#since i have such a stuffed nose its hard to smell anything

[pedgito]

𝐃𝐈𝐑𝐓𝐘 𝐋𝐀𝐔𝐍𝐃𝐑𝐘 | Joel Miller x reader

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summary | you've got an issue and joel's willing to solve it. after all, what are neighbors for?

author's note | this was a prompt from a meet-weird thing i saw ages ago that was originally supposed to be javi, but jo (@undercoverpena) gave me the beautiful idea of making it joel and it spurred this monster.

content warning | established friendship, caught during sex, does the apocalypse having working appliances? probably not, but for the sake of this fic distend belief i beg. oral (eating out from the back), unprotected piv, subtly cocky!joel miller, he's a good ass neighbor, okay?, unbeta'd.

word count — 5.6k

Joel’s fixed this damn machine seven times, convincing himself every time that it was the last time. Shocker, it wasn’t. This time didn’t even last a month. He’s desperate now.

He would usually haul the load all the way to the communal laundry house closer to the group of joined townhomes that housed most of the younger adults—the spry and bright-faced ones who sprung up at the mention of patrol or work, any prospect of toting a gun around with any sense of leadership. They were eager, he couldn’t say the same for himself.

He was old, weathered—years of routine he had created to get the job done and get the hell home.

And truthfully, as he tapped the wrench against the metal machine, chin tucked into his palm as he scratched at his beard, he almost complied with the idea that he would just have to tough it out. Scrounging for parts was nearly impossible—dumb luck, really. In the past several years they’ve picked this town clean, bone-dry.

He’s elbow deep inside the barrel of the dryer when he hears the knock at his door, bumping his head against the rim of it as he exits and cursing under his breath as he pushes to stand, joints creaking and popping in disapproval. 

He can smell you before he sees you, the familiar scent of fresh-baked goods following you everywhere—Joel couldn’t feel guilt for being one of the folks addicted to your cooking. 

Grains had been hard to come by since the epidemic hit, everything was tainted on a global level. It took years and years of Jackson growing its own stock of wheat for things like pie or a nice, gooey cinnamon roll to even be plausible anymore. But, they were managing well so far.

“Saved ‘em for you and Ellie,” You tell him, a small plate of still hot brownies covered with parchment paper, dawning that trademark smile that Joel has come to love, tapping his fingers against the door frame as he passes the plate off to a quickly approaching Ellie.

“Girl’s got the nose of a basset hound,” Joel looks on in amused bewilderment as Ellie throws a mouth-stuffed thanks over her shoulder, “sorry ‘bout her.”

You wave her off whole-heartedly, taking in his sweaty appearance and casual attire. You were used to him in jeans and thick flannels, not a graphic tee and pair of sleep pants. He’s almost always dressed like he had to run at a moment's notice, you weren’t even sure he owned anything different until now.

“Everything good?” You question him, a small laugh escaping your throat.

“Damn washer and dryer is out again,” Joel explains, throwing a hand vaguely over his shoulder.

“Both of them this time?” You ask, “Damn.”

“I can fix ‘em, just a matter of finding the right parts,” Joel tells you, “ looks like I’m gonna have to hand wash again.”

Joel was a friend. You helped friends. It seemed like a no-brainer really, opening your mouth without thinking it through, the kindness tumbling out despite yourself.

“Oh, you’re welcome to load yours up at mine,” You offer and Joel looks immediately apprehensive, the southern charm and well-mannered tone gearing to creep up on you.

“Now, I don’t mean to make you feel like you have to—”

“Joel, I wouldn’t offer it if I didn’t feel comfortable with it,” You remind him, “seriously—anytime, just try and bring your own detergent—and for the love of god, empty your pockets before you put ‘em in.”

Joel chuckles tiredly at that, rolling his eyes as he nods in agreement.

“Got it, of course, sweetheart.”

“I leave an extra key under the rug, so if I’m ever not home just come in,” Given that Joel was Tommy’s brother, you knew he wouldn’t be up to any trouble, “sound good?”

“Yep. Anytime—just make myself at home.” Joel confirms and you nod with an even wider smile, waving a pleasant goodbye as you trailed down the stairs and made your way to the house you inhabited next door.

Right, anytime.

Unfortunately, Joel took that a little too literally.

-

Joel managed to scrounge up the courage a day later, tumbling into his house on tired legs after a lengthy patrol up at the cabin lookout, scooping the basket up in his arms and heading out his front door, taking the short walk to your house.

The lights were off, but that wasn’t unusual. Joel knew you liked to stay late nights in the town’s mess hall, often working on prep for the following morning to make the load a little lighter and sleep in a while longer, so when he fishes under the doormat for the key he thinks nothing of it.

And as the door swings open, it is still fairly quiet. Though, he can hear your own dryer running upstairs. He’s got the layout down too, having shared more than a few nightcaps with you. Friend to friend and nothing more, even if you had always felt a little more strongly toward being affectionate. A hug or a kiss on the cheek from time to time, he never pushed you away. Joel never seemed like the type of man who openly showed affection, even toward a friend. But, he was good, reliable–most of the time.

He reaches the stairs with trepidation as the sounds grow louder and part of him wonders if by some uncanny coincidence your dryer might be growling and rumbling on its own final leg. 

The moment his hand reaches that doorknob and turns he realizes he’s made a mistake.

He’s caught you at a…bad time. Head thrown back with your mouth hung wide, whatever noise you’re making was mostly drowned out by the nagging sound of the dryer as it tore through the spin cycle but he hears the tailend of it, a soft moan of pleasure from the man who’s buried inside of you right now, both of you naked from the waist down but your breasts on full display with your shirt tucked under your neck.

“Benny?” Joel asks, slightly amused.

You lift your head at the sound and spot him, your feet nearly slipping out from under you as you scramble to push Benny away, who perks with an even more perplexed, “Joel?”

“Goddamn it, Joel,” You curse behind gritted teeth, furiously readjusting yourself, pulling your sweats back on and over your ass and your shirt down, “What are you doing here?”

Joel looks down at the basket still clinging to his hip before back up at you, wordlessly.

You sigh through your nose with a tight lipped frown, cheeks puffing out as you brushed your fingers through your hair and down—Benny was still scrambling to redress behind you, unable to pull his gaze away from Joel.

“Benny?” Joel mouths at you quietly, eyebrows raised curiously.

You walk toward the now open door slowly as Benny buttons his pants and you shoot Joel daggers with your stern gaze.

Cut it out.

Joel smirks slightly, cheek dimpling with the action as he side-steps Benny, who leans around you and kisses your cheek—it was a kind gesture but given the situation, in horrible taste. You force a polite smile and once Benny is a far enough distance you hit Joel firmly in the arm as he passes by you and into the laundry room.

You walk Benny to the door with a million thoughts racing through your head, offering a distracted goodbye before you’re locking the door and racing back upstairs with determined footsteps and Joel has already loaded his clothes in the washer, turning the knob to set the load size and time.

“Benny?” He echoes his earlier questions, “Really?”

“What? Are you judging me?”

“No—just, that kid’s had quite an obsession with you for some time now. Just…surprised is all.”

Your lips pull together in a disapproving but nonchalant frown, taking his words for the bullshit they are.

“When I said anytime that did not extend to the middle of the night, Joel.”

“You’re usually still at work,” He supplies—and really, he’s not wrong, “M’sorry. I mean that.”

“Well, now I’ve gotta deal with the fact you’ve seen me naked,” You cross your arms over your chest and lean against the doorframe and Joel’s eyes track you for a moment, smiling with amusement at the thought.

“What? You want a fair trade?” Joel teases, “‘Cause, darlin’. I don’t mind—but it was an accident. Besides, ain’t nothin’ I haven’t seen before.”

He means it in a broader sense, but you can’t help the eye roll it induces. 

“No, no,” You chew at your bottom lip, watching Joel place the empty basket on top of the washer, “I can finish that up if you want to get some sleep. I know you had a long patrol today.”

“Oh, did you?”

He’s teasing you.

“Don’t push it, old man,” Joel shakes his head at that jab and chuckles, “Ellie clued me in when she picked up some sandwiches for her and Dina earlier.

He’s not going to pass on the offer, though. He nods, rubbing a hand over his tired face.

“Jesus—just…Benny?” Joel reiterates again, “Didn’t think the kid had it in ‘em.”

“Out,” You say with an over-pronunciation as you drag his slow and progressive steps further out of your laundry room and into the hall, “or you’re off my dessert list for a month, Miller.”

Joel smiles at you knowingly, “You wouldn’t dare,” He retorts, knowing you too well.

You wouldn’t make him suffer like that. Or Ellie, who wouldn’t hesitate to murder Joel if he robbed her of that pleasure. Not literally…but, she would carry a few choice words for him.

“Seriously, though, thank you,” He nods, leaning down to press a kiss into the crown of your head—an often familiar gesture when you parted after a long night of nonsensical talk and a couple glasses of wine or whiskey, depending on how hard the day had been, “I appreciate it, sweetheart.”

“Yeah, yeah—”

“And I do apologize for…not knocking and showin’ up at such a weird time.”

You shrug, “You’re forgiven. Just…don’t give Benny a hard time. He’s a good guy.”

“You’ve got my word, darlin’.”

Joel was determined to be on his best behavior, clearly.

-

It takes Joel a couple weeks to find the parts he needs and luckily there are no more run-ins on your midnight sex-scapades, still feeling the embarrassment from the first one. Joel doesn’t even seem to remember it after a couple days, thankfully. He was bypassing it for your own benefit, truthfully. And you knew that.

Selfishly, you're glad to have your appliances back to yourself. 

They’re good, solid, reliable—until they aren’t.

Your washer shits itself mid-load and you can hear it from downstairs. A loud screeching noise before an even louder pop that has you groaning loudly because you know. You can feel it.

You can’t even bring yourself to go check, peering through the window of your kitchen and catching a fresh pot of coffee in the house across from yours, a man coming into view and his stark white shirt contrasting the black coffee cup in his hands. He catches you out of the corner of his eye and looks at you with a quizzical amusement, smile tugging at his face.

Joel was always up before the sun rose, so with the sun just creeping into the sky you’re sure that’s his third or fourth cup of coffee. He reaches over his sink and fiddles with the latch on his window before heaving it up, watching as you struggled to do that same but eventually managed.

“You run outta coffee again?” He asks, sipping at the bitter, black coffee in his mug.

“No,” You reply quickly, slightly exasperated as you chew at your bottom lip, debating how to pop the question and feeling nervous under Joel’s intense gaze, curiously wondering if he’s still picturing you naked. He’s never explicitly mentioned it since, but you have caught him in the act.

Wandering eyes, gazes catching when your back is turned for half a second as you bend down or move in a way that exposes too much skin.

“My washer broke,” You cut to the chase and Joel chuckles at how comical it is, in hindsight.

Was this karma? It was definitely karma. 

You’ve never asked Joel for anything—despite your often bouts of kindness toward him you never expected anything in return, not even a favor.

“Doors open,” Joel nods toward his front door out of view, an invitation like you offered him.

You didn’t even hesitate, pushing the window close and bounding up the stairs.

-

You’re already loading your things into his washer before he appears around the corner, peeking his head in, coffee cup still in hand as he takes a few more steps and leans against the wall beside the washing machine and your eyes glance at him briefly before you continue moving the clothes, watching him watch you from behind the rim of his mug.

“I can start them and come back,” You tell him, “so I won’t be lingering around here all day.”

“No Benny?”

You stand up as you close the washer, deadpan stare pointed in his direction.

“You can be such a nosy neighbor, you know that?”

Joel shrugs, a smug smile covered behind his sip of coffee.

“It was just a few times. Besides he’s…too much for me.”

You turn the dial to start the load and it rumbles to life with a simple press of a button.

“You wanna talk about it?”

It wasn’t completely unnatural for you two—you knew quite a bit about Joel now: his life before, his work, his daughter…all things that come with trust and time. He’s waited patiently for you and you’ve given him peeks into your life, but nothing like this.

“It’s a long story, Joel.”

“Got time,” He smiles slightly, “I’ll go grab you a cup of coffee—sit down.”

You look around briefly, not a chair in sight. So, you raise yourself up just enough that you can slide your ass over the top of the washer, bare feet dangling off the floor and you wait, the subtle and quiet shake from the beginning of the load process keeping the awkward silence at bay.

Joel turns the corner a few minutes later with your cup, made up just to your liking and you nod with a gentle smile, taking the cup from his hand and allowing yourself a few generous sips.

“So—that night, you caught us,” You can laugh at the instances now, so you do in a soft, clipped manner, “it wasn’t the first—it had been a month by that point and he just caught me by surprise, showed up that night and things just got a little out of hand.”

Joel’s eyebrows raise in interest but he urges you to continue, leaning against the wall in front of you now, resting his mug on the shelf just above his head as he crosses his arms over his chest.

“He’s a good guy, don’t get me wrong—but I don’t do serious…I can’t, now with how things are. And I know a lot of people think the opposite, seize the moment and all that shit,” You sigh, a deep and heavy sound that expands and releases from your chest, “he was already talking about moving in, the idea of us having kids—so that night I just tried to distract him.”

“With sex? Seems a little…counter-productive, don’t you think?”

“Don’t judge me, Joel,” You warn him but it’s edged with a playfulness that Joel recognizes. You didn’t have a mean, deceptive bone in your body and Joel knew that from the first conversation he had with you.

“I needed him to shut up,” You groan at the thought of the conversation as it replays in your mind, “I’m trying to wash my clothes, he’s talking to me about babies. I do not want kids, Joel. Ever. At least none that are biologically mine. Who would want to bring a kid into this world?”

Well…Tommy. The thought comes to you after the words have already left your mouth and your heart sinks into your stomach, looking at Joel apologetically.

“Sweetheart, don’t even try to apologize. Ain’t nothing wrong with it.”

“It makes me sound horrible, I know but—”

“I’ve done my time—it’s none of my business how others choose to live. Besides, I’m pushing sixty, I don’t have to worry about all that…sorry, I’m not trying to be crude here.”

You nod knowingly with a smirk tugging at your lips, taking another sip of coffee before handing the mug off for him to place it next to his own, ready to slide off of the washer before Joel interjects with another question that catches you off guard.

“He treat you right, at least?”

You tilt your head with that same knowing smirk, pushing Joel away at his hip with your foot as he leans up from his position against the wall—Joel’s never flirted, always promptly skirted around the issue and went about it more gentlemanly. He’s not abrasive and straightforward like most of the men in Jackson, but damn did he know how to make you feel special.

Undivided attention, constant subtle compliments, giving up some much-needed sleep for a simple late night drink with you—part of you was too terrified to make your own move and make it clear just how badly you wanted just a small taste of him.

You’ve heard whispering, minimal talk from a few of the women in town. Joel didn’t often make his rounds but when he did, he left an impression. And you had every right to be jealous, because with him standing in front of you now—you knew it would be easy to say no and he would fix you right up, finally crossing that line that he’s been carefully dancing around for a few years.

“He’s a bit…timid,” You shrug, “and he doesn’t really…”

The air lingers and the side of Joel’s mouth pulls up—you don’t have to say it.

“Joel, don’t do that,” You shove at his shoulder as he approaches you, his hands pressing into the contraption you’re on, curled around the metal, “—he’s just…eager, but not in a good way.”

There’s a glint in Joel’s eye that leads you to believe he’s not thinking about Benny’s less than experienced sex life, feeling the sudden jitteriness from the coffee as your chest rises with a deep, shaky breath and Joel eyes the time over your shoulder.

Forty-five minutes and some change, plus the time to dry because Joel already knows you aren’t going to trouble yourself with walking the damp laundry through this cold, muggy weather.

“So, no then?” Joel asks.

He could have treated you better, sure. But, he wasn’t the worst.

But, the way Joel is staring at you knows makes everything and everyone dull in comparison.

You shake your head in agreement, chewing at the inside of your bottom lip as your hands fall to your lap, his hands ncreasingly closer to the tights covering your legs, suddenly feeling his thumb graze your hip. You both glance down at the action and your breathing halts, watching as his right hand slowly engulfs your thigh, fingers digging into the soft material and dimpling your skin underneath, his thumb only a few centimeters from dipping into the inside of your thigh.

They part on their own, welcoming Joel in wordlessly and his left hand echoes the other. His face is level with your own, staring down at your lips briefly before meeting your eyes and you’ve seen that look before—the adoration when he thought you weren’t watching, secretly you had become good at catching those glances, but Joel wasn’t trying to hide it now.

And it quickly dawns on you in the moment—he was jealous. Of Benny. Or really, any man that had come before him. But, he was using him as the scapegoat.

Honestly, you couldn’t even care.

“You want someone to treat you right?” He speaks softly and if you weren’t so close you wouldn’t have heard him, “I got you, sweetheart. I swear.”

He’s not looking at you anymore, eyes dragging down the bridge of your nose to your lips again. But, you are looking at him, flooded with that tricky feeling that creeps up on you when you want things you know you shouldn’t.

“Joel, I told you—I don’t do serious,” And you hold your breath for the response, wondering if that would send this moment crumbling to dust, but Joel doesn’t miss a step.

“Good for you,” Joel dotes, “neither do I.”

Then he’s on you, the press of his lips in a heated kiss sends you tumbling back, caught by the warm slide of his palm over your back to pull you in, throwing your arms over his shoulders as he pulls back briefly, just enough for you to open your mouth to speak, but his tongue finds its way inside and the words fade away.

Just friendly, my ass—you think.

If you had known he kissed like this—you would’ve jumped at the opportunity months ago; a night spent drinking too many glasses of wine and laughing over some movie far before your time, but not his. 

He was so entranced, giving you all the details, but you couldn’t help giggling over it, too touchy to be considered friendly.

You’d both cut it short quickly when Ellie popped in halfway through the movie, and beyond that, it never grew.

Until now.

“Sweet,” Joel notes with a subtle smile, his hand dwarfing the size of your neck as his fingers wrapped around the column of your throat, holding you firmly in place as he maneuvered you toward and away from the kiss as he pleased, swallowing every tiny moan that escaped your lips when his other hand squeezed at your thigh just a little too hard.

“All that sugar,” In your coffee, the taste lingering on your lips and he licks around them teasingly, pulling away briefly to look at you, your eyebrows raising in question as the gears turn in his head, “—you still with me?”

“I’m just wonderin’ if you’re okay with this,” Joel speaks candidly, his eyes trained on his thumb as it rubs against the middle of your throat, traveling up under your chin and tipping your head up slightly, watching as you swallowed, “before I take this further, jus’ need to know.”

You nod jerkily, not even a second of hesitation. 

“You would have known the moment you kissed me, Joel.”

In turn, Joel nods slowly before he speaks, stealing the air from your chest.

“Alright then, pull these down for me,” He tugs gently at the material clinging to your thighs before both of his hands find the spot behind your knees and tug until your feet hit the floor, “and push that pretty little ass out for me.”

The absurdity of this language on his tongue makes you giggle but abide in an instant, struggling slightly as the material bunches at your ankles and Joel helps you the rest of the way, tossing your pants aside before he’s kneeling despite how his body protests, too eager to give you a taste of the pleasure you deserve and he’s grabbing the cheeks of your ass and squeezing them between his hands before he’s leaning up to bite playful at the soft flesh.

He groans quietly against your skin, the press of his aquiline nose against your ass as his fingers fold around the string of your underwear and pull, dropping them down to your ankles and off and then his tongue is flat against the seam of your cunt, gasping as you fall forward and your own fingers clawing against nothing.

“Joel!” You squeak out as his fingers dig hard into your ass, forcing you up on your tiptoes as devours, licking into your cunt as it quivers around his tongue. 

Your hand pressed against the wall in front of you to keep your chest from hitting the washer, feeling your pussy tighten around the finger that enters alongside his expert tongue, a soft groan erupting out of him from behind you. That smug motherfucker was attempting a teasing huh under his breath as he busied himself with the task of eating you out from the back and you couldn’t even think straight. 

‘C’mon, baby,” He coos between his alternating licks and slurps of the heady slick that dripped from your cunt, “come all over my mouth, let me taste that sugar.”

It’s absurd, the way he’s speaking to you now. Your eyes squeeze shut as his thumb finds your clit amongst the chaos of his tongue and fingers, face heating up at how noisy your cunt sounded over the dull shake of the washer and Joel’s satisfied moans, occasionally massaging at the back of your thigh when your legs shake with the creeping feeling of your impending orgasm.

“Oh,” You squeal, reaching behind you to dig your fingers into his hair, panting out in desperation, “—fuck, don’t stop! Joel, right—right there,” and then glance you take back at him, his eyes peeking open from his position below, on his knees and dutiful to you and you alone, well…

It sends you tumbling over the edge as his thumb rubs over your clit quickly, soothing you through the aftermath as he laps up the mess you’ve made all over yourself, dragging his tongue along the inside of your thigh because if you knew anything about Joel, he didn’t waste a meal. 

And you were just about the finest he’s tasted.

You clear your throat as you rest your feet flat on the floor, feeling the faint quake in your legs as Joel rises slowly, forcing you to swallow down a giggle as he winces and he can see it on your face.

“Worth it,” He excuses himself, “don’t look at me like that.”

“No old man jokes?” You sound sad and Joel can’t believe it.

He shakes his head.

But, the smile that breaks out on your face quickly diminishes any comeback he has.

You begin to push him away with a hand gripped in his shirt, carefully avoiding the obvious bulge in his sweats as you reach for your tights, ready to redress and drop to your own knees as a favor but his fingers are wrapping around your wrist, pulling your attention back to him.

“I meant it,” Joel tells you, tilting his head to catch your gaze.

You smile wide and tilt your head to mirror him, “I think you proved your point—Benny is a pathetic man who doesn’t know how to make me come, blah blah…”

“My job ain’t done if you’re still thinkin’ about him, darlin’.”

His eyebrows raise in challenge.

Okay, you’re game.

Wordlessly you allow the hands at your hip that guide you toward the front of the joined appliances, his fingers sliding under your top until you get the hint to pull it off, your breasts bouncing free from the shirt—the few bras you had were already in the wash, big deal.

Joel chuckles and stops for a moment, admiring the sight of your breasts for the second time that month, albeit more openly this time. He reaches forward and rubs his thumb along your nipple, watching the nub harden under his touch and you bite at your bottom lip, eye fluttering closed at how sensitive they were to touch, something other men never took the time to notice.

“You like that?” Joel asks with a creeping grin.

You nod, watching as he squeezed your tits in his hands, showing your nipples ample attention as he circled them with his thumb before leaning down slightly and swiping his tongue over the hardened nubs, sucking your breast into his mouth and his eyes peer up, gauging your reaction which quickly developed from a soft giggle to a loud moan.

“Clothes,” You breath out, “off—if you still have a point to prove.”

A point that you wanted proven. Hard.

Joel pulls away and yanks his shirt over his head, allowing you an unobscured view of the mix of muscled shoulders and his softened stomach, running your hand over the patch of hair at the center of his chest and down, right along his hips until his own fingers hook around the fabric and pull his sweats and boxers down in one motion, his cock catching against the edge of his waistband before it bobs back up toward his stomach.

You find yourself smiling despite yourself, forgetting for a moment that Joel was standing there and watching you, feeling your mouth water at the sight of him hard and leaking at how just getting a small taste of you had turned him on that much, precum leaking slowly from the tip and he wraps his hand around himself, other hand tapping at your chin to drag your attention back up to his face, reminding you he was still there.

“Got somethin’ on your mind, sweetheart?”

You shake your head furiously, “No, no—no, nothing. Just, uh—”

“I’ll start slow,” He tells you and with the size of him, thick and girthy in ways you’ve only imagined or pictured in your head, it’s daunting, “are you still alright with all of this?”

