#shoulda done been in bed by now

[99griffon]

Don't try to come 'round here spreading sentiments of cheer You told your last white lie, everything is not alright You hope, you pray, you love the light of day But there's no one up there listening tonight

So this is that female rage I keep hearing about, huh? Somebody better come get this bitch before she commits a war crime

literally slammed this shit out at midnight for @asleepyy instead of working on commissions

One of my classic "just a doodle" moments... I'm gonna go pass out -- the song is Blood of Angels by Brown Bird

[wall-e-gorl]

AUGH

WENT BACK TO THE ART I STOPPED DOING TO THINK AND SUDDENLY IT WAS AFTER 8

[skylarsblue]

✦I have more C.o.D Quotes✦

Gaz: How’s your head? Y/N: Well, I haven’t had any complaints yet. Gaz: …excuse me? Y/N: Oh uh, I think I’ll live-

-- (Somewhere in Greece with a fuck ton of cats) Ghost, watching Price sneeze every five seconds: What a catastrophe. Gaz: No. Y/N: PFFT- Soap: Stop, no, don’t encourage him. Y/N: Ahem! Right, right. Not funny. Ghost: I am purrfectly capable of being funny. Y/N: *struggling* Gaz: Sometimes I wish you didn’t have a mouth.

-- Just a scene of Y/N taking out a bottle of whiskey, unscrewing they cap, then putting one of those lid caps on. (Like the ones you have on those fancy Gatorades) Taking a huge swig and closing the cap on it as Soap watches in amusement, & Price in fear.

-- Ghost: Quit messing with my hand. Soap: Quit messing with my hair! Y/N: Quit being gay. Gaz: PFFFT Y/N: Both problems solved.

-- Y/N, on the comms: You have thirteen seconds before the building fucking explodes you hot topic wannabe- Ghost: … Y/N: And you green gumball son of a bitch. Gaz: Wha-?! Soap: *WHEEZE* Y/N: You have done nothing but ruin my life; I hope you both die.

-- Soap, Gaz, & Y/N: *cackling* Laswell, losing at poker: I miss my wife, Price. Price: *places down cards* Laswell: I miss my wife.

-- Ghost, overstimulated & a lil drunk: AHHHHHH MY BONES Y/N: *frantically getting headphones* Soap, drunk: *wheeze* Gaz: Ah. I know I should’ve- *dies coughing* Soap: *more wheezing*

-- Graves *kicks in door* WHO POSTED MY NUDES ON TWITTER DOT COM?! Y/N: SUCK IT, BITCH BOY!! Alejandro: *aggressively slapping his leg while silently laughing* Rudy: *pointing and laughing* Valeria, in handcuffs: Ha, dumbass.

-- Graves: Bitch, you are gonna get in this car or I’m popping between ya eyes! Valeria: Hey, I know you. I saw your dick on Twitter! Graves: NOOOOOO Y/N: AHAHA!

-- Graves: C’mon Johnn- Y/N: *chucks a rock at Graves’ head* Graves: OW, WHY?! Y/N: NO JOHNNY FOR YOU! He goes by Soap and we respect that! Graves: Ghost calls him that! Y/N: CAUSE GHOST HAS PERMISSION, you EARN the right to Johnny! And I will be damned if anyone else earns the right before me. I been working my ass off to get the Johnny privilege and you will NOT get it for free! Soap, who’s just been standing there the whole time: *leans to Gaz* Have they actually been taking it that seriously? Gaz: Yeah. They’ve also been working real hard to try and get the right to call Captain “John”. Shoulda seen their face when I said they can call me Kyle. Soap: That’s…really sweet, I’ll give’em permission later. Gaz: Why not now? Soap: I wanna see that bastard get chewed out some more.

-- Y/N, perched on Price’s desk: Captain. Price: *sigh* Y/N: Captain I crave violence.

-- Ghost: Your family line deserves to die with you, only shame it didn’t end before you. Graves: ….I just sat down!

-- Y/N: You’re like…the human incarnation of crumbs in the bed. Graves: Oh c’MON THAT’S REAL MEAN Ghost: It’s true though. Y/N: The kinda crumbs that you keep swiping away but somehow they never leave- Graves: Alright! You know what- Soap: Like getting in bed after going to the beach. Gaz: Sand in the bed, yeah. Feels like that when he talks. Graves: I’M JUST GONNA FUCKIN LEAVE! Y/N: *watches him go* Annnd now the sheets have been changed. Ghost: Clean from filth. Alejandro: You all are so cruel and it’s perhaps the funniest thing I’ve ever seen.

-- Gaz: Things Gucci with you? Y/N: It’s Goodwill at best, my guy. Price: I don’t know what this means but I feel like I should be concerned.

-- (Mild NSFW Jokie Time) Gaz: You alright? You been zoned out. Y/N: Hm? Nah I’m good, just having depraved thoughts. Gaz: Depraved, you say? Soap: Oh do tell. Y/N: You just…you ever see someone and think “they have pretty eyes”. And that’s normal. But then the little devil in the back of ya skull goes “yeah they’d look good rolled back”. Or am I just a whore? Gaz: That is depraved. Soap: Got a good point though.

-- Y/N: Ooo! Look! Old pictures of Captain, this one’s dated. You would’ve been…19 in this one. Lemme s-…… Gaz: Lemme see! ….. Price: What? Y/N: …..you were a whore, weren’t you captain? Gaz: That’s the face of an arrogant bastard who fucks regularly. Price: I…might’ve been a bit of a playboy. Y/N: And I would’ve fallen for it you god damn bastard, no ones fACE SHOULD BE THAT NICE!

-- Valeria, painting her nails: I might kill my ex, not the best idea. His new girlfriend’s next- Alejandro: ….. Rudy: ….should I be worried? Alejandro: Move away quietly and pray.

-- Ghost: For the record this is self destructive. Soap, chugging his 5th energy drink in the past hour: For the record, I’m aware of that.

-- MILF!Y/N: Boys. Bed, now. I wanna talk to your captain. Price: No, boys stay. Please stay- Y/N: Go. Price: Stay. The boys: *concern, panic, perhaps a bit of fear* Y/N: Go! Price: Stay! Y/N: You go! Soap: *speed walking* Price: Soap, stay! Y/N: NOW! Gaz: *slowly backing away* Price: Gaz, don’t move! Y/N: YOU GO! Price: SIMON- Ghost: *leaving*

-- Ghost: What was Plan A? Soap: …don’t fuck up. Ghost: And what was Plan B? Gaz: Don’t fuck up Plan A. Ghost: And what did you do? Y/N: …fucked up plan a- Ghost: YOU FUCKED UP PLAN A-

-- Ghost: What’s rule number one? Soap, with dynamite: Party! Ghost: NO! No, not party! No!

-- Graves: How about after this, we get a drink? Y/N: …I would rather gouge out my eyes and blindly navigate a way to turn them into earrings than ever be anywhere alone with you. Soap, grinning: Ooooo brutal! Ghost: Karma.

-- Ghost: Wait…Johnny’s into me? Like…he LIKES me?? Gaz: Oh Si…you poor, sad, dense mother fucker.

-- Ghost: At least nothing of importance was lost. Laswell: …Graves was kidnapped. Ghost: I know. I said what I said. Y/N: Nothing of value was lost but we did shed off some trash! Ghost: Precisely.

-- Ghost: These lights make me wanna pull my eyes out and eat them. Medic!Y/N: *turns lights off in favor of a lamp* …alright, so you’re autistic, good to know.

-- Ghost: Should I get my reading glasses? Y/N: Oh no no, this isn’t an eye test. It’s a GAY test. Now tell me, *holds up picture of Farah & Graves; Price being 1* Number one, or number two? Ghost: Number one?… Y/N: Interesting. *holds up Farah & Soap, Soap being 2* Okay now number one, or number two? Ghost: *gasp* Y/N: Number two, right? Ghost: Maybe I am gay?

-- Waitress: So, I’ve gotta ask, I’m really curious. 141: ? Waitress: Have any of you ever used like…the military language in bed? Soap: Naaaah. Y/N: No, I don’t- PFFFT, I- *wheeze* I’m sorry I’m imagining it- Gaz: *biting back laughs* Y/N: “You gonna come?” Affirmative. *laughs* Soap: *WHEEZE* Gaz: *cackling* Price: Oh lord- Gaz, snickering: Picking up speed. Y/N: COPY- *Laughter x100* The entire team: *giggling like hyenas* Ghost: Uh, that’s a no. I don’t think we’ve done that.

-- Price: *smiles at Soap & Gaz being stupid* Y/N: I like when you smile. Price: …huh? Y/N: Your smile, I like it. Makes your eyes crinkle up and your beard makes you look like a cuddly bear. You should smile more. Price, internally on the verge of tears: *fond sigh* Get back to drills, soldier. Y/N: Yes sir!

-- Ghost: *minding his fucking business* Y/N: You have pretty eyes. Ghost: *chokes on air* Pardon? Y/N: You have pretty eyes. Ghost: No I-…they’re just brown. Y/N: So? Your eyes don’t have to be blue or green to be pretty. They’re pretty because they’re expressive, and when the sun hits them they look like syrup. I like’em best when we’re all at a bar. They get brighter then. Ghost: Ghost: …stop talking, sergeant. Y/N: Copy that, L.T! <3

-- Gaz: *laughing at something on his phone* Y/N: You have a great laugh. Gaz: Hm? Oh…really? Y/N: Mhm. It’s cute, comes from your chest. I’ve never heard you laugh in anyway that’s not genuine. Really fills the room with joy. Gaz: Dude, you’re gonna make me all soft with words like that. Y/N: All according to plan!

-- Soap: *rambling about something* Y/N: *listening intently* Soap: Then-…ah, I been talkin’ at you this whole time, eh? Should probably quiet down. Y/N: No no, I like your voice! Soap: Eh? Y/N: It’s super energetic and loud, and when you tell a joke or talk about something you love, it’s like you can hear your smile. It’s really fun to listen to. I like when you talk! Soap: *inhale* You’re gonna make me cry- Y/N: I have tissues!

-- König: *fidgeting* Y/N: *takes his hands* You have beautiful hands. König: Wh- Huh?? No they are not. Y/N: They are too! König: Nien, they’re rough and calloused, they break a lot of things… Y/N: They also pet stray cats, make the best coffee on base, and create crotchet works of art. They also mend wounds pretty well. Yeah they fire guns but that doesn’t make them less beautiful. König: *he’s actually crying* …Danke. Y/N: Don’t mention it!

-- Rudy: *rolling his shoulder* Y/N: Anyone ever tell you that you have great shoulders? Rudy: Hm? Oh uh…no, I don’t believe so. Y/N: Well you do! Rudy: Ah, gracias. When I was younger I wanted them to be broader, sometimes now I wish they were more narrow. Can never really be happy with’em, you know? Y/N: Well I think you should be. They’re strong! *gently pats his shoulders* They hold a lot of weight, metaphorically and physically. And even when they’re weighed down, you shoulder it and keep moving. You’re real good at that! I like your shoulders. Rudy, prepared to die for them: …gracias. Y/N: No problem! Now c’mon, the guys are waitin’ for us!

-- Y/N: You have good collarbones. Alejandro: What was that? Y/N: Sorry, I know that’s real specific, but I think your collarbones are pretty. It’s like…the rest of you is bulky and strong, rugged. Then you have these delicate bones. I’m probably being too poetic but it’s like a subtle nod to your gentler side, just, built into your body. Alejandro: …you have a lovely way with words, camarada. Y/N: Thank you! I appreciate that!!

[erwinsvow]

𝐫𝐜 - 𝟏:𝟒𝟓𝐩𝐦

“i told ya to stay at home,” rafe says, fingers gripping the steering wheel of his truck tightly, knuckles turning white before your eyes. you don’t look up at him—your moody gaze focusing out of the window instead, staring at the trees and the pavement instead of your boyfriend.

maybe you shouldn’t have complained so much. you know he’s right, because after all, you had begged to tag along with him for the day. normally rafe can hold his own—can refuse and let you down easy with a promise to come back later and spend the rest of the day doing whatever you want, which is more often than not just crashing at tannyhill and watching a movie. you inevitably fall asleep and stay the night, just like what had happened last night. 

and then this morning, clad just in rafe’s button-up and some socks, you pad up to him and look at him sweetly.

“no, no, you’re jus’ gonna start complainin’ the second you get bored-” 

“i won’t! no complaints here, none,” you had insisted, giving him your best pout and puppy eyes. 

“i have real shit to get done today, kid, important business-”

“i won’t say anything! you won’t even know i’m there, rafe-”

rafe had given in eventually—squeezing your cheeks together with his hand before you got in the passenger seat of his car, after opening the door for you.

“when you start complainin’, i’m gonna make you regret it. hm?” you had squeaked out an agreeing noise, quickly following up with a promise to stay quiet before climbing into your seat.

that had been hours ago. in that time, rafe had stopped at several houses, gone inside and spent time talking to other people—some you recognized, others not so much—and ended up here, with you waiting, your feet on his dash while he was inside with barry. the minutes were dragging into hours at this point, your entire body feeling tired and achy from the position. the air in the car felt a little suffocating and paired with the heat of the sun pouring through the windows, nothing you could do would make you feel comfortable.

rafe’s one rule had been not to get out of the car while he was inside. in your attempt to follow his instructions, you felt yourself getting more and more frustrated, a certain crankiness bubbling up inside you, making one of its rare appearances. 

you tried to scroll through your phone and play music—which failed immediately since there was no service out here. you tried to eat the candy you kept in his glovebox, but it was melted beyond the point of remaining edible. you tried, you really did, but just like rafe had predicted, you started complaining the second he got back in the truck.

“you think, what? that i say that shit for me? no, kid, i’m saying it for you, ‘cause i know you get fed up in the car when i’m fuckin’ busy tryna make some money, being fuckin’ proactive for us-”

“but i-”

“no excuses. i told you to stay home. you gonna get an attitude with me? huh?” 

“you’re not even-”

“shoulda tied your ass to the bed. that’s what i’ll do next time.”

it doesn’t take much longer for the tears to come to the surface, your face falling into that sad look that makes him mad at himself for even ever yelling at you. you cry silently like that until he parks at tannyhill, and when he looks at you, regret washes over him. your pretty makeup all messed up, body heaving with sobs, staring down at your feet because you felt too ashamed to look him in the eyes.

“hey, hey,” he starts, a hand resting on your shoulder to get your attention. it moves deftly to your chin, titling your pretty, teary face up at him. “c’mon, don’t cry. it’s nothin’.” 

“you got mad,” you say, voice broken up with a sob, blubbering on. “i’m sorry, i am. i just hate being all alone here without you, it’s the worst-” 

“come on, kid.”

“jus’ wanted to hang out with you,” you sniffle. he runs a hand through his hair. he needs to get better at not getting frustrated with you just because he’s not used to your affection.

“i know, baby. we’re home now so get inside, hm?” you comply with his instructions, walking into tannyhill and heading towards the couch in the living room, like you always do when the two of you curl up to watch a movie.

“where you goin'?” he calls after you. you stop in your track, turning around to face rafe.

“i thought we’re hanging out? the living room?”

“and i said this morning that i would make you regret complainin’. so get your ass upstairs first, now.”

[obsessive-valentine]

Dark-Yandere!Farmer x GN!Reader

Wishing it was summer so bad so have this.

Being used to your captor being crude and rough towards you to keep you in line and obedient, today came as a shock when he seems to be empathetic and soften for you when you get sick during a heatwave. TW- kidnapped reader, non-con touching and hint of farmers past anger issues traumatising reader making them paranoid.

Its stifling hot, all the windows and doors are open for circulation and lace curtains drawn to try keep the house cool, but it does little. He had left the house earlier than usual to start his morning chores before the heat got unbearable, he had kissed your head and left hours before sunrise. You hadn’t seen him since. You probably could walk a few steps outside and see him in the distance somewhere but you barely had the energy to drag yourself from the bed to the sofa- infront of the fan.

You wished you hadn’t wasted energy on finding a cooler spot because the fan was only pushing around the hot air. With a exasperated sight you excepted your fate, waiting to succumb to heat stroke and begin vomiting. Laying flat on your stomach with only a vest top and underwear on, thinking about how good a glass of water would be right about now.

Until the dreaded sound of heavy boots stomp onto the deck, and into the house. “Fuckin’ hell” he huffed wiping sweat from his face with the shirt he instead slung over his shoulder when the sun had risen. You almost jumped a mile when the next time you opened your eyes from a slow blink he was standing right infront of you.

You braced yourself for whatever might come, used to being exposed to emotional whiplash. You could never read his face until it was to late, you tried to calm yourself from overacting by reasoning that you haven’t done anything wrong recently.

He leaned down without a word, the back of his dirty calloused hand pressed against your cheek and then the other one “you’ve been drinking water?” He questions suspiciously straightening up and towering over your form. You stayed laying down wishing to sink into the sofa, how do you tell him you couldn’t be bothered? You mumble a pathetic ‘no’ staring lifelessly at his dusty beaten up boots.

Expecting a scolding or to be told to ‘toughen up’, you flinched when instead you were met with his rough hand rubbing your back out of pity “hang tight for a moment”. It could have been just a minute or hour from when he left the room and returned with a glass of ice and water, you were to disorientated to get a grasp of the time or if you’d blinked or napped.

Slowly he pulled you up into a sitting position by your wrist, you groaned as a pulsating ache in your skull began “I know, hurts hu?” He steadies you with a firm hand in your shoulder before giving you the glass of water and made sure you drink it all. You feel the cold salvation trickle down your throat leaving your mouth cold for a moment, savouring the way the ice kissed your lips.

“Stupid of me, shoulda checked up on you. Think it’s heatstroke” he takes the cup off you once it’s all gone and places it on the table before bending down to pick you up “Can’t I trust you to look after yourself for just a few hours? This is why you need me sweetheart” he rather softly lectures you as he carries you down the hall, to the bathroom, turning on the cold tap to the bath.

He helped you out of what’s left of your clothes and steadied you as you stepped into the slow rising water. You felt to nauseous and uncomfortable to mind being naked or the fact he was also stripping down and slipping in the small bath behind you.

To tired to fight when he pulled you to rest your head back onto his shoulder or when his hands wandered when washing you with a cold cloth. You just closed your eyes and welcomed the cold goosebumps that spread up your legs and arms. You both stayed there for maybe half an hour, laying back in the cold with his hands mindlessly gliding up and down your body.

...

“Come on, I got work to finish” he huffed out pulling away his hands, watching you stir awake from you half conscious sate before getting out and wrapping a towel around himself. You grabbed ahold of his hands as he helped you out and handed you a towel. He wordlessly left but returned with one of his shirts walking past you to wet it under the cold tap “put this on, it will keep away heat rash and cool you down” his eyes wandered as you pulled it over yourself but you were none the wiser, struggling to pull the wet shirt over you as it clung to your skin.

Pulling on his clothes and boots he then lead you outside onto the shady front porch, sitting you on the old rocking chair with a book and glass of water. “Holler if you need anything, sweetheart” you felt a lot better but still exhausted, and for a moment relaxed and unafraid of the unusually caring man. That is until he turned around for a breif moment as he walked away “don’t you go wandering”

He was half smiling and it sounded light hearted but you knew it was anything but. It was a clear threat. A wave of sickness reintroduced it’s self, but now for a different reason.

You didn’t read the book but rather watch him work in a nearby field with sleepy eyes. How he would lovingly interact with the animals, how scarily strong he was lifting and dragging feed and muck around, how he’d carefully and proudly inspect his vegetables when watering them.

One of the livestock-guard-dogs came up onto the deck to keep you company, laying at your feet, and the cool breeze against the wet shirt sent waves of relief over you body.

...

At some point you had fallen asleep and when you woke up it was late afternoon and your shirt was dry, the chair rocked forward a bit then arms snaked around your waist and under you butt. You almost flew into fight or flight mode until you remembered where you are and who with, even though yet another headache you knew it was useless.

To your surprise he scooped you up and sat back down In the chair with you in his lap “welcome back to the land of the living” he joked, he didn’t even have to look at you to know he’d woken you up, to busy digging around in his pocket for a cigarette. You didn’t answer still getting to grips of what time it is after being rudely pulled from a heat coma.

“How you feeling? Want me to wet the shirt again?” He lit the cigarette before pressing the back of his hand to your cheek seemingly satisfied with how much your temperature has come down “no thank you” you glanced at him but adverting you eyes quickly remembering how unusually soft he treated you this morning when you were dazed and confused. Wondering when he’d become crude and rough again.

He hummed in a response resting against the back of the chair dragging you down with him, he takes a long drag of the cigarette “How about we watch a movie tonight? Got some old DVDs in the attic” he offers looking out contently at his farm and his free hand runs through your hair. “I’d like that” you said sounding more like a question, unsure if there was a catch but there was nothing.

Just a short nod and some peaceful quiet with the chirps of birds and one of the horses whinny’ing in the nearby field. There was no lingering dread or fear, just peace. And maybe if you closed your eyes and imagined hard enough you could trick yourself into thinking you are on a summer country vacation with the man you dreamed of as a teenager.

For the first time since you got kidnapped, you aren’t plotting an escape, trying to stay quiet and unseen, or fearful of facing the mans wrath or worried about spending the night in the shed. Your heads empty and feel rested.

...

Tomorrow you’d lash out again, remembering today and how you seem to be slowly accepting your situation -accepting your kidnapper. With a clear-head in the morning you will grow afraid of the reality that your stuck here for life. But as for today, you have a moment of peace - free from worry and perhaps a bit of contentment even if just for the night. As he finally has the chance to lovingly hold you close -watching the movie he let you pick.

[queen-of-reptiles]

𝚂𝙴𝙲𝚁𝙴𝚃𝚂

description: in which lucy bronze and the england captain feel like four years is long enough to hide a relationship especially since they have just won the euros

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Lucy Bronze x female reader

this is all fiction!

warnings: fluff, a 4 year age gap and sarcastic lucy and reader

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y/n just posted

liked by, leahwilliamsonn, mbrighty04, and 439, 222 others

tagged lionesses, lucybronze, leahwilliamsonn, Lj10, mbrighty04, bethmead_ and 18 others

y/n It's set in now. Five days later, and it has set in.

This team, these girls, this journey has been nothing short of amazing, determined and fantastic, I have been so incredibly lucky to be able to be a part of it.

Thank you England,

Thank you football,

Thank you Lionesses.

And I'll tell you what?

The kids are alright x

view 5098 comments

username1: SO EXCITED TO HAVE YOU BACK IN BARCA!!!❤️💙❤️💙❤️💙

username2: I'm crying omg 😭😭😭❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

username3: best england captain EVER ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

leahwilliamsonn: Such a sap, but the best captain we could have asked for ! ❤️

^

y/n: Couldn't have done it without my best friend/vice captain holding me up! ❤️

lucybronze: <3

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y/n: <3

keirawalsh: I will never get over you and Sarina cutting your wedding cake ... 😭🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿

^

y/n: shoulda seen the proposal ;) 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿

stanwaygeorgia: I'm still crying at your dance moves in the locker room 😂😭

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mbrighty04: fucking decked herself 😂😂😂

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racheldaly3: just laid there for a sec too. 😂😂😂

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1maryearps: "I'm okay, just tired of how life hates me" - y/n after just winning the euros 2022 and decking herself in the locker room. 😂

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username4: HAHAHAHAAHAHAHAH

jillscottjs8: Still crying even now !

