#it begs the question how much kindness there would have been if they hadn't been children forced out on the streets

[hylialeia]

you don't get it. she loved him once. she didn't have a maester, she had a brother. he sold their mother's crown to keep them fed. he said Dany, please. she loved him, once.

[cosmal]

Hi, could i make a request for Eddie Munson, an angst/comfort one where he cries the first time reader kisses him? Because he's never ever been loved like that, and he didn't realize how touch starved he was until the gesture overwhelmed him? 🥺❤️ Love your writing

𝐍𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐫 𝐊𝐢𝐬𝐬𝐞𝐝 — 𝐄𝐝𝐝𝐢𝐞 𝐌𝐮𝐧𝐬𝐨𝐧

thank you!!!

summary — eddies first date with you doesn't go how he'd planned and he hadn't even expected a kiss. still, you kiss him because you want to.

warnings/tags — fem!reader, touch starved!eddie, eddie's never been on a first date before

word count — 2.3k

In Eddie’s opinion, his first date with you goes to shit.

If he could sit here and say that he’s surprised, he would. But he’s not. He’s Eddie Munson, things don’t go to plan for him like they should.

He was a nervous wreck to begin with, how he’d even scored a date with you in the first place is beyond him. Though he can’t attribute much credit to himself anyways, you had asked him out.

Sitting in Steve Harrington’s backyard after a swim, you start to tell him about this new, fancy restaurant up behind the arcade. It’s just opened and,

“Would you want to go there sometime? I heard their pasta is delicious.”

He had to get you to repeat the question, his ears were full of water and he was sure he’d heard you wrong.

He psychs himself out for the better half of his afternoon, so not only is he late to pick you up, his old, dingy, stupid van breaks down before it can even make it out your drive. You tell him it’s okay, it’s a nice night, we should walk. Eddie tells you that he shouldn’t have you walking all the way into town in those shoes.

“What’s a few blisters if it means I get to spend more time with you?”

Your kindness does nothing for his thrumming heart.

Once you’re at the restaurant he forgets to open the door for you. You don’t seem to mind, of course, you don’t, but Eddie has a checklist of gentlemanly dues he feels he must achieve to impress you. It’s stupid, really stupid, but he’d be damned if he messed up such an amazing opportunity.

You sit and chat for a while, waiting for your meals, and the entire time he thinks you want to hold his hand. Your manicured hand keeps inching closer to his over the white tablecloth, knuckles almost brushing, and he’s too nervous about making the final move to tangle his fingers through yours.

Then you say something terribly, awfully kind to him. Something about his hair, how it looks really nice tonight. How you’ve always loved his hair.

Eddie spurts his soda out over his glass and gets it all down his white shirt. Yeah, his white shirt. Something he’d begged Harrington to let him wear.

“Please, man. I don’t have anything nice to wear tonight. I can’t exactly show up in my Judas Priest shirt that’s covered in bleach.”

“You could show up in a brown paper bag and she’d still think you were the hottest thing out.”

“It’s not that easy for me. I need to impress her.”

Eddie had wiped the soda from Steve’s shirt, feeling utterly stupid and you had laughed like it was the cutest thing you’d ever seen.

You’d laughed when he’d choked on his spaghetti. Smiled kindly when he offered you to try his food and you’d reminded him for the second time that night that you were allergic to tomatoes. To top it off, you’d pretended it was no big deal that he had accidentally left his wallet in his van and that you had no problems paying for dinner.

“Really, Eddie. It’s fine. Just get me back next time.”

The thought of a next time was enough to stop his racing thoughts for just a moment. Not for long though, because watching you pretend like your feet weren’t aching on the way home had Eddie cursing himself the entire walk.

How could he fuck up so badly and how could you be so calm and kind about it?

Now, standing at your front landing, he’s apologising profusely for how horrible he’s made your night.

“Horrible?” you question, eyebrows raised and skin glowing if it's entirely possible. The setting sun casts you amber.

“I don’t know,” Eddie stammers, “It didn’t go how I wanted it to.”

“It didn’t?” you question again. Your voice is pitched up and its melody has his brain spinning, “How were you expecting it to go?”

“I’d have expected not to forget my wallet. And maybe have a van that works,” Eddie can’t help but laugh at his stupidity. Especially when you’re making the same face you have been all night. A smile that looks like it could ruin him.

“I don’t know,” You reach forward and take the hem of his shirt in your fingers, playing with the thread. “I had a really good time.”

“You- you did?” Eddie stammers. Suddenly you’re really close, if it’s because he’s been too deep inside his own head he hasn’t noticed you inching closer, he’s not sure.

“Yeah,” you nod gleefully, hair bouncing.

“Yeah,” he echoes. More to set it in stone himself.

Eddie watches where your fingers play with his shirt, the closer they inch towards his skin, the louder he thinks his heart becomes in his ears.

There’s a silence that you hate, “Hey, Eds?”

Eddie’s breath hitches. You’ve never called him that before.

“Yeah,” he murmurs. Voice quieter than he’d like to admit. Any louder and he feels as if you’d step back from him.

He looks up and catches your gaze before you speak, “Can I kiss you?”

Eddie doesn’t know how to reply. He’s never even been asked such a question before so he can’t even pretend he’s got an answer somewhere in the back of his numb mind.

His heart thrums in his throat, feels as if it might escape, “You want to kiss me?”

You nod like it’s the most obvious thing ever. To you, it is, to Eddie it’s unimaginable.

“Yeah.”

“Okay.”

The moment your lips press into his, he freezes. Not in a bad sense, his mouth still moves. He still shows you how much he wants to kiss you with his tentative and loving lips. But he doesn’t know what to do with his hands. They flex at your side until you’re cradling his face in your own.

Your touch is warm, warmer than your lips and it almost burns. Burns so much that his eyes well with tears and he gasps into your opening mouth.

Your face suddenly feels wet and you can feel a sob making its way through Eddie's throat. You pull away, “Eddie? You okay?”

He slams his eyes shut to will away the tears, fisting at his hair when he pushes it behind his ears, “M’sorry,” he sniffles.

You reach up to cradle his face again, wiping hot tears away from his flushed cheeks, “Hey, it’s alright. I had a great night. Promise.”

He shakes his head, “No,” he swallows, “No, it’s not that. I’ve just. I’ve never been kissed like that before.”

“Oh.”

Eddie feels stupid. That is until you say,

“Oh, Eddie. Hey, c’mere.”

Eddie lets himself fall too willingly into your arms. Has no problems this time when you wrap your arms around his back and pull him as close as possible. Close enough that his hair presses so hard into the skin of your neck that he expects it to be embossed.

He grasps at the back of your shirt a little too hard. Pressing his nose into the skin behind your ear, sniffling wetly.

“It’s okay,” you murmur into his head, “I had I really good night and I think,” you pause and let him rub his cheek into your shoulder, “I think I’ve wanted to kiss you for a really long time.”

He pulls back and you think he has the prettiest eyes. Despite them being glassy and the tiniest bloodshot. “Yeah?”

You lean in and peck him right above his top lip, overthe plush of his cupid's bow, "Yeah."

“You think you'll want to try it again sometime?"

You smile brightly, "I think I do. More than you think."

"Way more than I think."

[fairydvsts-blog]

i loved “i could fuck you better” sm! 🥵 reading the part where she begs rafe to finish in her without protection made me wonder, could u maybe write something for ex!rafe getting reader pregnant? 🤫

𝐦𝐲 𝐨𝐧𝐞

Rafe Cameron x ex!fem!reader

obx masterlist

summary; your relationship with Rafe hangs by a thread, but a mistake will forever bind you together

warnings; SMUT, p in v, unprotected sex, unexpected pregnancy, some angst but fluff in the end

a/n; english isn't my first language, so you might find some mistakes; I'm open to constructive criticism. Sorry for the delay, I'm a slow writer :(. I'm not sure if this is what you had in mind, but I hope you enjoy it and thank you so much for your request!! ❤️

When Sarah had invited you to her birthday party, the last thing you expected was to end up in Rafe's bed... Once again.

You two had broken up a few weeks ago for the hundredth time, and you had been ignoring him since the break up because you knew it was likely you would get back with him if you didn't.

And he didn't deserve it after what he had done.

But that night he was acting very different from how he usually acted: kind, sweet, caring. You hadn't seen him snorting any coke and he had even apologised for being a jerk —which was almost unthinkable coming from him—, causing you to soften in no time.

Before you knew it, you were naked under his dreamy body.

He was pounding into you hard, your bodies were covered in sweat and you couldn't help but moan with every thrust, each one of them hitting your g-spot. His hands were everywhere, touching and caressing every part of your body almost like he was worshipping you.

"I've missed you so much, baby," he whispered while he grabbed your neck to bring your face closer so he could kiss you, taking your breath away.

His tongue slipped between your lips and you moaned, closing your eyes and pulling his hair so hard that he groaned in your mouth. You used your legs to push his hips rougher against yours and you swore you felt the tip of his dick rubbing your cervix.

"Have you missed me?" he asked when you didn't reply, desperate to hear an answer.

He grabbed your left thigh, hard enough to bruise, and he placed your leg over his shoulder, heightening your pleasure. You cried out and hold onto his biceps with so much force that your gel nails dug into his tanned skin. You tried to give him an answer, but that new position was clouding all your senses and you weren't capable of putting words together; you had lost count of how many times you had come thanks to his fingers and his dirty mouth, but you could feel yourself getting closer to your orgasm again.

"Are you gonna answer or should I stop, baby?" he insisted, slowing down his movements.

"No, no, please, I'm so close, Rafe," you begged him as you ground your hips to try and get yourself off.

"Have you missed me or not?" He pushed your body against the mattress so you couldn't move and stopped thrusting.

"Rafe..." you stuttered, looking at him with pleading eyes, but he didn't budge.

"Yes or no? It's an easy question, baby." He placed his thumb right over your clit, rubbing it at a torturing but very pleasing pace.

"Yes, I've missed you so much," you finally recognised, whimpering and biting your lip because of his actions.

He smirked, clearly satisfied with your answer, before he started pounding into you again, faster this time. He kept touching your clit with his fingers, making your eyes roll back, and you tried to match his pace the best you could. Soon, you were standing on the edge of the cliff, ready to jump off it.

"I'm going to cum," you told him, grabbing his hand to encourage him to rub your clitoris faster, and he complied.

"Me too, baby." His breathing was heavy while he started letting out more and more moans as seconds passed.

You stroked his belly, feeling his abs contract under your fingertips, and his thrusts became sloppier. You knew he wasn't going to last much longer, but neither were you, so you tightened your muscles around his cock and he groaned aloud; his raspy voice caressing your ears. With one last touch on your clit you came hard, trembling under him and moaning so loud that you were sure people on the first floor could hear you.

"Oh, fuck yes."

Your climax triggered his; Rafe cried out a bunch of curses while he fucked you through your orgasm and his own. You were so lost in the moment that you didn't even realise he was not wearing a condom. Three weeks later, though, when your didn't get your period, you became aware of your enormous mistake.

You sat on your bed, shaking and holding the pregnancy test in one hand, your phone in the other. It was positive, you were pregnant, but you were so scared of Rafe's reaction to that information that you didn't dare to tell him. You started crying your eyes out, not knowing what to do.

Should you tell Rafe?

Should you tell your parents first?

Should you keep it a secret and have an abortion?

You were too damn young to be a mother and you weren't ready for a responsibility like that, but it didn't seem fair to Rafe that you made that decision without being honest with him about the situation first; he deserved to know, even if you weren't together anymore.

You hadn't talk with him since your last encounter at Sarah's party given that you went back to ignore him as soon as you had left the house the morning after. He, on the other hand, was being more persistent than ever, blowing your phone with calls and messages every day.

That time, it was you who called, and it took him less than thirty seconds to pick up his phone.

"Baby, I'm so glad that you called." He sounded relieved to hear form you.

"We have to talk, Rafe," you simply said, struggling to contain your emotions that were all over the place.

Now at least you knew the reason behind all of your recent mood swings.

"See you in five." He hung up the phone.

As he promised, he was ringing your bell five minutes later. You opened the door, your eyes clearly puffy due to all the crying, and he frowned when he noticed, hugging you almost immediately.

"Are you okay, baby?" he asked, concerned.

He carried you inside, sitting on the couch and motioning you to sit on his lap. You did so, crying inconsolably on his shoulder as he whispered reassuring things to your ear throughout. He didn't pressure you to tell him what was going on; he just waited till you were ready to talk.

"We fucked up, Rafe," you said when you had calmed down, turning to look him in the eyes, "I'm pregnant."

His eyes widened when he heard you, his mouth dropping open because of the news, and it took him a few minutes to overcome the shock.

"Say something, please," you asked, feeling your eyes starting to water again.

Your heart was hammering in your chest; you were terrified. What were you supposed to do if he didn't support you in the most difficult moment of your life? For you, that would mean the end of your relationship forever.

Thankfully, that did not happen.

He just put his arms around you one more time and said, "Baby, whatever decision you make, I'm here for you, okay? I'll always be there for you when you need me, because I love you with all my heart."

For the first time since you had met him, you felt truly safe in his arms and you knew right away: he was the one, your one. It was pointless to try to stay away form him; you were his and he was yours and the universe would always conspire to bring you together, because you were meant to be.

[reiderwriter]

♟️ Please, Let Me Know That It's Real ♟️

Chapter 10 of That's What You Get

Pairing: Spencer Reid x Reader

Summary: Emily and Penelope take care of you after Spencer's dishonesty comes to light. They help you fill in some missing pieces of the puzzle that is your relationship.

Warnings: angst, but hopeful angst. Spencer is an idiot. No, you don't find out who the other witness is yet.

A/N: We're so close to the end 😭 I'm feeling bittersweet about this one because I'm excited to wrap it up but I also don't want to!!! It's been so fun to write. There are two chapters left after this, so please stay tuned for those ♥️ You can find my main masterlist here, and my special kinktober masterlist here if you missed the smut in this one. My requests are open until the end of the month too, so of you had any ideas, let me know!

There were no words to describe how you felt wasting away in bed that next day. You couldn't say whether a minute passed, or an hour passed or if time had simply ceased when he'd left. You just knew that there was a weight pressing down into your heart, a grief filling your lungs and stuttering your breath. 

You had the vague sensation of someone entering your apartment, wrapping their arms around you and telling you that you'd be okay before you drifted off into a coma-like sleep. Instead of escaping everything, though, you had to relive it all, again and again. 

You'd woken up chained to that bed again and he was there telling you how guilty and horrible he felt, and you'd practically shoved the words into his mouth. But he hadn't told you he didn't remember. 

You'd woken up in his bed again, and he still wasn't there, trying to avoid you getting your memories back, the one thing you were trying to work towards together. 

You'd woken up in his arms, walking you back towards his bed as you were telling him you remembered. The gleam in his eyes though wasn't excitement, happy to receive any news about what could've happened before, but fear. What did you remember, and would you figure out he'd been lying? 

You'd woken up a mess, and you wanted to go right back to sleep. 

When you finally did come to, the tears that had dried against your skin began to Spring again, the sobs silently wrecking your body as you disappeared under the darkness of your comforter.

Spencer had known. He'd known the entire time about everything that had happened, he'd practically told you as much from the very beginning. But he'd also let you assume that he didn't, and you weren't sure if you were angrier at him or yourself. Something happened on your wedding night, beside the intimacy, that he obviously didn't want you to remember, having gone to such great lengths to hold you at an arm's distance away whilst embracing you tightly. Parts of your body still held traces of him, and you were too emotionally exhausted to drag yourself out of bed to wash him away.

You wanted to call him. You wanted to make him come back and explain, and beg for forgiveness, or tell you it had been some kind of horrific miscommunication. You wanted to never see him again. 

Penelope bought food, and Emily got you cleaned up, pulling you into the bathroom and wiping the tears from your face as she ran a bath for you, helping your shivering form into it. You hadn't called or texted either of them, but you didn't question their appearance until after you'd eaten, feeling a little less broken. 

"How did you know?" The two of them looked at each other over the food on the table, unable to hide the worrying glances they were sending each other. 

"Spencer. He texted me, asked me to check in on you." Penelope explained, and you're heart cracked hearing his name. 

"Of course he did." You hated that even when you were supposed to hate him, he was still intent on taking care of you. You'd excused yourself from their company and climbed back into bed, grateful that neither woman had tried to stop you. They did follow you though. 

"Wait, Y/N. Spencer told us you needed us, but he didn't tell us what happened. Maybe talking about it would help." They sat carefully on opposite edges of your bed, waiting for you to un-cocoon yourself and talk. 

The first few attempts, you couldn't make it, too close to shattering to pieces again. With a gentle squeeze of your hand and a encouraging nod, you started telling them about the night before. 

"I chased after him yesterday and I caught him in the parking lot. And he never takes his car, but he was there and I thought it was some kind of sign." You sniffled and pulled the quilt off your face some more, sitting up to continue what you knew would probably be a long story. 

"We finally acknowledged everything and… God, I think I told him I love him. I do, and that's why it's all so shitty and ruined." Your throat grew thick with the pain and fluttering, memories from the night before seeping into you and grabbing a hold. 

"I told him I remembered, finally. He asked me how much, and I just kept trying to flirt with him. I didn't realize anything was wrong until  after we'd…" You flushed, shy all of a sudden as you felt all the shame of the previous night's interactions. 

"He said some things in the heat of the moment… he said I felt better than he remembered." 

"Y/N, that doesn't sound so bad, that's just-" 

"He wasn't supposed to remember. Neither of us were supposed to remember, fuck I think we would've been happier if we hadn't." You shut your eyes, the lights suddenly sparking a pain behind your eyes as your tears stung. 

"He didn't forget anything about Vegas. I think maybe it's my fault for assuming he did, because he just went ahead and reminded me of his stupid fucking eidetic memory." 

You let your head fall back to the pillow again and curse yourself, the extended cut of the last three weeks flickering to life in your head again. 

"Y/N…" Penelope started taking a gentle hand and patting your head as she struggled to find the words to comfort you. 

"Y/N, this is not the end of the world." Emily was blunt in her words and for a second they snapped you out of your self imposed pity party. "I thought he'd rejected you, or served you divorce papers or something." 

The anger crept up in you quickly as you shut your ears to what Emily was saying. 

"God, Emily, it's not that fucking easy you know.

"How would you know? Did you try to listen to him? Ask him why he did it?" You snapped your mouth shut, still angry but momentarily softened to the words she was saying. 

"Look, it's not like he confessed his love for me. He fucked me and then I caught him in a lie." You were exasperated at having to explain your emotions again and again but this time the wound had been ripped raw. He hadn't said those last words. 

"Oh, sweetie. That's what this is all about, isn't it? You think he held back because he doesn't love you?" Emily's tone had softened completely and you found yourself suddenly shaking with tears, unable to answer, just nodding your head back and forth while you contained the loud echoes of pain from escaping your body. 

"I need to stop starting sentences with 'don't hate me, but', but this time I think it's absolutely necessary." Penelope squeaked the other words from your other side and you drew yourself up again to hear her out. 

"Penelope, you're here making sure I am still breathing while I'm in the middle of an entirely selfish crisis. I think if I even thought about you negatively, a puppy would die or something." 

"Save that bravado for after this." She pulled out her phone then and scrolled through it for a second, searching for something. "Now I need you to know that I only withheld this in the hopes that I could play it at your actual wedding, where I would obviously be maid-of-honour, but as that plan has backfired I think I need to show you it now." 

She handed you the phone, and you noticed a video was playing. The camera was shaky, so it took you a few minutes to figure out what it was you were looking at.

The Elvis impersonator was the thing that tipped you off to the fact that this was probably your wedding venue. Sure enough, when the camera focused, zoomed in a bit, there the two of you were. 

"We're going to do the ring exchange now, if you'd like to repeat after me-" discount, slightly rotund Elvis said in a horrendous accent, but he wasn't allowed to finish. 

"We can do our own vows, right? That's allowed?" 

"For the amount of money you're paying me, you could consummate the marriage right here and I wouldn't give a damn." Your past self in the video had flushed at that, and you were glad that you hadn't jumped at the chance the way you had in the hotel room. 

Spencer brushed it off, clearing his throat and starting again. “Y/N, I don’t remember when I started loving you, which is absolutely ironic because I remember everything else. I think I just woke up one day and knew that I’d either spend my life watching you, or take this final leap to have you. Don’t look at me like that, I’m being serious, we’re getting married.” 

Your grin was wide, genuine happiness setting you alight. The two of you giggled a little bit before a glare from Elvis's direction led you to believe that his generosity only extended so far. 

“Let me try again. What I’m trying to say is, you’re too good for me. And I love you so much it aches. Everytime you say anything I’m caught hanging on any word. Every time you mention a book you’ve enjoyed, I read it cover to cover 50 times that week. Every time you tell me something stupid, like what your favorite flower is, I get this overwhelming urge to… to buy myself some flowers, so that if you ever turned up at my house, they’d be there waiting for you.” 

“I don’t know if you’ll remember this in the morning, or if I’ll be too scared to remind you, but I love you Y/N. And I’ll keep loving you no matter what happens.” His hands were gripped so tightly around your waist that he'd had to whisper some of the last words into the air between you, the space suddenly so narrow. 

You stopped the video there, throwing the phone back at Penelope, ready to bask in your idiocy, but she didn't let you. 

"You need to watch it all, come on, mother knows best." You rolled your eyes at her and sat yourself straighter again, taking the phone from her again and pressing play as Emily looked over your shoulder, watching too. 

It was your turn for the vows. 

“Spencer Reid. If I don’t remember how much I love you now in the morning, if I somehow manage to ignore this absolute feeling of bliss and rightness, I need you to fight for me. I need you to remind me how much I love you. I need you to remind me how we ended up here. I need you. I’ll never stop needing you.” The video had ended seconds after that, Spencer having lunged for you with both hands pulling your lips into his as he sealed the deal with a kiss. One you could swear you still felt tingling against your lips. 

"I paused it there because I didn't want to see if you'd take Elvis up on his deal." You heard Penelope's words but didn't register them, not really. 

"He didn't… He didn't fight for me." Your words weren't sad, but they obviously weren't the words either woman was expecting. 

"Y/N, did you not hear him? He loves you!" Emily almost shook you to wake you up from whatever daze you were in, but you were throwing your sheets off in a second and scrambling out of bed. 

"He didn't even tell me. Oh my god… I'm going to…" You ran a stray hand through your hair as you let out an incredulous laugh, not believing any of the last twenty four hours. Your next move was to lunge for your own phone, dialing his number before you could be stopped. Penelope did try though, before Emily out a warning hand on her shoulder, interested to see where it was you were going with this. 

"Spencer," you said into the receiver when he finally picked up. A single ring and he was there like he'd been waiting for you this entire time. 

"Y/N, I love you, I'm sorry." The words caught in his throat and his voice was weak but they made your heart skip a beat nonetheless. You hoped none of that reflected in your voice at all. 

"Spencer, I want to see you. Now." He barely had time to agree before you were hanging up, turning around with a half manic laugh again as you begin pulling yourself together. 

"Emily, Pen, thank you for everything but-" 

"You don't have to explain, I think we were just leaving actually." Emily smiled up at you, confident that you knew what you were doing. 

"No, no wait, please explain! I need an explanation, Y/N, what-" 

"If you'll excuse us." Emily guided Penelope swiftly out of the door and you were suddenly once again alone in your apartment. 

Pulling yourself together. You'd had a bath but you still felt groggy, so you hopped in the shower and thought about the time Spencer had taken a bullet for you. It had really only grazed his vest, but he'd been the one to grab you and change your positions so you were safe nonetheless. He'd done it and you'd never been sure why. 