Your face softens and you nod, appreciating the repeated check-ins, the need for confirmation, but it pulls at your heart as you wonder why he feels the need to ask so much. As if he was fearful you would change your mind on a dime—Joel was fine with that, but he was more worried about the change in dynamic. Thankfully, you were determined for that not to be the case.

“I’m pretty tough,” You shrug, a playful smile gracing your face.

Joel nods absently as his fingers drag along your waist before catching behind your knee and pulling it up over his hip, both of your eyes dragging down to his cock as he tugged at himself a few times, his brow furrowed as he spread your lips apart with the head, dipping his hips down slightly to catch against your hole before he pushes in slow, one solid stroke that steals the sound from your throat and transfers to his own. Joel groans out softly as he pushes into you, his hands gravitating toward your face and wrapping around the sides of your neck, tilting your head back to mouth at your skin, his tongue dragging along your collarbone before sucking and nipping gently at your skin.

“Don’t I know it,” Joel responds after a while, “find something to hold onto.”

Your soft giggle of excitement shoots down to your core and your fingers wrap around the edges of the washer and Joel pulls back swiftly before he’s snapping his hips back into you before repeating the process several times, the jolt of the machine hitting the concrete wall behind you drowned out by your loud moans, quickly swallowed up by Joel’s lips as he pulls your mouth to his, breathing into it with every sharp snap of his hips.

“Harder,” You beg, biting at his bottom lip as he groans, using his fingers intertwined into the hair at the nape of your neck now to pull your head back and he pulls his hips back quick, bottoming himself out inside of you so forcefully you feel like your legs might give out, his cock rubbing against your already too sensitive g-spot and continuously finding a way to bring you closer and closer to the edge, “fuck—yes, yes. Joel, oh my god—”

“Yeah,” Joel goads you, his eyes drawn closed as he tries to keep his own orgasm at bay, “give it to me, baby—wanna watch you make a mess on my cock, alright?”

Easy, you laugh airily and feel the instinctive squeeze of your walls around Joel’s cock as he pulls your face to his, foreheads pressed against each other as he angles his hips back and slams into you one last time before you come undone, head falling back in a similar position to how he caught you a few weeks ago, this time for him. 

Your grab for his shoulders suddenly, blunt fingernails digging into his skin and he takes a few harsh breaths through his nose before he’s pulling out, hand grasping his cock as he jerked himself a few seconds before he comes in thick, short spurts against your stomach, squeezing at the head of his cock as he drags it through the mess he’s made.

His expression is nothing short of mesmerizing, mouth hung open just enough that his tongue can drag over his bottom lip before his teeth are taking its place, eyes drawn to your skin.

Wordlessly, he pulls away on his own pair of shaky legs as he reaches for his wrinkled, worn shirt and brings it to your stomach, cleaning up the mess with a faint smile on his face.

“You know, I think it might take me a bit to fix my washer,” You tease, “so—I might be over here bothering you for a while.”

Joel peers up at you, his head still tucked down as he wiped at your stomach.

“Fine with me.”

Then he’s peering over your shoulder, watching as the washer time inched toward zero, dinging behind you. You turn around, letting your leg fall from his hip finally, ass brush against him in the process and Joel can’t help the way his eyes refuse to leave the sight of it.

Only feeling slightly guilty when you catch him this time, not giving him the pass you usually do.

“We’ve still got about an hour left if I dry them here,” You tell him, “anything else you wanna prove?”

Joel’s tongue pokes at the inside of his cheek, eyes dragging up toward the upper level of his house before flicking back toward you, a smile plastered on your face.

“I can think of a few things.”

divider creds: @/cafekitsune

[mellowsadistic]

Alison sulked on her time-out stool, wondering how long she'd been sitting there. There were no clocks in her nursery, but it felt like hours since her husband had dragged her inside, changed her into one of her punishment diapers, and sat her in the corner with that stupid tiara on her head.

She squirmed a little on her seat and winced. Her bottom was still sore from the spanking she'd received earlier - her husband hadn't been at all pleased when he'd found out how much she'd spent on his credit card, and she'd had to endure almost twenty minutes kicking and crying over his lap before he'd let her up. It wasn't fair! She'd been on a shopping spree with her girlfriends! Was she just supposed to have tagged along, not buying anything? She was sure her friends had spent just as much money as she had... but she was equally sure that none of them were sitting on red bottoms right now, nor would they be wearing diapers, and not one of their houses would have a nursery in it just for them. No, they had husbands who treated them with respect, or who at least saw them as adults.

Alison felt herself going red as she imagined what her friends would say if they could see her now, being punished like a naughty toddler. She knew she ought to put her foot down and insist that she wouldn't let herself be treated like this, but it was just so hard to protest when her husband spoke to her in his authoritative voice, with that stern look in his eyes. For all her feminist ideals and principles, she never managed to do more than whimper when he told her off like a child and announced that she was getting a spanking and a stint in diapers to teach her a lesson. The little plastic tiara was the cherry on top. Her husband called it her "princess potty-pants" tiara, and she had to wear it whenever she wore her diapers. It made her feel like a stupid little girl playing dress-up, and no doubt that was exactly how he wanted her to feel.

Alison scowled around at her nursery with its stupid playmat and its mind-numbing baby toys and the dumb stuffed animals lying around everywhere. She particularly despised the oversized baby blocks sitting on the shelf that held her diapers. She did not love diapers. In fact, she hated them more than anything else in the whole world. She hated how they pushed her legs apart, she hated the way they crinkled with every movement, and most of all she hated what they were for. Alison squirmed again and pressed her thighs together as close as they would go, then let out a quite moan of distress. She needed to pee badly. She was no stranger to this kind of punishment, as the full diaper pail in the corner could attest, but somehow, no matter how many times she was forced to wet herself, it never got easier.

After another minute of increasingly desperate wiggling, she gave up. With a deep breath, Alison clenched her eyes shut and relaxed her bladder. The stream began at once. "Eww..." she whined under her breath, winkling her nose in disgust as she felt the thick padding between her legs start to swell up with pee. "Ew, ew, ewww!" Warmth spread from her crotch, but the knowledge of what she was doing rid the sensation of any pleasantness. She was peeing herself. She was wetting her diaper like an overgrown baby. Tears filled her eyes as her thick baby pants became soggier and soggier. The smell of urine reached her nose and she sobbed. She fell so small, so stupid.

Then came her husband's voice. "Alright, baby girl, time-out is over."

She looked up through her tear-filled eyes to see him walking into the room, looking highly satisfied at the sight of her desperate expression.

"Uh-oh," he said, a smirk playing at the corner of his mouth, "I think someone's had a little accident. Have you wet yourself, baby?"

Alison sobbed again and nodded. She lifted her fists to her eyes to wipe the tears from them, so she didn't notice her husband's hand until it was already sliding down the front of her diaper. She let out a squeal of protest, but it went ignored.

"Oh my, you're absolutely soaked!" he said, feeling the sodden padding in her diaper. "You really had to go, didn't you, princess potty-pants?" He withdrew his hand and tapped her on the nose. "I guess that tiara's not just for show, is it?" He straightened up. "You can stand up now, baby."

Alison got shakily to her feet, cringing as her diaper sagged heavily between her legs. It was so wet that she could feel the warm, swollen padding brushing against her thighs, and it was drooping down almost to her knees. A whine rose involuntarily in her throat, and she couldn't help flapping her hands in revulsion. It was so yucky!

"You don't like wearing wet diapers, do you, Alison?" her husband asked.

Alison bit back her retort. Of course she didn't! "No, Daddy," she said, unable to bring herself to look him in the eyes.

"And you don't like being spanked either, do you?"

There was a pause. "No, Daddy."

"Do you know why Daddy has to spank your little bottom and make you wear diapers?"

Alison clenched her fists. Now was the time. Now was the moment to tell him she wouldn't put up with this anymore.

"Because I'm a silly little girl," she said meekly, staring at the carpet, "and it's the only way I'll learn."

"Good girl. You can stay in that wet diaper for a few more hours to really drive the lesson home. I'll change you into a clean one at bedtime. Now take Daddy's hand, soggy-britches. Let's go and have a cuddle, okay?"

"Yes, Daddy!"

[losfacedevil]

It’ll Be Okay // CW JTK

a/n~ Sometimes Careless Whispers Jake comes out to play when you least expect him to.

18+ MINORS DNI: Heavy petting, lots of kissing, intercourse (p in v)

Serenia was beside herself, her world slowly coming crashing down around her as the days flew by. It had been months since Jakes initial infidelity, and all of the work they had put in seemed like it had been for naught after the previous night. A call from a local Sheriff had her in tears as listened to the laws Jake had broken, knowing full well if she let him sit there all night he’d be tossed into jail the following morning.

She had fought tooth and nail with herself. Let him sit there, stew in what he’s done. Bail him out, he’s been through enough. He won’t learn his lesson if you run to his aid like always. He might do something terrible if you don’t go get him. Ultimately stuffing her feet into her crocs and taking off in the dead of the night to get to him as fast as she could.

Watching him walk from the interrogation room to where she stood was hard. He was broken, in so many ways. Hair disheveled, the smell of booze clinging to him, and tear stained cheeks with the big red rimmed coffee brown eyes to match. She wanted to be stern with him, yell at him for being so stupid and getting his car towed - something he promised her he wouldn’t ever do. But the moment he opened his mouth and his voice began to crack, her heart shattered in her chest.

“I… I know I need to fix a lot of things. I know I keep fucking up and I know I have to work on that. But I… I’m sorry that I keep hurting you and I… understand if you want to drop me at my moms and call it. Josh can get my things tomorrow if he has to.”

Shaking her head, she rid her mind of the memory - the frown that was etched into his face too much for her heart to bare. Serenia turned her attention to Jake who sat quietly on the couch, his nose buried in his most recent read - anything to occupy his mind. She pushed herself to stand and slowly made her way over to where he sat, leaning her elbows on the back of the couch and slotted her chin over his shoulder.

“Whatcha reading?” Jakes hand visibly tensed against the page he was holding, and he swallowed thickly as he willed himself to relax. She watched as his chest rose to its limit and slowly fell, a deep and steady breath entering and leaving his lungs as he pulled himself together. Slipping the bookmark he held between the pages, he slowly closed the book and showed her the cover.

“Some book Josh thought I’d like. And before you ask, no I really don’t know how I feel about it, it’s been a struggle to really focus on.” Serenia nodded gently and pushed herself back up to her feet. She rounded the couch slowly and plucked the book out of his hand, turning at the waist to drop it onto the coffee table behind her.

Jake took another steadying breath as he locked eyes with Serenia for the first time all day, and a soft smile spread across his lips as he took on her features. She shuffled her feet softly, bumping her knees into his before she reached out - a silent request for him to lift his hands. His brows raised of their own accord and he reached up, placing his hands palm side up in front of her.

“It’s okay?” Her voice was soft as she asked and Jake nodded slightly, waiting for her to slip her hands into his. Placing a knee on either side of his hips, she slowly lowered her body into his lap and wrapped her arms around his neck. Jakes eyes grew wide and he swallowed hard as he wrapped his arms around her lower back and pressed her closer to him. Serenia leaned forward and nuzzled her face into the crook of his neck, reveling in the feeling of his arms wrapped around her for the first time in months.

Jakes eyes fluttered shut and he sat as still as he could, waiting to see what her next move would be. Lifting her head slightly, she began to place a trail of soft kisses along his cheek, stopping right at the corner of his mouth. He pressed his head back into the cushion of the couch and tried to catch her gaze - her eyes always giving away what she was thinking.

“I know saying I’m sorry won’t ever be enough. I know you’re unsure of the future, at least until we see Sun. But I’ll… never forgive myself for what I’ve done. I just… I love you so much I’m scared… scared of what the future holds.” Jake kept his voice light, not wanting to make his words sound like a guilt trip. Serenia knew he was sincere in the words he spoke and was slowly beginning to become receptive to his words.

“I know you’re sorry, and you will forgive yourself for prior actions and mistakes. We live and we learn and we grow. Time heals all wounds, even the biggest ones we create where we never meant to create them. I love you, Jacob… even through it all my love for you never faltered. But I just… I need you to want to get better to want to fix what’s broken, not just with your words but your actions as well…”

Jake reached up and cupped her cheeks in his hands. Leaning forward slightly he captured her lips with his, taking her by surprise. Her breath caught in her throat at the sudden feel of his lips on hers, but she quickly relaxed into him and reciprocated the kiss. Her body began to react to the feel of his skin on hers for the first time in months and she panicked, pulling back from him suddenly. Their chests both heaved as they caught their breath and their pupils were both lust blown as they kept their eyes locked on each other.

“I’m sorry… I…” Jake scrambled to find the words to explain his falter in judgement. But Serenia shook her head and reached up to place a finger against his lips; silencing him. She swallowed hard and shook her head gently before slowly removing her finger from his lips. Tilting her head slightly, she began to lean forward slowly and captured his lips with hers.

Jakes hands began to roam down the expanse of her back and his fingers slipped up under the hem of her shirt, pressing her closer to his body. Serenia slowly began to deepen the kiss, letting her tongue slip out between her lips and gently parted his. Jake sighed into the kiss and slowly ran his hands up her bare sides, letting his thumbs caress the sides of her breasts.

She broke the kiss, pulling back just enough to turn her head slightly and began to press soft kisses to his cheek. Jake began to test the waters and slowly shifted his hands forward, cupping her bare breasts in his palms and teased his thumbs over her taut nipples. Her body reacted of its own accord and she ground her hips down against his, becoming aware of his arousal.

“Make love to me, Jake, please.” She mumbled against his skin, slowly beginning to place hot, open mouthed kisses to the side of his neck. Jake swallowed hard, trying to think through the cloud of arousal that danced around his mind. Serenia began to suck gently on the already sensitive skin of his neck, causing his hips to buck of their own accord.

“We don’t have to…can take it slow. I promise.” He groaned and reached up to thread his fingers through the hair at the back of her head. She shook her head the best she can and rested her cheek gently against his shoulder.

“Make love to me, please. I need you.” She mumbled against his clammy skin. Jake nodded slightly and shifted his arms so they were cradling her bottom before pushing himself to stand off the the couch. Serenia was quick to wrap her legs around his waist and secure her body to his.

“Gonna make you feel good… show you how much I love you.” Jake mumbled as he kicked the bedroom door open and made his way to the bed. Leaning forward he slowly lowered her down to the mattress and made sure she was comfortable before straightening his back into a standing position. He slowly undid the buckle on his belt, watching as she shimmied her dress up above her hips and her lacy panties came into view.

“M’gonna ruin those if you don’t lose ‘em.” He chuckled sinisterly and bent at the waist to shimmy his jeans down over the swell of his ass before kicking them off to the side. Serenia kept her eyes on Jake as he stripped his shirt up over his head and slowly pulled his boxers down his legs.

Jake kneeled on the edge of the bed and wrapped his hand around his hard dick. He leaned over her and made himself comfortable where he rested, leaning down to capture her lips with his as he slowly began to drag the tip of his dick through her slick folds. Serenia’s hands found purchase in his hair and she wrapped her fingers around the strands, effectively holding him in place against her.

He slowly reached down between their bodies and grasped himself, lining himself up with her entrance before slowly pressing forward and pushing himself into her. They both let out a hiss at the contact and a soft moan escaped Serenia as Jake bottomed out and stilled his hips.

She began to pepper kisses across the bridge of his nose, a silent plea for him to begin to move. Jake took a deep breath and slowly retracted from her until just the tip was buried inside of her before pressing back into her agonizingly slow. He kept his pace steady, savoring the moment of connection between them rather than chasing the inevitable high.

“So good to me. I’m so sorry. Love you so goddamn much.” He whispered, sweet nothings filling the spaces between passionate moans and the soft pants of breath that slipped past his nose. Serenia’s eyes remained closed as she grazed the tips of her teeth over his collarbone, a silent plea to speed up his thrusts.

Jake obliged slightly and the sound of his hips slapping against hers filled the silence around them. She began to lift her hips off of the mattress, knowing by the whimpers slipping past his nose that he was close to the edge. Her hands danced along his back and she began to scratch her nails along his skin, something she knew drove him wild.

He reached down and began to rub circles over her sensitive clit, reveling in the intensity in which she began to flutter around him, a sure tell that she was as close as he was. He slowed his hips back to the agonizingly slow pace he had originally set and turned all of his attention to her and the way her body was reacting to his thumb on her clit.

“Jake… please.” Was all she could muster as she pushed her hips up, causing him to apply more pressure to her sensitive bud. He knew by the way her nails dug even deeper into his back that she was right there and began to slam his hips into hers as she let go and covered his dick in her release.

His name was on her lips, as she unraveled around him, and he followed soon after, the most pornographic moan ripping groom his chest as he emptied himself into her. their chests heaved as they both came down from their highs and he shifted his hand upwards, gently rubbing her stomach as he slowly pulled out of her. Pushing himself to stand he walked into the en-suite and dampened a wash cloth to help her clean up.

Jake rummaged through his drawers for some comfy clothes for the both of them and helped her dress before dressing himself and laying in the bed next to her. She curled up next to him, tangling her legs with his and placed her arm over his midsection. His hand found her lower back and he began to gently rub the exposed skin of her back. He would pull his hand forward every so often to rub her stomach as well, knowing that intimacy sometimes made her uncomfortable.

“Do… do you think you’d want to… stay the night?” Jake asked, his voice holding a childlike tone to it. Serenia thought for a second before nodding her head and began to place soft kisses to his cheek once more.

“I’ll stay with you. I love you so much, Jake. I really do.” She mumbled, fighting the cloud of sleep that was looming over her. Jake pulled his head back slightly and pressed gently against her stomach, gauging her reaction before slipping his hand back to trace designs along the expanse of her back.

“We’re gonna be okay… right? We’ll get through this?” Jake questioned, pressing soft kisses to the tip of her nose. Serenia nodded her head sleepily and reached up, cupping his cheek in her hand and turned his head so she could press a chaste kiss to his lips.

“We’ll be okay soon.” She mumbled, running her thumb gently across his cheekbone. Jake let his eyes fluttered shut, the cloud of sleep looming over both of them slowly claiming them as their breathing steadied out and her hand fell from his cheek.

Tagging my CW Jake babes: @vanfleeter @writingcold @lipstickitty

[awingedinsect]

-Flood me like Atlantic-

Chapter 8

Word count: 1.8k

Warnings: cursing, talks of injury, talks of homelessness, there’s a general 18+ content warning for this entire series and it does get a tiny bit interesting at the end here. Yearning Vessel gets his own warning.

“I got you a present.”

“Oh yeah? What is it?”

The little girl smiled, raking up a fistful of sand.

“It’s a surprise, silly.” She said. The breeze was blowing her hair, and Vessel smiled as she pulled it out of her sweet little eyes. “For your birthday.”

He remembers the smell of the ocean, the sound of the grey waves crashing on the shore. He remembers sitting there for hours with her, watching the tide come in as the sun made its journey behind the clouds.

He chuckled. “Aw heck, you didn’t have to do that.” There was a big smile creeping up on his face. “…Do I get a hint?”

“Well, mom paid for it, but I picked it out.” She said, yanking up a few pieces of grass poking through the grout. “and no.” She made a zipper across her mouth, beaming up at him with specks of sand scattered on her pink cheeks. “My lips are sealed!”

“Hey, Vessel.”

Vessel looks up from the pan he’s scrubbing, turning on the faucet to rid it of the suds. The water soaks into the cuffs of his hoodie.

“Hm?”

IV stands beside him casually, shrugging the leather jacket he performed in over his good shoulder.

“I’m heading into town. Anything I can get for you?”

Vessel sets the pan down on the drying rack, hands spidering a little desperately over the pile of dirty dishes in search of his next target. “Oh, no thanks,” he says, blinking at the guitarist’s reflection in the window then immediately looking down when his is in the pane too. He still looks tired, eyes bloodshot and hollow. Almost like he’d been nearly sacrificed and since possessed by an anonymous deity.

“You uh, driving?” He asks, glancing over at the man’s broken arm. An unprecedented wave of guilt comes over him, and he swipes his nose on his shoulder with a sniff. The sunlight is pouring in through the dusty window and it makes eye contact feel doubly impossible. But IV just shrugs, stuffing his hand in his jean pocket and shuffling a ring of keys.

“Aye, I’m the only one up here with a license. But I don’t mind, going to the grocery is pretty much a special interest at this point. You sure I can’t get you anything? Swing by your house for some clothes?”

It amuses Vessel that there’s an unspoken understanding that he’s staying. It would be sweet, if there wasn’t also the underlying idea that he doesn’t actually have a choice. But then again, he doesn’t have anywhere else that he should be, much less a house. He wonders if they can tell. If the inability to pay another night's rent at that damn motel is as plain as the bandage on his face. God, he wants his keyboard.

Out of anything in the world, he’d take those keys under his fingers.

“I’m fine, honestly. I can take a cab to the motel lat-“

“You’re staying in a motel?”

A horrendous blush creeps up his neck, and he dumps a plate on the rack hard enough to make him wince. “I’m… temporarily a bit displaced?”

There’s not a whole lot to read on IV’s face. He just absorbs information, then says some contemplated thing in return. But out of pity or surprise, there’s something closer to concern in his eyes.

“…You got a job, mate?”

There’s a silence longer than III’s fucking legs, and maybe twice as insufferable as the man himself. Even now Vessel can hear him in the next room, quietly muttering over his collection of herbs and spell-making equipment in an attempt to guard against whatever “bullshit the cat dragged in.” II is watching the tv, sipping a soda and giggling at whatever's on the discovery channel.

Vessel��s big eyes finally gather the strength to look up in the window, mouth twitching as he meets IV’s own.

“…I sing.”

And that’s what he does.

That’s how that day passes, and the next, and the next… at first, he’s nervous. Just settles on the edge of the couch to watch the three of them take positions, falling into the flow of practice as easy as a stream into the sea. II looks about as at home behind his drum set as a tree in the woods. Vessel has never seen so much cohesion between a person and their instrument, and it fills his gut with an almost jealousy, seeing something so flawless performed with such ease.

IV forgoes his guitar, obviously. But he still brings a lot to the performance by presence and a few vocals alone. II wasn’t kidding when he said the man could scream. The sound scratches Vessel's ears so gorgeously, he could legitimately start crying.

And then there’s III.

He stands front and center, that same flowery jacket on his shoulders. He looks concentrated. In tune. And yet there’s an ease that rolls off of him so fabulously it can’t help but feel like a subtle challenge.

Vessel watches his fingers move over the strings, rings glinting in the grey-ish light of the foggy forest.

And he feels… something.

He watches them play for an hour before II begs him to join. There’s something in those blue eyes that is undeniable, no matter how out of place he feels. And soon there is a mic stand in front of him, adjusted about three levels higher than he found it.

“Bring Me to Life.” III mutters. And without a piano, the first sounds are nothing but a few chords plucked by his nimble fingers.

The challenge is no longer subtle.

Vessel rocks on his heels, fingers splaying delicately down the side of the mic stand before gripping it low and still for his mouth to caress.

“How can you see into my eyes…”

A very quiet “oh hooo” of impending excitement comes from somewhere behind the drum set, and Vessel smiles.

“…like open doors?”

IV’s screams of “I can’t wake up” ring in all of their ears for several days, so intense it’d be funny if not so impressive. They played for hours that day, only pausing to brew a few cups of III’s jasmine rose tea. II was right; it tasted like ass. And yet in that room, sweaty from pouring his soul into a mic and surrounded by those three, passionate freaks of the industry, he realized he was almost happy. His smile, for the first time in years, wasn’t something he willed onto his face. And if he could hang on forever to the feeling of discovering a smile instead of creating it he would.

II tells him goodnight without any prompting. Just smiles at him, and says it as easy as breathing, before heading off into one of three doors lining the hallway.