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y/n: the look on your face was worth any pain we went through! xx

alessiarusso99: Just Buzzin' ❤️

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y/n: Buzzin man

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ellatoone: just buzzin dude

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alessiarusso99: hate you both sm smh! 🙄

see more comments...

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lucybronze just posted

liked by, keirawalsh, marialeonn16, and 209, 218 others

lucybronze back to Barca!

view all 2098 comments

username1: ayyyyyyyy!!! VAMOS BARCA!!! ❤️💙❤️💙

username2: SO EXCITED TO SEE YOU BACK IN BLUE AND RED 💙❤️💙❤️

username3: ArE YOU DATING Y/N!!

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username4: I think they're just friends! 🤷‍♀️

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username5: NA they are dating! They live together!

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username6: AND? people can live together without dating

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username7: EYES DON'T LIE 😩

keirawalsh: lovely picture of me there, thanks!

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lucybronze: welcome mate! 😁

y/n: that photo of me, really?

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lucybronze: had to give the fans something to thirst over 👍

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y/n: i hate you sm 🙄

marialeonn16: happy to have you back! ❤️💙

see more comments…

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y/n just posted on her story

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lucybronze just posted on her story

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twitter/X

y/n.bronze: Here is a thread of instances which confirm that Lucy and y/n are together in my mind - the bottom of the thread is where it gets good!

How Lucy looked at her during the post match interview after beating Spain??? Like, her eyes were literally heart shaped??? I want that!

When y/n was knocked over during the Sweden game and Lucy didn't even hesitate to square up, her face was so worried, and she only stopped when y/n GRABBED HER HAND?!

Ellie, in a livestream for City YESTERDAY saying that she would stay with Lucy and y/n, confirming they live together - which we already thought!

Then going on to say they have a spare room - even though Lucy has said multiple times she lives in a two bed apartment and y/n has never said anything about her 'place'!

The fact when y/n scored in the Sweden game she ran at Lucy first??? AND JUMPED ON HER

The fact y/n left ARSENAL - her childhood team - to go play for Barca only months after Lucy had and she even admitted in an interview LUCY WAS A BIG PART OF THAT DECISION

when Lucy called y/n in an interview the other day and she answered with 'hi my love???' LIKE????

THE FACT THAT THE MOST RECENT BARCA TRAINING PHOTO Y/N HAS LUCY'S TRAINING TOP ON - AND WHEN KEIRA NOTICED SHE MOVED SLIGHTLY TO PLACE HERSELF IN FRONT OF THE NUMBER SO THE CAMERA COULDN'T SEEE

^

fr I need friends that dedicated to hiding my relationship

LASTLY - the fact they went on holiday together after the euros after Ibiza, and the photos ... the PHOTOS

okay, I'm done, they're soooo dating, thank you.

^

username1: omg this is so good!

username2: ELLIE SAID WHAT?

username3: omg this is Sherlock level of deduction ability

username4: THE PHOTOS???????? IS THAT THEM

^

y/n.bronze: 'rumoured' to be - but look at the hair! It is SOOOOO y/n!

username5: nahhh Wonze for life!

^

username6: how can you read all of that and still pick the wrong answer?!

see more comments...

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y/n just posted on her story

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lucybronze just posted

liked by, keirawalsh, leahwilliamsonn and 321, 111 others

lucybronze sunshine in my life, even when the sky is dark...

comments limited

alessiarusso99: her body looks so good here omg 😭😭

ellatoone: 😏😏

mbrighty04: this feels illegal omg 😳

^

racheldaly3: TELL ME ABOUT IT

y/n: 😶

leahwilliamsonn: heheh 🙂

Lj10: this is sweet :)

keirawalsh: sunshine and hair goals apparently 😚

stanwaygeorgia: hmmmm 😌

see more comments...

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twitter/X

y/n.bronze: OMG LUCY'S NEW POST - IS THIS CONFIRMATION???

^

username1: AND ALL THE TEAMS COMMENTS???

^

username2: the caption? the photo? the comments? the lack of tag?

^

username3: they have to be together?

^

username4: SOFT LAUNCH SOFT LAUNCH SOFT LAUNCH

y/n.bronze: THE NEW TATTOO! IT IS A STRAWBERRY ON HER SHOULDER - lucy uses the strawberry emoji allllll the time!

^

username5: it has to mean something!

see more comments...

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y/n just posted

liked by, lionesses, leahwilliamsonn, and 498, 399 others

tagged lucybronze

y/n idk what you guys are on about - we're just friends ??

view all 5183 comments

lucybronze: I know right?

username1: UMMMM? 🧐🧐🧐🧐

username2: went from soft launch to MAYBE HARD LAUNCH realll quick?

username3: but like this makes me feel as if they aren't dating?! And that this is just a joke !

^

username4: yeah this feels like they are laughing at the rumours

keirawalsh: two besties, that's all I see

^

y/n: I know, how odd ! 😁

alessiarusso99: it is weird!

^

marialeonn16: I agree! So obvious!

^

ellatoone: SAME!

leahwilliamsonn: I thought it was so obvious as well.

^

lucybronze: People loveeeee to talk ig 🤷‍♀️

username5: I DON'T KNOW ANYMORE 🥲

y/n.bronze: okay, this has thrown even me off I won't lie!

^

username5: maybe we were wrong?

^

y/n.bronze: I really didn't think so tho ...

alexiaputellas: clearly just amigas 🤷‍♀️

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lucybronze just posted

liked by alexiaputellas, mbrighty04, and 207, 388 others

tagged y/n

lucy.bronze Happy four years 'best friend' ;) xx

comments disabled

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y/n just posted

liked by, keirawalsh, leahwilliamsonn and 409, 281 others

tagged lucybronze

y/n Four years of the best 'friendship' I could have asked for xox

comments disabled

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twitter/X

y/n.bronze: FUCK ALL OF YOU - I WAS RIGHT

^

username1: 4 years ... 4 goddamn years

^

y/n.bronze: I KNEW IT - I FUCKING KNEW IT !

^

y/n: that you did :)

^

y/n.bronze: omg

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END

okay really did enjoy this one - (hope this is what the anon wanted) the amount of Lucy Bronze content and fics I have queued is kinda worrying but I have been a fan of Lucy since she played for SUNDERLAND

which is insane that's a bit too long really

my gay ass

but I am a die hard West Ham Fan and a Sunderland fan (due to my best friend WEST HAM TIL I DIE FORST AND FUCKING FOREMOST) - I know, it is hard - so it is insane how long I have been a fan of her but I reallyyyyy enjoyed writing this and I enjoy writing these actually.

When I originally started drafting these they were just for myself and when I posted LJ's I thought no one would really see it - so to have people be so kind and so happy to request has really made my smile!

So thank you for your support! And more incoming!

Love

Queenie xo

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[redstarwriting]

the clash | ix. last caress

hobie brown x goth!reader

word count: 2.4k

genre: enemies to lovers

warnings: language, insults, cavity-inducing fluff, crying hobie, mentions of giving blood, mentions of procedures, needy cat, mention of weed, allusions(ish) to s*icide

a/n: omg writing fluff takes me so much longer than anything else cause i’m squirmin around and squealin BUT here it is! second to last chapter! (also, i’m not black so i hope i touched on the haircare for black hairstyles right! if i missed the mark please let me know and i will re-educate myself!) what a wild ride, i’ll get the last chapter either up late tonight, or tomorrow! thank you for reading and i hope you enjoy! 

previous chapter: viii. love you to death

now reading: ix. last caress

next chapter: x. brand new

───────────────────────────────────

When you wake up, the first thing you notice is the smell. Weed and incense. You groggily open your eyes, realizing you’re clutching a bat plushie. You grin. It’s cute, especially since it belonged to Hobie’s world, and you didn’t own a bat plushie. You sink further into the satin pillow, shocked at how comfortable you are in his bed. You hear the soft sound of a guitar playing, and you reluctantly and slowly sit up. Your intention is to go harass Hobie, but damn. Venom must have done a number on you. You’re sore as hell, and your energy is still almost completely gone. You successfully sit, but you’re immediately leaning against the wall as you do. The guitar playing stops, and you hear Hobie’s thick accent from the next room over. “You awake in there, love?”

“Yes,” you say, your voice is scratchy. How long have you been asleep? He walks into his room and leans against his door frame. He’s wearing casual clothes, his suit nowhere to be found, and yet somehow, he still looks cooler and more attractive than anyone you’ve ever met. “You know, you really should be layin’ down,” he says, and you shrug. He walks over to you and sits on the bed, next to your legs. You notice he has dark circles under his eyes, and he looks exhausted. “How are you feelin’?” he asks, placing his hand on yours. You shrug. “Honestly, been better.” He nods and looks down. You frown. “What’s on your mind there, Hobie?” He plays with your fingers, and you turn your hand over, grasping his. He visibly relaxes a bit. You softly squeeze his hand, and he squeezes back. “I… need to tell you somethin’,” he starts, “Somethin’… bad.”

“What…?” you look nervous. He looks at you and frowns. “What’s the last thing you remember?”

“Seeing the fireworks with you,” you respond, and he nods. “Good,” he mumbles, “I guess I should start with tellin’ you you been sleepin’ for three days now.”

“Three days?” you ask, surprised. He nods, “Yeah.”

“Have I been here the whole time?”

“Mhm,” he says, dreading the next thing he’s about to tell you. “I appreciate it, Hobie, but why not just take me home? Do I look like I need a caretaker?” you joke, and he smiles a bit. “Yeah, actually, you do,” he responds and you grin. “But uh… you are home now…” he says, and you look at him confused.

 “What?” He sighs, scooting further onto his bed and turning to face you with his whole body. His other hand reaches out, and he cradles the hand he’s holding with both of his hands. “Right, lemme just… start from the beginnin’, then. Venom takin’ control of you… that wasn’t meant to happen,” he says, staring at your joined hands. “What shoulda happened was Venom was supposed to take over m–… the Prowler. And then, uh… then he woulda become the spider of your world after Venom bondin’ with you for a short while and gainin’ your spider abilities before returnin’ to the Prowler…”

“So, there would have been two of us? One good and one bad?” you ask, and Hobie looks up at you with a sad expression. “…No. No, there woulda been one bad cause… well…”

“I was supposed to die…?” you whisper, and he nods, his grip on your hand tightening. “I woulda saved you either way, but… I accidentally-on-purpose interfered and–”

“You killed the Prowler,” you finish his sentence, and he looks at you surprised. “Venom mentioned something about you killing someone, so…” you mumble, and he nods. “Yeah… yeah, I kinda lost my cool for a bit after seein’ what he did to you and uh… took matters into my own hands,” he says, and you nod slowly. “What did Venom mean by you killed yourself?” Hobie freezes and looks down again. How the hell is he supposed to explain this one? Guess he’ll just say it and accept whatever reaction you have. “The Prowler on your world… was me,” he whispers the last part, feeling himself tear up. He prepares himself for you to pull your hand away and use what little energy you had to travel to Gwen’s world and never talk to him again. He would completely understand, learning that someone identical to him ruined your life in so many ways must be jarring.

So, he prepares for the worst.

What he doesn’t prepare for is to feel your hand on his cheek, gently wiping away a single tear that escaped down his cheek with your thumb. “That wasn’t you, Hobie. He may have had your face and your name, but… he wasn’t you,” you assure, and he swallows the lump in his throat. The anxiety wracking his body eases slightly, and he lets out a shaky breath. One of his hands comes up to grasp yours on his cheek, holding it there as he leans his face into it, closing his eyes. He feels another tear fall, but he doesn’t care. He doesn’t agree with society’s take on masculinity. He opens his eyes again, looking at your face. “Don’t cry, love,” he hears you say, and he gives you a small smile. “Nah, that’s my nickname for you.”

“And?” you say, grinning at him softly, “I’m not one to necessarily give a fuck what you say.”

“Cheeky. You’re lucky I loved it,” he says, and you softly laugh. “But uh… right, so I killed myself, sorta.”

“In a way.”

“A different me. Did you know he worked with the cops?”

“Oh yeah. They hate me. Another clear indication that he is not you in any way except physical,” you say, and he grins. “Well, in the fight we had–”

“Did he hurt you?” you ask, and he shrugs. “He tried. I won, though. Obviously. But the fight was in Oscorp Labs, and durin’ it… I broke some glass, releasin’ Venom to the outside world like the bloody dickhead I am,” he explains, and you nod, but give him a look. “You’re not a dickhead, Hobie. If you weren’t there, evil you would have bonded with it because he wouldn’t have died, so… maybe it was a good thing?” you suggest, trying to lighten Hobie’s dark mood. “Maybe. But then Venom followed me back to your flat after I killed who it was originally supposed to bond with,” he says, and you frown. “It probably wanted to bond with you,” you say, and he raises an eyebrow. “It told me it feeds off of the life force of humans, and the easiest way to make it more powerful is for the host to have strong negative emotions. That’s why it taunts and belittles whoever it has control of. To piss them off. It probably saw the anger that drove you to kill and figured you’d be the best host.”

“But then I went home before it could attach itself to me, so it attached to you instead,” he mumbles, and you nod. He sighs. This really was all his fault. “Well… yeah so it attached to you, and then you remember what happened next.”

“Yeah,” you nod, and he rubs the back of your hand against his cheek with his thumb. “So, we did end up successfully killin’ the wanker,” he says, and you nod, “but in doin’ ‘at… we killed your world with Venom.” You freeze. “W-What?” You draw your hand away from his face due to the shock of the statement. He subconsciously grips your other hand tighter. “Venom was supposed to be the spider-person of your world… there were too many canon changes,” Hobie explains, and you feel your chest tighten. Now you’re the one crying. But seeing you cry and look so defeated makes him cry more. “I’m sorry, love. I’m so sorry,” he chokes out. He loosens his grip on your hand, fully expecting you to pull away, but you don’t.

“Everything… everything’s gone?” your voice is weak, and he opens his mouth to say something, but before he can, he’s interrupted by a meow. You turn your head, and see a black cat, looking up at you before hopping onto the bed and nuzzling against your side in an effort to cheer you up. “Shadow…?” you mumble, and he meows. But he doesn’t look like the Shadow you’re used to seeing. He looks more like a cat from Hobie’s world. “We saved what we could,” he whispers, and you look at him again. He smiles sadly at you. “I told Gwen, Miles, and Pav to grab everythin’ they could… they got everythin’ but the furniture, it’s all out in the sittin’ room… figured you probably wouldn’t want to move in with me after hearin’ bout what I did, so… we could move you to one of the other flats in the buildin’.  Y’know it’s an abandoned buildin’, so there’s loads of rooms, and you wouldn’t have to worry ‘bout payin’, and–”

“You made sure my things were safe…?” you cut him off, and he looks at you. His focus was drawn away from you during his rambling, so he didn’t notice the realization of just how much he cared about you spread across your face. “Of course… it was the least I could do,” he answers, “I also asked a friend for that lil bat for you to have while goin’ through the genetic procedure. it was all my fault this happened, so helpin’ you adjust–” 

“Adjust to what…?”

He takes a deep breath. “Miguel has a way to alter the genetic code of someone to have ‘em switch worlds… when we found out your world was gonna… disappear, we prepared. After the fight, I took you to Miguel and we successfully changed your genetic code. We did the same for Shadow, and all your things,” he explains, and you look at your hand. Sure enough, you look like you belong in Hobie’s world now. You didn’t notice the change before. Not until this very moment. “I had to give a lot of blood to continue to stabilize your genetic code changin’, so if I look like shit, that’s why” he admits to you, “But I would do it all over again without a second thought.”

“You don’t look like shit. That’s virtually impossible,” you mumble, and he smiles softly. You look down at Shadow, scratching between his ears with your free hand. Hobiie looks down, feeling another wave of emotion crash over him. He takes a shaky breath. “I’m so sorry, (Y/n). This all happened because of me… it’s my fault,” he whispers, and you gently put your hand under his chin, lifting his head to look into your eyes. “Stop doing that.”

“Doin’ what?”

“Blaming yourself,” you say, wiping away some of his tears. “Can’t help it,” he mumbles, his voice shaking. “You can. Just takes time,” you respond, smiling softly at him through your own tears. He wipes away some of yours in return as the two of you stare at each other, no words being spoken. His eyes flick down to your lips before returning to your gaze, nonverbally asking you for permission. You nod slightly, and the two of you slowly lean toward each other. When your lips meet, the both of you immediately relax into each other. The two of you stop holding the other’s hand, but you quickly wrap your arms around his neck as he wraps his around your waist, pulling you closer. You two only break apart from each other to take a breath, but you keep your foreheads together as the two of you stare into each other’s eyes.

“What makes you think I wouldn’t want to move in with you?” you whisper, and he grins. He gently rubs up and down your sides, humming in response. “Cause I’m an absolute turnip,” he mumbles, and you giggle. “Nah. You’re more like my hero,” you say, and he chuckles. “Always, my love. Always,” he whispers, kissing you again. You smile into the kiss, causing him to do the same. Shadow’s annoyed meow makes the two of you look down at him, and Hobie laughs. “Little mate can’t stand that he’s not gettin’ all the attention,” he says, taking one of his hands away from you to pet him. You yawn, and Hobie looks at you. “I think it’s time for you to get some more rest, my love. Your body’s goin’ through a lot right now,” he says, and you nod.

He moves to get up, but you tug on his arm. “You need rest, too, Hobart,” you say, and he grins. “Are you sayin’ you want me to stay?” he teases, and you roll your eyes. “On second thought…” you start and his smile falters. “No, wait,” he says a bit too quickly, causing you to laugh. “Get your ass in here before I change my mind,” you say, and he slips underneath the covers. He maneuvers you so that he’s underneath your body, and he holds you tightly to his chest. You bury your face in his neck, and he smiles. “You’re lucky I got my durag on,” he mumbles, and you hum in response, already starting to feel the effects of sleep overtake you. “Y’know, I thought you’d be a little more upset with me,” he admits, and you sleepily shake your head. “Death is inevitable, Hobie. Instead of giving into the inevitability of the end, I like to see the beauty in it. Although my life as I knew it has died, a new life is beginning, and I think that’s beautiful,” you mutter. He grins. “You are such a fuckin’ goth,” he mumbles, and you playfully smack his chest. “Maybe I was wrong before...”

“What’s that?”

“Maybe not all people are selfish assholes. I know one who isn’t,” you trail off, falling asleep. He softly kisses the top of your head, “Maybe I was wrong about some shit, too, my love.”

Shadow curls up beside Hobie, and he places one hand on the cat while the other keeps you pressed against him. He’s so tired, that he doesn’t move at all during the sleep that he gets, which is unusual for him. But at this moment, he’s never felt more content. Just him, you, and Shadow in yours and his home.

He could get used to this.

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『 tag list 』

@1eonk @444neapolitain​ @a-bit-late​ @afraidofshrimp​ @arianalovescatss* @aroaceg​ @arunabrak* @astrok1dz​ @baefy3764​ @casmosmoon* @ch6ntt @chill-guy-but-cooler​ @cl0udyw4ter​ @cursedbitchboy​ @d1nne​ @death-and-rebirth-again​ @dotheyevenknowmars​ @elloelloello293874* @epicy0n​ @f1shb0nez​ @faerieluuv​ @fandom-freak-123​ @fisshil​ @foundthethief​ @fukingsad​ @fushiguropleasesteponme* @frankintheoceann​ @friendly-reject​ @freeingrebels​ @g4bb1​ @hearts4hobie​ @hisdarlingabsurdity​ @hobies-world* @hobiesrockstargf​ @honeydewpie​ @idk-i-draw​ @imarealfungi​ @imobsessedreader* @ineedsomeconfidence​ @inkthgoat​ @iwillrisefromthefire​ @j3st3r-13​ @jadeissues​ @jayelyyynnn* @jingliuu​ @jinxedleo​ @jjkclub​ @katiebug0603​ @keikhuaa* @kenqki​ @ken-zah​ @khaleesihavilliard​ @kittekat420​ @kitty-kei​ @krispybearbouquet​ @kyirakyl3* @lacunaanonymoused​ @lightning-wolffe* @lilylamps​ @little-bunnybabe​ @localbeidousimp​ @luxlibsonwannabe​ @madusas-girlfriend​ @marshallowy​ @marsyay78​ @messylxve​ @minimari415​ @miracleboylene​ @miss-puregotti​ @mistpx* @miwagila​ @mm-0912​ @monsterroonio​ @moon-shampoo* @mrslandryy​ @naarra* @neenieweenie​ @nikabearr​ @certified-dilf-lover​ @noctysite​ @notplutos* @oh-kurva​ @p1nkliquor​ @pookiesnatcher​ @queen-of-the-bored​ @queen-of-the-grapefruits​ @romeomahbromeo​ @sadbitchhours400* @sammywammy1​ @scoliobean​ @shittingonyourgrave* @sillylittleguyinc​ @simplefools* @sin-sensual* @siriusly1​ @sparklyphantom​ @srystix​ @stars4salem* @starshine145* @stevenknightmarc​ @sxftiebee​ @tacogirl96​ @tengen-fourth-wife​ @tes-conscience* @thatweirdgirlsposts​ @the-ikran-man​ @tobanditto​ @tvije​ @umiexe​ @user2772636​ @valee1xoxo* @wannabe-fic-reader​ @weyrrii* @wheeeelys​ @woahrin* @xoxobabe* @zero-boxes​ @zozgurer​​

*if you are italicized - i am unable to tag you for whatever reason, feel free to reach out and see if we can fix the issue

if you asked to be on the taglist and i forgot, i’m sorry :( in the least conceited way, a lot of people have been asking and some of the requests get lost because my brain short circuits when i see how many people are following along. feel free to leave a comment on this or message me separately and i’ll get you right onto it!

[bambi-slxt]

Could you write something with Matt or Chris (or both!) and a chubby/not petite reader? I don't see a lot of those and would really appreciate it!