You sat and dried your hair and contemplated. He'd helped you with countless case files ove the years. The others had joked before by putting their work on his desk, knowing he'd have it completed for them, serious or not. He'd only ever voluntarily taken files from your desk though. He'd said it was because he could do them quicker, but that was always a none answer. 

You picked your outfit out carefully as you thought about all the times you'd woken up with a blanket covering you after a nap on the jet. You'd seen JJ wrap them around team members before and just assumed it had been her, but now you weren't so sure. 

You stood at the door looking down at a message that said he was almost here and you thought about the last few weeks. And you thought about how much he loved you, and how much you definitely loved him and you waited at the door, engagement ring sitting on your hand as you waited for him to knock. 

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[jeonbunnie]

love is gone

pairing: reader x jeon jeongguk

anon suggested: “I had this idea for a fic it's angst with a lot of heartbreak with soft smut based on love is gone by Slander ft. Dylan Matthew, basically the oc and jungkook have been in a relationship for two years but recently she's felt him drifting away from her and things aren't the way it used to be so she plans a super cute date night in hopes of saving their relationship which he agrees too but he doesn't come home that evening....when he does come home the next day and mentions they have to talk she knows what he's going to say but she thinks if she can show him one more time he'll feel how much she loves him...but in the end his love is gone.”

summary: Jeongguk tries to let you down easy.

genre: angst; smut; 18+;

content/warnings: POV shifts; boyfriend!jeongguk; established relationship;break up!au; hurt/comfort; make up sex (kinda lol); fingering,unprotected sex

soundtrack: love is gone— by slander ft.Dylan Matthew (highly recommend listening to the acoustic ver)

a/n: writing this made me… 😮‍💨 mark me down as sad and horny byeeeeeeeee. Also reader has brown eyes bc of reasons. Brown eyed girl supremacy, mwah!

word count: 1.4K

♪ It tears me up when you turn me down. I'm begging please, just stick around♪

"Baby, let's talk."

Something about the way he said it made your heart crack. The tone of his voice, the softness of Jeongguk's words, there's a finality to it all that made you anxious for what came next.

"Can you come with me for a minute?"

You didn't want to have this conversation. You already knew where it would lead.

Everything in you wants to say no. But it's the first time you've seen Jeongguk in 24 hours and the first time he's held your hand in weeks, so you let him lead you outside, helpless against his touch.

You couldn't face him when you sat down on the park bench, and you're sure the words you've been avoiding will be written all over his expression, so instead, you look out at the horizon.

It was hurting you. Sitting at the bench with Jeongguk so close but so far away, the distance between you verging on strangers.

You had half a mind to lash out and accuse him of breaking up with you in public so you could accept it quietly and not cause a scene. But you know him.

You know your boyfriend was kind and gentle-hearted. He probably brought you out here because you loved sunsets, and he wanted to give you a nice memory even as he said goodbye.

In the distance, the sunset was a red-orangey glow, casting everything the light touched in golden warmth—but you can't feel it. All you feel is ice-cold dread for what's about to happen.

So you beat him to the punch. "You're breaking up with me, aren't you?"

All the air rushed out of Jeongguk in a sigh. "Am I that obvious?"

You would have laughed at his question if it hadn't hurt you so much. "You've been avoiding me all week. Last night, you asked me for space, and now you want to 'talk.' We haven't talked in days. I might be blindly in love with you, but I'm not an idiot," you said, trying hard to keep the words from coming out bitter.

Jeongguk ran a hand through his hair, nerves on edge. Masked behind your anger, he could hear the hurt in your voice, and he hated being the cause of it. This wasn't easy for him, letting you go. But he couldn't keep you either.

"I think," he started. "I think we should start seeing other people."

At his confirmation, a hot tear slid down your cheek. Before you could wipe the tear yourself, Jeongguk reached out, closing the distance between you, and brushed the tear away with his thumb. He never could stand seeing you cry.

"Did I do something wrong?" You asked, barely keeping yourself together.

"No. Of course not. It's not you—"

"—It's me?" You finished, offering him a wobbly smile. "You don't have to say that just to be nice."

The look on your face made Jeongguk's chest ache so much he could barely breathe. "I don't wanna hurt you. . ."

"But you don't want to stay either?"

He doesn't answer that question; somehow, the silence between you only makes you feel worse.

"I see. . . "you said, nodding your head. "So that's why you didn't come home last night."

You fell asleep on the couch, waiting for him to find his way back to you so the picnic basket you packed remained untouched on the counter. You thought you could remind him of how great things used to be by recreating your first date at the park.

It involved fairy lights, wine, and homemade sweets filled with the love you hoped to remind him of. The love you hoped was still there.

Now you realize Jeongguk was never going to come back home to you. Not last night or any night after.

In a way, you're grateful. Considering the surprise you had planned, it would have been embarrassing if he had come home the night before.

Of course, you still made it to the park, but the situation was dramatically different now. But instead of making up, you were breaking apart.

"I'm sure you noticed how different things are between us now," said Jeonggguk. "Last night, I needed time alone to think. I tried to imagine myself without you. And the thing is, I could….and it all felt so."

You bit your lip, holding back more tears. "Is there anything I can do to convince you to stay?"

Jeongguk was quiet for a moment, and hope built in your chest, but it died just as quickly when you saw him shake his head no.

Jeongguk forced his face to stay neutral. "I will always love you, but just not in the way I wish I still could."

"So this is it then? We're over? Just like that?"

You want to cry, scream, and beg, but Jeongguk is still and calm beside you. So calm you know he's already decided to end things, and you know him well enough to know how stubborn he is that he won't change his mind now that he's made it up.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I understand if you don't want to be around me, I've already made plans to stay at Joons tonight if you prefer me gone."

That was the last thing you wanted. "No," You said, pushing down the sobs that threatened to come from your mouth. "Can you stay, please?"

Jeongguk hesitated, looking away from the face of the setting sun. "I'm not sure that's such a good idea…" He didn't want to give you the wrong impression that there was any way to salvage your relationship. And more than that, he didn't want to lose his resolve because a night with you would make it that much harder to walk away.

"Just for tonight? I don't wanna be alone." It felt stupid to want him there now when he was the cause of your pain, but Jeongguk was one of the few people in your life who knew how to comfort you. You wanted him close, even at the most inopportune moment.

The word 'no' was at the tip of his tongue, but he turned to look at you, and the hurt he found there in your big brown eyes had him saying 'yes.'

And he knows he shouldn't, but Jeongguk can't help but comfort you like he always has. Even though you broke up, it didn't change the fact that he still cared for you, still had love for you. He told himself it was just a reflex that had him reaching for your hand on the walk back home.

It's reflex that has him curling up next to you in bed and wrapping his arms around your waist to be the big spoon, as always.

Reflex that has him kissing away your tears, neck, and shoulder.

Reflex that has his hands sliding underneath your clothes to rub you through your underwear, desperate to make you feel good.

At least, that's what he tells himself.

And before he knows it, he's sinking into you with a groan, getting lost in the familiar warmth of your body.

You're so wet it was easy to slip inside, and even though he's already inside you, so close, naked body flush against yours—it's not enough.

Jeongguk still wanted more.

He couldn't help but grip your thigh, lifting your leg to push in deeper, to feel more of you as his cock slid in and out of your heat.

It has to be a reflex because it can't be love that has his hips driving into you, over and over and over again.

It can't be love that has him moaning into your mouth, kissing you until you are both out of breath, till you clench around him and he spills inside you, filling you up so perfectly.

Because if it is love and not the memory of loving you that makes it so hard to pull away hours later when your tears have dried, and your heart beats steady as you sleep dreamless on the side of the bed that used to be his—then Jeongguk is making a mistake. It was possibly the biggest mistake of his life.

Jeongguk isn't sure he can live with being the one to break both of your hearts. But he'd rather end it all before your relationship's indifference could turn to something cruel. He'd finish it now before you could hurt each other further.

If he had thought about it more, Jeongguk might have seen the love hidden in his actions. That there was something here worth saving, worth fighting for.

But that wasn't what he wanted. Jeonguk didn't want to think of everything he was giving up walking away from you.

It was much easier to pretend his love for you was gone.

[fatuismooches]

Kind of dark stuff ahead? Basic Dottore warnings to be honest (blood, experimentation, he pretty much dissects someone, straps them down while they cry and beg for mercy, in front of the other Fatuis since they made you cry as a lesson, so yeah)

Been thinking about Dottore displaying to everyone in the lab what would happen to them if they crossed you, or Tsaritsa forbid, made you cry. By this point, everyone who works with Dottore or in his labs would know of you. And it'd take longer if you were sickly, but as soon as your presence is discovered, and the regular workers are aware of your standing as their Lord Harbinger's lover, immediate respect is afforded to you without any question. Do they have millions of questions? Yes, absolutely, but they prefer to keep their lives. Surprisingly though, you're... quite nice to them? It's honestly a breath of fresh air considering how the segments treat them, so the respectful way the agents treat you is a mixture of how they actually like you and how they don't want to end up as the Doctor's next test subject. There are always newcomers who are wholly unaware of you and who you are, so the older agents try to inform them as soon as possible. However, one learned the truth far too late, sealing his fate. Berating you for one minor slip-up that was just an accident, that was out of your control. And the other Fatuis are there absolutely panicking, trying to explain that you were not just an experiment, that you were- it was too late, because tears were already rolling down your eyes as you quickly exited the room. And the agents think, they are so fucked because they have no idea what the Doctor will do to them now that you've cried in their presence. They can only hope that he will have mercy on them, and punish the idiot who made you cry directly.

The next day, a multitude of Fatui agents, soldiers, scientists, and really whoever happened to be in the lab that day, were called into a room. It was very random, considering they never had meetings since the segments didn't like to be bothered with such frivolities, but upon entering the room, the same sinking feeling pooled in their stomachs. There was a lone operation table in the middle of the spacious room, along with a small table that had yet to hold anything. Strapped to the operation table was one of their fellow agents, bound and gagged, his screams were the only thing filling the room as the other Fatuis could only watch on speechlessly. Next to the (former) agent, was their Lord Harbinger. And no, this wasn't one of his segments, it was Prime, the real Il Dottore himself. Prime himself came to make a statement. Many of the agents hadn't even seen him until now, only encountering his numerous segments. And to the side of him was Omega too. The combination was enough to make some Fatuis want to faint and throw up, but they knew they couldn't for they weren't sure if they'd wake up again.

"I do believe that this is enough people. Word gets around quite fast around here, anyway," Prime hummed to no one in particular as if there wasn't a man crying next to them. Nonchalantly, he circled around the operation table, paying no mind to the muffled "please" and "i'm sorry" echoing like a broken record from the agent's mouth.

"It has come to my attention that some of you have trouble understanding orders," Prime Dottore began, his voice striking the highest amount of fear into the Fatuis. "I make myself clear, do I not? So why do you all still lack common sense? Why..." his gaze suddenly snapped to the tied-down man, "have I discovered that some of you still fail to respect [Name] the same way you do with me? Do you believe that you, a lowly person such as yourself, have the authority to speak to them in such a way?"

"I despise having my time wasted, especially by fools. Therefore, I expect this will serve as a reminder if you ever dare to think about crossing [Name], and consequently me." Prime then adjusts his gloves and motions to Omega, who then begins to set the table with... medical instruments he's retrieved from a bag. Only that they will certainly not be used ethically. The man only becomes more frantic at the sight of the dangerously sharp and pointy objects, but there's nothing you can do, once you're in the Doctor's clutches.

And so the group of onlookers got a front-row seat of one of the Doctor's experiments. As horrifying as it was, no one dared to look away.

Let's just say no one ever dared to make you sad ever again.

[short-honey-badger]

Peppermint Tea 29 - Chamomile

Heyyyy guyysss. So I am FINALLY back with an update. I've had some other works get in the way *Crocodile and Hazbin Hotel ahem*

I've worked on this when I can and it's a bit longer than my usual chapters. Sorta of an introspection chapter. Our girl has to do a lot of thinking. Anyway, I hope you guys enjoy! Also! I've used A LOT of the live action gifs. I'll be swapping to anime!

Warnings! None I don't think? Drinking.

Link to Ao3! -> Here

Masterlist

Being pregnant is weird. You ache in weird places, and your feet constantly hurt. You hated how emotional you'd become and how much you still longed for the familiar comfort of your boys. You missed the easy companionship and the warmth of their love for you. How they held you close whenever you wanted and went out of their way to bring you little gifts. But then you are reminded that Shanks and Mihawk are nothing but liars and are left wondering if anything that the three of you shared together meant something to them. 

It's a horrible way to think, and it makes you feel guilty, but you can't help it. What else could they have lied to you about? Shanks had told you he loved you early on, but Mihawk had never uttered the words once, preferring to show you how much you meant to him. But were you just play thing with them? A convenient source for both men to use? You didn't know, and it made you even more upset thinking about it. 

Your tummy moves, and you glance down at the sight of your baby squirming. You can't help but grimace at the weird sensation. Your baby is always moving, never allowing you the rest you desperately want, and it's just one more thing to stack on top of all the rest of your woes. Sometimes, it felt like the growing bundle was punishing you for sending your boys away, especially with how much worse you've been feeling lately without their presence. 

Shanks had been so happy to find out that you were pregnant, but he was less enthusiastic about the more gross details and what came with raising a child. He had promised you over and over that he would be there to help, but that he'd definitely have to get used to it. 

The redhead drops to his knees, arms wrapping around your thighs as he presses the side of his face to your tummy. It's hardly a bump, but Shanks loves the growing bundle inside of his treasure all the same. He kisses your stomach, lips lingering there as he imagines a tiny redhead running around. 

Mihawk stands behind you, still over the moon with the news. He was worried, very much so. Even if your pregnancy and birth were smooth sailing, that meant that Mihawk would have one more person in the world that he would need to protect. It terrified him, but running was the last thing on his mind. In reality, the hawk couldn't get over how radiant you looked and planned to worship every inch of your body until you begged him to stop. 

You frown and push the memories aside. Maybe they hadn't been lying to you about everything, but both of them knew that you had no idea who you were. How could they have kept that from you? Why had they waited so long to tell you? 

You would have forgiven Mihawk if he had been truthful to you from the start. You were desperate for any kind of company then and had become spoiled on his, so you hadn't thought to question his words back then. But now that you are thinking about it, you can recall how Mihawk had hesitated the day you first told him of your “dreams”. 

You would have been upset, yes, but you didn't love Mihawk back then. it would have been much less of a betrayal, but his decision to wait had made it one of the worst things he could have done. 

You had an older brother out there who you didn't even know existed, a connection to your past, but Mihawk was too fucking selfish too see that. Damn, now you're just getting angry. But maybe that was good? Maybe you needed to let it all out. You stand from where you'd been curled up on the couch. You have the sudden urge to move. It's been days since your boys left and you've done nothing but lay around and sulk.

Hank jumps up after his human, dark eyes sparking up in excitement to see you finally up and about. He follows after you and lets out a low yip to grab his little brother's attention. Sukuna would kill him if he didn't wake him up. 

The orange fluff ball appears within moments, greeting Hank with a yowl and rubbing up against your legs. You crouch to love on him for a second before you continue on, manic energy coursing through your body. They follow their human to your bedroom, and you prop open the door, intending to start deep cleaning the room. You've let too many clothes pile up. 

Hank lays under your vanity, and Sukuna squeezes in beside the mutt, big golden eyes never leaving you. They can smell Your raging emotions, and neither want to accidentally get in your way. 

You start in the corner, lip curling up in annoyance when you immediately find a pair of Shanks’ pants that he'd left behind. You chuck them to the floor, and soon, it becomes a growing pile of clothing that both men had left behind. You pause once you reach a familiar white shirt, hesitating in tossing your favorite to the pile. 

Hank whines when he begins to smell your rising distress and crawls out from under his hiding spot to go to your side. He doesn't like that his human has been so upset lately and is curious as to why her mates haven't shown back up to take care of her. Hank knows that they had a fight. It's why he had gotten in between his human and the one armed man, even if Hank really liked him. 

You turn to your dog, a sad smile on your lips as you hold the ruffled and well-loved shirt close to your face. Hank whines again and presses his face into your side, trapping the shirt between the two of you. 

“Oh. Alright. I guess it'd be okay to keep this one, huh, buddy?” You murmur and gently shove Hank away so you can lift the shirt you're wearing now and toss it into your hamper. You shrug on Shanks’ shirt, snickering when the material grows tight around your swollen belly. You can't help but think that wearing the shirt feels like the redhead is there with you, wrapping you up in a hug. 

You blink as your vision swims and quickly stand, going to the pile of their clothes and shifting through them until you find a large overcoat with delicate designs. 

It's during a rare storm on your island that Mihawk decides to show up. His coat and hat are completely soaked through, and the warlord feels more like a wet cat than anything at that moment. This must be what Sukuna feels like when you give the poor cat a bath. Mihawk emphasizes with him. 

He barges into the cottage like he owns the place, scaring the hell out of you from where you sit in the living room putting together a puzzle that he'd brought you on a previous visit. The piece you're holding goes flying into the air, and you level a glare at the soaked warlord. 

“I'll never find that, you know!” You shout after him as he trudged to the bathroom. He ignores you, closing the door with a snap and quickly undressing. He hangs up his coat to dry and then hops into the now steaming shower to wash the cold rainwater away. 

Mihawk joins you back in the living room half an hour later, dressed in nothing but sleep pants. He settles down on the floor behind you, tugging you close to his chest and hooking his bearded chin over your shoulder. He presses an apologetic kiss to your neck. 

“I'll buy you another if we can't find the piece later,” Dracule promises. You give a satisfied nod and smile, leaning back into his chest.

“I'll hold you to it.” 

Mihawk never took that coat with him again. 

You stare down at the dark coat, licking your lips before, ultimately saying screw it and sliding your arms through the sleeves. It's massive on you, dragging the floor and swallowing you up, but it brings you that comfort that you desperately need right now. You clutch the lapels of the jacket close, sniffing pathetically as you sit in the middle of the pile of clothes. Fuck. You miss them so much. 

Sukuma meows at you and makes a show of walking on the shirts and pants that surround you, sniffing at them before making biscuits and settling in. Hank plops down beside you, and you can't help the water laugh that escapes. 

“I dunno if it's sad or not that the two of you can communicate with me better than a human being,” you quip and let yourself wallow in pity for a little while longer before you stand. You sigh and gather the clothes up and place them in the ditty laundry with everything else. You don't have the heart to get rid of them, not when you can't even decide for yourself if you want them to come back or not. 

