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annwrites · 5 months

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exactly what he needs, pt. 4 ♡ ⋆｡˚

— pairing: nate jacob x fem!reader

— type: part of a series

— summary: nate & you have breakfast together, made by you. he then takes you grocery shopping, & later in the week, he finally asks you to be his!

— tags: cute lil domestic moments, you wearing nate's jersey, meeting the parents day 1, first kiss

— tw: dollification (mans isn't even trying to hide it anymore, he straight-up is tying bows in your hair now), eating, snooping, it being implied that nate has already thought about one day baby-trapping you if push-comes-to-shove, misogyny (he's so mean to cassie), threatening, f receiving oral, emotional manipulation, possessiveness

— word count: 11,661

— a/n: reader uses pads bc i use pads & we are all about self-inserts around here (i never learned how to use tampons, don't judge me). honestly, idk how nate would feel about pads. like, on the one hand, i can see him as seeing them as more "unsanitary", but also preferring it if reader is still a virgin. tbh, he prob just tries to pretend periods don't exist, & doesn't want to hear about it if you're on yours, apart from a slight heads-up & being informed once everything down there is back to normal.

i hope this doesn't seem like things are moving too fast in reader & nate already getting together, but tbf, nate & cassie had hung out for what? prob at most a couple hrs when fezco beat his ass, & then the boy is lying in the hospital thinking he's in love & wants to have babies with her. i say it's on-par for his character lol.

The next morning after your day together is the first time Nate ever shoots you a text.

A simple Good morning, sweetheart.

You stare at it for around ten minutes, your fingers hovering over the keyboard. You type up a reply, then delete it. Then type up another and backspace the entirety of it as well.

Finally, you press send on a simple Good morning. (:

Nate: Any plans for today?

You: Might clean the house a bit, then go grocery shopping.

You watch as three little dots dance on your screen, then suddenly disappear. You then suppose you’ve not supplied an incredibly interesting answer.

You toss your phone down on the bed, deciding to finally get up for the day. It’s nearly fifteen minutes later when you check your texts again and see that Nate replied…ten minutes ago.

Nate: How do you get your groceries home?

You: There’s a store not too far from here. If I don’t have very many, I usually just carry them as I walk. If I have quite a few, sometimes I take the bus.

Speaking of which, you need to check the schedule for it today and plan accordingly. That is, until Nate replies.

Nate: I can drive you there and back. I don’t mind.

You begin to type, telling him that’s completely unnecessary, but you’re not fast enough.

A text from him pops up: omw

You throw yourself back on your bed, groaning. You’ve just woken up.

You hadn’t planned to go to the store for perhaps a few more hours. You want to at least wake up first. Eat something, then clean. Even if the house is already essentially spotless, but you have a cleaning schedule you try to adhere to to keep it that way. And to give yourself something to do on the weekends in your spare time.

Which is, apart from tutoring, all you really have.

You decide to just stay in your PJs—a pair of soft blue shorts with clouds on them and a white t-shirt.

You’ve already washed your face and brushed your teeth, as well as your hair—which is now in a bun atop your head.

You make your bed, opening your curtains, letting the morning sunshine into your room before you go to the living room and flip the lock on the door to let Nate in.

You then head to the kitchen to decide on what to make for breakfast. You’re torn between eggs and bacon, or waffles, with perhaps a small side of French toast, when you hear a truck roar into your driveway.

You’re torn from your debating over breakfast by a knock on the door.

“It’s open!”

Nate enters the house, slipping off his shoes, closing the door behind him.

“I’m in the kitchen,” you call softly.

He comes to stand in the entryway. “Want me to give you a few while you get ready?”

He surely hopes you’re not the type who goes to the store in her pajamas, at least.

You turn around to look at him, leaning back against the counter behind you, crossing your arms over your chest. “Actually, I was planning on going later this afternoon. After cleaning. And eating… I haven’t had breakfast yet,” you say sheepishly.

“Shit,” he hangs his head for a moment, then looks at you again. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to fuck up your plans for the day. I just didn’t have anything to do this morning, so I thought I’d run over and help you out.”

You shake your head. “It’s ok. I appreciate it. You don’t have to stay if you have somewhere else you need to be.”

“I don’t. Not until this evening, at least.”

His dipshit dad wants everyone to have a family dinner together, while Nate wants to do anything else.

Like be here with you.

“Have you eaten yet?”

He has—a breakfast burrito maybe an hour ago. “No, do you want to go somewhere and get breakfast?”

“I could make us something instead?” You turn back around, opening the fridge again. “Any requests?”

He’s quiet for a moment, just taking you and this moment both in. You, still in your pajamas, having just rolled out of bed a little while ago, standing in the kitchen in the early-morning light, offering to cook for him. It’s all so…domestic. And a warm feeling forms in his chest at it—imaging this as his home with you. Imagining you’re both married and your kids are still asleep in the other room.

You glance back to him.

He shakes his head to clear it. “I’m sorry, I’ve just never done—had this before.”

“What?”

“My-” he stops himself before he can say ‘girlfriend’. “A girl cooking for me.”

Your brows furrow. “Really? Neither Cassie or Maddy ever did?”

He chuckles. “I honestly don’t think of either of them know how.”

“That’s sad,” you state simply, before turning back around. “So, do you want bacon and eggs, or waffles, pancakes…I can do French toast?”

“Whatever you want to do is fine with me.” He likes that you know how to make so many things. That you want to do so for him. He’d chosen right with you.

You turn around yet again. “You’re my guest, so you get to pick.”

He smirks, shrugging. “Bacon and eggs is fine with me.”

“How do you like your eggs?”

“Scrambled works.”

You nod, then start pulling out cookware.

Nate had stood to the side, watching as you worked, occasionally sipping on a mug of black coffee—you’d put some on just after having gotten up. He’d asked more than once if you wanted help as he watched you flit about the kitchen, but you’d only smiled and shook your head.

Finally, once breakfast is ready, you make the both of you a plate and carry them into the dining room, sitting his plate on one side of the table and yours on the other.

You take your seat before he can bother pulling it out for you. He tries not to let it irk him. He tells himself it’s because it’s a habit, since you’re in your own home. You’re not used to being catered to. But neither is he.

Thankfully, Nate had gone for a run after eating earlier, so he’s able to clean his plate. He doesn’t want your feelings hurt—for you to feel insulted—by him not eating every last bite. And it had been rather good, actually.

“You’re a good cook.”

You look up to him, beaming. “Thank you, I’m glad you liked it. Do you want anything else?”

He leans back, shaking his head. “I don’t think I can fit anymore.”

You nod, standing, taking both your plates into the kitchen, placing them in the dishwasher.

You return to the dining room and remain silent as Nate types a message out on his phone, looking up to you as he tucks it back into his pocket.

“I’ll get dressed and then we can head out.”

He stands. “It’s warm out.”

You smile. “Thanks for the forecast.”

He smirks. “You could—if you want to—wear the skirt and top I bought you.”

You’d hung everything up to dry last night and had truthfully forgotten about all of it until his just-now reminding you.

“Unless you don’t like them?”

You shake your head. “No, I do. I just…I wish you had asked me first.”

“Would you have let me get them for you if I had?”

You wrap your arms around yourself. “Probably not.”

“Then I made the right decision to make it a surprise.”

He heads in the direction of your bedroom, then, and you trail after him. “I just don’t understand why.”

You feel stupid, speaking to the back of his head.

He comes to sit in the swing-chair in the corner of your room. “Why what?”

“Why you bought me everything you did. I looked up the necklace, how much it costs…”

He’s unphased by it, knowing he’d spent well over a grand on you yesterday. But in truth, it hadn’t been nearly the amount he’d wanted to spend.

He'd wanted—more than anything—to take you into a lingerie store and blow a ton of cash on you there, watching you try on everything he asked you to. But he knew better. For now, at least.

“So I wanted to get you a few nice things. You act like it’s some sort of terrible thing for me to have done.”

You sit on the corner of your bed, facing him. “I’m very grateful. For all of it. I just…I hope you don’t think you need to buy my friendship, Nate. I’m not going anywhere.”

It has nothing to do with friendship. But he can’t tell you just how much it turns him on: spoiling you, buying you expensive things, the idea of you being covered in him—from shoes, to clothes, to jewelry, to perfume and more. It gets him off—makes getting off easier, in truth. Until he has your body to do that with, that is, at least.

He leans forward. “I’m glad to hear that. But you don’t have to worry—I never thought I did.”

He glances to your closet. “Do you want to get dressed?”

“I should probably check to make sure everything is dry. I hung everything up last night.”

You leave your bedroom, heading in the direction of the laundry room.

Meanwhile, Nate stands, finally having a moment alone in your room. He wrenches open the drawer on your bedside table and is met with a couple remotes, a book, a few hair ties, a charging cable…nothing of interest. So he closes it.

Heart pounding, he peeks out your bedroom door—you’re nowhere to be seen—and he then opens the top drawer of your dresser next. Ever-organized, your panties are all in individual cubbies—all cotton, some solid colors, others with patterns printed across them, like small flowers and stars. He picks up a bra. White, with a bit of lace, a small bow in the front, another sage-green. Everything utterly virginal. He digs, but finds not one sex toy.

Perhaps you have them elsewhere.

He jumps when he hears a door close. He steps into the hall a moment and sees the bathroom door is now shut.

He returns to your room, getting on the floor and looking under your bed, where there’s only a couple vacuum-sealed bags full of clothes. He then quietly opens your closet. On the top shelf are a few boxes. He pulls down a shoe box, which, unsurprisingly, has a pair of brand new tennis shoes inside. He puts it back, pulling down another.

And it’s full of old Polaroids. They’re all from when you were younger. You and your dad, another of the two of you, a photo of a butterfly, another of a dog looking up at the camera, and he nearly drops the box when he finds a picture of the two of you. The pair of you can’t be more than six or seven-years-old, both of you smiling toothy grins up at the camera.

He flips it over. Written in faded blue ink on the back, it reads “Nate + Y/N ‘05”. He pockets the picture, putting the lid back on the box and setting it back in your closet.

He stops snooping and sits back in his previous seat, unable to remember the picture ever having been taken. He wonders if you do.

When you finally emerge from the bathroom, Nate is still sitting in the corner of your room, his head leaned back and eyes closed, hands folded in his lap.

You silently sit on the edge of your bed, folding your legs over one another, draping your new pink skirt over them. You don't want to wake him, so just as you begin to consider changing back, closing your door and cleaning the house while he rests, he slowly opens his eyes.

"If you'd like to take a nap, you can."

He shakes his head, looking you over. You look perfect. For the most part. "Don't want to wear your necklace today?"

You glance to the robin's-egg colored box on top of your dresser. In truth, you're a bit paranoid about wearing something so expensive. What if the chain breaks and by the time you realize, it's long-gone?

You then look back to him, watching as he stands, opens the small box, then removes the necklace inside.

He comes to sit down behind you, slipping the chain around your neck, fastening it into place.

He then begins to tug the hairband from your ponytail.

You half-turn your head back toward him. "What're you-"

"Do you mind if I do your hair for you?"

You're starting to wonder if Nate has some hidden interest in hair-styling.

"I...I guess not."

He slips your hairband free, it coming to rest on his wrist along with the one he'd taken from you yesterday.

You sit there silently, enjoying the feeling of someone else's fingers in your hair once again, your cheeks growing warm as you feel him pull one side of your hair into a pigtail—something you're not quite sure about, but you decide to only make a judgement once he's finished.

He then does the same with the other side, smoothing some hair down your back, before gripping both your upper arms. "Done."

You stand, walking over to the mirror set atop your dresser and inspecting the half-up, half-down style. One pigtail on either side, the rest of your hair against your back.

"I think you look really pretty like that," he says from the bed behind you.

Who knew the star-quarterback had hidden hair-dressing talents.

You turn back around to him. "So when do I get to do your hair?"

He raises a brow.

"I could put clips and bows and ribbons-"

"Do you have ribbons?"

He...he can't seriously want you to put one in his hair...

"Yes."

He stands. "Where?"

"In the bathroom, the second drawer below the sink."

He leaves you standing there as he goes to rifle through them, returning a moment later with two that match the color of your skirt.

"Nate-"

"Turn around."

You're not sure that you appreciate his demanding tone, but do as he says nevertheless.

Once you have bows tied around either pigtail, Nate puts his hand against the small of your back. "Let's head out."

When the two of you arrive at the store, you go to get out, until Nate stops you by grabbing your left hand. "Wait for me to get it."

You sit back in your seat and wait for him to come around to your side. Once the door is open, you speak. "You don't have to come in with me if you'd rather wait here. I know grocery shopping, well, shopping in general, can be tedious."

He shrugs. "I don't mind."

He takes your hand, helping you down and shuts the door, leading you inside.

Nate stays close to your side as you toss various items into your cart—paying acute attention to each thing you do. You don't get a terrible amount of junk food, but he wishes you'd forgo the cereal. He'd already told you from here on out he'd be bringing you breakfast every morning.

He studies what kind of conditioner you use, what kind of lady razor, even your morning facial-wash. He briefly daydreams about getting you ready for the day—the detailed process he would go through to make you look like his own perfect living doll.

It's when you're in the frozen foods aisle that you briefly pause as he pretends to look over the frozen pizzas, when he's actually watching you. Watching you stare at a couple across the way, giggling and kissing each other, the girl's hand resting over her swollen belly, that is.

Hurt flashes across your features and he briefly grows angry, wondering if it's jealousy—if you know the man.

He steps over to you. "Do you know them?"

You jump in surprise at his presence, having been lost in your thoughts. You shake your head, throwing a bag of frozen vegetables in the cart. "No." You're quiet for a moment. "I was just thinking."

"About?"

You look at the happy pair again. "What that must feel like."

He places his palm against the small of your back, refusing to remove it for the rest of the shopping trip.

Nate of course takes it upon himself to not only load every single grocery bag into the bed of his truck, but also unloading and bringing every one into the kitchen once you're home. He simply watches from a kitchen island stool as you put them away.

He eventually excuses himself to your bathroom, deciding to finally cross the boundary of going through your medicine cabinet.

He locks the door, turning the faucet on as he goes through the cabinet under your sink first. Some toilet paper, a box of pads, some pantiliners, cotton balls, cotton pads—basic bathroom paraphernalia.

He then starts pulling open drawers. One he's already familiar with, it's filled with small baskets which hold elastics, hair bands, bows, clips, headbands and the like. Another houses hot-tools: a curling iron, which looks barely-used, a straightener, which has clearly been well-loved—the company name all but rubbed off of it, even an old crimping iron, and a blow-dryer.

He moves onto the last drawer, which just has extra toothpaste, toothbrushes, some lotion, triple antibiotic, extra shaving gel, and some other odds-and-ends.

Finally, he opens the medicine cabinet, curious if you're on birth control. If so, that will be coming to a stop immediately. Not only does he hate the horrid list of side effects that come with it, but once the two of you start fucking, he wants to be in complete control of your reproductive options.

Needs to be if... Well, if he eventually decides he can't live without you and has to resort to drastic options to keep the two of you permanently connected for the rest of your lives, he'll have that option.

But all he finds is some Tylenol, Advil, expired allergy pills, an old prescription bottle with your dad's name on it, a bottle of mouthwash, a small cup of bobby pins, some q-tips, and a couple—of course—clean makeup brushes, a few other items here and there.

He quickly searches the shower and just finds a few bottles of various kinds of soap.

Finally, he flushes the toilet, turns the water off, and comes to join you in the kitchen.

