#of to write! and then off to bed i am very tired i just got back from a bachelorette weekend

[allsassnoclass]

hazel what if u <3 wrote more of ur vigilante au <3

good news! i will!!!!! eventually!!!!

i have an ask box prompt from megs for it, and the more i think about it the more a "tortured for information" whump piece is appealing to me..... that being said i am currently fighting tooth and nail to finish a fic for a big bang and it is sapping All of my writing time, so I can't guarantee a timeline, but i'm hoping to knock out more of my ask box prompts by the end of the year so that would include one for the vigilante au!

[d0d0-b0i]

listen in my mind Ruby had a proximity crush on weiss but never pushed it then met Penny and fell hard and then the fall happened and weiss realized she was in love with Ruby and then Penny came back and Winter was there so they drifted apart and then vol 8 happened and now we're here

i agree to an extent ! personally i have never seen v1-3 as having any form of romantic portrayals between weiss and ruby (therefore i think the only one at the time actually crushing would’ve actually been weiss), and only potentially a “it would be nice” kinda deal for ruby regarding penny considering they didn’t really hang out much due to The HorrorsTM.

and then the fall of beacon happens, and there’s an absence for all three of them. ruby has lost her entire team essentially, witnessed the death of two of her friends because she was just a little bit too late, leading to her hyper focusing on getting to mistral and keeping the rest of jnpr alive, because that is the only thing she knows to do.

weiss, stuck in atlas, forced to reminisce on her teammates, her family, that she doesn’t think she’ll ever see again; under the hand of her abusive father :(. and, unbeknownst to us, penny is right there in atlas as well. unable to communicate to anyone that she’s alive due to the loss of internet or w/e (or maybe pietros still working on rebooting her, shrug. whatever the case, she was right there, which oof lol).

then rwby reunites and yes, yippee!! but still not a lot of time to notice feelings such as romance, due to the new horrors of salems truth and being stranded in the snow. honestly; i do not think there was anything but subconscious feelings, if any at all! build up, yes, but understanding and coming to terms with them? this is ruby “essentially blocked off less important emotions so i don’t break” rose and weiss “every romance i’ve seen in my life has ended in failure” schnee! no way in hell.

then vol 7. oh boy. they finally have some time to think. and now penny is back as well! feelings start blossoming, although i still do not think it’s reached it’s apex. rwby as a show is a slowburn for romance unless someone dies (>_> fairgame n arkos come to mind), so like. i think the sad part of it all is that it still never fully blossomed for any of them until penny dies again. the knowledge that she can’t come back. gone forever(?). rubys reactions in v9 come to mind. that absence sure is making the heart grow fonder lol (and my girl is haunting that subtext so much its not even funny). and weiss is probably so fucking sad that it happened again, right as she was getting to know penny proper, and now she doesn’t even know how to help her bff, her partner. :(

sorry for the ramble. i’m having many Thoughts which is very dangerous for me

[sharkieboi]

everyone’s talking all these sophisticated points about Glass Onion but i personally cannot get over the lingering camera shot on the ass of the statue Benoit hides behind to eavesdrop on Miles and Peg

[risuola]

ENTRY #11 ♡ F. READER X GOJO SATORU // I starve for your touch yet fear to savor it.

contents: arranged marriage!au, nudity, reader discretion is advised — wc. 1690

a/n: there was no way i wouldn't write a fic based on this picture. just no way.

series masterlist

Satoru loves to sleep naked.

The beauty of his innate technique, the blessing that he mastered to no end, has stripped him off one of the most basic human needs — touch. He wasn’t missing it that much, he thought, but there was something in letting go of everything and allowing himself to be wrapped in the silky layers of bedsheets that made his body crave the feeling.

He has always picked expensive garments, the ones with soft fabrics and luxurious feel, despite everyone telling him it’s unreasonable to spend so much on a shirt or a pair of trousers, but to him, it did matter. To him, that was the only thing touching his body when a thin layer of infinity effectively forced everything else back. To Satoru, touch was forbidden, threatening. It was a vulnerability that he, the strongest, couldn’t afford.

But that until he’s met you. Until he’s married you.

You were one of not many people he’s made an exception for. You were able to touch him whenever you wanted because the protective surface of endless matter let you in. Because he himself altered his technique to make you capable of laying your hands on his body.

He longed for your touch. So soft, and delicate, and warm. He craved more of it and yet, despite being shameless and confident, he has not allowed himself to sleep bare even once since the day you and him were bound by the knot of matrimony. It would cross boundaries he wasn’t sure you’d wish to cross; it would make you uncomfortable, awkward maybe — and he liked the way your relationship looked like now. He liked the late evenings you talked quietly, alone and intimate in the warm embrace of sheets and your own house.

For you, he let go of the way he used to sleep before because you were worth the sacrifice, but now, you were gone for few days. You were sent on a mission away from Tokyo and the hours Satoru spent alone in bed, thinking of nothing more but your fingertips on top of his skin, made him desperate — and so, he allowed himself the comfort of soft cotton and silk.

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

You were tired. Exhausted even, by the intense fight you had to pull through, by the uncomfortable nights spent in the dingy hotel room, by the humid weather and rains. In moments like this, there was nothing you envied more in the world than your husband’s ability to warp from one place to another, but you got lucky. Incredibly so, because Ijichi offered you a ride home two days earlier than you were supposed to head back and you thanked all gods and devils for that man’s kindness. He was willing to put on some more road just to get you home.

“Thank you so, so much, Ijichi,” you kissed his cheek — a ghost of a peck that made him all red and steamy and you felt giddy for a moment, seeing the tips of his ears turn crimson. Adorable. You liked him, he was dutiful, polite, trustworthy and constantly terrorized by your husband, so you were determined to at least be the Gojo he likes.

“You’re very welcome,” he mumbled and fixed the frames on the bridge of his nose, pushing them up with the tip of his pointer finger. “Have a good rest.”

“You too, Ijichi.”

Then, he was gone and you were stepping into the house with a deep sense of relief washing over you. Home sweet home. If you were to guess, it was most likely somewhere around 4 am, way too early for anyone to be up — especially your husband — so you gave it your all to stay as quiet as possible. The sun was just showing its first rays from way below the horizon line, crawling up with golden hues and breaking the nightly, navy darkness.

On your toes you moved across the house. It seemed as if Gojo was spending his time alone quite ordinarily — you saw a modest stack of empty takeout boxes, much less humble pile of candy wrappers and his uniform jacket thrown over the couch backrest, along with few other little items that you struggled to differentiate in the nocturnal haze.

You put down your bag, hung up your coat and pushed off the shoes. Ghosting your way towards the bathroom, you were desperate to wash away the combat residuals. You lathered up the shower gel in a rush, desperate to rest and sleep in the comfort of your own bed and then, wrapped in the towel, you tippy-toed to the bedroom, but—

“Came back earlier?”

—you truly didn’t expect to be met with a sight like this. Your husband was awake, just barely, most likely awaken by the water running in the bathroom. His eyes were closed, hidden underneath his forearm and shielded from the lights that were slowly creeping inside, between the dark curtains and onto his face. His body seemed relaxed between the sheets. The softest, gentlest lines of golden glimmer that painted its patterns over his uncovered chest and leg, his hip and one of the muscular arms. The duvet was covering less than half of him, hiding a part of his stomach, the other leg and—

“You’re staring.”

Satoru didn’t even have to look at you to know that your gaze was lingering on his frame. On his very, very naked frame, just barely concealed by the comforter.

“Sorry,” you mumbled, feeling the heat creeping up your cheeks and reaching the tips of your ears and you thanked the darkness for hiding it away. You walked around the bed, hoping to find your pajama where you left it and trying to force your head out of the gutter. You heard your husband letting out a deep exhale and then, a soft hum. His voice was as melodic as always, though you could tell how much sleepiness was laced into it.

Satoru should’ve notice you when you entered the area of your house, but he didn’t. Tired by his own job, by the classes and all of the meetings, he allowed himself to lower his guard and when he realized you’re home, he contemplated for a moment getting up and dressed, but he just didn’t want to.

“You’re exhausted, screw pajamas, just come here,” he said before he managed to think twice about it. It was a daring offer, inappropriate even and he opened his mouth to apologize for it, but then, you rendered him speechless.

Your weight felt good on top of him. You lay your body over his own with feathery gentleness and carefully maneuvered your way to rest on his chest completely. The touch of your skin flush to his own made his brain to short circuit, it felt divine, too good to be true and just so very right, he couldn’t say a word.

“Is that alright?” You asked quietly, pressing your ear right above his heart and letting out a breath that you held for a little too long. Your face felt hot, you were flushed and flustered but also oddly at ease with the current position and you wondered for a moment if it was the tiredness that made you so bold.

“More than that,” he replied, pulling the covers to hide you beneath them. He allowed one of his arms to snake around your waist and his lips to kiss the top of your head. “Rest. Sleep well, wifey.”

“Good night.”

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

10:19 AM

Satoru thought he was dreaming, but the weight on top of him felt too real. The soft scent of citrusy shower gel that lingered on your skin filled in his lungs each time he took a breath in and there was a tickle, he realized — every time his chest raised, a strand of your hair seemed to be moving against his jawline. You were not a dream.

He opened his eyes, blinking few times, adjusting them to the bright light that forced its way into the bedroom and then, he looked at you. You were still very deep asleep, he could tell based off the long inhales you were taking, slow and relaxed, fanning against his peck rhythmically. Your body was mostly on top of him, you were on his chest, your leg was between his and only your hips were resting on the bed. He still had his arm around you, as if making sure you were as close as possible.

It felt incredible. Intimate. It was everything he could have wished for. A touch, skin to skin, so intense it almost took his breath away. He felt nauseous at the thought, realizing that it’s the first time in his life, he’s that close to someone. So impossibly close that just a little bit more and you’d become a part of him. His heartbeat quickened.

It was so right. So awfully correct and at the same time, so very threatening. He felt helpless. Vulnerable. He was at your mercy, he was robbed of everything what made him the strongest, because at this very moment, he was bare. Uncovered before you, wrapped in an embrace that felt loving, that felt soothing, addicting, but if you only wished to hurt him, you’d—

You moved, shifting your weight a little bit, adjusting the position and the way your hand run down his side made him shiver. A soft sound escaped your throat when you let out a deeper exhale. He felt your fingers squeezing the flesh above his hip and then, you relaxed again.

“Your heart is beating so fast,” you whispered, not bothering to open your eyes, and Satoru held his breath. “Relax…”

And he chuckled. His chest vibrated below your ear and the adorable sound of displeasure you let out made him lose all of the tension. He turned, twisting his body inside your embrace to face you fully and he squeezed you with both of his arms, pulling you close. So impossibly close, and you whimpered, suddenly enclosed in a tight hold of your husband’s limbs. That was it for your sleep.

You could get used to it.

taglist: @kinny-away @anan-baban @lotomber @netflix-imagines @kawliflo @nishloves @ghostfacefricker6969 @thejujvtsupost @yozora7154 @cherrycolabarbedwirebedpost @stuckinmoilalaland @ae-mius @ropickle @chokesonspit @lansy-4 @mo0sin @just-pure-trash @foliea @bakarinnie @big-booty-joe

[wifeyoozi]

choi seungcheol  ✶ 𓂃   sweet red cherry

w.c : 0.9 k ┊ synopsis : cheol comes home to see you wearing panties with the quote, "fuck this ass" ┊ content warning : smut , established relationship, slight (consensual) somnophilia , unprotected sex (wrap the willy guys) , coming untouched a/n : mdni !! not completely beta read also a little sloppy writing since this is my first actual drabble on the blog (I swear I write better than this, I just got a little nervous help T-T)

Seungcheol had reached home early in the morning after his long flight after shooting. He'd instantly took off his coat and his hoody and his sweaty tshirt and his rough jeans, stripping down to his boxers. With a tired mind, he climbed a top the bed beside you.

You were sleeping on your stomach, wearing a loose old tshirt of his, mumbling something in sleep. The duvet was pulled just till your shoulders, but the aircon was turned off and the weather was starting to get warmer.

It was a sunday and neither of you had to work, so seungcheol indulged in himself, slipping a hand upto your waist, pulling you close. You were sweating, so he pulled off the duvet, too lazy and tired to get up and start the Aircon instead.

You moaned softly as the cooler breeze reached your skin. He took his time sweeping his hand over your clothed curve of skin as he slipped the duvet down. Under the duvet you slept with your one leg hitched up, making your ass look wonderful in your ...

You weren't wearing any pants. Just one bright red pair of soft cotton underwear with the quote at the back - "fuck this ass" - in curvy white font adoring your ass. He rubbed his hand over the plump curve of it, slipping a finger inside the elastic to touch the soft skin, his boxers tight against his erection.

You made a sleepy noise and Seungcheol leaned down towards your neck, pushing the hair from there and exposing the wet strip of skin of your neck. he barely wiped off the beads of sweat before peppering sloppy and wet kisses there. "Baby, wake up," he murmured softly, slipping his palm inside your panties and gripping the flesh.

you squirmed, still sleepy but woken from your slumber. you moaned, feeling your lover's calloused fingers digging in your ass, "mhn, cheollie ..."

"fuck, princess," Seungcheol dipped his hand lower, his fingers getting sucked between your slick lips, "wearing these panties for me, are you? such a tease."

you let out a whorish sound when seungcheol's two fingers slipped right into your heat, "just for you,"

seungcheol pulled you close so he could rub his clothed hard dick directly against your ass. he fingered you really slow, scissoring you open for him. his fingers were long and think and he found your g-spot with a practiced ease, knuckles deep in you. you moaned feeling him add pressure over it.

seungcheol chuckled, "baby, look at you, so horny first thing in the morning," he took his cock out of his boxers, the sound of it slapping against his abdomen doing something very vile in your head. you whined when he took his fingers out of your cunt to coat his dick . he laughed again, giving a few pumps to his dick before moving aside you panties and lining himself with your entrance.

"so fucking needy," he holds your hips as he marked his sentence with a thrust in your vagina. you immediately whimpered, feeling the weight of his thick cock hit deep in you.

he increased his speed soon, hitting your sweet point with every thrust. you let out a series of ah-ah-ahs, whimpering as tears pooled in your eyes.

early in the morning, barely woken up from your sleep, and you feel close to your first orgasm already. This is what you get when you date Choi Seungcheol. You reach your hands towards your panties to touch yourself, but Seungcheol holds back your wrists, "patience, baby. i am going to make you come untouched on my dick."

Seungcheol pulled out momentarily, positioning your hips higher so that your ass was up in the air, and stood on his knees behind you and pulled your underwear down to your thighs, a rope of sticky slick trail connected to your pussy. he slid his cock back into you, gripping your ass as he rammed in you with an increased pace, his cock head hitting your sweet spot everytime.

your eyes rolled back as you felt him in your throat. you clenched around his length feeling your orgasm coming closer and closer, until you came around his length, untouched as he promised, whimpering his name.

he kept fucking you through your release, and you knew he was close too by the way his grip tightened on your cheeks. "fuck," he muttered before dropping his torso over your back, hugging your waist, and removing his dick just in time to cum over your thighs.

both of you fell on the bed, breathing heavily. Seungcheol pulled you closer, kissing you softly. you giggle against his lips as he pulls you closer and cuddles you up, his arms and legs wrapped around your body, imprisoning you in his embrace. "Welcome home, cheollie."

[ink-n-shadow]

Alright...hear me out. Ghost with a fem!reader that wakes him up with a blow job, and he later returns the favor by waking her up by either eating her out or very gently fucking her awake. I am a FERAL for consenting somno.

this, THIS is what i needed to write about😌

[ WAKE-UP SEX ] 𝜗𝜚 the one where you wake simon up with a surprise and he returns the favor

𝜗𝜚 pairing: Simon "Ghost" Riley x fem!reader 𝜗𝜚 cw: smut (minors—DNI), consensual somnophilia (m! and f!receiving), oral (m!receiving, mentions of f!receiving), slight dirty talk? (basically just simon having a way with words), not proofread 𝜗𝜚 note: pt. 2 can be found here ⤳ link

you wouldn’t even know how this whole thing started with simon. you would both probably be a bit tipsy, trying to celebrate his most recent mission with a few sips (an entire bottle) of wine at home.

you would be sitting in simon’s lap, thighs hooked on either side of his hips and leaning back against the hands he was running along your spine. you weren’t even sure you heard him right at first, which made your eyebrows furrow a bit as you met his gaze.

“you want me to what?”

simon rarely got sheepish or embarrassed, but when it came to sex, he was typically a bit more reserved.

“c’mon…don’t make me say it again, sweetheart. that’s fuckin’ cruel to do to a man.” he joked quietly, the touch of his hands on your back becoming a bit firmer as he pulled you closer. “just wanted to give you somethin’ to think about, lovie. i think it’d be bloody sexy to wake up with my cock halfway down your throat."

simon never mentioned it again. but you remembered, letting the idea hang in the back of your mind for weeks. the more you thought about it, the more it excited you. so when you woke up early one morning with simon still fast asleep next you, you knew that it was the perfect time.

you slowly slipped down the bed, nestling yourself under the blankets and between simon's slightly opened thighs. you gently tugged down the hem of his briefs until you could fish his semi-hard cock from its confines, unable to hold back the soft hum that fell from your lips as you felt its heaviness in your palm.

it didn’t even matter that the blanket over your head concealed simon’s peaceful face—all you could focus on was licking a long stripe along the underside of his cock, tongue flicking against the soft pink tip and fingers squeezing along the base. the heady taste of simon bled out on your tongue, making your eyes slowly flutter closed as you closed your lips around him and gave him a gentle suck.

simon’s legs twitched at the sudden stimulation, his brain slow to catch up and stir out of his tired stupor. “mmm…what’re you—oh christ.” his hand found the back of your head beneath the blanket, his other making quick work to push the fabric away from your face and letting his eyes feast on the sight in front of him. “jesus, sweetheart. m’not—fuck, not gonna last long with your throat squeezin’ me like that.”

simon was still half-asleep, his movements slow and sluggish as he shifted further up on the pillows to get a better look at you sucking him off. one hand remained on the back of your head, not as a guide but simply to touch you, the other resting along your opened jaw and fingers brushing at the corner of your stretched lips. he was right—he didn’t last long. it took only a few more languid dips of simon’s cock into the back of your throat before he spilled his cum into your eager mouth with a soft hiss and whimper of your name.

what you didn’t expect to happen after that morning was for simon to return the favor.

you had fallen asleep on the couch one afternoon, legs splayed open and head nestled against the armrest as you slept. it was a blazing afternoon, one so hot that you were only wearing a pair of silk shorts and a tank top—all of which exposed too much and not enough all at once.

simon was walking through the door, arms loaded with his bag of gear and dirty laundry he’d collected while away at base. his eyes caught on your figure immediately, and it took everything in him not to drop the items in his grip. you looked so peaceful as you slept, but simon couldn’t care less about that.

once he had placed this things into a neat pile by the door, simon made his way over to the living room and sunk down on his knees in front of your sleeping form. he didn’t even bother pulling your shorts off of your hips, afraid the movement would stir you from sleep too quickly—so he settled for pressing heated kisses directly along your clothed core, a soft groan leaking from his lips as one arm curled around the thigh propped up against the back of the couch and tugged you closer to his waiting mouth.

a smirk flitted on simon’s lips as your sleeping body reacted perfectly to him, your legs falling open a bit more as you shifted your hips up in your sleep. he continued pressing those kisses along your covered slit until a breathy whine fell from your mouth. he peeked one eye up to notice your tired eyes fluttering open, a soft ‘what’re you doing, si?’ falling from you in a panted breath.

“remember last week? woke up cummin’ down that pretty little throat of yours.” simon mumbled into the heated skin of your thigh as he sunk his teeth into your flesh, pulling away with a lewd pop. his hand dragged up your body, palm pushing against your balmy skin from the top of your cunt until his fingers were splayed on your sternum. “just returnin’ the favor, sweetheart. relax f’me, baby—yeah, that’s it. go back to sleep and let my tongue do all the work, m’kay?”

[harstyle]

the styles’ nanny

Summary: Y/N is a twenty-three year old uni student and Harry is a thirty-six year old single dad. Y/N is a part-time nanny and Harry is her employer. Y/N thinks Harry is hot, and Harry… well, he’s a bit confused.

Pairing: plussize-nanny!yn + older-singledad!harry

Word-count: 7.3k

Warnings: age gap (13 years), mentions of alcohol and drinking and lashing out during an argument, no happy ending yet

A/N: I don’t know why I keep writing characters that start out insecure but I swear it’ll get better later!! Let me know if you want to read more, I’m thinking maybe three parts? Also, the fact that y/n is plus-size doesn’t really become a big deal in the story, but that was how I originally had her in mind so I’m leaving it that way. Hope you enjoy!

Y/N was twenty three. She was twenty three, and she used to love being twenty three. She used to love going out to party, the feeling of alcohol burning down her throat, the rush of palpable excitement when having sex with people she’d never met before. She used to love that. But she didn’t anymore.

And the reason for that? One Harry Styles.

It was ridiculous, of course; Harry had other companions he could turn to before ever settling on her— oh and not to mention, he was her boss. Yet, it felt daring, like that time she’d fallen in love with her biology teacher or looked differently at her camp instructor in high school. Authority figures did something to her brain, and Harry was no different.

But of course there was a lot at stake and she would never actually approach the idea; it was a fantasy at most. And she thought… as long as she didn’t act on her brain’s poisoning, it would be fine.

“Y/N, did you hear me?”

“Oh,” she was snapped back to her current state following the short distraction, the butter knife in her hand now seeming more dangerous than when she’d held it seconds before. “Sorry, Harry, what was that?”

She swore she could see an amused smile tugging at his lips for a brief second. She’d always wondered what he thought of her.

“Are you free next Thursday? I have this meeting until late and I doubt I’ll be home for dinner—I was thinking you could maybe put Jamie to bed? You can stay the night if it’s too late to catch a train, or just take the other car?”

Y/N’s work day at the Styles’ house ended at five pm most days in time for Harry to get home, but she did adore Jamie, so staying longer wasn’t remotely an issue.

“That’s okay, I can just stay the night like I did last time, if that’s alright?”

Harry had insisted when she’d begun working for him that she have a room in the house where she could take naps to rest or stay the night all together when it got too tiring to catch the train home, and the notion of it had pulled at her heartstrings. He was very considerate and that was rare in bosses.

Harry shook his head, waving her off with ease, “course it’s okay.”

“Great. I should get home, I have an important test coming up tomorrow. Am I good to go?”

He glanced at the clock, noticing how late it had gotten (he’d offered to cook dinner and Y/N had never been one to reject hot men’s company) and cursed quietly to himself. “I’ll drive you.”

“Oh no Harry, really, it’s okay!”

“It’s almost eight and I feel uneasy whenever I send you away in the dark. Sides, I’m sure Jamie will love a late road trip to your flat,” he reassured with a smile, standing up as if to restrict her getting a choice and starting to load the plates into the dish washer. “Grab your coat and I’ll wait by the door. I’ll get Jamie.”

Y/N did love the way he asserted his wishes to her, kind but dominant in his decisions. He didn’t let her deter him and she, for one, didn’t mind it at all.

“Okay, thank you.”

“No problem, love.”

—

“Can I please just get one scoop? Please?”

“I’m sorry, buddy, we just don’t have any ice cream! I would let you have it if we did, but we don’t. Is there any other snack you’re interested in?”

Jamie was being fussy today and Y/N couldn’t figure out why. He’d been happy when she’d picked him up from school, raving on about his art teacher’s praise on a drawing he’d done with the widest grin resting lazily on his small lips. It had been at around three that he’d started whining at her, not wanting to eat even though he’d requested the grilled cheese and flicking through about twenty channels until he’d finally settled on not watching anything at all. Y/N had figured he was tired, but he didn’t want to sleep either, so she was left thoroughly baffled trying to find ways to tame his mood.

But he wouldn’t stop. He wouldn’t stop whining and crying, wouldn’t stop flailing his tiny arms and legs, wouldn’t stop pouting at her. Jamie had the best behaviour Y/N had ever seen on a boy, really, so this behavior worried her. “I just want ice cream!”

“Jamie, we don’t have any ice cream. How about I get you ice cream tomorrow, hm? And today we’ll have something else? Come on, remember how we learned about compromise?”

Y/N was trying, pulling Jamie into her lap to comfort him even though he didn’t care for any of it. His face was red and angry and nothing she said registered in his brain. He cried into her shoulder instead, gripping at her sides in terror. “You’re being mean to me.”

“Hey, that’s not very nice, I’m trying to help you bud.”

“Please, I just want ice cream.”

It was kind of cute how even in his state of devastation, he still managed to be polite to her.

“And I hear you, Jamie, but we don’t have any right now. Will you settle for Oreos? Or chocolate?”

He merely shook his head.

Y/N breathed a grateful sigh when she heard the front door being unlocked, still bouncing Jamie up and down in her lap in hopes that he’d settle down just a bit. She was sure Harry’d heard the crying from the front door because his steps were fast and his expression of concern clear.

“What’s wrong, bub?”

Jamie reacted with a devastating whine, calling for his dad and reaching his arms out begging to be carried. Harry shot Y/N a look of mixed confusion and apology, leveling the boy out from inside of her lap. He mouthed the question she knew he’d been thinking and felt bad when all she could offer in return was a shrug because she knew it wasn’t the ice cream anymore

Harry sung in whispers into his ear in the hopes of calming him, bouncing him around on the spot. He pressed kisses to his forehead, drawing circles on his back. It worked better than when Y/N had done it, Jamie’s sobs having soothed into few hiccups and sniffles.

Y/N couldn’t help but admire how naturally skilled Harry was at being a father. She knew a little bit of the history— his fiancée at the time leaving him for another man months after having given birth to Jamie and having to raise him by himself. He was a busy man and Y/N could often tell that he felt bad about being unable to do things like pick up his son from preschool or spend all day playing in the den, but he was still a better father than hers had ever been. He was a great father.