Sukuna and Hank share a look as they follow you around for the rest of the day. They don't dare leave you alone, not when you reek of sadness and self-pity. Hank does his best to make his human feel a bit better, bringing you his favorite toys and being a big goof when you toss his ball. Sukuna made sure to keep close, his purring, a constant, thunderous roar that drowned out the sad little voice in your head. 

~~~~~~~

Their company makes you feel better, but you are still down and miserable a couple of days later. It's been just over two weeks since you sent your boys away, and you've had a lot of time to think during that time. You aren't nearly as upset with Shanks as you are with Mihawk. The redhead had only gone along with Dracule's dumb ass decision at Mihawk's discretion, so you didn't think it was very fair to be so upset with the Emperor. 

You were still angry with him, but you could forgive the redhead. 

You still hadn't found a good enough excuse for Mihawk, however. His lying to you had been nothing but selfish desire to keep you his. You don't understand how keeping such information from you could be considered keeping you safe, but then you think back to what Shanks had told you the morning before everything had gone to shit. 

“Sometimes Mihawk thinks he knows what's best for us, even if he goes about it the wrong way.” 

Well, wrong he was, but in a weird way, you could almost see his logic. 

Your family, your home, your kingdom, it was all gone - destroyed by Big Mom and her family. You'd been so young, six years old, when it happened, that other than the same memories that plague you nightly, you hardly remember your family or your home. Aside from Tomura, and even then, the memories were vague at best. 

Did it make you a bad person if you stayed with the man who had killed the people who lived on your island? Your apparent subjects, because you're some long lost princess? Not that you being royalty mattered, not to you at least. Why would you want all that responsibility when you've lived such a free life away from the rest of the world? How can you grieve for something you've never known?

You hated all these new questions and doubts that his confession had brought on. You almost wish that he'd just kept his mouth shut, but then you think about the brother that is still a mystery to you. Tomura had been your only friend as a child, and you wish you could ask him what he thought about all this.

A sudden pounding on your front door has you jumping out of your skin, and fury rushing up your spine. Really? They couldn't even stay away for a week? 

You stomp over to the door, a curse on your lips that sputters out the moment you see who exactly is at your door. 

“Perona?” You demand, brows shooting up. 

The pink girl barges in like her father figure, strutting into your home like she owns the place. 

“Wh-what are you doing here?” 

“Coming to see you, duh,” Perona quips like she busts into your life on the daily. Which she does not. She plops on the couch, sighing dramatically, “I couldn't stand another day being around Mihawk. He's not stopped moping since you made them leave.” 

Her words catch you off guard. Perona had come here to complain about Mihawk to you of all people? Was she crazy? Perona opens her mouth and spouts off before you can get a word in. 

“I'm surprised he even got inside the castle as drunk as he was! The humandrals probably stayed away because of how badly he reeked!” 

Your mouth grows dry. You didn't think that Mihawk would be the one to go off into a drinking stupor, and despite yourself, you still felt concerned for the older man. Mihawk was such a recluse, and it had taken months for him to open up to you, and who knew where Shanks was. You had expected the men to at least find comfort in each other. 

“Shanks isn't there?” You ask her and take a seat in Mihawk's armchair. You haven't been able to bring yourself to call it yours again, even in your head. 

Perona shakes her head, sending her bouncy pig tails flying, “Nope. Not that I saw anyway. But enough about him. How are you doing? Are you okay? Is the baby okay?” 

You smile at her concern and push down the emotions that threaten to swell up like the ocean and pull you under. 

“I'm okay. The baby is okay. A lot more squirmy than usual, actually.” You assure the other woman and smooth your hand over your stomach. You are wearing one of Mihawk's shirts today, a brilliant red in color styled in his usual fashion. 

Perona squeals in happiness and claps her hand, “Oh good! Can I feel it?”

You nod and watch with a soft smile as the younger girl kneels by your seat and gently rests her hand atop your coveted belly. She giggles when the little one kicks her hand almost immediately. 

It's quiet for a while, and that concern for Mihawk resurfaces with a vengeance. You lick your lips, and Perona seems to feel the shift in the air, for she sits back and plops back on the couch. She watches her friend, feeling guilty and sorry for the other woman. It wasn't fair. 

“Mihawk told me what happened. Well, more like he drunkenly yelled about it and threw a lot of things, but still. I wanted to come see you. Are you seriously okay?” 

Her big eyes are full of nothing but worry for you, and you feel the walls crack and break under her kind gaze. 

“Ah-no not really,” you admit quietly and sweep your hand through your hair, “I guess I didn't realize how much they were picking up my slack around here. Being pregnant fucking sucks, and I feel horrible for missing two men who betrayed my trust.” 

You sniff and force the tears back. You are so sick of crying. Sick of feeling like crap, and you just want everything to go back to the way it was. 

Perona stands and gathers you in for a hug, and you gladly bury your face in her shoulder and cry. It feels like it's been forever since you've had any kind of human interaction, and having Perona here has broken you. She holds you until you've stopped crying, and then when you let go, the ghost girl lopes to the kitchen to fix the two of you hot cups of tea. The warm drink does wonders for your sore throat, and you let yourself relax back into Mihawk's chair. 

“I think you sending them away was the right thing to do. For now, at least,” Perona begins, and you glance up at her from over the rim of your mug. She sits criss cross on the couch, and you smile when you see that Sukuna has curled up in her lap. Big fluff ball only liked girls. 

“What do you mean?” 

“I mean that this alone time gave you some time to think, right? I know Mihawk did bad, and I told him more than once that it wasn't okay that he was keeping that from you, but, _.” 

You look at Perona when she says your name, and you frown at the insurge of wrongfulness that swims in your chest. You don't know if you want to hear this. 

“He's a disaster. I've never seen him like this before, and maybe you could give him a second chance? Maybe give him a call to know that you're okay?” 

Mihawk had become Perona’s guardian and father figure all rolled up into one big surly warlord. She loved him and hated that Dracule was wasting away alone in the castle at Gloom Island. He deserved to be happy, and the ghost girl knew that you and Shanks were the only two for him. 

You stay quiet. Could you do what Perona asks? The more you think about it, the more you come to the conclusion that yes, you could definitely do this. You wanted to talk to Mihawk. You needed to see how the older man was doing. 

“Is he really that bad?” You ask softly, and Hank seems to notice the stress that coats your tone. He rises from in front of the fireplace and lays his big head on your lap. You slid your fingers into his fur and found that easy comfort. 

“He won't stop drinking and yelled at me when I tried to take his booze away. He won't eat, won't shower, and hasn't trained since he got to Gloom.” 

It's one nail in the coffin after the other, and you find yourself up out of the chair and to the snail transponder that you've intentionally forgotten about. Your hands shake as you dial the familiar number, and you glance to the living room to see Perona giving you a double thumbs up. 

CA-LICK

“Who the fuck thinks that they can call this number.” 

Gods. Perona really wasn't joking when she said that Mihawk was a mess. He sounded sloshed, voice thick with alcohol and lack of sleep. 

“Mihawk? It's me,” you say quietly, and the silence is loud even over the phone. You close your eyes and picture the look of shock that the warlord no doubt has. 

“Angel? You called?” His voice is full of disbelief and aching hope. 

“Perona asked me to call you. She said you aren't…doing very well.” You finish lamely. It's never been this awkward between the two of you before, and you do not like it. 

“Oh, so that's where she ran off to. You shouldn't worry about me, Darling. I'm perfectly fine- oh!” 

You jump when you hear a loud crash over the receiver, “Mihawk? Are you okay?” 

“I'm fine my dear. Only tripped. I'm quite clumsy today,” Mihawk slurs and you crack a smile at his uncharacteristic behavior. You hear him shuffle about and settle down in a chair, voice sobering up just a bit as he focuses on speaking. 

“It's good to hear your voice, sweetheart. I missed you something terrible, you know? Are you doing well? Is the baby okay?” 

You can hear his voice catch a frantic edge, and you are quick to reassure the warlord. You dont want him sailing across the Grand Line sloshed. 

“We're both fine. She's been a little more rowdy than usual,” you say quietly and bite your lip, a tiny sigh leaving you. You rub your tummy, eyes sliding shut, “She misses her daddies. So do I.” 

It's quiet on the other end of the line, just the sound of Dracule breathing. It's honesty nice to hear, and you find yourself relaxing again the wall, head thunking against it. 

“...I'm so sorry, Angel. What I've done to you is irreversible. I wish that I could take it all back.” 

His apology hurts. You want to forgive him for his sins, assure Mihawk that nothing had changed and that he could come back home. But you couldn't, even if he had saved you and your brother at the end of the day. 

“You can't, Mihawk, and I don't know if I can ever forgive you,” you hear his lungs hitch on the other end, a sharp intake of breath that sounds near painful. You look down at your growing belly, tears spriouting, “But it isn’t fair to you to keep you away from her, and- and I don't think I can do this without you.” 

“Her? You think the baby is a girl?” 

A smile plays your lips. Of course, that is what he picked up on right now. 

“I just have a feeling, is all,” you admit to him. You hum quietly, and thousands of miles away, Mihawk relaxes in his armchair for the first time in weeks at the sweet sound. 

“ …You would trust me around her? Around you again?�� He asks you, and Gods, how were you suppose to answer that? 

“Did you ever lie to me about anything else?” You ask instead of answering that. You needed to know if anything you had shared with Dracule had been fake. 

“No. I've always been truthful to you, Angel. You’ve become my whole world, and I wanted to do anything I could to protect that.” 

Even over the snail transponder, you can tell that Mihawk is telling the truth. You only have one last question, one that makes you almost nauseous to ask. 

“Do you love me, Mihawk?” 

On Gloom Island, the warlord looks stricken, face growing pale and falling at the mention of that four letter word. Did he not show you how much he cared for you? Did his actions not speak of how much you meant to him? 

No, it didn't. His lack of action that had cost him everything. Mihawk wouldn't let that happen again. 

“I don't think I should answer that over the phone, Angel.” 

He hears your breath hitch, and do he plows on, shoving away the unease that wants to settle like a deadly cloak. 

“I want to see you, again. Will you permit me that?” 

Before you can answer, you hear a commotion on the other end of the line. Curious, you listen in. 

Mihawk cocks an unimpressed brow when the door to his study flies open, banging against the wall and sending a couple of books falling from the shelves. Shanks gives him an unapologetic grin and shut the door softly behind himself. 

“Sorry about that, Baby,” the redhead slurs. He is drunk as a skunk, and Mihawk curls his lips at the stench that clings to Shanks, “I wanted to come see you, you've been avoiding me.” 

“It's not avoiding if you aren't seeking. I've been here this whole time,” Mihawk grumbles at the younger man and points to a chair on the other side of his desk. Shanks ignores him, loping around the desk to instead drape himself across Mihawk's shoulders instead. 

“Who're you talking to?” Shanks demands when he catches sight of the snail on Dracule's desk. 

“Hi Shanks,” the redhead zeros in when he hears your voice, dark eyes going wide and he makes grabby hands for the receiver. 

“Treasure! I miss you!” Shanks whines into the phone, and your chest tightens at the forlorn tone that coats his words, “When can we come home?” 

You can't help but giggle at his request, though that guilt still eats at you, you want to see them again. Maybe Perona was right about that second chance. It felt so good to speak to both of your boys, even if they hadn't been taking care of themselves, but you still didn't think you could have them here. Not yet. 

“Not yet, Shanks. I need some more time,” you murmur and wish you were there with them when you hear the sound of flesh meeting flesh. 

“Don't bother her with questions like that. She'll take all the time she needs,” Mihawk snaps and glares at the redhead who now lays sprawled on the floor. 

You listen to Shanks whine like a child in the background, and the sound of your two boys together makes you long to be there with them. 

“He's fine, Mihawk. How about you let him stay there with you, and I'll call you again soon?” You suggest softly. You know that Mihawk won't willingly ask Shanks to stay with him, but you didn't want either of them to be without the other right now. 

Dracule sighs heavily but nods all the same, golden eyes landing on the redhead who looks seconds away from passing out, “Only because you asked, Angel.” 

“Don't act like you don't love him,” you admonish quietly, and his next words shock you to the core. 

“You're right, Darling. I do love him.” 

You can hear the quiet astonishment in Dracule’s voice, and this time, it's happy tears that will up and threaten to fall. You sniff harshly, “See, that wasn't that bad, was it?” 

A fond smile plays on his lips, golden eyes soft, “No, no it wasn't.” 

A stilted silence settles over the connection, and the two of you speak up at the same time. 

“I should go-” 

“I should go-”

You huff a soft laugh and continue, “you should make sure Shanks hasn't drunk himself into a coma. I'll um, I'll keep in touch, okay?” 

“Alright, Darling, call again soon, okay?” Mihawk, please and grips the receiver harshly, voice turning desperate, “We miss you.” 

You swallow harshly, eyes clenched shut, “I will. I miss you too.” 

You hang up the transmitter, taking a deep breath before going back to Mihawk's chair and plopping down with a world weary sigh. Perona cocks a brow at you.

“Did it go okay?” 

You shrug, “Yeah, it was good hearing from them. Shanks will probably still be there when you go home, by the way.” 

You snicker at the sneer that ghosts across Perona’s face, finding amusement in her disgusted reaction, “Fantastic.”

@writingmysanity @djbumblebee @goth-mami-writer @myradiaz @fluffybunnyu @bookandstar @foggyturtleknightangel @browneyedhufflepuff @anastasiyax @jaguarthecat @atricksterwithwings @black-swan-blog27

[creedslove]

THE PIKE CHRISTMAS 🎄☃️🎁

Marcus Pike x f!reader

Summary: you and Marcus have a daughter together, co-parenting after your relationship ended but one Christmas together might change it all 🎄

Warnings: fluff, mentions of Marcus' disastrous love life, happy ending

A/N: MERRY CHRISTMAS 🎄🎁

5.7k words

When Olivia was born, Marcus’ life had taken a completely different turn, he had always been a man who dreamed of a family, didn't work with his first wife, then he moved on through a series of relationships that never seemed to take him anywhere until he met Teresa Lisbon. He wouldn't be able to tell why he fell for her as had as he did, he wasn't dumb or clueless as some people assume, he knew she wasn't into him as much as he was into her, and even if that hurt him deep down inside, he thought eventually things would fall right back into place, if she had said yes to his invitation to ditch those pizzas after the end of their mission for pancakes, and then to start sleeping at his place, then going out on a regular basis, until he simply proposed to her in the middle of the hallway at work, it wasn't the most romantic thing he could've done, he was usually a traditional guy, wedding ring, nice dinner, maybe even a serenade and an exchange of love vows before popping the real question, but he did what he could at that moment, what the occasion allowed and thinking of it in retrospect, it was actually a good thing he didn't waste that much time, effort and money into that proposal, because well, even if Marcus Pike was overall a gentle and understanding man, he also would have appreciated if she said no instead of leading him into believing she actually wanted to marry him. It would've hurt him at the time, but just like ripping off a band-aid, it would be quick and straightforward and the pain would go away faster than it did when she cooked him up, giving him hopes for a future together.

So when Teresa broke his heart and treated him as if he was barely an acquaintance to her, he became wary. He didn't like to think of relationships and he closed himself up to any kind of flirtation and stuff like that. He was going through so many changes into his life: a new city, a new position at work, now he wasn't just agent Pike, he was the head of the art department of the FBI, he was a boss, he had more responsibility and less free time, and even if Marcus was aware of his looks and the fact both men and women found him attractive, the fact he was an intelligent man, he made good money and carried a bunch of positive adjectives that could easily get him a possible list of interested women, he chose to step away. So when he met you, he straight up ignored his feelings, the way his palms got sweaty, how pleasant your perfume was and the way his stupid heart skipped a beat whenever you displayed your gorgeous smile at him. A part of him desperately wanted to connect with you, get to know you better, ask you out on a date, and another part of himself begged him not to do it, knowing he wouldn't be able to take another harsh strike of rejection and start over again. Marcus wasn't an old man, he was getting close to middle age, and even if a part of him kept hauntingly reminding him of the fact he hadn't been able to build up a family at that age, he was also so hopeful he was still too young to give up love.

Eventually he couldn't fight his desire for you and a simple lunch between you both escalated to a series of regular dates, and whereas all of his relationships followed the same course of an organized timeline: getting to know each other, officially dating, getting engaged and finally getting married. You, on the other hand, was a complete different ride, it seemed you were going through the same path, following the same stages until you weren't anymore and you showed up at his door on a Thursday night with teary eyes and a pregnancy test in hands, just a few months after you two started dating. That was a whole new ride for him; he was not expecting to become a father even if he wanted to, it still felt too sudden, you both were having more fun than actually having a commitment together, and if he was going to be honest, he didn't actually want to jump into marriage right then, it was risky, scary and he felt it was doomed to be another failure in his love life, he was willing to step up and be a dad to the baby you both were going to have in a matter of months, but he was torn between not wanting to get married just then - as Marcus Pike wasn't opposed to marriage at all - and not wanting to be seen as the asshole who didn't marry the woman he got pregnant. It didn't matter what his colleagues, his family or friends thought of him at that matter, he just didn't want to be seen like that by you. So when you had a heartfelt conversation with him, opening up and listing the reasons why you didn't want to get married he felt a wave of relief over him. You both got to an agreement: you would co-parent your baby, Marcus would pay you child support and everyone would be happy. Even if there was still a lot of mixed feelings, words left unspoken and the prospect of a successful relationship that didn't have enough time to mature on its own, so it was better to close the agreement in being co-parents and friends, it was better than nothing.

You couldn't complain at all, even if you buried deep your feelings for Marcus, he was definitely the best guy to have a baby with, for once, he actually cared about it, he was genuinely happy to become a father even if you weren't a couple any longer, he still made sure to go to all the appointments and exams he was able to, work still got in the way of one or two but he made it to as many as he could. Marcus wouldn't miss the opportunity to get his baby girl whatever he thought she might like some day: toys, clothes, blankets, little shoes. It was a pleasure to spend on her. You still remembered the day he found out you were expecting a girl: he cried. He was never strong enough to hold back his emotions, not when you had a new ultrasound in progress and he could hear his baby's heartbeats loud and clear. And he cried again when you gave birth, he was there the whole time, holding your hand, looking almost as terrified as you were, and the moment her strong little lungs let out a loud wail, you could see the tears running down his cheek freely, warming and melting your heart, mixed up with the pang of not being with Marcus, not going home with him at the end of the day, but with the peaceful assurance you had the luck to find a great man to have a child with.

Olivia was the name picked in agreement by the two of you, but Marcus simply called her Livy, she was his Livy, his sweet tiny little Livy, and even when you asked him why he'd chosen that nickname he shrugged, not having a meaningful or strong explanation, he just liked the sound of it, it made his heart swell with love just to picture the face of that one beautiful princess who would be called his Livy Pike.

The first time you were surprised by the nickname was an odd - but very pleasant evening - you'd spent next to Marcus. He usually had the habit of letting you know when he was going to drop a visit or even call and see if he was allowed to, but that night he got to your place unannounced, looking like he'd had a rough day. He refused your offers to serve him a beer, a glass of wine or even make dinner, he simply asked you to spend some time with you and Olivia, who was still safely tucked in your womb. There was no denying his request, you nodded and lay back on the couch, while he placed his hand on your lap, his face resting against your warm, round pregnant belly and talking to his baby girl. He whispered a bunch of sweet nothings to her, in hopes she would be able to recognize his voice and know how much she was already loved by him. He caressed the sides of your stomach, while your hand went to his smooth, messy hair, playing with his growing curls, exactly the way you used to when you both were a couple, having a glimpse of what life would be like if you two had stayed together after the shock of the pregnancy turned into happiness.

What you didn't know was that Marcus wasn't just having a rough day, it had been more than that, more than just a rough week, it'd been a rough few months. Months of investigation of what was supposed to be pieces of art trafficking, it was supposed to be just about paintings, sculptures and statues being trafficked, but unfortunately, it'd been more than that. It was all a facade for a much worse operation: human trafficking. And that made Marcus so miserable and depressed, he just needed to be reminded there was still something good in the world, he needed time with you and his precious little Livy.

He glanced at your Christmas tree and realized Christmas would be in a few days. He'd been so involved in the investigation and all the tension and stress that comes with it, he had barely acknowledged the upcoming holiday. He hadn't even decorated his apartment like he usually did, he hadn't even bought himself his plane tickets to fly back to Texas and see his family. There was still so much he needed to do but the realization that was going to be the last Christmas he would spend without having a tiny baby in his arms and finally having a little someone call him ‘daddy’, made him smile.

“She'll be here, celebrating with us, next year”

•••

Olivia's first Christmas was going to be printed in Marcus’ memories forever. He didn't actually spend Christmas day with her, as he traditionally went back to his hometown to see his family, but he made sure to get everything done in advance: house decoration, presents, gift-wrapping and everything a dad should be up to on such a special date. Before his baby girl was born, he didn't see the point in decorating only for himself; of course he would set small Christmas tree ornaments and call it a decoration, but that was about it. However, after his precious Olivia came to the world to brighten his life, he felt he owed it to her all the magic he could display. So in a matter of days, Marcus had purchased a brand new Christmas tree, several ornaments and lights and seeing his baby's excited face paid off. One of Pike's favorite memories was when he left a nearly one-year-old Olivia playing with her blocks on the living room carpet for a split second, just to make sure her vegetable soup was ready and returned to find her giggling self ripping off the gift wrap of one of the presents underneath the tree. She didn't know she was supposed to wait a couple of days more, she didn't know technically that was her mama's present, what her daddy had bought you, she just got mesmerized at the bright beautiful colors and went to explore. Marcus felt like he was going to explode into a puddle of love for his daughter. He was truly blessed and forever thankful to you for having got the best present of all.

And so another couple of Christmas passed and his beautiful, lovely, princess Olivia was now a gorgeous and adorable three-year-old toddler, almost going four, which meant Marcus’ heart was often balanced between the pang of seeing his baby grow way too fast and the pride he felt of seeing her blossom into an extraordinary child.

•••

“Higher daddy, higher!” Olivia squealed with happiness and excitement as her dad lifted her up, his grip tight on her sides so she wouldn't slip as she held the angel ornament and put it on top of the tree with tiny little hands. She felt the thrill of being held up so high, because Olivia loved how strong her daddy was and how he always made her fly on his arms; she loved spending weekends at his daddy's place, even if she'd rather have her mommy with them, she still had a lot of fun. Looking around the living, where she had helped her daddy decorate everything, made her happy, she loved the lights, the tree and the little Christmas ballerinas that dance to a sad but beautiful song inside that box. Her daddy had explained to her that it was called “art” and both him and her mommy really liked it, and that art thing made them feel many different things, that was why sometimes something was so pretty that could make her cry.

But Olivia had no time to cry, she was too busy spying the gifts that began to gather around the living room. She knew some were for her, some were for mommy and some were for grandma and grandpa, but most of them were for her. Marcus pulled his daughter closer, snuggling her and feeling her heart beating fast inside her chest. He loved that tiny little princess with all his being, and sometimes such love was overwhelming, as he never really thought he could have something as good as that. He thought of you and his heart dropped a little, picturing what things would have been like if you both had gotten married once you found out about Olivia, he knew you wanted to be free, to work and finish your studies, but he was never oppose to that, if anything, he would've supported you just the same. Even if he wasn't in the right state of mind for a marriage, he still enjoyed picturing you as his wife. He would buy you a beautiful diamond ring, make sure you were happy and satisfied with the life he could provide you, but after some time, he just accepted that maybe the timing wasn't good and his chance was over. Simple as that.

As he put Olivia down and walked to the kitchen with her, he held her hand, who was excitedly waiting for her mac&cheese. His daddy wasn't as much of a good cook as her mommy was, but his mac&cheese was the best in the whole wide world. He served her some in her pink plastic plate and chuckled to see her kicking her legs absent-mindedly while waiting for dinner. Marcus sighed, you were back in his mind, imagine how many family dinners you three could have had together over these years. Of course there were plenty of times you invited Marcus over for dinner, or he did the same with you whenever you were there to pick up Olivia, but it wasn't the same and he just knew it.

“Are you excited for Christmas, baby girl?” He asked Olivia, who chewed her food eagerly, loving the taste of it, seeing her nod and smile.

“I wish we spent it together daddy, you, me and mommy” she pouted, looking like a tiny puppy, which broke Marcus’ heart. He hated that he could never spend that special time with his precious Livy and even more so that you weren't there as well. He cleared his throat and caressed her cheek, her face being tiny against the palm of his hand.

“I'd love that too, honey, but you know, you spend Christmas with mama and I go back to Texas to see grandma and grandpa” he offered her a smile “unless mama let me take you, would you like to go with dada? I bet you'd love to spend a sunny and warm Christmas playing in the pool with your cousins..”

