene for you. Draco Malfoy, your wonderful, doting, egotistical boyfriend, has decided what he wants right now: is you! So trust he’s dragging you away from your friends, mid conversation, mumbling about how its his turn for attention. But oh shit, when Draco’s dorm is supposed to be empty, you’ll never guess whose there minding his fuckin business nose deep in homework. Draco’s best friend, Blaise, of course.

And gonna be real with you, Blaise doesnt even register when the two of you walk in. It takes a solid minute of Draco pushing you into bed despite your whines about there being company that he snaps back into reality.

Draco doesnt give a shit, lowkey he brags to Blaise all the time about how good you are in bed that he doesnt really care if he sees?? Ngl the Slytherin boys prob have a groupchat where they share nudes because i think theyre all just a bunch of chavs in disguise.

Anyways! Draco is not stopping and god when he’s feeling you up like this? You’re just falling apart. No more complaints as long as draco fucks you soon.

But god the way you moan is so fucking pretty. And blaise can feel himself hardening under the desk, and fuck he’s had a crush on Draco’s girl(you) for so fucking long now.

He cant help but take note on what makes you feel good. His homework becomes a page filled with notes on how you react to each of Dracos touches. How you arch when he suckles a spot on your neck. How you mewl when he pulls your hair. One hand is furiously writing each observation while his other hand palms his boner.

And fuck he nearly chokes when Draco goes down on you, watching the way your pussy glistens with your arousal, the way you keen and beg for more and less at the same time.

He’s fucking obsessed with you. The only problem is Draco, and it shouldn’t be that hard to get rid of him.

[heeseung64]

hear me out... basketball captain heeseung trying to impress cheerleader captain reader >_<

WHAT, LIKE ITS HARD?

when basketball captain heeseung finds it hard to get the attention of the sought after leader of the cheer squad, he manages to finally have an interaction with her.

SHORT ONE SHOT! BASKETBALL PLAYER HEESEUNG X CHEERLEADER LEADER Y/N

FLIRTING, CASUAL TALK [not proofread]

Heeseung likes to make it a tradition every game, setting a trap for you to talk to him every time the game ends. Whether it was a loss or not- it felt like he always won when he makes the cheersquad stay for a final talk, discussing the next games and the new approach to the next seasons.

Every game, he'd make you stay on the court just for a couple of minutes just to hear you complain and interact with him. His way of figuring a way to impress you was to be a "responsible and strong" leader, likewise to you. So of course he'd make you talk to him 'leader to leader', but lately, the meetings are so unnecessary you start to find him annoying- but for him? anything for you to say anything back.

Eventually, you made it so clear that you were tired of his excuses, making the team leave early so it was just you to confront him.

The court was empty and the only sound was the squeaking of Heeseung's shoes, his breath panting along as he swishes the ball into the basket- perfectly every time.

"I don't get why you want us to stay for a meeting, number 11." You say as you release your tight ponytail, glaring at the sweat that beaded off of the player's face.

"It's Captain Heeseung to you, pretty." He breathes, catching the ball before turning to you.

Heeseung couldn't help but smile at your aggression, but he quickly wipes it off, clearing his throat before turning away to shoot again.

"I just find it better when the girls listen in, makes us work as a team, y'know, since we have you as our moral support with your wonderful routine." Heeseung's voice echoes through the space as he dribbles the ball.

"I get that," You croak, walking further up to him as you watch him score. "But you only ask me questions? You realise theres more than just me to the team?" You start to get pettily angry, "And the only questions you ask me, is if you did well?" You stammer, watching him falter his steps towards you.

"Well," Heeseung turns, smirking as he catches the ball under his arm. "Did I do well?"

You find the proximity close, with the faint smell of his perfume still latching on to his skin, and his breath enough to tickle yours.

"You're asking me like you find it hard to play good, number 11." You talk back, earning a scoff from him. "As if cheering for me is harder, but by all means, you can continue to cheer for me as hard as you want. After all, I only see you looking for me." Heeseung stands before you, looking you down with a sly smirk on his face.

"How about we put this on a poll?" You chuckle, pushing his sly demeanour aside, snatching the ball off of him. Heeseung watches you in your changed clothes, comfy and determined as you dribble the ball in ease. Heeseung couldn't help but smile at the sound of your determination, and your footsteps along the court floor.

"If I shoot and score, no more meetings." You yell from the 3-pointer line, to which Heeseung rolls his eyes.

"You can't shoot that far,or wide! for a pretty girl like you it's too-"

swish!

Your laugh escapes your grin, with your hand still in the shooting position as you watch the captain's mouth agape. "What? Like it's hard?" you giggle, making heeseung's cheeks heat.

He finds your presence so alluring, and the way you smiled back at him melted his confidence, like all his built up moments to talk to you had lost itself- and now he remains clueless before you shove the ball into his chest.

"I'll give you a simple one, just in case it's too hard, Captain Heeseung." You catch his attention with his name out of your lips. You look at his eyes one more time before turning away.

"If you get it in, I'll cheer twice as hard for you for tomorrow's game, m'kay?"

You watch his eyes dart to the ball, swiftly taking it before launching it with his arms at the half court line, before it lands into the net, swishing perfectly from the momentum. You couldn't help but hide the fact that you were really impressed, wondering that maybe if you drove this much motivation in him, there would have been more games won.

"What?" He smirks, tugging your arm closer to him. You feel his grip differ from last time: confident, and cocky. He shows you a winning smile before turning around, "Like it's hard?" He mocks you, picking up your sports bag and his as takes you all the way out.

Needless to say he was determined to win that very next day afterschool. It was almost overtime, with both home and away one-upping each other, Heeseung called for a timeout, to which was peculiar of him- especially when its almost the end of the game.

Instead of anything technical, he runs to your aisle where you're cheering as loud as you can be, breathing heavily from the routine you choreographed. "Hey, pretty." Heeseung calls you.

"It's Captain Y/n to you." You reply, slightly worried as to why he completely ran only to you with his teammates waiting on him.

"If I make this shot and win, I'll take you out? for other important matters, leader to leader?" His brows furrow, waiting on a deal before he turns away.

You roll your eyes, chuckling before giving him a nod, to which he breaks a smirk before finishing the game with a half court shot- just as perfect as the one he through for you yesterday.

As the crowd cheers, the teams die down and Heeseung manages to pry away from his duties from the court, making his way towards you- his eyes never leaving yours.

"Captain Y/n, did I do well?" He asks again, before you break a smile. "I'll tell you how well you did over dinner, Captain Heeseung." You reply back, the girls with you cooing as he sends you a wink.

"I'll see you tonight then, pretty girl."

Was all heeseung could muster before dancing on his way home, happy that his plan eventually mustered up to be the greatest.

a/n: i hope it was an ok read 🙏🙏 i honeslty really enjoyed writing this so thank u anon 🥺💗💗 pls req more!!

[littlegaalaxy]

A Sweet Enchantment in the Depths

♡⃕ Relationship} Jade Leech x Fem!reader

♡⃕ Summary} "You meet Jade, he ends up falling in love with you, and ends up feeling super protective over you"

♡⃕ TW.} Yandere; obsession; possessiveness; stalker and super protection

♡⃕ Notes} English is not my first language, there may be mistakes. I’m sorry for anything. Jade is a little ooc.

You had never imagined that your life would take such a huge turn when you were transported to a magical and strange world like Twisted Wonderland. Initially, I was lost, not knowing anyone and trying to understand the dynamics of that strange school called Night Raven College. As a small and naive girl, you often ended up being pushed from one side to another by situations, but you always managed to find a way to get out unharmed.

However, that changed when you met one of the Leech twins.

Your first interaction with Jade Leech was completely unexpected. You had gotten lost in Octavinelle's water gardens, distracted by the vibrant colors and the fish swimming in the clear waters. He appeared out of nowhere, tall and imposing, with a polite smile, but one that hid something strange.

— Did you get lost? — Jade asked, his voice calm but penetrating, as if he could read all your thoughts and fears.

— Ah, y-yes… I think I took the wrong path… — you replied timidly, your big, innocent eyes trying to find an escape route.

— It's dangerous around here for someone like you, you know? — He took a step forward, bending down to get closer to you, his eyes half-closed with a peculiar shine. — Small, fragile and so… vulnerable. —

You swallowed hard, feeling your heart beat faster. There was something about him that drew you in, like a tide pulling you under. Jade always maintained that polite smile, but his eyes analyzed your every move, like a predator studying its prey.

From that date on, Jade made a point of "taking care" of you. He always appeared when you needed help most, whether it was to guide you through the corridors or to get you out of embarrassing situations. However, as time passed, you began to notice that Jade was always around, even when she didn't call you. His words were always kind, but his intentions seemed increasingly difficult to decipher.

— You are such a sweet and carefree girl… — he whispered one day, while they were alone in the library. — I wonder how someone so innocent survives in this world… —

His cold fingers slid down your arm, and you felt a shiver run down your spine.

— Don't worry, [Name]. I'll make sure nothing bad happens to you. —

Despite the calmness in his voice, there was a tone of possessiveness that made you uneasy. He always knew where you were, what you were doing, and he seemed to show up at the most unexpected moments. You even tried to move away, but it was as if Jade always found a way to be close, like a shadow.

One night, as you walked through the dark corridors of the school, you felt that has was being followed. When you turned around, Jade was there, his smile darker than usual.

— I was worried… You've been moving away from me, [Name]. It makes me…uncomfortable. — His voice was now almost a threatening whisper.

— J-Jade… I just… wanted some space… — your voice shook, and you took a step back.

In an instant, Jade was in front of him, holding his arm firmly but without hurting him.

— Space? — He tilted his head, as if he didn't understand the concept. — Oh, you're so adorable when you try to resist, but you know, don't you? No one else can take care of you like I can. — His eyes fixed on yours, as if he was hypnotizing you.

You tried to pull your arm away, but he wouldn't let go.

— I will never let you get hurt, [Name]. Because you… — he lowered his face until his lips almost touched your ear — are already mine. —

His words carried a poisonous sweetness, and you realized that no matter how much you tried to escape, Jade Leech would always be there, watching you, protecting you in his own sick way, and slowly enveloping you in his possessive depths.

And the worst of all? Part of you was beginning to wonder if you really wanted to escape…

<3

[mooshie-blue]

Enough for me 💕

A sort self insert octonauts fic idfk I don’t want to post this to a03

If you don’t like self insert stuff go away!

Bonnie could never be an Octonaut. They hated traveling, their room was always their safe place. they could never work under pressure either. They didn’t wear the hat or the fancy shirt collar.

They couldn’t drive a car, how would they drive a GUP? They couldn’t work under pressure. They were a coward.

Cooking is all they could really do.

The octonauts had been out to take care of and reunite a baby shark with her family after she got separated.

Bonnie was with the vegimals, planning that night’s dinner. They were chopping up some seaweed and Tominow was at the mixer, humming her little vegimal song. She occasionally looked over, noticing Bonnie’s solemn expression.

since Bonnie joined the crew, all the vegimals, especially Tomminow had taken a liking to them, seeing Bonnie as a sort of Mother figure. Sometimes Tominow called them “Mama”

The little Vegimal looked Bonnie’s direction “Mama?” Asking if they were okay.

Bonnie snapped back to reality and looked at their little friend, her little face was painted with concern “Mama?”

“I’m okay, Tominow, just not feeling it today. Must’ve slept funny.” Bonnie rubbed their totally sore neck and smiled weakly.

Tominow didn’t beleive them, she had been trained to be smarter than that thanks to Shellington and Tunip.

But she knew Bonnie didn’t like talking much about their feelings, especially to someone so young.

Tominow simply sighed sadly and went back to mixing. But she did have an idea in mind.

Soon dinner would be out in the oven and the Octonauts would return.

Tominow sat in the launch bay, waiting for Captain Barnacles because she knew how close he was with Bonnie.

Tweak walked in after getting a call from Barnacles telling her they were on their way back to the octopod. She would be set to open the octo-hatch soon.

“Hey, there Tominow! How’s dinner coming along?” She ruffled Tomminow’s leafy head as she approached the lever and stood by, waiting for orders.

“In da oven!” Tominow replied, she sat beside tweak, lightly kicking her flippers.

“Alright! But don’t tell me what it is, I want to be surprised!” Tweak giggled

Tominow nodded and hummed some more. Eventually, Captain Barnacles called for tweak to open the Octo-Hatch, Then he, Kwazii, Peso and Shellington bought the GUP-A to the top.

“How’d it go? Is Sasha okay?” Tweak asked about the baby shark.