Doesn't have to be smut, it can be more in the style of your non-binary post or love languages. Thank you!

oh honey. of course i can.

chubby!reader:

✨a concept✨

a/n: i'm not petite and i never have been. this post is not intended to cause body dysmorphia to those who are, but rather promote and uplift those who have more fat on them than what's normally represented in the fanfiction space. i hope you enjoy this one anon!

doing their makeup at a sleep over -

chris: "yeah, come on, sit on my lap. no, seriously. i don't mind. come here, mamas." *kisses* "there we go. now put this shit on my face before i change my mind."

matt: "you were saying something about hooded lids? yeah, i don't think i have those. what do you mean people have different eyelid shapes. what the fuck. you have to look up different- jesus christ i'm glad i don't fuck with this stuff."

watching a scary movie -

chris: "i never shoulda' agreed to this. what spell do you have me under? i hate you. no like actually." *holding your hand for dear life and also shaking like a chihuahua*

matt: "-genuinely fucking terrifying. what? why do I have to be the one who tells you when it's over? i don't wanna look either!" *long-suffering sigh*

swimming -

chris: "i don't want you to look like a model, i want you to look like you. you look real, and you feel real...when i look at my girl all i see is how beautiful you are. no, i'm being serious. especially wearin' the stuff i bought you."

matt: "it's just us, darlin'. i've seen all of you before. i know what you look like, and i love you because of it. get in the water so we can play mermaids."

clothes shopping -

chris: "what the Actual Fuck are these designs. this is the plus size section? what a waste of space? i'll make you better clothes. yeah, i'm serious. you like my brand better anyway. jesus christ, i'm sorry."

matt: "...is this really what you want to wear? no? okay so let's leave. yeah, this isn't your style at all. i don't care, i'll shop with you all fucking week if that's what it takes. you're not gonna settle on this shit if it's not what you want."

going to the gym -

chris: "come on, you got it. i know it hurts but you're almost done, come on. don't you dare stop, there we go...there we go, you're good, you're good, get some water...that was a new PR baby, i'm so fucking proud of you. hell yeah, you did so good...damn i don't even think i can get that...fuck you..."

matt: "why the fuck would we go to the gym when the bed is right there? absolutely not. we can work out in my bed-"

streaming together -

chris: "no we're playing fortnite, get on here. i don't care. we've played fallout all week i wanna play duos, pleasepleaseplease-thankssss. yeah we can hop on stream. nah, they love you. trust. you wanna get ready first? i think you look great, but it's up to you, mamas. i want you to be confident, you know that."

matt: "if they have something to say i'll just rip 'em a new one and kiss you on stream. yeah. no i'm dead serious. there's my girl. come on, let's play."

boyfriend hoodies -

chris: "course it fits. i got bigger ones for me so you could steal them. you're such a thief. i love you. what? i didn't say anything..."

matt: "i'm gonna freeze. no no, take it, take my only source of warmth. i'm not bitter. come here lemme cuddle you i'm fucking cold."

a/n: hope you like this nonnie!

request to be on the taglist under this post right here, make sure your mentions are on!

tags: @selenascorner @pinksturniolo @malirosee @st7rnioioss @nonat-111 @cindylcuwho @evie-sturns @h3arts4harry @fanficsbymia @dazednmatthews @sturniolo-rat @mattsmad @sturniolo04 @bellasturn @blahbel668 @yomamaslays4lyfe @stasiesturn @pleasantlycrazyworld @ariqolyx @wh0resstuff @krissy4gov @coochiedestroyer1 @madisturn @mattspolitank @sturnsxplr-25 @xtravrgnoliveoil @raysmayhem-72 @sturnpooks @certifiedstarrr @melanch0lybby @freshloveforthefit @xoxo4chrisss @stunza @meerkatzthings  @zivall @sturniolopepsi @that1fangirll @wh0schl0 @sharksworldd @mattscoquette @chrisslutx @sturnzsblog @sturniologals @quaxkingshs @certifiedstarrr @sarosfilms @mattsfavbigtitties @slutforsturniolos 

[1-800-local-slut]

Back and Forth

Franklin Saint x Black! Fem! ex-gf! Reader

Franklin is that toxic ex that won't leave you alone, you're no better. Franklin and the reader are on again off again but for some reason they just don't work every time.

This is for all the girlies who bounce on business, I would fold for Franklin instantly. This man could be my favorite evil ex, idc. Stand on business tho y'all, Franklin is my favorite fictional liar but best believe I stand ten toes down.

Warnings: allusions to smut, drinking, drug dealing, typical Snowfall violence, season 3 Franklin, smoking weed (stay off that booga suga y'all), mentions of death, toxic relationship, Franklin is also pretty possessive, both of y'all are really jealous, reader is described as a crazy bitch, reader was caught in a drive by in the past, mentioned kidnapping

Request are open <3

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A cloud of smoke streamed from my parted lips, the smell of weed blanketing the car. Tasha and Latisha both scoffed at me after my last statement, their disappointment in me as thick as the smoke filling the car.

"You know he's gonna be right back in yo draws come tomorrow after church, stop playing." My eyes rolled before I could stop them. My brain felt fuzzy and the world seemed peaceful in the dead of night. Passing the blunt to Latisha, she took a deep inhale and held her breath.

'Between the Sheets' blared from the cars radio, adding comfort to my addled brain. Comfort and a slight hint of anger. This was one of our songs, that played while we were under the blanket in his back seat.

The car steamed up that night, similar to the smoke filling the car right now. I had an irrational fear that night that we would shake the car so much that it would roll off the hill we were parked on.

That was before he fucked it all up again.

Latisha was wrong. I was done with his bitch ass this time. This time, I was done playing with him, all his bullshit, his hypnotic eyes, the mountain of lies.

"Girl it's okay, no one blames you for giving into Franklin. Brother's fine." Tasha stuck her tongue out teasingly, which prompted a laugh from me.

Perched on the edge of the back seat with Latisha and Tasha sitting in front, I pulled my sweatshirt over my legs and pressed my head against the window. Latisha gave her a playful smack.

"Oh girl watch out before she do you like how she did Ki and them. Remember how she kicked through that bitch screen door?" Latisha laughed and Tasha cackled. I still remembered how hot it was last summer, when I put my foot through Kira's screen door and ran in swinging. Bitch shoulda closed her front door too but her broke ass couldn't afford air conditioning.

Sure, Franklin and I were technically broken up at the time but what does that matter? Especially after Leon rolled up on Delroy, my 'special friend', and Delroy told me to get to stepping the next time I saw his ass. I know Franklin told Leon to do it too. I don't think I gave Leon any reason to purposely make my life harder.

"Hey now that bitch deserved the ass whopping she got, she could fuck with that nigga all she wanted but how you gonna talk shit about me knowing you can't fight? Let's be serious y'all." It was funny, how she swore that Franklin wanted her over me. After I put my foot through Kira's door and caught her by her tracks, Franklin was at my bedroom window that night.

He was in my desk chair ten minutes later, handing me a box of chocolates that he knew were my favorites. Then he was in my bed giving me some deep, slow strokes that should be illegal. Looking deep into my eyes, pressing soft kisses down my neck and whispering apologies in my ear. Promising me that things would be better this time, that he would be better this time.

He hadn't even looked at her ass since.

Maybe he was over there right now. It had been six hours since he told me it was over, that he couldn't deal with my 'controlling self' and I told him to go ahead and kiss my ass.

Controlling, like he didn't have Peaches following me around all day because he had the slightest suspicion that I might've been considering cheating on him. He wouldn't have that problem if he wasn't ducking me out of nowhere and then when I pressed him he thought it was cute to lash out on me and tell me to get the fuck on.

"Look at her ass. Dick has her stuck." Latisha snickered and I snapped my head towards her. A lazy smile spread across my lips. The smoke stung my red eyes, it was a beautiful summer night and I was planning on getting so high I could shake hands with God, I was with my friends just having a great time. Fuck Franklin, fuck everything.

"If you don't leave me alone." I giggled and stretched back. I could feel it now, and wanted nothing more then to enjoy the feel of the seats under my skin.

It was like I was sinking into a wave of comfort and sleep. And before I knew it, I was floating through my dreams.

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"So y'all are over?" Franklin's eyes were burning into the house phone, his eyes willing it to ring. His long arms stretched over the back of the couch, head facing away from the TV the minute something interesting stopped happening. Leon, as always, had doubts, but as long as he stood ten toes behind Franklin, he didn't really care.

The moonlight casted in on Franklin, his eyes lit by the moon and the TV. Jerome and Louie were cuddled on the couch, while Burst City played from the TV.

"Yeah. She was all over me, I couldn't take it." Finally he turned his head back to the TV and stopped trying to force the phone to ring. A loud noise from the movie, amplifies by Jerome's speakers

"You the only nigga I know who'd be mad about a bitch that fine being all over him." With a chuckle, Leon took a drag of his cigarette. Jerome chuckled and Louie rolled her eyes before she smiled. The way she always smiled when she was with Jerome. The way Franklin's girl ex-girl used to grin uncontrollably when she was snuggled into his side.

"Shit, you fuck with her then." Franklin grumbled bitterly, taking an annoyed sip from his coke. He hated knowing that others could see how fine she was. If it were up to him, she'd wear a potato sack and stay in the house. He'd stay in the house with her too, the two of them together forever. But that just wasn't how things worked.

Why the fuck were they talking about her anyways? Franklin broke up with her, Franklin told her to get lost, Franklin was telling himself that it was over this time. Not just for his sake, but for hers.

Would you believe that she brought out the worst in him? Not his fucked up job, not his dad abandoning him and coming back now that he's grown, no. His ex-girlfriend.

She made him jealous, possessive, down right nasty. Nasty in a way that was different from when he would be pushing into her and could feel her nails dragging down from the nape of his neck. Nasty in a way that was just mean.

Yes, they had their highs. When they were the happiest people on Earth, but when they had their lows they were so low that it might have been in Hell.

"Aye man, I ain't mean that. All I'm saying is you two do this every week." The tension now palpable while they all sat in silence.

That wasn't even true. It wasn't every week, more like every three weeks! Usually Franklin fucked things up, usually by getting annoyed at something (work, her, they hadn't been having sex, he was arguing with his mom or Jerome or Louie or Leon, someone hit on her, she wore something sexy and he knew other niggas would like it just as much, he was hangry) and taking it out on her.

But not this time! This time, they had she started the argument when he came by her house late and she asked him where he'd been. When she came at him with the evidence that he let a stripper toss her ass in his face (which he put a stop to quickly) and refused to tell him who told her, then he got mad. Then she was like 'okay but why did you lie' and obviously he couldn't tell her he went to the club for business purposes because then she'd demand to know why it needed to be a strip club.

According to her, it was just about him lying to her. Which made sense or whatever. He even tried explaining she was the only girl for him and that he only wanted her ass in his face. He even tried cupping her chin and making her look him in the eyes, which usually made her weak in the knees. Franklin just wanted to come over, fuck, have a meal and spend some time with his girl but of course he can't just get what he wants.

So naturally Franklin felt caged and decided to tell her it was over.

"Whatever man, I said it's done."

"Alright then, damn." Easing back into the silence, they both sat and watched the TV. Franklin more so stared, his brain focusing instead her.

Inside he felt shaky, weird. Kinda like how he imagined the addicts he sold too felt without his rock.

She got jealous, but it was kinda sexy how mad she got. How crazy she was over him. Mostly she was only mad because he lied. He could go without lying. He never met to hurt her, just avoid the stress of her knowing he was around strippers and having to answer all her questions. But if he told her earlier that he was going and explained to her that it was for work then he could've avoided all of that all together.

Whatever, it was done now.

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"WHOSE AT MY GOD DAMN DOOR?!" It was 7:00 PM, Saturday night and there was a jumping party that needed me on the dance floor. Yet as I slipped in my earrings, my shorts rubbing against my thighs, someone was repeatedly knocking at my front door. Rather loud too.

As I stormed through my apartment the banging got louder. My apartment was filled with warm colors and the radio I picked up from Jerome's ages ago was humming 'Turn Off The Lights' and it put me in the mood to maybe someone over tonight. Fuck someone who wasn't Franklin.

More banging at the door, it wasn't Latisha or Tasha, they'd just use their keys. A sense of dread hit me suddenly like a car hitting a pedestrian. Being Franklin Saint's girlfriend had put me in two drive byes and one almost kidnapping and now there was someone beating down my door.

My hands found the knife I'd used earlier to rip open a package I'd gotten earlier, small remnants of the cut up box scattered on my carpet right under the coffee table in front of my couch.

Slowly I stepped to the door with my heart thudding around in my chest and the music fading away around me and now I just had to open the door. The knocking continued and suddenly my thoughts cut off by my foot thudding into a box.

A box full of shit. A box filled with Franklin's shit that I intended to drive by his place and fling out the window before never seeing him again. The sweatshirt I stole from him last winter, some cash he left here, changes of clothes, some socks, a bracelet he got me and a bunch of other jewelry wrapped carefully to avoid damage, plus some framed pictures of us. I could only hope he took the same care with my stuff.

The way the box smelt of him made me want to just run back to his arms. It was weird, being without him. But I knew it was for the better, my refusal to go back to him unwavering. As long as I stayed far from him.

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Well damn.

There he was standing in her door way towering over her small form. A bunch of flowers, foxgloves and oleander (my favorites he knew that), held in his hand in contrast to her knife which she now knew she could never bring herself to use on him.

He smelt so good that she had to fight the urge to jump in his arms.

Girl don't do it, send him on his way, her brain told her but her heart, like always, wanted to ditch the party and just spend the night laid up with him. Without any of the bullshit, the way things used to be when they could just be happy together.

Her legs on the other hand wanted to split open on their own. His eyes had that effect on her. He could just control her body with a look. What even was it about this nigga, was she that vulnerable to seduction?

Was it his smell? The rich cologne he bought with his new earnings with the slight smell of cigarettes and the night air. Plus the smell of his mommas house. Maybe.

Was it his strong jaw, the dark eyes that tore right through me like the sky being torn open by a gust of wind.

Fuck how the nigga smells, tell him to go. Do NOT let yourself get hypnotized

"You gon let me inside or keep pointing that at me?" That smirk crossed his lips. Damn. I wondered if I had this affect on him? Did I make him weak? Did he miss the sex so bad he was pathetically trying to get himself off every night thinking of that thing I do with my tongue that he likes? Was he damn near humping his mattress without even realizing it? No matter if he was, as sexy as it was to imagine Franklin touching himself to me. He had to go.

With a kiss of my teeth, I extended my arm to block the door way. This nigga could not pass.

"What you want nigga?"

"You."

"You came here to tell jokes? Take your shit and get the fuck on, I got somewhere to be?" A deep chuckle was his response. He had the nerve to laugh, teeth and all?

You can do this, you can do this, tell him to get to stepping

"Yeah I see you going outside looking real good. I just wanted to talk, see if we could get some closure. I promise I'm not gon take all night." He stepped closer, knowing my body would drive me back. Instead I dug myself into the ground, I stepped back then he'd be in my house.

I had to scan him up and down, find some way to even the playing field. Or make him think his seduction skills weren't working but damn they were working.

Remember how he acted, remember the lies, you wanted out

He smiled and looked like the guy I grew up with. The nice mammas boy who would never try to hurt anyone. I knew better, but he looked so...non threatening.

He was standing there, all washed up wearing a black jacket that he knew I loved him in. He held the flowers up in his right hand and knowing that he probably had a gun on him turned me on some how. The danger of being with Franklin always turned me on. Watching him get aggressive with others and knowing in a few hours he'd be taking it out on me.

The music I had playing wasn't helping me not get weak.

I don't know when he got so close that his chest was pressed to mine. He could hear my breathing and probably my heart beat.

Fuck his closure, send him packing

"Take your shit and go." It slipped out as a whisper, a breathless sound.

His face was right in front of mine and I couldn't do anything to stop myself. I should push him out my way and get to that party. Go find some other nigga who couldn't be as fine as Franklin but he would do for now.

"I'm sorry." He whispered against my lips. I could feel basically every part of him.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry for getting mad. Baby, please. Take me back. I'll do better. I'll stop lying to you. I'm sorry." He was inside now. Pushed through the door, his body against mine and my head spinning.

"What do I have to do to make it up to you baby?"

"I don't believe you. You always do this, you know your not going to change." I whimpered, my eyes shutting. My brain was fogging, an effect Franklin always had on me. But I would be stronger than this. I had too.

"I swear I will." He planted a soft kiss on my neck and I jumped. He was so warm. He tossed the flowers on to the little table I usually throw my keys on when I come in. Both hands ran up and down my arms.

"I promise I'll change. You don't have to pretend you don't want to come back baby, I'll do better this time. Just let me treat you right tonight, I'll start changing right now." More kisses undid me. I needed to tell him off. But the funny thing was, whenever Franklin and I broke up it was like I could only remember the best parts of him.

Not the lashing out, the screaming, the controlling, the random lies, the secrets. Only the gentle moments, where he held my face and gave me soft kisses that chipped away at me. The gifts that would adorn me when we went out, the way he proudly showed me off, the shopping sprees and little weekend trips, even the normal nights we would just sit around with our friends.

Sitting on his lap where I belonged, on whoevers porch as we just talked (and disturbed the peace of the neighborhood) and passed a blunt around and drank. He always made sure I got home safe afterward, my designated driver.

It was weird. Maybe it was feeling him kissing down my neck and him gently caressing me, but the good memories were just rushing to me. Like water smashing into a wall, slowly chipping away from it.

"I'm sorry I got mad at you. I'm sorry for lying, I just didn't want you to worry. I understand that I hurt you by lashing out and I'm gonna work on that. And you know I'm not perfect, just like you not and we both gon have to work on that. But I want to work on us, and I'm going too do whatever it takes. I'm building an empire and I want you to be right there with me when we make it to the top. It wouldn't be right without you." He was staring into my eyes, staring into my soul and heart and making his way back into both.

"Just one more chance. I promise this time I'll be better." I was never gonna hear the end of it this time. Another kiss, another piece of my self control.

"And if I'm not, I'll never bother you again. You have my word." It wasn't like he was all bad all the time. Standing trapped right next to my doorway, the city howling outside I felt the chill of the Summer night air blowing in from my open living room window. Somehow I was able to find it in me to push him off of me, stepping away into the living room putting more distance between us.

"I'm sick of going back and forth with you Franklin. It's constant with you, you lie for no reason and expect me to just forgive you. Why can't you just be straight with me?" He glanced at his feet, rubbing his hand over the back of his neck. He looked guilty but I knew no matter how beaten up he looked I knew the next thing out of his mouth would probably be a lie.

"When my dad started coming back around, I couldn't tell my mom the truth. That I was the one who bailed him out that time. And I have to hide shit from people all the time, because I feel like I know better than they do and how news will effect them." He sighed, coming in and placing the flowers on the little side table next to my door. He ran a hand down his face, and I took another cautionary step back.

"You can't decide for me how things will make me feel. It isn't fair. You demand I tell you everything but it just isn't fair." That's bullshit! Yeah, Franklin had it tough growing up. His dad ran out and what not, but that has nothing to do with me!

He stepped closer in two large steps and took my hands in his. He ran his thumbs over my hands and I found myself admiring how big and perfect his hands were holding mine. Franklin really was beautiful and our everything just went together with pure perfection. If only he stopped keeping things from me. My eyes met his and he looked so..sad.

Sympathy overcame me even though I knew his ass didn't deserve it.

"I know. I know and I'm sorry. I'm sorry I couldn't be better for you. But I'm gonna try and do better this time. Imma give you everything you deserve this time. No more back and forth." Crouching, his forehead touched mine and I saw his eyes closed. He always did this, it was like a hug for him. I closed my eyes too.

"You promise?" It came out a soft whisper, and I could feel relief washing over him in waves.

"Promise."

[marvelfanfn2187a113]

Tickle…Spider?

Sam and Dean Winchester x little sister!reader

Requested by Anonymous

Synopsis: Dean gets back at you for a prank

“What the…” Dean’s jaw dropped as he approached the Impala. “What is this? Sam?”

“Don’t look at me,” Sam couldn’t hide his chuckle as he picked at one of the many glittery stickers covering Baby. “I wish I could take credit for this.”

“Dude, this is not funny! Who-“ Dean froze, examining the stickers carefully.

“What?” Sam noticed the change.

“Do you see how these are placed?” A slow smirk spread across Dean’s face. “Every single one is low on the car, and there’s not one towards the middle of the hood.”

“So?” Sam asked, before he realized. “Y/N. She couldn’t reach.”

“I’m gonna kill her.”

“Dean, she’s five. She didn’t know-“

“Not to put stickers on my Baby? The heck she didn’t know, she-“

A muffled giggle cut off the rest of Dean’s statement. He turned, trying to find where you were hiding.

“Alright, come on out kiddo,” Dean demanded. When you went silent, he sighed. “I won’t be mad if you come out now.” Still nothing. “I won’t tell dad,” he coaxed, and finally your head popped out from behind a nearby vending machine.

“Hey there,” Dean smirked, and you didn’t have time to run before he snatched you up, carrying you into the motel room. Sam followed hesitantly.

“What are you gonna do?”

“I’m gonna bring out an old enemy to show our baby sister here a lesson,” Dean said as he dropped you onto his bed.

“The tickle m—uh…spider?” Sam questioned with a grin.

“Dude, we can use the M word when talking about the tickle monster,” Dean whispered.

Since you were only five, the boys had been forced to develop a sort of code language whenever they talked about hunts. Your current dislike of spiders let the boys to use that word instead of “monsters”, since you never wanted to listen to them talk about “spiders”.

“What are you doing?” You giggled, wriggling around in a futile attempt to get out of Dean’s arms.

“Uh-uh,” Dean said, pinning you down. “You asked for this, and you’re not getting out of it.”

“I’m sorry!” You whined.

“No no no, those puppy dog eyes work in Sammy, not on me, kid.”

Your whining turned suddenly to shrieking as Dean jabbed at your ribs.

“Whoa, easy tiger,” Dean laughed. The people next door are gonna think we’re torturing you.”

“Yo-hou are!” You squealed, struggling as Dean continued scratch at your stomach.

“No baby, what you did to the Impala was torture, this is just having a little fun.”

“Sa-ha-ammy, help!”

Sam shook his head, trying to hide his grin.

“You messed with the Impala, sweetheart, you shoulda known better.”

Dean continued his assault, digging his fingers between your ribs as you struggled helplessly. Sam elbowed his brother when your laughter went silent.

“I think she’s had enough.”

“Just one more thing,” Dean chuckled. He leaned down to where your shirt had ridden up, and you found your voice again, squealing loudly as Dean blew a raspberry on your stomach. “Now I’m done.”

Dean lifted you into his arms, and you giggled softly against the side of his neck.

“No more,” you insisted.

“Hey, stay away from Baby and we have a deal,” Dean said.

“Ok,” you were silent for a moment, then- “I didn’t mean to make you mad, I’m sorry. I thought it was funny.”

“It was!” Sam called from the side of the room. Dean shot him a glare before turning away, reaching a hand up to cradle your head.

“I’m not mad, baby. Just don’t do it again.”

“Do you think they’ll come off?”

“How about this?” Dean said as he carried you towards the door. “How about you and me go and find out, then once they’re all off the car we’ll call it even. That sound like a plan, baby?”

You giggled as Dean lightly tickled your side.

“It’s a plan, Dean-o.”

[porkcutletbowl44]

Gunslinger! Ghost is as mean and rugged as they come. It's dirty work as a bounty hunter, honest work, rid the west of the tainted nasty criminals.

The next bounty is just as boring from the last; Old geezer illegally selling weaponry, running heists, human trafficking, the list goes on.

What Ghost doesn't expect, is to come across a pretty bird, frightened out of her wits. Doe eyes widening at the size of this man, his paws big enough to dwarf her face, the shiny rifle propped on his shoulder able to scare any man from looking his way.

But not this bird, you come equipped with teeth and claws, a loud bark and a harder bite. It was only one broken sweat to get you on his stallion.

It's been awhile since Ghost had to work with a struggler, a pretty one no less.

What he doesn't realize, is that you've been wrongly framed, on the run.

"Quit your bitchin' we gotta long ride ahead, 'less ya wanna sing instead. Reckon ya gotta pretty voice,"

What Ghost doesn't expect is to be stuck with you for three nights in a shitty abandoned cabin. A whining and complaining woman stuck with him and one bed, your wrists bound loosely for your comfort.

"Shoulda thought twice 'bout your crime doin', bird."

Can you blame him? Traveling with a pretty thing with enough sass and attitude to count as a firearm, he never knew just how much he liked to really work for something.

It's only for one night he can pretend he doesn't notice you staring when he's working on the broken door, pretend you don't watch the way his muscles work under his vest or adjust his belt buckle, his fight to roll up his sleeves on his thick forearms.

He's mean about it too, waiting for you to be done gathering buckets after buckets of water to heat them up, pouring them into a tub for a nice bath, then does he waltz in like it was meant for him.

He ignored your squawking and insults, smugly undressing that shuts you up real quick.

"Y'went through all the trouble, join me."