Marcus knew better than anyone he shouldn't really hype up kids the way he just did, but he was also caught in the moment, for a moment he had a glimpse of what spending Christmas day with his daughter would be like, where she could actually visit his parents' home, see his childhood bedroom and the toys he used to play with when he was her age, he would like Olivia to be able to spend that holiday under the warm sun, in one of her gorgeous little dresses, and not in the snowy gray weather of DC. At that moment, he took a decision: he was going to talk to you about it, you had a good relationship, he was sure all it would take was a good conversation and you would let him have Olivia for the holidays, everyone would be happy at end: they would be able to spend more time together and you would have a well-deserved break from the maternity duty.

When you showed up two hours after the time you were supposed to have picked up your daughter, Marcus was aware of your delay, having read the texts you sent warning him of how things at work got complicated and later on how traffic was simply impossible, he did what he could to make your life a little easier, and that included bathing Olivia and helping her into her beautiful reindeer jammies and tucking her in. Then he prepared you a big sandwich, after all, he couldn't cook even if his life depended on it, but if there were two things he could make like a champ, was definitely his mac&cheese and his gigantic sandwiches. He immediately opened the door to you, getting lost into you. You were so beautiful, your body was mesmerizing, your smile was enough to make his heart flutter and for a moment he couldn't believe a woman as gorgeous as you could have been with him, and not only that, you could have had a baby with him. After so many rejections in life, it was still quite difficult for him to believe that was even possible. The way you looked at him, with your eyes sparkling, the same sweet innocence your daughter carried and how small snowflakes were still on your hair, made him fall in love with you just a little bit harder than usual. Even if it was an impossible love to live, it didn't mean it wasn't there.

He invited you inside, which you gladly accepted, greeting him politely and taking off your coat. He guided you to the kitchen, where he'd prepared you something to warm up - hot chocolate - and a big sandwich, sitting next to you, and loving every single minute where he could simply look at your beautiful face and listen to your voice, as you talked about your day, that way, it would be easier for him to daydream you were just a married couple spending some quality time together after a busy day.

•••

“... so all I'm saying is that I could bring Olivia back and then you both could-”

“No”

“But my mom would love to have her over with us for the holidays an-”

“Marcus I said no”

You sighed exhausted at that conversation, you knew something was up the moment you set foot into your ex’s apartment, you thought maybe he was happy to see you, but apparently all he wanted was to convince you to let him take your baby girl away for the holidays. You shook your head and tried wiping away those thoughts. There was no reason you should get on the defensive at that moment, Marcus had always been nothing but nice and gentle to you, he didn't want to steal Olivia away, in fact, his request was even kind of reasonable, even if you weren't going to agree with it. He had such hopeful eyes, those stupid eyes that made you fall in love with him, because you could see the truth in them, the honesty, the kindness Marcus held onto your heart, and those were the same eyes that prevented you from moving on, you would do so much for him if you could, but not that. It was the only thing you wouldn't give up.

He ran his thumb over his bottom lip - an old habit of his that usually went unknown - and shook his head, sighing in frustration. He couldn't understand why you wouldn't give in just a little, he didn't understand why you played so hard to get when it came to that. You had always agreed on everything as a couple and as parents, he didn't see the reason why you were behaving that way.

“Why not?!” He insisted and for a moment you had the impression of talking with a stubborn child. You'd already said you wouldn't agree to it, but he kept on pushing it, and even if a part of you was annoyed and started to get cranky, you had to be reasonable and remind yourself there was no reason to fight, he was just Marcus, your sweet lovely Marcus, who happened to be the best dad in the world and all he was asking was to spend Christmas next to his little girl. You buried your face into your hands, taking a deep breath and organizing your thoughts for a while before you could face him again.

“I said no because you already have your family to spend Christmas with and I don't, Marcus. If I let Olivia go with you, I'll be completely alone, not to mention the fact she's never been that far away from me before, but that's not what worries me…” you finally admitted out loud. You opened your heart to him for the first time in a very long time. After suppressing your feelings and locking them into a tiny box in the bottom of your heart, they were surfacing once more.

“All I'm saying is that, if you take Olivia, I'll be completely alone at Christmas and I don't want that, I don't want to have to invite myself over to friend's dinner parties and stuff like that, it's depressing and Christmas should be about family, so if you are already traveling and visiting yours, it's only fair I get to spend it with my daughter” you explained it to him.

“Our daughter” he interrupted you and you realized you were acting on the defensive the entire time. You felt insecure, always fearing Olivia loved her dad more than she loved you, even if it sounded madness because yes, she loved her daddy with all her ring little heart, but parenthood wasn't a competition, and even if you understood that, you also had another fear: Olivia simply getting used to distancing herself from you, and then your mind took you to several dark places, where you could only picture the worst scenarios of Marcus remarrying someone eventually, simply because he was too good of a man to remain single; and it scared you your daughter would simply choose to be around her dad and his new wife. You couldn't help suffering in anticipation over a rejection that might not even happen but still haunted it nonetheless. He placed his hand on top of yours, the familiar warmth making your heart skip a beat as he looked into your eyes.

“You could come with us, we could all travel to Texas… What do you say?” and it shattered your heart to have to say no to him once more; Marcus was so sweet but also innocent to think that could even be a possibility.

“I can't Marcus” you said and now he noticed there were some tears threatening to spill down your eyes. He was running out of options and needed to know why you were playing so hard to get, before he could inquire with you, you sighed and continued “you know that's not possible…I'd love to travel with you and Olivia, as a family, I'd love to be able to visit your family, but you know I can't, because you know how your mom feels about me, and not only that, your sisters too”

To say Marcus’ family didn't like you was an understatement. They hated you. And they didn't make any effort to hide it from you, not behind Marcus’ back at least. You didn't know if his mom got overprotective due to the heartbreaks he went through over the last couple of years, or if she was one of those obsessive moms who thought no one was good enough for her son. Either way, you could still feel the burning gaze they shot you when they laid their eyes on you since the first time you'd met. It had been on Olivia’s first birthday party and they didn't hide their thoughts on you having a child with Marcus, nor the fact they straight up assumed you were simply a gold digger who was landing a great child support from the newest head of the art department from the FBI, special agent Marcus Pike.

The man, on the other hand, wasn't clueless, he knew his mom wasn't very fond of you, but he couldn't imagine to what extent that was, he thought it was just some normal rivalry and shook his head, apologizing to you, because of course he would apologize. He was a gentleman after all, and he never wanted anyone or anything hurting you. You sighed and licked your lips, a soft blush spreading across your cheeks

“I think what I mean is that I wish we could all spend Christmas together, you, Olivia and me” you admitted “I don't want to be alone, and I don't want you to be without our daughter, I just wish we had a solution for this”

“We do, honey… I'm not traveling anymore, I'm spending Christmas with you both”

•••

When the realization that Marcus would actually spend Christmas with you and Olivia hit, you were in a mix of anxiety and excitement; on one hand, you wanted everything to be perfect, you couldn't wait to have him around and see the joy in your daughter's face. At first Marcus was supposed to come only for the Christmas lunch, but after some thinking you decided to invite him over for the Eve dinner and he could simply stay over, which he agreed immediately, thrilled to know he would get to spend that long with the two of you. Olivia couldn't contain herself, she had already made drawings to her dad, set all her favorite dolls in order so she could play with him and begged you twice to pick a Disney movie to watch, she'd never been that enthusiastic and you'd be lying if you said you weren't excited too. It was like a dream of having a complete family was coming true; both you and Olivia were looking forward to seeing him, picking up dresses to wear and welcome him home, it was thrilling to think of him, it wasn't a secret to anyone how much you really liked him, and though you had wrong timing together, sometimes it felt like things would work between the two of you, and that was what you honestly hoped for. Preparing some easy dinner, you saw how Olivia jumped off the couch the moment the doorbell rang, you barely had time to open the door and Marcus could set foot inside the house before she jumped on him. Marcus was a big man and quite handy too, so he managed to balance a large bag of gifts, a bottle of wine and a toddler in his arms.

You welcomed him inside with a smile, glad to see him, as Olivia finally got off him, running to her bedroom to find whatever drawing she wanted to show him and helping him place down the table the things he brought, you both hugged. He held you in his arms for several seconds, no words exchanged, no greetings, simply acting out the feelings you perhaps had been keeping too buried deep. He buried his face into your shoulder, taking in as much of you as he could, loving your smell and how you still seemed to fit perfectly against his body. He caressed your face and smiled, saying how good it was to see you.

Dinner was very pleasant in his company, Olivia was so excited she seemed like a puppy, which brought you and Marcus to laughter. It was nice having a nice time like that, it felt like you had a family and it was very good. Sharing a bottle of wine, you and your ex-boyfriend were sitting on the carpet, long after your daughter was asleep and safely tucked in, you both were just hanging out, having your fun and chatting about your old times together. You couldn't stop yourself from drooling over Marcus. God, he was so handsome and sweet, he was also smart and polite, which was a very dangerous combination you'd tried first-hand, hence the whole reason why you ended up pregnant. He tilted his head and laughed, making you lose yourself into him.

“... I said I can still smell you on me” he repeated himself, snapping you out of your daydreaming and making you nearly spit out your wine. He had said what?!

“What?!” The blush spreading across your cheek had a little to do with wine, the way he simply dropped those lines and placed a strand of hair behind your ear made your heart race.

“I meant from earlier, when we greeted each other and your perfume is still lingering on me… I like it” Marcus was a little drunk, you could tell it, he'd always been a cute drunk, always snuggly and willing to progress love words. You chuckled and stroked his cheek.

“I'm glad you liked it… would you believe me if I told you I am wearing it for you?” You decided to instigate him just a little, surprised and amused to feel his hand pulling you closer by the waist, his face so close to yours you could feel his faltering breathing before he finally kissed you. Sealing your lips together, you wrapped your arms around him, deepening the kiss more and more, moaning softly into his mouth, wishing and hoping that moment would last forever. His lips were just as soft as you remembered and the more you leaned against him, the more you desired Marcus. He was tall, strong, he always smelled so perfectly and all you could think of that moment was why did it take so long for the two of you to set things straight? Even if you weren't setting things straight, why did it take you guys so long to actually kiss and simply enjoy each other's touch. You couldn't actually tell, but perhaps that was a Christmas miracle. Breaking the kiss was hard, but the way Marcus’ big hand stroked your cheek, so gently as he looked at you as if you were the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen, was worthy. The way he whispered your name and invested in another kiss, not having enough of you. He wanted more, he didn't want to be just Olivia's dad, he wanted to be there for you too, to hold you after a long day of work, to be able to kiss and stroke you gently and make you his. He didn't need a mistletoe to kiss you over and over and even if it technically wasn't Christmas yet, that was the best gift he could've got.

“I need you” he whispered against your lips “I'm tired of hiding my feelings for you, tired of pretending I'm glad when I'm not, when all I want is Olivia and you in my life, baby girl”

You could've jumped out of happiness right there and then. Marcus wanted you, just as much as you wanted him; it wasn't just delusional to think of a future together, all you had to do was say yes to him. When you were about to kiss Marcus once more, Olivia waddled into the living room, with her special Christmas PJs and messy bed hair and jumped onto his lap.

“Hi daddy!” She yawned cutely and snuggled him, which caused the two of you to chuckle in a soft blush and put your kiss aside for a little while.

You wouldn't be able to tell exactly what time you fell asleep with your family, but when you did wake up, you were in your bed - Marcus had carried you to the bedroom as the gentleman he was, Olivia had been tucked once more between the two of you and drifted off to a sweet slumber, which didn't prevent her from waking up extremely early and squealing at the top of her little lungs in excitement once she spotted the presents Santa had left around the living room, making you chuckle, as she tugged your sleeve and took you to the tree.

“Where's daddy, mommy?” Her beautiful sparkly eyes stared into your own at the same time Marcus walked in with a tray full of fresh made pancakes. Of course the sweet, lovely Marcus Pike would wake up early and make breakfast for his family. Placing the plate down, he smiled at his daughter's excitement, as she shredded all those colorful sparkly gift wrappings. You turned to him, calling him for an embrace, as he wrapped his arms around the two of you.

“I want us to have this every year, everyday of a family waking up together, please honey” Marcus whispered against your neck, and in return, you simply kissed his lips, showing him exactly your answer, you wanted the same too.

Olivia got her toys, her plushies and her cute summer dresses, you gave Marcus new bass strings and a brand new shirt that would just look perfect on him, tightening to the right places, and in return he gifted you a golden bracelet. But in reality, what you had gifted each other was Olivia and you were both about to gift her a brand new family, one that started at Christmas and would go on for as long as there was love between you all.

____

[serawritesthings]

AMBIVALENT MINDS

Pairing | Simon 'Ghost' Riley x Fem! Reader Summary | There was no doubt an air of mystery surrounded Simon, and while you hadn't seen him in years, his sudden appearance rendered you shocked, to say the least. It doesn't come without complications, though, resurfacing feelings that should have been laid to rest. Tags | sexual content 18+ minors dni, smut, angst-heavy, description of violence, very sad :D Word Count | 12k A/N | Hello once again lovelies! I have recently been working in this fic about Ghost, where I had an idea that I thought was very fitting for him. I'm so used to writing for Arthur, so I'm a bit nervous, but I thought I would challenge myself for this one! I really hope you like it, and if you do, don't hesitate to let me know. I would much appreciate it! ♡ Also, I'm still head-deep in my Arthur Morgan phase, so the next fic will probably be of him. Enjoy!

Stoic had always felt like a suitable word to describe the ghost that haunted your mind. Lacing every corner of your thoughts, he strayed, forever walking the memories of your past–unwanted and unwilling, unidentified, and under no sense of obligation to you or anyone else.

His presence had become a looming shadow, casting a heavy gloom over what you so profoundly wished to forget. No matter how hard you tried to escape those clutches, he held on too tightly, etching his essence into the fabric of your consciousness as the echoes of his footsteps reverberated through the corridors of your mind, a constant reminder of what you wished could be undone.

But it left you more unsatisfied than initially prepared for, finding the distance between you to be nauseating, like the miles only made the hurt seem to grow closer until it was seeping into your very bones. Although reality had a funny way of keeping up with you, clouding the past in its grasp, so now, it only felt like someone else’s experience and not your own–oddly comforting and discomforting all at the same time.

Simon always seemed to have that effect on you, and it was always the most challenging part for you throughout the years you spent together. One day, you would find the rough exterior grow gentle as it warmed the harsh edges with the soft look in his consistently monotone eyes; the other day, sharp and cold orbs cut through you like a splicer–like you were a stranger.

It was hurtful and increasingly confusing, making you wonder if you had been in a one-sided relationship all this time. He kept many parts of himself a secret from you, heavily guarded behind thorny walls, as even the slightest inquiry made him shut you out completely. The struggle you went through to gain his trust was like tiptoeing through a glass field, every step bordering on agony.

He never told you where he lived, only ever sleeping at your apartment even though it was too cramped. And, as it came to his private life, he didn’t speak a word but almost knew yours entirely from the number of questions he asked and your willingness to keep talking the moment you got started.

Funny that his nickname spoke so well with his aura, for that was exactly how you had perceived him now that you had a clear look at him that wasn’t shrouded with love and admiration. In reality, you didn’t know who he was under all those layers and cautious ways, your conversations made up of carefully guarded expressions and chosen words, the depth of emotions often hidden behind a veil of protection.

Somehow, he had felt, well, real? More real than the faked chivalry you were so used to when you were brought up, parents having more wealth than you deemed necessary amidst their strive towards perfection. Compared to their stale kindness and expectations, Simon was a welcomed change, as exciting as he was human.

For a younger you, he was fascinating and shrouded in a prolonged mystery you begged him to tell you. But he never did, always preaching about the unsafety of his life and no less job, that you were better left unknowing–for your sake. So curious and unbelievably stupid you were at the time, not realizing the danger that surrounded Simon and how it could affect you.

You understood him, though, and you did for a long time, but for obvious reasons, it grew exhausting to harbor a love for a man like that. You were young and naïve, only surpassing your early twenties that were spent on edge with an older man you weren’t sure could love anyone, no less himself.

In the shadow of your own accord, the best years of your life passed away, and through long days of studying for your medical degree and battling the struggles of barely seeing him–wondering where he was most of the time–you set your sight on other things, naturally.

For this reason, you always reminded yourself that he couldn’t be loved because he didn’t want to. The thought bruised you because for the longest time, you couldn’t imagine being without him. Thank God that time heals wounds, for the thought grew dim; despite his looming presence, you couldn’t shake from your mind, even though you tried your damnedest.

“I wonder where you went just now, missus.” The warm tone of Gretel filled your ears comfortingly as it cut through the obnoxious clicking of the pen you tormented anxiously. Stopping abruptly, you glanced at the woman writing in a patience journal, focused but somehow acutely aware of your absent-mindedness.

“Oh, sorry.” You spoke quietly, the luminescent light flickering above you as you straightened your back, getting ready to continue your work. “Just stuck in my thoughts…” You trailed off with a sigh, avoiding her questioning gaze as she peered at you over the bundle of paper.

Although a sharp and hardworking lady, Gretel had a knack for seeing straight through you. It was a shame since you always prided yourself on your ability to stay undecipherable, a thing you learned after the heavy supervision you had been under when you were younger.

You could almost swear she was psychic, for she always had this look in her eyes, like every thought that passed through your mind was the most obvious thing in the world, and you felt just as ashamed every time you thought something filthy in her presence.

“Hmm, I know that look, dear. Why don’t you finish up and go home? Rest your mind for a while. Lord knows we have a lot of work to get done tomorrow now that the doctors have been slacking off lately,” she hummed unamused at the last statement, turning back to the endless words loitering the pages, glasses hanging low on her nose.

“Oh, you sure?” In all actuality, you weren’t interested in going home anymore. It felt too empty these days, the eeriness seeping into every corner of the house. Here, you at least had people around you every minute of the day, patient or college, and burying your head in work seemed more of an appealing way to deal with your emotions than staring endlessly into the white tapestry of your wall without a single second of sleep.

“Course I am.” Wishing you away with her hands, you glanced uncomfortably at the snow falling outside the window, hoping to stay in the hospital's warmth. But alas, you knew better than to question her, so you finished your work in silence, the loud drag of your chair notifying Gretel you were on your way.

“Any plans tonight?” She sent a mischievous look your way, expectantly. “A special someone, maybe?”

“No.” You only let out a breathy laugh, giving her a look that spoke too much of your answer. “No, I uh, I’m going to bed.” Cringing at yourself, you shut your eyes when your back was towards the inquiring woman, chastising your inability to make up a lie instead of telling her the sad truth.

“I don’t believe that, a fine woman like you staying home on a Friday night?” She put down the papers and put all her attention on you. “Blasphemy, if I’ve ever heard it.”

The corners of your mouth lifted slightly, appreciating her attempts to lift your mood. It was depressing, though; you could admit that. Earlier, you had heard both the younger and older coworkers gossip about the nightly adventures that awaited as the clock turned 5, feeling like shrinking into the floor at the lack of excitement in your life compared to theirs.

“What about that mystery man that came through here some time ago every time you got off work?” Her words made you stop in your tracks, the now remaining cold, stale coffee you were forcing down your throat spilling down the corners of your mouth, staining your shirt.

“Oh, dear, let me help you.” As the woman rushed towards you, your mind grew numb at the thought of the man you had tried so hard to push toward the back of your mind. Truthfully, you hadn’t thought about him for quite a while, but Gretel’s words forced you to face the cold eyes that stared back at you in your mind, ultimately ruining your every attempt.

“Sorry, I just-” Her reprimanding voice cut your apology short.

“No need to apologize,” she shushed you, grabbing the cup from your hands before you dropped it, smiling heartily in comfort as your cheeks flushed a bright red.

You gladly left the building after your mishap, and although with a large coffee stain under your jacket to showcase your bad luck, it felt relieving to be outside in the fresh air instead of your work’s stale smell of disinfectant and latex. More so, to avoid another possibility of embarrassing yourself somehow.

Gretel hadn’t pestered you more about your apparent surprise when she brought up Simon, but you could feel her eyes scrutinizing you when you weren’t looking. You pondered if she would be disappointed if you let her know you were mere strangers to each other, bordering on a heavy dislike from the abrupt end you faced.

When you grew tired of trying, you presented him with an ultimatum that took weeks for you to muster up the courage in order to speak of it. It felt more like he was the one to break things off with you than the other way around, which wasn’t exactly what you had in mind. He didn’t even get angry as the tears of distress from his lack of emotions ran down your cheeks when you questioned him, wondering why he stayed.

The look on his face wasn’t giving away an ounce of hurt, only remaining detached like he always did, like your talk was a major inconvenience. Your distraught voice didn’t affect him as you begged him to listen and realize, it took so much away from you always to be mindful of him.

“You never let me in, Simon. I feel like I’m tiptoeing around you all the time, like the smallest thing I say will set you off.” Whenever you spoke of this, it felt like he dissociated. You might as well be talking to a wall the way he seemed to bounce every word back at you, eyes observing you under the dim light of your kitchen where he leaned against the counter.

There had been something strangely different about him this time, though, as he came to you in the middle of the night, disturbing you, who had just managed to fall asleep after an increasingly tricky work day. It wasn’t that you disliked him coming to you, but he never told you why after being gone for so long, which troubled you.

“I don’t even know you! You never tell me anything, and you know almost all there is to know about me.” You gazed at him questioningly, only gaining a blank look back. Crossing his arms, he gazed out the small window of your kitchen as the rain made its way down the glass.

When you stepped into your apartment after your long walk from work, the memory hit you tenfold: everything looked remarkably the same as that day–the last day you saw him. If you focused hard enough, you could almost see him still standing there, watching you indescribably as you poured your heart out to him, begging him to stop shielding himself from you.

Now that you looked back at it, you almost felt embarrassed for how you behaved compared to his composed self, but you couldn’t hold back your frustration anymore. The pain and defeat you felt had boiled over, making you wonder if he had viewed you as childish for the words that poured out of you uncontrollably.

Taking your stained shirt off, you changed into something more comfortable before burying your head in the sheets, wanting to melt into the fabric so you could resume the ignorance of your past the following day.

It didn’t work, though, as you could almost feel the comforting rumble of his voice under your head like the sheets had magically turned into his chest, the steady beating of his heart pulsing heavily against your cheek. The fold in the linen grew into the familiar, scarred skin under your palms, your fingers tracing the ruined tissue that stretched far as the coldness of him heavily contrasted with your warmth.

The low chatter of your ancient TV grew distant as sleep started to pull you into its embrace. In the last remains of wakefulness, you could feel his coarse fingers caress your cheek before pulling some strands that covered it behind your ear–lingering on the soft curves as it hurled you closer to dreamless slumber.

“Stay quiet.”

Your eyes opened wide at the sudden breath that hit your ear; not a figment of your imagination, but someone whispering the words harshly against you. Your first instinct was to scream, but you found a broad, gloved hand already covering your mouth, muting the sound successfully against the otherwise quiet apartment–despite the low buzz of the TV in the background.

A heavy weight had you trapped underneath it, and you trashed wildly against the hold. Your movements grew limited, though, and as you moved, you found yourself pressed even firmer against the mattress, the voice you could recognize anywhere rumbling dangerously at you when you didn’t listen.

“I said quiet.” It felt like water as cold as ice washed over you when the familiar voice reached you, rendering you quiet and unmoving in pure shock.

You didn’t get much time to ponder over your current predicament, hearing quiet yet rustling footsteps step slowly on the creaking floor panels of your apartment. The hair on your arms rose when you realized others who were unwelcome walked outside the room, the creeping footsteps only growing closer to your bedroom door.

As they did, the hand covering your mouth slowly released its grip, but not before pushing a finger against your lips. You obeyed, feeling him pull you closer so you were pulled taut against him, having no choice but to follow his lead as he stepped away from the bed. Every movement was cautious and quiet as your back was pushed up against the wall beside the door, your whole frame covered by a broad back that towered before you.