“Oh, yes!” Captain Barnacles climbed out and gently pulled Peso out with him. “She’s fine!” Peso added Her parents were worried but they’re all together again, we made sure they swam off together before coming back!”

“A relief it is!” Shellington followed Peso out and stepped on the dock. Kwazii following close behind.

“That’s good to hear!” Tweak munched on a carrot “Tominow said dinners in the oven right now, it’ll be another 30 or so minutes.”

“In the meantime we should all take it easy, you did a wonderful job today, Octonauts!” Barnacles clasped his hands together “I’m very proud of you!”

“Shucks, Cap’n!” Kwazii chuckled “Hey, Shellington, ya up for a round of ping pong?” Shellington laughed and followed the swashbuckling cat to the rec room. “You’re on!”

Tweak set the GUP A back in its designated spot, Barnacles checking in beside her, after that, Tominow approached him and lightly tugged on his sleeve.

“Hm? What is it Tominow?” The polar bear turned to face her, he knelt down to her level.

“Mama!” Tominow hopped up and down. “Mama sad!”

“Oh, Bonnie’s upset? Do you know why?” He stood up. Tominow shaking her head, she tugged on his paw, urging him to follow.

“Easy now! I’m coming.” He gently settled the worried vegimal as he stood up and followed. They both deeply cared about Bonnie. Barnacles had found them when they were at a low place. They didn’t have a home or a job, really. The octonauts never ever encountered humans. Seeing them was a first. But he was glad he found them.

Bonnie lay quietly in their room. They left the other Vegimals in charge of watching over dinner. They just stared outside, watching the fish go by. It wasn’t uncommon for them to just not do anything. What a burden.

A gentle knock on their door “Darling? It’s me, Tominow told me you aren’t feeling well.”

They couldn’t ever really resist Barnacles helpfulness. No matter how tired or angry they were, something about the small polar bear just broke their walls down. Even just sitting quietly with him was enough to put them at ease.

They stood up and the door opened automatically, they motioned for him to come in, which he did.

They plopped themself down on their bed and lay quietly. Around him they felt more comfortable to just be ‘unpleasant’ just a side of themselves they barely show. The side that was upset and frustrated, the side that felt wasn’t good enough.

Captain Barnacles sat next to them and rubbed their shoulder “What’s wrong, my dear?”

“I’m just so tired of being so useless.” Bonnie sighed and gripped their hair in frustration, Barnacles looking with worry.

“I feel like I’m not doing enough for the team, when the opportunity comes, I just back away like a coward. I just wish I wasn’t so scared all the time.” They sighed. “I don’t feel like I belong here, or anywhere really.”

Captain Barnacles gently stroked their soft hair and moved their bangs out of their eyes noticing them close, trying to hold back tears. He pressed a soft kiss to their forehead.

“Bonnie. It’s scary for anyone to do big things. I have fears myself, y’know. There’s so much out there to be worried about. I can’t say I blame you.”

He ran his paw to their hand and gently grasped it. “But you are just as important as the rest of us. Sometimes we get so busy we don’t have time to prepare meals. So imagine how happy we are when we come back to the octopod to see a warm, delicious meal made by you and the Vegimals.” Bonnie looked at him and noticed that warm smile on muzzle.

“You don’t have to go out and bandage up wounds or take big risks to reunite a shark with their families. Not yet, anyway. When your time comes, I’ll be happy to help you every step of the way. That’s my job as the Captain, I must be patient with everyone and their needs, and that includes you.”

He looked up at them, sincerity written all over him. “So please be patient with yourself. There’s no need to rush out into something you don’t believe you’re ready for.”

Bonnie nodded and held his paw “Thank you, bear..” they took his hat off and kissed the top of his head. Barnacles letting out a soft chuckle in response. his reactions to their affection were always so charming, He himself was just.. charming.

“I’ll always be there, Bonnie. No matter how small you think your problems are, I’ll help you.” He stroked their hair.

Bonnie sat up and hugged their little bear close. “I love you, Barnacles.” They whispered. “Oh I love you too, Dear. Do you want me to stay?”

Bonnie nodded “Yes, please.” They held him closer and lay down, bringing him down with them in their embrace. “You’re so sweet, snowball.”

“All for you, my dear.” He held their cheek and kissed their lips. Bonnie gently tugged his shirt collar and kissed him right back.

They both lay in complete, comfortable silence, exchanging sweet kisses as they waited for dinner.

[slippinninque]

Hi👋🏽 This is my first time ever putting in a fic request. I’m not sure if you take requests and I didn’t see anything on your blog so please feel free to ignore this. I was wondering what Fontaine would do if he saw his girl working so hard to balance school and work that she wasn’t taking care of herself like she should or not spending as much time with him?

💆🏾‍♀️Some Place Warm🫂

Fontaine x blackfemreader

Warnings: none, some cursing, mainly fluff. Mentions of feeling overworked and overwhelmed, before-work-post (may have some mistakes lol)

"It was tonight, wasn't it?"

You were standing in the middle of the living room, in the middle of wakefulness and the fugue that has been stubbornly following you for the past three weeks.

He saw you stare out into space as you tried to regain your thoughts. Fontaine froze when you turned wet eyes to him, the rest of your face fixed into flat mask.

Still wearing your hoodie and jeans, your cheek held the imprint of one of your text books. He normally would protest you bringing books to bed but with how thin you were already stretched so thin...

"I missed date night," your voice cracked and your hands came up to your face, "We would have been back by now...I...I really missed it...."

Fontaine was up brought you close and closed his eyes against the feel of your trembling. He gently pried your hands away from your face, seeing how your fingers began to curl into claws nearer your hair.

Fontaine hugged you tight, "Hey, hey, you're good."

Your wide eyes met his but Fontaine knew you were only seeing your thoughts plastered across his face. All the things that demanded your attention, the projects and papers and team meetings and recruiting.

He said nothing as he brought your head to his shoulder. Fontaine didn't want think too much about how you sagged against him. You felt, like a rag doll with weighted feet.

"It wasn't you, baby. You've had a lot on your plate, I didn't feel right waking you up." He admitted, "I thought maybe we could have date night at the crib this time. "

You made a quiet, hurt noise and nuzzled closer, "I'm so sorry..."

"Ah, ain't nothing be sorry fo'. I already ordered some grub, it's gonna be dinner in bed tonight. A'ight?"

"I'm sorry...."

Fontaine hushed you and wished he had more to say. Wish he could erase the nerves he could feel prickling along your skin. There was nothing he could say to you. Not right now, at least.

"The only thing I want you to be is getting in that tub for me." He cupped your face, "Bath is already made. Then we'll take it from there, okay?"

"No, that's too much." You tried to shake him off but Fontaine kept hold, "Date night is supposed to be special for the both of us--

Fontaine spoke over you just a bit, "Hush! You want--"

"Don't you hush me--!"

"-- You wanna to make it up to me?"

You nodded at once. Fontaine nodded back before he stepped back and took your hands in his. He took in the worried bend of your brow, the way you chewed and picked at at the healing spots on your bottom lip.

"I've been waiting on your ass to crash for 'bout two weeks now--ain't plotting on your downfall...just worried."

Fontaine's tone robbed you of your fight. You nodded and sniffled, the knot in your throat loosening. He was right. You couldn't keep going on like this, you were only going to get sloppier.

"Okay, good, c'mon and let me get my hands on you a little bit and you can curse at me later for hushing. Yeah?"

Fontaine tugged gently and you went after him feeling like the worse girlfriend in the world.

-----

When you finally felt like you could stand being in your skin. You washed yourself and did so again, mind humming on low as the water steamed and soothed you. There were mountains of bubbles and you could smell the lavender scented candle from its perch in the dreamy fog of the bathroom.

It was strange to feel so wrung out so soon. With the holiday season swiftly approaching, you were tied on both ends. Midterms papers and collaborations clashing with the growing seasonal demand at your Granny's catering business.

While you weren't charge of the magic of making the food you made sure the 'magicians' had their wands and their doves. Grocery orders, appliance repairs, and even down to scheduling for tastings and deliveries.

You made sure that all the elders had to focus on was doing what they loved and being as much of a mediator between them and youngin's of the staff as you could.

It was a good thing to see your grandmother be so invigorated by the rush but she ran a tight ship that felt more like a sardine can lately with all the passive aggressive wars that often came with family businesses.

You cut that thought off before it could take root. That would always be there. Instead you turned your thoughts on the man who still managed to surprise you.

Fontaine waited up for you when you stayed behind for next-day prep. He met you at the front door with a blunt rolled and the shower steaming. He rubbed your aching feet as you pounded out a essay analysis.

Fontaine, bless his heart, has been nothing but supportive. Also rightfully worried, of you had to be honest.

How could you have forgotten the one night in the week that mattered most? That's what sent you over the edge at the end of it all. Not the 11:59 deadlines and collapsing cake towers--the fact you forgot about your man.

As of drawn by the sound of your spiraling thoughts, Fontaine knocked a little on the door before you saw his free forms peek in.

"I got you all set if you're ready, baby." He came in a bit further as if he hadn't already seen your all, "If you're ready, that is?"

The water sloshed as you rose instead of answering. Fontaine came fully into the bathroom with a towel stretched and waiting for you.

"Bring yo' lil self here."

The towel wrapped you up and you were delighted to feel it was fresh from the dryer. Fontaine hummed knowingly and rocked you a bit before pulling back to dry you off in earnest.

It felt silly at first, you wanted to grab the towel and insist that you had it but....it felt nice to be out of control for once.

You were then led to the bedroom instead of the living room. There you found your nest ready and waiting. There was no textbooks or notebooks to be found, or pens to be stuck by. Only one of Fontaine's hoodies and your well-loved sleeping shorts.

A single touch made you gasp in delight, Fontaine must have tossed everything into the dryer while you were soaking.

Once you were dressed, Fontaine patted your bottom and peeled the covers back. You dove between the covers and was immediately enveloped by lilac and fresh-linen scent.

"Stay put for me and let me go get some shit together, 'kay?"

" 'kay..."

Fontaine smiled at the sound of your crunchy, sniffly voice, "That's it. Find us something good to watch. Imma be back ."

He saw right through you. Though you knew he would be only a few paces away, somewhere in the house, it still felt too far at the moment. His reassurance that he'd come back had you melting into the blankets.

By the time you settled on Antique's Roadshow, Fontaine returns balancing two styrofoam containers, cups, and a 2 liter of your favorite Faygo.

The logo on the bag with the condiments let you know he ordered from the Mediterranean spot you've been hankering for. This man could have very well unlocked mind reading in hopes of getting you to take care....

You made room for him to settle beside you but Fontaine slid in and was nearly behind you. Emotion locked your throat as you watched Fontaine settle in.

"Thank you, Fontaine. For all of this."

Fontaine took the remote and lowered the volume when the nice lady from Vegas whooped about a found white gold watch.

"You're buried, right now. Gettin' pulled in all sorts of directions. I would have seen it by now had you not told me to be ready for it. That's something we've talked about happening when you started going back to school. What we also talked about is showing up. Remember that?"

It was one evening on the back porch days ago. You were frustrated with your progress with things. Of school, of family, of life. In feeling over overwhelmed by things to do, you strangely end up feel like you aren't doing much.

Fontaine looked into your wary eyes, "We've been making it work. We make time when we can. I let you sleep in because, baby, you needed it."

"You need me too. I need you...I have to be more-more mindful. You're what really matters to me. I should do more..."

Fontaine shook his head and took your hand again, looking at where you fingers laced quickly with his before putting them both against his chest.

"What you said to me when I asked? 'Showing up is doing something. Anything you can.' That goes both ways. Understand?"

You took in the earnest look on his face and couldn't resist kissing it. You probably tasted like stale gum but Fontaine surged forward all the same.

"Mhn, nope--no..." Fontaine pulled back and narrowed an eye at you, "Behave, missy. Food first--something that ain't no damn trail mix or whatever you be snacking on..."

Before you opened your tray, you closed your eyes and took a deep breath.

"Can you help me do something first?"

Fontaine was reaching over to pull one of your bonnets out of the nightstand as he answered, "Of course, baby. What do you need?"

"Moral support...."

Fontaine held you as you typed out an email to your professor and your cousin.

First asking for a two-day extension to polish and submit your paper. To your cousin, you apologized but insisted you needed the rest of the week off to get some rest and refocus yourself.

Though you doubted you would take the whole week, Fontaine correct to point out that a little wiggle room couldn't hurt just in case you did need it.

While you were going to have your phone on, all that they would need to get through the week would be ready for pick up and payment.

Before your stomach could sour after you hit send, your phone vibrated where it still was in your hand.