Nate had left not longer after you'd finished cleaning the house, him offering to help, but you telling him you could never ask a guest to do such a thing, so he'd instead sat on the couch, idly watching football, fantasizing once again about you being his perfect little housewife. Cooking and cleaning and grocery shopping for him, allowing him to dress you up and show you off.

It's in the moment as he watches you humming to yourself as you dust off the mantle that he decides this Thursday you'll finally be his.

Nate continues on with the studying ruse to continue spending one-on-one time with you.

Monday, you'd done exactly as he'd asked: you'd worn the white dress, a pair of flats with it even, your new necklace, a hint of blush, and you'd even curled your hair, which had made him hard near-instantly.

It had taken everything in him not to hold your hand as the two of you walked into school. As soon as he spotted Lexi—the ridiculous look on her face as she watched the two of you—he pulled you in the other direction before you could see her yourself, seating you with him and his friends. When you had brought up going to find Lexi, he'd merely told you he thought it might be nice for you to meet some new people that morning.

He knew by their expressions that his friends had wanted to say something—anything about you—perhaps throw around some vulgar jokes, but the death-glare he greeted them with instead kept them talking about football and some party that had gone on this last weekend, which he'd been unaware of, too concerned with filling his time with you.

As the week went on, the two of you began to text more and more. You woke up everyday to him and went to sleep to messages from him. He'd even called you once, and the two of you chatted for almost an hour about everything and nothing. He would've been content to stay up all night listening to your voice, until you had gotten off the phone, telling him you were going to sleep and you would see him in the morning.

You had no idea he was outside of your house that night, watching your bedside lamp flicker off.

Thursday after school, once the two of you are finished studying, Nate finally takes the plunge, praying to fucking God he gets what he's been dying to have for the last two weeks.

He pulls out his extra jersey from his bookbag, handing it to you.

You look up to him, confused.

"I thought you could wear it tomorrow to school, and the game that night."

You look down at it, the metallic number '18' on the front, then back up to him once more. "Isn't...isn't wearing a player's jersey to school something girlfriends usually do?"

He scoots the least bit closer to you, his legs on either side of your chair. He reaches up, gently gripping the back of your neck, light enough that it seems just a sweet gesture, but he knows what he means it as: him touching what is about to belong to him.

"Would that be such a bad thing?"

You blink once, twice. "What?"

He takes one of your hands in his free one. "Listen, the last few weeks," even if he knows it's only been two, but so little time together sounds...not the best out loud, "spending time with you has been a welcome change in my life. I know it started out as just tutoring, and we can keep doing that, of course. But, Y/N, I really, really like you. Being around you is just...so fucking easy. You're easy to talk to, to hang out with, to text with. And you're incredibly beautiful. And kind. And smart. Honestly, I could go on for the next hour, if not longer, about all your admirable qualities. Suffice to say that I'm very-much interested in being with you. And if you feel the same way that I do, then maybe we can give this a shot."

A strange, uneasy feeling comes over you. You tell yourself it's because you've never been asked out before. Never had someone show such blatant interest in you before like this. You're used to being alone, so of course the idea of being with someone—anyone—but especially Nate Jacobs, star football player, his dad's name being a household name in East Highland, and the guy every girl at school seems to want—seems unthinkable.

"I...I didn't think I was your type."

So does that mean you have thought about it? Being with him?

He runs his thumb over your knuckles. "I didn't think so either. But that's precisely why I think you're so good for me. You're not attention-seeking. Dating girls like that in the past has caused me nothing but trouble. You're not superficial. You care about shit—see things—in ways others just don't. Not at our age, at least. Not at our school. You're mature, responsible, know how to take care of yourself..."

He trails off, wanting you to reply. To just say yes. To give yourself to him.

"I don't know about this..."

His grip on your hand tightens just the smallest bit. "What's your concern?"

"How do I know you're not rebounding, from Cassie or Maddy?"

He shakes his head. "I'm not. I should've been done with Maddy a long time ago for the way she treated me. What she did at McKay's...I can never forgive that. And Cassie was a mistake from the first moment. We had both been drinking. And I just...I wasn't thinking clearly. But I am now. And I know what I want."

You look down to your lap. "And what if I screw things up? I've never dated someone before. I'd have no idea what to even do."

"Nothing here has to change. Not really. Us being together just means spending more time together." He fights back a smirk. "And me finally getting to kiss you."

Your head jerks up.

"Once you're ready," he adds on, knowing you'll be ready when he deems you so.

"And what if I'm just one more person to hurt or let you down?"

He feels like with that one question alone—you being so concerned for his wellbeing—he falls in love with you.

He releases your neck, now cupping your cheek. "You won't be. Do you think I haven't thought the same thing? You were abandoned by your mom. Your dad, too, essentially. The last thing I want is to be one more person to leave you. So I don't plan to.

"Listen, I'm not saying everything is going to be like a picture-perfect fairytale all the time, but I think so long as we're both happy, give each other our all, and consistently work at what we have, then we'll both be happy.

"Just in the time we've spent together, I've already opened up more to you alone than I have to anyone else in I can't tell you how long. I trust you."

He brushes the pad of his thumb over your lower lip and you want to cry from how gentle and sweet he's being—has been—with you.

Finally, you resign yourself to the likely fate of your first heartbreak.

"Okay."

His brows raise. "Yeah?"

You nod, a small smile on your face, your eyes filling with tears of joy. "Yes."

He stands, picking you up, wrapping your legs around his middle and your arms around his neck before spinning you around. "Oh, baby, I am going to make you so fucking happy."

You look down at him, and you believe it.

When you wake the next morning, you only get so far as brushing your teeth and washing your face when you hear a truck outside.

Still half-asleep, you wander to the front door and look through the peephole to see Nate coming up to it, one of his arms behind his back. You briefly wonder if you'd overslept as you flip the lock and open the door.

He comes in, pressing a kiss to your warm forehead. "Morning, angel."

You look up to him with sleepy eyes. "Am I running late?"

He smirks, thinking of the things he'd love to do with you while you're still half-asleep like this. It'd be too all easy to take control in bed.

He shakes his head. "No, I'm early," he says, pulling a bouquet of a dozen white roses out from behind his back.

You gasp lightly, taking them from him. "They're beautiful." You look up to him. "You didn't have to bring me flowers now that we're together."

It feels oddly strange to say.

He presses another kiss to your forehead. "I wanted to. It's something I want to do for you, bring my girlfriend flowers, take her on dates," he shuts the door behind him, backing you up against the wall, the flowers clutched against your chest as he places his palms on either side of you. "I hope you know I intend to spoil you fucking rotten."

Your eyes widen. "Oh."

He smirks. "C'mon, let's go get you ready."

Once you've put your flowers in a glass vase near a window in the kitchen, Nate takes your hand, leading you into the bathroom.

"Sit," he says before stopping himself, nearly opening the drawer to your straightener. He doesn't need you knowing he'd been snooping. "Straightener?"

"Uh...top drawer," you reply, seating yourself on the toilet lid

He retrieves the device, plugging it in.

As it heats up, he grabs your hairbrush from atop the sink and comes to stand behind you, running the bristles through your hair.

"You...you don't have to do my hair."

"I want to."

In truth, he wants to shave and moisturize your legs as well, then dress you in his jersey—picking out a bra and panties, too, before doing your makeup.

"Did you do this for Maddy and Cassie as well?"

He'd bought Maddy clothes, but she would've never let him dress her. Would've most-likely mocked him had he so much as given her a ponytail. Cassie was obviously a different story. "No. And we don't have to talk about them anymore. They're in the past now."

You fidget nervously with your hands. "Isn't that important—addressing our pasts to get to know one another better?"

Once your hair is free of tangles, he sets the brush down on top of the toilet tank. He then comes to stand in front of you, kneeling down to make the two of you level. "It is, but I don't want you to worry about either of them. You're the best thing for me now."

He sprays some heat-protectant on your hair before beginning to straighten it.

Nate gives you some privacy as you go over your legs with a razor one more time before getting dressed, even if you'd shaved the night previous. When you're finished, you come to stand in front of the mirror, and you simply stare.

Your hair is like it was the other day when you went grocery shopping, only, instead of ribbons on either side, he'd used hair bands that have two small balls on them that match the color of the numbering on his jersey. He'd actually done surprisingly well in doing your hair.

When you step out of the bathroom, he's waiting for you in your bedroom, his extra jersey, which you'd had hung up in your closet, now resting on your bed.

You nearly want to pinch yourself, everything seems so unreal in this moment.

He picks up the blush he'd gotten you, along with a makeup brush from your hardly-ever-used vanity and he dips it into the fine powder before gripping your chin, swiping the brush over the apples of both of your cheeks once, then twice.

You giggle nervously. "I'm starting to feel like a living-doll or something."

He smirks, snapping the compact shut, setting the materials back where they go. "I just like taking care of you."

He picks up your diamond Tiffany necklace, one more sign of his ownership over you, and clasps it around your neck.

He nods down to the jersey. "I'll let you get dressed."

Nate fights back a raging erection every mile to school. Here you sit, completely fucking covered in him, in the passenger seat of his truck. He'd done your hair, your makeup, bought the piece of jewelry you're now wearing, and his jersey hangs from your frame like a dress—he'd also picked out the white pair of tennis shoes from your closet that you're now wearing. Even eating a muffin he'd stopped to pick up for you.

He wants to pull over in a secluded spot somewhere and claim your virginity—one more part of you that will now belong to him—but he tells himself that will come soon enough.

If his plan works, you'll be in his bed, a whimpering, crying, whining, begging mess under him, sooner rather than later.

Your pussy will be his to fuck whenever and however he pleases.

He'll finally be back to no longer having to use his hand.

His fucked-up sexual fantasies of the two of you will finally get to come true

When Nate pulls into the lot, he 'accidentally' steps on one of your shoelaces after you've gotten out of the truck. He lifts you back up into your seat, setting your foot atop his knee—just like at the bowling alley—and people watch from their cars as he ties your shoe for you.

Finally, he takes your hand, firmly twining your fingers together, before locking his vehicle behind the two of you, as you walk into school together.

And you feel yourself begin to sweat nervously with every pair of eyes that turn your way, some people clearly not thinking much of it—bless those few—while others react with shocked expressions, whispering amongst themselves, eyeing you up and down, making you want to crawl inside a hole.

You look up to Nate and he looks nothing short of confident and unbothered.

You then glance over to Lexi's table and Lexi's expression somehow looks...sad? Disappointed, maybe?

Cassie, however, is shaking she's so enraged.

You quickly balk and look away from her before sitting down beside Nate, thankful you had worn a pair of black bicycle shorts under his jersey.

You drown out Nate's football friends chatting with him about tonight's game as he places his hand on your knee, then slowly moves it higher, then higher, until it's on the middle of your thigh.

You can feel your face growing warm out of mortification. What if someone sees? Thinks that the two of you are...well, already doing that.

You're torn from worrisome thoughts, thinking perhaps you'd made a mistake—you're not sure exactly what choice to consider as much—by Nate squeezing your leg.

You blink up at him. "What?"

He nods toward his friend. "He asked you a question."

You look at the young man across the table, who's maybe a year younger than the both of you, with black hair and hazel eyes, braces still on his teeth.

"I'm sorry, I guess I didn't hear you."

"I asked if you were going to be at the game tonight, since you're Nate's new girl."

"Of course she is," Nate replies for you. "She'll be in the stands cheering us onto victory. Right, baby?"

You give him a nervous smile, then nod.

He's pleased with your agreeable response.

When you get into second period, Cassie is already there, in her seat, which is just behind and diagonal to yours. You don't look at her as you lie your books on your desk, afraid to meet her eyes.

Then you hear her whisper "bitch" as you take your seat.

You slowly turn back to look at her, filled with hurt at the cruel name.

She gives you a nasty look. "What are you looking at?" She asks in a snide tone.

You turn back around without another word, fighting back tears for the rest of class, unable to think of anything else but how she'd always been so nice to you, and now despises you.

Once class is over, you go out to your locker, so distracted that you don't see Nate leaning against the one next to it with a smile meant only for you.

A smile that immediately disappears when he sees the sullen look on your face, and your bloodshot eyes.

You fumble with your lock twice before finally getting your locker open.

"What's wrong?"

You nearly jump at the sound of his voice.

You shake your head, setting your books back on their shelves with shaking hands. "N-nothing."

He leans down closer to you and speaks gently, quietly. "Something happened. Tell me."

He isn't going to take no for an answer.

You shake your head and he feels his fuse growing shorter. "Did someone say something to you?"

You look up to him. "I don't want to cause any trouble."

He delicately laces his fingers through your hair. "You won't. Just tell me what happened, sweetheart."

You shift from one foot to the other, clutching one of your textbooks to your chest. "Cassie. She-"

His tone grows hard. "What did she do?"

"When I got into class she called me a bitch. I wasn't...I wasn't sure if I heard her correctly. I turned around to look at her and she just...she had such a mean look on her face and asked me what I was looking at, so I just turned around."

He clenches his jaw so hard he's sure it will break. If that stupid whore ruins what he'd just gotten to finally happen with you—making you his—he'll fucking kill her. Actually kill her.

He wants to make a scene right in the middle of the hallway, wants to show you just how far he's willing to go to protect you, even just your feelings, but he knows it will only frighten you away. Showing his devotion to you in extreme measures is something that will have to come in time.

He presses a firm kiss to your forehead, staring down Cassie across the way, who's watching the both of you with a devastated look on her face. He then looks down at you, lifting your chin until your eyes are looking into his own. "Just ignore her. She's jealous. That's all it is. Eventually she'll get over it and move onto her next flavor-of-the-month."

You nod, grabbing the rest of your things for third period.

He smiles down at you, brushing his knuckles against your cheek. "I'll be there in a minute. I'm going to run to the restroom first."

You nod, heading to class.

Once you're out of sight, he makes a b-line for Cassie.

And the dumb bitch is stupid enough to actually smile at him.

When he reaches her, he slams her locker shut with one hand—causing her to jump—keeping it firmly in place against it as he stares her down. "What the fuck is wrong with you?"

She shakes some hair off of her shoulder, looking up to him, back straight, eyes pensive. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"That's complete fucking bull. Y/N told me what happened in second period." He lowers his voice so only she can hear. "Let's get one thing straight, you desperate whore, if you screw this up for me, you won't like what happens to you. You have no idea the things I'm capable of—the lengths I'm willing to go to—when someone tries to destroy my life or take someone I love away from me."

She flinches at that—him admitting it—his feelings for you. And after such a short time...

"We had our fun, now I'm done with you, just like the other half of the male student population here. The fuck did you really think was going to happen with us? Did you think we'd...what? Get married, have kids, and live in a cul-de-sac in some fantasy where you're actually a good person that any man would deem worthy of marriage? I got exactly what I wanted and threw your ass to the curb when I got bored and you started acting fucking psychotic."

He points his finger at her face and she shrinks back against a locker, tears stinging her eyes. "Stay the fuck away from me, and even further away from Y/N. If I find out you've said another word—so much as come near her... Just try me, Cass."

With that, he steps away, heading to third period.

After school, Nate drops you off, promising he'll be back that evening to pick you up before the game, and you give him a soft kiss on the cheek before he leaves.

Once you're alone, for some reason, you feel like you can finally breathe. Like some weight had been bearing down on your chest all day and has suddenly lifted.

You blame it on the crowded halls and your noisy classmates.

You leave your hair the way it is, but change into something more comfortable before finding something to eat and sitting down to do homework.