It was Simon, no doubt. You were sure of it as you gazed up at the man, the broadness of his shoulders, the tall height, and the gruff voice that had called you out earlier. From what you could see from his back, he was dressed differently; a mask seemed to cover the whole of his head down to his neck, pulled into a sweater of the same color as a thick vest could be seen from underneath it.

In a hasty motion, you felt his hand graze the skin of your stomach as he pulled what appeared to be a gun that was strapped against his body from the waistline of his jeans.

Your breath hitched at the sight, the clicking noise as he loaded the metal slowly cutting through the quiet room, backing up even more so you were pushed tighter against the wall. The footsteps had ceased now, and for a while, you pondered if they had ever been there in the first place, wondering if this was reality or just a depraved dream your exhausted mind had conjured up in lack of excitement.

But then, you saw the door handler move slightly out of the corner of your eyes. Craning your head towards it in fear, your view was obscured though as Simon moved to shield you even further, lifting the gun as the door creaked open, the soft light of your hallway lamp illuminating the room, a giant shadow now apparent on the walls from the figure outside.

The door remained open, and the seconds ticked slowly like ages passed; your trembling hands made their way to Simons’s sides, grabbing his waist as you tried to keep your breathing quiet, heartbeat picking up as he placed a gloved hand on yours for a second to then wrap around the handle again.

What transpired next could only be likened to a horrible nightmare: the muted sounds of a suppressed gun going off, a body falling like a ragdoll down on the floor of your bedroom, dark blood seeping into the fabric of your rug from the man now laying there, completely and utterly lifeless.

Left staring at Simons’s back when he rushed towards the figure, he checked the man’s pulse in a quick motion. You couldn’t form a single sound, neither could you think straight as shock flooded you at the sight, eyes growing wide when you started to register what transpired.

Still remaining pressed against the wall in disbelief, you heard the low rumble of Simons’s voice speak into his intercom, eyes staring at you briefly through the holes in his mask before raising up, putting it back in his pocket while stalking toward you in big strides.

Grabbing your shoulders, he pushed you gently but hastily out the door, pushing your head to look forward as your gaze was transfixed on the dead man, finding it increasingly absurd to see that sight in the bedroom you had just slept in.

In your haze, you had found yourself being led into the kitchen, lifted up with strong arms on the counter as he grasped your cheeks in his gloved hands, finding your eyes unfocused and clouded.

“Hey, you okay?” His voice rumbled low in his chest as his eyes sought yours, patting your cheek gently to gain your attention. You craned your neck slightly to look up at him, eyes covered with black paint under the mask, seeming so familiar yet different from the man you knew.

“Simon?” Your voice was quiet, confusion lacing the edges as tears started to brim the corners of your eyes at the overwhelming emotions that hit you after the apparent shock that rendered you frozen.

“You’re alright,” he told you; as he swept his thumb over your cheek, a tear fell, bringing your head to his chest as his arms wrapped around you, gripping his waist in distress. Shushing you, he let you lean against him for a while as you sobbed, terrified of what had just transpired and what he had done.

You could still see the emotionless eyes staring back at you in your mind, the thought of them still lying in the next room shooting pangs of anxiety through you. Just like that, he had fallen to the floor, and through your tears, you started to feel the confusion fill you and the shock at what Simon had done.

He had killed a man. Also, he was dressed like a madman, wearing a mask and a vest, with a gun strapped into his jeans. He had been prepared to kill, and that thought hit you like a train as you felt your tears freeze, the arms around you caging you in until you started to push on his chest frantically, begging him to step away.

“What did you do!?” Distressed, you hit Simon’s chest in protest, feeling claustrophobic at having him standing so close after what he had just done. He didn’t budge, though, grabbing your arms tightly as he bent down to look you in the eyes.

“Stop that.” Sternly, he tried to get you to stop moving, but you didn’t listen. Still, uneasiness lingering in your thoughts.

“You killed him!” He hushed you with a dangerous look in his eyes, pulling your hands to your back so he could grip your wrists with one hand, stepping closer so he was pushed against you with the other hand gripping your chin forcefully.

“Listen!” He hissed loudly, making you stop your trashing when he did. “I need to get you out of here, got it?” You only stared at him frightfully as he spoke. “You need to stay quiet and keep close to me. Can you do that?”

When Simon didn’t get an answer, he closed his eyes for a second before opening them again, the fabric of his glove pulling your wild hair behind your ear.

“If you don’t do as I say, you’ll face the same fate as the man in your bedroom, understand?” You nodded slowly, and as he released your wrists in caution, he gave you a nod back when he realized you were listening to him.

“No matter what, you stay behind me. Got it?” His voice grew monotone as he took hasty strides towards your window, checking the empty street outside your apartment for a second before lowering the blinds. The kitchen grew shrouded in darkness, only the moon shining through the blinds. Taking a deep breath, you wiped your tears as you tried to gather yourself.

This wasn’t how you planned for your night to go. Just like any other Friday night, you were prepared to sleep the night away, not being witness to a murder, no less by your ex. He had been secretive through the years you spent together, and sure, you had made up various insane scenarios about his background. There had been crazier assumptions than Simon being a murderer, but that didn’t make the thought any easier.

Thinking about it made you shiver, wondering who he was beneath this facade he kept up and if this had been the case when you’d known him. Had he been hiding this from you all this time? You couldn’t help but feel betrayed, even if it was only you assuming. But then, he probably knew you would have one or two things to say about his, well, occupation.

Your first instinct was to keep your distance, but you realized you had no choice but to follow his lead if you wanted to escape this chaotic mess. Somewhere along your distressed mind and trembling hands that were a blend of his actions and being told you might have been killed tonight, his presence made the situation less grim, the usual safety he carried around him soothing your stress.

It wasn’t unusual, for he had always prioritized your safety–almost bordering on possessive. It had been a significant problem for you, seeing as it reminded you of your parents, whom you left when you turned 18, not wanting to be under that kind of supervision anymore. Countless memories of gruesome fights flashed before you, remembering the mood swings that turned Simon into a completely different person, words chilling and inexcusable action plenty.

Although many times horrible, his eyes had always been set straight on you, and despite them being sharp and calculated, you could almost feel the warmth radiate from them when they fell upon you. A hand on the small of your back, a large frame shielding you from others’ curious eyes and his sight, ever-so-watchful on you.

He was a man of actions, not words, and always picked you up when needed, walked you home, and even stayed in your apartment every chance possible, deeming it wasn’t a safe neighborhood. You had Simon to thank for the reinforced locks on your doors and windows, as well as the taser and pepper spray still in your purse to this day.

Cautiously, you trailed behind him as you moved through the hallway, the light above you flickering as you felt his hand planting itself on the small of your back as he reached around you. Pressing you closer to him, he took measured steps that echoed through the walls, not a single sound from the apartments surrounding you.

There was obviously something he wasn’t telling you, and there were so many questions you wanted to ask. Who was that man creeping through your apartment, and why, for all reasons, did Simon manage to be there at the right time? It felt too surreal to hold legitimacy, but somehow, you were thankful he was.

Simon’s gaze, once penetrating, had been soft when it met your wide ones a few minutes ago. It had always been rare to find him vulnerable, rarely getting a glimpse of the man behind the stoic eyes, but it reminded you of why you fell for him in the first place. The rare glimpses of love he showed were enough to fuel your own at the time, running on the tiny specks of affirmation that he might, in fact, love you like you did him.

But there was a twinge of something else, a draft of loneliness clouding them that you had never seen before. It shot a pang of sadness through you, although unwillingly, you couldn’t help but wonder if he had someone else to lean on when you left him, or had you been the only one?

Blinking the reminiscent thoughts away, you refused to direct your thoughts toward the pity that always laced your feelings regarding Simon. There hadn’t been anything you could do to help him anymore when you left him, and you had to put yourself first for once and realize that what you had was growing increasingly more destructive with time.

You were glad you cut it off before it got any worse, wondering many times how it would have panned out if you hadn’t left. And more so, he hadn’t given you a single reason to stay when you left, only gazing into the air like you weren’t there–not begging you to stay like you desperately wanted.

“Where are you taking me?” A worried curiosity started to take hold of you, and amidst your cautious eyes and careful steps down the stairway in the apartment building, the thought of who the now-dead man actually was and if there were more around swirled in your mind.

You only got a miffed head turn in response, glaring at you through the black paint as he raised a finger to his clothed lips. Getting his notion, you kept quiet behind him, sock-clad feet following his every step on the dirty, laminated floor. You didn’t see a single person on the way down, and it felt eerie despite it being in the middle of the night with everyone asleep.

As you descended on what you now realized was the entry floor, you suddenly felt yourself pulled roughly against the corner of a wall, face right before Simon’s chest. You heard voices coming from the opening of the building, sirens audible in the background as the sound of traffic lessened when someone closed the door–voices growing nearer by the second.

You gasped out loud at suddenly being trashed around, but when you saw the broad arms of Simon encase your head with his body pressed up against yours, you relaxed. Craning your head hastily to gaze up at him, you already found his eyes staring intensely at you, although faltering when he met yours in what you might have interpreted as shyness.

Your gaze flickered, unsure where to look now that he was so close to you. You opted to plant your eye on his chest, the folds and curves of the sweatshirt following his ample muscles that were hiding under the fabric, bulging when his m muscles flexed.

A deep, red blush grew on your cheeks, and you chastised yourself for being so obvious, wondering if he took notice. Redirecting your gawking, you tried looking towards the side but found his large arms blocking your view as he leaned down further to shield you from, well, you weren’t so sure.

After some time, you heard the hurried voices pass as the footsteps grew distant. As you looked up at Simon, relieved, you found him already stalking towards the entry door, grabbing your upper arm when you stumbled to drag you behind him.

It was freezing outside, the chilly air seeping into the thin cotton of your pajamas as you cringed when your feet stepped on the snowy sidewalk, now wholly wet. You didn’t have time to ponder it, though, being directed towards a black car poorly parked a few meters away, like the driver had been in a hurry.

The street was empty, aside from a few other cars littered around the streets, heavy with the snowfall that had been falling a few hours ago. It wasn’t a neighborhood with a good reputation, and often you read about the crime and dealings held in the dark alleyways and corners of the city. You didn’t have too many options, though, the already low pay from your nurse job being even lower since you just got out of school.

The seat underneath you was cold when Simon pushed you through the door, slamming it so hard that the sound echoed in the quiet street. Running quickly to the driver’s side, he wasted no time in starting the engine, tires screeching as he belted through the tightly built buildings into the highway.

His eyes were strained, staring firmly ahead, ignoring all laws of speeding when he drove faster–not that there were any other cars around. Confusion clouded your face as you stared at him staying taut against his seat, glancing worriedly in the rearview mirror every other second.

“What’s going on, Simon?” You asked him, voice audibly stressed, gripping the seat tightly and craning your head to look behind you. There was no answer, as expected, and it only managed to fuel your anxiety as you watched his jaw tighten under the taut mask caressing his jawline. It didn’t deter you from continuing to demand an answer to why you were in this chaotic mess in the first place and what his part was in it.

The engine’s rhythmic hymn provided a backdrop to your growing unease, prodding him to speak. “Simon!” You pleaded, but he remained silent, navigating the empty streets with a determination that intrigued and frightened you–the unanswered question hanging heavy in the air, thick and stifling.

Simon’s grip on the steering wheel tightened, and you were shot with a sharp, almost challenging look. “There’s people after you,” he snapped, voice cutting through the air. “But I can’t lay it all out for you now, so just do as I say.”

“What?!” You gripped the seat to turn around, seeing the road behind you devoid of any other cars. “You can’t be serious!”

His gaze, shielded and focused, hid the more profound truth–that the dangerous shadows tailing you were a consequence of his own actions, a perilous side of his life that had unexpectedly spilled into yours when he basked in the euphoria of being loved by you. The bonds you once shared had been like an anchor but now grew into a chain, its links forged in the crucible of his regrets.

You were left staring ahead while damning his stubbornness to not speak through the rest of the ride. The long way allowed you to think about the last hour and how absurd it was, especially seeing Simon again, which you had thought would never be the case some time ago.

Somewhere, deep in the crooks and nooks of your heart, it soared at seeing him again, prodding heavily at the memories you kept at bay, memories that hurt too much to consider many times. You examined his body that too many others bulged in pride and confidence, but to you, hunching slightly in exhaustion, fingers flexing nervously against the wheel.

He had grown much taller and broader since you last saw him, with an air of maturity surrounding him that you hadn’t noticed before. Admittedly, you were both grown adults now, more so since he was older than you, and it felt quite different to be near him. You were unsure if you had romanticized the few good parts of your relationship that weren’t shrouded in misunderstandings and miscommunication or if you actually missed the first and only man you had ever loved.

The air in the vehicle grew tight as time passed, but at least it was warm as he had put the heat on blast when taking notice of your shivering frame. The strain of emotions from the moments leading up to now seemed to get a hold of you, and in a tired haze, you felt your lids droop heavily as you tried to keep your focus on the road.

After some time, though, your head fell heavily against the door, neck craning uncomfortably as your body succumbed to the heavy load of the day. It felt like seconds had passed when you woke up from your deep slumber, head fitted into warm sheets covering your body in heaps as small orange lights shone through the blinds.

As you blinked slightly, you still felt the heaviness of sleep hanging over you, bare feet rubbing against the bedding as you snuggled closer into the warmth and familiar scent that surrounded you, once more falling into a dreamless slumber without wondering where the hard, plastic side of the door against your cheek went.

It wasn’t until the evening sun settled high in the sky that you awoke again, this time wide awake. Only, it wasn’t your bed; instead, dark, blue sheets covered your frame, shielding you against the coldness of the apartment–only now noticing a black jacket twice the size of your body wrapped around you.

–

Slightly dazy and confused, you rubbed your eyes that complained at having to remain open, sitting up straight. So, last night hadn’t been a dream? Smiling lightly, you realized your night had been much more action-filled than your colleagues if that counted for something.

“Hello?” Your voice broke through the silence, quiet and cautious, yet sure Simon had to be nearby. When the silence stretched on, you cast the blanket aside to recognize the familiar chill wound around your legs that weren’t shielded by the jacket.

Grimacing, you pulled the sides of the jacket closer to you, wondering if the heat was off. There was no mistake that it wasn’t yours, the wooden floor under your feet creaking audibly as you stepped over some planks that were missing, observing the small cracks that stretched on the walls and bedroom door that had been wholly wrung off its hinges, now leaning against the wall.

Walking into the small hallway, you stepped over the various objects loitering the floor, bending down to examine what appeared to be some old paperwork among the dirty shirts that couldn’t have been cleaned for a while.

Scrunching your nose, you grabbed the fabric to put it on the old plastic chair that missed one leg, wondering where you had ended up. You heard the slight thud of something falling towards the floor as you did. Gazing down in confusion, the appearance of a small portrait caught your eyes, not having been there a second ago.

Raising your brows, you bent down again, picking up the shiny paper as you observed the familiar smiling face. You remembered the day vividly, the memory making the corners of your mouth chirp up lightly as it flashed before your eyes.

You had rarely gone out with Simon, being told by him that it was too dangerous for you to be seen with him. Despite your disagreement about it, you often spend long days in bed, the smell of homemade breakfast wafting under your nose and the feeling of starved hands moving desperately, heatedly, now filling your mind.

You were buried in your bed sheets; face blushed with hair spreading wildly around you like a halo as you gave Simon a toothy smile, begging him not to take the picture through endless giggles as his hand tickled you playfully. He had just made love to you, tender in his own way, and told you he wanted to show you how beautiful you looked to him at that moment.

You placed the marred picture back into the heavy combat jacket you had laid on the chair just now, curious of the torn edges and suspiciously red substance covering it in some places. Had he kept that picture all these years?

“Simon?” Walking further into the apartment, you grew worried, wondering where Simon was. That’s when you heard the low rumble of his voice, talking in a hushed manner.

Tiptoeing faster, you caught sight of his large frame leaning against the kitchen sink, gazing at you monotonously when you entered as his mouth worded undecipherable words before ending the call, pulling the phone back into his front pocket.

As you placed the puzzle pieces together, you realized you were in his apartment. That explains it, you thought to yourself as your gaze wandered around the room, taking in the dire state of it. You couldn’t help but be surprised, never imagining that Simon lived in such a pigsty. It wasn’t that it was untidy; it was more like someone hadn’t been here for ages and ignored the dire need for renovations, looking like it would fall apart at any moment.

Your wide-open eyes met his calculating ones, and as you opened your mouth to speak, he cleared his throat before you could. “Sleep well?” He raised his brow as the question hung in the air, eyes caressing your form as he took you in.

“I, uh…” you trailed off, scrunching your forehead as you tried to find the right words, completely and utterly overwhelmed at where you found yourself. “Yeah, I think so.”

You got a nod back, still staring intensely into each other’s eyes as you wondered where to start the questions that burned in your mind. “You,” you stuttered. “You’re here.” Your fumbled words grew into more of a statement than a question, confusion lacing your expression.

Simon only gave you a look in response, and had you been looking close enough, you would see the corners of his mouth chirp up slightly, unwillingly, of course.

“What are you doing here?” you blurted out. “No, what am I doing here?” Shaking your head to clear it, you dragged a hand through your wildly tousled hair before trying again, glancing at him in irritation. “What’s going on?”

He straightened up from his leaning position but didn’t step closer, still rendering you shying slightly away from his intimidating posture as he towered over you, fingers gripping the fabric of his jacket slightly–nervously fidgeting your feet on the cold planks.

He nodded towards one of the old chairs surrounding a smaller table, beckoning you to sit down. Cautiously, you shuffled into the small kitchen, sitting tentatively on the chair as you hoped it wouldn’t break under your weight. Simon, though, stayed in his place, watching you indescribably before leaning his hands on the end of the table.

He glanced sideways like he was giving something a heavy thought before directing his gaze toward you again. “You’re in trouble,” he said. “The man I killed yesterday, he had been sent out to kill you.”

You froze in your seat as you felt shivers of utter fear running over your back as your heart began to race, its erratic beats echoing in your ears. The silence enveloped the room was broken by the ominous sounds of your breath, each inhaling a reluctant acknowledgment of the palpable reality you had dreaded.

Kill you? Why in the world would someone want to kill you? The fear grew into a hand that tightened its grip around your chest, making it harder for you to draw breath. Noticing your struggle, Simon’s hand flexed slightly as if he wanted to reach you amidst the panic but decided against it. Instead, he draped the mask he had been wearing over his head, revealing the piercing gaze accompanied by the blonde tufts of hair, messy from wearing the balaclava as the remains of sweat wetted the roots of his hair.

“Hey, it’s alright. He won’t get the chance now.” You weren’t sure if his words had been meant to provide you with comfort, but seeing him without his mask made you feel slightly safer.

“Is that supposed to make me feel better?” You only got a grunt in response as he straightened up, turning away from you to look out the window. “Who was he?” You asked, trying to crane your neck to get more glimpses of his face that he had shielded from you until now.

There was something different about them, but you couldn’t pinpoint what it was. They seemed tired, though; the bags underneath them were hard not to notice, heavy and swollen as the whites of his eyes were shielded under a light redness.

“Kessler.” He let on, words short. Noticing your silence, he sighed. “Victor Kessler”

“But why was he in my apartment?”

Rubbing his eyes, you saw the muscles tense in irritation. “He did… something he shouldn’t, so he got expelled from the task force,” he said. “We’ve been keeping a close eye on him every since, but revenge isn’t a fool's game–not for him, it seems.” He felt your gaze on him, sighing again when he realized you weren’t satisfied by the answer.

“Look, I don’t know. Revenge maybe? He was going to use you to get to me; knowing you being dead would give him the reaction he wanted. Either way, you don’t have to worry about him now.”

“Why would…” As his words sunk in after you started to speak, you stuttered, caught off guard. “Why would he use me of all people?” To say you were baffled was an understatement. What you had with Simon was a story from years ago, a thing of the past, which meant there was no reason for you to be the target of their malice.

You felt his eyes on you, but as you looked back, they returned to gaze out into the dark street lightened by the snow and the flickering streetlamp. There were many things you didn’t know of, many things he hadn’t told you–mostly because of secrecy and his stubbornness, but also from the humiliation he would face if he did.

He never thought about how strange it would be for you to wake up and suddenly see him in your apartment after all these years, but Simon didn’t think as he belted towards your building complex in sheer panic when he got the notion just in time.

Without your knowledge, he had been watching you ever since you decided to leave, dead set on never letting you out of his sight. It wasn’t for some sick, deluded reason as many may think, but more of a worry about how he had involved you into his life that he knew couldn’t be escaped, how your safety was compromised when he was too weak to leave.

“It doesn’t matter.” His response was short and conceit, brushing off your inquiries. You pondered over his words that fell reluctantly from his mouth, growing dizzy from all the questions that surged within you at the information.

“You’re a soldier?” He smiled slightly at your conversation change, unbeknownst to you, as his back faced your questioning glances. “Special force operator.”

“Oh,” you mouthed silently, like his words resonated with you. The Simon you had known for most of your life was a soldier? The thought was strange, but it connected some dots for you and the mystery that had always followed him. Special force operator?

“What’s that?”

“We handle things regular troops can’t touch, take missions that others don’t dare.”

“What, like superheroes?” You managed to get something that was supposed to be like a laugh but intertwined with a scoff.

“No, it’s not about playing superhero, love. It’s about being the one who gets things done when the stakes are their highest.” He felt your gaze burning on his back, closing his eyes as the word fell out against his will, like a habit.

He had sometimes called you that when you were together, the endearing term slipping out occasionally. You chastised yourself when you felt the familiar yet strange fluttering in your stomach when hearing it leave, cautiously raising from the chair like Simon was a provoked animal, even though he remained utterly still where he stood, not minding you.

You glanced shyly as you approached him, still not used to being in his presence after such a long time. “So, that’s why you always were so secretive, huh?” The fabric of your jackets touched slightly, the feeling making him glance down at you in a concealed startle at suddenly having you so close. He looked away as you glanced up at him, refusing to let him get away with a grunt as an answer this time.

“You could’ve gotten hurt if I didn’t.” He looked indecisive when your cold fingers lightly placed their way on his hand that rested on the window sill, dark eyes avoiding yours. The skin under your palm was freezing now that his gloves had been removed, the scarred tissue you knew so well contrasting heavily against your unspoiled ones, pads rough and rugged.

Worming your nimble fingers through the backside of his hand, you observed the difference quietly, leaning your head on his big arm tentatively. The muscle tensed under you, his body growing taut under your touch as he had always done, mostly when he came back from what you, at the time, didn’t know the cause of, bruised and apprehensive.

You relaxed slightly when he didn’t pull away, glancing into the street silently. You should still have been terrified to the bone, but safety had always been a given when Simon was near you, and now you understood why you had felt that way. It made you somewhat sad to realize he didn’t speak to you about who he was, but somewhere, you understood why he hadn’t, why he still didn’t tell you the entirety of the situation.

What rendered you speechless was that he had been keeping track of you for this long since he was aware you were in danger. While you had been trying to forget him and move on with your life, he kept tabs on you, ensuring you would be safe.

“You should have told me.” He shook his head immediately, stepping away from your touch, shivering as he still felt the lingering drag of your fingers on his hand.

“I’m glad I didn’t.” You scrunched your brows at his response, stepping toward him but not getting any closer as he grabbed your upper arms in warning. “You’ve only seen me now because you’re in danger, alright? I’ll let you be once you’re safe. I’m unsure if Kessler has any other connections, but I have people who will look it up before you leave. I also had someone go through your apartment and make sure to remo-”

“I don’t want you to leave, Simon.” You interrupted him mid-sentence, words leaving you before you could think them through. It was dangerous for him to be here since he raised feelings inside you that had been buried a long time ago and were best kept locked away; you couldn’t help it, though, for the good moments you remembered were so devastatingly wonderful–making your now boring life pale in its memory.