And, well, he never does this. This was his first temptation and greedily took it. It's not like it would matter, you'd be in a jail cell before he knows it and can forget about the best he's ever had, something sweet and innocent for his hands to taint.

"Never been wi' a man before, huh lovie? Easy now, I'll show ya it'll be good, 'bout to blow y'mind,"

What Ghost doesn't realize, until it's too late, that John Price is your father.

His boss rushes to your aid rather than scolding him, so he can scold you instead. It's not the most tear-inducing reunion, but John is grateful Simon has brought you to safety without love bites, finger shaped bruises a scratch on your body.

"Hope she didn't give ya too much trouble, got my spirit, eh?"

What Ghost does tell him,

"Nah, horse spooked n' I fell."

Is the explanation for the scratches on his back up to his neck. Man, thorns are sharp...

[1427]

i love you (always forever) pt.1

Daryl Dixon x sister!OFC

Summary: In the winter of ‘95 Daddy died. Leaving Lady to finish up her senior year in high school, and Daryl to brood over when to sell the house. The summer of ‘96 is the first time Lady feels alive. Daryl wants to give her one last summer before she has to grow up for real.

He gave her anything she asked for that summer.

Setting: Doublewide on some lone property in the middle of the woods, Georgia. Summer 1996

Warnings: INCEST (like it's the whole thing), virgin!oc, drug use (a joint), underage drinking, TENSION, poorly written SMUT, masturbation (f), lite!somno, oral (m receiving), some leering (??); most of the smut will be in part two. 

Word Count: 6.1k

A/n: INCEST I'll say it again. if it's not your thing, or can’t ever be your thing, DON’T READ IT. 

I didn't write it. I simply lived it in my head and documented (I wrote it but it felt like I didn't have a choice). 

Lady, Daryl calls her Lay, Bug

She calls him Bub, Bubba

// part 2 //

MDNI 18+ 

Wind chimes. Soft like the breeze. The heat of the Georgia in June. Daddy died this past winter, and Lady’d never had a summer feel so much like a hug. Finally able to really breathe again. Like a little kid. Magic around every corner. She swore sometimes, when she looked out the window in the dead of night, that she could see the faeries dancing out back in the woods. For a few years they'd gone, but this year they were back again.

Just her and Daryl (and the deer, and the squirrels, and the mice, and obviously the mosquitos, and sometimes the faeries); Like it shoulda always been. Like it always kinda was. After Merle left and all. Got older, moved out. Daryl stayed, though. Past his 18th birthday, and a few more after that. Didn’t wanna leave Lady all by herself with their old man. Couldn’t. 

Now he couldn’t really leave her alone in the house, even though she’d turned 18 last fall. Doesn’t even cross his mind. 

Lady’s finally done with school for good unless she decides she wants to go to college. First one in the whole damn family and no one but Daryl was there to see it.  Daryl quit his job as soon as Daddy died. Even if Daddy didn't have a few dollars in his bank account he didn’t know about, Lady figures he would have anyway. 

Daryl thought about selling the house but… not yet. 

He knew he was putting a pause on his life for this summer with Lady, but his whole life had been on pause til now anyway. Knows that when it’s over, it’s all over. Her whole childhood, their whole upbringing. Their dad dyin’ was just the bow ontop to seal the deal. They’d both think of it as the end. For the rest of her life, Lay’ll know this is when she had to grow up for real. So Daryl wouldn’t sell the house until Lady had her last summer as a kid with nothin’ to worry about. 

The heat was starting to get unbearable. 

“Lay!” Daryl yells, standing above a bed she'd made up in the living room. Dad had always kept the one lone air conditioner in his room, in front of the tv, in front of the recliner, in front of the bed. Lady had the idea to hang sheets on the doors to the living room and make a bed on the floor big enough for both of them to sleep in. She forgot the pillows, though, and now she was nowhere to be found. 

Daryl put down the tools he’d been using to fix the a/c to the window, pushing past the pink floral sheet between the living room and the hall toward the bedrooms, “Lay!” He quickly paces the double wide but she’s no where. 

Left a towel on her bed though, so Daryl’s got a good guess where she went. Swimmin’. 

It’s about a half miles walk, so it’s pretty far to just up and leave like that without saying anything, but Lady did it all the time. Like the creek was her own personal bathtub. Daryl’s not annoyed, not really. But he walks the half mile like he is anyway. Why couldn’t she just let him know? Because then he wouldn’t have to make sure this is where she went. And he wouldn’t have to bring her the towel she forgot. 

Daryl walks down and sure enough Lady’s shoulder deep in the muddy creek water, her clothes and shoes all bundled up on the dirt a few feet in front of him. She’s faced away, and at first doesn’t hear him come up. 

Lady tried to sneak away without being noticed to have a private moment. Like momma taught her. You’re allowed to touch yourself like that, but you can’t do it around other people. Momma said as long as you can be in private, it’s alright. 

Lady didn’t mean to forget her towel, but she almost assumed Daryl would find her anyway. She’d been fast though, always was. Was easy with the hormones. 18 and learning all new kinds of feelings. Merle always called her a late bloomer. Not being interested in boys until recently. She thought about the boys at school, and their plush lips on the soft skin of her shoulder, the protection in their arm wrapped around her waist, the butterfly light kiss of their eyelashes on her stomach. 

It didn’t take much for Lady to feel somethin’. Not in this heat, not with the breeze of freedom prickling every inch of her skin. 

Daryl can’t tell what she’s doing. All he sees is her shoulders barely moving in the lake, her head above the water and facing away from him. “Lay!” 

Daryl’s voice cascades through the air a few seconds after Lady, with a barely there mew, has her orgasm. Lady’s kisses with pleasure are soft, new, wanting. Like a light peck instead of a deep kiss. A soft mist instead of a thunderstorm. Lady only knew sweetness, even in her private moments. 

She’s beaming from ear to ear as she turns around to face him, making sure to keep her body covered by the water, “Bubba, what? I’m just swimmin’.” She already knew he was ready to be annoyed with her by his tone. 

“Yeah, uh-huh,” he nods, and smirks. Despite being annoyed he’s casual, “Thinkin’ maybe ya forgot som’n?” He throws the towel down ontop of her clothes and goes to stand behind a tree while she gets out of the water. 

Lady was always doing this. And Daryl was always following her with whatever thing she’d forgotten, or didn’t know she was gonna need. Daryl was always there. 

Full name Lady-Rae Cheryl Dixon. See momma wanted the name to rhyme with the boys but always said if she had a girl she was gonna name her Lady. Really liked that movie when she was a kid, didn’t matter it wasn’t a girls name. Didn’t matter to her what anyone thought. She thought it was sweet. And Lady was sweet. Could get away with probably anything if she wanted to, but she never even tried. Besides running around the woods naked, she didn’t find herself in much trouble. Sweet as honey. 

Daryl wasn’t sure how that was gonna work out in the real world. If she would get eaten up, or if she’d outshine everyone around her. He didn’t like to think about it. She didn’t belong out there. Not yet. Right now she’s naked in the woods, covering herself up just to be polite; right where she’s meant to be. Who she’s supposed to be. 

They make the walk back, Lady’s teeth chattering but she never complains. Barefoot like she grew the forest herself. She knew every inch. Daryl shuffled behind her, knowing the trail just as well, but letting her be the force she was. Skipping and stopping and stepping on her favorite parts as she went. He watched. 

Her towel small, and frayed on the ends. See through in spots. He tries to look away. He knows he should. But he can’t manage to stop himself. the way her tiny ass bounced as she walked, it was too lewd for him to avert his eyes. Like maybe if it wasn’t jiggling so much he’d have been able to stare at his feet or off into the woods, or at her bare shoulder or something, anything, else. 

But it was, just… her tight skin moving the fat of her ass back into place over and over, snapping against the sheer fabric of the towel, moving that too. Daryl keeps himself from leaning back to see more, to peak through and see the light between her legs. Wouldn’t do that. He’s not trying to sexualize her. What her ass is doing is right there in front of him? He tells himself it’s not his fault he’s looking. He’s seen her naked anyway, it’s not even a big deal. 

Getting caught up in shit that doesn’t matter, that’s what Daryl was good at. Getting stuck up in his own head and hung up on looking just barely a little too long at his sister. Merle would say it was no big deal, Daryl just needed to relax. He was making it weird by thinkin’ about it. 

He manages to look away, and to forget all about it.

💕 

Lady always assumes Daryls looking. Why wouldn't he look? Didn't mean nothin’. Boys always looked, wasn't a big deal unless they made it one. Unless someone made private thoughts public, with a purpose. Who cares who's lookin’? Lady doesn't. Never did. Why would she? How could she?

With Daryl for a brother, Lady never even got the chance to know what a bad touch might be. Never even heard of it. Maybe that's why she was such a late bloomer. Never even knew what she had down there until last summer when she met a boy who had a truck and talked like her brothers and he touched her through her pants and she ignited. 

Never saw the guy again. 

Never wanted to. Never needed to. She was alive and on fire and everything around her burned brighter for it. 

She was finding it hard to get comfortable in the bed she’d made. Still too hot even with the air conditioner on full blast. Daryl was about 3 feet away, a whole heap of comforter between them. “Get up” Lady’s voice a playful smirk. 

Daryl had been trying to fall asleep but got stuck staring at the ceiling fan. Trying to watch a single blade in its rotation. He stands up like she’d asked and watches as Lady lays the comforter out on top of the rest of the blankets she’d piled up, “if we’re not gonna use it.” She explains. 

Lady’s still got her light blue baby blanket that goes almost everywhere with her. Just as tattered and falling apart as the towel. Daryl never sleeps with a blanket anyway. Usually just passes out in his clothes, on his bed. Now he’d do the same thing here, in the living room. Hum of the a/c, chatter of the TV, the heat from Lady’s body - Daryl didn’t think he’d be able to fall asleep anyway. 

Well maybe. He did have a joint stashed in with his cigarettes that he’d been saving for sometime this week. So when lady gets up to grab herself an ice cream cone from the fridge, Daryl yells, “Lay, grab ma pack’a smokes.” 

Lady’s halfway to the living room but she turns back and grabs them from the kitchen counter for him. “You’re really gonna smoke in the fort?” 

“Fort, huh?” He grunts then smiles at her as she tosses the pack at him. 

“Yeah?” She looks around, elbowing the sheet hung behind her, “What else would you call it?” 

“Th’ livin’ room.” He’s not looking at her when he answers. Eyes and fingers fixed on the pack, fidgeting with the hinged top for a bit before pulling the joint out and putting it in his mouth. 

Lady stops complaining when she sees it’s not a cigarette, and takes her seat back down on the pallet. Laying on her stomach, up on her elbows, facing Daryl. Her ice cream cone had already started melting, her tongue now on a race with the liquid dripping down her hand. 

Daryl just watches her struggle, until she finally gets a hold on it. “Y’good, there, Bug?” 

“Shut up.” And she shoves him a little. She’s got strawberry icecream all over her cheeks and chin and Daryl wishes he took pictures because at this moment he needed one. He needed her to remember forever who she is right now. 

“Y’wanna hit?” He asks her like he asks her every time he smokes a joint in front of her. Which is often. And every time she says no, because it’s always no. Never wanted to, never really saw the point. Things were beautiful enough. And it reminded her of Merle, and the bad things he got up to. 

Her mind slowly has been changing about it, with Merle gone for so long now. And Daryl being so chill about it when he was about it. A lot of the kids in high school had been doing worse and Lady found herself wanting to say yes when Daryl asked her. 

But when she does, Daryl doesn’t believe her, “No fuckin’ way, Bug. Yer buggin’.” 

“Bubba, no I’m not. I been thinkin’ about it.” 

“Oh, ya have? What’chya been thinkin’ ‘bout it?” 

“Just that I kinda wanna try.” She sways on her elbows, licking at her ice cream, “I’m gonna eventually, right? Why not now?” 

She’s trying to keep herself calm, but she was more relaxed than she’d usually be when she thought about sayin’ yes. Maybe that’s why she’d finally said it. She was finally able to. Lady thinks that means she must be ready, if she’s not afraid to say she wants to try it. 

She remembers this moment for the rest of her life. 

Makes her feel brave, like she’ll always know if she’s ready for some new scary experience or not. If she can ask, she’s ready. 

He thinks about it for a second, but he doesn’t see where she’s wrong. She probably was gonna try it eventually, why not now? She was safe here, he knew it. She knew it. So he says, “Alrigh’, fine. But yer prolly gon’ jus’ get tired,” and passes the joint to her. Thinking she'd take a tiny hit, probably not even inhale, and wimp out.

Lady takes it delicately in her fingertips and brings it to her lips. She’d tried cigarettes before (and didn’t like them), so the motion wasn’t completely foreign. But everything about it felt new and different. It burned. She almost didn’t feel it until she exhaled. A cloud of smoke billowing out and surrounding the both of them. 

Daryl laughs and mutters, “Shit, Bug,” while Lady’s face falls. That was way more than she thought was supposed to come out. Way more than her little lungs were expecting or could take. Her hand shoots out to Daryl for him to take her half eaten ice cream cone as she turns into a rabid dog. 

A wild beast on all fours hacking up half her lung and Daryl’s laughing so hard he’s crying, taking the ice cream and the joint back from her as she seizes. 

She’ll be okay. He knows she will. And she’ll sleep amazing and she’ll be safe like she always is. Somethin’ in the air felt different there now. With everyone else gone. Like nothing could touch them. 

So even though Lady’s about to be as high as a girl could ever be, neither of them are worried it won’t be a good time. 

Just them in their fort. Way too old to be playing little kid games and way too young to be playing house. 

💕

Lady’s vision was fuzzy. Glittering and dancing and hazy, rainbow bursts of fizzy glowing sparkles. 

Lady was secretly afraid she was on fire. She stared at the TV but wondered to herself if it was possible that her lungs were embers that were slowly consuming her chest cavity. She could breathe now, it had been nearly an hour since she hit that joint, but she was sure that she was literally burning alive from the inside out. 

“Dar, do you think you can be burning inside your lungs? Like on fire? Is that how people spontaneously combust?” 

Daryl’s eyebrows shoot up, she’d been quiet for a while and he had been pretty sure that she’d fallen asleep. He had to think about her question. If he wasn’t also stoned he probably would have been able to tell her the answer was obviously no. Instead he says, “Don’t think so.” Which doesn’t really make her feel better. “I ain’t ever hearda it.” That does. Daryl’s hearda everything. 

Their voices are soft, the tv’s the only light in the room. Daryl looks over at Lady. Her bare legs disappearing under an old pair of pajama shorts, she’s definitely not on fire. Not the way she means. 

“Think yer good, Bug.” He reassured her before asking, “Need som’thin’?” 

Lady, sweet as ever, asks, “Tuck me in?” 

Daryl rolls his eyes but sits up anyway. Crawling the two steps toward her. He takes what he can of the stretchy old fabric and wraps it around her body. It’s not big enough, it was never gonna be. Daryl cracks a smile, Lady’s been laughing at his attempt. He pushes his fingers with the fabric around her, she’s laying straight as an arrow, blanket stretched to its limit tight against her body. 

Daryl isn’t paying attention to his fingers as they tuck the fabric under her thighs, or how tight it’s pulling against Lady’s breasts. Lady does. She took one look at him after she hit that joint and she hasn’t been able to sit right since. 

It’s the air, it’s the heat. It’s the sun, maybe something in the water at the creek? Its the pot. It’s gotta be the pot. It’s somethin’ that Lady doesn’t understand. That sometimes just being in proximity is enough. 

She felt brave. She wanted to skirt that line. The line itself moving, and blurry, and hard to make-out. She wanted to be touched. And she wanted Daryl to touch her. Not too much, just a little. Just enough to make her heart race. Just enough to kiss her sleep with something that felt like magic. 

Her pulse is pounding in her ears and down her throat as she looks at him up above her. She feels her blood burn in her palms, slowly falling away from her sides as the tight fabric comes loose from around her. 

Daryl’s lost in the same moment, just caught staring down at her, in a haze himself. Stuck in his head, romanticizing every moment of Lady’s last summer.  

“Kiss goodnight?” 

The words come from between them. Lady’s voice had spoken them but she’s certain it didn’t come from her mouth. 

Doesn’t matter. They’re in the air and Lady and Daryl both pretend that she doesn’t mean it in any way other than what a sister might say to a brother. 

Daryl leans down and just barely brushes his lips over hers. Soft and sweet, like he was leaning down and smelling a flower. It’s so brief, and it’s so feather light it almost wasn’t there. Lady and Daryl both pretend it wasn’t. 

She closes her eyes and snuggles into her blanket, all bunched up in her arms. And Daryl moves back to his spot, trying not to think about what just happened. How it’s all different now. In two seconds everything was different. 

She initiated something new and Daryl already knew he was gonna do what he always did with Lady. Whatever she wanted. 

💕

The sun is just barely peaking through the windows when Lady opens her eyes. The tv still playing, she sits up and leans herself forward to turn it off. Turning around to observe Daryl. But she wasn’t expecting… this. 

He must have gotten up in the middle of the night and ripped his clothes off because he’s just laying there in his boxers and his wife beater. Head leaning back off the pillow, arms laying on either side of his body. The part that catches Lady completely off guard was between his legs. Hard and trying to push its way out of his boxers. Lady can see a hint of pink between the fabric. The hole in the front tenting out around his bulge. 

Lady tries not to look. Knows she shouldn’t. But it’s too lewd to look anywhere else. He moves briefly in his sleep, which only makes their situation worse. His erect member pushing its way completely out of the hole. Lady gawks, feeling something akin to a squeel in her throat. She’d never seen something so… she needed to touch it. 

She shuffles closer to him, her knees padding on the layers of blankets underneath them. Her small hand moving out in front of her, she can’t look away. 

Her fingertips meet the skin of his bare cock with something Lady is sure is electricity. It’s warmer than she’d imagined, and as she moves, her nails grazing on the skin as she lightly traces up and down, she realizes that his skin here is softer than she’d imagined too. 

After a while, she can’t help herself, and wraps her fingers around him. Slowly working her hand up and down, her fingers just barely putting any pressure against him. She wants to squeeze it, to feel how hard it really is, she wants to roll it between both her hands and put it in her mouth and she wants to get to know it better than she knows any part of herself - but she doesn’t wanna wake Daryl up. 

It wasn’t even her fingers that woke Daryl up. It was the pressure. Below his stomach, twisting deep inside and throbbing.

He keeps his eyes closed, tries to keep his breathing steady. Tries to get himself to speak up, say something, tell her to stop. At least let her know you're awake. But he can't move. 

With his eyes closed he can feel every light touch of Lady’s hand. The way she pushes her palm down when she gets to the base and pulls it off as she gets to the tip, the way she's moving in soft semi-circles, but not while she's going up and down. She's exploring. 

Daryl didn't want to stop her. 

He's so hard it hurts. He almost winces when she grips him tighter. She was only moving herself in a different position, Daryl realizes, because he feels her other hand on his cock now too. 

Lady holds him in one hand, bringing the other up she grazes her index and middle finger over the tip of his length. Gliding his pre-cum all over his head. Trying to see how far it would go, she's surprised it's as slick as it is. She wants to taste it. 

Daryl feels her fingers leave him, and hears the slick pop of her tongue as she moves her fingers between her lips. He has to stop himself from rutting his hips up into her hand, stop himself from pushing her head down onto him to feel her wet mouth. 

He doesn't have to make her do anything, though.

Daryl feels a soft veil of hair tickle his skin above the waistband of his boxers, and he realizes she's about to put her mouth on him. Her pretty pink lips were about to wrap around his cock head. Her tongue, that he'd watched lick up melting icecream only a few hours ago, was gonna be flat against the underneath of his dick. Lady. With all the sweetness inside of her, was about to suck him off. 

Lady can't help herself, doesn't want to. Never learned how. She’s not quite sure how to start what she wants to do but decided to put her lips together and kiss right underneath the tip. She doesn't pull away. Parting her lips and flicking her tongue out from between her teeth to taste more of whatever was coming out of him. 

She feels it twitch under her tongue, so she licks him again. Longer, this time, with more certainty. Moving her fingers out of the way, she licks him once all the way from the bottom to the top. 

Daryl didn't think about what was gonna happen when he came. What he should do. It happens so fast that he doesn't have time to warn her. The first shot goes right on her face. 

Daryl sits up in time for the second and third to be lost somewhere on the blankets or his boxers. 

“Shit, Lady. M’so. M’fuckin’ sorry.” 

“It's my fault.” She explains in a flat tone. She sits still while Daryl uses his shirt he was wearing last night to wipe off her face. He’s a mess. Red-eared and scared as a dog but Lady's smiling bigger than she has in her whole life. 

She ignores his apology, his frantic attitude. She was serene. Like she always was. “When did you wake up?” 

“I’unno.” Right at the beginning, really, but he can’t tell her that. Can’t tell himself that. 

She ignores him, she didn't really care. “So that’s what happens then? When a guy…” she mouthes the word ‘comes’ in an exaggerated way, looking in Daryl’s eyes the whole time. 

He lays back into the pillow, grabbing another one to pull over his face. He can’t believe she just asked him that. She can’t believe this just happened at she was being so casual about it.

Lady pulls the pillow out of his hands just as fast. “No, come on. Ya can’t just not tell me. Not now.” 

Daryl puts his arm over his face, only his mouth and his nose peeking out behind the crook of his elbow. She had a point, “Whad’ya wanna know?” 

“Everything. All of it.” 

“Whad’ya wanna know righ’now.” 

Lady tells herself that if she’s ready to know, she’ll be able to ask. “When I have an orgasm nothing comes out. But when guys do it, that’s what happens?” 

She bites on her lip and looks down at him, his eyes and most of his face still hidden behind his arm, laying back on the bed. He’d stay like this and answer her questions. Wouldn’t be able to do it if he was looking at her, “uh-huh”. It's more of a grunt than a word.  

Lady tries to figure out which question to ask next. She knows a lot of stuff. Boys like it when girls suck on it. Boys like it when girls let them put it inside them. Lady isn’t sure exactly how that works, but she knows what she has. And what they have, and she doesn’t need to ask where it would go. 

“Did you like it?” 

A long pause. A half sigh, a grunted response, “uh-huh.” 

“Do you want me to do it again? Can I.. can I do it again?”

“Na’righ’ now.” 

Those words hang there even after Lady gets up and Daryl gets up and they both go about their day. This promise of ‘maybe later’. Daryl has errands to run in town and Lady says she’s got laundry to do, but hes pretty sure she just likes staying at the house. 

“Need somethin’, Lay? Goin’ ta town!” He shouts inside the house from out of it, he’d been outside most of the day, mowin’ the lawn, finally cleaning up the old trampoline. Trying to tell himself that even if he'd tried to stop her, she wouldn't have let him. 

Lady appears in the doorway in a breath, “Where ya goin’ in town?” 

“Store.” He leans against the wood frame lining the area around the steps and lights a smoke. 

Lady leans back, swaying her body with both hands on either side of the door by the handles, “Hmmm, maybe we could get stuff for grillin’. And we’re out of ice cream.” 

Daryl nods, taking a drag, his eyes squinting against the sun, “Somethin’ else?” 

“More pot?” She squints back at him. 

He breathes out an almost laugh against the cigarette between his lips, “Yeah, alrigh’. Tha’s it?”

“Wine coolers?” 

Daryl actually laughs at that one, “What’re ya tryna prove, Bug?”