Not long after his crying had died down, Jamie fell asleep in Harry’s arms. Y/N finally breathed a sigh, relieved to catch a break. She loved taking care of Jamie, but jesus had today been hard. Harry carried him up to his bedroom, careful as to not bother him and advised Y/N to wait for him to come back.

Whilst Harry was putting Jamie to bed, she decided to clean up a bit. She went through the array of toys Jamie had taken out and discarded after a short minute of playing with them, and placed them back in the drawers. A smile tugged at her lips when she saw the dino plush toy she’d gifted him when she’d first started working for this family months ago— he still played with it all of the time. In fact, Harry had once sent her a photo of it sitting next to him in the car when they’d gone on vacation in the summer. She recalled tearing up because of it.

“Hi, sorry for taking so long.”

She swore she almost jumped in reaction to his thick voice, gripping the plush tightly against her chest in shock. Harry allowed himself a chuckle, raising his arms just enough to surrender. “Sorry, should’ve knocked.”

Y/N’s only response was a forced chuckle. It still felt weird to be in a room with him by herself, without the presence of a cute five year old to tend to. It was moments like these she felt guilty about fancying him. Most of the time Harry was merely a ghost around the house and whenever he settled back in, she would leave. She rarely ever had time to utter more than a quick ‘see you tomorrow’ and rush off home. It wasn’t like he was there, so her thoughts about him didn’t seem too off putting— now, with the company of awkward silence engulfing them, she couldn’t help but feel disgusted by herself.

“Think he’s getting sick,” he then added.

“Probably,” she agreed. “I don’t think I’ve seen him like that before so it was just a bit worrisome.”

“Yeah, he only really gets like that when he’s sick, so I think it’s safe to say… you’re alright, though?”

“I’m fine, just a bit worried, as I said.”

He smiled like he found that amusing, “he’ll be okay. Are you hungry? I was going to make pasta for dinner.”

“Oh, are you sure?”

Last time she’d had dinner here, Jamie had sat next to her. It hadn’t been just her and him.

“Yeah. Why don’t you put the dino down and we’ll go make it together?”

In an instant, her cheeks heated up. She hadn’t even noticed she was still clutching to it for support and figured he must’ve thought she looked so stupid welcoming the comfort of a plush toy. Another awkward chuckle escaped her as she threw it gently into its container, bucking down to lock it away as well as her memory of these last two minutes, hopefully.

Harry was a good cook, but that wasn’t really surprising at all— in fact, she couldn’t imagine there were many things he wouldn’t excel at. Y/N, on the other hand, she was terrible. She’d burned so many things in her apartments kitchen that she couldn’t keep count even if she tried. So naturally, he took the lead in every task she did, from cutting onions to seasoning the salmon.

“Wait, no, y’can’t— here,” she couldn’t help but giggle as he took the knife from her hands, cutting into the flesh himself. He huffed, but she knew it was teasing. “You’ve gotta learn how to cook.”

“I know how to cook basic things, just not some five star gourmet meal. I think you’d be surprised what I can do with some seasoning, eggs and tomatoes.”

“I have no choice but to take your word for it, do I?”

“Guess not. Can I do something else? I feel so useless.”

He clicked his tongue, not even sparing a glance her way. “Go sit on the counter and look pretty.”

And at first, Y/N didn’t know how to respond to that. Did she just… literally sit on the counter? Probably not. It was… a joke, right? How did he expect she would react to such a bizarre request? For a second the guilt she’d been feeling about potentially being unprofessional subsided in a flush.

Then he finally let his eyes settle on her and she just about fainted at what he had to say, “what? Do you need help getting up?”

She was 99% sure at this point that he just got off on pestering her, what with the dino, and now this? Prior to these last two weeks he’d never even spoken more than five words to her, and now he was inviting her to dinner. He probably found the confusion written all over her face amusing.

She could probably indulge a little then, right?

“Yeah, I do.”

He didn’t just laugh, though, like she’d expected him to— no, he ran his hands under hot water, wiped his hands on his (very) expensive trousers and walked toward her. He motioned to the counter as if asking her to get closer and—

“Wait, no, I can do it.”

He immediately stepped back, hands dropping from her waist and smirk molding his mouth.

“You can now?”

“Yes.”

He held eye contact for a few more beats before moving away with a solid nod.

What the fuck was that?

Y/N had expected him to dismiss her, uttering something along the lines of ‘I was only joking’, but that? Never would she have thought that that would be the response.

It was funny, too, because he never could’ve carried her up without at least a bit of struggle. She knew what he was used to— thin women, supermodels even, and she was neither.

So despite the confusion, she got up on the counter like he’d asked. On her own.

And when he’d started asking her about normal things like family and uni, Y/N slowly eased out of her awkward stance. She told him about her mother, her brother, and left her deceased father out of it. He smiled, nodding along to her words whenever the situation allowed it and kept his eye on the food.

A blink was all it took for him to announce dinner and the two of them sat at the table together, peacefully quiet.

It was around six thirty when the patter of tiny feet sounded through the house, from the stairs to the kitchen. Both of the adults waited patiently, eyebrows raised in surprise that the little gremlin had decided to wake up after only having slept for two hours.

“Daddy?”

Y/N almost melted at his sweet, buttery voice.

Harry hummed, “is that you, bub?”

He finally poked his head into the room, carrying a plush toy in one hand and rubbing his sleepy eyes with the other. He studied the room before settling his green irises (clone of his dad’s) on Y/N.

“Y/N, you’re still here.”

She smiled, a pity smile, and answered in a sweet tone, “I am, bud. Is that okay?”

He merely nodded, stalking closer. Harry pulled him up into his lap, kissing his forehead before letting him rest against his front.

“I wanted to apologize for being mean before.”

Her stomach did another flip.

Was this a dream, or did a five year old just apologize to her on his own incentive? She swore these Styles boys surprised her every day!

Her eyes flickered to Harry and she watched as a proud smile stretched his mouth. He met her gaze, the grin undeniably wide, and shrugged as if to say didn’t tell him to.

“That’s okay, Jamie, I understand you were frustrated. Are you feeling better?”

He nodded again, although it was weak and subtle, “my throats itchy.”

Harry’s smile faded with his confession and he pressed the back of his palm to his son’s forehead, “why’d you get out of bed, then, silly? You need to rest if you’re sick.”

“Missed you, daddy.”

She could see that same guilt she’d seen so many times before manipulate Harry’s features again, and her heart broke a little bit for him. She couldn’t keep track of the amount of times she’d wanted to just break and say you’re a wonderful father to him, but stopped herself in fear of overstepping.

Knowing he wasn’t going to say anything soon enough, too lost in his own thoughts, she went on for him. “Tomorrow is Saturday, Jamie, how about you go rest so you can have a full day with your dad tomorrow? S’not nice spending weekends sick in bed, as you know.”

In a manner that was so much more than cute, Jamie’s fingers trapped his chin to appear deep in thought, and then he nodded. “That makes sense.”

Y/N almost laughed, “doesn’t it?”

“Will you be here too, Y/N?”

Jamie knew very well that Y/N wasn’t here on Saturdays, so she guessed he was only implying that she should be. An invitation of sorts.

But she really couldn’t handle being around Harry on the weekends as well as on weekdays, so she shook her head gently, “no, but I’ll be back on Monday, is that okay with you?”

To show his dismay, he jutted his lip out in a pout. “Can’t you come over for lunch?”

Harry nudged him, “Jamie, remember how we talked about what Y/N does when she isn’t here with us?”

“School. But there’s no school on Saturdays!”

“She does school, you’re right. When you get older, there’s so much you have to do for school that it never stops, not even on weekends. And you know what else she does? She meets up with friends, she plays tennis, she goes shopping for groceries. There’s tons she has to do besides spend time with us, yeah?” He never met her gaze as he spoke to Jamie, and it was better that way— he’d probably have caught her loved up eyes if he dared to do it. He remember details about her she didn’t recall telling him about. As if it hadn’t been enough, he added onto it, “plus, I reckon she’d appreciate a break from us, huh? We’re definitely not the only boys in her life, so we should share once in a while. No matter how much we like having her around.”

It was almost magical, the connection Harry and Jamie shared with each other. Nevermind what he’d said to make Jamie understand (she definitely hadn’t missed that last sentence— or the idea of ‘other boys’ altogether), it just made her happy to listen to them converse. It was healthy, a bit serious when need be but mostly light and protective. He did everything in his power to preserve Jamie’s innocence, especially about his upbringing and the whole mother issue.

After a long train of thought, Jamie slowly nodded his small head, “okay. Fine. But I get you Monday! No other boys Monday through Friday.”

Y/N couldn’t help the laugh that tumbled from her mouth, incessant and silly. “Okay, Jamie, I promise I won’t let other boys come between us Monday through Friday, okay? Is that good for you?”

“Me and daddy, though. He’s the only other boy allowed.”

She giggled again, avoiding Harry’s gaze but nodding nonetheless, “sure. Daddy too.”

She felt Harry shift out of her periphery.

“Okay,” he finally settled, outstretching his arm across the table, “pinky promise?”

She did the same, but just before Jamie had a chance to interlink his much smaller finger with hers, she pulled back. “If I pinky promise you on this, will you pinky promise me that you’ll finally go rest?”

He hummed in agreement.

She welcomed the promise, letting her finger link with Jamie’s for a few seconds until he felt ready to let go.

“Now go lay down. I’ll see you Monday, okay?”

“Kay. Can I have a hug?”

“Of course,” she cooed at him, arms already outstretched the moment he’d climbed down from Harry’s lap. Jamie gave the best hugs, so she figured Harry would as well. She’d never gotten to test that theory, though. “Okay, good night.”

“Night.”

Jamie took slow steps (he was much like his father that way, taking his time in everything he did) and slowly disappeared into the main room, eventually stalking up the stairs as both Y/N and Harry listened for it.

“Thank you,” Harry then broke the silence. Her eyes flickered toward him, eyebrows drawing together in confusion, but a nervous smile playing on her mouth. “You’re so good with him.”

“It’s my job to be good to him.”

“It’s your job to take care of him, but you’re not… you’re doing much more than just be nice to him and I appreciate that. So thank you.”

“He’s a great kid, so… not a very difficult thing to do.”

The air had somehow become thick and unwavering, unspoken words wafting between their bodies across the table and back. Harry looked like he wanted to say more but his jaw stayed shut in place and she certainly wasn’t going to pester him about it. It was already difficult to keep in mind that despite the lighthearted dinner, he was still her employer, and that the boundaries they had been practicing since the beginning of her time here were slowly being blurred and tested.

So it didn‘t really matter what she felt whenever he spoke to her, she had to preserve herself and her position here.

She feigned a glance at the clock to justify looking away and sat up in her chair, “I should go home.”

His nod was curt, “okay. I’ll get the keys.”

“No, don’t worry, I have to stop by somewhere else before. I’ll manage.”

It was a lie, of course it was.

“Fine.”

As Y/N made her way back outside, she regretted declining his offer and the farther she walked away from the house, the more she thought about the things they could’ve talked about had she let him grab his keys and escort her home. If he would walk her to the door like last time, without Jamie in the car of course, and bid her a proper goodbye. How maybe, if they’d inched close enough, they would share a moment of hesitation before kissing. Her imagination ran wild with it and she knew that it wouldn’t really happen, but the chances would’ve been greater had she just been bad.

Shit.

—

Y/N was crying.

She was bursting into tears outside of a bar looking like a pathetic, lost idiot— and it just wouldn‘t stop. She couldn’t recall anymore what exactly she‘d expected before going into the date she‘d spontaneously agreed to as a result of her mother‘s pleas, but it certainly hadn‘t been such an embarrassing let down. Her shoulders slumped as she thought back on her date‘s words: I don’t see this going anywhere, but you’re a really nice girl. Friends?

And why was she crying? She was crying because she knew what he’d really meant was: you’re not my type at all, and this was a waste of my time. How did she know? The way he’d looked at her, with a sparkle of disgust in his eyes, the tone he’d used; pitiful and mean. How he’d looked at other, skinny girls while Y/N had been planted directly in front of him and lastly, how he’d left before the date had even ended.

Y/N hadn’t left the bar as soon as he had, no, she’d stayed until now; closing time. She’d drunk herself to exhaustion, pulling shot after shot and even worrying the barista who went to her psych class at uni. Before she’d known it, the clock had struck three am and four hours had passed since what’s-his-face had left her to rot in there.

She had no idea what to do, she could barely even form a thought. It didn’t matter that she’d been rejected— this wasn’t about that, it was about something she couldn’t quite put her finger on. Since the beginning of time relationships had been sparse and dreadful, so another notch on her belt couldn’t have mattered so much as to bring her to a multitude of tears, but she did feel unlovable and undesirable in the way she had throughout all of her life. People had told her things would get better if she waited it out, but they’d lied. Guys were still assholes.

There was really only one person she felt like contacting, and that was Harry. He’d been on her mind all weekend. She’d been wondering if she ever crossed his mind, if for a sliver of a second he allowed himself to think about her in the way she thought about him, and felt a disgustingly sour taste in her mouth when she realized the answer had to have been no.

But Y/N was drunk, and people did stupid things when they were drunk— so without much afterthought, she used the remainder of her battery on dialing his number. He answered after the first ring and her mind wandered to question the plausibility of him being awake at this hour.

“Y/N?”

She was struck watching the road in front of her, unable to answer. Her mouth opened, but nothing came out.

What had she done?

“Y/N, is everything okay?” another wave of tears overwhelmed her senses and as a result, she sobbed right into the speaker, and heard shuffling on the other side. “Sweetheart, where are you? What’s happened?���

“This guy— he just— he was so mean and he left me here—“

“Where? Where are you? Who left you?”

“The viper.”

“Y/N, that place closed twenty minutes ago. Are you inside?”

“No, she… she said I need to get out, so I did, but I didn’t know where to go cause m’drunk, and I…” there was a pause in which she realized how stupid he must’ve thought she was, “I don’t know what to do.”

“Okay, listen to me. Please stay there, don’t move, and send me your location. I’m coming to get you.”

She had no fight left in her, so she nodded to herself. Harry didn’t see, obviously, but he hung up with the hope that she’d understood him clearly.

When he arrived not fifteen minutes later, he put his car in park and hopped out to find Y/N sat on the floor, a lazy smile pulling at her lips when she laid eyes on him.

“Harry, hi! I was just thinking about you!”

He said nothing, a tick in his jaw as he helped her up on her feet, grounding her stature. She nuzzled her head into his shoulder and he kept a steady beat to bring her to warmth as quickly as possible. Y/N got the idea, aimlessly buckling up and failing miserably until he offered assistance.

“Thank you,” she murmured to him, though he refused to give a verbal response. He merely nodded, jaw still locked in place before he closed the door. Y/N watched as he walked over to the other side and opened the door.

He drove in silence and Y/N tried to be okay with that. She stared ahead, mind still gloomy, with her lips jutted out in a pout. The silent treatment made her feel like a scolded child, like Harry was her angry father who refused to speak to her because she’d come home past her bedtime. She looked over to scan over his features, make sure the crease between his forehead had subsided at least a little, but it hadn’t.

After the longest minute of her life, she finally asked, quietly, “are you mad at me?”

And when he didn’t say anything, her heart dropped.

“Oh,” she whispered.

Y/N didn’t dare to say anything for the rest of the ride. When they got back, Y/N opened her own door and hopped out, refusing to wait for Harry to help. He sighed, she could hear, but she just slowly trailed after him.

“Up on the counter,” he grumbled, grabbing a glass of water to help sober up. She took it from his hand.

“Harry, I’m sor—“

“Drink the water.”

She almost flinched at his angry tone.

Y/N was halfway done with the glass when he scoffed, unable to bite his tongue any longer, “I’m angry because you were irresponsible. First you go on a date with some dickhead—“ she opened her mouth to protest, but failed to when he put up a finger to halt her, “then you get yourself drunk and sit outside of the bar alone in a stingy area. Something could’ve happened to you, then what?”

All Y/N could say was, “it didn’t,” and it was the weakest argument she could’ve thought of.

“It very well could’ve and you’d have your stupidity to thank for it.”

Her heart banged again. She didn’t like getting reprimanded by Harry, nearly at the end of her rope anyway. She‘d never seen this side of him before, stern and miserly. Clearly Y/N had only really seen one version of him and had gotten lost in the illusion of it all.

In a last attempt to make him understand, vulnerable and naked, she let herself sniffle, “I don’t think anyone is ever going to love me.”

She‘d expected it to pull at her heartstrings more than it ended up doing— ironically enough, she felt fine confessing to him. Maybe it was the fact that she‘d bottled it up for so long that it was nice to finally admit to it, to allow somebody else to step into her shoes. Of course, every confession came with a tinge of embarrassment (it wouldn’t be a confession otherwise), but this one was still manageable. And yeah, maybe it was the alcohol coursing through her system, but who cared?

“What?”

“No one loves me. I’ve never… guys have never liked me enough to want to brag about it, or keep me around for longer than a month, and… and I do get it, cause I come with a shit ton of baggage, but it just… it takes a lot to be motivated about things that way. I’m twenty three and I’ve barely experienced what it means to love someone and actually have them love you back.”

The display of vulnerability floated heavily through the air.

He was silent for a second. He did that sometimes, she noticed, especially when he was processing things.

Once he did open his mouth, though, he knew exactly what to say, “you can’t let some immature boys get to you like this, you hear me? Tell me one good asset the guy you went on a date with had.”

Y/N shook her head, not because she couldn‘t have if she‘d thought about it hard enough but because she had no energy to continue this conversation any longer. He wouldn’t get it

“See? No guy is worth crying over, especially not on some dirty pavement outside of a bar.”

He truly did have a point there, she supposed.

But it wasn’t just about that, so she told him exactly that— well, at least tried to, “it’s more than… I don’t… I don’t feel good enough.”

“You’re being a bit silly, sweetheart.” She registered how sweet he’d gotten again, finger brushing against her knee and features softening just enough to convince her of safety. He probably felt bad for her. “You’re plenty good enough.”

“Y’don’t get it,” she murmured, “you don’t understand what it feels like to get rejected solely because of your looks.” Y/N had always felt slightly weird talking about her appearance with people who weren’t her closest friends, and even then she felt judgment coming from them. Each time they asked if she would come clubbing with them to score boys, she was never able to honestly express that she‘d never wanted to go because it was always her who was left riding home in an uber alone. And it wasn’t like she felt ugly— in fact, there were instances she felt so confident nobody could’ve told her anything, but then there were those few others… and her whole system came down crashing.

“What do you mean?”

He couldn’t be so daft, could he?

“You’re— you just don’t fucking get it, okay? It’s… whatever, I don’t care.”

That took some courage too, courage she only registered after having uttered the words, but she couldn’t say it. She couldn’t mutter the words this guy didn’t fancy me because I’m fat, because she still had more class than that— even drunk. Ever the childish, pouty person she was, she had more shame than that.

She buried her face in her hands, breathing out, “I’m sorry. Sorry, that was rude of me.”

“It’s fine,” he placed a warm hand on her thigh, thumb stroking soothingly. With a sympathetic look in his eye (confusion too, she guessed), he tried to pacify her concerns, “you need sleep, everything will be better when you wake up.”

He was probably right about that.

“Okay.”

As he escorted her up the stairs, she couldn’t help but let her eyes trail over his features, watching as they hardened and softened based on the turmoil occurring inside of his mind. She wanted to reach in there and grab onto clues, grasp an understanding of the workings of him, but he made that nearly impossible. She would look away if he caught her eye, cheeks heating up every time she was captured by his darkened green irises.

He opened the door, allowing her to take the first step. She didn’t really need the help, but she couldn’t complain when his hand posed on the small of her back so he could maneuver her onto the sheets.

“Do you want a change of clothes, Y/N?”

“Um, if you have something?”

She doubted there was anything in his huge closet that would fit her in the way she preferred, but the idea of spending the night in jeans was just as dreadful, so she took the chance and nodded.

He came back later with a stack of clothes perched on his left hand, the other holding another glass of water. “Anything else?”

Y/N paused for a moment to think and shook her head, “no. But just—“ she swallowed around the lump in her throat, “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay.”

She couldn’t believe the words she spoke next, no thought invested into them: “will you come into bed with me?”

Time refused to pass, the ball was in his court.

When he gave a subtle nod, it was like god and the universe were sending good karma her way. Her compensation for the night. “Just until you fall asleep.”

Y/N scooted to the other edge of the bed, reaching down under the blanket to rid herself of her jeans and pull on those grey sweatpants. Surprisingly enough, they fit extremely well. Harry laid down over the blanket (to prevent getting too comfortable, probably) and perched himself onto his forearm.

Another bold wave met with Y/N’s courage as she reached out her hand to trail over his chest. Harry swallowed thickly.

“You’re really nice t’me.”

“You deserve to be treated well.” The snort that left her was completely involuntary, but it still made Harry frown. “You do.”

“Everyone does,” she later mumbled in agreement. He seemed to dislike the way she’d surrendered, though, because he did that thing with his jaw whenever he was ticked off.

What he didn’t like was the implication behind her tone that she only deserved respect because everyone did, regardless of her own character. She was disregarding her beauty and her kindness, her character, and reducing it to a commodity when it wasn’t.

He’d always had difficulty expressing his feelings, though, so he stuck with silence. Stone cold silence.

It pertained for five more minutes until he watched as sleep slowly overtook her figure, peaceful breaths cascading from her mouth. She looked so pretty asleep; relaxed, void of concerns and the crinkle in her forehead from tonight’s events dissipating into its initial form.

He wondered if she’d ever given him other implications of being an insecure girl— if she had, he’d caught none of them. He never would’ve thought somebody so effortlessly beautiful and kind as her could think to deserve less on such extreme levels. It made him wonder if anyone had ever treated her as she deserved; he noticed once that whenever she spoke about her family, she failed to mention her father. It seemed men had disappointed her in more ways than one.

There was inner turmoil bothering him. He didn’t know what he was feeling for his child’s nanny, but there was surely no other woman he felt as eager to take care of— picking her up, driving her home, clearing a room for her.

It was terrifying to allow himself these few minutes of observing her because he feared the impure thoughts which would cross his mind. Not perverse, but intimate. She deserved more than him, he was sure of it.

He left the room after another five minutes, trying to be as subtle as possible as he walked to the door. It was later than four am, so he stopped by his son’s room to check on him. When he saw nothing out of the ordinary, he finally carried himself to his own bedroom.

He would lie awake until sunrise.

—

Y/N had never woken up so panicked before, chest heaving and mind elsewhere entirely. Her head was pounding and her heart rate palpable, she was sweating all over and she could only recall last night in small, blurry tidbits.

God, and she had to face Harry. On a Monday morning.

After maybe ten minutes of lying around and procrastinating, she finally moved herself out of bed. She pulled on her clothes from last night, drank the water that was situated on her nightstand and tidied up in the bathroom before going to search for him. She looked upstairs— no trace of him, so she cascaded down the stairs and made her way to the kitchen. On the way there, his office caught her eye. The door was cracked opened and at a closer peek, she saw him sitting at the desk with his hand buried in his hair, mumbling something. She knocked, he flinched.

“God, Y/N, you scared me.”

“Sorry,” she gave a sheepish smile, “are you busy?”

“I—“ he sighed, shaking his head. It was when he spoke into the phone lying on his desk that she realized he’d been one a phone call. Before she could backtrack, he’d muttered an ‘I’ll call you later, Stace’ to them and hung up for her. She stood there, fingers interlaced in front of her body and balancing on the balls of her feet in intimidation.

He didn’t look happy either, and that was probably because ‘Stace’ was Jamie’s mother. She would call every few months, he’d told her, and cause some sort of havoc— from wanting to talk to Jamie on the phone to wanting to see him in person. When asked why he didn’t like letting her see Jamie, he’d given Y/N a very vague answer; wouldn’t do any good. She’d settled with that back then, having sensed the energy shifting.

Y/N felt bad for him now, the stress assuming control of his features almost overwhelming to look at.

He was already glancing up at her expectantly, but the words disappeared from her brain and all she wanted to do, really, was comfort him.

“I— are you okay?”

It was a visceral reaction he had to those few little words, the furrow in his eyebrow deepening, “yes, why?”

“Because… well because you were talking to Stacie on the phone—“

His scoff interrupted her pity stutter, “so you’re listening in on my conversations now?”

Oh, she was no longer sorry; she was scared. “No! No, I’m not, I swear! I was walking past looking for you and I heard you mumble something, I don’t— I would never…” and he must’ve known that. He must’ve known that she would never, ever listen in on his conversations, nor try to overstep the line by doing that (obviously she’d fucked up last night, but aside from that). He knew her, he’d trusted her for long enough for her to know that he knew that, so his accusation ticked her off.

But he looked terrifying right now; eyes dark, eyebrows furrowed, closed off stance, and nothing like the Harry she’d gotten to know well. And she had no idea if it had been last night or this that had finally pushed him over the edge.

“So why bring it up?”

“Because you— because you’ve talked about it before and I was just— I wanted to check on you!” She was stuttering like an idiot, she was aware, but with her comfort bubble gone, her speech wasn’t a reliable asset anymore. She’d always been terrible at communication and even worse at confrontation. And he must’ve known that because he was using it to his advantage— and that was mean, because he knew she would never. He knew. Didn’t he?

“It’s not professional, Y/N, but I’m sure you know that. I’m sure you know that last night wasn’t either, but you keep fucking pushing me.”

And that… well, was partly right.

“I know last night wasn’t…” she shook her head, “it wasn’t professional, I know that. I don’t know why I called you, I don’t get it either, it just happened, really, and I wanted to apologize. I understand if you—“ she peered down toward her hands, swallowing the lump in her throat, “if you don’t feel comfortable with me being here anymore. With your son, I mean, I’d totally understand.”

Y/N thought that was quite sensible of her. Of course, if she could get a chance to have a repeat of last night, she would take it in a heartbeat— but she couldn’t, so this was all she could do. She loved working here, giving it up would hurt, but she understood if that was what needed to be done.