IV likes him too. He gets a few changes of clothes and a brand new toothbrush from him, and even shares an intelligent conversation about guitars once Vessel mentions that he likes to play, too. Most of his feeling is in his eyes, he’s realized. They have a way of sparkling and harboring what might be big smiles in another case when he’s intrigued or at peace. The only person who gets him to really smile, is II; When the drummer is curled up in a tiny ball on the couch with his cup of “tea” or going absolutely manic on the drums, closing his eyes and getting carried off in the rhythm.

Even III smiles then.

But not once has he ever smiled at Vessel.

Vessel goes to sleep one night, thinking about it.

What would it feel like to have III’s approval? It’s clear at this point that he’ll never make the guy happy. He resents him too much for that. And yet, he did save his life. Shouldn’t that be good enough?

Vessel doesn’t like him very much, he’s decided. Especially when after belting his heart out at the man’s command he doesn’t even get a “well done”, or a “thank you” when Vessel made a mug of that nasty fucking tea and brought it to him after practice. He just nods his head and half-way looks at him; because at the end of the day, Vessel isn’t worth his attention.

And it makes his face red as a beet.

The moon is pouring in through the window. It’s been a week since it was full, and lighting up the forest outside with him in it. The cuts on his belly seem to be healing well, and he’s planning to take the bandage off his head tomorrow and see what the hell that’s all about.

Why won’t III approve of him?

He turns over on his back, looking up at the ceiling.

“You really are amazing.” II’s voice echoes in his head from earlier in the day, when he was cutting up some apples in the kitchen. “We’re all lucky bastards to have a singer like you messing around with us. Talk to III, we’ve got a gig coming up next week and I don’t know if we’d be half as good without ya!”

His eyes flutter as the darkness becomes staticy, rimmed on the left by faint moonlight and quiet as a grave with the whole house asleep. He thinks about II’s words. Is he in a band? If not, what’s he been doing up here all this time?

He’s not sure he can look at another crowd. Another waiting, patient collection of faces staring at his own until he does something impressive. Until the night goes on and terrible things have a chance to happen.

He shudders hard and closes his eyes, taking a deep breath.

Can he sing for people?

For me.

A voice speaks somewhere between his mind and his eyelids.

Sing for me.

“I can scream loud enough, for you.” His mouth wraps around the words, muttering them softly with hardly a sound. His tongue darts out on his lip.

He really does love singing with bass.

His hand slips under his hoodie, spreading delicately over the bandages decorating him. His fingers are cold against his hot skin, searing between the pieces of himself and what III taped to him. It doesn’t hurt so bad anymore.

His fingers travel down, grazing softly over the faintest of trails till they touch the band of III’s sweatpants.

God, he’s annoyed. He’s a good singer. Why isn’t he good enough for everyone? Why doesn’t that prick of a bassist say thank you when he makes him tea?

“I can scream loud enough...”

His fingertips push past the elastic, the slightest of tremors in his big hands for no reason he feels like guessing. He didn’t realize until right now how aroused he is by nothing in particular. It’s simply been too long, he thinks. Too long since he created release for all the sounds in his mind.

“…for you.”

For me.

“…Yes.”

After only a few minutes his eyes shoot wide open, full of pleading and hate as he cups a hand over his mouth and bites down hard enough to muffle a scream.

[allaboardthevespa]

Aromatherapy

DC FANS YOU ARE GONNA GET MY FLUFF ON YOUR DASHBOARDS AND YOU ARE GONNA LIKE IT /jk it's awful

So y'all know about my HC of Ellie adoring flowers (the same being true for Gabby) so here's a fic where Gabby treats Ellie to some nice therapeutic floral warmth after a long day at work for her. You can bet that this is a reoccurring event in their cozy lifestyle.

#LETELLIEBEHAPPY!!!

--

It was late one night, and Ellie was being forced to work overtime for that evening, and it left Gabby home alone awaiting her freckled sweetheart.

It’d been a few months since they started dating and living in the same house – and Ellie was still doing her best to find the money she needed to achieve her fashion designer dreams. It wasn’t easy, it never was. But Gabby knew just how to support her beloved. She knew what Ellie loved. And she knew how to bring her girlfriend into a peaceful, happy state, even after the worst days.

That evening, Gabby was busy setting up some candles besides the girls’ bed, fluffing their pillows, and settling some of Ellie’s beloved stuffed rabbits in their bed. She’d even taken it upon herself to wash their cozy, fuzzy blanket using Ellie’s favorite peony detergent.

Admittedly, Gabby made a bit of a mess while trying to do so. Laundry detergent can get everywhere if you’re not careful. But she didn’t mind cleaning up for her girlfriend. She loved her enough that she’d do anything to make her life easier.

It was as Gabby was making the final touches on the girls’ bed that the Tree Hugger heard a few knocks on the bedroom door. The brunette hurried to the door and opened it wide. There, Ellie stood waiting for her. She looked beyond exhausted, hair wildly messed up and dark rings forming underneath her eyes. It wasn’t anything new for the Polish girl seeing her girlfriend so tired, but it was a sobering sight nonetheless. Nonetheless, the redhead gazed at her beautiful girlfriend and managed a weak smile. “Hey, my beautiful Nature Princess.” Gabby gave her beloved a peck on her cheek, “Welcome home, my Sunset Angel!”

The redhead returned the favor with a gentle kiss on the tip of Gabby’s nose, making her giggle. “Thanks, sweetheart…” She stretched with a tired moan. “I wish I could say it was a good day, but…you know what my overtime shifts can be like.” She rubbed her own back gently, “It feels like my bones are threatening to snap in two if I work another minute.” “You don’t have to worry anymore, sweetie,” Gabby comforted her beloved, rubbing her sides gently. “Let’s get you in bed.”

With that, the Minimum Wage Worker stumbled towards the girls’ bed that Gabby had prepared for her. “Wow…you made it look really nice tonight, Gabbs,” she spoke in pleasant surprise. “No trouble at all!” squeaked the brunette in glee, glad her girlfriend liked her handiwork.

Ellie laid backwards upon the girls’ double bed, and already felt some of her stress and pains start to fade as she registered its soft warmth. “Ohhh yeah…this feels so good,” purred the redhead in joy, heart lighting up with warmth as she let her head sink gently into her light pink pillow and pulled the girls’ soft pastel blue blanket around herself. That’s when she noticed its scent – as if it had freshly left a field full of soft pink peonies. The American girl didn’t hesitate and took a deep, long breath, savoring the blanket’s sweet smell, pulling it up to her nose to fill her mind with its delicate aroma. “Mmmm…it smells so nice! Did you wash our blanket for me, too?” She gave the brunette a smile full of gratitude and joy. It was totally adorable. “You got it, sweetheart,” chirped the nature-lover, “Whenever you have a hard day like today, I wanna make sure to pamper you to the best of my abilities until you feel all better.”

Ellie could feel her heart melting as she registered each gentle, loving word of her girlfriend. Her heart fluttered as she gazed up at her Nature Princess. How lucky was she to have this perfect ray of sunshine in her life?

Gabby now brought out a tiny lighter and picked up one of the candles she had set up next to the girls’ bed, on Ellie’s  side. It had bright red wax and was labelled “Angelic Aroma of Reddest Roses”. Gabby gave a little giggle as she lit up the wick at the top of the candle and set it next to where Ellie was lying. “What’s this?” Ellie asked out of curiosity, the tiny flicker of the flaming candle reflected in her azure eyes. “Just close your eyes and take a deep breath,” the brunette instruced her, softly stroking her hair for a moment.

Ellie did as she was told. She shut her eyes and took a breath through her nose – and sure enough…a warm floral scent entered her mind, reminiscent of the freshest, deepest red roses blooming in the summertime. It gently intertwined with the scent of peonies radiating from her blanket, surrounding her with pure aromatic bliss.

For a few minutes, Ellie had forgotten she was in her bed. For that moment in time, Ellie felt like she was in the midst of a field of the most beautiful red and pink flowers, air filled with their wonderful scents. Wherever she turned, she could smell the sweet, light aroma of peony on one side and the deep, rich, intoxicating fragrance of red roses on the other. Every painful memory of that long, awful working day had disappeared from her mind. Now, all she felt was pure bliss. She kept her eyes shut, continuing to breathe deeply, enveloped in the purifying scent of the flowers she was picturing around her.

Ellie might not have realized it at the time, but Gabby was watching her with pure joy. The Tree Hugger knew that she’d succeeded in bringing pure joy to the redhead. Every breath Ellie took in was long and deep, savoring wave after wave of the pure aromatic euphoria she was in. Every breath she let out was a long, happy “aaahhhhhhhh,” face lighting up with the brightest and most beautiful smile. Gabby couldn’t help but tear up a little from joy and adoration of the angel she had in her life. She was so, so very glad to have made her so happy.

Eventually the brunette, gently as she could, climbed into bed alongside the freckled one, wrapping herself up under the warm, comforting blue blanket she’d washed. Taking a moment to breathe the aroma permeating the air herself, Gabby shut her eyes and prepared to let sleep take its hold on her, expecting Ellie to follow soon after.

When… “Hey, Gabby-bear,” purred the redhead, reaching her hand behind her and grasping her loved one’s hand. Opening one eye, Gabby responded, “Yes, my darling Ellie-kins?” “Could we go on a date to the local garden tomorrow?” she squeaked, “Because…I’d love to spend an entire day admiring flowers with you. It just makes me feel…” She took in one more deep breath of the peony-rose scent filling the room, “…so at home. Wherever we are. And it feels even better…knowing I have you by my side.” “Aww, of course we can, my sweet darling Ellie,” Gabby chirped, nuzzling into the crook of her girlfriend’s neck. “I’d go anywhere with you, my beloved.” “Thank you…thank you so much, Gabby.” Ellie turned around and let her nose brush up against Gabby’s, pushing their foreheads together. “I love you so much…my one and only Nature Princess.” Gabby felt herself tearing up one more time, and she wrapped her arms around her freckled soulmate in a tender embrace. “And I love you too, my precious and beautiful Sunset Angel.”

[atlasstarss]

i focus on my eyes

i see the colorful stars that i cut out and put on my ceiling and around my room

i see the calendar that i always forget to check off, today is a special day

i see the leds that i haven’t turned on in months since i have better string lights

i see the stack of books i have yet to read, maybe i should try finishing one

i see my closed window. i’ll probably open that in a second

i focus on my hands

i can touch my blanket, its this color thats hard to describe

i can touch my stuffed animal marlo (he’s a green frog)

i can touch my metal headboard, the one i always hit my head on

i could touch my light switch, but i’m not going to

i focus on my ears

i hear my fan make a clicking noise since it has never been put up properly

i hear my grandma on the phone with someone

i hear a loud truck going down the street. why do trucks need to be that loud?

i focus on my nose

i can smell the candle that i burned yesterday

i can smell marlo, i made him smell like strawberries

i focus on my tongue

i cant taste anything yet, maybe i should get up and make breakfast

[everyfandomever]

i was afraid i had lost my smell but one spray of bath and body works frosted cranberry room mist cleared that up real quick

[gi-zxt]

The Prosperity and Fall

PART TWO

Warnings: bad bad bad memories, archons being dickheads, recalling of your death, more gore and blood, graphic descriptions of death, kidnapping, lots of swears, PTSD

Lemme know if I missed a warning, and I hope y’all enjoy!

—

You spend the next week off of work over the toilet puking or in your bed sleeping. No matter how hard you try, you can’t keep anything other than jello and pineapple juice down, and, well, that doesn’t make for a good condition to come into work.

Your boss wishes you good health, understanding the severity of your sickness (even if she doesn’t understand the reasoning behind it) and even being nice enough to make those days paid-off-time. With a hoarse voice, you thanked her, hanging up the phone and immediately rushing to the toilet to dry-heave anything you consumed, though nothing but bile comes up your throat.

When you finally recover enough to do at-home work, your thoughts are filled with nightmares of the Archons, of Liyue and Mondstadt, of Inazuma’s citizens jeering at you. The experience in Teyvat renders you sleepless, and you even resort to visiting a psychiatrist to be prescribed sleeping aids. They do, but even they don’t provide more than a few hours of sleep every few days.

Eventually the nightmares back off to every couple of nights. You still don’t go to your actual workplace. Every time you think of doing so, the memory of rocks and sticks and stones and fruit pelting your back comes into mind. The front door shuts and your shoes come off; the tears fall and the sobs become louder.

You unsubscribed from any Genshin YouTubers, actually deleted your Twitter account, blocked Genshin TikTokers, stuffed the figurines in storage, almost refunded your purchases (before breaking down again at the error screen, you clicked the exit button on your browser and collapsed to the floor), and tossed anything Genshin-related.

And after a while, it starts to feel better. You start to feel more normal. You text your friends dumb memes, actually being able to laugh at them instead of staring at them blankly like you did months prior. They take you on small, short outings to nice restaurants that aren’t too crowded, and you enjoy yourself instead of being flooded with panic attacks.

Unbeknownst—and without a care in the world—to you, however, Teyvat is suffering.

—

“Klee, I can’t give you any more water. We’re almost out.”

“But—“

Albedo looks down at his sister, dark circles under his eyes, and sighs tiredly. He’s exhausted, and has been for months now. Mondstadt’s famine—no, Teyvat’s— has only gotten worse recently, and a drought has begun to plague the lands with no regard for its inhabitants. He’s been working for a while on a solution, but has yet to come up with one that actually works. Even those who were forgiven or ignored have been affected by the sheer severity of ofthe situation.

“Here. You can have the rest of mine.”

“Thank you, ‘bedo.”

Klee clutches the half-empty bottle tightly and scurries back off to her room, leaving Albedo to his thoughts.

Ever since They were executed by the Archons, quality of life has quickly declined to the point that it’s nigh impossible to survive if you don’t live in one of the main cities of the nations. Liyue, especially, has been affected, what with being the city that Their blood coated the streets in.

He thinks back to the horrific memory.

Unable to help Them any more without being jailed for high treason, Albedo watches from a back corner in Liyue’s darkened alleyways, shaking his head sadly.

Gods, what has this world come to?

He would ask the Archons for help, but they’re the ones executing the Divine One right before his eyes, by their own hands, in one of their own cities. It’s a useless hope, one that would only get him killed.

Albedo looks away as the execution begins. Small gasps and screams come from your mouth, followed by the cracking of your bones (to this, he winces, closing his eyes tightly). The smell of burning meat makes his nose wrinkle and his expression turns grim. He does not want to be here, but he doesn’t have an option; he was requested (demanded) to accompany the Acting Grand Master to the City of Contracts.

“Perish, mimic.”

The shing of the Electro Archon’s signature killing blow reaches Albedo’s ears, and he tries to block out the noise of the sword delving deep into your chest, carving your heart out as a trophy.

But the collective gasp from the surrounding crowd catches his attention.

His gaze, formerly trained down to his feet, flicks over to view Ei’s sword retracted from your rib cage, your heart impaled firmly on the blade, golden blood and arteries and all the things you should never see of yourself hanging off and dripping down to the street tiles.

The Archons look shocked at their actions, and all Albedo can do is focus on your face, expression turning from hurt to stunned to smiling maniacally.

He hears your giggle echo throughout the silent streets.

“Oh well. Better luck next time. Or not.”

And then you (your body, your shell, your dead self) drop to the ground, blood pouring from the cavity in your chest. It’s gold and silver and star-splattered, so you and everything you represent, and all anyone can do is stare.

There’s a sudden frenzied panic, an uproar, the crowd going insane at your death. Baal, Barbatos and Morax all try to recover your lifeforce, but it’s already far, far too late. Your body begins to disintegrate like the fallen Hilichurls or slimes do, fading into ashes to be carried away on the mourning wind.

All that’s left is a stain. A stain of sins. A stain of those who wronged you.

Albedo merely chuckles.

“I can’t say I didn’t warn you,” he murmurs to Jean, who watches the final specks of you fly away. “But of course, why would you listen to me?”

“Albedo,” she tries, but he cuts her off.

“And it’s your fault,” the alchemist spits with venom, entirely uncharacteristic of him, “that The Divine One is dead.”

Albedo slumps in his chair, paper discarded to the side. He knows it’s only a matter of time until everything that’s happening catches up to him and his sister, and that hourglass is losing its sand far too quickly for his liking.

He’s running out of time.

When was the last time he got sleep? A full meal? Anything of sustenance, for that matter?

Sustenance…

The alchemist jumps up from where he sits, almost shouting from the idea that pops in his mind.

Them! What if he brought Them back? Obviously, They didn’t know who They were, so there has to be a world where They came from!

Of course. Why didn’t he think of this earlier? It was so obvious!

Albedo spins around and rushes out of the Knights of Favonius Headquarters, being met with a grey, dead sky, but he ignores it, feet pounding the ground as he races towards where a certain Anemo Archon-turned-bard normally resides.

The familiar green outfit greets Albedo’s eyes on top of Venti’s statue, right where he thought the bard would be. Albedo waves at Venti frantically, motioning for him to come down; he does, greeting the alchemist with a slightly less cheery hello than he would have nine months earlier.

“I have—an idea,” Albedo pants, trying to catch his breath, “but I need your help, along with Morax’s and Baal’s.”

“Why?” Venti asks, raising an eyebrow. “What’s the idea?”

“Just trust me.”

—

A week later, three of the Seven are gathered around the Geo alchemist, talking amongst themselves quietly.

A door opens, revealing Jean, Eula, Kaeya, Lisa, Diluc and little Klee, who looks much more sickly than she did a week ago. Still, she cradles Dodoco sweetly in her arms.

“Did you tell them yet?” Jean asks. Albedo shakes his head in response, to which the five adults that just entered the room look confused at.

“Tell us what?”

Diluc is the one who speaks, crossing his arms.

“This seems a little suspicious and very… deceptive of you Knights, more so than usual.”

“Would you shut up for once about the Knights?” Jean hisses at Diluc, a glare accompanying her words. “This isn’t about our damn rivalry. It’s about the whole of Teyvat.”

That shuts the wine tycoon up, but not without a harrumph and a cross of his arms, followed by him glaring at the floor.

“Fine. What is this plan?”

“As you know, the Divine One was executed—“ The Archons wince at this. “—around nine months ago, and as you also know, Teyvat has fallen into ruin because of it. I propose that we bring them back.”

“Necromancy? My, I never thought the Chief Alchemist of the Knights of Favonius would be into that sort of thing,” Lisa says, flipping absentmindedly through her catalyst; instead of the Oathsworn Eye it normally would be, it’s a mere Apprentice’s Notes, but it still makes for a good light reading. “Still, do go on.”

“No, not necromancy. Otherworldly travel.”

That gets the witch’s attention, along with everyone else (sans Klee, who has fallen asleep, snoring softly).

“Other worlds?”

Kaeya this time. The Khaenri’ahn seems intrigued by the prospect, with being friends with the Traveler and all.

“Yes, other worlds. My theory is that They came from another world, hence why They didn’t know of the status that They held here, and also why no memories came to Their mind.” Albedo pauses to clear his throat. “I need a few witnesses to my little test, should it result in a catastrophic failure, or if it results in a success.”

The atmosphere of the room seems to shift a bit, hope returning into the eyes of the people within its confines.

So, with everyone seemingly on board, Albedo begins to explain the full extent of his plan and the process behind it, gesturing to the Seven while speaking. The gods look a bit scared in their own immortal way, but the same hope that filled the Knights’ (and Diluc’s) eyes begins to stand stony behind their gazes.

“You think there’s a chance that… we’ll be okay again?”

Ei’s voice is weak, a shock to all in the room but Albedo himself.

“Yes.”

“And if this doesn’t work?”

Kaeya.

Albedo stays silent at that.

“I need a sliver of your power from your Gnosis, each of you. Yes, I am aware that you no longer hold possession of them, but there is still a small bit of stored power left in your bodies. I need it.”

Venti’s eyes widen momentarily before settling back down, expression fading into determined confidence.

“And you.” Albedo turns to the Knights and Diluc. “I need a touch of your element, all of you. Barbara was kind enough to give me some of hers, and I already have the essence of a Dendro slime, so we don’t have to worry about that.”

“How is this going to work? Do you even have a plan?” Eula asks, leaning on her claymore.

Albedo sighs and pinches his nose at the demanding questions from the Spindrift Knight. Of course she of all people would be the one to question and potentially hinder his plan.

“Don’t ask questions.”

She grumbles but obliges, summoning a small Cryo blade; the others follow suit with their own element, solidifying it into reality before handing the essences over to the Chief Alchemist.

Albedo then turns to the Archons, who each hold an orb of their respective element in their palms. It glows brighter than the Vision wielders’ elements, but nonetheless, they are all beautiful.

“Let us begin.”

—

“Fuck!”

The mouse in your right hand slams down on the table when your computer freezes up for the third time today. Of course Microsoft’s software decides to be picky when you have a very important deadline looming right over your head. Why wouldn’t it?

“Come on, you stupid piece of shit, work!”

But alas, Word is still frozen in time, your computer’s fans kicking on to account for the additional strain on it.

You slump back in your chair with a loud huff. Great. Why wouldn’t your literally-just-bought computer work? Of course, it’s stupid piece of shit—

The monitor suddenly bluescreens and begins to glow really, really brightly, much brighter than it should.

“What the hell?”

The fans whir faster, spinning into overdrive, and the glow only gets brighter.

Is my computer going to blow up? Dammit, I’m out of here, I can just tell HR I need a tablet or something—

Just as you’re about to exit the room to complain toyour boss, everything goes dead silent.

Then an ‘oof’ comes from behind you, followed by three more thuds that sound suspiciously like something living hitting the ground.

“Your Grace?”

That voice…

You freeze in your tracks, not daring to look at who you swear to the gods you left behind in that hellscape. Memories flood your head, ones you tried to repress and thought you did so.

Apparently not.

“Your Grace…?”

A different voice this time, the one that sucked the air out of your lungs, and you sense a third and even a fourth presence behind you, slowly standing up and brushing themselves off.

You slowly turn around, facing the three Archons and Albedo himself, each looking extremely relieved to see you alive and well. Their faces display exhaustion, stress and sleeplessness; for what, you don’t know.

“Get away from me.”

The voice that comes from your lips is steady save for a small quaver in the underlying tone.

“Thank goodness you’re alive!” Ei exclaims, tears beginning to gather at the corners of her eyes. “You—we—“

“I said, get away from me.”

The Electro Archon freezes up at your tone, ceasing her slow approach to your figure, which, unbeknownst to them, is grabbing your phone and preparing to dial 9-1-1, also digging the small switchblade you always carry out of your pocket.

Those self-defense lessons and weapons training sessions? Yeah, you picked those up fourfold after the event happened.

Albedo tries to get closer to you, to which you flick the blade out, threatening to stab him if he gets any closer. The alchemist looks stunned at your willingness to potentially injure him, and stops in his tracks before you get a chance to.

“You are going to get away from me.”

“Your—“

“Don’t fucking call me that,” you spit with poisonous malice. “You lost that right when you executed me after hunting me down over all of fucking Teyvat, all because I shared the same damn face as your stupid fucking god.”

The other hand, the one holding your phone, holds down the home button to summon your assistant.

“Assistant, call 9-1-1–“

Venti makes a grab for the device, but it’s already dialed, and you’re running to the bathroom to lock the door.

“9-1-1, what’s your emergency?”

“Hi, yes there are four strangers in my house that are saying I’m their god and are trying to kidnap me. Please send the cops!”

“What? C—ould you repeat that?” The line goes staticky for a moment, then returns to normal.

“Four strangers are in my house and are saying I’m their deity.” Your voice goes deadpan.

A bang comes from the locked door behind you, but you press back against it, checking that you still hold your blade tightly.

“Alright, we’re sending the police to your location. They’ll be there in about ten minutes, okay honey?”