She stops swinging on the door, “Not provin’ nothin’. Daddy's dead. Let's live a little.” 

💕

So Daryl gets some girly somethin’ - what he assumes are wine coolers. They're in the refrigerated case at the distributor, and there's strawberries and an island on the cardboard carrier. And the bottle’s shaped stupid. Daryl’s sure he's gotten the right thing, or at least something she'd probably like. 

Daryl doesn't feel bad indulging her. Never did, and anyway he's surprised it's taken her this long to ask. As far as growin’ up in the sticks, Lady was a good girl. And so she wanted to smoke some pot and drink some wine coolers with her brother? 

So what she had all the curious burning of an explorer on their first expedition with every new thing that she tried, and so what if that new thing was Daryl's body and how it reacted to hers? 

Daryl doesn't feel bad indulging her. He reasons with himself his whole drive that it can't be that bad. Not if Lady wanted it. Lady never wanted anything bad ever. She never gossiped, or tattled, or cheated at board games. Lady never even tried to sneak sweets. She told Daryl once it was cuz she didn't want anyone else to get in trouble if someone noticed it was missin’. Nah, Daryl figures if Lady wants it, if she asks for it, it can't be somethin’ ugly. 

💕

Daryl's on his third beer before he's able to say it, “Lay. Wha’ we did this mornin’ -“ he’s tried to figure out how he feels about it, he’s still not sure he’s making the right choice, but he needs to decide something before she decides for them. “Ya didn’t do nothin’ wrong but - can’t go tellin’ people we did that.” 

Lady laughs, she’s on her second wine cooler of her whole life, and all of a sudden Daryl thinks she’s new to the planet earth. She was backwoods but she wasn’t that backwoods. She was, after all, a high school graduate. “You mean I can't tell Auntie Norma I made you…” She mouthes the word ‘come’ again in the same exaggerated way she had earlier before losing herself in a fit of giggles. 

Lady and Daryl had folded up their temporary bed and shoved it in the corner. She was currently leaned back on the far edge of the coach, head thrown in laughter. Her shoulders shaking, her hands gripping the bottle between her thighs. 

Daryl bites at his thumb, sitting in the armchair across the room from her, he was trying to be serious for a damn second and she was laughing at him. “Jus’ don’ really know whatya think yer doin’. If yer in your right mind ‘n all. An’ y’know we ain't supposed ta.”

He just needed to hear her say it, if she could say it - if she could ask for it, it couldn’t be bad. 

“Wasn't thinkin’, Dar. Was just doin’.” She doesn’t really have an answer for him. She's in her right mind, she knows people aren't supposed to do that kind of stuff with their family. But nothin’ ever felt wrong between her and Daryl.

Daryl downs the rest of the beer he's holding in one gulp. He puts his finger in the hole at the top and spins it absentmindedly on his knee, “Jus’ need ya t’know what yer doin’.. it ain't somethin’ people usually do, Bug.” 

Lady’s starting to get frustrated. She knew what he was getting at, but why'd he have to say it? “I know I'm not supposed to, Dar. It's like those times you and Merle let me watch scary movies when I was little and I had to tell Momma and Daddy we were watching lions on PBS instead.” 

Daryl reaches down and grabs another beer from the case next to the armchair. He just shakes his head. She's gotta know it ain't that simple. 

“Bubba, look at me.” 

Daryl looks over, curious what she needed the eye contact for, “W’sup, Lay?”

“It’s just you and me out here and as far as I can tell we didn’t hurt anyone.“ She finishes the rest of her drink in one gulp just like he had, “The woods are good at keepin’ secrets, Bub. You know that.” And she smiles, looking down before looking directly at him.

If they didn't know before they both knew now. It wasn't just going to be that one thing that happened between them. The stagnant ‘maybe later' coming back and sitting on their shoulders, in their laps, in every empty space of the room. 

‘Maybe’ turns to definitely. To obviously.

Daryl grunts, trying not to let a smile on the corners of his lips. He opens the bottle in his hand and takes a sip before bringing it back down to look at it. Pondering her words like they're written on the label. All he thought he'd needed to hear was that she knew it had to be a secret. That she knew she was committing a crime against god here with him. But now what?  

Lady almost can't take it, the cicadas buzzing from outside are so loud it's infesting her brain. She’d been sitting there for an hour trying to figure out how to ask him if she could touch him again. And now that he's brought it up, she can't think of anything else but the way he tasted, the way his thing pulsated and twitched underneath of her tongue. She wants to make him cum again. 

Daryl's drinking his beer, lost in thought, while Lady decides she should probably have another one too. She gets up and walks past him to the kitchen. 

“Where ya goin’?” He half shouts behind him, a little worried he'd hurt her feelings. Read something wrong. Said something wrong. 

Lady smiles to herself, Daryl worried all the time about everything and it always ended up being for nothing. “Just gettin’ another one. That okay with you, pop?” She teases. 

She reappears from behind the sheet holding another wine cooler. As she takes her seat back on the couch Daryl leans forward, elbows on his thighs, taking another sip of his drink, “Might wanna slow down on those, Bug.” He's smiling into the bottle. 

Lady sticks her tongue out at him, her eyebrows drawn down in mock anger, “What, afraid I'm gonna blow chunks instead of blow you?” She's been on the edge of it for so long it spills out of her mouth.

Daryl has no idea what the fuck to say to that but he laughs out loud. He genuinely guffaws. If it wasn't his little sister he'd be frozen in his fuckin’ chair. Churning a little at this realization - Cuz when she said it he wasn't uncomfortable. Wasn't afraid, or worried that he was gonna have to do something he might mess up. 

“Nah.” He answers her before his mind takes off on a tangent about how it's his sister and the proposition of her sucking his cock should make him uncomfortable. But it didn't. 

Cuz if she wants it, it can't be wrong. 

“Just keep drinkin’, Lay. If ya blow chunks yer the one stuck cleanin’ it up though.” 

“Let's smoke that pot.” 

“No.”

“Aw, c’mon. Why not, bub?”

“Cross-faded.”

“What's that?” 

“Pots different after y’drink. Jus’.. trus’me on this one.” He sips his beer, “‘nless yer really set on blowin’ chunks. Tha’s definitely a sure fire way.” 

Lady shakes her head, taking her drink from between her thighs again and sipping it before putting it back. 

She's gotta figure out how to ask soon or she was gonna drink herself to sleep. 

Daryl can see her workin’ something out in her head, “S’goin’ on, Lay?.” 

She’s staring at a spot on the ground and she doesn’t look up, “Thinkin’.” 

“‘bout wha’?”

“Your cock in my mouth.” 

Daryl chokes on the spit he was swallowing, “Christ.” He says as he coughs. He doesn't think he's ever heard her say that word. “Yer really serious, huh?” He asks again, this time because he truly can’t believe it. Why would she, the sweetest piece of Georgia pie, wanna put her pretty mouth on him? Even if he was her brother. Especially because he was her brother. 

She smiles and looks down at her fingers around the top of her bottle. Blushing beet red and nodding her head so aggressively her hair moves. 

He wants to let her but somethin’ about it doesn't feel right. Not because of who she was or who he was, or cuz it was wrong. “Shouldn't jus’ blow guys, Lay.” 

“Whaddya mean?” She picks at the label on her drink, not looking up at him. Nervous and excited and hanging on his every word. 

“People, uh - usually… do other stuff first.” He explains, not wanting to make her feel bad for what she'd already done, but wanting her to understand she can't just do that to other guys. 

Lady laughs, a sigh of relief escaping her as she brings the brim up to take another swig. There's a million things sitting between her teeth and her lips just waiting to be said. Instead, she just asks, “Do you wanna watch a movie?”

💕

pt. 2

A/n: This is coming out a whole lot sweeter than I thought it was going to be and I know in the end it's going to break my little heart. 

Anyway sorry, most of the smut will be in part 2 where I imagine going into detail about their first time (for a few different things) as well as how they are once they get more comfortable as they get deeper into the summer. 

Broken up into two parts because I can't fathom proofreading these 6,000 words one more time. 

(Next part will be up as fast as I can write it.)

[vintageshanny]

Waiting for Love - Part Twelve

You Fulfill My Soul

Content: All of the Elvisy things - angst, fluff, smut, mention of prescription drug use, removal of sweaty jumpsuits, etc. 18+

I know I said two more chapters, but as I started outlining and writing this part, I knew it would take us to the end. I had a loose vision for this story from the beginning. I don’t want to spoil the end right now, so I have written an author’s note at the bottom about how much this story means to me. Thank you so much for reading, liking, commenting, sharing, etc. I appreciate it more than you know. ❤️❤️❤️

Catch up here: Waiting for Love series

December 1972

“I don’t know, Rox. I’m excited to go to Hawaii and see him do this big performance, but I’m worried about him. He keeps trying to lose all this weight, he’s barely been eating. He just looks so stressed and tired.” Vivien curled the phone cord around her finger, peeking over toward the bed to make sure Elvis was still asleep. His light snores reassured her.

“I’m sorry hon, hopefully he’ll feel better after it’s all over.”

“I hope you’re right,” Vivien sighed. “Oh, are you and Michael coming to the Christmas party?”

“I wouldn’t miss it!” Roxanne sounded excited and then snickered a little bit. “Well actually it depends. Am I going to walk in on the two of you getting busy on the couch?”

“Roxanne! I apologized for that a million times,” Vivien protested, her face heating up with embarrassment.

“I’m just giving you a hard time. I was actually enjoying the show, I wish I had stayed til the end. Does he start singing when he orgasms?”

“No, he just moans my name and, well…” Vivien trailed off as she thought about how he would look at her with such tenderness when they were done, how occasionally she would see a tear brimming in his eye. Those moments were just for her though.

“C’mon, don’t stop now. You’re no fun,” Rox complained.

“Elvis thinks I’m pretty fun.” Vivien blushed at her own innuendo.

“Now you’re just being a tease!”

“You love it,” Vivien laughed. “I’ll see you next week.”

*************************************************

January 14, 1973 - 3:00AM

“Okay, tell me the truth now baby. How was I? The guys always jus’ tell me what they think I wanna hear.”

Back at their private villa in the wee hours of the morning, Vivien eyed Elvis, still in his sweaty jumpsuit emblazoned with an eagle. He looked beyond exhausted, but also a little relieved that it was over.

“Honestly? I thought you were amazing.” Vivien smiled and grabbed his hand, fiddling with the giant rings he’d worn for the special.

“Really? Ya think the people watchin’ at home will like it? Will they feel the energy?”

“Well, right off the bat they’ll like it because you look soooo handsome.” Vivien winked and Elvis blushed and smiled. “There’s that cute blush,” she teased, watching him grow even redder. “And yes, they will feel your energy. I was just getting upset that they made you keep doing songs after it was over. They’re wearing you out.”

“And that’s your job, right?” Elvis laughed when he saw it was Vivien’s turn to blush. “Don’t worry baby, I still got enough gas in the tank for ya.”

“Oh yeah? Are you gonna shoot me full of rhythm and blues?”

Elvis’ laughter grew as he pulled her in for a kiss. “I shoulda known that’d be your favorite part.”

“I think this next part is actually my favorite,” Vivien whispered as she unzipped his jumpsuit and started slowly peeling it off of his sweaty body.

“I look good, don’t I baby?” Elvis stood before her in just his white briefs, the jumpsuit now a sweaty pile on the floor. “I knew I could lose the weight.”

“You always look good to me.” Vivien leaned in and licked the sweat off his collarbone, sending a shiver through his body.

“Mmm baby, I think I’ve worked up an appetite.” He unzipped her blue sequined dress and let it pool onto the floor at her feet. “Oh God, like a feast for a starvin’ man,” he groaned as he slid her lacy panties down and laid her on the bed, spreading her legs open. “How do ya get more beautiful every time I look at ya?”

“Elvis,” Vivien protested shyly.

“Honey, this is my reward for all my hard work. I jus’ know ya wouldn’t deprive me of that.” He started kissing and licking up the insides of her thighs, approaching the wet delicacy at her center. “Mmm, sweeter every time too.” Vivien moaned as he licked her folds. “That’s right baby, keep lettin’ me know this is your favorite part.” Elvis started grinding against the bed, his dick almost uncomfortably hard as he sent her into orbit, his name echoing off the walls of the room. Ahh, sweet release.

“Okay that was definitely my favorite part,” Vivien panted, trying to regain control of her breathing.

“I think the people staying in the next villa over might know it too, baby.” Elvis laughed as he pulled himself up to lay next to her.

“Let me make you feel good now.” Vivien reached inside his underwear and found he was already a sticky mess.

“Honey, ya already did make me feel good. Ya know I jus’ can’t control myself around ya. And it makes me feel so good when you feel good.”

Vivien blushed, feeling flattered that her moans could excite him so much. “Well, let me take care of you in a different way then. I’m going to draw a nice relaxing bath for you.”

“Okay baby,” Elvis whispered, his eyelids already starting to feel like they didn’t want to stay open anymore.

“Come on, my love. You can sleep after we get you all cleaned up. You can sleep all day if you want.” She slipped on her nightgown and pulled him into the bathroom. “You’ll have to take your underwear off,” she reminded as he stood there next to the tub while she tested the water with her wrist. She smiled at his cute embarrassment when he quickly pulled off his underwear and sat down in the soapy water. As if she hadn’t seen him naked before. Hadn’t kissed and licked every part of him…

“Are ya comin’ in here with me?” Elvis’ voice brought her thoughts back to this beautiful exhausted man lying in the tub.

“No, this is just for you. I want you to lean back and relax while I take care of you.” She took a soft washcloth and started slowly washing his body, starting with his long graceful neck and working her way down. She scrubbed over his hairy chest and stomach and then very gently washed his penis and scrotum. His eyes were closed, but he let out a tiny little moan when she touched his most sensitive areas. She felt her own desire heating back up, but she knew how badly he needed to rest. She moved down his legs and then scrubbed his aching feet, setting aside the cloth when she was done so she could massage them with her hands.

“Baby, you’re so good ta me,” Elvis moaned.

“Okay, time to get you into bed.” Vivien helped him stand and step out of the tub. She grabbed a fluffy towel and carefully wiped him down from head to toe, no body part escaping her attention. Then she helped him into his pajamas and led him over to the bed.

As they curled up together, his arm wrapped around her from behind, Elvis whispered in her ear. “Baby, I was jus’ thinkin’ that my mama would be so proud of me for findin’ such a special woman ta love me and take care of me like you do. I wish you coulda met her.”

Vivien smiled, her eyes watering with emotion. “Elvis, I feel like I have met her in a way. All the love and kindness and passion that shines in you, I know that she gave that to you.”

Elvis didn’t say anything, but Vivien could feel the teardrop that slipped off his face and onto her own.

*************************************************

April 1973

Vivien awoke to see Elvis staring critically at himself in the full-length mirror on the bedroom wall. He was wearing just his silky pajama pants. The top was draped over the velvet tufted chair next to him. Elvis jumped with a start as Vivien crept up behind him and wrapped her arms around him.

“What’re we looking at?” she murmured into the soft skin of his back.

“N-n-nothin’ honey, lemme jus’ grab my shirt.” Elvis reached for the shirt, but Vivien snatched it away and hid it behind her back.

“Mm-mm, no, that will block my view,” she teased with a wink.

“C’mon baby, lemme have it,” Elvis demanded, turning toward her.

“You can have it in a minute. Just turn back around first. Pwease,” she added in a baby voice.

“Okay baby.” Elvis relented and turned back toward the mirror as Vivien tossed the shirt onto the chair.

“Wow…look at you,” Vivien breathed as she peeked out from behind him, looking at his body in the mirror.

“Yeah, look. I’m gettin’ too fuckin’ fat,” Elvis retorted. “All that weight I lost for the special came back. Plus more.”

Vivien wrapped her arms around him again. “You look amazing,” she murmured, her hands running over his broad hairy chest and down to his soft stomach. “I can’t believe this is all mine.” She slipped a hand inside his waistband and let her fingertips trace lightly over the little pooch leading down to his pelvic region.

“N-n-now that’s enough honey,” Elvis breathed out, but he didn’t make a move to stop her hand from drifting down further.

“This,” she whispered, “this is one of my favorite spots. Cuz if I follow it down, it takes me right to Little Elvis.” She cupped the soft warm appendage in her hand, feeling a shudder run through Elvis’ body as she stayed pressed tightly against him.

A low groan seemed to catch in his throat when she removed her hand from his pants and leaned in to kiss an old acne scar on his shoulder blade. She started slowly sliding his pants off, leaving a trail of kisses down his back and over that perfectly round butt. As his pants pooled around his ankles and she gave a tender kiss to the back of each sturdy thigh, Vivien noticed Elvis’ body trembling slightly. The sight of him being nervous after all this time together made her heart swell.

“Wh-wh-what are ya doin’ down there baby?” Elvis stuttered out as Vivien crawled around to kneel in front of him. She gave a kiss to each foot as she lifted them to help him step out of his pajama bottoms. “Ya ain’t gotta be d-d-down there on your knees like that, honey.”

Vivien took in the sight of him while she knelt there - his foreskin had rolled back to reveal that sensitive tip just begging to be tasted. “It looks like you’re enjoying it.” She smiled up at him and leaned in closer, licking her lips.

Elvis looked down and saw that, despite the…issues he’d been having the last couple weeks, Little Elvis was indeed standing at full attention. He sucked in his breath as Vivien pressed her lips to him, kissing his tip before lapping at it with her tongue and then taking him fully into her mouth.

“Oh damn Vivien, ya always know how ta make me feel good,” Elvis moaned out. His hands rested on her head, his fingers weaving through her thick dark hair.

Vivien could feel her own core throbbing with desire as she moaned around him, grabbing his butt and pushing him deeper inside of her. Every one of her senses was consumed by him.

Elvis looked down at Vivien taking care of him so passionately and his heart swelled with a profound desire. To make her his in every way. If only he could find a way to make his body keep cooperating. Too late…He could feel Vivien’s movements slow as he began to soften in her mouth.

“C-c-c’mon honey, that’s enough now,” he whispered with his eyes closed, the embarrassment threatening to push him into anger.

Vivien pulled her mouth off him but could not turn off her desire to shower him with affection. She saw that he had retreated completely into his cocoon and pressed two soft kisses to it, then two more to the fuzziness covering his pubic area, another one to his lower abdomen, then one to his belly button, until she had worked her way up and her face was buried in his chest. Elvis still felt embarrassed but also oddly grateful for her display of affection toward the body that just betrayed him. He’d never experienced this level of tenderness from someone.

“Did I do something wrong?” Vivien mumbled nervously into his chest.

Elvis kissed the top of her head. “Naw honey, it wasn’t that at all. I want ya, I really do, it’s j-j-just that I gotta couple new medications, a-a-and sometimes it does this ta me. My body’s not in sync with my mind and heart I guess.” Elvis pulled his pants and shirt back on and sat on the edge of the bed, avoiding eye contact.

“More new medications?” Vivien asked softly. “What are these for?”

“Baby, we’ve been over this. Ya ain’t gotta worry about me. I jus’ need some things ta help me keep performin’, ta help me sleep, and now my stomach’s been hurtin’ lately, so I got some more painkillers, but none of this is your concern, okay?”

“Not my concern?” Vivien echoed in disbelief. “I love you. How would I not be concerned? And I’ve seen your medications in the bathroom. Why do you have so many from different doctors? And some don’t even have your name on the bottle…” her voice trailed off when she saw Elvis’ jaw tighten. She braced herself for the storm she knew was coming, the storm she had provoked. But she could no longer bite her tongue and pretend that she didn’t see what was going on.

“You’ve been snoopin’ through my things?” Elvis barked, his whole body tensing up.

“I wasn’t snooping! Everything was right there on the counter by the sink.” She tried to lower the defensive in her tone. “Elvis. I’m just worried about you. You’ve been so exhausted lately, and sometimes you don’t seem like yourself. I think that maybe you should go to the hospital so they can see if there’s something seriously wrong.”

“Oh, I see. Ya wanna send me off cuz I can’t fulfill ya no more?” Elvis still sounded angry but now also hurt. “How do ya like that,” he muttered under his breath. “Like a race horse that’s outlived its usefulness. Just send him off ta die.”

“Elvis, you’re talking crazy now.” She tried to reach out and grab his hand, but he pulled back from her touch. “I know we are both passionate and affectionate people, but it’s not about the…sex,” she said, her voice dropping to a hoarse whisper. “It was never just about that with me and you. From the first time we spoke, I saw something so deep in you that I can’t let go of. You fulfill my heart, you fulfill my soul. And I just can’t watch you do this to yourself.” Her voice cracked with emotion.

“So that’s it? You’ll leave me if I don’t go to the hospital?” His voice was quieter now, but still full of hurt.

“I could never leave you. I love you beyond what I ever would have thought possible. I need you.” Vivien wished there were words to describe how completely her heart belonged to him. “But it will break my heart to see you getting sicker. It will break me. Please Elvis, I’m begging you to try. Just go get checked out and take only the medications that they give you. You can take a break from touring. We can run away together. Anything you need, I’ll be there to help you. I can’t exist without you.” Vivien felt the tears flowing freely down her face as she dropped down to her knees and buried her head in his lap.

Elvis swallowed as he looked down at this beautiful woman who cared for him so much. Who would do anything for him. He tried to let go of his anger as he stroked the back of her head. “Baby, please don’t cry. I know you’re worried about me. You don’t have ta be, but I know it’s cuz ya love me. I will go get checked out, okay? I’ll do it soon. For you. To make ya feel better, okay? You’ll see there’s nothin’ wrong, okay?”

Vivien nodded and wiped her tears away, knowing how hard it must be for him to make that concession, to let go of what little control he had in his own life. “Thank you.”

Elvis pulled her up off the ground and onto his lap, giving her a sweet kiss before reaching to button his shirt, feeling too exposed all of a sudden.

“Do you have to button that?” Vivien asked, stilling his hands with her own.

Elvis let out a guffaw, his face turning pink. “What, ya want me ta be walkin’ round in the nude all day?”

“Maybe I do,” Vivien teased, pushing his shirt back open. “Can you blame me when you look this good? So sexy,” she cooed.

Elvis grabbed her glasses off the nightstand and put them upside down on his own face. “I-I-I don’ know honey, I think we gotta get ya a new prescription in these things. I don’t know what you’re seein’. You’re liable to run off with some other sexy man thinkin’ it’s me!”

Vivien giggled and snatched her glasses back. “Hey, you’re the one who’s always losing your glasses!”

“I don’t lose ‘em baby, I give ‘em to fans as gifts. Plus your beauty is so powerful I could be blind as a bat and still see it.” He put a finger under Vivien’s chin and lifted it toward him so he could plant a sweet smooch on her lips. “Thank ya for worryin’ ‘bout me and takin’ care of me, baby.”

“Oh Elvis, you really want to know what I see when I look at you? It’s this.” She pressed her hand firmly against his heart, feeling the soothing rhythm that guided him. “Your heart is so beautiful it makes every part of you glow. Your looks could change a million times - you could gain weight, lose weight, stop dying your hair,” she teased, playfully running her fingers through his black mane with random pieces of silver nestled throughout. “You will always look perfect to me.”

“Thank ya sweetheart,” Elvis murmured, overwhelmed with emotion and…something else. “Oh baby,” he groaned as she pressed her body into his. “I think we’re back in business.”

VIvien squealed as he rolled her onto the bed and lowered himself on top of her, preparing to join their bodies as one.

*************************************************

May 1973

“There she is! Vivien!”