He stilled at your words, a profound conflict littering his blue eyes as he gazed into your guilty ones. Raising your hand, you placed it on his cheek, running it tentatively over his skin. You thought he would pull away, so you were surprised to see his eyes fluttering shut at the contact, almost leaning into your touch.

The air surrounding you grew taut, with an underlying tension from the warmth spreading low in your belly. Swallowing nervously, you couldn’t help but step closer to him, bringing your arms around his waist to place your palms against the broadness of his back, breathing in his scent as you pushed your cheek flat against his chest.

You shouldn’t, but there was a pull you had no choice but to follow, wondering if it would feel the same as before. You felt his arms wound around you, your lips trembling at the familiar feeling you remembered always used to leave you breathless with devotion.

Simon pulled you tighter towards him, thinking of how he had remembered you feeling against him on the cold, unsure nights, only a gun strapped to his back and a picture of you in the pocket closest to his heart.

Sometimes, when he was sure he was taking his last breaths, he would grab the piece of printed paper, dust it off from the ashes of war as his blood-soaked fingers swiped over the picture, coloring you in a tint of red as he remembered how you had looked the day it was taken. It’s what kept him going when he didn't feel like pushing on.

He wasn’t afraid of dying, neither was he of going to hell, for every day that had passed without you in it, only a picture as proof, already brought him into the scorching fire as the devil himself tortured Simon by only being able to watch you from a distance, all because of his own choices.

It was his fault, of course, that he had chosen this path, but when he met you, it was too late. No longer could he hide from the life he had chosen, having to sacrifice you so he could keep you safe. If that wasn’t torture in itself, he wasn’t sure what was.

The warmth that enveloped him ran like fire up his veins, all sense of logic falling out the window as he basked in your touch, suddenly grabbing your waist and hoisting you around his, stalking in significant strides towards the counter. You buried your head in the crook of his neck, feeling the coarse stubble rubbing against your cheek as you wrapped your arms around his neck, feeling his hands wander their way under his jacket that covered you, finding sanction around your waist as he sighed at the feeling of your nose trailing up his neck.

Bending his head down towards yours, his lips desperately sought yours, all restraint gone as the chains holding him back fell towards the floor in a loud clank, pushing your body taut against his.

Fueled by his affection, you bask in the tenderness of his touch and desperation in his movements as you push all sense of logic to the back of your mind, longing to feel what you had always felt with Simon, the feelings that had been simmering in the back of your mind.

You shivered as his calloused hands crept under your shirt, caressing the soft skin that had remained untouched ever since he left, battled-bruised hands seeking sanction in the curves of your body that filled his wanton dreams, dreams that always depicted you.

“Simon.” you gasped in a quiet voice, hands running up to rest in the tufts of his hair, arching your back when his fingers traveled down to your backside, palms fitting wholly against you as he pushed you tighter toward his front with a quick drag.

A grunt left him when your legs tightened against him, feeling your crotch pressed against him, the euphoric feeling bordering on nostalgia. The room that remained as cold as it had been before wasn’t anything you pondered over when his hands unzipped your jacket, leaving it still wrapped around your arms, but the shirt of your pajamas was now visible.

“Tell me to stop.” His lips attached themselves to the crevice of your neck, bringing the supple flesh into his mouth as he groaned against you, fingers running their way up your shirt to lightly skim over the thin fabric covering your bare chest.

“Stop, Simon.” You said, voice monotone as you heeded his command needlessly, not paying attention to what you were saying as his thumb slowly caressed the side of your breast, begging him to touch you as your legs automatically widened to let him step further into your embrace.

He didn’t stop, though, not being able to restrain himself any longer as he saw how deliciously your nipple strained against your shirt, mouth-watering as they seemed to almost beg for him to wrap his lips around them. Doing just that, he heard the sound of your moan vibrating through the quiet room as you felt the unusual feeling of his tongue swiping over it through the fabric, gasping as you felt him grind his middle against yours slowly.

“Push me away. I mean it.” Weak hands found his shoulder pushing against the muscles that hid under the fabric of his jacket as he growled out the words, not budging him one bit as he continued his assault on your breast, covering the other with his palm as he crouched down slightly to make up for the height difference.

Grunting in frustration at his body not following his mind, he lifted you up once more after detaching his lips from you, carrying your heated body towards the manky, old bedroom. You unzipped his heavy winter jacket the short way you could, worming your hands around him like a snake, disapproving of the bulletproof vest strapped to him under the sweater. Instead, you grabbed his cheeks between your hands, placing your lips on his once more, feeling him pushing you up against the wall in the hallway.

Putting you down on your feet, he roughly removed the jacket from your arms, then gently helped you pull the fabric of the shirt to reveal your upper body, feeling his hands grab your bottom to carry you into the bedroom, carefully minding your head as he laid you down on the hard mattress, standing up to examine you as your chest heaved out its breath, gazing tenderly at Simon.

That did it, no doubt. The sight almost made his knees buckle; he grabbed ahold of the small wardrobe placed by the foot of the bed as he removed his jacket, lifting your back up slightly to put it behind you, your desperate lips finding their place on his neck as he bent down, stubborn legs wounding their way around his hips as you dragged him towards you like a siren.

He couldn’t help but follow, comfortably fitting his front against yours, the thin fabric of your pajama pants letting him feel you better as he strained against his jeans, the material stretched tight under his massive desire for you. Your breath hitched as he moved languidly, placing his forearm under your neck as you stared up at him through hazy eyes, a deep blush falling from your cheeks to your chest.

“Fuckin’ hell,” he swore into the otherwise quiet room at the sight. As your eyes met, you could see the sharp eyes crease as he scrunched his eyes tight, dragging his hand that wasn’t under your head down the curves of your sides, memorizing every crevice like this was the last time he could feel it.

The room grew shrouded in the released tension, now thick with a burning want as the large man hovering over you pushed your smaller frame against his ruined mattress, shame not having the chance to fill him yet from the state of the room he was devouring you in.

You paid no mind either, letting out a cry when you felt his hand creep down between your bodies, feeling the warmth of your crotch under his thick fingers as he parted two of them, dragging their way on the side of your lips, never really touching you where you mostly wanted him to.

“I can’t do this to you.” His voice was rough, blending a deep want and a heavy twinge of regret like he was doing something completely unlawful. You stroked his temple with your nimble fingers, wiping the sweat dripping down his forehead away, caressing the skin lovingly.

“Do what, Simon?” He didn’t give you an answer as you asked him breathlessly, but you knew what he meant, feeling like this was too hasty, too quick. But you couldn’t stay away from him, and all the hurt and uncertainty he had let you face entirely on your own, it felt too good to have him near you–for him to want you.

The slow drag of his crotch against yours growing more forceful, you were brought from your thoughts, breath hitching as the large imprint of him rubbed over the material of your pants, feeling every slide grow muted as a warm shiver traveled down your back, a sting of pleasure shooting sharply up your body all the way to your fingertips.

It was numbing, the way he chased after your lips while trying to pull himself away from you, arm pulling you closer yet head pulling away from you. The internal battle he faced was visible, but your warm and caressing hand lulled him closer to you, soothing the harsh thoughts that filled his mind, the worrying that stretched the lines deep on his face.

At the same time, he panted, dragging your trousers down your thighs, refusing to pull away from you, so when he realized there was no other way, you heard the fabric tear amidst the loud ringing in your eyes from excitement.

Your eyes shot open, but before you could speak, you felt Simon’s thumb push its way into your mouth, muting your sound of protest as he buried his head in your chest. Your hands threaded through his hair as you scratched the roots in pleasure when his other hands rubbed you over your underwear, wetness seeping through the material so his fingers could glide over you more easily.

It was mind-numbing, the sparks of pleasure you felt as his calloused fingers finally met skin, dragging slowly between your folds as your panties were pushed aside.

“Oh, god!” A strangled attempt at speaking left you, mouth agape as you arched up against him, feeling a thick finger slowly wind its way into the gummy walls, clenching down on the intrusion. The feeling left you quickly, though, and as a whine of disappointment left you, you felt his finger caress your clit in soft circles, making your hips move in motion with his hand.

Swallowing your noises, Simon’s tongue wormed its way into your welcoming mouth, lips massaging yours as he grabbed your cheek with one hand gently. Running your hands under the fabric of his sweater, you grabbed the vest underneath it in discontent, trying to show him you wanted it off, unable to do it yourself as his heavy weight rendered you moveless underneath him.

His eyes, now a swirling pool of black in the dark room, gazed dangerously into yours, grabbing the end of his sweater and pushing it over his head, refusing to detach from you. As the skin of his upper body was revealed, your hands ran over every piece of skin you could find to then push against the straps, the vest detaching from its hold, Simon throwing it beside the bed in a hurry, grabbing your thighs to push the plump flesh up beside you, gazing heatedly at your puffy lips that peaked through your panties, red and tender from his fingers.

Closing his eyes, he tried to gather his clouded brain, vision unfocused as he could only make out the blissful expression on your face. Wiping his forehead, he kissed the soft skin of your thighs, feeling them stay planted firmly where he pushed them as he let go.

His hands lowered to drag down the zip of his pants, his hardness straining painfully against the fabric. As the material loosened, a sigh of relief left him. Still, then pleasure so sharp ran through him when he felt your nimble hands slowly caress the bulge in his briefs, beckoning him to retake his place in the crevice of your neck, almost biting into your skin as your hand wormed its way into his briefs.

God had imprinted your every touch into his mind, only dragging them out when nights had turned too cold or lonely. Like some depraved animal, he had imagined your hands gliding over him in the confines of this bed when he was on leave, other times imagining your fingers wrapping their way around his shaft as he found to sleep in the corner of some building, teammates only meters away as he fell into a helpless dream of you and your soft touch.

To feel you touch him like that again must have been some type of depraved joke from the devil himself, finding pleasure in the torture of knowing he would never be able to feel this again. The slow drag of your fingers down the trail of hair that led to his crotch, slowly palming the scorching shaft that pulsed against your touch, the small leak of precum making the feeling all too much for Simon to contain himself.

“Fuckin’ hell, are you trying to kill me?” He panted out, grabbing your wrist when it became too much. Instead of a noise of disappointment, the beautiful sound of your laugh clung in his ears, and when he looked up, he found you giving him a toothy smile, a blissed-out expression covering your face.

“Oh, Simon,” you said, staring warmly at him as you took in the heaving of his chest as he planted his arms beside you, covering your whole frame with his large body. Looking down, you parted your legs even more, the anticipation being too much for you to handle, wishing he would dampen the warmth spreading in the low of your stomach.

Suddenly you felt his mouth against your begging wetness, tongue laying flat against your lips as he massaged and licked striped to your red clit, mumbling incoherent words against you that only vibrated euphorically against your sensitive parts.

As you trashed underneath him, his hands wound their way under your legs, pushing your hips down to the mattress as you felt his tongue worm its way into your tightly clenched whole to then once more tease your clit with his tongue, staring up at your face as the paint around his eyes dripped with the sweat down the folds of your legs, almost eating you whole as he lapped at you.

Hitting his head lightly, you begged for him to end his torture with pleading, tear-filled eyes from the overstimulation. You felt him everywhere as he buried his face nose-deep into your heat, hands burning every part of your skin that they caressed frantically, like starved for the feeling of you underneath them.

Pushing the ball of your palm into his bulging, scar-littered shoulder when he didn’t listen, you hit him once more when you regained more power, and he pushed himself hastily above you, almost manhandling you as he removed your panties off your legs and throwing them behind him.

“Come here,” he tells you, and it isn’t until he’s buried deep inside you that your facade breaks, tears gliding languidly down your cheeks in a quiet sob as he thrusts slow and deep, pushing down your thighs until they are burning from the stretch against the mattress–spread wide for only him. Simon hummed at the thought.

Hugging his head close to you, you can feel the warmth of his breath fanning over your neck as the sounds of him thrusting against you echo in the room, hefty and bulky, as you feel him bullying his way into you.

You knew this was it, and for that reason, you held him tighter, trying to imprint his touch into your head–wishing to prolong this moment so it would never stop, pleading with whoever would listen to make him stay. Your pleading only turned into mindless babbling as the force of his hips pushed you further up the bed, breasts bouncing with every motion.

Hearing the words stumble from you like he remembered they always did, he cooed at you, feeling your walls fluttering around his cock as he swore. “I know love, I know.” Breathlessly, he pushed himself up on his hands, grabbing the headboard as he continued to pound into you, watching you cry out with wet cheeks.

Closing his eyes in pain, he felt his heart cramp when what he was doing passed through his mind, knowing this wasn’t fair to you. But he couldn’t stop himself from having you, for you rendered him weak in the knees every time, not sure you knew of the power you held over him.

“Simon, please,” you begged with a trembling voice, staring into his dark eyes as his breath heaved with strain, begging him not to leave you again. He kept his gaze locked with yours, face contorting in agony when he realized your face would haunt him forever, damning him for his ways. He would stay away and leave you alone–he just needed to feel you for one last time, just once more.

To avoid the hurt that started to spread in his loins at the thought, he suddenly pulled you up by your forearms as he laid on his back, pulling you into his strong embrace as he splayed you over his chest, legs on either side of his waist.

A whine left you when he entered you once again, rutting up into you with strong legs planted firmly on the mattress, feeling you glide up his body with every thrust as your head buried its way into his neck. What left you now wasn’t even moans, mouth open wide in a noiseless scream as his hips slapped loudly against yours.

Grabbing the back of your hair, he pushed your head up so you started into his eyes, trying to tell you the three words he couldn’t speak. You gave no indication of noticing, eyes flickering in both pain and lust, arms on either side of his head as he kept pushing into you.

“Stay,” you managed to get out amidst his assault on you, gripping his shoulder tightly as the coil in your stomach started to tighten almost painfully. He remained quiet as he shook his head, bringing your face closer so he could press his lips against yours.

His chapped lips fitted like a puzzle piece against yours, and your hand lifted to caress the fading scars littering the skin on his face. He hit every sweet spot inside of you, pubic bone creating heavenly friction against your sensitive nub as it rubbed together when his movements grew faster. You found it hard to breathe as he swallowed your attempts, and with one hand on your waist and the other pushing your lips against his, you felt lightheaded as you moaned out against his mouth.

Starting to hit the mattress beside you in panic, he only pushed you tighter against his robot-like motions; the feeling was entirely overwhelming as the warmth that had begun spreading low in your stomach now traveled its way throughout your whole body. Your legs lay limp on the mattress, his muscular legs moving to shove you back on the mattress, now gripping the headboard again so he could push into you with more force.

When his hand found your clit, you saw white streaks of sharp light before your eyes, arching your back of the sheets as a noiseless scream left you, wet tears gathering in the corners of your eyes as you saw his eyes set intensely on you from above, your head shaking from side to side from the pleasure as you felt Simon piston in and out of you.

You didn’t want him to stop, knowing that when he did, you would never see him again. You were sure of it, felt it in how he held you and looked at you. So, when you felt the foil snap, you could only cry out as your ears started to ring, pulsating heavily around him as the cramps of your orgasm filled you with a scorching pleasure.

Every thrust of his prolongs your pleasure, still shooting through you as you fall backward, limp under Simon’s still forceful thrusts.

“That’s it, love.” Panting above you, he fell into your arms, rutting heavily against you as he wound his arms around your waist, finding strength in his muscular legs to keep his hips going, grunting audibly against your neck as you kept clenching around him. “Give it to me. Only me,” he mumbled against your wet skin, delirious from being in your embrace he so had missed.

“Only you, Simon. It will always,” you hiccuped. “Always be you.” The sobbing, blissed-out words coming from you were the final straw, his thrusts growing harder but slowing down as he bit into the skin of your neck, knuckles turning white from gripping your waist as his face contorted.

The pleasure kept roaming through him as he kept on moving inside you, prolonging the feeling as his cum rimmed around where his cock entered you, dribbling down you in heaps as it kept coming, stuffing you to the brim.

Spent, you feel the heavy weight of Simon relaxing against you, staying inside you as he tries to regain his breath–not wanting to part from you. A shaking hand found your trembling ones, intertwining them as he caressed the back of it with his thumb, reveling in how your hand caressed the skin of his back, shivers running down it as he basked in the afterglow of being one with you.

Your already heavy eyelids tried to keep open, refusing to let him slip out of your fingers, but your body had grown spent as it strained against the sleep wounding its way through you.

“Simon,” you mumbled, voice almost inaudible as he brought your hand to rest with his beside your head, humming at you, the vibrating of his chest lulling you closer to sleep. As it surrounded you forcefully, you could only let the last teardrop fall from your eyes, knowing he was seeping out of your grasp like dust.

–

The cold was seeping through you the moment you woke up, shivers wrecking through you as the bleak walls stared back at you–the blanket wrapped around you doing nothing to protect you from the chill. In a daze, you sat up, rubbing the sleep from your eyes tiredly, trying to regain focus as you coddled the blanket closer to your body.

That’s when the horror spread through you, head trashing wildly as you gazed around you while taking in your surroundings. A familiar, worn-down apartment stared back at you, the night dark outside as you gasped, fearing being left alone in his eerie apartment.

“Simon!” You yelled out, voice trembling as you stepped onto the wooden planks of the floor, shielding yourself with the blanket as you bolted through the hallway into the kitchen, finding it empty as you trashed open the door to the bathroom.

Your heart picked up its pace, feeling like someone had shot you right through the chest when you realized you were by yourself–completely and utterly alone, and he had left you just like you knew he would.

“Simon!” You belted out once again, leaning towards the wall in distress as the cries grew soundless as the power of it traveled up your throat, feeling it constrict until the wails filled the empty space, sobs leaving you as you grabbed your heart in agony.

By some sort of hope, you had wished he would stay even though you knew it was inevitable, but as you took notice, that wasn’t the case. Once again, the warmth of his hands had left you, forcing you to come to terms with living the bleak years of your life without him in your life, disappearing–never to return to your embrace again.

As you stood there, sobbing with cheeks red with tears, you damned yourself for loving him in the first place, for letting him step into your life once more when you were finally moving forward with your life. Unable to take the pain, you slide down the wall, glancing up at the walls as the ghost of him starts to loom over you, his shadow growing more fierce–more apparent–as you cover your head, unwilling to face reality any longer.

[ddaz3d-and-cc0nfused]

YALL OML I WOULD DIE IF YOU UPDATED THAT ONE SHOT OF SPENCER REID AND CAM! GIRL READER🤭

fem camgirl!plus size reader, wc: 412. nsfw.

a/n: I REALLY WANTED TO EXPAND ON THIS!! i really missed writing for camgirl!reader and after seeing so much positive feedback from kinktober, i figured you guys would want me too as well!!

Spencer Reid felt different.

Nothing bad, no. Just... different. Ever since he had joined you for a camming session, he had felt like a part of him had been irreversibly changed. He would go out everyday, the feeling of knowing something so scandalous that his teammates didn't was… exhilarating. The kind of feeling he'd get from watching a foreign film or winning a game of chess.

Maybe it was because he had done something extremely out of his comfort zone, or the fact that thousands of people watched him play with you; and he wasn't even counting the part where they had also seen his naked body as well.

Oh God, you. You were his roommate, his most treasured friend and the girl of his dreams. He couldn't help but question how he could allow himself to fall so easily under your spell, but if he really cared, would he have kept coming back?

“Arch your back deeper, pretty girl. Let them see you.” Spencer encouraged with a groan from behind you.

You were on your hands and knees, naked and face shamelessly contorted in pleasure in front of the camera for all of your followers to see.

They still couldn't see his face, and honestly, as long as Spencer was an FBI agent, they were probably never going to. What they could see though was the long contours of his body, the lithe frame of his upper body which persparated with sweat.

Ever since the first time he joined you, you hadn't cammed alone. He never asked you for the earnings after the stream even though you insisted that he took it.

You did as he asked, arching deeper to the point where the lumps of your ass cheeks showed. “Look at that. They think you're so pretty.” He was obviously reading the comments, and your cheeks burned.

It wasn't like your comment section had never complimented you before; you basically made a living from them finding you attractive, but it was different. This was Spencer calling you pretty, and it made your gut twist in such a way that heightened your pleasure embarrassingly.

“Pl- please… harder, baby, harder.” You begged. Spencer held you down by the back of the neck, hips pistoning into at a rapid pace.

“Harder? Dirty girl.” Spencer degraded, though it caused you to let out an embarrassingly loud whine. “You see that guys? She likes when I'm mean.”

Spencer Reid was different.

And he liked it.

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[jayssluttywife]

Hatred

Summary☆ You and Jake were the most popular kids in school, but I never got along. You hated him. Soon, that would change.

Paring☆ Y/n x Jake

Warnings☆ Swearing, teasing, unprotected sex (wrap before you tap), kind of mean dom jake, in the begging jake was kind of sub, slightest degration, nicknames, reader is on pill, slut shaming :(

You sat next to jake in lesson ignoring whatever he said.

"y/n and jake you are partners for the project" your teacher announced.

"ughhh " you groaned

"meet me at my house, around 7pm?" jake questioned.

"whatever, I hate you" you said before walking out the ended lesson.

" if she hates me that much, ill fuck the hatred out" he muttered to himself before walking out too.

Luckily, you never heard that part and skipped away to your friends house.

You were now home from your friends house and had just woke up realising you had to revise with jake. The only thing running through your head was "i dare you to make jake hard" one of your friends had dared you to do that after you said you weren't scared of doing anything, but this was on a whole another level. You had no other option to do, so you stood up and did you hair and makeup but leaving your high shorts and low-cut shirt.

ding dong

You rang his doorbell, fascinated by the size of his mansion but kept your cool. A few seconds later a shirtless jake opened the door welcoming you in. He had sloppy eyes which showed that he had just woken up from a nap, he somehow looked cuter.

Now its flirt mode (try not to cringe)

"Hii jakee, oh my gosh you've never looked cuterr" you said whilst running a finger on his abs "there rock hard" you looked up at him flutterring your lashes.

He couldn't even speak.

"Are we not going inside" he questioned moving your hand away gently.

Jake never showed he was flustered so you weren't shocked.

He led you into his bedroom which was way neater that you thought before siting down on a chair. You took of your jacket revealing you shirt hoping jake would notice.

He came back wearing a hoodie and sat next to you with spread out legs and papers ready to work.

time skipp

You have been studying for a while now and had enough.

"Jakee can we have a break-" but you stopped to notice jake staring at your- cleavage?

This gave you the idea to bend over slightly more to expose your chest.

"So, would you like to tell me what your staring at?" you said with a smug look on your face.

Before he could speak you climbed onto his lap, your clothed cunt now on his hard dick.

"Damn your really hard, do I look that good?"

mission accomplished (Hehe)

You started grinding slow but hard unto him.

"fuck" he groaned "you know how much of a fucking slut you are" but you just giggled. He lifts you off him and you lose any tension you had between him.

"whyy" you whimpered "I hate you"

"that's exactly why we are here today" jake said.

He started coming closer to you and before you could move anymore behind you back hit the wall, he grabbed your wrists with one of his big hand and lifted them above your head.

He used his other hand to slightly pull down your shirt to reveal more of your breast.

"this is what you've been teasing me with this whole time huh, you whore"

All you could do was let out little whimpers and look down.

"now any hatred that you have in me will be fucked out until the only thing in your mind will be my name" he spoke.

You looked up at him in shock whilst letting out a nervous laugh but you realised he was being dead serious.

"J-jake i think this is too far" you said with a cracking smile, but its not like you could go anywhere as jake had you trapped in his embrace, staring directly at you.

All of a sudden he started smirking which gave you shivers "if you don't strip by the time I'm back you'll be done"

done?

Well, you weren't risking anything and as soon as he left you took of your layers of your pyjamas. You hadn't even realised that you wore your light blue lingerie under.

You were now practically laying on his bed waiting for him to come back, as if he could hear your thoughts, he entered the room, once again, shirtless.

"Get up" he ordered sticking his hand for you to hold onto him. You grabbed his hand as he suddenly push your stomach onto the cold desk making you silently moan.

Without any doubt you were soaking with arousal which made jakes job easier. He started rubbing his veiny finger along your clothed pussy.

"Ughh please touch me jake" you pleaded.

"I am y/nn" but he wasn't properly, and he knew that.

"Jakee pleasee, actually" you both knew he was soaking hard as well but he clearly loved seeing you plead instead.

He didnt hesitate and pulled down your now ruined panties and stared at your dripping pussy.

"woah"

But all you could do was whimper and sulk about him not being in you even though you have been waiting so patiently.