[Girl, fuck these oldies! Get some sleep and let them learn a lesson without you for once! 💜💕💞]

Your eyes welled as the pressure in your stomach eased away. Fontaine saw the way your shoulders sagged and took the hand still holding your phone, kissing the laxing knuckles.

"See? Handled that shit like a fuckin' boss." His other hand went behind your head, strong fingers massaging the base of your neck much to your pleasure.

You released an exhale as your eyes slipped close, unaware of the shadow of a smile on your face.

Fontaine shifted closer to get both hands on you, going for your temples and the knot of thoughts at the base of your skull as he murmured, "Mm. That's sexy as hell--do it again."

"Hm? What, breathe?"

Fontaine purred when you gave a more exaggerated puff of air and a laugh danced a laugh out of you. Between Fontaine's attention and the soft comforts surrounding you, it felt like you were going to be fine.

Fontaine's voice was at you ear, "That feel good? You like when I rub your big, pretty brain like this? Hm?"

Of course you did and of course he already knew. The tension in your neck was no match for the most dexterous fingers in all the Glenn.

"Hmm...dunno. I may need a few more minutes to decide for sure."

"You ain't got to tell me twice, let me get up in that kitchen..."

Luckily for you Fontaine didn't ease up at all. Careful of your dinner, he pulled until you were back to chest and set to work massaging your neck and temples.

All you could feel was his warmness, the give of your bed. All you could hear was the soft shift of styrofoam and an explanation of the popularity of faux gold in the 70's from the TV.

All you could think of, blissfully, was how much you wished you had the HP to jump 'Taine's bones...

Your stomach growled loudly and indignantly. Fontaine chuckled when you shushed it and brought his retreating hands back to your scalp.

"A little while longer and then I want to see you go through at least half that plate." Fontaine pressed a kiss to the crown of your head before popping your bonnet over your hair

"Then I'll rub you however much you'd like..."

With a little chirp of agreement, you flopped back against your man and let him do what he did best.

Take care of you.

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

💜ending notes💜: a long time coming and I'm so sorry anon, I hope you see this and know to please please please feel free to submit again! This ask saved me like no other🥹💞💜💕 thank you to those who were so kind during my burn out, slow and steady definitely wins the race lol! 🙏🏾✨💕

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[koshiaoi]

More sif from In Galaxies And Eons, he gets a bit worn-out whenever he loops.

My hc is he is affected by the craft exhaustion way more than normal sif, by way more I mean while in the loops, and that's because it's not just local to Vaugarde and is instead just reversing time completely! But his body does still feel the effects of it harshly, as each time he dies the scar on his cheek and the black bits of his hair, hat, and the inside of his clothes gains another star. All the black bits slowly turn a dark blue! Just cuz I wanna and I love blue.

If anyone is wondering, the scar on his cheek he got from loop, this loop spent way longer in the time loops than the original loop (around 10k I think?) And doesn't really talk to siffrin because of this. Loop attacked sif because he wanted to replace him and get back his actors.

From everyone else's perspective, they were a few days before they got to dormant and were taking a break when they heard sif scream, they rushed over and saw him almost dead being attacked by a "sadness" that somehow could talk? They hear it say something about ripping his skin off and replacing him, at which point they were able to save sif. Frightening loop, causing them to run away. Isa and odile noticed something in its eyes though... a weird shade that gave them a visceral feeling.

Bonnie wouldn't be able to leave sifs side after this, as they were told that he was 'just going to take a nap' and he ended up getting attacked. So bonnie sees this and knows that they can't leave the rest of the party anymore, but what's worse about it is that even though frin looks half dead, they're not bleeding, like at all. Instead, every scratch and wound is this weird back nothingness, which is even more reason to not let him alone ever again!

Mira tries her best to heal him, but nothing happens, almost like its permanent damage, like its scars, which stress her out even more! The person who she thought she could trust with her life is now badly injured because of her! If she just didn't ask him to come along, he would never have gotten hurt! It's all her fault! Its-

And isa would hide his true feelings about the entire thing, just trying to cheer sif up by telling him how cool he is for being able to hold his own against that sadness, they that couldn't even damage... wait what? Why couldn't they damage it? Why could only sif damage it? Well that doesn't matter! Sif looks really cool now! He tries his best to help out the freaking out siffrin.

Odile on the other hand would take that thought and run with it. When she saw that when they tried to attack the sadness, not only did it not flinch, like at all, it's form also didn't even react! No small bits of water, nothing. And then there's the fact that whatever it did to siffrin is permanent and can't be healed, what it said was weird to, not to mention that IT COULD TALK? No something wasn't right here... they should really talk to siffrin later.

Yes! I am using some headcannons for this! Specifically the loop appeared before the loops and was just hiding, the loop being sap!sif but I made him worse, and one thing that's just true, is that odile will know that isa also saw the weird thing and will talk to them about it and everything.

[sgt-tombstone]

Candy Red

So... my angst brain took over and I decided to finally type out an idea I've been sitting on for a while. Please heed the content warnings because this is a pretty gruesome one. Take care of yourselves and feel free to yell at me in the notes!

CW: brief mention of sexual assault, brief mention of child slavery, canon-typical violence, angst, hurt/no comfort, rough sex, breaking up

Read it on AO3 here!

----

The world was cruel.

Soap knew that better than most. In his time in the 141, he had seen some of the worst atrocities the world had to offer; brothers turned against brothers for the sake of profit or hatred, women trafficked and subjected to horrific violence, children bought and sold like sheep at the market. He'd seen enough blood to half convince him of Old Testament justice, of the biblical plagues of Egypt, of the End of Days.

The cruelest thing he'd ever been forced to witness, however, was the body of Simon Riley twist and warp as a barrage of bullets tore through his skin and muscle, bursting veins and shattering bones, before falling to the ground in a heap. Soap himself had been close to bleeding out, propped against a concrete wall that was more rubble than structure, and had been afforded a front row seat to the devastation; like a train wreck in slow motion, he hadn't been able to look away. He had watched in abject horror, his heart lodged somewhere in his esophagus instead of safely behind his ribs where it was supposed to be, as Simon's blood flowed freely, pooling in the dirt where boots and bullets alike had gouged the earth. He'd watched as Simon had collapsed, and he'd watched as Simon didn't get back up. And he didn't get up. And he didn't. Get. Up.

He woke up in the hospital two days later, brain and muscles sluggish with pain meds and a constant slew of fluids injected directly into his veins. His left thigh was a mess of stitches and bandages, blessedly blood-free but liable to start leaking again at the first hint of movement. There was a drain tube stitched in place, because apparently his body was pumping puss like nobody's business, and the sound of it dripping into the metal basin beneath him sent waves of nausea through his chest.

Gaz was sitting next to him, his chair pulled close, his head in his hands, looking as gaunt as Soap had ever seen him. He wondered if his fellow sergeant had slept at all since his hospitalization or if he'd spent the entire two days staring at the heart rate monitor, like it'd stop the second he glanced away.

There was a second beeping noise, slightly offset from Soap's own pulse, and he tilted his head as quickly as he dared, holding his breath to keep the bile at bay. He needed to know if it was Price or Ghost; if their stupid, self-sacrificing stunt had put anyone else in the line of fire or if they had miraculously gotten away with it. He needed to know if Simon had given his life to save Soap's. He needed to know if he'd need to dig his dress blues out of his-

His gaze landed on the sharp slant of Simon's nose, the jagged edge of the scar bisecting Simon's lip, the blond eyelashes fanning over Simon's sharp cheekbone, and his chest collapsed on a silent sob. Tears stung at his eyelids, clinging to his own lashes, and he tossed his head back to the middle of his pillow to keep them from falling because he couldn't lift a hand to wipe them away. He gritted his teeth against the wail that built in his chest, the keening cry that fought its way up his throat, muscles tightening until he couldn't breathe, couldn't think, couldn't stop the tears from overflowing, running in rivulets past his temples and into the shaved sides of his head.

"Soap?"

He squeezed his eyes shut at the sound of Gaz's voice, rough from disuse, or maybe just misuse, because Soap could still hear the echoes of his panicked screams in his ears, reverberating between the steady beats of the heart monitor. He and Gaz had seen each other at their absolute worst, coated in blood, collapsing from exhaustion, screaming in hot-blooded rage, but he didn't want Gaz to see him like this. He didn't want Gaz to see how utterly broken he was.

"Get Price," he whispered, and breathed a sigh of relief when Gaz skimmed his fingers over the back of Soap's hand as he stood to leave.

----

It took three weeks for Simon to be released from the hospital and eight more for him to be green-lit for strenuous exercise again.

Soap stayed as far away from him as possible the entire time.

First, because he was healing from his own aches and pains, the bullet hole in his thigh stubbornly refusing to close on its own, blood and puss leaking from it like a faucet, and he'd been forced to ride a desk until the stitches held long enough for the gaping wound to suture itself back together. After that, he avoided Simon because of the guilt.

It was a tender, aching, thorny thing, stuck somewhere behind his clavicle, stabbing skin and bone every time he took a breath. The doctors had been concerned about pneumonia, and he hadn't had the heart to tell them that he couldn't take a deep breath without his lungs trying to force their way out through his rib cage, without his heart squeezing impossibly tight, stuttering over each beat like it wasn't convinced it wanted to keep expending the effort that living required.

He became as much of a ghost as Simon. He spent a grand total of three hours in his room over the course of those eleven weeks, opting instead to catch catnaps in whichever corner seemed the darkest. He'd lodge himself behind stacks of crates, protected by the shadows of automatic rifles and hand grenades and armored trucks. He slipped in and out of the mess hall in silence, unnoticed and ignored, because John MacTavish was a loud soldier, and the man who lurked in the halls of Credenhill was not. Gaz looked at him askance every time he saw him, concern etched into every plane and wrinkle of his face, eyes heavy with worry that encroached on fear, but Soap brushed him off, citing pain and worry of his own for his lack of sleep. Neither of them mentioned the fact that he was making himself purposefully hard to find. Neither of them mentioned how adept he was at it.

----

They fell into bed together twelve weeks and three days after their bodies had been riddled with brass and lead.

They were in Simon's room, Simon pressed against his own locked door, Soap's hands and mouth wandering frantically over every square inch of skin he could find, like he was relearning every dip and divot of Simon's body. Like he was memorizing it all over again, etching it into his memory. Simon's body was hot against his, their skin burning where they were pressed together, aching to get closer. Soap broke their panting kiss to tug Simon's shirt over his head and Simon reciprocated in kind, letting their palms wander over healed skin and new scars, reverent.

"I'm okay, Johnny," Simon whispered into the still air between them and Soap wanted to sob, wanted to climb inside of Simon's chest and live there like a hermit crab in a Ghost-shaped shell, wanted to tear Simon apart, rib by rib, until he could hold the warm, bloody, beating muscle in his hands, could feel it constrict with every pulse, could feel it throb in time with his own. He ached with want.

Instead, he pulled Simon bodily away from the door and shoved him towards the bed, barely giving him any time to adjust before settling his weight on top of him, framing Simon's hips with his thighs. The stretch pulled at his newly-healed scar, but he didn't relent. His jaw ached with the need to feel Simon's skin between his teeth and he let himself indulge, warmth flushing through him at the sound of Simon's groan, low and breathy. Simon's hands burned like brands where they arced across Soap's bare back, leaving trails of embers smoldering under his skin.

He blinked and blood coated his mouth, thick and heavy on his tongue, where his teeth were lodged in Simon's flesh, biting down harder with every stroke of Simon's finger across his hole, thick and probing, slick and teasing. They were completely naked, their hard cocks pressed side by side, velvet heat emanating off of their bodies in waves, and Soap didn't know when that happened, but he wasn't going to complain, not when he had Simon's fingertip dipping past the tight ring of muscle. His eyes rolled back with the stretch, like an itch he couldn't scratch finally sated, except that it wasn't enough. He needed more, needed to be pulled apart like taffy, needed to carve himself hollow until he was a husk, ready and willing to house the very essence of Simon Riley.

He rocked back against Simon's fingers, pushing them deeper, stretching himself wider, until he was panting with it, his breath hot against Simon's blood-coated chest, viscera dripping with every exhale, bright against pale skin. Simon's other hand cupped the back of Soap's head, fingers carded through overgrown hair, keeping him in place.

Finally, Soap felt Simon's lube-slicked cock press against his hole, hot and cold and soft and hard all at once, and he keened at the pressure, overwhelming as Simon split him open. He could hear Simon whispering above him, soft words spoken directly against the crown of his head, but he couldn't parse them out over the static in his blood, whiting out his hearing until his ears were ringing, the high-pitched tinnitus of one too many explosions at close range, but he craved just one more.