In the middle of finishing your math homework, you begin to think of what had happened with Cassie. It had hurt your feelings, but you aren't angry. If anything, you feel sad on her behalf. While she was, of course, partly to blame, she'd still lost her best friend and boyfriend both, as well as earning herself an even worse reputation around school. You tell yourself the anger isn't necessarily directed at you. That's she's just lashing out in general due to being hurt and alone, and you're an easy target.

You're not sure trying to make nice with her is a good idea, however.

Your phone buzzes, ripping you away from your worries about Maddy trying to come after you next, even if she seems to have far less interest in you and Nate—minus that day in the parking lot—when you check it. You see that it's from Nate.

Nate: Be by around 6 to pick you up.

You: See you then. (:

Nate: Make sure to wear my jersey. 🏈

You grin at his finally using emojis.

You: I will. ❤️

You're left with a little over two hours to yourself before he'll be there to pick you up again. So you take another shower, knowing you sweated a bit more than usual today, then lie back on your bed and try to distract yourself with a movie.

Shortly before six, you dress in Nate's jersey again, and a fresh pair of panties and bicycle shorts before going out to sit on the swing in front of your house to wait for him.

You can't help but smile when he pulls up, butterflies in your stomach.

He comes around, opening the passenger door to the truck. Once you're seated, before you can buckle yourself, he does so for you.

You don't manage to say anything, such as telling him that him doing that really isn't necessary, before he shuts the door.

Nate rolls down the windows, blasting upbeat rap music on the way back to the school. You smile, thinking he looks cute when he's excited. He doesn't seem to exhibit that emotion a lot.

Then again, apart from winning at bowling, neither do you.

Perhaps the both of you are too serious for your age.

You lean back, a smile on your face, and he rests his hand on your upper thigh. You tell yourself you're fine with him touching you there.

That it doesn't make you uncomfortable.

That he's just trying to be a sweet boyfriend.

Once the two of you pull in, the parking lot is only sparingly filled. But the game also doesn't start until after seven.

Once Nate has helped you out of the truck, disliking that you'd already unbuckled yourself before he got a chance to, he takes your hand in his—his duffle bag slung over his other shoulder—as he heads in the direction of the field house. One you're around the backside of the school, he drops his bag on the ground, turning back to you.

He cups your cheek in his large palm. "Can I get a kiss for good luck?"

You hesitate for a moment. Then, "Yes," you say with a shy smile.

He smiles down at you in return before pressing you up against the brick building, then lowering his lips to yours.

He fights back a moan at finally getting to be this: your first kiss. The first one to taste you. The only person to ever have this intimate moment with you.

He opens your mouth with his, gently flicking his tongue against your own and he feels your body stiffen, until he does it again and you relax.

He stays like that for a good few minutes, his tongue tasting you, the sun beating down on his back as his form shadows your own, both your eyes closed as you, after seventeen years, finally find out what it's like to be kissed.

And it's slow and gentle and passionate. And you feel heat pool between your thighs.

You whimper against his lips and his cock hardens at the sound.

He pulls back just the least bit, his lips hovering over your own, which are now red, a bit swollen. "What was that?"

"I dunno," you say, gripping his t-shirt, pulling him back down to you.

He grows impossibly harder at the fact you want more.

He easily obliges.

He wants to move his lips down to your neck, wants to give you a hicky before you go sit on the bleachers for the game, but doesn't.

Finally, he pulls away, both your breathing labored. "Alright, I have to go get ready, my little good-luck charm."

You laugh at that.

He presses one more soft kiss to your lips before reaching down and grabbing his bag.

"Oh," he says, pulling his wallet out of his back pocket. "This is for your ticket." He hands you a five dollar bill. "And this is incase you want anything from the concessions."

He hands you a fifty and your eyes widen.

"I don't think a pretzel costs that much, Nate."

He shrugs. "Maybe you'll want a souvenir of your first game."

You stand on your tiptoes and he smirks, leaning down again as you wrap your arms around his neck. You press a soft kiss to his cheek, before whispering in his ear. "Good luck. And thank you."

He kisses your lips again before stepping away. "I'll look for you in the bleachers."

He begins to walk backwards toward the field house.

"I'll be there cheering you on."

He smiles at the image of that. "Maybe we can do something after."

You nod. "Good luck!"

Surprisingly, when you go to sit on the bleachers, Cassie, who's gathered with the rest of the cheerleaders, doesn't look back at you but once, shortly after you first sit down. It'd only been a glance, and then her completely ignoring you, which you're beyond okay with.

You'd bought yourself a water before finding a seat, the day still hot with the sun out, even if it's beginning to slowly set.

A sense of thrill fills you when the players run onto the field, your eyes immediately honing in on number eighteen.

You feel your cheeks grow impossibly warmer when you remember your kiss from earlier.

You watch as the players gather around their coach, Nate removing his helmet as they—you assume—strategize. He glances up to you and gives you a wink and you smile in return, blowing him a kiss.

Once they break, Nate pretends to catch it, pressing it to his chest before putting his helmet back on.

You can't help but admire him in his uniform.

You've never liked sports before tonight. But with Nate now being your boyfriend and out there on the field, you're completely engrossed. You sit on the edge of your seat the entire game, just watching him running this way and that across the field, blushing when you think about the two of you wearing matching jerseys.

And every time he scores a touchdown, which turns out to be a lot, you hop up from your seat, clapping and smiling, feeling proud of him.

In all honesty, seeing him plowing through the other players and tackling and just...playing the game...actually turns you on a little. Okay, perhaps a bit more than a little. It just makes him look so strong.

You wonder what he would think of that fact.

Once the game is over, the Blackhawks having unsurprisingly won, Nate removes his helmet, yelling and laughing in victory with the rest of his teammates. You smile, glad to see him happy.

He looks into the stands, searching for you and finds you in the same spot you've been in all night.

He waves his hand for you to come down and you do, coming to stand on the other side of the fence from him.

He rests his forearms atop it. "So, what did you think?"

You grip a few of his fingers. "I had fun, which I didn't expect." You giggle to yourself.

"What?" He asks with a smirk.

You shake your head.

"Well, now you have to tell me."

You look up at him from under your lashes and he can already tell he's going to fucking love whatever is about to come out of that pretty little mouth.

"You look really good in your uniform."

He leans forward. "Oh, yeah?"

You nod. "Mhm."

He reaches forward, gripping the one you're wearing, bringing you a bit closer to him. "So do you."

You kiss then, the taste of him now mixed with sweat and grass and fresh air.

He pulls away. "Climb over here."

Watch me fall or hurt myself, you think as you wedge your tennis shoe in the chain-link fence. Once you're halfway up, Nate lifts you the rest of the way over, and you wrap your legs around his middle, running your fingers through his slick hair.

"Sorry, I'm all sweaty."

You shake your head. "I don't mind," you say before kissing him.

You wait for Nate outside of the field house, leaned back against the red brick stones, staring up at the millions of stars littering the night sky, feeling so completely happy for the first time in you're not sure how long.

Once players begin to file out, you watch for Nate to be among them. When he exits, he glances in your direction, coming over to stand in front of you, offering you his hand. "Ready?"

You nod.

Once you're in his truck, he stands in the passenger side doorway, one of his arms resting against the top of the truck, his other hand against your left calf.

"I've had a really great night, and I don't really want to just drop you off at home, and then it ends."

You just look at him, waiting for him to continue.

"If I ask you to stay the night at my place, will you?"

You shift in your seat. "Doing...doing what?"

"Just sleeping," he states. "Maybe we can watch a movie in bed or something."

You think about it for a moment, not sure you're comfortable with moving this quickly.

"What about your parents?"

"What about 'em?"

"They won't mind you bringing a girl home late at night?"

He shakes his head. "I mind my business and they mind theirs. If I want to invite someone over, they're not going to tell me no."

You think that's a very unconventional way to parent, especially when it comes to him having a girl in his room—in his bed.

"You don't think it's a little early for me to be spending the night?" You ask gently, using a kind tone to try and prevent hurting his feelings.

He's quiet for a moment, now looking away from you. "I'm sorry. I guess I got too excited to spend more time with you tonight. It was a stupid idea. I shouldn't have asked in the first place. Just forget I did."

He goes to pull away and you suddenly feel bad. You'd hurt his feeling anyway. Something you had told him you didn't want to do just yesterday.

You quickly grab his hand. "No, I'm sorry. I just...I don't-" you scramble for some excuse that isn't 'this makes me uncomfortable'. "I don't want you to get the wrong impression about me."

He softens, stepping closer to you again, his hand sliding up your thigh. "Like what?"

You relax at the tension quickly dissipating. "Like..." you bite your lip. "Like I'm easy. Or...or a slut. Or-"

That same hand comes up to caress your cheek. "Baby, you'd never even had your first kiss before tonight. I could never think that about you. You're probably the most innocent girl—person, even—at this school. And like I said, we'll only be sleeping."

You look at him for a moment. "I don't have a change of clothes. Or a toothbrush or-"

"You can just wear something of mine. And we have extras, I'll just give you one."

Finally, you cave. "Ok."

He gives you a gentle smile. "Ok."

When you and Nate pull up to his house, you suddenly feel inadequate at the large home that looms before you. Two stories tall and very, very expensive looking.

You're so busy studying the extravagance of it that you don't notice Nate unbuckling you.

"Your house is-"

"Obnoxious, I know."

He helps you down, taking your hand in his before grabbing his bag and heading inside.

You glance around the foyer, but not for long before Nate begins pulling you toward the stairs. And then you hear his name being called from down the hall.

He stops in his tracks, rolling his eyes.

"Is that your mom?" You whisper.

He drops his duffel bag, which thumps against the floor. "Yeah."

"Nate, come in here, I want to tell you how great you were tonight!"

You take one of his hands in both of yours. "Can I meet her?"

He pulls his hand away without answering. Only, instead, giving you a 'wait here' before walking away.

You stand there, unsure about the sudden shift in his mood. It was like it had happened gradually on the way over and only became more extreme the moment her voice called to him.

Does he really hate being here that much?

When Nate enters the kitchen, his mom is making a salad at the island, his dad grabbing a beer from the fridge.

Marsha walks around it, gesturing for Nate to lean down to give her a hug, which he does, and she plants a quick kiss to his cheek. "You were so great tonight, honey. Your momma is very proud of you."

He nods. "Thanks."

He glances back down the hall, and then his dad speaks. "You left yourself open too much in the first quarter. I've said it before and I will again, you need to work on that, son."

Nate's fists tighten at his side.

He glances back down the hall again and immediately regrets it.

"Do we have company?" His mom asks.

"No. I do." He takes a step away.

"Wait, hold on. Who is it?"

He rolls his eyes. "Does it fucking matter? I need to get back to her-"

He lets out a low swear. He just had to say 'her'.

His mom crosses her arms, now interested. "Her? Did you bring a girl home?"

"I think your mother means 'another girl' home."

Nate glares at his father as he takes a swig of his beer. Finally, he looks back to his mom. "Yes."

Her brows raise. "Well, do I get to meet her?"

Nate sighs. He steps out of the kitchen, and you look up at him, now full of nerves. He jerks his head in the direction of the kitchen.

You walk up to him. "Is everything ok?" you whisper as he takes your hand.

"It's fine." Is all the reply he gives you before pulling you into the kitchen with him.

Your eyes look this way at that, taking in the lovely décor and the beautiful island and appliances, then looking to his mom, then his dad, who seems to be watching the two of you with no more than idle amusement.

"Mom, dad, this is Y/N. Y/N, these are my parents."

His mom steps forward first, pulling you into an unexpected hug, but you quickly embrace her in return. You don't want to admit how nice it feels to be held by a mother, even if she isn't your own.

Finally, she pulls back, holding you in place by your upper-arms as she looks you over. "Well, don't you just look adorable in Nate's old jersey."

You flush a shade of crimson. "Thank you."

She releases you, placing her hand over her chest. "I'm Marsha, the mom. And this is-"

"Cal," His father finishes, stepping up to the island, reaching across it to shake your hand.

You nearly tell him you already know his name, but refrain, knowing doing so will only make this moment more awkward.

Once introductions are through, you step back to Nate's side.

"It's nice to meet the both of you."

"Oh, she's polite!" His mom chimes in. "I already like her a lot better than Maddy. Not that that's hard to achieve." She takes a bite of her salad, swallowing. "She was a truly awful girl."

Nate wraps his arm around your waist, but before he can pull you away and get you upstairs and locked away inside his room with him, Cal speaks. "Going through 'em awful fast, aren't you, Nate? That's what, three girls now, in almost as many months?"

You feel nothing short of embarrassed, perhaps even a little ashamed, at his comment.

Nate's grip on your hip tightens painfully for a moment, and you're sure it'll leave a bruise, but you don't speak, instead just bearing witness to the now-taut silence enveloping the room.

Nate steps away from you, going over to the fridge.

Nate grabs a beer, Cal going to grab himself another, until Nate speaks so low only he can hear. "Not nearly as fast as you, though, am I?"

"Excuse me?"

"You're such a fucking asshole. Leave me," he glances to you, then back to his dad, "And her alone. Stay out of my way, and I'll stay out of yours like we usually do."

With that, Nate comes over, firmly gripping your hand, and leading you upstairs.

Once Nate has shut the door behind the two of you, locking it, he throws his duffle bag down, then grabs a pair of boxers and sweatpants from his dresser before going into the bathroom, slamming the door behind him.

You seat yourself on his bed, wondering what, exactly, had been said between he and his dad to make him so upset. Unless it was the comment about him going through girls? On the one hand, it was kind of a shitty thing to say. On the other, parents sometimes give their kids a hard time. It comes with the territory.

A few moments later, Nate emerges from the bathroom, shirtless, his sweatpants hanging low on his hips and his hair damp and tousled.

You feel that same heat from earlier when he'd kissed you settling between your legs again. Then you tell yourself now is not the time—he's upset.

He walks over to his closet.

"Are you ok?" You ask softly.

He hands you a plain black t-shirt. "Here, you can wear this to bed after you've showered."

So he's not ready to talk about it just yet. "What about bottoms?"

He lies back on the bed, one of his arms slung over his eyes. "Nothing I have will fit you. The t-shirt is fine."

You accept that, padding into the bathroom, shutting the door behind you.

When you emerge, it's in Nate's shirt, a fluffy towel wrapped around your wet hair.

He's still lying on the bed in the same position from earlier.

You rub the towel against your hair a few times, then drop it in his hamper before coming to sit with your legs crossed beside him. You're silent for a moment, trying to think of the right thing to say. Finally, you just make a simple offer.

"Do you want me to leave?"

He shakes his head, his other arm coming to rub up and down your spine. "No."

"Do you want to talk about it?"

He lowers the arm from over his eyes, which are now open, staring up at the ceiling. "There's nothing to talk about. I told you: he's an asshole."

You shrug. "He's your dad. Picking on you is kind of part of his job."

"That's not why he said it. It's not why he does any of the shit that he does. It has nothing to do with him being my dad."

"Maybe he just-"

He looks at you then. "Can we just not talk about my dad while we're in bed together?"

You withdraw into yourself a little at his sudden irritation. And how he had worded it. Like you're doing something other than just talking.

"Ok, I'm sorry."

He notes that your tone now sounds slightly frightened. He sits up, leaning on his arm, his free hand coming to grip your waist. "No, I am. I didn't mean to snap at you. It's just him. It's always fucking him."