He quickly enters you with a sharp thrust. And wow he was hard. He didn't give you anytime to adjust. He kept a steady, speedy pace which had you clenching around him already.

"If you keep doing that ill cum already" but you couldn't help yourself, his dick fit inside you like a finger around a ring.

"Fuckk jake I'm going to cum too"

He suddenly pushes your head down onto the ice cold desk, hitting a different angle.

"Jake!" you yelled

You quickly reached you orgasm followed by him.

"Where do you want me to cum?"

You pulled out from him and kneeled down with pleading eyes and a stuck out tounge.

"fuck" he groaned

You wrapped your lips around his cock as he started thrusting into you, his sperm creaming your mouth. You swallowed every bit without hesistation.

"Youre such a fucking slut" he argued.

" im your slut"

"And i still fucking hate you." You said.

"Then were going to have to have another round."

"Sure"

★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆

☆Thank you for readingg pookie☆

@dependsontheday @jaeyunsprincxss

[lastchancestardomm]

Weirdos

League Of Villains x Child!Reader

Word Count - 1.7K

Warnings: References to past child abuse. One mild swear word. Found Family League Of Villains. OC-insert. Italics.

Status - Not Beta Read

A/N: Enjoy... *vaguely gestures* ...this. I've fallen back into an obsession, and this is the only way I cope. Asami Gumi, our protagonist, had a mom who fucking killed her dad (but shh that's sensitive). I love the League so much, and I've been rooting for them since they were introduced, so I thought I might publish this after getting back into My Hero. Anyway, some kind of snippet is coming up so watch for that ig.

Just as she stepped into the base, all eyes snapped to her. Their silence was exactly what Asami expected, and she wanted nothing more than to disappear. She tried tilting the baseball cap upon her head down, so that they couldn't see her face, as she meekly placed the plastic bag on the table.

"Sorry I'm so late, here's the– the food. I'm going to go wash–"

A heavy hand came down onto her white mop of hair and she gulped, tears already welling in her eyes.

A grave voice. "What happened to your face?"

Dabi's voice lowering a whole octave is the scariest thing in the world. Asami was left defenseless, silently begging him not to hit her. Because if he hit her, she will cry.

She hiccuped. "N-nothing..."

"That's also not the jacket you left with earlier! Don't you lie to us." Twice adds from across the room. She's not a liar; why would she lie?

Asami hadn't been staying here for too long, and she didn't believe they cared about her other than when she would go get their food.

"Asami," Kurogiri crosses his arms over his chest with a stern look. "Take the jacket and the hat off. Now."

She can't refuse them when they're all piercing her with their murderous gazes like that. They've been nice enough to keep her here, but they're still villains. Still bad people. She couldn't say they didn't scare her in the slightest. Asami was deathly afraid of what they might do when they see what happened to her.

She slowly, and quite carefully, removed the jacket first. Please don't hit me. The action revealed a few scabbed-over cuts and some bruises on her arms, and the small, circular burn scars on the top of her hands. Those were old. Those weren't important.

When met with silence, she took off the cap too; scrunching her eyes shut and preparing for the worst. More tears came to her eyes yet didn't fall.

"What. Happened?"

Asami flinched at Dabi's harsh question. She avoided his eyes, hands fidgeting idly. No! Don't hit me!

"Answer me, kid."

She picked at a scratch on her palm. "I– I got caught in a– in an attack with Heroes. I got a bit–"

"A bit what!?" Twice slams his hand down on the table as Asa jolts. "Your face has a giant sore! What had hit you?"

"Or who?" Dabi questions, hands clenched into fists at his sides.

Asami backs away, defensive about the whole situation. You're gonna hit me, aren't you? "It– it wasn't on purpose! Something... uh– hit the ground and went flying at me–"

"You could've gotten hurt worse than that!" Dabi booms at her, stepping closer. "Why didn't you block it in time? Or at least get out of the way?"

She felt herself getting smaller and smaller by the second. Don't yell. It's bad. "I was running, and I heard someone screaming behind me and I wasn't– wasn't paying attention."

"Aw, Dabi, you don't have to be so harsh," Toga prances up behind Asami, and gingerly wraps her arms around Asa's quivering shoulders. "You're being scary again, tone it down a notch." Yeah. Scary.

"Yeah, stupid. You're going to OP on the yelling. No one wants to hear your mouth," Shigaraki pipes up, seemingly unbothered by the whole ordeal and instead choosing to focus all his attention on his handheld console.

Dabi whirls to face him. "What'd you say, Vaseline? How about you say that with your chest?"

Shigaraki stands up angrily, yet minding the console he held, "I wonder what burnt chicken ashes tastes like–"

Shut up! I said you're scary when you yell! Shut up!–

"Enough, you two!" Kurogiri booms out, "There are more important matters than your pointless bickering."

"Yeah! Our poor birdy Asa got hurt," Toga coos, rubbing over the purple-pink mark on Asami's face. She winces when Toga's fingers brush over the sore spot, yet Asami can't bring herself to push her away. She's too afraid of what the consequences might be. "Daww... that's gonna leave a huge bruise for weeks." As if it wasn't already bruising.

"I'm gonna destroy whichever Hero who caused it," Dabi turns back to her. "Who was it? Was it Endeavor? Best Jeanist? Mirko? One of them U.A kids??"

"I– I don't know. I didn't see them clearly," she squeaks. He's really going to kill her now.

"WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU DIDN'T SEE THEM?!" Blue embers spark from his palms.

NO! DON'T HIT ME! PLEASE!

Asami recoils, scarred hands flying up to protect her face. Although, she stumbled back onto Toga, who catches her with a tiny hum of empathy. For a second, it seemed Dabi's rigid expression softened.

"Hey, hey, take it down a few notches," Twice wraps an arm around Dabi's shoulder. "No need to be so abrasive."

"I'm s-sorry I got hurt, I– I'll try to be more careful next time," All the tears that had built up behind her eyes dribbled down her face. She's mortified. She doesn't want to know what happens if they see her crying.

"Aw, look what you did," Twice exasperatedly motions towards Asami's bowed head. "This is what happens when you're such a tsundere– hiding your feelings all the time."

"Come here, Asami," Kurogiri motions to the empty barstool next to Shigaraki. "Let me take care of your wounds."

"But," she blinks back to clear her vision, "I deserved it, didn't I?" Shouldn't I be in trouble? Why didn't you hit me yet?

"Oh shut up, stop being an emo," Toga pushes Asa towards the chair.

She ends up seated at the bar, finally realizing that her ears and non-injured parts of her face were hot with embarrassment. She continues constricting herself inwards, uncomfortable with her surroundings. Not to mention how perplexed she is.

Shigaraki spares Asami a sideways glance, before mashing his buttons nonchalantly. "That's one hell of a bruise, you're gonna look worse than me for a while."

She can't tell from his tone if he's insulting her, trying to make a joke, or failing miserably at an action of comfort. But someone's tone usually always flew over her head.

Kurogiri places a first aid kit on the counter. "I'll do your face first," he pulls out a few cotton swabs and some kind of disinfectant solution. "It may burn," he gently warns.

Twice leans his arm on the other side of her, "What's with that face, Asami? You look worried."

She paused for a moment, looking down at her feet. You guys are going to hit me. But you haven't yet. I'm scared you'll hit me when I'm not looking and make me cry.

"I'm waiting for you guys to do something to me."

The entire room freezes, sent into stunned silence. The air gets tense, sending her into another heart-racing mini panic. You're gonna hit me now! Don't hit me! I'm sorry!

Twice is the first to interrupt the silence. Even the soft hand he places on Asa's shoulder causes her to jump. "I don't know how things were before you met us, or if that's the kind of impression we give," he shoots a look at Dabi, who simply crosses his arms and looks away, "But that's not how we do things. It was an honest mistake. How could you have known that would happen? We're just worried about something bad happening to you."

So you won't hit me? I don't trust that. People always hit me.

She hesitantly looks up. "You– you guys– you won't?–" Asami starts quivering again, getting nervous. She can't believe them. Her mom told her that, too, but still hit her. She should just shut up.

"We promise. No one is allowed to hurt you under our protection." Kurogiri comforts, swirling a cotton swab in the disinfectant.

She perked up at his words. She still was a tad reticent, but spoke. "You mean, I'm not just some kid you have running around doing your chores? I- I'm not annoying?"

"You make it sounds like you're a stray cat or something," Shigaraki comments. "Though, you are usually quiet, and do require a moderate amount of attention..."

"Of course you're not just 'some kid', silly! You're one of us!" Toga's sweater-pawed hands envelop Asami's torso in a hug. "Dabi's just being a meanie because he doesn't know how to show affection. He should still really apologize though,"

"Yeah, Dabi!" Twice adds with a flourish. "Come and apologize to my poor child!" He grabs Asa's head and forcefully pushes it into his hard chest.

Dabi sighs heavily, like a child forced to apologize; rubbing the back of his neck as the two look at him expectantly. "I shouldn't've yelled at you, kid. I didn't know you'd be scared like that."

Toga quirks her brow smugly at him, and Dabi groans. "I'm sorry."

"It's okay," It's weird being smothered by a group of housemates who might as well be strangers, isn't it? But somehow, it blooms some warmth into Asami's chest. Silently, a few more unshed tears fall down her face, but no one is worried. She's not worried.

"Alright, you get the first bite of grub," Twice eagerly opens up the bags of food and rips open one of the containers, pulling out some disposable chopsticks to feed Asami.

Kurogiri gently blots at her face with his first aid supplies. "Toga, stop wiggling, you're moving Asami!"

Toga's grip around Asa's waist doesn't loosen at all, in fact tightening, as her face snuggles into Asa's back. "Ey, Twice, it's no fair you get to feed Asami first, I wanna do it!"

It's at this moment when she feels like Dabi and Shigaraki are the most normal out of all of them, until they start bickering over a container of noodles and begin destroying things so Kurogiri needs to reprimand them again. Eventually, the others who were off somewhere else return and the chaos kicks up. Even so, among all the prodding, poking, squeezing, fighting, pulling, bickering, and smothering; Asami wonders if this is what family is supposed to feel like. What a real family is supposed to feel like.

A secret smile only she can see tugs at her lips. Nah, they're just a bunch of weirdos.

[muzicgenerator]

Hey, can I request an angst story with Bill and reader (the reader is female) abt crazy fans please? Like them (Bill and the reader) admitting somewhere (idk maybe in an interview for a magazine) that they almost broke up because of that (maybe reader's fanbase is known for being "too much" sometimes like following the reader everywhere, being so in love with her etc)

(Also could the story take place in the 2000s please?)

Goodbye 👋

i like this one im actually excited abt writing this one shot

btw im so sorry for late reply AHSJHFKDHDK please expect ill take like AT LEAST a week to answer yalls request bc im busy as hell w school 😭😭 love u guys pls understand

and again this aint entirely proof read

⭒⭒⭒⭒⭒⭒⭒⭒⭒⭒⭒⭒⭒⭒⭒⭒⭒⭒⭒⭒⭒⭒⭒⭒⭒⭒⭒⭒⭒⭒

Too Much?

✮

Pairing: Bill Kaulitz x Fem Reader

Genre: Angst, Mostly fluff

Warnings: Stalking, mention of nonconsensual touching, very embarrassing storytime from bill

Request Status: closed :(

✩°｡⋆⸜ 🎧✮ I'm Not Okay (I Promise) : My Chemical Romance

(Time set back in late November of 2007)

Being a famous actress since as a child was unbelievably tough.

You had worked so hard and expertly; you didn't even have time to spend your childhood properly.

Just at the age of 19 and you've finished numerous movies and series. A true self-made millionaire, really.

You and your ravenette boyfriend are currently doing an interview for a night show.

"So ____, wow! After a long pause from doing films you're finally gonna have one showing soon! How is it like? Being back and all; being the talk of the country."

In the past one and a half year you hadn't done any projects since you've decided to take a break for yourself. And now you're once again busy taping with film staff and directors for your new and upcoming Teenage Romance movie.

Rest assured it's not your typical boy-meets-girl or vice versa and they do sappy sweet stuff and get together kind of film; it has its own uniqueness that will surely be called as "One of 2000s greatest Teen Romance movies of all time."

"Oh, I feel great Hanna. I had a deserving break and I'm back to doing one of the things I love most. I'm even happier because I got my lover and his band to sing the theme song for the movie." You truthfully answered and chuckled by the end of your statement.

"How about you Bill? How are things with your band?" Hanna included Bill to the conversation.

At that, he smiled politely. "Everything's great with us y'know, we're still together and all. Which I'm grateful for."

After a few more minutes for pep talk; the blonde interviewer finally decided to get onto the exciting part of the show.

"And now, for the moment we've all been waiting for! Dunk Tank!" Hanna smiled widely at the selected crowd.

"Where in this game; you will pick someone from the crowd who will accompany you with this game.

Your selected teammate will ask any question they want; to which you will answer, and if you don't want to then they'll get a chance to throw a ball on the target. Where if they hit it, you'll fall down the tank."

Hanna excitedly announced despite having done this for the nth time.

"____ and Bill, play Rock, Paper, Scissors to see who goes first."

You knew you'd beat Bill since every single time you played it - he'd miserably lose.

"Oh, I'm confident in winning this one!" you proudly say.

"Just because you've beat me all the other times we played this, doesn't mean I'll lose now!" Bill accepted your challenge and laughed.

He was right. He won for the very first time.

"Oh my God! Did I seriously win?!" your black clothed boyfriend exclaimed.

"I only let you win this time because I felt sorry." you playfully rolled your eyes with a smirk.

"Whatever, I'm gonna choose now." he giggled and stepped closer to the crowd.

His fan girls were screaming at the top of their lings, begging to be chosen by him.

No, you weren't jealous. Not one bit. Sometimes Bill would even complain about you not being possessive of him from time to time and would think you're not as in love as he thought.

It's cute, really. Then you'll show him how much you love him through actions rather than words.

Bill chose a girl who seemingly looked two or three years younger.

The joyous girl screamed in surprise; "Oh my god! What?! Me??! SERIOUSLY??"

It made Bill giggle, "Yes, you! Now get down here!"

A body guard helped the girl down; and when she was no longer at the stairs she rushed Bill to hug him but abruptly stopped. "Hi oh my god you're more beautiful up close! Can I hug you?!" she says excitingly.

It made your heart flutter just how kinder your boyfriend's fans are compared to yours.

To say your fan base is crazy is an understatement. Many would harass you through nasty words or touching you with no consent; it didn't matter if they did that out of how much they "love" you, it was still disgusting.

"Um, yeah. Sure!" he hesitantly looked at you; his eyes asking for permission. To which you subtly nodded.

Again, your heart melted by how he's making sure you're okay with it. Honestly, you very much understood that being famous would mean people wanting to hug you or any form of physical contact. Plus, it's not like you can say no to Bill from hugging a fan; you'd be a scandal. And you knew Bill wouldn't have any other choice as well.

He wrapped an arm over her shoulders while she fully embraced him. Okay, you're a teensy bit jealous especially by the way she's holding him like he's her man.

But that was soon washed away when she turns to you.

"Hi! What's your name sweetie?" Hanna asked and put a mic on her mouth.

"My name is Pauline!"

Before Hanna could say anything further, Pauline beat her to it.

"____!! I'm such a big fan of you too! I've been watching your movies since forever." saying she's over the moon is definitely an understatement! This will definitely be a core memory.

Almost immediately you wrapped your arms around her back and squeezed her. This girl is definitely one of the most respectable and sweetest fan you've ever met.

Was it really low? Yes.

The audience cheered by how sweet you and Bill had been to the girl and by how jealous they were.

As Bill and Hanna chattered about God knows what; the girl leaned closer to you in order to ask a favour which no one can hear.

"Can I ask you to shout out my brother? He has a huge crush on you!"

"Sorry darling but we're in the middle of a show right now. How about later I ask the staff to send you to the backstage? Then I'll give him my magazine with an autograph, and if you have a camera with you - you can video me saying hi to him!" you came up with a resolution.

Was it over the top? You didn't know and you didn't care. You're just fleeting with joy by how this girl isn't like any other of your fans.

"Seriously? You'd do that for me and my brother?" she gasped.

"Well, yeah. I mean it's not always that I have such nice interactions with people who are a fan."

"Okay lovebirds what are you two talking about there?" Hanna teased with a smirk and Bill playfully pouted.

"Nothing, nothing" you laughed and held Bill's arm as the crowd laughed and cheered.

"If you say sooo." she replied. "Alright, your turn to pick!"

You carefully looked around the crowd and walked five steps of the stairs to get a better view of the people on the back. A fifteen year old boy was holding a banner stating "Bill's No.1 Boy", it was cute, really. So you planned to steal your boyfriend's fan! (this a joke dont hate reader pls)

"The ginger at the back with the banner please." you said to the mic.

The boy squeeled in delight and threw his banner somewhere before running down to you. Your arms opened for an embrace which he immediately jumped into.

"What's your name?" you put the mic to his mouth as you both carefully went down the stairs and back to the stage.

"Sam, I'm Sam! My name is Sam!" his rather high pitched voice said.

"Okay, Sam. I know you're Bill's fan so I'm gonna have to steal you, that okay?"

"Hey, no fair!" Bill patted the boy's head and shot a smile at him.

This moment for him is definitely a core memory and will brag about it to every living human he sees.

"Now, who wants to go first in the tank?" Hanna asked.

"I'll do it" Bill says excitingly.

They agreed and the staff helped him get up. Once he were seated and adjusted in the circular surface; he challenge you.

"Ask a good one!"

"Ohohoo, we definitely will!" you smirked.

You turn to Sam and ask him without the mics near your faces; "What're you gonna ask your idol?"

"Oh uhmm, I don't really know." he says bashfully.

"Maybe his most embarrassing moment?"

"That'll work, definitely." you smile supportively and fist bumped him.

"Bill, you read?!" Hanna exclaimed.

"Born ready!!"

"Alright Sam, ask away!"

"What's the most embarrassing thing that's happened to you?" Sam asked with twinkles in his eyes.

"Oh, definitely when me and ____ weren't dating yet; she threw a sleepover party and she invited me and my mates, and there were three bathrooms, right? The three were being used and in one of those bathrooms it was Tom using it, and I had to rush him because I really needed to take a shit, like I couldn't hold it any farther!

So he went out really pissed and I pushed him off the door and quickly shut it and went right into business."

Bill paused and tried to compose himself as the crowd started to get louder.

"And when I washed and pushed the flush button - It wouldn't flush! So I got really scared because I just shit in my crush's toilet and I can't let anyone know that I'm the one who did it. So i looked around and saw a pack of pads so I took one of them; and forced myself to dip my hand down to grab it and I almost puked!

I look around and see there's no trash bin. So I panic again, and eventually decided I'll just rush down to throw it in the garbage in her garage. I quickly make a run for it and almost bumped into ___"

He now covered his hands in shame and embarrassment. "And she saw the pad in my hand! So she asked me like, 'Is that a pad?' and I'm like yes and so she asks whose it is...... and I said it's mine....."

You know of this story long ago; and it just gets better and better whenever you think or hear of it.

The audience and interviewer roared with laughter; as well as the staff behind and securities who tried to contain their smiles.

"I wish I never asked!" Sam wiped his tears from laughing too hard.

"Get down here Bill! That was too much!" Hanna's cheeks started to hurt, "Sorry to the viewers who are eating."

Bill went down immediately and squeezed the living life out of you. He does this whenever he's feeling embarrassed or nervous, and calls it his "Physical Support" from you.

"You should've let yourself get thrown in the water!" you giggled and hugged him back before he pulled away with a red face.

"Next goes ____!"

Once you were seated and made yourself comfortable on the seat; you tell them you're ready.

It was Pauline's turn to question whatever she wishes. "____, what do you think of your fans?"

She asks sincerely; she must've noticed something by the way you're like to your fan base and to Bill's. A part of you wished she hadn't asked but you've been dying to let the creepers out there know that whatever they'd been doing to you for a long long time - greatly affects you, especially as a young stat growing up in this sort of industry.

You rarely held any meet and greet, rarely had photos with fans where you look actually comfortable and where they weren't touching your waist or hips or near your ass - and ones where you do look comfortable it was mostly with girls or kids, which was not as often as when you do with the rest; who are pedophiles and creepy boys.

Of course you've always been nice when interacting with them; you didn't want to be rude and only wanted to be kind.

Definitely, there were times when you couldn't take it and couldn't do anything about it - other than cry and complain in your lover's arms.

You're forever thankful to have someone like him; he'd always listen to whatever you say and support everything you do.

Not realising; you zoned out quite a bit and snapped out of it when Bill called out your name with worry that he's trying to mask from everyone.

"Oh-, well, obviously I love them so much, if it weren't for them I wouldn't have succeed this much - of course the people who helped me get up in this industry as well.

I truly do appreciate their love and support, seriously. But quite the number of them are uh, how do I say this." you nervously chuckled as everyone listened intently to the tea you're telling.

"Crossing my boundaries? Yes, uh- that." you say not quite satisfied with the word you chose. It was evident that it's worse than just that but the safest.

"We all know people would cross it by taking unsolicited pictures of you, that's given because you're a celebrity, but are there some other ways they would? If you don't mind me asking of course." Hanna carefully asked.

You smiled softly, "Well a few have stalked me to my house - which I dunno how the hell they did so and took pictures of me and they'd send it to me and tell me how they thought of me. Some leave love letters, flowers, food in front of my gate, sent death threats to my exes when I was dating them and even now to my Bill." you left the worse parts out since you didn't want half of the world to be talking about your most private part of life. What you're even telling them now is a whole lot.

"Wow.. we all knew your fan base could get a bit crazy judging from all the videos we see and the news, but not by this much!" Hanna says empathetically.

"It happens, I guess." you try to laugh it off. However, Bill looked at your hues with his that sent the message of "Are you okay?"

In which yours replied with "I'm not okay."

✮✮✮

The game went on a for it was Pauline's turn to the dunk tank, then Sam's.

You continued your cheery self through the whole taping and told yourself you'll regret what you said later in your dressing room. Bill kept his distance close to you and would caress your hand or shoulder as a sign of support - as well as slipping a "How're you holding up?" every now and then.

If there were billions of ways to show gratitude to this man; you'd do every single one of it to him.

After the agonizing show was over; you and Bill kissed Hanna's cheeks as a goodbye and thank you. To which she said back to you both as well and wished to see you soon.

As you made your way to the dressing room in silence with your fingers intertwined with Bill's; you abruptly stop in your tracks.

"I almost forgot I have to sign a magazine for Pauline!"

Your lover looked confused for a second "What? Why?"

"I kinda promised Pauline I'll just sign a magazine for her brother because she asked me to shout him out while taping." you let a small huff and loosened your grip on your boyfriend's slender hand. "How about I'll see you later in the van? You can wait for me there instead if I haven't been back by five minutes."

Bill smiled, "Of course sweetheart, I'll see you later. Love you." he pecked your lips and lovingly looked into your eyes for a moment before heading to his dressing room.

Quickly; you asked a staff to bring Pauline to your dressing room to give her an autograph - to which they agreed to. Thankfully.

While they did that, you strided to your room and grabbed your magazine and marker - which immediately after doing so, a knock was heard on your door.

You hand held the paper as the other gripped the violet ink marker. When you did, you were greeted by a Pauline smiling widely with a camera on her right hand.

"Hi!" she says excitingly.

You greet back and quickly hugged her, "I see you have a camera with you."

"Oh, yes, uhm.. I was wondering if i can take a video of you signing an autograph? So my brother would believe me that it really is from you." she nervously giggled. "I might or might now have pranked him once by giving him a fake autograph."

"Yeah, sure. What's your brother's name?" you say softly.

"It's Percy." she answers as she readies her camera.

"Alright, is it rolling?" you ask with a smile on your face. Pauline says yes with a grateful smile; grateful for being how considerate and kind you are.

"Hi Paul! So I heard from your sister that you're a fan? Too bad you didn't come with her." you looked behind the camera to Pauline.

"And I heard she gave you a fake autograph of mine? Well now, you're getting a real one, and this is the proof." you say still giggling as you signed the magazine.

"There, and keep the pen. I gotta go now, bye and love you!" you say as you waved goodbye and gave your iconic kiss blow alongside a wink.

Once Pauline returned the camera back to her bag; she immediately thanked you.

"I'm serious - thank you thank you sooo much! And uh.. I'm really sorry if what I asked earlier was too personal. I really am. I was just curious and didn't thoroughly before it slipped my mouth." she noticed the change of the atmosphere long ago. Even if she's just fifteen, she knew how to read the room well.

"Aw, sweetie.. it's nothing." you pat her shoulder, "It's fine I tell ya, also I better get going - you should too, it'll get dark in just two hours. Bye bye and stay safe!" you wave goodbye as she still exclaimed thank you's as she walked backwards towards the exit.

(that footage is definitely gonna go viral after many years)

In a light speed; you gathered your essential belongings and had your personal assistant help you carry your other belongings to the van; to which Bill noticed through the windows that you're carrying back pack and a purse and immediately helped you despite having it under perfect control.

He opened the door for you and let you in first before him and closed the door. Your personal assistant sat in the passenger seat next to the driver, while you and your beloved were at the very back despite the space up front.

You rested your head on his shoulder and he put his above yours while he held your hand with both of his; tracing every outline, massaging it, and kissing it once in a while.

"R'you okay now?" Bill mumbled and kissed your head.

"Yes, hon. I'm great actually.. thanks so much for being there, I love you so much." you turn your head to face his and pecked his lips.

"I love you more than you'll ever know, I'm glad you're okay." he smiled genuinely and kissed you deep and passionate.

You returned to your head's original position and fell to sleep; not caring if tomorrow, you'll be the town's talk.

[multi-fandomfuckboy]

Stranger Than Fiction

Part 1: Welcome to Hawkins

(Slowburn) Billy Hargrove x Reader

...Part 2, ...(Masterlist)

A/N: I would like to say that I have recently tested positive to Covid and will be out of work until the 17th of July. This sucks, kind of, because I love my job. But, it also means that 98% of my time will not be dedicated to this fic… It has kind of spiralled out of control and I have written so much already. I hope you guys like this and although the main character's eventual pairing will be with Billy Hargorve, this is a SLOW burn, it is going to take a while because the reader knows how valuable they are and would never settle for the abusive asshole Billy is when he is first introduced. We are here for the DEVELOPMENT. No matter what, I enjoyed writing this. I hope you enjoy reading it.   Word Count: 2,472 Warnings: mentions of death, trauma, guilt