When Simon started thrusting, it wasn't soft or gentle. It was the frantic, frenzied movements of a man who had nearly died to save the love of his life, who had nearly been forced to watch his partner bleed out into the dirt right in front of him, who had been helpless to do anything but sacrifice himself in the vain hope of at least dying together. It was the first brush of warm skin, the steady pulse under seeking fingertips, the barest exhale against a bare palm. It was relief, pure and simple, except relief was never simple. It was life, and Simon was grasping it with both hands.

Soap went fuzzy after that. He tried to stay present, tried to soak up every moment, but his mind drained out through his ears as Simon used him, nailing his prostate with every thrust. There was blood, not just in his mouth, but under his nails; he was scratching Simon's chest and arms, presumably, hard enough to draw blood, but Simon was doing nothing to discourage him. If anything, he arched up into it, begging for the sensation as fervently as Soap wanted to inflict it. Corpses didn't feel pain, and the dead didn't bleed.

Cum mixed with blood as Soap tripped over the edge; Simon's hand wrapped around his cock, Simon's blood painting his teeth, Simon's cock massaging his prostate. Pale skin adorned in red and white, and then Simon's body clenched, every muscle tightening as he spilled inside of Soap. Warmth, endless warmth, in and around him, and it took no effort at all to tip over into unconsciousness, the steady rhythm of Simon's heart loud in his ear.

----

"What the fuck is this?"

Soap blinked awake, immediately aware of the chill that had become his bedfellow at some point in the night. Something heavy hit the bed by his feet and he belatedly registered the deep growl of Simon--no, Ghost--standing over him. He tilted his head, confusion swimming to the forefront as he squinted up at Ghost.

"Wha-"

"Did you request a transfer?"

Oh, fuck.

Soap sat up, his gaze landing on the stack of papers that Ghost had thrown onto the bed, neatly stapled with the damning heading clearly visible at the top. Transfer Request. Signed and dated by one John "Soap" MacTavish the day he'd woken up three months ago. The second date, penned in by the owner of the second signature, one John Price, was far more incriminating; today's date. The day of his transfer.

He stood up and pulled on a pair of sweats, refusing to take this conversation laying down, or naked. And then they were both standing in the middle of Ghost's room, several feet between them, and it felt like an immeasurable, insurmountable gulf.

"Aye," Soap said defiantly, because he had. He remembered, through the haze of tears and drugs and pain, signing his signature on the dotted line. Price had questioned him over and over, but Soap had refused to give in. His hand had been shaking, his vision blurry, but he'd signed with conviction, the same conviction he felt now, hot in his veins.

"Why?"

It was all Soap could do to hold onto that conviction in the face of Simon's soft question. It escaped on a sigh, a small, broken thing that was more breath than sound, and Soap wanted nothing more than to rip the paper to shreds, to cross the divide between them and wrap Simon in his arms. The single syllable cut into Soap's skin like a knife, leaving a trail of blood behind, and only Simon's touch would mend it. But he couldn't. For both of them.

"You're compromised," he said, forcing his voice to take on a hard edge, an uncharacteristic flatness, and he barely held himself back when Simon visibly flinched.

"I'm compromised?" Simon hissed, pain and betrayal dripping from every syllable. "Were you- Did Price-"

"I requested it," Soap interrupted. "Price didn't make me do anything."

"Why?" Simon repeated, and he sounded desperate now. Soap ground his teeth together, tasting the remnants of Simon's blood along his gums, and stayed silent. "Since when have you been the responsible one here?"

It was a joke, or at least an attempt at one, a tear-soaked effort, but it landed flat and heavy like a grenade, and Soap could feel the air thicken as they stared at it, wondering if it was a dud or if they would both get caught in the blast.

"One of us has to be," he said flatly, and the grenade exploded. Heat and pain flared across his chest, throbbing in time with his heart, and he couldn't meet Simon's gaze. He stared resolutely at his chest, at the pink scars that pocked his skin, and drew tenacity from the sight. "I'm reckless, Ghost," he said, shaking his head helplessly. "I always will be; nothing you can do about that. I'll not have ye killin' yerself to save a lost cause."

"A lost-" Simon breathed, then cut himself off, his face crumpled in devastation. "Johnny."

"It's already been approved, Ghost," Soap said, a little unkindly, just harsh enough to cut them both, a little pain to force Simon back a step.

"Where are you going?"

"I can't tell you."

"Will you ever come back?"

Soap let the silence stretch between them, speaking for itself. The truth was that he couldn't. He wouldn't let himself. He had seen the way Simon had let himself crack, had reveled in the glimpses he saw behind the mask, had delighted in being one of the only people who got Simon instead of Ghost. But he hadn't expected the ruin it would cause.

Neither of them could guarantee each other's safety; it was the job. They regularly put themselves directly in several convergent lines of sight, laser scopes pointed directly at their hearts and minds. That fact had never bothered Soap before. And then he'd met Simon, and he'd seen how viscerally Simon reacted to the sight of a laser sight aimed at Soap's head. He'd seen the lengths that Simon would go to to protect him, and he couldn't let that happen.

"Will I ever see you again?" Simon whispered, and Soap hated himself for the way his breath hitched.

"I hope not," he said. Every bone in his body buzzed at the lie, but he refused to let it show. "I hope you forget about me, Ghost. By the time I'm KIA, I hope that you'll have forgotten my name."

"Never," Ghost snarled, hot and sudden, but Soap didn't let himself roll over.

"One day I'll die," he continued, keeping his voice as apathetic as possible, like the words weren't scorching his throat as he said them. "There's nothing you can do about that. It'll be easier for you to lose me now."

"Easier?" Simon asked incredulously. "Is any of this easy for you?"

No, God no. The words sat at the tip of Soap's tongue, trapped behind his teeth, and it took everything he had not to let them loose. Nothing about this was easy. But neither was laying in that hospital bed with nothing to stare at except Simon's unconscious body, swathes of shredded skin on full display as the nurses changed the dressings. Neither was clinging to the sound of a heart monitor throughout the night, every silent beat a held breath, hoping that it wasn't the last. Neither was laying next to the love of his life, waiting for him to die, and knowing he was the reason he was there at all.

"The man I love wouldn't do this," Simon pleaded. "The man who loves me wouldn't do this. Don't do this, Johnny, please."

"It's already done, Ghost."

"Simon," Simon breathed. "Why won't you call me Simon? What changed?"

Nothing. But Soap couldn't say that. It was the truth; he loved Simon with every fiber of his being, and that would never change, but he couldn't say that. Instead, he scooped his shirt off the floor, pulled it over his head, and stepped around Simon to the door.

"Do you still love me?" Simon asked, rushed, like it took every effort to force the words out before Soap opened the door and broke the bubble around them once and for all. "Did you ever love me?"

Soap paused, his hand on the doorknob, and squeezed his eyes shut to stop his tears from falling. He did. He did, and he always would. God, he loved Simon like the sun loved the moon. Even now, he craved Simon's touch, craved Simon's smile, his laugh, his fond eyes. He craved and he ached. But he had to stay strong. For both of them.

"No," he said at last, pulling the door open. He heard Simon's sob echo in the room behind him, broken and desolate, and every muscle in his body strained with the need to run to him. He could feel his heart breaking in his chest with an audible crack, splintering until every shard was lodged deep in the surrounding tissue, lacerations that would never heal for as long as he lived. He could only hope that Simon's would, that Simon would be able to pick the pieces back up and tape them back into some semblance of a functioning organ. He could only hope that Price and Gaz would be there to soothe the sting until the cuts scarred over, until Soap's name was said with anger or indifference rather than grief, until Soap was nothing more than a smudge on the horizon. A bitter memory, a long-lost almost, a name on a mission report.

He forced himself to step outside and close the door on the sound of Simon's grief. It was better this way. It had to be. It was the only way Simon would survive.

----

When he stopped by Price's office later that day, he saw the same stack of papers waiting for him, stapled neatly, heading damning. Transfer Request. Signed and dated and absolute. Price fixed him with a scrutinizing look, a little too soft for Soap's liking, and their handshake lasted just a moment too long.

"Good luck, sergeant," he scowled, his displeasure evident in every line of his face, but he hadn't stopped him from signing the papers on the first place.

"Thank you, sir," Soap said. "It was an honor serving with you."

"I hope you know what you're doing, son," Price grunted. "He won't give up that easily."

All he could do was nod as Price handed him the stack of papers. They felt like dead weight in his grip and he tightened his fingers, the sheets crinkling slightly against his palm. Price walked him out to the tarmac where the plane was waiting, cargo and soldiers alike loading into its belly. Gaz was waiting for them, enveloping Soap into a bone-crushing hug as soon as he was within sight.

"I'll miss you, Soap," he said, his lips pressed close to Soap's ear to be heard over the airfield din. "Stay in touch, yeah?"

He knew that he wouldn't, but he nodded anyway, tears prickling at his eyelids.

"I'm sorry," Soap responded. "I-"

"I know," Gaz interrupted, pulling back to look Soap in the eyes. "We'll take care of him for you."

"Thank you."

----

As the plane took off, engines roaring and frame trembling, Soap settled back in his seat, his head resting on the metal hull, and waited for reality to sink in. His body felt charged, a live wire disguised as blood and muscle and bones, and his fingers played with the edge of the paperwork in his hands. He idly flipped through it, making sure every dotted line had its appropriate signature, and when the stray piece of paper fluttered out, he grabbed it reflexively, instinct more than intent.

When his brain registered what it was, he couldn't stop the flow of tears. He read the address over and over again until he couldn't read it anymore, until the words were smudged with drops of water, until he was sobbing into his glove, pressed tight against his lips.

If you change your mind, you know where to find me.

[whowilllbringtherain]

LOVE IS OLD, LOVE IS NEW

One Shot ~ Daniel Wagner / Female Reader

AN: This is a comfort fic! Danny is not the cheater! This fic changed a lot from when I started writing it to when it ended, so I hope you enjoy wherever my mind went while I wrote this…

Word Count: + 10.6k

Content Warnings: Heartbreak, crying, cheating, insecurity, nudity, deprecating thoughts, intense sadness, self-isolation, boner, mentions of sexual situations, lots of skin touching including breasts (but in a non-sexual way), love confessions, mentions of sex, considerate Danny.

“You alright?” Danny asked, pausing the movement of his fingers and ripping his intense attention from the melodic chords he had been working on, letting his acoustic guitar falter in his hands.

You looked up from your phone, “What? Oh, yeah, fine.”

You weren’t really fine. It was your boyfriend, Otis’s birthday, and you hadn’t been able to get a hold of him all day. You swiped through your text chain, seeing that your message at 7am wishing him a happy birthday was followed by an embarrassing amount of messages almost once an hour asking what he was doing, how he was doing, and if he was okay.

You had grown unbelievably restless, your anxiety bordering between genuine concern for his well being, and fear that he was shutting you out for some reason.

Though, this wasn’t completely unusual for Otis. He had always been distant, emotionally elusive in a way that left you second guessing your every move. Sometimes, he would go an entire day without a word, shutting down for reasons you could never quite figure out. You attributed it to the way he must’ve been raised, but often, and without wanting, he would go into a mood. You had tried to understand, tried to make excuses for it. Maybe he just needed space. Maybe you were overreacting.

It was terribly confusing, but you’d grown used to it, trying your hardest to take note of anything that may be a consistent trigger in his moods.

Danny, who was by far your closest friend, did not approve of his behaviour at all. In fact, he didn’t approve of Otis full stop. You had grown up together, graduated together, and were now splitting the rent of some small, shitty apartment in Nashville together, and it was hard for you to conceal the faults in your relationship when Danny seemed to always be there.

“You sure? You’ve been staring at that phone all afternoon,” he argued pointedly.

You huffed and ran a hand down the side of your face, “It’s just Otis…it’s his birthday but he hasn’t texted me back all day.” You paused, and Danny set his guitar down, its neck leaning against the arm of the couch you were both seated on. “I’m getting kinda worried,” you added.

Danny’s jaw tightened at the mention of Otis, a familiar tension brewing in his stance. You knew what he thought of your boyfriend, he had never been shy about it. As your best friend since childhood, Danny had always been protective of you, and he couldn’t stand how Otis treated you. To Danny, Otis was an undeserving ghost, always there, but never really present.

But it wasn’t as if Otis treated you poorly. No, you wouldn’t be dating him if he was. He just was a bit flaky sometimes- physically and emotionally.

Danny’s brows furrowed, “That is weird. Maybe he’s just busy with friends or something?” he suggested.

You shook your head, “No, he told me he was celebrating with them on the weekend. Told me he would see me today too,” you said anxiously, biting at the corners of your nails.