"Have the two of you ever considered sitting down and just having a heart-to-heart?"

He snorts, then looks at you like that's the stupidest idea anyone has ever come up with.

"Lie down with me," he says, pulling back the covers, which you then crawl beneath.

He pulls you against him, his arm under your neck, fingertips lightly tracing the tip of your shoulder. "Thank you for being here."

"You're welcome. I'm very proud of you tonight. It sounds like your mom is too."

He bends the arm that's not holding you behind his head.

"I'm glad you stayed."

"Of course I did," you say, resting your hand over his chest. "I thought I hated sports until tonight. I had a fun time watching you."

He looks at you. "Good."

He then slips his arm out from under you, your head falling back against a pillow which smells of cologne and him. He hovers over top of you, scooting you lower before he presses a kiss to your forehead.

You panic. "Nate..."

He looks down, but you grab his chin, which he doesn't expect.

"Don't look."

His brows furrow.

"The t-shirt sort of rode up."

He bites back a smirk. So you're half-naked underneath him, then.

He lowers his body onto your own. "There, now I can't see."

You remain staring up at him.

He plants a soft kiss to your cheek. "Is this ok?"

You're quiet for a moment. Longer than he'd like. Until, finally, "I guess so."

That's all the permission he needs before he starts kissing you. He teases you with his tongue again like earlier, since you had seemed to like that so much, before he eventually moves lower, pressing hot, wet kisses to your neck.

He moves from one side, and when he gets to the other, you jerk underneath him and whimper.

So he kisses that same spot again and your breathing quickens.

His cock fills with blood, knowing he's found a sweet spot.

And so he kisses and sucks at the sensitive skin, until your hips have risen up against him, your arms around his neck and you're panting. He flicks his tongue and you moan in the back of your throat, your control slipping more and more with each kiss. He doesn't stop until he's sure you're soaked and he sees that he's left a purple bruise in his wake.

When he looks down at you, your face is flushed, your lips slightly parted, your hair a mess. It'd be so fucking easy to have his way with you right now. But it would ruin everything to do it this soon.

"Did you like that?" he asks, smoothing some hair from your face.

You nod.

He wonders just how far you'll let him go tonight, short of him breaking your hymen with his cock.

He grips your hip in one of his hands, then moves it higher, to the curve of your side, then higher, until you reach down, firmly grabbing his wrist, his hand now underneath his t-shirt that's barely even covering you now.

"Do you want me to stop?"

"I-" you shut your mouth.

In truth, all you want is to touch yourself. Or maybe let him. No. You can't do that. Not this soon. God, what are you doing? In his bed, nearly naked—nothing covering your bottom half, which is now so wet your thighs are slick from it—and wanting nothing more than to tell him to keep going.

You've never felt like this before. But you've also never had any form of intimacy with another person before.

Only ever yourself.

He gives you a look of understanding. "I don't give a shit what society expects of you. What you think you're supposed to do. I want to know what you want, right now, in this moment."

Finally, after a beat of silence, you release his wrist.

He slowly pushes up the t-shirt higher, then higher, until he can see the bottom swell of your breasts, then he pulls it over your head, tossing it on the floor.

And he just marvels at you. Your naked body lying back against his dark sheets. He still has his lower half covering your own, but knows he'll get to see every inch of you before the night is through.

He leans down, taking one of your nipples in his mouth and you throw your head back.

He grips your hips, trailing his tongue over to your other breast, now sucking on it. He looks up to you. Your eyes are now closed, head thrown back, mouth slightly parted.

He rolls a nipple between his teeth and your hips lift, which he pushes back down into the mattress.

He moves back to your other breast, doing the same, willing a whimper or a cry from your lips. Even his fucking name. Instead, you're so damn quiet. Maddy and Cassie had both been vocal—sometimes overly so. This he's not used to.

Finally, he lifts his head and your eyes pop open, wondering why he's stopped.

"Are you not enjoying it?"

Your brows furrow. "What?"

"You're not really making any noise. Are you this quiet when you touch yourself?"

You wait a moment, then nod. He just tells himself that he won't stop until he's changed that fact, then.

He dives back down, devouring your breasts again, then kissing between them, gradually moving lower and lower, until he's right below your belly button.

You suddenly sit half-up, leaning back on your forearms.

"Do you want me to stop?" He asks.

Your heart is pounding, and there's an incredibly strong pulse going between your thighs. A million thoughts race through your head. The most prominent one: is this why he'd given you attention in the first place? To make you another notch in his belt?

"This...this isn't all you wanted me for-"

"No. I want you. All of you. Being intimate with you is just one part of it. I don't plan on having sex with you tonight. When I take your virginity, I want it to be perfect. For your sake. There's just something I want to try."

He releases one of your hips, twining his fingers between yours for reassurance. While he understands your hesitancy, he wishes you'd lie the fuck back down and spread your legs for him.

Until, finally, you do.

He kisses down your stomach, then is pleased to see that you'd recently shaven your pubic area.

He makes a mental note to start setting you up appointments, which he'll be paying for, so you can get waxed regularly. At least he won't have to worry about stubble or ingrown hairs at that point.

When he's finally eye-level with your pussy, his throbbing erection grows impossibly harder. You truly are fucking perfect in every way.

He lowers his mouth onto you and, finally, you cry out at the unexpected feeling.

He quickly throws both of your legs over his shoulders, spearing his tongue, burying it in the heat between your thighs. He flicks your clit and your fingers tighten around his.

God, you're already so fucking wet. He blames it on your being a virgin—not that he doesn't absolutely fucking love it.

So he does it again. And again. He then swirls his tongue this way and that, sliding up your soaked folds—God, you taste fucking amazing—then back down again. Finally, he pulls back the least bit and he hears you whine in response as he begins to kiss your inner thighs.

At least he'll have this to use against you when the time comes: a bit of oral sex, leading you right up to the edge, and then denying you an orgasm unless you do what he wants will be a perfect weapon against you.

Finally, after wiggling your hips more than once, clearly wanting his mouth back on your pussy, he gives you what you've silently asked him for.

He kisses, licks, sucks, bites—lightly—until he focuses solely on your clit.

He hopes you scream when you fucking cum just so his dad has to hear it.

Instead, that fantasy is broken when you release his hand, pulling one of his pillows over your face as you finish against his mouth, your hips lifting, which he once again pulls back down as he continues eating you out.

He only hears your muffled cries—he can swear he hears you say his name—until you finally drop the pillow on the floor, trying to catch your breath as he presses a few kisses to your now-pulsating pussy.

He rests his chin against your pubic area, watching as you slowly begin to calm, your legs still over his shoulders.

"How was that?"

You feel dazed, your legs like jelly, even a bit sweaty. "Good."

He raises a brow. "Just good?"

You tangle your fingers in your hair, the pulse of your pussy just now beginning to calm. "Really, really good."

"You liked it that much, huh?"

You nod.

"How much?"

You sit up, your muscles now feeling weak. "I loved it, Nate. T-thank you."

He studies you for a moment, considering. "Do you want me to do it again?"

"Really?"

He notes just how eager and excited you sound. Almost desperate for it—for him.

And in that moment, he knows he finally has you exactly where he fucking wants you.

#fic: euphoria (nate jacobs x reader)#nate jacobs x y/n #nate jacobs x you #nate jacobs imagine #nate jacobs x reader #euphoria x you #euphoria x reader

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revasserium · 28 days

Note

hi! I've been reading your opla!zoro stuff and I wanted to tell you your writing is so gorgeous! it's truly breathtaking, you're really talented ❤️ i've looked through your prompts tag, im not sure how requesting works, but could I ask for "edge of falling" or "the spaces between us" (whichever one you like the most) with zoro and fem!reader? i'm a goner for longing and feelings realization and the prompts give me those vibes, but i'm sure anything you write will be lovely <3

reqs are open!

the edge of falling

opla!zoro; 7,475 words; fluff and angst, hurt/comfort, passing mentions of: cult!, physical violence, & trauma/cult-programming, ex-cult member!reader, strawhat!reader, traumatized!reader, protective!zoro, healing from past trauma, learning to trust etc, angst with a happy ending!, a metric TON of plot

summary: "Lie to me," Time said to Love; Love smiled and said, "I promise, I'll never let you slip away."

a/n: thank u for the request anon!!! i uhm idk what happened with this fic tbh. there's def uh -- longing of SOME kind here??? welp. pls read the tw list! there's some dark-ish content in this. but i promise it ends well u__u

prelude: in which a fox teaches you to speak

Time is the greatest liar, so you are told, over and over and over. For the longest time, you think it’s the only truth you’ll ever know.

But we will live forever…

So long as you do the things you’re told. So long as you make the Fox happy. So long, so long, so long.

There is no way to mark the passage of time in the compound; with no sunlight to guide the way, you are left to other, more primal ways of keeping track — that elusive, silver-fish creature — time — always slipping through your fingers when want to hold on most.

You measure it in wounds, in the time it takes for a fresh wound to seal over, for the scab to break and reveal the soft, tender pink flesh beneath. You measure it in gulps of water, in bites of cold food, in the droplets of artificial rain that they let fall through the ceiling sometimes. You measure it in rewards too, in long baths and hot meals, in the evenings when the Fox would tell you stories in his low, lilting voice instead of leaving you in his seething silences.

And he is ever so good with stories. If you stay still and keep quiet, and let his voice wash over you like a hungry tide across a rain-starved beach, you can feel the words seeping into your bones, ringing out till they feel like nothing but god’s given truth.

As long as you’re good… I promise I’ll make you live forever.

Like this, you learn the weapon of words, the power of speech, how to listen for lies, and how to tell them, and tell them, and tell them.

The Fox is good at lying; you’ll just have to learn to be better.

act i: yet another sad, desperate soul

Roronoa Zoro has never been a man of many words, but it would be remiss to say that he isn’t a man of his word — you see, when he does speak, he speaks with intention. And always, with conviction.

“Hey. No one’s gonna hurt you anymore.”

This, then, is the first lie he tells you.

“Liar.” You spit out the word, drawing back, your body a tangle of livewire nerves, your eyes darting back and forth, an entire life’s worth of fight and flight caught on the hair-pin trigger of his breath as he jolts back slightly and blinks at you.

“Y-you — you can’t know that,” you say, your voice still ragged. But Zoro sees it for the attempt it is — an olive branch, however tentatively extended. And he takes it, wordlessly.

He nods once, reaching out to help you up. The compound crumbles around you, and you unconsciously wrap your arms around yourself, as if to hold yourself together, to keep from shattering into a hundred million tiny little shards of pain and mistrust.

“The fox-guy’s dead! But it looks like this whole island’s gonna blow!” Nami races out of the massive, temple-esque structure just as it starts to collapse from the inside out.

Luffy slingshots passed, cackling as Sanji and Usopp bring up the rear. On the Merry, Robin and Chopper are waiting, and the second Zoro manages to hoist you onto the main deck, the ship careens off into the dark tumult of waves.

You skitter away the minute Zoro’s arm slips from around your waist, and he turns to find you pressing yourself back against the railings, staring at them all with wide eyes, your expression caught halfway between fear and consternation. He takes half a step back, crossing his arms just as Luffy bounds forward with a bright, unassuming smile.

“Don’t worry! You’re safe now!” He makes to slap one of your shoulders but you duck out of the way, chewing on your bottom lip.

Robin clears her throat gently and offers you a smile, “We’re not going to hurt you.”

You narrow your eyes, your gaze darting between them like a trapped animal, but after another beat of stillness (punctuated only by Nami swearing softly to herself as she steers the Merry around a particularly difficult formation of rocks), your entire body seems to soften, and Zoro uncrosses his arms again, resting a hand casually on the hilt of his blades.

“Th-thank you…” you bob your head once, swallowing hard passed chapped lips and a raw throat. Your white linen dress is stained with blood and dirt, a tear at your collar making it slip from your shoulder.

“’S alright now, darlin’ — how bout we run you a nice, hot bath? I could cook you just about anything y’like. Fancy a drink as well? I think a bubbly would be good for a —”

“Lay off, cook.” Zoro cuts Sanji off with a scoff, barring Sanji’s approach with an arm in the gut.

You watch them with dark eyes, your expression curiously blank.

“Will you let me look at your wounds?” Chopper offers.

You jump a little at his voice, piping up from your left side. You glance at Zoro once before looking back at Chopper and nodding.

Sanji tucks his hands into his pockets and watches as Chopper leads you beneath the deck, Zoro following a few steps behind. He lights a cigarette as soon as the trap door clanks shut.

A beat of silence, and then —

“Wow, that island really, really sucked!” Luffy says, turning back to his crew.

Sanji lets out a puff of smoke as Usopp slumps down against the main mast with a groan.

“You can say that again.”

“What happened?” Robin asks.

Sanji sighs, shaking his head, “Trust me, you don’t wanna know.”

Below deck, Chopper dabs at your wounds with expert ease as you sit very still on the kitchen island and Zoro watches from the sofa, arms crossed loosely over his chest.

“These surface wounds aren’t that bad but…” Chopper trails off, his eyes running over the network of old scars that mar your skin, layers and layers of them — down your arms and along your torso.

“It’s fine,” you say, your voice smooth as polished marble, “I’m —” you swallow, “I’m fine.”

And if it weren’t for the hiccup, the slight hitch in your breath, you would’ve been utterly convincing. Your expression is flat, your voice, even more so.

Across the room, Zoro makes disbelieving noise, “If it hurts, just say so. Chopper’ll fix it.”

“I’m… I’m fine,” you say again, tugging at the sleeve of your torn shift, your tone now a bit more honest, your words tired and resigned. Zoro looks to Chopper, who gives a faint nod of acquiescence before Zoro stands up and jerks his head towards the door.

“Cook’s right — you should wash up before dinner.”

You follow him down the hallway, through a small door that leads into a washroom that’s much cleaner than one might expect a ship’s bathroom to be. A large, wooden soaking tub sits in the middle of the room, and a clean change of clothes has already been laid out on a bench next to the bath.

Zoro grunts after he takes a once-over of the room, satisfied that all’s in order, and makes to leave.

You tug at his sleeve, head lowered.

“Can you…” you lick your lips, “can you stay?”

Zoro glances down at your fingers curled into his shirt sleeve before his eyes flick up to find your face. You’re looking at some indiscriminate point over his left shoulder, but your lips are trembling and your jaw is set.

He lets out a long breath, slowly twisting his body towards the room and you.

“Sure.”

He makes a show of turning around to face the door as you slip off your clothes and sink into the steaming bath water. A long exhale and the light slosh of water is all the indication he gets that it’s safe to turn back around.

He leans himself against the door, his swords propped on his shoulder, his head lolled back, his eyes closed.

He listens to the soft sounds of the water, to the faint splashes as you rub the grit and grime from your skin, inch by inch.

“We were only allowed to bathe as a reward for doing a good deed.”

Your voice makes him open his eyes, his gaze focusing in on the shape of you, nearly submerged in the bathtub, your hair slick and sticking to your pale shoulders. Even in this dim lighting, he can see the patterns your scars make against your skin. Water glimmers along the contours of your face as you run your palms along your cheeks, rubbing at them till they’re ruddy with color.

Zoro ticks his tongue against his teeth, “Quit bein’ so rough,” he moves forward without thinking, reaching out a hand to help you with some of the more stubborn pieces of dirt but he pauses, realizing how utterly still you’ve gone.

You stare at him for a long moment before relaxing back into the water and shifting towards the edge of the tub to allow him better access.

He runs a callused thumb along your cheekbones, wiping away the remaining dirt there.