Vivien turned her head at the sound of her name to see half a dozen reporters and a news camera swarming toward her. She nervously took a step backward and bumped into Roxanne, who was carrying the sack of Krystal burgers that Elvis had sent them out to get.

“It’s okay Viv, I’m right here with you.” Roxanne whispered her reassurance into Vivien’s ear.

“So it’s true that Elvis is staying here in this hospital? Can you share what condition he’s in after canceling shows due to exhaustion?”

Vivien steeled her nerves against the intrusion, knowing Elvis would be much more polite and kind than she was about to be. “What condition do you hope for him to be in? Didn’t you report last week that he’s been gaining weight and might be losing his touch?”

“I take it you don’t share that opinion?” A condescending smirk played across his face.

“Not in the slightest.” Vivien tried with all her might to keep her voice even and steady.

“Do you think you’ll be the next long-suffering Mrs. Presley, watching over the home while Elvis goes off gallivanting with the boys?”

Vivien cocked her head slightly to the side, fire shooting out of her eyes. “Let’s get one thing straight - I am not suffering with Elvis. He is the kindest, most beautiful person I’ve ever known. It is an honor to be at his side, loving and supporting him while he gives everything he has to bring happiness to his fans. But if you’re content to be vultures waiting to pick at the bones of a man, of a human being, who only wants to bring joy to this often miserable world, well, I can’t stop you.” Vivien turned on her heel and marched into the hospital lobby, Roxanne tagging along behind her in awe.

“Wow Vivien, that was amazing! I didn’t know you had it in you to tell him off like that.”

“Neither did I,” Vivien exhaled, her hands shaking with nerves as she took the bag of food from Roxanne.

“You’re gonna have to be strong like that to help him through all this. Have you thought about what you’ll do, I mean what if it doesn’t work? What if he starts taking all the painkillers again? What if he doesn’t get well?”

“Then we’ll try again. I’ll try forever with him, by his side.” Vivien spoke with determination. “I know he hasn’t always gotten everything right, but neither have I. I know he always tries his best. And I wouldn’t trade a second of our story. He has shown me this whole-hearted love that has filled my soul. Roxanne, I need him.”

“I know, Viv. Are you gonna be okay without me? I have to get back to work.”

“Yes, I’ll be okay. Thanks for driving me. And walking with me past the vultures.”

“You go be strong for him now, okay?” Roxanne pulled Vivien into a quick hug. “I love you.”

*************************************************

“There’s my baby! My baby with my burgers!”

Vivien was relieved to see that Elvis was still in such good spirits.

“Mr. Presley, you really should try to eat something a little healthier while you’re here.” The older female nurse spoke sternly but then smiled at Elvis’ pouty expression. “But I guess one burger would be okay.”

“I won’t tell if you won’t,” Elvis dramatically stage whispered with a wink, a crooked grin lighting up his face. The nurse giggled like a schoolgirl and left the two of them alone in the room. “C’mere baby.” Elvis patted the narrow spot next to him on the bed, and Vivien squeezed herself in, snuggling up to his soft warm body. “They’re just running some tests now honey. They’re gonna find out why my stomach’s been hurtin’ and see what medicines I actually should be takin’. Ever’thing’s gonna be okay, you’ll see.” He put his arm around her and kissed her forehead tenderly.

“Of course everything’s gonna be okay,” Vivien said confidently. “I was waiting for love for such a long time, and I’m never letting go of you. Got that?”

“Mm-hm,” Elvis nodded as she pressed her lips against his sweet plush ones, her hand resting on his chest. The steady thump of his heart beat vibrated out and coursed through her own body, an ocean of love washing over the two of them.

Author’s note:

A million thanks to everyone who stayed with me on this one! This was such a cathartic thing to write for me, but I’m also sad and overwhelmed with emotion to let go of it. I feel Elvis gets a lot of undue criticism for just essentially being a human being. I loved being able to explore a little bit of what he may have thought and felt about his own life and relationships and why he did the things he did. My goal is always for my writing to convey the love and compassion that I feel for him, so hopefully I was successful. As for the ending, I had in mind from the beginning that it would be a little bit open-ended as to the future. In my fantasy world, with the right love and support, he would have been able to be with us a lot longer. But I also know that addiction and the health problems he faced were very serious, and sometimes all the love in the world can’t take that away. I don’t believe his level of fame is healthy for anyone’s psyche, and part of me thinks that he would have been better off as a human being if he had a short career at local clubs and then settled down to have a family. But on the other hand, I wonder if, knowing how much love and light he’s spread around the entire world for decades after his passing, would he still take the same path despite what fate had in store? All I know for sure is that, like Vivien, I am never letting go of the love I’ve found in him. ❤️

I would love to hear your thoughts, feedback, comments, etc.!

Tag List: @whositmcwhatsit @lookingforrainbows @arrolyn1114 @thatbanditqueen @missmaywemeetagain @ellie-24 @be-my-ally @from-memphis-with-love @pebbles403 @deniseinmn @everythingelvispresley @little-laamb @annapresley8 @leapresley @littlehoneyposts @epthedream69 @atleastpleasetelephone @gatheraheart @richardslady121 @helen06dreamer @arg-xoxo @i-r-i-n-a-a @returntopresley

[sixhours]

One Day at a Time - Chapter 4 - Gestation

Series Chapter Index | Read on AO3 | Complete

Rating: Explicit, 18+, here be smut Series tags: The Last of Us, The Last of Us (HBO), Joel Miller x f!OFC, Joel & Ellie, mostly follows canon, SMUT, gratuitous smut, dubious consent (drunk sex), unplanned pregnancy, fluff, references to past miscarriages, angst, hurt/comfort, romance, age gap (~21 years), childbirth, fluffy baby stuff, I've probably forgotten some so please let me know <3

He’s browsing at the trading post when he sees Charlie again. He’s checked off 14 more days in his little calendar, and each time he picks up the pen, it stirs a bittersweet feeling of anticipation and sheer terror in his gut.

He’s picking over the trades, looking for new sneakers for Ellie, when his eyes fall on something else.

Footed pajamas, impossibly tiny, the little plastic price tag still clipped to the sleeve. His hand drifts over the yellow fabric, faded but minky soft. Warm. Good for winter.

Sarah had pajamas like this once…a sleep suit with a hood and little round ears peeking up from the top. He hasn’t thought about that outfit in…well, decades. The memory of her toddling toward him with those silly little ears poking up from her downy head is so vivid that he can almost hear her trill of laughter and he has to lean on the table to catch his breath, the yellow onesie still clutched in his hand.

“Joel? Are you okay?”

Charlie’s voice comes from over his shoulder, snapping him out of his reverie, and he turns around.

“Yeah…yeah just, uh…yeah, m’fine. What’re you doin’ here?”

He hides the pajamas behind him, balling them up in one large fist.

She holds up a white package. “Heard they had TP. Figured I’d better get down here and snag a roll before it was all gone. You?”

“Lookin’ for stuff for Ellie.”

“Find anything good?”

“She won’t think so.”

Charlie smirks. “Teenagers, huh?”

“Yeah,” he says, shoving the onesie deep into his bag and making for the counter. He drops off a sack of old clothes into the donation bin, all the stuff Ellie has outgrown, and watches as Charlie does the same with her trades.

They find themselves outside, the warmth of late spring making everything smell fresh and green. Charlie’s button-down shirt floats over her jeans in such a way as to hide her midsection, but her proportions have changed. Her face is fuller, her breasts are swollen, and her skin looks so soft and smooth and—

He coughs and looks away, feeling a brief wash of shame for noticing her. Again.

“So you’re, uh…still…”

“Yeah…I’m still,” she says.

“That’s good,” he says, and means it. “Feelin’ okay?”

She shrugs. “A little tired…but yeah. I feel better. So far, so good, I guess.”

He nods thoughtfully and bites his lip, thinking of the calendar next to his bed. He can almost hear the days falling away.

“Look, I…uh…I shoulda said somethin’ before now. I…know I haven’t been the most…uh…I’m not trying to get out of…anything.”

She blinks up at him, brow furrowed, waiting for him to make sense. He winces, rubbing at the back of his neck.

“I wanna help,” he tries again. “However I can. I know it’s not easy goin’ it alone,” he says, looking down at the bag with Ellie’s clothes and the onesie tucked at the bottom. Then he’s thinking of Sarah, of long nights spent pacing and rocking and soothing.

“You’ve done enough.”

“Oh,” he chokes out. “Uh, I, uh…s’pose I deserve that.”

Her eyes widen, cheeks turning a faint pink. Now it’s her turn to fumble her words.

“Oh…I didn’t mean it like that. I meant…you’ve been good. You’ve helped. I–shit. I’m sorry.”

There’s a painfully awkward silence as this sinks in and he bites back a smirk.

“We’re pretty fuckin’ bad at this, huh?”

“Yes,” she sighs. “We are.”

This admission seems to ease something between them. Before he can lose his nerve, he continues.

“Could I come to your next appointment? Is that somethin’ people still do?”

She nods slowly, considering this. “I have one next week. It’s not very exciting, but…you could come with me.”

“I’d like that.”

“I’m not sure you will,” she says. “The midwife is…intense.”

“I’ve heard,” he says. “I think I can handle it.”

He can’t handle it.

The midwife, Joanie, is cold and abrupt and downright abrasive. He can’t imagine this person welcoming anyone, let alone his future child, into the world. He wants to put his arm around Charlie, turn her around, and tell her they’ll find someone else.

But he can’t. Jackson has one midwife. And the town doctor is a 76-year-old man who “doesn’t do babies”.

The woman is dressed in a long, flowing caftan, gray hair pulled neatly into a braid down her back. She looks like a hippie but her eyes are sharp, and her tongue is sharper.

“You brought the boyfriend this time,” she says as Charlie settles on the makeshift exam bed, a chaise lounge with a sheet draped over it. Joel can’t help but notice that Charlie doesn’t bother correcting her.

“You can sit,” Joanie says to him, gesturing to the chair next to the chaise. When he doesn’t move, she throws her hands up. “Or keep hovering. Whatever.”

Joel crosses his arms and barely restrains a snarl. Charlie shoots him a look as she slides her unbuttoned jeans down to her hips.

I told you.

The woman performs a cursory physical exam in silence. It’s obvious they’ve done this routine several times, and neither seems to feel the need to explain it to Joel.

The midwife is frowning, digging into Charlie’s belly with pointed, demanding fingers, feeling around until Charlie winces. Joel clenches a fist at his side, resisting the urge to snap at the woman for being so careless and rough.

“Growth is on track. You’re measuring at sixteen weeks.”

She pulls out a speaker attached to a wand–he vaguely recognizes it from appointments with Sarah’s mother at the beginning–and a tube of gel. She covers Charlie’s lower abdomen with goop and presses the wand in, levering it this way and that, seeking the sound of a second heart. There’s a long moment where he thinks they won’t find it–that this will be the day it all goes to hell.

But then there’s a familiar but distant echo, a rapid pulse of sound, the memory coming back to him across thirty-five years and an apocalypse. It’s the sound that once filled a small room in a sterile hospital. He remembers it as a black-and-white flutter on the ultrasound screen, fast and vigorous and alive .

Mine , he thinks dimly. He sinks into the chair because his legs no longer want to hold him.

The midwife, satisfied she’s found what she’s looking for, holds the wand steady and looks at her watch. It’s the shortest fifteen seconds of Joel’s life and he doesn’t want it to end.

“One-twenty-six. You can sit up.”

Charlie does. Joel notices she doesn’t bother trying to button her jeans. He vaguely remembers Sarah’s mother needing soft, stretchy things, and wonders if Charlie has anything like that.

“Any cramping?” Joanie asks, flipping through a file.

“No.”

“Still bleeding?”

Charlie hesitates for a fraction of a second. “A little. Not every day.”

Joel’s eyes snap to her at that, but she’s not looking at him.

The midwife frowns. “Given your advanced maternal age and your history, I don’t like to hear that.”

Her sharp eyes focus on Joel. “You’re, what, sixty?”

“Fifty-seven.”

“Mmm. Sperm quality after fifty is a crapshoot,” she sighs. “You’re looking at an increased risk of genetic defects.”

Joel grips the arm of the chaise hard enough to rip it from the frame. He’s going to kill this woman.

“Look, I’ll be honest with you,” she continues. “Maternal-fetal medicine in this country was a shitshow before cordyceps, and the pandemic might as well have sent us back to the dark ages. I’ve seen one death for every five live births. Maternal survival rates are better, but only slightly.”

She’s looking at Charlie. “I can’t tell you you’re going to be okay. I can’t tell you your baby is going to be okay. I can only tell you what I think will help your chances and then…we wait and see.”

Charlie nods, her face drawn into a flat, emotionless mask as she takes this in.

“No more patrols. Light duty work only. No lifting. I can give you a doctor’s note for the council to reassign you if your regular job is too strenuous. No sex,” she says, looking pointedly at Joel. “And if the bleeding gets worse–if it’s bad enough that you need a pad–you go on bed rest immediately.”

Her eyes shift back to Joel. “Stress is a baby-killer. Your job is to take care of her and make sure there is no stress. None. If you can’t do that, you need to find someone who can.”

He grinds his teeth so hard he thinks he hears a molar crack.

“We’re done. I’ll see you next week,” she says dismissively.

And then Charlie’s off the chaise and ushering him to the door before he can open his mouth to give the woman hell and they’re stepping out into the rain. They make it to the end of the street before he stops her with a hand on her shoulder.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” he says, hating the way his voice shakes, recognizing the animal clawing within his chest as barely contained rage.

“I did–I warned you,” she frowns. “She’s rough.”

“No–I mean, the bleeding. You said you were fine.”

“I was. I am,” she says flatly. “You heard the heartbeat.”

“S’not what I meant and you know it,” he hisses.

Her lip curls in a snarl. “You fucked me once . You think that gives you the right to—to everything?”

He blinks. “That’s not what I said.”

“Then what are you saying?”

When he can’t answer, she turns and walks away. The sight of her retreating back hunched against the rain only serves to stoke the fire of his anger further. Her shirt is getting soaked.

Where the fuck is her jacket? She’s going to get sick.

He catches up and grabs her by the arm, turning her around and holding her in place.

“You heard her. How am I supposed to take care of you if you won’t fuckin’ let me?”

Only then does he see the tears in her eyes, rain mingling with salt on her cheeks. Guilt stabs at him and he loosens his grip.

“I don’t know,” she hisses. “I can’t just…be that person with you. I don’t fucking know you! I don’t even know your middle name, but we’re having a fucking baby. Or maybe we’re not, because our odds are shit, and I should have taken care of this when I had the chan–”

The words hit like a punch to the gut. Without thinking, he pulls her to him, wrapping her in his arms until he’s holding her in the middle of the street. “Stop. Please.”

She shudders but doesn’t push him away. The sky rumbles, threatening a downpour.

He ducks his head, speaking softly. “It’s Arthur.”

She snorts into his shoulder. “What?”

“My middle name. S’Arthur. After my grandfather.”

She makes a noise that sounds like a sob…or a laugh. He can’t tell. The sound stirs a frantic need within him and he grips her by the shoulders.

“Move in with me.”

“What? No.”

“Just until the kid gets here. Let me take care of you both.”

She looks up at him, eyes ringed with dark circles. A raindrop splashes on the tip of her nose and drips into the divot above her upper lip. 

“Do you even want this? I need to hear you say it.”

Any lingering anger melts away. He thinks of the soft yellow onesie still tucked into the bottom of his pack.

“I do,” he says, hoping the two little words are enough to hold her, to convince her.

She ducks her head with a watery sigh, close enough for her hair to brush at his chest. “Let me think about it.”

He nods. “Alright, but…not too long, okay? You’re, uh…”

He trails off as the back of his hand touches her stomach, just grazing the fabric over her bellybutton, before dropping back to his side.

She sniffs. “Yeah. I’m well aware we’re on a schedule.”

“Okay…okay then,” he nods, resuming their walk toward town. They’ve almost reached the trading post when she speaks again.

“It’s Sarah, by the way.”

The name takes his breath as it always does, pulls at that black hole in his heart that even Ellie can’t completely fill.

“I don’t under–”

“My middle name,” she sniffs. “You didn’t ask, but…it’s Sarah.”

He doesn’t trust himself to speak, just ducks his chin in a nod. Sarah. Of course it’s Sarah.

“C’mon,” he says. “Let’s get out of the rain.”

That night, she appears on his porch. The rain has let up, but her hair is still damp, matted to her temples. 

“I’ll stay with you,” she says without preamble. “Under one condition.”

He blinks. “Anything.”

“We don’t talk about the kid. No names, no what-ifs…no…playing house. I can’t do any of that,” she says. “We take it one day at a time and…see what happens.”

“If that’s what you want,” he says, swallowing hard.

She nods, satisfied. “Alright. I can bring some stuff by tomorrow.”

“Good. That’d be good. But I uh, need to tell Ellie,” he pauses, thinking. “Can I make dinner for you? For the three of us, I mean?”

She raises an eyebrow.

“Not playin’ house or whatever,” he clarifies, feeling a blush creep up his neck. “Just…figured the news might go down better with food.”

She nods slowly. “I could do that.”

“You like spaghetti? S’Ellie’s favorite and it’s hard for me to fuck it up.”

“I like spaghetti,” she says, smiling a little. “I get off work at six.”

“Tomorrow,” he says. “Six. See you then.”

That night, instead of staring at the ceiling during his usual sleepless hours, he moves most of his clothes into the spare bedroom closet and cleans his stuff out of the attached bathroom.

As he works, he thinks of Charlie’s unbuttoned jeans straining around her womb and the climbing summer temperatures. Soon there would be no hiding her stomach under a jacket or sweater.

Jackson was friendly, but it was still a small town. People got bored and they talked, and anyone who paid attention would have seen Charlie and Joel together. There were already enough rumors about Tommy Miller’s broody older brother and his mysterious adopted daughter, the one who wore long sleeves even on the hottest days and carried a switchblade.

Ellie.

Another pang of guilt gnaws in his gut. He’d done enough damage to their relationship as it was, and now he’s about to drop a fucking bomb.

He finds himself knocking on the garage door the next morning, hands rubbing restlessly at the thighs of his jeans as he waits for her to answer. He realizes it’s been a few days since he’s talked with her beyond a simple “hello” in passing, or to pass the salt at dinner, or to ask where she’d put the TV remote. He chides himself; Ellie is independent by nature, but she’s still a kid, still his responsibility. She’s never going to trust him again if–

She answers the door, rubbing her eyes and blinking owlishly up at him. She looks so young when she first wakes up, hair tousled, sleep lines on her cheeks.

“Hey, I uh…we’re, uh…having dinner at the house tonight. Makin’ your favorite. Spaghetti.”

She raises an eyebrow. Joel doesn’t usually cook if he can help it; the caf is easier and less prone to burning things. “What’s the occasion?”

He swallows hard. “There’s somethin’ I need to talk to you about. And…Charlie will be there.”

“Ooooo-kay,” she yawns. “Love a good third wheel situation, I guess.”

“S’not like that,” he shakes his head. “She’s just a friend.”

“Yeah, I bet,” she smirks, then sighs dramatically. “I guess I can make room in my packed social calendar for dinner. As long as it’s spaghetti. Maria’s sauce, right? ‘Cause yours is…yikes.”

She sticks her tongue out to drive the point home.

He snorts softly. “Yeah. Maria’s sauce. And garlic bread.”

“Cool.”

He nods, and the moment draws itself out, that awful, awkward, twisting silence filled with all the things he can’t say.

“So…was there something else?” she asks. “I gotta get ready for school.”

“No…nope,” he mutters. “I guess not. I’ll see you tonight, kiddo.”

He doesn’t quite burn the garlic bread, but it’s pretty fucking dark. He’s scraping the crumbs into the sink when Charlie appears at the door with a salad in hand and a backpack slung over her shoulder. She’s wearing an oversized blue button-down over soft black leggings. For comfort’s sake, he hopes the jeans have been retired for a while.

“Thanks,” he says, taking the bag, frowning at its weight. “You’re not s’posed to be lifting stuff.”

“I can handle a bag of clothes.”

He grunts, gestures to the salad. “You can put that on the table. Ellie’ll be over in a few.”

“Anything I can help with?”

“You can sit,” he says, perhaps too gruffly, placing her pack by the stairs. On the stove, the reheated marinara starts to bubble, spitting red flecks. He rushes to take it off the heat.

Ellie arrives just as Joel is setting the last bowl on the table. She nods in a wary greeting to Charlie, then helps herself to spaghetti and salad and bread.

“So what’s up?” she asks around a mouthful of food, forgoing any small talk—his kid, through and through.

Joel swallows hard, looks at Charlie, who simply shrugs as if to say this is your show .

He opens his mouth but the words are stubborn and nothing seems right.

You’re going to be a big sister.

Your old man is going to be a dad again.

I fucked up and we’re having a baby.

He’d never had to worry about this with Sarah. On the rare occasion a date went further than dinner, he’d been cautious to a fault. He’d been considering a vasectomy before the pandemic but time and savings were sparse. He probably could have had the procedure done back in the QZ, but Tess had been his only partner, and she’d had a hysterectomy in her thirties. An operation that would put him out of commission for any length of time seemed like an unnecessary waste of ration cards.

He realizes he’s lost in thought, and they’re both watching him, still waiting.

“So, uh…Charlie’s gonna move in with me for a bit,” he says. “I’m givin’ her my room, and I’ll take your old one…if that’s okay.”

Ellie narrows her eyes. “You two aren’t… together ?”

“No,” Joel mutters, meeting Charlie’s eyes across the table. “S’temporary. She just needs a place for a bit.”

“Weird, but…fine with me,” Ellie shrugs, then turns to Charlie. “Joel’s good at taking in strays, it’s kinda his thing. Case in point.”

Charlie smiles a little at this, takes a sip of her water.

“She’s, uh, gonna have a baby,” Joel continues, focused on his plate, pushing the food around.

“Oh shit, congrats!” Ellie grins at Charlie, then looks back at Joel. He can’t meet her eyes.

There’s a heavy silence. Joel grips his fork until the design in the handle makes an imprint in his palm. He waits for Ellie to do what she does so well, to pick up the hints, put the pieces together, and say the things he can’t.

“Wait,” Ellie says, looking back and forth between them, mouth dropping open in a scandalized O .

“You didn’t—”

She coughs then, choking on a mouthful of food, and fumbles frantically for her water glass.

“Joel,” she says when she can speak again. “Tell me you didn’t.”

All he can offer is a tiny shrug.

“Holy shit ,” she breathes, fork clattering to her plate. “You slut !”

Not for the first time, Joel wishes she had a proper full name–Elspeth, Eleanor, Elizabeth, Eliza–anything that, combined with a solid middle name, made for a convincing and forceful reprimand.

“Sarah Elizabeth Miller” was always effective when his first kid was being a little shit, even if he rarely had to use it.

As it is, he can only growl Ellie’s short-and-sweet name under his breath and watch it roll right off her back. She doesn’t miss a beat.

“Wow, I can’t…I mean, you just said you weren’t even together –”

“We’re not,” he grates out. “It was a…a one-time thing.”

His face is so hot, he can practically feel the vein throbbing at his temple. He wonders if his second kid will give him a fucking aneurysm before his third kid can even be born.

“Thanks for that, now I need to bleach my fucking brain,” she says. “Gross. So, so gross. Dude, you’re like, sixty .”

“I’m fifty-seven,” he grumbles.