“Stop that,” Danny warned, pulling your hands away from your mouth.

It was a habit you seemed to have only picked up only recently, and Danny was always quick to stop it as soon as he saw you begin to nibble at the uneven edges of the nail.

“You’re right, ‘s a bit worrying. I would be pretty worried as well. Did he go out last night?” Danny asked.

“No.” You were beginning to feel more and more nervous, anxiety flooding through your body as you wondered what was going on.

You suddenly stood, “I think I’m gonna go over to his place. Maybe he’s just been sleeping all day.”

Danny glanced at his watch and grimaced when he saw that it was 5pm. He refrained from telling you he highly doubted it, not wanting to worry you any further.

“Shit,” you cursed as you looked out the window and saw that it was absolutely pouring with rain. You hurried to your bedroom to find a raincoat.

“Let me drive you,” Danny suggested, his voice now coming from his own room as he grabbed himself a sweater. You both emerged from your rooms and met in the hallway, and before you could protest he added, “Please. I don’t feel good knowing you’re driving in this weather.”

You scoffed, “Underestimating my driving skills, Wagner?” You carried the gifts you had bought Otis, including the bouquet of flowers into the living room with you and placed them on the table next to your handbag.

“Maybe,” Danny teased and you rolled your eyes at him playfully.

It took less than five minutes to gather your things. The bouquet of flowers, a few small wrapped gifts, and your handbag. Once you had hastily gotten your things in order, Danny grabbed his car keys off the table and opened the front door for you.

“Need me to hold anything?” he asked, watching in amusement as you fumbled with the flowers, presents, your bag and your phone.

You laughed, “Yes please.”

He took the flowers and a few gifts from your arms and you both descended the long, winding stairs wordlessly until you were in the shared car park.

“I’m sure it’s all fine,” Danny assured he held the door open for you to get into the car.

“Yeah me too. Just really wanna see him, you know?” You immediately regretted saying it once the words left your mouth.

You usually tried to keep the Otis conversation minimal with Danny, knowing that he didn’t really like him. Danny hummed anyway, despite his disagreement, and started the car before reversing out of the garage. He handed you your favourite Beatles CD for you to put into the stereo while he drove, and you felt overwhelmingly appreciative of his attentiveness.

You wanted to believe that nothing was wrong, and that Otis just hadn't had a chance to look at his phone yet. But with each mile closer to Otis’s apartment, the pit in your stomach grew heavier, and the knot in your chest tighter. Every time you checked your phone, there was no new message. No missed calls. Nothing.

Throughout the drive, it was clear to you that Danny was trying his hardest to keep you from overthinking. You felt like he didn’t stop talking for the majority of the ride, telling you about the latest disagreement between Josh and Jake and how he, like usual, had to save the day with his mediation skills. He managed to make you laugh too, always knowing just what you needed when you weren’t feeling your absolute best.

You had to direct Danny the way there, which was quite difficult thanks to the bucketing rain that restricted visibility of anything twenty metres in front of you. 

Eventually you made it to his apartment, and Danny pulled over on the side of the road to drop you off, seeing as there was no carpark for him to stop in.

“Alright, be safe please. Text if you need anything,” Danny recited, the words he told you each time you parted. It had been that way since you could remember.

“I will! Thanks for the lift!”

Balancing your things in your arms, you quickly jumped out of the car to not hold up and more traffic.

Danny drove off when one of the impatient cars behind him gave him a beep for taking so long. You rushed up to Otis’s apartment building front door, bullets of rain almost soaking you completely as you covered the short distance.

Your shoes splashed heavily on the street which had become one big puddle. You sighed when you finally reached the building, protected from the rain by the large overhang that wrapped around the large building.

As you made your way into the apartment and climbed the levels to his, you glanced at your phone once more to check if he had messaged you, and frowned when there was nothing. A little puffed, you finally reached his unit. Before you knocked, you peeked a glance at the crack at the bottom of the door where a light was being through. So he was home.

You bit back a shiver as you raised your hand and pressed the doorbell. You always liked the tune Otis’s doorbell made. It was quite unconventional, not the normal tune they made and not a jarring ring either, but a nice melody all the same.

You hugged yourself tightly in the cold as you awaited a response, and when you didn’t get one, you rang the doorbell again. Finally, the front door swung open, and you were met with Otis, his slim figure on full display as only a pair of white and blue striped boxers hung low on his hips.

You smiled brightly, despite the fact that he had neglected speaking to you all day. “Happy birthday!” you exclaimed.

He shot you a quick, tight smile, before his face turned serious, eyes scanning the scene behind you. “Thank you Baby, but uh… what are you doing here?” he asked.

You faltered, “What do you mean?”

He looked at you as if you had done something ridiculous, “Well we didn’t plan anything. I hadn’t exactly said you could come over.”

You took a step back into the hallway, “I just thought that…”

You were mortified. But you were also incredibly upset. It was his birthday, but you had still felt some kind of obligation that he at least see you on the special day. He was your boyfriend after all.

“I got worried. You weren’t responding,” you explained, feeling a deep set frown fall to your face.

He ran a frustrated hand through his hair, and you suddenly became very aware of his positioning. He was standing in the doorway, hands on either side of the frame and letting the door hang almost closed behind him while he stepped marginally closer in each moment and effectively backed you further away from the entrance.

“Yeah well, I just got caught up in something.”

Just as you were about to ask what, a slender hand, adorning deep red acrylic nails raked across his bare abdomen.

“Baby, what’s taking you so long?” a sultry voice asked, and you could see longer dark hair peeking behind his body.

Unable to beleive your eyes, your mouth parted in silent shock, face dropping in realisation, and you peered over his shoulder to see the most beautiful woman you had ever seen, clad in only her underwear behind him.

Blinking, you watched as his face morphed into course red embarrassment, and his eyes widened in fear.

“Oh,” you stated.

“No Baby, it’s not what it-” he started, moving towards you to take your arm.

“Stop it. Don’t,” you shook his hands off you, “Don’t touch me.”

Tears instantly welled in your eyes and the lump in your throat felt like it was going to choke you.

“Wha- why?” you managed to choke out. He looked at you sympathetically, but before he could open his mouth, the woman behind him appeared at his side.

If you thought her face was gorgeous, her body was bound to make you pass out. Her breasts were full and round, and her slim, toned waist was a beautiful compliment. Her hips widened at just the right spot, and were void of dips or stretch marks, and it suddenly became glaringly obvious to you where everything had gone wrong.

She gave you a harsh look up and down, assessing your clothing and you could only assume your body. Your arms crossed over your front in insecurity, now regretting the old coat, faded jeans and casual shoes you had thrown on in your state of worry and anticipation.

You hiccuped a sob back when she placed a hand on his chest and leaned up to whisper something in his ear. Otis, to his credit, looked wildly uncomfortable by her actions and tried to shrug her off, looking at you pleadingly.

You couldn’t see any more. You couldn’t stand there for another second longer or you were going to explode.

You wished you were more angry. You should have been furious, yelling at him and ripping your keys out to key his car. But instead, you felt a deep pit of sadness in your belly. The type of pit that drags everything down with it. The type of pit that consumes all it can from its host just to continue its relentless torment.

You needed to get the fuck out of there.

Breathing turned shakey, you turned and walked so quickly down the hallway that you thought you were going to pull a hamstring.

Otis called your name from behind you, and you thanked the Gods that he was too naked to follow you. You descended the stairs in a daze, hot tears running down your cheeks, but you were too focused on getting out that you knew you needed to hold them back.

Once you made it to the building's exit, you realised that you were still cradling the birthday presents you had bought him. In an act of anger, you stormed out of the complex and threw them in a heap onto the grass beside the door, letting all the money you had wasted on him get destroyed under the unforgiving downpour of rain.

Then you realised you were also in the rain. And you were getting soaked. You quickly pulled your phone out and pulled up Danny’s contact to call him.

Restricted sobs began to shake your body, and you were having an incredibly hard time maintaining your composure, if you could even call it that anymore.

The phone only rang twice before Danny’s voice spoke through the speakers.

“Hey, what’s up,” he answered casually. You could hear his car keys hitting the little key bowl you had by the front door, indicating he had quite literally just gotten home, making you feel even worse about asking him to come and pick you up.

He called your name in question when you didn’t respond.

“Did you- did you just get home?” you asked, trying feebly to conceal the emotion in your voice, but the sobs and sharp inhales did close to nothing in helping.

“Fuck, are you okay? What’s happened? What’s wrong?” he asked frantically, and you could hear the keys jingle again, accompanied by the front door slamming shut.

“I’m,” you tried to say through broken sobs, “I’m okay. I just need- can you come and pick me up? Ple- please?”

“I’m already on my way.” True to his word, you could hear the engine vibrating in the background of the call. “Please tell me what happened. Are you safe?” he asked frantically.

You nodded, before reloading he couldn’t truly see you, “I’m- I’m okay. Just cold,” you began scanning the area, looking for a spot you could stand that was concealed from the rain.

There was no way you were going back inside the complex building, and you quickly realised that your best bet was a tree nearby. You hastily made your way over, sneakers getting ruined in the dirt, each step accompanied by a squelch. The rain wasn’t as relentless under the cover in the tree, but thick drops still fell and coated your skin, hair and clothes. You were shivering violently now, wondering why on earth you hadn’t brought an umbrella.

"Where are you?" Danny's voice was soft but laced with concern.

"Same place you dropped me off," you muttered, feeling the hot flush of embarrassment rise to your cheeks. It wasn't hard to guess that Danny probably knew something had gone wrong with Otis. But you could bet he'd never imagine the full extent of it.

There was a pause on the other end of the line, and you could sense Danny was biting his tongue, holding back from asking the questions swirling in his mind. He knew better than to press you when you were like this, though. Whatever had happened, it wasn't good. That much was obvious.

"Okay, honey, I’m nearly there. Can you try taking some deep breaths while you wait for me, please?" His voice was steady, trying to ground you through the phone. It was only then that you became aware of the sound of your own ragged, gasping sobs.

"Ye-yes... okay." You forced yourself to breathe deeply, letting the air fill your lungs, but each inhale felt heavy, the weight of your chest pressing down harder with every beat of your racing heart. You tried to follow Danny's request, but every time your pulse began to slow, your mind betrayed you. You couldn't stop the image from flashing in your head, those sharp red acrylic nails raking across his chest.

Your stomach churned, nausea rising as you cursed your vivid imagination. What would those hands look like wrapped around his neck, or worse, holding his hand? What would those nails look like tracing against his skin, trailing down his back in the heat of the moment as she whispered his name in his ear? The thought made your blood run cold, and tears welled up in your eyes once again.

You squeezed your eyes shut, willing the thoughts to vanish. But they clung to you, persistent and cruel, reminding you of everything you were afraid to face. It wasn’t just the physical imagery, either. It was the emotional betrayal of the way his eyes might soften when he looked at her, the way he might laugh at her jokes. She probably made him feel something you couldn’t. And he had probably been slipping away for quite some time.

A broken sob escaped your lips, and you clenched your fists at your sides, wishing you could stop thinking about it, wishing you could stop hurting. You knew Danny was close, but the minutes felt like hours. You hated how powerless you felt, sitting there, cold and waiting, suffocated by your own thoughts.

“It’s okay. Whatever it is it’s okay it’ll be okay. I’m nearly there, just hang on a little longer for me, okay?” Danny repeated, hearing your breathing pick up again.

You crouched on the dirt to hug some warmth into you, humming in response to his question. “Danny, can you- can you put the heat on in the car… please. I’m really cold,” you asked and you immediately heard him shuffle with the knobs on the dashboard.

“Are you- are you in the rain?” he asked with urgency.

“I was… I’m standing under a tree now.”

He sighed, “Okay I’m rounding the corner now, can you see me?” he asked and you looked up at the road. True to his word, you could see his black car nearing you as it sped down the road.

“Yes.” You got up and quickly walked to the edge of the street. The rain soaked you again, and you abandoned even attempting to cover your head from its assault.

He pulled up to you at record breaking speed, and breaked harshly beside you on the road. You swung the door open and practically fell into the passenger seat, being immediately engulfed by the warmth of the car.

You slammed the door shut, and muttered a small ‘sorry’ through your shudders as you did up your seat belt.

Being a busy street, Danny had to take off as soon as you were buckled up, and you looked down at the water dripping off your shoes into the car.

“Fuck, you’re soaked,” he commented, as you tried to take off your top jacket to avoid completely soaking his seats. 