“What was a ‘good deed’?” he asks, letting the tips of his fingers skim the warm water’s surface.

You shrug, “Mostly anything that made Mr. Fox happy… so all of us would —” you take another breath, your hand opening and closing beneath the surface of the still bath water, “we’d spend all our waking hours trying to think of something — anything — that’d please him. No matter how small… no matter how… terrible.”

“This Mr. Fox… what was his deal, anyway?”

You stare down into the dark water, now rapidly cooling from warm to lukewarm.

You take a deep breath, lifting a hand out of the water to distort the image of your ghostly reflection.

“He… was a liar. Except… he could make all his lies sound like the truth.”

“It was uncanny, really,” Sanji says, now at full throttle in the kitchen prepping for dinner service, Usopp lounging on sofa, his feet propped up on the hanging table.

Chopper and Robin both frown.

“What do you mean?” Robin asks.

“It was like… the guy could say anything and make it sound like the truth — even though you knew somewhere inside you that it can’t be real. Like — he could tell you the sky was green and every single part of you would believe him, even though you’re outside and starin’ up at the sky.”

“Yeah! Like he said I’d never be able to beat him and… for a second, I kinda almost believed him!” Luffy offers, munching on a bushel of apples and spitting out the seeds.

Robin’s brows furrow, tapping at her chin with a thin finger.

“It sounds like the Uso-Uso no Mi…”

“Ugh, what a weird, scary power…” Chopper shudders, shaking his head, his tiny hooved hands coming up to cup his cheeks, “I’m sure it’d mess with people’s heads!”

“It sure did. But he also used it to feed false information to the Marines,” Nami says, slipping through the half-opened door to join the rest of the crew on the sofa, “ran a series of taverns that just so happened to be situated in major Marine towns.”

Sanji glances up from a huge, steaming pan of paella, a cigarette caught between his teeth.

“So what was his end goal then? Just to fuck over the Marines?”

Back in the bathroom, you run your fingers along the edge of the tub as if playing an invisible piano.

“Power, domination… I don’t think he had a goal or purpose… I think… he just got off on it…”

Your voice is light, conversational, almost as if you were talking about the weather. But Zoro sees the glazed look in your eyes, the tightness at the edges of your lips.

“You called me a liar,” he says, reaching into the tub and flicking you lightly with a bit of water.

You blink, a smile threatening the corners of your mouth.

“Yeah… guess I did.”

“I wasn’t lying.”

He pulls out his hand and wipes it on a towel, leaning back to stare at you.

You shrug, “Sometimes… people lie to others, and sometimes, people lie to themselves. It’s the ones we tell ourselves that are always the most convincing.”

“I don’t lie. ‘Specially not to myself.”

You let out a tiny laugh, “But I guess… sometimes, if you believe in something hard enough… it’ll just start to be come the truth.”

There’s a note of… something in your voice that Zoro doesn’t like, but he can’t put a name to the feeling so he stays quiet as you continue the laborious work of scrubbing your skin clean, till all the water in the tub’s gone cold.

The rest of the evening passes as most evenings on the Merry do after a big fight — with a lot of food and even more booze. With music and laughter, and new crew member, sitting in the corner, watching mostly and smiling occasionally. No one pushes you, though Sanji does make a valiant effort in getting you to admit to your favorite foods, and Luffy tries two or three times to drag you into the more raucous celebrations (mostly involving way too much meat being roasted on a spike).

No one questions the way Zoro never wanders too far.

No one questions the way your eyes track him around the room, or how, even when Robin and Nami finally get a laugh out of you, you still instinctively searched for Zoro’s figure till you’ve found it in the other corner, a bottle caught between his lips, his eyes half-shut but his gaze caught on you like a fish to a seaman’s hook.

act ii: everything and nothing

A week passes, and then another. And you slowly, but surely, come out of your shell — it’s a strange sort of blossoming, the way you reveal yourself in shards and pieces, jagged and jarring. The shrapnel bits of your personality peaking out amidst the flotsam and jetsam of all your manifold defense mechanisms.

You’re a brilliant liar, but even better at spotting a lie, and it’s a thing that none of the crew had ever really thought about until you’d come along, casually poking holes in their daily deceits.

“Mm! These pancakes are perfect! Just the way I like them!”

“The new dress looks beautiful, Nami.”

“I absolutely did not finish the last bag of popcorn… Luffy did it!”

You clear your throat.

“Okay fine… the pancakes were really good but… but I like them… sweeter.”

“The dress is… well, everything looks gorgeous on you, of course, you know that Nami! But — the color… clashes just a tiny little bit with your… hair.”

“I might’ve uh… taken a few bites out of the popcorn bag… last night… but I was keeping watch and I needed to keep my energy up!”

Robin titters, a sphinx-like smile spreading across her lips.

“Apparently, 60% of people lie at least once every 10 minutes,” she says, casually taking a sip of orange juice as Zoro runs through his daily training regime, seemingly unbothered by the chaos currently taking place on the main deck regarding the “popcorn incident”.

“Dunno why people bother,” Zoro says, working through a set of single-armed burpees.

“I suppose it’s just human nature. We want other people to like us… so we say what we think they might want to hear, instead of what we really think. It’s harmless, mostly,” Robin remarks, leaning back against a white planter box, basking in the shade of the tangerine trees.

“Till it isn’t,” Zoro says, finishing up his workout and pushing himself up for a long stretch. He casts his eyes once more towards where you’re now laughing as Usopp tries to think of some new tall tale to tell.

It only takes you half a second to turn your head, and Zoro wonders at the kind of life you might’ve led to make you so sensitive to another person’s gaze. What must’ve happened to warrant this kind of alertness? But then again, he’d been a hunter long enough to know exactly what being hunted looks like.

He caught a glimpse of it at the compound but — still, his fingers itch toward his swords, his jaw clenches tight enough for Robin to cock her head and raise a brow.

“Yes… until it isn’t…” she echoes, her eyes also trailing towards you.

Zoro holds your gaze for a second before rolling his shoulders and looking away, squinting at the far horizon.

“Oi. Looks like trouble.”

Robin straightens, and a second later, Chopper sounds the alarm from the crow’s nest.

“Marines! Marines!”

There is the shink of swords being drawn, the gentle echo of Robin’s voice as her arms multiply. There’s canon fire and a lot of yelling. But at the end, there’s only bodies and blood and the tattered remains of the Marine’s ship, bobbing in the stained sea below them.

“Should we go after them?” Sanji asks, lighting up a cig, watching as the tiny emergency boat rows off into the distance.

“Nah. We’ll be alright!” Luffy says, wiping a hand across his nose.

Zoro turns towards you, sheathing his swords.

“You alright?”

“I’m fine,” you say, your voice immediately taking on an unctuous sheen that makes Zoro take a step closer.

“You hurt anywhere?” he runs an appraising eye down your form and nods in the knowledge that at least you don’t look hurt.

“No… I —” you chew down on your bottom lip, fingers digging into the bare flesh of your arms. But you back away from him the moment he tries to take a step forward.

“Hey — quit that,” he taps at your wrist with the hilt of his sword, the touch hard but not harsh, forcing you to pull away.

“It’s — I’m — I’m alright,” you say, insistent and mollifying. Zoro runs his thumb against the hilt of his blades and scoffs.

“Liar,” he says, tossing the word casually back at you in a way that makes your breath hitch. Then, he turns, and marches below decks to tend to his own wounds.

A deafening silence rings out around you as you stare down at the ships blood-drenched planks before Robin places a gentle hand on your shoulder.

“C’mon now — lets get your back looked at.”

Below decks, you find Zoro dabbing gingerly at a large slash on his right arm.

“Here, you’ve missed a spot —” you reach out to take the iodine soaked cloth from Zoro’s hand, only to have him jerk away. You flinch back, wide-eyed.

Zoro softens, if only ever so slightly.

“I’m fine,” he says, a harsh edge to his voice as he goes back to trying to twist around himself enough to see the spot he’s missed. You purse your lips, watching him for a second, two seconds, three — before you glance back at the place Robin had been only to realize that she’d gone.

“May… I?” you reach out your hand, palm up, tentative and imploring. But you hold yourself still, waiting for Zoro to make the next move. And he does, eventually, sighing as he turns back around to drop the piece of cloth into your palm.

You reach forward as he turns to his side, offering up his arm as you slowly start to wipe away at the bits of dried blood caking his skin to reveal the raw, red gash, the angry, raised flesh around it. You lean forward, blowing slightly as you daub at the wound, making your way down his bicep till the entire cut’s been coated in iodine.

“There. All done.”

You lean back to toss the cloth into the sink but Zoro stops you. He catches your wrist in his good hand and with a slight tug, has you toppling forward towards his chest.

“Turn around.”

His voice is soft, but firm. And it leaves no room for protests as you stare at him for a long moment before sighing and resigning yourself to your fate. You turn to show him your back.

A disgruntled huff is all you get before you hear the distinct sounds of Zoro rummaging around the first aide kit for a fresh piece of cloth, and the pop of the iodine bottle opening again.

“Who did this?” he asks as he slowly reaches out to tug a thin spike from your skin, small as a needle and just as sharp. You bite back a wince.

“The porcupine guy…” your voice trails off as Zoro grunts.

“Right.”

He tugs out another spike; it tinks against the metal of the sink as he tosses it away. A brief sting, and then the cooling feeling of the iodine cloth.

After a few minutes of working in silence, Zoro sighs.

“Geez, he really got you bad, didn’t he?”

“Not really,” you say, and you feel Zoro’s hands pause.

“No?”

You shake your head, “I’ve… been through much worse… and lived to tell the tale so…”

Zoro doesn’t need to ask to know that you’re talking about your past on the island, inside that windowless compound. He can see it in the scars that mar nearly the entirety of your back, the criss-cross lines of what looks like knife-wounds, the occasional puckered marks that look suspiciously like burns. He steels himself then, and continues to work — plucking out a spike and cleaning out the wound.

“You were right,” he says, when he finally finishes cleaning up your back and you both straighten to face each other. He wipes his hands clean and winces slightly as he flexes his newly bandaged arm.

“Right about what?” your voice is innocent, but the flash in your eyes tells him that you know exactly what he’s talking about.

“That first day — I couldn’t protect you. I couldn’t… make sure that no one ever hurt you again.”

His fingers curl into fists at his sides and you can see the muscle ticking in his jaw as he clenches his teeth.

You reach out, tracing a thumb along his jawline. When you pull back, there’s a small daub of blood on your finger and you wipe it away without breaking his gaze.

“No, you couldn’t but… you tried.”

Zoro scoffs, “Tryin’s not good enough.”

“No,” you jerk up to glare at him, your voice harsh in a way that he’s only ever heard right after they’d rescued you, the edges of your words raw and ragged as a serrated blade, “trying is everything.”

interlude: truth or dare

It gets better after that, and you grow and bloom and grow some more. Zoro does too, though in his own way — he gets stronger, gets faster, hits harder. And though you two never quite agree on anything, he is always by your side, and you’re somehow always by his.

“’M not even a lil drunk —”

“Liar~” you singsong, giggling as Zoro shakes his head, tipping the remains of a bottle of sake back down his throat before wiping at his lips with the back of his hand.

“Mm… ‘s that all I am to you? Just another guy who lies?” Zoro swings lazily on the hammock hung on the main deck, his eyes half-lidded and alight with the dancing firelight.

“Stupid question — drink,” you answer, bringing our own bottle up to your lips.

Zoro laughs, quiet and pleased as he reaches for a new bottle.

“Alright then — truth or dare?” he asks, uncorking the new bottle and reaching out to offer you some. You bat him away, your movements languid and heavy, your back pressed against a heavy wooden barrel, one leg propped up to support your arm, the other stretched out long and lithe in front of you.

“Truth,” you say, your voice easy, your smile even more so.

“Alright then — do you trust me?” Zoro’s voice dips, and your eyes flash up. There’s a sobering light somewhere behind the alcohol soaked haze clouding his gaze and you can tell by the steadiness of his hands that he’s not nearly as drunk as he might seem.

“What do you mean?” you ask, casually evading the question.

Zoro tuts, “’S not an answer.”

“I’m asking for a clarification.”

Zoro shakes his head, taking another soft swig, “Simple question — do you trust me?”

You purse your lips, mulling over the myriad answers you could provide and make it sound like the truth. But that’s not really how the game goes. So instead, you take a deep breath.

“I — I want to,” and it’s the way your voice breaks that makes it honest, the way you can’t hold the truth in by the seams of your careful cadence, no matter how hard you try to smooth out the ragged edges.

“So… that’s a no,” Zoro says, keeping his tone even. You can’t help reaching for him — imploring.

“Not yet but —”

“Why?”

“Why… what?”

“I guess…” Zoro leans back, casting his eyes up at the wild, dark sky, careening above the ship in an ecstatic spread of stars and, long sinuous, moon-silvered clouds, “why d’you want to trust me? Doesn’t seem like something you’d be eager to do after… y’know, everything.”

You lick your lips and stare into the empty bottom of your glass.

“Honestly?” you say, “because you’re kind of a shit liar —”

Zoro lets out a soft, rumbling laugh, but doesn’t deny it.

“But… also because you’re the only person I’ve met who… who treats words so carefully — I mean…” you swallow, leaning forward slightly as Zoro drops his gaze back down to you, “it’s like — my whole life has just been people saying things they don’t really mean, and never meaning what they say, and then trying to figure out what’s really happening — trying to say the right thing, not the thing you mean but the thing you think they’d want to hear —” your breath quickens, “and — and if you don’t or if you’re bad at it, then bad things happen to you and the people you care about —”

“Hey.”

A hand presses down on your shoulder and you gasp, your breath knifing through your chest as you clasp your shaking hands to your sternum.

“Breathe. You’re okay.”

You nod, unable to say anything as Zoro sits in front of you, his hand like an anchor in a summer storm, keeping you tethered.

You breathe and take stock of your limbs — feet, legs, hands, arms. It’s then that you realize Zoro’s crouching in front of you, your drink glass resting by his side.

“Thanks,” you say, nodding as he gives your shoulder a slight squeeze before pulling away. Physical touch has never been one of your strong points, and it seems Zoro’s learned that without you ever having to tell him.

It’s strange — the sudden knowledge that somehow, his understanding of you has been wordless and implicit. Complete, from nearly the day the Straw Hats had picked you up on that island. You’d never had to explain, never had to draw your boundaries.

And yet somehow, he knew. As if he’d always just known.

“Truth or dare?” you ask him, your voice barely a whisper, shifting to make more space for him on the dark deck of the ship’s forecastle. Zoro sits down in front of you, crossing his legs.

“Dare.”

You don’t fight the grin as it lifts the side of your lips.

The quiet pulses between the pair of you like a heartbeat.

“Tell me a secret.”

“Gotta be more specific,” Zoro’s grin lilts to mirror your own.

“Any secret,” you say, “something you… something you wouldn’t otherwise say out loud.”

“Isn’t that what a secret’s supposed to be? Something you don’t say?”

You laugh, tasting the sound like a mouthful of champagne, bubbling up through you and spiraling towards the endless summer’s night.

“Quit stalling!”

“Think I wanna kiss you.”

A gasp slices through the air between you. You feel the weight of it in your throat, the white-hot flicker of his gaze as he glances down at your lips. You wet them without thinking, and as Zoro lean’s in, you can sense the night around you slowly coalescing into something warm, something solid. Like a marble clutched in a child’s palm, or a pearl held on an oyster’s velvet tongue.