“Yeah, so really fucking old . Do you not know how babies are made ? FEDRA school was shit but even they taught us how to put on a fucking condom—”

“Ellie, we didn’t—“

“Don’t, dude. Just stop. You’re really fucked up, you know that? Like, I know I have issues, but this is fuckin’—”

She’s interrupted by a muffled snort from the other side of the table. Charlie has clapped a hand over her mouth and her eyes are brimming with tears. She’s going to fucking cry because his kid is an asshole and he is an even bigger asshole and this has gone all fifteen kinds of wrong.

Joel would like to die, right now, face down in a plate of spaghetti with his face the color of marinara—anything to end this godawful conversation.

“I’m sorry,” Charlie gasps, and it dawns on him that she’s not crying at all–she’s struggling not to laugh. “I’m so sorry. It’s just, I haven’t–this is just–holy shit .”

She breaks out into a peal of giggles, leaving both Joel and Ellie in stunned silence.

“I’m sorry,” she says again, heaving and hiccuping as she tries to catch her breath. “Everything has been so awful and serious and…this is just so…so…fucking funny –”

Ellie blinks, looking back and forth between Joel and Charlie in wide-eyed amazement.

Something in Joel’s chest unfurls from its tight, anxious knot, and when he meets Charlie’s eyes, he can’t help but return her grin.

“You two are fucked ,” Ellie pronounces, but there’s a slow smile spreading across her face.

“We are,” Joel agrees. “We’re fucked.”

“Totally fucked,” Charlie agrees, then giggles again.

Ellie shakes her head in disbelief, digging back into her spaghetti. “Welcome to the fucking family, I guess.”

Joel shows up for work the next day feeling lighter than he has in weeks. He’d finally slept . Ellie, while completely disgusted, hadn’t disowned him; she’d even hugged him before returning to the garage. And Charlie had made herself at home, joining him on the couch to watch a movie after dinner.

Maybe this could fucking work.

His newfound peace lasts about as long as it takes for Tommy to find him and clap him on the shoulder.

“What’s this I hear about you takin’ in strays?”

Joel scowls, picking up an extension cord and trying to untangle it from a pile of the things. “Don’t believe everythin’ you hear.”

“So Charlie isn’t shackin’ up with you, then?”

“S’not like that. It’s temporary.”

“Uh-huh.”

He shoots his brother a look over his shoulder, weighing his options. The rumor mill isn’t churning as fast as he thought or Tommy would be all over it by now. He rolls his eyes, knowing what comes next will be just about as bearable as a tooth extraction, aware he can’t put it off any longer.

“She’s gonna have a kid.”

“Right,” Tommy snorts. “Your kid?”

Joel turns and holds his brother’s gaze.

“Holy shit,” Tommy breathes. “You’re serious?”

“You’re gonna be an uncle again,” Joel says dryly.

Tommy whistles. “Well, don’t that just beat all. How the hell–”

“The usual way,” Joel grumbles, turning back to his work. “Can we not do this here?”

But Tommy has never been easily deterred. He practically launches himself at his brother for a bone-crushing hug while half the work crew looks on, bemused.

“Christ, get offa me.”

Tommy doesn’t. When he finally pulls away, grinning and gripping Joel’s shoulders, he’s almost teary-eyed.

“Maria’s gonna be thrilled.”

“I doubt it,” Joel mutters, thinking he’s already not held in high esteem by his sister-in-law. Knocking up a girl twenty years his junior is hardly going to redeem him.

“Does Ellie know?”

“Yeah, we told her last night. She’s…about as excited as you’d expect.”

“Damn. I can’t—I mean, I always thought—after—“

Tommy sobers, and the word lingers heavy between them.

After .

“I know,” Joel says, realizing with a dull ache that his brother is the only other person alive who understands the gravity of the situation…the only one who knew Sarah as more than a sad story in their history.

Joel closes his eyes and sees his brother at twenty, Sarah’s tiny arms wrapped around his neck as she clings to his back, laughing wildly as he dives through the sprinklers on the front lawn.

He blinks the memory away, busies himself with the extension cord again. He doesn’t even remember what he wanted it for, but he needs to do something with his hands.

“But it’s good, right? This is good,” Tommy says, finally breaking the silence.

“Yeah,” Joel swallows hard. “It’s good.”

Tommy grins, then frowns just as quickly. “Oh, man. The midwife–”

“Yeah, she’s awful.”

“Maria damn near killed her when Izzy was born.”

“‘Bout ready to myself,” Joel mutters.

“And…you and Charlie ain’t…?”

Joel glares at him in answer. 

“Alright, brother. Damn, man. A kid…and at your age…”

Tommy laughs and ducks just in time to avoid the extension cord as it whips by his head.

[sapphic-woes]

Can't help but think about a Vampire!Tav x Karlach... so part 1 of this idea :) pardon the lack of quality haven't done this for a while.

Vampire!Tav x Karlach:

You're one of Astarion's siblings, and let's say here that the rite simply Does Not Exist and we just gotta kill Cazador cuz he's already bad enough as is. The scars are indeed a shitty, Raphael style poem.

You and Astarion are basically double trouble, absolute menaces, downright diabolical together...but then Halsin comes along and ruins everything.

Astarion is...good? Suddenly? Or at least, he tries to be. Because Halsin is as good as people get, and for once...it's actually affecting Astarion.

And ugh. You hate it.

He's all smiles and rainbows now. Giggling like a lovesick idiot. You pity him for looking like such a fool. Doesn't he know how easy it is to string someone along? How easy it was to hand them over to Cazador and then just...forget them? How little love actually meant?

At least, that's what you tell yourself when you watch them being together. In reality, you're jealous of Astarion as much as you are a teeny tiny bit happy.

What could it be like? Loving someone just...because? To finally feel safe around another person? Protected? Cared for?

Astarion doesn't look afraid anymore, whereas you can't go a day without hearing Cazador's voice ordering you around. To sit up straight, to know your place, to never dare to drink the blood of a another–

"Soldier? Mm it's not even morning yet... Huh? Hey, easy-shit–easy there soldier! If you need to, uh, eat? Wait hang on, it's more like drinking isn't it? Well, you know what I mean! What I'm trying to say is, if you need blood..."

Your band of misfits had been hurrying to Baldurs Gate like maniacs, leaving you little time to feed. Sure, you caught your occasional animal, but unlike Astarion, you didn't have a humanoid blood bank willing to be your donor. You'd been hungry for days, however, you still thought you had everything control.

"...could ya ask before you try to take a bite outta my neck?"

Coming out of your hunger induced daze to find a surprised Karlach underneath you was...alarming, to say the least.

Not because of the position–she was warm and so fucking firm underneath your skin, sharply contrasting your cold, undead body. You nearly wanted to melt into her arms.

When was the last time you'd experienced warmth apart from blood and tears? Let alone the warmth of another person?

But this wasn't a time to loose focus. Karlach has already warned Astarion when your secret identities had been revealed. She'd wring your neck for actually trying to bite her now. Sure, you were strong–buy you'd be a fool to think you had a chance against the tiefling.

You're frozen in panic so long that Karlach begins to move, slowly trying to prop herself up with her elbows. She's trying to make sure you don't fall off her...

Though at the realization, her efforts are in vain as you lurch yourself away in horror.

Shit, shit, shit–

"I-I'm sorry. I don't know what came over me. I wasn't in my right mind. I swear I would never... I-I know you said to keep our teeth to o-ourselves..."

Your dead heart pounds, and you're certain she'll snap you in two after this. Why couldn't it have been Gale? Or even Wyll? At least with them you had the chance of survival. With a barbarian like Karlach?

This time, you really were going to die.

You squeeze your eyes shut when she finally rises from her bed and stalks toward you. Slow, purposeful steps. Her eyes are troubled, and you can't fathom why.

That is until she stops you and softly speaks.

"I thought you'd been looking a little tired these days. I shoulda brought it up early, but I know you like your privacy. Y/N..."

There's a beat of silence, and then everything is sweet. Mouthwatering. The scent of blood invades your senses. It's good. So good.

Your head snaps up, and Karlach has her knees bent, thumb out like she's telling you 'good job!' However, what catches your eyes is the cut on it–dripping blood onto the dirt between you two.

"I don't mind sharing...if you don't mind the heat."

It's an amusing sight for Karlach, you're sure, but you'd abandoned your pride long ago.

Well, more like 5 minutes ago–but can you blame a girl when she's starving?

You suck on her thumb like her blood is holy, eager to satiate your hunger. Karlach shivers, and you swear she grits her teeth, but you can't stop.

Her blood is intense, like chugging molten lava straight down your throat. Yet it doesn't actually burn. It tingles, it warms, it... rejuvenates you. Was this what it meant to drink from a thinking creature? Or was Karlach simply the best meal you'd ever had...?

[pacifymebby]

Trouble / Chapter Thirty Six

Alfie

"The fuck are you thinking Solomons you can't take her to that fucking hospital!"

The peaky boys temper really was quite amusing, a little touching even. I couldn't help but laugh at him when he tried to get all up in my face.

Sylvia had slipped away when I'd told her to find a coat, but he'd just stood there, glaring at me. His teeth gritted, nostrils flared. Very angry. When I'd told him that - that he looked very upset - he'd almost lost it. Almost gave me the excuse I'd been looking for to smack a little bit of sense into him.

Because if there was one thing I couldn't get my head around, it was how he could have been so stupid as to help her sneak out in the first place. How he could possibly have thought bringing her to me, came under the notion of "keeping her safe."

She didn't look very safe to me. Wandering around my town house in what was a very, very dangerous part of London now for anyone who bore the name Shelby.

"My fuckin house peaky boy," I said with a smirk and a shrug, hands in my pockets, "I can do whatever I like."

I felt childish saying it to him but the glee it sparked in me to see him scowl. To hear him try and reason with me again, it was too much to resist.

"That hospitals an open target and you know it, she could get herself killed!" He hissed at me, teeth bared in my face. But his hypocrisy kept me smiling, his infuriation only growing.

"Perhaps you shoulda thought about that eh lad, before you enabled this reckless, no no no, fucking suicidal crusade she's on yeah... Don't talk to me about her safety right treacle, because so far right, so far sweetheart, I ain't got no evidence at all, not a fuckin shred, that you've done anything to keep your fuckin word..." I said jabbing him in the chest then, gritting my own teeth as I leered over him, shoved him with one hand on his shoulder against the door frame. "You want to talk about her precious safety yeah, riddle me this khamer, riddle me fuckin this... If you care so much about her fuckin safety then what in the name of all that is good and fuckin right on this here gods earth yeah, did you fuckin bring her here for eh? To me... To this fuckin deathtrap city yeah? Why the hell did you go an do something like that?"

He glared up at me, ever insolent, sullen as Sunday evening, scowling as I debated saying anything else. I could have held my tongue, could have kept the rest of my scattered thoughts to myself, the concerns I had for the girl he'd walked into my office the day before. And for a moment I had decided to. To let him go.

But when he tried to defend himself I couldn't help myself. Couldn't help the loathing I felt for him when he tried to give me an excuse.

"You didn't fuckin see her in her bedroom window with a gun to her fuckin head Alfie, you don't know what she's like!"

It was impossible not to sneer then. Impossible to hold myself back. It was the least I could do when I grabbed him by the scruff of his shirt and shoved him up against the wall, ground my teeth and spat every word at him.

"And you do do you treacle? Think you know the little girl well yeah? Cause the thing is right, that little girls been living in my territory since she was 8 years old, that's fuckin 10 years yeah... And you know who it is thats been keeping her and her sister safe these past ten years? Any guesses peaky boy? Who's been keeping the fucking monsters from under her bed, who's been keeping the hooded fuckin claw at bay? Any guesses sweetheart? Ten years of peace and fuckin quiet?" I asked, fist shoving him up against the wall a second time just to drive the point home. "Any ideas?"

Isaiah maintained the same sullen glare, refusing to back down. The challenge in his eyes making me want to smack his stubborn sulk clean from his face. But I wouldn't. And I wouldn't because of Sylvia. Because I needed her to trust me too.

"Think I might know her a bit better than you think khamer."

I shoved him one last time and then left him standing there with his stupid sullen face on. The hunch of his shoulders only driving home my initial observation. That he was wildly out of his depth. That Tommy had made a mistake placing his wildest little sister in the care of this sullen adolescent who was clearly too soft on her to behave objectively.

"Sylvia!" I called listening for the sound of her little feet on the stairs, "Sylvia poppet.." I didn't turn round to see the glower on Isaiah's face but I could feel it, his glare burning into the back of my skull, left a little smirk dancing on my lips. A smirk which faded the second I saw her at the top of the stairs. Her frail silhouette, the way she seemed to teeter on the edge of the steps. I wasn't a nervous man but seeing her descend those stairs had me on edge. Her movements so delicate that she seemed unstable and I felt the urge to climb the stairs too just so that I could help her down them.

"Right darlin, you got a coat? Cause I think you'll probably need a coat yeah cause the skys not exactly lookin too promising an I've got a bad feeling about the rain today yeah... We'll need to get you somethin to keep you cosy warm I reckon?" I said when she'd reached the bottom of the stairs and was stood just in front of me. I put my hands on her shoulders and looked down at her, a concerned little frown on my brow.

She looked up at me with eyes which reminded me of her brother's. That same distance in them. Like she wasn't really standing in front of me at all.

I didn't like it. It wasn't that it made me nervous, didn't disturb me the way it was intended to. The way it did most people. It was that it left a certain sadness chewing away at my heartstrings. Made me feel all kinds of melancholic when I looked at her and saw all the feeling drained from her. Because I understood that look on her brother, understood it in the eyes of Polly Gray, but I didn't understand it on someone as young as her. Someone who had for the most part, been kept safe from the horrors of the world I lived in.

She looked cold. Her skin had a greyness about it, a translucence which made me wary to touch her. But one look at her told me that that was what she needed. Hands on her shoulders to hold her. Because more than anything she looked lonely and a little scared. Despite all her efforts I could see the apprehension in her eyes.

"Yeah," I said as I looked her up and down, "We'll find you a nice warm coat and uh, something with a hood I reckon, yeah, cause it's gonna rain I reckon and we wouldn't want you catchin a chill would we poppet." I said as I called out for one of my boys to come and find the girl a coat, "one of my hoodies an all," I shouted after the lad as he disappeared up the stairs, "a pair of sunglasses too mate..." I added because I could predict the look she'd get on her when she had to leave her cousin in his hospital bed.

Fuckin heartbroke. And she wouldn't want to admit it, she'd hate anyone who looked in her direction whilst she was trying her best to fight back her tears.

When the lad I'd shouted to had returned with a black Barbour jacket and a dark pullover, Sylvia didn't even seem to notice him. He stood by waiting for her to take them from him and she just stood there looking straight through him vacantly until I coughed and caught her attention.

"Thank you Ben," I said, "good lad, now I ain't takin Cyril with us cause well he don't really like hospitals and they don't really like him, so you make sure he gets his lunch yeah, right, come here poppet," I turned my attention back to Sylvia when I saw she'd taken the coat but had made no move to put it on. "Let me help you with that yeah sweetheart," I said pulling the hoodie down over her head, kick-starting her reactions so that when I stepped away she slipped her arms into the sleeves and shrugged the jacket on too, coming back to us from wherever it was she'd slipped away to. "There we go see, now don't you just look the part darlin," I said fixing the collar of her jacket before I shrugged mine on and tucked her under my arm leading her out into the driveway.

It didn't go unnoticed by me that she didn't look back over her shoulder for Isaiah, didn't go unnoticed how she'd shoved her hands in her pockets and stepped out that front door with all the impatience and confidence of someone who took it for granted that they were safe. That nothing untoward would ever infringe upon their little life. And I knew she wasn't really naive enough to believe all that. Could see it somewhere in the swirl of those empty sorry eyes that she was a frightened little rabbit who wasn't really sure who the big bad wolf was anymore.

Made me wonder what had changed. The day before when she had walked into my study and danced on my rug, she'd kept glancing at the lad who watched her so possessively, as if to reassure herself that he was still there. Today she seemed to be living as if he was long gone and it was brutal. The way she'd looked straight through him when he'd tried to reason with her. Brutal the way she appeared to have turned on him so quickly. He was lucky really, that I was so hospitable. That I valued the agreements between me and the Peakys. That I didn't really intend on hurting him or the girl who'd so willingly abandoned him in favour of me. In favour of getting her own way. If I had they'd both have been completely fucked now.

Then again, Sylvia was a canny girl and I didn't doubt she'd have worked all that our for herself.

"Now then poppet, since as I promised we're going to have a little Alfie/Sylvie bonding day yeah, I thought you might like to choose which car we go in?"

From beneath my arm she looked around the drive at the cars which were parked up, looking no doubt for the one she had arrived in, a small frown etched into the bridge of her nose when she didn't see it.

"What happened to my car?" She asked making me chuckle, my smile lingering fondly as I shook my head.

"Well you see little Shelby, you see that wasn't actually yours now was it... And having stolen cars yeah, especially posh fuckin stolen cars, parked up in your driveway right, it just ain't a good look is it... So that old things long gone yeah, long gone..."

"Makes sense." She said shrugging herself free from my hold around her, walking up to the side of a black number with tinted windows and ostentatious unnecessar-in-the-big-city four wheel drive, "This one please Mr Solomon's."

Her manners amused me then. When she turned back over her shoulder to look at me, waiting for me to unlock the door. How she'd gone from vacant and sullen to suddenly sweet again. It didn't surprise me though, everything I'd seen of her over the last few years had taught me to expect this from her. The rumours and whispers which went round about her. The fact that no one ever quite believed she was dealing to the other girls at her school, the way even I'd struggled to believe she might have any bad habits to fund with illicit business endeavours.

Because she was the sweetest girl in London and everyone knew it. It was easy to believe she was a Gray because you wouldn't for one second believe she was related to her brothers.

And yet, there she was, leaning up against the side of my car with a gun tucked somewhere in the back of her ballet skirt. One she thought I didn't know about. But of course I did.

Sylvia

I leant against the side of the car looking up at Alfie, wide brown eyes blinking up at him. I was doing my best to remind him of the girl he thought he knew. The sweet, innocent Shelby. If I could appeal to his little known soft side I knew I would be safe. Knew not only that, but that if I could appeal to that softer side he'd treat me as I knew he had always treated Sonya. With a doting kind of softness.

Because I wasn't naive to all the ways Alfie and his men had been keeping watch over me and my sister since Tommy had packed us off to London. I wasn't naive to the reasons I'd gotten away with dealing on his territory, the reasons it had been so much harder for me to get into trouble.

And after Isaiah's hateful display in the middle of the night I knew I didn't really have anyone. Not just to dote on me but at all.

I'd been tired last night, tired but determined. Fuelled by a desperation to see my cousin, to see him alive so that someone could be there to hold his hand, to tell him he was going to be alright. That was a heavy emotion to carry. And the heavy emotions, those are the emotions I struggle to carry for very long. The feeling too overwhelming. Overpowering enough to leave me shaking, nerves frazzled. Heart pounding in desperate need of something to numb. And when Isaiah had pinned me down, his elbows and fists digging into my arms, his body weight baring down on me, marking me with grey and blue bruises. When he'd spat those unforgiving things at me in the dead of the night he had flipped that switch in my brain again and just like that the numbing had begun.

I'd lay there on my back all night, gazing up at the ceiling until I'd fallen asleep. Numb even in my dreams when I'd seen Sonya in a lake floating face down, hair and white dress floating around her. Numb even when I'd awoken from the dream with all the certainty that it had been a little more than just a dream.

I had turned my head to see Isaiah asleep, listened to his restful breathing and resented him for the peace he had found after instilling such a doomed feeling in me. Not fear but something worse. A nothing that eats you from the inside out.

If I'd been at school there'd have been ways of coping. If I'd have had my sister nearby there'd have been someone to ground me. But I wasn't at school and I didn't have Sonya. I was alone in the passenger side of Alfie Solomons car and he was looking at me with a contemplative calm on his scarred face.

We'd been sitting in the quiet for several minutes now. The both of us sitting still, looking out over the dashboard at the driveway and the thick iron gates which remained closed. He hadn't said a word, hadn't reached for the keys or tried to start the car.

We were simply sitting there side by side. And because I was tired, and because that hollow feeling had been left to grow and grow, I didn't mind. Wasn't concerned about the stillness or the silence. Wasn't worried that the erratic older man might snap whilst we were alone.

"Now," he said, his hands resting on the wheel, "you may have noticed, little Shelby, that we have been sitting in this vehicle now for five minutes, and I ain't yet made any efforts to start driving..." He patted his hands against the wheel and then let go, hands in his lap, then back to the wheel.

"Well I know you like to take your time with things Alfie..." I said with a little smirk, turning to meet his gaze with an impish light in my eyes. Pleased when he smirked too.

"Yeah," he said nodding his head, frowning as if thinking the notion over quite seriously, "yeah, I suppose you could say that little Shelby, I suppose you could say that yeah, cause I do... Slowness yeah, as Milan Kundera used to say, how did he say it, right yeah, there is a secret bond between slowness and memory, between speed and forgetting..."

I knew the book he was quoting well and smirked as I leant back into the headrest, let the seat hold me. Remembering for a moment quite how tired of holding myself up I was. Quite how tiring everything really was sometimes.

"The degree of slowness is directly proportional to the intensity of memory, the degree of speed is directly proportional to the intensity of forgetting," I said with a bored drawl, cutting him off with a small smile, it was a notion I'd always appreciated, even if I didn't particularly agree.

"Oh so you know it then," he smirked, "you're familiar with his philosophy on relaxing, taking your time..." I wasn't expecting him to turn then, the way he stared the conversation round a corner so carefully, so gently that when he asked his next question he really did catch me out and leave me speechless, "clearly don't believe in it yourself though do you little Shelby," he said, "something about slowing down taking one's time, don't really appeal to you or somethin poppet? That why you've spent the last few months pestering my boys for a bit of Charlie?"

I bit my lip.

"And on school nights no less..." He said with a quiet little whistle, faux amazement, almost as if he were teasing me. The frown on his features saying otherwise.

"Yeah," he said when I remained quiet, "silence," he said, "yeah sweetheart I was expecting that." He said, fingers still drumming one by one along the wheel. Slow and steady. Almost hypnotic. I couldn't help but watch them rather than him as he spoke. "Yeah, little miss Frankie Valli in my passenger seat," he said with a sigh, "now I must say poppet, if you were any other girl right, any average 18 going on 19 year old girl, I wouldn't be so... How dya put it eh? Concerned? Yeah we'll say concerned. If you were any other girl I wouldn't be all that concerned about a bitta blow on a Friday night yeah, but you little Sylvie with your opera house dreams and your sparrows appetite, you my girl, well... I'm puzzled right... Now dealing yeah, thats one thing, and of course dealing on my streets well that's just f... That's just plain cheeky ain't it... But sniffin the stuff, nurturing a habit of your own... Now poppet, really?"

When he said that word, really, he looked at me with his head cocked slightly, a look of genuine confusion on his scarred face.

I didn't say anything. Smiled a little because he sounded like some old werrit. Like an aunt who gets all her news from the daily mail and still gets it confused.

But I didn't say anything because I didn't really know what to say. It was true, I had asked on a handful of occasions for a bit of coke or some mdma from some of his lads... And sometimes it had been with the intention of selling it on to girls I went to school with who were richer than me and whose places in class were not so fragile as mine. And it was true that sometimes I'd been known to trial the goods or share a bag between friends in the bathroom of a bar in town. But those occasions were rare, blue moon rare and it wasn't so much I hadn't thought Alfie would find out, it was that I hadn't really imagined he would care.