“Okay, thank you.” A quaver shakes the underlying monotone of your voice.

“Can you stay on the line for me?”

“I can try—“

The bang that rattles the wood scares the shit out of you, and you feel the lock begin to jiggle.

Your phone suddenly shuts off, sparks coming from the charging port; frantically pressing the power button, you curse, dropping the now-useless device on the white tile. Guess it’s up to your little trusty knife to defend you now.

Until then, though, you have to stall for time.

Nine minutes.

“Please, Your Grace!” Venti begs, his voice muffled from the wooden barrier separating you two. “Teyvat is dying!”

“I don’t give a fuck!” you yell back, grunting as the door rattles hard again. “Where were you when I was dying? Oh, yeah, you’re the ones that KILLED ME!”

Eight minutes.

“The Abyss is getting worse!”

“I don’t fucking care! Fuck you! I’m not coming with you!”

“Please…”

Albedo speaks this time, who, unbeknownst to you, has begun to pick the doorknob’s lock silently, trying to get it open so that they can bring you back to Teyvat.

You laugh. “Blondie, I ain’t goin’ with ya just because you were nice to me. Go to hell!”

Seven damn minutes.

The lock rattles hard, unlocking; you panic and grab the knob, trying desperately to prevent it from turning and opening.

You’re successful in your endeavors, but look around for a weapon to defend yourself with that will give you a bit more range than the blade in your other hand. Alas, there is nothing (other than a toilet brush, but that’s flimsy plastic and will probably break if you so much as look at it for too long).

The doorknob turns more to the left.

Six minutes.

“Your Grace, please. Think reasonably.”

You snort at Zhongli’s words and the irony of the situation; him, one of your three murderers, trying to kidnap you, telling you to be reasonable.

Yeah. If that’s their ‘reasonable’, you’d rather be crazy in their eyes.

Five minutes. Dammit time, hurry up!

The seconds on the clock seem to taunt you relentlessly, tick-tick-ticking away at your sanity.

The door slams open, knocking you onto your back with a loud thump and a pained groan; you scramble to get your bearings, fumbling for your knife, which was knocked out of your hand when your head hit the ground. Dizzy, your eyes meet blonde hair and blue eyes reaching down to grab you.

In a panic, you kick your leg out, landing a hit to Albedo’s gut. He stumbles backwards, caught off guard for a moment, but regains his senses when Zhongli asks him if he’s okay.

“Please, Your—“

“Fuck off.”

The knife has returned to your hands. You glance up.

Four minutes.

You can already faintly hear the sirens closing in on your location; now it’s just a matter of frantically stalling for time.

“Your Grace, if you don’t cooperate with us, we will have to resort to… more unpleasant methods, and I really don’t want to.” It’s Zhongli who speaks this time, his voice hardening. “So, if you would kindly come with us, we will not have to use these methods.”

Geo essence begins to line under his eyes, reminding you that, even if he is retired, he’s still a damn Archon, even in your mortal world.

Three minutes.

“Time will not go by at all while you are gone, if that is what you’re worried about.”

“No!” You snap. “What I’m worried about is bein’ ripped right from my world into the hands of my goddamn murderers when I’m just recovering!”

You yank your shirt up, showcasing the death scar that stands out, white contrasting brightly against the rest of your skin, which is also marked with smaller, but no less traumatizing marks; lightning marrs your ribs, earth scars your arms, and the whipping of the wind left slashes against the bones of your hips.

“You fucking traumatized me, and all because I looked like your so-called ‘Divine One’. And, yet…” Your voice drops an octave, chuckling darkly. “—and yet, you expect me to forgive you, to allow myself to be dragged back into the world that is punishing you!”

Two minutes.

That’s the final straw for them; all of them (sans Albedo) have tears in their eyes, but apparently their sympathy isn’t enough to stop Venti from grabbing you and dragging you, kicking and screaming, into his arms, passing you over to Albedo. He strokes your hair as you sob loudly.

“You will be treated like the god you are.”

One minute.

“But…” you sniffle. “I don’t want to go back.”

“I know, dearest one.”

The world suddenly warps violently, and all you know is the void.

[elysianightsss]

Alpha!Techno x reader

Warnings: NSFW, Alpha kink, fireplace sex, a little soft dark in here, nesting, naked Techno ;)

The fire crackled and spat while you laid in your nest all snuggled up, the smell of Techno’s scent wafting through the air, oak tree forests and cinnamon, it made you feel all giddy while his plaid shirt wrapped nicely around your warm and relaxed body. You hair was still slightly damp from the bath you found yourself in earlier.

Today had been long and hard, maybe not for most people but you found it difficult. You’d been away from home for so long, I suppose you could say you were craving a little socialising. You weren’t homesick, just missed seeing people.

Techno sensed how you were feeling through your bond, he wanted to do everything in his power to make you feel better.

His Alpha genetics leading him to hold you tight to his chest, running his nose along the side of your neck. “It’s okay pup, I’m here.” He didn’t let you go for the rest of the morning.

The pillows and weighted blankets that swarmed the fluffy rug next to the large fireplace had you slowly slipping into a sleepy headspace, your scent changing slightly as you subconsciously called for your Alpha through the mating mark on your neck. You were in such a daze you’d barely notice the sky had now darkened almost completely pitch black.

Techno walked out of the shower with nothing but a towel in his hand that he used to dry his hair, his bare body not even feeling the cold the heat of his skin already drying off the droplets of water left from the shower.

He smiled lovingly seeing you all snuggled up with some of his clothing splayed around your nest to give you the comfort of him while he wasn’t there. He sniffed the air and smirked when he caught the strong scent of your slick knowing you weren’t wearing underwear, but when did you ever with him.

His obsession with you only grew when he noticed you moving under the covers, pealing them back to find you grinding against his favourite pillow, soaking it in turn. He grinned smoothly diving into your nest knowing he was always welcome without having to ask permission first.

The fire started to die down, techno grabbed a piece of firewood he’d freshly chopped this morning while you made your nest, trying your hardest to ignore the slight stretch you felt with a plug inside your aching core, keeping you stuffed full of your alpha’s cum. Your clit still pulsing from the memory of his filthy words.

Techno flung the wood onto the fire before pulling the pillow away and slowly sliding into your dripping cunt that had been that way since you smelt him enter the room. His body moulded against yours, fitting perfectly together, being made for eachother had its perks.

God he loved you, so much. He had no fear of you ever leaving him or hurting him, just love. He had already had those thoughts a good few hours after he met you and in turn already thought of the solution;

keeping you stuffed full of pups so you wouldn’t even think of leaving. Not that you would, Techno likes to think by this point he’s reconditioned your mind to need him and only him for anything even the tiniest things like dropping a fucking apple on the floor, in fact he prides himself on it.

“Alpha.” Your back arched, pushing your chest against Techno’s. His scent had shifted to old parchment and sandalwood, your favourite.

“That’s it, pup.” Your man growled darkly, his pupils dilating, zooming in on you. “Gonna knot you,” he grunted, “Keep you here, nice and full for me.”

The fire ablaze once more, just like the feeling that burned in your lower abdomen. That coil that got tighter with every thrust your lover bestowed upon you. His possessive touch was everywhere, hands sliding over your skin. You started to wake up a little more, your body trying to push out of your relaxed headspace to try and please your Alpha and well Techno couldn’t have that.

“No no, come on now, be a good girl for me,” Techno cooed, brushing his thumb over your clit his sharp canines grazing over your mating mark had you limp and pliant for him, “that’s it omega, just relax for me.” You did as told letting your Alpha use you however he wished.

Just. Like. That.

Tags:

@victory-is-here

@streamer-vulpecula

@angelicadiabolus

@cherryblossomdelusion

[captainmalewriter]

Strange Smell

It's been about two hours since classes ended for the day. My car had broken down, so my step father was gonna pick me up after class today. I tried called him several times but he wouldn't pick up the damn phone. I was going to end up just walking home until I saw his pickup truck rolling into the parking lot.

I stood there annoyed as he pulled up to the curb where I stood waiting. I walked over to the passenger seat and opened the door to get in.

"What took you so-"

I cut myself off mid-sentence. I couldn't believe what my eyes were seeing, my step dad was sitting at the driver's seat shirtless.

It absolutely caught me off guard. I was just dumbfounded, I sat there in silence as my step dad drove us back home.

What the fuck was happening? I know my step dad well enough to know that he doesn't really like being shirtless so casually. It didn't help that he works in construction. This guy fucking smells! I lowered the car window to get away from the strong smell of sweat and body odor. Thankfully, the car ride back home was short thanks to the lack of traffic.

Once he pulled into our driveway, I got out of the car and basically ran straight to my room. I finally had the chance to get away from my step dad. He didn't even say anything the entire car ride! I'm so used to him talking away my ear all the time. Yet, he was quiet today. I didn't wanna say anything either, the energy felt too awkward and tense...

It was strange, but I hoped that my step dad was just having an off day. I walked out to the living room and saw that my step dad had stripped even more.

He was just sitting there on a chair. He looked at me when he noticed I walked into the room, but he still didn't say anything though! He just sat there, chilling. Shirtless was weird, but pants-less was pushing it.

"Dad, I think we need to talk." I approached him, and his body odor violated my nostrils again. The smell was somehow even stronger now.

I couldn't stand it! But... I couldn't stop sniffing it. The smell was going deep inside my nose and hitting every cell on its way in. That musky smell was awful but I just couldn’t get enough of it! I could feel myself getting turned on just by standing there and taking in my step dad's sweaty funk.

He then stood up and walked towards me. The smell got stronger as he closed the gap between us. I helped him too by walking to him. We were face to face now. I wanted to take another deep whiff, but instead, my step dad lifted his arm, grabbed the back of my head, and stuffed me into his armpit.

My step dad kept pushing my face deeper into his pit, and I helped him by nuzzling myself in until my nose was getting squished in. I was so close to his body now. I helped myself to taking deep whiffs of my step dad’s musk. His armpit hair tickled my nose as I sniffed in between moans. 

My dick was rock hard now. What the fuck was wrong with me!? I just couldn’t get enough of my step dad! I wanted to get closer- no, I needed to get closer. 

My step dad noticed my hard on, and he did not hesitate on grabbing it with his free hand. I groaned as he rubbed my dick with a fierce grip. 

“More Daddy!” a scream escaped my mouth as I lifted my head out of my step dad’s pits for a brief second. It hit me what I had just said, and I stood there in shock at what was happening. 

My step dad, on the other hand, smirked and kept going. The hand he had at the back of my head started pushing me down, and I complied by going down onto my knees. I was now at eye level with my step dad’s crotch. The sweaty smell of his balls hit my senses, and it only added fuel to the fire growing inside of me.

I went ahead and took off his briefs. His dick was only semi hard, yet its size was still massive and impressive. I could see how thick his cock was... God, I wish I came out of my step dad’s dick! 

I leaned in to start sucking off my step dad, but to my surprise, my step dad stopped me by putting a hand on my forehead. I looked up at him, then down at his hardening cock in my hand, then back up at him. I let go of his dick when I remembered what I was doing. Something was definitely wrong with me! 

I stood up and tried walking away, but my step dad stopped me. He wrapped his arms around my waist and hoisted me up, planting a kiss on the lips after doing so. I felt his scruffy beard brush and scratch against my face as he kissed me.

That odor was back again... But who cares, I was kissing my step dad! The hottest man I’ve ever known! 

My step dad carried me over to the couch, not letting our lips separate as he did so. Then, after laying me down on the couch, he proceeded to strip me of my clothes with a speed I have never seen him move at. I felt his now fully erect cock rub against my bare ass. Now his armpit musk and ball smell mixed together, creating an even stronger pheromone; one I couldn’t resist and one I happily gave into. 

“Fuck me Daddy!”

No doubt my step dad heard my plea, as he was already pushing his tip into me. I took a breath and exhaled, then felt his raging cock fill my ass with its size as it slid right in. I placed my legs onto my step dad’s shoulders, he grabbed me by the thighs, and started pounding away at me.

My hole was on fire!

My step dad held nothing back as he fucked me. I could hardly contain myself now. I was dripping precum all over myself as I moaned out of pure pleasure from the pain of a hard fuck. It was rough. It was wild. And, most importantly, it was hot, sweaty, and smelly! 

“Ohmygod I’m close! I’m close!” I shouted as I felt myself getting close to cumming. I grabbed my dick and started jerking myself off as my step dad picked up a faster fucking tempo. 

Then, after another minute of rough fucking, I felt him cumming inside my ass. The sensation of getting filled with my step dad’s seed sent me into a cumming frenzy. I shot cum everywhere; myself, my step dad, the furniture, just everywhere!

I laid there on the couch, soaked in cum and catching my breath. My step dad helped himself to a towel after he finished. He cleaned himself off and then sat down on the same chair I found him on. He titled his hat down, and I assumed he nodded off for a nap.

I was still laying down, naked and covered in cum. I blinked several times. Everything that had just happened registered in my mind. 

“Oh God WHAT THE FUCK!”

I shot up from the couch. I was disgusted with myself. The way I acted, that was not me! I would never fuck a guy, much less be the one getting fucked, and much much less let that guy be my own step dad!

I hurried into the bathroom to wash off all the cum. It was the fastest I’ve ever showered, and it was also the hardest I’ve ever scrubbed too. I got out of the shower, dried off, and ran straight to my room. I got dressed in underwear and shorts, and then pulled out a stick of deodorant. I lifted my arm and my armpit stench hit my nose. That smell... it was one I was familiar with, one that I liked too.

My phone chirped from a notification.

“Bro where you at? Come pick me up! The game’s starting soon!”

It was one my football teammates. Oh crap, I was running late! 

I stood there, contemplating on what I should do next. Then, on a sudden impulse, I walked out my bedroom and out the front door shirtless and without deodorant, ready to pick up my bro. I couldn't wait to see his cute ass.

[wri0thesley]

i know we all love toji being nasty, but i'd love to see a (slightly) sweeter side of him and the reader as mamaguro, if possible?? maybe featuring the reader in his lap, the first time toji's ever really wanted to really do right by his partner... the ability of a man like him to have a softer side has plagued me ever since akutami said he mellowed out with his wife 😭

saying the important things - toji x fem!reader (2.1k)

toji’s not the kind of man who wears his heart on his sleeve. but he’ll try, for you. 

warnings: none! reader is mamaguro and uses fem pronouns, pregnancy is briefly talked about. this is just soft honestly

[reblogs/comments appreciated! // my jjk masterlist]

Megumi is sleeping.

He lays in his crib, his chubby cheeks squished against the soft mattress, his hair dark and messy. At times like this, you can see so much of Toji in him, and it makes your heart ache. You can’t believe that you helped create something so perfect – from his tiny face, the tilt of his nose, the perfectly formed fingers and toes . . . You find it hard to believe that Megumi could really be yours.

“You’re starin’ at the kid again.”

Toji’s voice comes from behind you and startles you – you jump, guiltily turning to see your husband. His voice is dark and rough, but as you see him you realise that his face is anything but. Oh, sure – he has a scar bisecting the corner of his lip, muscles rippling out of a tight black shirt. But the look on his face is peaceful, and as he meets your eyes it just seems to fade into something even more so.

“You come stare at him,” you say, “you’ll understand why.”

He makes a little huff of amusement – but Toji Fushiguro is under your thumb, so he humours you by moving forward. Big arms wrap around your waist, making you feel safe and held in his embrace. His chin rests on your shoulder, sharp green eyes on the messy-haired bundle of wonder sleeping in the crib that you’d watched Toji build with a screwdriver clenched between his teeth.

(“How hard can it be?” He’d asked you. “S’flat pack, right? Guys who aren’t half as smart as me do it--”. In the end, it had taken six and a half hours and Toji had had to physically pick you up and sit you down on a chair because you couldn’t stop bending down to help. He’d placed his hands on his hips and pointed an accusing finger at you. “You’re gonna get yourself stressed, sweetheart, and it isn’t gonna do any good for the kid.” You hadn’t expected Toji Fushiguro to be the over-protective kind . . . but you’d be lying if you said that his pout and furrowed eyebrows weren’t adorable).

Megumi’s eyes had turned the same shade of green as Toji’s around the five month mark, for the record.

“We did a good job, huh?” There’s a hint of pride in Toji’s voice that he does his best to dampen down – he’s trying to be cool, even now. Your hands come to rest over his own, where they’re clasped onto your hips.

“I think we did a great job,” you tell him, and snorts out a little laugh against your neck that tickles, making you bend back into sub-consciously. “No, really. I think he’ll fetch a high price on the black market. Look at all of that hair.”

“Takes after me,” Toji tells you. “I think I’d fetch a high price too.”

“You know you’d fetch a high price,” you say, turning around to wrap your arms around his neck. You find yourself on your tip-toes just so you can feel a little closer to equal to him. “You’re a wanted man, Mr Fushiguro--”

“You’re a wanted woman, Mrs Fushiguro,” He says, bending his head – and his lips brush across yours, and you feel your entire body fill with the heady knowledge that he wants you. You know it – he makes it clear in the gentler way he holds you against him, his attempts to do chores around the house, the way his fingers entangle with yours when you’re out doing grocery shopping as a little family. But there’s something that you can’t quite express that feels all the more special about the embrace and the words when you two are on your own.

It hadn’t always been like this.

When you’d first met Toji, he’d been all dark flashing eyes and dangerous smile and tugging hands, a cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth as he flirted and charmed his way into your life. His voice had been dark and deep, he’d winked at you and made insinuations and insisted, occasionally, that this wasn’t a relationship so much as a mutually beneficial arrangement--

Until someone else had flirted with you in a club and Toji had grabbed your hand and pulled you into him, arm wrapping around your waist. Perhaps you’d been trying to make him jealous – you’d long ago accepted that your crush on Toji and desire to make him yours officially were going to come to a sticky end, seeing as he seemed to value his freedom so highly – but you hadn’t expected it to work.

He’d murmured into your neck that night that you were his, forever, and he never wanted to see someone else’s hands on you again--

“Does this mean I can call you my boyfriend, finally, then?” You’d asked, a hand cupping his cheek, thumb brushing the scar on his lip. Toji had grinned at you, dark and deep and dangerous but warmer than you’d ever seen it. He’d held you that night like he’d just realised how precious you were.

“Sweetheart,” he’d said to you in response. “Hell. Y’can call me your husband if you want.”

You had laughed and thought he was joking.

“Maybe I’ll try that after a proper proposal,” you’d said, tapping his nose. You’d expected him to grab your hand before you could make contact and pin you underneath him, tell you off for being so cheeky – but instead, the pad of your finger had made contact with it and you swore you’d seen a dark flush dust his high cheekbones.

You’d figured that was the end of it, until two weeks later he’d pulled out an expensive-looking ring whilst the two of you watched a movie.

“Well?” He’d asked you, looking almost uncomfortable – almost afraid that you might say ‘no’. “Whaddya say, angel? Gonna try callin’ me husband now?”

And you had.

He’d confessed everything to you before he’d asked about taking your name. His exact line of work, why he wanted to leave his old surname behind – and though you know you shouldn’t have, you’d simply taken it in stride. If this was what it took to have him, you would accept it; it had been too long, and you loved him too much, to simply walk away. You’d found out you were expecting Megumi six weeks before the small wedding and had told Toji immediately.

He’d seemed scared, but he’d seemed excited to – whirling you around like you weighed nothing before he anxiously put you back down and stepped back.

“That’s fine, right?” He’d asked. “I dunno much about kids. I haven’t hurt ‘em or anything, have I?”

He’d made a real effort around the house whilst you were incapacitated by your pregnancy, too – sometimes too much of one, as he batted away your attempts at cooking or cleaning with an insistent ‘I can do it, sweetheart!”. You’d let him make mistakes – honestly, a couple of disasters notwithstanding he’d made a decent effort.

You’re not afraid to leave Megumi alone with him, though Toji still hasn’t quite mastered the life skill of ‘talking to my baby as if he is my child and not simply a friend who I want to slightly intimidate’.

Sometimes you see Toji sat in an armchair with Megumi in his arms, a tiny hand wrapped around Toji’s massive thumb, and you think you could die from how much you love them both.

“C’mon,” Toji murmurs, breaking the kiss. “He’s fast asleep.”

You let yourself be dragged over to said armchair in the corner of the room, next to the little case of children’s books you and Toji had chosen for him

Megumi likes dogs; he claps his pudgy little hands together whenever one is introduced in the bright colours and flat pages. At nine and a half months, he had furrowed his little face and pronounced; “Gog. Goggy.”. Toji had grabbed the cheap camcorder that he’d been recording as many milestones as possible on and tried to bully Megumi into saying it again, but all of the footage he’d actually gotten was you laughing in the background as Megumi attempted to cross his chubby little arms and look at his father in disapproval. He had not said ‘goggy’ again until you had thoughtlessly picked up a little pair of black and white stuffed dogs whilst in a toy-shop with him to show him. Toji had had to go back to the shop ten minutes before closing to purchase them, and even now Megumi tucks them under his arms when you take him out in his pushchair.

You let yourself, too, be pulled into Toji’s lap as your husband gets comfortable, readjusting your body so he can wrap his arms around you and you can bury your face into his neck.

He smells like cigarettes and your laundry powder, familiar and comforting.

He takes a deep, pleased breath that makes the muscles in his throat ripple – you bring up a hand and trace them, fingertip lodging in the hollow of his throat for a moment before your hand moves down to rest over his clavicle, and then where his heart is beating steadily under his clothes and skin.

“You feelin’ me up, baby?” He asks with a smirk. “Y’can just ask, you know--”

“I’m feeling your heartbeat,” you say to him, listening to his pulse in his neck. “I think it might have stopped. We should look into it.” “Is this because I made that joke about the black market? Babe, you’d never let me fuckin’ sell our kid--” “Don’t swear around Megumi,” you say, automatically, your eyes swivelling to Megumi’s crib without moving your head from its comfortable position. “You’ll give him a dirty mouth.”

“You love my dirty mouth,” Toji purrs, the arm around your waist pulling you in tighter and closer. Heat rushes to your face and you give him a headbutt in the neck that’s half affectionate and half warning.

“Not now,” you say, sighing comfortably. Toji is warm and solid and always there for you. “I’m too comfy.”

“Ah, far be it for me to interrupt your nap-time,” he teases, but he pushes a kiss onto your forehead anyway. “Hell, I could go to sleep here myself. Nobody said havin’ a kid would be this much effort.”

“Everyone said it,” you say, stifling a yawn. “You just didn’t believe them.”

He snorts again.

“Y’got me there,” he says. “Wouldn’t change him for the world, though.”

“You’re just saying that because he takes after you,” you smile against his skin. “If he looked like me and acted like me, if he was sweet and demure--”

This gets another laugh from Toji, who knows exactly just how not sweet and not demure you can be.

“I’d love him even more, probably,” he says. “We’re gonna have some fuckin’ blow-ups in the future, sweetheart. Good job you’ll be around to sort out your men, right?”

The arm not about your waist moves so he can cup your face now, tip your chin up towards him. His eyes are still very sharp, but they’re softened with love as he looks down at you. Toji gives you these moments in the quiet of night – when he’s not formerly-of-the-Zenin-family, when he’s not the ‘Sorcerer Killer’, when he’s not an assassin-for-hire – when he’s just Toji Fushiguro, your husband and father of your child. You treasure every single one of them and hold them close to you like a precious pearl, stringing them onto a necklace of memories you’ll cling to forever.

“I’ll be around forever,” you tell him. “If I die, I’ll come back to haunt you and tell you what a shitty job you’re doing on the PTA.”

He snorts.

“Don’t even joke,” he tells you with a flickering smirk – but that smirk quickly drops away to be replaced with a look of intense solemnity. “You know I love you, don’t you?”

“Are you getting soft on me?” You ask, but the hand tipping your chin up does a little jerk.