“Truth or dare?” he asks.

He stops just short of your lips, his nose almost grazing yours. You can nearly taste the sweet sake on his breath —

“Dare.”

“Close your eyes.”

Your lashes flutter and for a second, an eternity revolves in the space between your heartbeats. Faintly, you register the gentle rocking of the ship as an indolent wave catches her starboard side.

You close your eyes.

For a second, there is space. For a second, there is breath. For a second, there is gravity. And then — all of that disappears. All of it eclipsed by the kiss. And then, the kiss is all there is.

All there was, and ever will be.

There’s a graze of fingers against skin, the bump of legs against legs against thighs against knees — there’s knuckles and noses and hair falling, hair being tugged into closing fists. There’s the clink-clink-clink of earrings, and the clatter-clap-clat of swords and hilts and rough, wooden planks.

There’s the dull thunk and baseline rumble of a glass being knocked over and rolling away.

But all of that is afterthought. All of that is supplement, a postscript, marginalia and footnotes.

Because there, then — there is only the kiss, and nothing but the kiss: a catastrophe of inevitability, smooth as a secret, and whisper-sweet.

When the pair of you pull away, there’s a chaos of wings against your ribcage.

There’s the honeyed, lambent light in Zoro’s eyes as he grins down at you.

“Truth — or dare,” a breathless gasp punctuates your words.

Zoro’s grin only grows as he tips your chin back between his thumb and forefinger.

“Dare.”

It’s only then that you realize his cheeks are wine-flushed, his chest rising and falling nearly as fast as yours. You swallow slow and track his eyes as he watches the pale bob of your throat.

“Kiss me again.”

act iii: fool’s gold

It takes all of three hours for Sanji to get something out of Zoro, and three days before Robin and Nami manage to wheedle something out of you.

“No seriously! Things have been different since that one party we had —” Nami presses her palm to the kitchen table, here eyes wide. Robin sits on the couch, her expression one of mixed amusement and near academic interest.

“Different how?” you reach into the cookie jar and fish out a crumbled corner of what used to be a double chocolate chip cookie.

“Ugh! You know what I mean!” Nami turns to Robin, motioning towards you, “Help me here!”

Robin laughs, tossing up a graceful hand, “I suppose something does seem… changed.”

“Something?” you ask, licking at a smudge of chocolate on your thumb.

“Well…” Robin says, drawing out the syllable and making to examine the nails on her long, thin fingers, “it’s definitely not nothing.”

You allow yourself a smile, “Something’s definitely not nothing.”

Nami lets out a frustrated groan, but she’s smiling too.

It’s been long enough that you’d learned to relax around them, and you’d since also learned that nothing is so sacred as the sanctity of sisterhood. That bonds between friends might be forged in fire and brimstone, but bonds between women are forged in cinder and smoke — in the wreckage of after, when the fighting’s been done and all that’s left is the mending.

“What’s all this giggling about?” Zoro ducks into the half-ajar door, staring at the three of you.

Nami cocks an eyebrow; Robin shrugs.

You, for your part, smile and bat your lashes.

“Oh nothing,” you say.

“Just girl-talk,” offers Nami.

“Nothing to interest a legendary swordsman like yourself,” Robin polishes off.

Zoro’s eyes narrow, his gaze jumping between the three of you before it lands on you and he scoffs.

“Yeah, whatever. We’re docking soon.”

And that’s all he offers before sauntering back out of the room, leaving the door swinging behind him, but not before you catch sight of the redness at the tips of his ears as he hurries away.

You give it a beat of three seconds before pushing to your feet and following after, humming to yourself. Behind you, Nami and Robin share a knowing look.

“Definitely not nothing,” Robin says as she stands to follow you.

The island, if it can even be called that, is nothing more than a rough conglomeration of steep cliffs strapped together by a thin band of land barely wide enough to be categorized as a beach.

“Well! This is something!” Luffy declares, his arms akimbo on his hips as he stares at the island.

“Yeah… it’s uh… something for sure,” Usopp agrees, making a face as he squints at the cluster of rocks that look more like the jagged edges of a broken bottle than any kind of proper land formation.

“We’ll just anchor here for the night… get some good rest, and then...” Sanji’s words trail off, interrupted by a ghostly wail that rises from the gathering of dark cliffs, turning them into an echo chamber until it seems to rumble through the sand beneath them.

“… gold, all gold! — no, not a liar — please!”

A shiver etches itself up your spine and instinctively, you wrap your arms around yourself.

Zoro steps out in front of you, as if to shield you from whatever might come. His thumb presses against the hilt of his swords, his shoulders tense as corded wire.

“Uh… everyone else heard that too, right?” Chopper asks, peaking out from around Robin’s legs.

“Yep. Definitely not just you,” Sanji confirms.

Luffy grins, “Seems like there’s someone else on this island! Maybe they can show us around!”

Time passes by strangely on the island — one minute, the sun is still hanging low on the far horizon, and the next, the sky is the color of a bullet wound, darkness seeping in around the horizon.

“Whoever’s here on the island — they sure aren’t making it — easy —” Sanji grunts as he hoists himself up a slippery piece of rock face, sweat glistening on his forehead as he squints into the looming blackness.

“Luffy? You sure you know where we’re going?” Nami shouts, her voice ringing back in a way that makes everyone wince and cover their ears.

Zoro grabs your elbow a second before you slip, fingers digging into your flesh even as you steady yourself against him.

“Sorry — thanks,” you say, unsure of which one you really mean.

“Yeah! I can smell something — like a campfire! And… cooking!” Luffy’s voice calls back from somewhere in the gathering dark. Everyone shares a glance before bracing themselves and trudging on.

By the time you all catch up to Luffy, no one is certain of what time it is, only that it’s dark. But the kind of darkness that seems to cling to the skin — a darkness so dense it starts to take on shape and weight.

It presses in around you and you feel your breaths shortening in your chest.

Beside you, Zoro reaches out to brace a hand at the small of your back.

“Oh! I see a light ahead! C’mon!” Luffy’s voice rings out from somewhere up ahead, followed by the patter of sandals on stone. The rest of you follow, and then all too suddenly, light flickers to life in what seems to be a huge, subterranean cave deep within the cliffs of the island. It casts stark shadows against the slick, cavernous walls.

You frown, goosebumps rising along your arms and legs.

But before you have time to dwell on the wrongness of something there, Luffy’s voice snags your attention like a thread on an errant splinter.

“Hi! Oh, wow — that looks delicious!”

You turn a corner to find Luffy hunkering down over a blazing campfire and the silhouette of someone sitting opposite him, a sharp spike held out in front of them, turning slowly over the flickering flames.

“Oh… please… come join me — sit and listen to a story — I have so many stories — so many adventures to share!” the figure across the fire seems to quiver with the dancing flames, his voice filling up the whole of the cave, loud and boisterous and eager. But strange and hollow too.

You frown, chewing on the insides of your cheeks.

Ahead of you, Usopp and Chopper both take tentative seats next to Luffy, who had cheerfully plopped down next to the fire.

“Wow, this looks great! Are you here by yourself? I’m here with my crew! Are you a pirate too?” Luffy asks, his endless enthusiasm pouring from him like a spring.

Robin, Nami, and Sanji all hold back, but you take a step forward, and then another. Something compelling you towards the voice, pulling you closer. There’s a desperation, a loneliness with which you’re all too familiar — you inch closer, and then closer, till you’re almost level with Luffy, and you lower yourself to the ground next to him, Zoro dropping down beside you, his knee pressing against your leg in a silent reassurance.

“Come… come closer! It’s a good story — I promise!”

“Truth,” you mutter, just beneath your breath. Beside you, Zoro lets out a puff of breath, though his stance doesn’t loosen.

Behind you, you can hear the distinct sounds of the rest of the crew drawing just a step closer.

“Once upon a time… there was a city on an island where everything, and I mean everything was made of gold!”

The figure across the fire sounds cheered, elated even. Behind you, you feel Nami take half a step closer. Cold seeps into your veins despite the warm, dancing flames, and your fingers dig into the hard packed earth beneath you.

“I found it — I did! With my crew — the best sailors and seamen around! But the king… he was greedy! And he wanted his own men to take the treasures, so he forced me to lead them to the city again —”

“Truth,” you say again, but something in the tone of the figure’s voice makes you frown.

“Except… the city had gone… and there was nothing left… nothing but lies!”

You shudder back, swallowing hard. All around you, the darkness presses in with long, thin tendrils like so many loving fingers. The fire flares up, casting sparks up towards the cave’s ceiling, where stalagmites hang like broken teeth in a petrified monster’s maw.

“Oh… don’t be scared… come back — I won’t hurt you —”

“Liar!” you spit, the word scraping its way out of your throat.

Zoro leaps to his feet just as Luffy does the same. The fire flares again, a second before snuffing itself out, but in that second, you finally catch sight of the figure, hooded in shadow, sitting across from you — it has the shape of a man, tall and broad, but the limbs of a spindle-legged monster. It wears the darkness like a cloak, with beady, red eyes and a too-wide mouth.

“Don’t! Call me a liar! That’s what they called me — that’s what they called when they killed me! KILLED ME FOR TELLING THE TRUTH!”

You scramble back, Zoro nearly lifting you off the ground in his haste to pull you away. Luffy whips back his arm and swings it forward but all it catches is tendrils of shadow.

“Hey! That’s not nice!” he shakes off his fist, frowning as he stares at the bits of wriggling darkness still clinging to his skin.

“Run!” you shout as everyone bolts for the lightless path you all took to get to the heart of the cave.

“NOT A LIAR! NOT A LIAR! I FOUND IT! THE CITY! BELIEVE ME! BELIEVE ME!”

You clap your hands around your ears and race for what you hope is the exit. Behind you, you can hear the distinct sounds of Zoro’s blades whistling through the air*.*

“Damnit! How’dyou fight a shadow? There’s nothin’ to hit!”

“Quit tryna hit it and just run!” Sanji’s voice answers a second before he breezes passed you.

“Why don’t you believe me? Why?!”

“We — I believe you!” you shout, your chest a thundering mess of footfalls and scrambling bodies, and against all instinct, you turn around to face the darkness again, cupping your hands around your mouth, “I believe you! I know — I know you’re telling the truth!”

“What’re you doing?” Zoro asks, leveling himself by your side, his arm pressing against yours. Behind you, the thinnest sliver of light is creeping into the cave from what you assume is the entrance.

Morning. Has it really been that long?

Time is the greatest liar, you remember, suddenly, violently, the thought tearing through you like teeth.

“I — he’s telling the truth,” you say through gritted teeth, even as you take a few steps back. Inside the cave, the figure seems to shrink back from the encroaching light.

“What truth?” Zoro asks, his blade held aloft, his stance wide and ready.

“All of it,” you say, forcing your voice to be gentle, turning your face back towards the darkness, “I know, I can hear it — I know you’re telling the truth — about the island, the city — all of it!”

“Yes… all I wanted was to get back to the city… but… no one believe me… and I died… I died for it!”

“I know, and I’m sorry… no one should be punished for telling the truth —” your voice cracks.

“I tried!”

“I know…” you say as the figure shrinks and shrinks and shrinks and the light behind you grows and grows and grows, until you can feel the warm seeping into the skin of your back.

“And trying is everything,” you say, biting your lip as Zoro wraps an arm around your waist.

“Come with me… I’ll take you to the city — we can go together!”

You shake your head, heat prickling at your eyes as you turn away from the darkness of the cave and towards the light of the oncoming day.

“Liar…” the word falls from you like a rock, or a tear, cast off the cliff that greets you and Zoro as you both stare over the edge. The rest of the crew is nowhere to be found, but Zoro’s arm is still around your waist, and you can feel his warm breath by your cheek.

“Hey — do you trust me?”

You look up; in the dawning, morning light, Zoro, with his sun-kissed skin and dark moss hair appears to be limned in gold.

And maybe it’s the air, or the sea, or simply the angry pieces of this jagged, left-behind island of shadows like broken teeth trying to tear apart the sky, conducting his voice into a cacophony of echoes that sing and scream through the crags and eves of the valley beneath — but the whole island seems to reverberate with the question —

Do you trust me?

You close your eyes and breath. When you open them again, your heartbeat is steady. And when you speak, the rising sun streaks the tips of the saw-toothed peaks in strokes of molten gold. The valleys beneath you conduct your answer into an entire single-syllabled symphony —

Yes.

You feel his arm tighten around your waist, the wind as it tangles soft fingers in your hair. All around you, everything is light, and light, and light.

“Jump!”

You close your eyes, and jump.

-----

footnotes/appendix

uso-uso no mi translates to "lie-lie fruit"; i made it up bc it would be too op to have in the actual animanga i think

the "acts" refer to a classical 3-act structure that most movies/plays/scripts are written in: setup, confrontation, and resolution... with a smattering of other things sprinkled in for ~vibes~

in much of classical japanese and chinese mythology, foxes are associated with trickers and lies, often turning into beautiful women to deceive men, luring them into forests and mountains before taking their lives

the "figure" in the last scene is... can you guess? noland! kudos to anyone who figured it out as they were reading *\ (>o<) /*

did i absolutely take the "do you trust me" line from disney's aladdin??? HELL YEAH i did !!!! tru trust is my kink u__u

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maplesyrupsainz · 9 months

Text

˖⁺｡˚⋆˙lover | DR3˖⁺｡˚⋆˙

pairing: daniel ricciardo x reader y/n (she/her)

genre: social media au, established relationship

warnings: extreme fluff i fear LOL

summary: in which you and your boyfriend are each other's "lover"

a/n: i made a kind of more angsty dr fic with a pregnancy announcement (HERE) so this is baso a way more fluffier version!! based on taylor's song lover🩷 hope it's not trashhh & also not sure if it's obvious that it all takes place over a period of time

request!!!: danny ric x female reader anouncing shes pregnant maybe idk and theyre so in love idk

fc: various brunette girls from pinterest

my masterlist

instagram ->

yourusername

liked by danielricciardo, yourbff, and 432,784 others

yourusername we could leave the christmas lights up till january 🎄

tagged: danielricciardo

view all 5,887 comments

user1 AWWWW the lover lyrics😭

user2 THIS OUR PLACE WE MAKE THE RULES 🥺👏

yourbff this is sickly sweet

yourusername just living my truth😊😊

yourbff im not jealous at all

danielricciardo i love you my sweet girl!!

yourusername i love youuu best christmas everrr

danielricciardo here's to many more 😝

user3 make them stopp🥺🥺🥺

user4 this is our placeee we make the ruuules

user5 there's a dazzling haze 🥰 a mysterious way about u dear 😍

user6 she rly said..... have i known u 20 seconds or 20 years?

danielricciardo

liked by yourusername, landonorris, and 812,203 others

danielricciardo can i go where you go?

tagged: yourusername

view all 9,012 comments

user7 no way😭😭😭

user8 CAN WE ALWAYS BE THIS CLOSE

user9 FOREVER AND EVER

yourusername my lover 🫶🫶🫶 forever and ever

danielricciardo you are beautiful

user10 she looks so beautiful

user11 what are they doing to us😭😭😭

yourbff never felt so lonely at the holidays as i do right now

danielricciardo my bad

user12 she's just like us😭😭

user13 next thing u know they'll be letting their friends crash in the living room coz this is their place they make the call

user14 dont give them any ideas

user15 ENOUGH!!