“I’m sorry,” you apologised, trying to keep your back from the seat to not soak the interior of his car. He had already given you a lift to and from Otis’s house, and the least you could do was not ruin his car in the process. You were trying your hardest to withhold the sobs, but hot tears mixed with the wetness of your face as the lump in your throat began to burn.

“Honey…” Danny comforted when he saw your emotional state. He found the closest quiet street and pulled over on the side of the road. 

As soon as the handbrake was on and the car was in neutral, Danny turned to you, clipping off his seatbelt to reach you better. He reached to unclip your seatbelt too, and without hesitation, he pulled you into his arms. 

Though it had been steadily trickling since you left Otis’s house, the dam completely broke when you felt the familiar and comforting embrace of Danny. He rubbed soothing strokes up and down your soaked back with a soft flat palm, his hand shuddering against each shaky breath you took. 

“Are you hurt? I need to know you’re okay, physically,” he asked, still keeping you tight in his arms. 

“I’m not hurt. I’m okay,” you sobbed, clutching at his shirt behind his back. 

“Shhh,” he cooed as your sobs continued, “What’s going on? What happened?”

You pulled away from him, slipping back into your seat and wiping furiously at your red and wet eyes. “There was,” you shuddered, “There was a woman,” you explained, eyes now trained on the window wipers that feebly tried to push away the waves of water that fell from the sky, “They were both naked.”

“What?” The volume of his voice was jarring in the otherwise silence of the car. You dared not speak, feeling embarrassed and ashamed. Danny had warned you that Otis wasn’t a good person, but you had ignored him, and you were now putting the weighted burden of your mistake on his shoulders. 

Danny ran a frustrated hand through his hair and you kept your eyes before you, silent tears now running down your cheeks. 

“She’s really pretty,” you added, and Danny eyed you carefully. He stared at you for a long time, as if trying to see through your skin and into your brain to read every thought that was running through your mind. When he couldn't find anything other than self-loathing and depreciation, he ran a hand through his hair. 

“I- fuck I don’t even know what to say. I’m so sorry.” 

You shook in the cold as you stared out the window, unspeaking. When he realised you weren’t going to respond, he turned in his seat again and popped the car back into gear before he continued the drive home. He was watching your body shake violently from the cold and knew that as much as he wanted to hold you until you were better, you needed to get out of your wet clothes and into something warm and dry.

“Don't do that,” Danny said, pulling your thumb away from your mouth as you attacked the skin around it. 

“‘M sorry,” you muttered with a sniffle, pulling your hands to your lap and fiddling with your fingers instead. 

“Don’t apologise.”

You were quiet for the rest of the ride. You replayed the moment over and over in your mind, looking back on how he had blatantly told you that he didn't want you there, that you weren’t invited. All because there was another woman. Had she always been there? Was she just a one night stand or had he been cheating on you for longer?

Danny bit his cheek each time he heard you sniffle, every small sound cutting through him like a knife. He glanced over at you, watching as you hastily wiped your eyes, your fingers trembling with the effort of holding yourself together. The sight of you in pain made his chest ache, and every time your hand darted up to your face, he wished he could reach out, pull you close, and wipe your tears away for you. But he didn’t want to push, didn’t want to smother you when you were clearly teetering on the edge.

His fingers tightened around the steering wheel as he navigated the darkening streets, the quiet hum of the car engine doing nothing to soothe the thick tension in the air. You sat next to him, staring out the window, barely moving, but he could see the steady stream of tears that continued to roll down your cheeks. They glistened in the streetlights as you passed them, and he wanted to say something, anything, but he knew no words could fix what you were feeling.

The ride home felt agonisingly long, each second dragging on as Danny tried to focus on the road and not the heart-wrenching sight of you unravelling beside him. He kept biting his cheek, hard enough to taste blood now, but he couldn’t stop himself from glancing over at you every few seconds, praying you’d somehow find a little bit of peace before they made it home.

When Danny finally rolled into the parking spot, the familiarity of your apartment complex looming ahead causerd the tears that had slowed for a brief moment on the drive started to pour again, the sight of home making everything worse. The thought of being so close to your bed, to the space where you could collapse and let yourself fully break was overwhelming.

Your breath hitched, and you hugged your arms around yourself, trying to stop the shivering that had taken over your body. The cold had seeped into your bones, making you shake uncontrollably, but you couldn’t tell if it was from the freezing rain that had soaked through your clothes or the sadness that seemed to settle deep in your chest.

Danny killed the engine and turned to you, eyes soft and full of worry. “Let’s get you inside, okay?” His voice was gentle, but the concern was clear. He didn’t wait for you to respond, opening his door quickly and jogging around to your side, pulling open the passenger door.

“Come on, I’ve got you,” he murmured, offering his hand to help you out of the car. You hesitated for just a second, but the exhaustion in your body won out, and you took his hand, letting him guide you. As you stepped out, your legs wobbled beneath you, and without a second thought, Danny wrapped his arm around you, pulling you into his side.

You leaned against him, your sobs becoming louder now that you were out of the confined space of the car. His warmth was comforting, but it wasn’t enough to stop the tidal wave of emotion that had hit you. As he helped you up the steps to the apartment, you clung to his sweater, your cold fingers digging into the fabric as if you could hold onto him and stop yourself from spiralling.

Each step felt heavy, the weight of your sadness pressing down on you like a physical force, and you stumbled a little as you climbed. Danny tightened his grip on you, steadying you with every step, whispering quiet reassurances even though you weren’t sure you could hear them over the sound of your own sobbing.

You weren’t crying for any reason now, yet it felt like your emotional capacity was a heavy ball that had been pushed off a hill. Once it started rolling, you couldn't stop. 

Once inside, the warmth of the apartment hit you, but it did nothing to thaw the ice in your bones. You barely registered Danny closing the door behind you, his arm still around your shoulders as he led you deeper into the space. Despite his support, your mind had already begun its familiar descent into destructive thoughts. If Otis didn’t want you, then who would? The rejection felt like a punch to the gut, and the more you thought about it, the more it hurt.

Without a word, you pulled away from Danny, feeling the loss of his warmth immediately but ignoring it as you left him standing in the middle of the living room alone. You made a beeline for your bedroom, your body moving on autopilot. The door clicked shut behind you, and even though there wasn’t a lock, you knew Danny wouldn’t come in. He respected your space, your boundaries, but that knowledge only made the ache in your chest deepen. The loneliness pressed in harder, suffocating.

Inside the sanctuary of your room, you didn’t care that you were drenched to the bone, your clothes clinging to your body uncomfortably. The cold had long since numbed your skin, and now it was creeping into your muscles, making your limbs ache with a dull, persistent throb. You shivered violently, your teeth chattering so hard they ached, but it was a distant sensation compared to the emotional storm raging inside you.

You toed off your soaked shoes, not even bothering to untie them properly. Normally, the thought of tracking dirt or water onto your bed would have horrified you as your bed was your sacred space, always spotless, always prepared for sleep in clean pyjamas after a long shower. But tonight, none of that mattered. Your mind was too far gone, too consumed by the thoughts that swirled around relentlessly.

You crawled onto the bed without a second thought, the damp sheets immediately sticking to your wet clothes. The fabric clung to your skin, cold and uncomfortable, but it didn’t register. All you could think about was curling into the tightest ball possible, as if making yourself small enough would somehow make the pain disappear.

The sobs wracked your body violently, each one more painful than the last. You pressed your face into the pillow, muffling the sound, but it didn’t stop the flood of tears from soaking the fabric. Your whole body trembled, not just from the cold, but from the anguish that had taken over.

And still, despite the physical discomfort, despite the relentless sobbing, your mind couldn’t stop fixating on Otis. You kept replaying every word he’d said, every look, every action that made you feel like you weren’t enough. You kept thinking about how he didn’t want you, how he didn’t choose you. That gut wrenching feeling of rejection echoed through you like a broken record, and no matter how much you tried to push it away, it lingered.

But it wasn't the loss of Otis that hurt you so much as the feeling of being left behind for someone better. Your self esteem had plummeted, all feelings of security and trust torn apart with no remorse. 

Minutes passed, maybe longer. You were dimly aware of the soft knock on your door, Danny’s voice coming through gently.

"Hey… I'm just gonna leave some dry clothes outside the door, okay?" he said, his voice calm but clearly worried. You didn’t respond, too lost in the flood of emotions, but you heard him shuffle around outside before retreating.

A little while later, Danny returned, seeing the pile of clothes left outside untouched. He called your name gently with a brush of his knuckles against the wood, “Can I come in?” he asked cautiously. 

“No,” you called out, muffled in the pillows your face was buried in. 

He hesitated in the silence. “I don’t- I think you need to get out of your wet clothes,” he commented, voice still quiet behind the door. “You might get sick.”

“Don’t tell me what to do. I’m an adult, I’ll do what I want,” you snapped. 

You had no idea where that outburst had come from. You immediately felt guilty as you imagined how Danny would have recoiled at your words and tone of voice. It was glaringly obvious to both you and Danny that you were only acting hostile as a way to protect yourself. Protect the fragile feeling of trust you had so carefully maintained throughout your life. “I’m sorry. I don’t know why I said that… you can come in,” you said so quietly, that Danny may not have even heard you. 

Though with heavy caution, Danny reached down to twist the handle. He knew you didn't mean what you were saying. You were hurt, and had been betrayed in arguably the worst way someone could be. He knew you just needed someone to be in your corner. 

You didn't dare look behind you at Danny as he entered your room, and instead kept your head buried in your pillows. 

“Hey,” he whispered, and you felt the edge of your bed dip as he sat down. He reached out hesitantly, and put his warm palm on your bare arm. He flinched the feeling of your skin, chilled from your still soaked clothes. “Shit, you’re freezing,” he commented. 

With your back still turned, you stared blankly into the plush pillows in front of you, your eyes fixated on the growing wet stain spreading across the fabric. You couldn’t distinguish if it was from your soaked hair or the relentless flow of tears that you had cried. Your pillowcase, usually soft and comforting, now felt cold and uninviting, just another reminder of the misery that clung to you like the dampness in your clothes.

Your chest rose and fell with uneven breaths, each one laboured as you tried to suppress the sobs that threatened to rise again. The wet patch in front of you seemed to expand with every tear, but you couldn’t muster the energy to wipe your face or even shift positions. 

Everything felt heavy. Your body, your heart, your thoughts. It was as though the weight of everything Otis had said, everything you felt, was sinking into that single spot on the pillow, and no matter how long you stared, it wouldn’t disappear.

“Hey,” he carefully pulled you away from your thoughts. Sniffling, you rolled over to face him, and his heart ached at the sight of you. Eyes and lips swollen, red and raw from your crying, and incessant rubbing. 

“Will you please change into something warmer?” he asked, eyes soft and genuine as he stared at you, his thumb stroking against the cold skin of your arm, “I can help you if you need,” he added. You sighed, hard and long before pushing yourself up from your bed into a sitting position. 

“Fuckkk,” you groaned, letting your head fall into your hands as you groaned, “This is such a mess.”

You looked back up again, assessing the damage you had done to your bed, which carried the consequences of you collapsing in it while still wet. Danny got up quickly, taking the clothes he had left for you outside of your bedroom door and bringing them to you at the bed. 

“I think a warm shower would do you good,” he suggested, “It’ll help you warm up quicker.” The thought of the warm water pouring over your tired and cold muscles seemed like heaven, but now that he was here, you didn't want Danny to leave. 

“Yeah, you’re right,” you agreed, moving to get up from your bed. Danny rushed out of your bedroom and searched through your shared hallway cupboard for the softest towel he could find. 

He watched as you slowly emerged from your bedroom, posture slumped and insecure, arms wrapped securely around your body. Your jeans and top clung to your body tightly from the slick, and your hair left a wet residue on your neck. 

“I can put the towel in the dryer for you while you shower. That way when you get out it’ll be nice and warm,” he suggested. His attention to detail made you smile. 

Though his offer was kind, you knew what you wanted more than a warm towel. The thought that came into your mind was absurd, and could very possibly make Danny uncomfortable by crossing the boundaries of your friendship that you had both treaded in all those years. But you didn’t want- you couldn’t be left alone, or you feared you would curl up onto the cold tile floors and cry until you died. 

“What's up?” he asked, hand raising to the side of your face to thumb away the remaining tears left on your cheeks. You glanced up at him shyly, trying to reign the confidence to ask him the question. He frowned at the look of conflict on your face as you debated with yourself, “Hey. Whatever it is, you can tell me. You can tell me anything, you know that,” he offered with a kind smile. That same smile that had dried your tears too many times over the years, “‘S only me.”

You took a deep breath, “I just… I don’t know how to say this. I don’t want you to leave me alone. I want- I’m scared of being left alone again,” you admitted though still skirting around the truth of your sudden discomfort. 