“You just… you can’t fucking call me at three am in the morning drunk off of your arse—“

“I know that—“

“Clearly you don’t!” And she detested how his voice raised. “And clearly you don’t get that there are things you just can’t talk about; like Stacie, or your own relationships, or whatever the fuck else you’ve brought up to me.” If she felt like a scolded child yesterday, then she’d had no idea how bad it could get. “I’m your— I’m your employer, not your fucking therapist. I’m not here to clean up your fuck-ups, pat you on the head and tell you it’s alright.”

Her eyebrows furrowed because she knew that too, and she found it borderline preposterous that he would imply she didn’t.

There was a 180 here, and she was becoming less and less understanding.

“I told you I don’t know why I called you, Harry, I don’t know! What am I supposed to say? I was terrified and sad and don’t ask me why, but you’re the only person who actually gets what I’m talking about half of the time, so it just happened!”

“You act like I’m somehow responsible for you.”

Her frown deepened; she hated the notion that he had to take care of her in some way, as if she was incapable of it on her own account. “On what basis? I think you might be pressuring yourself into that, Harry, because it’s fucking ridiculous. I never made you do anything.”

He released a frustrated breath, “you have to stop worming your way into our lives— you’re our nanny, that’s it. You don’t ask me about my personal life, you don’t call me in the middle of the night to make me worry and you don’t ask me to get into bed with you.”

“You act like I don’t know that!”

“Evidently you don’t.”

“Yes I d—“

“Just—just stop. Stop talking.”

It shut her up. It did not only that, the increase of his volume had made her flinch on the spot. She wasn’t a fan of confrontation, as mentioned before, but what she despised even more was yelling. She couldn’t stand yelling, fighting, accusations being thrown in the air with no regard to anyone’s feelings. It was an extremely sensitive thing for her and she definitely hadn’t expected to experience it with him today.

Y/N saw him a little differently in this light. The sternness with which he delivered those words, strict and mean, reminded her of her childhood. He saw her weakness, saw the stress she was under, and did nothing to relieve the situation. Instead he’d yelled at her.

Her hand was shaking a little and tears were forming in her eyes. She couldn’t let him see it, though, the weakness. She couldn’t allow him to see that a simple instruction had made her want to cry.

“I can’t deal with you today, Y/N, so please just… just go.”

She left without another word— straight up turned around and closed the door behind her with shaky hands. She couldn’t stand him right now, but even more she couldn’t stand herself.

She’d fucked up so badly.

And maybe… maybe she needed to quit.

-

part two!

And there we have it! don’t hate me for that ending it was necessary!

[zayneslady]

summary: it's been a while since the last time you saw him, but you missed him so terribly.

warnings: angst/comfort. Happy endings for the win *sobs* Pt. 2 of these scenarios

characters: Zayne, Rafayel, Xavier x reader (separately)

a/n: I wanted to apologize. I got some comments saying that perhaps I wrote them a bit too ooc and that they wouldn't do something like this, so I was thinking maybe I should step out from writing these; I'm probably not understanding the characters very well. I'm really sorry! I had this one written already, so this is probably going to be the last post I make! Thank you for your support! In only a couple of days you guys were so amazing and loving, I'm super moved and I don't deserve you all at all ❤️

classification: scenarios

tag list: many of you asked me to tag you in the second part, I hope you guys like it! 💕

@biitchyberry @rosaryia @lcheerymotion @mo0nforme

ZAYNE ❄️

It's been four weeks since your argument with Zayne. The first days had been like hell. You had already tasted the honey of a relationship with the person you liked the most and loved the most. You wanted more of him, you needed more. You felt anxious without him, like you had become addicted to his kisses, his gentle touch, and the sweet words he whispered in your ears. You missed him more than you dared to admit.

The days passed slowly, each second seemed to last an eternity. When you got home you felt the emptiness of his presence and you felt like dying, but life continued on, and eventually you got used to being without him. The pain was still present, but more bearable as time kept its course. 

You had stopped frequenting the places you knew he liked for fear of running into him. The dessert shop, the cafe near the hospital, the night stands near the library. You even avoided getting sick so you wouldn't have to go to the hospital. Your life was limited to going to work and coming straight home, with occasional visits to buy groceries. 

You would never have thought that you would have to live a life again without Zayne and only because he didn't know how to separate his friendships from his romantic partner. So smart, but so stupid at the same time. 

You sighed, returning to the present and the food you were making; it was too late when you realized it, but unconsciously you were making one of his favorite dishes. You weren't going to waste the food, so you just carried on trying not to think much about it. 

“Now, where did I put–,” you stopped, surprised by the sudden knocking on your door. You frowned, you were not expecting anyone, but the knocking continued once more and you sighed, turned off the stove. “I'm coming.”

You regretted opening the door. Opening just a crack to see who it was, your heart fluttered in your chest as if there was a small caged bird inside it. Zayne was standing in front of you. He looked ridiculously tired, more than you'd ever seen him. The bags and dark circles under his eyes were deep, his skin did not look radiant and healthy as always and his eyes did not shine like emeralds. 

Your hands were sweating and your insides were churning. "Are you okay?" You asked with a broken voice. Zayne shook his head and he fainted, but with a gasp, you quickly wrapped an arm around his waist and tried to keep him upright. “Zayne! Hey, what's happening?” 

Zayne didn't answer you, and just leaned on you. Not knowing what to do, you dragged him inside and carefully guided him to your room. Once there, you laid him down on your bed, he looked weak. 

“Zayne? Can you hear me? Are you okay?” 

He mumbled your name and your heart raced. “I'm… I am sorry,” he said as he finally passed out. You gasped, but soon heard the soft snores you were so used to. 

Was he that exhausted? And what was he doing at your house? You frowned, fighting back the stinging sensation in your eyes as you tried to hold back some tears. He really always appeared to stir everything inside you. You had already accepted your life without him, but here he was. You sighed heavily, taking off Zayne's shoes and covering him with a blanket.

Your eyes couldn't help but admire him. Even though he was tired, he still looked as handsome as ever. It seemed like a dream, an illusion that would disappear at any moment. You wanted it to happen. You wanted him to disappear, but at the same time, you wanted to take him in your arms and kiss his face. But no, clearing your throat, you grabbed an extra blanket and left the room, closing the door behind you. It was better to let him rest so he could leave as soon as he got up. 

The next morning you woke up to soft steps. Sitting up and whining a little after sleeping on the couch, you saw Zayne coming out from your bedroom. His hair was messy and he was rubbing one of his eyes like a little child, something warm spread across your chest and a smile tried to spread your lips, but you stopped it. He seemed more rested, the bags under his eyes had diminished considerably and his skin looked a little more alive. 

“Zayne.”

He seemed a bit startled as he looked at you with slightly wide eyes. “Hello… I am sorry I fell asleep.” 

You hummed, folding the blanket. “Haven't you been sleeping well?" You didn't want to sound worried, but you were. 

“I haven't… I constantly have nightmares and I've been working over time… a lot more."

“Why?”

“Because I can't stop thinking about you,” he said and despair filled his eyes. “You have no idea how much I've missed you. I can't sleep, I can't eat, I have been working nonstop so I can have my mind occupied, but you're always there, in the back of my head.” 

Don't cry. Don't cry! 

“And what exactly do you want me to do about it, Zayne?” You said coldly, wanting to get over with this. 

Zayne approached you and you couldn't move as he took your hands. “Please, please. Give me another chance. I swear. I swear in my life that I do not have feelings for her. I just… I was just stupid and took you for granted. Please, my love, please.”

Tears began to well up in your eyes and you cried even harder as Zayne grabbed your face. "N-No, don't touch me.”

“Please. How can I show you I truly want you? Do you want me to stop talking to her? I'll do it. I'll do it, so please. Just… please. I can't live without you.” His words sounded sincere.

His eyes were glassy and the pain on his face was evident, but your heart still hurt. How did you know that he really wouldn't leave you as a second option anymore? You couldn't even tell him to stop talking to Miss Hunter, you knew this was just Zayne's fault. 

“Zayne… Zayne you're hurting me so much.”

“I know. I know I am and I am terribly sorry for this. I love you. I truly love you.” 

You also loved him, so much. 

“... If this ever happens again, Zayne… I won't forgive you another time. Remember that.”

His green eyes shone with happiness as he pulled you into a tight hug. You hugged him back, the tips of your fingers tingling as you felt his warmth, the tip of your nose digging into the crook of his neck, you breathed deeply, enjoying his scent. 

“You're on trial, Zayne.”

Zayne chuckled and he nodded. “Yes. You won't regret me, I promise you.”

RAFAYEL 🐠

Life was boring without him. He was the spark and the spice in your days. With him, every day seemed like a small adventure, but now that you no longer saw him, the days seemed dark and lifeless. You didn't even remember how much time had passed since that day. One week? Three days? Two months? You weren't sure and, honestly, you tried not to think about it too much because, even though you missed him, the pang of pain in your heart almost made you gasp for air every single time you recalled every moment with him. It was almost as if his bodyguard had also been there, on every date with Rafayel, for all of your conversations were about her. 

He was full of praise for her. He named each of her virtues and laughed affectionately at her defects. He didn't accept anyone claiming that they were better than her or stronger, because his precious bodyguard was the strongest and the bestest. Just thinking about it made you feel tears filling your eyes. You didn't want to remember any of it, but as you held your phone with your thumb hovering over the dial button, you couldn't stop thinking about how miserable Rafayel made you feel, even when he also made you feel like the most loved person in the world. 

When he didn't have his mouth full of his wonderful bodyguard, Rafayel showered you with affection. His kisses, his hugs, and his caresses all felt full of love and tenderness. His beautiful eyes looked at you sweetly, as if you were the most precious thing that ever existed on earth. He liked to tease you and make you laugh and he always said that you were like a muse for all his paintings: The sparkle in your eyes, the color of your hair, the texture of your skin, the curves of your body, everything was inspiration.

How could he be so cruel and loving all at the same time? Poor bodyguard, you even didn't like her although she hadn't done anything wrong, as far as you knew. 

Sighing, you finally tapped on the green button and your heart raced faster and faster at every beep coming from the other side of the line. Would he answer you? Was he… with her? Was he busy with one of his paintings? What if- 

His voice calling your name surprised you, making you jump. “I’m here! Hi!” he sounded out of breath and your cheeks blushed. “Hmm, h-how are you d-doing?” 

“Rafayel…,” you took a deep breath. “I… have some clothes at your place. Could I stop by later to get them?” 

“YES! I… I mean… yes. I'll- I'll be here all day. You can stop by at any time you want.”

“... Right. Then, see you there, Rafayel.” 

You let out a long sigh after hanging up. You had forgotten how wonderful his voice was and the way he pronounced your name. Butterflies fluttered in your stomach. You were going to see him, you were really going to come again, but you shouldn't be excited. What if he and his bodyguard were dating? The thought made your stomach twist and you decided it was best to leave immediately. The quicker you finish this, the better. 

As always, the door was open, but you didn't immediately enter, your hands were shaking and your heart was racing against your ribcage. You didn't want to see him.

Taking a deep breath, you gently pushed the door open and you were greeted with that aroma that you had missed so much. The smell of acrylic paint, the sea and Rafayel's scent. You couldn't help but take a long breath- this exquisite smell felt like home. Your eyes watered a little, but you tried to stay calm as you walked deeper into the spacious house.

“R-Rafayel? Are you here? "You heard a gasp from the room and in a second, Rafayel appeared in front of you. Ah, he looked as wonderful and beautiful as always. His gorgeous eyes were wide, looking you up and down as his mouth stretched into a shy smile. You wanted to hug him. “The door… was open so I just- I'm sorry.”

“No! That's okay! I… I left it open for you!” 

You nodded. “I see… do you mind if I just…”

“No, go ahead, please.” You excuse yourself as you made your way to his room, as you passed by him you felt your legs tremble and you gasped in surprise when he suddenly took your hand.

“Rafayel, what-

“Please, forgive me,” he begged, his eyebrows furrowed in a painful expression. “I was absolutely wrong, you were so right. I was stupid and careless and hurt you so badly.”

“Rafayel… I just came for my clothing, let me g-

“Please!” He hugged you and you went stiff. “Please, please,” he sobbed in your ear. 

“Are you crying?” 

He nodded. “I can't live another second without you. I can't paint anymore. I feel like a piece of me has been taken away, I live half and barely. I really, really do not have feelings for my bodyguard. You're the only one I can think about.”

“Then why- 

“I just… I was just stupid, I didn't mean anything to hurt you, I swear! When I said I missed her, what I wanted to say is that I wanted to train with her, I would never make you train, that's too dangerous,” he started to explain in a rush. “When I told you about the candies, it's because she gave me some amazing chocolate I wanted to gift you and then-

“Rafayel-

“Please. Just this once, I swear,” he said, finally showing his reddened face, tears streaming down his face. You gulped, reaching up to clean his tears away and he whined. “I wasn't there to wipe your tears, I am so sorry.” 

That made you burst into tears. That's right, you really wanted him to wipe your tears. He gently cupped your cheeks and his thumbs brushed against your cheeks, catching all of those tears falling from your pretty eyes. 

“You can break up with me if I do something like that again! But please… just this once. I love you so much. I really do.” 

You looked at him, His eyes were still wet and some tears were still falling down his cheeks. Maybe…

“Just this once, Rafayel… I won't forgive anything like this ever again.” He beamed and leaned down to capture your lips in a kiss, but you covered his mouth, frowning slightly. “I'm still mad at you.”

He blinked and gently smiled behind your hand before taking it in his. “Of course, I'll prove myself to you, beautiful creation.” 

XAVIER ⭐

You couldn't sleep. It's been two weeks since you last slept properly. Two weeks ago you were in Xavier's arms and he held you lovingly, whispering words of comfort in your ears. You weren't sure why, but being around Xavier always made you feel relaxed, a little sleepy, but never bored. You loved spending lazy times with him, taking naps and frolicking in bed, giggling like fools and giving each other soft, tender kisses. 

With his warmth and love it was not difficult to fall asleep at night, he always wanted to sleep so that tranquility that emanated from him was enough to relax you and make you sleep throughout the whole night. In the mornings you felt rejuvenated and full of life and seeing his sleepy smile was like living in a dream. 

You felt your bottom lip quiver into a pout. You missed him too much. You never thought he would behave that way. Had you never really been important to him? If he wanted to be with his partner so much, why had he even agreed to go out with you in the first place? 

“Agh! I hate you Xavier!” You cried, banging your fists against the table in your kitchen. “Why did you let me fall in love with you?” Maybe you really had gone crazy, talking to the table like that. 

There was no time for this. It was almost dark and you still needed to go buy some groceries for your dinner. You struggled out of your house, so tired and dragging your feet. You wanted to sleep... with Xavier. You wanted to feel his warmth. But... what if he now wrapped his partner in his arms? Your cheeks turned red and, trying to avoid thinking about it, you hurried to catch the bus. 

You found a seat near the door and next to a young man, there weren't as many people as you imagined and as the bus started to go you felt your eyes heavy. Maybe... you could sleep for a few minutes? The store wasn't far away, so just a few minutes... just a couple of minutes… 

You heard your name being called between clouds. From far away. Over and over and over. Wake up. Wake up. Wake up. 

“Hmm?” You opened your eyes and gasped, How long had it been?! Where were you? And... why was your head...? Had you fallen asleep on someone's shoulder?! "Oh my God, I'm so sorry!" You said, raising your head only to find that the young man next to you... "Xavier?!" 

The hunter blinked, his eyes avoided yours for a second before looking directly at you and nodding a small greeting. Had he been there next to you the whole time? You could barely notice what was happening around you with how tired you were, but, strangely, you felt very good. It seemed like he really was the cure for all your ills. You chuckled softly, shaking your head. Xavier looked at you confused, tilting his head to the side like a little bird. 

“I'm sorry, Xavier. I didn't know you were there,” you jumped, “but wait, where are we?!” Checking outside the window, you could tell you were far away from the store now. 

“We're almost at my place,” he said gently and the alarms in your head set off. His partner... didn't she live in the apartment below?! Oh no. Before, you had no problem staying at Xavier's house, but... if they were really in a relationship…

“I gotta go,” you said, seeing the next bus station. It was already dark outside.

“Where are you going?” Xavier asked and you frowned.

“What do you mean? Back home. I only wanted to go to the store, but I fell asleep as you could see… Now it's even dark. Thankfully it's not raining,” you were babbling to yourself as you waited to arrive at the next stop, when you finally did, you got up. “Sorry about that, Xavier. Goodnight.” 

"Now... The next bus…," you mumbled checking the bus's schedule. "10 minutes? Lucky~"

“I'll go with you.” 

You couldn't help but squeal and jump when you heard his voice right behind you. Turning around, you saw him standing there, as tall as he was and as bright as the stars. 

“I'll take you home. It's dark. Something could happen.”

You rolled your eyes. "What could happen, I'm only going home.” 

“Some witnesses have seen wanderers in the area. I can't let you go alone." 

You sat on the bench, arms crossed, Xavier sitting next to you. "Ah, that's true. I'm not strong like your... Forget it." Your cheeks turned red. Very well! Keep opening your big mouth! Xavier didn't say anything, but you could feel his gaze on you and the blush on your cheeks traveled to the tips of your ears. 

Silence reigned between you. You could feel him, his warmth, he was so close to you, you could reach out and touch his knee. Your eyes felt heavy, you wanted to hug him. 

“I am sorry,” he suddenly said and you thought you imagined it but then he repeated it. “I am sorry for what I said the other day.” You turned to look at him and flinched when he saw his bright eyes looking sad and red. “I don't know what I was thinking. Talking like that in front of my girlfriend. Acting like I didn't want to have been there with you, but you're the only person I want close to me. I don't like nor have feelings for my coworker, I only want and need you.” 

He gently wiped a tear from your rosy cheek, his touch was electrifying. 

“You haven't been sleeping well.” You didn't answer, but he continued. “I haven't been able to sleep either. I keep recalling that day and seeing your crying face, I can't stand it… please forgive me.” 

He took your hands and you finally looked up at him, your eyes widening as you saw a small tear fall down his cheek. 

“I don't deserve your forgiveness, but I still beg you, I beg you to give me another chance. I promise I'll do better. Something like this will never happen again. I was an idiot." 

You frowned, “you were an idiot. Do you have any idea how you made me feel? It's hard to believe you love me.” 

He nodded, listening to you carefully. “I know it's hard to believe, but please let me prove it to you, let me show you how much I love you, please. I can't be without you anymore, my star. I need you, otherwise I'll go crazy. Please.” 

You sobbed and Xavier gently pulled you close to him. Wrapping you between his warm arms. You tried to pull away, but he didn't let you and soon you melted in his embrace, crying into his work clothes. 

“Please, give me another chance.” 

You nodded softly. Just one more chance. “There's not gonna be a second time,” you warned between sobs and he chuckled, kissing the top of your head. 

“I won't need them. I will treasure you as the most valuable thing that you are. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.” 

[urfavlarry]

hii! i love your writing so much! So can i request Joost x fellow artist!reader with one bed trope? Something like - Joost and reader have tour together, but hotel staff messes up their reservation and instead of two different rooms they get one and maybe reader is all shy with the whole situation bc she has feelings for him idunno 😭🙏

Awkward Situations

Joost Klein x artist!reader

summarry: ..one bed in the hotel room, how does that go when both of you just want to go to sleep after a tiring day from touring

genre: fluff!

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“I’m very sorry, but all rooms are booked for the night so there is nothing I can do for you other then give you the card to the room we booked for you.” The receptionist says to you, looking at you with a sympathetic look. You’ve been trying to bargain with her for the past 15 minutes, telling her you booked a totally different room but the hotel was full since it was summer and most people are on holiday at this time. You sigh, rubbing the sleep from your eyes and take the key card, thanking her quietly before grabbing your suitcase and leaving. Joost trailed quietly behind you, letting you cool down since you were a bit upset from the situation. Anyone would be since you were tired from performing all day and couldn’t wait to have some tine for yourself but the hotel just had to mess something up. You didn’t try and cause a scene, it was mostly just going back and forth trying to find a solution but without success.

You walked down the hall, dragging your luggage with you and open the door, setting your stuff down and grabbing important stuff before running off to the bathroom. Meanwhile Joost looked around the room. It had a lot of space, the balcony giving you a great view of Frankfurt, the place you performed tonight. He lit a cigarette and snapped a quick photo before putting his phone away and admiring the view. He watched the cars pass by, music softly playing somewhere across the street and laughing could be heard just a few streets away. He threw the cigarette away, walking back into the warm atmosphere of the hotel. You were already done with getting yourself ready for the bed, laying down on your stomach and watching something on your laptop. You edited some footage your crew took from the concert and tried to get as much done as possible before deciding to watch a movie. You put on a random shitty comedy movie, getting comfortable under the covers. You were on the side of the bed where the nightstand was, leaving Joost to sleep on the side near the wall. You heard him get out the bathroom and feel the bed sink, a strong smell of some random shampoo hitting you like a truck. You got some butterflies in your stomach, trying to focus on the movie.

You were half asleep at around 2:29 AM, yawning and putting on a different movie. You closed your eyes, Joost already asleep and snoring softly. He was the type to always toss and turn in his sleep, but tonight he was suspiciously still. You were falling in and out of consciousness, seconds feeling like hours when you suddenly feel him moving around. He put a hand on your waist, a quiet yelp escaping your mouth. He pulled you a bit closer, his back only a few inched away from you. Sighing, you accept your fate and try to fall asleep, succeeding just after a few seconds.

In the morning, you felt trapped. You couldn’t move, eyes shooting open. You were faced with someone’s chest.. Joosts chest. Your face felt hot but you chose to ignore it, admiring his morning features. You didn’t dare move, knowing Joost wasn’t really the biggest fan of mornings, practically having to drag him out of bed every time you were on tour. He started shifting, his eyes slowly opening so you quickly close yours, trying to act like you’re asleep. He loosened his grip on you, you could feel his intense gaze on you before feeling lips on your forehead. “Morning..” He says in his groggy, morning voice before getting up, probably to shower or change. After what felt like hours, you open your eyes, grabbing your phone and checking the plans you had for today. The next concert was next week in Switzerland, then two days after that concert you were going to Italy. You were excited, always having the dream to travel the world someday which was finally becoming a reality. You shiver slightly, standing up to grab a hoodie from your suitcase and skin care, sitting down and grab a small mirror you brought so you could get ready. After finishing, you put your hair in a hairstyle you thought would fit your outfit for the day. Standing up you go on the balcony, getting some fresh air. You let your mind wander, thinking about all kinds of things before feeling a pressence beside you. Of course it was Joost, who else would it be? He stood there besidde you quietly, coffee in hand and handing you your usual. You thank him quietly, letting the warm drink heat your hands up.

It was a comfortable silence, something you usually had on mornings like these before Joost spoke up. “Slept well?” You look in his direction and nod, siping on your drink.He also nodded, the soft and comfortable atmosphere turning tense. He cleared his throat, trying his best to come up with a topic which wasn’t usually this hard for him, so why was it now? “Are you.. okay? Were you uncomfortable?” He asks, his tone being more worried then anything.

You shook your head, finally sparing him a glance. “It felt nice.” You say, awkwardly and he just nods, letting the silence engulf you once more. You went inside, mentally slapping yourself for being so awkward around your best friend. You get changed and decide to go look around Frankfurt. You and Joost talked like nothing ever happened, leaving the morning incident behind. You went inside a museum you found interesting, paying for everything and going inside to explore. It was nice, a lot of things took your interest but Joost seemed like he was in his own world, just walking around and looking dazed. Once you decided it was time to head back, you made your way to the hotel once more. You met a few fans, most of them being thirsty for Joost anyway but finally you got to your destination. Joost looked pretty annoyed about something, sparing you a few glances and pouts. You sat down next to him on the bed, deciding to get the information out of him. “What’s wrong?” You ask, making him chuckle. “Being blunt, are we?” You shrug and raise a brow, your leg bouncing impatiently. “Joost, what’s bothering you hm? You haven’t started a random topic for 15 minutes. Which is very unlike you might I add.” He stares at you dumbfounded but shakes his head. He shrugs and looks like he is trying to find the right words to explain his sour mood. “Well, last night..” He starts and you mentally curse. You really were hoping this wasn’t mentioned but it had to be at some point.

“I liked.. what happened and I’m pretty sure you did too because you would’ve spoken up about it, I know you enough to know you speak up about things when you’re uncomfortable with something.” He starts and you try your best to not break eye contact with him, letting him speak his mind. “I didn’t only like that, I like you and have for almost a year and I thought we could.. try?” You smirk, deciding to tease him; “Try..?” You smile and he looks at you with a ‘really?’ face. “You want me to spell it out for you? I want us, to be together, at least try. We can work something out I know we can.” He says and you nod, inching closer to him. “I’d love to Joost.” You say and he stands up spinning you around making you giggle like a child. The rest of the night was just you two making fun of the situation and what convinced Joost to confess. It really was funny that one bed made you get together with the most amazing person on earth.

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[hitomisuzuya]

Im sending hugs to you. I hope this ask helps in any way it can. If you dont want to write it, feel free to ignore (although id appreciate it if youd answer the ask and tell me you wont write it.) love love love you and your writings!

Request!

Fatui scara coming home earlier than his wife which is rare since hes the one thats usually late cuz of harbinger duties. One she does arrive, its practically hours that should be spent in bed, resting. He senses wife troubles aka wife in need of love and attention due to being exhausted from work, life or whatever may be. All he knows is that he needs to get rid of your stress. By fucking it out of you, that is.

I can see this as soft dom scara but you can do whatever you like ^^

Scaramouche x fem!reader. Smut. Creampie. Husband!Scaramouche. Degradation. Soft!Dom Scara.

Thank you, dear ❤️ Writing this did help. I am glad everyone likes my soft doms a lot. Scara is straight up husband material in a lot of unique ways 😌

Scaramouche is very set in his ways, his eyes immediately hooding with annoyance the moment he walked through the door. He didn't receive his usual greeting: his wife's arms wrapped around him, nuzzling into his neck with: "I missed you. I am glad you are home."

This man legit walked into every room and looked around. Pulled back the curtains to every window, looking outside in hopes of seeing you. Sighing, he crossed his arms. "Where is my wife?"