yourusername

liked by maxverstappen1, danielricciardo, and 389,998 others

yourusername everyone who sees u wants u

tagged: danielricciardo

view all 4,891 comments

user16 are you highly suspicious y/n

liked by yourusername

user17 THE TEDDIES

user18 tbh they prob do want him

user19 yup. i do

danielricciardo i only want you

yourusername & you have me

danielricciardo good

maxverstappen1 staging an intervention for you both to stop being so in love on the tl

yourusername you're just jealous because you're in love with my boyfriend & you cant have him

maxverstappen1 keep your voice down y/n.

yourusername everyone knows max. sorry

danielricciardo 🤔

user20 MAXIEL

user21 maxiel crumbs.. world peace is restored

danielricciardo

liked by maxverstappen1, yourusername, and 781,572 others

danielricciardo loved u three summers now, but i want them all ☀️

tagged: yourusername

view all 11,682 comments

user22 🥹🥹🥹🥹

user23 can 😭 i 😭 go 😭 where 😭 u 😭 go 😭

user24 can 😭 we 😭 always 😭 be 😭 this 😭 close 😭

yourusername there will never be another summer where u dont have me!!

danielricciardo ❤️ forever & ever

user25 why r they sooo cute

user26 ladies & gentlemen will u please stand 😝 with every guitar string scar on my hand 🖐️

user27 i take this magnetic force of a mannnn

yourbff not more

maxverstappen1 i know it is getting ridiculous now

landonorris let's break them up 😊

yourbff good idea

danielricciardo you guys are awful and mean

yourusername 😮

landonorris my bad

user28 LOL

yourusername

liked by maxverstappen1, yourbff, and 881,724 others

yourusername all's well that ends well to end up with you 🥹💍💍💍

tagged: danielricciardo

view all 18,023 comments

yourbff my babies🥹🥹🥹

landonorris you switched up rq...

maxverstappen1 🤨🤨🤨

yourusername shush every1

danielricciardo my wifeeee

yourusername lucky lucky me

user29 my heart's been borrowed and urs has been blue 💙

user30 my favs finally engaged omgg😭😭

charles_leclerc congratulations 🥂

liked by yourusername, danielricciardo

lewishamilton congratulations guys ❤️

liked by yourusername, danielricciardo

danielricciardo

liked by yourusername, landonorris, and 987,802 others

danielricciardo at every table i'll save you a seat

tagged: yourusername

view all 23,892 comments

user31 loverrrr🥺

yourusername i love you omg omg omg

danielricciardo i love you forever and ever

user32 god this is sick & twisted !!!

yourbff some of us are single. jk congratulations u beautiful people im so blessed to have been apart of ur day 🥹

yourusername love u more than words

maxverstappen1 congratulations 💍

liked by danielricciardo, yourusername

landonorris congratulations guys thanks for inviting me 🍾

liked by danielricciardo, yourusername

pierregasly such a beautiful couple, congratulations again

liked by danielricciardo, yourusername

user33 ugh their love is just so beautiful

yourusername

liked by danielricciardo, yourbff, and 789,973 others

yourusername couldn't really hide it any longer could we🤰

tagged: danielricciardo

view all 12,902 comments

user34 NO WAYYY

danielricciardo i am so so blessed and lucky

yourusername no mee

user35 OMGGG congrats to everyone's fav f1 couple

yourbff congratulations u gorgeous girl cant wait to meet baby!! 👶

yourusername you & me both 🥹

landonorris can i babysit

danielricciardo probably not safe

yourusername how is a baby going to babysit

landonorris age shamers. im 24!!

yourusername then act like it maybe 🥰

maxverstappen1 so happy for you both!

liked by yourusername, danielricciardo

danielricciardo

liked by landonorris, lilymhe, and 912,673 others

danielricciardo could we always be this close? our life since baby was born. sorry for being so silent 🥰

view all 17,921 comments

user36 omg never apologise for that congratulations to you both

yourbff congratulations again to the most beautiful family in the world

danielricciardo we love you!

user37 omg look at them😭😭

user38 we've come so far

maxverstappen1 you guys really won at life

danielricciardo 😘 means a lot coming from you

user39 my maxiel heart

yourusername my lover ❤️

danielricciardo forever & ever ❤️

THE END 🤍

#f1 #f1 fanfic #f1 smau #f1 fic #f1 imagine #f1 x reader #smau #daniel ricciardo #dr3 #dr3 x reader #dr3 imagine #dr3 fluff #maddie's smau

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hiddenhearthwitch · 7 months

Text

📚 Small Intro To Polytheism📚

One of the most frequent asks I receive is how and where to get started when it comes to polytheism. This is a fairly broad subject and I’ll try to be as general as I can for advice but I will include specific references for Norse polytheists as that’s my shit. This information can be used to help you find a pantheon or to help you pick deities to work with it. If you’d like to use it to pick a patron deity that’s super, if you want to worship 20 gods and not have a patron deity that’s cool too. You do you dude. Please keep in mind this is all reflective of my research and personal practice. 🌻

Picking A Pantheon/Deity

This really boils down to personal preference. You’ll read a lot of posts and books that tell you many different ways and it’s entirely up to you because it is your practice. That being said, there’s a couple of different ways to go about it.

Research! This is one of my favorite ways to delve in. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with reading the stories of multiple pantheons and picking on that calls to you. You can also talk to other devotees and see what they have to say about deities and their religions. It is important to keep in mind that some religions are closed so please do proper research!

For example, I wasn’t originally a Norse pagan. I read some stories and thought the Hellenic pantheon would best suit me. I reached out to Eros for a while but after feeling no real connection to the pantheon I continued my research! After reading up on the Norse pantheon I decided to reach out to them out. Obviously, I fucking loved it because here I am. Point being, you can pick a pantheon based on research and not some divine message or whatever. You are also more than welcome to try out a religion, decide it doesn’t suit you, and move on.

Divination! You can use runes, a pendulum, tarot, etc.This can go a few different ways. You can write pantheon/deity names on separate pieces of paper, mix them up, and place them face down then ask the pendulum to pick. You can assign a deity/pantheon to each suit of cards or major arcana card or even do the same thing with runes.

For example, this is how I found a devotion to Frigg and Hel. I asked if there were any deities who were interested in working with me and pulled the runes Hagalaz and Berkana which read as Hel and Frigg to me. I followed up with tarot cards and pulled Death(Hel) plus the Queen of Pentacles(Frigg).

Asking/waiting for a sign. This isn’t something I’ve personally done so I don’t have much to say on the subject. You can go about meditating, praying, doing a ritual, or whatever and essentially wait for a sign after. It can come via a dream, something you experience, symbols you see in your daily life, it’s pretty much up to your intuition to decipher it. If anyone has information they’d like me to add in here please let me know!

If there’s a god you’re curious about and don’t want to do any of the above it’s totally cool to just reach out and ask if they want to work with you.

Idk How To Research

Same, tbh my keyword search game is weak. Anyways, good portion of us are looking up dead religions with little reliable resources. To give those curious about the Norse an easy head start here’s a compiled list of books by yours truly(click me!!) . It’s important to take everything with a grain a salt of salt when doing research. In my experience a lot of the retold Norse sagas have been Christianized or written under heavy Wiccan influences. It’s a good idea to do research on the author before reading one of their books.

Other blogs! There are tons of great witches and pagans on tumblr that have information waiting for you. 💗 You can search their blog/tags for good references for books, websites, podcasts, etc. Plus lots of blogs are open to answer asks. If you don’t know where to start for searching it’s best to try things based around your interest like: “norse polytheist”, “hellenic witch”, “gaelic polytheism”, etc.

Media! How lucky are we that we live in the age of technology? Knowledge is right at our fingertips! There are countless documentaries, podcasts, and audiobooks on youtube full of information for different cultures and religions. I’d personally recommend almost anything by BBC, Myths & Legends, and World Mythology!

Books! I love starting on goodreads to find good books and trust worthy authors. They’ve had almost every book I looked up with bunches of different reviews so you can get varying perspectives. Check out your local library as well! A lot of city libraries have online databases now of all of their books so you can “check it out” online and read the PDF(personal fave).

Feeling Lost Still?

That’s completely reasonable and your feelings are more than valid. It can be overwhelming and lot of information to soak up. Just do your best and take it at your own pace, there’s no rush to find a deity or pantheon. 💞 Below are a few other general concerns I hear a lot that I was hoping to address.

“I’m leaving a monotheistic(Christian, Catholic, Jewish, etc) religion and it’s giving me anxiety.” This is entirely common and almost expected in my opinion. I was raised Roman Catholic and my first year to two looking into polytheism riddled me with anxiety. I was constantly concerned that god would smite me down or I’d face an eternity in hell for worshiping false gods. While I can’t speak for everyone that fear was entirely erased for me when I found my gods. I’ve never felt so safe and strong and hopefully with time you can find the same in your gods!

It’s okay to want to learn more or to seek something more. I can’t tell you how to handle your anxiety but please know you’re not alone in that fear. There’s whole communities out there willing to support you and help you find your safe space(including me)!

“What’s UPG?” You’ll see a lot of posts, mine included, that mention UPG - UPG is Unverified Personal Gnosis. This is essentially someone’s personal thoughts and beliefs about a deity. For example, I associate Sif with hazelnuts. There’s nothing in the lore or any book that says that she likes hazelnuts; that’s just a personal opinion(aka a UPG).

“How do I reach out to the gods?” I have a lot of information on my blog about this topic although a lot of it is Norse specific. You can check out my beginner polytheist tag here and my beginner norse post/ask here.

Altar! This is my go to typically. Altars aren’t limited to the cookie cutter image that comes to mind(no hate though I have a few); one thing you can make a side blog dedicated to your pantheon/deity, make a small one in a tin can, or even make one in a video game like Minecraft or some shit. You can be as creative or as to the book as you want. It’s up to you.

Prayer! You can totally just sit down and be like, “Hey man wanna work on some shit together?”. While I’m not 100% that all gods would be down with you being that casual it’s still something you can try.😂 You can reach out to them by sitting down in a quiet space and meditating into prayer, praying in the car or in the shower, or just pray at the altar you set up if you did. Again, I can not reiterate this enough, it’s your practice, reach out to them as you please.

Do something personal! This is more like devotional work in my opinion. Let’s say you knit and you want to reach out to a creative or domestic deity, you can knit something as a devotional act to them and as a way to reach out. For example I pick up litter in honor of the Vanir and Jörð, or I play Skyrim for Thor and Týr.

Most importantly just be honest and up front with the god that you’re reaching out too. Considering that statement be honest with yourself as well. There’s no point going into a relationship with a god if you can’t be upfront, it’ll end up in nothing but grief.

“Can deities reach out through gods/signs?” They totally can. However, it is up to you and your intuition if a deity has and it’s not likely another witch will decipher that for you. Sounds, experiences, images, all have different meanings to each of us - they may show you something that’s very personal to you but would be mundane to someone else. Trust your instincts. However, please remember that not everything is magical, sometimes a raven is just a raven and not Odin.

✨Take everything you learn with a grain of salt. Including this post.✨

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#my posts #witchblr #beginner witch #witch community #pagan tips #norse paganism #norse pagan #beginner pagan #paganism #heathenry #witch tips

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littlejuicebox · 7 months

Text

The other kind of kink.

Written as a giveaway prize for @chaoticgoodstuff! Hope you enjoy the final version posted here! <3

Pairing: Spawn Astarion x Female Tav

Summary: Astarion didn't quite know how to form a relationship with Tav after she rejected him at the tiefling party. But he begins to realize that perhaps he has other expertise that may be of use to the woman. Namely, curly hair care.

Word Count: 4K

Tags/Warnings: fluff, sweet astarion, brief mentions of astarion's trauma/past, lightly ooc astarion, idk what else it's mostly fluff tbh lol

-----

“So which path do you think we should take, soldier? Underdark or Mountain Pass? Either way, I’m ready to slash some baddies!” Karlach says, swinging her ax for show as the two warrior women chat while Gale finishes cooking dinner.

It would be at least another hour and the women were starving.

“Hmm…” Tav murmurs, looking up at her tiefling friend from where she had been sharpening her great sword. It certainly needed a bit of attention, after slashing through so many goblins a few days ago, “I haven’t decided yet, any suggestions?”

Karlach shrugs and shakes her head before turning to look at Astarion, where he is perched on a log, filing his nails, not more than a few feet away, “Oi! What do you reckon, Fangs? Underdark or Mountain Pass?”

The silver-haired elf glances up from his task momentarily, assessing Tav and Karlach, scarlet eyes narrowed in thought, “Both sound equally atrocious. But if the great Archdruid Halsin said the Underdark is the safer route – which I find impossible to believe – then, I suppose that is my vote. Work smarter, not harder and all that.”

Tav nods, considering the rogue’s suggestion, and with a final rub of whetstone on metal, sheaths her great sword as she says, “Astarion’s right. Underdark, it is.”

“Well of course I’m right, darling! Aren’t I always?” Astarion responds with a pleased little chuckle as he tucks away his nail file.

Inside, his confidence glows at the small bit of validation from their camp leader. He’d felt as if her view of him may have changed after the very awkward encounter they’d had at the tiefling party a few days ago, when he’d drunkenly propositioned her and she’d adamantly refused. He’d thought their relationship – could he call it friendship? – all but ruined after that blunder. Apparently he’d somehow misread the signs, and she wasn’t looking for sex like every other individual he’d ever known.

Astarion had considered their prior interactions dancing on the border of flirtatious, but Tav indicated she preferred to focus on their cause, not on intermingling with her campmates. He thought Tav a bit odd after that interaction, and admittedly felt a bit insulted in the moment. He was gorgeous, why wouldn’t she jump at the opportunity he dangled in front of her?

But, in the soberness of the following morning, Astarion decided he could work within her parameters; he’d just have to find another way to secure her favoritism. In fact, in some ways he was thankful she rejected him.

“Yeah, yeah, you’re a genius,” Tav responds with a laugh, rolling her eyes at the rogue as she stands and stretches, “Well, I’m off to clean up before dinner, if either of you care to join?”

Karlach waves her hand dismissively, “Nah! I’ll do that after dinner. But can I borrow your whetstone for my ax?”

Tav nods at the tiefling, watching as Karlach grabs the stone and walks off toward her tent, ax in hand, before turning to address her other campmate, “And what about you, Astarion?”

The silver-haired elf shrugs and nods; at this point he’s taking any opportunity he can to spend time with Tav. The more he’s with her and gets to know her, the closer she will get to him, and the more secure he will feel.

Or at least, that’s his only Plan B. Since Plan A went up in flames.

He crouches to gather his bathing supplies from his pack before coming closer to the warrior woman currently waiting for him, “I suppose I could do with a bit of a bath. It isn’t hair wash day, but–”

“It isn’t hair wash day?” Tav interjects, her eyebrows furrowing at the vampire, “You don’t wash your hair every day? Isn’t that… gross?”

The rogue pauses and blinks at the woman, tilting his head just a fraction as he assesses her, “Darling, please tell me you are not washing your hair every day. I understand on the days we are soaked in blood and guts it is a necessity… but, certainly you haven’t washed your hair every single day for the past three days when we have done nothing apart from lounge in camp and prepare to move onto the next part of our journey… right?”

Tav cocks her head to the side, mirroring Astarion’s bewildered expression as she asks, “Should I… not be?”

That explains quite a bit, Astarion thinks, as his eyes roam over the unruly curls springing from the crown of Tav’s head. He’d thought it was perhaps an odd stylistic choice, or she simply did not care about the state of her hair, but maybe it was merely ignorance. Perhaps no one ever showed her how to care for the red, curly locks cascading like a lion’s mane around her face.