“I won't ever leave you alone, you know that. I’m always here for you,” he comforted, stroking your wet hair away from your face in a way that felt so intimate, so domestic, that you nearly began to cry again. 

“Will- um, will you come with me?” you added in a mumble, cheeks heating at your question. 

He cocked his head in confusion, “Come with you where?” 

You swallowed thickly in embarrassment, physically unable to say the words. You were ready to dismiss it, and tell him it didn't matter when realisation struck his face. 

“You mean… come with you to shower?” he asked, surprise reigning his features at your admittance. 

You were a fool. You had just ruined the relationship you had with your boyfriend, and you were already on track to do the same with your best friend. “I- I’m so sorry. I don’t even know why I suggested that, seriously, just forget it, I-”

“No, no, stop. I… I’m happy to… if uh, if that’s what you need,” Danny answered, his heart thumping in his chest at your suggestion. This was a boundary that neither of you had ever crossed. Sure you had seen each other close to nakedness before, but only by pure accident or in the form of skimpy swimwear. 

Both of you knew that doing this was different. Even suggesting it had changed something between the two of you, and it had brought to life the truth that you had both been hiding beneath platonic smiles for your whole lives.

You couldn't look at him, and instead looked at the towel he held tightly in his hands, “Are you sure?” you asked quietly. 

Jaw tight and eyes cautious, he nodded silently. “You go and get started, and I’ll uh, join you in a minute, okay?” he suggested and you tucked a tuft of hair behind your ear. 

“Okay,” you whispered. As you turned to walk away, nerves swelling in your stomach at your decision Danny cleared his throat again. 

"Are you... do you want me to keep my... um, boxers on?" Danny’s voice was as gentle as ever, like slow dripping honey that coated each word with the tenderness you had come to depend on. It was just Danny, always so considerate, always thinking of how to make you feel comfortable, especially in moments as vulnerable as this.

The question, though spoken with the utmost care, still startled you. Your heart skipped, and you felt a small flutter of uncertainty rise in your chest. You feared that whatever answer you gave might lead to discomfort, but there was a deep, aching need inside you to be close to him. Closer than you had ever been before. Something unspoken tugged at you, a silent yearning to connect with him in a way that transcended the physical.

"If you want. But I don't mind if you don't," you murmured, your voice softer than you intended, as if afraid the wrong words might break the fragile atmosphere.

Before he could respond, you turned and made your way down the hallway to the bathroom, the soft patter of your footsteps against the floor the only sound echoing in the quiet apartment. You gently swung the bathroom door shut, leaving it ajar just enough to let him know that he was welcome. You twisted the shower tap, letting the heavy stream of hot water fill the shower, the sound of it pounding against the tile, a soothing background hum that drowned out the noise in your mind.

Your clothes clung stubbornly to your body as you peeled them off, each article of fabric a reminder of the evening's cold and the emotions that had seeped into your bones. The chill in the air bit at your exposed skin, and a violent shiver racked your body, leaving you trembling as you stood naked in the dim bathroom. You barely spared a glance in the mirror, catching only a fleeting, distorted reflection of yourself, a body that tonight, felt uglier than it ever had. The blotchy redness from your sobs clashed with the paleness of your cold skin, and you looked away quickly, unable to face the image.

Stepping into the shower, you sighed deeply as the hot water cascaded over your head, the sensation washing away the lingering chill. It was a simple pleasure, the heat sinking into your scalp, down your neck, and through your entire body. You tipped your head back, allowing the water to flow over your face, burning just enough to be distracting, before it slid down your shoulders and over the curve of your breasts. For a brief, blissful moment, you forgot Otis, the heartbreak, the insecurity, everything.

Danny's soft footsteps padding into the bathroom snapped you back to reality, and your heart gave a nervous flutter as you saw his silhouette through the thin shower curtain. You turned, yet could still feel his presence as he shuffled with his things by the countertop, your senses heightened by the silence in the room. As he approached, the shower curtain shifted slightly, letting in a sliver of cool air that made you shiver again, but this time not entirely from the cold.

Wordlessly, you stepped forward, making room for him under the stream of water, and you heard his deep, contented exhale as the warmth enveloped him. You felt a shy smile tug at your lips, though you didn’t dare turn around. The thought of exposing yourself fully to him was daunting, even though you had never felt safer with anyone else.

Reaching up, you grabbed the bottle of vanilla shampoo, your fingers trembling slightly as you struggled to maintain your composure. But before you could open the bottle, you felt Danny’s warmth behind you, not close enough to touch, but enough for you to feel his steady, comforting force and hot, heavy breath by your ear. He reached over your shoulder, his hand brushing yours as he gently took the bottle from you. The touch was brief, but electric, sending a ripple of warmth through your chest.

"Let me," he offered, his breath tickling the skin beside your ear. The shampoo bottle clicked open, the scent of vanilla filling the air as Danny lathered up the shampoo by rubbing it between his large hands.

You stood still, your heart pounding in your chest as his hands moved to your head, slowly threading into your locks and pressing to your scalp. His fingers were strong but somehow gentle as ever, working the shampoo into your scalp in slow, deliberate motions, in a way that made your knees weak. You let out a whispered groan, the sound escaping before you could stop it as your body relaxed under his touch.

This was no longer just about getting clean; this was something else entirely. The both of you, stood there, completely exposed, completely vulnerable, and yet there was no awkwardness and no sense of pressure or expectation. It wasn’t sexual, but it wasn’t entirely platonic either. It was something deeper, something built on years of quiet affection, of love that had been waiting patiently for the right moment to reveal itself.

You closed your eyes, leaning into his touch as he continued to wash your hair. His fingers traced soothing patterns against your scalp, moving with such care that you felt your chest ache with emotion. This wasn’t just an act of kindness. It was love. Pure, unspoken, and unconditional.

He soon rinsed his hands under the water, and touched your shoulder gently, as he pulled you back under the stream. He aided with washing the shampoo out of your hair with his hands, running through your scalp and squeezing at your hair as the soapy suds travelled down your hair and down to his feet. 

You had completely forgotten about Otis, you realised, as Danny reached up to grab the bottle of conditioner, doing the same as before but only raking the product through the ends of your hair. 

Your breathing was heavy, and you suddenly felt the urge to cry again, but not out of sadness this time. You turned around to face him, feeling no insecurity over the exposure of your bare body when his burning gaze remained on your face. 

“Danny…” you started, frowning at the overwhelming feeling of your new realisation. Your face told him everything he needed to know, eyebrows pinched in desperation, and tears brimming at your eyes. He had always felt a way for you that he couldn’t, and only now did he see that you could finally feel it too. 

He reached up and cupped your cheek, “I know, sweet girl.” He nodded, his thumb stroking the apple of your cheek lovingly, and you leaned into his touch. When he let go, you dropped your head, hanging it low between your bodies, your eyes closed in exhaustion. 

Danny stepped forward slowly, his feet splashing against the pool of water at your feet, and he engulfed you in the embrace of his long arms. Your head fell into the spot between his arm and chest, and that same arm came up to cradle your head. You could feel his bare arm on your back, your breasts pressed against his chest and you flushed at the proximity. 

You desperately tried to hold him too, arms wrapped around his abdomen and folded up to hook your hands over his shoulders. You didn't notice the tears that flowed from your eyes, as they became one with the water that flowed between you both. 

“Danny,” you whispered. He nuzzled into your hair, a comforting gesture that made your heart race. 

“Hmm?” he replied softly, encouraging you to continue. The moment hung heavy in the air, filled with unspoken feelings. 

The feeling was so overwhelming, that you realised you could no longer pretend to be just friends, as the desire to love him loudly completely consumed you. 

Finally, you spoke, your confession bursting forth like a long held secret, “I think I love you.” The words tumbled out, raw and unfiltered, a rush of emotion that felt both exhilarating and terrifying. 

You felt his stomach tighten at your words, and he pulled back slightly to gaze down at you. You raised your head from his chest to meet his eyes to see them pleading in wonder. He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. For so long, he had admired the beauty of your soul in silence, waited in suppressed agony, fearing that revealing his feelings would push you away. Your company was always enough for him to keep his feelings hidden, as just being near you to hear your laughter, your mind and your soul, had been more than enough. 

But now, you were uttering the words he had dreamt of telling you for what felt like his whole life. 

“Always,” he whispered, his sincerity washing over you like a warm embrace. He tucked your wet hair behind your ear, his fingers brushing your skin gently. “I always have.”

Your eyes widened in disbelief, searching his for confirmation. “What?” you managed to ask, your voice breaking. Instead of answering, Danny leaned down, closing the distance between you, and held his face close to yours. He lingered for a moment, as if giving you time to pull away, before he brought his lips to yours in a gentle caress.

His lips were soft and slow against yours, hesitant and testing at the new sensation. Neither of you could believe what was happening, and you marvelled at the intimacy of the moment, the tenderness. Never would you have thought this would be how you ended up, and now that it was happening, there was no going back. 

Danny's hands rested hesitantly beside you, ghosting your skin as he resisted the urge to touch you, as he was painfully aware of your state of undress and didn't want to cross any boundaries. You took them into your own hands, and pulled them to rest on the sides of your waist. He gripped the skin softly at the sensation. 

You mouths explored each other, and you reached your hands up to tangle in his hair as you revelled in the new feeling. It felt as if you had searched every corner of Danny, as your years of friendship had taught you things about him even his family didn't know, yet this was unexplored territory. 

Danny pulled away with a deep inhale, and he took in the sight of your flushed face, mouth slightly agape and eyes wide. A small smile crept onto his face at his realisation of what had just happened. 

“You’re so beautiful, d’ you know that?” he whispered, hand gliding up and down the curve of your waist. You looked down shyly, at both the complement and your own understanding of what had just happened.

“You are too,” you mumbled quietly, a blush tinting your cheeks. You could no longer look at Danny without your heart exploding, and when he smiled a bit wider at your words, you turned back around, reaching for the body wash and fiddling with the cap. 

Danny was more hesitant to offer helping you clean your body than he was your hair, ever considerate of your boundaries. You had both taken huge steps in mere minutes, and the last thing he wanted was for you to feel rushed. 

You of course knew this, and decided that your bold streak hadn’t ended yet. “Would you… help me with this one too?” you asked quietly, turning to look up at Danny through your lashes.

“Anything,” he answered with a nod, taking the bottle from your hands gently and pouring the soapy substance over his hands. You could tell he was still hesitant, the act of touching you was clearly daunting for him, and you tried your best to show him you were okay. You nodded at him to go ahead, and he gingerly reached his hands to your shoulders, massaging the produce over them, pulling your arms out horizontally so that he could lather it across them too. 

Avoiding the obvious, his hands dragged back up your arms and to your back. You turned for him, letting his strong fingers knead into your muscles, making you hum in approval, head dropping forward at the feeling. He tucked your hair over your right shoulder to move it out of his way. His hands travelled over the expanse of your back, fingers dipping into your dimples of venus, but not treading any further before he pulled them back up, running long stripes either side of your spine.

His hands travelled around your waist then, and you turned again for him as the warmth of his hands spread over your stomach, sides and ribs, hesitating just below your breasts. 

Your stomach flipped as you became aware now that his gaze was not holding its respectful attachment to your face, and was now all over your chest, trying to touch you anywhere but there. 

You bit your cheek, and slowly reached up to take his hand that was settled on your ribs into yours. His eyes flicked to yours as you dragged his hand up your body and rested it on your breast. 

“It’s okay,” you told him. To say that these moments were not entirely sexual anymore would be untrue. And you’d be lying if you said that you hadn’t caught glimpses of his situation down below, despite your efforts to keep your gaze above his waist.

Feeling like he would pass out any moment, Danny tenderly ran his hands over your breasts, rounding at the swell and dipping in the valley as he lathered them in the soap. He wasn't hasty to move on, but he didn’t linger for too long, letting you know that he did not expect anything sexual from you. As he washed your upper half, you scrubbed at your bottom, running the soap in your hands over your legs and behind, to speed up the process. 

Danny pulled you back under the stream, and rejected your offer to wash him the same. 

“You’re exhausted, and I’m worried if you spend another minute in the steam you’ll pass out,” he said with a teasing smile, half joking. You frowned at his words. 

“I’m not exhausted, I can do it.”

“Honey…” he started, lifting your arm and showcasing your hands which were trembling without support.

You huffed at his consideration. “Okay, fine… if you’re sure.”

He smiled at you, his hand on your hip squeezing gently, “I am.” He dipped down and gave you a quick peck on the lips, the act startling you, as you had almost forgotten the events that just occurred between the two of you. As if you weren't just guiding his hand to your breasts. As if he weren’t standing before you in those moments, with an obviously painful erection.