He was pretty sure the entirety of Teyvat, and maybe even Celestia was impressed that he'd found a woman who could tolerate him, and the general experience even knowing him brought. He would've been the biggest idiot not to lock you down when he did.

Being the man that he is, Scaramouche knew exactly what you needed the moment he saw you walk in the door. You looked tired, anxious, and lonely. He knew you got anxious without him, and the fact that he'd stayed away three days longer than he promised didn't help much.

Scaramouche knew what he had to do: these tensions were best relieved by fucking you raw, absolutely dumb and drooling on his cock. Real men tended to their wife. And he was determined to do nothing short of that.

From the way your pussy was clenching around his cock as he fucked into you from behind more than said how much you missed him. There wasn't one moment where his cock hadn't been aching to buried raw inside of you.

The relentless pace with which his hips smacked into yours was furious. "Sc-Scara!" You cried out, his cock head nudging firm and consistent into your sweet spot struck you breathless, your fingers clawing at the sheets. You could barely breath as shamelessly loud moans sounded from your throat, "I can't breathe! I need you so badly," The latter was said behind a choked back sobs of pleasure, your hips pushing back into his cock.

"Shh, shh, I know, kitten. I know," Scaramouche groaned, he reached a shaky down to stroke the back of your head before grabbing a handful of your hair, "Just shut that pretty brain of yours off, and focus on one thing," He pulled your head back, pushing a hand down on the small of your back to make you arch it down, "Pleasing me."

He smirked feeling such a shiver rippled through you. The more dominant he got with you, the more you relaxed. Archons, he'd missed you so fucking much. Both him and his cock. Your pussy was clutching so warm, perfect, and tight on his cock. Craving to milk it for all it was worth that it was hard to keep himself from cumming.

Fucking his pretty wife full of his cum was part of tending to her. And there was more than a thick, milky ring glistening on his cock. "Fuck I can feel it, you are so close," He groaned drunkenly, reaching down to rub and pinch your clit, "Cum on your husband's dick like the cock drunk slut you are," He kept a hand on your hip, holding your body still so he could fuck his cock as deep inside of you as he could.

You were dizzy, seeing stars and drooling. Your pussy only clenched tighter, your clit swelling and throbbing more underneath his fingers as he degradingly praised you. He delivered a firm smack across your ass to emphasize he meant what he said.

You mewled in bliss, your toes curling as pleasure burst white hot behind your eyes. You felt every pulse of his thick, veiny cock dragging between your sensitive walls. You could barely hold yourself up on your elbows, your whole body shaking from pleasure.

Scaramouche was certain all those unwanted, stressful tensions were melting away from you. "Who do you belong to, kitten?" He purred, the pads of his fingers skating on your clit, "Who did you swear to honor and obey?"

"You! It's you, Scaramouche!" You barely heard the shaky laugh behind you before the knot of your orgasm finally broke apart, your pussy squirting as you creamed hard on his cock. You could barely comprehend up from down, all the feelings of how hard it was being lonely, waiting all the time was for you was forgotten.

"That's fucking right," Scaramouche moaned, his cock pulsing cum for third time that night inside of you, "Look at my good girl fucking shake, my perfect obedient slut," He babbled. His eyes drifted closed, lost in the haze of how perfect his cock felt sheathed inside of you.

The satisfaction Scaramouche felt was immense when he pulled out of you, his cum oozing out of you as he gently flipped you over onto your back. Your arms immediately wrapped around him as he collapsed on top of you. "I missed you, Scara. I missed you so much," You said sleepily, nuzzling into his neck.

"Finally," He murmured, holding you against him.

[enwoso]

Lovie having an even worse day than the grump story and hitting Vic pelova and having an all mighty meltdown

TINY TEMPER — alessia russo x child!reader

a long one🙃 got a little carried away when i was writing this, but ENJOY!

grumpy masterlist

travelling was tiring for the average person. travelling to the other side of the world was exhausting. travelling to the other side of the world at the age of four was anything but tiring, until it hits you like a brick wall that is.

alessia knew this would happen. she's tried so hard for it not to happen but when your so little and you get to do exciting things there's no containing your energy.

but it was now officially day two of arsenals post season trip to melbourne and you were past the point of tired.

when the flight landed at seven am yesterday morning you were fast asleep, alessia not thinking anything of it. more thanking her lucky stars she was going to be able to get through customs a little quicker without having to have eyes in back of her head in case you decided to bolt. something you'd done on the layover finding it the funniest game ever.

however, alessia wished she could have gone back in time and told herself to wake you up instead of just trying to make things easier for herself as when it came to bed time last night you had more energy than a duracell battery meaning you didn't exactly have the longest night sleep.

but hey you were four and had no concept of time never mind time zones..

"oh did someone not have a good night sleep?" steph giggled slightly as you sat at the breakfast table with your arms on it as your head rested on them an almighty frown on your face.

"who you asking tiny or less?" kyra teased as alessia glared at the young australian a cup of coffee secured tightly in her hands. steph slapping kyra on the shoulder also giving the girl a warning glare. your mummy placing a bowl of cereal in front of you and a bowl of fruit next to it.

you would usually start digging into it but not today, instead you pushed it as far as you could away from you. not wanting it anywhere close to you. pushing it until it hit steph's plate as she was the one who was sat in front of you.

"lovie, don't do that please" alessia said firmly as she pulled your bowl back to be in front of you. you huffing as you turned your head away from the bowl.

"i never thought i would see the day tiny not eating her coco pops!" kyra tried as you gave her a cold stare. you didn't want to eat them, you wanted to sleep but every time you closed your eyes mummy was tapping you on the shoulder waking you up.

"you'll have to be quick, otherwise they'll go all soggy and yucky-" kyra tried again, usually you would listen to kyra as she helped you create some fun when everyone else was being all dull and serious.

"just leave her kyra, she's not gonna eat them" alessia sighed as she watched you turn so you were sat on the on edge of your chair, kicking your legs back and forth. your white crocs which were on your feet close to coming off.

you swinging your feet further and further until your crocs flew off you feet. them being very close to landing on the table next to you. where katie, cailtlin and teyah were sat talking and eating their breakfast.

"ay whose little croc is this" katie's thick irish accent coming out as she picked up your croc, sending you a pointed smile. you giving katie a frown in return as you went back to swinging your legs back and forth.

"do you want it back?" katie had got up and walked the few steps handing your croc back to you but you just ignoring her as katie looked up at alessia who was shaking her head telling the irish girl a no. katie giving a nod understanding you clearly weren't in the mood.

"i'll just give it to your ma" katie nodded to alessia handing your shoe over as alessia mumbled a small thank you as katie returned back to her seat.

alsssia was exhausted already and the day had nearly just begun and that wasn’t due to jet lag although it probably played a big factor but from the fact she knew she was in for a day from hell with you and your grumpy mood.

you come out your shell a little, playing around with vic in a soft play area that the hotel had, most of the girls had been told to chill before it was time for meetings.

alessia was a little more content knowing you were playing with vic, although she would have preferred it more if you’d had a nap but you were having none of that when the idea was suggested.

so alessia sat in the little cafe next to it doing some uni work. her eyes glancing over every so often to where you and vic were. vic admittedly looking like she was having way more fun in the small play area sitting in a ball pit filled with colourful plastic balls.

you were sat playing with building blocks, building them as high as you could before barrelling most definitely a little too aggressively your foot in the bottom of it watching it tumble before restarting.

“vic me wan that one!” you pointed to another little boy who was in the play area on the other side playing with what looked to be his younger brother, as he also was building a tower with other coloured blocks.

“no tiny, you can’t right now someone else is playing with it” vic smiled gently as she picked up another ball in the ball in the ball pit.

“me wan that one!” you demanded a little louder this time, looking over to the little boy as you glared at vic who was starting to get a little uncomfortable as she didn’t exactly know how to respond or handle the situation which in her eyes looked like it wasn’t going to end with your usual cheesy grin.

“tiny you’ll have to wait your turn.. why don’t you play in the ball pit with me” vic tried, hoping it would help for you to forget about the building blocks.

unfortunately for vic it couldn’t be that easy, you instead shaking your head totally uninterested in the ball pit that was filled with colourful plastic balls.

instead you got yourself up from where you’d been sat, vic seeing you were making a beeline for the little boy. in a blink of an eye vic was up out of the ball pit, colourful balls flying out the pit as she lifted you up just inches away from the little boy.

you letting out an angry scream you began to kick your legs into viv’s body as well as flaying your arms around. what vic hadn’t realised is that there was a building block still in your hand and with your arms flaying around, the block hit vic straight in the eye.

the scream alone was enough to catch alessia’s attention as she shot up leaving her uni work, seeing your temper tantrums finally happen. quickly getting to vic’s rescue you were taken out of vic’s arms as you carry on kicking your legs and screaming just this time on the floor.

alessia quickly asking is vic was okay, the dutch girl flashing a smile and nodding her head. her eyes watering a little bit in all she was in fact okay.

alessia’s attention moved to you, as you were still on the floor of the hotel. screaming and crying while you kicked you legs out in pure frustration. alessia could sense the other guests wondering the hotel where staring at the scene that was happening.

alessia trying to pick you up by your hand but you were having none of it, just letting your entire body go limp. to the point where alessia’s patience had worn and she had to pick you up.

"tiny temper strikes!" kyra says with a proud smile, as the others look at her with a pointed look, totally unimpressed.

"you've been waiting ages to say that haven't you-" steph asks as kyra nodded her head enthusiastically watching on as you pull a tantrum in the middle of the hotel lobby. your over tiredness really kicking in.

"that's a singer you tool!" katie laughs at the young australian as the others look on, kyra sat with a confused look.

"what, no it's not" kyra shakes her head not understanding what katie was saying as it breaks katie into another fit of laughter, caitlin hitting katie on the shoulder for her to quieten down.

“katie your thinking of tinie tempeh” steph corrected the irish girl as katie rolled her eyes playfully, “same thing”

alessia managed to get you back to the room, where your sobs had quietened down as you face was now stained with tears as the occasional sniffle came from you.

you had been sat on your own for the past minutes, your mummy giving you the space you clearly needed before trying to talk to you. alessia had tried to talk to you but you just kept moving your head away from her every time she spoke.

“lovie?” your mummy said calmly, as she stood a few inches away from you. alessia was upset with your behaviour but she also knew it wasn’t entirely your fault as you were only acting this way because you were overly tired and overwhelmed. but still it was so excuse.

you glanced over to your mummy as you came a little closer, sniffles still coming from you. your mummy bending down so that she matched your height as you sat on the end of the bed.

“now y/n you understand that what you did to vic wasn’t very kind?”your mummy spoke in a serious which told you she was disappointed in you, you bowing your head so you just looked at your feet, a little hiccup coming from you from spending twenty minutes sobbing.

“you could have really hurt her or yourself with how you were acting” your mummy continued as you still were looking down at you socks and the patterns that were on them.

“do you understand where mummy is coming from?” she asked as you nodded slightly, you understood that what you had done was wrong and you didn’t feel a little upset with yourself for the way you had acted.

"how uncle gio would think if he saw you acting like this?" your mummy asked as you shrugged your shoulder, slightly confused as to why she was bringing up gio he wasn't even here, you hadn't seen him in person since christmas just before he set off on his big adventure around the world.

you shrugged, "uncle gio not here though"

"well he was coming to see you but i don't think he'll want to now especially if you being not very kind" alessia told you as you lifted your head a little. uncle gio was here, how?

“m’sorry” you mumbled under your breath, still looking at your feet.

“i know you are lovie, but when we see vic next i would like you to apologise to her, can you do that for me?” your mummy asked as you looked up from you feet and nodded a small squeak of a yes coming from you as you nodded.

“good, now lovie i want you to promise if you ever get any big feelings that you don’t know what to do. i want you to tell me and mummy can help you” your mummy told you as you slides down from the bed and hugged your mum. alessia’s arms going around you tiny waist tightly as she stroked her hand up and down your back just like she always did.

“can i make a card for vic to say sorry?” you asked quietly, as you mummy flashed a small smile before nodding.

“i think that would be a lovely idea lovie! i’ll get your pens from the suitcases”

you had spent all your time in the afternoon while your mummy trained making vic a card, drawing yourself on it with vic and all of her favourite things — that you could remember that is.

you wanted it to be perfect, and after training you asked your mummy to help you write what you wanted in it.

your mummy writing it while you told her what to write. you making sure to add your own little personalisation into it.

vic was one of the last ones out of training, having went to make a trip to see the physio. just to get a ice pack for the small bruise you had given her on the side of her eye,

your mummy had told you to leave it on her bag, so you doing as you were told you did just that.

mummy was in a strange hurry to leave training you weren’t quite sure why, but you did as you were told. putting your shoes and jumper on when asked before holding tightly onto your mummy’s hand. saying bye to couple of arsenal girls that had managed to get back to the changing room.

your mummy lead you to the front of where you had been training, stopping in the front lobby. as you looked up and asked why.

“just waiting for a second lovie, then we can go on a walk” your mummy smiled as she looked around the lobby.

“can we go to the park?” you asked with hopeful smile, you had seen one on the coach on the way to the hotel and it looked pretty cool and had things you hadn’t seen in the park near your house in london.

“maybe, we’ll see” mummy said quickly as you frowned a little. you hated when people older than you would respond to you with that as it usually meant no, and that was no fun to you.

but the frown was quickly turned around into a smile as your mummy pointed to someone coming around the corner, you gasped as you realised just who it was.

"uncle gio!" you called out excitedly as he lifted you up in the air, throwing you slightly as giggles escaped you as he caught you. your mummy stood recording the whole interaction.

"hey kiddo, you've gotten so big since i last saw you!" gio smiled as you nodded proudly starting to babble how you'd grown and show him how much with your hands.

"i heard you've been causing some trouble!" gio whispered as you gave him a blank smile back, moving your head to face your mummy who's eyebrows were raised.

"i think we are still adjusting to the new time zone in australia, but still we've had a little chat and tomorrows a new day isn't it lovie!" alessia have you a small smile as you nodded your head before resting it on gio's shoulder.

your mummy and your uncle gio began to talk as gio carried you walked through the streets of melbourne. your mummy claiming she wanted to go shopping as you felt comfort in your uncles arms, pointing things out as he gave you a reassuring nod and smile.

but before you had even got to the first shop, you had fell into a trap of dreams. your eyes had felt heavy when walking past a cute little coffee shop but that's the last thing you remember before your eyes, which had felt heavy since the moment you woke up, closed.

"wait- what how on earth have you done that..." your mummy stopped before entering the first shop, noticing you had fallen asleep, something she had been trying all day to get you to have a short nap.

"done what?" gio looked at alessia with a confused look not quite sure what she meant. he hadn't done anything except walk along the streets with you in his arms.

"got her to sleep!"

"cause i'm an amazing uncle duh!" gio laughed once he realised, alessia shaking her head at her older brothers cockiness.

"well she's got half an hour for a nap, you can be in charge of waking her up" alessia smiled sarcastically before continuing.

"and with those amazing uncle skills i’m sure you'll have no problem with lovie's grumpiness when you have to wake her up" alessia continued, the same smile still plastered on her face as she tapped her brother on the back before leaving him to go and look in a shop.

alessia

liked by leahwilliamson and 839,065 others

alessia eventful few days😅 tiny on tour continues🛫🧳🦘

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[ihavethedreamies]

Good Enough | Jisung

Park Jisung - NCT Dream

Rating: M (18+) MDNI

Word Count: ~6.3k [more than half is smut btw]

Pairing: Jisung x AFAB!Older!Reader

Genre: Reader-Insert, Smut, Some Plot, Friends/Roommates-to-Lovers, Absolute Filth

!!This is smut…if that much isn't clear you should probably leave now!! MDNI!

Summary: Jisung is tired of his noona treating him like her little sweet baby.

Warnings: She/Her Pronouns used, Pet Names (Noona, Sweetheart), Swearing, Very Dirty Talk, Kissing, Lots of Tongue, One Spank, Oral (M! & F! Receiving), Deepthroating, Face-Fucking, Rimming (Just a tad), Size Difference, Size Kink, Soft-Dom! Jisung (oof), Sub! Reader, Breeding/Creampie Kink, Overstimulation, Squirting, Unprotected Sex (Use a condom! Reader is on the pill)

Author's Note: I had a mental breakdown while writing this lol. This might not acutally be the filthiest thing I have written, but it feels like it because of who it's for…for some reason. It's hard for me to believe that Jisung got so fucking hot, because I remember him sitting on Taeyong's lap, but he's a MAN now. i'll sit on his lap

P.S. FUCK

I am cross-posting this on Archive. Please reblog! If you know anyone that would like this or future fics but they aren't on here my name and icon are exactly the same on the other site. Happy reading!

"He's my precious."

"Your roommate is your precious?" Jisung heard voices creeping in from the living room. Groggily, he glanced at the clock on his nightstand, head peeking out of his blanket cocoon. He was still jet lagged after getting back from Korea, so it was about 3 pm.

"Yes. And he's not just my roommate-"

"He's your precious?"

"Yes. But! I was going to say he is my best friend…and my precious baby boy."

"Seriously? Isn't he only like two or three years younger?"

"My precious baby Jisung." He huffed at your coo, dropping his head back on his pillow in annoyance. For some reason his summer trip back home to see his parents triggered something in him. Jisung was suddenly extremely displeased with your relationship. He missed you horribly and you were pretty much the only thing he talked about. Once he was informed by his mother that he likely had fallen in love with you, he was…upset. More with himself at first for not realizing it, but then looking at how you two interacted, he got cranky. He was not your precious baby Jisung, he's a man dammit, had been for nearly four years. Did you see him that way though? Not even remotely. He was a step above a puppy, at least you accepted he was a human. But you constantly went on about how cute he was, and sweet, and 'a bean'; whatever than meant. You had even called him your son on a few occasions, and even though they were mostly in jest and unserious, now they really pissed him off. Jisung didn't want you to see him as your son (maybe give you one) but what really was bugging him barely made any sense. He had only heard you say it once, but it stuck in his mind…

"You realize half of the people on campus want to fuck him, right?" He was in his final year of college, and the only reason you were still in college was because you had stuck around to work for the IT department. Your friend's question was not news to him, but he was much too shy to go for any of the advances he had received. He was also much too in love with you, but he hadn't known that till literally the month before, but it made sense.

"Not allowed."

"Why?"

"Precious baby."

"He's not a baby, (Y/N). Not even close." You didn't reply for a bit, and he could vividly picture your distasteful expression.

"He might not actually be one, but he’s, my baby. My baby Jisung."

"(Y/N)." Your friend's annoyed tone was not nearly strong enough to match the levels he was feeling. Definitely not able to continue his nap, he sat up aggressively from his bed, kicking at his blankets before wrangling his comforter and throwing it onto the floor. Resting his elbow on his knee, he then rested his forehead on his hand, trying to breathe out his ire so he could leave his room without being visibly grumpy.

"My sister wants to ask him out."

"No."

"Why not?"

"No one is good enough."

"No one?"

"Nope, not even me." That was it, you said it. That simple thought was what really set him over the edge. You were the only one good enough, no one else could even be close to you in his eyes. Finally, the anger boiled over and he climbed off his bed, putting a sweatshirt on so quickly that he had to wrestle it in his haste. You kept the apartment so freaking cold… You must have heard him wrench his door open because your conversation immediately stopped. He stormed down the hall, even his socked feet were heavy on the laminate wood floor, so much so that when he came to the mouth of the hallway, you were looking at him with a shocked expression. You were sitting at the coffee table with your friend Hana, various papers spread on the surface while your friend studied for her graduate classes. Your green snake Squishmallow sat on your lap, and he wanted to grab it and throw it across the room, suddenly jealous with how close it was pressed to your chest.

"Ji?" It was clear you didn't think he heard your conversation, but Hana immediately realized, starting to gather her homework.

"I'm gonna go." She nearly shoved the papers into her folder and threw everything else in her bag.

"What? Why?" You turned back to her, and he then realized what you were wearing. Your slightly damp hair had moved out of the way, revealing the design on the back of your baggy t-shirt. It was his.

"Wait, Hana?!" You tried to get up and go after her as she dashed from your apartment, shooting Jisung a look as she shut the door. You had to shove the table to get up better, and even as you stood, you still clutched the plushie to you. Jisung exhaled harshly, storming forward and grabbing your Squishmallow and yeeting her onto the floor.

"Woah?! What'd she do to you?" You motioned to her with your hand, giving him a questioning look. You started to bend and pick her up, but his hand grabbed your wrist, pulling you back up and toward him, making your balance falter. Your bewildered eyes scanned over his face, but you still had no anger in them. Not even annoyance. You couldn't get mad at your baby boy.

"Ji?" His big hand easily held your wrist, and you squeaked when he dragged you even closer to him, so much that you could feel his breath flutter your hair over your forehead. His brow was furrowed, lips pressed tight to each other, but he couldn't seem to meet your eyes.

"Hey, you okay?" Your other hand came up to brush some of your hair away from your face, only leaving it down to dry. Your fingers then moved to his face, trying to brush his bangs out of his eyes. Having you so close and seeing how far you had to reach made him realize how small you were. He was well over half a foot taller than you and he wondered how small you would look under him. When your fingers brushed his cheek, his other hand grabbed yours, easily swallowing it in his grip. Jisung held your hand, pulling it closer, and laid your hands over his heart. With his other, he yanked you the last little bit, so you were pressed to him, wide eyes rapidly scanning his face. Your head was tilted back, almost painfully so, still not recognizing what was happening. The hand around your wrist moved so his thumb could rub your skin till it pressed against your palm. Your gaze went to your hand then, shocked at how small it was compared to his, and you seemed to be registering how small you were compared to him in general. Did he really grow so much since you had met him four years before? Your gaze went back to his face, finally seeming to notice that his face had changed as well. Yes, he was still cute, but he had become devastatingly handsome, maturing into a…man. No, he wasn't a baby anymore, but you were in denial. Even then, pressed against him, even able to feel his toned muscles through his sweatshirt, you kept trying to convince yourself he was still your baby Jisung.

"Jisung?" You exhaled his name, so quiet that if he wasn't so close, he wouldn't have heard. Your eyes followed his when they flicked down to watch your lips move when you whispered his name.

"What makes you think you're not good enough for me?" His voice rumbled through you, its deepness shocking you for some reason. When had that happened? You were so thrown off by the pitch of his voice you barely registered his question.

"Huh?"

"No one else is good enough for me, because they're not you." His hand had dropped your wrist so his arm could wrap around you, and he pressed his cheek to the side of your head. He nuzzled your soft hair, the familiar scent of your shampoo soothing his anger some.

"What?" You stood still, stiff even, trying to process what was happening.

"I don’t want to be your baby Jisung anymore, noona. I just want to be yours." He was a bit surprised with his sudden eloquence, but he just chocked it up to all his upset burning away any shyness he had in the moment. The anger had faded, and he was just upset, tired again, praying in his head that you would get the fucking hint. Your hand, the one he let go, had rested on his chest for balance, then he felt your fingers clutch the fabric of his sweatshirt. With his fingers wrapped around your right hand still, he could feel that your pulse had quickened, and you were minutely shaking.

"Y-you…?" You swallowed hard, tongue running over your lips, mouth feeling dry.

"I thought I just had a crush on you. I don't. I love you." His softened voice floated right into your ear with how his head rested on yours. The back of your nose and throat burned as you swallowed hard, tears sparking in the corners of your eyes. When you hiccupped, sniffing, he flinched, pulling back from you. It was only just enough that he could see your face, his arm still around you, hand still in his over his heart.

"Noona." He sighed softly, dipping and kissing the corner of your eye where a tear had slipped down your cheek. Nope, that made it worse. You burst into tears, chest heaving, and he pulled you back into him. You were…dramatic sometimes. Cried easily. Too easily even. Jisung loved to tease you for crying at a commercial where a little girl brought a quilt out to her sheep in the barn close to Christmas. You also tended to cry around puppies.

"I-I…I-!" Your breath was heaving too much for you to really talk. His nose nuzzled your hair, and he kissed the crown of your head. You sniffed, taking a few deep breaths.

"I love you too." you whispered, if you spoke any louder your sobs would take back over. He didn't know, but while he was gone you were in a much similar situation. You went to visit your parents as well, but it was just an hour or so drive, not across the world practically. You missed him so much, and wouldn't shut up about him, but your mother knew you well enough to see read between the lines. Because it startled you, having romantic feelings for Jisung, you became even more dramatic with the 'baby Jisung' talk.  He was your best friend, and so of course you loved him, but you couldn't admit you were in love with him. You were so worried about ruining your friendship that you just ignored your logical thoughts and pretended you hadn't fallen for him. Nearly fighting him when he pulled back from the hug again, you stayed pressed to him, not wanting him to see your face. Not only was it red from your blush, but it was also blotchy from your crying and your nose was close to running.

"Noona." He huffed a laugh, trying to get you off of him. You gripped his sweatshirt tighter.

"(Y/N)." Jisung was fully laughing at that point, partially from your actions and partially from how ecstatic he was that you loved him back.

"No."

"Noona."

"No." Finally, with a bit more force, he pulled back so you could see each other's faces. The warmest smile you had ever seen was on his face and you froze when he leaned in closer. His forehead bumped yours and his nose crinkled, cringing a bit at his own actions but it made you giggle, which made it all worth it.

"Since when?" you asked. He laughed bashfully, lips pursing.

"I didn't realize how bad it was till a few weeks ago while I was still in Korea. But…I knew before that. Something made me realize…"

"What?" You were shocked when his giddy but shy face fell into one of panic.

"W-what?" His face bloomed red, all the way to the tips of his ears and he tried to bow his head to avoid your gaze, but you could just look up into his eyes.

"Uh, well…" He cleared his throat, trying to pull back further but he didn't let your hand go.

"Jisung?" You pressed with a fake stern tone.

"I…had a dream." He faked a cough to try and hide.