“Please,” Toji says, a little softer now. “Let me tell you I love you and mean it.”

Sparks fly all through your stomach, your heart twisting in your ribcage. You rarely see this kind of gravitas on his face – he rarely takes this tone, almost needy as he implores you to listen.

“I love you too,” you breathe. “You know that.”

He pulls you into a kiss that knocks the breath out of you, that makes you feel like you and Toji and Megumi are the only real people on Earth and everyone else is an imitation.

“Yeah,” he says, gruff. “Doesn’t mean I don’t like hearin’ you say it, though.”

[insomniac-dot-ink]

Headlights Girl

Genre: Urban fantasy + wlw romance

Words: approx. 8k

Summary: The story of a girl with headlamps for eyes and the moth-girl she meets along the way.

My book 🌸 Ko-fi  🌸 Patreon

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Most humans carry the night with them. Even during daylight hours, they can shut out the sun, turn off the light, recede into themselves and into that soft secret place behind their eyes.

Did you know certain animals don’t have eyelids? Gecko’s have nothing between them and the violent sun which wishes to cook the colors of their world. They have to use their tongue. Dust and sand and rain, can you imagine? I was obsessed with lizards as a kid.

I stacked up books on snakes and lizards and skinks. I traced the way that sand snakes crested across the dunes, sideways and wrong. I put glue on the pads of my hand and tried to climb the walls of my room— I didn’t even get one handhold up. I went to the zoo and peered into their cages, up on my tiptoes, trying not to smudge the glass or breath too hard. I tried make out their triangle heads and slow tongue-flicks, but they each shrank away deep into nooks and crannies of their cages. Most things do when I look at them.

Most humans carry the night with them, right there behind their eyelids is an entire world of darkness. I have something else inside me, not quite, not soft, not secret. They called me “headlights girl” in the newspapers.

There were even stranger kids born in the Age of Spirits. I checked. Every morning of fifth grade, I scanned the papers for mentions of “oddities” growing into anomalies.

A boy who could breath fire. A girl with leaves sprouting from her head. A kid with antennae that could taste the wind. There are stranger things than me in the age of beasts and magic. My father called it the “Epoch of Bastards,” sons and daughters of flickering fire elementals and wind ghosts who seduced half-asleep ladies from their beds.

He didn’t look at me much growing up. And I knew what he meant. I knew what he was getting at by calling it the Epoch of Bastards. Growing up, I played in my little puddle of carpet on the floor as he blustered in and out of rooms like gale force winds. He’d be looking for his keys or a left shoe or wallet since he was going out, out, out. I think I missed him at first, in the way you miss strangers you’ve never met.

Later, still on my puddle of carpet, still on my island, I would glare at him with that sour, acid taste in the back of my throat. Acrid, smoky, I would barely blink as he passed; he’d jump when he turned too quickly and accidentally fell into my path. Later still, I would begin to wish they were both like that—blustery and calling people names, gone more often than not.

It sometimes felt better than hearing my mom weep to herself on the couch. I wish she’d do it in her room or outside or anywhere else than that theatrical sobbing in the middle of the house, a naked heartbeat to the place. She spoke to her friends on the phone in that same watery voice, handkerchief in hand and sniffling, she spoke to them more than me.

What else am I supposed to do? This isn’t how it was supposed to be. She’d wail, just a bit, and then find a new thing to wail over. They could barely afford to send me to That School. They could barely afford the special doctor’s appointments for my eyes. They barely knew what to do with me.

Sometimes, I wanted to shout right back: It’s not like I didn’t want to be here either!

But she wasn’t talking to me. 

School wasn’t much better. We weren’t the same, not really. None of us were the same age or had the same affliction. Plus, most everyone else stayed in dorms where they bonded with secrets and whispers and hiding from matrons. It wasn’t the same.

They called me The Lighthouse and Car Face and Nightlight. Sometimes they’d give me a few bucks to close my eyes so they could see my face. I did it. They’d laugh and reassure me I was as ugly as you’d think. Or beautiful. Or perfectly average-looking or I had a pig-nose or unibrow. I’d never seen anything but the blinding light of my own eyes in the mirror so I could never contradict them.

A boy with antlers handed me a twenty for a kiss in the 6th grade. I closed my eyes for that too. It was chapped and dry and he ran away with a screaming laugh afterward. There are stranger kids than me, I reminded myself. So why do I feel so much stranger than the rest of them?

I was 16 when I heel-toed my way down the stairs toward the front door. A duffel bag slung over my shoulder stuffed with loose clothes, change, a bath towel, three books with broken spines, all the tampons in the house, and a Swiss-army knife.

I hoped to stuff as many cheddar-cheese sandwiches in my sack as possible before the midnight bus came, but he was at the kitchen table. I don’t think either of us expected it, like running into your teacher at the mart and you’re both buying the same brand of toilet cleaner. There was a beer in front of his idle hands and he still wore his rumpled work shirt. He glanced at the bag on my shoulder for a long minute.

Finally, he sighed like I cut him off in traffic.

“Gimme a moment.”

My father leafed through a wad of cash he kept in a safe. He handed me almost three hundred bucks and we nodded at each other. At the time, I thought there was a kind of satisfaction to that nod, an endnote.

I was out the door before the midnight bus arrived.

Only three people were at the terminal. None of them looked at me with my pack and my knife stuffed in one hand and my eyes glowing. They did look at the glow, but not for long.

Remote and empty like maybe the world had ended and the last bits of if were nothing but strangers not making eye contact.

Finally, I watched the headlights of the midnight bus approach through dense summer night. I was struck by the thought that it was like looking at like, the glow of my eyes against its eyes. Can a bus be your father? Can your father be a man after all this time? Will your mother come looking for you?

I got on the bus and kicked my feet up against the seat in front of me. Scrunched into a ball, crossed my arms over my chest, and watched the trees turn into flickering bodies of shadow with each passing mile. ------------- My feet moved like tides. They tossed me against nameless city streets and toward empty forested slices of land. I stumbled into the painted deserts toward the west. I dipped my toes into the neon districts of the east with lights brighter than my own. I slept on benches and in kid’s treehouses and hunched my shoulders against brick walls of back alleys.

No one touched me. Maybe they’d approach now and then, but I’d open my eyes and they’d see nothing but heaven or devils or an absent lightning-God father that would smite them. I was the daughter of spirits after all.

I found my way to the ocean; beaches where other stragglers gathered and it was easy to stretch out on empty pieces of warm sand. I didn’t talk much by then, I didn’t like to; people stared whether I was speaking or screaming and clamping down on my jaw so hard it ached. Sometimes I get yelled at: Turn that off! No phone lights in here. You’re blinding me, bitch!

I’d never seen a movie in any theatres, but I could imagine what it’s like.

It was crowded, but I liked that ocean city, despite myself. It had pale buildings built into cliffs, narrow winding sidewalks where cars couldn’t fit, reckless bikers, and crushed seashell parking lots. I liked the tang of salt in the air and the way my hair crinkled from the ocean water as it sun-dried. I camp out on beaches and bummed cigarettes and hotdogs off strangers. I was good at taking care of myself once I got into a rhythm.

I had a tent by then and even an enormous sun umbrella to keep any prying eyes away. I still liked to sleep under the stars most nights though.

I often dreamed of sinking to the bottom of the ocean. I dreamed of descending on pointed ballerina-feet to the silted black bottom. I’d be weighted down through the cold and the silence to where no human being had ever been. I’d open my eyes there, open them all the way, lightning-bright, and unflinching. In my dreams, the salt didn’t even sting. I lit up the world, the whole untouched world of whales and fish and terror and maybe I’d do something good then. Maybe I’d do something good and bring the sun to places that had forgotten it. 

I hated those dreams.

I met Mags on the beach after one of those dreams. Mags had one eye and twelve teeth and carried around nothing but string and scissors everywhere. She smelled like seawater and burning kelp, dank and crusted over. Her clothes were neat despite her leather-cracked skin and arms and neck covered in tattoos of shipwrecks. We ran into each other at some bum gathering and she cackled and pulled me aside.

“What’s your name?” Her voice was old creaking wood. I didn’t answer. “I could give you one.” She offered with a grin that was more empty space than anything.

“Nana.” I gritted out. “You want something?”

“Not sure. What do you want, kid?”

I glared openly, my beam of light slanting. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Come here.”

I didn’t know why I was chosen.

Mags liked me more than I deserved. I pocketed her last pair of socks when she wasn’t looking. She never mentioned it and dragged me down to the community showers to get clean with soap and shampoo. She took me to the soup and salad restaurant for something that wasn’t burnt or freeze-dried or from a convenience store. She cackled, she spat when she talked, people shot her looks as well.

I thought she was normal, not touched by the spirits, but she liked me more than most people and I didn’t know why.

“You like art, kid?”

I snorted. “No.”

“Why not? You broken?” Yeah. Probably.

“How am I supposed to know?” I snapped back.

“Lippy squirt. Come on, I’ll show you something worth your forked tongue.”

She heated the needle before she used it, red hot and untouchable. She dipped it into deep black inks, only black and sometimes red, she called them the only colors that matter. She shows me how to prick the skin and clean it. She showed me how to slowly, painstakingly etch images. I wasn’t sure I liked it, there was something so permanent and intentional about the act.

I watched her lessons though: stick and poke to her right foot, all over those fine little bones that must hurt, in and out, a little bloody.

It took her six hours to make a tiny shipwreck right above her big toe. It was a narrow schooner going under and I was the only witness. She made the waves come to life and crash against its sides and sometimes I forgot to blink. She didn’t seem to mind.

She washed another needle. She heated it red-hot. She dipped it in ink and handed it to me.

I still wasn’t sure I liked the permanence of it, but I told myself I was bored and it was something to do. I decided quickly I did like the bite of it, I liked the focus it took, and the ability to pull something from nothing.

I practiced all over my thighs first, there was enough meat there and it was easy enough to reach: a lizard design that looked like nothing but squiggles, a TV set playing static, a tiny smudged skink with its tongue out. I practiced designs in the sand and then on paper when Mags splurged on pen and paper.

Mags took me to the museum on Sundays. They were always free on Sundays.

Something stirred in my chest, even as the guards yelled at us about how flash photography wasn’t allowed in the museum. Even as I was shooed out of exhibits for ruining the paint. Still, an ache so old it rotted roared to life in my chest.

I stabbed in and out, gentle, a collection of stars right above my right knee. A winding sand snake on my wrist, and then finally, something good, something that gave people pause and reason to stare. I made it in the mirror: a ghost on my collarbone. Shadowed and intricate and yet simple, I put a ghost right above my collarbone and it bleeds more than any of the others.

That was a good year or so; one of the best I could remember.

I didn’t want to leave the ocean city though and Mags said she had to keep moving. She had places to be. She gave me a sloppy kiss on the cheek.

“You're a gem, kid. You’ll knock ‘em all to the pavement.”

I swallowed the lump in my throat. “You’ll be back?”

She cackled. “Wouldn’t miss it. You know me.” She winked as she turns to the bus, my second father. “You think I’ll miss your great becoming, kid? I’ll be back.”

I wanted to make her pinky-promise like I was a kid again begging one of the others to tell me if I’m beautiful when I close my eyes. I couldn’t do that; I waved as she tottered up the steps of the bus and was taken away with the tides of her own feet.

A had a moment of thinking it was the end then; I was ready to get back to my real normal. I was ready to disappear again. But even shipwrecks with no witnesses leave things left to be found.

------------ I got an apprenticeship. Technically, Mags talked them into it and I just followed up when I had nothing better to do.

I didn’t think I’d like it much, but couch surfing and camping out was the pastime of the especially young. And I’d lost my giant umbrella.

It was a small shop that smelled like bleach and dried flowers. A tattoo parlor in one of the steep arts districts neighbored by food trucks and beaded necklace shops.

Penguin Davies and Bitch-Annie ran it together. Davies walked like he’d never encountered land before, and Bitch-Annie had a throw-pillow embroidered with “If you don’t have anything nice to say then come sit next to me.”

Davies was covered in nothing but birds and dizzying M. C. Escher house-designs up and down his chest and arms. Bitch-Annie had topless mermaids and pinup girls across her shoulders and legs. She’d been asked to leave a number of stores before the children started staring or thinking thoughts.

Neither of them had ever met someone like me. It was not that type of town. I rankled at most their questions, a cat meeting a steel brush. Where are you from? What’s your family name? What kind of school did you go to? Is your sight better than other people you think?

I brushed off anything more personal than my favorite type of soda. Bitch-Annie called me “Shadow” probably as a joke, probably. Davies said I must be possessed by the ghost of some dead star: a blackhole that takes everything in and lets nothing out.

Neither of them let me touch a needle in those first six months. They had me practice on pig skin and trace designs and stand by their shoulders as they worked. I felt like a dental assistant except I was the hanging light shining into open mouths instead of anything with a pulse. I stood at their shoulder as they drew thick lines and thin dots and made hearts and wolves and names of dead lovers come to life.

They asked me to stand still and stop wiggling the light. I almost walked out several to find a new cliff to crash against, almost. 

No one had ever expected anything of me before. They never expected me to show up somewhere or do something well. No one really cared if I went to school or if I did my homework, if I dressed well or went to bed on time. And no one kept any tabs on me at all after I took that first bus. That’s how I liked it.

I should’ve left, tattooing didn’t mean anything to me, not really. But Bitch-Annie stomped up to my attic-apartment one morning and threw pants at me.

“Get up, Shadow,” she barked. She was sterner than Mags, no hint of humor in her eyes. “I told you 9am so I expect 9am.”

“The fuck!?” I was eloquent in the mornings.

“Pants, shirt, shoes, and bra if you don’t want that desk idiot staring at something other than your eyes all day.”

“Are you serious?”

“Serious as a root canal. Mags swore up and down about what you. Let’s see some of that, up, up!”

I grumbled. I put on everything but the bra. No one ever expected me to be anywhere before and 9am shouldn’t have even been a concept much less a real thing. I told myself I hated it. I’d leave the next week. Or maybe the week after that or in just one more month. I kept a bus ticket under my pillow but every time the date arrived I shrugged and made myself busy.

There’d be no harm in having a savings too and seeing what all the fuss was about with having a dishwasher and a kitchen.

I wasn’t an artist of course. I didn’t understand what everyone else was seeing when they looked at the “old masters” paintings of water or war or lovers pulled apart. I didn’t feel anything in front of stain-glass windows in churches or mosaics on walls. Maybe there really was something wrong with me, my eyes. I didn’t let up though. I put on pants for it after all.

Penguin Davies hovered by my shoulder when I made my first real design.

“Mm.” He rumbled deep in his chest. He’d gone grey at an early age, had tired eyes and quick hands. The desk kid said he’d been in medical school once, a surgeon. It was hard to tell. Davies muttered a lot, stared off into space too much, and laughed like it was always a painful surprise

“Perfectionist,” he muttered at me as I start over on a crappy unicorn design. “That line was barely off. You’re being a perfectionist, Nana.”

I scowled over my shoulder and let the full weight of my light hit him across the face. “Got a problem with it?” I challenged. He chuckled darkly. His grin was crooked like a broken door handle. I tried to hide my work from him with my shoulder. “It’s not done yet.”

“It’s late.” The rest of the street was dark. I knew that.

“I said I’m not done yet! You can go home.”

“Hmm.” He scratched his grey beard.

“What?”

“Look at you. You know who makes the best artists, Nana?” He was always a bit of a philosopher. Maybe he used to study that before medicine.

“Yeah, yeah, shut up. I’m working on it.”

He gave my shoulder a light push. “The ones that don’t quit.”

They let me touch a needle gun after that. I told myself I’d only sign my new apartment lease as an experiment. I didn’t have to actually stay. I’d just run from the ink on paper and hope no one chased after girls with eyes that glow.

I didn’t break my lease. I drew suns and moons, trees and fireflies, hunks in speedos on tipsy college girls who swore they were sober and erotic vampires on the chests of men getting their first divorce. I had to give two refunds for a duck that turned out lopsided and a tattoo of someone’s dog which I swore really was that ugly to begin with.

There was one at the end of that next year though, another college girl with perfectly white piano-key teeth. She asked for a stick and poke, that was what I was best at anyway, she asked for a butterfly. Butterflies were easy, I could do the little ones in my sleep. She wanted one all across her back, she said I could make it look however I wanted. So I did. Wings like fringed shawls and straight heavy lines combined with wispy swirling ones. It was dark, black ink with red highlights and gray shadows under each wing to give it movement and flight.

I hid my smile when I finished and showed her the results in the mirror. She went to my bosses and jumped up and down. She pointed and babbled, ohmyspirits, the best thing I’ve ever seen! Fuck. I should pay you double! Where did you get this girl? 

I held myself perfectly still and studied the ceiling until my eyes dried out.

I took the long way home that night. I stopped once, at the corner where the midnight bus arrived, and watched the the passengers trudge off. I didn’t expect to see Mags again so soon, not really, but sometimes I wanted to show her: Hey, maybe your work wasn’t all wasted. Maybe I did start to become.

---------------- “I’m getting you chocolate.” Annie spat, her thick arms flexing as she cleaned off the spotless counter. “I’m getting you fucking chocolate, Shadow, ‘less you tell me what flavor you actually like.”

I hung at the back of the shop next to the narrow window that faced the road. I let the sun warm my face in thick strips and watched the bicycles pass. “It’s not my birthday.”

“Tell us what your actual birthday is then, you sugar-toasted tart.”

I shrugged. “Not today.”

“Well happy fucking birthday. You’re turning two. You came to work for us two years ago today, washed up from the beach like a deranged feral cat, so this is your birthday now.”

I rolled my eyes which served to look like a flashlight given a shake. Annie spent another minute splashing disinfectant on anything that might have had even a passing conversation with a germ.

“You talk to Birdie?” She asked, but mischievously this time. I responded by setting my mouth in a hard line. “You’re turning twenty-something and you’re not even talking to Birdie, are ya?”

“I’m not telling you what I’m turning. It’s still not my birthday.” I dodged inelegantly.

“Birdie will give you a proper go-around. Even shadows like you must need a little rub now and then.”

“Go dunk your head, Annie.” I huffed.

“Afraid you’ll blind her in bed?”

I turned with a snarl. “I’ll start with you.”

“I’ve seen you flipping through those poetry books, every word about hands or mouths or rosebuds.” She gave me flat a once-over. “You’ve got a sweet tooth in you.”

I dragged myself over to the desk to snarl at her some more, but Annie was already putting her hand up and going toward the backroom.

“I’m getting you a chocolate cake either way.”

There must have been a proper way to get her to never look at my little leather poetry books again, the ones with watermarked pages, the spines broken-in, and words that oozed. No one had to know that I could read, much less that I read that.

The door dinged instead.

“Excuse me.” She walked in. Her. “Is someone, um, named Nana here?” I turned before I could stop myself. That was still my name. And it was still my work.

Twenty-something, curtains of straight black hair falling in her face, pinched nose, thin energetic lips, shorts that gave way to milk-dipped legs that never seemed to end. A slight girl in a university t-shirt. College kids came in often during their breaks, but this one was a bit different. My eyes dragged up and fish-hooked there.

Feathered tendrils sprouted from her head and reached toward the ceiling. Long and searching, a pearly green color that reminded you of leaves or plumage.

I knew within a moment where I’d heard of this: Antennae Girl. The newspapers ran our stories close together along with the boy that breathed fire and the girl with roots growing from her head. We were all born in the same year during the epoch of monsters and bastards.

I think she recognized me too.

We stopped like heartbeats seizing up before the ambulance could make it. A confused, unnatural silence. I glanced at the door and considered making a run for it.

She cleared her throat first.

“Someone said that Misty’s butterfly tattoo came from here?” She blinked once and I noticed how her feathered antennae seemed to twitch. I averted my eyes so I wouldn’t blind her. She took a step forward. “So are you . . . Nana?”

The door was right there.

“What do you want?” I had been spending too much time with Bitch-Annie.

“A tattoo?”

“What kind?”

“I don’t know yet.”

“Then why are you here?” I grunted. Footsteps came in from the back room. I was examining the smudged off-white tiles of the floor one by one.

“I wanted to . . . hey, you can look up if you want.” She said, curiously, softly. I didn’t look up. “I’m still figuring out the design.” She trudged on ahead.

“Fine.” I pivoted away. “But we’re busy. Come back later.”

A hand slapped across my shoulder. “This is Nana.” Annie stopped me from leaving. “Don’t let her eyes fool ya, it’s her personality that’s actually the problem. You saw her butterfly you said?”

“Yes!” She gushed. “It was gorgeous.”

“It was fine,” I corrected.

“It’s her birthday today.” Annie shared because she could and because she was a failed evil villain still trying to get her kicks in.

“Oh cool, happy Birthday.” A deep pause followed that could fill oceans. “You can look up. I don’t mind.” She repeated.

I opened my eyes wide and lifted my chin in one jerky motion. A beam of fluorescent headlights hit her across the face. “Is this what you want?” Venom dripped from my lips. This was why I tried not to talk too much.

The young woman squinted for a moment before covering her eyes and nodding. “I read about you,” she stated as if it was nothing. “I’m turning twenty-two this year . . . so I guess, you are too?”

“What?!” Delight filled Annie’s entire expression. “Hot damn! Twenty-two?” I groaned deeply. “Hey, you, girlie,” she addressed antennae-girl, “you want to come out for drinks tonight?”

I tried to protest as quickly as possible, but somehow didn’t summon the words quickly enough.

“Sure.” She agreed. ----------------------

The night was humid and clung to us like a second skin. I wandered through the hilly streets with Penguin Davies wobbling beside me. The desk kid—Daft Jeff, said Davies had some inner-ear problem that made it hard for him to keep his balance. Annie said he just didn’t belong on land— he couldn’t walk straight unless something was tilting and rolling under his feet.

Davies made his way up the hill, faltering and missing the musical beats of it. He refused to let me steady him and I refused to have him sing to me. It was apparently my birthday.

“Someone saw your design.” He noted on the downhill.

“Yeah. Some college girl.” I grumbled.

“What’d you think?” He asked in his usual mysterious way.

“She just wants a good look.” I returned in a neutral tone. “She read about me in the paper. All she wants to do is look.”

“She saw your design.” He paused. “And Jeff said she was like you.”

I blinked hard so the path ahead was eaten by shadow and Davies stumbled. “Not all of us have to be friends . . .” I said sourly and didn’t fill in the rest. “I’ve met kids with antlers and frog-hands before. I doesn’t mean anything.”

“Any of them come visit?”

“They’re smart enough not to.” I snark. “But the ones who manage to be pretty don’t have the brains to stay away.”

“Mm.” He made a soft sound. “What kind of tattoo do you think she’ll get?”

“How should I know? A heart or anchor or something dumb like that.” I walked on ahead. “Maybe I’ll give her a quote from some dead poet.”

“You like poetry.”

I huff dramatically, “Not what I mean. Girls like her don’t like my type of poetry, you know I’m saying.”

“What kind of girls?” Davies was patient. I hated that about him.

I stopped at the corner to let him catch up. “Don’t play dumb. Hot ones, college ones, getting a degree in money or music. They don’t watch over their shoulders enough or know when to stay away.” I scuffed my shoe on the ground. “Whatever.”

Davies was still thinking. I considered pushing him over. He finally spoke up again as we approach the bar, “That sea witch ever show up again?”

“Mags?” I snorted. “No. Why?”

“Cause I’m sure she’d like to see this.”

I didn’t say anything else as we reached the doorway. -------------------- The bar was loud. More people than I liked came to my “party.” I should have seen it coming. If the cliff city liked one thing it was an excuse to drink.

I crammed myself up against the bar and ordered a gin and tonic before the rest of the night crowd could arrive. Birdy was holding court at a corner table and waving at me. “There she is! Someone put a blanket over Nana, lights out, party up!”