Billy Hargrove was an asshole. There was no way around it. He was rude, crude, drank like a fish, and smoked like a chimney. He had his mothers eyes and his fathers temper.

In a seemingly random series of events you found your fate tangling with his. It’s hard for you to say exactly when this convergence began. But, it was most likely around the time your world turned upside down. 

When Will Byers disappeared in November of 1983, you were one of the first people questioned. You were 17 at the time but you had been babysitting in Hawkins since you were 14. It was just your mom and you for as long as you could remember. Your mom was a nurse at Hawkins General Hospital and worked the night shift. She always made sure you had enough but that didn't stop you from helping with the bills where you could. 

You regularly worked for the Wheelers, and even got paid extra on campaign nights. Normally it wasn’t a bad deal. Mike, Dustin, Will, and Lucas were always well behaved. All you really had to do was watch them, feed them, put them to bed, and make sure they didn't die. Sounds simple, right? Unfortunately, Hawkins was cursed. 

Will didn't make it home that night and your life would forever be altered by the madness that ensued. 

You had been wracked with guilt when you heard one of your kids had gone missing. Nancy tried to reassure you that there was nothing you could have done. You had been watching them all day and when you had left that night, they were still playing D and D. There had been plenty of people in the house, including Nancy. She even tried to invite you to come along with her and Barb to Steve’s party. She said it would help get your mind off things and just relax, like the three of you always did. You almost accepted. Almost.

You would never fully forgive yourself for turning them down. Even when Barb had called you that night, begging you to come so she wouldn’t have to be the fifth wheel. You refused, giving her some half baked excuse about having a headache. 

That would be the last conversation you had with her.

You planned to apologise to both of them the next day, after school. You would make it up to them. Rent a sappy romantic movie, eat popcorn, and they could tell you all about the party. Those hopes would soon die when Nancy explained what had happened at the party and how she hadn't seen Barb since the night before. The two of you went over to the Harrington’s place, looking for any sign of your lost friend. That afternoon in the woods would be your first brush with the paranormal. 

Going to the police got you nowhere. The guilt ate at your insides until you were desperate for answers. So, when Johnathan Byers  told you about monsters coming out of walls, you believed him. 

That night in the woods, when Nancy disappeared, it nearly broke you. How was it possible for you to lose so many people. It just wasn't fair. You cried when Johnathan pulled her from the hole in the tree. Your relief would be short lived. When Nancy described the other side it turned your insides. Just imagining Barb trapped in a place like that… you would have done anything to rescue her. 

You had never had many friends but Nancy and Barb were the best friends a girl could ask for. The three of you had become instant friends when you first met as children. They were a year behind you in school but were so smart and always helped you to understand the subjects you were weaker in. They were the only reason you were passing pre-calculus and that you had any socialisation outside of babysitting. Whatever that thing was, you were going to find a way to beat it and rescue Barb. 

You, Nancy, and Johnathan made plans to lure in the monster and kill it. There was a slight snag in the plan when Nancy saw what Tommy H. had written on the theatre board and Johnathan ended up in handcuffs. Luckily, Jim Hopper was the closest thing you had to a dad. Well, more like a drunk uncle. You were thankful he believed all of you when you explained what was happening. Having Hopper in your corner mady you feel a million times better. Unfortunately, the feeling was not mutual. Hopper made it very clear how he felt about you being involved in all this. If you weren’t as stubborn as him, he would have made you go home. 

When he saw how determined you were to save Barb he couldn't help but smile, pulling you into a tight hug. He grumbled that it was no use, that you were just like your old man. It always made you weirdly happy and sad at the same time when he said things like that. You couldn’t remember much about your dad, he had died before you got the chance to really know him. You knew that He and Hopper had served together in the Army. But, Hopper didn't like to talk about it much. 

When you were all on the same page, you managed to contact Mike on the radio after you remembered it was how the little group liked to communicate. Seeing the kids all together again made you happy they were safe but you couldn't help but feel the void left by Will. You knew Nancy felt it too. There was something unspoken between the two of you. Like you couldn’t look each other in the eye without thinking of Barb. It made your heart ache. 

When the time came for El to find Barb and Will, you could barely breathe. Then you heard the young girl murmur a single word. 

“Gone.” 

Gone. Barb was gone, and it was all your fault. It felt like someone had scooped out your insides. All you could think about was Barb and how you should have been there for her. But now it was too late, she was gone forever. You didn’t realise you were crying until Hopper pulled you into his arms.

“It wasn’t your fault, kid.” he had said, squeezing you tightly. His words fell on deaf ears. You felt numb, like the world wasn’t really there. You watched him leave with Joyce, on the way to rescue Will…

You sat alone in the empty halls of the Middle School, drowning in your own thoughts, until you felt Nancy sit next to you. She didn’t look at you, only taking your hand and stating, in an eerily calm voice, “We’re going to kill it.”

Then the numbness inside of you gave way to a new feeling. It was a hot feeling that spread through you, burning. Vengeance.

You, Nancy, and Johnathan gather your supplies, set the trap, and slit your palms. Then, you waited. There were a thousand things you thought could happen that night. But, Steve Harrington showing up was the last among them. And it only went south from there. 

After the first attack you were shaken. You would have run out of the house with Steve if it weren’t for the thought of Barb alone. That thing was the reason you felt this way. It was the reason your friend was gone. You were going to kill it, or die trying. You gripped your father’s colt .45 and stood with your back against Nancy and Johnathan.

It all happened so fast. The gun in your hand jerked as you fired round after round into the monster. You turned around and for a split second, your eyes locked on Nancy’s. You saw the fear there an instant before sharp claws raked through the flesh of your back. You felt the warmth of your own blood gushing down your back, then the pain. That’s the last thing you remember about that night.

You don't remember Steve coming back, saving you with the spiked bat, Jonathan setting the thing on fire, or when all three of them hauled your limp body into the back of Steve’s car.  

You wouldn’t be there for the reunion with Will or for the celebration of his return. You would miss Christmas and New Years. You wouldn't regain consciousness until the second week of January, 1984. Sometimes you would get flashes, little pieces of that time. Nancy’s voice, someone squeezing your hand, the beeping of monitors. But mostly it was your mom crying. 

When you woke up you were alone. It felt like your mouth was made of sandpaper and when you opened it to speak, nothing came out. It took you a moment to realise you were in a hospital and when you moved to sit up, pain shot down your spine. Every bone in your body was aching and each movement sent new waves of pain along your back. Before you had another second to think, you heard a gasp from the doorway. Your mother dropped the coffee she had been carrying in her rush to your side. Her eyes were filled with fresh tears and she was rambling a million miles a minute. Asking you questions, looking you over, making sure you were actually awake. You were happy to see her but little did you know that this would be the norm for the coming months. 

You were never alone. There were always nurses, or doctors, or men in suits. Everyone had questions. How were you feeling? Where was the pain? What do you remember? After a week it got old and after a month it was downright maddening. 

As far as anyone knew, you had fallen victim to a bear attack. It would have been simple, if it was only the flayed flesh of your flanks that needed to heal. Unfortunately, the infection that set in made things complicated. The government sent specialists to look after you and keep things under wraps. They kept you in a facility, only allowing certain people to care for you.

The fevers were hard to shake, they were treating you with so many different drugs you lost track. When your fever broke, you always started to feel better, but somehow it always came back. 

They concluded that it was most likely some type of virus that had been transmitted to you via the creature's claws. There was only so much they could do. As the weeks went on, the time between flare ups grew longer. When you were finally well enough to have visitors, all interactions were closely monitored. 

Your most frequent visitors were your mom, Hopper, Nancy and Steve. Jonathan stopped by sometimes, but not often.

When school started again you were still unable to sit up on your own. Nancy and Steve undertook the task of keeping you up to date on your school work. With not much else to focus on, besides your pain, you had a lot of time to study. Your grades weren’t half bad, all things considered. 

When you weren't doing catchup work for school or visiting or being poked and prodded by doctors, you wrote. It had always been a passion of yours and more recently it had become a means of escape. Being trapped in that sterilised linoleum prison was driving you mad. So when you felt the walls closing in around you, the only way out was with a pen and paper.

Before everything, you would write about fantasy worlds and romantic adventures. Stories where the heroes triumphed and love conquered all. But now, you couldn’t seem to conjure up those scenarios. The tales that came to life on your page now were darker. There were no good guys or love stories, there were only tales of fear and those things that haunt us when we are alone at night. Stories about the horrors hiding in the shadows all around us.  

No one read these stories but you.

After 6 months of treatments, recovery, and rehab, you were finally discharged. Going home somehow made you feel even stranger. Things were the same but somehow profoundly different. Your mom had taken a couple shifts off work to look after you when you got home. You were thankful for her but there was no hiding the amount of stress she had been under while you were in the hospital. She had always had circles under her eyes but in the past few months they seemed to grow darker. 

You tried to go back to the way things were. You hung out with Steve and Nancy, listened to them talk about their lives and plans for the future. You were happy for them, it seemed like they had really grown. But for some reason, it left a sour taste in your mouth. You felt like all they wanted to talk about was the future but all you could think about was the past. You eventually stopped going with them, always giving excuses about headaches. And eventually, they stopped asking. 

You found yourself alone a lot. Not that you minded. After having 8 months of constant supervision, you could use some alone time. The walls in your home started to remind you too much of being stuck in the hospital. So, you liked to be outside. You would go for long walks almost every day. It felt good to be outside. Freeing. 

You would leave your house early in the morning, after your mom got back from her shift. You would take a small bag, packed with a water bottle, a book, and your journal. You would pick a new direction every day, always finding new places you haven't walked yet. When you got tired you would find a quiet place to sit and read or write or just think. 

You thought about Barb often. You tried to think about all the good times you had together. How she always managed to explain things so you could understand. All the sleepovers the two of you had. She was so smart and kind. You missed being able to call her just to talk. You avoided thinking about how her last moments must have felt. How alone and scared she must have been. Each time your thoughts turned to it you could feel yourself recoil. It felt like touching a hot stove. 

Sometimes you couldn't help it. You would think about that last conversation you had with her. How you had been so selfish and dismissive of her. Then you would cry as you walked. 

That's the way things went for a while. Then, one day in the middle of July things changed. You would never forget the first time you met Billy Hargrove. 

A/N: Hope you guys like it so far! This was just a little background before the actual story starts. Let me know what you guys think!

... Part 2, ...(Masterlist)

[spacexseven]

note: this is for my friend dazai anon :> while formatted like a oneshot, this is just more of a thought dump. for more of this au, check out the # doctor reader🐟 tag! i thought of including everyone from the pm but it felt too long so. im sticking with these three for now (maybe mori if you squint idk)

summary: yandere! dazai , akutagawa & chuuya w/ doctor! darling

pairings: dazai x reader | akutagawa x reader | chuuya x reader

cw: yandere characters, obsessive behavior, obsession, abuse of authority, blackmail, stalking, manipulation, implied violence + murder (not to reader), injuries

as with most things, all your problems started with money—the lack of it. you loved your job, and you loved taking care of people, but the meager pay wasn't enough to make ends meet. there was no big hospital around to give you attractive pay for working within the large rooms and specialized units here, only the clinic that you had to beg to get a job in, and...it was still the same work you've always wanted, but you didn't know how much longer things could go this way. there was only so much time before you needed more than the same cheap meals and dingy apartment, the same cranky faces and light pockets.

you heard about the job in the break room. you had whipped your head back when you heard a coworker casually drop a very large number mid-conversation, claiming it was the kind of pay those 'underground' doctors got. at your reaction, he laughed. you learned that day that there were people—doctors, like you—who worked for dangerous people, in dangerous places, for an insane amount of money. the kind of money that you couldn't dream of seeing in a lifetime.

well, there was the question of whether it was worth it, working a dangerous job after throwing away your morals and silencing your thoughts, risking your life...and for what? money? even so, when you thought of the numbers...it was more than you'd know what to do with. the conversation lingered in your mind for a long time. it was too tempting, even though doing something like that would be equivalent to tying a noose around your neck.

but even if you were ready to sign yourself up for this job, where would you go to start?

the answer came to you in the form of a bleeding man under the moonlit night.

akutagawa was a mystery you couldn't stop thinking about since that first night. somehow, even when your instincts were screaming at you to run for your life, you forced yourself to rush in his direction. in that moment, he wasn't akutagawa, he wasn't a mafioso. to you, he was only a person teetering on the edge of death. a person you could save.

he glared at you with so much anger that you, for a moment, forgot the state he was in. still, he was weak enough that his voice didn't leave his body and he couldn't push you away. and that was enough leeway for you to work your magic with what little resources you had. while he groaned, you eased your nerves by talking to him about anything on your mind, hoping to drown out your worries and his apprehension. when you were sure he could survive until help came, you left without asking any questions. he still hadn't said anything, but you could have sworn there was a glimmer of appreciation in his dark eyes.

though you steered away from that route from then on, you couldn't avoid yet another encounter with the mysterious man from that quiet night. again, akutagawa was cut and beaten, skin splattered with blood and bruises. and again, you helped him out despite recognizing the silent warning he was sending you, with wide eyes and slow-moving lips.

"so you're the one who patched him up last time? pretty impressive work in such a short time, and without your tools."

the night you met dazai, there was a heavy silence in the air.

your suspicions from earlier had been confirmed with the new presence. akutagawa was mafioso, and this man, probably was too. you weren't too frightened last time when akutagawa was more corpse than living, but with this tall newcomer—who looked relatively unharmed—entering the scene, the familiar, chilling sensation of fear creeping up your spine came back with a vengeance.

you should have never gotten involved.

to your surprise, dazai doesn't shoot you dead. he doesn't take you in to torment you for your secrets, doesn't throw you over to be beaten beyond recognition and buried. he smiles—the sight looking equal parts attractive and alarming—and instead hands you a thick envelope. it feels as though there's a brick inside. he tells you it's from his boss, and then—

"—let's not cross paths again," dazai says, "because the next time you happen to find little akutagawa in need of your help, there won't be any turning back."

but of course, he lies in your path again, moonlight softly caressing him like a bloody angel.

"you..." he grunts out, the first words he's ever said to you. his gaze is unnaturally fond, and he tears open his shirt for you to access the wound.

"last time," he says, "you didn't talk." he doesn't need to elaborate for you to understand what he was getting at.

so you talk, if only because you're afraid of what he would do otherwise. this time, he isn't so weak that he couldn't crush you in his grip. the wound is not as serious as the last time, and he's awake through it all, watching you closely.

this time, you're brought in to meet the boss himself. some part of you is sure this isn't protocol, but mori tells you not to worry. you're not going to die because he realizes you would be more useful to him alive than dead.

"i'm a doctor too, you know," he waves around a scalpel with a disarming smile. you're not sure why he looked at you like that, or why he said that. if he was a doctor, why couldn't he do the patching up? why is he offering you this... opportunity?

however, once you heard he amount he was offering, your questions were silenced immediately. some things shouldn't be looked too much into. it wasn't everyday when you were handed a few month's rent as casually as though being offered candy, after all. when the discussion is over—through which, you just listened and nodded—the devil comes to escort you out. he has a sleazy quality about him you can't quite figure out, but you know better than to walk away from him.

"he was cheating, you know. went looking for you," dazai winks, "though i can't really blame him."

you choose not to reply, unsure of what to make out of his words. you don't have to worry about making conversation, however, because soon after, a new person walks past the two of you, before running back with a wild expression.

"who's that?" he demands, glaring at you as though you were a pest.

dazai chuckles and pulls you closer to his side, a bandaged hand coming to wrap around your waist. he grins at the other person in a way that told you he was trying to get him riled up and continues walking with you towards the tall doors.

"next time, dear doctor," dazai whispers, "patch me up. i'll gladly wait."

outside, akutagawa shifts out of the shadows, coming to walk beside you as a silent shadow. it creeps you out, but you have a feeling he meant to be comforting. you don't really want a mafioso following you home, but you had a crazy amount of cash on you and the usually plain nights felt more sinister than usual, so you duck your head and hurry your footsteps, not addressing the man behind you.

you begin to learn that akutagawa and dazai both did not care much about themselves when on a mission. it was shocking to you to see someone treat their body and life so callously, even though it was made abundantly clear that this was nothing out of the ordinary for either of them. the more you help, the calmer akutagawa gets, the firmer and bolder his grip, and the angrier his gaze when someone interrupts the two of you. dazai becomes less...cheerful, but you realize this was more genuine. he was quieter, more compliant instead of constantly asking you about the easiest way you could kill him while patching him up. but much like akutagawa, he demands more of your time, asking you to come in and check on his recovering injuries as well. redress him, help him clean up—what? it was difficult to do all this on his own!

the frequency of injuries start growing at an alarming rate, and you're called in even during the day, so much so that you have to quit your day job. nobody seems bothered by your increased presence in the hq, or the way dazai whines for you to hold his hand when you dressed his wounds. even akutagawa doesn't say more than a soft request, but this man cries and pouts until you coddle him like you would a child. a tall, murderous child. you weren't blind to his work as mafioso, even if he tried his best to pretend like you weren't terrified of him, like he wasn't lying on the bed because a target got to him before he dragged the life out of them.

and it only dawns on you, when you meet chuuya that there was more to fear than dying at the hands of the mafia.

you hadn't known that chuuya was curious about you since that first day, when dazai paraded you down the hall and refused to answer any of his questions. the only way he could satiate his burning curiosity was to carefully...observe you. how did an unimportant doctor get involved with dazai? chuuya quickly learns about your money problems, leading him to think of yours and dazai's relationship in a different light. and then he sees you with akutagawa, and oh—it hits him then. so that's what you were doing here.

still, when he noticed your determination and hard work, he thinks he can't let a good deed go unrewarded, though to you, the strange additions to your house feels more like a punishment. he leaves you expensive trinkets, as a way of thanking you for looking out for his coworkers. he doesn't realize your apprehension about consuming the wines and chocolates, or how you put away the priceless jewelry he leaves out.

the first time you're asked to check out chuuya's wounds—it being a very rare occurrence where he actually got hurt—you immediately recognize the desire in his eyes. it's the frightening sort of hunger that you know better than to feed. only, it's too late. unintentionally, just by existing in his orbit, you had already made him curious. still, you cannot do anything except what is expected of you, swiftly stitching him up and walking away after stiffly explaining how he should rest.

it was obvious to everyone how much danger you were in. only, nobody cared enough to risk angering the three who had set their sights on you. there was only so much longer you could avoid your problems, before they started taking dire measures. leaving a message about a doctor doing work for the wrong sort of people, telling your family where the sudden steady inflow of cash came from, threatening your loved ones' life.

this was the mafia you were dealing with, after all. and they would do anything to keep you around.

[luveline]

I think I might be technically evil for sending you three requests in one day when you’re probably overloaded with everyone else’s too… but if I may be evil for a moment… could you do something where shy!reader has a sleepover with Jonathan or something and she does her nightly routine and she does it for him too?? Like I want to tie his hair up in a lil ponytail and sweep the baby ones back with a fluffy headband and do a little skincare routine on him <3 I’m giving you so so so many kisses my love <3

technically a gorgeous sunbeam whom I adore maybe <3 shy!fem!reader teaching Jonathan the steps to her skincare routine ♥︎

If you were to describe Jonathan in one word, it would be calm. The kind of calm he's worked hard for. When his home can be anything but and his past rife with noise, Jon has carved a little slice of quiet sanctuary. You love sharing it with him. 

The closer you've grown, the less you worry about disrupting said sanctuary. The first few times you'd slept over you followed his motions, washing your face with his minty bar soap, changing when he changed, watching movies until you fell asleep on his shoulder. 

But a girl can't live like that every weekend. It's bad for your skin, no matter how much you like him.

So you'd introduced small parts of your routine on a trial basis. Jonathan, eternal sweetheart, loverboy extraordinaire, hadn't minded one bit. In fact, he'd been curious. 

He stands in the doorway of the bathroom with a charmed smile on his face. You blink through suds and catch his stare, surprised he's put down his book. 

"What are you doing?" he asks. 

"Just face soap," you say, turning on the faucet again to cup a handful of water and wash away the last of the suds. You dry your eyes quickly with a small face towel. "Sorry, was I being super loud?" 

"No," he says, hand on his elbow. 

"Oh," you say, and you're timid yourself, so you know the look on his face rather well. "What do you want, baby?" 

Jonathan sits down on the wooden box by the door that serves as their laundry basket. He's had his hair cut recently, and the shorter strands against his forehead beg for some handling. You nibble your lip, wondering if it's worth the embarrassment. Jonathan has had you more vulnerable than this, what's the worst that could happen? 

You raise your hand to his hair, stroking it gently from his head to see his eyebrows clearly. 

"I could do it with you?" he asks. "Your routine." 

"My routine? It's not so complicated, Jon, just moisturiser and…" You cross your arms behind your back. "You want to do it with me?" 

"Yeah. Is that weird?" 

"No," you say. It's so, so sweet. "Not weird." 

You take your headband off and slip it over his head. His eyes close in total trust, and you try to deserve it, using your gentlest touch. Once it's around his neck you pull it back up, easing his short hair away from his face. 

"I forgot what your forehead looked like," you say. 

He gazes up at you adoringly. 

You slide the hair tie from your wrist and tilt your head in question. He smiles like he's somewhere else, and that'll have to do. He gets distracted sometimes, and you don't know if it's the truth but whenever you ask what he's thinking about he always says, "You." Best to not ask, and avoid the hot flush. 

You rake your fingers through his hair to get the longer pieces beside his neck and make the world's smallest pony tail at the nape. 

"Pretty," you say gently. You flick his ponytail. "If you wash your face, we'll do the rest together." 

Jonathan stands up and skirts around you to the sink,  his fingers touching the tiniest slice of your exposed midriff for a millisecond more than what could be accidental. You know he didn't do it to make you self-conscious, but you pull your pyjamas a little higher up your hips. 

He goes to use his soap. You hand him yours before he can start, and he makes quick work of washing his face. You splash your face to make it tacky again and open your palm, dipping it toward him so he does the same. 

"Toner. I think I'm supposed to use a cotton round, but I just put it in my palm."

"It's purple," he says, startled. 

"The bottle," you say with a delighted laugh. "It's clear, swears. I think it's mostly water and aloe vera. It made my nose pores smaller."

"Did it?" he asks. 

You shrink. "It didn't?" 

"No, I mean. I never noticed them changing size." He laughs and shakes his hand. You tip a small well of toner into his hand and he waits for you to do the same for yourself, copying your hand movements exactly. 

"It's sticky." He wipes his hand in your bare arm. 

"Thanks, jerk. Just wash it off!" 

He tries to hide his smile and fails. 

You pick up your smaller tube. "Moisturiser," you say. 

He knows how to use it, so you don't bother explaining why you put it all over until he asks, "I get all greasy on my nose, do I…?"

"I'm not sure. I think, uh." You realise you're going to have to talk about something he doesn't know, and you never enjoy that. Correcting people feels like a nightmare — you're always worried they'll get annoyed or defensive, or that you'll come off as a know it all. But Jonathan doesn't do that, so you explain. "When you wash your face, you take all the oils off of your skin, and your skin reacts by making more of it. Sometimes it makes too much, and you end up greasy. If you moisturise it can help give some of the oil back and your skin doesn't feel the need to make too much." You pat a white smear across his cheek. "At least, that's what I think. I could be wrong." 

"Sometimes I use some of that serum your mom got me, but I skipped it today because I ran out. Sorry, Jon, it's much shorter than I thought it was now we're doing it." 

"I bet you're right," he says. His smile is gooey smooth. The entire time you'd been talking, he'd looked entranced. "What's next?" 

"I don't mind. Five minutes doing something with you is better than without." He peels your headband off like he hasn't just said something insanely lovely. "How do I look?" he asks, his dampened baby hairs a wild curling mess around his face.

You tuck your arm into his. "You look perfect."