"Yeah?" You were clearly not understanding that he was so reluctant to say what it was, because it was filthy. It even made Jaemin blush. The extreme embarrassment in his eyes when they finally met yours clued you in better. You stepped closer, a coy look spreading over your own face, and he took a step back. His hand was still holding yours though, so he wasn't that desperate to get away. He clenched his other hand into a fist, bringing it up and pressing his mouth to his forearm to hide his face.

"Was it something bad?"

"No! Uh…" With each step you tried to get closer, he backed up, till his back hit the wall.

"Was it naughty?" You teased, and he sneered at the cringey word. Your eyes, still a bit puffy from crying, were creased with amusement.

"Uh, I mean…"

"Do you we do something dirty?" Your head tilted up to look at his face as he tried to hide, fingers clenching yours jerkily, the digits desperate to wiggle.

"M-Maybe."

"What?" You smirked, trying not to giggle. You were always more open about sex stuff, not quite like Jaemin or even Donghyuck, but still more than him.

"No." He was throwing your method of deflection back at you.

"You know," you got up on your tip toes so you could whisper into his ear, "if you tell me, we can do it?" Your suggestion made his whole body freeze, blood turning to ice. He nearly gasped when his blood then rapidly heated, the sound of his pulse whooshing in his ears.

"Are you sure?" he whispered, needing to make sure because even just the slightest detail would reveal too much if you weren't. You nodded with a hum, then gasped when he switched your places, hand cupping the back of your head, so it didn't thud into the wall as he pinned you to it, his other forearm holding him up over your head. You could only blink in response, looking at the conflicted expression on his face.

"I don't want to hurt you." What the hell had he dreamt? You were dying to know.

"You won't." Jisung's eyes met yours, brow furrowed in worry.

"I could."

"You could, but you won't. Plus…" Your hands came up to mess with the strings of his hoodie.

"Sometimes a little pain can feel good." Jisung searched your face and saw the determination in your eyes. The hand on the back of your head dug harshly into your hair, tugging at your scalp and you gasped when his mouth sealed against yours. Your teeth clacked against his with the force of the kiss and you whined, trying to match his fervor. You couldn't. His leg nestled between yours, pressing close and against your core, and you had to stand on your tip toes. The fingers in your hair twisted the strands around them and he tugged harder, tipping your head back more, compensating for him looming over you. His knee hit the wall, his leg literally hitching you up an inch and you moaned at the pressure. Jisung snuck his tongue into your mouth then and your breath was rough out of your nose, saliva drooling from the corner of your mouth. Panting hard, he pulled back, eyes searching yours. His arm against the wall moved down to your side, still holding him up but also pressing into your waist. The hand in your hair left, the tips of his fingers soothing the slight sting he left on your scalp, then cupped your jaw. Your face looked so small cupped in his palm and something carnal, feral, rose in him.

"You're so little, noona." Jisung's tone was nothing like you had ever heard from him. His hooded gaze focused on your mouth when his thumb easily pressed against your lips, his fingers still stroking the back of your head. You watched his brow quirk up when you took his thumb between your lips, sucking on it. You had expected a blush to erupt, for his voice to sputter and for him to pull back. No. He smirked.

"Do you have any idea what I want to do to you?" Your head had to tilt up once again when he pressed even closer, chest to chest, leg still wedged between yours. You wondered if you had soaked through your panties and thin shorts, and if he could feel it. Then again, he was in sweatpants, but you could feel the fabric clinging to your folds and he had only kissed you. Yes, his thigh was pressed into your covered cunt, but he wasn't moving you on it.

"Tell me?" you whispered when he removed his thumb, eyes focusing on the shine of drool left on it. If you didn't know him better, you would take his intense expression for anger, but even with knowing him so well, you couldn't read his face. Jisung slipped his hand off your jaw, fingers pressing to the back of your neck, thumb resting under your chin. His face came close once more so close his lips brushed slightly on yours as he spoke.

"I want to fuck you so hard you can't walk for the next three days. I want to fuck you so stupid you can't even speak, just whine and beg for more. I want to make you cum so much that your cute little pussy stings. I want you to swallow my cock and I want to cum down your throat." You were going to pass out, you were sure of it. With how quickly the blood rushed to your core, your head swam. Where had your sweet little Jisung gone? How long had he been thinking like that? He couldn't even meet anyone's eyes if sex stuff got brought up around friends. But his words were thick with lust, and they swam into your ears and fogged your brain like a drug. Your thighs twitched, body shuddering when a devilish grin spread over his gorgeous face. He wasn't cute right then; he was destructively sexy, and it took your breath away. You don't think you could ever see him as your sweet little friend again.

"What do you want, noona?" The pet-name even came out different, he said it with near reverence, the single word a one-eighty from the four words preceding it.

"I want…I need you to do anything you want to me." His grin fell, he groaned, and his tongue was back in your mouth. He could taste the candy you had been eating while you spoke those fateful words, eagerly circling your tongue with his. You keened a whining moan when the hand at your neck tightened slightly, his thumb pressing into your windpipe. Your breath hitched, somehow where he gripped it gave the same heady feeling without actually restricting your breathing. What stole your air was the pleasure you were feeling just from his kiss. Your hips jumped, desperate for some friction, grinding your covered pussy against his thigh. Helpfully he pressed into you more, lifting you against the wall more, the weight of gravity pulled you onto him harder. The arm at your side that had been holding him up moved, he was using his knee then for balance, and his fingers teased along the waist band of your shorts. You whimpered when his hand continued, sneaking its way into the back of your shorts and panties, the hot pads of his fingers meeting your slick folds. You shivered and took heaving breaths when he removed himself from the kiss. His other hand was still at your throat, but he released the light pressure, making your heavy breaths easier to control.

"You're soaked, noona. For me?"

"Fuck, yes, Jisung." Expecting a kiss when he moved closer once more, he gripped your jaw, tilting your head back, thumb hooking your bottom lip. You let him move your jaw, holding your mouth open, waiting for his next move. His grin broke when he let a glob of spit fall from his lip and into your awaiting mouth. Without needing a prompt, when his thumb left your mouth, you swallowed.

"Good girl, noona." Slowly, he pulled away from you and the wall, stepping back only enough that he could take his hoodie off. He went ahead and let his shirt underneath go along with it and your heart leapt.

"Fucking hell." You gasped, reaching forward to eagerly run your fingers over him. While he wasn't necessarily to the level of Jeno or even Jaemin, for having a dancer's body he still had muscle. When had that gotten there? He barely wore anything tight let alone without sleeves, so you had no idea. He felt a wave of bashfulness rising, so he took control once again, pulling your small hands from his skin.

"Off." He prompted and you grabbed the hem of his shirt you were wearing, and he finished the job, tossing it down the hall. Clicking his tongue at your bra, you started to reach around your back to undo it, but he beat you to it. With an easy flick, it snapped open, and you let it drop, wide eyes staring at him. Where the fucking hell had he learned to do that?

"Jaemin." He must have read your mind and that made plenty of sense. Not able to even process your next move, he scooped you up easily, pressing you back into the wall. You squeaked, wrapping your mostly bare legs around his waist, fingers digging into his shoulders, he was more or less eye-level with you then. He dropped you a bit, preferring you under him more, and his nose nuzzled under your ear. He felt the goose bumps rising on your skin against his, his top just as bare as yours. His hands once again buried under the waist band of your shorts, fingers so long that the tips slipped out the leg holes of your panties, cupping your ass perfectly.

"God, Jisung!" Your body twitched when his light nuzzles immediately turned into open mouth kisses, then he sucked hard, working the skin with his lips and teeth. Popping off of your neck, his tongue ran over the flesh, blood rising and pooling at the surface. The fingers on his shoulders tightened, the blunt edges of your nails digging into his skin, and his own hips jumped then. You had been trying to ignore the tent in his pants, but he grinded his hardened cock against your cunt, only a few layers of fabric between. Jisung seemed to be big in every way.

"You still on the pill?"

"Yes, why?" You shuddered once more as he licked at the third hickey he left, that one on your collarbone.

"I need to fuck you raw." He groaned as your cunt throbbed, easily feeling it against his cock even with the clothing barrier.

"Want to pump you so full, my cum's dripping out of you for hours." Your eyes rolled back as you whined, head thrown back. You squeaked when he jostled you up higher, those beautiful and surprisingly sinful lips sucking in a nipple. Sighing at the feeling, he wasn't pleased with the gentle noise, and so he nibbled the peak instead. You yiped like a dog (ironic since he was planning on fucking you like one), a little dazed by how high up the wall he had you. Despite the altitude, he seemed to be easily holding you up, though he was able to use the wall for help. When his mouth moved to your other breast, he smirked at the red and swollen nipple he left. Your body felt like it was on fire and you both still had your pants on.

"Can I fuck you raw, noona? Feel your pussy cling to my cock?" His mouth was at your ear again, having dropped you back down to an easier level. His dick hadn't even entered you and you felt too stupid to talk.

"Please." You mewled and your submissive tone made him groan. Jisung's hands left your shorts, shoving them down off of you as he partially let you go. Your feet dangled slightly as you toed off the last of your clothes, then you yelped as he slung you over his shoulder like a sack of rice.

"J-Jisung-!?" You yelped as his hand smacked your ass, most likely leaving a big red print on your skin. The sting of the spank sent tendrils of fire right to your cunt as he stormed down the hall toward your room, your bed bigger than his. You flinched at the slam of your door as he closed it, huffing as he nearly dropped you.

"Knees." He prompted, ordered, and your body instantly obeyed. Going down the rest of the way to the floor, you sat with your knees in an 'M', gazing up at him with big glossy eyes. You were trying hard not to gape at the bulge in his sweatpants, or to run your gaze hungrily over his bare torso.

"Go ahead, noona." He nearly laughed at your eagerness, quickly reaching for the waistband of his pants and pulling them off, his hard cock bobbing in the air before you. Your wide, enraptured stare on his dick gave him a rush of nerves and pride all at once. While you came to terms with your fate, he shoved his sweatpants to the side, and you shuffled forward. Whimpering, your hand wrapped around the base of his cock, big and pretty like him. Swallowing your eyes met his.

"C-Can I grab something?" Your request threw him off, but he nodded, and you scrambled up and to your nightstand. Trotting back over, you stood demurely before him, holding the item out with both palms up. He took the little bottle from you, looking at it.

"Throat numbing spray?" His brow crooked and he looked at you, biting your lip with a giddy glaze over your eyes. It still had plastic wrap on the nozzle. Nodding once, you sank back to your knees, and he groaned low when you opened your mouth wide, tongue out.

"Why do you have this, noona?" His tone was slightly patronizing as he tore the plastic off, then spritzed the watermelon flavored spray into your mouth. Swallowing a few times, the dull sensation you could even register faded, leaving a very minute feeling in your throat.

"Guess." You giggled, hand wrapping back around his cock. Jisung buried his hand in your hair again, tugging hard to make you look back up at him.

"You've used it before?"

"I'm not a virgin, Ji." Your normal, casual tone didn't sit right with him in the moment, and he twisted your hair again, the stinging twinge making you moan softly.

"Only for me now?"

"Yes." You nodded to further emphasize your point, and his grip loosened. With a much softer hold on your head, he pressed you closer, letting you take over. Swallowing a buildup of saliva, your tongue swirled around the head of his dick, the salty taste of his precum eagerly lapped up. He was barely half-way in your mouth when the head hit your numbed throat, your jaw protesting some already. His eyes shut as he groaned, only fluttering open to watch you take his cock even deeper down your throat. The spray helped you not to gag, and you swallowed over and over, holding your breath, your nose pressing to his groin. Your hand fell, landing next to your other one as you pressed your hands to the floor. Pulling back enough that you could breathe, you twisted your head like a curious dog, eyes searing into his.

"Ready?" You moaned and his hands were back in your hair, hips jumping, burying his cock back inside your throat. Despite the numbing, tears sprung to your eyes, a slight gag leaving you. Holding still like a good girl, Jisung pumped his fat cock into your mouth and down your throat, breathing harshly through your nose when you could.

"Fuck, you feel so good, noona." He sighed, head thrown back, making sure not to use full force as he rolled his hips. Even with him holding back, you could feel the strength of his movements and you felt a puddle of wet forming on the laminate floor under you, cunt clenching around nothing.

"You better swallow it all, (Y/N)." He tried not to whimper, but he couldn't help it, letting you inhale deeply before burying his cock all the way into your gullet, pumping thick strands of hot cum down your throat. Your core spasmed, eyes fluttering as you eagerly swallowed over and over, the heat of his release warming your chest. When you woke up that morning you never dreamed you would be eagerly swallowing Jisung's cock as he came buckets down your throat. As the last little wave died, he quickly removed his still half-hard cock, brow furrowing with worry as you gasped for air. Tears were flowing down your cheeks, face red and messy, but you opened up, tongue out, to show him you obediently swallowed every drop.

"You're so fucking good, sweetheart." You gasped softly, the pet-name going straight to your needy cunt. Jisung used his index finger to gather the saliva and pre that had dripped down your chin, letting you lick it off.

"Get on the bed, it's my turn." As soon as his finger retracted, you stood quickly, albeit shakily and went to stand by the bed.

"W-which way?" His hands on your shoulders turned you to face the bed, back to him. With a shove, you fell onto the mattress, chest pressed to the surface, hips bumping the end of the bed. You then heard a light thump, and his hands were back on your ass.

"Fuck!" You gasped as his thumbs spread your soaking folds, blowing a stream of air against your fluttering core.

"Did you cum when I did, sweetheart?"

"Y-yes."

"Good girl." You could hear his smirk, then you cried out as you buried your hands into the sheets, his tongue burrowing into your hot cunt. Jisung easily held your hips still, his arm wrapping around the front of your legs, his free hand splayed over the small of your back. When his tongue left your pussy, it swirled over your clit, and he sucked it in once before running through the slit of your folds and wiggling back inside. He did this a few more times, eagerly drinking your slick.

"Fuckfuckfuck." You shuddered, not even able to warn him as your next orgasm hit, much stronger than the small one you had not even five minutes prior. He held you down as your body shook, gummy walls fluttering and throbbing around his tongue.

"You taste so good, noona." You nearly heard him lick his lips, pulse still whooshing in your ears.

"A-ah?!" You squealed when his hands parted your ass cheeks, his tongue moving up from your soaking cunt and swirling over your pucker.

"J-Jisung!?" You gasped harder, not sure how to feel about the sensation. Grateful you took a shower not even two hours ago, you still weren't really expecting his tongue to go from your pussy to your ass.

"Don't worry, noona. I just wanna taste today." He lapped over your pucker once more, then pulled back, huffing in amusement at your still twitching thighs. You were already tired, he could tell, but he was painfully hard again. Jisung's thoughts ran rampant as he tried to decide how he wanted you as he fucked you first. Your pose would do just fine.

"Hm, so wet, sweetheart." He stood so he could lean over you on the bed, one hand by your head to hold him up, the other hand leading his cock to run through your folds. You knew it was big in your mouth but feeling it at your entrance made you shiver. As the head of his cock started to breach your gummy walls, the burning sting made you sigh in delight, the heat of his skin scorching through you. Breathing hard, trying to relax, your cunt fluttered still as he buried deeper, slowly. His deep, low groan faded into a chuckle as he watched your pussy suck in his cock. At the last inch, he snapped his hips, filling you fully, head pressing into your cervix.

"Ah, FUCK!" You white knuckled the sheets, toes curling, forcing you to tip toe, his pelvis pressing to your hips. You breathed raggedly, getting used to not just the burn his fat cock forced from your walls, but the stinging pleasure the same burn forced through you. You hadn't been fucked in way too long, and you were already sure no one would ever feel as good as Jisung did right then. You had needed him, not just any guy, but him. That's why you hadn't tried looking for a date, your subconscious knowing you needed your sweet friend to rail you stupid. Jisung breathed hard as well, trying to let you get at least a little used to the stretch, but your sticky, wet heat felt too good.

"I need to move, (Y/N)."

"Please~" You whined, squealing with delight as he pulled back no more than halfway, then slowly back in. It was like he sucked the air out of you, then forced it back in, but his next thrust made you see stars. As he leaned over you, hips battering your ass with hard, shallow thrusts, his hands laid over yours, weaving his fingers through yours. The sweet move was overshadowed by his animal pace, your whimpers and squeaks just as feral. He was still trying to hold back some, but when he couldn't hold back a hard snap, he felt the same flutter as before and ground his cock into you as you came, spurts of slick coating his groin and balls as you squirted over him. Your shudders and pulses lasted nearly twice as long and when you finally laid still, he started back up himself. Your cunt stung slightly, not ready for the friction once more, but the pain just fueled the pleasure. Without the bed underneath you, you would have melted onto the floor, no strength left. Wanting to protest when he unwound your fingers, he fell forward, his bare chest to your back. Not too tightly, he wrapped his arm under you, across your collar bone, then chest, pulling you up just enough that the arm around you restricted you, forcing your elbows to your hips. Your nails dug into the fabric under your lower stomach, Jisung easily holding you up just a bit from the bed. His other arm also snaked around you, his hand laying over your lower stomach. You were sensitive there, more than most people, and just the pressure alone made you mewl. Jisung pressed harder, able to feel the bulge of his cock below your skin and as he settled into position, you realized why he was holding you so tight. He was holding you in place. His next thrust started with only the head of him inside, then he barreled his cock back into you, fucking you with abandon. You gasped, not able to even squeak or moan, mouth open in a silent scream, drool dripping from the corners of your mouth.

"Ji-Jisung-! Please, fuck!" You breathed out, your next orgasm washing over you, leaving the friction painful. The pain crested hard and fast as he continued to pound into you, fading back into pleasure. So much of your release and wet spilled from your fluttering cunt that it dripped onto the floor, down both of your thighs.

"I'm going to cum, noona. Fill you up, yeah?" He whimpered deeply, almost groaning, hips faltering just slightly.

"Yes, yes, Jisung!" He dropped both of you to the bed then, pressing you down into the mattress, gouging his cock as deep as he could, and pumping your protected womb and cunt full of hot cum. It spurted out in globs with your own cum, dripping a bigger puddle on the floor, the hard pulse of his cock even stronger as he filled you. Your vision blurred, ears ringing as you came once more, grateful that he stilled, actually really hurting at that point. Reveling in his full weight on your back, he then registered he was laying on you like that and pulled up just a bit.

"You okay?" He nuzzled the back of your ear.

"S-stings." You got out hoarsely.

"Ah." He winced with you as he pulled his still half-hard length from you, more globs of jizz and slick leaving your cunt.

"I don't think I'll walk for four days." You muttered. It took him a second to register what you meant, before he burst into laughter, pressing his sweaty forehead to your shaking shoulder.

"Good enough?" Jisung asked, making you hum.

"Fucking perfect."

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[luveline]

hi! could I request a fic where reader has trouble falling asleep without someone with her? maybe with Hotch or Miguel? like their voices soothe her into sleep? only if you feel like it!! have an amazing day and I adore your writing! 💟💟

hi gorgeous, thank you! ♡ fem

Hotch is rubbing the knots out of his neck when his phone pings with a text. 

Hi, handsome, hopefully you're sleeping, so when you wake up I was wondering if you can send me the photos from last Wednesday to print <3 

He adores your silly electronic heart. 

Hotch clicks your contact and brings the phone to his ear, waiting as the dial trills once. You pick up immediately, sounding sorry and sweet and the slightest bit tired. "Hey. You're awake." 

"Yes, I'm awake, I just got home. Why are you awake? It's four in the morning, honey." 

"You sound very accusatory right now. You're accusing me." 

"Mm. Can I come over, or will you fall asleep before I get there?" 

"Fat chance of that. You're really coming over?" you ask. 

Hotch leaps up the moment he hears the relief in your voice. Something is wrong, and you won't tell him over the phone. He says goodbye gently, dresses less so, and makes an impressively quick journey to your home to put whatever it is back the way it should be. 

You seem in good spirits even though the hollows under your eyes are prominent in the light of the porch, opening your arms for him and hugging him there on the door jam, rumpled under his chin. "You're not wearing a suit." 

"Would you have preferred that?" 

"Only if you were gonna take it off." 

"You'd like that, hmm?" he asks, his teasing at odds with the dulcet cadence of his voice. "I'll dance." 

You giggle into his chest. Hotch grins but quashes it as you look up for a kiss, your lips soft, sweet against his. You kiss his cupid's bow all smushed upward before stepping away from him, your hands drifting together. He pauses to lock the door and take off his shoes. You tug him impatiently back to your room.

Hotch has dreams about your bedroom. There's something about you, the way you climb into bed and sit pretty against the headboard waiting for him to follow you in, innocuous, intensely tempting. He pulls back the sheets and slides in, needling an arm under you to drag you into his side and down onto your back simultaneously. 

"Unnecessary show of strength," you say with a laugh. 

"Just reminding you." 

You turn out your lamp. He squirms to get comfortable. Your mattress is a mess and he's not young enough to bear it without consequence in the morning, but he'll suffer it and worse if it means you'll stay nestled against his side, your cheek at home on his bicep, your arm wrapped around his middle. 

"You'll tell me what's keeping you up?" he asks, hushed. 

"I really don't know how you just know these things…" You give in, because you always give in with him, and (to his credit), he always listens. "I don't think I can sleep without you, Aaron, I really don't." 

"Why? You're not worrying about me, are you?" he asks. 

"No. Of course I am, but that's not the problem. I just struggle without you here. It's easier when you call me, I can fall asleep with you talking to me. But otherwise it's hard." 

"How did you fall asleep before me?" he asks fondly, turning his face to nose at your temple. 

"I'm used to you, I think. I'm spoiled." 

"You aren't spoiled." He pressed his lips to your cheek, eyes closed to breathe you in. "What do you want me to talk about? Think of something soothing." 

"You aren't a man with many soothing stories," you say. 

Hotch tells you about the quieter things in his life, the things that make undertaking the unsaid worthwhile. Jack wants to be Bugs Bunny for Halloween and Hotch has no idea why. Spencer destroyed his computer with a cup of coffee —the problem being the amount of undisolved sugar clumped at the bottom of his cup that found its way into the computers RAM with no hopes of cleaning, rather than the drink itself. His office door squeaks constantly and he's half mad with it, but there's no solution beyond waiting for someone in maintenance to oil the hinge. 

He realises you've fallen asleep somewhere in his stories and he hadn't noticed. He didn't think your confession was wholly true. Perhaps you're stressed, or anxious in a way you haven't shared. And yet you fall asleep as promised from the sound of his voice, your hand scrunched in his shirt like you worry he'll escape you, your eyelid to his arm. Hotch contemplates you as you sleep, pulling the sheets snugly to your chin. He doesn't know if you know this, but you're his sweetheart. He finds you so precious, among a thousand other things, brave and kind and loving, but he knows he's a lucky man. He's the spoiled one. 

If you need his voice to fall asleep to, he'll talk until he's hoarse. And while he's away, he'll have to remember to call. He can't have you missing out on sleep. Hotch kisses the hollow under your eye and tries to sleep too, but he finds he misses the sound of your voice. 

[cutielando]

Hello, I saw that your requests are open so could you please write something about Charles taking care of his girlfriend after getting a knee surgery, I got surgery not too long ago (nothing serious) from playing football and I just feel like he would be such a caring boyfriend.

a/n: thank you so much for sending this in!❤️

my masterlist

Ever since you could remember, you have always been the adventurous type.

You would rather go exploring than stay in, the thrill of a potential adventure overpowering the need for a relaxing day in with the one you loved.

Which fitted perfectly with Charles’ need for adventuring and going on as many trips around the world as he could.

But there was a slight problem with that. With the adventurous thrill also came the danger.

And you were very prone to injuring yourself. Just like you had done on the last skiing trip you had gone on with Charles, right before the F1 season started up.

Adventuring a little too much on a not so safe skiing slope resulted in your falling and injuring your knee. An injured knee which required surgery.

You had been devastated when you found out you would need surgery. Not only would the recovery be horrendous and strenuous on your body, but it also meant that Charles would go out of his way to take care of you, neglecting his training in order to make sure you were okay.

That was the biggest problem in your eyes. Not the injury itself, not the surgery that you would need to have, but the fact that Charles would move the mountains in order to take care of you.

Which is exactly what happened. 

You had your surgery two weeks after your knee was injured, a mere couple of weeks before the season picked up again. Charles was proving to be a great caretaker, dotting on you and being the sweetest person ever.

He would bring you food, medicine and anything else you would need in bed, he would help you to the bathroom by supporting you. He got in touch with the best physiotherapist that he knew and immediately started your road to recovery.

He would take you to every single therapy session, every doctor’s appointment that followed your surgery to track your progress and your recovery.

He helped you exercise at home, urging you to push yourself in order to get back on your feet as soon as possible.

He would hold you every time you would break down because it would all get too much. The pain, the recovery, the pressure of getting better, the stress on your body. He would hold you through it all, whispering sweet nothings in your ear that would instantly calm you down.

You didn’t like feeling this helpless, like you couldn’t do anything on your own and practically lived at Charles’ pity.

You hated it.

And Charles had begun suspecting as much. He had noticed how closed off you had become over time, but he didn’t want to say anything that might make you feel even worse than you already did.

“Mon amour, what’s wrong?” he asked one evening after you had got back from a particularly strenuous physical therapy session.

You smiled at him, shaking your head as you rested on the edge of the bed.

“Nothing, I’m okay. Just a little tired” you lied smoothly, but it was not enough to convince him.

“Please don’t lie to me. Something’s been bothering you ever since your surgery, don’t think I haven’t noticed” he said, sitting down beside you.

You sighed, biting your lip. You could feel the tears welling up in your eyes, everything that you had been bottling up threatening to boil over.

“I hate how dependent I have become on you” your voice was small, too worried that you could hurt his feelings.

Charles frowned, the wheels in his head turning to understand what you were really trying to say.

“Am I bothering you? Is that it?” he asked, his face sad and broken like a puppy dog’s.

You immediately shook your head, wanting to get up from the bed and comfort him but it would take you way too much time.

“No, don’t ever think that. It’s me that’s bothering you” you said, your frustrations slowly making their way towards the surface.

If Charles had been confused up to that point, he was even more confused now. How could you ever bother him?

“What do you mean? You’re not bothering me, what are you talking about?” he made his way towards you and took a seat next to you on the bed.