A small wave of sympathy crosses Astarion’s heart; he internally smashes it down before the wave grows into a tsunami. Best to not care too much about this woman, she could turn into a mindflayer at any moment, after all. And then he’d have to slice her to ribbons, as previously agreed upon.

“Ah.. well, darling. It isn’t wrong, exactly,” He starts, his eyes shifting away from Tav’s face as he tries to delicately address the matter, “It’s just… with a hair texture like yours, you aren’t doing yourself any favors.”

Tav simply blinks in response, her expression vacant; she is not understanding Astarion’s meaning.

The rogue sighs and shakes his head slightly. Well, he at least tried to be delicate, but that did not seem to sink in. More direct, it is.

A vague gesture to his friend’s red curls and then Astarion explains, “Your hair is dry, Tav. That is why it is difficult to maintain and why you’ve broken more than one comb trying to drag it through that unruly mane.”

A flicker of embarrassment crosses Tav’s face and the rogue groans. He doesn’t know how to navigate feelings and friendships; his relationships with his siblings had been much less work… not that he particularly enjoyed those relationships or cared if the other spawn liked him. But he wanted Tav to like him, if only for his own motives, of course.

“It’s really… not all that bad, darling. But perhaps I could help you, give you a few pointers? I think your hair could be quite gorgeous – your best feature, even, given the proper care. It’s rare to see a natural redhead like you, it already captures a lot of attention… let’s make it something awe-inspiring.” Astarion says, gently, his hand coming out to tug at one frizzy curl as he tries to smooth over the insult he just threw at his campmate.

But, hells, someone had to tell her eventually. Even his siblings wouldn’t let him walk around with such unruly locks.

“O-oh, sure, okay,” Tav agrees, still trying to overcome the embarrassment as her own hand comes to rake through her hair and gets caught in a nest of tangles, instead. She grimaces; Astarion had a point, it seemed, “Do I need to bring anything special?”

“Let me go back to my tent and grab my hair washing supplies, I’ll meet you down by the river in a bit, hm?” Astarion responds with a small smile before turning back toward his tent and disappearing within the shelter to rummage through his vast collection of shampoos, oils, perfumes, and soaps.

Tav merely hums in agreement and then heads in the opposite direction, toward the camp-designated bathing spot, towel in hand. As she’s walking, she pulls a curl in front of her eyes and examines it with a new perspective. Gods, it really was dry.

When Astarion makes his way to the river, he finds Tav waist-deep in the rushing water, still in her smallclothes and soaping her arms. Her back is turned to him, and the sun is catching her hair in a flattering light. Autumnal colors of red, orange, burgundy, and wine dance around her crown in the form of spiraled locks, and the elf cannot help but admire the natural beauty bestowed upon the woman.

Her hair was a gorgeous tone, reminiscent of the warmth of a fire or a deep, satisfying vintage wine. But it wasn’t just Tav’s hair that was attractive… she really was quite striking. With the woman unaware of his presence, Astarion took a quick moment to admire the rippling muscles in her back and the strong, lithe arms she used to carry her greatsword.

No one with working eyes — or eye, perhaps, — could deny that Tav was attractive. After all, there was a reason Astarion had chosen to proposition her over the others in the first place.

But, sex or not, the woman certainly seemed to favor him, which meant more than once since their journey began, she’d sliced clean through an enemy at his back, and fed him servings of her own blood.

So now, it was his turn to repay her somehow, some way. And if Tav didn’t accept his physical talents, well, then at least she would accept this.

“Hello, darling,” Astarion calls, causing the woman to turn and acknowledge him with a small smile and wave. He quickly places his bathing kit on the river bank and undresses to just his briefs before tentatively placing a foot in the water. It was warm enough to be tolerable, so the rogue shrugged and grabbed his wooden comb and conditioner before sinking into the water and wading toward his campmate.

“Alright, now, get down into the water,” The elf directs as he shakes the small bottle of conditioner in his hands, prepping the contents.

“But I thought you said I’m not supposed to wash my hair every–” Tav begins, eyebrows furrowed in confusion as she eyes the bottle, before the displeased glare from Astarion causes the question to die on her lips.

“Do you want my help, or do you want to continue to look like a sheep desperately in need of shearing, darling?” Astarion asks with a soft sigh as he pops the top of the bottle open and gives it a whiff, “Just bend down and trust me. Oh and here, hold these for a moment.”

Tav grabs the comb and bottle she’s offered and then does what she’s asked. When she’s shoulder-deep in the water, she feels Astarion’s hand guiding her to tip her head back. She follows the directive and is soon greeted by the vision of Astarion’s face hovering above hers, scarlet eyes intensely concentrated as he drags his hand through her curls.

“Your hair texture is a bit different from mine…” He muses idly, as he works to fully saturate the thick locks of hair on his companion’s head with water, “But this conditioner should work, for now. We’ll have to find something better suited to you, when the opportunity allows.”

Astarion takes the comb from Tav’s hand without a word and uses the tool and his own fingers to work out some of the ever-present knots in the woman’s hair. She watches him for a moment before closing her eyes and simply allowing Astarion to work at the task. Before long, the elf is gently guiding her head back up, into a straight position, and trading the comb for the bottle.

“Close your eyes,” He directs, and Tav obliges again as the vampire places a generous amount of rosemary-scented conditioner in his hand. Then he gives the bottle back to Tav, rubs his hands together, and begins to work the creamy liquid through her hair, starting at the ends and slowly wandering up toward her scalp. About midway through he’s reaching for the bottle again, “Who knew your hair was this thick? You’re about to use up all of my favorite conditioner, darling.”

Tav frowns slightly at this comment, trying to turn and face Astarion before he quickly redirects her head with a soft click of his tongue, “I’m sorry… I can buy you more when we run into our next merchant.”

“Oh, it’s no matter. I stole this bottle anyway– I’m sure I can steal another along the way,” Astarion says with a slight dismissive flip of his hand, “Besides, I think you need it far more than I do, right now.”

His fingers trail up to the crown of her head as he speaks, and Tav’s eyes flutter closed once again as Astarion begins to massage the product into her roots. He moves in sections, parting her hair every few inches and attentively working the conditioner into her scalp. The sensation was quite enjoyable; if the water were a bit warmer, Tav might have fallen asleep under Astarion’s gentle, methodical touch.

Far too quickly for her liking, Astarion completes the task and gently pats her shoulder to signal he’s done for now. He grabs his comb and what little remains of his favorite hair product from the woman.

“You need to let that sit for a few minutes, at least, little sheep.” Astarion directs before wading back to the river bank and dropping his supplies with the rest of his things. Tav watches as he grabs his own bar of soap and begins to bathe himself.

“How did you learn about all this?” The woman calls to the rogue as she wades through the water, mostly for something to do as she waits.

Astarion hums as he considers the question; there is a pause in the conversation as he drops his bar of soap back along the bank and uses his hand to rinse the soapy remnants along his body. Tav cannot help but follow his fingers as they graze along his chest and arms, dispersing droplets of water that drizzle down the lines of his abs and back into the river.

“I wish I could tell you how I learned, but I can’t recall…” He murmurs, his voice sounding a bit far away as he thinks, “It feels like something ingrained in me like speaking Elvish or the ability to read, for instance; someone must have taught me… I suppose one of my parents, or someone else in my family.”

A small look of sadness flits across Tav’s face but she quickly hides it before her companion notices, knowing that Astarion will balk at anything resembling pity. She often forgets how little memory he has of his past before Cazador, how much he’d endured until now, and how much of himself he’d lost in the process of it all. He was so good at pretending to be normal and happy-go-lucky… but then, they were quite alike in that aspect, weren’t they? It was easier to be the unbothered goofball than to be anything that resembled fragility, wasn’t it?

Tav chooses to not respond to his answer, knowing nothing she says can truly make his situation better, and instead grabs a conditioner-covered curl, “Can I rinse this now?”

Astarion nods as he climbs out of the water and begins gathering his own things, “Yes, go rinse it out – make sure there’s none of that left in your hair, and then come find me back at camp for the next part. I’m going back — it’s growing a bit cold.”

“Next part?” Tav responds with a soft whine, watching as Astarion towels himself off, “There’s more?”

“Darling, if you want your hair to look even close to as good as mine, there is a lot of work involved. Now hurry up, so we can be done before Gale is ready to feed you whatever disastrous concoction he’s made tonight,” Astarion says, his tone a bit joking as he begins slipping into a new set of camp clothes.

The woman groans and obeys the rogue’s directions, turning away as Astarion strips off his undergarments to replace them with new ones, and wading once again toward the deeper water. Tav dunks herself down into the river and begins running her fingers through spirals of hair, massaging out any slippery residue she finds along the way. With the amount of hair she had, it took several minutes, and by the time she was finished, Astarion was already gone. The sun was just beginning to kiss the earth in its descent toward night.

Tav quickly toweled herself off and dressed. Then she wrapped her hair up in the towel, twisting it around her locks in a turban-like fashion before collecting her belongings and making the short journey back to camp.

“There you are, darling,” Astarion calls as he catches sight of Tav, before patting a stump near his tent, “Come over here so I can finish defining your curls.”

Tav furrows her eyebrows in confusion, because she has no idea what Astarion means, but she’s learned to simply shut up and go along with whatever he says for this entire endeavor. As she comes closer, she notices the elf has laid out even more supplies for her hair.

Did it really require all of this?

She sighs and takes a seat. Astarion immediately sets to work, placing a dollop of some sort of creamy pomade-like mixture in his hand and working it through her hair again. After that, he begins sectioning her hair into pieces, directing Tav every once and a while to hold this or that piece as he combs through her locks.

“Ouch–” Tav hisses as the elf seems to be pulling at the base of her scalp. She moves to jerk away and Astarion huffs impatiently behind her, one of his hands coming to press against her forehead and prevent her movements.

“Darling, for gods sakes, hold still.There isn’t beauty without a bit of pain, and honestly, for such a warrior, you’re being a wimp,” he chastises before continuing on with the task.

“What are you doing?” Tav asks through a sharp intake of breath, scrunching her eyes closed as she tries to endure the uncomfortable sensation of her hair being repeatedly tugged at the root.

“Defining your curls, dear. I’m twisting them around my finger, see?” Astarion responds before coming in front of her and pulling a piece so he can demonstrate the process. Tav watches with a mixture of interest and confusion as he continues, “This will help all your curls to look more uniform. But seeing as you’ve done very little to your hair in all this time, I suppose it would make sense that you’re a bit tender-headed. I promise I am trying to be gentle.”

Tav grimaces as Astarion continues his task, letting out little squeaks of pain that the rogue pointedly ignores. Eventually, Karlach comes over to return the whetstone she borrowed. The tiefling lingers to chat, which distracts Tav just enough to mostly forget about the pain in her scalp. When Astarion announces he’s done, the woman is genuinely surprised and moves to touch her hair; she is met with a quick swat from the elf.

“Ah-ah!” He admonishes before grabbing a bottle and spraying her hair with another rosemary scented product, “You can’t touch it until it’s completely dry.”

“Why the hell not?” Tav groans again, suddenly growing impatient. Her stomach growls, and she sighs as she realizes she is also growing hangry.

“You’ll undo all my hard work! Just wait.” Astarion responds as he stows away all his beauty products, “And anyway, it looks like Gale is just about done with dinner. We can go sit by the fire as you eat and that will dry your hair faster.”

Dinner was… acceptable. Gale did the best he could with the two rabbits Astarion hunted that morning, a handful of potatoes, one onion, and a couple of carrots. They did not have the luxury of seasonings most of the time, so it was quite typical for the nightly stews to taste gamey… tonight was no exception.

Astarion takes a few drinks from Tav’s wrist after she finishes dinner. Once he retracts his fangs from her flesh, he lifts his hand to gently feel her curls. After a moment assessing his creation, he grins at the woman and says, “They’re finally dry, darling. Took long enough, hm? Now, let’s get you in front of a mirror so you can see my masterpiece.”

Tav is flabbergasted by what she sees in the mirror. For the first time in… well, ever, her hair looks like it belongs to one of the beautiful maidens in an oil painting. Her hand comes up to gently touch the soft, spiraled locks and confirm that this perfect head of hair is, in fact, on her head and not somebody else's.

“What do you think?” Astarion prompts, his voice containing the smallest bits of apprehension as he lifts a hand to fuss with Tav’s hair, placing it just so.

“It’s great,” Tav responds, her face breaking into a wide smile that causes the tension in Astarion’s shoulders to dissipate, “Thank you… really.”

Astarion smiles and nods, suddenly unsure how to respond to the genuine gratitude in Tav’s voice. So instead he chuckles a bit and rolls his eyes before saying, “What on earth would you do without me?”

“Continue to look like a sheep in need of shearing, I guess,” Tav jokes, sticking her tongue out as she gently bumps her elbow into Astarion’s rib in jest, “That was mean, by the way.”

“I prefer honest, darling,” Astarion quips with a small chuckle, his fingers still fussing with the woman’s curls, “And anyway, you no longer look like a little sheep. You look beautiful.”

Tav is not used to being called beautiful. Strong or brave, perhaps, but beautiful… never. Until now. The compliment catches her off guard and her eyes widen for just a moment. The elf notices her shock and his brows crinkle as he pauses the primping to analyze the woman’s face.

“Certainly you know you’re beautiful…” The rogue continues, his hands starting to work at the curls again, “I’m sure I’m not the only–”

Astarion trails off when Tav shakes her head from side to side as her face begins to blush, the shade of her skin suddenly resembling the shade of her hair. Her voice is quiet, and crackling with a bit of emotion as she says, “No one says that. They just call me strong, or brave… or fierce.”

The elf tilts his head to the side as his eyes roam across Tav’s face once again. How interesting, he thought, to be lauded for things apart from your beauty. He’d never experienced such a thing, himself… though he thinks he would like to. But it almost appeared as if Tav had the reverse experience to his.

“Well… surely you can be strong and beautiful, hm?” Astarion asks with a raised eyebrow, trying once again to smooth out the awkwardness he felt creeping between them, though he didn’t exactly know why it often felt like that. He moves to affectionately tug another lock of Tav’s hair and smiles playfully, “And with hair like this, dear, no one can deny your beauty. It would be an insult to my skills, frankly.”

Tav snorts a laugh at this, eliciting a genuine, fang-filled grin from the rogue. Then he produces a bandana from his pocket and flourishes it in front of the woman, “Now let’s get your hair wrapped up. I’m exhausted and I want to go to bed, but I will not allow you to ruin my masterpiece overnight with all your thrashing about in your bedroll. You’re quite noisy, you know? And you snore.”

“I do not!” Tav protests as Astarion clicks his tongue at her and shakes his head, all while bundling her curls into the bandana and deftly tying a knot to keep it all in place.

“You’re a terrible liar, dear, I’m surprised your nose isn’t growing this instant,” The elf murmurs, his finger coming to affectionately boop the woman’s nose before he bids goodnight and wanders back to his tent for bed.

Tav rubs her own nose as she yawns and heads back to her own tent, on the other side of camp. She tucks herself into her bedroll and smiles as she stares up at the canvas ceiling of her shelter. Someone really said she was beautiful; a small giggle escapes her lips as she thinks about it.

Before long, Tav falls asleep. And for the first time in a while, she sleeps peacefully, without any thrashing about or snoring. Perhaps it was because her hair – and her heart – were both impeccably well-taken care of tonight.

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