You gave him one last smile before you pulled the shower curtain open and stepped out. The cold slapped you in the face and you were quick to shut the curtain behind you to keep Danny warm. Picking up your towel and wrapping it around your body was a beautiful reprieve from the biting cold, and when you looked out of the fogged glass of the bathroom window, you could tell that the rain outside was just as relentless as it was before. 

You listened to foamy soap hit the floor as Danny washed through his own hair while you collected your hairbrush and other essentials, before you silently slipped out of the bathroom door, not bothering to close it all the way behind you. 

Your mood now soaring at heights unimaginable, you padded to your bedroom, a small smile on your face as you thought back on the intimacy of the moments you had just shared. When you stepped into your bedroom though, you were reminded of the mess that was your life. 

Your bed was soaked, sheets and pillows bore big wet patches and you were sure the witness had soaked onto your mattress too. You shut your eyes and took a deep breath, before deciding what to do. You shuffled through your pyjama drawers and picked out some long plaid pants along with a white singlet and a hoodie. You changed quickly, not wanting the warmth of your body to succumb to the cold again, and once you were changed, you walked back out of your room and into the living room, where you set up camp on the couch. 

Meanwhile, Danny was running his hands through his wet locks, the water cascading down his face as he replayed those moments over and over again in his mind. He had waited for you for so long. Loved you in silence for so long. And it was all worth it. 

Once he left the shower he wrapped the last towel around his waist, squeezing the wetness out of his hair and leaving it otherwise to air dry. 

As he left the bathroom, he could hear you humming softly in the living room, and he passed his room to see you again. Danny watched in admiration at you, dressed comfortably while you typed and scrolled on your phone, cross legged on the couch, Your wet hair hung down your back, but your sweater protected you from the cold this time. 

He frowned when he saw the couch, set up in a way he could only assume was your attempt to sleep on it. 

The sound of his arrival got your attention, “Hey, I’m ordering Thai delivery,” you said, eyes still trained on your phone as you typed in your card details.

Danny smiled warmly at you, “Great, thanks…um, what’s all this?” he asked, hands gesturing to the makeshift bed you had set up on the couch. Although just seeing him completely naked, and having that naked body pressed against your own, you stifled at the sight of him with only a towel around his waist.

You cleared your throat and averted your gaze, “Oh, my bed is really wet from… you know, lying on it earlier.”

He shook his head, “No, you aren’t sleeping on the couch. I have a double, you can sleep with me.” He immediately blushed at the alternate innuendo his words held, “Not like sleep together, just you know, go to sleep,” he tripped over his words anxiously, making you force back a smile. 

“Are you sure? I’m fine to-” 

“Yes I’m sure. One hundred percent,” he assured quickly before he reached up to scratch the back of his neck, “I mean, we did just shower together.”

Now it was your turn to blush, and you looked back to your phone to hide your face, agreeing quietly. 

Danny retreated to his room to get into his pyjamas, and quickly tidied the space up, feeling self conscious at the state his room was in, shoving his clothes into his drawers haphazardly, and others he took to the laundry basket. Once he was satisfied, he returned to the living room. 

He sat down beside you, his thigh brushing yours and you suddenly became insecure of where you both stood. Usually, it would be normal for you both to be sitting close together, laughing and chatting through movies, but now, things were different. You didn't want to come across as pushy and rushed, but similarly didn't want to do the opposite, act cold or distance after the moments you had shared. 

If Danny was having the same fears, he didn’t let it show, as he wrapped his arm around you and tugged you closer to him while he leaned over to reach for the TV remote with a grunt. 

“Watcha wanna watch?” 

You and Danny settled on the first movie you could, only pausing to get your takeout delivery from the door, before you returned to your position, which seemed to be steadily moving closer to Danny with each reposition or shuffle. 

By the time the film was over and your bellies were full, you were exhausted. You had been emotionally wrecked throughout the day, ranging from betrayal and heartbreak, to renewal and love. 

Danny steadied you by your elbow as you stood, helping you gather your things to take to his room. You were too sleepy to feel nervous. 

“Which side do you sleep on?” you asked as you stood by the doorway. 

Danny scratched the back of his head, “Usually the right, but I don't mind. I move around a lot when I sleep anyway.” Truth be told, Danny rathered that you slept on his side, as he knew that his pillow would smell like you by morning.

It apparently didn't matter though, as when you slipped under the covers of the left side of the bed beside him, his senses were overwhelmed with you. Your smell, your energy and your heat. It also wasn’t long before the two of you closed the distance between you, arms and legs tangled in your attempts to be impossibly closer to one another, your fronts pressed together just like the moments you shared in the shower. 

It all felt so normal. You attributed it to being friends for your whole lives, giving you the ability to close emotional distance without second thought, but it was still startling nonetheless. 

“Thanks again for letting me sleep here, it’s definitely more comfortable than the couch,” you whispered, and he reached behind him to turn off the bedside lamp.

Now cloaked in darkness, you relied only on your hearing to navigate Danny beside you. The rain was still pouring outside the window, and in a way, it felt fitting as a reminder of your day. While a disastrous storm brewed outside, you were safe and warm with Danny at home. 

“Maybe… maybe we could make it a regular thing?” Danny asked nervously. “You know, since you love me and all that,” he teased, trying to ease the tension of his suggestion. You groaned in embarrassment and buried your head into his chest, hearing his chuckles vibrate in his chest. 

“I would like that very much, thank you.”

“Don't thank me. You have no idea how happy I am to have you with me like this right now.”

You sighed deeply, and decided it was your turn to tease. “And just how long have you felt this way for me, hm?” 

Danny chuckled dryly but swallowed, hesitating to tell you in case it made things weird. He didn’t want you to feel that his friendship had ever been false, or as a ruse to gain your attention in that way. 

His nose brushed against your forehead, “I’ve known for sure since eighth grade.” His statement was heavy, and it hung in the air wearily as he waited for you to respond. 

You pulled your head away from him, “Eighth grade?! Danny… what- why didn’t you say anything?”

He sighed, “I didn’t want to ruin what we had.” 

You understood, but wished he had told you sooner, as though you hadn’t ever realised it was quite love, you knew that you never would have turned away the idea of being with Danny like that. 

“We wasted so much time,” you sighed. 

“What? You mean you felt the same?” he asked, shock lacing his words as his hand tightened around your frame. 

You nodded, “You’ve always treated me better than any boy I ever went out with. I just didn't think that- I didn't think that this was a possibility. I thought you were too good for that. Too-”

“Too good for what?” 

“You know, like with your band and stuff. I don't know, I guess I thought you had more important people to see than me. I didn’t ever think you could actually see me like that,” you tried to explain. 

Danny groaned, “Oh God. I’m never gonna live this down.”

Your brow creased in confusion, “What do you mean?”

“Sammy knew I liked you before I even did, used to tease me about it all the time. The three of them have watched me act like an idiot around you for years. I can't believe you thought that I was ‘too cool’ for you.” He chuckled, though regret laced the dry laugh. 

You felt mild embarrassment at the thought that the boys, who you’d become close with the years that you knew Danny, were keeping the secret from you that would ultimately change your life indefinitely. 

He whispered your name, pulling you from your thoughts, “I have always loved you. Nothing will ever change that.”

“I love you too,” you whispered, clutching his shirt in your hands as you shuffled incredibly closer to him. He smelt like Danny, the comfort you had grown to turn to after many years of safekeeping your heart. 

“Goodnight, sweet girl.” You felt him kiss the top of your head, followed by the feeling of his nose nuzzling into your hair and sighing deeply. 

“Goodnight Danny.”

As you welcomed the blankets of exhaustion over your spent body, Danny began to hum a familiar tune, his voice sounding distant in your haze of sleep. Soon, the song became unmistakably recognisable. 

Because, by The Beatles. Your favourite song.

[r0seb100d]

PLEASE DO A FLUFFY DALLAS X READER CUDDLING ONESHOT WHERE THEY JUST KISS AND CUDDLE AND LOVE EACHOTHER AND JUST FLUFFFF

Hello! Thank you for the request and I hope you enjoy <3 🤍

Warnings: fem!reader, fluff, kissing.

Oh, be my once in a lifetime

Though the muffled echo of Hank Williams playing downstairs from Buck’s bar was mildly irritating, especially at 10 p.m., the steady rhythm of Dallas’ heartbeat as y/n lay on his chest felt like home.

Dallas was running his fingers through her silky hair, his nails gently grazing her scalp, causing y/n to press herself closer to him. 

“Feels nice.” She mumbled into his chest. He smirked slightly, glancing down at her, also loving how relaxing it felt to just lay like this after an exhausting day.

“Oh yeah?” His tone was half curious, half teasing.

“Mhm.” Y/n ran her cherry-red nails up his chest, reaching to play with his St. Christopher chain, twirling it between her fingers, admiring its faded silver, so worn out from being used as a lighter for his matches; she couldn’t deny that she found that habit sort of sweet and amusing, even though smoking was more than gross to her. 

The tickle of her fingers against his chest sent a shiver through Dallas’ body, and he shifted slightly before reaching behind and pulling the chain off. Y/n sat up in confusion, gazing at his beautiful moonlit face, wondering what he was doing; maybe it was uncomfortable and he wanted to take it off.

“Come closer, doll.” He gestured towards her. She leaned in, and he placed the chain around her neck. The small action made her heart melt, and she reached up to touch it gently. 

“Keep it; it tells all those other guys that you’re my girl.” Heat rose to her cheeks, leaving a rosy hue that Dallas found adorable.

“Thanks Dal.” His hands found their place on his waist, and he pulled her back onto him, but this time capturing her lips in a soft kiss. She smiled and hummed into the kiss, their lips gliding over each other so perfectly y/n could have sworn she felt her heart jump in her chest. They finally pulled away breathless, lips swollen and hair mussed. 

Dallas pulled her in even closer, his back resting on the oak headboard of his bed, with her straddling his stomach, and he could feel the warmth of her soft cotton pyjamas on his bare skin.

Reaching for his Christopher, he used it to tug her in once more. Y/n let out a small laugh as he did so, and Dallas couldn’t help but smile too, her laughter so adorable and contagious. He kissed her more passionately this time, running his rough hands along her smooth skin, feeling every curve and dip that he was determined to memorise for as long as he lived. 

Suddenly, she pulled away with an irritated huff. 

“What’s wrong?” His brows were knit together as he tried to figure out what was bothering her. 

“It’s that stupid music.” She pouted,

“It’s ruining our moment.” He laughed at her comment, not totally disagreeing with her; however, when she attempted to get up to play something on the little radio he had in his room, Dallas was quick to wrap his arm around her waist and playfully yank her back to him. Laughing, y/n tried to pull away from him, desperately wanting to change the music, but he was much stronger than her, and he flipped them over so he was hovering over her, the both of them laughing.

“Dallas stop! I need to get up.” 

“No way, you’re warm, and I don’t want you to.”

“Stop being silly; I’ll be back in one second.” She stuck her tongue out at him. At this, Dallas began to tickle her sides, causing her to burst out into breathless giggles and squeals as she squirmed beneath him.

“Stop! I promise I won’t get up!”

 “Promise?” 

"Yes, I promise.” He began to pepper her face with small kisses, still set on teasing her as much as he could, loving the sound of her laughter and the sweet taste of her lips. Dallas lay down beside her and pulled her in close to him, but as he adjusted his position slightly, y/n took this as a chance to sneak out of his grasp and run towards the radio, flicking on a random station, leading the room to be filled with a Beach Boys song. 

“There. much better.” What she didn’t realise is that Dallas was standing right behind her, and as she began to turn around, he swiftly lifted her off the ground as if she weighed nothing.Her heart was racing in her chest. 

"Hey, you promised.” Y/n bit down on her lip, holding in a grin. Moments like these with him were the best. Moments where they could just be themselves together. She tucked a loose lock of hair behind his ear and gave him a long, deep kiss, wrapping her legs around him, tugging on his hair softly as he gripped her thighs.

“You’re forgiven.” He whispered as he led her back to the bed, so they could lay together again.

♱ . ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁˖ . ♱ . ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁˖ . ♱ . ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁˖ . ♱ . ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁˖ .

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[sammygender]

i’ve never been as angry on behalf of a character as i am for sam winchester

[daisybell-on-a-carousel]

"Jason was the happy robin" this, "jason was the angry robin" that. Let's all be fully honest here Jason was the lonely robin

[transldpdl]

Louis de Pointe Du Lac 'In Throes of Increasing Wonder'