You sighed, tears slowly welling up in your eyes as you rested your head in your hands.

“It’s just this stupid surgery. I can’t even get up to go to the bathroom without needing your help. It’s pathetic, I can’t do anything on my own anymore” you cried silently, hiding your face in your hands.

Charles’ shoulders suddenly slumped into realization, his heart heavy. He didn’t say anything, instead he brought you into his arms and pushed your head into the crook of his neck, wary of twisting you too much because of your knee.

You let out strained and tired sobs, clinging onto Charles like your life depended on it. You had missed him, even though he’s been with you the entire time up until then. You had missed his touch, missed him holding you just because you both needed it. Both of you have been so preoccupied with your recovery, with taking your meds, going to physical therapy with Andrea and managing the pain that you forgot to be just Y/N and Charles, a couple.

You stayed in his arms for a while, just needing to let it all out. He understood that, holding you against him without saying anything, just planting kisses on your forehead from time to time.

Once you calmed down, you slowly pulled away from Charles, who wiped away your tears and gave you a small smile.

“Mon amour, I’m only going to say this once. You will never, ever in this life be a bother to me. I don’t care if I have to take care of you every single day for the rest of our lives, I would drop everything in a heartbeat to be with you. Don’t ever doubt how much I love you and the lengths I would go to just to see you happy and taken care of” Charles’ speech did nothing to stop your sobs, in fact they got even worse.

Charles knew it was the pain and frustration talking from you, and that you didn’t actually mean anything you had said to him. However, he didn’t mind one bit reassuring you and telling you anything that you might need in order to feel better.

“I’m sorry” you mumbled out once you started to calm down a little. 

“You have nothing to be sorry for. I get it, I would probably be the same if I were in your place. Just don’t ever doubt how much I love you and how much I enjoy feeling needed when you need me to take care of you” he joked a little at the end, bringing a smile to your face.

“I love you so much” you said, wrapping your arms around his neck and bringing his lips down to yours.

Between salty kisses and whispered nothings, you realized that even through the rough patches, Charles would always be there to get you through everything.

Your caretaker for life.

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[brickmvster]

please don't go (i'll eat you whole) | Leon Kennedy x Reader

synopsis: You make love to Leon before he leaves you.

word count: 1,906

warnings/tags: leon kennedy x fem reader, established relationship, smut with feelings, angst, pre-spain or just pre-mission in general, some light fluff if you squint kinda (i'm sorry), p in v sex/penetrative sex, unprotected sex, aftercare

author's note: i'm gonna be honest. i am a little nervous. more so than usual bc this is my first time writing for leon! i love him so much, he's definitely one of my comfort characters, and i wanted to write something angsty but also kinda bittersweet like this for a loooong time and i finally got around to it. i really hope you guys enjoy, comments are always appreciated <3 this has been proofread more than once, but just in case, any and all mistakes are mine! also, just fyi, i wrote this with re4r leon in mind, but you can imagine whichever leon floats your boat if you really want to lol.

p.s. it's not written in here but pls pee after sex 😭

minors do not interact, please and thank you!

You clung to him for dear life; as if he was going to disappear in front of your very eyes.

You were above him, peering down into his deep eyes. His eyebrows were knitted together in pleasure and his lips, which were currently rosy and swollen after the frequent kisses you had given them, were ever so slightly parted as soft groans emerged from his throat. His large hands never stayed still for longer than a minute – he gripped your waist before sliding them down to your ass, kneading the soft flesh before moving them up toward your breasts, squeezing gently, before bringing them back to your waist, where he helped with guiding your languid movements. You moved your hips like an expert, riding him as if you’d never have the chance to again.

With the rain pattering against the window and a sliver of moonlight filtering through the room, it was almost like a scene from an erotic novel. The room carried the scent of sweat and sex and was filled with the noises that spilled from your lips non-stop. You didn’t even know how much time had passed – but you knew it was late. You knew Leon had to be up in the morning. But you wanted to prolong this moment with him for as long as possible. Leon wanted to as well, as every time he got you close to your peak, he slowed down, dragging out your orgasm in a way that was almost painful, but you enjoyed every second of it.

You were growing tired, your legs beginning to shake as your rhythm became a bit off-kilter.

“Leon…” You moaned, his name coming out so softly it almost wasn’t audible. But Leon, ever so attentive, heard you loud and clear, and he knew what you were trying to tell him.

He flipped you over with ease, while he was still inside of you, spreading your legs further apart and starting up a steady pace. All you could do was grip the bed sheets, your eyes rolling into the back of your head as he drilled into that spot that made you see stars. He wasn’t aggressive or rough, but his thrusts were certainly hard-hitting and relentless, and you knew you only had a few minutes.

At some point, you closed your eyes as you tried to focus on your impending orgasm, feeling as if you were in a complete haze – but Leon’s voice pierced through your foggy mind.

“Please look at me.” He said, his low voice sounding a bit strained and even a little desperate; who were you to deny him of what he wanted?

It took a momentous amount of effort, but eventually you were able to open your eyes and keep them open, looking up at him. Leon lowered himself a little, allowing you to wrap your arms around his broad shoulders. The slightly different position made his thrusts feel even deeper, and you cried out into his neck, your fingers going into his shaggy blonde hair.

“Keep looking at me. Please.” He said softly, and so you did, maintaining eye contact with him the best you could as he continued to piston his hips into you. Suddenly, Leon was becoming blurry; you could feel the wetness on your face as tears began to fall. Leon often made you cry during sex – he was a fucking god in bed after all and usually made you feel so good that he’d leave you sobbing from the intense pleasure after multiple orgasms. And while that was definitely the reason you were crying now, you also knew that there was an underlying reason for your tears. Leon knew the other reason, too.

“You’re close, aren’t you?” He asked you sweetly, still keeping up his quick pace. All you could do was nod fervently, digging your nails into his back. He always loved when you did that.

“Yeah? My sweetheart is gonna cum for me?” He urged, and the pet name that rolled off of his tongue only made matters worse.

“Fuck, Leon–please, give it to me.” You said, your voice trembling. You felt all of the telltale signs. There was a tight coil forming in your lower stomach, ready to pop like a balloon. Leon could sense this, could hear it in your voice and could feel it in the way your pussy was squeezing around his cock. He raised himself just a bit, lowering his hand down between your legs, using his thumb to rub your clit in circular motions while he continued thrusting.

Leon’s name emerged from your throat so loudly that you even drowned out the rain. Your eyes squeezed shut, your back rising off the bed in a beautiful arch, your climax hitting you in waves. You felt like you were in heaven, the tears falling even more freely from your eyes now. Leon just ogled at you like you were a work of art. In his mind, you were.

He was also close, and mere seconds after your orgasm his own came crashing down on him too. With a few more sloppy thrusts he found himself stilling inside of you, his release filling you to the brim. The feeling of being so full of him was one that you would never grow tired of.

Eventually, you came down from your peak, your limbs feeling like heavyweights. All you could do was lay there and cry some more, letting every single emotion overtake you completely, your sobs shaking your entire body. Leon was comforting you in an instant, pulling out gently and lying next to you, allowing you to bury your head into his chest. The two of you laid like that for several minutes, with Leon cradling your head and rubbing your back.

You did calm down after some time passed, and that’s when Leon tried to get up, but you clung to him again.

“Please don’t go.” You said, your voice small and hoarse. “Don’t go, Leon, please.”

“I just wanna clean you up, okay?” Leon replied, wiping away the wetness on your cheeks. You didn’t even care that his cum was leaking out of you and making your thighs a mess – you just wanted him to stay by your side. But you knew he was just trying to take care of you, so you reluctantly released him.

Leon kissed your cheek before getting off the bed and going to the bathroom. While you waited for him, you tried to keep your eyes open. You didn’t want to sleep, because falling asleep meant that morning would come quicker, and truthfully you didn’t want the morning to come at all. You knew it would be coming no matter what, though – but goddamn it, you tried to prolong it the best you could, even when your eyelids were growing heavier by the second.

Leon came back, now clothed in his boxers (that you didn’t even notice he had thrown back on), a small washcloth in hand, and a glass of water that he set on the bedside table. He pushed your legs apart yet again and wiped you clean, touching you so gently as if you were some kind of porcelain doll. It only made your heart grow fonder. You were going to miss these moments of tenderness.

He made you sit up, just enough so you could drink the water that he had prepared for you. You took a small sip, to which Leon encouraged you to “drink a bit more, sweetheart,” so you did, and when he was pleased, the glass returned to its spot on the bedside table, and shortly after he was crawling underneath the comforter with you.

The warmth of the comforter and Leon’s body next to yours made it even more difficult for you to stay awake. Leon saw you struggling, catching the way you would doze off and then immediately wake yourself back up.

“Please, rest.” He muttered into your hair. You hugged him tighter.

“Do you have to go?” You asked him, even though you knew the answer.

“I’m sorry, sweetheart.” Was all Leon could say in response.

You felt a lonely tear roll down your cheek yet again. But you were far too exhausted to cry some more. Instead, you sat up, looking at Leon intently. He returned your direct eye contact, sitting up himself to lean against the headboard and match your height.

“Promise me,” You started, holding out your hand. Without hesitation, Leon held it, locking your fingers together and giving your hand a slight squeeze.

“Promise me you’ll come back home.” You asked him, like you always did before he left for a mission. Every single time, he would give you the same answer.

“I promise.” He replied firmly. You knew deep down that asking Leon to make promises like this was unrealistic. He never fully understood what he was getting himself into until he arrived at the mission location – and you knew that despite his skills as a trained government agent, accidents always happened, and there was no way to know when things would go awry when he’s out in the middle of nowhere. But hearing him utter those two words before he left eased your worries just enough.

Trusting Leon was always easy.

“I love you.” You said softly, fitting back into Leon’s side perfectly, like you belonged there.

“I know, sweetheart. I know.” Leon replied, before tilting your chin up with two gentle fingers and kissing you with a fiery passion. You two lazily kissed each other until sleep started pulling you into its dark embrace. You didn’t fight it this time, resting your head on Leon’s chest and drifting away to the sound of his steady heartbeat.

The next morning, the two of you shared one last breakfast. You mostly sat in comfortable silence. You asked a couple questions about the mission, but didn’t get straight answers – it was confidential. You knew that already but always liked to ask questions anyway.

Right as Leon was about to walk out of your door, you stopped him. You took a few moments just to stare at him – he was as handsome as the day you fell in love with him.

You brushed some hair out of his face, kissing him slowly, savoring the feeling of his lips on yours for these last few minutes. When you pulled away, you were sporting a warm smile, feeling your eyes sting as tears threatened to spill. You kept them at bay.

“Don’t you dare–” You paused, your trembling lips making it difficult to speak. When you collected yourself, breathing in and out, you continued.

“Don’t you dare ruin this jacket. I love it on you.” You said, referring to the brown leather jacket that Leon had bought himself recently and was currently wearing. He had a tendency to ruin clothing items on his missions, and you hoped this one would survive.

Leon chuckled. The sound immediately filled you with warmth. You were going to miss that sound; God knows how long you’d have to go without hearing it everyday.

“Copy that.” Leon replied, a laugh bubbling out of your throat.

You shared one more embrace. The final hug was one the both of had trouble ending. But it had to come to an end eventually.

And then, Leon was gone. All that was left was a memory.

[stormsandfoes]

Thomas Hewitt/ Reader

𝔚𝔥𝔞𝔱 𝔦𝔰 𝔩𝔬𝔳𝔢, 𝔱𝔬 𝔰𝔬𝔪𝔢𝔬𝔫𝔢 𝔴𝔥𝔬 𝔥𝔞𝔰 𝔫𝔢𝔳𝔢𝔯 𝔥𝔢𝔞𝔯𝔡 𝔬𝔣 𝔦𝔱? 𝔑𝔢𝔳𝔢𝔯 𝔱𝔞𝔰𝔱𝔢𝔡 𝔱𝔥𝔢 𝔰𝔴𝔢𝔢𝔱𝔫𝔢𝔰𝔰 𝔬𝔣 𝔦𝔱𝔰 𝔫𝔢𝔠𝔱𝔞𝔯?

Written in third-person limited POV, focusing on Thomas. Content tags: Neurodivergence, Cannibalism, mentions of rape, Canon typical violence, self harm, Mommy issues, child abuse (mentioned), good vs. evil with nothing in between, religious trauma. Author notes: I honestly intended this to be short and to the point- but here we are. I read a lot of Thomas/Reader stories where Thomas is portrayed as neurotypical and I don't know why it bothers me so much- it's just fanfiction after all, but I wanted to write a short "love" story where Thomas is violent and scared and lonely. He's nonverbal, he's mentally disturbed but not 'slow'. His world is very black and white and full of violence, so that got me wondering- what would love look like for him? What would happen if this man, who has only ever known darkness, met someone who was nice to him? Fair warning, lots of rambling ahead. I also just want to say that I am Autistic and that influenced a lot of this story- from the way that I write, to how I portray characters, to certain interactions. So if anything seems weird to you, I apologize- my mind works in weird ways. If I need to clarify anything, just shoot me a message. I would love to talk about the writing process and why I included certain things. Important: This is about 15k words and NOT even half of it. I had to cut it into pieces, will update the rest in another post.

Thomas brings the axe above his head, his breath ragged as he swings it down and cuts the piece of firewood in half with a low grunt. He’s hot, even though it’s the middle of winter- the weather low even with the sun that hid behind the clouds- and his shirt is sticking to him uncomfortably, the sweat doing nothing to cool him down.

He lodges the axe into the tree stump, grabbing the two pieces of wood and throwing them in the wheelbarrow before he wipes his forehead with dirt covered hands. It was the last chore of the day, and he was tired and sore- a tightness in his shoulders that seemed to spread all the way down to lower back and made him want to get in bed. His mask is damp and tight against his face, the skin underneath irritated. He wants to go inside and change, the thought of taking a shower was frustrating but he knew that he needed one. He could smell himself- bitter with sweat and the slightly suffocating scent that seemed to stick to chickens now clinging to him from when he had cleaned out the chicken coop. His nails were lined with dirt- hands and arms caked in grime. It made him feel heavy and slow.

Uncle Hoyt would drag him to the back and hose him off if he saw him, and he hated that more than he hated cleaning himself off- the feeling of water on his skin something he had never got around to liking. He could handle other things- blood never seemed to churn his stomach, or when Momma or Uncle Hoyt used to ask him to go clean out the pig pen- back when they could afford to have pigs, they were empty now, the whole farm seemed to get emptier and emptier as the months passed- he hadn’t thought that shoveling pig shit into a bucket was all that bad. But he had trouble smelling sometimes, especially with the leather pressed so tight against the place his nose had once been.

He takes the handles of the wheelbarrow, filled with enough dried out wood for the weekend- maybe Monday, if the weather stayed where it was at- and began to haul it towards the house. Momma would need some in the kitchen, to boil water and heat the ovens for Supper when she got back from town. He’d have to check the fireplace on the main floor- sometimes even on the coldest days of winter that room stayed warm enough that if they were to turn on the fireplace it’d be too uncomfortable to sit in. He would wait until Uncle Monty asked for more- he didn’t like it when any of them made decisions for him, more so now that he was stuck in that wheelchair.

There were no fireplaces upstairs, just piles of blankets to layer and hope they did enough to keep them warm. Sometimes it would be enough for him, but there were nights that even with two or three of the ones Momma sewed together for him; he would still lay awake, teeth chattering from the cold. It’s why he hated the cold- he could manage the heat, but winter was unpredictable even in the deep south of Texas.

Uncle Monty is in the living room, asleep in his chair as the TV keeps playing, almost as loud as his snoring. He walks past him, noticing the almost empty fireplace. His footsteps are heavy and loud from the metal on his shoes as he carries an armful of wood into the kitchen. He sets it down on the dining table, right on the white plastic cloth momma had set out before she had left, dirt falls onto the floor and he makes a low, grumbling noise of frustration, hoping that she didn’t see it when she got home.

He had forgotten the plastic mat last time and gotten her favorite tablecloth dirty -the mud staining the light blue cotton forever. He didn’t see why it was such a big deal, Momma had once told him that life was messy, that’s how one knew that they were living it, but she had been so angry at him then- sending him out with the bucket and soap, shouting about the mud he had tracked inside their house. Supper had come late that night- Hoyt growing angry at him. He liked it when it was ready and waiting for him when he got home- shouting at momma that working men weren’t supposed to wait for food.

He had gotten into an argument with him that night- he didn’t like it when people were mean to momma. Uncle Hoyt had called him a bad name- making his blood boil.

He didn’t want that to happen again. He didn’t like how badly he had wanted to hurt Uncle Hoyt at that moment. Momma said that family fought all the time, but he had to be careful not to do anything that he would regret. Maybe he would regret it when his blood stained his clothes, but part of him wasn’t so sure. He liked him better when he was Uncle Charlie. Uncle Hoyt reminded him of the bad men.

He tries not to think about it anymore when he heads back outside to grab a few more pieces of wood for the living room. He didn’t like thinking back on the things that made him angry, sometimes he couldn’t come back from them, and he’d end up doing something bad.

By the time he’s pushing past the double front doors, Momma’s car is pulling into the dirt path off to the side of the house. It’s an old one- rusting from the heat of too many summers, but momma didn’t mind it.

 The car comes to a stop as he picks up another armful of wood and takes it inside.

Ever since Hoyt became Sheriff of the town, things had gotten better for them. There were never days where they went to bed hungry, the meat freezer down in the basement always seemed to have enough for them. If it ever ran low, a Hoyt always seemed to find a way to get it restocked. Momma had taken over the shop in town after the owner had passed away and Hoyt made sure that his son- one of the bad men- went right along with him. He had filled the bellies of those who still stayed in town, too hungry to care enough to question them. Sometimes she brought back what didn’t sell that day and they’d have themselves a little feast. There were days Uncle Hoyt brought a guest with him- always a woman-, other times he’d ask momma to bring his food up to his room- the muffled screaming drowned out by Monty’s TV show.

He liked to stay in the basement on those days. It was harder to hear the pleading and begging as Hoyt played too rough with them. He would always get stuck with getting rid of them afterwards and he was starting to dislike the chore.

By the time he finishes stacking the wood, Momma is calling out for him, the front door swinging open. He freezes- his shoulders squaring and his breath suddenly heavy as he looks up at the hall, hidden between a wall and the fireplace. There was someone with Momma. He could hear the footsteps- Momma walked with a purpose, heavy and loud like him. She said that she did it so God would hear her better, but he wasn’t so sure that God was with them anymore. The ones that came after her were lighter, nervous.

He didn’t like guests. Didn’t like that Momma and uncle Hoyt had developed a habit of taking in strays that would just end up in the basement with him later. They would scream when they saw him- call him those names that made the anger come. Some of them liked to hurt him, momma taking him to the bathroom afterwards and stitching him up.

“You’re going to love my Tommy. He’s a little bit shy but he’s got the sweetest heart.” Momma says and he hears the other person laugh. It’s a soft noise- gentle in a way that manages to make his heart race faster as he tries to crawl deeper into the tiny space. “He’s here around somewhere… but let’s get you set up in your room then you can come down and help me with supper, okay?”

Another laugh, his heart racing uncomfortably in his chest. He didn’t want Momma to find him, he was already so tired.

“Of course,” the stranger says, and she- the thought of a woman in the house irritates him- doesn’t talk like Momma or Hoyt or Monty. Her voice is quiet, it doesn’t drawl out. He’s heard it before- she must be from out of town. “I would love to!”

For a moment, he feels bad for the woman as he hears them go up the stairs. He always feels bad for them at first. Momma said that his heart was too kind. Hoyt called him a pansy boy, in need of toughening up. He doesn’t know why he feels bad, the guests were never good people- he’d always come to learn that, but it never seems to do anything to make the twitch of guilt go away from his heart. The steps grow quieter the farther up they go- until he hears Momma’s muffled voice and then her footsteps coming back down.

She spots him, curled into himself in that tiny, dark space and she sucks her teeth, shaking her head. “Thomas Hewitt, what in the lords name are you doing there?”

He feels embarrassed all of a sudden, getting caught like this. He makes a low noise in his chest, pointing to the firewood.

“Come on and get on out of there if you’re done then, we’ve got company.” She comes down the rest of the steps and makes her way towards him. When she holds out her hand he takes it, a comfort that has his heart slowing down.

 “I need you to go and grab the rest of her stuff from the car- poor girl don’t got no power in her home.” She says with a shake of her head as she pulls and helps him to his feet. “She’ll be staying with us until her electricity gets put back up.”

He shakes his head, this time the noise he makes is in protest, a deep groan of anger. He didn’t want to. He didn’t want her in his house.

Momma frowns, crossing her arms over her chest. “Now listen here Thomas, not everyone is as lucky as we are. Sometimes we have to help those in need.”

He wants to believe her- Momma wasn’t one for lying, after all- but this isn’t anything new. He knew how this would end; with the woman in their bellies and her screams in his head, keeping him awake at night. She would make a mistake and then she’d end up in the basement, begging for her life.

It was like Momma had set her up to fail, like a game that promised a prize that would never come, and Thomas didn’t want to play. Not this time. He shakes his head again, his way of telling her no.

Momma and Uncle Hoyt have a lot in common, no matter how sweet and gentle Momma tried to be, her anger was almost as bad as his. He doesn’t like it when she gets angry at him- everyone was always angry at him- and he can see it in her eyes, making him bend his chin against his chest as he let out a whine, glancing down at the ground. She never hit him, but she would ignore him and that hurt a lot more.

“Then you go on upstairs and tell the poor girl that she’s got to leave. I won’t be the one to break the bad news.” Momma huffs, stomping over to the kitchen. “Tell her you would rather see her freeze than offer a small kindness.”

There it is, that harshness in her voice that makes him tremble, his heart picking up its pace until he feels like he can’t breathe. He shakes his head again, digging his fingers into his arm. He didn’t want to have anything to do with the woman. Didn’t want to be forced to deal with her later but if this is what Momma wanted, then he would do it. He would make her happy.

He lets out another noise, smaller this time and turns towards the door. Part of him is angry- angry that he wasn’t allowed to be angry without being punished. Angry that sometimes it seemed like he wasn’t allowed to have a say when it came to things. He felt as if momma sometimes liked to hurt him on purpose- pushing and pushing until he snapped.

As soon as the thought crosses his mind, he feels the guilt settle in his stomach, hot and suffocating. Momma wasn’t like the bad people. She wouldn’t hurt him. Sometimes he just made her so angry- he knew that. He knew that he was difficult and stubborn and sometimes she got tired of dealing with him.

It wouldn’t be long before the woman disappeared anyways- Hoyt will see her at supper and he’d take her upstairs. The screaming will start, and everyone will act like they couldn’t hear it; Momma would knit, and Monty would turn the volume on the TV up until it was too much. He’d end up sleeping in the basement again, picking at his skin until it was raw and bleeding- the crying twisting his stomach and threatening to swallow him whole.

He just had to wait until then. He would be good until then.

The trunk of the car was left open for him, and he finds the woman’s things waiting for him. It’s not much- a simple backpack, filled with so many things that it ballooned uncomfortably. He grabs it, grunting at the fact that it was heavier than he thought, and slams the trunk close. The car shakes and squeaks at his aggression as he carries the bag inside. He doesn’t like the fact that he’s touching the stranger’s things.

He’s dirty- his fingers staining the bag- but he’s also dirty inside. Rotten from the anger, the bad he’s done. The bad he was going to do. He can feel himself soiling the items inside- turning them just as dirty as him as he walks into the kitchen and sets the bag down on the floor. Momma had taken the firewood he had left and put away the mat. He could feel the warmth of the fire even from where he stood across the oven- filling the room with the scent of smoke. He grunts, wanting Momma to turn around and see that he had done what she asked. He wanted her to smile at him- to ease the way his heart still hammered in frustration.

She turns, but the softness in her eyes isn’t directed at him- she barely looks at him and his heart sinks further down into his stomach, tension building in the back of his neck. He can hear her footsteps now- the creaking of the staircase as she came downstairs. He’s standing in front of a wall, the staircase on the other side. For now, he was hidden- but it wouldn’t be long until she stepped into the kitchen, and he couldn’t hide anymore.

“We’re in here dear,” Momma calls out to her. “Tommy here’s got your bag for you.”

He sees her for the first time out of the corner of his eye- spotting her before she spots him, her eyes on Momma. She’s short- shorter than momma by a bit, and clean and well dressed. Her sweater is thick and colorful, the cuffs of her sleeves neatly folded against her wrists. Something there catches the soft yellow light of the kitchen- a thin golden bracelet halfway hidden beneath the fabric. Her jeans look like they’ve been around for a long time- a different shade of fabric stitched into one of the knees. Her boots are old and worn out, reminding him of his own.

He doesn’t like this. He doesn’t like this feeling that runs through him as he inspects her.

“I really like your house!” she says- voice light and full of excitement that made his mood worsen. “Its-” whatever she was about to say dies in her throat as she turns her head to the left and spots him for the first time.

He doesn’t let her look at his face- turning his head to the side as he folds into himself, chin against chest. He doesn’t like this- doesn’t like that she stares at him without saying anything. He can feel her eyes on him- inspecting him- an animal on display. His chest rises and falls painfully, his breathing hard and loud in the silence. He can feel his hands twitch- his thumb nail grazing along the length of his finger.

“This is my son,” Momma’s voice is tight as she talks. “Tommy this here is our guest. Don’t you want to say hello?”

He shakes his head, his hands trembling. Something wet lands inside the sink and he startles. He hears Momma suck her teeth and he can see her in his mind- shaking her head like she does whenever he does something she doesn’t like.

He doesn’t like this. Doesn’t like that Momma is getting mad at him, that the woman still stands there, watching him tremble in fear. He could already hear it- her laughing as she called him an idiot. They always called him something. They always laughed at him.

“It’s okay,” her voice shakes a bit as she breaks the silence, and she coughs and clears her voice. “I, um, I’m a little shy myself so I know how hard it can be sometimes.” She speaks slowly, her voice almost a low whisper. She tells him her name. Tells him that it’s nice to meet him.