Her puns usually left something to be desired. She sang “Blinded by the Light” every time she saw me for half a year.

I drank half my gin and tonic in the first gulp as a new stream of townies burst in. They arrived to buy me birthday beers and shout their opinions on the shitty new chain restaurant on 3rd street. I was almost tasting the bottom of my second glass when someone tapped on my shoulder.

I barely looked over.

The girl with sheets of black hair and a practiced-appearance stood before me—like she was at dress rehearsal and expected everyone else to know the lines as well. She carried a baby-blue bike helmet in one hand, and I noted there were two hand-drilled holes in the top.

“You.” I was tempted to shake her hand like I might make this a transactional hello and goodbye in short order.

“Hey.” She smiled, hesitant, like maybe the food on the fork might be too hot. “Nana, right?”

“Yep.” I sighed the word real long and heavy. “Listen, I really can’t give you a tattoo if you don’t know what you want.”

“No, no, I get it. But I want you to know . . . I didn’t know it was you.”

“Uh, okay. Though I’m pretty hard to miss over here.” I was looking at the dirty wine bottles stacked near the ceiling. Her antennae hang over both of us like fern fronds.

“No. I mean, when I saw the butterfly. That’s when I wanted to come here. Not after.”

“After what?” I was gonna make her say it.

“After I found that it was, well, you know, Headlights Girl.”

“Mm.” I was spending too much time with Davies. “You want something to drink?”

She sighed as well, real long and heavy. “Sure.” She took the seat next to me. “I’m Park by the way.”

“Park.” I rolled the name around in my mouth. “And you already know me.”

“I don’t think I do.” She laughed, sharp and bristly like something you can get cut on. “And I’ll have a beer. . . but only once you look up. Come on, I’m not like that.” I looked up. Her face was bright, round like the moon, her grin was sneaky and unearned. “There we go.”

She waved over the bartender Kipp and ordered her dark beer.

“It’s not really my birthday.” I informed her, dumbly. Every word felt dumb and clumsy all at once.

“Why not?” She was teasing. I knew that.

“That’s not how birthdays work.” I informed and wished I could backtrack into hostility again.

“Oh darn,” she winked. “And here I was about to make it my birthday too.”

“Uh, well,” I really should have left when I had the chance. “It’s not too late?”

“That’s the spirit!” She laughed, fuller this time and rounded. I looked her straight in the face and then quickly looked away again. Her grin was aimed at me, somehow, and seemed to reach high cupboards inside me you usually needed a stool for.

“Park,” I repeated the name and shifted in place. “So did you go to Haveryards or Simmons?” There were only two schools in the country for spirit bastards like us. Haveryards was close enough for me to get bussed to—an hour one way and then an hour home.

“Neither. I went to public and then Bakerville Uni.” She rapped on the counter. “Hey, you want another gin and tonic? Or I’ll mix you up something.” Her eyes flickered over everything. “I bartended my way through college so I can make a mean margarita.”

“Oh, Bakerville U., yeah. That ones close.” I stuttered a bit. She was leaning across the counter and trying to get Kipp’s attention a second time. My words were feeling dumber and dumber by the moment, perhaps losing all shape and meaning altogether. “That’s where you went?”

“How’d you guess?” She said playfully and pointed to her t-shirt. She finally got the bartender over. “Right, you want something hard? Vodka maybe? A mule?”

I scratched my chin. “ . . . I don’t care. I’m easy.”

She rolled her eyes and I knew she must feel me staring. “I can’t imagine shopping for you for today then.” She snickered and climbed over the counter. “Happy birthday, how about one chocolate mule for a free tattoo?”

“You wish.” I made a face. “You don’t even know what you want.”

“And you do?” She was still grinning, somehow. “I’ve decided I’m making you the equivalent of all the soda flavors mixed together at once. Close your eyes.”

I closed my eyes and I tried to turn off my thoughts. It was bright as knives inside my skull; I carry the daytime with me. Panic threatened to rise up (for no reason of course), but a soft hand brushed against mine, soft like sheets in fancy hotels and flower petals. I peaked and Park slid a full murky glass toward me.

“Drink up.”

It was sweet. It wasn’t even my birthday. I didn’t care. She called it a chocolate-mule-Park Special and maybe chocolate really was my favorite flavor. -------------- Park started coming around. She rode a sky-blue bike with a white basket and rusting hinges. I couldn’t imagine doing all the hills in the city without any gears, but she managed. She said she was figuring things out after graduating. She said she liked it here.

I grumbled when she came by. I complained like Annie when Wicker the cat visited: Get that thing away from me. I hate that. Smells awful. I’ve got allergies. Put that away, it’ll kill me.

I never said anything when Annie left fish heads out and bowls of milk of course.

Park smelled like sunscreen and breath mints. She had strong opinions on everything from street paving techniques to which sun hats went with which dresses. She invited me on walks. She invited me to help her change a flat tire. She invited me to the corner shop to help her pick out bottle can openers.

I said no. Sometimes I said no. I started to say yes.

“Look at this,” she liked to show me things. She liked to show me pictures of squirrels on her phone and weird pieces of glass she found. She liked to point out new restaurants (that I’d already been to) and play videos of funny traffic jams.

This time she held up a seashell. It was rounded and flat with a swirl in the center.

“I’m looking.” I said carefully.

“Watch how it catches light.” I shun my eyes on it and she moved it back and forth. There were bits of silver veins caught in the cracks of it.

“There’s tons of those.” At this point, I had valiantly refused to be impressed by even her cutest squirrel pictures.

“Ugh.” She pouted. “Are you kidding? I spent all morning looking for this.”

“They're right by the surf. I could find you five bigger ones than this before sunset.”

“Alright, hot-shot.” She jut her chin out and jabbed my shoulder. “Prove it.”

I said yes to that one. I left right after my shift ended with the sun setting in the waters like a stabbed orange bleeding out. I met Park by the parking lot with drooping palms trees lining the sides and lost flipflops everywhere.

“This is where you went wrong.” I announced. I couldn’t help it. “This is the tourist beach. You have to go somewhere real.”

“Alright, alright. You’ve already established you’re the hot-shot here. Lead the way.”

She followed me. I ignored how she lingered by my side. I ignored how her hand wrapped around my arm as she stopped us to look at a tiny horseshoe crab. Her hand was soft, like velvet, soft enough to smother something in my chest.

I found two seashells with streaks of silver and rainbow through them, both bigger than my palm. The sun was a flat line on the horizon before I could find a third and Park hooted.

“You said before sunset! It’s sunset, baby, pay up.” She called. “And you were so sure you were a better seashell hunter than me.” She tsked.

I scanned the ground more quickly. “It’s barely nighttime.” I pointed to the sky. “And I can keep looking. I have the built-in equipment for it.”

“Oh I know.” She planted herself on the soggy crusted sand and sat down in a heap. “But can you find why kids love the taste of not doing that? Take it easy. Take a seat.”

“So pushy.”

“You know me.” It was fond. It had only been a few months, but there was something fond there.

I ran a hand through my short choppy curls. “Fine.” I sat next to her, not too close. “It’s your loss.” We both looked out at the gently lapping waves, foaming and anemic. She let a long breath of air and for a moment I considered brushing her hair back. It was always in her face.

It was a quiet moment, bottled, and pitching toward something. Like the the moment where you miss a step on the stairs and the certainty of the fall was right there.

I was the one that scooted a little closer.

“I’m considering getting a storm cloud,” she commented off-handedly. “Can you do storm clouds?”

I made a sound of consideration. “Sure.” I glanced toward the opposite corner of the night sky. “I think I’ve seen one of those before. Big puffy wet things?”

“Kinda fluffy? You’re getting there.”

“I’ll see what I can do.” I’m smiling, which is alright since there’s no way she could see it. She’s silent for another moment longer.

“Or would you make fun of me if I got something like a butterfly? Like your other one.”

“A storm cloud butterfly?”

“No. The cloud would it’s own thing.” She chewed on her bottom lip, ragged and chapped. “I mean, I’ve been doodling some ideas. And tattoos should be personal, right? So I thought a storm cloud might be fitting. Kids used to pay me a couple dollars to predict the weather. It could be a memorial to childhood entrepreneurial spirit.”

I watched her speak and something beat inside my chest like a second animal. I wanted to be closer. I wanted to feel velvet again.

“Why?” I rasped after a moment.

“Uh, why did they pay me? It’s just something I can do. Whenever it's going to rain or storm or be sunny out. I dunno, I don’t know why the rest of you can’t sense it.”

“And you didn’t become a meteorologist?” I smiled a bit bitterly.

She made an indignant noise. “And you didn’t become a professional lighthouse?”

I choked on a laugh. “Not yet.” A quiet consumed us from both sides, I made sure my light didn’t crash into her. I made sure to look at anything but her. She’d have to squint if I did and cover her eyes and I’d be there, ready to run her over.

“Kids in my class paid me too.” I barely realized I started speaking. “They slipped me a couple bucks to close my eyes so they could see my face.”

“You got money for that?”

“There wasn’t always much to do. Teachers were quitting all the time and sometimes it was just the TV. I dunno, they paid me. Then they’d giggle and run away afterward.” My voice sounded automated like the announcer at an airport, informing travelers their flight was canceled. “They always said I had a pig nose or a unibrow or looked like the lead singer of that Minx girl band-- super hot, but you know, it didn’t matter.” The laugh that escaped was high, girlish in a grotesque way. “Since, you know, no one would ever see it.”

“Kids are fucked up.” Park contributed simply.

“Adults are too.” I sniffed. “Everyone wants a light show.”

“Oh.” She said slowly. “Is it . . . is it bad I wanted to meet you then? I mean, I wanted to see the art first, but I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t a factor.”

“No.” I said quickly. I lit up my own lap and empty hands. “Does it matter?”

“I never went to those schools,” she said hesitantly. “My parents fought them, said the schools were unfit. They shouldn’t be able to force us there. And that I wasn’t even dangerous since,” she gestured helplessly upward, “I just have these. So then, well, I never really met anyone else like me.”

“I mean, everyone’s different. It’s not . . . a big deal.”

“You’d think so,” she commented sardonically.

I folded up into myself like a complex origami piece. “Yeah, well, sometimes I wish I was dangerous. Actually dangerous.”

She giggled. “Didn’t you just say everyone’s different? I’d say everyone’s dangerous too. Just gotta find the niche.”

“Oh yeah,” I dared to turn toward her. “What’s yours then?”

“My danger niche? Hmm.” She was leaning now, pitching forward like a wave come to drown me. “I do have a few tricks up my sleeve I’ll admit.”

“You have a pair of wings hidden away?” I stopped breathing as her hand lifted up, strange and all at once. I wasn’t ready.

“Here.” Her skin was against mine. She cupped my cheek with one velvet-hand. It was heated cashmere, tiny feather-light hairs on her palm. “Feelers.” She whispered with a hesitancy there.

“Ah,” I was indulgent. I closed my eyes. I leaned in. “And you want to put a needle over these?” I put my hand over hers, loosely, so she could pull away if she wanted to. Tiny hairs pulsed there with some kind of life all their own. 

“I wanted . . .” She paused and I peaked open my eyes. I could see every detail of her face, illuminated. “I dunno.” She finished. “I guess I just wanted whatever I saw there, before.”

“In the butterfly?”

“In the butterfly.” I turned toward the ocean, but my hand remained over hers. “I’m not sure how good it will be a second time. It’s not like I’m really an artist. . .”

“What did you want to be?” Soft.

“Who knows. I mean, I’m glad my parents didn’t try to fight the schools. Being there during the day was better than being home, listening to my mom crying all the time and my father exploding . . . They wouldn’t have wanted me home.”

Before the sunset, when I was walking over, I thought maybe we’d kiss that night. I thought I’d feel that first electric pulse and maybe we’d climb into the ocean and swim in circles, laugh until the moon rose. I thought maybe I’d get something out of my system and there wouldn’t be anything left to say or do.

I’d kiss Park, once, and she’d be satisfied. She’d understand. She’d go on her college path and I’d go on on mine.

But the words spilled out, unbidden. Park stayed in place, steady and unflinching. That made it worse, so much worse.

“My parents weren’t like yours.” There was an accusatory edge to it. Don’t you know? I wanted to shout. Don’t you know? Even without the eyes or the school bills or the bus.

“Hey,” she cradled my cheeks with both hands now and smeared the tears away from one eye. “Hey, listen, I know. Alright? I know.”

I scowled back at her feathered little feelers.

“It’s not about the damn antenna or head beams or anything else.” I tried to pull away. “Even the kid with the antler’s kissed me and I didn’t stop him. I ran away from home and my mom never came looking. It didn’t matter. It doesn’t matter! You wouldn’t even get it. You wouldn’t get it!” I squeeze my eyes closed. “You were wanted.”

Slowly, like an awkward animal burrowing into soft earth, she pressed her forehead to the crook of my neck. I could feel us both breathing in, strong and steady. She was lean and silky, and I swore I can feel her heartbeat hammering through my throat.

“I’m sorry.” She whispered. I inhaled her sunscreen scent. “I shouldn’t have said that. I don’t know. But I could.”

“Why are you here?” It was miserable and wet, I hated that my eyes were so different and yet still the same. Could still spill over like theirs. She took a long breath but didn’t move away.

“My last girlfriend broke up with me for being . . . sensitive and I thought maybe if I got a tattoo, I’d stop feeling so much. I’d prove something. I’d feel everything less, you know? It would hurt and then it wouldn’t.”

I took that in a parsec at time. “Are you,” I sniffed. “Are you alright?” Her legs and arms were plastered over mine. “You’re so soft, but, but I don’t want to,” I wipe at my face like it didn’t matter. “Hurt you.”

“I know.” Her face was still pressed to my neck and her lips fluttered across the hallow of my skin. “I didn’t want to hurt you either.”

A stillness settled into my bones. I glanced toward the moon, and it was like looking at like, a terrible moon to another moon. I gathered myself. I took a deep breath. I flattened.

“I shouldn’t have said all that.” My voice had dried up. “We led different lives.” It wasn’t her fault if she was wanted.

“No.”

“I wasn’t thinking . . .”

Her hand wrapped around my wrist. “I talk to Annie sometimes when you aren’t there.”

“Okay?”

“And Davies. And that front desk guy.”

“Daft Jeff. Yes.”

“They all say the same thing . . .” I blinked a couple times. “That I really should wait for you to give me the tattoo. You have a steady hand and an eye for detail.”

“Alright . . .”

“That someone taught you tattooing the right way. They wanted to show you the right way to do it.”

I snorted despite myself. “It’s not that hard. Mags was batty. Who knows why she showed me how to pick up a needle.”

“Don’t you see? They say they wouldn’t know what to do without you.” She was still there. She wasn’t moving, almost in my lap now. “You were wanted.”

“Park?” My voice cracked like a question.

“And you come with me to restaurants and help me buy bottle openers. You find shells for me and help me fix tires.” Her breath was hot and dragged across my cheek. “You are wanted.”

I blocked out her face, her voice, I turned on the sharp white sun inside and for a moment I imagine never opening my eyes back up again. Maybe I could make it night forever inside myself as well. Wouldn’t you rather have something quiet inside?

She wrapped herself around me, fully, one long arm at a time until it was cocoon. Soft. “Listen, sometimes the first people aren’t the right people. Sometimes your first relationship isn’t the right relationship. Sometimes you’re sure the world is one way, and like, always one way . . . and then it rains and the whole world is different again. You know? People pass.”

“My parents aren’t the weather.”

“But they’ll pass.” I should have pushed her off. But even against that, even those words— I liked being held, indulgent as chocolate and twice as guilty. “People sometimes feel forever, especially those kinds of people.” I was off again. “But it rains. And hey, I always know when it’s going to rain.”

I hiccupped; a smile found its way uninvited onto my face, unsure and just wobbly on its feet as Davies. I glanced down after a deep breath. Park grinned back at me and it reached the highest shelves of me all over again.

“So what happens when it rains again? Do you people like you pass?”

“Nah, not me. I don’t know how.” She winked. I didn’t notice that we’re lying flat now, stars and carpet of black above. “You can’t get rid of me. You haven’t given me that tattoo yet.”

The sound of shushing waves filled the midnight air and the moon looked down like that very first bus arriving to get me all those years ago. I wrapped my arms right back around her. She didn’t seem to mind that I was sticky or strange or sometimes kept tearing up all over again even after we’d stop saying anything worth tearing up over. ------------------

It happened. I felt like I should have been more prepared, brought flowers or poetry or earned it through honored warfare. But it happened. I was wearing ripped jeans, a spotty t-shirt and my breath smelled like coffee. We were looking for Park’s lost earring along an overgrown hill she usually biked along.

I found it, one shiny red dewdrop in all that green. Park pointed at some clouds that looked like my last “abstract” tattoo. We lay back in the grass and let the sky pass overhead. She giggled and touched my wrist, side by side. I let her.

“Summer’s almost over.” I mumbled it first.

“Yeah?”

“You find your next step then, college girl?” I tried to keep my tone light. She turned to be on her side.

“Maybe.”

“What do you want to do?”

“Oh, you know. This and that.”

“That does not sound like a college-girl plan.”

“Maybe I’ve got other plans. Maybe I’ve got other priorities, huh?”

“Ridiculous.” A playfully push her shoulder. “A lousy seaside town really isn’t priority material. There’s only one bookshop you know.”

“Two thank you very much. And that’s not my priority either.” Her voice wavered.

“Are you going to share with the class?”

“Is the class ready?” She whispered and I turned toward her as well now, taking in her perfect round face and question-mark mouth.

“I have been.” I matched her whisper. I tremor from my center outward and hopes she can’t tell.

“Do you know what they say about moths?”

“What?” I gave a breathy laugh. It wasn’t what I was expecting. “I’ve heard of them.”

“They tell your fortune.” She was grinning in that way that put out a stool and reached up. “I used to cry a lot growing up, because some kids said that moths are just evil butterflies. I was sensitive and ran all the way home. I threw myself at my mom’s feet and threw a fit about how moths were just evil butterflies. They were just ugly, wicked versions of a good thing.”

“Evil? Well, I suppose you are rather sinister when you haven’t eaten.”

“Shut up. I’m telling you something.” She put a hand on my shoulder. I inhaled deeply and turned over in place to face her. Only the shallow breeze kept us apart.

“I’m all ears . . . though maybe not as many as you.”

“You’re lucky you’re cute.”

“What can I say? The sun is adorable. I take after him.”

A finger ghosted over my cheek, tracing the arc of my cheekbone. “Well, you’re not so bad behind those headlights too. Some of us have good day vision you know. And good taste.”

I wished those words didn’t make my chest do funny things. “Thanks.”

“Do you want to hear what my mom said or not?”

“That you shouldn’t worry about evil butterflies?” I wiggled closer. “Because you’ll be really hot and funny and smart one day. So who cares if you’re evil?”

“Yeah, those were her exact words.”

“So?”

“So,” a firm hand took my chin. “Look at me.” I looked at her. I was glad she couldn’t see the flush in my cheeks in any way. “Moths show good fortunes she said.”

“Right. Lots and lots of good fortune.” I breathed, dumbly, of course. She was close and sweet and there was hair in her face. The fronds of her antennae tickle right past my ear.

“They can help you find good fortune. They’re good omens. You know why?” Park’s lips were barely moving as she spoke, hypnotic and unhurried.

“Why?”

“Because they follow the light.”

It happened all at once. Like every cheesy love poem or bad lyrics I wrote in my journals at night. It was every cracked-spine of a book using words like “rosebud lips” and every overdone song about people who find their way to each other.

I kissed her, leaning in with no life vest on or readied crash-landing position. She kissed me and my chest filled with her, breathless, drowning, soft as dreams and stranger than hope. I cradled her and she dragged me closer and closer until it was nothing but floods and brimming.

I’d been nothing before I think, I’d been an island that waits, a bus that leaves, a shadow that hides. And then I had been hers. ----------------- I was strolling home from work along the main road. The thin strip of sidewalk was streaked with bleached sunlight and the salt air was thick enough to burn throats. It was the long way home, but I was in the habit of going back to this corner.

The bus pulled up with little ceremony. It was an interstate one that crisscrossed over empty bellies of land. I stopped in place to watch, just in case, as I had many times before.

A silver head bobbed down the steps and planted herself on the concrete, unbelieving. She took an enormous noisy sniff of the air. “Not so bad!” She bellowed.

“Are you?” That wasn’t meant to be my first word. She was more stooped now and wearing shiny things on her wrist that clanked. She’d lost another tooth. “Mags.”

“Eh!” She yelled and waved frantically as if I hadn’t shot up another inch since I last saw her and started wearing clothes without holes in them. Her eyes sparkled as she tottered over. “So how’d you do, kid?”

“See for yourself.” I smiled. It was nice when the tides came back in. Mags gave me a thorough appraising. “Like this I guess.” I held up my hand. I wiggled my ring finger at her, heavy with a silver band and glittering opal.

“That’s my girl! Always knew you’d find your feet.” She cackled. “Am I too late to give you away, kid?”

I shook my head. She waddled over to me so I could take her hand. I took her home to show her my art and new tattoos, I showed her our terrible one-eyed kitten, Basket (Wicker’s son), and the little house we styled ourselves. I showed her our shoe closet and our queen bed, our messy kitchen and busted screen door. I showed her the moth tattoo over my heart, and Park showed her the matching lighthouse one over hers.

I tried to thank her, of course, I tried to say I owed her more than she knew for picking up an angry, dirty kid and seeing something in her. I owed her everything. But she just patted my hand and said that it’s not about our debts in life, kid. It’s about the becoming.

-----------

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[nctsworld]

spin me right ‘round

✩‌ johnny ‌x‌ ‌reader‌ ‌|‌ record store owner!johnny | fluff | smut | 4k‌ ‌

SUMMARY‌ ‌⇾‌ buying from the local records shop leads you to eventually bed the hot owner on the night of your first date.   WARNINGS‌ ‌⇾‌ ‌smut (in the second half), oral s*x (f and m receiving), f*ngering, johnny has a big d*ck and f*cks you hard???, office s*x in the epilogue (kind of) RATING‌ ‌⇾‌ explicit TAGLIST ⇾‌ @infnteen​ @sehunniepot​ (thought you might be interested in this nikki 👀) 

⇾ gif created by me, please don’t share or repost without credit! 

Opening the store’s door, the ringing of the bell above you signals your entrance. 

You moved into the neighbourhood recently and since someone gifted you a record player for your last birthday, you thought it’d be a quaint idea to drop by the local records shop that you always pass by on your way home.  

Rows and rows of vinyl records, organized both alphabetically and by genre, welcome you with open arms, along with a faint musty smell, likely due to the faded, vintage records hanging between the posters on the cream walls. 

The outside of the store is misleading to its size; there’s enough space here for at least thirty people easily. However, besides you, it looks like there’s only one other customer in the shop.  

Although your surroundings captivate your senses, the striking blond man bent over the rock section in the middle of the shop is the true cynosure of your eyes. 

His long fingers flutter seamlessly over the records, seeming to be on a dedicated search to find one in particular. He towers high over the low stacks and oozes coolness with a thumb stuffed in his front pocket and donning a stylish green beanie atop his medium cut locks. 

Not to mention that his jeans tug perfectly over the curvature of his prominent ass, but you merely steal a glance or two at his backside as you stroll towards the pop section. 

Okay, maybe three glances.

With your back facing the man, several minutes pass as you rummage through the sea of mainstream music, ranging from recent to old, but all the while pleasing to your tastes.  

“See anything you like?” 

Your eyes meet the figure standing nearby with a hand on the edge of one of the stack dividers. His smooth voice matches his strong aura and his gorgeous face, which you’re now blessed to be viewing up-close. 