"What's the matter poppet?" He asked, "didn't think it'd get back to me? You were asking my boys after all, an my boys are good lads ain't they, you know that... Always done a good job lookin out for you and your sisters yeah? You know they're good, honest lads, course they told me what you'd been up to poppet and don't get me wrong yeah, don't get me wrong, I'd rather you were getting it off my lads than say, Italians... But here's the thing yeah, I'd rather you weren't doing it at all..."

"Didn't realise you were so invested in my wellbeing Alfie..." I started with a small smile. Glad to know that my theory had been correct. That the old grudge of Camden Town had a soft spot for at least some of life's beauties, that his care for me and my sister wasn't simply bankrolled by Tommy. That our art had made us an interest to him too.

"Actually poppet I know you ain't that naive so I don't wanna hear none of that yeah, if you didn't know all of that already you wouldn't have skipped into my office yesterday, wouldn't have slept the night in one of my spare bedrooms... Certainly wouldn't have left your boyfriend behind with my boys... Would you?"

I smirked at that. The bitter tone with which he said the word boyfriend. I wondered whether he had realised the resentment which came out with the word, wondered if he thought I would pick up on it. Was only grateful that the spite, the hatred Isaiah had showed me in the middle of the night had drained me enough of feeling that the suggestion didn't leave me struggling to hide a blush as it might have done even a handful of days before.

"No." I said, thinking about correcting him, deciding I definitely didn't need to.

"No," he confirmed nodding his head slowly, starting the ignition and beginning to creep slowly towards the towering iron gate at the end of the drive. "No, you wouldn't..." He said drumming his fingers again. "See the thing is my darlin," he said starting again just when I had begun to think he might let us rest in silence for the journey, "the thing is yeah, now you're going to be staying with me for a little while yeah, little old me - a very 'ospitable man right - now youre gonna be staying with me for a little while yeah, your health and safety and general wellbeing right, well that's all my responsibility aint it... And your peaky boy lapdog might be a bit of a soft touch yeah, might value keeping you sweet over keeping you safe yeah, but I, am first and foremost, primarily concerned with all of the above yeah? That is your health, your safety and your general sense of spiritual wellbeing, right?"

I nodded my head, held my hands in my lap and played with the rings on my fingers.

"So I'm gonna ask you very nicely yeah, and we're going to come to a couple of little agreements yeah?" He waited this time for me to answer him and when I nodded my head he nodded his too almost satisfied.

"Good," he said, "good girl."

I looked out of the window at the street as we pulled out of Alfie's driveway. I hadn't realised the evening we'd been brought to his house but he lived on a private road, one of those with a monitored gate at both ends. Huge evergreens which lined the avenue. Like something from an old movie. So quiet, so peaceful. It seemed strange to be driving down it with such a gruff, brutal man by my side.

"So, agreement one, I reckon it's pretty self explanatory right, plain old common sense yeah... You keep your precious distance from those illicit substances yeah?" He asked, of course it wasn't a question and it also wasn't really a question which needed to be asked. How was I supposed to deal his drugs when I was essentially under his house arrest.

"I haven't got a drugs habit," I said chewing my cheek, glancing to my right to look at him. He was watching the road now but every now and then he would turn his attention back to me.

"Agreement number two," he raised his voice a little to hush me, cracking am almost cheeky grin when I smirked, "me an you yeah, we're gonna uphold a policy of truth... You know what that means little Shelby?" He asked without giving me a chance to answer him, "you ain't gonna tell me no more lies alright? You're gonna be a good, honest little lady from now on yeah?"

I nodded my head and waited for him to move on but when he remained silent, held his tongue and turned back to me, his brow raised, I realised he was waiting for me to speak up.

"Truth," I said, "are you gonna tell me the truth?"

I'd half expected him to laugh at me, to think me naive for asking the question. Surely his answer couldn't possibly satisfy me.

And yet it did.

When he appeared to soften upon looking at me, his eyes flickering over me, my bored sullen features, my body tucked beneath his hoodie and coat. I thought I saw a flicker of sympathy. Wanted to hate him for it.

"Yeah poppet, I'm gonna tell you the truth an all." He nodded his head solemnly. Tapped his hands on the steering wheel as we slowed in the traffic.

"Now number three, I ain't really sure how to word this yeah, not when you seem to be as wild and as reckless as the rest of your bloody family... And we've come full circle really right because it ties in rather nicely with rule number one I reckon... Rule number three yeah, you little miss Shelby, are gonna stop putting yourself in harm's way yeah... You're gonna start eating your f... Eating your breakfasts and getting your early nights, and you're gonna hop off this little suicidal roller coaster you seem to think you're on now yeah... I'm taking you to see your cousin now right, because although I might have the reputation of a cold blooded serial killer yeah, a soulless bloody monster... I'm still not fond of seeing little girls such as yourself, looking as fuckin... Sorry poppet, I'm really tryin here you know poppet, yeah... I don't like seeing little girls lookin as sad as you looked last night... So I'm doing you this kindness, against my better judgement... And the way I see it right, the way I see it is that if me, yeah, an 'orrible, evil old man, can compromise and take you to see your rather messed up cousin in the hospital, then you my sweet, you poppet, can be good for a couple of weeks yeah, you can at least do me a favour and make takin care of you a little bit bloody easier..."

"You want me to eat breakfast?" I asked feigning confusion. Trying to pretend I didn't really understand what he'd been banging on about for the last five minutes.

We were nearing the hospital now and I was hoping that if I stalled a little longer his absent mind would wander. But I knew better than to believe his mind was really absent at all.

"Amongst many other things my darlin..." He said a little softer, his voice strangely gentle as he spoke to me then. He met my gaze across the car and held it. Gave me this look I didn't want to understand. It was one of concern, one I wasn't quite sure I wanted to trust.

"And if I don't promise you?"

"Well," he said pushing his bottom lip out in s pout, hid thick brows knitting together too, "well that wouldn't be very nice would it sweetheart, that wouldn't make me a very happy man..."

I let us linger in silence, him still pulling that ridiculous face at me. My mind flitting through my limited options. If he had simply been asking me to promise to "look after myself" I could have done so easily, could have made my throwaway vow and not worried, not felt guilty for breaking it. It was everything else I was hesitant to agree to.

"You know poppet I'd really rather you did..."

"After we've been to see Michael..." I started, let him cut me off because I wasn't entirely sure what I was asking him to clarify.

"Yeah, after we've been to see Michael today right, I want you to drop all this runnin around with guns and gangsters, stealin cars and killing your neighbours... Ain't healthy is it... Ain't no way for a young lady with opera house aspirations to be behaving... Might be your brother's game poppet but it ain't yours, shouldn't be yours..."

"Right..." I said letting my word linger in the quiet between us as he parked up outside the hospital doors.

"Right..." He said gesturing with one hand to coax me along, to get me to give him a little bit more. "You gonna say those magic words for me now yeah poppet? You gonna promise me from the bottom of your pretty pink heart?"

"Well you see that's just the thing Alfie," I said being careful to sound as sweet as I could, "I can't promise you anything until I've seen him can I?"

"Ain't hard little Shelby, it's just a handful of teeny tiny little words..." He said.

"I've just promised you I'll always tell you the truth though you see..." I bit my lip, tried to keep my voice steady as we neared the hospital and it's shadow loomed over the city. This old gothic looking building they'd never bothered to update.

I'd been in once for a suspected concussion. I'd fallen from a lift and knocked my head off another girl. Both of us had had to sit side by side waiting to be checked over. Both of us hoping they'd simply send us straight back to school. We'd been young enough then that a couple days off wouldn't really have mattered, but sitting there in the gloom of that waiting room had struck fear into us both. I'd learnt after that to lie, to do my best to hide each and every injury so as never to end up back there. Especially as the injuries got worse and the chance at an over night stay grew higher.

"Yeah," he said, "yeah you have... So perhaps yeah, I need to ask you another question then, bare with me poppet, I reckon this will be my last for now right?"

I waited quietly for him to carry on, sat patiently whilst he pulled us onto the hospital car park and mulled his thoughts over. His thumb stroked the steering wheel maintaining that hypnotic rhythm and I found myself once again unable to take my eyes off his hands. The rings on his fingers which caught the sunlight each time he flexed or drummed that slow rhythm against the leather wheel.

"Alright," he said, "answer me this little Sylvia," he said, "can you even shoot that gun you've got tucked away in your skirts?"

"You think I've spent the last ten years at a boarding school full of Hampshire's most promising without ever visiting a shooting range..."

"Bit different sweetheart, a little bit different that I reckon..."

"All the same," I said, "I know how to fire a gun."

"Alright," he said, "alright darlin I believe you yeah, reckon you probably do know how to fire a gun actually yeah you're very right, very correct... But don't you think yeah, it might be best to leave the killing to your brother's... Now don't get me wrong I'm no misogynist..." I bit back a laugh when he said that.

"Of course not..."

"Exactly, of course not," he reiterated, "but don't you think yeah, that on this occasion, when you ain't shootin at little targets, and the targets in question are pretty experienced when it comes to shootin back, don't you think it might be better to leave this one up to your big brothers...."

"If I could trust them I would." I said solemnly, with such certainty that all Alfie could really do was nod his head. There was no defending my brothers treachery. This wouldn't be the first instance of him lying and manipulating the family, of him selling blood down the river in the name of preservation and the greater good. Alfie knew that better than most. He'd been on the receiving end of that imorral streak more than once.

So instead he simply nodded, sat there by my side staying quiet for long enough that the subject changed without either of us trying.

I looked out at the carpark, he'd parked us close to the doors, in a disabled bay no less, and I wasn't naive enough not to know why.

He wasn't expecting this to be a simple visit. Wasn't expecting to get me from the hospital back to his all in one piece.

I tugged my bottom lip between my teeth, watched the automatic doors slide open and closed.

"Now I reckon I already know how this is gonna go yeah little Sylvia," he said lowering his voice, "ain't gonna patronise you though yeah, just gonna do my due diligence right and let you know, ain't gonna be pretty, an I'm sure you've a stronger stomach than most little girls yeah, but if at any point you want to leave yeah, either cause it's all a bit much or cause you've got a bad feeling about somet, you just give me a look yeah, any look you like right cause I'm a clever old man me and I will know exactly what you mean yeah, you just give me the look and I'll have you outa there in seconds... No questions asked right?"

"I'll be fine." I said starring straight ahead. I already knew what I was going to see, already knew it would be devastating, would probably sicken me. Already knew I wasn't going to feel safe once we left that car. Already knew that if in fact something awful happened and the enemy were waiting for us, Alfie might not be able to get me out at all. That once we left the sanctuary of his car, we had to accept we might never return to it.

"But thank you all the same." I said a little quieter, my hand reaching for the door handle. Hovering for a moment when he stopped me, his hand on my thigh. A softness in his low gravelly voice when he implored me to look back at him once more.

"I'm sure you will be little one," he said, his eyes warm, almost emotional, "I don't doubt you for a moment my dear."

Michael looked terrible. Everything everyone had warned me, the brutal descriptions and implications paled in comparison to the truth which lay, unconscious in a hospital bed, wires slithering like snakes from his nose, oxygen mask covering his face, latched onto him like a parasite. A cannula in his hand, yellow and purple bruising watercolour staining his knuckles. He looked dead, a corpse wired up to a machine. Some kind of dystopian Frankensteins monster esque figure.

He had two black eyes and a broken nose, his skin sore. Patched up in so many places, two many bloody bandages and packed wounds to count.

He'd had major surgery, medical induced coma, under constant observation. He was on a ventilator for now and when the nurse had looked at me she hadn't told me not to worry.

But it wasn't the state of him that worried me. Because I kept telling myself that if there wasn't a chance they could save him, they'd have given his bed to someone they could save.

It wasn't the blood and the deathly shadow which stained him.

It was the fact that when we'd arrived the men Tommy had organised to watch his room, to wait outside and guard him with their lives, were both napping. One had fallen asleep playing fucking candy crush on his phone, the other had dosed off with his flat cap tilted down across his eyes.

Alfie had seen them in the same moment I had, his arm around my shoulder tightening his grip, tucking me into his side a little closer so that I couldn't escape or do anything drastic.

Before we'd left the car he'd told me to put my hood up, tucked my hair behind my ears and under the hoodie. He'd opened my door for me and his arm had fallen around my shoulder, tucked me into his jacket as if I belonged to him. I knew it was so people would think I did. So that anyone watching us would think twice about whatever moves they'd been ordered to make. I knew it was also because he was hoping he could get me inside without anyone realising who I was.

Now however he was holding me tight to his side to stop me waking the dinlows sleeping on duty with my gun. With the metal of my handgun cold and sharp against their skulls.

Instead they were woken by Alfie's subtle cough.

He wore a smirk on his lips that was smug, the kind intended to put them in their place immediately. And they were. When they woke it was with a start, scrambling to attention, their eyes wide when they saw not only me but the fearsome bastard king of Camden Town looming above them.

"Nap time is it boys?" He asked them with a chirpiness to his voice which wound me up beyond belief and left them stuttering to spit out an excuse. Though of course there was no excuse they could give me that would see me forgive them for their carelessness. "Leave them to me poppet, you're here to see your cousin right so you just go an see your cousin..." He said, his hand on my lower back pushing me through the door to Michael's room gently.

I hesitated, gripped by a cold, unforgiving anger when I turned my head to lock eyes with the lads that had been sleeping on duty. It was only when Alfie spoke again that I stepped inside Michaels room.

And when I saw him that familiar hollow feeling returned and sunk its teeth in deep. The numbing bite I knew wasn't going to let go. Because he was everything Isaiah had warned me and worse and the grey light from the rain outside only served to create an even more bleak mood in that sorry little hospital room.

I trod carefully towards his bed. Heard the door close quietly behind me. Heard the slam of someone's body up against the glass seconds later when Alfie began "dealing" with the lazy bastards who had valued a little nap over my cousins life. When I reached Michaels bedside I felt this receding feeling, like all the blood draining away from body leaving me untethered and half alive.

He looked half alive. Half man, half the wires and machines the doctors had fixed him up to in order to keep him alive.

There was a scar near his temple, an old wound and not from any real fight either. Him and John, when Michael was only small, they'd been fighting at the top of the stairs and John had tripped him. He'd tumbled down head over feet and knocked himself unconscious on the radiator. Well now there would be a second scar not so far from the first. The wound had been dressed and though the dressing was relatively fresh there was still a little blood poppy which had seeped through.

"Hi," I said softly, voice so quiet he wouldn't have heard it even if he'd been awake. And of course the moment the word left my lips I felt ridiculous. Over emotional, a child playing make believe, talking to a sleeping half-dead man pretending he could hear me because it made me feel better. Made me feel more in control. And what was I supposed to say to him anyway. I wasn't about declare that I'd avenge him or that everything was going to he okay. I wasn't and it wasn't and there was no point kidding either of us. Especially not myself.

So instead I did the only thing I knew how to do when people were lost or almost lost.

I drew the sign of the cross, head to heart, shoulder to shoulder. Mumbled the prayer I still carried from childhood but couldn't be sure I still believed in, father, son, holy spirit.

"Amen," I whispered before dropping to my knees at Michael's bedside, the cold hospital floor reminding me of my knees when it chilled me through my tights.

I didn't keep a rosary anymore - my mother would have cried - but I still wore my virgin mary round my neck and as I pressed my palms together I felt the warmth of her copper medal over my chest. Tried to think of her as I whispered a prayer to Saint Anthony. The only prayer I could really still remember because in her last year our mother had had us recite prayers to the patron saint of miracles every morning and night without ever telling us what miracle it was for which we were begging.

The older I had grown the more I had understood that the miracle had been for her. To save her from the curse which ran in our blood. The hollow feeling which gripped me now.

"Blessed be God in His Angels and in His Saints," I whispered, "Saint Anthony pray for us." I said, eyes closed, palm to palm on the hospital floor. My forehead resting against the cool metal bedframe which held my unconscious cousin. "Saint Anthony, pray for us." I said it again, realising I could not remember the prayer as well as I had thought. Feeling untethered when I tried to conjor the memory of my mother kneeling by the fireplace in watery lane, praying to our statue of the virgin mary. When I realised how far from her, from home, I had grown.

"Blessed be God in His Angels and in His Saints, Saint Anthony, whose heart was ever full of human sympathy, pray for us..." I said, my lips moving quickly and quietly as I struggled to remember the flow and rhythm of the prayer. Outside I could hear Alfie, his words were muffled through the walls but I could hear the scuffling and panic they instilled.

"Whisper my petition into the ears of the sweet Infant Jesus, who...."

I could hear the groaned pain from one of Tommy's men, could hear the blunt thud as someone slowed against the wall.

"Who loved to be folded in your arms.... The gratitude of my heart will ever be yours..." I knew I hadn't uttered it correctly, knew there were verses I had long since forgotten. But it was the best that I could do as I knelt there on that cold floor, feeling oh so far away from my family and from my home.

I thought of Aunt Polly. What she would have given to trade places with me, to kneel at her son's bedside. And I worried that I was doing everything wrong, doing her a terrible disservice, michael too.

I was glad then that he couldn't hear me. That no one was witnessing my moment of childish weakness. Me fumbling through a prayer I used to know off by heart, hoping god and the saints would forgive me. Know that I was only trying to pray on behalf of Polly, who would have known every word and still believed in every prayer she uttered.

"Amen." I whispered as the door clicked open behind me. I heard Alfie's feet on the floor, the corridor was quiet but for wheezing and I already knew what he was going to say to me when I turned to look at him from where i knelt on the floor.

"Come on poppet time to go yeah, think I might have caused a little bit of upset..."

"No." I said remaining in my place on the floor, my fingers skimming over the miraculous medal around my neck. I hadn't expected myself to voice the doubt outloud until the defiance had left my lips but once it had I wasn't really shocked. The reckless way I was feeling today of course it had.

"Eh.. now hang on a minute girl..." said Alfie, he kept his voice quiet and sweet but I could tell he was growing impatient, "I thought we had an agreement yeah, you've seen your cousin so now..."

"That was before I knew Tommys men are fuckin incompetent!" I snapped.

"Woah, woah now little girl mind your language yeah..." he said holding his hands either side of his head.

"I'm not leaving him here alone."

"Yeah... well he ain't alone is he, your brothers lads are with him, keeping him safe..."

"They were asleep when we got here, you don't really expect me to trust them now?"

"Yeah well they was, asleep when we got here right... but darlin they ain't sleepin anymore right and you see me and you yeah, we need to leave right, cause I need to get you out of here yeah, away from you know..."

"Danger?" I asked still sitting quite stubbornly on the floor. "So I should be worried then? You're admitting it isn't safe to leave Michael unattended..."

"I mean..." he started, one hand on the back of his neck, the other joining it as he stepped inside and shut the door to with his foot. "No... it ain't safe for you Sylvia, but Michael... your cousin here, he'll..."

"Be fine will he? He's unconscious Alfie, completely fuckin defenceless... That how stupid you think I am? I'm not leaving him to lie here alone in this place like a fuckin sitting duck!" I snapped still kneeling at Michaels bedside determined not to be moved.

"Alright poppet enough of that yeah, I've had enough."

"I mean it Alfie."

"Yeah alright so you mean it," he said approaching me with a sudden temper on him, one which sent my heart racing in my chest, more so when he pulled me up from the floor with one simple movement. He grabbed my arm just above my elbow and yanked me to my feet so fast that I stumbled straight into his side. He held my head to his chest and ushered me into a far more gentle hold, softening again so quickly I ought to have had whiplash.

"Well I mean this yeah, it's time to go sweetheart, can't linger here yeah, especially because your brothers useless lot were sleepin on the job, its dangerous yeah, for you... and its you I care about protecting right..."

"I'm not leaving him with them" I said a little quieter as I pushed away from his chest just enough that I could meet his eyes with my own glare. He realised I was going to cry before I did, saw the glisten of tears in my eyes before I felt them. And I didn't feel them because I still felt so very hollowed out, the only feeling I had to latch onto my hatred for the useless lads outside.

"Eh..." he said even quieter then, his hand on my cheek calloused and rough despite his gentle hold, "I know, I know... you don't wanna leave him alone I know Sylvia, I know..."

"I'm not fuckin l..." I started but his thumb stroking my chin left my words hanging stale and forgotten in the air.

"We ain't gonna yeah," he said stroking my cheek gently with his knuckles before taking my head in his palm and guiding my face back to his chest, holding me against him. Doing me a kindness in hiding my tears from the two of us. Allowing me to pretend they weren't there at all. "Now don't get upset yeah poppet, don't wanna get you upset yeah, been warned about that by your little lapdog right... tell you what I'm gonna do right, I'm gonna phone my boys yeah, get some real goodens down here, and they're gonna watch over your Michael, see he's alright... promise you, I'll pick a good few better than your brother did yeah, how about that?"

I listened to his voice mumbling his apparent promises to me, tried to calm myself with a few calculated breaths. Wanted to be able to look back up at him without tears glistening in my eyes. Wanted him to look at me as a Shelby he respected rather than a little girl he felt sorry for.

"Fine." I said knowing I had no choice. Knowing from the way he'd ulled me to my feet without a second thought that he could shift me like a rag doll whenever the notion took him and I would have no choice but to do as he wished.

I pushed back out of his embrace, his arm falling away from me easily, the smirk of approval on his lips when he saw that I had regained my cool glaze driving me to stand my ground.

"But we aren't going until I've seen them."

"Yeah," he nodded, his hand stroking my shoulder as he let me go, slid his phone out his pocket and made a call. Winking at me as he turned away from me and took several slow steps towards the window.

I stood where he had left me, suddenly cold as I pulled the coat he'd lent me a little tighter around my body. I pulled the hood of his pullover up over my hair and then I stood there, watching his back, listening to him as he spoke quiet and calm on the phone.

He lent with his elbows on the sill. Slipped his phone back into his pocket and then nodded me over to his side.

"Oh," he said with a smirk, a mischief in his chuckle with drew me closer to him out of curiosity, "would you look at that," he said beckoning me over to his side in the window.

I joined him, let him tuck me under his arm again as he held me close to his side and I followed his gaze down to the carpark where we could see our car quite clearly.

"Someones left you flowers look..." he said with a chuckle, nodding towards his car, a bouquet of lillies and lilac flowers wedged between the door handle on the passenger side, "now ain't that a bit sweet eh? Ain't that just adorable..."

I felt a shiver run through me, that blood draining away feeling flooding through me again. So he'd been right, we were being watched, the hospital, his house, perhaps both. Perhaps we'd been followed. Perhaps those lads outside had already been bought.

Perhaps when we walked out of here thered be Italian open fire ready to rip through us both.

I tried to swallow down the thought. Tried to ignore the creeping fear and accept what I'd brazenly gotten myself into.

Alfie let out a laugh as he turned us both away from the window and walked us far enough back into the room that we couldn't be seen from outside or from another window.

"Good job our Ollie's bringing us a new car darlin thats all I'll say yeah..." he smirked shaking his head, "fuckin Italians, awful cliches... awful." He tutted as he let his fingers drum that hypnotic little rhythm along my shoulder as he squeezed me into his side. "Like I said though yeah poppet, nothin to worry about... though I can tell yeah, already know you yeah... you ain't exactly one for worrying, aint exactly faint hearted..."

And then I knew he was just being kind.

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