He doesn’t say anything- not that he can, he’s never spoken a single word- but he nods his head, his eyes quickly glancing over at her. She’s still looking at him and his heart almost beats through his ribs. He expects her to be looking at him like they always look at him- filled with disgust and hatred, looking for any excuse to leave, to get as far away as possible from him- but he doesn’t find that in her face.

He finds her mouth twisted downwards and her eyebrows pushed together just a tiny little bit, her eyes gentle and wide. She looked at him as if he was a dog out by the side of the road on a hot summer afternoon refusing help and she had been chasing him with a bowl of water.

She looks at him like there was nothing scary about him. Like he was a man, dirty from a long day at work and not a freak- poor and disfigured- a monster. He had never seen that look from anyone who didn’t live in this house, and it scared him. It terrified him that someone would decide to look at him like that.

But as soon as he met her eyes she looked away, towards Momma- a smile in her voice.

“What are we making for dinner?” she asks, stepping farther into the kitchen and pushing her sleeves up towards her elbows- ready for whatever Momma tells her to do.

The tension disappears just like that, Momma laughing lightly as she places her hand on the woman’s back and pulls her close. “You’re such a darling, helping me out like this. How about you start getting out the pots and pans? They’re over there by the pantry.” She pointed to the cupboards by the fridge and the woman nodded and went straight towards them.

With her back to them- Momma turned and looked at him finally. He could still feel his heart hammering away at his chest, but this was more manageable. He was still waiting for the names to come, for the screaming and the disgust to appear in her eyes. Sometimes when Momma was around people hid it a bit better, but he knew that it wouldn’t be long until they couldn’t hide it anymore.

He expects Momma to still be mad at him- blue eyes dark with anger- but instead she sighs and puts her hand on his shoulder, a silent apology that has his muscles relaxing. The woman pays them no mind- bending down to inspect the cupboard down there.

“Go on and take her bag up to her room and get yourself cleaned up, okay?” She tugs on the collar of his shirt before fixing his hair out of his face. It’s damp from his sweat, but she doesn’t flinch. “She’s a good girl- try to handle her with care, alright?” Her voice is a low whisper- something the woman wasn’t supposed to hear. It unsettles him as he nods along with Momma- not quite understanding what she meant. He doesn’t know if he’s supposed to nod along with her or shake his head, but Momma doesn't wait for an answer, patting him on the cheek before she turns her head and calls out to the woman.

“Honey, Tommy is going to take your bag up to your room- is that alright?”

The woman rises from the ground, two pots neatly stacked in each other in her hands. “Yes,” she says softly- her eyes meeting his. “Thank you, Tommy.”

She smiles at him shyly and his heart begins to hammer against his ribs again. He feels his skin begin to burn- his flesh raw and exposed to her. Even underneath his mask he can feel himself heating up as he looks away, scrambling to grab the bag.

He needed to get away from her- from Momma and her words that he couldn’t understand. He felt like he couldn’t breathe with her here. He stumbles up the steps- feet so heavy against the wood that he swears he can feel the house tremble underneath him.

Momma gave her the room across his- the empty one where she liked to keep the extra bed sheets and towels. But it’s cleaner now as he turns the knob and goes inside, the curtains pulled open to let in the bit of light that still shone from outside- the sun close to setting. The piles of blankets that were on the bed are gone- the sheets neatly tucked into the space between the mattress and the boxspring. There’s a jacket thrown on top- red and faded, the cuffs ripped up on one arm.

He sits the bag right next to it- on the floor, wiping his hands on his jeans. It topples over and he lets out a grunt- fixing it so it sat upright again. He decided that he would stay up here until Momma called him for supper. He wouldn’t go down to the basement while the woman was here- he was worried that she would be stupid enough to follow him down there. That would be the end of her. Blood and flesh and sinew torn from her bones for them to feast on.

He’s careful when he’s leaving the room- closing the door gently so that it doesn’t slam before he hurries off into his own- locking the door behind himself.

Here it’s dark, his windows covered in greased up newspapers. He didn’t like it when it got too bright- when the sun shone through and reminded him of the mess around him. His room is small and cramped and full of things that he had hauled up from the furnace room so that he wasn’t stuck going up and down all the time. Uncle Monty said that he sounded like a ‘goddamned bulldozer,’ stomping around the house when he was trying to sleep. So, it was better this way- even though sometimes he got irritated that there were too many things. But it meant not being bothersome, so he tried not to mind much.

He checks the door again- making sure that he had really locked it, pulling and twisting at the doorknob just to be safe. He knew that no one would come up here and go into his room- Monty was stuck on the first floor, Momma was with the girl in the kitchen preparing supper and Uncle Hoyt wasn’t home yet. But he was always a little paranoid, just the tiniest bit afraid that someone would knock down his door and see everything about him that he had tried so hard to hide. Not even Momma was allowed in here. This was his- the only place where he could hide from everyone, where he didn’t have to worry about anyone disturbing him.

He takes his mask off and it’s not quite the relief he was expecting- the leather inside has gone stiff, his face raw and tender and aching from all the sweat and dirt that had managed to get in. He can feel it as he runs his fingers across his face, a cut on the corner of his lips that wasn’t there last time. It blends into the sores and scarred tissue already there, his skin long ruined. It shouldn’t bother him- but as he opens his mouth and feels the skin stretch and crack, a drop of blood welling up and rolling down his chin- he gets upset, grunting in frustration. He had wanted to clean the mask and add some petroleum to try and soften it up so it wouldn’t bite at his skin anymore- pinching and scratching and making the pain worse. It would have been something to do, something to keep him busy and distracted until he had to face the inevitable, but now it was something that he no longer wanted to do. Why would he? What would it change?

It was never this bad- but ever since his nose began to fall away, it only ever seemed to get worse- no matter what he did or how hard he pleaded for it to just stop and go away- nothing ever changed. There was no one there to listen to his pleas.

With a low groan of frustration, he tears his hand from his face, wiping the blood on the front of his shirt. He hates himself. Hates everything about himself. Momma liked to say that the bad people were liars, that people who were hurting only ever knew how to hurt others- but he knew that wasn’t true. He was a monster. He saw it, looking back at him in the mirror- wild and ugly and evil, everything that he did not want to be. He hated taking his mask off- hated knowing that the man that existed underneath it was the same man that he was trying to escape from.

Coming here was a mistake. He should have stayed downstairs, should have gone out back to the barn- there he would have found something, anything, to do.

He takes a breath like Momma showed him, trying to push the anger away- down, down, down, until he couldn’t feel it slithering through his veins and pounding in the back of his head. He just had to focus on something else-he liked it when he had chores, things to do that kept him busy and away from the bad thoughts. He takes another deep breath through his mouth- dirt and salt on his lips as he picks up the mask and tries to clean it off on his clothing. It does nothing but lift the dust off into the air as he places it on his face, tightening it too much across his head, leather digging into tender skin. He would take a bath, change his clothes, then sit in bed and wait. Uncle Hoyt would come an hour after the sun disappeared and then he would have to go downstairs. He didn’t want to go downstairs.

He didn’t want to feel the bad feelings anymore. The fear, the anger. The woman would look at him and his throat would tighten, and his heart would beat painfully. He hadn’t liked that feeling- trapped in his own skin, unable to get away. Yet at the same time, he wanted her to look at him. No one ever looked at him.

He could still feel her eyes- soft and warm on his skin, simultaneously calming and worsening his anger. He was half embarrassed- covered in dirt and sweat stains, his clothing old and faded- Did she think that he was disgusting? He was always messy in everything that he did- always having to teach himself how to do things. Filth had never been a stranger. Had never bothered him. But he finds himself wanting to wash the grime and sweat from himself- even if he was just going to put the same clothes back on.

His stomach growls, empty and needy as he unlocks the door and roughly pushes it open- he finds the woman outside of it.

The door swings open, the gust of wind pushing her hair around as the door barely manages to miss her. She’s looking up at him, eyes wide and mouth slightly open- her arms up by her chest. It scares him, seeing her there and he makes a messy, garbled noise of surprise.

“Sorry!” she speaks fast, her words all pushed together. “I was just trying to find the bathroom!”

He feels his heart beating in his throat, muscles tense and solid as he stares down at her. She’s so much shorter than he thought- he could reach out and crush her throat in his hand and it wouldn’t take much force to do so. He’s almost tempted to, his fingers twitching at his sides. Momma would get mad at him when he dragged her body downstairs- but she would forget eventually.

“I’m in your way- I,” she takes a step back, her eyes finally releasing his. “I’m sorry, I’m just-”

He grunts. Low and short- his way of telling her to stop talking. Nothing she says is making any sense to him and the sound of her voice makes his heart hammer at his chest. Thunderous and loud and painful. It scares him how easily she does that to him. Such a small thing like her, carelessly walking into a house where God was nowhere to be found without a single ounce of caution. He could take her to his room, and no one would hear her scream. He could scare her more than she scared him.

She squirms in the silence like a rat stuck in a trap. She tugs at her sleeve, at her collar- his breathing loud as he watches her- watches her chest rise and fall with every breath, her eyes on the space between them.

 Another grunt and she startles backwards, looking up at him. This time, when her eyes meet his own, he doesn’t cower even though his body tenses and he can already feel her pulse beneath his hand.

 His body is stiff as he steps out of his room and moves out of the way of the door- he has to turn his back to her and for a split-second, panic runs cold and fast through his veins as he remembers the woman who had stabbed him. The door slams close as he turns around quickly, eyes wide and wild as he looks down at her hands.

He expects to see a knife pointed at him- the scar on his shoulder aching from the memory of being sliced apart, the pain still there even after all the months that have passed since. He hadn’t done anything to deserve that pain- the woman and her friends had attacked first, had tried to hurt his family. Uncle Hoyt had told him, so had Momma with tears in her eyes and blood splatters on her dress. They were bad people who wanted to do bad things to them, and it was his responsibility to protect them- to keep them safe. It hadn’t mattered that his hands shook so hard with fear, and he could taste vomit at the back of his throat, vile and burning, he had to protect them. They were all that he had. He couldn’t- wouldn’t- lose them.

He was panting as he searched the woman and finds nothing in her hands, her eyes widening as she takes another step away from him.

 Was she scared?

Did she finally see it? The evil that radiated off of him that others seemed to see- always scared of getting too close to him- He was a disease on this town. A burden. Did he finally scare her?

Would she scream?

Was she going to hurt him- just like everyone else? Drive a knife into his flesh- a pain that would only last for so long before it faded into a memory that he refused to think of. A pain that wouldn’t be so bad compared to the shame that churned his stomach whenever a stranger screamed when they saw him.

He waited- teeth clamped together as he stared her down in the heavy silence.

He watched as her lips part, lower lip trembling slightly. If she screamed, he would hurt her before she could hurt him. If she screamed, she would be nothing but a pile of bones, tossed into the fire by the time the sun rose tomorrow.

Scream, he thought, fingers twitching at his sides. Scream already and let this end already.

“You’re scared of me, aren’t you?” she whispers and her voice trembles even as she keeps talking. “I can tell- you’re looking at me like I just pulled out a gun on you or something.” She lifts her hands towards him and moves them back and forth, as if she was showing him that he had nothing to worry about. “But my hands are empty-”

She lifts her hands, palms facing him, and wiggles her fingers. “If it makes you feel better, apart from a kitchen knife I don’t think I’ve ever held a weapon.” She smiles oddly at him- as if she wasn’t sure how to do so, her eyes still wide and unblinking. As if she was worried that he would lunge at her at any second.

He doesn’t like how his body seems to let go of its worries and fears so fast, his shoulders drooping and his heartbeat slowing down until it’s no longer pounding against his ears as the ringing slowly starts to disappear. He unclenches his teeth, the pain still lingering in his jaw and neck, and suddenly, he’s no longer thinking of hurting the woman- of how easy he would have snapped her neck. He still could, part of him even ached and begged for him to do it. To get it over with.

But he doesn’t listen to that part of him that never truly seemed to go away- always begging for blood, for a voice that would finally be heard. He’s staring at her hands instead, focusing on the tips of her fingers that are flushed pink. He notices the birthmark on her left middle finger- a tiny dot right underneath the crease of her knuckle. He notices all the tiny little lines that make up her palms and the way her thumb trembles lightly.

He did not like her.

He did not like the way something as simple as her hands was enough to draw his attention- his eyes seeking out the tiny little patterns between her fingers. He did not like how her voice could soothe him so easily when he wanted nothing but to crush her- to take her, to taste her flesh on his tongue and her blood on his lips.

He did not like how she called out to him as he just stared at her- stared through her, voice gentle with his name. It wasn’t the same as when Momma said it though. This felt like a spell, a bad omen- Satan’s own voice whispering temptation in his ear. Sweet and gentle and unfamiliar.

She made him feel the same way he had felt that one night he had snuck upstairs to watch Uncle Hoyt and his new friend. He had pushed the door open just enough so that he could see but still stay hidden from the light. He hadn’t made a single noise as he watched Hoyt undo his pants and pull the woman’s legs apart. He hadn’t been able to see much from his hiding place, but what he heard had sent a shock of electricity through his body- blood boiling with need as he listened to the crying and the begging and the sound of something slick being hit over and over again. His stomach churned the same it had that night- tight and hot and restless for something that he could not give it.

He lets out a whine- deep and guttural and full of frustration. Go away, he wants to yell at her. Go away before you ruin everything.

“Tommy…?” she asks again, not understanding his plea.

He whines again and it takes him a second to realize that he’s scratching at his arm- digging his fingers into the old scars there and agitating the skin. It hurts. But that pain is familiar and calming and helps him focus on something other than the panic rising in his throat.

She was messing it all up.

 It’s supposed to just be the four of them- Momma, Hoyt, Monty and him. It’s always been just the four of them. There wasn’t enough space here for her. She was too much of a change to get used to- too loud, too much. Even if he went and hid in the basement until Momma got tired of her, he knew that he would still be able to feel her through the walls, a choking weight in the air that would only poison him until he forgot what it was like to be ignored and cautious even in his own home. He’d be able to hear her- hear her laugh, her steps, the tiny little noises she would come to make the more time went on. She would fill this house with her until she soaked the walls and filled in the foundation. Until everyone forgot that she had a stranger at one point- a spontaneous good dead in all the bad they dealt in.

And even then- what would stop Hoyt from taking her to the room where almost all of the women ended up in? From the emptiness of their bellies that might make them remember that she wasn’t one of them- that she was the answer to their starvation?

He's sinking his nails in harder- the thin skin underneath breaks and he itches at the spot as if there was something alive and buzzing under the flesh. He doesn’t feel the pain as the blood begins to gather underneath his dirty nails. He can see it, even in the dim light- but he can’t feel it. Can’t stop. He digs and digs and digs, hoping for the thoughts to stop- for the voices to stop telling him that he had to kill her. That if he didn’t, he had to make sure that she never left- that this house swallowed her whole and kept her from running, from leaving them. Leaving him. If she tried to run, he could keep her in the furnace room; could tie her up and warn her that if she wasn’t good, she wouldn’t be able to stay.

He could be good to her. He would learn if he had to, would ask Momma to teach him to be gentle and kind. He would not make her angry, would not make her cry or scare her away as long as she listened to him. As long as she stayed with him.

He’s lost, stuck in the farthest corner of his mind, in a future that would stop existing if he simply reached out and touched her. All he had to do was cover her face with his hand, she would be too surprised to fight him off when he pressed her against the wall and kept her there-the weight of him against her back. He could already feel her as she squirmed against him- her body unable to stand still as her lungs began to burn. He could already feel her warmth through his clothes, feel the way his heart would race as she sank her fingers into his skin, drawing blood from fear and desperation. His fear would seep into her flesh, make her lash out more. Her pain would become his and they would be inseparable in that moment.

 It’s when he feels her- fingers cold and desperate as she prods and pulls at his arms, forcing them apart that he returns to reality- to the dimly lit hall, the heat of the fireplace already seeping through the cracks in the foundation. He can feel the way her arms tremble, her fingertips burning holes into his skin.

The woman’s eyes are wild when he looks at her, all wet and round- something in them, in the way she looks at him, makes his heart fill with lead- knocking against his ribs painfully.

“It’s okay!” she says, her voice panicked as she keeps repeating it over and over again, almost as if she’s trying to convince herself- or maybe she thinks that if she says it enough times it’d become true.

“It’s okay, you’re okay,” she repeats, her eyes on his as she pulls his arms towards her. “We just have to get this cleaned up and it’ll be okay.”

He doesn’t budge when she tries to pull him towards the staircase- instead, he watches as she stumbles over her own feet, her hands sliding down his arms.

“We need to get this clean,” she’s pleading now, tugging at him to get him to move. “It’s going to get infected if we don’t and there’s no doctor in town anymore-” the more she talks, the more hysterical she begins to sound, her voice growing higher. “I don’t know where the bathroom is, but we can go down to the kitchen, Luda M-”

He doesn’t let her finish, easily pulling his uninjured arm free from her. He didn’t want Momma to know. To see the mess that he made of himself. She would yell at him if he was lucky- tell him that he was sick in the head, hurting himself like a damn fool again.  But he knew that Momma wouldn’t be kind like that- she would take one look at him, dripping blood on the floor and she would blame the woman for his pain.

He could already hear her yelling, the shrill sound bouncing through his head. Momma wouldn’t care to listen, to see anything other than what she wanted. Momma was like that- kind and sweet and quiet until someone was stupid enough to go after the family. He was like her in a way, protective of them all. He liked to think that he got it from her- that he couldn’t possibly be bad when Momma’s blood ran through him, sweet and caring.

He couldn’t let Momma find out. Not now- not when he had decided that the woman standing in front of him was worth more to him alive than chopped up into pieces that would fit into the deep freezer.

 With a grunt that shuts the woman up from her rambling, he grabs her arm. She’s soft and small under his touch- her sweater itching at his palm as he begins to pull her deeper into the hallway, into the darkness. Away from Momma. Away from a future he wanted no part in.

“No, Tommy we have to go downstairs. I don’t know what to do.” Her voice is shaky as she takes a couple steps forward before planting her feet and refusing to keep going. “Your mom might me better at this than me, please.” She pleads even as she begins to walk again when he refuses to stop.

He tries to tell her that Momma couldn’t find out. That if she did then he wouldn’t be able to protect her- to keep her safe. Momma would tell him to get rid of her and he always did what Momma wanted, even if sometimes he didn’t want to.

He loves Momma. Loves her more than Uncle Hoyt or Monty. He loves her more than anything or anyone- even himself. He could suffer through any pain as long as Momma was with him- as long as she was happy with him.

He tries to tell her that he knows exactly what he’s doing, but all his words come out as a garbled mess of a groan, the muscles in his throat too weak to form any actual words. It frustrates him- hearing himself talk in a way that no one would ever understand.

He lets out a low howl, that frustration growing when she stops walking again. He has to be careful not to hurt her- he didn’t want to accidentally pull her arm too hard if she was going to make this a habit. He just needed to get her to the bathroom. She had to wash off the blood on her hands before she went back downstairs. He could take care of his injuries himself- Momma had taught him how to clean and bandage cuts and bruises. Though he wasn’t concerned with the open wound dripping blood down his arm.

Right now, he needed to get the woman to understand that Momma couldn’t find out about this. That if she went down those steps, stained with his blood, then there was nothing he could do to keep Momma from lashing out. Facing her, he points to himself- finger beating against his chest twice before he points at her.

He’s watching her- his eyes on her as she watches him repeat the action two more times. Her face is flushed, her eyebrows pushed together, and he begins to worry that she’s not understanding him, that now that he’s let go of her, she was going to be stupid and try to push him back towards the stairs.

Letting out a small whimper, he grabs at her wrist. She’s pliant under his touch- her skin cool and soft. Touching her reminds him of the Cattle fences that were used back when the Slaughterhouse had been open. He had touched one by accident, not fully understanding why they had so many warnings signs- and just like back then, something hot and quick ran through him. Back then, the muscles in his fingers and arms had tensed and burned, taking away all his strength. But touching her, feeling the way his scarred thumb slid against the thin skin on her wrist- felt like a shockwave of warmth had run through him- intense and disorienting and addictive.

It scared him, but he didn’t let go of her even though his brain was yelling at him to stop touching her. He couldn’t. He had to keep her safe. Slowly, he began to raise her hand towards him, his mouth opening as he made a noise from the bottom of his throat.

He looked at her face as he pressed the back of her hand against his chest. She was already staring at him, her lips twisted into a frown. He couldn’t look into her eyes for too long, something in him ached when he did, so he kept his eyes on her mouth as he tapped her hand against his chest. That same warmth that was spreading through his arm poisoned his chest. He could feel it in his throat, in the depth of his belly- It knocked around in his head until he was dizzy.

For a moment, with her hand on him and his eyes still glued to her lips, he forgets about the bad people who called him all those bad words. He forgets all of the evil that he’s done, all the screams that haunt him, all the blood that he can never wash off.

He finds the confidence to raise his eyes to her own and part of him is scared that in them he would find disgust at having to touch something like him. A smaller, quieter, part wonders if she feels it too- the electricity that flows out of her and through him. He wants her to tell him that she feels him in her- that he’s also warm and electric through her veins. He wants her to tell him that a real monster wouldn’t feel the way he did- that if he really was a monster, the softness in her eyes wouldn’t be affecting him so much.

Dropping his eyes, he taps his chest with her hand twice before pointing it towards him. He does it one more time before he lets go of her. He expects her to pull her hand away, but instead she lets it linger on his shirt, the dirt and stains not bothering her. He wonders if she can feel the way his heart knocks against his ribs.

“You want me to follow you?” her voice cracks a bit as she takes her hand away.

He nods, grunting as he motions to a door off to the side behind him before he lifts his bloodied arm and runs his hand over the scratches- they’ve stopped bleeding already, his arm a mess of blood stains and dirt. Pointing behind here, towards the staircase he shakes his head, bringing his hand back towards his arm and covering the mess he made.

She doesn’t say anything as she tries to piece everything together- her face twisting into itself as she thinks. He repeats the movement, groaning when he points at the staircase and once more when he covers the cuts. ‘Not safe,’ he tries to tell her, ‘Take care of it here.’

Realization makes her eyes brighten, her features smoothing out. “You don’t want Luda Mae to find out?”

It’s not exactly what he was trying to say but he lets it be, seeing as it was close enough. She could have thought that he wanted her to go down and grab Momma- and he was worried that with how small she was she would take off running before he could stop her. In trying to help she would run straight into her end.

The thought made his stomach drop- a sudden chill rocking through him.

“Tommy- I don’t know if I can do anything about that…” she pauses, and he watches as she reaches for him, taking his arm in both of her hands. Her touch burns him again, and this time he can’t stop the small whine of delight from escaping his lips. Her mouth twists down as she inspects his arm- and he tenses, waiting for her to start yelling at him, for the bad names to come. But they don’t- she stays silent, her eyes glued to his arm.

The damage isn’t bad- compared to the collection of scars that line both of his arms, this was nothing. He had scratched a small hole in his forearm- breaking the skin and tearing apart the bit of muscle and fat there. He was lucky that he hadn’t hit anything vital- that he had stopped when he did.

When he was younger, he had taken to cutting- tearing flesh from his body and slicing himself open as a punishment for his mistakes, for his bad thoughts. He had done a good job of keeping it from Momma until the night he had cut too deep, and the blood wouldn’t stop. He had ran to her, howling in fear- bloody arm pressed against his chest. She had made Uncle Monty hold him down while she stitched him together, only a glass of whiskey to keep the pain away. She had yelled at him the entire time-first with tears in her eyes then when they had dried up and she had finished sewing his skin together- she had taken the belt and beaten him raw. When she got tired of beating him, she had told him that this was all Satan’s fault- that she had no choice but to beat the devil out of him. God was gonna soothe his pain, his fears, his anguish. He would see, Momma liked to say. She had kissed him on the forehead, and he swore he had seen the devil on her shoulder, laughing at him.

The pain hadn’t convinced him to stop- he simply learned how to hide it better, how to keep things clean, how to stitch himself together on those nights that he fantasized about finding peace in death. He learned where to cut and how deep to dig- and eventually, Momma made herself forget it ever happened at all. Sometimes, he thought that she was afraid of God- of making him angry, of him turning his back on her. It’s why he didn’t tell her that every once in a while, he could feel the devil itself pumping through his veins. Taunting him.

The woman gently turns his arm, and he pulls himself from the memories, watching as her fingers caress his skin. She’s too trusting- doesn’t she see the danger that she’s in? How easily he could overpower her? This was a Godless house, no matter what Momma and Hoyt thought- he knew the truth. He knew that they were all rotten, inside and out. She would be ruined by them all if she stayed. He would ruin her with his sins-but his guilt wasn’t strong enough to stop his desires.

“It looks a lot worse than it is, doesn’t it?” she asks him, but he doesn’t answer- too busy watching the way she touches him- her touch making his breath deepen.

He likes the way she doesn’t mind that his blood is on her hands- twisted into the tiny cracks of her bracelet. She’s careful and slow as she traces the tip of her index finger above the crater he had created in his flesh. He’s almost tempted to push her hand down- to feel her flesh against the inside of his own, to have her hurt him before he could hurt her- but she moves her hand away before he can make up his mind.

“Okay…” she sighs, not letting go of him. “Show me what to do.”

He grunts in satisfaction, the weight of Momma finding out and the woman being punished lifting from his shoulders. Slowly, he turns the arm she cradled in her hands so that he was grabbing her instead- his hand swallowing hers.

He tries not to think about it too much as he tugs gently and finds no resistance in her steps. He almost smiles- lip twitching against the leather on his face as he leads her to the bathroom. Inside him, the devil starts to dance in glee.

The room is cold as he pushes open the door and pulls her inside before he follows. He can feel the cold seep into his thin shirt, see it with every exhale when he turns on the light and shuts the door, dropping the woman’s hand. She shivers and he wants to know if it’s from the cold or the fact that he’s no longer touching her.

The light flickers and dies for a couple seconds, leaving them in darkness before it turns back on- low and yellow like all the others in the house. It makes the woman’s skin look sickly- washing her out as she blinks and tries to get used to the light.