Your gaze pursues downward, soaking up his sturdy frame hidden behind his flattering clothes. Darting your eyes up his lengthy body back to his face, you lick your lips and swallow, in hopes to dampen the sudden dryness in your throat, and naturally raise the corners of your mouth.        

“Yeah—” You, you think in the back of your head and execute a nod, “—there are a few things.” 

He smiles endearingly towards the floor before glancing back up to you. You wonder if he can read your thoughts, or maybe it’s simply written all over your face.

Releasing his grip, he says, “Take all the time you need. If you need any assistance, let me know." 

Your eyebrows perk up in realization. “Do you work here?”

“Yeah.” Bobbing his head, he runs a hand over his beanie. “I’m the owner of the store.”

“Oh, wow,” you exclaim, jaw hanging slightly. “You’re so young, I wouldn’t think someone in their 20s would have their own store, especially one like this." 

A frown falls over his face, and in that moment, you knew you fucked up any chance you had with him.  

“Yeah, 26 to be exact,” he shrugs, tight-lipped, prior to the folding of his arms. His eyes become slits of bitterness. “Thanks for the ageism."

Immediately shaking your head at the misunderstanding, you stammer, “I didn't mean it like that—"

The owner’s expression melts in an instant and a warmness emanates from him once more. The knot in your chest loosens at the sight and relief waves over.  

“I'm just playing with you, don’t worry." 

He opens his mouth, about to continue, but his attention is interrupted by the ringing at the door, and you turn to see another customer over your shoulder. The attractive individual begins to stroll over, but still faces your direction, beaming. 

“Well, if you decide to get anything, you know where to find me, and I'll ring it up for you." 

With puffed cheeks, you nod and watch him greet the incoming patron. Trying to leave the embarrassment behind you, you shift toward the records again and browse for a little longer. 

Finally deciding on a few choices, you walk toward the front register and peer over at the beanied blond. In the classical section, he’s listening intently to the bumbling customer. Not wanting to disturb them, you lay the vinyls on the counter and thankfully find a pen and a stack of sticky notes upon it. 

After sticking the following note on the top vinyl cover, you head out of the store:

“Put these on hold for me?  I'll be back for them.  Thanks!  -Miss Ageist” 

“Well, if it isn’t Miss Judgmental."

A couple of days later, you drop by the store again and find the spirited owner at the front counter. Today, he’s channeling his inner grunge style, adorning a half-up, half-down ponytail and a loose white t-shirt over a tight, long black sleeve shirt. Is it possible for him to look even cuter than he did last time? 

“Sorry again for that,” you scrunch your nose at the memory. He grabs your records from beneath the counter and rings them through. “You just look so young to own a store.”

The blond airily laughs, “I'm gonna take that as a compliment." 

He spots you twisting your mouth to one side and nodding shyly. “It is." 

As you pay for the items, he gestures to your vinyls on the counter. “Good choices, by the way.”

“Are there bad ones?” From the pay pad, you glance up at him and he’s feigning a hurt look. 

“Oh, most definitely.” 

You banter with a tilt of your head, “Isn't music subjective though?” 

“Not to me. I am the king of music taste." 

Both parties exchange laughter while you wait for the transaction to process. Once it finishes, he rips the receipt and places it into the bag with the records. 

“I mean, I do own a records store, so I think I should know." 

Flashing you his pearly whites, he hands the filled bag over to you. 

“Here you go, Miss Judgy Pants.” 

“Actually, you can call me—” You properly introduce yourself.

He leans back a little, straightening himself and tucking his thumbs into his pockets. 

“I'm John, but you can call me Johnny." 

With a glimmer in your eye, you question, “Is Johnny exclusive to me, or does everyone else also call you Johnny?”

His eyebrows raise, impressed by your straightforwardness. “I only let the pretty girls call me Johnny, if that’s what you’re asking.”  

The wink he gives is short-lived, but it’s enough to cause heat to blossom over your cheeks. You brush some hair behind your ear. 

“So, Johnny,” you enunciate, indulging in his name. “When does the store close?” 

You lift up your bag and cheekily add, “Gotta know when to break in to steal more vinyls." 

Johnny chuckles, and your heart bursts knowing you’re the reason behind it. Looking aside, his hand rubs the counter casually and you can’t help but stare at his large palm dominating the surface, along with his elongated fingers. Eyes blinking rapidly, you attempt to break the fantasy assembling in your brain—his hands are the guest stars alongside (and within) your body in the leading role. 

“I can close whenever I want to, but thanks for the heads up; I'll make sure to keep you away from the store,” he jokes.  

Catching your gaze, one of the sides of his mouth lifts. “Why do you ask?” 

Shrugging nonchalantly as you play with the handles of your dangling plastic bag, you reply, “Just wanted to know when the cute worker got off so I can potentially go on a date with him.” 

You scan around as if someone else is there in the empty store besides the two of you and point your thumb to one side, whispering teasingly, “Not you, but the other guy.” 

His tongue grazes against his bottom teeth, nodding understandingly with a deeper smirk. “The store closes at nine usually, but I can make an exception for him to get off earlier." 

Satisfied with Johnny’s answer, you bounce your head and make your way backwards toward the door.

“Sounds good, I'll be here at eight for him tomorrow night. Maybe I'll see you around then, too.” 

Granting him a wink of your own, you turn on your heels and leave. Intrigued, Johnny watches you disappear down the street through the store window. 

At 7:58 the next evening, you show up to the store. 

A customer is at the front counter finishing a purchase. As they pay for the products, the worker takes notice of you, smiling in recognition. You return the same, beaming back at him, and casually stride over to a random section to wait until they’re done. They make some small talk, so you delve in the opportunity to admire Johnny’s outfit for tonight—a tight black t-shirt that showcases his blatant pecs and a loose red plaid shirt overtop of it. 

When the customer exits, you make your way over to him as he puts on a light jacket. You lean your elbows onto the counter. 

“Surprised to see you here.” 

“Likewise," he jests back, snaking out of the counter to be in front of you. You glance at him, consuming the tall drink of water.   

Nodding to the door, you ask, “Ready to blow this popsicle stand?” 

Johnny hums affirmatively and you follow behind him outside as he flips the open sign and locks up the store.

“So, where we heading off to?” 

Informing him of what you had in mind, the two of you decide to take his car to the downtown pier. Once there, both of you grab take-out and eat together at a bench table under the clear sky and dazzling stars. Conversation comes easy, making the night fly by fast. 

While talking with him, since his hair flows freely today, he sometimes shyly brushes some of it behind his ear. Although you’re listening intently, you also ponder how it’d be if you ran your fingers through his soft, silky locks. 

Dinner eases into dessert, with the two of you having ice cream side by side on the pier railing, looking out towards the twinkling water. By the time you’re halfway finished with your cone, you hint at not wanting to end the night just yet. Agreeing with your sentiments, Johnny makes the suggestion of going back to the store. 

After finishing the ice cream, you head together back to his car. The back of your hand brushes up against his. Taking a chance, you curl the tips of your fingers around his, half-holding his hand.  

Pressing up against his arm, you whisper, “Thought you said you gotta keep me away from the store."  

He peers down at the partial hand holding and the grin he gives you reaches his eyes. He gives your hand a small squeeze, ensuring the burgeoning attraction is mutual. 

He whispers in reply, “At least this way I can keep an eye on you." 

At the shop, Johnny locks the door from inside, in case of any wandering bodies, and blasts some upbeat, electronic music onto the store speakers. Intercepting your hand, he guides you to the back corner of the store and starts to dance with you. 

At first, your bodies are separate vessels, grooving to the beat of the music, but as the songs play on, you gradually gravitate towards each other. Soon enough, one hand settles comfortably upon your waist, the other on your hip, while yours are hooked around the nape of his neck. Before you know it, you merge together as one with parted lips, finally satisfying the tension in the air and within your bodies.       

The kissing is intense, electrically charged and sending currents to the tips of your fingers. Although you’re barely acquainted, you two kiss like you’ve been deprived of each other your whole life—every kiss and every touch quenching your thirst for one another.  

Wanting to change it up, you step over to an empty counter and hop onto it. Johnny steps in the space between your legs and his lips meet yours again. You cup his face, clutching onto his strong features, and occasionally run a hand through his hair to caress his head. 

You answer inwardly to your previous thoughts, confirming the silky texture of his hair, and your touch relishes in his golden locks.  

Suddenly, his mouth channels hunger onto your neck and the electric currents divert directly to your rising arousal. At the sensation, you rashly grind your hips into Johnny’s body, and he groans heavily in the crook of your neck.  

He mumbles into your skin, “Do you wanna take this further? My place is nearby." 

Sighing further into his embrace, you half-jokingly reply, “You know, I was really looking forward to getting fucked in a records store." 

He easily breathes, “We can do that next time, I promise." 

You snicker. “Aren’t you a little presumptuous?” 

Tugging his shirt by the neckline, you force him to leave your neck and to greet your mouth instead. Pressing the top of your forehead against his, you match his gaze.   

“And what if I don't like you after tonight?”  

Something in you already knows that won’t be true, but you mischievously ask regardless. 

The simper Johnny flickers is enough to send another wave of bolts downward to your core. 

He peels his head away to bring it beside your ear. His thumb on your thigh may be gently rubbing you, but his following assurance is hoarse, absolutely drenched in pure lust.  

“Oh, you're definitely going to like me after all the things I do to you tonight." 

You barely have an opportunity to scan around his bachelor pad because his lips capture yours upon arrival. In his entryway, Johnny entangles with you, pushing you up against the wall. Impatiently, he drags you to his bedroom for the long-awaited spectacle of the night. 

After hurrying to turn on his bedside lamp, Johnny presses his weight against yours on his bed, embracing the full body contact. His lips continue to attack the terrain of your skin as he denudes you. You hum softly as he pursues south to your aching desire. Hoisting your backside and with his assistance, you’re finally completely bare. 

Sitting up at the edge of the bed, Johnny pulls his top layers off, revealing a sculpted physique, the kind that artists muse and obsess over. You knew he was fit from how his clothes constantly hugged his body, but this was just insane. 

“Holy fuck,” you murmur, staring blankly. 

Chuckling, he does the same bashful gesture from dinner—tucking some of his hair behind his ear. The gentleness is a contrast that nicely compliments his Adonis qualities. His soft side is flipped onto its backside in a second as he begins to creep his way over between your legs, his eyes darkening. 

Upon resting on his chest, you didn’t notice it before, but there’s a hair tie on his wrist, which he uses to effortlessly make himself a quick ponytail. 

With anticipation, you sigh into the kisses he leaves on your inner thigh, making his way toward your pulsing sex. When his tongue issues the first swipe, you inhale sharply with fluttering eyes. Johnny isn’t in a rush, taking his sweet time to lazily lap up your slick and learning what incites you.           

Once he has a better understanding of your desire, he dives in and devours you whole. 

Realization sweeps over as to why he has to put his hair up.

In accompaniment to the painting of your folds, Johnny spreads them gently and ensures he dunks his tongue in your wetness. One of your hands drift away from the bed sheets to one of his snaked around your upper thigh, clutching onto his fingertips in reaction to the swift rotational swirls on your raw flesh.   

He draws back, lips lustrous from your nectar, and hastily replaces his mouth with two fingers.

Your half-lidded eyes shoot wide open. His long, thick fingers fill you greatly, scissor you so far in your sex, so much that you fear what his cock is like if this is how his digits feel. 

You’re overcome with bursts of pleasure. Further bursts ensue as Johnny tongues your clit alongside the fingering. Your throaty cries and the squelches of your pussy is melodious to his ears, better than playing his favourite vinyls on the best record player he owns. The lewdness of it all overwhelms his jean-bound arousal, so Johnny retaliates by grinding against the bed.  

After Johnny retreats, he stands by the foot of the bed and starts unbuckling his belt and pants. You crawl your way over, still panting and reeling from the rush of your high. As you reach him, he drags his pants and boxer-briefs towards the floor in one-go, freeing his unsurprising lengthy girth.    

On your knees, hunched over his cock, you chuckle in disbelief. “Now that’s unfair.” 

He watches in amusement as you examine his desire with delight, before taking it into your hand, pumping it languidly. “What is?” 

You peer up, cocking an eyebrow. “Seriously? You’re hot, own a record store, really funny, and you’re packing. God really has his favourites.” 

Johnny’s about to respond, but his brain short-circuits momentarily at the pad of your thumb rubbing his precome over the tip of his blunt head. He cranes his neck back, exhaling a groan. 

“Well, what can I say? Guess I’m just-fuck—” 

You suck the words out of him. Literally. 

Your warm embrace encompasses his entirety, possessing a strong hold over him. Since you can’t possibly take him fully into your mouth, your fist solves your problem by stroking him by the base. Aiming to please, especially after his oral act from earlier, you slurp and bob your head mercilessly, disregarding the saliva leaking down the sides of your mouth. 

One of Johnny’s hands arranges your hair in a make-shift ponytail to get a clearer view of the obscene display. His hazy eyes skim over the gorgeous curves of your bent back and ass jutting high up in the air. His breathing turns heavier and he’s about to tug on your hair, motioning for you to slow down, but you thankfully come up for air just in time. 

The stately figure attacks your lips with urgency. The kiss is wet and messy from going down on one another, but it merely adds to the intensity. While lip-locked, he lowers you into his pillow once more, then stretches an arm out to his bedside stand to fish out a condom. 

He nimbly rolls on the cover, but is confused to find you back on your knees instead of laying on the bed. You grasp him by the wrist and press your fingers against his firm pecs, indicating to him to recline backward. In awe, he obediently obliges. 

Hovering over him, you suck in a breath as you line your sex up with his, cognizant that you need to acclimatize to his size. You steadily sit onto his length and when it finally reaches the end, you release a piercing groan at the deep sensation.

For a bit, you don’t move too much to get used to his great desire. In the meantime, your fingers wander over the chiseled flesh in front of you—his defined, veiny arms; his solid chest; and the valleys of his abs. 

Once you think it’s been enough, you transfer more weight onto your knees and slide on his cock with more vigor. You throw your head back in pleasure. 

On the other end, Johnny’s gaze wavers between the main action, your bouncing breasts, and your supple neck. He can’t see your face clearly, but he knows you must be enjoying this as much as him by the breathy moans that follow each thrust.    

When your legs start to tire, Johnny tries to hold you close and roll you over onto your backside. You both giggle at the unsuccessful attempt to keep himself still inside of you, but that’s an easy fix. Despite just having him within you, you gasp again at the penetration. Him being on top hits you at a different angle and you truly feel the length of his inches. 

Johnny reaches down to meet your lips. You brush your fingers over his pulled back hair as he consumes your existence. In addition to each passing drive of his body into yours, you also grip harder onto his hair in ecstasy, which leads to the unraveling of his long locks upon your face. The gold ocean of silkiness drowns your senses, the strands stroking your skin like extra caresses. 

Retreating back onto his knees and raking a hand through his tousled mane, his hands then attach to the flanks of your body and he pounds you breathless, leaving you heaving for air. 

In your dazed state, you desperately grab on to whatever you can—the sheets, his upper frame, his ass, anything. Throughout it all, your core contracts even tighter over the way his clavicle, tendons, and muscles protrude and flex like they’re about to break through his skin.  

At this point, you’re beyond delirious and definitely beyond gratified. You assume he’s about to finish when he decreases his pace and bends closer to you, but instead, he continues to still move inside of you.  

“Jesus. Fucking. Christ,” you gasp and grunt between his rough, buried thrusts. “How are you not close?” 

“I’m not ready to be done with you yet, beautiful,” Johnny rasps into your ear. You catch a glimpse of his cocked eyebrow and smirk. “Unless you can’t handle me?” 

Denying his accusation, you haul his cheeks to yours and kiss him fiercely.  

And with that, Johnny’s weight is on his knees again and he fucks you like there’s no tomorrow. 

However, Johnny might’ve been right because it doesn’t take long for you to beg repeatedly for him to come.  

“So, what’s the verdict? Still like me after that?” 

Both individuals are still nude on the bed, but now covered by a blanket. Resting on his chest, you drum your fingers over his skin in thought (as if you need to even think about an answer besides the obvious). 

Pouting up at Johnny, you say, “I’ll only like you if you keep your promise on fucking me in the store next time.” 

“Of course.” He palms your cheek and inches forward, preparing to kiss you tenderly. 

“A gentleman never breaks his promise.”  

EPILOGUE 

One month later, the record store’s business has been growing, so Johnny decides to hire one of his friends, Mark, to be a part-time worker.

Which means that Johnny has more spare time to do other things... like taking you from behind in the back office over his desk. 

“Shit, fuck,” you grip harshly onto the edges of the worn-out wooden desk as he thrusts endlessly. Even after a month of dating, your pussy still isn’t fully accustomed to the size of his girth. You’re unsure if it ever will be. 

No matter, it always feels amazing. 

“Johnny, Johnny—” 

“Johnny!” Mark’s voice suddenly cuts in and calls from outside of the office door. You immediately bite down on your lower lip to shut yourself up. “Someone’s asking me about a limited edition vinyl and I don’t know how to answer.” 

“Uhhh,” Johnny drones absentmindedly, yet jabs into you with more rigor. You bite down harder, but you can’t control the rising volume of your stifled moans. “Give me five minutes.” 

A silent beat passes. 

“Dude, are you fucking in the office again?!” the part-timer exclaims. You can practically see him shaking his head in disgust. “Ugh, I’ll give them the store’s card. Hurry up, though.”

As he walks away, you hear him faintly say, “Sometimes I think this is why you hired me...” 

Simultaneously, you both giggle heartily. Your lover pecks you lovingly on your shoulder prior to diving again into the wanton moment. 

In the end, Johnny actually spends ten more minutes with you. But he can afford the extra minutes—he is the owner of the shop, after all. 

[thefact0rygirl]

ROUGH BOY, SWEET WORDS | Din Djarin x Reader

Rating: Explicit 18+

Pairing: Din Djarin x Fem!Reader (no use of Y/N)

Word Count: 3.0k

Warnings: praise kink, affirmation play (is that a thing?), tied up/restrained hands, mention of face sitting, grinding, teasing, penetrative sex (p in v), cowgirl, creampie, alluding to a breeding kink, cockwarming, soft!din

Summary: Din just wants to be held and whispered words of affirmation. He just doesn’t know it. 

{masterlist} {cross-posted on ao3}

Din Djarin has no qualms praising you and showering you with affection, but struggles when you return that same affection. 

And "struggles” is putting it lightly. 

He is a Mandalorian, a warrior. Being treated like porcelain is the exact opposite of what has been ingrained into him. 

Din is also your partner, your riduur. It has taken him so long to become comfortable with the idea that someone as morally grey as him could be likened to a rare stone in another person’s eyes. Over time, he has let down his walls to bathe in your warmth and affection, but there are still moments when he shies away from it. 

Like now. 

Since reuniting Grogu with the Jedi, Din has grown wary of your compassion and sincerity. It feels alienating to him, like it’s wrong for him to accept love when your little clan is torn apart. With your ad’ika gone and your lives in shambles, Din slowly returns to the one stability he knows all too well: roughness. 

Rough bounties, rough words, rough hands.

Reuniting with his old persona as the big, bad bounty hunter, he finds shallow solace in insults and the camouflage his beskar provides. It’s what he knows best. 

Even sex is rough with Din manhandling you in place as he fucks his frustrations out onto you. Not that you don’t enjoy it, oh no. Not at all. Rough Din hits different, but you're worried about him. He is in a state of perpetual tension, shying away whenever you go for something gentler. It’s hard to miss the way he stiffens whenever you try to adore him with genuine flattery. 

It’s then in a rented room on Nevarro that you decide to try something different to make him feel your love. You know he is expecting something kinky when you use your old blindfold to tie his hands to the bedpost. You don’t confirm or deny his assumptions either, opting instead to straddle his head between your thighs, riding his face until he is drenched in your release.

Sliding down his body, you hover over his hips until your pussy is inches away from his throbbing cock. You coo his name like it’s a melody until he looks at you. The room is dim, save for a small lamp in the corner, but to Din, you look like the sun itself, sweat shimmering off your body like the finest silk.

With a coy smile, you ignite his world when you lower your hips until his cock is nestled against your heat. He gasps when he feels your pussy pulsing against his shaft, desire ripping through his veins as his nerves crackle in pleasure. 

Din’s hands twitch against the restraining cloth that keeps him mounted to the bedpost. He could easily break through the flimsy material, you both know that. All it takes is a flick of his wrists for the fabric to tear before he does the same to you. 

But he doesn’t. 

He stays put, watching as you gyrate against him.

The restraints were figurative, anyway, something you wanted to try and he was more than happy to oblige if it meant seeing you in such a salacious position. So luxurious, so spoiled with your head thrown back as you use his body for your pleasure. 

Tugging on your nipples, you pant out, “Stars, I love your cock.”

You start small with your praise, a simple comment he’s heard countless of times before. Something to add that extra spark to your rocking hips, but not enough to scare him. 

You don’t expect him to respond, and your guess is correct. Din groans in response, letting the comment roll off of him without a second thought. Your mouth is open in an ‘o’ and all he can imagine is shoving his cock down your throat. 

“Yeah? My pretty baby wants her pussy stuffed?”

A low gasp escapes you when Din’s thighs twitch under you, the sudden movement causing the head of his cock to catch against your clit.

Biting your lip, you nod, “I love your body. You’re so big, so strong.”

Now that gets a reaction out of him. His brain stutters for a moment as every part of him pauses. His body stiffens under you, but doesn’t reply.

Din tries to reason with himself as each drag of your hips propels him farther in arousal. You don’t know what you’re saying. He doesn’t even know if you really did say…that. Your pussy is throbbing so hard against him he wonders if this is actually a wet dream. Probably best to just avoid it all together.

Yeah, just don’t say anything. 

But then you lower yourself until your hard nipples are pressing into his scarred chest. Nuzzling your face over his heart, words continue to spill from your mouth, “I love your scars. I know you hate them, but I adore them. They mean you fought and survived.”

Without his helmet, Din is an open book. You see it when he averts his eyes to the ceiling, his tan skin flushing to a rosy brown. You could practically hear his mind puttering, the gears working overtime, to rationalize your words as if they were some riddle. 

Because why else would his riduur see anything but adoration and love for him? Right?

Before he can fall further into his unease, your finger tips rub light circles around his nipples as you pucker your lips to assemble a line of kisses. Starting at his sternum you kiss up his neck, over his Adam’s apple, and stopping to lick up your cum that soaks his chin. 

Din wilts from your touch. Your skin is so soft, your kisses so delicate, he whimpers as he feel your hands move to cradle his head. He just wants to feel you, run his rough hands against your silk skin, revel in your softness and forget about the nonsense spewing from your mouth. The bedpost squeaks as he tugs against the cloth.

Feeling your thumb resting at the corner of his mouth, he turns until he places a kiss against the finger pad, as if trying to push away his uneasiness. 

Feeling your breath on the shell of his ear, you confess quietly, “You’re so much stronger than you think and you amaze me, Din.” 

Embarrassment and confusion blend together until they form a strangled protest in his chest, working its way up his throat. He should be the one praising you, not you praising him.

“Why are you doing this?” He asks, pushing his face into your hand in an attempt to hide the blooming red tint on his cheeks. 

“Doing what?” Your hips continue to rock in a steady pace.

“The compliments.” He voice grits out like it’s dragging across sandpaper. 

“Do you want me to stop?” 

He lets out a breath, “I…” He stops, not answering the question.

Din shies away from the praise instinctively, having trouble reconciling his self-esteem with the way the remarks make his cock twitch. He feels warm and tingly, draped under a pleasant haze of affection, but a voice in the back of his head is telling him he doesn’t deserve it.

But he wants to. He wants to so fucking bad. After everything that has happened, he wants to feel okay. He wants to hear words of affirmation from one of the only beings in this forsaken galaxy that matters. 

You.

He wants to hear your voice, even if he isn’t ready to admit it. So, he shuts his eyes, his hips involuntarily twitching as you continue to grind against him. You lean down to press a gentle kiss to his lips. 

“Ni kar’tayl gar darasuum.”

Weaving your hands in his hair, you tug on the curly brown mess at the nape of his neck. You bury your nose against his neck, inhaling his comforting blend of musk, soap, and metal. 

“I love your smell.”

Your tongue drags along the protruding vein on his neck, following it down to the dip between his neck and shoulder. 

“And the way you taste.”

Din calls out your name in an attempt to fight off the warmth of your words, but his throat betrays him, constricting to keep his protests down. 

“And, stars, the sounds you make,” You moan, sucking tiny bruises into his flesh. “Those little whines when you come. I think about those when you’re gone.”

You lift your head so your lips ghost over his. You’re so close and your words are making his stomach churn as blood rushes to his weeping member. 

There’s something in the way you keep grinding against him paired with your sweet words that reminds him of his better self. The one that traveled all across the galaxy, risked his life, all to reunite a little, green boy with his people. He wants to drink your words like a strong wine and enjoy feeling of intoxication.

He lifts his head up to attempt to kiss you, but you sit you up before he can. With your hands letting go of his hair, Din trashes his head to the side at the miss. You don’t miss the way his tenses in anticipation.

“Cyare,” He insists, rosy cheeks turning bright red. 

“My strong and beautiful riduur.”

“Okay, stop.” Din pants, arms pushing forward to break free. 

You don’t miss the sound of breaking threads and you shove his chest with enough force to push him back into the mattress. 

“No,” You growl, eyes narrowing at him.

Eyes widening in disbelief, he chokes out, “Fucking tease.”

“I just can’t enough of you.” You move your arms behind you, hands holding onto his thick thighs as you arch your back and rut faster against him. 

“But you know what’s my favorite?” 

You don’t wait for an answer, you weren’t expecting one. You just keep rocking against him, coating him in your wetness until he’s soaked, your juices dripping down to his balls.

“When you cum inside me. I love it when you drip from me. Stars — feeling your seed filling me, I feel so close to you.”

“Stop,” Hr grunts your name. “Just, f-fuck—S-stop. Before I cum.”

Din hisses for the split second that cool air hits his cock before it’s enveloped again in warmth. Smirking down at him, you hold him tightly in your hand as you lower yourself down, wincing at the familiar stretch as he fills you.

Finally feeling your pulsing cunt consume him, Din lets out a surprise grunt, his hips jumping up, and you have to give him a second to get under control.

“Fuck, cyare,” He whispers, struggling not to melt back into the bed as you grip him like a silk glove, your inner muscles flexing around his intruding length.

Not wasting a second, you start swaying immediately. You’re both too desperate to go slow anymore, you’ve been at this for ages now. Din leans his head back, tilting his chin to take in the breathtaking sight of you, blissed out and lost in the growing pleasure between your legs. Your body rolls with your movements as you bounce on his cock, your breasts jiggling from the force of your hips. Din can’t help but moan at the thought that his tattered body could bring you so much bliss. 

Din is close to his own release, his orgasm carrying him along the edge of climax. And then you start up again with saccharine words. 

“Feel how wet I am, Din?”  

“That’s all you, riduur. Only you can do that.”

Cracking your eyes open, you look down to see Din’s skin colored red in embarrassment. He can only nod, eyes screwing shut as he tries to gain control of himself. He is so close after being teased for so long. He jerks his hips upward, impatient. 

You want to whisper more praise at him. You don’t want to stop until he feels your love, but for now you stop. Din is still hiding, breathing heavily as his hips move in involuntary motions, hard cock throbbing desperately inside of you. 

Leaning down to nip at his ear, you listen to his breath shake, as you bounce on his lap. His cock is easily sliding in and out of you from how wet you are. You’re soaked. 

“Din,” You call, kissing the side of his mouth. “D—Din. Look at me.”

He groans, but follows your request. His pupils are blown out from need and a haze of conflict clouds his brown irises. For all the teasing and mixed emotions your words bring him, he craves them. 

He craves you. 

Your loving eyes, your soft whispers, the purple patches you paint on his neck — they’re the things that show him he is in your thoughts. He watches your eyes as you look at him like he has the stars in his hands. You are just as consumed in him as he is of you. If he captivates you, then he will happily be your captive.

In that moment, all he wants is to touch you. Add a physical stability to your words. He wants to roll between the vowels, let the words sear into his skin like another one of his scars.

“What is it, Din?”

He shudders, pushing his chest up against yours, desperate for the skin to skin contact. “I—I want…Keep talking, but just let me — L-Let me touch you.”

Nodding, you move to the bedpost, but Din is faster. He pushes forward, tearing your old blindfold to shreds while pushing his upper half up until he is sitting up. His hands hold your back to steady you from the sudden movement and to keep you still impaled on his cock. 

With you cradled in his arms, his lips crash down to yours. It’s messy, but steeped in a passion that ignites the purest and most vulnerable versions of yourselves. It’s between your moving tongues that there is a promise of realness that Din embraces, allowing your affirmations to crack his defenses. 

Pulling away, he sees love in your eyes, and when you speak, he welcomes the burning on his cheeks, rolling around in honeyed words. 

“I love you. You’re so strong, so beautiful.”

You sit up straighter, bouncing in Din’s lap. You dig your heels into the bedspread to gain momentum, but you had been at this for an hour, riding his thigh, tying him up, and your movements get jerky and unsteady as the sensation grows more pleasurable. 

“I love you, too,” Din gasps, dropping his head until he is hunched into you. You’re wrapped around him, his protective cocoon, as his breath tattoos Ni kar’tayl gar darasuum into your skin. 

“D—Din! Oh, stars,” You babble into his hair. “So close…”

He growls at the announcement, pulling away from you as he propels himself forward to push you into the bed. You’re now under him, your legs instinctively locked around his waist. 

You’re right where he wants you. You’ve had your fun, now it’s his turn. Holding himself up, he slams back inside your tight pussy.

You cry out, your body seizing and shaking and you struggle to keep your eyes open so you can watch Din’s reaction.

His lips are bruised and red, hanging open on sounds of pleasures and ragged inhales. His eyelashes fan out over his flushed cheeks and his hair is slick and mussed on the top of his head.

“F—Fuck, how did I deserve this?” Din cracks, watching you trapped under him. He’s driving his hips against yours, your body thrusting up from the force of his snapping hips. He may be the one on top, but you are in control. With your little whines and adoring eyes, you’re squeezing his heart and setting his lungs is on fire. 

Chanting his name like a prayer, he buries his face in your neck, inhaling your sweet scent as he loses control. There is no rhythm and rhyme to it, he just fucks you deeper and harder. It’s too easy for him to lose himself to you, in you. 

“Fuck,” he moans, eyes screwing shut as he feels his length enter you, going deeper with each thrust. 

“You’re lovely. Love you so much,” You tell him and Din sobs, clutching at you tighter to him.

“Riduur, my riduur.”

Your heart skips. Not from his words, but the way his voice shakes with the first vowel before entirely shattering my the end. It’s the little whines that escape him as he fucks you harder into the mattress, his need for you spilling into something so powerful he can’t help but moan. 

As Din’s movements become more frantic, you lodge a hand between your bodies and find your clit, rubbing sloppy circles until you moan. The growing arousal ignites your core, ripping through your body as your walls clench around him. Your muscles shake as the wetness between your legs pools, splashing against Din’s groin as you ride out your peak. 

“G-good girl, milk my cock,” Din whispers, chasing his own release. 

His own orgasm takes him by surprise. He can feeling it building, but he doesn’t expect it when his balls draw up and his cock throbs, hot liquid spilling inside of you.

It’s intense — more intense than it has any right to be.

Moaning, he paints your walls white. He continues thrusting through his orgasm, a meager attempt to push his seed deeper inside of you. Maybe even deep enough to reach your womb…

You move against each other, involuntary, shallow shivers as your orgasms drag out, pulling pleasure from ever nerve inside of you. 

“You’re beautiful.” You say, swallowing precarious gulps of air. 

You drop your legs from his waist, releasing at least part of him from your hold. But he doesn’t move, staying lodged between you as he softens. 

Din lets out a dry chuckle, “You’re going to have to wait for round two.”

“I mean it, Din,” You say so much conviction, he is unsure of what to say.

He leans towards you, pressing his lips against yours in soft kiss. You smile gently at the connection and lay back, pulling Din to follow you as he remains inside of you. He lays his head against your chest, letting your erratic heartbeat lull him in a peaceful state.

He whispers, “I know.”

mando’a translations

Riduur - spouse, partner, husband, wife

Ad’ika - little one, son or daughter at any age

Ni kar’tayl gar darasuum - I love you (literally, “I know you forever.”)

Cyare - beloved

taglist: @thundersheild @itsjammin @justanotherblonde23 @ladyjenny19​ @tibbietibbs @zombiexbody @stardust-galaxies​ @tenderclio​ @maulpunk​ @kat-r-in @tibbietibbs

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[tth-pdf]

Burning for love; JJK [02]

Contents: Smut, like a little heavy, but just a little, this just started, dirty talk, supernatural, romance, fluff and another painfully unedited chapter.

Pairing: Werewolf!alpha!jungkook x Omega!reader

Summary: A handsome man is hunting you in the dreams world, making every day more difficult to repress the need to come and find him in the middle of the night to submit yourself to his every wish.

Requests: ON

A/N: Hello little ones, I’m really sorry about this chapter because don’t know if this is what you were waiting for but mainly for the time that I promised before but it actually took me more than I thought and this is a tiny bit longer than what I was used to, so hope this makes something for you, thank you for reading! 😭😭😔😔🥺🥺💖💖

Jungkook wasn’t feeling himself that day and the fact that he did’t really knew what was happening with his mind was not really great, all that plus that attitude of yours adopted after knowing the truth behind the bond between your (by that time) unknown mate, so after that one and only night that you let him have you for himself and just himself he knew that he would never had enough of you. Ever since he was just a little pup learning how to shift, watching you so timid, behind your mom’s legs, smaller in size than him and afraid that you wouldn’t be able to have friends, but in fact every single one of the pups around you wanted to be your friend, your glow was just like that, so attracting even as a kid but sometimes you were a little overwhelmed with the attention, almost on the verge of tears, even at that time, being so little old he would feel the need to drop everything he was doing and just held you, maybe a little kiss on the cheek, but just with you, he would cringe if he had to kiss other girls cheek, he wanted to protect you. So his mother knew before himself, and she would just watch with heart eyes, eventually she would explain to him the paths that the moon weaves on her own to reunite two souls destined to be one, and he thought he was dreaming, but he had to wait, until you were ready. You were always good friends, not too close since you were still too shy, just enough to let him scent you every now and then, let him walk you home and even held your hand in the way to end with just a tiny hug but he started to grow up and since he was two years older than you he presented as an alpha first, he had to learn what a heat was, the pain of being incapable of touching you and showing you how much he wanted to spend his life with you, the pain that caused by having you so close but so far away. His mother and father were watching with concern and living the difficulties with him, everything was tolerable until Jungkook turned eighteen, his wolf becoming stronger and more demanding, clawing at him to come and get you but a little part of his brain reminded him that you were only sixteen and not prepared yet, so his parents, with the intention of distracting his mind sent him away to a camp were other future pack leaders trained to make the best of their abilities and it actually worked, but when he was back, a year and a half later, you being a young lady with new fucking aromas, it felt like you were a damn drug, your hormones changed and you were almost ready, but he couldn’t do anything about his desire so he walked away from you and you thought that he hated you, that somehow he changed his mind about you all this time by himself but boy, you couldn’t be more wrong. You tried, you really tried, tried to forget about how he scented you, kept an eye on you in case you would need help, little gazes around, expressing something without the need of words, tried to forget his puppy eyes and that pretty smile of his, not even mentioning the protective bubble that somehow he manages to create for you, but when you thought that every little detail was finally out of your mind your omega blood kicked you in the ribs and the dreams started to come and go, your mind understanding all the feelings that you had with him, but you didn’t wanted it that way, you wanted to be paired with someone simple, just like you, not really wanting to be the center of attention and being with Jungkook just meant getting hateful glances from the pretty omegas around, Jungkook was wanted in more that one way and transporting both of your thoughts to right now, this moment, you wrapped around his hard body as if your life depended on it, reminded you that after all you would be the one he held at the end of the day, always.

It’s to this point that you don’t have idea how both of you ended in what you supposed is his room or at least a place where he spends a lot of time, judging only by the incredible and strong scent of him everywhere.

“Don’t worry my pretty angel, I built this place just for you. I knew since the very first moment I laid eyes on you that you will be mine and a good alpha is the one who takes good care of his omega, right?”

If your mind was gone before now you feel like floating, but at the same time all that’s in your mind is him, him, him and him alone.

He’s caressing your cheek while he’s talking, the timbre of his voice like silk hugging your sense of hearing, your sense of touch screaming for you to past your fingertips between his silky hair strands and to trace his lips, your sense of taste aching to know every single one of his flavors and your sense of smell… Oh hell, that blessing of a powerful sense of smell, sometimes a blessing and sometimes a curse, but right now there’s nothing more pleasant for the omega blood running through your veins than that, you wish you could melt with him, right now you feel like its not enough, even with you straddling him, nose buried deep in his scent gland and rubbing yourself on him.

“Pretty girl is having a hard time, isn’t she, where do you want me to touch, huh, honey?”

You couldn’t wait any longer so instantly after he finished that words your hand took his to tease yourself a little, closed eyes while you traveled his hand in the middle of your chest, down your tummy and finally over your hot and aching center.

“Gods above, I swear I can smell every little detail, have I triggered your rut sweet baby?”

You felt like simple jello between the fingers of your seductive lover.

“You want me to rub you over all this layers of clothes, don’t you want me to use my mouth on this glorious cunt of yours, knock you up with a healthy litter of pups, with this amazing tits to drink from, gods, such a dream for your alpha”

There wasn’t any rational thoughts in your mind right now, everything was kind of too much, the roughness of the sheets under both of you, the roughness of his fingers, everything was too hot.

“You made me wait so long for you. My little omega does not have idea of the pain I used to feel just by seeing you smile and blush, felt like a sin to me, smelling like one too”

By the time he’s saying that he was changing positions kneeling you right in front of his pretty thighs.

“I’m really sorry for you puppy, but you will have to wait just like me back then”

You were slightly confused, since your mind was all over your man and suddenly losing his warm touch when he kneel you before him.

“Touch me now little one, touch me with that silky hands, put that pretty mouth of yours on me”

You were gone again, you have never sucked someone off but you were entirely being guided by the heat of the moment and natural instincts.

“Pull me out of the pants angel”

You did as you were commanded, a pretty long length was released in front of your eyes, making you salivate just at the mere view, flushed and veiny, definitely pretty.

“What should I…”

Jungkook could only smile at you with that beautiful glint in the eyes, possessiveness.

“Lick me sweet angel, as if I was your favorite sweet”

Once again you obeyed the orders of your alpha, licking a stripe up his pretty cock just to add a little suck to the dripping head, making him release a loud moan, hands instantly grabbing your hair and guiding your head up and down.

“So good baby, such a good girl, little obedient bitch for the one who owns you, suck a little harder baby, not gonna break”

You did it and he let his head fall back, letting you see his neck, his Adam’s apple bob, more veins appearing in his perfect skin but what caught your eye was a single and simple little place, where you knew he had his scent glands, your little heaven in other words, guided just by the thought of it your canines started to grow in size, wanted to mark what was by the law of the moon yours, but snapped back to reality when you heard him hiss in pain, making him met you worry eyes.

“Hey little one, careful there, it hurst a little bad if you use that fierce canines, you will get what you want if I think you deserve that, so work hard”

His eyes were telling you to behave and to keep going so you attached your lips once more to the head of his length licking and sucking what he had to offer for you, taking little breaks to just breathe a little deeper, only for him to grab again your head and stuffed your mouth full, rough and encouraging him to just go deeper, choking you.

“That’s right sweet angel, choke on that cock, hurt a little that throat of yours just for tomorrow to remember that your big bad aloha did it”

He was loosing himself a little too quickly without giving you nothing, so he separated you from his core, watching with love and lustful eyes the way his cock was connected to your lips by a mixture of his precum and your saliva.

“Bring yourself over here precious thing and let me have a taste of you”

Legs guided purely by the desire burning inside your body, not even thinking twice and throwing yourself in the mattress , imagining already the worship of your beloved mate, shyness suddenly hitting you hard and attempting to close your legs and hide your burning core from hungry eyes.

“Come on sweet girl, don’t be so shy when seconds ago you were all over my cock, I will show you exactly how perfect I am for you so you don’t have that stupid ideas again, of giving yourself to another wolf, even knowing that you will always end up in my arms.”

You frown, taken aback by the little sentence at the end.

“How did you…?”

You were a little surprised that he somehow found out that little comment you have made to one of your closest friends, you had made it without thinking, full of anger after you found out who was you alpha.

“You thought that I would never now?, that little comment that made want to rip every throat in my way, especially the one of that little weak alpha you compared me with…He would never have a female like you, only because you are mine, mine and mine alone, remember that we are connected honey, anywhere you go my senses will be right behind you, that’s a little of how much you drive me crazy and you have to always remember that the moon never makes mistakes”

After that sentence he buried his head deep between your legs, licking a long stripe in that delicate and most intimate part of your body making you look up at the ceiling and letting out the most lustful moan in your short life but the fact that you wasn’t looking right at him while he ate you out with all the love and the possessiveness in the world made him mad enough to suck harder and harder on the sensitive bundle of nerves situated right in the center of your core, taking out of you a little groan of pain, not being prepared for his rough teeth and tongue.

“Look at me my sweet angel, why don’t you want to see your alpha praised your body, watch me prepare you to be the mother of my pups, oh yes honey I know you would raise them well, gods above, our pack will see you so pretty with a big baby bump and smelling of me everywhere”

And at this point you wanted everything he wanted, he was yours and you were his, his desires and dreams were also yours, wherever he went you would be right by his side, expecting to fill any need that he might have, as soon as he bruised your skin with that fangs of his, marking you for life, there will be no return.

Tag list: @min-nicoleee, @in-a-way-that-i-should-not, @imluckybitches, @teresaisla.

Next update: ?

All rights reserved.

[ticklishtimothee]

start of something new (bo burnham x reader)

summary: bo and the reader are just friends, but when he takes them out to dinner before his tour is going to take off, that just might change.

a/n: based on a prompt from @deborahmessingsfingers who wanted a fic about having a first kiss with bo!! the plot sort of just came to me and i also wrote this at like two o’clock in the morning.

words: 1,100

You and Bo are friends. Good friends, and have been for a few months now. But lately you’ve been thinking, wanting more.

You went to see his show last night, always excited to be a supportive, familiar face in the crowd. Now, he’s taking you out to dinner while he’s in town, claiming he didn’t want to miss out on spending time with you before his tour really kicks off.

The thought of him being states away doesn’t appeal to you very much, but hey, it’s all part of his job. It sucks to think that you’ll have to go without his hugs, the scent of his cologne, or having Bruce snuggle up to your lap when you visit.

But that’s in a few days, and you can’t dwell on it now, not when he’s sitting across from you at the table, the sleeves of his sweater pushed up to his elbows, his glasses balanced on his nose as he scans the menu.

“The show went really well,” you say, wanting to break the silence.

His head perks up like a puppy hearing its name. “Yeah, I think it went alright. Do you think they could tell that I was nervous?” he asks.

You shake your head. “If you hadn’t told me, I’d have no idea.”

He lets out a little sigh of relief. “Thanks for coming tonight. To the show, obviously, but also, you know, to dinner.”

You smile. His eyes are fixed down at the menu again, although he doesn’t seem to be reading it. You assume that it’s post-show nerves and figure it’d be best to not point it out, and just let him work through it on his own.

While the two of you are pretty open with one another, anxiety is still something he’s working on. You don’t want to push him to talk about something he’s not comfortable discussing, especially on a night where you’re supposed to be celebrating.

The waitress comes around and takes down your orders. The restaurant is a regular spot for the two of you, and Bo orders the same thing he usually does.

When you tease him about it, he makes a joke about needing some consistency, since he’ll be in a different state every week soon enough.

The reminder that he’ll be gone drops your gaze to the tablecloth, giving a half-hearted chuckle at his comment.

“Hey,” he says, reaching across the table to nudge you gently. “What’s the long face for, hm?”

You look up, but avoid looking in his eyes. “I’m just gonna miss you, I guess.”

Bo’s cheeks color, although it’s barely noticeable in the restaurant’s dim light. He runs a hand through his hair. “I was actually thinking…”

But before he can finish telling you whatever he’s been thinking, the waitress returns with your food. The interaction makes Bo’s words slip your mind, and he appears to have forgotten, too.

You eat, bantering and chatting about the show, the upcoming tour, as well as your life and plans, too. He asks about work, your family. He scolds you for never taking time off.

You have to scoff at that, because it’s hypocritical of Bo to accuse anyone of working too hard. He’s always writing, rehearsing, and recording. 

By the time you’ve finished eating, both too stuffed for dessert, you’ve almost forgotten that this is the last time you’ll be together for some time. But the wicked reminder still lingers in the back of your mind, and while it should make you savor the memories, it only causes sadness to wilt the edges of happy moments.

Bo insists on paying the check, despite your protests, and then offers to walk you home.

Sure, you could call an Uher, but both of you live close enough to the restaurant, and thankfully, you wore comfortable shoes. The evening is cool and breezy, but warm enough for a pleasant stroll.

Bo’s long legs fight to keep at your pace, and the closer you get to your apartment, the more you feel the urge to break through the small talk and tell him how much you’re going to miss him, but the words keep dying on your tongue.

You and Bo have never been overly emotional with one another. Sure, you hugged, and talked about deep shit, but there was always an unspoken tension that held you back from platonic ‘I-love-yous’ and allowing those hugs to linger.

You’re in front of the apartment building when you finally work up the courage, but before you can say anything, Bo is touching your hand.

“I know that this is horrible timing,” he starts. “But I couldn’t leave without doing this.”

And he leans in, having to bend his knees to press your lips together properly. The kiss takes you off guard for only a moment before you’re kissing back, wrapping your arms around his neck and melting into his touch, the smell of his cologne, the taste of his beer lingering on his lips.

And fuck, you hadn’t realized how badly you wanted this until he made the first move. It just feels right, standing there, with him. His lips on yours.

He’s reluctant to pull away, but he does so after a moment, his cheeks flushed and glasses a little lopsided. You reach up to fix them with a little laugh, and he chuckles, too.

“I told you it was bad timing,” he says.

“It is,” you agree. “But I’m not upset about it. In fact, I’m glad.”

He seems relieved. “I just…I couldn’t risk going on tour and being away, and, and the possibility of you meeting someone new, someone better while I was gone.”

“There’s no one better than you,” you reply, reaching up to place a hand on his cheek.

His skin is warm to the touch, and he leans into your palm like it’s the only thing keeping him grounded. “Careful; you don’t want to feed my ego,” he warns, a smile playing on his lips.

You giggle. “Yeah, I guess not. But I mean it.”

Bo touches your waist gently, coaxing you closer to him. “You could always come visit,” he says.

You nod. “I would love to.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. You’ll have to keep me posted on when you have days free, and I can take time off of work—”

“Finally,” Bo mutters, making you grin.

“And we’ll make it work,” you finish, gazing into his eyes.

“That sounds like a pretty good plan to me,” he says.

Then, he kisses you again, and it feels less like a goodbye, and more like a beginning.