“We have to clean it,” she’s already walking around him, towards the sink. It’s a small one, too low for him to reach without having to bend his knees uncomfortably. Maybe that’s why she pauses mid-sentence- was she trying to picture him, hunched over as he scrubbed the dirt and blood and sweat from his arms?

The thought of her thinking about him- caring about him- splits him in two, a feeling that he’s never experienced before.

“Where are the towels?” she asks, turning around to face him. “If we lay some down on the floor it should keep the mess down a bit, right?”

He doesn’t tell her that it’s not a good idea- that a pile of soaking towels would raise questions that need to stay buried instead. So, he shakes his head, already closing the small distance between them.

The bathroom is small- all of them are. The tiles on the walls are a faded green color, some of them cracked- some of them are separated by mold- the caulk so old and weathered by age and neglect. He hopes that she doesn’t see them- his blood warming in embarrassment as he tells himself that he would fix them later, before she realized that this house was falling apart right under their feet.

The toilet and sink and the bathtub are old- not quite as stained, but still the same faded shade as the tiles that surrounded them. Under the harsh yellow light, it all looked a mess. At least it wasn’t like Hoyt’s bathroom- with too many colors and carpet all over the floors that trapped the smell of tobacco and sweat and soap, the steam that seemed to linger and stick to the walls doing nothing to lessen the stench.

He’s careful as he walks around her- suddenly aware of just how close they were. In here, with the door closed, being near to her seemed almost intimate in a way that he could not quite grasp.

He was used to being alone with people- usually they were screaming and begging, or already half-dead, delirious and confused from the pain and the blood loss. He was used to them thrashing and running and fighting back- hitting him with their fists, kicking him, throwing whatever they managed to get ahold of. They would always scare him when they did that- the pain eventually making him mad until he lashed out and hurt them on purpose.

They didn’t seem to understand that he didn’t want to make them suffer- that he was being kind- taking their lives quickly so that they didn’t have to be so afraid.

He was used to the screaming, the name calling- no matter how scared or afraid he got, he always knew how it would end.

With the woman, he had touched her- she had touched him- without screaming, without her begging or flinching or trying to run away. Out in the hall there had been enough space for him if he needed to get away, but here it was just the two of them- existing in a space that no one else seemed to belong in.

It terrified him just as much as it thrilled him. It made him feel the same way as when he had to chased down someone that had slipped out of his hold- but this time his mind wasn’t telling him to kill. This time, as he stood besides the woman, her eyes on him as he turned on the faucet and waited for the water to warm, something inside of him was telling him to chase her down in a completely different way- to keep her at his side.

Even if he had to chain her and train her- he did not want her to leave. He would not let her leave.

He remembers when he had first started at the Slaughterhouse, when he had been put to work with the cows- separating the babies from the mothers as soon as they were born. He would take them- carefully scooping them up in his arms, a child at the time, not knowing better, not knowing what it was that he was doing- and carry them to another part of the barn where he would drop them into cages so small that even he couldn’t fit inside.

They would cry and shake, unable to stand, unable to realize what lay ahead of them. He would feed them scraps he had stolen from the feeding center- oats or barley or even handfuls of grass from outside- shoving his hand through and letting them eat from his hand. They would calm down, even though they could not stand fully- their heads hunched over and pressed against the metal. He would show them that even if they weren’t going to live long- even if the world around them didn’t seem to care for them- they weren’t alone.

She did not have to be caged like them- though if he had to, he would keep her locked up if it meant keeping her beside him. Down in the basement where no one would hear her- where no one would disturb them, he would get her to see that he was a kind man, that he only wanted what was best for her.

She was already so much like the calves from back then- stupid and small and too trusting of him. It wouldn’t be hard to break her, to convince her that it was all her fault- that there was nothing left for her outside this home.

When the water heats up- steam rising and filling his lungs- he runs his fingers under the stream. Dirt and blood stain the sink, the hot water turning his fingers pink. It hurts, but not enough for him to stop. He rubs his hands together, the water turning pink as it drains. He can feel her eyes on him as he scrubs the grains of dirt from his skin.

For some reason, it embarrasses him- having her watch him do something so mundane and ordinary. He almost swore that he could feel the warmth from her eyes on his skin- hotter than the water. It makes the simple task suddenly seem foolish, makes him feel as if this was the first time he was doing it and he wasn’t sure if it was right or wrong.

With a grunt he tries to push the thoughts from his mind- cupping his hand and filling it with water before he splashes it onto his arm, onto the wound he had given himself. It makes a mess- water splashing onto his rolled sleeve and onto the floor, the sink too small to prevent the mess.

“Can I?” she says- and she’s suddenly closer than he had thought, her body pressed against his side. He can feel her through his shirt, through the thick fabric of her sweater. He swears that he can feel the softness of her body, the beating of her heart, the blood rushing through her veins on his very skin. It makes his heart leap into his throat- the sudden touch making him want to push her head into the glass of the medicine cabinet or pull her closer- he wasn’t sure which one he wanted to do most.

He stands still, body tense as she reaches for him, grabbing his arm and lifting it closer. She must have found the linen closet- an old, red washcloth in her other hand which she places underneath the running water. She hisses, pulling her hand away and opens the cold water.

“Doesn’t that hurt you?” she asks- and there’s no anger in her voice, no underlying judgement that has him tensing up, muscles rippling with dread that he had done something wrong. Momma liked to talk to him like that sometimes. She liked to ask questions that made him feel bad, that made him regret coming to her- guilty that he had bothered her. Hurt that she saw him as something bothersome.

He shakes his head, his way of telling her that no, it wasn’t hurting him. If he had a voice, he would tell her that his skin is so damaged that he could barely feel it, that some days he even preferred it- he liked the way his skin turned red and pulsed in a way that was almost comfortable, soothing.

“This will feel much better,” she holds her fingers under the water, and once it’s at a comfortable temperature she lets it run over the washcloth. “Tell me if I’m hurting you, okay?”

He nods sharply and she smiles at him- the corners of her mouth lifting. He expects her to rub the wound directly, desperate to clean it off before infection sets in. Instead, to his surprise, she wipes around the length of it- scrubbing gently at the blood matting the hair on his arm. The hand holding his arm is gentle, her fingers sinking into his soft flesh and holding him still.

He watches her- watches the concentration on her face that has her eyebrows knitted together as she wipes and rinses, repeating those two motions over and over and over again until his skin is cleaner- until the dirt is gone and there’s nothing left to hide the many sins he carried on his skin.

She pauses- and he can almost read her mind at that moment. He can see it in the tension in her wrist, feel it in the way her fingers tremble just a fraction of a second before they dig a little deeper into his arm. The feeling of her nails scratching at him isn’t painful, but it startles him just the same as if it were- a warmth growing in his chest that travels down to his belly and pools there- filling him with a different sort of sin.

He expects her to say something about the hundreds of tiny little cuts and bruises that she’s unearthed- he can feel it hang heavy in the air- his lips tingling from anticipation. From the worry that she would open her mouth and ruin it all.

It would either be disgust or pity- and he wanted neither. The scars were his to carry- his own punishment for his terrible deeds. Uncle Hoyt always cringed and acted like he didn’t see them- even though his mouth and face twisted as if he had eaten something sour. The pity always came from Momma- her hands on his as she prayed to God to take away whatever burdens he seemed to be carrying around in his heart. She wouldn’t touch them- maybe out of fear, or anger, or maybe just like Uncle Hoyt, she was disgusted as well- scared that if she touched the scars, they would somehow ruin her as well.

The corners of the woman’s mouth are still twisted down when she glances up at him- her eyes too dark to read. He wonders what he looks like in her eyes- what is it that she sees in him that no one else seems to see?

He waits for her to talk- to break the tense silence that’s choking him- but she doesn’t say a word, dropping her eyes as she picks up the bar of soap that’s been there for months. It almost slips out of her hand, and she lets go of him completely- his arm frozen in place, his body already missing hers. The tension disappears, as if nothing had ever happened, as if it had never been there to begin with. It rolls from the points of pressure that she had left behind on his flesh and up his arms. It moves in his veins, thick and syrupy- coating all of him in a feeling that’s doesn’t sit right.

Maybe he did want her to speak- to pity him after all. But the moment is gone, and he doesn’t have a voice to bring it back- to tell her what he was feeling, so he lets the discomfort drown him just a bit as he watches her act like nothing wrong had happened.

She rubs the bar between her hands, underneath the stream of water and his heart sinks at the thought of her cleaning all traces of him from her skin- he wanted to coat her in all that he was- his scent, his hatred, the bitter taste in his mouth that never seemed to go away- he wanted her to have it all, to carry him even if they were apart for a split second. An extension of him- equally as fearsome.

“Come here,” she motions for him to bring his arm towards her hands, letting the bar fall into the sink. Her hands are covered in soap as she takes his arm in between them- gently scrubbing from his wrist to the inside of his elbow, where his rolled-up sleeve sat. At first, she doesn’t touch the wound- and he can feel the hesitation in her fingers as she scrubs at his arm, circling around it. She scrubs at his skin, at the spaces between his fingers, taking his hand in her own and gently massaging it.

It's the first time anyone has done something like that to him- and while he can’t understand why she was being so thorough when it would have been easier to just hand him the soap and let him do it, he has no intention of stopping her.

He simply watches and enjoys- his mouth twisted into the closest thing of a smile that he could manage underneath his mask.

“Tell me if I hurt you, okay?” she says quietly, and it takes him a second to understand her words, his mind lost even to himself- her fingers lightly press against the cut as she speaks, drawing him back into reality. He tenses as she begins to clean it out, rubbing soapy water into it. It doesn’t hurt- not with how light and slow she moves her hand, her finger dipping into the hole he had scratched open. He expects it to hurt or sting or startle him- but pain doesn’t come. Instead, he groans in delight- enjoying the way her finger seems to be tearing into him, stretching his skin open. It’s like she’s making space for herself inside of him- forcing herself into the parts of him that held him together, sinew and muscle and blood- now poisoned with whatever sickness the woman had inflicted in his heart.

“Sorry!” she says quickly, pulling her hand away from him. The once white bubbles between her fingers are now a soft shade of pink, mixed with his blood. It all disappears down the drain as she rinses her hand, drying them on the front of her jeans.

He grows frustrated at the fact that there’s no way to tell her that she hadn’t hurt him- that he wanted her to do it again. That the pain she caused him was almost addictive- sweeter than the whiskey Uncle Monty sometimes let him have whenever he was in a good enough mood to share.

The woman motions for him to rinse his arm, already cupping her hands together under the faucet and letting the cool water pool between her hands. He angles his arm awkwardly into the sink and she lets the water trickle from between her fingers over his arm slowly. He watches as she repeats the motion, rinsing his arm- it’s so trivial and boring, yet he’s in awe as she takes care of him.

Without a second thought, the woman is already devoting herself to the mundanity of life with him. He could see it as she turns the water off and tells him to wait- as if he would leave her side, as if he could do something so absolutely stupid- subjecting himself to an agony he had no intention of experiencing firsthand.

He hears the closet door open behind him, making him turn around and look at the woman as she rummages through old fitted blankets, washcloths and towels until she finds what she needs. With one hand pressed against the pile of folded towels she pulls one free, tossing it over her arm. “I don’t know how long this has been here for-” as she talks, she moves onto her toes, stretching her arm out as she reaches for something on one of the top shelves.

He almost moves to help her, his body already swaying in place, eager to move, to make himself useful to the woman. But he spends too long trying to decide- her hand closing around whatever it was that she had seen earlier. She lets out a small noise of delight as she drops down to the balls of her feet, and it wracks through him, sending a shiver of warmth up his spine that spreads across his chest- tightening the muscles in his lower belly.

“Expired medicine and antibiotics are better than nothing, right?” She asks as he turns and faces him- lips curved up into a smile and he almost finds himself mimicking it- the corners of his lips twitching. He catches himself, hot embarrassment forcing his eyes to drop from her face- down to the small plastic medicine bin in her hands. It did not matter that he had his mask to hide behind, the way she looked at him made him feel as if she could somehow see through it- his face exposed for whatever ridicule and insults she would eventually throw at him.

 There are bottles of pills stacked on top of one another- the type that Momma used to give him when he was feverish. It would take his sickness as well as his hunger- leaving him too heavy to do anything but lay in bed until the heat of his body burned through the drug. There are other things as well- gauze and bandages, silver packages of pills he couldn’t identify, the label worn off a long time ago- a bottle of Vaseline, faded from the years sits next to a glass jar of Vapor-Rub. Looking at it, he swears that he can smell it even with how far away from the jar he was- even though his nose hasn’t worked properly for months, he feels the ghost of it wrinkle as he cringes from the offensive smell his mind reminds him of.

Momma used to slather him with it when he had first started working at the Slaughterhouse. He hadn’t been used to the smell of it back then and every day he went back had been miserable. The scent of death and blood and shit had soured his stomach until he had gone and thrown up the oatmeal Momma had made for breakfast all over his worktable. All over the slab of meat he had been told to break down. He can still remember the taste of animal blood on his tongue after he had wiped his mouth- forgetting that his hands and arms and chest had been covered in chunks of offal. His boss had called him every bad word under the sun-some were words that he had never heard before, now fully engrained in his mind, tearing at his heart once Monty had told him what they meant.

When he had gone home that night, after scrubbing his station clean- the blood mixing with his waste underneath his nails, in the strands of his hair and in between the cracks of his boots, Momma had slapped him. She had been waiting for him on the porch, her face twisted down in anger, the blue of her eyes dark and cold behind her glasses.

She had called him a great big idiot- uncaring of how dirty he had been, of how hard he had silently prayed to God for the day to hurry up and end so that he could leave and go home. At one point, when the bell for Lunch had rung and he was forced to stay and catch up to everyone else- his boss throwing what Momma had packed for him in the garbage before spitting on it with a laugh- he had wanted to die, his chest burning every single time he brought the cleaver down. He had wanted to die right then and there- to stop existing all together. To be nothing but the air around him- free from the bad people, from the stares, from feeling like all that he did was somehow inherently wrong. No matter if it was an accident or not, no one ever seemed to care enough to listen to him.

Momma had gotten a call from the Slaughterhouse- telling her that because of his careless mistake he would have to be let go. Momma had told him, as she dragged him to the hose out back, that she had begged and begged and begged for them to give him a second chance. They couldn’t lose his income, not with Uncle Monty getting less hours at his job and the Government cutting Uncle Hoyt’s veteran checks so suddenly. They were barely making ends meet as it was- this would ruin them.

She had yelled and shouted, spraying him with cold water until he was a shivering mess, the blood no longer crusted over on his skin. He could feel the cold water pooling in his boots, making his socks stick to his toes. It hadn’t even mattered to him then, his heart hammering away at his chest at the thought of never having to go back. Of not having to wake up so early to walk all the way to the other side of town in a place that he hated.

He didn’t even mind when Momma had beat him, welts forming on his wet skin from the belt she kept exclusively for punishments. The pain was nothing in comparison to when Momma had told him that she had made sure that he had kept his job.

They were going to cut his pay, a little every check, until he paid off the cost of the half cow he had puked all over. But he still had a job, he was still able to help the family out- wasn’t that good? Momma asked him, smiling at him like she hadn’t just beat him tired.

 Momma warned him that he couldn’t mess this up again. That there were no more chances after this- sending him up to his room with no dinner, his stomach already empty and rubbing against itself.

The morning after, when she had woken him up- his body sore from all the walking that he had done and the bruises forming on his back and legs- Momma had twisted open the jar of Vapor-rub for the first time, filling his room with the slightly sweet- minty smell.

She had bought it last night, right before the shop closed- with the bit of lose change she had managed to scrap together. It’s gonna help you from making another mistake she said right before she shoved a finger full of it into his nose. It was thick, and cold, burning the inside of his nose as he moaned in pain, trying to push Momma away before she shoved more into the other nostril. She had smacked his hand away, telling him that this was for his own good. That this was only until he got used to it.

He had moaned as tears began to form, shaking his head- trying to empty his nose, the burning crawling up into his head and making his eyes water painfully. Every inhale he took through his mouth burned its way to his lungs. Momma only slapped him again- telling him that this was his fault. That he had to do this for the family.

“You’re so selfish Thomas!” she shouted at him, holding his jaw and shoving another finger into his empty nostril. “There’s no room for useless boys in this house, do you understand?”

He couldn’t remember anything after that. His memories about that day lost to the pain he had put himself through. He remembers bits and pieces- the hunger. The burning. The anger.

He always seemed to remember the anger. Flashing through him- hot and cold, boiling his blood.

Something outside of his thoughts rattle and he’s once more standing in the bathroom, a man three times the size of the child that he had once been. Beside him, the woman had set the medicine bin on top of the toilet tank and was rummaging through it- the source of the noise that had brought him back.

He’s tense, the muscles in his neck thick and tight. He doesn’t like how he seemed to live more in his memories- constantly remembering all the things that he just wanted to forget. He didn’t want to remember, to be reminded of the pain he carried.

The woman glances at him, holding a small yellow squeeze tube and a roll of self-adhesive medical tape in one hand. Their eyes meet and she smiles at him, even though he can feel the way his face is twisted down into a scowl- his eyebrows heavy over his eyes.

He doesn’t mean to glare at her- to make her smile falter slightly as her eyes widen just a fraction. He could almost see himself in her eyes and he doesn’t like the him that he imagines. Large and imposing- a thing that only knows how to hurt, how to cause fear. He waits for the woman to realize her mistake- to realize that she was trapped in a small room with a monster.

“Give me your arm?” she asks him, holding out her right hand. “Let’s get you all wrapped up, okay?” her smile is still small, and he can see the wariness in her eyes, but when he places his arm in her hand she doesn’t flinch, she doesn’t rush him- wanting to get this over with.

She pulls him towards her instead, slender fingers wrapping around his forearm as much as possible. She tugs, and he moves- lightweight in her hold.

He’s aware of the muscles in his face- of how, even if he’s partially hidden behind his mask, his face sits. He makes himself relax- something that comes easy with the warmth of her hand on his body, easing the tension that he still carried from his memories. Her touch burned into him, filled him until he swore that he could feel her in his blood- pumping through his heart.

Her eyes don’t leave his as she pulls him closer, and motions with her head for him to sit down on the toilet. “It’ll be easier, that way you don’t have to keep your arm in the air.” She explains, shuffling out of the way to make space for him.

Underneath his weight, the toilet squeaks and shifts as he does as told, awkwardly sitting down. She’s taller than him like this, his head at the same level with her chest, making him have to tilt his head back just a bit to meet her eyes.

Her smile had grown in the time he had looked away- and he can’t help the heat that spreads across his face, his ears growing hot. Could she feel it? The warmth that she caused him? The uneasiness thrumming through him that had the tips of his fingers aching to touch her? To hold her like she held him?

“Can you hold this?” she asks, already dropping something into his expecting hand. It had been resting on his lap, calloused covered palm open and waiting- a beggar’s pose. The ointment and tape weren’t what he had been waiting for, but he takes them, closing his thick fingers around them.

What he didn’t expect was for her to lean over him with a mumbled “sorry”, her hand falling onto his shoulder as she reached for something behind him- inside of the medicine bin.

He doesn’t know what to do- his body freezing underneath hers as her neck grazes his mask covered face. It doesn’t last long- maybe a fraction of a second before she’s pulling away and dropping the hand from his shoulder, but it was enough.

Enough for him to inhale the light scent of her- woodsy and sweet and nutty- just the smallest hint of sweat underneath that. It reminded him of the baked goods Momma used to make for him on his birthday when he was small. It was comforting in the same way that it twisted his stomach with the pain of remembering something that used to make him so happy, something that had been taken from him so abruptly once Momma decided that he was too big to celebrate his birthday. Too old to be cared for.

The woman had been so close that he swore that he could almost hear the blood pounding through her veins. He had almost been tempted to turn his head and feel its pulse with his lips. To scratch her skin with his mask- the scent of her tainting it the same way it has already ruined his senses.

He could picture it- his teeth sinking into the warm and thin flesh she had so stupidly given him access to. It was almost scary- the way his mouth began to water at the thought of her blood on his tongue, raw flesh between his teeth. He wanted to fill his belly with it- to make her a part of him in a way that no one could take from him.

Would she taste as sweet as she smelled?

He swallowed down saliva, clearing the bad thoughts from his mind- scared that if he kept focusing on them, he would do something that he didn’t really want to do.  Something that he wouldn’t be able to take back, no matter how hard he begged and prayed and tried to undo.

He didn’t want to hurt her right now. No matter how hard his mind was telling him to do it- replaying all of the times that he could have done so. Showing him all of the ways that he still could.

He feels ashamed of his thoughts, of the temptation that he was barely keeping at bay- and finds himself unable to look at the woman as she rips open a piece of plastic, tossing it in the garbage can between the toilet and the sink. He keeps his eyes on the space between his legs, on her beat-up boots as she stands in front of him- sweet and unaware of what a horrible person he truly was. Of all that he was struggling to not do to her.

“Do you think Luda Mae is getting suspicious?”

The question startles him, reminding him of the world outside of the bathroom, outside of the woman in front of him.

“She’s probably thinking I ran away; don’t you think?” the woman’s laugh is small, feathery light. He doesn’t know how to answer- not knowing how long they had been up here. There was a possibility that Momma had grown suspicious, or maybe she thought that he had snapped and taken care of her in the only way that he knew how.

Vaguely, he shakes his head. Whether it’s to disagree with her or to tell her that he wasn’t sure- he let’s her decide on which one he’s trying to communicate. If Momma had been concerned, she would have come upstairs to check on her already, so he wasn’t too worried. He shrugs, and her laughter fills his ears again.

“Right. If you’re not worried, then I won’t be either. I just don’t want her to think that I’ve been a horrible guest- running off in the middle of helping her with dinner.”

He shakes his head again and this time its to reassure her that Momma wouldn’t think that. At least he hoped that she wouldn’t. The thought of Momma angry at the woman made his chest burn uncomfortably. An ache that slithered in the tight spaces between his ribs- hot and uneasy in its slickness.

“Well, what’s done is done, lets just get your arm bandaged. I might need your help facing her again.” The woman likes to talk with a smile, he’s noticed. It was as if her mouth had no other way to rest- the corners turned up towards the heavens, towards her eyes that liked to seek him out- unafraid of what she saw, of what others liked to look away from.

He wondered if she was joking- if she was just talking in order to fill the silence. He knew people who did that- people like Hoyt and his old boss at the Slaughterhouse, who had to keep their mouths moving or they would stop existing all together. He liked to think that if he had a voice, he would be like that too- not quite as annoying, but loud enough that people were forced to look at him, to listen to what he had to say.

He would tell the woman that he would keep her safe. That he wanted to go down with her and show Momma that she had done nothing wrong. That if anyone was to blame, it was him. It was his fault that she had stayed away for so long. He would hide her away from Momma’s anger- keep her tucked behind him- safe.

If he was being honest, he wasn’t sure that he wanted her to leave just yet. They could stay here a little longer- everything behind that door non-existent. He could make believe that Momma was still at work, busy with too many customers- outsiders who were just passing by, headed for more than the meat hooks in the basement of this house. That for a bit his uncle’s Monty and Hoyt didn’t exist. That the world was just for him and her.

That would be enough for him. He was almost tempted to ask God- to check and see if he was still paying attention to him after all that he had done.

The woman moves from in front of him and takes a seat on the edge of the tub, her knees rubbing against the outside of his thigh as she grabs his arm and places it on her lap. He can feel the buckle of her belt against his knuckles- his arm suddenly a solid weight as he feels the warmth that radiates from the space between her thighs.

 It crawls along his skin- up to his shoulder and through the space in his chest. It reminds him of the times that he’s stayed in one spot for too long, his limbs falling asleep. Though there was no uncomfortable pain this time- Instead it felt like a million little bugs were crawling around inside of him- a buzzing under his skin that he was unused to, but not disgusted by. It was something that maybe he could get used to.

It settles in his belly- thick and heavy and hot, stirring awake thoughts that felt too uncomfortable to focus on. Shamefully, he raises his eyes from the woman’s lap, trying to think of something other than the way her jeans clung to her thighs or how close his fingers were to the space between her legs- somehow hotter than the rest of her, the back of his hand burning pleasantly. He wanted to keep it there- to soak all of himself in her warmth until he knew nothing more.

He pushes the indecent thoughts from his mind, suddenly growing paranoid that the woman would find out what he was thinking about her. He didn’t want her to think that he was disgusting. Rotten just like Uncle Hoyt, who was obsessed with playing with their food.

“Is this uncomfortable for you, Tommy?” maybe it was because the silence had gone on for too long, but the woman whispers her question- her voice only for him, distracting him slightly as she reaches for the things she had given him, plucking them from his hand before he even had a chance to register the movement- her hand too fast that he barely feels the way her fingers skim his palm.

She’s already twisted open the bottle of ointment by the time he shakes his head- the cap balancing on the edge of her knee. With a hum she nods- her eyes focused on her own hands even though he wants her to look at him again. He wanted her to ask him more questions- her voice tender and sweet whenever she spoke to him. He wanted her to distract him for his thoughts that liked to pull him away from her- and right now he wanted to stay right here, to not miss a single moment.

The ointment is cold against his skin- the woman squeezing a light amount right above the wound. He can feel it cleansing away all of his wickedness- her finger swiping at it until it’s in the deepest layer of his flesh, leaving nothing behind but an oily residue that coated her thumb. Without a pause she sticks a piece of gauze on top- taping it up until the gauze is well hidden under flesh colored medical tape.

He had found it in the pocket of one of the first of Uncle Hoyt’s guests- setting it aside for Momma along all of the jewelry he had collected. Maybe it was for a reason that he had second guessed his decision to throw it away. Maybe that had been a sign from above that you were on your way- that God hadn’t abandoned them after all.

The woman is gentle as she pats the covered wound and leans back a bit to meet his expectant eyes. What does she see in them- in him- that makes her look at him so sweetly?

“You’re all set. How’s it feeling? It’s not too tight, is it?”